Pre-Semester Prep

You normally plan your schedule better but a dead phone results in you hopping straight off a plane to attend a cohort meeting a week before the semester starts. You're trying to conceal how out of breath you are as you lean against the wall in the back of cohort leader's office. Your neck appreciates the cold wall behind you and gradually, you feel your heart regain its normal pace. Shotaro, another student in your cohort, gives you a slight wave when he notices you. You're about to return his gesture with a 'hello' then your cohort lead claps her hands together to gather everyone's attention.

"Alright, I think we can get started. Welcome back! I hope your winter break was rock solid". A collective mix of groans and giggles ring across the room. You make eye contact with your cohort leader and you shoot her a thumbs up as a means of encouragement. She continues through announcements about department funding and you aren't really paying too much attention until she mentions Teaching Assistant roles.

"Lastly, the assignments for the classes that you'll be assisting in this semester will be emailed by the end of the day. Meetings with your working professor should happen before the end of the week." She claps her hands together, signaling that the meeting was over and you saunter over to Shotaro. He envelopes you in a hug and asks about your break. You divulge all the details of your winter break as the two of you walk to the cafe across the street from your department building.

When you walk in, there's a table of your friends who flag you down when they notice the two of you. Warm greetings and hugs are shared within the group. Shotaro walks over to the counter and orders for the both of you, while you catch up with the others at the table. A feeling of deja vu falls over as you recount the details of your winter break. Shotaro returns with your iced London Fog, chastising you for drinking a cold drink even during the winter.

"I like what I like Taro, sue me!" You say with a shrug and everyone at the table laughs. Everyone is wrapped in their own conversations, including you, when all of your phones collectively buzz. You're the first to read the notification and announce to the group that TA assignments were out. Everyone scrambles to look at their phones. There's a bit of silence before they all starts reacting to the email. You're still scanning the email and then you finally see your name.

You try to hide the smile on your face when you read the little asterisk at the end of the email, but Shotaro immediately notices and nudges you.

"What's with the smile Y/N?"

All the eyes at the table have looked up from their phones and turned to you. The smile that was hiding breaks out when you tell everyone that you were assigned as a Head TA with Dr. Choi. Oooohs and claps ring around the table for you. Jeonghan, who was sitting across from you, lets out a whistle and gives you a high five when he realizes that the two of you would be working together again. He goes back to read the email and then he makes a face.

"What is it Jeonghan," you ask earnestly.

He bites his lip and shoots out a lie that it was something else. But you know him well enough to tell when he's lying. The two of you were in the same seminar in your first semester and spent enough time to be able to call his bluff the way you are right now. This captures everyone's attention and soon the two of you are being pestered to read out the list of TA's for Dr. Choi's class. Not seeing what the big deal is, you unlock your phone and start listing out the names.

"Chaewon." Everyone has nothing but nice things to say about Chaewon. You've seen her at department meetings and mixers. You don't know much except for the fact that her focus is in evolutionary biology.

"Chenle." The same thing as Chaewon, any person who knows him has nothing but nice things to say. You know that Chenle and Shotaro are quite close as they've been friends for a really long time. They went to the same school for undergrad and were part of the same fraternity, Sigma Mu. You've met Chenle several times during some of your hangouts with Shotaro.

"Obviously, Yoon Jeonghan," You say matter-of-factly and there are boos from the table. Several people utter the word menace and you laugh. You skip yourself on the list because that fact is what started this whole conversation in the first place.

"Altair," saying your friend's name brings a smile to your face. You're relieved that you know more than one person in this class. It just makes your life a hell of a lot easier when you can get along with the people you're spending an entire semester with. Everyone agrees when you talk about how welcoming she always makes anyone in her circle feel.

"And lastly, the other Head TA, Lee Seokmin."

A hush falls over the table. You yourself have never met Lee Seokmin, but you've seen his name plastered everywhere. Even in undergrad when you were compiling research for your capstone thesis, you used an article he published. The reaction from your friends made you feel a bit uneasy.

"Okay guys seriously, why is no one saying anything?" A beat passes. Everyone at the table is shifting glances at each other, like they were all thinking the same thing but waiting for the one brave person to actually let the thoughts out. Turning to Shotaro, you shoot him a pleading look and beg with your eyes to clue you into this weird reaction that everyone is having. You see him look across the table to Jeonghan who shakes his head no and you slam your hand down on the table.

"Someone tell me what the heck is going on," you whine towards Shotaro. You can see the pity in his eyes as he look towards Jeonghan. The two of them are having an argument with just their eyes and you break it by whining again. You don't mean to act like a child throwing a tantrum, but your nerves are already shot from the shared silence of the table. Thankfully, Jeonghan puts you out of your misery.

"Okay I'm gonna level with you. Seokmin's not… how do I say this…" He look towards the rest of the group for help to finish his sentence. They all murmur to themselves trying to fill in his blank.

"He's not exactly well-known for being kind." A look of shock appears on your face. This is what they were all having a conniption over? The fact that your co-head wasn't friendly? Before you can say anything Jeonghan continues. He resumes to tell you that Lee Seokmin is someone that you should probably steer clear of. That he doesn't play well with others, that he's clearly a burnt out senior grad student who doesn't really like sharing. It's like the floodgates opened once Jeonghan finishes because then everyone at the table starts chiming in with their own little tidbits and interactions with Seokmin.

All of their comments shared the same sentiment: Lee Seokmin is a gray cloud of human and you're bound for a storm.

WEEK ONE

The first day of class is tomorrow and you have yet to see or hear from Seokmin. After your friends took their turns warning you about him, it was safe to stay you were even more intimidated by him than ever. If anyone asked you right now though, you'd say you are mildly annoyed as you've had to assume all of the responsibilities of prepping for this semester since your "partner" had been missing the entire time. You also have the pleasure of having the first discussion section after the first lecture, so you find yourself holed up in the shared office space revising your section notes.

A ping comes from your laptop and you switch over to the tab that has your university email opened. You sigh when you realize that the notification was just an automated reminder email for the first day of class. Clicking out of the email, you eye the email that you had sent to Seokmin last week, there's an orange message in the preview line.

Sent 5 days ago. Follow up?

A frown crinkles your lips downwards, surely the senior graduate student with this much responsibility wouldn't just ignore your email? You sit up and begin to draft a follow-up

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Norming and Schedules Hi again, I just wanted to follow up on my last email to make sure you got it! We have classes in a week and I'd really love to get some 1:1 time to make sure we're on the same page. I can work with whatever schedule you've

Something compels you to stop typing. The blink of your cursor matches the soft click of your wristwatch, both of them taunting you, waiting for your next move. Swiping your cursor down to the taskbar, you check the time. It's a half hour past eight and there are fifteen hours left before the first lecture of the semester. Staring a bit longer at the nudge notification, you decide that nothing will stop you from having a good semester and close out of your email tab. You don't need this jaded senior who has clearly shown no intention of caring about this class.

Being chosen as a Head TA when you were only in your second semester was a big deal to you. Especially when it was under the tutelage of Dr. Choi Minho. You'd known Dr. Choi for longer than most of your cohorts as you'd taken an intership in his research lab during your undergraduate studies. Highly revered in the academic space for his research, you knew that working with and for him was a coveted spot. To be chosen out of so many students in your department, especially those with more years under your belt, was not something you were going to take for granted. Not something you were going to squander over a guy you've never even met, a guy who couldn't bother to show up.

An endorsement from him was a golden ticket in the academic field of Anthropology. When the bell tower on campus signaled that it was now nine, you decided that you would do your absolute best to prove yourself worthy of this decision. Nothing was going to stop you from being the best, especially not Lee Seokmin.

The First Lecture

The lecture hall was empty when you arrived. Of course it was, who shows up 45 minutes early to a lecture?

You do.

After you comes Dr. Choi and the rest of the TA's in your lecture filter in. Dr. Choi is configuring his laptop to the podium while you and the others are making small talk. Your head is on a swivel as the students filter in. Lee Seokmin is nowhere to be found.

Soon enough the lecture hall buzzes with all of the students and there are only a few minutes until class begins. Whispering in Jeonghan's ear, you question the missing scary senior he'd warned you about. He cranes his neck around the hall and you follow his eyes. Turning back to you he shrugs, telling you that he doesn't see him. Another string of annoyance bubbles inside you. As you walk towards the back of the room to take your seat, there's a string of irritation worming its way through your head.

Missing prep week? Fine, that happens.

Ignoring your emails about prep week? Rude but not the worst thing in the world?

Missing the first day of class? You marveled at how this guy could possibly have been chosen as the other Head TA

Dr. Choi begins his lecture and as he walks through his introductions, your mind races through the list of reasons why your co-TA is missing. The annoyance that was running through your body immediately dissipates when you think that he might be dealing with something serious. Ever the empath, you start to feel bad that you'd been so quick to jump to conclusions. Especially about someone you've never really met. Before you can sink deeper into your spiral, you hear your name get called out for an introduction. Looking up you see that all the heads of the students are looking towards you, so you immediately stand up and wave.

"Hi everyone! My name is Y/N. I'm one of the Head TA's this semester, along with Seokmin, who I'm sure we'll see at some point." Looking down at the students, you get a couple smiles back, some of them even wave back at you. The rest of your cohort introduce themselves and when they finish, Dr. Choi lets the class know that any important announcements about the class will be coming from you.

You yell out that they'll probably get annoyed with all of your pings and that earns you some quiet laughter. When that dies down, you focus your attention to Dr. Choi who was wheeling out a cork board. The title of the class is posted on the board — ANTH218: Anthropological Explorations of Love.

"Everyone of us in this room, I'm sure, has experienced some form of love at one point in their lives. Platonic, romantic, or familial. In all three of those, the way love shows up can come in many forms."

Dr. Choi points at the board and exclaims that throughout the semester, everyone in this class is encouraged to post something on this board that reminds them of love. He picks up a box that was on the podium and lets the students know he has plenty of supplies. When he senses that the students have understood the plan for this ploy for class engagement, he moves in to actual lecture material.

The room fills with a cacophony of keyboard clicks and pages flipping for the next hour. Every once in a while, Dr. Choi says something in his lecture that catches your attention and you type it into your own set of notes to bring up during your discussion sections. An hour passes by quickly and the first lecture of this semester is over. As the students leave the lecture hall, you swivel your head to see if Lee Seokmin might have made an appearance. When he is no where to be found, you find yourself pulling up another email draft.

You're not able to type anything except the first initial of his name, as Jeonghan and Altair flank your side, inviting you out for a late lunch. The grumble of your stomach answers for you and the email you were drafting is forgotten as you slide your laptop in your bag.

You don't think about Seokmin again for the rest of the week, as your work begins to pick now that the semester was in full swing.

WEEK TWO

It's the last hour of your office hours and not a single student has shown up. You aren't that surprised as it is only the second week of the semester, but you did try to emphasize during lectures and sections that your office hours were not only for matters regarding class work or concepts. The iced tea you'd been nursing has formed a ring of condensation on your desk and you frown, using the sleeve of your sweater to wipe up the wet circle.

You finish your iced tea and whip out your phone to text your friends about grabbing dinner. As soon as you press send, a knock has your head perking up to check out the noise. The red oak door has swung open and you see a student from your discussion section has stopped by.

"Hi Y/N, sorry I know your hours are almost ov—"

"—Don't be silly! Come in!" You wave them over with a big smile on your face. Asking them to remind you of her name, she introduces herself as Sophia and you offer her the seat across from you. You turn the brightness of your star shaped lamp up higher and ask her what brought her to your office hours.

Pulling out her laptop, she admits that she is having trouble understanding the assigned reading for the week and you reassure her that Carsten's work is not the most accessible so it is no surprise that she was having a hard time with the text.

"Tell you what, why don't you pick out the parts that were the most difficult for you and we can work through them together," you say with a smile and gesture towards her laptop. Nodding back, she scrolls down a few pages to a highlighted bit of text. You read the passage aloud and when you finish, she explains that she thinks she understands the concept of kinship but can't see the connection to functioning societies. Gently, you guide her through the connection, taking the extra time to pause in between points in case she had any questions.

The two of you continue like this and before long, you've gone through every bit of text. When she finishes the last of her notes, she glances at her watch and her eyes go wide.

"Oh! I am so sorry, it's an hour past your scheduled office hours," she profusely continues, worried about the time she's impeded on. Assuring her that it was alright, you tell her that it was actually a delight to help her. That is what a good chunk of your job is as a teaching assistant. Quickly packing up her things, she apologizes one last time before leaving your office and yelling out that she would see you at the next lecture. The door shuts and you glance at your phone which is flooded with notifications from your friends confirming dinner plans and then being concerned since you weren't answering. Swiftly replying that you got caught up in your office hours, you said you would just meet them at the restaurant.

You are halfway through cleaning up when you hear the door open. Well less of an open, it actually slams into the wall from how hard it was opened. You're about to sternly scold whatever student rudely scared you but when you look up, it's none other than Lee Seokmin himself. You were starting to believe that he was just never going to show and you were gonna have to shoulder this entire semester yourself, but here he is. He's younger than you expected.

He's dressed in a navy blue button up, with a gray sweater vest and light blue jeans. Your friends described him as a burnt out senior, but this outfit screams "I have my life figured out and you should feel bad that you don't". Black square glasses sit on top of his unexpectedly handsome face. No one mentioned how attractive Seokmin was.

"Hi!" You gleefully say as you get up. No reply from him. Realizing that your thoughts are probably displayed all over your face, you straighten yourself out. Observing him some more, you notice that he has an earbud in one ear, deducing that he might not have heard you when you greeted him, you raise your voice a little when you start talking.

"Sorry, I'm sure you were expecting an empty office. I just had a student meeting run long—"

"—You done in here?" He sounded bored, almost irritated. He hasn't looked up from the phone in his hand since he got here.

"Oh… Y-yeah. All yours." Dejectedly, you swing your bag over your shoulder and make your way out of the office. Before you're all the way out the door, you turn around.

"It was nice to meet—" The door slams closed in your face. "You," you whisper to the door. Utterly confused by what just happened, you begin the descent downstairs in a questioning daze. You phone buzzing in your pocket pulls you out of your daze, you glance down and see that Shotaro is calling you. The second you answer, he's asking if you were still on your way. Answering that you'd be there in less than ten minutes, you also add on that you just had the weirdest interaction with Seokmin and will need to talk about it with everyone during dinner. Hearing him relay the information to your crew, they cheer at the fact that they can start eating soon. Shotaro tells you to get there safely and you hang up the phone after humming in response.

You get to PANG! and when you enter, you're greeted with the comforting smell of scorched rice and kimchi jjigae. It doesn't take you long to find your friends as you hear their unmistakeable laughter. The first person to make eye contact with you is Jeonghan who immediately waves you down, scooting over to make space for you. As you're skipping over, Seungcheol scowls at Jeonghan getting all up in his space, until he realizes that it's for you. When you arrive at the table, his eyes crinkle up in a smile when he greets you. The mention of your name has everyone turning to the end of the table where you're situated and you're welcomed with smiles and cheers. Jeonghan jokingly snarks that you were holding up dinner.

"God, finally! I was scared Cheollie was gonna eat me if you had been any later!" Sitcom like laughter goes around the table.

"Shove it, Yoon." You reply without a second thought.

There are small gasps that go around and there's even a look of shock on Jeonghan's face. Anyone who knows you, knows that you're not necessarily one to shoot back any sass. It's just not who you are as a person. You're the kind of person that cries at old people getting eliminated off The Great British Bake Off. The person who will be late to a meeting just because you wanted to help a bee out of the walkway. The type of person to immediately apologize when you say something remotely snappy.

"Sorry," you say squeezing his arm as you slide into the seat. He ruffles your hair, knowing that you had no ill intent behind it. Seungcheol pinches Jeonghan's side, or that's what you assume when you feel him jump next to you.

"Don't be sorry, Sunshine, someone has to put him in his place every once in a while." Seungcheol comments as he places a kiss on Jeonghan's cheek, after the younger one whines that the two of you are bullying him. Your group laughs at their antics and when the volume dies down, food starts being laid out on your table. The spice and heat of kimchi stew floods your nose and wraps you in a warm velvety hug. The clanging of spoons and slurping of soup are the only sounds that can be heard from your table for the next couple of minutes. Every once in a while an involuntary moan comes from Jeonghan and you have to keep your composure to make sure you don't choke on the hot soup you're funneling into your mouth.

The sound of spoons quiets down as everyone empties their bowls. Shotaro's the first to ask about what held you up. After cooling down your burnt tongue, you delve into your encounter with Seokmin.

Seokmin's POV

The door slams before she even finishes her sentence. He hears his mother on the other line click her teeth.

Unbeknownst to you, you are not the only one recalling this conversation. On the other side of campus, Seokmin is taking in the office space where you left him. The first thing he notices is how the room distinctly smells like jasmine and lychee. He wants to crinkle his nose in disgust at the sweetness of it.

"What is it eomma?" Thinking that his mother was in pain, Seokmin focuses his entire attention onto the phone.

"That girl seemed nice, it was rude of you to not even greet her. Thought I raised you better than that." She says. A quick glance at the time tells him that his mother should be going to sleep soon.

"I'll be honest, I barely registered her." A sigh crackles through the phone. He fusses at her that she can give her commentary on his etiquette tomorrow.

"Seokmin-ah, you know I'll be fine right? You can let go a bit this year. It's your last year," his mother begins coughing and guilt etches into his gut. Seeing the concern in his face, she waves him off saying that she just has a dry throat. After taking a sip of water, she continues making her case. That he should be trying to enjoy his last year of school. That he's worked tirelessly for the past two years and deserves to have a little bit of fun. Her pleas fall on deaf ears as Seokmin waves her off, replying that he can have fun when he's earned it. When he graduates.

Another click of her teeth, to which he responds with a grunt. This is not the first time the two of them have had this debate. Him constantly insisting that his education is his key to making sure the family is settled while she worries that he might to live to regret that philosophy. This certainly will not be the last time they have this bout, but the two of them concede for now. After a few more exchanges, Seokmin bids his mother goodnight and is left to the office by himself.

The office that still smells like jasmine and lychee. Like you.

WEEK THREE

Monday morning rolls around and you are more than happy to still have a full day before you inevitably have to face Seokmin again. The interaction between the two of you had left an uneasy feeling in your stomach. To be quite honest, you were actually a bit irritated with that interaction. Not because he was rude, well yes there's that, but you were more slighted by the fact that he had left you to do all the heavy lifting of being a Head TA, while he just carelessly strolled in.

The sunlight is just beginning to break in your apartment, the first rays of sunlight reflecting onto the butter yellow wallpaper. Deciding that you were not going to let this random man ruin your academic career, you begin planning for a very productive but relatively chill day.

Today was as relaxing as it could be until your phone buzzes at half-past four. You were mid Great British Bake-off episode when you thought a quick glance at this notification turned into minutes of staring.

From: [email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected] Subject: Out for Lecture Good afternoon you two, It seems that I have somehow forgotten that tomorrow is the annual Humanities Department Spring Marathon. As I'm sure the both of you are familiar, this is something I take very seriously, to everyone's surprise, so I will not be in for tomorrow's lecture. I've attached the lecture slides as well as commentary in the slide notes, below. Y/N, I trust that you'll be able to take the lead and do well. Seokmin, I heard that you've returned to campus. Schedule a meeting with me before the week is up. Additionally, be a pillar of support to YN as the two of you cover for me tomorrow. Take Care, Dr. Choi Minho, Ph.D Anthropology Department | Seoyeon University Office Phone: +82 032 1290526 ext. 1991

Your breath catches in your throat as you reach the end of Dr. Choi's email. There are two lines of thought splitting your brain in half right now: you're honored that Dr. Choi is appointing you the lead, but you now have to lead an entire lecture by yourself. You obviously have some experience in teaching, but this would be the first time that you're teaching to a group this size, by yourself. Your nerves are even higher, anticipating your next interaction with Seokmin.

Mentally thanking yourself for looking through course material this morning, you open the lecture slides and get to work on familiarizing yourself with Dr. Choi's notes. You work at this presentation tirelessly for the entire day, your anxiety a driving force for you to do well.

The Following Day

Once again you show up to class earlier than usual. This time though you are shaking with nerves. You hate how unsure of yourself you feel, cursing Lee Seokmin for his absence. You have half the mind to back out last minute and ask Dr. Choi if you can just cancel class.

Realizing that doing that would not set a good impression, you beg Jeonghan to meet you early to help you prepare everything. He merely texts you back the saluting emoji and you feel yourself breathe a little easier. While you wait for him, you start setting up by yourself.

You fish out a connecting adapter from your bag and plug in your laptop. It successfully connects but then the projector is displaying the animal video that you were crying at this morning. You then take the extra measure to make sure that any extra tabs and windows are closed. Taking it a step further, you even turn off your notifications.

Once you're confident that you won't have any surprises on your laptop, you get to work on setting up the cork board. You find the board in its usual spot and you begin to wheel it out. Unfortunately for you, every little inconvenience is popping up for you today because, one of the wheels of the board gets stuck in a divot on the floor. The click of a door unlocking comes from behind you and you immediately assume that Jeonghan is here to rescue you from your misery.

"Thank God, you're here! Can you come help me with the bo—" The next thing you hear is a scoff and in surprise, you whip your head around. What you see isn't the blonde man you were texting this morning, but Lee Seokmin. You can feel the shock in your eyes. There was a question in your mind whether or not he would actually show up this week.

Since your unfortunate introduction to him, he still had not responded to your previous emails. You were mulling the probability of him showing up to class when you were preparing last night. And now here he is, wearing the same scowl on his face the night you two met.

"Hi again! Sorry I thought you were someone else. Could you uh, help me with the board? I think the wheel is stuck or something."

He wordlessly comes up and effortlessly gets the board unstuck from its spot. Squeaking out a thanks, you wheel the board to its normal spot. When you've finished, you notice him looking at the board. You're unable to make out what he's thinking and the silence feels uncomfortable, so you begin to fill it.

"Right, so I'm not sure how many of my emails you've read or if Dr. Choi has explained anything. Basically for the entire semester, the students can come before or after class to share examples of love." You give him the same spiel that Minho have gave the students on the first day of class. When you eventually finish, he scoffs and makes a comment that you can't hear.

"Oh, I wasn't able to catch that, I'm sorry."

"I said, that's pointless." He says, pointing to the cork board.

You're about to respond, but then Jeonghan comes bustling into the lecture hall. There's also a look of surprise on his face when he makes eye contact with Seokmin. The younger one merely nods and retreats to the back row of seats. Jeonghan joins you at the podium and hands you a coffee.

"Sorry would have gotten here earlier, but y'know Cheol is clingy in the mornings." He says and you laugh, remembering how you had to keep honking outside of Jeonghan's door last semester.

"Anyways, you all ready? I'll stay up here in case you need anything during lecture today." For the second time today, you're cut off from responding as your students file in.

Seokmin's POV

A little annoyed that he was having to walk into a class, completely unprepared, Seokmin was not having a great morning. When he opens the door to the lecture hall he, he's hit with the same lingering scent from last week. Before you face him, you're already rambling about how he was a lifesaver, immediately he deduces that you were not talking about him. There's no way that anyone who had the interaction you two had last week would call Seokmin a lifesaver the following one.

He sees you standing on the stage trying to pull out a cork board. You're dressed in black slacks and a long-sleeved white button up. A fairly normal outfit, but the thing that makes you stand out is the bright butter yellow scarf that's being used as a tie.

You're explaining the board to him and Seokmin finds himself getting annoyed at this exercise. He thinks to himself why Minho would even do something like this. He'd never done anything like this in the past, so why now?

He mutters his displeasure by muttering that it was pointless under his breath. When you ask him to repeat himself, he's a little stunned but he does so anyways. The drop in your face was definitely a sight to see. The door opens before you can say anything in response and Seokmin finds himself walking to the back of the room.

While waiting for class to start, he sees you nervously flitting at the podium. Every once in a while Jeonghan makes you laugh and Seokmin hates the way it makes him feel.

It's sweet, just like jasmine and lychee.

WEEK FOUR

"Alright, that's all for today's lecture," Dr. Choi announces as he ends the presentation. You look up from your notes and make eye contact with Dr. Choi. He signals to the rest of the class, reminding your students that the TA's are hosting a last minute drop-in session for questions about the upcoming midterm. When he makes that announcement, he directs their attention to you. All eighty of the students are blinking at you and you warmly smile at them in return.

"I'll send out a more detailed notice about the drop-in later tonight. Come with good questions!"

The chatter in the lecture hall dies out as the students leave. You head up to the stage to help the others pack up the board. As you do so, your professor is making small talk with you.

"This board has been gathering quite the attention."

You laugh in agreement and question if this exercise has had much success in the past. Dr. Choi shrugs and admits that this is the first time he's done the board and you cannot hide the look of bewilderment on your face. It seems that you are not the only one to have this reaction as Chaewon and Altair also have shock in their eyes. The three of you laugh in unison when you all make eye contact.

It's like all the joy gets taken out of the room when you hear the unmistakable scoff of Seokmin as he sees the board. You're shocked for a second time this morning, that he would openly mock something that is supposed to be a fun and engaging learning tool for students. You knew he was annoyed

"Not a fan, Seokmin?" Dr. Choi asks with a teasing lilt in his voice. You expect Seokmin to back down, but he doubles down and outright affirms his distaste for the board.

"Definitely not."

Jeonghan enters behind him and claps him on the back. You do not miss the irritation that is bubbling in the younger one's eyes.

"He only says that because he's never experienced a love that breaks through his grumpy wall," Jeonghan jokes. A few of the eager and early students catch Jeonghan's comment and snicker to themselves. You also stifle a giggle and walk over to smack Jeonghan on the back of his neck.

"Leave him alone, Jeonghan." The older man whines and pouts at you, rubbing his neck over-dramatically causing the students to giggle over him even more. You roll your eyes and begin to pack up your things. As you and your friends are making your way out, one of your students stops you. They tell you they won't be able to make it to the session tonight and had a question. Telling the bunch that you'll meet them later, you have a chat with your student.

Seokmin's POV

It's the end of class and Minho makes his way to Seokmin.

"I'm still owed a meeting, Seokmin."

Seokmin nods quietly. To the outside person, one would think that his focus is on the book he's carrying in his hands. However, just a little to the left is where you stand, getting ready to leave with the rest of the TAs.

Minho is able to snap Seokmin's attention back when he asks about his family.

"My sister is fine and my mother could be—" Just as easily as the topic of his family can take his attention, so does your laugh. Seokmin finds himself looking up and away the second he hears it. He feels the same funny feeling he did the week before, when he heard your laugh for the first time.

At the drop-in session

Seokmin is genuinely surprised by how many students have actually shown up to this drop-in session. Most of the time in his discussion sections, for this class and those in the past, it's mostly him talking. Occasionally, he would have one student who would chime in, but he'd never seen anything like this.

The five TA's are spread out across the department's conference room and students who came in could take their pick in TAs to ask their questions. It came as no surprise to Seokmin that found himself without a student a majority of the time. He quite honestly preferred it. The only reason he was there was because he had to be. Minho would've chewed him up if he missed another responsibility as a head TA.

This isn't the normal him. Or at least, it used to not be. Seokmin cared. So much. But then his mother fell ill and financial responsibilities began to pile up. The professor he was working under left Seoyeon and that meant there was nothing funding his post-doctoral career. To Lee Seokmin, Dr. Choi Minho is something of a guardian angel. Minho was a visiting professor turned full-time who happily took Seokmin under his care. Somewhere along the way, Seokmin found himself to be the current version that everyone steered clear from. He told himself it was better this way. No one to drag down. No one else to disappoint.

His reminiscing on his younger self is cut short when a student clears their throat next to him. Seokmin looks up and indifferently gestures to the seat in front of him. He tries not to be annoyed by the fact that he actually had to do his job, but the student literally had no other choice. The rest of the cohort were already working with their own students. Seokmin doesn't recognize the one sitting in front of him, he assumes that they must belong to someone else's discussion section.

The student, who introduces herself as Jihyun, pulls out one of the textbooks for the class. What shocks Seokmin is when she flips to the beginning section and asks a question that, by this point in the semester, she should have already known.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he mutters under his breath. He must've not been quiet enough because the student stares at him. Her eyes are in shock and look like they're about to burst with tears.

"I-I'm s-sorry?" Jihyun quivers out.

Seokmin doesn't really know what comes over him. All he knows is that he cannot stop himself from the barrage of words that fly out of him.

"You should be. I mean, I cannot believe you're here wasting my time over a question that you damn well should know the answer to!"

A few heads have turned at the decibels of his voice raising. Jihyun is stunned into silence, unsure of how she should respond. It's shark week and her fear sends Seokmin into an emotional frenzy.

"I mean seriously! Do you actually expect to get anywhere in this class, much less life, if you can't get this?! This is a simple and foundational fucking concept!"

This breaks the dam in Jihyun because she runs out of the conference room in tears. Everyone in the room was staring at Seokmin, you included. Just a few minutes before his outburst, you had wrapped up with one of your own students. You'd heard the first comment and frowned at the harshness, but kept to yourself because you expected he'd at least have the decency to tone it down after. When he dug even further, you were sent into your own frenzy.

"Lee Seokmin!" You yell out from across the room. His head whips towards you.

"What the fuck is your actual problem?!" You yell, as you stomp towards him. He's a whole head taller than you but he feels himself shrinking.

"I don't know who you think you are! Where the hell do you get off berating MY students?!" Seokmin raises his eyebrow slightly at the possessive over the students. You don't miss it.

"Yes, mine. Since for the last three fucking weeks I've been doing all the fucking work as Head TA!"

You stick a finger in his chest and continue to yell at him.

"You do not get to act this way. You are supposed to be someone the students can come to, not someone they run crying from!"

Seokmin can do nothing but blink when you exit the room. You have Jihyun's things in your hands and he hears you call out for her. He turns his head to the rest of the conference room and when he makes eye contact with Jeonghan, the older one does nothing but whistle and laugh.

WEEK FIVE

It's been a couple of days since your outburst at Seokmin and you're sitting in Jeonghan's apartment stressing over it. The second you'd finished yelling at him, you felt awful. The way you were feeling honestly probably felt very comparable to what Jihyun felt.

You hated yelling. Especially when you were angry. There was just something about that night and the way he yelled at Jihyun that drove you over the edge.

"I don't know why you're stressing, he had it coming," Jeonghan says as he pours you a glass of water. The blond had invited you over for a movie night. Seungcheol appears before you can respond.

"Who had what coming?" The older man greeting his lover with a kiss on the cheek.

"Seokmin, I kinda lost it on him," you say sheepishly. Cheol comes around the kitchen island and gives you a hug.

"Mmm, Jeonghan's right, he probably deserved it."

You sigh and pout at the two of them. Cheol laughs and assures you that he was only kidding. You give him the full context of what happened and while he mulls over his response, Jeonghan chimes in.

"I'm being serious! Honestly it's about time someone stood up to him." Your friend goes back to the cupboards in search of snacks for your movie night. An eye roll comes from you while his back is turned and Cheol has to fight a giggle from coming out.

"Have you reached out to him?" Cheol asks. You nod, explaining that you'd sent him an email. He reassures you that Seokmin's probably just not used to someone putting him in his place or giving much of a fight. Telling you not to worry about it for the rest of the night, he retreats to the office space in the apartment for the rest of the night.

"Is Cheol working? It's a holiday week, why is he working?" You ask Jeonghan as the two of you sit down on his couch.

"Dissertation defense waits for no one," he says matter-of-factly. You let out a puff of air and express relief that you don't actively have to worry about that for quite some time. The two of you bicker over what movie to watch, but eventually settle on the LEGO movie.

By the time the movie's over it's late and Jeonghan's drool is dangerously close to getting on your lap. Gently, you make your escape from the couch. Rolling your eyes at the fact that he fell asleep, you quietly tiptoe out of the living room. The door to Cheol's home office is cracked open and you lightly tap on it. A hum from him has you poking your head in.

"Hey, I'm heading out for the night. Hannie's asleep on the couch," You say softly.

"Need a ride home?"

Shaking your head no, you jingle your car keys softly at him. He nods and hops up from his desk to walk you out. When you get to the door, you jerk your head towards the couch and remind Cheol to move him before he wakes up with a crick in his neck. The two of you share a laugh as he walks you to your car. Wrapping you in a hug he wishes you a good night and to drive safely.

You're backing out of their lot and start the drive home. It doesn't take you very long to get back to your palce, but your mind is focused on one thing: Seokmin. Well not necessarily him, more the emotional unloading you did on him last week. When park your car, you sit and thumb through the email you had sent profusely apologizing to him. You'd written it immediately after the session ended, which was right after you left the room to unite Jihyun with her items.

There was still no reply, the only thing in that email line was the familiar orange text of a nudge reminder. You sigh and contemplate whether or not you should write another apology email. Almost as if he had some sort of telepathic superpower, you get a text from Seungcheol asking if you had gotten home safely. You took that as a sign to head in for the night and not lose sleep over this.

It's Saturday when you actually hear from Seokmin.

From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: RE: My Sincerest Apologies Y/N,You were right I was out of line. I've since reached out to Jihyun. Lee Seokmin Ph.D Candidate Anthropology | Seoyeon University

You are stunned to say the least. You're out with Jeonghan when you get the notification and you immediately show him.

He raises his brows in surprise, "Well that's… something."

It's your first email reply from him. It also happens to be outside of the working hours, so you're even more shocked.

Later in the evening, you're sitting in the department office after Dr. Choi asked for a quick meeting between all the TA's. He assured you all it was nothing serious, he was only sharing information about the class. True to his word, he gathered your group together to share some revisions to the syllabus and some deadlines he needed to switch around to accommodate some previous responsibilities he had. When the meeting started you hadn't seen Seokmin, but as it ended you found him leaning against the back of the wall.

Chenle turns to everyone and suggests going out for food and drinks since it's essentially the last day of break. All of you happily agree and start making your way out the office. As you're passing by Seokmin, you stop and let the others pass you.

"Hey, we're all grabbing dinner together. Would you like to come?" You ask the senior. From the corner of your eye, you see everyone has turned back in surprise. Seokmin is also quite surprised.

"Me?"

You nod enthusiastically. Telling him it would be fun and also sheepishly saying that you still feel awful about the last in-person interaction the two of you had. He hesitantly says yes and you squeal in delight.

"C'mon everyone, it'll be fun right?!" You don't miss the shared look between everyone else, but you pay them no mind. They all immediately get on board when you shout that you'd be buying the first round of soju.

You're all sitting around the table at PANG! Luckily with the holiday, the place isn't filled with students. You've all eaten your food and it's time for you to pony up and provide the first round. After asking everyone for their flavors, you head to the counter to pay for the bottles. Before you reach the counter, Chenle calls out and asks you to bring some beers too. You roll your eyes, knowing that this request is only being asked because he wants to play drinking games. As you wait for the server to ring you up, you see Seokmin come up.

"Hi!" You say as you lean on the counter. He smiles at you and you are dazzled by his smile.

"Can I help you with those?" He points to the bottles and cans that have appeared next to your elbow. You nod excitedly and begin to hand them over. He lets you go ahead and while you're walking back, you make eye contact with Jeonghan who is wiggling his eyebrows at the sight of you and Seokmin. You shrug and mouth for him to shut up as you hand out everyone's bottles. Everyone takes their first sips and return to their earlier conversations.

The second you sit down, Chenle yells out for a game of Titanic. Immediately, him and Jeonghan set up for the game and force everyone to sit closer to each other. Seokmin just happens to be sitting next to you and there is a scheming look from Jeonghan that you decide to question later. The younger one of the bunch explain the rules of the game.

"It's simple. Pour the soju into the shot glass, whoever sinks it has to drink the whole thing!"

Chenle suddenly yells for a game off rock, paper, scissors to determine who goes first. To his chagrin, he loses and has to start the first pour. When he fills the glass more than halfway full, Chaewon, Altair and you yell at him that he's not being fair. You turn to the two older men at the table and whine to try and get them to reign in Chenle. Jeonghan is no help, he just throws his hands up and laughs. Seokmin's response happily surprises all of you.

"A game's a game."

The three of you complaining start booing him and Chenle is quick to his defense, saying that Seokmin is right. It's Chaewon's turn and your jaw drops when she pours an amount that guarantees you to be the person sinking the glass. Chenle cackles and claps like a seagull when you call her a traitor. Unfortunately for you, a single drop is all takes and you're watching the soju and beer mix together. All in good fun, you shoot Chenle a dirty look and down the drink. It's been a while since you'd been out drinking, so the alcohol hits you not too long after.

A couple more rounds of Titanic are played and since Chenle wanted to play dirty, all bets were off. Elbows were being jerked during pours, some of you used Chenle's earlier technique, Jeonghan cleverly distracted Seokmin during a pour. By the end of the final game, three of you had to drink the loser drink.

The next game was sam, yuk, gu, better known as 3,6,9. Jeonghan gives everyone a refresher on the game. Going around the table, you all count off but any time the number three, six or nine was said you had to clap. The number of times you had to clap was dependent on how many times the number appeared. It didn't take you all very long until someone had to drink. That someone happens to be you when the alcohol in your system gets you to stutter at thirteen. The laughter and alcohol warm your cheeks as you take another drink. As the game progresses, the lot of you get drunker and before you know it you're all a laughing mess when Chenle yells the number three.

The last game of the night happens when you're down to the last shot. You're the one that initiates the game, your words beginning to slur as you explain. Gathering a bottlecap, you explain that whoever flicks off the metal rim will have to take a drink. Seokmin starts and the cap makes its way around, all the way to you. Luck was nowhere near your side because when you flick the end of the metal it goes flying. Everyone else cheers, but you groan and whine.

"Do I haaaave to?"

A resounding yes comes from everyone and you tip your head back to drink the last of the bottle. Your face twists at the slight burn of it going down and you slam the shot glass down on the table.

"W-well. I'm tapped!," you begin to get up, but the sudden move has the blood rush down and you get a little wobbly. Seokmin's able to get you in time and he steadies you. A giggle comes from you.

"Sunshine, you gonna be okay to get home? If you don't mind waiting, Cheol can drive you from mine." Jeonghan asks you when he sees your unsteady gait. You're about to whine that you're a big girl and can walk yourself back just fine, but Seokmin cuts in and says that he'll walk you home. You say your goodbyes and you drunkenly make everyone pinky promise to text you when they get home.

You and Seokmin start the walk home and you can barely keep yourself upright.

"Oops!" You giggle when you stumble on the sidewalk. His hand reaches out and steadies you. Turning to him, you turn and give him a wobbly curtsy. When you meet eyes with him, you're struck with the most genuis idea and you gasp. Concern is etched on his face and then you loudly say that you have a great idea.

"You should sooooo give me a piggy-back ride!"

Before he can fully object, you jump and cling onto his back.

Seokmin's POV

There isn't much he can do except accept his fate. Making sure that you're secure, he begins walking in the direction of your place, under your slurred instructions. He carries you in silence for a minute until you hiccup. You giggle to yourself and Seokmin swears he feels something bloom in his chest. He suddenly becomes very aware of his senses. Even though the smell of soju is strong, he can still find the scents that he's come to associate with you: jasmine and lychee.

After your hiccup, Seokmin feels your finger poking his cheek.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, why are you so grumpy all the time?"

"Not all the time."

You remind him that he literally made a student cry not that long ago. He sighs and reminds you that he had already reached out to Jihyun so that he could apologize. Under your breath, you slip out that apologizing to her was the bare minimum. He jokes that he can let you off his back and he hates how much he likes it when you cling onto him tighter.

"You still haven't answered my question. And you can't answer with 'I just am'. Because I know you're capable of not being grumpy, especially after today."

Seokmin stews in silence for a little bit. He mulls over the risk of being vulnerable with someone who isn't his family. When he hears you giggle to yourself about the stars, he concludes that you likely won't remember this conversation so he starts talking.

"It wasn't always like this. I actually used to be like you, believe it or not." You make a sound of surprise and he finds it incredibly endearing. Describing his younger self, he's reminiscing of a long-gone version of him like he was a few weeks ago.

"My funding got cut and then my mother got sick. Between those two things, I was burning the candle at both ends. Something had to give and I guess it was me…" he says wistfully.

"It became easier to care less, I don't know."

You're quiet and for a second Seokmin thinks that you might have fallen asleep. But then you pipe up and the first thing that comes from you is an apology. Sharing that while you may not understand what its like to be in his shoes, you can understand the demands and insane amount of stress he was under. Leaning your head on his back, you hug him tighter and tell him that things will be okay.

Eventually, the two of you get to your apartment and he gently lets you off him. The two of you are facing each other and the space between the two of you is pretty much nonexistent. You look up at him and in the warm glow of your porchlight, he can see the different shades in your eyes.

"Well this is me," you say with a dreamy smile. Seokmin nods and he wonders why he feels stuck in place. Your eyes take a slow blink and Seokmin finds himself closing the distance between the two of you. The scent of jasmine and lychee is full force when he grazes your soft lips. Before the kiss can go anywhere else the wind flows through your windchimes and it gets you to pull away from him. You unlock your door and start to head in.

Seokmin begins to turn to start his walk home, which happens to be in the opposite direction but you don't know that. Before he makes it far you call out to him.

"Seokmin?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm awfully fond of this side of you. I hope I get to see him more."

WEEK SIX

The week off from class has severely messed with your circadian rhythm. On top of the fact that you had been out drinking, it was truly a recipe for you being late. When your eyes open from the sun beaming in your face, you are hauntingly reminded of how little water you drank the night before. Grumbling, you roll over and blindly feel for your phone. Once you feel it in your hand, you take a look and immediately shoot straight out of bed. The speed at which you get up causes you to stumble over the duvet that you kicked off in your sleep. You are rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and mentally cursing yourself for not taking care of yourself the night before.

You step into the bathroom and quickly splash water on your face. When you come up and catch your reflection, you're relieved that drunk you at least remembered to clean your face last night. Scurrying to your closet, you grab a cream penny tee and some faded jeans. Normally, you'd like to be a little more put together especially when you have a class to teach, but you just don't have the time to do anything else.

You grab your phone and see an endless scroll of text messages from Jeonghan asking for your whereabouts. The last text he sent you was a threat to call emergency services if you didn't respond within the next ten minutes. Quickly responding that you'd be at lecture within the next twenty minutes.

It's worth noting that you aren't technically late as class hasn't even started yet. But you're the person that shows up at least thirty minutes early and normally you would have already been in the lecture hall setting up for class. Grabbing your scarf and a thick jacket from the back of your bedroom door, you speed into your living room. Thankfully, your work bag was still sitting on your couch, unpacked from two Friday's ago, you sling the straps over your shoulder as you're shoving your feet into a pair of heeled boots. Hoping that the added height makes you look a little more put together, you make your way out of your apartment.

You get to campus in record time and book it to your lecture hall. You walk into the hall and the entire room is buzzing. The students have all gathered at the front of the room, crowding over the board. So far this entire semester, you'd never seen them make a fuss over the board. Making eye contact with Jeonghan, you question why the students are so excited. He's about to answer you, but then Dr. Choi walks in and announces that it's time to start class. The two of you take your normal seats in the back and you forget about the board until the end of the lecture, when Dr. Choi makes an announcement about it.

"Before I forget! I appreciate the enthusiasm you all have shown towards the board. That being said, I wasn't intending for it to be a confession board."

Your eyes are wide and you smack Jeonghan's arm in shock. He giggles and shakes his head. Dr. Choi lists off another couple of announcements regarding class and then bids everyone goodbye. Turning to Jeonghan, you smack him again.

"Ah! Woman what is it and your penchant for hitting me as a strong emotional reaction?!" He says jokingly as he rubs his arm. You quickly apologize and all but run to the board. You get to the board and smack dab in the middle is the confession post that had everyone enamored.

the first time i saw you, it felt like clouds parted the sky everyone has been talking about kinds of love and you are the only person i've come across that even makes me believe that love might be real is what i feel love or a deep infatuation? honestly right now i couldn't tell the difference i hope that when i do figure it out i'll get the courage to tell you in person one day - m

There's a small chill that runs through your spine. You turn around and look for Seokmin, there's something in your gut that has you wondering whether or not he had something to do with it. Jeonghan pulls you out of your thoughts when he comes up behind you.

"You look like you've seen a ghost. You okay?"

"Uh. Maybe? I don't know I'm freakin' out a little."

The two of you walk out of the lecture hall and he prods you for more information. You wave him off telling him that you need to prepare for your discussion section later. He seems hesitant to let you go, but for as much as you know him, he knows you. And he knows that you have your reasons for keeping whatever this is close to your chest.

As you sit in your classroom, your mind is unable to focus on anything but the confession note. Something in your gut is making you wonder whether or not that note was about you. You thank your lucky stars that you had planned to watch a supplementary documentary during your section. It worked out because you knew the students were still quite hyped over the confession and this made sure they weren't talking about. You wrapped up your discussion section by reminding them to make sure they do the reading for this week as you have a quiz planned for them in the following week.

There luckily isn't another class that uses the same classroom you do for another hour, so you take your time packing up. You spend this time convincing yourself that the note just happens to be a coincidence. The note itself is very vague and could literally be about anyone. You also recount the fact that Seokmin has vocally shared his distaste for the activity and the idea behind it. The biggest thing that convinces you that this is a coincidence is the timing of it all. Of course you would think that it's about you, the two of you shared a nice moment very recently.

You finally finish packing up and make your way out of the classroom. Before you head home, you decide to stop by your office to drop some things off. As you exit the stairwell of the building, you run into Seokmin.

"Hey! Did you just finish up with a section?" He asks, and you swear you see the smallest smile on his lips. Nodding, you let him know that you decided that this was the week you were showing the documentary. You then ask him what he was doing in the same building.

"Weekly seminar," he says with a sigh. You nod in understanding, you lucked out this semester with not having to take a seminar, but you remember last semester. The two of you find yourselves at the front of department office building and it only then dawns on you that the two of you were walking the same way.

"Hey, can I ask you a kind of weird question?"

He's in front of you now and he raises a brow in anticipation.

Before you can get a word out, his phone rings. He's quick to apologize and you urge him to take the call.

"Find me later?" He says before connecting the phone to his ear.

You nod and wave goodbye as he walks in the opposite direction, back where you had come from.

📺 True Romance, starring Choi Seungcheol

after going on a blind date with false pretenses with the ceo of your company, things take a turn when he asks you to marry him to keep himself from ending up in an arranged marriage.

pairing: ceo!seungcheol x f. reader genre: romance, smut, fluff, fake engagement, rom com at times, angst rating: 18+ warnings: cussing, explicit sexual content, lying

✷ director: @straylightdream | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: business proposal

📺 Business Proposal, starring Yoon Jeonghan

finding out your boss is a misogynistic pig when you're up for the biggest promotion of your life is, to put it mildly, minorly inconvenient. finding out your ex is also a candidate? majorly infuriating. sometimes the only way to win is to not play… but other times the guy working a dead-end job at the convenience store near your apartment agrees to fake marry you so long as he gets what he wants out of the deal. too bad you can't stand each other.

pairing: jeonghan x f. reader genre: fake dating, marriage of convenience au; mutual annoyances to lovers, miscommunication; crack, fluff, angst, smut rating: 18+ warnings: capitalism, misogyny, adult content

✷ director: @100vern | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: no gain no love

📺 Guard of the Heart, starring Joshua Hong

You have a lot of standards to meet. You’ve always had. Your family, your company, your fans, they all expect the best from you. And while it is your company who signs your checks, you have yet to disobey your family. So, when your mother demands you go on a blind date to find yourself a competent husband to take over the family business, you listen. You go on a blind date and meet with the worst possible man you could imagine — Joshua Hong. Annoying, careless, Joshua, who manages to make an impression on you nonetheless. But you refuse to fall for him or his shenanigans, especially after the series of events following your first meeting.

pairing: demon!joshua x idol!f. reader genre: romance, strangers to lovers, bodyguard romance, magic rating: 18+ warnings: smut, blood, graphic descriptions of violence, obsessive fans, death threats

✷ director: @jakedustry | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: my demon

📺 You Again, starring Wen Junhui

it's been 10 years. since you last saw jun. since the break up that rocked you. since you've been back to this town. since you thought about any of this. but leave it to one of your closest friends to draw both you and jun back in and send your world spiraling again.

pairing: jun x f!reader genre: attempts at humor, fluff, angst, smut, exes to ? rating: 18+ warnings: smut, past relationship issues

✷ director: @starlightkyeom | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: our beloved summer

📺 Our Rented Marriage, starring Kwon Soonyoung

out of options when your roommate becomes engaged to her boyfriend, you find hope that maybe there you'll find your ground when you meet kwon soonyoung, your landlord, and the man who asked you to marry him for the sake of rent.

pairing: soonyoung x f. reader genre: slice of life, romantic comedy, angst, marriage of convenience, strangers to lovers, slow burn, suggestive rating: 18+ warnings: alcohol, smoking, miscommunication, harassment, misogynistic environments/workplace

✷ director: @mellow-wishes | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: because this is my first life

📺 Truly Madly Deeply, starring Jeon Wonwoo

Jeon Wonwoo is a brilliant programmer. The "what if" of your college years, he's back in your life in the most dramatic way. Yours and Wonwoo's internal Cells villages get into a state of chaotic, hilarious situations and things get interesting. Your Love Cell finally started to wake up from its deep slumber after your last devastating heartbreak. Jeon Wonwoo, has come to wake up every single Cell in your brain in the best way possible, to heal and to learn. To love again.

pairing: wonwoo x reader genre: friends? to lovers, romance, fluff, slight angst, comedy, fantasy au, mutual pining rating: 18+ warnings: strong language working environment, mentions of eating due to stress, past relationships, suggestive, a tiny little miscommunication, wonwoo is down bad

✷ director: @lovelylonelinesssvt | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: yumi's cells

📺 Crossing the Bridge to You, starring Lee Jihoon

When Jihoon returns to Daeho after three years, the last thing he expects is running into a woman who claims to be his fiancé. You, who have been stuck in Jinyowon for the past three years, rattle his world with your eccentric yet kind nature. Your boldness is new to him but so is your naivety; will he get his happy ending despite the tragedy that has bound him to guilt? Will you get yours after opposing your mother? Only time will tell.

pairing: sorcerer!jihoon x priestess!f. reader genre: angst, fluff, fantasy, strangers to lovers, marriage of convenience rating: 18+ warnings: graphic descriptions of violence, near death situation, memory loss, constant suffering, blood, posession and usage of weapons (swords, bow and arrow), murder, corpses, mentions of suicide, self-blame, lack of freedom and being locked up, messed up timeline of AOS s2 plot

✷ director: @cherrymayz | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: alchemy of souls

📺 Crumpled Paper and Metal Stars, starring Lee Seokmin

Your second semester of grad school has begun. Everything should be relatively easy, you've completed a semester and most of the people in your cohort adore your kindness and sunshine like disposition. Just as you're getting settled, an anonymous post ignites your semester. Instead of an easy sixteen weeks of learning, you're balancing teaching, a post that has the attention of literally everyone, and the personification of a gray cloud: Lee Seokmin.

pairing: grad student!seokmin x grad student!f. reader genre: grumpy x sunshine, angst, university au, cohorts to lovers, fluff, secret relationship and the angst that comes with it, anonymous confession rating: 18+ warnings: alcohol, seokmin is the grumpiest (lowk to the point where he's an asshole), mentions of academic burnout, mentions of a sick parent, suggestive scenes

✷ director: @gentleisa | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: dear m

📺 Oops!! We Broke the Plot, starring Kim Mingyu

You and Mingyu are childhood friends and two self‑aware comic characters that are forced into clichéd romcom roles you both hate. On the page, he’s the perfect jock and you’re the villainess; off the page, you’re a nerd–queen duo secretly in love. Fed up with scripted drama and unwanted love triangles, you rebel, glitching the comic as the Writer fights to force you back into place. What follows isn’t a romcom but a battle for agency, freedom, and the right to choose each other.

pairing: mingyu x f. reader genre: romantic comedy, smut, angst, drama, childhood friends to lovers, meta, breaking the fourth wall(?) rating: 18+ warnings: smut/nsfw content

✷ director: @xomakara | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: extra-ordinary you

📺 Universal Error, starring Xu Minghao

Being a doctor is hard work. Running your own fan page with over a thousand followers and translating a Chinese webtoon every week? Even harder. Being an avid reader and fan girl of the popular Chinese Webtoon, "Universal Error" turns your life upside down for the better as you translate it every week for your leaks page. However, when the finale turns dark and the main character, Xu Minghao's ending is left open-ended and undetermined. You thought your life couldn't get any worse, until an unforeseen circumstance happens that ends with you waking up in an alternate reality with Xu Minghao's life in your hands. Will you be able to change his reality or would you be left with a Universal Error yourself?

pairing: xu minghao x f. reader genre: fluff, angst, smut, strangers to lovers, thriller, suspense, fantasy rating: 18+ warnings: smut/nsfw content, talks about murder, weapons, blood

✷ director: @livmarauder | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: w: two worlds apart

📺 Cyber Love is Bullshit, starring Boo Seungkwan

You hate Love Alarm and everything that it stands for, especially since it's the reason why your last relationship ended. Now navigating through a society where people rely a machine to dictate who you fall for, you find a lone soul like yours who makes you believe in love again.

pairing: seungkwan x reader genre: fluff, angst, smut, strangers to lovers, found family? rating: 18+ warnings: talks of infidelity, sexual content

✷ director: @aeristudios | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: love alarm

📺 Rabbit, starring Vernon Chwe

Revenge is the only thing that kept you alive after your family’s betrayal. When the police force you to earn your place by infiltrating the same syndicate that destroyed you, you step back into a world that feels far too familiar - especially Vernon, who seems to see right through you.

pairing: vernon x f. reader genre: mafia, criminal, angst, smut ratings: 18+ warnings: violence, criminal behavior, explicit language, explicit content

✷ director: @sailorsoons | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: my name

📺 You Think You Know a Guy, starring Lee Chan

Chan’s grandmother says she disapproves, but he knows she doesn’t mind so long as he proves he can turn a profit before he's given a role in the family business. That’s the easy part, Chan thinks, since a friend in Tokyo says business is booming for his own boyfriend rental service. So he hires four good looking guys— the himbo, the stoic romantic, the playboy, and you, the pretty one. The hardest part, Chan thinks later, is stopping himself from looking your way. (Or: allegedly straight Chan questions his sexuality when all he can think about is the guy who works for him.)

pairing: boss!chan x afab reader genre: fluff, angst, smut, strangers to lovers rating: 18+ warnings: questioning sexuality and gender, employer/ee dynamic, queer themes, accepting family/friend group, accidental but non-malicious misgendering; reader is afab, uses she/they pronouns, and looks androgynous

✷ director: @imnotshua | pilot | full series ✷ inspired by: coffee prince

@aaniag @smiileflower @coupsv @fancypeacepersona @star-dust17

@tiredrebelgeneral @avyskai @therealmrsbahng @huiimoon @nerdycheol

@bebskyy @Li-Know @geniejunn @jaja-salute @losermylover

@cherrie-s-coups @deluluzy @ryujinxzyy @hanniecutiee @Sidders

@orbitinghao @andwilaaa @jeonghoneyoon @pleasetellmenow @iammisstora

@goodbyetwenty @yelinluv @edgaralienpoe @bramos91 @scoupsahoy

@haoluver @laya01234 @bobathi @insannities @angstylittleb1tch

face sitting/riding, attempted 69-ing, fingering, unprotected sex, handjob, creampie, messy pussy eating (twice), squirting, ass slapping, doggy style, passionate sex, crying. (the smut is really just a bonus)

This is not a good look. Walking down the fourth floor hallway of the honors housing building barefoot with your tiny dress and your heels in your hand is definitely not a good look. You’re pretty sure the honors students are not impressed to see you in such little clothing on this bright Saturday morning but you can’t even bring yourself to give a damn. Your face is twisted into a scowl so severe that one guy carrying a basket of clothes actually steps aside to let you pass, your hair is still messy from last night and yesterday's mascara is faintly smudged beneath your eyes.

Saturday mornings on campus are always strange, especially in Jace's building, the residents here think they're so self righteous cause they've probably already gone for a jog, written three essays and finished a research paper and it's not even nine yet.

You can barely register any of it because you're too busy replaying last night in your head for the hundredth miserable time. The Friday night date you had been looking forward to had started out badly and ended up even worse, the guy, whose name you're sure your brain will repress, spent twenty minutes talking about cryptocurrency. And if that wasn't enough, when the bill came, he leaned back in his chair with this smug little grin and said, "So...am I paying for this just to not take you home after, or what?"

You physically shudder remembering it. God, men are actually sick in the head. Maybe you're actually sick in the head too cause humiliatingly—you followed him and now that the sun is out and you can think clearly you know it was just your horniness that drove you to such a terrible decision.

It had been weeks, maybe even months since you'd been in with anyone and after two drinks and one existential crisis in the restaurant bathroom mirror, you'd convinced yourself maybe the mediocre man deserved a chance.

What a mistake.

You feel irritation surge through your body all over again and by now you've reached Jace's door. Not even bothering to knock, you shove it open dramatically. "Jace, I swear to God I think it's finally time for me to try celibacy."

Jace is sat up in his bed in gray sweatpants and a compression shirt, glasses sliding down his nose as he looks up from his laptop to blink at you slowly. "Mmm? Why?"

You kick the door shut behind you, "Cause men are the worst and I'm tired of kissing so many frogs just because I want a prince!"

"Tell me more."

He says softly and sets his laptop aside as you dramatically throw yourself onto the end of his bed with a groan loud enough to let him know you're genuinely upset. You stare at the ceiling before you start ranting again. "First of all, he had the personality of a plastic spork and I'm not even joking, the conversation was so bad, like a solid three out of ten."

"This man," you continue, pointing accusingly at absolutely nothing, "had the audacity to insinuate that he would only pay for dinner if I was going home with him!"

Jace's eyebrows immediately pull together. "What? That's so messed up."

"Exactly." You sigh before sitting up abruptly again. "He said it like he thought it was charming and sexy too. Like I was supposed to giggle and throw my panties at him across the table."

You watch as Jace grimaces at your words, "Please tell me you didn't stay after he said that?"

Damn. How do you tell your best friend that not only did you stay you actually went home with this guy and had sex with him? If you could call that sex. "I was very horny, okay? I'm literally ovulating and I thought ugh maybe the sex could be good?" Yeah, that works.

"Oh come on, Y/n. You're better than that." He seems so disappointed in you that you have to try to ignore the fact that he even let the conversation get this far.

"And not to add to your disappointment but the sex absolutely sucked. Just added a body to my count and that brings me to a whoppingggg...two." You say and start giggling to yourself.

Jace lets out the most disbelieving laugh imaginable. "Oh my God."

"It was so bad, Jace. Like genuinely horrible. I've had more chemistry with self checkout machines." You’re glad that manages to get a startled laugh out of him. "He kept asking me if I liked that every three seconds."

If you'd just slow down to take a look at your best friend's face, you'd see a smirk you'd never seen before but of course you don't cause you're so mad at the whole situation, more at yourself too. "And then when I tried to like guide him a little?" You gesture wildly. "He got defensive."

"Hmm, defensive how?" He asks, eyeing you weirdly now. "Defensive like when I tried to guide his fingers to my actual clit he—"

Your words are cut off by the door swinging open and your irritation immediately flares at the sight of who is standing in the doorway, shifting your gaze back to the twin on the bed, you let out a groan of annoyance. "Seriously, Jake? Can you give us five minutes of peace?" you mutter, rolling your eyes toward the doorway, expecting to see Jace's twin brother hovering there with his usual grating smirk.

But instead the room just goes dead silent and curiosity forces you to actually look at the person standing in the threshold. You rake your eyes over him, ready to snap some insult about him intruding on your conversation but the words die in your throat. Because why is he standing there so confused and wearing his brother's clothes and carrying his textbooks?

Why is the custom silver bag chain you had to hunt down for Jace's birthday hanging from Jake's bag?

Your stomach drops in a sickening free fall sensation. If that's Jace...then who the hell are you sitting next to?

"What are you even talking about?" the twin standing in the door asks, his voice threaded with a weary frustration. He looks between you and the bed, his brow furrowing deeper. "Jake, I told you—I don't know how many times I have to say this—stay the hell out of my room when I'm not here. Why are you even here?"

You slowly turn your head to look at the person sitting on the bed and he's already watching you, his gaze no longer just amused, it's now sharp and terrifyingly aware of the fact that you have just realized exactly who he is. He's also completely dropped the persona of his brother he'd been carrying, there's something in the way his eyes can go from earnest and sweet just like his brothers to predatory so quickly.

This isn't the first time, maybe that's why you feel the sting that makes your vision blur with heat so quickly. Jake has made a sport of this, a twisted game of shadows where he slips into his brother's life just to see how long it takes for you to figure it out. But your anger isn't just directed at him this time around, it's the way he makes you feel so stupid you can't stand. You've known Jace for years, he's your best friend and yet you just laid your entire sexual history bare to a predator in a compression shirt because he mirrored an earnest tilt of the head and a quiet "Tell me more."

Jace lets out a breath that sounds more like a groan, "Jake," he says in a frustrated but practiced tone. "Get off my bed. Now."

Jake doesn't move immediately, still lingering in the dip of the mattress and watching the way your chest pants with outraged breaths. Only when Jace takes a step further into the room does Jake finally rise, moving with an infuriating lack of urgency and stretching in the mirror. You watch as his muscles pull taut against that borrowed shirt—Jace's shirt.

"Relax, professor. I'm leaving," Jake says, his voice losing the faux earnest quality he'd used to bait you just a moment ago. Now he's just Jake, arrogant and loud Jake. "Mom called. She wanted me to tell you that if you don't call her back by six to confirm for Sunday dinner, she's going to stop by your lab and embarrass you in front of your recluse friends."

"That could have been a text, Jake. A five second text. You didn't need to come here."

Jake tilts his head, a lazy, jagged grin cutting across his face. "I know," he smiles wider, the amusement dancing in his tone. "But where's the fun in a text? I prefer the personal touch."

He begins to move toward the door, his shoulder intentionally brushing yours as he attempts to pass. But then he stops and leans in, letting the heat radiate off his skin in a way that makes you want to scramble backward but you're pinned by the stupid audacity of his proximity.

His lips hover inches from the shell of your ear, dropping his voice into a low volume that Jace couldn't possibly catch over the sound of his own frustrated rustling.

"For what it's worth, baby doll," he breathes, "I could definitely get you off. And I promise you wouldn't have to show me where anything was. I'd find it just fine on my own."

You immediately recoil as if he's physically burned you, it’s like a violent shudder of disgust racks your frame. He doesn't even wait for your slap him or scream at him, he thinks the chuckle that lets out is enough and with that he walks out of the door, leaving the air behind him feeling way too overcharged.

You remain sat on the bed as your heart hammers unevenly against your ribs. Across the room, Jace is already moving, you notice his hands trembling slightly while he tries to set his textbooks down with a finality that suggests he's trying to ground himself.

It is a familiar but such an exhausting dance.

You and the Sim twins have been in each other’s lives since before you could even form any memories. Since you were born barely a week apart, you were raised as a collective—like a trio bound by the inseparable bond of your mothers. Your childhood photos are a blur of shared birthday cakes and matching grass stained knees in a suburban neighborhood that felt like it belonged to the three of you alone.

Jake is technically the older one by a mere four minutes, a fact he used to brag when you were younger but the order of birth was rendered irrelevant a long time ago by the overwhelming difference in their personalities. Jake has always been some kind of force of nature, you found him childish even back then, to you he vibrated with a restless energy that left everyone exhausted in his wake. By the time you were sixteen, the neighborhood had already collectively decided that Jace was the older one because he was the one who carried all the responsibility, the one who navigated the world with a quiet dignity while Jake was busy being a headache to his parents.

Now they have become the very definition of a cliché, they are two halves of a whole that refuse to touch. It's why Jace occupies this sterile sanctuary in the honors housing, where he’s surrounded by the scent of old ink and high expectations while Jake is deep in the trenches of his frat house across campus.

"I'm sorry," Jace says, his voice finally breaking the heavy silence. "I should have changed the code to the door. I told him last time he crashed here."

You swallow hard on the bile still sitting at the base of your throat. "Ugh, he’ll literally never change, he’s just the worst. He sat there and pretended to be you and listened to me talk about my date from last night!" You raise your voice but the genuine guilt on the familiar lines of Jace’s features makes the anger in your chest soften into a dull flickering. It's the same face you've turned to for comfort for two decades and yet for a fleeting moment on that bed, you still hadn't been able to tell the difference.

"What did he say to you?" Jace asks, his tone cautious as if he's afraid the answer will scare him. "At the end. Before he left."

You wave a hand dismissively like you’re trying to physically swat away the lingering vibration of Jake's voice in the room. "Nothing. Just him being the typical douchebag he's been since forever," you mutter, though the heat still throbbing in your neck tells a different story.

You've spent the better part of a decade perfecting the art of hating Jake Sim and by now it’s a necessary armor, a defense mechanism against the wild gravitational pull he exerts on everyone around him. But as you look at Jace, you're hit with the stinging irony of your own history.

Irony because before the hatred came, all you had for Jake was love. At six years old you were convinced you’d be marrying him and had scrawled Mrs. Jake Sim in the margins of your coloring books with a confidence that only a child can muster, fully believing that life would eventually find you in a white dress and a life spent chasing him.

That was, until the day he decided to bless you with your earliest and most vivid memory of him. You can still see him standing in the driveway of his family home, gap toothed with devilish grin on his face as he looked you dead in the eye and delivered a piece of information that shattered your world.

"You know you were supposed to have a twin too," he had said, his voice flat and terrifyingly casual for a six year old. "But you got so hungry, you ate her in your mommy's belly."

The trauma of that statement had sent you straight into an inconsolable grief that lasted for hours. You had cried until your chest ached, genuinely horrified by the monster Jake had told you that you were. And then, Jace appeared by your side with a half melted watermelon popsicle and a hand on your shoulder. He hadn't laughed at you or teased you, he did sit with you in the grass and told you it wasn't true, effectively choosing your side over his brothers before any of you could even realize what was happening. That was the day the pedestal for Jake crumbled and the one for Jace was built.

You look at Jace, seeing the way his eyebrows are still knit together in that worried arch. "I hate the fact that I still can't tell you two apart when he's playing his little games...it makes me want to scream."

Jace moves closer. "It's not your fault," he says softly while his eyes search yours. "He's spent twenty two years learning how to mimic me just to get under people's skin. Especially yours."

You quickly brush off his statement by bringing up something else. Jake does not get under your skin.

"You know, you really should swing by the apartment from time to time, Jace," you say, clearly trying to shift the focus. "Unless you want Jake and his frat bros to completely take it over. Your parents got it for both of you, after all."

Jace just shakes his head with a look of real burnout crossing his face. "I'd rather not," he admits, taking a seat at his desk. "I can't study with the smell of cheap beer and whatever bullshit he's invited over."

You notice he looks a little distressed, a little distracted even and you know it’s not just because of Jake. "Where were you anyway?" you ask, squinting at him. "You look like you got a B or something."

"I was just grabbing coffee," he says but then he pauses, only to whisper the other half of his sentence. "With Jungwon."

You practically squeal and the bad date along with Jake's creepy comments are momentarily forgotten as you lunge at him, grabbing his arm. "Oh my god! Tell me everything. I need all the details like right now!"

Jace sighs, looking down at his feet. "I don't know. I don't think he's even into guys."

You pull back to give him a look of total disbelief. "Are you kidding? Of course he is! He literally hooked up with Sunghoon—you know, Sunoo's ex? It was a whole thing last semester."

Jace laughs but it sounds a little forced. "That was just a rumor, Y/n. Nobody actually knows if that happened."

"If it was such a rumor, then why would Jungwon want to hang out with you so much...alone?" you counter with a stubborn cross of your arms. "Men don't just hang out that much without a reason."

Jace lets out a real laugh this time, shaking his head at your logic. "He's probably just trying to get closer to you," he says, his eyes fixed on yours for a second too long.

"What? That's ridiculous," you huff. "Who would go through all that effort just for me?"

Jace looks away with a certain smile on his lips as he mumbles under his breath, "You have noooo idea."

"It's not just Jungwon," he continues, his voice sounding small and a little tired. "You don't realize how many guys have pretended to be my friend just this year, hanging out in the lab, offering to help with my notes, only to eventually pivot the conversation to you. They all want to know what you like, if you're single or if I can put in a good word."

You stare at him, feeling a familiar ache in your chest again. While you're busy dealing with mid tier dates and Jake's constant nuisance, Jace is dealing with a different kind of problem.

Your mind drifts back to the summer after freshman year when you were home from college, sitting on the edge of your pool with your feet in the water in the humid night air. You'd always had a hunch, like a quiet feeling that Jace's lack of interest in the girls in your small town wasn't just about all his focus being on his studies. So when he finally told you he was gay, it felt like a missing piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place and you were just glad it only took one semester away from your hometown for him to feel safe enough to realize who he truly was.

But that safety is still such a fragile thing because no one else knows, not their parents and definitely not Jake. Jace is terrified of what their reaction would be, he’s worried that his family's approval, which is something he's worked so hard for with his honors status and exemplary accomplishments would vanish in an instant.

And that’s exactly why every time Jake makes a crude joke about you and Jace being a secret couple or asks if you're finally giving Jace some sugar, you just take it. You let it happen, either rolling your eyes or firing back a witty comment, just letting Jake believe whatever he wants because you’d much rather the world think you're sleeping with your best friend than risk unintentionally outing him before he's ready.

"I have some idea," you say softly, patting the space on his bed next to you so he comes over and sits with you. "But maybe Jungwon is different? Maybe he's the one who actually wants to know about you."

Jace offers a weak but hopeful smile, unfortunately it fades quickly when he speaks again. "Even if he did...what then? I'm not even out out yet, I’m literally pretending to be someone I'm not. It's a lot to ask of someone."

The contrast between them is enough to give you whiplash. It's always been this way and you hate how Jake gets to be the reckless one, living his life at full volume without a single care for the consequences. You can still remember the awkward silence of their hallway back in high school with the sound of girls leaving Jake's room in tears, his trail of broken hearts just another part of his bad boy charm. He's always been free to be exactly who he is, no matter how messy it gets.

And then there's Jace, who is ten times the man his brother is and he stays huddled in his shell, scared to death that being himself will cost him everything. It makes your chest tight with sadness. He's spent his whole life being the reliable twin just to keep the peace while Jake burns the house down and gets a pass for it.

But you don't let yourself linger on the pity for too long, you know Jace hates it when you get that look in your eyes so you shake your head and force a bright grin onto your face.

"Listen, the lit majors are throwing a party tonight," you say, turning to face him with a spark of excitement. "And I'm telling you, it's not like those sweaty, overcrowded frat parties on greek row where your brother hangs out. It's actually always chill from what I’ve heard. You should invite Jungwon. I'll be there the whole time, so you won't be alone."

Jace's eyes go wide and he immediately starts backing up toward his headboard. "No. No way. I can't just...ask him to a party. That's too much."

"Oh, shut up!" you yell, launching yourself off the bed and tackling him onto the mattress. He lets out a startled oof as you scramble to grab his phone from the desk. "Life is all about risks, Jace! You're going to be an old man wondering what if because you were too scared to send a blue bubble?"

"Y/n, give it back!" he pleads, laughing even as he tries to reach his phone first but you're faster, pinning his arm down with your knee and waving the phone triumphantly. "You'll never know if you don't try! Do you want to spend tonight staring at a textbook or staring at him?"

He groans, his face turning a deep shade of red but he finally stops fighting. "Fine! Fine, just give it here. I'll do it."

You hand the phone back with a satisfied smirk and watch over his shoulder as his thumbs hover nervously over the screen. After a long, shaky exhale, he taps the send button. "There," he says, sounding too breathless for someone who just sent a text. "It's sent. If he says no…just pray he doesn’t say no, Y/n."

The next minute is straight up torture. You and Jace kneel on the floor at the foot of the bed shoulder to shoulder, both of your gazes locked onto the dark screen of his phone praying to god Jungwon just replies now. When it finally vibrates, the notification banner pops up—

Jungwon: Sounds like fun, meet there?

You let out a deafening squeal, hauling yourself up on the bed to jump up and down it with enough force to make the springs groan. "Yes! Oh my god, Jace! He said yes!"

Jace stares at the screen having his mouth hanging open in sincere astonishment. "Wait, no way," he whispers, locking and opening his phone again as if he expects the text to disappear. "No way he actually wants to go."

"What do you mean no way?" you say, dropping back down and shaking his shoulder. "Jace, look at yourself. You're literally so hot! You're going to go to that party and give him that good dick." The words are out of your mouth before you can filter them and for a split second, you freeze. You stop jumping and look at him with a dead serious expression. "Wait...are you a top or a bottom?"

Jace's face turns to a beautiful red and he buries his face in his hands, letting out a muffled, embarrassed groan. "I don't know! God, Y/n, let me actually kiss a guy first before I have to figure all that out!"

He starts to laugh, the tension finally breaking as he sits on the bed and leans back on his elbows. He looks at you with a cheeky twinkle in his eyes that is usually reserved for his brother. "You know, if you think I'm so hot, that means you also think Jake is hot."

The way your smile instantly vanishes is almost comical, you scowl at him. "No. Absolutely not. That is completely different."

"How?" Jace asks, grinning now because he knows he's got you. "We're identical, remember? Same face, same hair, same everything."

"That doesn't matter," you snap, crossing your arms over your chest. "Being hot also involves having a personality and yours doesn't make me want to walk into oncoming traffic. Jake's does."

Jace laughs so hard, he's clutching his stomach and falling back onto the bed. "Hmmm, you didn't think that when you were six though," he teases, his eyes dancing with mischief. "I remember you specifically calling yourself Mrs. Jake Sim over and over, just so nobody would accidentally think you were talking about me."

"Shut up!" you yell and grab a small paperback from his nightstand to chuck at his head. He ducks just in time and the book thudding harmlessly against the wall. "I told you that in confidence, you jerk!"

Your fake anger fades quickly because you feel determined to help your best friend. "Okay, enough of that. We need a game plan," you say standing up and heading straight for his closet. "By the end of tonight, I want you tongue deep in Jungwon's mouth."

Jace winces at your words and a bashful look crossing his face. "Could you maybe...not put it like that? Please?"

Ignoring his plea, you start flicking through his hangers, tossing aside his more boring, oversized sweaters. "If we're doing this, we're doing it right. You need to look like the honors student of his dreams but you know? Approachable."

As you sift through a row of button downs, you look over your shoulder at him. "So, what is it anyway? What do you actually like about Jungwon?"

Jace quietens down and you can almost sense his expression softening into something genuine and vulnerable without even looking at him again. You can bet he's staring at his hands. "He's just...he's really observant," he says softly. "Most people just see the smart twin or the quiet one but when Jungwon talks to me, it's so different. You know he didn't even know I was a twin? He makes me feel like I'm actually being seen for who I am, not just what I am."

You stop moving just to coo at him. "Awwww Jacieee, that is literally the sweetest thing I've ever heard. Okay, now I'm even more committed. We are finding you the perfect outfit."

‎ ₊ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 𓈒⊹

The rooftop of the english building is alive with low indie music and the soft glow of string lights but Jace is currently vibrating at a frequency that might actually shatter glass. He is shaking so hard you can feel the tremors coming off him in waves.

"I can't do this," he hisses, his face is slick with a layer of nervous sweat that the cool night air isn't helping. He reaches for the buttons of the jacket you spent twenty minutes picking out, his fingers fumbling. "It's too hot. I'm leaving. I'm going to go home and solve some differential equations."

"Jace, stay still," you whisper, swatting his hands away from his clothes. "You look incredible. Stop trying to undress! Someone will see!"

"Why are you so nervous anyway? You've hung out with him plenty times." You're genuinely trying to understand your best friend.

"Yes! But this is the first time I did the asking!" He whisper yells. "My socks," he groans, leaning in close so only you can hear his crisis. "Y/n, they're soaked. My feet are literally swimming in sweat. It's disgusting. I'm going to slip in my own shoes and fall on him."

You open your mouth to say ew and tell him that is way more information than you needed but the heavy metal door to the rooftop creaks open.

"Oh, you're here?"

Jungwon walks in, looking effortlessly cool in a loose cardigan. He blinks and a small smile forms when he sees the two of you. "Hey, Y/n. It's nice to see you again."

"Hi, Jungwon!" you say in a tone that's a little too bright. You give Jace a sharp shove with your elbow, nearly knocking the wind out of him so he's forced to acknowledge the guy.

"H-hi," he manages but his voice a little higher than usual it makes you want to cringe and coo at the same time—poor Jace.

Jungwon gestures toward the music and the crowd of lit majors. "You guys want to move over there? It's actually not too crowded near the edge."

"Oh! You know what?" You take a dramatic step backward, checking your phone as if you just got a life altering text. "I think I see...my friend? Over there? Yeah, I definitely have to go talk to her. It's a whole thing."

Before Jace can grab your arm and drag you back into his panic, you've already started backing away and as soon as Jungwon turns his back to lead Jace toward the far corner, you catch Jace's wide and comically terrified eyes. You mouth the words calm down with exaggerated lip movements, then proceed to wrap your arms around yourself to make a ridiculous show of making out with the air to remind him what the end goal is even sticking your tongue out at flicking it for good measure.

Jace looks like he wants to die on the spot but he takes a shaky breath and follows Jungwon further into the party.

The second they walk away leaving you standing alone at the door, the adrenaline fades and the reality of your situation finally sets in. You look around the rooftop and realize that while the vibes are great, you don't actually know a single person here. You're the engineering and fanfiction girl in a sea of people debating the symbolism of some nineteenth century poetry.

So to avoid looking like a total loser, you pull out your phone and start scrolling through old texts, pretending to be deeply engaged in a conversation with absolutely no one. You're just about to consider making a break for the exit when a familiar voice cuts through the indie folk music.

"Y/n? Is that you?"

You look up and you're instantly relieved to see a familiar face—Sloane, a girl you spent three grueling weeks with last year trying to finish a group project for an elective class.

"Sloane! Hey!" You tuck your phone away, happy to have a human shield. You exchange the usual pleasantries, asking about her classes and how her pet hamster is doing. But then she randomly tilts her head and looking around. "Who did you come with? I didn't think this was really your scene," she asks with a friendly grin.

"I came with Jace," you say, nodding toward the corner where you can just barely see the back of Jace's head near Jungwon.

Sloane's eyes go wide and she beams making her whole face light up. "Really? Oh my god! Jungwon is going to be so excited!"

You feel your heart skip a beat but you lean in anyway cause your internal gossip radar pinging at max volume. "Really? Why?"

"Are you kidding?" Sloane whispers, leaning closer like she's sharing a secret. "Jungwon has had this cute little crush on Jace forever. He's been trying to figure out how to tell him for months but he was worried Jace was way too into his books to notice him."

You let out a loud gasp and grab Sloane by her arm maybe too hard. "Really?! Jace likes Jungwon too! They're literally over there together right now. That's why I'm standing here all by myself—I am the ultimate wingwoman!"

"No way!" Sloane squeals, mirroring your excitement.

In an instant, the two of you have completely abandoned any sense of cool lit major chill and now you're just two girls huddled in the corner of the roof, squealing and gushing over how perfect they are for each other, occasionally peeking over your shoulders to see if any progress is being made.

"Do you know Jace was literally vibrating. I had to tackle him and steal his phone just to get him to send the text. He was convinced Jungwon wouldn't be into him," you laugh, shaking your head as you rest against the rooftop railing.

Sloane cackles and nearly spilling her drink. "Are you serious? I was sitting with Jungwon for at least twenty minutes trying to convince him that his text wasn't too thirsty. He was so worried he sounded like he was trying too hard!"

The coincidence is almost too much to handle and when you both turn your heads at the same time to peek over towards the edge of the roof, you see Jace and Jungwon tucked away in a pair of mismatched lawn chairs in the corner, far away from the thickest part of the crowd.

Jace must have finally stopped sweating through his socks because you catch a glimpse of him saying something with that softly sincere look he gets when he's actually comfortable. Whatever he says absolutely works because Jungwon throws his head back and laughs, the string lights catch the bright spark in his eyes and Jace doesn't look away, it's like he can't, so he just watches him with a hopeful expression that makes your heart swell so much you think it could burst any moment.

"They are going to be the cutest couple on this entire campus," Sloane gushes as she clutches her chest. Then, her expression shifts slightly and she lets out a little sigh mixed with a laugh. "It's so crazy how different Jace is from his twin. I saw Jake at a party last week and...yeah. Night and day."

You immediately roll your eyes so hard it almost hurts. "Tell me about it," you groan as the image of Jake smirking on Jace's bed flashing through your mind. "Living with that guy's ego is like living next to a literal sun. He's exhausting but he's always been a total hazard."

"I heard he got banned from the library for a semester because he yelled out some obscenity his frat bros dared him to," Sloane whispers.

"That sounds like him," you mutter, glancing back at Jace who is still looking at Jungwon like he's the only person on the roof. "I honestly don't know how they share dna. Jace has the soul of a poet and Jake...Jake has the soul of a frat boy who thinks body spray is a substitute for a shower."

You start praying the topic randomly changes but instead your heat drops straight to your ass at Sloane's next words, "Oh, speak of the devil."

You turn your back to see what she's referring to and there he is, at the makeshift bar. Jake is leaning against a table and deep in conversation with some girl who looks like she's already falling for his usual routine. A wave of nausea hits you because the last thing tonight needs is Jake spotting Jace and Jungwon together, you know he's either going make a scene or find a way to ruin the moment with one of his personal jokes and Jace would probably never recover from the embarrassment.

You feel the panic rising in your chest but when you whip your head back toward the lawn chairs, the corner is empty. Before you can freak out, your phone vibrates in your hand. It's a text from—

Jace: We're heading back to my dorm. I think it's going well? See you later!

You shove the screen in front of Sloane's face and the moment she reads his text, the two of you let out another synchronized squeal. It's the ultimate victory because they left before Jake could see them.

Unfortunately, that squeal acts as a homing beacon for the one person you wanted to avoid. You can practically feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up as his familiar presence closes in and the air suddenly smells like that expensive cologne he uses to hide the fact that he probably hasn't done laundry in weeks. He completely misses the sight of Jace and Jungwon slipping through the rooftop door because his focus entirely on you.

"Well, well," Jake says in a tone that makes your skin crawl, he immediately steps into your space and ignores the way you stiffen. He lets his eyes travel down your outfit with that same look from earlier when you were giving him all the details of your sex life. "That's a very pretty dress, baby doll. What aisle of the candy store did you come from? Cause you look incredibly sweet tonight."

You scowl and let your face twist in disgust at his stupid words. "That is the worst line I have ever heard, Jake. Seriously, stop."

He doesn't even flinch at your rejection because by now your harsh words have no effect on him.

"And hello to you too, Sandra," he says smoothly.

Sloane's smile drops instantly. "It's Sloane, Jake. We had a class together for an entire semester."

Jake just shrugs, completely unbothered by the fact that he doesn't know her name and indirectly embarrassed her. "Sloane, Sandra...both beautiful, just like you. What's the difference?" He counters before turning back to you. "So, where's my boring other half? I figured if you were here, he'd be trailing behind you like a lost puppy."

"He's not here, Jake. And for the record, you are the boring one," you snap and hitch your bag higher on your shoulder. "I'm actually leaving. Why are you even here? Lit majors don't care for people like you."

Even with that, he still manages to smirk and jerk his thumb back at the girl he was talking to by the bar, a girl who is currently watching him with an expectant, slightly dazed look. "Oh, you know me," he says crudely in a way that makes you envision slapping him already. "Figured I'd try out some lit major pussy for the first time. See if they really are as deep as they pretend to be."

He even puts on this fake, wide eyed look and clutches his chest, acting like he's nervous for a big exam or something. "Think I'll pass, baby doll?"

This time, you don't even give him the satisfaction of a verbal comeback but you do give him the most disgusted look you can muster and turn on your heel, heading straight for the rooftop exit. You can hear Sloane saying a quick goodbye behind you but your main goal is putting as much distance between yourself and Jake as possible.

Except, he doesn't stay put or go back to the girl waiting for him at the bar.

"Hold on for a sec."

"Go away, Jake!" you yell over your shoulder as you hit the stairwell.

"Wait up, I'm serious," he says and his footsteps come heavier and faster behind you but you keep moving, clattering down the stairs in your platform slippers, he's incredibly persistent though. And by the time you reach the second floor landing, his tone has shifted. The teasing layer is gone and he's suddenly being weirdly flat and intense. "Y/n, stop. I actually have something important I need to ask you. Just...hold on."

You're able to make it all the way to the ground floor, your hand already on the heavy metal handle of the building's exit. You're ready to burst out into the night air and bolt but Jake is right there, reaching his hand over your head to hold the door shut.

"I'm not joking, listen to—"

You've turned to him to scream for him to leave you alone but you notice his whole body tense up and he stops mid sentence. He's looking through the glass pane of the windows by the door at the shadows of the bike racks just outside.

"What the fuck?" Jake breathes in a deep exhale.

Your heart stops when you look to see what he's looking at because there, under the yellow hum of a streetlamp, Jace has Jungwon pressed back against one of the metal racks, his hands cupping the other boy's face with a desperate type of hunger. They're kissing, scratch that, they're making out and Jace looks more alive than you've ever seen him.

The silence in the stairwell is so consuming as Jake stares at his identical twin with a look of utter shock.

The second the shock wears off and his face hardens into something unreadable, Jake doesn't hesitate, immediately lunging for the door. You scramble after him with your heart lodged in your throat and grab his arm with both hands, trying to anchor him to the spot.

"Jake, stop! Please, just leave them alone!" you plead, your voice cracking as the first sting of tears hits your eyes. "Don't ruin this for him. Just walk away, please."

He doesn't even look at you, jerking his shoulder so rough it shoves you off, you stumble back against the cold brick wall of the stairwell, watching helplessly as he hurls the door open and storms into the night. You're already crying from a mix of terror for Jace and a burning hatred for the man currently charging toward the bike racks.

"Jake, no!" you gasp, rushing out behind him as fast as your slippers will let you but you're too late.

"What the fuck, Jace?!" Jake's voice booms through the quiet courtyard, making Jace and Jungwon spring apart, their breathing heavy and their faces flushed, only for Jace's to go deathly pale the moment he sees his brother standing there. He looks like he just got punched in the stomach, his hands immediately start trembling near Jungwon's shoulders as he stares at his brother.

"Jake..." Jace's voice is barely audible.

"Are you serious right now?" Jake steps closer, his posture aggressive and looming. "You're gay? You've been playing this whole honors student part while you're out here kissing dudes? Lying to our parents?" Jake goes on and on.

"So all those girls you liked but never dated in high school were just cover ups, right?"

"Why didn't you say anything?"

You finally reach them and throw yourself between the twins, pressing your hands against Jake's chest to shove him back. "Jake, shut up! Stop it right now!" you sob, willing your vision to stop blurring with tears. "This isn't the time or place. Leave him alone!"

But Jake doesn't budge, he's just a wall of muscle and misplaced anger now, looking over your head to stare directly into his brother's terrified eyes. Jace is frozen, too shocked to even defend himself because his worst nightmare unfolding in the middle of a campus sidewalk while Jungwon stands there, looking back and forth between the identical faces in total confusion.

You really have no idea how Jace will react, what he will say so you're shocked when he laughs but it sounds so bitter. He looks at the brother who shares his exact face but none of his heart and his eyes turn to ice.

"Wow," Jace spits. "You find out your brother is gay and your first instinct isn't to wonder why I was too scared to tell you. It's to accuse me of living a lie because it bruises your pathetic ego."

"You truly are a vile excuse for a human being, Jake. I've spent twenty two years sharing your face and every day I wake up wishing I could tear it off just so I don't have to look like someone so completely devoid of anything decent. You're not my fucking brother. You're just a mistake that happened four minutes before me."

Before Jake can even blink or think of anything to say, Jace grabs Jungwon's hand and pulls him into a run, disappearing into the shadows of the campus buildings.

"Jace! Wait!" You scream in a sob, trying to go after them but your foot catches on the edge of the bike rack and go down hard, scraping the skin right off your knees against the pavement.

The pain is sharp and hot and as you wince, Jake reaches down with shaking hands trying to grab your shoulders. "Shit! Y/n, let me—"

"Don't you fucking touch me!" you shriek, shoving his hands away with enough force to make him stumble. You scramble to your feet, simultaneously ignoring the blood beginning to trickle down your legs.

Blinded by rage and heartbreak for your best friend, you launch yourself at his brother, slamming your palms into his chest. You hit him, slap at his arms in wild movements fueled by a lifetime of suppressed anger. "You want to know why your brother never told you?!" you yell, the sound echoing off the brick walls. "It's because you're a selfish, black hearted asshole!" One of your slaps lands directly on his cheek.

"You're so fucking obsessed with yourself that you couldn't let him have one goddamn second of happiness without making it about your own confusion. You are the reason he's been living in a cage, Jake! He's terrified of you because everything you touch turns to rot and he didn't want you rotting this, too!"

You shove him one last time, your voice dropping to a hiss. "You're like this shadow he's been trying to outrun since we were kids. I hate you. I think I've always hated you."

Jake's face contorts when the words hit his ears, his jaw tightens as he stares at you with a look that's both furious and heartbroken at the same time. "You don't mean that," he growls but his voice cracks. "You're just upset because you're bleeding and tired. You don't actually hate me."

You let out a harsh laugh right in his face, "Oh, I fucking mean it, Jake! I mean every single word. Do you really think anyone loves the real you? People like the idea of you. They like the guy who buys the drinks and throws the parties, the guy who has no problem spending his daddy’s money on them but the second the lights go up and they see the shallow hollow mess underneath, they all run."

You step closer, ignoring the stinging in your knees to look him dead in the eye. "It is honestly fucking ridiculous how much you pride yourself on being the better twin. Look at Jace. He's so kind, so brilliant and so capable of caring about someone other than himself. And you’re just a cheap copy of a much better man."

"Stop it, Y/n," he mutters but you can see his hands shaking at his sides.

"Why should I? It's the truth!" you laugh again. "Isn't it just so crazy? You walk around acting like you're the prize but the only thing actually good about you is the fact that you share half your dna with Jace. Without him to balance you out, you're just a hedonistic frat guy with a pretty face that nobody is going to want to look at in five years. You're nothing, Jake. You're less than nothing."

You turn your back on him and every step is a sharp reminder of the gravel now embedded in your skin. You limp away, the salt from your tears stinging the small cuts in your palm as you wipe your tears. Crying because the secret your best friend spent years protecting was ripped open in the most violent way possible.

Somehow you’re not surprised when Jake gets in his car and starts creeping along the curb beside you.

He rolls the passenger window down. "Y/n, please just get in the car," he calls out to you in a frustrated but also strangely concerned tone. "Your knees are literally dripping blood. Just get in. I'll just drop you off, I swear I won’t say a thing."

"I'd rather get abducted and sold into human trafficking than sit in a confined space with you," you say without even looking at him.

He huffs and actually pulls over to hop out of the car. He tries to reach for your elbow lightly, like he’s afraid you’ll slap him again.

"Come on, you're shaking. You can barely stand. Let me just help you walk? Or at least let me hold you up until we get to the dorms."

You recoil as if his skin is made of fire, nearly losing your balance. "Please don’t touch me, Jake. I’m so tired of you."

He looks at you with wide eyes wide, trying to coax you with that soft, manipulative tone he always uses to get his way. "Baby doll, look at me. I fucked up, okay? I'm an asshole, I’m everything you said and you’re so right about me. But don't hurt yourself more just to spite me. Please."

You ignore him, focusing only on the rhythm of your limp and when he finally gets the hint, he gets back into his car and just drives slowly behind you. The whole twenty minute walk to the honors housing—he’s right behind you, lighting the road with his headlights until the brick facade of the honors housing building comes into view and you limp all the way into it. That’s when he finally floors it, the screech of his tires echoes through the empty street as he speeds off into the night.

The walk up the stairs is a special kind of hell, every step upward pulls at the scabs already forming on your knees and by the time you reach Jace's door, you're lightheaded from the pain but you still knock and wait.

When the door swings open, the sight breaks what's left of your heart. Jace looks absolutely destroyed, his eyes are swollen and bloodshot, his face is an angry red from crying. Behind him, Jungwon is sitting at the desk with his head in his hands, looking so small and upset that he looks like he's on the verge of a breakdown himself.

"Oh, Jace," you whisper, your voice breaking. "I'm so, so sorry."

You reach forward and wrap your arms around his middle and pulling him close. He immediately collapses into you, burying his heavy weight into you as he lets out a sob into your shoulder and all you can do is just hold him, whispering apologies over and over into his hair as he finally lets the terror of the night out.

The sound of Jungwon clearing his throat reaches you through the wet sounds of Jace's sobbing. Jace pulls back just enough to look toward the desk, his hands still clutching the sleeves of your cardigan as if he might fall over if he lets go. Jungwon stands up cautiously, with so much quiet sadness in his eyes for the boy who just had his entire world dismantled on a sidewalk.

"I'm going to head out," Jungwon says, his voice steady despite the visible tremor in his hands. He walks over, stepping into the small circle of light near the door and reaches out to gently take one of Jace's hands. "Listen, Jace. I really like you, like…a lot. That hasn't changed because of...anything that happened tonight."

Jace lets out a shaky breath, searching Jungwon's face for any sign of pity or regret but all he finds is only warmth.

"I understand if this is going to slow things down for us," Jungwon continues, stroking the back of Jace's knuckles with his thumb. "I know this is a lot. It's huge. And I'm ready to wait until you have it all figured out with your family and your brother. You don't have to rush into anything for me."

Your heart literally aches in your chest at his words. It feels so unfair that after finally finding someone who sees him for who he truly is, Jace has to put his happiness on hold because of Jake's selfishness. They shouldn't have to wait, they should be allowed to just be two college students enjoying a night out, not navigating a family crisis.

Jungwon leans in then, cupping Jace's tear stained face and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead before moving down to his lips. It's a quiet kiss but it’s so full of a promise that isn't going anywhere.

"Please don't cry anymore," Jungwon whispers against his skin. "I'll text you tomorrow, okay? Just breathe."

With one last supportive squeeze of Jace's hand, he gives you a quick hug and slips out the door. The click of the lock seems to echo in the sudden silence of the room and Jace stands there for a moment, staring at the wood of the door, looking smaller and more fragile than you've ever seen him in all the years you've been friends.

The adrenaline that kept you walking through the pain finally vanishes and leaves both of you standing in the middle of the room, with broken hearts and bleeding knees, wondering how everything went so wrong so fast. You sit on the bed and when he follows suit, you immediately reach for his hand.

"I hate him so much," he whispers and you almost catch the words so over the hum of the air conditioner.

He twists his hands together over and over. "I hate that I share his face. I hate that I have to look in the mirror every morning and see the person who just destroyed the only thing that made me feel like I wasn't just a collection of grades and expectations."

When he abruptly turns to face you, his knee bumps yours and you gasp in pain, making him look down. "Oh fuck. Y/n, your knees," he breathes, his own grief momentarily eclipsed by horror. "Did he—Did Jake do that to you?"

"No," you say, your voice cracking as you look down at all the dried blood. "I fell trying to catch up to you. He tried to help, but I wouldn't let him."

Jace pulls himself together enough to stand up and grab his first aid kit from under the bed. He's always prepared like that—the exact opposite of Jake, who probably doesn't even own a band aid. He kneels on the floor, his hands still a little shaky as he begins to gently dab at the gravel and dried blood on your knees with an antiseptic wipe.

"He's going to tell them, isn't he? He's going to tell our parents. He can't keep a secret to save his life, especially not one that makes him feel like he has leverage."

You reach down and run your fingers through his hair, trying to provide him with some kind of anchor in the middle of his storm. "If he does, we'll handle it. But Jace, look at what Jungwon said. He's staying. You're not alone in this anymore."

"I really just wanted one thing for myself," Jace sighs, continuing to clean your wounds. "Just one part of my life that wasn't shadowed by him or lived for someone else's approval. And he took it. He took it and he made it ugly."

He takes a cotton ball soaks with some rubbing alcohol. "This is gonna hurt," he murmurs but you can tell he's the one trying to focus.

"Forget that," you say even though you nearly scream when the ball hits your raw skin. "Talk to me about the rooftop. Before the disaster happened...how was it? Tell me everything about you and Jungwon."

Jace pauses with a mew cotton ball in his hand and for a second the devastation in his expression lifts. A shy smile breaks through his tear stained face and he ducks his head, looking down at your knees to hide his expression.

"I really, really like him, Y/n," he admits with a voice that has lost that jagged edge of despair. "He's so easy to talk to. We sat there for an hour just talking about movies and his architecture stuff and it felt like...I don't know, like I didn't even have to filter myself."

"I knew it!" you chirp, trying to keep the mood light. You lean back on your elbows, completely forgetting the throbbing in your legs. "So, come on, give me the details. Who initiated the kiss? Was it you, Mr. risk taker?"

Jace's entire face turns a beautiful shade of pink, the blush spreads all the way to the tips of his ears. "No," he mumbles, carefully placing a large bandage over your right knee. "It was Jungwon but…it wasn't even like it came out of nowhere. I—uh I kind of walked right into it."

"Explain. Now."

He lets out this sheepish laugh as he pulls out another bandage. "He asked me why I was shaking so much, if I was just cold or something. And I meant to say I was just a little overwhelmed, but my brain kinda did this weird thing. I looked at him and said yeah, well, hot guys make me nervous."

You let out a scream, even though Jace groans in embarrassment. "You didn't!"

"I did," he says, hiding his face in his hands for a second. "I realized what I said immediately and wanted to sink into the ground but he just laughed and told me I was plenty hot too, then he just...kissed me. I swear it was the best four minutes of my life, Y/n. Until I heard Jake's voice."

He sighs but the blush is still there like a small flicker of warmth in the middle of a cold night. "At least I know it's real. Jake might’ve ruined the moment but it doesn’t take away the fact that Jungwon called me hot."

Jace's hands go still as he finishes taping the final bandage. The brief smile vanishes as he stares at the floor. "I should probably tell my parents before Jake can get to them. I need to be the one to say it." Jace says quietly.

"You're right," you agree, nodding firmly despite the exhaustion deep in your bones. "He could do it tomorrow when he drives back for that dinner. You just have to get there first. Go before Jake even has a chance to pull into the driveway."

Jace looks up at you with pleading vulnerable eyes. "Will you come with me? Please? I don't think I can stand in that house and face them—or him—alone."

You feel a physical wave of revulsion hit you at the mere thought of being near Jake again. "Jace, I love you," you say. "You know I'd do almost anything for you. But I don't think I can see Jake right now. To be honest, after all the things I said to him tonight? I think I’ll just make things worse. If I see his face, I'm going to start screaming again and that's the last thing you need during a family talk."

Jace sighs and his shoulders slump but he nods in understanding. He knows you're right, the air between you and his twin is currently pure poison.

"I get it," he agrees, rubbing his tired eyes. "I just...I don't know how I'm going to look at him without thinking about how he tried to ruin the best thing that's happened to me in years."

"You won't look at him," you say, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "You'll look at your parents, you'll tell your truth and then you'll remember that Jungwon is waiting for you back here. Jake is just noise, Jace. Loud, very selfish noise."

Jace rests his heavy head on your thighs, finally letting his muscles relax as you slowly run your fingers through his hair. He lets out a long, shaky sigh that seems to vibrate against your legs, the quiet of the dorm room is finally settling in around you when he suddenly blurts something out.

"It was so hot, Y/n."

You pause your hand in his hair cause you’re startled by the jarring shift in his tone. He's staring at the wall now, even though his head is still in your lap, you can see his face warming in a way that puts his earlier blush to shame.

"I was literally trying so hard not to moan when he grabbed the back of my neck," he confesses, in both awe and embarrassment. "And then... I totally popped a boner. I'm so sure he felt it, too."

A laugh slips out of you but Jace isn't finished, groaning and burying his face deeper into your lap. "The whole time, that comment you made about who was going to be the top or the bottom just kept looping in my head," he mumbles, his voice muffled. "I was standing there thinking—Oh gosh, if things actually get that far tonight, what am I even doing? Am I topping? Am I bottoming?—I didn't even have a plan for that part of the game plan."

"Jace!" you gasp, all delighted that he's finally sharing the scandalous details. "Not the full on identity crisis in the middle of a make out session." You laugh harder.

"I couldn't help it!" he defends himself, peeking up at you with a pout. "I was too focused on not passing out from how good he tasted that when my brain started asking about logistics, my body panicked."

Despite the tragedy of the night, seeing your best friend this flustered over the actual mechanics of his crush makes him feel a little more like the Jace you know—always overthinking everything, including the best kiss of his life.

"Since you were so focused on not passing out...what did he actually taste like?" You ask, giving his hair a playful little tug to pull him out of his spiral,

Jace goes quiet for a second, his eyes drifting toward the ceiling as he actually takes a moment to process the memory. A foggy look washes over his face and he lets out an almost mortified little laugh before looking back at you.

"Like peaches and cream," he whispers so innocently.

The silence in the room hangs for exactly half a second before you both burst into a fit of laughter, your shoulders shaking so hard it jars your injured knees. "Peaches and cream?!" you shriek, clutching your stomach. "Jace, oh my god. That is the corniest, fanfiction level thing I have ever heard in my life!"

"I'm serious!" he protests, making his face turn an even darker shade of red as he tries to hide his smile. "He had this lip balm on or maybe it was his drink, I don't know! It was sweet and soft and that's just what came to mind."

"You are such a hopeless romantic," you tease, wiping a stray tear of laughter from your eye. "Peaches and cream. Next, you're going to tell me his eyes were shimmering like the morning dew or something."

"Shut up," he makes like he’s going to hit your knee before shoving his face back into your lap to hide his grin. "I can't help it if the guy tastes like a dessert."

"A dessert you wanna devour," you tease making him shake his head from side to side like he’s trying to shake out the image you’ve put in his head.

As you sit there stroking Jace's hair, his comments fade into the background of your mind and a bitter taste of old memories take their place. This isn't the first time Jake has taken a moment of joy and turned it into something horrible. He's been a horrible person since you've known him, always needing to be the loudest and cruelest person in the room.

Your mind drifts back to junior prom. Jace had asked you to be his date, promising and swearing on heaven and earth that it wasn’t out of pity but because you were best friends and he genuinely wanted to spend the night with you. At the time, your skin was a constant map of acne and your mouth was a mess of metal braces. You felt like a project, instead of a princess but your mom had found a soft, shimmering baby pink dress that made you feel almost pretty and Jace had carefully pinned a corsage to your wrist that matched the fabric perfectly.

The three of you were standing in the foyer of the Sim house, their mom was fussing with a camera and beaming about how handsome her boys looked and how lovely you were. Jace was smiling at you, making you feel like an actual princess, like you actually belonged in a ballroom.

Then Jake opened his mouth, you remember how he leaned against the banister and looked you up and down with a sneer that almost made you start shaking. "Wow, mom," he'd dragged out, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I didn't know the local zoo was doing a shave the sheep fundraiser tonight. Is that why she's wearing so much glitter? To distract us from the fact that her dress is holding on for dear life? Honestly, Jace, I know you're the charitable twin but taking the before picture to prom is a new low even for you."

You remember how the room had gone deathly silent, Mrs Sim had gasped and Jace had immediately started shouting at his brother but the damage was done. Every time you looked in the mirror after the dance, all you saw was the before picture. Your confidence had plummeted drastically after that, if Jake thought he’d just ruined your night, he was wrong cause he’d managed to ruin your body image perception for years. All because he couldn't stand to see someone else—especially his boring brother—being happy.

Looking down at Jace now, you realize he's been fighting the same monster his whole life. Jake doesn't just ruin nights—he ruins the people themselves.

The memory of that night still leaves a sour feeling in the pit of your stomach, even years later. Mrs Sim hadn't let it slide though, the second those words left Jake's mouth, her face had turned a shade of red that rivaled your own blush and she had immediately grounded him for the next month, stripping away his car keys right there in the foyer. But the discipline didn't matter to you then because the sting of his words had already sunk in too deep.

Jace had been so patient with you that night, his hands hovering near your shoulders as you stood by the front door with tears threatening to spill over. "Please, Y/n, don't cry," he had begged, his voice soft and desperate. He wasn't being dismissive, he was trying to save the one thing he knew you'd spent hours on. "If you start now, it'll ruin your makeup and you looked so happy when you finished it. Don't let him take that away from you. You look so beautiful, I swear it."

He had spent the next twenty minutes distracting you with stupid jokes until your breathing finally evened out, showing the same kind of protective loyalty he still shows today. It's a pattern you recognize now—Jace spending his life trying to patch up the holes Jake rips into people. You continue to rub your hand through his hair, realizing that while your appearance has changed a lot since that prom, the dynamic between the three of you hasn't shifted an inch. Jake is still the wrecking ball and Jace is still the one left standing in the debris with you.

The rest of the weekend felt like a heart wrenching countdown, you hadn't even bothered going back to your own room that Friday night, crashing on Jace's bed right next to him seemed like the appropriate thing to do, the two of you talked in exhausted murmurs until the early hours of the morning.

When his alarm went off at exactly six in the morning, the room was still gray and Jace was a ghost of himself, pale and agonizingly silent as he threw a few things into his duffel bag. He had to beat Jake and be the one to set the narrative before his brother could twist it into something ugly. You watched from the window as his car pulled out of the lot and his taillights disappeared into the morning mist, then you spent the next three hours pacing your own dorm room, completely unable to sit still.

Then when your phone buzzed with a video call request from Jace, you swiped with a shaky hand to see him sitting at his parent's kitchen table. The camera was propped up against a fruit bowl or something, giving you a clear view of both him and his parents even though he was a little cut off, you could tell they were concerned but trying to keep calm. Jace's face was a mess, his eyes were already rimmed with red and his hands were shaking so violently on the tabletop that he had to clasp them together.

"Mom...Dad..." His voice was a thin thread that threatened to snap at any second. "I...I have to tell you something. I've been...so scared to say it because I didn't want anything to change but I can't keep it inside anymore. I'm...I'm gay."

The silence on the other end of the line felt like it lasted a century, it lasted so long that Jace let out a sob that sounded like he was choking and dropping his head as he waited for the blow to fall, like he was waiting for his life to officially be over.

But that never came.

You saw his mother immediately stand up and move around the table, she gathered her son's head against her chest, stroking his hair exactly the way you had the night before.

"Oh, my sweet sweet boy," she whispered, her own voice thick with emotion. "I knew. We always knew. We were just waiting for you to be ready to tell us."

Jace's dad leaned forward, his expression soft and pained. "Jaejun, why were you so scared? Did you really think we wouldn't love you the same? Why did you carry this for so long by yourself?"

"I didn't want to be another issue for you guys," Jace sobbed into his mother's apron. "With everything Jake does...I just wanted to be the perfect son. I didn't want to disappoint you."

Hearing that confession broke something inside you all over again as you sat on the edge of your bed with tears streaming down your face in silent solidarity. The relief was like a physical weight lifting off your chest—Jace was finally safe, he was finally his true self in the one place he had always felt he had to perform.

His mother looked up and finally noticed your face on the screen. "Oh Y/n, my love. Is that you?" she asked with a watery smile.

"Hi, Mrs. Sim," you managed to say, wiping your eyes and waving weakly. "I'm so happy for him."

"We are too, dear," she said. "Thank you for looking after him."

Jace pulled back and wiped his nose with his sleeve before giving you a look of nothing but gratitude. "I'll call you when I get back to campus tonight," he whispered. "I love you, Y/n."

"Love you too, Jace. Go be with them."

The call ended and you were left in your suddenly very quiet room, you spent the rest of your Sunday buried in your textbooks, the words had finally started to make sense now that the static of Jace's secret was gone. For the first time in a long time, the world felt like it was exactly where it was supposed to be.

Things fell back into place barely two days after that and by Wednesday afternoon when you’re sat at a table with Jace and Jungwon in the dining hall, they’re pretty much in their own bubble, leaning so close to each other that their shoulders are pinned together. Jungwon is whispering something into Jace's ear that makes Jace duck his head and actually giggle.

"Okay, look," you say, propping your chin on your hand and giving them a fake disgusted look. "You guys are adorable, really. It's sickening. But can you please stop rubbing your new love in my face while I'm trying to eat this subpar pasta? My eyes are bleeding."

Jungwon laughs and you watch his eyes crinkle at the corners but he does lean back, finally giving Jace some breathing room. "Honestly, Y/n, I really can't understand how you're still single. I've sat in the library and heard guys talking about how gorgeous you are. You could have your pick of anyone on campus."

Jace turns to Jungwon with a teasing smirk on his face. "Oh, don't let her fool you. She's a hopeless romantic but she has these impossibly high standards, which she should obviously but the second a guy trips up or shows a hint of a red flag, she cuts them off immediately. Total ghost protocol."

"Hey, it's not my fault most guys just want to fuck anyway," you add with a shrug, making them both laugh. "I'm not interested in being someone's weekend project."

You're all laughing, it really feels like the vibes finally light and normal again but that’s when you catch a glimpse of someone standing a few feet behind Jace and your smile falters.

It's Jake.

It's the first time you've seen him since that night and for a moment, you don't even recognize him. The cocky, golden boy glow is completely gone and he looks like a total mess, wearing a wrinkled and stained hoodie with his hair is unwashed and even from here, you swear you can see the heavy bags under his eyes. He's also very pale, in a way that actually unnerves you and his eyes look bloodshot and sunken. A small flicker of worry pricks at your chest but you’re quick to brush it off, reminding yourself of how he acted just a few days ago.

When your eyes catch his and he realizes you've spotted him, he doesn't smirk or offer some rude catcall. He just walks up to the table with his eyes entirely set on Jace, not even bothering to look at you or Jungwon.

"Jace," he says in a voice that’s devoid of its usual bravado. "Can we talk? Just real quick. Somewhere else."

Jace stiffens and his hand instinctively reaches for Jungwon's under the table. "Why couldn't you just call me, Jake? Or wait until I was at the dorm?"

Jake lets out a breath that sounds more like a wheeze. "I've been texting you for days, Jace. You haven't responded once. I...I really need to talk to you."

The lack of an argument or a snarky comeback is the most alarming part and it hits you like whiplash. Jace looks at you, then at Jungwon before letting out a defeated sigh. "Fine. Five minutes."

He stands up and follows Jake towards a far corner of the dining hall, where there are less people. You watch their retreating backs, noting how Jace's is rigid and very defensive while Jake's is slumped and almost defeated. Even though the villain of the story looks like he's finally been defeated, you can't shake the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Something is and feels very, very wrong.

Jungwon notices the way you're staring in the direction they’re in with your fork hovering aimlessly over your plate and he reaches over to give your hand a reassuring squeeze. "Hey, don't overthink it. It's probably just sibling stuff. They probably just need to yell at each other for a few minutes and get it out of their systems."

You nod slowly, trying to force the image of Jake's red eyes out of your mind. "Yeah. You're right. It's just...Jake didn't even look like Jake."

"Let’s focus on something else," Jungwon says, effortlessly pivoting the conversation. "Sloane's birthday is this weekend, remember? She's doing this big dinner on Friday and then after that, all the girls are heading to that club downtown. She really wants you there but she realized she lost your number after that project ended. She told me to make sure you were coming."

The mention of a night out with Sloane and some girls is exactly the distraction you need. You immediately beam as your excitement bubbling up. "Oh, I am so there! I haven't been out in forever. I need a reason to wear something sexy."

"I figured," Jungwon grins, sliding his phone across the table toward you. "Here, take her number and text her so she can add you to the group chat or something. She's already planning the pre game."

As you're typing the digits into your phone, you start to hear Jace’s footsteps as he makes his way back to the table looking very annoyed—his jaw is set tight and he's shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

"Everything okay?" Jungwon asks softly.

Jace just nods and drops back into his seat with a heavy thud. "Fine. Just Jake being Jake," he says but the words feel like he practiced them for you. He picks up his water glass but he doesn't drink and he starts looking at you and it’s not in his usual just admiring you way. It’s a weird and searching look, even a little hesitant but it makes the hair in your arms stand up. He keeps glancing at you, then quickly looking away the second you catch his eye, then looking back again.

"Jace?" you finally ask, setting your phone down. "What's wrong? You're looking at me like I've got a third head. Did Jake say something?"

Jace blinks, tearing his eyes away from you so fast he nearly knocks over his water glass. "No," he insists too hastily like he doesn’t even want you to think of Jake saying anything that would matter. "Seriously, it's nothing. Just Jake being a dramatic idiot as usual."

Before you can press him on it, he turns sharply to Jungwon, his knuckles whitening as he grips his fork. "Did you...did you tell her about Sloane's birthday yet? The dinner this Friday?"

"Yeah, just did," Jungwon replies, looking between the two of you with a curious lift of his brow. "She's already getting Sloane's number from my phone."

"Good. That's good," Jace murmurs, nodding rapidly. "You should definitely go, Y/n. You need a fun night out."

The knot in your stomach tightens again. You know Jace is usually a terrible liar but right now he seems to be vibrating with whatever secret Jake just dropped in his lap. The way he keeps avoiding your eyes feels heavy and almost protective, like he's trying to shield you from something.

Jungwon seems to want to ease the awkwardness settling over the table, he shifts in his seat and attempts to break the tension. "Hey, I just noticed," he says with a warm smile as he points a finger toward your collarbone. "You always have that gold necklace on every time I see you. It's really beautiful, Y/n."

You’re a little caught off guard by the sudden redirection but your posture soon relaxes and you beam, your fingers flying up to habitually trace the delicate gold charm resting warm against your skin. "Oh, thank you! Jace actually got it for me a while back."

Beside him, Jace cocks his head and his brow furrowing in blank confusion as he stares down at the jewelry. "I did? When?"

You let out a loud scoff before rolling your eyes dramatically at him. "Are you serious right now? You don't even remember? Wow, your memory is horrific, Jace. I literally wear it almost every single day."

It was the morning of your eighteenth birthday, it was also the bittersweet summer just before you all packed up to start college. You had woken up to a house smelling like your favorite pancakes but when you went back to your bedroom to change, you found it sitting right there on your unmade bed. A small box wrapped in deep red velvet and propped up against it was a cream colored card. There was no grand speech or birthday essay, just three words written in a hurried script—From J. Happy 18th.

When you snapped the velvet box open, the delicate gold chain had caught the morning sunlight and gleamed perfectly against the white satin lining. You had figured back then that he was just too shy to give it to you in person or maybe he didn't want to make a massive deal out of it in front of your family and friends. It was so classic Jace, so thoughtful and entirely lowkey. 

You shake your head, laughing it off as you snap back to the present, giving him a playful pout. "Anyway, since you clearly have the memory of a goldfish, let’s just move on, I'm definitely going to Sloane's birthday dinner."

You’ve already decided to let it all go, if Jace wanted you to know about Jake, he'd tell you.

"And you two better not ruin my vibe by being all attached at the hip if you come to the pre game."

Jungwon scoffs playfully, shoving Jace's shoulder. "Hey, I can be independent! Jace is the clingy one."

"I am not!" Jace protests, his cheeks flushing as he finally lets out a real laugh.

Just like that, the heavy shadow Jake left behind begins to dissipate again, melting back into the comforting clatter of the dining hall. You fall back into your breezy conversation, arguing over who has the worst taste in music and planning what you're going to wear on Friday night and willfully ignoring the sinking feeling that the other shoe is just about to drop.

Friday came quicker than you anticipated, probably because after the unsettling tension of Wednesday afternoon, the rest of the week had crashes into a montage of lectures and late night studying. But now it was the night of Sloane's birthday dinner and your dorm room looked a mess from you digging through your closet.

Meanwhile, your bed had been completely hijacked. With your back turned to the room as you desperately rifled through your closet, you could hear the unmistakable sounds of Jace and Jungwon behind you. The rustle of sheets mixed with soft murmurs and the distinct, wet smacking of their lips as they kissed. It was like they physically could not keep their hands off each other for more than thirty seconds.

"I love that you guys are happy but I am begging you to stop procreating on my comforter while I'm in the middle of a crisis," you groaned, throwing another hanger onto the floor in defeat.

You officially gave up, so in a dramatic display of frustration, you threw your hands in the air and let your body collapse backward, laying flat on the cold floor in just your bra and panties.

"I'm not going," you announced to the ceiling before letting out a miserable groan. "I can't find a single thing to wear. You guys should just leave without me, go have fun and let me rot in peace."

From the bed, Jungwon let out a loud laugh. You heard him sit up from between Jace’s legs and when you rolled your head over to look at them, he was leaning on his elbows, staring down at you on the floor.

"I know I said this before," Jungwon said, shaking his head with a grin, "but Y/n, your body is fucking insane. Seriously. If I did girls, I swear I'd be all up on you right now."

"Hey!" Jace immediately piped up, his voice spiking with a funny combo of mock offense and protective best friend energy as he swatted Jungwon's arm.

"I said if!" Jungwon defended himself, laughing and lifting his hands in retreat. "I'm just appreciating the view! She looks amazing."

Their ridiculousness finally cracked your bad mood and you sat up, crossing your legs on the carpet before offering Jungwon a playful hair flip. "Thank you, Jungwon," you said, sending a smug look in Jace's direction. "At least someone in this room appreciates the effort it takes to look this hopelessly single."

Jace rolls his eyes playfully, leaning over to drape his arm over Jungwon's shoulders. "Oh, please. Don't let Jungwon feed your drama. You have plenty of clothes. What about that black two piece?"

You blink up at him from the floor. "Which one?"

"The one you wore to that lounge downtown like three months ago," Jace says, pointing a finger at you like a detective solving a case. "I literally remember because I had to play bodyguard the entire night. Three different guys at the bar approached you within the first hour of us getting there. One of them literally choked on his drink when you walked past."

A lightbulb instantly goes off in your head. "Oh my god," you gasp, jumping up from the carpet. "Jace, you are an absolute genius."

You dive back into the depths of your closet, tossing aside a few stray cardigans and tops until your fingers finally brush against the familiar, sleek fabric of the two piece. It's perfect.

You quickly slip into the outfit, smoothing the skirt down over your hips and adjusting the top in your full length mirror. Turning around, you strike a dramatic pose for your audience of two. "Well? Does the bodyguard approve?"

Both boys look up and right on cue, they nod in total satisfaction. Jace looks like he’s proud of his own styling skills, while Jungwon lets out a low whistle, shifting back against your pillows with a grin.

"Yeah, definitely that one," Jungwon says, giving you a lazy smirk. "That's hot. Sloane is going to lose her mind."

"Finally. Can we go?" Jace asks, getting up from the bed and taking Jungwon’s hand in his.

"We are getting trashhh-ed, we are getting loose, no more books, just cranberry and booze!" you belt out at the top of your lungs as you step out of the room, doing a ridiculous, little shuffle right down the middle of the dorm hallway. You toss a dramatic hip shake into the choreography, the heels of your knee length boots clicking against the linoleum.

"Sloane is turning older and I am looking fly, if a frat boy breathes near me I am gonna make him cry!"

Behind you, Jace and Jungwon start losing it over your rap. "Oh my god, please lower your voice, the RA is going to write us up before we even hit the lobby," Jace wheezes, pressing a hand over his mouth as his shoulders shake with laughter. He jogs a few steps to catch up, playfully nudging your shoulder.

"Don't listen to him, Y/n, it's a lyrical masterpiece," Jungwon hypes you up from a few feet back, pulling out his phone to record your makeshift victory lap. He's grinning from ear to ear, clearly entertained by the striking difference between your stunning outfit and your chaotic energy.

"Give us another verse!" Jungwon challenges, keeping his phone camera pointed right at you as he jogs a couple steps to keep up with your backward walking pace.

You don't even hesitate before you drop your voice an octave, adopt a ridiculously serious facial expression and point a finger gun directly at his camera lens. "Pop the bottles at the table, yeah we doing it right, Jungwon's paying for the drinks so we can party all night!"

Jace lets out a loud gasp, slapping his hand against the wall as he cracks up. "Oh, shit! She got you!"

Jungwon drops his phone slightly, his eyes widening in a mix of genuine surprise and amusement. "Yo, hold on, that actually went hard," he says, nodding his head to an imaginary beat while Jace cheers you on. Jungwon steps up beside you, looking impressed by your quick wit. "The flow? Y/n, be honest with me, have you ever considered a career in rapping? Because I think you just found your true calling."

₊ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 𓈒⊹

Jake Sim has a lot of problems in his life, for example there's his absolute joke of his grades, his mountain of unread texts from people who only want him for his car or his fake ID and there's also soul crushing fact that his twin brother thinks he's a raging homophobe. But his absolute worst problem was the fact that girl he was completely and painfully head over heels in love with absolutely hated his fucking guts and honestly why wouldn’t you?

He didn't always mean to be a monster, it just always came out that way whenever he got within five feet of you, like a defense mechanism he'd perfected over years of watching you look at Jace like he hung the fucking moon.

For years, Jake had been trapped in his own head, completely convinced that you and Jace had a secret thing going on. You were always whispering with his twin, always sharing looks he couldn't quite catch, always a single unit. It was the exact reason he'd never confessed or ever opened up all these years, he simply couldn't face the humiliation of competing with his perfect brother for your heart. So instead, he played the role of the obnoxious guy cause it was easier to be hated for a fake persona than rejected for who he actually was.

The night of the lit major mixer while he was leaning against a makeshift table by the bar and running his mindless routine on some girl whose name he hadn't even caught. He wasn't paying attention to her, already bored of her giggles and pathetic attempts at flirting. His eyes were scanning the room looking for something or someone else more entertaining and that's when he spotted you standing with your friend.

You looked incredibly sweet, you always did in a way that always tugged at his heart. Your dress, the way your hair was styled, the sight of you landed like a hammer against his ribs, you were so beautiful in a way that made him feel that familiar, pathetic ache all over again. Then he heard you and your friend let out a synchronized squeal over a phone, you looked so happy and it couldn't help but want to be in your space immediately. So he abandoned the girl at the bar without a second thought, he moved into your space while he masked his pounding heart with his trademark smirk.

"Well, well," he said, stepping directly into your personal bubble, ignoring how you instantly stiffened. "That's a very pretty dress, baby doll. What aisle of the candy store did you come from? Cause you look incredibly sweet tonight."

Your face twisted in total disgust as usual. "That is the worst line I have ever heard, Jake. Seriously, stop."

He didn't flinch, definitely used to the lashings by now. He offered a smooth "And hello to you too, Sandra" to your friend, completely unbothered when she corrected him that her name was Sloane. He shrugged it off, eager to get back to the only person he cared about. "Sloane, Sandra...both beautiful, just like you. What's the difference?"

"So, where's my boring other half? I figured if you were here, he'd be trailing behind you like a lost puppy."

"He's not here, Jake. And for the record, you are the boring one," you snapped, ditching him to head straight for the exit.

Panic immediately spread in his chest, he didn't want you to leave, he was desperate and something in him told him he'd never get you alone without Jace like this again. But when you asked him why he was even here, his brain scrambled and all he could throw out was a crude comment, jerking his thumb toward the bar girl and making a vile joke about trying out lit major pussy, just to see if it would get a rise out of you. It worked but not the way he wanted. You looked at him, repulsed and swiveled to bolt down the stairwell.

"Hold on for a sec," he called out to you, his teasing facade shifting a little.

"Go away, Jake!" you yelled back.

"Wait up, I'm serious," he pleaded, his heavy boots clattering down the concrete stairs behind your platform slippers. By the second floor landing, the smug layer was entirely gone and he was completely desperate. "Y/n, stop. I actually have something important I need to ask you. Just...hold on." He needed to know, needed to finally ask if you and Jace were actually together because the uncertainty had started to eat at him.

You made it to the ground floor, your hand slamming onto the heavy metal handle of the exit door. Jake lunged forward, throwing his hand over your head to hold the door shut, trapping you. "I'm not joking, listen to—" But his eyes shifted to the glass and his words deserted him. He didn't need to ask you anything because his answer was right there just through the door, in the form of his twin brother pinning a guy to the bike racks and kissing him with such fervor.

"What the fuck?" Jake breathed out in a deep exhale and a massive puzzle slammed together in his head and it left him utterly breathless, in fact he wanted to faint.

Jace was not straight.

All those years...all those years of Jake staying away from you, trying to keep his mouth shut, torturing himself because he thought you and Jace were secretly dating or harboring feelings for each other—it had all been a lie. A massive and colossal misunderstanding. You weren't a couple, you were just best friends and Jace had been hiding this massive secret from everyone, including him.

The anger that boiled up in Jake in that exact second wasn't because Jace was kissing a guy. It wasn't homophobia, it was just a violent wave of betrayal and resentment. He was angry partially because Jace had hidden it but mostly because Jace's silence had accidentally locked Jake out of ever pursuing the only girl he loved, leaving him to waste years acting like a villain while his own brother kept him in the dark.

The shock hardened into an unreadable, defensive mask and without hesitating, Jake hurled the door open and stormed into the night.

"Jake, stop! Please, just leave them alone!" you sobbed behind him, grabbing his arm with both hands to anchor him. He didn't even look at you as he violently jerked his shoulder away, shoving you off so hard you stumbled back against the cold brick wall of the stairwell. He didn't mean to hurt you—he never wanted to hurt you—but his blood was boiling too hot.

"What the fuck, Jace?!" Jake's voice boomed through the quiet courtyard.

The two boys sprang apart and Jace turned deathly pale.

"Are you serious right now?" Jake stepped closer, his looming posture dripping with guard that fully looked like aggression. "You're gay? You've been playing this whole honors student part while you're out here kissing dudes? Lying to our parents? Why didn't you say anything?"

The questions were frantic, maybe too accusatory and completely lopsided by his own internal panic. He was essentially screaming—Why did you let me believe you guys were together? Why didn't you trust me? But that's definitely not what everyone else was hearing.

You threw yourself between them, pressing your hands against Jake's chest. "Jake, shut up! Stop it right now! This isn't the time or place. Leave him alone!"

Jake didn't budge, staring directly over your head into his twin's terrified eyes. He wanted Jace to explain, to say something that would make sense of the years of distance between them.

But Jace just let out a bitter, icy laugh. "Wow," Jace spit. "You find out your brother is gay and your first instinct isn't to wonder why I was too scared to tell you. It's to accuse me of living a lie because it bruises your pathetic ego."

Jace's eyes turned cold. "You truly are a vile excuse for a human being, Jake. I've spent twenty two years sharing your face and every day I wake up wishing I could tear it off just so I don't have to look like someone so completely devoid of anything decent. You're not my fucking brother. You're just a mistake that happened four minutes before me."

The words left an invisible wound in Jake, he could've sworn getting stabbed would've hurt less. He stood there frozen as Jace turned and ran, wanting to scream that Jace had it all wrong, that he wasn't mad about who Jace liked, he was mad because the lie had cost him everything, cost him time. He thought of you but the blinding hatred and tears he had seen in your eyes told him everything he needed to know. You would never believe him, you would always choose Jace.

The blinding rush of anger only broke when he heard the sickening sound of your shoes catching on the uneven pavement. He tore his eyes from Jace just in time to see you crash heavily onto the concrete sidewalk, your body tumbling forward in the dark. He rushed over, dropping to his knees, his hands hovering over your shaking shoulders. All he wanted to do was lift you up, clean the dirt and blood already seeping from the wound and carry you somewhere safe. He wanted to be the one to protect you.

But the moment he reached for you, you flinched away as if his touch were poison. The look of burning hatred you hurled at him through your tears froze the air in his lungs. You wouldn't budge. You screamed at him to stay away, even with your voice raw and broken and no matter how much he begged you to just let him help, you refused to let him near you. You tore into him, calling him a shadow Jace has been trying to outrun and finally saying the words that made his jaw tighten in unmistakable heartbreak. "I hate you. I think I've always hated you."

He tried to deny it, ignoring the crack in his voice as he growled out that you didn't mean it but it was more like he was trying to convince himself and not you. But you just laughed right in his face and doubled down, like you wanted to ensure every single word cut like a knife.

His hands were shaking violently at his sides as he muttered for you to stop, but you just wouldn't. Maybe you really did hate him and his presence was only making you spiral deeper into distress, so he finally backed off but he refused to just leave you bleeding in the dark. So, he got back in his car and kept his foot light on the gas, tracking your slow limping figure from the street, driving right beside you along the curb. He ignored the honks of other cars, keeping his lights blinking, purely focused on ensuring you made it across campus and straight to the safety of Jace's dorm building.

The second the heavy glass doors of the honors dorm closed behind your shivering form, the last string holding Jake together snapped.

He slammed his foot on the accelerator and the engine roared as he sped recklessly through the campus gates, tearing down the empty roads all the way back to his off campus apartment. He doesn't remember much of the actual drive or how he even managed to park the car without wrecking it, he does remember how his eyes blurred so violently from tears that the streetlamps bled into long streaks of yellow light down his cheeks. He remembers stumbling through his front door and wanting to not be around anymore the moment the gravity of his own wreckage finally collapsed on top of him.

What had he done?

He had wanted to fix a years long misunderstanding, maybe finally clear the air so he could be a man and tell you how he felt. Instead, in the span of less than ten minutes, he had severed his bond with his twin brother, terrified the girl he loved and cemented himself as the villain in both of their stories.

Jake inevitably fell into a deep, dark slump that very weekend. By Saturday morning, he was desperate to numb the static buzzing in his brain, so he took a random pill he'd bought off some guy at a party weeks ago. Which was a massive mistake because instead of taking the edge off, it triggered a severe drop in his serotonin, sending him spiraling into a hollow depression.

He spent all of Saturday and Sunday locked in his room, staring at the ceiling as his phone rang out with calls from his parents. He didn't make it to the Sunday family dinner, how could he? Jace wasn't picking up his calls or answering any of his frantic texts and the fear of facing his parents kept him paralyzed. He knew exactly what would happen if he went home—Jace had probably already told them everything about how he had acted and he knew wouldn't take his side, they never did.

Wrapping his arms around his head in the dark, he finally had to admit it to himself for the first time in his life, the armor and the denial wasn't working—he was depressed.

The thought felt heavy and bitter in his chest, it was a truth he had spent years violently sprinting away from. He had never, ever admitted it to himself before, sure he'd sat in those sterile therapist offices his parents forced him into. He'd watched the doctors scribble notes on their clipboards, speaking in those careful tones that made him want to rip his own skin off. And yeah, he'd been put on medication and he did the work, swallowing those little pills because it was easier than fighting his mother about it.

But taking them had never meant he accepted it. To teenage Jake and even to an older one, the diagnosis wasn't a medical reality for him, it always felt more like a verdict. It was proof that everyone around him, from even his mother to his twin brother, looked at him and saw something defective, maybe even broken that needed to be chemically altered just to be tolerable.

The meds were just a reminder that Jace was born right and Jake was born wrong.

So he'd hidden behind the noise and built this fuck boy persona, where he drank too much and laughed too loud, treating everything like a joke so he could prove to the world and to himself that he was fine and he was normal. He had convinced himself that if he just ran fast enough, that shadow wouldn't catch him.

But sitting there in the dark, with his serotonin and dopamine entirely depleted by a reckless choice, the noise was gone. Jace wouldn't answer his calls, you hated his guts and probably wouldn't even spit on him if he were on fire and his parents were a looming storm he couldn't face.

He didn't step foot outside his apartment until Wednesday afternoon and the only reason he did was because he absolutely had to see a professor for a class he was currently failing. His head throbbed, his skin felt itchy under his wrinkled hoodie and he hadn't taken a shower or eaten a single thing in days. He tried to make one good decision, to get some food in his system so after meeting with the professor, he made his way to the dining hall, only to be hit with the sight of you as soon as he walked in.

You were sitting at a table laughing with Jace and the guy from that night. Watching the three of you made a bitter thought loop in his head.

Jake had always been jealous of Jace, always and it wasn't just about you, though that was the sharpest ache in his ribs. It was everything, Jace got to be the real golden boy, the honors student, the twin who didn't have to put on a loud mask just to feel like he existed or have to choose between feeling hopelessly sad or being numbed by his medication. Jace got to be soft and people loved him for it, he got to have genuine friendships, while Jake was surrounded by leeches. And now, Jace had the love of that guy along with the freedom of being completely honest and out.

Most of all, Jace had you.

Even when you were all just laughing at a table he couldn't sit at, you were looking at Jace with that protective warmth Jake would have given anything to experience just once. Jace got the best parts of the world without even trying and Jake was left standing in the shadows with the exact same face but a drastically different result.

The sight of you laughing and smiling triggered a painful memory for him. May 2021, a week before junior prom when he was sitting at the breakfast table with his family, his fingers tightly gripped around a glass of orange juice. He had spent days building up the courage to finally say the words out loud.

"I think I'm going to ask Y/n to the dance," he had announced, trying to sound casual, even though his heart was hammering against his ribs. "I want to buy her a corsage and take her."

His dad had let out a low chuckle into his coffee cup but didn't offer a real comment. Jace on the other hand, had laughed right in his face. "Are you serious, Jake?" Jace had scoffed with a shake of his head. "Y/n wouldn't even want that. We already planned to go together anyway. You'd just make it awkward for her."

Jake's chest had tightened but the real blow had yet to come, then his mother came from his reached across the table, trying to soften the impact but her words only hurt him more. "Sweetie, your brother is right. You know how sensitive Y/n is. It's probably a better idea for Jaejun to take her instead. They're best friends and he knows how to look after her."

That rejection had upset him far beyond what he even thought he was emotionally capable of handling. He was only seventeen after all, just a kid who didn't possess the emotional maturity to process the concept of his own mother openly admitting that Jace was better suited for the girl he loved. In the mind of an insecure seventeen year old Jake, it felt like his family was explicitly telling him he wasn't good enough, that he was too rough around the edges to ever deserve you.

The hurt had turned into a toxic anger and a vow to make everyone else feel as small as he felt in that kitchen table. It made him cruel.

A week later, when he stood by the banister in the foyer and watched you walk in, the cruelty spilled over. You looked so pretty in your baby pink dress, despite the braces and the acne you were so insecure about. But the second he noticed that once again, you were looking at Jace like he was your whole world and Jace was smiling back as he pinned a corsage to your wrist, Jake's heart went cold. If he couldn't have you look at him like that, he was damn well going to make sure Jace didn't get to enjoy it either. He tore you down because his own mother had torn him down first and he had been repeating that same broken cycle ever since.

Unfortunately, the exact millisecond those harsh words left his lips in the foyer, the weak armor of his anger shattered. He watched the light completely drain from your face and the tears well up in your eyes, in an instant, a surge of regret hit him. He wanted to reach out and swallow the words back down his throat, letting you know he didn't mean a single syllable of it. He didn't even care that his mother had immediately stepped in and grounded him for the next month, taking away his car keys right there in front of everyone.

The punishment was nothing compared to the burning pit in his stomach, he only wanted to make it right, pull you aside and beg on his knees for your forgiveness but he never got the chance. Jace had seamlessly stepped in, guiding you out of the house to the safety of his car while comforting you and his mother had coldly pointed toward the stairs, sending Jake up to his bedroom like some pariah.

He spent hours in the dark, listening to the muffled silence of a house that felt like it was actively rejecting him. When Jace finally came back late that night, the tension in their shared bedroom was undeniable. Jace didn't even look at him as he changed out of his tux, then out of nowhere, Jace spoke into the dark, "You know, Jaeyun, I consider Y/n more of a sibling than I consider you. She's my real twin and if I ever had the choice, I'd pick her over you in a heartbeat. And after today, I don't want you to ever come near her again."

A clean snap, if everyone in his life thought Jace was the better twin, if even his own mother openly favored Jace's gentleness over him and now his own identical brother, the person who shared his actual face, would choose you over him without a second thought—where did that leave him? It left him with absolutely no one. He was entirely alone in his own home.

That was the exact night, five years ago, Jake Sim buried his feelings for you so deep that no one could ever dig them back up. If loving you meant constantly being reminded of how inferior he was to Jace, it was safer to pretend he didn't care at all, he figured it'd be easier to be the villain they all assumed he was anyway and if he couldn't be loved for who he was, he would make sure he was desired for what he could pretend to be.

The very next week, he had asked out the prettiest girl in school and basked in the shallow attention it brought his way, only to coldly dump her for her best friend three weeks later. He didn't care about the collateral damage, he just needed to feel like he had some semblance of power, some form validation to drown out the memory of Jace's voice telling him he'd never be chosen.

He carried that exact same toxic behavior right with him to college and when he arrived on campus, he quickly realized he didn't fit in with the honors students or the artsy crowd where you and Jace flourished. Instead, he found that he only fit in with the frat boys, guys who valued the same superficial bravado he used to mask his own emptiness. He became the guy who drank too much, laughed too loud and treated girls like conquests, all because the real Jake Sim was still a heartbroken seventeen year old kid hiding in the dark, terrified of being rejected again.

In the middle of the crowded dining hall, Jake felt completely hollow with his body aching from the lingering weight of a chemically induced weekend crash. He watched the three of you from a distance, before he saw your head shift in his direction and your smile instantly vanish at the sight of him, he knew you'd spotted him. A part of him wanted to throw up his usual, cocky armor, maybe to smirk or throw out a hollow catcall at you just to hide how empty he actually felt but he simply didn't have the energy. The fake golden boy act was dead but he forced his heavy feet forward and made a direct line for your table. As he approached, he deliberately locked his eyes onto his twin, completely avoiding your gaze. He couldn't look at you cause he couldn't bear to see more of the disgust and fear that was undoubtedly written all over your face after what happened on the rooftop. He just needed his brother.

"Jace," "Can we talk? Just real quick. Somewhere else."

He watched Jace instantly stiffen, his brother's arm defensively dropping under the table, likely reaching for Jungwon's hand. Jace glared up at him all tight and unyielding. "Why couldn't you just call me, Jake? Or wait until I was at the dorm?"

Jake let out a rough breath and used his eyes to beg his twin to just cooperate for once. "I've been texting you for three days, Jace. You haven't responded once. I...I really need to talk to you."

He didn't fire back with a snarky comment, nor did he roll his eyes. He just stood there, pale and exhausted, too exposed under the bright lights. He thanked a higher being that Jace seemed to sense the genuine desperation behind the lack of an argument.

"Fine. Two minutes," Jace muttered.

Jake immediately turned around and headed toward a less crowded corner of the room, he could feel your eyes burning into his retreating back but all he could focus on was the faint hope that he could finally make his brother understand the truth before it was too late.

"Look, Jace," Jake started, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his hoodie. "First of all...I'm really sorry. About that night, I shouldn't have blasted you out in the open like that."

Jace let out a dry scoff, he didn't look like he was believing a word of what his brother was telling him. "Are you serious right now, Jake? You think an apology fixes that? You cornered us and you made it sound like I was committing some crime."

"Because I was losing my mind, Jace." Jake erupted, his defense mechanism instantly flaring up as he went into a frantic rant. He paced a small line on the tile. "You don't get it. You've never gotten it. I didn't care that you were kissing a guy, Jace. I was angry because you hid it. I was angry because you let me believe that you and Y/n—"

"Don't—Do not drag her into this," Jace cut him off in a protective growl and Jake couldn't deny the anger in his twins eyes. "Do not bring Y/n's name out of your mouth, Jake. You've done enough damage to her to last a fucking lifetime."

"You're not even listening to me." Jake pulled his hair, feeling the desperation finally snap what was left of his restraints. He stopped pacing a little and stared directly into his twin's face. "I am dragging her into this because she is the reason. I have been helplessly, devastatingly in love with her, Jace! I've been in love with Y/n since we were like fucking fourteen and I stayed away because I thought you two were together!"

The part of Jake that thought Jace would finally see things from his point of view immediately died when his face didn't even move an inch, in fact his eyes narrowed in utter disgust.

"Cut the shit, Jake." Jace said, completely unyielding. "Seriously, just stop. Whatever twisted game you're playing at right now, it isn't going to work anymore. You don't love her. You just can't stand that she's part of my life and completely wants nothing to do with yours."

"I'm not playing a game." Jake choked out, crying already with tears finally pricking the corners of his eyes and blurring his vision. "I—I'm telling you the truth."

"You have issues, Jake. Real issues and I think you need serious help." Jace said softly before looking at him with agonizing pity—the one expression Jake absolutely loathed more than anything else in the world. It always made him feel small and broken.

"Have you even been taking your meds?" Jace asked, voice filled with concern. "Because you're completely spiraling and I'm not going to let you use one of your episodes as an excuse to wreck my life or Y/n's."

A tearful gasp escaped Jake's throat before he could stop it and his hands formed tight fists inside his pockets as the tears finally spilled over his pale cheeks.

"Screw you," Jake spat as he took a step back, shaking his head violently and backing away from Jace. "Screw you, Jace. This has nothing to do with that. You just...you never want to see me as anything else, do you?"

That question seemed to hurt Jake more than any insult his brother has ever thrown his way because the topic of his depression and his medication had always been strictly off limits in their family. It was the one deeply guarded secret that was kept hidden away from the rest of the world—even you didn't know about it. So for Jace to weaponize that private vulnerability and drag it into the light of a public space just to invalidate him, that felt like a level of calculated cruelty Jake never thought his brother was capable of.

Jace let out a long sigh and ran a hand down his face as if he was dealing with an exhausting chore rather than a breaking his own blood. "Look, I know how you get, Jake."

"So maybe...I don't know, maybe all of this is just a manifestation of you being off your meds again."

Jake stared at his twin and just felt completely paralyzed as the words hung in the air between them. He genuinely could not believe what he was hearing. The logic was so twisted that it left him breathless—the fact that Jace thought the only possible explanation for Jake truly loving you, the only way his years of silent and agonizing pining could ever make sense in his brother's mind, was if it were the byproduct of a severe depressive spiral or a manic episode. To Jace, Jake's genuine heart was nothing more than a chemical glitch and just another symptom to be managed.

A bitter laugh bubbled up in Jake's chest but it quickly turned into a sob as he nodded his head violently. He looked at the identical face staring back at him with that pity and the last shred of his attachment to his twin vanished into thin air.

"And I thought I was the vile twin," Jake whispered but didn't bother waiting for a response or giving Jace another second to dissect him. He simply walked away, fully intending to forget all about you and his brother too.

He threw the doors open, ignoring the way the heavy wood slammed against the drywall with a loud crack. On the drive back, he had squeezed the steering wheel until his hands went numb, staring so hard at the road his eyes burned. He hadn't let himself continue to cry, he had just breathed through his teeth, pushing down the lump in his throat because he refused to break down in his car over a brother who looked him in the eye and called his heart a clinical glitch.

He just needed to get inside his apartment, he was ready to lock the world out again and let the darkness take over.

Instead, when he unlocked his apartment door and pushed it open, his feet stopped dead. The lamp in the corner was throwing a little light across the living room and sitting right there on the couch she bought him was his mother.

The second she heard him come in, her head snapped up, taking a long look at his pale face, the deep bruises under his red rimmed eyes and the sad way his hoodie hung off his shoulders, and she stood up fast. Her face broke open with a look of real panic and maternal dread.

But Jake was blind to it.

His brain, already skinless by Jace's execution of his dignity, went into immediate defense mode. He didn't see a mother who had driven over out of worry for her son. He saw an intruder and the woman who had spent his entire youth looking at him like a problem to be solved, standing in his sanctuary and his walls went up, turning his agonizing hurt into razor sharp venom.

"What are you doing here?" Jake spat at her, not even bothering to shut the door behind him. He made sure the words came out harsh and deliberately ugly. "Why are you inside my apartment unannounced? Who the hell gave you a key?"

He could see his mother visibly recoil, her shoulders dropped as though she'd been struck but she didn't get angry at him. She took a tentative step toward him, her hands hovering in the space between them.

"Jaeyun, please, just stop," she whispered, her voice trembling as she glanced around the room. "I've been calling you for three days. You haven't answered a single text. I was just worried about you." She gestured helplessly to the state of the room—the stale air, the chaotic piles of dirty clothes that always signaled he had stopped functioning weeks ago. "Look at this place, Jake. Look at you. I'm worried about you."

He walked right past her, brushing his shoulder against hers as he headed deeper into the apartment. "There's nothing to be worried about," he muttered dismissively as he threw his car keys onto the messy kitchen counter. "I'm just tired. Leave it alone."

"Jake, please, just listen to me," she pleaded with him, her voice cracking as she hurried after him. She reached out, using her fingers to desperately catch the rough fabric of his sleeve, holding onto him to force him to stop moving.

Jake gave her one irritated breath and looked down, ready to wrench his arm out of her grip but his throat closed around the words.

In her other hand, clutched tightly against her palm, was his prescription container of Lexapro.

Through the translucent plastic, he could see the unmoved crowd of tablets inside. Yes, the bottle was still full with the exact same amount of pills it had contained a month ago when he'd first picked up the refill. She didn't just suspect it anymore—she knew with absolute certainty, that he hadn't been taking them.

Silence fell over the kitchen and his mother looked up at him with eyes shining with unshed tears, silently begging him to acknowledge the proof right in front of them.

Jake's rolled his eyes and a bitter sneer twisted in his features as he reached down. One by one, he pried her fingers off his arm, pushing her hand away from him.

"I'm fine." He said in an unyielding line as he stepped backward out of her reach. "I told you, I'm fine."

"You think a handful of pills fixes a broken son, is that it?" Jake asked her with a sickly smile on his face, "You think if I just swallow your little compliance capsules, I suddenly become the son you actually wanted?"

"Jake, stop it! That is not what this is!" She cried out, clutching the plastic bottle tight against her chest like a shield. Tears were streaming freely down her face now and her posture entirely broken. "It's medicine! You are hurting and you are spiraling and I am watching you destroy yourself!"

"Because I am defective, right?!" He suddenly roared, stopping in his tracks. "That's what you and Jace think! Even dad! That's what you've always thought! You look at him and you see the perfect child, the brilliant twin, the one who does everything right! And then you look at me and you just see a project that needs a chemical fix!"

"That is not true!" she sobbed, shaking her head so violently her hair fell out of its clip.

"Don't lie to me!" Jake screamed as his face turned an unhinged red. The years of suppressed emotion and agonizing reality of living in Jace's shadow, finally tore out of his throat in a breathless torrent.

"You love him more. Just admit it. You've always loved him more, every—every single day of my life, you looked at me and wished I was just like Jace. You wished I was quiet, you wished I was stable, you wished I didn't have a broken fucking brain! You look at my identical face and you just wish you could erase me and double your investment in him!"

"No! Jaeyun, stop, please, my god, stop!"

His mother dropped the pill bottle and the plastic clattered against the hardwood floor, making the tablets scatter across the floor. She lunged forward, not caring about his harsh words and grabbed his face with both of her shaking hands, forcing him to look at her.

"That is not true! It has never ever been true!" She wailed in his face. She held him tightly, digging her fingers into his cheeks as she forced his wild eyes to lock onto hers. "I love you, Jake. I love you. Just the way you are. I have never wanted you to be Jace. I have only ever wanted you to survive this . You are my son. My beautiful, fiercely loving boy and it hurts my heart to see you in this much pain."

Her words seemed to snap his violent armor as the heat left his body all at once, leaving him gutted to his core and trembling. Jake's eyes quickly welled up and the heavy tears finally spilling over his lashes, tracing hot paths down his pale cheeks. His mouth opened but not a sound came out at first, just a serrated gasp for air as his shoulders caved inward. He didn't pull away from her touch this time, he collapsed into it, letting his heavy hands come up to grip her wrists but instead of prying them away like he's sure she thought he would do, he used them to hold his body upright.

He was crying completely now, his breaths came hard with rattling sobs that sounded like a dying man. He looked at his mother, stripped entirely of his pride, his anger and his defense mechanisms, reduced to nothing but bleeding nerve endings.

"Then why doesn't Y/n love me back?" Jake whispered, his voice cracking so deeply it was barely a breath, entirely devastated. He stared into his mother's eyes, looking like a broken sixteen year old boy. "If I'm not broken, Mum...if I'm not less than him...then why doesn't she want me? Why does she look at Jace like he's the entire world and look at me like I'm nothing?"

To his surprise, a gasp of relief mixed with laughter

escaped her throat, it was like even through the agonizing weight of his confession, she was just grateful to have her boy back. She gave another little before she lunged forward, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling his heavy frame tightly against her chest.

Jake stiffened, as the sudden warmth caught him off guard. He was still crying when he felt his nose running and knew his face was a total mess of tears and snot. Realizing he was ruining the back of her cashmere sweater, he awkwardly tried to pull away, his shoulders tense. "Mum, wait, I'm getting..."

But she didn't care and she didn't let him go. If anything, she only squeezed him tighter, burying her face into his shoulder and rocking him back and forth as if he were still a little boy.

"Oh, my darling, darling boy." Her voice muffled against his hoodie. "My sweet Jaeyun...Y/n loves you more than you could ever even comprehend."

Jake froze in her arms, his breath went uneven in his throat. The words sounded so utterly ridiculous, so completely detached from the brutal reality of that night, that they felt like a cruel joke. He pulled back just enough to look at her and a sad laugh bubbled up through his fresh tears. He shook his head. "Don't...Mum, don't make fun of me. Please. You don't know what she said to me. She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you, Jaeyun," his mother doubled down instantly, her hands moving up to cup his face again, wiping away his tears with her thumbs. Her gaze was unyielding, and filled with so much certainty a part of him wanted to badly to believe her. "Y/n is just deeply hurt. Your actions...the things you did to protect yourself, they pushed her away. But that is not hate. You have to believe me."

Before he could argue or before his brain could spiral back into the darkness as your voice flooded his head again, she guided him toward the living room. Jake didn't fight her, he let her pull him down onto the thrifted couch, his long legs cramping up as he curled into her side and buried his face in her lap just like he used to do when the world got too loud. She wrapped her arms around him, stroking his hair with a gentle hand and whispering sweet nothings into the quiet room.

"You're going to be okay, my sweet boy," she murmured, kissing the top of his head. "We're going to fix this. I love you so much, Jake. You are so so loved."

For a long time, the only sound in the apartment was the steadying of Jake's breathing as the storm inside him finally began to pass. He felt exhausted drained but lighter than he had in years.

Suddenly, his mother's soothing hand paused mid stroke. Her head turned and her eyes set on the armrest right next to Jake's head. Sitting prominently on the plush of the expensive couch was a pair of dirty boxers he had lazily tossed days ago.

She exhaled slowly like her overwhelming maternal instinct instantly was shifting from emotional crisis mode to domestic intervention.

"First thing tomorrow," she started with her voice returning to its usual brisk tone as she kept one arm wrapped tightly around his shoulders, "I am calling professional cleaners. Because this is absolutely biological warfare, Jaeyun."

He laughed at her words, trying not to seem too embarrassed. Once his breathing finally leveled out, his mother gently nudged him up so she could get to work. She wasn't the type to sit idle for long and before Jake could even protest, she was moving through the apartment like a whirlwind. She cleared the mountain of beers cans and pizza boxes from the coffee table, threw his discarded clothes into a hamper and disappeared into the small kitchen to rifle through the bare refrigerator.

Jake stood leaning against the doorframe, his throat still felt raw from crying, he watched her slice vegetables, so confident in ways only a mother could be.

"Mum, you don't have to do all this," he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. "I can cook."

"You can but you haven't," she pointed out smoothly, not looking up as she tossed chopped peppers into a pan. "Grab those glass containers from the cabinet. Let's meal prep ,okay? So I know you'll actually eat a real vegetable this week."

He did as she told him to, stepping up to the counter beside her. The domestic quiet was a far cry from the emotional explosion from earlier but it felt grounded and Jake felt safe. As they worked together, dividing the food into neat containers, she kept the conversation light, she deliberately steered them away from the heavy topics of Jace, you and his own head.

"Your father installed a greenhouse last weekend," she remarked with a little smile on her lips as she handed him a serving spoon. "He's gotten obsessed. He spent a good deal of time trying to explain the kind of soil required for heirloom tomatoes to me. I had to tune him out after twenty minutes."

Jake let out a real but still quiet laugh. "Dad and gardening? He barely manages to keep the lawn alive without the gardeners."

"Don't let him hear you say that," she chuckled and lightly tapped the back of his hand with a spoon. "He bought a wide brimmed straw hat and everything. He looks ridiculous."

By the time the kitchen was clean and the fridge was stocked with home cooked meals, the exhaustion of the emotional fallout finally caught up to Jake. His eyelids felt like lead, so his mum ushered him off to his bedroom, pulling the heavy blankets over his shoulders just like she used to when he was a kid.

"Go to sleep, Jaeyun." She whispered to him before brushing a lock of hair from his forehead. "I'll handle the rest."

He fell asleep almost instantly, slipping into a deep slumber. Sometime during the early morning hours, his mind drifted through a foggy state of semi consciousness. He vaguely heard distant clatters, the muted hum of a vacuum and the quiet murmur of voices in the living room but the sounds didn't alarm him. They felt like a background track to a dream and he simply rolled over to bury his face deeper into his pillow.

When he finally woke up the next day, the apartment was dead silent and he woke up to an unfamiliar lightness in his chest. He stood up and walked out into the living room and true to her word, his mother was gone but she had clearly unleashed a small army of professional cleaners on the apartment. The space was pristine, with the air smelling crisply of citrus and fresh linen, the floors practically gleamed and every single piece of clutter had been meticulously organized.

He walked into the kitchen, his bare feet cool against the spotless tile and resting in the center of the completely empty kitchen island was his container of medication.

Propped up perfectly against the plastic bottle was a bright yellow sticky note. He stepped closer, immediately recognizing his mother's elegant handwriting.

Just start with one, it read.

Jake stood frozen in front of the island, staring down at the little bottle for a quiet moment. His mind began to wander, the gears turning as he faced the wreckage of his life with a newly cleared head. The reality of everything he had broken over the past few weeks came rushing back but the paralyzing dread was gone and all he felt now was a quiet determination.

He thought about you, about the brutal words you had screamed at him on the pavement, the absolute hatred in your eyes, it all made his heart violently ache. How do I win you over? he wondered as his heart tightened. How do I even begin to show you that I'm not the selfish person you think I am?

But then there was still Jace and the disgust in his twin's voice during their hallway fight from yesterday still rang clearly in his ears. He knew the apology he had attempted had barely even scratched the surface. How do I make Jace forgive me?

He knew it would take time, in fact it would take proving to his brother that he wasn't just a ticking time bomb using his episodes as an excuse to wreck everyone else's lives.

He looked back down at the sticky note. Just start with one.

It just happened to be a terrifyingly small step, an admission that he couldn't fix everything on his own, that he actually needed the help he had spent his entire life rejecting. But as he looked around his clean kitchen, Jake didn't want to run anymore, he didn't want to hide behind the noise or the anger or even the bravado.

So with a steady hand, Jake reached out and unscrewed the cap. The plastic clicked and slowly, he tipped the bottle, catching a single pill in his palm, without giving himself another second to even overthink it or let the old demons drag him back down, he popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it dry.

The whole day passed for him in what he could only describe as his own hard won type of peace. For the first time in what felt like centuries, the constant buzzing of anxiety in his chest had subsided into more manageable hum. He actually ate his meals, sat down at his spotless kitchen table and devoured the containers his mother had left behind, forcing himself to chew and swallow until they were empty.

With his body finally fueled by something other than cheap liquor and adrenaline, he spent a solid chunk of the afternoon trying to patch up the mess that was his academic life. He stared at the brightness of his laptop screen as he drafted an uncharacteristically humble email to his economics professor. He practically begged for a chance to submit a heavily overdue assignment, trying to sound like a student who had simply lost track of time rather than one who had been entirely incapacitated by his own mind. It wasn’t easy and his brain protested the sudden inflow of words and numbers but he forced himself to stay glued to the chair until he finally clicked send.

By the time night fell, the clean apartment started to warm up to him. He put on his absolute favorite movie and watched the familiar dialogue and the predictable soundtrack filling the quiet spaces of the room. Then, he booted up his console and buried himself in video games for hours, letting the mindless reflex loops of the controller numb the remaining edges of his thoughts.

Throughout the entire day, his phone had vibrated periodically against the coffee table, lighting up with a steady stream of notifications from his frat brothers. He completely ignored them, not even bothering to swipe the lock screen open cause he already knew what they wanted and it wasn't because they were worried he had suddenly gone missing from campus. The previews on his lock screen told him everything he needed to know—they were asking about who was covering the alcohol tab for the upcoming mixer, where the keys to the frat house basement were or which girls were showing up to the pregame. It was all so agonizingly shallow, so painfully superficial and Jake for the life of him just couldn't deal with the exhausting effort of putting on the mask again. He couldn't fake that loud and hedonistic persona they all expected from him when his nerve endings were still this raw.

Yet, despite the movie, the video games, the textbook chapters and the deliberate isolation, he couldn't completely clear the air in his head. Through all of this, the one absolute constant was you. You stayed pinned to the very front of his mind, like a painfully beautiful fixture that he just couldn't escape. Every time the game loading screen went black, he saw the reflection of his own face and remembered the disdain on your face.

Every time he took a breath of the clean air in his living room, he wondered if you were still out somewhere with Jace, completely happy and relieved that he was finally out of your picture. He wanted to reach for his phone a thousand times just to type your name and beg you to just let him explain but the weight of his own mistakes held his hands still. He was working on himself, just like his mother had asked him too but the hardest pill to swallow wasn't even his own medication—it was the fact that even if he got better, he still had no idea if you would love him back or love him for him.

That same crushing burden of you on his mind carried all the way into Friday night. By then, the apartment that had warmed up to him, felt like it was itching to spit him out. He was sitting at the foot of his bed, working on another overdue assignment, when his phone suddenly vibrated against the mattress.

Jake swore he must have somehow summoned you into existence because there it was. Your name was glowing bright and impossible against the dark screen.

It was an incoming call from you and saying his heart skipped a beat would’ve been an understatement because it slammed into his stomach and back up into his ribs .

He felt paralyzed staring at the flashing letters, he also felt so incredibly confused and that made a thick wave of nauseating anxiety rise in his throat. Why were you calling him? Were you calling to berate him again? To deliver the sequel from that confrontation and finish stripping away whatever minor scraps of dignity he had left?

Or had something happened to Jace? His mind raced a mile a minute, he felt his chest tightening at the thought of his twin but he instantly shot it down. No, if Jace was hurt, you definitely wouldn't be calling him for help, you wouldn't even want him anywhere near a crisis.

He sat there overthinking, trapped in a loop of panic, watching the phone screen flash over and over. He kept debating whether to answer, his thumb was hovering an inch above the green answer icon, until the ringing abruptly stopped and the screen went dark.

A shaky breath left him and his shoulders sagged as a strange sense of relief washed over him. He wiped a sudden sweat from his palms against his sweatpants. It had to have been a mistake, maybe a pocket dial or an accident. You probably realized who you were calling and hung up in disgust.

The his phone started to vibrate again and your name flashed on the screen for a second time. This wasn't no accident, you were intentionally trying to reach him and he realized that ignoring it twice would completely kill whatever microscopic thread was left between you, the panic in his chest turned into raw adrenaline and he didn’t even give himself the chance to talk himself out of it, he reached out and swiped answer on the screen before pressing the phone tightly against his ear.

"Hello?"

"Jace?"

Your voice came through the speaker, but it didn't hit him with the sharp precision he had been bracing for. It was soft and unfocused, actually it was entirely wrong.

Jake's chest deflated and familiar pang of disappointment settling right in his heart.

Oh, yeah. It was a mistake, he thought to himself.

You hadn't meant to call him, you had meant to call the twin who actually mattered, you had probably clicked the wrong contact in a hurry.

He opened his mouth to tell you but before he could say even get a single word out, you spoke again.

"Jaceeee...where are you?"

He comically pulled the device away from his ear for a fraction of a second and checked the caller ID just to make sure he wasn't dreaming. You didn't sound like yourself at all, your voice was much whinier than usual and your syllables were dragging and bleeding into one another in a clumsy slur.

"Why aren't you here to pick me up yet?" You complained in a tone that had Jake thinking there was definitely a pout on your face. "The music inside is too loud and my feet hurt, Jace. You said you'd come get me." "But I—I’m looking around and there’s no you."

Jake stood up quickly as his brain started putting two and two together. It was Friday night and you were out somewhere and from the sounds of it, you were absolutely wasted.

His first instinct was to just tell you the truth—that you had dialed the wrong twin and he was the wrong person. He wanted to tell you to hang up and call his brother or he even thought about hanging up himself and calling Jace to let him know you were stranded somewhere. But the memory of his Wednesday exchange flashed in his mind and Jace's voice echoed in his ears. Have you even been taking your meds? I'm not going to let you use your episodes as an excuse to wreck my life or Y/n's.

Jace wouldn't answer his call. If Jake tried to ring his brother right now, Jace would see his name on the screen, assume it was another episode or another frantic rant and decline it instantly. Meanwhile, you'd be sitting wherever you were, completely incapacitated and unprotected.

He couldn't leave you like that, he really didn't care if you hated him, he wouldn’t let you be vulnerable.

"Hey," Jake started, trying his absolute best to mimic the steady tone Jace always used when things got chaotic. "Hey, it's okay. Just breathe for a second. Tell me where you are."

A loud giggle came through from your end of the line, followed by a wet hiccup. "You sound so funny," you muttered and he could hear the distinct sound of wind rushing past the microphone, like you were wandering around outside. "Why do you sound so serious? Are you mad at me? Don't be mad at me, Jacey."

"I'm not mad," Jake lied through his teeth, paying no mind to how his heart was pounding, he was already grabbing his car keys off the nightstand with his free hand. He began pacing the clean floorboards of his bedroom with his anxiety spiking. "I'm not mad at all, I promise. But I need you to listen to me. I need to know where you're standing right now so I can get to you."

"I'm at...um..." You trailed off, laughing softly to yourself as if you had forgotten the question entirely. "There's a really big sign. It's pink. No, wait, it's red. It looks like a giant grape."

"A grape?" Jake pinched the bridge of his nose, stepping out into his living room. He tried to think of every bar, club and lounge near campus. "Y/n, think for me. Is it a bar or a club? Are you downtown?"

"It's a secret." You whispered loudly into the phone and followed it with another fit of giggles. "If I tell you, you're gonna make me leave and the girls were being nice. Well, some of them. One of them spilled an entire gin and tonic on my boot, Jace. Look at it."

"I can't see your boot, Y/n," Jake said while his patience was fraying into terror for your safety. He could hear heavy bass thumping faintly in the background but the air around you sounded wide open. You were definitely outside the place, likely on a sidewalk or an alley. "Please, just look around you. Read the words on the building for me. Just play along, okay? Read the words."

"Fine, party pooper," you whined, huffed loudly into the receiver before he heard the sound of scuffing of your boots, then a quiet gasp. "Oh! It says…cellar. But it’s blinking. It goes click click cliiiiick. It's soooo annoying."

Cellar. Jake knew exactly where that was—it was an underground club a mile off campus but deep in the warehouse district.

"Okay. Okay, I know where that is," Jake said, already out of his front door. He didn't care that he was crossing a massive line or that when you sobered up, you would probably despise him even more for tricking you. All that mattered was getting you into the backseat of a car before someone else noticed how helpless you were. "Stay right there under the blinking sign, Y/n. Don’t move or go back inside and don't walk away. I'll be there right now."

Jake drove as fast as he could through the dark streets, the neon signs of the city blurring into long streaks of color against his windshield. He was definitely breaking speed limits but his heart was beating so wildly that it was the last thing on his mind, he was simply fueled by the dread of you being left alone in that part of town.

When he finally veered into the cracked parking lot of the club, he slammed the brakes and lo and behold, you were actually standing exactly where he had told you to, your small frame was illuminated by the flickering red light of the giant cherry sign.

As he looked at you through the windshield, all he could think of was how easily Jace could tell you to do something and you'd just do it without a single question, simply because you trusted his twin blindly. The only reason you were standing there right now, shivering and swaying on your feet under that broken sign, was because you thought Jace had told you to stay put.

Jake killed the engine and pushed his door open, moving quickly across the pavement toward you.

The second you caught sight of his figure approaching, your face completely lit up. That reaction alone made his heart physically ache but he ignored it. You thought he was Jace and he knew with outright certainty that if you were sober or if you had any idea it was actually Jake standing in front of you, you would have already turned on your heel and walked away into the dark.

Instead, you let out a slurred cheer, stepped off the curb and threw your arms right around his neck.

"You came!" you giggled and your alcohol scented breath brushed against his ear as you squeezed him tightly. "My sweet, sweet best friend. I knew you’d never leave me."

Before he could even process the sudden warmth of your body pressed against his, you leaned back slightly and pressed a drunken kiss right against his cheek.

Jake’s whole body couldn’t move, his breath was stuttering in his lungs. He had to stand there and pretend like his entire body wasn't going completely crazy from the gesture. This was the closest he had ever been to you in his whole life—closer than he had ever dared to dream during all those years of silent pining. Every fiber of his being felt like it was on fire from the ghost of your lips burning against his skin.

But right now he knew he needed to be the responsible one and get you somewhere safe.

"Okay, okay," Jake mumbled, his tone was a little rougher than he intended but still, he gently brought his hands up to grip your waist to try to guide you toward the passenger side of his car. "Come on, let's get you into the car before you freeze."

But you were being completely difficult, you whined and stuck your face back into the crook of his neck, your hands tangling into the fabric of his hoodie as you purposely made your legs go limp. "Nooo, don't want to get in the car yet. The ground is spinning, Jace. Carry me."

A real smile cracked on his face. He really couldn't help it though, he had never in his two plus decades of knowing you seen this side of you before. The you he knew was always guarded and fiercely protective around him, especially after high school, so to see you like this, just stripped of your walls, giggling and pouting like a sleepy child, was a view of you he never thought he'd be allowed to witness. It was beautiful and by God it was intoxicating, like the most bittersweet moment of his life.

"Jaceeee, take off my booooots." You whined and he watched in awe as you actually stomped one foot on the cracked pavement like a little child. The sight made him give a defeated sigh but there was no real annoyance in it. He simply reached down and carefully unzipped the tall boots from your knees one by one until you were standing in just your socks.

He managed to get you over to the passenger door to hold it open for you, practically hovering over you to make sure you didn't tumble over and carefully helping you slide into the seat. He leaned across the console, ignoring how the unfamiliar scent of your perfume filled his senses while he pulled the seatbelt across your lap, clicking it securely into place. After gathering your boots and your bag, he tossed them safely into the backseat and closed the door.

He took in a steadying breath of the cool night air before walking around to the driver's side but the exact moment he climbed into his seat and pulled the door shut, the atmosphere in the vehicle had shifted.

You were staring at him, very angrily in fact. In a way that made his heart violently drop right into his stomach again. A cold sweat broke out across his neck as he froze under your glare, terrified that the illusion had finally shattered. His mind raced frantically—had you finally realized he wasn't Jace? Maybe the interior of the car had given him away. Jace's car didn't look like this or smell like this and you knew Jace's things better than anyone. He braced himself for the screaming that he was so sure was coming.

Shockingly though, the anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared and you burst into another helpless fit of giggles before slumping back against the headrest.

"Wow," you shook your head, looking at him with your glassy eyes. "You and your brother are so identical." You said and threw your hand to his shoulder to play with the hair on the back of his head.

He hoped you were too drunk to notice how his whole body went stiff or how he wasn't even breathing.

You emptied your lungs in an exhale, staring aimlessly out the passenger window as the car started to move.

When he was stopped at a red light and he took the opportunity to look at you, there was a heart tugging smile at the corners of your lips as you murmured, "Remember when I liked him? And I was Mrs. Jake Sim..."

Jake had no idea it was even possible for his heart to drop any further but it did. It felt like his chest had completely caved in.

What? You liked him? Him?

His hands were shaking so violently he could barely g hold the steering, his mind was screaming, like a train wreck of shock and crushing regret. He forced himself to keep driving though and he needed to keep you talking, he needed to know more. So he forced a casual laugh through his teeth, pretending to be Jace just looking down memory lane. "Oh yeah?" He asked, "Remind me...when was that again?"

"You knowww—hiccup—Up until fresh...man year," you mumbled, your hand had dropped to the middle console by now.

Jake's foot twitched violently on the pedal and he nearly slammed on the brakes right in the middle of the street. Freshman year, that was almost four years ago. Four years of him pining for you, four years of him deliberately keeping his distance because he thought you belonged to Jace and all the while...you had liked him before?

"But he's just..." You trailed off, giving a hiccup that interrupted your words and shook your shoulders. Suddenly, your tone shifted and turned into a frustrated ramble as you stared out the windshield. "He's just so horrible, Jace. He's so mean to me. Why is he like that?"

Jake gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were numb, the leather even squeaked under his palms. Every word felt like an earthquake inside him but he stayed silent and let you speak.

"I wish..." You stumbled over the words, your hand coming up to wave vaguely in the air before dropping back on his shoulder to tug at his hair again. "I wish he were better. I wish he was just a little bit better so I could...so I could love him easier. But he makes it so hard. He throws those parties and...and sleeps with all those girls and he says the most awful things and he just...he pushes everyone away. Especially me." Another hiccup caught in your throat and your voice cracked, sounding like you were just incredibly tired. "He made it so hard to stay. I wanted to...I really wanted to but he's just...he's an asshole."

Jake kept his on the dark road ahead, hearing the exact words you had screamed at him not too long ago, repeated right now in this gentle confession was a new kind of torture. You hadn't always hated him, if anything you had wanted to love him and he had ruined it all by himself.

In no time he was pulling up into the parking lot of your dorm building, it was like you felt the car come to a halt and you came around. "We're here?" you mumbled, rubbing your eyes with the back of your hand like a sleepy child and tilting your head toward him.

"Yeah. We're here," Jake said to you and if you weren't so wasted, he's sure you would've heard how think with unshed tears his voice was. He unbuckled his seatbelt and reached into the back to grab your boots and bag before stepping out into the night.

He moved around to your side and opened the door, watching as you swayed immediately you unclipped your belt, your socked feet dangling over the edge of the car.

"I can't walk, Jace." You looked up at him with wide eyes and held your arms up in the air. "My feet are cold."

Without a word like he really needed the whole night to just end, Jake leaned down and swept one arm behind your knees and the other around your waist, lifting you easily against his chest. You hummed and rested your head right in the crook of his neck, your fingers knotting into the fabric of his hoodie. The heat of your breath against his skin made him shudder but he managed to carry you up the stairs to your dorm door.

"Keys?" He gently asked, not wanting you to fully wake up from the sleep you were already entering. "In my purse."

He was able to fish for them with you clinging to him and found a way to unlock your door, kick it open with his foot and carry you inside. He set you down gently on the bed and placed your boots and purse neatly by the door.

He knew he should leave because the second you woke up tomorrow and realized he was the one who picked you up, the disguise would blow up in his face. But before he could even pull back, you drunkenly snapped right out of your drunken sleepy spell and changed the subject completely, babbling at a hundred miles an hour.

"And another thing!" You announced loudly, waving a lazy hand in the air, your words running together in a slurred mess Jake found adorable. "Sloane's birthday dinner? Oh, it was a disaster, Jace. Complete disaster. You know why?"

Jake lingered right in front of you. "Why?"

"Because she has some absolute bitches for friends," you stated with utmost seriousness, pouting so hard your lip practically stuck out. "Like, total, certified mean girls. One of them looked at my outfit tonight like I was wearing a trash bag. A designer trash bag, maybe but still a trash bag!"

A laugh burst out of Jake's chest before he could stop it. He had always been helplessly charmed by you but this was new—you were funny as you grinned triumphantly, like you were proud of yourself for making him laugh and then you slumped back into the pillows. "I wanted to put her in her place so bad but it was Sloane's birthday and gosh I love Sloane so much. She's basically your sister in law." You giggled like you made a joke only Jace would get but Jake didn't get it.

As Jake stood there watching you giggling to yourself, a wave of crushing regret and bitter jealousy hit him hard. You were so funny like this. So real, affectionate, cute and so so unfiltered. Jace got to see this side of you all the time, this silly Y/n who laughed freely and let her guard down. Jake had spent years only getting the defensive glares and the cold shoulders, all because he was too wrapped up in his own anger to show you who he actually was. And while he was getting a glimpse of heaven right now, he had to remind himself that it was built on a lie.

"Get some sleep, Y/n," he spoke softly.

"Jace, wait." You slurred out, reaching up and grabbing his hoodie. Your grip was weak but it stopped him anyway. You squinted up at him and pulled your brows together as if the fog in your brain was finally starting to clear just enough to notice something was off. "Why do you...why do you look so sad?"

"I'm not sad," Jake lied immediately, trying had to make his voice sound convincing. "I promise. You're just tired and you need to rest up."

He eased your fingers free from the hem of his hoodie, he needed to leave fast. He quickly helped you settle beneath the covers, tucked you in and then paused, sweeping his eyes over the room. Knowing how much you had consumed, he grabbed the small plastic trash can from under your desk and placed it right beside your bed, within easy arm's reach cause he had a very strong feeling you were going to throw up at some point during the night.

Giving you one last look as your breathing slowed into sleep, he quietly slipped out of your dorm and left the building as fast as he could.

Many times, he contemplated leaving Jace a text, just a brief message to let his twin know you were safe, how you had called him by mistake and everything that had just happened. But every time he thought about typing such text, he pictured Jace's disappointed eyes and decided against it. Jace wouldn't listen, he'd probably just assume Jake was crossing boundaries again.

Minutes later, when Jake was lying flat on his back in his own bed and staring up at the dark ceiling, sleep was just impossible. His mind was practically vibrating from the insane influx of information he had just been handed.

You actually did love him. Or, at least, you used to.

His mum had been right all along, you didn't hate him because he was inherently unlovable, you hated the walls he built and the bitter distance he forced between you two.

He rolled over to nuzzle his face in his hands as a twinge of regret pierced his chest because knowing the truth didn't make the air any easier to breathe. Rather, it made the weight ten times heavier. Knowing you had once wanted him didn't mean he had any idea how to fix the broken pieces now or how to make you look at him without seeing the monster he had let himself become.

Jake had no idea when he actually managed to fall asleep, only that when it finally happened, it felt less like resting and more like slipping into a coma.

The next thing he knew, he was being forcefully pulled out of said sleep by someone yelling his name, the muffled shouts echoing off the hard surfaces of the clean apartment.

"Jake!"

A door slammed open down the hall, followed by the furious clatter of boots against wood.

"Jake! Where the fuck are you?!"

The voice was breathing hard and barreling through the rooms like a storm looking for a place to strike. Jake lay paralyzed on his mattress for a fraction of a second, he could feel his heart pounding in an immediate panic but his fogged mind struggled to process the sound, struggled to bridge the gap between his lingering dreams and reality, until the cadence of the voice finally registered.

It was Jace.

Groggily, Jake shoved his duvet off his legs and swung his feet onto the cold floor, rubbing his hands over his face to force his eyes open. "Jace...?" He called out, his voice deep from sleep.

He didn't even make it three steps toward the bedroom doorway before the door was thrown wide and hitting the drywall with a slam. Jake didn’t even get a chance to create to the sound before a pair of hands slammed into his chest and shoved him backward with enough force that he stumbled back a few steps.

"What the fuck is your problem?!" Jace barked, his face was red in anger and his eyes were wide and burning in anger.

Jake reeled back, lifting his hands defensively in front of his chest, still swaying slightly from disorientation. "What...what are you talking about? What?"

"Don't you play fucking stupid with me!" Jace yelled at him, stepping right into his personal space and pointing a finger directly into Jake's face. "Don’t sit there and pretend like you have no idea what you did!"

Jake blinked against the daylight flooding the room, of course he knew what he did, there’s only one reason Jace could be here yelling at him.

"Jace, just calm down for a second—"

"Calm down?" Jace responded with a harsh laugh, pacing a tight circle on the floor before snapping his eyes back to Jake. "I woke up an hour ago to a text from Y/n. Want to guess what it said? She was thanking me. She texted me thanking me for coming to pick her up from that club downtown and making sure she made it back safely."

Jace stepped closer again to his twin before delivering the other half "Except I didn't leave my dorm last night, Jake. I was with Jungwon all night and we fell asleep so I didn't go to pick her up. And there is only one other person on this entire planet she could have mistaken for me."

Jake's posture straightened as the sleep faded from his system and a flare of defensive heat rose up his chest. He took a step back and matched Jace's glare with a cold look of his own. "She called me, Jace." Jake said, his voice rising from how frustrated Jace was making him. "What do you think happened? You think I was just driving around that part of town at midnight looking for drunk girls to pick up?"

Jace crossed his arms tight over his chest as he glared harder at his twin. "Honestly, Jake? I wouldn't put it past you."

His words settled between them and normally, in the old days, like two weeks ago, before everything had shattered, that sentence alone would have been the exact trigger to blow the room apart. Jake's fist would have flown before his brain could even process the insult. He would have slammed his twin against the wall and proved every single vicious thought Jace had about him right.

Instead, Jake just stood there with his chest rose and fell but his hands never left his sides. He slowly shook his head and a look of quiet dissatisfaction settled over his features.

"I'm not going to fight you, Jace." Jake said calmly. "I'm not doing this with you."

Jace blinked, like he was momentarily thrown off by the lack of explosive rage but his jaw remained set and his eyes stayed burning.

"I did the right thing," Jake continued, staring his brother dead in the eye. "She was wasted, Jace. Standing outside some sketchy ass club in the middle of the night, slurring her words and thinking she was talking to you. I was going to hang up and call you—I really was. But I know damn well that if my name popped up on your phone at midnight on a Friday, you wouldn't have picked up. You would've let it go to voicemail thinking I was having another episode."

Jace opened his mouth to snap back but Jake cut him off by stepping forward until they were barely a foot apart. "So tell me, dear brother." Jake demanded, "What was I meant to do? Leave her stranded there? Let some random walk up to her while she was barely standing? I picked her up, brought her to her dorm, put her to bed and I walked out. That's it."

"And you know what else?" Jake added, like it was slipping out before he could stop it. "You're the one that promised to pick her up and you didn't go. Too busy shacking up with your man or whatever. So really, who the fuck is at fault here?"

Jace flinched as if he'd been struck and his chest hitched like he was about to say something but Jake didn't give him room to speak.

"You're looking for a fight and I'm not going to give you one," Jake said but now his tone was drained of heat. "Just see yourself out."

"This is my apartment too, Jake," Jace snapped.

Jake didn't even bother to respond, he had already turned his back on his twin to walk away from the confrontation and head straight back toward his bed, just ready to pull the sheets over his head and block out the rest of the world for another hour or two.

"I told you when we were seventeen to stay away from Y/n." Jace spoke after him, stepping fully into the room now. "And right now, I'm telling you again—stay the fuck away from her."

Jake stopped his feet and slowly turned to meet the pair of eyes burning holes into his skin. "Or what?" Jake asked softly.

Jace's eyes widened slightly and again, he was caught off guard by the unyielding challenge in Jake's eyes. But Jake didn't stop there. He walked around the side of the bed, moving deliberately toward his brother, every inch of his body felt tense, like he was radiating years of suppressed rage.

"No, really. What the fuck are you going to do that you haven't already done, Jace?" Jake asked in a louder voice. "What are you gonna do? Continue to hide the fact that she was in love with me too? Take it to your grave?"

The color drained from Jace's face for a fraction of a second but his expression quickly hardened into a contemptuous sneer. "Oh, please," he scoffed, throwing his hands up in mock disbelief. "You really want to take some stupid childhood crush seriously?"

"Oh yeah? And since when do childhood crushes last up to freshman year of college, Jace?"

Jace opened his mouth, like a sharp retort was sitting right on the tip of his tongue but no sound came out and for the first time since he had stormed into the apartment, Jace was totally at a loss for words, his defensive posture faltered as the silence stretched further between them. He didn't have a defense, Jake knew there was no lie he could spin or justification he could give that would erase the fact that he had kept that truth buried for years.

His jaw twitched, his throat was working hard as he seemed to swallow down his pride. Unable to meet his brother’s unflinching glare any longer, Jace's eyes darted away toward the floor. He squared his shoulders, as if to desperately try to piece back together whatever authority he had left but the cracks in his composure were wide open by now.

"Just..." Jace started, totally stripped of his earlier explosive rage. "Just stay the fuck away from my best friend, Jake. I mean it."

Without waiting for a response, Jace turned sharply on his heel. His heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway before the front door slammed shut behind him with a deafening, final thud that rattled the picture frames on the wall.

Jake stood alone in the quiet of his bedroom, his chest heaving as the echo of the door slamming gradually faded into complete silence.

"Just..." Jace started, his voice strained and lower now, stripped of its earlier explosive rage. He pointed a tense, trembling finger at Jake's chest, leaning in one last time. "Just stay the fuck away from my best friend, Jake. I mean it."

Jace didn't wait for Jake to say anything else, he was already turning to leave and Jake just stood there listening to his footsteps fade down the hallway before the front door slammed shut that it rattled the picture frames on the wall.

Jake's shoulders didn't drop for five minutes after he left, his body felt heavy again, like his muscles were aching in that same way. He was starting to feel like a brand new person cause this Jake immediately grabbed his medication and swallow, followed by the rest of a bottle of water on his nightstand. He was about to toss the bottle in the trash when his phone burst to life on the wooden surface with a call.

Jake was willing to let it go to voicemail but the caller caught his eye—Jay.

Out of all the guys in his fraternity, Jay was one of the very few Jake actually respected and was tolerate. Jay wasn't like the rest of the frat brothers who enjoyed the surface level pleasures, Jake could've easily branded him the most level headed person he'd ever met, he was sensible and rarely got dragged into useless drama, so if Jay was calling, it was usually important.

And that's why Jake picked up. "Hey, Jay," Jake said into the phone.

On the other end of the line, an unruly irruption of sound immediately hit him, there was the muffled sound of a speaker playing somewhere outside. He could hear the chatter of a crowd and the sound of the wind like they were in the middle of a backyard kickback.

"Jake! Man, where the hell have you been?" Jay's voice came through, loud but genuine as usual. "It's been like three days since anyone at the house saw your face. Are you good?"

Jake rubbed a hand over his face, dragging his palm down his jaw as he stepped out of his bedroom and walked into the living room. "Yeah, man. I'm fine." He lied without missing a beat. "Just...been handling some stuff at home."

"Alright, well, as long as you're alive. The guys were starting to think you went completely off the grid," Jay said with a short laugh.

As Jake was about to respond, a giggly female voice broke through the speaker on Jay's end, it was loud enough to cut over the background music. "Jay! Who is that? Who are you talking to?"

"It's Jake," Jay replied away from the mic.

"Jake?!"

Oh no.

A quick squeal of thrill reached Jake's ear, followed by a brief rustle of static like the girl grabbed the phone directly out of Jay's hands.

"Jakey!" Her voice sang into the receiver, immediately heavy handed and flirty. "Oh my goodness, where have you been hiding? I've been looking everywhere for you!"

Jake froze in the middle of his living room, his brows pulling together as he tried to match the voice to a face. His mind was a total blank, he couldn't remember her face, let alone her name but he knew her voice was familiar. She was the one of a girls he'd been hooking up with for the past month or so.

"I literally left my top at your place last week," she huffed playfully. "I've been needing it back so bad. Can I come over right now to pick it up? Are you home?"

"Oh hi...you." Jake greeted awkwardly, attempting to play along to cover up the fact that he didn't have the faintest clue who he was talking to. He cleared his throat, his eyes dancing around the clean surface of the coffee table and the back of his sofa. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, you can come pick it up."

Holding the phone tightly between his shoulder and his ear, Jake walked back to his room and actively began searching for the top.

"Oh yay! I'll be there real soon."

When the call finally ended, Jake tossed his phone onto the bed and ran a hand through his messy hair.

Finding the random pieces of clothing girls would leave behind used to be easy when his place looked like a hurricane had hit it but ever since the cleaners had gone through the apartment, everything was impeccably neat. Every surface was wiped clean and every stray item had been safely tucked away.

That's why it took him nearly twenty minutes of digging through his closet and then the stack of folded laundry before his fingers brushed against a cropped piece of fabric. He pulled it out and held it up by the straps, only to scoff at the sight of it. It was the most basic black tank top imaginable, something that couldn't have cost more than five dollars. She obviously didn't care about the shirt and it was just a weak excuse for her to come back over to his place.

He walked back out to the living room and set the top on the arm of the couch, then he pulled a meal prep container out of the fridge and quickly heating it up so he could force himself to eat every bite. Once he was done, he headed straight into the bathroom to wash off the film of the morning's drama that was hard to ignore.

He was vigorously rubbing at his wet hair after his shower and just as he reached the living room, an expectant knock hit the front door.

"Timing's great." He muttered to himself, dropping the

towel around his neck and grabbing the top off the arm of the sofa, just ready to hand it over and send her on her way.

But when he pulled the door open, she had other plans. He extended his arm to her with the piece of fabric in it before he even fully looked up. "Hey."

"Here's the top." The girl with her oversized sunglasses pushed up onto her hair didn't reach for it. She quickly pouted and crossed her arms over her heavy chest instead. "Really? What? You're not even gonna invite me in?"

"I'm actually pretty busy right now," Jake threw out, taking a small step forward to block the entrance.

"Oh, come on, it'll take two seconds." She rolled her eyes, already sliding right past his shoulder into the apartment and because she had spent the night there a bunch of times, she didn't hesitate for a second before heading straight to the kitchen as if she owned the place. "I am absolutely parched, Jakey. You have any iced coffee?"

"Look, you really need to go," Jake said to her as he followed her bouncing frame, his patience wearing dangerously thin. "I have stuff I need to deal with today."

She completely ignored him, opening his fridge and humming to herself as she scanned the shelves. "Ugh, the frat house has been so boring without you these past few days, Jakey. Honestly, it's been a total drag. Some guy from lacrosse tried to hit on me last night literally ten minutes after he came out of a room he was fucking my friend in. Like, gross, right?"

She grabbed a bottle of sparkling water, snapped the cap off and took a long sip, simply blatantly ignoring Jake's rigid posture and icy expression.

Jake leaned back against the edge of the kitchen island, tossing the black tank top onto the countertop beside him. "I'm serious. You got your shirt, now you need to head out."

Instead of moving toward the door, she closed the distance between their bodies, stepping right into his personal space so she was standing just inches away from where he leaned against the island. She tilted her head back to look up at him, intentionally arching her back so her low cut top left very little to the imagination as his gaze dropped for a split second.

"You're so tense." She drawled, reaching out to rest a manicured hand lightly on his bare chest, right over his collarbone where the towel was still resting. She looked up through her lashes, before dropping her tone into a suggestive whisper. "I really missed you, you know? You've been making yourself so hard to find."

Jake had to actively suppress the urge to cringe right in her face. The way her eyelashes fluttered and the exaggerated pout of her glossed lips felt so intensely performative that it almost made his stomach turn.

Before he could take a step back, both her hands slid up from his chest and wrapped tightly around the back of his neck, digging her nails into the skin just above his towel. She arched up on her tiptoes and tugged him down until their faces were barely an inch apart.

"Well?" Her eyes searched his face and she was clearly unbothered by his lack of enthusiasm. "Are you gonna answer me, Jakey? Did you miss me too or are you just gonna stand there looking pretty?"

Jake looked down at her, desperately trying to summon a name. Kylie? Chloe? Ashley? His brain remained a frustratingly blank.

She was pulling out every single classic play in her book, every calculated and seductively slow move that would have worked on him without a second thought just a week ago. Seven days ago, he would have picked her up, thrown her over his shoulder and taken her straight to his bedroom without asking a single question, just to use her body to drown out whatever residual noise was rattling around in his head.

But right now, none of it was working. The touch of her hands on his neck felt almost invasive, the smell of her perfume wasn't sweet this time.

The only reason he hadn't immediately untangled her fingers from his skin and marched her straight out the front door was because his brain was currently burning alive. The sound of your voice all soft and slurred, confessing that you had wanted to love him was still ringing in his ears. Jace's furious face, accusing him of crossing boundaries and being intrusive was flashing behind his eyelids every time he blinked.

The unbearable load of regret and anger was pressing down on his chest so hard that he could barely draw a clean breath.

He needed a distraction, needed something, in fact anything to make the noise stop, to tear your face out of his head and burn down the memory of his twin's accusations.

So his hands moved before his rational mind could stop them. Jake reached down his to grab her small waist with a firm pressure that had her gasping. He pulled her flush against his body, leaning down until their lips were close.

"Mm. You wanna remind me why I missed you?"

He just needed to lose himself in the mindless effort it would take to fuck this girl, all he wanted to do was drown out you and his brother, even if it was only for an hour or two.

When she tiptoed up to kiss him, he didn't pull back, leaning into it and encouraging her instead, his hands moved lower to grip her hips before lifting her completely off her feet. He hoisted her up and set her down on the edge of the island, the startling movement sent a stray glass sliding an inch to the side.

She let out a soft moan against his mouth as her hands moved, she even reached down to take his hand and guide it under her shirt, pressing his palm flush over her breast for him to squeeze. Jake obliged, his fingers tightened lazily over her skin as he groped her like he was just going through the motions.

Except something was deeply wrong because even with the heat of her body and the desperate way she was clinging to him and the low noises she was making as she kissed his neck, his body simply wasn't responding the way it was supposed to. Between his legs, he was completely numb. Yes, his heart was racing but it wasn't from desire, it seemed to be from the adrenaline of trying to force a reaction that wasn't there, in other words—he was flaccid.

She worked a trail of wet kisses down the side of his jaw, her lips brushing against his ear as she whispered something breathless and needy. Jake squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw as he tried with everything in him to concentrate, he was trying to picture anything or anyone that’ll get his body to cooperate and drown out the mental noise.

Realizing the kitchen island was only making him feel more detached, he reached under her thighs and easily picked her up off the counter. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, giggling happily into his neck at the new shift as he carried her out of the kitchen and down the dim hallway toward his bedroom.

He tossed her onto the mattress with a soft thud, the heavy blankets shifted under her weight when she tumbled back. Her giggles buzzed against the quiet of the room, so high and eager, she was already pushing herself up onto her elbows and looking up at him through heavy lids, she really wasn’t wasting a second, quickly scrambling forward on her hands and knees across the bet to reach out and tug his sweats down.

Jake stood over the edge of the bed, panting in shallow breaths while his mind was still feeling like thunderstorm. He wanted this to work, he needed this to work.

She yanked the sweatpants down over his hips, pulling his underwear down with them. Then she froze. Of course she did, he still wasn’t hard one bit.

Her hands hovered right near his thighs as her eyes registered what was in front of her, the man wasn’t even showing a trace of an erection.

"Oh...?" She hummed, her flirtatious smile was already faltering into a look of confused disappointment. She tilted her head up to look at his face and a sharp spike of mortification hit Jake like a bucket of ice water, burning hot across his chest and cheeks. He quickly gave an awkward chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

"Ah...sorry," he muttered in a strained voice. "Just...give me a minute, yeah? It's been a long morning."

"Take your time, Jakey." She said sweetly but Jake could hear the faint edge of impatient judgment in her voice and it only made his skin prickle more. She sat back on her heels and watched him with expectant eyes.

Jake looked down at himself, biting his inner cheek so hard he tasted blood. He grabbed himself, wrapping his fingers around his cock as he stroked it roughly, he needed to summon the physical response that usually came so easily but his body felt detached from his brain, he was numb to the touch of his own hands and numb to the girl sitting on his bed waiting for him with her tits out.

Come on, he growled at himself internally. Come on. Get it together.

Frustrated, he squeezed his eyes shut to cut off the sight of the bedroom and the girl on the bed. He was trying to think of anything that turned him on, any primal thought that could pull him out of his own head and force his blood to pump where it was supposed to. He tried to recall old memories, random hookups, dirty videos, anything that had ever worked before but nothing stuck. Everything washed away in the overwhelming fog of his own exhaustion.

And then, unexpectedly, his mind supplied a memory from just a week ago and it wasn’t even a sweet memory.

It was you, standing on the cold sidewalk outside, illuminated by the warm streetlights, your chin tilted up as looked at him like he was the scum of the earth. He heard your angry voice slicing right through him, berating him, calling him every horrible thing you could think of, screaming at him for ruining everything.

He remembered the intoxicating power you held over him in that exact moment, the burning fervor in your eyes locked onto his, demanding his undivided attention, caring enough to hate him with every fiber of your being. It hit him like a lightning strike and his pulse spiked immediately, the blood rushed south and in seconds, before he could even push the image of you out of his head, his cock twitched and hardened in his hand until he was throbbing and leaking.

He opened his eyes to look at his, almost not believing it was real. The girl's eyes widened as she watched the sudden transformation, she let out a delighted laugh. "Well, damn," she beamed as her earlier annoyance disappeared instantly. "Guess you really just needed a second."

Without waiting another beat, she leaned forward and wrapped her fingers around the base of his length, taking him deep into her mouth.

Jake threw his head back, his fingers tangling in her hair, he couldn't deny that she was good at what she was doing. The physical sensation was undeniably amazing, she was swirling her tongue effortlessly around his sensitive tip, gliding down his length and taking him deep into her throat without even a hint of a gag.

Every wet suck sent a jolt of pleasure straight up his spine, forcing involuntary grunts to leave his lips. Yet, as good as it felt physically, his mind was miles away, still held hostage by the thought of you.

A wave of humiliation washed over him, turning his stomach into a tight knot. He had never felt so utterly wrecked and exposed in his entire life. How the fuck had the vivid memory of you tearing into him, screaming at him, scolding him with those furious eyes give him a rock hard boner when a gorgeous, willing girl naked on his bed couldn't even make him twitch?

Was it some sick, twisted masochism? Or was it simply the terrifying reality that it was you? That even your rawest anger and deepest hatred were more intoxicating to him than anyone else's pleasure?

He felt filthy. Was he really so tragically gone for you that even the memory of your anger was the only thing capable of pulling him out of a slump?

It was a dangerous realization, like a true loss of control that made his skin feel like it was burning from the inside out. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, gripping her hair tighter until she whined.

And then, just as he was getting close to edge, her tongue was doing wonders, the warmth of her mouth slipped away abruptly, her hands released his hips too and his eyes snapped open. He looked down at her sat back on her knees and staring up at him with a frown. Her lips were slick with his precum but it was the way her eyes narrowed with both confusion and rapidly mounting offense that threw him off.

"What?"

"What's wrong?"

"Who the fuck is Y/n?" She snapped in a clipped way that definitely wasn’t flirty or sexy anymore like it was minutes ago.

Jake froze and if he was about to deny it, he’s pretty sure the speed at which his features lost color would’ve given him away.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Don't what me, Jake." She sneered, throwing her hands up in utter disbelief as she scrambled backward toward the headboard, pulling the top sheet over her naked chest. "You just said her name. You moaned it, actually."

"No, I didn't," Jake said instantly, in all honesty he had no idea if he had actually said your name. "I didn't say anything. You're mishearing things."

"I am not mishearing things!" She shouted out of nowhere. She pointed a sharp finger straight at his face, her eyes widening even further as a memory seemed to click in her head. "Wait...hold on. Isn't Y/n that girl always trailing your brother around campus? His best friend?"

The room suddenly felt like a pressure cooker on the verge of exploding. Every muscles in Jake’s body locked all at once as panic gripped him tight.

"Shut up," Jake hissed at her. "Just shut the fuck up. You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Oh, really?!" She screeched louder, throwing the sheets off her legs and scrambling off the mattress with embarrassed rage. She grabbed her discarded top off the floor and held it to her chest. "I don't know what I'm talking about? I literally had your whole dick in my mouth and you're groaning another girl's name!"

"You are fucking unbelievable! You could've just said you didn't want me here. You could've just told me you weren't in the mood instead of pulling this psychopathic shit!"

"What the fuck are you on about?!" Jake barked back at her as she walked out of the room, he was pulling his sweats from his ankles, yanking them up over his hips and following her into the hallway.

"I told you to leave like three fucking times! I literally blocked the front door! You're the one who forced your way inside, went to my fridge and came onto me!"

"Whatever, Jake! Whatever!"

Her voice hit a piercing frequency, like the sting of rejection had morphed into total scorn. "I can't even believe this! You're actually sitting here fantasizing about your brother's best friend? Are you insane?"

"Keep her name out of your fucking mouth." Jake snarled, stepping right into her space and towering over her frame.

"Why? Because it's the truth?!" The girl was unbothered by his glare, now that her pride was completely shredded. "Isn't Y/n basically like your fucking sister?! You guys grew up together! That is so incredibly sick, Jake. You are an absolute weirdo. A pathetic, sick fucking weirdo—"

"Just get the fuck out!" Jake yelled, his voice booming off the high ceilings as they spilled into the living room. His fists were clenched so hard his knuckles were stark white, his chest heaving as he pointed a rigid finger straight toward the front door. "Get your shit and leave my apartment right now!"

"Gladly!" She snatched her purse off the island with a clatter. She spun around like she was about to deliver one last insult but the words never came.

The front door was swinging close and standing right in the middle of the living room with Jace’s spare key dangling loosely from trembling fingers was you.

Your lips were parted and your breath panting in your chest while your wide eyes were darting between the half dressed girl standing in the middle of the living room and a shirtless Jake in stunned horror.

Every single word she had just shrieked had clearly met your ears, every accusation, every mention of your name, every sick detail of what had just transpired in his bedroom, they were still resounding off the walls of the living room.

The world around Jake went fully mute, like the ringing in his ears was melting into a sickening stillness as his eyes locked onto yours.

The girl's mocking laugh cut through all that very quickly though. "Oh my God," she wheezed in fake amusement as she looked between your frozen frame and Jake's stiff body. "Not the Y/n actually showing up. Wow. That is just...that is rich."

She turned toward you, crossing her arms over her chest with a malicious smirk. "Do you know that your childhood friend thinks about you when he's getting his dick sucked?"

Before another word could leave her mouth, Jake snapped, as if the last of his restraint broke. He crossed the short distance between them in one terrifying stride, his hand shooting out to lock around her wrist. He didn't say a word or even yell. He just hauled her backward, yanking her straight to the door and ignoring the offended gasp she let out, he was already slamming the door in her face though.

"I...I'm sorry," you stuttered out.

"I was looking for Jace," you blurted as the words tumbling out of your mouth in a desperate attempt to explain away your presence, seeing as you’ve never been here before. "His...his location said he was here. I was just worried he wasn’t answering his texts but...I uh I guess it's just his phone he left behind."

You pointed at the floor near the entryway rug.

Jake followed your line of sight to Jace’s phone, sitting right beside the baseboard, it must have slipped out of Jace's pocket during his explosive exit earlier and he just didn’t notice.

Jake stared at you, just speechless as you quickly bent down and scooped the phone off the floor, slipping it into the back pocket of your jeans with shaking hands.

"I'm...I'm just gonna leave now," you refused to even look him in the eye as you backed up toward the threshold again, your fingers blindly reached behind you for the doorknob. "I'm sorry. I'll just go."

The humiliation of the whole situation, the lingering chemical haze in his system and the agony of having you standing right there, looking at him like he was a complete freak, it all exploded into another wave of defensiveness.

"Yeah," Jake muttered under his breath, turning his back to walk to his room. "You're real good at that."

The words were low but in the quiet apartment, they hit like a whip crack.

"What is that supposed to mean?" You scowled at him.

Jake stopped by the couch and grabbed a shirt he had tossed there earlier and yanked it over his head in a harsh move. "It means what it means," he started, staring you right in the eye. "You're fucking amazing at running away, Y/n. It's basically your signature move."

"What the fuck does that mean, Jake?" You doubled down, stepping further into the apartment and letting the door click shut behind you. Your voice rose, trembling from leftover hangover nausea and a new anger. "I literally just walked into your apartment while you were—while some naked girl was screaming at you! I came here looking for Jace! What the hell are you even talking about?!"

Jake laughed in your face but it was a humorless laugh as he rubbed a hand aggressively over his face, only to push his damp hair back off his forehead. He took a long breath, before just waving an offensively dismissive hand toward the door.

"Whatever," he tossed out flatly, like he was trying to shut it down before he completely lost his mind. "Forget it. Just go."

"No. No, absolutely not," you snapped, planting your feet firmly and placing your hands on your hips as you glared at him. "Tell me what you meant. You don't get to say shady shit like and just tell me to leave. Tell me what I'm running away from, Jake."

"From me!" The sudden volume of his voice shattered the fragile air between you. He took two steps forward until he was looking over you. "You run from me! You run from whatever the fuck happened between us and you run from your feelings for me!"

You stared at him as your mouth helplessly dropped open in bewilderment, right before your features hardened into a wall of resistance. "I don't have any feelings for you, Jake."

"Are you out of your mind? I have never had feelings for you. Unless you’re talking about how much I hate you."

"Sure," Jake scoffed and smirked but it didn’t match the way his eyes looked broken. "Sure you don't. Newsflash, Y/n—I don't know if your brain was too fried from all the alcohol to remember anything from last night but I was the one who came to pick you up from that sketchy club downtown."

You blinked at him, your hands dropped from your hips to your sides as you stumbled over your own tongue. "What...? What are you...no, Jace took me home—"

"Yeah, Jace," Jake cut you off, throwing his hands up in mock celebration. "Oh great guy, Jace! Except Jace was sound asleep in his dorm with Jungwon all night! It was me, Y/n. I answered your call. I got in my car at midnight, drove twenty minutes downtown and dragged your wasted ass off the sidewalk!"

"You're such a liar," you whispered but you couldn’t ignore the dread you left as you flipped through your drunken memories from last night. "You're lying to make me feel insane—"

"Am I?"

"Do you want me to list everything out for you? Do you want me to remind you how you slurred your words into my shoulder while I carried you up three flights of stairs?"

"Stop it," you pleaded while your chest started to feel tighter. "Jake, stop—"

"You told me all about how I make it hard for you to love me," he just kept going even with pain in his voice vibrating off the walls. "You told me you loved me all the way up to freshman year. You said it, Y/n. You said it right to my face! Mrs Jake Sim"

"Stop!" You screamed and shoved his chest with both hands with enough force to make him step back. Tears of mortification were already spilling over your eyelashes. "You had no right! You had no fucking right to be there! You should have called Jace! You should have left me alone!"

"You called me!" Jake shouted back, throwing his arms wide in complete frustration. "You called my number! And even if you thought you were calling him, what was I supposed to do, Y/n?! Leave you stranded on the side of a dark road in the middle of the night?!"

"Why does everyone in my fucking life act like I'm some kind of monster?!" Jake yelled, his voice cracking down the middle. "Why does Jace and why do you think I'm horrible enough to just leave you stranded out on the road, just helpless for some random guy to pick up?! For fuck's sake, Y/n, no matter how much you hate me, no matter how much shit has gone down—how could you ever think I wouldn't come get you?"

"You are horrible, Jake," you spoke so calmly that it made Jake shiver but he was laughing right after.

"I'm not." He shook his head. "I'm not, Y/n and you know I'm not. If I was really as horrible as you keep pretending I am, you wouldn't have been so in love with me for that long."

Watching your wide eyed reaction, Jake saw the realization hit you like a train but he couldn't stop the dam from bursting. He had kept these poisons locked in his chest for far too long.

"I know I've been a bad person," he started. "I know I've fucked up! I know I've pushed everyone away, I know I've made terrible choices but I am trying, Y/n. I am trying so hard to fix myself and to make things better."

A tear finally escaped his right eye but he didn't even bother to wipe it away.

"Do you have any idea?" he choked out as each breath scraped his lungs. "Do you have any fucking idea how long I've been in love with you? Did Jace ever tell you how I was the one who wanted to take you to the dance? Did he tell you how my whole family basically bullied me out of it?"

Your heart slammed against your ribs so hard it felt bruised.

"Did I ever say a single word when you gave Jace all the credit and all your love for that necklace?" Jake continued as his eyes dropped down to your chest where said necklace sat. "The one you still wear around your neck every single day?"

He pointed right at the delicate chain tucked beneath the collar of your shirt.

"I got you that, Y/n." Jake sobbed out softly but a bitter smile was touching his lips as well. "I spent four months saving up my allowance to buy you that thing. I think I actually gave it to your mum but somehow you just assumed it was Jace."

The floor seemed to shift under you suddenly remembered Wednesday in the dining hall, when Jungwon had asked about it and Jace had no memory of buying it when you claimed he did, you had teased him for having such a terrible memory that he couldn't even remember buying his best friend her favorite piece of jewelry.

Except there was no memory for Jace to have, he hadn't forgotten buying it—he had never bought it at all.

It had been Jake. It had always been Jake, standing in the corner, watching you give his brother all the love, all the smiles and all the credit for a gift he took time out to get for you, while he took the blame for being the distant and heartless twin.

You had no idea when you started to sway where you stood but the room was spun sideways as the crippling heaviness of his confession hit you all at once. It was like the narrative you had spent years carefully constructing and believing was crumbling into dust and the next thing you knew he was catching you from falling.

"Woah—hey," Jake breathed out with his voice now filled of protective concern, his hands shot out to catch you by the waist, steadying your weight before you could lose your balance completely. The new proximity was so sudden and when your palms reflexively landed on his broad chest, all you could feel was the erratic beat of his heart.

The heat rolling off him was almost stifling the narrow space between you and when you slowly tilted your head up, your eyes wet with tears met.

Jake was also left in pieces, his eyes were glossy too but also lined with exhaustion and stripped of the usual cocky defiance you were used to. He looked down at you like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the floor, like you were his whole world while his thumb was brushing a shaky circle against the side of your waist through the fabric of top.

The silence hanging in the air was so fragile, both of you knew it was stretched to its absolute breaking point but Jake still spoke.

"Please," he started, voice barely louder than a breath. "Please tell me you still love me, Y/n."

You couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth, Jake Sim loved you? Jake Sim loved you too?

"I—I’ve never stopped loving you."

New tears blurred your vision and poured down your face as you looked up at him through the haze. "You made it so hard, Jake...why did you do that? Why did you love hurting me?"

The heartbreak in your voice knocked the air right out of his lungs and his face contorted into a look of remorse.

"I'm sorry." His hands tightened around your waist, pulling you a fraction closer as if afraid you'd vanish, like his next words would have you leaving. "I'm so fucking sorry, Y/n. I was a child...but that doesn't even excuse a single thing I did. I was a fool. A blind and arrogant fool and I just…I didn't have the maturity to handle what I felt for you, I didn't know how to love you right."

He leaned down and pressed his forehead directly against yours, making you feel his uneven breath fanning over your lips.

"I can make it right," he pleaded in a desperate whisper, using his thumb to brush away a stray tear on your cheek. "I can make it right now, Y/n...if you just let me. Please, just let me."

You had no words left, every wall you had built over the years to keep Jake Sim out was gone, every argument burned away by the passion hanging between you. Your bodies were pressed flush together and his chest was rising and falling against yours with his hands placed tightly to your waist. This was the closest you had ever been to him, way closer than the years of stolen glances, closer than the shared childhood memories, closer than the bitter screams in your memories.

His lips were right there, inching barely a breath away and calling out to you in a way you had spent years trying to ignore and heaven help you, you couldn’t fight your feelings for a single second longer, you leaned up and kissed him.

Jake was immediately inviting, how could he not be? His mouth opening against yours with a starving fervor that made your head spin. His hands slid down to firmly wrap around your thighs, hauling you up just enough that your feet were barely tiptoeing on the hard floor but you were pinned directly into his heat and that’s all he wanted.

The kiss deepened in a matter of seconds, slick with tongue and an eager battle of years of unspoken yearning finally breaking through. When he parted his lips from yours, he dragged his mouth down the sensitive path of your jaw, burying his face into your neck and kissing over your skin, sending a helpless whimper tearing from your throat.

Your impatient self couldn't take the space, you were already reaching up and tangling your fingers tightly into the locks of his hair to forcefully tug his head back up and capture his lips again.

Jake groaned into your mouth and reality crashed over him through the sensory overload, he felt the dangerous momentum building between you two, he really did try to create a inch of distance, his hands shifted to press gently against your shoulders.

"Wait—Y/n, wait," he rasped out, trying to catch his breath. "Let’s—let's just breathe for a second—"

But it seemed like you weren’t having it, you were far too deep, too consumed by the thought of him actually loving you as heartbreakingly as you loved him.

Without pause, you grabbed the hem of your top and yanked it over your head to toss it blindly onto the floor. Before he could even process the sudden flash of your bare skin and commit it to memory, you reached for his shoulders again and jumped this time, wrapping your legs tightly around his waist so he was forced to catch you.

Jake’s arms reacted on pure instinct and his hands shot out to firmly scoop under your thighs, supporting your entire weight as his chest heaved against yours and looked up at you like he was putty in your hands, you could ask the man to kiss your feet right now and he’d do it without thinking.

All you could think of in that moment was how many nights you had spent deep in this exact fantasy. A stray thought crossed your mind—would the girl who had just stormed out get a kick out of finding out that you had always fantasized about Jake, too? That all her cruel insults were useless because you had wanted him just as terribly?

Jake turned and carried you straight down the hallway toward his bedroom, your legs locking firmer around him and your hands buried in his hair. He was fully aware of the sickening irony that you were the second girl he had carried down this exact hall in the space of two hours but as he looked up at you, he knew you were the only one that actually mattered.

When he set you down on the edge of the mattress, his hands lingering on your hips for a fraction of a second before slipping away. He just stood there, just frozen and watching as you kicked off your shoes and shed your jeans. He was totally enthralled by you, taking in every single inch of bare skin like a man seeing water after a lifetime in the desert.

Following your lead, he quickly stripped off his sweatpants. "You're so gorgeous, Y/n." He said to you. "So fucking gorgeous."

He closed the distance between you again, leaning down to capture your mouth in another deep kiss, his hand slid around to your back and his fingers made quick work of your bra clasp. The front popped loose and as his palm immediately cupped your bare breast, his thumb and forefinger lightly pinched your sensitive nipple.

A gasp broke against his lips, one he could feel in his chest. His grip tightened around your waist as he pulled you along with him and sat back on the edge of the bed, guiding you to straddle his lap. As you settled over his thighs, you tried to ignore his bulge poking against your thong, he was already leaning down to bury his face in your chest, taking one of your nipples deep into his mouth.

He sucked it into mouth, swirling his tongue around the peak until your hands scrambled for purchase against his broad shoulders and your back arched further into him. "Mmm Jake." You moaned out, unable to help the way your hips began to roll and tilt over his lap.

Jake grunted against your breast, gripping your thighs to keep encourage your movements, moaning at the feel of your wet folds against the bulge in his boxers. He was about to switch to your other breast but before his mouth could move, your hands shifted up to his shoulders and you firmly pushed him back.

He let himself fall at your will, landing flat against the mattress with a laugh. "Oh, okay," he grunted softly, a smirk full of ecstasy catching the corner of his lips as he looked at you.

You shifted your flimsy thong to the side and you your body turned in his lap, reversing your position so your back was to him. He didn’t get the chance to even ask what you were doing before you were lowering yourself over his face, bringing your wet folds right above him.

Jake’s eyes widened at the view but he quickly regained composure and his hands immediately locked around the sides of your hips and he knew exactly what to do.

He also knew he was amazing at it, too and an arrogant confidence settled into the way his hands gripped your thighs, holding you firmly in place.

He parted his lips and buried his mouth right into your dripping pussy, wrapping his wet mouth around your swollen folds. The first touch of his tongue sent a shudder straight through you, making you moan instantly.

"Nghh—Jake. Fuck."

He seemed to be taking his time with the way he glided his tongue deliberately around your throbbing clit, setting a steady gentle tug that made your hands scramble wildly for purchase against his knees and the sheets. The heat of his mouth was utter torture, every flick of his tongue kept hitting the exact right spot, precisely driving you over the edge until your hips began to roll helplessly against his lips and you were riding his face not even caring if you smothering the man.

Jake was just as drunk on the pleasure as you were, so lost in the scent and taste of you as you rode his face, also not caring that you were smothering him. His hands dug firmly into the plush of your thighs and add, holding you down against his mouth as his tongue worked in the best strokes you’d ever felt.

"Ohh shit! J—Jake!" You sobbed out. "Mmm yes."

He met every roll of your hips with long, wet licks, sealing his lips tightly around your swollen folds. Every time he got a moan out of you, he vibrated a muffled chuckle straight into your skin, just loving every second of how you were using him. He loved the total weight of your body pressing over him, loved the helpless way your thighs shook against his ears and he loved knowing that every winded gasp echoing through his bedroom was because of his mouth.

"God, fuck...you taste so good, Y/n," Jake said against your wetness. "So fucking good for me."

Overwhelmed by the fervor, you tried to reach down for the waistband of his boxers. "Need...need yo—," You attempted to speak but your words were cut off when he wrapped his lips around your clit and started to suck just like he did your nipple.

You hooked your fingers under the elastic and dragged his boxers down just far enough to free his thick length. You were totally driven by the desire to drive him just as crazy as he was driving you, you adjusted and lowered your head down toward his lap to take his cock into your mouth. But the moment the warm head brushed past your lips and tasted his precum, Jake swirled his tongue directly over your clit again and your entire train of thought shattered.

"Oh god Jake! Your tongue—! Ahah—!" You cried but your voice was muffled with his shaft slipped into your mouth.

The pleasure was simply too much for you to function, so you ended up just resting your lips over the head of cock. “Mmmph...Jake, you’re gonna make me cum,” you whined softly around him, not able to actually suck him off the way you intended because your mind was far too fractured. You just hovered there, moaning and trembling, letting your hot mouth wrap around his tip while you rode the wave of agony his tongue was pounding into you.

Jake let out a moan of his own into your folds as your moans vibrated directly against his cock. His hips twitched up beneath you, his nails curled into the softness of your thighs while he picked up the pace.

"It’s okay, love. You don’t have to suck it, just moan around it." You heard him say. "Mhmm, just like that. Let me feel you."

He shifted his focus to your clit, flicking the tip of his tongue over the swollen knot in fast licks that grew sharper and faster with every second.

"Jake—Jake, stop, wait—!" You wailed sitting up as your whole body started to shake cause you were right at the verge of cumming. "I'm—ah!"

He realized you were about to try to run away so he held on tighter as your back arched and your thighs trembled uncontrollably against his head.

"Can I put a finger inside you?" Jake asked you but the tone of his voice made you completely freeze up.

There was no suave or cocky authority in it. It was thick with desperation in a way you hadn’t expected.

"Please, Y/n," His whines were softly muffled against your pussy and a small, pathetic sound caught in his throat as his forehead pressed hard against your hip. "Fuck...please? Just one. Let me..."

You gasped, the shock of it really cut through your pleasure. For years, you had built up this image of Jake in your head—imagining that if he ever got you into his bed, he would be completely in control, demanding and just ruthlessly dominant. But here he was, literally squirming beneath you, with his voice high and breathless while he begged for your permission like a boy who couldn't bear the thought of taking a single thing without you giving it to him first.

A squeal tore from your throat. "Yes! Yes, Jake, please—"

The moment the words left your mouth, he let out a needy breath of relief and not wanting to waste another second, he slid a thick finger deep into your tight heat.

"Ah! Jake! More!"

"God, you're so damn tight...fuck," Jake said, his other hand trembling as he began curling his finger downward, desperately seeking out that one spot inside you.

He didn't hold back at all, already pumping his finger in and out in deep thrusts, opening you up and working you until your pussy gushed wet heat all over his hand. The whimpering noises he made against your skin were unhinged, he was practically sobbing into your core as his tongue lapped up every single drop of slick pouring out of you while he continued to finger you. He moved his tongue on your clit, turning your moans and cries into music like he was begging you with every stroke to just let him give you more.

Before you could even catch your breath or get used to the finger inside you, Jake slid a second finger right beside the first.

"Jake…that’s..hmmm yes!"

He pumped them in and out so good, crooking them downward to hit places deep inside you that you couldn't possibly reach on your own. Every targeted thrust had you bucking against his face, losing your mind over the depth he was reaching.

Driven completely out of his mind too, Jake latched back onto your clit again, harder this time like he had forgone all restraint. He was gloriously messy about it, sucking hard, spitting and slurping at your swollen pussy with loud, wet noises that bounced around the room. A continuous moan coiled straight from his throat directly into your pussy as your wetness gushed freely, running down his jaw and dripping onto his neck.

He pulled his fingers out with a wet pop, but instantly replaced them with his tongue. He thrust it deep inside your entrance, curling and working it to stretch your pussy as far as it would go, mimicking the exact rhythm of his fingers while his hands clamped onto your hips to keep you still.

In the blinding veil of it all, you managed to lift your heavy eyelids open and through your blurry vision, you looked down past your chest to find Jake’s hips twitching involuntarily against the mattress, his thighs shook with every stroke he gave you. His hard cock was twitching against air, unattended with steady stream of precum leaking from the tip and making a path down a prominent vein.

He was so overtaken by giving you pleasure that his own body was weeping for relief, yet completely at your mercy. You watched with lust as he shifted his heels firmly into the mattress, digging them in as his hips began to thrust up into the bare air.

Watching him twitch and squirm beneath you was intoxicating and driven by curiosity and a sudden surge of power, you reached down to wrap both of your hands tightly around his leaking cock.

"Ahhh—no, please—!" Jake yelled into your pussy, his whole body jerked at the sudden contact and his hands tightened on your hips so hard his knuckles turned white. "Y/n, fuck, don't—"

But you didn't listen, you twisted and pumped your hands over his slick length, establishing a tight rhythm. The combination of your hands working his shaft and the taste of you on his tongue threatened to send him completely over the edge. His tongue started faltering, like he was losing all focus, even starting to slur unintelligible words directly against your wet folds.

"Oh...shi—, Y/n...please..." He begged but his hips were thrusting upward directly into your grip and he was chasing the friction of your palms with needy little twitches.

You were simply amazed at the sight, the sight of this loud, guarded, stubborn guy completely unraveling in your hands, whimper for whimper, totally at your mercy. He was so close, he knew he as and he couldn’t stop his core from shaking as he bucked into your touch.

"I'm—I'm gonna cum—Stop! Shit, Y/n, I'm gonna cum! P—Please!" He cried out and before he could let go completely, he suddenly grabbed your wrists and stopped your pumping hands in their tracks with a harsh tug.

He was flipping you over quickly and the world spun as he manhandled you onto your back, pinning your wrists beside your head as his bigger frame settled over yours.

He closed his eyes for a painful minute, the he dropped his head into the crook of your neck, letting out a low stream of curses into your skin, every muscle in his shoulders locked tight as he fought back the edge he had almost tumbled over.

"Fuck...fuck," he groaned in a shaky voice. He lifted his head and opened his eyes to look into yours with nothing but desperation. "I was so fucking close...but I can't. I want to make love to you first, Y/n. Please? Can I please?"

You didn't answer with words, you reached down between your bodies, wrapping your fingers around his pulsing cock to line the thick head directly against your drenched hole.

Jake gasped at the sensation, his hips twitching forward but as his hand moved down to shove your thong further out of the way, the thin lace gave out under his eager grip, tearing down the middle with a loud rip.

He paused for a second, looking at the torn fabric hanging in his hand. "Oh...I'm sorry," he mumbled, looking back up at you but the expression on his face completely betrayed him—his eyes were blown out with lust and a faint smirk tugged at his lips that showed he wasn't really sorry at all.

Before you could scold him for it, he grounded his hands firmly into the mattress on either side of your head, resting the hot tip of his cock against your entrance, his jaw clenching as he slowly began to push inside.

"Jake...mmh, wait—it's so big..."

The moment the words hit his ears, Jake had to tightly shut his eyes again. "Don't—fuck, Y/n, don't say that," he pleaded with a voice so strained as he fought the urge to just slam all the way home.

Realizing how tight you were around him, he forced his hips to stay still for a moment and reached down between your bodies, using his thumb to find your swollen clit and began to rub soothing circles against it, deliberately trying to coax your body into relaxing for him.

"Breathe for me, love," he whispered against your skin, leaning down to press soft kisses to your lips, then to your cheeks and down to the corner of your jaw.

As your body melted under his touch and the tension in your thighs began to give way, Jake took advantage of the shift, groaning low in his chest and slowly pushing the rest of his cock all the way inside your tight pussy, burying himself to the hilt.

The sheer feeling of him stretching you to your absolute limit was overwhelming and every small shift of his hips brought another helpless whine spilling from your lips.

"Jake, fuck...it’s too big," you repeated, your fingers dug into his shoulders as your breath hitched in your chest. "You’re so...ah, Jake...Mm my pussy."

Jake gave a tormented grunt, trying to pull back just an inch to establish a new pace but your walls were clamped so tightly around his length that he could barely move.

"Y/n, shhh—fuck, stop whining like that." His words choked him. He buried his face into your neck again, like he was fighting for control. "You’re so fucking tight, love...I swear to God, if you keep making those noises, I’m gonna cum right now."

He managed to stay completely still for a second, locking his hips flush against yours while his breath came out hot against your skin, he was trying with everything in him not to lose his mind inside you before he even truly started.

Tears welled up in the corners of your eyes, blurring the sight of him as he finally established a deep pace. The sheer size of him, mixed with how deep he was sinking into you with every roll of his hips, made your head spin.

"Jake...fuck," you moaned out as you looked up at him. "You’re—you’re in my stomach..."

Jake’s eyes snapped to yours, suddenly drunk on how vocal you were being for him. A possessive spark lit up his face. "Where?" he asked, pausing his hips for a second but making sure he was deep. "Where, my love? Show me."

Shaking uncontrollably, you lifted one hand from his shoulder and pointed to the lower curve of your belly, right where you could feel the solid pressure of his cock stretching you.

A melting look softened his sharp features and a breathless coo escaped his lips as he looked down at your hand. "Right there, doll? Hmm? I'm right there?"

You gave a quick nod, so pathetic while your bottom lip trembled as more tears ran down your face.

"Fuck, you're so sweet for me," Jake was undone by the sight and now driven by the urge to get even deeper, he

reached down and grabbed your ankles, hauling your legs up and tossing them directly over his shoulders.

The new angle opened you up completely, plunging him straight to your absolute limit in one sharp, powerful thrust.

"Oh my god! Jake! I—I can’t!" The new depth hit the sensitive sweet spot inside you that Jake had been looking for.

"Mm? You like that?" Jake growled out, a triumphant smile catching on his lips as he picked up the pace a little more. His broad palms slammed flat against the mattress beside your head and his hips thrusted into you with a faster pace, every deep stroke brought out even louder moans that drove him out of his mind.

"I want to cum...fuck, Jake, I want to cum so bad!"

The unbearable coil in your lower belly tightened to a breaking point and driven wild by the deep pounding, your hand scurried down between your sweaty bodies. Your fingers found your swollen clit and started rubbing fast circles over the tender nub. That made your walls clamp down on his cock harder, literally sucking him deeper with every involuntary pulse.

Every nerve ending in his body screamed at him to just let go and cum inside your pussy right then and there.

"God—You’re driving me crazy, Y/n."

He dug his knees into the mattress, the muscles in his shoulders and thighs locked up as he fought with everything in him to keep his own orgasm at bay. He refused to end it yet, too intoxicated on the sight of you taking him so well, too addicted to the unfiltered sound of your moans and the loud slapping of your bodies colliding together.

"That's it, love…mmhm take it," he grunted through his gritted teeth, pushing his hips forward in intentional grinds that pushed your fingers directly into your clit. "Cum for me. Come on. Let go."

The unrelenting pressure inside you snapped all at once and a gasp was caught in your throat as your orgasm shattered through you like an earthquake. Your pussy walls contracted so tightly and with so much force, that you practically expelled his cock, pushing him back out of your entrance as your whole body arched off the bed.

Jake let out a startled noise, eyes dropping down to look between your legs where your pussy was pulsing in hard waves and your folds were fluttering, literally soaking the mattress beneath you in hot gushes that spurt freely over his thighs and the rumpled sheets.

"Fuck...fuck, Y/n." Jake gasped out, awestruck as he stared down at the wet mess you were making all over his bed.

"Hmm...no, don't look!" You squealed, as embarrassment suddenly washed over you, you threw both hands over your eyes, trying to hide your face from his gaze.

"Don't look?" Jake echoed but his voice was so dark with possessive satisfaction that you had to look at him. "God, I am so fucking in love with you. Look what you did to my bed, love."

You couldn’t even offer him another word of defense or tell him that you loved him too, he had grabbed your hips and flipped you over onto your stomach. You gasped as he gathered your hips, pulling your lower body back to bring your trembling thighs flush against his.

Then he guided his thickness right back against your pussy. "Look at you hiding your face like you didn't just wreck me."

He was already thrusting and pulling you back to meet him. "Oh fuck mr! Jaeyun! Yes yes yes!" You screamed into the pillow.

Jaeyun?

Now that he had already seen you completely unravel, all his restraint was gone. His grip on your waist got tighter and began pounding into you with a powerful rhythm. Every thrust was harder, faster and deeper than before, the wet slapping sound of his hips against your ass hit your ears as he took you over and over again.

"I love you, Y/n." Jake grunted right against the shell of your ear. He slammed forward, his hips drove his fat cock straight into exactly where you needed it. "Fuck...I love you so much."

You couldn't even form proper sentences anymore, your body was reacting on pure instinct and your tight walls were pumping slick cream all over his shaft with every single hit.

"Oh godddd! Jaaaake!" Your hands clawed at the sheets beneath you. "Right there—fuck, right there Jake!"

"I'm so fucking in love with you, baby...I can't even think straight..." He pulled your body up so your back was to his chest and his palm was pressed to your belly, right where he could feel his cock thrusting into you.

The confession plus the blinding sensation of his cock grinding against your sweet spot, broke down whatever remaining barrier you had left.

"I love you too!" You threw your head back against his shoulder. "I love you, Jake! Ah—!" "You—You’re going to make me cum again!"

Hearing those words spill from your lips was the final straw for Jake, he gave one last guttural sound from the back of his throat, his grip tightened around your stomach as he placed kisses and bites on your neck, his thrusts turned fast and unhinged as he chased his own final peak right along with you.

He grabbed you by your hair and slammed you down into the pillows, pinning your face firmly as he delivered his final thrusts. The possessive weight of his hand held you completely anchored, leaving you helpless under his hips.

"Cum with me, love." "Fuck...cum on this cock right now. Please."

"Yes! Yes, Jake!" You responded, sliding your arm between your wet thighs, you pressed your palm flat against your swollen clit, slapping and grinding against the swollen knot.

The visual shattered whatever fragile hold Jake had left, watching your hand work wildly over your clit while he pounded into you, mixed with the tight spasms of your walls suddenly clamping down around him again, it all pushed him right over the cliff.

"Fuck—! Y/n!" Jake roared, his entire body locking up, he slammed his hips all the way forward and shoved his thick length to the absolute hilt deep inside your pulsing pussy. His chest heaved as he came violently, an endless torrent filling you up completely as your body shuddered under his. His grip on the back of your head softened into a tender hold, his forehead dropped to the pillow beside your head as you both rode out the overwhelming waves of your shared release.

Jake collapsed over you, carefully keeping most of his weight propped up on his forearms, refusing to crush you. His skin sweaty just like yours and when he shifted his weight, reaching down to wrap a thick arm around your waist to pull you flush against his chest because he wanted nothing more than to hold you close while your heartbeats slowed together.

"Hey..." he called out to you and leaned in to press a gentle kiss to your shoulder.

"Don't." you choked out, pressing your hands hard against his broad chest.

Jake’s heart almost stopped beating. He looked down at you and his brow squeezed together in instant confusion. "Y/n...?"

As the feverish haze of the moment rapidly cleared, the air in the room suddenly turned cold and when he looked down into your face, he didn't see the soft look of someone who had just confessed their love. He saw the sudden panic and a crushing look of regret staring back at him and a sharp spike of fear shot straight through Jake's chest,

"No...no, wait," he muttered, watching as you forcefully pushed yourself up off the mattress, breaking away from his touch as if his skin burned you. "Y/n, baby please wait,"

"Don’t—Don’t call me that, Jake. We...God, we shouldn't have done that."

"What?" Jake sat up instantly, not knowing what to do while you searched the room for your discarded clothes . "Y/n, what are you talking about?"

You didn't look at him, your hands were trembling so badly you could barely function as you frantically searched the floor, snatching up your shirt and scrambling to pull the pieces of your clothes together.

"This was a mistake," you whispered. "Jake, I...I have to go."

"Y/n, stop! Please, talk to me!" Jake panicked, throwing his legs over the edge of the bed and quickly pulling his boxers on. His eyes were wide and terrified as he realized you were pulling your clothes back on, the confident, loving man from seconds ago entirely shattered by the sudden distance between you.

"Look at me! Please, don't just leave like this—what do you mean a mistake?"

"I mean we shouldn’t have had sex!" You blurted out loudly, shoving your arms through the sleeves of your top. The panic in your chest was consuming, making your hands shake so badly you could barely button it. "Oh God...what would Jace say?"

Jake went completely still. "What?" Jake asked in disbelief. "Jace? What the fuck does Jace have to do with this?"

You didn't answer, you just couldn't, so you grabbed your shoes from the floor, desperate to reach the door and escape the room. But before you could take two steps, Jake moved, stepping directly into your path, using his hands to grip your shoulders gently and blocking the doorway. His touch wasn't forceful but it was solid enough to ground you and stop your escape in its tracks.

"Y/n, stop. Just—please, calm down for a second so I can speak." He pleaded, eyes searching yours. He took a deep breath, sliding his hands down to wrap around your trembling wrists.

"Look, I know I sound like a broken fucking record by now," Jake started, "And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Yes, I know we shouldn't have just had sex right now. I know the timing is fucked up and I know everything between us is so complicated. But I can't take it back, Y/n. And...Fuck me, I'm not even sure I would take it back."

You were already starting to cry again.

"I know I can't ever take back the things I've done to hurt you," Jake continued, softly stroking over the pulse points on your wrists with his thumbs. "I know I fucked up in the past. But by God, Y/n...I want to try. I want to learn how to love you the way you actually deserve to be loved. I'm so done running from this." He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw as he addressed the name hanging like a rainy cloud between you.

"And Jace?" Jake said softly, looking straight into your eyes without flinching. "I know he's going to have his reservations. I know he's going to hate me and I know he's going to try and protect you from me. And I'm ready for that. I'm ready to deal with whatever Jace throws at me because losing you again? Not fighting for you right now? That's the only thing in this whole fucked up world that actually scares the shit out of me."

The tears welling in your eyes fell down your cheeks and Jake’s thumb quickly brushed them away. His own eyes were glossy as he continued to speak.

"I know I can't fix everything in a day, or a week, or a month," he whispered. "I know it might take a whole fucking year—or longer. But however long it takes for me to make it up to you, Y/n...I'm here. I'm not going anywhere this time. I am fucking anchored to you."

He took a shaky, ragged breath, his broad palms rising to cup the sides of your face, holding you like you were made of glass, like he was terrified that one wrong move would cause you to shatter right through his fingers.

"I've been in love with you my whole life," Jake confessed, "I know this is what I want. I've always known. I want the fight, I want the mess, I want every single piece of you. But...if you don't want this? If being with me hurts too much, if looking at me just reminds you of everything I broke...I'll understand. I'll step back and let you hate me."

You stood utterly frozen in his hold, the violent trembling of your shoulders slowing as his words settled deep into your chest. You looked up into the dark depths of his eyes.

Through the wet sheen of your tears, the light caught a warmth in your expression, there was something undeniable and overflowing in it, like a quiet truth you couldn't hide even if you wanted to.

Just pure love.

Jake's eyes widened as he caught it and his grip on your jaw tightened just a fraction, his heart hammered in his chest as he waited on the cusp of his entire life. Your lips parted and a ruined gasp left them as you opened your mouth to finally give him your answer—

‎ ₊ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 𓈒⊹

The fabric of the silk floor length gown, the jaw dropping piece you knew for a fact had cost more than your entire university tuition, courtesy of Jake’s ridiculously deep pockets, well it was currently bunched in heavy folds around your waist.

Instead of walking out the door toward the car, you were pressed flat against the back of the small sofa in the entryway, your heels digging uselessly into the rug as Jake buried his face between your bare thighs.

"Jake—fuck, stop!" You gasped out, your fingers tangling frantically in his styled hair. "We don't...Oh fuck—! We don't have time for this!"

He didn't listen, apparently sight of you stepping out in the backless dress had wiped his composure off the map and now his hands were locked around your thighs, holding you pinned while his tongue lapped relentlessly at your dripping center.

Every time you tried to push him away, he’d flick his tongue just right over your clit, turning your stern protests into embarrassingly pathetic moans that were music to his ears.

"I'm serious!" You whimpered, your head falling back against the cushion as a heavy surge of heat coiled low in your belly. "Jace and...oh God, Jace and Jungwon are going to kill us if we're late for their anniversary dinner!"

A low vibration hummed straight against your wet folds as he chuckled and the vibration alone sent a shudder straight to your belly.

"I’ll handle them," Jake’s voice came out completely muffled, his words slurred against your drenched skin before he clamped his lips over your clit and sucked hard, letting go cause he just couldn’t shut up. "They can wait...you look too fucking good to leave this room..."

He flicked his tongue deep into your entrance, tasting the slick mess he was making of you, his hands pushed harder into your hips to pull you even closer into his mouth, just indifferent to the clock ticking down on the wall.

His tongue got messier, slicker and even ruthless, sending wet licks all the way up to your clit before dragging his tongue straight back down into your tight entrance and shoving it in.

"Jake, nooo—your shirt!" You tried to remind him as you felt the crisp cotton of his dress shirt against your inner thighs. "You're gonna ruin it, baby, come on—"

"Don't give a fuck," he grunted out against your skin, not slowing down at all.

His mouth went completely wild, lapping at you with heavy, frantic strokes as he used his grip on your waist to guide you into riding his lips.

The angle was lethal, your heel clad feet were kicking in the air from the pleasure and as you dug your fingers deep into his scalp to keep yourself steady, the small band of the gold promise ring he’d given you for your six month anniversary pressed firmly into his skin. The subtle bite of the metal seemed to turn him on even more and a low groan rumbled through his chest.

A breathless smile broke across your face, followed by a helpless little giggle as the pleasure began to build in your belly.

"Jake...oh God, it feels so good," you whimpered out, your hips rolling helplessly over his tongue. "I'm—I'm gonna cum, Jake, I'm so close!"

"Mmh I know, baby. Cum on my face," he encouraged, squeezing your hips to keep you riding his mouth through the rising tide.

Your back arched as a breathless cry tore through you, your whole body trembling as a drenching climax crashed over you. Your inner walls fluttered desperately, flooding his mouth with your sweet release.

Jake didn't miss a single drop, holding you firm and humming in satisfaction as he greedily licked up every trace of your orgasm, lapping at your sensitive folds until you were completely weak and breathlessly melting back into the sofa cushions.

He grinned up at you from his position on the floor, then he stood up to help you slide your panties back up over your legs, smoothing the delicate fabric over your hips with entirely too much care. But the second they were in place, his palm came down with a stinging slap right against your ass.

"Hmm...mine," he rumbled with a smug grin.

Before you could swat his hand away, he was kissing your lips and taking your hand to his hair so you could tug at his hair just the way he likes. But as your fingers tangled into his locks and his tongue parted your lips, your thoughts drifted backward, sinking deep into the blurred timeline of the past year.

It really hadn't changed overnight.

Those first few months had been a delicate tightrope. As expected, Jace had been violently skeptical, refusing to even sit in the same room as Jake without a tense silence filling the air. There were nights you spent crying, terrified out of your mind that loving Jake meant losing Jace forever. But slowly, so painfully slowly, they had started the long process of repairing what had been broken. It wasn't perfect but the wall between the twins was finally coming down, inch by inch.

Your mind flashed back to the day you finally sat down with their family, terrifyingly nervous, to announce that you and Jake were officially together. You had prepared a whole speech, only for their mom to look up from her tea, roll her eyes dramatically and mutter, "Finally. It only took you two a decade." Before giving you a hug.

When Jake’s tongue brushed against yours, you remembered last summer at the Sim lake house. With the heat, the smell of pine and freshwater, the endless sound of laughter echoing off the dock with Jace, Jake, Sloane, Jungwon, and even Jay. You had spent the days swimming until your skin burned and lounging in the sun, surrounded by the people who mattered the most.

Jake really couldn't keep his hands off you for more than a few hours at a time that entire week. The memory of him sneaking you away from the group to drag you behind the boat house or locking the door to the guest cabin, just to push your sundress up or shift your bikini bottoms out of the way and bend you over whatever surface was closest because he was so starved for you.

You moaned into his mouth, kissing him deeper as you remembered the morning after one particularly loud night in the cabin, sitting at the breakfast table while Jay and Sloane relentlessly teased you about the wooden bed frame creaking through the thin walls until sunrise. Before you could die of embarrassment, Jake had just casually raised an eyebrow as he poured his coffee, instantly turning the blame on his twin and his boyfriend, claiming they were the ones keeping the whole house up with their own late night activities. The sheer chaos that exploded at the table after that had given you both just enough time to slip away unnoticed again.

"See? Perfect," Jake bragged, breaking the kiss and snapping you out of your head, pointing to his spotless shirt. "Didn't ruin it at all. You worried for nothing, baby."

"You are unbelievable," you muttered, rolling your eyes but the softness in your chest from every memory brought you right back to him, grounding you completely in the present.

Jake just chuckled, stepping in close to wrap his arms around your waist. He pulled you flush against his chest and leaned down, pressing another lingering kiss directly to your lips and now that you weren’t elsewhere you could taste yourself on his lips.

"I love you," he whispered against your mouth, his eyes softening into that warm, devoted look that always made your chest ache.

"I love you too," you murmured back, then he leaned back with a dangerously playful spark lighting up his eyes. A smirk spread across his face as he offered you his arm.

"Shall we...Mrs. Jake Sim?"

Your jaw dropped. "Jake! Stop!" you squeaked out, smacking his shoulder in pure embarrassment as you tried to hide your face from him. "Stop teasing me with that! Oh my God, I was like six!"

"What? It's a nice name," he teased, laughing softly as he caught your hand and kissed your knuckles then your wrist, definitely enjoying how flustered you were over the childhood nickname you used to call yourself. "Okay, okay, I'll stop."

He offered you his arm again, leading you out the door toward his car but as you stepped into the hallway, a quiet determination settled deep in his chest.

Until I make it true, he thought to himself.

taglist i ── @fancypeacepersona @usuallyunlikelyfox @starry-eyed-bimbo @strayy-kidz @mheretoreadff @bloomiize @xoenhalover @mamuljji @gabrielinhaa @ieatwon @rialikesbts @lunacrtk @dulcetnostalgia @lovel1z @kristynaaah @c1eod1n3 @pqrkjyx @tojiworshipper @loverseon @yazmike @ravenslocked @enhxlvr @mangoescrazy @hees-h0e @stayalittlelonger143 @hazevelyn @sour-chaos @skzenhalove @mochi-mika @isagistar @baedreamverse @jvngw0nlvr @deobitifull @prettygirlthings-world @ravenslocked @ricecakeslove @lenolalalie

© nephynes 2025

Your work card digs into the muscles of your hand, its corners eroded from all the times you've walked the same path with the same fear. It stopped hurting months after getting it, the scars on your palm long cured. You've never once needed to show it, no one to question you is ever around, but they know who you are and where you're going.

It'd be completely silent, save for the buzzing of the blueish green and purple screens that surround every other building. Shining white teeth smile at you from the billboards, promotions of Cerebrum's latest update flashing one after another beside happy customers.

The LED lights mask the colorless reality in Prism. Below the gray smog that covers the sky and every building higher than three floors up, very few apartments seem lived in. You pass by them every day, every lifeless day, and they never change. Shoebox-shaped apartments got popular after the rise of Cerebrum's new life mode. Why have expensive, big, homes when the digital world gives you everything you need? Your bed stuck by your sister's is the everyday proof, yet you're the only one bothered by it. She and your mother never wake up from the cable-induced slumber, they don't see how the real world turned out to look like.

The company spent months, money and seemingly endless resources recreating every pixel to match everywhere in the country. And then spent more months blaming the state of the cities on the population, with Prism's government's support. Water, food, jobs, all went scarce at the same time as the digital world became available for anyone who owned any of Cerebrum's technology.

You don't blame those who prefer to spend their lives plugged in. Why spend your days in dead streets when you could be cities away in the blink of an eye, where the sun shines uninterrupted, where jobs don't risk your life, where time doesn't show on your skin and changing your appearance is as simple as choosing your new feature from a menu. The digital world seemed to satisfy the population's needs, and the Government's. It seemed to solve working families' issues while they got ignored by those who vowed to protect them. Once the devices to enter the digital world were well spread, jobs and housing for the population kept raking down priority lists.

It should be 7 am according to your analog clock. You haven't seen the sun in years. Would it be up by now? Or would your journey in the dimly lit streets be dark anyway?

You hear your workplace before you see it. The tall building buzzes so loudly its sounds echo even a street away. Then, the only building powerful enough to shine through their smoke comes to view.

The skyscraper is undeniably beautiful, with glass windows and delicate light arrangements on the sides. The one time you plugged yourself in and strolled around the digital world, you thought its pixels were underwhelming in comparison. It's a shame only few people choose to see it in real life. It's a shame that, everyday you come into work, the marvel disappears each second you spend downstairs.

The front door beeps in warning as you come close. Once upon a time, before you were of age to work, there used to be a real life guard at the door to check everyone's work cards. At least that's what your mom says. Now there's just a laser scanner that matches your card to your retina scan.

"Cerebrum's happy to have you," the AI voice welcomes you with its eerie happiness.

You used to smile back at the cameras, sure that someone real had to be monitoring the employees. You don't have it in you to be polite to machines anymore.

Inside, three elevators come to view behind the receptionist's hologram. Its green hand points to the one you're supposed to take. The metal doors open for you without pressing a button, and next thing you know, the elevator takes you down to where it knows you go every day of the week.

There are days you spend without hearing your voice, or any voice. There are wild days when you wish one of the soldiers roaming the streets finds you so you had an excuse to say something longer than a sentence. There are others, the rarer ones, when you dare to wish your family would unplug from Cerebrum and you could spend a normal day. Never once do you wish to become a pixel, even when your responsibilities need you to.

Working seems more and more like the only thing you wait for, the only place where being alone with people permanently on mute doesn't drag your will to live through the mud. Sad, really.

The metal doors open to let you through, but the sight before you is not what you expect. For a second, you view the monitor room. Computer screens show flashes of green tapes, streets all across the city with someone walking by. Your suspicions were correct, someone is watching the streets. Only a chair is occupied by a uniformed, who slowly turns back to catch your eyes through his black leather mask before the elevator dings once again and closes its doors.

Damn it. All the time you spent following the rules for you to get in trouble for a once in a lifetime malfunction. Cameras are never seen, not even in the office, yet you now have confirmation that they're real, and they are recording. A security guard caught you peeking at the security footage. You don't know what floor that was or what they do with the information, only that the next time the doors open, you see familiar rows of cubicles across the room. There's only one thing you can do, and it's pretending nothing happened. Your security now depends on one man who you trust doesn't want to get in trouble for allowing a security breach.

You're not the first one to arrive on your floor. Multiple stares find yours from their desks, the small wrinkles by their eyes the only greeting you get. You smile politely and walk to your desk with your head down.

Keyboards tick from every booth, yet you doubt any of them have a real assignment, it's been months since you got one yourself. You spend the time reviewing old algorithms and updating them to the current system, small fixes that you're probably the only one to notice their purpose, but that make daily devices faster to use.

Three taps on the floor from the cubicle by your left perk your ears up. Morgan gets up and walks to the bathroom. You don't look her way, maintaining your hands in place as you type nonsense onto an empty code sheet and delete it right after. You know what it means when you steal a glance and notice her red pen missing.

As long as your computer shows itself active, she shouldn't have problems, otherwise, someone would've caught up to the task-less team you're a part of.

Her walk back to the desk disrupts the silent office, but you can't do anything more than waiting. Everyone knows. The air gets tense. Every tap of your foot signals another second has passed. You can't do anything yet. It's too early.

But you need to warn someone before it's too late.

You get up at the ninetieth tap, over ten before you're supposed to. The imprints of her feet are almost visible on the green hairs of the carpeted floor. She didn't take long there. She couldn't have known what happened before you got in. And no one else came in here.

The skin of your back flares with goosebumps as you open the restroom door. You can't be visibly upset. You force your face to seem calm as you turn so the cameras don't notice anything unusual.

You don't take a normal breath until the door closes shut.

One of the stalls is closed. That's where Morgan wanted you to go.

You enter the one on its right and crawl under the side-wall to find where the note awaits.

Meet at the Park later. Storm warned of bad news.

Bad news.

The note system has its limitations, being detailed is out of limits. But Morgan didn't write about anyone in particular. Her inside contact either didn't tell her about your encounter, or preferably, they didn't hear about it. She's not your friend, she relays important information the company doesn't want the workers to know. If you were in trouble, she'd tell you. There's a 50/50 chance your ass isn't on the line. Not bad odds, taking in account Cerebrum's history.

You take the note, drop it in the water and flush. If there were other coworkers Morgan wanted to tell, she'd find another way.

Making sure nothing sounds out of the ordinary, you wash your hands a respectable amount of time and walk back to your seat. In a few hours you'll meet Morgan in the Park and find out what she knows.

As long as your computer stays active, it won't ring any alarms.

Pretending to work around the plugging codes, the sheet takes you to a string of numbers you've familiarized with since the new normal made its appearance. You shouldn't risk checking in on your family, wasting time on codes you make sure again and again don't harm their well-being.

They're okay. You make sure of that.

The company's (and the population's) focus slowly shifted to the pixel world once the people ultimately started depending on it. Pixel jobs and pixel money and pixel lives became the substitute to a reality pushed to fail.

It's been almost two months since the last time your mother and sister spent time unplugged. Not the longest that has ever passed. You wish you had an excuse to bring them out, to say that it's unhealthy, that something's wrong and it's not safe, but you can't prove it.

They don't know how much you work for them to live as they please. For all they care, you spend your days stuck in Cerebrum's basement, which may not be far from the truth, but really is a naive conception when you can do unimaginable things with a computer and little supervision. They can't know. They won't. Ever.

Do they think about you? When they're roaming around the perfectly set up parks and going to their instant Looks appointments? When they come back to a home bigger than you could ever imagine and find your room empty? The chances are low.

You barely talked the last time they unplugged to charge their cells. You don't have anything in common anymore. They hate the real world, and you can't blame them.

You don't blame them. You've done more to keep them there than anyone else. They didn't even have to charge their cells the last time, you had already made sure they're always plugged in and with multiple backup batteries just in case.

The codes running in front of you look like they do every day: perfect. Not one line break, not one error, not one fixable thing. You can't see their lives, their pixel jobs and pixel hobbies, and now, there's not even a thing you can do to make sure they don't get in trouble. You can only watch their bodies sleeping inside your shoebox apartment, listening to their breathing and trying to remember their voices.

The pavement, hard and wet, strains your leg muscles with each step. Your lungs struggle to catch up to the pace, but you have to arrive fast. If the cameras see you—which they will, because they exist and someone is always watching—everyone will be busted.

You arrive at the Park not ten minutes after clocking out.

Beyond the pavement horizon, the abandoned mall just outside Prism was supposed to be the big expansion, the bridge to connect the city with its neighbors, before every connection got forged over pixels. The unfinished building first got swarmed with groups who couldn't afford the newest technology, spending their nights inhaling Blue Smoke, until the government realized it wasn't profitable anymore.

The dark gray walls contrast everything you walked past; no led lights, no Cerebrum propaganda, no scanners or holograms to welcome strangers, just a fossil representing what life was supposed to be like.

You slide your black beanie over your head, put on your face mask and tech glasses to hide your face, and enter through an empty window shop. Glass shards and broken Smoke bulbs dig under your feet, announcing your entrance to the ghosts, but the intrusion ends unwelcomed. You grab the last reflecting gear on the only rack in use and put it on as fast as possible.

Through the glass of the never-to-be clothing shop, the dim lights that always stay on let you see into the patio. A decent sized group talks in unheard whispers, all with undistinguishable matching gears. You couldn't pick out Morgan from the group even if you tried, and the rest of them you've never seen without the gear.

The building got abandoned since the Government cleaned the streets from Smoke. They gave them something else to be addicted to, something with no trace in real life, something that isn't real. Frostbite regularly met there, far from the cameras, where no interest was shown, out of reach from the power houses that held everyone's life in their cables.

Someone nods in your direction and everyone acknowledges you as they open their standing circle to let you in.

You'd hoped to meet Morgan alone. Frostbite's plans always sound foreign to you, as you're barely a source from Cerebrum, not an organizer, and whatever Morgan warned you about felt personal. You're lucky they trust you enough to let you in, let you listen, but chances of bothering Cerebrum enough to act are always slim, and you just want to hear the bad news.

They're muttering about the best way to recruit the few people left on the street when the building shakes and a deafening buzzing sound paralyzes you whole.

There's only one thing that'd result in an unimportant building's bombing. They found you. They finally found you and the others. You don't hear any shooting sounds, you don't see any raised guns, but the air stills with their search for Frostbite. It's cold, silence trickled with the building crumbling down. You won't hear them coming. Their uniforms were made to take any rebels by surprise.

You follow Morgan and find the back of the clothing shop. Everyone knows what to do, and, in silence, you search for the planned way out. Behind dusty common clothes and empty fashion racks should be a door you wished you never had to use.

The underground tunnel is dark and empty, the sound of the door closing shut following each step everyone takes. There's nowhere to hide down here, no walls to shield you, no other doors to unknown rooms, only an endless liminal space in which the lack of lighting only works against Frostbite. But it's the only way out.

An echo should reach you of any following parties, but there's nothing. Maybe they hadn't reached the clothing store when you left. Maybe you were being paranoid, yet you don't stop running.

Run straight ahead, that's what Morgan had told you once, when forcing you to learn their protocols against your will. Run straight ahead and don't get caught. Forcing your legs to follow the reflecting gears ahead of you, you swallow a chuckle. It wasn't supposed to be serious. You listened to Morgan, hoping to calm down her paranoid spirit. Rebel attacks were unheard of. No one dared, and neither the Government or Cerebrum cared enough. But the building shakes again, and you barely miss a piece of ceiling falling on top of you, and you understand it.

Attacks were unheard of because they happened in this way. Away from the city, away from anything that could mess with Cerebrum's databases, in places no one cared about.Frostbite will end without accomplishing their goal, without making any noise, and without a goodbye.

Someone trips far behind you. You don't look back, but hear them struggling to get up. The tunnel crumbles all the way around, falling dust and pieces of cement clouding your sight and hearing.

Far ahead, a gray ray of sun makes its way though the smoke. The fallen person wails in pain, now so far behind only the echo makes its way forward. A red dot dances on the side of the tunnel, searching for an unmoving target. It doesn't give you time to thank the reflecting gear. The shot of a gun overwhelms any worries of the tunnel falling down on you. You hear no gunmen, yet the red dot lingers after the screams behind you quiet down.

As the end of the tunnel gets clearer, you sprint faster. A few Frostbite run past you, none of them looking back. You follow the dim light with as much hope as you enter your home every day—the shot was enough warning. You're being either run off the city or killed.

Is there even a plan after this? You failed to listen to what was being talked about when you arrived. You don't really know anything, do you? You were never in on the plans, you just followed the simplest orders, got the information they needed and went back to work. And, most probably, Cerebrum had a target on your back after your peek at the surveillance room.

Work.

Cerebrum will never take you back. You can't go back, even if you wanted to. You'll be dead, exiled, or searched for on every corner of every city under its power. You can never check on your family again. Your mom and sister will be left there, somnolently hooked into Cerebrum's machines. It'll be months before any of them wake up, you made sure of that. They won't worry if they don't see your pixel self, because you're never there. The longer you spent working, putting up excuses whenever they insisted on being there with them, the less they cared when you didn't. It's just another one of your disappearances.

You look back with terror, seeing nothing more than countless red dots waiting for you to fall. They won't leave anyone alive. The ceiling shakes once more, and you know they brought as many bombs as they needed to erase every trace left of the mission.

Bigger and bigger pieces of the tunnel fall to your sides, and your legs, starting to give out, barely help you dodge them.

What are you going to do if you escape? Your new life would consist of nothing. You'll must become no one. Maybe Frostbite would let you be one of them, if they make it. You'll be away from home, with a family that won't look for you, surrounded by capable people that you don't know, holding them back because you can barely run in a tunnel before starting to give up. You're not made for it.

You trip on a broken piece of gravel and lose your balance. Your hands pillow your stumble against the wall, and you slide to the floor as the walls shake. Whoever you outran passes you without a thought. You can't look back. You didn't do it either when it didn't happen to you.

You hear it then. Between Frostbite's heaving running towards the light and the ground being coated in pieces of tunnel, the red dots find your shivering body, and the soundproof boots march towards their new found victim. The closer they get, the more your fear dissipates. There's nothing more for you to do. You helped build the empire, you helped your family live comfortably, and you helped Frostbite after you realized your mistake.

The light at the end of the tunnel blinks in acceptance. Whatever you did, it's over. The cold of the ground seeps into your veins, holding you close to it, numbing you down. Your muscles don't tense waiting for the shot. If it hurts, you don't feel it.

First, the world goes brighter, white enveloping you. Then, moving ashes coat your face before it all goes black.

Heaven's pitch black when you open your eyes.

Ice cold burns along your back. You were never someone to believe in the afterlife, but it being cold and dark wasn't your first choice.

"Can you walk?"

A voice carries faintly, its owner invisible.

"What?" You reply with a cold throat.

You don't remember the last time you spoke out loud. Alone at home, forbidden at work, your voice was as much of a stranger as the omniscient presence watching your barely moving body. A shadow hovers over you, taking shape into something more human.

"Good. You're awake," it continues. "They can't see us here, but we need to leave if you don't want to be left for dead."

"How—

"Thank me later," it interrupts, sounding arrogant as much as it sounds hurried. "Get up and follow me."

You huff. "I can't see you."

A reply doesn't come, but the barest ray of green light reflects along the person's back, a subtle shimmer that sparks not so old memories. It's the same light Frostbite's tech glasses produce, the same reflection that messes with the Uniformed's infrared glasses.

"Fuck, yours must've dropped when you fell," the person sighs after moving what sounded like pieces of rubble. "Here, take mine."

You feel a pair of hands placing the glasses along your ears and eyes. The glasses were made to level up the field for Frostbite. If yours fell before you were shot, it means your advantage is over.

It takes a few seconds for your sight to get used to the greenness, then the hands drop to grab yours and help you get up. If you're on a rush, the careful touch shows no sign of it.

"We need to get out of here before it collapses," the person urges in contrast.

"How?" However you got to where you are, there doesn't seem to be a way in or out, and with you wearing the glasses, this other person is blind.

The person chuckles, back facing you so you can't see a face. "You should've gone to more meetings."

You follow the pull of your arm through a cave within the tunnel. Even without light, the way out is no stranger to your guide, only using the walls of the cave as a map.

Not a long way ahead, rays of light tamper with your glasses, and when your guide changes course to the right, you know the tunnel is almost over. The closer you get to the outside world, the less you see through the glasses, until the blindness becomes so overpowering you have to take them off.

Sighs of relief welcome the two of you as you finally leave the darkness. Someone without gear embraces whoever saved you. Morgan sits at a distance, on the curb on an abandoned street so far away from the Park that it looks like another city entirely. As she recognizes you, she jumps in surprise, walking in your direction with her arms spread wide.

All that you were ready to leave behind, what you thought you didn't need to see again, comes back to hit you in the face.

The world you lived in for years incapacitated people from making meaningful relationships, all technology led until hearing someone's voice in reality was as intimate as a kiss. Since the second you started running through the basement, you knew. Going back isn't an option.

"I was so worried when you didn't come out after me!" Morgan's voice wakes you up into her hug. Another thing you haven't lived through for some time. "I knew there was trouble when Jeonghan didn't come out after me."

Finding your voice costs even more when you have to admit what you almost let happen. Her smile is so bright you wonder how much it took her to hide it while in Cerebrum. You'd break it further if she knew.

"I had to use the trap we set weeks back to block their view," the voice of your savior, Jeonghan, sparks a different grin from Morgan. "I already told Storm."

The person that appears into view is nothing like you expected. You'd seen the long hair at the back of his neck in the darkness of the cave, his hands had been the first touch of skin you felt in months, you'd spoken to him after being in silence every day, yet his attitude mismatches the little idea you formed of him.

Tall, slender, and unusually cocky, his smirk almost makes fun of your fall. Now out in the open, you remember him from the few meetings you had to attend, with the snarky comments he always had at hand. You should remember his codename. Even if you didn't want him to, he saved you from the Uniformeds' quiet misery.

"We would've used it anyway." Morgan pats your shoulder, relieving you of a guilt you're supposed to be feeling. "Glad you got out before we had to."

Someone calls out to her close to the cave entrance, leaving you alone with the smirk and suspicious eyes watching you. Whatever he sees, it doesn't impress him. He sits on the curb Morgan was waiting for earlier, dusting off his reflecting gear with a chuckle.

You pay no attention to him, instead, the view you came out to takes protagonism.

The Park is a minuscule gray cube on the foreground of an endless cloud of dark smoke. If you squint, you catch the light of every Cerebrum ad being broadcasted on the buildings of Prism. From the outside, it may look like a storm about to pass, but after years of pollution, you stopped seeing the marvel of the clouds. The real sun became the greatest privilege.

The city limits were loosely guarded, giving the illusion of choice. But, when most preferred to give up their minds to Cerebrum, and cameras followed the few people who decided to stay behind, no one really dared.

"Where are we?" You ask into the air.

You had gotten used to depending on the LED ads to see on the street. While smoke still covers the sky, the wind welcomes fresh air that the tall shoebox buildings forbade you of.

"On the outskirts of Devil City," Jeonghan answers without looking up.

After thousands of cities began to join Cereburm's plans, land became a valuable source of space for the power centers that fueled the pixel world. Devil was one of the few cities that fought back to not turn into an electricity wasteland. They refused to join the pixel revolution, and a while later, a series of suspicious fires were reported all along its limits that extended to the center. The smoke never cleared, and the air pollution just made it worse. Devil's fight resulted in a burned down city and a never seen again sun for kilometers, but their spirit fueled the rebellion for years.

"Devil City was destroyed by the fires."

Jeonghan chuckles, acknowledging you again. "What do you see? Because I see buildings covered in green, and high floors that we can see without smoke being a little shit. We discussed this."

You refuse to feel bad for not remembering every single detail. You didn't want this.

"I was at the meetings because you wanted information, not to be made aware of all your plans. You know that." You didn't mind being a pawn in their game. You had reasons to stay, but reasons to help someone end Cerebrum's reign as well. You never pretended to be something else.

"If you listened instead of refusing to try, you would've known we had a trap door to escape and you didn't have to play hero."

"I didn't play the hero. I couldn't get up, and they were about to shoot me!"

He chuckles again. You're beginning to hate the sound. "If this is your way of thanking me—"

"I didn't ask you to help me. I don't even know you!"

You don't remember the last time you had a long conversation with someone that wasn't your sister or your mom. Exchanging words on a post-it with Morgan was as far as you went. You forgot how to filter your inner thoughts, though Jeonghan doesn't seem to mind your screaming.

He bites his lip hiding a laugh, looking at something behind you. You realize then that he took off the reflecting gear entirely, sensing that if you looked back, you'll find every Frostbite member in the same situation, just waiting for you to get a move on.

Taking a deep breath, you begin to take off the vest. The damage is done if everyone already sees you and hears you screaming nonsense.

"No, don't stop the hissy fit on their account! We should know who we're dealing with!" Jeonghan can barely get the words out between his laughs.

"Okay, you can stop annoying her now," Morgan comes back with Storm on her side. Jeonghan immediately straightens his posture. "We need to move forward, so here are a few things we need to let her know."

"Are you sure this is Devil City?" You take the chance to speak to the only person that understands why you wanted to get left behind on the planning. "I handed you the footage of the destruction. I saw it myself."

"You did. And it really helped to get us here today," Storm answers instead of Morgan.

He's one of the few who you could never forget about. He has a face you struggle to imagine smiling, a presence that takes the joy out of everyone around him, but, most importantly, he has everyone's trust and respect. He listens to concerns and trusts each Frostbite member to follow with their tasks. Even with the small amount of meetings you attended, you'd feel safe to put your safety in his hands.

"There's a lot they hide from us. More than you imagine."

Before the events of the day, you would've tossed the thought aside. You were always more aware than most about Cerebrum's deal, willingly or not. While everyone wasted their life becoming an ageless pixel, you saw the destruction of the city in real life, the things the Government did to help the rise of Alternate Reality, not even lies, just plain hiding until people stopped questioning the missed information. You worked inside Cerebrum itself! What more could they possibly hide?

"I think I know what they do pretty well." You saw in real time how they developed their tactics, how they ran people off the streets only to get them addicted to a false life. "I've been at Cerebrum since the development stages."

You don't miss the look on Jeonghan's face.

"We believe," Morgan starts with Storm's nod of approval, "that they ran off Devil's citizens to use the city themselves."

"They wouldn't risk killing thousands that could be persuaded into buying their A.R.," Jeonghan continues, as cynical as always. "And by making us believe they can bomb a city, they made sure we never checked it out."

"So, we're…" you struggle to connect the dots.

"We have reason to believe that the heads of Cerebrum live in Devil, so we're going in." Storm doesn't explain further. He doesn't have to. "But we have to be careful. Only address each other by our code names."

"I don't have—"

"You're Lurk," Jeonghan jumps.

"You're Lurk, yes," Storm repeats after elbowing Jeonghan. "You know the rest of us only by our codes, but be careful with the real names you know. We have a safe building in the city, but the closer we get to our target, the less we know about the surveillance. We need to be prepared."

You doubt Cerebrum bothers to reinforce Devil if what Frostbite believe it's true. No one should dare to even think about Devil City. Cerebrum isn't afraid of people finding out. You just hope they believe you're dead.

Frostbite's safe building is located close to one of the fire sites, near the city limits, but not far enough that traveling towards the center would take more than half a day.

You weren't many. The meeting that was found out didn't require for everyone to be there, luckily. The ten of you that escaped moved in groups of five, walking with almost a block of distance in between. Storm took the lead on the group walking behind. Jeonghan, or rather, Carpool, was the only one who knew the way, so he led the first group. Morgan was in charge of possible traps, so she was the second to join Jeonghan's team. You didn't want to leave Morgan's side.

The night in Devil city wasn't different from Prism. You couldn't see the stars in the sky, or the shape of the moon, but you also couldn't see the building across or the street below, and that type of darkness was much more welcomed.

"Are you not attached to the hip anymore?"

The carpeted floor silenced the steps all across the hall, the only reason why Jeonghan managed to surprise you.

"I don't want to be in the room if Rain is also there."

You and Morgan were unable to sleep, retracing both of your steps in Cerebrum to try and figure out if the two of you were at fault for the attack. You had to tell her about the surveillance room you accidentally saw, but excluded the fact that there was someone there. It didn't make a difference. Seen or not by a human, they would've caught you regardless.

She was about to tell you what the news she talked about on the post-it when Vernon knocked on the door and she let him in, struggling to contain her giggles.

"I should've guessed that's where he went. Sorry about that, you won't be able to sleep." You don't answer him. There's nothing to say, but he won't take it.

Jeonghan sits down by your side, unprompted.

"I want to be alone for a second, if you don't mind." You don't have it in you to pretend.

"I do mind," he chuckles, "so, no. Plus, we have to talk about the plan for tomorrow.Yet, he doesn't keep talking, waiting for a reply.

Your head rests against the wall, eyes closed so your senses can slow down for the day. Sleeping is not a viable option, you'll dream and dream about the day, about what could've happened, about your mistakes. The least you can do is protect your side of the building, make sure Morgan can have a minute of happiness with Vernon.

But an eager breathing pattern disrupts any possible rest. Jeonghan's eyes burn holes on your side. What image of you has he made up by now?

"You don't have to babysit me."

"I have to be there in case you trip into an abyss."

"Ha, funny."

You're not ashamed about what happened in the caves. If anything, it hasn't changed anything about life at all. Seeing a future as you live through a world that does nothing more than lift up the powerful at the expense of those who they vowed to protect, is hard. No one will ever realize the length to what you started years ago, the first grain of sand that built a desert that dried out what you most loved.

Jeonghan fights against it, like Morgan, like Storm and all those who follow him. They have trust in a system that never once worked for their favor, but they learned the loopholes, the ways around the manipulation, hoping to change it from the inside.

If you've done something more than sending Cerebrum after Frostbite, you hope the information you fed them the last few months changes something. You won't be able to see it, especially if the myth about Devil City is true, but it'd be nice to help do some good for once.

Jeonghan doesn't accept another one of your silences. "Get up. Come."

"We're not supposed to leave our post." If anything happens on this side of the building, it'll be your fault. Another thing will be your fault.

"You'll regret hanging out by the door later, trust me." Jeonghan gets up and extends his hand down for you to take. "I know this building like the back of my hand, I have it covered."

He gives you no other choice.

You get up on your own, not wanting another one of your first touches in years to be with him again. Jeonghan chuckles but says nothing more, walking slightly ahead for you to follow.

The abandoned office building wasn't the biggest around, it was a little more deteriorated, and less flashy than the others. You guess that's why Jeonghan had chosen it as the perfect spot. No one in their right mind would choose such an endangered place to take cover.

The only reason you're following him is because it's true, he had scavenged every little nook and crevice of the building to find the perfect spots for everyone to rest for the night. Everyone trusted him just as much as Storm when it came to security. Yet, he didn't lead you far from the room you were supposed to sleep in.

Down the corridor to the left, through one of the men's bathrooms, there's a small balcony towering an indoor patio. Loose cables flutter against the railing, and you admire the view from above while Jeonghan turns a flashlight on in the restroom.

You welcome the silence, real silence, without buzzing sounds or humid rain splatter. The world may never recover from the consequences of air and water eating technology, but maybe, if Frostbite is right about Devil City, they can make the people responsible pay for what they've done. You just wish you wanted to be there when it happened.

Jeonghan doesn't care about the silent city. He has been breaking out out of Prism for months, he got used to having somewhere to escape to."I know what you're thinking."

"I hope you don't," you reply with snark.

"You were at Cerebrum today, right?" You nod, hoping he gets to the point fast. "The basement? At 7 a.m.?"

"Everyone here knows my work schedule. Yes, I was. That's when Morgan told me to meet at The Park."

He looks at you blankly. "Did nothing else happen? Just a normal work day?"

Your knuckles turn white along the balcony railing. He knows. Jeonghan knows you fucked up and sent Cerebrum after Frostbite.

At least he had the decency to confront you alone. You can tell the rest of the team, let them decide how to punish you for the betrayal. It wouldn't be the first time you participate in something that fucks up your entire world, you'll get used to it, just like you got used to being alone in reality.

"It was my fault, okay? Are you done? I sent Cerebrum after us because I saw something I shouldn't have. Just go and tell Storm, I don't care. I can be the bait while you go ahead with the plan.

"I knew that," he smiles. "Ask me how I knew that."

So, he likes to play games, even when you're being vulnerable in front of him, again."I don't think I like you very much."

He shrugs. "I get that a lot. Ask me."

You sigh. "How did you know? You saw the camera footage?"

"You said someone saw you. What did they look like?"

And he's not making it easy either. "I don't know. It looked like a man, all covered up in the Uniform. There was no one else there, but he was pretty much surveilling everything."

"Let me find something, hold on." Jeonghan digs into the pockets of his pants, the only part of the gear he left on. "Did he have something like this?"

In his hand, a black leather mask lay crumbled. He chuckles at your gasp, putting it over the lower part of his face.

"It was you!" You punch Jeonghan in the arm, and your lungs treasure your first deep breath in weeks.

"I can tell the guys you're fine being the bait if—

"Oh, fuck you!"

"—you're still down."

You weren't in any danger. Your mom, your sister, they're still safe in their pods, blissfully unaware of the damage you nearly caused. It wasn't your fault everything almost failed.

In the darkness, by the light only on for you two to see the way inside, a little comfort makes its way to you. Jeonghan isn't aware of the load he took off your shoulders, and you don't care that he'll take it as another thing to tease you for.

"How did they find us today? If it wasn't me."

"Someone always gets caught," he replies, somber. "We can't know for sure, but it wasn't because you saw the security cameras. I wanted to let you know that."

His voice reminds you of his touch in the caves, in the cold and the dark, but maintaining a softness you're not used to anymore. Every one of your moves is always calculated, because letting the cameras see an emotion outside of your home means something worse than losing those who you care for.

The rise of Cerebrum slowly drove everything that makes us human into the alternate reality. First, the creative games and hobbies were made easier to access, less expensive if you already had a Cerebrum pod. Creativity was the thing that allowed humans to survive thousands of years ago, and they took that away first. Then, as more and more cities joined the craze, you could travel anywhere anytime. Schooling was next, you didn't have to carry things around if you could read and write with your mind. Without anyone realizing, each thing taken into the Pixel World became extinct in reality. It almost seemed like every piece of enjoyment was taken from those who chose to remain free of a false world. You couldn't be seen enjoying something, Cerebrum would just take it away in weeks. The last thing you had left was work. And no one dared to chat, to like a cup of coffee more than once a day.

No one ever imagined Cerebrum to take over the very bare characteristics that built communities, families, personalities, but the less they cared, the more it took.

"How did they end up being a thing?" Ignoring Jeonghan's niceness seems the best. You can't get used to something no one can have.

"She's too smiley, and latched on to the cool and mysterious guy. Happens all the time." He stares at his feet. "I think he really loves her. I've known him since before… everything. When she joined us, it was like the light was back on in him."

"That's nice." What more can you say? People managed to build relationships when you just gave up. You only exchanged words with Morgan through post-its, maybe after the few meetings you cared to join. "She's a good person."

It didn't take much for her to convince you to pass information to Frostbite. She'd left a post-it on your desk one day, telling you to go to the bathroom after 2 p.m. She'd found out you used company time to work on your family's safety, and figured you disliked Cerebrum just as much as her.

The first time you heard her voice, you knew she wasn't just fighting for the right cause, but managed not to lose her spark. You couldn't let yourself know her further, but she cared for you, more than anyone else. It's sad, but true.

"She cares for you," Jeonghan repeats, as if hearing your thoughts. "Did you tell her what happened back there?"

"You don't know what happened." He saved you because he thought you were being left behind and didn't want to trigger a ton of rocks on you. That's what he thinks happened.

"I saw it all, Lurk."

"I tripped. They had their guns on me."

"You gave up."

One thing about giving up, it makes you not want to argue about it.

"So what? I can't do anything for Frostbite anyway. I'm here now, I won't set you back on your quest, but just know you saved someone who can't do anything more for your cause outside Cerebrum."

If you had anything left in you, your eyes would fill with tears admitting such things to a stranger. You've become numb to it all. Acceptance, you called it. Accept what you've done. Accept you can do nothing about it. Accept Jeonghan's hand over yours.

His fingers are warm in the night. You haven't forgotten how they felt leading you out of the cave. If it all happened sooner maybe you'd let him reach further.

You take your hand away, getting up without skipping a beat.

"I'll talk with Storm about the plan," you whisper, more into the wind than towards Jeonghan. You see him shake his head from the corner of your eye.

He follows you until you reach the restroom door. The hallway's still the same as before, but now you can't wait to hug Morgan to sleep. Vernon be damned.

"That's what they want, you know." Jeonghan can't scream, the city silence would give out your location, but his whisper travels to your ears. "They take your hope away, make you believe it's the end and make you either give in or give up."

You hear no more. Words of rebellion are not what you need, nor a friend or the warm ouch of a stranger. You'll see his fight until the end, but the end will take you with it, whether Jeonghan wants it or not.

heeey *awkward*

You used to recognize these streets. You used to be able to make a map out of them, all the crooked alleyways and dead-ends forming a knotted ball of yarn in your head. Now, nothing is as it used to be. None of the names feel familiar. The metallic, cartoonish jingles meant to lure you in like a siren song don’t, either, and you try to discern if you’re hearing them for the first time or if, like so much of this city, you forced yourself to forget. You take another step. All the old haunts you used to frequent are either boarded up or long gone. Either sequestered behind rotting caution tape that’s frayed and worn at the edges or nothing but exposed steel and concrete and a memory where a building used to stand.

God, this is fucking with you. Have you finally lost it? Done yourself in for good? You’re certain it used to be here, right where you’re standing. You know it was. Out of everything, you recognize the shape of the crack in the sidewalk—the one that’s shaped like a bolt of lightning. You remember how you used to joke that it was going to strike Hansol, rewire his brain like electroshock therapy, and you can see it so vividly: the way his lip curled as he sneered and said in return that was the only way he’d ever be able to tolerate you as his partner. How he used to turn his head to hide his eyes from view and the way the neon lights of the city swarmed in on him, filling in the contours of his cheeks and the slit in his brow. Another step and you remember the street vendor that used to set up there—the tent the two of you used to sit beneath in the liminal hours of the night to get out of the rain. The way you came to associate the pitter-patter against the cheap plastic with the bitter beer Hansol used to drink.

Even now, the sound of rain reminds you of him. Of stale beer and neon lights and memories you so desperately want to cling to that dissipate like smoke every time you try to reach for them.

As you stand in the graveyard of your old life, it’s clear the world has moved on without you.

Without him.

But you have to be sure.

You need to know there’s some semblance of truth to what you’ve been hearing. If you’re going to go down this path again—if you’re going to stalk these once-familiar streets with your eyes constantly trained over your shoulder, you need to be absolutely certain the incessant whispers have substance. Even now, there’s still an unshakeable weakness in you when it comes to Hansol, and you need to know what you’re walking into, because he makes you vulnerable. And if there’s a puppetmaster—if all of this is just meant to lure you out of the shadows—there you’ll be, dangling hopelessly from wood and string, only moving when you’re made to.

Nothing more than a marionette. A thrall for someone else’s whims.

You sigh and press the palms of your hands into your eyes. This liminal space is giving you vertigo—this world you recognize but don’t, long for but don’t, want to return to but can’t. Unable to tell the difference between remembrance and hallucination. What’d this place used to sound like? Had you sunk into the ambient noise like a warm bath, letting the conversations of strangers pull you just beneath the surface? Had you wrapped yourself in the muted sounds of their laughter? Their anger? Standing here now—the streets empty and devoid of life, nothing but ghosts to keep you company—you don’t remember. Maybe you can’t, or don’t want to. You want to scream until your throat is raw. Want to drop to your knees on the concrete and let the polluted rain seep into your clothes as you ask no one and nothing, What’s the point in any of this?

But you’re terrified the abyss will answer.

You’re terrified someone will tell you the point is Hansol, because nothing else could drag you back into this life. Nothing else could bloody you so badly and still draw you back in. Nothing else could conjure a fear so primal it left you—leaves you—paralyzed and still have you crawling over glass if it meant getting vengeance on every last person who harmed him. If it meant getting it right this time.

A chill runs up your spine.

You already know who will be standing behind you when you turn around. Hansol has always been a viper, preferring the safety of the fringes until it came time to strike. It’s what made him so effective, that you could feel his presence like a syrupy, tangible thing—that you knew there were eyes on you, that you could sense an apex predator camouflaged amongst the shadows, but you couldn’t see him. Not until it was too late. Not until fangs were sinking into flesh.

That’s what you expect now, for Hansol to charge and tear you apart, and you brace yourself. But nothing happens. There’s no movement. No sound except rain on concrete. You turn slowly, your movements stunted by the anticipation of something that never came, and you’d miss him if you didn’t know where to look. Didn’t know all his favorite hiding places.

And that’s what you do, immediately casting your eyes to the darkest corner of this desolate street, finding his silhouette exactly where you expected it to be. Hunched over to obscure his height, hood pulled over his head to hide his eyes. A lone sliver of moonlight slices through the darkness, and casts him in a silver glow, making him look otherworldly. It’s all that keeps him from being entirely disguised by the umbra.

Still, it feels hard to believe after so long—after time and circumstance formed such an insurmountable chasm.

You watch one another wordlessly, and as the minutes tick by you catch yourself counting his breaths. They’re all that tells you there’s a human being standing there rather than one of the many faceless phantoms taking up residence in this part of the city. That he’s real and not some illusion your brain has cooked up in order to cope with the crippling loneliness that accompanies your forced solitude.

There’s the flick of a lighter, a cherry red ember, and a plume of smoke before Hansol speaks. “Didn’t think you’d actually come.”

Why wouldn’t I, when you asked me to? you want to say, but it feels too intimate for a deserted street that reeks of garbage and stale piss. “I could say the same for you,” is what you settle on. “Suffice it to say I was pretty fuckin’ shocked to hear from you.”

He takes another drag of his cigarette. Exhales another plume of smoke. “Yeah, well.” Tosses the butt to the pavement and stomps it out.

That’s all he has to say about that.

[input_TIME >>: the before // input_DATE >>: may 2112.]

You fidget in your seat, silently cursing the bureau’s uniform requirements.

Two weeks out from graduation and you haven’t heard a thing your instructor has said. The bottom-most button of your blazer refuses to sit right, intent on digging into your skin, and you’ve been fucking with it all morning, hissing through your teeth at every stab of discomfort. If you would’ve known you’d have to dress like a middle-aged department store clerk, you would’ve applied to a different department.

That prompts a snort of hushed laughter.

As if you hadn’t been recruited. As if this bureau with the horrible uniforms hadn’t taken one look at your transcripts and handed you your dream job on a silver platter, effectively offering you everything you’d been working towards your entire life. As if it wasn’t a childhood dream that squeezed into a blazer and pencil skirt every morning for the last six months just to spend nine hours a day sitting ramrod straight in an uncomfortable metal chair. As if it wasn’t optimism and the constellation of stars in your eyes that pored over pages upon pages of notes each night, committing them to memory as you washed away ink smears and ignored the ache in your dominant hand.

Just two more weeks, you reassure yourself. Two more weeks and you’ll finally be done with your instructional training. Two more weeks and it’ll finally be real: a real job, a real title, real responsibilities. Two more weeks and you can finally put your education to good use. You can finally start cleaning up the streets.

Start making a real difference.

It’s this thought, more than anything else, that gets you through each day—more than finally earning a salary; more than finally being able to subsist on something more substantial than freeze-fried noodles and whatever’s on sale at the GS25. You’ll tolerate fourteen more days of this cursed uniform if it gets you one step closer to your place in the Ministry, the role waiting for you within it, and finally being able to realize your life’s purpose.

And it arrives in the blink of an eye. One second you’re metaphorically chained to your desk at the training institute; the next, you’re sitting opposite one of the Ministry’s middlemen as he monotonously explains the minutiae of your employment from his side of a glossy walnut desk. You try to listen but it feels like staring at the sun. All you’ve ever wanted is finally within reach, yet you can’t bring yourself to reach out and grab it. You sigh. Wipe your sweat-slick palms on the same pencil skirt you’d been cursing weeks ago, hoping desperately that whatever you’re feeling isn’t showing on your face. That he can’t smell it like a bloodhound.

There’s no one better equipped for this position. No one who wants it nearly as badly.

Some of your classmates had called you a brown-noser. Doesn’t matter now, you think, your broad smile coming easily as this man—someone important; someone who actually matters—uses more flattering words to describe you. Impressive. Hard-working. Ambitious and intelligent. One of the most promising recruits the Ministry of Welfare has had in decades.

He continues shuffling through your paperwork, tongue darting out to wet his fingertips. “Tell me again where you graduated from.”

You clear your throat. “Ewha Higher Education, sir.”

He hums an acknowledgement. “Ah! Yes, yes, here it is. Ewha Higher Education… double-majored in psychology and social welfare… perfect grades… awarded the highest honors... Yes, yes, very impressive, indeed.” There’s a spot of dark sauce on the corner of his mouth you hadn’t noticed earlier. “Inspector Choi could surely use someone of your caliber.”

You know that name. You wrack your brain, trying to remember how, and then—

Another blink of an eye as your field of vision is reduced to the size of a pinhead. Suddenly, your breath hitches, stuck in your throat as you feel your blood turn to ice. Please no, you want to beg, anywhere but there. But there’s no point. Before you can protest, the man pulls a giant rubber stamp from a drawer, officially branding your file.

MINISTRY OF WELFARE, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION UNIT

The ink is so red it could pass for blood.

[input_TIME >>: the before // input_DATE >>: november 2112.]

“Again.”

You clench your jaw. Try not to spare any concern for the sound your bones make when you roll your neck to the side. You’re thankful that your back is to Hansol so he can’t see the irritated look on your face. Not that he’s paying attention to you, anyway—he’s taken up residence in the corner, slumped in a metal chair as he makes shapes out of the water stains on the ceiling. He’s silent, making absolutely no sound until it comes time to either criticize you or obnoxiously smack his gum.

So yes, you’re irritated. You’ve been at this for hours. Your arms are sore, you’re hungry, and the stench of mildew is bringing on a migraine. But it isn’t like Hansol’s criticisms don’t have merit. Inspector Choi won’t clear you for field work until you get better. Until you can prove you won’t be a liability.

Until your partner feels confident in your ability to save his life and do your job.

“Again.”

Hansol is not feeling very confident, needless to say.

You raise your arms. Press your tongue into the fat of your cheek. Squint one eye as you center the target. The silhouette stares back at you, riddled with bullet holes, numbers demarcating body parts. You aim your pistol at the bright red X on its chest, trying to imagine a reality in which you have to do this. In which the silhouette was real, living and breathing right in front of you—the difference between kill or be killed. Would you take a life to save your own? To save Hansol’s? It made you sick at first, the thought of it. You used to lie in bed and swear there was blood on your hands, viscous and sticky, but every time you’d stumble to the bathroom and flick on the dingy fluorescent light there was nothing there.

Made you wonder if you were turning into a monster.

But you can do this. You have to. The tattered silhouette is not the difference between life or death, not right now, but it is the only thing standing between you and a dream. A duty. You exhale slowly, trying to steady your erratic heartbeat, and place your finger on the trigger. Before this job, there was a foolish naïveté in the way you thought there was a particular weight to this decision, but not now. No, now you think there’s a foolish metaphor in how little it takes to fire a gun. Just the slightest hint of pressure and you can shoot for whatever reason you choose: to paralyze and stun, to contain—and to kill, of course, if necessary.

If the System deems it so.

Nonsense has clearly made its way into your head. You’re safe. The System keeps you safe, as does the Ministry. The same one you work for. The reason you’re stuck down here in this basement shooting at numbers until it’s instinctual, training to keep others safe. Listening to Hansol chew his gum like a cow. Rummaging through the rubble of everything he says, discarding all his snide remarks as you search for feedback you can actually use.

Another exhale. You widen your stance and plant your feet. Focus on that red X. Adjust your aim by nanometers. Finger firmly on the trigger, just a little bit of pressure, you can do this, you can do this, you can, you will—

Pop!

You startle, letting out a sound of frustration more akin to a wild animal. Hansol pays you no mind, just plucks the remnants of the popped bubble from his face and stuffs the wad of gum back into his mouth, no doubt gearing up for a repeat performance. It’s got to feel more like chewing on rubber by now, but you wouldn’t put it past him to saw off his own foot if it’d annoy you.

Sighing, you lower the pistol and put the safety back on, turning slowly as you dig deep, trying to gather whatever professionalism is left in you. “Hansol.”

Pop! That one was bigger than his—

“Headshot.”

You blink. “Excuse me?”

“Head. Shot,” he repeats, tone belying his belief that you’re nothing more than a stupid child. He sits up straight, finally making eye contact with you. Nods in the silhouette’s direction. “You see those circles above his head? Big and red?” You ignore his taunting. “C’mon, they’ve got a big X on ‘em and everything. Not even you could miss that.”

Proverbial fingers stuck in your proverbial ears, you turn back around. The silhouette stares wordlessly. It doesn’t beg for its life as you remove the safety just as quickly as you’d put it back on. Doesn’t start bargaining, desperate and incoherent, as you raise your arm and squint through one eye. Doesn’t do anything at all as you pull the trigger and blow a perfect hole right between its eyes.

Now that you think about it, though, it does start to look a lot like Hansol.

[input_TIME >>: the before // input_DATE >>: february 2115.]

Inspector Choi says he’ll handle the paperwork and bids the two of you goodnight.

Snow falls steadily. It’s rare these days—too warm, not the right kind of precipitation—so you’ll covet it, even though it covers the streets and sidewalks in an unsightly and inconvenient layer of brown-grey slush. As always, Hansol isn’t quite so romantic. He scoffs, hands immediately going to his coat pockets in search of his cigarettes. When he pulls them back out, his knuckles are red from the cold, hands trembling slightly when he tries to use his lighter.

“Give it here.”

With a roll of his eyes, Hansol hands the lighter over and moves in closer, cupping his hands around the tip of the cigarette to block it from the wind. You flick the wheel, a low flame sparking after a few well-practiced tries. Hansol erases more of the space between you. Steps in closer and lights his cigarette, sucking the first pull of it deep into his lungs, a small explosion of cherry red embers. He’s close enough for you to smell the smoke that lingers in the wool fibers of his coat. It’s not a smell you ever thought you’d find comforting, but it’s the one you associate with him the most.

“You heading home?” Each word is reluctant, as if they’re being pried out of his mouth by force. He exhales another drag of his cigarette. Doesn’t move entirely out of your space, but turns his head just enough so that the smoke doesn’t blow directly into your face.

Snowflakes land and immediately melt on his eyelashes.

One of the Sybil drones approaches, whirring as it wheels by you on the sidewalk. Every few meters it slows to a stop, moving side to side as it completes its scans, leaving behind perfectly parallel tracks in the slush. The crowd parts biblically as it continues down its pre-programmed path. Every face you can make out wears a look of trepidation; of anxiety and unease. It’s always the first thing you notice. People don’t look at you and see a savior. Don’t see a protector or a guardian or even a role model. People look at you and see someone responsible for defending and upholding the status quo.

The turning of the tides has been slow, but certainly not subtle.

You can feel Hansol’s eyes on you, his gaze heavy and pointed. “Hey,” he says, dragging you out of your head, “I asked you a question.”

The snowfall is heavier now, the flakes larger and less watered-down. You know the entire city will be covered and iced over soon. You know the government will tell everyone to go home and stay there, that there will be a losing battle mounted against it using plows and shovels; that the public transit systems will stop running and, even though you don’t live far, it’ll be a headache to get home if you don’t get going.

But you stay rooted in place, unable to bring yourself to care.

A half-turn with a shit-eating grin. “No,” you finally answer, feeling a thrill jolt through you as Hansol raises an eyebrow in question, “I’m taking you out for a drink.”

Surprise stuns him into silence, leaving him unable to protest. You take advantage, grabbing onto the lapel of his coat as you drag him down the sidewalk towards the pojangmacha the two of you frequent:  the one that never seems to close; the one that has slowly come to belong to you and Hansol.

“Absolutely fuckin’ not,” he grumbles, using all the strength he possesses to pull himself in the opposite direction but he slips, no traction to be found in the snow. He swears. Starts bitching about how fucking cold it is, it’s getting late, he lives all the way across the city and the fucking trains never run in the snow so how the fuck’s he gonna get home, he’s gonna be fucking stranded here and it’s gonna be your fucking fault.

Perpetually open, the amber lights of the pocha spill onto the sidewalk, contrasting against the harsh neon of the city. The heater is cranked to full-blast; you can hear the gears clanking as it works overtime and you find yourself desperate for the warmth. Pulling back one of the flaps, you snark, “I don’t live that far, so if worst comes to worst you can crash on my couch.” Hansol scoffs, making no attempt to hide the fact that this would not be his contingency plan if there were any other options available.

You move aside and gesture for him to go in.

Soonyoung greets you immediately from his spot at an empty table. He waves you over and relinquishes his seat to Hansol—who’s clearly still sour about this entire ordeal—before disappearing to fetch menus neither of you need. “Come on, it’s your birthday,” you argue, dropping into the seat opposite your sulking partner. “Can you please find it in yourself to stop being miserable for one hour and enjoy one of those shitty beers you always drink?”

The corners of his mouth turn up minutely, blink and you’ll miss it, before he schools his expression back into familiar annoyance. “They’re not shitty.”

You roll your eyes. Soonyoung reappears with sweat dotting his hairline, cheeks ruddy from the heat. A complimentary bowl of tteokbokki is placed between the two of you: seemingly a preemptive apology for the unprompted report of the weather forecast that he launches into. You roll your lips. It’s extremely detailed—you might even dare to call it impressive—but what little patience Hansol had is fading fast. So you politely interject, cutting him off to order, “Two shitty beers, please,” which obviously makes no sense to him. Nevertheless, he nods and disappears once more, two cans of beer cracked open and poured into frosted mugs that make your fingers ache, and when you take a sip of what he sets in front of you, it’s just as metallic and awful as you hoped it’d be.

Your lips pucker from the taste and Hansol laughs, not bothering to tamp down his smile this time.

[input_TIME >>: the before // input_DATE >>: august 2115.]

Discontent is swelling.

What used to exist in the undercurrent has morphed into something palpable, the cells of it multiplying as rapidly as a tumor. What was once communicated through knowing glances shared in the safety of silence is now being spoken into existence. Lone protestors on street corners have become grand-scale demonstrations; the handmade signs, once shoddily painted and nailed into a plank of wood, are now replicated and distributed en masse, printed on paper so glossy it’s nearly blinding. What was once a gentle rain is now thunderous. What once thrived only in the shadows of the underbelly has made its way above ground.

Tension permeates every inch of the city, sparing no one. Your branch of the Ministry feels it heavier than the rest. After all, the system they’re protesting was given life here, born from computers and tangles of wires as thick as jungle vines—the system that was once heralded as the guiding light into a new age of governmental omnipresence. What was once revered as a beacon of safety is now regarded with deep distrust, as yet another oppressor with its fingers crossed behind its back, chains ready and waiting for anyone needing to be contained.

Once that skepticism had taken hold, there was no vanquishing it. No going back. Now it has you by the throat, squeezing increasingly tighter, watching with indifference as you struggle to breathe. As the crowds of protestors jeer at you, spittle flying as they hurl their curses and accusations, call you names. It watches with indifference as Inspector Choi locks himself in his office day after day, lights off, speaking to no one, bankrupt of guidance. As Hansol spends his time pacing between his desk and the large window that overlooks the city, a severe crease between his brows as he stares down at the raucous mob, his fragile, fraying nerves unraveling entirely as he chainsmokes with trembling hands, resolving to throw himself off the rooftop before admitting his worry. It watches with indifference as you step into the elevator and descend into the labyrinthine depths of the building; as you navigate the funhouse maze and pass the biometric scans.

Watches with indifference as the automatic door whirrs shut behind you, sealing you in Wonwoo’s domain. This place has always made you uneasy: the neon green lighting that falls over your skin, making you feel like you’re being bathed in acid; the nonstop humming of the servers; the humid, stale air that the fans try—and fail—to circulate. You don’t know how he works down here. How he copes with the unyielding darkness and the liminal passage of time.

Regardless, this is Wonwoo’s empire, its walls built out of CCTV monitors that oversee every inch of this city, scanning and listening and anticipating. Wires dangle from the ceiling. On every computer screen, endless lines of code rapidly scroll by, jumbled and nonsensical, only having to make sense to one person. And there he sits in the center of the room, his figure illuminated by a silvery-blue aura, fuzzy around the edges as if he’s slowly being absorbed by the technology he spends all his time with. There’s an energy drink in his hand and a pile of empty cans at his feet. Every so often he moves—to alter a line of code, to change the view of the CCTVs, to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose—but otherwise he’s entirely still, a ghost on autopilot, and it only adds to the restlessness you feel here.

“How haven’t you gone blind yet?” you half-joke.

Wonwoo snorts a laugh, spinning his chair 90° to greet you. No one else bothers to come down here. “Here to get away from the hellscape outside?”

“Somewhat,” you admit, stepping in closer. Unsurprisingly, Wonwoo’s got cameras trained on every crowd. The one that has assembled right outside the Ministry’s doors is displayed on its own screen. “Got anything we can use?”

He hums and presses a button. The Ministry protestors now up the entire wall of monitors in front of you. “Not really.” He scratches at the back of his neck. “They aren’t protesting anything new. No new faces, either.”

“They’re relentless,” you mutter. “What’s Sybil saying?”

Wonwoo presses another button and the screen splits in half. The camera trained on the protestors remains on the left. On the right, however, is a familiar array of identifiers, colors, and numbers. “Psycho-Pass levels continue to be heightened, as you’d expect, and all Crime Coefficients have remained within normal range. So far, nothing has even remotely approached clouded status.”

You sigh, forced to live another day in this in-between, unable to do your job. Protesting the government isn’t strictly forbidden, per se. It’s certainly frowned upon, but so long as nothing gets flagged by the Sybil System, it remains begrudgingly legal. It’s not your responsibility to arrest petty demonstrators, anyway—that’s the role of another department entirely, so it’s not the crowds themselves that have you so anxious.

It’s the novelty of it all.

The country (and its capital city, especially) has a long history of protesting, but never before have citizens been able to keep their numbers—stress levels or their overall mental wellbeing—within range. Protesting is directly at odds with neutrality, so it seems to be a foregone conclusion that those levels will inevitably surpass the established ranges dictated by the government. Sybil is almost always flagged. Someone almost always ends up institutionalized, locked away to prevent the spread of dissent.

That’s not happening this time, though.

The numbers remain acceptable, ultimately unactionable despite teetering on the knife’s edge of concern, liable to tip over in either direction. Discord continues to circulate. Animosity and distrust continue to fester, burning every bridge the government attempts to build. A plague continues to take over the city. It’ll reach pandemic status soon, and that’s your fear: that by the time everyone else notices, takes it seriously, it’ll be too late.

It’s too late now, you think, eyes scanning over the monitors. You read all of the signs. Listen to all of the synchronized chants. Try not to let the odious words and malice in their voices send you spiraling deeper. You try to trick yourself into believing this will turn out like the others: a brief period of unrest that barely registers as a blip in the country’s history in the end. A government crackdown that widens the chasm but brings an end to the chaos. A bandage stuck uselessly over a bleeding, gaping wound.

You want to believe this. You have to believe this, because there is no fathomable alternative.

Lost in thought, you miss it but Wonwoo doesn’t: a line of code that doesn’t look right. Doesn’t fit with the rest. He types something into the screen and isolates it, and this time you don’t miss it when all the color drains from his face. When you ask what’s going on and he tries to stutter his way through an explanation. When, in fragments, you make out the system didn’t catch it… don’t know how long… should’ve caught it… I don’t know who or what…

You swallow your panic and ask, “Can you fix it?”

Wonwoo doesn’t bother as he answers, “I don—I don't think so? I don't—”

It’s too late.

It’s too late.

It’s too easy. The way your body remembers the rhythm of these places, the way your eyes automatically scan for exits, for familiar silhouettes, for threats. You grew up in the backrooms of spots just like this, watching your parents count cash under dim lights, learning to keep your head down while men with guns laughed too loud. The muscle memory makes your stomach twist. You shouldn’t slip back in this smoothly. Not after everything.

You head toward the bar, weaving through clusters of foreigners laughing too loud. You order a whiskey and the bartender passes you something watered down. You throw crumbled bills his way before turning and leaning backward on the sticky bar top, letting your gaze drift across the room.

Near a cluster of worn leather booths along the far wall, a small group holds court like they own the place. And in a way, they do. Or their bosses do, because you recognize one of them immediately. It's been years since you've seen Joshua Hong - over a decade at least - but you recognize the polished man, tall and lean with dark hair styled neatly back from a face that could pass for an actor or an idol if you didn't know any better.

Late twenties looks good on him with a sharp jawline and warm brown eyes that are good at looking friendly even when he's not. He's in a black button-up rolled up at the sleeves revealing tattoos that snake up his forearms, a glass held loosely in his hands, posture relaxed but alert.

Beside him, Kim Mingyu is still tall as ever - taller than you remember, even. Definitely broader, the kind of build that makes people step aside on the sidewalk. His hair is shorter now, dark and slightly tousled, and a faint scar cuts through one eyebrow. He’s dressed more casually than Joshua in a black t-shirt stretched tight across his chest, silver chain glinting at his throat.

Mingyu’s laugh booms over the music as he claps one of the older guys on the back, but his eyes scan the room constantly, predator-sharp. You remember him as one of the sons of an enforcer, and as far as you know, he's taken up that mantle himself.

A few of the older crowd linger with them, men in their forties and fifties with hard faces and heavier guts, the kind who ran with your parents back in the day. One of them, a stocky guy with a gold tooth and a faded dragon tattoo peeking from his collar, does a double-take when his gaze lands on you. Recognition flickers across his face, followed by a slow, crooked smile.

"Holy shit," he calls out. Heads turn and Joshua's gaze snaps to you. "If it isn't the little rabbit."

Your heart slams against your ribs as the nickname lands like a punch to the throat. You force a tired half-smile, pushing off the bar and walking over like this is normal. Like you’ve been waiting for this reunion.

"Hi, Dragon," you say, voice carrying over the base. "Been a long time."

They pull you in without hesitation. The older men clap your shoulder, murmur half-sincere condolences about your parents. Someone slides you into the booth beside Joshua, the leather cracked and warm from bodies while glasses clink and someone starts pouring soju.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Dragon asks, leaning in. His breath smells like garlic but you fight the urge to lean away. "Knew you grew up in the home. Heard you got pinched recently. That would have made your own man laugh his ass off."

You sip the soju, letting the burn ground you. "Got out today, actually."

Joshua watches you over the rim of his glass, expression unreadable but not hostile. “Bold move, coming straight here on your first night out. Most people would lay low.”

You shrug, meeting his eyes. “Laying low never fed anyone."

"Who says we'll let you eat at the table?"

Dragon laughs loudly and slaps you on the back, but Joshua doesn't look as amused. His gaze is assessing and cool, and you feel it pressed against your throat like a knife. You stare back at him. Joshua isn't the soft little boy he was when you were in grade school - that much is obvious. But you're not the scared little rabbit you were back then, either.

"I can earn my way, Hong," you tell him coolly. You lean back and cross one knee over the other. "I've got time and connections."

Mingyu barks out a laugh, clapping his hands. "Holy shit, she's got balls. Her dad was good on the deliveries, maybe we let her have a go."

"Easy, Mingyu," Joshua warns. "Don't let nostalgia make you say stupid things. Rats wear so many faces these days."

The word rats lands heavy. You feel the way your heart slams in your chest, but your face remains neutral as you shrug and say, "I'm not much for cheese."

Dragon slaps the table, grinning wide enough to flash the gold in his teeth. "Fire, just like her mother."

You settle in, letting the conversation pull you deeper. Dragon launches into old stories of your father's near-miss on a delivery in Mullae-dong, your mother’s iron grip on the books that kept the nail salon looking spotless while cash flowed underneath. The nostalgia tastes like rust in your mouth, but you laugh at the right moments, adding small details from what you remember.

"Your old man had ice in his veins," Dragon continues, pouring another round of soju into the small glasses scattered across the table. "Remember that time the cops rolled up on him in Yeouido? Had two kilos in the trunk, registration expired, and he just smiled at them like he was picking up his kid from school."

You do remember. Not the incident itself, but the way your father came home that night, silent as always, and how your mother had gripped his face between her hands, kissing his forehead hard enough to leave a mark.

"He told them he was lost," you add, your voice steady despite the tightness in your throat. "Asked for directions to some restaurant that didn't exist."

"Exactly!" Dragon slaps the table again, delighted. "They gave him a fucking map and sent him on his way. Your mother nearly killed him when he got home."

"She did," you say quietly. "Threw a bottle of nail polish remover at his head."

The men laugh, and you force yourself to smile, but inside you're eight years old again, watching through a crack in the door as your mother screamed at your father about being reckless, about what would happen to you if he got caught. The memory sits like broken glass in your chest.

Suddenly, you wish you had the white bunny in your lap. Your fingers twitch, aching to run the ears between them, soft and worn and familiar. You swallow past the memories, focusing on the feeling of the humid air against your neck, the smell of soju, the sound of the humming base.

Joshua watches you through the haze of cigarette smoke, his expression unreadable. You meet his gaze and hold it, refusing to flinch despite trying to hold off the overwhelming onslaught of memories with a single, shaky hand.

The music shifts to something with a heavier bass that makes the glasses on the table vibrate. The crowd on the dance floor thickens, bodies pressing together in the purple-red glow. You're about to say something, anything to fill the silence stretching between you and Joshua, when movement catches your eye.

A man approaches the booth, cutting through the crowd with the kind of ease that comes from familiarity. Tall, lean, dressed in a black button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Dark hair cut shorter and styled a little wild. There's something about the way he moves that makes your stomach drop before you even see his face clearly.

When he steps into the light, you freeze.

You know him. Or you knew him. The recognition hits like a punch to the stomach. A face from childhood, blurred at the edges by time and trauma. He's older now, sharper. The softness of youth has been carved away, leaving behind clean lines and a jaw that could cut glass. But his eyes, dark and guarded, are the same.

following her around the mall like two lost pups, both hands occupied by endless shopping bags as she bounces from one store to another, the sound of her newly bought kitten heels echoing through heeseung and jake’s ears whilst their eyes are glued to the back of her pink little miniskirt swishing around, barely covering a thing. geez, such perverts! (˶˃𐃷˂˶)

and then comes their favorite part of the day. their hearts practically leap out of their chests when your eyes catch a glimpse of their your favorite lingerie store, dragging them inside cluelessly to ask for their opinions as you naturally did with all the other stores, questioning them on which color looks good on you the best. their hungry gaze trailing your every move almost going unnoticed by you.

and who are they to say no when you ask them to join you in the dressing room to help? you might be an airhead, but you’re not that stupid to not notice them ogling you the entire day. plus, you think they deserve a little treat for putting up with you and your shopping addiction. so when they tower over you from the front and the back, trapping you between themselves, all you can do is let out a pleased hum as jake kisses you rough on the lips, not wasting a second while his slender fingers play with your hardened nipples through the lace bra he had picked out minutes before.

“look at her jake, such a pretty mess for us already..” heeseung mumbles before pressing a soft kiss against your neck. his hands slid down your bare waist, knee in between your thighs and pressed against your soaked core, making you mewl against jake’s lips.

you then decide that shopping with these two will be your favorite part of the week from now on.

Part of him thinks that perhaps it never mattered really, not when they spilled his so easily for their own whims, made him spill others’. It doesn’t matter whose he wears now, it’s all the same in the end. They all deserve it at this point.

Chest heaving, searching for oxygen only half of him needs, he doesn’t slow, doesn’t give anyone the chance to escape the fate they designed for themselves. Even if they didn’t know it at the time. Neither did he, but he does now.

The bottom of his sturdy boot comes down on the final door, and he barges in, gun raised and ready to mow down every single human in this reprehensible lab, hidden away beneath the forest edging a small town nobody has heard of. That nobody cares about.

Yet, the eyes that stare at him from the examination bed — nothing more than a metal table — don’t belong to a human. One eye has the distinctive, electronic blue glow he knows is mirrored in one of his own. A cyborg; part human, part machine. Like him. The other eye stares at him, wide in fear and confusion, human. Not like him. He lost his humanity long ago.

“I won’t hurt you,” he declares, words leaving before he fully realises what he’s doing, already lowering his gun to approach where you lay naked and vulnerable strapped to the metal table, leather around your limbs, your waist, your throat. “I won’t hurt you,” he repeats, putting down his gun on the table behind him once he’s standing on your right, eyes darting over your binds with a frown; sympathetic and remembering. Hating. Hurting.

You say nothing, just continue to stare up at him with those big eyes, only one holding any real emotion, the other calculating as the computer implanted in your brain scans his face, brings up any information about him that it can find. But he knows it will find nothing; he doesn’t exist. Not anymore. This lab was his last chance to find out why, but his anger got the better of him and now all he has to show for his mission is the blood staining his skin.

“Can you hear me?” he asks. “Do you understand what I am saying to you?” Slowly, as if it takes a whole lot of effort and concentration, you nod. “Good. I will untie you, please stay still. I don’t want to hurt you, but if I think you’re going to try to hurt me I won’t hesitate to kill you.” He’s not sure if you take his warning to heart, you don’t react in any way past a single blink up at him, but he doesn’t wait any longer and starts to work on unbuckling each of the thick leather straps trapping you against the cold metal.

Once you’re free, he steps back to give you space. Yet you remain there, silent and watching. He frowns a little, confused, but doesn’t question you; instead, he makes a motion for you to stay — hoping you’ll understand — then leaves the lab with his gun clutched securely in his hold. Both because he can’t be certain he truly did kill every fucked-up scientist and assistant in this lab, and because he can’t be certain he can trust you to not claim the weapon for your own and shoot him the second he re-enters the room.

Though, when he returns with a bag bulging with items he’s procured from various lockers in the changing rooms, he finds you laid exactly where he left you, eyes glued to the door. For a split second, he even thinks he sees that human eye light up a little upon spotting him, but he refuses to delude himself like that.

“I found some clothes for us both,” he declares, putting down the bag — though he keeps his gun — to cross the room and fill a tub with warm water from the sink. Once back at your side, he puts the tub down and pulls some cloths from the bag to drop into the water. “Can you sit up? Dress yourself?” You only stare, and he sighs. “Okay, just… wait there I guess, let me clean up first.”

After so many years of being stripped down, prodded, and poked, cut open and closed back up, Wonwoo has no issue or concerns about removing all of his clothing — keeping his weapons close to him and far from your reach, of course — and washing the blood from his exposed, blood smeared skin right before your unflinching gaze. He knows you’re watching him; he can feel your gaze on him, curious and analytical. He wonders what the computer they fitted you with tells you about him; about the metal obvious without clothes in the way, the degrading synthetic skin, the scarred human skin. He wonders, but he doesn’t ask.

Once he’s cleaned and dried, he quickly dresses in the clothes he found that just about fit him — even if the jeans are a little tight on his thighs where both are full of mechanic enhancements under human skin; to blend in if exposed while still having the upper hand in a fight or chase — and fits all his holsters and holders back onto his body, fitting him better than any clothing ever has. He thinks it sad that he can’t remember if there’s real truth to that, or if that only applies to this version of him. Perhaps it’s better he doesn’t know, doesn’t remember who he was before this life. Still, he wants to know. There’s a big part of him missing, and he feels that ache every single day.

“Your turn,” he says upon turning to face you now that he’s ready down to his boots — still his own, he won’t give these reliable boots up until he physically can’t wear them anymore, no matter how blood stained they are — and the jacket he found, which he, admittedly, has taken quite the liking to.

Honestly, Wonwoo hadn’t really expected you to respond, not based on his experience with you so far, but he had still hoped you would. Of course, you don’t, you just stare, and he gets to work wiping the dried blood from your skin — your own; hours, maybe even days, old — and manoeuvring your helpless body into clothing.

By the time he’s done, he thinks you look a little more alert, a little less like you’re an aimless consciousness stuck in a body, but a living being. Well, as living as a cyborg can be, he supposes.

“First things first, let’s make sure your systems are online,” he decides, moving around the table you lay on to approach the computer on your left, enough space between the two tables for someone to easily walk along. He feels your eyes follow him, and he glances over to see that you’ve rolled your head to allow the observation. That’s good, at least he knows that you can move one part of your body.

After spending years being marched in and out of labs just like this one; for checkups, to be enhanced further, to be shut down — though that one they obviously didn’t succeed in —; Wonwoo knows his way around a computer, especially as the skill is written into his code so that he can do his own maintenance when out in the field. It was probably a big regret of theirs to give him the knowledge to look into his own code and slowly understand what he is, what they’ve done to him, why he can’t remember anything from before waking up naked and strapped by leather to a metal table much like you are right now.

That thought makes him realise that you probably have just been awoken, that your mind is a blank slate, and you truly don’t know anything. No wonder you haven’t tried to speak; you don’t know how yet. At least, you don’t remember how. He doesn’t know if they implanted any knowledge chips within you, but he seriously fucking hopes so. He has no idea how he’s going to essentially raise a baby the size of a grown woman, because that’s all you really are right now; a newborn.

Thankfully, he finds the computer ready to go, paused in the process of unlocking the information in those chips — and he’s relieved to see that you have almost all of the same ones as he does, so he knows you should figure out talking, walking, and other basic necessities pretty quickly — but Wonwoo’s appearance in the lab had really ruined things, and whoever was in charge of waking you didn’t manage to get the job done. He’s really glad of that, because judging by the fancy, state of the art combat chips he can see in your file, you’d take him in a fight easily.

Although he doesn’t really want to be responsible for keeping you safe when he has to watch his own back already, Wonwoo doesn’t unlock the combat chip, still not sure he can trust you to be on his side. For now, he unlocks the necessities, and hovers over the one titled “data” and wonders what that could mean. He can’t even open the folder on the computer; it’s the only one that requires a passcode and Wonwoo certainly doesn’t have that. As much as he would love to know what kind of data they planned to fill your head with, he has no choice but to ignore it.

Sudden movement in his peripheral makes Wonwoo turn, ready to react, but he relaxes upon realising that it’s you, twitching intermittently as information loads in your head and you try to escape the onslaught.

In all they did to him in the labs, in all they cut him open and dug around inside while he was conscious and able to feel everything, Wonwoo knows the information upload is far worse. It was the only time he ever argued, ever tried to fight, and inevitably earned enough sedation to make him unable to fight, though it only lasted long enough to get him strapped down and connected to the computer. Wonwoo doesn’t really fear anything, not at this point, but having a new data chip unlocked is as close as he gets.

“I know it hurts in a way you couldn’t describe even if you had the words, but it’ll be over soon. I’m sorry for making you go through this pain, but you need the knowledge to survive,” he says, reaching out to put a hand to your shoulder, sympathetic and sharing your pain in his memories, though he knows those can never compare to the real thing.

They must’ve improved the system since Wonwoo was last connected to one, because far quicker than he ever remembers his uploads happening, it’s over, and your panting body slumps against metal, welcoming the cool of it against your heated skin.

He returns to the computer to see what else needs to be done to have you functional, and he finds a file there hidden in your system, one he’s never seen in his own. ID. Wonwoo’s heart skips a beat as he stares at those two letters, two letters that mean nothing really, while meaning everything at the same time. He clicks into the file and his heart hurts. Right there before his very eyes is a redacted file, proof that you were something before all this, even if all he can read is a codename.

“Valentine,” he murmurs, then turns his head to look at you. He’s not surprised to find your eyes already on him, tired, yet alert, full of new knowledge. Full of pain. “Does that mean anything to you? That name?”

It takes a moment, but you slowly shake your head, still trying to get used to the sudden data in your head, manuals of how to work your body, of how to speak, but it will still take a little time for you to truly understand the information in your mind and put it to use. He understands that.

“It’s you, apparently, your codename. You can see that in your mind, yes? The ID file, that’s this.” He turns the monitor so that you can see it. Your eyes glance over it, but you don’t linger, don’t seem to care. He doesn’t blame you. A name means nothing to an empty person. “My name’s Wonwoo,” he says, moving a little closer to greet you properly, with respect he hasn’t felt for another in a long time. But you’re not like anyone else he’s met in a long time. You’re like him. Sort of.

“W…” you try to repeat, and he nods encouragingly while moving closer, slowly sounding out his name and exaggerating his mouth movements for you to carefully study. Your second attempt is far better, though still not quite right. “Wanoo,” you say; he can’t help but chuckle. You frown a little, and he can’t tell if you look more confused or offended at his laughter, yet then beam at him as if you’re proud of making him laugh, even a little. “Wanoo.”

“Wonwoo.”

“Wanoo,” you insist, and he snorts, figuring you’re being stubborn just to amuse him. It’s working. “Val. Wanoo.”

“Val and Wonwoo,” he agrees, giving you a little smile. “And Val and Wonwoo should get out of here sooner rather than later, before the cavalry arrive.”

“Cav’ry,” you repeat, human eye glossing over a little as you search your system for the word.

He leaves you to your mental exploration and makes short work of safely disconnecting you from the computer before closing up the access panel hidden amongst your hair behind your left ear. You let him, seem to trust him, and that makes something long missing warm in his chest, fill out a little.

“C’mon, I’m going to need your help to get us both out of here,” he prompts once he’s back at your side and helping you to sit up. You make a surprised sound at the change of position, but you obligingly do your best to lift your left arm to put it around his shoulders and turn to get off the bed with his right arm secure around your waist.

The first few steps almost fail entirely, you can’t quite get your legs to work, but Wonwoo is surprisingly patient about it, more patient than he thought he could be with a stranger, and gently talks you through it, step by literal step.

It’s slow work, but it gets easier, then faster, and by the time the two of you step out into the hut within the forest that hides the entrance to the lab, he barely has to support you.

He can tell that you’re tired from using muscles you potentially haven’t used in months — he didn’t get a good enough look at your file to know if you were previously asleep on ice until needed, or if you were picked off a battlefield on the brink of death and turned into something entirely knew — but you don’t complain and determinedly keep on, so Wonwoo doesn’t give you chance to change your mind about it. The two of you need to get as far away from here as possible, as fast as possible.

It’s not until two days, five different vehicles, and three episodes of you almost wandering off, attention caught by something new, that Wonwoo lets the two of you rest.

No sooner has he kicked out the stand of his borrowed — stolen — motorbike on the dirt of a field out of the way, does he drop to the mostly dead grass, arms and legs spread wide to let his body rest, taking big sighs of air and letting them dance away on the cool breeze.

You stare down at him for only a moment before copying and flopping down on the grass at his side, close enough to lay your head on his outstretched bicep, uncaring that it’s metal under his synthetic skin and can’t be comfortable. Then again, the back of your head feels far too sturdy to be bone, so he assumes at least part of your skull has been replaced with metal, so you likely can’t even feel his stiff arm under you anyway.

“Stay here now, Wanoo?” you ask after a few moments of quiet calm. He rolls his head against the grass so that he can look at you, watch you peer up at him with nothing but trust in that human eye. He wonders how long it will take for that shine to dimmish, for him to fuck up and make you lose all faith in him.

He hopes it won’t happen; he hopes you’ll always want to be by his side, because, admittedly, he’s already grown rather fond of you and your innocence; your smile; your everything, really. But he won’t delude himself into believing he’s destined for such things, that he deserves more than a lonely life of an empty pit in his chest, always aching for love to fill it. He won’t delude himself, but he hopes.

“Just for a bit,” he confirms, reaching up with his free arm so that he can gently brush the strands of wind-blown hair away from your face. You let him and just smile. “We’ll need to flee further, find somewhere safe to plan our next step.”

“Next step?” you repeat, curious.

“Mm. I went to that lab to find out who I am, what memories they stole about my past. It was my last chance and I fucked it up.”

“Val and Wanoo find memories,” you declare, nodding. “Find you.”

“You’ll help me?” he asks, a little surprised, and very touched. You nod firmly. “It will be dangerous.”

“Val protect Wanoo, Wanoo protect Val.”

“I…Yes, I suppose we will,” he agrees, lips lifting into a smile. “And maybe then we can find out why your speech isn’t developed as it should be. Until then, you will keep trying to copy my speech patterns, yes?”

“Yes,” you confirm without hesitation. Not that he’s surprised about that, you agree with everything Wonwoo says, you do whatever he tells you to without complaint. “Copy Wanoo.”

“Mm, copy Wanoo.” He settles back down, directing his smile to the afternoon sky above you both. It only grows when you shuffle closer as if there’s nowhere else you’d ever rather be than tucked up by his side.

Somehow, even though the two of you never stop looking, never stop moving and taking the next step towards finding who he once was, Wonwoo forgets that.

Not entirely, of course, there’s always a part of him that is aware of the goal, of the part of him that’s been missing for years now. But ever since the day he kicked down that lab door and found you, that hole has taken up less and less of his thoughts. Now, you fill them. And when he thinks about that hole, he realises that it’s filling with you.

Sometimes, when the day has been calm, and the two of you have done nothing but simply exist together, he considers it. Considers telling you the truth about it. Considers telling himself the truth about no longer really caring about who he once was. But he doesn’t, he can’t gain the courage for it.

Wonwoo may be a creature made for war, made to march into the middle of battle unflinchingly and come out on top, but he’s not brave enough to tell you that he’s fallen for you and never wants to go back to the man he was before you.

Then, the day passes and you bounce over to him with those big, proud eyes to tell him your plan for the next step that the two of you can take to find his past, to tell him the information you’ve somehow found when he’s failed so many times, and he can only go along with it, hiding his patched over heart and hoping that one day, he can be brave enough.

For now, he continues to stay close to your side, enjoy the calm days, protect you through the rough ones — even if he’s taught you everything he knows about fighting —, and pretend that he doesn’t want to take you away somewhere and forget all about this life. Pretend that he doesn’t want to make a new life with you.

“Wanoo,” you chirp, using that same name he’s found so ridiculously endearing from the start, and is glad that you never stopped using even once your speech developed as it should’ve. You poke him in the forehead to make him tilt his head back to focus on you instead of staring off across the horizon, once again stuck in his dreams of a braver Wonwoo.

“Mm?” he replies, blinking up at you as he clears the clouds from his mind.

“It’s time to go, we’ve got to stakeout the Mechanic,” you remind, reaching down to grab his hand from his lap and tug him up from his perch on the bonnet of the car the two of you have been using for months now.

“Oh, right.” He nods and lets you lead him around to the driver’s side door. He always lets you lead him around; would let you take him anywhere if you hold his hand. He’s very aware of how much of a contrast that is compared to the man you met; dripping blood and threatening to kill you if you try to hurt him. Even he can’t believe how soft he’s become because of you, only for you.

“Maybe we should see if he can look into your system and see why you keep going spacy like that,” you suggest while opening the door, then hold it steady while motioning within using the hand you’ve just removed from his.

He takes a moment to gently brush your hair out of your face before getting into the driver’s seat. He’ll always take the chance to touch you, only encouraged by the fact you’ve never told him to stop, never shied away and only turned into his hold like a flower to the sun.

“My system’s fine,” he assures moments later once you’ve skipped around to get into the passenger seat while he starts the car up.

“Sure?”

“Positive. It’s this skin that needs tending to,” he mutters, eyeing the patch of synthetic skin over his left wrist where it’s worn away to the extreme that his mechanics are showing through.

“Hopefully this Mechanic has some.”

“Mm, hopefully. Or, at least, he can transplant some from elsewhere that I can easier hide from the public gaze and protect from moisture.”

“No nude beaches then, huh?” you joke, and he laughs, eyes on the winding road ahead. “Shame, you’ve got the body to show off; you’d have all the women over you.”

“I don’t want them.”

“No? We’ve been together for almost a year now and you’ve never looked at anyone. Are you not interested in that? Romance, sex?”

Wonwoo wants to say that he’s interested in you, only you, but he can’t. He doesn’t say anything, and you never push him, always follow his lead; you fall quiet too and turn your head to watch the world pass by instead of watching him.

“You know, I wouldn’t be upset if you didn’t come home for a night now and then, not if I know you’re safe and not in danger,” you state out of the blue hours later, after hours of calm silence; the kind of silence the two of you can often spend hours in, even days sometimes.

He rolls his head against the headrest of his seat to look at you, curled up comfortably in the passenger seat with your eyes glued to the grimy old store front down the street where it’s rumoured The Mechanic works out of. Though he’s a hard man to get any information on, and Wonwoo still doesn’t know how you got his location. Or suspected location, as the matter may be. There’s been no sign of life so far.

You must feel Wonwoo’s gaze, but you don’t look at him, not this time, even if you usually always turn to him. Always know when he is looking at you and gaze unwaveringly right back. You usually always meet him head on without hesitation, and it’s only now that you’re not that he realises it. That he understands, and his heart fills to the point of warming his whole body.

“You can take a break from your past to have fun with a stranger in the present,” you state in a tone that sounds like you’re reminding him of that, that he’s allowed to exist outside of his search for who he once was.

“Then where would it leave my future?” he questions. He watches your eyebrows furrow, and your features screw up as you try to decipher what he means and how to answer it. Even though one of you should constantly keep attention on the storefront for any sign of the Mechanic, he reaches out to tenderly cup your face and turn you to look at him. “I stopped caring about who I was some time ago, Val.”

“What?” You frown at him confusedly. “Why are we still searching if you don’t care?”

“Because I’m a coward.” You only grow more visibly bewildered. “Ever since we met, I’ve cared less and less about my past because you…you’re my future,” he confesses and lets out a breath, feels all the much lighter for it. “I have no interest in finding a stranger for the present because I only want you. Even if you don’t want me, I won’t go with anyone else. You’re everything to me; the only past I care about, the only present I want, and the only future I can imagine. I’ve just been too scared to tell you that.”

You take a moment to stare up at him, eyes big and trusting, and even with the mechanical blue glow in one, so fucking beautiful. “What changed?” you ask, voice quiet and holding an unsteady quality he’s never heard you use, emotional in a way he’s never heard on you before.

“You didn’t look at me.”

You huff a laugh. “What? I always look at you.”

“Exactly. You always look at me without hesitation, without fear, and you have since the very first moment. Yet then when you said I can stay out with another woman, you didn’t look at me.”

“Oh.”

“Mm.” He smiles and lifts his free hand to your face to hold you so reverently in both hands, human eye full of soft adoration. Even though he knows it’s impossible, he likes to imagine his mechanical one looks at you with love too, that you can see it in the soft blue glow just like you can in the brown of the other. He knows you can see it, it’s obvious the moment you notice because you melt in his hold and tilt towards him like you always have. Like he had missed in those short moments you hadn’t. “Will you confirm it for me, sweetheart? Will you tell me if I’m your future too?”

You let out a soft laugh, like it’s crazy he even has to ask, like it’s just a simple fact of the world. “Wanoo, you’re my everything.”

His smile brightens bigger than he can remember smiling, though it doesn’t last long. It’s a little hard to smile with his whole heart when his lips are busy on yours, after all.

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“Hey baby, you looking for a good time?” A sleazy voice called out when you walked past; the heavy unpleasant smell of booze, piss, old oil, and cigarette smoke heavily coming from that direction. It made your lips curl in disgust when the mixture met your nose and kept your eyes forward.

Pulling the large thick trench coat tighter around your body, you hoped that it would hide away the little outfit you wore to work and took the chance to inhale the comforting scent of your boyfriend that lingered on the fabric. Keeping you grounded and giving you the strength to bite your tongue.

You ignored the man and his friend yelling insults at your back as you continued your journey through the near empty streets of the Shadow District, back home. With one hand gripping the knife under the thick sleeves, one that Wonwoo had insisted you carry for protection. Luckily, you were able to go another day without having to use it, with the most those men could do was yell out names at your back as you disappear in the crowd.

Even with how early it was, or late depending on the person, the streets were still filled with people. Stores opening their doors to sell synthetically processed foods and supplements to help curve your hunger or thirst, groups of people still enjoying the night life despite the sky glowing grey with smog and sunrise, or those hiding in the shadows, waiting for someone to approach them for the drugs they had in their pockets.

Eagerly waiting for the next victim to get hooked and keep coming back for more.

That was life here in Huimang, named with the intentions of being a City of Hope, but hope was not even a luxury that many people could have. You being one of them, but this was still your home.

The apartment was quiet when you got in, with the grey morning light peeking through the blinds and violet lights that Wonwoo left for you. He was long asleep in your bedroom, greeted by golden eyes and soft meows from your shared cat instead. Her soft dark fur feeling comforting against your leg, and you were quick to shed the coat to pick her up.

“Hello to you too, Doodle Bug.” You cooed at the small feline, scratching the side of her head as you made your way into the small kitchen. Wiggling free, Doodle jumped from your arms to the floor, only to look back at you to meow and it brought a smile to your face, “Didn’t your dad feed you before he went to bed?”

This earned another meow from her, and you chuckled. “Alright, alright. You win. Early breakfast it is.”

After feeding the cat a can of her favorite food, you made sure her water bowl was full before making your way to the bathroom to clean up. The boots you switched to after work kicked off to a random corner of the small living room, the revealing top thrown over the back of the sofa, and your shorts that felt more like underwear left on the ground by the bathroom. You didn’t care that you would need to pick up everything later.

The shower felt amazing on your skin, the hot water washing away everything that had clung to you from working that night—sweat, spilled booze, tobacco smoke, the disgusting things that had been said to you, and the ghost of hands that tried to touch you as you tried to serve drinks.

It left the stripped away version of you. The real version of you, or what was left of it from years of running and trying to survive.

When you emerged from the steamy shower, the cold air of the apartment bit at your damp skin and a shiver ran through you. You were ready to slip into the warmth of your bed, into the warmth of Wonwoo. The shower may have washed everything away, but it also made you aware of how sore your muscles were, and how tired you were. Each day growing heavier on you, no matter how many hot showers you took.

You didn’t bother putting on any pajamas, just slipping onto the old worn bed, with your boyfriend sleeping on his side. His back faces you as you settled under the bedding and moved to mold your body against it, pressing your lips against his bare shoulder.

“How was work?” His voice was deeper than usual, rough with sleep, taking one of your hands that rested against his stomach. The sound and gesture making your lips upturn against his skin.

“The usual. Rich, drunk and high assholes that don’t know how to or even capable of keeping their hands too themselves. Thinking that flaunting their wealth, and expensive body mods will impress anyone enough to sleep with them.” You let out a soft sigh, eyes closed while you welcome the warmth of your boyfriend, feeling his thumb run over the back of your hand.

Wonwoo stopped before he shifted himself to sit up, causing you to lift your head in confusion. There was some dried drool at the corner of his mouth, his black hair a tangled mess from sleep, and a frown on his lips. He had taken his left eye out to sleep, so only his right one was opened and trained on you with concern.

Just looking at him made your heart flutter still after years together, still the most beautiful person you ever laid eyes on. You couldn’t stop from thinking of how lucky you were to have him love you and be in your corner. Your missing piece.

“They touched you?” He asked calmly, that sleepy rasp was now gone and something dangerous took center stage. “And Seungcheol did nothing about this?”

“Seungcheol wasn’t there tonight. You know if he was, or any of us said something, they would be out on their asses. Their credits aren’t any good there if they fuck with the servers, no matter how rich they claim to be.” You answer, rolling onto your back, trying to not giggle when his eye dropped to your bare breasts when they moved. You reached out to run your hand over his arm, giving him a reassuring smile. “It’s not anything I can’t handle, baby. They eventually get bored when they realized that I wouldn’t let them fuck me in the bathroom.”

“I should kill them for touching you.” His words sounded more like a growl while he leaned over you. His gaze slid over your frame before it returned to your face. “Only I can touch you.”

“As lovely as that sounds, I rather keep you next to me and not behind a glass window.” The hand that had been resting on his arm moved up to his neck so you could pull him into a kiss.

Wonwoo didn’t resist your pull, leaning down to find your lips, tasting the minty flavor of the teeth cleaning tablet still fresh on your tongue. The kiss was brief, but it still ignited a fire in you, your body warming, and it seeped to your core. You found yourself chasing his lips when he pulled back, the soft whine that left you earned a smirk from your boyfriend.

“Only I’m allowed to touch you.” He repeated, his mouth brushing against yours, slipping on top of you and his hips pushing your thighs open without any resistance from you. He didn’t wear clothes to bed, so when he pressed down, there was no barriers against his hardening cock and your own bare heat. Another moan escaped you, as your hips instinctually moved as if you would be able to catch the tip of his thick length just the right way. “Only I can fuck you in those bathrooms.”

“Is that so?” You teased, trying to not let your lashes flutter at the way Wonwoo’s strong hand grabbed your hips, holding it there with more pressure than needed, but you didn’t mind his possessiveness over you. He pulled his face back to give you a look, knowing that bratty but aroused smirk all too well, and had to hold back a very vocal groan feeling your cunt getting slicker against the underneath of his cock.

“Last I checked, I am in charge of who touches me, and where I get fucked.”

Wonwoo’s mouth latched onto yours, this time his kiss hungry to taste you again, relishing that you returned that same hunger. You were tired, your body desperate for sleep, but you could never pass up a moment like this; especially when you know letting him fuck you would help you sleep better.

His hands moved down your body, caressing your breasts and teased your hardened peaks, while his tongue took claim of yours. Teasing and sucking on it, each of you swallowing moans his hips moving against yours, his cock sliding through your slit teasingly. Letting himself be coated by your arousal, teasing you.

“You want to play a little, or just want me to fuck you?” Wonwoo asked, pulling from the kiss, his eye looking over your face, a lazy smirk playing over his lips. The question made you laugh because it didn’t sound the least bit romantic or intimate, but at the same time, neither of you were aiming for that. Except you weren’t going to miss a chance to pick on him. “What?”

“You sure know how to romance a…oooh.” The words were lost when he shifted his hips back so that he could slip a hand between your legs, slender fingertips slipping between your folds and found your clit with practiced ease. “Fuck… Wonwoo…”

“If you want me to be romantic…” His voice was soft, his touch matched it in movement. Slow, gentle circles around your sensitive bud, teasing and earned whimpers from you. He was doing this on purpose. His lips barely brushed against your as he spoke again. “Then you’re out of luck.” You went to roll your eyes, but instead they rolled back when two fingers pushed into you, a little gasp leaving you while a groan left him. “Always so wet for me. This is why only I can fuck you.”

“Then do it, you dick.” You snapped, though there was no punch behind it, only to earn a chuckle from him. His fingers were going at a slow agonizing pace, like he hadn’t just woken from a deep sleep, and you didn’t just spend all night working. Taking his time like it wasn’t early hours in the morning.

“You’re demanding.”

“But you love me and will listen anyways.” And he did listen, withdrawing his fingers so he could line himself up; the thick tip barely pressed into you making you groan in a mix of frustration and anticipation. He may have listened, but he sure as hell was going to torture you a bit and pulled back when you would try to roll your hips. “Wonwoo!”

He did this to you a few more times before finally sinking into you, earning a moan of pleasure and relief as he took a quick inhale of breath. Your inner walls squeezed and molding to him in such a delicious way that he had to clear his head or he was going to cum right then.

“Fuck baby…” He groaned, stilling after he filled you completely, his forehead pressed against yours and both eyes squeezed shut this time. Your own body was shaking, relishing in the feel of him on top of you and inside you, fitting together like missing pieces.

When he finally started to move, Wonwoo created a tantalizing pace with his thrusts, making sure not only you felt every inch of his length but for his own enjoyment as well. He wasn’t in a rush, but neither of you were going to last long.

“I love you.” You moaned out, clinging to him in need to feel him over every inch of your skin. You needed to feel the weight of him on you, to be grounded, to know he’s still real, that you were still alive. Wonwoo’s mouth was hot on your collarbone, one hand holding onto your hip using his strength to keep you where he wanted you while the other massaged one of your breasts, leaving marks where it would be hard to hide.

“I love you too, fuck. I love you so fucking much,” His words came out labored, the deep vibrations of his voice sending waves over you with his words, his thrusts started to get sloppy quickly. Too lost in the feeling of you and exhaustion that still clung to him.

He was getting close to his release; except he refused to let go first. He had to make you come undone around him before he could. Wonwoo was a lot of things in life, but he was never a selfish lover; at least he never was one with you.

The hand that was massaging the fatty flesh of your breast slipped between you to give you a bit of help to get to your release. He smirked against your skin, gently pressing his lips to a fresh mark, when you let out a small cry when he started to tease your clit. Your nails raked down his back and left red scratch marks down his back.

You weren’t sure if you were just sensitive from the hot shower, and exhaustion but the mixture of his cock plunging into your warmth and his quick finger movements was just enough to push you over the edge. Your body shaking as your release washed over you, any moans and gasps leaving you were now swallowed up by Wonwoo. His mouth was hot against your lips, tongue eagerly licking the inside of your mouth; his moans turning into soft whines.

You were already snug around him, but when you came it was like you were squeezing the life from him. Wonwoo tried to hold out a little longer, until your hands moved down his body to grab his ass, pushing his hips into you to grind and that was it for him. Letting himself go inside you, filling you until he couldn’t give any more.

Neither of you moved for a moment, his kiss now slowing to a gentle make out and a hand cupping your cheek. The room dim and quiet, letting you both forget that there was a dark world out the confides of your little apartment. When that moment passed, Wonwoo pulled himself out with a sensitive wince and rolled himself off you with a groan.

“You are going to be the death of me.” He muttered, now on his back and pulling you to his side. Giving you enough time to move so you were facing him before you were pressed against his slick skin.

“You’re the one who started it.” You mumbled, still attempting to catch your breath as your eyes closed. Your body is completely relaxed, and exhaustion had finally taken you under.

Barely awake, you said in a sleepy tone, “We need to clean up.”

“No we don’t.” Wonwoo grumbled, sleep taking back over him, turning his head to press a kiss to your hairline. “We need to sleep.”

The excessive knocking started to turn into pounding and finally ripped you from your deep sleep. An annoyed groan left your lips as you rolled onto Wonwoo’s side of the bed, empty and feeling cool against your skin. Showing he had been up and gone for a while.

“Fuck off…” You mumbled, but whoever was at your door was persistent, and you couldn’t ignore it any longer. Getting up, you stumbled through the room to find clothes since you weren’t going to answer naked. Luckily, you found a pair of shorts and a shirt of Wonwoo’s, and whoever it was now full on pounding at the door. Causing you to exhaustedly yell, “Fucking stop it! I’m coming!”

Padding through the small apartment, you were tempted to grab a knife from the kitchen once you realized who it was. Especially when the pounding turned into some kind of beat since this asshole thought he was clever.

Ripping the door open, you were met with the bane of your existence leaning against the door frame; acting like he didn’t just use your door as his personal beat box. His attention on his cybernetic hand that he currently had out as a claw. To the Shadow District, he was Hoshi, but to you and a small group of people, he was Kwon Soonyoung. Your best friend by force more times than choice at this point.

“Finally. Thought I was going to have to claw this door down.” He mused, turning his sharp eyes on you with his tongue pushed against the inside of his cheek.

“And if I don’t kill you for it, Wonwoo definitely will.” You snapped, turning from open door to walk to the kitchen. Pushing off the frame, Soonyoung grabbed a plastic bag that was resting at his feet before sauntering into the apartment and closed the door behind him. “It’s too early for this.”

“It’s almost two in the afternoon.” He pointed out, and you shot him a dirty look over your shoulder.

“I worked late last night, you idiot.” You grumbled, and this made him chuckle, retracting his tiger claws so it was normal metal hand. “What are you doing here anyways? Besides pissing me off while the sun is still out.”

“Was able to get my hands one some fresh fruits, like fresh from a farm type. Wanted to share them with one of my bestest friends.” Soonyoung watched as you froze, turning toward him slowly with interest. Your eyes dropped to the plastic bag in his hand filled with strawberries, oranges, and peaches dangling from his normal hand, only for you to look back up at his face. Seeing right through him, and from the look on his face, he knew it too. “Aaaannnddd maybe some credits.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You no longer felt sleepy or even tired anymore, instead you felt a rush of anger through you. You knew that he was using the fruit to attempt to butter you up. “Why didn’t you use the credits you used on the fruit?”

“Didn’t pay for these. I actually called in a favor from a friend. Figured bring an offering to sweeten the passing of credits.”

You groaned in frustration as you snatched the bag from him. He didn’t put up a fight, instead diverting toward the sofa while you moved to the small kitchen to clean and have some of the fruit for breakfast. Frustrated that he’d known you would take the fruit, but he didn’t know you weren’t going to give him a single credit.

“Go away, Soonyoung. Come back around when you’re not wanting something from us.” You told him, waving your hand dismissively in the air. “I told you before, I am not supporting your addiction anymore. Me and Wonwoo are barely making ends meet as it is.”

The blond tsked before he said your name in a slow and condescending tone, one that made your stomach turn uncomfortably, his sharp eyes looking in your direction. Taking in that your hair was still sleep ridden, Wonwoo’s shirt was actually inside out, and your shorts peeking from under just enough to show you rushed to get dressed. Analyzing you and your blatant lie.

“See… you and I both know that is a lie.” He went to say more, but Doodle had distracted him by jumping onto the sofa, meowing, knowing perfectly well that Soonyoung would give her the attention that she was ‘desperate’ for. Reaching out to pet the feline, he finally continued. “If I’m not mistaken, but isn’t your mother still sending you your monthly allowance? With an extra two thousand credits to convince you to leave Wonwoo and come home.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” You huffed out, knowing that the only reason your friend was bringing that up was because he was fiending; needing another hit to numb himself like everyone else in this city.

Tears started to sting your eyes, because you hated this side of him. The Soonyoung you once knew wouldn’t do this to you, he would never resort to blackmail, but the fiend version of him would and does with no remorse.

“Oh, we both know you do.” He responded in a calm voice, a wide smile on Soonyoung’s face as he played with Doodle. “What better way to say, ‘fuck you Mom’ than letting me use the credits to buy drugs and you can continue to live with Wonwoo and he can stay blissfully unaware of that little account.”

“Fuck you, Soonyoung.” There was a silence between you, a tense one with the only sound was Doodle’s little chirps. “Get out.”

“I guess, you’re right.” He leaned forward to peck the top of your cat’s head, with her meeting his lips with a soft headbutt. Standing, Soonyoung adjusted his ridiculously baggy pants and his compression shirt. “Wonwoo should be at the docks, right? Him and Gyu doing some recon by helping unload some freight? Maybe I should pay him a bit of a visit, see how him and that deliciously muscular man are doing.” He started toward the door, stopping as he reached for the handle, “Would be such a shame if I happen to let it slip that you’ve been hiding who you were before coming to the Shadow District… or well… ran away to it. I am pretty sure he wouldn’t like knowing the person he loves and trusts isn’t who he thought she was and is hiding a dark secret.”

“You’re a real piece of fucking work, you know that right?”

“I know, one of a kind. No one else like me. So a thousand credits sound good?” Soonyoung then turned around, crossing his arms and leaned against the door. The triumphant smile that graced his lips made your nose scrunch in disgust.

“Not a chance.” You shook your head and the smirk he was wearing started to twitch. “I can give you fifty credits.”

“Now, that isn’t going to work, but I’ll bump it down.” Soonyoung scratched his chin like he was thinking of a new total, before snapping his fingers. “Seven hundred.”

“No. Fifty credits.”

“Listen, I brought you fresh fruit!” He dropped his arms to his sides and stomped his feet childishly, but you didn’t miss the way his cybernetic fingers started to lengthen in claws. “This shit is hard to get.”

“Hard to get fresh fruit, that you didn’t pay for.” You could see the way his eyes were darkening dangerously, but you couldn’t give him the amount he wanted. You didn’t have it, and that account he referenced was one you refused to touch or even acknowledge. “I can do seventy five right now if you leave my fucking apartment.”

“You know you drive a hard bargain.” That smirk was back, and he took a few steps toward you, flexing the now clawed adorned hand. “I’ll take that seventy five, and then I am going to stroll down to those docks.” He held it up when you went to speak, and you closed your mouth. “Now, if you don’t want that, then I will gladly take two hundred credits now and your secret stays safe with me.”

“You’re an asshole.” You answered in defeat, turning away from him to wipe away a stray tear from your cheek and went to find your phone to send the credits. You didn’t want him to see you cry, knowing that this Soonyoung wouldn’t feel an ounce of guilt for it, nor did you want to see the way he bounced excitedly. “Don’t come back around after this, because I’m not giving you another fucking thing. Just take the credits and leave me alone.”

“Yeah, sure.” He didn’t believe you when you said this, he never did. Hell, you didn’t even believe the words that came out of your mouth. “You and I both know that you can’t live without your best friend.”

“You’re not my best friend.” You told him, your stomach sick as you sent the credits through the thin device. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes to push back any more tears and attempted to calm yourself before you threw a knife at his head. With a slow breath out, you turned to look at the stranger where Soonyoung once stood. “My best friend died the moment he got hooked on that shit. You’re just the scum that came out of the ashes.”

“Ah, haven’t been referred to as a Phoenix before. I think I prefer tigers still.” He was able to hear the hurt in your voice, he was able to see the pain in your eyes, but he didn’t care. He was too excited that he was able to get high on your credits. “Pleasure doing business with you. Let me know how Wonwoo likes the strawberries. Made sure to grab those for him.”

“Just leave.” You looked away from him, your words felt more like a plea then a demand, one that he actually listened to. But only cause he had what he wanted.

You heard the door open, and his heavy boots walk through the threshold, but you didn’t hear the door close.

“Oh, I forgot to mention.” He spoke slowly, his voice still smug, but there was something softer to it. Like for a moment, your best friend was trying to push past the fiend. “Seokmin saw notices on Holiday. Eviction notices.” Your back stiffened at those words, that sick feeling in your stomach turned into acid in your throat, but you didn’t look back at him. Holiday was a street right before the Shadow District. “I think you and I both know what that means.”

You knew perfectly well what that meant.

“Guess you can’t run from your mom or Skyfall forever.” And with that, Soonyoung closed the door behind him. Leaving you to stand there, next to the counter filled with the fruits he brought.

Tainted with blackmail and betrayal, but that was nothing compared to the anger and fear that you were feeling by his parting words. You felt like you were thrown off kilter, your body no longer felt like yours but the intense emotions that coursed through you.

After all these years that you lied to yourself that the Shadow District wouldn’t be touched by the filthy hands of those rich bastards. Convincing yourself that the home you found here with Wonwoo, with your friends, didn’t always have a looming threat at your door. That you could go a lifetime without seeing her.

It had been years since you ran, but it was still not enough time. It was never enough time to stay away.

The frustrated scream that left you didn’t sound like you, it was raw and from somewhere deep inside you, as you angrily swiped the fruit off the counter and onto the ground. Forgetting that you had pulled out a knife to cut them up and sliced your hand.

“Fuck!” You grasped your wrist, blood starting to come out of the cut, more tears breaking through. Sinking to the ground, you let out a wail as your cried. You were in pain, you were hurting deeper than pain, you were scared.

You were naïve to think that anywhere was safe. Safe from her, safe from Skyfall Industries, safe from the suffocating feeling of greed that came to be a constant in this greedy city.

You lied to Wonwoo when he came home that day, told him that you cut yourself slicing up the fruit Soonyoung had dropped off. Worked it in a way that you wanted him to believe that you had bought them from him, refused to say what happened during your former best friend’s visit, but adamant that the cut happened after he left.

You tried not to look at him when his left eye lens flickered as he scanned your body but failed. Allowing him to read your vitals, take any changes in them, but he didn’t question you further despite of what he’d seen. He didn’t even need to scan you though, unable to hide your distress. That something had happened with Soonyoung, and something deadly started to stir.

He could’ve easily leave, find Soonyoung and put a knife to his throat for upsetting you, for making you feel like you needed to lie to him, but he didn’t. Wonwoo was the quick tempered type, and he had no problem punching or stabbing someone instead of talking it out or walk away, especially when it came to you. But Wonwoo also knew that there was some things that he couldn’t resolve with violence.

Soonyoung, unfortunately, was one of those some things. You were too protective over him, no matter how much the fiend hurt you, but he knew that there was more to it. And whatever that fiend had over you, it kept you from cutting him off. It kept you from telling him.

“Earth to Wonwoo,” Vernon spoke up, pulling the older man from his thoughts and turned his attention back to the conversation at hand. The younger man was sitting on a filing cabinet that was in the corner of Jihoon’s office, one arm resting on his knee while his head leaned back against the wall. “I know it sucks down here, but we are talking business.”

“Sorry.” Wonwoo answered with a sigh, his eyes moved toward the other two men in the room. Jihoon was sitting at his desk chair, his attention on the tablet in his hands and not on the rest on the room. Mingyu was leaning against the wall next to the door, and his attention on his best friend, sensing something was up the moment he saw him. “What was the question again?”

“What did you see in the boxes from the dock yesterday?” Jihoon repeated, and a scoff left Vernon when he did. “Mingyu said you saw something in some of the boxes.”

“It wasn’t what I saw, it was what I didn’t see.” Wonwoo could hear Mingyu murmuring an apology for getting it wrong and leaned forward to rest his chin on his hand. This made Jihoon finally look at him. “That and where they were going.”

“What you mean you couldn’t see?” It was Vernon who spoke, another scoff leaving him as he looked for a pack of cigarettes in the pockets of his jumpsuit, not caring that he received a dark look. “Thought that hacked ass eye of yours could see through shit. You know through thermal scans or some shit.”

“I am not above putting a knife through your own fucking eye. Make you just like me.” Wonwoo warned, which only earned another cocky laugh. The cybernetic-free punk ass knew that he wasn’t joking or bluffing, but they just didn’t give a shit, making his hand twitch toward the knife that he kept hidden away.

“Just get to it.” Jihoon snapped, shooting his own dark look toward both of them. “Why couldn’t you see?”

“Most the boxes, easy to scan and act like I am verifying cargo, but there was about three or four large ones. Couldn’t get a reading at all.” Adjusting in his seat, Wonwoo continued to speak. “Boxes came up empty, but they were definitely not.”

“Took ten of us just to move one onto the truck.” Mingyu grumbled, sounding annoyed that he had to be reminded of the labor he had to do. “No way we were going to be able to move those with the forklift.”

“Well, where are they taking them?” Vernon asked, while Jihoon looked between the two men before them.

“The Factory.” Mingyu answered. The Factory was a warehouse on the dock, typically a storage unit for parts until they are shipped to facilities to build or specialize in installing them on people.  

“Why is that so weird? Everything goes there.” Jihoon sat the tablet down onto his desk to stand, a low grimace sketched over his face, his hand reaching down to massage his leg only to be met with metal. The rest of the group watched in silence as Jihoon schooled his expression and cautiously took steps away from his desk.

“That’s their first stop. The next stop is an address on Holiday. Skyfall Cybernetics Shop, but the address is a set of apartments right now.” This brought an uncomfortable silence over them, one that even Vernon was part of. This was too close to home, and none of them wanted to actually say what it could mean. After a heartbeat of silence, Wonwoo was the one to say it, “This is becoming more than stealing parts.”

“You’re right.” Jihoon nodded, not looking toward anyone as he tried to pace but only manage an awkward limp. Without thinking, Wonwoo’s left eye flickered behind his glasses, scanning his friend and boss to analyze him. Checked for anything different in his vitals.

Jihoon may have been good at keeping himself levelheaded in front of his crew, he never liked showing his worry nor when he was in pain, but he couldn’t hide it away from Wonwoo. And it wasn’t like it was something he typically did, he wouldn’t just scan his friends unless he felt like he needed to, but something told him to do it, and he was right to. Not only was his friend in pain, but he could tell by the increased vitals that there was more than that.

This was more than a simple heist job, this was more than stealing a few parts for a few thousand credits to split. They could easily still go on with the job, focus on the parts on the list and ignore the large boxes since they weren’t what they were looking for. But if Skyfall Industries took the steps to make it where not even scanners could penetrate the boxes, then that possibly meant more security so their usual ways weren’t going to cut it.

It caused the unspoken question hang heavy among the four of them. Was taking this job a good idea after all?

A familiar rhythmic knock broke through the silence that had followed Jihoon’s words, causing the four of them to look toward the opening door. It was Soonyoung, practically skipping into the room with wide eyes, pupils completely blown out, and his skin had a glow to it. His blond hair spiked up, and it was a surprise that the corner of his lips weren’t splitting from the size of his shit eating grin he wore.

The fucking fiend was on a high, and it was obvious to the rest of the people in the room. No scan was needed for this.

“Why hello there gentlemen. Lovely day isn’t it?” He said with a chirpy voice, shooting a smug look toward Wonwoo as he went to close the door. Like he was rubbing something into his face without saying what it was, and that deadly feeling started to stir inside again.

His thoughts went back to when he had come home to you, your hand wrapped in gauze and a few droplets of blood that you missed on the floor. He thought back to how you wouldn’t look at him when you told him that you did it while cutting fruit, the fruit that you ‘bought’ off Soonyoung, and the way your voice was raspy but still full of tears. You made him promise to not go and off the fiend, that he had nothing to do with your hand or your state.

And Wonwoo tried to keep his promise to you, even though he didn’t believe you, because you were so protective over Soonyoung. But that smug look on that mother fucker’s face, while your teary and sad look was burned into his brain, snapped something in him. He was out of his seat before he could stop himself.

A hiss of pain left Soonyoung when Wonwoo slammed him against the door, the doorknob jabbing into his back while a knife was pressed to his throat. Pinning him to the office door and made the three other men yell in surprise.

“You got some fucking nerve showing your face around me right now.” Wonwoo hissed, pressing his sharp knife to Soonyoung’s jugular, more than willing to slice his neck open. “Not after how you left my girl yesterday.”

“Oh that…” Soonyoung sighed dramatically, his cybernetic hand resting on Wonwoo’s arm with the tips of the metal fingers lengthened to sharp claws. A warning from the fiend, but Wonwoo didn’t care. He was seeing so much red that it triggered his fake eye to turn the bright color behind his glasses, and Soonyoung’s smug look turned sadistic. Wonwoo wanted to end him right then and there, ready to watch him bleed out on Jihoon’s office floor. “You’re being so dramatic, all I did was sell her some fruit.”

“You drugged up mother fucker.” The words came out like venom which switched something in Soonyoung, because his blown out eyes flashed and the claws of his hand started to rip the sleeves of his coat. His unserious warning now turning deadly in its own right. Either of them could kill the other right then and there easily.

Neither man would do it though. Wonwoo wouldn’t because he would lose you for good if he did, while there was still shards of the old Soonyoung inside the fiend somewhere that stopped him. Except it didn’t stop them from wanting to, and that was enough to have the other men on them quickly.

Mingyu’s tight grip on Soonyoung’s metal wrist, attempting to loosen his hold on him while Vernon and Jihoon attempted to pull Wonwoo away. Especially the hand that held the knife to the fiend’s throat.

“Let go of him.” Jihoon commanded, while the three men struggled to pull them apart. “Do you think she would be happy with you if you killed him?”

“Yeah, Wonwoo baby.” That smug look was back, but this time there was something sinister and wild to it. He was getting off on this, and it only made Wonwoo’s grip tighten on his knife. “Be a good boy and listen to Jihoonie. Don’t want your princess unhappy with you, do you?”

“Soonyoung shut up, or we will let him kill you and help him lie about what happened to you.” Jihoon scowled, then leaned closer toward Wonwoo. His voice softer in hopes that will help defuse the situation. “Come on, he’s trying to get you to do something stupid. He’s not worth it.”

“Wonwoo…” Mingyu also tried to reason with him, his dark eyes on the older man and were filled with concern.

After a moment, Wonwoo finally pulled the knife away and stepping back while Soonyoung released his grip. The metal claws retracting back to fingers, while his human hand went to his neck to run over the skin where the knife was pressed into him, checking to see if blood was drawn. Only to be disappointed to find that Wonwoo didn’t leave any nicks on him, unable to find a reason to villainize him.

“You should thank her.” Wonwoo told the fiend flatly, more distance created as the two youngest of the group stepped between them. Vernon’s eyes on Soonyoung and Mingyu’s on Wonwoo, both wearing unsure looks on their faces. Neither trusted the fiend or Wonwoo to go back after each other. “If it wasn’t for her, I would have killed you long ago.”

“How generous of you.” Soonyoung was dry with his words, smoothing out the wrinkles of his shirt. The claws were completely put away, but his sharp eyes were still wild and shining with dare. Daring Wonwoo to come at him again.

“Enough.” Jihoon demanded, a hiss of pain followed when he took unsteady steps back from the situation. With a hand planted on the desk, the shorter man shifted on his feet to take pressure of his cybernetic leg. “What are you doing here, Soonyoung? We’re not interested in your bullshit today.”

“Jihoonie. My baby, the love of my life, the sparkle to my eye…”

“I am none of those things to you.” Jihoon sneered while Soonyoung clutched his chest as he changed the sweet talk to hurt.

“…You wound my heart. You wound my soul.” Soonyoung let out an over exaggerated wail, and the rest of the men in the room rolled their eyes. When he wasn’t going to get any other reaction out of them, Soonyoung just sighed and crossed his arms. “I came by just to see my favorite boytoy…”

“Not your boytoy.”

“…But I couldn’t help but overhear when opening the door that you guys were talking about Holiday.” The way the fiend’s lip twitched into a smirk, and it was clear that he found a way to take advantage for his own gain. “I think I may have some information that may benefit you.”

“I’m not paying you shit for whatever you have.” Jihoon saw right through him, just like the rest did. Wonwoo found his place back in his chair, more slouched as he glared at the fiend while the two younger went back to their places in the office. Though Mingyu was standing closer toward Soonyoung, ready to grab him if needed. “I don’t have some promise to not kill you going, so you can either tell me, or I’ll shoot you in the shin.”

“That’s one way to get me on my knees for you baby, but for a few credits, I’ll do it without the bullet.” He went to take a step further into the office, but with a sharp nod from Jihoon, he was stopped by Mingyu. Keeping him by the door and acted as the line in the sand.

“Just get with it.” It was Vernon who spoke, perched back on the filing cabinet, and sounding just as fed up the rest of them. “You’re not going to extort us like you do others. With us, aside from wiped boy over here,” He smirked when he earned a dirty look and a finger from Wonwoo, “you’ll either tell us, you keep your mouth shut, or the next parts you get will not be cosmetic.”

“Whatever you say, pretty boy.” Soonyoung scoffed, crossing his arms and rolled his eyes. “Fine…I’ll tell you…”

Growing up, you’d always heard about the Shadow District from the people around you. To the adults in your life, it was seen as a cesspool of filth and crime. They viewed the people who resided there as criminals and low life individuals with no hope or place in their future society. The area was supposedly so bad that not even your mother or the rest of the elites at Skyfall wanted to set foot in or even want to touch.

They viewed it as a lost cause and ordered others around your age to stay away.

To your peers, they had shared the same view as the adults, that only criminals and low lives lived there but that didn’t stop many of them from venturing over. Mostly to buy the drugs that were offer, addicting and fun party favors to take to the parties they would throw in their empty penthouse apartments, try to sneak into the roughest bars and clubs, or whatever else teens did to cause problems. They saw going into the district as a challenge, when really all it was were cries of attention that their parents would never give.

To Soonyoung, the boy whose mom raised you more than your own mother did, it was home. He was the only person you knew that would talk about the Shadow District in a positive light, making sure you knew that was still beauty beyond the stories that others would tell you. That deep past the crime and poverty, it had a community stronger than anywhere else in the city.

People weren’t fake as the ones in West Hills Parkway where you grew up, or any other rich area in Huimang. Good but guarded people, even if many lost their way in their fight to survive because of the elites running the rest of the city. They were all more than just stolen cybernetics, drugs that would numb them enough to live another day or had to break laws to make ends meet.

He would always talk about taking you there, so he could show you that beauty behind the ugly. Even joking that he was sure you would find a sense of belonging there instead of the world you grew up in and was expected to assimilate to what everyone else expected you to be.

Because in the Shadow District, no one expected you to behave a certain way, no one expected you to be perfect there. No one cared enough, because they all had their own shit to worry about. There you could be anyone you wanted, disappear and become a completely different person than who you were. It was a reality you dreamt to be in, no matter how dark it was, and at one point those jokes stopped being just jokes.

So, the first time Soonyoung took you there, you had finally ran away from your old life and a version of you that wasn’t real. You ran away from the expectations that were laid before you, the evils that were behind the closed doors of Skyfall, left behind a last name that never felt was yours, and changing yourself to someone different.

You became someone else, just another soul trying to survive like everyone else around you.

It hadn’t been easy by any means. You weren’t proud of some of the things that you did along the way, having to adapt and change to survive, but you were happier. Eventually you met Wonwoo, someone who wasn’t meant to be anything more than a dick to ride and a bed to sleep in for the night and fell in love. It was still hard, but together you made it work with him giving you love and shelter while you returned that love and made that shelter a place you both could call home.

You lost a lot over the years for your choices, family and friends, but you also gained just as many. You were free to be who you were and free from your mother’s control, her demands. You were struggling, but you were happy.

But that all came crashing down after Soonyoung’s recent visit, pulling out that flicker of fear you hid away by everything else. The fear that Skyfall would decide that the Shadow District and its real estate was worth their attention. Now, you had to face the reality.

The reality that your past is catching up to you, the reality that Wonwoo will learn of the who you used to be and ran from. Find out that you’ve lied to him for so long. It distracted you, it clouded your thoughts, made you keep looking over your shoulder as you walked to work and was late. The night didn’t get any better either.

Chan snapped his fingers to bring you out of your thoughts, bringing back to Cherries’ busy bar and the full tray of drinks waiting for one of your tables. He raised his brow to you, silently questioning where your head was that night, and all you could do was force a smile at him. It was meant to be your way of telling him you were fine, but your lips felt tight over your teeth. You could only hope that he bought it or didn’t care enough to believe it.

The only response you got from Chan was a shrug, moving away from you to tend to the other customers and servers waiting for their drinks. You picked up the full tray of drinks and carefully balanced them as you made your way through the crowded club. Easily maneuvering through the groups of people standing together, too focused on not bumping into anyone and get to the table with their order, so you weren’t paying attention to the faces of the people around you.

So when a hand reached out and caught you by the hip, it startled you and nearly caused you to drop the tray. Rebalancing yourself, you twisted your head where the hand that held onto you came from, a frown playing over your features. The owner was a smug business type at one of the booths, sleek expensive clothes, hair styled back that people like to see as ‘professional’, and the cybernetics weren’t for because he needed it. They purely for aesthetic and status purposes.

Especially with the type of metal that was used, the highest of qualities that was buffed to shine. It would have looked nice with the flashing lights hitting it, had it been on anyone else and they didn’t touch you like you were a toy to grab. With a jerk of your hips, you pulled yourself away from his touch as a sickening feeling crept up you from where his hand was. Like you just touched poison.

“I will be right back with you.” You yelled over the music, taking a step away from the table to your destination when they spoke your name. You froze on the spot.

It wasn’t because he called you by your first name, most of the patrons here knew it. It was the last name. Your old last name. Your mother’s last name.

“It’s you isn’t it?” He had stood from his seat, you felt him take a step toward you and reach for you again.

“No.” You responded, shooting him a dirty look and pushed forward through the crowd. Blood rushed through your ears, not liking that he still had that smug look on his face, a mixture of anger and panic coursing through you.

You don’t recognize him, it had been so long since you’d seen anyone from your past that they all became nothing but blur of faces and metals, so you couldn’t think of his name or what family he was from. Except he recognized you. You were cybernetic free and looked nearly the same as you did when you ran, just older, more mature, and signs of you learning to survive. He recognized you and called you out by your old name.

As you got closer to the table you were serving, you decided that you were going to circle back to the bar from the other side of the club and get one of the other girls to help him and his table. Maybe even avoid this side for the rest of the night.

It all happened quickly after that. You were so lost in your plans that you missed a girl taking a step back, and you collided right into her. The tray full of drinks flew through the air, splashing the people sitting at the table and everyone standing around them while you landed on the ground with a thud.

The girl who had tripped you was quick to help you up, apologizing to you as you apologized profusely to the people at the table. Your hands moved quickly to grab all the spilled glasses and rush to the bar to get towels from Chan; who was already had a stack of small of them on the bar to help clean up. His expression unreadable, with a new set of glasses already out so he could remake their drinks.

You cleaned up the mess the best you could and was able to get the new drinks to them, while Seungkwan, your manager, tried to placate one of the girls in the group. She was the only one who didn’t get hit with alcohol, but she made a fuss and complained to him about you. Not giving a single damn if she was being truthful or that you were still standing there.

“Go get some air,” Seungkwan spoke to you at one point, cutting off the girl to do so and she looked like she was ready to explode. “I will talk to you when I am done here.”

With a solemn nod, you turned to head to the back of the club. With a glance toward the bar, you saw Chan give you a sympathetic look but was quick to return back to his job, so he wasn’t joining you in getting yelled at. You couldn’t blame him for that, because you didn’t want to be in this position either.

The back of the club was a private alley, one that was fenced off by Cherries’ owner Seungcheol so that not only was there no issues with inventory deliveries, but so his staff had somewhere to hide away. It stopped them from being harassed when they would go smoke or be able to take a breather away from a busy night. It was the only club in the area that did this, and you were grateful that you worked there and not anywhere else.

The cool night air felt like a relief to your hot and sweat covered skin, instantly relaxing you as you breathed in the smell of rain and a permanent smell of oil. It grounded you, giving you the chance to center yourself and remind yourself that you were better than this.

The sound of the back door opening caused you to twist around as Seungkwan walked out with a cigarette in his hand. Leaning against the wall, he took his time lighting the wrapped tobacco and let the heavy door shut before speaking.

“You going to tell me what happened in there?” He asked, blowing a cloud of smoke in the air before his tongue pressed against his cheek, and the brief respite you had was taken away. “I had to comp two rounds of drinks just now, and not to mention, Chan has been saying you been acting strange all night.” He took another drag of his cigarette, his eyes narrowed. “Are you on something?”

“What? No, of course not.” You answered tensely, not liking that he accused you of that. “I just have a lot on my mind. I wasn’t paying attention as well as I should have.” Looking down at your hands, purposely leaving out your encounter with the nameless guy. No one here knew you by that name, and you couldn’t afford it getting out. “I’m sorry. I will do better.”

There was a beat of silence, and you cast your gaze nervously up toward Seungkwan, only to see his eyes were on his cigarette and not you, his expression hard to read. Which made your stomach churn uncomfortably since your manager was an expressive man, always wearing his heart on his sleeve. He made sure that he said what was on his mind, even if it got him in trouble or hurt someone’s feelings.

“Listen…” He finally spoke as he blew out another cloud of smoke then licked his lips. “The first rule at Cherries is plain and simple, whatever shit you have going on in your life is left at the door. You’re here to work, not fucking worry about shit that has nothing to do with this place.”

“I know, Kwan. I am…”

“Sorry. Yeah, I know. You guys always are.” A scoff left him as he said this, taking a final drag of his cigarette then dropped it into a small rain puddle next to him. “You’re paying for all the drinks I had to comp tonight, Chan's tallying it all up now and will be taking it from your tips and earnings tonight.”

Hearing these words made you feel sick, that churning turned sour and felt like bile was already creeping up. After Soonyoung’s blackmail, you couldn’t have this happen since those credits you just lost was needed to recover that loss and for rent. You couldn’t afford to lose another credit, not when you weren’t sure what the payoff was for the job Jihoon had Wonwoo doing.

And you refused to touch that account your mother had for you.

“Understood.” You told him after a long moment of silence on your part, forced to accept this fate of yours. There was no point in arguing with Seungkwan without giving too much away, without giving yourself away. You were in a lose/lose situation here.

“I know that it seems unfair, but you got lucky here since we have fired others for less.” Seungkwan went to grab the door handle to go back inside, before stopping and looking at you with a resigned expression. “Guess is pays that Cheol has a soft spot for Wonwoo, or you wouldn’t just be paying for those drinks, you’d be looking for another job. Take a few minutes to get your head right and then get back in here. We need you tonight, or I would’ve sent your ass home.”

With that, he disappeared through the large metal door. His words echoed through your brain, the contempt he had when he mentioned your boyfriend’s name and his pull with the Cherries’ owner. And by proxy you as well.

You took that few minutes before returning to your job and managed to finish the night with no further mistakes, but you were not able to push your thoughts away. After what happened that night, that nameless guy who knew you by your old name, and Skyfall Industries finally deciding that the Shadow District was worthy for their development, you couldn’t ignore the crushing realization that the two worlds you knew were colliding.

It was early in the morning when you got home and was surprised to see Wonwoo already up and in the kitchen making coffee. With his hair sticking up in different directions, one eye barely open while the other stayed shut, his face still had the indents of his pillow, and sleep still heavy on him. He wasn't in anything more than a pair of dark grey boxers, giving you a perfect view of the rest of his body.

A lean muscular frame with naturally broad shoulders, long legs, and strong arms that was normally hidden away by dark heavy clothes due to the scars that littered on different places on his body. Old wounds from fights he got into over the years, from the accident that caused him to lose his left eye, and from other stupid shit he did. You were seeing one of the barest version of him, a version that only you see, and it was your favorite.

When he looked at you, it made your heart squeeze when a sleepy smile broke across his lips, and a hand reach out to you. One that you reached for without hesitation, your body moving without needing to think too much about it, just ready to be in his presence.

"Hey baby." His voice was rough, his fingers interlocking with yours to pull you into him, before his lips found the top of your head. Pressing them against your hair, before breathing you in. "You smell good."

"I smell gross." You giggle softly, tilting your head so that his lips could find yours. The soft press of his lips helped loosen some of the tension that was clinging to you, but not enough to help you forget. You still had to tell him about that you lose money instead of bringing any home.

"I don't think so." He shook his head, before pressed another kiss to your lips. When he pulled away, his brows then furrowed when he saw your face. "What's wrong? Did something happen at work?"

"Just had a shitty night. Spilled a tray of alcohol all over a table full of people, and Seungkwan was not happy because he had to comp two rounds of drinks." You answered with a small voice and attempted to turn away from him but one of his hands grasped your face to stop you. It hurt to see that smile gone, and concern shine through his eye. "I ended up having to pay for the drinks that we lost today and was told I am lucky that I wasn’t fired." You let out a shaky sigh, "We needed those credits."

You earned silence from your boyfriend, the frown deepened and his eye stayed on you. The sleep that was still clinging to him when you walked in gone, with only the physical signs left. The arm that was wrapped possessively around your waist had tightened, pressing you more against his near bare frame, while the hand on your face held you there. His expression was dark, and it made you slightly nervous.

"I'm sorry…" Your voice sounded small, and this earned a dark laugh from Wonwoo, his thumb brushing against your cheek affectionately. "I'll talk to Seungcheol when he's in next and see if I can get an extra shift to make up for what I lost today."

"Don't worry about it. Shit happens." Wonwoo shook his head, though his expression didn’t changed and his tone was sharper. You knew that he was pissed with you, it wasn't hard to read him when he was like this, but he was holding himself back.

A fight wasn’t something either of you needed, and it left a heavy tension between you both. You avoided his gaze that was searching your face, threatening to pull your secrets that now lingered under the surface than buried deep without the help of his eye. With one look, he would know everything you hid from him, and you would lose everything. You couldn’t have that.

“I love you.” You finally said after a long beat of silence, your fingers brushing against the back of the hand that held your face as you pressed yourself against him. Your eyes flicked up toward his, wanting to be sure that he saw the tip of your tongue run over your bottom lip before you leaned forward to kiss the curve of his collarbone.

“I love you too, but what’s going on? You haven’t—fuck.” A soft groan left him when your mouth moved to his neck, kissing the kiss as your free hand moved down between you. Your hand slid over the fabric of his underwear, cupping his hardened cock through the thin material.

You weren't proud of what you were doing, but it was the only way to distract him. You weren't ready for it all to come out. You weren't ready for him to walk away and hate you.

"Everything is fine, don’t worry." You lied, grateful that he didn't have his left eye in, or he would’ve seen right through you, and used it to your advantage, pulling from his hold to move your mouth over his chest. You earned a moan from him when your teeth grazed his skin, massaging the twitching bulge with your hand, and gave the thick member a gentle squeeze.

"Don't… ah… think I don't know what you're doing." Wonwoo managed to get out with effort, his right eye watching as you slipped down onto your knees. Not caring that you were still in the deep red dress that you had worn that night for work, because you were on a mission. You left a reminder of yourself on his hip, fingers hooking the band of his underwear to pull down. Freeing his cock from its confides.

You chose to not respond, your thighs pressed together at the sight of him, so easily ready for you. His fingers brushed against your hairline, and you looked up to him while your own wrapped around his length, catching the way his face contorted in pleasure when you tentatively stroked him. Mouth slightly opened, with breathy moans escaped while he tried to keep his one eye open to take in the way you looked for him.

Wonwoo went to speak you name in a stern voice, but it was lost when your mouth brushed the tip of his cock before planting an open mouth kiss on it. Pulling back, you gathered some spit in your mouth to dribble it onto his length, coating it with your hand so it easier to stroke what you couldn't fit into your mouth.

The hand that had been brushing your hairline now was going to grip at your hair when you finally took him between your lips, taking nearly half of him in one go and ignored the need to gag when it hit the back of your throat. Wonwoo's head dropped back, no longer concerned over anything exchanged between the two of you, already lost in you. Too lost in the wet heat of your mouth and your tongue pressed against his underneath.

Your hand moved in sync of your mouth, at a pace that he liked, and took him as far down your throat as you could go. It left your boyfriend a mess before you, his grip on your hair tightened but wouldn't take control. The sight of him from this angle made you clench around nothing, your already wet underwear stick to your cunt uncomfortably. To relief the feeling, you slipped a free hand between your thighs.

The feeling of your touch over the covered heat caused you do a quick inhale through your nose that was followed by a whimper. The sound made Wonwoo's head to snap forward, prying open his eye to take in the sight of you. Your mouth stretched over his cock, lips red, and eyes glossed over. Your red dress pushed up your hips and giving him view of one of your hands between your legs, touching yourself while you pleasured him.

The sight made him twitch in your mouth, and found himself quickly near the edge, but Wonwoo was a greedy man. He wanted his as well as yours and watching as you touched yourself as you worked to give him his own was not enough. He needed to feel it himself, he felt like a fiend needing their fix.

With a firm tug of your hair, Wonwoo pulled you off his cock, a groan left his lips when he saw a string of spit trail from your mouth to his cock.

"Get up." He commanded, releasing your hair to help you stand. His own hands rough as he moved you how he wanted you, and you let him. Loving the way he would handle you and took control.

The smell of coffee and sex filled the small apartment as you rested your arms onto the kitchen counter while Wonwoo took his place behind you. He pushed the dress up so that it was now at your waist, and your ruined underwear pulled down. The cook air of the apartment had sent shivers through you when it meat your wet head, leaving you to be the one whimpering.

"Wonwoo…" You weren't sure what you were going to say after this, his name felt right on your tongue in that moment. Especially when you felt the thick head of his cock tease your wet slit, catching your opening just right and you attempted to push your hips back. "Please."

"You know, I have to leave soon…" The words were slightly muffled, Wonwoo's mouth pressed against your shoulder. He continued to tease you, knowing that it would make you lose your mind. "I am supposed to meet Vernon out on the dock today." You found it funny that he said this while he took his time, wording it like it's your fault. It was, but you only intended to suck him off. "Good thing that fucking prick is always late."

You went to respond, only for your mouth to drop when he sunk his teeth into your shoulder and filled you completely in one thrust. It made your eyes roll, the stretch was enough to numb your own mind of everything that was playing in it. This may have started to distract him, but the way he filled you and the way his body enveloped you, maybe you needed this yourself.

Wonwoo didn't stay still too long, pulling back until he was only half out, before snapping his hips forward. The force of the thrust jerked you into the counter, causing your grip to tighten on the counter’s edge to steady yourself. A soft cry left you as you attempted to meet his thrusts but his grip on your hips stopped you. It left you to take what he gave you.

His breath hot against your shoulder as he fucked you in the middle of your shared kitchen, each thrust felt rougher than the last. Filling the apartment with the sounds of skin slapping, the moans that left you both, and the slick sounds of his cock plunging into your cunt. Every time you squeezed around him a string of curses left him, loosening his grip on your hips enough to adjust and pulled you to an upright position.

Your back pressed against his chest, while his mouth was on your neck, running his tongue over the sweat that was starting to collect from your activities. His hands roamed your body as one of your own reached back to grab his hair, trying to find an anchor at the new angle of his thrusts. No longer was he the only mess in this, you were too.

"Wonwoo." You whimpered out his name, with tears pricking at your eyes at the feeling your release almost within reach. Slipping a hand between your legs, you started to desperately rubbing your clit to help him push you over.

Your release hit you harder than you expected, your knees nearly buckled and was more than grateful that you were being held up in that moment. Wonwoo's release quickly followed with a low groan in your ear, and kept you anchored against him. Your breathing labored as you came down from your highs.

Dropping your head back against his shoulder, your boyfriend pressed a kiss to your temple.

"Don't worry too much about the money right now," He murmured against your skin, pulling out of you after a few moments and turned you to face him. Skin flushed, sweat falling from his brow, breathing came out in slight pants, as he looked at you with one eye. "This job that Jihoon is having us do will bring in a decent amount of credits each and bring more parts to the district." He smiled softly. "It'll be enough to keep us comfortable for a while, and maybe even enough to get you, me, and Doodle out of the city. Start over somewhere new."

It was something he always said when Jihoon had him do a job, it was a promise that he kept trying to speak into fruition. It would bring you hope every time he would say it, but this time, it only brought back that uncomfortable twist in your stomach.

“I don’t see why we’re still trying to do this job.” Vernon muttered, blowing smoke from his cigarette, and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but at the dock with Wonwoo. The two had been tasked to stake out the Factory and report back to Jihoon, “Look at the fucking place. Covered in guards that look more like cyborgs than human. What the fuck do they have that needs that much security?”

“Whatever was in those boxes.” Wonwoo answered, declining the pack of cigarettes the younger had offered him. He was tempted, but he didn’t want to pull his mask down as his eyes stayed trained on the building. His eye flickered every so often as he took photos of the large warehouse and the guards that patrolled it, while making sure to notes any patterns he caught. “Jihoon wants us to get photos and videos of everything.”

“Better be so that he can demand more credits if they really want us to do this.” Vernon scoffed as a set of cars pulled up to the Factory’s entrance. Sleek vehicles that screamed status and money. “Hazard pay or whatever the fuck it’s called.”

“That and he’s brought the Angel in to help. If these guards are more parts than human, then we’ll need his help and insight on this.”

“We’re definitely fucked if he had to bring that asshole in.” Vernon grumbled as he pulled his beanie further onto his head and Wonwoo let out a huff of a laugh. They watched one of the car doors open so a woman could get out.

She was older, dark red suit, hair perfectly styled, and a heavy aura of power that clung to her like a second skin. It was clear she was someone important as she was greeted by one of the guards, something that he made sure to note. Then she briefly looked in their direction, and Wonwoo felt a sudden familiarity to her.

The woman was then joined by two more men from the other car, all talking with the guard before making their way into the building. Not before Wonwoo’s eye was able to zoom in and get some photos of all of them. Included in them was a good shot of the woman’s face, and it was then he started to realize that she looked like you, but an older version. There was subtle differences, but it was like he was seeing you over twenty years in the future.

“That woman looks like Y/N.” Vernon pointed out, not looking in Wonwoo’s direction to see that he was having a moment himself. “But like older, richer, and probably a bigger bitch.” The older man shot him a look that Vernon caught. “What? I ain’t saying she’s a bitch all the time, but the girl bites.”

“Don’t I know it.” Wonwoo answered, the photo of the woman still on the screen of his eye. Analyzing her features and matching them to  you with something unsettling in his stomach. He had known you weren’t a native to the Shadow District when he met you, but he remembered you  telling him that you had no family and the closest to family you had was Soonyoung.

He didn’t have a reason to not believe you, it was just sex. It wasn’t important at the time, and the subject of your family had been a sore spot for you. Now looking at this woman, her likeness to you, it made him wonder if you had lied to him.

“How much longer do we have to be here?” Vernon’s bored tone tore Wonwoo from his thoughts, as well as his attention from the building to look in his direction to see he had lit another cigarette.

“I’m sorry, but do you have some other plans that you need to get to?” The words came out harsher than he intended, which earned a sneer from Vernon. “You haven’t shut the fuck up since we got here.”

“Well seeing as this shit keeps getting more complicated, not to mention the looming reality that Skyfall is kicking people out of their homes for whatever ‘redevelopment’ bullshit they have going on. I would say that my bitching and lack of wanting to be on a fucking suicide mission is reasonable.” Vernon waved his hand toward Wonwoo. “I honestly don’t see what this is supposed to accomplish having us fucking sit here? This place fucking stinks of fish and oil, and all that’s going on is you’re taking pictures with that fuck ass eye of yours.” The laugh that left him was bitter. “This surveillance we are doing isn’t going to do shit for us when those fucking things are guarding this shit.”

“Jihoon isn’t holding a gun to your head to do this, you know that right? You don’t have to be part of this.”

“Nah, I rather get the credits.” This answer made Wonwoo roll his eyes, before shaking his head. “I am going to take off though. This shit doesn’t need both of us.” Vernon then pushed off the set of boxes they’d been perched on since early that morning and gave him a nod. “I’d say it was a pleasure, but you annoy the shit out of me, so bye.”

“Yeah, go fuck yourself.” Despite the harsh words, the two did a weird handshake before Vernon was gone. Leaving Wonwoo to finish getting a few more shots and videos, and when he looked back to the building, he caught the woman had excited to go back to her car. As if she was able to feel his eyes on her, she looked in his direction and made eye contact with him.

Wonwoo had his face hidden pretty well, with a mask covering most of his face and his glasses covering the other half. His beanie and thick hood covered his hair, so she had no idea what he looked like, but it didn’t feel that way with the way she looked at him. Like she knew exactly who he was.

He didn’t look away either, taking several more photos of her with his eyes; ones of her head on. No longer caring what he was there for as the realization that she was someone to you, and from the similarities, family, hit him hard.

She then smirked at him before she slipped into the back of the car, letting the driver close the door behind her. Wonwoo didn’t move, catching images of the plates of as the vehicle left the docks.

 Several blocks from the docks, you couldn’t sleep no matter how hard you tried. After sex with Wonwoo didn’t work, you tried to take a hot shower, drank some tea that you were saving, read, laid in silence, laid with a window open so you could hear the street below, but sleep still didn’t happen. You ended up giving up and found yourself on the sofa, wrapped up in your boyfriend’s clothes that smelled like him, and Doodle laid on your lap purring softly.

The comforting feeling of his Wonwoo’s clothes, his smell, and the soft purrs of your pet grounded you, but it didn’t settle anything. You weren’t sure if you wanted to scream and cry in despair and worry or throw and punch things in anger and rage. Nor were you sure where to direct it all.

At life. At your mother and Skyfall Industries. Or at yourself for making this worse by keeping this secret from Wonwoo as long as you did.

The knock at the door and Doodle rushing off the sofa in a panic startled you. The feline stopped once one the floor to look at the door, her eyes wide and pupils dilated in fear before disappearing when another knock came. Her reaction was unusual and didn’t sit right with you as you slipped off the sofa.

When you reached the door, you cautiously looked through the peephole to see who was there, and your mouth went dry. Standing there was a woman with an annoyed and mildly disgusted look on her face and looked like she would rather be anywhere else. The sight of her stirred emotions that you remembered feeling every day growing up.

“I would recommend opening up.” She sighed as she adjusted her expensive designer bag onto her other arm. “I know you are there, and this is no way to treat your mother after all these years.” You didn’t move, or say anything in response, that earned another sigh from her as she spoke your name. “I think it would be wise to open this door, or I will have my men pick up that boyfriend of yours for sniffing around the Factory.”

She knew that would get what she wanted when you ripped open the door with a snarl to your lips.

“You touch him, and I will kill you without a second though.” You seethed to your uncaring mother, who just laughed and shook her head. “What do you want?”

“I wasn’t going to be in the area and pass up a chance to see my daughter.” She pushed past you, her shoulder bumping against yours while she took in the sight of the small apartment. Her eyes moved from the old furniture to the run down cat tree in one corner of the living room, then to the small kitchen that had a few dishes in the sink before they landed on you. The look on her face the same judgmental one that you knew all too well. “I can see that you are putting your monthly allowance to good use.”

“We both know I don’t touch those credits. I don’t need them.”

“Oh, I am aware and sure you don’t.” She waved you off, stopping herself from setting her bag down at the sight of Doodle’s cat hair. “This place screams it.”

“You’re not welcomed here.” You crossed your arms as you said this to her, trying to not visibly flinch when her sharp gaze turned on you. A look that reduced you back to that child she never thought was good enough. “Not in the Shadow District, and sure as hell not in my apartment.”

“Skyfall Industries owns the entire city, foolish girl. And as a member of the board of directors, I am welcome wherever I so please. And that includes…” Your mother then gestured toward the apartment, gold cybernetic metal shining in the low light of your apartment. “…your apartment.”

“Get the fuck out.” You snapped right before her hand connected with your cheek and your head jerked to the side. The metal on her hand sliced your cheek deep, drawing blood and a bruise was quick to follow.

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that.” The older woman hissed, her anger turning palatable when you didn’t move for a moment. Your eyes closed as you slowly breathed through your nose, trying to control the familiar shake that would come with this. That anger and fear toward this woman mixing inside you.

Fear tried to reduce you back to that girl that she once controlled near perfectly, and the anger reminded you of the person you had to become because of that control.

“Why are you even here?” You asked coldly. The question was simple as you turned to look at her again, your hand slow to pull the hair that was stuck to the blood on your face. “Thought no one wanted to touch the Shadow District. It didn’t fit your project model for a perfect city. Needing a place to house the lower classes that would bring you your precious cybernetics.”

“You are such a stupid child.” She didn’t seem to care that your expression was dark and cold, or that you refused to wipe away the blood from your cut cheek. A dark bruise quickly formed around it from the force of the slap. Your fists clenched, with your anger started to take over and you had to fight to contain it. “It was always in the plan, it was always going to be redeveloped, but considering that I’m a generous mother…”

“To who?” You asked, your words venom, but she ignored you.

“I managed to keep the project at bay so you could have your little rebellious phase, let you playhouse with this one eye criminal before you finally came home and this place is bulldozed to the ground.” It was then that she reached out and cupped the cheek that she didn’t strike, a soft smile playing over her lips. It was meant to be loving, and if you were still that little girl, you’d be tricked by it like always. “I held it off as long as I could but not only is this disgusting stain on the city getting the makeover it desperately needs. I finally can bring you back home.”

“Had it ever occurred to you that I don’t want to go back? That my real phase was trying to be that perfect model child for you all those years, willing to do anything to earn your love, or your approval.” Your words caused that fake smile to crack, her hand dropping when you recoiled from her touch. “I am home, mom. This is my home, and that one eyed criminal is my family and have been for years. We actually love each other.”

“He loves the lie that you fed him.” She responded, making you look at her in shock and confusion. “You think I don’t know? You don’t think that I don’t know that you been lying to him about who you are and where you came from? Buried me with your father.”

“Don’t you dare bring Dad into this.”

“You don’t get to talk to me like that, or act like this life is so much better when it’s built on a lie.” Your mother smile then turned dangerous, and that left you rooted to the spot. “I thought I taught you better than this and actually feel bad for the pathetic fool.”

You watched as she opened a purse and pulled out an envelope. You knew what was inside it, an eviction notice.

“It’s time to end this foolishness and come back home. Your position is still waiting for you at Skyfall, and I have a lovely gentleman who is willing to look passed the… things you did while out here.” Her voice was smug as you took the envelope from her and she gestured to the apartment then to your appearance. Wonwoo’s clothes, hair a mess, dark circles under your eyes, and the bruise she gave you. Your hand was still wrapped from when you cut it and trembled holding the envelope. “I mean, it’ll be the only place you will have to go in thirty days. Which is more than what the rest of these people are being given.”

“You’re not getting the Shadow District.” You told her with confidence. The laugh that left her would have left you terrified years ago, but now it only fueled the anger inside you. “We won’t let you.”

“Who is this we? You? Your boyfriend and that little gang he’s part of? That fiend that fed your head with all that nonsense?” Smoothing out her suit, your mother regarded you. “You don’t have a choice in this matter. It’s time to wake up and face reality, stupid girl. Your time for fun is up.”

“We aren’t going down without a fight.”

“Of course you will.” Her shoulder hit yours as she passed and made her way toward the apartment door. “It’s evitable. Just like your place at Skyfall with me.”

“I rather die than go back to any kind of life with you.” You yelled as your turned toward her and the door, only for your whole body to freeze. Because standing at the doorway was Wonwoo. His face was still covered so you could not see his expression, but by his posture, he had heard it all.

“Looks like I should be expecting you back sooner.” Her satisfactory tone in her voice made you feel sick and that anger building turned to deep rage.

You lunged toward her, a high pitch angry cry ripping through you, but Wonwoo was already there to pull you back. Holding you to him as you thrashed in his arms, wanting to wrap your hands around your mother’s throat.

With a final look of satisfaction, your mother clothes the door behind her. Leaving you to continue to struggle to free yourself from your boyfriend’s arms, the tears that had been burning behind your eyes finally broke through.

Your mother was sorely mistaken if she thought she could snap her fingers and you would fall in line easily. You weren’t the same person as you were all those years ago, and you weren’t going to leave Wonwoo or the life you had.

And you sure as hell won’t let them take the Shadow District.

Ooh, fall and free, fall and free Fall and free, fall and free Fall and free

Your accident made news all over the city, the scandal of a promising club singer robbed of her memories overshadowing the ongoing murders haunting the darkest corners. As far as you know, you slipped and fell during a robbery gone wrong, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You woke up at Neo City Memorial Hospital with your head wrapped in bandages and swollen, black eyes. Your mother prayed in front of a holographic Bible, clutching her Rosary tightly, while your father stared blankly out the window, lost in thought. It was the worst day of your life that you can remember, and it lingers in your mind.

So it’s no surprise that people from all over would come to see this mysterious person with a great voice and missing patches of her life put on a performance, because that’s what this city lives and breathes on. Scandals, violence, and sex mixed in between. You’ve figured out your role, and you play it well—it’s the only way you can survive.

I feel love I feel love I feel love

The beat fades out as you’re back on stage, the purple lights shifting slightly and shining on you, the enigma. Claps and cheers erupt in the club, and you let yourself bask in it all as the velvet curtains close. Buzzing from the energy of the crowd, you stand there rooted in place, your eyes closed as you hear them chant ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE! The buzz you get from this can never be replicated, no matter how much kosmi dust you snort. 

“Well done, gorgeous.”

Turning around, you face your boss, Cado, who walks towards you, clapping his hands. Your buzz drops like a free fall.

“Just doing my job, boss,” you sarcastically salute, the energy in the room shifting to something colder. It’s no surprise your boss is attracted to you, and you don’t miss the way he gazes over your body as something to possess rather than something to behold. He’s offered many times to get you to do “work” on the side for him, but you never budged. Maybe it’s worked on others, but not you. You don’t shit where you eat.

He’s unfortunately a conventionally attractive man, with a jawline sculpted by a god and dark, seductive brown eyes you can get trapped in. Cado takes good care of his body, bragging about how much he works out and sometimes flexing his arms or flashing his abs. All he talks about is himself and his money; it doesn’t impress you.

“You know my offer still stands, if you are looking for extra work,” Cado offers, a glint of mischievousness in his eyes.

Giving him a slow once-over, you snort. “I don’t need the extra money. You know that,” you scoff. “I’m sure one of the waitresses might.”

You walk away before he can say another word, exiting the side stage and heading to the bar. The need for a stiff drink is strong as ever, craving a shot of Sunshine Mist that’ll burn your throat and numb you in the best way. You only put up with Cado’s advances because this club feels familiar to you, even though you don't remember working here before. The nice guy facade he tried to put on at first, you saw through that early on. You see him for who he is, and you’ve made it clear every chance you get.

Holding your fingers up towards the bartender, Chan, you take a seat on the stool as the lively chatter and studio music fade into the background. Your head bobs lightly, your fingers drumming on the counter as you wait for your drink.

“Rough night?” Chan asks, twirling the cocktail shaker.

“Eh, just Cado being Cado,” you quip.

“My condolences,” he chuckles, sliding the shot towards you.

You snort, grabbing the glass and throwing it back. It gives you an almost therapeutic burn, instantly putting you at ease. Sunshine Mist is one of the strongest drinks concocted, and while not everyone can stand its aftereffects, it’s your preferred drink here, especially when dealing with the likes of Cado. For a moment, everything softens, and your buzz has returned, leaving your skin tingling all over.

“Mind if I join you?”

You turn towards an unfairly attractive stranger standing beside you, staring at him blankly before realizing you were. His dark hair falls across his forehead, his smile bright enough to rival the neon lights flooding the club. He definitely doesn’t fit this crowd, and you don’t recall ever seeing him, but you are not a stranger to unusual occurrences.

You gesture towards the stool next to you, and he follows your lead, scooting his seat closer to you.

Chan gives him a measured look. “What can I get you?”

“I’ll have the same thing she’s having,” the stranger responds, tapping his watch and revealing a digicard. “And put hers on my tab.”

“Thank you,” you say, the curves of your mouth twitching.

“You’re welcome, gorgeous.”

Your eyebrows lift, followed by a silvery laugh. Studying him more carefully, you can’t help but notice the shape of his eyes, the curve of his smile, the timbre of his voice. A flutter of butterflies invades your stomach; you shake your head as the heat creeps up your neck.

“So, what’s the catch?”

It’s his turn to lift his brow. “Catch?”

Sitting up straighter, you throw him a look. “You bought me a drink, which is greatly appreciated, but I have the feeling that you didn’t come over here to take a shot with me.”

You can’t help but notice the way his eyes twinkle when he laughs. “Okay, you caught me,” he says, raising his hands. “I just wanted to tell you I liked your performance.”

You stare at him blankly, and then you laugh. “That’s it?” You flash him a smile. “I’m almost disappointed.”

“Give me time.”

Chan slides the drink over to the stranger, who catches the rim with the tips of his fingers. The veins on his hands pop suddenly, and you shake away the thoughts that are creeping into your head. He thanks Chan as he takes his shot, shooting it back in the same manner you did. The burning liquor doesn't faze him at all, and you sit there impressed.

“Seokmin.”

Your brows knit together. “Excuse me?”

He pulls out his hand to shake. “My name is Seokmin.”

You giggle, realizing he was introducing himself. “Nice to meet you,” you say, shaking his hand in return. “My name is—”

“I know who you are,” he says smoothly. His hand is warm and soft, and you can’t shake this sensation in your chest. You gaze at each other, your body feeling drawn to him, as if magnetism is pushing you together. Your hand is still in his, and you are in no hurry to let it go.

“I’m sorry, I have to ask,” you say suddenly. “But have we met before?”

Seokmin falters slightly before regaining his composure, slowly taking his hand from yours. “I—”

“Hey, boss wants us to go over the set list for tomorrow night.”

Your manager, nicknamed Snake-Eyes, appears from behind, holding a holographic tablet with a floating stylus. Looking past your manager, you eye Cado towards the back, watching you intently with a cigarette in his mouth. Of course, he wants to talk about it now, of all the times.

Glancing back at Seokmin, you let out a small sigh, your mood soured once again thanks to your boss. “I’m sorry we have to cut this short,” you say. “Maybe I’ll see you again?”

“Maybe,” Seokmin smiles softly, sending more butterflies to your stomach.

He gives you a hand to slide off the stool, his cologne appealing to your nose. It smells familiar, and you can’t pinpoint where it’s from. Maybe it’s something you came across in the years you can’t remember. Lucky you.

You start to walk away, but something tells you to turn around, and you find him still standing in place, watching you walk away. “Don’t be a stranger?”

He smiles. “Don’t worry, love. You’ll be seeing more of me.”

For some reason, those words resonate with you for the rest of the night.

Seokmin steps out into the wet night, lighting a cigarette from the corner of his mouth. The petrichor is fresh and calming as he deeply inhales, letting the enhanced tobacco burn his throat. It’s past two a.m., and the city is still alive, with no sign of slowing down. Neon lights and advertisements are shoved in his face at every corner, drug paraphernalia in the streets, and people coming from all directions looking for adventure. He remembers when he was that carefree and full of life, looking forward to the next day and many after. But so much has changed, and it feels like a distant memory, a whole lifetime ago.

Seokmin takes another puff as he watches on, lost in the thoughts that have been tormenting him for the past two years. He came to the club to find peace, to get answers to the darkness in his soul and the mystery that refuses to rest in his mind. Seokmin sought a reprieve that can only be cured by one, and when he watched you perform for the crowd, with the light shining on you like the star you are, it made him sadder. You don’t remember him, or your past life together, and every day it gets harder to bear. You are the light of his life, the one thing that has kept him alive, and he is determined to help you remember him, or at least, know the truth.

The authorities say it was an accident. Sure, like he will believe a fall like that will leave you on the brink of death with black eyes, broken ribs, and needing surgery. Seokmin has been a private investigator for many years and has seen a lot of shit, and the insult to his intelligence is laughable. He’s mentioned it to your parents, but they practically threatened to call the police if he came on their property again. The reaction didn’t surprise him much—your parents never thought he was good enough for you anyway.

They never told you about Seokmin and your life together. Your father is a very powerful man, and he had every trace of you and him wiped out of digital existence. It’s almost amusing the lengths he went through to erase Seokmin from your life. But what’s cruelly ironic is that he cannot take Seokmin’s memories away from him. It’s what helps Seokmin sleep at night.

There were many times he sat in the dark, in the apartment that you shared, and thought about barging into the hospital room or the club and telling you the full truth, hoping it would trigger something. But he can’t tell you anything he doesn’t know himself. How were you hurt? Who would do this to you? Why were you targeted? These are questions that have been wrestling in his mind with little to no answers, and forcing the truth on you wouldn’t serve you any better.

But being in your orbit again, hearing your voice and seeing the warmth in your eyes, renewed something in Seokmin’s spirit. He’s more determined than ever to uncover the truth and secure the justice you deserve. To bring you home.

God help anyone who tries to get in Seokmin’s way.

“Hi, baby.”

The voice is a low, honeyed murmur that makes you smile. A kiss is planted on your shoulder in a haze, and your body automatically eases. You reach back, blindly massaging the head of the hidden person as you watch the sun rise in an apartment. He feels familiar, as if you’ve known him for some time, even though you can't see his face.

“Have you been to sleep yet?”

You shake your head, a peaceful smile on your lips as sunlight rises over the horizon. It’s the first time you have seen the sun in days because of the rain, and you're too wired to sleep, thanks to the cup of coffee you had when you came home. “I just wanted to see this—the sun rise,” you explain. “There aren’t enough artificial sun rooms that can compare to the real thing.”

“Mmm,” he hums in agreement. “You are right about that, baby.”

He shifts, placing a lingering kiss beneath your earlobe. A moan escapes your lips as tingles spread throughout your body. His hands are warm, comforting as they grab your waist, pulling you closer to him. His cologne is pleasing, its scent unlike any of the synthetic materials made in factories throughout the city. It’s fresh and comforting, like vanilla, with a hint of aromatic spice. More kisses trail down your neck, his soft lips each imprinting electric and hard to ignore. Your nipples harden at his sensuality, your skin suddenly feeling hot and in need of more touch.

“I’m supposed to be watching the sunrise.” Your protest is weak with little effort. The hidden figure smirks against your skin, a low chuckle booming through his throat. “Not funny,” you sigh.

You turn to face him, kissing him with your eyes closed, allowing your body and mind to give yourself to him completely. His hands roam your body as if they know you, and your spirit isn’t disturbed—instead, your intuition tells you it’s okay, and he’s yours. Your shirt rises over your head, and you lean back into your pillows. Your blanket is caught in between your fingers, a tug of something metal caught in its snag. Raising your hand in the light reveals a ruby ring on a silver band, sitting perfectly on your ring finger.

“I fall in love with this ring every time I see it,” you sigh, the words flowing from your heart. “Good job, lover.”

You look up at him properly, trying to catch the shape of your stranger’s face. But it keeps slipping at the edges, the rays of light refusing to let you focus too hard. His presence, however, feels steady, familiar in a way your thoughts don’t know how to argue with.

“I missed you, you know,” he says, his hands cupping your face. He kisses you deeply, and you lose all feeling in your legs. “I could do this all day.”

You raise a brow, a smirk on your lips. “Technically, you can.”

“I could.” He lets out a silvery laugh. “But Seungcheol wouldn’t like that.”

You don’t know who he is, but somehow the name doesn’t seem foreign to you. Sitting up slightly, you cock your head to the side. “Well, tell Seungcheol you have plans and will be busy all day.”

“And what are those plans?” He asks, trailing his fingers along your shorts.

Despite his face being covered in a shroud of light, you know he’s staring at your body, ogling your breasts that were made just for him. Lifting slightly, you help yourself out of your shorts, revealing your bare center, and part your legs slightly, just for his view.

“Tell him you will be busy eating out your fiancé,” you half-joke, placing your foot on his shoulder.

He guffaws as he lays his head on your foot, massaging it. You don’t know why the words ‘fiancé’ came out of your mouth. You don’t even know who you are in bed with. It like deja vu, and you can’t explain it, but it feels right. This is where you are supposed to be.

“I don’t think I can tell him that, baby,” he breathes in between laughs. “I’ll think of something.”

His free hand spreads your legs apart further, dipping his fingers into your wet heat. You hiss at the contact, every nerve in your body on alert.

“You're soaked, baby,” he coos, his thumb rubbing against your clit. “Maybe I’ll tell Seungcheol there was a leak that needs fixing.”

You're buzzing, unfocused, enthralled with the pleasure he is giving you. “Mmhmm, sure.”

The stranger shuffles, spreading your legs wider as he lowers himself to your center. His tongue takes a long swipe without warning, leaving you clutching your sheets. He moans and grunts in your pussy, tasting and sucking you as you squirm in his hands, the haze you are in multiplying by the second. Lip smacking, slurping, and lewd moans fill the room, lifting you further on cloud nine.

“Fuck, I—” you sound pathetic, but the incessant need to cum in his mouth is greater. You try to pull yourself together, but the pleasure is too great, and you succumb to him completely. Tugging his hair, you ride the wave of his tongue, chasing your release until it washes over you suddenly, leaving you with a vision of white and shaky breath.

“I got you, baby,” he says smoothly. “Give me all of it.”

You let out a guttural moan that ripples through you, gushing in his mouth unabashedly. He doesn’t let up, licking you until there is nothing left, leaving a kiss on your pulsing clit that makes you shudder. You dissolve into the blanket, slowly coming down from your high. Lying there with half-sleepy eyes and a smile on your face, the sunlight shifting as it rises in the sky. You turn your head as your lover lifts his face, the sunlight no longer protecting him, revealing him at least.

“I love you.”

You jolt upright, your heart beating heavily, your vision blurry, beads of sweat forming on your forehead. He disappears, and you’re no longer in the dreamy haze of light; instead, the softness shifts cruelly into a large room of unnatural darkness. Your alarm clock is blaring on the walls, the constant chirping grating on your nerves.

“Maxima, I’m awake,” you croak to the virtual assistant.

It takes a moment for your vision to fully come back, replaying what just happened in your bed. You dismiss it as a dream, but it feels so real, like an unlocked memory calling to you. You glance down at your crotch, noticing the obvious wetness between your legs. Letting out a loud groan, you scoot to the edge of the bed, your head in your hands, trying to make sense of it all.

Seokmin.

He was the man of your dreams. You were in love, you were happy, and seemingly engaged. Your parents never mentioned you to him, and maybe it is all just a dream, but you still remember how your body reacted when you were near him, as if he were a familiar instead of a stranger. Or maybe it is all in your head—a fantasy constructed by a lonely brain.

But something tells you there is more to the story, and if you want your mind to rest, you will need answers.

Aug 02 2061. 

That was the day Seokmin’s life changed forever.

He remembers the day like it was yesterday. You two watched the sun rise together, made love, and he watched you fall asleep before he left for the day. He did not, in fact, tell Seungcheol you had a leak that needed fixing, but Seokmin promised he would spend the next day with you. He had it all worked out with Seungcheol, and he was so excited to come home to you that night, to tell you the good news and plan the day together, or do nothing at all. It didn’t matter as long as he was with you.

But when you didn’t come home, and the minutes turned into hours, he knew something was wrong. Seokmin checked your location and noticed it was headed towards the opposite end of the city. He rushed out of the apartment like a bat out of hell, following your signal until it came to an abrupt stop at Neo City Memorial. Seokmin pushed on the gas pedal as hard as he could, running every traffic light and evading law enforcement to get to you. Every fear he had came true that night—you were hurt almost beyond repair, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

Seokmin shakes his head slowly, taking himself out of that day and back to reality, in an apartment where the sun no longer shines, barren of the life and love you brought into it. His phone buzzes again, and he sighs, grabbing the phone and swiping the screen up. His colleague and friend, Wonwoo, has been helping him with his investigation, digging into records that are behind red tape and out of his reach. A large file was sent to Seokmin’s email, encrypted with a password that only he knows.

Vulpes.

Entering his password, he connects his phone to a projector as the files load, filled with contacts of people who were at the club the night you were hurt. Scrolling through the list, he recognizes some of the names: bigwigs, politicians, and gang leaders who contribute to the corruption of Neo City. Nothing out of the ordinary. His attention turns to the file that holds the video footage, the icon blinking in sequences of threes. Tapping on his screen, he sees the video display on his wall, the frame still focused on a back entrance. 

“Let’s do this,” Seokmin sighs before pressing play. 

The video is audioless, with heavy rain pouring from the sky, slightly obscuring the street camera's lens. Seokmin watches intently, his fingers drumming on his leg in anticipation, not wanting to miss anything amiss. Growing impatient, he fast-forwards the video, the minutes dragging on with little to no movement to the back entrance. Did Wonwoo make a mistake? Seokmin thinks to himself. Maybe this is the wrong vid—

At 2:03 am, the back entrance door swings open, with two large men carrying what appears to be a woman, who is twisting and turning wildly, trying to get loose. A light flashed on the figure, briefly but clearly enough, which gave Seokmin pause. The blue dress, one he has seen too many times, is on display, and a chill shoots up his spine. Rewinding slowly, he stops at the frame, his chest tightening at the frozen image before him.

It’s you.

Seokmin stares for far too long, almost unable to believe what he is seeing. You were being carried out and manhandled like you didn’t matter, as if there wasn’t anyone out there who loved you and wouldn’t care if you disappeared. His blood boils with anger as he hastily taps the screen to let the video continue. One of the guards made the mistake of letting go of one of your legs, and you used it to your advantage, kicking him in the chest. He fell back, losing his step and falling ass-first onto the wet pavement. The other guard had your arms pinned behind your back, and as hard as you wrangled, you couldn’t get out of his lock. Even without audio, Seokmin knows you were giving them a good verbal lashing, a look of rage on your delicate face that Seokmin has never seen.

“Atta’ girl,” Seokmin says out loud. At least you still fought back.

Seokmin’s smile vanishes quickly when the fallen guard rose from the ground, stumbling towards you furiously. His fist connected with your left cheek, stunning you into shock. Blow after blow, the man assaulted you, hitting every exposed area he could. Seokmin watched your body go limp, the glee in the guard’s eyes embedded in his head. The guard holding you said something to your assaulter, who stopped his onslaught with a look of satisfaction on his face. Seokmin watches on, his stomach in knots, the anger burning deeper in his gut. These men will never see the light of fucking day again.

You're dragged to a waiting vehicle, set aside the passenger door like some sort of rag doll, your chest rising and falling slowly, your face swollen and bloodied. A figure stepped out of the back entrance, the light catching him, and Seokmin recognized him: Cado. Seokmin always sensed he didn’t like him much, and it’s not lost on him how Cado looked like you with carnality in his eyes. Cado knew better than to try anything in front of him, though.

Cado hustled over to the car, raising his hands angrily and slapping the backs of the heads of the guards. Opening the back door, he motioned for your assaulter to put you in the car. As he grabbed your arms, it is as if you were brought to life, and as an act of defiance, you spat in his face. The light goes out suddenly, just for a few seconds, but when it comes back on, you are on the wet ground, rain pouring on your face, with blood pooling from your head. Cado was enraged, picking you up and shoving you unceremoniously in the car, shouting and pointing in the north direction. Both guards entered the car, driving off suddenly, and Cado re-enters the club, the door shutting swiftly behind him.

The video stops playing, and Seokmin stands there, rooted in place and stewing in rage. He couldn’t be there to protect you, and he had to watch you experience the worst day of your life, and indirectly his too. You were supposed to be married now and living happy lives, but instead, you are apart, and you don’t remember a any of it.

Swiping to a different screen, he presses Wonwoo’s contact, the phone ringing once before he answers.

“You saw the video?”

“No shit,” Seokmin scoffs. “I want those guards found—”

“I’m already ahead of you, Seokmin,” Wonwoo answers. “I’m going to send you this address for the one who did the most damage.”

“Do that, and tell Seungcheol to meet me there,” Seokmin instructs. “Things will get extremely messy.”

“Well. You weren’t exaggerating about the mess.”

Seungcheol walks into the blood-splattered small apartment, slapping on a pair of black gloves made of matte obsidian and seamless synthetic polymer that clings like a second skin. Built with tech that alters fingerprint texture, it makes the person who uses it basically untraceable.

“I take it they are still alive?” Seungcheol surmises, stepping over broken glass.

“Barely,” Seokmin mumbles. Kneeling, he turns the head of one of the guards, the assaulter, Scion, lifting a finger under his nose.

As soon as Seokmin retrieved the address from Wonwoo, he was there in no time. He could’ve waited for Seungcheol to do things the ‘right way’, but all Seokmin could see was you being beaten and thrown around. He could have granted them mercy, but why should he? They gave you less than that, and now you’re both paying the price.

Seokmin hears shuffling behind him, and he turns, watching Seungcheol drag the other guard, Brucus, into the bathroom. He quickly learned their life story from the information Wonwoo sent over. Brucus’s family all died in the war in the neighboring desert, Dismiscus, a decade ago, and Scion comes from a family of lowlifes who are either dead, in jail, or walking the streets.

Basically, nobody would miss them when Seokmin wipes them off the face of the planet.

The bathroom door opens, and Seunghcheol comes out, his nose crinkling at the protruding smell that is starting to fill the space. “I’m pretty sure that guy took his last breath in the tub,” Seungcheol comments, surveying the living room. “I didn’t see any stab wounds or gunshots. What did you use?”

Seokmin holds up his left hand, showing off a glove made of synthetic chromium. “My goal was to make sure he stopped breathing.”

“Goal met,” Seungcheol quips.

Seokmin turns his attention back to Scion, tapping his cheek with two slaps. “Wake up.”

Scion doesn’t stir, his chest rising and falling as if he is in a deep coma. Without a second thought, Seokmin lowers a fist to his ribs, hearing a bone-shattering crack that satisfies him. Scion’s eyes almost bulge out of his sockets, followed by a piercing howl that is quickly covered by Seokmin’s fist.

“This pain is nothing compared to what you gave her,” Seokmin grits his teeth. “Tighten the fuck up.” Crimson slowly coats Scion’s lips. Seokmin stands straight, observing the weak man in this state. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you are going to tell me everything I need to know.”

Scion slowly raises his head, meeting your gaze for the first time. “I’ve…seen…you…club.” His mouth twitches, a slight smirk on his lips. “You come to see our Vixen.”

Seokmin clenches his jaw, anger stirring in his stomach and hardening from within. He referred to you by your stage name, a nickname Seokmin gave you, and it makes him want to wring Scion's neck. Seungcheol appears to his left, adjusting his gloves. “So you know why he’s here then.”

Letting out a weak scoff, he attempts to sit up but winces, sliding further down the carpet. “Let’s…not play games.”

Seokmin couldn’t agree more. “Aug 02 2061,” he began. “Why was she being carried out of the club?”

Scion attempts to sit up again, lifting off the ground until he is comfortable. He doesn’t answer, instead pulling a cigarette from his front pocket and slipping it into his mouth.

“You got a light?”

Seokmin and Seungcheol exchange annoyed looks, shaking their heads in unison. Seungcheol digs into his pocket, pulls out a lighter, and flicks the switch to ignite the flame. Seokmin is in his right mind to take that cigarette and shove it down his throat while it’s still lit.

Scion looks at you carefully, inhales deeply, and lets out a wet cough. “It was on the boss’s orders.”

Seokmin stares, his jaw ticking in annoyance. “Cado?”

He nods, taking another puff. “That’s the one.” Wiping his nose with his sleeve, he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall. “She saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”

That catches Seokmin’s attention. “What wasn’t she supposed to see?”

A slow, evil grin is on his lips, followed by a chuckle. “Business. Stuff way above my pay grade.”

“Care to elaborate on that?” Seokmin grits his teeth.

Scion doesn’t answer, instead burning out the cigarette in his hand. Seokmin takes a good look at him, watching the color slowly drain from his face. A long white scar trails from his sea-green, baggy eye to the corner of his mouth, and he looked rugged, rough around the edges, with tattoos and more scars riddling his arms. It would scare the average person walking down the street, but one thing Seokmin has learned in life is that it doesn’t matter how tough you look if you can’t back it up.

“You still want to protect your boss in death? That’s almost admirable.” Seokmin reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a 9 mm silencer. Taking a deep breath, he points the gun at his head, his index finger steady on the trigger. “I suggest you think long and hard about your answer.”

Flashes of your face and your smile flood his mind. The woman he knows, the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with, was taken away from him cruelly. He will work day and night to get you back, and if a few brains have to be splattered on some walls, so be it.

“I’m not telling you shit—”

The gun goes off before Scion could finish his sentence, blood splattering on his face. Seokmin is numb, not bothered by the violence he had to inflict. He could do it ten times over and still wouldn’t satisfy him.

“Go, Seok,” Seungcheol commands, taking the weapon out of his hands. “I’ll clean up here.”

Seokmin nods, leaving without saying a word. He wasn’t concerned about the noise, since the apartment is in a shitty part of the city and everyone minds their own business. The rain starts to fall heavily from the sky, washing the blood off his face and his leather jacket. Seokmin stands there for a moment, soaking it all in, letting the memories of you dancing in the rain fill his mind. You were always carefree, a pretty bird in a city of terror, and he would give anything to have that back.

Climbing onto his motorcycle, he loads “I Feel Love” into his headphones and roars out of sight, the venom of vengeance consuming him whole.

You can’t stop thinking about Seokmin.

He encompasses every corner of your mind, the montage of your moment together fresh in your head. You seemed to be a couple in love, a familiarity that you somehow feel in your heart, and it bothers you. You don’t know who Seokmin is; you met him for the first time last week at the club. Why does it feel like you were meant to know him?

You gaze at your bare ring finger, rubbing it with your index finger as you're lost in thought. For the past few days, it has felt weird not having a ring there, and if you stare long enough, you imagine seeing an imprint of something that might have been there at one point. You don’t know.

“Is everything alright?”

Slowly coming out of your reverie, you glance at your mother, whose eyes mirror yours in color. “I’m fine,” you clear your throat, shaking your head. “Just a bit tired.”

You stab your fork lazily into your seared lemon trout, taking a small bite to appease your mother. You aren’t sure what your relationship was like during the years you were gone, but before then, she was barely a parent. You were raised by the various nannies that were employed in your home; your mother spent her time playing the perfect wife, and your father was hardly around. You were merely an afterthought unless there was an event that required the whole family to be together. Chin up and smile wide, your mother would dutifully remind you. You don’t want to embarrass your father or the company. Your name carries weight in Neo City, and your parents will protect it by all means, even making you a pawn whether you like it or not.

“Are you still working at that club?” Your mother grimaces. “I don’t know why you bother setting foot in that soiled establishment.”

“Because I like to sing, Mom, and being there lets me do that,” you respond, feeling slightly irritated. You glance at your father, who watches you carefully, his silence louder than anything your mother could say. Crossing your arms, you feel the erratic thump of your heart. “I know you guys are worried about me, but aside from a weird dream, I’m fine—”

“What dream?”

Your father’s voice is soft yet commanding, catching you off guard. He hasn’t talked much since you arrived, barely shown any interest in the daughter walking around with partial amnesia.

“It’s nothing really, Dad,” you dismiss it, shaking your head. “I doubt it means anything.”

“Tell me.”

Your eyes drift from your father to your plate, and you let out a quiet breath. Your finger taps on your leg, unease settling on your chest. If you say it out loud, it becomes real, this dream, that moment with Seokmin. You don’t know what to make of it, and it scares you, experiencing a level of intimacy with a stranger you only met once. But knowing your parents, they will not let it go, and you might as well rip the Band-Aid off now.

“I had a dream about someone who came into the club,” you start, running your fingers through your hair. “I don’t think I know him, but in the dream, it felt like I did. Like maybe I knew him before.”

“Oh?” Your mother’s eyes light up as she wipes her mouth with a napkin. “And you’re sure you don’t know him?”

“Yeah,” you shake your head. “This guy, Seokmin, I have never met him before—”

“Wait,” your father cuts in, raising his hand. “What did you say his name was again?”

‘Seokmin,” you confirm. Grabbing your glass of white wine, you take a sip, noticing his brow furrow with annoyance. “Do you know him, Dad?”

‘What?” Your dad slurs before shaking his head. “No, I don’t know him. I am just concerned about you having dreams about a stranger.” He smiles reassuringly, though it doesn’t match his eyes. “You are still taking your medication, right?”

You throw him an incredulous look and scoff. “Yes, I’m taking my medication!” you spit, rising from your seat. “How could you think that?”

“Well, hold on,” your mother leaps out of her seat, raising her hands. “Your father and I just want what’s best for you.” Her voice cracks at the end, tears welling in her eyes. “We almost lost you.”

You stare at your mother and father, the burning ember of anger brewing in your stomach slowly cooling off. There is something indescribable in your father’s eyes that leaves you uneasy, an ice-cold shiver spreading down your spine.

“It was just a dream,” your mother says. “I wouldn’t worry about it, okay?”

“Your mother is right,” your father agrees. “Sit down and finish dinner.”

It wasn’t a suggestion, but you don’t have any more will to fight with your family tonight. You do as you're told, slowly putting on your poker face as you finish your meal in silence. But something your gut tells you is more than just a dream, and even more sinister, your father might know something about it.

Two weeks. It’s been two weeks since Seokmin has seen you, and the distance physically aches. Not that he hasn’t wanted to, but he’s been busy, cracking heads and taking names—so to speak.

He’s gone through the list of names that were there the night you were hurt, and showed up to a few of those places, gathering all of the information he could get. Some gave it to him willingly; others were harder to convince. It didn’t matter how he got it done, as long as he got what he was looking for. Some survived to see another day; others weren’t so lucky.

Seokmin stares at his hands in the bathroom, his hands covered with dirt and dried-up blood, bruised knuckles that are turning into a nasty shade of purple. Turning on the warm water, he washes the blood away with a fluxus genorum soap he acquired from the Neo City black market, which specializes in rapidly healing most injuries. It was created by a scientist who wanted to cure humanity of their ailments, but the government had other plans. It’s said that the scientist refused, and the scientist suddenly went missing, presumed to be killed by the others of your very own Senator. Yet somehow, his creation can be accessed by certain means. Seokmin always found that interesting.

He unbuttons his shirt, revealing fading bruises he didn’t care to heal. In a way, Seokmin is addicted to the pain. It’s one of the few things that’s real to him; the feeling of a fist trying to crush his abdomen or a pole that swings wildly on his arm. It’s an adrenaline high that he is not trying to be cured from. It keeps him focused and guarded on his investigation to reveal the truth and set you free.

And bring you back to him.

Seokmin strips off the rest of his clothes, washes up quickly, and changes into jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt, then pairs them with his leather motorcycle jacket. He puts on the cologne you like, hoping it will stir your memory in some way. He reminisces about the first time you brought the bottle home and sprayed it on him without warning.

“Whoa there, baby. What did you put on me?”

“Your good luck charm,” you said cheekily, holding up a small yellow bottle.

“My good luck charm is standing in front of me,” Seokmin flirted, pulling you by your waist.

“Well, yes,” you agreed, pressing the bottle onto his chest. “But this will give you an extra boost. It smells good.”

Seokmin squinted, trying to detect any deceit. You loved to prank him, and even though he knew what you were doing before it happened, he let you do it anyway. Seeing the joy in your eyes, the warm laugh that bubbled from your throat gave him endorphins no one else could replicate.

"This isn’t some sort of joke, is it?” Seokmin murmured, his hand drifting lower to squeeze your derriere.

“Mm mm,” you shook your head. “No joke, baby. I bought this with you in mind, and I hope it makes you think of me.”

“I think of you all the time,” Seokmin chuckled, leaning in. “It doesn’t take much.”

“Good, my sunflower,” you nodded proudly. You spray his neck lightly, rubbing in the cologne with your fingers. “Now take me to bed.”

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Seokmin jolts himself back to the present, clutching the gun hidden in the back of his waistband. He wasn’t expecting anyone over, and aside from Seungcheol and Wonwoo, no one knows where he lives. He stalks towards the door, his heart racing, wondering if all of the bloodshed is catching up to him. Slowly looking into the peephole, he lets out a small breath of relief, followed by an annoyed scoff.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Seokmin unlocks the door, swinging it widely, facing the unwanted visitor.

“Silas.”

“Seokmin.”

The older man lets himself in, brushing his shoulder against Seokmin as a silent test to see if Seokmin will bite. He knows this type of man, the kind who gets a rise out of pushing buttons; they snap, and then the victim becomes the villain, fitting their narrative. Seokmin was almost always one step ahead of him, and he’s sure it's one of the many reasons he hates him.

“Yes, come in.’ he says under his breath, shutting the door.

“Why are you bothering her at the club?” Silas gets right to the point.

Seokmin gives him a slow, unimpressed once-over. “Because she’s my fiancée,” he answers bluntly. “That’s never going to change, no matter how you try to spin it.”

Silas snorts, surveying the space. “I think you need to get your head checked, boy. My daughter doesn’t and will not have anything to do with you.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Seokmin scoffs, holding eye contact. “Did you come all this way to puff out your chest? Or are you going to finally be the father she needs?”

Silas’s eyes narrow into menacing slits as he steps toward him, his voice a low, dangerous growl. “You don’t know shit about what she needs.”

Seokmin lets out a short, dry laugh, feeling it deep in his gut. “Old man, I know way more than you think.” Stepping around him, he opens the door. “If that’s all you have to say.”

Silas does not invoke any fear in Seokmin’s heart. It doesn’t matter how many connections your father has; Seokmin will still find a way to take them down, and he’s doing alright so far.

Silas sneers, turning on his heel and storming down the hall. “You will regret this!” He barks over his shoulder.

“No, I won’t,” Seokmin yells back, slamming the door behind him.

The sound echoes through his apartment, and Seokmin lets out a long, drawn breath, relieving the tension in his abdomen. A visit from Silas is never a good thing, but it doesn’t deter him—it pushes him to dig even deeper to uncover the lies just beneath the surface. How did he know Seokmin was coming to the club? Aside from the obvious, why is Silas bothered by it?

A myriad of questions swirl in his head, his suspicions growing louder. Pulling out his phone, he presses the dial button and is immediately met with a voicemail. 

“Wonwoo. Look into Silas—yes, that Silas. I have a feeling this is bigger than we thought.”

I'm gonna tell you about love Let's forget your life Forget your problems Administration, bills and loads Come with me

You’re one with the rhythm, twirling in a sensual circle as you swing the mic in the air. There is a large attendance tonight, due to a convention in Neo City that brings nerds from all over the planet. You changed up your makeup at the last minute, going for a more divine look that brings out your eyes. Cado gave you shit for it, but you know what you’re doing, and it’s working; once again, everyone is at your mercy, their mouths partly open as you seduce the crowd with your voice.

Connect to the sky Future lovers ride their ambitions high, would you like to try? Let me be your guide, cut inside your pride Future lovers hide love inside their eyes

The red light sparkles on your dress, a tight, short number that accentuates your legs, paired with heels that are an accessory in their own right. Scanning the room, you let the vibrant energy take over, falling into a trance while you perform. Being on stage is truly your happy place, and there isn’t anywhere else you’d want to be.

As you sing, you’re drawn to a pair of warm brown eyes you could get lost in, a slow smile on his lips as he watches your every move. Excitement tingles through your body, and you keep your composure as you strut over to the man of your dreams.

Love controlled by time Future lovers shine for eternity in a world that's free Put away your past, love will never last If you're holding on to a dream that's gone I'm gonna tell you about love Would you like to try?

The final note lingers in the air, a shimmering vibration that seems to hold the entire room in an intoxicating suspension. As the crowd roars in applause, you wink at him, the shimmer of your makeup catching the strobe lights before you gracefully leave the stage.

Your heart is racing, but it’s not just because of the performance. Instead of heading to your dressing room, you detour to the floor, searching for him among all the bodies in colorful attire. You find your dream guy at the bar, ordering a drink with Chan. Despite the butterflies invading your stomach, you take a seat next to him.

“Hey, stranger,” you greet him with your signature low, sultry voice. “Thought I’d never see you again.”

“You did?” Seokmin responds, a gentle grin on his lips. “That just made my night.”

“I’m glad I could be of service.” You wink again. Feeling confident, you grab his hand, slide off your stool, and pull him along. “Walk with me?”

His hands feel the same as they did in your dream; warm, inviting, and safe. You notice the way his eyes dance as you lead him outside to your hideaway spot near the front entrance. You’re fully aware you’re acting recklessly, and you don’t really know Seokmin. For all you know, he could be a mass murderer. But despite all that, something in the back of your mind tells you it’s okay.

You stop in a tucked-away spot in the dimly lit alley, two patio chairs in front of an abandoned building. Streaks of magenta and cyan from the neon signs spread across the brick walls, alternating sides as the light adjusts according to its programming. No one else comes here, and you come here to think whenever the noise gets too loud. It’s your own little sanctuary, a small bit of peace that’s of your own making.

Seokmin digs into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of menthols and opening the carton toward you.

“Want one?”

You smile, taking one and slipping it between your lips. He lights it, his eyes not leaving yours, sending a jolt of sparks throughout your body.

“The man of my dreams,” you murmur as you exhale.

“Am I?” His eyes shift to something softer and unspoken, and you feel heat creep up on your neck.

“Figuratively speaking, of course,” you lie, inhaling deeply.

You exhale the smoke with a perfect ‘O’, watching it rise in the night air until it dissipates. You feel his eyes burning on you, and you don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to explain that you feel drawn to him, and it feels like you were meant to know him. You haven’t had another dream since then, and yet, Seokmin has been in the back of your mind with every thought. You tried shaking it away, meditating away, even sexing it away with someone you met at a bar that you knew you would never see again. Nothing has worked, and you are starting to feel you are truly fucked.

“So what do you do, Seokmin?” you ask, discarding the ash from the stick.

“I’m a private investigator,” he answers, taking a puff of his cigarette. “Been doing it for a while.”

“Yeah?” You say, amused. “So you probably have seen a lot of crazy things.”

“Something like that.”

A sly grin curves on his lips, making him more attractive. “I bet you handle yourself well.”

“I… do my best,” he alludes. “I’m still breathing.”

“You look good and alive to me,” you laugh, your nerves suddenly getting to you. Turning to the side, you slap your hand lightly on your head. This has never been you. You don’t tumble over your words or get tongue-tied over anything, especially men. And yet, Seokmin has you all over the place, stumbling over everything you thought you knew.

“So… what do you do when you’re not hypnotizing clubs or terrorizing your boss?”

You let out an embarrassing snicker, caught off guard by his statement. “What makes you think I terrorize my boss?”

Seokmin throws you a look, a twinkle in his eye as he raises a brow. “You perform like that on stage, and you tell me you aren’t driving your boss nuts?”

You almost choke on your cigarette, laughing. The nerves leave you as easy as they came. “Is it terrorizing or just knowing that I’m right?”

He shrugs with a smirk on his lips. “Touche.”

You shake your head playfully, putting out half of your cigarette. You aren’t really a smoker, but he offered, and you didn’t want to turn him down. Gazing at the sky, the two moons of the planet are full, in a shade of red that appears only once every millennium. How ironic that you are sharing it with the man of your dreams.

“I would ask if you come here often, but I think we know the answer to that,” you say, sauntering closer to him. “I never forget a face—brain injury aside.”

Seokmin bites his bottom lip, turning away slightly to hide a grin.

“It’s okay to laugh,” you encourage him. “My accident didn’t deprive me of my sense of humor, thank gods.”

He lets out a guffaw, his voice echoing off the walls of the alley. In the darkness, you see the light in his eyes, and it melts you. He's even more handsome than he was the first day you saw him.

“You… are funny,” Seokmin manages to say in between breaths. “Are you sure you don’t want to be a comedian?”

“Nah.” You scrunch your nose playfully. “I’d get bored.”

The time on the nearest building dings midnight, signaling your break being over. You don’t want to leave; you want to stay in this place and get to know him, figure out what makes him tick and why you can’t get him out of your head. Silence falls between you two, loud thoughts running through your mind, unsure of what to say next.

“So will you be coming back—”

“—Do you want to go out with me sometime?”

You stare at each other, the silence thick and charged with the kind of electricity that would raise your hair in the wind, followed by a lightning strike. A slow, playful smile curves on your lips as you lean in, the scent of his vanilla-and-spice cologne swirling around you, mixed with the sharp tang of menthols.

“You wanna go out with me?” you tease him. “How do you know I’m not a crazy person who takes their victims into dark alleys?”

Seokmin’s laugh is silvery, his foot itching closer to you, the warmth of his presence vibrating off you. “You’re a creative woman. I’m sure you could do better than that.”

You cock your head back in laughter, almost at a loss for words. “Touche.” Looking back towards the club, you turn to him again. “Walk me back?”

Seokmin holds out his arm to you, and you slip into it easily, like a fitted glove. The walk back is mostly quiet, aside from exchanging numbers and agreeing to see each other in two days. The neon lights dance on your skin, and the club's impending noise grows louder with each step. It’s like you're in your own bubble, existing with him with ease, feeling a sort of peace you didn’t know you needed.

When you reach the entrance, the bubble bursts as Cado leans against the doorframe, arms folded with irritation on his face. His eyes land on you two, his dark pupils narrowing into predatory splits.

“You’re late for your second set, Vixen,” Cado says with a smile that doesn’t match his eyes. “Let’s get you inside, gorgeous.”

He holds out his hand, but his gaze is on Seokmin, his poker face faltering with each second. You glance at Seokmin, who meets the gaze with an unimpressed stare, stepping back slightly to give you space.

“I’ll see you Friday, sunflower.”

You watch him walk away, disappearing into the night. Giddiness takes over; you wish you could leap forward two days. You feel Cado’s hands grip your upper arm, a tad too much pressure, making you wince. You’re ushered back inside, the thumping bass, the thick smoke, and expensive perfume irritating your nose.

“You don’t have to guide me to my dressing room,” you bite. “I’m not a child.”

“If only you knew the concept of time is money,” Cado snaps. “You have five minutes.”

You step into the dim light of your dressing room, the mirror reflecting your image in all of its glory. You quickly tousle your hair, adjust your dress and makeup, and touch your lips with a shade of red that would make the devil jealous. You were done in two minutes instead of five, rolling your eyes at Cado’s attitude earlier.

“I don’t know what his issue is,” you mutter to yourself. “I’m already done.”

Swinging the door open, you make your way to the stage, passing by the boss’s door, which is left slightly ajar.

“Yeah, she’s in the dressing room now… yes, I will keep an eye on her.”

You come to a halt, a chill coming down your spine. You may have lost part of your memory, but you aren’t naive—he is talking about you.

“Yeah… yeah… He was here again.”

Your heart starts to race, everything suddenly feeling heightened as you continue the conversation. Why is Cado so invested in you and who you keep your company with?

“Are you alright?”

You turn around suddenly, facing Chan, who is standing in the hallway, holding boxes of liquor, presumably to stock the bar. You blink, your ears burning from embarrassment and being caught red-handed.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you croak, clearing your throat. “I just have a slight headache, that’s all.”

“Oh, if you want, I can give you coltis powder later; that’ll clear it up.”

You give him a weak smile. “I would appreciate it, Chan.”

He nods and walks around you, going back to the bar. You pinch your nose, shaking your head as you let out a loud sigh. Fuck, that was close. Turning around, you see Cado’s door is now closed, ending any chance you had to hear more of the conversation. Disappointment starts to seep in like a leak, but you push it aside, realizing your five minutes are up and it’s time to get on stage. You put on your best poker face, going on stage to applause and cheers, your hands resting on the microphone as you begin your next set.

“Who’s ready for more?”

The crowd cheers.

Turning to your right, you meet the eyes of Cado, who watches you intently with an all-knowing look you can’t understand. You wink at him and begin your set, seemingly showing everyone all is right in the world.

But that’s the opposite of the truth, and it’s far from over.

Part 2 will be posted soon! Let me know what you think in the comments or reblogs <3

It would be so much easier to just hike to a Sector 4 market and buy a sleek, pre-calibrated arm for Aki. But then you’d be handing Lazarus Tech a direct line into your hideout. Vernon isn't just being a prick. He’s the one who showed you the code—the hidden "sleeper" malware Lazarus bakes into every piece of consumer tech. One wrong handshake with a corporate server and your entire crew becomes a collection of meat-puppets, their locations pinged to a tactical team before the limb is even finished calibrating. “Find me something old but still salvageable,” he’d scowled, eyes bloodshot as he pointed a soldering gun at you.  “And don’t bring me rusted junk this time. Even I can’t do anything with that,” he’d added, like you were doing this for fun and not because Aki couldn’t even hold a cup without the current joint locking halfway through. You shove off of the freighter’s hull with a quiet curse, adjusting the weight of your pack. The metal creaks under the shift, brittle with age, flakes of rust coming away against your glove. “Yeah, yeah,” you mutter to yourself. “I’ll just pull a factory-fresh elbow out of the dirt for you.” The wind drags across the flats from the rain clouds hanging over the inner city. It catches on the broken skeletons of machines and spits dust through the gaps, fine enough to slip through anything that isn’t sealed tight. Your respirator whirs again, a warning this time.  You ignore it. There’s two more warnings, and they’re usually timed to be thirty minutes apart each. There’s a second one in your pack—equally old, but it’ll run for a while if this one gives up on you. You pick your way through the wreckage. Most of what’s left out here has already been stripped down to nothing worth taking, but every now and then something gets missed. A sealed joint or a pre-Link actuator if you’re lucky.  Your boot catches on something half-buried. You crouch automatically, brushing away grit until an old generator comes into view. Vernon could use the copper coil wirings in this, you think as you dust it off and throw it into your pack. You’re about to stand up again when the scrap pile on your right begins to vibrate violently. The tremor that runs through the pile follows into your knees, the sound of metal scraping against metal being droned out by a sudden deafness. You sit still for half a second, tilting your head to listen to the wind before your chest starts to tighten because of an inexplicable force, like a heavy weight is being pushed onto you. Rising to your feet just as the sound of impact follows, punching through the air and almost bringing you down to the ground again, you look up to see a cloud of dust and smoke not much farther from you.

Well, that’s new, you think as you cough, already moving. A fresh fall means untouched, and untouched means you might actually find something Vernon won’t immediately throw back at your face in a stim-induced stupor. You trudge through at a steady pace first, and then faster once you notice that the ground's fallen through where the impact was made. Still unable to see through the cloud, you cross your fingers and hope that it's some of the debris in the planet's orbit. You'd heard that there'd been sightings of remnants of age-old spaceships dropping down to earth because of gravity.  Judging by how much smoke actually surrounds the place, you're not sure if it's all burnt or still intact. By the time you reach the small crater that's formed, the plume has mostly settled. You sigh in relief. You weren't sure if your respirator would make it through and out of that mess anyway. But the sight in front of your eyes makes you pause.

The object is rather too big to be called one. It looks something like a pod, too intact for something that just tore through the sky and slammed into the ground hard enough to shake the bones out of your legs. You slow without meaning to, boots skidding slightly at the edge of the crater as loose gravel shifts under your weight, your eyes dragging over the surface in quick, assessing passes. No scattered pieces or broken plating blown outward. The outer shell still holds shape and sits mostly upright, vents along the sides pushing out thin streams of vapor that curl and vanish into the air.

“Okay,” you breathe out, a grin pulling at your lips before you can stop it. “Okay, that’s—” That’s good. Really good.

You slide down the slope a little too fast, catching yourself against the side of the thing with your palm, the heat still trapped in the metal bleeding through your glove just enough to make you hiss under your breath. Up close, the white coating of the pod is dulled by soot but intact, scored in long, dark streaks where it burned on the way down. You drag your glove across one of them without thinking, clearing a narrow strip.

There’s writing underneath—not the heavily stamped branding you’re used to seeing on anything that comes out of the city. This is smaller and blends into the surface. Embossed in small, cleanly spaced letters are the words HERMES (I) MISSIONS.  You lean in, eyes narrowing as you try to make sense of it. The name doesn’t ring a bell. 

More markings run along the curve of the hull, broken by seams and panels you hadn’t caught from a distance. Arrows, numbers, and small blocks of text that look like instructions. Your attention shifts to the seams instead. There’s one running along the side, faint but continuous, a thin interruption in the otherwise smooth surface. You follow it with your eyes first, then with your hand, brushing away the dust until your fingers catch on the edge.

A door.

You reach for your pack without looking, flipping the latch open and pulling out the slim pry-bar Vernon built for jobs exactly like this. As you work at the door, you think about how Vernon’s going to lose his mind over this. Once you open this thing up and tell him about it, he’ll be coming here in no time to tear the place apart and take what he wants. 

You lean your weight onto the bar, forcing the gap wider bit by bit. The seal holds for a bit longer than you expect, then breaks all at once. Air rushes out of it immediately—sharp, cold, and too clean for this place, hitting your mask hard enough to make you flinch back a step. Your respirator stutters while trying to adjust to the sudden flood, the filters whining as they struggle to keep up.

You turn your head instinctively, letting it pass over you until the pressure eases enough to breathe properly again.

You push the door open the rest of the way.

The inside is untouched.

With clean, padded walls—pale and smooth with no corroded metal or dust settling into the corners—it doesn’t look like something that belongs out here at all. You’d expect something stripped down, maybe a few intact panels if you were lucky, but this is closer to a cockpit than scrap. Narrow and compact, with everything within arm’s reach of everything else. There are panels along the sides, small screens flickering on and off, thin bundles of wiring tucked and arranged neatly.

You step in, slow at first, your boots sounding muffled against the floor, eyes moving over it all in quick glances, trying to figure out what’s worth taking first and what you’re going to have to come back for once Vernon inevitably drags himself out here.

And then you see it.

Set into the center, bolted low and running along the length of the pod, there’s something that looks like a chamber. Or a pod, even. Long and enclosed, the casing curves over it like it’s meant to protect whatever’s inside.

You stop, the earlier excitement turning into caution before you force yourself to move towards it.

The casing seems to be made of glass or some clear material, but it’s fogged over, although not opaque just yet. There’s movement in the liquid inside, disturbed just enough that it doesn’t sit still, and for a second your brain tries to place it as coolant, or some kind of preservation system Vernon would spend hours ranting about.

Then the shape beneath it resolves.

A face.

You jerk back a step so fast your shoulder clips one of the panels, a dull thud echoing in the tight space.

No. No, absolutely not. 

The body—seemingly a man—doesn’t move. 

He’s submerged almost entirely in the fluid filling the chamber, his body held in place by it, and his face tilted just above the surface. His eyes are closed. There’s no visible movement beyond the faint ripple in the fluid.

You stare. 

For a second, you consider leaving—pretending you never saw this, and letting Vernon come deal with whatever the hell this is. You’ve handled a ton of things for him, but a dead body dropping out of the sky is not one of them.

Instead, you step closer.

It doesn’t feel like a good decision, but it’s the one you make anyway, your gaze dragging from his face to the side of the chamber where a small panel sits half-lit, flickering in and out like it’s running on whatever scraps of power the pod has left.

You crouch beside it, wiping a thumb across the surface.

It’s something that looks like a readout. There’s a heart rate monitor, and his pulse is slow but present. The screen also shows oxygen saturation levels, temperature and something else that might be neural activity. 

You lean back slightly, eyes flicking to him again. 

“Great,” you mutter under your breath. “So you’re alive. That’s… good for you.” 

You must’ve pressed something accidentally, because the panel suddenly displays a new message in bright red. 

ACCESS RESTRICTED.

Below it, a smaller prompt blinks at you with a row of empty boxes following it. 

ENTER AUTHORIZATION CODE.

Great. So this is locked too. 

Leaving isn’t really an option anymore, so you drop your pack to the floor and begin to rummage through and pulling out one of Vernon’s toys—a thin, flat chip slotted into a grip the size of your palm, wires branching out from it in short, flexible threads with magnetic tips at the ends. Crude-looking, but you’ve seen it crack locks that were supposed to be unbreakable.

You press the main plate against the panel and let the leads find purchase along the edges, the magnets snapping lightly into place where the casing meets the screen.

The row of empty boxes flickers once before the first digit fills in, the number changing almost immediately, then again and again, fast enough that it stops being readable and turns into a continuous blur of motion. The second box follows, then the third, each one cycling just as quickly, the entire line running through combinations at an aggressive speed.

When the final box fills, for a brief second the entire row stays fixed and just when you think it’s going to reject the code again, the screen flashes green.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The red text disappears, replaced instantly by a flood of new data that pushes the old interface aside, columns of information sliding into place faster than you can process them. 

A controlled hiss cuts through the space as the seal disengages, followed by a series of tight clicks that run along the length of the casing. The fluid inside shifts in response, a heavier movement this time, disturbed by the change in pressure as the top section begins to lift.

You pull your hand back from the panel as the casing opens and wait. But it only opens enough to break the seal and then a little more, so you push it up and out of the way, eyes locked in on the man beneath it.

For a moment, nothing happens.

The silence in the pod is heavy, thick with the sterile smell of the fluid and the dirty air from outside infiltrating the clean air inside the pod. You stay crouched, muscles coiled and ready to bolt if this turns south, watching the way the remaining liquid beads off his skin like oil.

Then, the man’s chest hitches with a jagged, desperate intake of air that sounds like a rusted hinge being forced open. His throat works, a hard swallow that looks painful, and his fingers—pale and pruned—twitch against the bottom of the chamber.

You find yourself holding your own breath as his eyes twitch before they snap open, pupils blown wide for a fraction of a second before they struggle to adjust to the light inside the pod. He inhales again, harder this time, the sound tearing out of him as his back arches slightly, the movement sending what’s left of the fluid sloshing against the sides. 

Your hand lifts anyway, hovering for a second like you’re going to grab him, then stopping short when you realise you don’t actually know what you’d do if he bolts or collapses or starts swinging. You shift your weight instead, bracing one knee against the side of the chamber, close enough to catch him if he tips the wrong way, far enough that you can still move if you have to.

“Hey—” you start, the word coming out sharper than you mean it to, more instinct than anything useful. “Don’t—just—”

He doesn’t hear you.

His head lolls forward as vomits a mouthful of the pale liquid onto the floor. The shivering sets in immediately after, violent enough that it runs through him unchecked, his shoulders hitching, teeth knocking together hard enough to be audible even over the low hum of the pod. His sopping wet clothes stick to him in all places.

You grimace before reaching for your pack again, fingers closing around the spare respirator. He already seems to be struggling and after being unaccustomed to breathing for a while, he’ll find it harder without one of these.

You yank it free, shaking it out once before stepping back in, catching him by the arm as he sways. He’s worse up close like this—skin slick with fluid and cold to the touch.

“Hold still,” you mutter, although you don’t expect him to listen as you bring the mask up and press it over his face, sealing it tight along his nose and mouth.

Your thumb finds the switch and forces it on.

The filter kicks in with a rough, uneven whirr, louder than it should be in the confined space, and for a few seconds you keep your hand there, making sure it’s actually drawing air before you let go.

He drags in a breath through it immediately, sharp and unsteady, before lifting a trembling finger to point at something behind you. You follow the direction of it automatically, your gaze flicking over your shoulder to where he’s pointing. 

There’s an orange box that’s screwed to the walls. You hesitate for half a second, then reach for it.

It opens easily enough. Inside, everything is packed tightly. Folded clothes sit stacked in clean rows along with dried packets of what seems to be food and pouches of water. You reach for the thickest fabric of them all—a towel—before shaking it out once and coming back to wrap it around the man.

He stares at it for a moment like he doesn’t quite recognise what it is, then brings it up awkwardly, pressing it against his face and then his neck. 

You step back to give him some space and take him in properly, now that the initial panic has settled. 

Other than landing from the skies, being asleep in some liquid-filled pod and looking pale and wrinkled up like a prune, there are other things—or rather, the lack of other things that makes him strange.

There’s nothing on the man. No ports, no visible implants or surgery scars or embeds under his skin. Even the usual scarring from old mods—bad installs, cheap replacements, anything—none of it is there. 

You frown slightly, your gaze lingering a second longer than it should as he drags the towel down his arms, wiping off the remaining fluid in shaky motions.

His clothes too. The ones he’s wearing right now, the ones in the box all look different from what you’ve seen before. The fabric is thinner than anything you’d trust out here, softer too, without any embedded mesh or tech woven into it. 

You glance at the man again as he swallows again, his grip tightening against the chamber walls as he steadies himself to look at you properly. 

“Th—thank you,” he manages, the words rough and dragged out of a throat that clearly isn’t ready for them yet, his breath catching halfway through as a cough follows.

His hand comes up to his face almost immediately after, fingers fumbling clumsily over the mask you’ve strapped on him, tracing the edges of it like he’s trying to understand what it is without pulling it off.

“What—what is this,” he asks, voice muffled now, the words breaking slightly as he breathes through it. “Why—”

He doesn’t finish.

Instead, he shifts, bracing one hand against the side of the chamber as if that alone is enough to get him out, his body moving on instinct more than control. For a moment it almost works. He pushes himself upright and tries to swing his legs onto the ground, sending drops of the liquid across the floor.

But his balance fails him immediately as gravity catches up. His knees buckle under him, the rest of his weight pitching forward so quickly, it would’ve sent him straight to the floor if you weren’t already close enough to catch him.

He grabs at you without meaning to, fingers tightening around your arm.

“—sorry,” he mutters quickly, his grip loosening just as abruptly. “I—just—”

He exhales hard through the mask, another cough following, less violent this time.

“…food,” he adds after a second, the word coming out slower, like he’s picking it out through the fog in his mind. “And water. Please.”

The pod is mostly quiet now.

The low hum of whatever systems are still clinging to life runs underneath everything, and the occasional rustle of the food packet breaks through the silence, but neither of you speak.

The worst of the shaking has passed. He sits with his back against the chamber’s walls, one knee drawn up slightly, the other stretched out awkwardly. The empty water pouch sits beside him.

You eye the packet, wondering if it’s the real deal or the lab grown stuff from the lower markets. It looks real enough, and you’re hungry too, but it feels wrong to ask this man about food while he sits looking like that. 

He doesn’t look at you right away.

For a while, his attention stays on smaller things—the food in his hands, the way his fingers still tremble when he lifts it, the slow way he chews, like he’s making sure his body remembers how to. Every now and then his gaze drifts, to the panels along the walls, the flickering screens and strips of light slipping through the hatch behind you.

Then to you. Like you’re the one thing in the room he hasn’t accounted for yet. His brows tighten. You can’t tell if he looks alarmed or suspicious. He glances away again, dropping his attention back to the food. Another bite. Then, like he can’t leave it alone—

“…are you part of the recovery crew?” he asks, throat finally softened by the water. 

“What?” Your brows furrow.  

“The recovery crew,” he repeats, slower this time, like it's obvious and you’re the one missing it. He gestures vaguely around the pod. “Where’s the rest of them? Has mission control been notified?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

His face twists in confusion too. Great. Neither of you knows what the other's saying.

“This,” he says, knuckles weakly tapping the side of the chamber. “The pod. We were supposed to—” He stops, jaw tightening. His gaze flicks past you, to the door, the sliver of grey sky and scrap beyond it.

“This isn’t a water landing,” he says, more to himself than to you, “We didn’t…”

His eyes lock onto you, running up and down before his lips purse.

“What are you wearing?”

The confusion deepens, tipping into disbelief. “Where did I land? Some kind of… themed zone? Convention or something? Are we at Comic Con?”

You blink at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t—” He shakes his head. “I don’t know what else this is supposed to be.”

That’s enough.

You bring your wrist up, the interface flickering to life across your skin in a soft blue, thin lines of light forming a curved display just above your hand.

“Name,” you demand. “Tell me your name.”

He stares at the hologram first with widened eyes and a dropped jaw. 

“Hey!” 

“Jihoon,” he says. “Lee Jihoon.” 

You type it in and the system scans through the city’s registry faster than you can follow.

NO MATCH.

You frown and try again.

Still nothing. 

You lower your hand, the projection still hovering. Jihoon hasn’t moved, his attention still locked on your wrist. 

His eyes move from the display to your face and then back. “We didn’t have—” He stops himself.

A few seconds pass before he speaks again, more careful this time

“The time dilation. If I’m back now, it must have been…” The cogs turn visibly. “About fifteen years? Is it 2047?”

“Are you on something?” you scoff, starting to get annoyed. “if this is some sort of a stim trip, you picked a bad place to ride it out.”

The words come out sharper than you mean them to, but it feels like someone’s pulling a prank on you. 

“No, wait—” Jihoon splutters, raising a hand. “What year is it? How long has it been since the launch?”

“What launch? Lazarus hasn’t sent anything to outer space in decades.” You scowl. 

“What year is it?” He asks again. “Please.”

You exhale sharply, massaging your temple before turning back to him. “Fine,” you roll your eyes, feet tapping on the ground. “It’s 2226.”

There’s a brief pause where he looks at you like he’s waiting for you to follow that up with something else—something that makes it make sense—before a faint crease forms between his brows and his gaze drops, his tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek.

“Right,” Jihoon says after a few seconds. He nods multiple times before tilting his head up to look at you again, trying to figure out if you’re serious or just committed to whatever this is. “Okay.” 

You say nothing.

He drags a hand through his damp hair before settling it at the back of his neck. It makes him look casual enough. Maybe even awkward, if it wasn’t for the way his cheeks are hollowed with irritation.

“That’s funny,” he adds, without any real humour. “Did they tell you to say that, or—”

“They?” you cut in.

“The recovery team,” he repeats, making you groan. “Or whoever got here first. I don’t know what the plan was, but this—” he nods faintly toward you, “—this isn’t how you debrief someone coming out of hypersleep, sorry.”

You stare at him, the earlier annoyance settling back in. 

What are you going to do with him?

“Listen, I’m not pulling a fucking prank on you, or whatever,” you start, reaching for your pack. “If you don’t believe me, you can come look for yourself. Or you could stay here and be found by people who aren’t going to be as nice or patient.”

When Jihoon doesn’t move or answer right away, you continue. 

“You’re running out of time. Light drops fast out here. If we don’t move now, it isn’t going to be easy to find your way out of here,” your tone flattens out as you step closer, your eyes dropping briefly to his legs.

He follows your gaze, like he’s only just registering it again, then shifts, bracing one hand against the side of the chamber before pushing himself up.

It goes about as well as before.

He exhales sharply through his teeth, frustration flickering across his face before he tries again, slower this time, like he can force his body into remembering how to stand up or walk.

“Give it a second,” Jihoon mutters, more to himself than you. “It’s just—”

He stops, jaw tightening as he finally stands on his feet, although more than half of his body leans against the chamber. 

“I’ve been in microgravity,” he grunts out, “for—if what you say is true—a long, long time. My body needs time to get used to earth’s gravity again.”

“Are you telling me you can’t walk?” You ask, laughing in disbelief. 

“I can walk,” he says, a little too quick for it to sound convincing, shifting his weight off the side just enough to prove a point. It lasts for all of three seconds before he has to hold onto something again.

“…I can walk,” he repeats, quieter this time and less defensive. “Just not… properly.”

“Great,” you mutter, dragging a hand down your face before letting it drop back to your side.  

“It’ll come back,” he adds after a moment, more to fill the silence than anything else, his gaze flicking briefly to you before dropping again. “Muscle memory doesn’t just disappear.”

“Whatever,” you sigh, jerking your chin at the door. “I’ll help you walk. I’m going to leave, so try to change out of your clothes if you can. It’s going to get cold outside and you seem to have some in that box.”

He nods, and you take it as a sign to move. Stepping back toward the door, you reach for the respirator where he left it and hold it out to him, waiting until he actually takes it before continuing.

“Put that on before I open this,” you add, already walking to the door. “Air out there’s worse than you can imagine.”

He doesn’t argue and fumbles the mask into place, the seal sitting slightly off before he adjusts it with a clumsy press of his fingers. 

You watch for a second, making sure it’s actually running, then nod toward the box. 

Stepping out of the pod, you drag the door mostly shut behind you, leaving just enough of a gap for air to cycle through while giving him some privacy.

The temperature hits immediately.

Colder now, the sharp wind drags across the crater in uneven bursts that carry dust and grit along with it, settling into the seams of your clothes and the exposed parts of your gear.

You take a few steps up the slope, boots slipping slightly against loose gravel before finding stable ground near the edge, your eyes scanning the stretch of wreckage. Then you look back around at the distance you’d have to cover to get him out of here. 

Yeah, that’s not happening.

You bring your wrist up again, tapping the interface twice until it flickers to life, the projection stabilising quickly in the low light. The signal takes a few seconds to connect. The lines are pretty far from the Wastelands, and you try not to use them most of the time.

“Hoshi,” you say, not bothering with any greeting when it connects.

A beat of pure static.

“—you done?” his voice cuts through, rough but clear enough.

“Yeah,” you reply, shifting your weight from one foot to the other as another gust of wind pushes through. “I need a pickup now.”

“Cool. Vernon’s asking if you got everything he asked for.”

“Tell him to shut the fuck up,” you roll your eyes, glancing back toward the pod as a dull thud echoes faintly from inside, followed by the sound of something scraping against metal and what might’ve been a muffled curse. He’s the reason I’m in this mess anyway. “Oh, and bring Wonwoo. Tell him to bring his bike too.”

A pause. “Why? He says he’s busy.”

“Come on! I don’t ask for shit that’s not required, you know,” you shoot back, tone flattening.

Another pause.

Then a short exhale on the other end.

“Give us ten.”

“Sending my location, make it five,” you say, already lowering your wrist before he can argue, cutting the line clean.

“Hey?” Jihoon’s voice calls out, weak and muffled, from inside the pod. “I’m done. I’m sorry, but can you help me out here?”

You let your hand drop fully, the interface fading back into your skin as you turn toward the pod. 

“Yeah,” you call back, already stepping down the slope. “Give me a second.” 

By the time you reach the door and push it open, he’s already halfway there. As he moves, he uses one hand to drag along the wall for balance, the other catching whatever edge he can reach. It’s messy, inefficient, and stubborn in a way that makes you pause for a second at the threshold, watching him close the distance on his own instead of stepping in immediately.

He’s going to fall.

You can see it before it happens but he catches himself again, letting out an exasperated noise as he forces the correction through.

Right.

You step forward then, closing the last bit of space and catching his arm before he can argue, your grip firm enough that he doesn’t have to fight it.

The climb out isn’t graceful, but it works through slow, uneven steps, his weight leaning heavier into you than he probably realises. You don’t comment on it though, and neither does he.

By the time you reach the edge, his breathing’s picked up again. He huffs out in relief before finally looking up.

As evening sets in, the sky is a bruised gradient of violet and burnt orange, but the neon lights in the skyline almost manage to drown out the natural light. The city on the skyline, Jihoon notices, doesn’t sit against the horizon so much as cut through it—tiered and overbuilt, towers stacked into each other in ways that don’t look structurally possible, their surfaces sheathed in glass that no longer reflects the sky so much as advertises over it. 

Massive vertical panels climb the sides of buildings, cycling through ads that stutter and glitch mid-transition, faces stretching and reforming, text bleeding into symbols before snapping back into place. Entire sections of towers are wrapped in moving light, brands crawling up their surfaces. 

Thin lanes of traffic cut through the air in streams, vehicles reduced to streaks of light that thread between towers in intersecting paths, some dipping lower toward the shadowed base, others climbing higher into clearer air. 

None of it makes sense. 

Jihoon stares wordlessly, breath catching behind his mask. 

“Where are we?” He asks, a few moments later.. 

“The Wastelands,” you say, already starting forward again, forcing him to move with you. “Outside Phoenix.” 

“Phoenix,” he repeats, brows furrowing. “Like the American city?”

You glance at him, frowning. “What?”

“Phoenix, Arizona,” he means to state it, but it comes out like a question.

“No,” you sigh flatly. “Just Phoenix. We’re in Asia.”

“Asia…? How is this possible?” Jihoon mutters to himself. “If I was gone for—” He cuts himself off with a harsh exhale, before he begins to ramble, rerunning the calculations with different variables. 

“If recovery failed and I stayed in orbit… no, decay wouldn’t—two centuries is too long. Fluid degradation alone would—unless they compensated, but that would require—” his hand lifts slightly, fingers flexing like he’s trying to grab hold of the thought and keep it from slipping. “Or drift, but not at this scale. That doesn’t—”

He lets out a loud groan. “Doesn’t make sense. None of this does.”

Behind you, the low, familiar hum of an engine builds gradually under the wind, cutting through the open stretch of the Wastelands. You turn your head slightly this time, already knowing what you’re going to see.

Two bikes roll up along the ridge, the engines tuned low enough that the noise doesn’t carry far. The frames are mismatched in that way everything out here is, with reinforced plates welded over older builds, exposed wiring running along the sides where casing’s been stripped back and never replaced. Thin light strips run under the chassis instead of headlights, casting a narrow glow across the ground instead of lighting up the whole area.

They stop a few feet away. 

Hoshi swings off first, helmet coming off with him, his expression already set in something between expectation and impatience, until he looks at you and then at Jihoon, and his face falls.

“Where’s the rest of the haul?” He asks.

You nudge Jihoon lightly. “Here.”

Hoshi shoots you a look, one eyebrow cocked. “You’re joking.”

Wonwoo pulls his helmet off too, still sitting on his bike, eyes moving over Jihoon slowly, over his face, his clothes and footwear. Then, he glances at you.

“Who is he?”

“Don’t know,” you say finally, “Found him in that thing.”

Hoshi follows your line of sight to the pod, then back to Jihoon, his expression flattening further.

“That’s not helping.”

“That's all I’ve got. Nothing he says makes any sense.”

There’s a brief pause where neither of them look convinced.

Jihoon’s grip tightens on your arm slightly before he pushes off and tries to stand on his own, which he manages to do for a good few seconds before he reaches for you again. He opens his mouth to speak, but Wonwoo beats him to it.

“Why’s he holding onto you?”

“He can’t walk properly,” you sigh, using your free hand to massage your temple. “I found him in some weird sleeping pod, man. He’s apparently been in space for a long time.”

Hoshi lets out a short exhale. “You believe that?”

Jihoon exhales through the mask, sharper this time, like he’s choosing whether to argue or not.

“I’m not—” he starts, then stops, eyes scrunching closed before he corrects himself. “I’m not from here.” 

“Sure, bud. You’re from the Upper City then, huh? One of Lazarus’ stupid experiments maybe?” Hoshi laughs humorlessly.

Jihoon ignores him.

“I was part of a deep space expedition mission,” he says instead, forcing the words out. “It was called the Hermes Missions. There was a problem and we had to abandon it and return to earth. It would take a while, so we went into hypersleep, but the time dilation…” he trails off, voice cracking behind the mask.

“What is that? You keep saying it, but what does it mean?” you groan.

“In space, time doesn't work the same way,” Jihoon explains, his voice thin and strained. “To put it simply: the faster you move out there, the slower time passes for you compared to everyone else. For me, it’s only been a few years since I left. To you…” He looks at the glowing skyline, his eyes wide and hollow. 

“Listen,” he continues, glancing at the three of you. “This may be hard to digest, and it’s hard for me too. But I left earth in 2026. I was supposed to be back in around fifteen to twenty years, not—”

“Two hundred?” Hoshi shakes his head slightly like he’s already decided what to do with all of that. “Yeah, no. I’m not buying it.”

Wonwoo finally speaks again. “I don’t think he’s entirely lying though. Look at him. He doesn’t look like he’s from here.”

“That doesn’t make the rest of it true.”

“No,” Wonwoo agrees. “But it makes him a problem either way.”

“And he’s unchipped too,” you add. “Got absolutely nothing on him. Either way, I think it’s best to take him back home and then have Vernon or someone look at his pod. I didn’t recognize most of the tech, but maybe he could.”

Hoshi lets out a quiet scoff, dragging his hand down his face as he looks between you and Jihoon again, like he’s trying to decide which part of this is worse.

“You’re serious about this,” he says, more a statement than a question.

“How can we leave him here? He’s pure.”

The wind cuts through again, kicking dust up around your boots and along the sides of the bikes. For a second, no one says anything. 

Wonwoo moves first. 

He steps closer, his attention still fixed on Jihoon as he reaches out and takes some of his weight from you without asking. 

“I’m Wonwoo,” he tells Jihoon as they trudge over to his bike. “We’ll take you back to the city and you’ll probably be questioned, but it’s safer than being out here.”

Jihoon nods faintly, like the words take a second to land but he understands enough of them. 

Hoshi exhales sharply behind you. 

“Get him on,” he mutters, already turning back to his bike. “You can get on mine.”

Up close, it’s even more obvious.

No seams under the skin. No faint glow at the wrists. No embedded lines running along the neck or spine. Just unmarked skin, making him stand out more than any modification ever could.

Wonwoo notices it too, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“You need to hold tight.” He says instead.

Jihoon hesitates for half a second, then does as instructed. Wonwoo waits a beat, making sure he’s steady, then reaches back to pull his helmet on, the visor sliding down with a soft click. 

You step back, rolling your shoulders once before moving toward Hoshi’s bike.

He glances at you as you swing on behind him, one eyebrow lifting slightly.

“You better be right about this,” he says.

“I am.”

“You don’t sound convincing.”

“Hoshi, stop being a bitch about it and just drive.” you grumble. 

The engine hums louder under you as he kicks it fully to life, the vibration settling through the frame and into your leg. Ahead of you, Wonwoo’s bike shifts first, turning cleanly toward the path that cuts back through the wreckage.

Jihoon turns his head slightly, looking back at the pod and the crater, like it might still hold some answers, but he turns forward again when he finds none.

The skyline burns brighter now that the last of the light has dropped out completely, neon bleeding into the dark, stretching higher than it has any right to. 

As the bikes pull out in one smooth motion, cutting back across the ridge and into the open stretch of the Wastelands, the wind picking up immediately as they move, Jihoon wonders if there is anything that still anchors this world to his, or if it’s all truly gone.

The first turn into the city is where it starts going wrong again.

Whatever little sense of direction Jihoon had held slips the moment they leave the open stretch behind. The lights come first, sharp and immediate, cutting through his vision in painful streaks. They flare and disappear and flare again from different angles, too bright, too close, and layered over each other until he can’t look at them directly.

He tries to observe his surroundings. He really does, but the glare burns at the back of his eyes, forcing them shut halfway before he can stop it, his grip tightening instinctively as the bike moves again, faster than his body can keep up with. The turns come without warning.

The air feels wrong too. It’s thicker, warmer and every breath he pulls through his mask feels more suffocating than relieving. It tastes like burnt chemicals, a sharp contrast to the sterile air of his spaceship and the pod. 

Every time the bike leans, Jihoon feels his stomach lurch. 

By the time the roar of the engines finally dies down, Wonwoo shifts, the kickstand hitting the pavement with a sharp clack that vibrates right through Jihoon’s bones.

"We’re here," Wonwoo says, his voice flat. "Get off."

Jihoon doesn't move. He can't. His fingers are locked in a death grip around the jacket in front of him. It takes a second for his brain to send the signal to let go, and when he finally manages to swing a leg over the seat, the world tilts to the left.

His boots hit the wet asphalt, and for a moment, he thinks he’s standing. Then, the ground seems to surge upward. He barely manages to stumble two steps away from the bike before he lunges forward, hands wringing the respirator off, and retches.

He vomits a string of thin, bitter preservation fluid and bile, the sound of his own gagging echoing off the narrow alley walls.

"God," Hoshi’s voice cuts through the dark, sounding more annoyed than concerned. "He’s getting that shit everywhere."

You wince, stepping over to Jihoon and placing a firm hand on his shoulder. He’s cold—so cold it bleeds through your gloves. Up close, his skin looks like translucent parchment under the flickering red sign above you.

"Easy," you mutter, though you’re looking at the alley entrance, checking for scanners. "Just get it out. We need to move."

Jihoon doesn’t respond.

He stays bent forward, one hand braced weakly against the wall, the other hanging uselessly at his side as his stomach keeps trying to turn over on nothing.

He drags in a breath. It doesn’t help much, but it’s better than the respirator. 

Swallowing hard, Jihoon squeezes his eyes shut for a second longer before forcing them open. His head throbs, the pressure behind his eyes pulsing in time with the flickering lights.

The alley comes into focus slowly.

It’s narrow and closed in, the walls on either side rising higher than they should for how little space there is between them. Water drips somewhere above, running down along exposed wiring before disappearing into the cracks in the ground.

The move from the alley to your safehouse is a blur of dragging feet and muffled curses. Wonwoo doesn’t complain when you ask him to hold up the man again, taking on most of his weight as you try to get him past the door as quickly as possible. The door seals shut behind you with a pressurized thud that vibrates through the floorboards, cutting the city's roar down to a dull, distant thrum. 

“Take him to Vernon,” Hoshi exhales as he moves past the three of you to throw himself onto the sofa. “Let him check the guy again.”

The tone of Hoshi’s voice ticks you off, but you let it pass for now. You can see where he’s coming from, and his instructions are only logical. 

Jihoon doesn’t lift his head fully, but he sees enough.

Work surfaces line one side of the room, cluttered but not disorganised, tools laid out in a way that suggests they’ve been used recently and will be used again soon. Wires run along the walls without being hidden, bundled together in places and left exposed in others, disappearing into panels that have been opened and closed too many times to sit flush anymore. There’s a smell here too, different from outside, less sharp but just as present, something metallic and faintly burnt.

“Vernon,” you call out, not raising your voice but letting it carry.

There’s a pause.

Then the scrape of something being moved, followed by a low, irritated response from somewhere deeper in the room.

“What?”

You don’t bother answering him. Instead you signal Wonwoo to move, not checking if Vernon’s preoccupied.

“I’ve got someone for you,” you say as you walk Jihoon in.

There’s a sound, something dragged across a surface, then a dull clatter. A second later, Vernon steps into view.

Jihoon doesn’t look at him properly at first.

He’s too focused on staying upright, on getting his feet to land where they’re supposed to, on the way the floor doesn’t quite feel stable under him yet. His grip tightens against Wonwoo’s sleeve as they move. The lights inside aren’t as bright or hard to look at, but they’re still overwhelming.

“What do you want me to do?” Vernon asks, eyes trained on Jihoon. He steps closer, tilting his head to look around. “Who is this?”

“We’ll tell you later,” you shake your head, dragging Jihoon to what looks like a surgical table in the middle of the room. “Hoshi wants him cleared first. Check for everything. Biomods, chips, sleepers—specifically anything linked to Lazarus. I doubt you’ll find anything, but still.”

Vernon lets out a short, sharp huff of air that might have been a laugh if he didn’t look so frayed. He wipes his hands on a rag that’s more grease than fabric and gestures toward the table.

“Get him up,” he says. “And try not to let him bleed on the scanners if he’s got any open wounds. I just recalibrated the sensors.”

Wonwoo hoists Jihoon up, seating him on the edge of the cold alloy. It’s a sharp bite that seeps through Jihoon’s clothes and makes his spine stiffen.

Jihoon finally forces his head up.

Vernon is standing right in front of him now. He’s younger than Jihoon expected, with features that might have been soft if they weren't sharpened by the jagged energy of whatever stimulants he's running on. His hair is a washed-out, synthetic blonde, messy and catching the overhead light in a way that makes it look like spun glass. There are thin, glowing lines under the skin of his temple.

You watch as Vernon reaches for one of his devices, his fingers twitching before he flexes them once. He starts at Jihoon’s head, his touch clinical and detached as he tilts Jihoon’s chin up. He’s thorough, his fingers pressing into the soft dip behind the ears, then tracing the vertebrae at the base of the skull. 

Vernon looks for the tell-tale seams of a Lazarus link—a clean metallic chip that should be fused to the bone—first. If the man’s got it, he’s got to go. His thumb digs into the ridge at the base of Jihoon’s skull, a heavy, probing pressure that forces Jihoon’s head forward. 

Jihoon winces, the cold of the probe finally making contact with his skin. It hums in a high-pitched, irritating whine that vibrates against his teeth.

“What are you guys doing to me?” Jihoon gasps out before his eyes land on you. “You said this would be safe.”

“Keep quiet,” Vernon grunts from behind him, gaze fixed on a small monitor to his left. 

The screen shows a flat green line. Nothing.

“He’s got no link,” he lets you know, stepping away from the table before you stop him.

“Check his whole body.” 

“Well, you’re going to have to tell me something at least, before you want me doing all that,” Vernon rolls his eyes. “Maybe you can start with why he looks so clean.”

Jihoon’s eyes stay locked on yours, his chest heaving under the thin fabric of his suit. He’s a long way from the quiet safety of his pod, and being handled like a machine by a twitchy stranger wasn’t a part of the deal.

You glance at him. “Tell him.”

Jihoon lets out a sharp, jagged scoff. The annoyance is starting to burn through the exhaustion now. But if he’s going to trust what his eyes are seeing, then they deserve an explanation.

“I’m not from here,” Jihoon recites, the words sounding practiced by now. “I mean, I am from Earth, just not from this time. I was on a spaceship. A research vessel, if you’d like to call it that.”

Vernon lets out a laugh. “Right. Lazarus hasn’t sent—”

“—anyone to space in decades?” Jihoon cuts him off, his voice sharper than intended. He feels done with this already. “Yeah, I heard. I don’t know what Lazarus is. I wasn’t sent by them.”

“He says he’s from—” you start, turning to him. “Which year are you from, again?”

“2026.” Jihoon sighs. “Listen, I don’t expect you to believe me. I’m having a hard enough time believing any of this is real myself.”

Vernon scoffs, shaking his head before he looks away. “Yeah,” he says, like that answers something for him instead of raising more questions. “That would do it.” 

Jihoon frowns. “What does that mean?”

“Means you’re either the cleanest Lazarus plant I’ve ever seen,” Vernon replies, already turning away from him to grab something else off the work surface, “or you’re exactly what you’re saying you are.” 

“So just do the check, won’t you?” You ask.

“Fine,” Vernon agrees. “Have you looked into him on the NetLink?”

“Yup,” you nod. “Doesn’t exist anywhere.”

Vernon pulls a heavy, ring-shaped scanner from its housing above the table, the joints of the mechanical arm screeching in protest.

“Lie back,” he orders.

Jihoon hesitates, glancing at you with a look that’s becoming increasingly weary, before he lets Wonwoo guide his shoulders down onto the metal.

The scanner ring begins to move, a slow, methodical crawl from his head down toward his feet. For a long time, the only sound is the hum of the machine and the frantic tapping of Vernon’s fingers on a glass keyboard. The screens are a wash of blue and green, mapping out details Jihoon can’t make out clearly.

“His lungs are pristine.” Vernon mutters, his brow furrowed. “No heavy metal deposits, no carbon scarring... it’s like he’s lived in a filter.” 

The scanner reaches Jihoon’s left leg, just above the ankle, and suddenly a sharp, high-pitched ping echoes through the small room. A section of the monitor flashes a warning in amber. 

From the corner of his eye, Jihoon sees the man named Hoshi walk up too. 

Vernon taps the screen, pulling up a 3D render of Jihoon’s tibia. Bolted to the bone is a thin, slightly oxidized plate held in place by four surgical screws. “Old-school compression plate and nails. Titanium, maybe?”

“It was a fracture,” Jihoon lets out almost sheepishly. 

Hoshi leans over Vernon’s shoulder, his eyes narrowing at the skeletal image on the screen. The annoyance that had been written across his face earlier shifts into a sharp, piercing curiosity. He looks at the metal bolts and then back at Jihoon’s face.

"A fracture," Hoshi repeats, his voice lacking its previous bite. "You broke your leg and they just... put nails in it?"

"It’s what we did," Jihoon mutters, feeling exposed under their gazes.

Vernon reaches out, his gloved fingers hovering just above Jihoon’s skin where the plate is hidden underneath. He almost looks fascinated.

"It’s not even smart-alloy," Vernon whispers, tapping a key to zoom in on the screws. "No bio-syncing. No neural feedback. It’s just dead weight. How do you even walk with these?”

"I just do?" Jihoon says, but it comes out like a question, the simplicity of his own words sounding ridiculous even to him. 

Vernon straightens up, the frantic energy around him somehow amplifying. 

"Aside from that antique in his leg, there’s nothing,” he confirms, nodding toward the monitor. “No trackers, no sleepers. His blood chemistry is... well, it’s perfect. It’s actually kind of disgusting how healthy he is." 

“He’s pure,” he adds before turning to Jihoon. “More than us, too. So you weren’t just making shit up, were you?”

Vernon leans back slightly from the console, eyes still scanning over the data as if it might rearrange itself into something more useful if he stares long enough, his fingers hovering just above the interface before dropping away with a faint click against the glass. 

He turns to you. 

“So you found him in the wastelands after he—let me get this right—fell out of the sky?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s telling us he’s from two hundred years ago.”

Jihoon lets out a tired sigh. “When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”

“It is ridiculous,” Vernon replies, but he sounds more interested than dismissive like he was before. “But it’s not ignorable.”

You shift from one foot to the other, folding your arms across your chest as you consider Jihoon for a second longer, like you’re deciding how much to say and how to say it without losing him halfway through. 

“Out there,” you start, nodding vaguely toward the direction you came from, “everything that still functions has already been stripped, rebuilt, repurposed, and patched together more times than it was ever designed to handle, and that’s just the machines.”

“And people?” Jihoon asks, the question coming quicker this time.

Wonwoo answers without hesitation. “Same principle.”

“You mean—what, prosthetics?” he asks, searching for a familiar concept to hold onto.

“Not just prosthetics,” Vernon cuts in, pushing himself off the console and stepping closer again, one hand gesturing vaguely toward Jihoon. “Replacements, reinforcements, integrations, whatever keeps things running. You lose something, you replace it. Something starts failing, you patch it before it takes something else down with it.”

“Organs, nerves, sensory inputs, structural support. Doesn’t matter what it is as long as it works.”

Jihoon recoils slightly, a wave of revulsion passing over his face as he looks at Vernon’s glowing temples. He swallows hard, trying to anchor himself against the insanity of this conversation.

"You keep using that word," Jihoon mutters, his voice tight. "Lazarus. What the hell is a Lazarus?" 

Hoshi lets out a quiet scoff, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “They’re a megacorp. They own the city, or close enough that the official wording doesn't even matter anymore. If a light switch flips, a train moves, or a hospital bed turns on, Lazarus takes a cut. If it draws power, they have their hands on the switch.” 

“The chips too,” Vernon adds absently, already half-turned back toward his console as he drags windows across the screen with quick, twitchy movements. “Lazarus Link. That’s what everyone’s carrying around in their heads.” 

Jihoon’s brows pull together faintly, his hands instinctively tracing up to the back of his bare neck.

“It interfaces with the nervous system,” Wonwoo explains before Vernon can answer in the most irritating way possible. “Originally it was marketed as medical support. Helps monitor your health, synchronising other implants and what not.”

“Cheap too,” Vernon mutters. “That’s how they got everyone.”

Jihoon’s gaze flicks between all of you slowly.

“And people just…” He hesitates. “Agreed to that?”

“At first?” Hoshi shrugs. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t they? It worked.”

“There were already biomods before the Link became standard,” Vernon adds absently. “The problem was compatibility. Different manufacturers built different hardware. Implants would reject each other, and your systems would lag trying to process the conflicting codes. Lazarus solved all of it.

“And now the problem is,” you continue, “that they’re making everyone meat-puppets now by making the Link mandatory.”

Jihoon shakes his head. “What does that mean?”

“To put it simply, they can override humans.”

Jihoon goes quiet after that. Not because he’s accepted any of it, but because there’s only so much horror a person can react to at once before it all starts flattening into numbness.

The scanner continues its low mechanical hum somewhere beside him while lines of data drift across Vernon’s monitors, casting pale blue light across the room. Jihoon stares past them without really looking, his eyes unfocused for half a second before he blinks hard and forces himself back into the conversation.

“And you people?” he asks eventually, voice rougher now. “Who exactly are you supposed to be?”

“That’s complicated.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Jihoon mutters.

You catch the way he presses his fingers harder into the edge of the table afterward, like he’s afraid the room might tilt again if he lets go.

Honestly, it might.

He still looks awful. The colour still hasn’t returned to his face, and his damp hair sticks unevenly against his forehead beneath the harsh overhead lighting. Even sitting still seems to take effort now, like he’s holding himself upright through sheer stubbornness.

That is, until Vernon suddenly steps forward again.

At first, Jihoon thinks he’s reaching for the scanner beside him, or maybe adjusting something on the monitor, but then Vernon catches Jihoon’s wrist in one gloved hand with surprising ease and presses something sharp into the inside of his arm before anyone fully registers what’s happening.

Jihoon jerks violently.

“What the fuck—”

Vernon lets go immediately, already stepping back again as he discards the empty injector into a nearby bin like this is perfectly normal. 

The room goes still.

“You injected him?” you snap.

Vernon shrugs before glancing at Jihoon. “You might wanna lie down.”

Jihoon stares at him in open disbelief for half a second before the sensation actually starts spreading through him.

The warmth hits first.

It isn’t painful, which somehow makes it worse. It slips through his bloodstream almost gently, slow heat curling up the inside of his arm before settling heavily behind his eyes and at the base of his skull. 

“Did you just drug me?” Jihoon rasps out, his brows pulling together as he blinks hard.

You sigh, tired. “Vern, seriously?”

“He’s exhausted and overloaded,” Vernon says, sounding almost bored now that the decision’s already been made. “I’m doing him a favour.” 

Jihoon’s thoughts begin slipping strangely against each other, the room around him softening at the edges every time he blinks. 

“You should’ve given him a heads-up, at least,” you say, “ease him into it or something.”

“I literally told him to lie down.”

“That was after you stabbed him.”

Jihoon tries to respond to that, but the words never fully form. Instead he fights the awful sensation of the room drifting sideways again.

His expression goes blank for a few seconds, like his brain has finally stopped keeping up with the rest of him, and before you realize what’s happening his entire body tips forward.

He hits the floor face-first with a heavy thud.

“I told him to lie down,” Vernon sighs, making the three of you glance at him in irritation. “Great. Now we can actually decide if we’re believing him entirely and what we’re going to tell him.”

By the time Minghao and Aki arrive, Jihoon’s already unconscious on your sofa with a fresh scrape across his cheekbone and one shoe half hanging off his foot.

Aki stops short the second she sees him.

“…that’s him?”

“The space guy, yes,” Hoshi replies from across the room. “Try not to sound so disappointed.”

“I’m not disappointed,” Aki says slowly, still staring. “I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this.”

You barely glance up from where you’re crouched beside the sofa, dragging antiseptic carefully across the scrape on Jihoon’s face while he remains entirely unresponsive to it now except for the occasional faint twitch in his brow. The bruise underneath is already beginning to darken beneath his pale skin that still looks absurdly clear under the lights.

“He hit the floor pretty hard,” Wonwoo says from somewhere behind you.

“That was because Vernon drugged him like a psycho,” you reply.

“He’s asleep now instead of having a fucking breakdown in my workspace. I take that as a win.” Vernon says distractedly as he tinkers with the prosthetic he’s put together from the parts you brought. “Aki, let me put this on.”

You press the gauze on Jihoon’s cheek. He flinches faintly when the antiseptic hits the scrape properly this time, his brows tightening for a brief second before smoothing out again immediately. 

Aki drops onto the sofa opposite to you, holding her arm out for Vernon, wires and exposed plating glinting as he reconnects something near the elbow joint in practiced moves. 

Her gaze drifts back to Jihoon.

You peel the backing off a synth-skin strip with your teeth before pressing it carefully against Jihoon’s cheekbone. Up close, the injury looks even more unfair against his face somehow, the redness standing out sharply beneath skin untouched by chemical scarring or interface seams.

“So we’re going to believe him fully?” Aki asks as Minghao drops onto the floor to sit beside you.

Vernon sticks his tongue out slightly, turning a screwdriver into the plates of her prosthetic. “You know how bad the lower orbits are now?”

Aki shrugs. “Bad enough that nobody goes up there anymore.” 

“Yeah, because everything up there’s dead.” Vernon gestures vaguely upward. “Half the satellites crashed decades ago, the rest got taken out by debris collisions. Every time something breaks apart it creates more debris, which breaks more shit apart, and now the entire atmosphere is basically wrapped in a field of metal moving fast enough to cut ships in half.” 

She grimaces faintly. “Right.” 

Vernon nods once toward Jihoon. “So unless Lazarus somehow launched a fake ancient pod through a collapsing graveyard just to trick six disconnected idiots hiding under Sector 17, I’m leaning toward him being real.” 

Then Minghao speaks.

“When we were younger,” he says slowly, still staring at Jihoon, “didn’t there used to be stories about somebody like this?”

Hoshi frowns immediately. “What, like wasteland conspiracy crap?”

“No.” Minghao’s brows furrow. “Not exactly.”

“There was some woman Lazarus wanted brought in alive,” he continues after a moment. “People used to talk about it all the time in the lower sectors. Said she talked about old Earth and missions and space stations and whatever.” 

Aki squints. “I vaguely remember people talking about some old drunk in the market levels.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Minghao says quietly. “People were actually scared of her.”

Hoshi snorts. “People in the lower sectors are scared of everything.”

“I’m serious.” Minghao’s tone finally pushes the room into silence.

He shifts slightly against the sofa, face set in concentration, like he’s reconstructing the memory piece by piece.

“I don’t remember where she came from, or if anyone even knew. I just remember hearing people say she’d been caught somewhere outside the city after talking about old missions and stations and coordinates and shit nobody understood.”

Wonwoo’s gaze lifts from where he’d been standing near the window.

“And Lazarus wanted her alive?”

“Yeah.” Minghao nods. “That’s why I remember it. Because it was weird. Lazarus usually just erases people.”

Aki folds her arms loosely. “You sure it wasn’t some scavenger making things up?”

“Maybe,” Minghao admits. “But there were bounty notices for her for a while.”

“What kind of notices?”

“I don’t know.” Minghao exhales. “I was a kid. But I remember people talking about how much Lazarus was paying to bring her in alive instead of dead.”

Hoshi frowns. “So she was important to them.”

You glance back toward Jihoon instinctively. 

He still hasn’t moved beyond the slow rise and fall of his breathing, one side of his face pressed deep into the worn-out sofa cushion.

Minghao turns to you. “What did you say the name of his mission was?”

“Uh,” you rack your brain. “Hermes. Some old Greek thing, I think. Why?”

“I can look into it,” he replies, glancing at Hoshi. “The chances of finding those bounty posters must be near-zero because Lazarus might’ve made sure to burn them off the planet, but it doesn’t hurt to try. We could see if they’re related.”

Everyone stays silent for a good minute or two. 

“None of this matters until he wakes up anyway.” Vernon finally gets up from the sofa with a loud sigh. “Does this mean you guys are going to tell him the truth about us?”

“Yes,” you answer immediately.

Hoshi’s head snaps toward you. “Come on!”

You look back at him flatly.

“He already knows enough to realise something’s wrong. And if he’s really disconnected like Vernon says, then hiding who we are from him doesn’t actually help anything.”

Hoshi opens his mouth again, shoulders tightening like he’s about to argue properly this time, but whatever he sees on your face makes him stop halfway through it. His jaw clenches once instead before he exhales and looks away toward the kitchen.

“Fine,” he mutters. “Whatever.”

Aki watches the exchange silently before glancing toward Jihoon again.

“He’s gonna lose his mind when he wakes up.”

“Nothing’s new,” Vernon almost laughs. “He’s done that already.”

You ignore him and reach down to pull the blanket back up where it had slipped off Jihoon’s shoulder. 

“You should check the pod soon,” you say eventually, looking toward Vernon. “If Lazarus hasn’t found it yet, that is. You might know what’s in it.”

“Yeah. I think I should wait for sometime, actually.” 

Hoshi frowns slightly. “Why? You think it’s tapped already?”

“No,” Vernon shakes his head. “I think if it’s a part of a space mission then he might have information that could be important. I wouldn’t want to go in there and fuck it up. It’s old tech after all.”

And so, you wait.

Jihoon wakes a few hours later, and before he knows it, the next two days pass too fast to be properly processed.

Every time he thinks he’s finally caught up to one revelation, somebody drops another one into his lap before the first has even settled. 

Your people who are hiding beneath the city call themselves pure, which initially makes no sense to him considering Vernon has glowing circuitry in his temples, Aki can peel the skin off half her forearm to expose the articulated mechanics underneath, and Hoshi’s spine has been reinforced so heavily that metallic plating flashes beneath the skin at the base of his neck whenever he moves the wrong way under bright lights. Even Wonwoo’s eyes aren’t fully human anymore, his left pupil occasionally catching and refocusing a few seconds too slowly.

And then there’s you.

You’re less obvious than the others until he notices the thin lines—similar to Vernon’s but fainter—disappearing behind your ear whenever you tie your hair back, delicate enough to pass for jewellery if someone wasn’t looking closely.

“That’s different,” you’d told him eventually after watching him stare at all of you in visible confusion.

“How?”

“Because none of us are linked anymore.”

That explanation somehow raises even more questions than it answers.

He learns quickly that disconnected people rarely survive long unless they know exactly how to disappear. Lazarus systems track almost everything automatically now through the Links: movement, transactions, transport access, medical scans. Most people can’t function without it because the city itself isn’t designed to work without it.

People like you exist anyway.

Hidden underneath it all in dead districts and abandoned maintenance levels and old transit routes nobody monitors properly because there’s nothing profitable left there.

Ghosts surviving inside blind spots.

“Like you,” Minghao offers, like that would make him feel any better. 

All Jihoon can think about is how nothing about any of you actually feels human in the way he understands it anymore.

He would’ve liked more time after that.

Time to sit still long enough for the panic to properly catch up to him, maybe. Time to think through the fact that every single person he has ever known is dead, that the world outside no longer functions according to rules he recognises, that corporations apparently control entire nervous systems now and people discuss it over dinner like weather.

Instead, Vernon changes his mind and decides the pod needs to become the immediate priority.

“If Lazarus finds it before we do, we’re fucked,” he says flatly the morning after, already dragging equipment apart across the workshop floor before Jihoon’s even fully awake. “So unless you want your ancient space coffin dissected by scavengers, start making a list.” 

And that becomes Jihoon’s next reality.

Sitting at the low apartment table half-dressed and still exhausted while trying to reconstruct the contents of a spacecraft from memory fast enough for people he met less than seventy-two hours ago to retrieve them before a megacorporation does.

At first, the list stays practical—medical kits, power cells, thermal blankets, atmospheric analysers, all his mission data. But soon enough, it wanders into territory he’s not sure he should go.

Jihoon thinks about the personal storage compartments in the pod. Photographs, journals, his phone which are thingsa thing they don’t seem to have anymore. There are coffee sachets tucked somewhere in the lower food drawers, sour candy and other stuff he’d carried from home. 

Things that suddenly matter more now than they ever did before because somewhere between launch and impact they went from being ordinary belongings to the only surviving pieces of an entire life nobody else on Earth remembers anymore. 

Vernon reads over the list once and immediately asks how exactly he expects them to carry all of that back through the wastelands. 

“A vehicle?” Jihoon suggests tiredly. “You don’t have cars?”

That earns an actual laugh from him.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let me just go buy one with my completely legal identity.”

Jihoon stares at him blankly.

It takes several more minutes for someone to explain that people disconnected from Lazarus systems don’t exactly get to make large purchases without immediately attracting attention from the very infrastructure that thinks they’re dead.

After that, the group descends into another argument about transport logistics while Jihoon sits there increasingly aware that he became part of this situation without really agreeing to it.

Eventually they agree on the bikes again.

“If it’s that necessary,” Hoshi mutters while looking over the list, “then we can make multiple trips.”

Jihoon doesn’t miss the way everybody’s eyes linger slightly longer on the mission data section than the rest of the page.

The disguise becomes another problem immediately afterwards. You let him know that he’d stick out like a sore thumb if he went out right now, with his jet-black hair and plain, oversized cotton clothes. 

Clean, pure, unmarked. He’s starting to get tired of hearing those words.

The suggestion of actual biomods gets shut down so quickly it almost startles everyone.

“No,” Jihoon says immediately the first time Vernon even vaguely brings it up. “Absolutely not.”

“It’d make this easier.”

“Anything but that.”

The refusal is so sharp and stubborn that he gives up entirely. Instead, they settle for imitation.

Aki makes him wear different clothes first. Layered fabrics, oversized jackets, and dark synthetic pieces stitched into the shoulders and chest to bulk out his silhouette until he stops looking so painfully out of place beside everybody else. Then come the fake external modifications—decorative plating adhered near his throat, metallic wraps around his fingers, and a hideously coloured wig that he’d only ever seen on himself through a filter while playing around with his niece.

When he walks out of the room, Hoshi doesn’t have the decency to hide his laughter. 

Jihoon ignores it though. Thinking of his niece was a bad decision. 

The memory hits him like a blow to the chest, knocking the breath out of him. He can still picture her sitting cross-legged beside him on the couch with one of those stupid face-filter apps open on his phone, laughing herself breathless every time it changed his hair into something increasingly ridiculous while he complained about looking like an unemployed SoundCloud rapper. 

But his eyes fall onto the interface opened up above your wrist and the thought falls away immediately, a strange feeling taking over him.

Vernon goes through the route for what feels like the tenth time, marking dead surveillance zones across a cracked projection screen with irritated precision. Hoshi checks weapons Jihoon still hasn’t fully gotten used to seeing lying casually across kitchen counters, while Aki sits cross-legged on the floor modifying one of the bike storage racks to carry more weight.

Jihoon mostly watches all of it happen around him with the detached feeling that his life has started moving too fast for his mind to follow.

At some point while everyone’s distracted, his gaze drifts toward you instead.

You’re crouched beside one of the bikes tightening something near the fuel line, sleeves shoved up past your elbows. His eyes flicker up to the metallic, glowing lines on your ears.

Human. Not human. 

Safe. Unsafe.

He hasn’t figured out how you manage to be both at once yet. 

“You’re not coming?” he asks eventually.

You glance up briefly. “No.”

“You’ll move faster with fewer people,” you continue. “And somebody has to stay here in case things go wrong.”

Half an hour later, Jihoon finds himself climbing onto the back of Hoshi’s bike with his heart beating so hard he can feel it in his throat.

The ride out into the Wastelands feels shorter this time. 

The city falls away behind them in layers of neon and noise, swallowed gradually by dead land and rusted wreckage stretching endlessly.

Vernon’s bike cuts ahead through the dust, headlights flashing briefly whenever the terrain shifts unevenly beneath them. The cold gets worse the farther they move from the city, sharp wind slicing through the gaps in Jihoon’s jacket until his fingers ache around the sides of the seat. 

Jihoon thinks it was hot the day he landed. Maybe the weather’s unpredictable too.

And then the crater appears again. Even from a distance, Jihoon recognises it immediately.

Something inside him tightens so fast it almost hurts.

The pod still sits half-buried where it landed, pale against the dark wasteland.

For a second nobody moves after the bikes stop.

Jihoon stares in silence as dread crawls up his spine. This is the last thing that belongs to his world, and once he’s done retrieving his things, he’s going to let these men ransack it. 

“You coming or what?” Hoshi calls out.

Jihoon blinks hard once before climbing off the bike. 

Up close, the pod looks smaller than he remembers. Smaller and more damaged too.

The heat scars along the outer shell stand out darker beneath the wasteland dust now, while sections of the hull plating have started cooling into warped shapes. Jihoon reaches out once he gets close enough, fingertips brushing across the surface fondly.

Silently, he thanks it for bringing him back alive, although he’s not sure if it’s a good thing anymore.

Hoshi helps him pull the hatch open again, and the smell of sterile air is enough to make tears prick at the corners of his eyes. For one awful second, it feels like he’s simply returned from maintenance and everything outside the hatch is still normal. Like if he turns around quickly enough he’ll hear mission chatter through the comms again or catch somebody laughing somewhere down the corridor. 

But there’s no time to stand there pretending.

Vernon’s already climbing inside behind him before the hatch has fully opened, eyes darting greedily across the walls and control systems while muttering under his breath.

“What the fuck?” he whispers once, almost reverently.

Jihoon moves before he can think too hard again.

The storage compartments come first.

He works quickly now, throwing sealed ration packs into the bags Hoshi brought. Vacuum-sealed meals disappear into dark backpacks one after another alongside emergency medical kits, thermal blankets and stacks of old power cells Vernon nearly rips out of his hands the second he sees them.

“These aren’t linked,” Vernon says, stunned, turning one over in his hands. 

Jihoon barely hears him.

His movements slow only once he reaches the lower compartment beneath the sleeping chamber. The personal stuff.

He stares at it for half a second too long before grabbing it anyway. 

The old plastic casing of his cassette player looks almost embarrassingly fragile sitting in his hands now, absurd-looking against the sharp glow of the pod systems around him. He runs his thumb once across the scratched surface before placing it carefully into one of the padded bags instead of tossing it with the rest.

His phone goes in next, a dead little brick carrying an entire lifetime inside it.

Hoshi watches him shove another handful of belongings into the bag before frowning slightly. “You seriously kept all this?”

Jihoon lets out a breath that almost becomes a laugh. “We were millions of miles from home. You gotta keep something to get you through all that loneliness.”

After that, he forces himself toward the control systems.

The monitors flicker weakly once he reactivates power, pale blue light washing back across the cockpit in uneven pulses while old diagnostic systems drag themselves awake around him.

The familiarity of it makes his chest ache. These controls he remembers. This he understands.

His fingers move automatically across interfaces while Vernon hovers close enough, practically vibrating while watching every input like he’s witnessing alien technology.

“What are you doing?” Hoshi asks eventually.

“Saving what matters.”

Jihoon slots a transparent sapphire disc carefully into the optical bay beneath the console before opening the archival systems. The pod responds sluggishly at first, old data directories unfolding across the screens in layers of telemetry, mission logs, crew recordings and navigation records stretching back years. 

There’s too much to encode onto it and he only has one disc. So he starts cutting pieces away. Research records and mission data stay. He scribbles as many of the important coordinates as he can onto a notebook, but that’s it.

Jihoon operates the pod’s laser manually, jaw tightening in concentration while microscopic lines begin etching themselves silently into the sapphire surface inside the chamber.

Permanent storage that’s untraceable and inaccessible unless someone physically holds it.

Vernon watches the process with undisguised fascination. “You’re burning the data into glass?”

“Sapphire composite,” Jihoon corrects absently.

“That’s insane.”

“Do you reckon you’d be able to build me a machine to read this?” Jihoon asks without looking away from the console. “I can help, but I can’t source materials.” 

“…Probably,” he says after a second. “Might take a little time.” 

“I’ve got time,” Jihoon mumbles. “Not like I have anyone to report to now.”

Vernon glances at him but doesn’t comment on it. 

Jihoon keeps working while it encodes.

There’s still too much left.

The crew logs pull up next across the monitor, years of recordings stacked beside one another in neat chronological rows, and suddenly the pod feels suffocatingly small again.

He stares at the directory before pulling an old tablet from beneath the console storage to transfer the files. He can keep most of it, but he realises that there will still be a few recordings that he has to give up.

Jihoon’s fingers move faster after that, selecting and deselecting folders almost desperately while the transfer bar crawls across the screen in uneven increments. Crew video logs, audio journals, and messages from Earth. Small useless clips captured during transit because they were bored and lonely and millions of miles from home. 

“This one?” Vernon asks quietly, pointing towards a file. 

The preview frame shows four crew members floating upside down near the galley ceiling with a bright, sparkling light behind them. 

Jihoon instantly recognises it as the first time they’d seen the sun in space. 

Seokmin had spent the next few hours breaking into song—Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles—because nobody could get him to shut up once he got emotional. 

If he tries hard enough, Jihoon can almost hear his clear voice singing along to the track.

Vernon notices the way his expression changes and lowers his hand from the screen without opening the file.

“Keep it?” he asks quietly.

Jihoon swallows once before nodding. Yes.

[The screen is black, but there’s laughter. 

The camera swings too fast at first, catching streaks of amber light and dark wooden walls before somebody nearly drops it onto a sticky table littered with empty glasses.

"Careful!" someone yells immediately from across the booth. "If you break that before launch day I’m actually leaving you on Earth. It was expensive."

Rain lashes softly against the windows behind them, turning the city outside into smudged streaks of colour beneath signs and passing headlights. The pub itself glows warm underneath hanging gold lights strung lazily across the ceiling, the air thick with music and overlapping conversations while terrible karaoke echoes from somewhere deeper inside the building.

The camera swings sideways again.

Jihoon’s sitting crushed between two other crew members in the booth, one arm shoved awkwardly over Seokmin’s shoulder, who laughs hard enough to spill beer onto the table.

“Man, stop it!” he complains immediately.]

Vernon gets the projector to work after spending nearly twenty minutes swearing at file formats older than anybody there besides Jihoon. The projector itself sits disassembled beside the television now with half its wiring exposed, humming loudly every few seconds like it resents being alive.

The holograph flickers softly across the apartment walls, warm gold light spilling through the dim room in a way that almost feels unnatural against the cold blue neon usually leaking through the windows. 

Hoshi and Minghao have taken over most of the sofa while Aki sits cross-legged against one of the armrests with her chin propped in her palm, and Vernon remains crouched beside the projector in case it stops working again. Wonwoo leans against the kitchen doorway further back, arms folded loosely across his chest.

Jihoon ends up on the cold floor, shoulder to shoulder with you. 

He sits with one knee pulled close to his chest, eyes fixed on the video, unsure if this is to sate him or the curiosity of the others.

[A woman behind the camera laughs quietly while panning across a massive room packed with monitors and screens, a huge screen at the front of it displaying multiple tabs of telemetry, mapping and images. 

Rows and rows of people move between terminals carrying coffee cups and stacks of paper while conversations overlap into indistinct noise.

“Say bye to the mission control room!” She murmurs. “We’ll see you soon.”]

“You had these many people working on your mission?” Vernon asks.

Jihoon barely looks away from the holograph. “More than this.”

Aki squints. “For how many people?”

“Four.” He purses his lips. “The one holding the camera is Aera. She was our Chief Systems Architect and a senior mission specialist. The men sitting beside me in the first video are Seokmin, who was our astrobiologist and physician, and Jeonghan, who was our Life-Support Systems engineer.”

The others only nod in response, and the room falls into an awkward silence.

You watch as Jihoon laughs on screen, eyes scrunched as he throws his head back in response to something Jeonghan does as they float around somewhere. It looks strange, but he looks… happy.

You break it first. “And what did you do?”

He glances at you once before his eyes flick down to the floor. 

“I was the Mission Commander,” he mumbles. “And the astrodynamicist.”

Jihoon doesn’t have to elaborate because the implication arrives on its own. 

The holograph flickers softly across the apartment walls again.

[The camera jolts violently before stabilising upside down.

Jihoon groans somewhere behind the lens.

The aircraft cabin is chaotic.

Bodies drift weightlessly through the air while loose straps and packets float toward the ceiling in slow motion. Aera crashes directly into Jeonghan hard enough that both of them spin sideways out of frame immediately afterward.

Seokmin desperately grabs one of the overhead handles while laughing so hard he can barely breathe.

“I hate this,” Jihoon says, although the look on his face suggests otherwise.]

The recordings continue unfolding one after another across the apartment while the room grows steadily quieter around them.

Mission briefings, rain against apartment windows, someone filming city traffic through a taxi windshield late at night, the crew eating takeout containers on the floor surrounded by stacks of paperwork, and Earth still ordinary enough.

At some point Hoshi gets up for water and leaves with Wonwoo. 

Then Aki disappears toward the bedrooms after nearly falling asleep against Minghao’s shoulder halfway through a recording. Vernon lingers the longest besides you, crouched near the projector absentmindedly, but eventually even he drifts away too after muttering something about checking the sapphire decryption machine.

The living room quietens once the doors close.

Jihoon doesn’t seem to notice, and if he does, he doesn’t seem to have the energy left to acknowledge it anymore.

You don’t really know what you’re supposed to do with him anymore. 

In the four days you’ve known him, every expression you’ve seen on his face has belonged to somebody overwhelmed, disoriented or grieving in ways too large to process all at once. He looks confused, guarded and exhausted all the time.

But the man sitting beside you now couldn’t be more different from the man on screen.

You wonder if calling him a ghost has really seemed to make him one, because the man on the screen is alive and the one beside you looks far from it.

Jihoon looks as pale as the day you found him, the dark circles beneath his eyes fixed in place. You can’t remember the last time you actually saw him sleep properly instead of just passing out from exhaustion somewhere for a few hours at a time.

He barely eats either.

Not your food. Not anything from here.

Every meal has come from those vacuum-sealed ration packets he dragged back from the crash site, dry preserved food he consumes more out of necessity than appetite while insisting his body still needs time to adapt to whatever people eat now.

You’re not even sure if that’s true or if he simply can’t stomach the thought of letting go of one more familiar thing yet.

And somehow, despite knowing him for less than a week, despite the fact that he technically fell out of the sky and brought enough problems with him to destroy all of your lives if Lazarus finds out, you still catch yourself watching him out of the corner of your eye wondering what the hell’s going through his head.

Slowly, you let your eyes fall back to the videos.

[Darkness fills the screen at first.

Then slowly, Earth turns into view beyond thick observation glass.

Deep blue oceans, white clouds stretching endlessly across the curve of the planet.

The only sound comes from the low mechanical hum of the ship itself somewhere behind the recording.

Then, very quietly, a voice full of awe:

“Oh.”]

It takes Jihoon a second to register that it’s also coming from beside him. 

He smiles a little despite himself. 

“It’s beautiful,” you gasp out. “Is it still like this?”

“I—” he glances at you. “I’m not sure. Maybe not.”

It’s not meant to come out so bleakly, but he doesn’t have the heart to correct himself.

For a second Jihoon can almost trick himself into believing he’s there again.

Not here beneath layers of rusted infrastructure and failing power grids and neon signs that never properly turn off, but there instead, suspended somewhere above Earth with sunlight bleeding across the observation glass while Seokmin argues with somebody in the background and Aera keeps filming things nobody else thinks are important enough to preserve.

The thought hurts too quickly to hold onto for long. He drags one hand slowly across his face before leaning back against the couch.

Footsteps cut through the silence, fast enough for the two of you to glance up immediately, just as Minghao reappears around the corner. He looks more awake than he did when he left.

“There was a woman on your mission!” he exclaims before either of you can speak. 

Jihoon’s brows pull together. “Huh?”

Minghao looks toward you instead of answering immediately, like he’s only now realising he probably should’ve led into this differently.

You straighten, glancing at Jihoon with slight concern. “Maybe this can wait until tomorrow—”

“The woman I was talking about before.” Minghao ignores you, gesturing vaguely toward the holograph still glowing across the room. “The one Lazarus wanted alive.” 

You try again anyway. “Minghao.”

“What?” he groans. “You don’t think he deserves to know?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Aera? What about her?” Jihoon asks, holding up a palm to interrupt you guys.

Minghao steps into the room fully, hands slipping into his pockets. You throw a warning glance which he ignores again. 

This can’t possibly be the best information to give Jihoon. Not right now, at least. But the usually perceptive Minghao doesn’t seem to understand that today.

“When we were younger,” he starts, “people in the lower sectors used to talk about some woman Lazarus had been hunting for a long time. Nobody knew where she came from exactly, but there were stories about her showing up outside the city talking about missions and stations and things nobody understood properly. Like you.”

Jihoon straightens.

You suppress a sigh immediately.

“At first everybody thought she was insane,” Minghao continues, “but Lazarus apparently wanted her brought in alive, which made people start taking the stories seriously. There were bounty notices for a while.”

“Notices?”

“I don’t remember.” Minghao shakes his head. “I was a kid. I just remember hearing that Lazarus was paying absurd amounts for information on her.”

You finally cut in before this spirals any further. “Hao, we don’t even know if it’s the same person.”

“I know that,” he replies immediately. “I’m just saying—”