#minji

—

"It can be anything, really."

The faculty member looks at you with a tinge of derision in her eyes. You can feel it. "Anything?" That fucking intonation in her voice. She knows you're awfully desperate.

"I mean, nothing too physical." You raise your arm halfway up to show her your lanky muscles.

There's about a month left, currently, until the semester's end. You, to start, have zero (0) scholarship hours. To keep this education support money, there's a requirement of twenty-four (24) hours of university work per term for your full scholarship. These can be gradually collected through the events and activities: Orientation Day, International Day, Student Committee. Still, you decided for the last few months to slack off and do absolutely nothing, except taking Rushall Olympic to UEFA Champions League glory three (3) times in a row with the meta tactic of Football Manager Two Thousand and Twenty-Four (2024): 4-2-3-1 gegenpressing.

"You came too late," the faculty member states. She must be about fifty or somewhere around there. The folds in her skin are apparent. And with the nature of her gaze through her rectangular glasses, it's apparent that she's not so fond of a shirker like you, very likely worn out by them over the years. Seoyeon — that's her name.

"Is there, like, really nothing?" you ask with your discouraged look. Your back hunches. Your lips quiver.

Seoyeon scoffs, "You said nothing physical, and that basically filtered out the remaining," and her eyes glance at the computer screen, "three jobs."

You sigh, resigning to your fate. "What are they?"

The faculty member chuckles. "Well, there's this camp for the underprivileged — three days of area department."

That means carrying things, using a handheld radio, and staying up late. You're definitely going to look like an asshole for saying no to it, but you push on through, regardless.

"What's the other two?"

Seoyeon's brows are raised scornfully. You just give her a silent sorry. How dare you say no to a charity camp!

"There's a week of bathroom cleaning."

Seoyeon definitely sees you recoiling. Still, washing your filth is already enough for you. There's no need for others' in your life!

"And this one just came in: a coach for our faculty's women's football team."

Well, now we're talking.

Your eyes widen. You smack your hands on the counter immediately, drawing a few unwelcoming eyes from the other folks working behind the counter. Seoyeon's expression remains rather calm, however.

"Didn't catch you as the sporty type."

A smile unwillingly escapes your lips, "I used to play football," and you weren't particularly good at it, not really. With your rather short height, your days as a central midfielder did give you some experience in this regard. Your passivity and lethargy got in the way of being a professional footballer, though.

Seoyeon chuckles before putting up a remark, "Well, it's definitely great that you show interest in this," and she does a few more clicks on her computer. "Still, I have to say that this is the most complex job out of these three."

"Yeah — tactics, people management, mentality," you say eagerly out of the adrenaline rush you're getting. "Trust me, I've been through it."

"Vanarama South?"

You blink out of a little surprise. "North! Didn't catch you as the sporty type."

Seoyeon chuckles, still remaining wary of her words. "My partner likes to share about their Dagenham and something team."

"Dagenham and Redbridge!"

"Yeah, that one," Seoyeon says with a polite smile. "Well, I can register you in and we're done."

Without a hint of doubt, "Yes, I'll take the job."

—

"Have you heard about the ads in ChatGPT?" Gaeul asks you, one hand holding her tote bag. Her mid-back-length pink hair sways around as she walks beside you in the hallway. She's looking as elegant as ever. Her grey jacket barely covers the professional thirst-trapper text on her white tee.

"Oh, that, yeah, I've seen it. Shit's fucking dystopian."

She sneers, "Gotta re-read everything now."

"Bait or deadass?"

Gaeul just chuckles as she readjusts her bag that's sliding down her shoulder. "So, what are you doing for the scholarship hours? You have zero now, right?"

"I registered for the girls' football team," you answer. The sentence feels splendid rolling off your tongue.

Gaeul shoots you a slightly amazed look, taken aback by your confidence. "Wow."

You giggle. "Yeah, wow."

"So those hours in FM aren't wasted?"

"They're not."

Gaeul elbows you tenderly. "Damn, I have a proper manager friend."

Your heart flutters a bit at your friend's words. You're positive that she means it.

"Any tips?" you ask.

Gaeul thinks sonically with her finger on her lips, then: "Just don't put yours into the players."

Your brow knits, not understanding her advanced joke. "My what?"

"Okay, wait, that was too crass. I shouldn't—"

"Oh." Any tips? Tips, and you laugh in a child-discovering-pee-and-poo-joke kind of way at Gaeul's unapologetically nasty humor. "Yeah, great one. Like I'd stand a chance against tall, athletic, sweaty women."

Gaeul chuckles along with you. "Well, maybe one of them would have a crush on their meek manager! You never know."

"They wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole if we lose the first game. I'm fucking sure of that," you joke, putting yourself under the barbed bat.

"Shy boy," Gaeul teases. "Oh, there they are," and she points forward with her finger gun.

You look away from Gaeul in the direction of her hand to find a few people standing in the hallway. What the hell is she pointing at? Not noticing a damn thing, your eyes glance back at Gaeul, who's still pointing forward. You try to look again.

Until you find them.

Your eyes meet two women chatting, standing in the sea of students, one a tad taller than the other.

"Hey!" Gaeul appears to greet them, almost a shout, and the women turn to you and Gaeul.

The shorter girl's eyes are widened. "Hi!"

"Hi," the taller woman says, also with a smile, albeit seemingly more polite and reserved. You just nod at them, trying not to be a deadweight to Gaeul's social life.

You take a moment to observe Gaeul's friends quietly as they talk. The shorter woman does not hold back with her words, mixing profanities within the descriptions of her recent days and weeks. Her expression feels a whole lot more bubbly and unrestrained. The other girl, though, seems more controlled in her words and posture, emanating an authoritative aura from her tall (well, taller than you) frame.

"Yeah, this fucking sucks. Anyway, who's your friend?" The smaller one's words put you back into the present.

"He's," and Gaeul makes this funky hand movement as if presenting you to your potential dates, "your new manager!"

The two women make these ooh lips together, as if fascinated by your presence. You feel a little more self-conscious about their actions. Still, it's great to meet the players!

"Well, welcome to the team!" the shorter girl says, offering you a handshake. "I'm Hanni Pham, vice-captain."

You accept it. Hanni's hands feel softer than you expected for a footballer. Her grip is rather firm — not too tight.

"Kim Minji, the captain," the bigger woman states with a composed smile. She doesn't offer you a handshake, though, just a small nod.

"Hi, nice to meet you guys," you say diffidently.

"What's your favorite team?" Hanni asks you enthusiastically, tilting her head a little to the side.

You scratch your back, so fucking timid that you need somewhere to grab. "Blackburn? West Ham? I just watch football in general, not especially supporting anyone."

"Do you play FIFA?" Minji quizzes with a small laugh. "I swear if we get another wannabe again."

"No, no," you stammer. "Just FM. Still, I wouldn't call myself an actual manager," you quickly tranquilize any hints of cockiness to Minji and Hanni.

Minji shrugs. "That's better, at least. Can't be arsed to play three at the back again."

Hanni just laughs, and you, out of shyness, start laughing as well. That's your first genuine connection with them. Feels great.

"Hey," Gaeul whispers through your laugh. "We, uh."

"Oh, yeah, I gotta," and you clear your throat, "go now. See you guys at the training!" you utter a tad louder than you would normally do with athletic women. You're shocked, to be honest.

"Okay, see ya. Are you coming with him, Gaeul?" Hanni asks.

"I don't know yet. Gotta cover his ass for the Computer Vision assignment," Gaeul answers with a soft elbow to your side. You give her back an elbow.

"Just do it on the bleachers," Minji breezes.

Gaeul purses her lips, then: "Definitely, maybe."

—

So, Gaeul is doing it on the bleachers.

She's watching you from afar as you arrange your first training session with your players in the evening. It goes pretty well, you'd say. Most of the time, you just let your assistant manager tell you what to do next, and you just say it louder than her to the players — movements, passing, shooting. You're doing your best out of passion and everything. Gotta put those FM hours to use.

"Do we have a match practice session?" you ask your assistant, Yujin, as the players are on their chance conversion training.

"Yeah, we put it at the end, though," Yujin says. "It's the most fun one out of whatever these are."

"Oh, alright."

The sun continues to dip below the horizon of the college. Players are putting in their all under your leadership. It's a lot for your first day, but you're doing well. You watch your players training proudly, though you feel like you're lingering on Minji a bit too long. Your mind is unsure of why, however.

The match practice arrives eventually, and you start working on dividing the women into two teams. You sound the whistle to start the game, calling out fouls and unfair plays between the girls. It goes by pretty well, you'd say, and in a heartbeat, the session ends. Everyone gets their fair share of sweat. Everyone is happy.

"Alright, thanks for today, ladies. I'm so glad to coach you today. See you on Thursday!" you announce, earning a round of applause from the players on the grass before they get up and prepare to leave the practice ground.

Minji and Hanni stay behind, though, sitting on the green, and you're curious as to why they're not getting going yet.

"You guys aren't leaving?" you ask, hands in your pockets.

"We're kind of wanting to ask you something, gaffer," Hanni says with a small chuckle.

"We don't have class tomorrow morning," Minji chimes in. "Wanna come to the bar with us?"

You blink consciously before pondering over the invitation. Going to a bar with your players that you've just spent a measly few hours with under the setting sun. Well, maybe it's a way to get to know them better! Especially with them being your first and second-choice captains. You'll have to bring Gaeul with you, though, in case she wants to bag a guy back to her dorm, or she wouldn't shut up about missing the action.

"Uh, sure?" you answer, voice so damn unsure. "I gotta get changed first, though, can't go to the bar like—"

"We're going like this!" Hanni cuts you off cleanly. Your group is going to fucking stink all over the bar with your dried sweat. "We won't be there long. Just three shots and we'll leave."

How can you say no to such a chance? Preliminary team bonding and all.

—

You just drank your sixth shot.

You're resting your chin on your fist weakly, struggling to hold yourself up. The jazz music grounds you a little bit under the soft glow of the yellowish lights. Still, the melody is no match for the drunkenness you're facing between Hanni and Minji. Gaeul doesn't really help either, instead chatting with a few guys at their table far away from you. Endearingly, that slut. She's nowhere to be found in your fucking sight.

(It's like you're able to register any information with your eyes now, still.)

"Are you drunk yet?" Hanni quizzes blithely.

You slur embarrassingly, voice overly syrupy and groggy, "Yeah."

Hanni just chuckles in response.

"So, what's your deal?" Minji starts. "Why did you become our coach?"

"Manager," Hanni corrects.

"It's the same damn thing at our level," Minji rebuts, pouring herself a shot of strawberry soju. "Anyway, how did you end up being our coach?" There's a brief glance from Minji at Hanni scoffing, but the taller girl carries on the question with you as the coach.

The brain fog of mathematical coincidences rings true inside your head — mostly about 111 and its multipliers comprising 37 and 3 (and its multipliers) as its factors. There's no space for thinking anymore, not really, and you just blurt out, "Scholarship hours."

"Huh," Minji raises her brows a bit before taking another shot down her throat with an exhale afterwards.

Hanni adds, "So, why not just other jobs? I'm sure there's a whole fucking catalogue of scholarship work more interesting than managing a women's football team."

You giggle drunkenly. "It's either this or cleaning the bathroom."

"So, you're saying that you like sweaty women more than cleaning the bathroom?" Hanni asks playfully before taking a swig out of her strawberry soju bottle.

With a shrug, "Perchance," and the women laugh softly.

"To be honest, you seem more competent than those FIFA knobheads," Minji states.

You just nod dumbly, not knowing what to respond without looking overtly arrogant.

"They tried to play Minji as either a wide center-back or those utter woke nonsense roles: Mezzala, Carrilero, roaming playmaker," Hanni chimes in, looking somewhat frustrated with a fucker closing off her sentence.

"What do you have in your mind, though?" Minji asks you. "Are you gonna be another Amorim?"

Intoxicated out of your consciousness, you reply with an intention to please them, "Of course not. I'll adjust to my players!"

Hanni laughs before saying, "Double pivot of us, that's our only request. I feel like we play better with Minji as a box-to-box and me as a playmaker."

"Her sharp eyes and my muscles," Minji adds, flexing her arm for you to see. There's a pang of realization in your mind, and you now know why your eyes lingered on her for a tiny bit too long. It's her fucking biceps! "4-2-3-1, 4-3-3, or even Burnley Dyche-ball works — hoofing it to Yoon and Kazuha up front."

"I'll keep that in mind," you say, slurring out of your inhibition. Your nose notices the smell of dried sweat from Minji's body. It's supposed to make you heave, but somehow, you are starting to get addicted to it.

Hanni joins the show, moving a little closer to you. "What can we do to be sure of that, though?" she asks, and there's almost this hint of sultry in her voice. You can't quite confirm it, too drunk to explain the cause.

You blink, trying to regain your sobriety to no avail. "Play well!" you stammer out, and that's your only advice for now. Hanni's smell is overwhelming you as well, fighting against the stark aroma of Minji with her lighter, less pungent body scent. Your brain short-circuits for a heartbeat with your eyes laid upon the space between Hanni's neck and collar. The supple flesh of her chest is almost bared, simply covered by her black sports bra.

Minji edges in behind you. "Really? Just that?" You glance towards her, and there's also the hanging down of her shirt that reveals her pert breasts sitting under the white sports bra. Your spine stiffens under the powerful scent of the women and the sight of their toned bodies. The jazzy music doesn't help either, further indulging you in this aromatic seduction of your footballers.

"I'm sure there are other ways we can show you our teamwork," Hanni says, pouting, tilting her head to the side a bit as though she's asking for something sinister.

"I can show you my Rushall save! I have it on my computer here," and you pick up your conveniently placed bag and grab your MacBook from it. Finally, you get to show someone your Champions League glory — almost twenty seasons in the making. This is definitely not from the fact that you're awfully apprehensive and horny for them so you try to use FM to cover it up.

"Let's do it at our place, Coach," Minji half-orders, and you halt your movements. Her breath smells of strawberries and mint and some leftover alcohol. "Perhaps you can insert your plug into our sockets there."

Ooh, free electricity.

(It's sex, you're not a dumbass.)

As you walk out of the bar, following Minji while holding onto Hanni's shoulder, your eyes find Gaeul again. The pink hair really helps with your built-in Find My. She's talking to a guy that you don't recognize. You detach from Hanni to say goodbye to Gaeul for the night regardless.

"Hey," you greet.

Gaeul turns to you, craning her neck slightly to see the subjects behind you. "Oh, you're leaving," and she looks at her watch for a second, "now?"

"Yeah, I gotta," and you think of an excuse aside from having sex with your two seductive, sweaty players. You come up with one: "I miss FM."

Gaeul chuckles sarcastically. "Right, FM. Fuck me."

You give her an awkward smile, body bubbling with alcohol. "Football Manager."

"More like Feet, Balls, and Massage," Gaeul mocks heartily, and the guy she's talking to laughs at the pun. "Minji and Hanni's stinky feet," and she pinches her nose together as if she's disgusted by the thought.

"See you tomorrow, if I can make it," you bid Gaeul farewell, not putting up with her bullshit (again, endearing) any further before Hanni and Minji change their minds.

Gaeul just laughs before waving at you. "See ya."

—

You're unfamiliar with their dorm, really. Never once have you been here before during your four-year stretch of being a student here.

The elevator ride doesn't really help with the intoxication running in your veins. Their smell overwhelms you easily in the confined space that's rising through the floors. Atop the alcohol, you feel even dizzier than when you were in the bar, when they teased you about inserting your plug into their sockets.

(The MacBook charging adapter isn't that big, if we're being honest.)

As you enter their room, the scent of the spring breeze wafts into your nostrils, mixed with their dried sweat in front of you. You take a deep breath to feel the atmosphere of their living space thoroughly. Filled with plushies and dolls, a double bed sits in the center of the room next to a wall. There's a Lauren James poster on the other side — Chelsea tenure. You place your backpack at the side of their bed as Minji and Hanni leap onto it.

"Fucking hell," Hanni groans into the bed, utterly exhausted, and she turns to you. "It's okay, boss. You can sit here."

You sit rather shyly on their bed, taking in the feeling of their cozy room. Your room is a little better, you'd say — bias and all — but you wouldn't mind having a stay-over at theirs.

Minji rises from the bed, smirking. "So, what is this Rushall save of yours? Can we see it?"

"Yeah, sure!" and you pick up your MacBook shakily along with your adapter. "Where's the socket?"

Hanni points towards the portion of the wall beside the bed. "There."

Your eyes find it with no problem. Then, you insert the plug into it with a click, and you hear a moan. Your mind is certain that it's Hanni's — the light intonation and everything. You turn to her and give her a blank look.

Hanni giggles. "It has been a while since somebody else used my socket, so it's a great feeling to have those holes filled by you, gaffer."

You nod. "Well, try to clean it often, or at least find a cover for it. Dust might make it deteriorate faster." There are probably no innuendos stemming from that sentence.

Another cute laugh from Hanni, then: "Yes, gaffer."

You boot up the game, takes a while, but you get there regardless. The game looks the same as it is a few days ago: tactics, players, matches. You did save the game properly! Minji and Hanni scoot over beside you as you start going through the tiniest details of your game.

"So, this is my tactic: a fuckass 4-2-3-1 gegenpress. It's everything you can expect from the tactic, really," you start, clicking through the panels of your tactic. "Counter-press, high tempo, counter-attack, high line."

"Who's that in the midfield?" Minji asks tenderly, pointing at the double pivot sitting in the middle of the pitch.

"This is Nik, bought him from Arsenal for dirt cheap because I need the home-grown quota, and this is Patrick, got him from Hannover for, also, dirt cheap. Their stats are pretty standard, but they play well," you ramble.

"So, like, they're just two normal defensive mids?" Hanni quizzes, putting a finger to her mouth as if it makes her look fluffier and more adorable (it does).

"Yeah, it's the meta right now — two DMs. I'm an engine exploiter more than a tactician," you admit humbly. "I'm not that much of a proper manager." Your head falls slightly with a small, pathetic whine. You hunch your back out of guilt.

Hanni and Minji chuckle softly before the former tilts your chin up with her finger. "Hey, it's fine. I'm sure you're miles better than those FIFA wannabes," she lifts you up with her kindness. Your heart beats a little faster as you smell the strawberries and salt in her mouth — intimate.

"Really?"

"Really," Minji states, picking up your chin and turning you to her instead of Hanni. "They think they're the best at football management just because they can flick their fingers faster than others."

You whine cutely at Minji, who then smiles approvingly back.

"I have a question for you," she says, leaning in so close to you to the point that your heart is exploding from the smell of her strawberries-plus-mint breath.

"Yeah?"

"If we're in the game," and Minji glances at Hanni for a split second. "What would be our position? On top? Or under someone else?"

Minji's spouting sexual nonsense for the sake of being dirty and suggestive with you. She's trying to have sex! Hanni laughs tenderly at her words as well. Still, gotta put up your nerdy façade to not look like a hopeless horn-dog and get laughed at!

You half-stutter, half-joke out, chuckling awkwardly, "Well, you're playing under me, of course."

That's rather charged, surely, even if the cadence is all over the place and merely unintentional. Minji and Hanni giggle at your profound words.

"Under you? Seems like a fucking splendid position to be in, my lovely gaffer," Hanni says.

They're trying so hard to fuck.

"Me? Lovely?"

Hanni just giggles before continuing, completely ignoring your self-doubt, "Tell me, in the game, would you play us as two DMs? Or would you," and Hanni uses your trackpad and moves the left defensive midfielder on your screen up by a position. Oh, so Minji is left-footed, and the formation is now asymmetrical. "Adjust for us?"

As much as you love the symmetry of your 4-2-3-1 gegenpress, you have to admit that real life cannot be defined by hard-coded grids. Maybe you'll have Minji on top of Hanni, roaming from end-to-end as the latter covers the defensive line below her, spraying passes to her teammates. Maybe you should just let them lead, unshackling their creativity and having them maraud your midfield.

"I'll adjust accordingly!"

Hanni nods positively, smiling. "A great coach should be flexible, definitely."

"Maybe," Minji cuts her off, but the words are still somewhat reinforcing each other. "You should have a principle — something that you believe in," she says, moving in a little closer to you. The danger of her proximity is there, surely — her thighs against yours — and there's her strong, womanly, post-practice scent radiating from her skin.

"An idea?" you inquire.

"Something like that," Minji answers with a shrug. "There needs to be a balance, of course. You give the players something, and you demand something from them."

A sound, then: "I kinda get it now," Hanni says. Just like Minji, she edges in. You feel her thighs on yours. The light smell of her body wafts into your nostrils. And with the blended scent of their bodies, you're so fucking hard right now.

You move your MacBook up a little to cover the erection under your shorts.

"Compromising," Hanni utters. "Give and take."

The position you're in is also obviously compromising as hell — sitting between them and utterly overwhelmed by their touches and smells like this.

"You need to understand your players and yourself," Minji states. "Same applies to the players."

"It's a team game," Hanni chimes in. "Gotta have some goddamn empathy."

"Do you think you have empathy, Coach?" Minji asks, rotating your neck towards her by the chin. This is the first time you've noticed how soft her hand is. Her face is so close to yours that your lips almost touch. "Or are you just treating this job as another scholarship fodder?"

You're not treating them as such, of course. Two strong, sweaty, athletic women against you — your body won't stand a damn chance. Still, being this close to them does evoke a tinge of warmth out of your lazy, sluggish ass. You're going to give your all to them!

"Of course not," you answer, and the women appear to approve of your words.

"Your heart is in the right place, Coach," Hanni praises. "Still, not everything is in its right place yet."

Yeah, your cock still isn't inside them yet!

"Are you just gonna keep me guessing?" you ask, with the last of your restraints not to tie it into debauchery.

Minji scoffs, and: "Well, do you want to?" She's practically squeezing her thighs with yours now. You get goosebumps as her hand lands on your back, pushing your spine straight.

Hanni joins, placing her hand on your knee, and you squirm. Her thighs press into yours, effectively interposing you between her and Minji. "Or you can just keep explaining your save to us. We don't mind, can call it a match tactics session."

"I'd gladly explain my game to you ladies," you joke, knowing full well that the air is shifting towards you and Minji and Hanni having the hottest, sweatiest, freakiest sex in the world.

"One last thing, I think," Minji says, rubbing your back with her soft hand lovingly. "Gaeul has been relaying us some," and a pause, as if it's going to up the tension of this scene (it does), "information."

"It's basically a background check, don't worry," Hanni assures as she caresses your lower thigh with her palm. Your lower body shivers slightly. "Still, we're impressed!"

Minji giggles before continuing, "Yeah, Gaeul said that you possess many tangible qualities."

Gaeul? Not talking shit about you? That's rare. "Color me surprised!" you utter with your usual dose of self-doubt. Minji and Hanni just laugh quietly.

"She told us you're passionate," Minji begins.

"She told us you're empathetic," Hanni adds.

"And the most important one," Minji speaks, folding your MacBook down as if she's preparing for a physical movement. Your heart threatens to burst out of your chest. Your hands tremble restlessly on the palmrest. Your legs quiver anxiously under your computer. Nik and Patrick disappear from your eyes as the screen sleeps. Still, you're holding your own somewhat steadily.

Not until Minji opens her mouth to enchant you with her words, though — first cursing of the night.

"She told us you're a slut."

A light push from Hanni is all it takes to make your back land on the bed with a small thud. Minji grabs your computer away from you to the nightstand — your precious computer that's covering your erection.

"Is that a training cone in your pants, gaffer?" Hanni asks coyly, a finger to her lips. "Can we play with it?"

"Perchance," you respond.

Hanni just chuckles before bringing her hands to the edge of your shorts. Your body trembles with the anticipation of your cock springing free from its confines. She runs her fingers along your slutty waist teasingly. Fuck, the fabric is about to rip if Hanni keeps playing with you like this.

On the other side, Minji climbs onto the bed, crawling towards you, and her neckline is drooping down a little. It's a shame your line of sight doesn't allow you to look at her shapely tits sitting under the sports bra. Your breathing hastens as she climbs atop your body. You want to reach out and touch her, but you're too stunned to do anything right now.

Minji crawls forward until the textile of her shorts is just above your face. The smell of her dried sweat becomes awfully intense here. Your atmosphere becomes her and only her.

"I hope your mouth can do more than motivate us," Minji coos, taunting you with her hands running along the upper edge of her trunks.

Hanni keeps teasing you along the hemline of your shorts. She finds your boxers now, but she won't pull them down and free your cock just yet — not now.

Fucking Pham.

"Fuck, I can talk about my tactics," you joke to Minji.

She scoffs, "Well, then, I wanna know," and she pushes her garment down a little, just enough for the flimsiest of her pubic hair peeking out from her spandex — neatly trimmed, well-kempt. "How do you plan to penetrate our defensive line?"

"Gegenpressing is not allowed, I suppose?"

"That's too aggressive," Minji deflects with a laugh.

You try to find some witty-ass response to the question, pondering on it, thinking about it. Your arms are lying still beside your body, not daring to touch Minji's somewhat muscular frame.

You come to an answer eventually, and it involves using your hands to demonstrate the tactic.

"The core idea is to maraud the flanks. Overloading the wide defenders always works."

You start feeling her outer thigh just above the knee. Minji chokes on her breath. That's enough to keep you going. You run your hands up her skin, making her feel the pleasure of your stroke. Your hands slip under her shorts, feeling how her skin heats against your palm.

Below, Hanni's thumbs are dipping below your hemline, threatening to yank your garment off your legs. Her fingers run along the upper fraction of your trimmed hair, making your lower body squirm with pleasure. She's lingering so close to your hard cock that it hurts. You can do nothing about it, though. Shaking your feet doesn't communicate a damn thing.

"Your footballs are so big, gaffer, suits big girls like us," Hanni murmurs, and finally, she begins releasing your dick from the tight prison of your pants. She pulls the garment down at an agonizingly slow pace as you're being completely overwhelmed by the scent of Minji's toned body.

"How are you gonna attack the central areas, huh?" Minji inquires, tipping your chin up a bit to her eyes. They're so full of lust. The pleats of her descending shorts and boxers finally clash against your hands, and you have to tease her on the fabric instead.

"It depends on who's having the ball right now," you answer. "My wingers cut inside, and my full-backs do low crosses from the byline."

"So, who's having the ball right now?" Minji asks.

"Hanni," you joke. Minji finds hilarity in it, laughing and easing the tension in the process.

"Fuckass," Minji curses. Then, she pushes her shorts down a little further, and you can see the opening of her cunt. The fucking smell of her core assaults your nose easily, stripping away your frail defenses as she hovers over your face — raw, musky, lust-inducing. She trims her hair. It's not quite shaved, and to be honest, it riles you up much more than a smooth cunt.

Hanni ever so slowly pulls the shorts and boxers down your legs. Your feet try to communicate quietly with pathetic movements, but Hanni just laughs at you instead. Again, fucking Pham.

Eventually, your cock springs free from your clothes once Hanni pulls them down far enough. Precum flies everywhere around your cock, and you hear this cute squeal from Hanni as well. It probably lands on her pretty face.

"Fucking hell, it's goddamn massive, gaffer," Hanni opines about the size of your training cone, which is a euphemism for, let's just say, your penis. You wouldn't call it big (it's like somewhere between five (5) and six (6) inches hard), but if Hanni says so, you'll go along with her.

Hanni pulls the garments down the rest of your legs in a hurry, and you kind of shimmy your feet to ditch them away. Now, she's met with your cock standing tall. It's hard under the soft glow of the room's lights, and you're rumbling in anticipation of what she's going to do next with it.

On the front, Minji stands up on the bed, resulting in you whining out of disappointment. Her tall figure, though, spellbinds your eyes — the muscles, the veins. God, she's a fucking treat. She pushes the lower half of her clothes down the rest of her rather long legs, eventually, and they rest on your chin. One more time, God, the fucking aroma of her dried sweat from her shorts and underwear. Each second of exposure alters your brain cells into these lechery-ridden units, one by one.

Minji is aware of your need for it, though, and she kicks her garments away onto the floor. Again, you whine in displeasure, but you don't move for it, not when they're trapping your legs and your head like this. Maybe, definitely, they'll grant you something far greater than Minji's sweat-soaked underwear.

"You really are a nasty little slut," Minji scoffs before sinking to her knees. And finally, you get to bask in the sight and scent of her cunt. She trims her hair neatly, not quite completely shaven clean. But to restate, it fucking makes you even more fucking feral. She's already glistening with her juice — wet. Then, there's the smell — the tart, sweaty smell of her pussy that almost knocks you out with how fast your heart has been beating for the taste of it.

Down under (not in Australia, just your dick), Hanni starts feeling your leaky, twitching cock with caution, drawing a line up your length, rubbing over your foreskin. You feel her hot breath against your body, making you quiver with apprehension.

"Perhaps I should just jerk you off and get this over with, gaffer," and you see Hanni smile and giggle devilishly through Minji's thigh gap.

You instantly negate, pointing at her, "I'll fucking drop you if you do that."

Hanni coos, still rubbing your cock, "I'll have to sit on the sideline for a while if you fuck my pussy, nonetheless."

Your brow tightens a bit. What the fuck is she talking about? Hernia?

"Come on, do you really think I'm gonna let your cum go to waste, gaffer? You don't like cumming inside your players?"

Oh.

Pregnancy.

Your brain is too fucked-out to protest against her words. And to be completely clear, you find the notion of unloading yourself inside Hanni's wanting cunt alluring as well.

Hanni doesn't make a show of taking off her shorts, instead yanking them and her panties down her legs in a haste. She climbs onto the bed before straddling you with her thighs. You cannot shift your legs freely now, not that you want to, though. Your eyes just take a look at whatever you can see through Minji's legs — the slim waist, the yummy thighs, the soaked cunt. You're so ready to let her fuck you up.

Up front, Minji starts running her hand through your hair, feeling the texture and the oiliness of your head. It has been a while since someone ruffled your hair like this. Your eyes roll up with bliss until Minji finally sinks down.

The taste of Minji's cunt explodes on your tongue at the first contact — salty, intense. "Fuck!" Minji groans from the depths of her lungs as you kiss her cunt, even if you're not quite moving your lips yet. The voice bounces all over the room. Let's hope the walls are thick here.

Hanni doesn't let up either, also lining your cock up against her wet opening. Your body squirms helplessly once she drops herself down ever so slowly. You try to thrust your hips up into her cunt as well, but Hanni pins you down with the strength of her hand. With each inch, you moan into Minji's pussy until you hilt inside Hanni. Fucking fuck, Hanni's cunt is just so fucking tight.

"Shit," Hanni utters with a little drag in her tone, "you're stretching my defenses wide, Coach."

And you can't really answer, too busy eating Minji's cunt. You appreciate the sentiment, still.

Hanni just stays there for a while, perchance feeling the way your cock pulses and throbs inside her. She tightens and loosens around your cock in a rhythm. You fucking swear that you can just cum right now, inside of Hanni fucking Pham.

Minji sets up the first grinding on your face, eventually, and you tag along with her movements by tongue-fucking her musky, sweaty cunt. You taste her inner walls, feeling how the muscles contract around your flesh, feeling how she pulses, feeling how she heaves. Minji keeps moaning out of the bliss she's feeling from your dexterity. You're an impressive pussy-eater, magnificent even!

With a few more thrusts of your tongue, Minji repositions herself slightly. She moves down until your tongue can't reach the inside of her cunt anymore, instead coming into contact with her clit, and that's when she groans even more raucously into the air that reeks of sweat and sex. Her body spasms on your face, and you can't help but keep stimulating her to climax.

Down south, Hanni begins grinding her pussy on your cock. She picks up her pace without relenting. Your eyes roll up with the pleasure of her walls contracting around your hard cock buried deep inside her. Hanni's moans come out more reserved than those of Minji's — less intensity, lower scale — as if their personalities are switched upon feeling the pleasure from your body. You don't mind, nevertheless, it's good to have two sweaty women riding you!

Hanni's hands grip your shirt firmly. The grinds become bounces. Your toes curl helplessly behind Hanni with the pleasure wracking through your cock, and Minji keeps suffocating you with her musky cunt. The wet claps of Hanni's delectable thighs against your hips echo all over the room — this revered sanctuary of your salacious act.

With the staggering sensation on your pliant body, you can feel your climax building up in your loins. Far, but rapidly approaching. Too quick for your own liking, but you are thankful for every second you've been below them. Thank you, god of sweaty sex, if there's one.

"I'm close," you rasp against Minji's flesh, voice all muffled by her cunt.

The response from Minji is that she ups her ante on your handsome face, determined to cum before you lose the desire for them. Her hand is still in your hair, almost yanking you back and forth under her pussy to control your cervical movements. Your head is slammed into the soft cushion of the bed repeatedly. It doesn't hurt, at least. Hanni rides your cock with even more haste, sending endless waves of bliss through your litheness. Your body becomes a mere fucktoy for the girls now, and you're ecstatic, really. Despite how rough it is, despite how careless they are, you still want to ask for more of Hanni bouncing on it crazy style, controlling your cock with an unmatched flair, and Minji smothering you with the salivating pungency of her cunt.

"Can I just shoot it into your face, huh?" Minji asks with a small chuckle.

You just nod profusely, so much need for her juice on your features, maybe even on your tongue.

Hanni's moans are still softer than Minji's, but you can sense them growing needier and less composed. Her delicious thighs feel so soft around your hips. Your pubic bone feels the tip of her fingers that are rubbing her sensitive spot in frantic circles.

"Don't fucking pull out, gaffer," Hanni manages, giggling mischievously. Her hands are, of course, pinning your pliable physique in place to keep you from spilling yourself outside of her womb.

You hum against Minji's core as a response to Hanni's demand.

Your inhibitions start collapsing under the weight of Hanni and Minji's barrage on your senses — sweat, their muscles, the softness of their flesh. Their descant moans fill your brain with endorphins that push you towards the brink of an earth-shattering climax. Your body cannot hold itself against their constant assaults anymore. Time to cum!

One last time, three things.

First, Minji's stamina and strength make her perfect for the box-to-box midfielder role.

Second, Hanni's vision and technique make her perfect for the deep-lying playmaker role.

Third, your timidity and submissiveness make you perfect as, for them, the seat role.

At the moment you unload yourself inside Hanni's cunt, your nerves are completely fried. You moan whorishly into Minji's body as your own pleasure ruins your axons and dendrites. Their moans bounce off the hopefully thick walls of their own room — Hanni's cute squeals and Minji's deep groans. Your cock spills and shoots ropes and jets of cum into Hanni. And on top of your body, she and Minji start gushing their girlcum onto you as they orgasm as well.

Minji's squirt enters your wanting mouth, and you can do nothing but accept her liquid down your throat — salty, musky. The act itself makes your eyes roll up with intense pleasure of swallowing Minji's pungent fluid. Its taste just fucking explodes on your tongue — unlike anything you've ever tasted. You're such a whore for her.

Hanni, still riding the hell out of your soul, lets out torrents of her juice onto your shirt, marking the garment as yours and hers. You feel this tickle in a similar vein to when water hits your stomach (duh). Her thighs strain, wrapping tightly around your hips as she cums, stopping you from involuntarily pulling out. The conception is obvious: she wants your baby!

The three of you descend from the peak eventually, slowly catching breaths as the tension deflates. Your body is utterly used and abused by your players. Their pussies are just otherworldly — tight, wet, punishing. Hanni's is milking your cock eagerly, and Minji's is smothering you with sharp tartness.

Minji lifts herself up a bit, returning to you the ability to talk freely. The air around your nostrils is still unmistakably her, but being granted such a gift is almost enough for you. Just almost, the sweat particles are still assaulting your lungs.

"Good thing you didn't scream, Siu, when you came," you humor.

"Red card for atrocious joke," Minji heartily sneers with her deep and somewhat now-raspy voice. She dismounts your face, finally, and you feel the air surrounding you return to the faint smell of their spring-like air freshener and just a hint of sex and sweat.

As Minji leaves your mouth and sits on the bed, Hanni comes into view fully for the first time tonight. You see a gush of your own cum leaking out of her wanton cunt, and she just giggles with a finger to her lips.

"Thanks for filling me up, gaffer," Hanni says before pulling herself off your cock. More cum drips out of her cunt onto you, though she doesn't bother stuffing your essence back inside her. "Gonna feel so good when your sperm pierces my egg."

You just look at her blankly as a response, unsure of what to say. Let's hope it's just the heat of the moment and she'll decide not to get pregnant with your baby.

"We should take a shower," Minji says.

"Together!" Hanni chimes in, and Minji just shrugs and smiles a little.

You sit up on the mattress with the power of your weak abs before following them into their bathroom for, certainly, perchance, a few rounds more of exploring one another's bodies.

Right at the door's threshold, however, Minji stops you for a heartbeat as Hanni enters the bathroom.

"Wait," she utters.

"What is it?"

She turns back to you, her height looking so towering here — majestic — and she pinches your cheek. A smile appears on her sweaty face. "Slut."

You've been standing on this corner for twenty minutes, watching shapes move through the rain-slicked dark. People emerge from doorways and vanish into taxis. The city breathes around you, indifferent to your crisis of conscience. And you're starting to think that maybe this whole thing - this plan, this night, this pathetic attempt at authenticity - is exactly the kind of intellectual masturbation your workshop professors used to warn against.

You've published three short stories. Decent literary magazines. The kind with small circulations and respectful reviews. They called your prose "clean" and "technically proficient." They said you had "promise." But they all noted the same flaw, buried in the compliments like a splinter: your work lacked a certain veracity. That word. You've turned it over in your mind a thousand times, and every time it feels like an indictment. Your characters feel hollow because you're hollow. You're writing about shadows of experiences you've never had, emotions you've only observed from a comfortable distance.

You want to write about suffering. Real suffering. The kind that leaves scars on people's souls, that changes the way they move through the world. But how can you when your own life has been nothing but a series of comfortable, middle-class disappointments? Breakups that hurt but healed. Rejections that stung but didn't destroy. You're a fraud trying to write truth, and the gap between what you know and what you want to say feels unbridgeable.

So tonight, you're doing something about it. Tonight, you've decided to stop theorizing and start living. Or at least, start witnessing. You're going to be a tourist in someone else's hell, and you're going to hope that somewhere in the wreckage, you'll find the veracity you've been missing.

The address leads you to a door that looks like any other: just a plain, dark-green slab of wood with a tarnished brass number. No red light, no neon sign promising pleasure. It’s almost disappointingly discreet. You push it open into a narrow hallway that smells of damp carpet and cigarettes. At a small wooden desk sits a woman old enough to be your grandmother. She doesn’t look up from the crossword puzzle she’s working on, just keeps worrying a string of cheap plastic rosary beads with one hand while the other holds a pen.

She finally lifts her gaze, and it feels like being weighed and measured.

“Yeah? What.”

“I, uh. I’m looking for a girl.”

She clicks her pen. “They’re all girls. Specifics.”

“Twenties. Someone… smart. Who can talk.”

Her lips twitch into something that isn’t a smile. It’s more like a muscle spasm of mild amusement. She looks you over again, taking in your soaked jacket and your too-earnest face. You, the writer, trying to play a role you haven't even written yet. She seems to understand the whole pathetic story in a single glance. Without another word, she picks up a small desk phone, mutters a single word into it you can’t make out, and hangs up. She slides a small, cold, brass key across the desk. Room 7.

You walk up the stairs in silence, simply absorbing the atmosphere of the place, which is quieter than you expected. You find the door, and the key feels slick with sweat in your hand. You have to try twice to get it into the lock. For a second, you think about turning back, about just running out into the cleansing rain and forgetting this whole stupid, pretentious idea. But you don’t. You turn the key, push the door open, and step inside.

The room is dim, lit only by a small bedside lamp with a heavy shade that casts a cone of amber light. It takes your eyes a moment to adjust, to see past the haze of your own anxiety. And then you see her. She’s not waiting for you, not posed or expectant. She’s curled up on the edge of the bed, propped against the headboard, wearing a simple black slip dress that leaves her shoulders and the long, elegant lines of her legs bare. She’s reading a paperback, her focus so absolute you feel like an intruder. Her hair is as black as night, long and well-groomed, or perhaps that's just its natural appearance, framing a face that stops your breath. It’s the kind of face that’s so perfectly symmetrical it’s almost unsettling. Wide, intelligent eyes; a nose that is delicate and majestic (in the sense of belonging to a mystical royal figure), full lips that are completely relaxed as she reads. It’s her. You know that face. You spent four years trying not to stare at it in calculus.

She looks up, her eyes adjusting to the shape of you standing in the doorway, and her expression shifts from neutral concentration to a flicker of confusion, then to a sudden shock of recognition.

“Holy shit.”

Her voice is the same: low, a little husky. Particularly appealing to your ears and personal tastes. It’s the voice that answered a question about derivatives once and made the entire room feel stupid. You just stand there, mute.

“Kim Minji.”

The name comes out of you like a ghost. She closes the book, without bothering to bookmark the page, she's definitely the type who remembers the exact number.

“I gotta say,” she begins, her gaze sweeping over you, a little sarcastic, a little amused. “Of all the people I thought might walk through that door tonight… you weren't even on the list. Not in the top million.”

Her dress is short, riding high on her thighs as she uncurls her legs to sit facing you. It’s a simple garment, but on her, it looks like high fashion. It accentuates the flawless skin of her collarbones, the gentle slope of her shoulders. You finally find your own voice, though it sounds thin and foreign.

“What… what are you doing here?”

She laughs, but it's far from meaning she's happy. “What does it look like I’m doing? Isn’t it obvious?”

“Yes! I mean, yeah, obvious. But not—I didn’t mean you look obvious. Like a prostitute. You don’t. At all. It’s just the context, right? The room, the… everything. That’s the only reason it’s obvious. It’s a contextual obviousness. Not a personal one.”

She just watches the train wreck, a genuine giggle escaping her lips this time.

“Relax,” she says. She unfolds herself from the bed slowly. In three steps, she’s closed the space between you, and the air crackles with a proximity you are profoundly unequipped to handle. She takes your hand. Her skin is warm, her grip surprisingly firm. “It’s unexpected, seeing you here. But I’m not gonna judge. Not really in a position to, am I?”

She leads you to the bed and gently pushes you down to sit on the edge. The mattress gives beneath you. Before you can process it, she turns and settles herself onto your lap, facing you, her legs bracketing one of yours. Her scent is subtle, something like clean linen, maybe a hint of green tea. And there’s a subtle smell of something that must be cigarette smoke, but you don't have time for aromatic guessing right now. Then she leans in, her face close to yours.

“So. What’s on the menu for tonight?” she asks. “Let’s get the ground rules out of the way. It’s a set price for the hour. No anal. No kissing on the mouth. No creampies, so don’t even think about trying to pull the condom off. If you’re into it, I’ve got a strap-on in the drawer. You seem like the type who might like that, having a girl take charge.”

Remembering: this is Kim Minji, who sat two rows ahead of you, who you once saw read a Dostoevsky novel during a pep rally. She’s looking at you with an unreadable, seductive calm, talking about strap-ons, and for one terrifying, electric second, your body betrays your brain and you actually consider it.

She must see the conflict warring across your face, because a flicker of a real smile touches her lips. “But maybe… for a familiar face, I’d make an exception on the kissing rule.”

It’s the fabricated intimacy that snaps you out of your stupor. You find a strength you didn’t know you had, place your hands on the thin, silky fabric at her waist, and gently, respectfully, lift her off your lap, setting her down beside you on the bed. Her expression shifts instantly from seductive professional to utterly, completely confused.

“I… I appreciate the offer,” you stammer, feeling the heat in your own cheeks. “You’re… very convincing. But that’s not why I’m here.”

She just stares at you, brows knitting together. “Then why the fuck are you here?”

You take a breath. Here it is. The pitch. “I’m writing a book. A novel. It’s about a girl, like you. I mean, not like you you, but in this line of work. It’s about her perspective on the city, on people. And I… I need it to be real. I can’t just make it all up. The details, the feeling of it. It would be a lie. So I came here for research.”

Minji’s face remains blank for a long second. Then she throws her head back and laughs. Not a giggle this time, but a full, throaty, cynical laugh. It’s a laugh that says she’s heard every stupid line in the book, and this one is a new classic.

“Research,” she repeats. “Holy shit. That’s a new one. You want to buy my time to… what? Ask me about my tragic backstory so you can write it down and win a fucking award?”

“No, that’s not it. I want to pay you for your time. The same rate. We just… talk. I ask questions. You tell me what you think about things. Anything. Philosophy, the news, politics. I want an authentic perspective.”

She looks at you, her eyes narrowed, dissecting your earnest, stupid face. “So you don’t want to fuck my body, you want to fuck my head instead. You want to mine my life for ‘authenticity.’ You know what that is? It’s the same transaction, just wrapped up in a pretty, intellectual bow. People who read your book will get to feel worldly and empathetic for a few hours, dipping their toes into a life like this from the safety of their fucking IKEA armchair, and you get to be the brilliant artist who brought it to them. It’s still voyeurism. It’s just… what? Torture porn for literary majors.”

“That’s not fair,” you argue. “Art can build empathy. A good story can make someone feel something real, understand a life they’d otherwise just ignore or judge.”

“Oh, spare me the ‘power of art’ speech. Every writer thinks their intentions are pure. Every director shooting a movie about war thinks he’s an anti-war activist. At the end of the day, you’re still selling a product, and the product is someone else’s pain. My pain. You’re just another john, but you want to buy my misery instead of my pussy.”

She’s right, or at least, she’s not wrong. The ethical ground beneath you has turned to quicksand. You can only be honest.

“You have every right to say no. And you’re probably right about some of it. But I am asking. And I will pay.”

She studies you for a long time, the silence stretching out. She looks at your hands, your shoes, your face. Finally, a long, slow sigh escapes her. She seems to deflate, the fight going out of her.

“Getting paid to talk is better than getting a knee injury from some asshole who thinks he’s a porn star,” she says flatly. “Okay. Fine. I’ll be your little research project. But there are rules. Non-negotiable.”

“Okay. What are they?”

She holds up a finger. “One. You don’t ask about my past. How I got here, my family, where I’m from. All of that is a locked box. You don’t get the key.” She holds up a second finger. “Two. Your character is not me. You can use ideas, feelings, observations. You cannot use my life. You are not writing my biography.” A third finger joins the others. “Three. You are not here to save me. I don’t need a hero. Don’t get any ideas about rescuing the poor, fallen woman. It’s pathetic, and I’ll walk the second you try it.” She pauses, and her gaze becomes incredibly intense. “And last… you can’t fall in love with me.”

She lets that one hang in the air.

“I’m serious,” she adds. “Don’t. It’s a bad idea for everyone. This is a job. So if you think you can handle all that… maybe we have a deal.”

You look at the rules she’s laid out. They seem like walls, high and thick. They’re all acceptable, a fair price for what you’re asking. Except the last one. The last one feels different. It feels less like a rule and more like a premonition. But you’ve come this far. You push the doubt down.

“I accept.”

She extends a hand, cool and formal.

“Deal, writer boy.”

You take it. Her handshake is firm, sealing the strange, impossible contract.

“So when do we start?” you ask, your hand falling away from hers.

“How about now?” she says, standing up and grabbing a simple, worn coat from a hook on the door. “There’s a 24-hour diner three blocks from here. I’m starving.” She looks at you. “You pay the house for my hour, then you can buy me a cheeseburger.”

It’s an order. You nod, pulling your wallet out. You agree. She slings a small bag over her shoulder, and together, you walk out of the room, leaving the bed and the amber lamp behind.

—

The rain follows you. It has been raining for days now, and it still doesn't seem close to stopping. Minji doesn't seem bothered by the rain. You walk side-by-side under the fractured glow of the streetlights, a weird silence stretching between you. It’s her who breaks it.

“So why, though?” she asks, not looking at you, just staring ahead at the wet, black asphalt. “Of all the miserable little stories in this miserable fucking city, why this one? Why mine?”

You knew the question was coming. You just didn’t have a good answer for it. “I don’t really know. It feels… necessary. I just want to write something that matters, I guess.” You shove your hands in your pockets. “I’ve published a few things. Short stories. The reviews are always polite. They say I’m technically proficient, that the prose is clean.” You pause. “But they all say the same thing. ‘Lacks a certain veracity.’ That was the phrase one of them used. A nice way of saying my characters feel like bullshit.”

Minji is quiet for a moment, absorbing that. “So you came looking for veracity in a whorehouse.” It doesn't sound like a question. It’s a diagnosis.

The diner is an oasis in this deluge. It smells of old coffee, sizzling bacon grease, and the clean scent of bleach. You both slide into a booth with cracked red vinyl seats, the big window next to you a canvas of streaming, distorted city lights. You memorize everything. This could be an interesting setting for a story. A moment later, a girl your age approaches, wiping the table with a damp cloth. Her face is cherubic, with large, luminous eyes and a spray of light freckles across her nose that you can see even in the harsh lighting. She moves with an exhausted, end-of-shift efficiency. She gives Minji a tired but genuine smile.

“Hey, Minji. The usual?”

“Hey, Dani. Yeah, the usual,” Minji says, then gestures to you with her thumb. “This is… a customer.”

The waitress glances at you. Her friendly expression tightens just a fraction. It’s a look you’re starting to get used to: suspicion. “A customer?”

“Not the normal kind,” Minji clarifies.

Danielle looks from you to Minji and back again, her eyes narrowing. “Right. Better I don’t know what a ‘different’ customer is, I’m guessing.”

“You’re guessing right,” Minji says, picking up a menu she has no intention of reading. “It’s disgusting, really. He’s going to sit here and ask me a bunch of intimate questions and pretend he cares about the answers.”

Danielle’s gaze on you hardens. “Are you a reporter?”

“Worse,” Minji deadpans. “He’s a writer.” She rattles off her order without looking up. “Cheeseburger deluxe, extra pickles, fries, a Coke, and a slice of the apple pie.” She closes the menu and pushes it toward you. “He’ll have… I don’t know. Sad artist food.”

You just look at Danielle. “Just a coffee, please. And a slice of the pie.”

Danielle jots it down, gives you one last wary look, and walks away. “Dani’s a good kid,” Minji says quietly, watching her go. “Goes to city college for chemistry during the day, works the graveyard shift here.”

“Can we, uh, get started?”

Minji leans back against the vinyl, crossing her arms. A look of profound boredom settles onto her perfect features. “Knock yourself out, writer boy. Your meter’s running.”

You pull a small, dog-eared notebook and a pen from your jacket pocket. You feel like a caricature of yourself. You click the pen. “Okay. So. On an average night, how many clients do you see?”

“Depends,” she says, her eyes drifting to the kitchen pass-through. “Tuesday? Maybe one or two. Friday? Could be six, seven. Depends on the weather. Depends if there’s a convention in town.”

“And what’s the… financial arrangement? Do you get a percentage? Do you have a weekly quota?”

“Fifty percent to the house. No quota. It’s a freelance gig with really shitty benefits.”

Her answers are rote, mechanical. She’s giving you the FAQ page. You press on, feeling increasingly like a tax auditor. “What are the biggest dangers? Is it the clients, or…?”

“The biggest danger is boredom,” she says. “Clients are mostly just sad. Or angry. Or scared. The dangerous ones you learn to spot. The real danger is dying of boredom while some guy tells you about his wife for the fifth time.”

Danielle arrives with the drinks and your pie. A few minutes later, she returns with Minji’s order. It’s a glorious, greasy platter of food. A huge burger dripping with cheese, a mountain of golden fries. Minji’s entire demeanor changes. She picks up the burger with both hands, squishes it down, and takes a huge bite. A little bit of ketchup escapes onto her thumb, and she licks it off without a second thought.

You clear your throat and glance at your list of stupid questions.

“Do you get… regulars?”

She pops a fry into her mouth and chews thoughtfully before answering. “A few.”

“And what’s that like? Is it… easier? Knowing them?”

“It’s less paperwork,” she says, not elaborating.

You press on, feeling the gears of your own ineptitude grinding. “What’s the weirdest request you’ve ever gotten?”

She stops chewing and looks at you with an expression of profound pity. “Sorry. All my anecdotes are proprietary.”

This isn't going as you expected. You look down at your notepad, at the list of questions you spent hours compiling. What safety precautions do you take? How do you separate the work from your personal life? Have you ever felt a real connection with a client? They all seem impossibly shallow now, like trying to understand the ocean by asking it to fill out a survey. You let the pen rest on the page. You’ve run out of questions that don’t make you feel like a complete asshole.

So you just watch her instead. You watch her finish the fries, then pull the slice of apple pie closer. She eats it with a different kind of focus - slower, more deliberate, savoring each bite. You notice things. A tiny, silver-white scar that cuts through her left eyebrow, almost invisible unless the light hits it just right. The way she tucks a strand of her black hair behind her ear, a gesture that is entirely her own. You start writing again, but you don't look at her while you do it. The pen scratches quietly across the paper.

She never looks at her phone. Not once.

There’s a small, faded bruise on her inner wrist, shaped like a thumbprint.

She has a habit of tapping her front teeth with her thumbnail when she’s thinking.

You’re so lost in the cataloging of these details, these tiny fragments of a real person, that you don’t notice she’s finished her pie and is just watching you, her chin resting in her hand.

“What the hell are you writing over there? You’re filling up pages. My life isn’t that interesting, I promise you.”

You look up, startled. You feel caught, like a spy. You close the notebook and slide it to the side of the table, next to the salt shaker.

“It’s nothing. Just small notes.” This whole approach was a mistake. You came in like a scientist, all clipboards and questions, when you should have just come in like a person. You decide to try that now. “Look, I’m sorry. This isn't working.”

She raises an eyebrow, intrigued by your admission of failure. “Oh yeah? Your ‘research’ hitting a wall?”

“Yeah,” you admit. “My questions are garbage. They’re not what I actually want to know.” You lean forward, resting your arms on the table. You look at her, not as a subject, but as the girl who used to sit two rows ahead of you in calculus. “Forget the book for a second. Let’s just talk.”

She eyes you with deep suspicion, her guard instantly back up. “Talk about what? Don’t think this is your chance to sneak in questions about my ‘tragic past’.”

“No. Not about that. Just… what do you like to do? You know. When you’re not working. When you’re not here. What do you do for fun?”

She stares at you, her mouth slightly agape. She seems to be searching for the angle, the trick, the hidden question beneath the question. Finding none, she’s left adrift in the unfamiliar territory of a genuine, human inquiry. She blinks, looks out the rain-streaked window for a long moment, watching the traffic lights change through the window, turning the raindrops on the glass from red to green to amber. and then turns back to you.

“I read,” she says, simply and directly.

Of course. You remember it instantly. In the back of every class, during every lunch break, she always had a book. A thick paperback with a worn spine, held in one hand while the other doodled in the margins of a notebook.

“You always did,” you say. “Even in high school.”

“I’ve been reading since I was a kid,” she says with a small shrug. “It’s the only thing that’s never felt like a waste of time.”

“Favorite books?” you ask, leaning forward, genuinely curious now. The notebook lies forgotten on the table.

“The list changes. Every week, maybe. I’ve been on a Murakami kick lately. Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I know he’s problematic, the way he writes women sometimes… but god, the atmosphere. The feeling. It gets under your skin.” She takes a sip of her water. “Before that, I finished a biography on Foucault.”

You blink, surprised. “Foucault? That’s… heavy reading for a Tuesday night.”

“Says the guy who wants to write a magnum opus about suffering,” she shoots back, a playful glint in her eye. “I was interested in his ideas about power. How it’s not just some guy in a castle telling you what to do. It’s in everything. Every structure, every conversation.” She gestures with her fork between the two of you. “Like this. You, the observer, asking questions. Me, the subject, giving answers. You think you’re just gathering information, but you’re creating a narrative of power where you get to define me.”

“The Panopticon,” you say. “The prisoner who knows he might be being watched at any moment, so he polices his own behavior.”

“Exactly,” she says, pointing the fork at you. “And you’re the man in the central tower. You think you’re seeing the ‘real’ me, but you’re only seeing the version of me that knows you’re watching.”

You just stare at her. The intelligence radiating from her is more captivating than her beauty. “You’re amazing,” you confess. “I thought you were amazing in high school, too.”

The admission makes her pause. A faint blush rises on her cheeks. “I remember you,” she says softly. “You were always in the library. The quiet, smart, slightly mysterious one in the corner. Always scribbling in a notebook.”

“I always wanted to talk to you,” you say.

“So why didn’t you?”

“Are you kidding?” you laugh. “You were… you. You had that big group of friends, you were always laughing. You were confident. Intimidating. It was way too much for a kid like me.”

“God, was that what it looked like?” She giggles, a veil of sadness momentarily crossing her face. “Everything feels so complicated when you’re a teenager. If you had just come over and said hi, I probably would have been thrilled. You seemed nice.” She looks down at her hands, tracing the rim of her water glass. “The image you had of me… it was completely wrong. I wasn’t like that at all. Not on the inside.”

“For what it’s worth. You still look amazing to me.”

Her eyes snap up to meet yours. She’s flustered, and trying to hide her shyness, she forces a cynical little smile. “Even though I’m a prostitute?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It matters. Don’t be naive. It’s the first and last thing people see. It’s a brand. You know what men think when they hear it. You know what other women think. It matters.”

“Will you ever… change professions?” The question is out before you can vet it for stupidity.

“Do you think I want to be doing this?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

“Changing jobs doesn’t change the brand. It’s not that simple.” She sighs, clearly done with this line of conversation. She pushes her empty plate away. “Anyway. I’ll look up those short stories of yours. See if you’re actually any good.”

You feel a ridiculous surge of hope. “Yeah?”

“Don’t get excited,” she warns, but she is smiling. “I’m a harsh critic.”

Just then, Danielle appears at the table, a coffee pot in hand. “Anything else for you guys?”

Minji starts gathering her things, pulling on her coat. “Nope, we’re good. I actually have to go.”

The spell is broken. The session is over. You pull out your wallet and pay the bill Danielle leaves on the table, leaving a generous tip. You realize that if this were a story, the transaction would be a harsh metaphor of the frame around this entire evening.

Minji waves a quick, casual goodbye to Danielle over her shoulder, and then you’re pushing through the diner’s glass door, back into the night. The cold hits you first, a damp slap in the face. The rain has eased into a fine, persistent drizzle that coats everything in a slick, reflective sheen. The city sounds are muffled, distant.

You fall into step beside her, the silence comfortable for a few paces. You’re not ready for the night to end, not ready for her to go back to being a name in a file at the front desk of that discreet green door.

“So, besides reading,” you start, trying to keep the thread of normalcy going, “is there anything else you like to do?”

She thinks for a moment, her breath pluming in the cold air. “Sleep,” she says.

“Right. You must be up all night for work. That’s got to be tiring.”

“You get used to it,” she says with a shrug. “Just flip the switch. The night is the day, the day is the night. I sleep all morning, all afternoon. The sun feels weird to me now.”

You look at her profile under the blurry halo of a streetlight. Now that she’s mentioned it, you can see it. Faint, dark smudges beneath her eyes, skillfully muted by makeup but there if you look. A weariness that settles deep into the lines of her face when she isn't actively smiling. It does nothing to diminish how beautiful she is; it just makes her beauty seem more fragile, poetically tainted.

“I really like sleeping, though,” she continues, “sometimes I wish I could just sleep forever. Never wake up.”

“That’s… a little morbid, Minji.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking. I just mean… it’s nice in there. In the dark. Imagine just being asleep, all the time. Living in one dream after another. A whole other reality, just for you. No rules. No gravity.”

“You’ve definitely been reading too much Murakami,” you say, nudging her with your elbow.

She laughs for real this time and gives you a light, playful punch on the arm that sends a surprising warmth through your whole body. “Shut up, you.”

And in that small, perfect moment of connection, you both hear it.

crack

The sound is disorienting, brittle, and sickeningly final. It comes from under your foot. You both freeze and look down. There on the wet, black pavement is a snail, its delicate, spiraled shell shattered into a dozen pieces, its soft body a ruined mess.

“Oh, shit,” you breathe. “Poor thing.”

“You get used to it,” Minji says coldly.

“I don’t know about that.”

She looks at you, her face serious in the dim light. “It only happened because you’re with me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I step on them,” she says, as if stating a fundamental law of physics. “Every time I walk around in the rain. Always. Without fail.”

You manage a skeptical laugh. “That’s just a coincidence, Minji.”

“No, it’s not.” She looks at you intently. “Think about it. Before tonight, have you ever, in your entire life, accidentally stepped on a snail? Not on purpose, when you were a psycho kid. Accidentally.”

You search your memory. Bugs, yes. But a snail? The specific, gruesome crack of a shell? You honestly don’t think so. “No… I guess not.”

“See?” she says, as if this proves everything. “It happens to me. All the time, during the rainy season. It’s my thing.”

“And you think it… means something?”

“It’s probably a curse.”

“It seems like a very specific, kind of pointless curse,” you argue, trying to be the rational one. “Surely you’re not the only person in the world who steps on snails.”

She snorts. “Okay, writer boy. You’ll see for yourself.” She says it as if she's challenging you. “Now that you’ve been with me, it’ll start happening to you, too. You’ll see.”

“Has anything… bad ever happened to you because of this so-called curse?”

She gestures to herself with an open palm: her coat, her job, her presence on this dark street at this hour of the night. The gesture encompasses her entire existence.

“Look at me,” she says simply.

“That’s not evidence, that’s paranoia.”

She just shakes her head, giving up on you. You’ve walked the few blocks back, and the plain, dark-green door is right in front of you. The end of the line.

“So,” you say, hating the transactional feeling that’s creeping back in. “When can I see you again?”

“Same day next week is fine,” she says. Then she adds, “But we’re doing this during the day. My treat. Meet me at that same diner. Say, three o’clock.” She sees the question on your face and clarifies. “I could be with a client right now instead of walking around with you. But there’s no business for me on a Wednesday afternoon. Maximize profits, you know?” The logic is cold, but the offer is warm. She smiles, a genuine, tired smile. “It was good to see you again, writer boy. You’re still full of surprises.”

“You too.” You think about adding something else, but you just leave it at that.

You start to turn, to walk away into the drizzle.

“Hey!”

You look back. Minji is standing in the doorway, one hand on the frame.

“Thanks for the burger.”

“You’re paying next time.”

She laughs. It's the only sound on the empty street besides the rain. “No fucking way.”

She gives you one last look, then disappears inside, the green door clicking shut behind her. You smile to yourself and continue on your way, the sound of the rain blending with the echo of her laugh.

—

The week crawls by, and Minji takes up residence in your head, rent-free. You find yourself rereading the notes from the diner, but the clinical observations feel like a cheap caricature now. What you remember is the sad, knowing look in her eyes when she talked about her high school self, the sound of her real laugh, the surprising warmth of her arm when she punched you. You can’t square the woman who debated Foucault in a greasy spoon with the transactional reality of her life. The question of how she got there becomes an obsessive, unanswerable itch in your brain, a direct violation of her first and most important rule.

When Wednesday finally arrives, you’re standing outside the diner ten minutes early. She arrives right on time, and for a second, you don’t recognize her. The night-time creature from the brothel, all silky black dress and calculated allure, is gone. In her place is a girl who could be any other student on her way to the library. She’s wearing a pair of worn, faded jeans that fit her perfectly, a soft-looking red and black flannel shirt, and a pair of scuffed work boots. Her hair is pulled back in a messy knot, and without the careful makeup, the dark circles under her eyes are more pronounced.

“Wow,” you say, the word escaping before you can stop it. “You look… different.”

She shoves her hands in her pockets and gives you a wry, tired smile. “Yeah, well. I’m not gonna walk around looking like a whore on my day off, am I?” She starts walking toward the diner’s entrance. “Bad for business. No guy wants to fuck a girl who looks like she just came from a shift. They want the illusion that they’re the only one.”

The casual cynicism is a splash of cold water, and the best thing to say is to say nothing. You just follow her inside and slide into the same booth as last time. The coffee you order is hot and bitter and does nothing to wake her up. She cradles the warm mug in her hands, her eyelids heavy.

“Where to?” you ask gently. “The city’s your oyster.”

She shrugs, staring into her cup. “I don’t know. I mostly just sleep.” Then a flicker of something animates her face, a memory surfacing. “There was this place… an arcade. I spent half my childhood in there. I heard it’s closing down at the end of the month.” She looks at you. “I’d like to see it one last time. For old time’s sake.”

“Okay,” you smile, “let's go to the arcade then.”

—

The arcade is what you'd expect from an arcade about to close its doors forever. Half the machines are dark, bearing sad, handwritten ‘Out of Order’ signs, but the ones that still work blink and beckon. As you step inside, a wave of nostalgia hits you so hard. The worn, patterned carpet, the prize counter filled with cheap plastic junk, the specific layout of the machines - you know this place.

“I used to come here,” you say. “All the time. After school.”

She looks at you, her eyes wide. “No way. Me too. You think we were ever here at the same time? Two little kids, playing games ten feet away from each other, with no idea.”

“It’s possible,” you say, and the thought of that missed connection, of the parallel lives you lived, hangs between you, both beautiful and sad.

She immediately heads for a vintage Street Fighter II cabinet.

“You’re going down, writer boy,” she says, cracking her knuckles with theatrical flair.

You laugh, grabbing the joystick on the right. “You have no idea who you’re talking to. I was a legend on this thing.”

You were not a legend on this thing. She annihilates you. Her fingers dance across the buttons. She’s all focus and instinct, her tongue stuck out in concentration, her body swaying with the on-screen action. She beats you five games in a row, her character executing flawless combos while yours flounders. Her laughter is loud and triumphant, echoing through the half-empty arcade. It’s the freest you’ve ever seen her.

You move on to a sit-down racing game, the plastic shells of the cars cracked and faded. She chooses a red Ferrari; you pick a blue Lamborghini. She spends the entire race yelling at the screen, leaning her whole body into the turns, her flannel-clad shoulder bumping against yours. She beats you by a full lap. At the air hockey table, her defense is impenetrable, her shots like cannon fire. The puck is a blur, ricocheting off the walls until it slams into your goal again and again.

After being humiliated countless times, you give up. Minji is doing a little victory dance, and given the circumstances, that's what I'd call “dancing on your grave”.

“Okay, okay, I give,” you laugh, holding your hands up in surrender. “You’re a monster. A stone-cold killer. I’m starting to think you hustled kids for their lunch money in places like this.”

She stops dancing and points a finger at you. “Don’t be a sore loser, writer boy. You were the one talking all that trash about being a ‘legend.’ I was just defending the honor of this fine establishment.”

“I was taking it easy on you!” you protest. “It’s called sportsmanship. You should try it sometime.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, leaning in conspiratorially. “Tell yourself whatever you need to, to sleep at night.” She straightens up, rolling her shoulders back. The change in her is remarkable.

“You don’t seem so sleepy anymore.”

“Humiliating you has renewed my will to live,” she says, her face completely serious before it breaks into a wide, beautiful grin. “Come on. I saw a pizza counter in the back. The loser buys.”

The pizza is terrible and perfect all at once. It’s greasy, the cheese is a little too rubbery, and the crust is a bland, chewy platform for the slick of tomato sauce. You both sit on a pair of wobbly stools at a high-top table. For a few minutes, you just eat in silence. Minji, you note again, eats with a focused, unselfconscious intensity that you find completely captivating. She finishes her first slice and dabs her mouth with a thin paper napkin before turning to you.

“So,” she begins. “This writing thing. Why’d you pick it? Or did it pick you?”

The question catches you off guard. It’s a reversal of the roles you’d established, of the dynamic she herself had critiqued so sharply. Now she was the one probing, asking the questions. You swallow a bite of pizza, buying yourself a second to think of an answer that isn’t complete bullshit.

“I don’t know,” you start, being honest. “I was always the quiet kid. In my own head all the time. I guess writing was… a way to build things. You create these little worlds, you know? And inside them, you’re in control. You’re the god of that little universe. It gives you a sense of power, of authority, when you don’t really have any in the real world.” You look down at your plate, feeling a little exposed. “And I guess… it’s a way of being seen, without actually having to show yourself. You can pour everything you are onto the page, all the ugly and weird and confusing parts, and people can see it, connect with it. But you’re still safe. You’re still hiding behind the words.”

Minji listens intently, her eyes fixed on you. She doesn’t respond right away, just considers your confession with a serious gravity. She takes a slow sip of her soda, the sounds of the arcade seeming to fade into the background.

“Everyone wants to be seen, don’t they?” she muses. “It’s like… the most basic human thing. Proof of existence.” She leans forward, her elbows on the table. “I was reading about those cave paintings in Argentina. The really old ones. There’s one cave, the Cave of Hands, where it’s just… hundreds of handprints stenciled on the walls. Men, women, even children. They’d put their hand on the rock and blow pigment around it. It’s so simple, but it’s devastating when you think about it. It’s not a story, it’s not a hunt. It’s just a signature. Thirty thousand years later, it’s still there. It’s just a person yelling into the void, ‘I was here. We were here. My hand was this big. Can you see me?’”

“And you? Do you want to be seen like that?”

She takes a long time to answer. She looks away, toward a racing game where a kid is furiously spinning the wheel, his face illuminated by the flashing screen. “I think,” she says finally, turning back to you, “I just want people to see me differently. And I feel like I can’t change how they see me. The mold is set.”

“Is it because of the…” you start, the word ‘prostitution’ dying on your lips.

“It’s not just that,” she cuts you off, anticipating your clumsy attempt at understanding. “That’s just a job. A small, shitty part of my life. It’s everything else. It’s the stuff you’re not allowed to ask about.” She sighs. “The problem is, I can’t talk about any of it without it sounding like some sob story. Without people getting that look in their eyes. Pity. And then I’m not a person anymore. I’m a victim. A project. Something to be saved.”

Her eyes lock onto yours, and they are blazing with a fierce, defiant pride. “Honestly? I’d rather you see me as your object of study than as a victim.”

“I don’t see you as either.”

She holds your gaze for a long moment, then just nods. “Okay,” she says softly. “Okay.”

After paying for the pizzas, you step back out onto the street. The sky has changed. The afternoon sun is gone, hidden behind a thick, uniform blanket of bruised-purple clouds. The air is cool and heavy with the promise of rain.

“I love days like this,” Minji says, pulling her flannel shirt tighter around herself as you start to walk. “Cold. A little gloomy. I hate the sun.”

“You hate the sun?” you ask, amused. “Who hates the sun?”

“I do,” she says, completely serious. “Sunny days are oppressive. Everything is so bright and beautiful, and everyone’s out, laughing and living their perfect, happy lives, moving forward on their paths. It’s all so… harmonious. And I just can’t seem to fit into that picture.” She kicks at a loose piece of gravel on the sidewalk. “It feels almost illegal to be sad on a sunny day. Like you’re a bug in the system. But on days like this…” She gestures up at the heavy sky. “The world feels like I do. It gets it. And I can just be. I feel happier this way.”

It’s one of the most honest and insightful things you’ve ever heard. You memorize these words to write them down later. “That’s… an interesting way to look at it,” you admit.

You walk in silence for a few more blocks, the city shifting around you, preparing for the coming storm. You approach a busy intersection, and she stops, turning to face you.

“This is me. My time’s up. Got to get home and get ready for the night shift.”

The spell of the afternoon is broken. You reach into your pocket and pull out the folded cash you’d prepared. The act of handing it to her feels clumsy and wrong, a crude gesture that erases the genuine connection you just felt. She takes it without ceremony and tucks it into the pocket of her jeans.

“I’m going to buy a very expensive, very unhealthy cigarette with this,” she says with a small and defiant smile on her lips.

“I’ll see you next week, then? For our next session?”

“It’s a deal. Bye, writer boy.”

She turns and starts to walk away, merging with the handful of other people waiting for the light to change.

“Minji!” you call out.

She stops and looks back over her shoulder, a question in her eyes.

“I prefer days like this, too,” you say. “For writing. The gloom is… comforting. That and a good cup of coffee, and I can write for hours.”

A real smile spreads across her face, reaching her eyes this time. “The writer boy has style.” She gives you a final, small wave, then turns and disappears into the crowd crossing the street.

You stand there for a moment, watching her go. “You have it too,” you whisper to the empty air.

You turn away from the intersection, a faint, involuntary smile on your face, replaying her last words. The feeling is warm, a small, bright ember in the gloom of the approaching evening. You take a single step off the curb, your mind a million miles away, and then your foot comes down.

Crack.

The sound slices through the city's hum. It’s identical. Unmistakable. You freeze, looking down at the sole of your sneaker. Impaled on the tread is the wreckage of another snail, its shell a mosaic of shattered fragments. A cold, strange feeling, like static electricity, prickles up your spine. Now that you’ve been with me, it’ll start happening to you, too. Her voice echoes in your head, a calm, certain prophecy. It’s absurd. It’s a stupid, irrational coincidence. But the proof is stuck to the bottom of your shoe. You look back across the street, a sudden, urgent need to find her, to show her, to share in the sheer weirdness of it. But the crowd has already swallowed her whole. She’s gone.

You’re alone with her curse.

—

The rest of the week is a compulsive obsession that, in the end, leads you nowhere. You try to work on your novel, but the fictional girl on your page feels thin and lifeless compared to the flesh-and-blood enigma who now occupies your thoughts. You spend hours sketching out her character in your notebook, not for the book, but for yourself. You list the contradictions: her fierce intelligence and her fatalism, her cynical armor and the glimpses of the joyful, vulnerable kid underneath, the way she can dissect a French philosopher one minute and issue a challenge on Street Fighter the next. Each new detail only makes her more complex, more unknowable, and more impossible to forget.

By the time Wednesday rolls around again, you realize while waiting that you've been living your days only for this moment, and it's a worrying realization, the same fixation on something that drove you away from your ex-girlfriend in the past. And friends. And family.

It’s raining today, a steady, determined downpour that turns the city into a watercolor painting of gray and smeared neon. You see her waiting under the diner’s awning, and you feel that familiar jolt. You brought an umbrella, a big black one, and you see she has one too, a clear one with a simple white handle. Today, she’s wearing a dark, knee-length trench coat, belted at the waist, and the same scuffed boots as last week. She looks like a character from a French New Wave film, mysterious and chic and completely at home in the melancholic weather.

“Hey,” you say, stopping in front of her.

“Hey, writer boy,” she replies. “You came prepared.”

“Looks like you did too,” you say, nodding toward her umbrella. She opens hers, and for a moment you both stand there, enclosed in your own little transparent domes. “So what’s the plan for today, consultant?”

She takes a small pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket, taps one out, and puts it between her lips. “No plan,” she says, speaking around the unlit cigarette as she digs for a lighter. “Let’s just walk. We’ll figure it out.” That sounds perfect to you. She finds the lighter, cups her hand around the flame, and the tip of the cigarette glows orange. She takes a long, slow drag, then exhales a plume of smoke that collides with the misty air and vanishes. You start walking, the rhythm of your steps and the rain on your umbrellas creating a moving pocket of sound and solitude.

“When did you start smoking?”

“Sixteen.”

“Seriously? In high school?” You try to picture it, to place this habit onto the girl you remember, the one with the books and the quiet intensity. It doesn’t fit. “I never would have guessed. You were good at hiding it.”

“You have to be, at that age,” she says with a shrug. “It was just one of the things you didn’t see.”

You walk in silence for a block, the only sounds being the rain and the soft hiss of her cigarette. The city feels washed clean, the streets dark and reflective like a river.

“So how was your week?” you ask, trying to sound casual, trying not to let on that you’ve thought of little else.

She takes another drag. “Routine. The usual.”

“What is the usual? What’s a normal night like for you?”

She gives you a sideways glance, a silent reminder of her rule about personal questions. But this feels different, less about her past and more about the simple, grinding mechanics of her present. She seems to decide it’s a permissible question.

“It’s not as exciting as you probably imagine,” she says. “I get there around seven. Sit in that little room. Read a book. Wait for the old woman to call me on the desk phone. A john shows up. We go to the room. He tells me about his shitty job, or his wife who doesn’t get him, or he doesn’t say anything at all. He gets what he paid for. He leaves. I change the sheets. I wash up. I go back to the little room. I pick up my book. I wait for the phone to ring again. Repeat three, four, maybe five times. Go home when the sun is coming up. The end.”

The description is so bleak, so devoid of drama, it’s more chilling than any horror story you could invent. It’s the sheer, soul-crushing monotony of it.

You keep walking, the rain starting to come down harder now. You pass a small city park. It’s completely deserted, the swings swaying gently in the wind, the metal slide slick with rain. A large, multi-colored plastic playground structure (a sort of miniature castle with tunnels and windows) sits in the middle of a sandpit that has turned to dark, wet mud.

Minji stops, tilting her head as she looks at it. She takes one last drag from her cigarette, then flicks the butt into a puddle where it sizzles and dies.

“Come on,” she says, a sudden, mischievous glint in her eye. “I have an idea.”

She ducks under the railing and starts walking across the wet grass toward the playground. You follow, your shoes squelching in the mud.

“What’s the idea?” you call after her.

She reaches the plastic castle and points to a small, arched opening at its base. “Temporary shelter,” she says. “And a better place to talk than the street.” She crouches down and crawls inside without a moment’s hesitation. You stand there for a second, feeling ridiculous, then you collapse your umbrella, shake off the water, and crawl in after her.

“I don’t know if we’ll both fit in there,” you say, eyeing the low, arched entrance. “That’s made for, like, eight-year-olds.”

Minji is already on her hands and knees, peering into the plastic cavern. She looks back at you over her shoulder, her face framed by the bright blue plastic. “Aren’t we all just eight-year-olds pretending to be adults, anyway?”

You can’t argue with that. You let out a sigh and crouch down to follow her in. It’s a tight squeeze. The space inside is a cramped, hollow dome of faded red plastic. It’s surprisingly cozy. The world outside is reduced to a gray, watery blur seen through the circular cut-out windows. The drumming of the rain on the roof is loud and rhythmic, an oddly comforting roar, isolating you both from the rest of the city. The air smells of wet earth and ozone.

You manage to get seated, your back pressed against the curved wall, your knees practically touching hers. “Great,” you groan, trying to shift into a position that doesn't feel like a future chiropractic emergency. “My back is going to kill me later.”

She laughs at your suffering. “You need to exercise more, writer boy. Get that ass out of the chair and move around. You can’t just sit there all day, decaying.”

“Hey,” you protest, though she’s not wrong. “It’s part of the job. Creative work requires a comfortable, stationary butt.”

“That’s nonsense,” she scoffs, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Some writers wrote standing up. Hemingway had a whole setup for it.”

“Well, I’m not Hemingway, and I prefer my ergonomic chair with the lumbar support, thank you very much.”

“Of course you do,” she grunts, but she’s smiling. You laugh too.

She runs a hand along the curved plastic wall. “There was a playground like this, near where I used to live,” she says. “I loved this thing. It felt like a spaceship.” She turns to you, the dim, red-filtered light making her eyes seem darker, deeper. “What’s your best childhood memory?”

“Wow. That’s a tough one.” You lean your head back against the wall. “I don’t know about the best, but I remember… I remember loving the weekend road trips my parents and I used to take. We didn’t go anywhere fancy. Sometimes just to a neighboring city, or a state park a few hours away. But when you’re a little kid, every new place is another universe. New smells, new kinds of trees, new people with different accents. It was magic. I especially remember this one period right after I learned to read. I was obsessed. On those car trips, I would read every single sign we passed. Out loud. Billboards, street signs, exit signs, historical markers, everything. ‘Speed Limit Fifty-Five.’ ‘Next Gas Two Miles.’ ‘Visit the World’s Largest Ball of Twine.’ It drove my parents absolutely insane.”

Minji laughs out loud, covering her mouth while trying to catch her breath. “Oh my god! I can picture that so clearly. A tiny little you, sounding everything out, just narrating the entire highway.”

“Yeah, that was me,” you say, feeling a warmth spread through your chest. “So, your turn. What’s your best memory?”

Her smile cracks. Just for a second, but it’s unmistakable. “Rule number one, remember?” she says quietly. “No past.”

“Shit,” you breathe. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I started it.” She takes a deep, steadying breath, as if preparing for a dive into cold water. “I’ll tell you. But just this once. Don’t get used to it.”

You just nod, waiting.

“I remember when I got my first bike,” she begins, looking through the plastic wall and into another time. “It was blue. A little rusty, secondhand. I remember learning to ride it, the training wheels coming off, the scraped knees. There was this kid, a boy who lived next door. He and I, we spent an entire summer afternoon just… riding. All over the neighborhood, for hours, until our legs felt like they were going to fall off.”

She pauses, and a faint, sad smile touches her lips. “There was this one afternoon. We rode farther than we ever had before. We crossed this really high, long bridge over a ravine. And on the other side, we used our allowance to buy popsicles from a corner store. I remember sitting on the curb in the middle of that bridge, the bikes lying in a heap next to us, just eating these dripping, sticky popsicles.”

She looks at you, trying to see if you're really paying attention to this small piece of her memory. “It was a sunny day. I know it was a Sunday. And the sun… it’s a weird thing to remember, but the light was different that day. It was this unique, golden color. It made everything look… sacred, almost. It was a glow I’d never seen before, and I’ve never seen it again since. And it’s not just nostalgia, it’s not my memory playing tricks. I remember noticing it, even back then. I remember just staring at the trees and the ravine and the sky, thinking, this is special. My friend asked me what I was looking at.”

The memory is so vivid, you feel like you’re there with her. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing,” she whispers. “I just shrugged. I was maybe eight or nine. I didn’t have the words. And I didn’t want him to think I was weird. But I’ve regretted it ever since. I wish I’d asked him. I wish I’d said, ‘Don’t you see it? Don’t you see how different the sun is today?’” She looks down. “After that, we rode home. I remember my legs burning on the pedals all the way back. And I remember having pasta for dinner with my parents.” Minji is silent for a moment, and you think she's finished, but then she adds: “I would give anything to see a day like that again.”

“I thought you hated the sun,” you say gently.

“I do,” she says. “But it wasn’t always like that. And that day… that day was a fluke. An exception to every rule. If I ever saw another one, maybe I’d feel differently.”

“You have incredibly detailed memories of your childhood.”

She shrugs, the movement jerky, as she fumbles in her coat pocket for another cigarette. “Not really.” She finds one and puts it between her lips, but doesn’t light it. “That’s one of the only things I actually remember. That day. The rest is just… a blur. It’s weird. I have almost nothing else from before I was, like, a teenager. It’s like my brain decided to erase everything for some reason. But it kept that one day. I remember every second of it.”

“Sometimes,” you begin, trying to bring some kind of comfort or understanding, “our brains do that to protect us. Erase things. When we go through… you know. A really big trauma. It’s a defense mechanism. A way to keep functioning.”

“I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to play therapist. Using some sentimental, pop-psychology bullshit to get me to open up about my tragic past. You think if you dangle the idea of ‘trauma’ in front of me, I’ll spill everything so you can get a better chapter out of it.” She leans forward, and you can almost see the threat in her eyes, even though you know it's a self-preservation mechanism. “It’s not going to work.”

“Okay, you caught me,” you joke, raising your hands. “Wouldn’t hurt to try, right?”

She finally lights the cigarette she’s been holding, the flare of the lighter briefly illuminating her face in the dim, red light. She takes a long, slow drag, then holds it out to you.

“Here,” she says. “Shut up a little and have a drag.”

“Oh, no, I don’t smoke,” you say, waving it away automatically.

“I know,” she says, the cigarette still held between her fingers, an offering. “It’s obvious. You should try it. Just once.” She gives you a knowing look. “You won’t get addicted from one puff. I promise. In fact, you’ll probably hate it. Nobody likes their first cigarette. You have to smoke at least ten before your body learns to like the poison. That’s when the addiction starts.”

You’re about to refuse again, to give her a lecture on carcinogens that you both know is pointless. But then you look at the cigarette. At the white paper, the glowing orange tip, and the dark, wet stain on the filter from her lips. The thought of putting your mouth where hers just was, of sharing that small, illicit intimacy, overcomes all your rational thought. You reach out and take it from her, your fingers brushing against hers.

You bring it to your lips. The filter is still warm. You inhale the way you’ve seen actors do it in movies, a deep, confident breath. The smoke hits the back of your throat like a fistful of hot gravel and ash. Your body rebels instantly. A violent, barking cough erupts from your chest, wracking your entire frame. Your eyes water, and you double over, the cigarette falling from your trembling fingers.

Minji bursts out laughing, a full-throated, genuine laugh that’s startlingly loud in the enclosed space. “Jesus, writer boy,” she gasps between laughs, picking up the cigarette from the plastic floor. “Don’t try to swallow it. It’s not a dick. It’s soft. Just a little puff.”

Your throat feels raw, but you take the cigarette back from her, embarrassed. This time, you do as she says, drawing in just a tiny bit of smoke, letting it sit in your mouth for a second before blowing it out. It’s still acrid and disgusting, but it doesn’t try to kill you. You hand it back to her.

“I don’t know how you can stand that,” you rasp.

She takes a graceful drag, inhaling the smoke you found so vile as if it were the purest mountain air. “It tastes like death,” she says, exhaling slowly. “I like it.”

For a moment, there is only silence. The drumming of the rain on the roof, the faint glow of her cigarette, the shared breath in the small, dark space. You look at each other, and it’s her, again, who breaks the spell.

“I read one of your stories,” she says, changing the subject completely.

Your heart gives a nervous little kick. “Oh yeah? What did you think? Be honest.”

“It was surprisingly good,” she says, and the backhanded compliment is the most sincere praise you’ve ever received. “The one called ‘A Pause to Live.’ I found it online.” She takes another puff, gathering her thoughts. “That character, the doctor. She spends her whole life being perfect, disciplined, always planning for a future that’s supposed to be her reward. Then she gets the cancer diagnosis and realizes the future isn’t coming.” Minji looks at you. “And the way she just… breaks. Teaming up with that criminal patient, that charming, nihilistic asshole. It was good. Fun, exciting. But also really sad. I was surprised. I actually wished it was longer. You made them feel like real people.”

“That was my last one,” you say, feeling a ridiculous surge of pride. “It’s the one that got the best reviews. But… I still feel like I need to evolve. To get deeper.”

“Well,” she says, tapping a bit of ash onto the floor. “In that case, I hope I’m helping.”

“You are,” you say. “You’re helping a lot.”

“Good.” She smiles. “So how’s the book coming? The one about me.”

“It’s, uh, relatively stagnant,” you admit. “I’m still just in the gathering-information phase. But I feel like these sessions… they’re enriching me. As a writer.”

She lets out a short laugh. “They’re enriching me, too. Your weekly payments are very welcome.” You feel a flash of disappointment, thinking she was going to say something more. She must see it on your face, because she reaches out and gives your shoulder a playful shove. “Hey, I’m kidding. Mostly.” Her expression softens. “Seriously, though. This has been… nice. It’s almost like weird therapy. An escape from the routine. I get to come out here and pretend to be a person for a few hours.” She looks away, a little shyly. “It’s cool. I feel a little… seen. I thought it was going to be way worse.”

“I’m happy to hear that. I’m really happy.” The words give you a surge of courage. “Actually… I was going to ask you for your number.”

Her guard is instantly back up. “Why?”

“To talk,” you say quickly. “During the week. I’ve really enjoyed… this. Talking to you. And waiting a whole week is a long time. I thought maybe… we could text. Or whatever. If you’re comfortable with it, of course.”

“Okay… Yeah. Okay.” She holds out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

You fumble it out of your pocket and hand it to her. Her fingers are cool as they brush against yours. She types in her number, creates a new contact, then opens her messages and sends a single word to herself: Hey.

“There,” she says, handing it back. “We should probably get out of here. Before someone calls the cops on the two weirdos hiding out in the playground.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea,” you agree, already feeling the ache in your joints.

She starts to crawl toward the opening, but then she stops. She’s looking at something on the floor. You follow her gaze and see it: a small, grey smudge of cigarette ash, right next to a built-in plastic steering wheel. A tiny, insignificant mess.

“I’m a monster,” she whispers, and before you can say anything, she scrambles out of the opening and into the rain.

You follow her out, back into the real world. You both open your umbrellas. The gray, wet city feels stark and cold after the strange, colorful intimacy of the shelter. You start walking again.

“It happened, by the way,” you say, just to break the silence. “After I left you last week. I stepped on one.”

She doesn’t seem surprised. She just keeps looking straight ahead, her face set. “I told you it would.”

“It’s still not proof,” you insist. “It could be a coincidence. Even lightning can strike the same place twice.”

“You don’t even believe that anymore, writer boy. I can hear it in your voice.” She’s right. You don’t. The feeling when it happened was too specific, too weird.

“Is this… is it dangerous?” you ask, the question sounding stupid as soon as it leaves your mouth. “This whole snail thing?”

“No,” she says simply.

“How can you be so sure?”

She finally turns to look at you, her eyes meeting yours under the canopy of your umbrellas. “Because I won’t let anything happen to you.” The statement is so direct, so fiercely protective, that you're almost certain you blushed a little.

“How can you guarantee that?”

“Because I know myself,” she explains. “Before things get too deep, too complicated… I’ll disappear. Someday. And when I’m gone, the snail thing will stop. So you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Disappear? Why would you disappear?”

“It’s what I do,” she says with a shrug. “It’s my one reliable talent. When things get complicated, I leave. It’s better for everyone. A preventative measure.” She looks you dead in the eye. “I’m a walking mess. A tornado in a coat. Trust me. Nobody really wants that around for the long haul.”

“Maybe I do.”

A sad, tired smile touches her lips. It’s a smile that has seen this conversation before. “That’s sweet of you to say. But you don’t know me. Not really. You just know this version of me. The curated one.”

“And what if I want to know the real you? All of it?”

“Why?” she shoots back. “Why would you want that? I’m your object of study, remember? Your project.”

“No. You’re not. Not anymore. You’re my friend… or something. Something close to it.”

“Exactly,” she exclaims. “That’s exactly why I won’t let you get any closer. For your own good. And for mine.” She must see the alarm on your face, because she adds, “I’m not going to kill myself, so you can relax. I just mean I’ll leave. Pack a bag and go. Start over somewhere else where nobody knows the brand.”

“Why are you so sure that’s how this ends?” you plead. “It doesn’t have to.”

“Because I’ve seen it happen before. Many times. And I’ve never been strong enough to stop the people around me from getting hurt. But I’m not making that mistake again. Not this time.”

“The snail thing isn’t a curse, Minji,” you insist, trying to find some leverage to pull her back from the edge. “You’re a good person. It doesn’t make sense—”

“Bad things happen to good people,” she cuts you off. “All the time. Especially to good people. Not that I’m claiming to be one. But nobody gets a free pass.”

“You’re young,” you argue, trying a different tack. “You’ve barely lived. It doesn’t make sense for someone to be this fatalistic when—”

“Your doctor,” she interrupts again. “The one in your story. How old was she? Thirty-one? She was a good person, wasn’t she? A healer. Young. And she got cancer eating her from the inside out. It didn’t make sense for that to happen to her, either.”

“That’s just a story I made up—”

“And I bet you did your research, didn’t you?” she presses, relentless. “I bet you wrote it with authority because you read the real stories of a dozen real young women who went through the exact same thing. Women who didn’t get a charming criminal to take them on a joyride. Women who just got sick and died. It happens. Bad things happen. Who the fuck knows why?”

You have no answer. She has dismantled every one of your arguments with a cold, brutal and nihilistic precision.

“Look,” she continues, a little gentle now, “how about this? We just… enjoy this. Whatever it is. For now. For as long as it lasts. And when it’s over, it’s over. And we’ll have some good memories to show for it. It’s better than having nothing, right?”

You want to argue. You want to rage against her certainty, against her self-fulfilling prophecy. But you look at her face, at the profound, unshakeable conviction in her eyes, and you know it’s pointless. You know these are the terms. All or nothing.

You give a slow, defeated nod. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeats. “I have to go.” She gestures vaguely with her phone. “We’ll talk later. Text me or something.”

“I will,” you say.

She gives you a small, final smile and turns to walk away. Just before she gets too far, one last, desperate, practical question occurs to you.

“Hey!” you call out. She stops and looks back. “What if I just… what if I look down the whole time? When I’m walking. I could just watch my feet. Then I wouldn’t step on them.”

She considers your pathetic, logical solution for a moment. A sad, knowing look crosses her face.

“I’ve tried that,” she says. “But sooner or later, you have to look up. You have to look ahead to see where you’re going. And that’s when it happens. You’re so focused on the horizon that you don’t see the small, fragile things right under your feet. You just crush them and keep moving. That’s life.”

She turns and keeps walking, leaving you standing alone in the rain with the crushing weight of her words. That’s life.

—

The curse, if that’s what it is, continues. Twice that week, on your way to get groceries, you feel it. That sickening, delicate crack under your shoe. Both times you stop, a cold dread washing over you as you look down at the tiny, spiraled ruin on the pavement. It’s a coincidence. It has to be. You’re just more aware of it now, looking for it. You think about telling her, about sharing in the sheer, statistical improbability of it all. But you don’t. You don’t want to give her the satisfaction. You don’t want to add another piece of evidence to her grand, fatalistic theory of everything.

It’s a Thursday, one of those rare, bright autumn days that feels like a lie, when you see her. You’re coming out of a coffee shop, lost in thought, and you almost walk right into her. Hanni Pham. Your ex. She looks… exactly the same, to be honest. The two years since you’ve last seen her haven’t changed a thing. Which is a good thing, because from your point of view she was always the most beautiful girl you had ever met. She’s still got that cascade of dark, glossy hair, that face that always seemed to be on the verge of a smile. She’s wearing a simple, cream-colored sweater and jeans, and she radiates a kind of effortless, sunny health that feels like a foreign language to you now. You instinctively duck your head, hoping to blend into the lunchtime crowd, a pathetic, cowardly impulse. But it’s too late.

“Hey! Is that you?”

Her voice is just as you remember it: warm, clear, and full of a genuine brightness. You’re caught. You turn, forcing a smile.

“Hanni. Hey. Wow. Small world.”

“I thought that was you!” she says, closing the distance between you. Her smile is too genuine for someone who just ran into her ex-boyfriend. “How have you been? It’s been forever.”

“I’m good. Yeah, good. Just… you know. Writing.”

She looks you over, her gaze both friendly and analytical. It’s the doctor in her. “You look tired. Are you busy right now? Can I… can we talk for a minute?”

It’s a terrible idea. A landmine. This is a ghost from a life you don’t live anymore. But you look at her open, friendly face, and the word that comes out of your mouth is, “Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

You end up in a different cafe, a bright, airy place with blonde wood tables and cheerful pop music playing. It feels a world away from the greasy spoon diners and rain-slicked streets you’ve been inhabiting. You both order coffee.

“So,” you start, just to fill the silence. “How’s life? Still slogging through med school?”

She nods, wrapping her hands around her warm mug. “Still slogging. It’s… a lot. Anatomy is trying to kill me. But it’s good. I like it. What about you? I saw you published that story, ‘A Pause to Live.’ I read it. It was really, really good. I was so proud of you.”

“Thanks,” you mumble, looking down into your cup.

“Are you working on the novel now? That was always the dream, right? The big one.”

“Yeah,” you say. “I’m working on it. It’s… slow going.”

“What’s it about?” she asks, and you know her curiosity is genuine.

You hesitate. How do you even begin to explain? It’s about a prostitute I hired who quotes Foucault and thinks she’s cursed. You shake your head. “It’s still taking shape. To be honest, I’m not even sure what it’s about anymore.”

She just nods, accepting your evasion. “It was nice, seeing you,” she says finally. “I’ve been… thinking about you. Lately.”

Here it comes. The minefield.

“The way we ended things…” she continues, tracing a circle on the table with her finger. “It was so stupid.”

The breakup had been a slow, grinding dissolution. You were drowning in your work, stressed and obsessed, convinced that the only path to becoming a “real” writer was through total, monastic devotion. You pushed everyone away, especially her. Hanni, with her logical, scientific mind, could never quite understand why you had to bleed for your art. She saw it as a choice, not a compulsion. The gulf between your worlds had just grown too wide to cross.

“It was my fault,” you say, the guilt still fresh after all this time. “I was a mess. I completely neglected you, our whole relationship.”

“No. Don’t do that. It wasn’t all you. I was to blame, too. I didn’t get it. I didn’t even try to understand what you were going through.” Her eyes are full of a sincere regret. “You were working so hard, trying to build something, and I… I wasn’t supportive. I should have been.”

“You were supportive,” you argue. “You read every draft. You debated me on character motivations. You were my first reader.”

“That’s not the same as being a partner,” she insists. She takes a deep breath, and you can see her steeling herself. “I… I want to try again.”

“Hanni…”

“I know it’s a lot,” she says quickly, seeing the shock on your face. “But I miss you. I miss… us. For all the drama at the end, it was good, wasn’t it? It was calm. We were happy. I miss that feeling.” She gives you a small, vulnerable smile. “If you’re willing, of course. And… if you’re not seeing anyone.”

The question is a casual, brutal little dagger. And for some reason, the face that flashes in your mind is Minji’s. Minji in the dim light of that brothel room. Minji laughing in the arcade. Minji’s eyes in the red glow of the plastic playground castle. Are you seeing her? What the hell would you even call that?

You feel a surge of fear. Fear of hurting Hanni again. Fear of your own self-destructive patterns. Fear of trying to resurrect something that might be better left dead.

“Hanni, I… I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“You won’t,” she says with a confidence you don’t share. “We’re older now. We’re different people. I’m different.”

Yeah, a life with Hanni would be… easy. It would be normal. Sunny days, holding hands, meeting her parents. A world without curses and cracked shells and the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. A world without Minji. The thought leaves you feeling hollow.

“I… I need to think about it,” you finally manage to say. “It’s a lot to just spring on me in the middle of a Thursday.”

She nods. “I know. I’m sorry. Of course. Take your time.” She reaches across the table and briefly puts her hand on yours. Her skin is warm and soft. It feels like a trap. “Just… think about it, okay?”

You nod. You just nod.

Eventually, you both stand, the spell of the past broken by the simple act of pushing back your chairs. Outside the large window, the city moves on, oblivious. Hanni steps around the small table, and before you can process it, she’s hugging you. It’s a familiar embrace, one you haven’t felt in two years, and your body remembers it before your brain does. She feels small and warm in your arms, and her hair smells like peaches, just like it always did.

She pulls back, but keeps her hands on your shoulders. “I just want you to know,” she says with an emotion she isn’t trying to hide anymore. “I still love you. I never really stopped.”

It’s the one thing you didn’t want to hear, the one thing you can’t possibly respond to. Your throat closes up. All the words you’ve ever written, all the clever phrases and insightful lines, they all abandon you. You’re left mute, a pathetic statue of indecision. She sees the panic in your eyes, the total system failure, and a sad, knowing smile touches her lips. She pats your shoulder, a gesture of both affection and release.

“It’s okay,” she says, saving you. “You don’t have to say anything.”

You just stand there as she gives you one last, lingering look, then turns and walks out of the cafe, a ghost of a life you could have had disappearing back into the stream of the city. You don’t say anything. You just say goodbye to the empty space where she was standing.

The week crawls under the weight of Hanni’s confession. Her words, I still love you, echo in your head, a constant, low-frequency hum beneath the noise of your life. They represent a door, a path back to a world that is safe and warm and normal. A world that makes sense. You try to write, but your thoughts are a tangled mess. You keep thinking about her offer, weighing it against the strange, precarious arrangement you have with Minji. It’s the choice between a well-lit, paved road and a dark, unmarked trail into the woods.

And then, Wednesday arrives. Your favorite day. The sky is a uniform, melancholy gray, the clouds thick and low. It’s perfect. You meet her at your usual spot, the corner by the diner, and she’s already there. But she’s not alone.

Today, she’s wearing an oversized, thick, charcoal-gray hoodie, the hood pulled up over her head, casting her face in shadow. The sleeves are pushed up to her elbows, revealing the pale skin of her forearms. Below it, she’s wearing a simple black skirt that ends mid-thigh and a pair of torn black fishnet stockings tucked into her usual scuffed-up combat boots. And at her feet, on the end of a frayed rope leash, is a small, scruffy, cheerful-looking terrier mix.

You stop in front of her. “Okay. I have to ask.”

Minji looks up, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “What? You don’t like my outfit?”

“No, the outfit is… it’s a statement.” You gesture with your chin toward the dog, who is now sniffing your shoes now. “I mean him. Don’t tell me you have a dog.”

“He’s not mine,” she says, giving the leash a gentle tug. “He belongs to my neighbor. He’s old, can’t get around much anymore. Asked if I’d walk him. He pays me twenty bucks.” She shrugs. “Best twenty bucks I make all week. All I have to do is walk in a circle and pick up shit.”

The dog, having deemed your shoes uninteresting, looks up at you and lets out a single, sharp yip.

“He likes you,” Minji deadpans. “He has terrible taste in people.” She starts walking, and you fall into step beside her, the little dog trotting happily between you. “So. How was your week, writer boy? Write any masterpieces?”

“Not exactly. I did listen to that playlist you sent me, though.”

Her eyes light up with interest. “Oh yeah? What did you think?”

“It was… eclectic,” you say carefully. “The obscure indie stuff was cool. The weird 70s Japanese funk was interesting. But I gotta say, I didn’t peg you for a Maroon 5 fan.”

She lets out a short laugh. “Hey! Don’t knock it. Their first album is a legitimately perfect pop record. No skips. It’s pure early-2000s angst. It’s got a certain… veracity.”

“Okay, okay, point taken,” you concede with a laugh. “So, how was your week? Anything more exciting than walking this little guy?”

She’s quiet for a moment, just watching the pavement slide by. “It was a week,” she says finally. “Routine. The usual. A couple of assholes, a couple of sad sacks. One guy who cried after. Nothing new.” She kicks at a loose stone. “How about you? You seem… I don’t know. Distracted.”

Her perception is, as always, unnervingly accurate. The image of Hanni’s face, her hand on yours, flashes in your mind. You open your mouth to tell her, to unload the whole complicated, messy situation. You want her advice. You want to know what she thinks. But you know it's simply better not to. Telling her about Hanni feels like bringing a ghost into the room, a ghost from a bright, sunny world that has nothing to do with the gray, rain-slicked reality you share with Minji. It’s a betrayal of this fragile, weird thing you’re building.

“No, just tired,” you lie, shoving your hands in your pockets. “But actually,” you say, forcing a change of subject, trying to steer the conversation back to the familiar ground of your arrangement. “The notes. Your file. I’ve actually made some good progress this week.”

This gets her attention. She gives the leash a little slack, letting the terrier investigate a particularly interesting patch of weeds. “Progress?” she asks, a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Is it any good? Or is it just more notes about how I eat my cheeseburger?”

“It’s getting there,” you say, feeling a nervous energy thrumming in your chest. “It’s starting to feel like… something real.” You pause, taking a breath. “You should see it.”

“Oh, really? You’re finally going to let me see the secret file you have on me? Am I going to have to sign an NDA?”

You laugh, the sound is a little shaky. This is it. You gather up all the courage you have, a finite and flimsy resource, and you just say it. “Yeah. You can. I was thinking… maybe you could come over? To my apartment. On Friday. I’ll make dinner. You can read everything then.”

Her smile vanishes. The little dog yips, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“My god,” she murmurs. “No. That’s… that’s crossing a line, writer boy. A big one.”

“I know! I know it is. But I want to. Please, Minji.”

“You’re making things complicated,” she says, her gaze hard, her defenses slamming into place. “This isn’t what we do. We meet here. We walk. We talk. I go home. You go home. That’s the deal.”

“I know,” you press on, emboldened by a strange, reckless certainty. “But you know you want to, too. Don’t pretend you hate this. I know you enjoy these stupid Wednesdays as much as I do. So why keep pretending? Why drag it out?”

She stares at you. You can see the conflict between her rules and a desire she won’t admit to. She falls back on the only defense she has left, the one she always uses when things get too real.

“Fine,” she says, cold and transactional. “But I’m charging you. For the extra meeting. My full nightly rate.”

It's a test. It has to be. A way to push you away, to put the comfortable, ugly barrier of commerce back between you. You feel a flash of disappointment, but you don’t back down. You look her right in the eye and call her bluff.

“Okay.”

Your simple, immediate acceptance throws her. She was expecting you to argue, to be repulsed, to retreat. Instead, you just agreed to her terms.

“Why? Why are you so… interested? Why are you pushing this so hard?”

You don’t have to think about the answer. It’s the truest thing you know. “Because I think you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

“Jesus Christ,” she scoffs. “Your bar is on the fucking floor, you know that?”

But the insult has no heat. She lets out a long, slow sigh, and then, with one fluid motion, she reaches up and pulls the hood back from her head.

Her hair, a black sheet of silk, falls around her face. The weak, gray light of the afternoon catches the perfect, unsettling symmetry of her. Without the shadow of the hood, you can see the faint, purple smudges of exhaustion under her eyes, the tiny, almost invisible scar that bisects her eyebrow.

“Okay,” she says, resigned. “Fine. I’ll come over. But just this once. I’ll… I’ll skip a night of work. For you.”

“Thank you,” you breathe. “I’ll pay you, of course. Whatever you would have made. It’s only fair.”

“No,” she says, looking away, down at the little dog. “Forget it. I’m not going to charge you. I’m… I’m going because I want to go.” She looks back at you, her gaze direct and a little shy. She thrusts the dog’s leash into your hand. “But you’re walking the dog. The rest of the way. And if he takes a shit, you’re picking it up.”

“Deal,” you say. “That is a very fair trade.”

She pulls her hood back up, disappearing once more into the shadows. “Good.”

You start walking again, the little terrier trotting happily at your side, a new silence settling between you.

“You know,” you say, just to break it. “You look nice today.”

She snorts. “Come on. I look like I’m about to mug you at any moment.”

You grin. “The only thing you’re going to steal is my heart, girl.”

Minji groans, loud and performative, and you can't help but laugh. “Oh my god, that was horrible. Truly awful. Never say that again.” But she’s laughing too. She reaches out and gives your shoulder a hard, friendly pat, and you walk on together through the gray afternoon, a shared smile on both your faces.

—

You've been ready for twenty minutes, but you still find things to check. The apartment is clean (it's always clean, you're wired that way) but today you scrubbed surfaces that didn't need scrubbing. You straightened books that were already straight. The dinner is done, a simple pasta dish with garlic and olive oil, nothing fancy, but you tested the seasoning three times. You hope she likes it. You hope she doesn't think you're trying too hard. You hope she doesn't think you're not trying hard enough. You're a mess of contradictions pacing your small living room.

The intercom buzzes and your heart jumps. You press the button. "Hey. Come on up."

You wait by the door, listening to the faint sounds of footsteps in the hallway, getting closer. Then the knock. Three soft taps. You take a breath and open it.

Minji is standing there, and the sight of her stops your thoughts cold. She's wearing a simple black dress, sleeveless, fitted at the waist and falling to just above her knees. It's nothing elaborate, no embellishments or flourishes, but on her it looks like something from another world. Her hair is down, falling straight and dark around her face. Her eyes are lined with a smoky shadow making them look even deeper, more intense. Her lips are a soft, muted rose. She looks… she looks like a dream you had once and forgot until this exact moment. The perfect girl (a line you would never use in one of your stories, but here you are, considering using it in your novel).

"Hey," you manage to say.

"Hey," she says back, and there's something in her voice, a nervousness you've never heard before. She shifts her weight, one hand holding a small black purse. "I, uh. I didn't really know how to dress for this. I hope it's not too much?"

"No. It's perfect. You look amazing."

A faint blush touches her cheeks. She looks away, down the hall, anywhere but at you. "Thanks."

You step aside, holding the door open. "Come in."

She walks past you, and you catch the faint scent of her perfume; clean and subtle, like jasmine and rain (and a little bit of cigarette smoke). You close the door and watch as she takes in your apartment. It's not much. A small living room with a couch, a bookshelf crammed with paperbacks, a tiny kitchen visible through an open doorway. But it's yours.

"It's exactly your style," she says, running her fingers along the edge of the bookshelf. "Clean. Organized. A place for everything."

"Is that a compliment or an insult?" you ask, smiling.

"Compliment," she says, her lips twitching into a small smile. She looks at the framed prints on the wall, the stack of notebooks on the coffee table. "I like it. It feels… calm."

You gesture toward the kitchen. "Dinner's ready. I made pasta. Nothing fancy, but I hope you like it."

"I'm sure it's great," she says, but she's still looking around, her eyes scanning the details of your life. She turns to you, a teasing glint in her eyes, and asks: "So. How many girls have you brought here, writer boy?"

"What? No, I—"

"Come on," she presses, grinning now. "Your life can't just be books and coffee twenty-four hours a day. You must have a roster."

"No roster. My ex-girlfriend used to come here, but that was a long time ago."

The grin fades from her face. She's quiet for a moment, then asks, "What was she like?"

"What's up with that question? Come on, I don't want to talk about ex-girlfriends right now, Minji."

She holds up her hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Fair." She looks toward the hallway. "Can I see your room?"

"Yeah. Of course."

You lead her down the short hall and open the door to your bedroom. It's small, just enough space for a bed, a desk, and a bookshelf. The desk is cluttered with papers, notebooks, a laptop. The bed is made with obsessive care.

"This is where you write," she observes.

"Yeah."

She walks over to the desk, her fingers brushing the edge of the wood. You pull out the chair for her, and she sits, looking at you with a curious, expectant expression. You reach over and open a drawer, pulling out a thick, leather-bound notebook. Your handwriting covers every page. You place it in front of her.

"That's it," you say quietly. "All the notes. About you. About the character. It's… a mix of both, I guess."

She looks down at the notebook, then back up at you. "I hope there's nothing weird in here."

"I don't know about that," you say with a small smile.

You give her space to read calmly. You lie down on your bed, staring up at the ceiling. The paint is old, cracked in places. You count the imperfections while she opens the notebook and starts to read.

Page 3:

Her hands. I keep noticing her hands. They're relatively large, but delicate, there's a strength in the way she holds things. The way she gripped that burger at the diner, like she was afraid someone would take it from her. Or the way she held the cigarette, between her index and middle finger.

Page 7:

She has this habit of tucking her hair behind her ear when she's thinking. It's unconscious. Automatic. And every time she does it, I forget what I was about to say.

The small, white scar through her left eyebrow. A disruption in the symmetry. The only flaw in a face so perfect it's almost inhuman. And somehow, it's the scar that makes her real.

Page 11:

“Bad things happen to good people all the time. Especially to good people."

She said that like it was a law of physics. Like gravity. I don't know if she believes she's good, but I do.

Page 15:

A sketch. Rough, but unmistakable. Minji's face in profile, her jawline sharp, her expression distant. Another sketch below it; her eyes, just her eyes, rendered in careful detail. The way they look when she's listening to you, focused and just a little melancholic.

Page 19:

She told me she hates the sun. That on sunny days, the world feels like it's moving forward without her, and she's just stuck, a bug in the system. But on gray days, the world feels like she does. It gets it. She can just be.

I've never heard anyone articulate loneliness so perfectly.

Page 24:

There's a way she laughs (a real laugh, not the cynical, defensive one) where her whole face changes. It's like watching a door open. And for a second, you can see the girl she was before everything went wrong. Before the walls went up. I want to make her laugh like that all the time.

Page 28:

Another sketch. Minji sitting cross-legged, reading a book. Her posture is relaxed, vulnerable. The line work is softer here, less precise, like you were trying to capture a feeling more than an image.

Page 32:

She said she wants people to see her differently. That the mold is set. But she doesn't understand - she's not a mold. She's not a type. She's a person who reads Foucault and demolishes cheeseburgers and talks about thirty-thousand-year-old handprints in caves. She's someone who steps on snails and thinks it's a curse. She's someone who made me believe in curses.

Page 36:

I think she's the saddest person I've ever met. And the smartest. And the most beautiful. And I don't know how those three things can exist in one person without tearing her apart.

Page 41:

She is a girl trying to disappear into a world that refuses to let her go.

She is a ghost pretending to be a person.

She is a person everyone mistakes for a ghost.

Page 47:

"I'd rather you see me as your object of study than as a victim."

But I don't see her as either. I see her as Minji. And I don't know how to tell her that without breaking the rules.

She's quiet for a long time. You hear her breathing, soft and uneven. She turns another page. And another. Then she speaks, and her voice is fragile as if she had forgotten how to use it for a moment:

"Can I ask you a question?"

You're still staring at the ceiling, counting cracks. "Yeah."

"I want you to be honest."

"Okay."

She's quiet for a moment, gathering the courage. "On the other days. When we're not together. Do you think about me?"

You don't answer right away. You let the silence stretch, not because you don't know the answer, but because saying it out loud feels like stepping off a cliff.

"Honestly? All the time, Minji. You don't leave my head."

Another silence. Longer. Louder. You hear the chair creak as she shifts.

"I thought so," she says softly.

You turn your head to look at her. She's still facing the desk, her back to you, but you can see the tension in her shoulders.

"I think about you, too… constantly."

She turns in the chair, and that's when you see them. The tears. Silent, steady streams running down her face, cutting through the carefully applied makeup. Two black streaks of smudged shadow trail down her cheeks like ink in water. Her eyes are red, her lips pressed together in a tight line, trying to hold it all in.

"No one's ever…" Minji stops. She wipes at her face with the back of her hand, smearing the black further. "No one's ever portrayed me like this. Like I'm… beautiful. Like I'm something worth looking at." She lets out a shaky breath. "I think you romanticized it a bit too much. But I liked it. It's nice to see myself through someone else's eyes and be a good sight. For a change."

You sit up slowly. She gets up from the chair, and for a second you think she's going to leave. That everything that happened here was too much for her. And you wouldn't judge her if she did. But she doesn't leave. She walks over to the bed and sits down next to you, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from her. Outside, the rain starts. You hear it before you see it, a soft pattering that builds into a steady drumming against the window. The room darkens, it's just you and her here, and it's lonely and it isn't at the same time.

"This is getting out of control.”

You turn your head to look at her. Her face is still streaked with black, her eyes red-rimmed and glassy. "Why?"

"Because you're going to get hurt," she says, not looking at you. "You know that, right? This doesn't end well."

"It's too late for that. I'm going to get hurt no matter what happens. But I'm an adult. I chose this."

She lets out a bitter laugh. "You didn't choose this. You don't even know what you're choosing, writer boy."

"Then tell me."

She tilts her head, her hair falling forward to hide her face. "I can't promise you anything. I won't give you false hope. That's not fair to you. I'll say what I said last time: you can choose to enjoy the moment with me. Until the day I leave. Or you can give up now. Cut your losses. Walk away."

You reach out slowly, giving her time to pull back, to reject you. But she doesn't. Your hand finds hers, your fingers threading through hers.

"I won't give up on you," you say quietly. "On this."

"You don't understand. This is an illusion. It's fleeting. It might end tomorrow. It might end in five minutes."

"I don't care."

"You should care—"

"I don't," you interrupt, your grip on her hand tightening. "I don't care if it's an illusion. I don't care if it ends tomorrow. I just… I need you."

For a moment, she just stares at you, her dark eyes searching your face for something: doubt, hesitation, a reason to pull away. But she doesn't find it. And then she kisses you.

She tastes salt from her tears and the smoke from the cigarettes she must have smoked on her way here. Her lips are full and soft, moving against yours and you freeze for a fraction of a second, and then your hands move on their own. They go to her waist, gripping the fabric of her dress, pulling her closer.

Her hands slide up your chest, around your neck. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat, something between a gasp and a sigh. You kiss her back with everything you have, pouring all the weeks of longing and confusion and desperate want into the contact.

She shifts, pulling back just long enough to swing one leg over your lap, straddling you. The dress rides up her thighs, and the weight of her on you, the heat of her body pressed against yours, is overwhelming. Your hands move from her waist to her hips, holding her there, anchoring her to you. Her forehead rests against yours, both of you breathing hard, your lips still inches apart.

"You have me," she whispers. "But I'm not yours."

The words should hurt. They should be a warning, a barrier. But right now, with her in your lap, her breath on your face, they don't matter.

"I know," you say, pulling her into a tight embrace, your arms wrapping around her back. "I know."