PIZZA BOII👾

You follow him past the treadmills and weight racks, doing your best not to stare at his shoulders. He explains everything patiently, tells a few silly jokes, and never makes you feel out of place.

By the time you get to the free weights, your heart is racing. You came for a revenge body, but ended up with a crush instead.

After the tour, he leads you back to the front, where you tell him you’re getting the membership.

You stand there, debit card in hand, nails pressing into the plastic as the gym buzzes around you. Weights clank in the distance. The music thumps quietly, a beat you haven’t caught up to yet. Your hoodie feels too warm, and your leggings feel tight in all the places you try not to think about.

San leans against the counter, clicking through the computer screen with a focused look as he enters your basic information.

“Okay,” he says, tapping the screen and turning it slightly toward you. “This plan gives you full access, group classes if you feel brave enough, and a complimentary trainer for your first week.”

You blink. “Free?”

“Mhm. No traps. No surprise charges. No ‘gotcha’ moment.” He grins. “We’re not completely evil.”

That pulls a laugh out of you before you can stop it.

He walks you through the paperwork, explaining everything clearly and never rushing. If you pause on a screen, he stays quiet. If you hesitate before signing, he looks away. He gives you space without making it awkward.

“So,” he says casually, folding his arms on the counter. The black T-shirt pulls across his chest so nicely that you have to avert your eyes. “For the trainer week, you can pick anyone you want. We’ve got a few really great ones.”

He scrolls through a list, pointing as he goes. “Jihyun’s amazing with beginners. She’s terrifyingly strong. Like…casually deadlifts your body weight strong.”

Your eyes widen. “That’s horrifying.”

“She smiles while doing it too,” he adds, dead serious. “Honestly, most of our female trainers could destroy the men. It’s very humbling.”

You snort before you can help it, covering your mouth as heat creeps up your cheeks. “Good to know.”

He glances up at you, amused, clearly pleased he made you laugh again. “I’m just saying. If strength is the goal, they’re your safest bet.”

“And you?” you ask before thinking.

He tilts his head, pretending to consider it. “Me?” A beat. Then, with mock confidence, “I might be the best. Possibly. Allegedly.”

You roll your eyes, smiling despite yourself. “Of course you would say that.”

“Hey, I said might,” he laughs. Then his tone softens, more grounded. “But seriously, no pressure. You can choose anyone. Or switch later. Or never train again after the week. Totally your call.”

You look at the screen again, reading the names. You catch your reflection in the shiny surface—small, soft in places you wish you weren’t—standing next to someone who looks like he was made to be here.

Training with him would mean being seen at your sweatiest and most awkward.

“I don’t really…” You trail off, fingers tightening. “I don’t want to feel…worse about myself.”

San’s smile fades, just a little. Not gone, just gentler. “Hey,” he says quietly. “I’m very professional. And respectful. That’s kind of my whole thing.”

He gestures vaguely behind him. “You can ask literally any of my clients. I won’t be offended if you don’t pick me. I just want you to feel comfortable.”

He doesn’t lean in. Doesn’t persuade. Just waits.

The choice weighs on you.

You swallow, then nod. “Okay,” you say, surprising yourself. “We can try.”

His smile returns, slow and bright, dimples carving themselves deep into his cheeks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

San taps your name into the system. “Cool. Then I’ll take extra good care of you.” A pause. “Gym-wise,” he adds quickly, laughing.

You laugh too, feeling nervous and your heart beating fast.

The consultation room is quieter than the rest of the gym, tucked away behind frosted glass and muted walls. The bass of the music outside fades into a distant thrum, like something happening in another life. There’s a small table, two chairs, and a clipboard resting neatly on top. It feels intimate in a way you didn’t anticipate. Less gym, more confessional.

San is already there when you step in.

Black joggers again. A fitted charcoal hoodie this time, sleeves pushed up just enough to expose forearms that look insane. His hair falls in his eyes slightly, parted near the bridge of his nose. He looks great.

“Hey,” he says, standing as you enter. Warm smile. Dimples. Perfect white teeth.

“Hi,” you manage, voice softer than you intended.

He gestures for you to sit and takes the chair across from you instead of next to you. It feels professional and thoughtful. He opens the clipboard but doesn’t look at it right away.

“So,” he begins, tone easy, unhurried. “This is just a vibe check. No pressure. I want to know why you’re here and what you want out of this.”

You swallow. “Well,” you start, defaulting to something rehearsed, something safe. “I just want to get healthier. Stronger. You know. Routine. Consistency.”

San nods patiently, but his eyes stay on your face. They’re sharp but kind, as if he can see what you’re not saying.

“Mhm,” he hums. A pause. Then gently, “That’s the brochure answer.”

Your mouth twitches. “Is it that obvious?”

“A little,” he admits with a soft smile. “But that’s okay. You don’t owe me the real one if you’re not ready.”

He finally looks down at the clipboard, giving you space. The room goes quiet. You stare at your hands in your lap, fingers twisting together.

“I can’t help you properly if I don’t know what’s really going on,” he adds quietly. “And whatever it is, this room’s safe.”

The way he says it makes your chest hurt.

You inhale, then exhale slowly. “My ex cheated on me.”

San’s pen stills.

You keep going before you can stop yourself. “I know it’s not my fault. I know he’s the one who messed up. Everyone keeps telling me that. But…” Your voice wobbles despite your effort. “I can’t stop wondering why.”

You finally look up at him, eyes burning. “Was I not enough? Did I let myself go? Was there something missing?”

You laugh weakly. “He said it ‘didn’t mean anything.’ Like that makes it better.”

The words spill out now, months of quiet insecurity finally finding air. “I feel inadequate. Like, no matter how hard I try, there’s always someone better.”

San doesn’t interrupt once.

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t rush you, doesn’t try to fix it mid-sentence. He listens like this matters. Like you matter. When you finish, the room is silent again, but it feels different. Lighter.

He takes a slow breath, clearly choosing his words carefully.

“You are enough,” he says, voice firm but gentle. No hesitation. 

Your throat tightens.

“What your ex did says everything about him and nothing about your worth,” he continues. “People don’t cheat because their partner isn’t enough. They cheat because they don’t know how to sit with themselves.” He pauses, then continues. “Curiosity isn’t an excuse. It’s a character flaw when it hurts someone else.”

He leans back slightly, still keeping a respectful distance. “It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t okay.”

Then, more casually, as if it’s obvious, he says, “And for what it’s worth, you’re gorgeous.”

Heat floods your face instantly. “San,” you protest, half laughing, half mortified. “Is that professional?”

His grin is immediate, boyish, devastating. “Absolutely not.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“My job,” he says, tapping the clipboard, “is to help you see what’s already there. Strength isn’t just muscles. It’s confidence. And you have more potential than you think.”

Your heart stutters.

“We’ll take this one step at a time. I’ve got you.”

San stands first, the chair legs scraping softly as he reaches for a tray of locker keys by the door. They clink together, the sound grounding you after everything you just shared.

“Alright,” he says, lighter now, like he’s intentionally easing the air. “Logistics.”

You watch him sign a number onto your file, neat handwriting, practiced motions. When he hands the key to you, his fingers brush yours briefly.

“So,” he continues, walking toward the door and holding it open for you, “fitness goals.”

You trail after him, heart still fluttery from the conversation. “I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say.”

“That’s fine,” he replies easily. “Some people come in with spreadsheets. Some people come in with vibes.”

You huff a laugh. “I’m definitely vibes.”

He laughs and nods approvingly before continuing. “Common reasons are strength, endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Sometimes all of the above.”

You chew your lip as you think, the hallway to the locker rooms echoing softly. “Okay. Um. Honestly?”

He glances at you. “Always.”

“I want to be skinnier,” you say, the words tumbling out before you can soften them. “I want to feel confident. And maybe…grow my ass in the process?”

The words linger in the air.

San slows down before stopping.

He looks at you, expression unreadable for half a second, then his mouth curves into something amused and dangerously calm.

“You already have a nice ass,” he says, conversationally. Like he’s commenting on the weather. “Doesn’t really need growing. Maybe toning, if that’s what you want. But it’s your body.”

You nearly trip over your own feet.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt, heat flooding your face. “What?”

He keeps walking, as if nothing happened, utterly unbothered. “You heard me.”

No. No, surely not.

You scramble to keep up. “San.”

“Mhm?”

“Can you repeat that?”

He stops again, turns fully this time. Same relaxed posture. Same warm eyes. Same devastating composure.

“You have a nice ass,” he repeats evenly. “And we’ll train based on what you want and need.”

Your brain short-circuits.

He laughs then, low and genuine, dimples flashing. “I’m professional,” he says. A pause. Then, with a shrug, “For the most part.”

Your eyes widen.

“But,” he adds smoothly, “I’m still a man. With eyes.”

He winks.

You stand there, the locker key digging into your palm, your heart racing, wondering if this gym membership comes with hazards you're not emotionally prepared for.

The scale sits in the corner of the assessment room, silently mocking you.

San pulls the privacy curtain halfway closed, not because it’s required, but because he notices the way your shoulders tense the second you see it. He gestures toward it with an easy hand.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he says gently.

You slip off your shoes, suddenly hyperaware of everything. The softness of your stomach. The curve of your hips. The way your thighs touch when you stand still.

You step onto the scale, eyes fixed firmly on the wall instead of the numbers lighting up beneath your feet.

San doesn’t react. He writes the number down calmly, like it’s just another data point in the world.

“These,” he says gently, motioning to the clipboard, “are just numbers. They’re not a grade. They’re not a judgment.”

He moves to take your measurements next, tape cool against your skin. He asks before each one. Arm. Waist. Hips. Thigh. His touch is professional, careful, never lingering longer than necessary.

“You don’t need to feel shy,” he adds quietly, as if reading your thoughts. “Not around me. Not around anyone here. My coworkers included.”

You swallow. “It’s hard not to.”

“I know,” he says. “But this is just a starting line. We take these now so later we can look back and say, ‘Wow, look how far you’ve come.’ Or even just, ‘Wow, I feel better.’ That part matters more.”

He steps back, meeting your eyes. “Strength is important. And obviously, health is most important. But mental health is part of that—I want you to leave feeling good in your skin.”

You feel a little more at ease.

You hesitate, then admit softly, “I’ve always been…thicker than everyone else in my family. They’re all small. Petite. I kind of stuck out.”

San glances at your hips, then back up, smiling warmly. “Well,” he says, “people are built differently.” He taps the clipboard. “And some people are lucky to have a little extra.”

Your face goes hot instantly. “San.”

“What?” he asks innocently, dimples deepening. “Nothing wrong with having something to hold onto.”

You laugh, a little flustered, but also more comfortable around him.

The first week is hell.

There’s really no other way to describe it.

You learn this the moment you catch your reflection in the locker room mirror, tugging at the hem of your athletic wrap top. The outfit is new, carefully chosen.

Black leggings, a black sports bra, and a wrap that hugs your waist just enough to help you feel secure. Black hides sweat and shadows. Still, you look cute.

San notices immediately.

You’re halfway through stuffing your things into the locker when he stops short behind you and lets out a low whistle.

“Well,” he says, impressed and entirely unashamed. “Someone understood the assignment.”

Your head snaps up. “San!”

“What?” he asks, hands up, dimples showing. “You look good. Gym fashion matters.”

You feel heat bloom across your chest and neck, laughing as you shut the locker a little too hard. “You’re distracting.”

“It comes with the job,” he says with a grin. “Ready?”

Fifteen minutes on the treadmill nearly convinces you to quit on day one.

San matches your pace beside you, chatting casually while you struggle to keep up. Your legs ache, and sweat forms at your hairline almost right away.

“Warming up,” he says cheerfully. “Gotta wake the muscles.”

“They were asleep for a reason,” you gasp.

He laughs.

Then you stretch on the floor. Mats, slow movements, deep breaths. San shows each pose with ease, correcting you gently and always asking before he helps. He explains why each move matters.

And then he introduces the workout.

“It’s beginner-friendly,” he promises.

It is, technically. But beginner-friendly does not mean painless.

Squats that make your thighs scream. Push-ups that feel personal. Core exercises that you swear are invented by cruel people with vendettas. San counts your reps, encouraging and praising you, never letting you give up, but never forcing you past your limit either.

“Breathe,” he reminds you. “You’re doing amazing.”

By the end of the hour and a half, you’re drenched, legs shaking, and drinking water as if you haven’t had any in days. San crouches in front of you, eyes bright, still full of energy.

“You crushed that,” he says. “Seriously.”

You groan. “I think I saw my life flash before my eyes.”

“And yet,” he grins, “you survived.”

The rest of the week follows the same pattern.

Pain. Sweat. Soreness in muscles you didn’t know you had. Stairs are tough. Sitting down takes effort. Have you ever had to grab the sink basin for support just to sit on the toilet? It was that bad.

San’s constant positivity is almost annoying at first, always upbeat and encouraging. But somewhere between the soreness and the sweat, something changes. You start to feel good—capable and proud.

By the end of the week, when San asks if you want to keep training, his enthusiasm is already there before you answer.

“Absolutely,” you say, smiling.

He grins right away, looking proud. “Knew it,” he says. “This is just the beginning.”

Three months in, the mirror tells a different story.

It’s not a dramatic change or a movie-style transformation. It’s real progress. Your body hasn’t become unrecognizable. It’s still yours, still soft in places, but now there’s muscle underneath. You feel stronger and more grounded.

Your habits have changed before you even noticed. You wake up earlier, drink more water, and stretch when your body needs it. Now you want to move, not to punish yourself, but because it clears your mind and makes you feel stronger. That change alone feels huge.

San did that.

Well, not exactly. He guided, nudged, and helped you change.

You remember the first time you told him you wanted to go into a calorie deficit, how casual you were about it. Like it was obvious.

“That’s all I know,” you’d shrugged. “Eat less. Count everything.”

San had frowned, concerned. “You don’t need to eat less,” he’d said patiently. “You just need to eat better.”

And then he dismantled everything you thought you knew. Explained food like fuel instead of calories entering your body. Taught you to stop demonizing meals and start building them. Protein. Fiber. Real food. He laughed when you complained about cutting dairy.

“Why are you drinking cow milk,” he’d said, deadpan, “if you’re lactose intolerant?”

You hated that he was right.

Somewhere in that first week, you’d exchanged numbers. Strictly practical, he said. So you could send him photos of your meals. Proof you were sticking to the plan.

That lasted about four days. Now you text constantly.

Memes, random thoughts, updates about your day. He sends you gym jokes and terrible puns. You send him screenshots of design projects and ask if the colors look good. One night, you had to drive two hours to your parents’ for an emergency, and he asked you to share your location.

“Just so I know you’re safe,” he’d said casually.

It shouldn’t feel this intimate. It definitely isn’t professional.

But you love it.

You love that he checks in on rest days. That he celebrates your non-scale victories harder than you do. That he notices when you’re tired. That he still hypes you up like day one.

Sometimes he flirts.

A comment about how strong you’re getting. A look held a second too long. A teasing remark that makes your stomach flip and your brain scramble for explanations. Is this confidence boosting? Trainer encouragement? Or is this a man flirting with a woman he’s interested in?

You’re not sure.

What you do know is that you’re healthier. Happier.

Six months changes things in quiet, dangerous ways.

You don’t realize how much until you walk through the gym doors wearing pink.

Not muted blush. Not dusty rose. Pink pink. Leggings that hug your figure perfectly, a matching sports bra that leaves your shoulders bare, your midriff unapologetically visible. No wrap. No safety layer. No oversized hoodie clutched like a shield.

Now you do the pump cover thing. Oversized shirt on the way in, hoodie tied around your waist. You shed it once the heat builds, once your body warms, once you remember that you’re allowed to exist like this. You’re not fully confident. Not bulletproof. But you know, deep down, that you look good.

Your waist has cinched in naturally, like it finally remembered its shape. Your stomach lies flat, especially after San stopped gatekeeping his debloating tea, leaning in close one morning as if he were sharing state secrets.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he’d whispered, glancing around dramatically before murmuring the name.

The gym is quiet today. Too quiet.

You slow near the front desk, fingers brushing the counter as you look around. No clanking weights. No treadmills humming. Just the shitty gym music thumping through the speakers.

You frown. “Hello?”

And then, like he’s been summoned by the sound of your voice, San pops out from behind the hallway with a grin that hits you square in the chest.

Pink suits him too, apparently, because his eyes drop for half a second before snapping back up, dimples carving deep into his cheeks.

“Wow,” he says, not subtle at all. “You’re glowing.”

Your cheeks warm instantly. “You’re staring.”

“I am appreciating,” he corrects.

You cross your arms, pretending not to love that. “Where is everyone?”

“New Year’s Eve,” he replies easily. “Everyone’s either getting ready to go out or already starting parties.”

“Oh,” you say, glancing around again. “That makes sense.”

Then it hits you.

“You’re here,” you point out.

He hums, stepping closer, hands tucked casually into his jogger pockets. He looks relaxed. Very much not in trainer mode.

You haven’t quite adjusted to that yet.

Last week still feels surreal.

When the program ended, you’d panicked. Told him immediately you wanted to extend. That you weren’t done. That you still needed him.

He’d laughed, pulled you into a hug without hesitation, arms warm and familiar around you.

“You don’t need me like that anymore,” he’d said fondly. “Besides, you could train me now.”

You’d laughed, but the fear had lingered. That you’d become just another success story. That he’d give someone else the same attention, the same care. That he’d share locations with new clients. Send them memes. Check in like he did with you.

It had made your stomach twist.

San must see something on your face now because his smile softens. “C’mon,” he says, nodding toward the treadmills. “Let’s warm up.”

You fall into step beside him.

“So seriously,” you ask, trying for casual. “Why are you here if it’s dead?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Because you are.”

Your brain short-circuits.

“Oh,” you manage, voice betraying you entirely.

He grins, glancing sideways. “Relax. You’re stuck with me.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah,” he says, amusement laced with something deeper. “You’re my gym wife. You don’t get rid of me that easily.”

You scream internally.

You step onto the treadmill beside him, pulse racing, the empty gym suddenly feeling charged with possibility. New year. New body. New rules.

You both start your machines, walking side by side, arms swinging loosely, conversation drifting without effort. San talks about a client who tried to deadlift in jeans. You complain about a design project that refuses to cooperate.

Then he bumps the speed up.

“Light jog,” he says.

You groan, but comply, breathing evenly as your ponytail sways behind you. He keeps talking like this is nothing. A minute passes. Then two. Then he grins at you and taps the console again.

“Sprint.”

“What—San!”

But you’re laughing as your legs pump faster, heart racing, lungs burning. He matches you effortlessly, glancing over with that maddeningly calm expression, counting under his breath.

“Ten more seconds.”

You survive. Barely.

Jog again. Then sprint. Then jog. Over and over, until sweat slicks your skin and your muscles sing with effort. By the time he finally slows you down, your chest is heaving, legs trembling, a wild, exhilarated smile on your face.

“That,” he says proudly, “was beautiful.”

You flip him off affectionately.

Since the gym is empty, he connects his phone to the speakers. His playlist fills the space instantly, bass-rich, energizing, so much better than the generic gym loop. You stretch together on the mats afterward, San correcting your form with touch instead of words now, hovering close.

Then it’s squat time. Leg day for him. Glute day for you.

You grab your water bottle and phone, bending to set them down beside your rack. You feel his gaze before he says anything. When you glance over, he’s mid-warm-up, bar resting across his chest, eyes very much on you.

“Yeah,” he says casually. “You can definitely tell.”

You blink. “Tell what?”

“The difference in your glutes,” he adds, nodding toward you. “Especially in that pink set.”

Heat rushes straight to your face. “You’re flirting again,” you accuse. “And staring.”

He shrugs, dropping into a front squat with effortless depth. “I’m not your trainer anymore.”

“That doesn’t mean you stop being a gentleman,” you counter, folding your arms.

He rises smoothly, racking the bar, eyes bright with amusement. “I have my limits,” he says simply. “Especially when it comes to you.”

Your laugh comes out nervous, breathy.

He grins at the sound, clearly enjoying your reaction, then turns his focus back to his workout like he didn’t just unravel you with a sentence.

You grip your bar, heart racing, very aware that something between you has shifted again.

You eye the plates for a long second before you speak. Your bar is loaded heavier than usual.

“Hey,” you say, glancing over at San. “Can you spot me?”

His eyebrows lift, impressed before he even answers. “Going for a PR?”

You nod, nerves buzzing. “Last set.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Always.”

You kick off your shoes first, nudging them aside with your foot. The rubber soles thud softly against the floor. Bare feet feel better. More control. You learned that from him. The bar rests heavily across your shoulders as you step under it, grip tightening, breath slowing.

And then San is behind you. Not touching yet. Just there.

You are suddenly acutely aware of everything. The heat of the room. The sheen of sweat on your skin. The way his chest rises behind you as he mirrors your stance, knees bent slightly, ready. The mirror in front of you reflects it all. Your focus. Your strain. Him, solid and steady at your back.

“Alright,” he murmurs near your ear. “Deep breath. I’ve got you.”

You squat slowly. Controlled. Your hamstrings and glutes burn immediately, muscles protesting as you sink deep. San follows your movement instinctively, his body lowering with yours, close enough that you can feel him without being touched.

“Good,” he encourages softly. “Stay with it.”

You push up with a strained exhale, core tight, jaw clenched. The bar moves, slowly, heavily. But it moves.

Again.

Your legs shake this time, breath turning ragged. You catch your own expression in the mirror. Determination stares back.

“Come on,” San urges, voice firmer now, breath warm against your neck. “You’re strong. Push.”

You drop into the last rep, muscles screaming, lungs on fire. For a split second, you think you might fail, then you hear him.

“Up. Up. You’re right there. Don’t quit on yourself now.”

You grunt, every muscle firing, and rise.

The bar clears. You lock out. Hands shaking, you re-rack the weight with a shaky clank and stagger forward, breathing hard, a soft, involuntary whimper slipping out as the tension finally releases.

Before you can process it, San is cheering.

“Oh my god!” he shouts, bouncing on his toes like a kid. “You did it!”

He pulls you into a hug, arms tight around you, energy vibrating off him. You freeze for half a second.

“Wait,” you laugh breathlessly, hands hovering awkwardly. “I’m sweaty.”

“I don’t care,” he says immediately, pulling back just enough to look at you, eyes bright. “That was insane. That was clean.”

His excitement is contagious. You feel it bloom in your chest, pride rushing in where doubt used to live.

“I can’t believe I did that,” you say, still panting.

“You did that shit,” he insists.

And then you’re both laughing, jumping up and down, celebrating like idiots in the empty gym. Your heart is racing for reasons that have nothing to do with the weight anymore.

You find San again at the treadmills, both of you drifting back to the same place. Your legs are tired in that deep, satisfying way, muscles humming instead of screaming.

You step onto the treadmill beside him and set it to a slow walk—cooldown pace. Breathing evening out, sweat cooling against your skin.

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

Then you glance sideways. “Hey, thanks again for spotting me earlier.”

San waves it off like it’s nothing, eyes forward. “You did all the work. I just existed behind you.”

“You existed very helpfully,” you counter.

He laughs, shaking his head. “That was your strength. All you.”

You smile at the console, chest warm in a way that has nothing to do with exertion.

A minute passes. Your steps fall into rhythm again.

“So,” you say casually, maybe a little too casually. “How are your other clients doing?”

He hums, considering. “Good, mostly. Progress all around.”

“All girls?” you tease.

He snorts. “Obviously.”

You laugh. “Of course.”

Then he hesitates. It’s subtle, barely there, but you’ve learned him well enough to catch it. There is a slight pause before he speaks again. The way his jaw tightens just a fraction.

“I actually had to cancel a program recently,” he says finally.

You glance over, surprised. “Why?”

He exhales. “One of them kept asking me out, wouldn’t let it go. Made things uncomfortable.”

Your steps falter just a bit. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he adds quietly. “Just wanted to help her. Sucks.”

There’s no bitterness in his voice, just tired honesty.

You feel something twist in your chest. Sympathy, anger on his behalf, because you remember that first week. How careful, intentional, and genuinely kind he was.

Like that day a few months back, when you were cooling down after your session, and he’d drifted away briefly. You’d watched him approach a teenage girl on the stair master. Plus size. Nervous. Clutching the rails and pushing herself despite her anxiety screaming at her to leave.

You remembered his smile then. Big and encouraging.

“Hey,” he’d said to her, holding out a water bottle. “Hydration check.”

She’d taken it, cheeks burning red as he playfully scolded her. “I don’t wanna see you in here without water again, okay?”

She’d nodded furiously, glowing under the attention, and you’d felt something settle in your chest watching it.

San had never been just his body. Or his face. Or the way people looked at him like he was a prize to win. He was this.

You reach the end of your cooldown and hit stop. Without thinking too hard, you reach across and stop his treadmill too.

“Hey,” he says, confused. “I wasn’t—”

You don’t answer. You step off your machine, cross the small gap between you, and climb onto his treadmill. He barely has time to react before you wrap your arms around him.

He stiffens for half a second. Then he hugs you back tightly. Like he needed it more than he realized.

Your cheek presses against his chest, heartbeat steady beneath your ear. “I see you,” you murmur. “All of you.”

His arms tighten just a little more, breath leaving him in a slow exhale. For a moment, the empty gym fades away entirely. The hug lingers with him long after you let go.

San stands there for a second longer than necessary, arms slowly dropping back to his sides, chest warm where you pressed against him. Your words echo loudly.

I see you.

It lands deeper than any compliment ever has.

He’s felt attraction before; he’s not naïve. He knows what it’s like to be wanted for his body, for his face, for the idea people build in their heads the moment they look at him. That part of life has always been loud.

This is different.

He knew it early. Earlier than he probably should’ve admitted to himself. That first week, when you stood at the front desk looking like you might bolt at any second, eyes darting around, shoulders tight, pretending you didn’t need help while absolutely needing it. He remembers thinking, immediately, dangerously: God, she’s beautiful.

Not in a trying-too-hard way. In a soft, real, devastating way. Curvy, pretty face, expressive eyes, a laugh that snuck up on him. A combination that would’ve undone him even if you’d never lifted a single weight. He would’ve taken you exactly as you were.

But he respected you too much not to respect your goals.

And then you started changing, not just physically. You stood taller, looked at yourself differently, and wore less of your old defenses. Confidence grew slowly, almost without you noticing, and that’s when it really felt unfair.

Beautiful. Curvy. Confident. Triple kill.

And yes. That ass.

He’s not blind. He’s not a saint. He noticed the difference the lifting made. The way your body responded to routine. Rounder. Firm in a way that made him have to actively remind himself to look away.

Professional. Be professional.

San knows who he is. He knows he’s handsome. He knows his smile disarms people, knows his body turns heads. He’s never pretended otherwise. But whenever someone compliments his face, he always laughs and says it’s his mom’s doing. That part isn’t his.

His body, though? That’s his work. Years of discipline. Of consistency. And still, none of it compares to how he feels when you smile at him like you trust him.

He’s trained plenty of women. He knows why most of his clients are female. He’s dealt with the awkwardness, the crushes, the crossed lines. He never wanted them.

You’re different. Not because you’re prettier, but you are. Not because you’re kinder, but you are. It’s the way you see him. The way you notice the things no one else does. The way you hug him without wanting anything in return.

He wants to treat you so well it scares him.

He wants to buy you things just because you mentioned them once. Take you places you’ve never been. Hold your hand absentmindedly while you talk. Kiss you slowly like he has nowhere else to be. Wrap you up in his arms and make the world smaller around you.

He even thinks, fleetingly, irrationally, about your ex. About finding him. About explaining, very calmly, what happens when you fail to cherish something soft and rare.

San exhales, shaking his head at himself. Down bad doesn’t even begin to cover it. In his head, quietly, carefully, he already calls you his.

When you finally pull away, the absence hits him immediately.

His cheeks are warm. Too warm. He’s painfully aware of it, the heat blooming under his skin, the way his ears probably match.

You notice. Your eyes flick up to his face for just a second longer than usual. He sees the recognition spark there. The pause. The choice you make not to say anything.

God. That might undo him more than the hug itself.

He clears his throat, rolling his shoulders back, forcing himself into something that looks normal. “Uh,” he says lightly, gesturing vaguely. “Cooldown accomplished.”

You laugh, mercifully playing along. “Barely survived.”

“That’s a win,” he grins, relief loosening his chest. “Still alive.”

You both move around each other easily now, picking up water bottles and phones, tossing towels into bins. The tension doesn’t go away, but it becomes something softer and more familiar. It’s comfortable, like you’ve crossed a line but aren’t ready to talk about it yet.

He cracks a joke about your playlist-stealing privileges next time. You fire back that his taste in music is elite, and the gym doesn’t deserve it.

At the front desk, Yeosang is leaning against the counter, scrolling on his phone. San lifts a hand automatically.

“Later,” he calls.

Yeosang looks up, smirks, eyes flicking between the two of you. “Later,” he replies, tone knowing in a way that makes San suddenly very interested in the exit.

The cold evening air hits as you step outside, a sharp contrast to the warmth inside. San exhales, shoulders relaxing as the gym doors close behind you.

This is usually where it ends. A wave. A casual “text me when you get home.” A routine goodbye. You turn toward him, stepping closer, arms already lifting.

San’s heart stumbles.

He opens his mouth before he can overthink it. “Hey—”

You pause, looking up at him.

His brain scrambles. 

Say it. 

No, don’t say it. 

He rubs the back of his neck. “Do you,” he starts, then stops, breath hitching, then tries again. “Do you want to maybe have dinner later? At my place?”

The words hang there, fragile.

You blink. Once. Twice.

“Oh,” you say, surprised. Then you smile, softer. “Yeah. Sure.” Friendly dinner, you assume.

“Really?” he asks, grin breaking through before he can stop it.

You nod. “Yeah.”

His face fully brightens, boyish and unguarded. “Cool. Cool. I’ll text you.”

You hug him then, quick and easy this time, and wave goodbye as you head to your car.

San stands there for a second longer after you leave.

Dinner. At his house.

Oh shit. 

Dinner at his house.

He sprints to his car, realizing he needs to start cooking.

The drive over feels longer than it actually is.

Your hands grip the steering wheel a little tighter than necessary as you pull into his apartment complex, headlights washing over neat rows of parked cars. You’re dressed casually but intentionally. Jeans that fit just right, a nice top that you stood in front of the mirror debating for far too long. Comfortable enough to feel like yourself. Pretty enough.

Your stomach flips.

Why was he nervous earlier?

That question circles your head as you park and cut the engine. San doesn’t get nervous. San is composed. The kind of man who knows exactly where he stands in a room. And yet earlier, he’d stumbled.

And now you’re here at his place.

You know, with absolute certainty, that he doesn’t do this with clients. Or former clients. You’ve seen the lines he draws. How careful he is. That’s part of why this feels so significant, so loaded with meaning it makes your chest buzz.

You take a breath, step out of the car, and walk up to his door.

Knock. Knock.

The seconds stretch just long enough for doubt to creep in.

Then the door opens.

San stands there like he hasn’t seen you in months instead of a few hours. Big smile and crinkled eyes. Hair slightly tousled, like he’s run a hand through it one too many times. He looks comfortable in his slightly baggy jeans and T-shirt.

“Hey,” he says, bright and genuine.

Your heart trips. “Hi.”

He steps aside immediately. “Come in.”

His apartment is warm, clean, and lived in. Something savory and delicious fills the air, making your stomach ache in a good way. Shoes sit by the door, and a jacket is tossed over a chair.

He gives you a little tour, pointing things out with easy enthusiasm. Living room. Kitchen. Bathroom. Then the spare room.

“And this,” he says, opening the door with a sheepish grin, “is where I keep my problem.”

You step inside and stop short.

Plushies. A collection of them: big ones, small ones, and everything in between. Carefully arranged on the shelves.

Your hand flies to your mouth. “Oh my god.”

He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Don’t judge me.”

“Judge you?” you gasp. “San, this is the greenest flag I’ve ever seen.”

His ears turn pink. “I win them at festivals,” he admits. “And I can’t throw them away.”

You stare at him, heart swelling. Big gym bro, killer body, and a plush collection.

I want to marry him, you think while looking at each one.

He guides you toward the kitchen before your brain can spiral further. The counters are occupied. That’s when it hits you. Dinner. You’re here for dinner. Not to mentally plan a future with this man. Not to imagine him folded into your life. Not to fall in love.

Too late, whispers something traitorous in your chest.

You clear your throat and look down at the food.

San glances at you, amused. “You okay?”

You nod quickly, cheeks warm. “Yeah. I just—wow.”

He smiles, pleased. “Sit. I’ll grab bowls.”

As he turns away, you watch him for a second longer than necessary before sitting at the table, heart loud, thoughts tangled.

You came here for dinner.

But standing in his kitchen, surrounded by warmth and care and something that feels dangerously close to affection, you’re not sure you’re leaving with just that.

He sets the bowls down carefully, and steam curls upward immediately, carrying the deep, rich scent of kimchi jjigae through the kitchen. It’s warm and spicy and comforting all at once, the kind of smell that settles into your bones before you even take a bite. The pot sits between you, still gently bubbling, red broth catching the light.

“Kimchi jjigae,” he says, almost shyly. “It’s kind of my thing.”

Your eyes light up. “You made this?”

He nods, rubbing the back of his neck like he suddenly feels exposed. “Yeah. I make it a lot. For my family. Friends. Me.” A small smile tugs at his lips. “I’m a Namhae boy. We take our food seriously.”

You grin. “I’ve heard.”

“Oh, Namhae is the best county in South Korea,” he says immediately, pride blooming in his voice without a trace of arrogance. “Best food. Best people. Best views. No competition.”

There’s something about the way he says it—so certain and full of love. Everything he talks about feels cherished, not boastful. You realize how much he appreciates his roots, his family, his job, his home, and the life he’s built here. He never takes anything for granted.

You lift your spoon and take a bite, and nearly die.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, eyes widening. The flavor is insane. Spicy but balanced. Rich without being heavy. Comfort in liquid form. You hum involuntarily and take another spoonful immediately, not even trying to hide it.

San watches with bated breath. “Is it good?” he asks, voice hopeful, eyes searching your face.

You nod vigorously, mouth still full. “San, this is so good.”

He laughs, cheeks flushing, ducking his head like he doesn’t quite know what to do with the praise. “Really?”

“Yes. I might cry.”

That does it. His smile spreads slowly and bright, dimples cutting deep, happiness written all over his face. He eats too, more relaxed now, watching you enjoy it like that’s the best compliment he could’ve received.

Conversation flows easily after that. Stories about each other’s childhoods and work. Laughing over small things, teasing each other gently. The kind of talk that doesn’t need effort, just presence.

When the bowls are empty, you stand instinctively. “I’ll wash the dishes.”

He shakes his head immediately. “Nope.”

“I insist.”

He reaches out, catching your wrist lightly. “I’ll do them later.”

And before you can protest again, he tugs you gently toward the couch, presses the remote into your hand, and says, “Find something good.”

You blink. “You’re not…?”

“Wine,” he says over his shoulder, already heading back toward the kitchen. “Give me a second.”

Okay. Wow. This is not at all what you expected.

You sink into the couch, heart racing, the remote warm in your hand, and realize you’re smiling without even thinking about it.

You scroll through the options longer than necessary, thumb hovering as trailers auto-play silently in the background. Your instinct pulls you straight toward horror. It always does. Something about the tension, the adrenaline, the way it makes your heart race.

But then you remember him.

The way he’d laughed once, almost embarrassed, admitting he scares easily. How he said it, like a confession, as if he expected to be judged for it. You’d found it endearing then. Still do now.

So you settle on an action movie instead. Explosions. Fast cars. Something loud enough to be exciting but not enough to send him hiding behind a pillow.

You’re just settling back when you hear footsteps.

San reappears from the kitchen with two wine glasses balanced carefully in his hands and the bottle tucked under his arm. He looks relaxed. Soft around the edges in a way that makes your chest ache. His smile is bright, easy, pure golden retriever energy as he hands you a glass.

“Here,” he says. “Tell me if it’s too dry.”

He glances at the screen just as the opening credits roll, and his brows knit together in confusion.

“…That’s not horror.”

You freeze for half a second. “Oh. I just—” you shrug, suddenly shy. “You said you get scared easily. I didn’t want to freak you out.”

He stares at you. Then his lips pout. Actually pout.

“I wanted to get scared,” he says. “I wanted you to hold me during the scary parts.”

“I—what?”

Your face burns instantly as you scramble for the remote, suddenly very invested in finding literally any horror movie. “I mean, if you want—I can change it—I just thought—”

He laughs, loud and warm, eyes crinkling so deeply it makes your stomach flip. “I’m kidding,” he says gently, dropping down onto the couch beside you.

Not touching, but close. So close you can feel the heat of him through the fabric of your clothes. His thigh just barely brushes yours when he shifts. He pours the wine carefully, handing you your glass before setting his down.

You put a scary movie on anyway.

You giggle suddenly, nerves bubbling over, and stand up. “Wait.”

He watches you with curiosity as you cross the room and flick the lights off. The apartment dims instantly, shadows stretching, the TV glow suddenly brighter.

When you sit back down, San makes a small, very real whining sound.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he murmurs.

But he scoots closer anyway. His arm brushes yours now. You pretend not to notice how your heart starts racing again, how the couch suddenly feels smaller, how the space between you disappears inch by inch.

The movie starts in earnest. Music swelling low and ominous. San leans in just a little more.

You thought he was exaggerating, you really did.

At first, you think the way San edges closer and his arm brushes yours again and again is on purpose. Maybe he’s flirting, using fear as an excuse to get closer. You tell yourself he knows exactly how charming he is.

Then the first real jump scare hits.

A shrill sound cuts through the room, and San yelps. He jerks so hard his knee knocks into yours, and he nearly launches himself off the couch.

“Oh my god,” you gasp, startled more by him than the movie.

He grabs the blanket in a panic, yanking it up and throwing it over both of you like it might save his life. His heart is pounding. You can feel it. Fast and frantic against your arm.

“You’re kidding,” you whisper, half-stunned.

Another tense moment builds on screen. You brace yourself, but San does not. He screams again, higher this time, and clutches your sleeve like you’re a lifeline. His whole body jumps, shoulders up near his ears, eyes squeezed shut as he peeks over the blanket like a terrified child.

You try, you really try. But when he jumps so hard he nearly slips off the couch, a small snort escapes you.

Silence.

Slowly, he turns to look at you, eyebrows creased, lips pushed into the softest pout you’ve ever seen. He looks embarrassed and slightly betrayed.

“That wasn’t funny,” he whines.

You cover your mouth. “I’m sorry,” you laugh quietly. “I just—I didn’t think you meant it like this.”

He huffs, then reaches for you with zero hesitation, grabbing your arm and throwing it over his broad shoulders. He shifts closer, tucking himself against your side, big body pressing into you for comfort.

“Hold me,” he mutters. “It’s scary.”

Your heart absolutely loses its mind.

You should feel bad. He’s genuinely frightened. He’s clinging to you for safety, not seduction. But you don’t hate it. Not when his head dips closer. Not when his arm wraps securely around your waist. Not when the warmth of him sinks into you like he’s made to fit there.

The wine bottle on the coffee table is nearly empty now. He’s clearly more relaxed because of it, movements looser, voice softer, fear less filtered. He reacts dramatically to every sudden noise, burrowing closer each time, hiding his face against your shoulder before peeking again.

“I hate this movie,” he mumbles, voice muffled.

“You wanted scary,” you tease gently.

“Hmph.”

You laugh quietly, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt without thinking, steadying him when the tension spikes again. He sighs contentedly at the contact, melting into you completely.

Still not complaining, you think. Not even a little.

A little while later, he gets up to use the bathroom.

The door clicks shut behind him, and a minute later, you hear the sink run briefly. You stretch your legs, adjusting the blanket over yourself, your eyes flicking to the faintly glowing screen paused in the dark.

Then suddenly—

Footsteps. Fast ones.

San sprints down the hallway like he’s being chased, socked feet slapping against the floor before he all but launches himself back onto the couch beside you. He lands hard, breathless, blanket flying as he scrambles to tuck himself against your side.

“What happened?” you laugh, startled.

He clutches his chest dramatically. “I forgot the lights were off,” he says, voice a little too loud, a little too breathy. “I stepped out, and it was just darkness.”

You laugh harder now. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I hate it,” he mutters, already reaching for the blanket and pulling it back up like armor.

An hour later, the next part of the series auto-plays before either of you can stop it. The opening music hums low and ominous, and San stiffens immediately.

“I can change it,” you offer, thumb hovering over the remote. “We can watch something else.”

He shakes his head quickly, then pauses, correcting himself slower, more deliberately. “No. It’s fine.”

You glance at him. His eyes are glued to the screen, jaw set like he’s psyching himself up for battle.

“I can be brave,” he adds, quieter. “Besides…” He trails off, cheeks faintly pink, and shifts closer. His thigh presses fully against yours now. His arm sneaks around your waist again. The wine has definitely loosened him and made him softer, less guarded. He’s clingy now, unapologetically so, warmth radiating from him as he leans into you.

You don’t move away. If anything, you tug him closer, your fingers brushing his arm, your body accommodating his without thought. Earlier, during the second half of the first movie, you’d laughed at one of his over-the-top reactions and absentmindedly threaded your fingers through his hair to calm him.

He hasn’t forgotten.

He shifts again, this time fully curling into your side, knees tucked slightly, broad shoulders fitting surprisingly well beneath your arm. He pulls the blanket up to his chin, peeking over it at the screen, then reaches up and gently places your hand on his head.

No words. Just a quiet request.

Your heart stutters.

You hesitate for half a second before your fingers move, sinking into his hair again. It’s soft. Warm. He sighs immediately, melting into the touch like he’s been waiting for it, eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment before snapping back to the movie.

There’s a jump scare. He flinches, but this time, instead of yelping, he presses his face into your shoulder, his fingers gripping your shirt, while you run your hand through his hair again, soothing, grounding.

“See?” you whisper, teasing gently. “So brave.”

He hums against you, not arguing, not pulling away. The screen flickers with shadows and sound, but his focus is elsewhere now. On your hand. Your warmth.

A sudden crack, sharp and close enough that both of you jolt at the same time. You gasp, San yelps, and for a split second you’re both frozen, hearts racing, staring at each other like you’re in the movie.

Then another boom rolls through the air, deeper this time, followed by a cascade of pops and whistles.

Fireworks.

“Oh,” you breathe, realization blooming. You glance at your phone. “It’s midnight.”

San blinks, then laughs softly, almost incredulous.

You pause the movie without thinking, and the room falls quiet again, except for the distant noise outside. Together, you stand, movements a little clumsy from sitting so long, from wine, from nerves. He reaches for the blanket automatically, draping it around his shoulders before tugging you closer and wrapping it around both of you like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Come on,” he says gently. “Let’s watch.”

The balcony door slides open, cool night air rushing in, crisp and sharp against your skin. You shiver instinctively, and San tightens the blanket, his arm coming around your shoulders, anchoring you against his side. The city stretches out before you, lights glowing, and above it all, the sky erupts in color.

Red blooms first. Then gold. Then brilliant whites that crackle and fade, one after another, reflected in windows and glass and eyes.

You tilt your head back, watching in quiet awe.

San does too, at first. Then his attention drifts.

He looks down at you without realizing it, the fireworks lighting your face in shifting colors. Gold flashes in your eyes. Soft light catches the curve of your cheek, the shape of your mouth as you smile at the sky. His chest tightens.

He doesn’t remember deciding to stop watching the fireworks. Only that suddenly, they’re secondary—background noise. Beautiful, yes, but nothing compared to you standing there, so close he can feel your breath.

You sense it and turn. Your gaze meets his right eye first, then his left. You swallow, eyes flicking down almost without permission, tracing the line of his nose, lingering on his lips. Full, soft, and oh so close.

When you look back up, he’s already watching you. He doesn’t look away.

The world seems to slow, fireworks still bursting behind you, light and sound framing the moment as if it were planned.

San leans down slowly, giving you time. Space to pull back. To say no.

You don’t.

His lips meet yours gently, carefully. The kiss is warm, unhurried, full of everything that’s been building for months. His hand tightens slightly at your waist, holding you there like he’s been waiting for this moment all along.

Fireworks explode overhead, but you barely notice.

This is the only thing that matters.

When he finally pulls back just enough to look at you, his forehead rests against yours, breath mingling with yours in the cold air.

“Happy New Year,” he whispers.

You don’t hesitate. Not for a second.

The moment he pulls back to speak, you’re already leaning in again, fingers tightening at the back of his neck, drawing him back to you like it’s instinct rather than choice. He lets out a soft, surprised laugh that barely exists before your lips meet again.

The fireworks crack overhead, loud and brilliant, but they fade into background noise as San steps back until the cool metal of the balcony rail presses against your back. He cages you there without pinning you, hands firm at your waist, thumbs brushing over the curve of your hips like he’s grounding himself.

He tilts his head just right, careful, practiced, so your noses brush instead of bumping. The kiss deepens naturally, unforced, and you realize with a quiet jolt that he’s very good at this.

Insanely good.

You feel every subtle shift of his mouth, the way he draws you in and then eases back just enough to make you chase him. His lips are warm, soft, and persistent. When his tongue brushes yours, it’s unhurried, exploratory, like he’s memorizing you rather than taking.

You’ve kissed plenty of times before. But this is different.

You’re suddenly aware of things you’ve never paid attention to before him. The way he breathes through his nose when he kisses you. The quiet sound he makes in his throat when you respond the way he likes. The gentle tug of his teeth, more promise than pressure, followed by a soothing sweep of his lips like an apology and a praise all at once.

His hands tighten reflexively, then soften, grip turning into slow caresses over and over again, like he can’t decide whether to hold you still or pull you closer. He chooses both, pressing his body into yours, solid and warm, making you feel small in the best way.

Your arms loop fully around his neck now, fingers sliding into his hair, and he exhales against your mouth.

He doesn’t push you or insinuate anything, but you can feel the pressure building between your legs. You want him. And by the feel of the hardness pressing against your stomach, he wants you too. That alone makes you blush and press into him.

You lean back, breaking the kiss. You’re both breathing heavily, and before San can lean back in to kiss your lips, you press a kiss to his neck, before pausing not to see, but rather feel his reaction.

His head falls back instantly, exposing more of his neck as if inviting further exploration. A soft moan escapes him—completely unintentional but very telling—and his hands grip your hips tighter. The action presses him more firmly against you, leaving no doubt about his arousal.

His pulse point throbs against your lips, matching the rhythm of his heavy breathing. San's body is reactive, honest almost to a fault when it comes to physical touch. And right now, his body is screaming for more. For you.

You take that as a sign to continue, pressing your lips harder against his neck, sucking softly, leaving a mark.

A sharp intake of breath is followed by a low groan that rumbles deep in his chest. His fingers dig into your hips almost painfully as he holds onto you for dear life. He moans your name softly, wantonly.

When you lean back to look up at him, his eyes are closed, his fingers digging into your hips. Not to cause pain, but to steady him. 

“What’s wrong?” You ask him, cupping his cheek. You don’t realize he’s trying to show restraint, trying to respect you even though he would love to pick you up and take you to bed. To show you what you do to him.

His eyes flutter open slowly, dark brown irises almost black with desire. San swallows hard, his throat working against your palm. "Nothing's wrong," he whispers hoarsely. But the way his jaw clenches and unclenches gives him away. He's trying so hard to be good when all he wants is to be bad with you.

His self-control is hanging by a thread. One wrong move and he might snap.

"Just... trying to behave," he adds, his voice low and strained.

Ah. There it is. Choi San, the man you are.

You brush your thumb along his bottom lip. “I want you,” you whisper up at him, your other hand trailing up his firm, clothed chest.

His breath catches audibly. San's composure cracks—just a little. His eyes flutter shut again, lashes fanning against his cheeks, and you feel his entire body tense as if savoring the permission.

When he opens his eyes again, they're not soft anymore.

"Say that again," he growls quietly, voice dropping two octaves.

“I want you,” you repeat louder. “Take me to bed.”

Without a word, he bends down and scoops you up in his arms. You gasp, surprised, and instinctively wrap your arms around his neck for support. He holds you close, one arm banded around your waist, the other supporting your thigh. His face is buried in the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent as he strides purposefully towards his bedroom.

The room smells like him—clean linen and the faint spice of his cologne. He closes the door, and the noise of the world falls away. He turns to you, and his expression isn’t hungry, not yet. It’s reverent.

“Months,” he said, his voice a low hum in the quiet. “Wanted you for months now. Let me see you. All of you.”

Your heart hammers, but the familiar, gnawing whispers of insecurity are quiet. He’d dismantled them brick by brick, session by session. So you nod.

He undresses you with a slow, unhurried focus, his knuckles grazing your skin not with lingering intent, but with a steady purpose. Cool air meets your shoulders, your back, your stomach. You stand before him, utterly bare, and his eyes don’t just look. They drink you in.

“You’re beautiful.”

Your throat tightens.

He lifts his hand, brushing his knuckles lightly along your arm. “I thought that the first day you walked into the gym.”

You blink. “You did?”

He nods, eyes never leaving you. “Yeah. I wanted you then. Just like that. Nervous. Soft. Real.”

Your chest aches.

“I would’ve had you exactly as you were,” he continues gently. “But I loved watching you grow, watching you get happier. More confident. That smile you wear now?” He smiles back at you. “That’s everything.”

You swallow, emotions rising fast and sharp. “Even now?”

He steps fully into your space, then rests his forehead against yours. “Always,” he murmurs. “You’re gorgeous to me. At any size. In every version of you.”

His hands finally come up, framing your sides, grounding you there like he’s making a promise instead of a move.

Then he sheds his own clothes, and your breath simply stops.

The faint light from the window paints him in silver and shadow. Tight, defined abs that shift as he moves. Firm pecs that beg for your touch. Biceps that bunch and relax, bulging with latent strength. His shoulders are broad, his back a sculpted landscape of muscle that tapers down to narrow hips. Muscular thighs, a perfect ass. And his traps, rising from his shoulders like the foundations of a statue. He’s a work of art, carved from living marble.

And then his cock. Thick, heavy, already hard, and curving up against his stomach. Pretty wasn’t the right word. It was formidable. Majestic. A promise of ruin.

You reach out, your fingers trembling only a little, and wrap your hand around him. The heat of his skin is a shock. The velvet-over-steel texture makes your mouth water. A low, needy sound vibrating in his chest.

“That’s it,” he encourages, his head tilting back. “Just like that. Feels so good, baby.”

You sink to your knees, the carpet soft beneath you. You take him into your mouth, and his reaction is immediate, vocal. A sharp intake of air. A broken, “Yes.” His hands come to cradle your head, not pushing, just holding. You work him, your tongue tracing the thick vein on the underside, swirling over the slick, smooth head. Every time you hollow your cheeks and take him deep, a guttural groan tears from him.

“Your mouth…fuck, your mouth is perfect. So warm. So soft. Don’t stop, please don’t fucking stop.”

You don’t. You suck him with a dedication that feels like worship, and he gives you his sounds, his praises, his complete vulnerability. You feel powerful. You feel adored.

When he pulls you up, his eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. “My turn,” he growls, and the softness is gone, replaced by a gentle but firm command.

The switch had been flipped.

He lays you back on the bed, your head sinking into the pillows. He kneels between your thighs, and for a moment, he just looks, the distant fireworks painting his face in fleeting color. Then he bends his head.

His mouth on you isn’t a quick feast. His tongue is soft, tender, licking slow, broad stripes that made your back bow off the mattress. Then it changes—firm, pointed flicks against your clit that has you gasping. He sucks gently, then nibbles with a careful scrape of his teeth that sends electric jolts straight to your core.

He’s making out with you there, his lips and tongue moving with the same tender, then passionate rhythm of a deep kiss. He moans into you, the vibration traveling through your entire body. His hands slide under your ass, lifting you, angling you so he can go deeper, his tongue fucking into you in soft, relentless thrusts.

“Taste so good,” he mutters, his voice muffled against you. “Gonna make you come on my face. Wanna feel you shake.”

And you do. The orgasm builds not like a wave, but like a firework—a tight, coiling tension in your belly that he stokes and stokes with his tongue, his lips, his soft sucks—until it bursts. Your vision whites out. A silent scream catches in your throat as you clench around nothing, your hips bucking against his mouth. He holds you through it, drinking every last pulse, every last shudder.

Before you can even come down, he’s moving up your body, his weight settling over you. The head of his cock pressing against your entrance, hot and insistent.

“This,” he says, pushing forward just an inch. A burning, perfect stretch. “This is going to ruin you for everyone else. Just me.”

And then he sinks in.

Oh.

The fullness is absolute. It steals the air from your lungs. He’s thick, long, stretching you in places you didn’t know could be stretched. He doesn’t move at first, just lets you feel him, lets your body adjust to the invasion. Then he begins to move.

Slow, at first. Withdrawing almost completely, then sliding back in with a deep, rolling grind of his hips. Each stroke is a masterclass in sensation. He angles his hips, and the thick head of his cock drags over a spot deep inside that makes you see stars. He changes his pace—short, hard thrusts that make your tits shake and makes wet smacking noises echo in the room. Then long, slow, deep pumps that feel like he’s reaching your soul.

He fucks you with a focused, possessive rhythm. One hand tangled in your hair, the other gripping your hip, his fingers pressing into your flesh. His eyes never leave yours.

“You take me so fucking well,” he pants, his breath hot on your lips. “So perfect. Made for me. All for me.”

The fireworks continue outside, a silent, brilliant accompaniment to the ones he’s setting off inside you. Every nerve ending is alight. The world narrows down to the joining of your bodies, the slick sounds of friction, the smell of sex and sweat, the taste of him on your tongue from earlier.

He’s a gentleman and makes sure you come again, his thumb finding your clit and circling with perfect, dirty pressure as he pistons into you. The second climax is sharper, brighter, a supernova that ripples through you, making you clamp down on him with a violent, rhythmic squeeze. He groans, a sound of pure pleasure and strain.

“Fuck, yes…squeezing my cock just like that…I can’t…I’m gonna…”

His thrusts became erratic, desperate. His beautiful body tightening above you, every muscle corded. He buries himself to the hilt, his pelvis grinding against yours, and lets go.

“Fuck! I—oh God—Y/N, baby—” he grunts out, hips stilling.

A hot, wet flood erupts inside you. It isn’t a trickle; it’s a claiming. Pulse after pulse of his release, filling you, marking you. It’s filthy. It’s wet. It’s messy.

And it’s beautiful, because it’s San, and he has a way of making everything feel special.

He collapses onto you, his weight a warm, comforting anchor, his face buried in the crook of your neck. His breathing ragged against your skin, pressing slow, lazy kisses.

“Mine,” he whispers.

Outside, the final few fireworks pop and fizz.

BINNIEBB 2026 ™ PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK ♡

y/n:

hey, it's san, you already know that. okay, you know i'm bad at this, so i'm sorry in advance. there might be a right way to write this and i don't think i know it, but for you i'll try. please don't judge the handwriting too much. or the wording, or how short or long it is. i rewrote the first part four times and it still feels bad. anyway, i'm sorry, here's the letter. i guess i should start from the beginning, no? is that stupid? i don't know. [scribbled] the first time i saw you was in that class we both didn’t want to be in. i don’t even remember what the professor was saying, but i remember you. you were leaning over the desk, hand on your cheek, resting your head. i remember thinking you looked easy to be around. i don’t know why, but it did. this is embarrassing but i think i knew i wanted to marry you way earlier than i probably should have. i didn’t say it, obviously, that would've been creepy. i just knew you looked so so pretty and now that i know you, you became so beautiful. not that you weren't beautiful before being with me, you always were, i'm just saying from my perspective just how mesmerized you had me from the start, you know? you are just so smart, so creative, so diligent. [scribbled] it's like when you balance numbers and they finally add up the way they’re supposed to, that's what it kind of felt like, but in the romantic way. i'm sorry i'm not good at expressing my feelings and all that, you know that better than anyone else. but i want you to know that choosing you has never felt like a decision i had to force myself into. i want this more than anything, with you. we have this apartment now. it’s small and the walls are kind of thin and the kitchen light flickers sometimes, but it’s ours. i keep thinking about how this is the place where everything will start. mornings, dinners, normal days, hard days, all of it. and i like knowing you’ll be here at the end of the day. i like knowing i get to come home to you. i promise i’ll take care of you. i promise i’ll work hard. [scribbled] i know i don’t always say what i’m thinking, but i feel things even when i don’t show them right. does that make sense? well, [scribbled] i’m really proud to be your husband. that still feels strange to write, but in a good way. i hope we grow old together. i hope we don’t stop choosing each other, even when life gets busy or complicated. i hope you always know that you’re my favorite person in the world, even if i forget to say it out loud sometimes. i’ll always try to try, even if i’m bad.

i love you.

san

tucked beneath the neatly folded cashmere sweaters, exactly where you left it. lace covered box, meant for letters he had promised to fill with, yet a year and a half later, only the first one stood alone. you weren't angry, not even sad. it actually made you chuckle a little. just a quiet grief for what had been started to root deep inside, for the vibrant colors that had softened into pastels, for the soft reverence in his eyes that had slowly faded into habit. you often found yourself staring at the box, a wry smile touching your lips.

the paper, once crisp, now yielded to countless revisits. you knew every word by heart, the rhythm of his awkward sincerity etched into your memory. you traced the faded ink. his handwriting, usually neat in ledgers, was a little clumsy here. each letter formed with an almost painful deliberation. it was short, a simple promise. a quiet declaration of his intent to build a life with you, to be your home. no extreme pronouncements of undying passion, but a solid foundation of devotion. san had never been one for grand gestures, at least not in words. his love manifested in the certainty of his presence, the steady rhythm of his life intertwined with yours. in fact, you had asked for the letter in the first place, at that diner right before receiving the keys to the apartment.

"a letter?" he'd shifted on his seat, a blush creeping up his neck. "i'm not... good with words, y/n."

you shook your head with an endeared smile. "you don't have to be shakespeare sannie, just you."

he seemed in thought for a moment, trying to resist looking at your puppy eyes asking pretty please before straightening his back, accepting the challenge. and he did. pen clutched tight, brows furrowed in concentration. you’d watched him, your heart swelling with a love so potent it felt like a physical ache. then when he finished, he slid it across the booth table, eyes avoiding yours with his shy offering.

now, the paper, soft as old linen, whispered between your fingertips. you didn't rush. each sentence, each carefully chosen word, you read them slowly, precious memory reexperiencie. tasting the hope, the fresh promise of that day when he later bought you the box, saying he'd get better at it and you'd have it spilling out with his loving written words. you ran your fingers over the intricate patterns of the lace, delicate threads contrasting the hollow space.

you folded the letter along it's original creases, the paper folding easily, and placed it back before checking your thight bun in the mirror, perfect posture, every single hair placed where it was meant to be. he still looked at you, of course, but the spark, the raw wonder, had dimmed. it wasn't his fault. life had a way of sanding down the sharp edges of infatuation, leaving behind the smooth, enduring stone of work life.

silence stretched, punctuated only by the distant city chorus. you tell yourself he just forgot. got busy, or thought one was enough. you're good at explaining things away. but when did trying turn into remembering? when did the promise of a future become the past?

the aroma of roasted chicken and rosemary filled the air, a comforting scent that tonight told a solitary performance. table was set, candles unlit, everything waiting for a moment that kept getting delayed. the antique clock sat on the mantelpiece. seven thirty, again. you waited for the familiar click of keys in the lock, the sound that usually signaled the end of day and the beginning of us.

when he comes in your head lifts before you even realize. smoothing your dress automatically, fingers brushing over fabric that was never wrinkled in the first place. a small smile already forming, reserved for him. san already halfway out of his shoes, shoulders slumped, a dark suit jacket draped over his arm. he didn’t glance at the table set for two, but knows everything looks exactly as it always does.

"hey," his voice tired, worn down. like business of the city still clung to him.

"hi," you answer, softer.

he leans in, presses a quick kiss to your temple. familiar, practiced.

"sorry i’m late," he adds, already loosening his tie as you walked towards the dining table. "we had to redo part of the quarterly report because... how do i put this- there was a discrepancy in one of the ledgers, and it threw off the whole reconciliation process. so we had to go back and..."

pulling out his chair. the heavy oak scraped across the polished floor. he loosened his tie, then unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. "had to redo a section. whole damn thing.” he ran a hand through his hair, already tousled from the day. “hours. just… hours.”

you watched him, spooning roasted vegetables onto his plate. you pushed his plate closer, then sat across from him. "must be frustrating," you offered, a soft murmur.

he picked up his fork, turning the chicken over. "frustrating doesn’t begin to cover it. the whole team, scrambling. for a single misplaced figure." he took a bite, chewed slowly. "it’s done now. mostly."

he keeps talking about work, deadlines, numbers, something about a client. you listen, always do. you don't understand every word, but you understand him in the way he talks when he’s tired. the slight edge in his voice, the way he explains things like he’s still in the middle of solving them. it’s easier for him to talk about numbers than about how his day actually felt.

nods at the right moments. hums of acknowledgement. small "and then?" once in a while, just to keep him going.

"…where did those come from?" he signals behind you at the counter. a faint lift of an eyebrow. a hint of a smile, almost.

you glance back, even though you know exactly what he’s looking at. the vase sits neatly by the sink, filled with fresh flowers. soft colors, carefully arranged.

"oh," you say, turning back to him, a warmth creeping up your neck. "mrs. jones gave them to me. i brought her some brownies earlier."

he paused, fork halfway to his mouth and exhales a small breath through his nose in genuine bewilderment.

"y/n," he says, setting his fork down for a second, "you need to stop baking so much."

you blink at him. "why?"

"i don't know, it's just..." he gestures vaguely, like the answer should be obvious. "it's every day. there's always something new. brownies, cookies, that cake from yesterday. the whole building must be swimming in your desserts." he didn’t sound angry, just... resigned.

"i like baking," your voice still gentle, picking at a loose thread on the tablecloth

"i know, i know," he says quickly. "i'm just saying… it's a lot, isn't it?"

a small pause settles and you shrug, barely lifting your shoulders. "it keeps me busy."

he reached across the table, covering your hand with his. his palm was warm, calloused. "tell you what. how about i book you a day at that salon you like? the one on fifth street. hair. nails. the works. i can tell my sister to join you."

"what? am i starting to look like a hag?" you managed a weak laugh.

his grip tightened slightly. his eyes, usually so guarded, held yours with an intensity that surprised you. "you know that’s not what i meant." his voice was firm, no trace of humor.

the small joke withered and you nodded, slowly. "okay." you swallowed. "okay, that sounds... nice."

the candle flickered, casting dancing shadows across his face. he picked up his fork again, the brief moment of connection already fading.

later, the apartment settled into it's nightly quiet. you lay in bed, the soft glow of your reading lamp illuminating the pages of a novel you couldn't quite focus on. normal people by sally rooney, but the words blurred. beside you, san lay on his back, eyes fixed on the small screen in his hands. the blue light painted his face in stark contrasts. his thumb scrolled, scrolled, scrolled. numbers, probably. reports. another discrepancy.

you watched the subtle movements of his jaw, the slight furrow in his brow. he was so focused, so far away. still, you reached out, tentative touch to his forearm. his skin was warm beneath your fingers.

he didn’t stir, didn’t look up. his thumb kept scrolling.

you moved your hand, gently, up his arm, over his shoulder, until your fingers brushed the nape of his neck, then threaded into his hair. soft, dark strands. you leaned closer, your breath stirring the air near his ear.

a soft sound escaped him and it almost seemed like he was leaning into it. a yawn. deep, stretching. he lowered the phone, placing it face down on the nightstand. his eyes, heavy lidded, met yours. fleeting moment, again.

"long day," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. he gave you a quick short peck on your cheek then turned onto his side, facing away from you, the duvet pulled higher. "good night."

lamp clicked off. darkness enveloped the room, thick and immediate. you lay there, listening to the soft, even rhythm of his breathing, soon turning into soft snores. beside him but alone in the quiet. the book lay open, unread. words still blurred.

୨୧

acetone and something floral, both sharp and comforting. hum of dryers and low chatter fills the space, blending into a steady background noise that makes everything feel easy. normal.

you sat in the middle chair, hands resting neatly on the small cushion in front of you, fingers relaxed but still. a sigh escaping your lips before you could stop it. the manicurist, a young woman with a bright, knowing smile, took your hand, her touch cool and precise. she filed your nails into neat, elegant ovals. you picked a soft, clean color without much thought. something simple, safe, that goes with everything.

across from you, two of your friends leaned into each other, their overlapping voices a stream of gossip. too loud and uncaring. the others chime in, voices overlapping. one of them threw her head back, a peal of laughter echoing, the other one nodded, eyes wide with feigned shock. they talked about a mutual acquaintance’s recent engagement, the scandalous details of a breakup, the endless parade of societal expectations.

"he actually said that?"

"no, stop-"

"i'm serious, i swear-"

to your left, rhythmic snip of scissors. noeul, san's older sister listened quietly, sat under a cloud of foil, her head tilted back as a stylist worked through her dark hair. but her attention drifts back to you more often than not. she owned a warm, reassuring glint. offering a small, conspiratorial smile whenever you caught her gaze in the mirror, silent acknowledgment of the shared escape.

a few chairs down, a woman with kind eyes spoke in hushed tones to her stylist. "she just graduated middle school with the highest scores," her voice, thick with a mother’s proudness, drifted over.

the stylist hums a singing note. "you must be so proud."

"oh, more than that" the woman exhales. "she's even already thinking about what she wants to study after high school."

she spoke of her daughter, a girl she’d poured her heart into.

your fingers still for a second on the cushion. the stylist murmurs something gentle back, and the conversation folds into the background. but it lingers.

your gaze drifted from the woman’s satisfied face to the neat row of polish bottles, then to your own hands, at the careful brush of polish gliding over your nails. you imagined those hands, smaller, softer, reaching for yours. a child. a son, perhaps, with san’s dimples and your own tendency to blush when surprised. or a daughter, with san’s quiet strength and your expressive eyes. the thought bloomed in your mind like a fragile hothouse flower.

you try to picture it. years stacked quietly on top of each other. a child in your apartment. toys where there are now empty surfaces. noise where there is now silence. san, coming home from work. would he pick them up? would he be too tired? would he talk to them the way he talks to you now, half there, half somewhere else? or would it be different? the thought catches you off guard. unfamiliar.

because you've never talked about it. not seriously. not beyond passing comments, vague things people say because they’re supposed to. someday. eventually. no timelines, no plans, no want or don’t want laid out clearly between you.

you don't even know if he wants kids. and for a second, that realization feels heavier than it should. there’s a whole future on a limbo sitting out of reach. not because it’s impossible, but because it’s never been named.

"y/n? you’re miles away!" the brightness of your friend's voice cut through your reverie.

the other leans forward slightly, "how’s married life treating you?"

you don't look up right away, only tilting your hand slightly when the nail tech asks you to. a practiced tug at the corner of your lips masked the tremor beneath.

"it's good, really good." you offered, voice light and airy.

"ugh," someone groans playfully. "of course it is. you guys were always like... perfect for each other."

you let out a soft laugh. "thank you, emma."

"it is," the friend grins. "seriously though, what have you guys been up to lately? anything fun?"

there’s a pause. you glance up for just a second, like you're checking your memory for something recent, something worth telling. "not really," tone still light. "just... normal stuff."

"that's adorable," another friend says, laced with genuine admiration. "no drama or chaos. must be so peaceful to marry an office guy."

"yeah," you nod, smile a little wider. "exactly."

the conversation shifts easily after that, flowing like a meandering river to other topics, someone starts talking about a coworker, someone else about a trip they want to take, and you listen, add comments here and there, smile when you're supposed to. their voices rising and falling in a comfortable rhythm. you watched them, their easy camaraderie, the way they finished each other’s sentences, and a familiar pang of loneliness pierced through the carefully erected wall around your heart.

noeul’s voice, soft but firm, cut through the din. she leaned closer, her perceptive eyes, meeting yours.

"how’s he been?” she asks.

you turn slightly. "san?"

a small nod. "yeah."

your smile didn’t falter. it felt glued on now, a permanent fixture. "he’s good," you say. "just busy with work, you know how he is." the words came out a little too quickly, a little too smooth. you avoided her gaze, focusing instead on the manicurist applying the top coat, making sure each nail was perfectly glossy.

noeul scoffs and tilts her head. "i do." a faint, wry smile touched her lips. "you know, i’ve known my brother a long time. longer than you, even." she paused, letting her words hang in the air. "i know how he gets. when things pile up and he forgets the rest of the world exists."

for a second, the façade threatened to crack. the truth, the bitter, stinging sensation, rose in your throat. you wanted to confess, to unburden yourself, to say, he’s not here, noeul. even when he’s here, he’s not here. i’m so lonely. i feel like i’m drowning in this calm. but the words remained trapped. fearful of conflict, ingrained habit of presenting things softly. you forced a small, reassuring nod. "yeah, it's nothing." the lie tasted like ash.

she watches you for a second longer, like she’s weighing something, then hums lightly and looks away, letting the moment dissolve back into the room. as the conversation drifts away again, your gaze lowers, unfocused.

the manicurist finished, buffing your nails to a high shine. she applied a cuticle oil, the scent of almond and rose a delicate perfume. your hands, now impeccably groomed, felt foreign.

"all done, dear." she announced, her smile bright.

you lift your hands slightly, turning them under the light. they’re perfect. smooth, even, untouched.

"thank you," you say, smiling.

for a moment, you imagine asking him. should be simple. do you ever think about kids? it doesn’t feel like a big question. it's not.

and yet, you can’t picture the moment clearly. when you'd ask, how he’d answer, whether it would feel natural or out of place, like introducing a topic that doesn’t belong in the quiet shape of their life. so you let the thought go.

you reach for your phone absentmindedly. no new messages. thumb hovers over the screen for a second, like you might type something, then you lock it instead and set it back down.

"do you guys want to grab something after this?" a girls asks. "coffee?"

"perfect! i’m craving that new lavender latte."

"oh, i can't," you say quickly, forcing another regretful smile. "i really should head home. dinner, you know." you gestured vaguely, as if the very concept of an empty fridge was an urgent, looming threat.

"alright, wifey," someone teases.

you simply smile again in a thin line as you stand, smoothing down your dress out of instinct and reach for your bag. giving everyone a small goodbye hug. as you pass behind noeul, there’s a brief brush of hands, intentional to pause you.

"hey, if it’s ever not nothing," she says quietly, a hint of concern still lacing her words. "you can tell me."

you hold her gaze for a second. then you smile. soft, reassuring, effortless. "i know." and you mean it, you just don't use it.

blur of city sounds and hurried footste. you stepped out, the cool afternoon air a sharp contrast to the salon’s warmth. rose scented oil on your nails, faint blush of pink, it felt like a disguise. you walked, footsteps echoing on the pavement, toward the quiet of the apartment, toward the silent kitchen, toward the dinner you had to make. the thought of it, a weight in your stomach, settled in with the dull ache of loneliness. the calm awaited.

୨୧

the last of the suds swirled down the drain, taking with them the faint scent of tonight’s braised short ribs. you wiped down the counter, movements precise, methodical. the clinking of ceramic plates against the drying rack was the only sound in the kitchen. you dried your hands on a towel, folding it neatly over the edge of the sink when you're finished. dishes done, kitchen clean again.

san's in the living room, laptop open, the soft glow of the screen lighting his face. he's not typing much. just staring, scrolling, thinking. you paused at the archway, shoulder pressing lightly against the cool plaster. the conversation from the salon, a snippet of motherhood, rang in your mind. it had all been a gentle nudge, a question mark in the back of your thoughts all afternoon. you hadn't realized how much space the idea of a child, of your child, could occupy until that moment.

the future, once a vibrant tapestry you and san wove together with eager hands, now a blank canvas. you’d painted the college days in bright, bold strokes, the wedding vows in shimmering gold. but the years beyond, the ones stretching into a quiet domesticity, remained unsketched. you found yourself wondering if san even saw that canvas anymore, if he still held a brush.

you watched the muscles in his forearms flex as he began typing, the subtle ripple beneath his shirt. his dark hair, a little longer than you usually liked, fell across his forehead. he didn’t look up, his focus absolute, a tunnel vision you’d come to recognize.

"still have a lot to do?" you asked, your voice softer than you intended, a whisper against the keyboard’s clatter.

his fingers stilled for a beat, then resumed their pace. "almost," he murmured, eyes still fixed on the screen. "just finishing up these projections for the morning."

a breath, deep and slow, air cool in your lungs. you watch him for a second. the way his brows pull together slightly, the way his attention narrows into whatever’s on the screen. focused. distant. the question, the real question, the one that had been brewing since you left the salon, fell heavy on your tongue. it wasn't just about kids. it was about us. about the unspoken, the unasked, the growing chasm of silence. you wanted to ask if he ever thought about them, about a future that wasn’t neatly tied to quarterly reports and spreadsheets. you wanted to ask if he still saw you, really saw you, beyond the perfectly made bed and the carefully planned dinners. maybe, just maybe, this question could be the key, a small crack. it could lead to an actual conversation, a real one, not just about work or groceries or the weather. your heart beat a frantic rhythm against your ribs.

"hey," you start.

he hummed, signaling acknowledgement without breaking concentration. his head tilted slightly, silent invitation to continue.

do you ever think about kids?

words once so clear in your mind, so simple in your head, at least, suddenly tangled. they became a knot in your throat, a lump of unspoken fears and resentments. the image of him, so engrossed, so far away, solidified the doubt. what if he says no? what if he doesn’t want them? what if he thinks it’s a silly question? the fear of that disappointment in his eyes, was a known, suffocating weight. you’d spent years perfecting the art of soft landings, of avoiding any ripple in the calm surface of your shared life. to shatter that now, to introduce a potential disagreement, felt like a betrayal of your own carefully constructed peace. the question of children, of your future, of his love, dissolved into a vague, unformed anxiety.

"do you…" you began, then faltered, sentence dying on your lips. "do you want some tea?"

he looked up then, slanted brown eyes meeting yours, a faint smile touching his lips. the blue light softened the edges of his face, highlighting the dimples that appeared only when he was genuinely pleased. "yeah," he nodded. "sounds nice."

and just like that, the moment passed. the opportunity vanished. you offered a small, tight smile in return, then turned and walked back into the quiet kitchen, already reaching for the kettle. behind you, the quiet settles back into place. the question dissolves somewhere between the sink and the stove, blending into the rhythm of water filling, mugs being set out, something warm being made and offered instead of something uncertain being asked. by the time the kettle starts to hum, you can’t even tell if it would’ve been the right moment or if there would ever be one.

୨୧

the supermarket was colder than you'd expected when the automatic doors whispered open, spitting out artificial chill. paused just past the entrance, adjusting your grip on the heavy cart as the air settled unwelcome against your skin. for a moment, you just stood there, letting the quiet hum of refrigerators and distant chatter fill the space around you. a shiver traced it's way down your spine, cold reminder that you had to move, and so you pushed the metal basket forward as it's wheels squeaked faintly.

there was no reason to rush. you followed the aisles in a pattern you didn’t have to think about anymore. chicken first, hand reaching for the familiar white tray. then the vegetable section. flour, again. sugar, constant drain on the pantry, always seemed to run out faster than it should. everything found it's place in the cart without hesitation, each item chosen with the same steady certainty. each line on your shopping list crossed off with a decisive stroke of the pen. at some point, you realized you had already walked down the same aisle twice.

nothing missing, nothing forgotten. the necessities secured, a small indulgence felt earned. you slowed, then stopped altogether at the snack aisle. eyes drifted over the shelves, lingering on things you didn’t need. brightly colored packaging, a mental tally forming: which ones you wouldn't you buy, which ones would san wrinkle his nose at? the familiar ritual offered a brief, quiet comfort. you imagined his polite imperceptible nod of approval when you presented his favourite chocolate covered crispy biscuits, or the slight, teasing lift of his brow if you dared bring home something too exotic.

"y/n?" the voice came from behind, uncertain but enough to make you turn, the cart creaking in protest. you couldn’t place him until the crooked smile appeared and recognition settled in.

seonghwa.

he stood a few feet away, a half basket hooked over his arm. the boy you remembered, all sharp angles and adolescent angst, had softened around the edges, but the core was undeniably him. the piercings that once studded his ears and lip were gone, leaving only ghost like indentations. but new ink snaked up his forearms, dark tendrils against his skin, a testament to a life lived beyond high school hallways. his wolf cut, a shaggy, artfully dishevelled frame around his face, was longer, wilder than you remembered. his round eyes, still piercing, held a glint of surprise, then something else, something assessing.

"oh...hi," you said, a small, surprised smile breaking through. "wait, hi."

"wow, it's really you." he smiled back, a little wider, like he’d been more sure of it than you were. "i almost didn't recognize you. you... look good, exactly the same," he added, almost as an afterthought.

you let out a quiet laugh, shaking your head. "that’s not true."

"it is," he said lightly. "just... older. in a good way."

you smiled again, more out of politeness this time, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as if to give your hands something to do.

"what are you doing around here?" he asked. "do you live nearby?"

"yeah," you nodded. "not too far. i just came to... groceries."

"right," he said, glancing at his own cart. "same."

there was a brief pause, the kind that should have felt awkward, but didn’t quite. not yet.

"so... are you still in touch with... what was her name? sarah? no- samantha?”

you smiled faintly. "no."

"right, yeah," he said quickly, waving it off with a small laugh. "i always mix those up."

you didn’t correct him. his gaze shifted then, catching on your left hand, lingering for a fraction on the thin band around your ring ringer. you followed his eyes, as if you hadn’t noticed it until that moment.

you offered a practiced smile, a smooth, well rehearsed performance. "oh, yeah. met him in college." the words came out light, airy, almost dismissive of the years of shared history, of the dreams whispered in dorm rooms, the silent promises.

"college, huh? that's nice," he said, and it sounded genuine.

"it is," you replied, too quickly. "his name is san, he's an accountant." the description felt flat, inadequate, a pale shadow of the man you loved.

"an accountant. fancy." he chuckled. "so, what have you been up to? still arguing about about freud versus jung for fun?"

"no, not really." you corrected gently. "i mean, i got a psychology degree but i'm… i'm a stay at home wife now." the phrase almost felt embarrassing on your tongue.

his eyebrow shot up. "huh... i always pictured you, like, running a therapy practice, saving the world from going insane."

you shrugged. "well, it’s nice, though. i get to... manage the house. bake. plan meals. save him from going insane, you know?" the words hollow, even to your own ears.

"i bet san’s a lucky man. always coming home to fresh cookies." he teased, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

small, tight knot formed in your stomach. you baked when you were anxious, yes. but san rarely came home early enough for the cookies to still be warm. and most of them, you gave away to the neighbours, offerings of surplus comfort. "something like that," you murmured, deflecting. "what about you? still making music?"

his face lit up, a genuine, unadulterated passion sparking in his eyes. the words lingered between you for a second before dissolving into something lighter. you talked after that. nothing important, nothing that would be remembered in detail later. work, vaguely. life, in broad strokes. the kind of conversation that filled space easily without asking too much of either of them. he asked questions and waited for the answers. reacted in the right places. kept things moving without letting them settle too long in any one place. you found yourself talking more than you expected to.

"a few of us get together sometimes," he said, almost casually. "nothing big. just... hanging out. you should come, we’re going to a friend's house next week. old times' sake."

you hesitated, not because you didn’t want to, but because you did. your mind immediately conjured a mental checklist: the laundry basket overflowing in the utility room, the dust motes dancing in the afternoon sun on the living room floor, the intricate dinner you had planned for san, a quiet attempt to reignite a spark that felt increasingly dim. the thought of all those small, domestic duties, waiting patiently for your attention, made a familiar pang of guilt twist in your gut.

"i don’t know," you said lightly, automatic refusal on your lips. "i might be busy."

"with what?" he asked curiously.

you searched for something immediate, something obvious.

"just… stuff," you said instead, smoothing it over with a small smile.

he nodded, accepting it without question.

"well," he added, "if you’re not, you’re welcome. it’d be nice to catch up properly. it’s good to break free sometimes and let loose, you know?"

a small yearning stirred within you. the idea of an afternoon free from chores, from the quiet hum of your own thoughts, from the subtle ache of loneliness, held an unexpected appeal. "okay," you said, the word simple.

"yeah?" his eyes amused.

"yeah."

you exchanged numbers. nothing ceremonious about it, a small addition, barely noticeable in the moment. "well, it was good running into you, y/n. don’t be a stranger." he offered a quick, easy smile, then turned, his basket still hooked over his arm, and disappeared down the aisle towards the dairy section.

that night, you work through the knots in your hair in front of the vanity mirror. each stroke of the brush pulls a small discomfort. the rush of water from the tap in the en suite bathroom ceases. the door creaks open and san emerged, a towel draped low around his waist. water still clings to the dark hairs on his chest, glistening under the low light. he moves with a quiet efficiency, his broad shoulders filling the doorway for a moment before he crosses to his side of the bed, carrying the clean scent of his soap. he doesn’t look at you, not directly, as he peels the towel away, letting it drop to the floor. your gaze, however, finds the smooth expanse of his back, the hard lines of his muscles shifting as he reaches for the pajama drawer. you note the way his bicep flexes, the familiar curve of his neck, the slight slump of his shoulders that wasn’t there when you first met him.

you continue brushing, rhythmic scrape of bristles against scalp filling the silence. your heart a persistent bird, flutters.

"i ran into someone today," you say, your voice almost lost in the rustle of san pulling on a shirt.

a low hum sound from inside the fabric, he pulls the shirt down, smoothing it over his chest. he turns then, his eyes, dark and heavy lidded, finally finding yours in the mirror. a flicker of something unreadable passes through them before settling into a tired affection.

"at the market?" he asks as he pulls back the duvet on his side of the bed.

you nod, watching his reflection as he settles onto the mattress, propping himself up against the headboard. "an old friend. from high school." you pause, the brush still in your hand, it's bristles splayed. "apparently some of them still hang out, and i was invited."

the bed dips as he adjusts the pillows. "that’s good. you should go." his voice is calm, even. he picks up his phone from the nightstand, it's screen glowing blue for a moment before he sets it back down.

you turn fully then, the brush forgotten on the vanity. your bare feet touch the cool wood floor. "really? you don’t mind?" you walk to your side of the bed.

he looks up, his brows furrowed slightly. "why would i mind? it’s good for you to see people. you’re always here." his gaze sweeps around the room, then back to you. "you should get out more."

the words, meant to be reassuring, land with a surprising weight. always here. a small, sharp ache begins in your chest. you climb into bed, pulling the duvet up to your chin. the sheets, cool against your skin, feel vast tonight.

"i mean," you start, choosing your words carefully, "i haven’t seen them in years. since graduation, probably." you watch his face, searching for something, a hint of curiosity, a flicker of concern.

he just nods, a small, almost imperceptible movement. "people change. that’s okay. it’ll be nice to reconnect." he reaches over, his hand finding yours under the duvet. his fingers, warm and strong, intertwine with yours, a familiar comfort. "you’ve been cooped up. it’s good to have plans."

his thumb strokes the back of your hand, it’s a connection, yes, but one that feels practiced, automatic. you want to tell him more, to say, it was seonghwa, the boy with the emo hair, the one who used to draw skulls in his notebook during history class, but the words catch in your throat. the moment feels too delicate, too easily broken.

"i guess so," you murmur, your voice barely a whisper. you squeeze his hand, a silent plea for more, for him to ask, who was it? what did you talk about?

soft exhalation that sounds like relief escapes him. he leans over, his head dipping. his lips, warm and soft, brush your forehead, then your temple, then your mouth. it’s a brief, chaste kiss, a familiar closing to the day. his lips taste faintly of mint. he pulls back, settling deeper into his pillow.

"good night, y/n," he says, his voice already thick with sleep.

eyes closing and breathing deepening almost immediately. the rhythm of his breath fills the room, steady and even. his hand, still holding yours, loosens it's grip. fingers, heavy with sleep, slide away.

darkness pressed in as you layed there, the silence amplifying the quiet hum of the city outside. your eyes trace the familiar contours of his face in the dim light. his eyelashes, thick and dark, rest against his cheekbones. faint smile, ghost of a dream, plays on his lips. he looks peaceful, untroubled.

he hadn’t asked. he hadn’t asked anything beyond the most superficial. he hadn't asked who. he hadn't asked if you wanted to go. he just assumed.

you turn onto your side, facing away from him, pulling the duvet tighter around you. the warmth of the blankets does little to chase away the chill that has settled deep within you. still, you tried to push the thought away. it’s not fair. san is tired. he works hard. he provides. this is what you agreed to. this is the life you built. you chose this, to be here. for him. but the loneliness curls around your heart. the perfection of the bed you made this morning, the carefully planned dinner, the unspoken anxieties baked into the pastries you gave away, all of it feels like a silent scream swallowed by the vast, quiet expanse of your days.

tears won’t come even if the knot in you throat screams for a cry. instead, your mind drifts to the closet, to the neat rows of clothes, the perfectly folded sweaters. tomorrow, you think, you’ll reorganize the winter section. it needs it. you need it. a small, manageable task to fill the endless hours.

y/n choi: hi, it's y/n from the store. i think i'm free that day if the invite still stands

seonghwa park: hey!

seonghwa park: yeah of course 😉

seonghwa park: glad ur coming, heres the address

seonghwa park: [location]

୨୧

the building wasn't what you expected. grimy canvas of faded brick and peeling paint that slightly unnerved you. you pulled your phone from your pocket a third time, checked the address, then glanced up at the entrance like it might correct itself if you stayed waiting long enough.

no, this was it.

bass vibrated through the pavement, pulse beneath your feet. for a second, you consider leaving, then you adjust your grip on the small container in your hands and step inside. the hallway swallowed you whole, narrow canyon that smell suspiciously of gasoline. when you reach the graffiti painted door, it was already slightly open. you knocked anyway.

there's a small shuffle inside before seonghwa emerges, his grin a flash of white teeth.

"y/n! thought you weren't gonna make it." he stepped aside, his arm sweeping an invitation.

you offered a small, polite smile, stepping into the room. the air hit you first, thick with a cloying sweetness you couldn't recognize and the acrid bite of stale cigarettes. the apartment was a controlled chaos. art adorned every available surface, canvases leaning against walls, sketches tacked to corkboards, a half finished sculpture draped in cloth in a corner. the room swam with bodies. girls, their midriffs bare, navel piercings glinting under the strung fairy lights. men, their arms drawn with ink, sprawled on beanbags or perched on the worn, leather couches. they moved with an easy, unhurried rhythm, as if the space molded itself around their presence. your modest linen shirt, a soft ecru, felt suddenly like a costume, an ill fitting disguise.

"hey everyone, this is y/n, from high school." seonghwa’s voice cut through the haze, a casual announcement.

a few heads turned, a couple of languid nods, but most remained immersed in their conversations, their laughter echoing off the high ceilings. your gaze swept across the room, searching for a familiar face, a flicker of recognition. nothing.

"it’s... nice to meet you all," you murmured, voice a little too soft, a little too formal for the raucous atmosphere. you clutched the clear container in your hands, the weight of it suddenly grounding.

a girl with a constellation of tiny tattoos climbing her neck, her hair a violent shade of fuchsia, pointed a perfectly manicured finger at your hands. "what’s that?"

you felt a blush creep up your neck. "oh. cookies. i made them." you held the container out, a silent offering.

a woman with striking, dark eyes and a generous smile detached herself from a group near the window. she wore spiked hair and her eyebrows seemed to be gone, but her presence offered a quiet anchor. "cookies! how cute. anna, by the way." she extended a hand, her grip firm and warm.

"y/n." you returned her shake, a surge of relief washing over you.

"i didn't know this was a bake sale," a gravelly voice grumbled from a corner, followed by a snort.

anna turned, her dark eyes narrowing playfully at the fat guy with a mohawk. "shut up, mark. you never bring anything." she gave his arm a quick, sharp shove. despite his joke, he came up as well.

a fresh wave of embarrassment hit you, cheeks burning as you began to stammer, "i just thought, you know, as a... a thank you for inviting me..."

anna waved your apology away. "no, it’s great! we love snacks. what kind?" she peered into the container, her eyes sparkling.

"chocolate chip. with sea salt." you offered, a small smile tentatively forming.

the lid popped open with a soft click. the aroma of warm chocolate and vanilla wafted through the air, momentarily cutting through the other scents. it was like a siren song. suddenly, a small crowd materialized around you, drawn by the scent. hands reached in, fingers deftly plucking cookies from their neat rows.

"someone brought cookies?"

"wait, i want cookies."

"no way, cookies?"

"save me one. i said save me one!"

the conversation dwindled, replaced by the soft sounds of chewing and contented murmurs. a lanky guy took the last cookie, giving you a between apologetic and grateful look and you laugh it off. within minutes, the container lay empty, a few crumbs clinging to it's clear sides. you felt a genuine smile spread across your face. the tension in your shoulders eased. "i’m glad you liked them."

for a moment everything was filled with overlapping conversations and easy movement, people drifting in and out without much structure. you sat at the couch with anna and mark. being spoken to, responded to, included without having to work for it. she asks you what else you like to bake. he asks where you live. the questions aren’t deep, but they come one after another and you answer, laugh and nod. the silence you've been carrying around doesn’t follow you in, it stays somewhere outside the door you walked through.

after a while, when the rhythm starts to feel harder to follow and topics shift quickly, you find your way back to seonghwa in the kitchen. he’s near the counter, talking to someone, but he glances over when you approach, like he’s been keeping track of where you are.

"hey," he says, turning slightly towards yo.

"hi," you answer before a small pause, then casually, "are any other people from our school coming?"

he doesn't hesitate. "nah," he says, shaking his head. "couldn't come."

"oh," you felt a pang of disappointment, small knot tightening in your stomach. you’d envisioned friendly faces, shared anecdotes, a comfortable bridge to this unfamiliar landscape. "okay."

"why?" he adds. "were you expecting someone?"

"no,no. i just thought maybe-" before trailing off, you shake your head lightly. "it's fine."

he watches you for a second, then nods once, like that’s enough.

"you’re good," he says. "don’t overthink it. come on, let’s get you a drink." seonghwa grinned, his hand briefly brushing your lower back as he steered you towards a cooler overflowing with ice and bottles.

you chose a sparkling water, the chill of the can a welcome sensation against your palm. you gravitated towards anna, who was now engaged in a lively discussion with mark about a band you’d never heard of. you hovered at the edge of their circle, listening, slowly piecing together fragments of their world. they spoke of gigs, of art installations, of obscure films, their words painting a vibrant, chaotic picture of lives lived on the fringes of convention.

as the evening continued it's slow, winding course, the hours passed by without warning, suddenly, it was later than you thought. through the subtle buzz in your veins and lightness you hadn't realized you were missing, the image of san already in bed, alone, stirred something in you. your small bag and empty container already in your hands.

"you can come in anytime, even if seonghwa isn't here." anna said before hugging you goodbye.

as you made your way towards the door, seonghwa intercepted you. "leaving already? come on, just one more drink." his voice was persuasive.

"i really should go. it’s getting late." you offered a polite, but firm smile.

he stepped closer, his hand briefly touching your arm. "you know, you’re really something, y/n. a real breath of fresh air." his eyes held yours, flicker of something unreadable in their depths.

"thank you, seonghwa. for inviting me." you pulled your arm away subtly.

"anytime. seriously. we should hang out again, just us two." his voice dropped, a low murmur intended only for your ears.

you felt a shiver, a faint unease prickling at your skin. "maybe," you said, voice noncommittal, then slipped out the door, back into the cool night air.

the street was quieter now, the bass from the building still a faint thrum in the distance. you walked and thought of the laughter, the music, the easy camaraderie, and a strange sense of longing settled in your chest. it was a world so different from your own, a world where boundaries seemed to blur, where emotions were worn on sleeves, where life felt raw and immediate.

stale cigarette smoke clung to your clothes, a new perfume you hadn't anticipated, but somehow, it felt less offensive than the lingering scent of dish soap from your day to day. your sensible sedan, parked a block away, seemed almost out of place among the battered vans and motorcycles. once you got in safely, you pulled out your phone, the screen illuminating your face with a single text from san from an hour ago: 'home. have a good time, night.' short, efficient, just like him. you stared at it and felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to talk to him, to tell him about the fuchsia hair, the tattooed arms, their reactions to your cookies, the melancholic music, anna’s kind eyes. but you tucked your phone back into your purse, the small, bright screen now dark.

you unlocked the apartment door, the click echoing in the silent space. the air inside was still, heavy with the scent of your carefully chosen strawberry cake diffuser. a half eaten bowl sat on the kitchen counter, remnants of the chicken stir fry you had prepared earlier, the pan still on the stove, a few grains of rice clinging to it's surface. a small sigh of relief escaped your lips. he had eaten. the simple act, a confirmation of your effort, brought a satisfaction to you. you moved through the kitchen, the soft clink of ceramic and metal as you rinsed the bowl, scrubbed the pan. it was a mindless task, your hands working on autopilot, while your mind drifted back to the vibrant chaos of anna's house.

the bedroom was a hushed darkness. san lay sprawled on his side of the bed, a rumbling snore escaping his lips, his face buried in the pillow. the sheet, pulled up to his waist, outlined the broad expanse of his back, the familiar curve of his spine. a sight you knew intimately, a tableau repeated almost every night. he worked hard, you reminded yourself, always.

you untangled your hair from the neat french twist, the pins scattering like tiny metallic insects onto the polished wood of your dresser. soft fingers massaged your scalp, releasing the tension that had gathered there throughout the day. you stripped off your clothes replacing them with silk pajama shorts and a matching camisole. teeth brushed and bathroom light off, the bed dipped slightly as you eased yourself in, careful not to disturb san. he remained a dark, unmoving mass beside you, his breathing deep and even.

sleep, usually a welcome embrace, felt elusive tonight. your mind buzzed, a kaleidoscope of new faces, loud music, and unfiltered laughter. the freedom of it all, the raw, unpolished authenticity, contrasted sharply with the quiet, ordered life you had carefully constructed.

shifting restless, silk rustling against the sheets. the image of the girl's fuchsia hair, defiant and vibrant, flashed in your mind. her confident stride, her easy smile. what did she worry about? did she ever feel this profound, aching quietness? you turned your head, watching the gentle rise and fall of san's back. the moonlight, filtering through the gap in the curtains, painted a silver line along his broad shoulder, the muscle defined even in repose. he was strong, reliable, your rock. yet lately, the rock was a mountain you couldn't climb.

a pang of something sharp, something akin to longing, twisted in your gut. you wanted to feel. you wanted to be seen. not just as the wife who kept the house, who cooked the meals, but as you, again. the you who had laughed tonight, unburdened. the one you knew san had fallen in love with.

your hand, almost without conscious thought, slipped beneath the silk of your pajama shorts. the fabric parted, your fingers, tentative at first, found the soft mound of your grown pubic hair, then the slick, warm folds beneath. a small gasp escaped your lips, swallowed by the quiet room. your core, already sensitive, pulsed beneath your touch. you stroked, slowly, deliberately, soft pressure building.

subtly, your hips began to tilt, involuntary movement, pressing into your palm. your fingers worked with a quiet urgency, tracing the delicate ridges, circling the peak of your clitoris. a moistness spread, warm, slick rush that dampened the silk shorts beneath your hand. the sensation intensified, a delicious ache blooming deep inside you, spreading through your belly. your breathing hitched, growing shallow, ragged.

wake up, i'm here.

you closed your eyes, a torrent of images flashing behind your eyelids. san, the warmth of his touch, a vague, undefined hunger. you pressed harder, your thumb finding a rhythm, a steady, insistent pressure. a low moan, barely audible, escaped your throat, a sound of pure pleasure. your whole body tensed, arching slightly into your hand. the climax a sudden, exquisite release, wave of heat that cascaded through your limbs, leaving you trembling, breathless.

୨୧

the shrill ring of the alarm ripped you from a dreamless sleep. your eyes fluttered open, the room still shrouded in pre dawn gloom. a glance at the clock sent a jolt of panic through you. 6:45 am. san left at 7:30. you had overslept.

you scrambled out of bed, the silk shorts clinging briefly before you shed them. the floor was cool beneath your bare feet.

"san, wake up," you whispered, nudging his shoulder. he grunted and slowly, reluctantly, stirred.

you moved with practiced efficiency, a whirlwind of motion in the quiet kitchen. the scent of brewing coffee began to fill the air, mingling with the sizzle of eggs in the pan. toast popped, butter melted, and the rhythmic thud of a knife chopping fruit filled the space. san emerged from the bedroom, showered and dressed, his black hair still damp, clinging to his forehead. he looked tired, his eyes still holding the remnants of sleep, but his movements were precise, methodical.

"morning," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. he poured himself a mug of coffee, the steam curling around his face.

"morning," you replied, already assembling his lunch. a neat stack of sandwiches, a small container of cut fruit, a handful of almonds. you wrapped it all meticulously, fitting it into his lunch bag.

"did you sleep okay?" he asked, taking a sip of his coffee. he leaned against the counter, watching you.

"yeah, eventually," you said, trying to keep your voice light. you packed a small thermos of tea. "i went to that thing last night, you know, the hangout thing?"

he nodded before picking up a slice of toast, spreading jam onto it. "how was it?"

"it was...different," you began, a small smile playing on your lips. you wanted to tell him everything, about the fuchsia hair, the tattoos, the unexpected warmth. "it was in this old building, kind of grungy, but everyone was so nice. there was this girl, sally, she had the most incredible hair, like, bright pink and her face was like a strainer, filled with piercings, it was so cool. and then i met anna, she had these dark intimidating eyes but she was actually really sweet. she’s a photographer for bands."

he turned to you with a slight frown. "y/n?"

"yeah?" you cleaned your hands with a kitchen towel.

"you're not... getting into anything dangerous, are you?"

you tilted your head, looking at him confused. "what? no, no. they were really nice people, they had this energy, like they just didn't care what anyone thought. it was kind of... inspiring."

"hmm..." he took a bite with a raised brow. "be careful y/n, you know how those types can be."

the warmth you’d felt, a flicker of shared experience, began to cool. "i am. but listen, there was also music, not like the music we usually listen to, more like a band sound," you continued, a little more emphatically, trying to inject some of the excitement you had felt into your words. "there was this guy, he had these huge arms filled with tattoos and he had a mohawk, i'd never seen one of those in real life."

he looked away again, finished his toast and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "just don’t get into anything foolish." he reached for his briefcase and lunchbox, already moving towards the door.

your shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly, there was so much you still wanted to tell him. but there was also no time, you knew. there never was. he was already halfway out the door, his hand on the knob.

"i'll make your favorite soup for dinner tonight," you offered, a last ditch effort to connect, to anchor him for just a moment longer.

he paused, turning his head slightly. a small, tired smile touched his lips, revealing the faint indentations of his dimples. "thanks, that sounds great, i'll try not to be too late. love you."

"love you," you mumbled as the door shut and he was gone, the click of the lock echoing in the now silent apartment. you stood in the kitchen, surrounded by the lingering scent of coffee and eggs.

y/n choi: hi, it's y/n, i had a really good time yesterday.

seonghwa park: hey, me too

seonghwa park: everyone loved u btw, they were all talking about how sweet you were when you left

y/n choi: really? that's so nice to hear

seonghwa park: ur coming next week, right?

y/n choi: again?

seonghwa park: yeah

seonghwa park: we hang out every weekend

seonghwa park: always at annas

seonghwa park: come ooon, ull have t come

seonghwa park: ur a part of the group now

the words, simple and direct, landed like a soft blanket on your exposed nerves. a part of the group now. the phrase resonated, a balm to the quiet ache san’s rushed departure had left behind. it wasn’t profound, not a declaration of affection, but it was an invitation, a recognition. it felt like a small hand reaching out in the growing expanse of your solitude.

y/n choi: i’d like that, thanks seonghwa.

the next week crawled by, each day a slow, methodical march of chores and quiet anticipation. the perfect bed, the planned dinners, the reorganizing of the linen closet. each task a meticulous attempt to fill the hours, to ward off the encroaching loneliness. but seonghwa’s words, hummed beneath the surface.

a part of the group now.

as saturday evening approached, nervous flutter stirred in your stomach. you pulled out a simple, soft cotton t-shirt, one you usually wore for lounging. then, a pair of well worn dark jeans. your fingers went to your hair, letting it fall, then found a simple black velvet hairband, pushing back the front strands.

the grungy building loomed, a concrete behemoth adorned with a tapestry of peeling posters and vibrant graffiti. the door stood ajar again, inviting light spilling onto the cracked pavement. but politeness, ingrained deep within you, compelled your knuckles to tap softly against it.

the door swung open further, revealing anna. her spiked hair, dark halo around her face, seemed to defy gravity. thicker eyeliner from the last time, you noticed. a cigarette dangled from her lips, thin wisp of smoke curling lazily into the air.

"well, look who it is," anna’s voice, raspy like gravel, held a surprising warmth. a slow smile spread across her face, revealing a glint of metal in her upper teeth. "you bring cookies this time, wifey?"

you laughed, unforced sound that surprised even yourself. "i didn’t, i’m afraid." faint blush touched your cheeks.

anna leaned against the doorframe, taking a drag from her cigarette. "shame. your hair looks good though, so i'll let you in." she winked, a playful glint in her dark eyes.

you stepped inside murmuring a small "thanks." she led you into the living room as seonghwa, who was meticulously cleaning something that looked like a round bottom flask, rose from the couch.

"hey, you. where's my hug?" he grinned, a flash of genuine pleasure in his expression. he offered a thight hug, quick squeeze that felt surprisingly comforting. "glad you came back."

"come on, i’ll show you my current obsession." anna, having stubbed out her cigarette in a makeshift ashtray, clapped you on the shoulder and led you to a corner of the living room, where a makeshift studio was set up. a flash unit sat on a tripod, and a black backdrop hung from a makeshift frame.

she showed you her new lighting techniques, her raspy voice softening as she spoke about her craft, explaining each of the series of prints tacked to the wall. the subjects, all punk, stared out with an intensity that pulled you in. low groan emanated from the other side of the room. mark, with his pants that perpetually threatened to slide off his ample frame, was getting another tattoo. the machine buzzing like an angry bee.

you watched, a strange mix of fascination and unease stirring within you. the raw intimacy of the moment, the deliberate pain, the permanent mark being etched into skin. it was so far removed from your carefully ordered world. visceral, unapologetic. you thought of san, of his disciplined body, his aversion to anything that might disrupt his carefully constructed order. a tattoo, to him, would be an act of reckless abandon, an unnecessary defacement.

anna exchanged a few words with the tattoo artist and you followed seonghwa and sally into the kitchen.

"tacos?" you asked, a sudden urge to ground yourself in something familiar, something productive.

"attempting to," seonghwa repeated, a wry smile playing on his lips. sally, armed with a knife, was making a valiant but clumsy effort to chop an onion. tears streamed down her heavily made up face.

"this is harder than it looks," she sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing eyeliner.

"i don’t even know if this is cooked enough. it still looks… pink."

you stepped forward with quiet confidence. this, you knew. this was your domain. "let me help," you offered, already reaching for the cutting board. you gently took the knife, demonstrating a quick, efficient chop that produced even dice.

you moved with an easy grace, hands finding their rhythm. chicken seasoned, a blend of spices from the overflowing spice rack that seemed to surprise even seonghwa. you showed sally how to properly dice tomatoes and shred lettuce, your voice soft but instructive. the kitchen, which had been a scene of mild culinary disaster, slowly began to transform into an efficient workspace.

"wow," sally beamed, her fuchsia hair bouncing. "seriously, my mom just nukes everything."

it was a simple thing, a small act of connection, of contribution. but you felt useful, appreciated. the feeling was a pleasant counterpoint to the quiet solitude of your own kitchen at home, where your culinary efforts often met with san’s polite, but often silent, approval.

the group gathered at the living room again, something being passed from hand to hand. you saw it before you recognized it, it wasn't tobacco.

the joint made it's rounds, anna took a long drag, her eyes closing in apparent contentment. seonghwa inhaled deeply, then exhaled a plume of smoke that dissolved into the dim light. sally giggled, her eyes a little brighter, her movements a little looser.

then, mark’s hand, big with his new tattoo, extended towards you, holding the burning joint. the tip glowed orange, small pulsating ember. a hush fell over the group, subtle, expectant. no one said anything, but their gazes, soft and encouraging, rested on you.

your breath hitched. your mind, usually so clear, swam with conflicting thoughts. weed. the word echoed in your head, sharp and disapproving. san’s voice, clear as day, cut through the hazy atmosphere.

disgusting. it’s not a gateway. it destroys lives.

his lectures, delivered with a quiet intensity, about the dangers of drugs, of anything that clouded judgment, that compromised control. he hated it. he hated all of it. smoking, drinking to excess, any form of escape that wasn’t productive, wasn’t measured.

your gaze flickered to mark’s hand, then to seonghwa, who offered a small, reassuring nod. a strange defiance, a tiny spark of rebellion, ignited within you. san, with his rigid rules and his unspoken expectations, felt miles away, a distant, fading echo. here, in this room, with these people, there was an unspoken permission, an acceptance of difference.

you thought of the quiet mornings, the unasked questions, the emotional chasm that had grown between you and san. you thought of the lingering loneliness, the slow, insidious fading of sparks. you thought of his hurried goodbye, his preoccupation, his casual dismissal of your small joys.

a small, almost imperceptible sigh escaped your lips. it wasn’t about wanting to get high. it was a quiet protest. a moment of reclaiming a sliver of yourself that felt lost, submerged under layers of wifely duty and unspoken disappointment. it was a fleeting, irrational thought, but it felt powerful in it's simplicity.

trembling fingers, usually so steady, reached for the joint. your eyes met seonghwa’s, then anna’s. they offered soft, almost imperceptible smiles.

the joint touched your lips. the paper felt rough against your skin. the smell, pungent and earthy, filled your nostrils. you hesitated for a fraction of a second, a silent battle raging within. then, you inhaled.

the smoke, harsh and acrid, scraped your throat. you coughed between involuntary gasps. tears sprang to your eyes. the group chuckled softly. your lungs burned, heat spread through your chest, then a dizzying lightness in your head. it wasn’t pleasant, not yet. but as the initial shock subsided, a curious sensation began to bloom. a loosening. a letting go.

the world around you, already vibrant, seemed to soften at the edges. the music, a low thrumming before, now seemed to pulse with a deeper rhythm. the faces around you, previously distinct, now blurred into a warm, accepting tableau.

you exhaled, a shaky, uneven breath. the smoke drifted upwards in a cloud, carrying with it a rebellious whisper.

the taco shell crumbled in your fingers, a warm, messy embrace of seasoned chicken and melted cheese. a laugh, sharp and high, tore from your throat. it wasn’t your laugh, not really, but it escaped anyway.

"y/n, these are..." sally kissed the tips of her fingertips at once. a piece of tomato, vibrant red, clung to her chin. you watched it, mesmerized, as it wobbled precariously. like a tiny significant event.

"no, for real. this is the best shit i've ever eaten," someone grunted as they took another bite, cheeks bulging. the sound of their chewing a symphonic rhythm, wet crunch that filled the room.

you smiled, you think, a wide, unbidden thing that stretched your face. your cheeks felt warm and tingly. the praise, usually a balm, now felt like a spotlight, too bright, too focused. you didn't need to respond. the air itself seemed to hum with approval.

seonghwa leaned in, his hair brushing your shoulder. the scent of his cologne filled your nostrils. it was a new smell, suddenly potent, a story in itself.

"you have to come over more often," he murmured. his words were slow, stretched out, like taffy. "we’d starve without you."

you nodded, or thought you did. the room swirled, a gentle eddy of color and sound. the soft glow of the fairy lights strung across anna’s living room became individual, shimmering points, each one a tiny sun.

anna, perched on the armrest of a worn armchair, watched you, her eyes unblinking. she held a half eaten taco, but she wasn’t eating. she was just watching. a flicker of concern crossed her face, or maybe it was just the way the light caught her smudged makeup.

you turned your head, the motion slow, deliberate, like moving through thick syrup. seonghwa’s face was inches from yours. his eyes liquid and half lidded. a tiny mole, small and innocent on his ear. you had never noticed it before.

"you know," he began, his voice dropping, a conspiratorial whisper meant only for you, "i actually lied to you."

the words themselves were like individual pearls, strung together on an invisible thread that made your breath hitch.

"about what?" you managed a reedy whisper. it sounded like someone else speaking.

he chuckled like it was obvious. "about keeping in touch with people from high school. i don't. not really. i just... wanted you to have a reason to come."

the confession ignited a fresh burst of laughter. bubbled up from deep inside, unrestrained, joyful. it felt like a new sensation, a freedom you hadn't known existed. the idea of him lying, out of all things, struck you as profoundly hilarious.

he smiled, a slow, knowing curve of his lips as his hand, warm and calloused, covered yours on the couch cushion. his thumb traced a slow, hypnotic circle on your skin. it wasn't unpleasant. it was just... there. a sensation.

"y/n, i know you’re unhappy."

unhappiness? that was a concept. right now, there was only the incredibly soft fabric of the couch, the taste of spices on your tongue, the intricate pattern on anna’s rug.

"you deserve so much more," he continued, voice thick and low, "than whatever you’re settling for."

you blinked. his face, so close, seemed to waver, like a reflection in water.

"i want you so bad," a whisper you didn't caught on the movements of his lips, his grip tightening on your hand. "i want to make you happy."

you don't know why he kept making sounds with his mouth. the words drifted past, like smoke. meaningless vibrations in the air. your mind, untethered, floated above them, observing.

then, the world tilted. a wave of warmth, heavy and comforting, washed over you. the trip slowed, the colors blending into a soft, indistinct haze. the universe faded into a gentle lullaby.

୨୧

rough wool blanket against your cheek, smelling faintly of incense and something vaguely sweet, covering you. your eyes fluttered open. the room was bathed in a dim, pre dawn light, a pale grey filtering through the blinds. you blinked, trying to orient yourself. the couch. anna’s couch.

a low snore rumbled from the floor. you peered over the armrest. mark, a lumpy silhouette, was sprawled on a pile of blankets, his mohawk flattened. sally was curled up near him, a splash of fuchsia against the muted tones. anna was nowhere in sight. seonghwa? you scanned the room. no.

dull throb resonated behind your eyes. your mouth felt like sandpaper. you pushed yourself up, the blanket slipping to your lap. the memories of the night were a jumbled mess, like a deck of san's numbers scattered on the floor. flashes of laughter, the taste of tacos, the feeling of warmth. but specific words, specific moments, they were gone, swallowed by the haze.

you fumbled for your purse, slung precariously over the back of the couch. chocolate. a small, dark bar, your emergency comfort. you tore off a piece, the rich, bitter sweetness a welcome shock to your tongue.

you pulled out your phone. three forty seven a.m.

your heart gave a sharp, painful lurch. san. you could almost hear the silence of your apartment, the empty space beside him in bed. a wave of guilt, cold and sharp, washed over you, chasing away the last vestiges of the warm fog.

as careful as you could be, you rose quietly to not disturb the sleeping figures. your movements quiet, deliberate.

the drive home was a blur of streetlights and silent roads. each turn of the wheel felt like a small act of atonement. the city was asleep, a vast, dark canvas. then you finally pulled into your parking spot, the apartment building quiet and imposing.

apartment dark, save for the faint glow from the digital clock on the microwave. you slipped off your shoes, the sink. a plate, crusted with dried sauce, sat precariously on the edge, a half empty mug beside it. san. he had eaten, gone to bed. done.

straight to the bathroom, you stepped under the spray, letting the hot water cascade over your skin. it wasn’t just the smell, but the night itself. the laughter, the forgotten words, the unsettling intimacy. you scrubbed, hard, as if you could scour away the memory, leaving your skin, and your mind, clean and blank once more. you wanted to emerge, refreshed, as if the night had never happened. as if you hadn’t tasted that strange, momentary freedom.

୨୧

the sound pulled at your teeth. tremor in the soles of your new sneakers, premonition of the chaos within. this weekend, anna's apartment building pulsed with an unholy rhythm. this wasn't the hazy, languid hum of last week. this was a beast unleashed.

seonghwa’s band, the ruptured veins or something like that, thrashed in the living room. how they’d squeezed a drum kit, a full amp stack, and three guitarists into the already cramped space remained a mystery. mark, sweat plastering his mohawk to his skull, pounded the drums with a primal ferocity that threatened to crack the plaster. sally contorted over her bass, each pluck a sharp jab to your eardrums. seonghwa, all flailing limbs and guttural shouts was at the center. the sound wasn’t music. it was a wall of noise, an excuse of distorted guitars and ear splitting percussion that clawed at your sanity.

bodies, too many bodies, swayed and thrashed in the dim light, a sea of black leather and ripped denim. you felt like an alien even if you tried dressing in your darkest clothes. a hand, sticky and warm, brushed your arm, offering a glass. you instinctively recoiled, the smell of cheap beer and something cloyingly sweet, making your stomach churn.

seonghwa’s eyes flashed you a grin across the room, a feral baring of teeth, and gave a thumbs up. you forced a weak smile back, the corners of your mouth feeling stiff and unnatural. the volume intensified, a new wave of sound washing over you, drowning out thought, drowning out everything.

a bong, you learned, it's glass bulb milky with smoke, appeared before your face. a girl with tangled dreadlocks and eyes that swam in their sockets pushed it closer.

"hit it, y/n!" she slurred a shout, her voice a gravelly whisper against the roar.

you shook your head, a small, almost imperceptible movement. "no, thanks!"

she shrugged, apathetic, and passed it to the next person. another, a lean guy with a spiderweb tattoo crawling up his neck, who had earlier complained about the brownies you brought not being the "fun ones."

the words felt like pebbles in your throat. you had enough, you needed quiet, needed to escape the relentless assault on your ears. you navigated the throng, each step a battle against jostling elbows and oblivious revelers. you reached the bathroom and pushed open the door for the now muffled sound to lower, then you saw her.

sprawled on the cracked linoleum, half hidden by a discarded shower curtain, lay a woman. her head rested at an awkward angle against the toilet bowl, a thin stream of saliva tracing a path down her chin. she looked older than the others, perhaps in her early thirties, though the lines etched on her face spoke of a life lived hard, not necessarily long. two distinct scars stood out against her skin. her face, even in repose, held a weary resignation, map of battles fought and lost. she wasn't breathing right. shallow, ragged gasps punctuated the silence, each one a struggle.

panic seized you. you knelt beside her, your fingers fumbling for her pulse, finding a weak, thready beat at her neck.

"hey," you whispered, shaking her shoulder gently. "hey, are you okay?"

no response. her eyes remained closed, her lips slightly parted. this wasn't a drunken nap. this was something else, something far more sinister.

your hand instinctively went for your phone, pulling it from your pocket. 911. ambulance. you needed to call an ambulance. your fingers, trembling, navigated the screen.

"i wouldn't do that if i were you."

a hand, heavy and surprisingly strong, clamped around your wrist. your breath hitched. you looked up, startled. a man stood over you. he was burly, with a shaved head and a face like hammered iron. his eyes, dark and flat, bore into yours.

"unless you wanna be trouble," his voice cut through the residual band noise. it wasn't a suggestion. it was a command, heavy with unspoken threat.

your heart hammered against your ribs. you tried to pull your wrist free, but his grip was unyielding, almost bruising. "she needs help," you managed barely a squeak. "she’s not breathing right."

mirthless chuckle rumbled in his chest. "she’s fine. just had a little too much fun." his gaze flickered to your phone. "you call anyone, you’ll regret it."

the warning hung thick and menacing. you met his stare, a shiver running down your spine. the flat emptiness in his eyes, the casual cruelty in his tone, left no room for doubt. he meant it.

slowly, reluctantly, you let your hand drop, your phone clattering softly against the tiles. his grip loosened, then released. you scrambled backward, away from him, away from the unconscious woman, from the suffocating threat. he watched you, unsettling smirk playing on his lips, then turned his attention back to the woman, nudging her with his foot.

you burst out of the bathroom, the music now a mocking roar. you needed anna. anna would know what to do. anna would understand. you pushed through the bodies, eyes scanning the faces, a frantic desperation clawing at your throat. "anna!" you shouted, the word swallowed by the sheer volume. "anna!"

no one heard you. no one even seemed to notice your distress. they just continued to push each other, lost in their own discordant revelry. you spotted a doorway, half hidden behind a towering speaker, and instinctively veered towards it, hoping to find a quieter space, a less crowded corner where anna might be.

it led to a short, narrow hallway, mercifully less populated. at the end, another door, slightly ajar, spilled a soft, yellow light onto the floor. you pushed it open, a desperate plea for help forming on your lips.

the room contrasted to the chaos outside. a single, bare bulb cast a warm glow over a small, unmade bed. and there, on the floor, surrounded by a haphazard collection of worn stuffed animals and bright plastic blocks, sat anna, but she wasn't alone. a small figure, no older than five, sat nestled against her side, a book with brightly colored illustrations open in it's lap. the child, a boy with a shock of dark hair and wide, innocent eyes, looked up as you entered.

"mommy, who’s that?" his voice, clear and sweet, pierced the lingering noise in your ears like a needle.

mommy.

the word echoed, reverberated, then shattered something fragile inside you. anna’s head snapped up, her eyes widening in surprise. a flicker of something, guilt? embarrassment? crossed her face before she quickly composed herself.

"y/n," she said, her voice lowered as she gently pushed the boy behind her. "everything alright?"

everything alright? the irony tasted heavy. now, a child. her child, in this suffocating place. the realization hit you with the force of a physical blow. this wasn’t just a party. this wasn't just a group of friends messing around. this was a life. a harsh, brutal, unforgiving life that you had no part in. the music, which had been an unpleasant background noise, now felt like a blaring siren, screaming the truth. you didn't belong here. not even close. this wasn't edgy. this wasn't rebellious. this was dangerous. this was real.

you shook your head, unable to speak, your throat tight with unshed tears. the image of the passed out woman, the man’s cold eyes, the innocent child, all swirled in a sickening vortex.

"i..." you started, then stopped, the words catching. you didn’t need to explain. anna, with her sudden shift in demeanor, her protective stance over the child, understood.

you turned, a silent retreat, your feet moving on their own accord. you didn't say goodbye. you didn't look back. the door clicked shut behind you, a soft thud against the relentless thrum of the bass.

you navigated the hallway, then the living room, a ghost moving through the throng. no one noticed your departure. the band still roared, seonghwa still shrieked into the mic as he kicked the audience in the face in a blur of motion. you pushed past the last lingering bodies near the door, the cool night air hitting your face like a lifeline.

the street was alive with a different kind of noise. the band’s sound, though fainter, still pulsed through the asphalt, relentless reminder of what you were leaving behind. a group of figures huddled under a flickering street lamp, their movements jerky, unnatural. as you approached, their eyes, glazed and vacant, fixed on you.

"hey, pretty thing, all alone?" one slurred, his voice hoarse, lewd grin spreading across his face.

"where you going in such a hurry?" another whistled, a long, drawn out sound that made your skin crawl.

you kept walking, pace quickening, eyes fixed straight ahead. don’t look. don’t engage. don’t acknowledge. your heart hammered a frantic drum against your ribs. you felt exposed, vulnerable, felt the harsh reality of the street.

your car door shut like a beacon of safety at the end of the block. you fumbled for your keys, fingers clumsy with fear, gripping the steering wheel with knuckles white the whole drive back home, breath coming in ragged gasps. not daring to glance in the rearview mirror once. you drove faster than necessary.

this was not your world. this was not where you belonged. you would never come back. you promised yourself that, a vow whispered into the empty, echoing space of your car, a promise etched in the raw, aching fear still thrumming beneath your skin.

the click of the lock echoed. inside, the air heavy with scent of instant noodles and something sweet, like canned peaches. a white plastic container sat on the kitchen counter, half-eaten, a pair of chopsticks resting beside it. san had takeout. a cold knot tightened in your stomach. you forgot to make him dinner earlier. another layer to the evening’s sour taste.

san, shirtless, was just shrugging out of his work trousers when you entered the room, his back to you. he paused, one leg still in the pant leg, turning his head at the sound of your entrance. his brown eyes, warm and steady, widened slightly.

"you’re back early," he said, the words a quiet murmur in the hushed room. a flicker of surprise crossed his face. he finished pulling off his pants, tossing them onto the laundry hamper with an easy flick of his wrist.

you managed a weak nod, the muscles in your face protesting the effort, too tired to feign a smile. your gaze slid past him, landing on the bathroom door. escape. you moved towards it.

"y/n." his voice stopped you mid stride. you looked over your shoulder, hand hovering over the cool brass doorknob.

"what’s that smell?"

you didn't turn around, the lie already forming on your tongue, bitter pill. "i... i fell into a puddle earlier."

a beat of silence stretched, taut and thin. you watched him, standing there, his brow furrowed, processing your words. you waited for the follow up, the gentle probing, the concern that used to laced his questions. but it didn’t come.

"oh," he said, the single syllable flat, devoid of inflection. he picked up his shirt from the bed, pulling it over his head, then pulled back the covers.

you finally turned, gaze fixed on his retreating back, already settling in. your eyes traced the strong line of his shoulder, the curve of his neck. he was there, and he wasn't. is that all you’re going to ask? the words hovered on your tongue, sharp and desperate. you wanted him to push, to see through your flimsy lie, to demand more. you wanted him to care enough to unravel the carefully constructed facade. almost, you wanted him to know. to know about the music, the drugs, the woman, the fear, the suffocating loneliness that had driven you there in the first place.

"is that all you’re going to ask?" you heard yourself say.

he paused, his hand reaching for the bedside lamp. "is there something else i should know?'

your heart hammered against your ribs. this was it. the open door. the invitation. a single word, a sigh, a broken sentence, and the truth would spill out. you needed to test the boundaries, to see how far he would go, how deep he would dig.

"no," you said, the lie tasting like ash. your gaze held his, searching for a flicker of doubt, a hint of suspicion, anything that would tell you he wasn’t buying it.

he held your gaze for a moment longer, then his lips curved into a small, almost imperceptible smile. "okay then." he reached for the lamp, plunging the room into near darkness. he shifted, settling deeper into the pillows.

a choked sound, a low groan of frustration, escaped your lips. he hadn’t pushed. he hadn’t questioned. he hadn’t cared enough to look beyond the surface. you turned abruptly, stalking towards the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind you with a satisfying thud. the sound echoed, a punctuation mark on your silent fury.

san lay in the sudden darkness, his eyes wide open. the faint aroma of something acrid you brought and he couldn't quite place, still lingered in the air. a puddle, he thought. she fell in a puddle. it sounded plausible enough. you were clumsy sometimes, always lost in your own thoughts. he trusted you. he trusted you completely. a small smile touched his lips. it was good you were out, seeing old friends. you needed that. a small part of him felt a pang of guilt for not being able to provide more excitement, more spontaneity in your life. but he was working for your future, for your stability, to provide for you. he believed that was love, that was care. he rolled onto his side, pulling the duvet up to his chin. he heard the shower running, the sound a soft, comforting hum. he closed his eyes, his mind already drifting to tomorrow's spreadsheets, the complex equations that made perfect sense in a world that often didn't. everything was fine. you were having fun. it was okay if you forgot dinner sometimes. you could always order takeout. he was happy. he assumed you were too.

the next morning, the apartment hummed with the usual rhythm of your routine. you woke before him, the first rays of dawn painting the bedroom walls a soft grey. you made the bed, pulling the sheets taut, plumping the pillows with practiced ease. the scent of freshly brewed coffee soon filled the air, followed by the sizzle of eggs in the pan.

san emerged from the bedroom, showered and dressed in his crisp white shirt and specifically tailored pants. he kissed your cheek, a soft brush of lips, and then sat at the kitchen island, scrolling through his phone.

it became a monotonous cycle of routine.

you'd have your small talk, watch him eat, his movements precise, efficient, and then he was out the door. then, you'd wander into the bedroom, the perfectly made bed an ironic symbol of your life. you'd pick up your phone, cold blinding glass, and scrolled through social media. endless stream of meaningless shorts of nothing. you'd sink yourself in bed and let the hours melt. youtube videos, a reality show you cared about for two hours, articles about celebrity gossip. anything to fill the void, to drown out the insistent whisper of your own thoughts.

you woke him, prepared his meals, vaguely cleaned what was obvious. but the moments in between stretched, vast and empty. you spent them in bed, phone in hand, the world outside shrinking to the confines of your screen. at night, you wouldn't sleep. every shadow twisted into a threat, every creak of the floorboards a reminder of unspoken dangers. san had simply mentioned you seemed a little tired. you’d blame it on a bad dream, a headache. anything but the truth. the vibrant, productive life you once shared with san, the shared dreams, the late night conversations, they felt like a distant memory, replaced by this quiet, isolated existence.

one evening, san’s footsteps echoed in the hallway, the familiar jingle of his keys preceding his entrance. he walked into the kitchen, his briefcase thudding softly onto the counter. he paused, his eyes scanning the immaculate space. the stovetop was clean, the counters clear. no scent of cooking, no simmering pots.

"i ordered pizza," you said, voice flat, emerging from the living room where you sat on the sofa, scrolling through your phone. the thought of cooking, of meticulously chopping vegetables and stirring pots, felt like an insurmountable task. the effort, the pretense of normalcy, was too much. you simply couldn’t.

"okay," his voice quiet. you couldn't decipher his tone, surprise? confusion? whatever.

for once, he didn't immediately take his laptop. he watched you, his expression unreadable. he picked up a slice, silence punctuated only by the soft chewing sounds.

"i spoke to noeul today," he said, cutting through the quiet.

you froze, a slice of pizza halfway to your mouth. "oh?" you asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but your voice came out a little too sharp.

"she was wondering why you stood her up for lunch," he continued, took another bite of pizza, his eyes still fixed on you.

"i... i wasn't feeling well," you swallowed, the pizza suddenly tasting like cardboard.

he paused, chewing slowing. his dark eyes, usually so placid, held a new depth, a subtle intensity. he studied your face, his gaze searching, probing.

"is everything okay, y/n?" he asked, the question soft, gentle, yet it hit you with the force of a blow. this was the first time in weeks, months even, that he had truly looked at you, truly asked.

you felt a wave of conflicting emotions wash over you. relief that he was finally seeing, finally asking. fear that he would see too much. anger that it had taken him this long. a desperate, clinging hope that he might actually understand.

you opened your mouth, but what could you say? no, san. everything is not okay. i’m lonely. melancholic. i’m lost. i’ve been hanging out with people who smoke weed and threaten me. i lied to you. i don’t know who i am anymore. the truth felt too vast, too overwhelming, too ugly to articulate.

you closed your mouth, nodding slowly. "yes," you whispered, the lie a refuge. "everything’s fine."

he didn’t push further. he simply nodded, a slow thoughtful movement. he finished his pizza in silence, his eyes occasionally flicking towards you. he didn't know what to do. he thought he was doing everything right, providing stability, working hard. but he felt that something wasn't actually right. he could feel it. and for the first time, the thought that his stability might not be enough began to gnaw at him.

୨୧

"well, well, well," you couldn't see seonghwa's face through the phone but you just knew a smile stretched across his face, all teeth and charm. "look who finally decided to give signs of life."

you took a breath, "i’m sorry about that. i felt a little... overwhelmed."

"overwhelmed?" he chuckled a sound that grated. "we had a blast, though. sally was asking where you went."

a forced light laugh came out of you. "i'm sorry, it's just... don't take this the wrong way but, i don't think it's my scene."

the seconds of silence made you more nervous than you liked to admit. "oh? why’s that? did anna scare you off? she’s all bark, no bite, you know."

"it’s not anna." you walked to the window, staring out at the streets. "it’s just not... it’s not for me." you chose your words carefully.

"not for you, huh... too much for the perfect little housewife?"

you didn't know what to say, or even if you should reply. this is not the way you had wanted to come off.

"come on, y/n. " his tone shifted again, becoming almost playful, seductive. "you can’t just ditch us. we were just getting to know you. and you, me, we had a connection, didn’t we?"

you closed your eyes and sighed. "i appreciate the invitation, seonghwa. but i really don’t think it’s a good idea."

"wait, wait, wait." his voice was quick, slightly desperate. "don’t hang up. this saturday. it’ll be different. i promise."

"different how?"

"no loud music. no... overwhelming crowds." he mimicked your earlier word with annoyance. "it’ll be at my place. daylight. we’ll just chill. listen to some records. maybe sally will bring her new bass. anna her camera, snap some pictures. it’ll be... a real hangout. no pressure. just us."

a day hangout. at his place. no crowds. the thought of seeing anna, of making sure she was okay, flickered. and sally. you’d genuinely liked sally. you chewed on your lip, disappearing without a trace, even from people who were clearly not good for you, felt... rude. you were not rude. you prided yourself on your manners, on leaving things tidily. this would be your last clean exit. a proper goodbye.

"it'll be calm? no substances?" you asked with a small voice.

"yeah. we'll just chill."

you sighed, a long, slow release of air. "fine. but if it gets crazy, i’m leaving."

"deal!" his voice triumphant. "i’ll text you the address. saturday. two o’clock. don’t be late, y/n."

you hung up on him, the silence of the kitchen pressing in on you. a mistake? probably. but you had to make things right. you had to say goodbye. properly.

the next few days were a flurry of quiet preparations. you found a well loved cookbook at a second hand store, it's pages dog eared and stained with flour. sally had seemed genuinely interested in your chicken tacos, you remember her bouncing as she peered over your shoulder. a small childish bunny stuffed animal, soft and grey, caught your eye in a boutique window. anna’s son. he deserved a little softness in a world that seemed so hard. you wrapped the gifts carefully, a futile attempt to infuse them with the warmth you wished you could offer.

saturday afternoon, the sun bright in the sky. you drove, the directions seonghwa had texted leading you through unfamiliar streets, past industrial parks and forgotten warehouses. the address finally brought you to a hidden nook, tucked away behind a row of dilapidated auto shops. a trailer park. a small, unexpected community of metal boxes, each with it's own patch of scraggly grass and faded plastic lawn ornaments. you hadn’t known such a place existed in the heart of the city.

seonghwa’s trailer, a faded blue, stood at the end of a gravel path. your stomach twisted. you clutched the gifts tighter, the paper rustling. you knocked, a soft tap that felt too polite for the setting. the door creaked open, revealing him. his hair looking a little disheveled, as if he’d just woken up. a faint smell of something herbal, not entirely unpleasant, wafted from inside.

"oh, you actually came." he grinned as he rubbed the weariness out of his face.

"i said i would." you offered a small smile, trying to ignore the sudden awkwardness that settled between you. "i brought some things." you held up the wrapped gifts.

"oh, for me?" he reached for them, but you pulled back slightly.

"no. for sally and anna’s son."

his hand dropped, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. "right. well, come on in. you’re the first one here."

the trailer was small, surprisingly neat but dim. a worn couch, covered in a faded floral sheet, dominated the living area. a small television flickered silently in the corner, displaying a nature documentary. a guitar leaned against the wall. it felt... lived in.

"make yourself at home," he gestured vaguely at the couch. "the others should be here any minute. mark’s always late. sally said she had to pick up some new strings. anna… well, anna’s anna." he laughed, a short, nervous sound.

you sat on the edge of the couch, placing the gifts carefully beside you. the cushions sagged beneath you, smell of old fabric rised to meet you. the silence, punctuated only by the chirping of unseen birds on the television, was deafening. you felt a sudden urge to fill it, to chatter, to ask about his band, about anything. but you couldn't.

"want something to drink?" he asked, already moving towards a small, cluttered kitchenette.

"just water, please." you watched him, his movements surprisingly graceful for someone so wiry. he pulled out two glasses, poured a clear liquid from a plastic bottle into one, and then, to another one that was already sitting on the counter. he didn’t seem to notice your gaze.

a tiny, insistent voice in the back of your mind, screamed. you took the glass, your fingers brushing his, skin rough. you brought the glass to your lips, pretending to take a sip, letting the rim touch your mouth, but not letting any liquid pass.

"so," he said, settling beside you on the couch, much closer than you would have preferred. "how’s... housewifing?"

you stiffened. "it’s good. i like it."

"yeah? seems a little... boring for someone like you." he leaned back, his arm brushing yours. the contact made your skin prickle.

"it’s not boring,”°"you said, maybe a little too quickly. "i like taking care of things. taking care of san."

"san." he said the name slowly, like tasting it. "busy guy, huh?"

"he works hard," you defended automatically. "he provides for us."

"yeah, i bet." he turned his body fully towards you, knee touching yours. his gaze dropping to your hands, clasped tightly in your lap. "but does he... pleasure you?"

you looked at him in shock, offended. your cheeks flushed crimson, a wave of heat rushing through you. shock, outrage, and a deep, mortifying embarrassment tangled together. you stared at him, mouth agape, unable to form a single word. the flickering television, the stale air, his proximity, it all coalesced into a suffocating pressure. "what did you just say?"

he didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. his eyes held yours, unwavering. "i mean, you’re bright, y/n. you’re smart. you’ve got this... spark. yet you spend your days fucking, polishing silverware and waiting for some suit to come home. does he ever even make you feel good?"

your heart hammered against your ribs. "i like polishing silverware. i like making a home."

"do you?" he reached out, his fingers tracing a pattern on your arm, just above your elbow. "or do you just tell yourself that because it’s what you think you’re supposed to do?"

you flinched, pulling your arm away. "i don’t appreciate that, seonghwa."

"just being honest. that’s what friends do, right?" he leaned closer, his breath warm against your ear.

the small, dusty clock on the wall pointed at four, you glanced at it, then at the door, wishing that your eyes could pierce a hole and reveal other people, anyone. yet no one else had arrived. the pit in your stomach deepened. "maybe i should call sally. or anna."

"nah, don’t bother." he waved a dismissive hand. "they probably won't even come. you know how it is." he paused, a predatory glint appeared in his round eyes. "guess it’ll be just us."

the words rang heavy and suffocating. it clicked. a cold, sickening realization washed over you. there was never "others." you had been tricked. the gifts, the polite goodbyes, all of it a naive delusion.

"oh." you stood up abruptly, the movement jarring. "i... i think i should go. maybe i should come back when the others arrive." your mind raced, scrambling for an excuse, anything to get out. you tried to infuse your voice with a calm you didn’t feel, to make it sound like a reasonable suggestion, not a desperate plea.

"don’t be stupid, y/n. you just got here." he stood and pulled you towards him. the close proximity of his body, the insufferable smell of weed making you almost gag. "you’re lonely, aren’t you? i see it in your eyes. the way you just exist and he doesn't even notice."

"i don’t know what you mean." your voice trembled.

"why? you don’t want to admit it?" he leaned closer, breath warm against your ear. his insidious words pricked at the spots. the truth of them, despite the venomous delivery, stung. but the way he was using them, twisting them, made your skin crawl.

you tried to push past him, a surge of adrenaline making you bold. “let me go.”

he grabbed your arm, his fingers tightening around your wrist. "no." he pulled you back, hard, sending you stumbling onto the couch. the gifts clattered to the floor. he pinned you there, his face inches from yours. "i know you don’t love him. you're goddamn pathetic with him and everyone sees it."

you felt a surge of adrenaline, a pumping desperate need to escape. “you don’t know anything about me. or san.” you pulled harder, twisting your body, trying to create distance.

he didn’t let go. instead, his other hand came up, resting on your arm, his thumb stroking your skin. "i know you don't love him. i know you’re unhappy." the accusation, so utterly false, ignited a furious spark within you. "why else would you keep coming back here?"

"you’re wrong!" sharp and venomous, your voice cut through the fear. "you’re completely wrong. i love san. i love him more than anything. and i would never, ever be unfaithful to him. especially not with... with someone like you!" the last words, raw and unfiltered, spilled from your lips. the thought of betraying san, of allowing this man to even suggest such a thing, filled you with a righteous anger.

a vein throbbed in his temple. for a terrifying moment, you thought he might strike you. his face contorted, a mask of rage. primal scream ripped through your mind, though no sound escaped your lips. a sudden, visceral revulsion surged through you, a raw, untamed force you hadn’t known you possessed. you didn’t think, you reacted. with a guttural cry that was more gasp than sound, you twisted your body, yanking your arm free from his grasp with a strength born of pure terror. you stumbled back, tripping over your own feet, but you caught yourself, your eyes wide, fixed on him.

"hey, y/n, calm down. let's talk-" his face a mask of something ugly. he took a step towards you, his hand still outstretched.

"don’t you touch me!" you shrieked, the words finally tearing free holding a fierce conviction.

with a desperate lunge, you pushed past him and found the doorknob, fingers clumsy with terror and heart pounding against your ribs. please, please be unlocked. the knob turned protesting a squeal. a small miracle. you yanked it open, the weak sunlight blinding you for a moment.

you didn’t look back. you ran. the gravel crunched under your shoes, the faded blue trailer shrinking behind you. you didn’t stop until you reached your car, fumbling with the keys, your hands shaking so violently you could barely push the button. you threw yourself inside, locking the doors, lungs burning. the engine roared to life, and you sped away, leaving the trailer park, the sickly rose bush, and the terrifying encounter in a cloud of dust. the gifts lay forgotten on the floor of the trailer, naive hope, now shattered.

୨୧

"i ran into someone today."

"at the market?"

"an old friend. from high school. apparently some of them still hang out and, i was invited."

"that's good, you should go."

"really? you don't mind?"

"why would i mind? it's good for you to see people, you're always here. you should get out more."

"i mean... i haven't seen them in years. since graduation, probably."

"people change, that's okay. it'll be nice to reconnect. you've been cooped up, it's good to have plans."

"i guess so."

knees drawn to your chest, the phone thrown to the cushion next to you. you had to call him, you really had to, and he did leave. cheeks damp, tiny ragged sobs caught in your throat, you barely registered when the door swung open. he stood at the doorway, crisp button down now slightly rumpled, his tie loosened. his eyes scanned the room, then landed on you. he didn't say anything, just kicked the door shut with his heel and moved towards you deliberately.

"san," you choked out a fragile whisper, "i'm so sorry. i'm so, so sorry i made you come home."

he didn't answer with words, simply sunk onto the couch beside you, the springs protesting faintly. his strong arms wrapped around your shaking shoulders, pulling you into his chest. the clean, subtle cedar scent of his cologne filled your senses, chasing away the lingering stench of smoke and fear. you buried your face in his shirt and let the dam break.

hot and stinging tears streamed down your face, soaking into his shirt. each sob tore through you, tearing sounds you hadn't realized you were holding back. his hand moved to the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair, holding you close. he didn't try to stop the tears, didn't offer empty platitudes. he just held you, a silent comforting presence.

"it’s okay," he murmured, his voice a low rumble against your ear, "it's okay, y/n. i'm here."

fingers fisted in his shirt, the fabric stretching taut. the world outside the circle of his arms ceased to exist. there was only the steady beat of his heart, the warmth of his body, the gentle rhythm of his breathing. time stretched and blurred. you cried until your throat ached, until your eyes felt swollen and raw, until the tremors in your body slowly began to subside.

when the sobs dwindled to quiet sniffles, you pulled back slightly, your head still resting against his shoulder, your gaze fixed on the intricate weave of his shirt. a deep, shuddering breath hitched in your chest.

"i… i need to tell you something," you whispered.

he squeezed your shoulder gently. "take your time."

the silence stretched, heavy with unspoken things. you needed to say it, all of it. the truth, ugly and raw, demanded to be set free.

"i haven’t been... i haven’t been doing well, san," you began, your voice still hoarse. "not really. i mean, i love being home. i love our apartment, i love cooking for you, taking care of everything. i really do. but" you carefully searched for the right words, the words that wouldn’t sound like an accusation. "it got... lonely. really lonely."

at his arm tightening around your waist, you glanced up at his face. his brow was furrowed, his eyes filled with a deep, quiet concern, but no judgment.

"i know you work hard," you continued, rushing the words out before you could lose your nerve. "i know you do it for us, for our future, and i appreciate it, san, i really do. sometimes, i just... i just want to talk. to someone. about anything. about my day, about a stupid show i watched, about a new recipe i found. just... to talk. and you're not there."

he didn’t interrupt, just listened, his gaze steady on your face.

"and then… i met seonghwa again."

the name plastered, foreign and sharp. san’s head tilted slightly, a flicker of confusion crossing his features.

"seonghwa?" he repeated, the name unfamiliar on his tongue. "who is... i thought you said you were meeting anna? your old classmate?"

your heart sank at his innocence, at how you had let him assume with unclear conversations.

"no, anna is... seonghwa’s friend,” you explained, the words tumbling out. "she’s part of his group. he was my classmate in high school. not a close one, but... yeah. he’s the one i ran into at the supermarket."

san’s placid eyes held a hint of something unreadable. he still didn’t speak, just waited.

"i didn’t mean for any of it to happen," you confessed, your voice cracking again. "i just... i just wanted to be included. to feel like i was part of something. they seemed so... free. and easy. and i was so lonely." you paused, drawing a shaky breath, preparing for the hardest part. "at first it seemed harmless. they were just... different than me, something new. but then it escalated. the parties. the noise. the... the smoke.” you hesitated, then forced yourself to say it. "i... i smoked weed, san. once. i know, i know it was stupid. i’m so sorry."

tears welled up again and you squeezed your eyes shut, bracing for his reaction. but he still didn’t say anything, just held you closer, so you continued and everything spilled. the memories flooding back, sharp and vivid. from the hazy afternoons to the girl, her unnatural stillness and anna's so, so young son yet already involved into such a chaotic world. your voice broke with the image behind eyelids. then today, at seonghwa's. reliving the terror, the helplessness, made you shiver with a torrent of fear and disgust and self reproach.

you dissolved into fresh sobs, the weight of the confession crushing you. you waited for anger, for disappointment, for the distance to grow between you even more. but instead, his arms tightened around you, pulling you even closer.

"y/n," he said, his voice deeper than usual, a quiet intensity in his tone. "look at me."

you reluctantly lifted your head, tear streaked face meeting his gaze. his eyes were now clouded with a raw pain that mirrored your own.

"you have nothing to be sorry for," he stated, his voice firm, unwavering. "not for feeling lonely. not for wanting connection. and not for trying to find it." he paused, his thumb stroking your cheek, wiping away a tear. "i’m the one who should be sorry. i let you feel that way. i let you feel so alone that you had to look for it somewhere else. i was so caught up in work, in making sure we had everything we needed, that i forgot to give you what you actually needed. me."

fresh tears pricking your eyes, you shook your head. "no, san. that’s not fair. you work so hard. you provide everything. i should have just told you. i should have talked to you. i just... i didn’t want to cause conflict. i didn’t want to seem ungrateful."

"conflict is part of a relationship, y/n," he countered softly. "it’s how we grow. and you are never ungrateful. i know you. i just... i wasn’t listening. i wasn’t seeing. i was so focused on building a future, i forgot to live in the present. with you." his gaze was intense, full of regret. "i saw you, every morning, making the bed perfectly. i saw the dinners you planned. i saw the baked goods you made, and gave away. i thought... i thought you were happy. i thought that was just you, being you. i didn’t realize it was... a symptom. i thought stability meant happiness. i thought if i provided for everything, you wouldn’t have to worry. i thought that was how i showed you i loved you. but i forgot to show you i loved you with my time. with my presence. with my words."

"but i should have said something," you insisted, your voice still thick with guilt. "i let it fester. i bottled it up. i smoked weed behind your back. that’s not okay, san. that’s not okay."

"and it’s not okay that i left you feeling so emotionally neglected that you felt like you had to," he countered, his voice gentle but firm. "we both made mistakes, y/n. mine was in being absent. yours was in not speaking up. but none of that changes how much i still love you."

he pulled you back into his embrace, holding you tightly, his chin resting on the top of your head. you could feel the steady beat of his heart against your ear. a comforting, familiar rhythm.

"i love you, y/n," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "more than anything. and i am so, so sorry that you went through all of that. that you were scared. that you were hurt. that you felt alone. i promise you, you will never feel that way again. not with me."

you clung to him, tears still flowing, but these were different. these were tears of relief, of release, of a profound love finally understood. you felt the tension that had been coiled in your chest for months slowly unwind, dissolving into the warmth of his embrace.

"i love you too, san," you sobbed, the words muffled against his shirt. "i love you so much."

held for a long time, the only sounds the quiet sniffles, the soft rustle of clothes, the steady rhythm of two hearts beating in unison. the city outside grew darker, the streetlights casting long, pale shadows through the window. but inside, in the circle of his arms, a fragile light had begun to glow. it wasn’t a solution, not yet. but it was a new beginning.

୨୧

morning rays painted stripes across the duvet. you stirred, the warmth beside you a comforting anchor. san’s arm, heavy and solid, rested across your waist. his breath, slow and even, feathered against your neck. you turned your head, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest. the memory of yesterday, the raw vulnerability, the shared tears, a fragile precious thing.

quiet sigh escaping your lips, you stretched with a yawn. the bed felt different today, lighter, like a burden had lifted. you eased yourself from his embrace, careful not to wake him, and padded into the kitchen. the choreography of making coffee began. the gentle hum of the machine, the rich aroma blooming in the air. you poured two mugs, placing san’s on his bedside table before returning to your side of the bed, he still slept.

you traced the line of his jaw with your finger, the slight stubble rough beneath your touch. his eyelashes, thick and dark, rested against his skin. a small, almost imperceptible smile touched your lips.

"morning," his voice, deep and gravelly with sleep, startled you. his eyes slowly opened, finding yours.

"morning, sannie," you whispered, leaning in to press a soft kiss to his temple.

he stretched, his big arms flexing, the muscles taut beneath his skin. he reached for you, pulling you closer until your head rested on his shoulder. "i’m not going to work today."

you blinked, pulling back slightly to look at him. "what?"

"i said, i’m not going to work today," he repeated, his thumb stroking the skin of your arm. "or tomorrow. i took the weekend off."

a small, disbelieving laugh bubbled out of you. "you did not. you never take the weekend off. you have that big report due monday."

he shifted, propping himself up on an elbow, his gaze steady. "i called lee at like 3 am. he’s covering. the report can wait. we can’t."

your heart gave a small, hopeful flutter. the words, simple and direct, resonated deep within you. you reached up, cupping his cheek. his skin felt warm against your palm.

"really?" you asked thin with emotion.

he nodded, a soft smile gracing his lips, revealing the faint indentations of his dimples. "really."

the weight that had pressed down on your chest for so long began to ease, replaced by a lightness you hadn’t felt in months. you leaned into him, burying your face in his neck, inhaling the familiar scent of his skin, a mix of sleep and his subtle leftover cologne.

"what are we going to do?" you murmured, the question laced with a hesitant joy.

he held you tighter. "whatever you want. show me your world, y/n."

a lump formed in your throat. you pulled back, a small, genuine smile blooming on your face. "okay," you breathed. "okay."

the morning unfolded slowly for once, no rush to get ready, no frantic dash for him to find a parking spot. you made a more elaborate breakfast than usual, eggs scrambled with herbs, crisp bacon, and slices of avocado. he watched you, perched on a stool at the kitchen island, his phone conspicuously absent. he simply watched, gaze attentive, as you moved with a quiet efficiency.

he ate with a quiet appreciation, savoring each bite. the silence between you was no longer heavy with unspoken words, but comfortable, filled with the soft clink of forks against plates, the distant chirping of birds.

after breakfast, you led him to the bedroom and demonstrated your bed making routine, movements precise and practiced. he watched, his head tilted, an expression mixed with amusement and curiosity.

the hours melted into a gentle rhythm. you showed him your small rituals. the way you organized the pantry, grouping spices by frequency of use. the careful sorting of laundry, whites, colors, delicates. the methodical scrubbing of the bathroom, each surface gleaming. he followed you, your silent observer, occasionally offering a helping hand.

you found yourself talking more than you had in months, explaining the logic behind your choices, the small satisfactions you found in these mundane tasks. he listened, truly listened, his eyes never leaving your face. it was no longer how are you? but why do you do this that way?

lunch was a rather simple affair, sandwiches and fruit, eaten at the kitchen counter. you found yourself telling him about a new recipe you wanted to try, a complicated japanese stew you’d been researching. he listened, asking questions about the ingredients, the cooking process. it felt like a real conversation, not just a series of perfunctory exchanges.

as dusk began to settle, casting a soft, blue hue through the apartment, you found yourselves in the living room. you moved the large, plush couch, pushing it closer to the wide window that overlooked the street below. the city lights began to twinkle a distant murmur from the streets.

you sat side by side, the comfortable silence settling around you once more. he reached out, his hand slowly finding your arm. his fingers traced a gentle path from your wrist to your elbow, a soft reassuring touch. you leaned your head against his shoulder, inhaling his scent, feeling the steady beat of his heart against your ear.

the silence stretched, not empty, but full of unspoken emotions, of rediscovered intimacy. you watched the cars pass below, their headlights cutting through the growing darkness.

after a long while, he stirred. his hand tightened on your arm, then he slowly, gently, pulled you onto his lap. your legs tangled with his, your body molding against his hard frame. he shifted, adjusting you until you were nestled perfectly, your back against his chest. his lips found your shoulder, pressing a soft kiss, then moving to the delicate skin of your neck. a shiver ran through you, a small, involuntary gasp escaping your lips. he kissed the sensitive spot just beneath your ear, and a soft giggle bubbled up from your chest.

"you okay? is this okay?" he murmured.

you nodded, your head resting against his shoulder. "more than okay."

he pulled back slightly, turning you so you faced him, his hands resting on your hips. his brown eyes held a tenderness that made your breath catch.

"y/n," he began, his voice soft, almost hesitant. "do you... do you ever think about kids?"

୨୧

effortlessly, he laid you gently on the bed, following you down, his body a warm weight against yours. his lips found yours, soft at first, then deepening, hungry desperation underlying the tenderness. your mouth opened beneath his, inviting him in. his tongue tangled with yours, a slow, sensual dance, tasting of coffee and him.

"mine," he murmured against your mouth, pulling back just enough to whisper the word. "you’re mine, y/n. no one else’s."

his hands, large and strong, moved to the hem of your shirt, slowly, deliberately, pulling it up and over your head. the cool air brushed against your skin for a moment before his hands were there, warm and firm, stroking your sides, your ribs, the soft skin of your belly.

you arched into his touch, a soft moan escaping your throat. you reached for his shirt, fingers trembling slightly. he helped, peeling the fabric from his broad shoulders, revealing the taut muscles of his chest before he reached around, touch gentle, unfastening the hook of your bra. the lace fell away, revealing your breasts, full and soft in the dim light. he stared, his gaze lingering and before you knew it, he leaned down, lips closing over one nipple, drawing it into his mouth. a jolt of pure pleasure shot through you. he sucked, softly at first, then harder, his tongue swirling around the sensitive peak. your breath hitched, your fingers tangling in his dark hair, holding him closer. he moved to the other breast, suckling with equal fervor, his free hand stroking your side, making goosebumps rise on your skin.

"so beautiful," he breathed, pulling back to look at your flushed face. "so fucking beautiful."

rough with desire, igniting a fire deep within you. you reached for the button of his jeans, eager to shed the remaining barriers between you, pushing them down his hips, along with his boxers. his cock sprang free, already hard and engorged, glistening in the dim light. you reached for him, your fingers wrapping around his heat, stroking the soft skin. he groaned, his head falling back against the pillow.

"baby," he gasped, his voice strained. "god, y/n."

you continued to stroke him, feeling the pulse of his arousal against your palm. your own desire mounted, a burning ache between your legs. he reached for your shorts, pulling them down with your panties. the cool air kissed your bare skin, a fleeting sensation before his hand was there, warm and knowing, finding the wetness between your thighs.

his fingers parted your folds, gently, slowly, exploring the slickness, the delicate curves of your clit. you gasped, your hips arching instinctively. he dipped a finger inside you, then another, preparing you. you were already so wet, your body aching for him. a soft squelching sound accompanied his movements, a wet, intimate symphony.

"so wet," his voice husky, eyes never leaving yours. "for me."

he watched your face, gauging your reactions, thumb circling your clit, drawing out whimpers and soft cries from deep within your throat. you writhed beneath his touch, your body trembling, on the precipice of release.

"please," you pleaded, your voice hoarse. "san, please."

he shifted, kneeling between your legs. his heavy cock, slick with your wetness, brushed against your opening. you gasped, a desperate sound. he hesitated, looking into your eyes, a possessive fire burning in his gaze.

"say..." he whispered, slightly overwhelmed already. "say you’re mine."

"yours," you choked out, tears stinging your eyes, a heady mix of pleasure and raw emotion. "i’m yours, san. only yours."

he entered you then, slowly, pushing past the soft resistance, filling you completely. a deep groan rumbled in his chest as he buried himself within you. you cried out, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure. he paused, letting you adjust, letting your body stretch and encompass him. the feeling was overwhelming, profound sense of fullness, of belonging.

he began to move, slow, deliberate rhythm at first, his hips rocking against yours. the friction was exquisite, the sound of your bodies joining, a wet, rhythmic shlicking. he pulled back almost completely, then drove back in, deep and hard, a sigh escaping his lips. your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer, urging him deeper.

"mine," he repeated, each thrust punctuated by the word. "no one will ever... have you like this, only me."

the pace quickened, becoming more urgent, more primal. he pounded into you, each stroke sending waves of pleasure through your core. your nails dug into his back, leaving faint red marks on his tanned skin. your hips rose to meet his, matching his rhythm, your bodies a blur of motion in the dim light. the bed creaked beneath you, a testament to the intensity of your passion.

he leaned down, capturing your mouth in a bruising kiss, his tongue plundering yours, tasting your desire, your cries muffled against his lips. your climax built, a tight coil in your belly, spreading outwards, consuming you. you bucked against him, your body convulsing around his cock. a guttural cry tore from your throat as you shattered, waves of pure bliss washing over you.

the thrusts got deeper, harder, his own climax building quickly on the heels of yours. groans and bodies tensing, hips slamming into yours one last time as he emptied himself deep inside you. his hot cum flooded you, warm thick rush that made you gasp.

collapsed and slick with sweat, your legs were still wrapped around him, intimately entwined. he buried his face in your neck, his breath hot against your skin.

"mine," he whispered the promise again. "forever."

fingers tangling in his damp hair, you held him close. the noise outside, the loneliness, the fear, all faded away, replaced by the overwhelming presence of him, of this rediscovered connection. you felt utterly safe, utterly loved, utterly his.

he shifted, pulling back slightly, propping himself on his elbows, his eyes soft, heavy lidded. he kissed your forehead, then your nose, then your lips, a tender exploration.

"i love you, y/n."

the words, so rarely spoken, so deeply felt, resonated through you. a fresh wave of tears pricked your eyes, but these were tears of joy, of relief, of a profound sense of peace.

"i love you too, san," you whispered back. "more than anything."

a new chapter had begun. a chapter filled with soft reassurances, intentional conversations, and a love that, though tested, had found it's way back home. the question of children lingered, a new seed planted in the fertile ground of your renewed intimacy, a promise of a future you could now, finally, envision together.

each day a thread re-stitched into the fabric of your life together. no longer a frayed edge, but a strengthening seam. the silence shedding it's heavy cloak of unspoken expectation. now, it held the hum of shared understanding, a quiet comfort that didn't demand filling. some days you still spent less time together than you'd wanted, yet, even then, the goodbye no longer felt like a hurried escape.

you learned to speak your needs, not with the tremor of a plea, but with the steady beat of a declaration. he listened, brow furrowing in concentration, his eyes soft with an empathy he’d struggled to articulate before. you saw the effort, the conscious wrestling with words that didn’t come easily to him. it was a language you were both learning, halting at first, then gaining fluency with each shared vulnerability. he’d ask about your day, not as a formality, but with genuine curiosity, sometimes even calling during his lunch break, a rare occurrence that made your heart do a little skip. love rediscovered, a future being built, one honest word, one tender touch, at a time.

your phone still buzzed with notifications from instagram. you scrolled past anna’s stories, a flurry of candid shots from her son’s fifth birthday party. a lopsided cake, sticky fingers, a wide, gap toothed grin. you tapped the little heart icon, then saw sally’s latest transformation, her hair now a vibrant neon green. she’d posted a picture of a sizzling pan, tagged with a question about your secret to perfectly crisp tofu. you sent back a detailed message, outlining marinades and pan temperatures, a smile touching your lips. you knew, and they knew, that the physical space between your worlds had widened, perhaps irrevocably. there was no expectation of meeting up, no casual invitations to late night gigs. seonghwa’s shadow still stretched too long, too dark, across that part of your memory. the thought of stepping back into that haze, even for a moment, made your stomach clench. you had found your way back to the light, and you were fiercely protective of it.

this morning, however, began with no alarms. skin to skin, a perfect fit. he had begged for five more minutes and how could you say no when his mouth was already moving in between your thighs? lazy swipes, you felt your muscles tense slightly, then relax, his hand finding your hip, drawing you closer, before moving your legs over his shoulders. his tongue stroked the soft skin of your pussy, a slow, hypnotic rhythm.

time dissolved. the soft rustle of sheets, the faint thumping of your heart against his. the world outside your bedroom, outside this intimate cocoon, ceased to exist. you were just two bodies, intertwined, rediscovering a forgotten language.

when your third orgasm of that morning alone hit, you pulled your head back, accidentally looking at the clock and freezing, a gasp escaping your lips. he pulled back slightly, his eyes still clouded with passion, then clearing with the dawning realization. a groan, this one of frustration, escaped him.

"shit, shit, shit," you cursed under your breath. "oh, san. you're going to be late."

a deep sigh, rueful sound laced with disappointment escaped him. you pushed yourself up, pulling the sheet with you, a sudden chill striking your skin. he ran a hand through his hair, dishevelled from sleep and your shared passion. "i know." he sat up, stretching, his muscles rippling, a sight that still made your breath catch. he threw his legs over the side of the bed, the sheet falling away, revealing the strong lines of his back, the curve of his shoulders and his half erect dick.

"go, go," you urged, though a part of you wanted to pull him back, to steal a few more precious minutes. you threw off the covers, padding naked to the closet, already mentally planning his lunch.

he glanced back, a wry smile on his face. "you’re not exactly helping." his eyes lingered on your retreating figure, a spark of lingering desire in them.

"i’m making your lunch. that’s helping." you laughed shyly, a clear sound before pulling out a crisp white shirt, a dark tie, laying them out on the bed for him.

when the sound of the shower starting grounded you, you moved with purpose, opening the fridge, pulling out containers. yesterday’s leftover bulgogi, a side of kimchi, some fresh fruit. you packed it all neatly into his bento box, arranging the colours, making it appealing.

now dressed in his dark suit trousers, he emerged from the bathroom, his shirt still unbuttoned, revealing a glimpse of his chest. his hair was damp, slicked back, making him look even more handsome, more put together. he came up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you back against his solid frame. chin rested on your shoulder, breath warm against your ear.

"i love you," he murmured, the words no longer feeling forced, but a natural outflow.

you leaned into him, closing your eyes for a moment. "i love you too," you replied, your voice thick with emotion.

he squeezed you gently, then released you, picking up his jacket. you followed him to the doorframe, a familiar ritual, but one that now held a deeper significance. he turned, his eyes searching yours, then he leaned down, his lips finding yours in a deep, lingering kiss. it was a kiss that spoke of hurried passion, of regret for lost time, and of promises for the future. his hand found your butt, giving it an extra, firm squeeze, a playful, intimate gesture that made you giggle.

"sannie, you have to go." you laughed against his lips.

"i know, just let me-"

he pulled you back in, tongues dancing against each other as he opened the door.

"you gotta... go... leave..." despite your protests, you were leaning into the kisses as well.

finally, when he pulled back, a wide grin appeared on his face, those dimples on full display. "i left something for you on the counter." his eyes twinkled.

your eyebrows rose in surprise. "oh?"

he just winked, then stepped out into the hallway. "have a good day," he called over his shoulder, already halfway down the corridor.

"you too." you watched him go with a warmth spreading through you, chasing away the morning chill. your cheeks burned pleasant blush. you closed the door, leaning against it for a moment, the echo of his kiss still on your lips.

a curious smile played on your lips. you turned, walking back into the kitchen, your eyes scanning the clean, uncluttered surface. amidst the neatly stacked mail and the fruit bowl, an envelope lay, pristine white, tucked beside the coffee maker.

your heart gave a little flutter. you picked it up, fingers tracing the simple, elegant script of your name. you recognized his handwriting, though it was slightly more rushed than usual, a testament to his morning scramble. you glanced back at the lace box that sat on your dresser. finally, a new companion piece awaited. you carefully tore open the seal, your breath held in anticipation.

you pulled out a single sheet of paper, folded neatly. it wasn’t a thick expensive stationery, but a page torn from a small, spiral bound notebook, perhaps one he kept for jotting down notes at work. the paper felt thin, slightly rough urough under your fingertips. the words were penned in his familiar, slightly cramped hand, some of them a little smudged, as if he’d written it quickly, probably during a stolen moment on his break.

you began to read, a soft smile blooming on your face.

my y/n:

you know how i am with words, they get stuck somewhere between my heart and my mouth. it’s frustrating. for both of us, i know. i think about that first letter i wrote you. it was bad. really bad. i cringed just thinking about it. but i tried, i guess, even if it doesn’t look like it. these past few weeks... they’ve been good, better. i hope it's the same for you. seeing you smile again, truly smile, it’s like the sun coming out after a long winter. i never want that winter to come back. i never want you to feel that coldness again. i was so blind. so stupid. i thought providing was enough but i was wrong. you taught me that. you always teach me things, even when you don’t mean to. i want to be better. for us. for you. i want to learn how to say these things out loud, not just write them down when no one’s looking. i’m sorry for the pain i caused. i’m sorry i let you feel alone. i promise to keep trying. to keep learning. to keep loving you, in all the ways you deserve. you are my home, y/n, my everything, my wife, and i will never ever let another man think they got a mere chance with you, never again. you're mine and i'm yours.

you're stuck with me, always.

san.

୨୧

POWERPLAY RECORD

𝑰. the comedown

James was already there when you got to the auxiliary rink, which had never once happened in four months and which you noticed before you'd even gotten your bag off your shoulder.

He was lacing up at the bench, hood down for once, and he looked up when the door swung shut behind you with an expression that was trying very hard to be casual about something that clearly wasn't.

"You're early," you said.

"Traffic was light."

"It's never light on a Thursday."

He didn't argue that. Just kept lacing, eyes back on his skates, and you filed the non-answer away with everything else you'd been filing for the past five days and didn't open your mouth about any of it.

You set your bag down on the bench. "What are you doing here so early?"

"Had nothing else to do."

That answer was too flat to be the whole truth, and you both knew it. You glanced at him while you pulled your skate guards off. "That sounded fake."

"It was vague."

"You're telling me there's a difference?"

"There is."

You snorted, and he watched you with that same quiet attention he always had, the kind that made you feel noticed in a way that was more annoying than flattering. Not because it was intrusive. Because it was specific. Like he actually remembered the shape of your irritation from one day to the next, even now, even when you were doing everything you could to make that shape harder to read.

He leaned his stick against the bench. "How was your morning?"

That made you look at him. "Since when do you ask normal questions?"

"Since now."

You paused, then shrugged one shoulder. "Fine. Coach wanted me to clean up the landing on the flip again."

"Did you?"

"Eventually."

He hummed like that made sense, then nodded toward your bag. "You're not wearing the new blades."

You blinked. "You noticed that?"

"You've had them for three days."

"Okay, that's creepy."

"It's not creepy."

"It is a little creepy."

He looked faintly offended, which only made it worse because it meant he actually cared enough to react. "They're different. Your edge looks different on the first push."

You stared at him for a second, then shook your head. "You say stuff like that and expect me not to think you're weird."

"I don't expect you not to think it."

That made you laugh despite yourself, and the sound felt too easy in the empty rink, easier than you'd planned on letting anything feel tonight. He looked at you like he liked that more than he should have, like the laugh had gotten through some door you'd meant to keep shut, and you turned away before he could watch it land on your face for too long.

You both got onto the ice a minute later, the cold immediately sharpening everything. He moved to the far end without being told, and you started with your usual warmup patterns at the near boards. For a while neither of you said much. The rink was big enough to let silence stretch without turning ugly, and the sound of your blades cut the space into clean, measured pieces.

After a few passes, he called across the ice, "You're favoring the outside edge again."

You stopped and turned. "You're not supposed to be watching me that closely."

He scoffed. "I always watch you that closely."

"Not like this." You skated a slow circle, working out something in your hip that had nothing to do with your edge. "Not lately."

That was the closest you'd come in five days to actually saying anything, and you regretted it the second it left your mouth, because his expression did something complicated and he pushed off the boards and skated halfway across the ice toward you before catching himself and stopping short, like he'd remembered partway through that you hadn't actually invited him closer.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing if you said it."

"James."

"You've done this all week." His voice had an edge now. It wasn’t loud, just tighter than usual, the particular tightness that showed up when he was working a problem and couldn't find the variable that was breaking the equation. "You barely answer me. You leave before I'm done changing. You used to wait."

"I have a program to fix."

"You've had a program to fix since October. That's never stopped you from waiting before."

You didn't have an answer for that, not one you were willing to give him, so you ran the sequence again instead. Your shoulder dropped at the same spot it always dropped, the same two-inch tell from the very first night four months ago, and you knew it and kept going anyway because stopping to fix it would mean standing still long enough for him to say something else true.

He said something anyway.

"Your shoulder," he called after you.

"I know."

"You're not adjusting it."

"I know, James."

He skated closer instead of staying where he was, which wasn't the arrangement, not during a session, not when you'd very clearly been telling him with your whole body for forty minutes that you didn't want to be approached. He stopped a few feet off, stick trailing, and looked at you with the specific kind of confusion that came from someone who'd spent four months learning your rhythms and had just hit a wall where none of his data applied anymore.

"Did I do something?" he asked.

You almost laughed. Not because it was funny. Because the honest answer was so simple and you weren't going to give it to him—yes, you gave your headphones to Lia like it was nothing, like the rule didn't exist anymore the second I wasn't the one asking—and saying that out loud would mean admitting the rule had ever meant anything to you in the first place, which was the one thing the entire arrangement wasn't supposed to let you admit. It would mean admitting you'd noticed. It would mean admitting you'd cared that you noticed.

"No," you said.

"You've been weird since nationals."

"I'm not weird. I'm tired."

"You're not tired. You're avoiding the back half of your own program right now to avoid talking to me."

That landed closer than you wanted it to. You turned and ran the sequence again instead of answering, shoulder dropping at the same spot, and he didn't call it out again. He just watched you run it wrong three more times in a row, arms crossed, jaw tight, which was somehow worse than if he'd kept pushing. You could feel him deciding not to say anything else, the same deliberate restraint he used on everything, except this time it didn't feel like patience. It felt like him giving up on a calculation he couldn't solve and choosing to wait for new data instead.

By the end of the session neither of you had said much else. You took your skate guards off slower than usual, stalling, and he stood there with his bag already on his shoulder like he was working up to something.

"Come over," he beckoned.

"James."

"We don't have to do anything." He said it fast, like he'd rehearsed it in his head a few times before committing to it out loud. "We can just watch something. I have a couch. It has a function beyond holding my shit."

You looked at him. He looked, for someone who spent most of his life being unreadable, almost nervous, which was such a foreign register on him that it nearly worked on its own. His hands were in his pockets, shoulders pulled in slightly, like he'd talked himself into the offer somewhere on the drive over and hadn't fully recovered from the effort of getting the words out.

"That's not really what we do," you hummed.

"I know what we do." His jaw tightened slightly. "I'm saying we could do something else. For once."

"Why."

"Because you've been somewhere else for five days and I don't know how to fix it and I figured—" He stopped, exhaled through his nose, started over with less momentum. "I figured if I stopped trying to fix it, maybe you'd just be normal again."

You thought about saying no. You thought about it seriously, for about four seconds, weighing the version of tonight where you went home alone and let the silence be a real silence instead of the kind you climbed into his bed to avoid.

"Fine," you shrugged. "Movie night. Very normal. Very platonic."

"Very platonic," he agreed, and the corner of his mouth moved like he didn't believe either of you for a second.

You didn't make it inside.

He'd barely gotten the car into park outside his building, hand still on the gearshift, engine ticking as it cooled, when you unbuckled and turned and kissed him before either of you had said a word about getting out.

It was… not soft. It wasn't anything close to the deliberate, considered thing he usually did with his mouth—you kissed him like you were trying to get something out of your own system rather than into his, hand fisting in the front of his jacket and pulling, and he made a startled sound against your mouth that had nothing composed in it at all.

Your teeth caught his lip wrong on the second pass, a clumsy graze that should have been embarrassing, and neither of you stopped to acknowledge it. He recovered fast—hand coming up to your jaw the way it always did, trying to slow you down, trying to bring it back to the version of this he knew how to do—and you didn't let him. You kissed him like there was something underneath it you were actively trying not to say, and the only way to keep it down was to keep your mouth too busy to say it. He tasted like the protein bar he always ate after sessions and underneath that just like himself, and you hated how easily you could still tell the difference.

"Hey," he mumbled, breaking away half an inch, breathing uneven. "Hey. Slow down."

"Why?"

"Because you're—" He stopped. His thumb was at your jaw, not guiding now, just resting there, and his eyes were doing the thing where they actually looked at you instead of through you. "You're somewhere else right now."

"I'm right here."

"You're not."

"James." Your voice came out lower than you meant it to. "Can you just—"

You didn't finish the sentence. You kissed him again before he could ask you to, harder this time, and he let you, because whatever else was true about James, he had never once in four months turned you away. 

His hand slid from your jaw to the back of your neck and he kissed you back properly now, matching whatever pace you'd set, fingers tightening in your hair in a way that pulled a sound out of you that you hadn't planned on giving him. The confusion didn't leave his face so much as it got folded into something else—want, mostly, with the confusion still sitting underneath it like a question he wasn't going to get to ask tonight, not with your mouth doing this, not with your hand already working at the front of his jacket like you'd forgotten there was a building two feet away with a door that locked.

He pulled back again, just enough to talk, forehead nearly against yours, both of you breathing like you'd run something. "We don't have to—"

"I know."

"I mean it. The couch thing. I meant that."

"I know you did." You kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, felt him swallow under your lips. "We can still watch something. After."

"After," he repeated, like he was testing whether the word held any weight, and then his hand found the back of your neck again and the conversation was over.

When you finally pulled back the windows had fogged at the edges and his mouth was a little swollen and his expression was unreadable in a way that meant he was choosing not to read it out loud.

"Movie night," he said, voice rough.

"Mm."

"That's not what this is."

"I know."

He looked at you for a long second, like he was deciding whether to push, and then he didn't. He just reached over and turned the engine back on, because the car had gone cold, and neither of you moved to get out for another minute, his hand still resting at the back of your neck like he wasn't entirely convinced you wouldn't disappear the second he let go.

𝑰𝑰. macklin

Macklin had a way of showing up that never once felt like an ambush.

You noticed it the second week of January, somewhere around the point where you'd stopped being able to tell whether you were avoiding James or just orbiting him from a worse angle—same rink, same hours, same vending machine, just less of the parts that used to make any of it feel good. Macklin didn't orbit. He just arrived, consistently, at the edges of your day, without making it a production.

He was there on Tuesday mornings now, doing supplemental ice work before his flight schedule picked back up, and he'd taken to leaning on the boards near wherever you happened to be running drills, not close enough to be intrusive, just close enough that a conversation could start if either of you wanted one to.

He caught you properly the day you came out of the rehab room, ankle freshly taped, jaw still set from forty minutes of a trainer pressing on something that didn't want to be pressed on. He spotted you first and grinned like he'd already found the best possible thing to say.

"Holy shit. All hail our national champ."

You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling before you could stop it, which was probably the only reason the line didn't immediately turn annoying. "You always this dramatic, or was this a special occasion?"

"Depends," he said, the smile widening in a way that made it obvious he was enjoying himself. "Did I need a reason to congratulate greatness?"

You gave him a look, but there wasn't any real heat in it, which seemed to surprise him a little. It surprised you too, if you were being honest. Usually when people brought up nationals there was a whole performance around it—the careful tone, the overdone praise, the thinly veiled expectation that you'd react like a person whose life had just become a highlight reel. Macklin didn't do any of that. He said it like he meant it, but lightly, like he knew exactly how much room to leave you to decide what to do with it. That mattered more than it should have.

You leaned back against the counter in the rehab room doorway, one hand still wrapped around the edge of the tape roll the trainer had left behind, and looked at him properly now that he'd made himself impossible to ignore.

He was half put together and half like he was still coming back to earth from the ice, hair damp at the temples, one shoulder held a little tight under his shirt. He had that loose, post-session quality some athletes carried, the kind that made it look like their bodies hadn't quite caught up to where the rest of them already was. But there was nothing clumsy about how he stood there, easy and unforced, taking in the room without making it feel like he was trying to take it over. It was a nice change from the usual energy in places like this, where everyone either looked miserable or determined to pretend they weren't.

"I didn't know you'd be here," he chuckled and looked around.

"I could say the same."

"Fair." He dropped his water bottle onto the counter beside yours and glanced around the room with exaggerated seriousness. "I should've brought a banner or something."

"Dude, you're obsessed."

"I'm respecting a champion."

"You're making me sound like I should be on a podium."

His eyes flicked back to yours. "You were. That's kind of the point."

It was annoying, how easy it was to talk to him when he was like this. Not because he wasn't trying, but because he was, and it didn't feel like a battle. He was just talking to you. Simple as that. You were used to people who either wanted something obvious or wanted to sound like they didn't. Macklin didn't seem interested in either. He just seemed curious, maybe a little amused, and that was enough to make the room feel less sterile than it had a minute ago.

The rehab room was quiet except for the low hum of a machine in the corner and the soft scrape of someone moving around behind the curtain on the far side. There was a faint medicinal smell in the air, the kind that never really left places like this no matter how much they cleaned. You sat down on the bench and pulled your leg up more carefully than necessary, checking the tape around your ankle out of habit even though the trainer had already done it. Macklin noticed. Of course he did.

"Still bugging you?"

"It's fine."

"That's not what I asked."

You glanced at him sideways. "You ask questions like you're in charge of a medical chart."

He laughed, low and easy enough that it softened the space between you. "I just mean you look like you're considering biting someone."

"Only because I'm in a rehab room."

"That tracks."

You almost laughed at that, and he saw it. His mouth curved, satisfied in the quiet way people got when they'd landed on the right version of a joke without forcing it. He nodded toward the bench across from you and sat, legs stretched out, posture loose enough that it was obvious he wasn't in a rush. It was strange how quickly the conversation settled. There was none of the overcorrection you usually got from people who knew who you were and wanted to prove they were normal about it. He just sat there like this was simply what the two of you did now—talked in a rehab room after training, like it was a perfectly reasonable way to spend the next ten minutes.

"So," he said after a second, "did nationals feel different from the outside?"

You looked at him. That wasn't what you'd expected. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "I watched the broadcast. It felt bigger than the others. I know that sounds stupid, but there's a difference between skating well and skating with people actually watching because they know the stakes."

You studied him for a second, trying to figure out whether he was being polite or genuinely interested, and the thing was, he looked sincere enough that it was almost disorienting. "It did feel different," you said finally. "Not during it. During it you're just trying to get through each part without your brain getting loud. But after, yeah. There's this weird second wave where everybody starts acting like they were inside your head while it was happening."

"Were they?"

"Not even a little."

Macklin laughed under his breath. "That's reassuring."

"Why?"

"Because it means the whole thing still belongs to you."

That landed harder than it should have. Not necessarily because it was profound. Because it was simple enough to be true. You looked down at the tape on your ankle, then back up at him, and there was something careful in the way he watched you, like he knew he'd said something worth leaving alone for a second.

"You talk like that a lot?" you asked, looking him in his eyes.

"Like what?"

"Like you actually think about what you're saying before you say it."

He gave you a small, lopsided look. "Is that not normal?"

"No. People usually just say whatever comes out first and hope it lands."

"Sounds inefficient."

"Yeah, well. Most people are."

He huffed a laugh and leaned back against the wall. "I don't know. I just think if you're going to say something, it should probably mean something."

That made you pause. There was no dramatic shift in the room, no big moment attached to it—just a sentence dropped with the same casualness as everything else he'd said. But it stuck anyway, the way the simplest things sometimes did. You tilted your head at him, studying his face a moment too long, and he noticed. Of course he noticed.

"What?" he asked with a laugh.

"Nothing."

"That means something."

You smiled before you could stop it. "You're weirdly sentimental for someone who opened with 'all hail our national champ.'"

He laughed again, a little more edge to it this time. "I contain multitudes."

"You really don't."

"Wow," he said, mock-offended. "That was cold."

"Deserved."

He shifted forward, elbows on his knees now, more engaged. "Okay, then tell me what I am."

You glanced at him, then at the floor, then back. "Annoyingly observant."

He looked pleased by that, which was irritating. "That's one."

"And too comfortable saying things that make me suspicious."

"Also fair."

"And not embarrassed at all to act like a nerd about other people's skating."

He let out a quiet laugh, lifting one hand in mock surrender. "That one I'll own."

You shook your head, smiling again, and it was clear he'd already noticed the pattern and filed it away. It shouldn't have been this easy for him to make you feel like you weren't under a microscope. It should have been harder, even, because he was still paying attention—the difference was that his attention didn't feel like judgment. It felt like interest. The room was still too bright, too full of the low mechanical sounds that made rehab rooms feel like they existed outside the rest of life, but the conversation had started giving it shape. You could feel yourself settling into it without meaning to.

The trainer came back briefly to check the wrap on your ankle, and Macklin got up to give you space without turning it into anything. He stood near the sink while she talked through the wrap in that practical, clipped language people used when they spent their lives around bodies that didn't always cooperate. When she finished, he glanced over.

"Better?"

"Yeah."

He nodded once. "Good."

She left again, and the room went quiet enough to hear the fluorescent light buzzing overhead. Macklin looked at you, then at your ankle, then back at your face. "Does it bug you," he said, "that everybody treats your body like part of your job before it's part of you?"

The question was direct enough to catch you off guard. It wasn’t because it was invasive, but because it was accurate. You exhaled and leaned back on your hands. "Yeah. But I guess that's the deal."

"Doesn't have to be."

You looked at him, trying to tell whether he meant that in some broad, idealistic way or actually believed it. He didn't look away, which told you enough. He meant it. Maybe not in a grand sense. Maybe just in the sense that people should get to be whole before they were useful, which wasn't a thought you heard often enough to brush past.

"You always talk like you're about to say something smarter than everyone else in the room," you said.

He grinned. "And yet somehow you keep talking to me."

"Unfortunately."

"Tragic for you."

"Devastating."

He laughed, and this time you laughed too, because somewhere in the last ten minutes the conversation had stopped feeling like a series of lines and started feeling like a rhythm you could actually sit inside.

"So," he said eventually, "were you always this normal after winning, or did I get a special version?"

You groaned and tipped your head back against the wall. "I hate you."

"No, you don't."

That made you look at him sharply, and he was still smiling, but there was enough steadiness in it that it didn't feel like a challenge. Just confidence—thankfully the opposite of the obnoxious kind, the kind that came from someone who paid attention and had the sense not to misuse what he learned. You rolled your eyes, except you were smiling again, so it didn't land as a real dismissal.

"I swear you're impossible," you said.

"I know."

He said it the way he said most things. It was like he'd already thought it through and decided it was worth standing behind. The room felt quieter after that, but not in the uncomfortable way. More like the conversation had taken on a shape neither of you needed to define right then. He reached for his water bottle, drank, glanced at the clock. He probably had somewhere else to be eventually. He didn't rush to get there. That mattered too.

When he finally stood it wasn't because the moment had gotten awkward—it was just time doing what time did. He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug, that same open, easy expression still on him.

"See you around?"

You smiled, and this time you didn't bother hiding it. "Yeah. Probably."

He nodded once, like that was enough, then paused at the door and looked back—not long enough to be dramatic, just long enough to feel deliberate.

"Congrats again," he said, quieter now.

"You already said that."

"Yeah." The corner of his mouth moved like he knew exactly what he was doing. "But I meant it."

Then he was gone, and the room settled back into itself—same fluorescent hum, same smell of tape and menthol and clean cold air. But something about it had shifted anyway, because now it felt like there was room in it for someone else, someone who asked good questions and actually listened to the answers. You sat there a second longer than necessary, looking at the door he'd left through, then at your ankle, then at nothing in particular, smiling to yourself despite knowing you probably shouldn't be.

You noticed it again the second week of January, in the smaller, quieter ways he kept showing up. Tuesday mornings at the boards. A question about your flow management that wasn't really about your flow management. The way he never once made you feel like you owed him an explanation for anything.

"You've got a face on today," he said, on the Tuesday that mattered, though you wouldn't clock it as the one that mattered until much later.

"I don't have a face."

"You have several faces. This is the one where you're mad at someone but pretending you're mad at the ice."

You looked over at him properly. Hood pushed back, hair still damp, that post-session looseness like his body hadn't quite caught up with how still he was trying to hold it. He wasn't smiling exactly. Just watching you with the air of patience that didn't ask you to explain anything you didn't want to.

"I'm not mad at anyone."

"Okay."

"I'm focused."

"Sure." He picked at the tape on his stick, not pushing, just present. "You know you don't have to act fine for me, right? I'm not your coach. I don't actually care if your edges are clean today."

That got you. It got you not because it was a big statement—because it wasn't. He said it like a fact, easy and unbothered, and it landed somewhere different than anything James had said to you all week, because James's attention always came wrapped in analysis, like he was running your behavior through some private model to figure out what it meant. Macklin's attention didn't ask anything of you at all. It just sat there, available, and let you decide what to do with it.

"It's been a week," you said finally, surprising yourself.

"Bad week or weird week?"

"Weird."

"Weird how?"

You almost told him. You got as far as opening your mouth, the shape of the sentence already forming—there's someone, it's complicated, he did something that shouldn't have mattered and it mattered anyway—and then you closed it again, because saying any version of that out loud to Macklin felt like handing him something he hadn't asked for and didn't deserve to carry.

"Just weird," you said instead. "Nothing dramatic."

"Okay." He didn't push, which was the thing about him you kept clocking and reclocking like it might stop being true if you looked too hard. "For what it's worth, your flow management on that last pass was really clean. Even with the face."

"I told you I don't have a face."

"You have a face right now. I'm looking at it."

You laughed before you could stop yourself, and it felt easier than the laugh you'd given James two nights ago—lighter, without the same undertow pulling at the back of it. Macklin grinned like he'd been hoping for exactly that and hadn't been sure he'd get it, then pushed off the boards and went back to his own drills like the conversation hadn't cost either of you anything.

That was the thing about him. Nothing ever cost anything. He showed up, said something specific and a little too perceptive, let you deflect without making the deflection feel like a failure, then gave you space again without needing you to explain why you'd wanted it. It was, you were starting to realize, a genuinely rare skill—being interested in someone without making your privacy feel like a debt you owed him.

The Thursday after that, you and James went through an entire session without anything close to the conversation you'd had in the parking lot two nights before.

He was trying harder, which was its own kind of unbearable. He brought you the right water bottle flavor without being told. He didn't bring up the shoulder drop even though it was still there. He asked about your morning in a tone that had clearly been worked on, softened at the edges in a way that wasn't natural to him, like he'd spent actual time considering what version of himself might get through to you and was now testing it in real time.

You let him in exactly as far as you'd let anyone in for a week, which was: not very. You answered in full sentences instead of fragments, which felt like a concession, and he seemed to take it as one, relaxing slightly at the boards like the full sentences were proof the thaw was coming.

It wasn't proof of anything. It was just easier to talk in full sentences than to keep building walls out of single words, and you were tired in a way that had nothing to do with training.

You still went back to his place that night. You didn't examine that too closely either—the fact that you could spend forty minutes being distant on the ice and then forty minutes later be on your couch with your legs over his lap, his hand resting on your ankle like it belonged there, some show neither of you were watching playing low in the background while the real conversation happened in the silences between scenes.

"You're still doing it," he said at one point, not looking away from the TV.

"Doing what."

"The fucked up shutdown mode where you're here but not really here."

"I'm watching the show."

"You haven't laughed once and it's a fucking comedy."

"Maybe it's not funny."

"It's objectively funny. Keonho made me watch the first season twice."

You didn't say anything to that, and he didn't push, just moved his thumb in a slow, absent circle against your ankle bone. It was the same unhurried patience he applied to everything, like he was willing to wait you out for as long as it took even if he had no idea what he was waiting for.

Later, after the show ended and neither of you moved to put on another one, he said, quieter, "Whatever it is. You'll tell me eventually, right?"

You looked at him. The lamp was on low, throwing that same gold light across the apartment that always made things feel more honest than they were, and his face had the openness it only got this late, when the version of him built for everyone else had been set down somewhere near the door.

His face was lit up and your eyes traced the carefully carved slope of his nose and the sharpness of his features that seemed to always try and cut you.

"Maybe," you shrugged.

It wasn't a yes. He didn't ask you to make it one. He just nodded once, the way he nodded at things he'd decided to file away rather than push on, and pulled you a little closer, and you let him, even though some smaller, more honest part of you knew "maybe" was doing the same work it had always done—protecting you, mostly, from finding out what would happen if you actually said it.

The headphones sat on the corner of his desk the entire time, exactly where they always sat, and you didn't look at them once. You were proud of that, in the specific, hollow way you were proud of anything you'd had to work that hard not to feel.

𝑰𝑰𝑰. everyone in the room

The federation threw some kind of mid-season exhibition gala every January, the sort of event that existed mostly to give sponsors something to put on a slide deck, and you'd never once managed to get out of attending it.

This year it was at the rink itself, which made it worse somehow, because the building that had spent four months being the one place none of this had to perform itself was suddenly full of round tables and string lights and a step-and-repeat banner propped against the boards where you usually ran your warmup.

You wore the dress your coach had picked out, the one that photographed well and said nothing about you specifically, and you stood near the edge of the rink with a glass of something sparkling you weren't drinking and watched the room arrange itself into the exact configuration you'd been dreading.

James was near the far wall in a suit that fit him the way everything fit him, like it had been built around the specific shape of his restraint rather than just his shoulders. He had a drink he wasn't drinking either, and he was talking to one of the federation reps with the polite, contained version of himself you'd watched him deploy on staff and journalists for months. You knew that version. You also knew it wasn't the only one he had, which was the entire problem with watching him use it on someone else while you stood fifteen feet away pretending you weren't watching at all.

Lia found you first.

"You look like you're at a funeral," Lia remarked, sliding up beside you with her own glass, actually drinking hers.

"I'm at an event where I have to be charming for two hours."

"Same thing, different snacks." She followed your eyeline without being subtle about it, landing on James across the room, then glancing back at you with an expression you didn't love. "He's been weird lately too. Did something happen?"

"Why would something have happened."

"No reason. He just keeps doing this thing where he answers a question and then looks like he's bracing for a follow-up that doesn't come." She shrugged, swirling her glass. "Maybe it's just a January thing. Everyone's weird in January."

You didn't say anything to that, mostly because you were watching Macklin come through the side entrance in a blazer that looked like it had been an afterthought, hair still slightly damp, grinning at someone over his shoulder before his eyes found the room and then, a second later, found you.

He didn't come over immediately. He let himself get pulled into a conversation with one of the rink's board members first, nodding along, easy as anything, and you watched him do it the same way you'd apparently been watching James do his version across the room—aware of him without meaning to be.

"Oh, this is going to be fun," Lia murmured.

"What."

"Nothing." She was smiling at her glass like it had said something funny. "I'm just saying, this room has a lot going on in it tonight and you're standing right in the middle of all of it acting like you don't notice."

"I genuinely don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't."

You were saved, or not saved, depending on how you wanted to think about it, by Macklin extracting himself from the board member and crossing the room toward you both with the kind of unhurried confidence that made entire rooms recalibrate slightly around him without him asking them to.

"There she is," Macklin called, like he'd been looking for you specifically, which he probably had. "I almost didn't recognize you without ice under your feet."

"I almost didn't recognize you in a blazer that isn't covered in tape residue."

"Rude. This is a nice blazer."

"It's a fine blazer."

"Devastating, again." He glanced at Lia, offered her the same easy nod he gave everyone, no particular weight to it. "Hey. You're the edge work girl, right? James mentioned you."

Something in you went very still at that, a small cold drop you didn't examine, and you watched Lia's face do something complicated before settling into pleasant.

"He mentioned me?"

"Said you've got good instincts. High praise, coming from him. I don't think I've heard him compliment anyone unprompted the entire time I've been doing camp here." Macklin said it lightly, with no idea what he'd just handed you, and took a sip of his drink while Lia recovered faster than you did.

"That's nice of him," Lia offered, glancing at you for half a second too long before looking away.

You kept your face arranged. You'd gotten good at that, lately—a specific, hollow kind of good.

Across the room, James had finished with the federation rep and was scanning the space the way he did, methodical, cataloguing, and his eyes found yours for exactly one second before they found Macklin standing next to you and stayed there a second longer than a glance required. 

You may have noticed that they didn’t flick to Lia. And he didn't come over. 

You watched him decide not to, watched the decision happen in real time—a small recalibration, jaw setting, attention redirected toward someone else entirely—and you told yourself you didn't care, which was a lie you'd gotten almost as good at as the face.

"So," Macklin asked, turning back to you, oblivious to the entire silent transaction that had just occurred six feet away from him, "are these things always this stiff, or is tonight special?"

"They're always like this. Sponsors like watching us be charming in a controlled environment."

"Cool. Very normal. Very not dystopian."

"Welcome to figure skating."

He laughed, and it was easy, the way everything with him was easy, and for a second you let yourself just be in the conversation instead of also running the other one happening across the room in your peripheral vision. Lia excused herself a minute later with some line about finding the rest of her group, and you caught the look she gave you on her way out—not jealous exactly, something more careful than that, like she was filing away a data point she hadn't expected to get tonight.

You didn't think about what that data point might be. You had enough open files already.

Later, near the dessert table, you ended up close enough to James that avoiding him would have required an actual maneuver, the sort that would have been more obvious than just standing there.

"You clean up well," James offered, which was such a strange, formal thing for him to say that you almost laughed.

"You sound like you're reading off a cue card."

"I don't have a cue card."

"You sound like you do."

He almost smiled at that. The real version, brief enough that probably no one else in the room caught it. "Macklin seems like he's having a good time."

"He's a likable guy."

"I'm aware."

Something in his tone had an edge you weren't expecting this early, this controlled, and you looked at him properly for the first time all night. He wasn't looking at you—he was looking at the dessert table, very deliberately, like the petit fours required his full attention.

"James."

"What?"

"You're doing the thing."

"I'm not doing anything." He picked up a small plate he had no intention of using. "I'm standing at a dessert table."

"You're standing at a dessert table being weird about Macklin."

"I'm not being weird about Macklin." He set the plate back down, finally looked at you, and his jaw had that tightness you knew, the one that lived underneath everything else he wasn't saying. "I'm just standing here."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Neither of you moved. The room kept happening around you—someone's laugh too loud near the bar, a photographer working the crowd, the string lights doing their best to make an ice rink look like somewhere romantic instead of somewhere you both bled hours of your life into most weeks. You were standing close enough to him that you could smell whatever he'd put on for tonight. It was something smoother than his usual, and it annoyed you that you'd noticed, and it annoyed you more that noticing didn't feel new.

"You look tired," he murmured finally, quieter, dropping the cue-card formality. His hand dropped and you felt it pass behind the small of your back. It almost hovered until he reached up to adjust his done-up hair.

"I'm fine."

"You don't have to keep saying that."

"I'm not lying."

"I didn't say you were lying. I said you don't have to keep saying it." He looked at you for a second longer than the conversation strictly required. There was something unguarded slipping through the contained version of him he'd been wearing all night. "I miss—" He stopped himself, jaw working, and started over. "Tuesday was fine. I just feel like I'm catching maybe sixty percent of you lately and I don't know where the other forty went."

Sixty was enough for what you guys were. Right? You didn’t even want to think about the reason he even noticed that forty percent of you was gone at all. Why were you decreased to percentages in the first place?

You didn't have an answer that wouldn't cost you something to give, so you didn't give one. You picked up a petit four you didn't want, the same way he had, and the two of you stood there in a silence that had gotten too specific to be comfortable, while across the room Macklin laughed at something and Lia watched the two of you over the rim of her glass like she was starting to do the math on something she hadn't wanted to solve.

That was when Macklin found you again, Lia trailing half a step behind him with the particular expression of someone who'd been pulled into something she hadn't fully agreed to.

"There you two are," Macklin said, easy as ever, apparently immune to whatever atmosphere had been sitting over the dessert table for the last five minutes. "We were just talking about how insane it is that we’re all training in the same building. Like, statistically, what are the odds."

"Pretty good odds, actually," James said. "It's a good rink."

"It's a great rink," Macklin agreed. "I'm just saying, you've got a nationals champion, a top-five draft pick, an Olympic medalist, and—" He glanced at Lia, grinning. "What's your deal again? You're good too, right?"

"I'm good too," Lia said, dry, and you almost laughed despite everything, because that was such a Lia thing to say, flat and unbothered, no need to perform anything for anyone.

"See, this is what I mean. This building is just stacked." Macklin looked between the four of you like he was genuinely delighted by the math of it, no idea he'd just assembled the exact configuration of people you'd been actively trying not to put in one room together for weeks. "We should all hang out sometime. Like, properly. Not gala small talk."

"We do hang out," Lia said, glancing at James, then at you, then back at James. "Sort of."

What the hell?

Something shifted in the air at that. It was small but very, very real. You felt James go very still beside you the way he did when a sentence had more in it than the person saying it realized.

"Sort of," James repeated, careful.

"You know. The rink." Lia shrugged, oblivious or not oblivious, you genuinely couldn't tell anymore. "We're all just always here."

"Right," you said, too fast.

Macklin, to his credit or his detriment, didn't catch any of the undercurrent. He just nodded along, sipping his drink, looking at the four of you like you were the easiest group of people he'd talked to all night, which was its own kind of funny given that you could feel at least three separate silent conversations happening underneath the one out loud.

"Okay, but seriously," he said, "we should do something. Not this." He gestured at the string lights, the step-and-repeat, a passing photographer. "Something normal. Dinner. No sponsors."

"I'm in," Lia said immediately, too immediately, and you caught the flicker of her eyes toward James before she covered it with a sip of her drink.

"Sure," James said, after a moment that lasted half a second too long, eyes on you instead of Lia when he said it, like he was checking what your face would do before he committed to anything.

Your face didn't do anything. You'd gotten good at that.

"Great," Macklin said, delighted, utterly unaware that he'd just engineered the exact dinner you were going to spend the rest of January dreading. "I'll figure out a place. Somewhere with bad lighting and worse music. My favorite kind."

"Sounds perfect," you chuckled, and meant absolutely none of it, and across the small circle you'd all formed without meaning to, James was looking at you again, and Lia was looking at James, and Macklin was looking at all of you with the easy, unbothered face of someone who had no idea he'd just lit a fuse. 

Bless his poor soul.

𝑰𝑽. the dinner

The night before the dinner, you were lying with your cheek against James's chest, his arm loose around you, the lamp on low the way it always was this late, when he said, apropos of nothing, "He's a jolly fella."

You lifted your head. "What?"

"Macklin." He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, eyes on the ceiling, completely straight-faced. "Jolly. Like a restless golden retriever that won an Olympic medal."

You laughed before you could stop it. It was a real laugh, loud enough that it startled out of you, and you smacked his chest with the flat of your hand. "Did you just call him jolly?"

"What's wrong with jolly?"

"Nothing's wrong with jolly, it's just—" You were still laughing, propping yourself up on one elbow to actually look at him. "You sound like someone's grandfather. Who says jolly?"

"It's an accurate word. He's jolly. He probably whistles in the shower."

"Oh my god." You dropped your head back onto his chest, shoulders still shaking. "Why do you hate him so much you've regressed to insulting him like he's a cartoon character."

"I don't hate him." James said it too fast, which made you lift your head again, grinning now, fully delighted.

"You hate him."

"I don't hate him."

"You called him jolly like it was a slur."

"It's not a slur, it's a description." His jaw had gone tight in that way that meant you'd actually gotten to him, and that, somehow, made it funnier, not less funny, and you couldn't stop the laugh that kept building in your chest no matter how hard you bit down on your lip trying to contain it.

"I genuinely cannot believe you," you managed, wheezing slightly. "You're jealous of a guy who said you have good instincts. He complimented you. Unprompted. You told me that yourself."

"I'm not jealous."

"You're so jealous you called him jolly."

"Stop saying jolly."

"You said it first!"

That seemed to be the final straw, because his expression shifted from wounded dignity into something more dangerous, and before you could register what was happening his head dipped and his breath hit the side of your neck, warm and deliberate, right at the spot he knew—because of course he knew, because he'd cataloged every part of you the same way he cataloged everything—made you absolutely lose your mind.

"James—don't—"

"Keep laughing at me."

"I'm not—oh my god, stop—" You were already shrieking, twisting away from him, except he had an arm looped around your waist now and wasn't letting you go anywhere, and every time you got a breath of composure back he blew against your neck again and undid the whole thing, until you were genuinely crying with laughter, kicking at the sheets, trying to use his own pillow as a shield between his mouth and your neck.

"Say I'm not jolly," he said, somehow managing to sound both completely serious and like he was enjoying himself more than he had in days.

"You're not jolly! You've never been jolly in your life!"

"Damn right." He finally stopped, victorious, settling back against the pillows with the specific satisfaction of someone who'd won an argument through entirely unfair means, and you collapsed against him again, breathless, face still hot from laughing, his arm coming back around you like nothing had happened.

For a second neither of you said anything. The lamp buzzed faintly. Your heart was still going from the laughing, or maybe from something else, you weren't entirely sure anymore.

"That whole thing was so weird," he said eventually, quieter now, the humor draining back into something more like himself. "This dinner is just going to be wonderful, isn't it."

"So wonderful."

"I'm going to have to sit across from him and pretend I don't think he's secretly a golden retriever."

"You can't call him that to his face."

"I wasn't planning on it." A pause. "Probably."

You laughed again, smaller this time, and pressed your face into his chest, and didn't think too hard about the fact that you'd just spent ten minutes being happier than you'd let yourself be in two weeks, all because he'd called another man jolly out of something that was very clearly not actual jolliness at all.

Your eyes drifted, unthinking, toward the desk. The headphones were still sitting there, exactly where they always sat, and the laugh in your chest went quiet before you could stop it. You didn't say anything. You just looked a second too long, and felt him notice you looking, and neither of you asked the other what it meant.

Macklin's idea of bad lighting and worse music turned out to be a tucked-away Italian place with red votives on every table and a sound system that hadn't been updated since the place opened, which meant you spent the first twenty minutes of dinner half-listening to a song that had been popular roughly a decade earlier and trying not to think about how loaded the seating arrangement was.

You ended up next to Macklin, James seated directly across from you with Lia beside him, which meant the entire table was arranged like some kind of unintentional cross-section of every tension currently running underneath your life. Macklin took the head of the table like he'd been born for it, ordering for the group without asking anyone if that was fine, which it apparently was, because nobody stopped him.

For the first hour it was easy in the specific, exhausting way group dinners were easy when half the table was performing normalcy. Macklin told a story about a teammate who'd gotten lost in an airport for four hours. Lia laughed at all the right places, leaning into James's side of the table more than she probably needed to. James contributed exactly as much as the situation required and not a sentence more, which you knew was its own kind of tell, because James at ease talked more than this, not less.

You felt his knee find yours under the table sometime around the second course.

It started small enough that you almost didn't register it—the brush of his leg against yours while he reached for the bread, lingering a half second longer than the reach required. You didn't move away. He didn't either. By the time the entrées came, his foot had found the inside of your ankle, slow and deliberate, and you kept your face arranged in exactly the same pleasant nothing you'd been wearing all night while your whole leg went warm under the table.

"You're quiet," Macklin said, looking at you.

"I'm eating."

"Fair. Can't argue with that." He turned back to whatever he'd been saying to Lia, and under the table James's foot pressed a little firmer against yours, and you had to take a very deliberate sip of water to keep from reacting to it.

It got worse from there. Not worse—better, technically, in the way that things that shouldn't feel good always somehow did. His knee against yours. Your foot finding his under the tablecloth in return, sliding up the inside of his calf in a way that made him go briefly, visibly still, fork pausing halfway to his mouth before he recovered. The whole thing felt giddy and reckless in a way nothing between you had felt in weeks, this small, secret, physical conversation happening directly under a table where Lia was telling a story about her short program and Macklin was laughing at the right moments and neither of them had any idea what was happening six inches below the tablecloth.

You almost smiled. You caught yourself almost smiling and looked down at your plate instead.

Then Lia reached for James's water glass instead of her own, an easy mistake, the kind anyone made at a crowded table, and took a sip before she realized, laughing at herself, sliding it back toward him.

"Oops. Sorry."

"It's fine," James said, and took the glass back, and drank from it without even glancing at the rim, which was such a small, nothing gesture that it shouldn't have done anything to you at all.

It did something to you anyway. Your foot stopped moving against his under the table. You felt him notice the second it happened—the stillness, the sudden absence of contact—and his eyes flicked to you, confused, like he had no idea what had just shifted.

You kicked him. Hard, deliberate, no warmth left in it at all, and he startled enough that his knee hit the underside of the table and rattled the silverware.

"You good?" Macklin asked, glancing over.

"Fine," James said, jaw tight, not looking at you.

You pulled your phone out under the table and typed without looking at him.

you [8:47 PM] bathroom. rn.

You watched him feel his phone buzz in his pocket, watched him pretend not to react, and a few seconds later your own phone lit up.

james yufine [8:47 PM] i was gonna go anyway

You looked up. He was already pushing his chair back, perfectly casual, the corner of his mouth doing that infuriating almost-smirk thing it did when he knew exactly what he was doing and wanted you to know he knew.

you [8:48 PM] stfu

He didn't reply to that. He just stood, said something easy to the table about needing to step out for a second, and walked toward the back hallway like he had all the time in the world, and you counted to ten before you followed him.

He was waiting by the bathroom door, and the second you got close enough he caught your wrist and pulled you in with him, shouldering the door shut behind you both.

"James—" You stumbled half a step, catching yourself against the sink, staring at him in the unflattering overhead light. "What are you doing, we can't both—" You crossed your arms, already bracing. "You know I'm not here to—"

"What?" His face did something genuinely confused, then offended. "No. I'm not a fucking dog, bro, I know." He said it like the accusation had personally wounded him, dragging a hand down his face. "I just didn't want to have this conversation in a hallway where anyone could walk past."

"Oh." You felt your face heat, which only made you crankier. "Okay. Fine."

"Fine?" He stared at you like he couldn't quite believe you'd gone there at all. "What did you think I was doing?"

"I don't know, you pulled me into a bathroom—"

"To talk." He gestured at the small space, the locked door, the buzzing light overhead, like the absurdity of having to clarify this was almost funny if he wasn't so annoyed. "I wanted five minutes where Macklin wasn't doing a bit and Lia wasn't performing normal at us. That's it."

"Okay, well." You straightened up, recrossing your arms, trying to recover whatever ground you'd just lost. "You have your five minutes."

He studied you for a second, the brief flash of humor draining back out of his face into something more serious. "What was that," he said. "You went somewhere. Under the table. What happened."

You crossed your arms tighter. "Nothing happened."

"Don't do the nothing thing. Not right now."

"Fine." You kept your voice low, even with the door shut, some habit of caution too deep to break. "You drank out of her glass."

He blinked. "What?"

"Lia's water. You just drank out of it like it was nothing."

"It was an accident. She grabbed mine first."

"And you didn't even think about it. You just drank from it."

"Because it's a water glass." His voice had an edge of genuine disbelief now, like he was trying to figure out if you were actually saying what he thought you were saying. "What was I supposed to do, wipe it down in front of everyone?"

"I don't know, James, maybe not put your mouth where hers just was."

"It's a water glass," he said again, like repeating it might make it land differently. "What do you think she has, herpes?"

"I don't think she has herpes, I think you didn't even pause."

"Why would I pause? It's water."

"Because it would've meant something if you had."

The sentence came out before you could stop it, sharper and more honest than you'd planned, and you watched it land on him the way honest things always did—a small flinch, a recalibration, his jaw setting in that specific way that meant he was about to say something he might not be able to take back.

"You're mad that I drank water," he said slowly, "but you've spent the last two weeks acting like I don't exist unless we're somewhere private. You want to talk about things that would've meant something?"

"That's different."

"How."

"Because I have a reason."

"You won't tell me the reason!" His voice rose enough that you both glanced toward the dining room, then dropped it back down, leaning closer, lower, angrier. "You've had a reason for two weeks and you won't say it, and now you're mad that I drank water out of the wrong glass at a dinner I didn't even want to be at."

"Maybe if you actually paid attention—"

"I pay attention to everything about you. That's the entire problem." He exhaled hard, dragging a hand through his hair, and for a second the contained version of him cracked enough that you could see something rawer underneath it. "I don't know what I did. I've been trying to figure it out for two weeks and I keep coming up with nothing, and now I'm locked in a bathroom getting accused of being weird about a water glass, and I don't—" He stopped. Started again, quieter. "I don't know how to fix something you won't tell me is broken."

You stared at him. The light overhead buzzed faintly against the tile. Somewhere outside the door a server dropped something in the kitchen and swore quietly.

"Maybe it's not yours to fix," you said.

"Then whose is it."

You didn't answer that, because the honest answer was yours, it's been yours this whole time, you're just too proud to say the word headphones out loud and admit it mattered, and you weren't going to hand him that, not here, not under a buzzing light with a dinner waiting twenty feet away.

"I should go back," you said instead.

"Of course you should." His voice had gone flat now, the anger folding itself back down into something colder and more controlled, which was somehow worse than the heat. "That's what we do, right? We don't finish anything. We just go back to the table."

"James."

"It's fine." He stepped back as far as the small room allowed, putting actual distance between you for the first time all night, and the loss of it felt sharper than it should have. "I'll see you out there."

He unlocked the door and walked back to the dining room first, leaving you alone in the bathroom with the buzzing light and your own reflection looking unreasonably calm for how furious you felt. You stood there for a full minute, arms still crossed, furious at him and furious at yourself in roughly equal measure, before finally pulling the door open to follow him back.

Lia was right outside, apparently mid-approach to the same door, and she slowed when she saw you, something careful crossing her face.

"Hey." She glanced toward the dining room, then back at you. "Everything okay? You guys looked tense out there."

"We're fine."

"Sure." She didn't sound convinced, but she let it go, stepping around you toward the door. Then, almost as an afterthought, light enough that it could've meant nothing: "Sorry about the water thing, by the way. James drank out of my glass and didn't even flinch. I felt bad."

You stared at her. "He drank out of yours?"

"Yeah, grabbed it by accident, drank half of it before he noticed." She shrugged, easy, already reaching for the door handle. "Guys are so weird about that stuff usually. He really didn't care."

The door swung shut behind her before you could say anything, and you stood in the hallway replaying the last twenty minutes, certain—you were certain—that it had happened the other way around, that she'd taken his glass first, that you'd watched it happen. You stood there long enough to start doubting your own memory of something that had occurred six feet away from your face less than ten minutes ago, which was its own quiet, specific kind of unsettling.

You went back to the table without saying anything to her about it, sat down, picked your fork back up, and didn't let your foot find his again for the rest of the night.

Across the table, Lia glanced between the two of you once, twice, something calculating moving behind her eyes that she didn't bother to hide particularly well, and Macklin kept talking, the only person at the table who had no idea that anything had happened at all.

𝑽. what you can't unsee

The thing about doubt was that once it got in, it didn't need much room to keep working.

You told yourself, on the drive home from the dinner, that Lia had just misremembered. People misremembered things under stress, under bad lighting, with three glasses of wine and a table full of cross-currents nobody else could see. It wasn't a lie. It was just a small, human mistake, and you were being paranoid for turning it over as many times as you had.

You believed that for about two days.

Then it was a Wednesday, not even one of your nights, and you'd come back to the rink after off-ice training to grab a jacket you'd left in your locker, and the building was quiet in the specific way it got mid-afternoon when most of the morning sessions had cleared out and the evening ones hadn't started yet. You weren't expecting anyone. That was the whole point of timing it this way.

James and Lia were at the boards on the main rink, and you saw them before they saw you, which was its own kind of unfair advantage you immediately wished you didn't have.

It wasn't anything. You told yourself that in real time, narrating it to yourself like evidence you'd need later. He was correcting her edge work, hand at her hip the way he'd corrected your edge work a hundred times in November, nothing in it that should have meant anything. She was laughing at something. He wasn't laughing, but there was a looseness in his shoulders that you recognized, the specific quality he only had with people he'd actually let in.

You stood in the doorway for four seconds. Then five. You counted them, because counting was easier than feeling whatever was happening in your chest, this tight, specific thing that had no business being there given everything you'd told yourself for four months.

You left without your jacket.

You didn't bring it up to him. That had become its own pattern now, this growing list of things you'd seen and decided not to mention, each one filed next to the last—the headphones, the glass, now this—building into an architecture of grievances he had no idea he was accumulating.

Thursday came anyway. You still went to the rink. You still ran your sessions on opposite ends of the auxiliary ice, still ended up in the alcove by the vending machine afterward out of a habit too old to break just because you were furious, and you still, against every piece of better judgment available to you, ended up back at his apartment by midnight.

It was different now, though. You could feel it in the specific way you were both careful with each other—not gentle, careful, which wasn't the same thing at all. He didn't reach for you the second the door closed the way he used to. You didn't curl into his side without thinking about it first. There was a half-second of hesitation in everything, a new kind of math neither of you wanted to do out loud.

"You're doing it again," he murmured, somewhere past midnight, both of you lying in the dark with several inches of space between you that hadn't existed in months.

"Doing what."

"Going somewhere else. Even when you're right here."

You stared at the ceiling, the hairline crack you'd memorized months ago barely visible in the dark. "I saw you with Lia on Wednesday."

The admission surprised you as much as it seemed to surprise him—he went still beside you, the specific stillness that meant he was recalculating something in real time.

"At the rink?"

"You were correcting her edge work."

"Yeah." He said it slowly, like he was trying to figure out where the trap was. "She asked for help with a transition. I help people with transitions. I helped you with a transition the first night I ever talked to you."

"That's not the same."

"Why not?"

You didn't have a clean answer for that, not one that didn't require admitting things you'd spent months refusing to admit, so you said nothing, and the silence sat there between you, heavier than it should have been for two people who weren't supposed to owe each other explanations.

"Are you accusing me of something," he asked finally, quiet, careful in a different way now—the way people got careful right before something broke.

"I'm not accusing you of anything."

"You sound like you are."

"I just—" You sat up slightly, pulling the sheet with you, putting more distance between your bodies than the conversation alone had already created. "I don't know what's happening with you two. I don't get to ask. That's the arrangement. I just—I saw it, and I didn't love how it looked, and I'm allowed to not love how it looked even if I don't get to say anything about it."

"Why don't you get to say anything about it?"

The question landed differently than you expected, quieter, more genuine than accusatory, and you looked over at him in the dark and found him already looking at you, his expression doing something complicated that you couldn't fully read even after four months of practice.

"Because that's not what this is," you muttered.

"Says who?"

"Says both of us. Day one. You said it. I said it."

"I know what we said." His voice had an edge now, frustration finally breaking through the careful. "I'm asking if it's still true."

You didn't answer that. You couldn't, not honestly, not without unraveling something you weren't ready to unravel at one in the morning in his bed with the ceiling crack staring back at you and four months of unspoken things sitting in the room like a third person neither of you would acknowledge.

"We said we wouldn't—" Your voice caught, and you hated it, hated that it caught at all. "With anyone else. That's all I'm saying."

"I should go," you said instead.

"Of course you should." He said it flat, unsurprised, like he'd known that was coming the second the conversation started. "That's what we do."

You got dressed in silence. He didn't try to stop you, which somehow hurt more than if he had, and at the door you both stood there for a second too long, neither of you saying the thing that actually needed saying.

"For what it's worth," he breathed, just as you reached for the handle, "there's nothing happening with Lia. I need you to know that even if you don't believe it."

"I want to believe it."

"That's not the same as believing it."

"I know," you whispered, and left before either of you could turn that into something neither of you could take back.

The drive home felt longer than it should have. You thought about the bruise you couldn't prove. Of course it wasn’t a real one, just the shape of something you'd seen and couldn't unsee, his hand at her hip, the looseness in his shoulders, the version of him he only gave to people he trusted, and the fact that you had no actual evidence anything was wrong except a feeling you'd been collecting evidence for since November without meaning to.

You thought about the headphones. The glass. The way Lia had looked at you in that hallway with something calculating behind her eyes that you still couldn't name.

You were starting to understand that the worst part of all of it wasn't James. It was that you didn't actually know who to be angry at, and that not knowing was its own kind of exhausting, the kind that didn't go away just because you went to sleep.

𝑽𝑰. the closet

It happened two days after the power outage, in the equipment closet off the main rink that nobody used except the Zamboni driver and whoever needed somewhere to hide from a conversation they weren't ready for.

You'd ducked in to avoid Macklin, who'd been trying to catch you near the lobby with an easy wave and a question you weren't in the mood to answer, and James had apparently had the same instinct from the opposite direction, because you both nearly collided in the dark between two rows of shelved pylons and spare nets.

"Jesus—" You caught yourself against a shelf. "What are you doing in here."

"Avoiding a conversation with Martin about my shot selection." He didn't move back, didn't give you the space the moment technically called for, and in the thin light bleeding under the door you could see his jaw doing the thing it did when he was holding something back. "What are you doing in here."

"Same. Different person."

"Macklin."

"Doesn't matter."

"It matters." He said it low, an edge under it that hadn't been there in the lobby small talk you'd both been performing all week. "I keep thinking about it. You and him. The dinner. The way he just—" He exhaled, frustrated with himself for not having the right words, which was rare enough that you almost softened before you caught yourself. "I've been with people who ran hot. People who ran cold. I know how to read both. I thought that's what you were—hot and cold, switching on me depending on the day."

"And?"

"You're not that." He was close enough now that you had to tilt your head back slightly to keep looking at him, the dim light catching the line of his jaw, the particular intensity he only had when he'd stopped trying to contain something. "You're on a different level. It's been driving me insane for weeks and I didn't have the word for it until right now, standing in a closet that smells like rubber mats."

"That's not very romantic."

"I didn't say it was romantic. I said it was driving me insane."

You opened your mouth to say something flippant, something to cut the tension before it did what tension between you always eventually did, and he didn't give you the chance—closed the last foot of distance and kissed you, hard, one hand braced against the shelf behind you, the other finding your jaw with that same precision he always had even when everything else about him was clearly fraying at the edges.

You kissed him back without deciding to. It was easier than the rink had been, less desperate, more like a fight neither of you wanted to lose, his mouth insistent against yours, your hands fisting in his jacket to pull him closer instead of pushing him away.

When he finally pulled back, both of you breathing unevenly in the dark, close enough that you could feel the words against your mouth before you fully heard them, he murmured, "Is he a better kisser than me?"

You laughed, sharp and surprised, and shoved his chest hard enough that he actually stumbled back a step. "Oh my god."

"It's a fair question."

"It's an insane question. He's never kissed me, James."

"How do I know that's true?"

You stared at him. "Because I'm telling you."

"You've told me a lot of things lately." He said it without real accusation, more like he was thinking out loud, jaw tight in a way that gave away exactly how much the not-knowing had been eating at him. "You disappear for whole sessions. You go quiet for entire days. I don't actually know what happens in the hours you're not at this rink."

"Neither do I, about you and Lia."

"That's different. I told you nothing's happening."

"And I'm telling you nothing's happening with Macklin. Why is your nothing more believable than mine?"

That landed somewhere, you could see it—the small flinch, the recalibration. "It's not," he admitted, quieter now. "I just hate not knowing. With you specifically. I've never hated it this much with anyone else."

"So you don't actually think he's kissed me."

"I don't know what I think anymore. That's the problem." He exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair, the smirk creeping back in despite himself, like he couldn't quite help it even mid-spiral. "Doesn't mean I'm not still going to ask if he's a better kisser than me. Hypothetically."

"There's no hypothetical answer to a kiss that hasn't happened."

"Try anyway."

"No." You turned to leave, more out of self-preservation than actual anger, because if you stayed in this closet with him looking like that—jaw cut sharp even in bad light, that particular intensity in his eyes that you'd spent four months trying not to find as devastating as you did—you were going to do something you'd regret being unable to take back.

He caught your wrist before you made it to the door.

"Hey." He pulled. Gentle yet immovable, and you ended up facing him again, closer than you'd planned, his hand still circled loosely around your wrist like he wasn't ready to give that contact up yet. "Is he?"

You looked at him properly then. You stared the way you tried not to let yourself anymore, because looking too long always cost you something. He had the sort of face that should have been unfair on one person, all sharp lines and that particular stillness that made everything he did feel deliberate, even now, even disheveled, hair messed from your hands a minute ago, mouth a little swollen.

You'd spent months cataloguing it without meaning to—the set of his jaw when he was concentrating, the way his eyes did something specific when he was actually paying attention versus performing it, the small scar above his eyebrow you'd never asked about and he'd never explained. He was, infuriatingly, the most beautiful thing in any room he walked into, and you'd known that since the first night in the rink and had spent four months pretending the knowledge didn't cost you anything.

"No," you sighed finally, quiet, more honest than you meant to be. "He's not."

HIs face claimed an emotion that was not smugness exactly, something closer to relief, like he'd needed the answer more than he wanted to admit.

"Good," he murmured.

"Don't get smug about it."

"I'm not smug."

"You're extremely smug."

"I'm relieved. There's a difference." His hand slid from your wrist down to rest at the curve of your waist, thumb hooking lightly into the waistband of your leggings, not pulling, just resting there with a kind of casual certainty that made your whole stomach tighten. "Lia's been around a lot lately."

The shift in subject was so abrupt it took you a second to catch up. "What?"

"Lia." He said her name like it cost him something, watching your face carefully. "I just mean—she's been around. A lot. And I've been letting it happen because it was easier than figuring out what I actually wanted, and I think that wasn't fair to her, and I think it definitely wasn't fair to you."

You thought about the boards, his hand at her hip, the looseness in his shoulders. You thought about the bathroom, her careful little lie about the glass. About the fucking headphones. And you just felt like you wanted to crush something all of a sudden.

"What does her lip gloss taste like?" you asked, mostly to be cruel, mostly because some petty, hot-faced part of you wanted to make him say something he didn't want to say. “Hypothetically.”

He blinked. "What?"

"You heard me."

"I haven't kissed Lia." He said it flatly, like the accusation actually offended him this time, no performance in it. "I've never kissed Lia. I don't know what her lip gloss tastes like because I have no data on the subject, which you know, because you're standing here interrogating me about a kiss that's never happened."

"I'm not interrogating you."

"You're absolutely interrogating me."

"Well, maybe I just think you'd find out eventually if you wanted to. If she wanted to."

"Maybe you're projecting onto a hypothetical because it's easier than admitting you've been thinking about it as much as I've been thinking about Macklin." His thumb moved against your waistband, slow and deliberate, and his eyes hadn't left yours the entire time, something dark and amused and frustrated all tangled together in his expression. "Which, for the record, has been constantly. So if we're being honest about hypotheticals."

"You've been thinking about Macklin constantly, huh?"

"You know what I mean."

"I want you to say it again. Slower."

"I'm not saying it again." But the smirk gave him away completely, even in the dark, even with his jaw still tight from everything else he'd just admitted.

You didn't have a comeback for that. You just stood there in the dark, his hand at your waist, both of you breathing the same charged air, neither of you having kissed anyone but each other, somehow still managing to make jealousy out of nothing at all.

"This is so stupid," you said finally.

"Extremely stupid."

"We're standing in a closet that smells like rubber mats, fighting about people neither of us has actually kissed."

"I'm aware."

"And yet."

"And yet," he agreed in a low hum, and pulled you back in before either of you could find a better argument against it.

𝑽𝑰𝑰. the feeling of nothing

You ran into Macklin at Zara, of all places, on a Saturday afternoon you'd set aside for absolutely nothing in particular—no training, no rink, just you and a half-formed plan to buy a new pair of jeans and otherwise let your brain go quiet for a few hours. God knows you need it.

He was standing in the kids' section looking deeply, comically lost, holding up two shirts like they might offer an opinion if he stared hard enough.

"Okay, don't laugh," he said, the second he spotted you, like you'd already caught him at something.

"I wasn't going to laugh."

"You were so going to laugh." He held up both shirts again, a dinosaur print and something with a rocket on it. "My little brother turns nine next week. I have no idea what nine-year-olds like. I thought I knew ball. I do not know."

"Rocket. Obviously."

"See, that's exactly the kind of decisive energy I needed." He put the dinosaur shirt back, genuinely relieved, like you'd solved something significant. "Do you have ten more minutes? I need a second opinion on, like, everything else too. I panic-bought a hoodie that's probably too big and I don't trust myself anymore."

"How panic are we talking?"

"I bought it in a men's medium because I forgot, mid-purchase, that he's nine and not, like, me." He winced at himself, holding up the offending hoodie from his bag like evidence. "I have a problem."

"You have a very specific, very fixable problem." You took the hoodie from him, checked the tag, shook your head. "We're returning this. He's going to swim in it."

"That's what I said, but then I doubted myself, because apparently I don't know basic facts about children anymore."

You should have said you had somewhere to be. You didn't, and some part of you—tired, a little lonely only a person surrounded by people could be lonely—didn't actually want to leave.

"Ten minutes," you said and pointed at him. "But if you buy him socks I'm leaving."

"Socks are a valid gift."

"Socks are a backup gift. You don't lead with socks."

"Okay, noted. No socks. What does… lead, in your professional opinion?"

"Something he picked out himself, probably, if he's old enough to have actual opinions. Nine is old enough to have actual opinions."

"You're very confident about this for someone with no younger siblings."

"I have a coach who's basically a nine-year-old in terms of impulse control. Close enough."

He laughed, delighted, head tipping back, and the sound of it did something easy and uncomplicated in your chest that you let yourself enjoy without examining too closely. The next two hours dissolved without either of you noticing them going—him narrating an increasingly chaotic internal monologue about every shirt, you vetoing roughly half his choices, the two of you eventually landing on a rocket-print hoodie in the correct size and a small, genuinely good Lego set that made him look so pleased with himself you didn't have the heart to tell him you'd basically picked it for him.

"I'm a great gift-giver now," he said, swinging the bag as you left the store. "This is a skill I have."

"You had help."

"I had a consultant. That's different. CEOs have consultants."

"You're comparing buying your brother a hoodie to running a company."

"I contain multitudes," he said, and you laughed, because it was the same line from the rehab room months ago and he clearly remembered saying it then too, the way his mouth curved like he'd been hoping you'd catch the callback.

It turned into walking the whole stretch of the college town near the rink, neither of you mentioning a plan, just drifting from one storefront to the next with his bag of nine-year-old approved purchases swinging from his wrist. He pointed out a bookstore he liked, told you a long, mostly true-sounding story about getting hopelessly lost in it once for three hours during a road trip, made you laugh hard enough that you had to stop walking for a second to recover.

He bought you ice cream from a place with a line out the door, insisted on paying before you could argue, swatted your hand away from your wallet with mock offense, and you ended up sitting on a bench at the overlook above the river with your cones half-melted and the afternoon going gold and soft around the edges.

It was, you kept thinking, the afternoon you used to imagine when you let yourself imagine anything easy at all. There was no schedule. No rink politics. No careful calibration of what you could and couldn't say. Just a funny, kind, uncomplicated person beside you, laughing at something you'd said, sun catching in his hair, absolutely no subtext humming underneath any of it.

"Tell me something nobody knows about you," he asked, out of nowhere, watching the river instead of you.

"That's a big ask for a Saturday."

"You don't have to go deep. Just something small. I'll go first." He thought about it for a second, genuinely considering it instead of performing the consideration. "I used to be terrified of the ocean. Like, actually terrified. Took me until I was fourteen to go past my knees in open water."

"You play a sport that requires you to fall on ice repeatedly and you were scared of the ocean."

"Ice doesn't have things living in it that could eat you. Different category of fear entirely." He looked over, expectant. "Your turn."

You thought about it, surprised by how easy it felt to actually answer. "I used to skate to the same song on repeat for an entire season because I was convinced changing it would jinx my scores. My coach eventually banned it."

"That's deeply ritualistic."

"I was twelve. I had some kind of main character syndrome and no perspective."

"I respect it." He grinned at you, easy, unbothered, and you found yourself smiling back without any of the careful calculation you usually applied to smiling at people lately.

"This was a good ten minutes," he said eventually, glancing over, the bag of gifts resting against his leg.

"You owe me for the socks intervention."

"I'll Venmo you."

"Don't. I'll frame it." You licked a drip of ice cream off your wrist, laughing at his expression. "What."

"Nothing." He was looking at you in a way that had gained weight, slightly. the easy humor still there but something steadier underneath it now. "I just like this. This whole afternoon. I wasn't expecting it."

"Me neither."

He set his cone down on the bench between you and turned slightly, and you felt the moment coming before it arrived, the way you sometimes could, and you didn't move away.

"Can I—" he started.

You answered by leaning in instead of making him finish the question.

It was a good kiss. Objectively. He was attentive, sweet. His hand was warm against your jaw, the gold light and the river and the whole soft, easy afternoon wrapped around the two of you like the moment had been built for exactly this.

You felt nothing.

Okay, not nothing-nothing—you registered the warmth of him, the care in it, the fact that someone good and kind and uncomplicated was kissing you like you mattered. But underneath all of that, where something should have sparked, where some version of the thing that happened every single time James so much as looked at you too long, there was just quiet. Pleasant, polite quiet, the feeling you'd feel for a friend, not the flame in your stomach that had kept you awake at one in the morning replaying a sentence for a week straight.

You pulled back first.

"Hey," Macklin murmured, soft, searching your face. "You okay?"

"Yeah." You weren't. "Yeah, I'm okay."

He studied you for a second, and some emotion flew across his face. It was not hurt exactly, more like a confirmation of something he'd already half-suspected. "That wasn't a yeah-I'm-okay face."

"Macklin—"

"It's fine." He picked his ice cream back up, giving you space with the same easy grace he gave everything, no show of wounded pride in it at all, which somehow made you feel worse than if he'd been upset. "I had to try. I'm not mad I tried."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You didn't do anything." He shrugged. A small, genuine smile found its way back despite everything, looking back out at the river instead of at you. "I figured, honestly, somewhere around the bookstore. You laugh different with me than you do with him. Lighter. But it's not the same kind of laugh, if that makes sense. I noticed it and I told myself I was wrong because I wanted to be wrong. And I think you’re really cool."

You didn't say anything to that, because there wasn't anything you could say that wouldn't make it worse.

"For what it's worth," he went on, quieter now, "whoever has the rest of you—I hope he knows what he's got. Because it's a lot. And I don't think he's earned all of it yet, but I think you'd let him try anyway, which is sort of the most honest thing about you."

"That's a generous way to put it."

"I'm a generous guy." He bumped his shoulder lightly against yours, no weight in it, already finding his way back to easy. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to be a little sad about it for, like, the rest of today specifically. I'll be fine by Monday."

"Macklin."

"I'm kidding. Mostly." He stood, brushing off his jeans, picking the gift bag back up. "Come on. I'll walk you to your car. We can workshop whether the Legos were actually the right call or if I should've trusted my gut and gotten the dinosaur shirt too."

"The Legos were the right call."

"See, that's the assertiveness I need in my life."

He walked you back to your car eventually. It was easy and unbothered the way he always was, bag of nine-year-old gifts still swinging from his wrist, narrating an entirely unnecessary debate about whether his brother would prefer the Lego set assembled or in pieces, and said goodbye like nothing had changed at all, even though everything had—not between you and him, but in you. It was in the quiet, undeniable certainty you were left holding once you were alone behind the wheel.

You'd just kissed someone good. Someone uncomplicated. Someone who would have been, by every reasonable measure, the easier choice, on the sort of afternoon you'd have written for yourself if anyone had ever asked what you actually wanted—no confusion or reading between the fucking lines. It was just a person who made you laugh and meant it and never once made you feel like you were being filed away for later analysis.

And you'd felt nothing, because apparently your body had already decided, sometime in the last four months without consulting you, exactly who it wanted, and it wasn't going to be talked out of it just because the other option made more sense on paper, just because the other option was kind and easy and entirely uncomplicated in every single way the real answer wasn't.

You sat in your car outside the apartment for a long time before you drove anywhere, hands on the wheel, not moving, and the entire time, all you could think about was a hand at your waistband in a closet that smelled like rubber mats, and a voice in the dark asking if he was better than this, and the sick, certain knowledge that the answer had never actually been close.

𝑽𝑰𝑰𝑰.

It happened on a Tuesday morning, early enough that the rink still had that pre-dawn hush to it, frost fogging the lower corners of the glass before the building's heating caught up with itself.

You weren't there yet. This was the part Lia would never tell you about in full, not because she was hiding it exactly, but because some things made more sense staying between the two people who lived them.

James was running her through a transition she'd been fighting for a week, and for once it was actually working—his hand at her hip correcting the angle, voice low and even, the kind of teaching he did without performing patience because he didn't need to perform it with her. She liked training with him. She'd liked it for weeks now, in the easy, low-stakes way that hadn't asked anything of either of them.

She wasn’t at a level where you were at. She knew she never would. But there was a certain thrill in knowing that she had a part of him that you didn’t. 

Even if it was for an hour and forty five minutes and his brain was still running images of you. 

"There," he said, stepping back to check the line. "That's it. Hold that."

She held it, glanced over her shoulder at him to check she'd gotten it right, and something about the angle—him close behind her, breath visible in the cold, his attention fully on her for once instead of somewhere else—made her turn the rest of the way before she'd fully decided to.

She leaned in.

He flinched back. It was not dramatically. Of course, nothing that would've embarrassed her in front of anyone else watching, just a small, immediate retreat, his weight shifting off his front foot like his body had answered before his head caught up. It was over in under a second. It was also unmistakable.

She didn't move for a moment, skates still in the position he'd corrected, face doing something complicated before it settled into something flatter.

"Lia—"

"James, don't." She straightened up, putting real distance between them now, arms crossing over her chest. "I'm not going to pretend that didn't just happen, and I'm not going to let you smooth it over so neither of us has to feel weird about it."

"I wasn't going to smooth it over."

"You were absolutely going to smooth it over." She exhaled, and when she spoke again her voice had lost the edge, replaced by something more tired. "Can I say something? And you actually let me finish it?"

He didn't say anything, which she took as permission.

"I've known her longer than you have," she said. "Since before any of you walked into this rink. And I've watched the two of you for months now, pushing at something neither of you will name, acting like it doesn't touch anyone else because you've decided it's not real. It seems pretty real to anyone with eyes, James."

His jaw tightened, but he let her keep going. He ran a hand through his hair and took a breath.

"I'm not telling you this because I'm hurt, or not only because of that. I'm telling you because I actually like her, and I actually like you, and watching both of you lie to yourselves constantly is exhausting. You think you're contained. You've never once been contained. Everyone at this rink has noticed it except possibly the two of you."

"That's not—" He stopped himself. He started over but quieter. "That's not fair to either of us."

"It's not about fair." She held his gaze, steady now, the rehearsed part of this finally surfacing. "I'm not asking you to choose me. I want that really clear, because I don't think you would, and I'd rather know it now than keep finding out in smaller, worse ways. I just need you to stop being vague at my expense. If it's her, be honest about that. With her. And with me, so I stop reading something into a kindness that was never going to go anywhere."

He was quiet for a long moment. She could tell he was choosing words with more care than usual rather than avoiding the question.

"It's not vague to me," he said finally. "I've known what it is for a while. I haven't said it because saying it changes something neither of us agreed to change."

"That's still not an answer."

"It's her." Flat. Final. Like a fact he'd been carrying around and setting down somewhere private until right now forced his hand. "Since the first night. I didn't ask for it and I don't fully know what to do with it. But it's her."

Lia nodded slowly, like she'd already known and only needed to hear it out loud to make it real enough to act on. There was hurt somewhere in her face, brief, before she decided not to let him watch it sit there.

"Okay," she said. "Then go fix whatever you broke. Because she's been miserable for three weeks and you've been miserable for three weeks and watching two emotionally constipated athletes orbit each other without saying anything is its own kind of unbearable to witness from the outside."

That pulled the smallest, most reluctant huff of something close to a laugh out of him. "I don't actually know what I broke."

"Then ask her. For real this time, not the version where you've already decided you know the answer before she opens her mouth." She picked her bag back up off the bench, done, already turning toward her own warmup. Then, almost as an afterthought, light enough that it could've meant nothing except it didn't: "And James. The night at the restaurant. I drank out of your glass. I knew what it meant to her and that wasn't a kind thing for me to do, and I'm not going to pretend it was."

He stared at her. "Why would you—"

"Because I wanted to know if she actually cared enough about something that small." She shrugged one shoulder, already skating backward toward center ice, putting the conversation behind her with the same efficiency she'd opened it. "She did. So now you know that too."

James stood at the boards for a long moment after she'd gone, turning that over. It was slow but it had felt like a piece had clicked into a gap he hadn't known was empty.

𝑰𝑿. the offer

Some things fall into your lap exactly when you've stopped expecting them to. When you’ve gotten comfortable with settling instead of striving for more. Which was probably the only reason it managed to catch you so completely off guard. 

The email came in on a Wednesday afternoon while you were still in your wet hair and compression socks, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the locker room with your phone propped against your bag, scrolling through nothing in particular because your body was too tired to do anything more demanding than that. You almost swiped past it. The sender name didn't register at first, some federation contact buried three folders deep in your inbox, an address that usually meant scheduling logistics or a reminder about doping paperwork.

You opened it because you had nothing better to do with your hands. Purely by chance.

It took you two full read-throughs to understand what you were looking at. A relocation offer, formal and carefully worded in the specific bloodless language federations used when they wanted something to sound like an opportunity instead of an uprooting—a senior development slot at the national training center, full-time, starting in March, built around exactly the resources and coaching staff you'd spent your whole career being told you'd need eventually if you wanted to actually compete at the level you kept insisting you belonged at. It wasn't a maybe. It was a yes-or-no, with a deadline attached that gave you eleven days to decide your whole life.

You read it a third time, slower, like the words might rearrange themselves into something less enormous if you gave them enough chances.

It would mean leaving Toronto. It would mean leaving the rink, the residency, the auxiliary ice and the vending machine with the bad light and every single thing you'd built into a shape you hadn't let yourself name yet, all of it gone inside of a month, traded for a city you'd visited exactly twice and a training group you didn't know and a version of your career that finally matched the ambition you'd been carrying since you were small enough to need someone to lace your skates for you.

You sat there on the locker room floor for a long time without moving, phone screen dimming twice before you tapped it awake again, your coach's name already half-typed into a text you hadn't sent.

You thought, with a clarity that embarrassed you a little, about James finding out the residency had an end date that had nothing to do with his.

You told your coach first, because that felt like the responsible order of operations, the version of this where you were a serious athlete making a serious decision instead of a girl who'd spent the last twenty minutes staring at her phone trying to figure out how to explain an opportunity she actually wanted without sounding like she was looking for permission to be scared of it.

Your coach's reaction was immediate and uncomplicated in a way that made the whole thing feel both more real and more impossible at once. She didn't hesitate, didn't weigh pros and cons out loud the way you'd braced for—she just looked at the offer on your phone, read it twice with the same focus she gave a competitor's scorecard, and told you, plainly, that you'd be out of your mind not to take it.

"This is what you've been working toward since you were nine," she reminded you, like you needed reminding, like the last decade of your life hadn't been one long, continuous argument for exactly this chance. "You don't say no to this because of a schedule you like."

You didn't tell her it wasn't about a schedule. You let her assume it was logistics, inertia, the ordinary reluctance anyone might feel about uprooting a life they'd gotten comfortable inside of, and she didn't push past that assumption, mostly because she had no reason to suspect there was a hockey player underneath it who'd somehow become load-bearing in ways you'd been actively avoiding examining for five months.

You didn't tell Lia either, not at first, though she could tell something was wrong within an hour of running into you at the boards, your face apparently doing something she recognized even through the version of composure you'd been practicing in the locker room mirror before you came out.

"You look like you got bad news and good news at the same time and haven't decided which one's true yet," she observed, dropping her bag beside yours with the easy familiarity of someone who'd stopped asking permission to sit with you weeks ago.

"That's annoyingly accurate."

"I have a gift." She studied you for a second longer, waiting, and when you didn't immediately fill the silence she let it sit instead of forcing it, which was new for her, a patience you hadn't seen from her before nationals. "You don't have to tell me. I just want you to know I noticed, in case that matters."

It mattered more than you expected it to. You told her anyway, eventually, the whole thing spilling out in a rush somewhere around the second hour of off-ice conditioning, the offer and the deadline and the specific, humiliating fact that the first feeling you'd had reading it wasn't excitement, it was dread, because excitement would've meant the decision was simple and dread meant you already knew exactly what was complicating it.

Lia listened to the whole thing without interrupting, which took visible effort on her part, and when you finally ran out of words she didn't immediately offer an opinion. She just sat there for a moment, turning something over, before she said, carefully, like she was choosing each word with more weight than she usually bothered with:

"You have to take it."

"I know." But did you? You didn’t even know if Lia really wanted the best for you or just wanted James all to herself and her perfectly manicured nails and her perfectly healthy mindset.

"I mean it. Not because I think you should leave him, though I do think that's a separate conversation you're going to have to have at some point. I mean you have to take it because if you don't, some part of you is going to spend the next five years wondering what would've happened if you had, and that wondering rots a person from the inside in a way that's much worse than just being sad about a boy for a while."

You didn't have a response to that. You sat with it instead, the truth of it settling somewhere uncomfortable, because she wasn't wrong, and you'd known she wasn't wrong before she'd even finished the sentence.

"Does he know yet," she asked, gentler now.

"No."

"Are you going to tell him before you decide, or after?"

You didn't have an answer to that either, and the not-having of it sat in your chest for the rest of the afternoon, heavier than the offer itself, heavier than the deadline, heavier than anything except the specific, sinking knowledge that whatever you decided, you were going to have to look at James while you said it out loud, and you had no idea what his face was going to do when you did.

𝑿. everything at once

You hadn't planned on telling him at the rink. You'd built a version of this conversation in your head three different ways over four days, none of them set on B-level under fluorescent lighting with your skates still half-laced, but plans had a way of dissolving the second James actually looked at you, and Thursday arrived before you'd managed to assemble anything better.

He knew something was wrong before you said a word. That had always been the unfair part of being known by someone this thoroughly—he read it off you in the doorway, in the particular way you weren't quite meeting his eyes, and his whole body went still in the way it did when he was bracing for something he couldn't yet name.

"What happened?" he asked, not even bothering with a softer opening.

"Nothing happened."

"Don't do that." His voice had an edge already, worn thin from weeks of almost-conversations that never finished. "You've got the face. The one from December. Just tell me."

You told him. You hadn't meant to do it standing in the middle of the rink with your bag still over your shoulder, hadn't meant for it to come out as flat and clinical as it did, but once you started you couldn't find a gentler shape for it, so you just said the words—the offer, the training center, the deadline that had already eaten four of its eleven days while you'd been busy not telling him.

He didn't say anything for a long moment. The rink hummed around you, the overhead lights doing their low electric buzz, and you watched something move behind his eyes that you recognized instantly, because you'd spent months learning the specific architecture of his face when he was recalculating something faster than he could speak it.

"When were you going to tell me," he finally asked. It was quietly and you quickly realized that it was worse than if he'd shouted.

"I'm telling you now."

"Four days in. Out of eleven." His jaw tightened. "You told your coach. You told Lia. I know you told Lia, because she's been weird as shit with me all week and now I understand why. I'm finding out from you directly only because you ran out of road."

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" He took a step closer, and for the first time in weeks there was nothing careful left in how he was looking at you, no contained version standing between you and whatever he actually felt. "You've been pulling away from me since nationals. I've spent six weeks trying to figure out what I did, asking you straight out more than once, and you kept telling me nothing, and the whole time you've apparently had a reason. A real one. You just decided I didn't get to know it."

"I didn't decide that to hurt you."

"I don't care what you decided it to do. I care what it did." His voice cracked slightly on the last word, the first real fracture you'd heard in him since the bathroom at the dinner, and it landed somewhere in your chest you weren't prepared for. "Say the actual reason. Not the offer. The other thing. That started all of this.”

You scoffed. “What thing? James, what are you even talking about?”

"What have you been so upset with for ages that you shut me out while I let you all the way in?" he pressed, when you didn't answer fast enough. "Tell me the real reason."

You didn't want to say it. Now that you were actually being asked to put it into words, standing here with your whole chest exposed and your face hot, it sounded so small—the dumbest possible thing to have let live in you for this long. A pair of headphones, a stupid pair of headphones, ages ago now, and you'd carried it through nationals and through Macklin and through every single one of the last six weeks like it had earned the weight you'd given it.

"God, I'm tired of you being scared of your own feelings—"

"It was the headphones."

He stopped in his tracks.

"What?" His brow furrowed, genuinely thrown, like the sentence hadn't landed anywhere he'd been braced for. "Use your words."

"You let her use your fucking AirPod Maxes." It came out of you in a rush, too fast, too loud for how small it actually sounded once it was finally airborne. "You wanted me nowhere near them. You took them out of my hands like I was going to break something. You said you don't share, you said it's calibrated to how you listen, you made it sound like the one thing in your whole apartment that actually meant something—and then you just handed it to her like it was nothing. Like what you said never existed. Like I made the whole thing up in my head. Or that she was some exception."

He stared at you, something working behind his face that hadn't fully arrived yet.

"You've never said it," he went on, relentless now, like something in him had finally run out of patience for managing this carefully. "Not once. Lia told me what actually happened with the glass, by the way—she drank from mine to see what you'd do with it. And you never said a word to me about what you felt about it. Not the stupid headphones, not the glass, not whatever you saw between me and her. You just went quiet and let me guess, for months, like guessing was supposed to be enough."

"Because saying it out loud would mean admitting I had any right to be upset in the first place." The words came out of you faster and louder than you meant them to, finally breaking something you'd been holding shut since December. "We said this wasn't real, James. Day one. Both of us. If I get to be furious that you let Lia touch something you wouldn't let me touch, that means it's not what we agreed it was, and neither of us has ever been brave enough to say that out loud, so I just—I sat on it. Because saying it meant admitting I wanted something from you that you never promised me."

"I would've given it to you." 

His voice dropped, raw now, none of the calculation left in it. "I would’ve given anything to you.” 

Your heart plummeted down to your stomach and all of a sudden, it felt a hundred degrees more freezing in this room.

“Fuck, if you'd asked. If you'd said any of this five weeks ago instead of changing your schedule and answering me in one-word texts and letting me think I'd done something so unforgivable you couldn't even name it—I would've told you the headphones thing was never about Lia. She just borrowed them for an interview. It was never about anyone. It was about you being the only person who's ever touched something of mine and made me want to let you keep touching it. I didn't even understand that until I was standing in a hallway watching you not react to anything I said for a week straight."

You felt your throat tighten, the fight draining out of your volume even as everything underneath it stayed exactly as loud.

"And now you're telling me you might be in a different city in three weeks," he continued, "and I'm finding out on a Thursday because you ran out of time to keep avoiding it. So forgive me if I don't know whether to be angry that you didn't tell me sooner or just—" He stopped, dragged a hand through his hair, the gesture more unsteady than you'd ever seen it. "Just sad that apparently even now, with eleven days on the clock, your first instinct was still to handle it alone."

"What was I supposed to do, James? Tell you and then ask you to talk me out of the best opportunity I've ever been offered, so you could have a reason to be upset with me instead of just losing me to a city instead of to nothing?”

"I'm not asking you to turn it down. I wouldn’t do that—God."

"Then what are you asking?"

"I'm asking why you didn't think I deserved to know while you were still deciding." His eyes hadn't left yours this whole time, dark and unflinching in exactly the way that used to undo you in the alcove, except now it just felt like an accusation you couldn't argue your way out of. "You've spent five months teaching me how to let someone in, and the second something actually mattered enough to threaten this, you went right back to handling it the way you always have. Alone. Robotic. Like asking for help, or even just asking to be considered, makes you weak instead of human."

"That's not fair either."

"Maybe not. But it's true, and you know it's true, which is exactly why you're not actually arguing with me about it." He exhaled hard, and for a moment neither of you said anything, the rink humming around you, both of you breathing like you'd run something neither of you had trained for. "I told Lia it was you. Weeks ago. I told her there was never going to be a version of this where it wasn't you, and I meant it, and I've been waiting for some sign you meant any of it back, and instead I get an offer letter you sat on for four days and a fight in the middle of an empty rink."

"I do mean it." Your voice broke on it, finally, the thing you'd been refusing to say out loud since November arriving all at once with nowhere left to hide. "That's the whole problem. I mean it so much that an actual future somewhere else terrifies me less than telling you it might cost me you."

He went very still.

"Say that again," he said, low.

"I don't want to lose this," you admitted, and it came out smaller than you meant it to, all the architecture you'd spent months building finally cracking open in the middle of an empty rink at eleven o'clock on a Thursday. "Whatever this is. I don't want eleven days to be the reason I find out what it actually was, after it's already too late to do anything about it."

Neither of you moved for a long moment. The overhead lights kept humming. Somewhere above you, on the main rink, another session was running, the faint sound of blades carrying down through the ceiling the same way it always had, indifferent to the fact that something between you had just been said out loud for the first time, too late and too honest and with no clean way left to take any of it back.

𝑿𝑰.

The movie had been on for forty minutes and neither of you could have said what it was about.

It played low against the far wall, light shifting across the apartment in slow blue pulses, and you were tucked into James' side the way you'd been tucked into his side a hundred times before—except every other time had come with the assumption that there'd be another one after it, and this one didn't have that anymore. Five days left. You hadn't said the number out loud since the rink, but it sat in the room with you regardless, taking up its own share of the couch.

His hand was at your shoulder, slow, absent in the way it got when his mind had wandered somewhere he wasn't going to name. You had your cheek against his chest, the same spot you always found, his heartbeat doing the thing where it dropped pace and stopped being something you tracked and just became the sound of the room.

"Do you think you've changed in the last six months?" you asked, not looking up.

You felt him go still—not guarded-still, just thinking-still, the kind where his whole body slowed down to give the question the room it needed.

"Yeah," he said eventually. "A lot."

"How."

"I used to think watching people was the same as knowing them." His hand kept its slow movement at your shoulder, unbothered, like the conversation wasn't costing him anything even though you could feel that it was. "I was good at it. Reading a room, figuring out where I fit by figuring out everyone else first. It worked, mostly. Kept me out of a lot of situations that would've gone bad."

"And now?"

"Now I know the difference between watching someone and actually being known by them, and I don't think I can go back to just the first one." He said it plainly, no performance in it, the way he said things he'd actually sat with before he let them out. "Which is inconvenient, considering everything."

You didn't say anything to that. You kept your eyes on the screen, on whatever was happening there that neither of you had followed in twenty minutes, and let the sentence settle into your chest the way his sentences had been doing for months now—landing somewhere lower and heavier than you wanted them to.

"What about you," he asked. "Same question."

You thought about it honestly, instead of giving him the fast answer. "I used to think being good at something was the whole point. Like if I just kept being good enough, none of the rest of it would matter—who I let in, what I let myself want, any of it." You traced a loose thread on the hem of your sleeve, not quite looking at him yet. "I don't actually believe that anymore. I just haven't figured out what to do instead."

"That's fair."

"It's not an answer."

"I didn't say it was an answer. I said it was fair."

You almost laughed at that, the small, worn-down kind of laugh that came out when something was sad and also exactly like him at the same time. You lifted your head off his chest to look at him properly, and he was already looking back, the blue light from the screen moving slow across the side of his face, and for a second neither of you said anything else at all.

It was the kind of look that usually got interrupted—by a comment, by him saying something dry to cut the weight of it, by you looking away first because looking too long always cost you something. Tonight neither of you did that. You held it, and he let you, and the movie kept playing to no one.

You reached up without entirely deciding to and traced the line of his eyebrow with one finger, slow, like you were trying to memorize the geometry of it before you ran out of nights to do that in. He didn't flinch away the way he had with Lia at the boards. He just watched your face while you did it, very still, the same stillness he had when he was choosing to let something happen instead of managing it.

You moved to the small scar above his eyebrow next—the one you'd never asked about, the one you'd cataloged months ago and decided didn't need an explanation to matter to you. Your finger followed the line of it, then down along his cheekbone, the sharp angle of it that had been unfair on one person since the day you met him.

"What are you doing?" he said, quiet, not stopping you.

"Looking at you."

"You look at me all the time."

"Not like this." Your thumb found his jaw, traced the tension that lived there even now, even soft like this. "I'm trying to remember it. In case I need to later."

Something moved across his face at that. It was not quite pain, something adjacent to it, the specific flinch of a person hearing the thing they'd been avoiding said out loud without warning.

"You haven't decided yet," he said.

"I know."

"But you're already memorizing me."

"I'm allowed to do both." Your finger reached the corner of his mouth, the place where his almost-smile usually started, and you traced it even though it wasn't doing anything right now, just resting there, serious and open in a way it almost never let itself be. "I can not know what I'm going to do and still want to remember exactly what your face looks like right now. Those aren't in conflict."

He caught your hand before you could pull it back, not stopping the touch, just holding it there against his jaw, his palm warm over the back of your fingers. "I don't want you to memorize me like I'm already gone."

"I'm not saying you're gone."

"It feels like you're saying that."

"I'm saying I don't know." Your voice came out smaller than you meant it to, all the toughness finally gone out of it. "I don't know what happens if I take it. I don't know what happens if I don't. I just know that right now, tonight, I wanted to actually look at you instead of just... being here."

He was quiet for a long moment, his hand still over yours at his jaw, his thumb moving once, slow, along your knuckles.

"Six months ago I would've let you do this and said nothing," he said finally. "Moved on like it didn't cost me anything to let you."

"And now?"

"Now it's costing me something and I'm still letting you." He turned his head slightly, just enough to press his mouth to your palm, brief, almost absent, like the gesture had escaped before he'd fully decided to make it. "That's the whole six months, I think. Same data. Different conclusions."

"Now it's costing me something and... I'm still letting you." He turned his head slightly, just enough to press his mouth to your palm, brief, almost absent, like the gesture had escaped before he'd fully decided to make it. "That's the whole six months, I think. Same data. Different conclusions."

And in this moment—with your hand holding his face up like it would break apart if it wasn't there—you realized this was the most vulnerable he had ever looked. It felt like a window into all the skeletons in his closet, all the colors you'd never once seen on him before tonight, every part of him he usually kept filed somewhere you couldn't reach. 

You thought about the first night at the rink, the way he'd stood at the boards with his arms crossed and his expression so carefully blank you'd genuinely wondered, for a second, if he was even capable of anything else—that contained, assessing stillness, the boy who watched everyone like a problem he'd already half-solved and had no intention of letting you see the workings of. You'd built an entire opinion of him off that stillness, back then. You'd been so sure it was all there was to find.

This was not that face. 

This was a face that had stopped doing the math, stopped analyzing, stopped deciding in advance how much of itself was safe to hand over. The jaw that used to hold tension like armor now just looked tired, open in a way that had nothing performed in it, his eyes doing the thing they only did this late, when the version of him built for the rest of the world had been set down somewhere near the door and hadn't been picked back up.

You thought about how long it must have taken him to let you see exactly this—not the version that noticed things about you and used it as a kind of currency, not the version that corrected your shoulder drop and made it sound clinical, but this one. Raw and unguarded and a little bit frightened, like he knew exactly what he was risking by letting you hold his face like that and had decided to risk it anyway.

You let your hand drop from his face slowly, reluctant in a way you didn't bother hiding anymore, and rested your forehead against his jaw instead, breathing him in, the movie still running its blue light across both of you like neither of you mattered to it at all.

"I kissed Macklin," you said, quiet, into his collarbone.

You felt him go still again, a different kind of still than before. It wasn’t hurt-still, you didn't think, more like he was waiting to find out what he was supposed to feel before he committed to feeling it.

"I'm not telling you to start something," you added, before he could say anything. "I just don't want there to be anything else you don't know. Not after everything. I kissed him a few weeks ago. At the overlook by the river. It was nice. It didn't mean anything, not the way it was supposed to, and I didn't tell you because I didn't know how to say it without it turning into a whole thing, and I'm tired of doing that. The not-saying. So. Now you know."

He was quiet long enough that you lifted your head to look at him, bracing for the jaw tension, the careful voice, some version of the bathroom fight starting up all over again. It didn't come. His face had something more curious in it than angry, something almost amused at the edges, like he'd already done the math on this a while ago and was just now getting confirmation of an answer he'd suspected.

"What was it like?" he asked.

You blinked. "That's it? That's what you want to know?"

"I'm asking a question."

"You're not even a little mad."

"Should I be?" He said it without heat, watching you with that same unhurried patience he'd had at the boards the very first night, like there was nowhere else he needed to be and no reason to rush an answer out of either of you. "You're here. You came back here, tonight, five days before you might be on a plane to somewhere else entirely, and you told me about it instead of letting me find out some other way. That doesn't sound like someone who wanted it to mean anything. That sounds like someone making sure I had the whole truth before she left." His thumb moved once against your shoulder, slow, certain. "I think I know what it means that you're still here. I don't need to be mad about some kiss to believe that. Especially with a golden retriever."

"So you're not going to answer me."

"I asked first." His mouth tipped, almost a smirk, that infuriating, familiar shape of it. "What was it like?"

"It was fine," you admitted, feeling your face heat despite yourself. "Nice. He's good at it, probably. I wouldn't know, comparatively, because I felt nothing. Which was the whole problem."

"Nothing."

"Nothing."

James didn't say anything else for a second, just looked at you with an expression that had gone soft and a little smug at the same time, the particular combination that only he could pull off without it being obnoxious. "Good," he said finally. Simple, like the word covered everything he meant by it and didn't need any decoration. Then, softer, more to himself than to you: "I knew you were mine. I just needed you to be the one who said it."

"I have to decide by Friday," you murmured.

"I know."

"I don't want to talk about it tonight."

"I know that too." His arm tightened around you, just slightly, just enough to register. "We don't have to."

You stayed like that for a long time, the movie eventually ending and neither of you getting up to put on another one, the room going quiet except for the low hum of the apartment settling around you. At some point your eyes started to close, his heartbeat steady under your ear again, and you let yourself have it—the not-deciding, the not-talking, just the fact of him, solid and warm and right there, for however many nights you still had left to call this normal.

It was close to midnight when you finally got up to leave, and he walked you to the door the way he always did, leaning in the frame while you got your shoes on, watching you with that quiet, specific attention that you'd stopped being able to call anything but exactly what it was.

"Hey," he said, when your hand was already on the door.

You looked back.

"If you end up going," he said, and his voice had gone careful again, controlled, the version of him that used technical language because the real language was too much to risk, "don't drop your shoulder in front of the people who actually count. You've been doing it less. Don't let a new rink make you forget that."

You felt something in your chest pull tight and warm at the same time, the absurd, specific tenderness of being told to take care of yourself through a coaching note instead of a sentence that actually said what he meant.

"You first," you said. "You still go wide on the shots that matter. Don't choke just because New Jersey's the one watching instead of me."

The corner of his mouth moved—not quite a smile, but close enough, the almost-version you'd spent months learning to read as the real thing.

"Noted," he said.

"Noted," you echoed.

Neither of you moved for a second. His hand found yours where it had dropped to your side, fingers slotting through yours without either of you deciding to let it happen, the way the easiest things between you always seemed to arrive—not asked for, just suddenly there. You looked down at it. Then, mostly to keep yourself from saying something you couldn't take back, you slid your free hand out of his stick bag where it leaned against the wall by the door, gripped it like you actually knew what you were doing, and took a slow, deliberately exaggerated wrist shot at nothing, following through with your whole arm the way you'd watched him do it a hundred times from the boards.

He stared at you.

"Six months ago," he said, "I would've assumed your evil twin did that. That was genuinely unhinged. Where did that even come from."

"I've been paying attention."

"Clearly. Put my stick down."

"Make me."

He took the stick out of your hand instead, easy, unbothered, and leaned it back against the wall without breaking eye contact, and the corner of his mouth was doing more than the almost-version now, something close to a real smile, the kind that only ever showed up for you and maybe the four boys and nobody else in the entire world.

You weren't ready for what came after the smile faded.

He reached for you the way he always did before a kiss—one hand finding the small of your back first, settling there with that same deliberate weight, fingers spreading slightly like he was bracing you for something, and you felt the specific shift you'd memorized months ago without meaning to, the way his thumb pressed in just slightly harder right before his mouth found yours, like the kiss needed a foundation before it could start.

His other hand went to your neck, the way it always did, cradling rather than holding, his fingers sliding into the hair at your nape with the same unhurried care he'd used in a hallway on the wrong floor four months ago, like nothing about this had ever once been careless.

The kiss itself was slow in a way that hurt more than the rushed ones ever had. You felt every separate piece of it—the drag of his mouth against yours, the brief catch of his breath when you pressed closer, the hand at your back tightening, gripping harder, the way it always did when he meant something and didn't have the words left to say it instead. You'd learned that months ago and never told him you'd learned it: that his grip giving out meant the same thing every time, a tell as reliable as the shoulder drop he was always catching you on. Tonight it tightened until you could feel each of his fingers individually, distinct points of pressure along your spine, like he was trying to leave an imprint that would still be there after you'd gone.

You kissed him back with your whole hand fisted in the front of his shirt, memorizing this too—the exact way he smelled up close, the same now as it had been since November, something clean and a little like the cold rink air that never seemed to fully leave him no matter how long he'd been inside, underneath that the warmer, more specific thing that was just him, the thing you'd learned to find in a crowded room with your eyes closed if you had to.

When he finally pulled back, both of you were breathing like the kiss had cost something physical, his forehead dropping to yours, his hand still curved at your neck, thumb moving once along your jaw in that same absent, cataloging way he had, like even now some part of him was still taking notes he didn't know what to do with.

"Five days," he said quietly, not a question.

"Five days," you agreed.

Neither of you said anything else. You stepped back first, his hand sliding from your neck slow and reluctant, and you opened the door and let the cold from the hallway in around your ankles the way it always did, and you walked out without either of you saying the rest of it, because there wasn't a version of the rest of it that fit inside one more goodnight at his door—just his hand lifting once behind you, not quite a wave, more like he couldn't decide whether letting you go required some kind of gesture at all.

It wasn't supposed to be a goodbye. You hadn't decided anything yet, you kept telling yourself that the entire walk to the elevator, the entire drive home with the heat barely warming the car before you pulled into your own driveway. It wasn't supposed to be a goodbye.

So why did it feel like one?

lovhyeon © 2026

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“You met me at the battlefields.” You still remembered that day: the agony screams were background music as you made the soldiers swallow potions and worked on bandages that smelled like mauve, aloe and rue. “I had always thought love itself was a battlefield in which women had no freedom. To me, marriage had never been for lovers, but for the heartless and the selfish. Today, I take those words back. I couldn’t be happier to be your wife, your confidant, your partner. I give myself to you in love and anger, in peace and chaos, in light and dark. I am yours, Jaehyun. Yours truly. For you I keep fighting, and for you I put my weapons down.”

The both of you slid the thin silver rings on each other’s finger, gazes overflowing adoration. After his hand cupped your jawline and his thumb rubbed your cheek, Jaehyun leaned forward until your lips touched.

“I love you, Y/N. Eagerly.”

You smiled. “I love you. Restlessly.”

As husband and wife, you followed to the reception. You saw many familiar faces amongst the crowd: Taeyong the Lord of Word; the oldest of the old witches, Baba Yaga; the poor and terrifying Bauk, and the otherworldly Lord of Beauty, Ten. Jaehyun’s second in command, John the Knight, was there too, making good use of his politeness to charm the village girls. The guests ate and drank, relishing in food so colorful and luscious one could eat it with their eyes and be satiated. Traditional music was played by a local girl band you knew from your tavern adventures. Bliss and wonder filled the atmosphere.

Jaehyun slid his hand under the table, intertwining your fingers. Your gazes locked right with such fulfillment it made you chuckle out of joy. It was what everyone deserved after the war. After Jaehyun, the Lord of Life, defeated Yuta, the Lord of Death.

Except peace was a very dangerous thing to believe in, you were about to discover.

The candles gave it in, suddenly blown out, even if there was no wind. Only the moon and the stars lit the tents now.

A cold shiver ran down your spine.

Jaehyun tightened his grip on your hand, looking away from your face into the deep darkness ahead of the manor, where the oak trees shook with the piercingly cold breeze.

The night got darker. The guests went silent.

The world took a deep breath.

And then, the shadows of Death came out to play.

They laughed like sharp icicles falling from the sky, moving so fast you lost track of where they were. When you blinked an eye, one of them was by your side, right after Vasilisa.

You remember looking down to your shoes, stained in lively red blood, blood that didn’t belong to you, but to Vasilisa’s slaughtered throat. The sound of her body meeting the floor would haunt you for the rest of your days.

You looked over at Jaehyun. A cruel stillness shielded him like armory, and you knew your husband was once again a general. He was not Jaehyun anymore, but Koschei, the Lord of Life, never scared, unbroken. Deathless.

His eyes were cold when he met yours.

Before you could stop it, Koschei had made one single command to John. John, who put you on the horse and rode you back to the mortal realms. John, whose chest you hurt with your fists, commanding that he rode you back to your husband.

-

The war had ended.

Confident, the sun shone twice as bright between the orange clouds, like water mixing with streams of blood. The birds sang graceful melodies, children ran freely on the cobblestone streets, flowers bloomed in silent laughter, and mothers welcomed their daughters and sons for a warm afternoon that smelled like cakes and coffee. Everything felt alive with pleasure.

You looked over the street through the sunglasses slipping down your nose, carefully watching the euphoria as the newspaper boy screamed with full lungs that THE WAR IS OVER! PEACE IS FINALLY HERE! THE WAR IS OVER!

Everything about that day… Everything reminded you of him.

Forcing yourself to distract your mind, you turned on your heels to keep walking. It was a perfect day to lock up inside the coziness of your home, where nothing would disturb your heart. No news about life, no news about death. However, once you got to the corner of your street, you overheard a little girl praying with her fists against one another, so concentrated in her genuine words that perhaps she didn’t notice how loud she sounded.

“Dear Koschei, I thank you, loving Father, for this day. Thank you for putting an end to this horrible war,” she repeated like a mantra. Behind her back, the ruins of a school stood still, silent and absolute.

“Hey, girl,” you called curtly, making her open her eyes, caramel and expecting. “What exactly are you doing?”

“I’m thanking the Lord of Life, our darling Papa Koschei, for winning the war,” she readily replied. “I know the war was fought by humans, but at the Holy Land of the Lords, Koschei fought for us, and we won.”

The Holy Land of the Lords. The immortal realm, which details remained in your every fiber. Every oak tree, every rook, every crystal river making rocks roll softly under their flows.

“Is that what you believe in?”

“I know it!” The girl passionately replied, her lower lip nearly pouty. “Papa Koschei takes good care of us and would never ever let us die! He's powerful and handsome and I hope he listens to my prayers to take to his realm one day.”

You understood why you’d stopped in front of the girl in the first place. You still wanted to hear about him; still thrived on seeing people indulge into having faith in him, because Koschei the Deathless brought them hope.

What killed you inside was that he had not been as generous to you.

The little girl was right. He wouldn’t let her die. Even if it cost him his marriage.

Once you stepped into the small apartment you called home, removing your red scarf, it wasn’t particularly hard to notice the old lady sitting by the kitchen table, her nose buried in the newspaper.

“The war is over,” Baba Yaga hummed. Her face was wrinkled by years and magic, her spine curved into itself. Her presence was loud and tragic, like a strident mischievous laugh in the depths of the world. Her cat eyes as young as a newborn’s. “Jaehyun won. Now he will come for you, to finally be your husband.”

“Koschei stopped being my husband the moment he sent me here,” your reply was blunt and definitive.

Baba Yaga rolled her eyes. “Two years later, and you’re still the same stubborn, spoiled bride. Don’t you understand he did that to keep you safe?”

“The war was his as much as it was mine,” you retorted, all your emotional scars bleeding and flooding the old rug on the kitchen floor. “I was his wife.”

“You are human,” the oldest of the old witches corrected you. “Too precious for Jaehyun to risk. He had sent you here, to the mortal realm, to keep you safe with me. Or do you think I spent the last two years happy that my obligation was to look after a causeless rebel?” Her gaze pierced you like a needle that knew precisely where to stitch. “Plus, he did send you letters,” she remembered.

Baba Yaga had a point: a war between Life and Death had a direct impact on the mortal realm. Diseases that spread fast, countries that devastated others in the name of progress, genocides motivated by greed and power. That was the way of the world, and Koschei had sent you back into the mortal realm, where the civil war took place, because even if humans battled and killed each other, you would be safer there, with Baba Yaga keeping death away from you.

His letters, though, were burned after you read them. Jaehyun promised a lot, but delivered nothing. No empty words were going to make you feel like a wife.

Taking a deep breath, you looked over the window. Now, the sky was a deep violet, like the first flower to blossom after winter.

“Have you ever understood me, granny?” you asked, even if Baba Yaga hated being called that. “You were there. You listened to our vows. He promised to let me be, that I was going to have as much freedom as a woman could, and I promised to fight for him, because it was the wish of my heart. And then he sent me here. Koschei didn’t give me the tiniest chance to help, to be by his side when he needed me the most. He acted exactly like the husbands I always despised.”

Baba Yaga looked over at you with those firm, impossible to intimidate eyes, dark amethysts that saw through your spirit. You felt both acceptance and opposition, refuge and danger, understanding and disdain.

“Dead wives can’t do anything, child. I respect your hate, and your pride, but stupidity has never made me pity anyone. Love is way more complex than you wish to comprehend.”

You were about to open your mouth to defend yourself when someone knocked on the door

Your heart jumped in your chest, as if it desired to climb up your throat and run. A tall silhouette stood behind the door, seen through the blurred glass. A shadow you could recognize amongst millions; one whose body you knew like a patriot knew the map of her country.

A smirk took shape in Baba Yaga's thin lips. “As I said, Papa Koschei is coming for you.”

You could even feel his scent: amburana notes filling your nostrils with the many memories you kept buried in the deepest coffin of your reminiscence.

Jaehyun.

He had come personally to see you.

Breath got stuck in your throat. Your stomach trembled. You were going to vomit. You were going to panic. You were going to die.

Gathering every fragile piece of fiber, you breathed deeply before staring into Baga Yaga’s stone eyes again.

“Tell him there is nothing he can possibly do to ever make me want to see him again,” you determined before cowardly walking to your room, your legs melting like butter in a frying pan.

-

Death came to everyone. It wasn’t a secret, nor a surprise. Every creature, once born, had no choice but to perish. Some did it very quickly, while others had a long life before being embraced by the numbing hug of death.

There was only one creature that couldn’t die: Koschei, the Deathless, who hid his Death.

It was said that it was hidden inside a needle, which was in an egg, which was in a duck, which was in a black hound, which was in an iron chest, which was buried under an oak tree, in the distant immortal realm, in the island of Buyan.

Only someone who possessed Koschei’s hound could have him in their power.

You knew the myth. Everyone did.

While Life and Death fought endlessly, you minded your own business. You always knew you would grow up to become a priestess. It was in your blood: you learned from your grandmother how to make potions and summon spiritual guides, and your mother taught you how to heal people with herbs. You studied their methods and absorbed their knowledge eagerly, burying your nose in books and devouring every little thing you could learn about magic.

Plants needed to be activated with mantras, candles needed to be lightened with intention, incense burning to keep the energy level, and your spirit needed to be taken care of. Your altar must be kept clean and holy, fed with prayers and meditation, as the holy images of saints watched for you.

Therefore, there was nothing else you could choose as an occupation than being a priestess with a temple inherited from your ancestors. A temple in which people would step into, searching for healing.

Except war got in the way. Meaning that it was not in the temple that people needed your help, but in the battlefields.

When you volunteered for war, you thought you were doing something noble, but as the bombs fell from the sky and families were forever destroyed… When friends and lovers were covered in blood and death, you wish that type of nobleness was never necessary in the first place.

Perhaps, if the Lord of Life and the Lord of Death stopped fighting… If they only could live at peace, others could too.

Not that you expected to ever find out. Few were the people sent to the immortal realm that returned to tell the story. It wasn’t usual for a human to face a Lord or Lady and make their wishes in person.

But you had your chance.

“You’re recruiting nurses for the immortal realm?” Your eyes widened as you grabbed the flier, looking over at the young boy who just had handed it to you.

“Not nurses. Priestesses,” he corrected. “As one, you’ll assist Koschei’s army personally.”

“Aren’t his soldiers immortal?”

“No. Only Koschei can’t be killed. His soldiers can. That’s why we need priests and priestesses, not nurses. To stitch them up.”

It wasn’t hard to make your decision. Your grandmother had passed away years ago, and your mother disappeared in the North, raising suspicions that she was caught by wicked witch hunters.

You had no one.

The boy had not specified how the trip to the immortal realm was going to take place, but you still met him at the park two days later, under an oak tree, as he had told you to, with a crumbly leather suitcase with all your belongins inside.

“His death is hidden inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a black hound, which is in an iron chest, which is buried under an oak tree…” you whispered to yourself, watching as the leaves danced the choreography of the wind.

The boy that recruited you showed up in a war truck and motioned for you to come inside. At the back, six people were already in, including a young man with a soft appearance, whose side you sat at.

The boy started driving, and the truck shook on the paving stones. “How can a boy drive?” You asked, not low enough to keep the question private.

“He’s not an ordinary boy,” the young man by your side murmured politely. “That’s Jisung, the Lord of Choices.”

Your eyes widened. “A Lord? Have I just met a Lord?”

“You have,” he chuckled, then offered his hand. “I’m Mark.”

“Y/N,” you shook his hand.

“First time being recruited?”

“Yes. What about you?”

“Third.”

“But you’re so young!”

“My mother served Koschei her entire life. She occasionally came to the mortal realm for some fun, that’s how she met my dad… And the rest is history.”

“So you know him?” you hummed. “Koschei?”

“No, but I’ve seen him. You’ll see him quite a lot on the battlefield, commanding the army.”

You wondered what the army looked like. Poor souls that wandered the fields in shining armor, fighting against the lethal shadows of Death.

As the truck continued to bounce, its sway had you drowning in your own thoughts. How would Koschei be? Was he an old wizard with a long white beard and protuberant bones, as the fairytales presumed? Or was he the handsome man that stole girls from villages to satisfy his needs, as told in the taverns? Was he capable of happiness, or after so many wars and losses, he was blind to anything else? Was he kind? Stern? Did he regret hiding his death? Was he lonely?

You didn’t know how much time had passed as you occupied yourself with your imagination, but you suddenly noticed the road was now smooth and the sky outside darker. In your heart, magic surrounded you.

You looked at Mark, searching for answers.

“It’s just like that. Magic,” he nodded, confirming that you were now in the immortal realm.

Mountains howled at the moonlight. Red birds cut the night. Witches rode the sky in their brooms. Flowers blossomed nonstop — roses, lilies, tulips, dahlias, buttercups, orchids, begonias —, filling the air with the richness of their perfume. Children were born. Women and men loved women and men. Dogs barked, cats purred, butterflies batted their colorful wings, rabbits hid from foxes. Sailors arrived wandering drunkenly at the harbor, and merchants came to inspect the ships. A circus had just arrived and planned their first night of intense presentations, with lion tamers, tightrope walkers and magicians. Food barracks were set to feed the city, as the steam of the cooking ascended to the vivid atmosphere. Everywhere you went, there was laughter and… And life.

“I thought I was coming for war…” you only managed to murmur.

“You are, don’t be mistaken. But this is the land of Koschei. Life has no boundaries, does it?”

The truck came to a stop and two of the people in the back jumped out. Then, the trip continued as you distanced from the city, diving into a road adorned by trees and silence.

“Koschei keeps the city safe. It is where citizens live,” Mark added.

“Does he live there too?”

“Oh, no. He lives in Buyan, the island.”

You let the answer sink in before making another question. “Why did you volunteer again, Mark, if I may ask?”

He turned his face to the side, as though he didn’t want you to see the sparkle in his eye. “I’m coming for the woman I love. Vasilisa. She is one of Koschei’s personal servants.”

You stood silent for a while. “Isn’t it hard, loving someone that lives in a different dimension? I mean, don’t you miss her?”

Mark grinned, looking down at the way his nervous hands played with each other. “We miss each other all the time, yes. But that’s love. We care about nothing else when we’re together, and respect each other when life gets rough.”

You had no idea how many hours it took for the truck to reach its final destination, but you knew when it happened. The atmosphere got tight as though a hand wrapped around its throat, suffocating. Your sharp sensibility skills perceived the pain, the sadness, the fear that hung in the air like a portrait on a wall, impossible to ignore.

“We arrived,” the Lord of Choices announced.

You jumped out of the truck after Mark. The sky was gray and red, its colors mixed with the extension of the open field, smoke and dust contrasting with the artillery fire. Soldiers, men and women alike, slept and ate at a tent nearby, all wore in camouflage. You outlined the trenches and barriers ahead, as well as a line of covered bodies that had to be evacuated.

Your stomach stilled. You felt like a knot was being tightly tied in your guts.

It came to your knowledge that the Lord of Choices was speaking to you. “Come to the infirmary. Your work is immediately needed.”

You followed obediently. The infirmary was improvised in what seemed like a warehouse, with many hammocks distributed in the length of the room, where people grunted and cried, their sobs echoing through the walls.

You had brought healing potions, as well as candles to evoke the power of your saints. Much to your luck, the infirmary was equipped with many herbs, more than you have seen your entire life. It made you feel confident that you were going to give your best and save as many souls as you could.

But as you first came to lock eyes with a man whose leg was cut off… When he held your hand so tight it could have been broken, begging for the Lord of Life to give him more time… When his aching eyes lost their shine, you sobbed, desperately wishing to go back to the mortal realm.

-

Jaehyun came for you every day, for an entire month, but you never opened the door. Whenever he knocked on the door, your body shock circuited, your pride burned in deadly flames, and you locked yourself in your room, only daring to come out once he was long gone.

Every day, Jaehyun left small things on the kitchen table. Sometimes, it was a white lily. Other times, it was a peach, a firebird feather, a wild flower from the immortal realm.

You never touched his presents. You didn’t even allow yourself to stare at them for too long.

Sometimes, you could listen to his voice in the kitchen, as he freely spoke with Baba Yaga. Deep velvet dripping from his tongue, crowning the world with the grace of his tone. You boiled with how violently your body desired to come out and join the conversation. Deep inside, all you wanted was to tell Baba Yaga to go for a walk and stay alone with Jaehyun in the humble apartment, so different from his manor, to face him properly, looking into those dark eyes, demanding that he begged for your forgiveness. But you were not only a coward, but thrived on the thought of revenge. Let him suffer. Why not? Whenever you thought about opening the door and letting him see you, talk to you, touch you, you remembered the woman that was sent to this world two years ago, still in her wedding dress, desperately crying, punching and kicking the door and the walls, screaming for Jaehyun to come take her back.

You remembered her sorrow, her despair, her loss, her desolation. And because you still carried that woman inside you, you decided to continue locked.

Unconsciously, you confined yourself.

Jaehyun was too respectful to force you to come out. He knew you well enough to tell any attempt to drag you to the kitchen would infuriate you. Plus, Baba Yaga had already updated him on your tantrums, the uncontrolled outbursts of extreme frustration and helplessness that took over you.

“So many women you could choose, and you decided you wanted the most stubborn one,” she grunted lowly.

Jaehyun almost smiled. “A rose without a thorn is not a true rose. We both know that,” he concluded calmly. “I am aware that I caused her too much pain. I can imagine her suffering.”

“I’m afraid that’s a lie,” Baba Yaga retorted. “You’re a Lord, Jaehyun. Someone with power beyond reason, the visceral combination of everything that exists: the excess and the lack, creation and destruction, father and son. Nonetheless, you’re still a man. You had never been in a woman’s shoes. You might think you know women well enough, but that would be the first time you’re mistaken.”

She leaned over towards his face as they sat at the kitchen, having some tea. Her warm breath got to his face when she spoke. It smelled like the past.

“You have never witnessed such suffering. War and starvation, disaster and death, treachery and deceit. Only a fool would say you’re not an expert on those things. But suffering as a woman is an entire different thing. It takes your breath away, plays with your silliness, and makes you feel inferior, forever imprinted with the mark of mediocrity and weakness. That suffering laughs at your face. I know you suffered too, my boy, but you were the one to make a choice. Your wife didn’t have that privilege. You turned her biggest fear into reality. To save her, I know. We all do. Still, she suffered. And to get her back, you’ll suffer twice as much.”

-

You had no rest. There was always way too much work to be done, so you hardly gave yourself the chance to fall asleep. Mark and you did a really good job together, though. He was taught a different kind of magic, but one that worked just as fine. You took shifts sometimes, covering each other when you needed a few minutes to eat and breathe.

It was Mark’s company that made those first days tolerable, as well as those you managed to save and heal. People in the immortal realm were built differently from humans, even if they, too, had a human appearance: their constitution was almost entirely soul, and the rest was body. When healing them, you dealt with their soul: by healing their essence, the small part that represented the matter recovered as well. Some of them, on the other hand… Some of them were too far into the darkness to have their souls saved.

“Sometimes I think this is a metaphor,” Mark admitted one day, with a painfully sleepy voice. “Only the death of the soul matters.”

“Go to sleep, Mark,” you instructed, putting a wet cloth on his forehead.

Oftenly, you and Mark listened to the noises in the battlefield, meaning a battle was taking place. The Death shadows stood away from the infirmary, but you could always tell when they were there: like sadness was closer, its lips whispering dangerous, hopeless words into your ear.

After one of those occasions, the Lord of Choices came back. “We suffered a severe attack. Many of the soldiers need your assistance, but can’t be moved. You ought to go to the battlefield.”

Your legs hurt all the way, but you resisted even when your lungs were filled with the aroma of death. Mark was right by your side — even if you had not known each other for long, he was already a dear friend to you, someone that gave you strength as you stepped into the open, deadly field, rushing to tend to those whose chest moved even the slightest bit, signaling that they were merely alive.

For the very first time, you didn’t feel the sobs climbing up your throat, because you simply had no time to surrender to the minimum sign of weakness.

War was a restless, wicked and cruel thing. Like an emptiness in the world, like a soul sucked out of one’s body never to return. Like someone that forgets how to laugh. Even time was uncertain, as the thickness of the dark sky almost didn’t shift when the sun rose. All that existed was the nonstop exercise to jump from soldier to soldier, stitching their wounds, removing body parts that were too damaged to be saved, and paying respects as you closed the eyes of the soulless.

Nine hours passed after you and Mark arrived when you two had the chance to climb up a timid hill to rest before going back to the infirmary. Mark offered himself to grab some water for you to drink on your way back. You stood back, watching the heavy sky.

Your mind was in a state foreign to you, one that played with the limits of tiredness and doubt. You often thought about going back to the mortal realm, swallowing guilty at the influence of your selfishness, but only a liar would say the battlefields and the work at the infirmary was never to be questioned. Still, as hard as it was, you held onto the expectations of your childhood with tooth and nail. “That’s a job for a priestess. A very good one,” you sighed, resting your back against the dirty grass.

As you stared into the tragic shades of the sky, your line of thinking wandered through the heavy clouds with possibilities of peace. As a child, you had witnessed a war that lasted five years, You remember how unfair you judged life to be back then. How it revolted you. As time went by, you seemed to get to the conclusion that the world was like that, and there was nothing you could possibly do to change it. Your role would be forever a healer’s. But now, as your exhaustion mixed with consciousness, you really wondered if the world had to be the way it was.

What if you could change it? What if you could make your voice heard, provoking the Lords and Ladies to change their minds? To actually embrace the idea of a different way of living, where men experienced less violence, where women were happy and not raped, where children had more smiles than sorrow?

Your right ear captured the sound of heavy boots standing close to you, and you got up completely startled, scared that a shadow was after you.

It was not a shadow. It was a man one head taller than you, whose composure immediately turned him in as someone of power. His brown eyes reflected brighter under the white thundering of the sky, and thick eyebrows gifted his face with the privilege of a deep expression. His hair was as dark as the clothing we wore: a velvet suit so rich in details he looked like a noble. A strand of hair fell like a comma onto his small and pale forehead. Even if he was human, he reminded you of a lonely hunting wolf.

“You scared me, sir,” you placed one hand to your chest. The tip of your fingers told you exactly how dirty you and your clothes were after those exhausting hours. Two oily strands of hair fell in front of your face, too rebellious to stay kept in your ponytail.

“I apologize,” the man leaned forward for a moment, respectfully. “I assume you’re one of the new priestesses?”

“Yes. I arrived last week.”

His eyes carefully examined you, his plump lips pressed to each other. There was something in those irises, a mystery hidden in the confines of time and space. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N. What is yours?”

“They call me Koschei, but I only tell my real name to those who are dear to me.”

You nearly choked on your own tongue, as your mouth was too dry to have saliva in it. “My Lord,” you grabbed the skirt of your dress to kneel, but he stopped you with a single move of his hand.

“That’s not necessary. If anyone should bend, it is me, as you might have given up many things to come here and save my army.”

His words surprised you as much as his face. Koschei was young in appearance, gentle voiced, and seemed like he was considerate. He was nothing like some books defined: a tall, thin, old man with a long beard and livid eyes, covered by a black cape, a creature so worn out by time and circumstance that he didn’t ever resemble the life he carried in his title.

“How many people have we lost today?” he then inquired.

“Around a hundred.”

You had the impression that the number physically hurt him, as Koschei hissed lowly. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” it was what he said, looking down at his hand. An open wound was closing, deathless. “But we had to let them get very close. It was the only way to get some advantage.”

“Do you think you’ll defeat the Lord of Death one more time?”

Koschei lifted his gaze to meet yours. “I don’t wish to defeat him. I only wish to end the war.”

Your eyebrows clenched. “By defeating Death, wouldn’t you end the war for all?” You fought not to call him lord again. “Wouldn’t it be better for people if you and Death stopped fighting?”

Your question nearly had him smiling at the corner of his lips. “Life without death would be unbearable. Things need to die, Y/N, so others can be born. I created Death before creating anything else. Even before Time. Yuta is my oldest brother. He is also my oldest enemy. Life and Death will never stop fighting.”

Yuta. The Lord of Death had a real name.

“Then, the mortal and immortal realms will always be fighting too,” you stated.

“Indeed. Think about a baby. It starts its way to death as soon as it is born.”

You breathed deeply, trying to make your next question as polite as you could. “Isn’t it unfair that people are destined to always be at conflict? Don’t you think it would be better for everyone if they could just have some peace?”

Koschei the Deathless scanned your eyes with admiration — so beautiful, alive and pure, he thought — and shook his head shortly.

“In loneliness, we act in the name of love. In war, we act in the name of survival. I love my brother dearly, so I can’t kill him. And he can’t kill me, because no one can,” he replied firmly. “Plus, I am not to blame alone. I created the mortal realm, and the human souls that thrive there. Your books only tell how the Lords influence human life, but never how you mortals influence us.” His eyes didn’t leave yours. “Humans start wars. They kill, deceive and make mischievous plans to conquer power and prestige, no matter how many have to perish for them to succeed.”

Koschei took one step closer. You merely registered the red lightning that cut the sky like the blade of a knife behind his back.

“But they also love and aid,” he continued. “They have passions, and a wild, fertile imagination. Art, music, food, traditions, religions, family, sex, redemption… Humans are so beautifully alive. As a loving father, I can only fight for them.”

“You’re the Lord that created everything. You could as well create a Lord or Lady of Peace,” you retorted, fighting not to stumble in front of his grandiosity. “Isn’t the pain enough reason to spare the ones you love?”

His eyes allured you like flames. “Pain and death are part of life too, priestess.”

The closer he got, the more you felt blood rushing in your veins, your heart so fast as though it had a race to win. Your body screamed that it was alive, that it wanted to seize eternity with possibilities, love, happiness and euphoria.

That was Koschei’s first effect on you.

“But you only know pain,” you boldly stated, determined to offer him a new point of view. “Even if you do witness the death of others, as I did here everyday since I arrived, you don’t know your own.”

The Lord of Life was so close by now that his shadow circled you like the wings of an angel.

“You do wish to change the world, don’t you?” he inquired.

“I am not opposed to contradictions, but I do believe a loving father would do anything to keep his children safe and happy,” you replied, holding the intensity of his gaze. “Happiness is as important to Life as Death.”

Koschei allowed your opinion to sink in. After a few seconds, that seemed to last longer, he offered you a gentle smile. “Join me for dinner, miss. I’ll be more than content to take a deeper dive into your thoughts.”

-

The failed visits Jaehyun paid to your apartment kept going for a few more days until Baba Yaga came to knock on your room’s door.

“Tell him I am not coming out,” you warned.

“It is not your husband who came this time,” she announced.

You lifted your chin from the bed.

“Who is it, then? One of his servants?”

Your heart ached at that. What had happened to Vasilisa remained a mystery to you. You could only guess she’d been buried with the rest of the wedding’s victims.

“Not one of his servants, definitely. Why don’t you come out and see?” It was Baba Yaga’s reply before her steps distanced from the door.

Driven by curiosity, you complied. It rained outside, the droplets making a calm melody at the ceiling, muffling the volume of your breath when you opened the door. One turn right at the end of the hall, and you were face to face with a thin man in red clothes, his heavy boots wet with rain, his eyes like blood.

The Lord of Death.

“What a nerve you have coming here after ruining my wedding,” you calmly observed. Even if you were in front of Koschei’s fatal enemy, the person who was guilty of slaughtering Vasilisa, you knew the rules of the world well enough to act otherwise. Yuta was dangerous, like a tiger to a rabbit. Killing was in his nature. Nothing you said and did was going to change that.

Yuta bent softly to you, causing the attentive Baba Yaga to snort.

“I wish I could apologize, m’Lady, but one can only be what faith reserved. I agree your wedding perhaps wasn’t the best choice, but I love a little family drama.”

“I almost didn’t notice,” you breathed, eyeing him carefully. “What do you want?”

“As you might have noticed, I lost the war. Your husband came out victorious, and some of our brothers and sisters gathered to put me on trial. I came to personally invite you to be one of the witnesses.”

“A witness against your war crimes?” you clenched an eyebrow.

“A witness against my crimes on your wedding,” Yuta specified. “Koschei sued me. Not for my war crimes — he knows I would never be punished for that. He sued me for ruining your ceremony, and what followed.”

Oh, you could so clearly see it. How mad Jaehyun had gotten, exactly? What was the size of his fury to be once again involved in war strategies, and not in a bed you kept warm, lustful, never ending?

A war he could forgive. But what happened at your wedding was a different story.

Your eyes nearly softened at the news, but you were quick to clear your throat and recompose yourself. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“And I suppose you’ll be taking me back to the immortal realm?”

Yuta’s eyes sparkled, cunning. “I would love to, m’Lady, but Koschei would never allow that. The old witch can help you with that.”

You turned to Baba Yaga with the speed of sunlight, your eyes tight and your tone accusing. “You could have taken me back! All this time!”

“Not a fight worth buying against your husband,” she simply replied. “Koschei’s trust is too dear to me to lose it.”

You hated it. How much power Jaehyun had. How everyone adored him. How little girls prayed to him and thanked him for his kindness. How he had left your wedding ring at the table the previous day: the same wedding ring you threw at the river, one year ago, in a tantrum so strong you got a fever and Baba Yaga made you soup for a whole week.

If you really intended on never seeing Jaehyun again, you would have turned to Yuta and declined. But your heart was bleeding to have justice made, and your poor emotional state considered that Jaehyun deserved the revenge of seeing the version of you that hated him. He deserved to suffer too, didn’t he?

You turned your face to the Lord of Death.

“I’ll be there.”

-

“If you can take me to the immortal realm, then you’re a Lady,” you risked as Baba Yaga made you jump inside a small carriage, one that already felt inadequate compared to the first few cars that ran the city’s streets.

“Lady of Nunnery,” she replied ironically.

“Don’t be so mean, granny,” you cooed, arranging your light blue gown that you so carefully chose for the trial, one with long sleeves and a tight skirt. “Aren’t you happy that you might return to your own life and catch up on whatever else you wish to do, instead of watching me?”

“I’m too old and wise to allow myself to have hope,” Baba Yaga concluded. With a small, mostly inaudible hiss of her lips, she commanded the two black horses to ride, and with that the carriage began to move.

The trip to the immortal realm was as smooth as the first time. In the blink of an eye, the pavement the sun shone brighter, music filled the air, and the food barracks set an abundant diversity of colors and smells, so much your mouth watered. Everything tasted better in the immortal realm.

Now that you were back, you realized how badly you had missed it. It felt like being home after the longest of journeys. Like coming back to the arms of a mother. You were too drawn in your thoughts to speak for the rest of the trip as the carriage took you to the Palace of Justice. You had only been there once, to accompany Koschei in the judgment of a failed attempt of robbery in Buyan, when a very talented robber tried breaking in to search for his death.

It was a marvelous construction, as palaces are. Everything was clean and immaculate, the marble on the walls, the tall windows and the solemn ambience of silence and wisdom. You and Baba Yaga handed the carriage to a young girl and walked inside calmly. She limped on one foot, so you kept yourself close to her, even if the old witch wouldn’t ever ask for help.

“You know what to do, right?” she spoke.

“Be honest and merciless,” you mocked.

“Be clever, girl. You have cried for this day to come, to be reunited with Koschei, and have some peace. Enjoy it now that you have the chance.”

You took a closer look at the surroundings, at the spotless carpet, the vivid and dramatic paintings, the employees… The life you wish you could have right there. “I don’t think it is that simple, granny,” you replied, as you came to face a tall door that was opened for both of you.

The courtroom was wide as everything in the immortal realm. That land belonged to Koschei, meaning it was a full expression of everything life could be: the chairs gracefully decorated with silver flowers, the ceiling made of glass in a garden of multiple colors, the judge bench imponent and high, where the gorgeous Lady of Justice sat. She looked like an angel, tall and firm, her white gown contrasting with the holy blackness of her skin.

As you walked in, familiar faces turned to look at you. You caught how Ten the Lord of Beauty offered you a friendly smile, and how Taeyong the Lord of Word tilted his head in respect. John the Knight was there too, with the same apologetic look he gave you the last time you met, as you ordained he brought you back. They were at your wedding, as well as other Lords and Ladies that had already found their seats. The Lord of Death was there too, clad in his deep red clothes and cunning gaze. Jaehyun had not arrived yet.

You and Baba Yaga made your way to the first row of seats, in front of the Lady of Justice. It instantly came to your mind how it was said that the Lord of Beauty was entirely enamored with her, and with one look you knew it was true. Ten had always been smitten for beautiful things, and the Lady of Justice was easily one of the most dazzling creatures you had ever put your eyes on. As Justice itself, she was severe and rigid, but also welcoming, strong, and undeniable.

Each person that walked inside the courtroom had your heart throbbing in your chest. Unconsciously, you waited for Jaehyun to arrive, and your body knew it, making you wish to pick at your nails, bounce your feet to the floor and look at your back, searching for him. Your body never failed to betray you. Both you and Jaehyun knew it well. The moment you felt your heart racing, your veins blooming, your head spinning with the force of a tornado, you knew he had arrived.

His effects on you never failed.

Your head started a war with your heart, as you forced yourself not to look over your shoulder. You sensed your husband approaching you with every step, until his silhouette stood right in front of your eyes. Without further choices, you lifted your gaze to meet his.

How absolutely cruel life was to you, giving you such a handsome, perfect man, and making him so irresistible your heart weighed twice in your chest, nearly pulling you to stay on your knees and kiss his hands, his thighs, beg for him to let you in, to invade you, to love and fuck you, to utterly and gutturally ravish you, to take you home and make you his wife again and again.

But you refrained. You refrained even though your eyes tried their hardest to delight him with your weakness.

“Y/N, my wife,” Jaehyun said, his voice almost like a plea, eyes frankly in love, wanting and admiring.

“I can hardly be called that, Koschei.”

“Jaehyun,” he interfered, eyes tightened, as though you calling him Koschei physically stung. “That’s how I told you to call me.”

“Take your seat. Trial is about to start,” you calmly enunciated.

His austere reaction was successful in hiding precisely how much pain you brought him with your coldness, but you both knew two things: you loved Jaehyun, and Jaehyun loved you.

You were expecting he would find a seat somewhere else, but much to your surprise, the Lord of Life locked a meaningful gaze with Baba Yaga.

“An old lady has got no peace in this fucking world,” she complained, getting up for Koschei to sit down by your side.

You quickly grabbed her wrist. “Don’t go, gran-”

“Shut up, child. I don’t take orders from you,” she hissed like a fox, slipping from your touch and stonily finding herself another seat at the third row.

Jaehyun, then, sat by your side. Those excruciatingly dear amburana notes filled your lungs, and you had to clench your thighs to keep still. Thankfully, the Lady of Justice spoke next, opening the session.

“You haven’t replied to my letters,” Jaehyun murmured.

“You haven’t kept your vows,” you returned just as lowly. “You confined me.”

“For your own fucking good. Did you wish to be killed?”

“I wished to be with you.”

“It was too dangerous here. I thankfully had time to rebuild the city before you arrived, to spare you the chaos.”

So the city, the place he always did his best to keep safe, was attacked.

“You didn’t have to do that all by yourself.”

“I wouldn’t risk losing you, Y/N,” he looked over at you, discreetly at the corner of his eye. “You’re too loved by me.”

Everytime his mouth spoke of love, you shuddered.

“Yuta wouldn’t dare kill me,” you risked. Only a guess.

“You know nothing about Lords and Ladies,” Jaehyun nearly rubbed his face in frustration. “Yuta doesn’t have a trustworthy sense of morals, Y/N. If he had the chance to take your death with him, he would.”

“Wouldn’t you be capable of rescuing me?” Your question let him know that, time after time, as you had been away in the mortal realm, you had thought about the possibilities over and over. “To breathe life into me after I was gone?”

“For that, you’d have to be born again.”

“So be it.”

You immediately noticed how his hand, placed on his thigh, clenched into a fist.

“You think too little of my love for you,” Jaehyun growled. “If you were born again, you wouldn’t be as you are now. And as you are now is how I want you. Every day and every night. I can’t tolerate a world emptied of you, Y/N… I hav-”

“Koschei, the Lord of Life, will contribute as our first witness,” the Lady of Justice announced in a voice two volumes louder, breaking your conversation. Jaehyun smoothly got up, looking over at you dearly before he moved over to the front of the judge's bench.

“Can you tell us what happened that night?” the Lady of Justice asked.

“It was the night of my wedding. As you all know, I had never been married before, but fell in love with a priestess. She’s right there,” he pointed at you with pride in his eyes, and even a smile to his lips, making you want to shrink until you disappeared. He was so in love. Fuck, he still was so in love… “We had just won the war against Death, but Death then decided to strike back that same night, causing sixty of our guests to find a violent end on our dinner table. I had to send my wife to the mortal realm, for her own sake, and since that day we didn’t get to properly live as husband and wife. That’s why I sued Death. If he had had the decency of waiting, then perhaps my first wedding days would have been happier.”

You looked over at Yuta, and how his face was soft and calm, relaxed even, with a mocking grin to his lips, and you couldn’t help but feel the trial regarded the wrong subject. Yes, he should be addressed for what he did to your wedding. But shouldn’t he be addressed for way more crimes than that?

Without further thinking, you stood up. “Permission to speak, my Lady,” your voice politely asked.

The Lady of Justice complied with a nod.

“Permission granted, priestess. Please, come closer.”

You obeyed, readily standing by Jaehyun’s side. “I do believe the Lord of Death did us wrong by ruining our wedding, and as Koschei told you, I did suffer a lot, being sent to the mortal realm. I have belonged here since I first stepped into this realm, to aid during the war. Death’s revenge on my wedding will perhaps be something I will never entirely get over, but…” your eyes tightened a little, “but I believe we are addressing the wrong thing. My suffering was not individual. Many suffered from the effects of the war. Families were taken apart, destroyed, many kids never had the chance to grow up. My dear friend Vasilisa was murdered in front of my own eyes,” at that, you looked over at Yuta. “Life was assaulted and humiliated in several ways, and it would be selfish of me to stand here to defend myself against a single tragedy when so many lost their lives and hopes. Their souls.”

The entire room looked at you amusedly.

“So what you mean is that this trial should be against war itself?” the Lady of Justice asked to clarify.

“I’m not sure a trial is going to entirely solve the issue,” you replied calmly. “I suggest that, instead, we discuss peace.”

You caught the way Jaehyun looked at you. How enamored he was. How he could have put you on a pedestal.

“Peace?” Ten the Lord of Beauty tasted the word in his tongue.

“Peace is at a state of mind, at its best,” Taeyong the Lord of Words hummed. His pure and big eyes stared into the air as if he was reading the word over and over.

“It could be a state of reality too,” you added. “Peace and war are opposites: as death exists to balance life, peace should exist to balance war. There’s where Koschei comes in,” you presented your idea smoothly. It wasn’t the first time you discussed such matters with Jaehyun. When he first invited you over to dinner, you had mentioned the idea. “As Lord of Life he can create someone to manage peace as he did to each of you.”

You and Jaehyun eyed each other. You couldn’t tell if he was more proud or challenged: he had never agreed on creating peace in the first place, but if you could bargain with him, that was your request.

“I think it is fair,” Justice agreed. “But it is my job to make sure we reach the final goal of this trial. Koschei, do you wish to continue with it?”

Jaehyun slowly averted his eyes from you to her. “Let’s do as my wife says,” he decided. “But I have a condition for the trial on Death to be canceled.”

“We are all ears, Life,” Yuta cooed.

“Let me rescue Vasilisa from the realms of Death and make her be born again,” Jaehyun breathed. “And Mark too.”

-

You could say you and Koschei were getting closer. After the first dinner in the manor, where he carefully listened to your ideas — to your surprise, without ever mocking you or lowering your reasoning —, it was frequent that the Lord of Life searched for you. Once together, you never stopped talking about diverse subjects. Sometimes, you even had the impression he consciously wanted your point of view and advice, like he treasured your way of thinking, so rich in complexity and imagination.

“It’s like the first day of spring,” Koschei explained while you took a walk at the manor’s garden a few weeks after your first encounter. War continued, but the battlefields were calmer: Death had a lot of work to do with a new local disease that was taking many lives away in the mortal realm. Even Mark had a moment to travel to Buyan and meet Vasilisa. “Not spring itself, but the first day, when the weather is warmer and the flowers stretch, blossoming…”

“What?” you asked with interest.

“Talking to you.”

Your cheeks burned. “Oh, we humans just have smart ideas,” you humbled, unaware that you were reducing yourself because of your shyness. “The majority of us are very smart. We even have artists such as Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo. Are you familiar with them?”

“I know everything my kids do, miss,” Koschei chuckled.

“So…” you bit your cheek,“did you know me before I arrived?”

“Not like that,” he admitted, his expression going slightly serious as he stopped to admire the white roses. Big and with rich, thick perfume. “I personally made the first men and women, and let them be, so I didn’t have the time to catch up on them individually, but I know what goes on. Humans are free to make their choices and populate the mortal realm, mate with whoever they want to. I’d say the Lady of Desire plays a huge role in that.”

“Never heard of her. What is she like?” you tilted your head, focusing on the big lilies that smelled like heaven. Life really flourished differently in Koschei’s land.

“Entirely convincing. Dangerous, even. Once in her presence, your head is easily messed up with,” his voice was like a song as you slipped down the garden, unable that, everywhere you went on the obsidian pathway, Koschei followed, attracted to your natural scent like a bee to a flower.

“She might be very alluring,” you commented. “I sometimes wonder if desire could be a law.”

“How so?”

“One could only have another if there was any desire,” you clarified. “It would certainly avoid women from getting raped.”

Koschei stopped in awe. “You can’t help but care about others, can you?”

“As you should,” your tone was light, but sincere. “Thinking the world is the way it is leaves no imagination for creation and improvement. I was kind of disappointed to know you’re a bit selfish.”

He swallowed. “Selfish?”

“Yes. You know, children pray for you. And still they mourn their families in war. The idea of an omnipresent, benevolent Lord isn’t exactly real.”

“That’s a version humans created of me. To have hope, perhaps. It is like saying that every woman was born to be a tender mother,” Koschei reasoned, and when he passed you by, his side brushed yours, leaving soft goosebumps under the fabric of your dress.

He smelled like the loveliest amburana tree.

“I am not immune to desire,” he continued, holding your gaze as though it was needed in such an exposure. “I can’t ignore the wishes of my heart, and by nature I am cruel, demanding, and utterly unforgiving. But I can also be gentle, loving, and nurturing. Just like life is, sometimes.”

If you said you were not attracted by the contradiction he held at the tip of his tongue, and at every fiber of his being, you would be shamelessly lying.

You stopped underneath a gazebo, near a black water fountain, where water was continuously spilled from the mouth of a hound. Symbolic. “Is it true that you had many lovers?” you felt bold in asking.

Koschei picked a deep red apple from the nearest tree, supporting his weight on the gazebo before replying. “I was a lover countless times,” he removed a knife from the pocket of his suit — the blade had delicate decorated eggs imprinted on it — and cut a slice out of the fruit. “And I have loved too, more than anyone.”

“Did you really steal girls from villages to make them yours?”

“That sounds like rape to me.”

“Did you?” you insisted.

“No,” Koschei handed you the apple slice. You easily accepted it. “I didn’t have to.”

With all his looks and conversation skills, you trusted he was speaking the truth. You bit down on the apple, enjoying the sugar on your tongue.

“By the way, the boys searched for me as well. And I loved them all,” Koschei added, and at that you chuckled, placing your hand on your lips. You still had food in your mouth.

Smoothly, Koschei grabbed your fist and put it down. “Don’t hide your smile,” he hummed with such chivalry and admiration you went silent, your pupils widening. “It is one of the most beautiful things in you.”

Sometimes, in the deepest secrets of the night, you wondered if Koschei the Deathless meant the way he looked at you. Could he really be interested in what you had to offer? Your ideas, your mind, your beauty? You liked yourself quite right, and saw yourself as pretty in your own way.

Lately, with the way Koschei gazed at you, so tenderly, so happy even, when you caught him looking, well… It felt like he was attracted to you.

Now he was just admitting that he found your smile to be beautiful.

Automatically, you looked away, unsure. Understanding, Koschei removed his hand and returned to cutting a slice for himself. “What about you, miss? Did you have many lovers?”

“A few,” you hummed, staring at the effortless moves of his hands. “I had a school sweetheart, but we didn’t last. After him, it was all fun.” You considered whether you shared extra information. “By the way, I have loved girls too.”

At your reveal, Koschei nearly cut his thumb.

As if to save you from further embarrassment, one of Koschei’s servants approached you, bending to him in respect before speaking. “My Lord, I’ve got news from the city.”

“Go ahead.”

“One of our priests was murdered by shadows. His girlfriend came all the way from the City to report the crime herself.”

That was how you lost Mark. That was how you met Vasilisa.

-

“Vasilisa and Mark will be born again,” Baba Yaga concluded after the trial was over, as you waited for the carriage. “Take them as apprentices. Teach them your magic.”

“For that to happen, I will have to stay in the immortal realm.”

“Wasn’t that your plan all along? Or do you wish to return?”

“Well, granny, we are waiting for the carriage to take us back.”

The old witch frowned. “I have never said that I was going to take you back! Papa Koschei’s orders were to bring you here. The carriage will take me back to my realm. You go back to Buyan, where you belong.”

You couldn’t say you were surprised, but the slightest stubborn hope of your heart wished you could punish Koschei for longer.

The boy came with the carriage and Baba Yaga was so eager to leave she nearly kicked him away.

“Cruel woman,” you teased.

“After spending so much time with you? Absolutely!” She jumped in, her hand on the door. “Be safe, child.”

And with that, Baba Yaga left. The last thing you registered was how the yellow and brown leaves danced with the cold wind as the night approached and her carriage disappeared into the blooming horizon.

“She is the Lady of Luck,” Koschei’s voice right behind your back startled you, making your shoulders jump. “I’m sorry, love. Didn’t intend on scaring you.”

“Don’t call me that,” you growled.

Noticing the goosebumps on your skin, Koschei immediately removed his coat and landed it on your shoulders. You felt instantly warmer. “What else is a poor husband to call his wife? No matter how hard I had it, my vows were made. You’re mine as much as I am yours.”

“You already know my opinion on the effectiveness of your vows.”

“Not even you kept them fully,” his tone wasn’t accusing, but it made you frown, offended. “You promised to let your weapons down for me.”

“I did!”

“Not freely.”

“You forced me, Koschei.”

“And you’re mad about it. I understand it,” he searched for your hand, and this time you couldn’t pull away. His slender fingers had always felt magical on yours: long digits compared to tiny ones. Jaehyun placed your hand on his chest, right where his deathless heart beat. “All I ask is for you to let me be who I wanted to, two years ago. Give me the chance to be your loving, faithful husband, and I’ll make it up to you. Every little punch on the wall, every scream of my name… I’ll make up to you, wife.”

You were still angry, fuming, and hurt. But as life’s contradictions itself, you were eager, desperate to love, and ready to make the Lord of Life fall to his knees in front of you, begging, crying, sobbing.

“Take me to Buyan.”

-

The loss of a close friend felt like a knife transpassing your heart. Not only you got deeply affected by the news, but surrendered to the strongest fever you ever had, so devastating Koschei insisted you were taken to Buyan, where he could keep a close eye on you.

You insisted Vasilisa joined you: the sweet girl was already like a little sister, so loyal she stood by your side all the time you were treated in the luxurious manor Koschei the Deathless resided in.

At least, you had someone to mourn with.

The doctors said the fever was closely related to the state of your soul: in the immortal realm, your soul commanded, and your body obeyed. You were so sad and broken at the loss of Mark, so young, lively and willing, that your body simply couldn’t take it.

Koschei constantly came to visit, sometimes staying by your bed when Vasilisa needed to rest or to tend to her own pain.

Three weeks after Mark’s passing, Life and Death came to an agreement and the war was over. You were already fully recovered, but still mourning, when the news came in like the sun at the beginning of a fresh morning. With it, you considered your options.

Going back to the mortal realm was your original plan. But did it make any sense? What awaited you on the other side? Your job as a priestess would certainly help people, but it wasn’t like you were going to be useless in the immortal realm. Souls there were way more sensitive, and perhaps the healing touch of your hand would bring them some comfort.

In the immortal realms, at least, you had Vasilisa.

And Koschei.

You couldn’t deny your heart had grown affectionate towards him. The Lord of Life was thrilling, alluring and simple, as a man should be. He listened carefully to your thoughts and took you seriously. He protected you. He shared the wonderfulness of his mind and creations, and you liked that, more and more, he took your opinions into consideration before making a move.

If love ever bloomed in you, then you wished it was for and with someone like him.

Obviously, your limited human brain went skeptical: Koschei, the Lord of Life, didn’t need you. With the end of the war, he would return to his own interests, and you were going to be dismissed, to carry on with your own matters too.

You grabbed your old, crumbly suitcase, and started putting your few belongings inside.

“Are you really making a decision before talking to him?” Vasilisa crossed her arms, her gaze piercing as she stood by the doorframe of your temporary room. You understood why Mark fell in love with her. She was one of a brave kind.

Koschei was going to know. But, you were sure, nothing would change. “I’ll talk to him at dinner.”

When night fell, you took your last chance to wander through the manor. It was twice as luxurious as the one described in school books, filled with colorful windows, flowers, paintings, plants, stairs, libraries, and secret rooms. Koschei lived there by himself, with a dozen servants that kept the place neat. You couldn’t help but imagine how lonely it must have been for him, living in such a huge place, without a family or a pet. Perhaps you could write him letters, to help him pass the time, now that peace was made.

You took your time admiring the paintings on the walls and facing the loving garden through the windows as the sky got darker with each second. Birds sang the softest melody; tree tops swayed with the warm wind coming from the South.

You were going to miss that place. But you have made your decision.

You wore a plain soft pink dress that squeezed your waist just right. You weren’t used to how expensive you looked in silk, but the options in the manor were just as elegant. Vasilisa insisted you wore a pair of garnet gem earrings, which made you feel the closest to a princess, but still you.

Usually, you and Koschei had dinner at his particular office, where the cozy atmosphere suited your conversations. And, as always, when you lifted your hand to knock on the door, just right before you did it, he opened it for you.

But this time, Koschei didn’t hide how marvelous you looked. “Holy shit,” he whispered under his breath, eyes traveling from your face to your cleavage to your waist.

You heard how hard your heartbeat was in your own ears.

“I’m sorry,” Koschei nervously looked back into your eyes. “You look so insanely beautiful I couldn’t hold back.”

Even if with burning cheeks, you managed to laugh it off. “That's very human of you, Koschei.”

There was a simple meal for you two, a stew so delicious it reminded you of your granny, and wine to swallow it down. You took a sip before gathering courage to introduce the subject you had to discuss.

“What are your plans now that war is over?”

“Keeping things alive,” he replied shortly. “Making sure the population is multiplied. I already contacted Desire.”

“It’s time you create the Lady of Consent.”

“I already have, miss.”

“Really?” You merely could hide your surprise.

“Really. One day you’ll meet her.”

You were expecting him to ask what you would do, but the question didn’t come, so spoke. “I was expecting to return to the mortal realm now that my work here is done.”

Koschei put the fork down and stared into your eyes as if you were speaking another language. Slowly, you could see his face was hiding its own expression. He didn’t want to seem offended. “Why do you say that? Aren’t you happy here?”

“On the c-contrary, I am!” you stuttered, realizing his question made you think harder about what you truly wanted. “But I guessed that, with the end of the war, the recruits were going to be sent back to their homes.”

Koschei leaned back on the chair. His eyes were still on yours, analyzing what seemed to be a secret enigma. “Have I failed in showing my affection for you so badly that you think of yourself as an ordinary recruit?”

“I mean, I am...” Your gaze faltered until you, finally, stared down at your lap, embarrassed.

And then he said what you wished to hear: “I don’t want you to go back.” You looked back up. Such beautiful eyes he had. “I want you to stay, Y/N. Have been for a while now. I was going to ask you tonight.”

Your words escaped your mouth without a filter, and you sounded demanding, but also eager. “Then ask me.”

You almost gasped with how Koschei slowly stood up only to kneel in front of you, grabbing your anxious hands in his.

“Y/N, the time we spent together brought me much joy, and I believe I’ve made you happy too. It’d be a torture to watch you leave my realm, and twice a torture to watch you leave me,” he spoke every word out loud and honest. “I am not on my knees to beg only as Lord of Life. I am on my knees to beg as a man. Please, consider the possibility of staying.” Koschei brought your hand to his lips and planted a chaste kiss on your skin. The sincerity of his eyes reflected the flames on the fireplace. “Consider the possibility of being mine.”

He handed the power right into your hold, a decision for you to make.

You felt so wanted, so dear, so scandalously beautiful, and your heart for once relaxed, your blood warm on your veins, your lips itchy. “Koschei, I-“

“Call me Jaehyun. That’s my name.”

Your eyes sparkled.

Gently, your hand reached for his face, brushing his hair back before cupping his cheek. You didn’t say a word. All you did was lean over and press your lips to his.

-

The manor was very much like it had been committed to your memory, with the piercing difference that all the servants you once knew were dead.

The war, you started to notice, had been crueler than the previous. So many deaths, so many changes. Jaehyun himself had an older look on his face, even though a certain new joy was keeping it alight.

His eyes sparkled in content whenever he saw you at the manor, where you were expected since the day of your wedding. He had the servants prepare your favorite foods. Had gotten the most beautiful lilies to decorate your room — your, not his, not yours, as you insisted on sleeping alone. Even before your marriage, he had built you a temple at the manor, a broad and dark room with an altar for your saints, with all the materials you needed for your rituals and magic, and the temple was at your full disposal. You spent most of your time there, and quickly opened the temple to the public, so people could come in and be healed by your talented hands.

It brought you tremendous joy to help those souls, so much your days were filled with work. Which meant Jaehyun’s dinner invitations were politely refused. You kept a collected composure in front of him, even if it hurt as much as having a needle pushed inside your eyeball.

Deep inside, you were tremendously scared of your feelings. Both you and Jaehyun knew it.

The only further interaction you had was about how much progress he had with creating Peace. All the times you had asked, Jaehyun simply said he was working on it. Just like that, your conversations were over.

It was a rainy day outside when you started your day, making your prayers and opening the temple. Everything was made by your own hands, so no servants helped you around. Usually, a line was formed into the manor’s main hall, and you came to personally pick your patients and take them inside. That day, as thunder echoed in the sky, and violent rain hit the ceiling, you came to find out there was no one to attend.

“Oh, that’s sad,” you breathed, turning around to return to your refuge when you bumped into a very familiar chest.

The expression on Jaehyun’s face explained why the weather was so bad.

Eventually, when Koschei was not able to control his own emotions, the weather in Buyan could feel it. Sunny days meant a visceral happiness that made his face smiley; springy weather meant he was especially romantic, with his head on the clouds and his heart where his brain should be; and heavy rainy days meant he was frustrated and angry, sad and way too deep into his defense mechanism.

“Dear saints, you’re going to make it snow!” you brought your hand to your heart.

“You’re being mean to me. I am hurt,” Jaehyun admitted, his lower lip nearly jumping out in a pout. Cute.

“Not my problem,” you lifted your shoulders quickly, passing him by. Jaehyun started following you. “What are you doing?” you asked without turning around.

“I’m heading to my appointment.”

“I don’t think you are. I’m busy today.”

“Well, I am a soul too. I deserve healing,” Jaehyun retorted. “Even if my wife wishes to torture me forever in the name of revenge.”

His childish, spoiled tone almost made you laugh. You knew better than to make fun of him, though. Plus, you were not proud to make him suffer. You just preferred he got hurt than allowing yourself such pain again.

Sincerity was surely one of your biggest qualities. And a defect too, depending on the situation.

After a deep sigh, you agreed with a nod. “Fine.”

Jaehyun had not been in your temple since you started working there, simply because you really had been busy and because you didn’t give him the friendliest of looks whenever he came to check on you. So, when he first walked inside, his lovely jawline dropped a little.

Every priestess and priest had the freedom to decide what gods and saints they were going to worship. You had decorated your altar with their images and elements that somehow represented their power: two small and crossed wood hammers for Ṣàngó, a beautifully crafted bronze mirror for Ọ̀ṣun, a dark seashell for Yemọja and cowries for Èsù, the Lord of Discipline, Communication and Order. Candles burned for them all the time, as you closely committed to lighting up new ones when the old have blown out. Incense burned too, filling the air with the scent of black surinam cherries. Fresh flowers brightened up the dark altar with vivid colors. The atmosphere was dense but friendly, full of mystery between the cold stone walls.

There was a simple table with two chairs on each of its sides, reserved for the appointments. You signaled for Jaehyun to sit on one chair, taking the other in front of him.

“I think I’ve got a severe spiritual problem,” he announced, so dramatic it amused you.

You hummed in reply, lighting up a cinnamon incense with a lighter, moving it around Jaehyun’s sides before placing it in a set of small stones you kept on the table. Next, you grabbed the set of your favorite and most loyal gypsy cards. “I’ll check what the oracle tells me.”

Your hands worked on spreading fourteen cards so smoothly it felt as though you spent your entire life doing that.

Jaehyun observed quietly, noticing how your hand seemed empty without your wedding ring. He still wore his, not even taking it off when he slept.

You turned the cards around slowly, analyzing the entire context they were telling you. For the sake of suspense, it took a while for you to speak. “I don’t see anything spiritual. You’re probably too powerful for ghosts or any type of enemy to try something on you. But you do have a heartache.”

“How can I solve it?” His voice came out impatient.

You puckered your lips in thought. Everything related to Jaehyun’s heart involved his feelings for you, and there was no way to speak about it without taking the entire context in consideration. “I see you might be frustrated because you’re being denied. Perhaps you’re not used to disappointment, but,” you pointed at the book card, “it is the perfect opportunity to use your repertory and learn.”

Jaehyun crossed his arms. You pretended not to notice his biceps slightly bulking within his shirt. “I am trying, but the more you deny me, the more I find it difficult to deal with what we have become. I understand you’re upset, and I respect your opinion. You know I would have kept you by my side if I could. But I did what I thought best to keep you safe. I won the war. For you.”

You believed it: Jaehyun fighting battle after battle, motivated by the idea of going back to you… For that, your heart melted.

“I know, as much as I know your love for me is real. I hope you understand I still have true feelings for you just as I did back then,” you mustered all of your maturity to evoke those words. “But I need to get over how powerless you made me feel.”

“I thought there was no space in love for power,” Jaehyun frowned.

“You still had power over me, didn’t you?” your tone was a lot calmer now. That was not a confrontation, but simply a statement of how things went. “My main issue is that I could not choose. You interfered directly into my free will, and I will not tolerate that in marriage. If I am your wife, then let me have the same choices you do.”

His eyes analyzed you closely. “That would make you tremendously powerful.”

“I don’t seek to be powerful, I seek to be equal.”

Your gazes burned in orange flames, heated by how he just got what you meant. Jaehyun always did.

“What do the cards recommend I do?”

You placed your finger on the mountain card. “Your journey might be long and rough, but you have to push yourself towards your goal.”

“So I should continue to be unconditionally faithful to my wife. Let her aspire to all the things she desires. Learn how to deal with my frustration alone, as I make sure she can trust me,” he perfectly wrapped up.

“Those are my conditions,” you nodded.

Jaehyun extended his hand over to you. “Deal.”

Accepting his hand in yours came naturally, the feeling of his skin extremely familiar, the little shivers of your touch making you squeeze his hand a little tighter than needed.

“Can I ask for something in return?” he asked.

“You can.”

“Have dinner with me.”

“If we openly discuss how you’re making progress with my request on peace, I might.”

Jaehyun nearly chuckled. “Have dinner with me everyday.”

“Will you update me everyday?”

“I will.”

“Deal,” you smiled.

At the sight, Jaehyun brought one hand to his face, flustered as he rubbed his cheeks. “You still have the most beautiful smile.”

A ray of sunshine walked through the window right on your deck of cards. It wasn’t raining anymore.

-

Jaehyun’s hand eagerly slid from your breasts up to your neck as you lied down on his bed. Hungrily, his eyes fed from the gorgeous shape of your body, the innocent white lace bra you wore alluring him into his deepest fantasies.

“You have the most beautiful breasts,” he grunted. “So round and firm and beautiful…”

“You speak like it’s the first time you see them,” you teased, your cheeks and the tip of your nose warm from arousal.

Ever since you decided to stay, Jaehyun loved on you passionately almost every day. He never allowed anything to go missing. By now, after intense weeks of love making, you had grown accustomed to his dedication, and how your body resembled a volcano every time he touched you.

“Not my fault you are so scandalously sublime,” Jaehyun bit his lip before pushing your bra aside, exposing your nipples. He dove in, warm tongue drawing slow circles around each, eventually brushing and biting the hard peaks. When he lifted his face, the cold air left shivers on the wet evidence of where his mouth had been. He easily got rid of your bra, freeing your round, perky breasts, so deliciously voluptuous and busty his mouth salivated. “Have I told you how I made women?”

“Not yet.” You rested your head on the pillow, admiring his bare chest. The defined muscles on his shoulders, arms, and abdomen turned his bareness so attractive to you your toes curled whenever he was naked.

“I created a woman before I created a man,” Jaehyun revealed, moving to pull your skirts down your legs. He kissed the big scar on your right knee, the one you were graced with after falling from a tree when you were only a little girl. “I knew I had to make something unique, intense, intelligent and breathtaking. It was how I wanted life to be at first. Understanding but full of rage, resting but full of ideas, lovely but with the highest ability to deprivation.”

You engaged in his words, sitting down to hover over him. The tips of your fingers caressed his chest in random moves until your hand moved along his trousers, where the volume of his erection was evident. You were turned on too, your white panties transparent where your pussy lips damped with scented juices. “So you made them alluring,” you guessed.

“So fucking tempting,” Jaehyun’s eyes darkened as he watched you. “With a heart to love, tits to bear milk, a womb to carry children…” as he spoke, his hands traveled on said parts, exploring you fervently. “Hips and ass… Those I made for my personal delight,” he admitted, shamelessly enjoying how his hands roamed up and down your cheeks.

“No wonder…” teasing, you pulled his pants down, now rubbing your clothed core on his bare member.

Jaehyun snaked his arm on your waist and effortlessly turned you around. As he now hovered over you, the Lord of Life grabbed the side of your panties. “But my most favorite thing…” he continued, pulling the last piece of fabric down your legs. You were so wet your juices stuck to the bottom of your panties in a crystal string, “is right here.”

Your cunt was perfect. Big puffy lips that glistened with arousal surrounding a clit swollen in expectation. Folds so inviting his cock ached at the mere sight. Your lips also hid a tiny little hole that felt so right and tight around his cock, as though Jaehyun had personally made it to fit his proportions.

You registered the famine in his eyes. And it made you tremble.

“You did so good,” you praised him, brushing his black hair rewardingly. Every person had preferences that made them weak at the knees. Jaehyun, you figured, liked being praised. One of your hands slid down your body and separated your lips to help him have both a better access and view to your cunt.

At your every little action, Jaehyun fell harder for you.

“What did you intend by making this?” you fed the conversation with your curiosity, tip of your finger brushing your clit.

He responded by giving a broad and firm lick to your clit, making you moan in sweet pleasure. You were lucky enough to see how his tongue moved on you, his plump lips wrapping around your clit and sucking.

“Fuck” you cursed, back arching on the mattress where he had been fucking you out of your mind for the last three weeks.

Jaehyun smirked, slurping on your soaking folds. He took his time, alternating the long sucks with gentle licks, repeating them countless times until you were breathing fast, grabbing the sheets and getting flustered at the needy sound of your affected voice.

To him, you were perfect from head to toe. All the extension of your skin so soft and smooth, every mark and scar composing the excellence of your being. You even had the proportions he liked, curvy and fertile. By now, Jaehyun had had you in different positions that allowed him nearly pornographic sights, and he was crazy for each one of them. Now, especially, he liked how your face contorted in pleasure, and how your hand held on his nape as he devoured you.

“The most beautiful I’ve fucked.” His nose brushed your vulva, taking your scent in deep. The signs of your orgasm were pretty clear: your hands clenched into fists, your hole pulsating in vibrations, your ever sober eyes lusty, almost unable to focus…

He could easily make you cum like that, but Jaehyun decided he wanted to prolong the fun. He leaned over you, lips finding yours in a slow and sensual pace, shivering at the needy touch of your hands and nails on his back. You kissed back hungrily — a kiss broken by a wanton moan as you felt the tip of his cock rub your entrance.

“Say I can, my lady,” Jaehyun searched for consent.

You locked eyes with him, once more witnessing how the world resumed to only the both of you. “Jaehyun…” you breathed his name, just because you loved it. “Take me.”

The room was filled with a melodic combination of moans — yours, high and sensual; his, guttural and relieved — as your bodies became one. Your walls wrapped around him, suffocating his girth and clenching so sweetly Jaehyun saw stars at the back of his skull when his eyes closed shut for only a moment, because not to look at you would be the most unforgiving of sins. His hips rolled in a way he got deeper inside you, testing the waters not to hurt you, his most precious being. Your nails carved crescent moons on his shoulders, your mind blurred with desire, barely registering the devoted kisses Jaehyun planed on your shoulderblades as he started a loving, thrusting pace between your legs.

“S-so full,” you sighed in approval. "You make me so full."

“If I knew you’d feel this good, I would have fucking stolen you,” he grunted in your ear, speeding up the pace. “Would have broken into your temple and made your gods witness my love for you… Would have fucked you until you became a saint yourself…”

As twisted as that sounded, you liked it. There was no judgment between the both of you. With lewd, obscene eyes on his, you smirked. “I bet they’re watching now. Why don’t you show them how much you love me?”

Fuck. He did. So deep and fast your hand had to reach for the luxurious headboard to steady yourself against it. Instinctively, Jaehyun placed one hand on the back of your head so you wouldn’t hit it, pushing his girthy member in and out of you with such expertise your breasts bounced right at his face, your sweet pliable body giving in so beautifully Koschei the Deathless could crown you his queen. Seeking to make you feel good, he reached low, rubbing circles on your little clit as his abdomen tensed with the strength of his hips.

“You’re so fertile,” he returned the praise, his breath fast and wanton. “So perfect to breed, my love… I wanna fill you up with my seed.”

You came with a loud cry, that to Jaehyun sounded like an angel singing, your cunt gushing with juices that mixed with his seed. He couldn’t hold it back once you so eagerly gave yourself to him, lost in bliss and cock, your tempting little body trembling into his hold, features so lovely the Lord of Life felt as though he knew nothing about beauty.

When the Lord of Life came inside you, you felt as though the entirety of the world belonged to your womb. Like you carried every possibility of creation in your belly, too fucked out to properly think, only able to smile as you took in the freckles on his face, the foxy shape of his eyes, and the expressiveness of his frowned eyebrows as you gave him one last squeeze.

You never forgot how genuinely happy those days and nights were, how your tender hands played with his hair as Jaehyun listened to your heartbeat.

Those weeks with you were the closest he felt to peace.

-

“I see some sort of spiritual obsession related to her past life,” you announced to the mother whose child waited outside the room. It was your last appointment of the day, and even though you were tired, you tried to be welcoming when breaking such news. “That’s why she’s been having frequent nightmares.”

The mother looked at you with confused blue eyes. “I don’t understand…”

“Some spirits continue to feel the anger they felt in life, after they made the passage through the realms of Death. They become slaves to their own emotions, and might haunt the living until they decide to heal their own pain. I detected a spirit that is angry with your daughter, and it is highly probable that it is giving her nightmares.”

“How do you know that?”

“A priestess never works alone. A spiritual friend told me.”

“A spiritual friend?”

“Yes. I work with souls that decided not to reincarnate, and instead watch over us, guiding our journey.”

“That’s unusual,” her tone was skeptical. You did not blame her.

“In the immortal realm, indeed, but quite common in the mortal realm, if you’d like to know. I bet on the low level of soul acknowledgment.”

“I thought the Lady of Reincarnation and Chances took care of that.”

“Her job is to keep the wheel, not to teach on how to solve spiritual problems, although I admit that would make the world a much more lovely place.”

“What should I do, then?”

“Give your daughter a rue and camomile bath,” you picked up a bit of said herbs and handed it over to her. “I see you’re still skeptical about my methods, but I recommend you come back with her tomorrow. I’ll make contact with one of my friends and open a ritual to weaken the obsession. You will be here at all times, with your daughter. She won’t feel any pain.”

The mother was still unsure, but considering when you opened the door for her to leave. Much to your surprise, Jaehyun was outside with the little girl, clad in black clothing, singing her a song as she clapped her hands.

“My Lord,” the mother respectfully bent.

“Please, that’s not necessary,” Koschei spoke, smiling. He had always loved children. “I was having fun with this smart one,” he hummed, letting the girl jump from his thigh and join her mother. “I hope to see you again soon.”

The mother nodded weakly, keeping her gaze low as she intertwined her daughter’s hand in hers. “Thank you, my Lady. My Lord,” she bowed once again before heading outside, carrying her daughter with her. The lovely girl waved you goodbye.

Jaehyun then turned to you. “What was the diagnosis?”

“Heavy spiritual obsession related to reincarnation.”

“Ouch,” he hissed. “Who will you be calling?”

“Granny Isobel,” you informed. Granny Isobel was one of your closest spiritual guides. Her image was of an ancient black woman, sitting on a low bench and smoking a pipe. Besides from knowing a bunch of complex magics to disassociate spiritual obsessions, her personality was the kindest, the most humble, and even angry spirits got calmer in her presence.

“I love Granny Isobel,” Jaehyun cooed.

He knew the majority of your spiritual guides. You had told him everything when you were still working during the war. Back then, it wasn’t rare to call your guides when you needed extra assistance. They were always working by your side, and sometimes through you. Each of them had unique personalities and skills. They were your spiritual family.

“And I love Gravedigger, and Mary of Roses, and our dear, clever Little Bee…” Jaehyun continued, making you chuckle.

“You’re so flattering.”

“I’m genuine,” he assured, keeping his hands behind his back in a way he looked like a gentleman. “I came to personally escort you to dinner.”

Anxious, you noticed.

“Let me finish my prayers and we can go.”

After you did as you said, you closed the temple’s door, accepting Jaehyun’s arm and letting him guide you through the familiar manor.

“I have dreamed of this day,” he admitted.

“You’ve dreamed about having dinner with me?”

“As your husband?” He tilted his head towards you. “Definitely.”

So had you. Countless times.

Soon, you arrived at the corridor that led to Jaehyun’s office, where you usually had dinner. To your surprise, Jaehyun turned left and not right, pulling you to his side. “We’re not having dinner at the office anymore,” he calmly explained, leading you to the door that anticipated the garden.

Your eyes shone at the splendid sight: the delicate round lights hanging above the table for two, the white lilies breathing perfume through the night, the modest table setting made just for the both of you. Nothing too luxurious, nothing too much. Just a simple dinner outside, to enjoy the stars and the fresh nightly air that caressed your heated cheeks.

“This is beautiful,” you hummed in approval, sitting on the chair Jaehyun pulled for you.

“That’s how I wanted our nights to be after our honeymoon,” he admitted, taking the seat in front of you. His wedding ring shone brighter under the lights. “I know we didn’t have one, but we can. Anytime, any day.”

He was so flirty, so true and so damn smitten you could have smashed his cheeks in your hands and kissed him hard.

“I’ll think about it,” you breathed, intentionally eyeing the table. The growl in your stomach was heard at the smell of freshly baked bread, butter, meat and vegetables.

Some small talk proceeded as you served the food and ate, enjoying the captivating, sweet atmosphere of your encounter, as bees landed on the lilies and cicadas sang in the distance. Life. Everything was so full of life, again.

“I’ve been thinking about your peace proposal,” Jaehyun broke it to you.

“What have you decided?”

“Not much, I admit. Creating a new Lord or Lady is a complex thing, even more in the dynamics we are used to. Peace should be about controlling violence, and we’re too used to how violence tastes.”

“I agree. It has to be someone above life and death.”

“See? Complex.”

“Achievable?”

“In a way, yes. I’m still considering the possibilities.”

“Wanna share?”

“You’ll know eventually. I don’t wish to scare you now.”

“Few things scare me, Koschei.”

The name made Jaehyun’s eyes clench. He hated being called Koschei when you knew his layers a lot deeper, intimately.

“Love, as much as you’re dear to me, I must remind you that you’re not familiar with the dangerous limits between life and death.”

You hummed almost inaudibly, munching on some bread. “I don’t disagree.”

“Good girl,” a smirk blossomed on his kissable lips, just for the sake of fun, and for the sake of fun, too, you decided to tease him back while slicing the bread.

“If I remember correctly, sweet boy, I was not the one who liked being praised,” you noted, eyes sparkling with devilry.”

The way Jaehyun’s hand stilled on the fork had you smiling widely. It was impossible resisting how amazing you felt that you had such an effect on him. The hard swallow of his throat didn’t go unnoticed.

“I suggest you stop teasing me if you have no intentions of ending up on my bed tonight,” his warning was a delectable, adorable mix of danger and fluster that only made you chuckle in amusement. Jaehyun hardened his gaze. “You would not be laughing if you knew how I’ve suffered for the past two years. My hand is nothing compared to your warmth.”

You shouldn’t like it so much when he openly expressed his needs like that, but you still did and there was nothing to do about that.

“Sounds like you think you suffered exclusively,” you analyzed.

“Not what I meant,” Jaehyun took a sip of wine. “But good to know I was not alone.”

Oh, if he only knew. If your lovely husband was aware of the battles you fought against your own body in his absence, with hands whose control didn’t seem to belong to your own mind…

“We both suffered enough, I guess,” you brought a bit of sobriety to the dialogue. You still needed reassurance.

Jaehyun acquiesced, stealing the bread you had just sliced.

“By the way,” he grinned, “Mark and Vasilisa will be reincarnated tomorrow. I’ll make sure to tell you where, so you’re the first to know.”

The news lit up your face, your heart calm and content. They deserved a second chance.

“Thank you, Jaehyun. That means a lot to me.”

Jaehyun. Not Koschei.

-

“Your death… Did you really hide it?”

Your question echoed in the room’s darkness, so silent Jaehyun was able to listen to your heartbeat, as his ear rested on your bare chest, your hand gently caressing his hair.

“Yes,” was his forthright answer. “I hid it inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a black hound, which is in an iron chest, which is buried under an oak tree, in the island we are at now.”

The amburana scent made company to your many thoughts as you hummed, tilting your head to look into his eyes.

“Do you regret it? Making yourself Deathless?”

Jaehyun turned his head, now supporting his chin above your breasts. His hand started drawing random patterns on your left hip, like he was testing your softness at the tip of his fingers. The same fingers who just had explored every inch of you.

“I don’t. Deathless is what I am,” he murmured.

“Doesn’t it mean that you’re destined to watch people die time after time? It must be hard…”

“It is,” he agreed. “I admit I’ve been thinking more about it now that I have you.”

His confession felt like he was carved in your heart like bullets in the flesh, like stars in the clear sky. “Time is passing for you, but it’s stopped for me” Jaehyun caressed your cheek with the back of his hand. “One day, eventually, you’ll get old…”

“You don’t have to think about that now, love” you interfered, because you, yourself, did not want to face the truth.

“If I don’t, then there will come the day you’re gone, and I’ll be suddenly on my own again.” His eyes were filled with tenderness as he uttered every word. Gently, Jaehyun grabbed your hands in his, intertwining your fingers. “I’ll love you until you’re old and need my aid in walking…”

“Why are you saying those things?” you chuckled, wishing both to laugh and cry.

“Because I have to be ready to breathe Life into you after Death takes you away. I can have you reincarnated. Then, I’ll just have to patiently wait a few years until you’re grown enough to be courted.”

The intensity of what he was telling you made your heart skip a beat. What Jaehyun was proposing was living through the thorns of time and pain to be with you, keeping his love for you alive until your last days, and waiting until you were available for his love and care. It overwhelmed you so deeply your eyes watered, and you moved quickly to hide your face in the pillow.

“Don’t,” he chuckled, grabbing your chin lovingly.

“You’re making me cry!” you protested, closing your eyes.

“Silly girl,” Jaehyun sighed, replacing his hand with his lips in an attempt to ease you. “Allow yourself to feel. Love is a beautiful thing.”

“You’re promising me an eternity of love… What if I get so old and senile you won’t ever try going after me again? What if our love wears out?” You placed your insecurities in your mouth.

Jaehyun’s kiss turned into a sudden, slightly painful punishment bite in your lower lip. You opened your mouth to confront him, but he kissed you hard, passionately, hovering over you, his body pressing yours, his scent in your lungs, his hardness against your soaked folds… What he said next echoed in your bones like an earthquake, shaking your every fiber before you melted in his arms once again, like you were always going to. “If that day ever comes, then I’ll be truly dead.”

-

The mother returned with her daughter: their sessions kept you occupied for most of your time, as Granny Isobel demanded. Obsessions demanded more than simply communicating with a guide: you had to incorporate the spirits so they could use your body — it was nothing like a possession, as you were conscious at all moments, sharing your mind with the guides you were so devoted to.

After five sessions, Granny Isobel had it all solved, and the girl could go back home to sleep peacefully.

Jaehyun had asked the mother if he could observe the rituals, and with her approval, he stood inside the temple watching you work. It was truly amazing, how your entire face changed after Granny had arrived, and how you sounded like someone else as Granny smoked her pipe.

When the last session was over, Jaehyun approached her.

“Granny, is there anything else you need? A cup of coffee? Another smoking pipe?” he politely checked, bending to be on your eye level.

“Thank you, my child. I’ve had enough,” Granny replied with a gentle smile that made your eyes tiny under the straw hat. She always called others ‘child’, and Koschei the Deathless was not an exception. “I only wished to talk to you in private.”

“Sure, what is it you want to talk about?”

Speaking as another spirit was in your head was an arduous thing to explain. It felt as though someone else put the words in your brain so you could pronounce them. So, when Granny spoke, you wondered what she meant:

“You’ve been worrying your head over bad news, and I wanted to tell you to share the weight, child. Tell my girl about what’s making you lose your sleep.”

You stood there, in your body, without having a single idea of what Granny Isobel knew. Still, the immediate recognition in Jaehyun’s face told you that he did. “Alright, Granny,” he nodded. “Thank you for your advice..”

“Not at all, my child. You can call me anytime. Granny is always here to help her children.” In slow, trembling movements, Granny removed the hat from your head and placed it on Jaehyun’s. She took a last puff on her pipe and then allowed your head to be still, intertwining your hands and closing your eyes. After long breaths, you noticed the control over your fingers, the saliva in your mouth, your free toes touching the stone ground. Your eyes opened, taking in the worried face in front of you.

“What is it?” was your natural, obvious question.

Jaehyun breathed, removing the hat from his head. “I have to show you something.”

Twenty minutes later, you were on a horse as Jaehyun rode, his chest to your back, to the mortal realm. Magic once again made the passage smooth and almost imperceptible, but you swiftly sensed the difference.

Jaehyun took you to a foreign country with beautiful landscapes. He rode until you reached a bounteous city, where people excitedly talked and interacted over barracks of food, fabric, souvenirs and witchcraft. As you passed them by, Jaehyun held your hand, guiding you through the feverish crowd until you arrived at a square where a middle-aged man dressed in red made a speech so ardent spit escaped from his mouth. Even if the language sounded completely strange to your ears, you understood he was angry and greedy. People around you agreed with him — mostly men, shaking their heads in agreement.

At the middle of his speech, the man pointed to a table where a young boy, dressed as a soldier, waited for new recruits.

You squeezed Jaehyun’s hand, your saliva suddenly too hard to swallow. “Jae, they’re-”

“Preparing for war,” Jaehyun nodded somberly.

You stood back to witness how quickly a line was formed in front of the table, how eagerly men filled their information on paper, how young boys joined their fathers, and how children looked at the future soldiers with adoration widening their pupils. Some even pretended to be carrying guns and shooting around.

There was nothing you and Jaehyun could do about them, as free-will had always been something holy, even to the Lords and the Ladies. You looked around, your gaze ending up on Jaehyun’s grave face. The frown in his complexion turned his apprehension in.

“What now?” you asked.

“Let’s go back,” he decided. “I don’t want others listening.”

The ride back to Buyan seemed to go by slower than the other way around, or maybe it was just your heart’s anxiety. How long until the Lord of Death was knocking on the manor’s door? How long until he striked first, and murdered the servants? How long until he got to you?

You shook those sinister questions away for as long as you could, following Jaehyun inside the manor, up to his office, close to bouncing on your feet out of concern.

It was hard for Jaehyun to face you and speak, to finally share something both occult within his shadows and faithful to his nature. But you deserved to know. You deserved to understand.

Jaehyun circled the table, looking at the maps of the immortal realm before speaking.

“It starts by affecting me,” he confessed. “Whenever humans, made by my own doing, fight, I feel. I sense their despair, their anger, their urgency for revenge and destruction. It cuts me so deep as though a knife is carved in my chest, and the more I try to ignore it, the more I bleed,” as he spoke, both Jaehyun and Koschei the Deathless poured their truths to you. “My only power is to create and take care of life, and when war breaks, the need of survival forces me to act. Therefore, the war starts with me, Y/N. I strike first.”

You held his gaze, then took a step forward, and another one. “Have you started feeling anything already?” you demanded.

“Anger. Just a shot.”

“Do you think it will happen again? For real?”

His smile was sad. “It always does, Y/N.”

Shit.

You reached for Jaehyun’s hands, bringing them to your lips. At that moment, you thanked Granny Isobel for seeing through him, for encouraging him to tell you.

“You have to create Peace, Jae,” a severe seriousness was found in both your voice and eyes.

“It’s compl-”

“I know, but it has to be done. You must come up with something that eases your pain when humans fight. You’re not in control of their actions, but you’re in control of yours. If you strike first, the immortal realm is in danger.”

“It still won’t keep Yuta from striking if he has a chance,” he murmured, and you sensed some hesitation in his tone, as if Jaehyun feared your creative brain.

“Use something he is scared of. Something Yuta cherishes so much he will refuse to fight. Tell me,” you lowered your hands, “what does Death fear?”

The silence between you seemed to last hours before Jaehyun spoke again. You were so smart. Too smart for your own good.

“He fears having nothing to fight against. Death fears the lack of life.”

The knowledge left a bitter taste on your tongue. “So Yuta fears your death,” you concluded.

A small, harmless nod, confirmed your theory.

“You were right when you said peace should be above all things. By controlling my death, they will have power over me, and over Yuta.” Never before had you witnessed such a strong glare on Jaehyun’s eyes. Never before such sinister sincerity had clouded his lovely irises.

And even before he said it, you got it. You immediately understood what made the creation of peace so complicated.

“I’ll show you where I hid it, and then you’ll possess my death,” Jaehyun smiled confidently, brushing one hair strand behind your ear. “After it is done, you can be her. You can be the Lady of Peace.”

-

Breathlessly, his hands dug into the humid, cold earth as the night sky glowled with red lightning. The duck was still alive, moving inside the black hound, her long ears up inside the heavy iron chest.

It was Koschei, alone, at the beginning of times, hiding his death.

Because of his loneliness, he breathed life into a deadly brother. Because of life, he was always going to fight him. But Koschei himself could not be killed, as his death meant the end of every kind of life, the eternal termination of humanity itself. And so he dug.

-

The night was dark as if crafted by the solitude of an angel; the cicadas sang their monotony and it echoed through the endless Buyan trees. Jaehyun had you by the hand, confidently walking among the forest shadows, as moonlight only peeked through the few empty holes in the treetops.

“That was not what I asked for,” you breathed so hard it resembled an angry bull, your nostrils swollen. Becoming a Lady, someone with holy powers and immortality, was not on your list, and the mere idea that you would have Jaehyun’s death in your hands, to own him… It overwhelmed you in ways you couldn’t define as inviting or just fucking terrifying. “I can’t- Jaehyun, I can’t be a Lady-”

He laughed your refusal off, canine teeth sharp against his lower lip when he looked over his shoulder. “You’re perfect for the role, sweetheart. I would never hand my death to anyone else.”

It was his docility against your rage.

You finally arrived at a stream in which clear water musically flowed down small rocks, and a few stony, muddy steps took to an old oak tree, with branches so tortured by time and circumstance they were wry.

Rebel goosebumps assaulted your skin, delating the mystery hidden under the heavy, old earth.

“Let’s suppose Death strikes against you, and I have to keep you from fighting back. What if you fail? Will I have to…” The following words felt like a crime, so you did not pronounce them.

“Kill me?” Jaehyun dared, frowning playfully as he stood in front of you. “It won’t come to that, love.”

“How can you be so sure?” you demanded.

“Because of you. You’ll have the ability of peace: it will be anywhere with you. That’s what Ladies and Lords do. Baba Yaga, she controls luck: wherever she is, luck is with her. Why do you think I sent her to protect you? Plus,” your husband hummed, caressing your lower lip with his thumb, “the least thing that would make you is a helpless wife. You’ll be an equal.”

“I’ll be powerful,” you retorted. Jaehyun’s proposal amused and frightened you symmetrically. He was offering you more than just peace. Jaehyun was offering Himself, as the myth promised. You felt the need to remind him: “Only someone who possesses Koschei’s hound can have him in their power.”

As the oak tree top danced freely to the wind, moonlight slid in and reflected the tender, calm brown shade in his eyes.

“Only power can make us equal,” Jaehyun kissed your forehead, arms wrapping around you in a comforting hug. His chest to yours soothed your urge to protest, and you allowed yourself to focus on the simple task of breathing his scent in. “This will satisfy you more than you think, Y/N. And if you believe you’ll be ready to be my wife after that, I’ll be waiting in body and soul.”

Silenced by your own ignorance, you came face to face with the consequences of your desires, clutching to Jaehyun’s embrace not to fall. He trusted you like that, to be the one holding the only thing that could risk not only his life, but the life of everything that existed.

Gently, you parted from his arms, gazing both the sincerity and vulnerability in his eyes. Only power could make you equal.

A slow nod came from your face, and at that Jaehyun grinned. Then, he started digging up, hands dirty with mud, reaching lower and lower until his digits came across the iron chest. He opened it with a key he kept secret in his coat. Inside, you glimpsed a black hound with the longest ears, with eyes as brown as Koschei’s. You returned to the manor with the hound following you closely.

-

Everyone knew Koschei breathed life into the first humans, as he did to the first trees, mountains, seas, and the animals that inhabited the earth. On the other hand, even if the story was familiar, passed from generation to generation, from parents to children, no one had ever witnessed how it was done. How life was created.

Part of you rationally expected Jaehyun to take you to his office, where he spent restless nights scheming war strategies and daydreaming about possibilities. Much to your surprise, he took you to your bedroom. Not his bedroom, not yours, but the room that once belonged to the both of you. Where you made love for the first time. Where you felt the most loved, adored, worshiped.

Jaehyun closed the door and approached you slowly. The hound stood calmly by your side, blinking her eyes without a worry in the world. “She’s been trained to only obey her master,” the Lord of Life’s grave voice caressed the skin of your ear, making you notice exactly how close he stood. Daring and determined, his hands landed on your hips. “She will do anything you want.”

Inside the hound, a duck breathed. Inside the duck, there was an egg, and inside the egg, there was a needle. You could already feel it. The power. And once again, magic never failed to impress you, because it was nothing like you imagined. Everytime you pictured someone powerful, your imagination created images of virility and strength; crowns and servants; realms and governments. But what you now felt was a calm so intricate within your bones nothing could disturb it, a root tangled in the end of the world with its eyes closed in great superiority, as though all problems had a solution.

You felt complete, filled up, unbothered. Soothing.

Suddenly, the hound moved to rest on the armchair by the window, where the curtains swayed with the cool night breeze. You let her be. She was not going to run away from you.

“From this day on, you will always feel her,” Jaehyun murmured, unable to resist the urge to pull your hair from your neck and gently lean over, intoxicated by the ever lovely spring you brought to his lungs. “She’s yours to take care of now.”

You breathed solemnly, your body euphoric, the tip of your fingers numb in sweet expectation.

“How do you do it, Jaehyun?”

He knew exactly what you referred to.

Effortlessly, Jaehyun turned you to him with a swift move of his hands. You had been avoiding your proximity for so long, torturing yourself for weeks, too driven by your stubbornness, only to melt into his arms.

“With a kiss,” he answered, each word punctuated slowly and delicate against the skin of your neck. The sniff Jaehyun took made you tremble. He straightened himself, purposefully looking into your eyes. “But for you, my wife, and only for you, we can do it differently. I can breed life into you.”

You moaned. A low, barely there moan that betrayed you and your untrained instincts.

Fuck.

Quickly, you cleared your throat. “That’s a drastic change I have yet to consider,” you hurried yourself in explaining, looking away to the window in fear desire would take the lead and betray your reasoning.

Jaehyun took a deep breath.

“You’re still mad at me,” he concluded. The way he sounded disappointed made you frown.

“I haven’t, but now that you sound so frustrated, I might. What were you expecting, that I immediately accepted your proposal?” Your voice grew in anger the more you spoke. “Did you bring me here to fuck me and get it done?”

“No!” Jaehyun immediately defended himself, although there was guilt in his eyes. “It’s not like you’re putting in.”

You hummed in disdain.

Jaehyun protested. “I thought this was what you wanted!”

“Jaehyun, I am human! Whatever you thought I wanted is not such a sudden change that will make me live young and long like you gods do!” You could rub your temples, as a headache started growing. “Please, give me time to process things.”

You noticed how the thoughts ran through his head, and how quickly he accepted the idea of taking it easy on you, so when he offered you his arms, you stepped closer. Comforting, his embrace soothed your worries as quickly as a blow in a candle.

“I’m sorry, love. I genuinely thought it was what your heart desired.”

“It’s fine,” you rested your cheek on his chest, gaze crossing the hound’s. “I just need time.”

-

The hound followed you around like a magnet. Wherever you were, she followed religiously, her distant gaze always on what you were doing, as though she had fully understood who her true guardian would be. To say she was always around would imply in admitting the hound spent her time with you in the temple, hidden by the table not to call any attention as people were allowed in and you worked normally. Or so you liked to think, because sincerely, you couldn’t stop thinking about Jaehyun’s proposal.

Your mind was in a constant spiral towards whether you were going to accept it or not, and the consequences. It got to a point where you caught yourself staring into the hound’s eyes time and time again, losing the track of time and space.

A sudden knock on the door made your shoulders jump. You were not expecting anyone, but opened nonetheless.

“Granny!” You cheered at the sight of the old woman with the usual non-pleased look on her face.

“You know I hate it when you call me that,” Baba Yaga walked in without further ceremony, her pointy nose crossing the door before the rest of her body did. She took a careful look around, smelling the room as if to analyze it. “I see you got your temple. Are you finally happy?”

“Yes,” you nodded, making the old witch glare at you.

“But not fully. Why haven’t you accepted Papa Koschei’s offer yet?”

You clenched an eyebrow at her. “Did he send you?”

“No, selfish girl,” she growled, circling the temple until she stopped near the altar. “I came because the luck of the world is about to change. For the first time, we can witness a plain state of peace. No more terrible wars. Wars, as you’re familiar, are unlucky things. You only had what to eat and where to shield because I was there, paying my endless doubt to Koschei, but the rest of the world didn’t have such a blessing. With you as Lady of Peace, I will have to work twice as hard, and I must prepare.”

“So you came to make sure I accept Jaehyun’s offer?”

“You have to,” Baba Yaga simply replied.

“It’s a lot to consider, granny…”

Her cat eyes could have cut you in two like a sharp knife. “Why demand power if you can’t take it, child?” she hissed. “You have the upper hand: you’re finally able to make a choice and bring peace to others. Why hesitate?”

You decided to be sincere. “I guess it’s because I never thought I was going to be the one in charge. The one providing peace. Jaehyun’s offer challenges me. If I accept it, everything will change, even my human nature.”

“It’s not that different, trust me.”

Penetrating, your eyes scanned her. “Have you been human?”

“Human, homeless, broken, abandoned,” Baba Yaga breathed, but her words did not hold any pain or misfortune. “It was a kiss from a young man who saved me.”

Jaehyun.

She kept talking: “You can still be surrounded by humans if you’d like. Eat their food, listen to their music, and help them. In fact, child, you’ll be more of use to humanity if you become something else than human. It has always been like that.”

“The audacity and the nerve of the gods,” playfully, you rolled your eyes. “That’s what I am truly scared of.”

“War is about to start and you’re making everyone lose their time, stupid girl,” Baba Yaga advised. “After everything Papa Koschei has done for you… He won the war, brought you back and offered you a new life, a life full of peace and riches, with endless flavors, and here you are, thinking about it!” she spat, about to open her mouth again, certainly to put you to shame, when the hound walked away from the table, making her eyes widen in surprise. “Oh, my! Is it…?”

You only nodded, petting the top of the hound’s head.

-

The smell of black coffee filled the kitchen in the first morning hours when the explosions shook the ground. Baba Yaga stared at the open window, taking in the details of the ceilings, the beautiful clear, bluest sky, and the absolutely lack of birds. If she closed her eyes, she would be able to see the shotguns and bayonets, the blood running from the uniforms, the broken men wandering the fields, walking towards their death.

Even if she wasn’t human anymore, Baba Yaga despised the inhumanity of war. Her old heart ached when she put her feet outside and saw children all dirty and starving, young mothers with babies in their laps considering selling their bodies for money, and crippled men who returned all fucked up, unsure of how to deal with the pain and the haunting memories. The old witch hated what Koschei had done to her, sending her to the mortal realm to witness the terrible things people did to each other, but her loyalty knew no limits, and so she stayed.

You came into the kitchen all startled. Having woken up with the grave noises outside, you jumped from the bed with a swollen face and your hair all messed up, eyes red from how much you had been silently crying in your room at night.

“Is it t-them? Are the soldiers coming?” you stuttered, taking a look at the same window Baba Yaga had been staring at for long minutes.

“Yes, but don’t you worry,” she responded as though war was nothing but a storm. Heavy and temporary. “They’re not getting to this street.”

You tilted your face to hers. “What do you mean, granny?”

It was so simple you would never believe it, how easily Baba Yaga managed Luck. It took one move of her wrinkled hand for the entire army to ignore there was a certain street, in which lived a young beautiful lady, with a very old woman. There were so many things you didn’t understand, things it was not the time for you to know, so Baba Yaga simply moved her hand and lifted her shoulders.

“Just a guess.”

-

If war was coming, you kept a careful note to watch over Jaehyun.

You did not quite understand how his emotions shifted, but the first sign was as clear as water: his company was as pleasant as ever, but Jaehyun often looked at a specific, invisible spot on the wall and disappeared into his own thoughts, hands clenched into fists on the table. He looked so distant even after he assured you everything was fine, because he didn’t want to influence your decision by showing you how he had already started being affected. Still, you thought it was a bad moment to tell him you had finally made your decision.

You came across the second sign one night, as you and the hound stopped at a very unusual sight: Jaehyun, sat at the stairs to your shared bedroom, sobbing lowly.

“What’s wrong, Jae?” you sat in front of him, your tone worried and assisting as you patted his shaking shoulders.

He lifted his expressive eyes, and by the surprise in them, he had not heard you approaching. “I suddenly felt emotional.”

“What a terrible liar,” you gently wiped his tears with your thumbs. “Is it the war? Has it started?”

He nodded. “I can feel the loss. Mothers crying all day, girls and boys losing their childhood, lovers that won’t ever return...”

Your gaze lowered in time to capture your hand intertwining with his. Slowly, you brought it to your mouth, placing a kiss at the back of it. It amazed him, how you weren’t Lady of Peace, but managed to calm his mind and heart effortlessly with a single touch.

When you spoke again, your tone was definitive. “I’ve made my decision.”

Jaehyun swallowed, suddenly nervous by the determination in your voice. Mercifully, you didn’t wait for him to ask what your decision was, pronouncing every word clearly. “I accept your proposal.”

The only times you had watched Jaehyun’s face light up with such delight was when he asked for your hand in marriage and when he saw you in your impeccable wedding dress. As if in slow motion, his eyes squinted slightly, his cheeks raised, and the soft wrinkles at the corners of his eyes matched the sweet smile blooming in his lips. And just like that, looking very similar to a boy in front of a candy factory, he hugged you.

“Thank you!” Jaehyun poured his gratitude in his voice, pulling you to him with his arms around your neck. “Thank you, my love, for making my life better! For being you, my lovely wife…” He cried and reached for your face, kissing your forehead, then the space between your eyebrows, your nose — oh, he loved your nose —, your cheeks, your chin, and all the way up to your forehead again.

You smiled, amused by another side of the man that created the entirety of the world. It stopped your breath, how much of a loved child he became when he was happy.

“I’ll prepare everything slowly, so you don’t need to hurry,” Jaehyun pulled away, but continued to cup your face, so holy to him. “We can do it tomorrow, in a week or whenever you want. One kiss and it will be done.”

You squeezed your eyes, trying not to smirk. “I beg your pardon, husband, but you promised me way more than a kiss.”

Your words had an instant effect. Jaehyun was not like a boy anymore, as his eyes widened with clouds of lust.

“Would you like that?” he searched for consent. “Being bred?”

“Yes.”

“Have me fill you up, make you drip with my seed, make you my Lady?”

A shiver ran down your belly, warm where it landed. Your pride, which took you two years to build, was nothing compared to the absolute bliss of being once again desired by him, the man you freely gave your heart to. Your pride could never top the realization that Jaehyun, in the solemn act of gifting you his death, trusted you entirely, and you were going to assure, love and care for him. At that moment, even if you tried gathering every little attempt to resist him, it was going to be in vain, because pride was nothing compared to love.

“Yes, my love” you grinned adorably before pressing a peck to his lips, breathing in the manly scent of amburana. “Now.”

As quick and determined as your request, Jaehyun grabbed your hand and took you inside the room. You didn’t have the time to register the orange intensity of the flames in the fireplace, the flowers on the bedside tables — small details Jaehyun arranged last minute, with a breath in the world, to set up the mood. The only thing you could focus on was his desireful eyes after he pushed you flush to him, making you lightheaded with arousal.

Your chests heaved in unison while his hands slid to the strings of your dress. Skilled, long hands that had your thighs clenching in sweet anticipation. The sensation of your breasts inside the loosened fabric nearly made you squirm. To help, you untangled yourself from the sleeves and moved your hips to pull the skirt down to your feet, along with your undies, standing beautifully naked in front of your husband, your heart skipping several beats as he eyed you with so much need it made him look drunk, as if he was consuming you.

The force in which your lips smashed could not be described.

Only now, with his velvety lips on yours, you understood how badly you had missed Jaehyun. How flavorless life had been when he was not around, how incomplete the days were without his love and his arms to hold you.

He lifted you up, allowing you to snake your legs around his waist, while your tongues danced sensually, moans colliding in the lovely mess of lips and saliva. Then, he placed you on the mattress, taking a look at your body in a way it felt like he was committing your image to his memory for eternity.

“You have no idea how I’ve missed you,” he growled, with a line of crystal water flooding his eyes, before burying his face in your chest, kissing your voluminous breasts.

Eagerly, your hands removed his coat and unbuttoned his shirt, touching every inch of skin exposed. “I’ve missed you just the same,” you confessed, cheeks flushing with pleasure at the long sucks of his mouth on your nipples.

Driven by need, Jaehyun proceeded to take off his pants himself while his mouth continued its worship on your tits. The flex of his muscles was divine to you, his broad shoulders perfect for the delicacy of your hands, his hips tailor-made to fit between the warmth of your legs. There was no way you could resist how your gaze fixated on his lower body, heated by what you saw.

“You’re so huge…” You had almost forgotten, the praise making your husband bite his lower lip.

“You can take it. Gotta make sure you’re wet and ready, wife” Jaehyun kissed your jawline, now using his hands to explore your skin. He was a slave to your perfectly crafted body, its godly curves, divine folds, small and strategically located moles he knew by heart. For your body alone he would be on his knees begging, lips devoted to every inch of your skin, and the lovely way you responded to him driving him all kinds of insane.

“I want to take it slow,” he swiftly spread your thighs. The visceral grunt that left his lips at the sight of your soaked entrance reverberated on your bones.

“We have time,” you grinned, lowering your hand to your folds and running two digits against the warm, velvety juices, only to smear them on Jaehyun’s lower lip. “We have all night to make a baby.”

With a growl, Jaehyun’s hands were on the back of your knees, keeping your thighs separated, which meant you were fully spread and exposed for him. He leaned towards your cunt, readily using his wet and hot tongue on you. You moaned his name like both a curse and a prayer.

“Missed this beautiful pussy so much,” he whispered. “My gorgeous girl, my lovely priestess… I’m going to ruin you.”

Shit. You had never been so turned on, dripping right at his tongue. Jaehyun ate you out so well, tongue circling your clit, alternating long and broad licks with quicker ones.

“You’re such a dream,” you complimented breathly, back arching at the slurp on your swollen clit. “I love you so much, Jaehyun. Gonna breed me good, pump me full of c-“ a high-pitched moan cut you off when he sucked on your clit, the heated, sinful sensations between your legs so good you squirted a little.

“Holy shit,” he cursed, only more determined to make you cum in his mouth. “That’s it, baby. Let go.” It didn’t surprise you that his slender finger slid inside you so easily, considering how wet you were. Jaehyun expertly combined the long suction of his mouth with sharp pumps of his fingers, massaging a sensitive spot inside you that made your thighs shake. You came hard and long, closing your eyes shut as your sweet body convulsed.

When you opened your eyes, you noticed the bed was wet, and Jaehyun’s chin dripped with crystal squirt.

You had to touch him.

In no time, you were on your knees with your hands wrapped around his cock, pumping him tortuously firm and slow. Your heart fluttered, because Jaehyun looked at you as if you had personally put the stars in the sky, when you both knew who blew the glow in them in the first place. The way he looked at you… It was just healing, making you feel like the most alluring woman in the world.

“Please,” he begged, balls tense with how much cum he had for you. Your dainty hands on him had always been too much for his sanity to take. “Please, let me in.”

Mercifully, you aligned his cock with your entrance and swiftly took all of his girth at once. The burning stretch, after so long, pulled a pornographic moan out of your throat, one that mixed with the grave groan Jaehyun let out. Your eyes locked with pleasure before you lifted your hips and sank down on him again, aware of how tight your walls gripped his length, like a vice.

“I love you,” Jaehyun threw his head back with a hiss, exposing his neck for your lips. As you kissed him there, his calloused hands grabbed your hips in adoration, helping the firm pace you set. “I love you madly, my dear, my wife- so pretty bouncing on my cock, ready to be filled.”

You thrived on the praise, speeding your hips and drinking from the bliss on his face. “I’m yours, Jae,” your foreheads touched, lips brushing in passion. “I’m yours, my husband.”

Jaehyun was easily the luckiest man alive, graced with such words combined to the tightness of your heavenly walls. The image of you on top of him, calling him husband, the scent of your arousal soaking the bed, your lovely breasts bouncing, the spasms of your cunt nearly milking him dry… It was all driving him crazy to breed you full and not let any drip of cum escape.

Impulsively, he rolled your bodies on the bed and lifted your hips before he was pounding you hard and fast, your calves resting above his shoulders as he reached deep inside, repeatedly hitting your cervix. You took the chance to admire him, aroused by how his muscles clenched, black hair falling onto his forehead, his beautiful face contorted in the pleasure of taking you to himself. The position also allowed a constant friction against your clit, and you could already feel another orgasm lurking.

“You’ll be mine forever,” Jaehyun grinned with delight, keeping your legs against his chest as his hips met yours. Differently from all the times you had sex before, you sensed he was deeper this time, as though his own cells mixed with yours, as if you shared the same blood… Like he was making you fertile, full of life. “My Lady of Peace, above everything, above everyone. Mine to love, mine to rule me..”

You nodded, absolutely in love with how it sounded. You were so lucky, so damn lucky it was hard to believe. A needy moan escaped your mouth right into his when his cock reached all the right places. You tensed, closing your eyes as the pleasure grew beyond measure.

“Eyes on me,” Jaehyun commanded, and you obeyed, taking every thrust as your body rocked underneath his. “I want you to look at me when I breed life into you.”

It felt so desperately good, so out of any world and realm, that you sank your nails in the skin of his shoulders, a victim of how your pussy clenched and pulsated around his cock until you were cumming hard, trembling, holding his gaze as yours faltered, full of ecstasy and pleasure.

The alluring sight of your orgasm edged Jaehyun on, and you thanked that your eyes were open, blessed with the image of your husband cumming inside you: with pupils so blown out his irises were almost black, a furrow in his lovely brows, and a moan so deep in his throat your own orgasm lasted a little longer, squirting juices mixing with thick, pearly seed that coated your cunt.

You remained tied with each other, your forehead on his shoulder and one of his arms supporting your weight, until your breaths calmed down and the aftershocks smoothened. There was nothing but happiness in your eyes, nothing but fulfillment as you laughed, high on love. Buried in your warmth, Jaehyun took his time feeling you, caressing your face with the back of his hand with shooting stars in his eyes. He had waited so long for the day where he could be with you like that, silent on a bed, just taking in every detail of your face — and now, not only you were where he’d dreamed of, but you were his Lady: someone who possessed his death as much as his life, someone that belonged to eternity as every other Lord and Lady he had created.

No words were needed. You just had to enjoy every second, allowing yourselves to be allured, to surrender to the love you were promised to. And to give into the peace that started flourishing in your chest like a white lily.

-

It was past noon when your eyes opened. Your body woke up slowly, muscles growing aware of small aches left by love making, that unconsciously spread your lips in a blooming smile. Stretching on the mattress, you got aware of the toned arms on your waist, and the heavy breath on your neck.

Much to your delight, the face you landed your eyes on belonged to the only person you ever wished to share your mornings with. Jaehyun slept peacefully, with a glimpse of satisfaction on his undisturbed complexion. It made you smile, how happy he seemed, how gentle and warm his aura was while you caressed his face, brushing his hair back.

Shortly after, he opened his eyes, immediately surrendering to a wide smile. “Am I dreaming?” your husband hummed in a sleepy tone.

“Not this time,” you nested yourself in his bare chest. “I’m right here.”

“Yes,” he cheered lowly and secured the grip of his arms around you. “Did my wife sleep well?”

“Perfectly. What about my husband?”

“Better than the Lord of Sleep himself.”

You chuckled together, Jaehyun’s dimples showing up in a sweet display. “Does it mean you feel better?”

“I feel…” Jaehyun chose the right words, “I feel comfortably peaceful.”

You felt it too. A state of calm, quiet and amity: a delicate reflex of the purest easiness.

“So no loss, no rage, no need to strike first?” you asked to make sure.

Jaehyun shook his head. Calm flooded his eyes — you wondered if it had anything to do with you. As if he could read your mind, he grinned, running his hand through your hair. “Even your aura is different now. Clearer. You’ve got a power that belongs to you only, and you’ll learn how to use it. So far, though, you’re doing amazing.”

“I think I have to try with someone else. You’re too smitten not to be influenced by me,” you teased, instantly rewarded with a slap on your ass cheek.

“I’m sure Yuta or Baba Yaga will offer you a much greater challenge.”

Indeed. Tougher minds for you to easy, but you were confident you would manage.

Your side sank slightly on the mattress when Jaehyun reached for the bedside table, where his coat had landed. You watched his hand slip inside the pocket and return with a familiar silver wedding ring on his palm. “Can I put it back?” Jaehyun carefully asked, his tender and big eyes asking for the sweetest of permissions.

A genuine smile blossomed on your lips. You softly lifted your hand, keeping it in place for him to put the ring back on. The metal was warm as though Jaehyun had been wearing it for you. As if his love guarded the ring with flames.

-

My name is Baba Yaga and this story belongs to me, so I will tell it.

Lucky times, those were, when at the dawn of war, men pulled their bayonets down and went back home, to the arms of their parents and loved ones. Graceful days, with once compromised by rage politicians calmly negotiating with their deadly enemies — men, usually so built up in the narrative of rage, became reasonable and easier to deal with. Fewer people died. The world was a tranquil, welcoming place.

They said it was because of a Lady, crafted in serenity, whose kiss soothed the heart of humans and gods. A woman dressed in white, crowned with sunlight, her hair free and wild with the wind, her eyes alluring, and a smile so contagious it reminded people of their own joy. Peace was nothing but a great state of self satisfaction, and the Lady understood it well, working peace with her fingers as spiders weaved webs.

The Lady of Peace had a black hound, people said. They also said that she had Koschei the Deathless eating right from her hand, like a dog. That he stood in front of her on his knees, black hair like a rook's wings on his face, as the Lady of Peace went through her maps, always aware of where she needed to strike first. That Koschei, the Lord of Life, stood as a servant at her disposal, his shadows submitting to her holy light. She had a sharp eye, a sharper mind, and a fatal way to slide into people’s bloodstream with the calmest of touches.

Obviously, the ones who thrived on violent games were against her existence, but the Lady of Peace was not an ordinary opponent: every attempt to fight her was met with sweet carelessness, and soon enough those who tried taking her down moved on with their lives as though they had not been angry in the first place.

“I have never been so bored,” confessed Death once, when I invited him over for tea. “Can’t even do my job properly.”

“Hush,” I spat. “You still have the accidented, the sick and the old. Good thing that ambitious woman let you have them too.”

“Love makes a fool of us all.”

“It does,” I agreed, “but it also brings out the best of us.”

Never before have I had so much work to get done. Luck and peace walked hand in hand, like sisters. If I had to be completely honest, seeing people happy pleased me, so much so that I did not complain about the workload. Perhaps I was more peaceful myself.

Until that day, of course. The day the black hound was stolen.

-

“Magic doesn’t happen when you light a candle simply,” you explained as the attentive eyes of Mark and Vasilisa watched. “You have to activate the flame, using your words and intentions. The spiritual guides are always by your side to help, but you have to do your part and be specific about what you want.”

You had taken Baba Yaga’s advice and accepted both children as your apprentices. Six years had passed from the day you were crowned Lady of Peace, which gave the reincarnated souls — that were so dear to you — time to grow and be able to understand a few principles of magic. What you did was a serious job, and thankfully they were pretty much interested in everything you had to say.

“Can I try?” Mark politely lifted his hand.

With a short nod, you complied. “Sure.”

The little boy gathered his hands in front of his face, palms against each other, and closed his eyes. “Please, Granny Isobel, let us have a good harvest of watermelons so I can eat them everyday for breakfast.”

You had to retain the chuckle on your lips, instead keeping a serious expression.

“Good! Anything else you want, Mark?”

He opened his eyes. “Pudding for dessert.”

“Anything besides food, perhaps?”

“Oh, intelligence. And health.”

“Go ahead, ask granny. What about you, Val?”

Vasilisa hummed, placing the tip of her finger against her lips. “I just wish to grow up and become an independent, strong woman.”

Your heart fluttered. “That’s a very reasonable wish. Go on, make your wish.”

Both children stood in front of white candles, one for each, and made their prayers. Through the silence in the temple, you sensed two different presences: the black hound, always so close if felt as though she was part of you, and your husband, by the door.

“Papa Koschei!” Both Mark and Vasilisa yelled joyously, running to Jaehyun. As if the children weighted nothing, he picked them up on his sides.

God, he was going to make such a lovely father.

“I came in to check how your classes are going. Are you learning a lot?”

“Yes!” Vasilisa replied. “We’re learning to activate candles!”

“And earlier this week, miss Y/N taught us how to summon the light spirits!” Mark added.

“Wow, that’s huge!” Jaehyun praised, brown eyes glowing with content. “I bet you have an amazing teacher.”

“We do!” The kids hummed in unison before they were put down on the ground. Your husband approached you, placing a kiss on your lips. You kissed him back, a grin blooming where your mouths touched.

“Kids, you’re free to go,” you cooed without looking away.

“Any homework, miss?” Mark asked.

“Activate your candles and talk to your spiritual guides. Then tell me what you felt when you did it,” you instructed.

“Got it! Goodbye, miss! Goodbye, Papa Koschei!”

Soon, you and Jaehyun were alone in the temple. “Did I ever tell you…” he started, forming a trail of kisses from your hand to your arm, “that you look absolutely attractive when teaching?”

“In the past year I might have heard that enough to use it as a weapon,” you shamelessly admitted, palming his chest with the hand that was free. Slowly, said hand started slipping lower.

Jaehyun’s breath got caught in his throat, and he had to remind himself to inhale when your hand reached the volume between his legs.

“Your dick seems tight inside your pants,” you noted with a soft whisper. “Poor boy… Do you want relief?”

His fists clenched around the fabric of your skirt. “That’s the only thing in my mind.”

You smiled peacefully. “Just as I thought.”

Minutes later, you were on your knees with one of your hands at the base of his cock, while your mouth sucked him nice and long, as if in a display of how much of him you could swallow. Jaehyun held onto the table, moving his hips only slightly, his pupils wide at the perfect sight of your mouth taking him whole, lush lips brushing the entirety of his length.

“Fuck, you’re so perfect taking my dick like that,” he groaned, lost in your velvet tongue while trying his best to control his hips from going further. “Let me finish inside you, wife.”

That was a request you never felt like saying no, readily sitting at the edge of the table and removing your — ruined — panties. Jaehyun didn’t take long to spread your legs and bury himself in you, his moan making you tremble in awe as his fingers sank in the meat of your thighs.

You loved that position, how destined your bodies were in each deeper encounter, how Jaehyun’s breath caressed your throat, how his black hair lifted a little after you had brushed it back, a demanding hand on his nape as you kissed him hard, so hard your teeth hurt. It was the only type of violence and excitement you allowed yourself: being fucked with love and care, being filled up with seed that ran from your thighs to the floor, taking your husband’s every facade, whether he was Jaehyun or Koschei the Deathless.

You held the moment of your chests pressed together like it was made of glass, offering your husband an open smile after you were done.

He placed a gentle kiss to the tip of your nose, still inside you even when the aftershocks had passed. It was Jaehyun’s favorite place to be. “Look at us, sinning in your temple,” he chuckled.

“I don’t believe in sins,” you retorted sweetly. “I believe in love.” It was not the first time Jaehyun heard you say those words, and he loved the sound of them a little more every time you pronounced them.

“Are you ready for dinner tonight?” he asked.

“To face all the Lords and Ladies you created when bored?” you teased like a cat. “To listen to their complaints on how dull their routines are now that I reign? To once again patiently listen to their proposal of creating a Lord of War?”

“Life is full of contradictions, wife,” Jaehyun cooed, studying your gaze. “My brothers and sisters seek nothing but to be faithful to their nature.”

“As I will be to mine, brother,” you made sure to add, clenching your muscles. Almost instantly, his girth hardened again.

This time, when he looked at you, Jaehyun’s eyes were frank, like life on a deathbed. “Do you understand, right, love? You are smart enough…” he breathed, rubbing his cheek softly against yours, the firmness of his hand on your jawline. “Nothing will ever be permanent. Life has always been about conflict. And you’re part of it now.”

You understood. It just didn’t mean that you agreed with it.

-

I’ll tell you just how it happened.

The Lord of Life and the Lady of Peace threw a dinner party to welcome all the Lords and Ladies, including me. I joined them at the main table, right next to the Lady, and I was proud at how much she had evolved, although I did not say a word. It has always been hard for me to display affection. I did not yet know words of affirmation tasted good on my tongue.

I anticipated something was going to happen, because of the look on Koschei’s face. Life was never permanent, it was never a thin line, and he knew it. But did his wife know? Did she understand after years used to power, after years maintaining the peace?

The hound was stolen during dinner by the Lord of Inconvenience, who fooled the animal with sweet gestures, as Jungwoo himself looked innocent and harmless, causing Papa Koschei’s death to fall into the embrace of a young Lord that only wished to mess up with order.

And once again, with Koschei’s death in the power of such a trickster, the immortal realms face the possibility of war. Not because people were fighting, not because soldiers were being recruited in the front lines at the mortal realms, but because life was a treacherous thing.

The Lady of Peace stood taller than everyone when John the Knight announced the robbery. She had something new with her. Something small, that I sensed too, because I loved her.

-

“I beg you, wife. Let it be,” Jaehyun whispered.

“Get off your knees.” You felt old, perhaps as old as Baba Yaga. A part of you was stolen, violently taken away from you. You loved the hound. You loved Jaehyun’s death as much as you loved his life, and it was your obligation to take care of both.

Jaehyun continued where he was. “Don’t chase the hound,” he insisted. “Don’t try solving things. Don’t bleed for my death. Jungwoo will keep it safe, I know he will. But war may come, and when it does I will build a shelter for you. I will keep you safe and sound. You will never go hungry. You will not suffer. You will not die. Let it be.”

“I refuse,” you replied hoarsely. Now, you had a choice.

“No one can refuse inconvenience.”

“I’ll face it with peace.”

“I wish you meant what you said,” Jaehyun held your gaze, like a needle piercing your heart. “But we both know you’re not peaceful now, wife.” His eyes were soft and welcoming; yours, dark and imperial. “I know,” Jaehyun murmured, romantic eyes slowly sliding from your face to your belly. “I know there is life inside you.”

You could have looked away, but you did not. Of course he knew. The Lord of Life would always be aware of his creations, even more if his child, flesh and bone, grew inside your womb.

“Get off your knees,” you repeated. “I am not a saint for you to kneel.”

As much as you were a saint to him, this time Jaehyun obeyed. He stood way taller than you, his shadow like a cape. At a blink of an eye, you were inside his embrace, inside his destiny, inside his deathless faith. “I love you, Y/N.” A confession so true, a love so genuine, a father speaking to the woman who bore his child. “I love you and I don’t mind where my death is as long as I have you.”

You chuckled dryly and without a drop of humor, ignoring the knot in your throat. “If anyone else but you had my death, would you be in peace?” You asked the most honest, the bloodiest question you were able to muster.

Jaehyun did not think twice before replying. “No.”

You nodded. Now he understood: it didn’t matter what Jaehyun thought Jungwoo would or wouldn’t do with his death. You wouldn’t rest until you had the hound back, because it was the only way to ensure the life of the man that you loved. The man that was, too, the father of your child. And a child deserved to have a full, complete family.

“I love you, Jaehyun,” you closed your eyes, two sister tears running down your cheeks, “and I will get your death back.”

You commanded the servants to prepare your horses. The trip to the realm of Jungwoo would take nearly a whole day, and you had no time to waste.

“Are you sure it’s a good time to ride, my love?” your husband hesitated.

“I am pregnant, not ill,” you spat. Those were exactly the words your grandmother said to the pregnant ladies who walked inside your childhood home, afraid anything they tried would result in losing their babies. You looked over at Jaehyun’s face, and the surprise in it made you quickly apologize. “I didn’t mean to sound that rough.”

“You’re right, though. I am just unused to your rage.”

“So am I,” you admitted. It felt as though something was horribly wrong with you, like a party dress destined for a fox. “When we arrive, let me speak. Don’t interrupt me.”

Jaehyun clenched an eyebrow at you.

“That’s new, isn’t it? Taking my orders,” you simply commented.

“I promised to do so years ago,” Jaehyun spoke just as ordinarily. “A husband is not to confine. A husband is to free. That’s what I said when we got married.”

You gazed at him stunningly, your chest warm where your heart beat.

“I am giving you choices, my Lady,” he continued. “Both because I love and believe you. And also because I am a fool, but I still have my judgment and priorities. Whatever your plan is, all I ask is for you to be careful. If you’re not, I will be. I would already burn the world down for you alone, but now you’re carrying my child. I’ll be as violent as I should.”

Even the conflict between the two of you tasted sweet now.

Jaehyun gave you his hand for you to jump on your horse. You traveled side by side, only stopping for water and a bit of shadow under an apple tree.

Jungwoo’s land was different from everything you had seen so far, filled with a huge diversity of expressions: museums, open antique fairs, circuses and amusement parks; theaters, brothels and taverns so full they seemed like anthills. Every inch of the floor was covered with wine, spit, piss and cum. Not even the weather could decide, as the hottest sun fought against windy storms, causing an enormous rainbow to light up the sky.

The Lord of Inconvenience was already waiting for your arrival, sitting on a throne in his manor, so loud and disorganized as his realm itself, with several crooked paintings on the walls, and a mix of patterns and colors that was too much for the eye. The hound sat by his side, her ears turning to the door when you were announced.

She ran to you immediately, long ears up, her tails wiggling and her wet, cold snout smelling your tummy.

“Brother, sister!” Jungwoo clapped excitedly. Whoever put their eyes on him would never say he was responsible for the trickiest of tricks: the lovely innocence on his face combined to his excellent manners could easily deceive anyone. “You’re twenty minutes late!” he whined.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” Jaehyun politely stated, making Jungwoo laugh.

“I guess you’re here for your death,” he hummed, indicating the hound with his chin. “Well, there she is. She’s yours.”

You lifted your face, your white cape falling down your shoulders.

“The hound is here indeed, but the rest isn’t,” you observed. The duck, the egg and the needle were missing. You had spent too much time with the hound to know every inch of her.

Jungwoo’s eyes glimmered with adrenaline.

“I genuinely expected to fool you,” he pouted again. “Don’t take it personally, sister. It’s my nature.”

Years ago, you would have blamed him. But now, all you could do was to accept that life had its own ways of expression. Jaehyun had quite an imagination, and you loved him whole: the good and the bad creations equally.

“I can forgive you if you show me where the rest is,” you calmly argumented.

Jungwoo tapped his lower lip with his finger in thought, considering.

“But that would end the fun, wouldn’t it?” he relaxed back on his throne, patting the pad of his bare feet against the ground. “Ah, whatever, you might find out soon!” he leaned over again, putting his hand secretly at the side of his mouth. “It is with Yuta.”

“Yuta?” Jaehyun repeated.

You sensed the Lord of Death as he walked the manor’s hall, his straightforward presence spreading over the room like fire in the forest.

It made sense. Only Death would know how to separate the hound from the rest.

“I told you she was going to know, brother,” he said to Jungwoo. “Now, you owe me some of your citizens.”

Jungwoo rolled his eyes.

Gods.

“What do you want with Jaehyun’s death?” you asked, even though you already knew the answer.

“War,” Yuta was as sincere as he could be. “You had your fair share of peace, and it was dull. Now it is time for some fun.”

“Fun?” you frowned. “Do you still think like that? I see you’re still selfish.”

“Oh, but I am not,” Yuta retorted. “I embrace the ones in pain. I serve glory for young women and men who are nothing, and die defending their countries. I provide a long, endless sleep for the ones who decide life isn’t worth it. I am not the bad guy, Y/N. In fact, we are pretty equal sometimes.”

You did not disagree.

Silence was made before Yuta spoke again. “I have a proposal for you, my Lady. Let’s share the world. Pick up the countries you want and make them peaceful before Life and I carve war their way, then restore the ones we have just ravished.”

“It is fair, sister,” Jungwoo agreed, even if his opinion was not required.

You only glared at them, looking less like a peacemaker and more like a pregnant woman with boiling hormones.

“Come on, that will even please your husband,” Yuta argumented. “Admit it, brother. You miss a good fight, don’t you?”

The sound of Jaehyun’s throat swallowing was like a low agreement.

“War is in my nature too,” Jaehyun admitted, turning his gaze to you, “but I am more than the Lord of Life now. I am her husband.”

I am as cruel and demanding as a god can be, but for you, and only you, I will be your faithful husband.

Both the Lords breathed in frustration. There was little your magic could do now, as nature was superior to influence, instincts spoke louder than wishing. You tried analyzing the options coldly: at every diplomatic suggestion your mind came with, there was a counterpoint.

You could not protect the world only. Now, you had to protect your child too.

“What if I tell you I can’t accept your offer?” you asked, chin firmly up. “What if I tell you to return Koschei’s death to me, and accept the way life is now? That I won’t surrender to tricks and violence?”

“Then,” Yuta breathed, “I will tell you that there are two lovely apprentices playing in the garden in Buyan. Two lovely old souls, trapped in children’s bodies, that I will love to bring to my realm.”

Oh, to be vulnerable.

It hurt so fucking much.

“If we share the world, I want Jaehyun’s death back,” you offered. The sacrifice of many instead of the sacrifice of the few you held dear in your heart.

It was the way of the world.

“Let’s share it. You’ll have the hen, and I will have the egg with the needle in it.”

“I want his death back entirely,” you made yourself clearer now.

Yuta blinked, impervious.

Jaehyun stepped forward. “Brother, my death is mine to give.”

“It is death, and death belongs to me.”

“As your life belongs to me,” Jaehyun hardened his tone. “We will fight again as you’d like, but my death shall not submit to you. I am deathless.”

Yuta, impatient, quick, and sudden, made his final requirement known: “I will give it back to you only if we can fight. Let’s start today.”

You boiled like water in a pan.

When you walked out of Jungwoo’s manor, you and Jaehyun looked at each other knowing a blank space was approaching, one that too quickly assaulted your way back home. The shadows of Death chased you to Buyan. Thankfully, you came back safe. Thankfully, Mark, Vasilisa were all alive when you did. Baba Yaga was already there.

-

“What will you call her?” the Lady of Luck asked.

“Who?” you breathed, with battlefield dust on your face. You were at the manor after a long battle that left you covered in smoke, and with slight cuts on your knuckles. Since it was Jaehyun’s turn to command the army, he stood to realign the strategy, and you came back to rest before you were needed again.

“Your daughter.”

Buyan’s night sky shone in brutal shades of red and gray, as it did when you first arrived. All wars had the same color, hysterical, uncontrollable and passionate. That did not change.

“How do you know it is a girl?”

“Papa Koschei has been lucky. He had always wanted a little girl.”

“It feels so wrong… Thinking about a baby name in the middle of the war.”

“Maybe you need some help sharing your attention between battling and being pregnant,” the old woman cooed. “Even Jaehyun is thinking more about your child than about war strategies.”

“That’s why we are losing,” you concluded, petting the hound’s head gently. Ever since you returned, she did not leave your side for a moment, twice as a protector now that you were pregnant. You even gave her a name. Ravan.

“Wars are not for winning or losing, child. They are for surviving.”

Whatever wars served for, Jaehyun and you were losing. The hiatus carved by your peace was now dirty with the blood Death was so thirsty for, and for the first time Yuta did not battle alone. Inconvenience, Revenge, Justice… They all faced Life with their teeth and nails, claiming the realms with the intemperance of the world’s setting. With Baba Yaga on your side, you were luckier, but luckier did not mean invincible. Mostly, it meant alive.

“Will it always be like that, granny?” you asked lowly. So low Baba Yaga almost didn’t hear you.

“It will.”

Your eyes weighed like a dozen ships when you closed them. Your mouth was so dry it hurt when you spoke. “I think… I think I am getting used to it.”

Naturally, you adapted, discovering how peace fit best in war. How the puzzles came together. You could not keep the soldiers from battling, and much less negotiate with the Lords — your husband included — that thrived as blood flooded the earth. But with you on the battlefields, death and despair felt easier. You soothed the helpless souls, numbing their minds, anesthetizing their bodies and closing their eyes as the limbs of Death cradled their destinies.

It was your fighting style. Meanwhile, the others used real weapons, they aimed and shot straight, in the endless battle between Life and Death.

“Your priorities are changing,” Baba Yaga noted cleverly. “I was young and revolutionary once. Then, I had kids. Then, I got old. Aging makes you smarter, child. You learn that you can not control everything.”

“Oh, there are many things I can’t control,” you chuckled bitterly, placing a hand on your belly. Your child had just started kicking, her moves excited and strong, filled with vitality. “I pity men, granny. I pity women. I mostly pity the children. All I wish is to offer them a little calmness.”

“No one blames you for that. Not even Death.” Baba Yaga got up and, at the rarest of occurrences, placed a motherly kiss on your forehead. “You fought bravely. Now it is your time to flow with the world’s contradictions. Help those you can, but feel more for you and less for others. She needs you, m’Lady.”

You took a breath so long your lungs wouldn’t fit it in, letting it go as if you were also allowing your shoulders to carry no weight at all.

When Baba Yaga turned to leave the room, you hummed. “Nina. We will call her Nina.”

-

“My opinion on war, my child?” Granny Isobel pulled the pipe away from her mouth. “That’s no good thing. No good thing,” she shook her head, face hidden by the quality of the thick, undeniable smoke. “But God, our Good Lord, allowed it. I am not saying that it is acceptable because God made it, but… But people like me can only help in a few ways. I welcome the hurt spirits. Sometimes they still feel the bullet in their eye, the lack of a leg or a thumb, and wonder where their friends are. I think it is no good, child. But there is nothing I can do, because my power is of another kind.”

-

When Jaehyun arrived at the manor, his armor was covered in black blood, his face dirty with dust, his knuckles raw from punching. By the marks of war he carried, and with how often you fought together, you guessed every punch, hit, cut and blow thrown his way, that he defended with his sword. He looked paler under all the mud, a deep tiredness imprinted in his features with the black holes under his eyes.

Without a word, you took him to your room, where you helped him out of the armor. The bathtub had water so hot in it the steam drew random curls in the air, but you did not complain, silently pressed to each other, praying for some magic that would remove the tiredness off of you.

The war was going badly. But when was it not?

“You’re doing so good, my love,” your husband managed to murmur, caressing your round belly with the same hands he used to strangle the shadows. “Bearing our child so well…”

“Just like she’s bearing me.” You rested the back of your head on his shoulder. “I think I get it now. Life is at its highest when it is the closest to death. You like the war, for it is where you feel more like yourself.”

Jaehyun could never lie to you. “I do. Don’t you now, too, just a little?”

You shook your head with a tired grin. “I feel needed. Necessary. I still prefer the calm and the quiet, though. I will fight for peace when my time comes again.”

“I will be right by your side when you do” he hummed in your ear, accepting and open. “I hope it takes a few years, though.”

“Inconvenience is a tough, irritating thing. We can’t have any hope.”

Jaehyun tasted the words in his mouth. His hands roamed on your stomach, down your navel. “What if we could?” He sounded like a new idea flourishing.

“It’s too early to give her an occupation,” you protested reasonably, reaching up to caress his face. “Let her choose, when she’s grown enough: Lady of Hope, of Faith, of Nothing… First, Nina will only be our baby.”

He agreed with a kiss on your shoulder. Taking her part into the conversation, Nina kicked right where his hand was.

“Ouch,” Jaehyun chuckled, enamored as he was whenever his daughter interacted with him, making her presence as loud as her will. “I already agreed with mama, you don’t have to kick me that hard…”

Savoring the moment, you nested closer to him. Through the window, the gust of wind carried the red aroma of blood and rain. “Jae, what did you do with your death?”

Already expecting your question, Jaehyun smiled. “I’ll show you where I hid it.”

-

I made this for you, wife. It is yours to run away whenever you want. I created this land from scratch. The Realm of Peace, where we can reside. Since I know you like company, I allowed others to come inside: children, florists, teachers, the butcher and his wife, and the servants — which we know are not servants only, but souls as complete as ours. You and I are the only ones who can allow them inside, but the final word is yours to give.

Open your eyes, look at it.

Do you like it, wife? The greenest sunflower fields, the deepest, shadowy forests that smell like oak and ambunara trees, the clouds dancing in the sky… What about the village? I made it just for you, colorful and thriving up the cobblestone streets, with temples, churches, libraries, bars and a playground for the children. It is safe and hidden, as you can see.

I keep my death here too, but it is not born yet. You understand, right, wife? Where I hid it.

You’re carrying her on your belly. Nina is my death now, because in both you and her, I feel the most alive.

I remain deathless because my death can only be reached here, and you’re the one with the key. A knife in my chest won’t kill me anywhere else. We are only vulnerable here, wife, where you crafted your peace, your nature.

"You're stabbing at your food," a soft, amused voice cut through the loud chatter of the cafeteria, "Should I be worried that you're also giving me the death glare?"

Y/N doesn't take her eyes off him. She hated how well he held eye-contact, and she wasn't going to lose the little battles before the war. So, she sends him a scowl as a response, her dark, frizzy hair puffing up like a lion's mane.

Jaemin was intrigued by her. She was the only person who would never smile back, never say anything more than a few words to him. As if dealing with him, or people in general, sucked out her limited supply of energy.

Jaemin sits down next to her, his arm brushing against hers with the protection of her thick, knit sweater, "We're supposed to choose our pairs for the science project, wanna work together?"

She let out a scoff, side-eyeing him for the sheer audacity of asking something so absurd, "No," She replies flatly, munching on her cafeteria food that suddenly tasted like slop in his presence.

He raised an amused brow, smile never faltering. Honestly, she would pay good money to see him not smiling for once, "Come on, why not? You're smart and I'm... kinda smart. We'd make a good team! I've even come up with possible names for our duo," he clears his throat as if preparing a proposal for Shark Tank, "sun and moon, yin and yang, Princess and The Frog..."

"Princess?" She scoffs.

"Yeah, I'll be the princess and you can be the fro-," she grumbles under her breath, standing up with her tray and moving to another empty table. Jaemin was unfazed, unfortunately, and followed her casually as if she'd asked to move together.

"Stop following me," Y/N huffed, nestling into her purple sweater as she continued to stab at her food. She could see Jaemin's group of friends watching like vigilant vultures from the corner of her eye.

Haechan, the cocky, intimidating star student — or would be star student if he weren't so lazy. Chenle, the real crazy rich Asian, often coming to school with something designer. And Renjun, the angry artist who she often wondered how he fit in such a group, being as he seemed like the only normal person there.

She could almost hear their judgment, confused on why Jaemin spent almost every lunchtime circling around the grouchy loner.

Jaemin chuckled, slotting into the chair next to her, to which she nudged her chair to the side, trying to get as far away from him as physically possible, even down to the atoms, "it's either I work with you or Jisung... and I don't want to work with him."

Her eyes met his, glaring in a way Jaemin would call cute, strangely, "Not my problem."

Jaemin pokes at her arm, giggling when she jumps, startled, "But whyyy. That guy would be scared at the sight of a bunsen burner, that's not even on, mind you."

"Again, not my problem."

Jaemin pouted, resting his chin on the palm of his hand as he let his soft gaze flick over her features. He had a horrible habit of keeping his eyes locked on people's lips, even more so when they spoke. But, from up close, his appearance matched the mix of a doe and a rabbit with his long, fluttering lashes and big, round eyes.

She hated deers and rabbits.

"Would it be your problem if we were friends?" Jaemin asked suddenly. Everything about his voice to his gaze were genuine. He meant every word, and that scared her.

She froze, grip tightening on her cutlery as she slowly met his watching eyes, "Friends?"

"Friends," Jaemin added, "I want us to be friends. You're nice."

She snorted. For the first time, she actually made a sound close enough to be a laugh and Jaemin, startled, looked at her like a deer caught in headlights. As if a UFO had landed right in front of him and aliens stepped out wearing chicken suits, "You're delusional."

"Delusional or not, I made you laugh. Even more of a reason for us to be friends, I'm a good influence on you," Jaemin teased. Immediately, her expression faltered.

The sun was obnoxiously loud, and infuriatingly cocky.

The sun was, indeed, loud.

When she woke up this morning, she never would have guessed how horrible today would be. Not until Jaemin raised his hand incredibly high and chirped to the science teacher, "Y/N and I would like to be partners!"

If looks could kill, Jaemin would be shot dead on Earth, stopped before he got to the pearly white gates; his soul extracted into a minuscule bottle, crushed and thrown into the deepest, tenebrous voids before he even had a chance at getting reincarnated.

She sighed, loudly. She could hear people whispering, their watchful gaze flicking between the pair. Jaemin was as smiley as ever, his eyes little crescents as he skipped over to her, flower petals trailing behind him like some spring-happy leprechaun.

Y/N placed her bag on the one free seat next to her, and Jaemin pouted just as he got to her table, "Hey, is that how you treat your partner?"

She couldn't even spare him a glance, not with her seething, "I told you, I didn't want to be your partner."

Jaemin shrugs, placing his books on the table and pulls out a separate chair to sit in front of her — all without complaint or a twitching smile. He could tell she was mad at him, he wasn't a fool. Usually, she'd be boring burning hot holes into his skin with her piercing glare, though now, she kept her eyes on her science book, not sparing him a glance.

He was cautious with his movements, watching her as he sat right in front, just close enough to smell the soft hint of lavender from her jumper. He didn't want to scare her off or build the tension further so, he did the next best thing he could think of.

Digging into his bag, he pulls out his phone and wired earphones, ones he carried with him for years. It was to anyone's amazement how they lasted so long. He scrolls through his playlist, trying to find anything that was calming enough and, when he does, he grins to himself, leaning over to place one bud into her ear.

Her eyes snapped to his, his finger still pressed to the earbud to stop her from snatching it out so quickly, but that meant he was closer than he had ever been. She couldn't help but to notice those dark eyes that reflected the glittering ceiling lights as his warm, gentle and hesitant breath brushed her dewy skin, "What are you-"

"Just... I know you don't want to talk to me right now so, let's listen to some music together. Just this once," his smile was softer now, eyes trained on her with a hint of nervousness.

When Jaemin realised she wasn't making a move to yank the earphones out, he slowly retracted his hand, letting the music play. Surprisingly, the song was calming and sweet — a stark contrast to the energiser bunny who sat in front of her, grinning like a madman just at her tolerating his presence.

Jaemin confused her. She couldn't understand how someone could be so... sunshine and rainbows. Just looking at him was exhausting, feeling the corners of her lips burn at the simple thought of grinning twenty four hours of every day. He may as well have had more muscles on his lips than she had in her arms.

"You're always smiling," she mutters, scribbling random doodles into her science book, not caring if it affects the presentation. She felt herself calming a little from the music alone.

Jaemin nods slowly, looking through their worksheet for the experiment they had to do over the course of the week, "Is that a bad thing?"

It felt like that question alone stumped her. It wasn't that smiling was a bad thing, but with Jaemin, it always felt forced — maintaining the good boy image. She scoffs lightly, "It's annoying."

He only laughs at that, leaning in closer as his voice turns to a whisper, "So, if I smiled less, you'd tolerate me more?"

Her confused look had Jaemin smiling at her like a fool, trying to see how far he could push as he pulled away, "Tolerate me enough to become friends, I mean. You didn't give me an answer yesterday either."

"Thought it was an obvious no," she takes the spare worksheet and starts filling in the equipment they'd need and the correct order of steps.

Jaemin lets out a sudden, obnoxiously loud "wow" at the sight of the work she had done in a mere five minutes. He snatches it from the desk, his thumbs digging into the edges of the paper as he held it up in amazement, lips puckered in an exaggerated 'O', before his gaze flicked to her, always searching for a hint of a reaction, "I don't think we will need a whole week to get this experiment done. At least, not with you as my partner."

"Don't get used to it. You're pulling your own weight for this project," Y/N mumbles, snatching the worksheet out of his hands, her fingers brushing his in the process. She flinches slightly at the contact, and Jaemin doesn't let it slide, his smile sneakily widening.

"Well too late. I'm already naming my future children after you."

She stares at him with a deadpanned expression, "You're so weird."

"Thank you," he beams.

There's a long silence after that. She quietly observes Jaemin, whose lashes cast shadows on his cheeks, smile softening as he chooses another song on his playlist, humming along to it. Then, her gaze drops to the paper again.

"Are you serious about being friends?" she asks softly, not looking up, voice so low he almost doesn't hear it.

He stops humming, "Yeah, I am."

Y/N finally looks up, and Jaemin's not smiling this time, clearly serious.

She considers it. Actually weighs the pros and cons of being friends with the sun which, if she hadn't known any better, would only repeat Icarus' story, where her wax wings would melt if she got too close, "Don't expect me to tell you my favourite colour or make friendship bracelets out of loom bands with you."

Jaemin's smile slowly returns, as if he's waiting for her to change her mind, "That's okay, you can start by telling me what you hate most about me."

She snorts, "As if there's enough time for that in a day."

"Perfect," he sends her his classic toothy grin, "Guess I have more of an excuse to hang around you for longer, then."

The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, illuminating the multi-coloured shelves filled with snacks and bold coloured stickers with deals peppered along the products. It had smelled faintly of overripe bananas, cheap detergent, and air freshener — the familiar scent of your standard convenience stores. Jaemin had wandered the snack aisle on a lazy evening, indecisively scouring the 2-for-1 promotions. He was low on energy after spending the whole afternoon playing football against his will. Though, he was somewhat grateful it wasn't basketball this time, thanks to Chenle going on some last minute holiday.

All thoughts screeched to a halt while he was scanning for some snacks, seeing her behind the till. She wore the stores' basic, bright blue apron, the collar of the white undershirt slightly crooked, and an upside-down name tag pinned to her chest which gave more than enough away that she was in a rush to get to her shift. But most of all, she was smiling at the elderly woman in front of her, offering a genuine laugh when the lady made a joke he could barely make out.

Her laugh was so pretty to him. Despite it being awkward, tethering on deep yet with a sweet lilt... It was so unique, so adorable and something he wished he could hear over and over again, like a broken record.

He couldn't get over that smile, either. It brightened up her face and made her even more gorgeous than she already was. His eyes were locked on the soft and slightly shy grin, tugging up on one side. He had never seen her like that before, but he was already obsessed, his heart clenching as a sudden cuteness aggression overcame him.

The moment she noticed him walking towards the register with a basket of snacks, however, her expression had snapped back into its usual stormy cloud, the corners of her lips sinking into a scowl. Jaemin stifled a laugh as he set his snacks down on the counter.

"Hey," he whined, yet his voice was as bright and sunny as always, "I'm a customer too, where's my smile?"

"What are you doing here, Jaemin?" she grumbled, already scanning the items with speedy efficiency, clearly wanting to get rid of him.

"I came to see you," He let the sentence hang just long enough between them before correcting himself, "Actually... I just wanted some snacks."

She glanced at the box of Lucky Charms he placed on the counter —bright and completely childlike, just like him. She blinked before letting out a soft giggle, the sound barely audible, but loud enough for Jaemin to catch it. He felt butterflies going haywire in the pits of his stomach.

"You seriously eat this shi- stuff?"

"Religiously," he replied, smirking, "I'm convinced it really is sprinkled with some magical form of luck."

"Oh yeah, and what have you been lucky with?" she muttered, slipping the items into a plastic bag.

"You," he added with a grin. There was no hesitation in the way he had said it, especially with that stupid, shit-eating grin and the mischievous light in his eyes. But she forced her expression to remain neutral, even when a string of curses sat on the tip of her tongue.

The occasional beep of items being scanned and the quiet chatter of the other customers in the back had filled the silence between them. Jaemin leaned back and forth, raising an amused brow at her, cocky from having gotten to her in some way.

"I didn't know you worked here," he said finally, trying to fill in the silence and not wanting this moment with her to end so soon.

Y/N shrugged, adjusting the strap of her apron as she suddenly started to feel awkward, "It's... just part-time. Pays for things like snacks. But I never get to eat them because I have to smile at people like you all day."

He grinned wider, ignoring her slight jab, "So you do smile."

"God, you're annoying," she groans, packing the last of the items and gesturing to the till for him to pay.

Jaemin only smirks wider, tapping his card until a beep resounded in the shop, "And you're blushing."

"I am not-"

"Oh, you definitely are, but this would surely make you blush more...," He leans in, grabbing the plastic bag out of her hands, fingers barely brushing, as he whispered against the shell of her ear, "you're cuter when you smile."

Her hands stilled slightly as she let go of the bag as if they were opposites on either side of a magnet.

He held her gaze for a moment, before pulling away, "Thanks for the snacks."

"Don't come here again," Y/N grumbled.

Jaemin stepped back towards the automatic doors which kept trying to close, blocking the path of some customers as he smiled like a fool at her, as usual. She hated how he made her feel in this moment, and she could swear her heart had beat louder than the generic pop music which played in the shop. Maybe she would blame the fact that he was someone who does eat lucky charms. But his next words cut through her thoughts as he stifled a laugh before leaving, "No promises, cutie."

And, for some strange reason, that word didn't make her internally gag.

The cafeteria was in a state of a mess; chaotic noise and clattering trays, loud, overlapping conversations, and the sharp screeching of metal chairs. The air had smelt faintly of overcooked pasta and whatever they had tried to pass off as food today — what students would call radioactive slop. But not one table was as loud as the one Jaemin was sat on with his friends.

"I'm telling you, she's the cutest girl around. Like- Haechan, stop laughing, I'm being serious!" Jaemin glares daggers at the male who was barely keeping still on his chair.

"Yeah, I bet. I'd also bet she hexed you," Haechan, who sat across from Jaemin, wipes away a stray tear, followed by a sigh as he calmed down from his burst of laughter.

Renjun sat next to Haechan, nudging him with the pristine sleeve of his blazer. He had always kept a clean-cut appearance where not even a tiny drop of paint ever landed on his attire, "If Jaemin likes her, who cares? I will be judging though, but from the sidelines."

Jaemin grumbles, pushing his half-eaten tray away from him as he crossed his arms, "You guys are assholes. What happened to being happy for me?"

Chenle chirps in, glancing at the woman who was the focus of their conversation sat a few tables down on her own. He jabs a finger into the table, a classic Chenle move whenever he had a 'valid' point to make, eyebrows raised with passion, "You guys are like... the complete opposites of each other. She would definitely steal all your light. Well- on second thought, that's probably a good thing, maybe you'd finally be somewhat bearable to be around."

Jaemin rolls his eyes, stuffing a spoonful of rice and munching it in irritation, "Look, if you actually spoke to her, you'd see that there is more to her. She actually smiles too, and it's so adorable, plus-" Haechan side-eyes Jaemin; partly for speaking with a mouthful of food, and the other for simping over her of all people, "Don't tell me you're already pussy-whipped when you've only spoken to her once."

Jaemin's mouth drops in shock, "Once?! I've spoken to her like... three, four times?"

Haechan snorts, resting his hands behind his head, sprawling lazily out on the chair, "Might as well have been once. You can count it on one hand. You barely know her."

"Well, I know her better than you guys do, so why are we judging so hard?" Jaemin snaps, and his friends suddenly grow silent and tense. It was unlike the usually sunny male to get angry or irritated. His jaw was clenched as he dropped his metal chopsticks on the tray, the clatter loud.

Renjun clears his throat awkwardly, looking around the table, his brows furrowed softly as he met Jaemin's gaze, "You... do know why everyone avoids her though, don't you?"

Jaemin pauses, eyes flicking to his friend. Something in Renjun's tone makes the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, the tension, paired with worry, simmering.

"What do you mean?" he asks suspiciously, his voice quiet and brows furrowing.

Renjun shifts in his seat, shrugging, "Just… she's not exactly friendly. People say she snapped at teachers, ditched group projects, cursed out that senior last year-"

"She cursed at him because he was mocking her in front of everyone," Jaemin cuts in sharply, his leg bouncing under the table in frustration, "And the group projects... Maybe no one ever wanted to work with her. She had always been a target of stupid jokes. Besides, how is any of that a big deal?"

The table falls quiet again and Chenle raises a brow and puts his hands up in surrender, trying to lighten the mood, "Okay, damn. Someone is ready to fight for her honour."

Jaemin huffs, "No- Look I'm just saying... people love to talk. Don't you think she's just tired of all these assholes?"

Haechan whistles lowly, "Okay, our knight in shining armour, should we start planning the wedding?"

"Shut up," Jaemin mutters, his cheeks flushed pink, "I already did."

The lab was meant to be quiet except, Jaemin was being clumsy with the equipment. The glass beakers kept clinking against each other, and it was surprising how they hadn't smashed into pieces with his large hands. It was only them in the lab, away from the bustling lunch hall, and it was supposed to be them finishing off the experiment before they had to type up their conclusions. However, working with Jaemin was proving to be a separate challenge.

Y/N tugged her sleeves up her arms in frustration as she kept glaring at him and giving him orders. But Jaemin found her to appear less reserved when she wasn't surrounded by others — still sharp around the cute edges, but not enough to make a man cower.

"Put the beaker down slowly," she said, eyeing the glass nervously as Jaemin finished pouring the solution into a separate beaker, "I swear to God if you shatter another one-"

"Relax," Jaemin chuckled, mocking offence as he set it down with exaggerated grace, gesturing to it in celebration. She forgot he had arms that could squash a coconut in one go, panicking at the sight of him handling fragile equipment. But his cockiness worried her even further, "I have the hands of a pianist."

She side-eyed him with a slight look of surprise, "You play the piano?"

"No, but I could," he wiggles his fingers, "with these sexy hands."

She rolled her eyes, but he caught the subtle twitch of her lips before she turned away to fetch the other materials.

They had been measuring and watching the colours blend in the beaker, creating an... interesting solution. He watched her scribble something in the worksheet, noticing her handwriting was messier than he'd expected. It had kept changing its font, far from the consistent and neat image she had presented as, at least, with her personality. His eyes trailed to her frizzy hair that added an adorable, messy look to her, like his favourite character from UP, Ellie.

"You're staring," she mumbled, her pen tapping the edge of the paper in annoyance.

"Just admiring your handwriting," Jaemin teased, leaning slightly closer, glancing to her writing again, "It looks like five different people wrote that."

"Want to lose the ability to smile?"

He chuckled, watching as she moved to hold a pipette above one of the mixtures, "Are you going to start writing the conclusion, or should I do everything?"

Jaemin snapped back to reality, side stepping to grab the worksheet and immediately tapping the pencil to his cheek in thought, "Right, conclusion," he frowned when nothing came to mind, "Something something… mixture."

Y/N slowly turned to face him, "Very insightful," she deadpanned.

He didn't miss the tiniest curve of her mouth again and, God, even when she stifled a smile, it would still hit like a punch to the gut. He was starting to think maybe she was right to hide it as people would be drawn to her like the North Star. And now, it was starting to feel like it was a sight only he was allowed to see.

"You say that like it's not the best conclusion you have ever heard," Jaemin added, pressing the pencil to his lip smugly.

She sighed, snatching the worksheet from him without a word and scribbling a few lines with a quiet confidence that made him raise a brow. Her writing was still chaotic, unlike her thoughts.

He leaned in slightly to peek over at what she wrote, but she folded the paper away from his view like it was a personal diary.

"Do you mind?" she muttered in exasperation.

"Yes," he replied without hesitation, resting his chin on her shoulder to take a better look at the mysterious writing.

Y/N stiffened, her breath hitched as she stayed frozen. It was insane to her how good he smelt, the way her heart stuttered, and the soft weight of him on her shoulder felt... right. She almost let out a loud scoff at her own thoughts before elbowing him sharply in the ribs.

Jaemin let out a dramatic gasp, rubbing the spot with an exaggerated pout, "Excuse me, assault in a science lab full of lethal equipment is a criminal offence!"

"You were in my space."

"It was our space," he mumbled, still rubbing his side, "I would argue we have dual ownership over this lab."

She tongued the inside of her cheek and shoved the worksheet in his direction, "I don't see your name on this paper, Jaemin."

He smirked, feeling his own heart blush at the way his name sounded on her lips, and grabbed the paper, scribbling Na Jaemin (Princess) in the top corner, and (cute frog) next to her name. When he handed it back to her, she glanced at the names, then at him, and rolled her eyes at his silliness.

"Anyway," his voice filled the quiet room, eyes glancing away to look at the clock, seeing they only had a few minutes till the end of lunch, "I think we did a pretty decent job, we should celebrate getting this project done."

She looked up his taller form in confusion, "Celebrate?"

Jaemin nodded, "Yeah, I'll bring you a snack tomorrow, something sweet, so that you forget about annihilating me for barely carrying this project."

She sent him a scowl in response, "And what makes you think I like sweet things?"

He grinned cheekily, packing away the equipment, "You like me, don't you?"

Y/N was convinced Jaemin had hit his head in the past month, especially with all the shit he was spewing. But she couldn't stop the small smile that lifted the corners of her lips, immediately dropping the second she had realised, and Jaemin's eyes widened at the sight. His heart was going haywire. She had finally smiled in his presence, because of him.

"You really do look cute when you smile," he grinned at her, slinging his bag over his shoulder, looking almost entranced by her, "I'm glad I'm the only one who gets to see it."

She snorts, packing her things away as well, "Well, I'd rather you not smile. It's exhausting."

Jaemin smirks, nodding his head, "Okay, I won't!"

He exaggerates a silly-looking scowl, humming at the same time, "Is that better?"

Y/N lets out a disbelieving scoff, eyeing him in what seemed like amusement, "Somehow... that's much worse."

It had been three days. Three days of Jaemin leaving snacks on her desk like some overly enthusiastic snack fairy with too much free time in the crackhead hours of the morning — throwing coins on snacks she hadn't asked for.

He had brought strawberry pocky the first day (what he would call an abomination in a box), Hello Panda's the next, and today? Banana milk — in this obnoxiously bright yellow carton, with the straw poked in. He called it a "romantic gesture".

Y/N stared at the carton on her desk, the happy face of the banana staring right back into her soul. Her brows had furrowed as Jaemin plopped himself into the seat beside her with his usual beaming aura.

"You're welcome," he said with a grin, chin propped up on his hand as he watched her with hearts in his eyes.

"I don't remember saying thank you," she replied blandly, but her fingers still curled around the carton like a stress ball.

Jaemin tilted his head, nodding in agreement, "I know, but you did drink the last two, so... it seems like you do appreciate the gifts, or me. Or both."

"And it seems like," she echoed with a deadpanned expression, "you're annoying. Unsurprisingly."

"Are you waiting for some kind of an applause?" she continued when he didn't make a move to leave, taking another sip of the banana milk.

Jaemin shrugged, never taking his eyes off of her, even as other students around looked on in confusion, "Yes, actually. I deserve a standing ovation. I had brought you peace offerings three days in a row, that's equivalent to a committed relationship."

"You're clinically insane," she shakes her head, scanning over her notes.

"Clinically sexy, you mean," he corrected, wagging his brows, his voice exaggerated loudly.

She let out a long, exhausted sigh that sounded like it came from the pits of her stomach, the kind of sigh only Jaemin could evoke. However, silence had then settled between them again. This time, it was peaceful.

For once, Jaemin wasn't rambling silly little lines, openly flirting with her, or laughing gratingly loud. Instead, he was sitting there, occasionally stealing glances at her while she pretended not to notice. Then, out of nowhere, the words that had left Jaemin's lips gave her whiplash, paired with how casually he had said them.

"Wanna hang out this weekend?"

Y/N's pen slid across the page in shock, her head turning slowly, and suspiciously, like he had just asked her to help him bury a body, "Hang out?"

Jaemin shrugged, "Just thought we could do something, you know, outside of science experiments and this God-forsaken building."

She stared at him blankly for a moment longer before replying, "I'm busy."

"You don't even know what day I meant," Jaemin pouted, throwing rubber shavings her way, playfully.

"I'm busy that day too."

Jaemin smiled, unfazed, "Just know, I'm persistent."

"You mean annoying," she corrected.

He laughed under his breath, leaning back in his seat. "You'll say yes eventually."

"Not likely."

"We'll see."

She did end up saying yes.

When Friday afternoon came rolling in, and he caught up to her outside the school gates with another (peace offering) drink in hand, a grape-flavoured juice, he sent her a hopeful look with his lashes fluttering like the princess he claimed he was.

The weather carried a gentle breeze as the sun formed a subtle halo over the brunette male, making him appear even more angelic than he already was. His dark eyes were softer under the afternoon glow, and his smile felt like spring. Y/N didn't know why things were suddenly changing. Why her thoughts were becoming brighter and warmer in his presence. It was like he had merged into her life as though he had always belonged there, and she couldn't help but to give in.

She rolled her eyes, "Fine. One hour."

Jaemin blinked, surprise etching into his features, "Wait- what?"

"I'll hang out with you," she clarified, crossing her arms and looking off to the side as if she were an older sibling giving into the younger's request, "For an hour. And I'm not doing anything cheesy. If you take me anywhere with fairy lights or those photo booths, I will walk into on-coming traffic."

Jaemin burst into a fit of laughter, barely containing the smile stretching across his face, "You're the one who said yes."

"God," she grumbled, turning to walk ahead, not even waiting for him, "I'm already regretting this."

"No take backs!" He chirped as he caught up to her, grinning like he had won the lottery, "You'll regret it a lot less once you see what I had planned."

She stopped in her tracks, head snapping to him in shock. Not once had she hinted in agreeing to hang out with him, and yet, he had still put in the effort to plan something that wasn't guaranteed. Just because he wanted to make it something special.

"You planned it already?" She asked, eyeing him suspiciously, "And why does that sound like a threat?"

"It's not! It's a promise," he beamed, "And of course I planned it. I knew you were going to agree. I mean, how could you say no to this face?"

He cupped his cheeks and batted his lashes at her. Usually, this would have been something that would instantly make her cringe yet, this time, it was so... Jaemin. So silly and adorably him. It gave her this sense of ease, as though it was alright for her to be just as silly, just as out there as he was. Despite what others may think.

However, Y/N gave him a long, stern look, unimpressed, "You are dangerously close to being punched in the throat."

Jaemin gasped, holding his arms up in defence, "Violence on our first date?"

"It is not a date," she said instantly, her voice a slight screech, feigning a scowl. Her heart was thumping erratically. A date? It was only a month ago when Jaemin had asked to be friends, but the spring-happy leprechaun wouldn't settle on just friends. Not with her.

"Sure it's not," he replied sarcastically, bumping his shoulder into hers. He watched as her teeth bit into the straw of the grape juice, lips puckering as she took a sip. God, he really was down bad.

"So, where exactly are we going?" she asked, interrupting his far from innocent thoughts.

Jaemin's smile twitched, internally cursing himself for getting carried away like that, "Somewhere where you can't walk into traffic."

She groaned, "Great. I can't escape by death."

Jaemin grinned, tugging at her sleeve lightly, "Nah, you're gonna fall."

"Fall?"

"For me," he replied smugly, wiggling his brows.

She stared at him long enough to make him shift slightly. He should have known corny, cheesy, unoriginal pick-up lines would never work on her, "…I changed my mind. Half an hour."

"I bet you're already falling for me," He continued to tease, gently poking at her sides and snickering at her annoyed expression.

"Keep talking and it'll be ten minutes."

He shut his mouth immediately, but the grin on his face didn't fade for even a second. Of course it wouldn't.

He had led her further down the quiet streets just beyond the school, the buzz of the busy roads echoing behind them. Suddenly, he turned into a narrow, sketchy pathway covered by dark walls and patched up windows.

"Okay, where the hell are we going?"

"You'll see, just trust me," Jaemin chirped, hopping over a puddle with the appearance of someone who probably believed in elves and the tooth fairy.

Y/N eyed the side of his face, as if analysing him, "You're like a golden retriever, and I don't mean that in a good way," she said, her tone dry, "Do you have this much energy even when you're in bed?"

Jaemin didn't miss a second, his lips curling into a smirk, "Depends who's in bed with me."

Y/N blinked, nearly choking on the last bit of juice, "You're disgusting."

"What?" he asked innocently, raising both hands in mock surrender, "You asked."

"And shameless," she muttered.

"And you're blushing," he shot back smugly.

She turned away quickly, muttering curses under her breath. The worst part was that he wasn't wrong… she was blushing.

However, when the path opened up to a skatepark, she was about to turn and walk in the opposite direction, until she saw a building to the right.

It was a planetarium, nestled at the far end of the park, hidden behind torn fences and overgrown trees, clearly abandoned. The soft, spring breeze weaved through the cracked windows and rustling dead leaves across the ground, making her anxious. It was silent, apart from the sharp creak of the iron gate as Jaemin kicked it open dramatically, letting her enter first.

"You're trespassing...," Y/N said nervously, yet still stepped past the gate.

"We are," Jaemin corrected, grinning as he didn't bother to shut the gate behind them, "You agreed to this, remember?"

She rolled her eyes, "I was coerced by grape juice."

Inside the planetarium was dark, where glimpses of sunlight flickered through the cracks of the walls. The air was coated in dust and old wood, the scent sharp in her throat — particles floated just like the glimmer of stars on the ceiling. The projector had sat in the centre, the lens still intact despite it rusting and coated in crumbling leaves and spider webs. But there was something almost... magical about this place, as though it carried many stories — a history.

"I used to come here a lot as a child," Jaemin said, his voice softer now, with a hint of nostalgia, "My dad used to work nearby, and he would take me after school sometimes. I mean... I loved the stars, it always intrigued me. I would just lie down right here and pretend they were real."

He lays down right in the middle of the dome, a softer, more pained smile gracing his lips as he saw the now faded stars that didn't seem to hold the same wonder it used to, "There was something so..."

"Magical," she voiced out her earlier thoughts, hesitantly laying down next to him.

He glanced over to see her looking up at the dimmed ceiling, the setting sun catching across her soft, pretty features, illuminating the curve of her cheekbone and the plushness of her lips. She looked oddly beautiful here, even in this run-down, shabby space. It was like she brought that same wonder back with just her presence alone.

"So this was your idea of a perfect date?" she asked finally, but her voice was gentle, tugging at his heartstrings.

"It's peaceful and there are no fairy lights in sight," he teased, "Besides, you'll ruin my date rating if you start judging my choices."

They lay in silence for a while, staring up at a ceiling that once reflected galaxies. Now, the real stars peeked through the gaps as the sun had finally set, fragmented and imperfect, fitting in like puzzle pieces against the fabricated lights.

"You asked me before if I ever stop smiling," Jaemin says, quietly, his eyes locked on the ceiling. He lies still under the watching gaze of the fading stars, "Just... when no one is around."

He lets out a breath that almost sounds like a bitter laugh, not reaching the crinkles of his eyes, "I think somewhere along the line, I decided that being the overly positive guy was who I was meant to be. If I kept people distracted by this- this image, no one would look close enough to see all the fragmented pieces. I wouldn't be a burden to others."

Y/N said nothing, biting her bottom lip.

"Sometimes it feels like… if I were to drop this act, people wouldn't know what to do with me," He turns his head slightly towards her, letting out a dry chuckle, "That I would be a handful. I'd come with all the baggage that overwhelms them."

Y/N felt her eyes glaze with tears, the brittle air pressing against her chest that made it feel almost suffocating. She hated how much she related to those words alone.

She shifts slightly on the cold floor, trying to make her voice sound neutral, "That sounds exhausting."

"I guess it is," Jaemin admits.

"I do understand, though," she responds, glancing at him, "With keeping up that image."

Her voice doesn't waver, but it had always been hard for her to be vulnerable as she never had the chance to with her own family, "It's weird. One day, conversation is easy, people are approachable and..."

He listens, his brows furrowing in focus.

"Being strong for everyone else meant having to lose a part of myself," She exhales shakily, her nails digging crescents into her palms, "And after a while, I stopped feeling like me. Now, it's like I'm just a shell and pushing people away is easier. You don't get hurt again."

Jaemin's fingers inch closer to her, his knuckles brushing along her hand and, when her pinky hooks around his, he can't help but to smile softly.

"Even so... I don't hate being around people," she whispers, "I don't hate being around you."

He feels his heart skip a beat and his eyes widen slightly when her soft gaze meets his. It was like he got a glimpse into the warmth beneath the grumbling girl, the gentle side of her that hid behind the protective wall. Her usual glaring, intense gaze was now soft and sweet, pupils big as they reflected the starry sky in them, drawing him in like a moth to a flame.