TWELVE YEARS AGO. CHILDHOOD — slide away ✫ oasis [wc. 1,394]

if someone were to ask you how you’d met martin, or how your story began, you wouldn’t know where to start. he’d always just been there, like the familiar creak of that swing in your neighbourhood park, or like the chair in your school that has always been a little off-centre since the beginning of the year. his presence had become something steady and expected—something that had been there long enough that you stopped questioning when it started.

your mothers, on the other hand, told the story better. according to them, your first meeting was somewhat amusing.

“don’t touch that,” a small voice said very seriously. your hand paused—the one that was reaching for the glass sitting dangerously close to the edge of the table. you turned around slowly and blinked at the boy standing under the warm restaurant lights with his arms crossed, like he was already tired of you.

“why?” you questioned curiously.

“it’ll fall, and then you’ll cry,” he said in a very scientific and factual tone.

“i don’t cry,” you frowned.

“you will.” he looked entirely unimpressed.

you grabbed the glass anyway, and you almost smirked at him—before it slipped and shattered. you were crying so loudly that everybody in the room turned to look for the source of disturbance.

more than the fact that you—the ’fearless yn’, were crying—you hated the fact that the boy had been right. but he didn’t make a smug comment or anything. instead, he sat beside you awkwardly, his hand hovering near your arm for a second before he decided to pat it, like he had seen adults do.

“it’s okay,” he comforted you—or at least, tried to. “i have snacks.

you sniffled and rubbed your red eyes harshly. “what snacks?”

he pulled his sleeve over his hand before wiping away the snot from your face. “strawberry pocky.” he pulled them out of his pocket with his other hand, and offered them to you.

you looked at him carefully. “the whole thing is for… me?”

“we can share. or if you want it that bad,  you can keep it all.”

“share.” you decided firmly.

“ok,” he smiled. “let’s share.”

“i’m yn, by the way,” you said, as you bit into one of the pocky sticks.

“martin,” he grinned.

‘slide away’ by oasis—a band your father loved—played in the background, marking the start of your friendship with a boy you knew you’d fall in love with.

and after that day, he just… stayed.

“ynnie, stop running. you’re gonna fall!” martin called out while chasing after you as you sprinted across the park. your loud and reckless laughter echoed in the large space.

“nah!” you shouted back, right before you tripped hard. your foot caught on a stone and you turned to try and catch yourself. failing to do so, you fell flat on your ass.

he caught up with you quickly, crouching down beside you with a sigh that sounded too mature and old for someone your age. you were the same age, after all.

“she never listens to me,” he muttered to himself, pulling a decorated hello kitty themed bandage from his pocket.

“you carry bandages?” you blinked curiously at him.

“only when i’m with you,” he said while carefully placing it over your knee after making sure there was no dirt stuck to it. 

“why?”

“you fall a lot.”

you stared at him for a second.

“that means he cares,” you whispered to yourself.

“no, it doesn’t,” he said quickly and defensively, but his ears turned red enough to give him away. you pressed him about it for the rest of the day as you got up and continued running around again, but he didn’t argue anymore.

maybe that’s when you realised you’d fallen for your best friend. maybe it was when he’d made up gibberish words to help you out because you couldn’t pronounce some stuff clearly.

“martin!” you whispered. “pass me the guriguri!”

“wait, which one was that again? green?”

“yes!”

maybe, it was much later. maybe love had always been like that with him—small sacrifices done so quietly that nobody else noticed them.

you were at a fancy restaurant with your family and martin’s, to celebrate something unimportant to you.

there was only one brownie left, and you were both eyeing it skeptically.

“split it equally, okay? don’t fight,” your parents laughed and continued with their conversation.

martin looked up at you once, before pushing the bigger part towards you. “you can have more.”

“why?”

“because you’ll complain if i take it.” “well… true,” you laughed.

maybe, it was when he agreed to marry you even before either of you even understood what love really meant.

“boys and girls can’t be best friends forever unless they get married,” you’d overheard someone say in your class during lunch. you didn’t think much of it at first, but then, the thought kept returning no matter what you did—lingering stubbornly in the back of your mind while you brushed your teeth, while you changed into your soft pajamas, while you lay in bed staring up at the ceiling with your stuffed shark plushie tucked beneath your chin.

so, the next day, you asked martin, your best friend, about it.

“mars,” you called out, turning to your side to look at him sitting on the swing. “if we have to get married to stay best friends forever… should we?”

“okay,” he said without missing a beat.

as soon as you both made the decision, you ran to his house.

he googled ‘how to get married?’ on his mom’s laptop while you grabbed a pen and paper. you sat on the heated floor of his living room with your shoulders and thighs touching.

“what’s taxes?” you frowned, pointing to the screen.

“i don’t know.”

“sounds horrible.”

“yeah. let’s ignore that part.”

eventually, you had redirected your focus to amateur tutorials on youtube for ‘diy paper rings — no glue required!’.

you two sat surrounded by scraps of coloured paper and uncapped markers for the next two hours, completely focused on the task.

“it makes sense,” he said. “what?”

“we already like hanging out together all the time anyway.”

“yeah! and if we get married, then nobody can make us stop being best friends!” you exclaimed. he nodded with enthusiasm.

“you’re a genius, ynnie,” he patted your head. you pushed his hand away and pouted at him.

“don’t touch my head. i’m a grown up girl.”

“whatever you say, pretty girl. you’re, like, six.”

“i’m turning eight this year, thank you very much! plus, we’re the same age,” you defended.

“same thing,” he rolled his eyes knowingly.

you made a ring of orange paper, with red suns and hearts messily scribbled on them. martin’s was much neater in comparison to yours—a light blue paper ring with black and dark blue stars neatly drawn—though, he continuously denied caring ‘that much’ about it.

“stop making yours look better than mine,” you accused.

“i’m not even doing anything.”

“liar.”

he laughed quietly.

you waited for your parents to gather at night, and only then choosing to present your rings in makeshift ring boxes (really, they were old shoe boxes you stole from your parents’ shoe racks) at dinner. your mothers pretended to tear up, and your fathers pretended to give martin a serious ‘boy talk’.

when it was finally time, you grinned at him as you pushed the orange ring onto his ring finger. he slipped the blue one onto yours with full concentration.

“done. now, we’re married,” you excitedly announced.

“we’re staying best friends forever,” he explained to your parents.

“is that so?” his mother asked with a smile.

“yeah. we planned it and all,” martin confirmed.

“we’re skipping the taxes thingie,” you whispered loudly to him and nudged his shoulder with yours. “tell them that too, mars!”

“oh yeah,” he realised and set his expression to a serious one. “we’re not doing taxes.”

everybody laughed like it was a joke, but you were both dead-set about the taxes thingie.

you remembered looking at him then, at the complete certainty on his face, at how easy it had been for him to say yes to a forever with you, and maybe that should’ve been your first clue.

you think now that you didn’t really know what love was, but if someone had asked you back then, you would’ve said it was something like this—something easy and comfortable and eternally beautiful, because no one else in the world would’ve answered you that quickly, if you had asked them to marry you.

TEN YEARS AGO. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — first love / late spring ✫ mitski [wc. 1,293]

elementary school felt softer in your memories. maybe because you were still too young to understand embarrassment properly, or too young to realise how strange it might’ve looked to other people that you and martin moved through life like a matching set, like separating simply wasn’t an option. or maybe it was because loving him still felt easy back then.

“yn, you’re sitting wrong. again,” he pointed at your chair with the back of his pencil.

“a person can’t ‘sit wrong’, martin,” you rolled your eyes.

“well, you are.”

“how does that even work?”

“your chair is so far from your table. this is why your back pains after class everyday,” he said as-a-matter-of-factly. he stood up and pulled your chair—and you, by extension—closer to your table with an awful screech. your hands moved quickly to cover one of yours’ and one of his ears.

“martin!” someone yelled from nearby. he turned back to smile sheepishly at them.

“ow,” you scolded him for the noise.

“it’s your fault.”

“nuh uh.”

“yuh uh!”

“martin and yn. quiet,” your teacher reprimanded you. you glared at each other and then grinned.

“you can’t attack me during school hours,” he warned, reminding you of an old deal you’d made.

“firstly, it’s not attacking if my foot touches your foot very hard ‘by mistake’. and secondly, you’re calling this shitshow a school?” you mumbled. his eyes widened at the apparently new curse word you’d just used.

“what’s ‘shitshow’ mean?” he asked curiously.

“no idea,” you shrugged. “saw it in some movie yesterday. ‘shit’ is bad, so i’m guessing ‘shitshow’ is… more bad?”

he stared at you in disbelief for a second before laughing, your shoulders shaking as your teacher shouted at both of you to calm down once again.

neither of you listened very well. you rarely did when you were together.

maybe love had never arrived all at once for you. there hadn’t been some cinematic moment where everything magically made sense, no dramatic revelation where your heart raced and you realised oh. this is it. 

instead, it had settled quietly into the spaces between ordinary things, weaving itself into the shape of your everyday life so naturally that you hadn’t noticed it happening until much later. because back then, martin was just… your martin.

your classmate, minho, approached you during lunch one day. martin was away washing his hands.

“do you want to trade snacks?” he asked quietly.

you looked at his pudding cup suspiciously. you really really loved pudding.

“what do you want?”

he looked at the strawberry milk on your table. “that.”

you hesitated. martin always drank the strawberry milk from your lunch because your mom packed it even if you hated it.

“i can’t,” you decided firmly.

“why not?” he asked, disappointed.

“because martin likes it.”

minho blinked at you. “...okay?”

you frowned at his confused face. he was the weird and strange one, because obviously you saved things martin liked. that was just how it worked, right?

martin returned as minho left, pushing you further inside on the bench to sit beside you.

“you didn’t drink it?” he asked, pointing at the strawberry milk.

“i saved it.”

his expression softened in a way you didn’t understand fully.

“oh.”

“here,” you pushed it towards him.

“thanks, ynnie,” he smiled brightly at you, like you’d given him a diamond and not a 1-dollar milk carton.

you watched carefully as he poked his straw through it and took a sip. you felt strangely proud afterwards, like you’d done something important.

since then, you had stopped questioning the way he remembered tiny things about you, or the way your first instinct was always to save things for him too. once you grow used to someone being there in every ordinary moment, they stop feeling temporary. they start feeling essential, like a favourite song you’ve heard so many times that you don’t realise how much you love it until the day it suddenly stops playing. you realised that’s how you felt while listening to ‘first love / late spring’ by mitski.

next, you remember your first fight with martin. well, not exactly a fight, but it seemed quite world-ending at that age.

you couldn’t believe your eyes. he’d eaten your gummy worms. all of them.

“you’re evil,” you complained to him during break, sitting on the opposite side of the bench with your arms crossed tightly, unlike how you usually sit next to each other.

“i said i was sorry.”

“that doesn’t bring them back.”

“i’ll buy you more!”

“it’s not about the gummy worms” you grumbled.

his eyes widened. “what’s it about, then?”

you opened your mouth to bite back at him, but closed it again. you weren’t fully sure either, to be completely honest. you were just… upset. and somehow, being upset with martin felt worse than being upset with anybody else.

“forget it,” you said finally.

you didn’t talk to him for the rest of the day. he didn’t sit beside you during art class, and you didn’t share your crayons with him. you both looked so terribly sad and miserable, even your teacher noticed.

“did you two finally get tired of each other?” she joked.

“no,” you both answered immediately. and then you glared at each other again.

that evening, your mom answered a knock at the front door—revealing martin standing there in his school uniform, awkwardly holding a tiny plastic bag from the convenience store in your neighbourhood.

“hello, miss ln. can yn come outside?” he asked quietly.

you shuffled closer to the door suspiciously. “what?”

he held the bag out to you, filled with three packs of gummy worms. you gasped and your eyes widened at the same time.

“i used my allowance,” he confessed, looking at his shoes with a small pout on his face.

“all of it?” you looked at him carefully.

“maybe.”

you stared at the bag before looking up at him again.

“i forgive you,” you decided. his shoulders visibly relaxed and a triumphant smile stretched across his face. you pulled out one of the packets and handed it to him. “share?”

“share,” he smiled softer.

and just like that, everything felt normal again; because neither of you knew how to stay angry at the other for very long.

the next day, your english teacher surprised you all by giving you a free class with one condition.

‘who is your favourite person?’ he scribbled messily on the whiteboard.

“answer this one by one, and then you can sleep or play, or draw on my face with the new colours i got,” he announced.

after five minutes of shouts and yells from you and your classmates, everybody quieted down.

kids around you shouted answers immediately:

“my mom!”

“cha eunwoo!”

“my dad!”

“spiderman!”

“justin beiber!”

“no, iu is better!”

when it was your turn, you answered without thinking—“martin!”

the class went quiet for a second before erupting into loud ‘ewww’s.

you blinked at them in confusion. “…what?”

“you like him!” leesol, your friend, accused dramatically.

“obviously i like him,” you replied, rolling your eyes. “he’s my favorite.”

the class groaned louder. then, your teacher pointed beside you. “what about you, martin?”

he looked up from his desk. “yn,” he answered immediately.

your class screamed louder this time. you looked at each other, equally confused by everyone else’s reaction, because to both of you, the answer had felt very obvious.

who else would it be?

when someone has been woven into every ordinary corner of your life since childhood, you stop knowing how to separate love from habit, or devotion from familiarity. you just know that every memory of growing up somehow leads back to them, and that somewhere along the way, your heart started treating their presence like it was the most obvious thing in the world. like there was no you without them at all.

SIX YEARS AGO. MIDDLE SCHOOL — call your name ✫ sawano hiroyuki [wc. 3,545]

middle school had been cruel in a quiet way. everything changed without actually changing.

you sat next to martin during classes whenever teachers allowed it. you walked home together after school with your bags bumping against each other every few steps because neither of you understood the concept of personal space around the other. you fought over meaningless things like who cheated during board games or whose turn it was to buy snacks from the convenience store. 

something had shifted somewhere along the way. you noticed it in stupid moments first, like how your stomach suddenly felt strange whenever he smiled at you for too long. or how you started fixing your hair before meeting him after school without fully understanding why. or how hearing another girl say his name too sweetly made something ugly and jealous curl quietly in your chest. it felt horrible, especially because you couldn’t stop it.

“do you like anyone?” wonhee asked you suddenly.

you looked up so quickly from your notebook, you almost broke your neck. “what?”

she leaned closer conspiratorily. “do you like anyone?” she repeated.

“no,” you answered too quickly.

she narrowed her eyes at you instantly. “lie.”

“nope. i just don’t like anyone.”

“it’s martin, isn’t it?”

you choked on air, coughing quickly to cover it up. “what? no!”

“bro, come on,” she smiled. “you look at him like he hung the sun.”

“it’s ‘hung the moon’, not ‘sun’,” you corrected, choosing to ignore the rest of her statement.

“you said he reminded you of the sun, so i thought it’d fit better,” she grinned, clapping a hand on your back. when you didn’t say anything, looking at a spot over a shoulder motionlessly with a small smile, she turned around and immediately groaned. “...and we lost yn to martin. again.”

“huh?” you jolted at the sound of your name.

“nothing. just noting how you stopped listening to me, like, twenty seconds ago, when he walked into the room.”

“shut up,” you said weakly, looking back to where martin was standing.

as cliche as it sounded, the sunlight did look beautiful when it spilled across the side of his face—not harshly, but quite the opposite. his hair was growing longer and slightly wavier, and you had made him promise you that he wouldn’t cut it for a while. you told him he’d looked like a prince, and he’d agreed to keep his hair if you’d liked it.

“you like him sooo bad,” wonhee pushed a hand against your shoulder.

you didn’t say anything, proving her words right. well, you did like him. a lot.

martin paused his conversation with his friend the moment he saw you grinning beside wonhee.

you looked beautiful in a way words couldn’t describe. it was unfair to other girls your age, he thought, because you never had a bad ‘phase’ ever. you just always looked pretty, were always smart, and always right by his side, so obviously, you were the best girl ever. not like he cared about other girls when you were there.

“you like yn,” juhoon’s voice brought him back suddenly.

he looked up from the math worksheet sitting idly on his table, waiting to be filled with nonsensical answers.

“no, i don’t.”

“you literally follow her around everywhere.”

“we’ve known each other since we were babies. obviously we hang out, juhoon.”

“right,” he nodded. “you definitely don’t stare at her during math class like a loser.”

he automatically turned to look at you by the window. he noticed the braid he'd tried on you that morning, and some pieces of your hair fell out of it—framing your face in an unbelievably chest-achingly pretty way.

“i don’t stare at her,” he frowned, while quite literally staring at you.

“sure.”

“i don’t.”

“you’re doing it right now.” a small smile tugged at his friend’s lips.

“i just don’t like math classes. shut up,” martin immediately turned away from you, cheeks warming slightly.

“explains the red cheeks and ears too, i guess,” juhoon noted to himself. “hm.”

“maybe i’m descended from northern europeans,” he deflected.

“what?”

“northern europeans,” he nodded solemnly. “their descendants tend to have more capillaries close to the skin’s surface, which makes flushed faces more visible.” he repeated, just as practiced for situations like this—to explain his quick redness.

“your ears are red too.”

he covered his ears with his hands quickly. “shut up.”

your next most memorable moment with martin was the year both of you discovered you needed glasses. the whole occasion felt strangely intimate.

your school had organised mandatory eye tests, and somehow both you and martin failed badly enough to end up sitting side-by-side in the clinic afterwards while waiting for the eyedrops to work properly before the actual test.

“mars,” you called out blindly. he hummed. “i can’t see shit.”

“language,” he automatically scolded you in a way that was second nature to him.

“you were the one who taught me to swear, just so you know,” you pointed out.

“yeah, but i don’t swear in front of nurses.”

“coward.”

the nurse laughed softly as she gently placed another set of drops into your eyes. you immediately recoiled, nearly blinding her.

“stop moving,” martin quietly laughed. “you almost headbutted her.”

“this is torture. it burns,” you whined.

“dramatic ass,” he whispered lowly so only you could hear.

“oh, now you swear?!”

“just not in front of nurses!”

“i hate you.”

“no, you don’t.”

you began to say something, to argue again, but realised… you really didn’t hate him. not even one bit.

your vision blurred even further, and you finally opened your eyes. everything looked fuzzy and soft.

“mars?” you muttered quietly. he hummed again. “where are you?”

“right here, pretty girl.” you felt his long fingers tap against your hand before intertwining your fingers. your chest tightened instinctively.

“oh.”

“can you see much?” he asked.

“you’re a blob,” you said truthfully.

“wow, so romantic,” he said dryly, making the nurse nearby laugh. later, when she briefly left the room, you carefully blinked your watery eyes open to look toward him again—his outline was a little blurry and unfocused. still, you recognised him immediately.

you thought then, stupidly and dramatically and very much like a middle-schooler, that maybe you would always recognise martin somehow, even if the whole world became impossible to see clearly.

one day, martin’s voice simply sounded deeper than before. one day, your school uniforms fit differently. one day, your classmates suddenly became obsessed with lip gloss and crushes and who sat beside who during class. and somehow, without either of you noticing when it happened, looking at him started feeling dangerous—not bad dangerous; just the kind that made your chest ache strangely afterwards.

“ow,” martin winced, fingers pressing down against the strings of his new guitar awkwardly. “this hurts.”

you sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, flipping lazily through one of your science textbooks while he struggled through the same three chords for nearly an hour minutes straight.

“then quit,” you suggested dryly.

“no.”

“why not?”

“because i already told dad i’d learn.”

“your dad also said he’d stop eating after midnight and then i saw him eating ramen at three in the morning yesterday.” 

he snorted quietly. “wow, traitor.”

“i’m just saying: lying runs in the family.” he kicked your foot lightly with his own.

“you’re annoying.”

“and yet you like hanging out with me every day.”

“because you invite yourself over every day.”

“details details,” you said in a singsong.

he rolled his eyes before looking back down at the guitar resting against his lap.

you watched him carefully from across the room—middle school had made him prettier in an unfair way. his hair had gotten even longer recently, soft black strands falling over his eyes whenever he looked down too quickly. even his voice had changed enough that sometimes it caught you off guard completely.

you hated how aware of him you’d become. you hated it even more because he seemed completely unaffected.

“what song are you even trying to learn?” you finally asked.

his fingers paused. “nothing.”

“that’s suspicious.”

“it’s not.”

“martin.” he sighed dramatically before reaching for his phone and shoving the screen toward you. your eyes widened immediately. “sawano hiro—call your name?”

he looked away almost instantly. “you said you liked it.”

your chest tightened so suddenly, you swore you could feel your heart beating against your chest. because you did love that song. you had cried listening to it once after finishing an episode of attack on titan and martin had laughed at you for nearly thirty minutes afterwards.

“you cried over giant naked people?” he had asked you.

“they were dying,” you had said, hiccuping.

“skill issue.”

“martin!”

and now he was sitting here with aching fingers trying to learn your favorite song in secret.

“…oh,” you said quietly.

“don’t make it weird.”

“i’m not making it weird,” you defended quickly, even though your face suddenly felt warm. “you’re the one secretly practicing emotional anime songs in your room.”

“it’s not emotional.”

“you looked constipated trying to play that last chord.”

“leave me alone.”

you laughed softly, but your chest still felt painfully full. martin looked back down at the guitar after a second, adjusting his grip before trying again. the notes came out messy at first—hesitant and imperfect. but then slowly, the melody began taking shape. you recognised it immediately, of course. your favorite parts too.

you stared at him silently while he played, fingers fumbling occasionally before finding the strings again.

“you practiced this?” you asked quietly.

“a little.”

“for me?”

he glanced up briefly. “…you like the song.” that wasn’t really an answer, but somehow it felt like one anyway.

you sat there long after he stopped playing, pretending to read your textbook while your heart beat embarrassingly fast. because maybe that was the problem with loving martin. he never did grand things, never anything obvious enough for you to point at and say: there. that means something. instead, he loved you quietly; through remembered details and practiced songs and strawberry milk cartons and paper rings made at eight years old.

and you, unfortunately, loved hard enough to turn every small thing he gave you into something precious.

sometimes, you think that was the first time you understood that yearning could sound beautiful too. like clumsy guitar strings echoing softly through his bedroom while he learned your favorite song by heart just because it mattered to you.

you almost confessed once. almost.

after a lengthy study session after school one day, the two of you sat on the empty bleachers waiting for your parents. the sky was turning pink slowly, cool evening light spilling across the football field while students gradually disappeared one by one through the gates.

martin sat beside you eating chocolate pocky loudly.

“you chew like a dying animal,” you informed, as if making a scientific observation.

“you’re just jealous because i have strong jaw muscles.”

“that is genuinely the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

“no, the stupidest thing i ever said was when i told our science teacher, miss eunchae, that birds weren’t real in third grade.”

you laughed despite yourself. “she looked so disappointed in you.”

“she hated creativity.”

“you told her pigeons were government drones.”

“and i stand by that.”

“in third grade,” you pointed out, shaking your head and smiling helplessly. then, your smile faded slightly as you looked at him. because he looked pretty—annoyingly pretty. his hair moved softly in the wind, and the setting sunlight fell against his skin in a way that made your heart beat so fast, so suddenly, you had to look down at your hands. you wondered, not for the first time, what it would feel like to hold his hand properly—not casually. not because you couldn’t see after eye drops. but intentionally, because he wanted you to.

“martin,” you said quietly.

“hm?”

you swallowed. your heart beat so loudly it almost embarrassed you.

“do you ever think that maybe—”

“martin!” both of you turned immediately. his father waved from the parking lot. “we have to go!”

the moment shattered instantly. you looked back at martin. he blinked slowly. “what were you saying?”

you stared at him for a second longer before forcing a shrug. “…nothing.”

he looked like he wanted to ask again, but he didn’t. and maybe that was the tragedy of middle school. you both kept almost reaching something before pulling away at the last second.

every accidental touch suddenly lingered too long in your head afterwards, and every smile from him seemed to stay with you for hours longer than it should have. it was horrible, because you were thirteen, and thirteen-year-old girls loved deeply and dramatically and silently all at once. especially girls like you—girls who loved so hard it became embarrassing. prom only made it worse… or better. you still couldn’t decide.

you had spent an unreasonable amount of time pretending you didn’t care about middle school prom.

“it’s literally just a school dance,” you told wonhee while she straightened your wavy hair in front of your bedroom mirror. you’d tried telling her it was a lost cause, because it would go back to looking wavier—like it usually did, but she insisted on trying.

“right,” she nodded. “and that’s why you’ve changed your dress four times.”

“i would like you to rephrase it to… strategic revisions,” you said smartly.

“you’re nervous because of martin.”

you immediately pointed your eyeliner at her threateningly. “don’t speak.” she grinned.

your room smelled faintly like hairspray and lotion, your orange dress hanging above your knees while an album called ‘2 cool 4 skool’ by some new korean boyband played quietly from your phone speaker. outside your bedroom door, you could already hear your’s and martin’s parents talking loudly downstairs. your families had insisted on getting ready together. (“because it’s cute!” your mothers had claimed. you thought it was psychological warfare.)

especially when you finally walked downstairs after four outfit changes and stabbing yourself in the eye with a mascara wand twice, you saw martin standing near the entrance adjusting the sleeves of his shirt.

your breath caught embarrassingly fast. he looked older somehow—still unmistakably martin, still slightly awkward and annoyingly pretty in that effortless way he always was, but older and more mature.

his hair was pushed back slightly from his forehead—his dad probably helped with the gel—and the dark navy vest made his shoulders look broader than usual. you hated the way your heart reacted to him.

martin looked up at the sound of your footsteps and froze. actually froze. his tie hung half-undone around his neck while he stared at you for a second too long.

“…oh,” he said quietly, almost whispering to himself.

you suddenly became hyperaware of yourself. “‘oh’, what? was that a bad ‘oh’? or a good ‘oh’?”

“nothing,” he replied too quickly. “you just look…”

your chest tightened painfully. “what?”

he blinked once before looking away awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “…pretty.”

wonhee made the loudest fake gagging sound imaginable behind you. you wanted to kill her, but martin held your attention too well.

“thanks,” you mumbled, looking down at your feet because suddenly eye contact felt impossible. his ears were pink, matching the shade of your blush.

your mothers, unfortunately, noticed immediately, and immediately pushed you both to stand shoulder-to-shoulder before snapping many pictures. “look at them,” martin’s mom nearly cried. “they’re blushing!”

“remember when they got married at eight?” your mom laughed, as if you both weren’t right there. you both smiled for the pictures, relaxing a little bit.

“we were visionaries,” you defended immediately.

martin snorted beside you. “we were planning on skipping taxes altogether.”

your fathers exchanged dramatic looks.

“i can’t believe i’m watching my son go to prom,” his dad sighed.

“not with our yn, though,” your father added teasingly. your smile faltered slightly before you could stop it. right. he wasn’t going with you.

before the silence could settle strangely, the doorbell rang—your dates had arrived.

you tried very hard not to notice the way martin’s expression changed slightly when jaehyun stepped inside holding flowers for you. your nose crinkled slightly at the sight of roses, your least favourite flowers.

“she likes lillies, dumbass,” martin muttered under his breath.

you tried even harder not to feel disappointed when lee-an, a really pretty girl from your grade, arrived for him shortly afterwards.

it was stupid, because really, you had no right to feel jealous. still, the feeling sat heavily in your chest anyway when you all rode together to the school because your parents had insisted.

you ended up squeezed into the middle seat beside martin while your dates sat on either sides of you both, awkwardly trying to make conversation.

your fingers felt strangely restless against your lap. you hated dresses. you hated awkward silence. you hated the fact that martin smelled really good and looked so handsome tonight.

“you okay?” he asked quietly after noticing you fidgeting and thumbing the hem of your dress.

“my toes hurt.”

“you said that ten minutes ago.”

“it still hurts.”

he laughed softly under his breath before his hand moved instinctively toward you, pulling your hand into his lap. he fiddled with your silver rings, stealing one for himself, and replacing it with one from his own hand.

you looked down at his hand. yours. together. and then, you looked at him. he didn’t seem to realise what he had done, or maybe he did. either way, he left his hands with yours, right there on his lap, for another few seconds before pulling away slowly. the warmth lingered afterwards—it always did.

prom itself was loud and bright and strangely disappointing, unlike most of the romcoms you’d watched with martin. the gymnasium had been decorated beautifully of course, soft lights hanging from the ceiling while music echoed through the room, but you spent most of the night painfully aware of where he was, even when you tried not to. you watched him laugh at something lee-an said from across the room and immediately looked away afterwards because your chest ached.

you danced when jaehyun asked you to. you smiled when people spoke to you. you pretended very convincingly that everything was fine. but every few minutes, your eyes found martin again anyway, like they always did.

eventually, you escaped outside for air. the hallway beyond the gym was quieter, the music muffled now behind closed doors while the cool air of the night came in through the open exit nearby. you leaned against the wall with a sigh.

“there you are.”

your head lifted immediately because of course, you’d recognise his voice anywhere. martin stood at the other end of the hallway, his tie loosened now. your heart betrayed you instantly.

“oh,” you said softly. “hi.”

“hi.”

“did you ditch your date?” he asked, walking closer to you.

“…maybe.”

he grinned slightly. “me too.”

you stared at him for a second before laughing. “we’re horrible people.”

“probably.”

soft silence settled between you—comfortable. familiar.

martin walked until he stood beside you against the wall, shoulders brushing lightly. neither of you moved away.

inside the gym, a slower song started playing faintly through the speakers. you looked toward the doors absentmindedly. “they’re probably wondering where we went.”

“yeah,” he replied quietly, like he couldn’t really care any less.

neither of you made any move to go back. you looked at your shoes. he bent down to slip them off carefully, blowing cool air at your red feet.

“i think,” you admitted softly, “i just wanted to be where you are.” the words slipped out before you could stop them. your heart nearly stopped afterwards.

he looked up at you immediately. you felt heat rush to your face, cheeks turning red faster than martin’s usually would.

“i mean—not like—”

“i know,” he interrupted gently, standing up to move back to his spot beside you. his voice sounded strange and careful, like the sentence had affected him more than it should have. before you could say anything else, the gym doors suddenly burst open behind you.

“there you both are!” wonhee yelled dramatically. “oh my god, this is actually insane. your dates are literally sitting together complaining about you guys.”

you and martin jumped apart immediately like you got caught doing something illegal, when you weren’t even doing anything.

wonhee narrowed her eyes. “…suspicious.”

“shut up,” both of you said at the exact same time.

she gasped loudly, clapping her hands together. “that was disgusting.”

martin laughed first, then you did too, and somehow, by the end of the night, you still ended up dancing together anyway—not because anyone asked or because it had been planned, but because somehow, no matter where the night started, the two of you always seemed to find your way back to each other in the end.

now, you think that middle school was the worst kind of almost, because everything felt so important but you were too young to understand it properly, too scared to say anything that might change what you already had, and maybe that was why you stayed stuck there for so long—in that space where everything meant something and nothing was ever said out loud.

( [yn’s prom dress] [martin’s prom suit] )

TWO YEARS AGO. HIGH SCHOOL — call out my name ✫ the weeknd [wc. 4,945]

high school was… fucked, for a lack of a better term. you were old enough to recognise what yearning was, but still cowardly enough to pretend you weren’t drowning in it. so, you had become good at loving martin quietly, which was unfortunate, because he had become devastatingly easy to love.

“you look like you have a personal grudge against the grim reaper and you’re not letting him take you away.”

“good morning to you too,” you muttered tiredly, dropping your bag onto the classroom floor and taking off your glasses before collapsing face-first onto your desk.

martin snorted from beside you. “did you even sleep?”

“track practice started at five thirty.”

“that was yesterday morning.”

“exactly.”

he laughed softly under his breath while you groaned dramatically into your folded arms, nuzzling your face as close to the table as possible. morning sunlight spilled lazily through the classroom windows, warming one side of your face while your classmates slowly trickled inside one by one. somebody at the back of the room was playing music quietly from their phone speaker, probably jihoon and hyun-wook, and the air smelled faintly like addicting coffee and fresh paper nobody used much.

you felt martin poke your cheek with his pen. “don’t die before the first class starts.”

“don’t tell me what to do,” you groaned as you tried to adjust your legs comfortably.

“you have calculus today,” he reminded you with a pessimisting grin.

“oh my god,” you whispered miserably. “i forgot.”

“that’s because your brain is deteriorating.”

you tilted your head just enough to glare at him. “i’m literally smarter than you.”

“academically, maybe.”

“what the fuck does that even mean?”

“you tried to heat metal in the microwave.”

“i was a very curious fifth grader,” you defended.

“you almost exploded the kitchen,” his eyebrows shot up.

“scientific progress requires sacrifice.”

he laughed properly this time, head tipping back slightly. “that’s not what you said when i tried to make a choco lava cake with crayons.”

your chest hurt immediately. it was honestly ridiculous now, because there he was, sitting beside you in the stupid, ugly school uniform that only looked good on him, with messy hair and pretty eyes hidden slightly under his bangs, and somehow you still looked at him like he was something extraordinary.

you hated it—you hated him. you loved him so much.

“why are you staring at me?” he asked suddenly.

your eyes widened. “i wasn’t.”

“you were.”

“prove it.”

“your eyes were pointed directly at my face,” he smirked.

“maybe i was zoning out. because you look weird,” you rolled your eyes.

“wow,” he placed a hand over his heart dramatically. “you’re actually so evil.”

“you’ll survive.”

“barely.”

you rolled your eyes, but smiled anyway.

martin looked at you for another second after that, and then another, as his expression softened almost unconsciously, because you looked pretty when you were tired… which was unfair. your hair was messy from practice, and there was pen ink smudged against the side of your hand from where you had fallen asleep drawing fake tattoos on your hand yesterday, but he still looked at you and thought, helplessly, ‘damn. i love her.’ and the realisation terrified him every single time.

during break, you sat cross-legged on your chair, somehow fitting on it without falling off, sketching lazily in the margins of your notebook while the classroom buzzed loudly around you. hyun-wook was being bombarded with jihoon and kyung’s questions about some new karaoke place, while your homeroom teacher gave up on correcting some answer scripts, and instead resorted to watching some music videos on his phone.

martin leaned back in his chair beside you. “what are you drawing?”

“you,” you replied without missing a beat. he nearly choked. your eyes widened immediately before you burst into laughter. “you should’ve seen your face!”

“what the hell is wrong with you?” he coughed, turning red as quickly as he always does. you laughed harder.

“you looked terrified!”

“because you’re insane! who knows if you gave me the ugliest jawline known to man?”

“relax,” you grinned. “it’s just some car i saw a few days ago that looked good, jeez. besides, your jaw’s pretty ugly in real life anyway.”

he narrowed his eyes at you. “you’re demon-spawn.”

“i’m entertaining as fuck, and you love it,” you grinned.

“unfortunately.”

you smiled softer at that, because he always stayed. you turned your notebook around eventually, showing him the sketch. it was rough and unfinished, just a drawing of a porsche 911 turbo s you’d seen downtown. martin stared quietly for a second.

“…that’s actually really good art.”

“i know,” you nodded solemnly.

“the artist is humble too,” he noted, as if he was a curator, looking for art pieces.

“one of my best qualities,” you flashed him a quick smile.

he shook his head fondly before glancing back down at his own notebook. you noticed immediately that his page wasn’t filled with notes like it should have been. instead, messy lines of lyrics covered more than half of the paper.

“you’re writing songs during class again?”

“i’m multitasking,” he said sheepishly.

“you failed your last chemistry test.”

“music transcends chemistry.”

“you sound unemployed.”

he grinned slightly. you tried not to stare at him after that, but you failed horribly, because there was something about the way he looked while writing lyrics that always made your chest ache—his brows furrowed slightly whenever he concentrated, his fingers tapped absentminded rhythms against the paper between sentences.

you wondered suddenly what it would feel like if he ever wrote a love song about someone. then you wondered what kind of girl he would write about. and then you immediately felt sick.

“why are you staring now?” he asked without looking up, like he was peter parker with spidey senses. pretty boys be damned; your heart nearly stopped.

“you have ugly handwriting,” you scrambled for an excuse.

“liar.”

you smiled faintly, because the truth was much worse. the truth was you loved him. and maybe, the saddest part was knowing how little that changed. you could love martin with your entire soul and still sit beside him everyday pretending your heart wasn’t constantly betraying you.

the cruelest part about loving someone for so long is how naturally they become part of your life. martin had been there through every version of you—the loud little girl with scraped knees, the dramatic kid who got upset over gummy worms, the exhausted athlete falling asleep in class—and somewhere along the way, your heart stopped treating him like a person you could lose. so every time he called you his ‘best friend’, it felt less like rejection and more like grief, because loving him had become as instinctive as breathing, while being loved back somehow felt impossibly out of reach.

the bleachers symbolised the pinnacle of every high school love story, but you hated them after that day. they made things feel more dangerous somehow; maybe it was the way everything became quieter there after school ended.

you sat near the top row with your legs stretched across the bench beside you, exhausted after practice while cold water dripped from your hairline down your neck. martin sat one row below, elbows resting against his knees while he waited for you to stop complaining dramatically about life.

“coach park hates me,” you said firmly.

“you say that everyday,” he raised an eyebrow at you.

“because everyday, she makes me run like i committed a damn crime.”

“maybe you did.”

“my only crime is being beautiful and talented and smart as fuck, dude.” he laughed softly.

the track field below glowed gold underneath the setting sun, your teammates gradually leaving one by one until it was just the two of you remaining. always just the two of you.

martin had started staying after school for your practices so naturally that neither of you even questioned it anymore—he carried your water bottle sometimes, helped gather your equipment afterwards, waited beside the field doing homework while you trained. like it was obvious he would. like there was nowhere else he wanted to be.

you looked down at him quietly. “you know you don’t actually have to stay everyday, right?”

he looked up immediately. “…yeah, i know.”

“then why do you?”

he shrugged once. “someone has to make sure you don’t collapse from overworking yourself.”

your chest hurt again. stupid heart. stupid feelings. stupid stupid stupid boy.

“you sound like an old man,” you teased, aiming to deflect from thinking of your feelings for him.

“and you sound dehydrated.”

you smiled despite yourself before leaning back against the bleachers. the silence that settled afterwards felt comfortable, until you were interrupted by james—one of your seniors.

“you guys are actually married,” he yelled while passing by. “like seriously. just date already!”

you nearly inhaled your own saliva. martin laughed awkwardly. “we’re just best friends.”

oh. your smile faltered slightly before you could stop it. just best friends. right. of course. it was a very logical line to draw, you supposed. you looked down at your hands quickly.

“yeah,” you forced a dry laugh. “just best friends.”

he didn’t notice the way your voice changed, and suddenly, everything hurt because that was the problem with loving your best friend—sometimes he loved you deeply too, just not in the same devastating way you loved him.

when you were younger, loving martin felt light, and easy. something warm you carried around proudly in your chest without ever questioning whether it would hurt you someday. but high school had sharpened everything into something unbearable. suddenly, every time somebody teased you both about dating only reminded you that you weren’t. every time he smiled at you with that soft, familiar affection, your heart betrayed you a little more, because it was enough to keep your hopes alive while still never being enough to mean anything at all.

the party was loud in the kind of suffocating way only high school parties could be—music blasted so hard the walls practically trembled with it, coloured lights flashing across sweaty faces while people shouted over each other with drinks spilling from their hands. somebody knocked over snacks near the living room entrance twenty minutes ago and nobody bothered cleaning it up (of course). the entire house smelled like smoke, perfume, very cheap vodka, and the awful artificial fruit scent from flavored vapes. you already wanted to leave.

you sat curled into the corner of the couch with your knees pulled slightly to your chest—a very comfortable position, mind you—phone balancing uselessly on your knees while everybody around you seemed louder and happier than you could manage tonight.

“you look deeply unhappy,” iroha observed, dropping down beside you with a drink in hand.

“maybe because i was dragged here against my own will.”

“you literally chose to come.”

“peer pressure is real thing, you know.”

she snorted. “you’ve been staring at martin for the past fifteen minutes.”

your eyes widened immediately and you looked away from him very obviously. “i have not.”

“yn.”

“…maybe a little.”

“bro,,” she sighed dramatically. “you are actually gone.”

gone. yeah. that sounded about right. because martin stood across the room near the kitchen island, laughing softly at something some girl was saying, and even from this far away, you could tell the smile he was giving her wasn’t just fake politeness—he looked relaxed, and comfortable… and  very pretty. you hated how easy it was for him to ruin your entire mood without even trying.

“you know,” iroha started carefully, “maybe… you should just tell him.”

you laughed quietly, like the idea itself was ridiculous. “and ruin everything?”

“you don’t know that.”

“i do.”

because you knew martin. you knew the way he cared about people, the way he stayed, the way he loved quietly and loyally and completely.

but not like you. never like you. becuase you? you had spent years teaching yourself how to survive on crumbs—lingering touches, forehead flicks, soft smiles, him carrying your bag after practice. him remembering your cafe order, him texting you to get home safely even when he was exhausted himself. 

and the horrible thing was that he loved you deeply—just not enough, or maybe not correctly.

you looked away from him first because you always did whenever your feelings became too overwhelming to carry.

“i’m getting another drink,” you muttered.

“you hate alcohol,” iroha snickered.

“exactly. maybe it’ll kill me this time.”

“dramatic ass.”

you wandered toward the hallway mostly to escape your own thoughts, shoulders bumping roughly against strangers while somebody yelled lyrics off-key nearby. your chest already felt tight in that familiarly awful way—and then you saw him. martin stood near the hallway wall with that same girl from earlier standing close enough to touch him… too close. your footsteps slowed instinctively. the girl smiled up at him and said something you couldn’t hear over the music, but it couldn’t have possibly been romantic enough for him to turn red. for a second, he looked like his body was there but his mind wasn’t.

and then his eyes lifted straight toward you. your breath caught. for one horrible second, neither of you moved—you saw it then; something sharp and conflicted flickering across his face so quickly you almost missed it.

and then? then, he kissed her. your entire world went silent. 

well, not literally because the annoying music still blasted through the walls. people still laughed somewhere nearby, somebody dropped a bottle in the kitchen and shouted loudly afterwards, but none of it reached you anymore.

because martin was kissing another girl.

martin.

your martin.

the boy who carried pretty bandages for you in elementary school.

the boy who waited through every track practice.

the boy who knew exactly how you took your favourite drink and what songs you listened to when you were sad and what flowers you really liked.

the boy you’d loved so long that your feelings for him no longer felt separate from yourself.

the boy you loved more than you loved yourself.

he kissed her like he was trying to force himself to mean it… and maybe that hurt even worse.

you felt so sad. and mad. at everybody and everything. at yourself. but not at him. never at him. fuck.

your throat burned violently, and you turned around before he could see your face—before he could see what he’d done to you and your heart that was too big for your chest; before you started crying right there in the middle of some stupid stupid party surrounded by people who would never understand why this hurt like grief more than rejection.

you shoved past bodies too quickly on your way outside, ignoring confused complaints while tears blurred your vision embarrassingly fast. 

cold night air blew against your face the second you stepped outside, but it didn’t help. nothing helped. because all you could think was—of course. of course he didn’t love you like that. how stupid had you been to hope or believe otherwise?

meanwhile, martin pulled away almost immediately, his brows furrowing as something twisted uncomfortably in his chest. it didn’t feel right—it didn’t feel like anything.

“‘m sorry,” he said quickly, stepping back. “i—i shouldn’t have—”

he stopped. his gaze shifted across the room, instinctively searching for you, but you weren’t there. his stomach dropped, panic rose sharply and suddenly. he didn’t hesitate; he left.

“yn!” martin’s voice echoed behind you. you almost kept walking. 

he caught up quickly, turning you around by your wrist gently—so gentle, that you could’ve broken away if you wanted to. but of course, even in such moments, you were quite selfish. because all you wanted was to feel him close to you, no matter what. so you didn’t pull away.

“wait, please,” he said breathlessly. 

you looked at your shoes, the road—anything that wasn’t his face. “what?”

the moment he looked at you, his expression shifted completely. your eyes were red-rimmed, watery and destroyed. he loosened his grip without his own knowledge.

“shit.”

you laughed weakly, because at least one of you understood what had happened. 

“yn… i can explain,” he started. 

“don’t.”

“please.”

“why?” your voice cracked embarrassingly, but you went on anyway. “so you can tell me it didn’t mean anything? because honestly, martin? that would be a hell of a lot worse.” he stood silently in front of you. and somehow, even his silence hurt. “you can kiss whoever you want, man.”

“that’s not the point,” his jaw tightened. 

“then what is?”

his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “fuck, yn.” you watched his face carefully as frustration flickered across it, like he was fighting himself internally and… losing. 

because to him? the truth sat right there. he loved you. he loved you so much, it terrified him. but he thought it was wrong, somehow, dangerous and too important to ruin.

so instead, he tried constantly to kill his feelings by trying to replace you with other girls—girls who were easier to want. girls who weren’t you. but it never worked. 

you didn’t know any of that, though. 

all you knew was heartbreak.

“…you’re my best friend,” he said finally, voice quieter now, choosing his words carefully. “i don’t want this to become weird between us.”

there it was—‘best friend’. the two words hit you so hard it physically hurt. 

you smiled after a second, but it felt crooked and miserable and completely wrong. “right.”

he frowned instantly. “why do you keep saying it like that?”

“like what?”

“like it’s hurting you.”

because you were hurting. you always will. because you love him so so much, you didn’t know what to do with all that love anymore. 

instead of saying any of that, you just shook your head. 

“forget it,” you whispered tiredly.

he looked at you helplessly for a long moment, like he wanted to say something else… something important. but he didn’t. and maybe that was what finally broke your heart properly.

that night, you cried in the shower as quietly as possible, which felt humiliating, because girls in movies cried beautifully over heartbreak—mascara streaks, trembling lips, soft music playing in the background. but real heartbreak was uglier: sitting on your bathroom floor afterward wrapped in a towel staring blankly at nothing while everything physically ached; realising that loving him had quietly become the center of your entire life without you noticing; understanding suddenly that one day he really would fall in love with somebody else.

and it wouldn’t be you.

the next morning, you pretended so hard it almost worked. you arrived at school earlier than usual, mostly because you hadn’t slept enough to risk falling back asleep again. your head hurt, your chest hurt, and worst of all, your eyes still burned from crying in your bathroom at two in the morning while trying not to make any noise.

the classroom was quieter in the mornings. sunlight stretched lazily across empty desks, and the whiteboard still had half-erased notes from yesterday written across it. somebody had left a jacket hanging off the back of a chair.

martin was already there. he sat slouched in his chair with one earbud in. his notebook was open in front of him, untouched. he looked up the second you walked in, and his face fell immediately.

he looked awful; his hair was messy like he’d been dragging his hands through it repeatedly all night, and there were dark circles under his eyes that definitely weren’t there yesterday. his hoodie sleeves were pulled over his hands slightly, and he kept tapping his fingers anxiously against the desk like he didn’t know what to do with himself. you hated that part of you still noticed things like that; still loved him enough to notice.

“good morning,” you greeted casually while sliding into your seat beside him. your voice sounded almost normal.

he stared at you for a second too long before answering quietly. “…morning.”

you busied yourself immediately, pulling your books from your bag and flattening loose worksheets against the desk so your hands would stop trembling. your pencil case slipped from your fingers slightly, which martin noticed.

“why do you look like roadkill?” you asked lightly, refusing to look at him.

his brows furrowed. “why are you acting normal?”

you shrugged, keeping your eyes focused on your notebook. “because i am normal.”

“yn.”

“martin.”

the silence stretched. you could feel him staring at you properly now—not casually, but carefully, guiltily, and worried, like he knew you were lying and hated that you felt the need to. you kept your face neutral anyway, because if you looked at him for too long, you genuinely thought you might start crying right there.

finally, he leaned back in his chair with a quiet sigh, rubbing a tired hand down his face. “skip practice today.”

you blinked slowly, processing, and finally looked at him. “what?”

“i’m taking you somewhere after school.”

“does this plan end with me getting kidnapped and my organs harvested by the end of the night?”

“just trust me.” your chest twisted painfully at that: ‘trust me’. like you hadn’t been doing exactly that your entire life.

you looked away first. “…fine,” you muttered.

his shoulders loosened slightly after that, like he’d been terrified you would say no, and somehow, that hurt too.

you smiled too easily that evening. 

the aquarium glowed blue around you both. soft light reflected across the glass tunnels overhead while pretty fish drifted lazily through the water above your heads. children pressed their hands excitedly against the tanks nearby while couples wandered slowly through exhibits shoulder-to-shoulder, speaking quietly underneath the dim lights.

everything felt strangely underwater—muted and far away.

you walked beside martin silently, your hands shoved into the sleeves of your hoodie while cold blue lights flickered across his face every few seconds.

it should’ve hurt more than it already did. instead, standing beside him just felt painfully familiar, like muscle memory. like home.

you stopped near one of the jellyfish tanks automatically, eyes following the soft floating movements inside the water. the lighting painted everything blue and silver. “…you remembered,” you said quietly.

martin looked at you immediately. “of course i remembered.”

your chest hurt instantly, because of course he did. martin remembered everything about you, which was part of the problem. he remembered your favorite places, your favorite snacks, the exact tone your voice got when you were close to tears, which hoodie was yours even when it got mixed into his laundry somehow, how you hated pulp in orange juice and how you got headaches after practice if you didn’t drink enough water. he remembered everything except the fact that you were in love with him.

“you cried right here—literally in this spot—when we were ten because a stingrey ignored you,” he added after a moment, smiling faintly.

you scoffed immediately. “it was being rude. on purpose.”

“yeah,” he nodded solemnly. “the stingrey definitely had personal beef. with you, specifically.”

“thank you for understanding me during this difficult time.”

he laughed softly under his breath. and god, you hated that you still loved hearing him laugh. even now; even after last night. the sound still settled somewhere deep inside your chest like it belonged there.

you continued walking after that. martin stayed close beside you naturally, accidentally bumping his shoulder lightly against yours whenever somebody passed too close. like always—like nothing had changed, which almost made it worse.

eventually, you both settled near one of the larger fish tanks with shared cookies ‘n cream pocky packets and redbulls sitting untouched between you. differently sized manta rays drifted overhead slowly, their shadows passing across your faces every few seconds.

the silence between you wasn’t awkward… just heavy.

martin picked at the edge of the pocky box absentmindedly before finally speaking. “…about yesterday.”

your stomach dropped immediately. you stared down at your hands resting in your lap. “you don’t have to explain.”

“i want to.” 

you swallowed hard but stayed quiet.

he rubbed the back of his neck slowly before speaking again. “i didn’t even like her.” that hurt too… because if he didn’t even like her, then why had he kissed her so easily?

“okay,” you answered quietly, not knowing what else you could possibly say.

he exhaled shakily through his nose and leaned forward slightly, elbows resting against his knees. “i thought maybe if i kept trying hard enough, eventually i’d…” he stopped abruptly. your heart nearly stopped with him. ‘eventually i’d stop loving you’, is what you hoped he was going to say, because a tiny part of you still wished he loved you as a woman, not just as a best friend. the possibility of that unfinished sentence hung painfully between you. you looked up sharply, but he was already looking away, jaw tightening like he regretted saying even that much.

“…forget it,” he muttered.

the silence afterward felt unbearable. children laughed somewhere nearby. water swished softly against the glass tanks. an announcement echoed faintly overhead. meanwhile, your entire world felt like it was balancing on the edge of a terrifying cliff.

martin finally looked back at you, and his eyes looked softer… sadder too. “…i’m sorry,” he whispered quietly.

you stared at him for a second before looking away again, blinking too hard, and you realised then that apologies were cruel sometimes, because they implied there had been something to save in the first place.

you didn’t talk about it again after that—not properly, at least.

the conversation dissolved somewhere between shared pocky sticks and tired glances, both of you pretending not to notice the unfinished sentence still lingering heavily between you. martin didn’t push further, and you didn’t ask the question burning through your chest.

eventually, the aquarium lights stopped feeling painfully blue. eventually, you started breathing normally around him again. sort of.

you stood quietly beside one of the smaller touch tanks while children crowded around excitedly, dipping their hands into the shallow water.

“don’t push,” an exhausted employee, with a nice red cap and a name tag that read ‘shin yun-je’, repeated for the tenth time.

martin leaned against the railing beside you, nudging your shoulder lightly. “you wanna touch the starfish or are you scared?”

you gasped in offense. “i’m not scared.”

“you screamed when a fish brushed against your ankle at the beach.”

“it felt slimy!”

“fish live in water, yn. what else did you expect?”

you narrowed your eyes at him before reaching into the tank dramatically. “watch this.”

he watched carefully, with a small smirk on his face, as you confidently dipped your fingers into the water only to flinch immediately when something moved beneath your hand.

“oh my god,” you hissed, jerking back violently.

he burst into laughter so suddenly that nearby kids turned to look at him.

“shut up!” you whisper-yelled, horrified at both the starfish and at the number of people looking at you both.

“you looked genuinely betrayed,” he laughed harder, clutching the railing slightly. “your face—”

“martin.”

“you almost jumped onto a child.”

“martin!”

he kept laughing anyway and the stupid thing was that the sound fixed something inside you a little. just a little. because this was the version of him your heart knew best. him laughing too hard at you, teasing you until you got annoyed,looking at you like spending time with you was the easiest thing in the world. you hated how quickly your anger weakened around him, or maybe you hated that it never stayed properly in the first place.

later, you both ended up sitting outside the aquarium, near the harbor, while the evening sky slowly turned purple above the water. your legs stretched across the bench beside his while he picked absentmindedly at the label on his soda cup, like he learnt to do from your past journalling habits. 

the wind was colder now, and even if you personally didn’t feel too cold, you tugged your sleeves over your hands instinctively.

martin noticed immediately—he always did, so, without saying anything, he shifted slightly closer until your shoulders touched and warmth bloomed in the space between your bodies. you stared quietly at the water ahead of you while a few boats rocked gently near the docks.

“…i was really mad yesterday,” you finally admitted.

he went still beside you. “i know.”

“but mostly sad,” you sighed. he swallowed hard. you glanced down at your hands. “and i hated that i still wanted to go home with you afterward anyway.” the confession slipped out more honestly than intended.

martin looked at you immediately after that—really looked at you. his expression softened in that awful way that always made your heart beat painfully faster. “…yn.”

“don’t,” you interrupted quietly, shaking your head once. “please.” because if he apologised again, you thought your heart might genuinely split open.

he stared at you for another second before nodding slowly. “okay.”

the wind moved softly through his hair, and you leaned your head against his shoulder before you could overthink it. he froze slightly in surprise, then relaxed immediately. his head tilted gently against yours for one quiet second as neither of you spoke.

cars passed somewhere behind you. waves crashed softly against the docks below. the city lights slowly blinked awake one by one around the harbor. everything felt strangely suspended in that moment, like the world was giving you both a few extra minutes before things became complicated again.

now, you think that maybe that was the problem with you and martin. no matter how badly you hurt each other, loving him still felt instinctive afterward—like muscle memory. like returning home after getting lost.

© hyuneskkami ❦

— ᨳଓ . PAIRING. best friend!martin edwards 𝔁 fem!reader 

— ᨳଓ . FEATURING (in order of appearance). leesol (kiikii), wonhee (illit), juhoon (cortis), eunchae (le sserafim), jaehyun (boynextdoor), lee-an (h2h), james (cortis), park jihoon (whc cast), choi hyun-wook (whc cast), hong kyung (whc cast), shin yun-je (the instructor from ‘silence of idol’ <3), yunjin (le sserafim), heeseung (enhypen), jeongin (stray kids), seungmin (stray kids), karina (aespa), kazuha (le sserafim).

— ᨳଓ . GENRES. angst/no comfort | fluff | non-idol au

— ᨳଓ . WARNINGS. all chapters are written ONLY. mild swearing, non-idol au, idols/actors mentioned are aged down/up to suit the fic and timeline as needed, drinking (not underage! dw), sooo much tension, kissing & slightly making out, mentions of cheating (neither martin nor reader, dw)

— ᨳଓ . TAGLIST. perm&series tls open (comment to be added!)

— ᨳଓ . SKYE’S NOTE. the number of times i cried while writing this is crazy 😭 the first few chapters are fluffy asf tho, so enjoy while you can (: ok but fr on a serious note, every word of this series is so so dear to me 😭 i poured my heart and soul into this for no reason whatsaoever for nearly half a year because i was working on an angst fic and then got two similar requests later too 😭 (i’ll show the asks after this series ends to avoid spoilers 🥹) anywayayyy, i hope ygs like it 💞 the third (and last) part will release on……. cortis first anniversary day……. 🚬🚬

— ᨳଓ . MASTERLIST. [ total wc: 54,860 ]

PART 1—on 5th aug.

✦ ݁˖ i. twelve years ago (childhood) 𝄞 slide away — oasis. [1.39k wc]

✦ ݁˖ ii. ten years ago (elementary school) 𝄞 first love / late spring — mitski [1.29k wc]

✦ ݁˖ iii. six years ago (middle school) 𝄞 call your name — sawano hiroyuki [3.43k wc]

✦ ݁˖ iv. two years ago (high school) 𝄞 call out my name — the weeknd [4.94k wc]

PART 2—on 14th aug.

✦ ݁˖ v. one year ago (first year of uni) 𝄞 about you — the 1975 [17.08k wc]

PART 3—on 18th aug.

✦ ݁˖ vi. present day (second year of uni) 𝄞 snooze — sza [14.29k wc]

✦ ݁˖ vii. two years later (last year of uni) 𝄞 the cut that always bleeds — conan gray [10.46k wc]

✦ ݁˖ epilogue. (flashforward) 𝄞 every single song is about you — mars [1.98k wc]

— ᨳଓ . PERM TL. here » comment under this post to be added!

— ᨳଓ . SERIES TL. comment under this post to be added! ☆ @somber-reads @rosieposiediditagain @here4dafics @fluffyuniccornn

general taglist: @slytherinshua, @wiishies

seventeen taglist: @weird-bookworm, @kangtaehyunzzz, @raevyng, @moonkyeom, @zhongzn

if you liked it please reblog it.

there were certain things that people in your school accepted as universal facts. the sky was blue, the bell rang at three fifteen on fridays, and ahn keonho belonged somewhere within arm’s reach of you at all times.

it had been that way for as long as anyone could remember. long before high school hallways, long before senior year lockets and varsity jackets, there had just been the two of you. in kindergarten, keonho was the boy who would sit beside you in the sandbox, patiently building tiny earthen fortresses around your shoes so the incoming tide of running toddlers wouldn’t scuff them. in middle school, he was the boy who sat on your porch until the sun dipped beneath the trees, helping you memorise vocabulary words while tossing pebbles into the garden hedge. and by high school, he was simply keonho—your shadow, your light, your permanent companion.

if he was the sun, golden and radiant and impossible to ignore, then you were the moon. he moved through the crowded hallways with an easy, effortless warmth that drew people into his orbit without him even trying. his laugh was loud, quick to ignite, and bright enough to clear out the gloom of a rainy monday morning. you, on the other hand, were the quiet tide that kept him anchored. you were cool where he was warm, steady where he was impulsive, reflecting his bright energy back into the world in soft, gentle glimmers. he was the day that made everything feel vivid, and you were the night that gave him a place to rest.

and yet, despite how naturally you fit together, nobody in your school could ever make sense of what you actually were.

it was an ongoing debate among your friend groups, a mystery that lived permanently in the margins of high school gossip. were you childhood best friends who were so comfortable with each other that romance seemed redundant? or were you secret lovers who simply didn’t feel the need to broadcast your relationship status to the rest of the world?

no one could ever say for sure. because the things you did with keonho did not align with how normal best friends behaved, but you also never gave anyone a straight answer when they asked.

the physical boundary line between ‘childhood best friends’ and whatever you two were simply didn’t exist to you both. it wasn’t a needy kind of proximity; it was an atmospheric necessity, like gravity. 

if keonho was standing in line at the cafeteria, you were leaning back against his chest, his hands lightly holding your waist so you wouldn’t get bumped by the chaos of the lunch rush. if you were studying in the library, your knees were bumped together under the small wooden table, your feet tangled carelessly beneath the chairs.

if you were sitting together on the bleach-stained benches of the gym during fifth period, keonho would naturally lean over and rest his head right in the crook of your neck, his eyes closing while you absentmindedly ran your fingers through his messy, dark hair. if you were cold during third-period history, he would reach down, pull off his hoodie without a word, and hand it to you before you even had to ask.

take any given tuesday, for instance. you would be sitting on the crowded floor of the choir room during lunch, surrounded by a dozen other seniors arguing about spirit week themes. space was tight, so keonho would simply pull you back between his legs, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and resting his chin comfortably on top of your head while he chimed in with ridiculous suggestions that made you snort and add on to. you would spend forty minutes leaning entirely against his chest, feeling the vibration of his laughter right against your spine, casually holding his wrist and tracing the faint blue veins on the back of his hand while he talked.

or take the nights when you were crammed into the backseat of seonghyeon’s car after getting late-night diner food. exhausted, your eyes burning from a week of late-night studying, keonho would lift you by your waist without a word, settle you directly across his lap, and tuck your head under his chin. he would wrap his denim jacket around your shoulders and hold you tight against him the entire drive home, his fingers gently rubbing your lower back until you fell asleep.

and then there were the nicknames. it started somewhere in middle school, a soft slip of the tongue during a late-night study session over geometry homework that somehow stuck forever. keonho called you ‘sweetheart’. he said it naturally, casually, his deep voice smoothing over the vowels as if it were the most natural word in the world. “sweetheart, move over, you’re taking up the whole blanket.” or “sweetheart, did you drink enough water today or should i check cookie’s nanny cam since you’ve been with him the entire day?”

and you called him ‘love’. it fell off your tongue with the same unthinking ease, spoken softly into the space between you whenever he was being particularly endearing or stubborn. “hold still, love, your collar is crooked.” or “thanks, love, you’re a total lifesaver for helping me figure out that 45 plus 45 makes 90.”

your classmates spent entire semesters analysing your behavior.

“do best friends hold hands while walking across the football field?” ian had asked one afternoon, squinting through the classroom window as she watched keonho weave his fingers through yours while you both walked back from the track. “he literally fed her a piece of sliced apple off his fork yesterday during lunch! and then she wiped a drop of juice off his chin with her thumb! and he didn’t even flinch! he just smiled like a golden retriever who got praised for existing.”

“they’re just close,” seonghyeon had shrugged, though even he sounded entirely perplexed. “i mean, i don’t hold my homies in my lap like a victorian prince mourning his tragic bride, but it’s them. it’s yn and keonho, y’know? they’ve been like that since kindergarten.”

“they’re an enigma,” ian concluded with a heavy sigh. “don’t try to study them, hyeon. it’ll ruin your gpa.”

whenever anyone worked up the courage to ask—whenever a curious classmate leaned across a desk and whispered, “wait, are you guys dating?”—you both would just look at each other, blink, and laugh.

“we’re just yn and keonho, dude,” he would say, flashing that warm, brilliant sun-ray smile of his that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. and you would just nod, offering a quiet smile of your own, leaving the rest of the world to scratch their heads in absolute confusion.

on rainy afternoons, that confusion only amplified inside the privacy of his bedroom.

the sun had long abandoned the room, leaving behind only the soft, ambient purple of twilight filtering through the window blinds. you were sitting on the edge of keonho’s bed, leaning back against the wooden headboard with a heavy textbook resting open in your lap. outside, a steady, rhythmic rain was tapping against the glass, making the warm bedroom feel like a tiny island floating in the middle of a quiet sea.

keonho wasn’t studying. he had given up on his history notes roughly forty-five minutes ago, declaring that his brain had reached maximum capacity and that his only remaining duty for the evening was to serve as your personal heating pad.

he was currently lying sideways across the mattress, his long frame draped over you without a single care for personal space. his head was buried against you, his nose tucked right into the warm crook of your neck. one of his heavy arms was wrapped tight around your waist, while his knee was hooked lazily over your thigh, anchoring you to the bed exactly like an anchor drops into the sea. he was heavy, warm, and entirely unbothered by the fact that he was crushing roughly sixty percent of your ribcage.

“love,” you murmured, holding your head back slightly so you could try to read line forty-two of your psychology chapter. “you’re kinda squishing me.”

he didn’t move a single millimetre. instead, he let out a low, contented hum that vibrated right against your collarbone, his arm tightening around your waist just a fraction more.

“nuh uh,” he mumbled into your skin, his lips brushing against your throat as he spoke, sending a tiny, involuntary shiver down your spine. “i’m currently recharging my battery, and you are my charging port. do not unplug the charger.”

“you’ve been charging for an hour,” you laughed softly, setting your highlighter down on the pillow and letting your hand sink into his thick, wavy hair. your fingers traced gentle, absentminded patterns across his scalp, untangling the soft strands. he let out a soft, breathy sigh, his shoulders relaxing completely under your touch. he shifted just enough to turn his face, pressing his cheek flat against your chest so he could look up at you with heavy, sleepy eyes.

“it’s cold,” he reasoned softly, his voice thick with sleep. “and you’re warm. and you smell like that sweet vanilla soap. why would i lie on the cold floor when i can lie on you?”

“because normal best friends don’t use each other as human furniture,” you pointed out, though your hand never stopped petting his hair.

keonho blinked, a faint, lazy smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “who said we were normal?”

you closed your textbook and slid it onto the nightstand. the moment you moved, keonho shifted, pulling the heavy duvet up over both of your shoulders to create a warm, dark little cocoon beneath the covers. he pulled you down until you were lying flat on your back beside him, his legs entangling tightly with yours under the blanket. one of his hands reached up, his long fingers finding yours in the dark and threading together, resting your joined hands over his heart.

he lowered his head until his forehead rested against yours in the dim light filtering through the sheets.

“yn?” he whispered, his voice dropping into that quiet, reverent tone that always made the rest of the world fall away.

“yeah?”

“ian asked me something today,” he murmured, his thumb absentmindedly stroking the back of your hand. “she asked if we… if we ever got confused. about where the friendship ends.”

you felt a soft flutter in the pit of your stomach, cool and sweet like butterfly wings. “what did you say?”

“i told her there’s nothing to be confused about,” he breathed, his lips hovering mere millimeters from yours. “because there was never a line to cross in the first place. i’ve just… always been yours.”

he moved his head just an inch, pressing his soft lips gently to the corner of your mouth—a slow, lingering press that felt like coming home after a long journey in the cold.

“do best friends do this?” he whispered softly, a little dimple appearing in his cheek as a tender, teasing smile broke across his face.

you let out a soft, breathless laugh, reaching up to wrap both of your arms around his neck, pulling him down against you. “no idea,” you whispered into his ear, pressing a soft kiss to his temple.

that lingering heat carried straight into the weekend.

the party happened on a crisp friday night in late autumn. it was hosted by one of the senior athletes at a sprawling house at the end of a quiet suburban cul-de-sac. the front yard was already lined with parked cars by the time keonho and you walked up the driveway. the cool night air was sharp and fresh, smelling faintly of fallen oak leaves and woodsmoke, but inside the house, the atmosphere was thick with loud music, thumping bass, flashing strobe lights, and the hum of dozens of teenager voices overlapping all at once.

as was customary, you two arrived together—you always did. keonho had picked you up from your house earlier that evening, waiting patiently in your living room while you grabbed your jacket, chatting with your parents like he was already part of the family (which he technically was). when you came downstairs, his eyes had brightened instantly—that sudden, golden flare of light that always hit his gaze whenever you entered a room.

“ready?” he had asked softly, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear before offering you his hand.

“mhm,” you had hummed, sliding your fingers into his warm palm.

now, inside the crowded living room, the two of you moved through the sea of people like a well-rehearsed dance. you were great at mixing up friend groups. keonho was friends with everyone—the athletes, the theatre kids, the debate team, the kids who sat in the back of art class—and you were the quiet thread that seamlessly connected him to every conversation.

for the first hour, you drifted between circles together. keonho would sling a heavy, warm arm over your shoulders, pulling you against his side while he laughed at a joke someone made about the upcoming basketball season. you would rest your palm against his lower back, feeling the steady heat radiating through his soft shirt, chiming in with a witty remark whenever the conversation lulled.

people watched the two of you with the usual bewildered curiosity. you would lean up to whisper something in his ear over the blaring pop music, and keonho would bend down instantly before you could speak more than two words, his ear pressed close to your lips, a soft, indulgent smile spreading across his face. when you pulled back, he would brush his thumb over your cheekbone, completely unfazed by the fact that three different people in the circle were staring at him with wide, questioning eyes.

“are you two going to get drinks or what?” someone shouted over the music, pointing toward the kitchen where red plastic cups were being stacked into messy pyramids.

“not yet!” keonho called back, his voice smooth and bright. “we’re taking our time tonight.”

neither of you had ever drank alcohol before. it wasn’t out of some strict moral stance; it was just something you hadn’t gotten around to trying yet. high school parties were fun for the music and the socialising, but you both had always preferred staying clear-headed enough to remember every second of your time together.

around eleven o’clock, the party reached its loud, chaotic peak. the living room was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, the bass from the speakers vibrating right through the hardwood floor and up through the soles of your shoes.

keonho leaned down toward you, his warm breath fanning across your temple. “hey,” he murmured, his voice dipping low, meant only for you. “it’s getting pretty loud in here. want to get some air, sweetheart?”

you looked up into his dark, bright eyes. the house was suffocating, but he looked like a breath of fresh spring air. “i’d love to.”

he took your hand, his long fingers instantly interlacing with yours, and gently navigated a path through the crowded kitchen, slipping out through the heavy glass sliding doors that led into the back garden.

the moment the glass door closed behind you, the chaotic noise of the party muffled into a soft, distant hum. the garden was quiet, illuminated only by the faint glow of fairy lights strung along the wooden fence and the cool, silvery light of the full moon hanging high in the clear midnight sky. the air was crisp, sending a tiny shiver down your spine as the cool breeze hit your cheeks.

keonho noticed immediately. before you could even register the chill, he had pulled you toward the wooden bench tucked away in the quietest corner of the yard, under the sprawling branches of an old maple tree. he sat down and immediately drew you into his lap, wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you close against his chest, burying his face into the side of your neck to shield you from the wind.

you let out a soft, breathy laugh, relaxing into his warmth. it was so familiar, so effortless. you rested your head against his shoulder, looking up at the bright moon overhead.

“you’re warm,” you whispered softly, leaning your cheek against the soft cotton of his jacket.

“i’m always warm when i’m with you,” he murmured into your skin. his voice was low, smooth, and gentle, stripped of the playful boisterousness he wore indoors. out here under the night sky, he was entirely yours.

for a long moment, neither of you spoke. out here, under the pale glow of the moon, time seemed to slow down until it was just the two of you, sitting on a wooden bench in the quiet chill of autumn.

he stirred slightly, his arms tightening around your waist. he shifted so he could look down into your face. the silvery moonlight caught the deep dark tones of his eyes, making them shine with a soft, golden radiance that felt brighter than any sun.

“yn?” he called your name softly. not sweetheart. just your name, weighted with a sudden, beautiful reverence that made your heart skip a beat.

“yeah, keon?” you answered, your voice barely above a whisper.

he looked at you for a long time, his gaze trailing over your eyes, the bridge of your nose, the soft curve of your lips. his thumb reached up, gently stroking your jawline with a touch so light it felt like a feather drifting on the wind.

“everybody keeps asking me questions,” keonho said quietly, a soft, fond smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “seonghyeon asked me earlier if i was planning on taking you to prom as a date or as a friend. even the guys on the team were nudging me, asking when i was finally going to ask you out.”

you tilted your head slightly, feeling the warm pulse of his thumb resting against your skin. “what did you tell them?”

“i told them the truth,” keonho murmured, leaning closer until his forehead rested gently against yours. the warmth of his breath brushed against your lips. “i told them that there isn’t a word in the dictionary that fits what we are. because ‘dating’ sounds like something that has a beginning and an end. and you… sweetheart, you’ve been my whole life for as long as i’ve been alive.”

your chest tightened with a sweet aching. you reached up, your fingers tangling into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him just a millimeter closer. “keonho…”

“i’m serious, yn,” he whispered, his eyes fluttering shut for a second as he felt your touch. when he opened them again, they were swimming with so much affection it made your breath catch in your throat. “i love you. i’ve loved you when we were seven and playing in the dirt. i loved you when we were fourteen and terrified of high school. and i love you right now, sober as a judge, under this somehow bright moon.” he chuckled softly, a quiet, rumbling sound in his chest. “you’re the moon, you know that? everyone thinks i’m the bright one because i talk too much and make a scene, but you’re the light that keeps me from getting lost in the dark. i don’t want to live in a world where i’m not orbiting around you.”

a soft, breathless giggle escaped your lips, a tear of pure, overwhelming happiness brimming at the corner of your eye before you brushed it away. “you’re such a dork, ahn keonho.”

“i’m your dork,” he corrected softly, his smile blooming wide and radiant, like the sun breaking through the clouds. “so... can i kiss you now? properly? not just on the corner of your mouth, and not because of a label, but just because i can’t spend another second sitting this close to you without doing it?”

when he finally pulled back just an inch, his forehead resting against yours again, both of your breaths were shallow and uneven. he was grinning so hard his cheeks were dimpled, his eyes sparkling with absolute delight.

“wow,” he breathed, his thumb smoothing over your lower lip. “best friends definitely don’t do that.”

you laughed softly, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing a quick, sweet kiss to the tip of his nose. “definitely not.”

he let out a low chuckling sound, shifting slightly as if to lean back and take you in—putting a few teasing inches of distance between your faces. but the sudden loss of his warmth was entirely unacceptable to you. before he could fully retreat, you leaned right back in, chasing his lips with a desperate kind of impatience that made him gasp in surprise.

his chest rumbled with a bright, melodic laugh as he ducked his head back just an inch further. “wait, wait—are you, like, addicted to me already? because i’m pretty sure there’s a strict rule about best friends—”

“shut up and just kiss me, you fucker,” you cut him off, your voice a breathless command.

you grabbed the collar of his jacket, pulling him down and closing every last bit of space left between you. the sudden force brought him flush against you, and his laughter instantly melted into a soft sigh against your mouth. this time, as your arms wrapped tight around his neck, he gave in completely—his arms wrapping firm around your waist, pulling you so close there wasn’t an inch of air left between you.

for a long time, you just stayed there on the bench, exchanging soft, silly little kisses between bursts of laughter. every time keonho looked at you, he seemed to find a new reason to smile, leaning in to press his lips against your cheek, your jaw, your forehead, making you squeal and hide your face in his jacket while he snickered warmly.

“okay, okay,” you gasped softly, pressing your palms against his chest to push him back a fraction, though you didn’t really want him to leave. “my heart is physically going to burst if you keep being this cute.”

“i can’t help it,” he grinned, kissing the back of your hand. “i’ve been holding that back for like… twelve years minimum. i have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

“we have all the time in the world,” you reminded him softly.

he beamed, his chest expanding with a deep, happy breath. then, he blinked, looking back toward the glass sliding doors of the house where light and sound were still spilling out into the yard.

“hey,” keonho said, an adventurous glint suddenly lighting up his eyes. “you know what we’ve never done?”

“what?”

“gotten drunk.” he pointed toward the house. “everyone in there is taking shots and drinking weird coloured liquid out of red cups. we’re seventeen—which is basically almost eighteen—we just had the greatest moment of our entire lives on a garden bench, and we are ninety-nine percent clear-headed to make this decision. don’t you think it's time we try alcohol for the first time ever? together?”

you stared at him, eyebrows raising in amusement. “are you serious, love?”

“one hundred percent serious,” he said, hopping up from the bench and extending a hand to pull you up into his arms. “come on! let’s go be chaotic. if we’re going to try drinking, i only wanna do it with you.”

you looked at his eager, golden face, completely incapable of saying no to him, and also wanting to try it out anyway. “fine. but if we throw up, you’re cleaning all that shit up.”

“deal!” he laughed, grabbing your hand and pulling you back toward the house.

what followed over the next two hours was a masterclass in chaotic, legendary foolishness. neither of you had any idea how tolerance worked, what drinks tasted like, or how to mix anything properly. you approached the kitchen counter like two mad scientists entering a lab with zero safety training.

“okay, what’s this… yellow stuff?” keonho asked, picking up a half-empty bottle with an illegible label while squinting at it like it was an ancient artifact.

“i think that’s lemon vodka,” ian said, walking into the kitchen and pausing when she saw the two of you standing side-by-side near the punch bowl. she squinted at you both suspiciously. “wait... why are you two looking at each other like that? why is keonho glowing more than usual? did something happen?”

“nothing!” keonho said a little too quickly, his face flushing bright pink as he immediately poured a generous splash of the yellow liquid into a red cup. “we’re simply exploring the culinary arts of adult beverages!”

“you guys are weird,” ian muttered, grabbing a soda and walking away.

keonho turned to you, holding up the red cup with grand ceremony. “to our first drink.”

“to our first drink,” you agreed, taking a tiny sip from the cup while he took a huge gulp.

the reaction was instantaneous.

keonho’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. his throat convulsed, his face turned bright red, and he immediately bent double, coughing violently while clapping a hand over his mouth. “oh god—” he coughed. “—that tastes like hand sanitizer mixed with battery acid! why do people drink this for fun, what the fuck?!”

you weren't faring much better. the sharp, burning sensation recoiled down your throat, making you pull a face so horrific that keonho stopped coughing just to point at you and burst into hysterical laughter.

“your face!” he wheezed, leaning against the kitchen counter for support, tears of laughter prickling his eyes. “yn, you look like you just bit into a raw lemon that was soaked in kerosene—”

“dude, this is awful!” you squeaked, fanning your mouth frantically with your hand. “why is it burning?! is it supposed to burn?! this is so disgusting!”

“i don’t know!” he giggled, grabbing a carton of orange juice from the fridge and frantically pouring it into the cup to dilute the taste. “here, let’s fix it. to science!”

he stirred the concoction with a plastic spoon, added a splash of cranberry juice, a drop of sprite, and—for reasons known only to him—a sprinkle of crushed potato chips that happened to be sitting on a plate nearby.

“keonho, no!” you shrieked, laughing so hard your belly hurt as he proudly held up the light-red, slightly floaty liquid. “you cannot put potato chips in alcohol!—”

“it adds salt,” he defended passionately, taking a tiny taste test. his face contorted into absolute horror again before he began giggling hysterically. “okay, nope! that made it worse. it tastes like soggy sea water.”

within forty-five minutes, the alcohol you had managed to force down after the stupid lemon vodka—combined with the pure, unadulterated high of your earlier confession—had both of you completely, utterly giggly and lightheaded.

you weren’t dangerously drunk, but you were definitely tipsy for the first time in your lives, and the results were pure comedy. keonho became profoundly emotional about inanimate objects.

at twelve thirty, you found him standing in the hallway, staring intensely at a medium-sized potted cactus plant sitting in the corner near the stairs. he had his hands on his hips, his head tilted at a dramatic angle, looking down at the leaves with immense concern.

“love, what are you doing?” you asked, stumbling slightly as you walked over and rested your head against his arm, your fingers looping through his belt loop for balance.

“yn,” keonho whispered gravely, leaning down to whisper in your ear like he was revealing a top-secret state security matter. “this plant… it’s being excluded from the party.”

you blinked up at the cactus. “it’s a plant, keon.”

“it has feelings, yn!” he insisted, his eyes wide and terribly earnest. “look at it! everyone is in the living room dancing, and this little guy is just sitting here in the dark corridor! it’s heartbreaking!”

before you could stop him, keonho picked up the heavy ceramic pot, cradling it in his arms like a newborn baby, and solemnly marched into the crowded living room.

“everyone!” keonho announced loudly over the music, holding the cactus plant high above his head like rafiki presenting simba on pride rock. “i would like you to meet our new best friend, injang! treat him with respect!”

the entire room broke out into cheers and laughter. someone handed keonho a pair of sunglasses, which he promptly put onto the plant’s branches, while you sat on the arm of the sofa, wheezing with laughter until you literally slid off onto the carpet.

“he’s out of his mind,” seonghyeon said, shaking his head as he watched keonho carefully place ‘injang’ on a side table and start teaching the plant how to do the robot dance. “what did you guys give him?”

“orange juice and battery acid,” you wheezed from the floor, clutching your stomach. “and potato chips!”

“yn, get up off the floor,” seonghyeon laughed, reaching down to pull you up, but before he could touch your hand, keonho suddenly materialised out of nowhere, swooping in with the speed of a protective mother hen.

“hands off my moon!” keonho declared dramatically, wrapping both arms around your waist from behind and pulling you flush against his chest, dropping his chin onto the top of your head. “she’s delicate! she’s lunar! you can’t just pick up lunar bodies, seonghyeon, let alone my favourite one!”

seonghyeon stared at keonho, then stared at you as you were currently giggling uncontrollably while pressing a messy, sweet kiss against keonho’s jawline.

“okay,” seonghyeon said slowly, raising his hands in defeat. “i’m officially not asking any more questions. you two are on an entirely different planet tonight. and no alcohol for you both till we teach you how tolerance works.”

“we’re on the moon!” keonho corrected loudly, tightening his hold on you and nuzzling his nose into your neck, making you squeal with laughter. “and i’m the sun! we have an eclipse going on right now! please respect our astronomical privacy!”

by two in the morning, the party was winding down, and the peak of your tipsy adventure had faded into a soft, cozy exhaustion.

keonho and you were sitting side-by-side on the bottom step of the front porch, wrapped in a giant plaid blanket that you had somehow acquired from inside the house. the cool night air washed over your warm cheeks, helping clear the remaining haze from your minds.

keonho had his arm wrapped tightly around your shoulders, pulling you close against his side. your head was resting contentedly on his chest, listening to the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart beneath his shirt. his free hand was holding yours, his thumb absently tracing small, soothing circles over the back of your knuckles.

“my head feels like a bouncy ball,” keonho admitted softly, letting out a breathy, quiet laugh that ruffled your hair. “drinking is strange, sweetheart. i don’t think i like the taste, but i definitely like sitting here with you while the world spins a little bit.”

“me too,” you murmured, closing your eyes and pressing a gentle kiss against his collarbone through his shirt. “though i think we should stick to fruit punch next time. minus the chips.”

“agreed,” he giggled softly. “the chips were a mistake. a delicious, terrible mistake.”

the front door opened behind you, and ian stepped out, wrapped in her winter coat as she waited for her ride. she looked down at the two of you huddled together under the blanket, looking for all the world like two sleepy kittens curled up in a basket.

she sighed, a fond, helpless smile touching her lips. “so… are you guys going to finally tell us what’s going on with you two, or are we going to have to guess forever?”

keonho looked up at her, his golden eyes soft and completely untroubled. he looked down at you, his thumb gently caressing your hand, and then looked back up at ian.

“what do you mean?” he asked innocently.

“i mean!” ian threw her hands up in amusement. “you spend your lives tangled together, lying on top of each other, holding hands, kissing her cheek, calling her ‘sweetheart’, making speeches about her being the moon, and tackling seonghyeon because he tried to help her off the floor! are you guys dating now or what?”

you tilted your head up to look at keonho. he looked down at you, and in his eyes, you saw everything. you saw years of shared laughter, late-night phone calls, shared umbrellas in pouring rain, cozy rainy days tangled under duvet covers, secret smiles across crowded classrooms, and the gentle, sweet weight of his lips against yours under the maple tree. you saw the past, the present, and every unwritten day of the future stretched out like a starry sky.

‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ were nice words. they were neat, tidy boxes that people used to organise their feelings so everyone else could understand them. but what keonho and you had didn’t fit into a box. it was too big, too deep, too bright. it was the sun and the moon—two celestial bodies bound by gravity, moving together through the void, belonging to each other simply because that was how the universe was made.

keonho smiled—a soft, quiet, radiant expression that belonged only to you.

“we’re just yn and keonho,” he said gently, repeating the same line he had spoken a hundred times before. but this time, when he said it, he leaned down and pressed a soft, lingering kiss right to the corner of your lips, his fingers tightening in yours.

ian stared at the two of you for a long moment, blinked twice, and then let out a long, wheezing laugh. “you guys are unbelievable. totally hopeless.”

“goodnight, ian!” keonho called out cheerfully as her ride pulled up into the driveway.

“goodnight, you weirdos! get home safe!” she called back, waving as she ran down the steps.

when the front yard finally emptied out and the night returned to its quiet, still rhythm, keonho and you slowly stood up from the porch step, keeping the plaid blanket wrapped around both of your shoulders like a shared cloak.

the walk back to your house was slow and peaceful. the streets were empty, illuminated by the pale yellow glow of streetlights casting long, intertwined shadows ahead of you on the pavement.

you walked close together, your hip bumping against his with every step, your hands locked tightly inside the warm pocket of his jacket.

“yn?” keonho murmured softly into the quiet night air as your house came into view at the end of the street.

“yeah, love?”

“do you think people will ever stop asking about us?”

you smiled, leaning your cheek against his shoulder as you walked. “probably not. they like labels, keon. they like knowing where things start and where things end.”

keonho stopped walking under the soft light of the streetlight right in front of your driveway. he turned to face you, stepping close so that there was no space left between you at all. he reached up, gently taking your face in his warm hands, his thumb brushing softly over your cheekbone.

“well… then let them ask,” keonho whispered, his voice full of that quiet, unconditional warmth that had been your home for as long as you could remember. “we don’t need a label. we just need each other.”

“always,” you whispered back.

he leaned down and kissed you again—a long, sweet, lingering kiss under the yellow light of the streetlamp, tasting faintly of sweet orange juice and the crisp autumn night. it was quiet, gentle, and utterly perfect.

no words could ever encompass what you meant to each other. no title could ever hold the weight of how deeply you belonged to him, or how completely he belonged to you.

you were the sun and the moon. day and night. best friends, lovers, and everything in between, living in a world built for two.

and as you stood there in the quiet stillness of the late-night street, wrapped in his arms under the glowing sky, you knew that no matter what tomorrow brought, you would always be right here—exactly where you belonged.

© hyuneskkami ❦

it was exactly 9:14 AM on july 30th and you were currently vibrating at a frequency that could probably shatter glass.

you were dragging keonho by his wrist down the sidewalk, your grip so tight he was probably losing circulation, but honestly? this was a matter of life and death. spiderman: brand new day was premiering at exactly 10:00 AM—the very first showing. the absolute first day, first show. if you didn’t get there before the trailers started, you were going to combust into a cloud of pure, unadulterated spoilers. you had blocked every single variation of the word ‘spider’ on tumblr, instagram, twitter, tiktok, and even linkedin just in case some rogue recruiter decided to post a movie leak under the guise of a ‘motivational career lesson.’

“yn, please,” keonho wheezed, his long legs trying to keep up with your olympic-level speed-walking. “the theatre is literally three blocks away. we have forty-six minutes. why are we running like the green goblin is actively throwing pumpkin bombs at our heels?”

“because, keonho!” you gasped, not slowing down for even a second, your hair flying wildly behind you. “you don’t understand the significance of this. if i see even one frame of this movie on a random tiktok post before my eyes witness it on the big screen, i will physically perish. and more importantly, you need to be fully prepared. i’m not having you ask me who someone is mid-movie. this is a sacred space.”

keonho let out a soft, incredibly fond sigh, letting himself be dragged along. he was wearing an oversized grey hoodie that practically swallowed him, his soft black hair slightly messy from the morning breeze. he looked so soft and harmless, just a regular, slightly sleepy college-aged boyfriend who had been bribed out of bed with the promise of a large cherry tango slushie and a giant tub of sweet popcorn.

“okay, okay,” he chuckled, his voice still carrying that low, gravelly morning tone that usually made your brain short-circuit—but today, the spider-hyperfixation was far too strong to be defeated by pretty boy charms. “i’m listening. educate me, professor yn.”

“thank you,” you said solemnly, adjusting the strap of your bag. “now, listen closely. you need to understand the fundamental tragedy of the peter parker ethos. it’s all about the sliding doors of the multiverse. in the previous trilogy, which you insisted on sleeping through during our movie night—”

“i didn’t sleep through it, i was just resting my eyes during the parts where they weren’t swinging—”

“you slept for two hours, keonho! you snored during the green goblin’s monologue!” you accused, pointing an accusatory finger at him without breaking your stride. “anyway. the point is, this new movie, brand new day, is supposed to soft-reboot the timeline after the memory wipe spell. peter is completely alone. nobody remembers him. not mj, not ned, not even the local deli owner who makes his sandwiches. he’s living in a tiny, depressing apartment, sewing his own suit with a sewing machine that probably runs on hopes and dreams, and he has nothing. but he still goes out every night to save people because of the responsibility, keonho! ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ isn’t just a cool quote, it’s a curse! it’s a lifestyle!”

keonho’s eyes softened in a weirdly specific way as you said that. he looked down at the pavement, a tiny, almost melancholic smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “yeah,” he murmured, so quietly you almost didn’t hear him over the sound of a passing bus. “it really is.”

“exactly!” you cheered, completely missing his oddly profound tone. “so, in this movie, there are rumors that because of the residual multiversal energy from the last movie, his universe might be bleeding into other ones again. which means we might get cameos. we might get the other spiders! we might get some crazy comic-book lore like the spider-society or the web of life and destiny! i hope hobie’s there, even though it’s unlikely… well, i guess we’ll have to wait for 2027’s beyond the spider-verse till i can see hobie again—keonho, are you following me? do you understand the gravity of the situation?”

“i’m following, sweetheart,” keonho smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. he reached out and gently took your hand, slowing your frantic pace down just a tiny fraction so you wouldn’t trip over a cracked piece of concrete. “so, basically, guy gets bitten by a radioactive bug, loses his uncle, gets cool powers, loses his girlfriend, gets forgotten by the entire universe, and still decides to put on skin-tight spandex to fight crime instead of going to therapy.”

“i mean… when you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous, but yes. that’s the emotional core of the character,” you said, pulling him into the theatre lobby.

the cool blast of air conditioning hit your face, immediately followed by the glorious, life-giving scent of artificial butter and popping corn. the lobby was relatively empty since it was a thursday morning, but there were still a few dedicated nerds wearing spiderman graphic tees and hoodies. you instantly felt like you were among your people.

“stay here,” you commanded, tapping keonho’s chest. “i’m going to get the tickets and the holy grail of snacks. do not talk to anyone. do not look at your phone. do not let anyone spoil anything.”

“yes, captain,” he replied, giving you a mock salute. he leaned his back against a pillar, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pocket, watching you with that same incredibly soft, amused expression as you practically bounced over to the concession stand.

five minutes later, you returned bearing gifts: a tub of popcorn large enough to bathe a newborn infant in, two massive slushies—one blue, and the other red—and a bag of sour patch kids. keonho immediately took the heavy popcorn tub from you, offering a grateful smile.

as you walked down the dimly lit hallway toward screen 4-2, you were still whispering furiously under your breath. “okay, so there’s also the whole thing about his spider-sense. it’s not just a warning system, you know? it’s a physical reaction. his adrenaline spikes, his pupils dilate, the hairs on his arms stand up. it’s like a constant state of hyper-awareness. it must be so exhausting, honestly. imagine never being able to be startled because your brain just knows when a stray pigeon is about to fly into your face three seconds before it happens.”

keonho let out a sudden, choked sort of laugh, coughing slightly into his sleeve. “yeah. yeah, that... that sounds incredibly annoying. especially the pigeon thing. they’re so unpredictable.”

“right? you get it!” you beamed, feeling incredibly proud of your boyfriend’s sudden engagement in the lore.

you found your seats—dead center, row f, the objectively superior viewing angle for any cinema purist. you settled into the plush seats, kicking your legs slightly in pure excitement as the lights began to dim. you leaned over to keonho, whispering fiercely, “this is it, okay? quiet time. no talking unless it’s a mutual gasp of sheer disbelief.”

“got it, sweetheart,” he whispered back, taking a sip of his blue raspberry slushie.

for the next two hours and fifteen minutes, you were completely locked in. you went through a rollercoaster of emotions. you gasped, you clutched keonho’s arm so hard you probably left bruises, you stuffed handfuls of popcorn into your mouth without looking, and you definitely shed a tear or two when peter looked at mj from across the counter of the donut shop and decided not to tell her who he was to keep her safe.

but throughout the entire movie, you noticed something weird. whenever a major plot twist was about to happen—like, seconds before it actually registered on screen—keonho would react.

when a random character turned out to be a disguised villain in a split-second reveal, keonho didn’t even flinch. in fact, he actually sighed right before the reveal happened, like he was tired of the cliché. when spiderman dodged a projectile from a blind spot in a highly complex, visually stunning action sequence, keonho’s eyes didn’t widen in surprise; they just tracked the exact trajectory of the dodge perfectly, as if he knew exactly where the character was going to land.

and most bizarre of all: during a scene where spiderman was trying to web-swing through a particularly tight alleyway and clipped his shoulder against a fire escape, keonho literally winced and muttered, “ugh, i told him he needs to tuck his shoulder more on the left turns,” under his breath.

you had blinked, turning to look at him in the dim glow of the screen. “what?” you whispered.

keonho froze, his eyes widening slightly. he quickly stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth, chewing furiously. “nothing. i said... ugh, he should have tucked his shoulder. it looks like it hurt.”

“oh. yeah. totally,” you whispered back, though a tiny, suspicious seed had been planted in your brain.

when the credits finally rolled, you sat there in a state of absolute shock. the lights slowly came back on, illuminating the empty theatre. you were emotionally drained, physically exhausted from the sheer hype, and utterly satisfied.

“that,” you breathed, staring blankly at the screen as the names scrolled by, “was the greatest piece of cinema to ever exist. the cinematography? the soundtrack? the emotional weight of his isolation? 10 out of 10. absolute masterpiece.”

“it was pretty good,” keonho agreed, stretching his long arms over his head. his joints let out a series of alarmingly loud, rapid pops that sounded like bubble wrap being crushed.

you winced at the sound. “jesus, keonho, are you decaying? how do your shoulders even make that noise?”

“just stiff,” he said smoothly, offering you a sweet, innocent smile. “shall we go? my legs are cramping up.”

“yes, but we have to talk about the choreography,” you insisted, grabbing your trash and sliding out of the row. “the way he did that mid-air twist to dodge the glider? that was insane! like, the physics of that shouldn’t even work. you’d have to have, like, zero bone density and pure muscle memory to pull off a 360-degree flip while suspended by a single thread of web. it’s unrealistic, but so cool.”

“actually, the physics does work,” keonho said casually as you both walked out into the bright daylight of the street. the sun was blindingly hot, making you squint. “you just have to use the centrifugal force from the initial swing to propel your lower body upward first. if you try to spin from the waist, you’ll just stall out and face-plant into the brickwork. it’s all about the hip rotation and releasing the web at the exact apex of the arc.”

you stopped dead in your tracks on the sidewalk.

a group of teenagers walked past you, laughing, but you didn’t hear them. your brain was currently trying to process the words that had just come out of your boyfriend’s mouth. you turned your head slowly, like a character in a horror movie, to look at him. keonho had stopped a few paces ahead of you. he had his hands in his pockets, looking back at you with a slightly confused expression.

“what?” he asked, tilting his head.

“how…” you started, your voice barely a whisper. “how do you know that?”

“know what?”

“about the hip rotation,” you said, taking a step closer to him, your eyes narrowing into tiny slits of extreme suspicion. was he secretly… a spiderman nerd? “and the centrifugal force. and the... the face-planting into the brickwork. keonho, you don’t even watch gymnastics. you fell off a standing bike last week.”

“that was a mechanical failure!” he protested quickly, his cheeks flushing pink. “the pedal was loose!”

“keonho,” you said, your voice dropping an octave. “during the movie. when the glider scene happened. you winced before he got hit. and you muttered something about tucking the shoulder on left turns. who is ‘he’? who were you talking about?”

keonho’s expression went completely blank. he looked like a computer that had just been hit with a blue screen of death. his eyes darted to the left, then to the right, then up to the sky, as if looking for an escape route.

“i... i didn’t say that,” he stammered, his voice pitching slightly higher than usual. “you must’ve misheard me. the theatre speakers were really loud. i probably said... ‘he should eat more... cold turnips.’ yeah. nutrition is important.”

“cold turnips?” you repeated, deadpan. “are you serious right now? you expect me to believe you were advocating for root vegetable consumption in the middle of a climax action sequence?”

“turnips are a great source of vitamin c, yn,” he said, nodding solemnly, though a bead of sweat was visibly rolling down his temple.

you took another step closer, backing him up against the brick wall of a closed storefront. you leaned in, staring directly into his dark eyes. “and what about the part where you didn’t even react to the big twist? the one where the guy in the alley turned out to be mysterio’s illusion? you literally yawned, keonho. you yawned!”

“i was tired! we got up early!”

“you didn’t even jump when the jump scare happened!”

“i have strong nerves!”

“keonho…” you whispered, your heart starting to beat at a ridiculous pace. a wild, absolutely insane, completely delusional thought was starting to form in your mind. but... this was the multiverse. you knew the multiverse was real. there had been scientific anomalies reported on the news for the past year—weird spatial distortions, strange sky-glows, that one time a literal giant portal opened over downtown seoul for three minutes before vanishing. the government called it ‘atmospheric pressure events’, but the internet knew the truth. the multiverse was real.

and your boyfriend… your sweet, sleepy, turnip-advocating boyfriend… 

“no way,” you breathed, your eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. “no. fucking. way. there is no shot. there is zero percent chance.”

“yn, you’re looking at me weird,” keonho said, his shoulder muscles tensing up. “you’re doing the ‘i’ve cracked a conspiracy theory’ face… please don’t do the face—”

“are you…” you gulped, lowering your voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “are you... him?”

“who?”

“the guy who web-swings. the guy who wears the weird tight spandex. the guy who tucks his shoulder on left turns.”

keonho stared at you. his lips parted slightly, and he looked incredibly stressed. “sweetheart, that’s a fictional character. we just watched a movie about him. he’s played by an actor and has really good cgi.”

“but the multiverse is real!” you hissed, grabbing his hoodie strings and pulling him down to your eye level. “you know it is! the news reports! the sky portals! and... and your joints! they pop like that because you’re constantly doing acrobatics! and you eat like three pizzas in one sitting and never gain weight! and... and yesterday! yesterday i dropped a mug and you caught it behind your back without even looking! you said it was ‘fast reflexes’ but nobody has reflexes that fast unless they have a sixth sense!”

“i just have good hand-eye coordination—”

“show me your hands,” you demanded.

“what? no—”

“show me your hands, ahn keonho!”

“...i don’t know who ahn keonho is!” he protested, but it was too late. you grabbed his right hand, pulling it out of his pocket.

you turned his palm over. there, right at the base of his wrist, was a tiny, faint, circular scar that looked suspiciously like a healed-over puncture wound. but more importantly, you noticed something else. you pressed your fingers against his palm.

“why is your skin so... grippy?” you whispered, feeling the microscopic ridges on his fingertips that felt almost like sandpaper, but softer. “you’re sticky. keonho, you’re sticky.”

“that’s just syrup from the sour patch kids!” he pleaded, his face now bright red. “i swear! i’m just sticky from the candy!”

“we didn’t even open the sour patch kids yet, dumbass. they’re literally still in my bag.”

silence fell over the sidewalk. keonho stared at you, and you stared back at him. a gentle breeze blew past, rustling the leaves of a nearby tree. slowly, the frantic, panicked expression on keonho’s face began to melt away. it was replaced by a deep, heavy, incredibly defeated sigh. his shoulders slumped. he let his head drop forward, resting his forehead against your shoulder with a quiet groan.

“i hate you,” he mumbled into your neck. “you’re too smart for your own good. i literally tried so hard—i’ve been doing this for two years and you figure it out because of a shoulder-tucking comment.”

your entire body went numb. your soul left your physical form, hovered in the air for a second to process the information, and then slammed back into your chest.

“oh my god—” you screamed.

he immediately clamped a hand over your mouth, his eyes wide with sheer panic. “shh! shh! quiet! do you want the entire neighborhood to know? there are literal government agencies that would love to dissect me, yn!”

you nodded furiously, your eyes watering from excitement behind his hand. he slowly let his hand slip away, looking at you warily.

“you’re spiderman,” you whispered, your voice trembling with pure, unadulterated ecstasy. “my boyfriend is spiderman. the actual spiderman? like, the web-slinger, wall-crawler, the friendly neighborhood hero.”

“yes,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “yeah, i am.”

“do the thing,” you demanded instantly.

“what thing?”

“the web-shooter thing! shoot a web at that trash can!”

“what? no! i’m not shooting webs in broad daylight on a busy street!” he hissed, grabbing your wrists to keep you from flailing. “are you crazy? also, my web-shooters are mechanical, i’m not wearing them right now. they’re in my backpack.”

“you have a backpack? the classic spiderman backpack that you web to the wall of an alleyway?”

“yes, and i’ve lost like twelve of them because sanitation workers keep taking them down,” he grumbled, looking genuinely annoyed. “do you know how expensive graphing calculators are? i’ve had to buy three this semester alone.’

you were practically vibrating out of your shoes. “this is the greatest day of my life. forget the movie. this is better. this is ten thousand times better. wait, so... the movie we just watched? how did you know the plot?”

keonho sighed, gently guiding you to start walking again so you wouldn’t look suspicious standing in the middle of the sidewalk. “because, yn... the guy who wrote that movie? he’s from a universe where my life is apparently a comic book. the multiversal leak from last year didn’t just bring portals, it brought media crossover. some writer in another dimension literally had a dream about my life and wrote a script about it. they changed the name to ‘peter parker’ to protect my identity—which, thank god, because ‘ahn keonho’ is not a very common spiderman name—but the plot is basically exactly what happened to me last year.”

“wait,” you paused, looking at him. “so... you had a memory-wipe spell cast on you?”

“no, we don’t have a wizard in our universe, sweetheart,” he clarified, rolling his eyes. “but i did have to go off the grid because a rogue tech company hacked my personal database. i had to erase my entire digital footprint, fake my own death for three weeks, and live in a horribly damp basement eating instant ramen while trying to clear my name. it was incredibly stressful and i didn’t even get a cool magic circle out of it.”

“oh my god,” you gasped, clutching your chest. “my poor baby. you were so lonely.”

“i was!” he complained, suddenly turning into a giant, pouty toddler. “and i couldn’t even text you! i had to watch you from a distance to make sure you were safe, and you were just... sitting in your room eating dry cereal and crying over an emotional k-pop compilation video. i wanted to swing in through your window so badly.”

“you should have!” you yelled. “i would have shared my cereal!”

“you would have screamed and hit me with a broom, baby, let’s be realistic now,” he pointed out.

“...okay, fair point,” you admitted. “but still! oh my god. you’re spiderman. this explains everything. the weird bruises! the times you ‘fell down the stairs’! the fact that you can do a backflip over our couch without even warming up! the time you saved that stray cat from the roof of the library by ‘climbing a very sturdy drainpipe’!”

“drainpipes are very reliable,” he mumbled, his cheeks burning.

“you’re a terrible liar, keonho. i can’t believe i fell for the drainpipe story.” you grabbed his arm, squeezing his bicep. “wait. if you’re spiderman... that means you’re, like, super strong, right?”

“i mean... yeah. i can lift a city bus if i really try, though it usually gives me a terrible backache the next day.”

“lift me,” you said instantly.

“what?”

“lift me! right now! bridal style! show me the spider-strength!”

“sweetheart, we’re in public—”

“there’s literally nobody on this street right now! lift me or i will tell the deli owner down the street that you’re the one who keeps webbing his awning!”

keonho gasped, looking betrayed. “you wouldn’t.”

“wouldn’t i?”

with a dramatic, long-suffering sigh, he looked around to make sure no one was watching. in a fraction of a second, before you could even blink, his arms slipped under your knees and your back. with absolutely zero effort—like he was picking up a feather—he scooped you up into his arms.

you let out a squeak of delight as you felt completely weightless. his chest felt like solid marble beneath his soft hoodie, and his grip was incredibly secure.

“oh my god,” you whispered, wrapping your arms around his neck. “you’re so strong. this is ridiculous. you’re like a human crane.”

“are you satisfied, your highness?” he asked, a playful, arrogant little smirk finally breaking through his nervous exterior. he bounced you slightly in his arms, making you laugh.

“highly satisfied. but… there is one more thing.”

his smirk instantly vanished. he looked wary again. “what?”

“you know what day it is.”

“thursday?”

“no, stupid. it’s the premiere day of spiderman. and i have a bucket list.” you grinned, a mischievous, chaotic spark lighting up your eyes. “we’re currently three minutes away from the neighborhood playground. the one with the really high monkey bars and the big oak tree.”

keonho stared at you. he slowly put you down, his face pale. “no. absolutely not.”

“yes!” you squealed, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the park. “you have to! it’s a cinematic law! if you’re spiderman and i’m your girlfriend, we need to recreate the upside-down kiss!”

“yn, that’s so dangerous! my blood’ll rush to my head, i’ll get a headache! also, how am i even going to hang upside down without a mask? people will see my face!”

“we’ll do it under the big oak tree! the leaves are super thick, nobody can see inside! and you don’t need a mask, i know what your face looks like! please, keonho! prettiest please ever… i’ll buy you the expensive garlic bread from the bakery! the one with the triple cheese!”

he paused. his eyes wavered. “the triple cheese?”

“with the dipping sauce that you like,” you added, sealing the deal.

he closed his eyes, praying to whatever multiversal deity was listening for strength. “...fine. but if i drop you, or if i get a cramp in my calves, we’re going home immediately.”

“deal!” you practically dragged him into the park. luckily, because it was a hot thursday afternoon, the playground was completely empty. the sun was beating down, but the massive, ancient oak tree in the corner provided a perfect, secluded canopy of deep shade.

you both scrambled under the low-hanging branches. the ground was covered in soft grass and fallen leaves.

“okay,” you said, turning to him with a serious, business-like expression. “how do we do this? do you just... jump up there?”

keonho looked up at the thick branch dangling about ten feet above you. “yeah. i just... jump.”

he took off his backpack, setting it carefully against the trunk of the tree. he reached into the front pocket and pulled out two sleek, metallic wristbands. he clicked them onto his wrists with a satisfying clack-clack.

“oh my god, the web-shooters,” you whispered, staring at them like they were holy relics. “they’re so beautiful. can i touch them?”

“after the kiss,” he smiled, his confidence returning. “stand back a bit.”

you took a few steps back.

he bent his knees slightly. with absolutely no run-up, he simply... sprang upward. it looked like gravity had temporarily forgotten to apply to him. he launched into the air, caught the thick oak branch with his knees, swung his body downward, and suspended himself perfectly upside down, his arms dangling toward the ground.

his hoodie fell over his face for a second, and he quickly blew a breath of air to push it back, revealing his flushed, upside-down face. his messy black hair hung downward, defying gravity in a way that was honestly extremely attractive.

“well?” he said, his voice sounding slightly muffled from the position. “how’s this?”

you stood there, completely starstruck. your boyfriend was literally hanging upside down from a tree like a giant, beautiful, extremely dorky bat.

“you’re so cool,” you whispered, walking over to him.

you stopped right in front of him. because he was hanging from a relatively low branch, his face was perfectly level with yours. you looked into his eyes, which were sparkling with mischief and affection.

“okay,” you said, your heart doing flip-flops. “now, for cinematic accuracy… i have to peel down your mask. but since you don’t have one…”

you reached out, your hands trembling slightly as you gently grabbed the hood of his grey sweatshirt. you pulled it down, exposing his forehead and his messy hair even more.

“close enough,” you whispered.

keonho chuckled, the sound vibration buzzing through the quiet space under the tree. “you’re a nerd, you know that?”

“i’m your nerd,” you corrected. “and you are literally spiderman, so you have no room to talk.”

“fair point,” he murmured.

he reached up with his hands, gently framing your face. his palms were warm, and you could feel that slight, unique, grippy texture of his skin against your cheeks. it didn’t feel weird; it felt incredibly grounding.

he tilted his head slightly to adjust for the upside-down angle.

“with great power,” he whispered, his eyes shifting to your lips, “come great kissing privileges.”

“that is not the line, keonho—” you laughed, but before you could say anything else, he closed the distance.

the kiss was... incredible. it was soft, warm, and slightly dizzying—partly because of the sheer thrill of the moment, and partly because of the gravity-defying angle. his lips moved against yours with a familiar, deep tenderness, but there was an added spark of excitement that made your knees feel weak. you reached up, wrapping your hands around the back of his neck, pulling him closer.

for a few seconds, the entire world disappeared. there were no portals, no rogue tech companies, no movie premieres, and no responsibilities. there was just you, a shady oak tree, and the boy who loved you enough to hang upside down from a branch just to make your silly movie dreams come true.

when he finally pulled back, he let out a soft breath, his eyes crinkling. “how was that? cinematic enough?”

“11 out of 10,” you beamed, your face flushed red. “the academy is shaking. tom holland is crying in a corner.”

keonho laughed, but then his face suddenly went pale. his eyes widened. “uh oh,” he muttered.

“what? what’s wrong?”

“my... my left calf,” he grimaced, his body tensing up. “it’s... it’s cramping. yn, it’s cramping really bad.”

“oh, uh—grab the branch!” you yelled.

“i can’t! if i move my leg, i’m going to—”

with a sudden, undignified yelp, keonho’s grip slipped. he fell straight down, landing flat on his back in the grass with a loud thud.

you stood over him, horrified but also trying desperately not to laugh as he curled into a fetal position on the grass, clutching his left leg.

“ow, ow, ow,” he groaned, his face pressed into the clover. “the spider-strength does not protect against lactic acid buildup. ow.”

you burst out laughing, dropping to your knees beside him and gently massaging his calf. “see? i told you! you need to stretch before you do acrobatics, spiderman!”

“i hate you,” he whined, though he let you massage his leg, a soft, defeated smile returning to his face. “but... you still owe me that triple cheese garlic bread.”

“of course,” you smiled, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “anything for my friendly neighborhood boyfriend.”

after about ten minutes of you vigorously massaging keonho’s calf while he made noises that sounded like a dying walrus, the cramp finally subsided. he lay flat on his back in the grass, staring up through the canopy of the oak tree, looking completely drained of all life and dignity.

“are you alive?” you asked, poking his cheek with your index finger. “do i need to administer mouth-to-mouth or does the spider-physiologic system have an automatic self-reboot function?”

“i’m dead,” keonho mumbled, closing his eyes. “just leave me here. tell my professors i died doing what i loved: being bullied by my girlfriend and failing to recreate iconic early 2000s cinema stunts.”

“oh, shut up,” you laughed, plonking yourself down on the grass right next to him. the smell of crushed clover and warm summer earth was thick in the air. “you did great. the kiss was literally perfect. the landing... well, we can work on the landing. maybe some hamstring stretches before our next date.”

“there is no ‘next date’ involving trees,” he groaned, but he slowly rolled onto his side to face you, propping his head up with one hand. his black hair was completely messy now, decorated with a few small dry leaves and twigs. you couldn’t help but reach out and gently brush them out of his hair, your fingers lingering in the soft strands.

he watched you do it, his dark eyes incredibly soft. “you’re really not freaked out?” he asked quietly, his voice dropping into that gentle, sincere tone that made your heart do a little loop-de-loop. “like… at all? you’re not worried that i’m constantly in danger, or that i’ve been lying to you for months?”

you paused, your hand resting on his temple. this was the same guy who always insisted on walking on the street-side of the sidewalk, who bought you chocolate when you were stressed about exams, and who once spent three hours trying to assemble a flat-pack bookshelf for you, only to end up putting the back panel on upside down. he was also the guy who swung through the skyscrapers of the city at night, catching falling helicopters and trading punches with weirdos.

“of course i was a little mad for like, a split second, because you’re a terrible liar,” you admitted, giving his nose a playful boop. “but freaked out? absolutely not. keonho, you’re a hero. you save people. and the fact that you still make time to watch dumb movies with me and hold my hand even though you probably have a million bruises under that hoodie… it just makes me love you more. plus, i get bragging rights. my boyfriend is literally the friendly neighborhood spiderman. do you know how much clout i have now? even if i can never tell anyone, the inner knowledge is enough to sustain my ego for the next thousand years.”

he let out a soft, breathless laugh, his cheeks dusting with pink. “you’re so ridiculous. my life is a constant, anxiety-inducing mess of balancing college physics, a part-time job, and saving the city, and your first thought is clout.”

“duh,” you scoffed, crossing your arms. “but seriously… can i see the web-shooters now? you promised.”

he rolled his eyes but smiled, sitting up and unclicking the sleek, metallic bands from his wrists. he handed one of them over to you like it was a fragile glass slipper. you held it in both hands, marveling at the engineering. it was incredibly lightweight, made of a dark, brushed titanium-like metal, with a tiny, glowing blue LED indicator near the nozzle. “this is insane. did you build this yourself? in your tiny college dorm room?”

“yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, looking a bit shy. “the chemistry department at school has a really great lab, and the professors don’t really pay attention to what chemicals are being checked out as long as you clean up after yourself. the web fluid is basically a liquid nylon polymer with a high tensile strength that solidifies upon contact with air. i had to cook it on a hot plate next to my ramen.”

“you cooked highly volatile multiversal web fluid next to your shin ramyun?” you stared at him. “keonho, if you had blown up the building, the headlines would have been so embarrassing. ‘local student perishes in noodle-based chemistry mishap’—”

“yah, it worked!” he defended himself, pointing at the shooter in your hand. “and it’s not volatile. it’s actually completely biodegradable. after about two hours, it dissolves into a harmless powder. otherwise, the city sanitation department would have sued me into oblivion by now.”

“can i try it?” you asked, your eyes shining with dangerous excitement.

“absolutely not,” he said instantly, reaching for it.

“please? just one tiny bit of web? just a little thwip? please, baby, i’ll let you eat the middle part of the garlic bread, the really soft, buttery part.”

keonho froze, his hand hovering over the shooter. you could see the internal struggle playing out on his face. the triple cheese garlic bread was his ultimate weakness, and the soft middle part was practically a holy experience.

“just… one?” he negotiated warily. “and you have to point it at something completely inanimate. and not at me. and definitely not at that pigeon over there.l

“deal!” you squealed, quickly slipping the band onto your wrist. it was a bit loose on you, but you held it steady with your other hand. you raised your arm, copying the iconic hand gesture—middle and ring finger pressed down to your palm. “okay, how hard do i press?”

“just a quick, firm tap on the palm trigger,” he instructed, leaning over your shoulder, his chest pressed against your back as he guided your wrist. “don’t hold it down, or you’ll release a giant web-bomb and we’ll both be stuck to this tree until three in the afternoon.”

“okay, okay, here goes,” you breathed. you aimed at a thick, sturdy-looking wooden post near the empty swing set.

you pressed your fingers down.

thwip!

with a high-pitched hiss, a thin, white line of webbing shot out of the nozzle at blinding speed. it hit the wooden post dead center, wrapping around it instantly with a satisfying splat sound.

“oh my god!” you screamed, jumping up and down. “i did it! i’m spider-woman! i’m the ghost-spider! call me gwen stacy!”

“please don’t call yourself gwen stacy, that usually doesn’t end well for spider-girlfriends,” he muttered, though he was grinning from ear to ear at your sheer joy. “but yeah, nice shot. you actually have decent aim.”

you turned around, your eyes wide. “wait, let me try to pull it!” you grabbed the line of webbing. it felt incredibly strong, like a thin, rubbery cable, but it was slightly sticky to the touch. you gave it a hard yank. the wooden post, which was apparently not as firmly anchored into the dirt as you thought, let out a loud crack and tipped over, crashing loudly into the woodchips.

you both froze.

“uh,” you said.

“yn,” keonho said, his voice very calm, very flat. “did you just vandalise a public park using my illegal vigilante technology?”

“i didn’t mean to!” you whispered-yelled, quickly taking the wristband off and shoving it back into his hands. “the wood was rotten! it was a structural hazard! i actually did the city a favor by identifying a safety risk for the local children, you know? i’m a public servant.”

“sure, let’s go with that explanation when the park rangers show up,” keonho chuckled, quickly packing the web-shooters back into his backpack. he swung the bag over his shoulder and offered you his hand, pulling you up from the grass. “come on, spider-vandal. let’s get out of here before someone accuses us of destroying city property.”

you both scrambled out from under the oak tree, laughing like idiots as you jogged out of the park. the adrenaline was still pumping through your veins, and you felt an incredible, giddy high. you kept sneaking glances at keonho as you walked down the sidewalk. he looked so normal—just a tall boy in a hoodie—but now you finally knew the truth. you knew that under that hoodie was a body capable of defying physics, and a heart brave enough to protect the whole city.

“okay, so,” you started, wrapping your arm through his as you walked toward the commercial street where the bakery was. “now that i’m officially your ‘guy in the chair’, we need to establish some ground rules.”

“my guy in the chair?” keonho raised an eyebrow. “i don’t even have a chair. i usually just sit on the edge of a billboard and eat a sandwich while looking at google maps.”

“well, now you have a chair, and it’s my desk chair, which has a very ergonomic memory foam cushion,” you declared. “rule number one: no more lying about your injuries. if you get a bruise, you don’t ‘fall down the stairs’. you tell me, and i will bring you ice and frozen peas. rule number two: i get to name your villains.”

keonho let out a loud, snorting laugh. “name my villains? why would you need to do that, sweetheart?”

“because real-life villain names are probably so boring,” you argued. “what do they call themselves? corporate criminals? tech developers? no. we need comic-book flare. like, if some guy tries to rob a bank using magnetic boots, his name is electro-slide. if a guy tries to steal a bunch of diamonds using a laser-cutter, he’s the crystal-slicer. it builds brand recognition, keonho. it’s about the marketing.”

“baby, i don’t think the guys trying to steal copper wire from construction sites care about marketing,” he pointed out, amused.

“they will when i write articles about them on my speculative blog,” you insisted. “rule number three: you have to take me web-swinging like tom’s spiderman does with his mj. at least once, but like, in a safe, non-traumatising environment. like over a lake… or a very soft field of mattresses.”

keonho’s expression softened, and he squeezed your hand. “i can do that. but we’re starting low. like, ten feet off the ground. and you have to wear a helmet.”

“a helmet? keonho, that ruins the aesthetic! how am i supposed to look like a cool, breezy superhero girlfriend if i’m wearing a fuckass yellow bicycle helmet with cartoon dinosaurs on it?”

“you’ll look like a safe superhero girlfriend,” he said firmly. “no helmet, no swing. those are my terms.”

“fine,” you huffed, though you were secretly melting at how protective he was.

as you turned the corner onto the main street, the heavenly, rich aroma of freshly baked yeast, roasted garlic, and melted butter hit you like a physical wave. the local bakery, le petit crunch, was famous for its specialty breads, and you could see the daily special board sitting outside on the pavement: TODAY’S SPECIAL: TRIPLE CHEESE GARLIC BAGUETTE (LIMITED QUANTITY).

“there it is,” you whispered, pointing at the sign like it was the holy grail. “our prize.”

“oh, thank god,” keonho breathed, his stomach letting out a loud, rumbling growl right on cue. “my metabolism is currently screaming. i think i burned about three thousand calories just hanging from that tree.”

“then let us feast, my spider-knight,” you said, pulling him toward the door.

inside, the bakery was cozy and warm, filled with the golden glow of display cases packed with croissants, tarts, and freshly baked loaves. a middle-aged woman behind the counter, mrs. kim, smiled warmly at you both as you walked in. she was a regular face in the neighborhood and knew you both well.

“ah, the lovely couple!” she beamed. “here for the garlic bread, i assume? i saved the biggest, cheesiest one in the back just for you two.”

“ah, mrs. kim, you’re an angel sent from the heavens,” you said, placing your hands on the counter. “we’ll take that, and two iced americanos, please. extra large.”

“coming right up!” she chirped, turning around to retrieve the legendary loaf and instructing her son, juhoon, to take care of a far away table.

keonho leaned against the counter next to you, looking incredibly content. he reached over, lightly tracing a circle on the back of your hand with his thumb. you smiled up at him, feeling a wave of pure, cozy happiness. this was perfect. a quiet morning movie, a dramatic superhero reveal in a park, and now a massive loaf of garlic bread. what more could a girl ask for?

but, because this was a spiderman universe, peace never lasted long.

just as mrs. kim was pouring the coffee, a loud, obnoxious commotion started right outside the bakery glass window.

you turned your head to look. a young man in a leather jacket, wearing a motorcycle helmet with the visor pulled down, was frantically trying to wrestle a designer leather handbag away from an elderly woman who was clutching it with both hands, screaming for help.

“let go, you old hag!” the guy yelled, his voice muffled by the helmet.

“help! someone! he’s stealing my purse!” the old woman shrieked, refusing to let go of the strap.

“oh my god,” you gasped, smushing your face against the bakery window. “keonho, look! a crime! a literal, actual crime is happening right in front of us!”

his posture changed instantly. the sleepy, relaxed boyfriend disappeared, replaced by a hyper-focused, tense energy. his eyes narrowed, his pupils dilating as his gaze locked onto the struggle outside. his hand immediately went to his backpack strap.

“i have to go,” he whispered, his voice suddenly sharp and serious. “i’ll go around the back alley, put on the mask—”

“wait, no!” you grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back. “look at the distance! by the time you run to the alley, unzip your bag, pull on the stupid spandex, and swing back, that guy is going to be three miles away on his scooter! and mrs. kim is right there, she’ll see you run out the back!”

“but i can’t just let him rob her!” he hissed, his jaw clenched in frustration. “she’s going to get hurt!”

“so stop him as you!” you whispered-yelled. “just… do a regular civilian intervention! but, you know, with a little bit of spider-stuff to make it quicker and easier. just don't do anything that violates the laws of physics!”

keonho blinked, processing this. “right. civilian intervention. regular guy stuff. i can do that. i’m a regular guy.”

“keonho, go! save the grandma!”

he burst through the bakery door, the little bell chiming wildly. “hey! let go of her!” he yelled, his voice commanding and loud.

the thief in the helmet looked up, startled. seeing a tall, lanky college student running toward him, the thief sneered behind his visor. “mind your own business, kid, or i’ll gut you!” he yelled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small, metallic pocket knife, flicking the blade open.

the elderly woman let out a terrified shriek, dropping her bag and falling backward onto the concrete.

“keonho, watch out! he has a weapon!” you screamed from the doorway of the bakery, your heart leaping into your throat. even though you knew he could take a punch from a giant rhino-man, the sight of a knife was still terrifying.

bystanders on the street started screaming, backing away. mrs. kim pulled her son inside, frantically dialing the police on her landline.

the thief lunged forward, thrusting the knife toward keonho’s chest.

to a regular human, the movement was fast. to keonho, whose spider-sense was probably screaming in high-definition slow-motion, the knife was moving through molasses.

you watched in awe as keonho dodged the most dramatic, ridiculous ‘civilian dodge’ you had ever witnessed. instead of just stepping aside like a normal person, he did a sudden, fluid, cat-like twist of his torso, the blade missing his hoodie by literally a millimeter. but he forgot his own strength. as he twisted, he accidentally swung his backpack around.

the heavy backpack, loaded with college textbooks and two metal web-shooters, slammed directly into the side of the thief’s helmeted head with a loud, hollow clang.

the impact was so loud it sounded like a church bell ringing. the thief’s eyes rolled back in his head, his legs went completely jelly, and he collapsed onto the pavement like a sack of wet flour, the pocket knife clattering away into the gutter.

the street went dead silent.

everyone stared at keonho, who stared at the unconscious thief.

“uh,” keonho said, looking down at his backpack, then up at the gathering crowd of shocked onlookers. “i… i think there was a very heavy physics textbook in there. classical mechanics. it… it has a lot of mass.”

you immediately ran out of the bakery, realising your boyfriend was about to fail the social-interaction portion of his secret identity. “oh my god!” you yelled at the top of your lungs, running over to him and grabbing his arm. “that was incredible! you are so lucky! the way you tripped over your own shoe and accidentally swung your bag because of your terrible balance? science is amazing! centrifugal force really saved the day!”

keonho looked at you, his eyes pleading for help. “yes! yes, i… i tripped. my coordination is historically very poor. i actually have an inner ear infection right now.”

“an inner ear infection!” you confirmed loudly to the crowd. “it completely ruins his spatial awareness! he’s practically legally clumsy! and yet, his flailing limbs managed to neutralise the threat! truly, the universe works in mysterious ways!”

the crowd, initially stunned, slowly began to murmur in agreement.

“wow, that was some lucky flailing,” a middle-aged man holding a grocery bag said, shaking his head. “he looked like a windmill.”

“a very brave, clumsy windmill,” an elderly man agreed.

the old woman who had been targeted was now being helped to her feet by another bystander. she walked over to keonho, clutching her rescued handbag, her eyes watery. “thank you, young man. you might be clumsy, but you have a good heart. if you hadn’t tripped so spectacularly, he would have taken my favourite bag.”

“it was… it was nothing, mam,” keonho said, offering her a sweet, incredibly soft smile, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “i’m just glad you’re okay. you should wait inside the bakery until the police arrive, it’s warm in there.”

“thank you, dear,” she patted his arm, letting out a shaky breath.

within five minutes, the distant siren of a police car could be heard. mrs. kim ran out of the bakery, holding a massive brown paper bag that was radiating the scent of garlic and cheese.

“here!” she gasped, shoving the bag into keonho’s hands, along with two iced coffees in a cardboard carrier. “you two take this and go now. the police are going to want to take statements and you’ll be stuck here for hours. you’re college students, you have classes and studying to do! go, go! i’ll tell the police what happened, i’ll make sure they know you’re a hero who tripped!”

“mrs. kim, we can’t just leave—” keonho started.

“aish, go!” she insisted, shooing you both away. “before the reporters show up. clumsy boy saves grandma is a front-page story, you don’t want that trouble!”

“we’ll pay you next time! thank you, mrs. kim!” you grabbed keonho’s sleeve, and the two of you bolted down the street, ducking into a side alley just as the police cruiser pulled up to the curb with its lights flashing.

you ran for three blocks, laughing and panting, until you finally reached the safety of the courtyard outside keonho’s dorm building. you collapsed onto a wooden bench under a shady pergola, completely out of breath.

keonho set the heavy bag of garlic bread and the coffees down on the table, leaning his head back against the brick wall, let out a long, exhausted chuckle. “clumsy boy saves grandma. really, yn? that’s the best cover story you could come up with?”

“hey, it worked!” you defended yourself, gasping for air. “and it was technically true! you did flail! and the textbook did do all the work. by the way, which textbook was it?”

“principles of electromagnetism,” he smiled, pulling the massive, hardbound book out of his bag. the corner of the cover was slightly dented. “it weighs about six pounds. i’m glad i didn’t crack his skull.”

“see? education is a weapon!” you grinned, opening the brown paper bag. the steam rose from the fresh garlic bread, and you let out a dramatic, worshipful sigh. “oh, sweet baby jesus. look at the cheese.”

the bread was sliced thick, with melted mozzarella, cheddar, and parmesan bubbling over the crispy crust, with rich, fragrant garlic butter and chopped parsley. it was still burning hot.

you tore off a massive chunk, the cheese stretching out in a long, thread, and handed it to keonho. “here. the soft middle part. as promised. for your valiant, clumsy services.”

“why, thank you,” he said reverently, taking the bread. he took a massive bite, his eyes literally rolling back in pleasure. “oh my god. this is better than saving the city. i might retire from crime-fighting and just become a professional garlic bread taster.”

“i would support that career change,” you mumbled around a mouth full of delicious, cheesy bread. “so, now that we’re safe… can we go up to your room? i want to see the stash. i want to see the actual suit.”

keonho swallowed his bite, looking at you with a mixture of amusement and nervousness. “the suit? yn, it’s not like the movies. it doesn’t have a built-in AI or nanotech. it’s literally just spandex i bought online and hand-sewn details. it smells like sweat and laundry detergent.”

“dude, i don’t care! i wanna see it! i want to wear the mask!—”

“fine, fine,” he chuckled, picking up the coffee cups. “but don’t judge my sewing skills. sewing curves on stretchy fabric is a nightmare, okay? my sewing machine literally gave up on the boots.”

you both ran up the stairs to his room on the third floor. it was a typical college student apartment—slightly messy, with stacks of textbooks, empty soda cans, a guitar in the corner, and a giant whiteboard covered in complex physics equations. but now, knowing his secret, you noticed the little details you had missed before.

there was a sewing basket sitting next to his desk, filled with spools of red and blue industrial-strength thread. in the corner of his closet, hidden behind a row of flannels, was a large, locked plastic storage bin.

keonho set his keys down on the counter and walked over to the closet. he pulled out the bin, set it on his bed, and fished a small key out from a hidden pocket in his backpack. he unlocked the padlock with a soft click.

you leaned over his shoulder, holding your breath. he lifted the lid.

there, folded neatly inside, was the suit.

it was a brilliant, vibrant red and deep navy blue. the fabric was a heavy-duty, textured spandex that caught the light with every shuffle, and the chest had a sleek, hand-painted black spider emblem. the mask sat on top, its large, white mesh lenses framed by sharp black borders.

“oh my god,” you whispered, reaching out to touch it. the fabric felt incredibly durable, almost like a thin wetsuit, but with a lot of stretch. “keonho… this is beautiful. you made this?”

“yeah,” he said softly, watching your reaction. “the lenses are actually made from modified sunglasses and a two-way mesh i found at a theatrical supply store. they’re designed to focus my vision so my eyes don’t get overwhelmed by all the sensory input when i’m moving fast. and the soles of the boots are reinforced with a thin layer of flexible rubber so i don’t slip on wet rooftops.”

you picked up the mask, holding it up to your face. “can i put it on?”

“go ahead,” he smiled.

you carefully pulled the fabric over your head. the inside smelled faintly of lavender fabric softener and a hint of mint, probably from his breath when he was wearing it. the moment the mask settled over your face, the world looked completely different. the white mesh lenses did something weird to the light, filtering out the glare and making everything look incredibly sharp and high-contrast.

“whoa,” you gasped, your voice sounding slightly muffled inside the fabric. “i can see everything! i feel like a predator! look at me, keonho! i’m the night!” you struck a ridiculous, dramatic superhero pose on his bed, crouching down and shooting imaginary webs at him. “fear me, citizen! i’m the spider-girlfriend! pay tribute to me with garlic bread or face my wrath!”

keonho burst into a fit of breathless, hysterical laughter. he fell back onto his desk chair, clutching his stomach as he watched you pose wildly. “you look like a bobblehead, yn! the mask is made for my head, it’s way too big on you!”

“i do not look like a bobblehead!” you protested, though you had to hold the chin of the mask with one hand to keep the eyeholes aligned with your eyes. “i look intimidating! i look like a menace to society!”

“you look adorable, sweetheart,” he corrected, his laughter dying down into a warm, incredibly fond smile. “come here.”

you waddled over to him, still wearing the oversized mask. keonho reached out, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you into his lap. he looked up at you, his hands gently holding the sides of the mask.

“are you really okay with all this?” he asked again, his voice dropping into that quiet, intimate register. “with me being… this? it means my life is always going to be a little chaotic. there are going to be nights where i have to cancel plans because someone is dangling off a bridge, or times when i come home with a black eye and have to explain it to my mom.”

you reached up, pulling the mask off your head, letting your messy hair tumble down. you looked into his dark, anxious eyes, seeing the vulnerability he usually hid behind his easygoing, sleepy persona.

“keonho,” you said softly, cupping his face with your hands. “i’ve been with you for two years. i’ve already dealt with you canceling plans because you ‘fell asleep’ or ‘got lost on the subway’. now i know the real reason, and honestly? it makes so much more sense. i’m not going anywhere. i love you. clumsy flailing, spider-webs, and all.”

his eyes shone with a sudden, overwhelming emotion. he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against yours, letting out a long, shaky breath. “you have no idea how much of a relief it is to hear you say that. i’ve been so scared of you finding out. i thought you’d think i was a freak, or that i was putting you in danger.”

“the only danger i’m in is dying of an overdose of garlic bread,” you whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his nose. “now, show me how you make the web fluid. i want to cook a batch.”

“absolutely not, we are not running a chemical weapons lab in my kitchen,” he laughed, but he squeezed you tight, holding you close as the afternoon sun filtered through the window, casting a warm, golden glow over the messy apartment.

for the rest of the day, there were no supervillains, no portals, and no responsibilities. 

there was just you, your boyfriend, and a massive loaf of garlic bread.

“wait, so do you know andrew garfield in real life, maybe?”

“no.”

“oh.”

© hyuneskkami ❦

#☕️: 「 cortis cafe au 」

#🪽️: 「 crack, fluff, swearing, kms kys jokes, basically my humour, no member x reader romantic pairing at all, implied bi!reader (doesnt romantically link up w any members!), purely platonic series, affectionately called cortis cafe sometimes bc they practically run it !! 」

#💸️: 「 ok so this mini series is fully inspired by the shenanigans of the gc (aka @cortismoon @ceuxnoirst @jjudawn ily guys ty for being stupidly funny enough to inspire me to make this 💞) and also sunny ( @jjuhyeons )’s wild tales from the cafe she works at (imy my wife please come back soon 🥹) !! this is js pure crack and fluff, so don’t expect any real plot lmao 😭 but if you have any ideas or requests to add onto this series, then send an ask and i’ll be more than happy to slip in some details you want into the fic ehehe 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 」

᧔♡᧓ 。 mlist :

-> OO1. ᭝ the oven is smoking? ՟

-> OO2. ᭝ stay quiet on the creek ՟

-> OO3. ᭝ my yuri instincts are taking over ՟

#📩: 「 taglists (perm & series) are open. comment to be added 」

✦ perm tl

✦ series tl: @junpom comment !