#sungho angst

FOUR YEARS EARLIER

The trophy case spans the entire wall of Lincoln Park High School's main corridor, and you notice it immediately because grief has taught you to seek out your own torture with the dedication of a penitent searching for splinters of the cross. Gold plaques catch the fluorescent lighting, each one engraved with achievements that should have been yours in another life, in the reality where your shoulder didn't explode at thirteen and leave you hollow. You stand there on the first day of high school, uniform still smelling like plastic packaging and new beginnings that feel like lies, and see his name repeated like a mantra, like a curse.

Park Sungho - Men's Singles Champion

Park Sungho - Regional Tournament Gold Medal

Park Sungho - Undefeated Season Record

On and on and on, an endless litany of everything you'll never be. Every trophy from the previous year belongs to him, this boy you've never met but already hate with an intensity that frightens you when you examine it in the dark hours before dawn. Your reflection in the glass shows a girl with hollow eyes and a chip on her shoulder the size of a tennis court, the size of all your dead dreams crystallized and mounted behind glass where you can't touch them, can't reclaim them, can only stare and remember and bleed internally.

"Impressive, right?"

The voice materializes beside you. A girl with a bright smile and a field hockey stick slung over her shoulder, oblivious to the violence of your silence. She follows your gaze to the trophy case with the easy admiration of someone who has never lost anything that mattered. "Park Sungho's a legend here. Apparently, scouts were already watching him in middle school. Can you imagine? He's probably going pro straight out of high school. My sister says he's the best player the school's ever produced."

Your throat closes. You manage a noncommittal hum and walk away before she can see your expression crumble into its component parts—rage, grief and envy so sharp it could draw blood. The old injury in your shoulder throbs. It always does when you're stressed, when you remember, when you see people achieving what you can't, a constant reminder of everything you lost at thirteen. You roll your shoulder absently, trying to ease the ache that no amount of physical therapy has ever truly fixed, that several different doctors have told you will never truly fix, that you'll carry until you die.

By lunchtime, you've heard his name fifteen times. By the end of the day, you've seen his face on four different posters congratulating him on last year's victories, his smile bright and uncomplicated in a manner yours hasn't been since before the injury. When you finally see him in person, surrounded by teammates in the cafeteria, laughing at someone's joke with an easy confidence that makes your chest constrict until you can't breathe, you understand this is going to be your life for the next four years.

Watching Park Sungho be everything you were supposed to be. Watching him breathe air that should have been yours.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

You avoid him religiously, with the fervor of someone avoiding the scene of their own death. It's not difficult at first, he's a year ahead, your schedules don't overlap except in the spaces between classes where you've learned to make yourself invisible, a ghost haunting the periphery of a life you should have lived. But Lincoln Park's campus is only so large, and he's everywhere. Walking to class, you pass posters advertising the tennis team's next match, his name at the top in bold letters. In the library, people whisper about his latest victory, their voices carrying across the silence, each word a small cut. Even your PE teacher mentions him once, talking about his dedication and athletic excellence while you sit on the sidelines, injury excuse note clutched in your fist until the paper goes damp with sweat and the ink starts to blur.

The worst part, the part that makes you want to claw at your own skin until you bleed : he's nice. He's genuinely and infuriatingly nice. He holds doors open for strangers who will never know his name. He helps underclassmen with their locker combinations, patient when they forget the numbers, never condescending. He volunteers to clean up after school events, stays late picking up trash when everyone else has gone home. You watch him from across rooms and hallways, this portrait of perfection rendered in flesh and bone, and the hatred festers like an infected wound, spreading poison through your veins until you can taste it.

It's not his fault. Logic tells you this during the long nights when sleep won't come and you lie in bed counting all the futures you'll never have. He didn't cause your injury, didn't steal your future directly from your hands. But logic has no place in grief this profound, in loss this totalizing, and every time you see him—laughing with his friends, effortlessly perfect, unbroken and whole—you're reminded of the girl you used to be. Confident, talented, destined for greatness. That girl died on a practice court at thirteen when she landed wrong after a serve, felt her shoulder pop, heard her coach scream her name, and spent the next year learning that some damage carves itself into bone and stays there, a permanent tenant in the house of your body.

Two months into your first year, he approaches you directly, and you feel your entire body go rigid with panic.

You're at your locker, shoving textbooks into your bag with more force than necessary, each movement sharp with barely contained rage at nothing and everything. His voice arrives from behind, friendly and uncertain. "Hey, you're in my calculus class, right?"

You freeze and turn slowly around, dread pooling in your stomach like cold water. Up close, Park Sungho stands taller than he looks from a distance, with kind eyes that haven't yet learned cruelty and an uncertain smile that makes you want to scream. He holds a textbook against his chest, and there's a small bandaid on his thumb—probably from tennis practice, from the sport that should have been yours, from blisters earned doing what you can't.

"No," you lie, and your voice emerges flat, affectless.

"Oh." He blinks innocently, confused that it makes your chest ache with misplaced guilt. "I could've sworn... you sit by the window, third row? You always take notes in blue ink."

He's noticed you. He's been paying attention, cataloging details about you while you've been nursing your hatred from across the room. The realization makes your skin crawl.

"You're mistaken."

"I'm pretty sure—"

"You're wrong." Your voice emerges harsh, sharp enough that he actually flinches, and you watch his expression shift from friendly to hurt. "I don't know you. Leave me alone."

You slam your locker shut, the metallic clang echoes down the hallway, and walk away, heart pounding violently against your ribs, each beat painful. Behind you, you hear his friend laugh nervously and say, "Well, that was brutal, man. What did you even do?" You don't hear Sungho's response, but you imagine it's confused, hurt, bewildered by your hostility. 

Good. 

Let him feel a fraction of the pain you carry every single day, the weight of it crushing your spine, making it hard to stand upright.

That night, you lie in bed staring at your ceiling where you used to have posters of your tennis idols, now bare and blank, and hate yourself for being cruel to someone who was only trying to be friendly. The guilt sits heavy on your chest, making it hard to breathe. However, you remember the trophy case, remember his name engraved on every award you once dreamed of winning, remember that he gets to play and you don't, and the guilt evaporates like water on summer concrete, leaving only the bitter residue of your resentment. He gets everything—the sport, the glory, the unbroken body, the future bright and certain. He doesn't get your kindness too. He doesn't get to collect you like another trophy.

SOPHOMORE YEAR - THE FIRST SET

The tennis courts are empty at 11pm on a Friday, which is exactly why you're here, why you've been coming here in the dead hours when no one else is around to witness your grief.

You've avoided this place for over a year, taking long detours between classes to keep from even glimpsing the green courts through the fence, the sight of them enough to make your chest constrict with phantom loss. But tonight, after a particularly brutal day, after watching Sungho accept another trophy at a school assembly, everyone applauding until your ears rang, the principal shaking his hand with paternal pride, your PE teacher beaming as if he'd created him himself, you found yourself walking here without conscious decision. Muscle memory leading you back to the scene of your death, the way trauma survivors return to the sites of their destruction, seeking closure that never comes.

Now you stand at the fence, fingers hooked through the chain-link until the metal bites into your skin, staring at the painted lines of the court that used to be your second home. Your old tennis ball sits heavy in your jacket pocket, worn smooth from years of anxious fidgeting, the felt matted and discoloured, a talisman of your dead dreams that you carry everywhere because letting it go would mean accepting that it's over, and you're not ready for that. You'll never be ready.

The court looks the same as it did that last day, before everything shattered. Same net bisecting the space, same service boxes with their clean white lines, same baseline where you used to practice your serves for hours until your shoulder ached in a good and productive way. The ache meaning that you were improving, getting stronger, becoming the player you were meant to be. Not like now, when your shoulder aches from simply existing, from the crime of waking up and having a body that betrayed you at such a young age and has been betraying you every day since.

"I thought you hated tennis."

You spin around, heart leaping into your throat, pulse suddenly frantic. Sungho stands a few feet away, tennis bag slung over his shoulder and racket in hand, still in practice clothes, slightly sweaty, regarding you with an expression you can't quite read, curious, concerned, cautious.

"I do," you say automatically, the lie smooth and practiced.

"Then why are you here?" He takes a step closer, and you resist the urge to back away, to run, to maintain the distance you've worked so hard to build. "It's eleven at night. The courts are locked. You're just... standing here."

"None of your business."

He takes another step closer, and you can see his face more clearly now in the dim glow of the parking lot lights bleeding through the fence. His eyes search your face like you're a complicated equation, one where all the variables keep changing and the solution remains frustratingly out of reach. "You've been avoiding me for over a year. You take different hallways when you see me coming. You sit in different sections of the library. You left a study group once when I showed up." He pauses, and there's hurt in his voice now, raw and unguarded. "Did I do something to you? Because if I did, I'm sorry, but I don't know what it was. I don't understand what I did wrong."

"You didn't do anything." The words taste bitter, like medicine you're forced to swallow, acrid on your tongue.

"Then why—"

"Because I hate that I can't play tennis!" The confession rips out of you before you can stop it, loud and raw in the quiet night, echoing across the empty courts. Your voice cracks, splinters. "I hate that you can and I can't. I hate that you're good at it. I hate watching you win. I hate your name on every trophy, in every conversation. I hate that everyone talks about you like you're some kind of god, like you invented the sport. I hate—"

Your voice breaks completely. Tears stream down your face now, hot and unstoppable, years of grief and rage spilling out like a wound finally opened after being left to fester. All the pain you've been carrying, compressing into a dense ball of misery in your chest, erupts with volcanic force, and Sungho stares at you with wide, shocked eyes that reflect the distant lights.

"I had a career-ending injury when I was thirteen," you continue, and now that you've started, the words won't stop coming, a hemorrhage of truth. "Middle school regional championships. I was the favourite to win. Everyone said so. My coach, the other players, even my opponents' parents. My serve was perfect that day, my footwork was flawless, and I was up in the first set. And then I landed wrong after a baseline return, and my shoulder just—it tore. Complete rotator cuff tear, plus nerve damage, plus complications they didn't find until months later. They did surgery, told my parents I'd recover, that I'd be back on the court within a year. But I never did. There's permanent damage. Chronic pain. Nerve impingement that flares up randomly. I can't play anymore. I can't serve, can't do overhead hits, I can barely lift my arm above my head on bad days. Some mornings I wake up and my shoulder is screaming and I haven't even moved yet."

You're gasping now, barely breathing between sobs that tear through your chest. "I was supposed to be you. Everyone said I'd go pro, that I had a real shot at being one of the best, that colleges were already watching me at thirteen. My coach called me a prodigy. My parents had started planning my future. Training schedules, tournament circuits, sponsorship deals. And then in one second, one wrong movement, it was all gone. Everything I worked for since I was six years old, everything I was, everything I thought I'd become—gone. Just... erased."

Sungho hasn't moved. His face has gone pale in the moonlight, his grip on his tennis bag slack. He looks stricken, gutted.

"So no, you didn't do anything wrong," you say, voice dropping to a whisper that carries more weight than a scream. "But you have everything I wanted. Everything I was supposed to have. You're living the life that was meant to be mine. And I know it's not your fault. I know that logically, rationally, but I can't look at you without feeling like I'm dying inside. It's like I'm watching someone wear my skin, live in my body, breathe my air. It's like I'm a ghost watching someone live my life."

Silence falls between you, broken only by your uneven breathing and the distant sound of traffic. The tennis ball in your pocket feels like a lead weight, an anchor dragging you down. You pull it out with shaking hands and stare at it. This artifact from another lifetime, physical evidence that you once existed as someone else.

"I'm sorry," Sungho finally says, and his voice sounds thick with emotion, wet. "I didn't know. I—God, I'm so sorry. That's—I can't even imagine—"

"Don't be." You wipe your face roughly with the back of your hand, but the tears keep coming. "Like I said, it's not your fault. You didn't injure me. You didn't steal my future. You're just... living yours. And I hate you for it even though I know I shouldn't. Even though it's irrational and unfair and you don't deserve my hatred. But it's there anyway, this poison I can't purge."

He sets his tennis bag down carefully, and moves closer until he stands right beside you at the fence, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from his body in the cool night air. "That's—I genuinely can't imagine losing tennis. If I couldn't play anymore, if someone told me tomorrow that I'd never hold a racket again, I don't know what I'd do. I don't know who I'd be."

"You'd survive," you say flatly, the truth stark and unadorned. "Because you'd have to. There's no other option. You either survive or you don't, and somehow your body keeps going even when you wish it wouldn't."

He looks at you, and you see understanding dawning in his eyes—not pity, thank god not pity, but genuine comprehension of the magnitude of your loss. Recognition that you've survived a death of sorts, that you're walking around with a corpse inside you. "Is that why you were so angry all those times I tried to talk to you, all those times you looked at me like you wanted me to disappear?"

"I wasn't angry." The distinction matters, needs to be understood. "I was grieving. I am grieving. Grief that looks like anger because anger is easier to hold than sorrow. Anger has teeth. Sorrow just hollows you out."

"I thought you just hated me. That I'd done something to offend you without realizing it."

"I did hate you. I do hate you." You pause, examining the truth, finding it more complicated than it was a year ago. "I don't know. It's all tangled up—the hate and the grief and the envy. I can't separate them anymore."

He's quiet for a long moment, both of you staring at the empty court bathed in moonlight, at the space where dreams go to die. "What position did you play?" 

You turn to stare at him, surprised by the question, by the genuine curiosity in his voice. "Why does it matter?"

"Because I want to know," he says simply, meeting your eyes. "Tell me about your tennis. Not the injury, the end, the surgery or the pain. Tell me about when you loved it. Tell me about who you were before."

You're hesitant at first, but out of instinct, you tell him about your first racket—bright pink, too big for your six year old hands, a birthday present you'd begged for after watching a Grand Slam on television. You tell him about learning to hit forehands in your backyard while your father fed you balls until sunset turned the sky orange, your mother calling you inside for dinner while you begged for just five more minutes, just one more shot. You tell him about your middle school coach who saw potential in you when you were just a clumsy eleven year old with decent hand-eye coordination and an obsessive need to improve. You tell him about the feeling of a perfect serve, that crystalline moment when the ball leaves your racket at exactly the right angle with exactly the right spin, when you know before it even crosses the net that it's going to be an ace, untouchable, yours.

You tell him about the competition nerves that made you throw up before matches, about the championship games where your hands shook so badly you could barely hold your racket, about the specific joy of winning a point off a shot you've practiced a thousand times, muscle memory transforming into art. You tell him about rivalries with girls whose names you've forgotten but whose playing styles you remember in vivid detail, about learning to read your opponents' body language, about the chess match that tennis becomes at higher levels.

He listens to every word, asks questions that show he understands the nuances, nods in recognition of feelings he's experienced himself. And for the first time in two years, talking about tennis doesn't feel like pressing on a bruise, doesn't feel like self-harm disguised as nostalgia. It feels like remembering someone you loved who died, honoring their memory instead of trying to forget they existed, speaking their name aloud instead of choking on the silence.

By the time you finish, it's past midnight. Sungho sits on the ground now, back against the fence, and you've somehow ended up beside him, close enough that your shoulders almost touch. Your face is probably a mess from crying, eyes swollen, nose red, cheeks splotchy, but he doesn't mention it, he doesn't look at you with pity or discomfort, just sits with you in your grief, bearing witness to it.

"You would've been incredible," he says quietly into the darkness.

"I was incredible." It's not arrogance, just a fact, a truth that deserves to be spoken. "For a thirteen years old, I was one of the best in the region. People knew my name. Coaches from prestigious academies had started calling my parents. I had a future."

"I wish I could've seen you play. I wish I could've competed against you."

"Yeah." You pull your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around them, making yourself small. "Me too. I think about it sometimes. What would've happened if we'd met on opposite sides of a net instead of in a high school hallway. If you'd known me as a player instead of as... whatever I am now."

He doesn't try to offer comfort or false hope. He doesn't say it'll get better or that you'll find other passions or that everything happens for a reason, all the empty platitudes people have been feeding you for years that do nothing except make you want to scream. He just sits with you in your grief, letting it exist without trying to fix it, and somehow that's exactly what you need. To have your loss acknowledged without being minimized. To have someone say "that's terrible" instead of "but you're young, you have time to find something else."

When you finally stand to leave, joints stiff from sitting on cold concrete, he stands too. "Can I walk you home?"

You should say no. You should rebuild the walls you've just torn down, go back to hating him from a distance where it's safe, where he can't hurt you more than he already has by existing. But you're exhausted from crying, wrung out from confession, emptied of the rage that's been keeping you upright, and the thought of walking alone through dark streets while your shoulder throbs sounds unbearable.

"Okay."

The walk unfolds in comfortable quiet, the kind of silence that doesn't demand to be filled. When you reach your street, he stops at the corner, maintaining the boundary you haven't explicitly set but he seems to understand instinctively.

"Thanks for telling me," he says, hands shoved in his pockets, looking younger than usual. 

"Don't thank me. I basically unloaded two years of trauma on you without warning. I ambushed you with my grief."

"Still. I'm glad I know now. I'm glad I understand." He shifts his weight, nervous energy radiating off him. "I really am sorry that you lost it. That you have to watch other people play. That every match must be a reminder of what you can't have. That must be—I can't even imagine how you get through each day."

You nod, throat tight again with unshed tears that seem endless tonight, an inexhaustible supply. "Goodnight, Sungho."

"Goodnight."

You're halfway to your door when he calls out, voice carrying through the quiet suburban street. "Hey!"

You turn, finding him still standing under the streetlight, backlit and haloed.

"Your footwork." He's grinning slightly, nervous energy transmuting into tentative excitement. "You said your footwork was flawless. Mine isn't. Coach keeps telling me I'm sloppy when I move backwards, that I'm giving up too many easy points because my positioning is off. If you ever—I mean, you don't have to, obviously, but if you wanted to tell me how to fix it, I'd listen."

Your heart does a complicated flip in your chest, arrhythmic and painful, hope and terror tangled together until you can't distinguish one from the other. "You want tennis advice from me?"

"I want tennis advice from someone who was apparently one of the best at thirteen. Someone who understands the sport that it transcends just playing it." His smile is hopeful, genuine, unguarded that it makes your chest ache with feelings you don't want to examine. "So yeah. From you. If you're willing."

Again, you should say no. You should keep your distance, protect yourself from further pain, maintain the walls that have kept you safe. But there's a small, persistent part of you that misses talking about tennis more than it hates watching others play. A part that's been dormant for two years, smothered and suppressed, that's now stirring back to life with tentative, terrified hope. A part that remembers loving this sport before it broke you.

"Your footwork is sloppy when you're moving backwards because you're not pivoting on your outside foot," you say, and your voice is steadier than you expected. "You're trying to backpedal, which throws you off-balance and makes your return weaker. You need to turn your body, pivot, then move. Watch Federer's baseline defense if you don't believe me. Study how he never moves straight back. He's always turning, always maintaining his stance."

His grin widens into pure joy, unfiltered and bright enough to hurt. "So you have been watching my matches. I knew it."

"Shut up."

"You have! You know about my footwork, which means you've been paying attention to the specific mechanics of how I play, which means—"

"I said shut up, Park Sungho."

But you're smiling, just a little, the muscles in your face unfamiliar with the expression. And when you go inside, the grief feels less suffocating than it has in years. Not gone, it will never be gone, you understand that now, but bearable. For the first time in two years, the weight of it feels bearable, like perhaps you can carry it without being crushed. Like perhaps you can learn to live with this loss instead of just surviving it.

LATE SOPHOMORE YEAR - THE SECOND SET

It starts small, a comment after practice about his grip, offered when you happen to walk past the courts, not deliberately of course, you tell yourself, though you both know it's a lie. A suggestion about his serve toss, mentioned in passing in the hallway between classes, delivered quickly before you can second-guess yourself. He seeks you out in the library one afternoon, sliding into the seat across from you with his physics homework as a pretense, and asks about strategy for an upcoming match. You end up talking for forty minutes about court positioning and shot selection, about reading an opponent's patterns, about the mental game that separates good players from great ones, and when the librarian finally kicks you both out at closing, you realize you forgot to be miserable for almost an hour.

You don't mean for it to become a pattern, don't plan for these interactions to accumulate into regularity, but they do. Once a week becomes twice, then suddenly you're showing up to practices, standing at the fence, watching him play with a critical eye you haven't used since your own playing days, your analytical mind awakening from hibernation. At first, it hurts with the white-hot intensity of touching an open flame. Every swing he takes is a reminder of swings you can no longer make, every perfect serve is a ghost of serves you used to hit, every victorious point is a death you relive. But gradually, with the patience of ice melting in spring, the hurt transforms into engagement. Your brain, dormant for so long, awakens to the puzzle of tennis strategy again, finds satisfaction in problem-solving that doesn't require your broken body to cooperate.

You start to notice things others miss : his tendency to favor his forehand even when his backhand would be more effective, wasting energy with extra footwork instead of taking the simpler shot. His rushed serves when nervous, the toss getting faster and less consistent when the pressure mounts. How his concentration slips in the third set when fatigue sets in, when his body is tired and his mind starts wandering, leaving openings his opponent can exploit. You point these out with the clinical detachment of a doctor diagnosing symptoms, and he listens, he implements your suggestions with a dedication that surprises you, that makes you feel seen in a way you haven't since before the injury. His game improves noticeably, and you feel an unfamiliar pride that has nowhere to go, no outlet except the small smile you hide when he executes a shot exactly as you suggested.

"Your coach must love me," you tell him one afternoon, watching him practice serves that finally have consistent toss height.

"Probably." He bounces the ball, prepares his stance with the ritualistic precision of a player who's done this ten thousand times. "Or he's confused about why I'm suddenly better at things he's been trying to teach me for months. I think he suspects I have a secret weapon."

"You weren't listening to him. You listen to me."

"I listen to you," he agrees, and there's weight to the words that has nothing to do with tennis.

You ignore the flutter in your chest at those words, the dangerous warmth that spreads through your ribcage like water seeping through cracks. You can't afford to acknowledge what's building between you, can't afford to name it. "Again. Your toss is still too far forward. You're leaning into it instead of letting the toss work for you."

He adjusts, serves, and this time the ball hits exactly where he intended with satisfying precision, the sound of a clean ace distinct and clear. He turns to you with a triumphant smile that makes him look younger, less burdened, and you roll your eyes to hide your own satisfaction, fighting your own smile.

This is dangerous territory, and you know it. You're getting close to him, starting to see beyond the trophy winner you resented for so long, beyond the symbol he represented. He's funny, you discover—quick-witted that it catches you off guard, makes you laugh when you least expect it and thought you'd forgotten how. He does impressions of their physics teacher that are devastatingly accurate, makes puns that are terrible but still make you snort with laughter, finds absurdity in mundane situations. He's dedicated, spending hours on the court perfecting shots even after official practice ends, after everyone else has gone home, chasing perfection with an intensity you recognize in yourself, in who you used to be. He's thoughtful, remembering details about your life that you mention in passing.

And he's becoming your friend, which terrifies you more than anything else you've survived.

"Why are you helping me?" he asks one evening when you're walking home, another pattern that's developed without either of you acknowledging it, without agreeing it's something you do now. The question emerges out of nowhere, cutting through your comfortable conversation about his upcoming match against a notoriously defensive player.

"What do you mean?"

"You hated me for a year. You hated tennis, hated watching people play, hated everything about the sport. Now you're here almost every day, coaching me, spending hours analyzing my game." He glances at you sideways, vulnerability flickering across his features in the orange glow of streetlights. "Not that I'm complaining. I'm not. But... why? What changed?"

You're quiet for a long moment, trying to articulate feelings you don't fully understand yourself, emotions too complex to fit into easy explanations. "I missed it," you finally say, each word chosen carefully. “I missed talking about tennis and about the strategy. I missed being close to the sport, even if I can't play. I missed using my brain for what it was trained to do."

"Does it hurt watching me play?"

"Yes." You don't lie to him, have never lied to him about this. "Every single time."

He flinches like you've struck him, his steps faltering. "Then why—"

"But it also feels like I'm breathing again," you interrupt, needing him to understand this, to hear the whole truth. "I spent two years trying to cut tennis out of my life completely. I thought if I could just avoid it, stop caring about it, stop letting it define me, the grief would fade. I thought that I could starve it out through absence, but it didn't. The grief stayed just as sharp and constant, but I felt empty on top of it." You flex your shoulder absently, feeling the perpetual ache that never quite fades, your constant companion. "At least this way, I'm part of it again. Even if it's not how I planned. Even if it's through you instead of through me. At least I'm not completely cut off from something I love."

He's quiet, processing this, his footsteps slowing until you're both barely moving forward. "I mean this sincerely, but you're the best coach I've ever had, and I've had some good ones—people who played professionally, who trained other pros. But none of them see the game like you do."

"I'm not your coach."

"Whatever you want to call it, then. You're the best at it. You understand tennis in a way that goes beyond mechanics or strategy. You see the art in it."

You bump his shoulder with yours gently, always mindful of your injury, always conscious of your body's limitations. "Your actual coach might disagree. He's been doing this for twenty years."

"He can fight me. I'll defend your honor."

You laugh, surprised by how natural it feels, how easy, how the sound emerges without the weight of grief crushing it. When did this happen? When did Park Sungho become someone who makes you laugh instead of someone who makes you want to scream, to claw at your own skin, to rage at the universe for its unfairness?

The shift is gradual but undeniable, tectonic plates moving beneath the surface until the landscape is unrecognizable. You start sitting with his friends at lunch, people who've accepted your presence without question, who make space for you at their table, who include you in their jokes and their plans. You wear his team jacket once when it's cold and he offers it without thinking, and you don't miss how his eyes linger on you, how his gaze traces the lines of his jacket on your frame, or how his teammate elbows him with a knowing grin that makes his ears turn red. You attend matches officially now, not hiding in the back where you can slip away unnoticed, but sitting where he can see you, and you coach him through games with subtle hand signals you've developed together. A touch to your heart, a point to your temple, a specific gesture that means adjust your positioning. A language only the two of you speak, private and intimate in its specificity.

He plays better when you're there. Everyone notices. His coach mentions it, pulling you aside once to thank you for whatever you're doing because Sungho's game has improved dramatically. His teammates joke about it, calling you his lucky charm, his secret weapon, saying they should start a petition to make you official team staff. Sungho doesn't deny it, doesn't brush it off or laugh it away. He just looks at you with an expression that makes your stomach flip, that makes you understand you're in dangerous territory, that you're both walking towards a cliff edge neither of you can see clearly.

"You're my good luck charm," he tells you after a particularly close victory, still breathing hard from the match, sweat dampening his hair and making it stick to his forehead.

"That's superstitious nonsense."

"Maybe. But I play better when you're watching."

"That's psychological, not magical. Your brain associates my presence with positive reinforcement, so you perform better. Basic behavioural psychology."

"Does it matter? Either way, you're the reason." He grins, boyish and unguarded, and your heart does that complicated flip again where it forgets how to beat properly.

These moments pile up, building into tension neither of you acknowledges directly, a structure constructed from unspoken words and avoided eye contact. His hand brushing yours when he demonstrates a grip, his fingers lingering against your palm longer than necessary, warmth seeping between your skin. How he finds you in every crowd, eyes seeking yours before anyone else's, before his coach or his parents or his teammates. You're the first person he looks for, always. How he texts you late at night, conversations that start about tennis and drift into movies that made you cry, music that reminds you of childhood summers, dreams you've abandoned, fears you've never spoken aloud because giving them voice makes them more real. 

You learn that he's terrified of disappointing his parents, who've sacrificed so much for his tennis career, his mother's part-time job to pay for coaching, his father's weekend drives to tournaments hours away. That he wonders if tennis is what he wants or just what he's good at, whether he's chosen this path or if it's chosen him. That he thinks about quitting more often than anyone knows, that some mornings he wakes up and the thought of another practice makes him want to stay in bed, to pull the covers over his head and disappear. That the pressure of being "the best" feels like drowning slowly, water rising incrementally until he can barely breathe.

"You can't quit," you tell him firmly one evening, sitting on the bleachers after everyone else has left, the court lights casting long shadows. "You're too talented. You have too much potential."

"So were you."

"I didn't quit. I was forced to stop. There's a difference." The distinction matters, needs to be understood. "Quitting is a choice. Having your body fail you isn't."

"Is there though?" He's lying on the court now, staring up at the sky turning purple and gold with sunset, his racket beside him. "Either way, you're not playing anymore. The end result is the same—you're gone from the sport."

"But I would if I could." You sit beside him, close enough to feel the residual heat from his body, hugging your knees to your chest. "In a heartbeat without hesitation. If someone could fix my shoulder, make the pain stop, give me back what I lost—I'd be on a court tomorrow. You can play. You have this incredible gift, this opportunity that most people never get, that I'd give anything to have again. Don't waste it because you're tired or scared or unsure. Don't throw away what I'd kill to have back."

"Even if I'm miserable?"

"Are you miserable?"

He turns his head to look at you, and his expression is complicated, layered with emotions you can't quite parse, exhaustion, frustration and affection all tangled together. "Not when you're here. When you're watching, when we talk about tennis, when I execute a shot you suggested, I remember why I loved this. Before the pressure, before the expectations, before everyone started watching. You make it feel like mine again."

Your breath catches in your throat, stutters and stops. This is dangerous. This is crossing a line you've been carefully avoiding, staying on the safe side of feelings that could destroy you both. "Sungho—"

"I know." He sits up quickly, too quickly, motion sharp with panic. "Sorry. Forget I said that. I shouldn't have—"

"No, I—" You don't know how to finish the sentence. You don't know how to articulate the complicated tangle of feelings in your chest, gratitude, terror and affection that's growing into something larger, something you can't control. So you just sit there in the fading light, both of you carefully not looking at each other, carefully not acknowledging what's building between you, both pretending you don't notice how everything is shifting into territory neither of you knows how to navigate.

But you can't unknow what you've just learned. You can't unhear his confession, and you're both pretending you don't notice how everything between you is changing, crystallizing into something that demands to be named, but neither of you has the courage to speak it aloud.

JUNIOR YEAR - THE THIRD SET 

The unspoken thing between you grows teeth, grows claws, becomes something living and dangerous that prowls between you both.

It's in every touch that lasts a heartbeat too long. His hand on your lower back as he guides you through a crowd after a match, warm, possessive and careful. Your fingers adjusting his grip on the racket handle and lingering there, tracing the calluses on his palm that mirror the ones you used to have, the ones that have softened in the years since you stopped playing. The brush of his shoulder against yours when you sit too close in the library, studying at the same table, your physics homework forgotten as you both pretend to focus on anything except the electricity crackling in the air between you.

He watches you when he thinks you're not looking, you catch him sometimes in your peripheral vision, his gaze intense and unguarded, studying your profile like he's trying to memorize it, to commit every detail to memory. And you watch him right back, cataloging the details of his face when his attention is elsewhere : the concentration between his eyebrows when he's thinking through a problem, the curve of his mouth when he's trying not to smile, the way his hair falls into his eyes when he's been running his hands through it in frustration.

The late-night texts that make your heart race, messages that have nothing to do with tennis and everything to do with knowing someone, knowing them down to the vulnerable parts they don't show anyone else, the soft underbelly they keep hidden from the world.

“I can't sleep.” He texts at 2am on a random Tuesday, and your phone lights up your dark room like a beacon.

“I keep thinking about regionals next month. What if I choke? What if I've peaked and this is as good as I get?”

“You'll do fine.” you respond, already awake because sleep has been elusive lately, your mind too full of thoughts you can't quiet. “You're more than ready.”

“Will you be there?”

“Where else would I be?”

There's a long pause. You watch the typing indicator appear and disappear three times, each appearance making your pulse spike, before his message finally arrives : “Sometimes I worry you'll realize you don't need to do this anymore. That watching me play just hurts and doesn't help. That you're better off cutting tennis out of your life completely, including me.”

You type “It helps”, then delete it. Type “It hurts”, then delete that too. Finally, you type : “I'll be there. I promise. You're not getting rid of me that easily.”

His response is immediate : “Okay, good. I need you there. I need you.”

You stare at those words—I need you—and your chest feels too small for your heart, like your ribcage might crack open from the pressure, like your sternum might split down the middle and expose all the vulnerable parts you've been protecting. You don't know how to respond, don't know what to say that won't reveal too much, so you just send back a simple “I know”, and hope he understands everything you can't say.

At school, people have stopped asking what you are to each other. They've created their own narratives without needing your input : you're dating, you're "complicated," you're childhood friends (false, but whatever version of your story they've invented seems to satisfy their curiosity). His teammates have accepted you as a fixture, automatic and unquestioned, saving you a seat at team dinners, including you in group chats about weekend plans, texting you directly when Sungho is being stubborn about something and they need backup to convince him. Your friends are less subtle about their observations.

“So, you and Sungho,” your best friend says, giving you a look over her sandwich. Across the cafeteria, he’s laughing with his teammates, his eyes crinkling that it makes your chest tighten.

“We’re friends,” you say quickly.

“Friends,” she echoes, raising a brow. “Friends who look at each other like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re both trying to breathe underwater and the other person’s the only air you’ve got,” she says, leaning back. “Honestly, the rest of us could vanish and you wouldn’t even notice.”

You have no response to that, because she's right. She's devastatingly, terrifyingly right. You are drowning, in feelings you never meant to develop, in the impossibility of your situation, in the knowledge that caring about Sungho means caring about his tennis, which means watching him succeed at the sport you'll never play again, which means watching him achieve everything you wanted while you stand on the sidelines forever. A ghost haunting her own unlived life, bearing witness to someone else's dreams manifesting while yours rot underground.

The physical proximity increases with the recklessness of people who know they're playing with fire but can't seem to stop. You demonstrate footwork despite your injury, showing him how to pivot properly during a particularly stubborn coaching session, and he watches your feet with intense concentration. Your shoulder aches from the movement but worse now, pain radiating down your arm in hot waves, and you try to hide your wince, biting the inside of your cheek until you taste iron, until the pain in your mouth distracts from the pain in your shoulder. Unfortunately, he notices. Of course he notices. He's been learning to read you for months, cataloging your tells.

"Stop," he says immediately, hand coming to your bad shoulder with infinite gentleness, his palm warm through your shirt. "Don't hurt yourself for me. It's not worth it."

"I'm fine."

"You're not. You're in pain. I can see it in your face and how you're holding yourself."

"I'm always in pain." The admission slips out before you can stop it, raw and honest, a truth you've always tried to keep carefully hidden. "This is just how it is now. Constant ache, worse when I'm stressed or when the weather changes or when I do too much, which is pathetic, considering 'too much' is apparently demonstrating basic footwork for thirty seconds."

His hand is still on your shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles that somehow ease the tension coiled beneath your skin, that make the pain recede slightly. "I hate that. I hate that you hurt all the time and there's nothing I can do to fix it."

"Join the club. I've hated it for four years."

"No, I mean—" He stops, frustrated with his inability to articulate what he means, words failing him. "You shouldn't have to hurt just to help me. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your body's comfort for my improvement. It's not fair to you."

"This is the only way I get to play anymore," you say quietly, echoing words from months ago that feel even more true now, that have settled into your bones as truth. "Through you. Through coaching you, watching you, helping you improve. So yeah, it hurts, but it's worth it. It's the only way I get to stay connected to tennis, to the sport I loved before it broke me. You're my access point."

His eyes search yours, and there's a charged moment where neither of you breathes, where the air between you feels electric with possibility, heavy with all the things you're not saying. His hand slides from your shoulder to your neck, fingers curling against your skin with possession that should frighten you but doesn't, and you lean into the touch without thinking, without permission from your rational brain, your body betraying you by seeking comfort you shouldn't want, shouldn't need. His gaze drops to your mouth. You could close the distance so easily, just tilt forward slightly, eliminate the inches between you and finally, finally—

"Sungho! Coach wants you!" A teammate's shout shatters the moment like glass hitting concrete, sharp and irreversible.

You step back quickly, breaking contact, cold air rushing in where his warmth was. Sungho drops his hand, looking dazed, pupils blown wide, breathing uneven. "I should—"

"Yeah. Go."

He doesn't move immediately, just stands there staring at you like he's trying to memorize your face, like he's afraid you'll disappear if he looks away. "Later?"

"Later," you confirm, voice steadier than you feel, and he finally jogs away, glancing back twice, three times, four times, until you turn away first because you can't bear to keep looking, can't bear the weight of wanting him.

These almost-moments become your new pattern, your new normal, accumulating like snow building towards an avalanche. After a victory, he lifts you in a hug that lasts too long, face buried in your neck, breathing you in like you're oxygen and he's been suffocating. Walking home, your hands brush and he catches your pinky with his, the smallest form of holding hands, so subtle no one else would notice but it burns through you like wildfire, heat spreading up your arm and into your chest. Studying together in the library, he falls asleep on your shoulder and you let him stay there for an hour, barely breathing, savoring the weight of him and the trust implicit in the gesture, the vulnerability of sleep.

But neither of you crosses the final line. Neither says the words building in your throats, pressing against your teeth every time you're together, demanding to be spoken. Because saying them would make this real, would force you both to confront the impossibility of your situation, to acknowledge what you're both desperately trying to ignore.

He's going places. Scouts from universities are already contacting him, leaving voicemails for his parents, sending glossy brochures in the mail. Professional coaches expressing interest in taking him on after high school, people who've trained Grand Slam champions, who see in him the potential for greatness. His future is bright, certain and filled with tennis courts around the world, filled with championships, trophies and everything you once wanted for yourself. And you're—

You're the girl who lost tennis. You, who can barely lift her arm above her head without pain shooting down to your fingertips like lightning. Whose future is uncertain and small in comparison, bounded by the limitations of your injury, by the reality that you'll never be more than you are right now, that your body has imposed a ceiling on your potential that you'll never break through.

What could you possibly offer him except holding him back? Except being dead weight he has to carry?

So you continue to stay silent, and so does he. The unspoken thing between you grows and grows until it takes up all the air in every room you share, until you're both suffocating on words you can't say, drowning in feelings you can't acknowledge, dying slowly from the pressure of not speaking.

SENIOR YEAR - THE FOURTH SET 

The beginning of senior year brings college scouts to every match, and the tension around Sungho ratchets up to unbearable levels, pressure so intense you can see it crushing him.

He's on every recruiter's list, courted by multiple Division I schools competing for his commitment, coaches calling his house during dinner, his email inbox flooded with recruitment messages. Professional coaches attend his matches with clipboards and serious expressions, evaluating his potential for the tour, discussing him like he's a commodity, an investment, a product to be developed and marketed. The pressure is immense, a weight you can see crushing him physically, in the tightness around his eyes that never quite fades even when he smiles, in how he obsesses over every small mistake until you want to shake him, in how he practices until his hands bleed and you have to literally force him to stop before he injures himself, before he ruins his future through overtraining.

You're there for all of it. Every match, every practice, every moment of doubt that crashes over him like a wave trying to drag him under. The signals between you have evolved into a complete language now, sophisticated and subtle enough that even his coach doesn't catch them all : a touch to your heart means breathe, center yourself, you've got this. Hand on your temple means think, don't just react, use your brain not just your body. A pointed look at the court means focus, stop looking at me and play, this is your moment.

After he wins a crucial match that has four scouts in attendance, all taking notes, all watching him with calculating eyes, he finds you in the crowd and mouths something. It looks like I love you. Or maybe I need you. Or maybe I can't do this without you. Or maybe you're just seeing what you want to see, projecting your own feelings onto his lips, constructing meaning where there is none.

You can't be certain. You don't let yourself be certain. Because if he said it, even silently, even in the heat of victory when adrenaline makes people say things they don't mean, then you have to acknowledge what's been building between you for two years. And acknowledging it means confronting the inevitable end, means looking directly at the cliff you're both walking towards.

"We need to talk about next year," his teammate corners you one afternoon while Sungho is doing an interview with a sports reporter from the local paper, answering questions about his future with practiced diplomatic non-answers.

"What about it?"

"He's going to Stanford. Full ride, basically guaranteed. Their tennis program is one of the best in the country." He says this like you don't already know, like you haven't been tracking Sungho's opportunities with the same intensity you once tracked your own tournament rankings, monitoring his future with the attention of someone watching a train approach.

"I know."

"Stanford's in California. It's on the other side of the country."

"I'm aware of basic geography, thanks." Your voice comes out sharper than intended, defensive.

"I'm just saying—" The teammate looks at you meaningfully, with an expression that's half concern and half warning, his eyes too knowing. "Long distance is hard. Especially when one person is at a top athletic program with constant travel and the other is... wherever you'll be. Whatever you'll be doing, and he's going to have opportunities—other people, other options, a whole new life."

"We're not dating," you say automatically, the lie familiar on your tongue now, smooth and practiced from repetition.

"Right… and I'm the Pope." He shakes his head, clearly not buying it, his skepticism obvious. "Look, I like you. We all do. You're good for him, you make him better. But Sungho's got a real shot at going pro. He needs to focus, stay committed, keep his head in the game. A complicated relationship situation isn't going to help. Divided attention could ruin him."

"Then it's good we're not in a relationship."

"You're in something," he insists, and there's frustration in his voice now, urgency. "And when he has to choose between tennis and you, it's going to destroy him. So maybe... figure out what you're doing before it gets to that point. Before he has to make a choice that breaks him either way."

He walks away, leaving you with a gnawing anxiety that doesn't fade for days, that settles in your stomach like stones, weighing you down. You hate that he's right. You and Sungho exist in this undefined space that can't last forever, this liminal zone between friendship and more. Eventually, you'll have to name it or end it, and neither option feels survivable. Naming it means admitting you're in love with him, which means admitting you'll lose him. Ending it means cutting him out of your life, which means losing tennis again, losing the only connection you have to the sport you loved.

Either way, you lose. You've been losing since you were thirteen, and apparently, you haven't hit bottom yet.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

The week before Nationals is brutal that it transcends physical exhaustion, that moves into psychological territory where the mind starts cannibalizing itself.

Sungho is practicing constantly, barely sleeping. You know because he texts you at 3am or 4am, messages that are just streams of consciousness about his fears and doubts. He's running himself into the ground trying to be perfect, chasing an impossible standard that retreats further with every step he takes towards it. You're there as much as possible, but the tension between you is excruciating, a taut wire ready to snap at any moment, humming with dangerous frequency. Every moment feels borrowed, stolen from the inevitable future where he's gone and you're here, separated by distance, dreams and all the things you want but can't have.

Two days before the match, he misses five serves in a row and throws his racket across the court in frustration, the clatter of metal against concrete sharp and violent. You've never seen him do that before. He's always so controlled, so composed, keeping his emotions carefully contained even in defeat.

"What's wrong with you today?" you call from the fence, trying to keep your voice steady, trying to sound like a coach instead of someone who's terrified for him.

"Nothing. I just—" He stops, looks at you with exhausted eyes, dark circles prominent beneath them like bruises, like someone's beaten him. "I can't focus. My brain won't stop spinning."

"Then take a break. Your body needs rest."

"I can't. Nationals are in two days and I'm playing like garbage. It’s like I've never held a racket before."

You climb over the fence, not gracefully, your shoulder protests the movement with a sharp spike of pain that makes you gasp, and walk onto the court, each step deliberate. "You're playing like garbage because you're exhausted, stressed and you've been practicing for eight hours a day. Your body needs rest before it breaks down completely."

"I need to practice. I need to be perfect."

"You need to stop." You take the racket from his hands despite his weak protest, setting it down on the bench with finality. "Sungho, you're more than prepared. You're beyond prepared. You've been training for this your entire life. Two more days of obsessive practice won't make you better. It'll just burn you out before the match even starts. It'll destroy you before you step on the court."

He slumps onto the bench, head in his hands, shoulders hunched in defeat, his entire body curving inwards. "I keep thinking about everything that could go wrong. Every possible way I could fail."

You sit beside him, sharing warmth in the cooling evening air, the sun setting somewhere behind the trees. "What are you afraid of? Tell me."

"I’m afraid of choking in front of the scouts, losing and disappointing everyone who's believed in me, of proving I'm not as good as everyone thinks. I’m—" His voice trembles, almost lost to the air, so quiet you have to lean in to hear. "I’m afraid of winning and having to leave. I’m afraid of achieving everything I've worked for and losing you in the process. The victory would just taste like ash because you're not there to share it."

Your throat tightens, constricts until breathing becomes difficult, until each breath is a conscious effort. "You're not going to choke. You're too good for that, too prepared."

"How do you know? How can you possibly know that?"

"Because I've watched you play for three years. I've seen you under pressure that would break other players, seen you come back from impossible deficits when everyone else had written you off, seen you win matches you should have lost through sheer determination." You bump his shoulder gently with yours. "And I saw a lot of talented players before my injury, back when I was competing in regional circuits, back when I was studying the competition. You're one of the most talented players I've ever seen. You have something most players never develop, the ability to think strategically under pressure, to adapt in real-time, to see the game several shots ahead."

He turns to look at you, and the vulnerability in his expression makes your chest ache with the need to hold him, to promise him everything will be okay even though you know it won't, even though you both know nothing about this is okay. "I don't want to leave you. The thought of being in California while you're here makes me feel sick."

"I know."

"Every time I think about Stanford, about going pro, about any of it… all I can think is that you won't be there. That I'll be achieving my dreams alone. What's the point? What's the point of any of it if I can't share it with you?"

"The point is tennis," you say firmly, grabbing his hand and squeezing hard enough that it must hurt but he doesn't pull away. "The point is becoming the best player you can be. The point is living the dream that most people never get close to achieving, that I'll never achieve. The point is honoring the gift you've been given."

"But you—"

"I'll be fine." The lie tastes bitter, acrid on your tongue, corrosive, but you say it anyway because he needs to hear it, because he needs permission to leave. "We'll figure it out. We could do video calls, whatever we need to do. We'll make it work somehow."

"You really think we can make it work?" There's desperate hope in his voice, childlike in its naked need for reassurance.

You want to say yes. You want to promise him that distance won't matter, that your feelings are strong enough to survive the separation, time zones and the inevitable growing apart that happens when two people live completely different lives in completely different worlds. But you've never lied to him about tennis, never sugarcoated the truth when it comes to the sport, and you won't start lying about this either. You won't give him false hope that will make leaving harder.

"I think we have to try," you say instead, each word carefully chosen, honest in its uncertainty. "Because the alternative—you giving up tennis, you resenting me for the rest of your life—isn't an option. That path leads to you hating me, and I couldn't survive that."

He leans his head on your shoulder, and you rest your cheek against his hair, breathing in the familiar scent of his shampoo mixed with sweat. You sit like that for a long time, watching the sun set over the empty court, the sky turning shades of orange, purple and deep blue, painting the world in temporary beauty. Both of you trying to memorize this moment before everything changes forever, before the future arrives and splits you apart.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

You're at his house, ostensibly helping him do final preparations. Except he's not preparing, he's staring at you while you organize his tournament bag, watching you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle with awareness, checking that he has enough grips, water bottles and the specific brand of energy bars he likes, the ones that don't upset his stomach during long matches.

"You're not even paying attention," you say without looking up, feeling his gaze on you.

"I'm paying attention."

"To me, not to what I'm saying about your pre-match routine or the checklist we made."

"Same thing. You are my pre-match routine."

You finally look at him, exasperated, fond and terrified all at once. "Sungho—"

"Come with me tomorrow." The words tumble out in a rush, desperate and unplanned, breaking the careful script you've both been following. "Not just to watch. Come with me to Stanford. You could apply there. We could figure it out together. Or apply anywhere in California. Just... come with me. Please."

"Stop." You set down the tennis bag, heart breaking into sharp pieces that cut you from the inside, that pierce your lungs and make breathing agony. "You know I can't do that."

"Why not? Give me one good reason."

"Because I need to figure out my own life. My own future. My own identity separate from tennis." The words come out steadier than you feel. "I can't just follow you around the country, living vicariously through your tennis career. I'd lose myself completely. I'd become nothing but an appendage to you, defined entirely by your success."

"That's not what I meant—"

"Really?" You're not angry, just tired, so incredibly tired of this circular conversation you've been having in your head for months. "Sungho, I love—" You stop, the words catching in your throat like broken glass, like shards that will cut you if you speak them. You were about to say I love you, but you can't. Saying it would make leaving impossible, would make the future unbearable. "I care about you, so much it terrifies me. But I have to build a life that isn't defined by tennis or by what I lost. And if I follow you, if I spend every day watching you play, watching you achieve everything I wanted, I'll never heal. I'll just be that girl who lost her dream, desperately clinging to someone else's, living through you like a parasite."

His face crumples, and you watch the realization crash over him like a wave, cold and clarifying. "I didn't think about it like that. I was being selfish."

"I know you didn't. You're not trying to hurt me. You're trying to keep me and hold on to what we have." You move closer, take his hands in yours, feeling them tremble slightly. "But keeping me means letting me go. You need to let me build something that's mine."

"That doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't have to make sense." You squeeze his hands, trying to transfer strength you don't feel. "If you hold too tight, you'll crush what you're trying to protect. You have to open your hands and trust I'll stay."

He pulls you into a hug, crushing you against his chest hard enough that your ribs ache, hard enough that you can feel every rapid beat of his heart. "I don't know how to do this without you. I don't know how to be on a court without looking for you in the stands."

"Yes, you do. You were winning matches before me."

"But I wasn't happy. Tennis was just pressure, expectations and trying to meet everyone else's standards. It wasn't mine."

The confession breaks you, shatters whatever defenses you've been maintaining. You pull back to look at him, and his eyes are red-rimmed, shining with unshed tears that threaten to spill over. "Sungho—"

"These past few years, coaching with you, watching you fall back in love with tennis, spending every day with you, I've never been happier. Tennis doesn't mean anything without you there. The victories are hollow. The improvement is pointless. Without you watching, without you caring, what's the point?"

"That's not true—"

"It is for me." He cups your face with both hands, holding you like you might shatter if he lets go. "You made me fall in love with tennis again. Before you, it was just a checklist of achievements, just a path I was following because everyone expected it. But you reminded me why it's beautiful. Why it's worth the work. You gave me back the joy of it."

You're crying now, tears streaming down your face in hot tracks that you can't stop. "Then take that with you tomorrow. Take that love and play the best match of your life. And when you win—because you will win, I know you will—remember that you did it, not me. You. Your talent, your hard work, your dedication."

"We did it," he insists, stubborn even now, even when you're trying to give him permission to leave. "Everything I've become, you helped build too."

He leans forward, and for one heart-stopping moment, you think he's going to kiss you. His lips hover over yours that you can feel his breath on your skin, warm and unsteady, and you could close the gap so easily, just tilt forward a fraction of an inch. But you don't, and neither does he. Because kissing would be a promise you can't keep, a beginning that's actually an ending disguised, a moment of happiness that would make the separation unbearable.

Instead, he presses his forehead to yours, and you stand there breathing each other in, as close as you've ever been while remaining impossibly far apart, separated by futures that don't align, by dreams that pull in opposite directions, by the fundamental incompatibility of what you both need.

"I should go," you finally say, voice barely audible, scraped raw. "You need to rest before tomorrow. You need sleep."

"Stay." The word is soft, pleading.

"Sungho—"

"Just a little longer. Please. Just give me a little more time."

You let out a quiet sigh but stay where you are. You lie on his bed, fully clothed, while he curls around you like he's trying to memorize the shape of you, to imprint the feeling of your body against his into permanent memory. His hand finds yours, fingers intertwining, and you hold on like he's the only solid thing in a world that's crumbling beneath your feet, like he's an anchor in a storm that's about to sweep you away.

"I'm scared," he admits quietly into the darkness, his breath warm against your neck.

"Of the match?"

"Of losing you. Of winning and having to choose. Of everything changing tomorrow and never being able to go back." His voice cracks, breaks. "Of waking up in California in a few months and realizing this was all a dream, that you were never really mine."

"Change is terrifying," you agree, squeezing his hand tighter, until your fingers ache. "But you're going to be incredible. You're going to do things I only dreamed of. Things that will take you so far beyond this moment, beyond this town, beyond me. And I'm going to—" Your voice cracks. "I'm going to be so proud of you. So, so proud I won't have words for it."

"Will you be there tomorrow?"

Here it is. The question you've been dreading, the one that's been sitting heavy in your chest for weeks, pressing on your lungs until breathing hurts. Because you don't know if you can do it—sit in those stands and watch him win the match that will take him away from you. You don't know if you can survive watching him achieve everything you wanted while knowing you'll lose him in the process, watch the future arrive and destroy what you have.

"I don't know," you whisper into the darkness, honesty the only gift you can give him. "I want to be. I want to be strong enough. But I don't know if I can watch you leave."

He doesn't argue or try to convince you. He just holds you tighter, and you fall asleep in his arms, stealing a few more hours before everything falls apart, before the future crashes down and buries you both.

When you wake up at dawn, gray light filtering through the curtains like watercolour, you slip out quietly. He's still sleeping, face finally peaceful after weeks, the worry lines smoothed from his forehead, looking young and untroubled. You write a note—Good luck. You've got this. You're ready.—and leave it on his nightstand where he'll see it first thing, where it will be the first words he reads.

By the time you reach home, the weight settles in. You don’t know how to do this—how to watch him win, how to let him go, how to keep breathing through it all.

NATIONALS DAY - THE FIFTH SET

You don't go to the match. You can't. Instead, you're at the old tennis court where he found you two years ago, sitting on the ground with your back against the fence, phone clutched in your hand like a lifeline, like it's the only thing keeping you tethered to reality.

The match is being livestreamed. You told yourself you wouldn't watch, swore you'd stay away from your phone entirely, that you'd spend the day anywhere but here thinking about anything but tennis. But you can't help checking the score every few minutes, refreshing the page compulsively, watching the numbers change.

Sungho is losing badly. He's down two sets to none, his play is sloppy and unfocused, and according to the commentary you can't stop yourself from reading, he looks completely lost out there. Your phone buzzes with texts from his teammates :

Where are you?

He's falling apart.

He keeps looking for you in the stands.

Please come. He needs you.

Each message is a knife to your heart, sharp and precise, cutting deeper with each notification. You did this. Your absence is costing him the most important match of his life. Your cowardice is destroying his future. You're the reason he's losing, the reason his dream is slipping away.

But going would cost you everything. Watching him win means watching him leave, it means sitting there while he achieves his dream and simultaneously destroys yours by leaving you behind. You've spent four years trying to survive losing tennis. You don't know if you can survive losing him too. You don't know if there's enough of you left to lose.

Your phone rings, shattering the quiet. It's his best friend from the team.

"Where the hell are you?" he demands without preamble, voice sharp with panic and anger.

"I can't—"

"He's dying out there. I've never seen him play this badly. He's giving up. He keeps searching the crowd, and when he doesn't find you, he just—he's giving up. We're watching his future die."

"I can't watch him leave," you say, and your voice is wrecked, barely recognizable, scraped raw. "Don't you understand? If he wins, he's gone. He's going to Stanford, going pro, going everywhere I can't follow. And I'll be here, still broken, still unable to play, watching him live my dream from thousands of miles away while I rot in this town."

"So you're going to let him lose?" His voice is sharp, cutting through your defenses like a scalpel. "Let him throw away his future because you're too scared to show up? Let him fail because you can't handle watching him succeed?"

"That's not fair—"

"You told him once what it felt like to lose tennis,” he says, voice cutting through your silence. “It gutted you and left you empty, you didn’t know who you were without it.” His voice is relentless, refusing to let you hide. "And now you're going to let it destroy him too? Because that's what will happen if he loses this match. He'll blame himself, hate himself, and he'll never get this opportunity again. This is it. This is his one shot. And you're letting him blow it because you're too afraid of being hurt."

You're sobbing now, gripping the phone so hard your knuckles have gone white, bloodless. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to survive this."

"Yes, you do." His voice softens slightly, just enough to let kindness in. "You love him. I know you do, even if you won't say it. And if you love him, you let him have this. You let him win. You let him achieve his dream even if it costs you yours all over again. Whatever happens after, you’ll figure it out later. But right now, right this second, he needs you. So get to this stadium, or live with the fact that you're the reason he lost everything."

He hangs up. You sit there, phone pressed to your chest, crying so hard you can barely breathe, your whole body shaking with the force of it. The old tennis ball is in your pocket, and you pull it out, stare at it through blurred vision.

This ball represents everything you lost. Your dream, your future, your identity as a tennis player, the life you were supposed to live. For four years, you've carried it as a reminder of what was taken from you, a talisman of grief you couldn't let go of, physical proof that you once had something worth losing.

But Sungho gave you something back. Not your dream of course, that's gone forever, buried in the past where it belongs, dead and unmournable. But he gave you a connection to tennis again, a way back to the sport that doesn't require your body to cooperate. He made you remember why you loved it in the first place, before the injury, before the pain, before the loss carved a hole in your chest. Let you be part of it again, even if the role isn't what you planned, even if you're watching from the sidelines instead of playing.

Now you have to do the same for him. You have to let him have his dream, even if it means losing yours all over again. You have to let him achieve everything you wanted while you watch from the sidelines. You have to be strong enough to survive it.

You stand up, legs shaking, shoulder screaming from sitting on the cold ground for too long. The stadium is forty minutes away, but you run despite the pain that shoots through your shoulder with every jarring step, despite your body protesting this abuse, despite everything. You catch a bus, then another, pushing through crowds and ignoring the stares at your tear-stained face, pushing through the pain and the fear and the grief that threatens to swallow you whole.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

By the time you reach the stadium, it's the fourth set, and Sungho is about to lose the match. You push through crowds, heart hammering, ignoring protests and angry shouts, and finally find a spot in the stands, breathless and sweating despite the cold, your shoulder a constant scream of agony.

The court is far below, and he looks small from this distance, diminished that it breaks your heart. He's at changeover, sitting on the bench with his head in his hands, shoulders slumped in defeat, the picture of someone who's already given up. You've never seen him look so broken, so utterly defeated, and it's your fault. Your absence did this. Your cowardice destroyed him.

He looks up, scanning the crowd one more time with the desperate hope of someone who knows they're looking for a ghost, and his eyes find yours.

The change is instantaneous, electric. His entire body straightens, eyes widening in shock, relief and salvation. Even from this distance, you can see the transformation wash over him—defeat transmuting into determination, despair into hope. He stands up, never breaking eye contact, and you see him mouth your name.

You touch your chest, the signal that means I'm here, breathe, you've got this. He nods, jaw setting with new determination, his entire posture changing. The referee calls him back to the court, and he picks up his racket with renewed purpose, with the conviction of someone who's been drowning and finally found air.

The fourth set is brutal. He claws his way back from the edge of defeat, fighting for every point with desperate intensity. Your shoulder is aching from tension, your hands are gripping the railing so hard you're leaving marks in the metal, and you're coaching him with every signal you know, your entire body involved in the match, every muscle tense.

Point to your temple : Think, don't just react, use your strategic mind.

Flat palm pressed down : Stay calm, control the pace, dictate the rhythm.

Fist over your heart : You can do this, I believe in you, I've always believed in you.

He wins the fourth set, and the crowd erupts, but you barely hear them. All you can see is Sungho, the way he looks at you like you're the only person in the stadium, like you're the only thing that matters.

The fifth set is the most intense tennis you've ever witnessed. Every point is a battle, every game is agony that stretches your nerves to breaking. You're living and dying with each shot, your heart stopping with every close call, your breath catching with every rally. This is your coaching, your strategy, your understanding of tennis made manifest in his movements. Every perfect shot, every brilliant get, every impossible return, you can see your influence in all of it, can see the countless hours you've spent teaching him crystallized in each moment.

You should feel proud. You should feel vindicated, satisfied, fulfilled by this evidence of your impact.

Instead, you feel like you're dying. Because every brilliant shot, every impossible get, every point he wins brings him closer to victory. And victory means leaving. Victory means he’s leaving to Stanford, the professional tour and a future that doesn't include you except as a voice on the phone, a text message, a memory that fades with distance.

Match point. The entire stadium holds its breath, thousands of people silent and tense, suspended in this moment. Sungho bounces the ball at the baseline, preparing to serve, and he looks at you one last time.

You press your hand to your heart just once, and point at him. It’s a silent promise, a goodbye, a confession all at once. 

I love you, Now go. Win. Be everything you were meant to be. Be extraordinary.

He tosses the ball high, the world narrowing to the sound of his heartbeat and the weight of the moment. His arm arcs, the racket slicing through the air—a clean, sharp sound that cuts through the stadium’s silence.

The serve is fast, precise, devastatingly perfect. The ball rockets across the court, kisses the line, and skids out of reach before his opponent can even react.

A beat of silence, then the umpire’s call rings out, firm and final. “Game, set, match.”

The crowd explodes into chaos, a wave of sound that crashes over everything. His teammates rush the court, his coach is shouting in triumph, and media are already swarming with cameras and microphones, capturing this moment for posterity. But Sungho is searching for you, pushing through the chaos with single-minded determination, eyes wild and searching.

You're already moving, trying to slip away before he reaches you, feet carrying you towards the exit on autopilot. 

You can't do this. 

You can't congratulate him while feeling like your heart is being ripped out, can't smile and pretend you're okay when everything is falling apart, can't watch him celebrate achieving your dream while you die inside.

However, he's faster. He catches you at the edge of the stands, still holding his racket, breathing hard from the match and the sprint to reach you, sweat dampening his hair and his shirt clinging to his body.

"You came," he gasps, and there's wonder in his voice, disbelief and joy tangled together.

"You won." Your smile feels like it's cracking your face, like your skin might split from the effort, like you might shatter into pieces if you stop holding yourself together. "You were incredible. You're going to be extraordinary. You're going to achieve things I can only dream of."

"I need to tell you—"

"Sungho, you should go. Everyone's waiting, the press wants interviews, the scouts want to talk to you about your future—"

"I've been in love with you since sophomore year." The words explode out of him, raw and desperate.

The world stops. You stare at him—Sungho, your Sungho, your person—and he’s crying, tears cutting through the sweat on his cheeks. He’s still clutching his racket like a lifeline, like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that he’s finally said it out loud.

You’d known, of course. You’d both known, but neither of you ever said it until now.

"That night at the tennis court, when you told me why you hated me?" His voice shakes, thick with everything he’s tried not to say. "I fell in love with you right there. With your pain, your passion, the way you loved tennis so much you couldn't stand to be near it. I fell in love with your anger, your grief, your refusal to give up even though you lost everything. I fell in love with how broken you were and how you kept surviving anyway."

"Don't—" You're crying too now, tears blurring your vision.

"Every match I won, I only wanted you to see it. Every trophy meant nothing if you weren't there to understand what it cost, to see the work behind it. I've been yours for two years, and you never let me tell you. You kept pushing me away, keeping me at arm's length, protecting yourself." He takes a shaking breath, tears streaming down his face unchecked. "So I need to tell you now. I love you. I'm in love with you. I have been for so long I don't remember what it felt like before. You're the reason I play. You're the reason any of this matters."

Tears are streaming down your face, and people are definitely staring, cameras are probably recording this, but you don't care anymore. "Why are you telling me this now? You're leaving—you're going to Stanford, going pro, going everywhere—"

"So come with me."

"What?"

"Whatever happens next—college, pro circuit, wherever tennis takes me—come with me, as mine. Come with me as the person I love, as my partner, as the person I want to share all of this with." His hands frame your face, thumbs brushing away tears. "I don't want any of this without you. The victories are meaningless if you're not there. Come with me."

You want to say yes so badly you can taste it, bitter and sweet on your tongue. You want to promise him forever, want to follow him anywhere, want to throw caution away and leap into this terrifying unknown. But reality crashes back in, cold and unforgiving and final.

“I can't follow you around the world watching you play tennis," you say, and each word is glass in your throat, cutting you as you speak, drawing blood with every syllable. "It'll kill me. I'll be happy for you, but I'll be dying inside. Watching you live my dream while I'm just... there. I'll just be watching and existing as an appendage to your success, hollowing out piece by piece until there's nothing left of me."

"Then I won't go."

"WHAT?" You almost shout it, drawing more stares, more attention. "No. Absolutely not. Sungho, you are not giving this up—"

"If it means losing you—"

"You can't choose me over tennis!" You grab his shirt with both hands, desperate for him to understand this one crucial thing, this truth that's more important than love or desire or any of the feelings tearing you apart. "Have I not said it enough? I know what it's like to lose tennis. It destroys you from the inside out, carves you hollow until you're not a person anymore, just a shell walking around pretending to be alive. You become a ghost, haunting your own life. And I won't—I will not be responsible for that. I won't be the reason you give up your dream. I won't be the thing you resent in five years when you're working some miserable job and wondering what could have been if you'd just chosen differently."

"You're my dream too—"

"Your dream is tennis. It always has been." You're sobbing now, words barely intelligible through the tears, your whole body shaking. "And that's okay. That's good. That's how it should be. Someone should get to live it. Someone should get to have the future I lost, the life I was meant to have. And I want it to be you. I want you to have everything."

"Not without you." His hands come up to frame your face, holding you like you might disappear. "I don't want any of it if you're not there. None of it means anything without you."

"You have to want it," you insist, holding his wrists to keep his hands on your face, needing this contact even as you push him away. "You have to want tennis for yourself, not for me. Because I can't be your reason. I can't be the thing you resent later when the pressure gets too much and you wish you'd made different choices. I can't be your excuse for why you didn't achieve everything you could have."

"I could never resent you."

"You don't know that." You take a shaking breath, trying to gather courage for what you need to say. "Go to Stanford. Go play tennis at the highest level. Chase every opportunity, win every match you can, become everything you're capable of becoming. And I'll... I'll be here. I'll be building something that's mine."

"That's not—"

"I'll watch your matches when I can," you continue quickly, before you lose your nerve entirely, before you change your mind. "I'll text you advice when you want it. I'll be so proud of you from wherever I am, so proud I could burst with it. We can try long distance, if you want. If you think we can survive it."

He's searching your face desperately, looking for something you're not sure you can give him. "Can we? Really? Can we survive you here and me there?"

"I've watched you grow into the player you are today," you say softly, every word chosen with care, honest in its uncertainty. "I've seen you at your worst and your best. I've been in love with you—" The admission finally breaks free, and it feels like bleeding out, like opening a vein. "I've been in love with you for longer than I want to admit. Probably since that night at the courts when you listened to me talk about my tennis, when you didn't try to fix me or offer platitudes. If long distance is how we stay together, then we'll try. We'll try as hard as we can."

"You love me?" His voice cracks on the words, breaks completely, and fresh tears spill down his face.

"Of course I love you, you idiot. How could I not? You're brilliant, dedicated and kind, you made me remember how to love tennis again when I thought that part of me was dead forever. You gave me back something I thought I'd lost permanently. You made me whole that I didn't think was ever possible again."

He just looks at you for a long moment, eyes searching, glistening. The noise of the crowd feels far away now, muffled, like the world has shrunk down to the space between you.

He steps closer, hesitating, like he’s giving you the chance to pull away. His hand lifts slowly, cupping your face with the lightest touch, thumbs brushing along your cheekbones. You’re trembling from adrenaline, from exhaustion, from the weight of everything between you, and you can’t pull back.

“Don’t do this to me, love,” he whispers, voice breaking, gaze locked on yours.

All that comes out is a quiet, broken sound, half a sob, half a laugh.

The space between you disappears. His hand finds the back of your neck, your breath catches, and before you can think, his mouth is on yours finally, desperate, messy and perfect, two years of wanting collapsing into one breathless, aching moment. His lips taste like salt from his tears, from the relief, from everything you’ve both held back. The kiss is fierce, tender and shattering all at once.

When you pull apart, you're both crying and smiling, and his teammates are definitely whooping in the background, cameras probably capturing all of it for posterity, but neither of you cares.

"I'll call you every day," he promises, breathless, foreheads pressed together. "I'll come home every break. I'll—"

"You'll focus on tennis," you interrupt gently, needing him to hear this, to understand. "You'll work hard and make the most of every opportunity. And yes, you'll call me. But Sungho—" You cup his face, making sure he hears this, that he truly understands. "Tennis comes first. It has to. Because if you sacrifice your future for me, you'll hate me eventually. Maybe not now or next year, but someday. And I can't live with that. I can't survive you hating me."

"I could never hate you."

"Just promise me you'll choose tennis when you have to. Promise me you won't let me hold you back."

He hesitates, and you see the war in his eyes, love versus ambition, staying versus going, you versus everything else. "I promise, but you have to promise me too."

"Promise what?"

"Promise me that you'll build your own life, your own dreams. Don't just wait around for me and exist in the spaces between my matches." His thumb traces your cheekbone with infinite tenderness. "You're not just my coach or my girlfriend or any role that's defined by me. You're you. You deserve a future that's yours, that you choose, that makes you happy."

The words hit you like a revelation, a truth you've been avoiding for two years. For two years, you've built your identity around coaching him, around being close to tennis through him, around existing in his orbit. But that's not sustainable. That's not healing. That's just replacing one form of grief with another, one form of loss with a different kind.

"I promise," you whisper, and mean it. "I'll figure out what I want, who I am without tennis, who I am separate from you."

"Good." He kisses you again, softer this time, sweet and lingering. "Because I'm in love with you, not tennis-coach-you or angry-at-the-world-you. Just you. Whoever you decide to be."

"Sungho!" His coach's voice cuts through the moment like a blade, sharp and insistent. "We need you for interviews! The media's waiting!"

He groans but doesn't let go of you immediately, holding on for a few more precious seconds. "I have to—"

"Go. This is your moment. You earned it."

"Our moment," he corrects, stubborn even now.

"Okay," you concede, smiling through tears that won't stop falling, that seem endless. "Our moment."

He kisses your forehead, your nose, your lips one more time, each kiss a promise and a prayer, then he's being pulled away by teammates and coaches, swept up in the chaos of victory, but he keeps looking back at you, grinning like he's won more than just a tennis match, like he's won something far more valuable.

You watch him go, and it hurts—God, it hurts with the intensity of a physical wound, but it's different now. It's not the aching grief of watching a stranger live your dream, but the bittersweet pain of loving someone enough to let them fly, even when it means losing them. Even when it means watching them soar while you stay grounded.

TWO YEARS LATER

The stadium is massive, cavernous that it makes you feel small, filled with thousands of people all chanting for their favourite players, the noise a physical force. You're in the stands, wearing Sungho's number on a shirt he sent you, a press credential hanging around your neck that grants you access most people would kill for.

You're not just his girlfriend anymore. You're a junior correspondent for a major sports network, covering tennis tournaments around the world, turning your knowledge into a career you built yourself. It turns out you have a gift for analyzing play, for explaining strategy to audiences who don't understand the intricacies of the sport, for breaking down matches that it makes tennis accessible without dumbing it down. Your injury gives you perspective that former players don't have. You understand loss that it makes your commentary richer, more empathetic. Your coaching experience gives you insight into the mental game, the psychological warfare that happens between points. And your love for tennis, which you've finally, finally reclaimed as your own instead of something stolen from you, gives you passion that translates through the screen, that makes viewers feel what you feel.

It's not the future you planned at thirteen. But it's built from the ashes of your broken dream into something entirely your own. You're not living vicariously through anyone. You're building your own legacy, making your own mark on the sport that broke you.

Sungho is on the court below, playing in a major professional tournament, his movements fluid and confident. He went pro after two years at Stanford, couldn't resist the pull of the tour any longer, and now he's ranked in the top fifty in the world and climbing. You've watched him rise, watched him struggle through injuries, losses and moments of doubt, watched him grow into the player you always knew he could be. You watched him become extraordinary.

The long distance has been brutal in ways neither of you anticipated. Months apart, different time zones that make phone calls a complicated negotiation, the constant pressure of his career weighing on both of you. You've had fights over crackling phone connections and tearful video calls and moments where you both wondered if loving each other from opposite sides of the world was sustainable, if you were just prolonging the inevitable breakup, if it would be kinder to just end it.

But somehow, you've made it work. Because he keeps his promises. He calls every day even when he's exhausted, visits when he can even when the travel destroys him, chooses tennis when he has to but always comes back to you. And you've kept yours. You built a career you love that exists independently of him, created an identity separate from his success, learned to watch tennis without it destroying you piece by piece. You learned to love the sport again on your own terms.

The match is close, intense that it has your heart pounding. The fifth set, tied at five games each. You're not coaching him anymore, he has a professional coach for that, someone with credentials and experience you don't have, but you're still watching with a critical eye, still mentally noting his footwork and shot selection, old habits impossible to break even after all this time.

He wins a brilliant point, a drop shot that catches his opponent completely off guard, perfectly executed with the kind of touch that can't be taught. When he looks up at the stands, his eyes find yours immediately, unerringly. Even in a crowd of thousands, he finds you, like you're the only fixed point in his universe, like you're magnetic north and he's a compass.

You touch your chest—the old signal, the one that means I love you, breathe, you've got this, and he grins, bright, beautiful and still capable of making your heart stutter after all this time.

He wins the match. Of course he does. When he's done with the mandatory interviews and handshakes and all the performative aspects of professional tennis, when he's finally free, he runs straight to you, ignoring protocol, ignoring his team's exasperated shouts.

You meet him at the edge of the court, and he lifts you in a crushing hug, spinning you around while you laugh into his neck, breathing him in, still the same shampoo after all this time.

"You were incredible," you say when he sets you down, slightly dizzy from the spinning and from him, from the intoxication of his presence after weeks apart.

"You always say that."

"Hey! It's true! That backhand down the line in the fourth set was perfection."

He kisses you, right there in front of cameras, fans and everyone, claiming you publicly like how he's claimed you privately for years, unashamed and unafraid. When he pulls back, his eyes are soft with love and exhaustion, dark circles under them from the travel and training.

"Come on," you say, taking his hand and lacing your fingers through his, the gesture automatic after years of practice. "You have more press to do. The post-match conference is in twenty minutes."

"Skip it. Come back to the hotel with me. I haven't seen you in three weeks."

"Sungho, you can't skip mandatory press. Your agent will murder you, and then murder me for enabling you."

"I'll risk it for five minutes alone with you. Just five minutes."

"Your definition of five minutes is highly suspect." You laugh, tugging him towards the press tent despite his protests, despite the way he drags his feet. "Besides, I'll be there tonight. We have the whole night."

"Promise?"

"Promise. Now go charm the reporters before they decide you're difficult."

He groans but goes, and you watch him transform into his public persona—charismatic, humble, gracious in victory. You've watched this transformation dozens of times, the way he puts on this mask for the media, and you're one of the few people who gets to see him without it, who knows the person beneath the performance.

Later that night, in a hotel room in a city you'll leave tomorrow, he pulls you close and whispers, "You would've beaten me, wouldn't you?"

It's become a ritual, this question. He asks it after every important match, and you always give the same answer, this truth that you've both made peace with.

"Every single time."

"I'm glad." He kisses your temple, gentle and reverent, full of affection that hasn't dimmed despite the distance and time. "That you still could. Even if it's just in theory."

For the first time in years, the words don't hurt. They're just a truth you can live with, one that acknowledges your past without letting it define your present or dictate your future. The ghost of the girl you were at thirteen finally rests in peace, her dream honored but no longer a source of grief. You've built a new dream, one that's entirely yours, one that exists independently of him even though you choose to share it with him.

"I love you," you tell him, and mean it with everything you are, with every broken and healed part of yourself, with all the pieces you've put back together in a different configuration.

"I love you too." He pulls you closer, and you fall asleep in his arms, not dreaming of tennis courts anymore but of futures you never planned but wouldn't trade for anything. Futures you chose. Futures that are yours.

Your shoulder still aches. It always will. Some losses are permanent, some doors stay closed forever, some dreams die and stay dead. You've made peace with that. But standing here, existing in this life you've built from ruins, you realize you've found something better than your original dream.

You've found a way to love tennis again on your own terms. You've built a career that's yours, that you earned through your own merit. And more importantly, you've found someone who loves you, not despite your brokenness, but with it, as part of the whole complicated person you are. Someone who sees your scars and stays. Someone who's willing to fight for you across any distance, who chooses you even when choosing you is hard.

The fifth set is over. You both won.

━━━━━━━━

END NOTE :

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the pub never felt fully alive in the way people expected it to be. it wasn’t the music or the laughter or even the warm taste of alcohol. it was something quieter, in the pauses between orders and the way time seemed to drag its feet whenever park sungho stood behind the bar. he learned your shifts before he even learned your name properly. learned the tune that you hum before he ever let himself look for too long. and every night as he poured drinks with steady hands and a blank expression, his eyes would still drift, betraying him, towards you. and always, without fail, there would be men who looked at you like you were part of the menu. hungry eyes that didn’t belong to hunger at all. lust. sungho would tighten his grip on the bottle of alcohol until it stopped feeling like glass.

after closing time, the pub emptied itself of strangers. sungho would wait outside, hands in his pockets, shoulders loose, acting as if he just happened to be leaving at the same time as you, every night. and every single night, he would walk you home. it became a quiet habit before it became a decision. the streets after 3am felt different, less loud. the world shrank into the space between your steps, with the soft glow of streetlights. you talked sometimes. other nights, you didn’t. but the silence between the two of you was never empty.

he learned the small details without asking for them. the way you hugged your coat tighter when the wind turned sharp. the way your apartment was too small for someone who carried so much of the night on their shoulders. somewhere along these walks, sungho stopped thinking of it as protection and started realising it was something worse. something much softer. something that stayed even after he told himself it shouldn’t. he didn’t notice the exact moment it changed. only that one night, when you reached your door and turned back to say goodbye, he found himself hoping, unreasonably hoping, that you would look at him longer. and when you did, he finally understood. he was already falling. too deep. too fast.

it happened on a night that looked no different from the others. same dim lights. same vinyl records. same people drinking their asses off. sungho noticed him the moment he walked in, the burly man who laughed too loudly, drank too fast, and looked at you like lust was the only thing he knew. at first, it was just another uneasy presence in the room, one of many. sungho told himself not to stare too long, he told himself it wasn't his place. 

but then he saw the way the man kept calling you over, the way his hand lingered a second too long when you handed him a drink, the way you smile tightened at the edges. and then, too suddenly, too wrong, sungho saw him cross a line. the man called you over again, and this time when you leaned in to place the drink down, his hand didnt stop where it should have, it slid up your thigh. then further. your breath caught so sharply it hurt, body freezing as if it had forgotten how to move. “hey–” you managed, barely. but it wasn’t loud enough. it never was in moments like this. across the room, sungho saw it. something in him snapped. 

a strange hollow stillness filled him like everything inside him had gone too quiet to function properly. then he was moving. out from behind the bar, through the noise, straight towards the table without thinking long enough to regret it. a punch landed before anyone could understand what was happening. the man stumbled back, chair crashing, shock snapping into rage almost instantly. “who the hell do you think you are?” he spat, already pushing forward again.  

“don’t touch her.” sungho said. his voice wasn’t loud and that was what made it worse. someone grabbed his arm, someone shouted his name. the pub erupted, chairs scraping, voices rising and security rushing. sungho didn’t step back, he hit him again. and again. not because he wanted to fight but because he couldn’t unsee what he had seen. and through it all, you finally found your voice, “sungho– stop!” 

he turned immediately. like you were the only sound he could still hear. he looked lost, breathing unevenly, knuckles red. “i’m sorry.” he said quickly, “i saw him touching you and i– i couldn’t just stand there–” your hands were trembling, you hated that they were. “you’re going to get fired..” you said. “i don’t care,” he answered instantly. 

something in your chest tightened, because that was exactly the problem. you stepped forward without thinking, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into the breakroom. “idiot,” you muttered, though your voice wasn’t sharp. it wasn’t an insult, it was something softer pretending to be one. 

sungho sat on the back chair near the storage room, still tense. you found the first aid kit and when you came back, he looked up at you like he wanted to say something but decided against it. “let me see.” you said simply. he hesitated. then, slowly, he held his hand out. you knelt in front of him, careful as you cleaned the cuts. the silence between you was heavy, full of everything neither of you knew how to put into words yet. he watched your face more than he watched your hands.

“you shouldn’t be here,” he said suddenly. your fingers paused, “what?” “this job,” he said, jaw tightening slightly. “this place.. you shouldn’t have to deal with people like that.. you deserve better than.. all of this.. you could leave, you could just– walk away.” he frowned. “and go where?” you asked softly. that made him stop. your hands moved carefully again, wrapping the bandage around his knuckles. your knee brushing his. sungho noticed, of course he did. the air between you shifted undeniably.

“you did it for me..” you said. his throat moved slightly as he swallowed, “i would do it again.” that broke the silence. or maybe deepened it. you didn’t realise you were leaning in until you were already too close to pretend it was accidental. sungho didn’t move away. he looked like he was waiting, like he had been waiting for too long to stop it now. when you kissed him, it wasn’t the usual gentle way people expect first kisses to be. it was full of everything unspoken, too careful and too desperate at the same time. his uninjured hand cupped your cheek as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss. for a moment, nothing else existed. 

then you pulled away first. breathing unevenly. eyes not quite steady. you stood up too quickly, “i should go,” you said. his brows furrowed slightly, “wait–” but you were already stepping back and avoiding his eyes. sungho didn’t stop you and just watched. like he knew you were leaving before you even stood up. and this time, the silence felt like something cracked open.

the next few days felt wrong in a way sungho couldn’t explain properly. at first, he told himself it was normal. people took time off, shifts change. but then a second day passed, then a third. and your name stopped appearing on the chart entirely. on the fourth day, he finally asked. the boss didn’t look at him for long before answering. just a tired glance, a shrug that carried too much meaning. “she resigned, didn’t say much,” he said flatly.

sungho didn’t remember leaving the pub after that conversation. only the feeling that his body had already started moving before his mind agreed to it. your apartment looked smaller than usual. he stood across the street for a long time before crossing over, like he was afraid the closer he got, the less real it would become. he peeked through your window, no light inside, no movement, no sign that anyone was home. he knocked anyway. ddok ddok ddok. nothing. then the door beside your apartment opened. an elderly woman peeked out, eyes narrowing slightly in cautious curiosity before softening when she saw him. “you looking for her? she asked. “ah– yeah.. is she home?” sungho asked. 

the woman hesitated. the she sighed, shaking her head. “oh dear.. she hasn’t been home for a while,” she said gently, “you must be someone from her work..” sungho’s throat tightened, “do you know where she is?” 

at that, her expression changed slightly, something quieter, more careful, “she’s in the hospital.. been there for a while now..” the word didn’t land properly at first. hospital. it stayed suspended between them, refusing to turn into meaning. sungho stared at her, unblinking. “...hospital?” he repeated. the woman nodded slowly, “yes.. i think they tried contacting family but–” she stopped when she saw his face but sungho was already moving before she could finish. 

sungho didn’t think. he just ran. the streets blurred into each other under the flicker of streetlights, each steps hitting harder than the last like his body was trying to outrun something it already knew was coming. he didn’t feel the pain in his lungs at first. didn’t feel the ache and burn in his legs. only the sharp, relentless urgency in his chest that refused to slow down. hospital. the word kept repeating in his head like a broken alarm. hospital. hospital. hospital. and with it came fragments he hadn’t asked for, memories that surfaced violently as he ran. you standing by the counter, like exhaustion sat heavier on your shoulders than you let on. the faint way your hand would tremble when you thought no one was looking. the nights you smiled anyway. the nights you didn’t. he pushed harder.

glass doors came into view, he stumbled inside, breath ragged, immediately approaching the front desk. “Y/n L/n..” he said, voice breaking before he control it. “I– I’m looking for her.. i’m one of her emergency contacts from work..” the receptionist checked the system then directed him upstairs. sungho didn’t remember the elevator ride, only the sound of his own heartbeat, too loud, too fast, like it was trying to warn him. a doctor met him in the corridor, not rushed, not confused, just still. too still. and sungho knew, even before a word was spoken, that something inside the world had already changed shape. “where is she? is she okay?” sungho said immediately.

the silence that followed was wrong. the kind of silence that doesn’t belong in conversations about living people. the doctor’s expression softened in a way that felt unbearable. “she was suffering from lupus..” he said gently, “it was diagnosed too late.. a month ago.. we did what we could but..”

the rest didn’t come out as words. it didn’t need to.sungho stared at him, uncomprehending at first, like the sentence had been spoken in a language he used to know but had forgotten how to translate. then it hit. all at once.

“no,” he said immediately, shaking his head once, then again, as if denial could undo it. “no, that’s not– she was just here.. she was–” his voice cracked, the world tilted slightly. the doctor’s mouth moved again, something softer this time but sungho couldn’t hear properly anymore. because the only thing that existed was the sudden, impossible absence of you. his legs gave out, he collapsed onto the floor, knees hitting the cold tile, hands trembling uselessly. 

“no..” he said again, but it wasn’t denial anymore. it was breaking. and for the first time, there was no anger left in him at all, only the unbearable realization that he had been running towards a moment he could never outrun.

too late.

too late.

too late.

a month later, the pub still opened at the same hour. the lights still flickered in the same tired music still spilled out into the street, and the same laughter still rose and fell like nothing had ever change. sungho still finished his shifts. still cleaned his station. still wiped down the bar until it shone under the light. still nodded at coworkers and customers who no longer asked where you were. time moved forward around him as if it had no memory of you at all.

but he did. every night, when the doors finally closed behind the last customer. sungho would step outside with the same habit he couldn’t break. same pause. same instinct. his hands would slips into his packers without thought, and his eyes would drift toward the street like he was looking for a shape the world had already erased. he would wait. not because he expected you to appear. but because some part of him still hadn’t learned how not to.

the air outside was always cooler after closing. quieter too. the kind of silence that used to belong to you both, walking side by side under streetlights that never quite reached the ground. 

he stood there longer each night. until the waiting stopped feeling like waiting and started feeling like remembering. one night, he took a step forward without realising why. then stopped. his gaze fell to the empty space beside him. and just like that, it came back all at once. the walk home, the sound of your voice, the way you used to look over at him like you were still deciding whether to trust the quiet between you. 

the absence hit him gently. not like the hospital. not like the floor. worse. like something that had always been there, and now wasn’t. sungho exhaled slowly. his hand tightened in his pocket then loosened again. like he couldn’t decide what to do with it.

and for a moment, he just stood there outside the pub, watching a street that no longer led anywhere he could follow. then he turned away, not because he had moved on but because there was nowhere left to wait.

he still stood outside the pub after every shift. waiting out of habit for someone who would never walk back to him again.

bunny gif divider by @kthice | network: @berrybittynetwork

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Just enough time for him to catch a glimpse of regret.

“I think the lilies look nice,” Lee Riwoo says to you, snapping you out of your trance and back into reality. The loud chattering in Myung Jaehyun’s living room begins to fill your ears again, your eyes focusing on a vase at the center of the dining table. You become painfully aware of how hard you’re squeezing the glass cup in your hand, your knuckles a shade of red and white as Riwoo continues saying something to you — something about a wedding and Jaehyun’s fiancée looking more stressed than ever. And it’s then that you realize exactly where you are and why you were even there to begin with.

Myung Jaehyun, a college friend of yours — a friend you met through him — was getting married in less than two months and he’d thrown a little get-together to help his future bride relax. However, it didn’t seem to be working very well, considering the vein so visibly popping out of her forehead.

You glanced at Riwoo, who seemed so entranced by the lilies on the table, inspecting every atom of the flower. “You think she’s nervous?” you asked the man. “Or maybe she needs more time?”

“Hm, I don’t know,” Riwoo replies, crossing his arms over his chest, glancing at Jaehyun’s fiancée and then at you. “She’s always been anxious. Honestly, I don’t know how they even ended up together. Jaehyun’s the most carefree person I know.” You nod, your eyes wandering a bit too far left, accidentally meeting Sungho’s again. Riwoo’s words fade into the background and as much as you’d like to look away — or look at him with something other than reminiscence in your eyes — you can’t.

You’re surprised he hasn’t tried talking to you yet, hasn’t even bothered to get a little closer to you since you walked through the door. And as much as you hated to say it, it wasn’t the first time you’d broken up with him.

You met Park Sungho six years ago, when you were seventeen and stupid and completely hopeless. He’d always described it as “love at first sight”, knowing your fates were entwined from the moment he laid eyes on you. But once again, you were an idiot and hopeless and so, so desperate to fall in love.

Petty arguments about anything and everything, differing views on certain situations, your short temper and his overly sensitive demeanor — perhaps a combination of all three? — were just some of the many reasons for your break-ups. Frequent, excessive, maybe a bit too much. You could never quite see eye to eye, and your pride would never allow you to meet him halfway, no. With you, it was always all or nothing. 100 or zero. Never in between. And the thing about Park Sungho?

He was always stuck in between. Always unsure, always hesitant, almost as if he was afraid of committing to you.

Well, at least in your eyes.

You’d been there for almost three hours before you decided you'd had enough of your ex-boyfriend practically drilling a hole into your back. It was already hard trying to pretend like you weren’t interested in him, trying to pretend like nothing was wrong in front of your friends when he just wouldn’t stop looking at you. So after saying goodbye to Jaehyun and his fiancée — and other people you’d chatted with that day — you left.

And Sungho followed.

He’d never been the type to lead, not when you were together. Riwoo had always joked that you were the “man” in the relationship simply because Sungho had always just let you do whatever you wanted without question. The word “no” didn’t seem to exist in his vocabulary, not with you. “Let me ask my girlfriend.” “I need to talk to my girlfriend about this.” “What do you think my girlfriend will say?”

If you were being completely honest, you hated that about him, how he’d never speak his mind, how he’d rather stay silent than defend himself. You didn’t want to be with someone like that.

But you couldn’t hide the look on your face when he’d finally caught up to you in the elevator of Jaehyun’s apartment building, the facade you’d put up in the apartment fading almost instantly, completely giving yourself away.

“You don’t have to be so mean.” Sungho’s the first to break the silence as he stood beside you, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his brown coat, staring at the steel elevator doors. You played with your fingers, rubbing your thumb against your nail to soothe you in a way, to stop you from saying something stupid. “You don’t have to ignore me all the time.”

“I didn’t feel like talking to you,” you said. The elevator ride was painfully slow, as if the universe was taunting you, forcing you to have to interact with your ex-boyfriend. “What would I have said anyway? ‘Come back like you always do’?”

“You’ve always been such an asshole, Y/N,” he starts. “Really. You’d think you’d have smoothed around the edges by now.”

“What do you need, Sungho?” you sighed, beginning to grow impatient. “I’m sure you have much more important things to be doing than telling your ex how much you hate her.”

“I need a ride home.” Plain and shameless. You finally turn to look at him, at the side of his face, half in disbelief that he’d ask you of all people. “My brakes are fucked and my car’s in the shop until next week because god forbid a mechanic’s ever hurried to do their job.” He rolled his eyes, glancing at you. “Look, I wouldn’t have asked you if it wasn’t an emergency.”

“How’d you get here?”

“I walked.”

“You walked thirty minutes from your place?”

“Had to get my steps in anyway.”

“Are you serious?”

“Why would I lie?”

The elevator doors opened and you stepped into the lobby. Sungho followed close behind, waiting for you to respond. But you didn’t say anything to him. Instead, you grabbed your keys from the pocket of your jeans and held them out, stopping in place. He stopped beside you, staring at you with furrowed brows, trying to figure out what you wanted from him. “You’re driving,” you said, dropping the keys in his hand when he finally reached out.

“You know where I live,” he said, staring at your back as you continued to walk towards the parking garage, eventually following.

“I don’t feel like driving right now.”

It had been too long since the last time Park Sungho drove your beat-up truck. He used to tell you how you should probably invest in a newer car, one that didn’t need to be taken into the shop every couple of months, something more reliable. But you refused — because you could never really agree with Sungho on anything, could you?

He slams the door to the driver’s seat closed and puts the key into the ignition, waiting a couple of seconds before turning it and starting the engine. You sit in the passenger’s seat, slouched as a yawn leaves your mouth. “I got my exhaust fixed, by the way,” you say as he puts his seatbelt on and puts the car in reverse, one hand on the head of your seat and the other on the steering wheel as he looks behind you to check for cars. “Too much money.”

“I think you’ve spent more money trying to fix the truck than you did when you bought it,” Sungho comments, his eyes on the road as he waits for cross traffic to clear before leaving the parking garage. “You should really consider selling.”

“I don’t want to.” You shake your head, crossing your arms over your chest, your eyelids suddenly becoming heavy. “He’s my son.”

His brow lifts, “The truck?”

“He’s our son.”

The air turns stiff the moment those words leave your mouth. You hadn’t even realized you’d said them, your brain fuzzy and tired, your eyes already closed despite your efforts to try and stay awake, to try and make conversation with your ex boyfriend. After a moment, Sungho speaks. “Put something,” he says, reaching a hand down towards the ground and throwing you your aux chord. “I wanna listen to something.”

“Listen to the wind,” you reply, connecting the chord to your phone regardless. “Listen to the thoughts in your head.”

He glances at you, “They’re telling me to crash your stupid truck, Y/N.”

“… Nevermind then.” You scroll through your playlist for a moment before choosing a song — something by some British rock band you were always listening to, something quiet that would help take your mind off the man sitting in the driver’s seat. You hear Sungho start to hit the steering wheel lightly to the beat of the song and suddenly, you remember how normal this was.

Being in the passenger’s seat, slowly falling asleep as he drove you home, the windows rolled down halfway as you both listened quietly to the song that either played from your phone or the radio. It was so normal, the silence between you, neither awkward or comfortable. Just plain silence as your brains ran at a thousand miles per second, a million thoughts passing your minds, a million regrets. Your eyes open as you stare out the window, letting out a deep breath, watching the buildings pass you by.

“Do you really not wanna talk about it?” you hear Sungho ask as the truck comes to a stop at a red light. His voice is quiet, vulnerable, sensitive. It reminded you of the last time you broke up with him, how the air had practically shifted the moment you let those words leave your mouth, how this time it really did feel like you were leaving him forever.

“What is there left to say, Sungho?” you ask quietly, sinking into your seat, avoiding looking in his direction. “I think I said everything I needed to.”

“So that’s just it then?” he asks. “It’s just over. We’re done. Just like that?”

“I don’t want to talk about this here,” you say. “Not right now.”

The light turns green and the truck starts to move. You fall silent again, your eyelids no longer heavy as you think back to what you’d said to him that day. In retrospect, perhaps you had overreacted a bit, gotten a little too serious over a matter that was never meant to be serious. And maybe, though your pride would never allow you to admit it aloud, you had gotten jealous.

“She was all over you!” you’d exclaimed, flailing your arm around, your face red in anger as you yelled at Sungho in your living room. “She was literally begging you to fuck her right there!”

Sungho let out a laugh, finding your reaction to a girl that had simply asked him for directions a bit too excessive. “She wanted to know where the nearest gas station was,” he said. “I think she was a tourist.”

“She couldn’t look it up on her phone?! She had to ask you?!”

“What, I can’t talk to people now?” His brows furrowed as he watched you roll your eyes and inhale deeply. “It’s not my fault you go and get all hot and bothered every time I talk to someone.”

“I’m not bothered!”

Sungho stared at you, his brow raising questioningly because you were bothered by it. You were upset about it and you had no idea why. You’d been with him for six years. Yes, you had your ups and downs, had broken up a couple of times along the way, but getting upset over something as stupid and childish as this?

Perhaps you’d reached a new low.

You argued back and forth for a while, bringing up past arguments you’d buried long ago, your voices so loud that even your neighbors had tuned in. And despite your greatest efforts to try and prove to him you weren’t in the wrong, you knew you were. You knew you were being dramatic and that you really didn’t have to resort to arguing over something as stupid as this. But you just couldn’t lose, not to him. Not to Park Sungho.

But that’s the thing about you, isn’t it? You’d rather lose him, the man you swore to love since you were seventeen, than an argument.

“I think we should see other people.”

Sungho’s expression changed, his eyes widening, completely taken aback by what you’d said. “Are you hearing yourself?” he asked, confused. “Why would you even say that?”

“Because I mean it!” you yelled, pinching the bridge of your nose. “I can’t keep doing this with you anymore. I can’t—“ You inhaled deeply, shaking your head. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

For a moment, Sungho thought you were kidding. He stared at you silently, trying to understand what it was that had led you to say that, retracing his steps. Before, you’d always just told him you needed space, to get away from him, to think. And that was fine — he’d give you all the space you needed and then eventually, you’d both crawl your way back to each other.

But to see other people? It implied you’d stop seeing each other completely, that after today, you’d really have nothing to do with each other anymore — and you’d never done that before. Neither of you had ever dated anyone outside of each other, and the thought of having to start over with someone else quite frankly terrified Park Sungho.

Because he already had you — you and your short temper and your constant bickering about anything and everything. And while most people would take the smallest opening to leave a relationship like that, he couldn’t. No, he wouldn’t. Because he loved you and he knew you loved him, in your own weird, twisted way.

“Did you mean it?”

Your eyes open, as you stare out the window, your surroundings familiar. You were nearing Sungho’s place, memories of your drives to and from his apartment suddenly passing by in your mind. “Mean what?” you asked tiredly..

“What you said,” he responded, tapping his fingers lightly against the steering wheel to the beat of the song that played. “About seeing other people.”

One of your most fatal flaws was your pettiness and your pride. You would allow yourself to get so caught up in winning an argument that you’d say anything just to have the upper hand, just to see your opponent show their weakness. But you don’t know why you could never set your ego aside when it came to Sungho. You don’t know why you’d even let the words “other people” leave your lips because truth be told, you hated the idea. You didn’t want to see anyone else, you didn’t even want to try — because no matter how many times you’d told yourself that it was desperation that led you to him, you knew deep down that you loved Sungho.

“No,” you said quietly, biting the inside of your cheek, feeling your eyes begin to water. “I didn’t.”

“Then why’d you say it?” Sungho doesn’t look at you, not even when he pulls into the parking garage of the apartment complex he lives in and parks in his spot. He just looks straight ahead, hoping to finally get past the walls you’d put up so long ago. “Why would you lie?”

There are some things about you that Park Sungho just can’t seem to wrap his head around, even after being with you for the past six years. And one of those things happened to be how easily you would throw away your six-year relationship. But the thing was, it wasn’t easy for you — not the slightest bit.

The first night after you’d broken up, the day he took all his things from your apartment and left without even saying a word to you, you felt like you’d reached rock bottom. You were miserable. The apartment felt emptier than it had when you’d first moved in and you missed him terribly, so much to the point where the mere mention of his name was enough to make your stomach churn. But for some reason, you couldn’t bring yourself to reach out to him. You couldn’t bring yourself to apologize.

“I don’t know.” You shook your head, thinking back on it, wondering why you’d ever resorted to such an extent. “It just–” You inhaled sharply, trying to find the right words to say to Sungho, who was staring at his hands. You’d always tried so hard to appear strong in front of him, always refusing to show your emotions — but perhaps that’s part of the reason why your relationship turned out the way it did. If you hadn’t pushed him away, constantly shut yourself out, maybe things would’ve been different. “It just fucking sucks.” You feel the tears that had been brewing up since the moment he started talking finally leave your eyes, and there’s nothing you could do about it. “This just sucks.”

Sungho doesn’t remember the last time he saw you cry. Perhaps never, if he really thought about it, because you’d never let yourself. So when he finally finds the courage to look at you and sees your head in your hands, crying like you’d never shed tears a day in your life, he doesn’t know how to react. He doesn’t know if he should look away from you, leave your truck and just go home, or if he should try and say something to comfort you. But he’s never been very good at comforting you, and he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he’d left you there alone, so he chooses to sit beside you in silence and gather his thoughts. But Park Sungho has never been fond of the silence between you, nor the space.

So when he kisses you for the first time in months, you feel like your problems disappear for a moment, like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders and nothing else mattered in the world besides you and him and this. And it hits you harder than ever — how terrible you’ve been to him, how much you’d missed him when he wasn’t around, how deeply you loved him. It hits you as you move your hands to touch him, one getting lost in his hair while the other rests on his cheek. His hands were on your waist, slowly making their way to your back as he gently pulled you closer, as close as he could get to you.

Maybe under your skin, his bones grazing your own, your veins becoming tangled with one another. Maybe to the deepest parts of your soul, where he could feel the center of your being with his own hands, feel the warmth radiating from you and feel dragged towards it, like a moth to a flame. Maybe until your atoms merged together and you became one, inseparable. As close as you’d let him. And even then, it wouldn’t be close enough.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper against his lips as you straddle his lap, cupping his face with your hands as you look into his eyes. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” Sungho stares at you silently, his lips slightly parted, his mind fogged with nothing but you, you, you. He wanted you — now, then, always. It was the only thing about him that hadn’t changed. It was the only thing about him he couldn’t change. Frankly, he didn’t want that part about him to change.

He leans in to kiss you again, hungry and desperate, his grip on your waist tightening. He’s never wanted anything as badly as he wanted you, even with all your flaws. He didn’t care if you were short-tempered, if it bothered you to see him talk to other people. He didn’t care if you wanted to pick a fight with him about the smallest of things. He wanted you the way you were. He chose this hell and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

As long as he got to be with you.

“I love you,” he tells you once he pulls away, his eyes glossing over, his lips bruised. “I do.” He knew there was probably some other language in the world that could more accurately describe what he felt for you. Maybe in some other language, he could tell you that he’d give you the world if you asked him to, that he’d hand-pick the stars in the sky just for you if he could, that he’d travel galaxies just to be with you. Maybe it’d be easier in another language, easier for you to understand that his feelings for you were never temporary. But Sungho doesn’t know any other languages, and neither do you, so he just has to hope saying those three words is enough to get his message across.

You lean back and look at him, your right hand moving from his face down to his chest, stopping right above his heart. You could feel his heartbeat, how fast it was beating. You felt you could reach your hand into his chest and hold it, just to feel it beat in the palm of your hand. “You do?” you asked quietly, meant more for yourself than for him, feeling a smile tug at the corners of your lips. You see him nod from your peripheral, your hands moving upwards again — to his collarbone, up his neck, tracing his jaw. You wonder how you’d ever let yourself be so mean to him. You wonder why you had always had trouble telling him you loved him, even when it was so obvious to you that you did. But it didn’t feel difficult anymore. “I do too,” you said, caressing his cheek with your thumb, feeling him subconsciously lean into your hand. “I love you, Sungho.”

And there’s something about finally saying it out loud that relieves you, that makes you regret not having said them as often before. It was always going to be him, no matter how much he angered you at times, no matter how different from each other you happened to be. You would always love Park Sungho, and he would always love you. Stupidly and undeniably so.

And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

2026 © bigsuki, all rights reserved.

𓍯 whenever he misses you, he doesn’t flood your inbox with desperate texts or try to insert himself back into your life. instead, he scrolls through your old messages, reading each line as if searching for something he missed, something that might tell him how it all fell apart. on nights when the ache in his chest feels unbearable, he logs into a spam account just to check your social media. he studies your posts in silence, wondering if the smile in your photos is real or just for show.  

𓍯 after the breakup, he developed a habit of overanalyzing everything. he reads and rereads your last messages, dissecting every word, every punctuation mark. he clicks on the names of people who like your posts and studies the profiles of those you’ve recently followed, crafting stories in his head that only fuel his misery.  

𓍯 and then there was that evening—when the sun was setting and the orange light softened everything but the weight of the moment. you’d agreed to meet him for closure, ready to draw the final line between you both. you thought it would be simple, clean. a goodbye. but when it came time to leave, he just couldn’t let go of your hand.  

𓍯 standing by the side of the street, his grip tightened as though letting go would mean losing the last piece of you forever. his lips quivered as he tried to keep it together, but the tears betrayed him, spilling down his cheeks before he could even form the words. his voice was low, trembling, and desperate. “i’ll be better…hm?” his swollen eyes searched for yours, his vulnerability raw and heartbreaking.  

𓍯 in that moment, it was as if he’d fall to his knees right there on the pavement if it meant convincing you to stay. he didn’t care who might be watching or how foolish he might look. his hand stayed firm around yours, a silent plea that screamed louder than any words he could manage. he was willing to beg, to promise, to do anything—if only you’d give him one more chance. 

riwoo

𓍯 in his latest post, he wore a bracelet you both shared during better days, casually wrapped around his wrist. he doesn’t mention it, but he hopes you’ll notice. it’s his silent way of saying he still thinks about you, even now, after everything fell apart.

𓍯 he blames himself for losing you, overanalyzing every fight, every word left unsaid. he tells himself it’s because he wasn’t enough or didn’t try hard enough. in his mind, if he had just loved you better or held on tighter, maybe he wouldn’t have lost you.

𓍯 your relationship with riwoo was a cycle of hope and heartbreak, on and off, again and again. each time you tried to fix it, the cracks seemed to deepen, but he refused to let go. he gave everything to keep you, even when it felt like the universe was against you both. and yet, despite his desperate efforts, he still lost you in the end, even though it was never truly his fault.

𓍯 riwoo is the type to drunk text you, and everyone knows it. his friends would drag him out for a karaoke night at the ktv, hoping to take his mind off you. but instead of grabbing the mic and singing along, he’d sit in the corner, nursing a drink as his friends’ voices echo through the room. one shot turns into two, then three, until the alcohol numbs his senses—but not his thoughts.

𓍯 eventually, he’d slip outside under the guise of needing fresh air. his friends would find him leaning against a wall, his phone screen glowing in the dark as he carefully types out a message for you.

𓍯  his words are raw, aching with vulnerability: "how are you so good at pretending i never meant anything to you, while i’m here thinking about you all day even at times when i should be happy? did you even love me? do you ever think of me too? why does it feel like this doesn’t kill you the way it’s killing me?”

jaehyun

𓍯 you have no idea what your absence does to jaehyun. one time when jaehyun couldn't stop himself from crossing your boundaries as exes, he dialed your number and called you. when he didn't expect you to answer, you could hear how his voice wavers when he talks to you, how it almost feels like he's choking in his own tears, asking you to come back, and telling you how much he's struggling to move on. 

𓍯 “y/n, i can’t do this. please.” jaehyun’s voice cracked, his grip on your hand trembling as he stared at you with eyes that brimmed with desperation. “i don’t want to throw away all the love i have for you. i can’t. i could never give this love to someone else. so please... let me love you again.”  

𓍯 your heart clenched at the raw pain in his voice, but you forced yourself to stay firm. swallowing back the lump in your throat, you reached down to pry his hand off yours, even as it broke both of you further. “jaehyun, you can.” your voice shook, but you kept going, fighting through the ache. “right now, you feel like you can’t because… we just broke up. but trust me, you’ll move past this. you’ll give that love to someone else—someone who deserves it.”  

𓍯 his breath hitched, and he shook his head fiercely, tears streaking down his cheeks. “but they’re not you.” he choked out, the words thick with frustration and heartbreak. “y/n, it’s not the same if it’s not you.”  

𓍯 the weight of his words hung heavy in the air, suffocating. for a moment, you faltered, the pain in his voice slicing through your resolve like a blade. but you knew—no matter how much it hurt—it was over. you had to let go, even if he wasn’t ready to.

taesan 

𓍯 taesan dodges every potential relationship that comes his way, like he’s running from something he can’t bear to face. and maybe he is—because no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much time passes, he can never get over you.  

𓍯 it’s impossible for him to be with someone else without you creeping into his mind, lingering like a ghost in every quiet moment. every laugh he hears feels dull compared to yours. every fleeting touch lacks the warmth he once knew. even though you couldn’t care less that he’s still breathing, you haunt him in ways you’ll never realize.  

𓍯 women approach him, some bold, others subtle, each one trying to capture his attention. but none of them could ever come close to you. he knows it’s unfair, knows he’s holding them to a standard they could never meet because they’re not you. and yet, he lets the comparisons swallow him whole, shutting out every chance at moving on. 

𓍯 late at night, when the weight of it becomes too much to bear, he’ll grab his phone and type out messages that he knows he shouldn’t send. but he does anyway, each word a quiet plea he can’t hold back: “i just feel like… we didn’t even try enough. don’t you think?”

𓍯 even then, he knows the answer. he knows you’ve moved on without looking back. but for taesan, forgetting you feels like forgetting a part of himself

𓍯 taesan might appear composed and nonchalant to the world, but when it comes to you, he’s a storm of emotions he can’t contain. the mere thought of you and the life you could’ve shared leaves him unraveling, tears spilling freely as he lets himself feel every ounce of the ache, no longer holding back what he’s been keeping buried inside.

leehan

𓍯 when you were together, he never failed to share every detail of his day with you—what he ate, the things he saw, even the random thoughts that crossed his mind. but after the breakup, he didn’t know where to put all those thoughts anymore. with no one else to confide in, he started typing them into the notes on his phone, just in case there was ever a chance to talk to you again. in his mind, he held onto the hope that one day, he could sit down with you and tell you about everything you’d missed.

𓍯 but when reality sank in, when he realized that chance might never come, he couldn’t stop the tears from falling. the weight of missing you crushed him in moments like these, and no matter how hard he tried to distract himself, he always came back to the same aching longing.

𓍯 of all the members, he’d be the one trapped in the cycle of longing the longest. he wouldn’t open up to others, keeping his feelings bottled up instead. he thought if he could just hold on quietly, it might hurt less, but that only made moving forward harder.

𓍯 for leehan, moving on felt like losing you all over again. so he never rushed the process, knowing deep down that forcing himself to let go would only make the pain worse. he took his time, letting himself grieve at his own pace.

𓍯 he was sentimental to a fault. every little thing that had been yours—the mug you left behind, the hoodie you forgot to take home—still sat where it had always been, as if they’d belonged there all along. he didn’t have the heart to pack them away. they were pieces of you, and even if they hurt to look at, he couldn’t bring himself to let them go.

woonhak

𓍯 woonhak would be the type to keep his distance, even when his heart ached to be near you. no matter how much he missed you, he’d choose to stay in the background, silently watching as you moved forward without him. he convinced himself it was for the best, he didn’t want to disturb the peace you’d found in his absence.

𓍯 every time he thought about reaching out, his fingers would hover over his phone, only to set it down again with a quiet sigh. he couldn’t bring himself to pull you back into the tangled mess of emotions he carried. so instead, he stayed silent, swallowing his longing even when it hurt the most.

𓍯 one thing about woonhak is when he cries, he doesn’t hold back. tears fall freely as if each one carries the weight of everything he’s been holding inside. he doesn’t hesitate to let it out because keeping it in feels unbearable. but reaching out to you? that’s a step he’s too afraid to take.

𓍯  so instead, he turns to his most trusted friends, the ones who know him better than he knows himself sometimes. with shaky breaths and tear-streaked cheeks, he crumbles in their presence. “what the hell did i do wrong?” he chokes out, his voice breaking under the weight of his heartbreak. “where did it all go wrong? all i did was love her.” the words spill from him like a flood, his sobs filling the silence as his older friends wrap him in their quiet understanding. 

Park Sungho prides himself in being a loyal soldier.

He believes that this quality earned him the shiny Pan Pacific Defence Corp badge he wears proudly and all the solo missions his seniors entrust him with. He’s got an in-ear keeping him in contact with the headquarters and a reinforcement team ready to intervene if things go wrong, but otherwise his unit trusts him to handle it alone. Namely, tracking down a Kaiju organ dealer who has been on their radar for a while now but PPDC hasn’t managed to catch them or even expose their identity. This cat and mouse chase has been going on for months and Sungho is about to change that tonight.

Earlier this week PPDC got an anonymous tip. It can be real or it can be a trap, but the superiors cannot let any lead go to waste. The government is already threatening to cut back their budget if they can’t clamp down on the sales of illegal goods like Kaiju Remedies. The black markets have been booming lately with these products promising cures for a wide range of illnesses or even claiming to give supernatural strength or healing abilities. Without proper research behind these claims however the products are deemed especially dangerous because naive people are desperate in these trying times. Sure, they could try to stop the organ harvesters in the first place but PPDC is already overwhelmed by having to do damage control in the affected areas after every Kaiju attack. Like this, the criminals often get to the aliens first to take the usable body parts before the decay process starts, hence the increase of questionable products circulating in the underground circles.

The Jagalchi market is an unassuming place filled with fresh sea products and generations-run oily street food stalls during the day, but behind the metal railings and plastic chairs, something much darker awakens in its hidden alcoves after the moon comes up and the daytime market quiets down. The sea still roars in the background, the tide coming in high, and the sounds coming from the ships in the harbour are frail in the wind of the night.

Sungho is nothing but a lithe black silhouette becoming one with his shadow as he slips into the dodgy back alleys behind the market. The air around him is thick with the smell of fish and oil as he passes by old workshops and storage containers. He squints, trying to make the most out in the dark passageways under the moonlight and keeping his steps light despite the heavy combat boots he wears. He has memorized the exact route to the meeting point they had been given. He has counted every turn and every step beforehand to make sure there would be no mistakes, no unexpected variables.

He doesn’t even flinch when he has to step over a drunkard lying on the cold, hard ground as he ventures deeper into the maze of gritty, scum-covered alleys. He’s far enough from the main streets now, so his surroundings are eerily quiet under the constant hum of the port city. He’s only a few steps away from the received coordinates, when he notices a black hooded figure emerge from a thin alley. He presses himself flat against the cold metals of a barred door and waits until the footsteps quiet down before following them. He watches from a decent distance away as the dealer exchanges two medicine bottles for a yellow envelope with a baseball cap guy, then hides in a shadowed spot of a side passage when the latter passes by him.

“The buyer is leaving towards the market. He’s around 170cm and wears a baseball cap. He’s having the goods,” Sungho quietly informs the backup team waiting nearby while he himself goes after the dealer. He can see their dark figure disappear between two worn down buildings and follows closely. He reaches under his jacket to grab his service pistol from its holster just in case and quickens his steps. He can still hear the faint echo of footsteps over puddles before he turns at the next corner and then immediately halts.

There’s nothing there.

It’s a dead end and the dealer is nowhere to be seen.

“Everything okay, Agent Park?” Lieutenant Choi asks in his in-ear, sensing his hesitation. They have been tracking his movements from the HQ and now his dot on their map must be frozen in a spot.

Sungho opens his mouth to answer while keeping his eyes on his surroundings – the shut garage door, the broken glass on the floor and another barred door barely hanging on one hinge – when suddenly a high-pitched loud shriek comes from the device in his ear. He rips it out, wincing at the throbbing pain in his right ear.

He’s still alert enough to notice a swift movement in the corner of his eye and doesn’t hesitate to point his gun at he black hooded figure standing a mere three steps from him. They don’t seem bothered by the weapon in their face. Their movements are deliberate and casual as they reach for the hood over their head and slide it down.

Despite the years of training behind Sungho’s back, his fingers tremble on the gun when he comes face-to-face with the dealer. It’s like seeing a ghost from the past. It’s like bleeding out on the dirty asphalt all over again.

“Hi Sungho.”

Your smile is one part sweet, one part mean. The ache in his chest expands like he missed it. He isn’t sure he wants to unpack that now.

How long has it been? Two years? Almost three?

Your hair is shorter now, but the glint in your eyes is the same. You take a step closer, bringing the flowery undertone of your light perfume with you and Sungho feels sick to the stomach. The echo of his heartbeat is loud in his ears when you close the distance between your body and his extended arm. You press close, until the pistol’s barrel digs into your chest right above your heart, but you act like it’s nothing. Like he couldn’t just pull the trigger and end it all.

He wouldn’t. And you know he wouldn’t. So you’re being reckless and daring on purpose now that PPDC isn’t listening into your conversation.

“You dyed it,” you say coyly, your gaze shamelessly raking over his body, lips ticked up in one sort of amusement and reach out to touch his blond locks. You only smile wider when he slaps your hand away with a tightened jaw and veins throbbing. “Still uptight, I see.”

You pat his chest over the tight-fitted black shirt in a condescending way and Sungho feels himself burn inside. He isn’t sure it’s from embarrassment or anger. He needs to put some distance between you, so he takes a deliberate step back only to hit a rain-soaked wall. You raise an eyebrow at him, almost in challenge, as you watch him lower his handgun.

“So is this what you have been doing all these years?” Sungho clears his throat and keeps his voice leveled. He can’t keep disappointment out of his tone though. Even if you used to joke with his moral superiority, he would have never imagined you to swoop so low as to join the black market trades.

Yet, you simply shrug at the clear accusation.

“We have never agreed on the methods to survive. We’re on two different sides of this war.”

“There are only two sides: humans and Kaijus,” Sungho points out bitterly. If you are not with them, you are with the Kaijus, anticipating the doom of human existence.

“And that’s where you are wrong,” you correct him like he was a school kid making a silly mistake in his workbook. You use a patronizing tone, one that you know will trigger him, and the fact that you tick him off so easily after so long leaves a bitter taste on his tongue. “There’s the Kaiju, then the naive people like you and the survivors like me.”

He can barely believe his ears. You disappear for years and then you refuse to feel shame over being so damn selfish? 

“So you’re making profit out of the war?” he frowns, not even trying to keep the judgement out of his voice.

“Humanity won’t last long. If you weren’t so blind, you would see it too,” you say it like it’s a fact, like you don’t even try to make it hurt. “I’m sure you noticed that the attacks are more and more frequent. Not to mention the Kaijus are getting more evolved rapidly. Jaegers can’t keep up for long. Look at what happened in Shanghai or Vancouver.”

Dread washes over Sungho at the memories of the recent big losses of the program. Two lost Jaegers, three dead pilots, entire districts of cities evacuated, water supplies poisoned by deadly toxin and it’s just the beginning. Still, people can’t think like this, like this is the beginning of the end. Humanity has never joined forces quite like this before, governments all over the world are finally working together to stop this invasion. There must be hope.

“So what? You gave up joining the fight and decided to make money from it until you can?” He spits, barely recognizing the girl he knew in you. Sure, you had been headstrong back then too, you had learned to take care of yourself long before you met him but when did you become so… selfish?

His harsh tone makes you flash him a glare.

“Unlike you, I never had the luxury to choose!” You snap back at him.

“You could have chosen me!”

Sungho’s eyes flicker away as soon as the words escape him. He didn’t mean to say it. He didn’t mean to tear up old wounds but your claim felt like a slap. He was hurting and he wanted you to take the blame for what he had been holding on.

“No, Sungho. I could not,” you whisper, full of sorrow and regret.

The smell of salt is stronger in the air when the rain starts. Sungho watches the first droplet land on your cheek and leave a glossy tear-like track on your face. When you pull the hood over your head again and turn to leave, he doesn’t try to stop you. He can’t. Not even after all these years.

“Was it you? Who sent the tip?” He calls after you before you could turn the corner. He needs to know. To know if meeting you like this was just a coincidence or something you wanted. He tells himself he only cares because he’s not fond of this new you and your new games but that’s a lie and it tastes a lot like bile when he swallows it down. 

“And why would I have done that?” You look back at him with furrowed brows, your confusion seemingly genuine. You take a step farther before turning back again. Almost like you don’t want to leave… Or maybe Sungho is just a fool all over again for hoping. “We both know you won’t snitch on me but if you are interested in buying some Kaiju products, you can give me a call. Strictly business.”

And then he just lets you walk away. Just like three years ago.

Sungho was supposed to become a Ranger.

He had trained alongside the golden boy Han Dongmin at the Academy and excelled in physical skills. He also had the determination and patriotism that it took to become a soldier willing to die in battle. However, he had a bit of a control issue. He just couldn’t let go. He never managed to pass a Drift test. When he got the evaluation after his third year, suggesting to transfer departments, he was devastated. It felt like he had wasted years of his life for nothing. He never felt more lost.

Coincidentally it was also when he met you.

You were just two strangers at the same place. Two people lost at sea. It was almost like you gravitated towards each other. At least he would swear he could feel its pull the first time he saw you. He never believed in fate and such, but ever since that first time when he spotted you alone at the corner pocha eating tteokbokki, he saw you everywhere he went. At the convenience store, on the beach, in his dreams. The first time he talked with you, you almost sliced his face with a butter knife and told him to mind his own business. How should he have known that you had been dealing with loan sharks long enough to know how to get away? And how could he have stayed away after he knew?

“I don’t need your help,” you told him, stubborn and defiant, but still let him clean the bloody scrap across your knees from jumping over a fence twice your height.

“I know,” he nodded and put plasters over your wounds. He hoped one day you would let him bandage your heart too.

It took a long time for you to lower your guards around him but you never let him in fully. You didn’t like to talk about your past but he put the pieces together like a jigsaw. You were alone and could only rely on yourself. You never mentioned your father but always talked fondly about your mother. You told him she would have liked him. Past tense. You blamed the devastating consequences of the Southern coast Kaiju attack on PPDC and the government. It sounded like something personal. It wasn’t that hard to put two and two together.

When you first kissed him, it snowed. It was the dead of winter, shivering cold and yet, Sungho had never felt warmer.

That winter he moved out of the Ranger Academy’s dorms to split rent with you. Although housing prices dropped in seaside cities, Busan’s were still higher than average because of the nearby Shatterdome. The cheap place you could afford was barely enough for two people but you made it work. Sungho loved to watch you wake up all grumpy until you had caffeine. He loved when all the tension seemed to leave your body when he hugged you to sleep. He loved sneaking more groceries into the fridge without you noticing just so he could keep you well-fed.

Money had always been a sensitive topic with you because while he had a safety net of savings and well-off parents, you had neither. The only thing you inherited from your parents was debt. So you worked two jobs to make ends meet: afternoon shifts at a fried chicken place and night shifts at a convenience store. When you first started staying out more at night, he believed the excuses about the extra shifts.

He was barely over twenty and hopelessly in love. Who would blame him for being naive?

Sungho is running on three hours of restless sleep after the failed night mission and the morning briefing when he walks into the Shatterdome’s K-science wing. The pungent chlorine smell hits him the moment he pushes down the door handle to the labs. He immediately spots Kim Donghyun with his Ranger girlfriend in his lap enthusiastically showing her something under a  microscope.

Sungho pointedly clears his throat.

“Donghyun, can I have a word?”

The scientist boy unhooks his chin from the girl’s shoulder and they get up, springing apart like they have been caught doing something much more scandalous. Honestly, Sungho doesn’t care if they act all lovey-dovey in the laboratory as long as it doesn’t cause issues.

“I will leave you two to it,” the Ranger girl says with an awkward smile, briefly squeezing her boyfriend’s hand.

“You can stay,” Sungho tells her because he’s not about to discuss anything confidential.

“No, it’s okay, I should go before Dongmin has my head for being late from practice,” she rolls her eyes with a more genuine smile this time and waves goodbye.

Donghyun practically pouts as he watches her slip out of the room. He’s probably not even aware of the little sigh that leaves his mouth before fixing the collar of his lab coat and turning towards Sungho.

“What can I help you with, hyung?”

“I have a few questions about Kaijus,” the agent admits because your words have been plaguing his mind all night. PPDC didn’t issue anything concerning about the Kaiju evolution but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. Some things are better kept under lock from the public after all. “I know they keep getting bigger and more toxic hence the higher categories but are they actually evolving? Like getting smarter?”

“Yes, it looks like it,” Donghyun nods slowly, looking pensive as he digs out a thick dossier and flips through pages of identified Kaijus. “Look, each Kaiju is somewhat better than the previous one, or at least more aware of the weak points of Jaegers. They are the learning kind of predators. These are not brute force attacks anymore, they know what to target.”

The documents in the open folder show the destroyed Conn-Pod of Vicious Siege and the torn out main engine of Snow Leopard.

“How is that possible?” Sungho frowns. Kaijus are killed and often dismembered even before the decay can completely rot their bodies. How could they provide information to their species on the other end of the breach in the depth of the Pacific Ocean like this?

“Some K-scientists have the theory that they can communicate through distances. With a shared consciousness like Rangers do during the Drift.” 

“That sounds impossible,” Sungho mutters.

Donghyun shrugs.

“They are not anything like we have seen on Earth, hyung, and they are evolving at an exponential rate. That’s probably why there are attacks more often,” he says and your explanation echoes in Sungho’s ears again. He hates that you are right.

“Would it be possible to predict where they will attack next?”

“I don’t think so. They do seem to be attracted to big cities and they never attack the same area twice in a row but the Pacific Ocean is still huge. But…” Donghyun’s voice quiets down, eyes darting around, like he isn’t sure he should be sharing this. “The Hong Kong team is predicting a Mega-Kaiju coming. That’s why PPDC is pushing the new Mark-6 debut.”

Now, that sounds quite alarming.

“Is there anything that would help find new weak points in Kaijus?” Sungho asks because otherwise he feels quite useless in the light of the news. If what they are saying is true and a Kaiju of no precedent size and intelligence appears, the apocalypse might come sooner than he hoped.

“Actually, we have been trying to get our hands on a fresh brain but the organ harvesters usually get to that first,” the scientist shares and Sungho stills. He expected Donghyun to say a bigger budget or more people on the team, not something so… simple. Sungho is on the illegal Kaiju goods team after all. If he should be able to help with anything, it’s this. Especially now that he has possible contact on the inside. If you meant what you said about business, that is.

“Okay, I will see if we can help with that,” he promises and pointedly ignores how Donghyun’s eyes sparkle at the mention of a potential incoming Kaiju brain supply.

Sungho knows he shouldn’t.

Just this morning he sat through the second interrogation of that guy who brought the so-called Headchangers, a hallucinogenic substance made of the Kaiju’s cerebral tissue. The guy readily told the agents in charge that his dealer was a young woman but she wore a mask, so he couldn’t see her face properly. He also shared how he got in contact with you but the IT team failed to trace back the dark web site to any valid IP address or physical location.

Sungho shouldn’t have felt relieved hearing that.

If he was as morally upright as he would like to think so, he would have told his superiors that he knows exactly who the dealer is. But instead he lied. He told them that you got away after messing with the radio frequency of his in-ear. He told them that he didn’t see your face. He went against everything he swore not to do after being officially appointed as a field agent.

And here he is, about to break another self-made rule.

He doesn’t want to think about what it says about him that he kept your number to begin with. He also doesn’t want to wonder what it means that you know it’s him when he eventually caves in and calls.

“Ready to make a deal with the devil, Sungho?” You tease, your voice amused and playful. There is no ounce of surprise between your vowels, almost like you expected his call.

Sungho hates to be predictable but he hates it even more that you joke with referring to yourself as the devil. He might not think it’s right what you’re doing but he knows you’re far from evil. You’re just somebody who has had to learn to survive on your own by any means possible. 

“How much do you need to get a Kaiju brain?” He cuts to the chase, not wasting time on small talk. It’s also easier like this to keep this as strictly as the business transaction it should be and not let the past plague him.

“That’s a bit ambitious of you. It’s ridiculously rare,” you scoff but don’t tell him that it’s impossible to get one. “I’m lucky if I can get you a part of a brain for 8 million won, if not more.”

Sungho grimaces because while he expected it to be expensive, he also knows that PPDC would never pay that much to an unofficial supplier, much less somebody from the black market. Especially not after the budget cuts. He guesses it doesn’t hurt to try and negotiate a bit.

“No discount for old times’ sake?”

“Don’t act cute now,” you click your tongue, unimpressed.

Sungho’s a bit afraid that you’ve taken his words in the wrong way, as if he was trying to guilt-trip you when it wasn’t his intention, but you don’t call him out on it nor do you hang up.

“Is it an official procurement or are you going behind PPDC’s back?” You ask, sounding curious.

“Does it matter?” Sungho pushes back on the question because admitting out loud that he’s acting in a grey zone feels like admitting guilt, but you know him all too well.

“So it’s the latter,” you hum, sounding a bit surprised because it’s very unlike him, he knows it too. But it might be worth it because you eventually sigh and give in. Maybe your past is not something you completely regret. “Alright, 6 million and you buy me dinner. I will text you when I have the swag.”

Sungho’s still holding the phone after the beeping signals the end of the call. He’s a tad bit dumbfounded and a lot confused. Merely a week ago you told him he can only call you for ‘strictly business’ and now you are suggesting dinner like you were just old friends? What are you playing at?

+82-010-xxxx-xxxx [location shared] be there at midnight i don’t have to tell you to come alone, right? sungho aren’t you afraid there will be an ambush? +82-010-xxxx-xxxx if you wanted that, they would have caught me already you’re not as heartless as you think, sungho

It’s not that Sungho thinks he’s heartless – out of the two of you, it has always been you – but he would like to be, just this once. But whatever bitterness and hurt he feels, he still can’t make himself to throw you to the wolves. He knows very well how it would go if he gave you up to his superiors. You have the kind of background that people take a glance at and decide your character in a heartbeat: high school dropout, family debt, underage petty theft and now distributing illegal goods. Despite all that, he believes that you never meant to use him as a stepping stone. Despite leaving him, he believes you loved him. That you were happy with him once.

Sungho shakes his head, closing the lid on the Pandora box of his memories with you. Thinking about the past is futile and he has a business deal to handle.

The coordinates you sent him are not far off from the place you have met almost two weeks prior. When he disappears between the familiar passageways, momentarily he wonders if he should expect an ambush. He cannot be sure after all whether you’re working alone or you have somebody looking out for you. Despite the thorny feeling the thought awakens in him, he would prefer if you were protected rather than reckless but he also knows you. He knows how hard it is for you to trust others and how much you hate to depend on anybody else other than yourself. He knows because it was one of the reasons why you broke up with him.

The alleys are darker this time because the moon is barely a crescent, its light pale and sporadic. It’s been a few days since it last rained, so without the rich scent of petrichor in the air, the smell of rotting is clearer. It’s the kind of place girls shouldn’t go alone late at night. The kind of place he would like to keep you away. But wasn’t it part of the problem too? That you never wanted him to keep you safe?

When he gets to the meeting point, there’s nobody there, but you show up right on time. You wear all black again and when you unhook the mask from your ears, you flash him a smile in greeting. Last time he was too busy convincing himself that you’re real and not just a ghost from his past or a hallucination from the lack of sleep to pay attention to the details. Now, even in the dim lighting he can tell that there’s a spark in your eyes that he missed. Back then it used to be very rare with how much life has weighed you down, so he always treasured the moments when you looked this alive. Who would have thought it’s possible as a wanted criminal?

When you wordlessly hold your hand out with your palm up, it’s most likely not as an invitation to hold hands but his heart skips a beat nevertheless. He doesn’t give you the money just yet.

“I want to see it first,” he insists just to make sure, but it makes you scoff.

“Aww, you don’t trust me?” You coo, mocking, and it’s a kick in the stomach. He would like to trust you, but he feels like he doesn’t even know you anymore.

You don’t seem to really mind though. You unzip the backpack you brought with you and take out a transparent glass jar with an airtight lid, very similar to the one Sungho’s mom uses to store kimchi in the fridge back in Wonju. This jar however doesn’t have spicy cabbage in it, instead it has a faintly pulsing, blue-veined, salmon-colored piece of Kaiju brain, the size of his fist, floating in greenish water. Sungho has to look away before nausea could set in.

He hands you a thick bundle of 50 thousand won bills once the jar is back in the safety and cover of the backpack.

“How did you get it?” He can’t help but ask even though he doesn’t expect an honest answer. A part of him just wants to stall time.

“I have my ways,” you smile, secretive and dangerous, and Sungho is enthralled without meaning to be. He has always been so weak when it comes to you.

“So you bought it from somebody who stole it,” he mutters under his nose. He knows how the drills go after a Kaiju attack. PPDC sends soldiers and agents to help keep the public safe. They also send the disaster relief team to handle the release of noxious Kaiju Blue and reverse the damage caused by the aliens’ acidic blood in the waters and wherever else the monsters reached. By the time the cleanup unit makes sure there is no lasting toxic effect on the locals, the organ harvesters have usually already gone through the Kaiju’s breaking down body and PPDC can barely do anything against them because they have bigger problems at hand during those times.

“Stole it?” You echo his words in disbelief. “Kaijus are an alien species. Who says their remains belong to the governments? I say finders keepers, it’s a free market.”

That’s not what the law says but Sungho doesn’t argue, he has more disturbing topics to tend to.

“You… you aren’t actually the one digging inside dead Kaijus, right?” He asks because just thinking about you, even in protective gear, climbing inside a barely killed, still warm monster to cut it to pieces when one wrong move is enough to end up dead doesn’t sit well with him.

“No, Sungho, I have people for that. I’m a businesswoman now,” you deadpan but catch onto the concern in his voice quickly. “Why? Are you worried about me?”

You wiggle your eyebrows, pushing his buttons. You’re playing with him like a lazy predator nudging its prey and Sungho tries so hard to keep his composure, to not let you have the satisfaction of seeing him snap. But it’s all tumbling down when you touch him: teasing, on the chin, tilting his head up. His hand shoots out to grab your wrist before he can stop himself and a moment later he has you pinned against the dirty, molding wall. Your eyes glint like a cat that just got the cream, like you’re exactly where you want to be.

You look up at him, defiant, but still smiling. You didn’t used to be this playful before. It’s almost like you had some invisible weight lifted off your chest and it’s not a bad thing, but Sungho doesn’t know what to do with the situation. He feels your rapid pulse under his thumb and he sees the way you look at him. Under all that play pretend, the big words and confidence, there’s something vulnerable shimmering underneath, something threatening to break. He knows because he knows you, the version of you that has always been the deflecting, avoidant type.

“Did you miss me, Sungho?” You ask in a whisper and tip your chin up, you breath fanning against his chin.

He can tell it’s meant to be playful and teasing but it comes out fragile, like a wish made upon a falling star. He wants to call you cruel. He wants to tell you that you don’t get to leave him and then ask him that years later. But instead, he lets go and takes a step back, putting the much needed distance between you.

Your expression immediately sours.

“Buzzkill,” you say with a pout, your lower lip jutting out.

The moment you disappear down one of the shady side passages, Sungho’s already missing you.

Sungho isn’t stupid. He’s well aware that he can’t just walk into the Shatterdome with a Kaiju brain without questions asked, so he goes to the Marshal first. He explains that instead of putting the black market dealer they have been looking for behind the bars, they should recruit her as PPDC’s official supplier when it comes to Kaiju organs needed for research and development. The Kaiju brain could be a sign of their goodwill and a proof of their competence. The Marshal doesn’t like that he has been acting on his own but he knows that Sungho is a good agent and he also knows when a deal is beneficial. He adds a few conditions of his own but he has a contract drafted up as soon as the lab confirms that the lump in the nasty water is indeed a real Kaiju organ. Sungho can’t wait to tell you the news.

sungho can we meet? i have an offer strictly business +82-010-xxxx-xxxx same place same time

“What’s this?” You hold up the printed, stamped, stapled papers like it’s a personal offence.

“A contract,” Sungho explains plainly and he doesn’t even try to be sarcastic about it but your eyes flash at him like he was.

“Seems like a trap to me,” you say, defensive, and it hurts more than he expected. He knew you wouldn’t jump on the opportunity because he knows your stance on the war and how you don’t think it can be stopped. But he also knows that you’re smart and it’s a good opportunity for you. You may not trust PPDC but why can’t you trust him?

“Do you really think I would do that to you?” Sungho recoils, his broken heart bleeding once again over the pavement. “We don’t have to be enemies, Y/N.”

You blink slowly, watching his expression closely like you’re trying to read him. You’re looking at him like the concept he’s talking about is a daydream. Something you can’t allow yourself to believe in.

“I don’t get what you’re trying to do,” you admit with your voice turned bitter. He can see your pupils widen, like you’re afraid. Of what? Of him? Or of the reason why he doesn’t push you away? “Are you still trying to save me?” 

“What? No. I–” Sungho protests in disbelief, words betraying him as you turn your back to him.

So this is what it’s about? You think he’s treating you like a charity case? Like you’re a damsel in distress in need of a hero, to be saved from yourself and your demons? But he never thought of himself as a hero. If anything, you were the one who gave him a reason not to give up when he felt lost. You loved him when he felt the least worthy of it.

You’re already a few steps away, half-hidden by the shadows when Sungho breaks.

“Did it ever occur to you that you might have not needed me but I needed you?” He calls after you, his voice raw and desperate as it echoes off the walls. So vulnerable he shakes from the sheer force of trying to keep himself together.

You falter. He sees your steps slow down, the way you hesitate at a corner, the way you curl your fingers into a fist. He briefly closes his eyes and turns the opposite direction just so he wouldn’t have to watch you leave. Not again.

+82-010-xxxx-xxxx [photo attached] i want these two points modified if ok, i will sign it

After five days of radio silence, Sungho started to think you wouldn’t reach out, so the sudden texts surprise him. At the same time, he feels relieved. He runs the requested changes through the Marshal and by the evening he has a new version of contract with him on his way to the seafood market.

He gets to the new location earlier than the usual time and for the first time since these late night rendezvouses, he’s nervous. It’s not just about his job anymore. Or your criminal record. He’s lucky the Marshal didn’t fire him the moment he mentioned his idea. He should have given you up the moment he recognized you. He should have been a loyal soldier instead of going behind the PPDC’s back again and again. But he couldn’t. Because he still cares.

After all these years, he still loves you.

And now, it’s out in the open. You know. You must know.

Sungho’s steps halt in the middle of the rain-soaked asphalt. He hesitates. Maybe he should cut his losses now. He isn’t sure he could take losing you all over again.

“Let go, asshole! No money means no stuff, you know it.”

“You’re just a girl. Think you can stop me?”

Sungho’s head snaps up at the voices. Yours, angry and agitated, and a man’s, arrogant and mocking. He moves without thinking: ducking into one of the side passageways and running until he spots you with a taser in hand, targeting a guy with a small, paper-wrapped package in his grip. He’s at least a head taller than you but it doesn’t seem to scare you.

“Give it back until I’m asking nicely.”

“You can ask me much nicer, dollface,” the dude grins and when he takes a threatening step towards you, something snaps in Sungho. He knows you literally have a taser, that you could most likely handle it, but there’s some kind of satisfaction in the way his fist connects with the nose of this self-assured guy and he can smell blood in the air.

The buyer swears under his nose and throws a punch at him. Sungho manages to block the hit and pushes the guy up against the wall. He wishes he had his service gun with him just so he could scare him a little but there’s something about his knuckles hurting that make it more satisfactory. He has never liked violence but seeing someone attacking you has awakened something raw in him.

“She asked you to give it back to her,” he says hoarsely, adding pressure to his arm digging into the guy’s chest, keeping him securely up against the wall.

“Fuck both of you,” the dude mutters and lift his hand with the hand-wrapped package up… only to smash it right against Sungho’s face. White powder explodes in his periphery and it makes him cough so hard, his grip weakens. The guy slips away while he’s still partially blinded by the white matter in the air. But when he moves to catch this jerk, you pull him back with a hand around his wrist.

It’s the first time you touched him like this since you met again. Not teasing, not playful, not out of necessity. It’s a simple touch, a touch to ground, the kind that anchors him. Sungho feels some of his tenseness melt in his veins as he turns to you. Your hair is in your face, messed up from the confrontation, and there’s still fire burning in your eyes as you stare after your could-be-client.

“Are you alright?” He finds himself asking, despite knowing your tendency to deflect even when you’re shaken up.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Not the first asshole I had to deal with,” you shrug casually like it’s really something you’re used to.

Sungho hates it. He wants to argue that you shouldn’t deal with it, but no words leave him when you finally turn to look at him properly. He sees from up close as your eyes soften and you reach out to wipe some white powder off his cheek. Your touch is gentle, tender, and he holds his breath because he fears the moment would break lest he so much as inhales a bit loudly. He never wants you to let go.

But reality comes crashing in anyways.

“Oh, shit,” you whisper, almost horrified, as your eyes widen and you drop your hand.

“What?”

“It’s Kaiju Bone Powder. What he wanted to buy,” you tell him like it’s supposed to explain why you’re trying so adamantly to get rid of its remains by wiping your palm into your clothes.

Sungho furrows his eyebrows in confusion. He never cared to learn what these so-called Kaiju Remedies are said to cure or enhance. It never seemed to matter as long as they stopped the illegal sales. Is it expensive stuff? Did he just get you in trouble for practically wasting an entire box in the air?

“I will cover it for you if that’s wha–”

“No, that’s not why. Let’s go,” you cut him off and grab his hand to pull him after you.

Sungho is stunned. You’re not the type who allows her distress to show and now you’re clearly worried, he just doesn’t understand why. But you’re holding his hand instead of leaving him behind and he has wanted it for so long, it almost removes all the sane thoughts from his head. Almost.

“Talk to me, Y/N. Tell me what’s wrong,” he tugs on your hand. You pay him no mind, not until you drag him into a van with darkened windows and a driver who doesn’t ask questions, just steps on the gas when you tell him to.

When you let go of his hand, Sungho burns. His hand itches to reach for yours again. He needs to curl his fingers to hold himself back. When your shoulder brushes his at a turn, he wants to mold himself against you. When he so much as catches your eyes, he wants to worship the ground you walk on.

“Y/N…”

He sees you gulp and let out a shaky exhale. He wants to swallow it down. Every sound and every breath that leaves the seam of your lips.

“Don’t,” you whisper. It’s a warning.

So Sungho burns.

The rest of the ride to your place is a blur. It’s all the restraint and control he has mastered since becoming the nation’s soldier. By the time you open the door to an apartment with sea view in one of the nicer parts of the city, Sungho has a good guess what the drug does.

“It’s an aphrodisiac, isn’t it?” He asks to confirm once it’s just you and him between four walls. He doesn’t move from the door. He barely dares to look at you.

“Yeah. A strong one,” you let out a sigh and return with a glass of water and a pill. You seem to trust him more than he trusts himself because the lack of distance has him reeling. He wants to pull you close. He wants to feel your body’s warmth. He wants so much. “You just need to sleep it off.”

He takes the pill from you, pops it into his mouth and finishes the glass, yet his thirst is not clenched. Just a brush of your hand is enough to lower his inhibitions and you don’t move. It’s driving him crazy.

You should shut yourself into a room. You shouldn’t stay so close. Because Sungho is good at control… until it comes to you.

“Y/N,” he mutters and this time it’s him warning you. Because he won’t touch you, not unless you touch him first.

Your eyes flash, dark and pupils blown. It’s like facing his desire in a mirror.

“I missed you,” you murmur and it breaks down every defence Sungho has built up over the years. He says your name like a plea and when you kiss him, it’s burning like wildfires.

The day when you broke up with him was a perfect autumn day: sunny with a gentle breeze, no dark clouds. You asked him to meet you on the beach which was nothing unusual. With the Shatterdome being right by the shore and the apartment you shared also within the Kaiju Danger Zone, it was a common meeting point of yours. You were waiting for him sitting on a bench, watching the sunset on the horizon.

He should have known something was wrong when you refused to look at him. When you spoke up, your voice was cold and tired like November rain.

“Sungho... I think we should stop.”

“Stop what?” He blinked, not catching on yet.

You cast your eyes down and went quiet. He reached out to hold your hand while you gathered your thoughts but you pulled it back into your lap before he could have touched you. The rejection stung and Sungho was so, so confused. What did he do?

“Pretending that it works. Us,” you clarified but he didn’t understand anything. Sure, you had your differences and both of you had your secrets but he thought you were good together.

“Did something happen? Whatever it is, let me help–”

“You can’t save me, Sungho,” you told him bitterly, one part angry, another part desperate. It took him years to understand what you really meant was: I need to save myself.

“Let’s end it here, hm?”

You didn’t even wait for his answer, just stood up and walked down the beach. Sungho fumbled as he got up too, barely processing what happened. Naively, he thought that it would be alright, that he would give you space and you would talk later. You still lived together after all, it couldn’t have been a goodbye. 

But when he got back to the apartment, it was already empty. You must have packed up while he was at work. Even the silly photobooth pictures you took together were gone from the fridge. Along with every single trace of you in his life. Just like that, you left.

When Sungho wakes up, he’s instantly disoriented. The smell, the light… nothing is like he’s used to. Opening his eyes, it takes him exactly two seconds to realize that he’s not in his PPDC-assigned room and two more to remember why. It comes to him in flashes: the grounded Kaiju bone extract in the air, your lips on his, hot and insistent, and your hands under his jacket, slipping it off. Then the sleeping pill’s effect kicked in suddenly and he remembers you helping him to bed, tucking him in. With burning cheeks, he remembers catching onto your wrist and refusing to let go. He remembers falling asleep next to you.

The pillowcase still smells like your flowery perfume but the bed beside him is empty and cold now. It’s not like he expected anything else but having his hopes crushed like this still hurts. He groans as he throws the blanket off and massages his throbbing temple. Yesterday he didn’t pay much attention but as he looks around in the bedroom, it’s obvious that you can afford a much more comfortable lifestyle now than three years ago. Selling illegal goods must pay well. It makes him wonder if financial freedom makes you happy at all. If you miss that shitty little apartment just because you had him then.

Sungho doesn’t find any overly personal decorations in the tasteful design of the room but he still feels like a creep for prying. He gets out of bed like others get ready for the walk of shame even though he still wears his clothes from yesterday which means nothing much could have happened beyond what he remembers. It’s for the best but there’s embarrassment prickling down his spine anyways because of how clingy he was.

Gingerly, he steps out of the confines of the room and immediately spot you on one of the kitchen bar stools. You have always wanted to have one of those.

“Hey, how’s your head? First time users usually get a headache,” you look up when he approaches and Sungho notices two things: first, you have changed from the all black badass clothes you wore yesterday to something more cozy and second, you’re pretending. With how obviously you avoid his eyes, you can’t be as unaffected as you would like to show.

“I’m okay,” he mumbles, ignoring the dull ache in his temples and taking a few more steps closer. That’s when he sees the contract on the kitchen island in front of you.

“I did some digging in your backpack, sorry,” you say when you notice his gaze dropping to the papers and slide the papers towards him. “All signed.”

It’s a bait, a distraction, but Sungho is not falling for this. He doesn’t take the supplier contract, just keeps looking at you and for once you’re the flustered one when your eyes meet.

“Do you want coffee?” You get up and turn to the coffee machine. “I can make you some while you shower. I know how much you hate going to sleep without washing up but…” You trail off, clearly not wanting to explain why the circumstances were special last night. But this time Sungho doesn’t want to beat around the bush. He doesn’t want to assume things and just let go. You told him you missed him. He needs to know if you meant it.

“Y/N… about yesterday–”

“It was just the powder’s doing, it’s fine. Let’s forget it,” you cut him off, shoulders tense, gripping at the kitchen counter’s edge still with your back to him.

“No. It wasn’t just that for me,” he argues because he refuses to leave without actually addressing the matter. He won’t make the same mistake as three years ago.

At least his sudden stubbornness is enough to get you to look at him.

“Sungho…” Your eyes beg him not to make it harder, to not make you say it, but he has spent too much time wondering only to back down now.

“Why did you leave, Y/N?” He finally asks the question that has been keeping him awake for years. He went over scenarios, what ifs, but he just couldn’t get it. Not really. “I thought you just needed some space and then we would be okay but… What happened to us?”

After you left, it took him a long time to pick up the pieces. Moving back to the Shatterdome helped. Throwing himself into work helped. Getting his ass beaten on the mat on the regular by either Dongmin or his co-pilot helped.

But nothing could help him forget you.

You don’t break eye contact for a long, long time. Then you give up with a sigh and start talking:

“I used to be so insecure,” you admit and knowing your pride, it must take a lot of you to say it, so Sungho doesn’t take it for granted. He listens closely. “You were there with me but sometimes I felt so alone. I thought that I’m dragging you down with me. In my eyes, you had everything: supportive parents and a secure job. I never understood what you saw in me and I hated feeling inferior even though it was never you who made me feel like that. I just… I was so afraid of losing my independence if I accepted your help.”

You take a shaky breath and he notes that you talk in past tense. He hopes it means something. He hopes that the fact that you would be willing to work with PPDC means that you don’t really think he’s ‘trying to save you’ this time.

“I stumbled upon organ harvesters dealing by accident in the back alley near the convenience store where I worked and I saw the opportunity to make my life easier, to not have to work multiple jobs just to get by but… It was around that time when you mentioned wanting to introduce me to your parents and I just felt so unworthy of your love. You were planning our future while I was actively jeopardizing your career behind your back,” you say with a bitter grimace. “Back then I didn’t want you to know because I didn’t want to put you into a situation where you had to choose.”

To choose between you and PPDC, between loving you and staying loyal to his morals. But what if he doesn’t need to choose?

“What about now?” Sungho inquires and you look at him with wide eyes.

What changed? He wants to ask because the signed contact sits on the kitchen island and it's proof that you don’t have to be enemies without either of you giving up on what you do. Frankly, he doesn’t care how many sides this war has as long as you and him are on the same one.

“Ask me again,” you tell him and he furrows his brows. He has asked so many questions you dodged before. How could he know what to ask now?

“Ask what?”

“Whether I sent that anonymous tip or not.”

Sungho tilts his head with a little smile in the corner of his mouth. He knew it was too big of a coincidence to just run into you like that.

“Did you?”

“I wanted to see you again,” you confess quietly, mirroring his smile. “I was curious if you grew to hate me over the years. At first, that was all I wanted but now…” Sungho holds his breaths and waits. He looks into your eyes and knows that he would wait forever if needed. “Now, I’m selfish enough to want it all. I’m still not easy to be with but I want to stay. If you want me to.”

Sungho doesn’t want easy. He just wants you and that’s everything he has ever wanted: you staying. Suddenly, the kitchen island is too big of a distance between you. He still takes his time as he goes around it, relishing in the way your gaze follows him, the way you lift your chin to keep eye contact.

“Tell me again,” he uses your method on you and you smile because you recognize it.

“Tell you what?”

“That you missed me,” he helps you out.

It’s a test, the desperate kind but he wants to hear it again, he wants to know it’s not something his drugged up mind conjured out of nothing. You roll your eyes and for a moment he thinks you will tease him about his request, that you won’t say it aloud just for the sake of being difficult but then:

“I missed you,” you tell him, sincere and full of longing, and Sungho is only a man.

He crosses the distance between you in a long stride, not caring about seeming overeager. He slides a hand onto your nape, feeling the heat of your cheek on his other palm.

“Stay,” he whispers right onto your parting lips and you melt in his arms like ice on a warm day.

The Shatterdome infirmary’s door closes with a soft click behind Sungho. He just had his blood taken as a ‘just to be sure’ measure to make sure the Kaiju Bone Powder is out of his system and it didn’t mess anything up. It was quite humiliating to tell the nurse about having been accidentally exposed to it but Dongmin’s (not official but everybody knows it anyway) girlfriend was kind and understanding about it. She told him she had heard much worse stories since she started working in the Shatterdome and while Sungho isn’t sure that’s a good thing, it eased his mind a little.

The canteen is loud and busy when he makes it there for lunch, the military portion on his plate just enough to make up for the blood loss. He’s looking for an empty spot when he notices Jaehyun waving. The J-technician shares a table with Sanghyuk from Drift spec and a cadet called Woonhak.

“Hyung!” The youngest brightens when he sees him approach. “Have you seen Dongmin hyung? I want to practice a bit more before tomorrow’s Kwoon combat trials.”

Sungho did, in fact, see the Ranger.

“He was on his way to the infirmary when I left.”

It earns a collective tired groan from the table.

“Again?” Sanghyuk snorts.

“He still didn’t ask out your sister?” Jaehyun looks up from his phone to turn to Woonhak.

“Eww don’t even bring that up! I have to pretend to be stupid whenever I catch them looking at each other with moon eyes,” the cadet says with a disgusted face. “At this point I will get a girlfriend before they make it official.”

“Don’t jinx them like that,” Sanghyuk chides but puts more meat on Woonhak’s plate when the younger pouts, then pointedly ignores when Woonhak inquires what he was doing during the weekend with ‘that ex-Ranger girl’. Apparently somebody saw them leave the premises together.

Sungho eats a bit of his bulgogi and nudges the strangely quiet technician while the other two play this push-and-pull, going-nowhere questioning.

“How is the Mark-6 testing going?” He asks, curious about the development. PPDC spent a fortune on the new Jaeger, so everybody has high hopes for its debut.

Jaehyun sighs, putting his phone down with its screen to the table. It seems deliberate enough to notice. Especially when the technician’s fingers twitch at its buzzing.

“It’s alright. It would be better though if we could be sure the new electric shock and laser blaster actually works on Kaiju armor and skin.”

Sungho chews and hums.

“I might know someone who could get us some,” he mentions and that has the technician perk up.

“Really? Who?” Jaehyun leans across the table with wide eyes, hungry for a story. Since Sungho has been having a good day, he’s feeling generous enough to give him a piece of what he wants.

“My girlfriend. Or well, technically ex-girlfriend, but I’m working on it,” he says with a smile and pushes a piece of pork into Jaehyun’s opening mouth before he could start the interrogation.

Sungho doesn’t want to get too ahead of himself but he owes you dinner. He might as well make it a date. Preferably without any Kaiju organs at the scene.

END NOTES. fun fact: the entire plot was built around me accidentally finding details about kaiju remedies on the pacific rim wikia, which automatically brought in the black market and sungho's hollywood action outfit perfectly fit into the picture

header pic from bnd insta

title from the all time low song

TAGLIST. @mirouie @restlessmaknae (never done proper taglists before but let me know if you want to be tagged in the upcoming pacrim series works)

☆ BOYNEXTDOOR masterlist

💌 askbox

And it doesn’t simply mark, it claims. Eating one is an exercise in both patience and surrender. Each seed is a burst of a tart sweetness that’s worth the mess, but it leaves you wondering how something so beautiful can also be so unruly.

That was exactly why you loved pomegranates. They were a little wild, a little untamed. It was in the way the juice stained your fingers, leaving behind traces of something alive and uncontainable. It’s how every seed is a burst of flavor: tangy, sweet, and unapologetically bold. For you, pomegranates were a reminder that the best things in life aren’t always neat or simple; they’re messy, vivid, and unforgettable.

Back in your adolescence, when you were still a hopeless romantic and believed in fate and soulmates and such, you had a theory: that anyone willing to peel a pomegranate for you was to be the one. The one the universe had assigned you—your soulmate. The person you’re meant to share the messiness and beauty of life with, because, let’s be honest, peeling a pomegranate isn’t just an act, it’s a labor. 

It’s tedious, requiring patience and precision to carefully break apart the tough skin without crushing the delicate seeds. The juice inevitably smears, the tiny ruby jewels scatter, and by the end, it looks like a small battlefield in the kitchen. 

You thought of it as a test of devotion. Who else would endure the sticky fingers, the risk of stains, and the painstaking effort, all for the sole purpose of handing over a bowl of gleaming seeds? Your theory wasn’t about the pomegranate itself, it was about what it represented: the willingness to take on something cumbersome and time-consuming just to bring joy to someone else.

In your teenage mind, peeling a pomegranate was love distilled into action. A quiet, unspoken declaration that said, ‘I see the things you cherish, even the messy, difficult ones, and I want to be a part of them.’

So you used to wait, watching the people in your life with a careful eye, jokingly tossing your theory at dinner tables and gatherings but secretly hoping and wondering if someone might one day sit down, pick up a pomegranate, and show you that love can be as simple, and as profound, as peeling fruit. 

But as you grew older, your pomegranate theory began to feel like a relic of a softer, more naive version of yourself. You used to imagine someone peeling away the tough, leathery rind, their hands stained red with love and effort, and thought to yourself, ‘that’s love.’ But with time, the weight of practicality started to take hold. 

Your theory about pomegranates, something you once held close with a spark of whimsical belief, soon became just another one of those silly little things that poets and hopeless romantics dreamed up.

So, you tucked your silly theory away in a dusty corner of your mind, dismissing it as an innocent fantasy of your youth. You searched for love that was grounded, sensible, and serious about the practicalities of life. You looked for someone who could handle the demands of life without the weight of romantic idealism like yours clouding their judgement. 

There was no room for mess or chaos anymore, certainly not for the kind of love that required peeling pomegranates, both literally and metaphorically.

A loud slam of your front door made your ears perk up and you heard the familiar rustling of your boyfriend’s clothes as he shuffled through the living room. You could almost envision the way he shrugged off his outer coat before neatly hanging it on the coat hanger by the entryway.

“Baby? I’m home!” 

“In here!” you called out. The bathwater lapped at your knees, forming small waves that crashed and fell against the porcelain wall of your bathtub. Sungho knocked on the bathroom door, but only out of courtesy, before he pushed it open and greeted you with a bright smile.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he knelt by the side of the bathtub to press a warm kiss to your forehead. 

“You’re home early.” you pointed out. A hand reached out to stroke your boyfriend’s cheek, a single droplet of water running down the slope of your arm and landing back in the bathtub with a small plop. 

“Mastered the choreography first so I could come home to you,” he replied, ever so gently leaning into the warmth of your palm. “Did you just start your bath?”

You nodded, the corners of your lips lifting at his sweet words. “Just a few minutes ago. You don’t have to keep kneeling like that, you know. Your knees are going to hurt.”

“I’m fine,” he said with a chuckle. His gaze softened as he noticed the way the water cradled your form, the steam rising in delicate swirls around you. “Want some help?”

You tilted your head, teasing. “Are you volunteering to join me?”

Sungho laughed softly, shaking his head. “Maybe next time, but I can still take care of you from here.”

Before you could respond, he reached for the loofah sitting on the edge of the tub and dipped it into the warm water before lathering it up with your favorite body wash. His movements were slow and deliberate, as though he wanted to savor every second of this small, intimate moment. 

“You don’t have to, you know,” you murmured as he started gently running the loofah along your shoulder. His featherlight touch sent a slight shiver down your spine.

“I know,” he said, his voice steady and warm. “But let me.”

His voice was so soft, so filled with love, that you couldn’t bring yourself to argue. You let out a small sigh of defeat and leaned back against the tub as he started gently running the loofah over your arms. 

Sungho’s touch was delicate, as though he was handling the most fragile thing in the world. The loofah glided over your arms, his hand following to rinse away the bubbles.

“You work so hard,” he murmured, almost to himself, as he moved to your legs. “You deserve this.”

The words made your chest tighten with emotion. “You’re too good to me,” you whispered.

“No such thing,” he said with a soft chuckle, his hand brushing the back of your calf. “Taking care of my partner is the easiest thing in the world.”

You let your head rest against the edge of the tub, closing your eyes as his hands continued their tender work. The care and love infused into every motion, the way he poured his entire being into making sure you felt safe, cherished, and adored made your heart squeeze tightly.

As he finished, Sungho pressed a soft kiss to your damp shoulder, his lips lingering for a moment. “All done,” he whispered, and you noticed a hint of pride in his voice.

“Thank you,” you said, meeting his gaze. 

Sungho smiled, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “Anything for you, gorgeous. Always.”

He stood up and grabbed the big, fluffy towel from the nearby rack, shaking it out to fluff it up. “Alright, come on, let me help you out.”

You shifted in the tub, the water sloshing as you moved to stand. Sungho reached out instinctively, steadying you with his strong, gentle hands. His fingers pressed lightly against your arm and waist as he guided you to step out of the tub.

“Careful,” he murmured, his brows furrowed in concentration. 

The moment your feet touched the bath mat, he draped the towel around you, cocooning you in its warmth. You couldn’t help but giggle as he adjusted the plush fabric, tucking the edges around your shoulders like a protective shield.

“There we go. Let’s go get you dried up, and then we can go see the present I got you.”

The kitchen table was a mess—juice stains spreading across its surface, pomegranate seeds scattered among paper towels and discarded bits of rind. Sungho sat across from you, elbows resting on the table as he carefully pried apart another piece of fruit. His fingers were stained a deep crimson, the juice clinging to his skin and pooling in the small creases of his knuckles. 

“You’re making such a mess,” you teased, watching as he plucked a cluster of seeds free and placed them in a bowl.

He grinned, unfazed. “Worth it.”

He picked up a few seeds between his stained fingers, flicking away the stubborn bits of membrane, and brought them to your lips. “Here.” 

You let him feed you, the tart sweetness bursting on your tongue as he watched you with unspoken fondness. It wasn’t until you noticed the way his brows furrowed in concentration, focusing on getting a particular seed unstuck from the membrane, that it struck you how absurdly thoughtful this was.

“When did I even mention that I like pomegranates?” you asked, your voice softened with wonder and adoration.

Sungho glanced up briefly, his lips quirking up into a sheepish grin. “You told me once, when we first started dating. You were talking about how much you loved them as a kid. Said they were your favorite fruit, even though they’re a pain to eat.” 

You blinked, stunned. The memory was hazy even to you—just a passing remark in some forgetful conversation. But he’d remembered.

“You didn’t have to go through all this trouble,” you murmured, feeling your chest tighten with an unfamiliar mix of emotions.

Sungho shrugged, returning his attention to the pomegranate in his crimson stained hands. “It’s no trouble. Besides, I like seeing you happy.”

You looked down at the table and took in the chaos of it all: the stains, the mess, his juice-streaked hands, and something deep inside you shifted.

Suddenly, you were seventeen again with your heart wrapped in whimsical theories about soulmates and love.

This was it. This was what you had been searching for back then but had long stopped believing in. This was the kind of love you’d once dreamed of but had dismissed as a silly, adolescent fantasy. Yet, here it was, sitting across from you with juice-stained hands and a soft smile, proving you wrong in the most beautiful way.

Your teenage self had been right: peeling a pomegranate wasn’t just about the fruit. It was a quiet act of devotion, a willingness to embrace the mess and the effort for the sake of someone else’s joy.

Sungho broke your reverie by holding up another handful of seeds, his smile so effortlessly warm that it sent a pang through your chest.

“You don’t have to feed me,” you said with a small laugh, though your voice wavered slightly.

“I know,” he replied. His tone was gentle but resolute. “But let me.”

And as you opened your mouth for the next bite, you realized that love didn’t have to be a grand, sweeping gesture.

Sometimes, it was sitting at a messy kitchen table with stained hands and sticky fingers, peeling pomegranates because someone mentioned, just once, that they liked them.

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Tonight it's while you're brushing your teeth.

The bathroom light is warm. The apartment is quiet. You can hear the TV playing faintly from the living room where Sungho is sprawled across the couch waiting for you to finish getting ready for bed.

Everything is normal, and somehow that's what does it.

You look at yourself in the mirror. You're alive. Your heart is beating. Your lungs are breathing.

You exist.

And then the thought slips into your head.

One day I won't.

Your hand freezes. The toothbrush hangs uselessly in your mouth.

The thought grows.

One day this will end. One day I'll die.

You stare at your reflection.

No matter what I do. No matter how healthy I am. No matter how happy I am. One day I'll stop existing.

The room suddenly feels smaller.

Your chest tightens.

You spit out the toothpaste.

The panic arrives so quickly it almost makes you dizzy.

Because the worst part is, it's unavoidable. You can't fix it. You can't solve it. You can't study harder or prepare better or work your way around it.

It's just there.

Waiting.

A truth every person on earth carries around.

And for some reason tonight your brain has decided to hold it directly in front of your face.

Your breathing becomes uneven. Your hands start shaking.

"No."

You grip the edge of the sink.

"No, no, no."

Your chest hurts.

The familiar terror starts crawling through your ribs. Not because you're dying. Because one day you will.

Eventually.

Inevitably.

The realization crashes into you over and over.

You sink onto the closed toilet lid. Trying to breathe. Trying not to cry. Trying not to think.

But that's impossible.

Because the more you try not to think about it, the louder it gets.

The bathroom door opens a few minutes later.

"Sweetheart?"

Sungho's voice is soft and careful.

When you don't answer, he steps inside and immediately his expression changes. Because he knows this look. He's seen it before.

The trembling hands. The glassy eyes. The way you're staring at absolutely nothing.

"Hey," he kneels in front of you.

Your eyes finally find him, and somehow that makes everything worse. Because suddenly tears spill down your cheeks.

"Sungho."

His face softens immediately.

"Oh."

He reaches for your hands.

They're freezing.

"It's happening again?"

You nod. Once. Then twice. Unable to speak properly.

The words eventually stumble out anyway.

"I'm scared."

His thumbs rub across your knuckles.

"I know."

"I'm really scared."

"I know."

Your breathing catches.

"No matter what I do—"

Your voice breaks.

"No matter how alive I am right now—"

More tears.

"One day I'm going to die."

The words sound ridiculous when spoken aloud. Yet they hurt just as much. Maybe more.

Because they're true.

You see it in Sungho's eyes. Not agreement. Not dismissal. Just understanding.

The kind that hurts. Because he knows he can't tell you you're wrong.

Instead he carefully pulls you forward. Until your forehead rests against his shoulder.

His arms wrap around you immediately.

Holding you together.

"I know."

You start crying harder. Because that's the problem. Everybody knows. Everybody just—

Lives anyway.

How? How does everyone keep going? How does nobody panic all the time?

"How are you okay with it?" you whisper.

Sungho is quiet for a moment. You feel his chest rise and fall beneath your cheek.

"I'm not."

You blink, "What?"

"I'm not okay with it."

You lift your head. His smile is small, sad, and honest.

"I don't think anybody completely is."

The answer surprises you.

You expected reassurance. A perfect speech. A magical sentence that would make the fear disappear.

Instead he just looks at you.

Human.

Real.

"I don't want to die either."

Your throat tightens.

Sungho continues, "I want more time."

His fingers lace through yours.

"I want to grow old."

A tiny smile.

"I want annoying wrinkles."

You let out a watery laugh.

He smiles a little wider.

"I want to keep eating good food."

"And?"

"And I want to keep loving you."

Your eyes burn.

"But that's exactly why it scares me."

"I know."

"Then how do you deal with it?"

Sungho thinks for a long moment.

Then he gently presses your joined hands against his chest.

Right over his heartbeat. "Like this."

You feel it. Steady, warm and alive.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

"I can't control someday," his voice is quiet, "but I can control right now."

Another heartbeat.

"I'm here right now."

Another.

"You're here right now."

Another.

"We're alive right now."

You stare at him. Trying to absorb every word. Trying to convince your terrified brain.

Sungho reaches up and wipes away a tear.

"I think that's why moments matter so much."

Your lips tremble.

"Because they end?"

He nods.

"Because they end."

The bathroom falls silent.

For a while neither of you speaks. You just sit there listening to his heartbeat. Feeling your own slowly calm down.

The fear doesn't disappear. It never completely does.

That's the frustrating part.

The thought will probably come back next month. Or next week. Or tomorrow.

It always does.

But eventually your breathing steadies. The panic loosens its grip and the world becomes real again.

Not the terrifying future. Not the endless unknown.

Just right now.

Just Sungho, his hand holding yours and the warmth of the apartment. The TV still playing in the other room. The fact that you're both here.

Alive.

When Sungho finally stands, he tugs gently on your hand.

"Come on."

"Where?"

"Bed."

You sniffle, "That's your solution?"

"Pretty much."

A small smile appears on his face.

"We'll watch something stupid."

"What if I start thinking about it again?"

He squeezes your hand. "Then I'll remind you again."

"Again?"

"Again."

"And again?"

"Again."

You finally laugh. A real one this time.

Sungho looks ridiculously pleased with himself. As if making you laugh was his entire goal.

Maybe it was.

He leads you toward the bedroom.

Your fear isn't gone. But it's quieter now. Not because you found the answer. Not because mortality suddenly makes sense.

But because for tonight, at least, you're not carrying it alone, and that makes the weight feel lighter.

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