@terry-tarte - Tumblr Blog

. . . d e l i r i u m | 4

well, i thought i could resist you, but something in me just can’t help but insist to blur the lines just one last time /// sleep token, dangerous

pairing: yeonjun x fem!reader

summary: sometimes love and hate exist on opposite ends of the map. other times, on separate floors of the same building.

genre: ex!yeonjun / enemies to lovers au / neighbour au

warnings: slow burn, baaaaad mutual pining & intense yearning, jealous!jjun, somewhat evil!tyun (he has good intentions though), strong language, suggestive themes, detailed descriptions of smoking, excessive drinking, helpless flirting, some angst to spice things up

words: 15k (rip)

[ ! ] this is a sequel to equilibrium

masterlist / read from the beginning

✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 4 AM

Yeonjun couldn’t sleep. His head felt like a cutlery drawer, rattling every time he rolled onto his other side, steel scraping steel.

Did it hurt the knives, he wondered at around four in the morning, to brush against other knives?

By six, he must’ve drifted off for a good twenty minutes, until a faint rustling near the windows woke him again. He blinked blearily just in time to catch Violet’s silhouette slipping under the heavy black curtains.

She hopped onto the windowsill and sat down in front of the only window in the flat that actually opened. It didn’t even look it; the frame had been caked in thick layers of white paint. Only the latch gave it away – a tiny brass catch, half-hidden beneath the lower frame in the far left corner, noticeable only by the peeling paint around it.

He hadn’t realised what the latch was for until you pointed it out to him that day on the stairs. Apparently, Violet had watched him work it once and memorised it.

She settled on the sill, her backside shoving the curtains aside. A narrow slit opened—he suspected he might’ve hung the drapes upside down—and through it, Yeonjun could make out the sharp outline of her whiskers against the pale light outside.

He lay still and watched.

With the precision of a surgeon, Violet slipped a paw into the far corner. Her whiskers twitched.

Tap.

Tap tap tap.

Nothing happened for a while.

Yeonjun frowned into the darkness.

Surely, he thought, she didn’t have the strength to move the latch. The thing was stiff even for him some mornings. It might’ve meant that the window had been opening on its own every day, then, or—

The brass catch jerked sideways with a tiny click.

The window frame loosened immediately.

Yeonjun stared.

Violet rose onto her hind legs and pressed her front paws against the bottom of the window, leaning her full weight forward. She was small—plump and very round, yes, but so small. Even if she’d mastered the latch, she shouldn’t have been capable of pushing the window open.

The frame creaked an inch upwards.

“Violet,” Yeonjun warned.

The cat turned, shooting him a look of profound irritation, like a single mother of five on her third consecutive night shift: don’t start with me right now, boy. Then she turned back and kept pushing.

The window scraped open just enough for her to squeeze onto the fire escape. Her back paws scrabbled briefly against the sill before disappearing outside.

Yeonjun stared, unblinking, for another minute.

Honestly, he should’ve used Violet to fight crime. Or rob banks.

Instead, he listened to the faint rhythm of her paws on the metal stairs as she climbed the fire escape towards your flat.

Upstairs, you dreamt that you were driving Reina’s old Honda.

The steering wheel thrummed in your hands as you drove along a narrow, two-lane road. The car rattled at higher speeds, and something in the dashboard buzzed as though you’d trapped a bee behind there somewhere, but it remained reliable as always.

The asphalt glistened; it must’ve rained recently. Now that you thought of it, you could almost smell the moisture in the air.

A bright blue car sped past, overtaking you.

You barely registered it.

Then, a few minutes later, the same blue car appeared again, passing you from the opposite direction.

Sunlight flashed against the windscreen, obscuring the driver’s face. The car was unfamiliar, yet you felt strangely worried that this was the last time you’d see it. You hoped it wouldn’t be.

You lowered the sun visor. Ahead, the road curved sharply left, and the car groaned as you turned the wheel.

For a while, you drove alone.

Soon, you spotted the blue car again. It was parked on the side of the road near a lake to your right, the hazard lights blinking lazily in the sunlight.

You pulled onto the gravel beside it, relieved.

As you stepped out of the Honda, you realised you were suddenly standing in the woods; the roadside was surrounded by trees.

Chestnuts, you thought at first. Then you narrowed your eyes.

Oaks.

You approached the blue car. The driver’s door hung open, but there was no one inside.

As you walked closer to the shore, past the trees, you saw a man sitting on the rocks in the shallows, sleeves rolled to his elbows, staring across the lake. This was the driver, you knew. You had to check on him.

You crept towards him. Your feet—why weren’t you wearing shoes?—slipped on the wet stones. The trees around you vanished.

The man turned—and the sound of something creaking jolted you awake.

Your eyes snapped open to the darkness of your room. For a disorienting moment, the dream clung to you: you could still hear the commotion of Reina’s old car, still smell the rain.

Then you heard Violet squeezing through the narrow opening in the window, right on schedule. She landed silently on the floor and padded toward the living room, careful, as though trying not to wake you.

The bedroom door creaked when her hind leg brushed against it.

Violet froze.

You closed your eyes, not wanting to spook her.

Silence. Then, the quiet patter of her paws fading into the living room.

Sighing, you rolled over, the sheets tangling around your legs. You reached blindly for your phone on the cardboard boxes by the bed. The screen flared to maximum brightness. Groaning, you squeezed one eye shut and tried to enter your PIN; Face ID refused to recognise you in the dim light.

Then you opened both eyes again.

Yeonjun, you realised, had been the driver of the blue car in your dream.

How strange.

You needed to text him, but yesterday’s conversation still lingered somewhere at the back of your mind. Just thinking about talking to him again made you feel like you’d swallowed something dense.

You pushed yourself onto your elbows, inhaled once, and opened his contact.

YOU [6:59 AM] violet’s here she’s welcome to stay but ive got to leave at 4

You’d barely lowered the phone before it buzzed against your palm.

YEONJUN [7 AM] thanks i’ll pick her up before you leave

The cursor blinked at the bottom of the chat on your screen.

You stared at it for a second, then set your phone down beside the pillow and climbed out of bed. A draft blew through the open window. You pushed it shut and headed into the kitchen to refill Violet’s water bowl.

The moment you appeared through the doorway, Violet abandoned her position by the curtains and wound herself around your legs instead, searching for entertainment. Her tail got caught beneath the hem of your pyjama bottoms, hitching the fabric upwards.

You knelt to scratch under her chin. Her purr vibrated against your palm.

“Let’s see if we can get some light in here for you, yeah?” you said, standing again.

Still half-asleep, you filled the bowl and went to the window. The curtains dragged heavily along the rail when you pulled them open.

It was a dreary, overcast morning outside. The building across the street looked even more muted than usual under the grey clouds.

Violet approached the window. She poked it with her nose, puzzled by the lack of sunlight, then glanced back at you.

“S’the best I can do, little one,” you said. “Cloudy day today.”

She replied with a small, resigned meow and turned back towards the window. A moment later, the faint reflections dancing across the glass seem to win her over.

You left her nestled between your flowerpots and started your morning.

✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 3:45 PM

Fifteen minutes before you needed to leave, you stood in front of the mirror by the bathroom door, holding your breath as you misted setting spray across your face. It smelled oddly of hairspray.

The dress you’d bought for tonight was sleeveless and blue. Beaded detail ran along the slit—it had already left glitter scattered across your thigh.

When you first saw the dress in the shop last week with Reina, it reminded you of the photograph your grandparents kept on the mantelpiece in their living room. In it, your mother was posing with her date before their school dance. She wore a dark blue dress—sleeveless—and had her hair braided half up. She was smiling.

It was your favourite picture of her.

You’d spent the morning thinking about it while you pinned the braided sections of your hair back. The curled ends now rested across your collarbones.

You leaned closer to inspect your mascara and caught the edge of a price tag peeking from the side seam of the dress.

“Shit—”

The doorbell rang.

Startled slightly by the sound, you tightened your fingers around the plastic of the tag and ripped it clean off the seam. The edge nipped your palm. Hissing, you shook your hand once and dropped the tag into the bin by the kitchen island.

Behind you, Violet sat primly on the back of the sofa, licking her paw, as though she, too, was getting ready for Reina and Soobin’s engagement party.

“Got a feeling that’s for you, baby,” you said, nodding towards the door. “Come on.”

Violet chirped and jumped down.

She discovered the hem of your dress just as you opened the door. Her claws snagged in the fabric, catching and releasing the blue material with increasing enthusiasm.

Yeonjun stood on the doorstep.

He opened his mouth—and closed it right after.

All he registered, initially, was the deep blue of your dress. Then the ruched fabric at the waist and the small cutouts on both sides of your midriff.

Then the rest of his thoughts abandoned him to seek employment elsewhere.

You bent down before Violet could shred the hem. She resisted your hands, twisting in place. When you gathered the ends of the dress, she leapt back and wiggled her behind ominously, her pupils blown wide.

“You like the dress, baby?” you murmured, scooping her up before she could launch herself at you. She looked mildly startled at being lifted, but not especially offended. “Come on, then.”

Yeonjun thought he liked the dress.

Although, admittedly, he could’ve slept better if he hadn’t caught a glimpse of your thigh through the slit when you bent down. He suddenly felt as though he ought to sit down and have a bottle of water. Perhaps two bottles.

“Hi,” you said. “You alright?”

Your voice shifted slightly, and he realised that you weren’t speaking to the cat this time.

With all the grace and composure he could muster, he said, “I—uh—it would—I mean, yes. Yeah. I’ll be off, then.”

He pivoted sharply towards the stairwell.

You blinked after him, fingers still running down Violet’s spine.

“And Violet?” you called.

Yeonjun stopped dead.

“Yes!” he said, whirling around before he could fully register the heat climbing up the back of his neck. “Of course. I’ll be off with Violet. I—we will be off together.”

He gathered the cat, careful not to brush your hands in the process. At this point, he was convinced that any skin contact would finish him on the spot.

You stepped back.

He dared a glance at you.

You were looking down now, smoothing the fabric of your dress over your hips.

The sunflowers, he noted, were still on your kitchen island beside you, bright yellow and offensively alive. He stared at them, trying to work out who else could’ve got them for you.

It was still just this one bouquet in any case, as much as it irked him.

He’d got you fourteen.

You were surprised to find him still standing on your doorstep when you looked up.

“Later, then,” you said, a little awkward.

Yeonjun blinked, snapping back to awareness.

“Right,” he said. “Later.”

He escaped down the stairs.

Once the door of your flat clicked shut behind him, he let out a breath that seemed to rattle all the way through him.

Violet meowed in his arms. He could tell she knew he’d embarrassed himself.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he warned as soon as he unlocked his door. He tapped gently between her ears before scratching under her chin. “M’going to have a very, very long night tonight. I need your support.”

Violet, when properly motivated, offered excellent support.

Today, however, she felt strongly motivated to do three things exactly: use her litter box, demolish half a pouch of tuna in her bowl, and fall asleep directly on Yeonjun’s favourite pillow on his bed.

Yeonjun spent a solid hour trying to get her interest back; no luck.

Now he stood alone in his bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror under the bulb overhead. His hands shook as he attempted to tie his tie. The knot collapsed again.

It had been a long time since he’d needed to do this.

The last time, you’d stood in front of him. You’d been wearing blue too, though the colour had been lighter then. Your fingers had been warm against his throat as you fixed the tie for him, tightening the knot with one precise tug. He remembered the concentration on your face, the brush of your knuckles under his jaw.

He stared at his reflection for another moment.

Had that been the beginning of the end, then? Dinner with his parents, his crashed car. Had he given you even one happy memory in those last few days?

He yanked his tie off and threw it onto the counter beside the sink.

Fuck it, then.

He’d go without one.

What did it matter anyway?

He’d show up at the restaurant, congratulate Soobin and Reina, smile when appropriate. Then he’d drink until he couldn’t recognise himself in any mirror anymore.

✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 7:30 PM

By the time Yeonjun arrived at the restaurant, everyone else was already there.

If he’d stopped to think about it, he might’ve found the sight endearing: the entire group of friends, formed years ago in university auditoriums and dormitories, still turning up for one another like this. Some of the other guests, he recognised, Soobin had known since kindergarten.

It was loud and very crowded here.

His mind was elsewhere.

He bumped into Soobin’s parents right by the door; his mother had earrings the size of small planets. They wanted to know how his family was doing.

“Fine, I expect,” he said, and walked off before they could ask what he meant. He hoped they’d assume he was drunk.

The restaurant had been decorated in excess, not unlike a royal wedding: white and gold everywhere, with balloons on the ceiling, on the walls, and stuck to the back of Kai’s head as Taehyun attempted to explain that hairspray was supposed to reduce static. There were enough flowers here that Yeonjun had heard Beomgyu sneezing from the street outside.

He saw you right away.

You stood near the main table in the centre of the room in your blue dress, one arm wrapped loosely around Reina’s shoulders. Nara stood opposite you, gesticulating wildly as she spoke, her bracelets flashing under the lights.

Then Soobin arrived and leaned over to murmur something into Reina’s ear. She laughed and pulled back from you with a quick wave.

Smiling softly, you turned to watch them go.

Yeonjun stared at that smile right up until he tripped over a loose ribbon trailing from the enormous banner stretched across the wall: REINA and SOOBIN 2027.

“Sorry,” he muttered to the approaching waiter, who bent to fix the ribbon.

On instinct, Yeonjun grabbed two champagne flutes from the tray in the waiter’s hands. Without hesitation, he downed the first one, dropped it back on the tray, and set off towards you and Nara with the second still in hand.

He figured he’d come up with something intelligent to say on the walk over.

Unfortunately, the walk was very short.

“Hi,” was the best he could do. “Where’re the betrothed?”

Nara, deducing the question wasn’t meant for her, took a sip of her champagne.

You turned towards him.

His hair was slicked back, but several dark strands had already escaped the gel and fallen over his forehead. He wore a black suit with a white shirt underneath. The buttons were golden.

Your gaze dropped, uninvited, to the exposed line of his neck. He wasn’t wearing a tie.

“Appetiser emergency,” you said, turning back ahead. “Something’s wrong with the salmon.”

“Ah,” Yeonjun said.

You were almost exactly his height in your heels. He became acutely aware of having a throat.

He wondered if he knew any fun facts about salmon. It wasn’t naturally pink; would that help the conversation? Also, was salmon the fish that could leap two meters out of water or was that—oh God, he was dying.

“W-wanted to apologise for being late,” he added, “but guess that’ll have to wait, then.”

“Hmm.” Nara smiled into her glass. “Bold of you to assume they even noticed you weren’t here.”

You snorted before you could stop yourself.

Yeonjun glanced at you and smiled despite the jab.

Good choice, then, not going with the salmon facts.

“Still,” he said, draining the rest of his champagne in one gulp. “S’rude of me. D’you need me to get you another drink?”

You didn’t immediately process the offer. Nara tilted her head meaningfully towards the empty flute in your hand, a knowing grin on her lips.

“Oh.” You rotated the stem of the glass between your fingers. “No. I’ve got it.”

You smiled at Nara and stepped away towards the bar.

It took Yeonjun a few seconds to realise you meant you’d go and get another drink right this instant, and not in a moment. He watched you walk away and tried to decide what a decent waiting time was before he could casually turn up next to you again.

Nara asked him something.

He didn’t hear a word and answered with a noncommittal grunt.

Guests crowded around him, and Nara, bored now, walked away to join them, momentarily blocking his view. He lost sight of you.

Just as something uneasy began to tighten in his stomach, he spotted your blue dress again near the bar by the far wall.

“You’re here!”

Yeonjun flinched at the clap on his shoulder and turned around.

Soobin and Reina stood behind him, both already flushed from champagne, their eyes sparkling. Reflections from the hanging lights flickered in Reina’s golden earrings every time she moved her head. Soobin, noticeably, couldn’t look away from her pink dress for more than two seconds at a time.

Just looking at them made Yeonjun remember how to smile.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, giving them each a nod. “Congratulations, guys. The place looks beautiful.”

Over the last year, Reina had stopped looking at him like she might one day strangle him with her bare hands. For a while, she hadn’t looked at him at all.

Tonight, she smiled and lifted her glass slightly in acknowledgement.

“Thanks, man,” Soobin replied, smacking his shoulder again.

Yeonjun nodded awkwardly. He wanted to offer a more heartfelt sentiment for the occasion, but couldn’t stop thinking about salmon.

“You find the drinks alright?” Soobin asked.

Automatically, Yeonjun glanced towards the bar.

You were still there.

“Not yet,” he said, slipping the empty flute behind his back. “Thought I’d get one now, actually.”

“Of course,” Soobin said easily. The room was delightfully fuzzy around him. He loved champagne. “Enjoy yourself.”

Nodding again, Yeonjun disappeared back into the moving crowd.

Reina watched him leave, the corner of her mouth twitching.

She’d seen you by the bar.

✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 8 PM

As the first round of appetisers began circulating through the restaurant—small, buttery things topped with salmon and herbs that you and Reina had taste-tested earlier that afternoon—people drifted back to their tables.

Conversations mellowed into an expectant hum; the instrumental music on the speakers quieted.

It was time for the toasts.

Naturally, this took ages.

Everyone here had known each other too long to tell a short story. Every memory required context, three unrelated anecdotes, and at least one interruption from another table.

Reina and Soobin’s parents being here tempered some of the wilder tales, although not by much. Reina’s father, already out of his jacket, cheeks rosy from champagne, laughed louder than anyone in the room whenever someone started implying things they probably shouldn’t have.

Your personal favourite remained Beomgyu’s passionate retelling of how Reina had, over time, replaced Soobin for him.

It had started innocently enough: he’d go over to Soobin and Yeonjun’s to use their PlayStation for a few hours. Soobin usually joined him. Then, one time, Reina appeared in the doorway of Soobin’s bedroom, wincing. She had better things to do than watch them play, but Soobin was getting demolished, and she thought it reflected poorly on her. She took over the controller and proceeded to beat Beomgyu three times in a row before she got bored and left again.

“That,” Beomgyu said, hand pressed to his chest, “deeply impressed me.”

His champagne flute became part of the story. He mimicked Soobin’s aim and sloshed the drink across the tablecloth. Gestured at Reina again and nearly sent the whole glass flying.

The more people laughed, the louder he spoke.

“I’ve decided,” he concluded finally, “that I prefer playing against Rei. Least she can make a jump without respawning ten times.”

Another wave of laughter drowned out Soobin’s indignant yelps of protest. Reina leaned against his shoulder, hiding her laughter in the crook of his neck.

Beomgyu raised his glass higher.

“Anyway,” he announced, “can’t wait for your wedding. Cheers!”

Glasses rose around the restaurant, followed by applause. Soobin reached instinctively for Reina’s hand. The smile on her face beside him was bright enough to light up the whole building.

The warmth from their table radiated through the restaurant, settling into conversations as the evening wore on and people splintered into smaller groups.

Reina’s mother eventually settled down beside Taehyun at his table—she seemed to have adopted him the moment he’d brought her a fresh glass of champagne; her third one tonight. Her husband had suggested a two-glass limit. She suggested it was time for her husband to go home.

Across the room, Yeonjun leaned back, one arm draped over the back of his chair, and observed your conversation with Beomgyu a few tables away—for about a minute. Then he counted to three, finished the rest of his champagne, and rose to his feet.

Beomgyu, meanwhile, had taken it upon himself to revisit Taehyun’s earlier statement about static and hairspray. He rubbed a white balloon vigorously against the back of his head while he explained the theory.

His hair was beginning to lift.

“I believe you,” you said, already smiling despite yourself. “But, uh—you’re not worried this will ruin your hairstyle?”

“No, no, look.” He rubbed harder, oblivious to the strands floating upward around his ears. “I’m saying hairspray creates resist—”

“All that electricity can’t be good for you.”

You felt Yeonjun sit down beside you before you turned your head. He held another champagne flute in his hand.

Something inside you relaxed at the sight of him. Then this instinctive reaction set your teeth on edge.

“Lightning’s going to get you,” Yeonjun added, nodding towards Beomgyu’s hair. “How’re you going to make it to Nara’s birthday party next week, then?”

Beomgyu lowered the balloon slowly.

“This has got nothing to do with lightning,” he said. Then, less confidently: “Has it?”

Distracted by his growing concern, he missed the look you gave Yeonjun.

“No,” you said, unable to stop yourself from playing along. “It’s not raining right now anyway.”

“It’s not—but when it rains?” Beomgyu smoothed one side of his hair back down. Perhaps, he thought, he hadn’t used enough hairspray.

“Then we’ll be able to use you,” Yeonjun said, “to tell if there’s going to be thunder.”

Beomgyu frowned and turned back to you again.

“’Cause your hair will stand up,” you explained, gesturing at his head, “like a lightning rod of sorts.”

Yeonjun snickered quietly into his drink.

Realisation dawned on Beomgyu’s face.

He fixed you both with his most practised glare, scoffed, and pushed himself up from his chair.

“You guys think I’m five years old,” he said, pointing at you, then at Yeonjun, “don’t you?”

You failed to resist a smile.

“You look it,” Yeonjun replied, lifting his glass. “S’a compliment, really.”

Beomgyu hummed. Then, suspiciously solemn, he stepped around the table and leaned in before Yeonjun could react. Static crackled through the air as he rubbed the balloon against the back of Yeonjun’s head with ferocious enthusiasm.

“Oi! What—”

He ducked under Yeonjun’s outstretched hands, cackling, and darted into the crowd.

Grimacing, Yeonjun peeled the balloon away from his hair. A few strands remained standing upright.

“What a little shit,” he muttered.

When he looked up, you were already gone from your seat.

He pressed his lips together.

He sat there for a moment, balloon in hand, listening to the noises in the restaurant: the scrape of chairs, the laughter dissolving into the low rhythm of music. The balloons drifted by his feet whenever the kitchen doors swung open.

He didn’t know what to do with himself.

He couldn’t just sit here with this fucking balloon.

Near the main table, Soobin’s mother swayed to the music with both of Reina’s parents. The two women giggled loudly, clearly already tipsy. Soobin’s father joined them, balancing a tray of drinks in one hand.

Yeonjun watched them for a moment without really seeing them.

Then he spotted a passing waiter and stood. He traded his empty flute for a full one—then reconsidered his current circumstances and took the whole tray instead.

The champagne was dry and unremarkable, but it did the job. He guzzled half the glass and fell back into the crowd.

A few minutes later, he found you again.

This time, you were talking to Kai in the warm light near the kitchen doors.

A little tipsy and very conversational, Kai spoke with his entire body. Champagne kept sloshing dangerously close to the rim of his glass every time his hands flew up, the restaurant lights catching the bubbles.

Currently, he was filling you in on everything you’d missed at university while you were in New York.

“I thought he left because he got a better offer somewhere,” you said, raising one eyebrow.

“No.” Kai shook his head hard enough to splash champagne onto the cuff of his shirt. He didn’t notice. “No, no. He was sleeping with two undergrads at the same time, and they found out about each other.”

Your second eyebrow rose to join the first. “And then?”

“And then,” he continued, thrilled, “the undergrads teamed up and went straight to the Board together. Told them everything, brought screenshots. And now he’s fired.”

You chuckled, rotating the champagne flute in your hands.

“Nice,” you said. “Love it when women collaborate.”

“We should’ve seen it coming, honestly,” he said, sipping from his half-empty glass. “Something was always off with his classes. Serves him right for being such a rigid—”

“Serves whom right?”

By now, you’d half-expected Yeonjun. You didn’t bother turning around.

He stopped beside you anyway, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him against your arm. He tipped his head back and emptied the champagne in his glass in one swallow. He’d left the tray on the table behind him and glanced over his shoulder to make sure it was still there.

“Professor Johnson,” Kai told him. “He got fired.”

Yeonjun had absolutely no memory of a Professor Johnson.

Honestly, five glasses in, he was starting to have no memory of what he was even here for.

“No way,” he said. “What’d he do?”

Kai, buzzing at the opportunity to retell the story, started from the very beginning.

You listened for approximately two seconds, up until you had to duck away from Kai’s gestures. Then, lips pursed to fight back your laughter, you finished your champagne and left Yeonjun to endure the story alone.

And endure it he did, nodding at appropriate moments—more or less—while simultaneously scanning the restaurant for you. Kai’s hands grew increasingly more animated beside him.

There.

You’d joined a group of girls near the windows. Yeonjun didn’t recognise any of them, but you clearly did; laughter softened your features as you leaned towards one of them. The blue of your dress shimmered in the light every time you moved. The entire restaurant seemed to swim around it.

Kai noticed Yeonjun’s wandering attention mid-sentence.

He followed Yeonjun’s gaze across the restaurant, hand already reaching to drag him back into the conversation—until he spotted you near the windows and stopped.

Abandoning his efforts to resume the story, Kai walked off in search of more champagne before Yeonjun drained the place dry.

Yeonjun barely noticed him leave.

You were still laughing, which was good. He wanted you to keep doing that. Wanted the music on the speakers to quiet down, too, so he could hear you better. He also wanted—

Taehyun appeared beside you. He slipped smoothly into the conversation, apologised to the girls surrounding you, then leaned in to whisper something in your ear.

Yeonjun decided, immediately, that he needed something stronger than champagne.

By the time he crossed the restaurant towards you, a glass of whiskey in hand, Taehyun was already grinning.

Earlier in the evening, he’d been too busy charming Reina’s mother to pay much attention to anything else. Now, however, Reina’s parents were gathering their coats near the door, and Taehyun had redirected his energy into the next most exciting thing: tracking Yeonjun’s every move.

“It’s you again,” Taehyun said, raising his soju shot in greeting.

You glanced at Yeonjun. He met your gaze head-on and held it for an entire half-second.

“It’s me again,” he said.

“Have you had anything to eat?” Taehyun asked, eyeing the glass in Yeonjun’s hands. “Or just the drinks, then?”

“Just the drinks, then.”

“I see.”

Yeonjun swayed faintly where he stood. You turned your face so he wouldn’t see the smile threatening your lips.

“We were just talking about you, you know,” Taehyun added.

Yeonjun turned his whole body towards you. The golden light from the lamps carved dramatic shadows along his cheeks.

“Were you?” he asked.

“We were,” you said. “Noticed you’re very sociable tonight.”

The implication reached him about a second late. You watched him narrow his eyes, then take another sip.

“Guess I am, then,” he said.

“Any reason for that?”

He shrugged. Then shrugged again.

“My best friend’s engaged,” he said finally. “M’happy.”

You glanced at Taehyun just in time to catch the grin he was trying to hide by swallowing his soju. He placed the empty shot glass on the table next to him and turned back to Yeonjun.

He’d already noticed that every time you drifted into another conversation somewhere in the restaurant, Yeonjun reappeared minutes later with a fresh drink in his hand.

Naturally, Taehyun figured, this called for a small social experiment.

“Hm.” He stepped back to look you over with exaggerated consideration. “Have I told you you look stunning in that dress?”

Your eyebrows lifted.

Beside you, Yeonjun finished the rest of his whiskey in one alarming gulp. Ice knocked against the glass when he lowered it again.

“You haven’t,” you replied. “Thank you.”

Something in your dry tone amused Taehyun very much.

He decided to expand the scope of his experiment.

“Have you seen the photographer?” he asked, glancing around the restaurant. A few groups of people had started loose, tipsy dancing circles between the tables.

“I haven’t.”

You didn’t follow his gaze, which made Taehyun’s smile widen immediately.

Clueless, Yeonjun turned around. He had seen the photographer earlier—hard not to; the man had an aggressively white suit. Looked like a bishop in a game of human chess. Or the pope. Did popes wear white?

Salmon! Salmon was naturally white.

Before Yeonjun could point out the photographer with the salmon suit, Taehyun reached for your hand.

“We should take a picture together,” Taehyun announced, pulling you gently towards him.

You resisted instinctively, your heels dragging against the floor tiles. “Haven’t we already?”

“Not just the two of us.”

Your expression flattened immediately.

Taehyun, emboldened further, slid his free hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew his phone.

“Yeonjun,” he said pleasantly, holding it out. “Would you mind?”

A strange moment passed.

Yeonjun looked at the phone.

Then at Taehyun.

Then, finally, at Taehyun’s hand still wrapped loosely around your wrist.

The bustling restaurant seemed to fade around him. Someone dropped something near the kitchen; it sounded like a knife or a fork.

Slowly, Yeonjun accepted the phone.

Taehyun was surprised; he’d been convinced this would be enough. Back in grad school, Yeonjun would’ve combusted by now.

Alright, then.

Interesting.

Taehyun dropped his hand to your waist.

Yeonjun stared at the screen of Taehyun’s phone as though he’d never encountered such technology before. After a second, he set his empty glass down on the windowsill behind him.

Taehyun stepped beside you. Warmth pressed along your side as he nudged you even nearer.

“What are you doing?” you muttered under your breath.

“Trying to see something,” he whispered back. Up close, his breath smelled distinctly of soju, although it was hard to tell whether he was already drunk or still on the way.

Meanwhile, Yeonjun finally unlocked the phone. The screen tilted in his hand, the restaurant lights smearing across the glass until the apps blurred together.

He opened the email and stared, perplexed, at the writing on the screen. What the fuck was DHL and why—

This wasn’t right.

Finally, he found the camera.

He stepped back until the windowsill pressed against his hip and raised the phone, deliberately not looking at either of you.

Taehyun smiled at once. Pinned to his side by the weight of his arm around your waist, you managed something polite enough to pass for a smile, too.

Yeonjun took one picture.

Then another.

Then several more in quick succession, his thumb tapping faster each time.

You hadn’t realised how rigid you were until the muscles in your upper back started to burn. Taehyun, on the other hand, looked perfectly at ease beside you.

The moment he started snickering, unable to hold it in any longer, you stepped away and fixed him with a disapproving look.

You had long suspected that prolonged exposure to Beomgyu had caused permanent damage to his brain. The two of them rubbed off on each other in all the worst ways sometimes.

Taehyun’s smile didn’t so much as twitch as he took the phone back from Yeonjun. “Thanks!”

He swiped through the photos until he reached the first one with you in it and exhaled dramatically. He no longer worked at the theatre, but he’d clearly retained the flair for performance.

“Ah.” He sighed. “We look good together.”

Lips pursed, you glanced down at his phone.

The overhead lights glinted off the screen. You lifted a hand to block the glare, your shoulder brushing against his.

“Although,” Taehyun added just as you leaned in, “you do look a bit like a police sketch. I mean that respectfully.”

You snorted, pinching the screen to zoom in on your faces. Your eyes were completely lifeless in the picture.

“No, yeah,” you said, “I look like I’m wanted in twenty-five countr—”

“You look beautiful,” Yeonjun said.

Taehyun’s head shot up, victorious.

Slowly, you looked up, too.

Yeonjun still stood by the windows, one hand absently twisting the golden ribbon tied around the white curtain. The restaurant tables reflected on the glass behind him.

He was looking at you.

For a moment, you couldn’t seem to do anything but look back.

Taehyun grinned.

“Do you two want a picture together?” he asked, very pleased with himself.

You dropped your gaze first. “That won’t be—”

“Yes,” Yeonjun said.

Taehyun’s smile spread.

“Alright,” he said, stepping back and gesturing between the two of you with his phone. “Go on, then.”

You glanced at him, contemplated briefly what life in prison would be like, then turned to Yeonjun. He shifted to one side, making room for you next to him.

You didn’t move.

“Come on,” Taehyun urged. “Haven’t got all day.”

“No?” You cut him a look. “You can go, then.”

He plastered on a kind smile.

“I’d rather stay,” he said. “Go on now, come on. It’s just a picture. Or is something the matter?”

You pressed your lips together and turned away.

The dull sound of your platform heels against the tiles seemed unnaturally loud as you crossed the space towards Yeonjun. By the time you stopped next to him, your heart had climbed so high into your throat that you couldn’t swallow.

Taehyun raised his phone. On his screen, you and Yeonjun looked like you were two presidential candidates forced to stand next to each other before an important debate.

“Wow.” He tsked. “This is extremely awkward.”

You scoffed, your thoughts tripping over fifteen different retorts.

Yeonjun cleared his throat next to you.

“I, personally,” he said, one eye blinking slower than the other, “think s’nice.”

Taehyun openly beamed. He was having the time of his life here tonight. Soobin and Reina should get engaged every day.

“I like the sound of that,” he said, taking a step closer. “Just—here. Let me help.”

He caught Yeonjun by the elbow and nudged him closer to you with enough force to make him stumble half a step. Then, laughing under his breath, he pried your wrist from your resistance and placed your hand against Yeonjun’s chest.

You couldn’t breathe.

“There,” Taehyun said, stepping back to admire his work. “Much better. Now closer.”

You moved perhaps half an inch.

Taehyun shook his head.

“Closer,” he repeated. And then, closer, closer, closer—three more times, until you could feel Yeonjun’s heartbeat against your own.

His cologne curled around you, the same one, reminiscent of citrus and wood. Of cold air. Of late-night drives in the rain. Low-lit kitchens and quiet music on the speakers.

“Smile now,” Taehyun instructed.

You tried.

The shutter clicked—once, twice. Then twice more.

You were painfully aware of every point of contact between you and Yeonjun: the warmth beneath your hand, the sound of his breath, the thumping inside your chest and right against it.

Finally, Taehyun lowered his phone.

You took a step back, hands automatically reaching for the zipper of your dress just to have something solid to hold. Cold air prickled across your arms.

Taehyun had already started flicking through the photos, his head cocked to one side as he studied each one. You moved back to his side.

No one spoke for a minute.

The pictures were awful.

They looked like they’d been taken years ago, sometime in university, even, before the distance and the silence and all that came after. They looked like nothing had happened at all. You could not look away.

Beside you, Taehyun glanced up from the screen.

Up until now, this had all been a laugh: push Yeonjun’s buttons here, see how red his ears get there. But now Yeonjun was standing by the window, looking at you and not the pictures, and Taehyun realised there was something here that he hadn’t accounted for.

He glanced back down at the pictures. At the way Yeonjun had angled himself toward you in every frame. The way your fingers rested easily over the white line of his shirt.

For months, Taehyun remembered, every time he’d tried to bring Yeonjun up around you, you shut it down straight away.

I don’t know what you’re on about.

We were just joking.

Nothing really happened.

Right, then.

People who meant nothing to each other did not fall back together that easily.

“Great,” you said finally. The slit of your dress pulled slightly against your thigh as you took a step back. You glanced quickly towards the bar. “Um—great pictures.”

Taehyun looked up at you.

His experiment, he thought, could give you one more push.

“Yeah?” he said lightly. “‘Cause we can have a re-do.”

You turned back to him. “No. This is good.”

“Hm.” He swiped through the pictures again, smiling. “Are these your first photos together?”

Yeonjun quietly shook his head.

Taehyun didn’t notice and glanced back up at you, expectant.

You cleared your throat. “No.”

He nodded, scrolling further back to the earlier photos of you and him.

“Well,” he said. “I reckon ours turned out better anyway.”

Your expression relaxed just a little.

“We look natural,” he continued, zooming in. Your eyes, he noted, hadn’t looked this empty with Yeonjun. He continued anyway, “and comfortable. Like we actually enjoy spending time together.”

By the window, Yeonjun visibly stiffened.

You clicked your tongue. “M’not enjoying spending time with you right now.”

“No?” Taehyun’s tone remained innocent. “Would you prefer I left you two alone, then?”

“Actually—”

“Yeonjun?” Taehyun finished, turning his head towards him.

“Yes,” Yeonjun said. “I would.”

Aha, Taehyun thought.

Just a bit more now, he was sure.

“Oh,” he said, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Don’t mind me, then.” He flashed you a grin, all teeth and vice and everything nice. “I was just having such a nice time catching up with you. We should do it more often.”

“We saw each other on Thursday,” you said.

“And yet I already suffer tremendously.” He reached for your hand again. “Maybe we should—”

“Excuse me.” Yeonjun stepped forward abruptly, forcing you and Taehyun apart. “I need to use the restroom.”

He lingered between you for a heartbeat, his thoughts spinning and tripping over one another. Then he kept walking.

Your perfume still swam around him. Your hand had been on his chest less than five minutes ago. The space between you and Taehyun—

He needed a minute before his nervous system gave up on him for good.

You watched him disappear through the restroom doors. Beside you, Taehyun made a strangled sound suspiciously close to a laugh.

You turned slowly towards him. “You little snake.”

Taehyun exploded with all the amusement he’d been holding back, one hand comically braced against his stomach. His shoulders shook hard enough that nearby people started glancing over.

“You should see your face,” he wheezed. “I nearly—”

“What’re you trying to do here?”

Still spluttering, he managed to straighten up.

“Nothing at all,” he said. “Just celebrating.”

Before you could question him further, he sighed happily and leaned in to press a quick kiss to your cheek—purely to annoy you one last time.

It worked.

“Taehyun.”

Laughing again, he sauntered towards the rest of your friends.

At some point during the evening, the floral centrepiece on the main table had been replaced by an unstable tower of jelly shots—Soobin, Reina, Nara, and Beomgyu were currently involved in a fiercely competitive game of jelly shot Jenga (JJ, as Beomgyu called it three rounds ago and now refused to call it anything else).

Judging by the alarming redness of Soobin’s cheeks, Reina was currently winning.

Taehyun arrived just in time to watch her slide another shot from the middle row. The structure held.

She threw both arms into the air so abruptly that she nearly sent Soobin tumbling into the table.

“Yes!” she shouted.

“I’m a little scared of you,” Nara said.

Laughing, Reina caught Soobin by the front of his jacket and pulled him into a kiss that he accepted with immediate enthusiasm.

He looked a little dazed when she pulled away, thrilled by her victory and their engagement and all their friends being here. He leaned back into the table dreamily.

“Bin—” Nara’s voice died in a high-pitched squeal as Soobin’s sleeve brushed the side of the middle row.

The tower collapsed at once, shot glasses staining the formerly white tablecloth in beautiful shades of the rainbow. Screeches rang around the table: Soobin—it wasn’t my fault—SOOBIN—I DIDN’T MEAN TO—

Beomgyu was doubled over with laughter as he tried to salvage the bottom row. Taehyun assisted him by dutifully swallowing every shot he was handed.

Before anyone could recruit you into helping rebuild the disaster, you turned away, walking towards the coat rack. You rummaged through your handbag until your fingers found your cigarettes; the cardboard pack was slightly crushed at one corner. You grabbed it, found your lighter, and slipped towards the back exit.

Outside, the evening air was cool against your bare arms.

The alley beside the restaurant smelled of damp brick and smoke. Headlights swept past the opening of the street. Somewhere further down the block, a group of teenage boys shouted loudly at one another.

You inhaled deeply and held the cold in your lungs for a moment. Then you opened the pack of Camels.

It was New York that had reminded you of the old habit.

Everyone there seemed to smoke socially: outside bars, museums, small European restaurants (the performative ones, with dreadful lighting and cocktails that nearly put you in debt, and the genuine ones, with great food and small windows).

You’d grown fond of standing outside with strangers, white smoke curling through the conversations, sharing lighters, borrowing cigarettes. It gave your hands something to do and, more importantly, it provided a great excuse to leave any room.

Yeonjun did not know about this habit.

When he finally left the restroom—after splashing cold water on his face and staring at himself in the mirror for a minute—his eyes automatically began searching the restaurant for blue.

Nothing.

He scanned the room again.

Still nothing.

Concern prickled through him as he grabbed another whiskey from the bar and started circling the restaurant in search of a familiar face. Someone had to have seen you.

Glittering dresses, glasses of champagne, and those endless fucking balloons all blurred past him.

Finally, he spotted Kai by the windows.

Unfortunately for Yeonjun, Kai had already been briefed on Taehyun’s ongoing social experiment and had decided, out of scientific curiosity, to become complicit.

“She left,” Kai said. “With Taehyun, I think.”

In reality, Kai knew, Taehyun was getting a new tray of jelly shots with Beomgyu, hoping to rebuild their tower.

Yeonjun, of course, did not know this.

“Yes,” Kai said in response to his gobsmacked expression. “Like two minutes ago, maybe.”

Yeonjun scanned the restaurant a third time, faster now.

You definitely weren’t here.

And neither was Taehyun.

Something heavy dropped straight through his stomach.

“Right,” he muttered. “I’ve got to go.”

Kai watched, fascinated, as Yeonjun abruptly turned and crossed the restaurant. Still clutching his whiskey glass, he barged past groups of people and disappeared through the back exit.

That was very interesting.

Taehyun, Kai thought, sipping his champagne, was going to enjoy hearing that the breaking point for Yeonjun had apparently been the mere possibility of you leaving the party with someone else.

✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 10 PM

Yeonjun found you the moment he shoved through the steel door.

The metal slammed against the wall hard enough to make you jump. Your cigarette nearly slipped from your fingers, scattering ash across your hand and the wet concrete at your feet.

You looked up.

Yeonjun stood beneath the flickering exit sign. It tinted his face a sickly green. His chest rose and fell beneath the open collar of his shirt, a little too fast. His hair had started coming loose; several dark strands now hung over his forehead.

For a second, he simply stared at you. The frigid air had slapped some clarity back into him, though not enough to undo the whiskey.

This, he concluded, was the smoking area, then.

“Y-you’re not here with—” He stopped himself with a long exhale. “Okay.”

You stared back at him, completely thrown.

Slowly, Yeonjun reached back and pulled the door shut behind him. The noise from the restaurant dulled immediately, leaving only the hiss of tyres somewhere beyond the alley and the quiet electric buzz of the exit sign.

He moved away from the door and leaned his back against the wall opposite you. The whiskey glass in his hand trembled slightly, the ice tapping against the edge.

His gaze dropped to the cigarette between your fingers; your second one.

“Didn’t know you still smoked,” he said, patting distractedly at his chest until his fingers found the inside pocket of his jacket.

You chose not to question why he’d followed you out here.

“I don’t,” you replied, bringing the cigarette to your lips.

He smiled. “Yeah?”

You exhaled toward the alley. “Yeah.”

“Cool,” he said, pulling out the crumpled red package of Marlboro from his pocket. “I do.”

He planted a cigarette between his lips and nodded towards the lighter you were still clutching in your hand. He had his own, but he couldn’t care less for it right now.

You flicked the lighter open.

Yeonjun leaned forward and misjudged the distance completely. He stumbled half a step closer, ending up nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with you against the wall. Whiskey sloshed dangerously in his glass. You took a cautious step aside.

“Sorry,” he murmured around the cigarette. “You mind?”

You held the flame up to him.

This time, he leaned in carefully. The cigarette tip glowed orange in the dark, briefly illuminating the soft curve of his mouth. His cheeks hollowed as he took a drag.

You lowered the lighter and looked away.

“Smart idea,” you said, nodding towards the glass in his hand, “bringing your drink here.”

He followed your gaze downwards as if he’d forgotten he still had the whiskey with him.

“Yeah. Oh—” He glanced back at you. “You want some?”

You hesitated for only a second. “Dry throat.”

He held the glass out immediately.

You took a large swig. The whiskey burned harshly going down, but settled warm in your stomach.

“Thanks,” you said, handing the glass back.

His hand curled around it without looking, fingers grazing yours as he steadied the cigarette against the rim and took another drag. His lips brushed the edge of the glass.

Smoke drifted from his mouth in a thin silver stream, dissolving into the dark.

You only realised you’d been staring when your heart forgot its rhythm.

Turning away, you crossed one arm over your waist and lifted the cigarette again. Smoke filtered down into your lungs, calm and almost soothing.

“You should drink more,” Yeonjun said, staring absently into his glass.

“Yeah?” you said. “As much as you did tonight?”

A tired smirk pulled at the corner of his lips.

He wasn’t going to defend himself. He felt one prolonged blink away from falling asleep against the wall.

For a while, the two of you stood in silence while the smoke drifted upward between you before dissipating into the cold night air. The brick wall was rough and chilly against your shoulders, but you didn’t move.

You weren’t standing nearly as close to Yeonjun as you had in front of Taehyun’s camera, but this was somehow worse. As if without the proof of his heartbeat against yours, you couldn’t be sure he was actually here.

“Taehyun was being an idiot back there, you know,” you found yourself saying. “He didn’t mean anything.”

Yeonjun exhaled smoke slowly through his mouth.

“I know,” he said.

You glanced at him again, taking in the exhaustion on his face. The night seemed to hang off his shoulders.

“What’s going on with you, then?” you asked.

He huffed out a small laugh.

“Several things,” he said, turning his head towards you. “I’m a machine. Got loads of ongoing processes and—”

“Yeonjun.” Your voice softened. “Be real right now.”

The smile faded from his face. “I am real.”

“So, what’s the matter with you? What’s with inserting yourself into every conversation I’m having?”

He scoffed, his shoulders tightening against the wall.

“What?” he said. “I can’t talk to people now?”

“You can,” you said evenly. “Why’s it always the same people I’m talking to, though?”

He took another drag from his cigarette and tipped his head back against the wall. His gaze wandered towards the narrow strip of night sky visible above the alley as he exhaled the smoke. No stars tonight; too many streetlights drowned them out.

“Just happened that way,” he said. “The restaurant’s smaller than it looks.”

“Right.”

You turned away from him and brought the cigarette back to your lips. The paper crackled as it burned.

“Did your grandad get you those sunflowers?” Yeonjun asked.

You blew out the smoke. “What?”

“The sunflowers you’ve got at home.” His eyes stayed fixed on the sky. “Are they from your grandad?”

Your brows pulled together. “Where is this coming from?”

“Just—just answer the question.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Are they from your grandad?”

You exhaled through your nose, smoke trailing with your breath. You didn’t know when he’d noticed the sunflowers.

“They are,” you said.

He dropped his gaze back to the pavement. “Okay.”

You stared at his hands for a second. His fingers relaxed around the glass.

“So nothing’s going on with you, then,” you said, tapping ash onto the pavement. “Just acting crazy for no reason.”

He scoffed around the cigarette, teeth sinking briefly into the filter.

“Well, why should I tell you if something was going on?” he said. “You don’t want to talk to me.”

“That—” You watched his hand tighten around the glass again. “Is that the problem?”

“I don’t know,” he said. Ash fell from the end of his cigarette in grey flakes, dropping over the toes of his loafers. “I’ve got too many problems to keep track of them all.”

“What—”

“I’ve decided,” he cut in, pushing himself off the wall, “I’m going to go back to the party now.”

You watched him stub out the cigarette against the bricks behind him. It hissed faintly as it died.

This was starting to feel surreal.

“Okay,” you said slowly. “And do what?”

He tossed the filter into the bin by the door.

The smile on his face was crooked and a little mean when he looked back at you. You knew it well.

“Well,” he said, stopping in front of you, “that’s none of your business now, is it?”

“It wouldn’t be,” you said through a stream of smoke, “if you weren’t interrupting every conversation I tried to have tonight.”

“M’not interrupting,” he said. “Just joining. S’called mingling.”

You scoffed. “You’re not mingling.”

“Yeah, I am,” he said, and the whiskey finally showed its face in the sluggish click of his tongue against his teeth. “And you don’t get to have a problem with it, because you don’t want me.”

Your fingers froze around the cigarette.

Yeonjun leaned heavily back against the wall beside you, as if the effort of the words had drained whatever energy he had left. He lifted the whiskey and took a long sip. It was mostly melted ice now.

You turned to face him fully. “What—what does that even mean?”

“It means m’going to go,” he said, but didn’t budge. His eyes flicked briefly towards the door beside him before snapping back to you. “Oh—or would you rather I wait, so you can go back first? Just in case, yeah? Have to be safe.”

You pressed your lips together tightly enough that your teeth clicked.

“We’re doing this shit now?” you said.

He shrugged. “Guess we are.”

Slowly, you dropped your cigarette onto the pavement and crushed it beneath your heel before tossing the remains into the bin. You brushed your palms together.

“Okay.” You met his eyes. “You can go back first. Just don’t make tonight worse for yourself than it already is.”

“Oh, worse, yeah.” He shifted, shoulder resting against the wall, angled towards you. “How d’you reckon I could make it worse?”

You clicked your tongue and crossed your arms over your chest.

“If you have to ask that,” you said, “then you clearly already know.”

A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. He knew you wouldn’t answer him properly.

He took another sip from his glass.

“No, actually,” he said. Everything inside him was burning. “S’the whole point of asking a question. It implies not knowing the answer.”

“Okay, wise-ass. How much have you had to drink tonight?”

He turned his head, grinning. “If you have to ask that, then you clearly already know.”

You rolled your eyes and turned away from him. “I see we’re still twelve.”

“Thirteen and a half now,” he replied. “Been over a year since we were last out together.”

The tightness in your chest spread lower, frigid along your spine.

“Has it?” you said.

He glanced at you without lifting his head from the wall. “I’m offended you wouldn’t remember.”

“Why would I remember a bet we had for two weeks?”

His gaze dropped to the whiskey glass hanging loosely from his hand. The green light from the exit sign shimmered weakly across the surface, catching on the half-melted ice cubes.

For a moment, he just watched them swirl.

Then, quieter:

“Was that all there was, then?”

The silence that followed landed like a weight on your shoulders. It took you a moment to realise there wasn’t anyone else around to answer him for you.

“You said so,” you replied, tightening your grip around yourself.

Yeonjun sniffled.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said—out loud, for the first time.

You scoffed so quickly, it nearly startled him.

“Yeah?” you said. “Did that only take you a year and a half to figure out, then?”

“No.” His voice dropped. “I knew I didn’t mean it the moment I said it.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

You asked the question, but your body was already preparing to leave. Your weight shifted, one knee bent slightly. Your eyes darted towards the door once, then once more.

Yeonjun wished he’d drunk more so he wouldn’t have noticed.

“Are you going to let me explain properly,” he asked, “or do you just want a quick answer so you can keep hating me?”

You watched him for a long moment after that: the darkness in his eyes, the tight set of his jaw, the mess of his hair. Your hands dropped to your sides.

He didn’t know, then, that there was very little he could say that would actually make you hate him.

You looked away towards the mouth of the alley and waited for a car to drive by so you could breathe again.

“I don’t hate you,” you said.

Yeonjun let out a slow breath. He wasn’t hearing you.

“Sure feels like you do,” he mumbled.

Above you, the exit sign seemed to buzz louder.

“I wish I did,” you said.

Yeonjun looked up.

The alcohol must’ve dissolved whatever sense he still possessed, because your words seemed to hit him hard enough to knock his heartbeat into a painfully familiar rhythm.

Now he heard you.

“W-what does that mean, then?” he asked.

You shook your head once. “Means you should go back in. Mingle.”

“No.”

He pushed himself off the wall too quickly and had to steady his balance before he lowered the whiskey glass carefully onto the pavement. Then he took a step closer.

“Explain,” he said. “You don’t hate me?”

You straightened instinctively against the wall, startled by the proximity.

“No,” you said.

“Why not?”

He suspected that might have been a stupid question. And still, his eyes moved slowly between yours, searching your face for the answer. There was nothing secretive left in him tonight; he’d drowned his restraint in the whiskey.

He wanted to know what he was to you now.

Wanted to be close to you.

Wanted you.

“Hating you,” you said, forcing yourself to hold his gaze, “would mean I care about you.”

Yeonjun felt his stomach twist.

He’d heard you say this before: in the dark of his wardrobe room, surrounded by hangers of his clothes and hardly able to take a breath.

“Right,” he murmured, and the darkness in his eyes seemed to grow. “You don’t care.”

The alley around you suddenly felt much too small.

“Right,” you echoed.

“Mm.” He nodded once, eyes still fixed on yours. “Still want to jump out of a window every time I open my mouth, yeah?”

Your breath caught at the question. You could almost feel the plywood backing of his wardrobe against your spine again. Could almost smell the old wood.

“Sometimes,” you said.

His lips twitched.

“Sometimes,” he repeated. A slow smile touched his lips. “That’s better. I like that you’re honest.”

“Mhmm. I’ve never lied to you.”

Surprise flashed in his eyes. You were handing his words back to him.

He remembered you calling him performative for saying that to you back then. Remembered the quiet night and the way you refused to look at him, no matter how much he’d wanted you to. Remembered how desperately he’d hoped you’d believe him then. How desperately he hoped for it now.

The whiskey churned in his stomach.

He moved half a step closer before he realised he was doing it.

“You’re lying to me right now,” he said quietly.

You could hear your pulse in your ears. “I’m not.”

“You are.” He was close enough for your vision to blur around him. “You do care.”

Shivers raced down your spine, so sudden that they almost hurt.

Yeonjun waited. He needed you to admit that you cared. Needed proof that what you said wasn’t true.

You needed it to be true.

When you didn’t speak, he raised one hand. His fingers brushed the ends of your hair, cautious in case you’d shove him away. The touch was light enough that you barely felt it, yet every nerve ending inside you seemed to focus there anyway.

Gently, he swept your hair over your shoulder, exposing the side of your neck to the cool night air.

He really liked your hair tonight.

Really liked that the rest of the alleyway swirled around him, but you stayed completely still.

“S’why you’re out here now,” he murmured. “Asking me what’s the matter with me.” He pulled back just enough to look at your face again. “Because you care.”

“I care,” you replied, breathless, “about the way you’re making us look in front of everyone.”

He tilted his head slightly. “And how am I making us look?”

“Bad.”

“Mm.” He leaned closer again. The toes of his shoes nudged the platform of your heels. “Why?”

His fingertips brushed your face before you could answer, a little cold and feather-light against your skin. Your shoulders pressed harder against the wall behind you.

You didn’t speak.

“Why am I making us look bad, love?” he repeated softly.

Your lungs tightened around the next breath.

Then his palm settled fully against the side of your face, devastatingly familiar.

Your eyes closed before you meant them to.

His thumb brushed over your cheek.

You blinked your eyes open again.

“You’re making it look,” you whispered, “like there’s something here.”

“Hmm.” He was close enough now that the warmth of every word reached your skin before the meaning did. “And there’s nothing here, yeah?”

There was nothing here: every inhale brought his chest against yours. Every exhale brought his mouth closer.

You squeezed your eyes shut again and took a breath.

The alleyway wrapped around you. Cars drifted by on the street. The exit sign pulsed loudly overhead. His cologne clung to the smoke in the air.

It was cold here.

The bricks were rough against your spine.

Before your mind could catch up to you, you pushed yourself off the wall and kissed him.

Yeonjun exhaled against your mouth, nearly choking as he caught your lips between his. His hand tightened at your jaw, still soft, but firm enough to hold you there. To tell you, wordlessly and desperately, not to pull away too soon.

His lips were soft and faintly bitter with smoke.

It was new, this taste of him. You didn’t like not knowing it.

Your hands caught instinctively in the lapels of his jacket, fingers tightening in the fabric as his shoulders loosened under your touch. He sighed against your mouth, emptying his lungs completely so he could breathe you in instead.

Your gloss was still sweet, still tasting faintly of cherry.

He hoped it would haunt him forever.

He tilted your head back to deepen the kiss—so slowly that you felt every moment of it: the parting of his lips, the slight tremor when you pulled closer.

Your fingers found the back of his neck and slid upwards into the strands of his hair. He made a small sound when you tugged lightly.

It went straight through you.

His other hand slid down to your waist, pulling you away from the wall and into him until your balance disappeared into the kiss. Your grip on his jacket tightened; your breath sped up.

“D’you care about me?” he murmured against your lips.

Your response came as a muffled breath, fingers tightening in his hair.

“Tell me,” he whispered, the words barely coherent. “Tell me you care.”

“I care.”

The kiss changed at once; his mouth moved against yours faster, rough with want. It stole the breath straight from your lungs.

His grip tightened around you. He could feel the texture of your dress against his palm, could feel the heat of your skin when his fingers brushed the cutouts on the sides of your waist.

He broke the kiss with a sharp, helpless gasp.

He was so fucking drunk.

“Fuck,” he whispered. His forehead dropped against yours. His lungs felt hollow, but his chest—his chest was so full. “Fuck, fuck, fu—”

“I’m sorry—”

“No.” Both of his hands framed your face instantly. “Fuck, baby, no—” He pressed his lips to yours again. “No.” And again. “Not sorry.” And again. “Not sorry at all.”

Each kiss seemed to carry something different: regret and relief, questions he wanted to ask you, promises you wouldn’t let him make.

You were drowning in the warmth of his mouth, in the solid press of his chest against yours. In the unbearable ease with which your body remembered him.

The tension softened, but your mouths still lingered together in small, quiet touches.

One more kiss.

Another.

A pause that should’ve been the end of it.

Then one more kiss anyway.

And another—

When you finally pulled apart, neither of you could breathe properly.

Yeonjun stayed close enough for the taste of his whiskey to linger on your tongue. Close enough that, if you leaned forward even slightly, you could kiss him again.

“That—” You reached up to wipe your smudged gloss from the corner of his lips with your thumb. He wished you’d left it there. “T-that shouldn’t have happened.”

Something painful flickered in his eyes.

He smiled, but that only made him look sadder.

Slowly, he stepped back. His hands slid down your arms, fingers lingering on your skin for a moment longer before falling away.

“Of course,” he said.

“I mean it.”

“I know you do, love.”

He took another step back and turned away, dragging a hand across his face as he tried to pull himself back together. You watched the line of his shoulders for a minute, your lungs unconsciously syncing to the rhythm of his breathing.

Then you dropped your gaze to the pavement instead. There were cigarette burn stains across the concrete, dark little circles.

“I-I’m going to go,” you said. “And we—we shouldn’t talk again tonight.”

He didn’t move.

A car drove past the alley.

You swallowed hard. “I need verbal agreement from you.”

Yeonjun shut his eyes.

You’d always recovered faster than him. Always been better at drawing lines and standing behind them.

“We won’t talk again tonight,” he said at last, still facing away from you.

The alley felt unstable around him now. If he looked back, if he saw your face again, he knew he’d drag you against him and start this all over again.

“Okay.” You pushed yourself off the wall. “That’s good.”

You moved silently enough that he barely heard you cross to the door. The hinges creaked when you pulled it open.

“I missed this, though,” he said before he could stop himself.

The door stopped moving.

Yeonjun didn’t turn, but he felt you freeze behind him all the same.

He pictured you standing in the doorway, one hand still on the handle, eyes lowered, fighting the same expression you’d worn yesterday in the stairwell.

That would haunt him forever, too.

“Don’t,” you whispered. It was a plea. “I—I’m going.”

The door shut behind you.

Yeonjun took a long, shuddering breath. He dug his lighter from his back pocket. It was nearly empty.

He needed another two cigarettes before he could force himself to go back inside.

✦ • ─── AUGUST 29, 2026. 11:30 PM

Soon, people began to leave the party in small groups, lingering in the doorway of the restaurant with jackets slung over their arms, hugging each other goodbye three times before actually parting. Laughter kept spilling out onto the pavement. Every few minutes, someone suggested, ‘one more for the road, yeah?’

You and Yeonjun were both still here.

Since coming back inside, neither of you had looked directly at the other.

Yeonjun, who had technically honoured his promise not to speak to you again tonight, kept checking the time on his phone to see exactly when tonight would finally be over.

Most of the pleasant whiskey buzz had already started wearing off. Now he was left with a dull headache pressing at the back of his skull.

While Reina and Soobin stood near the entrance, thanking people for coming, you quietly began tidying the remnants of the evening so they’d have less to deal with later.

Before long, Taehyun and Nara showed up to help.

The three of you moved easily around each other through the half-empty restaurant, stacking scattered plates, gathering abandoned champagne flutes, rescuing forgotten handbags and suspicious flash drives from underneath tables.

Every now and then, one of you would laugh at something, and the other two would soon join in.

The sound irritated Yeonjun instantly.

He wanted to be part of it.

He stood near the back of the room with a half-empty whiskey glass and spent nearly a full minute debating whether helping you clean would count as breaking the agreement between you.

Eventually, he decided it wouldn’t, as long as he didn’t speak.

Twenty more minutes until midnight.

“We used to stay out until four in the morning at least,” Nara remarked as Yeonjun silently took a stack of empty plates from her hands. “Is this us getting old?”

“It’s not,” Soobin called from the doorway. He clapped one of his old school friends on the shoulder before turning back inside. “The restaurant has working hours, s’all.”

“And you didn’t think about the after-party?” Nara asked.

“I think they did,” Taehyun cut in before Soobin could answer. “We’re just not invited.”

Behind you, Reina succumbed to giggles, leaning against Soobin’s shoulder while he fought to suppress his grin. She swayed lightly in her heels.

Seventeen more minutes, Yeonjun thought. And he can make a comment, too.

Beomgyu and Kai returned from the restroom and were dispatched, at once, to stack chairs while the rest of you finished clearing the dishes.

Finally, after apologising to the exhausted staff for staying late, all eight of you stepped outside. A few of the guests were still here. Apparently, there weren’t enough taxis in the city for everyone.

Phones glowed across the pavement. Somewhere farther down the street, a man argued with an Uber driver in a language you didn’t recognise, but seemed to understand perfectly. His hands flailed wildly in the direction of the intersection up ahead.

Reina and Soobin had planned in advance and ordered a taxi half an hour ago.

It arrived first.

The two of them climbed into it to raucous applause and dramatic cheers from the pavement, as if they were off for their honeymoon rather than just heading home. Fully committing to the performance, Reina rolled down the window and gave everyone a graceful royal wave.

You laughed.

They looked radiant tonight. You couldn’t stop watching them.

A few steps away, Yeonjun couldn’t stop watching you.

Another five minutes later, an Uber rolled across the street, the headlights washing everyone’s jackets silver-white for a moment.

You checked the license plate against your phone and reached for the back door.

“Bye!” Taehyun called after you.

“Text me when you get home,” Nara added automatically. Despite all her complaints about the night ending, she sounded ready to curl up and fall asleep right there on the curb.

You gave them both a wave and ducked into the backseat.

The sight of your hand disappearing behind the edge of the door made something inside Yeonjun drop hard enough to leave him briefly weightless.

All he remembered was taking a breath.

“Hello,” you said to the driver, reaching back to pull the door shut—only for it to jerk backwards.

Yeonjun climbed into the backseat, nudging you to a side, and slammed the door shut.

You stared at him. “W-what the f—”

“105 Dove Road,” he told the driver. “Thank you.”

Then, as though none of this was remotely unhinged behaviour, he turned towards the window and gave someone outside the restaurant a lazy little wave. Nara was visibly staring.

The Uber driver watched Yeonjun through the rear-view mirror for a very long second.

“Miss,” he said cautiously, his eyes shifting towards you, “is that the right address?”

Your surprise doubled at his question. Not many men bothered to check in with a woman when another man answered for her.

You glanced sideways at Yeonjun’s expectant, utterly unashamed eyes.

Sighing, you scooched across the backseat towards the opposite window and gave the driver an apologetic nod. It wasn’t his fault Yeonjun was insane.

“Yes,” you said. “He’s my neighbour.”

“Okay.” The driver shrugged easily. “Just making sure.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

He nodded and carefully backed away from the curb, manoeuvring around another Uber that Nara was currently attempting to climb into while still laughing at something Bemgyu was saying through the open door. He was pointing directly at your car.

Behind them, Kai had his phone out and seemed to be taking pictures of you.

This was great.

For a moment, you considered blocking everyone in your contacts.

As the Uber slid into dwindling Saturday night traffic, Yeonjun closed his eyes and sank deeper into the seat, letting his head fall back against the headrest. You kept your eyes fixed on the window instead of him, watching the streets smear past in streaks of neon.

He hummed beside you. “Warm here.”

You gritted your teeth.

“What did I tell you we wouldn’t do again?” you asked, trying not to let your voice carry to the front of the car.

Yeonjun gathered his hands on his lap. “We wouldn’t talk tonight.”

“Right,” you said. “And what are we doing?”

He cracked one eye open.

Ignoring the slow spin of his surroundings, he dug his phone out of his pocket and heaved it as though it weighed several kilograms. The screen lit his face with a ghostly glow.

“It’s technically tomorrow,” he mumbled, holding the phone vaguely in your direction.

His lockscreen showed 12:12 AM.

His arm dropped again, head thunking softly against the seat. You stared at him for a second.

“I’m starting to think you really are unwell,” you informed him.

A faint smile appeared on the corner of his lips. “We live in the same building.”

“That is not why you got into my car.”

Yeonjun opened his eyes and slowly rolled his head towards you.

“No?” he said softly. “Tell me why, then.”

Clenching your jaw, you looked back out the window. Further away from the city centre, most of the shops had gone dark. A pair of drunk men stumbled past a deli with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders.

“You wanted everyone to see it.” Irritation sharpened your voice. You wished you’d drunk more tonight. “Wanted to send everyone some message. Like you’re marking your fucking territ—”

“No,” he said, eyes sliding shut again. “S’actually because you said we shouldn’t talk again tonight. And then we didn’t, even though you were right there, and now I feel a little bit like m’dying. S’all.”

A violent shiver snaked down your spine.

“That’s your future hangover,” you said.

“No.” His lips twitched slightly. “S’just you.”

He heard you draw a sharp breath and opened his eyes to find that you’d closed yours.

When you eventually looked back at him and found him already watching you, you still didn’t speak.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I can’t—I shouldn’t be saying shit like this. S’not your fault we ended up here anyway. I’m the one who fucked up and—”

“Yeonjun.”

It didn’t sound like a demand for him to stop speaking.

He didn’t know what it sounded like.

“I—” He swallowed and dragged a hand roughly down his face. The tips of his fingers felt like ice against his cheeks. “Right now, I’m really drunk.”

He paused, then frowned.

That wasn’t right. He’d developed a solid alcohol tolerance over the last year, but he’d transcended even that tonight. He seemed to have acquired some sort of higher spiritual condition now, available only to those courageous enough to drink their weight in liquor.

His head felt detachable.

Oh—a bit like Eeyore’s tail, he remembered. He’d had a plushie as a kid. The Velcro on the tail had worn out, and he constantly worried he’d drop it in some shop and lose it forever.

A fresh wave of horror washed over him – what, then, if that happened to his head?

“You’ve been drunk the whole night,” you said when he didn’t add anything else.

He shook his head weakly against the headrest—it hadn’t detached yet, thank God—but didn’t say anything else.

Outside, the city darkened further. The pavements emptied street by street. The Uber passed cafés with shuttered windows, dark office buildings, and lonely bus stops bathed in the cold glow of streetlights.

Yeonjun watched your reflection in the glass of the window.

Even in this state, he could tell that the conversation was ending again, and there was no promise of it starting again tomorrow. Or the day after.

Actually, maybe the real conversation between you had ended a long time ago. Maybe it ended that day in grad school.

Everything since then had just been coincidence, like you said.

Just circumstances.

And Violet.

God, he missed Violet.

She was probably sprawled across the middle of his bed by now. She’d probably try to suffocate him in his sleep later for abandoning her all evening, and to be fair, he thought he deserved it.

“I…” He hesitated, swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth. “C-could you stay for a minute after we get back? I want to talk to you.”

The shadows across your face shifted in the passing streetlights.

“Think we’ve talked enough for one night,” you said.

“Please.”

You continued to watch the city rush past the window.

Quietly, you found yourself thinking of your dream again. Thinking of the way the blue car—was that Yeonjun’s dead Nissan?—had kept passing you on the road. How relieved you’d felt to see it again.

You thought you knew better than to believe in dreams.

Carefully, you turned your gaze to the floor of the car. You could see Yeonjun in your peripheral vision, leaning back against the seat. He was still watching you.

“Fine,” you said at last.

You didn’t know if you knew better.

✦ • ─── AUGUST 30, 2026. 12:45 AM

When the driver finally stopped outside your building, you made sure to leave a significantly larger tip than you’d planned—partly because he’d treated you like an actual human being, but mostly because he’d been forced to listen to two people spiral for about half an hour, and no one deserved that on a Saturday night.

Yeonjun climbed out first.

You followed more slowly, smoothing your dress once your heels hit the pavement. The night air was damp against your skin, cool enough to sting where your pulse still raced. You were very tired.

For a moment after the door shut, the two of you stood beneath the streetlights and watched the Uber disappear down the street.

The silence that followed felt old.

It reminded you of grad school again. Of the long nights outside your building with Yeonjun standing near the entrance, his hands buried in his pockets, while neither of you looked for a reason to say goodbye.

You remembered not wanting to disturb Reina by bringing him upstairs. Remembered how, even then, wanting him that much had felt unsafe.

You wondered whether one day you’d stop remembering.

“Look,” Yeonjun started with a ragged sigh. “Maybe I did get into that car with you to send a message.”

Your gaze flicked to him.

“But not to them,” he added. “To you.”

Wind moved through the empty street, stirring the birch trees lining the pavement. Their leaves whispered overhead.

You knew you shouldn’t ask the next question.

You’d spent over a year closing those doors inside you, stacking anger against them. Pride against them. Grief. Anything to keep them from opening again.

But some exhausted part of you seemed to have quietly resigned itself to the fact that this was going to hurt regardless of whether they opened or not.

“What message?” you asked.

Yeonjun stared at the cracks in the pavement under his loafers. There was still some ash on the left one.

“I don’t want to not talk to you anymore,” he said, digging his nails into his palm to force the street to steady around him. “Or only run into you in the lobby sometimes. Or just—just be a neighbour to you. I c—I can’t do that with you.”

You felt heat flare under your skin: at the back of your neck and on the side of your face and across your lips. Everywhere he’d touched you tonight, as though he’d left invisible marks that he could trigger just with his voice.

They burned at the thought that you wouldn’t talk anymore.

That you would only run into each other sometimes.

That you would only be neighbours.

“I can’t do that with you, either,” you said, turning your gaze towards the dark building across the street. Only a few windows still glowed.

Yeonjun watched you, holding his breath.

Hope was a very dangerous thing to hand him; he didn’t know how to hold it.

“So what does that mean?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you admitted, fingers clutching the fabric of your dress. “Maybe it means we shouldn’t talk at all anymore.”

He shook his head, stubborn even drunk. The street tilted around him and bent backwards. He stumbled slightly and caught himself against the nearest lamppost, his shoes clattering against the metal.

“No,” he said. “That—that can’t be what it means.”

He looked pale under the feeble yellow of the streetlight. Looked like he’d stay here until he became part of the lamppost.

“Why not?” you said.

He steadied himself against the pole, fingers tightening around the freezing metal. “Because it’s you and me.”

“So?”

“So we’ve always been talking.”

Your gaze drifted down to the base of the lamppost. “Much good it’s done us.”

Horribly, he realised that was true.

He had nothing concrete to offer you to prove that talking to him was worth the effort.

He’d failed to prove to you he was a good boyfriend back in grad school. Failed to tell you what mattered when it mattered. Failed at everything he’d tried.

And he’d never taken himself for much of an optimist, yet, despite all of that, he still stood here, in the cold, with tired eyes and whiskey for blood, his shoulders slumped beneath his suit jacket, looking at you like he still intended to get everything right this time.

It was you.

It had always been you.

He knew he’d carry that around with him for the rest of his life, whether you wanted him to or not.

“That can—everything can change,” he said.

He couldn’t tell whether the nausea twisting his guts came from the alcohol or the look in your eyes. Maybe both.

“It shouldn’t,” you said.

“Why not?”

“Because it—” You stopped yourself with a sharp exhale and looked down at the stubborn grass forcing its way through the cracks in the pavement. When you spoke again, your voice had gone quieter. “We can’t do this again, I told you. I’m sorry about what happened toni—”

“No.” The force of his interruption snapped your gaze back to him. “Don’t apologise for anything that happened tonight.”

You held his gaze for a second before looking away again. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“I wanted you to.”

The more he spoke, the less you seemed to move.

He let go of the lamppost, but didn’t dare step closer.

“That doesn’t make it better,” you said.

“Why not?”

You shook your head. The pins in your hair had started digging into your scalp, and every tiny movement hurt. You didn’t have many more why nots left in you.

“We can’t do that again,” you said.

“But we—we’re not doing that again,” he argued. “It’s different now.”

“It’s not, though. It’s still us. Nothing’s different.”

“But you won’t even let me talk to you.” Agitation sharpened his words now; he’d stopped trying to soften them. “So how can you know that?”

Your fingers pressed into fists. “We’ve talked enou—”

“No, we haven’t! We never talked about what we were—what we were doin—”

“Well, whose fault is that, then?” Your voice cracked through the empty street. You looked at him with eyes bright enough to burn. “I wanted to talk to you! I fucking—I tried to talk to you. Back in grad school, I tried. Twice. Both times, you walked away without explaining shit. ‘Things were happening.’” You scoffed. “Fuck that. Now you want to talk? Now, over a year later, you want to fucking talk?”

“I want to explain why it took so long,” he said quickly. “I—”

“No,” you cut through him. “No, we’re not doing that. You think it—think I’m fine, yeah? Said I’d forget about you. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve never been bothered by people leaving, right? Like water off my back, every single time.” Your chest shuddered as you tried to take a breath. “We—no. No, that’s it. I—I’m not doing that again with you. I can’t.”

You turned away from him.

Yeonjun stared at the back of your dress in silence. The vivid blue looked lighter beneath the streetlights. He watched the fabric shift with each wild breath you tried to tame.

He hadn’t been thinking about your mother when he’d walked away in grad school. He’d been thinking about his own.

And it hit him, finally, that you had cared about him far more deeply than he’d ever allowed himself to believe. And he had hurt you far worse than he’d understood.

He should’ve known.

He should’ve fucking known.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

A muscle jumped faintly beneath your shoulder blades. “Go home, Jun.”

The nickname knocked against him with frightening force.

“It’s cold,” you added. “You need to sleep this off.”

Yeonjun closed his eyes. He’d already got used to the dizziness and the nausea. The real problem now was the sharp pressure around his heart.

Maybe he’d drunk enough to damage something important. Or maybe it was the broken pieces, finding new ways to break again.

“I’m—I really am sorry,” he whispered.

“I know.”

You still didn’t turn around.

He didn’t move.

“Go inside, Yeonjun,” you said again. “S’cold.”

There was a slight shudder in your voice that seemed to trail down your whole body.

Swallowing, Yeonjun shrugged out of his jacket. The cold hit him instantly through the thin white shirt beneath, but he barely reacted.

He walked towards you, keeping his gaze ahead to ignore the dizzying sway of the pavement beneath him. Taking a deep breath, he lowered the jacket over your shoulders, the fabric still warm from the heat of his body.

Your breath caught in your throat all over again.

His hands rested on your shoulders for a second. Then he stepped back.

Immediately, you were swathed in him again: smoke, whiskey, the bergamot of his cologne, even traces of your own perfume. You gathered the collar of the jacket tightly in your hand and finally turned towards the building.

The doors groaned as you pulled them open. You glanced back at him, waiting.

Yeonjun lowered his gaze and gave a small nod before following you into the lobby.

Then he took the lift.

prev ○ next (coming soon)

taglist:

@eleni-cherie @enhastolemyheart @beestvng @tomorrowbytgt @insaniteez @sorikkunhwangpil @yaintpaint @ohsowoozi @di3t-w0ter @virgopotterhead @beomgyusluver @pagesoobinie @champagne1221 @jammerhammerbanger @reiofsuns2001 @belabobanana @hheerrmmiitt @myglogic @mountyuki @adoresjjk @hueningsgirl @gunsfave @nanilis @yjcam @human-misery @angelgraphica @sooberriesx @yystarz @4wkjun @xjunniee @littlemoasoobin @kkyubear @proudsolarpunk @hyukalife @grogwrites @tarahardcore @jaegerbombin @danjakz @i4tzy @llvcyj @kookieterry @b9oms @starstrucktae @apriglw @mo0nstardust @koobiiiistar @unfiirt @yawnjjunnie @usuallyunlikelyfox @isakwon

thank you for reading!!♡♡

Trending Blogs

Last Seen Blogs