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Yuna leans against the hall wall, unimpressed. “Busy doing what? Building a shrine? Writing vows? Practising deep throating a banana?”

You choke. “Can you not—”

Beomgyu appears behind her. A demon summoned by your discomfort. “She can’t,” he says cheerfully. “She’s been acting like she’s in a Victorian novel. Always clutching her phone like it’s a locket.”

“It’s just a date,” you mutter.

“That’s what makes it worse,” Beomgyu says. “A date. She’s about to get wined and dined and then her life is going to end in an alley behind a Wetherspoons.”

Mina shrieks laughing. “BEOMGYU!”

Yuna points at you, eyes sharp. “Why are you not happy-happy? You’ve wanted him since, what, Year 11?”

“I am happy,” you lie too fast.

Your stomach gives that same weird roll—not nausea, not hunger, something in between. Your body is trying to warn you and you keep pretending you don’t understand the language.

Beomgyu squints at you. “Say it,” he prompts.

“Say what?”

“Say you’re going to ditch us when Soobin’s back,” he says, delighted. “Because I’m calling it now. You’ll be like—sorry guys, can’t come out, I’m busy getting railed.”

“Oh my God,” Mina wheezes, covering her face.

Yuna doesn’t even flinch. “He’s not wrong.”

“I’m not going to ditch you,” you say, and it comes out defensive in a way you hate.

Beomgyu’s grin widens. “That’s not a denial. That’s guilt.”

You step forward, grabbing your keys, because if you stay here for one more second your friends will start chanting blowjob. “Fine,” you snap. “I’ll come.”

Mina claps. “Yes! Put on lip gloss. We’re reviving you.”

“Don’t revive me,” you mutter. “I liked being dead.”

Beomgyu beams. “That’s the spirit.”

The flat is already sweating by the time you arrive.

You regret it the moment the door opens—bass thumping through the walls, heat blooming in your face, bodies packed into corners because nobody here has ever heard of personal space. The air tastes of vodka and stale energy drinks and strawberry vape, and someone has already spilled something on the floor and decided it’s everybody else’s problem.

Mina disappears into the crowd. Yuna does too, immediately clocking someone across the room, about to ruin her own night on purpose.

Beomgyu stays attached to you for exactly thirty seconds—the exact amount of time it takes him to start narrating your life. “There she is,” he announces, loud enough that a few people turn. “Our local menace. Our community liar. The girl who’s about to become Mrs Switzerland.”

“I hate you,” you hiss.

“You love me,” he replies, because he’s addicted to being correct.

A girl you vaguely recognise from a seminar hands you a cup. You take it because you refuse to admit you feel fragile. 

Beomgyu leans in, voice low. “Have you picked your outfit for the date yet?”

“It’s dinner,” you say.

“Yeah,” he says. “And then what?”

Something rolls low in your belly. You take a sip just to occupy your mouth with something other than panic. It burns. Your throat tightens. You cough.

Beomgyu pats your back with fake sincerity. “Breathe. Don’t die. That would be so inconvenient.”

“Why do I feel sick?” you mutter, half to yourself.

Yuna’s voice cuts in, sharp. “Because you’re anxious. Or because your body is haunted.”

Mina reappears with a grin and a hand on your shoulder. “Okay. We’re doing shots.”

“No,” you say immediately.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to,” you say, and your tone is too thin—the kind of thin that tells the truth without meaning to.

Mina studies you for half a second. Her smile softens, just a fraction. “Okay,” she says gently, then immediately ruins it. “But you can’t come out and act like a nun at a brothel. It’s stressing me out.”

“Stop calling me a nun,” you groan.

Beomgyu gasps. “You’re right. Nuns have commitment. You’re more like—”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll kill you,” you warn.

He lifts his hands. “Okay, okay. Violence. Noted. See? She’s alive.”

They keep talking—about the party, about other people, about some drama in the groupchat that you missed because you’ve been mentally—and physically—elsewhere for weeks. You nod at the right times. You smile when someone makes a joke. You laugh when Beomgyu does something stupid on purpose.

But you don’t feel present.

You feel like you’re watching your own night through a pane of glass. And underneath everything—the music, the bodies, the noise—there’s one stupid, annoying thought that won’t leave you alone. I want to talk to Yeonjun.

Not in a horny, lesson-three, I need help way. In a why does my chest unclench when he talks to me? way. 

It makes you angry.

Because Soobin is the one you’re supposed to want. Soobin is the plan. Soobin is the whole reason you set fire to your own life in the first place. So why does the thought of him coming back make you feel—pressured? Why does it feel like an exam you crammed for with the wrong textbook?

You take another sip. It does nothing except make your stomach roll harder.

Mina bumps your hip. “You’re doing that thing,” she says.

“What thing?”

“That thing where your eyes go dead,” she replies. “Where are you?”

“Here,” you lie.

Yuna’s gaze sharpens. “No, you’re not.”

Beomgyu leans over Mina’s shoulder, eyes bright with violence. “Is it Switzerland Boy?” he whispers, gleeful. “Are we panicking about dick expectations again?”

“Beomgyu,” Mina groans.

“It’s a valid topic,” he insists. “It’s academic. It’s educational.”

You glare at him. “Drop it.”

He grins. “That’s a yes.”

You flip him off, but you’re smiling despite yourself. And that’s the problem. You’re smiling. You’re laughing. You’re standing in a party with your friends and you’re still—elsewhere. Still restless. Still hollow in a specific way. Because the only person you actually want to talk to right now isn’t in this room. You don’t know why. You don’t let yourself unpack it.

You just stand there, holding your drink, watching everyone pair off.

Mina disappears first—a tall guy slides into her space, says something in her ear.

“Don’t leave me,” you mouth at her.

She mouths back, SORRY, already halfway gone.

Yuna goes next. She doesn’t even pretend. She just points at you and says, “Text me if you die,” like she’s clocking out of friendship for the evening.

Beomgyu lingers because he’s a menace with a heart, unfortunately. “You good?” he asks, and for once it isn’t a joke.

You inhale. Your stomach rolls again. “Yeah,” you say.

Beomgyu’s eyes narrow. “That sounded like a lie.”

“Everything sounds like a lie when I say it,” you mutter.

He snorts, then looks you over, deciding how hard to push. “Do you want to go home?” he asks, softer than usual.

You almost say yes. But then you picture going back to your room—the silence, the phone buzzing, the countdown—and your body resists.

“I don’t know,” you admit.

Beomgyu nods, understanding more than he’s saying. “Okay,” he says. “Well. I’m about to be a terrible person.”

“Shocker.”

He grins. “Don’t wait up.”

“Enjoy being a whore,” you tell him.

He beams. “Always.”

Then he’s gone too—swallowed by the noise and the bodies and the night.

And just like that, you’re alone in the middle of a room full of people. The music feels louder without your friends talking over it. The air feels thicker. You suddenly can’t stand the press of bodies—the way everyone’s laughing with someone, touching someone, leaning into someone.

Your stomach grumbles, low and traitorous. Heat crawls up your neck—part embarrassment, part irritation.

You take a breath. Then another.

You look at the door. You don’t tell anyone you’re leaving because nobody’s paying attention anyway—everyone’s already busy being young and reckless and loved for the night.

You decide you’re done. You push through the hallway, slip your shoes on with fingers that suddenly feel clumsy, and open the door.

Cold air hits your face like a slap. Your lungs finally expand. You step outside—and for a second, all you can hear is your own heartbeat.

And the strange part? You’re not thinking about Soobin.

You’re thinking about Yeonjun.

The door shuts behind you, muffling the bass into a dull, distant thud. Your stomach is still doing that weird rolling thing—not quite nerves, not quite hunger, not quite nausea. 

You tug your coat tighter and start walking.

And then you see him. 

Yeonjun’s posted up a little away from the doorway under a streetlight that makes the smoke look silver. He’s alone this time—no mates. Just him with a cigarette between his fingers, shoulders loose, body relaxed.

He’s dressed like he didn’t try. A black cap pulled low— the white logo catching the light. Hood up over it, a dusty-blue hoodie framing his face. Oversized black coat thrown over everything. His hair slips out from under the cap in dark pieces, falling across his cheek. Pale skin, soft mouth, lashes too long.

You should keep walking. Instead, something warm swells in your chest and drags your feet toward him.

Yeonjun’s gaze lifts.

His eyes light up when he sees you. You hate how much you love it.

“Leaving already?” he asks, voice rough from smoke.

“Yeah,” you say, like you didn’t just walk out of a party because your body couldn’t handle being in a room full of people who aren’t him. “It was shit.”

Yeonjun’s mouth twitches. “It’s always shit.”

You stop in front of him—close enough to smell the cigarette, and the faint trace of whatever he put on his skin that shouldn’t smell this good on a random night. 

He flicks ash, glances past you toward the doorway. “Where’s your little entourage?”

“Gone,” you say. “One of them is probably tongue-deep in somebody’s mouth. The other one is pretending she’s not. Beomgyu is—”

“Being a menace,” Yeonjun finishes, because he’s met him once and already knows he’s a hazard.

“Exactly.”

Yeonjun hums, amused, then tilts his head at you. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He looks at you like you’re stupid. “That’s not an answer.”

“It is.”

“It’s a liar’s answer.”

You glare. “You’re literally smoking outside a party at one in the morning. You don’t get to interrogate my emotional health.”

He checks his phone without looking too interested. “One twenty-seven.”

“Disgusting,” you mutter.

Yeonjun smiles, slow. “You’re out late for someone who hates parties.”

“I hate parties,” you say. “I don’t hate—leaving parties.”

His gaze holds yours a beat too long. Something in his face shifts—like he’s about to ask something real. Your stomach chooses violence and answers for you, growling loud enough to count as a confession. It’s not even a cute noise. 

You go hot instantly. “Oh my God.”

Yeonjun blinks—then laughs. He tips his head back, shoulders shaking, cigarette hanging between his fingers. The streetlight hits the line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth—and you have the idiotic thought that he looks beautiful even when he’s being annoying.

“I hate you,” you say, mortified.

“I’m sorry,” he wheezes, not sorry at all. “That was—”

“Don’t describe it.”

“You’re starving,” he says, still grinning.

“I’m not starving.”

“You’re literally growling at me,” he replies. “Are you a werewolf?”

You shove him lightly in the chest. His coat barely shifts. Your hand registers his warmth through the layers and your brain tries to reboot into something normal. It fails.

Yeonjun takes one last drag, flicks the cigarette away and grinds it under his shoe. “Come on,” he says, easy. “Let’s get food.”

You blink. “What?”

“Food,” he repeats, like you’re slow. “Eat. Before your stomach starts sending SOS signals to the entire street.”

“It’s late,” you argue.

He shrugs. “So?”

“Most places are closed.”

“Then we find something that’s not,” he says. “I’m not letting you go home hungry and feral. That’s bad for society.”

“You’re acting very—nice,” you say.

Yeonjun shoots you a look. “Don’t start.”

“What? I’m just—”

“Don’t,” he repeats, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Walk.”

You fall into step beside him without thinking.

The night is cold and damp, pavement glossy under streetlights. You pass a kebab shop—shutters down. Chicken place—closed. Even the little late-night café that survives on students and desperation has its lights off.

“Okay,” you say, after the third closed door. “We get it. The world hates me.”

“The world hates everyone,” Yeonjun replies. “It’s equal-opportunity.”

Your stomach rumbles again, quieter but still rude.

Yeonjun smirks. “Your stomach’s got a mouth on it.”

“Stop,” you groan.

He looks at you sideways. “You didn’t drink much, did you?”

“I drank enough to hate myself,” you say.

He hums. “Fair.”

Then you hit salvation. A Tesco Express, lights still on, automatic doors whooshing open. 

Yeonjun grabs a basket and holds it out to you with mock formality. “Welcome,” he says, deadpan. “To fine dining.”

You take it. “Thank you, sir.”

His eyes flicker, pleased in a quiet way he tries to hide. It annoys you. You drift toward the sad meal deals fridge. Yeonjun follows and squints.

“No,” he says.

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean no,” he repeats. “That’s depressing.”

“It’s food.”

“That’s not food. That’s punishment,” he says, then gestures ahead. “Ingredients.”

You blink. “You want to cook.”

Yeonjun nods because he’s just decided he’s the main character. “Yeah.”

“You can cook?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

He turns slowly. “Why did you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you expect me to poison you.”

You shrug. “Do you want me to be honest?”

He points at you. “Careful. I’m fragile.”

“You’re not fragile. You’re Choi Yeonjun.”

He groans like you’ve ruined his life. “Don’t do the myth. Pick a pasta.”

Your stomach makes a tiny, hopeful noise again.

Yeonjun’s eyes drop to it as if genuinely considering arguing with your digestive system. “Spaghetti,” he decides, tossing a pack into the basket. Then olive oil. Then garlic. He hesitates in front of the garlic. “How much?” he asks.

“As much as you want,” you say.

Yeonjun looks at you like you’ve seduced him with seasoning. “Correct answer.” 

You laugh—and it slips out easy, which surprises you. It surprises you how easy it is with him. Yeonjun catches the sound and looks pleased for half a second before he wipes it off his face. 

Your eyes snag on the aisle with condoms, lube, and pregnancy tests lined up together.

Yeonjun’s mouth twitches. He clears his throat. “Do you—need anything?”

You stare at him. “For what?”

His eyes flick to the shelf for half a second.

“Oh my God,” you hiss. “No.”

Yeonjun’s tone stays casual, but his grin turns sharp. “Just asking. Responsible adult behaviour.”

“You’re making it weird.”

“I’m literally trying not to make it weird,” he says, leaning in a little, voice dropping. “You’re the one blushing in Tesco.”

“I’m not blushing.”

He looks at you, unimpressed. “You’re red.”

“It’s the heating.”

“It’s not,” he murmurs, and the way he says it makes your stomach do something embarrassing all over again.

Your phone buzzes. Then buzzes again.

minmin: where the fuck did you go??? yunana: if you died say something beomgyu: SWISS BOY KIDNAPPED U??? send location u grimlin

You snort.

Yeonjun tilts his head. “What?”

You angle the screen so he can see.

He reads it, then laughs under his breath. “Your friends are insane.”

“They’re worse when they’re drunk,” you say.

He watches you a beat, then says, “Text them. Before they call the police and I end up as a suspect.”

You type quickly, i’m alive. fuck off.

Beomgyu responds instantly.

beomgyu: ARE U WITH HIM minmin: WHO yunana: send location. NOW.

You lock your phone. “Absolutely not.”

Yeonjun’s brows lift. “You’re not telling them?”

“No,” you say. “They’ll ruin it.”

He pauses. “Ruin what?”

You meet his eyes for half a second and the answer sits there between you. You don’t give it words. You just shrug, because you don’t trust your mouth.

Yeonjun’s mouth twitches, softening. “Okay,” he says. “Secret Tesco mission.”

“Exactly.”

At checkout, the cashier barely looks up. Yeonjun taps his card and slides the bag handles over his wrist automatically. Outside, the cold hits again.

Yeonjun nods down the street. “My place,” he says. “I’ll cook.”

You blink. “You’re sure?”

He scoffs. “What, you think I’m going to abandon you on the pavement with raw spaghetti and emotional damage?”

“Maybe,” you say.

Yeonjun grins. “Don’t be thick. Come on.”

And as you follow him—plastic bag rustling, streetlights flickering, your phone buzzing and you ignoring it—it hits you, quietly, in the pit of your stomach. This is the first time you’re just together. No lesson. No rules. No agenda.

Just you and Yeonjun walking home with groceries at 1:30am like that isn’t dangerous in its own way.

Yeonjun’s keys stick in the lock. He swears under his breath, shoulder braced to the door. A strand of dark hair falls across his cheek when he finally gets it open, and he exhales with relief. “Don’t say it,” he warns without looking at you.

You step in, automatically toeing your shoes off where you put them last time—and the fact your body remembers that hits you a second later, sharp and inconvenient. “I wasn’t going to,” you say.

“You were,” he replies, deadpan. “Your face was loading.”

The flat smells the same as it did the first night—clean laundry, soap, and Yeonjun’s cologne—except now you’re actually noticing the flat. The sofa you didn’t even properly clock before. The kitchen that wasn’t part of the plan. The pile of unopened post.

Yeonjun drops the grocery bags on the counter and shrugs his jacket off, hoodie still up. He looks over his shoulder. “Housemate’s at his girlfriend’s,” he says.

Your brows lift. “Why are you telling me that?”

“So you don’t startle when nobody comes out and calls you a freak,” he says simply. Then he adds, “Also so you don’t think I set this up.”

You blink. “Set what up?”

Yeonjun pauses, eyes flicking to you. “Don’t be dense.”

“I’m not being dense,” you say, even though you are, a bit. Your stomach is still doing that weird twisting thing it started doing at the party.

Yeonjun turns away first, grabs a pot from the cupboard. “Sit. I’m cooking.”

“You cooking is not comforting,” you tell him, but you drift toward the sofa anyway because you’ve already done the whole Yeonjun’s bed thing—and somehow sitting on his sofa feels more intimate than getting naked ever did.

“Have faith,” he says. “Aglio olio is literally oil and vibes.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“It’s honest.”

You sink onto the sofa, watching him move around the kitchen. He looks competent doing everything except the actual cooking—sleeves shoved up, hands quick, mouth set in concentration. He finds the garlic, loses the garlic, swears at the garlic, then starts chopping it with intensity.

“Why are you chopping garlic like it owes you money?” you ask.

“Because it does,” he snaps, then immediately flicks his eyes to you to see if you’re laughing. 

You are.

He points the knife at you. “Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing,” you lie.

“You’re laughing in your chest,” he says, offended, and it makes you laugh properly.

The water starts boiling. Yeonjun dumps the spaghetti in with the confidence of a man who has never once questioned himself.

You sit up. “You didn’t salt the water.”

Yeonjun freezes so hard you’d think you accused him of murder. Slowly, he turns his head. “...Cheese exists,” he says after a beat, as if that settles it.

“That’s not—”

“Sit down,” he cuts in, wooden spoon in hand. “Before I start seasoning you.”

The words come and both of you pause for half a second because the air does that stupid shift it keeps doing around you lately, where everything turns double-meaning without either of you asking.

Your eyebrows lift.

Yeonjun’s ears go faintly pink. He turns away fast, muttering, “I meant—be quiet.”

You press your lips together to stop smiling. “Sure.”

His phone buzzes on the counter. He ignores it. It buzzes again. Then again.

You don’t mean to look. You still do. It’s a preview from a groupchat, bright on the screen, zero shame.

milo: campus ferrari gone missing kian: u alive or u getting head?? milo: he’s prolly deep in a pussy let him be 

Yeonjun sees your gaze flick and immediately grimaces. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You don’t have to,” he mutters. “Your eyes are loud.”

You lean back. “Your friends are disgusting.”

“Yeah,” Yeonjun says, low. “They’re also bored.” He flicks the phone face-down with a sharp, irritated movement and goes back to the pan.

You watch him stir oil and garlic and chilli flakes with a seriousness that would be hot if it wasn’t objectively funny. “Do you—cook often?” you ask.

Yeonjun snorts. “Obviously.”

The garlic starts browning too fast. The oil spits. Yeonjun flinches, recovers instantly, and tries to pretend he didn’t.

You stare. “You’re so brave.”

“You’re so annoying,” he retorts.

When he finally plates it, he does it with the pride of a man serving a five-course meal. Two bowls. Two forks. He sets yours down in front of you like he’s daring you to disrespect him.

You take a bite. It’s… bad. Oil-forward. Garlic burnt. Pasta over-cooked. The kind of food that tastes like a handsome person insisted on being independent. You swallow carefully and keep your face neutral out of pure kindness.

Yeonjun watches you with narrowed eyes. “How is it?” He leans closer. “Tell me.”

You take another bite, determined to spare his ego. “It’s—very Yeonjun.”

He blinks. “What does that mean?”

“It means it’s loud and slightly stressful,” you say sweetly, and his mouth twitches before he can stop it.

“You’re such a dick.”

“Your cooking made me one.”

Yeonjun huffs a laugh, then exhales, rubbing his face like he’s tired. He eats his own bowl with grim commitment. And then, somewhere between bite three and bite four, his humour drops out of his expression in a way that’s subtle enough you might’ve missed if you weren’t watching him properly.

He stares at his fork for a second. Then he says, flatly, “Do you ever get sick of people deciding who you are for you?”

You still.

Yeonjun doesn’t look at you when he says it. His gaze stays on the table. “I’m always—something,” he continues, voice quieter. “A rumour. A joke. A story people tell because they’re bored. Even when it’s my mates, it’s still—” he gestures with the fork, frustrated, “—the same shit. The same expectations.”

He swallows. His jaw flexes once.

“And it’s easy to play into it,” he admits with a grimace. “Because if I correct it, I’m killing the vibe. If I’m tired, I’m dramatic. If I’m not in the mood, suddenly it’s a thing.”

He finally glances up at you—just a flicker—and his eyes sharpen, expecting you to joke, or flinch, or do the usual comforting performance people do when they don’t know what to say.

You don’t. You just hold the silence so he doesn’t have to rush himself out of it.

Yeonjun’s throat moves. He looks away again, irritated, softer in the same breath. “It’s weird,” he mutters. “Sitting here and not—performing.”

You nod once. “Yeah.”

That’s all you give him. Not reassurance. Not aw, you’re not like that. Not a speech. Just—I heard you.

Yeonjun’s shoulders drop a fraction.

Your phone lights up on the table.

soobin: call?

The name sits there. Normally you’d feel the rush. The validation. The finally. Instead, your stomach twists again—the same strange, sour pull you’ve been trying to blame on party alcohol or dodgy dinner.

Yeonjun doesn’t look at the screen. He doesn’t angle for it. He doesn’t make it his problem. He just keeps eating his tragic pasta, giving you a clean exit if you want one.

Your thumb moves before your brain can argue. You flip your phone over, swipe, and turn Do Not Disturb on.

Yeonjun’s eyes flick up—quick surprise—then away again, refusing to make it a thing.

The quiet that follows feels different. 

Yeonjun stands and takes both bowls to the sink, rinsing them. Then he comes back, wiping his palms on his hoodie, and points the remote.

“Wanna watch One Piece?” he asks.

Your mouth twitches. “Yeah, lets.”

The theme song blasts. Bright and stupid and loud. Yeonjun drops onto the cushion beside you, shoulder brushing yours for half a second. He doesn’t move away. Neither do you.

And for the first time in days, your stomach unclenches—not because everything is solved, but because, right now, you’re just here. In his living room. With bad pasta in your bloodstream and your favourite anime on the TV, listening to Yeonjun laugh at something on-screen.

By the time the episode counter starts feeling rude—Next Episode flashing with a personal vendetta—it’s 5am. Your body is the first to tap out.

You push yourself up from the sofa and stretch, spine cracking in a way that makes you wince. Your stomach rolls again—that same odd twist from earlier—and you frown. Right. Cool. Amazing. Either you’re having a medical crisis over a boy, or Yeonjun’s pasta is about to give you diarrhoea.

You glance down. Yeonjun’s asleep.

His head is tipped slightly toward the armrest, mouth parted, one hand loose on his stomach. The hoodie’s bunched up at his waist from shifting, soft fabric pulled tight across his shoulder.

And he looks—beautiful. 

Lashes resting on his cheeks. Hair fallen forward, darker in the low light. That hoop in his ear catching a weak flicker from the TV screen. The kind of face someone could paint and ruin their own life over. The kind of face you could cry to.

Your insides lurch again and you scowl. “Stop,” you whisper, to your digestive system, to your brain, to whatever part of you is trying to turn One Piece and a terrible dinner into a personality shift.

You move quietly, grabbing your coat from where you dumped it over the chair. You find your shoes by the door, crouch, and start to slide them on as gently as you can.

You reach for the handle.

Behind you, a voice, thick with sleep. “Where’re you going?”

You pause.

Yeonjun’s sitting up, rubbing his face with the heel of his palm, hair a mess now. He blinks at you, reloading the room.

“Home,” you say, trying to keep it casual. “Before the sun comes out and I have to explain why I’m leaving your flat in last night’s clothes.”

Yeonjun’s eyes narrow. “You’re not leaving.”

“I am leaving.”

“You’re not leaving alone,” he corrects, as if that’s the only part he’s objecting to.

You stare. “Yeonjun, you’re half dead.”

“I’m awake.”

“You’re literally speaking in subtitles.”

He drags himself to his feet anyway, taller in motion. He grabs his keys, shoves his feet into trainers without socks.

“You don’t have to walk me,” you insist, pulling your coat on. “Go back to sleep.”

Yeonjun looks at you for a beat, expression flat. “No,” he says, opening the door. “Come on.”

You follow him out, annoyed at how easily he gets his way. The hallway is quiet. The building asleep. Outside, the air is sharp enough to make your eyes water. The sky is still dark but thinning—the edge of morning starting to bleed in.

Yeonjun walks beside you, hands in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. He looks younger like this. Less performance. More person. You try not to think about it.

“You okay?” he asks after a minute.

“Yes,” you say too quickly.

He glances at you. “That means no.”

You exhale. “My stomach feels weird.”

“Told you,” he says, smug even while sleepy. “My pasta has consequences.”

“It’s not your pasta,” you argue.

“It is my pasta,” he insists. “And my trauma, but that doesn’t count.”

You choke out a laugh, then immediately feel it in your stomach again, a flutter that is absolutely not diarrhoea and you want to scream.

The streets are empty. No students, no taxis, no idiots yelling outside kebab shops. Just your footsteps and the occasional distant car, the city still half-dreaming.

Yeonjun slows a little, matching your pace like he’s not thinking about it. Then he clears his throat. It’s a small sound. But it changes the air. “You know—” he starts.

You look at him. He’s staring ahead, jaw tight. His hands stay in his pockets.

“What?” you ask.

He exhales, annoyed. “Nothing.”

“That’s a lie.”

Yeonjun clicks his tongue. “There are—things I haven’t told you.”

“Okay,” you say, simple.

He frowns. “You’re not even going to ask what.”

“If you want to tell me,” you say, “you’ll tell me.”

Yeonjun stares at you. For a second you think he’s going to push. Insist. Force the words out because he’s halfway there and pride hates retreat. Instead, he looks away, eyes fixed on the pavement, and his shoulders drop a fraction. “—Right,” he mutters.

You keep walking.

Yeonjun follows. A beat later, he says, quieter, “You’re weird.”

You huff. “You’re the one who committed an act of culinary terrorism and then walked me home like a Victorian chaperone.”

He snorts. “Don’t make it sound wholesome.”

“It is wholesome,” you shoot back. “It’s five in the morning and you’re escorting me home because your flatmate’s at his girlfriend’s.”

Yeonjun’s mouth twitches. “Stop.”

You tilt your head. “Why? Embarrassed?”

“Yes,” he says immediately. Then adds, like it’s an insult, “You make things feel—normal.”

The sentence lands in your chest in a way you don’t know what to do with. So you do what you’ve been doing all night. You don’t make it weird. You don’t turn it into a moment. You just nod once and keep walking.

Your building comes into view too fast. You stop at the entrance, hand on the door handle. Yeonjun stops beside you, posture slightly too close.

“Thanks,” you say.

Yeonjun shrugs. “Whatever.”

You raise a brow. “Whatever?”

“I’m not going to say you’re welcome like I’m someone’s dad,” he mutters.

You smile despite yourself. “Okay. Thanks anyway.”

Yeonjun looks at you for a long second, eyes scanning your face. Then he says, low, “Text me when you’re inside.”

You blink. “Why?”

“Because if you collapse from my pasta and I wake up to a missing person alert, I’ll be annoyed,” he says, deadpan.

You stare at him. “You’ll be annoyed?”

“I’ll be very upset,” he corrects quickly, then grimaces like he hates himself for it. “Just—text me.”

You nod, lips pressed together so you don’t smile too hard. “Okay.”

You go inside. Two minutes later, you’re in bed—duvet pulled up, room dark, stomach still making suspicious movements. You reach for your phone, ready to flick Do Not Disturb off, and you see a missed call from Soobin. Your thumb hovers. You don’t do anything.

You open your messages instead.

you: inside now 

You toss the phone onto the pillow and stare at the ceiling. Your stomach twists again.

“Please be diarrhoea,” you whisper to your body. “Please.”

Your phone rings ten minutes later. Yeonjun.

You answer on the second ring, voice low. “You’re home?”

“Yeah,” he says. He sounds awake now, which is insane, because he was asleep twenty minutes ago. He clears his throat. “You’re in bed?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” A pause. Then, “You’re still alive?”

“Barely.”

He huffs a laugh, quiet. “Good.”

You wait. Yeonjun doesn’t hang up. The silence stretches—not awkward, just—held. Like neither of you want to be the one to cut it.

Then he says, out of nowhere, “Do you have a date in mind?”

You blink. “For what?”

“For your last lesson,” he says, voice steady. “You said you wanted—three. You said you wanted the final one to be—” He stops, annoyed. “Just. Do you have a day.”

Your stomach does that weird flip again. It’s something that sits under your ribs and makes you feel too aware of your own heartbeat. “Tomorrow,” you hear yourself say.

Yeonjun goes quiet for half a second. “Tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you say, breath catching slightly. “At your place.”

Another pause. Longer. Then Yeonjun exhales, slow. “Okay.”

You wait for him to add a joke. A crude comment. A smug line. He doesn’t. He just says, quieter, “I’ll be ready.”

Your mouth goes dry in a way you don’t like. You keep your voice even. “Me too.”

Yeonjun breathes out again. “Sleep.”

“You too,” you say.

A beat. Then, softer than his usual voice, “Night.”

“Night,” you reply.

He hangs up.

You stare at your ceiling, phone warm in your hand. Your stomach knots and unknots again. And you think, for the hundredth time tonight, please be the pasta.

Yeonjun’s flat is too clean for what’s about to happen.

His flatmate is still at his girlfriend’s. The absence hangs in the air—no stupid commentary from the kitchen, no footsteps in the hallway, no TV noise to pretend this is casual. 

It’s just Yeonjun and his own thoughts, bouncing off walls. He’s been tidying for thirty minutes. Not because the place is messy. Because his hands won’t stop moving.

The buzzer goes. He opens the door and you’re there—coat zipped, hair done without looking done, eyes sharp and steady. You’re not smiling, not nervous. You’re—focused. It hits him low in the stomach.

“Hi,” you say.

“Hey,” he answers, and it comes out rougher than he wants.

You step in and Yeonjun shuts the door. You take your shoes off, slow. He watches your hands, the way you move like you’re trying not to hesitate.

You look up. “Your housemate still—gone?”

“Yeah,” Yeonjun says. “He’s not coming back tonight.”

Your eyes flicker at that, quick. Then you step closer. No warm-up. No banter. No so what arc are you on? safety net. You tilt your chin up and lean in for him.

Yeonjun meets you halfway—then pulls back at the last second. Not far. An inch. Enough that your breath hits his mouth and stays there.

Your brows draw together. “What?”

His ring turns under his thumb. His throat feels tight in a way that pisses him off. He’s not having trouble doing this—not the physical part. The confession part is the one that’s making him feel fifteen. “I can’t,” he says.

Your eyes widen, then sharpen. “Can’t what? Kiss me?”

“I can,” he mutters, frustrated, and you see it—the flicker in him, the heat he’s trying to cage. “That’s the problem. I can do that and you’ll think it means one thing, and it means another, and then you’ll hate me when you realise.”

You don’t move. You just watch him.

Yeonjun forces himself to meet your eyes. He hates how much he wants to drop them. “I’ve been living inside a story other people wrote about me.”

The words come out clean. No performance. No smirk. You blink once. “What story?”

He lets out a breath through his nose. “The one where I’m—that guy.”

Your gaze flicks over his face, like you’re checking if he’s joking. He isn’t.

“I let people think I was someone else,” he says. His jaw flexes. “I didn’t correct it. I didn’t stop it. I fed it when it suited me.”

You’re quiet. 

Yeonjun swallows. His fingers tighten around the ring. “And I liked being wanted for it—until you.” His voice turns rough on the last word. “With you, I want to be real even if it ruins it.”

Silence presses in.

You shift—a small movement—and Yeonjun’s body reacts instantly. The heat doesn’t disappear because he’s confessing. If anything, it gets worse. His palms feel too empty. His mouth feels too aware of itself.

You speak carefully. “So—you’ve been lying.”

“Yes,” he says, blunt. “Not to you, directly. But—yeah.”

Your eyes narrow. “What’s true, then?”

Yeonjun’s chest tightens. This is the part he keeps trying to step around. He can’t. Not now. He drags in a breath. He hates the next sentence before he even says it. He says it anyway. “I’ve never had sex with anyone. I’m—a virgin,” he says.

Your face changes—surprise, immediate. You don’t cover it. 

Yeonjun’s eyes flick away. “And before you—” He stops, jaw tight, then forces it out. “I hadn’t even kissed anyone. Not properly. Not at all.”

The air goes sharper. He expects a laugh. He expects disbelief. He expects you to say no way and make it sound like a joke he can hide behind.

You don’t. You stare at him for a beat, then you say, very quietly, “So this whole time—”

Yeonjun’s mouth twists. “Yeah.” He twists his ring again, hard. His knuckles whiten. “I’m scared you’ll look at me differently,” he admits, and the confession is almost a whisper. “I’m scared this will make you—not want me.”

He tries to joke, because he’s him, because he can’t stand how exposed he feels.

“Which is stupid,” he mutters. “Because I’m literally standing here telling you I’m a fraud. Great strategy, Choi Yeonjun.”

The joke dies in the air. Even he knows it. He goes quiet. His gaze drops to the floor. He can’t hold eye contact.

Then, very carefully, he gives you an out and means it. “If you want to leave,” he says, voice low, “you can. Right now. I won’t be weird. I won’t chase you. I won’t—” He stops himself, swallows. “I won’t make you carry my shit.”

You don’t move.

Yeonjun’s stomach turns. He waits for the sound of your shoes. The polite excuse.

Instead, you lift your hand. Your fingers brush his cheek.

Yeonjun freezes. The touch is gentle.

You say, quietly, “I want you as you are. Not as who I thought you were.”

For a second, Yeonjun can’t speak. His throat tightens, sharp and stupid. He finally looks at you. Your gaze doesn’t drop. You’re not treating him like glass. You’re not trying to fix him. You’re just—there.

And that does something far more dangerous than the rumours ever did. His mouth opens. Closes.

You breathe out, almost amused despite the tension. “Also, this means—”

Yeonjun’s brow lifts a fraction. “Means what?”

You tilt your head. “It means I wasn’t the only one behind.”

The words hit him in the ribs. He exhales, unsteady. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “Guess not.”

Your thumb lingers at his jaw for half a second longer, then drops. The loss of it makes him want to grab your wrist and pull you back. He doesn’t.

You step closer again, eyes flicking to his mouth. “Are you going to kiss me now,” you ask, “or are we going to stand here having a crisis in your hallway?”

That pulls a laugh out of him—real, broken, relieved. “Fuck,” he mutters.

You arch a brow. “Consent is sexy,” you say, deadpan.

Yeonjun’s mouth twitches. “Don’t.”

“You said it,” you reply.

He lets out a slow breath, then leans in—slow and careful. His hand comes up to your waist. He waits half a beat, eyes on yours.

You don’t back away. So he kisses you.

You make a small sound into his mouth and Yeonjun’s grip tightens without thinking. Your coat shifts between you. The zipper catches on his ring and snags for a second.

You both pause.

You whisper, “Are you serious?”

Yeonjun huffs a laugh against your mouth, breath hot. “Don’t start.”

You tug the coat free, annoyed—and Yeonjun tries to help. 

He thinks, distantly, that this is the first time he’s ever wanted to slow down for reasons that aren’t about technique. The kiss deepens as the coat hits the floor—his tongue brushing yours, bolder when you press closer, your body molding against his. 

His heart is pounding. He’s not hiding anymore—and fuck, it makes every touch feel electric, every sigh from you pulling at something deeper than lust. Your hands slide under his shirt, fingers cold against his skin, and he shivers. 

He breaks the kiss to gasp against your neck. “God, I’ve wanted this—you—since you showed up at my door the very first time,” he murmurs, voice cracking with honesty.

He nips at your skin before soothing with his tongue. You tilt your head back, breathing hard, and he feels your pulse racing under his lips. It’s like his confession unlocked something, making the want feel heavier—terrifying and thrilling all at once.

“Me too,” you whisper back, pulling him in again.

The kiss turns needier—your teeth grazing his bottom lip by accident, tugging enough to make him hiss softly into your mouth. 

He groans, low and ragged. His hands slide up your back under your coat, fingers tangling in your hair as he pulls you closer.

He breaks away barely an inch, breath hot against your lips. “I want you so fucking bad,” he murmurs, voice cracking on the words, “and I don’t know if I can stop once we start.” He swallows thickly, eyes searching yours in the dim hallway light. “So tell me now—if you want to leave, do it. Please.”

You hold his gaze, heart pounding. “I want you, Yeonjun. All of you.”

The words hang there, and his pulse jumps—you can feel it under your fingers on his neck. He nods once, jaw clenching tight like he’s holding back a flood. He kisses you again—harder, backing you up against the wall with a thud that knocks a picture frame askew. 

“Fuck,” he mutters against your mouth, laughing breathlessly, but he doesn’t stop.

His hands fumble with your coat zipper, yanking it down—the metal catching on fabric. You shrug it off together, arms tangling for a second, before dropping to the floor in a heap. 

His mouth finds your neck, sucking at the skin. You gasp, hips grinding forward without thinking, feeling him hard against your thigh. 

“Yeonjun—here?” you whisper, half-laughing, half-desperate. Your fingers clutch his shirt as he presses you harder into the wall.

“Not yet,” he rasps, but his hands are everywhere—sliding under your top.

His palms are hot on your bare skin, thumbs brushing the underside of your bra. He kisses you deeper, tongue tangling wet and eager, saliva mixing. Yoi both stumble down the hallway, bumping into a side table that rattles loudly. 

“Shit—sorry,” he chuckles, pulling you along, not breaking the kiss.

His ring catches in your hair for a painful tug that makes you yelp into his mouth. “Ow—watch it,” you tease, but it’s breathy, needy, and you yank him closer by his belt loops. 

By the time you reach his bedroom door, you’re both panting. Your clothes are rumpled, his hair a mess from your fingers. He fumbles for the handle—hand slipping once, twice—muttering “Come on” under his breath. 

When it finally opens, he pulls you inside, kicking it shut behind you. The quiet of Yeonjun’s room wraps around you—dim light from the bedside lamp, the faint smell of his aftershave mixed with his cologne. 

Your heart’s racing—not just from the nerves twisting in your gut, but from the weight of everything he spilled in the hallway. It makes you desperate to make this good—to explore it together without the pretence.

Yeonjun turns to you, eyes dark but soft around the edges. “Come here,” he says, voice low and a tad shaky, reaching out to pull you gently toward the bed by your hand.

You sit on the edge side by side, thighs pressing together, the heat from his skin seeping through your clothes. He leans in to kiss you again—slower now, like he’s trying to savour every second. His hand cups your face, thumb stroking your cheek. You melt into it.

Your hands find his waist, bunching his shirt. “Can you take this off?” you whisper against his lips.

“Yeah—okay,” he breathes, pulling back to drag his shirt over his head in one go. 

His chest is bare now—skin warm and flushed, muscles shifting under it as he tosses the shirt aside. You run your fingers over him tentatively, feeling the rapid thump of his heart, the slight tremble in his abs. 

“Yours?” he asks, eyes flicking to your top, hands hovering like he’s not sure if he’s allowed.

You nod, arms lifting, and he helps tug it off—the fabric bunching up around your arms before it pops free. 

When it’s gone, he stares at your chest. “Fuck, you’re—gorgeous,” he murmurs, the words half-muffled as he leans in to kiss your collarbone.

“Thanks?” you say softly, cheeks burning. “You too—obviously.” 

He smiles against your skin, and it loosens something in your chest. His hands slide round to your bra clasp—fingers slipping off the hook twice, swearing under his breath. 

“Why’s this so tricky?” he mutters, laughing nervously, and you giggle too, twisting to help. “There,” he says, sheepish, as it falls away. His eyes widen, pupils blowing out as he takes you in—even though this is the second time he has seen you like this. 

He swallows hard. “Can I… touch them—I mean—you?”

“Please,” you breathe, and he cups your breast gently at first—then squeezes firmer when you arch into his palm. His thumb brushes your nipple, sending a spark straight to your core, and you gasp. “That—do it again.”

“Like this?” he asks, circling, eyes locked on your face like he’s cataloguing every reaction. 

“Yeah—it feels so good Yeonjun,” you pant, pulling him down for another kiss. The heat builds low in your belly. Your hands wander lower, tugging at his belt. “Please can you—these off too?”

He nods, standing up to unbuckle—belt clinking loudly, nearly tripping as he shoves his jeans down one leg at a time. “Smooth as ever,” he quips, grinning.

Your eyes drop to his boxers—the tent in them obvious and straining. When he pushes those down, his cock springs out. It’s thick, girthy—enough to make your mouth water and your thighs clench—veined along the length, the tip flushed and leaking a bead of pre-cum. The thought of his cock inside of you is intimidating when you were barely able to hold it all in your mouth—but the heat between your legs overrides any nerves. 

“You’re—big,” you murmur, voice small, reaching out to wrap your hand around him tentatively. 

He hisses, hips jerking forward into your grip. “Careful,” he warns, voice strained, eyes fluttering shut for a second. “I don’t want to cum—yet and I haven’t—done this before… so yeah.”

“Neither have I,” you remind him, stroking slow—you spit into your palm like you did last time, slicking him up. 

He groans, head tipping back. 

“This okay?”

“Fuck—yeah, but go easy or I’ll finish too quick,” he pants, hands clenching at his sides. “Your hand feels amazing.”

You slow down, and he kneels back on the bed, eyes raking over you hungrily. “I want to make you feel good too,” he says, voice husky. 

His fingers hook into your waistband. You lift your hips, and he pulls your jeans and panties down in one tug—fabric catching on your ankle, making you kick it free with a laugh. 

“Jesus, you’re soaked,” he murmurs, staring between your legs, fingers tracing up your thigh hesitantly.

“For you,” you say, blushing hard. “Can you touch—me? Please, Yeonjun?”

He nods, sliding a finger through your folds—teasing without meaning to, then pressing firmer when you whimper and buck up.  “Does it feel good here?” he asks, circling your clit, thumb slipping off once.

“Lower—a bit—yes, right there,” you guide, grabbing his wrist. He slips a finger inside, and you clench around the intrusion. “Can you add—another finger?”

He does, stretching you with two now—curling them too shallow, then deeper when you shift your hips. “Like that?” he whispers, pumping slow, thumb bumping your clit and making you moan.

“Better—keep going, yeah,” you pant. 

You kiss him, desperate for relief, tongues clashing as you grind into his hand. “Feels good—don’t stop.”

“Won’t,” he promises, voice wrecked, free hand groping your breast. 

After a few minutes, you’re aching, sopping wet, the emptiness too much. “I think I’m ready,” you gasp. “You?”

“Fuck yes,” he says, but pauses. “Let me grab a condom?”

You nod—glad he thought of it—and he fumbles in his bedside drawer, wrapper crinkling as he tears it with his teeth. 

He rolls it on with shaky hands, nearly fumbling it onto the floor. “Right—how d’you want to…?”

“Can you be on top first?” you suggest, scooting back on the bed, pulling him over you. 

He settles between your thighs, cock nudging your entrance—sliding up through your folds and bumping your clit, making you both gasp. 

“Close—try again.”

“Sorry,” he mutters, grinning while lining up properly. “I’ll be slow, okay? Tell me if it hurts.”

“Okay,” you breathe.

He pushes in inch by inch—the girth stretching you wide, a sharp burn that makes you wince and dig your nails into his shoulders. 

“Wait—ow, hold up a sec.”

He stops immediately, forehead pressed to yours, breathing ragged. “Too much? We can stop—no pressure.”

“No, just—give me a minute,” you whisper, kissing him softly to distract from the stretch. 

He holds still, peppering kisses along your jaw, and slowly the burn eases into fullness, pleasure sparking. 

“Okay—you can try to move now? But slow, please.”

He pulls back—too far, slipping out halfway with a wet pop—and thrusts back in unevenly. “Shit—sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you say, half-laughing and half-moaning as he finds his way back in. “Just—keep trying.”

He does, hips stuttering—too deep once making you yelp, then shallower—but it builds, that thick drag against your walls lighting you up. 

“Does it feel good like this?” he asks, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Faster—a little,” you guide, legs wrapping round him, heels digging into his ass. 

He speeds up, but loses the beat. “I think I’m close—do you want to switch?” he pants, slowing down. “I might last longer if you’re on top.”

You nod, and he rolls you over—knees knocking. You straddle him, sinking down slow. The angle is deeper now, his girth filling you to the brim, hitting spots that make your eyes flutter. 

“Oh—fuck,” you gasp, hands on his chest for leverage.

“Shit—fuck—you feel so good. Ride me,” he begs, hands gripping your hips, thumbs digging in too hard then loosening. “You feel incredible—you’re so tight around me.”

You rock tentatively—grinding your clit against his base by accident and moaning loud. “It feels so good, Yeonjun. How does it—for you?”

“Amazing—don’t stop,” he groans, thrusting up, making you bounce off-rhythm.

You slip forward eager to feel him deeper. “Is this too fast?” 

“No, fuck, keep going—” he bucks too wild and nearly unseats you. 

You both pause a second to catch your breath, foreheads pressed against each other. Then readjust—the eye contact burning, the shared grins turning to gasps.

“I’m close—” you warn, rhythm faltering, thighs burning.

“Me too—please—come with me,” he moans. 

Yeonjun’s hand slips between you to rub your clit—too rough at first, then perfect—and it shoves you over, clenching hard around him as waves crash through you. He follows with a guttural groan, hips jerking, spilling into the condom. 

You collapse onto his chest, both panting, sticky with sweat.

Yeonjun doesn’t move for a while.

Not because he’s playing it cool. His body is still catching up with what just happened.

The room is dim, the air slightly stale in that way it only gets when the window’s been closed too long. The bed’s a mess. The sheet is tangled around your legs. His shirt is somewhere on the floor. There’s a condom wrapper crumpled near the edge of the bedside table.

You’re tucked against him, forehead near his shoulder, breathing unsteady. Yeonjun’s hand is on your back. It stays there. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with his hand when he isn’t acting. So he does the simplest thing—he holds you there and lets your breathing settle against his ribs.

It gets too quiet. The quiet starts asking questions. He hates the quiet.

He clears his throat, and says the first stupid honest thing his brain finds. “I think,” he mutters, staring at the ceiling, “I might be traumatised by your laundry detergent.”

You laugh into his shoulder. It’s the kind of laugh that comes out when your body doesn’t have another safe exit. It shakes once, turns sharp, then softens into a weird little sound he feels against his skin.

Yeonjun freezes for half a second, then his fingers press more firmly into your back. Grounding. “Hey,” he says, lower. “You good?”

You lift your head a fraction, eyes bright and unfocused, mouth swollen. It makes him look away and then look back anyway because his impulse control is a joke. 

You nod. Then you nod again. “Yeah,” you say, voice hoarse. “I’m just—overwhelmed.”

Yeonjun swallows. His ring catches on the sheet when he shifts. He immediately stills and fixes it with his thumb. His hands want something to do. “Okay,” he says. It comes out steady, but he hears the strain under it. “Okay. We can be overwhelmed. That’s allowed.”

You stare at him for a beat, then your face crumples into another laugh and you bury it back into his shoulder. 

Yeonjun lets out a breath that sounds half relief, half panic. “Jesus,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. “This is not what I thought would happen.”

“What did you think would happen?” you ask, muffled.

Yeonjun’s mouth twitches. “I thought you’d—” He stops. Recalibrates. “I thought you’d go home.”

You lift your head now. “Why?”

Because he doesn’t know what to do with you staying. Because you staying means he can’t pretend it was just a lesson. Because he can’t hide behind a reputation when you’re in his bed and you’re quiet and you’re looking at him like he’s a person.

He shrugs, aiming for casual. It fails. “Because that’s the normal outcome.”

“Are you normal?” you ask.

Yeonjun huffs. “No.”

You watch his face, like you’re reading it. He breaks eye contact first. 

A beat passes.

Then he says, quietly, “The best part wasn’t—that—the sex.”

You don’t interrupt. 

Yeonjun’s jaw shifts. He rubs at his ring again until it almost hurts. “Everyone thinks,” he says, “I care about winning. About getting someone. About being—the guy.”

Your expression stays soft, alert.

He lets out a slow breath. “I thought I cared too. For a while. It was easy.” He swallows. “It was easier than being myself.”

You don’t say why. You don’t say how. You don’t ask in a way that corners him. You just say, “What’s yourself, then?”

Yeonjun’s throat closes around the words. He tries to laugh it off and it comes out wrong—thin, short, pointless. “Fuck,” he mutters. “See? This is why I don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

He gestures vaguely between your faces, the bed, the quiet. “Talk.”

You don’t smile. You don’t tease. You just look at him and wait. It’s infuriating. It’s also… safe.

Yeonjun stares at the ceiling again because the ceiling doesn’t have eyes. “The rumour started first year,” he says. “Freshers. Everyone’s bored, horny, desperate to attach a label to someone so they can stop feeling anonymous.”

You shift slightly, pulling the sheet higher over your chest. Yeonjun notices and his hand moves automatically, tucking the edge around you without thinking. He hates how natural it feels.

He continues, voice low. “There was this girl. Older. Second year. She liked me.” He pauses, then corrects, honest. “She liked the idea of me. I didn’t even know what to do with that at the time.”

Your brows lift. “At the time?”

Yeonjun glances at you, then away again, cheeks warming with something he refuses to name. “Yeah. At the time.” He takes a breath. “She invited me to a party. I went because my mates dragged me and because I didn’t want to be the boring guy who never shows up.”

You nod once, silent encouragement.

“I didn’t hook up with her,” Yeonjun says, sharper, like he needs you to understand that immediately. Then he grimaces. “Not because I’m noble. Because I didn’t know how.”

Your gaze doesn’t change. 

Yeonjun’s shoulders loosen a fraction. “I walked her to her room because she was drunk,” he says. “She kissed my cheek. That was it. That was the whole thing.” He scoffs quietly. “But her flatmates saw me leaving, and suddenly it was Yeonjun fucked her. People love a headline.”

You blink. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” he says, a little bitter. “And I did the worst possible thing.” He pauses. The admission costs him. “I didn’t correct them.”

“Why?”

Yeonjun’s fingers tighten on the sheet. “Because I liked that it made people stop asking questions.” His voice drops. “People don’t poke at you when they think they already know you.”

You’re quiet.

He keeps going because he’s already stepped off the ledge. “And then it snowballed. Someone made a joke. Someone else repeated it. Someone added details. Suddenly I had a type. Suddenly people had stories about me that I’d never lived. And I—” He swallows. “I let it happen.”

You shift closer, your knee brushing his thigh under the sheet. Yeonjun’s breath catches, then steadies. He doesn’t move away.

“I thought it made me safer,” he says. “It meant no one looked too closely. No one expected anything from me except that I’d be arrogant and easy.”

Your voice is soft when you ask, “Did you ever try to stop it?”

Yeonjun lets out a humourless laugh. “Once.” He glances at you. “Someone asked me outright if it was true. I said no.” He pauses. “They laughed in my face.”

Your eyes narrow, not at him—at the world. “That’s disgusting.”

Yeonjun’s throat works. “So I thought—fine. If they’re going to laugh anyway, I might as well give them what they want. A version of me they can point at. A story that keeps them entertained.” 

He looks down at his hands. His ring. The stupid little circle he’s been twisting like it’s a lifeline.

“I liked being wanted for it,” he admits. “Until you.”

You don’t say anything right away. You’re still thinking.

Yeonjun can’t hold the silence. It makes him itchy. It makes him want to bolt. He opens his mouth to backtrack, to joke, to make himself smaller.

And then you speak first. “Okay,” you say, and the word is steady. “That makes sense.”

Yeonjun blinks. “It does?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Because I’ve been doing the same thing.”

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

You shift onto your side so you’re facing him properly. Yeonjun’s eyes flick to your mouth and then away because his brain is still stupidly physical even when he’s trying to have a serious conversation.

“You know Soobin,” you say.

Yeonjun’s chest tightens at the name. He nods.

“I liked him first because he was safe,” you admit. “Not safe as in boring. Safe as in—predictable.”

Yeonjun watches your face. Watches the way your gaze drifts, searching for the right words.

“He was the kind of boy everyone agreed was good,” you continue. “Good grades. Good manners. Good family. The kind of boy you can tell yourself you’ll end up with and no one laughs at you.”

Yeonjun stays silent. The room holds its breath.

“And because he was away,” you add, voice going a little quieter, “it was easy to keep liking him. I could build it into a whole thing. A whole—story.” Your mouth twitches, humour without joy. “And the story didn’t require me to actually do anything. It didn’t require me to be brave.”

Yeonjun’s throat clamps. He doesn’t interrupt.

You keep going, eyes on his collarbone instead of his face now, as if it’s less dangerous that way. 

“He started talking to me properly a few months ago,” you say. “Out of nowhere. Switzerland made him bored or sentimental or both. He started being—consistent. Sweet. Asking about my day. Remembering things.” You pause. “And I liked that. I liked him noticing me.”

Yeonjun’s fingers flex against the sheet. He doesn’t like the tight feeling in his chest, but he doesn’t know if he has the right to.

“So when he told me he’s coming back and asked me on a date,” you say, “it felt like—finally. Like I was getting the ending I’d been rehearsing for years.”

You look at Yeonjun then, eyes clear.

“But it also made me feel sick,” you admit. “Because I realised I didn’t know how to be the girl in the story. I didn’t know how to kiss him. I didn’t know how to—” You cut yourself off, cheeks heating. “And I couldn’t stand the idea of being exposed as—inexperienced.”

Yeonjun’s eyes flicker. Understanding lands, solid and sharp. “So you came to me,” he says quietly.

You nod.

Yeonjun huffs, something that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t hurt.

“So we’re both idiots,” he mutters.

You blink. “Excuse you.”

He looks at you, serious now. “We were both performing.”

You don’t deny it. 

The quiet that follows is different. Yeonjun’s hand lifts, hesitates, then brushes your cheek with his knuckles. It’s careful. He’s testing whether he’s allowed.

You don’t flinch. You lean into it, just slightly.

Yeonjun’s breath catches. He almost says it. The words sit on his tongue—I like you—plain and terrifying. If he says them, he can’t pretend this is still under control. If he says them, he risks watching your face change.

So he panics and does what he always does—he swerves. “You know,” he says, voice low, trying for casual, “this is really going to destroy my campus reputation.”

You stare at him. Then you laugh again into his shoulder, the same overwhelmed laugh, and Yeonjun feels his chest unclench so hard it’s almost painful.

“Are you serious?” you whisper.

“No,” he admits immediately. “I mean—yes. But also no. Shut it.”

You shift closer, your hand sliding up to his jaw, thumb resting there. Yeonjun stills. His pulse does something stupid. Yeonjun’s hand slides to your waist under the sheet and pauses there, giving you the chance to move away.

You don’t.

He leans in, slow. His forehead almost touches yours.

“Are you okay?” he asks again, quieter this time. 

You nod. “Yeah.”

Yeonjun’s mouth hovers near yours. He can feel your breath. “Then,” he murmurs, voice rough, “say stop if you want me to.”

Your lips part. You don’t say stop. Yeonjun kisses you—slower than earlier, less frantic, more deliberate. The kind of kiss that isn’t trying to prove anything. The kind of kiss that says I’m here.

When you pull back, he breathes out against your mouth and almost—almost says it. Instead he whispers, “You’re really bad for me.”

You smile. “Good.”

Yeonjun closes his eyes for half a second, then opens them again, and this time he doesn’t look away.

A week later, you almost bail the date.

The kind of bail that starts as a thought and becomes a plan. If I turn my phone off, he can’t reach me. If I pretend I’m sick, he’ll be annoyed but he’ll forgive me. If I die, technically I don’t have to go.

You’re standing in front of your wardrobe with your arms crossed, staring at a row of outfits that suddenly look like costumes. Clothes you used to think would make you feel pretty now just look—loud. False. Too eager.

Because how do you crack yourself open for someone—let them see the soft parts, the unpolished parts, the parts you protect with jokes—and then go and sit across someone else over cocktails and candlelight?

You press your fingers to your mouth, hard enough to quiet the impulse to text Yeonjun something stupid. Something that would make him reply instantly. Something that would restore the familiar hum between you.

But you haven’t responded to him since lesson three—since last week.

You tell yourself it was strategic. That it was you being disciplined. That you’re not going to be the girl who catches feelings and then spirals into humiliation.

Except you didn’t do it to be disciplined. You did it because you didn’t know what to say. Because I can’t stop thinking about you is too much. Because I miss you is worse. Because I feel guilty would make it real in a way you can’t undo.

And somewhere along the line, Yeonjun stopped texting you too. Silence. A clean withdrawal that feels like someone taking a chair from behind your knees.

You stare at your phone on your bed.

There are old notifications from him that still sit there if you scroll far enough. A you alive? from Tuesday. A saw this and thought of you with a One Piece meme. A don’t ignore me, psycho that should’ve been funny and is now a punch to the ribs.

You haven’t opened them. You’ve been living on stubbornness and denial.

And tonight, you’re going on a date with Soobin.

Soobin, who is—on paper—everything.

The boy you’ve liked since you were sixteen. The boy every girl wanted in school, the one who looked kind even when he wasn’t trying, the one teachers praised too openly. The one your friends used to treat as a mythical creature—Soobin smiled at you? He asked about you? He’s single now?

And now he’s back. He’s here. He wants you too.

This is what you wanted. So why does it feel like you’re doing something wrong?

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself, because you’re still going.

You’re still going because you don’t get to throw away years of wanting just because you made a mess in one month. You’re still going because if you don’t, it means something has shifted and you don’t know how to hold that truth yet. You’re still going because you’re not ready to become a different version of yourself when the old one hasn’t even been properly buried.

Your doorbell goes at 11:26am.

Then again at 11:27am.

You open it and your flat floods with noise.

“GOOD MORNING, SLUT,” Yuna announces, marching in like she pays rent. She has two coffees in one hand and a tote bag bulging with makeup in the other. “We’re here to make you hot and emotionally unavailable.”

“Don’t call me a slut,” you say automatically, voice flat.

“Don’t be a coward,” she replies, kicking her shoes off and beelining for your living room. “This is a sacred day. This is history.”

Behind her, Mina appears with a bag of pastries and the energy of someone who believes in soulmates and plotlines. “I can’t believe it’s finally happening,” she says, already tearing the bag open. “Years. Literal years. This is your happy ending.”

“Can you not say happy ending,” you mutter, because your brain is a traitor and immediately supplies images you do not have time for.

“OH MY GOD,” Yuna shrieks, delighted. “She’s horny.”

“I’m not horny,” you snap.

“You’re defensive,” Mina says, accusing.

“I’m tired,” you say, because it’s the only excuse that doesn’t require further explanation.

They’re both talking over each other now—dates, restaurants, what he’s probably wearing, what you should wear, how you should do your hair, whether you should do eyeliner that says sweet or eyeliner that says I could ruin your life.

Beomgyu arrives last. He doesn’t knock. He never knocks. He opens your door with the spare keys he stole and walks in with the confidence of a man who thinks boundaries are a myth.

He pauses mid-step when he sees your living room full of pastries and bags and cosmetics spread out. He scans the scene. Then he looks at you. Not at your outfit. Not at your hair. At your face.

His eyes narrow. “Why do you look,” he says slowly, “like you’re about to attend your own execution?”

“Shut it,” you reply.

“No, genuinely,” Beomgyu continues, ignoring you as he always does when he’s right. “This is supposed to be your dream date. You’ve been talking about Soobin since we were in school. Since before we even had frontal lobes.”

Mina tosses a cushion at him. “Let her breathe!”

“I am letting her breathe,” Beomgyu says, catching it. “I’m just asking why she looks haunted.”

You glare at him.

He holds your gaze without blinking, which is deeply irritating.

“Okay,” you say finally. “Everyone out of my bedroom.”

“EXCUSE ME?” Yuna says, scandalised.

“Not like that,” you snap. “I mean—I need to change without an audience.”

“You literally have tits,” Mina says, offended. “We all have tits.”

“OUT,” you repeat, pointing.

They groan, dramatic, but they obey—mostly—filtering out while still shouting advice through the door.

“NOT THE BLACK DRESS, YOU’LL LOOK TOO SERIOUS!”

“WEAR THE GREEN ONE! GREEN IS FLIRTY!”

“DO YOU WANT FLIRTY OR DO YOU WANT I HAVE OPTIONS?!”

“I WANT SILENCE,” you shout back.

Beomgyu doesn’t leave. He leans on your doorframe instead, arms crossed, watching you pull dresses off hangers with the dispassionate expression of someone judging your life choices in real time.

“You’re not my dad,” you tell him, because his face looks too much like a teacher’s disappointment.

“Thank fuck,” he says. 

“Then stop looking at me like that.”

“I can’t,” he replies. “You’re giving me… interesting energy.”

You pause with a dress halfway off the hanger. “Interesting how.”

Beomgyu tilts his head. “You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you insist you want something,” he says, “and then you look like you want to run as soon as you get it.”

Your stomach tightens. You scoff, because this is your favourite defence mechanism. “You’re making it deep for no reason.”

Beomgyu’s mouth twitches. “No reason. Right.” He steps into your room, quietly, and sits on the edge of your bed like he lives here too. 

You hate that he looks calm. You hate that he’s always calm when you’re not.

“So,” he says, casual. “Are you excited?”

You open your mouth. Nothing comes out.

Beomgyu’s brows lift a fraction. “Oh.”

“Don’t oh me,” you say instantly.

“I didn’t even say anything,” he replies, delighted. “Your face did.”

You turn away, pretending to rummage through your drawer so you don’t have to look at him. Your phone is on your bed. You don’t touch it.

Beomgyu’s voice softens, just a little. “Talk to me.”

You exhale through your nose. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Okay,” he says. “Then answer one question.”

You don’t respond.

He continues anyway. “If Soobin texted you right now and said, I can’t make it tonight, I’m sorry, would you be devastated… or relieved?”

Your throat closes. You hate him. You also hate that the answer arrives immediately.

Beomgyu watches you falter. He doesn’t gloat. He doesn’t grin. He just nods, like he’s confirming something he already knew.

You set the dress down carefully, hands suddenly clumsy. “Don’t do that,” you say, voice sharper than you mean.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like you’ve solved me.”

Beomgyu leans back on his hands. “I haven’t solved you. I just know you.”

You turn on him. “I’m going on the date.”

“I know,” he says.

“And I want to go.”

“Okay.”

“And I want Soobin.”

Beomgyu’s eyes flicker. “Do you?”

Your mouth opens again. You close it.

Beomgyu waits. Patient. Annoying.

You swallow. “I’ve wanted him for years,” you say finally. “It’s—Soobin. He’s… him.”

“That’s not an answer,” Beomgyu says gently.

You laugh, humourless. “I’m not doing this.”

“You are doing this,” he corrects. “You’re just doing it while pretending you’re not.”

You look away, jaw tight.

Beomgyu sighs, then says, softer, “Did something happen?”

Your pulse kicks. You keep your voice flat. “No.”

Beomgyu doesn’t believe you. He’s never believed you when you lie. You’re bad at lying to people who love you.

He glances at your phone on the bed, then back at you. “Did you… meet someone?”

You feel heat crawl up your neck.

Beomgyu sits up slightly, attentive now. “Oh my God. You did.”

“Stop,” you say, immediately.

“Wait,” he says, eyes widening with genuine joy because he’s a menace. “Are you serious? Who? Tell me. Was it a random? Was it—”

“No,” you cut in.

Beomgyu’s grin fades just enough to show curiosity. “Not a random.”

You don’t answer.

Beomgyu’s gaze drifts over your face again, then sharpens. He speaks slowly, like he’s testing the edges of the truth. “Is this about… that Choi Yeonjun?”

Your stomach drops. The room goes too quiet in a way that makes your skin prickle.

Beomgyu sees it. His expression shifts. “Okay,” he says, voice careful now. “So it’s that.”

You stare at the floor, the words in your throat refusing to become real. Beomgyu doesn’t push for details. He doesn’t say what did you do. He doesn’t ask for gossip. He just nods again, like he’s rearranging a puzzle inside his head.

“Is he an asshole?” Beomgyu asks.

You blink. “No.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No.”

“Did you hurt him?”

You flinch, just a little.

Beomgyu exhales. “Right.”

Your voice comes out small despite your effort. “It wasn’t supposed to be—anything.”

Beomgyu’s mouth quirks, but there’s no humour in it. “Nothing never behaves.”

You hate that he’s right. You sit on the edge of your bed without meaning to. The mattress dips. 

Beomgyu watches your hands twist together. “Soobin,” he says quietly, “is the boy you wanted when you were younger.”

Your chest tightens at the way he says it.

Beomgyu’s eyes hold yours. “Yeonjun is the boy you met now.”

You swallow.

Outside your door, Yuna and Mina are still arguing about outfits.

“THE GREEN ONE MAKES HER LOOK RICH!”

“THE BLACK ONE MAKES HER LOOK DANGEROUS!”

“WHY CAN’T SHE LOOK RICH AND DANGEROUS?!”

Beomgyu glances toward the noise, then back at you. “You don’t have to decide everything today,” he says.

“I do,” you whisper. “The date is today.”

“You don’t have to decide your whole life,” he corrects. “You just have to decide what you’re going to do for the next few hours.”

You stare at your phone again. A week of silence sits between you and Yeonjun. Your pride built it brick by brick. Now it feels too tall to climb down from without bleeding.

Beomgyu stands, stretches, then reaches out and flicks your forehead with the strength of Hulk.

“Ow,” you snap.

“Welcome back,” he says. “I was worried you were going to float away into your own head permanently.”

You glare at him, but a knot lifts behind your ribs.

Beomgyu points at your wardrobe. “Pick the dress you feel least fake in.”

“None of them,” you mutter.

“Then pick the one you can breathe in,” he says simply.

You nod once, because it’s the only thing you can manage.

Beomgyu turns to leave, then pauses at the door. He glances back over his shoulder. “And hey,” he adds, voice softer, “if you spend the whole date thinking about someone else—that’s information. Don’t ignore it just because it’s inconvenient.”

Your stomach drops again. “Beomgyu,” you warn.

He raises his hands. “Okay. Okay. I’m gone.”

He walks out.

The noise rushes back in immediately—your friends storming your room, holding up dresses, shouting, laughing, calling you dramatic and iconic and insufferable.

You let them.

You let them do your eyeliner and your hair and your perfume and your whole transformation into the girl they think you are tonight.

Soobin pulls up outside your building in a car that looks too clean to belong to a uni student.

It’s not some battered little thing held together by hope and a dodgy MOT. It’s a proper car. Black. BMW. The kind that makes the streetlights slide across it neatly. You stand on the pavement with your bag on your shoulder and your coat half-buttoned and you genuinely have to pause.

Since when does Soobin drive? Since when does he have a car?

It makes your stomach do that weird thing again, not butterflies—something more clinical. A tightening. A question.

You walk down anyway.

Soobin steps out before you can reach the passenger door. He’s wearing a white button-up with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, collar open enough to look effortless. Hair still damp at the ends, as if he showered recently. Under the streetlight his face looks… soft. Pretty in that careful way that used to destroy you in highschool. The kind of boy everyone wanted and nobody touched without permission from the universe.

“Hey,” he says, smiling properly now.

“Hey,” you say back, and your voice behaves. 

You hate that. You hate how good you are at behaving.

He looks you up and down—quick, respectful. Then his eyes meet yours and he grins. “You look really nice.”

“Thanks.” You adjust your bag strap. “I didn’t know you—drive.”

Soobin laughs, a surprised little sound. “Yeah. I do. I just never had a reason to bring a car to campus.”

You hear it—never had a reason. The sentence should make you feel special. It should spark. Instead, it sits on the surface of you, neat and weightless.

He opens the door for you. 

You slide into the passenger seat and the inside smells expensive. Subtle cologne, leather, something sharp that suggests a grown-up life you never attached to him when you were sixteen and he was only a crush and a myth and a face in a corridor.

Soobin gets in, starts the engine, checks his mirrors. His hands on the wheel look familiar—long fingers, careful grip. Everything about him feels… correct.

And it’s so different from walking.

So different from being outside at stupid hours with Yeonjun, both of you under-lit by corner shop fluorescents, arguing about crisps and anime arcs and whether you’re allowed to be this feral in public spaces. No seatbelts. No air freshener. Just cold air and his hoodie sleeve brushing your wrist.

Soobin glances at you. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you say instantly. “Just didn’t expect you to pull up like a CEO.”

He laughs again. “It’s not that deep.”

That’s the thing. With him, nothing ever is.

You drive to the cinema and it’s smooth—traffic lights, gentle turns, music low. Soobin asks about your week. He listens. He doesn’t interrupt. He’s good at the basics in a way that would’ve made you melt a month ago. He says your name the way he always did back then, like it’s something familiar he’s allowed to hold.

You respond. You make jokes. You keep it easy.

And somewhere behind your ribs, something stays shut.

At the cinema, he buys the tickets before you can offer. Popcorn, too. He even gets the drink you mention without making you repeat yourself. He’s attentive in a soft, socially-approved way—green flag behaviour. The kind people write threads about.

You stand beside him while he pays and you watch the cashier smile a little too brightly at him, and you feel nothing. Not jealous. Not threatened. Not even flattered.

Soobin nudges you gently with his elbow. “What?”

“Nothing,” you say. “It’s just weird seeing you in the wild.”

“In the wild?” he repeats, amused.

“Yeah,” you say. “You’ve been in Switzerland for months and now you’re here being a functioning person with a vehicle and a bank card.”

He snorts. “I’ve always had a bank card.”

“Sure,” you say, deadpan. “But did you always have… this?”

You gesture at the popcorn like it’s proof of adulthood.

Soobin smiles. “Switzerland did make me a bit—domesticated.”

Your brain, traitor that it is, offers you Yeonjun’s voice immediately—dry, rude, warm in the worst way. Domesticated? You’re a Labrador.

You bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself smiling.

Inside the screen, it’s a cheesy rom-com. The kind where the lighting is too golden and the misunderstandings are manufactured and everyone is somehow glowing even when they’re meant to be devastated.

Soobin laughs at the right moments. He leans closer at the sweet parts. His knee brushes yours once, cautiously, like he’s checking the temperature of you.

You let it happen. You don’t pull away. You don’t lean in either.

You try to be present. You really do. But the cinema is a trap. The dark does what it always does—turns your brain into a projector. Not of the movie. Of a different night, a different screen, a different kind of stupid.

Not the details. Your mind doesn’t give you details so much as the feeling—heat under your skin, the rush of doing something you shouldn’t, the way you had been fearless for once. The way Yeonjun’s voice had turned rough right by your ear.

Your fingers tighten on the popcorn bucket.

On-screen, the male lead delivers a line about fate or love or whatever, and Soobin chuckles, shaking his head fondly.

You laugh too—except your laugh isn’t for the movie. It’s for Yeonjun, in your head, going, If I ever say something like that, shoot me.

Soobin reaches for your hand on the armrest and threads his fingers through yours. His hand is warm. His touch is gentle.

It should do something to you. It doesn’t.

Not because he’s doing it wrong. Because there’s no risk. No edge. No consequence. He’s not asking anything of you except to be here and smile and let him hold you.

And a week ago, you learned what it feels like when something is at stake. When someone isn’t trying to be impressive. When someone is trying to be honest and failing, and you can see the effort anyway.

Soobin squeezes your hand once, reassuring. You squeeze back because you’re not cruel.

The movie ends. Everyone claps because people are weird. Soobin stands, stretches, asks if you liked it.

“It was cute,” you say.

“It was,” he agrees. “Kind of predictable.”

You almost say, so are you, but you don’t. Because he doesn’t deserve that. Because he hasn’t done anything wrong except arrive too late to a version of you that used to want him uncomplicated.

Outside, the night is crisp. Soobin walks you to the car. He opens your door again. The date keeps insisting on being textbook.

“So,” he says once you’re both in. “Dinner?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Dinner.”

He drives to a fancy restaurant you’ve only ever walked past, the kind with warm lighting and quiet music and menus that don’t have prices printed in obvious places. The valet takes the keys. Soobin thanks him. You follow Soobin inside and your heels click on polished floors and everything feels staged.

They seat you at a small table. Candles. Linen. Water poured without asking.

Soobin looks across at you and smiles like he can’t believe this is real. Like he’s been looking forward to it.

And that’s what makes your throat clamp.

Because you know he has.

Soobin starts talking about Switzerland as soon as the waiter leaves. It spills out of him in tidy paragraphs—the mountains, the trains that actually arrive on time, the air that feels sharp and clean, the way the snow looked unreal the first time he saw it up close.

“I used to walk to my lectures and it felt—” he searches for the word, then laughs at himself. “It felt like a movie.”

You nod, attentive. “Did you miss home?”

“Yeah,” he says easily. “More than I expected. I missed my friends. I missed my mum’s food. I missed—” He pauses, eyes flicking to yours. “I missed you.”

There it is. The line you’ve replayed in your head for years, the one you used to beg the universe for in different forms.

It lands gently. It doesn’t crack you open.

You smile anyway, because you’re not made of stone. “I missed you too.”

It’s true. In a way. In a past-tense way. In a I missed who I was when I thought you were the only outcome that mattered way.

Soobin talks about a girl on his course who couldn’t pronounce his name properly. He mimics her accent, a little dramatic, and you laugh because it’s actually funny. Then he says, “I tried fondue. Proper fondue. It’s insane.”

“Cheese,” you echo.

“Cheese,” he confirms. “And bread. That’s it. But it works.”

Your stomach gives a small, violent reminder of 2am spaghetti and a boy who looked offended by garlic. Yeonjun at a hob, squinting at olive oil. Yeonjun muttering why is it smoking? as if the pan is the problem. Yeonjun putting too much chilli in because he refuses to measure anything in his life.

You snort.

Soobin stops mid-sentence. “What?”

“Nothing,” you say, but your smile is crooked now. “Just thinking about—food.”

Soobin looks relieved. “Good. Because I was worried you were laughing at me.”

“I wouldn’t,” you say automatically.

He leans back a little, comfortable. “You can. I don’t mind.”

That should feel intimate. Instead, it makes you think of Yeonjun going, Laugh at me and I’ll block you in real life, while still smiling, while still handing you a fork.

The waiter comes back. Soobin orders smoothly, pronounces everything right. You order too, choosing something you’ve never tried.

Soobin reaches across the table and takes your hand again. “Can I say something?” he asks.

Your stomach tightens. “Yeah.”

“I’m glad you said yes,” he says. Simple. Honest. “I didn’t know if you would.”

You hold his gaze. His eyes are warm. Open. He’s not playing games. He never was.

“Why wouldn’t I?” you ask, forcing lightness.

Soobin shrugs, sheepish. “Because it’s been a while. Because I left. Because you’re—you.”

You blink. “I’m… me?”

He smiles. “Yeah. You always seemed like you had your own world going on. Even back then.”

Your own world. A week ago, Yeonjun said something similar, except he said it meaner, and you’d felt seen so hard it pissed you off.

Soobin squeezes your fingers. “I just—I don’t want to mess it up.”

There’s the stake, offered politely. And you realise, with a strange clarity, that you want him to mess it up a little. You want him to say something wrong. You want him to hesitate. You want him to admit something ugly and real instead of being the perfect outcome to a teenage crush.

Soobin watches your face. “You okay?”

You blink, startled, and realise you’ve gone quiet again. “Yeah,” you lie. Then, because you can’t help it, you add, “Sorry. I’m just—processing.”

“Processing what?”

Everything. You shrug. “Switzerland.”

He laughs, relieved. “Yeah. It was a lot.”

Dinner arrives. It’s plated beautifully. It tastes good in a way that almost annoys you. Soobin tries a bite, closes his eyes for a second, and makes a pleased noise.

“This is amazing,” he says. “I picked well.”

You nod, chewing slowly.

Soobin reaches across and brushes his thumb over your knuckles, absent-minded.

“After this,” he says, voice softer, “we can go back to my place? If you want. Just… talk or have a drink or whatever.”

His place.

You picture it immediately. Yeonjun’s place. Yeonjun’s room. Yeonjun’s bed. 

You laugh. A small, broken thing. You hate yourself for reasons you can’t name.

Soobin’s brows pull together. “Did I say something wrong?”

You shake your head quickly. “No. Sorry. No, you didn’t.”

He watches you. He doesn’t push. He goes back to his food, but slower now, as if he’s trying to recalibrate.

You take a sip of water. Your phone stays face-down in your bag. You don’t check it. You already know there’s nothing there.

And that’s the other truth you won’t say out loud. It’s been a week since lesson three, and Yeonjun stopped texting, and you pretended it didn’t matter—until you sat across from the boy you thought you wanted and realised you can’t unlearn the taste of real.

The bill comes in a black folder. Soobin reaches for it before you can even pretend you’re about to argue.

“Let me,” he says, already sliding his card out.

“Okay,” you hear yourself reply, soft and automatic.

That’s the problem. You’ve been automatic all night.

Outside, the city has cooled. Streetlights rinse the pavement. The restaurant door closes behind you. 

Soobin turns to you on the sidewalk, smiling—bright, pleased. “You were quiet during dessert,” he says gently. “Are you tired?”

You could say yes. You could say you’ve got an early lecture. You could do the polite ending—hug, promise, second date. You feel your body reject it before your mouth catches up. “No,” you say. “I’m not tired.”

Soobin’s smile falters into concern. “Okay. What is it?”

You look at him properly. The rolled sleeves. The neat hair that falls into his eyes when the wind nudges it. The boy you’ve wanted in every season of your life. The boy you built a whole version of yourself for.

You swallow hard. Not with nerves. With truth. “I need to tell you something,” you say.

Soobin straightens a little, attentive. “Yeah. Tell me.”

You swallow. Your hands are cold. You tuck them into your coat pockets so he doesn’t see them shaking. “I’ve liked you since I can remember,” you say. “Since it was embarrassing to like anyone. Since it felt illegal.”

His face softens instantly. He actually looks—happy. Flattered. A little disbelieving.

“You were always the only boy I looked at and wanted,” you continue, and your voice doesn’t wobble, which is new. “You made me feel things and want things before I even knew what any of it meant.”

Soobin smiles wider, almost shy. “I—wow.”

You nod once, quick. “And I thought there wasn’t anyone I could ever want apart from you.”

His eyes warm. He steps half a pace closer, and his hand lifts, hovering near yours. He doesn’t touch yet. He’s asking without asking.

“And then,” you say, and the word cuts the air cleanly, “I met someone.”

Soobin freezes. 

You keep going because if you stop, you’ll turn into a coward again. “He seemed like one person at first,” you say. “And when I actually got to know him, he was someone else completely.”

Soobin’s smile is gone now. He’s trying to stay polite. You can see it in the set of his mouth. In how carefully he breathes.

“Are you saying—” he starts.

“I’m saying I’ve been performing,” you cut in, and the bluntness surprises you both. “All night. I’ve been performing for months. Our calls. Our texts. All of it.”

Soobin’s brows knit. “Performing?”

You laugh once, sharp and humourless. “You know when people want a version of you, so you become it because it’s easier than being—whatever you actually are.”

He blinks, slow. “I thought you were having a good time.”

“I’m good at looking correct,” you say. “That’s basically my only skill.”

“So what changed?” Soobin asks, and he means it. There’s hurt underneath, but he’s still trying to understand. “Why tell me this now?”

You stare down the street for a second because the answer is too exposed if you say it while looking at him. “Because I’ve been truly seen,” you say quietly. “And once someone sees you—properly—you can’t go back to the polished version without hating yourself.”

Soobin’s voice drops. “Who is he?”

You hesitate for half a beat. Then you say it. “Choi Yeonjun.”

Soobin’s jaw tightens. Not anger, exactly. More a stunned recalculation. He huffs. “Choi Yeonjun,” he repeats. “The—”

“Yeah,” you cut in, tired. “That one.”

Soobin looks at you for a long second. “So you—you’re with him?”

“No,” you say fast. Then slower, because you refuse to lie again. “I don’t know what I am. I just know I can’t sit through another date pretending I’m the same girl who built you into an ending.”

Soobin swallows. “Is this because the date wasn’t—exciting enough?”

You shake your head, immediate. “No. God, no. This isn’t you lacking anything.”

He studies you, careful. “Then what is it?”

You take a breath. Your stomach twists—old embarrassment, old fear—then settles into something steadier. “It’s me,” you admit. “I lack something. Or I did. I was so scared of being an idiot in front of you.”

Soobin’s expression shifts. “An idiot?”

You nod, eyes stinging with the effort of saying it clean. “I lied to you for months.”

His face goes blank for a second. “About what?”

You force the words out. “My body count.”

Soobin’s eyes widen a fraction. “What?”

“I said it was eleven,” you say, and you can’t even look away now. You make yourself hold it. “It wasn’t. It was zero. Back then, I hadn’t even kissed anyone.”

Soobin goes very quiet.

You keep talking, because you refuse to let the silence swallow you whole. “I overcompensated,” you say. “I tried to become the kind of girl I thought you’d want. The kind of girl who wouldn’t embarrass you. Who wouldn’t be—behind.”

Soobin’s throat moves. “Why would that embarrass me?”

“Because I decided it would,” you snap, and then soften immediately because this isn’t his fault. “Because I didn’t trust you with the truth. And I should’ve. I’m sorry.”

He looks shaken now. “So tonight,” he says slowly, “you were—what—trying to prove something?”

You nod. “I was trying to be impressive. I was trying to be safe.” You swallow. “Soobin,” you say, and your voice cracks on his name because it still matters, in its own way. “I don’t want safe. I want real. I don’t want to pretend. Not with you. Not with anyone.”

He stares at you. His hands flex at his sides, helpless. “But I’m real.”

“You are,” you say, instantly. “You’re the most real person in this whole thing. That’s why I can’t keep doing it to you.”

Soobin’s eyes flick over your face as if he’s searching for the punchline. “So what now?”

You swallow. The answer lands in your chest with frightening clarity. “I have to go,” you say.

His breath catches. “Go where?”

You don’t answer. Because if you say it out loud, it becomes final in a way that terrifies you. And it’s already final. You can feel it in your bones.

Soobin reaches for you then, reflexive. Fingers brushing your wrist. Not rough. Not entitled. Just desperate. “Wait,” he says, voice low. “Can we talk about this properly? You can’t just—”

“I know,” you whisper. “I’m sorry.”

His hand tightens for half a second, then loosens, like he realises he can’t hold you in place without becoming someone he doesn’t want to be.

You step back.

Soobin looks at you with a kind of stunned grief that makes your stomach turn, makes you want to rewind the last five minutes and lie again just to spare him.

But you can’t. 

You turn and you walk away—fast at first, then faster, until you’re not walking at all. You’re running.

You don’t even remember ordering the Uber. You just remember the cold air in your lungs, the shake in your hands, the way your phone screen blurs as you type the address you know too well. You sit in the backseat with your knees bouncing, jaw clenched, heart punching at your ribs.

The driver asks, “Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” you lie out of habit, then correct yourself under your breath. “No.”

When you get out, you don’t check your reflection. You don’t fix your hair. You don’t rehearse a sentence.

You climb the stairs and knock.

Once. Twice.

The door opens.

Yeonjun is there, bare forearms, dark hair slightly messed, the ring in his ear catching the hallway light when his head shifts on the doorframe. 

His face is careful—too controlled, as if he’s about to say the safe line, the measured line, the one that keeps him from hoping. “Hey,” he starts.

You don’t let him finish. You grab his shirt with both hands and kiss him.

Your mouth fits against his in a way that makes your whole body stop fighting itself. His breath stutters once, surprised, and then he’s kissing you back—harder, closer, hands finding your waist like he’s been holding them there in his head all week.

You pull back just enough to breathe.

Yeonjun’s eyes are dark. Wide. Then his mouth curves—small, relieved, undone. Like he’s grateful you didn’t make him be clever. “Come in,” he says, voice rough.

And you do.

The door closes behind you.

(the end)

✧ prev | series masterlist | main masterlist

a/n: OMGGGGGG guys!! this has been such a fun rollercoaster. let's unpack the chapter because i have sm to say. okay the smut scene?? what do you think think, ik its kinda ugh BUT i wrote it like 5 times and this was the version when i threw my hands up and was like im done now i cba anymore. also i love beomgyu sm, i need a friend like him. im gonna miss him the most i can't lie. and my bby soobin :( initially i did think of making him shitty but it just didn't make sense so instead so we have the pain of perfect guy, wrong timing.

i also have a mini announcement to make... since so many of you LOVED reading vpb and I LOVED writing vpb, i have decided to make a sequel!! not for our beloved idiot couple but for soobin!! and before yal boo, listen, soobin also deserves a happy ending no?

i don't know when i will actually get to the sequel, but you know your notes fuel me. so can we do 1k notes and i will get to typing? no? if thats too ambitious, you guys will just have to be patient until im able to squeeze some time for it!! in the meantime, below is the sequel's summary :0 (you can find it and my upcoming txt works in my wips list!). okay enough yapping from me and i will see you all on the next! much love <333 (ps. comment, reblog and send me your asks!! spam me, i love it!!)

misguided | choi soobin

⤷ college students au, pining soobin x fake shaman, love triangle, idiots in love

He paces your living room with his hands clenched so tight his knuckles ache. Your carpet is cheap and thin and the pattern has been worn down in patches, and he’s pretty sure he’s about to wear a new path into it. He keeps walking back and forth, forth and back—jaw clenched, tongue pressing hard against his teeth—trying to hold the anger in his body where it belongs.

You’re on the sofa with Taehyun—yes, the bartender. That’s the part that keeps making his rage spike.

You’re not tied up or trembling in fear. You’re not even pretending to be sorry properly. You’re sat there in your hoodie, head down and your hands in your lap. You hiccup every few seconds, eyes shiny and cheeks flushed. Taehyun’s next to you with a bottle of water; one hand on your shoulder like he’s managing a crisis, the other rubbing his own neck like he’s trying to figure out how the fuck you both ended up here.

The air smells faintly of fried food, and alcohol, and your incense. The scene is so normal it’s obscene.

Soobin stops pacing and turns to face you. His voice goes thin. “Truth—I want the full truth.”

A hiccup punches out of you.

He closes his eyes for half a second. “Don’t.”

You hiccup again, then glare at him through watery eyes, offended by his tone as if you aren’t the one who convinced him a virgin ghost eats fallen grapes off café floors.

Taehyun shifts beside you. His expression isn’t smug now—it’s tight with guilt and nerves. He’s still trying to look calm, but the remorse sits on him in the way his shoulders hold themselves. Taehyun is good at pretending he doesn’t care—he’s worse when he actually does.

Soobin points at both of you. “Not the ghost version,” he says again.

You try to speak. Your body betrays you again. You clamp a hand over your mouth, furious at your own body.

Taehyun gives you the water. “Drink,” he murmurs, then looks at Soobin and sighs. “Alright. Fine.”

Soobin’s eyes narrow. “Fine.”

Taehyun nods once, jaw flexing. “We scammed you.”

Soobin’s chest tightens. It lands heavy even though he already knew. Hearing it out loud makes it real in a way he hates.

You hiccup again, then choke out, “I—” and nothing else comes out.

Taehyun keeps going, voice low, careful. “I told her about you. I sent you to her and got commission out of it.”

Soobin’s gaze snaps to him. “Commission.”

Taehyun winces. “Yeah.”

Soobin’s hands ball into fists again. “So I sat at your bar and spilled my guts and you were calculating commission in your head.”

Taehyun flinches and looks down. “I wasn’t calculating. I—”

“You were,” Soobin snaps, then immediately catches his own volume and swallows it down. “You did.”

You make a small sound in the back of your throat and you squeeze your eyes shut, mortified.

Taehyun’s hand tightens on your shoulder. He looks at Soobin again. “She didn’t think you’d keep coming back.”

Soobin turns to you, voice sharpening. “You didn’t mind when I kept coming back. You—you took my money.”

You try to lift your head. Your eyes meet his for half a second. Your fingers worry the cuff of your sleeve until it twists. You look guilty—proper guilty. The kind that makes his stomach twist.

You hiccup and whisper, “I’m sorry.”

Soobin laughs once, bitter. “Sorry.”

Taehyun rubs his face with his free hand. “Mate, I swear, it wasn’t meant to go this far.”

“It went as far as grapes under tables,” Soobin says, voice flat with disbelief. “That’s pretty far.”

You press the heel of your palm into your forehead, breathing through your nose, as if your body has decided that this is how you’ll be punished—humiliation with sound effects.

Taehyun speaks over it. “There’s no real ghost—she made it up on the spot.”

Soobin’s eyes flick to you. “On the spot?”

You nod weakly, then hiccup. You hate yourself.

Taehyun continues, voice getting faster now. “The virgin ghost thing was supposed to scare you a bit, make you take it seriously, then you’d stop coming, and that would be the end. People come once, realise it’s bullshit, never come back. You—” he gestures at Soobin, “—kept showing up.”

“Because I wanted it to work.” The words come out rawer than he intends. He hates that you both hear it. He hates that Taehyun’s expression shifts, shame deepening, and you hiccup again like your body’s reacting to the honesty.

You whisper, hoarse, “I didn’t think you would—you’d believe it.”

Soobin stares at you. “You didn’t think I’d believe a ghost was attached to me?”

Taehyun’s voice drops. “You were desperate, mate.”

Soobin’s throat tightens at that. “So you both thought I was—what? A joke?”

You flinch. Your eyes drop.

Taehyun doesn’t defend himself this time. He just nods once, small. “We took the piss.”

Soobin’s stomach turns. He drags a hand down his face. He wants to be angry—he is angry. But under the anger there’s something else—humiliation, hurt, the sharp sting of realising he begged for help from two people who made fun of him after.

He points at you, voice tight. “You laughed about it.”

“I—I didn’t—not at first. I didn’t mean—” A hiccup cuts you off. You slam your palm against your thigh, furious. “Stop,” you hiss at your own body.

Taehyun steps in again, voice steadier. “She did laugh, yeah. We both did. We shouldn’t have.”

Soobin’s eyes flicker between you. Your face is flushed. Your eyes are wet. Your mouth keeps twitching as you fight the hiccups. Taehyun looks guilty in a way Soobin has never seen on anyone before—quiet, real, no performance.

It makes the anger wobble. It doesn’t disappear—but it wobbles.

Soobin inhales. “I don’t care about your life stories. I don’t care why you scam. I care that I was sat there with you—” he points at Taehyun, “—talking about her, and you were already planning how to profit off it.”

Taehyun’s shoulders drop. “I know.”

“And you,” Soobin turns back to you, “you took it and ran with it.”

You nod, voice small. “I know.”

The guilt in your face is real. It angers him off even more, because it means you knew it was wrong and did it anyway.

You wipe at your cheek quickly, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” you manage again.

Soobin’s voice sharpens. “Stop saying sorry.”

Your eyes widen, hurt flashing.

Taehyun looks between you both, jaw tight. “Mate—”

Soobin lifts a hand. “No. Stop butting in. I want to hear from her.”

You nod quickly, desperate, then another stupid hiccup jumps you. You squeeze your eyes shut, inhale, and try to speak. “It started when I was nine—”

Soobin stares. “You started scamming people when you were nine years old.”

You shake your head hard. “No— I—”

Taehyun sighs and fills in, because he can see you drowning in your own body. “Her dad’s business went bankrupt when she was nine. She’s been broke since she could spell broke.”

You glare at Taehyun through tears. “Why are you telling him that?”

Taehyun keeps his voice low. “Because you’re hiccuping yourself into silence.”

Soobin’s throat works. He doesn’t know what to do with that information. It doesn’t absolve you. It just makes everything messier—he hates messy.

You sniff, angry now, and the hiccups get worse. “Why the fuck am I crying?” you choke out, failing at life.

Taehyun’s mouth twitches once, then he sobers. “Because this is humiliating.”

Soobin’s chest twists. He rubs his face, fighting the urge to bolt.

“We’re sorry,” Taehyun says, and it sounds real this time. “We didn’t mean to take it this far.”

Soobin laughs again, bitter. “You took it as far as you could and it still wasn’t enough. You kept adding steps.”

Your shoulders curl in. You whisper, “You kept coming.”

Soobin’s eyes flash. “Because I wanted her back.”

Silence lands heavy in the room.

Taehyun is the one to break it, voice cautious. “Normally, people come once, realise it’s not real, then they disappear.”

Soobin’s head snaps up. “What?”

Taehyun freezes, realising he’s stepped on something.

Soobin points at him. “You said people come once. You said they disappear.”

Taehyun swallows. His gaze flicks to you with warning. You’re still hiccuping, still flushed, still caught.

Soobin leans forward slightly. “There are other clients?”

Taehyun exhales, defeated. “Yeah.”

Hope blooms in Soobin’s chest in the most pathetic way possible. He hates it—he also clings to it anyway. “What happens,” he asks, slow and careful, “when your scam accidentally… works?”

You stare at him. Taehyun stares at him. 

Taehyun speaks first, reluctant. “There was a couple. They came for compatibility stuff. Horoscope.”

Soobin’s eyes sharpen. “And?”

Taehyun keeps going. “She asked questions. He answered and lied—but not well enough.”

Soobin’s voice tightens. “He cheated?”

You flinch. Taehyun flinches. Your guilt spikes and you look down.

Taehyun nods. “Yeah.”

Soobin steps closer, intensity building. “So you can break people up?”

“No,” you choke out, voice sharp. “We don’t do that.”

Taehyun shakes his head. “It was an accident.”

Soobin’s laugh is ugly. “An accident.”

You lean forward, hands clenched. “We don’t get involved with couples who are happily together.”

Soobin points at you. “You told me a virgin ghost is attached to me and eats fallen grapes.”

You wince. “That’s different.”

“How,” he snaps, then catches his tone and tries again through gritted teeth, “is that different?”

You swallow hard. “Because you were single and miserable.”

“So only couples deserve happy endings.”

“That’s not—” you start, then hiccup, then get louder out of frustration. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“So help me,” Soobin says, and the politeness finally cracks. “For real this time.”

You shake your head immediately. “We can’t.”

Soobin’s eyes go cold. “Then I’ll report you.”

Taehyun stiffens.

Soobin continues, voice low and deadly. “A full refund, and I’ll also report you. Authorities, university—everyone.”

Your stomach drops. Your hands go clammy. Taehyun goes pale, and you see it—the flash of fear that he tries to swallow.

Soobin looks sick saying it. Shame creeps across his face. He hates that he’s doing this. He does it anyway. “I don’t want to but I will if I have to,” he says, quieter. “I just—I don’t know what else to do.”

Taehyun’s voice is careful. “Mate.”

Soobin shakes his head once. “I can’t let her go.”

Your throat tightens. Your chest hurts. Your guilt sits heavy now, because you can see how cornered he feels. You look at Taehyun. Taehyun shakes his head, sharp. Don’t. Please don’t.

You ignore him. “Okay,” you say.

Taehyun’s head snaps toward you. “What?”

You glare at him. “I decided.”

Taehyun looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes,” you say, voice firm. “We’ll help you.”

Soobin’s face changes—relief hitting so hard it looks painful. He swallows, trying not to show it, then fails. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” you snap, eyes stinging. “If you thank me, I’ll change my mind.”

Taehyun drags a hand down his face. “We are so fucked.”

Soobin stands there in your living room, hope back in his eyes, and you sit on your own sofa feeling your remorse settle into something heavier.

You got caught—and instead of running, you just agreed to make it worse.

Soobin leaves with the kind of slammed door he’s never been the type to give.

It rattles the cheap picture frame in the hallway. It makes the washing machine behind the curtain thump once, offended at the noise. It even makes Mangy lift his head from the windowsill and blink toward the door, then blink at you, then put his head back down with the expression of a creature thinking, pathetic, all of you.

The second the lock clicks, Taehyun explodes.

“What’s wrong with you?” he spits, standing in the middle of your studio with his hands out, palms up, as if he’s about to present you to the jury. “How could you agree to that?”

You don’t answer immediately. You just stand there for a beat, staring at the place where Soobin was. The cushion still has the shape of him. Your rice bowl sits on the table like it’s witnessed war crimes. Your notebook is open to a page of doodles and fake symbols and now it feels less funny, more… real—which is disgusting.

Then your body remembers it’s tired.

Tired in the bones. Tired in the teeth. Tired in the little space behind your eyes where you keep your last scraps of patience. You turn away from Taehyun mid-rant and walk into your bedroom with the slow, heavy steps of someone dragging a corpse of a day behind them.

Taehyun follows, still going. “He’s going to report us,” he says. “He’s going to ruin us. He’s going to—”

You flop onto your bed face-first, coat still on, hoodie still on, one leg hanging off the side like you’ve been shot. The mattress squeaks. The pillow smells faintly of your shampoo and stale smoke. You lie there and let the ceiling exist.

Taehyun stands by your doorframe, fuming. “Say something.”

You roll your face to the side, cheek squashed into the pillow, voice muffled. “I am saying something. I’m saying I’m dead.”

“That’s not helpful,” he snaps.

You lift your head, hair sticking up, eyes dry and angry. “What did you want me to do,” you ask, “tell him no and get us both kicked out of uni? That kid wasn’t messing about.”

Taehyun’s jaw tightens. He paces once, then twice, then stops and plants himself at the foot of your bed—arms crossed so hard his shoulders rise. “He wouldn’t actually report you,” he says, like he needs to believe that.

“He absolutely would,” you reply. “He looked me in the eyes and threatened the authorities. The man is a fucking hall monitor with heartbreak.”

Taehyun rubs his face. “We shouldn’t have picked him.”

You scoff. “We didn’t pick him. You picked him.”

His gaze snaps up. “Don’t.”

“Oh, don’t,” you echo, sitting up and pushing your hair out of your face. “You want to act like you’re not complicit now? You sent him to me. You took your cut. You listened to him cry in your bar and thought, delicious, let’s monetise that.”

Taehyun flinches, then looks away, guilt flashing across his face fast enough that you almost miss it. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, biting his cheek in that thinking way he does when he’s trying not to spiral. “I feel bad,” he says, quieter now. “I shouldn’t have— I shouldn’t have used him. He was genuinely… fucked up.”

You stare at him. “Welcome to our business model.”

He shakes his head. “No, you don’t get to say that and make it a joke.”

“I’m not making it a joke,” you reply. “I’m making it survivable.”

Taehyun’s mouth tightens. He looks tired too, just in a different way. He looks like someone who built a life in the city by being sharp and unbothered, and now the unbothered part is slipping.

You exhale and rub your eyes hard enough to sting. “What’s done is done,” you say. “We just need to figure this shit out.”

Taehyun stares at you. “Figure what out?”

“How to keep him from reporting us,” you say, deadpan. “How to keep him from coming back with a warrant and his polite little sorry face while we get escorted out of uni.”

Taehyun lets out a short laugh that has no humour in it. “You agreed to help him break up a couple.”

You lift a finger. “I agreed to help him. He thinks it's a break-up. We can steer it.”

Taehyun’s brows knit. “Steer it into what?”

You open your mouth—nothing comes out. Your brain offers a blank screen. Your stomach twists. You hate that. You hate that Soobin has backed you into a corner where you actually have to think instead of just perform.

Taehyun watches your face and scoffs. “You don’t even have a plan.”

“I’m brainstorming,” you say.

“You’re lying,” he shoots back.

You glare. “Lying is my skill set.”

Taehyun turns, drags a hand through his hair, then turns back again, voice sharper. “I want nothing to do with this anymore.”

You sit up straighter. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” he says. “This is on you. You agreed to it.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you say immediately. “You’re not walking away now.”

“I am,” he says, and he sounds angry, but there’s fear under it. “I can’t get kicked out. I can’t have my sister finding out I got expelled because I was running a scam with my best friend and a heartbreak case.”

You blink. “So you’re leaving me to take the fall.”

Taehyun’s eyes flash. “Don’t turn it into that.”

“It is that,” you reply. “You’re saying it’s on me.”

He opens his mouth, then shuts it, then exhales and looks down at the floor like the carpet might give him a better answer than you can.

You feel something hot crawl up your throat—rage, panic, whatever the fuck it is when you realise you’re alone in the mess you both made. “Taehyun,” you say, voice low. “We built this together.”

He looks up, jaw clenched. “I know.”

“So don’t abandon me,” you snap.

His mouth twitches, pained. “I’m not abandoning you. I’m setting a boundary.”

“Your boundary is convenient,” you shoot back.

He flinches again, then turns away, shoulders tight. He walks toward your door, grabs his coat from the back of your chair, and yanks it on.

You watch him do it and it makes your chest ache. Not because he’s leaving—because you hate that he’s right to be scared.

He pauses in your doorway. For a second he doesn’t look like a bartender. He doesn’t look like a plug. He looks like the boy you grew up with—the one who used to share his snacks with you at lunch breaks, the one who used to talk about the city as if it was salvation.

He turns back slowly. “You did this for me, didn’t you?” he asks.

It’s quiet and sharp—it hits you right in the gut. 

You stare at him.

Your mouth opens. You could tell him the truth. You could say yes, because if he got kicked out you’d never be able to face his sister again. She'd look at you with disappointment instead of affection, she’d say you ruined him—because you’ve always ruined good things.

But honesty is not your talent. Not with feelings, not when it makes you look soft.

So you swallow it. You lift your chin and let your voice go rude. “Fuck off,” you say.

Taehyun’s eyes narrow. He holds your gaze for a beat longer than you want him to. Then his mouth twitches, like he understands you anyway. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Thought so.”

He leaves.

The door clicks shut.

You sit on your bed in your coat and stare at the cracks in the ceiling, feeling burnt out and drained and run over and then reversed over again for good measure. Mangy jumps up beside you, circles twice, and sits with his back to you, tail flicking.

Choi Soobin turns up the next day with a folder in his hands.

You open the door and just stare at him for a second—taking in the crisp shirt, the neat hair, the clean coat, the calm eyes. He looks pressed and prepared, like he’s about to tell a teacher you forgot the homework.

You look down at yourself—hoodie, leggings, socks that don’t match, hair shoved up, under-eyes living their own life—and you feel that familiar, ugly pinch in your chest. Not jealousy or admiration. Just the knowledge that he’s never had to walk around with your kind of exhaustion in his bones.

He clears his throat. “Hi.”

“Don’t come into my house looking like a tax accountant,” you reply. “It makes me violent.”

He blinks. “I’m dressed normally.”

“Normal for you,” you mutter, stepping aside. “Shoes off.”

He does it neatly—of course he does—and the neatness makes your eye twitch. Then he follows you, folder tucked under his arm, into the studio where your incense is still burning and your rice bowl is still on the table.

He sits straight away, posture perfect, knees tucked in slightly. The cushion doesn’t deserve this kind of respect.

You sit down behind the table and tap your pen once against your notebook. The pen makes you feel like you have authority and not just audacity. “So,” you say. “What’s the plan, Mr Stationery.”

“It’s not stationery,” he says, already annoyed. “It’s notes.”

“Notes,” you repeat. “You’re writing notes about breaking up a couple.”

His tongue presses to his teeth. “I’m writing notes about stopping someone from being hurt.”

You laugh once, sharp. “That’s adorable. You think you’re a hero.”

He stiffens. “I think I’m right.”

“Even cuter,” you say, leaning back. “You’ve got the confidence of a man who’s never been wrong in public.”

His eyes narrow. “Can we not do this?”

“We can,” you reply, “but I won’t. Tell me the plan.”

He opens the folder and slides a page toward you. It has bullet points and headings, his handwriting looks neat enough to be framed.

You stare at it. “You made a timetable.”

“It’s organised,” he says, defensive.

“It’s psychotic,” you correct.

His mouth tightens. “I’m trying.”

“You’re trying in a way that makes me want to pour rice on my own head,” you say. “Talk.”

He points at the first bullet point. “We get Choi Yeonjun to come here for a consultation.”

You blink. “We.”

“So you can feel included,” he says, then immediately regrets the sentence.

You lean forward. “Don’t try and patronise me—it makes me itch.”

“I’m not patronising you,” he says, voice even, like he’s speaking to a difficult customer.

You scoff. “You’re doing that thing where you say words gently so you can pretend you’re not being a cunt.”

His ears go red. “I’m not being a—”

“A cunt,” you finish, smiling. “There. See. You can say it.”

His jaw works. “Can you please not swear every other sentence?”

You stare at him. “No.”

He blinks. “No?”

“No,” you repeat, slow. “This is my mouth. If you don’t like it, you can go home and write a complaint in your little folder.”

His nostrils flare. He looks down at the page again, determined not to rise to it. “You lure him in.”

You snort. “Lure.”

“Yes,” he insists. “You say you sensed something. You say there’s spiritual—whatever.”

“Spiritual whatever,” you repeat. “Brilliant. You’re really across my field.”

His eyes flick up. “I’m not here to learn your… craft.”

You laugh. “Craft—fucking hell. You sound like I’m crocheting ghosts.”

He presses his lips together, then says, too calm, “You do lie for money.”

There it is. The moral superiority, delivered with a polite voice and clean hands. It hits you right behind the ribs. You stare at him. “Say that again.”

His eyes hold yours. “You lie for money.”

You smile. It’s not a nice smile. “And you threaten people for love. We all have hobbies.”

“That’s not the same,” he says immediately.

“Of course you’d say that,” you reply, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “You don’t know what the same is. You think money stress is when your card machine takes too long.”

His brows knit. “That’s not fair.”

You bark out a laugh. “Fair? That’s rich coming from a man who has never had to choose between rent and food.”

His fingers tighten on the edge of the folder. “I’m not rich.”

You glance at his coat, his watch, his haircut, the general aura of I grew up with options. “Yeah, alright.”

He swallows something down and tries to keep his voice steady. “I worked hard.”

You laugh again, softer and meaner. “So did I. Mine just didn’t come with a safety net.”

His eyes flicker, uncomfortable. Then he straightens, clinging to his argument. “None of this excuses what you did.”

You lean back. “You’re in my studio asking me to do more of it.”

“I’m asking you to do it to help someone,” he says, as if that makes it clean.

You stare at him. “You want me to scam a man into confessing he’s cheating.”

You pause. “And you’ve decided he’s cheating based on what, exactly?”

His face tightens. “His reputation.”

“Ah,” you say. “The vibes-based legal system.”

He flinches. “I’m not doing this for fun.”

“No,” you reply. “You’re doing it because you can’t handle losing.”

His eyes flash. “I can handle losing.”

“You can’t even handle silence,” you shoot back. “You survived forty-eight hours and acted like you’d been tortured.”

“That’s different.”

“It’s always different for you,” you say. “That’s the privilege part.”

His jaw clenches. “Stop calling me privileged.”

“Stop acting like you’re morally superior,” you fire back. “You don’t get to sit there with your tidy little handwriting and judge me when you came here begging for a ghost to fix your feelings.”

He opens his mouth, shuts it, then opens it again—frustration slipping through. “I didn’t beg.”

“You begged,” you say. “You were one apology away from crying in my rice bowl.”

His face goes fully red. “I was desperate.”

“And you think desperate people don’t do desperate things,” you reply. “Welcome to the club.”

He stares at you for a long second, then he exhales through his nose and tries to pull it back to the plan, because that’s what he does when emotions get too big—he turns them into tasks. “Fine,” he says, clipped. “You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like to be you.”

“No shit,” you mutter.

He ignores that. “So tell me what will work.”

You blink. “Excuse me?”

“What will work,” he repeats, eyes sharp. “Since you’re the one who lies professionally.”

The wording makes your stomach twist again. He said it like it’s dirty, like it’s beneath him, like it isn’t the only reason you’re still alive. You lean forward, voice low. “First, you don’t get to talk to me like I’m your tool.”

He frowns. “I’m not—”

“You are,” you cut in. “You came here with a folder and a

 plan and assumed I’d just do it. You don’t get to treat me like a service. Pay your therapist for that.”

His mouth tightens. “Then what do you want?”

You laugh once. “I want you to stop acting like you’re doing this for her.”

His eyes narrow. “I am.”

“You’re doing it for you,” you say. “You want proof so you can feel righteous. You want a reason to hate him so you don’t have to sit with the fact that she chose him.”

Soobin’s throat works. His gaze drops to the paper, then back up. His voice comes out tight. “You don’t know her.”

“I don’t need to,” you reply. “I know you.”

His jaw clenches at that. He looks offended, then something else flickers—panic, maybe, at being seen too cleanly.

You tap your pen once. “Now. If you still want to do this, you listen.”

He sits straighter, as if posture will help.

“You cannot be in the room,” you say.

He immediately protests. “Why not?”

“Because you’ll ruin it,” you reply. “You’ll breathe too loud. You’ll twitch. You’ll glare. You’ll make him perform. He won’t say shit.”

“I won’t,” he says.

“You will,” you repeat, dead calm. “Your entire body is a tell. You’re basically a lie detector with legs.”

He looks like he wants to argue, then clamps his mouth shut instead.

“Second,” you continue, “you need to accept a possibility.”

His brows knit. “What possibility?”

“That he isn’t cheating,” you say.

Soobin goes still. “He is.”

“You don’t know that,” you reply. “You know rumours. Rumours are bored people with mouths.”

He stares at you. “He’s a fuckboy.”

“You keep saying that,” you say. “It’s not evidence. It’s a coping mechanism.”

“I know what men like him do.”

“And I know what men like you do,” you shoot back. “You mistake being good for being owed.”

His eyes widen. “I don’t—”

“You do,” you cut in. “You just package it nicely.”

Silence drops. Your chest rises and falls hard. His hands grip his knees. 

Both of you look annoyed. Both of you look tired.

Soobin speaks first, voice quieter and stubborn. “So what am I supposed to do?”

You stare at him. You want to say, let her go. You want to say, stop trying to control everything. You want to say, go to therapy and stop outsourcing your feelings to scammers.

You don’t. You’re not that generous—not for free. You lean back. “I’m supposed to come up with a plan that doesn’t get me arrested.”

“So come up with one,” he says, and the entitlement slips out again before he can catch it.

You blink. “There it is.”

His brows pull together. “What?”

“You,” you say. “You think you can just—order me.”

“I’m not ordering—”

“You are,” you snap. “You threatened to report me. You’re here because you think you can force me. That’s not asking. That’s coercion with a clean shirt.”

Soobin’s face tightens. Shame flickers across it fast, then gets shoved down. “I don’t want to force you.”

“But you are,” you reply. “Because you’re desperate.”

He stares at you, jaw clenched, then nods once, stiff. “Yes.” The admission hangs there, ugly and honest.

You exhale. “Alright. Give me time. Let me think.”

“You’ve had time,” he argues.

“I’ve had panic,” you correct. “Thinking costs extra.”

He looks like he wants to fight. He stands instead, stiff, controlled, and angry in a quiet way that makes you want to poke him just to see if he’ll crack.

At the door, he pauses, hand on the handle. “You’re still going to help me, right?”

You lift your brows. “You’re still threatening me, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t deny it, he just says, quieter, “Please.”

It’s the first time he’s said it without packaging it into a demand. It annoys you—it also hits you somewhere soft. You hate that. You hate him.

You wave him off. “Get out of my flat, Choi Soobin.”

He leaves.

You lock the door, turn around, and whisper into the empty room, “I’m going to kill Taehyun.”

Mangy blinks slowly from the windowsill, tail flicking once, as if he agrees.

By day two of planning, you realise Choi Soobin’s definition of a plan is you doing all the thinking while he stands there with his moral superiority and a folder.

By day three, his definition of a plan is stalking.

You find out in the worst way possible—texts at 07:42am that makes your stomach clench.

fucking moron: be ready in ten fucking moron: wear something normal fucking moron: no swearing today please

You stare at the messages. You stare at them some more. Then you type back with the fury of a woman who is not a passenger in her own life.

you: who the fuck are you talking to you: “no swearing” you: i will swear on purpose

Three dots appear. Disappear. Then appear again, as if he’s struggling.

fucking moron: can you just fucking moron: please fucking moron: we need to observe him

Observe. Observe what, exactly? His hands? His phone? Who he disappears with when he thinks no one’s looking?

You sigh. Soobin thinks he’s in a nature documentary. Next he’ll be whispering into the bushes about mating calls.

You throw your hoodie on, pull your hair into a knot, and shove your feet into trainers. Mangy watches from the windowsill with a look that says you’re doing it again, you loser. Your cat has never supported a single one of your decisions.

Soobin’s car is parked outside your building when you step out. It’s a clean, black BMW. The kind of car that doesn’t make a noise when you shut the door and makes you feel like you should apologise for existing near it.

Soobin is leaning against it, hands in his coat pockets, jaw tight, eyes scanning the street—like he expects Choi Yeonjun to appear behind a bin and start shagging someone in public.

He sees you and straightens immediately, then his gaze flicks to your hoodie and your trainers and your messy hair.

His mouth tightens. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

You stop walking. “Is that a problem?”

“It’s—fine,” he says, voice clipped, then he adds, “Just—try to look less like you’re here to rob someone.”

You snort. “We’re stalking someone.”

He opens his mouth, shuts it, then walks around and opens the passenger door for you.

You pause. “Are you opening my door?”

He looks irritated. “Get in.”

You slide in. The interior smells expensive. Clean leather and subtle cologne. Your whole body stiffens out of habit. You don’t like sitting in things you can’t afford—it makes you feel loud.

Soobin gets in and starts the engine. He checks his mirrors like he’s about to commit a crime—which, to be fair, he is.

You look at him. “So. What’s the plan?”

He grips the steering wheel. “We follow him.”

“We,” you repeat. “Like a couple of creeps.”

He glances at you. “Don’t start.”

“I’m starting,” you say. “You’ve dragged me out of bed before nine. This is a hostage situation.”

Soobin pulls out smoothly and drives with the calm focus of someone who’s never had to drive a car held together by hope. He doesn’t speed or swerve. He doesn’t even look slightly anxious behind the wheel, which is unfair.

Ten minutes later, you’re at his campus.

It’s all glass buildings and clean pavements and students who look like they’re living in an advert—carrying matcha lattes and tote bags, laughing as if their biggest problem is choosing which society to join. 

Your whole body wants to recoil on principle.

Soobin parks far enough away that nobody will see his car and connect it to anything embarrassing. He looks over at you, serious. “You can’t talk,” he says.

You stare. “Excuse me?”

“We’re blending in,” he says. “We need to blend.”

“Blend,” you repeat. “As what? A couple of fucking losers?”

“Please. Just—keep it minimal. No swearing. No… you.”

You smile, slow. “You’re obsessed with controlling things, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t answer. He just gets out and closes the door a little too hard, then walks around to your side and opens your door again.

You step out, squinting at him. “Stop doing that.”

He glances up, frowning. “Doing what?”

“Opening my door,” you snap. “You’re not my dad.”

His ears go slightly red. “It’s just—polite.”

“It’s weird,” you mutter, then you follow him anyway.

Soobin walks like he belongs here. He nods at people and moves with purpose. His shoulders are tense, but he hides it behind posture. You trail beside him with your hands shoved in your hoodie pocket, trying not to look like you’re casing the place for a robbery.

He turns to you as you approach the main building. “Stay close.”

You raise a brow. “Why?”

“So you don’t stand out.”

“Too late,” you say. “My aura is screaming debt.”

He ignores that and pushes through the doors.

Inside is worse. Warm and bright and too clean. It smells of coffee and money and posh twats. Students are everywhere—sitting on benches, clustered in groups, laughing, typing, living. You feel instantly out of place, like you’ve walked into a world that assumes everyone is fine.

Soobin’s eyes scan the hall. “There,” he murmurs.

You follow his gaze.

Choi Yeonjun is walking through the lobby with a group of friends, easy posture, hands in his pockets, hair messy in an intentional way, laughter loud enough to make people turn. He looks exactly like his reputation—too comfortable, too confident, too unbothered by the fact he takes up space in a room.

And he’s surrounded.

The universe would never hand you an easy target. Yeonjun walks with three people flanking him, two behind him, one girl hanging off his shoulder as if she lives there. They look like a moving wall of noise.

Soobin’s jaw tightens. You can see the anger in the way he holds himself, the way his shoulders square.

“He’s always with someone,” Soobin mutters.

You glance at him. “Maybe he has friends. You should try it sometime.”

Soobin shoots you a look. “Do you have to start?”

“I’m just saying,” you reply. “You can’t be mad at a man for having mates.”

“I’m mad at him for existing,” Soobin says, then immediately looks horrified that he said that out loud.

You blink. “Oh. There it is.”

He glares at you. “Shut up.”

You both follow Yeonjun at a distance that makes you feel like an undercover cop in a really shit TV show. Soobin keeps stopping behind pillars. You keep stopping behind him, trying not to bump into him. It’s awkward and pathetic. It’s the least sexy thing you’ve ever done.

Yeonjun heads to a lecture hall.

Soobin leans toward you. “We wait.”

You both stand there in the corridor pretending you’re on your phones, except you’re not on your phone because Soobin will have an aneurysm if you look suspicious. You stare at a poster advertising a society for law students and try not to laugh.

Soobin watches the lecture hall doors like he’s guarding a bank vault.

“Do you see how insane this is?” you whisper.

Soobin doesn’t look away. “Be quiet.”

“I’m literally your accomplice,” you hiss. “You can’t talk to me like I’m your child.”

He finally glances at you, eyes sharp. “I’m trying not to get caught.”

“Caught doing what,” you ask. “Standing. Menacingly. With your good posture.”

His jaw clenches. He looks away again.

The lecture ends and students pour out. Yeonjun steps out with his group. Still surrounded.

Soobin’s face tightens again. You almost feel bad for him. Almost.

Yeonjun walks across the courtyard and stops to talk to someone else. His group expands.

Soobin mutters, “This is fucking mad.”

You look at him. “You swore.”

He freezes. “I didn’t.”

“You did,” you say, delighted. “You’re evolving.”

He looks furious. “Don’t talk to me.”

You follow Yeonjun for hours—lecture halls, coffee runs, the student union, some damp little smoking spot where everyone somehow already knows his name. He’s never alone. Not once. 

You move through campus like you’re about to be asked for your student ID and escorted out.

Soobin keeps checking his watch. You keep checking your feet—they hurt. Your back hurts. Your patience has left your body and moved to a different postcode.

At one point, Soobin pulls you behind a vending machine because Yeonjun turns his head too suddenly. You end up crushed into Soobin’s chest in a space that smells of crisps and dust. Soobin’s hand lands on your shoulder, steadying you, and his fingers are warm through your hoodie. Annoyingly steady. 

You stiffen—because you’re annoyed and your body is not allowed to have feelings right now. “Soobin,” you hiss, pushing his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

“I’m not—” he starts.

“You are,” you snap. “Hands to yourself. We’re not in a romcom.”

He glares at you. “Then stop making noise.”

“I’m not making noise,” you whisper.

“You breathe loudly,” he replies, dead serious.

You stare at him. “You’re insane.”

He ignores you and peeks around the vending machine again. Yeonjun is gone.

Soobin straightens, scanning the corridor. “Where did he go?”

“Maybe he vanished,” you say. “Maybe the virgin ghost ate him.”

Soobin shoots you a murderous look.

Then you see it. Yeonjun turns a corner down the hall, heading toward the toilets.

Soobin’s whole body goes tense, hope sparking. “He’s alone.”

You squint. “He’s going to the men’s toilets.”

Soobin nods. “Yes.”

You stare at him. “Absolutely fucking not.”

Soobin’s expression hardens. “We don’t have a choice.”

“I have a choice,” you snap. “The choice is not following a man into the men’s toilets.”

Soobin looks at you, offended. “We’re not going in.”

“Then what are we doing?” you ask. “Waiting outside the men’s toilets like creeps?”

Soobin doesn’t answer. He just starts walking.

You grab his sleeve and yank him back. “Soobin. Listen to me. I will not be batshit crazy with you. I have standards.”

He turns, eyes sharp. “You scam people for a living.”

“And you drink iced americano in winter,” you fire back. “We both make questionable choices. This is where I draw the line.”

Soobin looks like he wants to argue, then he forces himself to swallow it down. He stops. He watches the toilet door like he’s waiting for Yeonjun to come out and confess to cheating on the spot.

Five minutes pass. Ten. A student walks past and looks at you both suspiciously.

You adjust your hoodie and mutter, “I’m never coming here again.”

Soobin doesn’t even blink. “We need one moment. One.”

“You’ve been saying one moment for six hours,” you reply.

Soobin’s jaw tightens. 

Then the toilet door opens. Yeonjun steps out. And he’s not alone.

Two of his mates appear behind him, laughing, one of them slapping his shoulder—the three of them walking away together as if solitude doesn’t exist in his life.

Soobin’s face drops.

You stare at Yeonjun disappearing into the crowd, then back at Soobin. “Told you.”

Soobin doesn’t speak for a long second. Then he says, very quietly, “We’re not leaving.”

You blink. “Excuse me.”

He looks at you with that stubborn, awful determination again. “We’re not leaving until we get something.”

You laugh once, tired and disbelieving. “You’re actually insane.”

Soobin turns away and starts walking after Yeonjun again. You follow, because somehow, despite everything, you’re in this now.

By the time the sky starts darkening, you’ve walked enough steps to qualify for a half marathon and a mental breakdown.

Soobin’s still on campus, still scanning crowds, still watching Yeonjun’s orbit of friends. You’re standing beside him with your hands shoved in your hoodie pockets, ankles aching, patience evaporated, and the very specific rage that comes from spending a whole day stalking a man who refuses to be alone for even thirty seconds.

Yeonjun disappears into another group. 

You exhale through your nose. “That guy’s social life is fucking mad.”

Soobin doesn’t look away. “I know.”

“I totally see why you think he’s a red flag,” you add, since you’re already here, already committing crimes. “No one should have that many friends—it’s suspicious.”

Soobin finally glances at you, eyes sharp. “That’s not why he’s a red flag.”

“Then why?” you ask, bored. “Tell me. I’ve been following him for eight hours. I deserve context.”

Soobin’s mouth tightens. He looks like he wants to argue, then he realises his argument will sound insane. He looks away again. “Because he’s—”

“The campus fuckboy?” you supply.

He flinches. “Stop saying that.”

“You said fuckboy first,” you remind him.

He glares, then checks his watch. He’s been doing that all day—checking the time, checking the crowd, checking the direction Yeonjun’s walking, checking his own misery. It’s exhausting to witness. It’s also weirdly… consistent. Soobin is nothing if not committed to suffering.

Your stomach growls loud enough to count as an announcement.

Soobin’s eyes flick to you. “You haven’t eaten?”

You blink. “No.”

“Why?” he asks, frowning.

“Because I’m stalking a man with you,” you reply. “I’ve been too busy committing crimes to have lunch.”

He looks like he wants to say sorry, then catches himself and clamps his mouth shut. “We can get food.”

“We?” you repeat, suspicious.

He exhales. “Yes. We. Unless you want to faint dramatically in the middle of campus.”

“Tempting,” you mutter.

Soobin leads you off campus and into town—still tense, still scanning crowds. You end up at one of those vintage burger spots that’s been open longer than you’ve been alive, all dim lights and laminated menus and the smell of fried oil soaked into the walls as a permanent personality.

You slide into a booth with cracked vinyl. Soobin sits opposite you and pulls his phone out immediately, then puts it down again as if he’s remembered he’s meant to be present.

“Two burgers with fries,” you tell the server without looking at Soobin. “And a Coke.”

Soobin clears his throat. “Diet Coke, please.”

You turn your head slowly. “You drink Diet Coke?”

He looks offended. “Yes.”

“That explains a lot,” you say.

He glares at you. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re the type of man who thinks suffering should be calorie-controlled,” you reply, leaning back. “Don’t worry. I won’t judge you. I’ll just tell everyone.”

He mutters something under his breath that sounds dangerously close to swearing, then he presses his lips together hard enough to turn them pale.

When the food arrives, you eat like you’ve been starved—fries first, then burger, grease on your fingers, ketchup on your thumb, dignity gone. Soobin eats slower. He cuts his burger in half with a knife and fork at first, then seems to realise how insane that looks in a burger place and puts the cutlery down with a stiff little cough.

“You’re doing it again,” you say.

He pauses mid-bite. “Doing what?”

“Trying to behave,” you reply. “This is a burger. It’s allowed to be messy.”

His ears go faintly red. He takes a bite with his hands and looks annoyed that he’s grateful for the permission.

A few minutes pass in silence. You can hear the fryer and the music and the couple in the corner arguing quietly, and realise Soobin looks quieter than usual. Less angry and controlled. Just… annoyed at life.

You wipe your hands on a napkin and nudge his foot under the table with yours. “So,” you say. “I didn’t see your dream girl today. Are you ever going to introduce us?”

Soobin’s head snaps up. “Hell no.”

You snort. “Why? You think I’m going to hex her?”

“Yes,” he replies instantly.

You blink. “Wow. Rude.”

He frowns. “You lied to me about a virgin ghost.”

“That’s not an answer,” you say. “Why won’t you introduce me?”

He looks away, jaw tight. “She’s visiting her hometown.”

“You know you can just say where,” you reply. “You’re acting like she’ll appear behind you if you say her postcode.”

Soobin rubs his thumb along the edge of his napkin, a small restless movement. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” you push.

He exhales, annoyed. “I don’t want you talking about her.”

“Is it because I’m rude?” you ask, deadpan.

“Yes,” he says, deadpan back.

You laugh, then point at him with a fry. “Okay. Fine. Rude question—if you’ve liked her for years, why did you wait until now?”

Soobin’s face closes instantly. “I didn’t wait.”

“You did,” you reply. “Years is waiting. That’s literally what years are.”

He stares at you. “I was in a relationship.”

You lift your brows. “You had a girlfriend?”

He looks irritated. “Yes.”

“And it wasn’t her?” you ask.

“No.”

You tap the table with your fingertips. “Tell me more.”

He takes a breath and speaks through his annoyance, words clipped. “She asked me out in high school. My girlfriend—ex-girlfriend. She liked me. I thought it would—maybe work.”

You tilt your head. “Did it?”

He gives you a look that says obviously not. “No.”

“Because,” you say slowly, watching his face, “it was always her.”

Soobin goes still for a beat. Then he looks away, staring at the ketchup bottle like it’s the safest thing in the room. “Yes,” he says quietly.

Your stomach does a weird little twist—that uncomfortable feeling of witnessing something honest when you’re used to jokes.

He continues, voice tighter. “And I thought she was out of my league.”

You snort. “You?”

He glares. “What?”

“You think she’s out of your league,” you repeat, disbelief creeping in. “You, Mr Fancy Car, Mr Switzerland, Mr Clean Shirt.”

His face hardens. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“It does,” you say. “That’s literally how leagues work.”

He shakes his head once. “Not when you actually—” he stops, frustration flashing, then forces the words out. “Not when you actually like someone. It makes you—stupid.”

You blink at him. “You’re already stupid.”

He shoots you a look that could kill. “Shut up.”

You grin. “No.”

He takes another bite of his burger, then speaks again, quieter now—as if the words are heavier than he wants them to be. “When I got to uni, I still thought I had no chance. Then I did the exchange semester and—I-I don’t know. Switzerland made me braver—or lonelier… or both.”

You chew on that for a second, then ask the question you’ve been thinking all day. “Why don’t you just move on?”

Soobin’s head snaps up. His eyes sharpen. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because it’s an option,” you reply. “Normal people do that.”

He laughs once, harsh. “Normal people.”

You shrug. “Yeah. There are other girls. There are other—”

He cuts you off, voice sharp. “No.”

You blink. “No?”

“No,” he repeats. His hands grip his burger harder than necessary. “There are other girls. There isn’t another her.”

You open your mouth with some rude comeback ready, and it dies in your throat.

Soobin keeps going, voice lower, angry and raw at once. “I’ve tried. I’ve dated. I’ve been the good boyfriend. I’ve done everything you’re meant to do. I still wake up and think about her. I still see her in stupid places. I still—“ He stops, jaw clenched, then exhales through his nose. “I still feel like I’m living the wrong life when she isn’t in it.”

The words hit you harder than you expect—not because they’re poetic. Because they’re honest in a way that doesn’t try to be pretty.

Your eyes sting. You blink. Hard.

It doesn’t help. Your tear glands decide to betray you in the middle of a burger place over a rich boy’s tragic love life. It’s embarrassing—criminal, even.

Soobin turns his head and catches you wiping at your face. His expression changes instantly—panic flashing across it, then confusion, then something softer he doesn’t know what to do with. “Why—why the—” he starts, then stops himself, flustered. “Are you crying?”

You glare at him, offended at your own moisture. “Shut the fuck up,” you say, voice thick. “I’m not crying.”

A tear drops. You wipe it away aggressively.

Soobin stares. “You are crying.”

“I’m not crying,” you insist, even as more tears pool. “My eyes are—reacting.”

“To what?” he asks, still flustered.

“To the fact you’re a fucking idiot,” you snap, then your voice cracks and you hate yourself for it. “Why the fuck would I get emotional over your failed love life?” 

Soobin’s face heats. He looks genuinely at a loss. He reaches for his napkin, then stops halfway, unsure if offering it would make it worse or better. “I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t,” you cut in, wiping your cheeks with your sleeve. “Don’t be nice. It’ll make me worse.”

His mouth twitches, helpless. “I’m not trying to be nice.”

“You’re literally panicking,” you say, pointing at his face. “Your whole face is panicking.”

He mutters, “I don’t know what to do,” then immediately looks annoyed that he said it.

You laugh once, watery. “Welcome.”

For a second, you just sit there. Two idiots in a booth. Grease on your fingers. Drinks sweating on the table. Soobin watching you as if you’re more confusing than the ghost story.

You wipe your eyes again and take a breath. 

Fine. Fine. Fine.

You hate that his earnestness has touched you. You hate that you feel bad for him. You hate that your body reacted before your pride could stop it.

You point at him with a fry, voice firm. “Don’t get excited. I’m only helping you because you’re blackmailing me.”

Soobin blinks. “Right.”

“And also,” you add, quieter, annoyed at yourself, “because you clearly actually care—which is inconvenient.”

His gaze holds yours. His voice comes out soft and careful. “I do care.”

You roll your eyes and shove the fry in your mouth before your face does something embarrassing again. “Eat your burger, Choi Soobin.”

He does.

And somewhere under all your swearing and irritation, your brain makes a decision you don’t say out loud. You’ll help him. Not because he deserves it. Because you can’t stand watching someone try that hard and still lose.

The next day you’re back on campus again.

Not because you woke up and thought, God, I can’t wait to stalk a stranger with a man who threatens people for sport. You’re here because you said you’d help, and yesterday’s talk over burger and fries did something irritating to your insides. 

Soobin stopped being a pure nuisance for a second. He became a person. A stubborn, exhausting person, but still.

You hate that you noticed. You hate that it softened you.

You’re walking beside him with a coffee you didn’t want and a headache you want even less. Soobin’s jaw is tight, eyes scanning the place, shoulders squared. He looks like he’s trying to hold himself together through posture alone. It’s familiar now—less annoying, but still annoying.

“You’re tense,” you say, not even teasing as hard.

“I’m focused,” he replies, clipped.

“That’s the same thing with better branding,” you mutter.

He glances at you. “Can you stop narrating me?”

“Can you stop walking like you’re about to arrest someone?” you shoot back, then your tone shifts before you can stop it. “You’re going to give yourself a migraine.”

He blinks at that, as if he didn’t expect care from your mouth. His ears go a shade pink. He looks away quickly, pretending he didn’t hear it.

You pretend you didn’t say it.

You spot Choi Yeonjun by accident—or by the universe still being petty. He’s crossing the courtyard with a book in his hand—which is already weird, since yesterday he moved through campus surrounded by mates and noise and confidence. 

Today he’s alone, hood up, walking fast as if he’s late.

Soobin freezes. You freeze too, then you feel that little spark of opportunity in your chest, the one that makes you think, Finally. A moment. A gap.

Soobin grabs your sleeve and pulls you toward the side of the building. “There,” he mutters.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “I’m not blind.”

He doesn’t snap at you this time. He just nods once and keeps moving, like he’s learnt that you’re going to talk no matter what he asks.

Yeonjun heads inside.

So do you, since you’re in too deep now.

The building is quieter than the rest of campus. It smells of paper and dust and coffee that’s been abused. A sign near the entrance reads LIBRARY — QUIET ZONE.

Soobin pauses under it and looks at you. “No swearing,” he says.

You roll your eyes. “I’m not swearing.”

He narrows his eyes. “You’re thinking it.”

You open your mouth to deny it and a swear tries to climb out anyway. You clamp it down. Soobin looks smug for half a second—it’s unbearable.

You follow him past the desk, past the security gates, past students hunched over laptops with dead eyes.

Yeonjun weaves between shelves.

Soobin follows. You stick close, hood up, trying to look like you’re here to study and not here to ruin someone’s relationship.

Yeonjun turns down an aisle.

Soobin turns down the same aisle.

You trail behind him, stepping carefully, the carpet thick enough to swallow sound. The vents above hiss constantly, a soft white-noise that makes you bolder than you should be. 

Yeonjun reaches the end of the aisle and disappears around the corner.

Soobin quickens his pace. “Now,” he murmurs.

“Now what?” you whisper.

He ignores you and peeks around the corner. His whole body goes rigid.

You step up beside him and look.

There’s a cluster of people sitting at a table tucked into the corner of the library, sprawled with drinks and notebooks and the irritating ease of people who treat campus like a playground. Yeonjun is right there with them, dropping his book onto the table and leaning in to say something. They laugh. He laughs. His social life has respawned.

Soobin’s jaw tightens so hard you can see it. He looks like he wants to combust. He doesn’t. He just stands there, breathing through his nose, hands flexing at his sides.

You lean in, quieter than you’ve been all day. “Told you he’s never alone.”

Soobin shoots you a look. “Not helping.”

Your mouth twitches. “It’s factual.”

He turns back toward the aisle, then freezes again, eyes flicking past you.

Yeonjun turns his head—a small glance, a little scan, like his instincts have clocked something off. His gaze moves across the aisle.

Towards you.

Your stomach drops. Soobin’s hand shoots out and grabs your wrist.

Your heart jumps into your throat. “What are you—” you start.

He yanks you sideways with enough force that you nearly trip, and you stumble into a door you didn’t even notice tucked between shelves—a cleaning supplies room. A tiny sign reads STAFF ONLY in peeling tape. He pushes it open and pulls you inside fast, then slips in after you and shuts it.

The click of the latch lands in your brain.

The room is tiny—really tiny. Mop bucket. Brooms. Shelf of cleaning sprays. A stack of paper towels. It smells of bleach, lemon, damp cloth.

And it smells of Soobin—clean, warm, a scent that makes you think of fresh laundry and stable lives.

You’re pressed against the wall. Soobin is pressed against you. There is no space. No air. His chest rises and falls against yours. Your breath catches and your brain immediately starts panicking about things that are not helpful.

You can feel the heat of him through your hoodie. Your boobs brush against him every time you shift. He freezes when he realises it too.

“What the—” you whisper, then you swallow hard. “Soobin.”

He brings a finger to his lips, eyes wide. He’s listening.

You try to step back. There’s nowhere to go. Your shoulder bumps the shelf and a bottle of disinfectant wobbles. You catch it before it falls, heart pounding, then realise your hand is shaking.

Soobin’s gaze flicks down, then up, then down again, and his jaw tightens.

“What?” you mouth.

He shakes his head once, tight, then murmurs, barely a breath, “Don’t move.”

You stare. You try not to move. Your body betrays you anyway—your knee shifts a fraction, your hoodie rustles, and your boobs brush his chest again.

And he shifts too—now away, but closer.

It’s subtle, but you feel it immediately—his hips pressing tighter, his thigh nudging your thigh, the full line of him pinning you in place. Body heat and panic and the fact you’re both shoved into a cupboard like idiots.

And a hard press against your thigh.

Your eyes widen slowly, dragging down to his waist, then snapping back up to his face.

Soobin looks horrified—like he wants to die on the spot and would apologise to the grim reaper on the way out. His swallow is loud in the tiny space, he hates that you can hear it. He tries to shift his hips back and only succeeds in pinning you worse. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you whisper, voice shaking with disbelief. “Is that—”

His face goes red in a rush. “Stop,” he hisses.

“A boner,” you whisper, stunned. “A fucking boner.”

“It’s not—” he starts, then he clamps his jaw shut because there is no alternative explanation. 

There is only the fact his body has decided now is the time to betray him in the least convenient place possible.

Outside, the library goes dead quiet.

Then you hear voices again. Yeonjun’s voice, lazy and amused, drifting closer down the aisle. His mates with him, footsteps soft on carpet.

Soobin’s whole body goes rigid. He leans toward you slightly, mouth near your ear. He whispers, “Don’t breathe loud.”

You feel his breath and your brain short-circuits for the dumbest reason. You jerk your head, panicking, and press your palm to his cheek to push him back on instinct—pure get away from my ear before my mind does something stupid.

Soobin freezes. His eyes go wide.

You freeze too, hand still on his cheek, your palm pressed against his mouth. You pull it back quickly, cheeks burning. “Sorry,” you mouth.

His stare turns sharp. “What are you doing?” he whispers, annoyed now. “Knock it out.”

“Knock what out?” you whisper back.

“That,” he hisses, gesturing vaguely at your hand and his face and the fact you’re both losing your minds in a cupboard.

You scoff, too loud.

Soobin’s eyes go even wider. “Shh—”

Outside, the voices pause. “Did you hear that?” one of Yeonjun’s mates says, and the laughter drops a notch.

Your blood turns cold. Soobin’s hand shoots out and clamps over your mouth. He holds you still against the wall, eyes locked on yours, breathing shallow. Your eyes go wide. You stare at him, offended and terrified all at once. He looks back at you with a single clear message: If you make a sound, we’re dead.

Footsteps shift outside. Closer now.

Someone stops right by the cupboard door. You can feel it in the air—the presence, the shadow.

Soobin’s body presses tighter against yours, not on purpose, hiding you behind him even though there is nowhere to hide. Your thigh is still pinned. His hand is still over your mouth. Your heart is pounding so hard you think they’ll hear it through the wood.

The cupboard handle rattles. Not locked—just jammed, and old. 

Soobin’s eyes flick down to it, then back to you. His pupils are huge. His face is flushed. His jaw is set hard.

The footsteps pause.

You hold your breath.

Then the footsteps recede, moving away down the aisle. The voices pick up again. Laughter returns. The danger drifts off.

Soobin’s hand stays on your mouth for a beat too long.

Then he releases you. You inhale sharply, lungs burning, and glare at him.

He whispers, “Are you trying to get us caught?”

You whisper back, furious, “Are you trying to cum on my leg?”

His eyes flash with mortified anger. “I can’t control it.”

“Control it,” you hiss.

“Control your mouth,” he snaps back.

You open your mouth to argue again and Soobin immediately lifts his hand, pointing at you in warning. You clamp it shut.

You both stand there—sweating, breathing hard, furious, and trapped in a cupboard that smells of lemon bleach and poor decisions.

You think you’re clear. You think the danger has passed. You even let your shoulders drop a fraction, finally.

Then the cupboard door swings wide open. You both freeze at the same time—finally, blessedly silent. 

Choi Soobin wants to die. He wishes the ground would open up, swallow him, then politely close again so nobody has to deal with the mess. Because standing in the doorway, framed by fluorescent library lighting and the stink of lemon disinfectant, is Choi Yeonjun.

And Yeonjun is looking at Soobin—then at you—then back at Soobin with the slow, delighted expression of someone who thinks he’s just walked in on a live porno demonstration.

Soobin’s brain does that horrible buffering thing it does under pressure. His mouth goes dry. His spine goes cold. His body is still pressed too close to yours in the cleaning cupboard, and if the universe had any mercy at all, it would’ve erased the last sixty seconds from existence.

Yeonjun’s eyebrows lift. A grin starts forming—it’s smug before it’s even fully there. “Choi Soobin?” Yeonjun asks, voice low, incredulous, like he’s just spotted a rare animal in the wrong habitat. “What are you doing here, man?”

Soobin’s throat works. Nothing comes out.

He can’t even do his normal polite response. He can’t even say hello or pretend he’s in control. He’s just standing there with his cheeks burning and his dignity in pieces, and Yeonjun’s eyes are flickering between him and you. It makes Soobin want to launch himself headfirst into a bookshelf.

You’re beside him, wide-eyed, frozen, still half caught in the cupboard’s doorway. Your mouth is slightly open. Your hoodie is rumpled. Your hair looks like you’ve been fighting for your life in cleaning chemicals.

Soobin’s brain supplies, very unhelpfully, You have been fighting for your life in cleaning chemicals.

Yeonjun leans on the doorframe with the ease of a man who’s never once been humbled in public. His gaze drops—one second, quick—and Soobin feels his soul leave his body.

Oh God.

He knows what Yeonjun’s seen. He knows Yeonjun’s clocked the closeness, the weird tension, the fact Soobin’s breathing a little too fast, the fact you’re still pink in the face—

—and the fact Soobin is absolutely, undeniably, mortifyingly hard.

He wants to pass away on the spot.

Yeonjun’s smirk turns sharper. “I was worried about you,” he says, in a tone that suggests he was never worried about Soobin a day in his life. “But look at you.”

Soobin’s hands curl into fists at his sides. He forces his jaw to unclench. He forces himself to breathe through his nose. He tells himself, Don’t punch him. Don’t punch him. Don’t punch him. This is a library.

Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you again. His chin tips. “Who’s this?”

Soobin’s brain scrambles. He cannot tell the truth.

He cannot look Yeonjun in the eyes and say: This is the broke, foul-mouthed scammer who invented a virgin ghost and stole my money. I blackmailed her into helping me sabotage you, since you’re dating the girl I’m in love with.

That sentence would get him institutionalised.

He also cannot say: This is my friend.

Friends don’t end up wedged in a cupboard together, bodies pressed chest-to-chest, with Soobin’s dignity and erection both fully out of control. Friends do not have their breath caught in each other’s throats. Friends do not stand there with their eyes wide and their mouths shut, praying for death.

Yeonjun lifts a brow, waiting.

Soobin’s pulse bangs against his ribs. His ears are hot. His stomach churns. His pride tries to climb out of his throat and die.

He has two choices. Admit he’s been stalking Yeonjun around campus for two days like a deranged Victorian widow. Or lie.

Soobin is very honest. He’s always been honest. He’s been raised on honesty. He’s the kind of person who returns lost wallets, the kind of person who feels guilty if he takes two napkins instead of one.

Today, he is also the kind of person cornered in a cleaning cupboard with a smug bastard in the doorway and his own hormones actively committing crimes.

Soobin chooses lie.

He smiles. It’s the worst smile of his entire life. It feels stretched, wrong, too wide. His face does not know how to do it. “Yes,” he says, too bright. “Hi.”

Yeonjun’s expression turns even more entertained. “Hi,” he echoes, eyes still on you.

Soobin’s lungs forget how to work. Say something normal—say something that ends this. He nods again, eager and manic. “This is my girlfriend.”

The cupboard goes silent.

Soobin hears the words leave his mouth and he wants to bite his tongue clean off. Your head snaps toward him so fast your hair moves. Your face is pure horror. Soobin keeps smiling. He keeps smiling harder. He keeps smiling in a way that says please, for the love of God, just go with it.

You don’t go with it—not immediately. You just stare at him, lips parted, eyes wide, as if you’re about to say something that will ruin every single one of you.

Soobin, still smiling, brings his hand down and pinches your side. Hard. Not enough to bruise. Enough to make you react, drag you out of shock and into violence.

You yelp—an actual sound, loud enough that a few heads on the other side of the aisle might’ve turned if the classical music of the library wasn’t swallowing everything.

Yeonjun’s eyebrows shoot up. He looks delighted. “Oh?”

You glare at Soobin with the fury of a woman who has just been dragged into a lie against her will. Then you plaster on an expression that’s… something. It’s not sweet, nor convincing. It’s more I’m going to kill him later and bury him behind the science building.

“Yeah,” you manage, voice tight. “Hi.”

Yeonjun’s grin widens. He looks between you again. “Girlfriend,” he repeats slowly, tasting it. “Right.”

Soobin nods far too quickly. “Yes.”

Yeonjun hums, eyes sparkling with evil. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Soobin.”

Soobin’s eyelid twitches. “I—”

Yeonjun cuts him off with a lazy little laugh. “Honestly? Good for you. Character development.”

Soobin wants to set himself on fire.

He tries to step forward out of the cupboard. His shoulder bumps the shelf, something rattles and a bottle clinks. He catches it on instinct, then freezes again, remembering he’s in a cleaning cupboard in the library, pretending you’re his girlfriend, while his actual enemy stands in the doorway smiling.

Yeonjun’s gaze flicks past them, down the aisle, then back. “So,” he says, all casual. “What are you two doing in here?”

Soobin’s brain sprints. He gestures vaguely at the shelf. “Cleaning.”

You make a sound that’s half cough, half laugh. Soobin shoots you a warning look.

Yeonjun’s smile gets even nastier. “Cleaning,” he repeats, amused. He leans a fraction closer, lowering his voice. “In the middle of the day—in a cupboard.”

Soobin feels the heat climb up his neck. He can’t stop it. He can’t hide it. He’s losing at being a person.

Yeonjun’s eyes land on you again. “You don’t look like a cleaner.”

You glare. “You don’t look like you read books.”

Yeonjun’s laugh bursts out. It’s loud enough that someone shushes him from two aisles over. He lifts a hand in apology, still smiling.

Soobin’s stomach twists—of course Yeonjun finds it funny, of course Yeonjun can laugh. Yeonjun has never once been humiliated in a way that sticks. He just glides through life with his perfect teeth and his too-easy charm and his friends and his attention.

Yeonjun’s gaze flicks back to Soobin. “Anyway,” he drawls. “I’ll leave you two to it.”

He starts to close the cupboard door slowly, the way someone closes a curtain at the end of a show.

Soobin’s panic spikes. If that door closes, they’re stuck again. If that door closes, the cupboard becomes a trap. If that door closes, Soobin is stuck with you pressed to him and his body will keep betraying him and—

Yeonjun pauses with the door half shut, as if he can feel Soobin’s internal screaming.

Then he leans in again, voice conspiratorial. “I do recommend you find a better spot, though.”

Soobin’s stomach drops.

Yeonjun smiles wider, eyes gleaming. “Gym storage room’s much better. You can lock it from the inside.”

He winks. Soobin goes cold. That wink lands in his body like a punch. It’s not a joke. It is a loaded piece of information from a man who has absolutely, definitely used that storage room for something filthy.

Soobin’s mind flashes a mental image before he can stop it—your hands, your mouth, that storage room, the lock—

He nearly gags.

Yeonjun finishes closing the door with a soft click, and the cupboard becomes a sealed little hell again.

Soobin stands there in the dark-ish, surrounded by mops and cleaning fluid, feeling the humiliation sink in layer by layer. He stares at the door, eyes wide. “Did he… did he just—”

You, still pressed near him, whisper, “He just recommended a shag spot.”

Soobin makes a sound that’s half strangled breath, half disgust. “Why would there be a lock? Why would a storage room have a lock? That’s—”

“That’s not your business,” you hiss.

“It is my business,” he snaps back quietly, then immediately regrets snapping, because you turn your head and glare at him with the kind of look that says you’re one word away from being murdered with bleach.

“Don’t even start,” you snap, shifting slightly.

The moment you shift, Soobin’s entire body reacts. His breath catches. His thigh presses. His shame floods in all over again.

You freeze. “Oh my God,” you whisper, appalled. “Still?”

Soobin squeezes his eyes shut. “Stop moving.”

“I moved one centimetre.”

“Then stop moving that centimetre,” he hisses.

You stare at him in the dim. Your expression is furious. Your cheeks are hot. Your voice drops lower, almost venomous. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Soobin opens his eyes, mortified rage flashing. “Nothing is wrong with me.”

“You’re hard in a cupboard.”

“I’m under stress,” he snaps.

“Your penis isn’t,” you whisper, disgusted. “Your penis is thriving.”

He swallows. “I need a second,” he mutters.

The fight drains out of your face a fraction, replaced by something awkward and uncomfortable and human. “Oh,” you say, suddenly quieter. “Right.”

Soobin stares at the cupboard door, breathing through his nose, trying to force his body to behave. He tries thinking of anything else. His dad’s face. His professor’s voice. His own humiliation. Death. Taxes. The smell of bleach.

Nothing works. His brain keeps circling back to Yeonjun’s wink, the storage room, the lock, and you standing there with your mouth sharp and your eyes bright.

He hates his own hormones. He hates Choi Yeonjun. He hates the fact this is happening while he’s meant to be saving Dream Girl from a fuckboy. He hates that he even thought saving.

Soobin swallows again, jaw clenched. “Don’t say anything,” he whispers.

You let out a slow breath. “Trust me,” you whisper back. “I’m trying not to exist right now.”

Outside the cupboard, the library sound drifts back in—soft footsteps, pages turning, someone coughing into their sleeve. Inside, it’s just the two of you, pressed into a corner of lemon-scented humiliation, waiting for Soobin’s body to stop betraying him.

He shifts his weight carefully, trying to create an inch of space. Your breath catches. Soobin hears it. 

This is how people end up pregnant and angry. Not you. Not here. Not with bleach in the air. 

Your voice comes out tight, annoyed, and slightly shaken. “If you so much as breathe on my neck again, I’m going to elbow you in the throat.”

Soobin glares at the cupboard door, voice flat. “Let’s be mature about this.”

“Your dick is not being mature,” you mutter.

You don’t catch Choi Yeonjun cheating or alone or doing anything except existing with his mates and smirking at you from across corridors in a way that makes your skin crawl.

By the time you finally leave campus, it’s dark enough that the streetlights are doing most of the work. The air is cold and damp. Your hoodie smells faintly of cleaning spray from the cupboard incident. Your pride feels bruised in places you didn’t know pride could bruise.

Soobin walks beside you with his hands shoved into his coat pockets, jaw clenched, shoulders tight. He hasn’t said much since the library. He’s been doing that thing where he goes quiet and tries to act like he’s not boiling from the inside. It’s not working.

It makes you want to poke him just to see if he’ll crack. You don’t initially, since you’ve learnt that cracked Soobin isn’t funny cracked—it’s sharp cracked, the kind that cuts.

You try anyway, because you can’t help yourself. “Well,” you say, stretching the word out. “Today was productive.”

Soobin doesn’t look at you. “Be quiet.”

“What?” you say, innocent. “We got to smell lemon bleach. We got sexually harassed by a storage room. We—”

Soobin stops walking. He turns his head slowly. His eyes are dark with irritation. “Stop.”

You blink. “Alright, sorry, Mister Panties Twisted.”

His nostrils flare. “This isn’t funny.”

“It’s a bit funny,” you argue, trying to keep your tone light. “It’s humiliating but—”

“I’m not laughing,” he says, voice flat.

“You never laugh,” you shoot back. 

His jaw tightens. “Can you stop making jokes for one minute?”

You frown. “I’m literally trying to stop you from having a stroke.”

“I’m fine,” he snaps.

“Yeah,” you say. “You look fine.”

He keeps walking, faster now. You have to speed up to match him, trainers slapping wet pavement.

“So what’s your plan?” you ask, not joking this time. “We just follow him forever. We grow old on campus. We start paying tuition again. We become furniture.”

“So you admit you’ve done fuck all?” he says, and it lands cold.

You stop walking. He keeps going for two steps, then stops too, like he realises you’re not following and that makes him angry all over again. He turns back.

Your chest tightens. “What did you just say?” you ask.

Soobin’s expression is sharp now. “You heard me.”

“I heard you,” you say, voice rising. “I just want to know if you’re actually stupid enough to say it twice.”

His jaw jumps. “You’re a scammer.”

You know that you’re a scammer—you’ve been proud of it at times. For some reason, coming out of Soobin’s lips right now, the word hits you like a slap. You blink once. “Oh. We’re doing this.”

“You’re a crook,” he says, louder, and now you can hear the rage shaking under his politeness. “You lie to people for money. You take advantage of them when they’re desperate. You—”

“Oh, you don’t,” you cut in, stepping closer. “Do not stand there and talk to me like you’re better when you blackmailed me into helping you sabotage someone’s relationship.”

Soobin’s eyes flash. “I wouldn’t have had to if you didn’t scam me in the first place.”

“And you wouldn’t have gotten scammed if you had a single ounce of critical thinking,” you snap back. “You came to a random girl’s flat and believed a virgin ghost was latched onto your back.”

His face goes red. “That is not—”

“It is,” you say. “That is exactly what it is. You were desperate, and you were stupid, and I was broke.”

He flinches at broke, like the word tastes bad. It’s the first time you’ve seen him hesitate like he’s just realised the game has different rules for you. You clock it and it makes something ugly surge in your chest.

“So you’re admitting you did it,” he says, voice tight. “Because you’re broke.”

“Yes,” you say, stepping even closer now. “Yes, I did it. What do you want, a confession? A certificate? A fucking trophy? I scammed you. I scam people. Not because it’s fun.”

Soobin scoffs. “You seemed like you were having fun.”

“That’s my coping mechanism,” you bite out. “Sorry I don’t cry prettily in public and wear a clean shirt and sit upright.”

He stares at you, breathing hard now, anger fully out.

“You don’t get it,” you continue, and your voice is shaking now, not with fear—with fury. “You don’t get to come in here acting like you’re some noble victim when your biggest problem is some girl didn’t pick you.”

Soobin’s lips part. “It’s not—”

“It is,” you cut in. “It is. That’s your tragedy. That’s your heartbreak. And yeah, I get it, it hurts, but you have no idea what it’s like to wake up with your stomach in your throat because rent is due and your bank balance is a joke.”

Soobin’s expression shifts, uncomfortable. “I—”

“Don’t try,” you snap, pointing at him. “Don’t try and act like you understand. You drive a fancy car around. You don’t worry about tuition fees. You don’t worry about whether your landlord is going to evict you and pretend it’s renovations. You don’t worry about whether you’ll have to drop out because you can’t fucking pay.”

Soobin’s jaw tightens. “You don’t know what I worry about.”

You laugh, sharp and humourless. “Oh yeah? Tell me. Tell me your worries.”

He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

You keep going, voice cracking now because the anger is too big and you can feel it pushing tears up even though you hate it. “Fuck, you never had to fall like this,” you say, the words spilling out faster now. “You never had to claw your way up while everything keeps trying to pull you back down. You never had to scam people to survive. You never had to sit there and decide between groceries and your phone bill. You never had to—”

Your throat tightens hard. You swallow and it doesn’t help.

“So don’t you dare look at me like I’m disgusting,” you say, and your voice breaks on the last word. “Don’t you dare.”

Soobin’s face changes. The anger flickers. Something else shows through for half a second—shock, maybe, or guilt, or the realisation that he stepped on a live wire.

“You’re not—” he starts.

You wipe at your cheek harshly with the sleeve of your hoodie. “Stop.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You did,” you snap, and more tears spill anyway, hot and humiliating. “You meant every word. Scammer. Like you’ve never benefited from anyone’s kindness and still called it earned.”

Soobin’s hands lift slightly, then drop again. He looks lost for a moment. He looks like he wants to say something that isn’t angry. “You don’t have to—” he starts again.

“You don’t get to comfort me,” you cut in immediately, voice thick, furious at yourself for crying in front of him. “You don’t get to call me disgusting and then try to be nice. Pick a lane.”

His jaw tightens. “I didn’t call you disgusting.”

“You didn’t have to,” you spit. “Your face did.”

Soobin flinches. He takes a small step forward. “I’m sorry.”

You laugh, wet and mean. “There you go. You can say it.”

He stops. His hands curl into fists again, not aggressive, helpless. “I didn’t know.”

“Exactly,” you say, voice shaking. “You didn’t know. So stop acting like you’re above me.”

Silence hangs between you, heavy and damp. Cars pass. A couple walks by on the other side of the street, laughing, normal, living their little normal lives, and it makes you want to scream.

Soobin’s voice comes out quieter. “I didn’t have a choice.”

You stare at him, eyes burning. “Neither did I.”

He looks at you for a long beat. His face is tight. He looks like he wants to say something—he doesn’t. His pride is still there, clinging.

And you’re done. You turn away from him sharply, wiping at your face again, and start walking—not walking, actually. Storming.

Soobin calls after you. “Wait—”

You don’t turn around.

“Wait,” he says again, louder.

You keep going. Your breath comes fast. Your chest hurts. Your eyes sting. Your whole body feels hot with anger and humiliation, and you tell yourself you’re crying because you’re pissed off, not because he managed to make you feel small in the same way the world always does.

You hear his footsteps behind you for a second.

Then they stop.

You don’t look back. You just keep walking, then speeding up, then practically jogging, as if you can outrun the feeling in your chest.

You get to the corner and you don’t even wipe your face anymore.

Let people see. Let them judge. You’ve been judged your whole life. Another stranger’s opinion won’t pay your rent.

You turn the corner and you’re gone.

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a/n: guys i would love to do a long an but i'm so exhausted hahah!! i hope this was worth the wait, lmk. pls remember that your comments, reblogs and asks fuel my fingers!! much love <3

target: you know the drill!! next part dropping at either 350 notes or 03/03. want faster updates? spam me in the comments, reblogs and asks.

review your experience, thoughts, or unhinged feelings here