A rivalry like that didn’t need raised voices or slammed doors. It lived in glances held a beat too long before snapping away. It lived in conversations that sharpened without ever turning hostile, in the way someone’s presence alone could shift the temperature of a room. It showed itself in postures straightening unconsciously, in focus narrowing, in effort deepening so suddenly without anyone ever admitting why.

Truth be told, you found that kind of tension endlessly amusing.

There was something almost intimate about it — the way two people could orbit each other without ever colliding, tethered by awareness rather than affection or even resentment. Rivalries thrived on proximity, on shared spaces and repeated encounters that made indifference impossible. Comparison eventually just becomes inevitable. You weren’t just trying to be good; you were trying to be better than someone specific, even if you never said their name out loud.

And the most interesting part was the unspoken rule beneath it all: no matter how many people filled a room, only one truly mattered.

Once you started looking for it, you noticed it everywhere. In classrooms. In workplaces. In passing interactions that lingered just a little too long. The way people pretended not to measure themselves against others while knowing exactly where they stood. The way relief and disappointment would be swallowed quickly, masked behind politeness and composure.

But rivalries like this — the quiet, festering kind — were different.

They didn’t feel like bitterness. They felt like awareness. They felt like being seen without really being acknowledged. You could sense when someone was measuring themselves against you, even if they never said your name, even if they refused to admit it to themselves. Especially then. There was a strange thrill in that, in knowing you occupied space in someone else’s thoughts without having to demand it.

Maybe that was why it amused you so much.

Because rivalries, stripped down to their core, weren’t really about hatred at all. They were about fixation. They were about curiosity that just got sharpened into something competitive. They were about the way one person could become a reference point — a benchmark, a quiet challenge that lingered long after the moment had already passed.

And if you were being honest with yourself — a deed you allowed only in private, when no one was watching — you actually liked that kind of closeness. You liked how it blurred the line between opposition and interest, between tension and something a little too personal to be written off as coincidence.

You hadn’t known it yet, back when you only just first started paying attention, but some rivalries weren’t meant to stay just rivalries.

Some of them were simply fascination, wearing a more acceptable name.

James had learned about “the system” long before he learned how to hope.

HYBE had called it motivation. The trainees, however, called it hell.

From the moment he entered the company, it was made clear that nothing here existed without measurement. Talent wasn’t enough. Not really. Someone’s potential was meaningless unless it could be quantified, ranked, and compared. Every improvement had to be visible. Every weakness documented. 

The evaluations weren’t just checkpoints every month to check if the money they’re spending on these trainees were worth it. They were verdicts, delivered on a schedule so regular it became part of his internal clock.

Every month, without fail, the rankings went up.

The ranking was made up of clean, unforgiving numbers pinned to a board and mirrored on an internal app that no one admitted to checking and everyone refreshed obsessively. Vocal. Dance. Stage presence. Growth. Categories broken down, weighted, recalculated, until everything that made a person human was flattened into data, an overall score, a single placement. Something easy to read, impossible to forget.

It was co-ed, too. Unsegregated and merciless as it pits boys against girls, veterans against newcomers. Age meant nothing. History meant nothing. The only thing that mattered was who stood above whom when the list refreshed.

There were no buffers built into the system — no allowances for bad days, injuries, exhaustion, or even fear. No explanations attached to justify one’s placement on the board. It was just names and numbers, stripped bare and left for everyone to see.

James knew this because he had grown up inside it.

He knew when the board would go up without checking the time. He knew the particular silence that settled over the practice rooms on evaluation days, the way laughter thinned out and conversations shortened. He knew how his body tensed before his eyes ever reached his name, how his breath hitched in that split second before relief — or, sometimes, something worse — set in.

Everyone learned early how to school their faces when the results dropped.

They nodded. They clapped. They congratulated the people who ranked above them and thanked the people who didn’t. They swallowed disappointment whole like a pill and packed satisfaction away just as neatly. Pride was dangerous. Resentment even more so. Anything too visible could be marked, remembered, perhaps even held against them later.

So everyone learned how to care in silence.

James had mastered it. He had learned how to look calm when his placement rose and how to look neutral, aloof, when it fell. He learned how to absorb praise without letting it soften him, how to take criticism without letting it break him. The rankings became a language he spoke fluently — a shorthand for worth, safety, and survival.

Because rankings weren’t just about ego in this company. They were about staying.

Having a high placement meant attention, investment. A future that remained bright and open. Falling too far, too often, meant becoming disposable. He had seen it happen to others — trainees who lingered in the middle too long, who stopped climbing and started fading, who got comfortable in their neat little spot of adequacy. They didn’t leave all at once. They just disappeared, one day no longer on the list, their names erased as cleanly as they’d once been posted.

James understood, then, what the system demanded. Consistency. Excellence. Relentless forward motion. And for a long time, he gave it exactly that.

He had been doing this long enough to know the rules by heart. It wasn’t just the written ones like no dating, no scandals, no excuses. Rather, even the invisible rules that mattered more. 

Don’t draw attention unless you’re winning. Don’t complain, even when your body aches in places you didn’t know could even ache. Don’t ask how long you’ll be here. Act like you already belong, and maybe one day you will. The system rewarded those who understood it instinctively, who could mold themselves into something dependable, something the company could invest in without hesitation.

James had learned that language early.

He was a legacy trainee. The kind staff referenced as an example, their voices lowering when they mentioned his name, as if speaking too loudly might break whatever momentum he had built. He had been thirteen years old when he first stepped into a practice room that smelled like disinfectant and ambition. 

Young enough to believe effort alone could carry him through and old enough, even then, to understand that nothing here was guaranteed.

The years blurred together after that. Training stacked on training, seasons passing marked only by evaluation cycles and growth charts. He started collecting missed birthdays and half-remembered holidays like notches to a thrifted belt. He also had friends who drifted out of reach as his world narrowed down to just mirrors, metronomes, and correction after correction after correction. He learned how to push past fatigue, how to make pain quiet, how to treat improvement like a debt he owed rather than an achievement to celebrate.

And then there was Trainee A.

It wasn’t just a name nor a mere lineup. It wasn’t just another temporary label slapped onto boys who trained too hard and dreamed too quietly. It was a promise. Finally, one that felt deliberate in the way it was introduced, in the way it was watched. 

For the first time, James wasn’t just training in the dark — he was training toward something. It was like a shape began to form around his future. A group, a direction, a place he could finally imagine himself standing in without having to squint.

Trainee A felt different because it was visible. It felt different from simply dreaming about a star-studded future because people were, at long last, paying attention. It felt different from imagining their names printed on billboards and signs because executives now watched, producers now followed, fans now speculated. It felt different from jotting down their hopes and dreams of fame and fortune in their journals because the effort no longer disappeared into sealed practice rooms or internal evaluations. 

It finally existed out loud, existed online. It existed in real time, where strangers could see him sweat and stumble and improve. It wasn’t perfect, sure, but that was exactly the point. It felt honest, like proof that the years he’d spent repeating the same motions, chasing the same corrections, had been building toward something real.

For the first time, James let himself believe the path had an end.

Not an abstract type of end nor a vague someday. Rather, he let himself believe in something defined, tangible. Something that’s waiting just far enough ahead that it hurt to look at directly. He started measuring time differently — not by monthly evaluations or survival, but by what came after. He envisioned stages without feeling foolish for it. He envisioned a name people would say out loud. He envisioned belonging to something that wouldn’t vanish the moment he reached for it.

And then — piece by piece, like a sick, fucking twisted joke by the universe — it began to unravel.

People left. The shape shifted. What once felt steady became fragile, reconfigured again and again until the future he’d been picturing no longer matched reality. There were no explosions, no dramatic collapses. There were only quiet removals, gentle explanations, changes announced in a language too careful to carry the weight of what they meant. Every adjustment forced him to recalibrate not just his expectations, but himself as well.

Still, he held on. Because hope, once allowed in, is stubborn.

And then it was gone.

It wasn’t paused or delayed, no. It was just… gone. Disbanded in words chosen to sound grateful, appreciative, respectful — words that softened absolutely nothing. The certainty he’d built his life around vanished almost overnight, taking with it the version of himself who had believed that if he just endured long enough, the ending would be guaranteed. There was no ceremony to mark the loss or even a brief moment of closure. There was just absence, sudden and absolute.

He didn’t rage. He didn’t break down. He only felt hollow in a way that didn’t make room for tears.

Sure, his years of effort didn’t disappear. They will always be there. Even so, their meaning blurred. The dream didn’t die so much as it dissolved, leaving him standing in the same place he’d started, only older, sharper, and painfully aware of how close he’d come to certainty. Trainee A hadn’t just been a project — it had been validation. It was proof that he wasn’t imagining his own progress, that someone else had seen him and thought, yes, this is worth betting on.

Losing it forced a question he’d avoided for years: What happens when belief isn’t enough?

The system didn’t wait for his answer, so he did what it had trained him to do. 

He adapted.

He stayed in HYBE — once just BigHit Music  — when leaving would’ve made sense. He stayed when walking away might’ve felt easier. He folded the disappointment deep into himself and kept moving, because stopping wasn’t an option he’d ever been taught how to choose. (Relentless forward motion, right?) If Trainee A had taught him anything, it was that nothing was permanent — not opportunities, not promises, not even futures you could almost touch.

So he kept dancing. He kept refining his edges that were already so polished that it could blind. He kept showing up. If the path no longer had an end he could see, then he would keep walking it anyway — quietly, unabatedly — until something else took shape.

Trainee A ended, but James didn’t.

When the next lineup began to take shape, James didn’t let himself hope. At least, not at first.

This group was introduced carefully, almost clinically. It was an unnamed pre-debut group still in flux, still being tested, still subject to change if anyone faltered. He was placed alongside boys who, on paper, made sense. 

Martin was first and foremost. This boy was the prodigy everyone knew. In all his towering glory, Edwards was a trainee who had been with HYBE long enough to feel permanent, someone who could sing, rap, dance, and produce with an ease that bordered on unfair. James recognized that kind of talent immediately. He respected it, even if he didn’t say so out loud.

Seonghyeon came next. He was raw in a way that was impossible to manufacture. He picked things up quickly, instincts sharp, improvement visible almost day by day. Watching him train was like watching potential solidify in real time, and James couldn’t deny how valuable that kind of adaptability was in a system that demanded constant evolution.

Keonho surprised him the most (but don’t let that punk know he said that). He was young, enthusiastic, still carrying traces of his past as an athlete — swimming, James had heard. It showed in his stamina, in the way his body understood endurance before technique. What James hadn’t expected was how quickly Keonho learned, how naturally he translated discipline from one field into another. It made James rethink what kind of backgrounds could survive here.

And then there was Juhoon.

Multi-talented to an almost ridiculous degree, with a resume that made James blink the first time he heard about it. Acting, modeling, playing multiple instruments — experience layered on experience, like he’d been employed since childhood. James found himself quietly impressed despite himself. He wasn’t threatened, though. If anything, he was reassured. Talent like that didn’t weaken a lineup. It fortified it.

He didn’t like thinking of it that way — measuring people by how useful they were to a debut — but the truth settled in anyway. These boys were good. They were strong and capable, qualities that wouldn’t seem so surprising had it not been exemplified by boys as young as they were. Their talent wasn’t a risk; it was security. A group like this had a future, or at least the bones of one.

And slowly, cautiously, something else began to shift.

James started to warm to them. It wasn’t all at once, not without resistance, but enough to notice. Shared practice hours turned into brief conversations, corrections turned into collaboration, laughter then started to slip in where silence used to sit like a burden-blanket. He kept himself guarded, the lessons from his bonds with the guys from Trainee A still too sharp to ignore, but the idea of connection no longer felt as dangerous as it once had.

He didn’t let himself believe in permanence. He couldn’t bear to. But he allowed himself, just a little, to imagine staying.

And then… there was you.

You had joined the company quietly, without the reverence or intimidation most new trainees carried into the building.

You hadn’t arrived with a story that begged to be mythologized. You didn’t have viral clips, no survival show appearances in your early years, no dramatic narrative about chasing a dream since childhood. Your path to HYBE was much simpler than that, almost ordinary, which was precisely why no one looked too closely at you at first. 

It was a modest recommendation passed along. Your audition being taken seriously. Then a callback you half-expected and half-doubted until it actually came.

You hadn’t wanted this because it was glamorous. You wanted it because you were good at it.

Long before the company ever knew your name, you’d learned how to stand in front of mirrors and be honest with yourself. You practiced where you could, when you could — between school responsibilities, borrowed studio time, late nights when exhaustion made your movements sloppy but your resolve stubborn. You weren’t reckless about it. You didn’t burn yourself out chasing an impossible ideal. You just kept improving, quietly, steadily, the way someone does when they know exactly what they’re capable of and aren’t interested in proving it to anyone but themselves.

When the acceptance came, you didn’t cry. You didn’t celebrate wildly. You packed carefully. You told yourself this was just another step, not a miracle. 

That mindset followed you into the building.

You were newer — same intake as Juhoon, still unfamiliar enough to be underestimated — but you carried yourself like someone who had already learned how not to fold under scrutiny. Your confidence wasn’t loud or performative. It didn’t announce itself in exaggerated gestures or constant self-assurance. It simply existed, steady and unbothered, like you’d already decided you belonged here and were waiting for everyone else to catch up.

You learned the rules quickly.

It wasn’t just the obvious ones — the dating bans, the curfews, the expectations — but the subtler boundaries, the lines that could be nudged without consequence. You showed up on time. You took feedback seriously. You didn’t overstep. And every so often, when you were sure it would be noticed rather than punished, you bent the rules just enough to leave an impression. May it be in the form of a creative choice that wasn’t asked for or a suggestion offered with a smile sharp enough to pass as confidence rather than challenge.

You didn’t get scolded, much to the chagrin of a few and the awe of many. You got remembered.

The first month the evaluations rolled around, no one made a big deal out of it.

James placed first. You placed second.

It’s just a fluke, some said. Still fucking impressive, though, others murmured. Admittedly, a newcomer doing well was worth noting. It was promising, after all. Even so, it was the kind of result that only earned polite interest and then faded into the background as attention returned to the familiar names at the top.

You accepted the placement easily, though. You congratulated him and you went back to practice.

The second month, the board updated again. Your name was at the top.

James stared at it longer than he should have, though he didn’t realize it then. To him, it felt like disruption — something unexpected slotting itself into a system he thought he understood. To everyone else, it felt like coincidence, a mere reshuffling that was nothing to panic over.

Except it didn’t stop there.

From then on, it became a pattern no one could ignore. First and second, trading places between you like a quiet agreement neither of you had signed up for. When he won, you were right behind him, close enough to make it impossible to relax. When you won, he followed suite, just near enough to feel your shadow at his back. Staff comments shifted, subtle at first, then deliberate. Comparisons crept into feedback. 

You two, they’d say. Neck and neck. Pushing each other.

You listened to notes without comment. You knew what was happening even if no one said it outright. You had actually become a reference point. Suddenly, you weren’t just another trainee, not just a promising newcomer, but a measure. Someone to be weighed against. Someone whose presence recalibrated expectations.

It didn’t happen in any dramatic, obvious way — no forced partnerships or contrived pairings of the sort, definitely not — but rather in the slow, suffocating way HYBE’s special system specialized in. 

You shared the same practice rooms, because the top ranks were always funneled toward the same schedules. You had the same evaluation slots, back-to-back, close enough that you could hear each other through thin walls and half-closed doors. You were given the same stretches of time spent waiting, listening, anticipating. The space between you inevitably shrank until it felt intentional.

The tension just naturally grew with every refresh of the rankings.

It settled into the air long before either of you spoke, thick enough to be felt even when neither of you acknowledged it. When the board updated, something always shifted — posture tightening, breath catching, eyes flicking just once too often in the other’s direction. Neither of you ever lingered in front of the results together. Neither of you ever commented first. And yet, the awareness was immediate, unavoidable.

To James, you were an irritation he couldn’t shake. A variable that refused to stabilize. He couldn’t predict your next course of action the way he predicted everyone else’s. He couldn’t chart your progress neatly or dismiss your success as paltry circumstance. You were proof that discipline alone didn’t guarantee supremacy, that control could still be undermined by someone who didn’t strain quite as hard to hold onto it. You unsettled the logic he had built his life around, and that… that made you dangerous.

He told himself that was all it was. To you, though, he was something else entirely.

You noticed him long before you meant to. 

It wasn’t because he demanded attention as he always seemed such a stoic but humble guy. Rather, you noticed him because his restraint made him impossible to ignore. The way his focus narrowed when he practiced, as if the rest of the room just ceased to exist. The way his jaw set when something went wrong, tension pulling tight through his shoulders. The way he pretended not to care about the rankings and still checked them with surgical precision.

You watched him learn how to hold himself together and sometimes, when you were close enough, you saw the cracks.

You didn’t hide your interest — not completely — but you were careful with it. You were careful not to cross the line into something that could be named, reported, warned against. Instead, you let it live in smaller things. You let it live in a glance held just long enough to be felt, in a comment delivered with the faintest edge of amusement and perhaps light mischief, in a smile that suggested you saw more than you ever said.

You teased because it was safer than confessing. You observed because he never noticed until it was too late.

And you enjoyed it. Perhaps far more than you probably should have. You enjoyed the way he bristled when you spoke, the way his composure slipped just enough around you to reveal something raw underneath. Not to mention, you also really enjoyed just looking at the guy point blank (dude’s a living eye-candy!)

You didn’t provoke him to be cruel. You provoked him because he was honest when he was off-balance, and honesty, you’d learned, was rare here.

You weren’t desperate. You didn’t need his attention to validate you. You didn’t hinge your worth on whether he noticed you or not.

You just liked him.

And that was the cruel irony of it all — you could hold something like that so lightly while it seemed to weigh so heavily on him.

James thought he hated you.

He told himself the tightness in his chest was irritation, that the heat under his skin was frustration. He convinced himself that the way his attention snapped toward you — uninvited, even automatic — was rivalry honing him into something sharper. He framed every reaction as motivation, every glance as vigilance, every thought of you as a problem to be solved or outperformed.

It never occurred to him that hate didn’t, shouldn’t, feel like this.

You knew better, though — about yourself, at least. You knew the difference between interest and competition, could clock the difference between admiration and threat. You knew what it felt like to be pulled toward someone without needing to own them.

Neither of you realized yet that the tension threading itself between you wasn’t built on opposition at all.

It was fixation. It was awareness. It was obsession, carefully disguised as contention — quiet enough to pass by unnoticed, dangerous enough to ruin you both once it finally demanded to be named.

There was a rhythm to the hallways at HYBE, a rhythm James had memorized without meaning to.

Footsteps would always echo differently depending on the time of day. Mornings in the 26-floored building carried urgent ramblings while late nights carried fatigued murmurs. Evaluation days, however, carried a kind of silence so thick it pressed against the ears. It was in that silence that James first started noticing you before he wanted to.

You brushed past him near the lockers, shoulder grazing just fabric-light, barely enough to register physically — but his body reacted anyway. His jaw tightened before he could help it, teeth pressing together as if bracing for something. He didn’t look at you. He never did.

You did. Not openly, though. You looked only just enough to catch the tension in his posture, the way his shoulders squared as if preparing for impact. You bit back a smile and kept walking.

“Is it just me,” Juhoon murmured beside you, lowering his voice as the two of you headed toward the practice rooms, “or does it feel like everyone’s holding their breath today?”

You hummed in agreement. “Evaluation week, ‘Hoon.”

“Ugh. That explains why I feel like I’m about to be publicly executed.”

He rubbed at his neck and you know immediately he was referring to a jape you made two months ago, comparing the evaluations to being hanged or beheaded, like the wives of that fat, old monarch in Europe.

You laughed softly, nudging his arm. “Relax. You did great yesterday.”

Juhoon shot you a look. “Easy for you to say. You’re—” He stopped himself, glancing ahead. “—you.”

You didn’t respond to that. You never did. Instead, you caught sight of James ahead of you through the glass wall of the practice room, his reflection layered over your own. He was already inside, stretching with methodical precision, eyes locked on the mirror like it might betray him if he looked away.

You watched him without guilt, borderline checking him out, if you were being honest.

He noticed before he turned around. He always did.

His gaze snapped up, meeting yours through the mirror. It was just for a second, but long enough to register. Then he looked away, expression unreadable, hands tightening briefly into fists before relaxing again.

Juhoon leaned closer. “You know he does that every time you walk in, right?”

“Does what?” you asked lightly.

“That thing.” He tilted his head. “Like he’s, I don’t know, bracing himself for something.”

You smiled to yourself, filed away that phrase of description in your mind, and stepped into the room.

The instructor clapped once, sharp and commanding. “Alright. From the top. Full out.”

Practice swallowed everything else. Music, movement, every pointed correction directed toward someone specific (because what else could inspire improvement other than public humiliation?). Sweat beaded at your temples as you pushed through the choreography, muscles burning in that familiar, grounding way. 

Every so often, you caught James in your peripheral vision — clean lines, controlled power, discipline etched into every movement. He didn’t miss steps. He never did. (As expected from someone who helped choreograph a debuted girl group’s song.)

When the music cut, the instructor nodded thoughtfully. “Good. James— your control is excellent, as always. Just be careful not to stiffen in transitions.”

“Understood,” James replied immediately, voice steady.

“And Y/N.” The instructor turned to you. “Strong presence. You adapt quickly. I want to see that same confidence even when you’re tired, okay?”

You nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, sir!”

James glanced at you then — quick, sharp. He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t seem impressed either. He just seemed to be… made aware. Or something.

Later, in the hallway outside the evaluation room after everyone has finally finished their turn, the rankings refreshed.

A small cluster of trainees gathered, pretending to stretch or check their phones while clearly watching the board. James stood a step back, hands clasped behind him, eyes fixed on the list.

You arrived moments later, Juhoon trailing behind you.

James didn’t move, but his focus sharpened. You could feel it.

Your name sat above his.

You watched his reflection in the glass as his gaze lingered — half a second longer than necessary — before he straightened, expression smoothing into something carefully neutral. He stepped away without a word.

You didn’t gloat. You never did.

“Hey,” you called lightly, just loud enough to reach him.

He paused.

“Good job today,” you said. “Your turns were cleaner than last month.”

Something flickered across his face — annoyance, maybe, or disbelief. Then he nodded once. “You too.”

There was no edge in his tone, nor was there any warmth. You could discern it, though, from how many times he’s used it on you before. It was just restraint. Plain, simple restraint.

When the rankings flipped the next month, it went the other way.

This time, you found him first.

The practice floor was still loud then — voices overlapping, footsteps echoing, someone laughing too loudly at nothing — but you waited. You always did. You lingered near the edge of the room, pretending to retie your shoelace, pretending to check your phone, until the noise thinned into something manageable. Only then did you step closer, close enough to be heard without making it a spectacle.

“Congrats,” you said, easy, like it didn’t cost you anything.

James turned, clearly expecting someone else. His brows knit together when he saw you, confusion flashing briefly across his face before settling into something more guarded. “You’re not surprised,” he said, like he’d already decided it was strange.

You tilted your head, considering him. “Should I be?”

He hesitated, fingers flexing once at his side. “Most people are.”

You shrugged, unbothered. “I wasn’t.”

That quick response earned you a longer look — measured, searching, the kind he only ever gave you. It looked like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, like he was trying to catch the smirk you didn’t give him, the tease you didn’t make. You met his gaze steadily, then smiled anyway. It wasn’t sharp or victorious. It was just… fond, in a way that felt almost reckless to reveal.

“Well,” you added, stepping back, “don’t let it get to your head.”

He scoffed, but it came a beat too late. “You’re one to talk.”

You only laughed softly and turned away before he could say anything else.

Behind you, James exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath without realizing it.

His irritation was never loud. It didn’t explode or demand attention. It lived in smaller, sharper places — in precision. It lived in the way he shifted his schedule by ten minutes to avoid crossing paths with you and somehow still ended up beside you at the water station. It also lived in the way he kept his eyes forward when you entered a room, only to glance over a second later like his focus had betrayed him.

And with you being… you, of course you noticed everything.

You noticed the way his eyes lingered on the leaderboard just a fraction longer when your name sat above his — or when it didn’t. You noticed how his control, so carefully maintained around everyone else, thinned only in your presence. How his replies came a little too fast or a little too clipped, like he was always correcting himself mid-thought. Comparably, you also noticed how his jaw set whenever you walked in, and you have to laugh because Juhoon wasn’t kidding when he said that James looked like he was bracing for something. 

You didn’t call him out on it. You didn’t tease him the way you easily could’ve. And you didn’t pull away, either.

You simply watched — and waited.

Even after the rankings were posted and the crowd dispersed, you didn’t disappear from James’ world entirely. You became one of those presences he noticed without actually noticing — always around, always moving with that quiet confidence, threading yourself into the routines of the studio. Not forcefully, not obtrusively, just… there.

Sometimes it was in the small, practical ways that made you easy to like. 

You’d offer a clean towel to Keonho after practice, joke with Seonghyeon about the ridiculous amount of water he drank, or sneak a packet of instant coffee and a snack to Martin when he was still hunched over choreography in the far corner. Juhoon was the way he’s always been — self-explanatory, as your “joined the company at the same time” buddy. You heard the other boys talking about you — how you bought drinks from the vending machine and shared them, how you always had something small to offer when someone forgot, how you had this effortless way of fitting into the group without demanding space. 

“She’s cool,” Keonho said once, leaning against the wall as you handed out bottles of water to other trainees. “Like… makes everything less tense.” You smirked to yourself when you overheard, shrugging lightly. James grunted noncommittally, but you noticed.

You weren’t someone who clung to anyone or tried to be liked. You moved through the days with the same quiet assurance you carried in the evaluations. You laughed easily when you wanted to, spoke plainly, and never over-explained yourself. And yet, somehow, that made your presence stick to people’s minds more than anyone else’s.

James found himself noticing more than he intended. It wasn’t just the way you handed out towels or shared snacks, it was the way you’d slip a comment toward him when he was practicing, like a casual observation that carried a subtle weight. Perhaps a glance at his footwork or a raised eyebrow at his spin. 

“Looking sharp,” you’d say, almost conversational, but precise enough that it lingered in the air and in his thoughts longer than it should. He’d blink, adjust, and scowl softly — subtly, so no one else would notice his unfounded disdain — but he couldn’t really ignore it.

Occasionally, he caught you talking with Juhoon, leaning on the edge of the practice floor, laughter spilling easily between you. Martin, Seonghyeon, and Keonho drifted toward you too, joking about the cafeteria or the latest snack you’d brought. He listened in once, tucked near the mirrors during cooldown, and heard them:

“Y/N is like… the only one who doesn’t make practice feel like a cage,” Seonghyeon said.

“Yeah, she’s chill,” Martin agreed, smirking. “And she actually cares about keeping us from collapsing mid-practice.”

Keonho laughed, shoving an arm around Juhoon. “Seriously. She’s like… some magical morale booster.”

You heard their praise but didn’t let it get to your head. You smiled, handed out another bottle of water like you always had, and moved on. You weren’t doing it for recognition. You were doing it because it was simply the way that you were (friendly, never to a fault), because it felt right, and because it kept the studio moving a little more smoothly.

And yet, despite your efforts to blend in, James still noticed. 

He noticed your small movements, your calm efficiency, the way you could shift the energy in the room without even trying. Sometimes, when you passed him in the hallway or waited near the same practice room, he would tighten his jaw just a little when your gaze met his. And you, in exchange, noticed it too. That subtle reaction, the micro-flinch, the tension that spiked for no reason other than you were there — oh, it thrilled you, quietly.

It was harmless, unspoken, invisible to anyone else, but you felt it, the pull between you. You felt the awareness that he couldn’t ignore you, no matter how much he tried. And that knowledge — knowing you had this effect on him — made every day in the studio feel sharper, more electric. 

And in that electricity, you knew it wouldn’t be long before those small interactions — the hallway brushes, the shared spaces, the fleeting glances — slipped effortlessly into the teasing, challenging banter you both secretly craved, even before a single word was said.

The studio smelled faintly of disinfectant and sweat, the late-afternoon sun cutting long rectangles of light across the polished floor. James was stretching at the barre, his back straight, movements precise and controlled. You stepped in, backpack slung casually over one shoulder, and paused just long enough to notice the way his muscles tensed under his shirt, even though he hadn’t looked at you.

“Hey,” you said lightly, dropping your bag. “How’d the evaluation go?”

He didn’t answer immediately, already tightening his core as if the question itself were a weight he hadn’t expected.

“I—” he began, voice clipped, but you cut in smoothly, your tone airy.

“Don’t bother lying, Zhao. I’d know.”

He froze mid-stretch, one hand gripping the barre a little too tightly. His jaw set. You smiled faintly, stepping a little closer than necessary, careful not to overstep but close enough for him to feel the shift in space.

“First, I assume?” you said casually, letting the words hang in the air like a small challenge.

James’ eyes flicked to the floor, then back to you, narrowing slightly. “No,” he said finally. Flat. Controlled. Irritation curling just under the surface.

“Ah,” you said, mock consideration in your voice. “So I guess that means you’re… second. Again.” 

You didn’t smirk, not really, just lifted an eyebrow as if the observation were merely factual. Nevertheless, the way he stiffened told you everything you needed to know.

“You’ll get first next month,” you added smoothly, tilting your head. “We’re alternating, remember?”

Something in him clicked — a subtle, almost invisible shift. His back straightened even further. He didn’t answer. He didn’t really need to. The silence itself that enveloped you both in that space carried all the weight that mattered, his irritation humming in the space between words.

You moved to the other side of the barre, stretching beside him, deliberately aligning your movements so your knee brushed against his thigh just slightly. Not enough to provoke a reaction — not yet — but enough to draw a flicker of awareness from him. He exhaled sharply through his nose, eyes narrowing, but his posture didn’t waver.

“You know,” you said, still casual, “it’s really impressive how consistent you are. Always first or second. You make it look so… easy.”

He didn’t rise to the bait immediately. You could feel the tension in the muscles around his jaw and shoulders. 

“I work hard,” he said finally, voice clipped but steady.

“You do,” you said with a soft nod, as if acknowledging a fact. “Which is exactly why it’s so goddamn annoying when I manage to beat you.”

He paused, one hand still on the barre, breathing slightly faster than before. His voice was low, precise, “Annoying?”

“Mm,” you said, tilting your head again, eyes catching his in the mirror. “I wouldn’t really call it hatred—God, not even close—More… inconvenient? For you, you know?”

A muscle ticked in his temple. He turned slightly away, focusing on his reflection instead of you, though his chest rose and fell unevenly. He didn’t speak, but his body betrayed him. You took note of the way his shoulders tightened, the subtle twitch of his fingers against the barre, the almost imperceptible shift of his eyes toward you every time you adjusted your stance — it all said what words refused.

You lowered your voice, leaning just enough toward him that only he could hear. “Don’t worry. I like keeping you on your toes.”

That was it. That was all. No insult or mockery. Just… observation. Just the truth, delivered lightly, with just enough amusement that it made him want to grind his teeth and punch the barre at the same time.

“You know,” he said finally, without looking at you, “if you hated me, this would be easier.”

You laughed softly, the sound teasing but not unkind. “And what, miss all this fun?”

He looked at you then, finally, eyes darkening with something that balanced on the edge of irritation and… something else. Something you didn’t need nor dared to define yet. You met it with a faint, careful smile, letting the unspoken words hang in the air.

You moved away then, picking up your water bottle and stretching on the opposite side of the room, but you didn’t leave him alone. Every so often, you would glance at him through the mirror, catching him reflexively checking your position, your movements, the subtle tilt of your head. He wouldn’t admit it. He wouldn’t acknowledge it. But you knew. You could see it. And that, more than anything, was the thrill.

Because this wasn’t hatred. Not really. Not yet.

It was a pulse. A spark. A quiet, relentless game that neither of you could walk away from.

And you couldn’t help but enjoy every second of it.

At first, James doesn’t notice the change.

It slips in the way most dangerous things do — soft, reasonable, easy to justify. It wasn’t anything very sensational or demands any sort of acknowledgment. It was merely a series of small decisions that feel harmless on their own.

He tells himself it’s coincidence when his breaks start lining up with yours. The schedule is tight. Evaluations are close. Everyone’s exhausted and moving on muscle memory. Of course people end up in the same places at the same time. Of course.

That’s what he tells himself as he finishes his last set and doesn’t immediately leave the practice room. That’s what he tells himself as he stretches longer than necessary, pretending to work through a tight muscle while his gaze drifts — once, twice, even daring thrice — toward the hallway reflected in the mirror.

It’s not intentional, he insists, when he takes the longer route to the water station. It’s not on purpose that he finds himself slowing down just enough to let the noise of the corridor register. The footsteps, voices. Perhaps even shrill, uninhibited laughter that sounds suspiciously like yours.

“You on break too?” you ask one afternoon, already there, already leaning against the vending machine like you belong exactly where you are.

He nods, a fraction too quickly, thrown off at you appearing as though he’d conjured you from his thoughts. “Yeah.”

You hum thoughtfully, scanning the machine before pressing a button. “Funny. I feel like you always are.”

“That’s not—” He stops himself, exhales. “We just have similar schedules.”

“Mm,” you say, clearly unconvinced, as a bottle clatters into the tray. You crouch to grab it, then straighten and glance at him sideways. “You stalking me now, James?”

He scoffs, sharp and automatic. “Get over yourself.”

You grin, unabashed. “Worth asking.”

You don’t gloat. You never do. It’s just not in your repertoire to. You don’t crowd him, don’t press the moment. You just stand there beside him, cracking the cap of your drink and taking a slow sip like this is all perfectly normal. Like the air between you isn’t suddenly too charged, too aware.

He notices, against his will, that you don’t immediately leave and… neither does he.

“You place well today?” you ask casually, eyes still on the vending machine as if you aren’t already sure of the answer.

“Yes,” he says. Then, after a beat, “So did you.”

You glance at him then, something unreadable flickering across your face before it smooths into that same easy expression. “Neck and neck,” you say. “As usual.”

Something tightens in his jaw.

“You sound very calm about it.”

You shrug, rolling your shoulders. “Should I not be?”

“No,” he says immediately, then hesitates. “I just— most people care more.”

You tilt your head, studying him openly now. Up and down, then the smallest of smiles. “I care,” you say. “I just don’t really panic about it, you know?”

That lands harder than it should.

He takes his water bottle and twists the cap off a little too aggressively. You watch him with quiet interest, not mocking, not sympathetic either. It was just attentive.

“You’re tense,” you add lightly. “Is that because of me?”

James rolls his eyes at your wiggling eyebrows, “In your imagination, maybe.”

You sigh, mock-hurt, “Damn, Zhao. That stings.”

The pair of you let a few beats of quiet settle. It wasn’t awkward, more so a pause to breathe.

You puncture it soon enough with a passing thought. “You should stretch more.”

James raises a brow, “I stretch enough, L/N.”

“Well, clearly,” you say, eyes flicking pointedly to his shoulders, “your posture says otherwise.”

He turns to face you, irritation suddenly flaring. “Why do you care?”

The question comes out a bit sharper than he means it to. A bit too direct. He didn’t intend to sound so harsh. Perhaps he’d been ruffled by the slightest hint of concern that bled through your playful advices.

You blink, momentarily surprised, then smile again — soft, almost amused. “I… don’t really know,” you say. “Habit, I guess?”

That answer unsettles him more than any clever comeback would have.

A moment passes. A moment too long. He becomes acutely aware of how close you’re standing, of how easy it would be to take half a step closer or further away. You don’t move and, again, like earlier, neither does he.

“Break’s almost over,” you say eventually, checking your watch. “You heading back?”

“In a minute,” he replies.

You nod, pushing off the machine. “Alright. Suit yourself.”

You start to walk away, then pause and glance back over your shoulder. “Hey, James?”

“What.”

“You did really well today.”

You weren’t teasing. Your tone wasn’t pointed either. It was just sincere. Then you’re gone, just like that, disappearing down the hall before he can even think of a characteristic response. James stands there longer than necessary, staring at the space you occupied, the echo of your voice still lingering in the air.

He tells himself it means nothing. But later, when he checks the time without thinking and realizes he’s already anticipating the next break — wondering, faintly, irrationally, if you’ll be there again.

That’s when the thought starts to form, slow and unwelcome: This isn’t coincidence anymore. It is habit. 

And worse— he doesn’t seem to want it to stop.

Juhoon notices the shift in the atmosphere before James does.

It’s during cooldown, when everyone’s too tired to keep their filters intact. James is sitting on the floor, back against the mirror, towel looped around his neck, staring at nothing in particular while his pulse slowly settles. Sweat drips down his temple. His mind is already running ahead — counts, formations, adjustments upon adjustments.

Juhoon drops down beside him with a soft thud, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“Do you and Y/N have, like, the same internal clock or something?” Juhoon says, casual, almost lazy. “Every time I see you, she’s here too.”

James doesn’t look at him. He wipes his face with the towel, controlled, deliberate. “You’re imagining things.”

Juhoon hums, unconvinced. He leans back on his hands, eyes drifting toward the hallway outside the practice room. “Am I? ‘Cause I swear I saw you slow down earlier when we passed the water station and she was there.”

James stiffens, just a fraction. “I didn’t.”

“Uh-huh.” Juhoon grins, clearly enjoying himself. “You know, I’m not judging. It’s just… kind of impressive. You’re usually allergic to distractions.”

James finally turns his head. “She’s not a distraction. She’s not.”

Juhoon’s grin fades — just a little. That gets James’ attention.

“Oh,” Juhoon says. “So she’s… what, then?”

James opens his mouth, then closes it. His jaw tightens. “She’s competition.”

“Right, right,” Juhoon says slowly. “And you, what, time your breaks around your competition now?”

James shoots him a glare sharp enough to cut. “I don’t time anything, Sherlock.”

Juhoon raises both hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, chill. I’m just saying,” He hesitates, then adds, quieter, “You look different lately.”

That lands heavier than James expects.

“Different how.”

Juhoon shrugs. “I dunno, more… on edge, maybe? But, like, not in your usual way. It’s just like you’re bracing yourself for something you don’t want to think about.”

James looks away. “You’re reading too much into it.”

“Maybe,” Juhoon concedes. Then, after a beat, “But hey, I’ve been here long enough to know when someone’s pretending not to notice something.”

James stands abruptly, towel slipping from his shoulders. “Dude. Drop it.”

Juhoon watches him go, expression shifting — less amused now, more thoughtful.

The thing is— James starts to feel it on the days it doesn’t happen.

On the rare afternoons when your schedules don’t overlap, when he steps into the hallway and doesn’t immediately spot you leaning against the wall, stretching your arms, or tying your hair up with that familiar smug-like ease — something goes off-kilter. The space feels wrong. It feels too empty while the noise just seems to him too thin.

He tells himself it’s good. There’s less distraction, more capacity to focus. Regardless, though, his focus just fractures anyway. 

The mirrors feel harsher, reflecting every misstep too clearly. His timing even slips — sure not badly, but just enough that he notices. Obvious enough that it irritates him. He runs the sequence again and again and again and it still turns out wrong.

He pushes through practice anyway. He always does. Discipline doesn’t care about moods. Muscle memory doesn’t make exceptions. Except today, it does.

“Hey,” Martin says later, after James clips a turn he’s nailed for years. “You good?”

James straightens, breath already controlled. “I’m fine.”

Martin tilts his head. “You sure? You usually never miss that.”

James opens his mouth to answer and realizes he doesn’t have one that makes sense.

“I just… need to reset,” he says finally.

Martin nods, accepting it easily, but Juhoon, sitting across the room, watches him carefully. There’s a crease between his brows now, concern threading through the earlier amusement.

When they break again, Juhoon falls into step beside him.

“She wasn’t here today,” Juhoon says, as-a-matter-of-factly, not looking at him.

James’ response is instant, a beat too fast. “I know.”

Juhoon stops walking. James takes two more steps before realizing — and then he stops too.

James turns to face Juhoon, then, whose expression is unreadable as he speaks. “You weren’t paying attention, huh?”

James’ throat tightens. “I—”

Juhoon exhales slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look. I’m not saying anything. I just…” He hesitates. “You and her? You’d be a stupid hot pair. Like, objectively speaking.”

James lets out a sharp, humorless laugh. “That’s not funny.”

“I know,” Juhoon says softly. “That’s why I’m worried.”

That piques James’ recognition.

Juhoon looks down the hall warily, voice dropping. “You know how this place is. You know how things end up in here when people start feeling things they’re not supposed to.”

James clenches his fists. “I’m not feeling anything.”

Juhoon meets his gaze. “Then why do you look like you’re trying not to?”

The question hangs between them. James looks away first. Neither of them says anything else — but the silence is louder than any accusation.

He starts checking rooms without meaning to.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway — that it isn’t intentional, that his feet just carry him wherever they need to go next. He finishes a set early and, instead of heading straight for cooldown, his gaze drifts to the narrow window of Studio C. The glass reflects fluorescent light and nothing else. It’s empty. He pauses, longer than necessary, hand hovering near the door before he catches himself and moves on.

It happens again with Studio A.

He circles back under the excuse of grabbing something he “forgot” — a towel, his phone, anything that sounds reasonable in his head. He peers in through the window, already bracing for disappointment he refuses to name. Someone else is there, running counts in front of the mirror. 

It’s not you. The realization lands like a sharp, stupid ache in his chest, sudden and unwelcome. He clenches his jaw and turns away too quickly, annoyed at himself for even looking.

The worst part is how often it keeps happening.

Once is coincidence. Twice is carelessness. By the third time, he’s painfully aware of it in a way that makes his skin prickle. He changes routes between rooms in hopes to run into you, slows his pace in hallways thinking of the off-chance that you were merely taking your sweet time as well. Hell, he even checks the time more often than he ever has before. 

He tells himself it’s about efficiency, about finding open space to practice — but the truth is uglier, more personal.

He’s looking for you. Actively, purposefully lookingfor you.

The absence of you has weight now. It presses into the spaces you usually occupy — the corner of the room where you would usually stretch, the hallway where you would lean against the wall trying to tie your hair up neatly, the water station where you always seem to be when he tells himself he’s just passing through. 

Without you, everything just feels misaligned. The building hums too loudly. The mirrors feel unforgiving. His body doesn’t settle the way it should. He pushes harder to compensate.

He would start to run drills until his legs burn, repeat sequences until the counts blur together. He gets sharper, cleaner. On paper, he’s still inherently excellent, but something underneath it all is fraying, and he hates that he can’t brute-force his way through it.

That’s how Seonghyeon catches him.

James is standing in the doorway of Studio B, not quite inside, not quite leaving either. He’s pretending to check the posted schedule on his phone, even though he memorized it earlier that morning. The room is empty. Again.

“You looking for someone?” Seonghyeon asks from behind him, voice easy, curious.

James straightens immediately, shoulders squaring like he’s been called out mid-mistake. “No,” he says too fast. “Just, uh, just checking availability.”

Seonghyeon leans to peer past him into the room, then looks back, lips quirking. “…Right… ‘Cause there are, what, four other empty studios right now?”

James’ jaw tightens. “I like this one.”

“Okay…?” Seonghyeon says, clearly not buying it. “But, uh, you know Y/N usually uses Studio C around this time, right?”

James’ breath stutters — barely noticeable, but just enough. “I didn’t ask,” he snaps.

Seonghyeon raises both hands, amused but not unkind. “Relax, dude. Just saying.”

James walks past him without another word, heat crawling up his neck. The fact that someone else noticed — at least, noticed enough to comment — sits heavy in his chest. He doesn’t like being readable. He doesn’t like being predictable. 

He especially doesn’t like that they’re all… right.

When he finally does find you, it’s worse than not finding you at all.

You’re stretching by the mirrors, music low, earbuds in, body loose in a way that feels almost unfair given how hard the day’s been. You were moving like the room belongs to you — unrushed, unbothered, entirely at ease in your skin. Then again that was how you always moved. James registers all of it in a single, unwelcome rush before you glance up and catch him in the mirror.

You smile. You didn’t look surprised or smug. Just… pleased, like you had an inkling that this moment right here was always meant to happen.

“Hey,” you say, pulling one earbud out. “Did you need the room?”

James exhales slowly, as if steadying himself. “No. I—” He stops, practiced irritation flashing across his face. “I thought it was empty.”

“Mm.” You tilt your head, eyes flicking briefly to the clock on the wall. “You always come around this time.”

It’s not accusatory. It’s not even teasing. You were just observant. It was that alone unsettles him far more than if you’d smirked instead.

“It’s just coincidence,” he says, a little too firmly.

You hum, clearly unconvinced, and return to stretching like his presence hasn’t shifted the air density of the room. You step into a deeper stretch, hands braced against the mirror, muscles pulling and releasing in smooth, practiced motions. James looks anywhere but directly at you but your reflection still betrays him.

He moves to the other side of the room, setting his bag down with unnecessary care.

“Long day?” you ask casually.

“Same as always.”

“You say that every day,” you reply. “Statistically speaking, that can’t always be true.”

He shoots you a look. “Do you ever stop talking?”

You grin, unabashed. “Not really.”

Despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitches — and he hates that you notice. He knows you noticed because your grin draws out just a tad wider in return.

You switch stretches, drifting a little closer without comment. It wasn’t enough to crowd him, you made sure, but just enough to be there. Close enough that when he shifts his stance, he becomes acutely aware of the space between you — or lack thereof.

“You didn’t place first today,” you say, conversational.

His jaw tightens. “No.”

“But you’re acting like you did.”

“What does that even mean?”

You shrug. “You’re grumpier when you win.”

“That’s not true.”

“Is too!” you exclaim with a giggle, suddenly excited to divulge a discovery you made months ago. “When you place second, you get quiet. When you place first, you act like someone just stole your lunch and insulted your whole family.”

He exhales through his nose. “You’re just projecting.”

You laugh softly. “Am I?”

Silence stretches. It’s not uncomfortable, exactly, but taut. Expectedly imputed. James drops into a stretch of his own, facing the mirror. Your reflections line up now, close enough that he can see your expression shift when you watch him.

“Relax your shoulders,” you say suddenly.

He frowns. “I am relaxed.”

“You’re absolutely not.”

“I didn’t ask for coaching.”

“Too bad,” you reply easily. “You look like you’re bracing for impact.”

That hits a tad too close, a tad too familiar.

He straightens abruptly. “What’s up with you and my posture, L/N? Why do you even care?”

The question comes out sharper than he intends, thunder edging his voice. He was halfway through regretting the way he let his tone get that way, to a harsh point, but your reaction stopped him dead in his tracks.

You only blinked — just once — then smiled again, softer this time. “Like I said before, I don’t know,” you say. “Maybe it’s really habit or I just… notice things.”

“About everyone?” he asks.

Your gaze lingers on his reflection. “No.”

Something shifts. It wasn’t rip-roaring or anything of the sort, but it was just enough to make his pulse jump.

He turns toward you, then stops himself halfway, fists clenching at his sides. For a moment, it looks like he might say something — something real, something bordering on dangerous. Instead, he looks away.

“You should go,” he mutters. “Your break’s almost over.”

You check the clock again, unbothered. “So is yours.”

You stay anyway. He hates how much that means to him.

You finish your stretch and stand beside him, close enough that he can feel your warmth without touching. You tilt your head, studying him with that maddening calm that makes his skin itch.

“You’re… tense when I’m around,” you say gently.

“In your imagination, maybe.”

You smile, eyes glinting. “Funny. You said that last time.”

He groans quietly, dragging a hand down his face. “You do this on purpose.”

“Do what?”

“This,” he says, gesturing vaguely between you. “Whatever this is.”

You consider him for a moment, then step back — just a little. Far enough from him to give him space, far enough to show that you’re not trying to trap him into anything he wasn’t ready for.

“I don’t do anything you don’t let me,” you say simply.

That stops him cold. You pop your earbud back in, gathering your things. Before you leave, you pause at the door and glance back.

“Oh, by the way,” you add, almost as an afterthought. “You did really well today. Even if you don’t like hearing that from me.”

And then you’re just gone, with the door clicking shut behind you.

James stays where he is, chest feeling tight, hands shaking just enough to be noticeable if he were looking. He presses his palms into the mirror, breathing hard, staring at his own reflection like it might explain how he got here. 

He doesn’t want this. Whatever the fuck this is. He doesn’t want you.

The worst part, though — the part that really fucking terrifies him most — is how badly his body, his instincts, his obvious silence all seem to disagree. Because if he weren’t holding himself back, if he weren’t actually just being an in-denial, emotionally constipated blockhead… 

He wouldn’t be standing alone right now.

On the days he doesn’t see you at all, something goes wrong with the rhythm of his life.

It doesn’t go wrong in ways anyone else would clock immediately. Of course he still shows up early. Of course he still warms up properly. Of course he still hits his marks with precision that borders on clinical. From the outside, James is exactly who he’s always been. Reliable. Impeccable. Untouchable. Sticking to relentless forward motion.

But underneath it, the day refuses to settle.

He moves through the building with an awareness that has nowhere to land. His eyes track doorways without permission. He slows near practice rooms he has no reason to enter. He checks the internal app more often than necessary, scanning schedules he already knows, looking for a name that isn’t there. When he passes the vending machines or the water station, he hesitates — just a second too long — before realizing there’s no one to meet him this time.

It’s so goddamn disorienting.

He doesn’t replay specific moments anymore; those have already worn themselves thin. Instead, it’s the lack of new ones that unsettles him. The day feels unfinished, like a conversation that cut off mid-sentence. It feels, to him, like something essential was supposed to happen and yet it just didn’t.

He notices it in smaller, stranger ways.

He adjusts his posture more than usual, as if someone is watching. He catches himself glancing at mirrors, then scowls at his own reflection for the habit. When practice ends, he lingers. It’s not really because he needs to (heck, some instructors were growing sick of how meticulously perfectionistic he was), but because leaving feels premature, like he’s abandoning a possibility he can’t quite name.

Surprisingly (not), it makes him irritable in a quieter way. It’s not explosive, rather more contained.

It shows when Martin mentions your name once, offhand, while they’re packing up.

“Y/N brought extra snacks again,” he says, casual. “I think she felt bad Keonho skipped lunch.”

James answers without thinking. “Oh,” he says, a little too fast. “She wasn’t here today.”

The room stills — not dramatically, just enough.

Martin looks at him, brows knitting together. “You noticed?”

James’ hand pauses on the zipper of his bag. “…No,” he says after a beat, tone clipped. “Just— people talk, okay?”

Martin hums, unconvinced, but lets it drop. James, however, doesn’t relax.

That night, exhaustion weighs heavy in his bones, the kind that should knock him out immediately. Instead, he lies awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the building settle around him. His body is tired. His mind is not. 

It keeps reaching outward.

He realizes, with a quiet kind of dread, that his days have started organizing themselves around you without his consent. 

It’s not because he misses you — hell no, God forbid, as he flat-out refuses that word — but because the absence of you leaves this agitating negative space. Your nonappearance leaves a hollow where tension used to live, a challenge sharpened him. It leaves behind a crevice where something — this something that is electric and irritating and grounding all at once — used to press back against him.

Without you, the air goes flat. Without you, there’s no one to push against. No one to hold his attention in that precise, maddening way. The work feels lonelier — not because he’s alone, but because no one else mirrors him quite the same.

And somewhere between hovering outside another empty practice room and checking the time for a break he no longer needs, James understands something that makes his chest tighten painfully.

He isn’t reacting to you anymore. He’s orienting himself around you. He’s looking for you before he even realizes he’s doing it. On instinct.

And that terrifies him far more than any rivalry ever could.

You notice the change in the air and in your routine before the rankings do.

At first, it’s subtle. Your breaks stop overlapping, the usual moments where you’d spot James cooling down by the mirrors or hovering near the water station just… don’t happen. You tell yourself it’s nothing. Schedules shift all the time, after all. Trainees rotate rooms. People get pulled into evaluations or extra rehearsals without warning.

Still, you had to admit, the building feels different when he’s not there.

You start adjusting your schedule on purpose after that. Just a little. Nothing conspicuous enough to raise suspicion. You take breaks five minutes earlier. You switch studios last minute. You linger longer in cooldown or cut it short entirely, slipping out before he even has the chance to appear like clockwork.

It’s not malicious. You could never bear to be like that to anyone, let alone James. You’re also not trying to punish him. You just… want to see if he notices. And maybe — if you’re being honest — you want to see if you do.

The answer is annoyingly quick.

You miss him. Of course not in an ostentatious, moon-eyed way. Not in a way that makes you sigh or stare at your phone or write his name in the margins of anything (because what the fuck, you weren’t in middle school?). You miss him the way you miss friction. You miss him the way you miss something that keeps you sharp. You miss his dry remarks, his unimpressed looks, the way he never lets you get away with being anything less than excellent.

And yes — fine, fine — you miss his face too.

That stupidly handsome, perpetually serious face that looks carved out by the Gods of perfection and focus and discipline (if there was one). That irritatingly gorgeous face that softens just barely when he’s tired. The ludicrously drop-dead striking face that never gives you what you want but always gives you something to push against. You accept this faster than you probably should.

You don’t spiral about it, though. You don’t even fight it. You just acknowledge it, shrug internally, and move on. Missing someone doesn’t have to mean anything catastrophic. It doesn’t have to dismantle you or your entire way of living. It can just exist — alongside rivalry, alongside ambition, alongside the quiet understanding that some presences make the grind more bearable.

James, you’re pretty sure, would hate that you’re this okay with it.

On the days you don’t avoid him on purpose — when schedules just genuinely don’t line up, when rehearsals drag late or end early — you catch yourself glancing around anyway. You wonder how his practice is going. You ponder whether he’s hitting his marks or whether he’s annoyed you’re not there to compete with him.

You always do find yourself smiling at the thought.

As you vowed not to, you don’t chase him down. You don’t go looking for him (because barf, that just screams desperate). Even so, you do miss the back-and-forth. The way your conversations never quite sit still — half challenge, half familiarity. You miss knowing exactly how to get under his skin with one comment, and the way he pretends not to rise to it while very clearly rising to it.

It’s funny, really. The way James refuses to admit he misses you. You can see it in the stiffness of his posture when you pass him in the hallway, in the way his eyes flick to you before he remembers not to look. You, on the other hand, let the feeling settle easily.

You miss him, and you’re not afraid nor ashamed to admit that you like missing him.

And you realize, then, that this is a considerable distinction between you two that makes all the difference.

The rankings for that month drop on a Wednesday.

James is already standing in front of the board when it happens, arms crossed, posture set the way it always is, the way you always pointed out — like he’s bracing for impact even when he doesn’t need to. He tells himself he’s calm. He tells himself he’s prepared. This is routine. Numbers shift. People rise and fall. It’s all part of the system. He’s seen it happen a hundred times before.

His eyes go to the top first. First place. Not you.

A flicker of confusion crosses his face before he can stop it, sharp and instinctive, like a misstep on familiar ground. He scans again, slower this time, irritation threading into his chest as his gaze drops.

Second place. Still not you.

The space where your name should be feels wrong. It’s not empty, sure, but it just feels… incorrect. Like a sentence that suddenly ended with the wrong punctuation.

He exhales through his nose, jaw tightening, eyes finally finding you at third.

Third.

It hits him harder than it should, harder than what should’ve made sense. For a moment, he genuinely thinks there’s been a mistake.

You, on the other hand, are standing a few feet away, weight shifted onto one leg, reading the board with the same mild curiosity you bring to most things. There’s a faint wince when you roll your shoulder — nothing too noteworthy, nothing you’d ever complain about. When you find your name, you nod once, like you’ve confirmed the weather.

“Huh,” you murmur. “Third.”

And… that was it.

You didn’t sigh. Your expression showed no visible disappointment. There wasn’t even a storm behind your eyes, nary a gray cloud overcasting your face. Instead, your features are just set in quiet acceptance, like this was always within the realm of possibility and you’re not about to let it ruin your day.

James turns to look at you, truly looks at you, and something in his chest lurches. You’re fine. That’s the problem.

He doesn’t realize how tightly he’s been wound around you until the tension disappears — and instead of relief, there’s this yawning, disorienting absence. The sharp edge that’s been driving him, grounding him, is suddenly gone. The mirror he’s been measuring himself against has shifted out of place, and he doesn’t know where to stand without it.

“You okay?” someone asks him — Martin, maybe — but James barely hears it.

His mind is too busy replaying everything at once.

The way you haven’t been around as much lately. The way your schedules stopped lining up. The way the air between you cooled, not from hostility, but from distance. He thinks of how he told himself it didn’t matter. How he insisted he was just focused on his own work.

And now this. Third.

The realization creeps in slow and merciless: this isn’t about you losing ground. It’s about him losing something he didn’t know he was holding.

You catch his eye then, across the room, the way you always do — accidentally on purpose. For half a second, you hesitate, weighing the familiar impulse to poke at him against the quieter instinct to leave things untouched. The rankings board is still buzzing behind you, voices overlapping, names being read and reread like they might rearrange themselves if stared at hard enough. Then you smile, easy and unbothered, and walk over to him like nothing in the world has shifted.

“Guess we broke the pattern,” you say lightly, tilting your head toward the board. “No alternating this month.”

It was meant to be a joke. Just a small one that’s familiar or safe, even. The kind of joke you’ve traded a dozen times before, sharp enough to spark but dull enough not to cut.

James opens his mouth — and nothing comes out.

Up close, it’s worse. He notices things he has no business noticing now, not when he’s supposed to be annoyed, not when this is supposed to be simple. Your voice is a little rough around the edges, like you’ve been pushing it too hard for too long. You favor one arm when you shift your weight, a subtle thing most people wouldn’t clock — but he does. Of course he does. And just above the collar of your shirt, barely visible when you move, there’s a sliver of white tape peeking out, stark against your skin.

A bandage.

His stomach drops. He wants to point it out immediately. He wants to ask if you’re okay, if it still hurts, if you iced it, if you need anything, if this is why— 

He swallows all of it down in one hard motion. 

Concern is dangerous. Concern invites questions he doesn’t want answers to. Concern looks too much like caring, and caring is a line he cannot afford to cross. Not here. Not with the rules hanging over his head, unspoken but absolute. Not when he doesn’t even know if you’d laugh it off or look at him like he’s suddenly strange.

So he does what he always does. He locks it away.

“You’re not—” he starts, then stops, jaw tightening as he recalibrates. “You’re okay with it?”

You blink, then shrug, casual as ever. “Yeah. I mean, sure, it sucks a little, but,” You roll your shoulder without thinking, then wince, quick and controlled. You catch yourself, glance at him, and add, “Shit happens.”

James clocks the wince and the fact he didn’t — couldn’t — address it feels like a punch to the ribs.

“I overdid it,” you continue, tone matter-of-fact. “Extra rehearsals. Tried to clean a transition that didn’t really need fixing and, uh, shoulder didn’t love that.” You smile again, smaller this time, like you’re preemptively brushing off his concern before he can even voice it. “Nothing dramatic. Just bad math on my part.”

Bad math. He almost laughs, sharp and humorless. Bad fucking math. Jesus, you say it like you miscalculated a step, not like your body finally forced you to listen to it. He wants to tell you that third place isn’t nothing. He wants to tell you that everyone else would kill to still be standing where you are after pushing that hard. 

He wants — hell, needs — to tell you that watching your name drop felt wrong in a way he can’t articulate without unraveling himself in the middle of the practice room.

Instead, he says, “You placed third.” 

As if that’s the important part.

You grin, amused. “I know, Zhao. I can read.”

He exhales through his nose despite himself. “You don’t seem… bothered.”

“Well, I’m not devastated,” you correct. “There’s a difference.” You glance back at the board, then at him again, eyes sharp but kind. “But hey! Look at you. You placed first. Congrats.”

There it is. Again.

You never gloat. It’s just something you never did. You never soften your losses to make him comfortable or sharpen them to provoke him. You never look surprised when things tilt in your favor — or defensive when they don’t. You simply exist in the outcome, steady and unembarrassed, as if placement is just information and not a verdict on your worth.

It should irritate him. From any other person, your calmness would have aggravated him to his wits end. Instead, it guts him. Because with a clarity that feels almost violent, James understands something he’s been skirting around for weeks, maybe months — something he’s deliberately mislabeled as discipline or focus or rivalry because those were safer words.

The competition was never the point. Not really. What he misses isn’t winning. It’s the tension. The quiet, humming friction that lived in the spaces between you. The way his days felt charged when you were there to meet him head-on, matching him beat for beat without ever needing to announce it. The way his awareness sharpened — not just of himself, but of the room — because you were in it. Because you were watching, measuring, existing with that maddening ease that made everything feel more alive.

He realizes, with something akin to dread, that his drive has been feeding on that energy. On you. 

His days feel unfinished without you. Not without beating you. Without you.

Without the sideways glances that said more than words ever could. Without the quiet challenges you set simply by standing beside him with that small smirk. Without your stupid, stupid remarks about his fucking posture. Without the way you occupied his space like you belonged there — even when you were driving him insane, even when he was pretending not to notice how closely he was orbiting you.

“You shouldn’t push through injuries,” he says before he can stop himself.

The words hang between you, heavier than he intended.

You raise an eyebrow, amused. “Is that concern I hear?”

“No,” he says too fast. “It’s— It’s plain and simple common sense.”

“Ey, come on now. Don’t get shy on me, Zhao!” You nudge his arm, teasing.

James rolls his eyes good-naturedly, a smile threatening to replace his frown. “Keep imagining, L/N. I mean it. Don’t force yourself into things when you know your body can’t handle it anymore. That’s just common sense.”

You hum, clearly unconvinced, but you let it go. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll be fine, though. I swear. I just… misjudged how much I could take this time.”

James nods, jaw tight, eyes flicking once more — traitorously — to the edge of that bandage before he forces them back to your face. He wants to say something else. Anything else. He wants to tell you that seeing your name anywhere but first or second knocked something loose in him. He wants to tell you that the distance, the missed overlaps, the quiet days without your presence felt louder than any loss he’s ever had.

He says none of it.

You step back first, easy as always, like this conversation hasn’t shifted anything at all. 

“See you around,” you say. Not a challenge. Not a promise. Just a statement.

And as you walk away, James realizes — too late, too clearly — that whatever balance he thought he’d found is gone. 

Because third place didn’t just knock you off the top. It knocked him off his axis.

James watches you already laughing with someone else, already slipping back into the rhythm of the room like you were never derailed at all. The sound hits him harder than he expects. The ease of it. The way you move on without leaving anything unresolved, while he stands there feeling like the ground has subtly shifted beneath his feet.

The worst part — the part he can’t ignore anymore — is that he noticed the bandage.

The goddamn sliver of white at your collar. The careful way you moved. The fact that you stood there smiling anyway, offering him congratulations instead of excuses. It rattled him more than seeing your name slip down the board ever did. It made something in him lurch forward instinctively, something protective and untrained and deeply inconvenient.

He hates that he had to swallow it down. However, you were — quietly, painfully — grateful that he did. 

Because you noticed. Of course you did.

You saw the way his gaze stalled. You saw the way his jaw tightened, not with irritation this time, but restraint. You caught sight of the concern he reined in, the questions he didn’t ask, the way he chose control over comfort. And instead of resenting it, instead of wishing he’d broken character and reached for you, you respected him for it.

That, more than anything, is what settles in your chest.

You’ve never doubted his ambition. You’ve always admired it — the way he treats his goal like something sacred, something he refuses to endanger no matter the cost. Seeing him choose restraint, choose discipline even when it clearly unsettles him, only deepens that respect. It tells you this isn’t a boy that was merely playing carelessly at excellence.

He showed you that he was someone who knows exactly what he wants — and is willing to sacrifice for it. And you like him for that. Not in a flippant way or as part of the banter. But genuinely, cleanly. In a way that feels almost… careful.

You don’t miss his concern because you know it’s there. You felt it, and that’s enough.

For the first time since he started training here, James feels truly off-balance. Because annoyance, he realizes too late, was only the surface. Underneath it was hunger.

And now that he’s tasted the absence of you — now that the rivalry has gone quiet, now that your presence is no longer something a hundred percent guaranteed — he doesn’t know how to pretend he doesn’t want it back. He doesn’t know how to convince himself that the sharpness, the tension, the pull toward you was ever just about rankings.

He doesn’t know how to pretend he doesn’t want you.

And that realization — sudden, undeniable, and admittedly, Honest to God, downright terrifying — turns his world quietly, irrevocably upside down.

It starts like any other day.

You wake up sore in the familiar way it had always been since you started being a trainee, muscles heavy but cooperative, mind already running through what you need to fix in practice. You tie your hair back, pull on something comfortable, shove your shoes into your bag without thinking too hard about it. 

The hallways of the buildings smells like it was cleaner (you guessed the janitor worked overtime last night) and with the welcome aroma of caffeine. Someone laughs too loudly near the lockers. Someone else is already warming up, the counts muttered under their breath like a prayer. 

As you said, it was as normal as any other day in HYBE could get.

It isn’t until later, however — after stretch, after a run-through that goes better than you expected — that you reach into your bag for your water bottle and feel paper instead. A sleek piece of paper that was folded, neat, and felt intentional.

Your fingers still. For half a second, you consider pretending it isn’t there. You had half a mind already set on pretending that it’s just trash, or a schedule change graciously left to you, or just something forgettable. You’ve already learned how to keep moving, how to not let little disruptions knock you off your axis. But something in your chest tightens anyway, sharp and curious, and you unfold it before you can talk yourself out of it.

Meet me tonight. Rooftop. Don’t come if you don’t want to.

There was no signature or any sign of identification. Nevertheless, you had an inkling and figured he doesn’t really need one.

Your heart stutters — once, twice, the second harder than the last — then settles into something louder, into something faster. You read it again, slower this time, as if you’re worried the words might rearrange themselves into something less dangerous if you give them enough patience. They don’t. They sit there, restrained and reckless all at once, exactly like him.

James finally initiated, and that is exactly what derails you.

The rest of the day becomes an exercise in restraint. You go through the motions with an almost infuriating level of normalcy, nodding when spoken to, smiling when it’s expected, correcting yourself when you mess up. You laugh at something Juhoon says and only realize afterward that you didn’t hear a word of it. Every spare moment, your mind flicks back to the note, to the careful phrasing, to the exit he’s given you.

Don’t come if you don’t want to.

You don’t know what scares you more — that he meant it, or that you know, come hell or high water, you’re going anyway.

By the time night settles in, the building feels different. It feels quieter and almost hollowed out. The lights are dimmer, the air cooler, footsteps echoing in ways they don’t during the day. Each step toward the stairwell leading to petrifyingly uncharted territory (both literally and figuratively) feels deliberate, like you’re choosing something irreversible. You tell yourself not to read into it. You convince yourself this could be anything. A conversation, perhaps, or closure. Maybe even a warning.

Your excitement hums under your skin anyway, restless and bright, something you actively have to press down with both hands. You don’t want to get your hopes up. You don’t want to be foolish. You’ve been careful for a reason.

The rooftop door creaks softly when you push it open.

He’s already there and, for a moment, all you can do is stare.

James is standing near the railing, city lights bleeding faintly into the night beyond him. He’s wearing a suit — actually wearing one — and the sight hits you sideways, absurd and devastating all at once. The jacket is gone, slung carelessly over his shoulder like he was imitating one of those “cool, laidback” characters from movies. His tie is loosened, collar unbuttoned, sleeves pushed up just enough to show tension in his forearms. 

His hair isn’t perfectly in place as well. He looks… undone. Though, it wasn’t sloppy, nor did it look careless. Just human. Like he dressed with an intention he lost the nerve to fully carry through.

He turns when he hears the door, shoulders stiffening, and the look on his face when he sees you — caught between relief and something dangerously close to awe — makes your breath hitch despite yourself.

“Hey,” you say, softly, as if the night might shatter if you speak too loud.

“Hey,” he answers, and it sounds like he’s been practicing the word, like it feels heavier than it should be.

He doesn’t move toward you. That’s the first thing you notice. He keeps his distance, hands flexing once at his sides before stilling, jaw tight with restraint. It would almost be easier if he reached for you. Almost. Instead, he just looks at you. Really looks.

You can feel it, the weight of his attention, controlled but straining, like everything in him is being held together by sheer will. The air between you feels charged, alive with things neither of you has said out loud yet.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he admits finally.

You swallow. “You told me not to if I didn’t want to.”

“I know.” A pause. “I meant it.”

You observed the honesty — quiet, unadorned, obvious from his no-nonsense character — and it lands harder than any grand confession could have. You step closer before you can stop yourself, just enough to close some of the distance, not all of it. You don’t want to break whatever fragile balance this is.

“Well, I wanted to,” you say, and hope he hears what you don’t quite say with it.

His breath leaves him slowly. He nods, once, like he’s bracing himself, as always. Up close, you can see the cracks in his composure — the faint sheen of nervous energy on both his forehead and overall mood, the way his shoulders are set too rigidly, like he’s afraid of what might happen if he relaxes even a little.

You’ve never seen him like this. The tense posture, sure, and the intense gaze sometimes, but not the way it was positively burning at your skin the way it was now. Somehow, be that as it may, that unfamiliarity is what makes it thrilling, terrifying, intimate.

He doesn’t touch you. He doesn’t crowd you. He doesn’t take the easy way out. Then again, he never really needed to. He just stands there, suit half-ruined, resolve unraveling at the edges, having clearly decided that whatever happens tonight is worth the risk.

You feel it then, unmistakably. This isn’t just a whim. This is a breaking point.

As you stand there under the open sky, heart hammering, excitement coiled tight in your chest, you realize with dizzying clarity that whatever he’s about to say — whatever this is — you’re already in too deep to walk away unchanged.

So you don’t move closer right away.

Instead, you step up beside him, a careful few feet of space still between you, and rest your forearms against the railing. The city stretches out below — traffic like a living thing, headlights bleeding into one another, the low hum of voices and engines rising up to meet the quiet of the rooftop. It’s beautiful in a distant, detached way, where it’s safe to look at. And hey, it was easier than looking at him.

You let the silence breathe first. Let it settle.

“So,” you say eventually, tone light on purpose, like you’re not standing on the edge of something that could change everything in the blink of an eye. “Is this where you bring all your rivals? Or am I special?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see his mouth twitch before he can stop it.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he says, too fast. Then, a beat later, quieter, more honest than he probably meant to be, “I’ve never really… brought anyone up here.”

“Really?” You might have made it sound a bit too disbelieving but there was no going back now.

James nods vigorously, eyes bright enough to seem reassuring, “Yes, most definitely. It’s always just been me going up here. To think, you know, or escape. Now, well, there’s… there’s you.”

That lands. You glance at him then, eyebrows lifting slightly. “Oh?”

He realizes what he’s said about half a second too late. You can almost see it happen — the mental backpedal, the instinctive urge to retreat. But instead of pulling away like he always had many times before, he exhales, long and slow, like he’s tired of holding his breath.

“Yeah,” he says. “Oh.”

You smile to yourself, turning back toward the city before he can see it fully. “Guess I should feel honored, then?”

“I’m the honored one.”

You turn back again to look at him, finding his stare already boring into yours. Behind it held so much sincerity it made your stomach twist. Perhaps it had been too much genuineness from James that you’re used to, so you let out a laugh, albeit an obviously forced one.

“That was smooth, Zhao,” you roll your eyes playfully and gaze off into the distance, sighing. “God, you’re probably not used to a pretty girl like me being in your secret place, huh?”

“You are…” 

“Huh?”

“You are pretty,” he replies without thinking.

The words hang there between you, naked and undeniable.

He stiffens immediately afterward, like he’s steeling himself for the worst, and you bite down on your lower lip to keep from laughing — not because it’s funny, exactly (even though it kinda is), but because the tension is so thick it almost feels unreal. You’ve spent months dancing around each other with precision and restraint, and now he’s slipping, little truths tumbling out before he can armor them up again.

“That was fast,” you say gently.

He drags a hand through his hair, frustration and nerves tangling together. “God, you talk too much.”

“And yet you invited me—the pretty girl—here,” you counter, glancing sideways at him. “At night. In a suit.”

He huffs. “It felt… appropriate.”

“For what?”

He opens his mouth. Then closes it. His jaw tightens, and you feel the shift beside you — the way his weight moves, the way he turns just slightly in your direction without fully facing you. You can sense him there, hyper-aware, like every inch of space between you is a decision he’s actively making.

“For— talking,” he says finally, like it hurt to get the words out.

You hum, dubious. “We talk all the time, though.”

“Yeah, but not like this.”

You tilt your head, studying him now. The city lights paint soft shadows across his face, highlighting the tension in his expression, the way his eyes keep flicking to your mouth and then away like it’s a mistake he doesn’t trust himself to make twice.

“Then why now?” you ask. You weren’t teasing or even baiting. You just sounded… curious.

He swallows a lump in his throat he doesn’t realize had formed.

“Because I… I didn’t like who I was becoming when I didn’t see you,” he says, and then winces, like the sentence escaped without permission. “—That’s not what I meant.”

You turn fully toward him this time, heart thudding loud enough you’re sure he can hear it. “Then what did you mean?”

He laughs under his breath, sharp and disbelieving. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re avoiding the question.”

“Because I don’t know how to answer it without crossing a line, okay?” he says, finally meeting your eyes. There’s no irritation there now, no armor. Just something raw and tightly reined in. “And once I do that, I don’t know how to go back.”

The air feels thinner.

You step a little closer, not enough to touch, but enough that the space between you feels intentional. It was intoxicating. You can feel the warmth of him now, feel the way his breath stutters when he realizes how close you are.

“You’re very good at not crossing lines, though,” you say softly. “I’ve noticed.”

His eyes darken. “That’s because I know exactly where they are.”

“And yet,” you add, voice barely above a murmur, “you keep standing right next to them.”

For a moment, neither of you speaks. The city hums below. A car horn blares. Somewhere far away, you hear somebody laughing with their friends. Up here, in the rooftop that was once just James’ space, everything feels suspended, like the world is holding its breath along with you.

James shifts, turning fully toward you now, hands gripping the railing behind him like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded. You can see it in his face — the war between instinct and discipline, between want and restraint. He’s so, so close you can count his breaths and can see, clear as day, a cute little mole just above the bridge of his nose.

He stays there — too close, not touching — like the space between you is something sacred he doesn’t dare cross without permission.

“If I lean in right now,” he says quietly, voice rough around the edges, “I don’t think I’d stop.”

The words settle deep, curling tight around your ribs. Your pulse jumps so hard it almost hurts. You don’t step back. You don’t step forward. You let the moment hang, fragile and electric, and meet his gaze head-on.

“Then don’t,” you reply just as softly. “Unless… Unless you mean it.”

His eyes drop to your mouth again, slower this time, like he’s memorizing it. His gaze zeroed in on every part of your face like he’s afraid he’ll never get this close again if he looks away. The city noise below fades into something distant and irrelevant, a low hum beneath the pounding of your heart.

God, the restraint is almost unbearable.

He laughs once under his breath, short and shaky, like the sound surprises even him. He shakes his head, disbelief threaded through every movement. “You have no fucking idea how dangerous you are, L/N.”

You smile — easy, familiar, the same one you’ve used to needle him for months — despite the way your chest feels too full. “Oh, I think I do, Zhao.”

He doesn’t kiss you. Not yet. Instead, he leans in just enough that his forehead nearly touches yours, breath warm against your skin, presence overwhelming in its carefulness. The space between you feels alive now, charged with everything you haven’t said, everything you’ve been pretending not to feel. It’s achingly, thrillingly clear that he wants to, that he’s only choosing not to.

And that choice — God — it makes everything worse… better… inevitable.

Something in you cracks.

“James,” you start, the word tumbling out softer than you meant it to, and suddenly you’re talking because if you don’t, you might combust. “I— I know this probably sounds stupid, but I’ve always noticed you. Like— really noticed you. The way you practice when you think no one’s watching. The way you pretend not to care when you place second even though it eats at you. The way you get this little crease between your brows? Yeah, when you’re trying to concentrate on something. God, James, I see you in reflections and hallways and stupid ranking boards and—”

You laugh breathlessly, shaking your head at yourself. “I’ve been watching you for so long I don’t even know when it stopped being just rivalry. I just—”

Your words cut off abruptly.

His hands come up, gentle but decisive, cupping the sides of your face. His touch was not rough, not hurried. It was far from it. You don’t even think he could be rash with you even if he tried. Rather, his grip felt grounding, anchoring. It steals the breath right out of you. He forces you to look at him fully, eyes locked, expression stripped bare of everything but truth.

“I can see you, Y/N,” he says. He didn’t say it loudly or dramatically. He was just… certain.

Your breath catches.

“I’ve always seen you,” he continues, thumb brushing just under your cheekbone like he’s not entirely aware he’s doing it. “I just didn’t know what it meant until now. And I see you now too. Really see you.”

Something swells in your chest, sudden and overwhelming, and your eyes burn before you can stop it. You laugh, watery and incredulous, blinking fast as if that might help.

“Oh, shut up,” you mutter, rolling your eyes even as your smile trembles. “You’re so cheesy.”

His mouth curves — soft, relieved, fond in a way that makes your knees feel weak. 

You don’t give him time to second-guess himself.

Your hand fists in the front of his shirt — fabric warm beneath your fingers, heartbeat racing under it — and you pull him forward just enough to erase the last, unbearable inch between you. The moment your mouth meets his, it feels like every month of restraint, every sideways glance, every almost-touch detonates at once.

The kiss is slow and deliberate. Heavy with intention.

It’s not frantic, not clumsy, not the kind of kiss born out of impulse. It’s the kind that carries memory in it — the echo of your hallway brushes, mirrored reflections, and banter sharpened to a blade’s edge. Your lips move against his like you’ve both been practicing this moment in your heads for far too long, like your bodies recognize the shape of each other even if this is the first time they’re allowed to admit it.

James freezes for half a heartbeat.

It’s not because he doesn’t want it — fuck, it’s all he’s been wanting — but because it overwhelms him.

From his side of it, the world tilts violently off its axis. Every carefully reinforced wall inside him collapses all at once. The discipline, the rules, all those goddamn years of teaching himself how to withstand want instead of indulging it? The kiss short-circuits all of it. His legs actually wobble — he barely even registers the railing behind him until his hand grips it on instinct, knuckles whitening as if that’s the only thing tethering him to the rooftop.

Then he exhales — shaky, wrecked beyond repair — and kisses you back.

God.

He’s gone.

There’s no restraint in the way his mouth moves now, no calculation. There was just heat and relief and something dangerously close to reverence. Like he can’t believe you’re real, like if he doesn’t kiss you properly — fully, wholly — you might disappear. One hand slides to your waist, firm and grounding, fingers spreading like he needs the confirmation of you there, solid and warm and his. The other drifts up, thumb brushing your jaw with a tenderness that makes your chest ache.

From your side, it feels like coming home to something you didn’t know you’d been missing until it finally found you.

The kiss deepens, unhurried but intense, every second layered with meaning. You can feel how badly he’s wanted this in the way he kisses you — like the months of tension have turned into devotion, like he’s pouring everything he’s been holding back into the press of his mouth against yours. It’s dizzying. Your pulse roars in your ears. Your body hums, alight, like every nerve has been tuned just for this.

You breathe him in — soap, sweat, something uniquely James — and it makes your head spin. When his forehead drops to yours for the briefest moment, like he needs air or sanity or both, you can feel him trembling just slightly.

“I’m—” he starts, then laughs breathlessly against your mouth, voice wrecked. “I’m in so much trouble.”

You smile into the next kiss, softer now but no less charged, like you’re sealing something sacred. “Yeah,” you murmur. “Me too.”

The city keeps moving below you, blissfully unaware. Cars thread through intersections like veins of light, horns rise and fall, windows glow and dim in other people’s lives that have nothing to do with the way your pulse is still stuttering in your throat. 

Somewhere beneath your feet, rules exist — contracts and curfews and expectations, all waiting patiently to be remembered. Rules waiting to be obeyed, or broken. But up here, under the open sky with the air still warm between your bodies, it feels like the world has narrowed to something achingly simple: the way his hand hasn’t quite left your waist, the way your lips still tingle like they’ve been rewritten, the way breathing feels optional for a few suspended seconds longer than it should.

It’s impossible to pretend this was an accident. It’s impossible to pretend this was just tension finally snapping. Every look that lingered too long, every argument sharpened by attention, every moment you pretended not to notice the way he watched you — it all rearranges itself now into something coherent, something honest. This wasn’t just desire crashing into opportunity. It was recognition finally allowed to surface. Months of seeing each other — really seeing, even when you both refused to name it back then — made real in a way that can’t be unlearned.

You’re the first to look away.

It wasn’t because you wanted to — God knows it’s not, it’s never because of that — but because if you keep staring at him like this, soft and stunned and too open, you might forget every sensible rule you’ve ever lived by. You clear your throat, the sound far too loud in the quiet, and gesture vaguely between the two of you like you’re referencing something mildly inconvenient instead of the most dangerous thing that’s ever happened to you.

“So,” you say, attempting lightness and landing somewhere just short of shaky. “That was… wildly irresponsible of us.”

James lets out a breath that might be a laugh if it weren’t tangled up in nerves. He runs a hand through his hair, fingers catching like he’s forgotten how gravity works. “You kissed me.”

You raise a brow. “You invited me to the rooftop with a note that sounded like a breakup before anything even started.”

“That was not a breakup note.”

“Yeah no, that was absolutely a breakup note,” you counter. “If someone left that in my bag and we hadn’t just kissed, I’d be drafting a dramatic acceptance speech in my head.”

Despite himself, he smiles — small, crooked, familiar. The kind of smile that used to infuriate you during evaluations and now feels like a loaded weapon pointed straight at your chest.

“I didn’t know what else to say,” he admits, quieter now. “I didn’t know how to… do this without screwing everything up.”

You study him for a moment, really look at him. The tension still coiled in his shoulders. The careful way he’s standing, like if he leans too close he might forget why he shouldn’t. It hits you, then, how hard this must be for him — how much control it takes to not reach for you again.

“That makes two of us,” you say gently.

There’s a beat. The bustle of Seoul hums below you, indifferent and endless.

“So,” he says again, clearly buying time. “We should be… clear.”

You nod immediately. Too quickly. “Yeah. Clear is good. I love clear.”

“No one can know,” he says, the words firm but not cold. More like a shield than a wall. “Not the members. Not the staff. No rumors, no… slip-ups.”

“Right. Obviously,” you reply, rolling your eyes like this is all very obvious and not at all terrifying. “I’m not interested in becoming a cautionary tale.”

“If it gets in the way—” he starts.

“We stop,” you finish, the words already prepared, already accepted. You force a smile. “Clean. No dramatics.”

His jaw tightens just a fraction, like he doesn’t love how easily you said that. Like he doesn’t suddenly love that you’re good at being rational when it matters most.

“And,” he adds, hesitating, “what happened tonight stays… here.”

You glance around the rooftop — the railing, the concrete, the quiet sky that stretched wide above you. With a deep sigh, you look back at him then, something softer settling into your expression.

“James,” you say lightly, “I don’t exactly make a habit of announcing life-altering moments.”

That earns a breath of a laugh from him.“Right. Of course you don’t.”

Another pause. This one heavier.

“So,” you say, rocking back on your heels. “We’re… what. Colleagues with unresolved tension?”

He huffs. “We were already that.”

“Rivals-to-lovers without the lovers part?”

“Come on, 亲爱的, don’t call it that,” he almost whined.

You grin wolfishly, preening at the sound of the foreign language that fell past his lips sounding suspiciously like an endearment. “Hey now, you’re the one who kissed me back.”

His eyes flick to your mouth before he can stop himself, already replaying the kiss from just moments earlier. When he catches you noticing, sees the way you smile, he groans quietly and looks away, pressing his lips together like he’s physically holding something back.

“Fucking hell… this is going to be a problem,” he mutters.

You soften at that — not teasing this time. “Hey, it’s okay. We don’t really have to label it.”

He looks back at you then, searching your face. “You’re okay? With… this?”

You don’t answer right away. Instead, you step just a little closer — not enough to touch, but enough that the space between you feels deliberate again.

“I like you,” you say simply. Without any hedging or bravado. “I’ve liked you for a while. I’m not blind, James. And I’m not reckless. We’ll be careful.”

He exhales, slow and steady, like he’s been holding that breath since the moment your lips met his. “I like you too,” he says, just as plainly. Then, softer, almost to himself: “More than I meant to.”

For a second, neither of you moves. The truth sits there between you — warm, fragile, dangerous.

Finally, you step back, breaking the spell before it can deepen into something harder to walk away from.

“Well,” you say, clapping your hands once, brisk and falsely upbeat. “Guess we should head back before someone decides to get curious.”

He nods, straightening, slipping the jacket back on like armor. But before you turn, he reaches out — not to grab, not to pull — just enough for his fingers to brush your wrist. The touch is brief, intentional. Private.

Your eyes meet his, and in that look is everything you didn’t say. I see you. I know. This isn’t over. Then you both walk back inside — separately, properly, like nothing has changed at all.

Except it has. And now you’re both living with it.

After that night, things shift in ways that are subtle enough to deny and obvious enough to feel.

He starts looking for you without meaning to — eyes tracking instinctively in crowded rooms, attention snapping into focus when you enter. You soften only with him, even when you don’t realize you’re doing it, your sharp edges dulling just enough in his presence to give you away. 

The rivalry doesn’t disappear; it changes shape. It becomes charged, electric, threaded with something tender and dangerous beneath the competitiveness, like every exchange carries a second conversation no one else can hear.

There’s no label. No public acknowledgment. Just moments stolen in plain sight — shared glances held half a second too long, shoulders brushing where there’s room not to, laughter pitched lower when it’s just the two of you. Late nights where you swear it’s the last time, mornings where you realize it wasn’t. Whatever this is, it exists in the margins, thriving in the spaces between schedules and spotlights, quietly addictive in the way it makes everything else feel slightly less vivid by comparison.

And then one day, much later, you pass each other in the hallway.

It looks the same as it always has, with bright lights, busy hallway traffic, and managers calling names left and right. There were staff rushing past with clipboards and coffee cups, voices overlapping into a familiar kind of noise that once felt overwhelming and now feels like proof — you had made it. You both did.

You debuted first. A girl group with a name people chant now, your face on posters, your voice stitched into songs that follow you everywhere. James followed later, in a group that once didn’t even have a name, now standing on stages as CORTIS, coloring their future as bright as the sparkle in their eyes, boys sharp and assured and unmistakably real. The years that almost broke you both turned into something solid at last.

From the outside, nothing about this moment looks remarkable. Just two idols passing in a hallway, schedules tight, expressions neutral, professionalism locked in place. No one slows. No one notices. That was the point.

But as you brush past, his little finger grazes your wrist.

It’s light — so light, in fact, that it could be an accident. It was so precise it couldn’t be anything else but a reminder, a promise, a quiet rebellion tucked into the smallest possible gesture. Your lips curve before you can stop them and you catch the corner of his mouth doing the same.

You don’t look back. Neither does he.

You don’t, never, even need to.

The look you share in passing, brief and electric and entirely yours, carries everything that survived the waiting — the rivalry, the restraint, the wanting, the choosing.

I see you.

And somehow, even now, that was enough.

*･῾ ᵎ⌇CORTIS TAGLIST (open) ⁺◦ 🌷 ✧.* @teacuplps

亲爱的 (qīn'ài de) means “dear/darling”!

It was the kind of love that showed up early for even the most spontaneous of hang-outs and stayed late regardless of your parents already calling to ask where the hell you guys are. It was the kind of love that remembered small details without trying, down to the details of the gossip one of you talked about months ago while also forgetting what that person’s favorite ice cream flavor is. It was the kind of love that defended people from literally anyone even when they weren’t in the room to hear it, especially when they’re actually the wrong ones all along. 

You believed friendships were meant to be protected, to be handled carefully, like something that could last a lifetime if you didn’t rush or break it. You’d seen one too many fall apart over things that could’ve been unsaid, unfelt, or simply endured. The people in your circle deserved more than that.

Thinking about how your little group formed would usually stump the others. Thankfully, you were the type to remember beginnings the way some people remembered birthdays.

James had been first among everyone to have met you. 

You could still picture it clearly — the way he’d been sitting alone that day, half-asleep, tapping his pen against the desk like he didn’t quite belong yet. You remember hearing from a classmate that it was the single remedial class he had to take because he often got pulled out for baseball practice last year. You’d asked him if the seat beside him was taken, even though the room was nearly empty. He’d blinked, surprised, then smiled like your question meant more than you’d intended. 

By the end of the week, he was walking you home, talking too much, laughing too loud. You decided then that no one should ever feel alone if you could help it.

Juhoon came next. 

Compared to the weirdo (affectionate) preceding him, the way you met was quieter, almost by accident. You’d noticed him struggling with something simple — notes for a History lesson by the same teacher, rather his lack thereof — and instead of offering help outright, you sat beside him and started talking. He listened more than he spoke, but when he did, it was thoughtful, even careful. 

He’s the kind of person who remembered what you said days later, too. Always thoughtful, rarely dismissive. You learned early that his loyalty ran deep, and, in turn, you matched it instinctively.

Seonghyeon and Keonho were chaos bundled together, almost like two packs of ramyeon sold together as a discount. 

You met them on a day that was already loud with voices overlapping and reverberating laughter bouncing off of walls. Keonho had dragged Seonghyeon into a conversation he clearly didn’t want to be in, and you’d laughed before you could stop yourself. They never really asked to be your friends; they simply decided you were. Somehow, that stuck. 

You became part of their noise, and they became part of your normal. (Sometimes you wonder if it’s only because you were easy to entertain even with the corniest of jokes.)

Iroha had been gentle from the start. 

First of the girls to fill the spot in your future trio, your beginning with her was quite a punchline. You remembered being so hungry right after a PhysEd class that you could hear your stomach growling, then the way she offered you a snack without saying a word, just a soft smile and a small nod. It was like her friendship — which came in the form of going halfsies on her chocolate-filled bunggeoppang — didn’t need to be announced to exist. 

With her, everything felt calm and safe. She made space without trying, and you came to learn just how precious that was.

Wonhee had found you on a bad day. 

You couldn’t remember why you’d been upset. It probably hadn’t been that serious — like getting just a score below your goal for a quiz or getting scolded by your favorite teacher — for you to have forgotten it already. The only thing that mattered then was that Wonhee noticed. She sat beside you, shoulder brushing yours, and talked about nothing important until the weight in your chest eased. 

She didn’t fuss or overly sympathize. Later, she’d even told you she was glad she stayed. You never stopped being grateful that she did.

You carried each of them with you, stitched into your life through moments like these. They were proof that friendships weren’t temporary, that people stayed if you treated them right.

That was why your friend group mattered so much to you. What with James’ easy humor, Juhoon’s quiet steadiness, Seonghyeon and Keonho’s constant noise, Iroha’s gentle presence, and Wonhee’s warmth. Together, they felt like something solid, something safe, something you never wanted to be the reason cracked.

And then there was Martin. Goddamn Martin Edwards Park.

God, you could even remember the exact day — the exact moment — you met him.

It had been overcast, not raining (it’s an important distinction!). The heavens just looked… heavy, the clouds pressed low in a specific shade of gray that made the world feel way smaller. It was one of those afternoons where everyone lingered longer than usual near the gate of Cedar Heights, unsure whether to rush home or wait out the possibility of a downpour.

You’d been standing just outside your school for a while now, half-annoyed, half-resigned, waiting for the rest of the group to finish whatever meeting they’d gotten pulled into last minute. All the boys, coincidentally, were members of the dance club while the girls were part of the school paper. You were the only one who hadn’t joined a single school organization in fear that it might affect your grades. It’s a pretty well-known fact that you took academic success quite seriously, anyway.

Now, though, you were starting to regret not trying to join even a single one. At least then, perhaps you wouldn’t have been looking like a fool waiting for your other extracurricular-active friends to finish what they’d been doing.

You shifted your weight from one foot to the other, the concrete still warm beneath your shoes, eyes flicking up every so often toward the building from a distance. The air smelled like rain that hadn’t decided to fall yet, somehow carrying that sharp, metallic, full of promise-type of breeze. Students trickled past you in small clusters, laughter echoing briefly before dissolving into the low hum of the afternoon. Each time the door opened, you straightened a little, hopeful. Each time it wasn’t them, you sank back into yourself.

You were just about to give up and text the group chat something dramatic and passive-aggressive — I’m leaving. Don’t file for a missing person report. — when the doors finally swung open again.

This time, they spilled out laughing, loud and familiar. And the guys showed up with him.

There was nothing dramatic about it. There also wasn’t any announcement of some sort. You don’t think it needed one, anyway. What happened then was just someone new folding into the group like he’d always been meant to be there. Someone James would wrap his arm around their shoulder mid-sentence, someone Juhoon teased without explanation. A friend of theirs, clearly — comfortable in their space, even if he didn’t quite know where to stand yet.

Martin stayed quiet at first.

He wasn’t awkward exactly — just observant. He listened more than he spoke, smiled at the right moments, laughed softly when someone said something genuinely funny. You noticed how he lingered on the edge of conversations, how his hands stayed tucked into the sleeves of his hoodie like he wasn’t ready to fully step in yet.

It was wash-day so you remember wearing your favorite shirt — the graphic, thrifted one you always reached for when you didn’t want to think too hard — paired with jeans already soft from overuse, instead of your usual crisp uniform. You even had your rings on, too. 

You remember the rings because they were still warm from your constant fiddling when you eventually slipped one off and handed it to Martin before parting ways that day. He complimented them, you see, so you were willing to sacrifice one. Soon after giving it, you see him turning it over in his fingers like it was something fragile.

You also remember that Martin wore a hoodie that day which looked too warm for the weather (of course, still carrying that effortless stylish flair of rips and tears), and sneakers scuffed at the toe. You recall noticing that first, for some reason — how worn they were, as though implying that he walked a lot.

It wasn’t until later — when the group settled into smaller pockets of conversation while walking to the convenience store to hang out — that you ended up next to him. Someone mentioned music. You chimed in without thinking. His head snapped up, eyes lighting in recognition.

“You listen to them too?”

That was all it took.

One band turned into another. Then you started to talk about movies. Then some stupid online reference you didn’t expect him to catch, but he did — almost immediately — finishing the joke like it was instinct. You laughed, surprised, and he laughed too, a little breathless, like he hadn’t expected to be understood so quickly.

That was when he introduced himself properly. It was just a beat too late, just awkward enough that you could tell he’d rehearsed it in his head a couple of time while you were talking about vintage movies and songs and still felt unsure. You smiled, filled in the silence without even realizing it, and answered like you’d known him longer than you actually had.

And just like that, something clicked into place. There weren’t any fireworks of anything earth-shattering. There was just the quiet sense of Oh, you belong here.

That was the dangerous part.

Because unlike the others, Martin’s beginning didn’t just bring you warmth and a dose of nostalgia. It was vivid, sharp around the edges. It was something you could replay again and again and again without having to put in much effort. As though it just happened yesterday.

And so, somewhere along the way, liking him stopped being a quiet affection and started becoming something heavier, something that pressed against everything you believed in.

You loved your friends too much to be careless with them. And loving Martin — loving him like this — felt like standing too close to something fragile, knowing that one wrong move could ruin more than just your own heart.

That’s why you just kept it to yourself. You told yourself that friendship was enough. Even when it hurt.

Even so, it didn’t mean nobody noticed.

To your credit, you were quite literally physically incapable of being normal about it. Anyone with eyes — and even just a little bit of patience — would’ve seen it from a mile away. From the way your attention would bend toward Martin without you realizing, how your body angled itself toward him in rooms full of people as though couldn’t really help it. Even the way your laughter softened when it was his (different from the “witchy” cackle others have associated you with), how you always seemed to know when he was about to speak, like you were listening ahead of time, paying more attention than you did compared to other people.

And Martin being… Martin was no help either.

He was always there — always lingering and hovering around your space, always choosing the seat beside you when it was available, always offering you the first bite of whatever he was eating like it was instinct. He even remembered your favorite songs without needing to be reminded, down to the specific playlist you included those songs in which you shared to all your friends. 

Every single time you had your weekend movie night as a group, too — in his home, of course, because the dude had a subscription to nearly every streaming service ever — he always queued up movies you’d only mentioned once in passing (regardless of protests from the others who claim favoritism). He would even send you clips and memes at hours that suggested you were the last person he thought about before sleeping.

He did things that made you fall more without ever crossing a line. And God, as much as you love the feeling, that was quite literally the worst part of everything.

Juhoon and Wonhee, you suspected, knew more than they ever said out loud.

Juhoon had a way of looking at you sometimes — sometimes mid-laugh, usually mid-conversation — with something akin to knowing flickering behind his eyes. He’d tease you a little too pointedly, throw comments into the air that landed closer to you than he let on. You and Martin, huh? he’d say, casual, like it meant nothing at all. You always laughed it off, admittedly sweating by the neck every single time. And, every single time, he just… lets you.

By good fortune and perhaps her more forgiving nature, Wonhee was at least gentler about it. She’d sit beside you, shoulder brushing yours just like she had when you first met, and ask questions that sounded harmless but obviously weren’t. You okay? she’d murmur when Martin left early from a hang-out you guys had planned for weeks. You seem quieter today. When you smiled and said you were fine, she never pushed — but her hand would squeeze yours just a little tighter, like she knew there was something you weren’t saying, something you wanted to admit but knew better not to.

You were grateful that they were the ones who seemed to know because… they didn’t force it out of you. They weren’t really the types to even need it, anyway. Nonetheless, even if you never did say it aloud, you had rules — quiet ones, sacred ones — which you’d decided long before you fell faster, harder.

You promised yourself you would never be the reason things changed.

You decided early on that whatever you felt would stay yours alone. That it would remain untouched, unspoken, and carefully (very, very carefully) contained. You’d watched friendships fracture before because of the same situation you find yourself in right now. You’ve seen how these kinds of confessions (to someone who was initially your goddamn friend, at that) could redraw boundaries people weren’t ready to cross. You loved your friends too much to risk being the fault line.

So… that’s when you began to learn how to minimize yourself. Around him, at least.

When Martin leaned in too close, resting foreheads and arms over shoulders and the like, you told yourself he was like that with everyone. When he laughed too hard at your jokes, you insisted it wasn’t special — just good timing, shared humor, maybe even fucking coincidence or whatever that your punchline landed just that close to what he thought was funny at that time (same TikTok ‘For You’ Page algorithm?). When he chose you in rooms full of people, to sit beside or talk to, you reminded yourself that you were simply familiar, comfortable, safe, because a heck lot of those times were because he didn’t know anybody else there.

You were so very careful to never let hope get ahead of you. Because hope, you knew (or grew to learn, more like), was the most dangerous thing of all.

There were moments — small, borderline cruel ones — where you almost cracked. When his hand brushed yours and didn’t move it away immediately. When he looked at you like he wanted to say something and thought better of it with a shake of his head and a reassuring ear-to-ear grin. When the group thinned out and it was almost just the two of you, the air between you growing thick with things neither of you dared to name.

You always pulled back first.

You didn’t stop liking Martin because it was wrong. You stopped letting yourself hope because friendship mattered more. Even when it hurt. (As it always does, of course, because when the fuck did it not?)

It wasn’t supposed to be just the two of you.

At least, that was how it started.

James and Juhoon were the first to fall through — something about forgetting the hangout entirely, already halfway through other plans by the time they remembered. You didn’t put it past them, knowing very well they were the ones in your friend group that had actual (busy) lives outside your guys’ little plans. Wonhee sent a message a few minutes later, apologetic, saying a family thing had come up. She’d messaged you privately to explain that her aunt and uncle had a surprise party which she had a sneaking suspicion was to announce that they were expecting a baby after years of failure. Keonho and Iroha were still technically around, but buried under obligations for their Math and Literature project, promising to join later in a way that meant probably not.

Seonghyeon had stayed the longest. He always did. It was one of the reasons why you always teasingly called him your “favorite” when the whole group was together, just to incite repartees and retaliations from everyone. Halfway through the night, however, he frowned, pressed a hand to his stomach, and muttered something about feeling ill from whatever he’d eaten earlier during lunch (it was the garlic bread Keonho gave him, most definitely). He apologized twice before leaving, like his absence needed forgiveness.

And then it was just you and Martin.

The realization settled slowly, like the quiet after a door closed. You were sitting at the curb just beside the yellow-black bollards, the metal still warm from the day, legs crossing and uncrossing every now and then as you waited for your takeout. It was late enough that the fast food place across the street looked half-asleep — two employees on shift, moving lazily behind the counter, clearly counting the minutes until closing. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, casting everything in a tired sort of glow.

It was normal. Hell, ordinary, even. Nothing about the setting suggested that anything consequential mattered.

Martin sat beside you, close enough that your elbows almost touched, the space between you narrow but deliberate, like neither of you wanted to be the one to close it first. He was quieter than usual. He wasn’t withdrawn — just… softer, like his usually loud and bold-lettered presence had been turned down a notch. Every now and then, he checked his phone, thumb scrolling without really scrolling, stopping halfway down the screen before locking it again. He did it often enough for you to notice, not often enough to feel intentional.

You wondered if he was waiting for something. Or maybe even someone.

“So,” you said after a while, nudging a nearby pebble with your heel, “if they mess up my order again, I’m actually going to lose it.”

He smiled, glanced at you. “You say that every time.”

“And every time, I mean it.”

That earned you a laugh — but it came a second late, like it had to catch up with the moment. He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes drifting back toward the glowing restaurant windows. You pretended not to notice how his shoulders stayed slightly tense, how he never fully leaned back the way he usually did when he was comfortable.

You noticed everything.

When you made another joke, something easy, something that would’ve landed instantly in a group setting, he laughed again softly, briefly. You’re not wrong, he said, like he was responding to a thought he’d had a few seconds ago. You smiled anyway, because that’s what you did, because you were good at keeping things afloat even when they felt a little off.

And because you noticed everything, your thoughts began to spiral.

Maybe he was only comfortable when everyone else was around. Maybe the noise helped, the way group conversations let him disappear into the background when he wanted to, let moments pass without meaning too much. Maybe being alone with you made things heavier than he knew what to do with. Maybe you were easier to like (as a friend) when you weren’t the only one there — when you were diluted by other voices, other laughs.

Maybe this closeness only existed because of your friends.

You told yourself, I know we’re just friends, and you let the words settle in your chest, heavy but familiar. 

It was a boundary, you figured, a rule that you’d set or a line you weren’t supposed to cross. You were friends. You are just friends. This was friendship. This — this quiet, slightly awkward lull, this careful distance, this godforsaken shared silence — was what friendship looked like when you stripped it down to its quietest form. Like, come on, not every moment had to be easy, right? Not every second had to be filled with unconstrained banter and the like, either.

You watched the reflection of the restaurant lights ripple across the hood of the car, distorted by small dents and scratches. You listened to the hum of distant traffic, the low buzz of fluorescent lights, the muffled laughter spilling out from inside the establishment when one of the employees said something you couldn’t quite hear. Everything sounded too loud and yet not loud enough at the same time.

You thought about how easy it would be to ask something small. Something harmless. Are you okay? Am I being weird? Do you feel awkward when it’s just us?

Each question lined itself up neatly in your mind, waiting to be chosen. And you hated that you could already predict how asking any of them might tilt the night into something fragile or terrifyingly uncharted. How one honest sentence from you could crack open a space you didn’t know how to put back together again.

Because, as much as you hated finally admitting it, you knew yourself. Perhaps a bit too much.

If you didn’t say anything, you wouldn’t ruin anything. If you kept it light, if you kept it safe, the night would merely pass by without any of that darned consequence you keep overthinking and overthinking about every night. You could go home with everything intact — your friendships, your place in the group, the delicate balance you’d spent so long protecting. You could tell yourself tomorrow that it was just a quiet night, that nothing was wrong, that you’d imagined the tension.

So you stayed quiet.

Martin shifted beside you, glanced at his phone once more, then at you. Like he wanted to say something. Like he almost did. You glanced at him, just once, and almost spoke. But you looked away. (A brave choice, if you were being honest.)

The door finally opened.

One of the employees stepped out, paper bag folded neatly at the top, calling your name into the night like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. You picked yourself off of the ground with a quiet grunt, dusting yourself off a little too quickly, and Martin followed a second later.

“Finally,” you muttered, half a laugh in your voice, already reaching into your bag for your wallet. “I thought they were gonna forget us.”

“Yeah,” Martin said. “Same.”

Inside, the place smelled like oil and salt and something vaguely sweet. It was suddenly too bright, a stark contrast from the dark night to the blinding fluorescents, and too quiet. The employee slid the bag toward the counter, and you leaned forward instinctively, fingers brushing Martin’s as you both reached for it at the same time.

“Oh—sorry,” you said immediately, pulling back.

“No, it’s—yeah,” he replied, just as quick, stepping aside to give you space.

The moment passed quickly but something about it lodged itself in your chest anyway.

Outside again, the night felt colder than before. You handed him his drink, the plastic sweating against your palm. He took it with a quiet thank you and, after a pause that felt longer than it probably was, cleared his throat. “Uh,” he said, nodding toward the street. “You wanna… walk, or—?”

The question felt wrong. It wasn’t bad, of course, just… unfamiliar. Like something he wouldn’t have had to ask if anyone else were there.

“Walking’s fine,” you said quickly. Too quickly. You heard it the second the words left your mouth.

He nodded. “Cool. Yeah.”

You started down the sidewalk side by side, but the space between you felt wider now, stretched thin by that almost-nothing moment inside. He sipped his drink, eyes forward. You tore open the bag, pretending to be more interested in napkins than you actually were.

You told yourself not to read into it. And then he spoke again.

“Sorry if I’m being weird,” he said, almost offhand. “I’m just… not used to it being this quiet.”

There was quiet. Just a beat, sure, but you felt your chest tighten.

“Oh,” you said, forcing a laugh. “Yeah. Same. I mean— not in a bad way. Just… different, I guess.”

He hummed in agreement. He didn’t even look at you. And something inside you finally gave way.

It settled all at once — that sick, sinking clarity that rearranged everything you’d been trying so hard not to see. Seeping deep into your skin and onto your bones like the answer had been there the whole time, hovering just out of reach, and now it had finally decided to land. Your chest tightened, breath turning shallow, every other explanation you’d clung to quietly dissolving.

I was right.

Of course you were. (In any other case, being right would’ve given you a sense of pride.)

He did feel awkward. Not because of you, exactly — not in a way you could blame him for — but because it was just you. Because the group wasn’t there to soften the edges, to carry the conversation when silence grew too loud, to make everything feel casual and unexamined. Without them, there was nowhere to hide. There was no buffer, no excuse for pauses that lasted too long. Maybe you’d mistaken familiarity for comfort, mistook shared laughter in a crowd for something sturdier than it actually was.

Maybe you’d imagined closeness that only existed because other people were there to witness it.

Your mind began to rewind the night with brutal precision. Every moment replayed itself, sharper now, stripped of any warmth or benefit of the doubt you’d assigned to it earlier. The silence that stretched between sentences. His laughs arriving a second late, like they had to travel farther than they should’ve. The way he’d stepped back inside the restaurant, just enough to put space between you. And Jesus fucking Christ, the way he’d asked that question — wanna walk, or…? — like he wasn’t sure what the right answer was supposed to be when it was just the two of you.

Like there wasn’t a default measure to fall back to anymore.

You realized then that you’d crossed some invisible line without meaning to, that simply existing beside him without the safety of the others’ presence had changed the shape of things. You hadn’t confessed anything. You hadn’t said a word you weren’t supposed to. And yet, somehow, you’d still managed to step too far.

You swallowed hard, nodded along like you agreed with whatever he’d said, even though your thoughts were already spiraling out of control. Maybe you’d been too familiar. Too present. Maybe you’d given him the wrong idea just by being yourself, by letting moments linger instead of filling them. Maybe you’d leaned into something that was only ever meant to survive in the safety of numbers. Maybe this — this awkwardness, thiscareful distance — was the natural consequence of wanting more than you were allowed to want.

You’d tried so hard not to ruin anything. And now the fear settled in, burdensome and unmistakable: maybe you already had.

So you did what you always did. You smiled when he looked at you again, even though your chest ached. You kept your voice light, your tone easy, like nothing was wrong, like this wasn’t quietly breaking you apart. You laughed when you were supposed to, even when it felt hollow. You pulled back without being asked, shrinking yourself just enough to make the space between you feel intentional instead of accidental.

You told yourself you could fix this. You just had to want less. And if wanting less meant swallowing something that felt too big for your chest — if it meant pretending that friendship was enough even when it hurt — then you’d do it. You always did. 

Because that’s always been your catchphrase when it came to him, didn’t it? Even when it hurt.

It wasn’t even a conscious choice, or an interest that was forced upon him just because everyone else in his family had a passion for it. Music was always just there, as constant as breathing. His dad, most of all, made it prevalent with his influence. Sound filled the quiet corners of his life before he ever learned how to name what he was feeling. If anything, it softened the edges of everything else. 

Movement followed naturally after that. It was admittedly restless and undoubtedly necessary, a way to keep his body in sync with his head. Noise, too, with the comfort of always having something happening, something to focus on, something that kept him from sitting too long with thoughts that asked more questions than he was ready to answer.

Martin actually liked being busy, as a matter of fact. Despite everyone else everywhere thinking otherwise. He liked having his hands full. He liked being too occupied with things to even spiral in his thoughts. He liked not having to decide which part of his life mattered more than the others.

Friendship, for the longest time, lived somewhere in that same mix.

It mattered, of course. He couldn’t possibly deny that. But, let’s be real here, it wasn’t really sacred, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t something you wrapped carefully and protected at all costs. It wasn’t family. It wasn’t music. It wasn’t the kind of thing you made promises about. Friendship, to Martin, had always been something that happened naturally when paths crossed often enough, when people shared the same space long enough to become familiar. 

Friendships were meant to be easy, organic. Unexamined.

The moment you start overthinking it, the moment you start to let it take over everything in your life, that’s when friendships stop being effortless. And effort, in his mind, was where things started to break.

That philosophy was how he’d ended up in the dance club in the first place.

Joining that club wasn’t some lifelong dream or secret calling. If he were being honest, he’d originally planned on joining something more obviously tied to music — perhaps production, composition, literally anything that kept him close to soundboards and software (he had wanted to finally use the MIDI board he got for Christmas, after all). 

However, he’d joined the dance club on a whim, half-curiosity and half parental suggestion. His parents had told him — gently, definitely reasonably what with his most recent stint in PhysEd — that if he was going to spend hours hunched over equipment and screens, he should probably do something that allowed him to move too.

So he tried it, albeit quite begrudgingly, fully expecting it to be temporary.

Okay now, dance club wasn’t technically bad — far from it, actually. It was one of the most popular organizations at Cedar Heights for a reason, competitive and loud and alive in a way that surprised even him. He told himself he’d stay for a month. Maybe two. Just long enough to say he tried.

What he hadn’t expected was the people.

James, Juhoon, Seonghyeon, and Keonho already came as a set. They’d been friends long before Martin showed up — comfortable in each other’s rhythms, finishing one another’s sentences and inside jokes, arguing about even the smallest things like it was a sport. Somehow, instead of making him feel like an outsider, they pulled him in all at once. 

There was no awkward trial period, no formal moment where he earned his place in their little group. One day he was just… there. It was as though, before he even realized it and allowed it to sink in, he was already folding into rehearsals, jokes, post-practice walks, shared exhaustion, like he had been there from the beginning.

James, or Zhao Yufan, as he learned, was unpredictable but anchoring all the same, a guy made of pure chaos with a center of gravity. Ahn Keonho was loud and unapologetic, the kind of happy-go-lucky presence you felt even when he wasn’t speaking. Kim Juhoon was sharp and intentional, every word chosen like it mattered because he made sure that it did. Eom Seonghyeon noticed things others missed, steady in a way that grounded the room and everyone in it that counted.

They laughed together. They moved together. With them, hours passed without Martin even noticing. Friendship, exactly the way he’d always understood it — unforced, unannounced, something that simply happened.

They started to leave school together after that. It wasn’t planned at all, no announcements needed, either. It’s not long before when, one afternoon as they were walking out after practice, all of that widened.

He met Iroha and Wonhee by accident, the two of them stepping out of a classroom just as the boys were passing by. 

They’d just finished a meeting for the school paper, arms full of folders and complaints about deadlines, already familiar with the boys Martin was walking with and naturally accepting of his sudden inclusion. 

Hokazono Iroha matched his pace almost immediately, same age, same easy familiarity settling in like it had always been there. Lee Wonhee followed with warmth that felt practiced, like she knew how to make space for people without trying too hard.

Now, all of it — the sudden expansion of his world, the way new people kept folding into his life without warning — would have unsettled old Martin more than he would’ve liked to admit. He’d always been wary of things that grew too fast, too full. It wasn’t because he didn’t enjoy them (he was allergic to the idea of not having fun), but because he didn’t know what to do with things that asked to be held too closely. He preferred balance. He preferred keeping every part of his life important, but never indispensable.

So he let the friendships happen the way he always did: with gratitude, with ease, but at a careful distance. He appreciated them deeply without anchoring himself too hard to any one point. Standing there with them, it didn’t feel overwhelming — not because it mattered less, but because he wasn’t asking it to matter more. Nothing was being taken from him, only added, and even that addition felt light enough to carry.

It was simply a widening circle, paths intersecting the way they naturally did when you stayed long enough in the same places.

He didn’t know yet that someone would come along who would quietly rearrange that understanding entirely. Because then, not even a few moments later, you were there.

Somewhere along the way — quietly, without his permission — life stopped feeling like it was made of too many things. It narrowed.

It didn’t straiten all at once, not in a way that alarmed him the way he thought it would. What happened was more like a gradual refocusing, the way a lens sharpens without him realizing his vision had been blurred before. Music was still there. Movement, noise, laughter, the constant hum of wanting to do everything and be everywhere all at once. 

But suddenly, certain moments carried more weight than others. Certain conversations stayed with him longer than they should have. Certain people pulled his attention inward instead of scattering it outward.

Martin didn’t know when that started. He only knew who it started with.

He doesn’t remember the day he met you the way you probably do. Not the sky, not the exact shade of gray overhead, not the way the air smelled like rain that hadn’t decided to fall yet. (He does remember knowing this for a fact because you’d retold the story of how you met everyone when you gave a speech at Wonhee’s eighteenth birthday party.)

What he remembers is the feeling of it all lining up without asking him first.

Martin stood just outside the school grounds, hands tucked into the sleeves of a hoodie that was definitely too warm for the weather, half-listening as James talked too loudly about something he would forget the moment it ended. He was there because he was supposed to be there — because the boys (and now, the girls, too) were his people now, because joining the dance club on a whim had quietly tethered him to this exact moment, this exact group of voices and movement.

It all felt ordinary enough to be unremarkable. Then, Martin remembers noticing you because you were waiting.

You were waiting by the gate. It didn’t seem like the impatient kind of waiting exactly — just caught in that in-between space, with you shifting your weight like you didn’t know whether to stay or just leave. You had your backpack slung over one shoulder, scrolling on your phone like you weren’t aware of how everyone’s attention tilted the moment you looked up. 

While everyone else flowed, you paused. He clocked that before he ever got to properly meet you. You looked composed, but there was something restrained about you, like you were holding yourself together with intention. It made him curious in a way that felt unfamiliar even for him.

He stayed quiet at first. That part, he remembers clearly.

He was new to the group — comfortable enough not to panic during back-and-forths, cautious enough not to overstep. He listened more than he spoke, smiled when it felt right, laughed softly when something actually landed. He let James sling an arm around his shoulder mid-sentence, let Keonho tease him like he’d been there longer than he had, but he didn’t quite step fully into the center yet. He hovered at the edge, hands hidden in his sleeves, watching.

He’d heard your name before, once or twice.

It came up casually in conversations he wasn’t part of yet, slipped into stories like you were a familiar refrain. Someone would say your name the way you said home, or obviously, or you know who I mean. He’d gathered, piece by piece, that you were the connective tissue. You were the one who had met them all separately before the group ever existed as a whole. This Y/N girl was the constant, the reason the circle had even formed at all.

You mattered to them in a way he hadn’t learned the shape of just yet.

So when he finally saw you there — just beyond the gate, where the others said you would be — he noticed the way the energy shifted almost imperceptibly, the way conversations bent toward you without anyone consciously trying. He didn’t move forward, didn’t interrupt. He stayed where he was, observant as ever.

And he watched you.

He didn’t do it constantly or obviously. God, he’d hate to seem like a damn creep. He observed you just enough to notice the way you spoke when someone addressed you directly, the way you filled silence without forcing it, the way you seemed to belong to the group without ever needing to prove it. 

He remembers thinking — briefly, oddly — that he treated friendship like something deliberate. He had treated it like something he chose every day instead of something that just happened.

He didn’t know then how much that would matter to him later.

It wasn’t until the group broke into smaller pockets while walking toward the convenience store that he ended up beside you. He doesn’t remember how it happened — only that suddenly he was close enough to hear you properly, close enough to catch a comment you made about a band someone mentioned offhand (it was probably something like Tame Impala). He reacted without thinking, head snapping toward you.

“You listen to them too?”

That moment is sharp in his memory, even now. It was tattooed in his mind not because of what was said, but because of how easily it unfolded after.

One band turned into another. Then movies. Then some obscure online reference he didn’t expect you to get — but you did, immediately, finishing the joke like it was instinct. He laughed, surprised by how natural it felt, how little effort it took to keep talking. His laugh came out softer than he meant it to, a little breathless, like he hadn’t expected to be understood so quickly.

That was when Martin realized he hadn’t introduced himself yet.

He remembers that embarrassment — the split second of panic when he realized he’d been talking for several minutes without doing the polite thing. When he finally said his name, it came out just a beat too late, awkward enough that he knew he’d rehearsed it in your head at least twice already. You smiled anyway, filled the silence without even realizing you were doing it, answered like he wasn’t a stranger you’d just met. 

This stuck with him, among other things; your kindness and, quite frankly, sweet disposition.

He remembers noticing the ring you wore — not why, not where you got it, just the way it caught the light when you gestured animatedly as you spoke. He remembers you handing it to him later, almost casually, because he’d complimented it, and the way he turned it over in his fingers afterward like it was something fragile. He remembers thinking he should give it back immediately. He remembers not doing it.

He remembers you more than he remembers the day itself.

The way conversation with you didn’t feel like effort. The way similarities stacked on top of each other without either of you trying. The way something settled in his chest without fireworks, without drama. Just the quiet, unmistakable sense of oh. Like something had clicked into place without asking permission.

And that — that was what scared him, even then. 

Because unlike the others, you didn’t just add to the noise of his life. You reorganized it. You made everything else feel slightly less urgent by comparison. You became a presence he replayed later without meaning to, moments resurfacing at inconvenient times, long after the day itself had already blurred. 

He didn’t remember the weather. He remembered your voice. He didn’t remember what time he left. He remembered how easily he’d stayed.

He didn’t plan to fall into it. Heck, he didn’t even realize he was falling in the first place. All he knew was that life, somehow, had stopped pulling him in every direction at once — and begun, slowly, quietly, to focus around you. 

That really fucking scared him, for some reason.

Because Martin had never been someone who built his world around people. He just let them orbit, he let them come and go without anchoring himself to their presence too deeply. It kept things light, manageable. Safe.

But you — somehow, in your own surprising way — had begun to make things feel concentrated.

He didn’t yet know what to do with that.

And maybe that was the difference between you and him, even then — something Martin didn’t know how to articulate just yet, only feel.

You treated friendship like something hallowed, like a promise you already made without ever saying the words out loud. You showed up with intention, with loyalty that ran so deep it bordered on self-sacrifice, as if caring too much was a responsibility you carried willingly. Martin had noticed it in the small ways: how you remembered details other people forgot, how you adjusted yourself to keep the group comfortable, how you never pushed for more even when you clearly felt more. 

To him, friendship had always been something that happened around him. To you, it was something you protected. And sometimes — when he caught you looking at the group with that quiet, resolute fondness — he wondered if you ever thought about what you were to each other. If the same questions ever crossed your mind. If you ever lay awake replaying moments the way he did, wondering where exactly the line was drawn, and whether either of you was brave enough to step over it.

He didn’t really ask, never felt the need to. Instead, that goddamn night happened.

Martin remembers it too clearly. It was never meant to end up with just the two of you. Plans with the others just fell apart the way they usually did. Some of them had somewhere else to be, another remembered something last-minute, until suddenly the group was gone and he was left standing there with you.

Without everyone else, everything felt louder and quieter at the same time. The parking lot lights were too bright with the traffic humming in the distance. Worst (or best) of all, you were literally right beside him, close enough that he couldn’t pretend not to notice.

He noticed the shift almost immediately, from the way you became more careful with your words to the way pauses lingered longer in the air after every quip now that there was no one else to fill them. He didn’t really stop to think about it and just adjusted. 

He matched your restraint, pulled himself in a little. He told himself it was the considerate thing to do, that being careful was better than risking making things awkward. Because sitting that close to you, every movement felt intentional. 

When your fingers brushed as you both reached for the same bag inside the restaurant, he stepped back too quickly, an apology spilling out on reflex. When you pulled away too, he took it as a sign. 

Don’t say it wrong. Don’t make it weird. Don’t let her notice.

Walking afterward, he hated that he had to ask questions that used to be automatic. He hated that something as simple as walking together suddenly felt like it needed permission. The silence pressed in, thick with things he didn’t quite know how to name. 

When he finally spoke, he joked about the quiet instead of saying what he actually meant. You laughed it off, easy and practiced, and he followed your lead like he always did when he thought he might be overstepping.

He walked with you anyway, careful not to crowd you, matching your pace like it was something he could mess up if he wasn’t paying attention. He noticed how you kept the conversation light, how you filled the air with small talk and easy smiles, and assumed you were doing it for the same reason he was — to survive the space between you without naming it. He thought the awkwardness was mutual, something accidental that bloomed from standing too close to something fragile. 

What he didn’t know — what he couldn’t see — was how you were already shrinking yourself beside him. How you were already deciding to want less. All he knew was that you’d gone quiet first, and he’d followed your lead because he cared too much to risk misstepping. 

He thought he was protecting the friendship. He didn’t realize he was teaching you the wrong lesson entirely. 

The thought that haunted him later, long after the night ended, wasn’t that he’d been uncomfortable. It was the possibility that you had been — and that he’d done exactly what he thought you wanted. If he had known, he would have said something. If he had known, he wouldn’t have mistaken your caution for discomfort. 

But that night, all he could think was this: If I say the wrong thing, I’ll ruin everything. And so he said nothing — never realizing that silence, too, could be misunderstood.

Martin really does believe, at first, that things will go back to normal.

He had believed that the night will settle into memory the way most things do — filed away, softened by routine, dulled by stuffy classrooms and the comfort of familiar noise. He tells himself that school has a way of resetting people, that hallways and bells and shared complaints about deadlines will smooth the edges off whatever that evening had been. That when he sees you again — really sees you, not just as the version of you he replayed on the walk home, or the one that lingered in the quiet of his room — it’ll be easy and familiar. Unchanged.

He hates, a little, that he has to go back to pretending, though. He hates that he has to fold himself back into something smaller, quieter, less obvious. Because wanting you feels like a thing with teeth now — sharp, insistent, impossible to ignore once acknowledged. But if this is the cost, he thinks, then he’ll pay it. 

If keeping his feelings buried means he gets to stay in your life — laughing beside you, listening to you talk about nothing and everything, being someone you reach for without hesitation — then he’ll endure the ache. He’ll be careful. He’ll be good. He’ll want silently, indefinitely, if that’s what it takes.

Friendship, after all, still means something to him. It always has. Maybe not in the inviolable, almost-reverent way it does to you — but enough. Enough to hurt for it. Enough to choose it over himself.

So when he walks into school the next day, he’s almost relieved by how ordinary everything looks. 

Cedar Heights’ hallways still had the same cracked tiles, the same smell of cleaning solution and warm air. Greeting him as he walked further down was James waving him over from across the hall, Juhoon seeming to be yapping away, already complaining about a Calculus quiz he forgot about. It feels like proof, like reassurance, like maybe he didn’t break anything after all.

And then he sees you.

You’re there with them, too, slightly obstructed from his view earlier because of James stature — but he sees you, now. You’re laughing, bag slung over your shoulder, expression easy in a way that makes his chest loosen before he can stop himself. For a split second, instinct pulls him forward. He almost steps closer, almost reaches for the space beside you like he always does.

But you don’t look at him, not at first. When you do, it’s brief and polite. It’s not that you being polite was out of the ordinary (you were as well-mannered as one could get), but come on, you and him were already way past pleasantries.

You’d just given him a smile that lands and disappears just as quickly before he can even catch it. You greet him like you’d greet someone you know well but aren’t quite sure how to approach anymore, and the difference is so subtle he nearly convinces himself it’s nothing. Nearly.

First period confirms it, with the classroom still looking the way it always does.

Fluorescent lights hum faintly overhead, casting a flat, almost too-bright glow over rows of wooden desks etched with years of carved initials and half-erased doodles. The whiteboard at the front is still smudged with remnants of last period’s notes — dates and names ghosting the surface no matter how many times it’s been wiped clean. Windows line one side of the room, blinds half-drawn against the morning glare, letting in thin stripes of light that stretch across the floor.

A few students are already there, scattered and unbothered. Some slump back in their chairs, legs stretched into the aisle, phones hidden just below desk level. Others flip lazily through textbooks or rest their heads against their arms, whispering in low voices that blend into the ambient noise of the room. Someone taps a pen against their notebook in an uneven rhythm. Someone else is still chewing the last bite of a convenience-store snack, the crinkle of the wrapper quickly hushed as a warning glance is exchanged.

It’s ordinary and familiar. The kind of setting where nothing ever feels like it’s about to change — until, of course, it does. 

The worst case scenario in his mind is confirmed when you don’t sit beside him.

Okay, truth be told, it’s not exactly mandated for you to be with him in all the classes you shared. Even so, it couldn’t be denied that it had always been unspoken and automatic. It’s almost expected, with your chair angled toward his, your knee brushing his under the desk like it’s muscle memory rather than a choice. 

Today, you chose, deliberately, not to sit there with your bag hooked on the back of his chair, not with your notes already half-open between the two of you like a shared secret. Today, you paused at the doorway of the classroom for half a second longer than usual, scanning the room with an expression that’s thoughtful instead of habitual, and then you choose a seat across the row, closer to Seonghyeon.

You drop into the chair beside the boy with a quiet scrape, setting your bag down at your feet. Your body turns outward, angled toward the group instead of instinctively toward Martin. It’s a small shift. It’s almost nothing, really.

For some reason though, for Martin, the shift feels enormous.

Seonghyeon glances at you, surprised, then grins. “Wow. New seating arrangement?”

You shrug, casual. “Eh. Thought I’d switch it up.”

From across the row, Martin notices. Of course he did. He always does.

He doesn’t let it show at first. He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms loosely, posture relaxed like this hasn’t completely disorientated him. He tells himself it’s nothing. People move seats all the time. It doesn’t mean anything. It shouldn’t. (Trying to convince himself of this doesn’t necessarily wipe off the sour expression on his face, though. Not immediately.)

When Mr. Song finally comes in — your History teacher with a clipped voice and a tablet always tucked under one arm — the chatter fades into silence. Chairs straighten and backs go rigid. The lesson begins, something about what happened in the Joseon era, words flowing together in a steady, droning cadence that demands attention but rarely gets it.

James leans back in his chair and mutters something under his breath, dry and perfectly timed, the kind of comment he only ever makes when he’s certain it’ll land with exactly one person.

You hear it, as per usual.

Your laugh bursts out before you can stop it — bright and unguarded and familiarly loud, your head tipping back just a little as if the sound has nowhere else to go. It cuts clean through the low drone of shuffling papers and half-hearted note-taking, sharp enough that a few heads turn. Seonghyeon snorts beside you, already half-grinning, and Juhoon ducks his head to hide his own smile.

At the front of the room, Mr. Song pauses mid-sentence.

“Y/N,” he says, not unkindly, one eyebrow lifting as he looks over his glasses. There’s a hint of amusement there, the kind reserved for students he trusts. “Care to share what was so funny? Or should we save it for after I finish explaining the causes of the Gabo Reform?”

A ripple of quiet laughter moves through the class. You straighten immediately, composure snapping back into place like muscle memory.

“Sorry, sir,” you say, already reaching for your pen. “It won’t happen again.”

Mr. Song studies you for a second longer, then nods. “I’m counting on that, L/N,” he says, turning back to the board. “You, of all people, should know better.”

Martin notes that it isn’t a reprimand so much as an acknowledgment — the unspoken understanding that you’re his favorite kind of student. Focused and reliable, the one who never misses an assignment, who raises her hand with answers instead of excuses, the kind who chose academics over everything else and made it obvious she wasn’t going to regret it.

Martin smiles automatically at the sound of your laugh, already turning his head, already waiting for your eyes to flick to his like they usually do. Like they always do.

They don’t, though, and the absence of it — that small, almost inborn glance — lands heavier than the teacher’s words ever could.

Instead, you murmur something to Seonghyeon, and he replies easily with a whisper, then leaning closer to hear you better. Martin catches a fragment — your voice saying, jokingly, “See? This is why you’re my favorite.”

It’s an old inside joke, one that everyone in your little circle knows. You’d said it months ago, half-laughing, half-teasing — that Seonghyeon was your favorite because he never said no to hanging out, because he’d sit with you as long as you wanted, whenever you wanted, no questions asked. It had never meant anything serious.

But now, watching Seonghyeon grin at you, watching you bump your shoulder lightly against his, Martin feels something prickle, hot and unwelcome. He bristles before he can stop himself, then forces his expression to stay neutral. He exhales, slow, and shrugs it off. 

He doesn’t know exactly what he was feeling, a foreign sensation that weighs heavy upon his chest. Irregardless, he tells himself he’s being ridiculous.

He leans over forward slightly anyway, lowering his voice. “Did you get the homework for this class?”

You turn, finally, but only halfway. Only just enough to acknowledge him.

“Yeah,” you say. It was in that tone again, efficient and polite. “I can send it later.”

Later.

Not now. Not with you scooting your chair closer. Not with you raising your iPad’s screen so he can see. Not with whispered commentary scribbled in the margins while Mr. Song talks about emperors and revolutionaries.

You said later.

He nods. “Cool. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

And that’s it.

Mr. Song keeps talking. Pens scratch against paper. The room settles back into its usual rhythm. Martin stares forward, jaw tight, telling himself — again — that it’s fine. He tries to convince himself that nothing’s changed, that this, whatever the fuck is happening, doesn’t mean anything at all.

And yet, despite all of the denial, he’s still painfully aware of the empty space beside him.

By lunchtime, it was harder.

The cafeteria is loud in that familiar, overwhelming way — chairs scraping against tile, someone yelling across tables, the constant hum of a hundred conversations stacked on top of each other. 

Your group (save for Seonghyeon, Keonho, and Iroha who were all preoccupied with an activity they didn’t finish within class hours) claims the same long table you always do, backpacks kicked underneath, trays scattered with half-eaten food and stolen fries. Martin drops into his usual seat without thinking and, just as unconsciously, leaves the space beside him open.

He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until you don’t take it (again).

You slide into the seat across from him instead, settling between Juhoon and Wonhee. Your tray lands on the table with a soft clatter, neatly aligned, elbows tucked in like you’re making yourself smaller. It’s such a small thing. If he weren’t looking for it, he might’ve missed it entirely.

“Hey,” Martin says, the word slipping out the way it always does, instinctive and unthinking, because he always starts with you. His voice is light, practiced. “Did you hear what Keonho said in chem earlier? He really thinks sodium and chlorine cancel each other out like—”

You look up. You always do, and for half a second his chest loosens on reflex.

“Hm?” you hum, eyes on him, attentive in that way that used to feel like a private thing.

“He was dead serious,” Martin continues, a faint grin tugging at his mouth. “I swear, he stared at the board for a full minute and went, ‘So… it just neutralizes, right?’ Like he’d cracked the damn system.”

A beat. He waits for it. He waits for the scoff, or the whisper back, or the you’re kidding look you usually reserve just for him.

You smile instead, soft and controlled. “Huh. Yeah, that sounds like him, alright,” you say.

Then, without missing a step, you turn back to Wonhee. “Did you finish the outline for Mr. Lee’s essay? I’m stuck on the last part.”

Wonhee nods, already leaning in. “Yeah, I can show you after lunch.”

The conversation seals shut right there, neat and unceremonious.

Martin blinks, the moment stretching longer than it should. His fingers tighten around his fork until the plastic creaks faintly. He stares down at his food, appetite gone despite the hunger literally chipping away at his energy earlier.

“Yeah,” he mutters, the word barely audible, meant for no one at all.

And across the table, you’re already talking again — engaged, warm, present — just not with him.

James is halfway through a story about practice, gesturing wildly with a chicken wing. Juhoon interrupts him. Wonhee laughs too loud. The table stays full, lively, exactly the same as it’s always been. Martin tells himself that means everything’s fine.

A few minutes pass. A few minutes, long enough for him to tell himself not to do this again. A few minutes, long enough for him to poke at his food, to listen to James and Wonhee argue about something pointless, to pretend he isn’t measuring the distance between where you are and where you used to be.

Then he does it anyway.

“Y/N,” Martin says, quieter this time, leaning forward just a little like that might bridge something invisible. He keeps his tone easy, careful. “You still watching that show you told me about? The one with the, uh—what was it—the messed-up timeline?”

You turn to him immediately the way you always do. That part hasn’t changed, and the small relief it gives him is almost worse for how brief it is.

“Oh,” you say, brows lifting slightly, like you’re reaching for the thought. There’s no annoyance in your voice. No edge. It just felt like you were being cautious now. “Yeah! Yeah, actually. It’s, um, really good.”

His chest tightens, hopeful in that stupid, automatic way. “Yeah?” he asks, trying to sound casual, trying not to lean in too much. “You’re on—”

“I’m almost done with it. Um, second to the last episode,” you reply gently, already glancing back toward Juhoon as he speaks up beside you. “I’ve just been… busy.”

Juhoon asks you something about the playlist you sent the night before — whether you meant for the last song to be there or if it was an accident — and you turn fully to answer him, thoughtful and engaged, like nothing is wrong at all.

Almost done.

The words echo louder than they should. Almost done — not you should catch up. Not we need to talk about it. Not wait until you see the next episode. Just a neat little end to the exchange, tied off before it can ask for anything more. (He feels like he’d been transported to his own personal hell.)

Martin nods slowly, throat tight as he swallows around it. “Cool,” he says, because that’s what’s expected of him. Because you’re not being mean and you’re not doing anything wrong. 

You laugh then at something Juhoon says, leaning a little closer to him. It’s the same laugh you’ve always had — bright, genuine. Martin watches it land on everyone else at the table, shared freely, easily. He waits for the moment when it might turn back toward him.

It doesn’t, and uncharacteristically perceptive James doesn’t let it go right away.

He leans back in his chair, eyes flicking between the two of you like he’s trying to line up a picture that won’t quite focus. “No, seriously,” he says, tone lighter but curiosity sharp underneath. “Did something happen? You guys used to literally talk over each other. Now it’s like you’re— fuckin’ taking turns, or something.”

Wonhee shifts beside you, her gaze soft but searching for yours. She doesn’t say anything, just watches you with the kind of quiet attention that means she already knows more than she’s letting on.

You tilt your head, considering James like this is a harmless question. “People are allowed to be quiet sometimes, Zhao Yufan,” you say, smiling, almost teasing in the way you said his real name. It’s not defensive. It’s reasonable. Mature. Very you. “Doesn’t mean something’s wrong.”

James opens his mouth, then closes it again, clearly unsatisfied. “I mean, yeah. I guess. It’s just—” He gestures vaguely between you and Martin. “You know. Different.”

There it is. That word he was dreading. Different. Martin didn’t particularly like the bitter taste it left in his mouth, but he wasn’t about to deny it, either. Because you had. You both had been different.

He keeps his eyes on his tray, thumb tracing the edge of the plastic absentmindedly. He’s aware of how still he’s gone, how every instinct in him is screaming not to draw attention to himself. If he says the wrong thing, if he says anything too honest, the fragile balance you’re maintaining might tip.

Wonhee finally speaks, voice gentle, almost careful. “If you say you’re fine,” she says to you, “then okay. Just checking.”

You meet her eyes, grateful. Martin sees it — the flicker of something unspoken passing between you two — and understands, dimly, that whatever is happening here didn’t start with him and definitely won’t be solved by him alone.

“Promise,” you add, like punctuation. “Nothing happened. We’re good.”

Martin nods again, because that’s what everyone else is doing, because agreeing is easier than explaining the hollow feeling settling in his chest. “Yeah,” he echoes, softer this time. “We’re good.”

James watches him for a second longer, like he wants to argue, then sighs and lets it drop. “Alright,” he says. “If you say so, I guess.”

The table fills back up with noise — complaints about homework, someone groaning about an upcoming test, James dramatically declaring he’s going to fail anyway. It all slides back into place, neat and familiar.

But Martin feels like he’s standing just outside of it.

Nothing happened, you said. And maybe that’s true in the way facts are true. There were no fights, after all. No confessions, no lines crossed. But something is happening, whether he wanted to admit it or not. 

He can feel it in the way you don’t look for him in the middle of laughter anymore, in the way your words stop just short of inviting him in. It’s happening quietly, carefully, like you’re trying not to break anything.

And he sits there, surrounded by people who can tell something’s off but don’t know where to place it, thinking the same thing over and over until it starts to ache: if nothing happened — then why does it feel like he’s already losing you?

He stares down at his food, appetite gone, the space beside him still empty. And for the first time, the thought doesn’t feel paranoid or dramatic — it feels frighteningly clear.

Maybe nothing really happened. Maybe she realized something that night.

Maybe you felt it, too — whatever that closeness had been — and decided it was safer to step back before it became something else. Maybe he’d crossed a line without meaning to. Maybe just existing beside you, wanting you the way he does, had been enough to make you uncomfortable.

The worst part is that none of it feels cruel.

You’re still kind and warm and quintessentially you. You still include him in conversations and plans when he falls behind, you still smile when you catch his gaze (rare as it is, now), you still treat him like someone you care about. He knows this because the distance you’re so very obviously putting between you isn’t loud. It isn’t dramatic. It’s measured, intentional. The kind that suggests thought, not indifference.

Which makes it hurt more.

He keeps telling himself to let it go. He tells himself that he’s imagining patterns where there are none, that he shouldn’t read so deeply into a shift this small. He’s always been good at convincing himself that his feelings are manageable, containable. He was also always able to repeat the same reassurances until they almost sound like truth.

It’s nothing. You’re overthinking. Drop it.

But he doesn’t.

Because every time you choose a seat that isn’t beside him, every time your laughter skips past him on its way to someone else, every time he catches himself waiting for you to turn back — and you don’t — it feels like confirmation. It only feels like an answer he never asked for, but somehow already understands.

And no matter how much he tells himself otherwise, the wanting doesn’t fade. It just learns how to ache very, very quietly.

It happens in pieces, which is almost worse.

It isn’t one clean fracture Martin can trace back and examine. It’s scattered, spread thin across ordinary moments that should mean nothing on their own. He keeps telling himself that if he lines them up correctly, they’ll come to form something harmless. He tries to convince himself that if he puts them together, it will just show proof that he’s imagining it, that you’re just busy, that people ebb and flow all the time. 

He believes, in the end, that closeness doesn’t disappear — it just changes shape.

Free period spills out the same way it always does, the whole group gravitating toward the shade of the big old tree near Cedar Heights’ grass field. It’s the one spot that reliably blocks the sun, its roots breaking through the ground like it’s been there longer than the school itself. The field stretches out beyond all of you — empty goalposts, scuffed earth, distant shouts from a group of guys Martin recognizes from Class 2-B kicking a ball around.

Everyone’s here for once. James, Juhoon, Martin, Seonghyeon, Keonho, Iroha, Wonhee. You. It feels, at first glance, like a good day.

That’s when Martin notices it.

You’re leaning toward James, close enough that your knees almost bump, sunlight catching the edge of your smile. You’re animated, hands moving as you talk, eyes bright in a way that feels unforced and easy.

“You’re actually impossible,” you say, laughing as you bump your shoulder into his. “Like, I’m a hundred percent convinced you wake up every day and actively decide to make things worse.”

James gasps, clutching his chest. “That’s just insane. I wake up early now. I even stretch. Literally in my to-do list!”

You squint at him. “Is that what you call showing up to class late with grass stains and a random bruise?”

“Hey, they’re earned,” he says, offended. “You try doing drills for two hours and then immediately switching to freakin’ scientist mode. I reckon you won’t even last five minutes.”

“Oh my god,” you groan. “You’re not even good at pretending to be humble.”

“Dude, I don’t need to pretend,” he says, grinning. “Also, reminder—you’re talking to the guy who almost singlehandedly sabotaged our lab earlier.”

“Almost?” you repeat. “James, our solution fucking exploded.”

“Damn right it did.”

You gawked at him in disbelief, “That’s not something to be fucking proud of, Cassie!”

The reference to the line in that popular Western TV series makes some chuckle and the others roll their eyes affectionately. Martin, among others, knew just how much you quoted that on the daily.

“And yet,” James says, pointing at you, “you didn’t murder me.”

You sigh dramatically. “Yeah. Which says a lot more about me than you, honestly.”

He nudges your arm with his elbow. “Just admit it, you love me.”

“Uh-uh, mister. That’s not what that is,” you say immediately, scoffing.

“Oh, it absolutely is.”

You roll your eyes. “It’s exposure therapy, is what it is. The more time I spend around you, I get more and more desensitized to your bullshit.”

James laughs, easy and loud, leaning back in his chair like he’s already won something. “See?” he says. “I’m just that unforgettable.”

Wonhee laughs from beside you. Juhoon shakes his head, muttering something along the lines of “more like unbearable.” Seonghyeon adds fuel to it when he mentions the other times James had messed up one of your projects, Keonho jumps in with a comment about your last month’s Biology partner project, Iroha snickers quietly. The moment grows, layered with overlapping voices and shared amusement.

Martin laughs too, because the familiar banter between the two of you is funny. Because it would be strange not to. But the sound comes out a beat late, like his body is lagging behind his instincts.

He watches the way you and James fall into rhythm — how you cut in at the right moments, how he sets you up without meaning to, how your laughter crests and settles like it knows where to land. It’s customary. It wasn’t because it’s romantic or even threatening, but because Martin recognizes the shape of it.

That moment used to be his.

It’s not ownership — of course, he knows better than to think of what you have (or had) in that way — but rather, proximity. Habit. The quiet assumption that if something funny happened, your eyes would find his first. That if you leaned in, it would be toward him, sharing the moment before it ever reached the rest of the group.

Now, you don’t look at him when you say it. Not even once.

James says something else, something exaggerated and ridiculous, and you groan dramatically, dropping your head against his shoulder for half a second before straightening again. It’s casual. It means nothing. Martin knows that.

And still.

There’s this dull ache in his chest, the kind that doesn’t spike but settles, heavy and persistent. It isn’t jealousy, not really. He doesn’t think James is stealing anything from him. If anything, James is just… there. He’s available, easy, filling a space Martin didn’t realize had been left open.

He tells himself you’re allowed to laugh with other people, that you do laugh with other people. He rationalizes that none of this means you care about him any less.

But wanting something, convincing himself of something, doesn’t make it true.

He thinks about how careful you’ve been lately. How courteous. How you still talk to him, still answer when he speaks, still smile in that gentle way that never turns sharp or dismissive. You don’t push him away — you just don’t pull him closer to you anymore.

Which somehow hurts more.

Because it means you’re not being callous about it. You’re being thoughtful, mature enough to step back without making a mess of it. And Martin, sitting there under the tree with the rest of the group laughing around him, realizes that if he ever said anything — if he ever admitted how much he actually wants you — it would put you in an impossible position.

He tells himself it’s fine. He tells himself he can live with this. And for now, he does.

Not even a day or two later, Martin notices another small fracture.

It happens in the quiet, which feels cruel in its own way. He’s sitting on his bed, back against the wall, one knee pulled up while the other leg dangles off the mattress. His room is dim except for the desk lamp he never remembers to turn off, casting a soft, uneven glow across scattered notes and a half-zipped backpack on the floor. 

Outside, he hears his sister laughing in the hallway. A door opens, his Mom shouts for his Dad to help her with the laundry, and it shuts. Life is going on, uninterrupted.

He isn’t doing anything important, just existing in the leftover hours of the day, homework done and his current work-in-progress beat half-finished. Maybe that’s why his hand reaches for his phone without him thinking too hard about it. He just opens his Messages, clicks on your familiar icon (an adorable picture of you from above with his fish-eye lens, posing cutely) and types something casual.

hey did you end up understanding the last part of the lecture?

It’s harmless and familiar. It’s the kind of message that’s passed between the two of you so many times it barely registers as a choice he had to actively make anymore. He hits send and lets the phone rest against his thigh, already half-distracted.

Delivered, it shows, and he waits. Moments later, nothing happens.

He tells himself not to count the minutes, but he does anyway. He shifts, glances at the ceiling, then back at the screen. Still nothing. Just as he’s about to lock his phone and move on, the screen lights up again.

The group chat.

Y/N: guys i js realized we have that quiz for mr song moved to friday 😭 Juhoon: WAIT SERIOUSLY?? James: You’re lying.

Martin’s thumb stills.

He watches the conversation unfold in real time — your messages coming in quick, playful, threaded with crying emojis and dramatic overreaction. James fires back immediately. Seonghyeon spirals. Someone else joins in. It’s loud in that familiar way, full of energy, full of you.

The small “seen” indicator appears. You’re there, active, engaged, and present in the group chat, while his DM stays untouched.

For a moment, he doesn’t move at all. He just stares at the screen like it might correct itself if he waits long enough. He just stares at the screen like your reply will slide into place with a laugh or an apology or even just a sorry, just saw this.

It doesn’t.

He tells himself it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not too out of character for you, since you’ve always had some trouble with replying back to people immediately, thinking you’ve already replied when you haven’t. Maybe, just maybe, you didn’t notice the notification. Maybe you saw it and figured you’d reply later. Maybe you’re just distracted. He tells himself not to double-text, not to be that person, not to turn something small into something humiliating.

So he locks his phone and drops it into his bag, the motion sharper than it needs to be. His jaw tightens, just enough that he has to consciously relax it. 

And that’s when the feeling starts to loop.

It isn’t pronounced. It doesn’t crash over him all at once. It settles instead, slow and persistent, like a realization he doesn’t want to have had but can’t shake all the same. He’s still around you. He’s still part of the same group chat, the same jokes, the same plans that get made and remade without much thought. But there’s a new rule he hasn’t been told outright.

He’s close enough to see you, to hear you, to exist in the same spaces — but he’s not close enough to reach you the way he used to. There’s a distance now that adjusts itself whenever he tries to cross it, subtle and precise. It’s like an invisible line that moves just ahead of his steps.

Another fracture. A small one, almost nothing. Except it’s starting to add up, because the worst moment — the worst fracture — comes later that week.

It’s nothing astonishing, which was what made it unbearable.

You’re all supposed to walk home together from school, as you all often do without needing any planning or announcement of some sort. It’s just the usual unspoken understanding that forms when everyone packs up at the same time and drifts in the same direction. The sky is already dimming, washed in that blue-gray light that makes the world feel softer, quieter, like it’s holding its breath.

Iroha had joked about homework, how their Literature teacher gave something extra to Keonho because he kept making noises during the lecture. James complains about his shoes, how it’s now all scuffed because his coach always made him run laps (yes, it’s because he’s always late for practice, but that’s a story for another time). 

Laughter bubbles, then fades as people start peeling off one by one — turning corners, taking shortcuts, calling out quick goodbyes over their shoulders.

Until it’s just you and Martin. Again.

The shift is immediate, even if neither of you says anything. He feels it in his chest before his brain can catch up. In the way your steps slow, then stutter slightly, like you’re recalculating something. In the way your fingers tighten around the strap of your bag, knuckles paling for just a second.

He opens his mouth, meaning to say something, anything. A joke, perhaps. Or a  comment about the sky, maybe even a question he already knows the answer to. Just to replace the tense awkwardness blanketing you both. His hand lifts without him realizing it, fingers curling like they’re meant to catch the edge of your sleeve.

“Oh,” you say first, glancing down at your phone as if it’s just occurred to you. “I just remembered— I, uh, told my mom I’d be home early.”

There it is.

His hand stills midair. He drops it back to his side like it never moved. He nods too quickly, like his body moves before his heart can protest. “Oh. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. That’s— That’s fine.”

It isn’t, but he doesn’t know how to say that without sounding like he’s asking for something you’ve already decided not to give.

You smile at him, soft and apologetic. The careful one. The smile that says I hope you understand, even though he doesn’t think he really does. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”

He wants to add something — text me, or walk safe, or even just your name — but the words suddenly stick, heavy and uncooperative. He can feel them sitting at the back of his throat, pressing, waiting. He’s scared that if he reaches out now, if he makes it obvious that he wants more of this moment, it’ll push you further away. Like confirming something you’ve already started to avoid.

You don’t linger. You don’t wait for him to fall into step beside you. You turn down the side street with a small wave, already slipping your earbuds out of your pocket, already retreating into yourself. A quiet, practiced exit.

Martin takes one step forward without thinking. Your name is already forming on his tongue when he stops himself, the sound dying before it ever has the chance to exist. He stays where he is instead, hands clenched, useless.

He watches your back grow smaller, watches you disappear into the thinning crowd. He doesn’t feel angry. That’s the part that hurts the most. He feels emptied out instead, like he’s trying to hold onto something fragile that’s already slipped through his fingers.

And what he doesn’t know — what makes it ache in a way he can’t quite label neatly — is that your chest is tight too. He doesn’t know that you’d slowed your steps because you were hoping, stupidly, that this would be the moment he’d stop you. You were hoping, imprudently, that he’d say something which will prove that all this careful distance you were actively drawing wasn’t necessary, that you weren’t protecting yourself from something you imagined.

But he didn’t, as you had, from the back of your mind, expected. So you left.

Standing there alone, it finally clicks for him, sharp and unmistakable; You’re not pulling away from the group. You’re pulling away from him.

The realization lands softly, but it spreads fast, seeping into every memory he’s been trying to excuse. The angled seating. The shorter replies. The way you always leave just before it becomes the two of you, or when it finally had. The way your warmth redirects itself elsewhere the moment he even had a mind to reach for it.

Stubbornly so, however, he decides to keep orbiting you anyway.

He shows up to hangouts despite knowing the outcome when it comes to you. He laughs when he’s supposed to, he listens, he cares. He tries not to want too loudly. He tells himself — over and over and over again — that this is fine. He’s almost a broken record the amount of times he repeats in his head that this is survivable, that if this is the shape your relationship has to take for him to stay in your life, then he’ll adapt.

But some nights, walking home alone (something that’s also new because you and him always walked home together before), the thought slips through no matter how tightly he grips everything else: He’s still circling you. And you’ve already decided where he can’t land.

It settles into him slowly, the way an ache does when you ignore it for too long — quiet at first, almost polite, easy to dismiss if he doesn’t move too much or think too hard. Martin deludes himself into thinking that longing is manageable, that wanting is something you can compartmentalize, fold neatly into the corners of your day and take out only when you’re alone. 

He’s always been good at restraint, after all. He was exceptionally good at holding things in until they stop asking to be held, until they burst.

But, for some reason, this is different. This feels different.

Because the wanting doesn’t stay in the present. It reaches backward, too, tugging at memories he didn’t realize had become landmarks. Late at night, when the house is quiet and his phone screen is the only light in his room, he finds himself replaying your smile from before that night.

It was the unguarded type of smile, among your many forms of pretty grins, the kind that curved into your cheeks and made your eyes soften without calculation. It’s the smile you used to give him when he said something stupid or unexpectedly clever, when you leaned closer like you trusted the space between you not to betray you. He remembers the way you used to tilt your head when you listened, how your attention felt full, generous, like you were giving it freely instead of rationing it out.

Now, when he thinks about it, his chest tightens — not with bitterness, but with something far more humiliating. Gratitude. That you ever gave him that version of yourself at all.

He misses you in ways that feel almost embarrassing. It’s not in the grand, dramatic things — he doesn’t fantasize about holding your hand in public or kissing you under streetlights. It’s smaller than that, more insidious.

He misses the way you used to sit a little too close, knees angled toward his without thinking. He misses the way you used to lower your voice when you told him something like it was a secret meant only for him to know. He misses the way your laughter used to find him first before it even found the room. Sometimes, without realizing it, he leans forward when you talk now — fuckin’ muscle memory betraying him or something — only to stop short when he remembers that closeness is no longer his to assume.

There are moments when his mind betrays him completely. He’ll be halfway through a mundane thought — what subject to prioritize as he’s finishing up backlogs, what song to queue next — and suddenly he’s imagining a future he never gave himself permission to want. 

You beside him somewhere ordinary, with a shared routine. A comfort that doesn’t require translation. Maybe you would be reading a book beside him, legs slung over his lap, while he was making beats or melodies on his laptop. The image is never loud or incredibly clear, just a quiet us that feels terrifyingly possible if he just mans up to it.

He shuts it down immediately, though. Heck, he feels almost sick with himself for letting it exist in the first place, regardless of how much he wants for it to come true.

Because wanting you like that feels reckless. Because desire, once spoken, once confessed, can’t be unsaid. Because if he admits it — to himself, to you — then the fragile thing he still has might splinter completely. Friendship, as thin and altered as it feels now, is still something. It’s still access (to you), still proximity (to you), still a reason to be in your orbit without explanation.

If he wants this — like, really wants it — then he risks everything. But, if he says nothing, he only loses himself.

That’s the part he doesn’t know how to reconcile. How both truths can coexist without destroying him. He walks around with the confession pressed behind his ribs, heavy and unvoiced, rehearsing it in the quiet moments he knows he’ll never get to use. Words that dissolve the second he imagines the look on your face if he said them. Not disgust — never that. He imagines you would only show distance or maybe even surprise, and that careful pulling back he’s already learned to read too well.

He tells himself you’re only protecting something through the way you’re acting. Yourself, or the friendship, or whatever line you think you guys almost crossed. And because he loves you — ‘cause yeah, actually, that’s what this has quietly, devastatingly become — he respects that. Even when it costs him. Even when it dulls into something that aches instead of burns.

Silence becomes his offering. Silence becomes his proof of care.

And some nights, lying awake with his phone face-down beside him, he wonders which is worse: the possibility that confessing would make you disappear, or the certainty that staying quiet is slowly erasing him instead.

The house is already too loud by the time Martin arrives.

James’ baseball season has been a background hum for months now — something that comes up in passing, woven into conversations the same way weather or homework does. It’s always the same things that make it a topic of conversation, too. Early practices that made him late, sometimes. Random bruises everyone learned not to ask about. Complaints about drills, about coaches, about games that almost went their way. 

Every now and then, James would mention how close they were this year, how this one mattered more than the rest, and the group would nod along, half-invested but still rooting for him in that casual, loyal way friends do.

Part of it was that no one really expected baseball to be the thing Cedar Heights would rally around. The school definitely dominated in other sports — basketball banners lining the gym walls, volleyball games that drew real crowds — but baseball had always lagged behind, talked about more out of obligation than excitement. Wins were rare enough that they felt borderline theoretical, something you assumed happened to other schools.

So when tonight paid off, it landed harder than anyone anticipated.

They’d all gone to the game after school, crowding into the bleachers with snacks and bad takes and absolutely no understanding of baseball mumbo jumbo. Martin remembers the way James kept glancing toward them between innings, grinning whenever he caught sight of familiar faces, like he needed the confirmation that this was actually happening.

The game itself blurred together — cheering, groaning, someone yelling at an umpire who definitely couldn’t hear them at all — but the ending stuck. With the crack of the bat, the rush of bodies onto the field. Most of all, their little group remembers James ripping his cap off and pointing toward the stands like he couldn’t believe they were really there.

That was probably the reason why the celebration escalated so fast. Someone — one of James’ teammates — had immediately offered up their house to celebrate. Apparently their parents were out of town, or maybe just generous enough not to care, happy to let a bunch of teenagers take over for the night as long as nothing caught fire. It was framed less like a party and more like a victory lap Cedar Heights didn’t usually get.

Martin had gone along with it without really thinking. It felt expected, almost natural. Another thing the friend group did together.

Now, standing at the edge of it all, he wonders when exactly that started feeling less true.

Music spills out into the street in uneven waves, bass heavy enough to rattle the windows. Someone has hung string lights along the porch, the warm glow doing very little to soften the chaos inside. James’ teammates are everywhere — laughing too loudly, sloshing drinks, reliving the same winning play over and over like it might just turn out to be a mass hallucination if they don’t keep saying it, affirming it, out loud.

He steps in with the rest of the group — minus James, who’s already been claimed by his teammates and swept somewhere deeper into the house — his shoulder brushing yours for half a second in the doorway, brief enough that it almost doesn’t register, except it does. He feels it anyway, the familiar spark of awareness that comes with proximity, and then you’re already moving ahead of him, absorbed by the noise, by hands clapping you on the back, by voices calling your name like they’ve been waiting all night to say it.

Martin tells himself it’s fine.

This is how parties work. People spill into rooms and lose each other. Conversations fracture and reform around whoever’s closest. No one stays still long enough for anything meaningful to settle. He repeats it to himself as he steps further inside, as the music presses against his ears and the smell of something sugary and artificial hangs in the air. 

He can do this. He can get through one night of pretending the dull ache in his chest isn’t there, that it hasn’t been quietly blooming for weeks now, ignored and unaddressed like a bruise he keeps pressing just to check if it still hurts.

At first, it’s just awkward in that manageable, low-stakes way.

You don’t end up near him — not on the couch where people keep rotating in and out, not by the kitchen counter cluttered with snacks, not even within that unspoken radius you used to share without effort, where glances and half-smiles could cross without anyone noticing. 

He scans the room more than he means to, not frantic, just… searching, and every time he spots you, it’s from a distance. Once, your eyes meet across the space. You smile at him — easy, genteel, the kind of smile you give someone you care about but don’t really want to linger with — and before he can even think of moving toward you, someone says your name and you’re already turned away, folded seamlessly back into the crowd.

He exhales slowly, like he’s missed a step he didn’t know he was taking.

“Drink?” Juhoon asks, appearing at his side and pressing a red cup into his hand without waiting for an answer.

Martin takes it out of habit, fingers curling around the rim. He doesn’t drink much, barely at all. Mostly he holds onto it so his hands have something to do, so no one asks if he’s okay, so he looks occupied instead of stranded. He leans his weight onto one foot, then the other, shoulders slightly hunched, posture casual enough to pass but not relaxed enough to be convincing.

From the corner of his eye, he watches you laugh at something someone says, your head tipping back just a little, and the sound cuts through him sharper than the music ever could. He looks away before it can sit too long, jaw tightening briefly as he schools his expression back into something neutral.

It’s fine, he tells himself again. He just has to make it through the night.

From where he’s standing, he can see you clearly.

You’re dancing now, near the living room where the space opens up just enough for people to move without constantly colliding into furniture. Wonhee and Iroha are with you at first, the three of you swaying and laughing in that loose, unselfconscious way that comes naturally when no one’s trying too hard. 

Martin notices you without meaning to — Jesus, how could he not? — the way the fabric of your top shifts when you move, soft and familiar, something he’s seen you wear before but never like this, lit by warm string lights and the flicker of someone’s phone camera. Your sleeves slide up your arms when you lift them, your hair catching on your shoulders as you turn, a little undone in a way that feels intentional even if it isn’t.

You look good. Effortlessly so. And there’s something almost cruel about how easy it all seems—how you slip into the night like you belong to it, how your smile stays bright and unforced, how anyone watching without context would assume you’re having the time of your life.

Martin watches anyway. He knows he shouldn’t. He tells himself not to. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t stop him.

Every time you laugh, his chest tightens, a quiet, insistent pull he keeps trying to ignore. Every time someone steps a little too close to you, he feels it like a small subtraction, a loss he has no right to claim. When Keonho drifts over mid-song, all energy and wide gestures, and takes your hand without hesitation, Martin feels something sharp and unfamiliar cut through him. Keonho spins you once—nothing dramatic, just playful — and you laugh, breathless and bright, the sound carrying farther than it has any right to.

The thought comes uninvited, ugly in its honesty. Since when are you that close?

He hates himself for it immediately. For the question. For the way his fingers curl tighter around his cup. For the way his eyes stay fixed on you anyway.

As if to spite him — or maybe just because this is how the group has always been — Wonhee slips in next, mirroring the motion with a grin, twirling you again like it’s the most natural thing in the world. You go willingly, still laughing, still warm, and the jealousy twists again, absurd and indiscriminate this time. It wasn’t because of Keonho. It wasn’t even because of Wonhee. It’s anyone who gets to touch you so easily, who doesn’t have to overthink the space between you before crossing it.

Martin looks away. Then, like an idiot, he looks back. Then he exhales sharply through his nose and stares at the floor, annoyed at himself for caring this much, for letting it get under his skin when he’s been trying so hard to stay composed.

Someone bumps into him a second later, a solid hand landing on his shoulder. Ohyul — one of James’ teammates, Martin recalls, still flushed from the game and buzzing from the win — leans in so he doesn’t have to shout over the music. 

“You good, man?” he asks, squinting at Martin’s face. “You’ve been kinda quiet all night.”

“Yeah,” Martin says automatically, forcing a small smile that feels practiced. “Just tired.”

Ohyul hums, unconvinced but not pressing it, already half-turned back toward the noise. Martin takes another shallow sip from his cup he still hasn’t really touched.

The lie sits heavy in his chest.

And across the room, you keep dancing, unaware of how close he is to breaking something he’s been holding together by sheer will alone.

Later, when the music shifts — bass deepening, tempo slowing into something heavier — and the living room swells with bodies and heat, Martin finds himself retreating toward the kitchen island, more out of instinct than intention. He needs something solid to lean against. He was desperate for a pause, a breath.

That’s when Iroha slides in beside him. 

She doesn’t announce herself. She never does. She just appears at his shoulder, elbow bumping his lightly in a way that’s muscle memory by now. 

They were the same age, same year, same wavelength — people joke that they might as well be twins, and Martin’s never bothered correcting them. They’ve always just circuited each other’s lives like that. They’re occasionally study partners, oftentimes one another’s late-night confession keepers. They’re the kind of friends to each other who know when to talk and when to just exist quietly in the same space.

Iroha knows about his half-formed plans to ditch the safe route and pursue producing music full-time after graduation — the fear, the stubborn hope, the completed tracks he keeps private (even though a lot of people had already assured him it was worth putting out there). He knows about her wanting to join the dance club, how she practices choreography in her room at night because she’s afraid of being seen trying (even though a lot of people, similarly, assured her she was practically trainee-worthy already). They’re mirrors like that. Trust built not on grand declarations, but on years of choosing honesty when it mattered.

She follows his line of sight without making it obvious. You’re across the room, laughing at something Wonhee says, hair a little messy from dancing, eyes bright in a way that makes his chest tighten.

“Hey,” Iroha says, leaning closer, voice lowered but not nearly enough for how loud the room is. “Did something happen between you two?”

The question hits him sideways.

Martin blinks. “What?”

She shrugs, but it’s a thoughtful kind of shrug, lips pressing together like she’s deciding how honest to be. “I don’t know. You guys just… feel different lately.”

Different. The word settles so heavy in his stomach it almost makes him sick.

He swallows, grip tightening around the cup. For a second, he considers doing what he always does — joking, deflecting, pretending he has no idea what she’s talking about. It would be easier. Safer.

Instead, awkwardness wins.

“Different how?” he asks, too quickly, like if he doesn’t know the answer, it won’t be real.

Iroha glances at him, then back at you. “I mean… a lot of little things.” She ticks them off gently, not accusing, just observant. “You don’t sit next to each other anymore unless there’s literally no space. You don’t do that thing where you both start talking at once about some movie or show and everyone else has to tell you to take turns.”

She smiles faintly, fondly recounting the memory. “You used to lose, like, twenty minutes arguing about which album from a random artist  was better. Or you’d both crack up over some reference nobody else got. That— Well, that hasn’t really happened in a while.”

Martin’s chest tightens with every word.

“And,” she adds, softer now, “you used to look for each other. All the time. Now it’s like you’re… trying not to.”

He exhales, long and unsteady. “Yeah,” he says finally. “Okay. Yeah. I guess… it’s not just in my head, then.”

“Hm.” Iroha turns fully toward him. “Was it bad?”

“No,” he says immediately, shaking his head. “I mean—” He stops, scrubs a hand over his face. “No. I don’t know. Nothing happened. That’s kind of the problem.”

She nods slowly, like that makes sense. Like she’s heard that exact sentence before, maybe even said it herself once or twice.

“Well, you don’t look mad,” she says, studying him for a second longer than necessary. “You just look… tired.”

He huffs out a quiet laugh, the kind that barely counts as one. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

Iroha nods, like that’s all the confirmation she needs. She doesn’t push, doesn’t angle for the question he knows is waiting just under the surface. Instead, she bumps her shoulder into his again — light, familiar, grounding in the way she’s always been good at when things start to tilt too far into a gray area.

“For what it’s worth,” she adds after a moment, gaze fixed somewhere past the crowd, “it doesn’t feel like nothing. And it doesn’t feel one-sided either.”

He swallows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says simply. No theatric show of pity or flowery words of assurance. Just a statement, offered and then left alone.

There’s a pause between them, not uncomfortable, just full. The music dips, shifts into something louder, faster. Someone yells Iroha’s name from across the room (Martin has half a mind to recognize that to be Osaki Shotaro from Class 3-A), waving her over with both arms like it’s urgent. She sighs, rolling her eyes, then glances back at Martin.

“Don’t disappear, okay?” she says, half a joke, half not.

“I won’t,” he replies, and means it in the moment.

She leaves him there with a quick smile, already folding back into the noise, and the night rushes in to fill the space she vacated. James does something obnoxious that gets a collective groan. Someone spills a drink and laughs like it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened. The party keeps moving, uninterrupted.

But the word she used earlier sticks.

Different.

He’s heard it twice now. Once from James, casual and careless, tossed out like an observation that didn’t need follow-up. And now from Iroha, softer, more deliberate, like she understood the weight of it even if she didn’t say it out loud. Two people, same word, same conclusion—delivered from opposite sides of the room.

And for the first time, Martin realizes it isn’t just a description of distance. It’s a marker of transition.

Different doesn’t mean gone. It doesn’t mean over. It means something is actively changing, shifting into a shape that hasn’t settled yet. Something unstable. Something that could still tip in either direction, depending on what he does next.

That thought lands heavier than the jealousy he’s been feeling toward everyone ever did.

He stands there, red cup half-full now in his hand, the truth settling in his chest with a slow, undeniable weight. This isn’t neutral. This isn’t nothing. This isn’t something he can keep waiting out until it resolves itself.

This is something fragile and real — loss, or love, or heck maybe both — unfolding in real time while he keeps pretending observation is the same as control.

And for the first time that night, it occurs to him that staying quiet might not be the safer choice. That silence, too, is a decision — and not always a harmless one.

He doesn’t look for you after that. Not right away. He needs air, needs distance from the noise, from the movement, from the unbearable proof that you can still laugh, still dance, still exist fully in a room he’s slowly disappearing from.

The back door is cracked open, cool night air slipping inside like an invitation. Martin steps out into the garden, the sounds of the party dulling behind him, replaced by the quiet hum of crickets and distant traffic.

And then he sees you.

You’re sitting on the low stone wall near the edge of the yard, shoes kicked off, phone resting uselessly in your lap. Your head is tipped back slightly, eyes closed, face turned toward the sky like you’re trying to breathe through something heavy. There’s a drink beside you, barely touched, though the faint flush in your cheeks tells him you’ve had enough to loosen the careful grip you’ve been keeping on yourself.

For a second, he just watches.

You look… tired. Not the fun-tired of dancing too much, but the kind that settles deep, that comes from holding something in for too long. The sight of it twists something painful and tender inside him. (How is it that you’re both still interlinked down to the feeling despite the obvious separation that festered between you?)

He clears his throat softly.

You flinch, then open your eyes, focusing slowly until you see him. For a moment, neither of you speaks. The space between you feels charged, familiar and foreign all at once.

“Oh,” you say, a small, crooked smile appearing. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Martin replies. His voice sounds steadier than he feels at that very moment.

“You hiding out too?” you ask, gesturing vaguely toward the house.

“Sure, yeah. Something like that.” He hesitates, then adds, “You okay?”

You nod too quickly. “Yeah. I just— I needed a break.”

He believes you the way he always has: not at all, and completely.

Martin steps closer, stopping a careful distance away. He’s close enough, now, to feel your presence again. He’s also close enough, now, that it hurts.

The silence stretches first.

It’s not the comfortable kind, not the shared kind you two used to slip into without having to think too much about it. Hell, it was the one thing the both of your prided upon being secure enough to be in. This silence you have at this very moment feels brittle, like it might shatter if either of you move too fast.

“So,” you say, after a beat that lasts too long. Your voice comes out lighter than you feel. “James’ teammate really went all out, huh.”

Martin nods. “Yeah. Guess winning does that.”

Another pause.

You pick at nothing on the stone wall, eyes fixed on your hands like they’ve suddenly become fascinating. Martin shifts his weight, then stills again, like he’s afraid any movement might send you running back inside.

“Did you—” he starts, then stops, clears his throat. “Did you eat already?”

You shake your head. “Not really.”

“Oh.” He nods again, uselessly. “You, uh, you should. There’s— there’s a lot of food.”

“Mm.”

Each word feels like it costs you something. Each answer is clipped, careful, like you’re rationing your breath. Martin can hear it — the way you’re steeling yourself, the way every syllable seems to hurt on its way out — and it makes something hot and panicked bloom in his chest.

This isn’t just awkward.

This is wrong.

He exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. “Okay. I— I can’t do this anymore.”

You look up, finally, and he doesn’t give himself time to lose his nerve as he looks into the depths of your eyes.

“Did I do something?” The words tumble out of him, raw and rushed. “Because you won’t look at me anymore. You don’t sit next to me, you don’t text me back unless it’s in the group chat, you leave the second it’s just us and I—” His voice breaks, just slightly, and he hates himself for it. “I keep replaying that night over and over, trying to figure out where I messed up.”

You open your mouth, then close it again.

Martin keeps going, breathless now. “If I made you uncomfortable, tell me. Please. I’d rather know than keep guessing. I’d rather you be mad at me than— than this. God, Y/N, I feel like I’m losing you and I don’t even know why.”

The words hang there, heavy and exposed. You don’t answer right away. Instead, you let the silence settle again — this time on purpose. It stretches long enough for his rambling to burn itself out, long enough for his breathing to slow. It’s long enough for the night air to cool the heat rushing through both of you.

When you finally speak, your voice is quiet. 

“Do you remember the second time we met?”

Martin blinks. The question catches him off guard. “The… second time?”

You nod, lips curving into a small, sad smile. “Yeah. Not the day at the gate. The, um, the one after.”

His mind stumbles, then—

“Oh,” he says softly.

You let out a shaky breath. “It was at the convenience store. The one near campus. Everyone else went inside first because Wonhee was arguing with Juhoon about which chips were better, and you stayed back with me.”

Martin remembers that much. Remembers standing by the bike rack, kicking at a loose pebble, feeling weirdly nervous for no reason he could explain.

“I was in a bit of a mood the whole day because Mr. Song gave me a bad grade, so I just wore my earphones so people would get the hint not to talk to me. You’re fucking clueless though, ‘cause you still asked me what I was listening to,” you continue. “I couldn’t even get mad. You didn’t know, after all. But the way you asked like— like you really wanted to know… Hah, that stuck to me.”

Your voice wavers, just barely.

“I, uh, told you, and you lit up. Like I’d handed you a million fuckin’ dollars instead of just a song title or something. Then you pulled out your phone and played me another track, one you said reminded you of walking home late, when the streets were empty and everything felt a little too loud in your head.”

Martin’s chest tightens.

“You talked about music like it was a place,” you say. “Like somewhere you went when the world felt too much. And I remember thinking—” You laugh softly, breath hitching. “I remember thinking, oh. This boy is going to be so much trouble.”

Your eyes shine now, glassy in the dim light. You swipe at them, frustrated. “Because it wasn’t just that you were kind. Or interesting. Or oblivious enough to climb over the walls I built. It was that you were careful. With me. With the things you loved. And I knew—somehow—I fucking knew you were going to mean something. That if I let myself get close, you wouldn’t just be a friend. You’d be… dangerous.”

Your voice breaks fully this time.

“So when that night happened,” you whisper, “and you said it was awkward because it was quiet, I thought— God, I thought I’d imagined everything. That I’d crossed a line just by wanting more. And I couldn’t— Fuck, I couldn’t be the reason things changed, Martin. I couldn’t lose you.”

Tears slip down your cheeks now, unguarded. “So I pulled back. Because wanting less felt safer than… than wanting you.”

Martin stares at you like you’ve just split him open.

“Oh,” he breathes, eyes burning, tone high with wretchedness. “Fuck, dude. I thought— ‘Cause you went quiet first. I thought I was doing the right thing by giving you some space.”

You let out a wet, broken laugh. “We’re idiots.”

He laughs too, a sound caught somewhere between a sob and relief. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

For a second, neither of you moves.

The night seems to hold its breath with you — the crickets, the distant thrum of music from inside, even the cool air curling between your bodies like it’s waiting to see what you’ll do. Martin can feel his heart pounding everywhere at once, loud enough he’s half-convinced you can hear it. You’re so close now that the space between you feels less like distance and more like tension pulled tight to the breaking point.

He opens his mouth again because that’s what he’s been doing wrong all along — thinking he needs to explain, to clarify, to confess everything at once.

“I just—” he starts, voice already too full. “I need you to know that I never— God, I wanted you there. I always want you there, Y/N. I thought if I crossed the wrong line you’d disappear and I—”

You shake your head, inching closer before he can spiral any further. Close enough that his knee bumps yours against the creaky wooden bench, close enough that the warmth of you feels undeniable. His words stall in his throat as his brain scrambles to catch up with how near you suddenly are.

Your eyes shine when you look up at him — not fragile, not uncertain. Certain in a way that knocks the breath out of his lungs.

“Martin,” you say softly, but there’s a smile there now, small and trembling and real. “If you keep talking, I might actually combust.”

He lets out a breathless laugh, hands hovering uselessly at his sides, like he doesn’t trust them not to give him away.

You tilt your head, just slightly. “Just shut up and kiss me, Tin.”

The nickname hits him straight in the chest.

His laugh comes out wrecked, disbelieving, almost a sob. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

He shifts closer on the bench, knees angling toward you, the movement instinctive. Even then, he still has to lean down — still has to bend toward you because he’s always been a little too tall, because somehow even now there’s this tiny, familiar adjustment between you. His hand lifts, hesitant for half a second, before settling at your waist like it’s always known it belongs there.

And then he kisses you.

It’s soft at first — almost worshipful. Like he’s afraid that if he rushes it, you’ll vanish. He’s imagined this for so goddamn long it feels like a dream to be doing it in real life. His lips brush yours once, twice, a careful question more than an answer. The second you kiss him back, something in him breaks open.

The world narrows violently, beautifully, to just this.

Your hand fists in the front of his shirt, grounding him, and the kiss deepens — not desperate, but full. Full of all the things he’s swallowed for weeks. The wanting. The relief. The sheer, dizzying rightness of it. His heart feels like it’s trying to beat its way out of his chest and into yours.

Physically, it hits him everywhere at once — heat blooming under his skin, a pleasant ache settling low in his stomach, his knees threatening to give out even though he’s sitting down. Emotionally, it’s worse. Better. Hell, he doesn’t know nor does he care. What matters was that everything he’s been orbiting finally snaps into place.

She’s here. She chose me.

When you pull back just enough to breathe, his forehead drops to yours, eyes closed, like he needs the contact to stay upright. He’s smiling — wide and unguarded and a little stunned, like someone who’s just realized they’ve been holding their breath for far too long and forgotten what air felt like.

“Wow,” he breathes, almost laughing under it, voice soft and a little shaky. “I— yeah. Just know I’ve been wanting to do that for a really long time.”

Your laugh brushes his lips again, soft and disbelieving, and he feels it settle somewhere deep in his chest like a promise finally kept. The kind you don’t say out loud because saying it would make it fragile. He opens his eyes then, just to look at you properly — to confirm you’re still there, still real — and the way you’re smiling back at him makes his throat tighten.

This time, when he kisses you, there’s no hesitation left at all. It’s surer, warmer, his hand firm at your waist like he’s anchoring himself. Not rushing, not afraid. This is just present. And you kiss him back like you’ve both arrived at the same quiet truth from opposite directions.

The rest of the night unfolds gently, almost shyly, as if the world knows better than to rush you now. When you head back inside, the others clock it immediately — the way you’re standing too close again, shoulders brushing, the way Martin’s hand keeps finding the small of your back like it’s muscle memory. After days of obvious distance, of Wonhee and Juhoon exchanging looks, of Seonghyeon nudging Keonho and James whispering something to Iroha, the shift is impossible to miss.

No one says anything when you and Martin say your goodbyes earlier than expected. There are a few raised brows, a couple of knowing smiles, but they let you go without teasing, without questions. Like they’ve always known you’d figure it out eventually.

Outside, the night air is cool and forgiving. You walk without a destination, letting your feet decide, the neighborhood stretching quiet and familiar around you. At some point, Martin slips his jacket pocket open just enough for your hand to slide into, your fingers threading together inside the warmth, hidden from the world. It feels intimate in a way that makes your chest ache — in a good way. A full way.

Neither of you talks much. You don’t need to. The silence isn’t heavy anymore; it’s companionable, soft. He bumps his shoulder into yours once, gentle, and you smile to yourself, thinking about all the moments before this — every misstep, every pause, every second you both chose closeness even when it hurt.

Especially when it hurt.

Later, when you stop under a streetlamp and look at each other like you’re still a little in awe, Martin squeezes your hand, thumb brushing over your knuckles. That awkward feeling — the one that haunted the space between you for so long — doesn’t disappear entirely. It just changes shape. It becomes something tender. Something worth carrying.

Because loving each other like this, you realize, was never going to be simple.

But it was always, always going to be you.

The playlist was also always a gamble with Cedarian prom. It was either borderline club music that didn’t belong at a school function or half slow songs so painfully dull they never fail to make you question why people ever romanticized prom in the first place. And of course, there was the annual promise from the student council and faculty alike that this night would mean something, that it would be memorable, or Jesus, maybe even special.

You’d always found that part especially insulting.

Prom, in your opinion, was just a forced milestone. A socially sanctioned excuse to dress up, take pictures, and pretend everyone wasn’t already itching to leave town the second graduation caps hit the air. It rewarded nostalgia before there was even anything worth missing. And for a school like Cedar Heights — where drama brewed faster in the stuco’s committee meetings than on the dance floor or literally anywhere else — it felt unnecessary at best.

So you’d told everyone you weren’t going. Which, frankly, surprised no one.

If someone wanted a quick summary of who you were, they’d probably hear that you were opinionated. Maybe even passionate, if they were being generous. Whether it was something harmless — like insisting pineapple on pizza was a crime against culinary ethics — or something heavier, like income inequality or human rights, you had a tendency to go all in once a topic caught your attention.

You could even talk for literal hours if someone let you.

The people closest to you knew that better than anyone. They knew the way your voice picked up when you got started, the way your hands moved as if punctuation alone wasn’t enough, the way a casual comment could spiral into a full-blown debate if someone so much as nudged the wrong nerve.

So when prom came up, you already had your reasons lined up.

You said it was overrated. You said the tickets were overpriced. You said you would rather jump off a bridge than go through the grueling process of picking the “perfect dress.” You said you’d rather stay home than spend a night pretending to enjoy yourself.

All of it was true. Mostly.

You didn’t say his name out loud — but it was there anyway, tucked into every explanation, every shrug, every dismissive laugh you offered when someone pressed a little too hard.

The people closest to you noticed. They always did.

They didn’t ask outright nor did they need verbal confirmation. They knew better than to corner you about it, especially since they also knew — just as surely as you did — that he was going to be here tonight.

Kim Juhoon. Your ex-boyfriend.

Five years — nearly a third of your life now that you think about it — reduced now to a word that still felt foreign on your tongue. You’d grown up together in all the ways that mattered, too. You had inside jokes that just never needed explaining, routines that felt as natural as breathing, a kind of special silence that had once meant comfort instead of distance.

He’d volunteered weeks before the breakup, back when the two of you were still pretending the summer apart hadn’t changed anything. Back when comfortable didn’t yet feel so… off. He wasn’t an officer, never one to chase attention, but he signed up anyway — junior year representative, staying late for meetings, helping with setups, doing the things that kept everything running quietly in the background.

You remembered teasing him about it then. You remembered how he’d shrugged and said someone had to help.

That summer had been the first time in years you weren’t inseparable. You had different schedules, in different places. There was too much space to think, too much room to grow without each other in the frame. You’d come back restless, craving something louder — thrill, movement, a spark you couldn’t quite name but knew you were missing. And Juhoon had come back softer somehow, more certain of the calm he wanted, the kind of steadiness he’d always offered you without ever asking for anything in return.

It wasn’t that either of you were wrong. You just weren’t looking for the same future anymore.

A month ago, you’d broken up.

It was mutual. Clean, if breakups could ever really be clean. There was no yelling, no betrayal (neither of you could barely even stomach the idea of it, let alone doing it). There was just the slow, painful honesty of admitting that love alone wasn’t enough to bridge the gap. You told him you felt like you were outgrowing the quiet. He told you — gently, always gently — that the calm he wanted might only cage you in. That all he ever wanted was for you to be happy, even if that happiness didn’t include him. (Which, fuck him for that because of course he’s still the best guy ever even after you broke his heart.)

You never had the talk, though. That dreaded talk that ties things off neatly, that gives you closure instead of questions. You parted with understanding, with care, with too much left unsaid. And now, despite everything you’d said, despite every reason you’d listed, despite telling everyone you weren’t going —

You were here.

Standing in the same gym you’d criticized to death, surrounded by string lights and music you pretended not to care about, fully aware that somewhere in this room was the boy who knew you better than anyone else ever had — and the one reason you never wanted to admit out loud.

Your heels scuff softly against the gym floor as you move further inside, the noise of the room swelling around you until it’s impossible to pretend you’re not really here. Someone laughs too loudly near the refreshment table. A couple spins awkwardly near the center of the floor, already off-beat. The lights are dim enough to forgive everything else.

You don’t make it very far before familiar voices cut through the noise.

“You came?”

You turn just in time to be enveloped by your friends, their surprise barely disguised beneath grins and raised brows. Yoonchae looks you up and down, slow and deliberate, as if committing the sight to memory.

“I thought you hated prom,” she says.

“I do,” you reply easily. “This doesn’t change that.”

“Then why are you here?” Hyein asks, skeptical but smiling all the same.

You shrug, the practiced motion slipping into place. “Figured I’d at least see what all the fuss was about. Plus, I needed proof for my argument.”

“Your argument,” they both echo.

“That it’s exactly as bad as I said it would be.”

The two girls laugh, unconvinced, nudging you playfully as if your presence alone is a small victory. You laugh too — because it’s easier than explaining that sometimes people do things not because they want to, but because avoiding them hurts worse.

It’s not long before the comments come. Yoonchae mentions the decorations, how it’s surprising the new student council president managed to make the theme work somehow. Hyein, of course, complains about the music, how they’ve only been playing the corniest mainstream songs before you got there. You nod along, throwing in a comment here and there, falling back into the rhythm of conversation you know by heart.

And then — your focus slips.

It’s not intentional. You don’t seek him out. You promised yourself you weren’t going to. You practically vowed not to hurt yourself like that. But… you just feel it. You feel the tightening in your chest, a sense of something pulling, sharp and unmistakable, like your name being said in a crowded room.

Across the dance floor, Kim Juhoon stands with his friends, their voices animated as they talk over one another. You recognize the one that claps him on the shoulder, Zhao Yufan or James, last year’s foreign exchange student that Juhoon became fast friends with. The other two who look like twins, you recall them being Eom Seonghyeon and Ahn Keonho, pointing at each other as though avoiding the blame for something. And that spiky-haired boy in your Physics class and Juhoon’s closest friend, Martin Park, laughs, loud and unrestrained, saying something you don’t catch. They’re in their element — comfortable, familiar, orbiting each other the way they always have.

Juhoon isn’t laughing, though, because he’s looking at you.

You realize, distantly, that he must have noticed you first. There’s a stillness to him that doesn’t match the energy around him, his attention pulled somewhere else entirely. His gaze doesn’t waver, even as James leans in to say something, oblivious to the shift.

For a second, you forget how to breathe.

The room feels smaller suddenly. Warmer. The air thick with everything you’ve refused to say.

Your friends are still talking, still laughing, unaware of the way your smile has gone a little too tight, the way your attention has fractured. You think it was Yoonchae that asked you a question (something about getting a drink), and you answer on instinct, your eyes already betraying you as they drift back across the room.

That’s when your gazes meet fully.

It’s like the rest of the gym fades out — the music dulling to a low hum, the lights blurring at the edges. You note that there’s no anger in his expression. Not even accusation. It was just that same familiar mix of softness and restraint that had once made it so easy to love him.

The tension settles between you, heavy and suffocating, stretching across the dance floor like a fragile thread neither of you dares to pull too hard.

You’re both smiling. Both pretending this is fine.

Then, the song changes without ceremony.

One moment the speakers are filled with something upbeat and forgettable, and the next, the opening notes of a slow love song spill into the gym — soft, deliberate, almost intrusive in how it demands attention. Conversations falter. Laughter dips. Couples drift closer together as if guided by instinct rather than choice.

You feel it before you hear it fully.

Across the room, Juhoon straightens almost imperceptibly, his attention sharpening as the melody settles in. His friends are still talking — Martin animatedly recounting something with wide gestures, James laughing too loud at the punchline, Seonghyeon nodding along with an absent smile, Keonho leaning in to add a comment — but Juhoon isn’t with them anymore. He’s somewhere between the past and the present, eyes fixed on you like the song has unearthed something he’s been trying to bury.

You watch the conflict play out on his face.

He shifts his weight, fingers curling and uncurling at his sides. There’s a question there, unspoken but loud — Should I? You can almost hear it. The hesitation. The restraint. The care. And in his fucking voice, at that. He looks, now, like someone standing at the edge of something familiar and dangerous, torn between reaching for it and stepping back out of respect for the distance you asked for when you broke each other’s hearts.

Martin notices first. His voice trails off mid-sentence as he follows Juhoon’s line of sight, brows knitting together in understanding. James glances between the two of you, his grin fading into something more subdued. Seonghyeon says something low you don’t catch, a hand briefly clapping Juhoon on the shoulder, while Keonho exhales slowly, like he already knows how this is going to end.

Juhoon takes a breath.

It looks like he’s finally decided.

His foot shifts forward, subtle but intentional, the smallest surrender to impulse — and for a split second, you think he’s going to close the distance himself, ask you the way he always used to, voice gentle, hopeful, careful not to scare you away.

You don’t let him.

Before he can take another step, before doubt can reclaim him, you turn away from your friends and start walking. The floor feels unsteady beneath you, your heart pounding so loud you’re sure someone else can hear it. Each step feels heavier than the last, like you’re wading through something thick and invisible.

When you stop in front of him, you don’t trust yourself to speak. So you do the only thing that feels honest — You hold out your hand.

For a moment, Juhoon just stares at it, then at you. His expression breaks, caught somewhere between amusement and pain, like he’s smiling at a memory he knows he can’t keep. His eyes soften, glassy at the edges, and he lets out a breath that sounds like a quiet laugh and a sigh all at once.

Of course it’s you, that look seems to say. Of course it always would be.

Behind him, his friends fall into a respectful silence. Martin turns away first, pretending to fix his tie. James suddenly finds the ceiling very interesting. Seonghyeon murmurs something under his breath, nudging Keonho aside as they give the two of you space without making a show of it.

“Hi,” he says finally, voice softer than you remember.

“Hi.”

He hesitates, just a beat, before taking your hand.

His grip is warm, familiar, and just as devastating. And as the music swells around you, he offers you a small, crooked smile — the kind he used to reserve just for you — before guiding you toward the center of the dance floor, where everything you’ve left unfinished waits patiently between each slow step.

You move together awkwardly at first, bodies remembering a closeness your minds haven’t caught up to yet. There’s hesitation in every step — your hand hovering, his touch unsure, the space between you carefully measured as though this bubble of tense normalcy you had around one another might pop if you step over the line. For years, this had been instinct, something you two just knew. Now… well, now it just feels like learning each other all over again.

Eventually, he settles one hand at your waist.

It’s tentative, almost cautious, like he’s waiting for you to pull away, like he’s bracing himself for the moment you decide this was a mistake. You don’t. Instead, you let yourself relax into the contact, and when his shoulders loosen in response, something in your chest tightens painfully.

“So,” he says after a moment, voice low, careful. “Didn’t think you were coming.”

You huff a quiet laugh, the sound more brittle than you intend. “Yeah. Me neither.”

There’s a pause. Not an awkward one. Just heavy. Full of words unspoken.

“How’ve you been?” he asks, like he’s choosing each word deliberately.

You shrug. “Alive. Busy. Trying to figure things out, I guess.”

He nods, slow and understanding, like he knows exactly what that means without you having to say more. “Same.”

The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable — it never was with him. It’s the kind of silence you used to share late at night, lying side by side, talking about nothing until it turned into everything. Now, it feels like the space between sentences is doing more talking than you ever could.

“You look nice,” he says suddenly, then immediately winces. “I mean—yeah. You do.”

You smile despite yourself, warmth blooming where you don’t want it to. “Thanks. You clean up okay too.”

“High praise,” he grins.

There it is.

That familiar spark. The ease you swore you wouldn’t miss, the rhythm of conversation that once made five years feel like nothing at all. It sneaks up on you, unwelcome and undeniable. You don’t want to miss him, you don’t want to miss what you had… but you also didn’t want to lie and say a part of you isn’t a bit hopeful.

The song blends seamlessly into another slow one, and without thinking, you shift closer. Your steps fall into sync effortlessly, like muscle memory kicking in. Bodies remembering what your minds are trying so hard to forget.

You notice things you shouldn’t still remember.

The way his thumb traces small, absent-minded circles against your side when he’s nervous. The way he exhales through his nose before he laughs. The faint crease between his brows that only shows up when he’s holding something back. These are details no one else would ever clock — things learned over years of shared mornings, late-night talks, quiet car rides where words weren’t necessary.

It hits you then, sharp and sudden: no one will ever know him the way you do.

“Do you remember—” he starts, then stops himself. “Never mind.”

You raise an eyebrow, the gesture instinctive. “Now you have to say it.”

He sighs, dramatic in that way that used to make you roll your eyes fondly. “Do you remember when you stepped on my foot at sophomore homecoming and blamed me for it?”

Of course you remembered. Sophomore homecoming had been nothing like this.

Back then, you’d gone together without overthinking it, without the weight of history pressing down on every step. You remember standing in front of your mirror that night, texting him nervously about your shoes, about whether your dress looked stupid, about how you suddenly felt like you didn’t know how to exist in your own body. He’d replied almost immediately, telling you — firmly — that you looked beautiful and that he’d be there in ten minutes whether you were ready or not.

He was late, of course. He always was. You’d pretended to be annoyed when he showed up at your door, hair still damp, tie crooked, smile apologetic and hopeful all at once. You’d fixed his tie for him without thinking, fingers brushing his collarbone, and he’d gone still like the moment mattered more than he was letting on.

The gym that night had been smaller, louder, messier. The lights harsher. The music worse. You’d stepped on his foot during the first slow song — hard enough that he’d hissed in pain and then laughed, shaking his head as you blamed him immediately. He’d told you to follow his lead. You’d told him he couldn’t lead a slow dance even if he tried. Somehow, you’d still ended up laughing breathlessly, foreheads nearly touching as you swayed off-beat, completely unconcerned with how ridiculous you looked.

Later, you’d slipped outside together, sitting on the cold steps behind the gym because it was too loud inside and neither of you wanted to dance anymore. You shared his jacket when the night air turned sharp, and he’d complained about the cold while still draping it over your shoulders anyway. You talked about nothing — classes you hated, teachers you loved, how weird it felt to already be halfway through high school — and everything at the same time.

You remember thinking then, with startling clarity, that this was it. This was what you wanted to keep. That whatever came next — college, change, distance — you would find your way back to moments like this. Easy, certain, unquestioned moments. With him, always with him.

A year wasn’t supposed to change that much.

But standing here now, older by only a handful of months and carrying far more than you did then, the memory feels fragile. Like something you could hold in your hands if you were careful enough — but something you could never return to.

Sophomore homecoming had been full of beginnings. This dance feels almost like an ending.

“That’s because it was your fault,” you reply finally. “You were moving weird.”

“Hey, I moved normally. You just don’t know how to follow.”

“Oh, please,” you scoff. “You can dance hip-hop but you’ve always had two left feet when it comes to slow dances.”

He laughs — real and unguarded — and the sound lands harder than you expect. God, you’re realizing now that aside from his friends, that specific laugh was the one he only ever let out around you, too. For a fleeting moment, it feels like nothing has changed. Like this is just another dance, another night you’ll talk about later.

“Wow,” he says, shaking his head softly. “I forgot how easy it was to talk to you.”

Your chest tightens, the truth of it settling in. “Yeah,” you murmur. “Me too.”

The laughter fades slowly, nostalgia creeping in where joy once lived. He looks at you then — not just at your face, but like he’s memorizing it, committing this version of you to memory. You realize you’re doing the same, cataloguing the curve of his smile, the softness in his eyes, the way he’s holding you like this might be the last time.

Because it probably is.

He shifts slightly, clearing his throat like he’s about to say something and then second-guessing it. “I’m actually… kind of surprised you’re here.”

You glance up at him. “You already mentioned that.”

“Yeah, I know,” he huffs. “I just—” He hesitates, then says it anyway. “You hate prom.”

“I don’t hate prom,” you correct automatically.

He arches an eyebrow. “You literally wrote a whole rant about it freshman year English. Something about ‘forced romance’ and ‘becoming a status symbol of exclusivity.’”

“That was one time,” you protest. “And hey, I stand by it!”

A corner of his mouth lifts. “You also said prom is just a cess-pool of a beauty contest that isolates the less wealthy and less popular students so you’d rather chew a wet sock than go to one.”

You scoff, heat creeping into your cheeks. “Wow. You remember that?”

“I remember everything you complain about,” he says lightly. Then, quieter, like he realizes what he’s admitting, “Especially when it’s something you feel strongly about.”

There’s a beat, then, letting the words settle deep into your bones before it’s broken. Could he be any more perfect?

“Guess I just figured,” he adds, eyes flicking away for a second, “if you came… it must’ve meant something.”

You swallow. “Maybe I just didn’t want to miss it.”

“Or maybe,” he says, almost joking, “you wanted to prove you could survive one night without hating it.”

You snort. “I still hate it.”

That gets a soft laugh out of him. It wasn’t loud or careless, just the kind that lingers a little too long.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “That sounds more like you.”

Another song begins — slower, softer, gentler than the last. You don’t talk about it. You don’t ask. You simply step closer and rest your head against his chest like it’s something you’re still allowed to do.

He inhales sharply at first, the sound quiet but unmistakable. It takes him a second to settle, like his body is reacting before his mind can catch up. Then his arm comes around you, firm enough to hold, careful enough not to trap. It wasn’t possessive, he couldn’t possibly, now that he didn’t really have the right to be. It also wasn’t pleading. It was just… there. Like he’s choosing to be present instead of afraid of how little time this moment has left.

You sway together without effort. Your eyes stay closed, not because you’re pretending, but because opening them feels like it would make this end too quickly. His heartbeat is steady under your ear. Familiar. The same one you used to fall asleep to during late nights when you stayed over, when neither of you wanted to be the first to say it was time to go home.

It used to feel like enough. Being like this. It felt perfect not needing anything else but to be quiet, be close, be certain.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped.

It wasn’t all at once. It didn’t stop dramatically. It stopped just slowly enough that you didn’t realize it was happening until you were already missing something you couldn’t name. You remember when the silence started to feel heavier rather than comforting. When you began filling it with noise, with plans, with movement — anything that made you feel like you were still growing instead of standing still.

You remember how your laughter started to feel too loud in the spaces he liked to keep calm. How your excitement sometimes made him hesitate, like he was trying to figure out how to keep up without losing himself. And how he looked at you — not with resentment, never that — but with worry, threaded through love so deeply you didn’t want to acknowledge it.

He had known before you did.

That the thrill you were chasing wasn’t something he could give you without becoming someone he wasn’t. That the calm he offered — so excruciatingly genuine, so painfully steady — was starting to feel like something that would cage you instead of ground you.

And still, he stayed. Long enough to make sure you weren’t walking away alone.

“I really did want you to be happy,” he murmurs, the words quiet, careful, like he’s afraid they’ll fall apart if he says them too firmly.

Your chest tightens at how familiar that sounds. At how many times he’s said something like it before — during arguments, during long talks that ended in compromise, during nights when you both pretended love could fix the difference in what you needed.

“I know,” you say, your voice thick but steady. “That was never the problem.”

And it wasn’t. Loving each other had never been the hard part. The hard part was realizing that loving each other didn’t stop you from wanting different things. That care and compatibility weren’t the same. That sometimes wanting someone to be happy meant accepting that you weren’t the person who could do that anymore.

You don’t cry yet. You refuse to. But your throat burns and your chest aches, and you press yourself just a little closer, like you can store this feeling somewhere inside you for later. Like remembering exactly how this feels might make letting go hurt less.

It doesn’t.

The song continues, unbothered. The room keeps moving around you. And even wrapped in his arms, even with his heartbeat steady and real beneath your ear, you know this moment is already slipping away.

And there is nothing you can do to stop it.

He shifts slightly beneath you, like something’s been weighing on him for a while and he’s finally running out of ways to keep it down. You feel it before he says anything — the way his chest rises a little too fast, the way his hand tightens once at your back and then loosens again.

“Can I ask you something?” he says quietly.

You nod against him. “Yeah.”

His voice is careful, almost hesitant. “Do you ever think about… what would’ve happened if we’d just tried harder?”

Your breath catches, just for a second.

“I mean,” he continues, words coming slower now, like he’s choosing them as he goes, “five years is a long time. That’s not nothing. Sometimes it feels stupid to let that go. Like all of it—” he swallows, “—like it was a waste.”

You pull back just enough to look at him, your hands now resting around his neck, where they’ve always known how to go. His eyes aren’t searching yours for reassurance. They’re tired. Honest.

“It wasn’t a waste,” you say immediately. “I don’t think that. I never have.”

“Then why does it feel like we gave up?” he asks, and there’s no accusation in it. Just hurt.

You exhale slowly, steadying yourself. “Because we didn’t give up,” you say. “We stopped pretending.”

His jaw tightens at that, but he listens. He always does.

“We didn’t break up because we didn’t care,” you continue. “We broke up because we were changing. And we were trying so hard not to let it show that we were starting to hold each other back.”

He looks down for a moment, like he already knows where this is going but needs to hear it anyway.

“If we stayed,” you add, quieter now, “we wouldn’t have grown. Not really. We would’ve just kept choosing what was familiar over what we actually needed.”

“And that would’ve made you unhappy,” he says, almost to himself.

“Yes,” you admit. Then, after a beat, “And it would’ve made you feel like you weren’t enough. And that would’ve hurt both of us.”

He nods slowly, like each word lands exactly where it’s supposed to, even if it hurts to feel it settle. 

“I thought,” he says, voice rough, “that if I just stayed calm enough, steady enough, you’d stop wanting more.”

You shake your head. “You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“And you shouldn’t have had to feel guilty for wanting something different,” he replies.

There’s a long pause after that. The music fills it, soft and patient, like it’s giving you time.

“So there’s really no… chance?” he asks finally, not hopeful, not desperate. Just asking.

You don’t answer right away. You don’t need to rush something this final.

“I think,” you say carefully, “that if we tried to force it now, we’d just end up resenting each other for changing. And I’d rather remember us like this than ruin what we had trying to be something we’re not anymore.”

He closes his eyes for a brief moment. When he opens them, they’re wet — but steady.

“I wanted you to be happy,” he says again, softer than before.

“I know,” you tell him. “And I want that for you too.”

That’s when the song begins to slow, drawing toward its end.

And you both know what comes next.

When the song finally ends, neither of you moves right away.

The music fades into something distant and indistinct, replaced by the low murmur of voices around you and the sound of your own breathing. For a moment, it feels like the world is waiting — for one of you to say something reckless, something hopeful, something that would undo all the quiet understanding you’ve just reached.

You’re the one who pulls back first.

Not because you want to. Not because it’s easy. But because if you don’t, you’re afraid you won’t be able to at all.

You rise onto your toes and press a soft kiss to his cheek. It’s brief, restrained, careful in the way only goodbye kisses ever are. You linger just long enough for the truth of it to sink in, for the warmth of his skin to feel real and final. A single tear slips free before you can stop it, tracing a slow path down your face.

When you pull away, you see one doing the same on his. But, compared to what you would have thought, he was smiling.

His smile — oh, that pretty, pretty smile — isn’t forced. It isn’t brittle. It’s gentle and sad and full of something that hurts worse than anger ever could. The kind of smile that comes from loving someone enough to let them go, even when every part of you wants to hold on. The kind of smile that tells you he’s already made peace with this, even if it still hurts to breathe around it.

You smile back, even though it feels like it might break you in half.

“Take care, Juhoon,” you whisper, the words soft and sincere and impossibly heavy for something so simple.

“You too,” he says. His voice is steady, even if his eyes aren’t.

You let go of his hand.

The space between you is immediate and undeniable, like something vital has been removed and there’s no pretending otherwise. For a brief moment, your fingers curl instinctively, half-expecting to find his again, but there’s nothing there. You turn away before either of you can say something you’ll regret, before the ache in your chest convinces you to undo what you’ve just done.

Each step you take feels deliberate. Earned. Painful in the way only the right decisions ever are. Your heart aches, but it doesn’t collapse in on itself. It holds steady, and you realize that’s how you know this choice is real. Somewhere behind you, he’s still standing there — still kind, still careful, still loving you in the only way he knows how now. And the thought settles heavy and clear in your mind: loving him means not asking him to stay where he no longer belongs.

You don’t want to be the reason he learns to settle. You don’t want to be the person he keeps choosing out of habit, out of shared history, out of fear that letting go would make all those years feel wasted. You want him to grow into something bigger than the boy who learned how to love you. You want him to laugh without holding back, to be with someone who fits the quiet parts of him without asking him to bend.

And the truth hurts more than anything else you’ve admitted tonight: if he stayed with you, he would be smaller. If you stayed with him, you would be restless. Neither of you deserves a love that asks you to be less than you are.

So you walk away knowing this isn’t failure. It’s restraint. It’s care. It’s love that refuses to turn selfish. And this time, you don’t look back — not because it doesn’t hurt, but because you finally understand why it has to.