bunny ིྀ

It wasn’t objectively the safest place to stall out, with horns blaring around you like a road rage orchestra and cars speeding about while yours remained embarrassingly immobile. Eventually, a police officer took pity and helped tow it to a nearby shop in the city. The whole thing was all so suspiciously efficient, right up until the bill arrived, that is. And with another hit to your wallet, dinner plans with your friends dissolved into the expense of keeping your rust bucket running.  

But you’d trade a piece of anything just to keep this car alive; hell, heaven, whatever fell on either side of that. A Ford Mustang, your 1967 Shelby baby. Anything. 

Now, you weren't much of a car geek, but looking at it for the first time, you knew it looked too clean to pass up. And after a long stretch of convincing, it ended up waiting in your dad's garage on your eighteenth birthday. A parting gift, perhaps. Something to send you off to university with. 

Somewhere along that line, you eventually forgot that ‘vintage’, more than it meant ‘valuable’, also meant it was old. And age came with wear no matter how well-kept. 

“Honey,” Your mom began in that worried tone. “This is the third time this month that…thing has broken down.”

“I’m aware. I was there for all three events.”

From the other end of the kitchen, your sister perked up, suddenly useful. “I know a guy at an auto repair shop.”

To which you narrowed your eyes as you turned slowly to her. “You always know a guy.”

“Hey–”

“Okay,” Your dad cuts in, slicing clean through the escalating nonsense unfolding as breakfast was being prepared. He leaned back in his chair exhaustedly. 

“I know we all enjoy whatever this is–” he gestured vaguely between your sister and you, “–but I’m tired of picking you up from random highways, Y/n.”

You opened your mouth to defend both yourself and your car’s honor, but he beat you to it.

“Get it fixed,” he said plainly. “Or I’m scrapping it.”

“Dad you can’t just do that–”

“I’m the one with the lease.”

Which is how you found yourself in what can only be described as ‘nothing’ in the middle of nowhere, a stretch of gravel bleeding into the highway far ahead, and a few tired trees doing their best under the blaring sun. But this is Old Town Temecula, so none of that felt particularly out of the ordinary, and so was this repair shop. If anything, you’d like to simply feel bad for it. The exterior looked a little worse for wear.

“Hello?” You called out from outside the doorway, because you’re not entirely convinced this place was still open for business. You leaned in slightly, scanning for any sign of life. An employee, a shadow, a western-style tumbleweed situation. Nothing. 

You stepped forward and smacked the counterbell a little too enthusiastically. 

“Whoever runs this place, you’ve got yourself a customer!” 

Another beat of silence stretched out, and whatever optimism you had started closing in again. As you made plans to head right on home and tell your sister about how her ‘trusted location’ was in fact a sham, a door swung open and hit the wall with a loud bang. 

“Hey, lady!” 

When you turned back, you were met with the most wondrous sight. 

Like a scene slipping into place, there’s a guy that steps out through the door, probably over your age. White tank, worn jeans, both marked by some dirt and the intense weather. His hands looked it too. A wrench was tucked into his back pocket, and a rag hung from the other. Your unhelpful brain starts pulling references and time frames from several vague films: small town swelter, an open garage, and the concept of some dreamy cowboy mechanic. 

A hot guy in the hottest summer to date. The world must be running an experiment on me. 

But you digress, because this guy was looking for a reply, and unfortunately, none of your internal commentary would be appropriate to say in polite conversation. 

“Car givin’ you trouble, little miss?”

Little?

You briefly glanced around, just in case there'd been another designated “little miss” you somehow missed in the area. You realized he was referring to you. 

“...Uh, yeah.” You said slowly. “Lots of it.”

He leaned against the doorway and gave you a once-over. Eyes dragging up, down, then landing back on yours again. What? 

“Ain’t you something...”

“Huh?” 

He straightened himself up and cleared his throat.  “I said what kind of trouble?”

You’re fairly sure that was not what he said the first time, but you also definitely missed it, so you decided it’s safest to move forward. 

“It keeps breaking down,” you explain. Then, as if that isn’t already self-explanatory, you add, “Not right now. But it will.” 

He lets out a low hum, “Yeah?”

“Mmh hm.” You nodded. “Preferably whenever I’m driving on a highway.”

“I’ll take a look, see what I can do.” He jerked his chin toward the corner of the shop, at some cozy little lounging area. “Why don’t you sit down? Make yourself comfortable.”

Comfortable? Here with him? How ambitious.

You ended up on the sofa anyway, dropping with awkward commitment as you took in the surroundings of the shop. The place smelled like a hot spell, metal and tang, motor oil maybe, or grease. You looked around some more. At the mechanical parts lying around, at the tools hung on one wall, and then sometimes you’d let your eyes betray you at least once or twice, taking him in where he’d already be half-turned.

“You new here?” He asked.

“Kind of? My parents got a house here to get out of the city. It’s my first summer here, actually.” 

““Figures. Haven't seen this one around much.”

You blinked. “My car?”

“Yeah. It’s hard to miss. Very vintage.” He rolled right out again and gave you a small grin as he sat up.

“It was a birthday gift.”

“Must've been a good one.”

“It is,” You clicked your tongue as you reminisce bitterly. “When it works.”

He crouched by your hood, his shirt riding up just enough for you to catch sight of the tools tucked into his jeans. 

“I’ll get it to work.”

A nervous cough escaped you then as your eyes scrambled for anything else. Literally anything else will do, Y/n. 

“You sound pretty sure.”

He shrugged as he reached for a wrench. “I’ve got time.”

You hadn’t even realized you’d been dozing off after that, right there on the old couch of a random repair shop of all places. Maybe it was the smell of oil and the heat rising making your head a little light, but you woke up a while later by a few pokes at your shoulder. 

“Hey,” The guy’s voice reaches you through whatever heavy sleep you’ve sunken into. “Seize the day.”

You blinked slowly and let out a quiet yawn. “Sorry.”

“All good.” He’s standing over you, one hand half-lifted from where he’d been nudging. There’s a faint curve to his mouth, and you have an inkling feeling that he’s been watching you this whole time.

“Check it out.” 

You step out the shop and into the stretch of sun waiting just beyond the little shade, rough ground crunching under your shoes as you make your way toward where your car had been left. 

“So,” You circled the front, and half-expected it to look different somehow. You glanced back at James. “Is she gonna be ok?”

“She’s fine.” He leaned a shoulder against the side and folded his arms loosely over one another. 

“But your fuel pump’s an old piece of crap. That’s what's been killing it on you.”

“I uh, I don’t…” Confused was what you were.

“It’s okay.” He said it a little softer this time. “Your car's not great.”

You huffed out a small, offended sound under your breath.

“It runs fine,” he reassured you, and gestured toward the engine. “But then it doesn’t get the fuel it needs. That’s why it's cutting out on you, especially when you’re driving for longer.”

“Is that why I’m always breaking down on the freeway?”

“Yeah.” He said, and popped the hood open. “Your carburetor’s not in the best shape either. It probably hasn’t been touched in a while. And your wiring’s a little off.” 

He lifted a shoulder and added, “Nothing major, but it’s not helping.”

“Which means?”

“Which means, little lady,” He took a few steps toward you. “I can fix it. Just not today.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “How long will that take?”

“A couple days. Maybe three, depending if I have to order anything in.”

“I kinda need it,” You sighed, long and defeated. So much for being your group’s long-standing designated driver. 

“Yeah. But it needs a makeover.”

You kicked a loose pebble across the gravel and watched it skid under a few tires like that'll somehow help you decide. 

“And you’re sure you can fix it?”

“Have any doubts?” The guy tilted his head assuredly. “I’ll take care of it.”

You squinted at him a little. He squints back, in an effort to say what. 

“Okay,” you muttered, you accepted. “Guess I’ll take the bus back.”

“Do you know your way home?”

“I’ve figured it out. ”

You really hadn’t, but you’re grown. You’re going to have to figure it out.

He promptly reached for his back pocket and pulled out a flip phone, jamming in a few buttons before holding it out to you.

“By the way. Could I get your number?”

Well, he’s certainly straightforward. 

“Excuse me?”

He nudged the device toward you.  “To call you when it’s finished.”

You mentally face-palmed yourself for, once again, reading way too much into this guy.

“Right.”

Once you’ve typed in your number, you bidded each other a short goodbye as you stepped out toward the highway, where the bus stop waits a little further down. James has to squint through the glasses he’d just pulled from his shirt to make sure you actually get on one. Only when the bus carries you off does he return to the counter, write up the bill, and tuck it into his pocket. He made a mental note to stop by the bank soon, preferably before his dad noticed something was off with the payment logs.

It occurred to him with no small degree of disbelief and embarrassment in himself that this might just be the first time he’s been so horrendously head over his own shoes. Stupid, stupid James. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

“Is your ice cream any good?”

“Take a lick of my ice cream and I’m dumping it on your face.”

“Sounds like a yes,” Haerin mutters.

The sun hung overhead in its usual tyrannical fashion, pressing summer into everything in sight. You and your friends have claimed an outdoor table, holding ice cream and smoothies sweating through heir plastic cups. Condensation slips down the side of yours, cool against your fingers before pooling in the little hollow of your palm

“Oh look. It’s the Power Rangers.”

You follow their line of sight across the street where the park unfurls toward the water in a long stretch of green and glittering blue. Parked along the grass is a truck, and a handful of guys leaned against it in varying states of practiced poses, draped there as though they had been arranged specifically for public viewing. Someone would take their turn holding the camera, and the other being a subject. You thought it looked ridiculous. 

“A very managerless and underfunded boyband.”

“Are they trying to tan?”

There are five of them, sure enough, scattered around the truck with a sort of aimless patience. As your eyes move from one face to the next, your gaze snags on a familiar face, half-turned towards the water laughing at something one of them had said. The mechanic boy from the repair shop. The same one you had been eyeing up with all the subtlety of a Victorian man who’d just seen an exposed ankle. 

You take one aggressive sip of your smoothie in the hopes that the brain freeze might cool your head. 

You lean towards Haerin and jerk your head forward. “What’s that guy’s name?” 

“Grey shirt?” She asks as she tries to follow your line of sight.

“Next to him.”

She paused, then whipped her head at you. “James?”

Ah, so his name was James. You turn it over in your mind once, then again, and several more times. It suited him. Something sturdy and unfairly appealing. You think it would look rather nice written in your handwriting somewhere, though you wisely keep that thought to yourself. 

You shake your head and try to attempt the look of not caring, but achieve something considerably less convincing. 

“Isn’t he a mechanic?” You asked and tried to sound absentminded about it.

“How’d you know that?”

“I brought my car to the shop to get it fixed.” That earns you a look. 

“You seriously need to scrap that piece of junk,” Yunah says. 

“Moving on.”

“Right. Well, he’s not technically a mechanic. His dad owns the shop, and during breaks he takes shifts there. I’ve seen him around the community college a few times. He’s got an engineering track.”

Mina added in, “He kinda keeps to himself.” She nodded towards their direction. “Those are his friends. They’ve all known each other since forever. Just like us.” 

You look at them and think, sandbox love, a half-imagined and kind of shy concept for a group such as theirs. 

Yunah cuts in. “Remember Hana? I heard she’s still as obsessed with him as ever.”

“Oh my god, yeah.” Mina laughs. “It’s kind of tragic. Does he even like her?”

A shrug from Haerin. “I don’t think he likes anyone.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like girls.”

“What a bold assumption.”

You’d still been looking even as your friends dissolved into their usual spiral of gossip beside you. Judge me all you want. It was a cute guy in the wild. That’s not a situation you simply can ignore. Whether you liked him or not had very little to do with it; staring was practically a reflex at this point. Something encoded deep in the inner workings of every girl who had come out the other side of puberty with functioning eyes. 

Because you’re staring a little too intently, you started to notice things more clearly: his dark brown and slightly messy hair, the way he’s leaning back against the truck’s hood, and the subtle bop of his head keeping time with the music from a small boombox nearby.

You’re also able to make out how he turned his head upward, just slightly, before his gaze landed directly on you. 

You’re fairly certain he might not even remember who you are. Why would he? You had been, in the grand scheme of his life, just one overheated girl with a broken car. He likely saw a dozen of those a week. Maybe two dozen, depending on what he looked like that day. It would be less embarrassing if he weren’t so aware of possessing a face. You knew he did, surely right?

So you keep looking anyway. Your eyes wander with an interest that could, in a court of law, be used against you. Even then, it felt like his eyes were tracking yours, following whatever it landed on. He shifts where he’s leaning, and though the distance between you is considerable, there is an unmistakable deliberation in his movement. A subtle squaring of his shoulder, the conscious vanity of a man who knows he’s being observed.

His expression seems to say, Well? The lack of concern on his end, and the complete drought of restraint on yours, was weird enough. 

“Y/n, ready to go?”

Right then, the sound of your name yanks you clean out of whatever trance you’d been happily deteriorating in. All your friends are looking at you with varying levels of suspicion and delight.

You straighten so fast your straw nearly launches itself from your drink.

“I–yeah. Fuck yeah, let's go.”

An answer so immediate, so aggressively enthusiastic, that it condemns you on the spot.

“Why don’t you wipe the drool on your face first?”

Your hand flies instinctively to your mouth, which, to your immense relief, is perfectly dry. Mina bursts into laughter before you can even process the betrayal. You give Mina a small slap on the shoulder, to which she cackles in reply. 

“Asshole”

You grab your cup as Mina loops her arm through yours, and when your group begins to head out and cross the street, you risk one last glance over your shoulder. James is looking too. 

He lifts two fingers in a lazy salute. You hate the way you wave back. 

You were not drooling. This is one cornerstone belief. Because if you had been, then James might have seen it. And while he may be very alarmingly attractve for a man, you are not under any circumstances prepared to hand him that sort of satisfaction. No fucking way, dude. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

You bump your hip against something metal the moment you step into the shop, and the sharp clang that follows has you muttering a curse beneath your breath. James had said three days, but it had taken a week before the call finally came. Longer than promised, sure, but you can’t exactly hold it against him. Your car in fact is a piece of scrap. 

“James?” You called out as you step further in. “I’m back.”

A pair of boots appear from beneath the undercarriage of a car, followed shortly by James himself, rolling out on one of those little mechanic creepers. He pushed himself upright in one smooth motion and wipes his hands on a rag. There’s a streak of grease along his forearm, and another near his jaw.

“How’d you know my name?” he asks, squinting at you through the bright light pouring in from the garage door. 

“Oh, y’know, people talk.”

His mouth tilted upward. “Been asking around about me?”

“No, stop that.” You pointed accusingly before he can get any smugger.  “Is my car fixed or what?”

James laughed under his breath and tossed the rag onto the counter.

“A thank you would be nice.” 

“For extending our business relationship by four whole days? No sir.” 

He shook his head, though he’s still smiling, and gestured toward the far end of the garage where your car sat looking, somehow, the same and yet marginally less likely to explode. 

“Here it is.”

You walked on over and ran a hand lightly along the hood as though greeting an old, troublesome friend. James follows close behind.

 “Please,” he says, leaning against the driver’s side door, “try not to put too much force on the gas.”

“If I can’t do that, I might as well not use the car.”

“Not my fault it’s an old tinker.”

Then he tosses you the keys. “Try not to break it to soon.”

“Thanks James.”

You turn the keys over in your hand, the metal still warm from his palm. Funny, that observation. Metal shouldn’t be warm unless it’s been left in the sun or held onto for a while. 

“Still don’t know where you got my name from.” 

You offer him your most innocent look, which fools neither of you.

“Hm,” He narrowed his eyes, “Well, if your car’s all junked up again, come around, ‘kay?”

“I have a feeling it won't take long.”

“Lucky me, huh?” He gave you one of those cheeky grins/ 

You reached for your back pocket and pulled out your wallet. 

“How much is it?”

He blinked.

“How much is what?”

“Cost of repair, James. How else do you people earn money?”

“Right.” He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly looking far less certain than a man who had spent the last week trying to resurrect your corpse of a vehicle. 

“I haven't really thought about it.”

You stared at him blankly. “What.” 

He laughed, a little sheepish now. “I’m not a licensed mechanic, my dad is. I don’t get a fixed professional fee like he does. Usually I’d just go with a gut feeling.”

“And is your gut currently giving you a feeling or…?”

“Yes. It’s telling me to defer payment.”

Yor fold our arms over one another. 

“I can’t not pay you, James.” 

“Sure you can.”

“No, I literally can’t. That’s theft.”

“I think that’s just called generosity.”

You rummage through your purse and pull out the only cash you have: a slightly wrinkled ten-dollar bill.

“Here. Ten bucks.”

James looked at the bill, and then back ar you, somewhat deeply offended and amused.

“10 bucks for a car fix? You might as well just give me dirt.”

“Do you want my money or not?”

He plucks the bill from your fingers, stretching it out between two grease-stained hands.

“I don’t want your money. But I at least expected more of it.”

“Well, lower your standards.” 

He folded the bill in a neat little rectangle. Before you could protest, or more importantly understand his intentions, he stepped closer. Far too close. His hand brushed your hip as he reached for the pocket of your jeans, and carefully tucked the bill inside. Oh, you were gone. 

“It’s fine, alright?” His hand lingers for one treacherous second longer before he pulls away. And there was that crooked smile again.

“Maybe next time you'll come back here full of guilt, and that would be the perfect excuse to see you again.”

You blink at him slowly. “I don’t get it.”

He laughed, a quick startled sound, and then took a step backward as he made his way toward the back door. He wiped his hands on his pants, though there’d be nothing left on them now but the persisting feeling of your worn denim. 

“I’ll see you around, Y/n.” 

He turned away, but after one dreadful moment you freeze. Your mind, which had only just returned from a blackout, scrambled to catch up. 

“Wait… hey–” You straighten so fast you nearly lose your balance. “How'd you know my name–?”

James paused with one hand on the doorknob. He glanced back over his shoulder, and the fluorescent lighting caught that unripe sheen in his eye. 

“Oh y’know.”

He opened the door, stepping halfway through.

“People talk.” 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

After that, James seemed to migrate out of the garage and into the rest of your regular days with startling ease. This town seemed determined to place him directly in your little bubble, and you realized that summer didn’t so much follow your expectations as politely ignore them altogether.  

It kicked off at the bowling alley, your friends claiming one lane, and just a few steps to the right, that cluster of guys. Included, unfortunately, was the one you had been putting in a heroic amount of effort to ignore. 

Naturally, that effort lasted all of ten seconds.

With a focus usually reserved for something such as a life-altering decision, Juhoon stepped up, narrowed his eyes, and set the bowling ball down the lane. It rolled and rolled, and kept rolling, before slowly veering off into the gutter. Not a single pin moved. 

A performance, really. 

“Hey.” Haerin leans slightly over the divider as a laugh quickly slips through her words. “You know you’re supposed to hit the pins, right?”

Juhoon turns to her, caught somewhere between offended and amused, and wipes his hands on his jeans as if that might restore some of his dignity. “Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was in the presence of professionals.”

“Relax.” Mina shoots back and crosses her arms. “I’ve barely played this myself and somehow I don’t suck as bad.”

“You wanna talk big?” Keonho chimes in as he leans on their own divider as well.  “Let’s see you do better.” 

“You’re embarrassing us.” You murmured from behind. You’ve forgotten just how aggressively competitive Mina could get over something as low-stakes as this.

“Speak for yourself.” She shoots back under her breath. “You’ve barely picked up a ball.”

You huff out a quiet laugh, shaking your head as you let your attention ease itself out. To your friends, to them, to the easy back and forth. And then, inevitably, to James, who is already coincidentally looking back. Creepy. 

James looks back into the lane and clears his throat, then looks back at you again. 

“So when will your turn be?”

“I don’t–” you start and step back a little too soon. “I’m just here to give some moral support.”

“Kill joy.” he says, not unkindly, and then gives you a smirk.

“That’s a strong accusation for someone who's been sitting in the back the whole time since he’s got here.”

“Have you been taking notes on me?”

“Maybe I should stick to seeing you just at the garage. You’d be less insufferable if you’re being helpful.”

James doesn’t pretend to stifle the laugh that escapes him, and it's a nice sound, you decide. He doesn’t pretend to look away either. Not when you catch him or when you raise a brow in slight accusation. He only tilts his head in a considerable fraction.

You break eye contact first. Out of principle. Out of principle, Y/n. 

Your friend groups had merged into each other after that with surprising ease. A summer armistice, you called it, brokered over boredom and the simple fact that there were only so many interesting people in Old Town Temecula. They made things a lot more entertaining. 

Martin was easy company because you both shared a lot of common interests, particularly where music was concerned. You could spend an entire afternoon arguing over discographies, and each of you were convinced the other had somehow missed a foundational pillar of modern music. He was insufferable about it.

Keonho and Seonghyeon quickly assumed the role of the two younger brothers you never had. They were a matched set of nuisances incapable of minding their own business. Still, you think of them with nothing but fondness.

Then there was Juhoon, who possessed the personality of a man who had lived at least three separate lives and remembered fragments of each. He’d tell you something utterly deranged yet weirdly profound on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday, and then wander off. He was your wise old uncle. 

And then there’s James. You don’t know what he is to you. 

Everyone else seemed to fit into your labeled mind drawers. Friend. Acquaintance. Enemy. Sometimes two, sometimes all. 

You wouldn’t classify James as a friend. Friendship is like a tidy little house. You’d understand all its deep angles and know where the doors would lead. It wouldn’t usually contain that particular voltage. That’s right. Friends don’t prod at the electric fence just to watch it spark. Friends don’t test boundaries like that. Friends, generally speaking, also don’t flirt with each other. 

And you cared, far too much, about what he thought of you too. You had become quite skilled at disguising your curiosity casually when you’d ask one of his friends, as though it had only just occurred to you, whether James had happened to mention you lately. Your name, taking up room in his mouth. 

But acquaintances wouldn’t do either. That word was a handshake and a weather report, a polite distance, or a borrowed pen. You and James had long since trespassed beyond those borders. Whatever it was, it had sharp teeth.

And so you are left with the big question in the filing system of your life. If he wasn’t either, what other drawer could you possibly place him in? All these questions, and no one to answer them. 

But your hypotheses soon had the opportunity of being tested.

The beach was hardly the most forgiving place for you and James to see each other. 

But such were the circumstances that were so often stacked against you. The invite came with such spontaneity that you’d barely had enough time to throw a few beach essentials into your bag before there'd been a minivan already idling right across your house.

“You could’ve told me a lot earlier!” You shout from the front door, nearly tripping over yourself as you wrestle your sandals on. 

“I texted you thirty minutes ago!” Mina screamed back. It was thirty minutes too short. Entire civilizations would rise and fall in the time Mina usually took to get ready, so you had assumed she, of all people, would understand the necessity of advance notice. 

Then you spot James in the driver’s seat, window rolled down, and one arm draped lazily over the frame. He’s looking at you, actually looking, with an attention so direct it made you aware of every loose thread in your shorts and each misplaced hair on your head. You find yourself strapping your sandals much quicker than necessary. 

The drive to the resort transpired in a blur of Top 20 hits and some terrible group singing. Martin sat beside you, knowing every lyric to every song that came on, while Seonghyeon and Keonho contributed mostly by banging on the roof and shouting the choruses at times. A car full of kids drinking deeply from the season while it was still theirs. 

James didn’t say much during the ride. But every now and then, he would flick his eyes to the rearview mirror which had been angled just right, if only to catch you lost in song. 

By the time you arrive, and everyone had hauled themselves, their bags, and half the contents of a convenience store into the resort, the sun was hanging low and golden over the water like it too had paid for a weekend stay. 

The cottage sat right by the beach: bamboo walls, a tiny porch, and enough space to comfortably fit nine people. The door had barely swung open before Keonho burst out first with an overflowing paper bag to his chest.

“What’ve you got there?” you asked.

He angled the bag away immediately. “Get away.”

“You bought a dozen bags of chips.”

“The other ten are just emergency portions.”

“For what? The apocalypse?”

“The munchies.” 

Seonghyeon came out next, already wearing an inflatable around his waist. It squeaked every time he moved.

“I can’t find my sunscreen.”

Haerin points to his hand. “Kid. It’s right there.”

He looked down at the bottle in his hand while his mouth formed a little ‘O’ shape.

Martin followed close by, dragging a boombox nearly as large as the minivan’s side windows. He hoisted it onto one shoulder with all the pride of a man unveiling a monument. Juhoon glanced over from where he was taking off his sandals. 

“Y’know they charge a fee if you blast the music too loud, right?”

“What the fuck?” Martin froze.

“I didn’t ask my dad for extra money today!”

“Some employment would help,” James said from behind him as he carried in the cooler.

Martin gave James a side eye and a scoff. “I’m a teenager, James. I don’t need no goddamn job.”

“That mindset won’t pay them bills man.” Juhoon says, wise words from the wisest man. 

“What fucking bills–”

Mina sidled up beside you with the intention of delegating some sort of responsibility. She pressed a few crumpled bills into your palm.

“Y/n, why don’t you go order us some drinks?”

“You got two minors present by the way.”

Mina waved a dismissive hand. “Get them some juice.”

“I could drink,” Keonho says with confidence. You turned to him and shook your head.

“I’m serious! I have the liver of a champion.”

“No.”

“I got a mature palate.”

“You have the face of a middle school mathlete, Keon. What’ll the staff think when they catch you? You’re getting juice.” 

Keonho gave you a deflated stare. “You wanna be my mama so bad.”

“We’ll deal with you later.” Mina started counting on her fingers. “Two margaritas, a soda, one beer, juice, and some water.”

James emerged from… somewhere. He had changed into a loose shirt and swim trunks and glanced down toward the bar a little ways down the sand. 

“Need some help with that?”

“Um. Yes. Thank you James.”

Mina’s grin was immediate. “Oh, perfect.”

You narrowed your eyes at her with suspicion. When you turned around, James tipped his head toward the little path leading to the bar tucked just beside the open restaurant.

“C’mon.” 

So you fell into step beside him, your feet sinking into the sand as you passed the others who were still deep in argument.

“I’m not getting a summer job! I am seventeen! The only bill I have is my phone bill, and my mom still pays half.” Martin exclaims. 

Juhoon raises an eyebrow. “Half?”

“You burden this society.” Seonghyeon accused Martin with a pointed finger.

“I am society.”

“Who are you, fuckin’ Jean Jacques Rousseau–you’re a leech.”

“You guys are just jealous because I’m young, beautiful, and unemployed.”

“Only two of those things are true.”

“You’re a dead man, Eom.”

As soon as you step on the polished wood and under the hanging lights, you are hit with the smell of grilled seafood, sizzling meat, garlic, butter, enough to crave eating your body weight in some shrimp. The two of you made your way to the counter, sliding onto a pair of barstools, and the bartender handed you each a laminated drink menu. 

“You know,” you said after a moment of squinting, “a lot of these just sound like cleaning products.”

“That’s how you know they’re overpriced. Check this out. ‘Salted Breeze’.”

“‘Tropical Typhoon’? Jesus.” You turned the menu to show him. “Sounds like it could strip paint.” 

“Sounds tasty.”

“Kidneys, James. People need those.” 

“You only need one.” 

A few feet away, hidden just enough to be out of sight, Martin, Haerin, and Keonho had claimed a suspiciously dense bush. From behind it, three heads barely fit in the same line as they all angled toward you and James.

“I can’t see shit,” Haerin muttered as she shifted uncomfortably. 

“Move your giant head then.” Martin shot back.

“I have a normal-sized head.” She whispered defensively. “Your proportions, unfortunately…” 

Keonho leaned in between them as he squinted hard. “I’ll have you know we’re committing several social etiquette crimes.”

“We’re just taking a look.” 

“We’re stalking. If we were just looking we wouldn’t be hiding in a bush—hell, this itches.” 

“Potato potahto.” 

Keonho, who had insisted on bringing a bag of chips on the espionage mission, crinkled the packaging so loud it might’ve been able to alert a few wildlife nearby. 

You and James sat at the bar, leaning against the counter while the bartender prepared your orders. The string lights above cast everything in warm gold, and from this distance, the two of you looked really cinematic. 

“They’re talking,” Haerin reported. 

“How groundbreaking.”

“Oh my god they’re laughing.”

“People do that, right?”

Keonho dapped Martin’s shoulder hard. “Ohhhh, James touched her arm.” 

The entire bush shifted as everyone leaned forward at once, and Haerin had to grab Martin by the back of his shirt before he could topple out into the open. 

At the bar, James said something that made you laugh. Your head even tipped back. Martin had to clutch his chest. 

“He’s using jokes. Smooth bastard.” 

“That’s usually how flirting works. I doubt you’d know any of that.” Haerin said.

Keonho, mouth full of barbecue chips, narrowed his eyes. “Do you think they’re gonna kiss guys?”

“Keon,” Martin said blankly. “They’re just ordering mojitos.” 

“People have kissed over less.”

Haerin nodded in agreement. “That’s true. I see people make out on the bus every day. Like, over what? All you can smell are stinkin’ butts, and some people have died on that bus before.”

“What? I didn’t know this-”

“Wait wait–James is leaning in.”

James leaned closer to hear you over the music. Then the bartender handed him two drinks.

“False alarm.”

“I need a better angle.”

Before anyone could stop him, Martin rose approximately four inches too high. Unfortunately, four inches was all it took. James glanced over directly at the bush, and there was a beat of perfect silence after that. Then James slowly raised one eyebrow. 

Martin ducked first. The rest followed in a panicked domino effect as the branches shook violently.

“We’ve been made,” Haerin announced.

Martin is quick to tap out. “Abort mission, holy fuck–”

“Retreat. Hurry, go!” 

When you and James head back with a tray full of your orders, the three of the culprits were sitting on the porch in positions that bordered on performance art. Martin was whistling. Well, he was trying. Martin can’t whistle. Keonho was reading a magazine upside down, and Haerin still had leaves in her hair. 

James handed out the drinks without a word, though the corners of his mouth twitched suspiciously. 

“Oh, Haerin. You got a uh…” You gesture vaguely at his head. “A few leaves on your hair.”

“Yeah. Keonho pushed me into a bush. Sorry ‘bout that.”

“I did no such–”

Martin was quick to shush Keonho out, to which he let out a huff in turn. 

A little while later, once Keonho and Seonghyeon had sprinted into the water, Martin was left holding down the fort on shore. He was halfway through his juice, still salty about the fact that none of them wanted to hand him a margarita, when James wandered over and stopped behind him.

“Great hiding place, by the way.”

Martin choked on his juice so violently that some of it shot out of his nose. 

But eventually, no one cared enough to quarrel with the day. It was as gold and too open-handed for such a thing. The sun hung above like a coin freshly minted, bright enough to spend. The sea moved with its long and slow patience, folding salt into your skin, into hair, into the small seams of everyone else.

Troubles, those faithful little parasites, found the air too thin here, so they loosened their grip and drifted off like dandelion ash. And everyone was suddenly certain that this would be a day worth keeping. 

James sat on a sunbed a few feet from the shoreline with his sunglasses on and his shirt loosely unbuttoned to give way to the warm air. To his left, a few children have taken Martin hostage, burying him in sand and shaping him in what looks like a poor interpretation of a mermaid sculpture. To his right, Keonho’s trying to drag Seonghyeon down from his floaty. And in front of him, further out where the water is a lot stiller, you’re laughing and splitting the sea into smaller pieces as you pass through it in a fit of laughter. 

“Margarita?” Juhoon, who sits on the sunbed right beside him, passes him a glass.

“Thanks man.” 

Summer. It was a come-and-go concept to James. It would always come with promises, stay just long enough to keep him waiting, then abdicate. A season of suspension. While everyone else seemed intent on breaking free, he mostly found himself idling. The engine would be on, but there would be nowhere worth driving. He’d wait for summer to bring him something, then he’d wait for it to end. 

Summer was long. Summer was hot. Summer was sweat collecting at the base of the spine and sand in very weird places. Summer was–

“James! I caught a crab. Do you think we could cook it?” You shout from afar. 

Summer had you in it this time. Then, summer was brief as a struck match. Warm against his stomach. Sweet, sour, salty. A fruit eaten too quickly, juice running down the wrist, and always never enough. All this heat had revealed skin and nerves, all the thin bright wires beneath the casing. The things he preferred not to feel at all, now lit up like a switchboard. 

Summer has ruined the rest of the year for him. 

James huffs out a laugh and looks back out into the beach where he can maybe pull some restraint. “Do anything you want.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

You had texted James yesterday and asked if he’d seen a Walkman hanging around at the garage that you might’ve left. James checked, to which he did find one sitting idly at your spot on the couch. So he texted you back saying he’d bring it over the next day. 

Which is how he ends up standing very chivalrously at your front door. Because this is also how he meets your father for the very first time.

“Good mornin’ Mr. L/n.” James looks around to further solidify his little act. “Lovely weather today, eh?”

Your dad narrows his eyes in what can only be close to disgust. “You’re Zhao’s son.”

“Did you sense some resemblence?” James gives your dad a charming smile. “Good eye there.”

“Don’t bullshit me, son. What the hell kind of business do you have here calling my daughter–”

“James?”

Your voice cuts through from all the way inside the house, and when you emerge from the front door, James internally sighs in relief and gives you a little wave.

“Sorry, I got your text a little late.” You look at James, and then suspiciously at your dad, who is looking sternly right at James.

“Dad? Is there a problem?”

He looks at you and points accusingly at James with shot eyes. “This boy standing on my front porch is what's the problem.”

James wants to laugh. He knows exactly why your dad doesn’t like him, and it had nothing to do with him at all. It comes with a silly memory: his own father coming home, holding up a fish like a trophy with a blue ribbon tied neatly around its still, unblinking body.

“He’s been fixing my car like you wanted. The least you could do is say thank you.” You scold.

“I am not saying thank you to one of Zhao’s kin–”

“Y’know what, it’s all good.” James cuts through the transpiring little argument. “I stopped by to give this. You forgot to grab it from the shop.” 

He stretched his hand forward to lend you your Walkman back, and you take it in pretend formality. James looks back at your dad and offers another much more charming (he hopes) smile.

“You have a good day, Mr. L/n. Tell the missus I like the flower arrangements up front.” 

He’s ready to head in and leave before this got any more awkward when he hears you say his name. 

“Bye James.”

He turns around to steal another glance, and gives you a generous grin. 

“Bye.”

When James leaves, you take your dad back inside and prepare to reprimand. So much were the roles reversed today.

You turn to him immediately. “What was that about?”

Your dad, already walking deeper into the house, grumbles. “Nothing.”

You follow him into the kitchen. “This Mr. Zhao… isn’t he the one who’s been beating you at those fishing competitions?”

“I bet you he’s cheating.”

You let out an exasperated sigh. “All that rage for some petty contest.” 

You both had to admit there was something almost absurd about this long-standing, entirely unearned fatherly feud. It was hilarious and stupid. What would be even funnier is if maybe, assuming a possibility, that they’d find out about this little thing happening between the two of you. This unsure predicament, a scandal in the eyes of two middle aged men. You want to laugh. You almost do, right there on the kitchen island. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

James receives a panicked call from you at three in the morning a few days later as he’s half-asleep, buried under the dull noise of his father and his friends still arguing over a game on the television.

“Somebody better be dying,” he mutters, voice dragged through sleep.

On the other end, your voice cuts through in whispered panic. “Yes. It’s my Shelby. She’s dying again, James. What am I gonna do?”

“You can bring it to the shop later.”

“I know. I was gonna do that anyway.” 

He exhales into his pillow. “Then what’s the emergency?”

“You sure I shouldn’t just scrape this thing?” you ask with a suddenly unsure tone in your voice.

James opens one eye. “You’re thinking of killing her now?”

“She might as well be on life support.”

He closes his eyes again and lets out a sigh. There’s no denying your car really was a stubborn one. 

“Bring her to the shop, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

You pause. 

“We will?”

“Yes. Now can I go back to sleep?”

“Okay” You say through a small smile. “I’m trusting you James. Sleep tight.” 

“Tight as a bug.” he replies as he’s already halfway gone. “Bye.” 

Somewhere downstairs, the voice of a man is heard screaming in cheer. James buries his ears with his pillow and tries to go back to sleep. 

A little past noon, James was out back giving his motorcycle some attention. He had a towel slung over one shoulder, grease staining the heel of his palm, and was halfway through polishing the handlebars when he heard an engine spitter its way into the lot. It was a very particular, familiar sputter.

He tossed the used rag onto the workbench and headed around to the front. Sure enough, there you were, climbing out of your car with a frustrated expression. You shut the door a little harder than necessary. 

“I got her to work this morning,” You announce by way of greeting. “But I swear the engine’s making this weird noise.”

James circled the front, listening as the engine rattled in protest. “I heard it from the back. Did it break down again?”

“Just before I called you.”

James looked at you suspiciously. “Where were you off to at 3 in the morning?”

“My sister needed a ride home from a party.”

He popped the hood and propped it open. “‘Kay, I’ll take a look. You know the drill.”

A small smile tugged at your mouth as you headed inside. “I’ll take the couch.” 

So you had, in fact, taken the couch. 

There was something so deeply humbling about becoming a regular at an auto repair shop. It would tell people everything they needed to know: that your car was a piece of absolute shit from a butt. But at least the couch was comfy. That had to count for something. 

You were halfway through a bag of stale chips and a quarter through a sports magazine when James pushed through the garage door, wiping his hands on his jeans and staining them in the process. His expression alone told you everything.

“How bad is she?”. 

He looked like he bared bad news. 

“It’s your alternator.”

You blinked silently. “My what?”

“Alternator. It keeps your battery charged while the engine’s running.”

“So… important.” You deduced.

“Very.”

“Love that.”

James huffed out a laugh and told you to follow him.

“The bearings are shot, see? That’s the noise.”

You slumped your shoulders forward. “Can you f ix it?”

“I can. I should be able to replace it.

The pause he made was a little ominous, so you probe further.

“But?”

“But we don’t have one in stock.” He clicks his tongue. “And a new one isn’t exactly cheap.”

“Define cheap.” 

James named you a number, to which you nearly choked on your saliva.

“James, that is rent.”

He winced sympathetically. “Yeah. Such is the beauty of owning a car.”

“I didn’t even buy it myself. How am I supposed to afford that?” You turned back to walk toward the couch before slumping on it once more. 

“I should’ve asked for a horse.”

“Maintenance is worse. My uncle’s got a ranch up south with horses. They shit big.”

You sighed long and hard. “Horses don’t need alternators though.”

“Didn’t I just tell you? They shit big. And they bite too.” 

For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the faint hum of the soda machine and the distant clanking something he had left on. James tapped his finger on his lap thoughtfully.

“But I might know a way around it.”

You lifted your head in desperation.

“How illegal are we talking?”

He put his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Moderately legal?”

“James.” 

He gave you a mischievous grin. 

“There’s a junkyard about twenty minutes from here. They got totaled cars in all the time. If we’re lucky, we can pull an alternator off something compatible.”

“Dude. Isn’t that stealing?”

“It’s cheaper. Wait no, it’s free.”

That, admittedly, was a compelling argument. You narrowed your eyes at him.

“And you know this place how?”

“I know a guy.”

Of course he knew a guy. You suspected a lot of these mechanic boys operated like they were part of a secret underground network. They know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. 

“You had me at free.”

James grabbed his dad’s truck keys off the wall while you stood from the couch. You followed him outside, both of you climbing into the truck and buckling in. Desperation was going to take you places today. He reversed out of the lot with one hand on the wheel, and you caught the sunlight glinting off the silver ring on his finger. Then you were off. 

The drive was mostly filled with silence. The windows were down as the wind rushed in to occupy all the empty spaces. It threaded through the car, rifled your hair, and carried off any thoughts James was trying very hard not to have. 

Outside, the road kept company with the town’s river, each pretending not to notice the other. You watched the water slide past in silver influxes as James watched you in the rearward pull of seconds. The wind would unmake your hair and remake it a little better. He found this, like many things he’s thought of, very compelling. 

The junkyard was exactly just as you imagined.

Rows and rows of dead cars stretched beneath the afternoon sun, metal skeletons stacked two, sometimes three high, each one looking as junked up as the other. Windows were shattered, doors hung open, and somewhere in the distance, something metallic clanged with the ominous acoustics of a horror movie.

“People have gotten murdered here.”

“You got a strong feeling ‘bout that?”

“Absolutely.”

When you both got out of the truck, the air smelled like rust, hot rubber, and tetanus. A heavyset man behind a cluttered counter looked up from his newspaper as you approached. He wore a baseball cap that might once have been red. 

James gave him a nod. “Afternoon, Rick.”

The guy, Rick, squinted over the rims of his glasses.

“James!” He exclaims excitedly. “You break another one?”

James jerked a thumb toward you and shook his head. “Not mine this time.”

You placed a hand over your chest and bowed. “Thrilled to be here.”

Rick snorted before bowing curtly at you in return, and waved the two of you through the gate.

“Imports are in row seven. Don’t steal anything that ain’t bolted down, yeah?”

“‘Course, Rick. We all know how that went last time.”

That was sketchy, you think. You followed James between towering rows of vehicles, gravel crunching beneath your shoes. Every few feet, James would glance at a car, dismiss it, and keep walking. He looked like a vulture on the lookout. 

James stopped in front of an okay Mustang, and knew this particular model was manufactured just a few years before yours was. He figured it could work. 

“There she is.”

James popped the hood of the car with ease, and you leaned in beside him, staring at an engine that looked, to your untrained eye, like just a bunch of metal scraps put together.

“So which one is it?”

He pointed. “That.”

You nodded solemnly as if you understood anything at all. James reached into the small bag you had brought and took out some kind of tool, and went to work.

You folded your arms and watched him. His brow gathered itself to the middle in concentration, sleeves shoved carelessly to his elbows, grease smudging dark against his knuckles. There was sweat clinging to all sorts of places. His temples, along the line of his throat, tracing the strong cords of his arms where the veins stood out with clarity. 

It was incredibly rude of him to look that good in a junkyard. 

“Hold this.” 

He handed you a wrench, and you took it like he’d entrusted you with a sacred artifact. And so, under the blazing sun, you helped James steal (sorry, salvage) an organ from a dead car. Your week had taken a very strange turn. 

After he gets the part off, you both make quick work of stuffing it into the bag before heading back toward the big gate again. 

“Find everything you need?” Rick calls from where he idles.

“All good here Rick.” James replies. “You have a good one.”

A small nod, a mutual dismissal of the world, and you’re both back in motion. You toss the bag into the back of the truck, and James climbs in after you then turns the ignition. The engine makes a weird sound, but neither of you comment on it. 

You’re on the road for a while, and nothing seems to be the problem. That is, until the engine coughs first. A small, offended sound. Then again, this time deeper. The truck shudders, and with dread on both your faces, it finally gives up and stops. 

“James. What the hell.”

“I’ll go take a look.”

Both of you are out the truck in seconds. James lifts the hood and leans into it, and you watch from the side. He works in silence for a few minutes, which doesn’t really help the unease you’re feeling. He straightens eventually, and gives you the look.

“We’re fucked.”

That is how you both end up pushing the truck. Its wheels roll reluctantly, and you want to laugh at how utterly absurd this it. You both steer it into the nearest empty patch of land: an abandoned gas station’s parking lot. 

There’s nothing for miles, you believe. No phone booth, no convenience store. Not even the promise of signal. You checked your cellular and couldn’t pick up on anything.

James calls you through a whistle. “Hey. Look at that.”

You walk over toward him and follow his line of sight. There, just a few meters ahead, is a sign, which tells you there must be some sort of establishment nearby. 

“Let’s take our chances. It’s almost dawn.”

Because there are no better options or sudden miracles waiting in the wings, you head to the back of the truck and reach for the bag in case it gets snatched. James reaches into the dash, retrieves his wallet, and pockets it to the back along with his keys.. Then you walk. Side by side. 

A motel is what awaited you.

You exhale, long and unamused. A motel. Of all places. In the middle of nowhere. Onl motorcycles are parked up front, which suggested everyone else came here alone. Everyone except you two. 

“This sucks.” You say, staring up at the motel in quiet offense.

“Better than sleeping on a truck in an abandoned gas station.”

“I don’t even have any money on me right now.”

James takes out his wallet and waves it lightly in front of you. “Problem solved.” 

You hated how this looked from the outside. A boy and a girl walking into a motel close to night time. The story is practically writing itself. But night is already closing in, and better ideas are not arriving soon. So when James walks first, you trail close behind. 

The lobby was warmer than expected, and surprisingly clean. Not exactly luxurious, but as cozy as a motel in the middle of who knows where could offer: wood-paneled walls, a coffee machine humming quietly in the corner, a rack of brochures advertising attractions that looked suspiciously closed.

A woman sat behind the front desk, reading a magazine. She looked up as the two of you entered. James stepped forward while you wandered over to the little lounge area and sank into one of the couches.

“One room with two beds, please.”

The receptionist looked through some logbooks, then offered an unapologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, sir, but our double rooms are all occupied tonight.”

James nodded. “That’s fine. Two rooms, then.”

More checking of the logs. The receptionist’s smile grew somehow more apologetic.

“I do apologize, but we’re fully booked on singles as well.”

James blinked blankly. “…What do you have, then?”

She consulted with the papers on her desk.

“We currently have one queen room available.”

Silence.

From your spot on the couch, you suddenly found the complimentary pamphlets fascinating.

James turned slowly.

“Give me a moment.”

You spotted James making his way back across the lobby, and immediately straightened from your position on the couch. 

“Are we good to go?”

James stopped in front of you, one hand hooked on his hip. He looked almost amused, which should have worried you more than it did.

“Y/n.” That was already a terrible start.

“What?”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“They have…” He paused, and then again. “It’s a room with one bed. That’s all they’ve got.”

You stared at him. Then at the receptionist. Then back at him.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Wish I wasn’t.”

Which was only partially true, and James knew it. Unfortunately, he also knew better than to examine that thought too closely. He mentally shoved it into a locked drawer and sat on it.

You stood so quickly the couch wheezed beneath you.

“All the other rooms are booked? This place looks like a shithole, how are they fully booked?”

“I don’t know. I’ll just take the floor, okay?”

“I can’t let you sleep on a motel carpet James. These things have organisms—“

Before you’re able to chime in another word, James turns around again and heads back to the to the receptionist. He pulls a couple dollar bills and slides them on the counter surface. 

“We’ll take it.” 

The receptionist slid the key across the counter with a smile. James took it, thanked her, and turned toward you, giving a slight tilt of his head.

“C’mon.”

You pushed yourself off the couch and trudged upstairs, and it creaked beneath your feet as the two of you climbed to the second floor. The motel hallway stretched long and narrow, lit by buzzing overhead lights that did very little to improve its already questionable atmosphere.

James found your room quickly enough. He stopped outside the door, key poised, then hesitated. When he turned to face you, the teasing had slipped from his expression. 

“Okay. A few things.”

You nodded.

“If you ever feel uncomfortable at all about anything, just tell me.” The seriousness in his voice caught you off guard.

“I mean it,” he added. “I don’t want you pretending you’re fine about this. I get it, it’s weird. No walking on eggshells. Alright?”

You managed a small forced smile.

“Got it.”

“And another thing. Try not to head out alone too much tonight.”

He gestured toward the parking lot below. You leaned toward the small window just enough to spot those half a dozen motorcycles lined up beneath the flickering motel sign.

“A bunch of bikers are staying here. They’re in a group, I’d guess.”

“You say it like they’re a migrating species.”

“They usually are.”

You laughed as he rested one shoulder against the doorframe.

“Make sure the door’s locked and just… stay out of trouble.”

He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The room beyond was exactly as promised: one bed, one television, one lamp. You both stared at the queen-sized bed. Awkward.

James hurriedly moves to the bedside table and snatches up the telephone, and punches some numbers in. You, meanwhile, drift toward the balcony. The curtains part with a soft sound, and the sliding door gives you the entire cold night as you step out. 

“I’m heading to the bathroom.” You say as you head back in. “Does the telephone work?”

“Yeah,” he replies, hand still on the receiver. “I managed to call Rick for a tow truck. Says they won’t be able to come until 9 tomorrow.”

“You didn’t think of calling your parents first?”

“My dad would probably say I could get things sorted out on my own.” He says.

“Can I call my parents?”

“Sure. Do you know your landline?”

You pause. “We got a new one, so I don’t.” a dismissive shake of your head. “Never mind.”

You head to the bathroom and turn the lock behind you, the sound like a line being drawn. Inside, you try to breathe in something quiet and steady, but you can’t. In the mirror, you look for the parts of yourself you can pick on, the little flaws you think to be pluckable. Frustrated you were that they stay exactly as they are. 

Meanwhile, James watches you disappear into the bathroom and waits for the door to close you out of sight. Only when you’re fully gone does he drop onto the bed. He exhales then, long and unspooled.

There are many things James can handle. He had always considered himself fairly adaptable. Plans change, cars break down. He knows these men in leather jackets and wrinkled hands surrounding the rooms around them as he thinks these things through. He had, at various points in his life, been punched in the face and kicked in the shin, and more than once did he have to explain to his father how exactly he got each bruise if he ever got home with any, which was usually most of the time. 

All that, he could handle half-asleep with a hand tied behind his back while someone was yelling at him. He’s slept under less forgiving roofs, and he’s had worse company (worse had rarely been this pretty, though). 

Then put him in a room with one very beautiful girl he just so happened to be hopelessly, helplessly in love with, and watch all that competence go missing. 

He tried to shake it off. People shared these kinds of rooms all the time. Travelers. Families. Sports teams. Criminals on the run, probably. 

I need a cigarette. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

“I’m back.” You emerge from the bathroom a while later, still in your old clothes, a borrowed robe loosely tied over them. 

“Stuff on your mind?” You ask. 

James is on the balcony sitting on the ledge with his back turned half to you, and the rest towards the open night. He’s got a cigarette between his fingers, one you’re not sure where he got from. 

He glances back over his shoulder. 

“Yeah,” He said after a moment,  “You could say that.”

You step closer, and James watches you all the way. He realizes faintly that seeing you through the smoke makes his head feel a lot dizzier. 

“You really need to stop that.”

“Stop what?” 

“Smoking.”

He lets the cigarette tilt slightly between his teeth. “You don’t like it?”

“I don’t.” When you’re close enough, you flick the tip of it with a finger. “And your lungs don’t either.”

That earns you a laugh. “You sound like my mother.”

“Better that than an enabler, right?” 

Better that than an enabler, and James almost loses it. The irony is there. You have enabled much worse in him than a little ash or smoke in his lungs. Want, for one. Hope, for another. A hundred reckless instincts, each one wearing your face. 

He wants to either fold himself in half or shake some sense into you. To pry your skull and point: there, there, look at what you’ve done. 

“C’mere.”  

You step closer until you’re right in front of him, too close that you’re aligned with the bend of his knees on the ledge. James takes the cigarette from his mouth, holds it between two fingers like a small and solved problem, then tosses it over the edge. If you wanted him clean so badly, then so be it. 

Something in him responds as unsteady beings do when the wind would find their hems. A pressure and a lean toward form. Toward articulation. Toward you. But he keeps it contained by the narrowest margin of will, because he doesn’t know yet what it is.

“What is it?”

He shifts slightly from where he sits. “You think your dad's gonna kill me?”

“For what?”

“When he finds out I’m spending my sweet time with his precious little princess in a motel in the middle of nowhere.”

“If you say it like that, he might.”

“Well, what am I saying it like?”

“Like you have some… intentions.”

“Intentions.” He clicks his tongue and thinks. “What kind?”

The sun goes down, and the balcony becomes a place slightly outside the map. James sits there as though he has been left on a higher shelf of the world. You looked at him then, almost invasive.  If invasions could be curious instead of cruel. As if, by looking hard enough, you might just be able to persuade him into things. 

“I don’t know, James.” You lean forward on your toes, then backward on your heel. “You keep saying things a certain way. I have to retrace them until I go crazy.” 

“Don’t you think maybe you’re just reading into me too much?”

“Am I ?”

He could say yes. Could blame it on you, say you were overthinking, making something out of absolutely nothing. And if he played the role right, you might even buy it. But it’d be a lie, and James has found it incredibly hard to keep lies from you. He couldn’t even say no to you half the time, let alone lie through his own teeth. Not when he’d already gone out of his way to fix that junky Shelby, cutting corners on the bill, paying for things himself so his dad wouldn’t catch on that he’d been letting some girl leave the shop receipt-free every time. Subtlety, he’s never been good at it. 

“No.” Lying, even less so. “You think I should act on ‘em?”

“Your intentions?”

“Yeah.”

You look at him knowingly, hopefully and without unrest.

“If they’re not going anywhere, why not?” If you’re not going anywhere, why not here?

The season has gone on longer than he’d been able to imagine. Or maybe not long enough. Either way, when he looks back at you across the thinning dark, he understands to himself that he isn’t ready for it to end. 

Ah, what am I doing? 

Who knew a mere inch of opening was all James would ever need. It happens in the space of a blink. He steps down from the ledge, his hands already rising as they settle at the sides of your face. And then, in the slim, unsteady breath between one moment and the next, he leans down and catches your lips with his. 

It doesn’t take much after that for things to turn. In a fit of urge and desperation, he backs you up until your knees buckle at the edge of that tiny queen bed. ‘Queen bed’ as the receptionist said, was too much of a stretch for this one. Then another moment, you both collapse on it anyway. 

You discover quickly that James doesn’t like to drag things out. You feel it in these betrayals: the restless twitch of his hands and his protested stillness. You hadn’t pegged him to be the impatient type. Tonight, though, his skin runs warm, almost fever-bright. His breathing forgets its rhythm, then finds another. And when he reaches to switch on the lamp beside the bed, the room fills with amber, turning his eyes from their usual dark wood into something honey-struck. 

You switch it close immediately. 

“No, no James—I like it closed.”

“But I can’t see you.”

I’d look nicer when the lights are off, you try to tell him. The words are small and brittle in your throat. 

“You don’t have to.” You say instead.

I need to, he thinks. Else my insides get eaten up.

James laughs low and helplessly, the sound brushing warm against your skin. “You trying to hog?” 

He wants nothing more tonight than to take you in. Entirely and improperly, in visions, in motion, in all your strange fullness. The flush in your cheeks, the bright sheen at your throat, he’d only want to leave you more potent than how he found you. And when at last your pulse remembers its manners, he finds that he would like, very much, to be the reason for that too. 

“There’s nothing to hog.”

“Yeah, there is.”

The orange wash of the bedside lamp makes James greedy the instant he turns it back on and looks down on you. It gilds the room, gilds your skin, gilds his appetite, and he wonders how much worse it will get once it's morning and he wakes to find you there again as living proof rather than of a dream. 

“Maybe we really do need to turn the lights off,” he decides.

You tilt your head against the pillow. “Changed your mind?”

“Oh, my mind hasn’t changed a bit,” James replies, then inches closer once more. “You push me over, lady.”

“Don’t call me that.” 

His hand betrays him to humiliating degrees. Lifting, pausing, and reconsidering as it is traitorously decisive, until it finally settles lightly against the edge of your cheekbone. Your breaths breathe warmth into his face, and he registers with mild alarm that they turn him a little visibly red. Even as he’s above you, when he can only look down earnestly at the gleam and glow that's made up this whole season, all that sun made flesh, you still hold every right and all the ability to make him act entirely insensible.

“Make my night, yeah?”

His mouth is so inconveniently human as it tries to chase the sweetness he’s found in your own, like a child finding the unreachable cookie jar. His hands are no better, and his skin is rough against yours that is soft as they insist on remembering what they shouldn’t have been taught so quickly.

James has never been with anyone. Not like this. So he’s scared by how natural you seem to fit into places in him he hadn’t realized were so empty. 

“Only if you make mine.”

Your dad tells you time and time again, beware of boys, they’re never honest. Says they lie, that they always will. He tells you this with personal conviction. But like something you never thought you’d do, you want to tell him not this one. Not this boy. 

Perhaps every girl before you has thought the same. Maybe they were laying as you are now. But this one is different, you think, you believe. You bring the thought with you as James leans in and kisses you again, drawing you under until you’re pressed into the pillow with nowhere else to go. You believe it through the warmth of his hand tracing the skin under your jaw, with the other moving over your hair. And you believed it most when you touched him back and thought never to return. 

“I’ll make a fantasy out of you,” James breathes out as he buries his head in the crook of your jaw. And then I’ll make a believer out of myself. A flame and a moth. 

You huff out a little airy laugh. “Could you?”

He lifts his head just enough to look at you. “Have I ever disappointed you before?”

The rest of the night, if “night” is even the correct term for it, and James is not entirely convinced it is, breaks apart into the most non-linear little pieces, as though misfiled in the wrong century. There are, instead, these conditions: warmth with a clear origin, motions in improper geometry, and the strange, persistent closeness. 

James remembers the beaches of his childhood. Of tides returning to their remarkable shoreline no matter how often they should be pulled away. His thoughts, ordinarily so well-trained, behave much the same around you. It’s an inefficient system, all this remembering. 

Skin to skin, breath upon breath, there was nowhere else to go but under. 

And with all the pretty things James had whispered to you that night, if it were truly what you thought it to be meant anything at all, then you took them with you to your dreams in the hopes that they’d be better interpreted there. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

If you had just lived through the best night of your life a few hours ago, you certainly left no such obvious traces of it this morning. None that James could see. 

The diner sat in a quiet early-hour warmth just beside the motel, low light with clinking cutlery, and something steady about it. James has always been like that with breakfast. No matter where he ends up, no matter how far off or unfamiliar, he makes time for it. You sit just right across from him in the corner booth, and though he thought maybe this would be the perfect time to pick up on the conversation he’d left to fend for last night, you just wouldn’t look at him. 

You keep your head held low as you fix your attention to the food you’d been picking on your plate and chewing. Is facing him really going to cost me something? 

James clicked his tongue. “You don’t like eggs?”

“I don’t like the sunny side ups.” You say through a mouthful, not bothering to look up. 

“Give it here.”

You slide the plate across as ceramic grazes the table in a soft passing sound, slipping between the diner’s lull of conversations. He switches it out with his own, then shifts his plate of scrambled eggs closer to you. 

“Eat,” he says. You do. 

Not because you’re still hungry. You just need to give your hands something to commit to. Across the table, you feel him watching you in that pressing way of his. 

“Slept well?” he asks. 

“You tell me. I was literally next to you.”

His mouth shifts, and he wonders how far he’s able to take this.

“Just trying to add some light to this shit. You’re making it awkward.”

Why wouldn’t it be awkward?

You shake your head. “I’m not making it awkward.”

“Yeah?” He leans forward slightly as his elbows brush the edge of the table. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“I don’t know James.” You move your food around, and the grip on your fork is a lot tighter now. “This was so unplanned.”

“Hmm?”

“None of this would’ve happened if the truck hadn’t broken down.”

There’s something barely offended, but ultimately unreadable in his expression. 

“So what are you saying?” His voice lowers just a little. “You wouldn’t have wanted this to happen?”

And you finally look up at him for the first time today. “No, I–”

You wonder what it was you were even trying to argue against. There’s no denying you’d never regret what you had done yesterday. Not now, not later, not even if your dad found out. It seems entering adulthood had a way of overcomplicating things, layers upon layers where there might have been none if only you had tried. 

“Don’t tell me you got a boyfriend back in college you forgot to mention ‘cause I do not want to be your little homewrecker–”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, God, I’m not that awful.” You rub at the corners of your eyes in frustration.

“So what’s the matter?”

The matter for you was simple: that this was going to be one of those cute little flings, as fleeting as they were all unplanned for. The cruel fate of someday being remembered as that ‘summer of ‘02’ months or years from now, and nothing more.

“Nothing.” And you know he doesn't believe you. 

“I just,” Your fork pauses on your plate, and you think of either being straightforward or telling another one of your unbelievable lies. 

“I’m gonna have to go back to college sooner or later.”

A weak defense mechanism presents itself in your throat, small and evasive. It’s then that James now understands. So that's what you were fussing about. 

He’d been so caught up in the present tense that he’d neglected the so-called never-not-befores. By then, he’s realized a little late how soon you’d be gone for months at a time. It wouldn’t be the first. Only now, he’s going to have to learn the hard way of an act called letting go.

There were slips of transcripts his grandmother kept around the old house that he used to read. All those Chinese sayings about destiny, yuanfen, she called it. The idea of encounters not being all that random. and that certain intersections have been pre-authored into the margins of existence. Red strings, love locks, the Old Man of the Moon, the sort of things that make you think of magic. James had always found it a little too bogus to be true. And yet, if such a thing does exist, if yuanfen is by any bit operational at all, he hoped it would be on your side. 

“I hope you’re not taking that junky car with you–”

“Keep my Mustang out your mouth James.”

James can only smile at you in turn and think about that stupid car that started it all. He huffs a laugh and slides his leftover hashbrowns across the table. 

“You better eat it. Need to make up for the rice.” 

Your fork cuts through the food he’d offered as you take a big bite. “Alright.”

He hoped it would be you. 

Because then he wouldn’t have to worry in the end. Ten miles, a thousand, an ocean or two, it made no meaningful difference. Water returns to its level. Winds to their courses. You, he hoped, would return to him. Or he to you. 

The train ride back to Old Town Temecula had been as eventful in that it made your hairs stick out and your attention a little too heightened. You sat closely next to each other, as close as any two people could be. Looking around at everyone else, the old couple with their arms knotted together, the lonely guy just by the door, and behind him, a young pair stealing too many kisses as if they might run out, you realize nearly everyone’s got something of their own.

And while you were busy doing just that, James hovers his rough hand over your soft one lying on your side, doesn’t consider such consequences of it, and presses it down, nudging his fingers in between yours. They interlock much like zipper teeth. 

Just like your face, his hands stayed warm the whole train ride back, the way you had imagined often and always a little too vividly. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

James remembers the summers he’d spent in a plastic pool on Fridays, not a day over five. That, or when he’d spend them in Martin’s treehouse watching movies on the television they’d found at the back of a storefront. He remembers the heat pressed as close as another body, the exhilaration, the freedom to act his age. But this is the first summer he’s looked at a girl and almost scared himself to death from the guilt. Guilt, the word he uses to think less of his desire. But looking at you now, he could think of nothing more. 

This was the cruelest season of them all. 

“Do I look alright?” You ask from your vanity, turning just enough to catch James in the mirror who’s sprawled across your bed, hands folded behind his head. You’d waited until noon for your dad to leave for yet another fishing trip before sneaking James inside. It had been a successfully executed operation if you ignored the part where he nearly slipped off the roof and met an embarrassing end. The things James was willing to risk just to see his girl were far from limited. 

“Looks like it.”

“Seriously James?” You snap the cap back onto your lipstick with a sharp  click and move to the edge of the bed, bending down to slip on your shoes.  “Spent three hours getting ready for the date where you spent at most 10 seconds to ask me on. Some enthusiasm would be appreciated.”

Ah, but my throat’s all caught, Y/n. How could I say anything at all?

“You look great. Amazing. Your hair looks like a shiny toilet surface. Did you want that?”

The words came out clumsy on the way free. He had better ones, prettier ones lined up behind his teeth, but he was saving those for later.

“Thanks.”

For the better part, you suspected James had every intention of spending whatever time remained of your vacation planted firmly at your side. He’d developed this habit of appearing wherever you happened to be. Was he your boyfriend though? Absolutely not.

“I’m all ready. We should head out.”

But whether he was your boyfriend or not seemed beside the point, because when your ‘not boyfriend’ pushed himself upright, he once again tried his best to maintain composure and try not to tackle you back onto the mattress. You looked beautiful. Well you were always beautiful, but tonight you clearly made an occasion of it. The sight alone was enough to set James’ face ablaze.

“I’ll wait for you right here.” He said as he stood up, finding his way behind you so that he could whisper it in the shell of your ear. ‘Pretty, pretty lady’, to which you gave him a warm smile. His day opened up like a fruit under a knife. 

You hurry on downstairs, catching your mother in the kitchen. A quick goodbye, a promise that you’d be out with friends and come home late enough to warrant concern, but she let you go. James counted as a friend. Never to you, but technically, in the broadest possible sense, he was. You slipped outside and circled beneath your bedroom window, shielding your eyes from the rays as you looked up. James was perched on your sill like a disturbed cat. 

“Sight’s clear.” You announced in a stage whisper. James tried his best to wriggle out the window and grabbed for the nearby branch. There was a lot of rustling, a muffled curse, before he dropped to the patch fo grass with an unceremonious thud.

He brushed the dirt off his jeans, still catching his breath. “You seriously need to properly introduce me to your parents. I can’t keep this up.” 

“You don’t like sneaking up to my room?” You tease as you both make your way to where he parked the truck. Fixed, this time. You trust it to work. “That’s a shame. I happen to find it quite romantic.” 

“Try being on the climbing end, and you'll be thinking twice.” By the time James said it, the two of you had reached the clearing where the truck waited. A faint smile tugged at his mouth, as if the sight of it stirred up an old memory. You both scrambled inside, James fired up the engine, and the rock rolled forward. 

James figured that if he was gonna do this, he ought to do it properly. A real date, something with intention (and a lot of money) behind it. But time was proving itself annoyingly finite, so early afternoon would have to do. The sun was what brought you two together, so it seemed only right to make it a little centerpiece.  Besides, James liked you best in daylight. Not because you were any less lovely at night, but that daytime laid everything out to him in the clearest golden motions. Like citrus and canary yellow, sweet tea and dynamite. 

The drive pulls you farther into town, past the familiar corners and into the part with the nicer sidewalks. When James finally pulls up in front of a restaurant with gleaming windows and a valet service, you turn to look at him. He catched your stare and gave you that unreadable almost-smile, then shook his head. 

And dinner was wonderfully surreal. No boy had ever gone out of their way to take you someplace this nice out of their own volition. That was James all over, thoughtful in ways that would sneak up on you. He was so generous with you, honest too, and knew how to say the right things. He was also blessed, or perhaps cursed, with remarkable hands. One of the first things you’d learned about them was that they could fix almost anything put in front of them. The second was that, whenever given the chance, they were good at taking you apart. 

You saw it now too, as James sat across from you, laughing at every little thing you said. He did it with his whole body, as if his joy were too large to contain in something as small as his teethy grins. You found that he had the face of an old song, of one your mother liked to play through the record every morning. There is only so much considerable longing you can fit into the four minutes of a song. 

Halfway through your food, you suddenly remembered something, then quickly reached for your handbag.

“Oh! By the way…” James, who had been in the middle of demolishing a truly unfair amount of delicious clam shells, paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

You rummage through some receipts, a lip gloss, and maybe half your earthly possessions. At last, your hand emerged triumphantly, clutching a tiny plastic toy dog. 

“I wanted to give you this. Thought it looked like you.”  You placed it in his held out palm, and he turned it over in his fingers, brow furrowing. It was a small brown dog with oversized eyes and a permanently alert expression. Frankly, the ‘resemblance’ was confusing. 

“... What is it?”

“It’s a little pet, from the Littlest Pet Shop.” You said with all the reverence of introducing royalty. “I’ve been collecting them forever. They’re adorable, and look–” You reached over and tapped its head. It wobbled enthusiastically from side to side. James watched with captivation and held it up, examining it like an archeologist uncovering a priceless relic. 

“Thank you. Seriously. I could glue this down on my dashboard–”

Your expression turned murderous “Do not glue this anywhere, James. These are precious things. I expect you to care for this as your own child.” James nodded solemnly, and then cradled the little dog in both hands.

“Gotcha.” 

The little dog, Doudou, as James had named him (brown rice), sat perched beside the salt shaker keeping a vigilant eye on the proceedings. The restaurant had filled in around over the last few hours, and sunlight spilled through the windows, catching the rims of glasses and turning everything faintly sparkling. James had loosened up considerably, which was to say he kept taking unwanted bites of your cake, denying your every retort. 

“Hey–” You fought his fork away from your plate with your own. “You should’ve ordered another earlier. This is criminal.”

He shrugged unrepentant and took another piece. “Possession is only nine-tenths of the law, by the way.”

You pointed a fork at him accusingly. “One day James, your hubris will be your downfall.”

His smile was enough to make you forget whatever mean thing you’d been preparing to say. Eventually though, perhaps it was the angle of the light, or how your eyes drifted toward the window, again and again, that had James wondering yet again.

He sets his fork down. “What’s wrong?”

“You think we've been here long enough?” You asked.

A brow lifted. “Why? You wanna leave?” You glanced out at the lowering sun, and the sky beginning its slow descent, and nodded. 

“Yeah.” A small smile tugged at your mouth. “I wanna see the sun before it sets.” 

And so the bill was paid, Doudou was safely secured in James’ jacket pocket, and within minutes you were back in the truck, the engine rumbling to life from beneath you. 

The truck heads a little towards the edge of town and uphill, and the field beyond steals the breath right out of you. It rolls outward in waves of tall grass and dandelion silk, all gold and green and dreamlike as you both got out.

And though you dress was never made for such things, you run straight down the slope, the ground catching you in a fit of laughter as you fall to your side. James could only shout for you as you rolled on down. 

The sun had reached the ruinous hour when it seemed time to finally spend itself entirely. It scattered light all over, and it made you think of beauty and whether grass stains ever truly came out. James, for his part, felt his insides turn over like a drawer being searched. The land went on and on, exceeding the eye and all good manner. Yet for all that breadth, all that open country, he need only lower his eyes. 

You lay there on the grass with the last of the sun’s rays tangled in between your hair, smiling up at him from the same green earth that had made him, had made trees and rivers and every other ordinary miracle, and seen fit, had placed you here before him. And what is another miracle if not this?

“Please don’t do that ever again.” 

“Come–!”

You tug him by the hand and pull, and the two of you roll a little further down the slope in a tangle of hair, fabric, and breathless laughter. James has to gather your hair away from your face and disentangle it from your mouth just so he can kiss you properly, and fold himself around you like an unblooming flower. 

And when he looks at you after, he wants, wants, and wants some more. Against all the reasonably unreasonable forces. To be yours. To be of you and for you. To make a home somewhere in the crook of your neck or the dip in your chest, the two places where your heartbeat is clearest.

“My dress is all ruined.”

“I’ll buy you a new one, how does that sound?”

“You oughta just buy me a new car.” A joke, obviously. But James asks the question anyway.

“Will you like that?”

You both commit to a very spontaneous decision, and James is grateful he had the intuition to keep a clean blanket in his truck beforehand. The sun sets, and by the time the stars had gone up, he slid open the sun roof upon your request. In the blinking machinery of the darkness above, James points out plants like he’s naming his old acquaintances, then offers you the strange superstitions he collected as a child.

Then you fall asleep right there, wrapped in a blanket on the backseat of his father's truck while the stars slip down like a drawn curtain over the world. James stays awake and keeps vigil through the night, held up by the weight against his chest and the soft cadence of your breathing, borrowing from it a calm he’s yet to learn to keep for himself. 

A little later into morning, he drives the coastal road that leads home. And he pulls into that same clearing again, and lifts you carefully from the passenger seat. He reaches for your purse with the key to your front door, and lets himself i as quietly as he can. Inside, he moves slowly and watches his every step so the floorboards won’t creak. He takes the stairs just as carefully, until he makes it to your room without a suspecting soul there to catch him. 

He lowers you onto your bed gently, and you sink into your mattress much like he does as he follows, dropping down beside you to fit himself right into the sprawl of your limbs. His breath is warm where it brushes your skin, his nose tingling where it touches yours. 

“Wake up, little lady.” He murmurs, voice still rough with groginess..” You want me to clean you up??”

“Later…” You mumble. “Stop calling me that.”

“I’ll leave you be.” He shifts a lot closer, if being closer was still possible. “I need to head off to the shop.”

Your fingers crumple slightly around his sleeve. “Stay a while.” 

“How long did you want this while to be?” He looks at you earnestly, as he looks for a similarly earnest answer. 

The morning light slides further in through the curtains, catching on the edges of your hair, the folds of the blanket, and James grants himself a moment.

“A long kind of while.” 

He couldn’t say no to that. 

Later that afternoon, at the shop when James is helping adjust something from under the hood of a car, his dad’s sights narrowed onto that small dog figurine sitting new and unfitting on the counter next to the piles of papers and blueprints.

“What the hell is that thing?” He finally asks.

James doesn’t even need to look up from where he’s looking to know what he was referring to. “It’s a dog.”

“This yours?”

“Gift.”

“Whatever for?”

James tightens a bolt a little too firmly and scoffs, a tiny sign of a grin pulling at his face. “It’s normal to receive gifts dad.”

His father exhales through his nose unimpressedly. “Well this looks like a gift you give to a girl, and you ain't one.”

James wipes his ands on his stained jeans and turns to grab Doudou. From the counter, he quickly settles him onto the workbench, one he shared with his dad. Out of some half-assed spite that made him want to laugh, he turns to him and points at Doudou the dog. “Just deal with the damn toy.” 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Your mom has been trying not to cry since you’d went downstairs with your bags, which only made her more talkative as she circled around the same three instructions: study well, eat properly, wash your sheets when you get back. 

“And don’t forget to call, okay?” she says again, holding your hands like an anchor. You wanted to die of embarrassment because James was standing right at the front door. 

“I’ll be back before you know it, Ma.” you answer as you lean in to kiss her cheek. Your dad stands a little behind her, arms crossed trying not to be part of the emotional fiasco happening in front of him. He clears his throat when James shifts from where he stands.

“You’re always taking her off to places, huh.” 

“I’m getting her to the airport, Mr. L/n.” James tries to feign nonchalance, and your dad buys it cluelessly. Your mom finally lets you go, stepping back with a long look like she’s trying to memorize your face. When you turn back, James helps you haul your things out the door. As you start walking away, he glances at you sideways.

“You think your dad's softening up to me?” 

“He lets you in my room now. With the door closed, mind you. That’s gotta be it.”

The car ride was quiet. James didn’t know what to say for once, so he kept his eyes on the road, fingers drumming lightly against the steering wheel. He watched the streets roll by, the stoplight changing, strangers crossing intersections, and the usual moving on of life. 

By the time the airport came into view, James pulled into an empty space near the terminal entrance, close enough that he could spot the steady stream of travelers coming and going, departures, arrivals, reunions, the like.  He killed the engine, and you carefully unbuckled your seatbelt. James glances over at you, then quickly away, and back again. You folded your arms across your chest and turned to meet his gaze. 

“You have my new number saved right?”

“Yeah I do.”

“And you'll call?”

“I’ll call you when you arrive.”

James looks at you and catches something small and uneasy. He shifts in his seat and leans over the console. “What’s wrong?”

You look out the windshield for a moment. And once you seem like you’ve made up your mind about something, you lean in as well, and kiss James breathless. 

When you pull back, James looks struck, and a laugh seeps out of you. “I’ll let you be my boyfriend now.”

James thinks fucking finally. He’s waited this long. 

“You could’ve made the decision a little earlier, no?”

You give him a look of fake compassion and press your foreheads together. “We sure still had a good time.”

We sure did. 

“I’ll see you in a few months.”

He’ll certainly remember the way you would sing that godforsaken song, Shape of My Heart by Sting over and over, every time it was on the radio. And he wonders what shape his heart would prove to be (thank you Gordon Sumner) if you were to cut him open and take a peak. He would have to explain it to you then, if he could find the words:

Love, yes, he had love, and felt it in these accruals.  The way limestone was his peculiar little architect, building cathedrals in his mind out of the most ordinary memories. You’d be lodged to the base like a seed in a seam splitting ground and stone. Or maybe he’d be changing oil, or turning a wrench, and there you’d be again, threaded through the gears smiling from between its teeth.

The shape of his heart: an endless concept to think about. 

When he drives home, the seat is empty beside him. Somewhere above, his heart has slipped its moorings and gone migrating an inch closer to yours, just a few thousand miles away. And from where you were, you held the same bit of hopefulness, your measure of passing slowly turning into a clockwise cycle of before James, after James, and the exquisite ache of wanting for James again. 

Summer made conspirators of everyone. The trees would lean closer, the sun softened the pavement. Time, to most, could stretch themselves as thin as caramel. But summer has ended, so he’d have to stick to a memory on his way back. 

And the town could forget your tire tracks by autumn. Rain will smooth it over and leaves will litter over green and brown. James, though, knows he won’t. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

(BONUS)

A few months later, James steps into the auto lot the way he’s done a hundred times before. Rust, oil, hot metal, everything baked under the sun and layered into the air to smell. Rick sits on the hood of a sedan, half-slouched and wiping grease off his hands with a towel.

“Morning Rick.”

“Hey!” Rick waves, squinting at him and then the car he’s got. “Whatchu here for? What’s with the Mustang?”

“Here to scrape it. It’s done its time.”

Rick gives a low whistle, hopping down from the hood and eyeing the Mustang down. “Ah, then you'll have yourself a good deal for it. I’ll say.”

And that’s all James was really here for, really. To grant your one wish as though it were a dying one. It left him confused in some way, he’d have to admit. You loved that car. He hadn’t expected you to let go of it the moment you left.

Yet the poor thing had exhausted all of its potential by the time you were done with it, so the junk or resale was the next best thing.

Rick jerks his thumb toward a corner of the lot. “Oh these just came in.” He walks them over.

“They’re not brand new, but it’s solid condition. Engines clean, suspensions intact, minor wear on the bushings but nothing too big The boss man’s thinking of flipping ‘em for a nice penny.”

Theres a Toyota Prado sitting right at the corner, boxy and grounded, and built to take on dirt. James takes a closer look.

“Try and sell this one to me, will ya Rick? C’mon, advertise.” 

Rick raises a brow. “You don’t want that truck no more, huh?”

“‘S not for me.”

He looks at the mustang, that vehicle of memories he was so adamant on talking you out of scraping. A good gift, huh? 

“I’ll take it.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Well — doomed might have been an exaggerated way to phrase it, but it certainly felt that way when you were standing in the middle of what used to be your bedroom. Renovating your apartment didn’t necessarily mean you were knee deep into damnation, sure, but it was definitely up there with the list of inconveniences that made you rethink every decision you’d supposedly made with confidence.

You started out in this place four years ago, back when splitting rent with a flatmate was the only way to survive college without selling your organs on the internet. You moved out of your parents’ house with a cardboard box of belongings and a stubborn idea that you could do everything on your own. You subsisted on project work, internships, weekend shifts, tutoring jobs that paid in both cash and headaches. Thankfully, you had the scholarship money that kept your tuition from eating your rent alive.

Crazy thing is, that somehow landed you a well-paying job the moment graduation ended, and because you had the good sense your friends often accused you of weaponizing, you saved every extra penny you could. You were socking away paychecks the way other people hoarded takeout receipts. 

That frugality paid off in the most unexpected way when your landlord announced he was getting married, moving abroad, and— oh, right — selling the apartment! And as if the universe wanted to make the choice painfully convenient, your flatmate had moved out just two weeks prior to your landlord's news without so much as a goodbye party. You had waved while thinking of managing the extra rent money and how nice it would be to have the place under your name.

You were served the choice on a silver fucking platter. 

The apartment was Pinterest perfect and it was everything you had ever wanted — light that fell the way soft film light does in pictures, a ten-minute commute to your office, a block of quiet shops where you’d learned the barista by name. And the price was not a fantasy number.

So naturally, you bought it. Papers signed, small celebratory drinks taken, and spent the next few days internally screaming at the idea that you now owned property. You — who once didn’t know how to cook rice without Googling it — now legally possessed a piece of real estate. It made you feel simultaneously grown-up and like an imposter in someone else’s adult life. 

It should have been the high point of a long series of sensible choices; the problem, however, was that you had never owned a place before and therefore had no earthly idea that buying an apartment sometimes meant getting a call from the building manager about structural inspections and code compliance. You called your mother later asking for directions, and she laughed at your face before ending the call. How fun!

Not to mention, you had overlooked the single most vital part of the process that you wouldn’t be allowed to live there during the particularly loud, dusty parts of the work; you had overlooked the two-week window of demo and piping and men in fluorescent vests; you had overlooked, most catastrophically, the implication that you needed somewhere to sleep until the hammering stopped.

So yes, doomed was performative, but not untrue.

But see, you had wanted this and you’d earned it. You were also suddenly, gloriously, alarmingly unprepared for the practicalities of owning a place, which was its own kind of chaotic humility. The next logical step was obvious, of course, find a roof for a few nights. Preferably one that didn’t come with the word “hotel.” Preferably one that involved fewer fluorescent vests.

And that, by the mercy of a long-standing friendship who always returned your favors, is how the idea of crashing at Yeonjun’s — because he insisted, and because it was safe, and because your floors were about to sound like the inside of a drum — suddenly stopped being a Plan B and became the only plan you could live with.

Your lord and saviour — Choi Yeonjun — rolled up in his car on the morning of the renovation day. This dude knew when to flaunt style, stepping out of the car like some movie hero wearing sunglasses as he spotted you. A smirk and a cock of his eyebrows as he waved at you, to which your smile painfully twitched at the edges, threatened to snap into an actual scowl, while your brain did the rapid-fire calculation of whether your neighbors had the misfortune of witnessing his stupid ass and embarrassing actions. 

“Do I carry your baby first?” he called, pointing finger guns at the potted plant in your hands before pivoting one finger toward you. “Or do I carry my baby first—oomf!”

Whatever punchy line he had prepared died in a strangled squeak as you shoved the plant into his chest to make him stumble backward, his sunglasses sliding down his nose. A perfectly orchestrated disaster in slow motion. You spun away before he could weaponize his cheshire grin.

“Less talking, more helping,” you said over your shoulder. “Handle her gently. She’s seen things.”

Ushering your friend to carefully place the plant at the back of his car, you punctuated all your words and actions with a grateful, charming smile. If he was going to give you a roof over your head until your apartment came back to life, you had to be nice to him, right?

Of course, you knew deep down you didn’t have to act nice. Yeonjun had always been that friend who would show up at your door the moment you even hinted at a problem. Hard times, awkward situations, you name it — he’d be there. There was no hesitation, no ‘let me see if I can help’, no calculating pause to gauge if you deserved it. Sure, you poked fun at each other relentlessly, a constant volley of teasing and one-upmanship that made your friendship a delicate dance of ego and affection but beyond the teasing, beyond the sarcasm, beyond all the jabs that left you both laughing or wanting to rip each other’s head off, Yeonjun had seamlessly morphed into something more permanent than a childhood friend — he was family.

Still, him being so unnervingly well-behaved, so obedient and agreeable, without the faintest attempt at pissing you off was… suspicious. You told yourself to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just in a good mood! But the longer it went one, the more unsettling it became. He didn't let you lift a single thing, intercepting every bag before your hand even reached for them. He even opened the car door for you, palm resting on the roof like a gentleman so you wouldn’t bump your head. Strike two.

Then, when he mentioned taking you out for breakfast before heading to his place, it was the third streak of suspicious behavior that made your internal skeptic raise a fist. Now as a person he was polite, yes. He held doors open for strangers, tipped generously, helped aunties carry groceries without being asked. Yeonjun was a lot of things but being a gentleman with you? He had never once been this much of a gentleman around you, not in the entire twenty-plus years you’d known him. 

When he pulled your chair out for you at the cafe, you stopped pretending it wasn’t weird. This was either a setup or a prank.

You cut into your croissant sandwich, flakes scattering across the plate, you threw him a look that could slice steel.

“Yeonjun.” your tone was deceptively light.

He hummed, eyes flicking toward you over the rim of his cup.

“What the fuck aren’t you telling me?”

He inhaled and choked immediately, coffee spraying into the wrong pipe, eyes watering as he grabbed for a napkin. You watched, smiling unbothered as he coughed and wheezed across from you. Someone a table over glanced at him with concern. You smiled at them too.

“God,” he rasped, dabbing at his chin, “can you be a little civil when you speak?”

“Can you noy lie by omission?” you countered, pointing your fork at him. “That face you've been making since you picked me up, and the way you’re acting, all these tell me that you did some shit and expected me to not notice.”

He pressed his lips together, debating whether to deflect or confess. But he deflated real quick under the way you were looking at him. “Okay. It's nothing bad, really.”

“I’ll decide after I hear it.”

“There’s… uh, my cousin. He’s staying over at my place for a bit.”

You paused mid-chew. Ah. That cousin. The name didn't even need to be spoken; you knew exactly which cousin he meant. The same one who used to show up at every family dinner when you and Yeonjun were kids. He was someone you found either tolerable or exhausting depending on the year. You didn’t mind him — but it did mean one thing.

“He’s in your guest room,” you said, not accusing so much as confirming it out loud.

“Yeah,” Yeonjun replied, exhaling through his nose. He pushed his cup aside and scrubbed a hand over his mouth like he was rewinding the morning to find a better entry point. “The spare’s his for now but he’s leaving in three days. I should’ve told you earlier, I know, but—” He cut himself off, rubbing his face. “I didn’t want you stressing more. And I didn’t want you trying to figure out somewhere else and ending up somewhere sketchy because you didn’t want to inconvenience me.”

You ran through the alternatives you already knew would fail. It was nearly Christmas; most of your friends were out of town for the holidays, parents were too far to make daily check-ins on the renovation feasible, and hotels were a financial joke you weren’t in the mood to entertain. 

Inconvenient as it was, he had a point.

You sighed, shaking your head once, eyes lifting back to him. “No, you’re right,” you said finally, tone even, “that this is genuinely the least terrible option I have.”

The relief that crossed his face was immediate and, frankly, humiliating. “I’ll make it up to you.” He paused, frowned, then added, “I already am, technically. Breakfast. Transportation. Emotional support. I feel like those are solid offerings.”

“Don’t push it,” you muttered, snorting as you reached back for your food, nudging a fallen flake of pastry aside with your fingertip before taking another bite. You chewed slowly, watching him as you half-expected another shoe to drop. Thank god he didn’t let it. 

Instead, he straightened in his chair, suddenly looking earnest in a way that made you wary.

“Seriously, though,” he said, clasping his hands together on the table. “You won’t feel uncomfortable, I promise. You will take my room. I’ll crash on the couch. It’s fine. I’ve slept on worse. Floors. Airport chairs. That one time in the back of a van or—” he paused, lifting a finger as a better idea struck him mid-sentence, “—I can even stay in my cousin’s room. He owes me. For, like, several things. Some of them are crimes.”

“Yeah, I don't wanna know about the last one,” you spoke solemnly, giving him a long look. Still, you were surprised by how carefully he was laying it out, as though he were afraid one wrong word might tip the balance. “Also, no, that won't be necessary,” you said, shaking your head as you felt bad when he mentioned giving up his bed. “I trust you, Yeonjun. And I’m grateful you even thought this far ahead for me.”

He nodded quickly, like he’d expected resistance. “I know. I just—listen, I don’t want you lying awake wondering if you’re being a problem. You’re not, and you’ll never be.” He reached across the table then, nudging your plate closer when he noticed you’d drifted away from it.

A funny sort of silence dawned upon you two. You gave him another long look. He returned it to you. 

“Yeonjun,” you whispered, leaning forward with your nose scrunching as if you’d just bitten into something unexpectedly sour. “This whole formality thing is getting weird. Like, physically uncomfortable.” 

He gave a long sigh of relief then leaned in too. “Right? I thought I was losing my mind, but no. No, this is wrong,” he whispered back, eyes comically wide. He dragged a hand down his arm, shivering. “It’s like my body knows this isn’t how we talk and it’s protesting.” He paused, then added scandalously, “I hate it.”

“See, this is why I like you, Jjunie. We’re always on the same page. Always,” you said in a sing-song voice. You nudged his foot lightly with your shoe under the table, not bothering to look down. “Besides, I would've kicked your ass if you hadn’t given me your place to crash.”

“Please,” he scoffed, lifting his cup for a sip. “You wouldn’t have gotten the chance. My mom would’ve beaten you to it the moment she found out.” He shook his head, setting the cup down with a soft clink. “I can hear it already. ‘You had space and you let her struggle?’ Best believe I’d be dead.”

You resumed eating as you said, “I love your mom, Jun.”

Too focused on the sudden call from one of your leading renovating workers, you failed to notice the soft smile playing on his face. And somewhere in that moment, Yeonjun raised his mug, hiding whatever had crossed his face before you could catch it.

You barely made it past the threshold before Joonho’s arms banded around your shoulders with zero regard for physics, personal space, or the fact that you were well into your late twenties and not, in fact, a long-lost child returning from war.

The air left your lungs in a sharp rush as he squeezed, voice booming against the side of your head as he marvelled loudly at how much you’d grown, how long it had been, how he couldn’t believe you were standing here now. You returned the enthusiasm in theory only, patting his back and waiting it out as you knew resistance would only prolong the ordeal.

Oxygen was becoming a fond memory when your mental plea was answered not by Joonho, but by Yeonjun, who caught the back of his cousin’s shirt and hauled him away in one smooth motion until Yeonjun deposited him a respectable distance away. His palm still fisted in cotton like he was restraining an overexcited dog.

“Hands to yourself,” Yeonjun said mildly.

“I was welcoming her.”

“There are better ways to do that. You’re in her space, dipshit.”

Yeonjun released him, then turned to you without missing a beat, eyes flicking over your face once. He reached down, plucked your bag from beside your feet before you could argue, and slung it over his shoulder. “Come on.”

As you were about to follow him down the short hall, you paused only when Joonho snickered behind you.

“Big fan of whatever this is,” he said, gesturing vaguely between the two of you.

You glanced back at him, then at Yeonjun’s retreating figure, and decided not to make an effort to investigate. Joonho had always lived on a frequency you never quite tuned into, always spoken in sideways implications, even when you were younger. And you’d learned long ago that dissecting his words rarely led anywhere useful. Whatever he thought he was observing could remain his own private entertainment.

Yeonjun kept his promise and then some; fresh sheets stretched tight across the bed, pillowcases crisp and smooth beneath your fingers, the whole space scrubbed of any trace that it had been occupied the night before. It did not look like a guest setup hastily arranged out of obligation.

He had opened the wardrobe as well, sliding hangers aside and clearing a section that was conspicuously empty for you to keep your clothes. Yeonjun stepped back for you and leaned against the wardrobe, folding his arms as he watched you unzip your bag and begin sorting through its contents.

“You didn’t need to bring clothes, though,” he mentioned offhandedly, glancing toward the open bag as you reached for another sweater. “You could’ve just worn mine.”

You snorted, crouching lower to fish out a pair of folded jeans, smoothing them over your thigh before placing them away. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘feeling comfortable in your own skin’?” you asked, tipping your head to look at him. “Hmm?”

He shifted his stance, one heel tapping lightly against the floor as his mouth curved and he caught his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’m fairly certain that phrase is meant to imply a totally different thing, but—”

“What I mean,” you cut in, rising to your feet with the drawer sliding shut under your palm, “is that you’ve already done more than enough.” You turned fully toward him then, hand still resting on it as if to brace the point. “You don’t need to keep adding to it or be stressed on my behalf.”

“Not stressed,” he murmured, pushing off the wardrobe and reaching past you to close the doors. The motion boxing you in for a second too long to ignore before he stepped back again. “And it’s not really extra effort.”

The evidence of his earlier feline grin was long gone. What replaced it didn’t look like seriousness so much as absence, a rare unreadable look that felt oddly out of character. 

“I just like seeing you in my clothes.”

The startling absence of empty flirtiness in his voice made your heart do a bewildered lurch. These words and antics from Yeonjun were not new to you. You had heard variations of that line before, over the years, reshaped and repackaged into jokes you both knew how to handle. This time, there was no such padding.

Scoffing, you stepped into his space planting both hands on his shoulders and turning him bodily toward the door. “Why, because they look better on me than on you?” you said lightly, nudging him forward as you laughed, giving him a final push toward the hallway. “Careful, might steal your fame as the best dressed person in every room.”

“Going ahead of yourself is, unfortunately, a flaw you should really work on—hey, ouch,” he cut himself off with a sharp hiss when you pinched the back of his arm in retaliation, turning back to glare at you over his shoulder. He tried to maintain dignity while rubbing at the spot, but the effect was ruined by the way his mouth pulled into a sulk. “That was uncalled for. Absolutely unprovoked.”

“That’s for the slander,” you said, unrepentant.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, holding his arm with pursed lips. “I open my home, my wardrobe, my heart—”

“Door,” you calmly corrected, pointing.

Thankfully whatever foreign feeling that had momentarily settled in your heart got promptly flattened by the delight you got from his reaction. With a sulking and pouting yeonjun finally leaving you alone, you unpacked taking your time. The rest of the day dissolved into motion with trips back and forth from your apartment, calls with the renovation team, photos sent, questions answered, decisions made until your head felt heavy. By the time night settled in properly, exhaustion had worked its way into your bones.

The boys floated the idea of a movie night. You declined without much thought. Yeonjun caught on immediately with just one look at you, shut Joonho off before he could protest himself hoarse, shooing you toward the hallway with an insistence that you rest. You mumbled goodnight to both of them and retreated into his room.

Sleeping anywhere other than your own bed usually left you staring at the ceiling, counting phantom shadows and waiting for rest that never quite came. You expected the same here. But despite the unfamiliarity of the space, the familiarity of his scent clinging to the subspaces clouded your senses and soon enough, lulled you into a gentle, dreamless sleep. 

You woke to the smell before you were fully awake. Hunger nudged you down the hall and into the kitchen, where roasted beef and coffee welcomed you all at once. Yeonjun stood at the counter with a paper bag torn open, unpacking takeout containers one by one. He lined them up with his sleeves pushed to his elbows, hair still flattened in odd directions from sleep. He glanced over when you shuffled in, his mouth curving into a soft acknowledgment.

“Morning,” he said, nudging a coffee cup closer to the machine. “You sleep all right?”

You answered with a nod and stepped closer, close enough that your arm brushed his. Closer still, until you leaned into him and let your cheek rest against the solid warmth of his bicep, your eyes half-closing as you watched his hands work. You thought you felt him stiffen for a nano moment, not really putting much thought behind it when he resumed his flow of work. He was humming under his breath.

“Smells… insane,” you murmured, the words arriving late and dragged out of sleep as you reached for a fry before nibbling on it with little care for manners.

He glanced down at you, then at the fry between your fingers, and nudged the plate an inch farther from the counter’s edge with his knuckle. “You’re going to tip over,” he said, not stopping what he was doing.

“Mm,” you answered, voice muffled where it pressed into his shirt as you shifted closer instead of backing off. “Food’s taking too long. I’m supervising. Very hands-on position.”

“Ahh, important role,” he humoured you dryly. “If I mess this up, I assume there’s a formal complaint process?”

“Immediate termination,” you said, reaching for another fry and bumping his forearm in the process. “Start over. New kitchen. New cook.”

Footsteps approached, heavier and less considerate than yours had been. Joonho filled the doorway with a stretch and a yawn, pausing mid-motion when his eyes landed on the picture you made leaning into Yeonjun’s side.

“Wow,” he said, blinking once as if his brain needed a second pass. “Good morning to… this,” he added.

You didn’t bother lifting your head. “Morning to you too,” you said, reaching blindly for a fork and tapping it against the counter in his direction. “If you’re going to stare, at least make yourself useful.”

Yeonjun took the opportunity to gently step away, sliding a plate into your hands in the same motion. “Sit down,” he told you, gesturing toward the chair. “I’ll get you your coffee.”

Joonho snorted, grabbing a sandwich and already taking a bite. “Funny to see you two play house in your grown age.”

You dropped into the chair, blinking up at them both. “I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours. Calm down.”

“Twenty-four hours is plenty,” Joonho replied, reaching for the napkins and dragging the whole stack toward himself. “People have made worse life decisions faster.”

Yeonjun clicked his tongue under his breath as he poured the coffee, before sliding it across the counter toward you without looking. “Like how you once agreed to a group trip after knowing people for twelve hours, Joonho? Should I remind you that financial recovery took months?” he said, giving his cousin a flat look. 

You wrapped both hands around the mug the second it reached you. The heat pressed into your palms as you leaned back in the chair. Your eyes drifted between them while the kitchen filled with their cacophonies of back-and-forth jabs. You smiled to yourself because some things truly never change.

That noon found you folded into the corner of the couch with your laptop balanced on your thighs as you sorted through your work emails. Joonho had left the house an hour ago, and Yeonjun had mentioned — almost in passing — that he’d shower before heading out to work. You reached for your phone to cross-check a note and came up empty-handed, the absence registering slowly and you frowned after patting the cushion beside you, then the coffee table, then the pocket of your cardigan. You then remembered that you’d set it down on Yeonjun’s bed earlier, right before you wandered back out to the living room with your coffee.

You could still hear the water running so you figured announcing yourself wasn't necessary as you nudged his door open with your shoulder, eyes already sweeping the bed in search of your phone. Spotting it near the pillow you crossed the room quickly, you grabbed it just as the bathroom door opened behind you.

Yeonjun stepped out with a towel thrown over one shoulder, skin still dewy and sweatpants riding low on his hips, droplets tracing idle paths down his chest as he scrubbed at his hair with the towel. His movements were thoughtless until his gaze lifted and landed on you, stalling mid-rub.

“Oh—” The word left you only after you looked up from the bed and actually took him in, phone clutched loosely in your hand. “Sorry. I was just grabbing my phone. I didn’t think you’d be out yet.”

He scrambled to make a sound that sounded like it had been meant as a laugh and didn’t quite make it. Shifting his stance he hooked his thumb into the waistband of his sweatpants and tugged them a fraction higher. He turned away a little like he was giving you space.

“No, it’s—yeah. You’re fine,” he replied.

Now, the only sensible option would have been to retrieve your phone and retreat, to give your friend of over two decades space to finish getting dressed, right? You were about to do it, you swear. Yet, your feet stalled where they were and your attention stayed anchored on him in a way that felt mildly inconvenient because while Yeonjun shirtless was hardly a new visual in the long archive of your shared history (memories stacked with sunburnt afternoons and public pools, shared vacations involving Yeonjun shirtless in some capacity, borrowed shirts tossed at your face) — none of that had ever felt strange. The version of him standing there now carried angles and proportions your memory lagged behind on.

You knew he worked out; you’d heard him complain about sore muscles, had teased him about protein shakes crowding the fridge, endured the commentary about macros and sleep cycles with the indulgence reserved for habits that had always been his. None of this was new. But, what was new was the geometry of him now. Your brain took an extra second to update its internal file on him around the fact that his body no longer matched the version it had filed away a few months ago — definition etched where there used to be softness, shoulders carrying a broader span, and that he looked… bigger, in a way that demanded attention.

“Did you—” you began, then paused, redirecting mid-thought as your gaze traced the shallow grooves along his stomach while he shifted to face you. “Have you been working out lately? Because —” you gestured at him, gaze openly evaluative in a way that had never felt off-limits between you. “— holy shit. You look big.”

His mouth curved before he could stop it, teeth flashing in a brief, reflexive grin as he glanced down at himself, then back at you. “Yeah,” he said, bracing one hip against the edge of the dresser, the motion pulling a subtle flex through his torso. “I’ve been more consistent. Work’s been a lot lately, so I figured I’d channel it somewhere useful.”

“Makes sense,” you murmured, already closing the remaining space, your curiosity steering you forward with no sense of consequence, fingers pressing into his upper arm. You squeezed once, then again, brows knitting with genuine interest. Even when he wasn't flexing, his muscles were so well defined that it almost resembled a sculpture, so tenderly pleasing to the eye. “Damn,” you added softly to yourself. “This couldn’t have been easy to get.”

You were standing so close that the residual warmth from the shower still rolling off him reached you without effort, bleeding into the small space between you. He drew a breath through his nose, shoulders lifting and lowering with it as he adjusted his footing again, fingers regripping the towel. “It wasn’t,” there was pure honesty in the way he spoke. “It did take a while, almost gave up halfway through. Hasn't been easy, yeah.”

“The hard work definitely paid off, Jun. You look incredible.” You hummed, still distracted and testing the muscle under your thumb, then gave a small nod like you’d reached a satisfying conclusion. “I mean, you could probably pick me up and toss me across the room if you wanted.”

You looked up only after the sentence cleared your mouth, catching the way he cocked a brow as his gaze dropped to your hand and then climbed back to your face. The flush at his ears looked deeper up close, spreading across his cheekbones that made you briefly wonder if the water had been hotter than usual, because surely that had to be it. A corner of his mouth slowly tipped upward, and he leaned in just enough for heat to register.

“You’d like that, huh?”

There was a sudden flip that rippled through your stomach as your fingers flexed around his muscle, and you were acutely aware of how close he was now —  you could count the faint freckles at his shoulder, close enough that your gaze traced down his chest before you caught yourself and brought it back up, a strange recalibration happening as your mind still struggled to place this version of him into a category that made sense.

It wasn’t that he looked different so much as the fact that you were seeing him differently… again. Noticing proportions, noticing presence, noticing how little distance there actually was between you, and the awareness made your breath hitch to be baffling and — oh, god. You must've been crazy.

Whatever this moment was, it stretched past its welcome before he was the one to break it, stepping away with a quick motion. That sent a ripple of cooler air across your skin as he reached for the shirt draped over the chair, pulling it on with brisk efficiency. You let air fill your lungs once more.

“Anyway,” he said, already moving past you toward the hall, grabbing his wallet from the counter as he glanced in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ve gotta head out and do the grocery run. Joonho’s dead set on cooking tonight, so I can’t bail out.”

And by the time you could come up with a properly formed sentence, the main door’s closing sound echoed through the house. You stood there in the middle of the room, phone clutched between your fingers as you frowned and shook your head once, then again, like that might settle whatever had been stirred loose. But it didn't shake off the jittery feelings still infesting your insides.

Joonho came back not long after Yeonjun left. Tossing his keys lazily onto the counter he announced that his boss had apparently decided that becoming a new father was reason enough to let everyone clock out early, which you accepted with polite skepticism until he held up a paper bag sagging with baked goods. He unloaded the story between bites of custard-filled bread and sips of tea. That is until the sugar crash nudged you back toward responsibility and your laptop, relocating yourself on the dining table while Joonho occupied the sofa.

You’d barely settled back into work when your phone buzzed, Yeonjun’s name lighting up the screen. You answered, shoulder tilting to pin the phone there as you scanned a line of text on your screen.

“Hey,” you said absently, typing.

“Okay, quick question,” he started, and there was a gravity to his tone that made you squint, “I need you to tell me if this sounds right.”

That alone was concerning. 

“Okay,” you encouraged. “Go on.”

“There’s this packet of red chillies,” he continued, voice careful, “five pieces. Thirty thousand won per pound. That’s… normal, right?”

Your fingers stopped moving. Your brain, for a brief and merciful second, did too.

Thirty thousand for five fucking chillies.

The neurons in your head cycled through the numbers once, twice, like a buffering screen, searching desperately for context that would make this sentence make sense. Because surely this was a joke, or he had misread the tag, or Yeonjun was annoying you on purpose. Yes. That had to be it.

Choi Yeonjun could not possibly be standing in a grocery store, contemplating financial ruin over five sad little chillies. He was a grown man with a job and a functioning life. He could not possibly be asking you, with sincerity, whether five chillies were worth that much money.

“You—” you began, then stopped, unable to form a proper speech, “where did you even find five chillies for thirty thousand?”

From the couch, Joonho muted the television without looking at you, his attention suddenly razor-focused on the conversation.

On the other end, you heard the rustle of plastic. “It’s this stall near the entrance. Oh, they’re imported,” Yeonjun said, as if that explained everything.“They look good. Like, actually good. Not wrinkly. And the guy says they’re fresh.”

You closed your eyes and pinched the bridge of your nose, exhaling through your mouth. Fresh. That was his defense. Okay, so maybe the frontal lobe development had, in fact, skipped a step.

“Yeonjun,” you said, voice still level. “Why are you even standing there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why are you considering it?” You were now rising from your chair and beginning to pace. “Yeonjun, please listen to me. This is how people get scammed. Put them back.”

“You sure?” he asked, genuine concern threading his voice. “Because they look really—”

“No, no, no. Why are you still standing there? I’m begging you to use your brain for two seconds and put that back,” you cut in, stopping short by the window before beginning to pace again.

There was a beat of silence on the other end, followed by a faint shuffle.

“Are you freaking out about the price?” he asked, trying to soothe you. “It’s okay, I can afford it.”

You stopped walking. You were about to need more patience than this.

“That’s not the point!” you snapped, words tumbling out faster now. “The point is that just because you can afford to get scammed doesn’t mean you should. Do you know how much chilli powder you could buy with that? Paste! An entire plant! You could grow your own for that money.”

“Okay, but these are whole—”

“No!” you cried out with an exasperated sigh. “No, don’t ‘whole’ me. This is not about whole versus powdered. This is about you standing in a market, looking at five vegetables, and thinking, yeah, this seems reasonable.”

“Alright, alright.” He laughed softly, the sound carrying through the line. It felt funny in your chest. “No need to panic.”

“I’m being practical,” you shot back, dragging a hand through your hair. “There’s a difference. Please. I’m asking you. Step away from the chillies.”

“I’ll then get some paste.”

“Yes,” you said immediately, collapsing back into your chair. “Or powder. Or nothing. Honestly, nothing is preferable to this.”

The call ended not long after, Yeonjun promising to text you before buying anything else, and you let your phone drop into your lap, staring at the ceiling for a moment as the leftover headache ebbed. If the universe had decided that you were meant to orbit a man who could be trusted with big things but not small, overpriced ones, then so be it. You’d known him long enough to accept that trade-off. Someone whose nonsense still brought a reluctant fondness out of you even as it shaved years off your lifespan.

“You should marry him.”

Whisplashed, you gawked at Joonho. He had said it without looking over, eyes still on the muted television as his fingers reached into the paper bag on the table, fishing for another pastry.

“Then he wouldn’t be doing stupid shit like this,” he added, sounding pragmatic rather than provocative.

“Dude—what?” You barked out a sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t caught awkwardly in your throat. “Where did that even come from?”

He glanced up then, brows lifting just a notch as if he were surprised you hadn’t already arrived there yourself. “I’m serious,” he said then added, “I’m surprised, actually.” 

“Surprised about what?” you still couldn’t conceal the bewilderment.

“Now, why do you sound surprised?” he pointed a finger at you. You figured he might have guessed you’d stay quiet until he gave you a proper explanation. Luckily, he gave you one. “Think about it. You’ve known him forever. You already manage his life half the time.” 

“Okay,” you said slowly. “So?”

“From watching the two of you for most of my life,” he said, waving his hand. “I’m honestly surprised you two never dated. Not in high school, not in university. People with half your history usually screw it up at least once just to get it out of their system.”

You let out a frustrated snort as you crossed your arms, shaking your head. “Absolutely not. That is not how that works. That’s not how anything works.”

Joonho watched you for a beat before inquiring, tone unchanged. “You’ve really never thought about marrying him? Like, not even once?”

You were ready with rebuttals you’d used a hundred times. Timing had never lined up — that was always the first excuse. Friendship was safer, the second. And there were lines that once crossed couldn’t be redrawn, which was reason enough to stop before anything began.

But nothing came out. Because instead, your mind slid sideways into territory it had always avoided, and suddenly there he was not as your childhood friend calling from a grocery aisle, but as a constant presence folded into the mundane architecture of your life.

You imagined waking up in the muted light of early morning, the fragrance of brewed coffee curling through the kitchen as Yeonjun shuffled around in one of his beloved tank tops; the mundane comfort of scrambled eggs and toast punctuated by lazy smiles exchanged over mismatched mugs. You saw yourself bundled in his jacket for grocery runs that ended with impulse snacks tossed into the cart. The shared fatigue of evenings where you came home at different times but always ended up in the same place, and the nights blurred into soft, whispered conversations before sleep.

And in every scenario, there was the brief yet startling intimacy of sharing a kiss. It didn’t leave you shaken, rather it left a sweet aftertaste in the palate of your thoughts. Despite how much you denied, you knew it wasn’t just  a sweeping vision. It was nothing cinematic nor inflated because it arrived in pieces, ordinary enough to feel borrowed from a life you could plausibly live. 

“Ah, there it is!” Joonho snapped his fingers and leaned back against the couch. “That faraway look. It’s a nice picture, isn’t it?” A pause, then a crooked smile. “You’re picturing it right now. I can tell. Wild that you two never did the whole childhood‑promise nonsense. Pinky swears, wedding vows at seven years old, not even a ‘if we’re still single at thirty’ deal. Feels like a missed cliché, honestly.”

“Yeah, well,” you replied too quickly, reaching for your mug and lifting it to your lips before realizing it was empty, the ceramic knocking lightly against your teeth. You set it down gently. “That stuff exists in movies for a reason.”

Joonho remained silent then began folding the top of the paper bag shut. “I’m not trying to push you, but you really never thought about it?” then he stole a quick glance at you. “Because you didn’t say no.”

You seriously cannot be thinking about Yeonjun this way after all these years.

Again.

The lack of speech from you wasn’t making the space empty; it was getting full of all the unsaid and unexpressed feelings you had harboured for your childhood friend years ago in your younger days. Yes, you had thought about it. No, you had never acted on it, because cowardice had been easier than loss. You had decided, over and over, that wanting him was a risk you couldn’t afford, that Yeonjun mattered too much to gamble on a crush you’d once dismissed as juvenile and temporary, even when it wasn’t. You couldn’t risk altering the shape of your life with him. So you learned how to live alongside it until it dulled into background noise.

You had dated men who were good, men who listened and showed up and treated you with respect, men who looked good beside you and fit neatly into your life. You had done everything to replace the habit of thinking about Yeonjun.

But none of them were Yeonjun, and none of them ever would be. His ghost was bound to forever haunt you.

Even more now that Joonho brought up the topic and awakened latent emotions. The thought, once placed, refused to leave.

“I…” You exhaled, the word thinning into nothing. You still couldn’t say the truth, so you reached for the closest thing that sounded acceptable. “I don’t know.”

So, as it turned out, letting your feelings crawl back to the surface and sit there had consequences, chief among them the fact that you were now painfully alert to Yeonjun’s presence in a way you hadn’t been in years. 

That was exactly what you had been dealing with since your last talk with Joonho. Now, you were even more knee deep into this war with yourself as you stared down at your phone, the college batch group chat hollering with enthusiasm about a pre‑Christmas gathering tonight. Names you knew too well kept chiming in with zeal and inside jokes resurfaced that felt almost contagious. You had never been a difficult person to exist around; you didn’t collect grudges, didn’t leave messes behind you in the form of unresolved conflicts. There was no reason not to go and the longer you scrolled, the harder it became to justify sitting this one out without sounding evasive, even to yourself.

Except there was still one very real problem you kept circling back to.

The couch dipped beside you as Yeonjun dropped down with his thigh brushing your knee. The scent of his shampoo crowded your senses.

“Did you check the chat?” Yeonjun asked, already craning his neck closer, his arm stretching out behind you along the backrest.

“That’s literally what I’m looking at,” you replied, tilting the phone slightly so he could see, even as your awareness narrowed to the point of contact between you. 

“Oh,” he said, drawn‑out, almost pleased. “Do you want to go?”

You stayed silent a beat too long because you were still unsure if you could squeeze it into your agenda. Yeonjun caught the hesitation immediately. He shifted so he could look at your face instead of the phone. 

“You don’t want to?” he asked slowly. Then quicker, before you could answer, “It’s fine if you don’t. I won’t go either. We can stay in, order takeout, talk about how annoying everyone was in college—”

“No, wait,” you cut in, sitting upright. You gestured vaguely with your phone. “It’s just… I don’t know,” you said, which had become a familiar placeholder lately. 

Yeonjun raised his brows with a small nod, patient with you as he always is. 

“I do want to go. I’m just thinking about the renovation mess. My workload has swelled into something unwieldy with year‑end deadlines looming, and I don’t want to spend the whole night half‑present, and everything feels a little—” You stopped yourself, then glanced at him. “Besides, what do you mean you'd sit out for me if I didn't go? Don’t say things like that.”

He shrugged, too casual for the way his eyes stayed on your face. “I mean exactly what I said.”

You stared back at him, incredulous. “I could never let you do that, idiot. You should go if you want to. Your friends miss you—I’m sure of it.”

There was a beat where he didn’t respond. Instead, he leaned forward with elbows on his knees as he tilted his face to stare up at you. There was a faint crease between his brows.

“You’re more important to me,” he said plainly. 

The look in his eyes translated as if the answer was an obvious fact rather than something that sent your thoughts skidding.

“Oh,” you managed, and before you could find your footing again, he reached out and tucked your hair behind your ear.

“But I do think you should come with me,” he said. “We’ll go together. You’ve been running yourself into the ground for weeks. I can help with the rest—your workload, the apartment, whatever you need, you know that, right? You deserve to have fun.”

“Yeah,” you said finally, a small smile breaking through. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

You had to stop by your apartment first. Everything you’d brought to Yeonjun’s place had been chosen for convenience and nothing meant to be seen outside of errands and long days. Tonight called for winter-appropriate and a presentable version of yourself. You registered what Yeonjun had worn. Faded gray jeans, a white shirt pulled neat beneath a red tie and above it a black jacket. 

Yeonjun lingered in your living room while you changed. When you stepped back out, his attention followed you and stayed there.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you answered, shrugging into your coat while you checked that you hadn’t forgotten anything obvious.

“You look beautiful,” he said, grabbing the keys from the table and tossing them once into his palm, “you’re about to make people regret not seeing you more often.”

You scoffed, though heat crept up your neck as you stepped past him toward the door. “Save it. Sweet talk isn’t getting you out of driving tonight,” you said, toeing off your shoes to trade them for boots. 

“Please.” He laughed, holding the door open as you stepped into the cold, breath fogging between you. “Wouldn’t even dream of it, pretty.”

The car sealed you both inside against the cold the moment you shut the door, and you exhaled a shiver in comfort as the heater kicked on under Yeonjun’s quick adjustment of the controls. You fiddled with the music player while he drove to your destination. At a red light, he pointed out a bakery you both used to skip classes for. You told him it still sucked. He said you were lying. Neither of you followed it up.

By the time you arrived the voices and music had swallowed the night whole. Faces you hadn’t seen in years surfaced all at once, hugs exchanged, names called across the room as people stepped forward to participate in the greeting. Yeonjun barely made it three steps before someone clapped a hand against his back and dragged him away, then another voice called his name, then another, leaving you standing with your own circle as he was absorbed into his. He turned back to look for you instinctively as if to check you’d found your footing, and you gave him a small nod, a wordless assurance that you were fine.

“I’ll find you,” he promised, raising his voice slightly over the noise.

You laughed, waving him off. “Go. You’re clearly in demand.”

Much later, across the room when you were done with dinner, your eyes met. He had a drink in hand now, jacket gone, hair no longer sitting quite the way it had earlier, and you lifted your brows in a silent check-in. He smiled back in all teeth before someone leaned into his space again and pulled his attention elsewhere.

“Are you seeing anyone these days, or is work still your tragic soulmate?”

You were sharing a table with three other women you hadn’t seen properly since graduation. It was Mina who sent the question your way while nudging your elbow with hers, eyes bright with wine and curiosity.

You huffed a laugh as you reached for your drink. “Work’s winning by a humiliating margin,” you said, taking a sip before setting it back down and wiping a thumb along the rim. “I don’t even think I’m putting up a fight.”

“That tracks,” Hana chimed in. Her tone carried a dry affection as she was someone who’d watched you live like this for years. “You were always like that. We thought you’d mellow out after uni, but somehow you got worse.”

“N-no, she dated,” Jieun cut in far too eagerly (and drunkenly) before you could respond. The wine in her glass dangerously sloshed as she lifted her hand in defense of your reputation. “I saw pictures. Ni—ce pictures. She had—had a boyfriend. The last one. What was his name?” She squinted at you as though the answer might be written on your face. You smiled unhelpfully at her. “Joohyuk? Joohyuk, right? Yeah. Him. Shame you broke up. I liked him.” 

Mina groaned and reached over to push Jieun back into her seat. “You sound like you were dating him yourself. Use your words properly before you get yourself in trouble.”

You had to stifle a laugh as you watched Jieun’s eyes comically widen followed by a disgruntled Mina giving her an earful and Hana’s atrocious cackle. Oh, how you missed this.

“No—no, I didn’t mean it like that!” Jieun protested, waving both hands, then stopping to grip the edge of the table for balance. “I meant he was good. For her. As a person. I’m not stealing anyone’s man,” she rushed, then looked at you with genuine concern. “You know what I mean, right?”

“I know,” you said, laughing as you slid Jieun’s glass a little farther from the table’s edge before it could become a casualty. “You’re safe, Jieun. Don’t worry. But please sit properly, you're going to give me a heart attack if you fall off.” 

The clatter of surrounding voices bled into the gaps as someone nearby laughed too loudly. You took your time before speaking again, fingers resting loosely around your glass as your gaze met Mina’s before drifting to Hana.

“It wasn’t a bad breakup. We talked it through instead of letting it rot, and we both knew whatever we had wasn’t taking us anywhere we wanted to go.” You smiled and sipped on your drink as you told them. “He’s a good man. Just not the right one for me, and I think he knew that too.”

Mina listened with her chin propped on her knuckles, then nodded once, thoughtful. “Honestly, it feels like everyone either married their first serious partner or walked away from dating entirely and hasn’t recovered since.”

Hana’s attention snagged on something past your shoulder. She tracked movement across the room before returning her focus to you.

“Speaking of nothing sticking,” she said, lowering her voice slightly, “have you noticed Yeonjun’s pattern?”

His name cut clean through the pleasant haze of wine you’d settled into. “What pattern?” you asked with the same smile, curiosity worn lightly rather than forced.

“Oh my god,” Mina said at once, scooting her chair closer with a scrape that drew the table tighter together, her forearm sliding across the wood as she leaned in. “I forgot how popular he is. Didn’t he date, like… a lot?” She rolled her wrist vaguely, as though quantity mattered less than the impression it left.

“Not a lot,” Hana countered, brow pinching as she tried to sort memory from hearsay. “Just— often, I guess? It never lasted though. A month, maybe less. You’d blink and suddenly he was single again.” She shrugged.

“I’ve heard that too,” Mina added, lips pursing as she considered her wording, eyes flicking briefly toward the crowd before returning to you. “He’s kind of… how do I say this nicely.” She paused, eyes narrowing in thought before she gave a small, apologetic smile. “A bit of a heartbreaker.”

“A player,” jieun quietly supplied from beside you, drunk beyond senses.

You listened without interrupting, watching the condensation trail down the side of your glass before you brushed it away with your thumb. In that pause you recognized how little the conversation stirred you. A strange sense of distance was all you felt because what they were trading wasn’t Yeonjun so much as a shorthand version of him, assembled from overheard endings and retold assumptions. 

Aside from feeling distant, there was also relief in understanding that distinction, in knowing that the version of him they were dissecting had never belonged to you in the first place.

They liked Choi Yeonjun as a name that moved through rooms. They liked the idea of him by talking about him as if he were a concept instead of a person you’d shared scraped knees, late-night calls, and entire versions of your life with. They didn’t know him as the one whose first relationship faded because they were barely old enough to know what they were asking of each other, and whose second ended because trust was broken on the other side, not his. Nothing beyond that except him trying, stepping back when it didn’t fit, never keeping anyone where they didn’t want to stay.

You knew he wouldn’t care about being reduced to rumor, because he’d said it more than once that people would talk anyway and he didn’t want anyone bleeding on his behalf. Still, childhood loyalty had its own habits. There were lines you wouldn’t let be crossed, even casually, even here.

“I think people confuse brevity with carelessness,” you said, reaching for another snack and nudging the bowl toward Hana as you did. “If a relationship isn’t working, ending it sooner can look messy from the outside, especially when no one’s around for the conversations that come before or after.”

You glanced around the table. Resting your cheek on your palm, your smile widened when you saw Hana looking at you with an apologetic look. The look carried both acknowledgement and embarrassment, the subtle admission that she had overstepped in speaking of someone she didn’t fully know, someone who had meant enough to you to warrant respect.

“And it’s interesting,” you added, tilting your head slightly, “how easy it is to talk about someone when you haven’t actually bothered to see them beyond the image everyone else paints. You can repeat labels and summaries and assume you know the whole story, but it rarely reflects the truth of the person themselves.”

Mina lowered her eyes, biting the inside of her cheek before shaking her head. “God, you’re right. I went ahead of myself with the rush of this conversation… I shouldn’t have said that. Honestly, I wouldn’t feel good if anyone talked about me like that, so I should be more careful.”

“Yeonjun’s always been pretty upfront with people. That tends to get mistaken for a lot of things it isn’t,” you spoke lightly, glancing at Jieun, who had succumbed to slumber halfway through the discussion due to her drunken state. 

You didn't feel the necessity to stretch this conversation further. They admitted their fault and you defended your friend. The win was yours. With that settled, you steered the banter back toward lighter topics. Time slipped past unnoticed until the sudden glance at your watch made you realize that midnight was nearly upon you, and Yeonjun was nowhere within your line of sight. His absence tugged at your attention with a strange urgency. You excused yourself, sliding out of the chair and weaving toward the terrace.

Your shoulder bumped lightly against someone. You looked up to find Beomgyu, one of Yeonjun’s old friends, grinning at you. You exchanged a few light pleasantries before you asked with a small furrow of your brow if he had seen Yeonjun, noting that your calls had gone unanswered. Beomgyu’s expression shifted with a slight frown as he recounted that Yeonjun had been at the bar earlier, that he’d seemed fine then, maybe a little too enthusiastic about refills. You thanked him before letting him go to his own circle. Your gaze swept across the room before it landed on the bar tucked along the far wall.

He was there exactly as Beomgyu had said, hunched over the counter with a half-finished glass beside him. The sight nudged a fond exhale out of you as you crossed the remaining distance and took the stool beside him.

“You’re really dead set on making me drive us back, huh?” you asked, observing his reaction. 

Yeonjun’s head lifted, his gaze hazy yet catching yours with a slow widening of eyes as though he just realized you were there. The spark in them was dulled by drink but somehow still present, like embers beneath ash

“Oh,” he breathed, the word soft and warm as he leaned closer without thinking, his elbow slipping on the polished surface before he caught himself, “there you are,” then he folded again, cheek pressed to his forearm.

“So much for saying you’d find me,” you mused, eyes glinting as you mirrored his action and let the side of your head rest on your folded arm over the bar.

“Hi, love,” he sweetly drawled, voice thick with the haze of intoxication. He smiled dazedly at you, shifting his head only slightly so he could keep looking at you.

You couldn’t help the small coo of exasperation that slipped out, sitting upright and reaching to rake your fingers through the strands of his hair. “Hi,” you said softly, allowing your tone to mirror the warmth and care threaded through your touch, noting how his eyelids fluttered closed at the contact.

He hummed with the same stupid smile. How much did he drink to be this wasted? You were already counting the ways this night was ending with you behind the wheel. Good thing you had only one glass of wine.

He cracked one eye open, watching you from beneath his lashes before he frowned slightly, squinting at the space between you. “Too far,” he murmured, voice slurring. “Need you closer.”

He reached out, fingers wrapping around the side of your stool and with an easy pull he brought you closer until your knees brushed the edge of the counter and your hip pressed into his side. The lopsided smile returned on his plush, pink lips.

“Mhhm. Better.” 

The strength was casual yet intimate that it pulled a catch from your chest you hadn’t anticipated. It occurred to you a second later just how attractive that was. It was messing with your head.

“Jun, let’s go home.” You caressed his cheek. “Yeah?” 

But he didn’t seem like he was registering your words.

"Hey," he slurred, but somehow still gentle. "You… you're, uh, you’re so pretty," he continued, blinking at you as though it was the most profound revelation of the night. "Like, you’re so beautiful, you know that?"

You stifled a laugh, amused but also slightly worried as you reached out to straighten the collar of his shirt. You had seen him like this before, but tonight, there was something more raw about it.

“I know,” you teased with a hint of tenderness in your words. “I’m pretty sure you’ve told me before.”

He shook his head, a goofy grin spreading across his face as he sat up again, and leaned toward you, almost tripping over his own feet from the tool. You had to suppress another laugh, but your heart was full watching him act so carefree and so uninhibited.

“No, no,” he argued, shaking his head. “I mean like, really pretty. You’re… you're so pretty, it’s like…” He paused, his brow furrowing as though searching for the right words, but only the most basic thoughts slipped out. “It’s like you’re glowing. Like… an angel or something. I don’t know how anyone can look at you and not… not, like, fall in love with you.”

Your smile locked in place, then faltered, and then slipped away altogether as his words echoed back at you in pieces that refused to arrange themselves into anything sensible. Could he possibly be mistaking you for someone else? Seeing through you instead of at you, that somewhere in the crowd there was another woman he’d confused you for after too many drinks? 

But his attention didn’t drift, didn’t waver, didn’t go looking for anyone else. It stayed locked on you. 

“You’re drunk.” You aimed for reason, though the end of the sentence softened despite your effort. “You don’t mean that.”

He frowned at you as if you’d spoken a language he didn’t recognize. You watched his expression go pliant, noticed the slight stagger in the way his shoulders adjusted as he tried to keep himself upright on the stool but still gazed at you with such intensity that it made your heart race. His eyes were glossy like he was tearing up at the way you spoke to him.

“No,” he said firmly. “I do mean it. I’m, like… so in love with you, you don’t even know. Like— right here.” He pressed his palm clumsily to his chest, missing the mark and correcting himself with a breathless laugh. “I’m so in love with you, it makes my chest hurt, but in a good way. I can’t even explain it, it’s like… every time I see you, I feel like I’m falling all over again, over and over. It’s so much. I can’t keep it in anymore.”

“You—” you tried, leaning forward instinctively as his balance tipped toward you. Yuo could see the earnestness in his eyes even as they were clouded with alcohol. His breathing was stuttered, bottom lip plush and glistening as his tongue swept across it absentmindedly.

He reached out, clumsily touching your cheek first before finding its place properly. “I don’t care if it sounds stupid,” he muttered, the sentence breaking when he swallowed. “I’m so in love with you. I just... I just want you to know that. I need you to know.”

You had always thought drunken confessions were a convenient excuse for honesty rather than proof of it, because it seemed impossible that anyone could loosen their guard so completely that every carefully tucked-away feeling spilled out all at once, raw and unfiltered and beyond retrieval. You were so wrong. It was unfathomable that your childhood friend, the boy who knew every phase of you and whom you had loved far longer than you ever admitted even to yourself, just laid his heart out to you.

You took a deep breath trying to keep your composure and to remind yourself where you were and who you were being in this moment. But your heart was racing, your stomach doing flips.

“You’re going to regret this in the morning,” you said softly, as you guided his hand away from your face, not pushing it aside but redirecting it to rest against the bar. Your thumb brushed over his knuckles in a gesture meant to steady him more than anything else. 

He shook his head like a child. “No. I won’t. I can’t.”

You weren’t going to take advantage of this. This was a topic reserved for when you are both sober and can make decisions for yourselves. 

“Well, aren’t you a charmer,” you teased, brushing a stray lock of hair back from his forehead when it slipped into his eyes again. “But I don’t think you’re going to remember a single word of this in the morning. Tell me again when you’re sober, okay?”

He grinned, nodding far too eagerly in agreement. “No way I’ll forget. I’ll tell you again tomorrow, I promise.”

In that moment, you knew that no matter how silly the situation was, it didn’t matter. Because in his eyes, in the vulnerable honesty of his words, you could see the truth. And you would hold onto that, even if it was a little messy, a little imperfect. Even if it was drunk.

By the time you pulled into the driveway, Yeonjun had gone pliant in the passenger seat with his head tipped awkwardly toward the window. It told you sleep had already taken him halfway. You killed the engine, sat for a moment to let the silence settle, then reached for your phone and called Joonho downstairs.

Getting him inside took coordination more than strength. You wondered how Joonho carried him on his back because the latter was much bigger than him. You were grateful he still managed to do it. You followed close behind, peeling off Yeonjun’s shoes and tugging his socks loose, gathering what you could before they became obstacles. Once you were thoroughly satisfied that he was comfortable in his bed, you allowed yourself a final glance at his face before gently closing the door behind you. You decided to take the couch for tonight.

When Joonho was about to leave for his room, you called his name. “About me and Yeonjun… well,” you started, faltering as you searched for a clean way through the mess in your head.

Joonho turned slowly, watching you with far too much patience. “Did he…?” he prompted, leaving the rest open for you to fill in.

You narrowed your eyes at him, exhaustion sharpening your voice. “You knew?”

His grin was unapologetic, wide, and entirely too pleased. It answered everything. 

In a way you were glad you didn’t have to explain everything from the beginning. Turned out, Joonho had always been watching the two of you dancing around each other in ways that weren’t only just visible to the two of you. His satisfaction at finally hearing you admit it was truly a sight to see. Over a bottle of wine, the two of you talked.

You went to sleep that night feeling oddly settled, your doubts dulled by Joonho’s reassurance and the simple relief of having said it to someone out loud. You couldn't say the same thing for Yeonjun though. Because early in the morning, you had to leave for your place to oversee the renovation work in person, trusting Joonho to handle Yeonjun’s inevitable hangover.

You wouldn’t be meeting Yeonjun until night. The knowledge followed you through the latter half of the day like a tenacious hum in your mind, growing louder with every passing hour of the year-end closing shift. By the time you finally clocked out and stepped into the evening air, the nervous energy had settled so deeply into you that it felt almost juvenile, a jittery awareness that made you scoff at yourself for feeling like a teenager again when you had lived so much more life than that. 

The text from Joonho arrived just as you were merging onto the road home, announcing he wouldn’t be back until morning, capped with a teasing line about doing whatever you two wanted in the empty house. Having the place to yourselves should not have made your pulse kick the way it did (yet it did) and you exhaled through a short laugh that did nothing to calm the way your fingers tightened briefly around the steering wheel.

The apartment lights were on when you arrived. You toed off your shoes and followed the sounds of movement into the kitchen, where Yeonjun stood by the counter as he reheated dinner he clearly hadn’t eaten. He startled when he noticed you, bumping against the counter and reaching too quickly for a glass.

“Oh—you’re home,” he stuttered as he filled it with water before setting it down between you without lifting his eyes. “You must be starving! I, um—I didn’t know what you’d want, so I just—there’s food, if you’re hungry. Or we can—you don’t have to eat now. I mean. Later is fine too.”

He glanced toward you, then immediately back to what he was doing. The counter between you a narrow barrier that felt intentional even if neither of you had named it. You reached for the glass he’d offered, watching how his gaze fixed stubbornly on the microwave timer instead of your face.

“You’re awfully bad at keeping promises,” you said lightly as you took a sip.

It was meant as an airy remark to gauge his reaction. You smiled into the rim of the glass because you were already certain, from the way his shoulders tightened, that he remembered last night in full.

The silence was punctuated by the low hum of the microwave which suddenly felt too loud. Yeonjun exhaled hard as he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, finally glancing your way before dropping his eyes again.

“Sorry, I, uh—” he started at once, turning the apology over itself before it could land properly. “I drank way too much. I shouldn’t have disappeared like that, and you had to come find me, and then you drove us back when it should’ve been me—I swear I didn’t plan to—” He stopped, swallowing, voice lowering as if he were afraid of the next part even existing out loud. “I… must’ve said something. Last night.”

You nodded slowly, appearing composed on the surface but inside you were folding in on yourself because there was no artifice in him at all — just this tall, capable man suddenly reduced to nervous hands and a voice that kept tripping over itself.

His restlessness mellowed out the jitter buzzing under your skin, smoothed it down into something more daring. You felt the urge to poke at him gently, to test how much space there was for play between the two of you now. You almost did, but you held yourself back when you noticed the way he still kept refusing to meet your eyes.

“I didn’t mean to put that on you,” he said, shaking his head as if he was disappointed in himself. “I know it wasn’t fair, especially like that. If I crossed a line—”

“You didn’t,” you cut in gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong. But I’m not going to talk about it unless you’re sure you want to.” 

You had waited before. You could wait again. You would not chase what hadn’t been chosen — even if every part of you hoped he would turn around on his own.

The smile you offered him was soft and open, assuring him that you meant what you said, and with that you moved around the island. You intended to give him space, to let him breathe, to let the moment pass if it needed to.

You barely made it a step past him before his hand closed around your wrist.

“I meant every single word I said.”

He didn’t face you.

A shiver ran across you at the sound of his voice pitched lower like that, starting at your shoulders and spreading down your arms. Your breath left you in a controlled exhale though your heart had started misbehaving entirely.

“Then look at me,” you said gently.

A soft instruction rather than a demand — one he ignored by keeping his gaze fixed ahead and his shoulders only lifted with a shallow breath. You stepped closer, lifting your free hand to his face, your fingers fitting along his jaw. You guided him toward you without force, your thumb brushing his cheekbone.

“Do you remember,” you began, keeping your voice light as your fingers slipped into his hair, “how I told you last night that you’d have to say it again when you were sober?” You traced the shell of his ear as you spoke, basking in the small hitches of breath he gave you at the contact.

His hand slid to the small arch of your spine, drawing you closer until the space between you narrowed and the sudden proximity sent a sharp jolt through you that you refused to retreat from. You tipped your chin up, meeting him with a calm smile that took effort you didn’t show, even as your pulse skittered under his touch.

Yeonjun let himself look at you properly instead of just fleeting glances. Your heart soared because the same earnest intensity you had seen the night before was there again swirling in his orbs — and this time — stripped of any alcohol. His hands settled at your waist, thumbs pressing in as he closed his eyes for a brief second.

“I love you,” he said, voice gravelly from raw honesty. “It’s been so long since I started loving you that I don’t even remember when it began. All I can tell is that I’ve never stopped loving you.”

Damn his foolish heart for betraying him so openly by letting his gaze be drawn again and again to the soft curvature of your mouth. Fractured thoughts scattering in every direction at once, his mind cycled through each possibility and tallied the ways he could have misunderstood the way you looked at him tonight. Every glance from years past suddenly rushed forward to stand trial alongside this one.

Regardless, your words of assurance came back to him. You had asked him to say it again when he wasn’t drunk, had asked him to stand by it with a clear head and an even voice, and that had to count for something, didn’t it? There was no sense in punishing himself for finally doing the one thing he had always done too late. If all you were asking for was truth, and if all he could offer was himself, then he would do that much at least, even if the thought of losing you after this frightened him more than silence ever had.

Maybe honesty, once finally spoken, deserves to stand without apology. 

You, meanwhile, felt warmth spreading through your limbs until it left you lightheaded, buoyed by a feeling that bordered on giddy. A soft laugh escaped as you let your forehead fall against his chest, your hands abandoning his face to curl around his neck instead. You felt Yeonjun shudder above you as he quietly said your name. That made you stare up at him.

“What took you so long, hm?” you said at last with a rueful smile, before you shook your head at yourself and corrected course mid‑thought, your fingers flexing lightly at the nape of his neck. “No—no, that’s not fair. I shouldn’t say that to you. This isn’t on you. If anything, I should’ve been honest sooner. Maybe then we wouldn’t be standing here now, years late to our own conversation. I chose not to want you. I was—”

“Scared,” Yeonjun softly finished your sentence, speaking for the both of you. 

You nodded. “But I was wrong.”

You fought the urge to playfully jab him in the ribs when you saw his signature sly smirk appearing slowly in his lips. His eyes, once pouring with so much rawness, narrowed slightly but nonetheless still held the rawness. There was just a spark of heat in them now.

“‘Wrong’ how?” he leaned in until the space between you thinned to breath and heat, his words brushing your mouth more than reaching your ears. “I need you to be more honest with me here, love,” he added, gaze flicking once to your lips before lifting again.

You let out a short scoff and tipped your head back a fraction, denying him the closeness while keeping his attention exactly where it already was. “I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t want this too,” you replied. “And I wouldn’t have asked you to tell me you loved me when you were sober if I hadn’t meant it.”

His chest gave a quick thrum — a reminder that it had never learned restraint where you were concerned. Yeonjun followed to fill the gap you created, stepping forward until the counter met the back of your hips. He set both palms against the surface on either side of you, lowering his head to be eye level with you. His presence eclipsed everything else.

“Please, tell me before I lose my mind,” he rasped. “Because—oh God—I’ve been holding myself back for so long.”

Your teeth caught your lower lip as you considered just how much more you could push before it became unfair. You had tortured him enough. Your hands — one slid down his chest, fingers spreading over his sternum, the other finding its way back to his face and cupping his cheek as you guided him closer.

“I love you, Yeonjun,” you said, every word chosen and owned. “I always have.”

His lips were softer than anything you've ever known. It's soft like the first snow, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. It was sweet, so devastatingly sweet and it bloomed until your senses were overwhelmed. 

He pulled back sooner than you were ready for and you chased the space without thinking. Your fingers curled into the fabric at his shoulders as a small sound slipped from you, breathless and needy in a way that made him shudder as if he’d felt it in his bones.

“You have no idea how many times I talked myself out of this,” he said, voice low and rough as his forehead brushed yours, his thumb tracing along your jaw before slipping beneath your chin, tilting your face up again because he needed to see your eyes while saying it.

You laughed breathlessly and tugged him closer, forcing him to feel how little space there was left to negotiate. “You don’t look like someone who’s been holding back,” you replied, tipping your head just enough to brush your nose against his, stealing the air he’d been breathing.

He chuckled, the sound barely there before you pulled him back in and this time there was nothing cautious about it. You had never gotten so lost in a kiss before. Your heart kept tripping over itself as your fingers dragged him closer, closer, still not close enough. You had loved before but it didn’t feel like this. You had kissed before but it didn’t burn you alive. It left you flushed and dizzy and wanting more.

Yeonjun’s hand slid into your hair, fingers spreading at your scalp as he tipped your head back, deepening the kiss until your breath caught. His other arm wrapped around you and lifted you without warning, setting you on the counter as he stepped in between your thighs. You hooked your legs around his hips, pulling him closer as his mouth worked yours with growing insistence. You found yourself gasping for breath, whimpering when he bit your bottom lip as his other hand braced beside you.

The haze of sensation left your vision swimming, every nerve alive as his fingers slipped under your shirt, tracing the heated planes of your skin, teasing, exploring, igniting sparks that sent heat skittering through you. He pulled back only slightly before pressing a chaste kiss to your lips.

"Sometimes, all I can think about is this—us like this, you in my arms. Underneath me, too." His lips brushed yours again, then he exhaled. “No—forget that. You deserve more respect than that. I just… I haven’t been able to stop myself from wanting it.”

You smiled at that, resting one arm across his shoulder while your other raked through his hair. You tilted your head and hummed.

“What else do you wanna do?” you asked, voice dipping.

He pretended to ponder as he narrowed his eyes, gaze flicking away before returning to you with a smirk. “Take you to dinner after this,” he said, hand shifting on your waist, drawing you closer. “Do things in the proper order for once.”

“Mmm,” you replied, rolling your hips forward just enough to press yourself against him, watching the way his breath hitched. “And then?”

He straightened slightly, lips curving as he leaned in to press a brief kiss to your forehead. “Then we get dessert.”

“We’ve never waited for dinner to get dessert,” you murmured, the challenge clear as you grinded against him again, smiling when his inhale went sharp and his hand slid down to your thigh, fingers pressing into your skin.

“You’re going to ruin me,” he said, a rough laugh in his voice as his grip tightened. “I had a very stable life before you moved in.”

“Ah,” you sighed, feigning a forlorn expression as your hand slid across his chest. “Then maybe we should stop. Let you go back to that stable life while I go to slee—waoh!”

Laughter erupted from you when he deftly lifted you up and carried you to his room. His mouth never straying from yours even as you both fell onto the bed in a disordered sprawl, the frame creaking softly beneath the sudden movement while his lips slipped from yours only to trail wet kisses down your jaw and throat, sucking and biting until your skin was a canvas of his marks. It sent shivers shooting down your whole body, your hips bucking. He settled between your legs and you felt the solid presence of him there pinning you to the mattress. 

His hands slid up your thighs and under your skirt. You moaned against his lips when he massaged the flesh there as he pulled back to stare down into your face while lifting the material, leaving a trail of goosebumps all the way up your thighs. You felt yourself clench around air, a sharp pulse of need in your core. Your hunger stripped everything down to sensation, and it felt dangerously good to stop resisting it.

His lips were swollen and damp when he paused. “You want this, right?”

Your breath came uneven as you swallowed. You had never been more sure of anything in your life. With a shaky laugh you nod, unbuttoning your dress shirt with a wolfish smile. 

He tongued his cheek at the sight of your black lacy bra and your expression, hands already reaching for his own clothes. He pulled his shirt over his head in one motion, muscle shifting under skin as he tossed it aside. You were on him immediately which he happily complied, wasting no time clashing his mouth against yours. Your hands were all over his torrid naked skin, touching and grabbing every inch of skin they could access. 

Your back arched as you broke the kiss with a moan when he slipped one hand underneath your bra and kneaded the mound of your breast. The barrier was making him impatient so he quickly worked with the clasp of your bra and flung it somewhere over his shoulder before greedily taking one perky nipple in his mouth. 

Your hand tangled in his hair as he sucked and nipped on your skin, the other hand busy where it rolled and pinched the other nipple in between his fingers. You felt like you could cum alone from nipple stimulation because holy shit he was so good at whatever he was doing. His growing hardness pressed insistently in between you, and you sought friction by trying to grind up against him. 

“Please, Yeonjun,” you breathed, the plea tugged loose as your hands tightened in his hair, pulling him closer even as your back arched toward him.

He looked up at you through his lashes, releasing your nipple with a pop and grinned deviously. “I know, baby.” A quiet laugh brushed against your skin as he shifted, one knee nudging your thighs apart, his hand sliding lower to cup you through the thin barrier of fabric. His mouth returned to your throat as he spoke, words punctuated by the drag of his lips. “Need me here badly? I can feel how bad you want me.”

If you were in the right mind right now and not overcome by lust, you would have swiped that smirk off his face with a punch or some snarky remarks to reclaim a little pride. But all you could do was nod and do whatever to make him give you what you wanted. You tugged your skirt down your legs which had hiked up your waist earlier, and was about to tug your panties down too. You didn’t get far. His hand closed around your wrist and stilled you.

“Not yet.” His tone dimmed as he sat back on his heels. Gaze tracked you in a way that made you squirm like he’d decided to take his time and wanted you to feel every second of it.

Goosebumps travelled up your skin as you raised your eyebrows at him, wondering what he was waiting for. You bit your lip with hitched breaths when he thumbed your cunt over your panties, tracing over the slick dampness. He worked on his pants with the other hand, pulling out his hardened cock. Your body felt another rush of heat roll over when you took him in — long and veiny, a pool of pre cum already gathering at the tip. He gave himself a few lazy pumps with the same rhythm as he stroked you, brows furrowed with the sensation as a low groan slipped out.

“Didn't know you were a tease in bed, Jun,” you breathed out with a laugh, feeling yourself getting wetter as more slick gushed out.

He let out a throaty chuckle before kicking his pants off and climbing back over you, eager to kiss you again. “You have no idea,” he whispered against your mouth.

He greedily took in your moans when he pressed his leaking tip against your clothed cunt — a delicious friction that sent shockwaves of pleasure through your core. Each grind pushed the tip, the soaked cotton yielding just enough to let him tease the entrance of your aching pussy, but not enough to grant full access — leaving you teetering on the edge of frustration and ecstasy.

"God, you're so fucking hot," he teasingly groaned against your ear that sent shivers down your spine. 

Whimpering, you looked down at the place but he held your jaw and made your face tilt back up to kiss you again. Your body arched instinctively to press harder against him, the subtle drag of the panties creating a tantalizing burn that heightened every nerve. Yeonjun's grip on your jaw softened, his thumb brushing tenderly over your lower lip.

You bit your lip, the words tumbling out in a breathless rush, "I want you inside me, Yeonjun—please, I need it so bad."

At your unabashed confession, Yeonjun gave one little cheeky grin before finally hooking a finger into the edge of your panties to pull them off. The sudden exposure sent a rush of cool air over your swollen, dripping pussy, making you gasp as his cock slid fully against your bare entrance, the tip teasing your opening and agonizingly bumping into your clit.

You got up, pushing him back to sit down as you climbed on his lap and claimed his mouth in a searing kiss. You nipped at his lower lip, sucking it gently between your teeth before plunging back in, the filthy slide of saliva mingling as you lost yourself in the sensation of his taste.

"Fuck, you're dripping for me," he let out a prolonged groan, his fingers sliding through your sopping folds. 

He pushed two digits inside of you with ease and you sighed at the stretch. His fingers curled inside you with a slow rhythm, each thrust sending waves of pleasure that made your inner walls clench around him. You rocked your hips, grinding against his hand as his thumb brushed over your swollen clit, drawing out gasps that echoed in the dim room. Every breath you took was ragged, your skin flushed and slick with a light sheen of sweat. 

Yeonjun's dark eyes locked onto yours, his free hand sliding up your back to tangle in your hair, pulling you closer until your foreheads pressed together. "That's it, love," he murmured against your lips, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through you, heightening the delicious friction as his fingers stretched and stroked your depths.

Through the haze of heady ecstasy, you looked down at him only to have your chest warm up. There was so much awe and love in his eyes. His devotion ran deeper for you than you could imagine.

You reached down to wrap your hand around his cock, pumping him. Yeonjun's breath hitched, a deep groan escaping his lips that mingled with your own soft whimpers. As the intensity built, your free hand clutched at his shoulder, nails digging in just enough to elicit another low growl from him. His cock twitched in your hand as he thrusted harder against you. The veins on his shaft stood out prominently against the backdrop of smooth skin slicked with precum and sweat. You could feel every ridge and pulse as you worked him with increasing fervor. 

But you didn’t want to cum just yet like this and neither did you want him to finish so soon, despite already dying to taste him. You released him before pushing his hand away from inside you.

You gave a breathless laugh when Yeonjun put his fingers in his mouth, pinning you with his gaze as he licked them clean. You lifted yourself up, knees sinking into the soft mattress on either side of his hips and aligned his cock with your slit. The thick, rigid length of him slid into you with a wet squelch, stretching your swollen folds wide as you sank down.

“Oh, fuck, y-you’re going to have to help me. Too, too tight,” you hissed, feeling waves of warmth travelling all over your body.

Yeonjun grunted as his hands found purchase on your hips, his grip tight and it felt so fucking good. You knew they’d be leaving bruises. Despite all the nudging and the rampant lubrication of your pussy, it still took a full minute, probably longer, to work his entire length inside of your tightness that made your thighs tremble, but you didn't stop there.

With a shared, heated glance, you wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him closer and giving him easy access to thrust up on you, making you let out a high pitched whimper. Once Yeonjun was finally seated deep inside you, a shared sigh of relief and laughter escaped your lips, the stretch bordering on overwhelming but laced with a delicious ache that made your toes curl.

“My angel,” Yeonjun choked on his words as he ran his hands over your back, soothing you. “I love you so, so much—and I don’t know how I went this long without saying it out loud.”

You closed your eyes shut, head falling on his shoulders as countless tremors went through your body at his size. “Hah, it really did take you being drunk to finally say it,” you said between breaths.

He grinned, but it was a little lopsided, like he couldn’t quite hold himself together. "Yeah, but I'm glad I finally did. And I promise, I’m not gonna screw this up. I won’t. I’ll take care of you. I’ll always take care of you. No matter what."

You lifted your head up to return his smile, before leaning in to a kiss. His lips moved languidly with yours, tongue poking out to lick against yours. His hands wrapped over your back, drawing you flush against his chest, your breasts pressing into the firm planes of his chest. Your hands clutched at his broad shoulders, nails digging into the warm, sweat-slicked skin as you whimpered into his mouth, the kiss deepening with a raw hunger that mirrored the way his body claimed yours. 

"You alright?" he whispered, his voice a husky mix of concern and desire that sent a shiver down your spine. You nodded, biting your lip to stifle a moan, and he added softly, "I got you." 

His hands gripped your ass firmly then, fingers digging into the soft flesh as he began to guide your hips in a slow pace, lifting and lowering you with effortless strength. Each upward thrust drove him deeper, the friction building into a fiery crescendo that had you both groaning — his low, guttural sounds vibrating through your joined bodies, while yours escaped as breathless gasps. 

You could feel the veins of his cock pulsing and the heat of him seeping into you, making your inner walls clench in desperation for more. His breath was hot against your neck, a ragged rhythm that matched the frantic beat of your heart as he continued his torturous grind. 

With a low growl, he eased you backward, his strong arms supporting you as he laid you down on the bed. Yeonjun paused for a heartbeat, savoring the sight of you laid out before him — body flushed with sweat, boobs lightly swaying with every rise and fall of your breath, eyes half lidded and glossy that matched your glistening pussy. His hands slid up to cup your breasts, thumbs teasing your nipples as he began to move again, thrusts growing more purposeful. You were so lost in the blissful haze of pleasure coursing through you that the sudden wave of coldness and emptiness startled you; Yeonjun pulling out his entirety out of you, making you whine to get back the feeling of his warmth. 

Without warning, Yeonjun's strong hands gripped your waist, flipping you over, rolling you off your back and onto your stomach. The sudden shift left you disoriented, a jolt of surprise flashing across your face as you glanced back at him over your shoulder.

Gripping himself, he swiped the head of himself through your sticky folds, bumping your clit to slide back down to your center and it once again made you whine. The cool sheets pressed against your heated skin, a stark contrast to the warmth of his body hovering above you, his knees straddling your thighs to pin you in place. You felt his hard cock sliding along the curve of your ass before he positioned himself, the tip nudging at your slick entrance once more. 

“Yeonj—hnngf!”

With one easy thrust he entered you again, deeper this time, the angle pressing him against your most sensitive spots in a way that had you seeing stars. Yeonjun let out a low whine, his body collapsing slightly as he rested his head between your shoulder blades, his hot breath fanning across your skin like a branding iron.

"Fuck, you're gonna make me cum already," he choked out.

You tried to respond, but all that escaped was a breathy moan.

The prone position amplified every sensation, his body molding to yours as he lay partially over you, his chest brushing against your back with each shallow thrust. Your pussy clenched around him, the tight confines of your body gripping his thick length as he drove in and out, the friction building with an exquisite pressure that bordered on overwhelming.

He was so fucking deep inside you, rubbing against all of your deepest nerves. His moans and whines were music to your ears, his hot breaths came in ragged huffs tickling the nape of your neck, while his hands roamed possessively — one sliding under your hips to tilt them just right, the other threading through your hair to expose more of your skin to his lips.

Yeonjun's thrusts grew more urgent but they carried a tenderness too. His lips pressing soft kisses along your shoulder, whispering praises that made you feel cherished amidst the raw desire — how perfectly you fit him, how your body responded to his like it was made for him. Your fingers clawed at the sheets, the building pressure inside you coiling tighter with every deep pump of his hips.

You croaked out his name—"Yeonjun"—as your orgasm crashed over you like a tidal wave, your walls spasming wildly around him, milking his length with uncontrollable pulses. He faltered then, his pace stuttering into erratic thrusts, a guttural groan escaping him as he buried his face deeper into the nape of your neck. Your gasps and moans fell like waterfall into the mattress as he drove you into it.

Sensing his restraint crumbling, he managed to gasp out, "Can't hold it back, love." His voice breaking with the effort, his hands trembling on your waist.

The plea in his words ignited a final surge of desire in you. "Come inside." The command breathlessly slipped from your lips as you craned your neck to look at him.

Perhaps it was the aphrodisiac and fucked out look in your eyes that made him surrender, his cock pulsing as he emptied himself deep into you, hot ropes of cum flooding your sensitive pussy. You felt every twitch, every warm rush, as it mingled with your own lingering aftershocks, leaving you both shuddering in the quiet aftermath.

Both of you stayed unmoving for a few seconds before Yeonjun eased himself out of you, his breath still coming in ragged gasps that matched the rise and fall of your back beneath him. Your spent pussy clenched slightly as he withdrew, a warm gush of his cum leaking out, glistening on your flushed skin and soaking into the fabric below. 

He rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow to gaze at you. The moment rolled strangely after, breath still uneven between you as your eyes met in startled disbelief, and then whatever tension remained cracked open into soft, breathless laughter that shook through both of you. He reached out, pulling you into his arms as you nestled against him. Your lips met in a deep, lingering kiss, tasting the salt of your exertion, your tongue brushing his with a tenderness that made his heart swell.

You pulled back slightly, your cheeks flushed, and began to whisper, "That was so—" but the words dissolved into another fit of giggles, your head shaking as if the sheer intensity defied description, your fingers tracing lazy circles on his back.

Yeonjun silenced your laughter with another soft kiss, his hand cradling the nape of your neck, feeling the rapid beat of your pulse under his thumb. "Let's take a bath," he murmured against your lips, his voice low and soothing. "I'll clean you up."

The lukewarmness of the water wrapped around you both later. You guided him to sit on the edge of the tub while the water warmed, steam climbing the air and settling against your skin until the aches in your body began to loosen. He watched you with damp lashes and a softened smile, palms braced behind him as you tested the water, then turned the tap down a fraction and nodded to yourself. 

When he reached for the shampoo you caught his wrist and shook your head with a small smile as you took the bottle from him. “Sit,” you said, guiding him back with a press to his shoulder, and he let you without question. You worked the lather through his hair, thumbs circling his scalp until his eyes slid shut and his shoulders dropped.

You followed with soap, careful hands moving over his back and arms, rinsing him clean while water splashed against porcelain. Your fingers combed through his hair again and again, traced paths along his back and chest, kissing warm skin whenever the impulse struck. You spent long minutes on motions that served no purpose other than letting him feel held.

By the time you were done, his breathing had slowed, but his chest rose sharply once as he laughed under it, sounding close to tears instead. You frowned, kneeling immediately in between his knees to look at him. He pressed his forehead to yours, eyes glassy as he blinked hard.

“I’ve never had anyone treat me like this,” he said, one hand cupping your face. “You know that I’m… not used to feeling like this, right? The people I’ve been with before were distant, and for the longest time I thought that was just how it was supposed to be. Until I started loving you.”

Your arms slipped around his middle, cheek resting on his shoulder letting the water run while you held him there. “I know,” you said softly, squeezing him just a little tighter. “And I promise you’re not going to feel like that with me. You deserve to be loved properly, Yeonjun, and I mean it when I say I’m all in—starting with making sure you never spend thirty thousand on five chillies again.”

His laughter broke through the tenderness as his smile softened into something fond and open. “Yeah,” he said, brushing his thumb along your cheek, eyes bright as he nodded. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

True that there had never been any childhood pinky promises between the two of you, no naive vows whispered under desks to look back on. But as you stayed there together, you couldn’t bring yourself to regret the time it had taken to arrive here because the absence of those clichés hadn’t taken him away from you. Some stories didn’t need an early beginning to arrive where they belonged.

And god, you were never going to let Yeonjun feel alone or unloved again — not after everything he had already given to people who never knew how to hold him.

THE END.

It was all because of Riki. 

At least, that’s what you like to believe. Blaming other people for the mistakes you made yourself has always been your favorite coping mechanism. A bad one, sure—but easier than admitting fault.

It started back in high school. You were seventeen, so was Riki. So was James. You met James through Riki on a random Tuesday afternoon, when you went over to his house for the sake of his grades. It was supposed to be a normal study session. Instead, it became the day you met the rest of his band—James and Maki, and the day your life quietly began to rot. 

You didn’t realise it at first, you never read in between the lines. What you and James were about to become was always going to be destructive. More than friends, less than lovers—nothing more nothing less. 

You arrived with two textbooks in hand to get Riki through calculus. The moment you stepped into his room, you realised it wasn’t just Riki there. Three boys were scattered around the floor in various states of uselessness, instruments leaned against the wall, empty drink cans near the desk, cigarette smoke hanging in the air.

Your eyes landed on James for only a second before turning back to Riki. “What is this?” you asked.

Riki, crouched beside the ashtray, crushed the end of his cigarette into it with two fingers and grinned. “Minor change of plans…no calc today, uh sit down.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Please?” You sighed like someone already regretting their own life and dropped to the floor anyway.

Maki leaned forward first. “We need a female member.”

“For what?”

“The band.”

You stared at them. “I can’t sing.”

“You don’t know that,” Riki said.

“I do know that.”

While they argued with you, James said nothing. He only watched. Later, you’d learn he’d decided the second you walked in that you were the coolest girl he’d ever seen—your hair, your clothes, the way you looked annoyed without trying. At the time, all you knew was that his silence was strangely loud.

Ten minutes later, with no calculus in sight, you stood up. “I’m leaving if none of you are doing derivatives.”

Riki laughed, Maki told you to relax. You were already halfway down the hall when footsteps came after you.

You ran purely on instinct.

“Why are you running?” a voice shouted behind you.

“Why are you chasing me?” you shouted back.

By the time James caught up, both of you were breathless. He bent forward, hands on his knees, trying to breathe.

Then he looked up and said, “Join our band.”

That was the first time you met him. The problem with people, though, is that they are not possessions. You can never keep someone entirely to yourself. Sadly, you learned that the hard way. 

You joined the band, you learned how to sing, you did it because James asked you to. That was how easy you were when it came to him. Somewhere between vocal lessons, late-night practices, and getting to know everyone besides Riki, something between you and James began to blur. 

It started simply. After one normal late-night practice, James asked if you were free. You were. So he asked you to come over. No strange intentions—he just wanted company while he drank.

Problem one: two people alone with too much time and not enough boundaries. Problem two: neither of you were very good at pretending nothing was there.

His apartment was small in the way all first apartments are—barely furnished, faintly cold, smelling like smoke and vodka. A lamp in the corner lit the room badly, leaving most of it in shadow.

You sat beside James on the couch, one knee tucked beneath you, drink balanced carefully in your hand. Music played low from somewhere behind you, half drowned by the sound of your own laughter.

“I’m serious,” you said. “Maki had three weeks to learn that chord.”

James smiled into his glass. “Three weeks isn’t enough for him. Give him a year.”

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“I’m an honest one.”

You laughed again, louder this time, head tipping back against the couch. When you looked at him next, he was already looking at you. That should have embarrassed you. Instead, it made the room quieter. Somewhere in the middle of another joke, he leaned closer without either of you acknowledging it. Not enough to touch, but just enough to notice.

You could smell alcohol on his breath, something mischievous in his eyes. “What?” you asked, though your voice came out smaller than intended.

James didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked once to your lips, then back up again. “May I?” he asked softly.

You should have asked him to clarify, you should have laughed it off and fuck, you should have remembered every reason for why this was a bad idea.

Instead, you nodded and…he kissed you like he’d already thought about it too many times. Slow at first, very careful, just testing the waters.And then, there was intention in it. When he pulled away, neither of you said anything for a moment.

“Well,” you said finally, staring straight ahead. “That's…uh complicated.”

James laughed quietly beside you. “You think too much.”

That was true, but never true enough for James to care. Things became strange after that. Not dramatically, not all at once—just in small ways that were easy to ignore if you wanted to.

You started slipping away after practice together, he began asking if you were free more often. You learned the walk to his house so well you could’ve done it half asleep. He learned which window of yours to throw pebbles at when you stopped answering your phone.

And the kissing happened again, then again, then often enough that it stopped feeling shocking and started feeling routine. Nothing changed, officially, no confessions, no conversations, no labels.

He still introduced you as his friend, you still pretended that word didn’t sting. It was only kissing—against kitchen counters, in dark hallways, on his couch while some terrible movie played untouched in the background. Nothing more.

Which was convenient, because “nothing more” meant neither of you had to explain yourselves. You were just friends…friends who knew each other’s schedules, friends who got jealous for no reason, friends who belonged to each other in every way except the honest one. Right?

So that was…what you were. You and James got along well—clearly. Talking more about James, one thing that man never doubted was your voice. But you? Oh, you doubted it enough for the both of you. You still remember the first day all of you performed live, in front of real people who would give you real reactions.

It had sounded exciting when Riki first said it. A real gig. He’d announced it like it was the best news ever—which it was. Maki had nearly thrown a drumstick at the ceiling in celebration. James had only smiled that small, private smile of his, the one that suggested he expected success as naturally as weather.

You had smiled too. That was your first mistake.

Because smiling made it look like you agreed, smiling made it look like you were excited, smiling made it look like you hadn’t spent the entire car ride there imagining every possible way you could humiliate yourself with a microphone in your hand. What if you forget the lyrics? What if your voice cracks? What if you freeze up?

The venue was smaller than you expected and worse than you feared. Sticky floors—similar to those you see in dance practice rooms, very high ceilings, multiple wires running across the ground like traps—all connected to huge speakers. A stage so close to the audience it felt less like performing and more like one wrong move and your crowd surfing. There were already people there, which felt unnecessary and rude.

You had always imagined failure happening somewhere grander.

At rehearsal, mistakes were private things, missed notes disappeared into the loud bass and drums, forgotten lyrics could be restarted and racked voices could be blamed on lack of sleep, dry throats, cheap microphones, too much smoke in the air—whatever excuse seemed funniest at the time. Practice was forgiving, but the crowd? Fuck no. 

People you didn’t know had begun filing in, carrying drinks and…well, opinions. They stood in loose groups near the front, talking loudly, glancing toward the stage now and then. Some of them looked older than you, some looked cooler than you.You suddenly became aware of everything wrong with yourself.

Your outfit looked stupid, your shoes were wrong, your hair was too flat., your lipgloss felt too sticky, your hands looked awkward and your face felt unfamiliar. Your voice—your voice, the thing everyone had praised all month felt like something rented, not owned.

“What if nobody claps?” you asked no one in particular.

Riki was tuning his bass nearby. “Then we clap for ourselves.”

“That’s pathetic.”

“It’s knowing we’re good enough,” he corrected.

“It’s sad.”

“Stop being miserable.”

Usually, that would have made you laugh, but it didn’t now. You were sitting on the worn leather sofa in the green room, elbows on knees, staring at your hands as if they belonged to someone else. Around you, the room moved in casual chaos. Maki tapped rhythms against the arm of a chair. Riki kept retuning strings no one else could hear problems with and James stood by the mirror adjusting nothing, cigarette balanced between his fingers, perfectly calm in the infuriating way only he could be.

You hated him for it briefly. “How are you not nervous?” you asked.

He glanced at you in the mirror. “Who says I’m not?”

“You look like you’re used to it, used to performing, like–like this is routine.”

“Im just good at staying composed?”

“Ugh shut up.”

He smiled, you looked away first. The minutes felt like seconds, time began collapsing in on itself. Every sound sharpened unpleasantly—the buzz of the amp, footsteps in the hallway, laughter outside the door, the scrape of Maki’s shoe against the floor. Someone from staff poked their head in and said, “Five minutes.”

Five minutes. Fuck, such a small amount of time to contain a breakdown. You stood up too fast, the room was bending in unusual ways. Fuck, not now. You sat back down immediately, hoping no one noticed.

No one did, thank God.

You swallowed, your throat felt tight, you took a deep breath and it snagged halfway down. You tried again, it was worse this time, your hands felt sweaty, your vision was blurry, you couldn’t even breathe properly. Fuck this was ridiculous.

You knew what anxiety was, you knew panic attacks existed. You had, in fact, once described them confidently to someone else despite never having had one yourself. Shortness of breath, dizziness, racing thoughts. You sounded almost like a therapist.

Turns out knowledge was useless when your body decided to act up against you. You took another breath, too shallow. Another, faster. The room seemed hotter now, the air thicker–harder to inhale. Your chest tightened with the malicious efficiency of something practiced, you could hear your heartbeat in strange places—your ears, your wrists, behind your eyes.

Not now.

You stared at the floorboards. If you could just focus, if you could just count. One, two, three—the numbers kept moving, but nothing distracted you from the breaths you were unable to take.

“Yn?” Riki’s voice sounded farther away than it should have. You didn’t answer. “Yn?” Louder now. Closer. “Hey.”

A hand waved briefly in front of your face. You blinked at it, but said nothing. Your breaths came fast and shallow now, each one worse than the last. No matter how much air you dragged in, none of it felt real, none of it felt like it was going in—it was almost as if it got stuck midway and just escaped without really reaching your lungs. You felt lightheaded.

Riki crouched in front of you, concern replacing his usual grin so quickly it made him look older. “Hey… hey, look at me.” You tried, but your eyes dropped straight back to the floor. Your hands had locked around the edge of the couch so tightly your knuckles hurt.

“James.”

You hadn’t realized James was already moving until he was suddenly there beside Riki. The cigarette was gone now, left burning out alone in the ashtray. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. She just—look at her.”

James crouched in front of you. “Yn.” You couldn’t answer. “Look at me.” Your vision blurred when you tried. His face came in and out of focus, the room tilting strangely around him. “Slow breath in,” he said. “Through your nose.” You tried. It caught halfway, breaking into another sharp gasp. “Again.” You shook your head hard, panic rising faster now. Tears burned unexpectedly at the corners of your eyes. “Hey.” His voice sharpened. “Look at me.”

Another breath, too quick, too thin—it didn’t work, you couldn't breathe. Your chest felt caged, your fingers were trembling. You couldn’t even hear James anymore. His lips were moving, he was saying something. You tried. You really did—you tried to focus on him. You couldn’t. Your whole body felt numb, you were shaking, your lips trembling, you felt sweat drip down your forehead.

James stood abruptly and grabbed your wrist. “Come on.”

Before you could even try to process what was happening, he took your wrist and pulled you to your feet. The sudden movement made everything tilt again. He steadied you without comment and guided—dragged you through the green room door and into the hall.

Behind you, silence lasted half a second. Then Riki muttered, “Ah.” Maki made a noise of understanding. Neither followed.

By the time James shoved open the bathroom door, you were too busy failing at oxygen to care about the fact that  it was the men’s room. He dragged you into a stall, locking it behind you both, fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. You braced both hands on his shoulder bending forward, dragging air into lungs that rejected the offer.

“Hey.” You shook your head. “Hey.” Closer now. “Look at me.” You tried, but your eyes only fluttered uselessly before dropping again. Your breaths were still jagged, fast, painful things—coming in sharp pulls that gave you nothing back. Your hands trembled where they gripped his shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt like it was the only stable thing left in the room.

James didn’t tell you to calm down, He didn’t ask questions, He didn’t waste time with words that would’ve bounced right off the panic anyway. Instead, his hands came up to hold your face. Firm, steady, warm. “Look at me,” he said again, softer this time. Your eyes found him for half a second. Long enough for him to know you were still there somewhere beneath it all.

Then he kissed you.

It wasn’t dramatic, It wasn’t greedy, It wasn’t even particularly slow. It was deliberate—the kind of kiss meant to interrupt something spiraling out of control. For one startled second, your mind blanked completely.

No fear, no noise, no crowd waiting outside, no lungs refusing to work. Your brain just stopped working.  It was just him. You and him. When he pulled back, you sucked in another breath. It still shook, but it reached deeper this time.

“There you are,” he murmured.

You blinked at him, dazed, chest still rising too fast, took another breath. Still uneven of sorts. He kissed you again. Shorter this time. A press of lips that felt less like affection and more like being anchored. One hand stayed at your jaw, thumb brushing absently beneath your eye where tears had gathered without permission.

By the time he leaned away, your breathing had slowed enough to count. You stared at him like he’d performed witchcraft. He smiled. “Better.”

You tried to answer, but only a weak exhale came out.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Talking’s overrated.”

Your forehead dropped against his shoulder, equal parts exhaustion and surrender. He let you stay there, one hand rubbing slowly up and down your lower back while the fluorescent and cold lights hummed overhead. Outside the stall, muffled through the bathroom door, the venue carried on without you—voices, footsteps, someone laughing too loudly.

Inside, there was only the sound of your breathing learning how to be normal again. After a moment, James tipped your chin up gently until you looked at him. “When we go out there,” he said quietly, “I want you to sing to me.”

You frowned weakly, still catching up to consciousness. “What?”

“Don’t sing to them.” He nodded vaguely toward the walls, toward the crowd beyond them, toward every stranger waiting outside. “Don’t sing to the room, don’t sing to the lights, not even the crowd. Look at me..” His thumb brushed once across your cheek. “Sing to me.”

And because your pulse had finally steadied, because your lungs had stopped trying to betray you, because it was James asking—and so, you nodded.

When you stepped out of the bathroom, the hallway felt colder than before. Or maybe that was just the sweat drying against your skin. Your breathing had steadied, though not completely. It still came a little too carefully, like your lungs no longer trusted themselves. James walked beside you as if none of what had just happened required acknowledgment. As if dragging you into the men’s bathroom and kissing the panic out of you was an ordinary part of pre-show routine.

Across the hall, Riki and Maki were exactly where you’d left them, leaning against the wall with matching expressions of suspicious innocence. A cigar moved lazily between. Riki looked at you first, then at James, then back at you. His grin widened with the kind of joy only a person uninvolved in disaster can feel.

“You alive?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” you muttered.

“Good enough.” Maki held out a half crushed bottle of water. “Try not to collapse on stage. It’s bad for our reputation.”

You took it. “Thank you for caring so much.”

“I’m famously warm.”

Riki tilted his head toward the bathroom door. “Everything sorted?”

Before you could answer, James walked past him and pushed open the green room door. “We’re on in one minute.” That was all.Riki watched him go, then turned back to you with exaggerated seriousness. “Interesting.”

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

He smiled. “True.”

Inside the green room, everything was suddenly too fast. Someone from staff was speaking in rushed sentences no one listened to. Maki was checking drumsticks like they were sacred objects. Riki retuned strings he’d already tuned three times. James stood near the door adjusting the strap of his guitar, calm in that infuriating way he always managed to be.

You hated him briefly for being composed. Then he looked at you. Only for a second. Long enough to ask a silent question, you answered with the smallest nod.

I’m okay. Or close enough.

The stage manager shoved the door open. “Now.” No one moved immediately, then everyone did at once. It was getting realer now. The walk to the stage felt longer than it should have. The corridor narrowed around you, packed with cables, stacked speakers, peeling posters from bands no one remembered anymore. The closer you got, the louder the room became. Voices layered over one another. Anticipation from strangers who had no idea they were about to witness the most humiliating moment of your life or maybe the best?.

Your hands started trembling again, you flexed them once and then twice. Useless. The microphone was already set up when you stepped onto the stage. The lights hit first—white and blinding, hot enough to erase the edges of the room. Beyond them was only shadow and movement. For one awful second, your chest tightened again.

Not now.

Riki counted beats under his breath, Maki adjusted his stuff, someone in the crowd whistled, someone else laughed, you wrapped both hands around the microphone stand because it was the only solid thing available.

Then you remembered. Sing to me. You turned your head, James stood a few feet away, guitar slung low, fingers resting over the strings. The stage lights caught in his hair, he was already looking at you.

He gave one small nod. That was it. No grand gesture, no smile, no fucking speech about believing in yourself. Just a nod, like the rest of the room had ceased to matter. Then Riki started playing. The opening bassline rolled through the speakers, Maki came in a beat later. James followed, guitar sliding neatly into place. The song you’d rehearsed a hundred times suddenly sounded larger, sharper, alive in a way practice had never allowed.

Your cue arrived, you opened your mouth…and nothing terrible happened.

No cracked notes, no forgotten lyrics, no public collapse. Just your voice, clear and stronger than it ever sounded in cramped bedrooms and dusty practice rooms. It moved out into the crowd like it belonged there. You kept your eyes on James through the first verse. When nerves threatened to rise again, you looked at him harder. He played without missing a beat, watching you with the faintest trace of satisfaction, like this had always been inevitable.

The second verse was easier. By the chorus, you almost forgot to be afraid.

The crowd changed shape as you sang. They stopped being people with opinions and became noise, heat, movement—background to the private world you’d accidentally built at center stage. There were dozens of strangers in the room, yet it felt suspiciously like being alone with him.

You hated how much power that gave him. You loved it too.

Somewhere near the bridge, Riki grinned at you mid play, delighted you hadn’t combusted. A girl near the front began moving with the rhythm. Someone cheered when the chorus returned.

Real reactions.

You almost laughed. You’d spent hours fearing mockery only to discover people mostly wanted a good time. How embarrassing. The final note came sooner than expected. Your voice held it cleanly, then let go. Instruments rang out behind you before cutting into sudden silence.

For half a breath, no one moved. Then applause hit the room all at once. Loud, messy, genuine. You stared out at the crowd, stunned. They were clapping for you. For all of you, yes—but also for you. The girl who’d nearly died in a bathroom ten minutes ago.

Riki whoo-ed like he’d won in life, Maki screamed obnoxiously, you turned toward James before you could stop yourself. He stepped closer under the cover of noise, close enough that only you could hear him.

“Told you.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“It’s enough.”

He reached past you to adjust the microphone height for the next song, fingers brushing lightly against your wrist in the process. Casual enough to deny, intentional enough to remember forever.

Then he glanced sideways at you, mouth curving faintly. “You think too much.”

And with the crowd still cheering around you, with adrenaline still burning bright in your blood, you realized something deeply inconvenient. You would have sung anything he asked for.

That was your first gig together, just you and them. 

The band was supposed to be permanent. At seventeen, everything was. Friendships were forever, cities were temporary, and the future was something that happened to other people. You never looked at the three boys in that room and thought one day this would end. Why would you? Back then, endings only existed in songs.

The band was never just a band either. It was where all of you kept yourselves. In between school, parents, deadlines, report cards, and every adult asking what you planned to do with your life, there was this small, loud thing that belonged only to you. A room full of amps, cheap cigarettes, tangled wires, sometimes bottles of alcohol and people who understood you better than they should have.

Some nights rehearsal was useless. Riki would play too loud on purpose, Maki would forget the same part three times and swear it was experimental, James would smoke by the window and act like none of it concerned him until he suddenly stood up, rewrote half the song, and made everyone follow.

Then there were nights when everything worked.

Those were dangerous nights. Because on nights like that, it felt impossible to imagine ever becoming anything else. The songs sounded bigger than the rooms they were trapped in. You remember how James would glance at you halfway through the song, and suddenly your voice would become something bolder than it was five seconds ago.

You lived for those glances more than you should have.

Before every performance, he always looked for you first. It was such a small thing you nearly missed it. Rooms full of people, cables snapping under shoes, strangers shouting for drinks, staff yelling nonsense—and still, somehow, his eyes found you before the lights came on.

Sometimes he’d nod once, sometimes smirk, sometimes just stare long enough—with eyes too full of adoration for your stomach to ruin your concentration. Then he’d step onstage like the room belonged to him, you used to think James loved music most. Later, you realized he loved being wanted by it.

There is a difference.

He wrote songs the way some people start fights—quickly, recklessly, and expecting everyone else to deal with the aftermath. He’d bring in half-finished lyrics on crumpled paper, melodies hummed under his breath, chord progressions he refused to explain. Then he’d hand them to the room like gifts.

But there were songs he only ever handed to you. A chorus lowered because your voice sounded warmer there. A bridge repeated because he liked the way you breathed before the third line. Notes he insisted you hold longer because “it hurts better that way.”

“What does that even mean?” you asked once.

He shrugged, cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Means do it again.”

So you did.

You always did.

No one said anything about the two of you, not directly. That was the strange kindness everyone offered. Riki would raise an eyebrow when James disappeared after rehearsal and you vanished five minutes later. Maki would sigh whenever one of you snapped at the other over something that was clearly not about music. But no one asked questions.

Maybe they knew some things died when named too early. You fought often, mostly over songs…and then made up by making out but no one has to know about that part.

He’d cut your verse and call it weak, you’d accuse him of being impossible, he’d say you were too sensitive, you’d say he was arrogant. Riki would quietly unplug his bass and wait for the stormy weather to pass.

Then an hour later you’d be sitting beside James on the floor, sharing convenience store noodles, knees touching like nothing happened.

That was the problem with the two of you—nothing ever happened, everything just continued. You never confessed. He never asked. No one drew lines. No one crossed them either. You just kept slipping further into something neither of you respected enough to define. And because of that, it started to feel endless.

That is what youth does best—it makes temporary things feel permanent. You thought the band would last because how could something built from so much wanting possibly disappear? You thought James would stay because he was always there, leaning against doorframes, smoking out windows, calling you late, asking if you were free. You thought there would always be another rehearsal, another show, another song he’d look at you through.

You thought wrong in the ordinary way young people do.

Looking back, the signs were embarrassing.

Talking more about James always felt a little useless. He was the kind of person who made sense only in fragments.. You could know him for years and still feel like you were piecing together someone from smoke, late night hang(make)outs , and things he never finished saying.

He loved cigarettes first, seven star cigarettes especially—he put you on those too. He was 14 when he started and by eighteen he had preferences. He’d talk nonsense about flavor, filter quality, as if any of it mattered when all of it still ended in ash. He liked the ritual of it more than the smoking itself—you noticed that early, the flick of the lighter, the pause before the inhale and the way he’d tap the end over an ashtray with absent precision. 

Sometimes you thought he only smoked because it gave his hands something to do when he didn’t know how to be touched.

He never spoke much about his parents, which told you enough. Some people describe family in detail because they love them. Others avoid the topic because language would be too complicated for others to learn—sort of like putting a child who only spoke English in Russia, the child wouldn't understand shit. James belonged to those who avoided the topic. You learned in scraps: a father who existed mostly financially, a mother who was easier to disappoint than to know, dinners eaten alone, birthdays forgotten with such consistency they no longer counted as betrayal.

He said it all casually, which made it worse.

Once, while looking for clean glasses in his kitchen, you asked if anyone was coming home. He laughed and said, “To which house?”

That was how he treated pain—like a joke told too dryly for anyone to interrupt.

He didn’t have many friends either. Not real ones. There was the band, of course—Riki, Maki, you. A few names from Seoul he texted at odd hours, people who seemed to exist in stories more than real life. Mainly musicians—you remember hearing about some guy named Martin. Mostly, though, he kept his life narrow. Intimacy required maintenance, and James disliked owing people anything.

He slept badly—insomniac basically.

You discovered that long before he admitted it. He’d message at three in the morning asking if you were awake, then pretend it was accidental when you answered. He’d arrive to practice with the exhaustion of someone who had closed his eyes but never rested. Sometimes you’d find him lying on the studio floor after rehearsal, arm over his face, claiming he was “just thinking.”

He was always thinking. That was the problem.

At night, when the mask wore off and the room got quiet, you could see it on him—the restlessness, the dread, the strange irritation. He was terrified of wasting himself, terrified of becoming ordinary, terrified of being the kind of man who never left the city he was born in and spent the rest of his life explaining why. Maybe that's why he had to get drunk to sleep, it was a coping mechanism—a bad one but at least it helped him get sleep.

Failure haunted him in ways success never did. That was why he drank too young and too often. Not enough to become a cautionary tale, just enough to keep edges blurred. Beer after rehearsal, whiskey someone older bought him, vodka in plastic cups because it was cheap and efficient. He drank like he did everything else to relax first and deal with the consequences later.

You hated it until you understood it.

Alcohol quieted the voice in him that kept asking if he was enough. Cigarettes occupied the hands that didn’t know where to put themselves. Music gave shape to feelings he couldn’t say plainly. And you—well. You were what he reached for when none of the others worked.

That should have frightened you more than it did. The two of you were never healthy. You knew that even then, though youth has a way of renaming damage as passion. You mistook intensity for depth, confusion for mystery, dependency for love. So did he. You were drawn together by matching fractures. Both of you knew abandonment too well, both of you knew what it was to become useful so people might keep you, both of you confused being needed with being cherished.

He wanted someone who would stay no matter how badly he behaved. You wanted someone who would choose you without being asked. Neither of you knew how to request those things honestly—you both were trauma bonded.

So instead, you built a language made of almosts, almost dating, almost confessing, almost staying over, almost saying I need you and almost asking what are we?

He’d kiss you like certainty, then disappear emotionally for three days. You’d punish him with silence, then show up the second he asked if you were free. He’d write songs no one could mistake as being about you, then introduce you publicly as “my friend.” You’d laugh it off, then cry about it alone where pride could survive.

It was ugly sometimes, tender too. Usually both at once. There were nights he’d hold you like the world was ending and mornings he’d act like nothing had happened. There were fights that began over setlists and ended with old wounds neither of you had named. There were apologies delivered through acts of service because neither of you trusted direct language.

If you were sick, he’d appear with medicine and no explanation. If he was spiraling, he’d ask if you were free. That was your entire relationship in two sentences. And yet, it would be dishonest to call it worthless just because it was unhealthy. There was love there, real love, even if poorly handled. You understood each other in the places other people rarely reached. He saw through your sarcasm to the girl terrified of being forgettable. You saw through his arrogance to the boy convinced love was temporary.

The tragedy was not that you loved each other. The tragedy was that you loved each other at the wrong time. A phase full of substances, hurt and just fucked up stuff. Back then though, it felt romantic that he needed you so much. Later, you’d realize people can drown while holding each other.

Still, when James looked at you from the stage, cigarette smell still clinging to his jacket, eyes tired from another sleepless night, guitar hanging low like it belonged there, it was easy to believe love alone could save two broken people.

Youth believes many beautiful lies.

You weren’t innocent either. That would have been easier—if James had been the damage and you had simply received it. But people rarely come to each other whole.

Your mother left early enough that memory could not make her real. She existed more as an outline than a person—old stories, half kept photos, the kind of absence that sits quietly in a room for years. Your father was worse in some ways. Still alive, still somewhere, still technically yours, yet distant enough to feel fictional.

So you were raised by your grandmother, who loved you the way some older women do: through food, rules, sharp words, and sacrifices never spoken aloud. She kept you alive, kept you decent, kept a roof over your head. You learned early not to need much. Need made people leave. Need made you a burden. Better to be useful, easy, amusing. Better to become the girl who laughed first, who helped everyone else, who acted like nothing touched her deeply enough to matter.

You knew how to be wanted. Helpful girls are always wanted. You had no idea how to be loved. That was why James got under your skin so badly. He was damaged in familiar ways, distant in familiar ways, hungry in familiar ways. Loving him felt less like falling and more like repeating something old.

And fuck, did you love him. 

Just never enough to admit it aloud.

Somehow, without discussion and with no real decision made by either of you, you began living together. That was how most things happened between you and James—gradually enough to deny, seriously enough to matter.

At first it was practical. You stayed over because practice ended late and the trains had stopped. Then you stayed because you already had clothes there. Then because your charger lived beside his bed. Then because his kitchen had tea you liked and your grandmother had begun asking too many careful questions.

One morning you realized your toothbrush was in his bathroom cup beside his. Another morning you realized half your sweaters were hanging in his closet. By the time anyone else pointed it out, you had been living there for months. Neither of you mentioned it. Naming things made them vulnerable.

His apartment was still small and badly heated, still smelled faintly of smoke and whatever cheap alcohol he’d bought last. But it changed around you. There were books stacked by the bed now, hair ties on the sink, your rings beside his ashtray, groceries that hinted someone actually cared whether nutrients were consumed, blankets folded properly and plants you insisted would survive and he insisted would not.

You turned his place into something survivable. He turned it into yours. Mornings became their own private addiction. You’d wake first sometimes, half tangled in sheets, the pale light coming through the curtains in weak stripes across the room. James slept badly even in sleep—restless, shifting, brow faintly furrowed like he was arguing with dreams. But when he felt you moving, he’d reach without opening his eyes and drag you back against him with sleepy entitlement.

“Five more minutes,” he’d mumble.

“You said that twenty minutes ago.”

“Then clearly I mean ten.”

You’d laugh, and he’d kiss you before the sound fully left your mouth. Slow, warm, lazy kisses that belonged only to mornings. Nothing dramatic. No hunger, no performance. Just familiarity. Lips meeting because they had learned to begin the day that way.

Sometimes he’d tuck his face into your neck after, breathing you in like something medicinal. Sometimes he’d keep one hand at your waist while scrolling through messages with the other. Sometimes he’d refuse to let you get up at all until you threatened to walk out.

It was domestic in the most dangerous sense. Because it felt normal. You cooked badly together, he smoked out the kitchen window while pretending to help, you stole his shirts, he complained when you reorganized drawers, then asked where everything was after, you fought over whose turn it was to buy toilet paper with the intensity of a married couple, you waited for him after late studio nights and pretended you had only stayed awake accidentally, he learned which tea to make when your moods turned sour, you learned how to tell, from the way he unlocked the door, whether the day had been harsh on him.

People who visited assumed you were together—a reasonable mistake.

You sat in each other’s laps during rehearsals. He kissed your forehead absentmindedly while tuning his guitar. You fixed his collar before interviews. He carried your bag without asking. In public, he reached for your hand the way some people check their pockets for keys—pure instinct.

After shows, he’d pull you into him backstage like applause belonged to both of you. At bars, he’d rest his chin on your shoulder while talking to other people. When strangers flirted with him, his eyes searched the room for your reaction before he answered. When men tried their luck with you, he became cold in a way only you recognized.

Even your little audience noticed.

Two thousand listeners online, maybe less in person on good nights, and still they noticed. Fans made edits of glances caught on camera, comment sections argued whether the chemistry was real, people slowed down videos of him looking at you during choruses like they were studying evidence. Someone once uploaded a compilation titled James forgetting real life exists whenever Yn sings.

Riki laughed for ten straight minutes.

“What?” you said. “It’s weird.”

“It’s accurate,” he replied.

Whenever anyone asked, though, the answer never changed. “We’re just friends.”

Sometimes you said it. Sometimes James did. Sometimes both of you in the same interview, with matching expressions too practiced to be innocent.

Just friends.

Friends who shared rent, friends who slept in the same bed, friends who madeout in elevators, friend who kissed like lovers, friends who fought like spouses and reconciled like lovers, friends who knew each other’s passwords, scars, tempers, and pulse points.

The lie became so routine it almost felt true.

Almost.

Because underneath all that devotion lived resentment neither of you knew how to bury properly. James resented being hidden. He would never say it plainly, but it came out elsewhere. In the way he went silent after interviews, in the harshness of his jokes when someone called you single and in how hard he kissed you after public denials, as if trying to recover something stolen.

He resented that he was good enough to come home to, but never important enough to name, he resented being emotionally useful while remaining officially nothing, he resented always being almost chosen.

You saw it most on nights after events, when you’d both come home dressed too well and too tired. He’d loosen his tie, light a cigarette, and stand by the window in that dangerous quiet of his.

“What?” you’d ask.

“Nothing.”

“James.”

He’d exhale smoke. “Do you enjoy it?”

“Enjoy what?”

“Acting surprised every time people think you’re available.”

Then the fight would begin somewhere small and end somewhere ancient.

You resented him too, deeply and often. You resented his unpredictability—the way one week he was tender and attentive, the next unreachable inside the same apartment. You resented how moods ruled the room. How everyone adjusted around him when he was dark, tired, angry, distant. You resented that his pain always arrived louder than yours.

Most of all, you resented how much power he had over you.

How a text from him could change your day? How one withdrawn glance could ruin your appetite and how praise from strangers meant less than approval from the man currently ignoring you on the couch.

Loving him often felt like losing arguments you never agreed to have.

There were nights you’d watch him sleeping beside you and feel such tenderness it hurt, there were mornings you’d hear him humming in the kitchen and want to marry him, there were afternoons you’d consider leaving forever because he’d said “fine” in the wrong tone.

That was the shape of your life together: adoration interrupted by emotional warfare and the fear of commitment. And yet, it was not miserable. That was the confusing part.

For every ugly fight, there were ten moments so soft they made you doubt your own complaints. He still kissed you every morning, still saved the last bite of food he knew you liked, still rewrote songs around your voice, still remembered the date your mother left though you’d only mentioned it once, still sat outside the bathroom door when sadness locked you inside it.

For every time he hurt you through cowardice, he loved you through instinct. Which made leaving impossible.

One summer evening, after a rooftop show, the two of you walked home through streets still warm from daylight. You were carrying flowers some fan had handed you. He was carrying your heels because you’d complained for six blocks.

“We look pathetic,” you said.

“We look married,” he corrected.

You laughed. “That’s worse.”

He stopped walking. “Would it be?”

You turned to him, waiting for the joke that would save you both. It never came. Traffic moved below. Somewhere nearby someone was singing badly through an open window. James’s face was unreadable in the streetlight.

Then he shrugged and kept walking. “Forget it.”

You hated him for that for weeks. Because that was another thing he did—opened doors emotionally only to leave you standing outside them.

Still, you followed him home. Still, you slept in his bed. Still, the next morning he kissed you awake like nothing in the world was broken.

Your listeners continued to speculate, friends continued not to ask, the band continued rising in slow, uneven steps. And through all of it, the two of you remained suspended in that ridiculous unnamed state—more intimate than most marriages, less honest than most affairs. More than friends but less than lovers but also too much like lovers to not be lovers—doesn’t make sense right? exactly.

People think disaster arrives with noise. Usually it arrives quietly, disguised as routine. By the time Seoul entered the conversation, you and James had already built a whole life on top of things neither of you were brave enough to say.

So when the whole Seoul thing arrived, it arrived as betrayal.

You noticed it first in the details. James started taking calls in the hallway with the door half shut, started showering before meetings he never mentioned, started wearing the black coat you liked because it made him look put together and started smoking at the window instead of beside you in bed—almost as if it hurt to look at you while smoking to get his mind off of things.

He slept less, smiled less and surprisingly thought more. That was always dangerous. James only ever became soft right before he was about to do something cruel.

The band felt it too. Rehearsals ended in silences instead of laughter. Cigarettes burned quicker, songs sounded sharper…everyone knew a storm was coming. No one wanted to be the first to name it.

It happened on a Thursday after practice. Riki had stormed outside after fighting with James over tempo, Maki followed because someone had to keep him from setting something on fire.

You were left alone in the studio with James. You were coiling cables with unnecessary violence. He was pretending to tune a guitar that was already in tune.

“Yn.” You ignored him. “Yn.”

“What?”

“I need to tell you something.”

You laughed once. “That sentence has never improved anyone’s life.”

He did not laugh back.

Your hands slowed.

“I got offered a contract.”

You looked at him. “Okay.”

“In Seoul.”

The cable slipped from your hands and hit the floor with a flat sound, silence flooded the room. “For what?”

“A new band, with real connections.”

“Connections.”

“Real ones.”

You blinked. “Real ones.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” you said quietly. “Say it properly.”

His jaw tightened the way it always did when feelings demanded precision. “I mean chances that aren’t trapped in this city.”

You stared at him like he had become a stranger in your favorite jacket. The couch was the same, the posters were the same, the ashtray you hated was still full beside the amp, his coffee cup was still on the windowsill with your lipstick mark on it from that morning. Yet somehow the whole room had moved one inch to the left. Enough to make you dizzy. “So you’re leaving.”

“I’m considering it.”

“You’re leaving.”

“I have to think about my future.”

The cruelty of that sentence was how fair it sounded. You laughed again, and this time it broke halfway through. “Your future.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like I’m evil because I don’t want to rot here.”

There he was. That version of James who struck first whenever fear cornered him. “Rot here?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” you said. “Apparently I only know what you mean when it helps you.”

He swore under his breath and stood up.

“Riki thinks this band lasts forever because he needs something to believe in. Maki’s going to law school and barely pretends otherwise. This was never permanent.”

“And me?”

He hesitated…that hurt more than words. “And me?” you repeated.

He dragged a hand through his hair. “yn , I-.”

The room went still, because that was not just about the band.

You nodded slowly. “What I am to you?”

“You’re well, a friend…I-.” He hesitated more, “I don't mean that..”

“It’s what you really mean.”

“No.” He stepped closer, frustration and panic fighting in his face. “I meant whatever this is between us was never enough to hold everything together.”

Your chest tightened. “This?”

He looked away. Coward. You laughed, then started crying in the middle of it. Not elegantly, not one cinematic tear sliding down your cheek. Real crying, ugly crying. The kind of crying that makes your heart physically hurt.  You hated him for seeing it. His face changed instantly. The hesitation gone so fast it almost looked like panic. 

“Hey.”

You turned away.

“Baby.”

“Don’t.”

He crossed the room anyway. When you stepped back, he caught your wrists, then pulled you into him with the same certainty he used for everything that mattered. Your forehead hit his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into your hair. “I’m sorry, baby.”

That word nearly killed you. Then he said the one thing he had denied both of you for years. “I love you.”

You froze. Then cried harder than before, because how dare he? How dare he spend years calling you friend, years touching you like devotion and speaking of you like convenience, years building a home with you out of unnamed things—only to become honest at the exact moment honesty could do nothing. How deep was his love?

How dare he love you and still go. “I really do,” he said, voice shaking now. “I just—” He stopped there. Because there was nothing after I just that could save either of you.

You cried into him until your ribs hurt. He held you all night on the studio couch. Neither of you went home. Sometimes he kissed your forehead, sometimes he brushed tears from your face with trembling thumbs. Once, around four in the morning, you felt his chest jerk once under your cheek, sharp and silent. Even crying had to happen secretly for him.

No plan was made, no promises helped. Morning came anyway and when he woke, you were gone.

You took your toothbrush, two sweaters, your notebook, and whatever pride fit into a canvas tote from his apartment.

He called seven times, you answered none.

The next time you saw him was at the station. Of course Maki came. He already knew about it. He always knew about James and Seoul. He never told anyone. Riki came too, he had too, he accepted it—he had to.

You came because not coming would have confessed too much.

The station was loud. Announcements overhead as James stood near the platform edge with a duffel bag and his guitar case over one shoulder.

He looked like every dream he had ever had. He looked like every problem you had ever loved.

When he saw the three of you, he smiled automatically. It died the second his eyes found yours. Riki hugged him first, hard enough to count as violence. “Don’t become annoying,” he muttered into his shoulder. Maki shook his hand, then hugged him too quickly to be commented on.

Then it was your turn, neither of you moved.

The train doors slid open with a soft chime, passengers stepped out, others stepped in around you, annoyed by your tragedy.

Finally he said your name. Not loudly though, more like a prayer, like an apology and like a punishment. You followed him inside. Riki and Maki stayed on the platform. 

Inside the carriage, he led you to the space near the connecting door, half hidden from the aisle. For a second neither of you spoke, then he grabbed your face in both hands and kissed you. Hard, desperate and fucking furious. Like he could force memory to survive distance. Like if he kissed you enough now, leaving later might become survivable. His mouth tasted like seven star cigarettes—his favourite and the bitter coffee he drank when he was nervous. Your hands clutched his collars so tightly your fingers hurt. He kissed you until breathing became secondary.

When he pulled back, both of you were shaking. “Come with me,” he said.

You almost laughed. “To what?” you whispered. “To become what? Your secret in another country?”

Pain crossed his face so quickly it was almost beautiful. “I would’ve made it right.”

“You had 2 years.”

That silenced him, the warning chime sounded. Doors closing soon.

He pulled you into one last hug so tight it bordered on cruelty. Your cheek pressed against his chest. His heart was racing.

“I love you,” he said again, smaller this time.

You shut your eyes. “I know.”

Then you pushed away first. Because if he let go first again, it would destroy whatever was left of you. You stepped onto the platform just as the doors slid shut between you. For one suspended second, you were separated only by glass.

He lifted a hand, You couldn’t move yours. The train began to pull away. You walked beside it for two steps and then stopped. He remained visible through passing windows until distance turned him into shape, then shadow, then nothing.

Your legs gave out beside a pillar, you sank to the ground, knees pulled to your chest, forehead buried against them, sobbing so hard no sound came out properly. Your shoulders shook. Your hands clawed uselessly at denim.

People passed around you in practiced arcs. Cities are merciful that way—they let strangers break privately in public. Down the platform, Riki stood rigid with his jaw clenched. Maki looked away to give you dignity. As the last carriage curved out of sight, they caught one final glimpse through the rear window.

James had collapsed into a seat, elbows on knees, face buried in both hands. He was leaving, and he was crying where no one could hold him.

perm tags: @amb4rluvs / @beatbymarzz / @sailuvsu / @lcvehyeon / @frizzyyo / @09zpzkeonns / @yunjiiin / @hyuneskkami / @one-chance-pls / @rickyshensgirlfriend / @snowzxki / @yuu-kizx / @myen2rude / @meowchness / @jjuhyeons / @6rei-ji / @luffyloving / @w0narchy

“what's with the uh, the–” you motion towards his face before crossing your arms, dulling down just how much you liked it. “oh.” he chuckles, hand coming up to rub over his beard. “yeah, it’s kinda grown out a bit.” he sighs, as if it was a bad thing.

you hum, watching as he shrugs his coat off before walking over to a mirror. “i might go shave it.” he sighs.

there's nothing you can do to stop yourself, the word slipping out frantically. “no!” he turns, almost startled by your voice, raising an eyebrow at your reaction. “i mean, no.” you correct quietly, settling back down as casually as you can.

he gives you a questionable look, moving over to press a soft kiss to your cheek. “m’gonna get in the shower…” he trails off, unable to ignore the soft sigh that leaves your lips as his face touches yours — an almost sexual sigh that had him pausing for a second.

“are you—” he scoff, reading your face like a book as your eyes bore into his, giving away everything. “you’re into it, aren’t ya?”

the blush spreads across your face embarrassingly fast, causing your words to tangle up in your throat. “why’re you even—”

he cuts you off, plush lips pressing against your hard as his fingers come to dig into the skin of your cheeks. you should be thinking about how soft they are, the way they move against yours — or even the small groan that crawls out of his throat.

but all you can think about is that god forsaken beard. the stupid, mere facial hair that had gotten you embarrassingly worked up, and was all you could think about as it grazed your face every time his angle changed.

so much so, you find yourself moaning into his mouth, simply from the feeling up against your skin.

“god, you fuckin’ love it.” he scoffs, poking fun at you with a smirk of his face — only able to hide his own arousal by digging into yours. pushing you back against the wall, cornering you so you couldn’t escape the truth of it.

you can only whine back, head lolling back to hit the surface as his lips begin attacking your neck — harsh sucks and licks, all enveloped with the roughness of his beard. “you want it all over you, huh?”

“all over.” you breathe out, body becoming like jelly as you let the words slip out — giving into the feeling, allowing him to do so.

he scoffs yet again, and you can feel his cocky grin against your skin in the way his kisses, like he’s enjoying how incredibly pathetic this is for you more than anything.

“jus’ say it.” you whine out quietly, only loud enough to catch his ear as he shifts to the other side of your neck — hungrily pulling you closer by your waist. “say what?” he responds calmly, acting all coy in a way you hated.

“what you think of… fuck, of— mghh” you can’t get the words out as his lips suck hard, drawing out your moans as he buries himself in the crook of your neck — maliciously feeding into your little kink.

he hums, condescendingly, like hes answering the question without even speaking. but when you moan out a small ‘please’, weak and addictive in its nature — he can’t help himself.

“think you’re pathetic.” he breathes out against your skin, testing the waters as you let out a small whine. “and a slut for me, hm.” he adds, earring another sound from you.

“i just— fuuck.” his hand dips into your underwear, cutting off every train of thought youd had as his fingers pass over your clit — leaving you a puddle against him, completely at the mercy of his touch.

“also think youre jus’ as wet as i thought you’d be. all fuckin’ sticky jus’ cos of some facial hair.” he murmurs, barely able to hide the breathiness of his words — all giving away just how much this whole thing was turning him on.

the way youd gotten yourself so worked up over how he looked, that deep desire you had for him spreading in a way that was undeniably the most attractive thing hed ever seen.

“got yourself all worked up, hm.” he mumbles against your ear, no other response than your hips bucking forwards into his touch — desperate and messy. “bet you want m’face there.” he suggests, looking down at where his hand disappeared into your trousers.

“thinkin’ about the way it’d rub up against your thighs and your pretty pussy— all rough like you wan’ it, huh?”

you nod, although it might not be the answer you intended to give up so easily. but your lip is held between your teeth, body sweaty from the mere suggestion. and the idea is far too insatiable to ignore let alone reject.

as soon as he had you laid on the bed beneath him, it was all over for you. rough beard scratching along your skin as he dragged his lips down your body — making sure you felt it, despite the cruel teasing.

“tell me how it feels.” he murmurs against you, looking up at you with those teasing eyes — able to mock you and mask it with a pretty smirk. “g-good, so good.” you whimper, feeling his breath against your thigh.

“mm, jus’ good?” he teases, making an effort to press his face into the plush of your thigh — nipping at the skin as his fingers dig deep. “so— ahh.” you whine, arching into his touch, silently begging for more.

more of that feeling of his rough beard scratching across your skin — almost painful or uncomfortable, yet the most arousing sensation you’d ever felt.

and it’s oh so much better when his lips wrap around your swollen clit, tongue darting out to get a taste. and when’s hes nose deep, lapping you up as his beard scruffs against your sensitive pussy — giving you the perfect sensation despite his malicious teasing.

“oh, fuuck matt.” you moan out, threading your fingers into his hair in order to pull him closer, pushing him into your cunt — practically suffocating him. but he wasn’t one to complain, only sucking harder and messier, letting his mouth run loose against you whilst you used his face to get off.

his whole face, beard and all. your hips rutting up as you chased your orgasm, hanging onto the feeling of his rugged beard against you in order to reach your high — crashing down in waves, matt making sure his face was covered in nothing but you.

𐔌 ©.STURNSRECORD