#cassian scott

Then Cassian reached into his pocket. Immediately, Emily looked at him. He took a slow breath.

"I've never been very good at planning speeches," he admitted with a faint smile.

Emily raised an eyebrow.

"I noticed."

Cassian laughed softly.

"I only know one thing."

He stepped closer.

"I don't want to imagine a future that doesn't include you."

For the first time that evening, Emily's expression changed. Barely, but enough. Cassian carefully opened the small box in his hands.

"Emily Martin..."

His voice remained steady.

"...will you marry me?"

Silence. The city seemed impossibly far away. Emily looked at the ring, then back at him. For several long seconds, she simply stared. When she finally answered, her voice sounded almost unfamiliar.

"...Yes."

Before Cassian could react, tears gathered in her eyes. She blinked them away almost immediately. Old habits. Not quickly enough though, because he had noticed them. Without saying anything, he stepped forward and embraced her. Emily allowed herself to lean into him. Just for a moment. Then she smiled.

"You know," she said quietly, "there's one condition."

Cassian laughed.

"Of course there is."

"Now that we're engaged..."

She looked toward the distant skyline.

"...you'll move in with us."

She didn't need to explain why. Four careers. One household. One future. It simply made sense.

Cassian smiled.

"I already assumed that."

Emily nodded once.

"I know."

The following evening, another celebration unfolded. This time, it was Kyeongtae who stood nervously before Dayoon. Unlike Emily, Dayoon never attempted to hide what she felt. So when she realized what was happening, her eyes widened immediately. Before Kyeongtae had even fully finished asking, she laughed through gathering tears.

"Yes!"

She threw her arms around him without a second thought. Kyeongtae, usually so composed, laughed into the embrace. Across the room, Cassian exchanged a knowing glance with Emily.

Several weeks later, all four of them sat together around the dining table in the house that now belonged to all of them equally. Dinner had almost finished when the conversation drifted somewhere unexpected: Children.

Emily rested her hands on the table.

"In my family," she began carefully, "children have always been... important."

Cassian listened.

"So important," Kyeongtae continued, "that every generation carries a responsibility toward the next."

Neither of them explained further. They didn't need to, because Cassian understood enough. Emily looked around the table.

"If we're going to build a future together..."

"...we should build it fairly," Dayoon finished with a gentle smile.

The conversation lasted well into the evening. There were questions. Ideas. Occasional laughter. Moments of thoughtful silence. Eventually, the four of them arrived at a plan that somehow reflected everything they had slowly become.

Two children would be carried by surrogate mothers: Cassian x Dayoon, Emily x Kyeongtae. Meanwhile, Emily herself would carry a child with Cassian and Dayoon would carry one with Kyeongtae. No connection would stand above another. No love would weigh more heavily than the rest. Each relationship would become part of the family they were creating together.

When the discussion finally ended, nobody questioned the decision. It simply felt right. Emily leaned back, looking around the table. For the first time in many years, she allowed herself to imagine the future. Not the one expected of her, but the one they had chosen together.

Henry spent most of the time sitting with Yujin on a bench near the river. They watched their sons move through the park and talked about how quickly everything had changed. Both Cassian and Auron seemed settled again, even after Siyeon had moved out, and seeing them adapt so naturally brought relief. The moment stayed gentle until Yujin suddenly stiffened. The contractions began without any warning. Cassian immediately took Auron home, while Henry helped his wife into a taxi and went with her to the hospital, the park receding behind them as urgency replaced the calm silence.

Two days later, Henry and Yujin returned home together. This time, they carried someone new with them. Standing in the living room, smiling despite their exhaustion, they introduced their sons and Octavia to Corvin Scott-Son.

The house shifted instantly. Auron embraced his role as a big brother with pride and spoke about it freely at school. Cassian and Octavia took the change in stride. Both of them were familiar with babies and didn't feel any need to hover.

Octavia often offered to watch Corvin for an evening, giving Henry and Yujin a chance to rest, and they accepted gratefully. Even so, Cassian and Octavia appreciated the quiet of school whenever it provided a break from the constant sounds of a newborn.

Corvin became the joyful center of the household. He passed from arm to arm, surrounded by affection, but no one held him longer than Henry. After work, he rarely put his son down, carrying him through the rooms as if reluctant to miss a single moment. The house adjusted once again, not dramatically, but decisively. Another life had settled into its rhythm and everything else shifted just enough to make room.

Henry and Yujin enjoyed the quieter house more than they had expected, yet it felt strange at the same time. Siyeon’s room stayed dark at night and no guitar music drifted through the walls anymore. Once Cassian and Auron had gone to their rooms, they often remained at the dining table, talking about the life they had built together. They spoke about work, about the children and about how quickly everything seemed to change. Cassian’s nearing teenage birthday came up more often than either of them admitted.

When the boys sat at the table alone, their conversations sounded very different. They talked about new anime releases, favorite superheroes and school gossip that felt urgent only to them. Laughter returned easily in those moments, even if it never stayed for long.

Cassian missed Siyeon more than he wanted to show. Despite his closeness to Auron, the absence of his sister weighed on him in loud, persistent ways. Sometimes it led to arguments between the brothers. Auron tried hard to cheer him up, but his efforts often came too fast, too obvious, when Cassian only needed space to process his feelings.

Henry continued to take on a few extra hours at work. The money he had spent on second-hand furniture for Siyeon and Luca had tightened things for a while, but he never regretted it. The joy in their eyes had reminded him of a promise he once made to himself and to Yujin: that Siyeon would never feel unloved, no matter what.

Then Cassian’s birthday arrived. For the first time, Henry realized he was looking his oldest son straight in the eye. The resemblance was uncanny. Standing there together, father and son shared a quiet moment that needed no words, only the understanding that time had moved on and neither of them was quite the same anymore.

"Cassian," Emily said simply. "This is Kyeongtae."

The man offered a polite smile and a small nod.

Kyeongtae Lee looked almost ordinary at first glance. His clothes were neat but unremarkable. His posture was relaxed. His voice was calm. Yet within minutes, Cassian noticed something unusual about him.

Kyeongtae rarely interrupted people. He preferred listening. When he did speak, however, everyone seemed to pay attention. The conversation drifted naturally between work, everyday life and various small events happening throughout Dowon. Only later did Cassian learn more about him.

Kyeongtae worked as a junior lawyer at a respected law firm. According to Emily, he had an exceptional talent for negotiation and occasionally assisted with legal matters connected to her father. The information settled somewhere in the back of Cassian's mind. Interesting, but not alarming. At least not yet.

More than anything else, Kyeongtae simply seemed kind. The sort of person who made others feel comfortable without ever demanding attention for himself. By the end of the afternoon, Cassian found himself genuinely liking him, which surprised him. A lot of things about Emily's life still surprised him.

Several days later, Emily introduced him to someone else. This time, it happened during a dinner at her house. A woman greeted him before he had even managed to remove his coat.

"Cassian!"

Her smile appeared instantly. Warm and bright, completely unlike Emily's carefully controlled expressions. The contrast was almost amusing.

"Dayoon," Emily said from somewhere behind him.

"Nice to finally meet you properly," Dayoon replied before Cassian could even answer.

The evening passed far more loudly than his previous meetings with Emily's social circle. Dayoon enjoyed talking, not in an overwhelming way, simply openly and naturally. She seemed capable of finding something interesting in almost any topic and possessed the rare ability to make conversations feel effortless. By the time dinner ended, Cassian felt as though he had known her far longer than a single evening.

---

A few days later, his phone vibrated unexpectedly. The sender's name surprised him: Dayoon.

Her message was short.

Hey. Emily is busy again and Kyeongtae is buried in work. Do you want to go somewhere together this weekend?

Cassian couldn't help but smile.

Emily's schedule had indeed become increasingly chaotic recently. Whenever she wasn't working, she seemed occupied with a dozen other responsibilities she never fully explained. And unlike most people, she genuinely preferred spending her free time indoors.

Dayoon, on the other hand, appeared incapable of staying inside for too long.

Sure, Cassian replied.

I'd like that.

The response arrived almost immediately.

Perfect 😊

As the days passed, Cassian slowly began understanding something he had overlooked before. Emily had never been trying to introduce him to a relationship. She had been introducing him to people. To connections. To an entire network of lives intertwined in ways he had never experienced himself.

Growing up, relationships had always appeared simple.

Two people. One bond. One future.

Now he found himself surrounded by friendships, partnerships and emotional connections that seemed to overlap without replacing one another. Strangely enough, it no longer felt confusing. It simply felt new.

One evening, while sitting alone on the upper balcony of his house, Cassian watched the lights of Dowon flicker against the darkening sky. The winter air had begun fading into spring. The city felt alive. For the first time in a long while, so did he. And somewhere between Emily's quiet certainty, Kyeongtae's steady presence and Dayoon's effortless warmth, Cassian realized something.

Emily had kept her promise. She was showing him her world. To his own surprise, he wanted to see more.

About an hour later, Corvin returned later than usual, his cheeks still slightly flushed from the cold and the excitement of playing outside with his friends. He sat down at the table with Henry, who had only just found the time to eat himself.

They shared a simple meal, the kind that required little to no conversation, until Corvin suddenly looked up.

“Dad,” he said, “how did you and Mom meet?”

Henry paused for a moment, then leaned back slightly, considering the question.

He spoke about London, about moving to Dowon, about the unfamiliarity of everything when he first arrived. Then, almost casually, he mentioned the small kiosk where he had met Yujin. A chance encounter. A short conversation. Something that had quickly become more.

Corvin listened carefully. When Henry finished, Corvin frowned slightly.

“That’s it?” he asked. “I thought it would be more… I don’t know. Bigger.”

Henry laughed softly.

“I suppose it felt bigger at the time.”

Corvin nodded, though he did not seem entirely convinced. The idea of love, at least in the way his father described it, did not quite match whatever he had imagined.

Outside, winter had begun to settle over Dowon two weeks ago. The cold air brought a stillness, broken only by the occasional sound of distant traffic. A thin layer of snow rested on the garden, barely enough to cover the ground.

Auron sat on one of the sun loungers. He had not planned to come outside for long, but the cold helped him think. Or at least, it should have. No matter what he tried, his thoughts kept returning to the same place. To the same person. Nanako’s voice, her expressions, the way their conversations had unfolded. It replayed in fragments, repeating without his control.

Even when he tried to distract himself later, opening his laptop and returning to his projects, it did not last. His focus slipped. Again and again.

The next day, Corvin found himself paying more attention than usual. During recess, he watched his friends closely, especially the girls. Not in any obvious way at first, but enough for one of them to notice.

“Do I have something on my face?” she asked, brushing at her cheek where a trace of snow still lingered.

Corvin shook his head quickly.

“No,” he said, but he kept looking, trying to understand.

He compared what he saw to what he had heard. To what his father had said. To what Auron seemed to be going through. In the end, he could not make sense of it at all. No matter how closely he looked, he could not figure out what exactly made it all so special.

Auron, meanwhile, had the day off. The house was quieter than usual, his parents occupied elsewhere, leaving him with more time than he knew what to do with. He decided to leave, stepping out into the cold and making his way toward the nearby park.

The walk helped. A little, but not enough. His thoughts still circled back to Nanako, uninvited and persistent.

Then, as he moved along one of the paths, he heard a familiar voice - Cassian. He stood a short distance away, speaking with two women seated on a bench. The conversation seemed casual, unimportant, so Auron approached. Cassian noticed him almost immediately, greeting him with an easy familiarity before finishing his conversation.

They walked together afterward, side by side. It did not take long before Auron brought it up. Nanako and how often he thought about her. How difficult it had become to focus on anything else.

Cassian listened, a small smile forming. He placed a hand on Auron’s shoulder, a gesture both reassuring and knowing.

“That sounds pretty obvious to me,” he said with a quiet laugh. “Maybe you should try getting to know her a little more.”

Auron nodded, though he did not respond right away. The idea had already been there. He just had not said it out loud before.

When he returned home later that day, the thought had settled enough for him to act on it. He found his father and, somewhat unusually, started a conversation himself. Henry looked up with mild surprise, though it quickly gave way to interest.

Auron explained everything. Slowly at first, then with more certainty as he continued. About Nanako and the thoughts he could not quiet. About not fully understanding what it all meant just yet.

Henry listened carefully. When Auron finished, he nodded once.

“That sounds about right,” he said.

Auron looked at him.

“For what?”

Henry smiled faintly.

“For something worth figuring out.”

He paused for a moment before adding, “You don’t have to understand everything immediately. Sometimes it becomes clearer when you simply move forward.”

Auron considered that. It was not a direct answer, but it was enough for now.

He stepped closer. His hand hovered above the note for a second before he picked it up and unfolded it. The words were short.

She was sorry. She said she could not do this anymore. She said she did not want to pull him into something he did not deserve. She told him he deserved something simpler. Something real.

That was all.

Cassian read the note again. And again.

The letters did not change.

For a moment, everything around him remained exactly the same. The light still fell through the windows, the house still held its shape and somewhere outside, the city continued as if nothing had changed.

But something inside him did.

The glass in his hand trembled slightly, though he did not realize it until water spilled over the edge and onto the floor. He did not react. He only stood there, the note still in his other hand, the image beneath it anchoring something that was already slipping away.

He tried to make sense of it. There was no argument. No sign. No moment he could return to and reframe.

Only absence. The house felt different now. Not empty. But wrong.

---

The days that followed blurred together. Cassian spent most of his time alone, moving through the house without direction. Rooms that had once felt shared now carried a heavy weight. He avoided certain places at first, then returned to them anyway, as if repetition might dull the edge of it.

It did not.

Sometimes he stayed in bed longer than he intended, staring at nothing in particular. Time passed without leaving much behind.

Siyeon came by. More than once.

She rang the doorbell until he answered, patient in a way that left him little room to refuse. When he finally let her in, she stayed for a while, sitting with him, talking when he responded, staying silent when he did not. She did not try to fix anything. She simply remained. It helped, though not in ways that could be measured. It would take time.

---

Nearly three months passed before Cassian reached out to Emily.

Octavia’s belongings were still there. Small things at first. Books, clothes, objects that had once blended into the space without drawing attention. Now each of them stood out. Each of them carried a memory he had not chosen to revisit. He could not leave them there any longer.

Emily responded quickly. She sounded different than he remembered. Softer, more attentive. In the days leading up to their meeting, she checked in more often than expected, asking how he was doing in a way that did not feel forced. Cassian did not always answer in detail. But he did answer.

Almost four months after Octavia had left, Emily arrived.

Cassian stood in the hallway for a moment before opening the door. He had put on one of the two suits hanging in his closet, both slightly neglected, the fabric no longer as sharp as it once had been. It was the only thing that felt appropriate, though he could not explain why.

Emily stood outside, dressed as she always was. Dark tones, precise, composed. It suited her. It always had. They greeted each other quietly before moving inside.

The process was simple. They carried boxes from room to room, gathering what remained of Octavia’s presence and placing it carefully into Emily’s car. The movement gave structure to something that had otherwise felt uncontained.

At some point, they began to talk. Emily told him that Octavia was alright. That she was safe, but that she did not want to speak with him.

Cassian nodded once.

He told her that the way Octavia had left had pulled him out of his life without warning. That there had been no moment to understand, no chance to respond. The words came slowly, but they came.

Emily listened. There was a pause before she answered.

She said that things did not always unfold the way people planned them. Or hoped they would. And that sometimes, even when both sides meant well, the outcome still hurt. Her tone remained calm, but there was something beneath it. Something she did not fully reveal.

“People don’t always see the reasons behind someone else’s choices,” she added quietly.

Cassian looked at her. For a moment, it felt like there was more in that sentence than the words themselves allowed. But he did not press further.

By the time the last box was placed into the car, the sun had already begun to lower. They stood there for a moment longer than necessary.

Cassian realized then that it had been months since he had spoken to someone outside of his family like this. The conversation had not solved anything. It had not changed what had happened. But something about it felt different. Not lighter, but less closed.

As Emily prepared to leave, Cassian stepped back, watching as she settled into the driver’s seat. The car started without hesitation.

He remained where he was until it disappeared from view. Then he turned back toward the house. For the first time in a long while, the silence did not feel as absolute as before.

Emily herself had reached out occasionally during those weeks, but always briefly. Simple messages, more like short check-ins. Questions asking if he was alright, whether he was sleeping enough, whether things were getting easier. Never much more. Never less. And somehow, that made the silence in between feel even louder.

Three weeks later, Cassian woke unusually early.

Morning light stretched across the room, painting familiar shapes against the walls while the city slowly stirred outside. He stared at the ceiling for several minutes.

Then finally sat up. Without allowing himself time to reconsider, he grabbed his phone. This time he typed quickly. Not because he suddenly knew what to say, but because stopping meant overthinking.

Hey Emily. I hope you're doing well. I miss our evenings together. Please come by sometime soon. I wanted to talk about our last conversation.

Cassian stared at the message. Then pressed send before courage could leave him.

Immediately afterward, regret arrived. Followed by panic. Followed by staring at the screen far longer than necessary.

Then his phone vibrated.

He blinked. The reply contained only four words: I'm coming over.

A second message followed immediately after: Today. 4 PM.

Cassian stared at the screen. Then smiled for the first time in days.

Emily arrived early. Of course she did. Her car pulled up outside his house nearly ten minutes ahead of time, stopping with the same precise confidence she seemed to apply to everything else in life.

Cassian looked through the window and immediately felt something shift inside him. Not relief. Not exactly. Something lighter.

When he stepped outside and saw her standing beside the car, he caught himself smiling again.

Emily looked exactly the same. Dark clothes, composed expression, perfect posture. No visible reaction whatsoever.

Cassian almost laughed, because he knew better now. Emily did not wear emotions in public. Not at the side of streets. Not beneath open skies. Not where people could see. And somehow, knowing that made him strangely happy, because it meant he knew something about her others did not.

He invited her inside. The moment the front door closed behind them, Cassian turned toward her. And immediately realized he did not want to lose his nerve. Not this time.

"I thought about it," he said.

Emily looked at him quietly. Cassian swallowed, then continued.

"I thought about everything."

About her, about what she said, about polyamory, about all of it.

Emily remained silent. Watching. Waiting. Then Cassian stepped closer.

"I want to be part of your life."

No reaction.

"I love you."

Still nothing.

"And don't try to hide it behind that poker face."

A pause.

Then: "I know you."

Emily blinked. Only once. Quickly and almost invisible, but he noticed. Cassian smiled slightly.

"There it is."

For the first time since arriving, Emily looked away, just briefly. Almost thoughtfully. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded strangely careful.

"I don't want a relationship with you."

Cassian frowned and Emily crossed her arms.

"You don't know what you're walking into."

The sentence carried weight. More than the words themselves explained, but Cassian barely hesitated.

"Then show me."

Emily looked up.

"Show me your life."

Silence, but Cassian stepped closer.

"If I hate it, I can still decide to leave later."

Emily stared at him. No mask or distance. Just uncertainty. For a moment, she looked younger somehow. Smaller. And when she spoke again, her voice sounded quieter than he had ever heard it before.

"...And what if it's too late then?"

Silence. No city noise, no movement. Nothing.

Cassian looked at her, then slowly reached for her hand. Pulled her closer and kissed her. Not like two people testing a possibility, rather like two people who had spent weeks standing on the edge of something and finally stopped pretending they could stay there forever.

For the first time in what felt like years, Emily Martin forgot to hide what she felt.

Months passed that way. Quietly.

One evening, they sat together at Cassian’s dining table after finishing the food Emily had brought over from a small restaurant somewhere deeper within Dowon’s nightlife district. Empty containers remained scattered across the table, neither of them motivated enough to clean up immediately.

The room glowed softly beneath the warm kitchen lights. Emily leaned back in her chair, one leg crossed over the other, lazily turning a glass between her fingers while Cassian watched her without fully realizing he was doing it again. Or perhaps he did realize it.

This time, Emily noticed too clearly to ignore it.

“You keep doing that,” she said.

Cassian blinked. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like you’re trying to solve something.”

A faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“Maybe I am.”

Emily exhaled a quiet laugh, though it faded quickly into something more thoughtful.

“You should know something before this becomes confusing,” she said calmly.

Cassian straightened slightly, his attention sharpening immediately. Emily’s expression remained composed, almost practiced.

“I’m not interested in monogamy,” she explained. “Not really. I never have been.”

The words landed gently, but directly. Cassian stayed quiet for a moment. Emily continued before he could misunderstand her silence.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re attractive,” she added honestly. “You are. Very much, actually.”

That caught him slightly off guard.

“But I prefer polyamory.”

Cassian tilted his head faintly.

“Why?”

Emily’s gaze drifted briefly toward the city lights beyond the windows.

“Because life’s too short to share it with only one incredible person.”

The sentence settled heavily into the room. Not dramatic. Not provocative. Just sincere.

Cassian found himself unexpectedly curious instead of resistant. The idea itself felt unfamiliar, almost distant from everything he had known growing up. His parents. Siyeon and Luca. Every stable relationship around him had always followed the same shape. One person. One love. One future.

Emily seemed to exist outside of that entirely. Before he could ask more, she stood.

“I should go,” she said.

Cassian looked up. “Already?”

Emily smiled faintly.

“You need time to think about what I said,” she replied. “And I’d rather you actually think about it than just react to me sitting here.”

She grabbed her coat, then paused near the doorway.

“And don’t over-romanticize it in your head,” she added with a small grin. “It’s still complicated.”

Then she left and for once, Cassian did not immediately feel abandoned by a closing door. Only thoughtful.

The following days passed slowly. Cassian spent much of his time on the upper balcony, stretched out across one of the loungers while the cold evening air moved softly through the neighborhood around him.

Again and again, his thoughts returned to the same sentence: Life’s too short to share it with only one incredible person.

At first, the idea felt almost impossible to place inside himself. Everything he knew about love had been singular. Focused. Exclusive. But the more he thought about it, the less impossible it seemed. Maybe love did not lose value simply because it existed more than once. Maybe different forms of closeness could coexist without replacing each other. Maybe people simply loved differently. And maybe that was alright.

Eventually, curiosity overcame hesitation. One evening, while sitting alone beneath the dim balcony light, Cassian picked up his phone and sent Emily a message.

He told her he wanted to understand it better. That he wanted to learn more.

Her response came only a few minutes later.

Don’t start thinking this was an invitation.

A laughing emoji followed immediately after.

Cassian stared at the message for a second before quietly laughing to himself for the first time in what felt like months. Then he leaned back against the lounger again, the cold air brushing against his face while the city lights flickered endlessly in the distance. Somewhere along the way, without fully noticing it, the world had started moving forward again.