#*jungsung

The reception hall was filled with tinsel, baubles, and buzzing wedding goers helping to set up for the rehearsal dinner. But you were looking for just one person. You finally spotted Jieun with her fiancé over by the empty drink tables. You gently grabbed her elbow as you walked up from behind her, “Jieun, hey.”

She spun around, a breathless smile coming to her face when she saw you. “Oh, Y/N, there you are. You remember my fiancé Minhyun.”

“Hey, good to see you,” he greeted you kindly. You had only met Minhyun at a couple work mixers—you liked him just fine, but you ostensibly hadn’t even known Jieun that long, so you were by no means close with her fiancé either. Honestly, the whirlwind of events that ended with you here at the ski resort that they had fully booked out for the occasion, all your expenses paid for, the day before New Year’s Eve, was still baffling to you.

“You too.” You nodded to him politely, then went back to your original mission, “Sooyoung told me to come get you, the makeup artist—”

“Minhyun, the chairs are all done!” Another man had approached the groom-to-be.

Minhyun clapped him on the back. “Perfect, thanks, Sungchan.”

An odd feeling pricked at the back of your mind, and you found yourself looking up at the tall man, entirely diverting your focus from your task. He was wearing most of a suit—notably missing the jacket and tie—and his shaggy, dark hair almost blended into his black dress shirt. You almost couldn’t place him, it had been quite a few years, his youthful features long gone, and you weren’t used to having to crane your neck to look up at him. Then the last piece fell into place: he moved away, to the very same city you just moved to. Of course he did.

“Jung Sungchan?” You still phrased it as a question, just in case.

“So that was you, Y/N,” he laughed and it sounded just like you remembered, and he immediately pulled you in for a quick hug. When you drew back, you were still holding each other by the arm, looking the other from head to toe in disbelief. He shook his head and chuckled, “Wow, you look the same.”

You smacked his arm lightheartedly. “Rude.”

“I didn’t mean it like—” Sungchan was cut off by another sudden giggle. “I meant even after all these years it’s still you.”

Jieun and Minhyun had been standing there watching the two of you silently, with matching bemused looks on their faces. Deciding to save your politely confused friends, you explained, “Sungchan and I went to school together for years when we were kids.”

“Then I moved up here,” Sungchan continued.

Jieun’s eyes widened, and she gasped in delight, “Oh my gosh! That’s so cute!”

“What are you doing here?” Sungchan asked you.

“Moved here a few months ago for work and now I’m a last-minute bridesmaid,” you gestured to Jieun at the end.

“Speaking of, I’m so sorry to cut your reunion short, but did you need me for something, Y/N?” Jieun asked you, the pained regret plain on her face.

“Right, yes, makeup artist.” You nodded hastily. Squeezing Sungchan’s forearm, you gave him a hurried goodbye as you started ushering Jieun away, “It was good to see you again, Sungchan. We’ll have to catch up later.”

“Totally, yeah…” Sungchan agreed, watching you go.

The wedding party were all milling around in the staging area outside of the hall where the actual rehearsal dinner was to be held when Sungchan found you again.

He sidled up next to you, suit jacket and tie on now, informing you, “We’re paired up.”

“Oh, good,” you breathed out a sigh of relief. “I feel a lot better doing this with someone I know.”

After a few too many beats of silence, you glanced up at Sungchan and realized he’d been staring down at you this whole time. You looked around awkwardly, “What? Is there something on my face?”

“No, you’re beautiful,” he reassured you. “I’m just… Wow, it’s been how long? Twelve years?”

“Sounds about right,” you confirmed. Skin prickling under his unwavering gaze, you looked around expectantly. “So what are we doing? The wedding planner explained it to me when I got here but I’ve gotten a lot of information in the past hour.”

“We’ll walk in third, just match my pace. Then when we get to the end, you go left, I’ll go right. Watch the other bridesmaids before you to see how fast to do it. Then you stand still while they say some stuff, then follow the other bridesmaids out. I’ll see you again back out here.”

“I think I can do that.”

“So how did you end up doing this?”

“I work with Jieun.”

“I meant why did you have to fill in at all?”

You looked around warily, eyes wide, and shook your head. Dropping your voice, you leaned in towards him to murmur, “Not here. Later.”

He nodded and quickly changed the subject, “So you work with Jieun?”

“Yeah, different departments but she set up my IT stuff on my first day and just never stopped coming by my desk. She’s been great. How do you know them?”

“Minhyun and I have been friends since college. Intramural soccer.”

“Oh, you still play?”

“I’m in an amateur league now. I coach at a youth league at the same complex too.”

“Really? What age?”

“Girls 6 and under this year. I’ve been with the same group since they were four, though.” He had a fond smile on his face as he held his hand at knee height palm-down. “My niece is one of my players.”

“Niece?!” You gawped. Sungchan’s little brother was two years your junior, which meant that if he had a daughter who was six…

Sungchan nodded his head with a resigned shrug, though he clearly seemed amused at your reaction. “Yeah, Bibi wasn’t planned. But Yoosung has really stepped up and done pretty good at the whole coparenting thing.”

“I can’t believe String Bean has a baby. I mean, in my head he’s still a baby!” You could only conjure up the image of the cute little boy who would attach himself to you whenever you went over to their house, which Sungchan always loudly complained about until their mother would finally intervene and get Yoosung to leave the two of you alone for an hour or two.

He fished out his phone to show you pictures of his family, particularly his brother and niece. “It’s been a while, Y/N. He’s grown up.”

“Oh my god…” You gasped, covering your mouth in shock upon seeing pictures of a young man who was definitely not your little String Bean anymore. “Aw, she looks just like him. Well, except her nose. She get that from her mom?”

“Yep.” Next was a group photo of the whole girls’ soccer team, Sungchan standing behind them with a huge, proud smile. “This was last year.”

“Look at that!” You zoomed in on Sungchan at the back, laughing as you took in the visor and whistle he was wearing, clipboard in his hand. “Got the clipboard and everything.”

“Hey, I didn’t get a ‘Best Coach Uncle’ mug for nothing.”

“Phones away, please!” The loud, annoyed voice of the wedding planner rang out through the staging area. Despite the general phrasing of her statement, her tone and eyes being laser-focused on Sungchan made it clear that it was for one specific person.

Sheepishly ducking his head, he turned his phone back off and tucked it away into his suit pocket again. You snickered and patted his chest. “Oops.”

“Ah, worth it.”

The doors to the reception area opened, and a hush fell over the wedding party. You squeezed Sungchan’s arm tighter nervously. He immediately flashed you a reassuring smile, patting your hand.

“It’s just practice,” he reminded you quietly. “I’ve got you.” The couples ahead of you began moving, and he nodded slightly, indicatively. “Let’s go,” he said, stepping forward as well.

You were pretty sure you blacked out until you saw the first pair ahead of you stop and split apart, taking their places on either end of the ‘aisle.’ Then, your attention was laser-focused on watching the second pair do the same thing, memorizing it because you were next. Stopping when Sungchan stopped, your nervous smile became genuine when he mouthed ‘see you soon’ before turning you around by the hand towards where the other two bridesmaids had lined up. You consciously controlled your pace to not run over to them while also not take too long, filing in third. While everyone’s gaze turned back to where the next couples were coming in, your eyes flitted over to the groomsmen, of course meeting Sungchan’s. He nodded just the tiniest bit, eyes blinking slowly, warmly.

By the time you were back in the staging area, your breathing had pretty much returned to normal. You were clustered up with the other bridesmaids, listening to them go over the details of the rehearsal again, when Sungchan found you as promised.

“Hey, good job.” He offered you a high-five.

You half-heartedly tapped your palm to his, still feeling a bit frazzled. “Thanks, Sungchan. Almost ate shit on my way out.”

“That wasn’t your fault!” Heejin, the bridesmaid who had been directly behind you when exiting, protested immediately. “The carpeting wasn’t stuck down properly there!”

“And it’s already fixed, so don’t sweat it,” Sooyoung, the maid-of-honor, reminded you from where she was straightening up stray pieces of hair for Heejin.

“Let’s eat!” Minhyun announced, ushering everyone into the main banquet hall.

The wedding party were all at one table, and after the obligatory speeches, the rest of the dinner was a casual affair of eating, drinking, dancing, and chatting. Once your plates and glasses were empty, you and Sungchan ended up on the edges of the dance floor.

“I don’t care for this at all, by the way.” You wagged your finger at him disapprovingly.

“What?” He chuckled and cocked his head in confusion.

“This whole ‘you being taller than me’ thing. It’s unnatural.”

He laughed and patted your head. “Oh, come on. We always knew it’d end up this way, you just hit your growth spurts first.”

“Don’t tell me String Bean is taller than me. I might just die.”

“I won’t tell you then.”

At the end of the night, Sungchan walked you back to your room (admittedly, his was just down the hall). Outside your door, he made a big show of glancing down one end of the hall, then the other conspiratorially. He stooped down to get closer to your height and dropped his voice to ask, “So, what happened?”

You lifted your chin up slightly, looking up at him in confusion, “Hm?”

“With the other bridesmaid that you’re replacing?”

“Oh, god, right,” you sighed, leaning back against your door. Sungchan followed you to not leave too much empty space, wedging his shoulder in between yours and the corner of the doorframe, rapt attention on you as you explained in a whisper, “She tried to make a pass at Minhyun right in front of Jieun.”

“Woah,” he breathed out, eyes comically wide. “Evil and stupid.”

“Stupid either way,” you scoffed. “Minhyun would’ve told Jieun even if she had tried it when Jieun wasn’t around. Just saved everyone time doing it in front of her.”

“Good point.”

“They’d already paid for her room and everything and it was too late to get a refund and there would’ve been odd numbers in the wedding party, so Jieun asked me to fill in.”

“I wasn’t paired up with her,” Sungchan hummed, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly. “The other bridesmaid. I asked your real partner to switch.”

“Well, thanks.” You patted his arm and let your hand linger there. “Like I said, I feel a lot better having you with me.”

“Do you want to eat breakfast together tomorrow?”

“I wish, but the bridal party are all doing brunch.”

“Of course, my bad.”

You arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t the groomsmen doing something with Minhyun?”

“Shit, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Completely forgot.”

“Mm, before tomorrow gets crazy and I forget, can I get your number?” You requested, fishing your phone out of your clutch. “Don’t want to lose you again after this.”

“Of course.”

As he recited it, you typed in the digits into a new contact, then snorted halfway through as an old contact name popped up. “Wow. I apparently have never cleaned out my contacts when transferring my stuff to new phones. I still have you in here.” You turned your screen around to show him.

“That’s a lot of hearts,” he teased, his eyes crinkling.

Looking back down at the name, you laughed lightly, “Yeah…”

“I won’t hold you up anymore, we’ll both need all the sleep we can get before tomorrow.” Sungchan pushed off your door.

“It was really good seeing you again, Channie.” You wrapped your arms around his neck, feeling the huge grin on your face as you did so. “Night.”

The years you had spent apart were even more apparent as Sungchan squeezed you tight with a strength he didn’t used to have, the firm planes of muscles that you could feel under his clothes and large, warm hands that rested on your back also new. He made a small, happy sound in the back of his throat, hugging you just a bit closer. “Night, Y/N.”

As you closed the door to your hotel room behind you, your cheeks hurt.

All of the bridesmaids were gathered in Jieun’s bridal suite for brunch, sprawled around the large canopy bed, plush couches, and armchairs in your fluffy hotel bathrobes. Jieun had specifically requested that the conversation stay away from the upcoming ceremony, or else she’d be too nervous to even eat.

“So, Y/N, I thought you said you didn’t know anybody here except Jieun,” Heejin nudged your knee with hers. She had been right next to you and Sungchan at the rehearsal dinner, it made sense that she might have noticed how well you got along for supposed strangers.

“That’s what I thought until I got here,” you chuckled, still a bit in disbelief. “Sungchan and I were friends when we were kids. We lost touch when he moved away.”

She grinned knowingly. “You were inseparable yesterday.”

“Oh, making up for lost time?” Sooyoung, the maid of honor, asked teasingly.

“I was paired up with him originally, you know? Then he asked if I would be okay switching so he could help you,” Ahrin gushed. She immediately went to reassure you and the rest of the circle, “I didn’t care, of course. He’s all yours, Y/N.”

Under all of their imploring gazes, you divulged, “Okay, so technically, he was my first boyfriend—”

“Knew it!” Heejin clapped victoriously.

“So cute!” Yeeun squealed.

“When we were like… twelve,” you clarified. “Literally all we did was hold hands for like, three months. Then he moved.”

“Aww!” “Oh my god!” “Cute!”

Jieun finally spoke up, leaning forward and pointing her fork at you. “And now you’re not twelve. So you can do a lot more than hold hands.”

You smiled down at your food. “Yeah…”

“Ooh, she’s thinking about it!” Sooyoung cheered.

“Do it!” “Get it!” “Hell yeah, girl!”

“Wait!” Heejin gasped and rounded on the bride. “He’s single, right, Jieun?”

“Like Ahrin said,” your friend grinned. “He’s all yours, Y/N.”

A knock on the bridal suite came ahead of the ceremony, and you rushed to go get it. That had been your assigned task for the afternoon—minding the door. Your hair and makeup was done first, and you were dressed first, so you were taking care of anybody who tried to come in while Jieun and the others got ready, sending away anybody unimportant, taking care of minor problems, or getting Sooyoung or the wedding planner to handle it. Keeping Jieun’s peace.

So far you had the photographer come in to take pictures of the bridal party getting ready, and someone from the wait staff come around with drinks. This time on the other side of the door was Sungchan, in his own groomsman suit looking quite put together.

“Oh, hey,” you greeted him quietly. “Everything okay with Minhyun?”

“Yeah, I uhm, I just wanted to see you,” he admitted brightly.

Looking over your shoulder into the suite, you saw the other bridesmaids occupied with getting their makeup done, putting the finishing touches on their hair, and chatting. Everything looked fine for now. You stepped into the hall with him, quietly closing the door behind you.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“Oh, thanks.” You looked down at the dress you were wearing. “The designer that made the other bridesmaids dresses from was nice enough to let me exchange when she found out I was filling in. Thankfully, they had this in the same color as the others…”

“It looks really good on you.”

You traced the edge of his lapel. “Suit looks weird on you, Channie.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, it actually fits,” you teased.

“Oh, your aunt’s wedding?” He laughed. “My mom wanted me to be able to grow into that suit, and then I never wore it again.”

With a smile, you adjusted a piece of his hair. “You look great. I can’t wait to walk with you.”

“We’ll be the second-best looking couple out there,” he affirmed with a wink.

“Sungchan!” A man called his name from the end of the hall, and you spotted another one of the groomsmen speedwalking over to you two. “There you are, man. Come on, photographer’s starting with us.”

“Did you sneak away?” You snickered.

Sungchan started, “Well—”

“Yeah, got dressed in record time and disappeared,” the groomsman shook his head. “You look great, by the way, Y/N. He’ll see you later.”

He grabbed Sungchan’s arm and started taking him away. Sungchan waved to you, “See you soon!”

The music inside was bleeding out to the balcony where you had momentarily stepped out from the reception, Sungchan of course in tow. His suit jacket was draped across your shoulders to block out some of the crisp air, and you let out a content sigh as you looked out at the stars over the mountains.

“You’re beautiful,” Sungchan said dreamily into the quiet.

“I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve told me that, you know,” you informed him, words laced with fond amusement. “Which is kind of crazy, considering it’s barely been twenty-four hours.”

“You’re right, I should get a thesaurus. Hold on.” He took out his phone.

“Put that away,” you laughed, pushing his hand back down. He just turned around and held it up higher, making you try to reach around him to swat at the device again as he was fervently typing away. “Sungchan!”

“Fine, fine,” he relented, pocketing the device once more and leaning against the railing with you. “…Breathtaking.”

“Funny, I don’t remember you being this…” You trailed off, narrowing your eyes as you tried to come up with the right word.

“‘This…?’” Sungchan echoed, tilting his head and squinting his eyes to mimic you.

“Forward,” you finally decided. “When we were kids. I had to be the one to finally to tell you that I had a crush on you first, after like two years of us ignoring everyone telling us that we liked each other. And I mean, in hindsight, we were painfully obvious.”

“Y/N, come on, I’m not twelve anymore,” he chuckled breathily, picking up your hand and kissing your knuckles, then the inside of your wrist. “Have some faith in me that my flirting skills have grown up too.”

“Sorry,” you said sheepishly, squeezing his hand. “It’s just that some things are the same and some are totally different…”

“I know.” Sungchan brought your hand up to his chest, pressing your palm flat. His heartbeat was hammering away under your touch, and he giggled nervously. “This hasn’t changed. Still feel like I’m twelve sometimes, challenging the prettiest girl ever to a staring contest even though I always lost because I wanted any excuse to have your attention.”

“Want to see if you’ve gotten better at staring contests?” You suggested, stepping even closer to him. “Loser has to kiss the winner.”

“I’m not going easy on you this time,” he declared teasingly, squaring his shoulders.

“Close your eyes,” you announced, doing so yourself. “We start on three, okay?”

“Okay.”

“One, two, three!”

As soon as you opened your eyes, you saw Sungchan blink rapidly, and burst into laughter, covering your mouth with your hand to not sputter all over him. You laughed with your whole chest, the cold air devolving it into a coughing fit, and you gripped onto the railing for stability. Sungchan rubbed your back, even as he snickered a little.

When you’d finally caught your breath again, you looked back at him to see that he was grinning shamelessly. Still a little lightheaded from laughing so hard, you wrapped your arms around his waist, leaning your full weight against him.

“Seems like you haven’t gotten any better,” you chuckled. “I think you’ve gotten worse.”

“I tried my best,” he sighed dramatically.

“Well?” You looked up at him expectantly. “I’m waiting, loser.”

“Oh, sore winner,” he tutted, even as he tenderly cupped your cheek and traced your bottom lip with his thumb. “Impatient?”

“Yeah,” you snorted.

“Me too.” He tilted your chin up and kissed you. Sungchan tasted heartachingly familiar, a comfortable warmth spreading out from your chest to your fingertips that enticed you to just melt into him forever. You were unhurried, kissing him slowly and deeply, the cold air around you suddenly negligible. His mouth was equal parts gentle and ardent as it moved with yours, and his hand skimmed down your neck to rest on the nape, imparting more of his warmth in its wake.

Kissing him one, two more times, you broke apart with a fond smile on your face, murmuring, “We should get back inside before midnight. Jieun said they’re doing something special.”

“So are we,” Sungchan rebuffed jokingly, connecting your lips once more. After another moment of indulging each other, he relented, “Okay, let’s go.”

Lacing your fingers with his, you started back towards the entrance. The door opened then, and Sooyoung’s face lit up upon seeing the two of you.

“Oh, hey! Good, you two are already out here,” she said brightly, and more guests poured out after her. “The fireworks are about to start.”

“Perfect timing,” you grinned, nudging Sungchan.

Reclaiming your previous spot on the railing, Sungchan wrapped an arm around you, and you leaned your head on his shoulder. The fireworks were apparently supposed to start right at midnight, in just a few minutes, and the rest of the balcony quickly filled with wedding-goers.

“I still can’t believe I found you again,” he breathed out, pressing a kiss to your hair.

“I can,” you replied back simply. “I can believe it.”

“Yeah?”

“Because we’re soulmates. I’ve always thought that, haven’t you?”

“Oh my god, of course,” he giggled into your ear, kissing the side of your head again. “God, you don’t know how much I’ve been trying to not tell you I love you after only a day and you just… say what you’re thinking, as always.”

“It hasn’t only been a day, though.”

“You’re right.”

“I usually am.”

“I lo—” The rest of Sungchan’s words got drowned out by the crack of the first firework going off, and you were laughing as you pulled him in for a kiss. The booms and sizzles rang out around you as he happily kissed you back.

You watched the rest of the fireworks show, the bright bursts of color dancing across the inky night sky. After it was over, everyone cheered and toasted to the new happy couple once more.

“That was wonderful,” you commented to Sungchan, the two of you hanging back while the crowd slowly began filtering back inside.

“It was,” he agreed.

“I’m fucking freezing,” you announced, looking up at him with a smirk. “Want to go warm up?”

“My room’s pretty toasty.”

“Oh, you read my mind.”

A tiny sliver of sunlight streaming in through a gap was shining right across your eyelids. With a disgruntled noise, you rolled over away from it, burying your face in Sungchan’s chest. He automatically pressed a kiss to your hairline before resuming his faint snores. You smiled to yourself as you drifted back off to sleep.

You awoke again to gentle fingers brushing hair from your face, and blearily peeked one eye open to watch Sungchan fondly gazing down at you. “Morning, beautiful,” he whispered.

“Mm,” you hummed, closing your eyes again as you enjoyed the feeling of his fingers brushing through your hair. “Morning, Channie.”

“Breakfast?”

⇢ 2025 hallmark movie marathon

TAGLIST

@annenakamura @bee-the-loser @dejundesign @flooftown @httpsxnox @kirrakira @lotties-readings @pandabunbuns @ppddpjdr @reiofsuns2001 @snowyseungs @tearinka @yoursyuno @yutasputa69 @winkeuu @woozidreams

“Bye, Ms. Y/L/N!” Your student gave you a cheery wave and goodbye as he climbed into his parents’ car. You fondly waved back to him and his family, watching until the vehicle was out of sight far beyond the school's drive.

Moorehead Prep, the boarding school that you worked and lived at, had released their students for the winter holidays, and he was the last one to be picked up. Almost all of the other staff who lived on-campus had already left as well. Only those who would be staying for the duration of the break remained. You were staying with one other staff member to watch over the handful of students who were not going home.

The empty, silent halls were eerie; you were used to them being filled with the boisterous raucous of young boys. Even on the weekends during term when they were at extracurriculars, playing outside, or visiting nearby family, it was never this quiet. Large swaths of the building had been shut off completely to make it more manageable for you to keep an eye on the children. As you walked by the one common room left open, you spotted two of your three charges reading by the fireplace.

Leaning in the doorway, you watched them for a moment fondly. The eldest, thirteen-year-old Dogyun, was sprawled across an armchair with his favorite graphic novel in hand. He fidgeted with a bandage on his left earlobe from where he’d tried to pierce his own ears just a couple days ago with a sewing needle pocketed from home economics class. Sungmin appeared to be trying to get ahead on the assigned reading for your class for next term, his history textbook propped up against the bricks marking the outer edge of the fireplace and his feet kicked up behind him as he laid on his stomach on the plush rug. Sungmin was also new to the school like you, three grades below Dogyun but four years younger, a bit small for his age and with big eyes that only served to make him look even younger.

“Sungmin,” you announced your presence, walking over towards the boys. Their heads snapped up towards you, and Sungmin gave you a sheepish look as you kneeled down next to him to gesture to his book. “We are officially on break now. This can wait.”

“I tried to tell him,” Dogyun huffed, flipping a page.

“Sorry, Ms. Y/L/N,” Sungmin muttered.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” you assured him. “I just want you to be able to enjoy your time off school, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Also, I know the headmaster said that anytime you’re on school grounds, you have to be in uniform, even on break…” You eyed the tidy uniforms that they were still wearing—although Dogyun’s tie was a little askew as usual. “But I say don’t worry about it for now. It’ll be our little secret, hm?”

Huge grins broke out on both their faces.

“Thank you, Ms. Y/L/N!” “Thanks!”

You glanced around. “Either of you know where Junhyuk is?”

Junhyuk was your third and final student that you were responsible for over the break, a twelve-year-old honor roll student and Dogyun’s roommate and best friend. They were typically fused at the hip and causing trouble, so it was a bit unusual to see them apart unless something like class schedules mandated it. Sungmin’s dorm was in the portion of the school that was closed down for break, so he was temporarily moved into the older boys’ room, taking the vacant bed of one of their dormmates who went home.

“He’s helping Coach Jung put stuff away in the gym,” Sungmin answered.

“Yeah, he said he only needed one person to help,” Dogyun added.

“Thanks.” You got to your feet and brushed off your knees. “You two need anything else from me?”

“Nope!”

“Alright, I’m going to the gym for a minute if you do. Dinner’s at the normal time.”

“Wait!” Dogyun suddenly halted your departure. “Can you tell Junhyuk that we’re gonna play Switch in our room? So whenever’s he’s done helping.”

“I’ll pass the message.”

Each step of your boots clicked and echoed around you, and as you turned down the hallway that led to the gymnasium, you took the opportunity to stop and peer into the trophy cases that lined it. Dazzling trophies and plaques of all shapes and sizes glinted, reflecting your face back at you. The dates stretched back well over a century.

One of the doors to the gym was latched open, and when you couldn’t spot either Coach Jung nor Junhyuk, you ventured in further. Your ears finally picked up distant shuffling sounds, so you followed them down a hall behind the bleachers on the opposite side of the gymnasium where a storage room door was held ajar by a chair. You grabbed the edge of the door to pull it open all the way and step around the chair.

Junhyuk was dutifully restacking cones of various sizes in one corner while Coach Jung seemed to be doing an inspection on a shelf containing every kind of sports ball known to man. He was currently turning a soccer ball over in his hands, carefully eyeing the threads and wear of the material in some areas.

“Hi, Ms. Y/L/N!” Junhyuk greeted you cheerfully.

At the boy’s words, Coach Jung looked up at you attentively, a friendly smile coming to his features. “Oh, hey. What can we do for you?”

“Just wanted to let you know that everyone’s been picked up,” you smiled back hesitantly. Turning to the boy, you continued, “Also, Dogyun asked me to tell you that, once you’re done helping Coach Jung, the other two will be playing Switch in your room if you’d like to join.”

Junhyuk focused wide, hopeful eyes on Coach Jung. “I finished the cones! What else do you need help with, sir?”

“That was the last thing, Junhyuk,” Coach Jung chuckled. “You can go.”

“Thank you!”

You stepped back so he could dart around you out of the room. Leaving just you and Coach Jung. He dropped the soccer ball at his feet, nudged it over to a pile of them that seemed in a similar rough condition, then grabbed another off the shelf to continue his inspection, while you suffered awkwardly in the silence, watching him.

You didn’t know Coach Jung very well. This was your first year at the school, not to mention your classroom was on the opposite side of the school from the gymnasium, and while you both technically lived on the school grounds, only male teachers lived in the dormitories with the students. Female staff had a separate living quarters, so you never crossed paths with him outside typical school hours either. You had only met him in passing at the beginning of the year with the rest of the teachers, and last week in the brief meeting with the headmaster in preparation for your staying through Winter Break. But you’d heard plenty about him. He was beloved by the students both as their physical education teacher and as the coach of several school sports teams. And he was also a regular topic of gossip around the female staff dorms. While you were the youngest in the women’s quarters by at least two decades, the older ladies still enjoyed a good piece of eye candy when he’d lead the running club on a jog around the grounds before breakfast, or help one of them carry something heavy. The delighted tittering when they found out that it would just be you and Coach Jung here for Winter Break was ceaseless until the last of your housemates finally left.

“Did you need something else, Ms. Y/L/N?” Coach Jung asked.

“Oh, I got our keys from the secretary.” You held up the two sets of keys that you’d been given which would grant you access to all the necessary facilities for the next month. “Do you want me to leave your set in your office, or…?”

“I’ll take them now, thanks.” He stepped towards you, hand outstretched.

You dropped the keyring into his palm with a light clink, and he pocketed them. “Also, I uh, I already told the boys they didn’t have to worry about uniform code for the next month. Hope that’s okay with you.”

“Oh, pff, yeah.” He waved a dismissive hand, eyes focused once more on the equipment. “The least of my concerns on any given day is whether or not they’re wearing the right kind of sock, much less on Christmas.”

“That was my thinking!”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

“And, uhm—” You coughed, looking around at anything but him. “You can just call me Y/N when we’re not around the kids.”

He let out an airy chuckle, “Will do. You can call me Sungchan.”

“Oh, right.” You bit your lip to stop from laughing but your nerves still made words pour out, “Please don’t be too offended but I kind of forgot your name. I’m pretty sure you introduced yourself at the beginning of the year all-staff meeting but since then, I’ve really only heard people call you Coach Jung…”

Sungchan laughed loudly, nodding in agreement. “As soon as you came in here, I realized I couldn’t remember your name. I was going to look it up in the staff directory after you left.”

“So we’re really on the same page,” you chuckled. “Is it your first year, too?”

“No, fifth.”

“Okay, I definitely feel a lot better knowing I’m not doing this with another rookie.”

“I’ll take you under my wing. Promise.” He grinned, and oddly enough, his confidence actually did calm your anxiety about the whole thing.

“Well how about, between us, no stupid questions?” You proposed hesitantly. “Instead of looking names up in the staff directory behind each other’s backs or whatever, we just ask? I think it’ll make the next month go much easier, right?”

“I think so too,” he agreed easily. “Just ask.”

“I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.” You gestured vaguely to the storage room. “I’m going to check on the boys and then probably be in the library until dinner.”

“One more thing before you go.” Sungchan brought out his cell phone from his pocket. “Probably be a good idea to have each other’s numbers.”

The kitchen staff were also gone for the holiday break, but had prepared refrigerated and frozen meals. A stipend was also left that could be spent on groceries or off-campus meals if you wanted. The dining hall felt far too large for just the five of you, so you took your reheated food to the common room to eat instead.

“So, what do you boys want to do on break?” You asked as you were all sat around one table together. “Within reason. Give us some ideas, and Coach Jung and I will see what we can do.”

“Right now, we’re looking at one or two off-campus activities a week,” Sungchan added from his seat beside you. “And bringing some fun here if we can.”

“You don’t have to answer now. Think about it.”

“Can we go skating on the pond?” Junhyuk requested.

“Ooh, what about sledding?” Dogyun said.

“We should build igloos on the soccer field!”

“And sleep in them!”

“I bet the Willow Hill is tall enough to ski from!”

“My uncle took me ice fishing one time! Coach Jung, do you think Mr. Suh would mind if we took some tools from woodshop to carve a hole into the pond?”

Both you and Sungchan chuckled, your coworker taking the lead in answering, “He’d probably be more upset that you cut a hole in the pond ice without him.”

“What about you, Sungmin?” You prompted the youngest, who hadn’t joined in the discussion yet.

He looked up from his food, big eyes getting a little bigger. “I thought you said we could think about it…”

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” you apologized, patting his head fondly. “I didn’t mean to pressure you. Take your time.”

Upon returning to the female staff dorms, you immediately noticed that something was wrong. You weren’t embraced by warm air after the cold, arduous journey from the main building. The difference in temperature was barely noticeable. Investigating the thermostat, you found that it was set to what should’ve been a toasty temperature.

With a sigh, you dialed the after-hours maintenance line for the school. After three calls going to voicemail, you let out a huff of frustration, which came out as a white cloud in the chilly air. Begrudgingly, you threw a few necessities into a bag, then trudged back to the main building once more.

Spotting light streaming out from under a door at the end of the dorm hall you were in, you shuffled over and knocked. You’ve only been in the dorm halls twice, once on an informal tour during your interview, and the second on a brief tour during your orientation. From what you remembered, the teachers’ rooms were at the beginning and end of each hall.

“Hold on!” Sungchan’s voice called out from within, and after a few moments, he opened the door. He clearly hadn’t been expecting you, blinking down at you. “Y/N. Thought you were one of the boys. Is everything okay?”

“The heat’s out in my dorm,” you explained. “Nobody picked up when I called maintenance.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, so I was just gonna—”

“Oh, yeah, come on in.” He stepped back and opened the door wider.

You slowly pointed over your shoulder. “—sleep in the common room… on the couch.”

“Right.” He coughed. “I mean, whatever you’re comfortable with. I’ve got an extra bed since Shotaro’s out. Or actually, you can stay in here and I’ll sleep in the common room.”

He was already reaching to grab a blanket off a bed, holding the door open with his foot.

“I didn’t come to take over your room,” you stopped him with a laugh. “You think Shotaro would mind?”

“Nah, I’ll take his bed.” Sungchan threw the blanket back and once again moved out of the doorway for you to go in.

You hesitated in the hallway, however. “Wait—Do you think this is okay? I’m not supposed to even be in your room.”

“Actually, I’m not supposed to be in your room,” he informed you with a grin. “There’s technically no rule against you being here.”

“What? Why wouldn’t they make it the same?”

He shrugged. “They forgot? Figured it’d be harder to have hookups with kids knocking down your door every night? I don’t know.”

“Thanks, Sungchan.” You smiled, ducking into the room. As he closed the door behind you, you took stock of the room. It was a little larger than the student rooms, with an attached bathroom and two beds in opposite corners. Each of them also had a nightstand, desk, chair, and dresser. Sungchan’s roommate was Shotaro, the dance teacher, and you spotted a couple pictures of him and his family on one of the desks.

He fetched a couple more blankets from his under-bed storage and handed them to you. “Just washed these yesterday.”

“I feel so special,” you joked, waiting for him to take the bedding off his bed and toss it onto Shotaro’s.

“Who do you room with?” He made conversation as you settled in, toeing off your winter boots and setting your bag down.

“Oh, nobody. We have individual rooms.”

“Lucky,” he huffed.

“Only two showers, though.”

“In the whole building?”

“Yeah, well, it’s just one of the old headmasters’ houses that they renovated.” You sat down on the edge of the mattress. Pulling out your phone and charging cable, you plugged it into an outlet next to the nightstand. “Ms. Hyesoo is very strict about the shower schedule so nobody uses up all the hot water. When you first start at the school, she times all your showers until she thinks you can be trusted.”

“Wait, seriously?!” Sungchan’s mouth was agape.

“Yup. And if you’re not new and she suspects you’re taking too long, she’ll start timing you again.”

“Who made her president of the shower?”

“I’m pretty sure she did,” you chuckled, scooting up towards the headboard and draping the blanket over your lap. “I mean, I think it is important that nobody hogs all the hot water so everyone can use it. And she’s technically like, in charge of the female staff dorms so I guess if she thinks this is necessary…”

“Okay, well for the next month, take as long as you want,” he scoffed.

You laid down on your side, pulling the blanket up over your shoulder. “I appreciate that.”

He reached up for the lightswitch by the door. “Lights out?”

“Ready.”

With a flick of his fingers, the room was plunged into darkness. You could hear Sungchan settling in on his side of the room. As your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you called out softly, “Sungchan?”

“Yeah?”

“Seriously, thanks for doing this with me. I already told you it’s my first year here, but it’s also my first year teaching at all. I took all these extra online certification courses, even after they told me I got the job. I just want to be the best for the kids, you know?”

“You know much about Mr. Shin? He used to teach your class.”

“Bits and pieces. He retired, right?”

“Yeah. And this is the first year I actually hear kids excited to go to their history classes. Telling me about the cool stuff they’re learning.”

You smiled to yourself, rubbing your socked feet together under the covers. “Aw, yay.”

“You’ll keep learning. The fact that you want to do all that for them already gives you a good start,” he added.

“Thanks, Sungchan.”

“Anytime.” He yawned, “Mm, goodnight.”

“Night,” you replied, shutting your eyes.

It wasn’t until Monday that you heard back from anybody regarding the heat in the women’s building. The head groundskeeper finally called you back, apologetically informing you that the heat in that building was scheduled to shut off for every winter break and he hadn’t been informed to keep it on this year. He offered to drive in to turn it back on for you, letting you know that it wouldn’t be until this afternoon since he lived several hours away, and you gratefully declined his offer. He was on break, too, and it seemed like far too big of an inconvenience at this point. You would just tough it out in the main building for the month.

The boys had asked to go sledding for their first winter activity, which was an easy enough request. Sungchan dug out a few old snow sleds from an equipment shed on the grounds while you inspected the boys’ gear and gave them a thorough safety lecture before even letting them step foot out of their dorm room. Now, you and Sungchan watched them take off from the top of the Willow Hill, sleds careening down through the snow before skidding to a stop nearby. Then they’d leap to their feet and run all the way back up, dragging the sleds behind them.

“Looks fun,” you commented as the three kids all piled onto one sled together, Sungmin sandwiched between the two older boys.

“You want to go?” Sungchan offered, gesturing to the other two sleds forgotten at the bottom of the hill.

“Last time I was in charge of my own sled, I knocked both my front teeth out,” you admitted sheepishly.

“Ouch,” he chuckled. “How about I drive, then? If you’re cool with that.”

“When’s the last time you drove a sled, exactly?”

“Last winter. Why do you think we have them on campus? We use them for Winter Field Day in January.”

You held up your hands in deference. “My apologies, I shouldn’t have doubted your skills.”

Despite your offer to help, Sungchan hauled the bright orange sled uphill by himself. Willow Hill was named for a willow tree that used to sit at the top of it. All that was left of the tree was a short stump that was now almost completely buried in snow.

“What happened to it?” You questioned, staring at the stump. “The willow?”

“Oh, uhm, it died. They had to cut it down,” he replied, lips pursing in a thoughtful frown. “Can’t remember why it died, though. It was way before I worked here.”

“Huh. I’ll ask Ms. Hyesoo after break. I bet she knows.”

“If anybody is going to know, it’s her or the headmaster,” he agreed with a chuckle. Switching trains of thought, he dropped the sled onto the ground and gestured to it, “So, you’ll be in front and hold onto the tie. Lean when I lean. I’ll tell you which way, okay?”

You nodded. “Seems easy enough.”

He held the sled in place while you got settled into the front, then climbed into the back himself. His long legs stretched forward on either side of you, his chest was nearly flush to your back, and he readjusted to be able to properly see over you.

“Good?” He checked in with you.

“Mhm.” You held on tightly to the rope anchored to the front of the sled.

“Y/N—Sorry—You’ve got to lean back on me. If you’re sitting forward like that and we hit a rock you’re going to go flying.”

“Shit, okay, when you put it like that,” you laughed and did as he instructed. Now fully reclined on him, you looked over your shoulder to ask, “That better?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Much uh, safer.”

“Can you see?”

“Yeah, more than—more than before.”

“Oh, good.”

“Good.”

“So, are we ready to go?”

“What?”

“Go down the hill? Sled?”

Sungchan smiled a little. “Yeah, of course. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” you determined. “Do I get a countdown?”

“Are you holding onto the tie?”

“Well, yeah.”

“One—” And with a great shove, he launched your sled off the top of the hill. The cold air bit at your cheeks and nose as you sped downhill, white flurries of snow flew up on either side of the sled, and abundant, uncontrollable laughter tumbled from your mouth. When you felt one particularly large bump under the sled bottom, you let out a half-yelp half-giggle and clutched Sungchan’s leg, your other hand keeping a death grip on the rope. He let go of his handrail on that side of the sled to hold you down by your arm.

“Left!” He called out, and you could hear the giddiness in his own tone with the command. Both of you leaned left, and the sled successfully veered left away from a small log.

At the bottom of the hill, the sled eventually came to a stop, and you let out a sigh of relief.

“There. Made it in one piece,” Sungchan teased, patting the top of your head.

“That was a lot of fun,” you said through breathless sputters, starting to sit up to get ready to climb up out of the sled.

“Want to go again?”

Before you could answer, Dogyun and Junhyuk swarmed you, clambering trying to call dibs as to who would ride with Sungchan next.

“Hold on, let Ms. Y/L/N and me get up first, okay?” He shooed them back. The coach hauled himself out of the sled, and you suddenly were scrambling to stay upright without him behind you. He didn’t leave you floundering for long, offering two hands to help you up, making sure you were steady on your feet before turning to the boys. “Alright, now, one at a time—”

Having already noticed the distinct lack of Sungmin with the others, you turned around in place, scanning the snowy hills for him. Thankfully he wasn’t very far, at the top of Willow Hill, sitting on the stump and seemingly watching the rest of you at the foot. Dogyun was holding a red sled, and Junhyuk a purple one, so you knew Sungmin didn’t have one. You waved at him. He waved back.

Hiking your way back up, you approached the boy curiously. “Hey.”

“Hi, Ms. Y/L/N,” he peered up at you from under the brim of his beanie.

“You forgot your sled. Unless you were planning on rolling down like a log.” You tucked your arms into your chest and mimicked doing so.

He giggled at you before shaking his head. “No, I just wanted to sit up here.”

“You can see a lot up here,” you commented, appreciating the sports fields, pond, and school buildings all laid out around you. “Mind if I sit with you?”

“You can.” Sungmin scooted over on the wide stump to make room for you.

“Thank you.”

“I’ve been thinking about what I want to do on break. Can we go to a movie theater?”

There was a small town nearby that school personnel would sometimes make trips to, but you didn’t know off the top of your head whether or not it had a movie theater. If it didn’t, the next biggest town was much, much further. But you weren’t going to write off his request so hastily. “I’ll look into it, Sungmin. What kind of movie do you want to see?”

“Mmm… I don’t know. I like all kinds of movies.”

You chuckled a little. “Good point. Movies are cool. I’ll see what our options are. Any other ideas?”

“No. Did you know some fish hibernate?”

“I did not know that.”

He pointed to the pond. “I asked Mr. Lee what happens to the fish when the water freezes and he told me.”

“Very interesting. Thanks for telling me.”

“Did you know that some fish hibernate?”

Sungchan poked his head out of the bathroom to affix you with a confused look, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. “Huh?”

“When lakes and stuff freeze over, some fish will hibernate,” you reiterated seriously from where you were sitting cross-legged on your bed.

He finished brushing, spat out his toothpaste, and rinsed his toothbrush before shutting the lights off. Lumbering back into the bedroom, he stopped next to your bed, arms folded over his chest, head cocked, and face absolutely bewildered as he asked, “What?”

“Sungmin was telling me about it today.” You typed away on your laptop.

“Okay, that makes more sense now.”

“He wants to go to a movie theater, but the closest one is like five hours away,” you huffed.

“…To see a movie about fish hibernation?”

“What? No. I mean, he’d probably like that, but I doubt there’s actually a movie like that showing.”

“Of course, my bad.”

“He said he’d see any movie, but there’s no movie theater in town. Look.” You pushed your laptop to the side, off one leg.

He took the cue and sat down next to you on the mattress, taking your computer into his lap. Two of his long fingers swiped and tapped across the trackpad. He alternated pursing his lips and rolling the bottom one between his teeth as he also evaluated the lack of cinema options in your area. Finally, he clicked his tongue against the back of his front teeth.

“Damn, the Cineplex must have closed down since last year,” he sighed. “There used to be this tiny chain cinema like, an hour from here. Mrs. Kang organized field trips there every semester.”

The mention of Mrs. Kang, the film teacher, gave you an idea. You might not be able to bring the kids to the movies, but you could try your best to bring the experience of the movies to them.

“Hold on—There’s projectors in every classroom,” you started explaining your plan to Sungchan. “Take out the desks and chairs, bring in some pillows and blankets, get some popcorn… We’ve got our own movie theater right here.”

“Yes, that’s perfect!” He held a hand up for you to high-five.

“My classroom is in one of the wings that’s locked up right now, so we’ll need to borrow someone else’s…”

“We can use mine.”

“Wait, you have a classroom?”

“Physical education has a classroom, yes,” he chuckled. “We’ve got pencils and everything.”

You sheepishly tried to backpedal, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine, Y/N,” he reassured you, knocking his knee against yours. “It’s in a random hallway in the gym. Nobody knows it’s there. But it has a projector.”

“Okay, if I take the boys to the store to pick out snacks and stuff, would that be enough time for you to set up your classroom? Or do you need my help?”

“Nah. I’ve got set-up, you’re on snacks.”

The next night, you got back from your short trip into town with all three boys in tow and bags of snacks in hand. You took the snacks with you as you sent them to get changed out of their heavy winter clothes. As you headed off towards your own temporary quarters, you texted Sungchan.

[you: just got back. is everything ready?]

You set the bags of snacks down on your bed before pulling your parka off to hang up. The bathroom door opened then, and your friendly greeting got stuck in your throat. Humid air came out along with Sungchan, a towel tied around his waist and damp hair hanging over his forehead.

He skidded to a stop just past the threshold, alarmed. “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t hear you come back.”

“No, it’s fine, I didn’t hear you either, sorry,” you apologized, trying to keep your eyes on anything except the beads of water tracing the contours of his bare chest as they rolled down, down, down, and disappeared into the towel.

“I uh, forgot pants,” he pointed to the dresser on his side of the room—the one you were currently occupying—shuffling his way over there.

Keeping one hand where the towel was tied, he flipped his wet hair out of his eyes with the other before opening a drawer and rifling through it. With him turned away from you, you took the opportunity to look a little more directly at him, at the way his back and shoulders subtly flexed and shifted with every movement. When he righted himself, clothing secured in his hand, you hastily looked away, back down at the bags of snacks as if you had been attending to something important with them the whole time.

Sungchan reemerged from the bathroom fully dressed, toweling off his hair, “Everything go okay when you were out?”

“Yeah, the boys were great,” you told him. “Your room all set up?”

“Yep. You ready?”

“Ready.”

He tilted his head. “…In your snow boots?”

You shook your head, embarrassed. “Right. Uhm, give me a minute to change.”

“I’ll grab the boys and meet you in the hall.”

Sungchan’s classroom was, in fact, in a random hallway in the gymnasium. The hallway outside contained the desks and chairs that used to be inside, and sleeping mats were now spread out on the floor of the small room, pillows and blankets piled up on top of them. You had all each brought your own blankets and other various items for comfort, but this looked plenty cozy on its own. While the kids immediately jumped on the mound of blankets and pillows, you went with Sungchan over to his laptop that was hooked up to the projector.

“You did good,” you complimented him, fondly watching the boys paying around and wrestling. “This is perfect.”

“It was your good idea.” He bumped your hip with his. “I just executed it.”

“This was better than I imagined. A-plus execution.”

“We’re a pretty good team, huh?” Sungchan grinned, pulling up the first movie.

With the first movie started, everyone started actually settling in. You were readjusting pillows and blankets while Sungchan took it upon himself to begin distributing the snacks. “Sungmin…” he held the chocolate covered pretzels out.

“Thanks, Coach Jung,” Sungmin accepted the bag.

“Who got the sour gummy worms?”

“Me!” Dogyun called out. Sungchan tossed them to him.

“Mini peanut butter cups?”

“Me!” Junhyuk answered.

“And these are mine, so this must be yours.” He passed out the final two snacks, his pick and yours.

You accepted it from him graciously. “Thank you.”

Your students all quieted down as the movie started, splitting their snacks between them in quiet agreement. As they readjusted and got comfortable during the course of the movie, you scooted around as well to give them more room. But when you accidentally knocked your hand against Sungchan’s under a blanket, you realized that you had slowly been scooting closer into his personal space in the process.

“Sorry,” you whispered, taking your hand back and preparing to move away.

“It’s fine,” he replied quietly. “You’re fine there, don’t worry.”

Trying to ignore the heat rising on your cheeks, you stared at the screen in front of you, staying put and letting your leg fall and relax against his.

“Hey, you boys almost ready?” You asked into the open door of the boys’ dorm room. Junhyuk and Dogyun were inside lacing up their snowboots.

Junhyuk handed you a pair of small gloves. “Minnie forgot these, can you go give them to him? Dogyun takes forever to get ready.”

“Yeah, because you were hogging—”

“I’ll give them to him,” you cut off the beginnings of their bickering. “Thanks, Junhyuk.”

Snow soccer was on the schedule today—what exactly that entailed, you still weren’t sure, but the boys would apparently explain everything once you started. So you began the trek out to the soccer fields. Fresh snow was beginning to fall, and you wondered if this would benefit or ruin the snow soccer plans. Two others were already there, Sungchan and Sungmin. You had just raised your hand, preparing to wave, when you realized that something was wrong. It sounded like Sungmin was yelling, upset. Your friendly greeting died in your throat as you dropped your hand and picked up your pace.

“I just want you to leave me alone!” He seemed to be yelling at Sungchan, little, bare hands balled into fists at his side. Sungchan, for his part, wasn’t engaging. He didn’t seem to be reacting at all, still as a statue and mouth dropped open. “I never want to talk to you ever again! You’re always doing this! You’re-You’re such a—such a asshole!”

“Jung Sungmin!” You finally stopped him, stepping in between the two. Keeping your voice level but stern, you told him, “That’s enough. Go to your dorm and take a breather. Don’t leave your room until you and I have talked, okay?”

The boy’s face was completely pink, tears welling up in his eyes. But more than anything, he was angry. You’d never seen him more than annoyed, never say anything harsher than ‘dumb,’ so this entire situation was leagues out of your comprehension.

Sungmin didn’t say anything more, turning on his heel and storming off towards the building. You watched him for another minute to make sure he made it inside before pivoting on the adult still with you.

“That’s your idea of deescalation and conflict resolution, Sungchan?” You questioned, eyes wide.

Sungchan was still frozen to the spot, eyes glued to where Sungmin had just been standing. “He…”

Utterly flabbergasted, you looked between Sungchan and the school building. “Sungmin’s the sweetest kid ever, I can’t imagine anything getting him that worked up.”

“It’s my fault.”

“What?”

“It’s his first Christmas without his mom.” He offered an explanation, his voice hollow. “He doesn’t want to be here.”

“He wants to be home with her,” you said softly. Your heart broke with the realization. While the reasons the three students were staying over break hadn’t been disclosed to you, you knew they weren’t going to be good. “No other family?”

Sungchan gestured to himself, the defeat apparent on his face. “You’re looking at it. He’s my nephew.”

That did catch you off-guard. While you were aware they shared a surname, it wasn’t a terribly uncommon one, and definitely not enough to suspect any sort of relation between them. Especially since neither had ever alluded to it. “Why did you stay here with him instead of going home?”

“I don’t have anywhere to take him. I live here during the school year, and I used to stay with my sister and Sungmin for the couple months during the summer in between.”

You nodded, noticing the redness around Sungchan’s eyes too. While there was more that you wanted to say, Dogyun and Junhyuk were coming out of the school building, and you still had to talk to Sungmin. Patting his shoulder, you said, “I’m going to check on Sungmin.”

“Thanks,” he sighed, sniffing and trying to quickly compose himself.

Passing by the older boys, you saw the solemn looks on their faces and figured they had encountered Sungmin. You shook the snow off you as you walked through the empty, quiet halls. The light poured out of the open door to the boys’ dorm room, and you stopped at the threshold. Sungmin was sitting on the bottom bunk of one of the two bunk beds, staring at his feet that were dangling over the edge.

“Hey, Sungmin,” you greeted him calmly. “Are you ready to talk? Or do you need a few more minutes?”

“You can come in,” he mumbled.

“Thank you.” You stepped into the room. “May I sit with you?”

He shrugged, and you took that as a yes, positioning yourself at the foot of his bed. The boy huffed, refusing to meet your eyes as he suddenly began rambling, “I shouldn’t have yelled at him, or said a bad word. He’s my teacher, I should be respectful, I know. I’ll apologize.”

“That’s all true,” you acquiesced. “Are you okay?”

“He told you, didn’t he?” He messed with a loose thread on his sweater. “About my mom… That she…”

“He did. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

Sungmin’s shoulders jumped as he hiccupped, and you could see that tears had finally begun falling down his cheeks, wetting his lap. You stayed put, not wanting to crowd or overwhelm him.

“Where do you feel it? The sadness?” You asked him quietly.

He pointed to the middle of his chest. “H-Here.”

“Good job,” you praised him quietly. Breathing in, you asked, “Can I tell you something?”

He nodded.

“It’s my first Christmas without my mom, too,” you admitted. Sungmin finally looked up at you, his tear-stained face giving you a sinking feeling of déjà vu in the pit of your stomach. You continued, “I miss her all the time. It’s okay to miss her, and feel sad, and all sorts of stuff. It hurts, right?”

“A lot. Right here,” his voice trembled as he patted himself on the chest once more. Then, he curled both of his hands into fists in his lap. “I want it to stop.”

“I know, Sungmin, I know. When you hurt inside, you should talk about it, not try to make somebody else hurt more than you.” You felt for him, terribly. “It won’t make it stop immediately, but it makes it easier.”

“I-I’m also mad. A lot,” he confessed, eyes seeking your face. “A-At him.”

“At Coach Jung?” You were careful to only address Sungchan the way that you’ve heard Sungmin address him.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, like, I was mad because he told me to go back inside and get my gloves but like, I wasn’t really mad because he told me to get my gloves. My hands were cold. I think… maybe I was mad he was telling me what to do. Like he really cares.”

You tilted your head thoughtfully. “You think he doesn’t care about you?”

“…No, I don’t think that,” Sungmin huffed, his shoulders deflating. He was no longer actively sobbing, the odd stray tear slipping down his cheek. “I’m just being mean again.”

“It takes practice.”

“What does? Not being mean?”

“Being a person. You’ll be practicing your whole life,” you informed him. “Everyone else is too. It’s everyone’s first time being a person.”

“He’s my uncle.” Sungmin got up, shuffling over to where a suitcase was sitting atop one of the dressers, opening one of the front pockets. He sat down right next to you to show them to you. They were custom Christmas cards that a family would mass-order every year to send out to their entire address book, each one featuring a big picture of Sungmin, Sungchan, and a woman—Sungmin’s mom. Sungmin pointed to Sungchan in the picture from last year. “Coach Jung. Well, he’s really my Uncle Sungchan. I-I didn’t want anybody to know at school, so I stopped calling him Uncle Sungchan. During the summer he always came and lived with us—me and my mom. He told me stories about the cool school where he worked, and I used to beg Mom to send me here…” His voice cracked, and he snapped his head up to you, eyes wide with panic. “You don’t think that’s why…?”

You couldn’t imagine what came next. “Why what?”

“Because I wanted to come here? And now I am? I didn’t mean it like that, I just—”

“Oh, Sungmin, no, no. Of course not,” you quickly reassured him, rubbing his back to soothe his breathing that had quickened again. “I know sometimes we want to find reasons to blame bad things on ourselves, because it makes it easier to understand, or because then we think maybe we could stop something like it in the future. But this isn’t your fault.”

He visibly relaxed again, but kept staring at the pictures on the cards pensively. As he flipped through them, you saw they went back to his first Christmas, an infant in a candy-cane printed onesie in his mom’s arms as Sungchan happily wrapped an arm around them both, beaming at the camera. It wasn’t professionally taken like the more recent ones, just a selfie taken on a couch.

With an idea forming in your mind, you said, “Every Christmas, I used to help my mom bake cookies to give out to our neighbors. Do you want to make some with me this year?”

Finally, something other than sorrow—interest—flashed across Sungmin’s face. He nodded.

“Perfect, thank you,” you smiled. “I need a taste tester, after all.”

He giggled a little at this.

“Since you’re helping me, is there something you and your mom used to do every Christmas that we can do?”

Sungmin sniffled and nodded. “We-We made Christmas cookies, and would put like, sprinkles and stuff on them.”

“I can totally make that happen,” you promised.

“Junhyuk and Dogyun will want to do it too.” After a beat, he added, “Uncle Sungchan, too.”

“Absolutely. All five of us.”

He rested his head on your shoulder, looking at his pictures again. “Yeah.”

“Yeah…” You echoed, squeezing his shoulder tight, to remind him you were there. Your other hand brought out his gloves that were still in your pocket, handing them over to him, “Your friends wanted to make sure you had these.”

“I’m not ready for snow soccer yet, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Snow soccer can wait for whenever you’re ready. They’ll understand.”

When Sungmin finally felt ready, he tucked his pictures away again, and the two of you set back off outside. The snow hadn’t let up while you were inside, and way out on the soccer field, you saw Junhyuk and Dogyun throwing a soccer ball back and forth while Sungchan watched on from further away.

“Hey!” Sungmin waved a gloved hand at them, jumping up and down.

“Minnie!” Junhyuk waved back.

Sungmin ran ahead of you to his friends, and you made your way over to Sungchan. He watched the kids interacting, and you knew he was desperately looking for any hint as to Sungmin’s mental state.

“He’s okay,” you told him. “I’ll tell you about it after dinner?”

“Good idea.” He nodded. Moving his gaze to you, he added genuinely, “Thanks, Y/N.”

“Let’s play snow soccer!” Dogyun announced loudly, to the cheers of the other two. “We need you guys, too!”

Locking eyes with Sungchan, both of you smiled, before you agreed enthusiastically, “Alright, let’s play snow soccer!”

Snow soccer, it turns out, was soccer that you played in the snow. The biggest difference, perhaps, was that it was harder to kick the ball through the layer of freshly fallen snow, and that the lines on the field were rendered entirely useless by the fact that you couldn’t see them under said snow. But it was fun anyway, the five of you running around until the sun was going down and the lights over the field clicked on. Your nose was frozen off by the time hunger finally pulled the boys off the field and inside. They spent all dinner exchanging ideas about what other sports could be better played in the snow, then it was bedtime.

As soon as the door to your room was shut, the air grew heavy. Sungchan plopped down on his bed—his real one, the one that you had been using. You sat next to him.

“I’m sorry about your sister, Sungchan,” you broached the subject head-on. So far, all of the focus had been on Sungmin’s loss, you wondered if Sungchan had even stopped and let himself grieve too.

“Thanks,” he whispered, wringing his hands together. Clearing his throat, he asked, “You said Sungmin’s good?”

“We talked about how he’s feeling. He showed me pictures of his mom—your Christmas cards.”

“When our parents found out she was pregnant, they disowned her. She wasn’t married.”

“That’s horrible…”

“I was the only one in our whole family who kept talking to her. That’s how he ended up with me. I didn’t think bringing him around to family Christmas now would help any. They’re strangers to him.” His voice was tight, and he let out a shaky breath. Rubbing his face, he continued, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wanted to do all this stuff—She was so smart.”

“Sungmin’s really bright,” you commented lightly.

“Yeah, he is.” He smiled faintly. “He called me ‘Uncle Sungchan’ again, just now when we were saying goodnight. Thank you for whatever you said to him. All those online certificates seem to have paid off.”

“Wasn’t exactly in the online trainings…” You confessed hesitantly. “I told him this was my first Christmas without my mom too.”

“Shit, Y/N…” Sungchan breathed out, the bittersweet smile immediately falling from his face. He hugged you. “I’m so sorry.”

“My dad passed when I was a baby. It was just me and my mom for my whole life. Now it’s just me,” you muttered against his shoulder, tears beginning to eke out the corners of your eyes. With a cynical chuckle, you said, “I haven’t told anybody else this, but the reason I volunteered to stay here over break is so I wouldn’t be alone on Christmas. It’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it?”

“No, not at all,” he reassured you, hand cradling the back of your head. “Honestly, I probably could’ve taken him somewhere—rented a place for the month, I don’t know—but I was afraid of it being just the two of us on Christmas. Thought the other boys would give him something else to do than be sad, you know?”

“They’ve kept us pretty busy,” you giggled.

“For sure,” he agreed humorously.

“Sungmin told me that every Christmas, they used to make and decorate cookies. I promised we would all do that.”

“It’s a good idea. Thanks, Y/N.”

You and Sungchan were still hugging each other, and with your tears subsiding, you began pulling away to dab at your eyes with the sleeves of your sweatshirt. “You’re doing really good, Sungchan,” you sniffled, and patted his forearm. “With Sungmin. You’ll keep learning.”

He turned his hand over, catching yours and holding it. “You’re good with them too. All of them.”

Your chest was suddenly too tight around your heart, and you couldn’t say anything, so you squeezed his hand back instead.

“I’m here if you need me, for whatever. Even after break,” he said as he began standing up, still holding onto your hand.

“Of course. You took me under your wing, remember?” You choked out a joke.

He smiled fondly. “Of course.”

Letting your hand slip from his, he crossed over to the other bed and pulled the covers back to get under them. You were oddly cold as you went to sleep that night, blankets tight around you, thinking again about how warm Sungchan’s arms were around you.

The five of you were in the dining hall for the first time that break. The long tables afforded plenty of space to spread out the many, many cookie decorating supplies you’d procured especially for today. Yesterday, you and Sungmin had baked batches and batches of cookies—five people was simply too many to have in the kitchen helping out at once, so you sent the other three to find something to do. Now that the cookies were all cool, it was time to decorate them.

“How’d you do that?” Sungmin gasped, staring at one of Junhyuk’s cookies, which had gel food colorings swirled through the white frosting.

“Here, I’ll show you, Minnie,” Junhyuk offered, putting the cookie he was currently working on down.

You smiled to yourself, continuing to carefully place snowflake sprinkles on your cookie. Sungchan peered over at your work. “What’s going on there?”

“It’s Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon.” You gestured to your surprisingly legible rocketship piped on with gel icing, then at the pearl sprinkle you’d put next to it. “That’s the moon.”

He laughed, pointing to the snowflake sprinkles that you were still dutifully adding. “I’m not the science teacher, but I don’t think it snows in space.”

“Neither am I.” You wrinkled your nose at him in jest. “I took creative liberties. It entered orbit around the moon on Christmas Eve.”

“Well when you’re done, I need those sprinkles.” He nudged his work over towards you for you to look. You could parse out a shaky stick figure, and another circle next to one of its feet. “My snow soccer is missing some snow.”

“That looks like a volleyball to me.”

“You’re right, hold on.” He picked the black icing back up, adding a few dots inside the empty white circle. “Better?”

“Much.” You pushed the container of sprinkles over to him. “All yours.”

“You guys made a lot of cookies,” he commented, eyeing the other containers of treats that you still hadn’t decorated. “There’s only five of us.”

“Got a bit carried away,” you admitted sheepishly. “But they’re really good!”

“Ooh, I haven’t tried one yet, hold on.” He grabbed an undecorated cookie and bit into it. His eyebrows shot up, and he nodded appreciatively as he wolfed down the rest of it. “Mm, I don’t think we’ll have any problem finishing these, actually.”

“You’ve got crumbs all over your face now.”

“Oops.” He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You missed some.” You tsked, grabbing a clean napkin and brushing the rest off his cheek.

He beamed. “Thanks.”

With a flutter in your chest, you returned to decorating cookies.

The next day was Christmas Eve, and Dogyun was heading home. This had always been part of the plan, in your briefing from the headmaster. While he was staying at the school for Winter Break as a whole, he’d be with his family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They lived in the nearby town and were driving over to pick him up soon.

As you watched over the boy haphazardly throwing things into an overnight bag, you couldn’t help your curiosity, and cautiously asked, “Were they out of town? Your family?”

“Nah,” Dogyun answered bluntly. “We live right there.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“Junhyuk’s dad made him stay here, so I asked my parents to stay too,” he expounded as he dug around in his dresser, occasionally sniff-testing garments of clothing before shoving them in. “They said I could, but I had to come home for Christmas. I wanted him to just stay at our house, since my parents are on his emergency card, but then we heard that Minnie would be here too. Me ‘n Junhyuk.”

You smiled proudly at the boy. “That’s all very nice of you to do for your friends, Dogyun.”

“Why’re you here, Ms. Y/L/N? On Christmas?” Dogyun questioned. “What about your parents?”

“My parents have uhm—they’ve passed.”

“Oh no, I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

“It’s okay,” you reassured him calmly. “I’m glad I’m spending Christmas—and this whole break—with you guys.”

Dogyun zipped up his duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Hey, can you check on Junhyuk before lights-out? I know you always come say goodnight to us, but look after him a little extra right now? I’m not here, so however much you look after me, give it to him.”

“I’ll look after him double.”

“Thanks, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

Dogyun’s family was already in the drive when you got outside. His parents immediately hugged him, to which he rolled his eyes, but hugged them back nevertheless. You gave all of them your holidays wishes, and waved one final time to your student as he climbed into the car.

That night, before lights-out, you checked on the boys as promised. Sungmin had climbed into Junhyuk’s bottom bunk, watching the older boy play a game on his Switch. You hovered in the doorway for a few moments, just observing them fondly. When it looked like he was between levels, you softly knocked on the open door to announce your presence.

Both of them looked up from the screen, Junhyuk setting the device down on his lap. “Hi, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Hey, guys. How are you?”

“Junhyuk was showing me a really hard level in this game! He’s really good!” Sungmin told you enthusiastically.

“Is it lights-out?” Junhyuk asked.

“No, not yet. Just popping in to say goodnight.”

Sungmin threw the blankets off him to scurry over to you, throwing his arms around your waist. “Goodnight.”

You patted the top of his head. “Night, Sungmin.”

“Can I go see my uncle for a minute?”

“Of course.”

He zipped down the hall, leaving you with the older boy. Junhyuk turned his device off and set it down. After a moment of silence, he hesitantly asked, “Can I hug you too?”

“Of course, sweetheart.” You opened your arms for him, letting him approach you uncertainly, hugging you with much more caution than Sungmin had. You squeezed him tight, patting his back, and felt him relax in your arms. “You know me and Coach Jung are right there if you need anything, right?”

He nodded, retracting from the hug as slow as he’d initiated. You offered one more reassuring smile, already hearing the hurried footsteps of Sungmin returning. The nine-year-old squeezed into the room, launching himself back onto Junhyuk’s mattress.

“One more level, Jun?” He pleaded.

Junhyuk chuckled and started gently pushing him over. “Not if you’re hogging my whole bed, Minnie. Make some room.”

Back in your room, you slowly got ready for bed, Junhyuk’s situation still weighing heavy on your mind. Emerging from the bathroom, you stopped at the foot of Sungchan’s temporary bed, where he was propped up against the pillows reading something.

“Do you know why Junhyuk’s here?” You asked.

Sungchan sighed and nodded. “Yeah, his dad’s shitty. I know we’re not supposed to talk like that about them—”

“I won’t tell.”

“—Absolutely fucking evil son of a bitch,” he groaned, snapping his book shut and mimicking like he was strangling somebody. “He’s leaving Junhyuk here over break to teach him a lesson.”

Your jaw dropped. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Because he wore the wrong color tie to some event.”

“What?!”

“Junhyuk told me the first day, when he was helping me with the equipment. The really sad thing is, he believes that he deserves it.”

“No…”

“Yeah,” Sungchan confirmed. “Poor kid.”

You blood boiled over in record time. “That’s not a fitting punishment at all! Doesn’t even deserve a punishment! That guy’s a dick! He doesn’t even deserve a kid as good as Junhyuk. Oh my god, he shouldn’t even fucking be a parent!”

“I told him that. Well, the first part.” He watched you pace angrily. “Junhyuk say something to you?”

“Dogyun seemed worried about him while he was gone, asked me to take extra care of him. Didn’t say why.” You bit the inside of your cheek. “Dogyun’s a good kid. Despite the…”

“Stealing sewing needles to pierce his own ears?”

“I was going to say general disregard for rules and authority that he doesn’t deem worth his time, but that too,” you chuckled.

“Same thing.”

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were remarkably quiet. Junhyuk and Sungmin mainly kept busy with indoor activities—video games, reading, and playing in the gym. As you bit into a cookie Christmas night, you thought about your mom, letting a few bittersweet tears fall.

Dogyun’s return made the school feel full again, despite the distinct lack of all other students. There was more laughter, more smiles, and more energy. He brought with him extra presents for Junhyuk and Sungmin from his family, as well as an invite for them to stay over at his family’s house for New Year’s Eve. Dogyun’s parents were one of Junhyuk’s emergency contacts alongside his own, meaning that they had pre-approved permission to sign him out. Sungchan gave his permission for Sungmin to go as well. But in the week before New Year’s, they were still yours to entertain.

“Yeti! Mountain! Yeti! Mountain!” The three boys chanted in the backseat as you passed under the sign out front of the amusement park.

Today, the five of you had woken up rather early to make the long trek to Yeti Mountain, a seasonal theme park several towns over. With the cold, dreary weather outside, you were hoping that the lines wouldn’t be too long, despite the fact that it was now just a few days from Christmas, meaning that lots of families would also be looking for something to keep their own children entertained.

“Okay, buddy system,” you reminded everyone as Sungchan passed out tickets out front of the gate. “Nobody goes off by themselves. You’re either with Coach Jung, me, or each other.”

“Yes, Ms. Y/L/N!” They agreed in unison.

The crowd was about as bad as you had imagined, and you were grateful that you had insisted they all wore their school-issued coats today, as it was easier to spot the three little blobs in matching white and maroon striped puffers among the throng of blobs in black puffers.

“Ooh! Let’s do the Polar Plunge!” Dogyun pointed ahead to a ride, and you watched as it took the strapped-in riders straight up in the air, tilted them face-down, let them dangle, then dropped them back down, slowing down just in time to not actually impact.

“Polar Plunge!” Junhyuk cheered, grabbing his friend’s hand. He turned to the other boy. “You’re coming, right, Minnie?”

“Yeah!” He nodded excitedly. “Polar Plunge!”

Junhyuk grabbed his hand too, and they all ran off towards the ride.

“You want to go?” Sungchan asked you, the two of you slowly trailing after the kids.

You wrinkled your nose and shook your head. “Nah. I like rollercoasters. Not that shit.”

“Sensible,” he snickered. “Mind holding my phone?”

Taking your hand out of your pocket, you held it out palm-up expectantly, and he plopped his phone down.

“Thanks!”

You nodded ahead at where the boys had already raced to the back of the line. “I’ll wait in line with you guys.”

“Yes! You guys are riding it too!” Junhyuk pumped his fist in the air.

“Just Coach Jung,” you informed them. “I don’t like this kind of ride.”

“We’re splitting the rides,” Sungchan added. “So if you ever don’t want to go, you’ll have one of us down here. Don’t worry about saying no, okay?”

You squeezed his arm appreciatively at the idea, and he smiled back at you.

The line slowly shuffled forward until it was finally your group’s turn to board. Promising that you’d be watching, you had just started walking away when Sungchan called your name. Turning back around, you saw that Sungmin was being taken aside to have his height measured, and despite stretching his neck out as much as possible, it was clear he wasn’t going to make the height minimum. Sungchan said a couple more words to him, and the other boys patted his back before letting him walk over to you alone, shoulders slumped.

“I wasn’t tall enough,” Sungmin informed you glumly, watching as the other three got on.

“Aw, that’s a bummer,” you led him over to a portion of the fence that surrounded the ride. “There’s more rides, this is just the first one.”

Sungchan, Dogyun, and Junhyuk were seated on the side facing you, and all waved fervently at you and Sungmin as the ride went up and up. The two of you waved back, until they were tilted forwards and could no longer see you. Your boys’ screams were distinct among the chorus of yells when it dropped, and both you and Sungmin laughed at just how loud they were.

The next ride they wanted to go on was a teacup ride modified to look like icebergs. The carts only fit four people, so you sent the kids off in one while you and Sungchan took another. You easily spotted the car with your students in it, Junhyuk and Dogyun doing their best to make it spin as fast as possible while Sungmin was squashed in between them, face absolutely lit up.

“I’m getting sick just watching them,” you snorted, maintaining the lazy pace you had started with the wheel.

“Oh, so you don’t want to…” Sungchan gripped the wheel with two hands, mischievous glint in his eyes.

“No, wait!” You squealed as he whipped the controls around, speeding up your teacup as well. While you were pushed back in your seat, Sungchan apparently hadn’t braced himself for his own act, getting thrown to the side and stumbling into you.

You were laughing as you elbowed him, “Instant punishment.”

He dropped back into the seat where he was, giggling, letting his arm that he’d used to catch himself on the seat back naturally fall to your shoulders. “My bad,” he grinned.

After a few more rides, you stopped at a food stall to get everyone snacks to eat under covered picnic benches. As the boys were engaged in their own chatter about a video game, you happily took a bite of your fresh mini-donut, still warm. Sungchan chuckled and set down the cup of hot chocolate he’d been sipping on.

“Hold on, you’ve got—” He bit the finger of his glove and pulled it off. Gently, he brushed at the corners of your mouth and chin with his fingertips, finishing his sentence, “—powdered sugar all over your face.”

“Oops,” you mumbled, looking away from his eyes, a bit too afraid what you might do if you actually met his gaze right now.

By the end of the day, you were tuckered out, fully ready to utilize the car trip back home to sleep. As your group made your way to the exit, however, you were stopped by the park employee saying goodbye to everyone.

“Hey, you folks drive in from out of town?” He asked.

“Yes, why?” Sungchan responded.

“Avalanche blocked the only road out of here. Afraid it won’t be cleared until tomorrow,” he explained. “We’re offering complimentary accommodations at the resort hotel to ticketholders who can’t leave.”

Sungchan turned to the rest of you, clapping his hands together. “Well, looks like we’re staying, then.”

At the front desk, you kept an eye on the boys as they looked around at the themed hotel decorations in awe, checking out the Christmas tree with ornaments of the titular yeti character and his many wintery friends, pictures of them on many adventures hung around, and general icicle and snow motifs. You were only half-listening to the conversation that Sungchan was having with the desk attendant as he checked you all in.

Then Sungchan was tapping your elbow. “Is that alright, Y/N?”

“Hm?” you lifted your eyebrows questioningly, looking away from your kids for a moment.

“They have two rooms left, one with two queen beds, the other is just a king,” he filled you in. “The boys will need the two beds, are you okay with us in the other room?”

You blinked maybe a little too fast, throwing on a smile and nodding. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

Emerging from your bathroom decked out head to toe in brand-new Yeti Mountain merch courtesy of the lobby gift shop, you immediately burst into laughter upon locking eyes with Sungchan, in a very similar outfit.

“We look like the biggest Yeti Mountain fans ever,” he snickered from his spot reclined on the bed, one leg crossed over the other and an arm behind his head.

“We look like that family with annual passes who take their kids here every day its open,” you snorted, walking over to the window to peer out at the theme park in the distance. Pulling the curtain aside fully, there was a small ledge with a cushion for sitting.

“We probably got married at Yeti Mountain.” Sungchan joined you at your spot, staring outside with you. His limbs were a bit long for both of you to be sharing the nook, but you didn’t complain, letting him squeeze on with you, shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee.

You laughed. “Do they even do weddings?”

“They should. A wedding reception in the Yeti Cave would be kind of sick.”

“With a disco ball and everything.”

“Now you’re talking.” He look over at you with a grin, and your breath caught in your throat.

Sure, you’d been rooming with Sungchan for almost a month now, but this was different, closer. No ocean of floor between your heads. His hair fell in his eyes, and you watched his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. Even the silly Yeti Mountain branded t-shirt he was in seemed to fit him remarkably well, longsleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing the prominent veins that criss-crossed his skin from his hands and up into the sleeves.

Pressure was building up in your head, it was hard to think past the white noise in your ears. You habitually wet your lips, and you didn’t miss how his eyes followed the movement. Then you were kissing him, and he was kissing you back, hand on your waist as yours was carding through his hair.

Sungchan smiled against your lips, breaking the kiss with a chuckle. He covered his face with one hand, then dropped his cheek into his palm, fixing you with a sheepish and tender smile. “Ah, I was trying to wait until spring semester started to ask you out.”

You tilted your head and arched an eyebrow, absolutely bemused at this revelation. “Wait, you were going to specifically wait until we weren’t sharing a room, and everybody in the school was back, to ask me out?”

“Yes, because I’m a gentleman like that.” He was pouting a little bit now.

You giggled, brushing his hair back from his face before cupping his cheek. “Yeah, you kind of are.”

Sungchan leaned forward, bumping your nose with his affectionately. You closed the gap, connecting your mouths once more.

“What are we going to do without them?” You sighed, getting back in the car after dropping the boys off at Dogyun’s family’s house. It was New Year’s Eve, so you would be without them for a whole twenty-four hours, and you honestly didn’t know how you’d fill your time now.

Sungchan started the car, a smirk on his face. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh?”

“It’s a surprise.”

You couldn’t help but smile as well. “I’ll just wait and see, then.”

“Why are we going to the gym right now?” You questioned as Sungchan led you down the hall of trophies by the hand.

“What? Late-night one-on-one basketball match wasn’t what you were hoping for?” He teased, bumping your shoulder with his.

“In our pajamas?”

“Just wait,” he hummed, continuing to pull you across the gymnasium, towards another set of double doors.

The two of you ended up outside his classroom, which you hadn’t been in since you set it up for movies with the kids a couple weeks ago. All of the classroom furniture that you swore he, Junhyuk, and Dogyun were supposed to be putting back in the classroom while you and Sungmin baked cookies, was still in the hallway. You gave him a skeptical look, but said nothing further, letting him open the door for you.

The sleeping mats, pillows, and blankets were set up on the floor, illuminated by the blank projector screen and strings of rainbow lights hung from the ceiling. You turned back to Sungchan, jaw dropped in delight.

“So sweet,” you gave your approval, throwing your arms around his neck.

“This time we don’t have to watch a bunch of kids movies,” he chuckled, strong arms holding you tight to him. “It’s just us.”

As you went to settle into the pillows and blanket, you gazed up at the lights thoughtfully. “Did you take these off the Christmas tree in the dining hall?”

“I technically didn’t,” he replied pointedly.

“Dogyun,” you immediately surmised.

“They’ve requested anonymity.”

“Wait, is this what you three were doing while we baked cookies?”

He held his hands up, even as he was smiling mischievously. “I can neither confirm nor deny when the alleged theft took place.”

You shook your head and laughed, pecking his cheek. “Thank you, Sungchan. And your little elves.”

Later on, you didn’t even realize that midnight had already come and gone until Sungchan was switching between movies, and you happened to glance at the time on his laptop, nearly one in the morning.

“Happy late New Year’s,” you snickered, pointing to the clock.

“Happy New Year’s.” He beamed, swooping in to capture your lips with his.

The staff and students began returning to the Moorehead Prep campus on Saturday, and the heat was turned back on in the female staff dorms, meaning that you finally got to go back to your own room. Several ladies were in your room, asking about your break while you folded your laundry that you had done ahead of everyone’s return this morning.

“It was great, the boys didn’t cause us any trouble,” you answered, well aware of what they actually wanted to know. “We went sledding, and baked cookies. We even took them to Yeti Mountain one day.”

“Oh, okay,” one of the ladies sighed, not hiding her disappointment. “Sounds nice, Y/N.”

There was a knock at the front door, and another one of your colleagues peeked out of your second-story window. She gasped and turned back to you with wide eyes. “Coach Jung is here!”

You continued folding your clothes, even as you heard Sungchan’s voice at the front door, then footsteps running up the stairs. Ms. Hyesoo didn’t even bother knocking on your wide-open door, suspicious gaze landing on you as she announced knowingly, “Coach Jung is looking for you.”

“Thanks, Ms. Hyesoo. I’ll be down in a second.”

Ignoring the clamoring around you, you tucked your final article of clothing in your drawer, and grabbed your gloves off your nightstand. You gave them all a goodbye as you hurried down the stairs. Sungchan was waiting for you on the porch, smiling down at you as you shut the door behind you.

He wordlessly took off the scarf that he was wearing, looping it around your own bare neck for you. “Ready for lunch?”

“Starving,” you answered with a grin.

⇢ 2025 hallmark movie marathon

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Soulbound. That was the diagnosis that your parents had been handed when you were just a few days old. It wasn’t that you had half a soul, you had a whole one, you just shared it with someone else. One Jung Sungchan, another baby born just down the hall. While two people being soulbound was rare enough, it almost always happened in the instance of multiple births (twins, triplets, etc.). It was practically unheard of to occur between strangers—your families had never met before, the only thing you had in common was physical proximity at your births. But apparently you both had started experiencing symptoms of soulsickness the first night your respective families took you home from the hospital, which resolved upon being rushed back to that very same emergency room. The astute pediatrician who examined both of you put two and two together, and from then on, you hadn’t gone a single day without seeing Sungchan.

Your families moved next door to each other, you were enrolled in the same schools and classes in grade school, tagged along to each other’s extracurriculars, took family vacations together, got your first jobs at the shoe store at the mall, and even had to compromise on what university to attend and coordinate your class schedules. It was an absolute nuisance at best and an obstacle that prevented you from doing anything and everything you wanted at worst. Your options in life were limited by what Sungchan wanted, friendships were difficult to maintain since you had to accommodate his schedule as well (and you were never invited to sleepovers with the other girls), and God knows you’d never been able to really date like this—who would want to date someone that came with an obligatory third wheel forever?

“I have a job interview tomorrow, by the way,” you stated from Sungchan’s passenger seat, eyes focused on the passing buildings. He had gone to the gym this morning—bright and fucking early as always—which meant that you unfortunately had to go as well, since his gym was just far enough away that if he went alone, the distance would start putting stress on your soul. Sometimes you walked on a treadmill, but usually you sat in a corner on your phone until he was done.

“First I’ve heard of it,” he snorted.

“It’s your day off, stop bitching.”

He rolled his eyes. “What time?”

“Two. You’ll have to dress professional.”

“Yeah, right. I’m not interviewing.”

“But if I have to have you walk in with me, you can’t look like a fucking slob,” you pointed out.

“I’ll just wait in the car. Where is it?”

“Inverness & Wildwood.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re not going.”

“Yes, I am,” you insisted.

“No, you’re fucking not,” he retorted. “It’s the next city over.”

“I haven’t interviewed yet, I don’t know if I’d even get it.”

Sungchan pulled into his driveway, putting the car in park but not turning it off as he shot you a withering look, pointing to the house in front of him. “Y/N, we still live with our parents because we couldn’t agree on a dorm or apartment complex to move into in college.”

“So you’re going to force me to live with my parents for the rest of our lives?” You asked incredulously.

“You can’t force me to move somewhere!”

“I’m sorry I have career aspirations past the part-time job we got in high school!”

“You don’t even have to come to my job, but you’re expecting me to fucking move for yours!”

“I didn’t say that!” You were seeing red now. “Don’t put words in my mouth!”

Sungchan, meanwhile, looked like he was about to rip his own hair out. “It’s in another city, how exactly do you expect to work there without me and also without us fucking dying?”

“This isn’t fucking fair!” You grabbed the door handle and got out of the car.

Sungchan turned the car off and got out too. “Tell me about it,” he muttered.

“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” You yelled, slammed the door shut, and stormed off towards your house.

“I know!” He called after you derisively.

Angry, hot tears burned your eyes and rolled down your cheeks as you fumbled to unlock your front door. You slammed that door shut too in your fury, ignoring your dad’s ‘good morning’ as you ran upstairs to your bedroom. This was so fucking unfair. Your whole life you were going to be stuck to a fucking underachiever who was apparently content with keeping the both of you living with your parents forever, never pursuing any dreams or aspirations beyond working at the place that you’d worked at since you were sixteen. What did you do to deserve this?

The car ride to the gym in the next morning was silent. You had your headphones in before you opened the car door, not even bothering to give Sungchan a ‘good morning’ or listen for if he said it to you. You stared out the passenger window with your arms crossed over your chest for the entire drive, wordlessly unbuckling and getting out once you arrived. After his workout, you followed him outside and got back in the car. Except he didn’t reverse out of the parking spot.

Finally, you looked over at Sungchan to find his eyes already on you, fixing you with an expecting look. He motioned for you to take an earbud out. Rolling your eyes, you did so, then waited for him to say whatever he wanted.

“Silent treatment?” He questioned, arching an eyebrow.

“It’s not like we’re friends,” you huffed, moving to put your earbud back in.

“Hey, wait,” he stopped you. “I’m sorry about your interview, alright?”

“Whatever, just forget about it.”

Sungchan buckled in and reversed out of the parking spot. “Isn’t there another firm like that in town? By the mall? You could see if they’re—”

“I said forget it, okay?” You snapped.

He held one of his hands up in surrender, and you put your earbud back in.

With one final adjustment of your blazer, you left your room, hurrying through your house. Your parents were at work, thankfully. You locked the front door behind you and walked right by your car parked out front. Sungchan’s was in his driveway, and you quickly turned down the sidewalk away from his house.

Halfway through your subway ride, you felt a twinge in your head, and grabbed the ibuprofen you had in your purse. You knocked back a couple tablets to keep the pain at bay. Your fingers drummed an anxious rhythm on your knee as you watched the electronic sign for your stop. You were on your feet before the doors opened, rushing out ahead of the other passengers.

A knot formed in your stomach when you emerged from the subway station into daylight, and not from nerves. You swallowed down the nausea, grabbing a ginger chew from your purse and continuing on.

Smiling at the older gentleman who held the door open for you on his way out of the building, you entered Inverness & Wildwood right as a sharp pain started up in your chest. You breathed through it, approaching the receptionist with a calm façade. You gave her your name and interview time, then followed her directions to the restroom that you had asked for.

After locking yourself in a stall, you rooted through your purse for the other pill bottle you had in there, for emergencies. Unfortunately, there was nothing to fully prevent soulsickness—aside from constantly being near Sungchan—but souLOXin could dull the symptoms for a little while. Shaking one of the red and black capsules out into your palm, you made a mental note to put in a refill later; you had less than a handful left. You swallowed it right as you got a text.

[sungchan 👎🍅: where are you?]

You turned your phone on silent and put it in your purse along with the pill bottle.

By the end of the interview, the pain in your abdomen had returned, and you gritted your teeth as you stood up to bow to the three interviewers and thanked them for the opportunity. One informed you they would let you know by the end of the week, and showed you to the elevator. As soon as the doors had closed and you were alone, you let out a groan, clutching your stomach and leaning against the wall for support. You composed yourself again when a ding! rang and you were let out into the lobby once more. Pressing on through your throbbing headache, you rushed down the sidewalks back to the subway, desperately taking another couple of ibuprofen tablets.

Standing on the platform waiting for the next train, you continued to take deep breaths, digging your nails into your clammy palms to distract yourself. Finally, it arrived, and you forced your way in as the doors were still opening. Dropping down into a seat, you let your head fall back against the window behind you and your eyes flutter shut.

Your guts finally started unwinding and the pounding in your head started dulling as you approached your stop. When the announcement was made, you got up, trudging off behind a few other passengers. Halfway back to your house, you were no longer nauseous, you just felt like you were getting over a bad cold—essentially, like shit.

Sungchan’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which you noted in the back of your mind as you walked into your own home and straight up to your bedroom. You eventually checked your phone after getting into your pajamas and crawling into bed.

Four missed calls from Sungchan and a dozen texts total.

[sungchan 👎🍅: y/n]

[sungchan 👎🍅: hello??? i can see your car]

Two calls in a row.

[sungchan 👎🍅: where the fuck are you]

[sungchan 👎🍅: don’t tell me you went to that fucking interview anyway]

Another call.

[sungchan 👎🍅: omfg y/n pick up]

[sungchan 👎🍅: im being so fucking fr rn pick up]

Another call.

[sungchan 👎🍅: im going to kill you if we die rn]

[sungchan 👎🍅: get the fuck back home right now im not kidding]

[sungchan 👎🍅: what the hell is wrong with you]

[sungchan 👎🍅: i just took my last poppys but if ur not back before it wears off im coming to get u idc]

Poppy—the nickname for souLOXin due to the coloring of the capsules. Sungchan always ran out first, the effects wearing off sooner for him than you for as long as the two of you had been taking it. According to the limited studies that had been done, there was some indication that men may metabolize it quicker than women, and of course the fact that he was a gym rat presumably did nothing to help in that department.

[sungchan 👎🍅: if u don’t call me in the next ten minutes im going]

[sungchan 👎🍅: ur the fucking worst that’s it im omw to inverness & wildwood. if u see this and ur somewhere else CALL ME]

He sent that last text six minutes ago. With a sigh, you reluctantly hit the phone icon next to his contact. The first ring didn’t even finish before he picked up.

“Where the fuck are you?” He demanded in lieu of a greeting.

“Home,” you deadpanned. “You can come back.”

“God, you are fucking impossible!” The sounds of screeching tires and car horns were audible in the background. “You went to the interview, didn’t you?”

You shrugged even though he couldn’t see it.

He must have taken your silence as a yes. “Fucking—Was it worth it? Huh?!”

“We lived, stop being so dramatic,” you scoffed. “Big tough guy can’t survive a little stomachache?”

“This time it was a stomachache. And what if I didn’t have any poppys?”

“That would’ve been your fault,” you snorted. “I’m not your mommy, you need to keep up on your own meds. Go get a refill since you’re already out.”

“They’re supposed to be for emergencies, Y/N, not when you want to just—”

Your phone buzzed in your hand, and you pulled it away from your ear to see that there was another call incoming. Just in time, too, you didn’t have it in you to get lectured by Sungchan right now.

“Sorry, I’m getting another call,” you interrupted whatever he was saying loudly, not even bothering to attempt to sound actually apologetic. “Bye!”

Hanging up, you quickly accepted the other call from an unsaved number. “Hello?”

“Ms. Y/L/N Y/N?” It was an older woman on the other end, the voice familiar, but you didn’t want to get your hopes up quite yet.

“This is she,” you confirmed, quickly adjusting your voice from the tone that you had been talking to Sungchan in to a polite and enthusiastic one.

“Hi, Ms. Y/L/N, this is Kwon Siyeon, from Inverness & Wildwood. How are you?”

“Well, I’m well.” You scrambled to your feet, now anxiously pacing your room. “How are you?”

“I’m good, thank you. I’ll make this short—Everyone loved you, and we’d like to offer you the job.”

You pumped your fist in the air, turning towards your window just in time to see Sungchan’s car pull into his driveway, immediately killing all your enthusiasm.

“Before I can accept, there is one thing you need to know about me,” you said regretfully.

The hiring manager prompted you hesitantly, “Which is…?”

Just rip the band-aid off.

“I’m soulbound. He will need to be somewhere in the building while I work. Honestly, we can just stick him in the broom closet if it’s too much trouble.”

Ms. Kwon chuckled, thankfully not seeming to take that as a genuine suggestion. “We can of course provide accommodations for your brother. And if he’s in need of a job as well, we may also be able to arrange something depending on his skills.”

“Oh, no, he’s not my brother,” you quickly clarified. “We’re not related, just… soulbound.”

“Oh…” She paused, obviously not expecting that. “Well, like I said before, we can provide accommodations, and if he’d like to submit his CV, we can see if we’ve got something for him too.”

“I will talk to him.” You nodded, staring down Sungchan’s bedroom window that faced yours, his blinds closed. “Thank you so much, Ms. Kwon.”

“Of course. We will see you both on Monday, then?”

“Bright and early,” you confirmed.

“Great. Goodbye, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Goodbye.”

And now for the hard part.

Not even bothering to change back out of your pajamas, you shoved your feet into shoes and headed next door. You rang the doorbell and waited, bouncing from heel to toe. Sungchan’s groan was audible before he even opened the front door.

“If the first words out of your mouth aren’t ‘I’m sorry’, I swear to fucking God.” He was already scowling at you, a look that probably would’ve been terrifying if you hadn’t been on the receiving end thousands of times at this point in your life and survived. That was what was so frustrating about your relationship with Sungchan, the very thing that had you at each other’s throats constantly was also the only reason one of you hadn’t actually killed the other.

“I’m sorry.” You tried your hardest to sound and look sincere.

He stared you down, clearly unimpressed. “No, you’re not.”

You dropped your apologetic act but still tried to keep a light and friendly tone. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”

“What do you want?”

“You didn’t get your refill while you were out, did you?” You surmised from how quick he’d returned. Pushing the pill bottle you’d grabbed on your way out into his hand, you forced a smile on your face. “Here, take mine. I’ll pick up a refill while you’re at work tomorrow.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, but pocketed the bottle anyway. He repeated, “What do you want?”

“Can I come in?”

Sungchan backed up, opening the door wider for you. You stepped inside, and he shut the door before pivoting on his heel and heading further into the house. Your families had bought two homes next door in a newly built subdivision right after your diagnosis as newborns. This meant that in addition to you two sharing a soul, your houses were literal mirror images of each other. While you would normally take a right from the kitchen to go upstairs to your bedroom, you now had to take a left to go up to Sungchan’s.

He sat down on the edge of his bed, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at you expectantly. You took a deep breath before just jumping right in.

“They offered me the job,” you said, bracing yourself for whatever reaction he would have. Anger, a rehashing of the fight you two had yesterday, a continuation of his ranting from today, all three in succession. His jaw clenched, but he surprisingly didn’t explode.

“…And?” He raised an eyebrow.

“And, I would like to accept it,” you stated the obvious, trying to keep your voice level and as non-venomous as possible. After all, you were asking for something big. “This could be the beginning of like, my dream career, so I would really appreciate it if you would consider doing this. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about the interview beforehand, or when I applied. I shouldn’t have just dropped it on you like that. It was unfair. This isn’t an excuse, but I didn’t really want to tell anybody since I didn’t think I would even get an interview, much less a job. But I should’ve told you, though, of all people. And what I did today was selfish and awful too.”

Sungchan sighed, the resentment dropping from his features. “Shit, you actually mean it.”

You nodded quickly, clasping your hands together in front of you, quite literally pleading now. “I do. And the job pays really good, I can totally cover your expenses for the move, too. Please.”

“Wait, we couldn’t even agree on a building to live in separately during undergrad, and now you’re seriously offering to pay for me to move with you?”

“Until you find a job. We may share a soul, but I’m not gonna let you also mooch off me forever,” you snorted, making him shake his head, albeit with a hint of a smile. “Inverness & Wildwood have even offered to consider you for a job too if you want.”

He tapped his finger on his arm as he mulled it over, eyeing you contemplatively. “I probably would’ve been cool with going to the interview with you if you had talked to me about it first, you know. Sooner than the day before.”

“Right. I’m sorry.”

“We won’t have our parents to mediate, if we do this,” he pointed out. “We’ll have to actually discuss things with each other.”

“You’re really considering?” You asked with wide eyes.

“My mom always said I was wasting my potential being assistant manager of a shoe store. Don’t know if being a copy boy or whatever is really a step up, but—” He finished his sentence with a shrug.

“Absolutely no dragging the other person around to stuff. Communication and compromise,” you confirmed excitedly.

“When would you start?”

“Monday. Obviously we’d commute until we found a place to live nearby and—”

“Monday?”

You winced. “I can see about a later start date…”

“Monday’s fine,” he relented. “I’ll put in my notice tomorrow.”

“You will? Ah, thank you! Thank you!” You did a couple little hops with excitement, in absolute disbelief that he was actually agreeing to this.

A voice called Sungchan’s name from the first floor, and he stood up from his bed. “That’s my mom, she—Huh?”

He’d been caught off-guard by you throwing your arms around his middle in your elation, still absolutely buzzing.

“Thank you, Sungchan.” You beamed up at him.

He sighed and loosely returned the embrace, patting the top of your head. “Yeah, you’re welcome. You better love this job.”

His mom called for him again, and you let him go to head downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, you spotted a familiar older woman bustling in from the garage with a bunch of bags of groceries.

“There’s a few more bags in the car, then I need you to help me put everything away,” she directed her son without even looking.

“Hi, Auntie,” you announced your presence quietly, making her whip around.

“Oh, Y/N!” Sungchan’s mom blinked at you, eyes going wide with surprise as she hurried to put all of it down on the kitchen counter and greet you. “It’s been a while, sweetie. How are you?”

Sungchan’s family had obviously watched you grow up, always being kind to you and treating you like one of their own. While your two sets of parents tried their best to foster a friendship between you as well as be equitable when it came to your joint schedule, there was no way they hadn’t noticed your obvious disdain for each other, especially when you got older and avoided the other as much as physically possible.

You accepted her hug, a soft smile on your face now. “I’m good, I’m good. I’ve actually got a job offer, which is what I came over here to talk to Sungchan about.”

She let you go to look between you two with curiosity. “A new job?”

“Y/N’s going to be a bigshot at Inverness & Wildwood,” Sungchan explained, leaning against the wall.

“That’s… far,” she said hesitantly.

“I’m going with her,” he ended the suspense quickly. “It’s a good opportunity for her, and I’m tired of selling shoes anyway.”

“They’re going to let me keep him in the supply closet while I’m at work,” you reassured her with a snicker.

She burst into laughter, wrapping her arms around you again and rubbing your back. “As long as you feed him.”

“I’ll let even him out for exercise.”

“I’m not a gerbil,” Sungchan grumbled.

“Ohh, I’m so proud of you, sweetie,” his mom sighed happily, entirely ignoring her son’s complaints.

“Thank you, Auntie,” you murmured sincerely.

Monday morning, you and Sungchan did arrive at Inverness & Wildwood bright and early as promised. You had gone out and gotten him a button up shirt and properly fitting slacks this weekend in preparation, and his less-than-one-week notice had been turned in at the shoe store. Taking a deep breath, you approached the reception desk.

“Hi, Y/L/N Y/N, today’s my first day,” you told the receptionist.

“Of course, welcome to Inverness & Wildwood.” She smiled at you, though her gaze trailed questioningly to Sungchan awkwardly standing a couple steps behind you.

“He’s with me, he’s uhm, he’s—we’re uhm—I’m soulbound, and he’s—”

“Ahh, yes, I do have a note here.” Her face lit up with recognition then eased, her focus returning to speak only to you. “If you’ll have a seat, I’ll buzz Ms. Kwon to let her know that you’re here, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Thank you.” You turned and went to sit on one of the chairs in the lobby, the elevator in your sights. Sungchan followed you, taking the seat opposite you.

“Smooth,” he snickered under his breath, slumping down and pulling his phone out.

“Shut up,” you hissed. “And sit up straight. Aren’t you trying to work here too?”

He had his résumé in his other hand, and while he rolled his eyes, he did straighten out his posture, scooting up in his chair. “Yeah, as like the gofer who gets everyone’s coffees.”

“Why don’t you have any real aspirations for your life?”

“Keeping everyone caffeinated is noble. Why do you turn your nose up at service workers?”

You gawped, caught off-guard at his biting question disguised as playful banter. “I don’t! It’s just that I know you can do more—”

“You’re still doing it.”

“Fine, new question—You were Dean’s List in college, graduated magna cum laude undergrad and summa in high school. Why don’t you want to do something in line with your studies?”

Sungchan tilted his head. “You paid that much attention to me?”

You lunged forward in your chair to lean as close to him as possible, dropping your voice to a whisper that only he could hear and jabbing your pointer finger against his chest indignantly. “Bitch, we’ve been attached at the soul for over two decades, I would’ve had to be braindead to not have retained some information about you. Don’t do this shit right now! I’m serious!”

“You always are.” He clicked his tongue.

At his silence that followed, you decided that you had won and backed away from him again. Keeping your chin up, you remained on the edge of your seat, crossing and uncrossing your legs at the knee nervously. Finally, you heard the elevator ding, and looked away from that direction, not wanting to stare directly at whoever was approaching, the sounds of their heels getting closer. Instead, you let your gaze fall back to Sungchan, who arched an eyebrow at you.

“Ms. Y/L/N?” A woman called your name out, and your head snapped over to her, a smile coming to your face as you immediately recognized Ms. Kwon, the hiring manager who had been present at your interview.

You quickly stood, Sungchan following your lead as you walked over to greet her just past the reception desk. “Good morning, Ms. Kwon, it’s great to see you again.” You bowed your head.

“You too, we’re very happy you accepted our offer,” she said warmly. “Both of you.”

“Yes, right.” You cleared your throat, before starting introductions, gesturing to Sungchan. “Ms. Kwon, this is Jung Sungchan. Sungchan, this is Ms. Kwon Siyeon, she’s the hiring manager here at Inverness & Wildwood.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Sungchan said, shaking her hand that she had offered. “I appreciate you accommodating me.”

“Of course. It’s nice to meet you as well, Mr. Jung. Is that your résumé there?”

“Yes.”

She delicately snatched it from his grasp with two fingers, then looked back to you with a smile. “So, ready for orientation?”

“Absolutely.”

“We can leave Mr. Jung anywhere in the building, correct?”

“Yes, we’ll be fine at that distance.”

“Great.”

Ms. Kwon showed you to your desk first, and the one next to it happened to currently be vacant, so Sungchan was allowed to wait there while you continued your orientation. After briefly indicating him the bathroom and breakroom—in case he wanted to help himself to some coffee—Ms. Kwon whisked you away to her office. You went through your new employee paperwork, a powerpoint and other instructional materials, then you were off again. She brought you to another office, this time with ‘Oh Jieun’ on the outside.

Ms. Oh was to be your team leader and start off your training. After doing introductions, Ms. Kwon headed for the door again.

“I’ll be reviewing Mr. Jung’s résumé now. Call me if you need anything.”

“Please, take a seat, Y/N.” Ms. Oh gestured to one of the two armchairs across form her desk. To your surprise, she took the other one instead of sitting behind her desk again. “And you can call me Jieun, if you’re comfortable with that. Our team is pretty familiar with each other like that.”

“Maybe not yet,” you chuckled nervously.

“I understand.” She smiled. “I like to get to know my people a little first. Ms. Kwon did inform me that you’re soulbound, I’m assuming that’s who ‘Mr. Jung’ is?”

“Yes, Sungchan, yeah,” you confirmed.

“You’re not related…”

“No, we’re not. It was uh, a big surprise for our parents. Just happened somehow.”

“That must have been nice, though, growing up. Built-in brother?”

You flashed another nervous smile, trying not to show your disdain on your face. “We’ve had our ups and downs, but I’m very grateful to him for coming with me when I received this opportunity. Which is why I also appreciate Ms. Kwon agreeing to look for a position for him here as well.”

“He quit his job?” She surmised.

“Yes, we’re from the next town over. Our workplaces would have been too far apart.”

She waved her hands in front of her. “I apologize, I know you’re more than being soulbound. What do you do in your free time, hm?”

It wasn’t until lunch that you left Ms. Oh’s office. She declared that she had a lunch meeting, and encouraged you to take your break now too. You walked back to your desk feeling a little overwhelmed and dazed already, lots of notes in your notebook that Ms. Kwon had given you. Sungchan was still at the desk next to yours, looking up from his phone with interest as you pulled out your chair and flopped down into it.

“So…? How’s work so far?” He asked.

“Good, good.” You sat up straight. “You uh, doing alright?”

He shrugged. “Checked out the breakroom. Played some solitaire.”

“I’m on lunch. Do you want to go somewhere? Stretch your legs?”

“You really weren’t kidding about taking me on walks, huh?” He snickered, standing up anyway. “Making sure I get fresh air?”

You grabbed your purse and started towards the elevator. Through gritted teeth, you said, “You’re lucky I’m treating you better than a bug in a jar.”

He laughed at that, not seeming to care when a couple of your coworkers looked over. “Going to put a magnifying glass over me and set me on fire next?”

The elevator arrived, and the two of you stepped in. Once the door shut and you were alone, you dug your elbow into his side. “Don’t give me any ideas. God, do you have to be so loud?”

“What are you talking about?” Sungchan easily fended off your limb. “I laughed. It’s a normal thing to do. Heard some other people doing it earlier. You’re not going to be exiled for being seen with a guy who laughed.”

You took a deep breath. “You’re right, sorry. I’m just freaked because it’s my first day.”

“I get it. And I promise I’m not going to do anything to intentionally get you fired. Seriously, I’ve been on my best behavior.”

“That was obvious, huh?”

“We’ve never been able to keep secrets from each other.”

“Yeah, not for very long.”

“Anyway, Ms. Kwon has been busy, I think. I haven’t seen her since this morning, so no updates on a job for me yet.”

The elevator arrived on the ground floor, and he let you step off first. “That’s okay, Sungchan. You just quit your job for me, some grace is definitely owed.”

You two stopped on the sidewalk in front of the building, Sungchan closing his eyes and reveling in the sunlight while you lifted your hand up to shield your eyes against the brightness and look around. Tsking, you said, “I think there’s a kebab place down the street?”

“Sounds good to me.”

As you walked, you looked up at the buildings around your new workplace. Some were other office buildings, while others were apartments.

“That looks like a nice place,” you pointed.

Sungchan made a non-committal sound.

“Or that one? Everything here is definitely close enough in case one of us is at work and the other is home.”

A shrug.

“Okay, I’m going to need a lot more from you,” you snorted. “We have to live somewhere eventually, remember? It’d be a good idea to start thinking about it.”

“Dishwasher.”

“What?”

“It should have a dishwasher. We’ll get tired of hand-washing dishes really fast,” he said. “And in-unit laundry.”

You nodded. “We’ll look at some listings online while we eat.”

When you returned to the office, Ms. Kwon and Ms. Oh found you two at your desks at the same time.

“Mr. Jung,” Ms. Kwon zeroed in on Sungchan. “Time for your interview.”

“Y/N, let’s meet the rest of the team.” Ms. Oh gestured for you to follow her.

Ms. Kwon had already started off towards her office, leaving Sungchan to catch up. “Wish me luck,” He whispered to you under his breath.

“Good luck,” you murmured, watching him take off after her through the maze of desks.

Ms. Oh was still waiting patiently, and you grabbed your notebook off your desk before turning to her, offering a smile.

At the end of the day, you were exhausted. And you still had to commute back home. Grabbing your purse from your desk, Sungchan immediately perked up.

“Done?” He asked hopefully.

“Mm-hm,” you confirmed, heading for the elevator with a few other employees from this floor.

Sungchan was right behind you, squeezing onto the elevator with everyone else. Out on the sidewalks, you two started towards the subway in silence. Other office workers were converging on the street too, the city beginning to change as the sun started setting.

As you sat down on the subway with Sungchan, you got déjà vu to this morning, and suddenly remembered something. “Oh! How’d it go with Ms. Kwon?”

He straightened his shoulders and jokingly puffed out his chest. “You’re looking at Inverness & Wildwood’s newest part-time office supply and personnel logistics assistant.”

You squinted at him.

“I’m a gofer.” He grinned and flopped back against his seat. “I’ll make copies, get coffee, run documents between departments, do inventory, whatever they ask me to. They already have another part-timer so they didn’t need me full-time.”

“Congrats,” you said dryly. “We should find a place close to work, so you don’t have to come in when you’re not scheduled.”

“Downtown will be expensive,” he commented.

“I don’t know what your pay as a gofer is, but I can afford it.”

“Actually, they’re paying me more than the shoe store.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, thanks for almost killing me to interview for your job,” he teased, and you rolled your eyes.

“You’re such a baby.”

Two more weeks of commuting and looking at apartments on your lunch break, and you’d finally found one that was available now, only a block away from work, and met all of your and Sungchan’s personal qualifications. You didn’t have a lot of things to bring over from your childhood bedroom—mostly clothes, personal belongings, and the odd piece of sentimental décor. Even your bed was staying put, as your parents had never upgraded you from the twin bed that you’d had as a kid, expecting you to go to college and only ever come back for visits, not stick around as long as you had. The first week you had the apartment, you still commuted back home to sleep, until your new bedframe and mattress arrived.

That was when it really hit you. After spending your whole Saturday unpacking and building furniture, you grabbed your bag of toiletries to take with you into your bathroom for a shower later. Your bathroom. You’d really be living here.

You turned back to Sungchan, who you had called in to assist with some of the two-person steps on building your bedframe. “We’re really doing this.”

“Hm?” He looked up from where he had still been fiddling with a couple screws. “No, we’re done with the frame. Mattress should be easy, it’ll unroll and inflate on its own.”

“I meant—We’re really living here. Together. Without our parents.”

“Guess so.” He stood up. “I’ll grab your mattress.”

The mattress had arrived sometime during the week, and you had pulled it in by yourself. Meaning that the heavy box was dragged in and left by the front door.

Finished arranging your shower products, you stepped back out of your bathroom in time to watch Sungchan carry the mattress box into your room by himself and set it down with no further indication of exertion other than a small huff. Which also just could’ve been from annoyance at helping you.

“Glad to see all our time at the gym hasn’t been a waste,” you commented as he started opening the box.

“Only a waste for you,” he teased back.

“That would hurt if I had been going there willingly.”

“This place has got a gym,” he said. “Pretty nice one too.”

“Yeah, so now you can go without me.”

He pumped his fist victoriously, and you rolled your eyes despite this very much being a win-win situation. With the plastic off, he arranged the mattress on your bedframe to inflate the rest of the way on its own.

“There.”

“Thanks, Sungchan.”

He nodded, heading towards your door. “I’m scheduled for the morning tomorrow.”

“Then you can sign for my dresser. Should be coming in the afternoon.”

“Where else would I be?”

Coming home from work the next day, you were not looking forward to building a dresser. You stepped out of your shoes at the door, carrying them in your hands as the apartment was suspiciously void of Sungchan. Sure, he could’ve gone to anywhere else within a few blocks safely, but you two had already agreed to give each other a heads-up when doing that. Figuring he was probably in his room, you let your shoulders relax as you pushed your bedroom door open.

You stopped in the doorway, shoes dangling off your fingertips, to stare blankly at the scene in front of you. Sungchan on the floor of your bedroom with what looked to be your half-built dresser and various pieces sprawled out around him and his head entirely under your bed as he appeared to be searching for something.

“Uh, what are you doing?” You asked plainly.

“Fuck!” He swore as he startled and hit what sounded like both his head and shoulder on the underneath of your bed and bedframe, then swore again at the pain, “Shit! Ow!” Carefully pulling himself out, he said, “I’m building a dresser.”

You tiptoed around him, careful not to knock anything out of place, to access your suitcase for a change of clothes. “How long have you been doing that?”

He sat back on his feet, pointing at the furniture, “Spent fifteen minutes building the dresser,” then gestured around the expanse of your room, “And the past two hours looking for a screw.”

You carefully used a hand on his head to balance as you stepped over him and a bunch of wood panels to get to your adjoined bathroom.

“Let me get out of my work clothes, then I’ll help.”

Emerging from the bathroom in more relaxed loungewear, you eyed him curiously. “Why were you even building my dresser for me? I just asked you to sign for the package.”

“I was bored.”

“So bored that you’d rather get pissed off at this than stop?” You asked humorously.

He threw his hands up in exasperation. “Apparently.”

“So what exactly are we looking for?”

He showed a screw to you, about as long as your thumbnail. You didn’t hide your doubt.

“Hm.”

“Yeah.” He turned his phone flashlight on and stuck his head back under your bed.

Peering back out into the hallway, you saw something glinting from just inside Sungchan's ajar bedroom door, and walked over there. You picked it up, having secured a small screw between two fingers.

“Sungchan,” you said, entering your room again.

“Huh?” He thankfully didn’t hit his head again as he rolled out from under your bed.

You held the screw out to him on your palm. “Is this it?”

His jaw dropped as he took it from you. “Where the fuck was it?”

“Hallway.”

“Ugh, I wasn’t looking out there! How did it get out there?!” He whined, then immediately closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and his features became neutral again. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I wasted two hours of my life, but it’s fine.”

“Well, as long as it’s fine,” you replied skeptically.

Twenty minutes before the end of the workday, one of your team members whose desk was behind yours leaned his chair back to bridge the gap between you two. Mark whispered, “Hey, a few of us are getting drinks after work today. Want to come? We can celebrate your one-ish month. Three weeks?” His face screwed up as he was clearly trying to do the mental math on how long you had been there.

Truthfully, you were already beat from the work week, and still had more boxes waiting for you at the apartment. But you didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot when it came to establishing good relationships with your coworkers. One drink couldn’t hurt. But it wasn’t just your decision, unfortunately.

“I’ll have to ask Sungchan,” you replied, giving him an apologetic smile.

Mark squinted at you with confusion. “The… new stockroom guy?”

You hadn’t announced that you were soulbound to your entire team or anything, nor had it come up naturally yet. And it seems that Ms. Oh hadn’t mentioned it either, which you were both grateful for and also slightly annoyed by. Now you’d have to go through this with all of them until the whole building finally knew. Maybe a mass email would just be easier, actually.

“We’re soulbound. No, we’re not related, and we don’t know how or why it happened,” you rushed through the usual questions. “I don’t have to come, I know you weren’t expecting to have to invite him too—”

“No, of course he can come!” He reassured you easily. “I didn’t know that was possible, that’s all. We’re all meeting in the lobby in ten minutes or so, the bar’s just a couple blocks away.”

“I’ll ask him. Thanks, Mark.”

You had last spotted Sungchan heading for the breakroom, and checked there first. Your guess was right, he was, in fact, restocking the coffee station.

“Sungchan,” you called for his attention.

“Yes! Time to go home!” He cheered, putting the box of K-cups back in the bottom cabinet.

“Not quite,” you informed him, walking over to where he was on the opposite side of the breakroom from you. “Still got fifteen minutes.”

He groaned, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “Then what are you doing here? Other than getting my hopes up just to crush them? Unless that’s the entire point?”

“I’m actually not here to fulfill my dark, evil purpose of killing all joy on Earth this time.”

Sungchan snickered a little. “Don’t tell me you’re getting caffeine now.”

“A few people from my team are going out for drinks. We were invited,” you said. “I let them know I would have to ask you before accepting.”

“We were invited, or you were invited?”

“I was invited, then the invitation was extended to you once I told them about our situation,” you answered truthfully. “I understand if you don’t want to go, they’re not your team, and we’ve still got stuff to unpack at the apartment after.”

“No, we should go,” he said firmly. “You’ve got to network or whatever, right?”

You blinked at him in surprise. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Then we’ll go. Unless you don’t want to, and you were hoping I would say no so you could blame me?” He tilted his head. “Because you totally can, I don’t care what these people think of me. I’ll be the bad guy any day if you want to get out of something.”

You let out a sputtering laugh, caught off-guard by how genuine he seemed. “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks. And I am tired, but it’s important to have a good relationship with my team upfront, I think, then I can start skipping out on stuff later on. I was planning on staying for at least one drink if you said yes.”

Sungchan nodded. “Okay, one drink. And if they’re pressuring you to stay, signal me and I’ll start being a dick so we can leave.”

“Signal you how?”

“Kick me under the table or something.”

“You’re giving me permission to kick you?”

“You’re acting like you never have? Or can you only kick me when you don’t have my express permission?”

“Just making sure we’re on the same page.” You held your hands up, heading towards the breakroom exit again. “We’re all meeting in the lobby in a few minutes to head out.”

“I’ll meet you at your desk.”

Mark was standing behind his desk when you returned, his messenger bag strap slung across his front and computer turned off as he looked at you questioningly. You gave him a thumbs-up and a nod, receiving an enthusiastic fist-pump in return.

“You want me to wait up for you?” He offered.

“Nah, Sungchan and I will be right behind you,” you promised, saving your work.

“Cool.”

You had just started shutting your computer off when Sungchan approached your desk, a noticeable skip in his step at the workday being over. Shouldering your purse, you stood up, pushing your chair in. “Ready to go?”

“I can’t believe you’re actually leaving work early.” He shook his head in mock disapproval, following you to the elevator.

You pushed the down button and looked at the time on your phone. “By ten whole minutes. What’s become of me?”

“Slacker,” he said in a sing-song voice, stepping onto the empty elevator with you. He leaned against the back wall of the elevator, hands resting casually to either side of him on the railing that went around the entire room. “If you’re not careful, you’ll become an underachiever like me, you know.”

“I never called you that.” You shot him a frank look over your shoulder as you hit the lobby button, then turned your gaze back to the screen to watch the number go down as the elevator descended.

“I didn’t say you did.”

“Your subtext was pretty clear.”

“My subtext?”

“You’re not stupid Sungchan,” you sighed loudly. “I don’t know why you keep insisting on acting like you are, and in the process, like I’m stupid too, because that’s the only way I’d believe you were.”

“Have you considered that I am stupid, but you keep insisting that I’m smart because we share a soul, and if I’m stupid, then maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are?”

“Nice try, but we share a soul, not a brain.”

“Yeah, pretty sure you got the brain between us.” Sungchan startled you by suddenly pushing off the back wall and walking up behind you. You expected him to muss up your hair or push you around a little or something as the ground floor—and your waiting coworkers—approached. But he just stood next to you politely, also watching the numbers.

“Then you got the brawn.” You used your index finger to jab at where the material of his button-down shirt was straining slightly around the solid muscle of his shoulder.

He suddenly jokingly went to flex, and you immediately recoiled, turning away and covering your mouth as you made retching sounds.

“Ew! We’re at work! Have some self-respect!” You blindly smacked his arm as his laughter bounced around the elevator. “I swear to God, you better not be doing that in front of people or—”

“Or what?” He taunted. “I’m the brawn, remember?”

“I’ll smother you in your sleep, Jung Sungchan!” You finished your threat, meeting his gaze without hesitation. “I know where you sleep, remember?”

He was still grinning breathlessly as he held his hands up in surrender. “Alright, I’ll hold off on embarrassing you at work until I get a deadbolt on the inside of my bedroom door.”

The elevator had made it to the ground floor then, and you composed yourself right before the doors opened with a ding! to announce your arrival. You immediately spotted the cluster of your coworkers by the front doors of the lobby, most of them seeming to be from your team, with a couple that you didn’t recognize.

Mark noticed you first, raising a hand to wave you over. “Yo! Y/N!”

“Hi,” you greeted everyone brightly. Clearing your throat, you decided to just rip the band-aid off. “This is Sungchan, by the way. We’re soulbound. No, we’re no related. And yes, he’s also the new part-time office supply guy.”

“Hey,” Sungchan said casually from behind you.

“Let’s go drink!” Mark interjected into the silence that had befallen the group as everyone seemed to be trying to process the information you’d just dropped on them. They all immediately burst into cheers and started towards the exit.

You ended up staying much later than you anticipated, and for more than one drink, through no sort of peer pressuring. You were actually having fun with your coworkers, and it was Friday night, so what was the problem, really?

The problem, you realized, only when it was too late. You’d lived with your parents during college, and because all of your socialization had depended on Sungchan in the past, you hadn’t really done much of it out as an adult. So your alcohol tolerance was non-existent. As soon as it hit you, you froze, stopping in the middle of your sentence, talking with Huang Renjun and Lee Donghyuck about… something that you’d completely forgotten about. You were now of a one-track mind that you were well on your way to be way too drunk to be around your coworkers, and you did not want to make an absolute fucking fool of yourself in front of them, even if this was technically “outside of work.”

“Y/N? You okay?” Renjun questioned.

Sungchan was also in the booth with you all, zoning in and out of conversation whenever it happened to veer into something he was actually interested in. He didn’t care if people saw him looking disinterested, scrolling on his phone and sometimes even leaning his head back and closing his eyes until he was actively engaged again.

You did the only thing you could think of and kicked Sungchan. Hard. Except he didn’t startle at all, still resting his eyes. Instead, it was Renjun that jumped and swore. “Ow! What the fuck was that for, Lee Donghyuck?! Come here, you little—”

He reached across the table to grab Donghyuck’s collar as the other man sputtered and flailed to push Renjun off him, laughing and whining that he didn’t know what Renjun was talking about. The commotion was enough to disturb Sungchan, who peeked one eye open, then the other as he seemed to appreciate the scene in front of him. He looked between your quarreling coworkers and you, raising one eyebrow in a silent ‘what did I miss?’

You leaned back, trying to very casually peer under the table just enough in order to direct your kick at the correct leg this time. With Renjun and Donghyuck scrambling around, it was pretty easy to tell the difference. You kicked Sungchan probably more times than was necessary, but you were fully panicking now that you had inadvertently started an almost-bar brawl.

Sungchan, to his credit, hardly reacted to your assault. He slowly nodded once and sat up straight before clearing his throat pointedly. “Y/N, let’s go,” he demanded loudly, making a big show of checking his phone. “We did your work thing, now it’s time for my thing.”

“Right, yeah,” you nodded, not trusting yourself to say any sentences longer than two or three words. “Time to-to go.”

Renjun released his hold on Donghyuck, and they each slid out of the ends of the booth seats they were occupying to let you both out. Sungchan smoothly got out first and helped you up with a hand on your arm that you hoped didn’t make it too apparent that you couldn’t stand on your own.

“Sucks you have to go early, Y/N,” Donghyuck lamented with a sigh. “But we do this once a month! You’ll totally have to come next time!”

“Both of you!” Renjun added, looking at Sungchan too. “Hopefully it’ll work better for both of you next time.”

“Oh, yeah, maybe.” You smiled and nodded, and before you could stop yourself, more words were falling out of your mouth, “I’m really sorry to-to leave like, uh, like this, it’s just that—”

“I’m going to be late, Y/N!” Sungchan interrupted you. “We already stayed an extra hour longer than you said. You know I’ve had this planned for months!”

“I’ll let you go,” Renjun whispered, patting your shoulder sympathetically before turning away from you.

You leaned into Sungchan as he guided you towards the exit of the bar. Halfway there, you realized you didn’t have your purse, and turned around to look to see if you left it in the booth. “Wait, my…”

“I’ve got your purse,” he murmured, and the familiar jangle of the zippers was audible from his other side.

“Oh.”

“You guys leaving?” A voice accosted you right before you were free, and you did your best to disguise your look of ‘oh shit!’ as you turned to face Mark.

“Yeah, uhm, well, Sungchan has, uh—Sungchan’s got to—”

“I’ve got a thing,” Sungchan took over explaining, keeping his tone curt. “And I’m not trying to be rude, Mark, but I’m already running late, so if we could get going…?”

“Oh, yeah, of course!” Mark started backing away apologetically. “It was good hanging with you guys! Night!”

And finally, you were outside, which was comparatively much quieter, colder, and fresher than the inside of the bar. You took a deep breath of air, already feeling better.

“Oh my god,” you groaned with relief. “Thank you, Sungchan.”

“Are you alright? Other than being drunk?” He asked, holding a hand out to hail a cab.

“What are you doing? We can walk home.”

“From work, yes. Not from some bar we’ve never been to, at night, when you’re drunk.”

“Don’t you have a maps app on your phone?”

“Don’t you have a self-preservation instinct?”

A cab pulled up then, and he helped you into the backseat before giving your address to the driver. You slumped against his shoulder as you watched the city lights pass by in a blur, letting your eyes unfocus.

“Did it hurt?” You mumbled.

“When I fell from heaven? Meh, a bit,” he replied humorously.

“No, when I kicked you.”

He laughed, and you felt his shoulder shake as he did so. “Yeah, I think I’ll have a bruise tomorrow.” He sounded oddly proud and even reached over to pat your head.

“Thanks for being an asshole tonight, Sungchan,” you said sincerely.

“Anytime. It was kind of fun, actually.”

Today fucking sucked. You pushed the front door open, fully ready to beeline for your bed and bury yourself under your covers and cry for the entire night. You were just hoping Sungchan was in his room and would leave you alone.

But no, he had apparently used his afternoon off to put the couch together, as he was reclined on that, watching something on your TV that was still on the ground (you hadn’t found a TV stand yet).

“Hey, I picked up some pizza from that place on the corner for dinner,” Sungchan said, standing up from the couch and gesturing to said pizza boxes sitting on your kitchen counter. “Get out of your work clothes then we can eat.”

You faltered, slowing to a stop. “You got it… for both of us?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too?”

“There’s nobody else here? Right?”

You couldn’t help it, all of the stress of the day finally snapping inside you and coming out as tears. Your shoulders jumped with each hiccupping sob, and you dropped your face into your hands as tears streamed from your eyes, soaking your cheeks and blazer cuffs.

“Woah, woah, hey.” He was clearly trying to swallow down his panic and keep his tone soft and comforting. “Do you not want pizza? I can go get something else. What do you want?”

“No, no, Sungchan, pizza is fine,” your words were choked and half-sobbed. You pulled your head back up to see him already with his keys in his hand. “It’s just—Ugh, I messed something up at work today. And nobody got mad at me or anything, and we were able to fix it, and I know I’m still new, but it’s still making me think like—What if I don’t actually belong here? What if I never get good at my job? What if I never figure it out? What if I never figure anything out?” You sniffled, your next words coming out as a wail as your eyes strayed over to the pizza boxes and your sobbing intensified again, “And then you got pizza for me and I thought you hated me.”

Sungchan’s keys clinked as he set them back down, soft footsteps of his sock-clad feet getting closer before you felt his hands gingerly land on your upper arms. When you didn’t immediately pull away, his grasp tightened, squeezing your shoulders as his thumbs smoothed over the area soothingly.

“Okay, first, I don’t hate you. It’ll be really hard to live together if we hate each other.”

“True,” you mumbled, gaze on your feet.

“Y/N, you’ve worked there for a month. Nobody expects you to know everything yet. Except you, apparently,” he continued. “Who cares about having things figured out anyway? If you know everything, you never get to learn anything new. Seems pretty boring to me.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” you agreed reluctantly. Wrapping your arms around his waist, you buried your face in his chest, adding a muffled, “Thanks, Sungchan.”

He hugged you back, holding you to him firmly. Sungchan let you stand there and keep crying for who knows how long, not complaining even as your tears definitely soaked through his shirt, or as the pizza had probably gone cold. He was pleasantly warm and sturdy, letting you lean almost your full weight against him. One of his large hands gently rubbed between your shoulder blades, eventually calming your hiccups down.

Finally, your feet and your legs hurt far too much from standing in one place, and you were really hungry. Letting him go, he took the cue and pulled away as well. You spotted the large wet patch of tears—and embarrassingly, shiny snot as well—on his shirt, and winced. “God, sorry. I’ll do laundry this weekend.”

“It’s fine,” he brushed off your apology, heading towards the hallway. “I’m doing laundry tomorrow anyway.”

You followed, needing to get out of your work clothes too. “What? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m off tomorrow. Put yours in the hall before you go in the morning and I’ll toss it in there too.” He smiled, stepping into his room and shutting the door.

It was still slightly ajar, though, you realized as you went to close your door. You paused as your eyes caught a flash of movement, realizing too late that it was Sungchan tugging his ruined shirt over his head by the collar. You slammed your door shut all the way, locking it behind you.

Reemerging in your pajamas, you found Sungchan in the kitchen, two paper plates out by the pizza boxes. You also hadn’t gotten dishes or silverware yet. After helping yourself to several slices of room temperature pizza, you sat cross-legged on your newly built couch, squinting at the TV screen.

“What are you watching?” You questioned.

“Video essay about some movie I’ve never seen,” he admitted. “I tried logging into my parents’ Netflix but it kicked me out.”

You laughed. “I guess we need to get our own account, huh?”

The next day, you had a marginally better time at work. Oddly enough, you found yourself wondering what Sungchan was doing at random times, but restrained your urge to text him. He’d let you know if he was going somewhere.

“Hey, Y/N,” Mark caught your attention.

You spun your chair around to face him. “Yeah?”

“Sungchan coming in today?”

“No, he’s off all day. I guess it’s Yushi’s day,” you referred to the other part-timer who fulfilled the same duties as Sungchan. Yushi was an undergraduate student at the nearby university who worked at the firm when he wasn’t in class, and you’d already spotted him scurrying around a couple times today.

“Where’d you guys end up moving in anyway?”

“Terrace 403.”

Mark whistled. “Nice. Close, too.”

“Yeah, we like it so far.” You shrugged. “What about you?”

“The Lofts at Park Place.”

“Oh, that has the indoor basketball court, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sungchan liked the pictures on the website, but it was too far for us so we didn’t tour.”

He turned back to his computer. “Lunch?”

You checked the time too. “Sure. Cafeteria?”

“Might as well use the company meal credits.”

In the cafeteria, you and Mark spotted a couple of your other coworkers already eating, and joined them at a table by the windows.

“Just you today, Y/N?” Renjun inquired.

“Mark’s right there,” you quipped, pointing to the seat beside you.

“He meant your worse half,” Donghyuck informed you dryly.

“Uhm, Sungchan and Yushi alternate around Yushi’s class schedule,” you explained. “Sungchan’s off today.”

“Good for you.”

“What?” You tilted your head, a bit caught off-guard.

“He dragged you away when we went out for drinks! Did he even have something to do or did he just want to ruin your fun?”

“It was a bit…” Renjun seemed to be carefully choosing his words as he tepidly agreed with Donghyuck. “I didn’t like how he treated you. At least what I saw.”

“Being soulbound to someone you’re not related to—ugh, I can’t imagine. At least twins, it’s your brother or sister or whoever but this is just some random guy,” Donghyuck continued ranting on your behalf. “I feel so bad for you, seriously.”

Despite Sungchan already saying he didn’t care what your coworkers thought of him, you felt the need to stand up for him. After all, you wanted to leave the bar early, not him. And only you got to complain about Sungchan like that.

“Really, it was my fault. He was trying to get us to leave without everyone realizing that I had drank too much,” you insisted, having no problem coming clean now. “And Sungchan’s not some random guy—I mean, I’ve known him my whole life. He might as well be—He’s…”

You trailed off with a thoughtful frown, unable to even finish that sentence as you had no clue what to say next, how to articulate what Sungchan was to you. The bane of your existence, yes, but it was infinitely more complicated than that. More complicated than you’d ever told anybody, than you think anybody could comprehend, other than Sungchan.

“Of course, you guys have something we’re not going to be able to understand,” Mark said after your silence had gone on for too long. “Since we’re not soulbound.”

“Sorry,” Donghyuck mumbled.

When you got home, you did in fact hear the laundry machines going, so you announced your arrival in case Sungchan couldn’t hear the front door.

“I’m home!” You yelled out, stepping out of your shoes by the door and carrying them with you.

Sungchan walked out of his room. “Hey. How was work?”

“Fine. Better than yesterday, I guess.” You shrugged, opening your own bedroom door. “I’m going to shower.”

“Leftover pizza for dinner?”

“Sounds good to me.”

You took your time showering, still thinking about lunch. It shouldn’t bother you so much, what your coworkers said about Sungchan. But they were wrong. Yeah, he was an asshole sometimes, but he hadn’t actually been one that night, or really at all since you started this job. The water turning cold pushed you out of the shower, and you hadn’t even realized you’d been in there for so long. You went to grab fresh pajamas from your dresser that Sungchan had so kindly built for you.

Empty drawer. With a sigh, you wrapped your towel around yourself tighter and poked your head out of your room. “Sungchan?” You called out. “Is the dryer done?”

“Uhm, it’s got like ten minutes left,” he replied from the direction of the kitchen. “Why?”

“I don’t have a shirt to wear…” You admitted dejectedly.

“Oh, shit. I did your work clothes first…”

“Fuck.”

“No, it’s okay. You can wear one of mine,” he said, voice getting nearer until he had entered the hall as well. He went into his room, asking over his shoulder, “T-shirt or hoodie?”

“T-shirt’s fine.”

He came back out, holding a folded shirt out to you. “Here. Sorry about that.”

“S’okay.” You accepted the garment, keeping your towel up with one hand. “Thanks.”

Sungchan’s shirt smelled like the detergent that you both used, so it kind of smelled like your clothes, but as the collar passed by your nose, you inhaled a more distinct scent too. It just… smelled like Sungchan. Like when he’d let you cry into his chest just last night, or the countless hours you’d spent in his car over the years, or the times on co-family vacations as kids when you’d call a momentary truce at night to stay up late giggling and whispering ghost stories to each other under the covers, or when a huge storm would come through and both of you were too old to tell your parents you were scared, but not too old to squeeze onto Sungchan’s top bunk together for safety.

Walking back out, you saw Sungchan already in the kitchen.

“So what else did you do today?” You asked, leaning against one of the kitchen counters. “Other than laundry. I assume the gym?”

“Yeah, worked out, laundry, cleaned a bit, found some places I wanted to check out this weekend,” he talked as he opened the fridge and grabbed the pizza boxes.

“Too far away?” You surmised, taking the boxes from his hand to set them on the counter.

“Thanks. A couple of them, but—” He had shut the fridge and finally looked at you, pausing when he did.

“Hello? Sungchan?” You waved your hand in front of his face. “Are you doing a system reboot or something?”

He suddenly whirred back to life, rushing to grab two paper plates from the cabinet (you still didn’t have dishes yet). “Nope, nope, I’m fine. What was I saying?”

You eyed him skeptically, but moved on anyway, “You found some places you wanted to check out this weekend, some of them were too far but…?”

“Right, some were too far, but some I figured you’d want to go too, so it can wait until the weekend.”

“Oh.” How… considerate. “Sure, yeah, sounds fun.”

The next day at work, you were looking around the building cafeteria for somewhere to sit for lunch. Your other work buddies had a prior lunch reservation but Sungchan was running a last-minute errand in the area for one of the executives, meaning that you two couldn’t join them. You told them to keep the reservation without you two—you’d manage. A woman at a nearby table caught your eye and waved, and you turned around to see if she could’ve been waving at anybody else. You were pretty sure you’d seen brief glimpses of her in the elevator or passing by in halls before, but you definitely didn’t know her. There was nobody else in your vicinity, and she waved you over more insistently.

You hesitantly walked towards her, looking down at her questioningly as you approached her table, still unsure of if she meant you. “Sorry, were you—?”

“Y/N, right?” She asked expectantly.

“Oh, uh, yes. I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Please, sit!” She gestured to the empty seat across from her.

Having nothing else to do, you obliged, setting your tray down in front of you. “Thank you.”

“Sorry, I’m Han Sooyoung,” she introduced herself. “We haven’t met, but I’ve heard about you. I’m soulbound too.”

“Oh, oh.” Your eyes widened as it hit you. “Really?”

“Yes.” Sooyoung quickly unlocked her phone to show you a photo of herself and another woman who was clearly her identical twin. “My sister, Soojin.”

“Does she work here too?”

“No, it’s not really her thing.” She laughed and shook her head. “She’s a freelance digital artist, so she works from home while I’m here.”

“I’m guessing you live close by then?”

“Villas on 5th.”

You were still staring at her in awe. “Sorry, this is my first time meeting someone else whose soulbound that’s not Sungchan.”

Sooyoung laughed again, “That’s okay, we didn’t meet another soulbound pair until Soojin and I went to college.”

“Have you—Have you met another pair like us? That’s not related? Uhm, Type 2?”

There were two types of soulbound connections, with three subtypes total. Type 1 was related multiple births—1A was identical twins/triplets/etc., 1B was fraternal. Type 2 was unrelated, like you and Sungchan. 1A was the most common, then 1B, with 2 in a distant, distant third.

“Once, yeah. But I’m sure you already know how rare that is.”

“Of course.”

You spent the rest of your lunch break with Sooyoung, eating and chatting. It was refreshing to be able to talk about things with someone who just… got it. Even when the conversation would veer into work, or the city, you found it easier to tell her the full story than your other non-soulbound coworkers. She just immediately understood everything.

Sooyoung had just finished telling you a story from when she and Soojin were in primary school, and stopped to take a sip of her water.

“I’m so glad we outgrew the emotional phase,” you said offhandedly with a chuckle, bringing another bite of food to your mouth. You were now reminiscing in your own childhood with Sungchan, a large portion of which was spent with you trying to push each other’s faces in the dirt, admittedly.

She set her glass down with a strange look on her face, head tilted. “What?”

You sat up a little straighter in your seat. You hadn’t told anybody else about this, but you figured that Sooyoung would get it—she understood everything else about your experience of being soulbound perfectly so far: poppys, scheduling conflicts, soulsickness. Surely she and Soojin went through the same thing. “When we were kids, there was like a weird year where we always knew when the other was upset. Like, if Sungchan skinned his knee, I’d start crying even though I was perfectly fine inside my house. Same thing vice versa. If I had a scary dream and woke up crying, my mom would get a call from Sungchan’s mom saying he was crying too but couldn’t tell her why. It stopped when we were six, I think? Our pediatrician said we probably just outgrew it.”

But she still had that same perturbed, concerned look on her face. She leaned forward, brows furrowed as she questioned you further, “You’ve never felt anything from Sungchan since then?”

“No…?” There was now a clammy, cold dread starting in your palms and quickly spreading past the backs of your arms and elbows throughout the rest of your body. Your heartbeat in your ears sounded like heavy footsteps coming down a hallway, like you were about to get in trouble for something, but you didn’t even know what you had done wrong.

“I’ve had that connection with my sister our whole lives,” Sooyoung said. “We feel almost all of the other’s emotions.”

“Seriously? Isn’t that… a bit much?” You blinked at her in surprise. “Like, invasive?”

“I suppose I’m used to it. I find it comforting, actually.” She placed a hand to the hollow of her throat, palm resting flat on her chest. “When I’m sitting at my desk bored, she could be watching her favorite show and I can feel how happy she is, which makes me happy knowing that she’s enjoying herself and makes it easier to do whatever task I’m doing.” The corner of her lips twitched. “And I see no point in keeping secrets from somebody that I share a soul with.”

“Maybe it’s because we’re Type 2?” You supplied a possible explanation for the difference.

Sooyoung still seemed troubled, shaking her head. “I mean, I have only met one other Type 2 pair, but they described very similar experiences to mine and my sister’s. I’ve never heard of a pair ‘outgrowing’ their connection like this.”

You pushed a piece of food around on your plate, unsure of what to say. You felt like you had completely ruined the mood, singled yourself out as a weirdo, exposed some secret you didn’t even know you had, and found out something was apparently very wrong with you and Sungchan that you thought had been typical your whole life. But if the connection that Sooyoung described having with Soojin was supposed to be normal, you weren’t sure if you even wanted to fix it—if that was possible. It sounded… uncomfortable.

“If your doctor wasn’t concerned, I shouldn’t be worrying you.” Sooyoung waved off the topic with a smile. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” you reassured her. Scrambling for something else to talk about, you asked, “So, how did you and Soojin manage college? Since I’m assuming you were different majors?”

As Sooyoung started telling you another story, you chewed on the bottom of your lip, no longer hungry for the rest of your food.

That weekend, you were so eager to finally get out of your apartment, you would’ve gone anywhere with Sungchan—the gym, a fish market, a dentist appointment, anything. This was your first proper time exploring the city now that you lived here. The initial few weekends you spent moving in, unpacking, and building furniture, only ever venturing out to get food or the bare necessities.

You could tell Sungchan was excited to be out too, as the list of locations he had in the notes app on his phone was so long, he had to scroll. You doubted you could go to all these places in one month, much less a day. But you figured you would be here for the foreseeable future, so you had the time.

“Okay, uhm, let’s see—” Sungchan suddenly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in front of your building, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked around, squinting down at his phone screen, then up and down the street. Other pedestrians pushed by you two, and you grabbed his arm to try to pull him to one side so you weren’t blocking the entire pathway.

“What?” You asked, peeking at his phone. He had his maps up.

“Which way’s east?”

You glanced around blankly. “I have no fucking clue.”

“Well…” He looked left, then right, before grabbing your wrist and taking off towards the left with you in tow. After several hurried strides, he clicked his tongue and turned around in place. “Nope. Other way.”

You chuckled, following his lead and spinning around to attach yourself to his other arm and keep pace in the rushed crowd. “We had a 50/50 chance.”

Apparently, Sungchan’s first location was the local library. You eyed him and the sign with mock surprise on your face. “Wait, you know how to read?”

“So I’m not allowed to call myself stupid, but you are?” He scoffed.

“Somebody’s got to keep your ego in check.”

“Oh you—” He caught you with an arm loosely around your neck to hold you in place while he went to grab your hat, presumably to take it off and then mess up your hair. “And who assigned you that job?”

“It’s a holy vow that I’ve taken on. Sort of like a nun, you kno—Ack!” Your banter got cut off by him applying just the slightest pressure to your throat, and you in turn made exaggerated choking sounds, smacking his arm zealously.

“For someone who’s supposedly the brains between us, you really have no survival instinct, huh?”

“See, I’m the brains because I know that you won’t actually kill me.”

“Then I simply have to assume that you keep doing this because you like when I rough you up a little.”

“Do you?” You taunted back, well aware that you were teetering right on the precipice of joking and something else. All the hours Sungchan had poured into the gym were now very apparent, your fingers clutching the well-defined muscles encircling your neck and your body pressed up against his. You gulped, feeling the bob of your throat push on his arm, then added, “Like it when I give you the chance to rough me up a bit?”

“There are families coming down the street,” he half-whispered, half-snickered, letting you go with a pat on the cheek. At his normal volume, he said, “Come on, I picked this one for you, not me. Since I can’t read.”

You clicked your tongue, taking off at a half-jog to keep up with his long legs and fast pace. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Channie. I’m sure we can find a really good picture book for you in here.”

“That’s it—”

You swerved out of his reach just in time as he had lunged for you again, cackling and laughing as you ran around the fountain in the middle of the courtyard and darted for the stairs, Sungchan chasing you the whole way towards the entrance of the library.

You and Sungchan had just stepped off the elevator one morning when you were immediately flagged down by Mark at your desk. Heading over, you set your own bag down on your chair with Sungchan in tow.

“Yo! Y/N! Sungchan!” He greeted you brightly as always. “Drinks tonight?”

“Has it been a month already?” You looked at the date on your computer lockscreen.

Sungchan hadn’t answered, looking down at you in a silent question. Neither of you had plans for tonight, so it was just up to you if you wanted to go or not.

“We’ll come out for a bit, yeah,” you half-committed.

“Yes!”

“Oh, hey, can I invite my friend Sooyoung?” You asked hopefully. “From Finance?”

Mark’s face screwed up in thought, and Sungchan also looked confused, before it seemed to dawn on your coworker. He replied hesitantly, “Ms. Han Sooyoung? The Director of Finance? You’re… friends?”

Your eyes widened, and Sungchan crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head at you, but thankfully stayed silent at this revelation.

“I-I think so? I didn’t know! We get lunch sometimes, she said she works in Finance, she never said… her position…”

You felt a bit queasy now at the idea that you were so new and had been calling somebody so senior in the company so casually. You’d barely started calling your own team lead Jieun last week at the behest of the rest of your team. A Director was probably three or four levels above her in the office hierarchy.

“There isn’t another Han Sooyoung in the office that I know. Definitely not another in Finance,” Mark explained to you gently.

“So… definitely not inviting her for drinks…” You surmised sheepishly.

“No.”

“I’m going to get my coffee…” You walked off in a bit of a daze, vaguely aware of Sungchan following you.

In the breakroom, you started preparing your coffee, and Sungchan finally spoke.

“Your new friend is the Director of Finance?” He asked through a sputtering laugh, also beginning his morning restock of the coffee station.

“I didn’t know!” You insisted, well aware of whiny you sounded.

“How did you meet her again?”

“In the cafeteria! We ate lunch together one day, and just kept getting lunch sometimes. She calls me when she wants to get lunch, the phone just shows her name.”

“Her email would’ve shown her title.”

“I mean, I could tell she was a little older than us, but I didn’t think she was a Director! Seriously!”

He was clearly still relishing in the humor of the situation, putting sugar packets in the caddy as you plucked a couple out. “You totally would’ve killed the vibe inviting essentially everybody’s boss to drinks.”

“Good thing I didn’t, then,” you pointed out with an eyeroll, going to the fridge for the creamer.

“What do you even have in common with the Director of Finance?” He wondered aloud, grabbing the fridge door as you went to slam it shut, lifting each of the bottles of flavored creamers to feel how full they were.

“Obviously, that’s not really what we talk about! We talk about other stuff!” You huffed. “She’s soulbound too.”

“I’m assuming she’s soulbound to the head of Legal or something then, right?”

“Her sister works from home as a digital artist.”

“You know, you’ve never mentioned you met someone that’s soulbound.”

“I haven’t?” You echoed noncommittally, stirring everything into your coffee cup.

“First person we’ve ever met that’s soulbound and you forgot to tell me?” He said doubtfully. “I know you’re not stupid, Y/N.”

“Aw, thanks, Channie,” you snipped back sarcastically, putting the creamer away as he still had the fridge open, checking the sodas that were kept in there now.

“What’d she say?” Sungchan asked in the same casual tone of voice that he had been conducting the conversation the whole time. “That freaked you out so bad you didn’t want to tell me?”

You swallowed, then sighed. “Not now. Later, at home. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed easily. “After drinks tonight. If you’re not drunk again.”

“We need someone else to make it even,” Donghyuck declared, looking around the bar. He had been playing pool with Lee Jeno from the fifth floor and waved you over when he saw you awkwardly standing alone after Mark had left you to get another drink. You were still slowly, very slowly, working on your first one, which was honestly mostly melted ice at this point.

You also looked around, making eye contact with Sungchan sitting by himself at the end of the bar. He had excused himself to the restroom last you saw him, and was now freshly topped up with something.

“Sungchan’s back,” you suggested brightly, already starting to raise your hand to get his attention.

Donghyuck pivoted in front of you, blocking Sungchan from your view. “I was thinking somebody generally pleasant to be around. Like… literally any of our other coworkers.”

Jeno was across the pool table from you two, and having missed last month’s outing entirely, was not privy to the scene that Sungchan intentionally caused. He now tilted his head in confusion at the conversation unfolding before him. “What’s wrong with the new copy guy? He seems fine to me.”

“It was a misunderstanding, Donghyuck! I already told you!” You insisted. “He only did all that because I wanted to go home! He’ll be perfectly cool this time, I swear!”

“Ignore him. Go get your boyfriend, Y/N,” Jeno directed you in a reassuring tone.

“He’s not my—What?! Sungchan’s not my boyfriend. We’re soulbound.”

“Oh, shit, sorry.” He held his hands up. “I just—”

“It’s fine, Jeno, you didn’t know,” you brushed off his apology, veering around Donghyuck and beelining for the bar.

Sungchan was still in the same seat, sipping on his drink as he was preoccupied on his phone. He looked up as you stopped to lean next to him. “Oh, hey. What was that?”

“Two things—No, three things, actually,” you said, holding up three fingers. “One, we’ve got to start telling everybody we ever talk to at work that we’re soulbound. Lee Jeno just called you my boyfriend because he didn’t know.”

“You want to date Lee Jeno?”

You blinked at him. “When did I say that?”

“You’re upset that he thought we were dating.”

“No, the problem isn’t that he thought that, it’s that anybody thought that. Because it’s not true and—!”

“So the problem is that it’s not true?”

“Are you drunk? Do we need to go home?” You grabbed his glass and sniffed it. It didn’t even have the faintest smell of alcohol, just the sugary sweet fizzle of soda.

“It’s soda,” he drawled, watching you taste test from the rim just in case. “You’re just being paranoid about your coworkers’ perception of you again.”

Definitely soda. You put his glass down, and he pulled it back over to himself to take a long swig from the straw. Opting to just move on, you said, “Whatever. Two, we need a fourth person to play pool. Do you want to?”

“Sure.” He nodded, then added knowingly, “I have a feeling I’m not on Donghyuck’s team.”

“That’s what three is about—I know you don’t care what any of these people think about you, and I really wish I could be like you in that way, but unfortunately, I’m not. And not only do I care what they think of me, but I care what they think of you. And because of the nice thing that you did for me last time, now they all think you’re a huge asshole,” you rambled in a hurry, feeling the impending clock ticking of Donghyuck and Jeno waiting for you. Squeezing Sungchan’s forearm, you pleaded, “So can you please be like, the coolest and chillest that you’ve ever been in your whole life during this pool game?”

Sungchan immediately burst into chuckles, an amused but oddly soft smile on his features as he keeled forward a little and patted your hand that was on his arm. “Alright, alright. You make it sound so life-or-death, you know? Fine, I’ll make them like me since it’s apparently causing you so much agony.”

He stood up, grabbing his soda and nudging you back in the direction of the pool tables. You whispered a ‘thank you!’ under your breath before taking off, knowing that he’d be right behind you.

“Got him!” You announced brightly as you returned to the pool table, stopping by where you had left your drink on a coaster on the edge. “Donghyuck, you remember Sungchan. Sungchan, this is Lee Jeno, from the fifth floor.”

“Hey, man, nice to meet you,” Sungchan offered his hand to Jeno with a wide, charismatic smile. “Y/N and I are soulbound, by the way. Always like to uh, get that out of the way. Since we’re still new, we never know who at the company knows and who doesn’t.”

Jeno nodded slowly as he shook Sungchan’s hand. “I heard, yeah. Crazy stuff. It’s nice to meet you too, Sungchan. I’ve seen you around, running errands, but I don’t think we’ve ever talked.”

“No, I don’t think so.” He turned to Donghyuck next, also offering a hand out for a handshake. “Good to see you again, Donghyuck.”

“Yeah, you too,” Donghyuck accepted it with a poorly disguised air of suspicion.

Sungchan clapped him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture, and you quickly bit your small plastic stirring straws in your drink to avoid laughing at Donghyuck’s alarmed look. He clearly thought he was getting pranked, or the world was ending, or Sungchan was on something.

“So, how do we want to do teams?” Jeno asked, passing out pool cues. “Has anybody not played before?”

“I haven’t played since I was… What, ten?” You scrunched your nose thoughtfully, turning to Sungchan with your question. “Was that when your family got rid of the pool table?”

“I banned you from using it when we were ten,” Sungchan reminded you. “We didn’t actually get rid of it until we were twelve.”

“Oh yeah, because I accidentally shot a pool ball into your eye and gave you a black eye.”

“You’re still claiming it was an accident?”

“It was! How could I have purposefully angled a pool cue to hit it in such a way that it would have flown up off the table directly into your eye? You think I was that good at physics at ten?”

“Fair point, you’ve never been that good at physics or pool.”

“That would hurt if I prided myself on either of those things, which I don’t,” you said smugly, pointing your pool cue at him.

He covered the end of your pool cue with his hand, pushing it away from his face as the corner of his lips curled with amusement. “Careful with that thing. I don’t want to lose my eye for real this time.”

Someone cleared their throat, and you suddenly remembered that two of your coworkers were there too. Jeno said, “Hyuck’s about as good as a ten-year-old too. So if you’re not bad, Sungchan, we can split them between us.”

“Yeah, I’ll take Y/N,” Sungchan agreed.

Sungchan, it turned out, wasn’t much better at pool than you. It seemed as though he hadn’t played since his family got rid of their pool table in the basement when you all were twelve. But you were having fun, and thankfully, were doing better to keep the pool balls on the table as opposed to accidentally launching them up at people’s faces.

Jeno and Donghyuck won, on no part of Donghyuck’s, but he was still celebrating heartily, high-fiving both of Jeno’s hands in rapid succession. “I’ll get us all the next round!” He announced, already walking backwards towards the bar.

You went to open your mouth to let him know that you didn’t want another drink, but Sungchan spoke up first.

“I’ll come with,” he offered, giving your shoulder a light squeeze as he went to follow your coworker.

Donghyuck didn’t protest, and the two of them sauntered up to the bar together. Jeno started taking the pool balls back out of the pockets, and you went to help him, digging into the one closest to you first.

“Switch teams this time?” Jeno suggested, rolling a yellow out into the center.

“I think you could beat the three of us with your eyes closed,” you snorted. “Do you hustle people in your off time?”

“You can be on my team.”

“I’m listening.”

Hyuck and Sungchan returned then, each with two drinks in hand. Sungchan gave you yours before reaching around you to set his down on his coaster. As he leaned in near you, he murmured, “It’s just soda water and cranberry juice.”

“Thanks, Sungchan,” you smiled up at him genuinely, lifting the glass to your mouth to take a sip.

Donghyuck rubbed his hands together excitedly. “So, rematch? Or—”

“I’m on Jeno’s team!” You declared loudly, sauntering over to the other side of the pool table with your drink and cue.

“Wait, hold on—”

“Y/N’s on my team this round,” Jeno confirmed, pushing Donghyuck out of the way to rack up. “We’re solids.”

Giving your coworkers all one final wave by the front door, you and Sungchan ducked out into the night. You didn’t argue when he went to hail a taxi for you two, happily humming the song that had been playing over the speakers when you left the bar to yourself as you waited. One finally pulled over, and you climbed into the backseat together.

“I think that was a success,” Sungchan said after giving the driver your address. “What do you think? Do they like me?”

“Donghyuck didn’t want you to go after pool,” you giggled as you remembered the way that the slightly tipsy man had clung onto Sungchan’s arm when you all started your goodbyes. “And Mark’s always liked you.”

“Mark’s always been nice to me, because he’s just like that,” Sungchan corrected you.

“Okay, fair. But I think he likes you now,” you reassured him. “Jeno too. And Renjun.”

“Are you happy now that my reputation has been restored? You’re no longer soulbound to the biggest asshole in the office.”

You frowned. “That’s not what bothered me. Everyone thought you were an asshole, but you’re not. You only acted like that in the first place to help me. It wasn’t true.”

“Whatever weird reason you had for it, I had fun tonight.”

“Me too,” you agreed. “Even though we made an awful pool team.”

“Yeah, we were terrible,” he snickered.

At your apartment, you stopped in the entryway past the door, preparing to take your shoes off as you always did. Sungchan stopping next to you gave you pause, however.

“You can go on without me,” you waved him off. “I know how to get to my room; I only had one drink.”

He stuck his arm out wordlessly, looking between you and your shoes. Usually, you just leaned against the wall to not topple over when doing this coming home alone after work.

“Oh, thanks.” You grabbed his arm for stability, easily pulling off your first shoe, then the other.

“Don’t forget,” he said from behind you as the two of you headed for your rooms. “You’re supposed to tell me about whatever Han Sooyoung said to you.”

“I know, I know.” You leaned back against your closed door, letting your head loll to one side lazily. “Can I at least get out of my work clothes that smell like the bar first? And maybe shower or something?”

Sungchan sighed, “If you’re tired—”

“I didn’t say that. I asked if I could get out of my yucky bar clothes and shower. Don’t you want to de-yuckify too? Or did you plan on sleeping like that?”

“Actually, you’re right, you should go shower.” He wrinkled his nose before pretending to plug it. “I can smell you from here.”

“Dick,” you hissed, smacking his arm. “Remember that summer you refused to pay to get the A/C in your car fixed and I still had to go to the gym with you six days a week? I deserve financial compensation for that, honestly.”

“We could’ve taken your car.”

“I had fabric seats! Your gym sweat would have permanently seeped into my car!”

Sungchan dropped his hand from his nose and pushed his hair out of his face as he started laughing. “We got into the stupidest fucking fights.”

“Yeah, we did,” you agreed quietly.

“Go shower.” He shooed you with one hand as the other reached for his doorhandle. “We both should. We stink.”

“I know you do,” you teased, slipping into your room.

Freshened up, you found Sungchan already in the living room, reclined in the middle of the couch with his head tipped back against the cushions, eyes shut and arms stretched out along the back of the furniture.

“Alright, make some room,” you announced your arrival, lightly swatting at one of his spread-out thighs. The two of you didn’t have an armchair or another piece of furniture to sit on yet, not even a coffee table.

Sungchan grumbled, but nevertheless scooted further towards one corner to open up the other half for you to sit down on as well. He opened his eyes to settle his gaze on you, running a hand through his still-damp hair. “Well?”

“I wasn’t hiding Sooyoung from you on purpose—I think—I don’t know, maybe I was.” Your preface quickly fell apart. You folded your arms across your chest, pressing yourself as far back into the arm of the couch as you could, propping your legs up in between you as well. You needed space as you sorted through your muddied thoughts on the subject. “She and Soojin are Type 1A.”

“Makes sense.” He turned his body around towards you, mirroring your position but a lot more open, elbows resting on his knees and fingers laced loosely between his legs.

“She approached me in the cafeteria because she heard that we were soulbound.” You took a deep breath. “Anyway, we were talking about soulbound stuff and I mentioned when we used to be able to feel the same stuff. Remember that? You would scrape your knee or something and I’d start crying too.”

He nodded. “Dr. Park said it was a phase.”

“I know. But Sooyoung said…” You chewed on the inside of your cheek as you tried to gauge his reaction so far. His expression hadn’t changed at all, calmly listening to everything. “She and Soojin have apparently always felt each other’s emotions like that. They never outgrew it.”

“Yeah, but we’re not—”

“That’s what I said—We’re Type 2. But Sooyoung’s met another Type 2 pair and they were still like her and Soojin. She said she’s never heard of a pair of any type ‘outgrowing’ it.”

Sungchan’s eyes closed again as he slowly nodded, taking his time to absorb what you said. He squinted his eyes back open one at a time before asking, “Remember when we were convinced we had superpowers as kids because we were Type 2?”

“Ha, yeah,” you chuckled lightly, rubbing your upper arms.

“We were just guessing, right?” He pointed out. “Dr. Park was just guessing when she said it was a phase, and Sooyoung’s just guessing that it’s not supposed to be a phase. Soulbound people are barely studied as-is, and all of it’s been done on Type 1s, there’s no way to know what we’re supposed to be like. We’re lucky souLOXin even works for us.”

“Good point,” you mumbled, scratching the back of your neck.

“If not being able to feel each other’s emotions was going to kill us, I think it would’ve happened when we were six.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” you sighed. “I just… The look on Sooyoung’s face when I said it freaked me out. Like, we’re already weird for being soulbound, then even more weird because we’re Type 2, then it turns out there’s something even weirder about us?”

“I keep telling you—” He poked your shin with his foot, and you wrinkled your nose at him. “You worry about what other people think of you way too much.”

“But if I listened to you, wouldn’t I still be worrying about what other people think of me? Since I’d be worrying about what you think of me?”

Sungchan clicked his tongue. “I’m the one person you should worry about. Forget everyone else.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re stuck with me for the rest of your life. Guaranteed.”

You laughed. “That’s true. One problem with that, Sungchan.”

“Hm?”

“You’re the one person whose opinion I’ve never cared about,” you grinned, poking him back with your foot.

“Yeah, I know,” he scoffed, catching your ankle and yanking you towards him.

You yelped as you were suddenly flat on your back on the couch. Pushing your other foot flat against Sungchan’s chest to keep him away was futile as he just grabbed that ankle too and knocked it out of his way. He had a smirk on his face as he got up on his knees on the couch cushions. You were giggling as you tried to fight back with your hands instead, only succeeding in getting both of them trapped in the grasp of one of his. He let out a sharp laugh as he swung a knee over to straddle your thighs and keep you from trying to kick him again. You were still squirming a little, though your squeals were quickly fading as you looked up at him looming over you.

He had a breathless, cocky smile on his face as he shamelessly appraised the visage of you beneath him, another airy chuckle escaping his lips. “You totally like this.”

“So do you,” you breathed out.

“You should see the dopey grin on your face right now.”

“I must be looking in a mirror then.”

Sungchan cocked his head. “Why did it bother you so much that Jeno thought we were dating?”

“You’re asking that now?” You indicated to your current positions, a bit flabbergasted. You reminded him with a huff, “Also, I already told you.”

“Yeah, because it’s not true.” He frowned down at you, all playfulness gone from his features now. “Do you still hate me?”

“What?” You tried to sit up, but Sungchan didn’t budge, so you just flopped right back down. “I must hate you because I don’t want our coworkers to think we’re dating? Which we aren’t?”

“It was just a misunderstanding, but you were acting like the sky was falling.”

“Like you are now?”

“I don’t get it.”

“And I don’t get you,” you retorted. “Why do you even care? You never care about what people think of you.”

“I care about what you think,” he said, not a hint of sarcasm, teasing, or malice in his voice.

“Wh…” You trailed off, staring up at Sungchan, at an utter loss for words. “Since when?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. College maybe, or after, maybe when you almost killed me to get a job.”

“Channie—”

Then, all at once, Sungchan climbed off of you, standing up from the couch and stretching. “It’s late and we both drank tonight. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.”

You rubbed your wrists that he had just let go of, pushing yourself up on your elbow as you stared at him incredulously. “Okay…”

“Night, Y/N.” He ruffled your hair, though the gesture felt oddly hollow because his touch was fleeting, not trying to muss it up as much as he usually would have. He let out a very loud yawn as he headed for the hallway. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“Night, Sungchan…” You muttered back, watching him disappear into his room, still trying to process all the sharp turns tonight had taken.

Monday morning you were sifting through your email when your desk phone rang. Han Sooyoung.

“This is Y/N,” you answered, tapping an anxious rhythm on your mouse.

“Morning!” Sooyoung chirped on the other end of the line. “Lunch today?”

“Oh, uhm…” You looked around, unsure of what to say. It felt hard to outright decline a director now, but also extremely inappropriate to continue such a casual relationship with one.

“Is everything okay?” She asked. “If you’re too busy, that’s totally fine, we can do a raincheck.”

The words came out before you could stop them. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re the Director of Finance?”

“Oh.” She paused. “I guess… it didn’t seem important. That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

You let out a half-sigh, half-groan, rubbing your forehead.

“Are you mad at me?”

You laughed cynically. “No. It’s really the least of my problems right now.”

“Well… do you want to talk about all those other problems over lunch?” She proposed. “My treat?”

“I’m going out to lunch,” you said in lieu of greeting when you encountered Sungchan in the copy room later that morning. “It’s just around the corner, so you should be fine here.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, shutting the first paper drawer of the copier he had been refilling. “Have fun, then.”

“I would’ve invited you, but Sooyoung’s paying and that would be bad form, right?”

Sungchan shook his head, but there was an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Have you told her you know her real identity?”

“Yeah. I’m over it, for the most part.”

“Speaking of plans—” He paused to rip open another pack of paper. “Mark invited us to play basketball at his place after work Wednesday.”

“Us?”

“Mm-hm. That’s what I said, right?”

You arched an eyebrow as you continued watching him fill the copy machine. “I’m just trying to remember when I’ve talked to Mark about my undying love for basketball.”

“Okay, so the invite’s mainly for me, but obviously—”

“Wait, since when are you friends with Mark?”

“I work here too?”

“Yeah but…”

“But what?”

“But you’re…” You trailed off as you tried to both talk and assimilate this new information at the same time.

He crumpled the paper wrapper into a ball and pegged it into the wastebasket next to the copier before standing up straight. “I’m… what? Just a gofer?”

“No, Sungchan, that’s not what I meant!” You immediately defended yourself against his jibe.

“An extension of you? Only got a job so they could hire you?” He continued his snippy taunts.

“Stop it! You know that’s not what I was going to say!”

“Well you can’t seem to say it, so I’m just trying to help.”

“God, can you stop being so defensive for five seconds so we can have a fucking conversation?” You were seeing red, balling your hands into fists down by your side as it took every shred of self-control to keep your voice quiet enough that hopefully the entire floor couldn’t hear you yelling at Sungchan right now. “I was trying to say you’re always so busy running around doing things when you’re here, I didn’t realize you and Mark were like, office buddies or whatever. God, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Sungchan faltered, all coarse, biting sarcasm falling from his face as his jaw dropped. “Y/N—”

“You keep saying we can’t hate each other anymore, but you won’t let me! It’s like you’re allowed to grow and change but I’m not, and I’m fucking sick of it!” You weren’t done, and you definitely didn’t want to hear whatever he had to say next. “So no! I don’t want to go to basketball! Might as well embrace being the cold-hearted bitch you’ve pigeonholed me as!”

You stormed out of the copy room. A quick glance at your computer told you that it was almost time for your team meeting. You snatched up your notebook and folder, heading off towards the conference room.

“Oh! Before I forget—” Sooyoung perked up from across the booth table. “Soojin and I are hosting a little get-together for all the soulbound people we know in a couple months. It’ll be at our place, just a casual, potluck thing. You and Sungchan are invited, obviously. We don’t have an exact date yet, but just to put it on your radar!”

You couldn’t even muster up a fake thank-you and smile, instead groaning and dropping your face into your hands at the mention of Sungchan, and being soulbound, and specifically being soulbound to Sungchan.

“I just stumbled into all your other problems, didn’t I?” She asked knowingly.

“Yeah,” you mumbled, nodding your head in your hands.

“Well, come on, tell me,” she encouraged you. “I’m all ears.”

You tried to explain your current predicament as articulately as possible, while also not taking up your entire lunch break. Sooyoung listened attentively, sipping on her drink and nodding.

“I just don’t know what he wants from me,” you finished with a sigh, crossing your arms over your chest and plopping back against the booth.

Your friend leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and folding her arms delicately over each other. “What do you want from him?”

“I—Uhm…” You bit the inside of your cheek. “That other Type 2 pair that you know—What are they like? Are they kinda like you and Soojin? Or are they like best friends or something?”

“They’re soulbound. I don’t think they really call it anything else.” She took another drink. “Sungchan’s being a bit of a dick, but he’s right about one thing; you worry a lot about what other people think.”

You gestured to her empty ring finger. “You’re not married.”

“No, I’m not,” she agreed placidly. “We both know that dating when you’re soulbound has… unique challenges.”

“Everyone used to say we fought like siblings, or assumed that we must be like siblings because we were soulbound. But Sungchan’s never felt like my brother. He’s always just been Sungchan.” You shrugged. “An inevitable fact of my life. Nobody knows me better than him, and vice versa. For better and for worse. And for most of our lives, it’s been for worse.”

“But lately, it’s been better? Until today, of course.”

“Yeah, it really has been. He’s been great, but at the same time it feels like he still sort of expects the worst of me.”

“Like he hasn’t completely let go of how you used to treat each other.”

“I guess,” you huffed, dropping your cheek to your chin. “He’ll be all cool and fun and thoughtful to me, but then he can never let me be nice to him. And I just seriously don’t know what he wants from me.”

The waiter came by with your food then, and after taking your first few bites, Sooyoung spoke up again. “You still haven’t told me… What do you want from him?”

“I—” You cut yourself off with a disbelieving chuckle. “I was about to say, ‘I want more.’ But we already literally share a soul; how much more is there?”

Sooyoung’s lips twitched with amusement too, but she seemed to understand you nevertheless. “You want something different.”

“Yeah, that’s one word for it.” You took another bite of your food, and to your relief, she didn’t push you on the topic any further. Instead, your conversation veered into other subjects, work, books she had read recently, a show you were watching, easy things.

At the end of the day, you briefly contemplated pretending to have work in order to stay late and not walk home with Sungchan, but also that would involve staying at work late, which sounded marginally worse in that moment. So with a sigh, you saved the document on your screen and logged out of your computer. You didn’t have to go looking for Sungchan, he was already heading towards your desk as you pushed your chair in and shouldered your purse.

He was silent in the elevator with your other coworkers, as he held the lobby door open for you, throughout the entire walk home, and in the elevator with some of your neighbors. It was as soon as your front door shut that he opened his mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

You rolled your eyes as you leaned against the wall to pull your boots off, knowing that he couldn’t see it from behind you. “For?”

“What I said in the copy room earlier.”

You turned around, holding your opposite arm with one hand, your shoes in your free hand that was hanging down by your side. “Have other people said that about you? At work?”

“No.”

“Then… Is that really how you see me? That I-I think those things about you? Or could think those things about anybody?”

“No! No!” His eyes widened, panicked, hands waving in front of him hurriedly as he took a step forward. You took a step back. He stopped in his tracks, pulling his hands back closer to himself. His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed.

“I don’t believe you,” you said quietly. “Leave me alone tonight, okay?”

“I—Okay.” He watched you walk away, then after a beat, called out shakily, “Am I still making dinner?”

“I have leftovers.”

“Right. Okay.”

Sungchan wasn’t working the next day, and you were glad when he kept himself scarce in the morning while you were getting ready. Unfortunately, however, that was possibly the only good thing about that morning. You had turned off your alarm in your sleep, woke up with barely enough time to take a much-needed shower, were so disoriented while you were taking the aforementioned shower that you did your routine completely out of order and kept dropping all the bottles on your toes, and stumbled off the elevator into work almost twenty minutes late. As you were leaving the apartment, you hardly registered the note on the whiteboard on the front door that Sungchan was at the gym.

Being twenty minutes late gave you just enough time to grab your materials for your meeting that was in ten minutes and hustle across the entire building to the opposite side of the floor to the conference room—no time for your morning coffee. After that, you had back-to-back meetings and couldn’t even think about opening your email until noon, where you were of course greeted by an onslaught of urgent issues that needed to be dealt with ASAP. You waved off the invite to lunch from your coworkers, mindlessly lifting your blessed first cup of coffee to your lips, not even tasting it as you were focused on your computer screen.

The first time you swore you breathed was when the coffee cup was drained, and everything was no longer on fire in your inbox. You were contemplating whether to pop down to the cafeteria to grab something to bring back to your desk, or just get another cup of coffee and power through when the elevator dinged and someone stepped off, heading towards your desk. Figuring that it was Mark and the others back from lunch already, you glanced over, doing a double-take at who it actually was.

“You’re not scheduled today,” you told Sungchan plainly, eyeing his casual outfit of a hoodie, jeans, and backwards baseball cap. Very clearly off-the-clock attire.

“Lunch?” He suggested, and despite his casual posture with his hands stuffed in the pocket of his jeans, the waver in his voice and the way he squinted one eye belied his nerves. Obviously you two were on… uncertain terms at best right now.

You pursed your lips and gestured to your computer. “I’ve got so much to do—”

“I figured, Mark told me you didn’t go to lunch with them.” Sungchan shrugged off a bag that you hadn’t even noticed he had slung over one shoulder. “That’s why I brought you food.”

“Oh, Channie…” You breathed out as he handed you a lunchbox from inside the bag.

He shouldered it again, turning to leave. “See you at home.”

“Wait, I can take ten minutes to eat.” You offered. “If you want to stay.”

He beamed. “Of course.”

The two of you went to the rooftop, where a lounge area for employees had been set up with tables, chairs, and various greenery around. You eagerly dug into the bento that Sungchan had prepared for you, much hungrier than you had realized. Sungchan had no meal of his own, obviously not planning on you inviting him to stay with you, but he seemed quite content to sit across the table from you and silently watch the city.

When you were no longer completely starving, you finally slowed down enough to talk. “Thanks, Sungchan.”

“Oh, you’re welcome.” He belatedly accepted your thanks, pulling his gaze back and turning his head over to you, as if he weren’t even expecting you to speak to him.

“Do I take it too far sometimes? When I tease you?” You asked, brows furrowed together tightly.

“What? No, never,” he assured you adamantly. “You were right, I-I was using you to focus my own insecurity. I told myself that you probably thought all that stuff, but it was all coming from me, not you.”

“I wish the me in your head would be kinder to you,” you said, blinking away the tears in your waterline that you told yourself were thanks to the wind. “When I think about you when you’re not here, I think about what we’re going to have for dinner, or try to guess what you’re doing at the moment, or about wherever we’re going this weekend.”

Sungchan looked down guiltily, picking at the skin around his nails. “I’m afraid—I don’t want you to be stuck to a-a loser for your whole life, you know? You’re so smart, and you have all these ambitions, and you’ve started your dream career. I don’t want to hold you back.”

“Sungchan.” You set your utensils down, squaring your shoulders. “You quit your job, uprooted your entire life, and moved to a new city for my dream career. How could you possibly think you’re holding me back in any way? And stop calling yourself a loser! Or just a gofer! Or anything else! I’ve literally never seen you sit down at work, and when you’re not at work, you do everything at our apartment. I don’t think I even know how to operate our laundry machines!”

“I have the time…”

“Do you know how quickly I’d get burnt out if I was doing all the work I did here and all the stuff that you do at home by myself? Without you?” You continued. “You are not holding me back. You’re why I can do this at all, okay? And not just because we’re soulbound and I physically need you nearby, but you make everything else easier.”

He smiled softly, a little bittersweet, and dropped his hands to his lap. “I’m sorry, Y/N. So, so sorry.”

“I forgive you.” You pick your utensils back up and start gathering your next bite of food to look away from him, to break the heavy moment. Clearing your throat, you asked lightly, “So, basketball is tomorrow?”

“I mean, I already told Mark we weren’t going to make it—”

“Tell him our plans changed and see if the offer’s still on,” you encouraged him. “I did tell your mom I’d let you out for exercise.”

“Kind of feels like you’re arranging a playdate for me right now.”

You reached across the table to teasingly tweak his cheek as you cooed, “You need to make friends, sweetie. I’m worried about you.”

He narrowed his eyes slightly. “I bite.”

“Promise?”

“We’re at work,” he snickered, in the same tone as when you were outside the library.

“You offered,” you tutted, withdrawing your hand and picking up your utensil again.

The indoor basketball court at Mark’s place was nice, just like the pictures you and Sungchan had looked at before. You sat on the small set of bleachers pushed up against one wall of the court as they played, grunts, shouts, and sneaker squeaks echoing around while your attention was on your phone.

A cacophony of shouts of your name and presumably the word ‘duck!’ caught your attention, and your head snapped up just in time to spot a basketball headed straight for your face. You hit the deck, pitching yourself to the floor between the seats of the stands as the ball flew right over where you had been sitting and bounced off the wall behind you.

“Shit, Y/N, you alright?” Sungchan leaned down over where you were still lying between the bleachers.

“Busted my elbow I think,” you groaned, accepting his hand up and maneuvering back up into a sitting position to inspect the wounded area. “I’ll live, thanks.”

“Nice reflexes!” Zhong Chenle, one of Mark’s neighbors that had joined the game, called from the far end of the court with a big thumbs up.

“Sorry, Y/N!” Mark yelled as he was still chasing down the basketball.

Sungchan took your arm and turned it over. Despite the awkward angle that it put your shoulder at, you let him. He inspected the area, and presumably upon seeing no split skin or blood, he clicked his tongue and nodded. “You’ll live.”

“Thank God. I really did see the light at the end of the tunnel for a second there.”

“Want to learn how to shoot?”

You cocked your head as you looked up at him strangely. “Aren’t you like… in the middle of something right now?”

“We’re taking a break.” He grabbed his water bottle from his bag by your feet, taking a swig.

It was then that you took stock of the court and realized that quite a few of the other players were missing, while others were getting water and chatting by their own bags.

“I mean, from what I’ve heard, I don’t think I should really be learning from you…”

“I actually get 100% better when I’m showing off, you know.” He crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow. “The fact that you’ve been focusing on your phone has really been hurting my game.”

“A hundred times zero is still zero,” you teased, but stood up nevertheless, looking at him expectantly.

He rolled his eyes as he turned on his heel, leading the way onto the court. The ball had been left in the middle, and he picked it up, guiding you towards the hoop devoid of your coworkers. Sungchan talked through the basics of shooting a free throw, finishing off his explanation by doing one himself. You watched the orange ball leave his fingertips and move in a smooth arc through the air, swishing cleanly through the net.

You clapped politely for him as he fetched the ball at a light jog. “Wow, Channie. You really do get better when you’re showing off.”

He shrugged and smirked cockily, stopping in front of you to deposit the basketball into your hands. “Your turn.”

When he still hadn’t moved after a beat, very much blocking your view of the net, you bumped him in the chest with the ball. “You mind?”

He circled around behind you, and before you could even begin positioning yourself how he had instructed, he clicked his tongue. “Wrong.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Yeah, but I know you were about to do it wrong,” he snickered, and was suddenly much closer. Both of his large hands came around to adjust exactly where your fingers were resting on the seams of the ball. “Right… there…” Sungchan murmured, breath washing over the shell of your ear as his fingertips lingered on the back of your hands.

“I don’t think you actually care very much about how well I shoot this ball,” you stated, turning your head towards him, very aware now of how close he was.

“Mm, of course I do.” His hands fell to your hips. “Bend here, and at your knees too.”

“If you teach me how to shoot a basketball, do I have to teach you how to read?”

“Might be too ambitious. You have to make this basket first.”

“Not confident in your teaching abilities?”

A throat was cleared from much further behind you, overlapped by a voice that definitely wasn’t Sungchan. “Uh, you guys know there’s other people here, right?”

Despite the white-hot embarrassment churning in your stomach, you kept your face calmly neutral as you slowly spun around to face—yep, all of your coworkers, who had been standing around watching and waiting to continue to their game for God knows how long. You were pretty sure it had been Jeno who cleared his throat while Donghyuck actually spoke.

Sungchan took the basketball back from you, innocently asking, “Water break over?”

“I can’t do lunch today by the way. Sorry,” you informed Sungchan as you reached around him to grab the toast that had just popped up. He was off today, so the two of you would usually meet up for lunch, either at a restaurant, work, or home.

Sungchan handed you the plate of eggs he’d just dished up. “That’s okay. Other lunch plans come up?”

“I’ve got a last-minute presentation to prepare for. I’m just going to have to get something from the cafeteria and eat it at my desk.” You didn’t even sit down, grabbing a fork and shoveling food into your mouth as you eyed the time on the stove clock.

“Alright, well good luck with that.” He took his own breakfast to the kitchen table. “We’re dogsitting for the Chois for the next two weeks, so I’ll probably take Apple around the block a few times and feed her.”

“The old couple in 801?” At his nod, you cocked your head questioningly. “When did we agree to that?”

“Mrs. Choi cornered me in the elevator coming home from work yesterday. Apparently, their daughter-in-law just had their first grandbaby so they’re staying with them to help out.”

“Huh.” You dropped your plate in the sink. “I’ll wash that when I get home.”

“I’ll get it.”

“Thanks Channie. Have fun with Apple!” You bent down to give him a fleeting hug as you ran out of the kitchen.

“Have fun with your presentation!” He called after you.

Truthfully, the reason why you were in such a rush to get into the office early this morning was so you could take an extra-long lunch break—not because you weren’t taking one at all. Saving your work, you slung your purse over your shoulder and hurried out of the building. Sungchan’s self-assigned birthday was this weekend, and you wanted to do something extra special.

Ever since you were kids, you and Sungchan hated having to share your birthday with each other, because you also shared classmates and friends who could only go to one party at a time if they were on the same day. Joint parties were out of the question after the age of three, leading you to also fight about which of you would get to have your party on the actual day of your birthday each year. It had become such a vitriolic topic that the only solution your parents could come up with was for neither of you to get your real birthday—each of you picking a new day in a completely different month to celebrate your own birthdays on.

Since you’d never really done anything nice for Sungchan on any of his birthdays before (without being forced to by your parents), going out of your way to do something was already astronomically kind by those metrics. But this time, you wanted to find him a really nice present. After everything he’d done for you lately, you finally had a chance to do something for him.

You knew that technically, for both your safety, you should be telling Sungchan that you were leaving work and where you were going. But this felt like a pretty safe bet to you. He’d already told you he was just going around your apartment’s block with Apple, and the shopping district you had in mind to look around in would be just on the outer edges of the safe radius for you two. And this was supposed to be a surprise, after all. Telling him that you were going to a shopping district just a few days before his birthday? That would completely give it away.

The train zipped away from the station, the city buildings rushing by the window. You smiled down at your phone as you looked once more at the pictures that Sungchan had sent you with Apple that morning. Apple was a tiny dog with curly brown fur, her pink tongue lolling out of her mouth as Sungchan had clearly walked her for more than a just few laps around the block. Sungchan was grinning at the camera, holding Apple up with one hand to get her in frame. You’d been too busy to reply earlier, and did so now.

[you: don’t tell me you made poor apple do a marathon, there’s no way the chois take her further than the cornerstore]

[channie: we went around the block as promised]

[you: how many times?]

[channie: normal amount]

[channie: so what’s for lunch?]

[you: salad. you?]

A thunderclap of pain suddenly exploded through your head, and you threw a hand up to clutch your forehead as it seemed to be splitting open. At the same time, it felt like someone had reached into your abdomen, grabbed your insides, and twisted them. You couldn’t catch your breath through the sharp pressure constricting around your chest, desperately rooting around in your purse for your bottle of poppys. The longer your fruitless search went, the more panicked you became, until a horrifying realization struck you. You’d given your bottle of souLOXin to Sungchan after your interview—and you hadn’t gotten a refill since moving. Your hands were shaking as you had enough of a mind to take your phone that was in your hand, your texts with Sungchan still up on the screen, and press the call button next to his name.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The steady beeping of a machine woke you up. A faint, dull, persistent ache permeated your body, settled deep below your skin. You let out a sigh that turned into a guttural groan as you tried to move your limbs, immediately feeling the heaviness. You tried to open your eyes instead, having better success at that.

It took several slow blinks to clear out your blurry vision, but you finally started piecing together the scene in front of you. Your gaze landed on Sungchan first, sat in a chair next to the bed you were in—Not your bed, a hospital bed. You were in a hospital room, though it was dim, presumably nighttime.

Sungchan finally spoke, “Did you know we have the same blood type?”

That drew your attention to where his arm was laid out on the armrest of his chair, an IV taped down at his vein, the tubing looping up into a machine, coming back out and ending in your own arm. You allowed yourself a moment to process this, how serious the soulsickness must have been to require a direct blood transfusion. Then you answered Sungchan’s question with another question, “We share a soul and you’re surprised we have the same blood type?”

“Fair point.” He fidgeted with the tape over his IV, smoothing down a corner that had curled up. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit, but I’ll be fine. How-How about you?”

“I had my poppys, so it wasn’t so bad. Or, I had your poppys, actually.”

“We should be better about getting refills, huh?”

“We’re together all the time, I completely forgot…”

You squinted upon noticing a bouquet of yellow and pink carnations on a side table. “Please tell me those are from somebody else and that you did not stop to get me fucking flowers while I was dying.”

“They are from me butbutbut,” he held his hands up defensively, “I had already gotten them by the time you called. As soon as I knew what was happening, I came straight here. Promise.”

“Mm, alright,” you hummed in amusement.

“You should rest some more—”

“Wait, why were you getting flowers? For the apartment?”

He sighed, rubbing his face with both hands as he leaned forward, supporting his elbows on his knees. “I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, Y/N.”

“No, Channie, you didn’t—”

“Yeah, I did,” he insisted, his voice clearly pained and angry with himself. “I… lied this morning, when I said that I was just going to stay around the block. When you said you’d be stuck at work all day, I wanted to do something nice to surprise you, so I left without telling you. God, it was so stupid, I thought I was close enough, I’m so sorry—”

“You got those for me?” You asked.

“Yeah, I was going to get something from that bakery you really like before it closed, too. I shouldn’t have—”

“Sungchan.”

“—on the other side of town, why did I—”

“Channie!” You clapped your hands loudly to get his attention. When he finally looked at you, eyes wide with surprise, you burst into laughter. “I lied too. I didn’t have a presentation. I was out getting you a present.”

“For… what?”

“Your birthday?”

“Oh! Fuck! With everything that happened, I completely forgot!” He ran a hand through his hair, face finally cracking into a smile.

“And it’s extra my fault for not refilling my poppys,” you added. “Really, I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“No, Y/N, it’s okay,” Sungchan reassured you, scooting his chair up closer to your bedside. “I’m just glad you’re alright. But no more surprises. For either of us.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” you chuckled. “You’ll just have to close your eyes when you come shopping with me for your birthday present then.”

“And how will I navigate the store? Echolocation?”

“As much as I’d love to see you do that, this might work better.” You slipped your hand into his.

Sungchan’s hand immediately wrapped around yours, squeezing tightly. “Maybe this year we can celebrate our real birthday? Together?”

“After all the trouble I went through trying to get you a present?” You joked, punctuated by a cough.

“All this and you didn’t even get one.” He shook his head in feigned disappointment.

“How about we celebrate all three? Your birthday, my birthday, our birthday.”

“Three parties?”

“Hell yeah. And twice the presents for each of us.”

He laughed softly. “Sounds good to me.”

You watched him fondly, the crinkle of his eyes, the curl of his lip as he smiled, the way his hair fell in his face before he reached up to push it out of the way. “I’m glad it’s you,” you admitted. “That I’m soulbound to.”

He pressed his cheek against the back of your hand. “Me too. I’m glad it wasn’t some other dumb baby in that hospital…”

“Yeah, I just got this dumb baby,” you snickered, patting his head.

“That’s right.”

A yawn escaped your mouth, and you settled back against the pillows. “Mm… I think I’m going to sleep again.”

“Okay.” He laid his head on your leg. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Of course.” You smiled as your eyes fluttered shut. “Night, Channie.”

You were released in the morning, and took the rest of the week off from work to recover fully. Much to your chagrin, Sungchan had already informed both your families of the incident. Your assurances that you were fine fell on deaf ears, as they insisted on needing to see you themselves, with the tacked-on excuse of also celebrating Sungchan’s birthday while you were all together again. That visit wasn’t until the weekend, to give you a few days’ rest and in hopes that there would be nicer weather.

A storm had been raging outside all day, the cold sheets of rain not letting up even into the evening and nighttime after dinner. The two of you had already taken poor little Apple out twice today, which is how you knew that the rain was freezing cold.

“Can’t believe we’re going back again,” you commented, scrolling through your phone as you laid on top of Sungchan’s covers, and he folded his clean clothes that were taking up the other half of the bed.

“Are you excited? Despite being pissed at the fact that I told them what happened,” he asked.

“I was more-so pissed because I know my mom is going to start nagging me about my meds again,” you huffed. “I finally got her off my back when we moved.”

“Maybe she was justified in her nagging.”

“Don’t even joke like that around her.” You pointed at him threateningly. “We both just picked up fresh refills yesterday, it’s fine.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I think it’s going to be weird.”

“What do you mean? It’s literally just our parents.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’re going to know what to do with us now that we’re getting along.”

“Hmm, yeah, you’re probably right.” You turned your phone off as you mulled this over. “My mom still doesn’t seem to get that we go places together instead of one of us forcing the other to come with. Like, I mentioned that we went to that farmer’s market last month to her, and she asked me what you were doing while I was at the market. I mean, we were obviously shopping together?”

“She thought you had dropped me off at daycare or something?” He snickered.

“Or left you in the car with the windows cracked? I don’t even know,” you huffed. “They’ll get over it. We’ve always been soulbound, it shouldn’t be that weird that we like each other.”

Sungchan looked over at you as he went to shut a drawer, his open mouth as he went to say something instead screwing up in pain at the same time a dull thunk was audible.

“Fuck!” You both cursed in unison. Your right index finger was throbbing, and you immediately dropped your phone to inspect it.

“What? What happened to you?” He asked as he shook out his right hand.

“My finger…” You pouted, seeing no injury to your own skin. Suddenly, you heard another drawer slam shut a split-second before pain shot through your other pointer finger. “Ow!”

“Left hand this time?” Sungchan questioned, extracting his left hand from one of his dresser drawers with a wince.

“Yes. I’m literally just sitting here, I don’t—”

“That’s what I thought.” He groaned a little as he picked up another shirt and went back to folding. “We’re feeling each other’s pain again.”

“So you purposefully slammed your finger in a drawer to test that?” You reached over to smack his arm, maybe a little too hard as you felt the sting on your own skin. “What is your problem?”

“Bit hypocritical coming from the person who went to a job interview knowing it could’ve killed me.”

You didn’t have a good rebuttal in the moment, so you just hit his arm again. He shook you off with a smirk, picking up the last article of clothing to fold. You flopped down in the middle of the wide-open bed, crossing your arms and openly glaring at him.

Sungchan put the final pair of pants away, and upon turning around to see you, held up both of his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Now come on, make some room or get squished.”

You wordlessly rolled back over to one side, staring up at the ceiling as Sungchan flopped onto his bed as well. When the sounds of him readjusting and getting comfortable under his covers had faded out into just the sounds of your breathing, you asked into the quiet, “Why now? Why do you think it came back?”

“I don’t know.” He breathed out, then added jokingly, “Want to go see Dr. Park while we’re home?”

“I’m sure she’d just say it was another phase,” you snickered. “But this better be it, I don’t want whatever Type Ones have got going on.”

“It does sound like it’d be overwhelming.”

A flash of lightning illuminated the edges of the curtains, followed closely by a crack of thunder so loud you jumped a little.

“Need to hide under the covers again?” Sungchan asked through barely concealed laughter, holding up the blankets next to him.

“If I recall correctly, you were the one who couldn’t sleep alone during those storms,” you argued, but slipped under the blankets anyway.

Sungchan did, in fact, pull them over your heads, swallowing you up in darkness. “Yeah, because I could tell you were scared and I knew you wouldn’t ask—”

“Oh, you’re such a liar!” You blindly reached out to push on his chest indignantly, pretty much hitting your target.

He laughed as he used his free hand to try to grab your hands, his other still preoccupied with holding the covers up off your faces. He successfully secured one, “Alright, hold on. Doctor hasn’t cleared you for rough-housing yet.”

“That just means you can’t fight back.” Your eyes were adjusting to the light, and you aimed for his side this time to tickle him.

The sheets were dropped as he went to protect his sides, and you were momentarily sightless again as the cloth entirely obscured your vision. Sungchan took advantage of your incapacitation to (gently) wrestle you off of him and back to your side. You were laughing too much to fight back now, half-heartedly hitting his hands or arms as he grabbed you. He was laughing too, the light, breathy sounds mixing with your own.

“Channie,” you went to get his attention as the playful moment subsided. You couldn’t tell who was holding whose hands at this point, one of his legs half on top of yours as if he were preparing to hold you down at a moment’s notice.

“Hm?” He hummed back inquisitively.

“When you picture your life in ten years, what does it look like?”

“Well… You’re there…” He paused to think for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m with you. The rest… I don’t know. Depends on how this career thing goes for you. Maybe you’ll have gotten a really good promotion by then and we’ll be in an even nicer place. Or maybe you’ll have an early midlife crisis and we’ll become farmers or something.”

“I want something different,” you blurted out, overwhelmed by the rush of emotions that his words brought.

“I mean, I guess we could do something else. Beekeeping?”

“No, not in our hypothetical life after I have an early midlife crisis.” You swallowed down the lump growing in your throat. “Now. I mean, I know we’re soulbound, so there’s not much more we can be, but I want this to be different.”

“Different how…?” He asked lowly.

You took one of his hands that you were already holding and pulled it to your cheek. “I’m not kidding this time, Sungchan.”

“I never was,” he murmured, thumb running over your cheekbone gently.

Your eyes fluttered shut as he leaned in, pressing his lips to yours in a sweet, deliberate kiss. Everything from your head to your toes was buzzing, and you melted into him immediately. Sungchan kept the kiss short, eyes scanning your face as soon as he broke it.

You couldn’t help but snicker a little. “That’s it? After all that talk?”

Sungchan narrowed his eyes at you. “You’re a menace,” he declared before claiming your mouth in a searing kiss. Using the leg that was already over yours as leverage, he flipped you onto your back, holding you in place with a knee on either side of you.

“Your menace,” you laughed into his mouth, twisting the hair at the nape of his neck around your finger. “Forever.”

The smile on his face as he looked down at you was far from annoyed, overly fond and tender as he laced his fingers with yours. “Yeah, I know.”

⤷ masterlist

TAGLIST

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@annenakamura @bee-the-loser @dejundesign @lotties-readings @ppddpjdr @reiofsuns2001 @snowyseungs @tearinka @yoursyuno @yutasputa69 @winkeuu

Christmas music played in the background of the workroom as you finished up your final admission of the night. The medical student had asked to put it on earlier in the night, and even though she was now out somewhere with one of your co-residents, you couldn’t be bothered to change it. You needed to finish this admission. You eyed the clock. Almost time for the night team to get here, then you could hand off your patients to them and be done. For today at least.

Someone opened the door to the workroom, but you didn’t look up, continuing to enter orders. They called your name, and you finally glanced over at the tall figure. He was plenty familiar to you, Jung Sungchan, an emergency medicine resident the same year as you, now pulling up a chair next to you to egregiously lean over the back of it and plant an elbow on the table. You yourself were an internal medicine resident, meaning you’ve rotated through the emergency department on many occasions, sometimes even working shifts with him, and your departments often host social events together. Not to mention, you happened to be neighbors, living a few doors down from each other in the same apartment building.

“I can punt admissions to night team in—” You looked at the clock again. “Eight minutes. If you’re here to personally give me a new admission, I’ll slash your fucking tires, Jung.”

“Not tonight,” he snickered. “I actually came to grab a coffee, the machine in the doctor’s lounge on this floor is better than the one by the ED.”

You took a moment to appraise him, noting that he definitely didn’t look like he’d spent any portion of a shift in the ED yet. “Did you just get here?”

“Yep. I won’t hold you up, just wanted to ask you one more thing—You got Christmas plans? Or are you here?”

“I’m here Christmas Eve and Christmas. I could’ve taken them off, but my parents are going to my brother’s to see my new baby nephew—too far to be back for 7:00 a.m. sign-in on the 26th,” you sighed. “Our intern has family around here, so I let her have both.”

“You’re so benevolent.”

“You know me, I’m a giver,” you deadpanned. “What about you?”

“I’m on call in case they need extra hands for the holiday rush.”

You shrugged. “Could be worse.”

“Both days. 48 hours straight.”

“Oh.” You wrinkled your nose sympathetically. “Could be better.”

“So are you on wards or—?”

“Infectious disease consults.”

“Want to come over after your shift on Christmas Eve?” He offered. “Eat dinner, watch movies, whatever.”

“Sure, as long as you promise not to cook.”

He nodded resolutely, offering out his fist. “Delivery only.”

“Sounds like a plan.” You tapped your fist to his.

Sungchan got to his feet, mussed up your hair, then darted out of the room before you could sock him for doing so. With a huff, you fixed the few stray strands, and got back to your admission.

Today felt like any other shift you’d done at the hospital except every single person you encountered refused to let you forget what day it was. Every interaction you had was either patients remorseful that they were in the hospital on Christmas Eve, thankful to you for taking care of them on Christmas Eve, fellow doctors or nurses complaining to you about their shit luck getting this shift or talking about their Christmas plans. By the time you had finished hand-off and sign-out, you were, quite frankly, not feeling the Christmas spirit.

If Sungchan lived anywhere except down the hall from you, you would’ve been tempted to cancel. You still had half a mind to. But when you texted to let him know that you were leaving the hospital, and he replied with a screenshot of the takeout order he’d just put in, full of your favorites, your heart grew three sizes and that was just big enough to make you not back out of your plans.

After showering your long day—and the hospital grime that you could always feel—off your skin, you changed into a clean set of pajamas and jammed your feet into some slippers. This was Sungchan, there was no need to dress to impress; he’d seen you looking much, much worse. When you knocked on his door, you were amused to see that he had a similar idea, donning a pair of flannel snowman pajama pants and hoodie.

“Hey, Merry Christmas.” He stepped back to let you in.

“Merry Christmas, and if I have to say that again today, I’m going to kill someone,” you complained.

Sungchan held his hands up in surrender. “Heard. ‘Happy Holidays’ only under this roof.”

You rolled your eyes, but did feel a smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Food here yet?”

“My room.” He pointed. “You can pick the movie first.”

“Thanks, Sungchan.” You looped an arm around his waist in half a hug. “Happy Holidays.”

“Happy Holidays, Y/N.” He rubbed your shoulder. “Thanks for coming over.”

Sitting down on his bed, you crossed your arms—which were only protected by a thin longsleeve—as the temperature dropped noticeably this close to the window. “Got a jacket I can borrow?”

An article of clothing was smacking you in the face before he said, “Think fast.”

“Thanks,” you deadpanned, un-crumpling the crewneck in your hands. It was an alumni shirt for his medical school, presumably a graduation gift either from the school itself or a relative. After you had pulled the sweatshirt over your head, you looked over to see Sungchan with a container of food in each hand. You pointed a threatening finger at him, “You say ‘think fast’ again, so help me the next thing that gets thrown is your phone out the damn window.”

“Can you promise it’ll be my work phone?” He joked, holding out your food to you normally. “No pages, no calls, no Epic chats… Sounds like a dream.”

You took the container and utensils from him then patted the empty half of the bed. “Enough hospital talk. Next person who mentions work pays for food next time we eat.”

Sungchan dropped down next to you, pulling the blankets over both of your laps. “When was the last time you paid for your food with me?”

“Not my fault you always lose your own bets.”

He tossed the remote to land softly next to your knee. “Don’t pick something boring.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Only ten minutes into the second movie of the night, an obnoxiously loud ringer went off. You paused the movie with a groan as Sungchan checked his work phone, despite both of you already knowing what it was.

“They’re calling me in,” he hissed regretfully, throwing the covers off and grabbing the neatly folded set of scrubs that was sitting on top of his dresser.

“I was excited for this movie,” you whined, your sleep deprivation making you a bit crankier about the whole thing.

“Apparently, the peds ED had one of their doctors get pulled for a procedure and needed an extra set of hands, so they pulled one of the residents that was in the ED,” Sungchan explained loudly as he scrambled to get changed in the adjoining bathroom. He burst through the door now in his scrubs, shoving his feet into shoes by his bedroom door, his words rushed, “I should only be like an hour. Just stay here, we can finish the movie when I get back.”

You hadn’t moved in that whole time despite the knowledge that he was being called in, still under the blankets and slumped against his pillows. A quick glance at the wall clock informed you that it was a little after ten. While you did have to be back at the hospital early the next morning for 7:00 a.m. sign-in, and you very much doubted that the ED would only need him for an hour, you also wanted to finish the movie and wanted to believe that maybe this time it really would just be an hour. You were also very comfy exactly where you were, your own apartment feeling oceans away at this point.

“Sure, okay,” you hummed. “I’ll lock up behind you, just go.”

“Thanks, bye!” He slung a backpack over his shoulder and ran out the door in the blink of an eye.

Long after the front door had slammed shut and the apartment was silent once more, you finally pushed the covers off yourself. After putting the leftovers in the fridge and throwing away the trash from dinner, you locked up Sungchan’s front door. Turning off any lights that were still on in the apartment, you shuffled back to his room. Back in your spot, you took your phone and settled in for some scrolling time.

You vaguely remembered falling asleep. More specifically, you remembered turning your phone off and deciding to rest your eyes for a second. A soft click caught your attention, the bedroom door closing, and you figured the sound of it opening must have been what woke you up.

“Hm?” You propped up an elbow under you and opened one eye, watching a shadowy figure moving around the room by the light of his phone screen. “Sungchan? You back?”

“Hey, sorry… well, about all of it, I guess,” Sungchan whispered. “Didn’t mean to be gone so long, people just kept trying to die, you know? No consideration for our plans.”

“What time is it?”

“A little after two.”

“Ugh,” you instinctively groaned.

“I’m still in my scrubs and I can feel the MRSA on me, so I have to shower right now,” he continued apologetically.

“Go.” You rolled onto your other side, burying your face into a pillow, way too fucking exhausted to move despite the fact that you absolutely should get up right now and go to your own bed down the hall to try to get as much sleep as possible before your shift.

As you drifted in the hazy state of consciousness between awake and asleep, you were aware of the sounds of Sungchan clicking on a lamp, rooting through his dresser, the shower running, then eventually turning off, Sungchan futzing around with things in his bathroom, then the bathroom door opening, and clothes being thrown in the laundry hamper in the closet.

“Can I look?” You mumbled into the pillow when you were pretty sure he was done.

“If you’re asking if I’m naked, nah.”

Hesitantly looking over your shoulder, you did in fact confirm that he was in a fresh pair of sweatpants and a henley longsleeve. He plopped down on the other side of his bed. You twisted around to face him, then let your eyes flutter shut again.

“What, are you saying I could’ve looked when you were naked?” You snorted sarcastically.

“Yeah.”

Squinting your eyes back open, you saw that he had the same cocky grin on his face as usual. “You’ve got a weird ass sense of humor sometimes, Sungchan.”

“The funny part is that you apparently think I’ve been joking this whole time.”

You blinked at him. “What?”

He laced his fingers together over his stomach, informing you plainly, “Y/N, I’ve been flirting with you since we met at the EM/IM intern mixer two years ago.”

“You didn’t think to tell me?!” You sputtered, now fully awake and pushing up into a sitting position.

“On our first ED rotation together, you told me about how you were fresh out of a serious relationship and happy to be, because you wanted to just worry about residency and not date until you were done,” he continued.

“Then why would you proceed to flirt with me on purpose for two years anyway?” You were baffled. Clearly, he’d never been so forward or pushy that you’d even known he was flirting—you just thought he was like that. Even now, you still felt like he’d always been a real friend, just one that might’ve been paying for your food more than you’d realized, or finding reasons to be in the workroom when you were there.

“To keep my skills sharp. Imagine the advantage I’ll have over everyone else after practicing how to flirt with you for three years,” he replied humorously.

Closing one eye, you held up your thumb and forefinger in front of your face so it looked like Sungchan was trapped between them. “Sometimes you say things and I get an overwhelming urge to study you like a bug in a terrarium.”

“Woah, look who’s flirting now.” He winked. Readjusting, he shifted to rest an arm behind his head and prop one foot up on the mattress. He nudged you with the other one, “Don’t worry. I’m not asking for your hand in marriage. Or even asking you out right now. I know you want to focus on residency. So you don’t have to tell me anything, okay?”

You hesitantly leaned back against the pillows again. “Okay.”

Sungchan picked up the remote and turned the TV back on. “Let’s try to finish this before your shift, hm?”

But you couldn’t focus on the movie that you had previously been so eager to finish. You were constantly shifting around in your spot, biting the inside of your cheek, and stealing glances at Sungchan beside you. Less than five minutes after he’d pressed play, you snatched the remote back from him and paused the movie. He slowly turned his head to look at you, both eyebrows raised.

“Can I ask you something?” You blurted out.

“Sure. I’ll even answer it, too.”

“Why? Are you waiting for me?”

“I didn’t decide to as soon as you told me that on that shift… but uh, I don’t know, I was super busy intern year, so my love life was kind of on the back burner then, too,” he admitted with a shrug, glancing up at the ceiling. “And at the same time, we were spending more time together and I just eventually realized: The time will pass anyway, it doesn’t seem worth it to try to date around just to waste time.”

You couldn’t help yourself, you just had to ask, “What if after three years I end up saying no?”

“Then I’ll still have a great friend and will have resolved one of the biggest what-ifs of my life.” His head lolled towards you. “It’s only three years. I mean, come on, med school was longer than that,” he scoffed. His tone held less derision but the same amount of resolve as he continued, “I really like you, and if now isn’t the right time, then I might as well wait around until the right time if I think you’re the right person. Right?”

And suddenly you were very aware of the fact that it was late at night, you were lying in his bed, wearing his old med school crewneck, one lone strand of damp hair hung between his eyes, and the crooked, ever-present smirk on his lips was now making your stomach twist.

“Instead of waiting around… Can’t we just decide now’s the right time?” Your voice was barely above a whisper.

Sungchan’s eyes flew all the way open, and he sat up straight, regarding you with guarded hope. “You’re sure?”

“I don’t need three years,” you stated, feeling your throat tighten from the rush of emotions. “I know that’s what I said back then but plans change. People too.”

“I—Yeah.” He smiled softly.

“Yeah?” You echoed uncertainly, tilting your head with confusion, expecting a little bit more of a response.

“Yeah! Yes!” He cheered louder this time, pulling you into a nearly crushing hug. You laughed, hugging him back and burying your face in his shoulder. Sungchan continued teasing you, “Wow, if only two years of practice worked, imagine how head over heels you would’ve been for me after three.”

“Guess we’ll just have to find out in a year, hm?” You chuckled. Stealing a glance at the time on the paused TV, you let out a regretful sigh and withdrew from the hug. “I should go back to my place, it’s late and I’m sure you want to sleep in after tonight.”

“No, you can stay,” Sungchan insisted, grabbing one of your hands before you could move any further from him.

“Sungchan, my alarm is going to go off in like, three hours,” you informed him incredulously. “No way you want to get woken up—”

“I don’t mind,” he reiterated. “Or I’ll come with you to your place now, so you can get ready faster in the morning.”

You blinked once, twice, before letting out an airy chuckle, “Fine, clingy. But I’m the only one who gets to complain when my alarm goes off.”

He saluted you zealously. “Heard.”

Finally pulling your own covers up to your neck all comfy and cozy, you hummed, “You owe me dinner, by the way.”

“I do?” Sungchan questioned, knee accidentally bumping yours as he readjusted.

“You mentioned work first—” You yawned. “So you pay for our food next time.”

“I did,” he agreed, voice nothing but amused. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Night, Sungchan…”

⇢ 2025 hallmark movie marathon

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The snow crunched under your feet as you stomped through it, looking around in wonder. Everything was blanketed in white, the trees, the ground, roofs of buildings. Excitedly, you took several pictures to send to your family and friends back home before tucking your phone away again. You lifted a hand up to try to catch the falling snowflakes, a bit disappointed when they immediately melted upon touching your bare skin. You had just moved here from somewhere with a much warmer climate, so this was the first snowfall you were experiencing and you were absolutely enthralled.

“Hey.”

“Oh!” You whipped around, spotting one of your neighbors walking up the drive to your building, hands stuffed in his coat pockets. You lived in a small four-unit building, so you had introduced yourself to everyone already. “Hi.”

Sungchan walked by you to get to his front door. “What are you doing?”

“It’s snowing!” You said excitedly, looking up at the precipitation again, unable to contain your grin.

“Yeah, it is.” Stopping with his key in the lock, he turned around to ask, “Ever seen snow before?”

“Nope!” You answered. “It never snowed where I’m from.”

“You get used to it.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to enjoy it until then!”

He smiled a little at that, then stated, “You forgot your gloves.”

“Ah, I don’t have any yet. I wanted to get some cute mittens but haven’t gotten around to it…”

“Here.” He tugged his own gloves off and walked over to offer them to you. “I’ve got more. Give them back whenever you get your own.”

“Wait, you don’t have to—”

“The snow will burn your skin off in a couple minutes without them,” he informed you frankly, stuffing them in your pocket, then hurried back towards his door.

“Thank you!” You called after him cheerily, yanking the gloves on. “I’ll get my own tomorrow, promise!”

“And be careful on your way to work in the morning. Roads will be icy.”

“Right. Thanks!”

Sungchan shoved his way into his apartment then, and you very gratefully rubbed your hands together in the warm gloves before setting to work on building your first snowman.

The sun had long gone down when Sungchan’s door opened again. He poked his head out as you were still trying to perfect your snowman.

“You’re still out here?” He called out to you, arms crossed over his chest against the cold as he was only wearing lounge clothes.

“I was going to go in, but then the streetlights turned on, and it’s so pretty!” You gushed, gesturing to the falling snow being illuminated in the rays from the lights above you.

“Stay there.” He said, then closed his door.

A few minutes later, Sungchan’s front door opened once more. This time, he was in a long puffer jacket and snow boots, shuffling out to meet you.

“Here.” He offered a steaming mug to you. “Hot chocolate.”

“Oh, thanks!” You gratefully wrapped both your hands around the drink, blowing across the surface.

“Have you finished unpacking?”

“Not yet, been too busy playing in the snow.”

“Your stuff will be there when you’re done. The snow will melt.”

“That’s what I thought!” You beamed and finally took a sip. “Oh, that’s perfect. Thank you.”

Sungchan looked down at your snowman, observing it with a tilted head. “You didn’t roll.”

“What?”

“You just packed a bunch of snow together, right? To build it up.”

“Yeah…”

“You’re supposed to roll it up across the ground,” he informed you. “To get a better sphere.”

Your eyes widened. “Oh!”

“But I do like your little guy.” He pointed to the pinecone on top of its head. “Hat?”

“Yep! I didn’t have a top hat on hand…”

Sungchan set his mug down on the porch. “Let’s make him a friend. The right way this time.”

You took a big sip of the hot chocolate—which you immediately regretted as it scalded the roof of your mouth—and rushed to put your cup down too. Sungchan was a hands-on teacher, never letting you stand still for more than a second as the two of you started rolling snow across the ground. After finishing the base, you felt like you were finally getting the hang of it by the time you completed the second one. The proud smile quickly fell off your face as you looked between the sphere on the ground, and the top of the first layer where it was supposed to go.

“We can always rebuild him,” Sungchan read your mind, grabbing the snowball with two hands. “Support the bottom when I lift.”

“Oh, god, okay.”

“One two—”

You hurried to put your hands underneath when he picked it up, and followed his trajectory as he moved it over the base. A small chunk fell off the side as it was lowered, and you pulled your hands out for him to set it all the way down.

“You can breathe now,” he said humorously.

You sighed, then took a deep gulp of crisp winter air. “Thanks.”

He bent over to pick up a bit more snow and packed it onto the spot that was missing some. “Good as new.”

The two of you did the same thing for the smallest ball to make its head, and once it was settled on top, you couldn’t help but let out an ecstatic cheer.

“We did it!” You held up your hand for a high five, and he smacked his glove against yours. “Okay, what kind of snow person should it be?”

Sungchan meandered across the yard, salvaging something out of the gutter. He smacked the snow off it as he walked back over to you, and you were able to parse out that it was an old beanie, soaked through with snow and a bit dirty from being on the ground for some time.

“Hold the head for me?”

You did so, and he meticulously pulled the red beanie over its icy head until it was sitting mostly like how it would on a person’s head.

Pursing your lips, you determined, “Eyes.”

You found two similar sized pieces of gravel and pushed them into the snow under the brim of the beanie to make a face. Sungchan took his finger to carve in a straight line for the mouth, giving it a deadpan expression.

“Doesn’t look very happy,” you laughed.

“You wouldn’t be either if you were out here with nothing but a beanie on.”

“I’d offer him my coat, but this is my only one.”

He snickered, “Well maybe he likes it.”

“Did we just make a little freak?”

“I think so.”

Turning back to all the fresh snow still around you, you had another idea, you hurriedly took out your phone. “Can you take a picture of me? I need to send something to my parents.”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” He accepted the device that was already open on the camera. “How do you—”

You flopped down into a fresh patch of snow and spread your arms and legs out and back in. Sungchan’s muffled chuckles were audible behind his scarf, and he dutifully snapped away as you made your snow angel.

“Does it look okay?” You asked from the ground, arms and legs still.

“Perfect.” He gave you a thumbs up and offered you two hands to get up. You gratefully accepted the help, letting him pull you to your feet quite effortlessly on his part. He started brushing snow off your head and shoulders, an absentminded “Cute” falling from his lips.

“So if there was a proper way to make a snowman, is there a proper way to make snowballs?” You questioned. “Like, the kind you throw?”

“You can kinda make these the way you made your first snowman.” He bent over, starting to pack snow together between his hands.

As you were squatted down, following his directions to mold your own snowball, you were suddenly hit on the back by something that burst into cold flakes all over.

“Hey!” You stood up indignantly, pivoting around to see Sungchan with a shit-eating grin on his face. You immediately retaliated, throwing your own snowball right back at him.

He laughed as he turned his shoulder enough to block it from hitting him in the chest. Soon, the two of you were scrambling around to pack snow together and launch it at the other as fast as possible, running around and dodging, every fump! of a snowball hitting its target followed by peals of laughter. Sungchan ducked out of the way of one of your projectiles, letting out a loud ‘woah!’ as he completely tumbled below the horizon line of the snow.

“Shit, Sungchan, are you okay?” You jogged over to where he was completely wiped out in a snowbank, covering his face with one hand.

He dropped his glove from his face to show his eyes crinkled up thankfully in humor, not pain. “Fuck, that hole came out of nowhere.”

“Yeah, you fucking wiped out,” you chuckled, but were still concerned. “You didn’t twist your ankle or anything, did you?”

“No, I’m good,” he reassured you, sitting up in the hole his body had made.

A snowflake danced past your vision, and your eyes followed it until it landed on your shoulder. You reached your hands up to try to capture one.

“Wait!” You gasped in delight. “Do you think I can catch one on my tongue?”

“Yeah, try it.” Sungchan leaned back on his hands to watch you with fond amusement as you immediately did, chasing another snowflake falling in front of you with the tip of your tongue.

You missed that one, but did manage to catch the next one, which immediately melted into a cool droplet against the heat of your skin. “Ah! I got it!”

“So what else is on your snow to-do list?”

“We’ve pretty much done everything…” You busied yourself with clearing away some more snow to plop down beside him.

“Pretty much?” He echoed questioningly.

“There’s one more thing…”

He gestured you on imploringly. “Which is…?”

“Kissing someone while it’s snowing.” You looked out at the falling snow, at the trees, cars, and rooftops blanketed in white. The sounds of the city were quieter thanks to the weather keeping everyone inside, and the snow itself muffling noise, bringing about a sense of peace that usually wasn’t present. “It’s really romantic, don’t you think?”

“I can help with that,” Sungchan said, tilting his head up towards the inky sky and letting some precipitation land on his face. “If you want.”

Shifting your gaze over to him, you tried to remember if his cheeks were that pink before from the cold or not. He looked so pretty, you thought to yourself, with snowflakes caught in his lashes around his big brown eyes. You smiled a bit sheepishly as you agreed, “I’d like that.”

He leaned in closer to you, slowly, and you let your eyes flutter shut, fingers curling into fists in your lap as anticipation built. More snow drifted onto your cheek and browbone, until finally his lips touched yours, like two frozen icicles bumping against each other. You couldn’t help the breathy giggle that escaped you before surging forward to seal your mouth over his more firmly, feeling the pressure against your numb skin better this time.

“You know…” You tsked. “Not as romantic as I thought. Mouth was too numb to feel anything.”

Sungchan laughed, “Ambience was nice at least. Wasn’t a bad idea.”

“No, I don’t think so.” You grinned. “Want to warm up inside and try it again?”

He jumped to his feet and offered you two hands. “Hell yeah I do.”

⇢ 2025 hallmark movie marathon

TAGLIST

@annenakamura @bee-the-loser @dejundesign @flooftown @httpsxnox @kirrakira @lotties-readings @pandabunbuns @ppddpjdr @reiofsuns2001 @snowyseungs @tearinka @yoursyuno @yutasputa69 @winkeuu @woozidreams

“Are you going to the cabin next week?” Karina asked you, refilling her drink as the two of you chatted in the kitchen of Donghyuck and Mark’s place. The former was throwing a “small get-together” tonight for his birthday, which was already shaping up to be more like the parties you’d attended in undergrad. He’d also invited a hopefully actually small number of your closer friends to spend two weeks in his family’s cabin starting the following Friday.

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” you nodded, opening the fridge to nose around in there for something to mix with your alcohol.

“Do you know who all he invited?”

“I think the usual, right?” You had secured some cranberry juice and seltzer, and brought them back out triumphantly. “Didn’t he text the details to everyone in a group chat? Check who’s in it.”

“Let me see…” She muttered, scrolling through her phone. “You, me, Hyuck, Mark, Ning, Jeno, Jaemin, Shotaro, Anton…”

“Unless it’s a mansion in the woods, it sounds like half of us will be sleeping on the floor,” you scoffed.

“There’s one person in here that I don’t have saved.” She frowned. “Do you?”

You looked at it on your own phone. “There’s two people I don’t have saved. One of them must be Anton, I just met him the other day when Taro brought him around to… whatever, I don’t even remember now.”

“I don’t have the 512 number.”

You saved the other unknown number as Anton. “I don’t have the 512 number either.”

Karina giggled. “Mysterious.”

“Probably another guy Hyuck and Mark met playing pickup.” You shrugged, following her back out to the living room. “I feel like that’s how they meet all their new friends these days.”

“Rina! Y/N!” Ningning suddenly appeared in front of the two of you, grabbing your other friend’s wrist. “Come dance with me!”

Karina looked over at you. “Y/N?”

“Just topped up.” You lifted your drink. “Maybe later. Have fun, guys.”

As they disappeared into the middle of the room, you drifted off to the side, finding a wall to lean against. You took slow sips of your drink, eyes passing over the crowd. You didn’t mind standing by yourself until either your friends were done dancing and found you again, or you spotted someone you’d rather talk to before then.

“Y/N!” Your voice was called from behind you, and you turned around to greet the birthday boy with a wide smile.

“Hyuck!” You went to hug him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you all night!”

“Because you’ve been hiding in the kitchen,” he teased. “I think this is the first time I’ve actually seen you out here.”

You rolled your eyes as you drew back from the hug. “Whatever, I’m here now. Are you having a good birthday?”

“Great!” He beamed. It was then that you noticed he had someone with him, a tall guy hovering awkwardly behind him. Donghyuck went to introduce him, “This is Sungchan, by the way. He also lives in the complex; Mark and I met him playing pickup.”

Of course.

“Sungchan, this is my friend Y/N,” Hyuck then gestured to you.

You nodded to him politely. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he smiled back, a bright, heart-stopping smile. You held onto your drink a little tighter, with both hands.

“Hey! Renjun!” Donghyuck suddenly yelled out. “No killing people on the premises! Choke Jisung outside!”

He took off into the crowd, leaving you with his new friend.

“Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Jungchan, but I’ve got to find my friends.” You slipped away before he could say anything else.

Karina and Ningning were still dancing, and while you briefly debated joining them, you decided against it, heading back to your safe haven instead: the kitchen. It was blissfully empty when you got in there, and you started picking at the bowls of snacks mindlessly.

“That was incredible.” Someone snickered, startling you into dropping a chip onto the floor.

You picked it up, glowering at the newcomer as you went to go throw away the ruined chip into the garbage can. “What are you talking about, Anton?”

“His name is Sungchan, by the way.” He was still laughing, hopping up onto the counter by the bowls of snacks. “Not Jungchan. I happened to have been lucky enough to have overheard that.”

“Oops.” You said flatly, well aware that you didn’t sound very sorry.

“But I’m totally going to use that.”

“You know him from pickup basketball too, I presume?”

“Yup.” He tossed a cheeseball up and caught it in his mouth. “He’s not very good at shooting, but he’s tall, so he’s alright at guarding.”

“Good for him. Or not, I don’t know.”

“So let’s say, hypothetically, I was eavesdropping on the entire conversation—”

“Hypothetically.”

“Of course.” He grinned. “He said like two words to you, and they were barely even hello. Why did you run away like that?”

You sighed, topping off your drink again. After taking a sip, musing over how best to phrase it, you finally decided on, “I just don’t trust people that are that hot—Sorry.”

Anton cocked his head curiously at you. “Who hurt you?”

“Nobody, god.” You rolled your eyes. “You’re so fucking dramatic and for what?”

“Fun and profit, mostly.”

“You hurt Sungchan’s feelings,” Donghyuck declared, blotting out the sun above you.

You closed your book on your thumb to deal with this. You had been reclining on a chair at your apartment complex’s pool reading in peace when your friend appeared out of nowhere. Outside the pool fence you could see his roommate, and two more of your mutual friends, Jaemin and Jeno. Jeno had a basketball under his arm, which made sense, the courts were right next to the pool, they were probably already heading there when they saw you and decided to detour over here to… interrogate you? Harass you?

“Who? What? When?” You squinted up at Donghyuck in confusion.

“My friend. Last night.”

“The tall one? How? Because I didn’t want to talk about the weather or whatever with him?”

“Apologize,” he demanded, crossing his arms. “And get his name right this time. It’s Sungchan. Not Jungchan.”

You scoffed, sitting up straighter in your chair. “This is exactly what I was telling Anton last night, you know. I don’t trust people that are that hot because even if they don’t do anything to abuse their hotness directly, or on purpose, other people will just do things for them anyway.”

“He’s the nicest person I know. Hotness be damned. Apologize.”

“No.”

“Really? This is the moral hill that you’re willing to die on?”

“Yup.”

“You’re a true martyr, Y/N,” Hyuck said sarcastically. “The Second Coming herself.”

“The nicest person you know? Really?” You questioned doubtfully.

“Really. And you were mean to him,” Donghyuck confirmed.

“Including Shotaro?”

“Including Taro.”

“Mark?”

“Mark’s my best friend. Doesn’t mean he’s the nicest person I know,” he retorted.

“Jeno?”

“Literally saw him steal candy from a baby yesterday.”

You blinked. “Wait, seriously?”

“Jisung. Same thing.”

“I’m not apologizing to your friend,” you declared, opening your book again.

“This is the stupidest line you’ve drawn in the sand yet.”

“I’m not going out and bullying him! All I said was that I don’t trust hot people!”

“Flaw in your logic: You’re friends with me,” he pointed out smugly.

“Think on that one again, Hyuck,” you replied snidely, looking down at your book as if you were trying to get back to reading.

“Rude.” He looked back at the other three guys waiting for him, apparently getting an idea. “What about Jeno? He’s like, ridiculously good-looking.”

“I like him just fine. I just don’t trust him, or what people will do for him because he’s stupidly attractive,” you argued.

“It sounds exhausting to be you,” he huffed, turning on his heel and leaving the pool deck.

Later that afternoon, you pulled yourself up out of the pool, heading back towards your chair. Grabbing your towel, you wrapped it around yourself to start drying off before heading back to your apartment. You saw someone walking towards you out of the corner of your eye as you were digging through your bag for your phone.

“Hi.” It was Donghyuck’s tall friend from last night, in workout gear rather than swim trunks. Obviously not here to use the pool.

“Hi.” You wiped a drop of water off your phone screen that had fallen from your nose onto it.

“Do you have a second?”

“Sure.”

He scratched the back of his neck as he focused an apologetic smile on you. “Did I do something or say something? At Donghyuck’s place? Because I’m really—”

“No.”

“—sorry if I did—Wait what?” The smile dropped from his face.

“You didn’t do anything or say anything. You were perfectly nice,” you answered honestly.

“Then it really was what you told Anton?” He asked in disbelief.

Of course, Anton must have told him what you said.

“Look, Sungchan, I’m sorry, I just don’t trust really attractive guys right off the bat.”

“I haven’t done anything to earn your distrust other than—”

“—other than being hot, yeah.” You shrugged. “Even if you really are nice, intentionally or not, people treat you differently just by virtue of you being stupidly hot. Gets in your head, whether you think it has or not.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Not at all.”

“How are you any different then?”

“Different than who?”

“You say that people treat me differently because I’m, in your words, ‘stupidly hot.’” He put the phrase air quotes. “That’s exactly what you’re doing right now.”

“How am I treating you different by not immediately falling at your feet? I don’t do that for average looking guys either.”

“That’s not what I’m asking you to do.”

“Was I rude to you last night? Bitchy? Outright mean or nasty?” You ticked the adjectives off on your fingers. “No, the most you can accuse me of was being a bit curt. And getting your name wrong, that really was my bad.”

He was quiet for a moment, and you took the opportunity to slip your sandals back on and shoulder your tote bag.

“Look, you’re not entitled to my time, attention, or to me,” you told him firmly.

“I didn’t say I was,” he said immediately, his brow furrowing.

“You’ve taken it as a personal affront that I didn’t want to idly chitchat with you last night.”

“I’m just… confused,” Sungchan sighed.

“You’re nice to look at, I’m sure you’re not a complete dud to talk to, it’s probably not torture to make small talk with you at a party. So people do,” you tried to walk him through it. “But it’s not mean for someone to not want to talk to you.”

He was silent again, that same pensive, troubled look on his face, and you found yourself in better spirits than you had been last night.

“This was fun. I would say we should do it again, but I’m afraid I would make you cry and then Hyuck would be really mad at me.” You chuckled, grabbing your keys from your bag. “So, goodbye, Sungchan.”

You were relaxed on your couch that night with a tub of ice cream when a violent banging came at your front door. Pausing the movie you were watching, you rushed to answer it, thinking that it must be the police, or some other kind of emergency. Instead, it was Donghyuck and Mark. You looked at Donghyuck incredulously, the one who had been doing the knocking.

“What is your fucking problem?” He said in lieu of a greeting, throwing his hands up in the air in disbelief.

“What did I do now? Allegedly?” You matched his tone, watching as he started pacing your entryway.

“You know what you did.” Mark was calmer, reminding you of a disappointed parent as he looked at you, his hands on his hips.

“You broke him!” Donghyuck declared.

“Who—Oh, Sungchan?” You finally connected the dots.

“Who else’s soul have you ripped out of their chest and stomped on today?”

“He sought me out,” you defended yourself, crossing your arms.

“And you couldn’t have been a human being and talked to him?”

“We talked. From what you’re saying, it sounds like he didn’t like what I had to say.”

“He’s catatonic!”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Only slightly. But he’s not well.”

You scoffed, “If one conversation with me is enough to make him spiral, sounds like he had some other stuff going on before I opened my mouth.”

“So you refuse to take responsibility? For any of this?” Donghyuck regarded you wide, crazed eyes, looking like he was at the end of his rope.

“You’re asking me to what? Fix him?” You snorted in disbelief. “I don’t Mommy grown men, sorry.”

“You are infuriating.” He pointed at you accusatorily. “The party I could’ve let slide—”

“No you couldn’t have, you found me literally the next day demanding that I apologize for not wanting to talk to him,” you spat back.

“Not for that! I’m not going to hold a gun to your head and force you to make small talk with him,” he groaned. “I meant the stuff you were telling Anton, in the kitchen. He heard you.”

“All I said was that I don’t trust people that are that hot. Nothing to have a goddamn mental breakdown over!”

“And he wouldn’t have, if you had just, I don’t know, apologized for the misunderstanding and moved on! But no, you have to take everything to this moral extreme! Honestly, I’m finding it hard to remember what’s even likeable about you in the first place right now,” Donghyuck ranted, running his hands through his hair.

“Hyuck, that was a bit far,” Mark finally spoke up again, stepping forward.

“You really want to die on this hill, Y/N?” Donghyuck just went around his roommate, looking you in the eye. “Then fine. Don’t bother coming on the trip.”

“Hyuck, man, come on—” Mark called after him, but Donghyuck had already stormed out of your apartment.

You watched the empty doorway after him, chest heaving as all the words you’d exchanged finally caught up to you. Looking to your friend that you had been left with, you asked quietly, “Do you think I'm in the wrong, Mark?”

He tilted his head back and forth regretfully. “I think… you’re being a bit abrasive.”

“You agree with Hyuck,” you deadpanned.

“Not entirely. I don’t think he should’ve been throwing Sungchan at you so hard. He should’ve known you weren’t going to take it well, which is probably why he did it in such a weird way.”

“What?”

“He was trying to set you up with Sungchan. But knowing how… you… are, he thought he had to do it with some uh, ‘finesse.’” Mark shrugged one shoulder. “Sungchan wasn’t all that hurt after the party, really. A bit bummed that you brushed him off, sure, but he would’ve bounced back. He’s hard to knock down, literally and metaphorically. Hyuck demanded that you go ‘apologize’ to him so that you’d talk to him again. Same thing with Sungchan talking to you at the pool today, Hyuck told him to.”

“Does Sungchan know that Hyuck’s been trying to set us up this whole time?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“So to him, this has been Hyuck setting him up with, apparently, the biggest bitch he knows,” you winced. No wonder he was so confused earlier.

“I mean…” Mark trailed off sheepishly. “He should’ve told you.”

“And I should’ve been fucking normal,” you groaned, rubbing your face.

“An argument can be made for that, yes.”

“What apartment is Sungchan in?”

According to Mark, Sungchan went on a jog every morning at 8:00, and was usually back by 10:00, so you made sure to knock on his front door at 10:15, just in case.

Sungchan opened the door, wiping sweat from his face with a towel as he spoke, “Anton, I thought we agreed on eleven…”

He trailed off when he opened his eyes and saw who was actually on his doorstep.

“Hi, Sungchan,” you greeted him.

“Oh. Hi, Y/N.” He dropped his hand from his face. In the background, you could hear music playing, and smell food being cooked.

“Uhm, are you busy? I can leave, sorry—”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He stepped back, opening the door wider and gesturing you in. You stepped into his apartment with a polite, grateful nod. It looked like he had been in the middle of making breakfast, a blender out on his counter, various fruits on a cutting board, and ingredients sizzling in a pan. He went to pause the music on his phone, and stirred the food that was in the pan. He pointed to one of the stools that was at the bar attached to the kitchen counter. “Do you want to sit?”

“No, thanks,” you shook your head. Shouldn’t take that long. “I just wanted to apologize. I was abrasive, and shouldn’t have been using you to try to draw some moral line in the sand as part of an argument with my friend.”

Sungchan nodded. “Thanks. You did have a point, about the party. I wasn’t used to people not wanting to talk to me, it was a weird experience. But you’re right, I wasn’t entitled to your time.” He went back to the cutting board, chopping up a banana and depositing it into the blender. “Besides, I’m sure you have guys come up to you all the time and you just want to be left alone. No worries.”

You tilted your head curiously. “Why do you say that?”

“People treat you different when you’re stupidly hot, right?” He shrugged, scooping some blueberries into the blender next.

“I wasn’t talking about myself…”

Sungchan just grinned and shrugged again. “So I guess I’ll see you at Hyuck’s family cabin then?”

“No. I was uninvited,” you informed him quietly.

“What? Why?”

“Because of how… poorly I handled this.”

Sungchan’s eyes widened with horror. “What? That’s crazy. I didn’t ask him—”

“Don’t worry, I totally get why he did it. His choice was between the nicest guy he knows—” you pointed to Sungchan, “—and the biggest bitch he knows—” you then pointed to yourself, “—who is a compulsive vibe-harsher. I’d pick you too.”

“Don’t tell me he called you—”

“My words,” you assured him.

“I’ll talk to him. No way you should be uninvited over a misunderstanding like this.” He flashed you an easy-going smile. “I mean, we’ve already worked it out. No hard feelings, right?”

“Right,” you agreed, offering a small smile back. “But really, Sungchan, you don’t have to. He’ll think I just apologized to you to get invited back on the trip.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Then there we go,” he said as if it were already decided. “I’ll talk to him.”

[hyuck: you’re un-uninvited]

[hyuck: sungchan will pick you up at 2:00 on friday]

[you: why is he picking me up???]

[hyuck: you’re the only two who need to leave late on friday. the rest of us are heading up in the morning]

[you: i have my own car??]

[hyuck: you’ve got a shitty sedan with 200,000 miles on it that can barely make it over a speed bump. you’re not making it up a mountain]

[hyuck: consider this your exposure therapy]

Sure enough, Friday at 2:00 p.m., there was a knock at your front door, Sungchan on the other side.

“Hey,” you greeted him, stepping back to grab your small rolling suitcase. “You really didn’t have to come get me, I could’ve met you down at your car.”

“I don’t mind. You need any help with your bags?” He offered, watching you also shoulder a duffel bag as you tried to wedge your memory foam pillow under your other arm.

“Where’s your stuff?” You questioned, noticing his empty hands.

“I already packed it in the car.” He reached for your suitcase, and you willingly let him take it. He held another hand out, and you gave him your duffel bag as well. Without even asking, he picked up the tote that was at your feet, too, leaving you with just your pillow and phone. “You got everything?”

You looked around your apartment, thinking hard. “Mmm… I’m pretty sure.”

“Phone, wallet, keys, charger?”

“Check.”

“Pajamas, toothbrush, toothpaste, other toiletries?”

“Check.”

“Let’s do it,” he grinned, leading the way to the front door.

[sungchan: picked y/n up! gonna get some gas on our way out of town if anybody has last minute snack requests. eta 5:00 pm!]

[jeno: 👍]

As some of the others’ snack orders came pouring in, you got one text separately.

[hyuck: be. nice.]

After filling up and triple-checking to make sure you had bought everyone’s food, you and Sungchan were back in his car, a modest-size SUV. He plugged his phone in to charge, then handed it to you.

“Here, you navigate.” The directions to the cabin were already pulled up and started.

“Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” You tried to give it back. “I yap and nap.”

“It’s like five turns total for three hours.” He refused to take it back, starting the car and peeling off. “You can be passenger princess all you want. I even know the first two to get onto the highway on my own. Just need the exit number, the road name, and the house number.”

“Oh god, okay…” You sank down into the passenger seat, clutching his phone with two hands.

“Are you really that nice?” You asked once you had been on the highway for a while. Sungchan and you had been taking turns on aux—right now he had something playing—and there was a comfortable lull in conversation, but you couldn’t help the question that had been nagging at the back of your mind the entire time.

“There is no way for me to answer that and not sound like a dick,” he pointed out. “Either I say no, despite knowing that our mutual friends have apparently hyped up how nice I am to you, in which case it just looks like I’m acting humble. Dick move. Or I say yes, which would make me look like I’m full of myself. Dick move again.”

You looked over at him, feeling the smirk tug at your lips. “You’re fun.”

“Thanks?”

“So if you don’t think you’re that nice, how would you describe yourself?”

“What is this? Speed dating?” He snorted.

“You want to talk about something else? Pick a better topic yourself,” you retorted. “We’re stuck in here for like two more hours.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he quickly went to smooth the conversation over, his tone turning pleasant again. “I just meant… I don’t know how accurate a self-assessment like that would be. Wouldn’t you be biased about yourself? Positive or negative?”

“That’s the fun of it. Even if a person doesn’t describe themselves accurately, understanding how they see themselves can help you understand them a lot better.”

“How would you describe yourself then?”

“I asked you first.” You pointed out. It felt like it had been a long time since you checked the navigation, so you clicked Sungchan’s phone back on to see how much longer you had to go until your exit.

“Fine.” He hummed as he thought. “I like to think I’m… dependable. And a good friend. And patient—”

“That was our exit,” you said abruptly, staring at the constantly refreshing rerouting screen in front of you.

“What?”

“Well, fifty miles ago was our exit…” You winced, watching ‘288’ pass you by. Yours had been 238, apparently. You should’ve known that.

“We missed our exit?” Sungchan clarified.

“Fifty miles back, yeah.”

“And you just decided to tell me?”

“I just noticed! I thought it was 288!” You tried to defend yourself. “I told you not to make me navigate!”

He held a hand out towards you. “Give me the phone.”

“It’s rerouting, I’ll pay attention—”

“Y/N, give me the fucking phone.” His tone was low, with no room for arguing.

You meekly set it in his hand, dropping both your hands in your lap after. He cursed under his breath as he jerked the wheel over, cutting across three lanes of traffic—no turn signal—to narrowly make the next exit. Car horns followed his maneuver, but he ignored them.

“I’m sorry…” You muttered, unable to take the suffocating silence anymore. It was either apologize or tuck and roll, which was honestly still an option at this point.

“Text everyone, let them know we’ll be late,” Sungchan demanded, knuckles red and white around the wheel.

“Okay.” You scrambled to pull out your own phone. “What time should I tell them?”

“Eight.”

You gaped. “Three hours?!”

“Yes, Y/N, we’re on the other side of the fucking mountain now!” He finally snapped and raised his voice, and your eyes went wide. “We can’t just drive through it to get there!”

You took a deep breath, holding his eye contact for a tense, strangling moment before you looked down at your phone to draft your text.

[you: hey guys! uhm, due to an unfortunate series of events, sungchan and i will be a bit late! new eta 8pm]

[anton: did y’all crash or smth wtf]

Again, a separate text from Donghyuck.

[hyuck: i said be nice not fuck him nasty in the backseat for three hours what is wrong with you]

[you: shut UP]

Back in your vacation group chat, you figured you owed everyone an explanation that alleviated Sungchan of any blame.

[you: completely my fault! i’m apparently the worst navigator ever and we missed our exit :/ ]

[rina: damn y/n maintaining the stereotype that women are bad drivers even when backseat driving]

[ningning: the patriarchy thanks u for ur service queen 🫡]

[jeno: i hate when you guys start joking like this, wtf are we supposed to say without looking like assholes]

[hyuck: pour one out for y/n, it must be so hard holding open the gender pay gap like the doors of a subway car all by herself too]

[mark: bro 😭😭😭]

[you: i wish all of you a very fall down the mountain and die <3]

And one more private text from Donghyuck.

[hyuck: okay that’s how i know you didn’t get dicked down]

[hyuck: damn, you really are bad at reading directions huh]

[you: IM BLOCKING YOU]

Sungchan cleared his throat, and you slowly lowered your phone to look over at him again. He smoothly took a curve on the backroad that you were now on, one lane in each direction, that cut between the mountains with trees jutting up on either side of you.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Sungchan breathed out, readjusting in his seat. “For yelling at you just now. That’s not… like me.”

“Because you’re so nice?” You couldn’t bite your tongue quick enough, still put off from the spat you’d just had.

“I… guess so,” he sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know where that came from, honest. I’m really sorry.”

“I told you I shouldn’t navigate.”

“Yeah, I know that now.”

“I’m really, really sorry for missing the exit. I should’ve been paying attention better,” you shouldered the blame that was yours.

“238 and 288 look almost the same. Easy mistake.”

“That added three hours to our drive,” you sighed, leaning your seat back.

“It’s done, no use pointing fingers at each other anymore,” Sungchan shook his head, tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Or yourself.”

“Do you even have enough gas for another three hours? We’re not going to get stuck out here, are we?”

“I’ll stop at the next station I see.”

“How far is the next station?” You mumbled, pulling up your phone to search it up on your own. “Fifty-two miles. How much gas do we have?”

“A hundred miles on the range. See? We’re fine.” Sungchan’s smile dropped off his face right after he said that. “Huh…”

“What?” You sat up as he reached over to put the hazards on and pulled the car off onto the shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Low tire pressure light,” he frowned. “I checked my tires before I grabbed you from your place. Give me a sec.”

He left the car running as he hopped out, and you watched as he walked around the car, squatting down to inspect each of the tires. Finally, he walked up to your window. You rolled it down to talk to him.

“Back right tire has a nail in it. Slow leak,” he explained. “I’ve got to change it.”

“Aren’t you not supposed to drive spares in certain conditions?” You asked as he reached through the open window to unlock and open the door. “Like on a mountain road or whatever?”

With the door open, he rolled the window back up and reached past you to turn the car off, taking the key out of the ignition. “The road’s paved, it’s not like it’s gravel or anything. I’ll have to drive careful and drive slow on the spare, but it’s either that or we’re stranded out here.”

You eyed the sun that was already descending behind the mountains. “Right. Spare it is.”

“Need you to hold the flashlight if you don’t mind.” He opened the glove box in front of you, rooting around and grabbing a flashlight the length of your forearm.

You accepted it from him. “Got it.”

Sungchan took the tools out of the trunk, as well as the spare tire. He first lifted the car up with the jack, and you became acutely aware of how abandoned the road that you were on really was as not a single other car passed by the entire time. Sungchan stood back up once the car was up to peel off his flannel, tossing it into the trunk with the rest of the tools and the spare waiting to be used.

“Y/N.”

“Huh?” You looked down at where he had gotten back on the ground.

“I need to see the lug nuts, not my arms.”

“Sorry.” You shuffled behind him to be able to point the beam directly on the tire instead of where it had drifted to his mostly bare arms under his t-shirt.

“Much better. Thanks.”

You watched as his hands skillfully unscrewed the lug nuts from the tire with the wrench, holding the first two behind him. “Hold these for me?”

“Oh, sure.” You held your hand out for him to drop them into your palm.

Once you had all five in hand, Sungchan pulled the flat off the car and swapped it out for the spare. You tried not to listen to the darkened forest behind you.

“Lug nuts?” He held his hand up from where he was laying on the ground. You deposited a couple back into his hand for him to screw on at a time.

As he alternated between tightening the nuts and lowering the car down off the jack, you dutifully kept the flashlight pointed on the area he was working on. Finally, the car was back on the ground, and he took the jack out from under it. He rolled the old tire around until he could point out the head of a nail embedded in the tread.

“There’s the little fucker.” Sungchan clicked his tongue before he heaved the tire up into the back. He put away all the tools too, then wiped away beads of sweat that had gathered under his bangs with the hem of his shirt.

He grabbed his flannel, tossing it over his shoulder before he shut the hatch on the trunk. He then turned to you with a bright smile and held his hand up for a high-five. “Alright!”

You high-fived him back mindlessly, pointing the flashlight at your feet now. “I didn’t do anything…”

“What are you talking about? I would’ve been fumbling around in the dark without you.” He nodded his head towards the front of the car. “Come on, we’re going to be late as is. We need to find that gas station. Hopefully they’re open late.”

“Hopefully…”

[you: NEW new eta idfk]

[you: we got a flat and need to fill up again]

[you: we might die out here. if this is my last message, just know that i still wish you all a very fall down the mountain and die <3]

[rina: aw ily2 pookie <33]

[you: sungchan probably says hi or smth]

Hyuck texted you individually again.

[hyuck: oh i know that car smells RANK 🫵🫵🫵]

[you: bitch this tire is as flat as YOUR ASS]

[hyuck: so it’s caked up??? my point is made 😌]

[you: delusion]

“The stars are really pretty out here,” Sungchan’s voice took you away from your phone.

He wasn’t driving as fast as before on account of the spare, making your trip even longer. You looked out the windshield in front of you, at a small patch of sky that you could see peeking out in between the mountains and trees. It was hundreds, if not thousands of stars, infinitely more than you could ever hope to see on a perfectly clear night in the city.

“Wow.” You leaned your arms and head forward on the dash to see it better. “That’s crazy…”

“I bet we’ll see even more once we get to the cabin.”

“If we don’t die out here first,” you half-joked. “How much gas do we have?”

“Sixty miles. And the station should be another ten.”

“Online didn’t have any hours for it…” You muttered. “And this is kind of rural…”

“Which means the owner might live on the property, or they have someone work a night shift for weary travelers just like us.”

“Weary travelers?” You repeated with amusement. “You make it sound like we’re going on some long journey and are seeking lodging at an inn.”

“Some of that’s true.”

“Yeah, yeah. And I won’t knock the weary part either.” You laid back in your seat again, letting out a yawn.

“Take a nap,” Sungchan encouraged you. “We’ll still have a while to drive after refilling, especially since we’re driving slow with the spare.”

“I would, but if the station is open, I gotta pee…” You whispered. “And it’s only like ten miles.”

“Then take a nap after.”

Finally, there was a building in the distance, and miraculously, when Sungchan pulled up to the lone gas pump, the lights inside were even on.

“Sungchan?” You walked around to where he was filling up the car.

“Yeah?” He looked over at you from where he had been watching the numbers on the meter go up.

“Uhm, can you go in with me? Into the store?” You asked almost sheepishly. “I just—”

“Of course.” He agreed with no hesitation, nodding towards the building for you to lead the way. The gas continued pumping on its own as he walked away, and you grabbed his arm as you approached the front door. He didn’t say anything as he opened the door for the two of you.

The attendant behind the counter didn’t even look up from his phone at the two of you as you entered. There was exactly one bathroom at the very back of the small convenience store, and Sungchan walked you back through the cramped aisles of snacks. When you were done, he was waiting just outside the door where you’d left him.

“Good?” He asked quietly, offering you the same arm that you’d taken in the parking lot.

You took it gladly. “Good.”

Sungchan gave the store employee a nod of acknowledgement as the two of you left, and the man once again didn’t even look up at you. Back at the car, the gas had clicked off on its own, and Sungchan replaced the pump. He walked you to the passenger side, opening your door and ushering you in, closing it firmly behind you before getting in on his side and locking it behind him.

“Good?” He asked you again.

“Good,” you confirmed, and he started the car up.

Back on the road, the darkness all around you, steady rumble of the pavement under you, and music Sungchan had playing at a low volume was slowly lulling you back towards sleep again. You let out a rather obvious, violent yawn, not even having enough in you to slap your hand over your mouth all that quick.

“Go to sleep, Y/N,” Sungchan said again.

“But you’ve got to drive more,” you argued. “Who’s going to keep you awake?”

“I’ve got it, promise.” He then chuckled to himself. “You’ve yapped, now it’s time to nap.”

“Mm, alright.” You curled up in your reclined seat as best you could, letting your eyes flutter shut. “Wake me up if you need entertainment to stay awake. Love a good car sing-along…”

Your eyes and limbs still felt heavy and sluggish with sleep when you woke up later that night, and you pulled your blanket tighter to you as you tried to settle back in. You took a deep breath in through your nose, and then immediately remembered that you did not go to sleep with a blanket on you, and that this definitely was not yours that was on you right now. You felt at the material bunched in your hand again and recognized it as an article of clothing of some sort, not a blanket. Slowly opening one eye, you saw that it was a big hoodie, the arms wrapped around your shoulders so it didn’t fall off.

You shifted in your seat again, sitting up a little more as you looked at the hoodie that was draped over you a little closer.

“Hey, are you waking up?” Sungchan asked quietly from beside you.

You looked over at him, squinting. “Mm… mhm.”

“Good, we’re almost there. I’d say ten minutes,” he informed you.

“What… time is it?”

“A little after nine.”

“Ugh…” You dropped your head back against the seat. “Feels like two in the morning.”

“I know what you mean,” he chuckled. “I’m going to be ready to sleep as soon as we get there too.”

“Yeah, but you were like driving and changing tires and stuff. I was... whatever the opposite of a passenger princess is, the whole time. A passenger nuisance.”

“You held the flashlight. That was a very important job.”

“I’m going to pretend like that didn’t feel patronizing and say thanks.”

“We both had a long night, Y/N. Being tired is warranted, for everyone involved.”

“Thanks, Sungchan.”

“You’re welcome.”

“No, not just for that.” You were interrupted by another yawn as you went to put the back of your seat upright again. “For… driving me, and apologizing for snapping at me earlier, and changing the tire, and walking me to the bathroom, and for the hoodie. You’re…”

“Nice?” He seemed to be bracing himself for the word.

“A good guy.”

“Oh.”

You didn’t say anything else, readjusting his hoodie on you as he continued driving. Finally, he pulled off the road into a driveway, and a cabin came into view. All the lights were on, and he stopped behind a few other cars that you recognized: Mark’s, Jaemin’s, and Karina’s.

The two of you had just started taking your stuff out of the trunk when some of your friends met you outside.

“You survived!” Jaemin cheered.

“Barely,” you groaned, reaching for your pillow.

“What happened to your tire, dude?” Mark asked Sungchan.

“Got a nail in it somewhere,” he explained, taking his phone out to shine the flashlight on it. As they looked it over and talked about the car, the others grabbed both yours and Sungchan’s stuff to take into the cabin.

“So, before you guys got a flat, how exactly did you manage to read the map on your phone so wrong you added three hours to the drive?” Jeno questioned you, your duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

“Our exit was 238, I misread it, thought it was 288,” you explained with a sigh. “We ended up on the wrong side of the mountain and had to go back around.”

“Damn, it’s a good thing you were with Sungchan when you did that,” Anton laughed, dragging Sungchan’s suitcase in. “Anybody else probably would’ve lost their shit on you.”

“He did.”

Everyone who was within earshot turned to look at you.

“What?” Anton blinked.

“I mean, he didn’t like, go crazy or anything, but he was angry.”

“We’re talking about the same guy, right? Jung Sungchan, right over there?” Hyuck pointed to where Sungchan and Mark were still chatting by the cars further down the driveway. “He got like, actually mad at you?”

“Uh-huh,” you confirmed. “Raised his voice, yelled, whatever word you want to use. Cursed, too.”

“I’ve never even seen him get like, frustrated…” Shotaro whistled.

Hyuck looked between you and Sungchan in disbelief. “What the hell?”

“He apologized,” you added what felt like a pretty important detail.

“I’m sure he did,” Anton snorted, opening the front door. “I’m kind of surprised he’s not still like, begging for your forgiveness.”

“He apologized for getting upset, I apologized for missing the exit, we moved on.” You shrugged, stepping into the cabin. “And the sky didn’t fall.”

“Yet.” Hyuck scoffed. “Who knows, hell might freeze over before we wake up.”

“Speaking of, where exactly are we all sleeping?”

The next morning, you slipped out of the king size bed that you, Karina, and Ningning were all sharing and treaded down the darkened hallway as quietly as possible. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and you winced when a floorboard creaked underfoot as you passed behind the pull-out couch that Shotaro and Anton had crashed on.

There was already light pouring out of the kitchen when you got there, and a tall figure was standing in front of the stove, a tea kettle on one of the old coil burners. Sungchan was illuminated by the stove light, and turned around when he heard the shuffling of your socks across the tile. It looked like he had already showered and gotten dressed, his hair a little damp as it hung in his eyes, and he was in a fresh t-shirt, shorts, and pair of sneakers.

“You’re up early,” he commented, keeping his voice low to not disturb the others in the next room.

“You too,” you replied just as softly.

The kettle began whistling just then, and he immediately flipped open the spout to stop the noise, taking it off the stove. He opened a nearby cabinet to grab a mug.

“Tea?” He offered. “I’m not a big coffee guy…”

“Sure,” you accepted, and he took a second mug down. “What kind?”

Sungchan went to a different cabinet to get a box of tea sachets. “Green.”

He dropped a tea bag into each mug, then poured the boiling water over them. He handed you your mug before leaning against a spot by the sink.

“Thanks.” You wrapped your hands contentedly around the warm drink.

You lifted your bag up and down by the string, letting it steep as your eyes blinked open and closed, your mind still coming to in the early morning hours. Outside the cabin, you could hear birds singing as the forest woke up too, and you smiled to yourself at the thought.

“So, uh—” Sungchan cleared his throat awkwardly. “What’s the difference between a nice guy and a good guy?”

You opened your eyes, lifting your head to look up at him, slightly amused. You hoped this hadn’t kept him up last night. “A nice guy wouldn’t have yelled at me in the first place.”

“Oh.” He looked a bit ashamed, and also like he might try to apologize again.

“But that also would’ve made no opportunity for you to apologize,” you continued. “A nice guy is just nice. A good guy can admit when he’s wrong, because he actually is wrong sometimes. But he fixes it after.”

“Huh…” Sungchan took another sip of his tea. “Are you a philosophy student or something? Gender studies?”

“No.” You laughed. “Just a compulsive vibe-harsher, like I said.”

“I don’t know how being smart harshes the vibe.”

“I… find it hard to take things at face value. I always have to evaluate them through some lens. It’s tough for me to live in the moment, I guess. Doesn’t always make me the most fun at parties.”

“You can’t be that much of a bummer, they keep inviting you places.” He had finished his tea, and turned around to wash out the mug before setting it aside to dry. “I’ve got to go, I found a place that’ll look at my tire. I called and they’re open on Saturdays.”

“I’ll go with you,” you offered. “If you want some company…”

“It’s on the other side of the mountain,” he informed you. “It’ll be an all-day thing, you should hang out here with everyone. I think Hyuck said they were going to take the boat out.”

“But then you’ll be all alone and bored in the car all day.” You tilted your head. “If you just don’t want me to come, tell me. I’ll be okay.”

“No, Y/N, I’d appreciate the company, but are you sure you want to be stuck in the car with me all day again?”

“Just don’t make me navigate and we’ll be good.”

“Never again,” he smiled. “You’ll be there purely for entertainment.”

“Great, let me get changed.”

“Aw, I thought the jammies were cute,” Sungchan snickered, and for the first time that morning you processed what you were wearing.

A pair of Sanrio character-patterned sleep shorts that were originally from a pajama set (the matching button-up top had long disappeared), well-loved, and a big t-shirt that your dad had gotten from his work when you were high school, worn in with a couple holes in one of the sleeves and another low on the bottom hem—not in any scandalous areas, hence why you hadn’t retired it yet, but definitely not your finest attire.

“Shut up!” You hissed, putting your mug down on the counter to cross your arms over your chest. “I’m changing!”

[sungchan: going to get my tire fixed, y/n’s with me. car shop is on the other side of the mountain so we’ll be back late afternoon-ish]

[jeno: 👍]

“I wasn’t kidding, the pajamas were cute,” Sungchan chuckled as he pulled away from the cabin.

The backroads looked much more welcoming and pleasant in the daytime, all tall, green trees and beautiful mountain landscapes.

“Yeah, sure,” you snorted, taking over the aux first.

“Is my hoodie over there by the way?” He questioned, pointing to the passenger seat floor. “It wasn’t in my stuff yesterday, I thought it might’ve ended up on the floor or something.”

“Oh, sorry, I accidentally took it in with me,” you informed him, remembering when you had finally gotten settled into your room late last night and realized you’d brought the article of clothing in with you in the midst of the hecticness. “I’ll give it back to you when we get back to the cabin after this.”

“Don’t worry about it, just wondering where it went.” He waved you off nonchalantly, eyes focused on the road as he navigated a curve.

But you weren’t going to let him chalant around that so easily. “And what does that mean, Sungchan?”

“I like that hoodie and didn’t want to have lost it on a mountain in the middle of nowhere?”

“So, if I were to give it back to you and start borrowing, oh, I don’t know, Jeno’s hoodie…?”

“That’d be weird, because you have a perfectly good one,” he replied simply.

“Mhm…”

“And clearly, I’m trying to establish my dominance over the other males and stake my unofficial claim over you by having you wear my clothes,” he looked over at you, voice dripping with sarcasm.

You held his eye contact for a moment before you both burst out laughing. “What?!”

“Sorry, I tried my hand at harshing the vibe like you,” his eyes crinkled as he laughed. “Just sounded like a fucking weirdo, huh?”

“A bit, yeah.” You wheezed as you tried to catch your breath. “You also can’t sound that sarcastic when you do it. People have to believe that you believe what you’re saying.”

“I didn’t though. I mean, not completely. I think.”

“Either commit to the bit or don’t.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “But… wouldn’t that have made you feel weird? What I just said?”

“Oh yeah, I don’t buy into all that alpha male social hierarchy bullshit. It’s based off one study on a pack of wolves that’s been debunked multiple times.” You shook your head. “But the second part wasn’t an incorrect analysis of flirting and dating dynamics.”

“Damn, you’re good at that,” he chuckled fondly.

“I didn’t know that Donghyuck was setting us up, by the way,” you felt the need to clarify in that moment. “Not until… right before I apologized?”

“I kind of worked that out eventually,” he sighed. “He should’ve told you, by the way.”

“Yeah, then maybe I would’ve been fucking normal.”

“Probably not.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I mean, it was unfair to you to have been in the dark like that.”

“That’s… generous. Here I thought it was unfair to you to have been subjected to me like that.”

“I was a bit confused as to why Donghyuck told me he had the perfect person for me and then every time I talked to you, you either ran away or seemed to hate me for no good reason,” he admitted.

“I truly wonder what his thought process was…” You mused. “He meets you playing pickup basketball, you turn out to be nicest guy he’s ever met, and his first thought is to introduce you to me? Weird.”

“Why is that weird?” Sungchan tilted his head. “I think you’re cool.”

“I mean, I’m not nice. Or, it’s definitely not one of my defining characteristics. Wouldn’t you want to set up your two nicest single friends with each other?”

“They might get bored of each other,” he muttered.

You looked at him curiously. “Do you think you’re boring, Sungchan?”

He shrugged. “Isn’t that what people say? ‘Oh he’s… a nice guy.’ When they can’t think of anything else about you because you’re boring.”

“I’ve had plenty of fun with you,” you assured him. “Including being stuck in a car with you for six hours and getting a flat tire.”

“I haven’t exactly been my usual self with you…” He confessed quietly.

“Oh?”

“I don’t get upset with people, or tease them like this, or say weird stuff to try to harsh the vibe on purpose.”

You couldn’t help but let out a peal of laughter. “Maybe you are usually pretty boring, then.”

“I think… because you’ve already seen me get mad, and we got past that, I feel like I can try out being things other than nice with you?” He seemed to have been picking his words very carefully. “Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, Sungchan, it makes sense,” you affirmed. “Are you seriously saying you don’t joke around with the others?”

“I joke around, but I’m not really like… sarcastic, I guess. I don’t want to say something and hurt someone’s feelings either because they didn’t get that it was a joke, or even if they did, because it went too far.”

“That’s fair, but… you have to trust people.”

“Coming from the woman who said she doesn’t trust hot people?” He questioned pointedly.

“Okay, fair,” you chuckled. “But hear me out.”

“Go for it.”

“If your friend said or did something that hurt your feelings, and you didn’t tell them that directly, would you expect them to know?”

He seemed to think about this for a moment, then shook his head. “No, they can’t read my mind. I would need to tell them so we can talk about it.”

“Then why do you have higher standards for yourself as a friend than you have for your friends?”

Sungchan’s mouth dropped open, then closed, then opened again, then closed once more as he frowned deeply, his brows knitting together.

You continued, “You have to trust your friends to tell you when they’re hurt by something you say or do. If you spend your whole life assuming what your friends’ feelings are instead actually letting them tell you, you’re just forcing your own expectations onto them without their input. And it’s also not fair to you to constantly be living your life trying to minimize all these perceived slights against people. Not to mention—sometimes someone’s feelings can get hurt and you didn’t really do anything wrong.”

He laughed nervously. “Not philosophy or gender studies grad student; I think I’m going to skip right over psychology and just go straight for all-knowing deity that can see straight into my soul?”

“Been thinking about updating my LinkedIn to Professional Yapper, but I think I like that better,” you grinned, handing his phone back over to him. “Your turn on the aux.”

“It’s fixable,” the tire shop owner confirmed. “Should take an hour or so. It’s just me and my son and we have a couple customers ahead of you. You and your girlfriend are welcome to wait here, or, you know, it’s lunchtime, there’s a restaurant that’s a five-minute walk down the road.”

He pointed in presumably the general direction of it.

“Right, uhm, here’s my number, in case we’re not here when it’s done.” Sungchan wrote his number down on a notepad on the front desk in the small tire shop.

The older man pulled the paper towards him, flashing the both of you a smile. “If you go to lunch, tell Mrs. Han I sent you.”

“Thank you.” He nodded to the man before you both stepped away from the counter, and the owner walked into the back where the cars were.

You looked up at Sungchan questioningly. “I could do lunch. Are you hungry?”

“Sure,” he agreed. “Beats sitting here for an hour. After sitting in the car for two days straight, I’d like to walk for a bit.”

There was of course no sidewalk, so the two of you had to walk on the shoulder of the road, the odd vehicle zipping by every so often and kicking up your hair. Sungchan kept himself between you and the road, meaning that you were on the grassier part of the shoulder, but you didn’t mind, taking the opportunity to look for wildflowers by your feet.

“Did we really look like a couple?” You asked, stopping to bend over and pick a yellow wildflower, then continued your walk.

“We were a man and woman alone in the middle of nowhere with car trouble,” Sungchan pointed out. “I don’t think the first assumption would be that we met a week ago.”

“Hm, fair.”

“He probably sees a lot of couples coming out here for romantic getaways breaking down or getting flats or whatever.”

“Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie…” You picked a stalk of small white flowers. “Or the first five minutes of a crime procedural.”

Sungchan grabbed a purple flower and held it out to you. “Truly a miracle that we survived.”

“Are you a mechanic or something?”

“Why? Because I know how to change a tire?”

You shrugged. “It’s a guess. You guessed that I was a philosophy student because I like to yap.”

“Not a mechanic.”

“You going to make me keep guessing?”

“I’ve guessed what you do three times now and you’ve yet to tell me.” He elbowed you. “I think you can handle a little more suspense about me.”

You swatted his arm away. “I don’t know if all-knowing deity should really count…”

“I was being so serious, hand on my heart.” He laid his hand over his chest dramatically.

“Well, I know it’s not pro basketball player,” you hummed teasingly. “Anton says you suck.”

“My three-pointer could use some work…”

“Pretty much our whole complex is grad students or young professionals... Are you in school?”

“You haven’t given me any hints.”

“You haven’t asked for any.”

He watched you step a little further from the road to get a pink flower from a patch before rejoining him. “I’ll answer if you answer.”

“A bargain?” You grinned, taking your gaze off the blue flowers that you had been eyeing up ahead of you and turning it up to Sungchan next to you. “I’ll take it. You first.”

“I’m a student. Your turn.”

“Both,” you answered. “I take night classes.”

“I have to guess two things for you?”

“What do we win if we guess right, anyway?” You asked.

“Y/N...” Sungchan stared you down at you avoiding his question.

“Fine, if you can guess one, I’ll tell you the other,” you acquiesced. “So what’s the prize?”

“Winning isn’t enough?” He questioned.

“You’re the one who turned it into a game.”

“Pretty sure you’re the one who did that, but okay,” he teased back. “I don’t know, what do you think it should it be? You suggested a prize.”

You hummed, stepping away from the road to reach for a bright blue flower, having to lean over to one side as the ground sloped down steeply in this area. A few pieces of gravel under your feet tumbled downhill, and Sungchan grabbed your forearm that was close to him to balance you as you picked the flower. Still hunched over, using your new stability with his hold on you to stretch your arm even further out towards a pretty orange one, you suggested, “Winner picks our first date when we get back home?”

“Date?” He echoed, his grip slipping on you for a moment.

You yelped as you nearly lost your balance, and Sungchan barely caught you from tumbling down the hillside, jerking you back towards him. You landed on your ass at his feet, huffing as you looked up at him.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, moving to offer you a hand up.

You took it, standing back up and brushing yourself off. Picking the orange wildflower first, you then threatened, “If you push me down this mountain for real, I’m taking you with me.”

“Yeah, that’s deserved,” he chuckled. “I was just, uhm, surprised.”

“Donghyuck tried to set us up—failed stupendously, which I mean, it’s Hyuck, what’s new?—but we’ve been flirting, I have your hoodie, unless something goes terribly wrong in the next two weeks, that would be the next step, right?” You pointed out. “I wasn’t planning on overanalyzing this but…”

Sungchan let out a round of giggles, his whole face scrunching up as he laughed. “Oh… you don’t know how relieved I am right now to hear you overanalyze that for me.”

“What…?”

“No offense, but it’s a bit hard to tell when you’re analyzing and when you’re flirting,” he admitted, still looking at you with a wide, fond grin. “I mean, this all literally started with you calling me stupidly hot and that somehow being a bad thing.”

You pursed your lips ruefully. “I can see how that might’ve been confusing…”

“No, it’s great,” he chuckled. “You’re great.”

Finally sitting in a booth in the small roadside restaurant, which only had a handful of other customers, the two of you had put in your orders with Mrs. Han and were sipping on your drinks as you went back to your guessing game from the walk.

“We have to guess before we get back to the cabin,” you determined, folding your hands in front of you. “Other people there know us. They might say something.”

Sungchan nodded from across the table. “Good point. Time limit, I like it.”

“Business major. MBA,” you started immediately.

“What? No,” he snorted incredulously.

“It’s basically Undeclared for people who don’t want to disappoint their parents, I had to guess it, sorry.”

“Literature, writing, MFA, something in there?”

“No, and that was like two guesses, so I get two this time.” You clicked your tongue. “Master’s in education, focus in coaching pedagogy.”

“That was one?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Okay, my second: International Relations.”

“No.” He cracked his knuckles. “I’m switching gears, because you seem to know a lot of degrees off the top of your head. You work in the Registrar’s Office?”

“No.”

“Damn! Wait, no, you’re an academic advisor?”

“Nope.”

“Graduate advisor.”

“No, and that was three in a row, Sungchan,” you pointed out humorously.

“I know. Alright, your three?”

“Can I ask a question to narrow it down instead?”

He squinted suspiciously. “What kind of question?”

“To help me narrow the field down. I won’t ask you to tell me the field, they’ll still be yes or no questions.”

“Yes, only if I can ask you the same.”

“It’d only be fair,” you confirmed. “STEM?”

“No.”

“Oh thank God,” you let out a groan of relief.

He laughed. “What’s wrong with people in STEM fields?”

“Listen, love a woman in STEM,” you defended yourself. “Men in STEM… they’re… how do I put this nicely? Insufferable know-it-alls?”

“That’s putting it nicely?”

“Yup.” You took a sip of your drink. “Don’t tell me it’s Finance either…”

“No.”

“Okay, I have one more…” You tapped your finger to your chin. “Is it a Fine Art?”

“No.” Sungchan looked down at the small bunch of flowers that you had set aside on the table. “What are you going to do with those?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know. Look at them for a while. Take pretty pictures for my Instagram. Toss them eventually, I guess. They’re not gonna live forever.”

Selecting one of the little pink flowers, you reached across the table to tuck it behind Sungchan’s ear. “There.”

He touched the flower, a similar shade of pink dusting his cheeks. “Thanks.”

“Your turn to guess.”

“STEM?”

“Math is my worst enemy, numbers were invented to harm me personally,” you retorted. “No.”

“I should’ve known,” he teased.

Mrs. Han brought your food out then, and you both thanked her before she bustled off to take care of a family that had just walked in. There was a pause in your conversation as you started eating. The food was delicious, and as you took another sip to wash it down, you looked out the window next to your table.

“The view is just crazy here,” you gushed, taking in the mountainside dotted with more colorful patches of wildflowers. You patted your pocket for your phone, then frowned when you couldn’t find it. “Where’s my—”

Wordlessly, Sungchan picked it up from the tabletop and held it out to you. You smiled at him. “Oh, thanks! Didn’t even see it.”

After taking a few pictures, you set your phone back down and returned to your guessing game. “Law?”

He shook his head, still chewing, and wiped his face before speaking with a clear mouth. “Nope. Are your job and what you’re studying related at all?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. I don’t think that actually helped me at all.”

“Education?”

“Mm, yes to the field, but I will make you narrow it down further,” Sungchan acquiesced.

You beamed at having finally gotten closer. “So I was on the right track with my second guess!”

“Are you doing a Fine Art?”

“No. Master’s in Early Childhood Education?”

He let out a soft chuckle as he sat back in the booth, holding his hands up in surrender. “You win.”

“Yes!” You cheered quietly, pumping a fist victoriously at eye level. “I was going to start at Early Childhood and keep going up in age bracket until I got a yes.”

“So?” He prompted you. “What do you do?”

“Right now, I’m a primary school teacher and I tutor on the side for some extra cash.” You watched his eyes grow wide as you revealed this. “And I’m taking a mix of night classes and online classes to get my degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies.”

“And that’s a…?”

“Doctorate.”

“Wow…” He breathed out. “Donghyuck really didn’t tell me anything about you before dragging me over to you at his party but uh—”

“Maybe he figured he’s got one friend who is a teacher and one who wants to be a teacher, might as well?” You suggested with humor in your tone, reaching for your glass.

“Yeah, maybe,” he laughed, his eyes sparkling as he kept looking at you.

When you and Sungchan finally got back to the cabin, you found it entirely devoid of your other friends.

“No welcoming party this time?” You scoffed, gesturing to the empty living room. “Now I’m thinking we should just keep the free fudge Mrs. Han gave us all to ourselves.”

“Hyuck did say they were going to take the boat out,” Sungchan reminded you, placing the bag containing said free fudge onto the kitchen counter. “And there’s no way the two of us could eat all that by ourselves before they got back.”

You made a small ‘hmph’ sound, moving to the large sliding glass door in the living room that afforded a view of the lake. The sun glistened off the water, and from here you couldn’t even see the next closest neighbor.

“Do you want to go down to the dock?” Sungchan suggested, joining you by the door. “They took the boat, but that doesn’t mean we’re stuck inside.”

“So,” Sungchan followed you down the pathway from the back porch down to the dock. “Once you have your degree, do you still want to be a teacher?”

“Yeah, my kids are why I’m getting it in the first place,” you explained, carefully picking your way down the steep decline. “I want to be able to advocate on behalf of them better, and understand what’s going on when the people who aren’t teachers are making decisions that affect us.”

“What year do you teach?”

“I provide supplemental curricula for all ages. Reading and writing mostly.” You peeked back at him over your shoulder. “Do you have an age you want to teach?”

A giddy smile tugged at his lips. “Little ones. Preschool. They’re so… Everything’s new to them. It’s so much fun seeing the world like that.”

“Yeah, it is.” You could feel that you were smiling too, turning your eyes back down to watch your step.

Soon, you were down on the dock, laid out on your towel as you enjoyed a puddle of sunlight, listening to the sounds of Sungchan splashing around in the water in front of you.

“You’re going to get skin cancer like that.”

Propping yourself up on one elbow, you looked over your sunglasses at where Sungchan had climbed back up the ladder and was sitting on the edge of the dock, pushing his wet hair out of his face. Like you’d said before, stupidly attractive.

“You literally helped me apply my sunscreen,” you drawled pointedly, recalling when he’d so coyly offered to help you get your back. Pushing your sunglasses back into place, you laid down again. “If I do, it’s your fault.”

You could hear him stand up and walk towards you. “I’ve never understood laying in the sun like that. Don’t you get all sweaty?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m cold-blooded,” you replied humorously.

“Well, do you think you can survive one swim, or will your blood turn sludge in your veins as soon as you touch water?”

You snickered, finally sitting up. “Fine, fine, I’ll get in.”

Sungchan watched you get to your feet, then offered his hand out. You eyed it suspiciously.

“I’m getting in,” you promised, pointing to the ladder.

He offered his hand more insistently. “It’s not that bad. Jump in with me.”

You sighed, grabbing his hand. “Fine.”

Stepping up the edge of the dock with him, he swung your clasped hands in time as he counted, “One, two—”

“Three!” You finished, pulling him forward with you.

He rushed to bring his other hand up to plug his nose as you careened the both of you off the dock and into the lake. The water surged up around you, cool but not cold, not too warm to be gross, just refreshing enough. You squeezed your eyes shut as you went under, and let go of Sungchan’s hand so you could paddle back up to the surface. Wiping the water from your eyes, you laughed as he immediately pointed an accusatory finger at you.

“Dragging your heels only to pull me off!” He was grinning too.

“I’m sorry, did I see you plugging your nose?” You teased back. “At your big age?”

“I’m not getting a brain-eating amoeba, thank you,” he retorted. “You were asleep, but there was this billboard we passed on our way here warning people about it.”

“But do you know how to blow nose bubbles, Sungchan?”

“Well, no.”

“Okay, mini-swim lesson,” you declared, waving him closer. “Come on, I used to teach water safety to little kids. If I can teach a two-year-old to stop snorting water, I believe in you.”

“You taught swim lessons?”

“Yeah, it was my first job, in high school.” You locked back into instructing. “You can blow your nose, right?”

He looked at you blankly. “Yes.”

“Hey, some people have body awareness issues, it’s always better to ask.” You held your hands up defensively. “So, same mechanics, air goes out into the water, keep your mouth closed, and don’t inhale through your nose right after while it’s still underwater.”

You did a small demonstration for him, only submerging from your chin to your nose, letting out a slow stream of bubbles. Bringing your face back up, you added, “And try not to exhale all at once.”

Sungchan mirrored your actions, lowering his face until his nose was underwater, slowly exhaling. He uncertainly lifted his head again after, eyes on you.

You smiled and clapped your hands. “Yay! There we go!”

“That was... weirdly easy.” He immediately did it again.

“Now you just have to think about doing it all the time, until you don’t have to think about doing it.” You rolled over onto your back, relaxing as you floated. “Then you’ll never have to worry about plugging your nose again.”

“If you used to be a swim instructor, why didn’t you want to swim?” Sungchan followed after you curiously as you drifted away.

“Because then I do stuff like give grown men lessons on how to blow nose bubbles.”

“That was helpful.”

“And—” You popped up to tread water again, facing Sungchan. “I kind of hate lakes. And oceans. Anything that I can’t see the bottom in, and where stuff lives. Like fish, or brain-eating amoebas. I like my pools.”

His face fell. “Oh, well we can get out—”

“I said kind of,” you cut him off. “I don’t mind, because you wanted to swim, and I’m having fun with you.”

“But—”

“Sungchan.” You held his gaze steadily, keeping your voice calm, inquisitive even. “Have you ever done something you don’t really care for, because your friends or family wanted to?”

“Well, yeah.”

“They’re worth it?”

“Of course.”

You tilted your head with a knowing smile. “So are you.”

His face flushed with what you knew wasn’t the heat of the sun. “Oh...”

The sound of a boat motor in the distance caught your attention. Coming around a bend in the trees was, in fact, a boat, and while you couldn’t make out any individual faces at this distance, the fact that it was headed right towards you, and several of the figures were jumping and waving at you, you could guess that it held all your friends.

“Well, there’s everyone,” you laughed, heading back towards the dock.

Some days later, you were contentedly relaxed in a hammock that had been suspended between two trees in the spacious backyard of the cabin, humming along to a song playing from Ningning’s phone as you half-listened to whatever juicy piece of gossip that the other two were divulging. A cool night breeze passed over your bare arms and legs, pricking up goosebumps in its wake, and you shivered.

“I’m going to grab a sweater or something,” you declared, getting down from the hammock. Picking up your empty drink can from the table nearby, you added, “Not to mention, I’m out of seltzer.”

“Can you see if we have any more chocolate-covered pretzels?” Karina requested.

“Sure.” You grabbed some of the other trash to take in with you.

You passed by the guys playing video games in the living room as you headed for the kitchen, tossing the garbage out first. After throwing on a hoodie from your room, you went back into the living room, fully intending on checking the kitchen for Karina’s snack. Instead, you were met by a desperate, raucous chorus of yells of your name.

“Hm?” You looked up at the guys questioningly, stopping in your tracks.

Mark waved you over fervently. “Come here! We need an even number.”

“What are you guys playing?” You took a hesitant step closer, eyes scrutinizing the game menu.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s a button masher, super easy,” Shotaro reassured you, grabbing your arm and pulling you into the living room. “Sungchan’s not even half-bad at it.”

“Yeah, you can uh, you can even be on Sungchan’s team,” Hyuck said, exchanging a mischievous grin with a couple of your other friends.

“Okay,” you shrugged, plopping down into the space that Sungchan had made for you between him and the arm of the couch. A controller was pushed into your hand. Karina’s pretzels could wait.

“This moves your character around, this one is to jump, this one is to attack, this one is to shield,” Sungchan quietly explained the controls to you as the others started assigning teams, hands hovering over yours on the controller. “There’s some other special moves, but those are the basics. Just uh, stay away from Hyuck.”

You nodded. “Got it.”

“Nice hoodie by the way,” he added, much softer.

“Thanks...” You murmured back, well aware that you were wearing his from the car.

“Alright!” Jaemin announced loudly. “Let’s do it!”

Now, you didn’t exactly consider yourself a gamer. In fact, you spent most of the time either running away from the other guys, or at one point, accidentally falling off the level and losing a life all on your own. You couldn’t even tell if you were even really helping Sungchan at all. But it was fun, and you were kind of maybe starting to get a hang of the controls by the end of the round. To your surprise, the two characters that popped up as winners, however, were yours and Sungchan’s.

“We won?” You questioned, looking at Sungchan in surprise.

“Looks like we did,” he confirmed, smiling down at the controller in his hand.

“Hell yeah!” You held a hand up for him to high five.

“Sungchan, what the hell?” Shotaro smacked his arm from his other side.

“Since when have you been good at video games?” Jaemin interjected from the other couch.

“Have you been sucking on purpose this whole time and just decided to reveal that you were good now?” Mark questioned accusatorily.

“Yeah, we were joking when we said he was only half-bad at this game, he’s actually ass at it,” Anton clarified to you, making you roll your eyes at their apparent plan to give you the worst player.

“Sorry Y/N, he’s on my team next,” Hyuck declared, bringing up the character selections and switching Sungchan’s team color to match his own.

“Hey, change that back,” Sungchan said, his voice level but firm.

Hyuck actually stopped in his tracks, looking back at Sungchan with wide eyes. He held his hands up in surrender.

Sungchan switched his team color back to match yours with no interference from the others. You lightly bumped your leg against his as the room chatter started back up. He bumped your leg back.

The next day, everyone went out on a hike. There was a slightly overgrown trail that went around the mountainside, taking lazy twists and turns through the trees. Said greenery provided you with plenty of shade, and concealed the lake below from you so well it almost felt like you had transported elsewhere. The trail was narrow, however, only fitting three people comfortably at its widest points, but usually only two, so your group was spread out thin along it.

Jaemin and Hyuck were up front, arguing about… something that you couldn’t parse out from your place all the way at the back. Turning to Sungchan beside you, you took your water bottle out of the side pocket of the backpack he was wearing. Somehow he had been burdened with most of the group’s supplies, and while you weren’t exactly doing any sort of survivalist stuff out here, you didn’t see why everyone couldn’t at least carry their own water bottles.

Taking a swig from your bottle, you kept it in your hand as you pointed at him accusingly, “You didn’t suddenly get good at that game out of nowhere last night, Sungchan.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, I mean…”

“Were you sucking on purpose so nobody’s feelings got hurt?”

“I didn’t suck. I was just sort of… okay.” He tried to explain. “I don’t know if it was on purpose, I guess I just didn’t care if everyone knew that I was the best? I’m just not super competitive, really.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hyuck speechless like that before either.” You laughed at the memory. “You don’t ever stand up for yourself with them like that, do you?”

“It’s not like they bully me or anything…”

“You just go with the flow?”

“Yeah, exactly,” he seemed to relax again at your words.

“I had fun playing on your team last night,” you said, taking another sip. “Win or lose. I’m glad you didn’t go with the flow that time.”

“Hey, hold still?” Sungchan requested, reaching a hand out towards your face.

You froze warily. “What is it? A bug?”

“No, no,” he reassured you, brushing your hair back from one side of your head, then the other. “Did you leave the cabin with only one earring in?”

“Shit, no!” Your hands flew up to clutch at your lobes, immediately feeling that one of them was empty. You looked down at the ground around your feet, despite the sinking feeling in your stomach that it was useless. There was nothing around you but dirt and grass. “Damn it!”

Sungchan made an effort to look under him as well, but came up empty-handed too. “I don’t see anything…”

“Well, damn,” you sighed, dropping your hands back down to your sides. “Could’ve been worse, I guess. Could’ve been my grandmother’s pearls or something instead of a pair of earrings I stole from my freshman roommate.”

“Seriously?” He laughed as you continued down the trail.

“It was an accident! Mostly…” You explained. “We borrowed each other’s stuff all the time, and when we moved out at the end of the year, the earrings ended up in my stuff. I told her I had them and she said I could keep them. Apparently they always made her ears itch anyway.”

“Sucks you lost one, though. I thought the little hearts were really cute.”

“Just like you thought my raggedy old t-shirt was cute?” You snorted.

“Exactly.”

“Why do you get shotgun, Y/N?” Anton complained from the backseat, his voice loud to be heard over the wind.

“Because it’s my car,” Sungchan retorted, his thumb tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel. “And I said so.”

You couldn’t help but snicker at the image of poor Anton and his lanky limbs squished into the middle seat between Shotaro and Mark. “You could’ve stayed at the cabin, Anton.”

“I was bored.” He crossed his arms. “And I thought Sungchan would’ve at least been sympathetic to his fellow long-legged brethren.”

“But the baby always gets the middle seat.” You turned around to pinch his cheek.

“I am not—”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Sungchan sighed, looking out the window. “With the way you’re whining right now.”

Anton’s jaw dropped as the other three of you broke into howling laughter.

Soon enough, you arrived at your destination, a natural park with a huge cave system. The main attraction, however, was that one section of the tunnels was so dark that you couldn’t even see your own hand in front of your face.

A small family, and field trip for what looked like a summer camp had arrived just before you all, and were put in the same tour group as your friends. You watched from afar with amusement as the counselors put the children into buddy pairs before the tour guide officially began the tour.

“Hey, don’t you teach, Y/N?” Shotaro asked curiously as your own group took up the rear of the tour, nodding towards all the kids.

“Yeah, I do,” you answered, the air immediately becoming cooler as you stepped into the caves. “Primary school.”

“Jungchan over here wants to be a teacher too!” Anton informed you cheerily, slapping Sungchan on the shoulder, the sound cracking through the entire cave loudly.

Several heads turned around to look at the source of the noise, and you all looked around at the walls of the cave innocently until they turned forward again. The cave was getting darker and darker, the lights strung up by the park employees getting fewer and further between. Your eyes continued to adjust to the changing light, but your surroundings were becoming less made up of clear objects with definable features and more the vague outline of shapes.

“Oh, really?” You asked mildly, barely concealing the humor in your tone.

“Early childhood education,” he replied calmly, hand sneaking up to pinch your side.

It took everything in you not to squeal as you squirmed away from his hand, elbowing his arm. You could hear the light puffs of his silent laughter next to you. Right as you had lifted your own hand up to retaliate, the tour group came to a stop, everything was pitch black around you, and Sungchan’s hand caught yours, lacing your fingers together. There were no lights in here, and the children’s excited chatter rose as the counselors spoke back to them to confirm that they were still there as well. You held your free hand up in front of your face, and the only way you knew it was there was because you could feel that it was. The only thing your eyes saw was darkness.

“That’s freaky,” Shotaro commented from somewhere behind you.

“What the hell, man?” Mark was somewhere to your other side. “Dude, I can’t see my hand! Just like it said online!”

“Oh! There you are, Shotaro!” Anton breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, I didn’t disappear in the five seconds since we walked in here,” Shotaro grunted. “Did you have to practically climb on top of me to confirm that?”

You reached out tentatively towards Sungchan, your hand eventually bumping into his chest. “Ah, found you.”

“Found me,” he echoed quietly.

The tour guide started ushering everyone out of the sector, and as the light started entering your vision again, your fingers unwound from Sungchan’s. The counselor’s voices floated back to you as they took a headcount of all their kids, who were still dutifully holding onto their assigned buddies.

Soft footsteps at the top of the stairs caught your attention, and you looked up from your laptop at the tall figure hovering there awkwardly. You offered Sungchan a soft smile, waving him into the small attic loft space. There wasn’t much up here except the couch that you were on, a narrow table, and a dartboard. The ceiling was so low that Sungchan had to hunch just the slightest to avoid knocking his forehead into the wooden crossbeams.

“Hey.” You pushed yourself up into a proper sitting position on the couch, your computer moving from your stomach to your lap.

“Why aren’t you out with everyone else?” He sat down in the space that you had freed up. The others had all gathered outside around the firepit to roast marshmallows and drink, but you had other things to tend to.

You nodded to the device. “Ah, I had some grading to do.”

“I thought you were on summer break.”

“Tutoring.” You set the laptop aside on the coffee table, even as your eyes caught on the screen fondly. “One of my students, I mean, she doesn’t need it for her grades. But she just loves writing, so her mom pays for sessions like private workshops. I’m working on her newest story right now.”

“How is it?”

“She’s so creative!” You couldn’t help but laugh. “It amazes me every time. She hasn’t quite figured out resolutions yet, still rushes through them once she’s decided she’s done with the exciting part. But she’s gotten a lot better with dialogue. She used to not write it at all, just tell you what characters said, never putting anything in quotes, you know?”

“It’s typed?” He questioned, looking at the word document on your screen.

“Yeah, she has coordination issues, pencils kind of slow her down,” you explained. “She’s working on it in her occupational therapy. But that’s not what this is for. This is to let her be creative. If I forced her to use a pencil, she’d have to stop writing because her hands were done before her brain was done.”

“That... sounds frustrating for her.”

“There’s other options now. I mean, when’s the last time you actually used a pencil in your everyday life?”

He seemed to think about this for a moment. “...Good point.”

There was a pause as Sungchan just kept looking at you, the moment feeling much like when you were in the restaurant, his dark brown eyes sparkling even in the dim lighting you had now.

“Did you miss me, Sungchan?” You eyed him teasingly.

“Well, yeah,” he agreed as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“What did you tell everyone else you were doing when you came looking for me?”

“I didn’t make an announcement or anything.”

“Yeah?” You sat up closer to him, then did a double-take as you noticed a hole in his earlobe. “Hey, I never noticed you had your ears pierced.”

“Only one.” He turned his head to show you the other, unadulterated lobe. “Probably why you didn’t notice, you’ve always been on my other side in the car.”

An idea immediately came to your mind, and you stood up from the couch. “Wait here.”

Traversing through the house, you came back up the stairs with your prize clutched triumphantly in the palm of your hand. You held your closed fist out towards him indicatively. “Here.”

He held his hand out, letting you drop the single red heart stud into it. His eyes widened as he turned it over with a fingertip. “You’re…”

“I washed it, don’t worry.”

Sungchan promptly put the stud in, securing it with the backing and looking up at you again with a delighted, amazed smile.

“Cute,” you commented, tracing the shell of his ear with a fingertip.

“And what does this mean, Y/N?” He asked slyly.

“What am I going to do with only one earring?” You replied with feigned innocence. “And, I was kind of hoping you’d need help putting it on, since there’s no mirrors in here...”

He leaned back against the couch. “And how exactly would you have helped me put it on?”

“Well, I can’t really see from here, so, I would’ve had to get closer—” You stepped forward, putting your hands on his shoulders as you lowered yourself onto his lap. You kept your focus on his face the whole time, watching for any hesitation, any uncertainty, any indication that you should stop. His eyes watched you with rapt attention, big and brown and awe-filled.

“Good?” You asked quietly, your voice barely above a hum.

He swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down, and your eyes followed the movement, before he answered, “Good.”

“Then I would’ve put the earring in—” You once again outlined the outer shell of his ear, continuing down the line of his jaw. “And probably said something about the adorable little freckle you have on the bridge of your nose that I kind of want to bite.”

You tapped said freckle, high up on his nose, nearly between his brows, and his face split into a grin as he laughed breathily.

“Bite?” He repeated, clearly amused at the idea.

“Mhm.” You nodded, looping your arms around his neck. “You’ve got a very biteable nose, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, the whole nose is biteable, not just the freckle,” he chuckled, settling his hands on your hips.

“Well, more than just the nose.”

“Y/N.”

“Mm?”

“Can I kiss you?”

You gasped in feigned shock. “Before our first date?”

“Do I need to ask your hand in marriage first?” He was so close that your noses almost touched now, his question mingling with your answer that came soon after.

“No,” you snickered, letting him seal his lips over yours in the next moment.

“You mauled him.”

Turning around from where you were eating a bowl of cereal, you raised an eyebrow at Hyuck. “Good morning to you too, Hyuck. And nice bedhead.”

He didn’t fix his hair that was sticking up in all directions, coming around to flop into the seat across the table from you. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I don’t know who or what you’re talking about?” You snorted. Pushing the box towards him, you offered, “Cereal?”

“Care to tell me why Sungchan is covered in hickies and bite marks?”

“Care to tell me how you know that?”

“He sleeps shirtless, don’t try to avoid.”

“Why do you think it was me?”

“He disappeared from the bonfire last night and didn’t return, you didn’t show up at all, he appears the next morning coincidentally looking like he’s been someone’s chew toy. You’re... you.”

You cocked your head at him curiously. “Weren’t you trying to set us up?”

“I was. I still am, kind of,” he sighed. “Like I said, Sungchan’s the nicest guy I know. Don’t... chew him up and spit him out, please.”

“I’m touched you think so highly of me, truly.”

“That didn’t come out right,” he groaned, rubbing his face with two hands. “I meant... Make sure you two are on the same page about what you’re doing and what you want.”

“We are, Hyuck,” you told him quietly.

Hyuck peeked at you over his hands, and based on the crinkles that formed around his eyes, you could perfectly imagine the mischievous grin that was hidden. “So it was you, then?”

Footsteps entered the kitchen then, followed by Sungchan’s voice, deeper with the early hours of the morning, “Oh, morning, Y/N, Hyuck.”

He stopped next to your seat at the end of the table, seeming uncertain of just how close to be to you. He was wearing a longsleeve, which didn’t help much with the few marks on his neck and under his jaw. The red heart stud was still in his ear, which made your chest squeeze and your whole body thrum with happiness.

“Morning, Sungchan,” you said brightly, gesturing to the cereal box. “Cereal? Hyuck didn’t want any.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Sit, I’ll get your bowl.” You stood up, gently pushing him towards the table as you walked by him towards the cabinets.

“Gross, could you not do that in front of me?” Donghyuck made an exaggerated gagging sound.

“Do what?” Sungchan squinted at him in confusion at the same time that you scoffed, “Nobody’s holding you here at gunpoint. Go back to sleep.”

“Maybe I will.” He made a grand display of pushing his chair back and standing up.

“You’ve never been a morning person.” You shook your head at him. “See you in a few hours.”

As he shuffled back out of the kitchen, you returned to your mission of fetching a bowl and the milk, bringing them back to the table for Sungchan. He’d taken the seat next to yours, and you happily plopped back down beside him.

“Thanks,” he murmured, beginning to fix a bowl of cereal for himself.

“Good one sleeping shirtless, by the way. Hyuck had absolutely no questions,” you teased, finger poking one of the hickies facing you.

Sungchan gave you a pointed stare, but made no move to knock your hand away. “Oh and who couldn’t keep her teeth to herself?”

“I told you: You’re biteable.”

He reached up to grab your hand and removed it from where you'd still been messing with the marks you’d left on his throat. Instead of just pushing it away, he brought your joined hands down to rest on his leg. After a beat, he looked up at you, uncertainty in his gaze, as if he were about to belatedly ask permission.

You laced your fingers together, scooting your chair closer to his before picking up your spoon with your free hand.

As the anchor was dropped into the water, there was an excited buzz about the boat, everyone getting ready to get in the water. Hyuck had stopped the boat by a rope swing that was set up in a tree on one of the steep edges of where the mountain met the lake. A few inflatables were tied to the boat so they wouldn’t drift away, and of course, a couple coolers with plenty of drinks were on deck.

“Y/N, can you help me with my sunscreen?” Ningning requested, holding the bottle out to you.

“Ning, I told you to apply it at the cabin,” you sighed, accepting the sunscreen nevertheless as she took her coverup off.

“It’s not my fault we’re currently sharing one bathroom with like five other people!” She pointed out. “I didn’t have time.”

Sudden wolf whistles and dramatic yells from the back of the boat made you snap your head over, anger flooding your body immediately. But you realized that none of them were aimed at you and Ningning. Instead, the guys seemed to all be taunting Sungchan, who had just taken his shirt off, revealing the full extent of the love bites scattered on his skin.

“Dude, did you get mauled by a bear or something?” Mark laughed.

“Or fall down the mountain?” Anton’s eyes were wide as he went to poke one on Sungchan’s shoulder.

Sungchan slapped his hand away. “Personal space?”

“Fall down the mountain after getting mauled by a bear?” Jaemin proposed helpfully, moving behind him as if inspecting a product that he was purchasing at a store. “We got claw marks, guys!”

They all let out teasing cheers, and you could see that Sungchan’s ears were bright red. You shook your head to yourself, going back to helping Ningning with her sunscreen.

She craned her neck to be able to look at you over her shoulder. “Nice one, Y/N.”

“Who, me?” You blinked at her innocently.

“You left that poor boy to deal with those menaces by himself.”

You’d finished up with her sunscreen, handing her the bottle. “One sec.”

Walking over to where the guys were still razzing Sungchan, who now looked prematurely sunburned, you held a hand up to shade your eyes, squinting as you looked off towards the rope swing.

“I bet Shotaro could make it there first,” you commented casually.

“What?!” They all looked over at you, dumbfounded.

“No way!” Anton argued. “I literally used to be a swimmer.”

“But if you’re talking endurance—” Jeno tried to vouch for himself.

“All your big muscles just make you sink, dude,” Hyuck snorted. “You’ve got no buoyancy.”

As they kept squabbling, you were still eyeing the rope swing. “Yeah, but, Taro’s like, halfway there already.”

Their heads whipped around to see that Shotaro had, in fact, been lazily paddling towards the swing all the while they were teasing Sungchan. The guys all rushed to toss off whatever shirts, shoes, hats, or sunglasses they didn’t want to get wet, practically shoving each other in their haste to get in the water and race towards the rope swing. The boat swayed a little with their movements, and you grabbed Sungchan’s arm for stability, the only one of them who hadn’t taken your bait.

Shotaro turned around when he heard all the splashes behind him, confusion turning to momentary panic as they all rushed at him.

“Hurry up! You’re going to lose your head start!” Sungchan yelled out to him.

“What?!” He began backstroking faster. “I didn’t know this was a race!”

Karina was already in one of the inflatables off the back of the boat, and Ningning gracefully dove off the back platform to join in her one of the other ones.

Looking back up at Sungchan, you couldn’t help but burst into laughter at how perfectly that had worked. He was laughing too, one of his hands dropping to your waist to pull you closer to him.

“Thanks for the save there,” he chuckled, thumb sneaking under the shirt you were wearing to rub circles into the bare skin above your swimsuit bottoms. “Did you put sunscreen on?”

“Back at the cabin,” you confirmed. “Hate to disappoint.”

“You could’ve lied and said no.”

“I am nothing if not an honest and pure soul,” you put a hand over your heart as your words were laced with sarcasm.

Sungchan snickered at this, his smile so bright you could forget about the sun, leaning in even closer to him.

“Sungchan.”

“Mhm?” He looked down at you, tilting his head inquisitively.

“Can I kiss you?”

“In front of everyone?” He gasped, still teasing.

“That’s a little bit the point.” You couldn’t take your eyes off him—so gorgeous it really was unfair. “And also, I really want to kiss you right now.”

“What a coincidence—I want to kiss you too.”

You grabbed the back of his neck, pulling his lips down to yours. He immediately responded in turn, his other hand that wasn’t on your hip going to cup your cheek. The sounds of various taunts, cheers, and whistles all faded out behind the roaring in your ears.

It was your last night in the cabin, and you were of course celebrating with one last bonfire. Your group of friends were spread out between the firepit, the hammock, and the other lounge furniture on the spacious deck. You and Sungchan were tucked onto a small loveseat by the table of food, idly chatting as you sipped your drink and he nibbled off the snack offerings in front of you.

The sliding glass door opened behind you, one of your friends walking out from inside the cabin. Glancing up, you saw that it was Mark, his eyes down on his phone screen as he shut the door behind him.

“Those little rolls from Mrs. Han’s restaurant were really good,” Sungchan sighed happily, hand on his stomach.

“There’s still one more,” you pointed out. “Take it.”

He looked uncertain for a moment, but you nudged him with your foot insistently.

“Everybody’s already had one. Go ahead.”

Sungchan had just reached forward towards the last roll as Mark walked by, eyes on his phone as he swiped it from the plate. The man next to you just sighed dejectedly, sitting back in his seat.

“Hey, Sungchan was going to eat that,” you called after Mark loudly. Not too rude, just making him aware as he clearly hadn’t been paying attention.

Mark turned around, looking at you two, then down at the roll in his hand in confusion. He offered it back out to Sungchan. “Oh, sorry man, I didn’t realize—”

Sungchan waved him off. “It’s okay, you can have—”

You stood up, walked over, and snatched it out of Mark’s hand. “Thanks, bye.”

Mark paused, as if he were thinking about saying something else, but opted not to, walking over to sit with Jeno and Hyuck by the fire.

You sat back down next to Sungchan and placed it in his hand. “Here.”

“Thanks, Y/N,” Sungchan was clearly fighting a smile as he looked down at his feet. He tore the roll in half, offering one half out to you.

You took it gratefully, tapping your half against his in a little cheers before you both simultaneously stuffed the whole thing into your mouths in one go. Looking at him with his puffed-out cheeks, knowing that yours definitely looked exactly the same made you burst out laughing, and your hand flew up to cover your mouth and keep any crumbs in. Sungchan was clearly struggling to not spit out his half-chewed food as he started laughing too, turning away from you and slapping his leg.

When you had finally chewed and swallowed the bread without choking, and composed yourself again, you turned back to Sungchan, still well aware of the faint, smitten smile on your lips. He was already facing you, watching you with a fond sparkle in his eyes. He reached out, brushing a couple crumbs from the side of your mouth with his thumb.

“Oh, thanks.” You habitually wiped the other side of your mouth just in case.

“I’m curious…” He said quietly, grabbing one of your hands to gently play with your fingers. “Have you picked out what we’re doing for our first date yet?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I don’t want to spoil anything.” You then added a teasing, “Plus, we have to get home first. Who knows, your car might get another flat on the way back and then we’ll get stranded out here and die.”

He burst into soft chuckles. “Since you won’t be navigating, I think we’ll make it back just fine.”

“I like those odds,” you beamed.

“Me too.” He pressed a kiss to your cheek, then murmured by your ear, “I like our odds a lot, I think.”

The next day found you in the passenger seat of Sungchan’s car, wearing his hoodie and humming along to whatever he was playing over the speakers. The car had a full tank of gas, four inflated tires, and the maps app was not in your hands.

“You know, I get it now,” Sungchan spoke into the peaceful quiet abruptly.

You lolled your head over to look at him questioningly. “Get what?”

“Why you were suspicious of me at first.”

“You finally realized how stupidly hot you are?” You snorted, reaching over to pinch his cheek.

“I’m thinking I should’ve been more suspicious of you, actually.” He pinched your cheek right back, and you smacked his hand away. He just laughed, grabbing your hand and entwining your fingers over the console.

“Why’s that?”

“We haven’t even been on our first date and I feel like I’ve gone head over heels right down the mountainside.”

You groaned and shook your head. “I was suspicious of you for the wrong reason. You’re not a player or anything, you’re actually too sweet for my own good.”

“Your own good?”

“Yeah, you keep saying shit like that and I’m going to do something crazy like say ‘I love you’ on our first date.”

He laughed, squeezing your hand. “Challenge accepted.”

“I have a job interview tomorrow, by the way,” you stated from Sungchan’s passenger seat, eyes focused on the passing buildings. He had gone to the gym this morning—bright and fucking early as always—which meant that you unfortunately had to go as well, since his gym was just far enough away that if he went alone, the distance would start putting stress on your soul. Sometimes you walked on a treadmill, but usually you sat in a corner on your phone until he was done.

“First I’ve heard of it,” he snorted.

“It’s your day off, stop bitching.”

He rolled his eyes. “What time?”

“Two. You’ll have to dress professional.”

“Yeah, right. I’m not interviewing.”

“But if I have to have you walk in with me, you can’t look like a fucking slob,” you pointed out.

“I’ll just wait in the car. Where is it?”

“Inverness & Wildwood.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re not going.”

“Yes, I am,” you insisted.

“No, you’re fucking not,” he retorted. “It’s the next city over.”

“I haven’t interviewed yet, I don’t know if I’d even get it.”

Sungchan pulled into his driveway, putting the car in park but not turning it off as he shot you a withering look, pointing to the house in front of him. “Y/N, we still live with our parents because we couldn’t agree on a dorm or apartment complex to move into in college.”

“So you’re going to force me to live with my parents for the rest of our lives?” You asked incredulously.

“You can’t force me to move somewhere!”

“I’m sorry I have career aspirations past the part-time job we got in high school!”

“You don’t even have to come to my job, but you’re expecting me to fucking move for yours!”

“I didn’t say that!” You were seeing red now. “Don’t put words in my mouth!”

Sungchan, meanwhile, looked like he was about to rip his own hair out. “It’s in another city, how exactly do you expect to work there without me and also without us fucking dying?”

“This isn’t fucking fair!” You grabbed the door handle and got out of the car.

Sungchan turned the car off and got out too. “Tell me about it,” he muttered.

“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” You yelled, slammed the door shut, and stormed off towards your house.

“I know!” He called after you derisively.

Angry, hot tears burned your eyes and rolled down your cheeks as you fumbled to unlock your front door. You slammed that door shut too in your fury, ignoring your dad’s ‘good morning’ as you ran upstairs to your bedroom. This was so fucking unfair. Your whole life you were going to be stuck to a fucking underachiever who was apparently content with keeping the both of you living with your parents forever, never pursuing any dreams or aspirations beyond working at the place that you’d worked at since you were sixteen. What did you do to deserve this?

The car ride to the gym in the next morning was silent. You had your headphones in before you opened the car door, not even bothering to give Sungchan a ‘good morning’ or listen for if he said it to you. You stared out the passenger window with your arms crossed over your chest for the entire drive, wordlessly unbuckling and getting out once you arrived. After his workout, you followed him outside and got back in the car. Except he didn’t reverse out of the parking spot.

Finally, you looked over at Sungchan to find his eyes already on you, fixing you with an expecting look. He motioned for you to take an earbud out. Rolling your eyes, you did so, then waited for him to say whatever he wanted.

“Silent treatment?” He questioned, arching an eyebrow.

“It’s not like we’re friends,” you huffed, moving to put your earbud back in.

“Hey, wait,” he stopped you. “I’m sorry about your interview, alright?”

“Whatever, just forget about it.”

Sungchan buckled in and reversed out of the parking spot. “Isn’t there another firm like that in town? By the mall? You could see if they’re—”

“I said forget it, okay?” You snapped.

He held one of his hands up in surrender, and you put your earbud back in.

With one final adjustment of your blazer, you left your room, hurrying through your house. Your parents were at work, thankfully. You locked the front door behind you and walked right by your car parked out front. Sungchan’s was in his driveway, and you quickly turned down the sidewalk away from his house.

Halfway through your subway ride, you felt a twinge in your head, and grabbed the ibuprofen you had in your purse. You knocked back a couple tablets to keep the pain at bay. Your fingers drummed an anxious rhythm on your knee as you watched the electronic sign for your stop. You were on your feet before the doors opened, rushing out ahead of the other passengers.

A knot formed in your stomach when you emerged from the subway station into daylight, and not from nerves. You swallowed down the nausea, grabbing a ginger chew from your purse and continuing on.

Smiling at the older gentleman who held the door open for you on his way out of the building, you entered Inverness & Wildwood right as a sharp pain started up in your chest. You breathed through it, approaching the receptionist with a calm façade. You gave her your name and interview time, then followed her directions to the restroom that you had asked for.

After locking yourself in a stall, you rooted through your purse for the other pill bottle you had in there, for emergencies. Unfortunately, there was nothing to fully prevent soulsickness—aside from constantly being near Sungchan—but souLOXin could dull the symptoms for a little while. Shaking one of the red and black capsules out into your palm, you made a mental note to put in a refill later; you had less than a handful left. You swallowed it right as you got a text.

[sungchan 👎🍅: where are you?]

You turned your phone on silent and put it in your purse along with the pill bottle.

By the end of the interview, the pain in your abdomen had returned, and you gritted your teeth as you stood up to bow to the three interviewers and thanked them for the opportunity. One informed you they would let you know by the end of the week, and showed you to the elevator. As soon as the doors had closed and you were alone, you let out a groan, clutching your stomach and leaning against the wall for support. You composed yourself again when a ding! rang and you were let out into the lobby once more. Pressing on through your throbbing headache, you rushed down the sidewalks back to the subway, desperately taking another couple of ibuprofen tablets.

Standing on the platform waiting for the next train, you continued to take deep breaths, digging your nails into your clammy palms to distract yourself. Finally, it arrived, and you forced your way in as the doors were still opening. Dropping down into a seat, you let your head fall back against the window behind you and your eyes flutter shut.

Your guts finally started unwinding and the pounding in your head started dulling as you approached your stop. When the announcement was made, you got up, trudging off behind a few other passengers. Halfway back to your house, you were no longer nauseous, you just felt like you were getting over a bad cold—essentially, like shit.

Sungchan’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which you noted in the back of your mind as you walked into your own home and straight up to your bedroom. You eventually checked your phone after getting into your pajamas and crawling into bed.

Four missed calls from Sungchan and a dozen texts total.

[sungchan 👎🍅: y/n]

[sungchan 👎🍅: hello??? i can see your car]

Two calls in a row.

[sungchan 👎🍅: where the fuck are you]

[sungchan 👎🍅: don’t tell me you went to that fucking interview anyway]

Another call.

[sungchan 👎🍅: omfg y/n pick up]

[sungchan 👎🍅: im being so fucking fr rn pick up]

Another call.

[sungchan 👎🍅: im going to kill you if we die rn]

[sungchan 👎🍅: get the fuck back home right now im not kidding]

[sungchan 👎🍅: what the hell is wrong with you]

[sungchan 👎🍅: i just took my last poppys but if ur not back before it wears off im coming to get u idc]

Poppy—the nickname for souLOXin due to the coloring of the capsules. Sungchan always ran out first, the effects wearing off sooner for him than you for as long as the two of you had been taking it. According to the limited studies that had been done, there was some indication that men may metabolize it quicker than women, and of course the fact that he was a gym rat presumably did nothing to help in that department.

[sungchan 👎🍅: if u don’t call me in the next ten minutes im going]

[sungchan 👎🍅: ur the fucking worst that’s it im omw to inverness & wildwood. if u see this and ur somewhere else CALL ME]

He sent that last text six minutes ago. With a sigh, you reluctantly hit the phone icon next to his contact. The first ring didn’t even finish before he picked up.

“Where the fuck are you?” He demanded in lieu of a greeting.

“Home,” you deadpanned. “You can come back.”

“God, you are fucking impossible!” The sounds of screeching tires and car horns were audible in the background. “You went to the interview, didn’t you?”

You shrugged even though he couldn’t see it.

He must have taken your silence as a yes. “Fucking—Was it worth it? Huh?!”

“We lived, stop being so dramatic,” you scoffed. “Big tough guy can’t survive a little stomachache?”

“This time it was a stomachache. And what if I didn’t have any poppys?”

“That would’ve been your fault,” you snorted. “I’m not your mommy, you need to keep up on your own meds. Go get a refill since you’re already out.”

“They’re supposed to be for emergencies, Y/N, not when you want to just—”

Your phone buzzed in your hand, and you pulled it away from your ear to see that there was another call incoming. Just in time, too, you didn’t have it in you to get lectured by Sungchan right now.

“Sorry, I’m getting another call,” you interrupted whatever he was saying loudly, not even bothering to attempt to sound actually apologetic. “Bye!”

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