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leejenowrld · 2 months ago

Text

back to you - eight

pairing - lee jeno x reader

word count - 52k words

genre - smut, fluff, angst, enemies to lovers

synopsis — since the state championships, everything that once burned bright has settled into smoke, memories warped, meanings changed, distance stretched thin across months of silence and separate lives. jeno’s not the same, and neither are you, not in the places that matter most. whatever you were to each other back then has blistered, scarred, grown teeth and now it bares them in silence. everyone’s scattered, tucked into cities like secrets you don’t say out loud: then comes the wedding…

chapter contents/warnings — post college au, small town vibes, explicit language, explicit sexual content(18+), explicit themes, one tree hill inspired, early 2000s vibe, power play, dom reader/sub jeno dynamics (both switches tbh), explicit language, first of the time jump chapters, if you haven’t read parts 1-7 please do, this chapter is a lot, a lot is happening, at the start it travels through different countries and plot arcs, i really can’t make this chapter contents and warnings long because everything i say is a spoiler, this chapter is filled with unexpected twists and turns, when i say it’s a lot, a lot happens, it’s filled with smut, angst, drama, i fear i’m gonna have a lot of jeno haters in my inbox before you send me anything please use your brain and do take into account context and the fact this is only the first chapter out of many time jump ones, a lot of sex in this, bye for now, i really can’t say anything else, let’s do a game every time something unexpected happens/is revealed then drop a comment and say woah! and then tell me what was revealed. lol. what i will say though is that there is a lot of scenes of both of them having sex with other people, not as in depth as i’d write y/n and jeno sex scenes but yeah i’m just warning you of that, remember everything will happen for a reason, plus miscommunication is huge this chapter but again remember it’s all for a reason !!! i know what im doing.

listen to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 whilst reading <3

𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐋

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋

𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐋. 𝟑𝟕.𝟓𝟓𝟗𝟖° 𝐍, 𝟏𝟐𝟕.𝟎𝟎𝟏𝟖° 𝐄

The sound hits before anything else—sharp exhales, the rustle of fabric, a muffled gasp that tightens in your throat before dissolving into a low groan. “Faster,” you whisper, heat prickling at the back of your neck, one hand braced against the edge of the lacquered table as your back arches. “God—right there, yes.”

Yangyang grunts behind you. His breath is hot, chest flush to your spine, arms moving fast. “Don’t move,” he mutters, voice low and focused. “I’m almost done.”

You choke on a laugh, blinking sweat from your eyes as the stack of wedding favour bags collapses beside your elbow. “If you crease one more envelope, I swear—”

“Wasn’t me,” he says, biting down on a piece of twine, hands flying across the table to realign the seating cards you just spent two hours alphabetising. “That was the wind.”

“There’s no wind,” you snap, spinning on your heel to grab another tray. “We’re indoors.”

Yangyang groans behind you, swearing under his breath as he wrestles with the tangled satin ribbons, his knees skidding awkwardly on the tatami mat. “Stop moving,” he mutters, sweating as he chases the last of the place cards that slipped off the tray. “We don’t have time for this.”

“I said faster,” you repeat, breathless now—not from anything remotely sexual, but from the heat and sheer fury curling in your chest. You’re elbow-deep in wedding favours, fingers cramping from the hundredth bow, the twine burning grooves into your skin. The room smells like jasmine, incense, and wax—the holy trinity of headaches. Somewhere outside, a bell chimes. Somewhere inside, you’re losing your mind. “The guests will start arriving in twelve hours, Yangyang. We’re fucked.”

“Not in the way everyone thinks,” he says dryly, sliding a box of table numbers closer with his foot. “Do you know how bad this looks? You moaning my name in here like we’re bending each other over the bonsai.” He pauses. “Actually. That would’ve been more fun than this.”

You don’t even flinch. “If you’d just found the lavender pouches like I asked, I wouldn’t be moaning at all.”

“And yet, here we are. Fabric disaster.” He smirks. You glare. Your phone starts ringing—Irene lighting up the screen, her name sharp against the chaos. You pause. Wipe your hands on your shorts and answer like you haven’t been screaming about lavender bags for the past ten minutes.

“Please don’t kill me,” she says without preamble. “I forgot to confirm the shuttle times for the guests from Tokyo.”

You inhale. Deeply. You’ve done breathing exercises for moments like this. “It’s fine,” you say, already scrolling to the spreadsheet. “I’ll handle it.” And you do, you always do. Even as Yangyang knocks over the box of wedding fans. Even as the iced coffee you were saving for later leaks all over the seating chart. Even as the weight of it all—of who’s coming, of who you’ll have to see—sits heavy in your chest, like the thunderclouds rolling in over Kyoto’s hills. You were made for this. Or at least, that’s what you keep telling yourself.

It started over brunch, of course. The café was still quiet at that hour, sunlight pouring through the skylight in soft, gold streaks that danced against the tabletop and the steam rising off your untouched coffee. Irene had ordered two of everything from the new summer menu — matcha croissants, watermelon burrata, a delicate lavender gelato she’d been developing for weeks — and insisted you try each one. You barely touched any of it. Your MacBook sat open beside your plate, Slack notifications ticking in the corner of the screen, a branding deck half-finished in one tab and three client calendars stacked in another. Your phone buzzed with back-to-back meeting alerts, and you only flipped it screen-down when the vibration made the utensils rattle. You hadn’t gone a day without your laptop in weeks, not since you stopped sleeping properly, not since work became your anchor, your escape. Not since the quiet started swallowing everything else.

Irene stirred her lavender honey tea like she was plotting a murder, gaze glassy and wide as she sighed for the third time in under a minute. Her voice was feather-light, deliberately casual. “It’s not that I’m not excited,” she murmured. “It’s just the café is expanding, the new lifestyle brand is still in launch mode, and Doyoung can’t even pick a tux without texting me six different shades of ivory.”

You glanced up from the moodboard open on your screen, chewing the inside of your cheek. You knew that tone. It was the same one she used when she pretended she hadn’t noticed you crying in the bathroom two months ago, mascara running down your face after a work meeting triggered a memory you weren’t ready for. The same tone she used when she handed you a hot water bottle without asking questions, when she told you — quietly, firmly — that love shouldn’t make you feel disposable. She hadn’t brought him up once since. Not even when your phone buzzed with his name and you let it ring out.

Now, she just kept stirring. “I mean, if I had someone — anyone — who understood my aesthetic and could actually handle things… maybe I wouldn’t be losing my mind.”

You reached for your iced matcha, brushing a stray flower petal off your keyboard. “Do you want help with this?” you said it lightly, trying to keep your voice even, like it wasn’t already forming a spreadsheet in your head. “I could step in. Coordinate it all. Take some of the pressure off you.”

Irene sipped her tea and smiled sweetly, as if she hadn’t just puppeteered the entire conversation to this exact point. “Would you? That would be amazing.” Just like that, you had agreed to plan a wedding for a woman who knew exactly what she was doing.

Your day-to-day was chaos dressed in pressed linen and soft neutrals, polished down to the last eyelash. You were Apex’s Seoul golden girl—part performance analyst, part storyteller, part strategist. Your mornings started before the sun, black coffee clutched in one hand, your phone lighting up with messages from the New York and London offices. Performance briefs. Revision notes. Urgent client calls. Then it was pitches, creative boards, data crunching sessions, and the never-ending dance of managing three different teams who couldn’t design a graphic to save their lives. You moved through it all like you were untouchable—heels clicking against marble floors, your laptop always open, always glowing. You didn’t stop. Not when they offered you the Seoul office lead. Not when the sleepless nights bled into weekends. Not even after the one person you thought would stay didn’t.

Due to your intensive workload, the wedding planning started soft, like a breeze you could just about manage. Just a few notes, a few colour swatches tucked beside your spreadsheets but then Irene sent the moodboards, the venue options, the catering inquiries, the guest list. It got harder to juggle—your work calendar filled with international strategy meetings, your personal calendar overtaken by calligraphy samples and seating charts. You told yourself you’d pull the whole group in once things ramped up. You’d divide it all later—make Hyuck handle the audio, make Karina vet the florals, make Mark do something, anything but right now, in the early stages, you needed someone beside you. Someone who’d know how to keep up. Someone who could read your mind before the words even left your mouth. Someone who knew when to shut up, when to hold your bag, when to press an iced drink into your palm without needing to be asked. Someone sharp. Steady. Loyal. Strong hands. Fast reflexes. A little reckless. A littleobsessed. The kind of presence that could anchor you when you were slipping sideways.

Yangyang found you on a Tuesday. He always picked you up on Tuesdays. No matter how busy, no matter how bruised from whatever the week had already thrown at him, he was at your curb by 8:27 a.m, iced americano in the cupholder, and the passenger seat reclined just the way you liked it. It had started months ago, quietly, a simple offer when your car was in the shop, and then it just… never stopped. You never asked him to. He never asked why. Tuesdays just became yours.

You’d spend the whole day together. After the morning rush of client briefings and update calls, he’d drive you across the river to the flower markets, winding through alleys of scent and color so dense it made your eyes blur. You’d take meetings from the passenger seat, heels kicked off, laptop on your thighs, his voice occasionally dipping in over Bluetooth to ask if you wanted lunch from your usual spot. Sometimes you’d stop at the quiet café with the lemon trees, the one no one else seemed to know about, all gold-rimmed plates and vintage jazz, sun pooling against the floor like honey. You liked the quiet there. You could breathe there.

It was during one of those afternoons—table covered in linen swatches, your phone buzzing nonstop, your pulse matching it beat for beat—that you cracked. “I need help,” you murmured, not even looking up from your screen. “You’re my assistant now. You need to be on-call, twenty four seven, no questions asked.”

“So… your right-hand man?” he tried, smirking.

You handed him a colour-coded spreadsheet, a clipboard, and a box of ring samples. “More like a glorified delivery boy-slash-courier-slash-emotional support pet.”

He grinned. “Commander.” You threw a napkin at his head but your mouth twitched, just a little. “This is cool. Do I get a name badge, or…?” You handed him your to-do list instead. He grinned. You didn’t. Not yet.

You tell yourself you’re fine. You tell yourself this is just a favour, just a project for people you love but you treat it like work, like a performance. Like it’s saving your life. Irene and Doyoung are more than friends, more than mentors — they’re family in every sense that matters and this wedding is the only thing that’s keeping your mind busy enough to not think about how quiet your phone’s been, or how many nights your bed feels colder than usual.

The next few months have been intense but intense for all the best reasons. Your dining table has transformed into a command center, completely buried beneath colour swatches, vendor contracts, print samples, open laptops, and paper tabs fanned out like an archive. One laptop is for Apex work, pitch decks, performance briefs, analytics in real time. The other’s solely for the wedding, where your Google Drive is a tangle of shared folders, PDFs, and inspiration decks you revise every other hour. There are sticky notes on every edge of every surface, pastel reminders, sarcastic affirmations, delivery deadlines, and one recurring note that just says ‘don’t forget to breathe.’

You’ve built a digital planner synced perfectly to your phone, laptop, and wall calendar. The hallway whiteboard tracks your master timeline, scrawled over in your handwriting, crossed out with pink markers, wiped and re-written week by week. Yangyang sometimes sneaks in his own notes on post-its — “breathe,” or “you're hot and scary.” It helps more than you’ll admit.

Your shared Google Sheets doc is the gospel of this wedding. Every name, every vendor, every deadline is logged and double-checked. The tabs are meticulous: bridal party assignments, contact lists, delivery estimates, payment schedules, seating chart drafts, colour palettes, outfit changes, honeymoon surprise ideas. There’s even a hidden tab, locked behind a password only you and Ningning know, it’s for her to keep track of the small things she’s planning just for you. The spreadsheet status bars shift colour with every change: yellow means pending, green is confirmed, red means someone’s about to die.

Seoul becomes your HQ. It makes the most sense. The team here is solid — the easiest to pin down, the ones you can meet face to face. Mark and Chenle are already synced to your schedule. Shotaro’s still a regular in your life, his downtown studio circuit. Areum’s is all over the world but she’s flying in for a few weeks. Yangyang’s always nearby, a natural extension of your thoughts. You don’t give him a list. He doesn’t need one. He’s already ten steps ahead of every potential disaster, you trained him well.

You decide to start with the foundation. Seoul High. You haven’t been back since your high school days and the walk through its corridors feels like threading through a version of yourself you don’t recognise anymore. You flash your guest badge and don’t pause by the staircase where you once broke down after college applications. You don’t check the trophy case, though you feel the weight of every plaque etched with your name. The building smells like polished wood, floor wax, and teenage adrenaline. You walk fast. You stay focused.

The court is still the same — a little shinier, maybe but still echoing with sneakers and shouts. You spot them before they see you. Mark’s in a zip-up hoodie, whistle slung around his neck, guiding a drill set like a conductor in a low-tension symphony. His voice is steady, his gestures sharp, and the way the players respond, all instinct and respect, says everything. You knew he’d be good at this. Everyone did. Coach Suh had recommended him for the job personally after the state championship win. It was clear from the start that Mark was never going to play again. Not with his condition but coaching gave him something else, the same fire, just redirected. He brings order, confidence and patience without condescension. You can see it in the way he corrects a stance, the way his eyes follow a struggling player without judgment.

Chenle is all bite and energy. He heckles from the sidelines, tosses towels at the ones slacking, swears louder than any high school coach should. He makes them laugh, then calls them out before they get too comfortable. The kids love him. Fear him a little, too. Coach Lee, they call him, and it lands somewhere between affection and reverence. He paces with a clipboard but barely uses it. Everything he needs, he keeps in his head. After Mark took the coaching job at Seoul High, it didn’t take long for him to realise he needed backup—someone who could balance his calm with chaos, someone who could read the rhythm of a game and match it beat for beat. Chenle had been hanging around ever since the championship anyway, sometimes helping out unofficially, sometimes just watching. When Coach Suh floated the idea of an assistant, Mark didn’t hesitate. “I already know who I want,” he’d said. Chenle grinned when he heard. “Took you long enough.”

You don’t mean to make a scene but walking across the court feels like slicing through attention. It’s mid-practice, shoes squeaking, the echo of drills, Mark’s voice bouncing off the gym walls and somehow, even with all the noise, heads start turning. Mark sees you first, nodding with that easy calm of his. Chenle follows with a low whistle, already mouthing, “the real boss is here.”

But it’s one of the younger boys who breaks the quiet. He elbows the kid next to him, eyes wide. “Yo,” he whispers, not nearly quiet enough. “That’s her, right? Lee Jeno’s girl?” The name lands heavy—Lee Jeno. The golden boy. The hometown legend. His name still rings through these halls like gospel. His photos are framed near the entrance, jersey locked in a case by the locker room, highlight reels played like sacred tape. Everyone here knows who he is. And now, they know who you are too.

You just keep walking, clipboard tucked to your side, heels clicking with purpose. You’re not here to talk about the past, you’re here to get things done. You hand Mark a stapled packet of documents, cleanly bound with highlighters and tabs. Chenle gets the same. You’ve airdropped them into the shared spreadsheet too, the one tracking every moving part of this operation. Everyone’s name is there. So are the expectations.

Mark skims the title page. Wedding Contribution — Phase Timeline. His tasks are clear. Coordinate the groomsmen who are either based in Seoul or passing through, help Doyoung with vendor confirmations and schedule alignment the week of the wedding, assist with speech prep and support the transport arrangements for the groom’s side. It’s logistical, sensitive work. You trust him with it. Chenle gets the high-touch jobs. He’ll handle the Seoul welcome gift organisation, overseeing final wine and alcohol selections with Irene’s approval, and acting as a secondary review for the food and cake tasting rounds. He grins at the list like it’s a mission brief. “I’m customising the wine list,” he says without even asking. “It’s going to be taste-forward with a disrespectful finish. Can I add handwritten notes?”

Mark raises an eyebrow. “Am I allowed to wear sunglasses down the aisle?”

You don’t blink. “You’ll receive a dress code packet by next week. Stick to it.”

The humour fades quickly. They can see it now, the steel in your eyes, the tension around your mouth. You’re not just organising a wedding. You’re holding yourself together with ribbons and planning boards and three-hour calls with Tokyo florists. You remind them that every task needs to be marked complete on the sheet. Delays will be flagged red and forwarded to Yangyang and there will be consequences. Changes must be justified and surprises will not be tolerated. They know what this means to you. They know it’s more than a wedding. It’s purpose. It's a distraction. It’s how you survive.

— 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐅 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋

𝐌𝐈𝐀𝐌𝐈. 𝟐𝟓.𝟕𝟔𝟏𝟕° 𝐍, 𝟖𝟎.𝟏𝟗𝟏𝟖° 𝐖

The sun bleeds down like punishment in Miami, thick with salt, sweat, and the sharp scent of ambition. Heat clings to the concrete, seeps into the walls, presses heavy against skin. Jeno’s on his third hour of drills, jersey soaked through, hands raw from the rim, shoulders twitching with tension beneath the glare. Inside, the gym hums like a machine — oxygen thin, music off, the air electric with grit and tempo. Metal clangs, rubber scrapes, bodies move like weapons. Reporters crowd outside the chain-link gates again.

They aren’t supposed to be there, but they are—every day, pressed against the chain-link like breath on glass. Cameras raised, fingers twitching on shutters, mouths whispering his name like they’ve tasted it before. Jeno. Again. And again. The flash stings like sweat in his eyes. Some of them don’t even pretend to be press. Some of them just watch the way he moves, the way his shirt sticks to his spine. The way his hand wraps around the ball, low and possessive, like he knows they’re imagining it’s something else. It’s all part of the rhythm now—eyes on him, breath catching for him, wanting things from him they’ll never admit out loud. They call him the next LeBron, say he’s too clean, too good, too perfect to be real.

He’s been moving since dawn, weights before sunrise, sprints until his lungs threaten collapse, then drills so brutal the assistant coach mutters ‘obsessive’ without looking up. Jeno doesn’t flinch, he just pushes harder, faster, like speed might outrun the noise building in his head. Every pivot of his body is clean, sharp, merciless. Sweat darkens the collar of his shirt, slides down the defined cut of his spine, disappearing beneath the elastic of his shorts. His muscles twitch with leftover adrenaline, glint with heat. He’s bleeding again—palms raw, scraped open from a rim that doesn’t bend but he doesn’t tape it. He simply doesn’t ever stop. The scouts on the balcony haven’t looked away in hours. It’s not until the buzzer sounds—shrill, final, like a gavel—that he pauses. Just for a second. He drags the back of his hand over his jaw, exhales hard through his nose, and steps outside.

The air hits like breath held too long. Miami is thick with salt and asphalt, sun hanging low and mean in the sky. Heat rises in waves off the pavement, wraps around his frame like a dare. The kind of heat that slows the world but never touches him. His shirt clings to every line of him—broad chest, slick waist, thighs taut beneath thin fabric. His lungs expand slowly. The glare cuts across his vision, gulls shrieking somewhere in the distance, the city’s pulse bleeding through basslines and echoing horns. Behind him, the court’s tucked behind a private training facility, hidden by palm trees and a perimeter of security guards who pretend they don’t see the cameras anymore. The sky’s bruised blue, water glinting beyond the skyline, and for the first time all morning, Jeno lets himself stop moving.

His phone buzzes once. Then again. Notifications pile up—Nike’s activation team, HYBE’s sponsorship clause, a sportswear editor asking for exclusive rights to his first post season cover. Then the group chat: someone sent a villa photo, everyone’s arriving. The messages stack like bricks in his chest, he doesn’t open them. Then the air shifts behind him. Warm. Sweet. A sugary presence trickling slow, thick as syrup down his spine, filling the space with the kind of perfume that doesn’t just smell expensive—it insists on being noticed.

Sunlight glints off the gold buckle first—small, expensive, made to be noticed. Her step follows, sharp and practiced, each tap against the concrete like punctuation. The heel that follows is high, sculpted, unmistakable—Gianvito Rossi, limited drop, the kind made for soft power plays and slow exits. Her glossed legs gleam with sunscreen and something showier, a tan meant for camera flashes, for curated story posts and behind-the-scenes tags. She moves like the heat was made for her, all swishy florals and bare midriff, the hem of her skirt teasing the edge of decency. Hair half-up with strands curled just enough to look effortless, even though it took forty-five minutes and a Dyson Airwrap. Her bracelets jingle when she shifts her grip on the coconut water bottle, condensation sliding down her fingers like a curated drip campaign. She doesn’t walk—she performs. Like this sidewalk is a runway and the only thing missing is a filter. Daddy’s credit card might’ve built the aesthetic but the delusion is all her own. When she speaks, her voice lands slow and sweet, syrup-thick over his shoulder.

“You’re getting better,” she says, slow and purring, like the words are something to lick off her tongue. “Even the coaches are watching different now. Though, to be fair…” —her eyes drag down the slick stretch of his torso, pausing at the dip of his waist— “I’ve been watching like that since day one.”

He still doesn’t look at her, just lets the corner of his mouth twitch like he might smile, but doesn’t. “You watch a lot,” he says, voice rough with heat. “Can’t tell if you’re studying my form or just trying to fuck it.”

She laughs—high, bright, too sweet for the weight of the heat—and steps closer, coconut water swinging from her fingers like it’s part of the performance. “Who says I can’t do both?” Her nails trail lightly down his bicep, catching on the sweat-slicked curve of muscle. “Your form’s looking real good this week. Especially from behind.”

His grip tightens at her waist, not with hunger but habit—like the body remembers even when the mind’s already halfway gone. He drags his gaze up, finally meeting her eyes, and there’s something unreadable in the way he looks at her, like he’s searching for a face she doesn’t wear. “You’re always watching,” he says, voice husky, indifferent. “Guess I should give you a show.” His thumb grazes her side, slow, suggestive, but he’s already looking away again—like it didn’t matter, like none of it does.

Her lashes flick once, the silence stretched too tight between them. For a second, something falters—her voice, her smile, the sugary shine of her lip gloss. Like she heard what he didn’t say louder than what he did. It passes quick, smoothed over by instinct, replaced with a bright little hum and the soft click of her bracelets as she moves. She steps closer, one heel sliding between his sneakers like it belongs there. Her crop top shifts higher, the hem teasing rib, and her perfume clings thick to the humid air—vanilla, sunscreen, wealth. “You’re bleeding,” she murmurs, head tilting, gaze falling to the scrapes across his knuckles. Her voice is softer now, almost careful, like she’s performing concern. “You really should let someone take care of that.”

His gaze drops to his hand like he hadn’t noticed, then flicks back to her without much interest. “Doesn’t bother me.” His voice is dry, heat-worn, too slow to be gentle, too fast to be soft. He flexes his fingers once, knuckles red and torn. “Pain’s part of it.”

She blinks. He doesn’t give her more than that—just rolls his wrist, wipes the blood with the hem of his shirt, and keeps his eyes on her like he’s still deciding if she’s even real or just something that showed up with the heat. “You offering?” he adds, finally, but there’s no curiosity in it. Just something dark and slow curling beneath the words, like he already knows she will. Like he’s waiting to see what she’ll do with that knowing.

She nods once, a little too slow, like she’s choosing not to take offense. Her glossed lips curve into a smile anyway, all polished pink and nothing behind it. Then she turns. The sway in her step is exaggerated—calculated—the kind of walk that knows it’s being watched. Skirt too short, hips tilting with every bounce, the Gianvito Rossis clicking like punctuation against the concrete as she heads toward the gated side entrance to the court. Jeno’s eyes follow without moving, jaw tight, knuckles still red. She swipes in with her pass—official, laminated, hanging off a lanyard that matches her manicure. She shouldn’t have it, not technically, not for the kind of access she uses it for but she asked the right people the right way, smiled in the right meetings, and now no one questions it. It swings lightly against her skirt as she pushes through the door, the scanner beeping soft and obedient. She belongs just enough to be let through.

Inside, the court smells like sweat and pine polish, the echo of sneakers still ringing against the high ceilings. She moves fast, like she’s done it before—cuts down the hall past weight racks and towel carts, reaches for a metal cabinet tucked beneath the trainer’s table. Grabs gauze, rubbing alcohol and a cold pack that’s still fogged with freezer burn. Outside, the sun keeps beating down like it’s angry. Jeno stays where he is, the taste of heat in his mouth, sweat drying slow along the sharp lines of his collarbone. He doesn’t flinch when the camera shutters snap from the gates. They’re further away now—hired guards keeping the fence clear but not far enough. A long-lens clicks like a gun cocking. Someone whispers his name like it’s currency. He doesn’t blink. He’s used to being a headline but today—he feels seen. In the wrong way.

She comes back with a quiet kind of triumph in her step, the little white packet swinging from her fingers like it’s an accessory. “Found it,” she chirps, eyes scanning his frame like it’s a checklist. “Sit still.” Her tone tries for sweet, but lands somewhere closer to scripted. She crouches down in front of him and uncaps the bottle with a dramatic little twist of her wrist. The alcohol stings before it touches skin. Sharp and sterile, it clouds the air like antiseptic breath, drowning out the sweat and heat of Miami. She doesn’t warn him, just dabs—too hard, too fast, like she’s racing a clock he doesn’t feel ticking. “This’ll only hurt for a second,” she adds with a smile that’s too white, too practiced, like she’s mimicking a memory that never belonged to her.

The gauze is thin, too thin, catching on the jagged edge of Jeno's knuckle as she dabs too hard. Her nails skim the scrape with the wrong kind of pressure—a stumble masked as care. She crouches in front of him like it’s choreographed, knees together, back too straight, posture too pretty. The bottle of coconut water she left on the bench sweats against the concrete, forgotten.

Jeno watches her fingers move. Not because they soothe him, they don’t. The tape sticks unevenly, one side too loose, the other tugging skin. She doesn’t notice. She presses it down, blows softly over the gauze like a gesture from a script—slow, breathy, off. Her voice follows, sweet and saccharine, all pastel and gloss. “Hold still.” It lands like static. Like the wrong frequency.

His hand flexes out of instinct. Not pain. Just to feel it. Just to know he still can. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple, lost in the damp curls at his nape. She touches his jaw next. Fingertips brushing under his chin like it means something. It doesn’t. Her thumb ghosts over his cheekbone. Too careful. Too slow. Like she’s playing at tenderness.

His eyes don’t meet hers. They drift. Past her shoulder. Past the open court gate, to the row of paparazzi huddled behind the fencing, lenses trained on his skin like they have a right to it. The click of a shutter cuts the air. She leans closer like she thinks this looks like love. Jeno exhales, shallow. His gaze drops to the condensation sliding down his Gatorade bottle. One finger taps against it. Once. Twice.

“You’re bleeding more than I thought,” she murmurs.

He doesn’t lean in or shift to help her, doesn’t even tilt his wrist to make the angle easier. Just lets her crouch between his legs, letting her fingers ghost over his skin. His shoulders stay back against the bench, spine straight, muscles slack. One knee bent, the other stretched long like he might stand at any second, like none of this requires his full attention. When her thigh brushes his, he doesn’t react. When her palm settles warm against the inside of his forearm, he stays still, eyes somewhere else entirely.

Her perfume clings to the air, sweet and cloying, too thick for the heat, like sugar left to rot. He breathes through it like smoke, slow and quiet, like it might choke him if he lets it in too deep. Her voice comes next, soft and saccharine, barely more than a whisper. “Do you want me to stay?” she asks, and he doesn’t answer. He never does. She takes the silence as consent—she always does. When she kneels in front of him again, hands too gentle, too staged, he still doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch when she says, “Baby,” like it means something. Like it’s ever meant anything. His jaw ticks, sharp and sudden and still, he says nothing.

Eventually, they move without speaking. Not together, not quite apart—just a shift. She rises, dusts off her skirt with delicate, unnecessary flicks of her fingers, and turns toward the side patio where the sun hits harder and the benches are half-shaded beneath a string of fraying parasols. He follows, slower, towel draped over his shoulders, the back of his shirt clinging to skin still damp from drills. There’s a silence between them, familiar now. Performed comfort. Distance masked as ease.

She settles beside him like they do this all the time. Crosses one leg over the other, slides her phone out like she’s been waiting for the right moment. Her drink is sweating in her other hand, pink and sugary, glass clinking against her glossed nails. Then she scrolls. Eyes flicking fast. Brows lifting once before she makes a soft sound in her throat. The screen glows white between them. “Flight confirmation came through,” she says, casually, placing her phone face down between them like it doesn’t matter, like she hadn’t been waiting for the email all morning. “We leave in four days. Crazy, right?” Her voice lilts upward like it’s small talk, like she isn’t talking about the wedding. She rests a hand lightly on his knee, fingers grazing the fabric of his shorts like she’s done it a thousand times. Like it’s muscle memory, like it means anything.

A beat passes. Then, too breezily: “So everyone’s flying out next week, huh? I can’t believe they’re actually pulling it off. It’s giving… delusion, but make it expensive.”

She glances at him sideways but he says nothing. Just reaches for his towel and wipes his jaw. She leans in a little, letting her shoulder brush his and keeps going, voice dipped in sugar. “You know they put her in charge, right?” she asks, studying the condensation on her glass like it’s fascinating. “Like, full-on wedding planner. I mean, of course they did. She always loved… control.” Her smile flashes but doesn’t reach her eyes. “I just think it’s kind of cute. The way everyone’s pretending it’s normal.”

His laugh is quiet, barely there, more breath than sound. He finally turns, just enough to glance at her over his shoulder, eyes lazy and unreadable. “You rehearsed that?” he says, towel still hanging off one shoulder, tone all mock curiosity. “Sounded like you practiced in the mirror.” He doesn’t wait for her response—just smirks, slow and condescending, then looks away again like she’s already forgotten. Like the conversation was background noise. Like she is.

Her smile sharpens, but her posture tightens too—legs crossing, nails tapping against her glass. “You really think I care that much?” she adds, but it lands too quick, too defensive. He still doesn’t look at her. That’s what stings the most.

She shifts, letting her knee bump against his, as if to remind him she’s still there. Takes another sip, her lip gloss clinging to the straw in a soft, sticky sheen. Her voice drops into something quieter, trying too hard to sound casual. “I heard they’re doing an ivory theme,” she says, studying the condensation sliding down her cup. Then she laughs, light and edged. “Bold choice. It’s so… forgiving.”

Forgiving, like erasing the mess without cleaning it. Like pretending nothing ever broke to begin with. The word lingers, soft but surgical, and her voice makes it sound like the whole wedding is a facade—something fractured, dressed up in florals and fairy lights, hoping no one notices the cracks. Her hand stays on his knee, thumb beginning to move in slow, practiced circles, like she thinks softness can distract from the incision like sugar can smother something bitter.

She doesn’t let it go. Even when the conversation veers, even when Jeno doesn’t reply, she finds a way to circle back—back to you. Obsessive, like a compulsion she can’t dress up pretty. “I mean… credit where it’s due, right? She’s practically running the whole thing. You’d think she’s the one getting married.”

She laughs like it’s harmless, like it’s funny but the edge is deliberate. She wants him to laugh with her, to turn it into a joke. He doesn’t. “She’s good at what she does,” Jeno says in a measured tone. His grip on the towel adjusts—once, then again—like something crawled under his skin and he’s trying not to show it. His jaw ticks, just barely, and he breathes through his nose, slow and deliberate, like his body’s answering to a name no one said out loud. She doesn’t catch it, or pretends not to but something in him shifts, sharp and sensual, the way memory gets under the ribs when it wants to hurt. The heat settles into his bones as her voice fades out like background noise. The only thing that stays is the ghost of yours, still threaded somewhere in the silence.

She blinks once, lashes sweeping slow, then tilts her head like she’s just now thinking it through. “Right. No, totally. It’s just… isn’t it weird? Helping plan a wedding for your family? Like—there’s moving on, and then there’s this.” The words are wrapped in sugar, but the shape of them cuts. She’s fishing for something sharp, something bitter, something he won’t give her.

He doesn’t react the way she wants. His voice is steady, low. “She’s close with Irene.”

She lifts a brow, sips again like it’s casual. “Sure, but—”

“She’s always been,” Jeno says, cutting her off clean. There’s no edge to his tone, but something presses under it—something quiet and certain. “Since we were kids. I barely saw them growing up. If anything, Irene and Doyoung… they’re her family. Not mine.” It lands heavier than it sounds. He doesn’t clarify, doesn’t soften it. Just leaves the truth suspended between them, untouched.

Still, she leans in closer, holding her hands up in mock offence. Her voice dips, lower, syrupy. “I’m just saying… if someone wanted attention, this would be the perfect way to get it. Front and center. Perfect lighting. Narrative control. “It’s cute though, the effort.” She says, tracing the rim of her drink with a manicured nail, voice coated in feigned warmth. “Everyone thinks she’s so selfless now but she always knew how to make herself unforgettable. Even when she wasn’t invited.” Her words land soft but bruising, silk-wrapped shrapnel. She’s talking about you like a ghost that refuses to stay dead. Like you haunt every room she walks into, like it drives her mad that you still do.

Jeno finally turns. Cool, quiet, controlled. “You don’t have to talk about her.” His voice doesn’t rise, doesn’t shift. Just a simple truth laid bare.

Her shoulder jerks, a twitch more than a flinch, and then she’s tossing her hair like it didn’t happen, all glossy dismissal and glittering deflection. “Oh my god, Jeno,” she huffs, voice pitched high, laugh bursting out too fast, too bright, cracking on the edges. “You always do this. You act like I’m the bad guy just because I say what everyone else is thinking.” Her smile wobbles, tight and trembling, gloss catching in the sun like it’s trying to outshine the moment. Then her voice drops, lips barely moving, a whisper dipped in venom: “Maybe the truth’s just too much when it’s about her.”

His eyes meet hers, flat and unreadable, his expression deadpan in the way that makes silence feel louder than words. “That’s enough,” he says, low and final, not a flicker of hesitation in his tone. His grip on the towel tightens once, a slow flex like he’s anchoring himself, then loosens just as calmly. He doesn’t look at her again. The air around them shifts, colder now, as if she said one thing too many. Then, quieter—but not softer—“Also, you weren’t directly invited, not her.” A pause, loaded and brutal. “You’re just my plus one.”

Her smile doesn’t break, but it calcifies. All teeth, too wide, too still. “Right. Of course.” Her voice is airy, but the grip on her drink tightens, knuckles whitening. Her other hand curls tight around her phone, nails digging in like it’s the only thing tethering her. She looks away, fast, like it’s nothing. Like she didn’t hear it or feel it.

She lets out a breathy laugh, one that tries too hard to sound amused but lands sharp, brittle. “Whatever,” she mutters, gaze still fixed somewhere far from him. “She’s probably already rehearsing her little speech for the welcome dinner. You know how she gets—every sentence a performance, every smile rehearsed. Like if she’s perfect enough, people might forget what she’s really like.” Her tone tilts saccharine again, but it’s edged with something colder now, like she’s carving your name into glass just to watch it crack.

Jeno exhales slowly, spine straight, shoulders squared. Sweat still gleams down the slope of his neck. He looks devastating—abs drawn tight beneath the drop of his tank, jaw ticking once like he’s done being generous. Patience thinning to a thread. He turns, eyes locking on her with a cold, razor-sharp kind of calm. His voice lands like a low cut of thunder. Clipped. Controlled. Deadpan.

“Nahyun.”

He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn't need to. The sound alone silences everything else. “Shut up.”

She tries to laugh, lashes fluttering like it’s all a joke, like he’s just being sensitive. Her glossed lips pout, practiced. She shifts her weight, shoulder brushing his, tone airy like it never meant anything but he isn’t looking at her anymore. He already said everything he had to and she doesn’t realise the irony in her words.

She’s everywhere before you even realize she’s arrived — seeping into the space like mold under fresh paint. Nahyun doesn’t enter the picture. She spreads. Quiet, curated, deliberate, slipping into every frame he leaves behind and feeding on the warmth of what used to be yours. She showed up not long after he did — weeks, maybe less. No announcement. No reason anyone questioned. She doesn’t just appear in the scene—she’s embedded. She’s made herself visible in all the ways that count, carefully angled selfies at preseason stadiums, sunset-filtered lattes tagged with vague PR captions, her name attached to a West Coast branding firm that just so happens to handle the media for his team. Every curated post screams professionalism, hustle, that ‘influencer-turned-industry-girl aesthetic.’ Early call time, she writes, under photos with blurred locker room lighting in the background, grinding behind the scenes. The kind of hustle that makes it easy for people to believe she belongs there.

And technically—she does. It’s a real internship, a rising firm, the kind of placement that makes sense on paper. The kind of story you don’t question unless you know what you’re looking for, unless you know her because the truth isn’t in the headlines or her captions. It’s in the patterns. The timing. How her work hours keep aligning perfectly with his practice blocks. How she’s always there when she shouldn’t be — lingering courtside, laughing with staff, casually bumping into his teammates like she belongs. There are whispers. Jokes in the locker room. “PR girl’s got a type.” “The rookie and the rebrand.” Nothing confirmed, but enough smirks to sting. Because she’s not subtle — not in the way she watches him, or the way she always makes sure she’s seen leaving five minutes after him, never with him, but close enough to imply.

Jeno never denies it but he never takes ownership either. He doesn’t claim her, doesn’t offer an explanation, doesn’t correct the assumption when her name gets paired with his like it’s always been inevitable. He says nothing, and silence, in a world built on optics, is permission. That’s all she needed. He let her orbit, let her thread herself through the edges of his story until her presence stopped being questioned. Familiarity disguised itself as legitimacy. Frame by frame, she sank in. He never reached for her, never asked her to stay but he didn’t push her out either. It was convenient. Quiet. Predictable. Maybe that felt safer than the chaos he’d spent the last year trying to bury. The smile she wore for the cameras never demanded anything real. It asked nothing of his past, touched none of the wounds he hadn’t finished closing. Letting her linger felt manageable. Like proximity without consequence. Like staying untouched. But there she was—still in his city, still in his timeline, her voice just loud enough to press against the silences he never learned how to fill, her laugh brushing the edges of rooms she never earned, her gloss still catching light like it belonged beside him.

But the truth always burns through fabric like that because here she is. West coast. By his side. In every whispered update. In every new clip. In the photo someone sends you late at night — stadium lights blurring behind her, his jersey visible in the corner, and her hand on a railing that’s too close to his. There’s no caption, no tag, no official claim — just a pattern that settles too easily into place, and a silence that makes the implication undeniable. It’s her. She’s the one they see beside him now, the one in the background of photos and the blur of updates, the one whose presence is never explained because it doesn’t need to be. No one questions it. No one asks. He’s given them nothing to doubt and in the absence of truth, assumption takes root. She’s not just nearby anymore. She’s embedded, threaded into the narrative so seamlessly that people have already decided she belongs. Her presence is interpreted as fact, as permanence, as proof of something that was never real and in letting her linger, he’s allowed the world to forget what was. She’s become part of the story and in doing so, you’ve been erased from it.

𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐑𝐊. 𝟒𝟎.𝟕𝟏𝟒𝟓° 𝐍, 𝟕𝟒.𝟎𝟎𝟔𝟎° 𝐖

‘The city that never sleeps’ doesn’t enter — it erupts. A sharp-boned rhythm cracked into pavement and glass, all reflex and teeth, more heartbeat than skyline. New York doesn’t wait for you, she dares you to keep up. The subway howls beneath her ribcage, a mechanical scream lost in warped speaker static. Steam coils through sidewalk grates like breath from the underworld. Someone’s yelling about rent. Someone’s running late. Someone’s ringtone ricochets off the mirrored walls of Madison Avenue, cutting through the screech of brakes and the splash of rainwater that stains a stranger’s trousers dark. Taxi doors slam. Heels slap. A paper coffee cup topples into the gutter, foam bleeding out like it didn’t survive the commute.

Behind glass, a boutique window glows pale gold. Your name sits inked in looping script on a clipboard, fogged by the breath of someone pausing too long outside. Somewhere, a playlist skips. Somewhere else, a florist spirals over a last-minute correction: Ivory roses — not white, not off-white, not blush — Ivory. The whole city buzzes — not welcoming, daring. Neon bleeds under fire escapes. Reflections layer over reflections. No one’s looking at each other, but everyone’s seen. New York doesn’t hold space. She throws elbows. And still, somehow, she asks: who’s showing up next? She swings the door wide and waits to see who has the nerve to walk through.

Across the river, the hospital’s lights don’t flicker, not once. Not even when the power grid coughs or the subway below snarls through its steel throat. The trauma wing breathes in static and antiseptic and Jaemin moves through it like it owes him something. He hasn’t slept in thirty-six hours. His badge is flipped backward, his pager’s been screeching since 4 a.m., and he’s been running on vending machine espresso shots and whatever adrenaline comes from watching yet another intern drop a chart. There’s a bloodstain drying at the hem of his left sleeve, not his, not fatal but close. The kind that makes your breath hold for just a second too long before you start moving again. His scrubs are light blue, wrinkled from hours curled in the corner of the on-call room, collar tugged slightly askew where his stethoscope’s rubbed a red line across his neck.

He doesn’t say anything about the earlier flight he booked. Doesn’t mention that he paid extra to bump his seat, just in case. Just in case you need someone to deal with logistics, to spot whatever last-minute breakdown Karina’s too tightly wound to acknowledge, to carry whatever needs carrying without asking for details. The wedding isn’t his problem but somehow he’s in it, already running damage control from the nurses’ station, his phone buzzing with the group chat every ten minutes.

When Karina FaceTimes him, he’s crouched in the corner of the staff lounge, coat draped over one knee, bowtie half-crushed in the pocket of his jacket like he forgot he shoved it there after last week’s wedding consult. “Still alive,” he mutters when the screen lights up. His voice is hoarse, eyes low. He’s handsome in that devastating, end-of-rope way, jaw tight, hair curled slightly at the edges from dried sweat, knuckles red where he’s pressed them into too many sharp corners tonight. “Barely. What’s on fire now?”

Bright light slices across a glass wall. Somewhere, a drip monitor beeps. Elsewhere, steam curls from the mouth of a kettle, lilac-infused — the kind of quiet detail that lands soft, like silk against bare skin, like the clink of ice in crystal, like the hush that falls when velvet curtains pull back and everything finally holds its breath. From the fluorescent hum of Jaemin’s trauma wing, it cuts to SoHo: pale morning light spilling across polished concrete, the hum of a steamer exhaling into air perfumed with jasmine, starch, and money. Karina doesn’t walk so much as glide, her heels like punctuation, each step crisp, precise, rehearsed. She’s draped in espresso-brown tailoring and attitude, one AirPod in, phone balanced between shoulder and jaw as she barks into a call, her other hand finessing the fall of a train stitched from seven layers of raw silk and attitude. A seamstress flinches as she mutters, “No, no, that’s not draped. That’s depression.”

She doesn’t have time to be active on the group chat, she sends PDFs, moodboards and reference videos with subject lines like ‘Fix the neckline or I’ll fix you.’ She’s not just handling the aisle, she’s commanding it. Florals, dresses, visual flow—Karina’s running point on the entire aesthetic, and she’s treating it like a full-scale campaign. Two florists are already gone, a third on thin ice. “Ivory garden roses,” she snaps into the phone, “not cream. not blush. not fucking pastel. If it looks like a Pinterest board, I’m setting the truck on fire.”

Karina moves like she owns the building, heels slicing clean across polished concrete, the scent of steamed silk and fresh florals thick in the air. Racks curve around her like soldiers, each one hung with gowns in various states of becoming—draped, pinned, ghostlike. A model in the corner lifts her arms to be fitted, ribs too sharp beneath the muslin, and Karina’s eyes cut straight through the stitch count. She stops, takes one look. “Absolutely not,” she says, voice sharp enough to snap the thread. “There’s no way she gets on the aisle unless she gains ten pounds minimum. She looks unhealthy.” Someone tries to argue—mentions the brand image, the silhouette—and Karina doesn’t blink. “Brainstorm better,” she snaps, walking again, tossing a tablet into her assistant’s hands without breaking stride. “Anorexia is a disease. It is not a fashion statement.” The words echo down the hall behind her, clean and brutal and right.

The buzz of Karina’s studio fades with the slam of a service elevator, silk replaced by static. Below street level, in the undercurrent hum of the West Village, the sound changes — tighter, colder, sharper. The studio is always cold. Air-conditioned even in winter. Red light blinking over the door, mic cables coiled like snakes across the floor, the air sharp with metal and neon and leftover espresso. Donghyuck has his sneakers kicked under the desk and a soundboard covered in stickers he refuses to peel off. The West Village radio station hums underground, a hybrid space for sports coverage, live broadcasts, and the kind of voice that makes people listen.

His voice is velvet on-air — smooth, smug, a little dangerous. He specializes in basketball but covers everything, his commentary clean and just a little too intimate. He reports on Jeno’s games often. Too often. His co-hosts tease him for it but he always shrugs, saying it’s just a story worth following. He’s got a deep-dive series in the works: State Champs: Where Are They Now. Everyone knows who the girl was. He never says your name. He doesn’t have to.

For the wedding, he’s soundtracking everything. Mics, transitions, audio cues, the whole sound design. It started as a joke in the group chat, someone asking who’d handle the playlist, and Donghyuck just replied with a Spotify link and “grow up, it’s already done.” But he meant it. He’s treating it like a live broadcast, timing the walk-ins, syncing the toast transitions, even building custom fades between the speeches and the music. The audio is his domain and no one questioned it. Not when his transitions sound better than most DJs’ entire sets. Not when he’s the only one who knows how to make silence feel like tension.

The city doesn’t slow but somehow their paths keep narrowing. Everything pulses back to you. It’s not something they name out loud—not on the hospital calls or the group chat threads, not when they run into each other outside studios or across subway platforms but it’s there. Woven between errands, sitting on speakerphones, scrawled on a dry-erase board. Your name. A note. A list. A label tucked into the lining of a dress bag. The wedding is the thread that pulls them together. The one constant between who they were and who they’re becoming. Even now, scattered across cities, exhausted and late and carrying more than they’ll admit, they orbit you. They always have and maybe they never stopped.

Jaemin’s already on his second espresso when the installation gets pushed again, a quiet “emergency” from the perfumier’s assistant that comes with a new address and an invite-only pass. The exhibit’s final run-through—his custom memory-triggered scent piece for Irene and Doyoung’s ceremony—had been delayed three times already and now it’s being shown at a gallery just blocks from SoHo, the same night Karina’s studio stays open late for fittings, the same fabric sculptor, the same scent dispersal system mapped through both the dress and the air. He doesn’t need directions. He knows where to find her, it can’t be coincidence.

She’s above the gallery, same street, top floor, tucked behind a narrow iron staircase and a buzzer that never works on the first try. The atelier hums with quiet insistence, lit from within like a dream someone refused to wake from. Long bolts of fabric hang like smoke from ceiling hooks, ivory tulle layered over translucent mesh, stitched with thread so fine it catches light but not shadow. Mannequins line the far wall, each one mid-transformation, one torso draped in unfinished pleats, another half-skirted, pinned tight at the hip, the train cascading in slow ripples toward the polished floor. A single gown stands in the center, raised on a platform and cordoned off with chalk marks—Irene’s dress. It gleams like a secret: structured bodice, sweetheart neckline, sleeves sheer with microbead embroidery that catches the light like snowfall. The pressure-reactive silk is already mapped into the hem, designed to bloom in motion, the fabric shifting faintly as Karina moves past it, breathless and barefoot, her heels kicked into the corner hours ago.

This is where she’s been living. Not just working—living. The studio smells like steam, jasmine and stress. Notes scrawled in eyeliner pencil line the mirrors. Pins litter the floor. A folder labelled‘Final Edits: Bridesmaid Dresses’ lies open on the cutting table, a swatch of palest green pressed between its pages. She hasn’t slept properly in days, but her winged eyeliner is still pristine. Her hair’s up with a pencil through it. She’s muttering about waist-to-hip ratio to no one, tugging a seam taut with her teeth gritted, when she hears the door open behind her.

At first, she doesn’t notice. She’s mid-call with the florist again, threatening bloodshed over ivory roses, one hand holding a tablet, the other smoothing the bodice of Irene’s gown. It’s not until he says her name—“Rina.”—that she freezes, shoulders tightening, breath catching not with surprise but something sharper, something threaded with memory. She turns. Slowly. Like she already knows. And when she sees him she screams, a sharp, giddy sound that escapes before she can catch it. The tablet clatters onto the table as she launches across the room, bare feet sliding over satin scraps, arms thrown around his neck in a single, reckless motion. He catches her—of course he does—laughing under his breath as she wraps around him like she’s missed every version of him she didn’t get to see. The late nights, the New York air, the fucking glow.

“God, you look—” she starts, then stops, biting back the rest of the sentence as her eyes drag over the sharp collar of his shirt, the chain peeking just beneath the top button, the sleeves cuffed at his forearms like he knew exactly what he was doing. He smells like city air and aftershave, like he’s been walking too fast through Manhattan in the rain. Her gaze dips. “You’re ridiculous. You show up looking like that and expect me to work?”

He laughs under his breath, stepping in closer, tilting his head. “Didn’t realise there was a dress code for surprising you.”

“There is,” she says, fingers curling in his shirt. “It’s called uglier than me. You’re in violation.”

“Then arrest me.”

“I might,” she says, a slow grin curling. “After I’m done staring.”

He nods toward the gown behind her. “That for Irene?”

She nods, slow and a little smug, eyes flicking back toward the gown like it’s something sacred. “You like it?” she asks, voice lower now, softer—giddy without meaning to be.

He takes a step closer, gaze steady on the gown, then back to her. “I think it’s the most beautiful thing in this room,” he says, voice low, then adds without missing a beat, “and the dress isn’t bad either.”

She laughs, soft and stunned, the kind that slips out before she can stop it. Her fingers tug at the edge of her sleeve like she needs somewhere to place the blush rising to her cheeks. “Don’t do that,” she says, voice breathless, eyes flicking to his with something sharp and fond behind them. “You’re gonna make me ruin the hem.”

“Wow,” Donghyuck says flatly—voice slicing through the silk and candlelight like a shoe squeaking on polished floors. They both turn. He’s been there the whole time, half-obstructed by a clothing rack draped in veils, earbuds in, eyebrows raised like he’s just walked in on something sacred. One hand holding a mic pack. The other? A half-eaten macaron he clearly regrets biting into. “Should I leave?” he asks, expression unreadable. “Or do you want me to grab a ring light so the proposal hits with better lighting?”

“Were you—how long—”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he waves vaguely toward the back wall, where his mic bag and half-charged laptop are slumped on a couch. “I’ve just been sitting here for three hours, recording ambient audio. Got a full thirty minutes of you whispering ‘no, tighter, right there’ while pinning a hemline. You’re welcome.”

Karina groans, covering her face. Jaemin just laughs, strides over and pulls him into a firm, back-thumping hug. “You’re still annoying as shit.”

Donghyuck grins, one arm still holding the mic bag like it’s precious cargo. “And you still smell like hospital soap and heartbreak. God, I missed you.” He barely finishes the sentence before he pulls Jaemin in tight, knocking their heads together with the kind of affection that always arrives dressed as an insult. Then he turns to Karina, arms already open, smirking like he’s waited all day to be insufferable. “C’mere, you couture dictator.” She rolls her eyes but lets herself be hugged, softening for half a second as his hand swats dramatically at her lower back. “Damn, did he finally wear you down?” he says, glancing between them. “You two were eye-fucking so loud I thought I’d walked into an 18+ installation.”

They don’t answer him. Just groan in tandem like they’ve done this before—like Donghyuck always shows up exactly when tension starts to tilt toward undressing. Karina snorts, pinning the final silk rosette to a sleeve cuff with a motion that says she’s heard worse, stayed up later, and once threatened a groomsman for calling ivory “off-white.” They work late into the night, tension folding into routine. Karina crouches barefoot on the floor with pearl pins between her teeth, threading in the last of the scent-reactive filament across Irene’s veil. She’s meticulous, wrist aching, eye twitching but it’s almost done. The bridesmaid dresses are already steamed and sleeved, pressed against mannequins like ghosts in waiting. The gown stands in the middle like a monument. Jaemin moves between tables, checking the alignment of the scent diffusers he’s helped install at each step point of the aisle—a final calibration of triggers synced to memory-coded dispersion. When the bride walks, the scent will bloom in stages: gardenia first, then wild jasmine, and last, a faint trace of hinoki wood—Doyoung’s cologne, from the first night he met Irene. Jaemin calls it science. Karina calls it witchcraft. You call it magic.

Donghyuck’s in the corner with headphones on, fine-tuning the sound transitions between the ceremony and reception. He loops in the intro track—soft strings giving way to a voiceover. Irene’s. Then Doyoung’s. Then a moment of silence, cued by a heartbeat. Then laughter—yours, threaded faintly under the first beat drop. It’s audio alchemy, and he’s splicing it like a love confession nobody knows they’re hearing. “I’m trying to make people cry before the fucking vows,” he mutters, dragging a slider forward, “because if they don’t cry then, it’s too late.”

After a few more hours of finishing touches—Karina adjusting the final hemline on Irene’s dress with a threaded needle clenched between her teeth, Jaemin running calibration tests on the scent release timing for the memory installation, and Donghyuck wiring the ceremony mic transitions to sync perfectly with his playlist cues—the night starts to bleed at the edges. Their limbs are aching, clothes rumpled, eyes heavy with the kind of exhaustion that clings to your bones. Then, without speaking, they head upstairs.

The rooftop is always open. Karina calls it the best place in the studio—somewhere between an escape hatch and a sanctuary. No gowns, no fittings, no tech glitches or audio loops. Just open air and skyline. A place to exhale. To forget the lists and check-ins and tight deadlines for one breathless second. So they go up, one by one, paper cups in hand, stolen wine sloshing gently at their sides. The city waits for them at the edge of the railings, neon and beautiful and far too alive for how fucking tired they are.

The rooftop hums with late-night static — the kind that coats your skin after too long under fluorescents, after too many hours pretending to be fine. Cold wind slips between the vents, catching on loose fabric and flyaway hair, dragging the scent of asphalt and leftover wine through the air. Neon from the deli across the street flashes ‘OPEN’ in a low, erratic blink. It’s the first time all day they’ve stopped moving. The last train’s already passed. They’re up here like it’s instinct.

Jaemin’s sitting on a folding chair that wobbles every time he shifts his weight, jacket open, shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, cigarette balanced between two fingers. His eyes are heavy, rimmed with exhaustion, smoke curling from his mouth like he’s holding something back. Beside him, Donghyuck’s stretched out across the bench, hoodie hood pulled halfway over his curls, mic bag tucked under one arm like a pillow, another cigarette pinched loosely between his lips. He’s scrolling aimlessly through something on his phone, not really reading, just needing the movement.

Karina paces a few steps away, heels dangling from one hand, phone clutched to her ear in the other. Her tone is clipped, sharp in that way that only happens when she’s trying not to scream. “No, I’m not asking her that,” she snaps. “If you want to know, you can grow a pair and do it yourself—oh wait. You can’t.” Her back is turned but they can still see her mouth twist. The call goes quiet for a second. A long enough pause that Hyuck raises a brow. Jaemin exhales through his nose.

Then his voice crackles over the line, low and tense. “It’s a yes or no question, Karina. You don’t need to turn it into a monologue.”

“Yeah, well maybe if you didn’t change the sizing notes three times, I wouldn’t have to call you at midnight.” She shifts her weight, pinches the bridge of her nose. “No, Jeno. You don’t know what she wants. You think you do but you don’t. That’s the whole problem.” Her voice drops lower, but it doesn’t soften. “You always think you’re right.”

And this time, he snaps back: “You think I don’t know her?” Her hand tightens around the phone. The muscles in her shoulder twitch. She doesn’t answer him, just stares out at the skyline with something sharp in her chest and the sound of his breathing still pressing against her ear. When she finally hangs up, she doesn’t say a word. She just walks back toward Jaemin and Hyuck and drops beside them, the phone landing screen-down between the wine cups like a cracked nerve.

She’s the one who offered to take it. You never asked her to be the go-between, not exactly but she knew you wouldn’t reach out. Not after everything, not for something like this. It started innocently, a quick text typed half-asleep: “Can you ask Jeno if he’s free to sketch a mock-up?” Just an idea for Irene’s last-minute addition. Something sweet, something sentimental. A custom ring design for each bridesmaid— you, Areum, her two nieces. A matching piece to bind you all together in a way that was quieter than the dresses, less obvious than the ceremony, but still hers. It was Irene’s idea, her attempt to make everyone feel tethered, chosen but designing them would take skill. Detail. Precision. And who better than Lee Jeno? Engineering major, mechanical genius and steady hands. He’d built drones in college, sculpted metals for senior projects, once fixed your kitchen tap in under twenty minutes with a hairpin and a keyring. You knew how good he was with his hands. Intimately. Repeatedly. Filthily. And Karina knew that too. He was the perfect candidate. Except for the part where he hadn’t spoken to you in months. No contact. No closure. Just cold space where something used to burn.

So Karina stepped in and took the role, taking the weight. She became the buffer between two people who used to share everything, now reduced to fragmented messages and voice notes delivered secondhand. What began as a one-time ask spiraled fast. Timezone delays. Sketch approvals. Metal sourcing. Size adjustments. Back and forths over band width and finish. Now it’s late-night calls, mid-meeting updates, and clipped conversations that always end with Karina rubbing her temples and tossing her phone face-down. She hates being in the middle. She hates him for putting her there. And most of all, she hates that a part of her still understands why you can’t do it yourself.

It’s not that she hates Jeno. That would be too easy. It’s messier than that. A slow erosion of trust built from silence. She defended him, once, she took his side, believing in the version of him you clung to with both hands but after the fall-out, after the late nights she held you shaking and the days you didn’t speak at all, something in her cracked. He didn’t fight for you, not properly. He let the silence eat everything. So now every phone call is laced with venom she tries not to taste. Every request feels like a betrayal. And tonight? Tonight, he’s being difficult. Pushing back on sizing changes. Asking things he knows he shouldn’t and she’s not in the mood to coddle him. Not anymore.

She leans her head against Donghyuck’s shoulder with a sigh that isn’t quite tired, not quite calm either. There’s still adrenaline pulsing under her skin, the kind that hasn’t worn off since she started the day with a pair of shears in one hand and a model sobbing over a split zipper. Her fingers are curled around the stem of a paper cup, half-drunk wine swirling lazy at the bottom, too warm now to be anything worth sipping but she doesn’t let go. They all stare out at the skyline, not saying much. The lights bleed into the clouds, smearing gold into black. Somewhere down below, a siren wails past. The hum of the city never stops — it just lowers its voice.

Jaemin’s the one who breaks it. “What did he say?” His voice is too casual. Purposefully offhand, like the question slipped out before he could catch it but his jaw’s a little too tight for it to be accidental. Karina doesn’t lift her head. Doesn’t shift. Just blinks, slow.

“Does it matter?” Her voice is quieter now. Not clipped. Not cruel. Just dulled at the edges like a blade that’s been used too many times.

He tries again. “I’m just asking.”

“No,” she says, straighter this time. “You’re not. You’re gonna try to defend him again.”

Donghyuck lets out a low whistle, not moving his shoulder. “Here we go.”

Karina finally shifts then, pulling back just enough to face Jaemin fully. “You really want to do this? Up here? Now?”

Jaemin shrugs but it’s sharp. “I think it’s unfair. The way you talk about him, the way you talk to him. Like he’s the only one who broke something. You act like he fucked it all up on his own but you weren’t there the night she stopped calling back. You didn’t see what that did to him.”

Karina’s eyes narrow, but there’s hesitation in it, like she’s already bracing for the rest. “And what—are you saying she shouldn’t have walked? That staying would’ve fixed it?”

“I think—” He stops and looks at the skyline like the words might be hiding out there. Then: “I think if we’re going to rewrite what happened, we better start with the parts nobody wants to say out loud.”

Her mouth opens. Shuts. Her grip tightens around the paper cup. “He didn’t walk away,” Jaemin says, softer now. “She did.”

“And what, you think she wanted to?” Her tone cracks — not volume, not pitch, just something in the centre of it, some old scar ripping. “You think any of this is what anyone wanted?” Donghyuck lifts a hand, palm out, but no one’s really listening anymore. “He stopped showing up,” Karina says, not loud but loud enough. “He let her carry it alone.”

Jaemin’s voice doesn’t rise. That’s what makes it worse. “You didn’t see how lost he was. You didn’t see the way he kept waiting—like every time the door opened, it might be her. Like he hadn’t already memorised the silence she left behind.” He leans back against the ledge, the weight of it all pressing into his spine. “You weren’t there when she said she couldn’t do this anymore, like it was a schedule conflict, not a relationship. Like it didn’t mean anything and then she disappeared. Blocked him out of a life he was still trying to fight for.” His jaw tightens. “But yeah. Keep acting like he’s the only one who walked away.”

Karina doesn’t flinch but her shoulders go rigid, eyes flashing under the rooftop haze. She laughs once, low and flat, the kind that tastes like something bitter left too long on the tongue. “Disappeared?” she echoes, voice clipped. “You make it sound so clean. Like she just vanished into thin air because she felt like it.” Her hand tightens around the paper cup, knuckles pale. “You think she didn’t try? You think she wasn’t clawing her way through that final month, begging for something to hold onto while he kept looking the other way?”

She looks at him then, sharp and level. “You weren’t there for all of it either, Jaemin. Don’t act like you were.” Her voice softens, not gentle, just quieter. “She didn’t leave because she stopped loving him. She left because staying was making her forget who she was.”

Jaemin laughs, low and joyless, the kind that scrapes at the edges of something he’s been holding in for too long. He leans back against the rooftop railing, exhales smoke through his nose like he’s burning off the weight of the conversation. “Karina,” he says, almost amused, “I was there. I lived in that apartment, remember? I saw it all—every slam of the door, every time she’d shut herself in the bedroom and he’d stare at the hallway like it might swallow him whole. Don’t tell me I didn’t see it.”

He gestures with the half-finished cigarette, then flicks the ash off the edge. “Listen, I love her. I love Jeno too but I’m so fucking tired of this narrative where he’s the only one who wrecked something. Like she didn’t push him away just as much. Like she didn’t look him in the eye and say shit that broke him open.”

His voice doesn’t rise, but it tightens, gains weight. “Yeah, he made bad calls. He shut down when she needed him. He let silence do the damage. But she—she left like it meant nothing. Like they didn’t build their whole college life around each other and maybe that was her way of surviving it, fine, maybe she had her reason but don’t stand here and act like one of them walked out unscathed.” He glances at Karina then, steady. “They both fucked it. Until they stop being so fucking stubborn and start owning that? This ends exactly where it is right now. Stuck.”

Jaemin scoffs, dragging a hand through his hair like the whole topic exhausts him. “They both fucked it,” he says again, voice flat. “So now he’s stuck playing house with Nahyun. Acting like he’s into her, like that whole influencer-preppy-sunshine-and-Sunday-brunch lifestyle actually makes sense for him. Like she doesn’t curate everything from the way she talks to the way she breathes. You think I don’t see through that? He looks like a guest in his own life.”

Jaemin flicks the cigarette out and glances back toward the stairwell, where the city hums below. “I can’t even have a conversation with her without wanting to claw my ears off. Everything’s ‘content’ and ‘collaboration’ and ‘let’s do a soft launch.’ God forbid she ever does anything real.”

Karina’s gaze drops to the gravel, lashes low, lips pressed into a line that looks too tired to argue, like she knows there’s truth in what he’s saying. Her thumb brushes over the rim of the paper cup. “I’m done talking about this.” Then she turns toward Hyuck, voice lightening just enough to pivot the energy. “Did you seriously eat all the macarons without offering me one, or are you just morally bankrupt?”

Jaemin doesn’t say anything, but the look he gives her is loaded—measured, a little sad, a little knowing. Karina sees it, feels it, and shakes her head before he can say what she knows he’s thinking. “I don’t hate him,” she says quietly, almost like it’s a confession. “I never have. I never will.” She breathes out a bitter laugh, one hand curling tighter around her cup. “God, I love that idiot. I do. That’s the problem. I love him and I was still there after, still saw what she looked like when she couldn’t even look at herself. You know how strong she is, Jaem. You know what it takes to break someone like her? And I watched it happen. Up close. It’s the most scared and worried I’ve ever been in my life.” Her phone’s already in her hand before she finishes speaking. She types something slowly—pauses, edits it once, twice—then finally hits send.

karina — sorry for yelling earlier, i’m just stressed, you don’t deserve all of it.

He likes the message in less than a minute. No reply. He never really replies to those kinds of texts. He’s used to it by now. She rolls her eyes, mutters ‘insufferable’ and immediately starts sending him twenty-seven photos of nearly identical ring designs with only the band thickness changed by millimetres. Every four minutes, a new message pings: this one? or this one? or maybe this?

By the time the fourth one goes through, he blocks her number. She shows Jaemin the screen with a deadpan expression. “Good. Coward.” Then she opens Instagram and messages him from her finsta.

Karina’s apartment sits five floors up in a building lined with limestone and ivy, where the brass intercom glints like old money and the elevator hums slowly, like it knows the kind of people who live here never rush. Just a few minutes from her studio, it’s tucked on a tree-lined street in SoHo, where the windows are taller than most people and the streetlamps glow honey at night. The entrance always smells faintly of bergamot and worn leather, and the keycode panel always needs to be pressed twice—once for frustration, once for luck.

Inside, it’s everything you’d imagine from her but softer. The ceilings rise high, moulded with delicate trim, and the walls are painted a muted ivory, not cold but clean, the kind of backdrop that lets everything else breathe. Her furniture’s all curved lines and velvet upholstery—blush and olive and slate, nothing loud but everything intentional. A glass coffee table reflects the light from the oversized arched window. Sketches are framed in soft gold along one wall, her early design drafts hung like memories she hasn’t let go of yet. The dining table is cluttered with fabric swatches, Pantone cards, a silver tray of espresso cups no one’s bothered to put away.

It smells like something warm—amber, neroli, the faintest trace of rose. There’s always music, usually instrumental, something Parisian or old-school R&B. The sound moves like it belongs here. The place is curated, no question but it doesn’t feel staged. Her heels are kicked off by the door. A robe hangs uneven on the bedroom handle. The lights are low and golden, spilling softly through the apartment like candlewax. It’s luxurious, yes. Glamorous but it’s lived-in, too—intimate in the way only true comfort can be.

There are only two bedrooms: Karina’s, and yours. Yes, yours. It’s never up for debate. Whenever you’re in New York for work, which is often now, this is where you stay. She keeps your favourite shampoo stocked in the en-suite, your preferred wine in the fridge. She bought new linen last time you extended your stay—“you deserve better than the old sheets,” she’d said, like it was nothing, like you were just coming home. There’s space in her wardrobe for your coats, your perfumes, your bad day sweaters. The doorman greets you by name. You don’t knock anymore. You don’t have to.

Donghyuck crashes in your room, the one that still smells like your perfume and has your old sweatshirt hanging off the bedpost like a relic. Jaemin takes the couch, half-heartedly, like he’s doing someone a favour by pretending. It’s always like this—until it isn’t because at 1:27 a.m., the hallway creaks and he’s there, bare-chested, knocking once on Karina’s door before letting himself in. She doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t explain. The moment it clicks shut, they’re already on each other, her back hitting the mattress as his hands find her thighs like he’s starved. The sheets twist beneath them, the room warming with every drag of breath and clench of muscle. It’s the kind of sex that makes guilt taste like sugar on the tongue. The kind that leaves her gasping his name into the crook of his neck, teeth scraping skin, trying to remember why she ever said this wouldn’t happen again.

Every time she finds herself like this—his cock thick inside her, hips snapping in that filthy, perfect way—she remembers that night. The night you walked in on them, hair wet from the shower, phone still in your hand, and looked at her like she was something you had to scrape off your shoe. You didn’t scream. You didn’t cry. You just told her, sharp and final. “You can’t be with him, Karina,” you’d said, voice low but firm, standing at the doorway with your towel-damp hair and disbelief written all over your face. “Jaemin is like Yangyang two years ago when he was with that girl from his psych class. Emotionally unstable. Sexually manipulative. You know what that means.” Your eyes didn’t flinch. “He’ll make you feel like he needs you. Then disappear the second you think it means something.”

And Karina had nodded—slow, guilty, like a kid being scolded, chin tilted down, shame flooding her chest. She never listened. Now, every time he’s inside her, she swears she can still hear it. Your voice. That warning. That truth. But she can’t stop. He’s too good. Too deep. Too much. His breath catches as she arches under him, nails clawing his back, lips parting in a whimper that turns into a plea. There’s nothing soft about this. Nothing gentle. It’s a high they chase with their eyes squeezed shut and mouths full of sin, the kind of sex that rips the air in half and stitches it back with sweat. The city’s pulsing outside her window, alive and filthy, but it’s the way he fucks her that makes her feel dirty. The way he groans when she clenches, the way he fucks her like she’s punishment for something neither of them can name.

They're late the next morning. So late. Karina’s dragging a garment bag down the sidewalk, Jaemin’s still tucking in his shirt, Donghyuck’s swearing at the Uber app. They end up sprinting through the subway, elbowing past early commuters, screaming at each other over missed stops and wrong exits. Karina throws her scarf at Jaemin when he makes a joke about how she moans louder than the train brakes. Donghyuck nearly leaves his suitcase on the platform. By some miracle—or sheer chaos—they make it to the airport just as final boarding is called.

The plane is too cold. Karina takes the window seat, Jaemin folds into the middle with a blanket already tucked around his legs, and Donghyuck throws himself into the aisle with a dramatic sigh. Karina leans her head on Jaemin’s shoulder, lets her eyes flutter shut. She’s just about to drift off when it happens. A scream. High-pitched. Girlish. Sharp enough to cut through the hum of the engine and make the flight attendant spin around. "No. No, no, no—"

Donghyuck is scrambling through his bag, tossing cables and socks and snacks. "Fuck. Fuck. It’s not here. It’s not fucking here."

Jaemin jolts upright. Karina lifts her head. Passengers are turning. "What’s not here?" she asks.

"The flash drive," Donghyuck breathes, already pale. "The wedding audio. The whole fucking tracklist. The cues. The fades. The custom vocal overlays. Gone. It’s gone."

He’s shaking. "You don’t get it. I can’t make it again. That took me weeks. I built motifs into that thing—motifs! You think that shit just happens? I layered audio frequencies with sound samples from the state championship video. I embedded her laugh between transitions. I engineered that playlist like it was a symphony and it’s fucking gone." The flight attendant approaches cautiously. Karina rubs her temple. Jaemin holds out the airline blanket like that might help and Donghyuck sits there, spiralling midair, whispering "motifs" like a prayer to the gods of lost data and wedding disasters.

At Charles de Gaulle, the departure gate to Tokyo feels like a pre-wedding reunion disguised as a boarding queue. The layover city is clinging to them—Paris perfume in their scarves, the buttery scent of croissants lingering in their hair, wine-happy smiles stretched soft by morning light. The layover wasn’t necessary, it could’ve been a direct flight but no one wanted that. The plan was always Paris—four hours on the ground, an excuse to breathe the same air again. An excuse for an early reunion because they missed each other more than they could admit over FaceTime. Jaemin, Karina, and Donghyuck step off the plane still shaking sleep and turbulence off their shoulders, hair messy, voices hoarse from the dry cabin air. Karina looks like she could fall asleep standing up. Jaemin’s hoodie is backwards. Donghyuck’s carrying three chargers and no phone.

They spot Chenle and Ningning in the lounge almost instantly—him with two cappuccinos in hand, her propped against a velvet armchair like she’s about to judge a red carpet. There are hugs—real ones, slow and grounding, the kind that press cheek to shoulder and stay there a second too long. The kind that smells like someone you used to nap next to in a dorm lounge, like familiar detergent and too much cologne dabbed on at duty-free. They hold on like they’ve needed this, like one year and a continent didn’t pass between the last time and now. It’s soft, easy, and a little breathless. No one says they missed each other. They don’t have to.

Donghyuck buries his face in Chenle’s shoulder like it’s the first inhale of oxygen after a dive. Because Chenle? Chenle is his last hope. He doesn’t even have to say it. Just pulls out his laptop, opens the scrambled mess of wedding audio scraps he’s been dreading, and tilts the screen toward him like a white flag. Chenle grins, cracks his knuckles, and mutters, “Let’s resurrect the dead.” Within seconds, they’re hunched over side-by-side in the corner of the lounge, headphones on, frowns matching. Rebuilding. Restitching. Remixing. Donghyuck’s wedding masterpiece might just survive after all.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒. 𝟒𝟖.𝟖𝟖𝟕𝟕° 𝐍, 𝟐.𝟑𝟑𝟐𝟎° 𝐄

Paris breathes in silk and exhales smoke. The city wakes slowly—cigarette ash on window ledges, espresso clinking in chipped porcelain, lace curtains stirring in the breeze off Rue Saint-Honoré. Somewhere a violin scrapes to life. Somewhere else, heels tap against cobblestone like punctuation. The sun doesn’t rise here, it slips—golden and suggestive, kissing rooftops before sliding down the Seine. In the 6th arrondissement, behind a wrought-iron balcony drenched in ivy, Chenle tosses his phone onto a velvet armchair and announces that the seating chart is “giving provincial peasant wedding” and must be redone immediately.

Ningning hums from the bed, one leg draped lazily over the edge of silk sheets, makeup half-finished, a half-full glass of Veuve balanced in hand like it’s been there for hours. The curtains are still drawn, streaks of morning light slipping through the gaps. They’ve spent the last four days drifting—hand in hand through cobbled alleys, tucked into café corners, skipping gallery showings on purpose just to stay in bed longer. This was their own pre-honeymoon: soft, indulgent, shamelessly tender. They took Paris slow. They kissed in bookstores. They danced in their hotel room with half-zipped dresses and shoes kicked off. No itinerary. No alarms. Just each other.

They still live in Seoul, nestled into a life they’ve built with quiet steadiness. Ningning teaches kindergarten now, and she carries the sweetness of it in everything—voice gentle, laughter full. Chenle juggles a few gigs, mostly in sports: part-time broadcast consulting, brand work, and lately, assistant coaching alongside Mark for the new generation of the Seoul Hill Ravens—high school level, though his feedback still sounds like post-game commentary. They’re always busy, always tired, but they’ve never let go of each other. Every time they link hands, it feels like starting again. Every night in Paris, it felt like proof. They’re going from strength to strength, still the loudest laugh at the dinner table, still finding new ways to love like it’s the first time.

Ningning boards first, sunglasses oversized, lips glossed, walking like the aisle is her runway. Chenle trails after her, a scarf thrown carelessly around his neck, already waving at the flight attendant like they’re old friends. Their fingers are laced. The getaway glow hasn’t worn off yet. Paris is still on them—in their hair, their perfume, the way they move. When the plane door seals shut, Chenle raises his glass to no one in particular and mutters, “To Seoul. Try to keep up.”

They still live in Seoul, but this trip wasn’t about home. It was indulgence, timing, desire—Paris for the hell of it, for the silk sheets and sunset rooftops, and now straight to Tokyo for the chaos. The moment Chenle spots Donghyuck near the cabin entrance, crouched and still rifling through his bag with the kind of desperation usually reserved for missing limbs, he sighs so loud the passengers behind him flinch.

“Oh God,” Chenle says, setting his luggage down with a thump. “He’s spiralling already.”

“I had it,” Donghyuck mutters, his voice muffled by fabric and failure. “I packed it. I swear I packed it.”

“The flash drive?” Chenle quirks a brow, stepping forward with theatrical calm. “The one with all the audio?”

Hyuck glances up, eyes wide. “Yes. My baby. My art. The whole fucking wedding depends on it.”

Chenle’s mouth twitches. “Then step aside, drama queen. I’m here now.”

Because of course he is. Chenle may have been sipping Châteauneuf-du-Pape in a Parisian hotel suite twelve hours ago, but he’s also the one who’s been quietly pulling strings the entire time. He’s the taste consultant, the palette snob, the one who called Irene personally to veto that “uncultured” lavender prosecco option. He FaceTimed daily from the 6th arrondissement to roast moodboards and rewrite seating charts. He’s personally curated the welcome gifts, chosen the wine list, and announced that the wedding cake must be “tasteful but with a ‘fuck-you’ twist.”

Now, as Hyuck looks like he’s about to combust, Chenle drops his bag onto the seat and rolls up his sleeves. “I’ll help you reconstruct it,” he says with the slow, terrifying calm of someone who’s better than you at everything. “We’ll work on it during the flight but if this ends up sounding like a K-drama intro, I will sue.”

Ningning, already seated with her legs tucked under her and a glass of orange juice in hand, turns her head and says, “He means it.” The plane fills with chatter and movement. Jaemin and Karina are laughing across the aisle. Hyuck is still panicking, but less now. Chenle is pulling out his laptop. The flight crew is shutting the overhead bins. They’re nearly all together now, scattered in rows and clusters, tucked into cabins with tangled history and crossed signals and long-running jokes. There’s a hum building in the cabin, a rising pressure, like something’s about to begin.

Tokyo is waiting.

𝐓𝐎𝐊𝐘𝐎. 𝟑𝟓.𝟔𝟔° 𝐍, 𝟏𝟑𝟗.𝟔𝟗° 𝐄

—𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆

The villa sits like a whispered secret high in the quiet hills above Kyoto, wrapped in the kind of stillness that feels sacred—not religious but something deeper, something in the bones. Ancient cherry trees circle the stone perimeter like gentle guards, their spring petals drifting across cobbled paths and koi ponds in soft cascades, like ash or blessings, or both. The ponds themselves twist through the tiled courtyards in slow, serpentine ribbons—gold and orange flickers breaking the glassy surface every few seconds as if the water is alive. The rooftops are tiled in weathered slate, kissed each morning with fine threads of mist that curl through the air like incense in an old temple. It smells of cedar, sandalwood, and rain-polished stone, with something older threaded through it—like memory.

This place was once the home of a reclusive artist couple, one known for never speaking in public and the other for sculpting from silence itself. Now, it stands reborn as the most exclusive wedding retreat in Japan, a restored ryokan infused with avant-garde luxury, modern only where it dares to be. The staff move like clockwork ghosts, barefoot in some corridors out of quiet reverence, tying silk ribbons around champagne flutes and steaming robes you didn’t request but already adore. Everything about this estate waits—for vows, for guests, for the exact moment it will become a memory. They say if you sit still long enough, you’ll hear the old floors exhale. You feel it already, before you’ve even walked in. The villa doesn’t hum—it holds its breath.

The estate is a labyrinth of polished wood, shadowed corners, and sunlit open spaces. The entrance opens to sweeping double doors draped in linen curtains that catch the wind like breath. Columns are wrapped in fairy lights, soft and golden, flickering even in daylight. A tray of chilled oshibori towels awaits each arrival, followed by champagne poured into tall flutes, condensation sliding down the glass like prayer. The central courtyard hums quietly with fountains and rustling petals, string lights criss-crossed above like constellations. Music plays from somewhere—an instrumental version of a love song you can’t place—and it never quite stops.

The main villa is the heart of it all, tucked between two koi-fed fountains and lined with ivy-draped pillars. It sprawls upward and sideways like something grown, not built—three split levels, all carved from warm cedar and framed with glass walls that bleed sunlight into every corridor. Rooms don’t line up cleanly here. They wind, loop, step up and duck low. There’s no elevator—just curved staircases, some wider than others, some so narrow they feel like secrets. It’s your job to organise them, to place each guest in their pocket of the villa like puzzle pieces. Your task list is longer than your limbs and yet somehow, you’ve taken on more. Some are easy. Irene and Doyoung in the master bridal suite, top floor, sea view. Mark and Areum, natural as breathing, tucked in the candlelit honeymoon suite they tried to protest until Irene shut them down with one look. Chenle and Ningning, of course, overlooking the pool in a suite that already smells like vanilla and mischief but others weren’t easy. You stared at the sheet for a long time when you saw Jeno’s RSVP marked “+1.” Nahyun. A soft, perfect tick. The name curled like ash on the screen.

Yangyang made a joke then. Said after everything he’s done for you—everything he’s carried—he should get the honour of sleeping beside you. You laughed it off. Then said yes. Not because you meant to, not because you thought it would matter, but because the idea of sleeping alone while Jeno didn’t? You’ve had enough of cold beds and unanswered questions. The central courtyard room is yours now. Yangyang’s too. Practical, bright, and far from Jeno’s garden-view room across the other end of the villa. That’s what you tell yourself, anyway.

The layout is deliberate, even where it hurts. Irene and Doyoung in the suite at the top, a wraparound balcony staring directly into the sea. Seulgi and Taeyong tucked into a sleek guest room at the edge of the west wing. You and Yangyang in the central courtyard room—chosen for practicality, for light, for the fact that it was as far from Jeno’s garden-view room as the architecture would allow. Mark and Areum in the honeymoon suite, all candles and cotton-smooth linens. Chenle and Ningning’s room sits above the pool, twin sun loungers on a private terrace, string lights woven through the wooden rail. Shotaro and Ryujin share a tucked-away space above the old dance studio, barely big enough for their luggage but blessed with balcony access. Jaemin and Karina are posted right next to the bridal suite—though they’ve already swapped rooms three times for reasons no one dares ask. Hyuck? Basement level, just above the tech booth, a room no one else wanted. He loves it. Chenle did that on purpose.

The villa’s outdoor spaces are where everything breathes. The sakura-view pool bar is open all night, cocktails mixed by hand, each one named after something romantic and doomed. The onsen steams with cedar warmth, flanked by smooth rock and bamboo fencing, privacy folding in like a whisper. The rooftop terrace stretches long above it all—glass railings catching the sunset, low purple lighting giving everyone the kind of glow that turns memories cinematic. The staff refills glasses before they’re empty. The night hums. Always.

The ceremony spot wasn’t meant to be used. You found it yourself—an overgrown stone chapel ruin at the far edge of the estate, moss-drenched and half-forgotten, its altar cracked but still holy. There’s no roof, just sky, just rows of white chairs placed with reverence, each one facing the ocean where the horizon bleeds into the ceremony’s future. You stood there once, alone, and decided this was where the vows would happen. Irene never argued, she loved it immediately. No one visits the space now unless they’re led by you. The place they’ll end up, the place they’ll begin.

There’s a dance studio where Shotaro drills everyone in the group choreography. The mirrored walls sweat with effort. The floor creaks with determination, you’ve already stepped on someone’s toe, twice. There’s a reading room, too. Mark retreats there often, notebook open, pen in hand. He says it’s quiet, you think it’s his peace and then there’s the staff kitchen, where you and Yangyang meet at midnight over double shots of espresso, planning timelines, adjusting menus, arguing softly about ribbon lengths. There’s always something to fix.

The villa is alive with movement. People arriving, slipping into silk robes, changing shoes in the hallway, laughing from the garden path. The staff learn your name. They salute you when you pass. One of the waitresses already said you looked too stressed and offered you tea. You didn’t take it. You couldn’t because you had something to do. You always do because this place is perfect. This week will be perfect. You’ll make sure of it. Even if it breaks you. Especially if it breaks you.

The villa begins to bloom in phases—arrival by arrival, suitcase by suitcase, breath by breath. It begins with the lovestruck: Areum and Mark, sun-kissed and travel-worn, rolling up the gravel path like they own the place. Areum’s complaining about her sunburn, Mark’s pretending to listen but his hand won’t leave her waist. They move as one, effortless, that kind of intimacy built on years of rhythm and shared earphones. They move like a unit, comfortable in the way only people who’ve memorised each other’s body language can be. She chats with the waitstaff like old friends. He’s already halfway into checking the master vendor list Irene left on the welcome table. They came early under the guise of helping coordinate logistics, photography prep, and on-site walkthroughs—but really, they just wanted to be alone for a bit. To settle. To be here before everyone else.

A few days later, your team lands. The Seoul crew. The ones who feel like limbs of the same body, stretched across responsibility and history. You step out first—sunglasses on, clipboard in hand, earpiece chirping with updates. The humidity hits hard, bags thudding across gravel, Yangyang dropping his passport mid-check-in and blaming you for the chaos. “You made me carry your tote,” he hisses.

“There were seventeen documents in there.” You don’t flinch. You’re already scanning the entrance, zeroing in on the cracked edge of the welcome fountain, the flower arch two inches too far to the left, the orientation signage slightly crooked. “Fix that,” you snap, pointing. “And get the linen swaps approved by tonight.” Shotaro jogs after a cart of guest name tags. Ryujin is already calling the head of security. Irene and Doyoung walk hand-in-hand like royalty.

When Areum spots you, she pulls you into a hug like nothing’s changed but the moment your arms brush hers, the tension sinks in—old, sharp, unspoken. “We’ve barely slept,” she murmurs against your ear with a wink. “In a good way.” You pretend to laugh. Mark reaches for your bag before you can, always the helper, and you thank him with a quiet nod.

Then, chaos. The New York trio and Paris duo touch down together in a flurry of gloss and exhaustion. The second they land, luggage wheels screech against marble and voices bounce off the glass like champagne flutes clinking too early. Hyuck is already yelling—something about never flying economy again, something about how Chenle slept through turbulence while he was clutching the armrest and writing his will. Jaemin’s trying to sort out their ride, holding Ningning’s duty-free bag in one hand and swatting Hyuck’s complaints away with the other. Chenle’s arguing with a very patient-looking shuttle driver, insisting that the temperature setting inside the van is “an insult to Parisian skincare standards.” Ningning strolls past them all, sunglasses massive, lip gloss perfect, dragging two wheelie bags like she’s on a runway. She doesn’t look tired. She looks expensive.

But none of that matters because then you see her. Karina. You don’t hear her at first—just the familiar click of heels across the polished floor, just the beat of silence before the chaos sharpens into something personal. And then she screams your name.“Y/N!”

Your bag drops before you even register your hands moving. She barrels into you at full speed, arms flung around your shoulders, perfume and exhaustion wrapping around you like a second skin. You stumble back from the force of it, laugh breaking out of your chest as she squeezes you tighter than anyone has in months.

“You bitch,” she’s saying, breathless and still hugging you. “You didn’t text me that you landed this early. You didn’t send outfit pics. You didn’t even warn me you were gonna look this hot—” She pulls back just enough to give you a once-over, eyes dragging from your glossed mouth to the slope of your waist, then whistles, low and sharp. “No, seriously. What the hell. You look like a Vogue cover and I look like a heatstroke victim in Balenciaga.”

“You look fine,” you say, cheeks flushed.

“I look exhausted,” she corrects, dramatic as ever. “You look like a heartbreaker dressed in linen. If this is your wedding week fit energy, I’m already terrified of what you’ll wear to the welcome dinner.”

“You should be,” you say, smirking.

She fake fans herself. “God. Don’t let any of the boys see you before I get a good pic first.” You’re still laughing when her arm links through yours, steps falling in sync like always. She tosses her bag toward Hyuck without even looking—he catches it with a dramatic groan—and leans into you like she’s been waiting to do this all year. “I’ve had three iced coffees and no real food since yesterday,” she whispers conspiratorially, her voice all grin and glitter. “Please tell me there’s wine at the villa.”

“There’s wine, there’s a stocked minibar, and there’s a team of butlers who keep bowing every time I sneeze.”

Karina clutches her chest like she’s about to cry. “Finally. A place that understands us.”

You both dissolve into another hug, swaying slightly like you’re dancing to a song only you can hear. It’s all giddy warmth, soft hands brushing at frizzy hair, whispered updates in half-sentences. She smells like rose oil and tiredness. You smell like sunscreen and wedding stress. It doesn’t matter. You fit. Like always.

“You didn’t tell me your hair was doing this.” She touches a curl, inspecting it like it’s a luxury garment. “Is this humidity or sorcery?”

“It’s both,” you say. “Mostly stress.”

“You’re glowing.”

“I haven’t eaten in sixteen hours.”

“Glowing,” she insists. “I stand by it.”

Behind her, Hyuck groans loud enough for the whole terminal to hear. “Jesus Christ, are you two gonna kiss or can we go?”

Jaemin rolls his eyes. “Let them have their reunion. God forbid women experience joy.”

Chenle waves a hand, still mid-argument. “Someone tell the driver to stop breathing hot air into the van. I’m serious.” He doesn’t wait for a reply. Just rolls his eyes, adjusts his sunglasses, and pivots like the whole conversation bored him. By the time you turn your head, he’s already halfway across the gravel, storming toward the villa kitchens with the speed of someone on a mission. “No,” he barks into his phone, then at the poor chef who steps out to greet him. “No, I said second-course, not final flourish. You can’t spring lavender ganache on people who think vanilla is spicy. Korean palates aren’t ready for that.” He gestures wildly at the dessert menus he printed in three fonts, stacked under one arm like war plans. “We’re trying to make memories, not start a riot.”

Karina doesn’t look away from you. “Have I told you how much I missed you?”

You grin. “Not enough.” She presses her cheek to your shoulder, and says, softly but seriously, “You’re not allowed to plan this wedding alone anymore.”

“Too late.”

“Well then,” she murmurs, eyes already scanning the exit. “Let’s cause problems on purpose.”

You glance up just as Jaemin steps away from the van, duffel slung low over one shoulder, his hair windswept from the descent and his sunglasses hooked lazily into the collar of his shirt. There’s a flicker in your expression that you don’t catch in time, a tremor beneath the practiced curve of your mouth. The smile you offer him isn’t cold, not quite but it’s distant—tempered by something brittle. A part of you still softens on instinct, still remembers the way he used to lean over your couch just to pass you your phone, still recalls the offhanded jokes he’d mumble when he could feel the tension building in the room between you and Jeno like a bruise.

Because he was there. For all of it. Not just the mess, but the aftermath. He saw the way you tried, that second time around—the way you stayed later, fought quieter, hoped harder. He saw you pacing the balcony with your voice breaking around words you didn’t mean. He saw Jeno, too. The way his hands shook sometimes, the way he stopped knowing how to reach for you and he never said it outright, never threw it in your face, but you know he carries the weight of those weeks like second skin. He remembers.

Still, what hurts more is that Jaemin never once stopped trying. Even when you flinched from him. Even when your replies came late and dry. He kept texting, he sent memes like nothing had changed. He forwarded you playlists you never opened. He made you promise: don’t punish me for it. Don’t leave me behind just because you don’t talk to him anymore. Please don’t see me as the damage. Please don’t let the way it ended mean we have to stop being friends. You’ve tried. You really have and he’s never pushed but being around him is like walking past a doorway to a room you locked yourself out of. You hug him anyway. His arms are familiar, warm, the squeeze a second longer than necessary, like he’s trying to remind you that he’s still here. That he never picked a side even if Jeno is his best friend, that he still wants to mean something to you, even if he’s part of a chapter you refuse to reread.

Then he pulls away and takes Karina from your side with the ease of someone who’s already halfway gone, they’re already laughing, already moving toward their room, hands brushing, eyes low and hungry. That’s when Donghyuck sidles up to your side like he’s been waiting for your attention, water bottle clutched in one hand, his expression caught between disgust and secondhand trauma. “Next time,” he says flatly, “I’m booking separately. I’m serious.”

You arch a brow without turning. “Why?”

He gives you a look like you should know. “They keep fucking. Too much flirting. Too much moaning. I couldn’t sleep the night before because all I heard was ‘harder.’”

You groan. “I warned her.”

Donghyuck scoffs. “She warned me, said if I heard anything, I better shut the fuck up and pray.” He pauses, eyes narrowing. “I didn’t pray hard enough.”

As the sky dims and the scent of the mountains thickens with evening dew, other guests start to arrive. Familiar faces. Doyoung’s childhood friends. Irene’s mother, dressed in periwinkle and pearls. Mark’s aunts with Tupperware full of dried fruit and unsolicited opinions. You even see a few college professors from the Neo Tech campus—Coach Suh among them. He greets you with a nod that says everything and nothing. You haven’t seen him since the night of the state championships. Since the night that cracked like a fault line, one truth split open, and the whole world fell through. The night that changed everything.

Yangyang ticks off names beside you, chewing the end of your pen. “Only three left,” he murmurs, then hesitates. His eyes flick to yours. “Jeno, Nahyun, and Taeyong.” The names don’t echo. They sink. Behind you, Mark tenses, his jaw flexing once, twice. He doesn’t mask it. He’s furious. You can see it in the line of his shoulders, the way his hand curls slightly like he’s holding something back. Seulgi asked Irene to extend the invite, promising it would be the last time. You didn’t say anything, neither did he but you both know that Taeyong is coming. It felt like striking a match in a room you’d sealed shut, watching old demons blink awake in the smoke, stretching their limbs as if they’d only been napping, not buried.

There’s a reason. There’s always a reason. Seulgi’s divorce papers sit folded in the side pocket of her purse like a blade she’s been waiting to unsheath, months untouched but never forgotten. Her smile, practiced and polite, hasn’t reached her eyes since winter fell, the cold behind them permanent, a season she never left. She wants closure, yes, but more than that, she wants control; wants to stand at the edge of her old life and watch it crumble with grace. She wants him to see it—all of it—what it looks like when the world keeps turning without him, when the family he bruised learns to thrive in spite of the silence he left behind. Taeyong didn’t hesitate, he accepted the invitation like a man who’s never had anything to lose. He’s on the manifest, a ghost wrapped in skin, calm and composed, already haunting the villa before his shadow even reaches the gate.

Just like that, the villa is almost full—rooms humming with laughter and old stories, glasses clinking on terraces, luggage half-unzipped in hallways scented with cedar and champagne. Everyone arrived with sun on their skin and sleep in their eyes, ready to play their part, ready to pretend nothing’s fractured beneath the surface. The lists are printed, the vendors confirmed, the chapel waits. But some arrivals carry more weight than others. Some ghosts don’t need footsteps to be heard.

You feel it in the way conversation dips when the guest list nears its end, how even Yangyang’s voice falters for a second before he reads out the final three names. Nobody looks at you. Mark shifts his weight like something’s unsettled in his chest, Areum busies herself with the stem of her glass, twisting it slowly. The names aren’t said with surprise, but with caution. Like invoking them out loud might change the air. Taeyong. Jeno. Nahyun. The last shadows are still en route.

Their room is ready. The garden-view one at the far end of the west wing. The one farthest from yours. You made sure of it. You say it’s because of layout, because of logistics, because of light but deep down you know it’s because no matter how much you plan, no matter how many ribbons you tie or menus you finalise, there’s no spreadsheet for what it feels like when someone who used to know your skin better than you do walks back into the same air as you. It feels like pressing your palm to a mirror only to find it ice-cold—like the ghost of your own touch recoiling. Like standing in a house that used to be yours, only now the doors lock from the outside. Someone who once mapped your body like scripture, who kissed the bruises before they formed, is now just another stranger wearing your past like a tailored suit. They breathe your air like they earned it, like they didn’t leave claw marks on the walls when they went.

The villa is almost full, only ghosts remain.

The rooftop is golden with the last light of day, the sky bleeding lavender and rose as the string lights above you sway with the wind. Karina’s crouched with her phone in hand, telling you both to stop laughing and stay still while Yangyang’s arm cinches tighter around your waist, chin nearly brushing your temple. You’re leaning into him, sun catching in your hair, the hem of your dress riding just a little too high on your thigh. You don’t care. You want this shot. You want this moment. Karina shouts something obscene about angles and lighting and how your collarbones look like they’re carved out of marble, and you throw your head back laughing, catching Yangyang’s grin when he looks down at you. You press closer. You know the villa’s full by now. You know he’ll arrive eventually. You just don’t expect that moment to be now.

The shift isn’t visible—it’s felt. A change in the way the wind moves, in the way the lights overhead flicker once, twice, then settle. The laughter from below dulls, like someone pressed a mute button. The jazz near the koi pond stutters, almost like it loses tempo for a beat. You feel it like a current in your spine. Your laughter fades. Yangyang turns his head. You don’t have to look. You already know. The villa stills when the car pulls in. Sleek. Black. Engine humming like it knows it’s about to break something. The tires kiss the gravel like silk on skin, too smooth to be anything but a performance. Then the door opens. First: him.

Jeno steps out slowly, like he’s got all the time in the world—measured, unbothered, steady in that way only someone who knows they’ll be noticed can move. There's a quiet, assured rhythm of someone used to gravity bending a little when he walks. The NBA has treated him well—too well. His arms are thick with muscle, tan skin stretched tight over bone and tendon and effort. His loose slacks fall just right over his thighs, soft fabric brushing sculpted lines that have only sharpened since college. He wears a sleeveless knit, collar open, top button undone like an invitation he doesn’t plan to follow through on. His sunglasses sit low, eyes unreadable, jaw set, face quiet. His body doesn’t ask to be noticed. It just is.

Nahyun exits behind him, just as polished. A vision in pale silk, the back of her dress dipped low, spine bare, glimmering with perfume and purpose. Her heels tap the stones like punctuation, each step intentional. Her hair’s twisted up in a knot so perfect it doesn’t look real. She glances up from her phone only once, offering a gracious smile to the waiting staff, elegant and effortless. Their hands are joined, fingers laced. It’s too intimate, too neat. He doesn’t lean into it but doesn’t resist either. They walk like actors on cue—beautiful, bitter, and rehearsed.

You’re still on the rooftop when it happens. Karina’s mid-laugh, her finger pressed halfway to the shutter button, and then she stills like the wind’s been cut. The atmosphere tightens. You lower your glass without realising, the stem sweating in your grip, your breath caught halfway up your throat. Yangyang shifts beside you but doesn’t say anything, his hand brushing your hip like a tether and below, Jeno steps out into the courtyard—and tilts his head. Just slightly. Just enough. There’s no logical reason he should know where you are. No line of sight, no sound, no signal but his chin lifts like he’s tracking heat, like his body senses you the way it senses pressure, the way your name still lives in his spine. It’s not a glance, it’s a pull. It’s a force stronger than gravity, it’s instinct, like the muscle memory of being inside you and knowing exactly where your pulse thrums the loudest.

He doesn’t look around, not at the guests, not at the staff or even at the girl still clutching his hand but his eyes drag once—slow, deliberate—up the left side of the villa, over the eaves, and past the lanterns. To the roof. To you. It’s a fraction of a second, a flicker so fast you could pretend it didn’t happen but you feel it. In your chest. Between your thighs. In the sharp catch of your breath that tastes like wine and regret. He looks for you like it’s a habit he never unlearned. Like if he just scans the horizon long enough, he’ll find the one thing that ever made sense. He hasn’t seen you in months but he lifts his head like if he listens hard enough, he’ll hear the last time you begged for him in the dark and it does something to you. Something you don’t let show, but it drips down your spine like sweat. It fills your mouth with heat. Your thighs press tighter together, your breath unsteady because even now — especially now — his body still knows what it craves.

That pull across space, it locks in your gut like your name just got whispered by something with teeth. You’ve felt his gaze a thousand times before—bare, holy, sinful—but this? This feels like exposure. Like violation. Like his eyes crawl under your dress and drag old versions of you to the surface. His stare is sharp and black and unearned, and still it finds you. You hate the way it feels, like a dare, like an invitation to burn. Like all the worst parts of you want to be seen by him and only him. His eyes don’t plead, they possess. They scrape down your spine like memory turned feral. You want to turn away, you want to hold it. You want to bite down on it and taste blood. Because fuck, even now—when you’re supposed to be over him, past him, better than him—his gaze still makes you feel like you’d ruin everything just to have him between your legs one last time.

He keeps walking. Yangyang sees it all in your jaw, the way you bite down on your tongue, the tremor in your wrist. He shifts a little closer, doesn’t touch you but grounds you. Karina doesn’t speak either. She just lowers her phone, mouth pressed tight, hand hovering near your elbow in case you fall because this is what falling looks like. This is what memory does when it walks back into your life holding someone else’s hand.

And Jeno? He keeps walking even when the sky darkens behind him.

He doesn’t move like someone searching for attention, but he’s always noticed now. It starts quiet — staff bowing a little deeper when they realize who he is, their eyes catching on him for just a second longer than they should. A few younger guests murmur his name like a secret, glancing between him and each other as if confirming he’s real but outside the estate, it’s sharper. Taxi drivers double-take. Locals stop walking just to watch him pass. At a corner café the day before, a teenage girl asked for a photo with trembling hands, telling him through a stammer how much she loves the Typhoons. How that game — his game — changed everything because it did. His name still means something, his face even more. He doesn’t play like anyone else. He doesn’t move like anyone else. There’s more weight to him now. He’s not just the boy who wore the Raven jersey like a second skin, he’s Seoul’s breakthrough. The one rising through the NBA like he was built for it. Every analyst watches him now. Every article speculates what he’ll do next. He feels that pressure even here, even now — especially here, because here is where he remembers who he used to be. Who he was when you loved him.

They walk side by side, fingers laced, her smile leading and his silence trailing close behind. Mark sees him first and it only takes a second before he moves forward. His hug is firm, a back-pat, a chin-tuck, a breathless murmur that sounds almost like relief. “You look good,” Mark says.

Jeno nods once. “You too.” It’s simple yet heavy. It’s enough.

Jaemin appears next, all lazy grins and wide arms and pulls Jeno into a hug that ends with ruffled hair and Jeno batting him off with a half-smile. “You owe me a drink,” Jaemin teases.

“I’ll buy the whole bar,” Jeno answers.

Chenle doesn’t even finish his sentence before calling out, “Look who finally showed up!” He bounds over, wraps Jeno into a dramatic spin, and ends with him in a headlock. “My favorite Lee.”

Jeno tries to protest, laughing into the hold. “You say that to Mark too.”

“And I mean it less every time,” Chenle deadpans.

Doyoung’s hug is quieter. Older. There’s a pause in it, a kind of forgiveness Jeno doesn’t know how to accept, but doesn’t want to refuse either. “We missed you, son,” he says, with that same gentleness he’s always reserved for the boys who grew up too fast.

Irene kisses his cheek, her perfume floral and faintly familiar, and smiles like she’s been holding a worry too long. It’s polished, practiced, the way she touches his arm and tucks her silence into a kind word. “Don’t you dare disappear again,” she murmurs.

Jeno nods. “I won’t.” But the words feel like they belong to someone else. Because her hand drops too quickly. Because she turns away before he’s ready because something in her warmth doesn’t quite reach where it always does with her.

Later that evening, the night air wraps around the villa like silk pulled too tight, warm and taut and humming with the remains of the day. Lanterns flicker low over carved wood beams, casting soft orange light over the terrace walls, and the koi pond murmurs below like it’s trying to distract you. There’s music playing through the villa’s speakers, something jazzy and slow and indulgent. Karina’s slouched across a beanbag near the fire pit, bare legs stretched out, her champagne bottle resting between her knees, breath sticky with laughter from some story she half-finished telling. Yangyang leans on the terrace railing, one foot braced against the wood, scrolling through the schedule on his phone, wedding lanyard still looped loose around his neck. You sit on the cushioned bench by the edge, drink in hand, legs curled underneath you, the hem of your linen dress tucked around your ankles. It should feel like a pause. A break. A soft place to land before the next rehearsal begins. But your fingers keep curling around the stem of your glass too tightly. Your laughter doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

He doesn’t come with sound at first, he comes with silence, a kind that folds in on itself, sharper than any noise. The music doesn’t stop but it dulls in your ears. Karina falters mid sentence. Yangyang lowers his phone. Your pulse climbs to your throat and stays there, caught. The door behind you groans open, slow and deliberate, like wood dragged across memory and then he walks in.

There’s no one else with Jeno, not this time, no Nahyun on his arm. No excuse. No shield. Just him, freshly showered, the collar of his white shirt slightly damp where it clings to his chest, sleeves rolled high on his forearms, droplets still gleaming along the line of his neck. His hair is wet, pushed back with fingers, still drying in soft waves that catch the lantern light. He moves like he doesn’t need permission, like the air parts for him without asking. He doesn’t look around much, not at first but the second he sees you, his body shifts, like muscle memory clicking into place. He pauses. Hand in his pocket. Jaw tight. The lines of his arms drawn like tension wound into skin.

You forget to breathe. Your chest pulls too tightly, like there’s not enough space between your ribs, and everything you’ve been holding down claws its way to the surface. There’s no logic to the way your body moves — only instinct. You’re standing now. You don’t remember getting up, you don’t say his name and he doesn’t say yours. The distance between you and him stretches like a rubber band seconds from snapping.

Karina moves first, always the buffer. She moves toward him with that loose, affectionate sway she always had, grinning as she wraps her arms around his shoulders. “Well, finally,” she says, soft and teasing, like the air hasn’t dropped ten degrees since he walked in. Jeno hugs her back. It’s quick, but there’s something real in it. His hand lingers on her back for a beat too long.

Yangyang doesn’t move at first, he just studies Jeno from across the terrace with a gaze so flat it could pass for indifference but it isn’t. It’s distance measured in nights spent helping you pick yourself off the floor, in the silence he sat through when you couldn’t speak, in the things he saw and didn’t say. He was there when it all collapsed, when the foundation cracked and you fell through it. He held you through it, cleaned up the mess. He never needed an explanation. He just stayed. And now, as Jeno stands there like a shadow resurrected, Yangyang tilts his head slightly, like he’s trying to decide if it’s even worth moving.

Eventually, he does step forward, slow and stiff, and the hug that follows is brief, one arm, one tap on the back, no weight behind it. When they pull apart, Yangyang’s mouth is set in a tight line, his voice clipped. “You’re here,” he says, without inflection. It lands heavy. Like a fact more than a greeting.

Jeno’s reply is quiet, almost reluctant. “Yeah.”

Then it’s you and the world stops beating.

You don’t move closer but your eyes find each other in the dark like magnets pulled by something old and buried. His mouth opens slightly, not to smile but to say something, anything. He hesitates. You see it in the way his shoulders roll back, like he’s trying to anchor himself. You hate that you can still read that. You hate that it still hurts. You hate that you’re still watching him like you never stopped. The light catches in his lashes. His eyes are darker than you remember and deeper. Like if you fall in now, you’ll drown properly this time.

Karina glances between you both, mouth twisted with second hand tension. “Jesus Christ,” she mutters under her breath, reaching for the nearest bottle. “I need another drink.”

Jeno leans forward slightly, jaw twitching. “Can we—”

“No,” you whisper.

You don’t raise your voice. You don’t let yourself sound angry. You’re just exhausted, hollowed out and he hears it.

He nods once. Sharp. Hurt flashes behind his eyes but he tucks it away quickly, turning without another word then he leaves.

Just like that. Like it’s too late to fix anything. Like he knows he ruined it. Like he knows he lost it.

Karina wraps her arm around your waist as your body stills, breath caught somewhere between your throat and your chest. Yangyang moves to the side, grabs the strongest bottle in reach, and wordlessly places it in your hand. No one says anything. The silence he leaves behind is louder than any apology.

The garden terrace is dressed like a dream you don’t trust. Lanterns hang low from strings woven through cherry trees, casting golden light across the stone floor and dappled tablecloths. It’s the lantern grove tonight—a secluded, overgrown alcove nestled behind the oldest part of the villa, where wild ivy crawls up obsidian stone and the koi pond flickers with reflections of flame. The space feels half-sacred, half-forgotten, like a secret inherited rather than built. Branches arch overhead in a delicate canopy, hung with paper lanterns that sway gently in the breeze, their golden light dancing across polished tableware and whispered glances. Cherry blossoms fall intermittently, catching in wine glasses and silk sleeves, drifting like confessions no one dares speak aloud. The long dining table stretches beneath it all, clothed in soft linen, place cards etched in gold ink, menus hand-folded beside engraved name tags. Everything looks perfect, feels rehearsed but there’s tension in the way people sit—who they face, who they don’t. The air is too quiet in places, the smiles are too bright. It’s a dinner made for toasts and celebration, but something in the atmosphere says otherwise. Something says watch carefully, someone here is lying.

The path to your seat feels longer than it should. Your heels click too loud against the tile. Someone’s laughing, Chenle, probably, but the sound doesn’t reach you right. Karina’s already seated when you arrive, draped across her chair like silk, drink in hand, flashing a grin that feels like armour. Yangyang slides a chair back for you, his fingers brushing yours for a second longer than necessary, and you let yourself exhale as you sit.

The atmosphere is warm. Toasted. A little too golden, like a picture waiting to be ruined. The laughter hums under the clink of porcelain, wine spills smoothly into glasses, and your place at the center-right of the table becomes your fortress. You take in the glow, the shadows, the lull of music over breath because somewhere in your ribs, you already know this night won’t stay soft for long. The tension hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s dressed and on its way. You feel it. Like weather. Like prophecy. Like breath caught in the throat of spring.

The dinner table stretches long and uninterrupted, ivory linen clinging to the edges, crystal glassware lined like expectation. There’s laughter, clinking, the smell of jasmine and grilled lemon and something sweet still cooling behind the folding screens. Someone says the menu was curated by a Michelin chef, you haven’t tasted anything yet.

You feel him before you see him, the shift in the air like a storm choosing its target, heat coiling low in your stomach, too sudden to name. Your spine locks, your breath shortens, and your hand stills mid-air above your plate, the fork glinting untouched. Your pulse betrays you first, thrumming too fast against your collarbone, beneath the delicate chain you haven’t taken off since winter and then, before your brain can catch up, your fingers move, like instinct, muscle memory, panic disguised as poise, smoothing your already-perfect hair like you’re shielding yourself from something you don’t want to admit you’ve been waiting for. Yangyang catches it. His eyes flick toward the entrance, sharp, scanning, while yours lag behind in a hesitation that’s not hesitation at all—it’s dread, recognition, inevitability dressed up in pearls and silk.

Jeno walks in with Nahyun, her hand looped through his, delicate and purposeful. He wears a cream shirt, top two buttons undone, sleeves rolled like someone who doesn’t have to try to look like that. His pants hang off his hips with the kind of effortless precision stylists spend hours crafting. His skin is golden, burnished under the lamplight, his collarbones catching shadows just right. Sunglasses tucked into his shirt, hair slightly damp, a glint of silver at his wrist. He doesn’t look at you but his presence rolls through the room like thunder on velvet. He’s not smiling, he doesn’t need to. The staff bow a little lower. A couple of younger guests glance at him, elbow each other, whisper his name like they’re not sure if it’s really him.

Nahyun’s in a pale, backless slip dress, the silk moving like water across her spine. Her heels click with every step, mouth curved into a pleasant smile as she thanks the waiter leading them toward their seats. She doesn’t cling but she doesn’t let go either. Jeno’s hand doesn’t just hold Nahyun’s—it moves. Slides down her spine as they walk, slow and deliberate, his palm skimming the edge of her exposed back like he’s tracing something only he can see. The silk shifts under his fingers, nearly slipping off her shoulder, but he catches it before it falls, thumb grazing skin. She leans in to murmur something, soft and playful, and he nods without answering, eyes still scanning the table, still searching but his hand doesn't leave her. It drops to her waist, fingers pressing lightly through the fabric like he’s staking a claim. There’s something possessive in the way he guides her to the seat beside him—low, practiced, not rough but not gentle either. Like a signal. Like he knows eyes are on them and he wants them to see. When she sits, he bends to whisper in her ear, something that makes her laugh too sweetly, tilting her head just enough to expose her throat. His lips don’t touch her skin but they hover. Close enough to sting. Close enough to burn.

You’re in black tonight—midnight silk that pools at your feet like smoke, sleeveless with a high neckline that kisses your collarbones and leaves your back bare in a whisper of defiance. The fabric is cut to precision, soft enough to move with you, structured enough to remind people you built this whole damn wedding. Under the golden flicker of lanterns, the dress catches a faint sapphire hue when you shift, like bruised light, like something sacred and dangerous. Your hair’s swept up, twisted and pinned with sharp elegance, a few soft strands left loose to frame your face the way you like. Your earrings glint when you tilt your head. Your lipstick is barely there—just the right stain to make someone wonder how it got smudged.

Yangyang sits beside you, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled just high enough to show the veins in his forearms when he reaches for his drink. His tan is deeper than usual, and there’s a calm to him tonight, the kind of calm that doesn’t beg for attention but commands it. He doesn’t hover, doesn’t speak unless he has to, but his eyes track every shift around the table like he’s reading a room full of wires, knowing exactly which one might spark next. When you tense—when your breath slows, eyes narrowing slightly across the table—his hand finds yours under the cloth without needing to ask. His fingers are warm, palm grounding, thumb brushing just once over your knuckle before going still. You don’t pull away. You let him. Your grip tightens once, the smallest tremor, a silent thank you or a plea.

Neither of you says a word. You just sit together but alone, perfectly poised in your silence—while across the table, the man you bled for, defended, protected, almost destroyed yourself to save, sits beside another woman and watches you like he doesn’t remember any of it. Like he wasn’t the one whose knees you’ve buckled, whose moans you memorised, whose name once shook loose from your throat like a promise. Like he didn’t make you a sinner first, kissing you like confession, leaving like punishment, and now dares to track every motion of your body like he still has the right to know how it moves without him.

Dinner starts slow, tension simmering beneath the silverware. The menu is elegance embodied—grilled sea bass laid delicately over yuzu risotto, the edges seared just enough to flake, the scent tangy and soft. Blistered tomatoes burst on the side, sweet against cracked black pepper and greens crisped in sesame oil. There’s a drizzle of honeyed soy running through everything, catching on pear slices that gleam like glass under the lantern light. Every bite tastes like restraint. Like no one at the table is really eating for hunger. Plates clink gently. Glasses catch condensation. You raise your fork and keep your spine straight, eyes trained on your food, mouth full of silence. You don’t speak—but he watches. And it’s not the food that’s making you warm.

The wine makes its way down the table like a slow, deliberate secret—hands passing it with practiced ease, laughter bubbling on either side, but your focus narrows the moment it nears. You reach without hesitation, fingers brushing the dark green bottle just as he does. Skin meets skin. Not soft, not by accident. It’s friction laced with everything unsaid. Heat coils where his knuckles graze yours, the kind that shoots up your arm and locks behind your ribs, unmistakable and immediate. He doesn’t flinch, just holds your stare for the briefest, blistering second, and it’s like everything else fades—the conversation, the clink of cutlery, the hum of cicadas layered into the jazz. Jeno’s hand is warm. Familiar. Too familiar. Like your name still lives there. Yangyang notices, of course he does—his hand pauses mid-reach, his eyes flick between you and the point of contact before flicking away, jaw tightening as he pretends it means nothing. You break first. Your fingers slip back around your glass like a shield, the bottle passed on with a careful smile that doesn’t reach your eyes. Jeno doesn’t pour himself a drink, he just leaves his hand resting on the table, palm down, like he’s still feeling the imprint of yours.

Nahyun leans into him, shoulder brushing his as she murmurs something just low enough to make you strain to hear. You don’t catch the words, not clearly—just the low murmur of her voice, thick with something soft and intimate, the kind of tone that doesn’t belong at a public table. She leans in closer, smiling like she’s whispering a secret, and Jeno doesn’t move away. His head dips slightly, just enough to meet her gaze, and that’s when she reaches out. Fingers slow, deliberate, she brushes the edge of his lip with her thumb, swiping something away—her lipstick, probably, a faint smudge she left behind when she got too close. It’s the kind of gesture that shouldn’t mean anything, not really, but it slices anyway. Not because of what she does, but because of what you remember. Because you’ve done it before. In darker light, in private moments when it was only your hand against his skin, only your touch he let linger. You don’t look away, but you feel the weight of it settle behind your ribs. Your jaw sets, your fingers curl tighter around the stem of your wine glass, and Karina glances at you like she’s waiting for a reaction you refuse to give. Yangyang doesn’t speak, but his hand grazes yours under the table, grounding you—or trying to. You don’t respond. Jeno doesn’t even flinch. He lets Nahyun clean his mouth like it’s nothing, like it’s natural, like your mouth was never there first.

There’s a chair further down the table. Empty, but loud in its stillness. The name card beside the charger plate reads Taeyong Lee, handwritten in calligraphy so delicate it looks like it might bleed off the page. The wine glass beside it is full. Untouched. You noticed it the moment you sat down. So did Mark—he hasn’t looked at it again since. Seulgi keeps glancing toward it between bites she never takes. Her plate remains full, her knife and fork untouched, laid perfectly parallel. Conversation tapers slightly every time someone’s eyes drift toward that spot, the one seat no one’s willing to ask about. Finally, Seulgi offers it herself—softly, like she’s trying to smooth something over. “He’ll be joining us later,” she says, voice calm and carefully blank.

But no one really believes it because it’s not just a seat—it’s history. It’s everything that was broken and never fixed. The way her voice doesn’t lift at the end gives it away. The way Doyoung doesn’t echo the sentiment. The way Irene stares too long at her plate, and Mark swirls his wine instead of sipping it. Everyone knows Taeyong isn’t coming—not because he can’t, but because he shouldn’t. Not after the fallout, not after what he did. The wine doesn’t sweat. The candle doesn’t flicker. It’s as if even the air knew not to expect him.

The pause stretches too long. Conversation thins, laughter dims, and somewhere in the middle of the table, a fork settles too gently against a plate, the sound too careful to be natural. No one speaks, not even Chenle. You can feel it—something waiting to happen, something shifting behind the candlelight. Then Irene shifts in her seat. It’s the smallest motion, a turn of the wrist, a glance toward the valley view behind her but it feels choreographed. Like she’s been waiting for the perfect cue. Her glass rises slowly, deliberate, fingers poised like she’s holding a string between everyone at the table. Her smile is soft, glowing, a little too polished to be real. Like a mask worn so long it’s started to fit.

“Well,” Irene says, her voice smooth and lilting, glass raised just high enough to command attention, “we’ve enjoyed the view, the food, the company but before we all head off to bed, I think it’s only right we acknowledge the one person who’s made this entire week possible.” Her eyes find yours across the table, unwavering, affectionate, but with an edge of finality—like she’s already decided. “The girl who’s been working nonstop behind the scenes. Every schedule, every detail, every little moment we’ve enjoyed, she’s the one we owe it to.” A gentle hum of agreement ripples down the table. “She’s barely slept. She’s handled it all and this wedding wouldn’t be what it is without her.” Irene smiles, soft but certain, and tips her glass a little higher. “Come on, sweetheart. Say a few words.”

Your smile doesn’t reach your eyes. It’s practiced, too smooth, the kind of expression that stretches over nerves without hiding them. Your fingers curl slightly around your napkin, knuckles whitening just enough to betray the spike in your pulse. You hadn’t planned this. You’ve planned everything else—down to the second seating arrangements, the floral timings, the wine deliveries. But this? This moment, this sudden spotlight? You hadn’t accounted for it. Not with him sitting three chairs down, not with Nahyun’s hand still resting on his thigh like she belongs there. Your stomach twists. You nod once, slow, and stand with the grace that’s always saved you, even now, even when your heart’s stumbling over its next beat. There’s a buzz behind your ears. You can feel every pair of eyes on you. Especially his.

You raise your glass slowly, but your voice doesn’t follow right away. There’s a flicker behind your ribs, something sharp and unwelcome, like memory biting down. You smooth your expression before the pause becomes noticeable. “It’s not easy,” you start, voice clear, controlled, though your pulse is anything but, “to bring this many hearts from this many histories into one place. Into one week. Into one room but when it’s right—when it matters—love has a strange way of making the world smaller. It pulls us closer. Makes the impossible feel manageable.”

You glance toward Irene and Doyoung, your tone softening. “To our couple: may the life you build be louder than any doubt, kinder than any past, and longer than whatever tried to keep you apart. You remind us that something lasting doesn’t have to start easy—it just has to start real.” There’s warmth in the room. For a moment, it feels safe.

“And to the rest of us,” you continue, and here, your voice wavers—not audibly, but in its bones. In its breath. “To what we carry. To the kind of love that doesn’t get the ceremony, the rings, the timeline. The kind that shifts. That changes form but not meaning. To old friends, to unfinished conversations. To the people who show up—years later, or not at all—but who never quite leave.”

Your eyes sweep the table, you don’t look at him. Not deliberately but your gaze catches. On a glass gripped too tightly, a jaw too still, a face you used to love in the dark. Your voice finds its edge again. “To love,” you say, “in all its shapes. The kind that stays. The kind that burns. The kind that leaves without warning, but never without trace and to the parts of ourselves we gave away hoping they’d be safe in someone else’s hands.”

The silence after the toast isn’t kind. It doesn’t soften the edges or offer relief. It lingers, sharp and sour, like the moment before a glass hits the floor. You sit before the applause can start, before your body betrays you further. Your legs ache from how long you stood, your palms still damp with tension. You can’t hear anything but your own pulse. The stem of your wine glass trembles when you touch it.

Jeno hasn’t moved since you started speaking. His fingers curl loosely around the base of his glass, but it stays on the table. Untouched. No toast. No gesture. No performance. Just stillness. His eyes are low, shadowed, unreadable but his jaw is set, and his chest rises once, sharply, like something inside him cracked. The clinking around him doesn’t register. The voices blur. It’s as if he’s listening to something only he can hear, something you didn’t say out loud, something you both still remember. He doesn’t drink or blink, he just watches the rim of his glass like it might shatter.

You’re reaching for your glass again when Doyoung shifts at the head of the table, his grin light but his eyes glinting with intent. “Well,” he says, raising his own wine, “we’ve got an NBA star in the house. Come on, Jeno, give us a few words.”

Jeno doesn’t refuse or blink. He stands like it costs him nothing, like attention isn’t something he fears but something he’s already familiar with, something that’s been following him since he was twelve and first learned how to make a crowd hold its breath. The chair legs barely scrape the floor—low, smooth, like they know better than to disrupt him. His movements are unhurried, deliberate, a quiet kind of power that doesn’t need volume to be felt. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t adjust his collar, doesn’t clear his throat like the others have. He just lets the silence settle around him and then lifts his gaze. It travels slowly down the length of the table—not to search, not to measure, but to make sure everyone feels it. His confidence isn’t in the way he holds himself. It’s in the way he doesn’t need to. When he speaks, it’s soft. Not uncertain, not shy. Just precise. Measured like breath held underwater. Smooth enough to feel like a lie. Controlled enough to make your stomach twist.

“I wasn’t planning on saying anything,” he starts, voice low but steady. “Never been good with speeches. Or… words, in general.” A dry chuckle flickers from Donghyuck. “But I’ve been thinking a lot about loyalty lately, about what a team means, about growth. About what it means to lose, what it means to keep going anyway.”

“Sometimes you lose games,” Jeno says, barely more than a murmur now. “Sometimes… you lose people. Either way, you learn how to keep playing.” He glances once toward doyoung. “I don’t have the right words. Maybe I never did. But this—” he lifts a hand slightly, gesturing toward the table, the lights, the collective breath of the evening— “this feels like something worth remembering. So… thanks. For letting me be part of it.”

Soft. Too soft. Reflective in a way that feels rehearsed, like he’s walked this tightrope before—just enough heart to stir the table, just enough restraint to twist the knife where it counts. It’s designed to win them back, and it does. But not you. Not with the way his voice lingers in your chest like a bruise blooming backwards. You raise your glass with trembling grace, press it to your lips like it’ll steady you, and let the wine slice down your throat while your silence tastes too much like his name to swallow clean.

As soon as Jeno sits down, it’s evident that Nahyun is trying way too hard. You see it in the way her hand flutters like clockwork, napkin rising to blot the corner of mouth even when there’s nothing there. In how she keeps reaching to top up his glass before it’s even half-empty, wrist brushing his arm like she wants it to mean something. Her hand slips under the table once, slow and searching, but he doesn’t lean in. Doesn’t shift closer. Just nods politely at something she says and keeps his eyes moving—scanning the room, the table, until they land where they always do. On you. Not for long. Just enough to hollow you out.

When she leans in mid-toast, mouth tilted toward his cheek, he turns his head slightly and the kiss lands closer to his jaw. It doesn’t look accidental. Her smile thins. By dessert, she snaps beneath her breath—sharp, desperate. “At least pretend you want me here.” But he doesn’t answer. Not with words. Just presses his lips together and reaches for his fork, like silence will protect them both.

Further down the table, Seulgi still hasn’t touched her food but she watches. She doesn’t acknowledge Nahyun outright—never would. Still, when the girl laughs too loudly or touches Jeno’s shoulder with fingers a little too possessive, Seulgi’s wine glass rises slowly, her lips taut around its edge, her eyes cool as moonlight. Later, when Nahyun lifts the wine bottle again, offering it down the line, her voice a little too high, a little too chirped—Seulgi doesn’t blink. “Careful, sweetheart,” she murmurs, syrup-thick, watching the red tip into Nahyun’s glass. “Some things spill easily when they’re too full.” Nahyun’s hand stills mid-pour. The bottle hovers for a second. Then she sets it back down without meeting her eyes.

A beat passes. Seulgi folds her napkin over her lap. “You might want to pace yourself,” she adds, light as air, like it’s a suggestion but her smile shines too hard, teeth like a warning behind satin gloves. “It’s a long week.”

You try not to look at him, you really do but he’s everywhere, in the way his glass clicks softly against the table, in the low tenor of his laugh when someone else earns it, in the quiet burn of his stare every time you almost find peace. So you anchor yourself in what you can.

Karina and Jaemin are the first distraction. They sit to your left, too close to be casual, too much tension crackling between them to ignore. Her dress is slit high up her thigh, silk clinging with every movement; his shirt is unbuttoned low, collar askew, skin damp where the lantern light hits it. They pretend not to notice the way their knees press under the table, the way their shoulders brush when she leans in. He feeds her something off his plate, a piece of grilled peach glazed in balsamic and you see Jeno watch it happen. See his brow lift, unreadable. Karina reaches behind your back, grabs a napkin she doesn’t need, and murmurs in your ear, “I swear to God, if he stares at you one more time…” Later, when Jaemin stands to walk her back inside, your eyes trail after them without thinking and that’s when it happens again. Jeno’s gaze. Quiet. Sharpened. Watching you watch someone else. You could frame it however you like, possessiveness, pettiness, something shallow and selfish but the truth is, you’ve been stealing glances all night too. You’re no better. You’ve measured the slope of his shoulders beneath that shirt like it matters, like you don’t still know how they feel caged under your palms. You’ve traced the line of his throat when he swallows. Watched his lips curve, twitch, still. You’ve counted how many times he shifts in his seat, you could pretend it’s nothing. and that it's a memory, muscle and instinct but you keep looking. Not because you want him to see but because for some awful reason, part of you still needs to.

Then there’s Mark and Areum. Softer, sweeter. The kind of love that steadies you if you let it. Areum keeps leaning into Mark, tucking her hand over his as he drinks, smiling like she’s memorised him but you see what others don’t. The way Mark keeps glancing across the table. How his shoulders stiffen whenever you shift in your seat. He's always been protective. When you finally push your chair back because you can’t take the wine, the silk, the sweat down your spine for one more second, it’s his eyes that meet yours first. Concern, soft and unsaid. He moves like he might stand too but stops when you silently tell him that you’re fine.

You’re already standing. Your skin is too hot. Your hands tremble when they reach for your napkin. Yangyang doesn’t ask. He follows a beat later, steps a little too quick. You don’t look back. You can’t. You already know — Jeno’s still watching. And this time, you don’t want to know what’s in his eyes.

“I need some air,” you murmur, reaching for your napkin and folding it with precision. “Good night everyone.”

Irene’s head tilts slightly, concern tucked behind her smile. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”

You nod, too quickly. “Just warm. It’s the wine.”

Yangyang shifts beside you, already half-rising. “Do you want me to—?”

You cut him off with a small shake of your head. “No. Stay.”

You don’t say goodbye when you leave, you just scrape your chair back from the dinner table and stand, slow and sharp, like you’re daring someone to ask. You walk through the glass doors, across the marble-floored corridor, up the curved staircase that still smells like fresh varnish and roses from the welcome bouquet. You slip into your room like you’re ducking under water, shoulders stiff, pulse loud in your ears. The door clicks behind you, and the silence hits all at once.

Your room’s too white. The kind of white that hums like bleach in your teeth, that glares under the skin, that makes every thought you don’t want to think stand out sharper. It’s a curated kind of cleanliness—like the villa staff wanted to sterilise emotion out of the space, scrub the memories off the walls. The sheets are tight, pristine, unwrinkled. The curtains don’t move even when the wind pushes in through the cracked window. Everything smells like lemon and money.

You blink, slow. Your lashes feel heavy, the migraine is pressing harder behind your eyes now, a dull, pulsing throb that tugs your temples in time with your heartbeat. You should’ve taken something hours ago but you didn't. You’d been too busy trying not to snap at Karina, at Jaemin, at your own reflection. Too busy trying not to look at the far wing of the villa, where he is. You tug the necklace off your throat the moment the door clicks shut behind you. It snags once against your collarbone, then breaks free. You toss it onto the dresser with a metallic clatter and kick off your heels hard enough that one bounces off the leg of the vanity. You don’t care. You’re already unzipping the side of your dress when you hear it—the knock.

Three soft taps. A pause. Then one more. You don’t have to ask. “Yangyang,” you mutter, voice rough from holding back too much all night. “I told you I was fine.”

The door opens anyway and he’s already halfway inside, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “You always say that right before you do something like threaten the string quartet.”

“I didn’t threaten them.”

“You said you’d have them replaced with a Spotify playlist if they didn’t stop playing that acoustic shit during dinner.”

You sigh, turning away, shimmying the silk off your hips. He just walks further in and shuts the door behind him. The soft click sounds too loud in a room this quiet. You don’t look at him, not until you feel the zip of cool air down your spine and realise your dress is stuck halfway down. “Can you—?”

He’s already there. His fingers gentle against the zipper, dragging it the rest of the way down. The dress falls to the floor in a whisper, he doesn’t touch you. Not yet. “Sit,” he says quietly. You do. The vanity chair is low and soft. Your bones ache when they hit the cushion.

Yangyang moves behind you, gathering your hair. He brushes it out with his fingers first, careful not to tug, then finds the soft-bristled paddle brush from your travel kit like he’s done it a hundred times because he has. You stare at yourself in the mirror as he works. Your eyes are glassy. Liner smudged. Mouth too red. The ghost of Jeno’s name still lingers behind your teeth. You hate how visible it all is.

Yangyang doesn’t say anything. He takes a makeup wipe and gently begins to clean your face—starting with your cheek, then your temple, then your mouth. His touch is slow, tender. You lean into it because tonight broke you in ways you can’t say out loud, you want to be touched, not questioned. When he finishes, he crouches in front of you. “Do you want me to stay tonight?”

You blink. “Yangyang. We’ve stayed together every night.”

“Still thought I should ask.”

You push a weak breath through your nose and tip your head to the side. “Get in bed before I make you sleep on the floor.”

His smirk is small, but there. “Yes, ma’am.”

You climb over him without saying a word. You don’t ask nor hesitate. He’s already there—laid back against your pillows like he belongs there, flushed pink down his chest, cock hard and twitching, waiting for you. His shirt’s gone, his briefs tossed somewhere on the floor, and he’s bare under you now, skin warm and soft, thighs tense, breath caught high in his throat the second your knees slide up beside his hips.

You straddle him in nothing but your bra and panties, your hair messy and lips swollen from biting them too much. His eyes trail up your body like he’s never seen you before, like he’ll never get tired of it—even when you’re like this, sharp-edged and moody and using him to forget someone else. He still looks at you like you’re everything.

You grind against him once, slow. The tip of his cock slides against the soaked fabric of your underwear and he gasps, hips jerking up before he catches himself, fingers curling into the sheets. “Fuck,” he whimpers, voice high, needy. “You feel so good—” You smirk, lean down to kiss him, hot and open-mouthed. His lips part immediately, tongue brushing yours like he’s trying to chase the taste of you. You roll your hips harder, make sure he feels it—how wet you are, how ready.

You pull back just enough to speak, nose brushing his. “You ready for me?”

He nods fast, messy. “Yeah. Of course. Please—”

“Good boy.” His hips twitch at that. You smile against his jaw, then reach down and pull your panties to the side. He’s already soaked from the mess of your grinding, and when you sink down onto him, slowly but with purpose, the sound it makes is obscene.

He moans—head thrown back, eyes fluttering shut, fingers flying up to your waist like he needs something to hold onto before he unravels completely. “Fuck, baby, please—” You start to move before he finishes. You bounce, slow at first, dragging your cunt up his cock and dropping back down with a rhythm that makes him tremble underneath you. His hands grip tighter, his moans get louder, and he watches you through hooded eyes like he’s drowning in it, desperate to be good, to be what you need—even if it’s just for tonight.

Your thighs flex as you rise, then slam back down, the wet slap of your bodies echoing through the room as you ride him with a sharp, punishing rhythm. He moans into your ear, cock dragging against every inch inside you as you grind down, bounce rougher, sharper, until your thighs burn. He’s gasping under you, flushed deep to the tips of his ears, lips wet and parted as he stares up at you like he’ll die if you stop.

“Please—fuck, baby, please, please, I need it—”

You grip his jaw, tilt his face up so he has no choice but to look at you while you use him. “Need what?” you ask, voice steady even though your heart’s racing. “Say it.”

“I need to come,” he chokes, whining as you slam down on him again. “I wanna come, I wanna feel you—please, let me—”

You hum like you’re thinking about it but you keep fucking him, hard and deep, rolling your hips until he’s a mess beneath you, thighs trembling, cock throbbing inside you like he’s right on the edge. He’s begging now. Over and over. Every breath a whimper, every sound a desperate plea, his hands clinging to your hips like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded. “I’ll be good, I’ll do anything, baby, please, please—”

And the worst part—the reason you keep moving, keep clenching around him, keep ignoring how your own orgasm’s building too—is because every time you close your eyes, you still see his face. Every thrust, every cry, every gasp you rip out of Yangyang is just a louder distraction, a sharper weapon. If you fuck him hard enough, long enough, maybe Jeno’s name won’t keep pulsing through your chest like a bruise you can’t press down. Maybe this will drown him out. Maybe you can come hard enough to forget.

“Beg louder,” you whisper. “I want to hear you fucking mean it.”

Yangyang nods, voice cracking, tears stinging his lashes. “Please, please let me come, I need it, I need you, I can’t—I can’t take it anymore—”

You fuck him harder. You don’t stop.

You fuck him like he’s yours, like he’s a stand-in for the boy who isn’t here. Like this is survival, not pleasure and the worst part? It works. You moan and come with your head tipped back, his name nowhere on your lips and he follows seconds later, spilling inside you with a broken groan—like he knows, like he feels it, like every thrust is soaked in someone else’s ghost but he still doesn’t stop you, he doesn’t ask you to say his name, he doesn’t care if your nails sink in too deep or your eyes never meet his because sex with you is enough. Being inside you, even if you’re only doing it to forget someone else, is better than never having you at all. There’s something dark in it, twisted—this desperate kind of devotion where he’d rather be used than unloved, where he lets you fuck the memory of Jeno out of your system and into him, again and again, just to feel like he matters.

The villa sleeps like a beast with one eye open. Soft wind teases the curtains through the open balcony doors, crickets hum like warning bells in the dark, and Jeno steps barefoot into the corridor as if the floor might bite. His palm is wet around the glass of water, condensation bleeding between his fingers. It’s too warm in his room. Nahyun’s perfume clings to the sheets, cloying, sweet enough to make his throat itch. Her body is curled around his like something soft and practiced, like a habit he didn’t choose. Her hand had rested low on his stomach, fingers twitching every now and then. He hadn’t been able to stay still.

He tells himself he needs air. That he’s only walking to ease the pressure in his skull. That he doesn’t know where he’s going but he doesn’t stop to admire the sea view, veer toward the garden, or the stairs, or any of the other twenty places this villa offers for relief. His steps carve a single, certain path. Each one is slower than the last. The hallway turns gold and quiet ahead of him. Sconces flicker low against the plaster, shadows bending and stretching along the polished stone, soft and curved like the shape of your throat when you swallow your anger.

He sees your door before he’s ready. It appears like a secret already spoken, the grain of the wood catching light, the sliver of warmth glowing beneath it like it might spill open if he reached for the handle. His grip tightens around the glass. His fingers twitch, he tells himself he’s only going to check. That he’ll walk past, that it’s fine. That this doesn’t mean anything but his hand lifts before the thought even forms.

He almost knocks.

He’s going to say something, really say something. No more distance, no more sharp-edged glances across crowded rooms, no more pretending he’s fine with the way things unravelled. He hadn’t practiced it—not because it didn’t matter, but because it mattered too much. The words feel too alive in his chest, too raw to rehearse without them burning through his ribs. His mouth is already parted, breath shallow, tongue caught behind his teeth. He’s not holding anything back anymore, he wants to say he’s sorry, that he’s been sorry for longer than he wants to admit. That he can’t take the quiet between you, can’t stomach the way the air changes when you leave a room, can’t keep acting like you don’t still live in him, in every look, in every fucking heartbeat. That out of every door in this goddamn villa, it’s yours he’s standing in front of. Like a man dying of thirst. Like someone who’s finally ready—not to chase you, not to drag you back, but to stay. Just stay. If you’ll let him.

He stands there with his knuckles hovering just shy of the wood, breath caught in the hollow of his throat, and it’s not hesitation—it’s everything else. All the nights he didn’t come, all the moments he’d told himself no, all the fucking pride that kept him from this exact doorstep, even when he knew it was the only one that ever felt like home. His jaw clenches. He can taste the stubbornness on his tongue, bitter and old. Yours more than his, if he’s honest. You were always the one who twisted the knife deeper, always the one who left the room first, always the one who—no, no, it’s not about that now. The balance sheet’s been burned. The things you said, the things you did—none of it can be taken back, and maybe you shattered something bigger than what he ever did, but he’s past the point of measuring damage. Past all of the what-ifs. The ache doesn’t care who lit the match first when you’re both standing in the ashes. All he knows is that he’s here now. That he came anyway, that after everything, he still wants to knock.

Then he hears it, like a bruise blooming under skin, slow and delayed and deep. It starts quiet, the soft knock of wood, too soft to count, too sharp to ignore. A moment passes, then a moan, it isn’t loud or obscene but it cuts through him like a blade slipping in under the ribs, slow at first, then twisting. The air in the hallway tilts, his lungs stop. It comes again, clearer now, a breathless sound that catches at the end, high and rough and broken open in all the places he knows. He’s memorised the rise of it, the edge, the slope into surrender. He’s tasted the way you sound. Felt it tremble against his jaw, into the crook of his neck, raw and open and his.

But now—it’s someone else pulling it from you. Another moan follows, longer this time, wrecked in a way that doesn’t belong in his memory. The rhythm begins to build. Mattress creaking under movement. Skin slapping against skin, sharp then slower, then again, until it sounds like breathing through fire. And you—he hears you again. A stuttering gasp, your voice cracking apart mid-plea, like it’s too much, like it’s not enough, like you’re unravelling around a cock that isn’t his.

He doesn’t move. Not when your whimper threads out into the corridor. Not when you pant someone else’s name in that voice, that voice, the one that used to fold only for him. Not when the bed shifts and groans and all of it starts again, faster now, desperate now, like this is the only way you know how to exist anymore. He knows what that sounds like. He knows what it means when you chase it like that. You’re not just fucking.

You’re letting go. You’re being touched like you asked for it, fucked like you need it, given something he never gave you and Jeno stays pressed to the doorframe, still as the stone under his feet, and he listens. He listens long enough to know the exact second your head tips back. Long enough to hear the wet slap when you fuck yourself down harder. Long enough to know that Yangyang knows how to hold you together while pulling you apart and he realises, in that frozen, sick, motionless moment, that it’s not just that he lost you.

It’s that you’re free.

The worst part carves itself into him with sound alone—wet, rhythmic, unmistakable. The kind of moan that leaves nothing behind, dragged from deep in your chest like you’ve forgotten how to hold back. It starts slow, uneven, like a rhythm trying to find its pace, and then it locks in—skin slapping, mattress creaking, the guttural drag of your breath breaking apart mid-thrust. You don’t whisper. You whimper. A high, cracked gasp torn loose, shattered around someone else’s name. It hits like a collision, unannounced and merciless, filling the hallway, thick in the air, soaked in need you used to choke down for him. And still—he stays. Stands frozen, hand slick around the glass, fingers slipping just enough to feel the weight shift like the floor beneath him might give. His face doesn’t move. His jaw stays clenched. His eyes burn wide as the door glows gold with every movement from inside. Every thrust lands like a knife in the dark. Every moan punches deeper. There’s no reclaiming this. No version of you on the other side of that door who hesitates, who falters, who still thinks of him. Just the sharp, brutal reality of your body taking someone else in, holding him close, falling apart like no one’s watching. And Jeno, jaw locked, chest split open, turns before his knees betray him, each step down the hall a quiet sentence, a confession he’ll never say aloud.

He slips back into bed like it means nothing. Like your moans aren’t still echoing in his skull, like he hadn’t just stood outside your door and listened to someone else fuck the soul out of you. The sheets are still warm. Nahyun is still curled up, face soft with sleep, one thigh already thrown over his like her body had been waiting. His chest is tight, blood loud in his ears.

He turns to her and kisses her. She stirs with a faint sound, lips parting under his, surprised but not startled, her fingers instinctively catching at his waist. He kisses her harder, hands sliding up her ribs, over the swell of her breast. She breathes in like she’s trying to match his rhythm, like she’s trying to follow a script she doesn’t know he’s rewriting in real time. Her skin’s soft and her mouth is sweet but none of it fucking matters.

“Jeno?” she whispers, voice hushed and unsure.

He doesn’t answer. Just nudges her onto her back, pushes her nightdress up, and slides between her legs like he has a point to prove. Her breath stutters when he enters her, slow and deep, his cock stretching her open with a sharp gasp. She clutches at his shoulders, legs falling apart for him like she always does, and still—his eyes stay open. Fixed on nothing. Seeing everything.

He fucks her slow at first, measured, like maybe it’ll ground him, like maybe this will be the moment that fades the taste of your name and the sound of your voice breaking on another man’s cock. He grips Nahyun’s hips tighter, thrusts deeper, rougher, like punishment, like erasure. She moans, soft and pretty, head tipping back, eyes fluttering. Her hands rake up his spine. She tells him it feels good, she says his name, she says please.

And still—your name burns in his throat. So he kisses her harder. Drives into her faster. Hears the slap of skin and the wet drag of her pussy and lets his head fall to her shoulder like it might block it out. Like maybe if he comes inside her hard enough, he can undo what he heard outside your door. He fucks her like you fucked him. Not for closeness or love. Just to forget.

Even when Nahyun’s moaning beneath him, legs shaking, voice cracking around his name like it means something, he sees you. Not her face, not the arch of her back or the way her nails dig into his skin—just you. Head tipped back, lips parted, that shattered sound you made when you gave yourself to someone else. It floods his vision, claws into his chest, poisons the pace of his thrusts until every movement feels like a lie. He pushes deeper, harder, hoping the force will drive it out, that maybe if he fucks her like he means it, he’ll stop feeling you, stop hearing you, stop seeing the way you came for another man behind a locked door he couldn’t open. He finishes with a groan caught low in his throat, a sound that doesn’t taste like release, just failure dressed in sweat. Breathless, spent, hollowed out, he pulls away from her body without a word, doesn’t kiss her again, doesn’t bother with tenderness. He lies back against the sheets, chest still heaving, eyes wide and locked on the ceiling as Nahyun curls quietly beside him, her breathing steady, unaware and he thinks—fucking her should’ve been enough to gut the memory, to tear your voice from his head, to burn the echo out of his skin, to scrape the last pieces of you from the parts of him that still flinch at your name. Instead, it spreads—like the warmth left behind after sex, low in the gut and impossible to shake, threading through his nerves with every breath, every blink, settling into him quiet and slow, like the echo of a touch that never really leaves.

The second night is supposed to be lighter. Shotaro had promised as much when the itinerary went out last week — casual choreography, he’d said, low pressure, just a chance to move together again before the wedding. Most of the guests had assumed it’d be fun. A warm-u and a nod to the past, a few even showed up early, stretching and chatting with rolled sleeves and nostalgia in their voices because it wasn’t just dance practice, it was a memory. A time machine that took everyone back to college, it had been ‘Studio Eclipse’ then, the mirrored basement room tucked behind the Neo Tech gym. You all used to pile in after hours, sweaty and loud, Shotaro dragging speakers in like it was a concert venue, teaching his best choreo with a laser focus and a twisted grin. It was where Chenle first tried to moonwalk, where Mark twisted his ankle trying to land a windmill, where Jeno—quiet, intense—had started watching you more than the mirrors. Even then, the music had a way of pulling truths out of people. Movement always did.

And now? Shotaro’s made it official: a wedding-themed session, something to “prep the crowd” for the dance floor and teach the couples a few slow moves. “Trust me,” he’d said, eyes gleaming, “you’ll thank me when you’re tipsy and trying not to step on a veil.” It’s meant to be a sweet and soft bonding activity.

Karina’s hair is up, earrings off, already barefoot with a water bottle tucked into her armpit. Jaemin’s cracking jokes in the corner, flashing grins like currency. Mark’s stretching on the floor near Areum, murmuring something low enough to make her blush. Even Irene’s here, heels abandoned, blouse rolled at the sleeves, watching from a velvet chair with a flute of champagne in her hand like this is theatre. And maybe it is. Shotaro’s pacing at the front, trying to wrangle the chaos into something cleaner, tighter, more elegant but it’s warm. The music is too loud. Everyone’s bodies are tired and heavy from the travel and sun and you’re already standing off to the side, clipboard ditched, bare arms crossed loosely as you count beats in your head like it’ll keep you steady.

The mirrors line every wall. The heat of the lights pools at the base of your neck and you’re doing your best not to glance toward the far side of the room where you know he is — black shirt loose against his chest, sweat already gathering at the collar, hair pushed back in damp, uneven strands. Jeno hasn’t looked at you all evening. Not really but he’s moved like he always does, efficient, composed and controlled but the sharpness of his focus has weight. Every shift of his posture feels rehearsed. Every laugh, selective. He’s paired with someone else at first. Nahyun. Of course. Her hands are too graceful, her skirt too short, her smiles too practiced. She brushes his shoulder every time they turn. She tries to feed him water between songs. He takes the bottle but doesn’t drink. You watch it all through your lashes, your spine iron-straight. You haven’t spoken. Haven’t been near each other. Not since dinner. Not since you left without a word and he didn’t follow and you were determined to keep it that way, to keep your place, to stay above it, hold the thread of control between your teeth and not let it snap.

But Shotaro’s voice cuts through the music like a needle against vinyl. “Partners, switch!”

Bodies shift. Pairs split. Karina’s swept up by Jaemin again, fingers laced with a teasing grin. Mark steps into rhythm with Ningning. The room rearranges. You step back instinctively, shaking your head when someone reaches for you but it’s too late. Shotaro scans the room, hand still clapping. “Y/N and Jeno. You two. Go.”

You don’t move—can’t. Something inside you folds in on itself, fragile and trembling, as if your bones remember what your brain hasn’t yet caught up to. And still, he walks toward you, slow and certain, like this isn’t the moment everything tilts. Like the air between you doesn’t hum with old collisions. His steps don’t falter. Yours never start. It’s as if time looped without your permission, dragging the past into the room by its throat and stitching it to now, and you—caught in the middle—can only stand there, breath locked tight in your lungs, heart thudding out a rhythm you haven’t heard since you loved him. He stops in front of you, eyes unreadable, and for one cruel second, you think he might offer you an out. A glance to Shotaro. A shake of his head. Something but he doesn’t. He just extends his hands, palm open, waiting, and when you place yours in it, your skin burns.

The music starts again.

Your hands fall into place like a spell you forgot you knew—his palm pressing into your waist with a familiarity that makes your skin tense, yours resting against the slope of his shoulder where it fits too well, too easily. It’s obscene, how instinctive the hold still feels, how your bodies align like a secret that was never really buried. He moves you with precision, each step a reminder, each subtle drag of his fingers across your spine a ghost slipping beneath your skin. The pressure at your waist sharpens—not harsh, but claiming. Measured. Like he’s daring you to flinch, to acknowledge how wrong this should be. You shift, barely a breath of space between you—and he closes it again, a quiet insistence threaded into the grip of his hand. It’s not violence. It’s worse. It's a memory that devoures you whole.

“You’re off,” he says under his breath, voice low and even, eyes not on your face but somewhere just past it.

“You’re holding too tight,” you bite back, your voice just as soft, just as steady.

The spin catches you before you’re ready, and he’s already there—hand curling around your elbow, guiding, anchoring, commanding in a way that makes your breath hitch. You don’t stumble, but you don’t lead either. His other hand lands against your ribs, fingers splaying wide, pressing in as if to remind you who’s holding you up. The mirror doesn’t lie. It shows the twitch in your jaw, the tremble in your frame, the way your body betrays you. You flinch—not violently, not enough to draw attention, but just enough for him to feel it, to register it in the subtle jerk of his grip. You catch your reflection at the worst moment: mouth parted, eyes blown, every inch of you stretched too tight with restraint. You don’t look composed, you don’t look untouched, you look like something that remembers how to fall apart and he sees it. His gaze shifts to the mirror too, slow and deliberate, like he’s studying evidence. Like your reflection is proof that you still burn. That he still knows the map of you. That no matter how far you’ve run, your body remembers the rhythm it once answered to.

And maybe you do. Maybe you never forgot.

Behind you, Karina’s laugh falters mid-note, catching somewhere between surprise and discomfort. Jaemin says something low that you don’t catch, but the sharp edge of it cuts through the air like the crack of a match. The music thumps again, harder this time, bassline crawling up your spine like sweat. Shotaro’s voice slices clean through it: “Closer. Sell it.” There’s heat behind it now, insistence. Like even he can feel what’s leaking between you.

Jeno doesn’t wait, he never does. One smooth motion — his arm loops around your back, palm splaying over your spine like he owns the axis of you, and then he twists you in, tight, too tight. Your bodies crash with precision and pressure, chests brushing, legs aligning like they remember what it was to ache. Your breath stumbles but his stays steady. For one suspended beat — not even a full second, but longer than any count Shotaro’s shouting — your noses are inches apart. Your eyes find each other like magnets, and neither of you looks away because there’s too much buried in the inches that separate your lips. Too many nights spent learning the curve of each other’s bodies, too many silences, too many fucks that didn’t fix it and still — still — his mouth parts like a secret begging to be let out, like the apology you never got, like the question he never had the nerve to ask. You know what it is. You know what he wants to say. You turn your head before he does but you feel the air shift, the clench of his jaw, the tension that snaps like a cable pulled taut. You don’t have to hear it to know it was never going to be enough.

After a few rotations, Shotaro switches partners again. You don’t protest when Yangyang steps in, his hands are steady, his lead gentle, and there’s nothing to prove between you. He knows your rhythms by now, when you tense, when your breath hitches, how to slow the pace until you find your footing again. With him, it’s not complicated. It’s quiet safety, the kind that lets you loosen the corners of your mouth just enough to look like you’re having fun. Enough to laugh, once, really laugh, at something ridiculous he says under his breath, right as he twirls you in too wide a circle and nearly knocks you both over. You laugh so hard you have to lean into him, shoulder against his chest, one hand pressed to your ribs. You don’t see Jeno watching but he does.

He sees all of it. The laugh that used to be his. The way your body curves into someone else’s arms, how Yangyang steadies you with one hand at your waist like it’s effortless. Like he’s done it a hundred times. Jeno doesn’t blink, but the line of his jaw tenses like something’s cracking under the surface. Later that night, when the villa is too quiet and the moon’s dragged too low across the sky, Nahyun moans into the pillow with his name muffled on her tongue. Jeno’s behind her, hands hard on her hips, the bed creaking in short bursts and she keeps glancing over her shoulder, waiting for something soft. Some proof but he doesn’t give her anything. No kisses or eye contact, just motion and muscle. Just the ache he’s trying to fuck out of himself and into her.

She tries to reach for him, twist to kiss him, but he ducks the moment her lips get close. “Baby,” he mutters once, low and almost cruel in how distant it sounds. She smiles like it’s a win, holds onto the word like it means more than it does, like she doesn’t feel how far away he is. He closes his eyes, thrusts harder. Faster. Bites down on her shoulder like she’s someone else. He doesn’t call her anything again.

The third night settles over the villa like steam, familiar now—the rhythm of bodies moving around each other, the same laughter echoing off stone, the same wine passed between hands that still haven’t said everything they should. Under the low sprawl of fairy lights and the scent of rosemary trailing from the open-air kitchen, the rehearsal dinner blooms warm and slow. Chenle oversees every plate like a hawk, arms folded, linen sleeves rolled to the elbow as he directs waitstaff with surgical precision. Hyuck is off in the corner with a ladder, cursing under his breath as he adjusts the dimmers on the fairy bulbs hanging from the olive trees, muttering something about ambience, golden hour and how constantly Jaemina and Karina are fucking. The courtyard hums with gentle laughter, small clinks of cutlery against wine-stained porcelain, the faint hum of a soft jazz playlist curated by Ningning playing through vintage brass speakers. It’s intimate and curated. Too fucking perfect.

You’re everywhere.

You’ve been on your feet all day, like always, clipboard still in one hand, drink in the other, the back of your phone tucked into your thigh-high slit. You move like you own the air. The silk of your backless dress spills behind you like melted light, gold-toned and sun-warmed from the late afternoon. Your skin glows, collarbones dusted, cheeks high-lit, lips just glossy enough to catch a breath. You’re radiant, and worse, you don’t seem to notice it. Your laugh is unbothered, easy, when you pass by Karina and Jaemin’s on the table. Your fingers tap Yangyang’s shoulder lightly when you whisper something into his ear that makes him grin. You collect empty glasses as you pass and gesture to a server about the spacing between the chairs, your hands graceful even in command. You’re too competent, too stunning and too in control. Jeno can’t stop watching you fall apart perfectly.

He’s seated at the furthest corner of the garden, pretending to listen to something Nahyun’s saying about the napkin rings — silver or sage? — but the words blur before they reach him. He sees only the curve of your spine when you lean forward to adjust a plate. The way your dress slips along your shoulder blades like it’s breathing with you. The shadow between your thighs when you cross your legs. The sound of your voice calling someone’s name. The arch of your neck when you throw your head back in laughter.

It’s agony wrapped in allure, a private punishment carved out in candlelight. Every time you move, the fabric of your dress slips like water against your skin, catching on the curves he used to kiss like scripture. Bare back on full display, spine like a line he once traced with his tongue. The gold chain draped across your shoulders glints like a dare. You aren’t looking at him. You haven’t since he walked in but everything about you is intentional — the effortless arch of your neck as you laugh, the press of your thigh against the edge of the table, the way you lean into Yangyang’s whisper with a soft, slow smile.

He’s hard already.

Jeno is unraveling by the minute. Every breath feels too shallow, too full of you. His cock’s been hard since you reached for a champagne bottle ten minutes ago and didn’t even glance his way. He shifts in his chair, jaw tight, wrist flexing around his wine glass like it’s the only thing tethering him. There’s a tension in his hips he can’t fix. He’s not touching you, not hearing you, not near you — but somehow, he feels you. He sees the ghost of your body in every move you make. You’re not doing anything but he wants you so badly it hurts. Not just to touch. To be seen. To be remembered. To be the reason you lose control first. But you won’t look at him. Not even once. And that’s what kills him most.

He tries not to show it, he shifts in his seat, clears his throat, downs his wine like it might numb the pain. Nahyun is next to him, all effort — hand on his thigh, nails grazing his wrist, her laugh turned up just a bit too loud when she leans in to murmur something about dessert. He nods, says something soft back, lips brushing her ear, and her smile doubles but it’s all scripted. Performed. Hollow. She’s the decoy. You’re the storm.

You call out something across the courtyard, a gentle reminder about the cake tasting schedule, and your voice carries like a spell. His cock twitches. His jaw clenches. You glance his way — only once, and only by accident, as you’re turning back toward the entrance. But it’s enough. You catch him mid-stare, wine glass hovering just short of his mouth, lips parted, legs spread too wide for someone so composed. Your expression doesn’t change, but your eyes hold steady. Just long enough for his spine to go rigid. Just long enough to make him feel it.

He isn’t going to survive the night—not like this, not with you laughing a few seats down the table like the sound isn’t stitched into every fucked-up place inside him. Not with your spine arched so casually as you lean forward to speak to a waiter, the silk of your dress dipping along your back like it remembers his hands, his mouth, the way he used to press kisses there just to feel you shiver. The fabric clings to your hips like memory, drapes between your legs with the kind of weight that makes him ache, and when you move—God, when you move—it isn’t just grace, it’s punishment. You don’t look at him, haven’t spared him a second glance all night, but the curve of your lips around your wine glass, the way you cross your legs slow under the candlelight, the tilt of your chin when Yangyang leans close to whisper something into your ear—it all feels too sharp, too precise to be coincidence. You glow like you’re born to ruin him. Like forgetting him is the most natural thing your body knows how to do.

He forces dessert down like it might anchor him, chewing past the tension burning behind his teeth, his fork scraping porcelain while Nahyun runs her fingers along his wrist and says something soft and sweet that he barely registers. He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t blink. His eyes stay fixed on the way your fingers brush the edge of the cake table, on the slight slip of your strap when you reach for a second flute of champagne. You don’t look up. You don’t need to. You’ve already taken the air with you.

The moment doesn’t announce itself. It slips in quiet, unnoticed by the room, disguised as nothing. A soft rustle, a flicker of paper against porcelain—the edge of a handwritten card fluttering off the dessert table, caught by the wind or maybe fate. It lands by his chair, near his ankle. No one sees. No one moves. Except you. You step back into the courtyard without warning, eyes scanning the tables, hands still full—clipboard in one, champagne in the other—and you spot it. You don’t pause, don’t break pace. Just approach in that same sharp glide that makes the air bend around you, dress catching light like honey poured over glass. And then you’re there, beside him, lowering to retrieve the card in a single, fluid motion that steals the breath right out of his chest.

You bend at the waist—not crouching, not kneeling—just low enough that your body folds over his line of sight, silk gaping at the neckline, your breasts pushed together in a soft swell that spills just slightly forward. He stares at the slope of skin revealed, the gold chain between your collarbones swaying like a pendulum, catching candlelight as your chest rises with each slow, steady breath. You reach for the card, and your hand brushes his. Not just a graze. Contact. Intentional in its timing, even if you’ll pretend it wasn’t. The back of your fingers trace the top of his hand, slow, feather-light, dragging heat up the veins in his wrist and straight to the base of his cock. Your arm presses into his as you lean closer, your side brushing his shoulder, and the soft curve of your breast grazes his upper arm, warm and real and familiar in a way that unravels everything he’s been trying to forget.

The table softens into a lull—wine half-drunk, plates pushed back, cutlery idle as people begin to lean in closer, voices dipping into that late-evening intimacy that always follows candlelight and full stomachs. Nahyun presses her leg against his under the table, her fingers grazing the fabric just above his knee like she’s reminding him she’s there, reminding him to play his part. Her laugh is gentle, polished, practiced. It spills low against his ear when she makes some offhand comment about the flowers or the way Jaemin had folded the napkins wrong again, and he hums, nods, says something vague in return. He’s not listening at all.

His jaw tightens when her hand slides higher. The muscles in his thigh flex involuntarily. He shifts slightly in his seat, not to move away but to ground himself, to stop the way his cock stirs again, not from her touch, not from her voice, but from the memory still imprinted across the skin of his arm. The memory of you. The heat of your breast grazing his shoulder. The scent of your perfume still clinging to his collar, the weight of it heavy and humid in the space behind his ears. You hadn’t looked at him once when you walked away, hadn’t acknowledged what you did, but his body is still thrumming with it, tense, hard, aching like you reached into his chest and left something there, glowing and raw.

He doesn’t realise how long he’s been staring at the water jug across the table until Nahyun moves to pour it, graceful, easy, performing softness like it’s second nature. Her hand brushes over the edge of the tablecloth. “Want me to pass you a glass?”

His mouth is dry. His voice comes out before his brain catches up, low, automatic, drawn straight from the centre of his need. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Can you pass me the glass, Y/N?”

The air doesn’t shift right away but something in her hand pauses. Her smile doesn’t falter, not fully—just tightens around the edges, lips drawn a little thinner, the corners not lifting quite as high. The jug stays suspended between them. “What did you call me?” she asks, light, playful, but the note in her voice doesn’t match the question.

He blinks slowly. Doesn’t answer. Doesn’t meet her eyes. The moment sticks, glues itself in place like wax cooling mid-drip. His pulse ticks once at the base of his throat. Then again. He swallows it down. “Sorry,” he says finally, barely louder than the clink of a spoon. “Meant you.”

She sets the jug down a little too carefully. Passes the glass. Her hand lingers a second too long on the stem when he takes it, like she’s deciding whether or not to pull away. Eventually, she does. She shifts beside him, just enough that her thigh still touches his, but the pressure changes. Softer now. Less sure. Her gaze drifts forward, outward, anywhere but back at him. And Jeno? He drinks. Slow. Measured. Staring through the rim of the glass at the place where your body moves between tables again, sunlit silk dragging along your hips, the glow of your skin catching every flicker of light like it was built to hold it. You lean into Yangyang’s side and laugh like you haven’t heard a single thing, like your name doesn’t still hang in the space between him and the woman beside him like a bruise that refuses to fade.

Later that night, Jeno follows Nahyun upstairs with tension coiled deep in his stomach, cock already stiff in his pants, the mistake still burning in his mouth. She doesn’t speak when he reaches for her wrist in the hallway, just lets him pull her toward the bedroom, heels clicking too loud on the marble, her breath quickening when the door shuts behind them. Her back hits it hard. His hands are already on her hips. He kisses her like he owes her something—like this is damage control, like maybe if he kisses her deep enough she’ll forget the way he looked when he said your name but he’s not soft with it. His mouth is hungry, open, wet against hers, tongue slipping past her lips before she can breathe, before she can ask him what the fuck that was at dinner. She doesn’t. She doesn’t need to. He’s already reaching under her dress, palming between her thighs, dragging her panties down in one hard yank. She gasps. He exhales against her neck. His cock is aching, straining against the zipper of his pants, and he’s already undone, already pushing her dress up around her hips as he turns her around and presses her chest flat to the wall.

“Let me fix it,” he mutters against her shoulder, voice low, ragged, one hand on her waist, the other already jerking his cock free from his briefs. He strokes it once, twice, rough, desperate, smearing precome across the tip before lining himself up behind her. “Let me fucking fix it.”

She nods, whimpers, arches back for him—and he drives in without warning, hips snapping forward in one brutal thrust that knocks the breath from both of them. She cries out, nails clawing at the door, and he bites down on her shoulder hard enough to mark. His thrusts are deep, fast, unforgiving, the sound of skin against skin loud and slick, her pussy already soaked, already gripping him tight as he uses her body like it’s something to drown in.

But he’s not really fucking her. He’s fucking the moment he said your name. The sound of your heels on the tile. The way your back looked when you turned away. He grabs her hips harder, pulls her back onto him rougher, and mutters through his teeth, “Take it, Y/N.”

She freezes. Only for a second. Then she moans—louder this time—like she doesn’t care, like she knows exactly what this is and chooses to stay anyway. His hand slides up her back, catches in her hair, pulls her head back so her neck arches, and he fucks her harder, deeper, jaw clenched, eyes shut like he can reshape her into someone else if he just slams into her enough times. His name falls from her lips but it sounds wrong. His orgasm hits sudden, violent, cock twitching as he spills inside her with a guttural sound that isn’t relief—it’s need. It’s failure. It’s your name dragging across his tongue like a wound. He finishes panting, forehead pressed to the nape of her neck, cum leaking down her thighs, and still he doesn’t say sorry. Doesn’t move. Just stays there, buried in a body that isn’t yours, whispering your name again, quieter this time—like it might sound different if he says it with his eyes closed.

“Let me ride,” she breathes, eyes glittering, something darker behind them. “I want you to feel how good it is when I do it.” He lets her flip him, hands falling to her hips as she swings her leg over, lowering herself down onto his cock with a hiss. She sinks inch by inch, slow and tight, her eyes never leaving his. His mouth parts. His fingers dig into her thighs.

“You like this?” she murmurs, starting to move, hips rolling as she rides him with slow, dragging circles that make his head fall back. “You didn’t fuck her like this, did you?” He freezes. She leans in close, one hand on his chest, the other braced on his thigh, her rhythm building now, faster, harder, breath catching as her pussy tightens around him. Her voice is lower now, whispering against his cheek, warm and cruel. “She never bounced on your cock like this, right?” she pants, slamming down on him again, wet and messy and loud, the sound obscene in the silence of the room. “Never fucked you this good. Never let you watch like this.”

She rides him like it’s a challenge, like every bounce is supposed to replace something he never asked her to erase. Her hands press to his chest for leverage, tits swaying with each thrust, mouth parted like she’s waiting for him to say it again—your name. She moves fast, then slower, then fast again, hips grinding down, pussy squeezing around him in wet, deliberate pulses, like she thinks she’s learning him. Like she thinks she’s winning. And Jeno—he lets her. He grips her hips hard, hard enough to bruise, guiding her pace, helping her fuck herself on his cock because it’s easier than pulling her off because this is what she wants. To be seen. To be better. To be you but she’s trying too hard.

Every gasp is just a little too sharp. Every moan a little too polished, shaped into the kind of sound meant to impress, not unravel. Her rhythm falters every time she tries to draw a reaction from him, her breath catching like she’s waiting for praise. He stares up at her—at the curve of her breasts, the way they bounce, the shine of sweat on her collarbones—and all he can think is wrong. The way her thighs flex, the angle of her hips, the pitch of her voice—it’s all close, close enough to be cruel, but never close enough to be you.

He lets his eyes fall shut. Hears her panting. Feels the squeeze of her cunt around him but none of it reaches where it’s supposed to. He thrusts up once, hard, forcing her to cry out, and she takes it like it means something. Like it’s for her. “You like that?” she moans, grinding down harder, chasing friction. “She never fucked you like this, did she?”

His jaw tightens. His hands fall to her waist, locking her in place. Her pussy clenches around him as she moans again, louder now, like she wants the walls to hear it. Like she wants you to but even when she starts to tremble, even when her voice breaks and her body jerks forward, whimpering, coming hard on top of him, her thighs shaking around his hips—he feels nothing. Just sweat and noise. Just a body that doesn’t know how to fall apart the way you did.

She collapses against his chest, breaths shallow, smile curling where he can’t see it. She thinks she’s undone him, thinks she proved that she’s better than you. He flips her without a word. Hands to her hips. Face in her shoulder. His cock still hard, buried deep, leaking. He fucks her slow at first—then rougher, brutal, a pace that says nothing soft, nothing sweet. His jaw locks and breath catches. He closes his eyes tighter, pictures your face instead. The way you used to whimper when he bottomed out. The way your hands used to grip him like prayer. He groans low, curses under his breath, and comes with your name in his mouth, bitten between his teeth so hard it tastes like blood.

Across the villa, beyond candlelight and polished glass and the careful illusion of peace, you’re moaning into Yangyang’s neck with your nails dug deep into his shoulders, bouncing on his cock with a kind of raw, frantic hunger that makes the headboard creak behind you, thighs burning, sweat slick between your breasts as you grind down harder, rougher, desperate to come again before the heat fades. Your dress is half-off, straps slipping down your arms, tits out and jiggling with every thrust, mouth open as you pant through clenched teeth, chasing friction like you’re trying to fuck the ghost of someone else out of your skin. Yangyang holds you steady with his hands bruising your waist, breath ragged in your ear, voice a low stream of curse words and praise as he watches the way your cunt drags over him—tight, soaked, filthy. You ride him like you don’t care if it hurts, like you don’t care if he breaks, your hips slamming down with purpose, head thrown back, lips swollen and slick with spit, every bounce harder than the last. His cock twitches deep inside you, and you fuck through it—relentless, mean, gorgeous—moaning louder when he whimpers your name, when he begs to come, when he tells you no one’s ever fucked him like this.

Under the hush of a midnight so thick it feels conjured, you step into water like you’re stepping out of time. The farthest pool on the estate—half-forgotten, stone-wrapped, tucked beyond the hedgerows and creeping jasmine—is yours tonight. It always has been. Too far from the courtyard to catch stray voices. Too hidden to be found without wanting to be. The villa is asleep. Rooms dark, doors shut. Laughter long since faded. Nothing stirs but the soft flutter of palm fronds overhead and the slow lap of water against tile. It’s quiet in the way that feels enchanted, like the night itself has folded in to give you space to come undone without witness.

The water feels like sin disguised as serenity. Silken and slow, curling around your waist like a secret you forgot to keep. Every inch of it kisses higher, warmer than it should be, as though it remembers what your skin used to beg for. As though it was poured here just for you. There’s a softness to it, a hush that moves like prayer, but underneath, something coils darker. It lulls you. Makes you feel safe. Makes you forget how easily you fall back into habits you swore you’d outgrown. The night clings to your shoulders like hands you almost remember. The moon slips against your breasts like it wants to watch and as you drift, hips swaying with the current, thighs brushing beneath the surface, it doesn’t feel like swimming—it feels like surrender. Like the water has teeth, and it’s smiling.

You peel your dress off alone in the dark, silk pooling at your feet, and wade in naked. Not to be seen. Not to provoke. Just to escape. To feel water instead of air, to dull your body into silence. You glide the length of the pool in slow strokes, eyes closed, chest rising and falling as your body floats, bare and weightless, your breasts barely brushing the surface. Your skin glows beneath the pale blue water, knees brushing tile, hair slicked back, mouth parted softly like you might speak if anyone was listening. But no one is. Or so you think.

When he appears, it doesn’t feel sudden. It feels inevitable. The shift in temperature, the air pulled taut, that feeling you get when someone walks into a room you haven’t turned to yet but your blood starts running faster anyway. You sense him, you always do. You tilt your head just slightly, not enough to break the illusion of calm. “Enjoying the view?” you murmur, voice soft, almost teasing but there’s an edge tucked into it. Like a blade beneath silk. He doesn’t answer right away. Just stands at the edge, half in shadow, shirt unbuttoned and clinging to the cut of his chest, swim shorts slung low on his hips.

His gaze is heavy. Not polite or tentative. Just hot, and familiar, and painfully still. When he finally speaks, it’s hoarse. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

You smile without turning. “Doing what?” you murmur, voice all silk and edge. Your hand trails slowly through the water, rippling the surface with purpose. As you shift, your chest rises just enough for one breast to crest the surface—bare, gleaming, kissed by moonlight. You let it. Tilt your shoulders back ever so slightly, offering the peak to the night air, to him, to his silence. The cool air stiffens your nipple instantly, a bead of water slipping down your skin like punctuation. The moon catches it all, the arch of your collarbones, the slope of your chest, the soft swell he used to hold in his mouth like something holy. You don’t cover yourself. You just let him look. Let him burn.

“Tempting me.” His voice cracks at the edge, low and hoarse, like the words scrape his throat on the way out. When you finally glance back over your shoulder, the sight of him nearly steals the breath from your chest. He’s already unbuttoned, shirt hanging open like it’s been clawed apart, clinging wet to the muscle of his shoulders, the line of his chest cut hard and gleaming in the low light. His swim shorts hang low, too low, water already licking at his thighs. He’s not hiding how hard he is. Not anymore. “You know what you’re doing,” he says, voice darker now, eyes fixed on the curve of your breast like it’s the only thing keeping him from losing control.

“You walked here. I didn’t make you.” The words leave your mouth slow, smooth, not loud enough to echo, but they land like a dare all the same. You let him stand there in the dark like a man unravelled by a single choice he keeps pretending wasn’t his to make. Behind you, the air doesn’t move but you feel the tension stretch—pulled tight like a thread wrapped around both your throats. The water hugs your waist, your breasts rising just enough with each breath to shimmer beneath the moonlight.

A few months ago, you would’ve told him to fuck off. Would’ve thrown water in his face without blinking, maybe even tried to drown him just for the satisfaction of watching him struggle—dragged him under, held him there, let the bubbles rise like a countdown to every apology he never gave. You were angrier then. Sharper. Still burning from the fallout, still righteous enough to believe he deserved your fury more than your silence but now you don’t say a word. Maybe you don’t care anymore. Maybe you care too much and you’re too drunk to sort through it. You just float, bare and unbothered, letting the water carry you into the heat of him, into the hardness pressed flush against your ass, because it’s easier to let him touch you than ask him why he’s here. Easier to let this become what it always does, heavy and hungry, than peel back the layers of what’s still broken. Somewhere inside you, beneath the ache, beneath the weight of everything he turned into memory, something still whispers, let him remember. let him ruin himself on you.

“I’m a man of honour,” he says, but it barely sounds like belief. More like something he’s repeating to himself—again, and again, and again—like if he says it enough, it’ll stick but it doesn’t, not with you naked in front of him, the water painting your body in blue light, the curve of your spine arched just enough to break him. He breathes harder, chest rising behind you, and for a second, he doesn’t say anything else. Just stays there, trembling on the edge of his own restraint, cock pressed thick against your ass like it’s got its own pulse.

“You don’t get it,” he mutters finally, voice low, ruined. “Since the moment you walked into that villa, I haven��t had a single fucking second of peace. You move like you’re not even aware of it. Like you don’t know what you do to me. Every look, every word, every time you brush past me and don’t stop.” He exhales sharp through his nose, the sound catching in his throat. “And you’re everywhere—laughing too loud, smiling at Yangyang like that, flipping your hair, sitting on his lap like it’s nothing.” His voice thins, clenched around the edges. “I see you. I see you in every room, every shadow. I fuck her, and I still taste you. I go to bed and I wake up harder than I’ve ever been in my life, and it’s always, always you.” His hips shift forward, slow, dangerous, the press of him dragging against the curve of you like punishment. “You didn’t have to tempt me. You just had to exist.”

“You want me to feel sorry for you?” you murmur, voice smooth but laced with steel. “Because you can’t fuck the guilt out of your sheets?” You arch into him—not much, just a shift of your hips, a slight push of your ass against the thick strain of his cock, enough to make him suck in a breath through his teeth. The tension tightens like a noose. “I didn’t ask to be remembered,” you whisper. “You’re the one who can’t let go. You’re the one who watches me like every other body you’ve touched since is a poor fucking imitation.”

He shifts behind you, slow and deep, the water parting around him like it knows to make space for something dangerous. His cock drags thick beneath the surface, the weight of it brushing your ass again, then firmer—intentional—grinding in lazy circles that make your breath falter and your thighs twitch beneath the ripples. His voice comes hot at your neck, teeth gritted, barely able to speak through the restraint. “I used to have control,” he mutters, grinding forward again, the head of his cock pressing right where it makes you clench without meaning to. “I used to choose who I wanted. Now I can’t even jerk off without tasting your name in my mouth. Every time I come, it’s you. Your mouth. Your moan. That fucking face you make when I hit the spot and your whole body breaks open for me.”

His hips rock in again, harder this time, cock pulsing through wet fabric as he drags against your bare skin like he’s marking you with pressure alone. His hands still haven’t touched you, but his breath is all over you, fucked and furious. “You’ve infected me. I want to bend you over the edge of this pool and fuck you until you forget what kindness feels like. I want to own every noise you make. Every goddamn breath. I want you gasping my name with that bratty mouth of yours too full to speak.”

Then softer—ruined—his voice collapses, low and trembling, close enough that his lips ghost the edge of your jaw. “I don’t want you,” he lies, breathless. “I need you. And I fucking hate it. I hate that I’d fuck you in this pool with her perfume still on my collar, your name still dripping down the inside of my ribs. I hate that I’d split you open slow, deep, raw—and still need more. Still come inside you and feel empty after.”

His cock pulses against you again, hard and aching. His breath stutters once, his whole body trembling behind you like he’s at the edge of something. “Tell me to leave,” he whispers. “Tell me you hate me. Or let me fuck you like a man who lost every part of himself the moment you stopped saying please.”

He inches forward, cock thick and swollen, dragging across your skin with no apology. “Look at me. Following you out here like a fucking animal. Hard in the water, grinding against you with nothing between us but a pair of wet shorts and the memory of how tight you were the last time I was inside you.” His voice cracks around the edges, but he doesn’t stop. “You undid all of it. Every rule. Every version of myself I used to have control of.”

He leans closer, breath hot against your neck. “So no,” he says, rough now, dirty with want. “I’m not a man of honour. Not anymore. I’m the man who showed up to this villa swearing I wouldn’t touch you and now I’m one breath away from begging you to let me fuck you in the same pool we used to fuck in silence.”

His voice breaks through the steam like a breath he’s held too long. “They always said I had discipline,” he says, low, wrecked. “That I knew how to keep my head. Be steady. Responsible. The kind of man who doesn’t make messes.” He laughs once under his breath, bitter and breathless. “I believed it too.”

You pause. Just for a beat. Then a short, sharp laugh escapes you—wet and mean and too amused to be gentle. You turn just enough to catch his eye, mouth twisted in something that isn’t quite a smirk. “Who the fuck said that?” you ask, incredulous, mock-serious, like you’re questioning the entire premise of a story you never agreed to be part of. “Because they clearly don’t know you. You? Disciplined?” You scoff, swimming backward just a little, flashing teeth. “God, that’s rich. You’ve been two seconds from self-combusting since the welcome dinner.”

“Disciplined,” you echo mockingly, scoffing, your eyes glinting. “Did Nahyun tell you that?” His jaw ticks, but you’re not done. You pitch your voice higher, soft and syrupy, fluttering your lashes in a mimic so cruel it’s almost art. “‘Jeno, you’re so good, baby. So steady. You always think with your head—’” you pause, tilting your head like you’re considering it, then let the grin curl sharper. “Just not the one that matters, huh?” Then you lunge forward, hand slicing through the water, fast and deliberate, and splash him right in the face.

He sputters, blinks through it, jaw dropping, and for a second you think he might actually be stunned. But then his eyes narrow, gleam catching in the dark, and without a word, he lifts his arm and sends a wave crashing right back at you. You shriek, laughing harder now, water slapping against your chest as you paddle backward, pretending to dodge. “Oh, you wanna play?” you gasp, brushing wet hair off your face. “You’re really gonna assault a naked woman in her own damn pool?”

He grins, finally, slow and dangerous. “You started it.”

“Because you lied!” You shoot him another splash—harder this time, straight to his smug face. “Get out of my pool.”

He freezes mid-step, blinking water from his eyes. “Your pool?” he repeats, mock-offended.

You arch a brow. “Yes. Mine.”

He scoffs, shaking his head. “This isn’t your pool. You don’t even own a pool, you don’t even live in this country. You just found the one no one uses and got naked in it.”

Your smile vanishes. You turn slow, eyes sharp now, voice cold and razor-clean when it cuts through the water. “Why don’t you go back to bed? I’m sure Nahyun’s lying there waiting,” you murmur, biting every word like it offends you to say her name. “Sweet little thing. Probably still smells like rosewater and caution.” You tilt your head, mouth grazing the line of his jaw now, your lips a hair from his ear. Your ass rolls deliberately against the length of him beneath the water, slow and unrelenting. “Can’t imagine she’d be thrilled,” you whisper, “to know how hard you are for someone who doesn’t say please.”

“Oh, right,” he mutters, voice low and rough now, bitter curling beneath every word, “because Yangyang would be thrilled seeing you like this.” His cock grinds up against your ass again, slow and thick, dragging through the water like he wants to mark you with the shape of it. His breath catches—sharp, filthy—then spills hot across your neck as he leans in closer, chest pressed to your back now, voice rasping just behind your ear. “Bent into me, bare, tits floating, nipples hard, ass grinding on my cock like you need it,” he breathes. “You think he’d be proud of how wet you are for someone who isn’t him?”

You turn in his arms with a tenderness that feels dangerous, too soft for what’s come before, too slow for how fast your pulse is hammering beneath your skin. His chest is pressed to yours, bare and burning, and your thighs hook around his waist with ease, like muscle memory, like you were made to fit there. The water laps gently around you both, warm and quiet, muffling the world. His hands stay loose at your hips, not gripping, not steadying—just there, like he’s afraid to hold you too tightly, like touching you wrong might shatter the illusion of whatever this is.

Your hand comes up to his face. You don’t rush it. Your fingers glide along his jaw, then his cheekbone, brushing a damp curl away from his temple. His lashes are stuck together, dark and wet. His mouth parts like he’s about to say something—like he wants to tell you this moment is undoing him. You trace his bottom lip with your thumb and feel the tremble in his breath, the stammer in his chest. The beat of his heart hits hard against your sternum. He’s never looked more open than he does right now.

You lean in closer, forehead to his, your lips hovering just above his, and the stillness wraps around you both like a hush meant for cathedrals. The water doesn’t move. The air doesn’t shift. His eyes are on yours, wide and waiting, and your breath warms the space between his mouth and yours until even silence feels like temptation. The moment swells, suspended, haloed in soft heat and shimmer, like time has slowed out of reverence. Like the world is holding its breath for the fall.

You whisper his name. No ache, no venom—just breath and memory, as if it’s been resting on your tongue all this time. A name said like a blessing. Like something holy you once believed in. He shudders, lashes lowering, lips parting—not for words, but to receive something he doesn’t realise you’re already stealing back. The moonlight clings to your skin like it’s trying to worship you, slicking your shoulders, catching in the strands of wet hair that cling to your neck like a halo fractured by salt. He looks at you like he’s looking at salvation. Like he’s spent months convincing himself you were a curse, only to find grace pressed against his mouth again.

His body jerks once beneath you, his cock twitching where it presses against your thigh. It’s instinct. It’s hope. He thinks you’re going to kiss him. He thinks you’re choosing him again. He doesn’t know it yet—but this is the moment right before the fall. That’s when you shove him. Your palms hit his shoulders with a force he doesn’t expect. The water splits with a violent splash as he goes under, legs flailing, breath knocked from his chest. You don’t flinch. You watch him disappear like you planned it, like you’ve been waiting to do it since the moment he touched you. He surfaces seconds later, sputtering, coughing, blinking water out of his lashes, staring at you with disbelief etched across every line of his face.

You’re already grinning, wild and cold and vicious, the water dripping from your lashes like war paint, your chest heaving not from effort but exhilaration. It spills out of you in waves—laughter edged with something sharp, something cruel, something that’s been festering since the first moment you saw him in someone else’s orbit. You wipe your hand across your cheek with the same casual ease you used to cup his jaw, tilt your head like you’re teasing, like this is nothing more than a game, but your eyes burn with something deeper. He’s still gasping, still stunned, hair plastered to his forehead, and you smile like it’s funny—like it’s easy. Then your voice slices through the steam between you, soft and venom-laced. “And that’s for pretending you didn’t want me.” You let it sit for a second, let the weight of it drag through the silence. “For looking me dead in the face and choosing everyone else like it cost you nothing.” Your tone doesn’t rise, but it doesn’t have to. It’s lethal exactly where it is—low, intimate, final. “For looking me dead in the eye and saying I was the biggest mistake you ever made.”

His laugh cracks out of him like it hurts. Not bitter. Not defensive. Just broken—like he’s choking on the memory. “I only said that,” he growls, stepping closer, “because you told me admitting you loved me would be like admitting you’d failed.” The words splinter between you, sharper than the splash you threw, sharper than your smile.

His voice shudders but doesn’t soften. “You compared me to every mistake your mother warned you not to make. Said I was only good for fucking, not for keeping. So yeah—yeah, I told you that you were the biggest mistake I ever made.”

You don’t answer him. You don’t even look at him. Whatever flickered in your expression a moment ago—whatever softness lingered—is gone now, pulled under with the tide. You blink once, slowly, then duck beneath the water without a word, slipping past him like he isn’t worth the oxygen. He lunges, hand out, fingers brushing your wrist but you’re already gone. A flick of your ankle, a twist of your body, and you’re swimming away from him, fast and fluid, like muscle memory. Like escape. The sound of his breath chasing yours ripples behind you until you feel it—his hand closing around your ankle, rough but not cruel, yanking you backward with a sudden, unapologetic pull that breaks the surface tension in one violent stroke.

You squeal, kick, scream through your teeth, but he’s dragging you back into his arms like you belong there. Like you never left. His chest crashes against your back, arms banded around your middle, breath hot against the shell of your ear. You twist, and he lets you. You shove your palms flat into his shoulders—just hard enough to break the moment, not bruise it. He’s stronger. He could stop you, could hold you still but he doesn’t. Maybe that’s what ruins him most, that he lets you push, that he lets it all happen. He must secretly believe he deserves this.

It’s not forceful. It’s precise. A sharp edge carved from control, not chaos. A reminder, not a punishment. Your hands cut through water like blades, and still, he goes under like you’ve struck something deeper than skin. Like your hands reached somewhere he didn’t think you could still touch.

He could’ve caught your wrists, held you steady, ducked or dodged but he doesn’t, he lets the fall happen. He watches your face flicker into something cold and distant and cruel before the surface closes over him again. He resurfaces with a gasp, water streaking down his cheeks like confession. He’s halfway to breathless when your next words hit him.

“And that’s for lying to your friends about how it ended!” you shout, voice cracking slightly as the water splashes between you, the sting of it catching in your throat. “For pretending it was mutual. For standing there smiling while they called me the storm.” Your eyes gleam, feral and wild and wet. “You stood in that room and let them think I broke everything. That I just left. Like I wasn’t drowning. Like you didn’t help me dig the fucking grave.”

He tries to get a word in—something stupid, probably—but you throw water in his face, both palms slapping the surface with all the anger you’ve kept locked in your chest. “And that’s for kissing her in public three days after I left. You couldn’t wait, right?” you say, softer now, more bitter than angry. “Not even a week. Not even a fucking week before you needed a new audience to watch you move on.”

His expression flickers—barely—but you see it. It makes something shake loose in you. Your throat closes. The water clings to your skin, but your hands don’t stop. You splash him again. Again. The laugh bubbling out of you is cracked now, bitter, warped by something sour. “And that’s for calling me difficult when I begged you to listen.”

The words cut the air like glass. You see him flinch. You’re shaking. The water fights back now, splashing into your face as your arms move harder, more desperate, the laughter gone, breath coming in wet stutters. “And that’s for never calling me back. For saying you loved me and then vanishing again like I was nothing.” Your voice breaks, and the echo of it sounds like a lie you’re still trying to believe. “You chased me halfway across the world. Stood outside my building in the snow like you meant it. Said it was different this time.” Your hands hit the surface again, more splash than aim. “You should’ve left me alone the first time, Jeno. You shouldn’t have come back unless you were going to fucking stay.”

“You always tell the story like I left,” he says, voice flat. “Like I just disappeared. Like I got scared. But do you remember what you said to me that night?” A pause, short, sharp. “No. Of course you don’t. You never remember the things you say when you want me gone.”

His mouth curves—not into a smile, but something bitter, something brittle. “You locked the door behind me before I’d even made it to the elevator. Like it was rehearsed. Like you were waiting for an excuse to throw me out, just so you wouldn’t have to ask me to go.” He shrugs, like it’s no big deal, but his voice gets tighter, lower. “So yeah. I didn’t call. I didn’t come back. Because you slammed the door and told me to leave and then made it everyone else’s job to wonder why I did.”

Then quieter, colder, just above the surface: “You didn’t want me to stay. You just wanted to say you tried.”

Your laugh comes out cracked, almost silent, like it escaped before it could turn into a sob. You shake your head once, water flinging from your hair, your hands hovering like you don’t know whether to hold him. “God,” you breathe, voice trembling, “you really think that was easy for me? You think I wanted to be that person? That girl who locks doors and bites her tongue and walks away from someone she still—” You stop. Blink hard. Swallow it back like you’ve swallowed everything else since New York.

“I wasn’t trying to make you the villain,” you whisper, eyes burning. “I was trying to survive you.” And then softer, breaking: “You left me bleeding and called it mercy.”

Your breath shudders. You wipe your face, not from the water, but from everything else—the heat behind your eyes, the sting of everything he’s just said. You laugh once, low and hoarse, but there’s no humor in it. Just exhaustion. “Right,” you murmur, voice barely holding together. “That’s why we’re here again, isn’t it? Because no matter how far I run, how many people I fuck, how many times I try to forget—you always find a way to remind me I’m the problem. I’m the reason it fell apart. I’m the one who locked the door. I’m the one who said too much.” You shake your head, throat closing. “So congratulations.” You say it like it tastes bad. “You win. I’m the problem. I always was.” It’s not even an accusation anymore. It’s not even about blame. It’s a confession. It’s the only thing left to say when you’re tired of begging to be understood by someone who only sees your wreckage.

His face shifts immediately, the fight bleeding out of his eyes, replaced by something softer—something closer to grief. He doesn’t flinch this time, doesn’t deflect or retreat. He moves toward you, slow, careful, like you’re an open wound he doesn’t want to press too hard. “I’m not saying that,” he says, gently. “I never said that,” he continues, eyes locked on yours, voice trembling at the edges but unwavering. “And if I ever made you feel like that, if I made you believe that carrying all of this alone was what you deserved—I’m sorry. I swear to God, I never wanted to make you think you were the reason we didn’t work. That was never what this was. Not for me. Not even when it ended. Especially not then.” His throat moves. He swallows. “You were the one thing I never stopped wanting to fight for. Even when I didn’t know how.”

His voice is quiet, thick, but steady. He looks at you like he’s trying to see past the words you’ve thrown, past the version of himself you’ve painted in your head, to the place where the hurt actually lives. His hand rises again, this time just barely grazing your forearm under the water, a soft, grounding touch that asks for nothing but presence. “We weren’t on the same page,” he says, not as an excuse but as a truth. “That’s why we didn’t work. Not because we didn’t care. Not because we didn’t try. Just—because we were loving each other in different languages and calling it the same thing.”

He lets it hang there, heavy and real, then steps in closer, like his presence might speak clearer than his mouth ever could. The air between you charges thick and he doesn’t break your gaze once. “You needed things I didn’t know how to give,” he says, slow, deliberate. “Not because I didn’t want to. I wanted to. God, I wanted to.” His voice lowers, tightens. “But I was already drowning in the fear that I was failing you every time I tried and I couldn’t admit it. Not to you. Not to myself.”

He shifts, just slightly—like something inside him caves under its own weight. “So I told myself leaving would make it cleaner. That walking away would spare you the resentment of watching me fall short over and over.” A pause. His jaw tenses. “But it didn’t spare either of us, did it?” His eyes burn into yours now, voice rough. “I didn’t leave because you weren’t enough. I left because deep down I was terrified you’d figure out I never was.”

Your breath hitches so violently it feels like something inside you snaps. Your lips part, but nothing comes out at first—just a sharp inhale, shaky, wet, like your lungs forgot how to hold anything but grief. Your hands tremble, curling into fists against your thighs beneath the water, nails pressing so hard into your skin it hurts, but not enough to stop the storm building in your chest.

“Don’t—” you choke, shaking your head, water slipping from your lashes like rain. “Don’t stand there and say that like it makes it better. Like it means anything now.”

Your voice cracks mid-sentence, like the weight of it all finally lands. “Do you know what it felt like?” you breathe, louder now, words tumbling faster, breath shorter. “To wake up and not know if I was crazy or just forgettable? To convince myself over and over that it had to be me because the alternative was too—” you cut off, swallow hard, your whole body curling forward like it might collapse into itself. “You left, Jeno. You left. You let me sit in that silence for months and every single day I hated myself a little more for not being someone worth staying for.” Your voice is hoarse, broken, the edges of your words fraying into sobs.

Water surges violently as your knees give, your body folding forward like the current itself has taken hold of your spine, like the grief was always a tide waiting to pull you under. Your limbs tremble, motion slowing to a crawl, fingers dragging uselessly through the surface as if they might find something to hold but there’s nothing, just the cold press of silence and the heavy cradle of water wrapping around your ribs like a closing fist. It feels like the end of something unnamed, like the gasp before a final breath, like the world narrowing to the shape of your own collapse. Your mouth opens, but there’s no sound—only the shudder of a sob caught too deep to escape, your lungs tightening like the water wants in. Then you’re caught. Jeno’s arms wrap around you like instinct, like ritual, one pressing firm between your shoulder blades, the other buried in your hair as if he can keep you tethered by sheer will alone. Your chest crushes against his, your tears lost in the wet heat between you, but he doesn’t flinch. He holds you like he’s afraid the water will claim you if he loosens his grip even once. His hands map the curve of your back like a vow, slow and certain, grounding you in the shape of now. He exhales into your hair as if lending you breath, as if your lungs forgot how on their own.

“Hey—hey. Shhh.” His voice strains, still gentle but fraying, laced with panic he can’t hide anymore. “I’ve got you. I promise, I’ve got you.” His hands don’t stop moving—stroking your back, curling at your waist, cradling the base of your skull like he’s terrified you might unravel in his arms. “Look at me,” he murmurs, voice breaking. “Baby, please. You have to breathe.”

You don’t mean to fall apart in his arms. It just happens—like a thread pulled loose all at once, your body collapsing into his without warning. Your shoulders cave in before you can stop them, your forehead tucking into the warm hollow of his neck like it’s the only thing keeping you from shattering completely. The sobs come hard, shaking, ripped from a place deeper than breath, your whole frame trembling with the weight of everything you never let yourself feel until now. You’re wet with more than water, your chest hitching, fists curled weakly in the fabric at his sides. And he just holds you—tighter, closer. His palm moves slow and steady along your spine, up and down, again and again, like he’s memorising the rhythm of your breaking and trying to soothe it with his own. The other hand fists into the back of your dress, knuckles pressing in like an anchor. His breath is warm against your temple, and when he kisses your hairline, it’s soft, reverent, a promise without words. “I’ve got you,” he whispers, again and again, voice thick with emotion he won’t name. “I’ve got you, I’m not going anywhere. It’s okay, baby, you’re not alone. You don’t have to carry it anymore.”

You shake your head once, hard, like that’ll make it untrue. Like he doesn’t get to say those words anymore. But still, you stay. Still, your knees give, and still he’s the one keeping you upright. You want to speak—to explain the guilt, the ache, the way you can’t look in mirrors anymore without seeing every version of yourself you failed to save—but it all knots in your throat. His hand finds your jaw, thumb brushing just under your eye. “I’d stay like this all night if it’s what you need. If this is how you breathe, I’ll keep you breathing.”

But you’re sobbing too hard to answer. You cling to his shoulders like you’re falling. You dig your nails in like he’s the only solid thing left in the world. He kisses your temple, again and again, voice cracking at the edges. “It wasn’t just you. It wasn’t just you. I swear to you, you didn’t do this alone.” His forehead presses to yours, his breath shaking against your lips. “You’re not broken. You’re not wrong. I should’ve said it back then. I should’ve fought harder. I’m here now. I’ve got you.” You’re already gone in the grief, in the panic, in the months of silence that all collapse into this one night. If he can just keep your body above water then maybe your heart will float too.

It’s him—him—holding you now, the same hands that once let go of you without looking back, the same mouth that kissed silence into your ribs when all you wanted was to be heard. His arms are the ones wrapped around you while you shake like a fever breaking, while the water folds over your body like a shroud made of every goodbye you never got to survive. It’s a cruel kind of symmetry, the poetry of drowning in the presence of the person who taught you what air could feel like, and yet he’s the only one who can hold you steady through the storm he helped carve into your chest. There’s salt on your lips—grief or chlorine or maybe the aftertaste of every night you bit back the urge to call him—and when he pulls you closer, chest to chest, skin to skin, it doesn’t feel like rescue. It feels like confession. Like all the parts of you that splintered when he left are pressing into him now, waiting to see if he still remembers how to fit them back together. Your pulse stutters like it’s forgotten its rhythm, like it’s scared he’ll vanish again if you breathe too loud, but his hands stay where they are, grounded and unflinching, whispering promises into your spine without needing to speak them—I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you—and for the first time in months, you let your weight fall fully into him, and it doesn’t feel like weakness. It feels like proof that even when he was the one who broke you, he still knows exactly where you come undone.

The sun glares too bright through the villa’s wide-open shutters, glinting off crystal pitchers of juice, sweat-slicked champagne bottles half-empty on the buffet table, glancing over silver lids of warmers lined like soldiers. Most of the boys are already up, still dripping from the morning swim, some lazily spearing fruit with plastic forks, others crouched in flip-flops by the omelette bar. The chef behind it cracks egg after egg like clockwork, barely glancing up. The air smells of citrus, butter, fresh heat.

You come in late, sunglasses on despite being indoors, linen button-up cinched high on your thighs, lips glossed, smile mechanical.

“Excuse me?” you snap, already waving down a sous chef in white. “I said the tag says dairy-free, but this—” you jab a spoon into a bowl of pale sauce— “smells like goddamn butter.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“You think sorry helps an allergic reaction? Who made this?” you demand. “Because if someone ends up in the hospital, that’s your name they’ll ask for, right? That’s how that works?”

Your voice cuts above the soft jazz playing. The sous chef’s face turns red. You don’t care. You’re already halfway down the buffet line, adjusting tongs, setting things straight. Karina mouths bitch mode activated to Jaemin across the mimosa station. No one stops you. No one dares.

Jeno’s at the waffle station. He’s been standing there, watching, one hand wrapped around a plate he hasn’t filled. He’d carried you to your room last night, arms strong but unsure, your body limp from how long you'd cried. You wouldn’t let him stay. Said you were fine. Said it too fast, too rough, like a shield. Yangyang showed up just after, worried, stammering, confused. You didn’t want him either, barely looked at him, but Jeno couldn’t leave you alone. So he left you with the only person who could stand in his place, even if it made his stomach churn. Even if he knew Yangyang would end up inside you. That discomfort hadn’t left his body. It’s still lodged somewhere in his chest now, standing there with his hands cold around porcelain, watching you pretend like none of it happened.

When you step beside him to reach for the berries, your hands brush. He doesn’t flinch. “Are you okay?” he asks, quietly, like it might break something if said too loud.

You don’t meet his eyes. “Fine,” you say, monotone, popping a blueberry into your mouth like last night didn’t end with your mascara streaked across his chest.

He nods once, lets the silence sit. The waffle iron beeps. He doesn’t move. “You know I’ve seen you cry before,” he says eventually, turning slightly toward you. “I don’t know why you’re acting like I haven’t.”

You stiffen, hand tightening around the tong. “Not like this,” you mutter.

His voice softens, low but sharp. “You’ve cried to me like that before. I know you, okay? Even the parts you try to hide from me.”

Your grip slips. One of the tongs clatters. You still don’t look at him. He lets out a dry, short laugh, bitter on the edges. “You can’t look into my eyes because you broke down to me? You know I’ve literally been inside of you. I’ve seen everything. You don’t have to be so nervous.”

Your jaw clenches. You don’t give him the satisfaction of a flinch, just shove your plate forward, stabbing a waffle on top. Then you turn, sharp enough to slice the air. “Shut up, Jeno,” you snap. “God.”

For a moment, he says nothing. Doesn’t chase the fight you’re baiting him into, doesn’t roll his eyes or smirk like he used to when things got tense just to disarm you. He just stands there, quiet, steady, hands loose at his sides. Then he shifts—barely a step—but it’s enough. He’s in your space now, close enough that you feel the heat of him, the way his voice sinks low without needing to whisper. “Are you okay,” he says, “after what happened yesterday?” It’s not a question dressed in pity or sarcasm or self-interest. It’s not defensive. It’s not sharp. It’s softer than you can handle, said with the kind of warmth that makes your chest twist, the kind that lives behind someone’s ribs when they’ve seen you unravel and still want to hold the pieces. His eyes stay on you, soft brown and unreadable and there, really there, and it makes you feel so seen it almost hurts.

He doesn’t reach for you—he never does when you’re like this—but his voice does. “We don’t have to do it now. I’m not trying to push you.” A beat. “But when you’re ready… we need to talk. Really talk.” His breath catches, just slightly. “You broke down in my arms last night,” he adds, gentler still, “and I meant it when I said I wasn’t leaving you alone.”

You swallow hard, eyes flicking to the floor, the plate, anywhere but his face. “I know you don’t want me to see you like that,” he murmurs, “but I already have and I’m still here.” His voice warms again, barely a whisper. “I’ll always be here. Just… when you’re ready, come find me. Okay?”

It’s terrifying—fucking terrifying—when someone knows you that well, when they can reach past the version you spend every day perfecting and still pull the real you into the light, when they speak to the part of you you’ve buried so deep under command and control that even you forget it’s still in there, raw and aching and waiting for someone to touch it gently enough that it doesn’t flinch, and he says it so softly, so simply, like it’s easy, like staying was always the obvious choice, like watching you crumble into him, mascara on your chin, fingers twisted in the collar of his shirt as if drowning—that didn’t scare him, when it should have, when it did scare you, when you couldn’t look him in the eye because you were certain that moment had wrecked something sacred and irreparable, but now he’s just standing there, open, calm, hands loose at his sides like he’s ready to catch you again if you so much as sway, and it makes you ache in a place so old it doesn’t have language, because it’s not the way he looks at you like he’s in love, it’s the way he sees you with all your shit and still decides to stay.

And there’s more—so much more, things you didn’t even realize had happened until hours later when your body wasn’t vibrating anymore and your brain slowed down just enough to notice them in fragments, like how the fan was on low even though you don’t remember touching it, how the bathroom door had been nudged shut and the tequila bottle—that bottle—was nowhere in sight, how the hoodie you never gave back to him was folded perfectly at the end of your bed like a quiet offering, how your water bottle was full again when you’d left it empty, and Yangyang had his phone out at one point and you caught a glimpse of the texts—two of them—from Jeno asking if you were okay, if you were sleeping, if you’d eaten, he didn’t send more after that, like he didn’t want to overstep, like he already felt guilty for leaving in the first place and needed to know you were safe even if he wasn’t the one holding you anymore, and it makes your chest clench because he was holding you, in every single way that mattered, in the quiet and invisible spaces you didn’t see or feel until now, and he never mentioned any of it this morning, never pointed to himself and asked for credit or validation or gratitude, because that’s not why he did it—he did it because he knows you, and knowing you has always meant protecting you, even from yourself.

You’re already moving before he can talk more and shatter your heart, back in motion, back in command. You bark at the staff to rotate the trays, tell them the egg white frittata’s been sitting too long. You rearrange the fruit station because someone thought it made sense to put the watermelon before the kiwis. You ask three separate servers if they’ve double-checked the seating chart for brunch, if the twins got the vegan option, if the itinerary’s been printed and left in the guest rooms like you fucking asked. You tell Mark to go put a shirt on if he’s going to lounge near the canapés. Scold Shotaro for tracking water across the marble again. Snatch someone’s phone off the charger and say, “whoever’s this is, I’m confiscating it till you stop acting like an unpaid intern.”

You’re a storm in sunglasses, a drill sergeant in heels, and no one can keep up. Eventually, you disappear—no fanfare, no warning. Just gone. Slipped out through the side path that curls behind the gardens, beneath bougainvillea vines and between stone arches where the koi pond lives in dappled light and silence. You crouch there, beneath the soft swaying leaves, pretending to read the ripples on the water like they can give you answers. Your hands tremble. You wrap them around your knees and squeeze tight.

Seulgi finds you there. You hear her before you see her—the gentle shuffle of flats against gravel, the clink of porcelain. She crouches too, settling beside you with a thermos and a look that doesn’t ask anything. “Deep breaths,” she says, holding out the cup. “Don’t let him make this harder.”

You take the tea, hold it between your palms like it might anchor you. “I just want it perfect,” you whisper.

Seulgi brushes a loose strand of hair from your face, fingers soft and cool. “I know,” she says. “But perfect doesn’t mean killing yourself over it.”

Your laugh is thin, glassy. “You say that like you didn’t raise him.”

Seulgi sighs, long and knowing. “I did raise him. That’s how I know how stubborn he is. How he holds onto pain like it’s proof of something. How he shuts down when he’s scared.” Her tone shifts—warmer, but edged with that steel she reserves only for you. “But you didn’t see how he looked at you last night.”

You still can’t bring yourself to meet her eyes. “He left me with Yangyang.”

“Because you told him to go,” she says gently. “And he knew you didn’t want to be alone, no matter what came out of your mouth. You think that didn’t kill him? Watching someone else stay because he wasn’t allowed to?”

“But he didn’t fight to stay.” You stare into the sea like it holds something heavier than water, knuckles tight around the ceramic as the steam curls up and vanishes. “I told him to leave,” you say finally, voice hollow, too even to trust. “I told him to go, that I was fine, that I didn’t need him. And I know—I know how fucked that sounds, because how can I question it now, how can I sit here wondering where the fuck he was when I was the one who made him leave? But Seulgi—” your voice cracks before you steady it again, “—he didn’t fight. He didn’t push back. He didn’t look at me and say, ‘no, I’m not going, not like this.’ He just nodded, like he was relieved to be let off the hook, like walking away from me when I was choking on everything I couldn’t say was easier and maybe that’s what kills me the most. Not that he left but that he didn’t try. That I was breaking right in front of him, and he let the door close anyway.”

Seulgi doesn’t react right away. She just watches you, like she’s weighing every word you said against everything she’s ever known about her son. Then her brows pull together—subtle, deliberate—and she exhales through her nose, slow and careful, like she’s holding herself back from something sharper. “He learned that from Taeyong,” she says quietly, almost like she hates having to say it out loud. “That silence counts as safety. That walking away is how you protect yourself. You think I haven’t seen that before? I lived with it. Every time things got too loud, too raw, too close—your eyes too wet, your voice too soft—he shuts down. Not because he doesn’t car but because he cares so much he thinks the only way to survive it is to retreat. To not make it worse. To not say the wrong thing. And I know that doesn’t make it better, honey. I know it doesn’t fix what he did but he wasn’t relieved to leave. He was scared. Scared that staying would break you worse. Scared he wouldn’t know how to hold you right. That you wouldn’t let him.”

Her fingers wrap around your wrist, gentle but firm. “You wanted him to fight for you, and he wanted to not hurt you. And somewhere in the middle of all that miscommunication, you both lost the fucking plot.” She tilts her head, thumb brushing lightly across your pulse point. “You’re right to be angry. He should’ve stayed. He should’ve known you didn’t mean it but if you think that boy walked out of your room and didn’t look back—you don’t know him like I do.” Then her voice lowers, achingly soft. “He looked back. I promise you, sweetheart—he looked back the whole way down that hall.”

She tucks your hair behind your ear again. “I’ve seen a lot of girls love him. From far away. For the spotlight. For the wins. You’re the only one who loved him close. Loved the him that breaks things. And I think that terrifies both of you.”

You shake your head, lip wobbling. “I didn’t mean to hurt us.”

“You didn’t,” she says firmly. “He was cracked long before you touched him. You just made him feel it. That’s different.”

You stare into the pond. The koi drift lazily, unaffected by any of this. You speak quietly. “I hate when he acts like I’m a stranger. Like everything we had was nothing.”

Seulgi sighs again, hands folding in her lap. “He doesn’t think it was nothing. He thinks it was everything. And when you lose everything, sometimes all you can do is pretend you never had it.”

Your throat burns. “You’re hard on yourself,” she adds. “You always have been. Like if you just plan enough, control enough, maybe the pain won’t catch up. But love doesn’t care about plans. It’s messy. It’s inconvenient. Sometimes it leaves scars. Sometimes it comes back.”

You finally look at her. Your eyes sting. “I don’t know what to do.”

Seulgi cups your cheek. “Start by forgiving yourself. Then, maybe—when you’re ready—let him see you. Really see you. Not the version that runs this villa like a general. The one that’s still hurting. The one that stayed up all night trying not to text him.”

You nod slowly, eyes wet. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

She smiles. “Sweetheart,” she whispers, brushing away a tear with her thumb. “I’ve seen you worse. You think I don’t remember the rush hour shift at the caffe when you had a panic attack trying to book a group dinner for six people?”

From the second-floor veranda, above the carved wood railing and thick drapes fluttering in the wind, Jeno sees. He was walking past, maybe looking for you, maybe not. But he sees. Sees how small you sit next to her. How carefully she touches you. How you lean in, let her hold you like that and the guilt splits through him sharp.

You and his mother have stayed close—closer than he ever realized and he didn’t even know.

The terrace hums with heat that hasn’t faded even with nightfall, thick and unmoving like breath held too long. It spills through the cracked stone beneath them, sticks to skin, and seeps into every cushion and every glass of sweating scotch. The wine cellar terrace, half-dug into the cliff behind the villa, glows low with lanterns strung along rusted iron hooks, their flickering shadows cast against velvet throws and bare, sun-warmed walls. Somewhere deeper in the house, Doyoung is still pacing the dining room, rehearsing his speech for tomorrow, muttering under his breath and rejecting every draft Mark offers with an eye roll and a tighter frown but none of that reaches the cellar. Out here, it feels like the world has narrowed to this, liquor, cards, bare torsos, the salt-slick hush of waves beneath them.

This is Doyoung’s night, his wedding’s tomorrow, his nerves are spiking, and the speech he’s been rewriting all afternoon has been crumpled and restarted more times than anyone can count. He’s been pacing the villa kitchen in socks and silence for hours, glass of wine refilled and untouched, mumbling lines to himself and snapping at anyone who offers help. Mark eventually gets sick of it. He doesn’t ask, he just pulls Doyoung out by the arm, murmurs something about air, about relaxing, about needing to reset before tomorrow. Doyoung protests until they reach the terrace, and then it hits him all at once — the heat, the low jazz, the lanterns swinging above bare chests and scuffed poker chips, Hyuck yelling about rules he made up on the spot, Chenle’s cackling from a corner pillow. He’s still tense when he sinks into the cushions beside Mark, eyes scanning the mess like he doesn’t quite know how to belong to it, but Mark just nudges a glass into his hand and leans in with a low, warm, “You’ll thank me later.”

The bachelor party hasn’t been revealed yet. It’s still building in the wings, waiting for the right moment. Mark knows what’s coming, but right now he just wants to anchor Doyoung back to earth, keep the guys together, let the mood settle into something good before it spikes into celebration. The night hasn’t erupted yet but the burn has started. Every breath tastes like salt, like tension, like something about to snap.

Mark sits closest to the record player, a gift from Doyoung, placed in the corner even though nobody can properly work it. The needle stutters through an old jazz LP, worn edges and haunting saxophone curling into the warmth like a memory too persistent to shake. Hyuck keeps pretending he’s in charge, slapping the deck against his palm with the flair of a magician who’s just discovered vice. “Ante up, gentlemen,” he grins, tossing chips across the table without waiting for agreement. “Tonight, the stakes are pride, dignity, and whatever shreds of masculinity you’ve got left.”

Chenle is already barefoot, knees pulled up against a velvet cushion, waving a makeshift tally card where he’s scrawled their names and drawn little knives beside anyone who folds early. “I’m keeping score,” he says solemnly, lips curved into a grin. “Most likely to cheat, most likely to cry, most likely to choke in bed.”

“Put a crown next to Hyuck for that last one,” Jaemin mutters, his voice barely audible, head tipped back where he’s sprawled along the built-in stone bench, the cuff of his pants rolled and legs stretched long into the night. “He’s had two hands and three lies already.”

“You’re just mad I pulled a straight with pure sexual energy,” Hyuck retorts, flicking his lighter open and shut.

Doyoung adjusts his grip on the too-full glass of wine in his hand and finally looks around — really looks. The haze of cigar smoke, the sting of salt still clinging to the stone, the gleam of bare chests and sweat-wet skin stretched out across velvet cushions like a painting that got drunk halfway through. Hyuck is barking out nonsense rules between sips of mezcal, Chenle is halfway through a performance review of everyone’s poker face, Jaemin hasn’t moved in fifteen minutes except to ash his cigarette over the edge of the terrace. Mark meets Doyoung’s glance briefly before looking away again. Everything smells like heat and burnt sugar and arrogance.

His mouth curves into a tight frown. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, voice dry as the wine in his hand. “It smells like cigar and shame out here. Is this a wedding or a frat house from hell?

Mark barely glances up, already bracing for the commentary, but Jeno shifts first, to tip his head slightly, the silver chain around his throat catching a slant of light like it wants to be looked at. His fingers toy with the edge of his poker chip, lazy and slow. “Cigars are Hyuck’s fault,” he says, not quite smiling. “The shame’s optional.” He doesn’t bother looking up. His cards rest steady in his hand, but his focus keeps slipping. He’s seated with one leg hooked loosely over the other, bare chest slick with a sheen of sweat and ocean salt, all sharp collarbones and careless posture, like he’s bored of winning but too restless to stop. The pile of chips in front of him is obscene. He hasn’t lost a single hand all night. His jaw is tight but his mouth is soft, and his lashes shadow his cheekbones every time he blinks down at the table, the expression unreadable, somewhere between distraction and detachment, like he’s playing a different game altogether, one only he understands.

The table is a humid, chaotic sprawl of half-drunk glasses, uneven stacks of poker chips, ash from Hyuck’s cigar dusting the velvet like confetti. Chenle’s barefoot again, Shotaro’s collapsed somewhere behind a cushion with his hair stuck to his cheek, and Hyuck deals the cards like a man possessed. His wrist flicks like he’s auditioning for a Vegas cabaret, dramatic to the point of unnecessary, each card cutting through the air like he’s trying to wound the night itself. The Queen of Spades smacks the edge of Chenle’s wineglass and almost sends it toppling, but he rescues it one-handed like a magician, holding it aloft and grinning like he deserves a trophy. “This one’s high stakes,” Hyuck announces, sweeping his arm out as he deals the last card like it’s a dramatic reveal. “Winner gets bragging rights. Loser has to skinny dip alone and send the group chat a tasteful nude.”

“Hyuck, that’s your kink,” Jaemin mutters without looking up, tapping ash off his cigarette with one hand while adjusting his chips with the other. “Not a punishment.”

“It’s called motivation,” Hyuck fires back. “Learn about it.”

Chenle snorts, throws his cards down without looking. “If we’re skinny dipping based on who loses, I wish Ningning was in this game. She’d act all innocent and then start peeling layers off like it’s nothing. Probably fold early just so she could mess with me. I’d forget how to play the second she took off her top. Honestly? I’d lose on purpose.”

There’s a chorus of snorts. Jaemin laughs behind his wrist. Mark clicks his tongue and jabs Chenle in the ribs with the corner of a chip. “Don’t be gross.”

“I’m being honest,” Chenle shrugs, shrugging deeper into his cushion like he’s been wronged. “If the girls were playing? We’d all be fucked.”

Mark glances at him over his glass. “Who specifically?”

“Oh, all of them,” Chenle says, grinning. “Ryujin would act like she doesn’t know the rules and then clean us out while texting her manager.”

“Seulgi would say exactly three words the whole game,” Hyuck adds, cutting the deck again with unnecessary flair. “And somehow end the night with everyone’s watch and dignity.”

“Areum would forget what game we’re playing,” Mark says, lips curving as he takes a slow sip. “Like genuinely. She’d just be there for the snacks and probably fall asleep halfway through.”

“She’d throw in chips without looking,” Doyoung adds. “Win once, get bored, and leave.”

“Ningning,” Chenle starts, smiling a little too hard, “would play like she’s never seen cards before, then get mad halfway through and start betting aggressively out of spite. She wouldn’t win, but she’d make sure I lost.”

“Karina would overthink every round,” Jaemin says. “She’d play safe, try to be strategic. First hand would go great, and then she’d spiral.”

“She’d also flirt through it,” Hyuck adds. “Giggle every time she gets dealt a bad hand, keep the table distracted. She’d last long enough to be dangerous, but then double down on the worst hand just to prove a point.”

“Irene would cheat,” Jaemin says confidently.

“She would,” Doyoung agrees, like it’s an accepted fact of the universe.

“She’d bring her own deck,” Hyuck nods. They laugh, loud and real, the kind of laughter that only happens when everyone’s a little too hot, a little too drunk, and too far gone in the night to care how loud they are.

Chenle clicks his tongue. “Nahyun would talk a big game. Do the whole smoky eye thing, sit real close to Jeno, whisper like she’s bluffing—but she’d fold every round.”

“She’d get mad if you didn’t fold for her,” Mark mutters, distaste on his tongue.

“She’d cry if you did,” Jaemin says.

“Alright,” Chenle says, settling back into the cushions, eyes flicking around the circle like he’s saving the best for last. “Y/N would fold first round,” he adds quickly, reaching for his drink with a smirk already pulling at his mouth. “Act all sweet and play it shy. Make us feel bad for even raising.”

“Then start giggling like she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Hyuck adds, already picturing it. “Say something like, ‘what’s a flush again?’ while collecting half the pot.”

“She’s lethal,” Mark says, shaking his head. “Not even in a cocky way — she just knows exactly when to hit.”

“She’d study all our tells by round two,” Jaemin mutters. “Every eye twitch, every chip tap. She’d let you think you were winning and then gut you clean.”

“Nah, she wouldn’t just win,” Doyoung says, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve. “She’d make it hurt. Humble you with a smile on her face.”

“She’d do that fake apologetic thing, too,” Chenle groans. “Like, ‘wait, that’s good right?’ while throwing down the only royal flush of the night.”

Yangyang exhales a quiet laugh, low and knowing. “She’d fold early just to watch everyone else unravel. Then when it matters? She’d raise without blinking, lean forward like it’s casual — and you’d give her everything without even realising.” He says it softly, but there’s weight behind it. Like he’s not guessing. Like he’s seen it happen.

Jeno hadn’t said a word in ten minutes, he didn’t flinch when they joked about Nahyun folding under pressure, and didn't react when Mark mutters that she plays with expectation instead of instinct. Jeno keeps his head low, fingers tracing the rim of his glass with a rhythm that doesn’t match the pace of the room. His jaw is slack, mouth unreadable, chest rising slow as he leans further into the shadows. The firelight skims across his skin, catching the sweat sheen and the gold chain clinging to the hollow of his throat. He nods along here and there, but it’s empty movement, mechanical and detached. He’s not here to add. He’s watching, he’s waiting. His attention only sharpens when your name slips out, caught at the tail end of Chenle’s laugh like it wasn’t meant to land. That’s when everything shifts. Jeno’s gaze lifts. The motion is slight, deliberate, not dramatic enough for most of them to notice but Yangyang does. Yangyang is already looking at him.

Their eyes meet across the cushions. Jeno’s gaze is slow and deliberate, locked in with a stillness that feels sculpted, not accidental. There’s no smirk, no twitch of amusement, just something dark and quiet, razor-sharp in its focus. His stare doesn’t waver, it’s held too long to be casual but too calm to be confrontational. It’s the kind of look that says everything without speaking, like he’s not warning Yangyang.

His thumb presses against the glass rim once, slow and soundless. His chest rises, barely. The fire flickers in the reflection of his eyes. When he speaks, it’s not sudden. It’s inevitable. “No,” Jeno says, voice smooth and low, almost too calm. “She’d pretend to fold, she’d let you think she’s soft. Then come back with a straight flush and make you look stupid for ever believing she wasn’t playing.”

He doesn’t elaborate or blink. He just lets it hang in the smoke-thick air, the sentence curling slow and tight in everyone’s chest. It doesn’t sound like a compliment. It doesn’t sound like he’s guessing. It sounds like he remembers. It sounds like something that’s happened, like something he’s studied, the way your fingers graze the chips, the curve of your smile when you know you’ve already won, the flick of your wrist as you set down a hand that no one saw coming.

He remembers the way you play games, not just poker, but the little ones that start with a challenge and end with someone breathless. The way you’d push him, always a little too hard during play-fights, fists curled into his chest like you wanted to hurt and kiss him all at once. He always let you land the first hit, always let you laugh too loud when you thought you won, just so he could pull you in tighter after, arms locking around your waist, his breath hot against your ear as he flipped you under him and asked, low, if you really thought he’d lose to you.

He remembers the way you play games, not just poker, but the little ones that start with a challenge and end with someone breathless. The way you’d shove at him during play-fights, always a little too hard, fists curled into his chest like you couldn’t decide whether you wanted to hurt him or fuck him. You’d scrunch your nose, giggling through your threats, calling him names with a smile tugging at the corner of your mouth, soft, mean, irresistible. He’d always let you land the first hit. Let you think you had the upper hand. Let you gloat, loud and dramatic, collapsing into laughter with your body draped over his, so confident he’d let you win again but it was never a question of if he’d flip it, only when. He’d catch your wrists, slow and steady, thumbs stroking over your pulse, breath hot against your cheek as he rolled you beneath him like it cost nothing. Arms locking around your waist, chest flush to yours, lips dragging down the slope of your jaw. “You really think I’d lose to you?” he’d whisper, voice lazy and low, like he wasn’t already so hard it hurt.

You’d try to wriggle out of it, laughing again, breath catching as his hands slid lower, pinning your hips down while you arched into him anyway. There was always tension, always teasing, you’d squirm and whine when he tickled your ribs, suck in a sharp breath when his mouth ghosted over your neck, tug at his hair when he pushed your thighs apart just to press them back together again. He liked when you got bratty about losing. Liked it when your pout melted into a moan the second his hand slipped under your shirt. You’d say “rematch” with your panties already pushed to the side. He’d say “prove it” with his fingers between your legs.

He remembers how serious you got over board games, that crease in your brow when you counted points, the way your lip would catch between your teeth when you were trying not to gloat. He always watched you more than the pieces. You didn’t play to pass time, you played to destroy and when he beat you, because he did more than you’d like to admit, it wasn’t about the win. It was about how you’d go quiet, pouty and twitchy in his lap, arms crossed until he kissed you through your own rules. Hands on your thighs, mouth slow and dragging, murmuring “baby, it’s just a game” while you rolled your hips to shut him up. There was nothing innocent about it. Not the tension, not the teasing, not the way you’d play just to get claimed after and he never minded losing. Not really. Not when it meant fucking you on the floor while the board scattered under your knees.

Doyoung lets out a shaky laugh, the sound too high and too quick, like it slips out before he can stop it. He adjusts the cuff of his shirt, clears his throat, eyes darting between faces like he’s trying to read the temperature in the room. “Jesus,” he mutters, voice tight with something between amusement and genuine concern. “You boys don’t even need to be playing poker to get some action. Aren’t all of you already sleeping with each other anyway?” The question lands light, half a joke, but it cuts just sharp enough to pull Jeno’s gaze back to the table. His fingers pause on his glass.

Chenle claps once, delighted. “This whole friend group is an orgy and I stand by that.”

“Not everyone is fucking right now,” Mark cuts in, like he’s clarifying something serious. “Yangyang’s not sleeping with anyone in the group. Neither is Hyuck.”

Chenle doesn’t miss a beat. “Bro. He’s literally been fucking Y/N every night since we got here.”

Mark blinks. “Wait—what?” It comes out too fast, too sharp, like it caught somewhere between shock and something heavier. He stares at Yangyang, then at the half-empty bottle in front of him like it might explain something. “Seriously?” He leans forward, blinking again, voice dropping without meaning to. “I just didn’t think she’d—” He stops. Runs a hand down his face. “I thought you two were just… hanging out.”

Yangyang leans back into the cushions, fingers curling slowly around his glass like he’s got time to kill and no reason to rush. He lifts it to his mouth, sips like it’s nothing, then lowers it again but his eyes never leave Jeno’s. He tilts his head just slightly, enough for the firelight to catch along his jaw, and lets the words drop soft, almost bored.

“We’re not hanging,” he says smoothly. “I’m just keeping her busy, every night, don’t think we’ve missed a single one.” The silence that follows isn’t the kind that begs for a response. It’s the kind that waits for blood. Jeno's eyes stay on Yangyang, locked and unflinching, heavy with something darker than jealousy. He doesn’t look furious. He looks focused, like someone weighing outcomes. Like someone deciding whether to speak or snap. His jaw tightens once, his thumb brushes slowly along the side of his glass.

Yangyang holds the stare, legs stretched out in front of him, entirely at ease but the smirk fades. The air between them pulls taut, invisible string wound between their chests, tension straining against silence. There’s no raised voices or fists yet. There’s just an undeniable sense that if either one of them moved, the whole room would tilt.

The laughter from before drains out of the circle like someone pulled the plug. Chenle’s grin fades. Hyuck shifts, glances at Jaemin, then looks back down at his cards like they might save him. Even Jaemin taps his cigarette out without a joke. Doyoung’s cough breaks the charged silence, it’s loud enough to break whatever thread had pulled tight around them, rough enough to sound just a bit too forced. His smile pulls a little too wide, too neat, his attempt at changing the topic. “This better not turn into strip poker,” he says finally, voice light but eyes flicking sideways like he’s already plotting his escape.

Mark chuckles at a memory “Last time Shotaro cried because Jaemin took off his watch,” he adds.

“That watch was sentimental,” Shotaro mutters from his cushion without opening his eyes. His voice is soft but stubborn, like he’s been waiting for someone to bring it up. “It had the moon phases on it. It was one that Y/N gifted me.”

Chenle fans his cards dramatically, pulling everyone back to the game. “Okay, I’ve got nothing. I fold before I start but just know that if I did have good cards, all of you would be absolutely ruined.”

Mark flicks his hand across the table, discarding his cards with ease. “You bluff like a toddler.”

“You look like a toddler,” Chenle says too fast, instantly grimacing. “No wait, wait. That was weak. Forget it. Reverse it.”

“Too late,” Jaemin hums, taking a drag from his cigarette. “You’re getting flamed in the toast tomorrow.”

“Like you weren’t the one crying during the rehearsal,” Mark shoots back, one brow lifting, voice sharp but even.

“Your vows were manipulative!” Jaemin fires, pink in the cheeks now. “You weaponised sincerity!”

“Back to the game,” Hyuck cuts in with a groan, flipping the flop, three cards face up in the centre of the table. Two hearts and a club. The laughter dies down in slow increments, everyone leans forward like something primal just woke up in their stomachs.

Jeno hasn’t spoken in what feels like ten minutes. He’s the only one not leaning in, still draped across the corner of the couch like his body’s given up on pretending this is even competition. One arm hooked back over the cushion, silver chain catching the light across his collarbone every time he shifts, his other hand lazily moving a poker chip between his knuckles. His skin is sun-warmed and salt-slick, hair slightly messy like he forgot to dry it after the ocean, and the sweat pooling beneath his jaw only makes him look more alive but there’s something unhinged beneath the surface, something tight around the mouth, something too still in his eyes. He hasn’t lost a hand all night, but he doesn’t seem to care if that changes. His thumb taps the edge of his chips with slow rhythm, precise and meaningless.

The turn card lands, Queen of Hearts and Jeno’s thumb stops moving. Mark notices. Says nothing. But his gaze flickers. “Alright, bets,” Hyuck says, leaning back into the cushions, too cocky for someone who keeps folding. “If you’re broke, borrow. If you’re scared, fold. If you’re drunk — the same rules apply.”

“I raise,” Jaemin says immediately, tossing in three chips like he wants to burn his stack just to watch it go up in smoke. “Because chaos is a strategy.”

“I’ll match,” Doyoung says, fingers a little too steady, posture too upright. “But only because I think watching you lose is good for my soul.” He smiles like he means it, but the line of sweat on his brow suggests otherwise.

“I fold,” Shotaro mumbles, face buried in his cushion. “I have stage fright.”

“It’s not a performance,” Chenle scoffs.

“I have performance anxiety anyway.”

“Your hand isn’t even in this round,” Hyuck hisses, slamming a card down with flair. “Plus you’re literally a performance arts major.”

Jeno doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move like the others do, doesn’t tap or twitch or shift his weight. His wrist turns slow, smooth, the chip balanced neatly between his fingers like it belongs there. His eyes stay low, steady, almost heavy-lidded with how little effort he’s putting in. Then he flicks. One flick. Clean, precise, the chip arcing through the air and landing dead center in the pile with the kind of silence that makes people notice. “Call,” he says, voice deep, low, no tension in it at all, like he’s not gambling, like he’s narrating something inevitable.

Jaemin breathes out a laugh, soft and amused. “You say that like it’s a love language.”

The river card lands, Five of Diamonds, and the game turns real. No one says a word. The only movement is Jeno’s thumb dragging across his bottom lip, slow and unfocused, his eyes locked on the centre of the table like the cards might shift if he waits long enough. He looks dangerous, like a man holding fire and pretending it doesn’t burn. “Final bets,” Hyuck says, softer now.

Mark adds two chips, fingers tapping once against the wood. “I want to see you fall apart, Jaemin.”

Jaemin raises him by one without flinching. “You’ll have to buy me dinner first.”

Jeno doesn’t raise or fold. He just holds his cards like they’re facts. One slow breath. One glance toward the pile. He waits. Jaemin throws down his hand like he’s presenting a miracle. “Two pair. Queens and Fives. Say it. I’m beautiful and terrifying.”

“You’re halfway there,” Mark says, showing a straight, smug. “But not enough.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Jaemin groans, flopping back.

Doyoung lifts a quiet three of a kind and sips his wine like it was all beneath him from the start.

The room settles into a charged stillness, soft murmurs fading as the weight of the moment pulls every gaze toward him. Jeno lifts his hand with ease, each movement deliberate, fingers gliding over the velvet until they find the edge of his cards. He flips them with practiced grace, spreading them into a clean, measured fan across the table. Five hearts. Deep red, gleaming under firelight. A flush laid out like it was never in question. Tension shifts across the circle, breath hitching in the throat of the room, heat pressing in against bare skin. The game keeps going, but everyone knows who it belongs to now.

Hyuck lets out a wheeze and drops his drink. “You son of a bitch.”

Mark doesn’t blink. “You had that from the start.”

“I had it before the first round,” Jeno murmurs, the corner of his mouth curling like he’s not sure if he’s pleased or ruined. “I just wanted to see who’d fall apart trying to beat me.”

“You’re disgusting,” Chenle mutters, sounding impressed.

“Take off your pants, Jaemin,” Hyuck says gleefully. “Time to earn your badge.”

“No one is going skinny dipping,” Mark sighs, rubbing his eyes.

“Speak for yourself,” Jaemin says, already undoing his belt.

Outside, the night has unraveled into something looser, hotter, full of half-drunk limbs and half-open shirts. Some of the boys are in the pool now, stripped down and shouting across the water, their laughter echoing off the cliff edge and bouncing back in time with the old jazz still buzzing faintly through the speaker no one remembers pairing. A couple of them have sprawled out along the stone floor with half-finished drinks, chests rising slow, lulled by heat and exhaustion. The poker table is a mess of empty glasses and forgotten chips, the velvet marked with sweat and spilled liquor. There’s a cigarette still burning in the ashtray beside a half-played hand. No one’s keeping score anymore. The air’s grown heavier with salt and smoke, and the buzz of the night has melted into something low and pulsing, like the aftermath of a storm that hasn’t quite passed.

Jeno hasn’t moved from his spot. He’s still in the corner, half-shadowed by the glow of low-hung lanterns, bare chest slick with sweat that hasn’t cooled since the game ended. The heat clings to him, settles into the line of his collarbone where his chain sticks like it’s been welded there. His fingers are loose around a glass long gone warm, the condensation dried, untouched for too long. He hasn’t spoken since the final hand. Not a word. His eyes are open but far, tracking nothing, fixed on the stretch of terrace that leads to the water — the pool where your back arched against his, where your moans tangled in his breath, where you moved against him like it was the first time and the last. You left him there, still dripping, still reeling, like none of it mattered. Then the whispers came. You disappeared upstairs. Ended the night in someone else’s bed. He hasn’t been right since. He hasn’t thought straight. There’s a silence in his body that doesn’t belong here, doesn’t match the laughter or the heat or the way Hyuck’s still shouting in the distance. It’s not calm. It’s the chokehold left behind when need doesn’t get met. It’s a storm caught between his ribs, pacing without exit.

Jaemin’s next to him, shirtless too, smoke curling from between his fingers, the scent of it bleeding into the salt air. He leans back, lazy and long-limbed, then turns just enough to offer the cigarette across the booth without speaking. The motion is smooth, muscle memory, like he knows Jeno used to always take it. Jeno shifts his hand slightly, a slow, silent refusal that barely even qualifies as a shake of the head. He’s clean now, more focused and strict, wired into something bigger. Ever since the NBA contract, he’s cut it all: the pills, the highs, the smoke that used to keep him level. Now it’s just discipline. Just control. He drinks enough to stay loose, never enough to lose edge. Trains like it’s scripture. Plays like it’s war. It’s in the way his body holds stillness, how his fingers never twitch, how he stays rooted even when everything else spins. Jaemin doesn’t question it, he just takes another drag, exhales into the heat, and watches the edge behind Jeno’s silence sharpen by the second.

She arrives like perfume in a room that didn’t ask for it, sudden, strong, and already lingering before anyone can respond. The terrace doors part without warning, her silhouette sharp against the backdrop of stone and smoke. She walks in like she owns the scene, heels striking the floor with a rhythm too clean to be drunk. Her dress clings like heat, black and cut high, one strap slipping from her shoulder as if it’s part of the performance. Hoop earrings flash each time her head tilts, makeup sharp enough to slice. Nahyun doesn’t wait for permission. She moves toward Jeno like she’s following a script she wrote herself, gaze locked on to him, mouth pulled into something between a pout and a sneer. She’s glowing, or trying to. Not from joy but from friction, from spite, from the fire she’s been stoking in her chest since the day she arrived in this villa.

Jaemin taps the ash from his cigarette one last time, then stands without looking at either of them. Nahyun rather be doing what she’s done every other night since she arrived, stretched out poolside with a stronger drink, Jeno’s hands on her thighs, away from the pastel bullshit and fake laughter echoing off villa walls. The girls had their matching glasses, their safe little circle, their group photos with her cropped just out of frame but tonight she was stuck with them due to the bachelorette night. “The girls are bitches,” Nahyun mutters, tossing her bag onto the low table like she’s been waiting for an excuse to be angry. “They act like you’re still hers.”

Jeno blinks once, slow and dry, like her voice has started to blur into the heat. There’s no shift in his shoulders, no tilt of his head, no change in the angle of his mouth. He just blinks with the flat weight of someone who’s already tuned out. His stare doesn’t follow her pacing. His breath doesn’t catch on her bitterness. He looks at her the way you look at a drink that’s gone flat. It’s boredom, plain and solid, the kind that seeps under the skin and makes silence feel louder. He hears her but he’s already done listening.

“Maybe they know something I don’t?” she says next, a little too fast, too rehearsed, like she’s tried it in her head ten times before now.

“Maybe they’re just loyal,” Jeno replies, voice even, cold, unbothered in a way that lands like ice.

Nahyun laughs, and it’s fake — brittle and bitter, her lipstick catching at the corner of her mouth when her smile turns sharp. “You always get like this when she’s near.” The words hang. They don’t need air. They already burn. “I tried,” she says, pacing now, the slit of her dress flashing with each step. “I smiled at Karina when she pulled that fake-ass ‘love your dress’ routine — even though we both know she thinks I look like a knockoff. I asked about her stupid hair serum. I laughed at Ningning’s little punchlines like I gave a fuck. Areum sat across from me and didn’t say a word except to ask for the butter. And Winter—fuck—Winter asked me if I was working the event or just tagging along.” Her voice is rising now, eyes glinting with something more raw than irritation. “I tried. I really did.”

“They act like you’re still hers. Like this—” she gestures between their bodies, close enough to burn, “—is temporary. Like I’m temporary.” Her tone is quiet but mean. “They hate me.”

His voice comes low, flat, stripped of heat or hesitation. “Yeah,” he says. “They probably do.”

She whips her head toward him, scoffing so loud it cuts across the room, all teeth and disbelief. “Wow. Cool,” she snaps, voice climbing with every word. “God, you’re such an asshole.” Her laugh is sharp and fake, the kind girls use when they’re about to cry but refuse to let it show. She tosses her hair back with too much force, bracelets clinking, rings flashing. “You sit here brooding, looking like the hottest person on this fucking rock, acting like you’re some poor misunderstood victim while I get treated like the extra no one asked for.” She leans forward now, voice dripping with that high-pitched, bratty whine that always covers something deeper. “You think I don’t notice the looks? The way they talk to me like I’m temporary? Like I’m background?”

She sucks in a breath, shaky, lashes fluttering with fury. “You wanna know why they act like I’m nothing? Because she exists.” She doesn’t say your name at first, like even giving it air would ruin the point but then her face cracks open. “Because Y/N walks into a room and everyone forgets who they came with. She doesn’t have to say a word, she just looks at people and it’s over. You know what it’s like standing next to her? Trying to speak and knowing no one’s listening? Because they’re too busy hoping she’ll glance their way, or say something nice, or smile like she gives a fuck?” Her voice breaks, but she powers through it, digging nails into the cushion. “She’s not just pretty. She’s fucking terrifying. She knows it. You know it. They orbit her like she’s got gravity stitched into her spine. One compliment out of her mouth and suddenly I don’t exist. I’m a glitch in the background. A typo.”

She laughs again, breathless, shaking her head. “And fine. Fine. Maybe she is drop-dead gorgeous. Maybe everyone wants her but she’s a bitch. A smug, selfish, manipulative bitch who knows exactly what she’s doing when she tilts her head and pretends to be sweet. She doesn’t even have to try. She doesn’t work for it like the rest of us. And you—” her voice snaps, gutted and cracked, “—you look at her like you’d burn down every version of your fucking life if she even hinted she wanted you back. Like you’d drop me mid-sentence if she so much as blinked in your direction. Like she still has you on a leash and she’s not even holding it.” She pauses, breathing heavy, mascara smudging at the corners as she stares at him like she’s searching for some kind of denial but he still hasn’t looked at her. Not once.

Jeno finally turns his head. Slowly, like the effort costs him. His eyes meet hers for the first time since she walked in, there’s a hollow weight of someone who’s hit the bottom of whatever restraint he had left. His voice cuts through her like a crack in stone, low and final and carved out of exhaustion. “Stop fucking talking about Y/N.” It sounds like a thread snapping. His jaw locks so tight you can see the muscle flicker, his throat working around the words he doesn’t want to say, the ones he’s already choking on. His eyes flutter closed, his head tips back against the cushion like he’s trying to disappear into it, trying to find a second of quiet in a night that’s dragged him bare.

The bachelor party is already deep in its descent. Everything smells like sweat and sex and celebration. The boys had “kidnapped” Doyoung from the safety of his own suite two hours ago, dragging him half-dressed into a black SUV while he protested through laughter and low-level threats. They stuffed a blindfold over his eyes, poured a shot down his throat, and promised this would be the last mistake he ever got to make unmarried. Now he’s here, somewhere between amused and horrified, slouched dead-center on one of the velvet couches, half-laughing, half-praying, a glass of wine held like a crucifix between his fingers. The others are sprawled in every direction: Jaemin with his ankle hooked over his knee, calculating the vibe like a strategist; Hyuck shirtless and yelling across the room, a bottle in one hand and nothing in the other; Shotaro nervously bouncing his knee, trying to act like this isn’t the wildest night of his life; Chenle midway through filling a shot he’ll probably regret tomorrow; and Jeno, sunk low into the far corner, chain against his chest, fingers wrapped around a half-finished drink, unreadable.

The private penthouse lounge is bathed in low red and amber light, the kind that turns skin to velvet and sweat to gold. Thick blackout curtains seal the outside world shut. Bass hums slow and low from speakers embedded in the walls, each pulse more like a heartbeat than a song. The air is dense with whiskey, cigar smoke, the faint sweetness of weed and something floral that clings to the corners like perfume worn in another room. The couches are plush and sunken deep, all arranged in a semicircle facing the raised marble platform in the center of the room, lit from beneath like a stage that shouldn’t exist. It’s past two in the morning. Everyone’s already drunk. The energy is loud, feral, scattered — until the curtain parts.

She steps in like sin made flesh. The curtains peel back, velvet parting slow, and then she’s there — hips cocked, one leg forward, every inch of her soaked in red light. Her stilettos strike the marble like punctuation. Her crystal thong flashes as she walks, obscene and deliberate, the shimmer bouncing against her thighs with every sway of her hips. The lace bodysuit she wears isn’t made to conceal — just tease. It slices high at the hip and lower at the chest, framing her tits with the kind of confidence that makes silence collapse. Black lace clings to her arms and ribs, sheer enough to leave nothing to imagination. A mask veils the top half of her face. Her lips are painted wet and glossy, gum working between her teeth as she surveys the room like she owns it. In one hand, a riding crop. In the other, a remote and before she speaks, her perfume hits — sweet vanilla, smoke, familiar.

Jeno’s back tenses like it’s instinct. The bass shifts. She tilts her head, lets her legs spread slightly as she plants herself center-stage. She presses the crop between her thighs, dragging it slow up the inside of her leg, biting her bottom lip like she’s trying not to moan just from the friction. “You boys ready to behave,” she purrs, voice like syrup sliding over a bruise, “or do I need to teach you what obedience really tastes like?”

Hyuck’s already yelling, throwing his arm over Shotaro’s shoulder, bottle clinking in his grip. “Baby, I’m failing every test you give me. Punish me.”

“Oh my god,” Chenle wheezes, half-drunk and already recording. “She hasn’t even started yet.”

“She has started,” Doyoung mutters, legs crossed tightly, glass clutched with both hands like it’s his last defence.

“Jesus Christ,” Jaemin breathes under his breath, leaning forward slightly, tongue swiping across his bottom lip. “She’s unreal.”

Shotaro’s voice comes out a little too honest. “She… she kinda looks like Y/N.”

That snaps through the room like a whip crack. Mark turns his head so fast his chain shifts across his collarbone. “Don’t put that image in my head” he says, sharp, eyes slicing toward Shotaro like it’s personal. “Don’t say that.”

Shotaro blinks, flush creeping up his neck. “I didn’t— I mean—just, like—vibes—”

“She doesn’t,” Mark says again, voice tight, jaw clenched.

But Jeno hasn’t said a word. Hasn’t blinked. His fingers curl slow around the edge of his glass. The stripper smiles like she heard everything. She walks forward, hips rolling in slow motion, each movement carved from control. She taps the crop against her palm. “Oh? Got a type?” Her voice dips low as she locks eyes with Shotaro, then Mark. “Bet you all do.”

Then she lifts her leg onto the edge of the couch in front of them, arches her back, and runs the crop between her tits. Her gum pops. “Here’s how this works,” she says, purring now. “You don’t touch me unless I say. You don’t speak unless I ask. You keep your hands on your thighs and your mouths shut, unless I’m sitting on one of them.”

Hyuck fucking howls. “Oh my god, marry me right now.”

“She said mouths shut,” Doyoung says weakly, clutching his drink tighter.

“Say please,” she demands.

Her walk isn’t rushed, but it slices through the room like something made to ruin men—heels cutting across marble in a slow, deliberate rhythm that makes the couches feel too small and the space too hot. She trails one fingertip along the cushions as she moves, hips swaying like a threat, and when she rounds behind him, the perfume hits. Jeno still hasn’t looked up. Hasn’t said a word. But the second that scent curls into his air—thick, sweet, just the wrong side of right—something in him stirs. It doesn’t flicker, it coils. His fingers shift slightly on the glass like he forgot he was holding it, and the grip around his drink tightens just enough to show he’s not as detached as he looks. Not when it smells like that. Not when it smells like you. The sweetness isn’t generic. It’s exact. The heat of it is too familiar, the softness too specific, the undertone too cruel. It sinks past memory and straight into his spine, presses into his jaw, slides down his chest like your tongue used to. His body doesn’t move, but his pulse gives him away—right there, at his throat, just once, like his heart kicked up before he could stop it. She isn’t even touching him. She doesn’t have to. You already are.

The room doesn’t just react. It combusts. Laughter cracks like thunder against the walls, whistles cut sharp through the bass, and the applause starts as mocking but turns feverish the longer she holds their attention. She doesn’t smile at first—she smirks, tongue pressing into the inside of her cheek as she lets her body speak before her mouth does. Shoulders back, tits high, stomach tight in lace, she drags the crop across her hip and begins to move. Every step lands with purpose. Every sway of her hips is a dare.

Hyuck doesn’t stand a chance. She climbs into his lap without asking, without pause, grinding slow and deep into his crotch while he cackles like a man being exorcised. The tequila bottle is yanked from his hand, tilted down her chest, the curve of her breasts gleaming with liquor as she leans forward and lets it spill across his mouth. He chokes on it, coughing through laughter, and she slaps him—not hard, but loud, right across the cheek with a flick of her wrist and a hissed laugh. “You like that, don’t you?” she purrs, dragging her nails along his jaw. “Thirsty fucking brat.” Hyuck moans something incoherent. She blows him a kiss as she stands.

Chenle gets her next. She spins and rolls her hips back into his lap, ass grinding with slow, exaggerated rhythm that makes him freeze, arms lifted like he doesn’t know where to put them. She wiggles once—tight and purposeful—and leans over his shoulder. “Bet you come in thirty seconds,” she whispers, hips never stopping.

Chenle laughs, too loud. “I—okay, fuck—maybe twenty—”

She slaps his hand before it even touches her. “Did I say you could touch?”

He stammers, red-faced, reaching for his drink like it might save him from further humiliation. Then she turns and drops to her knees in front of Doyoung like it’s sacred. Her hands trail slow along his thighs before her tongue drags over the buckle of his belt, teeth grazing the leather. “You look like the kind of guy who needs rules,” she says, voice low. “Someone to tell him when to breathe.” Doyoung exhales through gritted teeth, one hand braced on the couch, eyes locked on a spot above her head like he’s praying.

Then she’s up again, moving. Shotaro blinks when she grabs his tie, startled before she even pulls. She yanks him to standing with one sharp tug, drags his face between her tits, and rocks him forward. “God, you’re innocent,” she coos against his ear. “Ever been face-fucked, baby?” Shotaro stumbles back, blushing so red it glows, and the boys explode again, hollering like it’s a show.

Jaemin leans further into the cushion when she approaches. His thigh stays spread, open, waiting, and she takes the invitation like it’s owed. Her hand trails up from his knee, nails grazing denim, fingers mapping the line of his zipper before flattening against the slope of his chest. She moves closer until her breath touches his jaw, and for the first time all night, she eases into something quieter—less performative, more precise. “You look like trouble,” she murmurs, voice tipped in flirt, but her eyes search his like she’s trying to remember something real.

Jaemin’s smile tilts, amused and lazy. “So do you.” The corner of her mouth curves, but it’s slower now, slower than it should be. Her head tilts to the left, a pause opening between them, one beat too long.

“Wait…” she says, softer this time, the edge of something unsettled catching beneath the silk of her voice, “have we met before?” Her fingers are still against his chest. The room doesn’t hear it but Jaemin does.

His smirk doesn’t slip—it just shifts, mouth curving as his eyes narrow. “Not that I remember.” She lingers another second, chewing gum slowly, like memory’s right there at the back of her throat, and then she pulls away, laughing under her breath like the question never mattered. But Jaemin watches her turn, his gaze following the sway of her hips as she moves across the room and then he chuckles—quiet, knowing—because he does remember. He remembers the way she stripped down under the violet lights of that New York club, hips slow, eyes locked on him like she already knew which man she’d ruin by morning. The way Jeno looked when he followed her out and now, watching her make her way toward him again, hips sharp and sure and aimed like a weapon, Jaemin leans back with a grin because he knows exactly what’s about to burn.

She doesn’t waste a second. As soon as she turns from Jaemin, it’s like something inside her locks onto its target — hips swaying sharper, steps slower, every line of her body suddenly more deliberate. The lights catch on the crystals stitched across her thong, sparkle flashing across her thighs as she crosses the space toward the couch Jeno hasn’t moved from all night. He hasn’t looked at her once — not properly — but his spine straightens before she even reaches him. His fingers clench around the glass, breath caught somewhere in his throat, and when she stops in front of him, the room tilts.

Because he knows and so does she. It’s instant — thick and electric, a recognition that drops like a hook in the gut. He hadn’t known her name back then. He never asked, not in that cracked-glass hotel room in Manhattan, where the bass from the strip club downstairs never stopped shaking the walls. Not after he followed her out into the night the way he should’ve chased you instead. That was the night you walked out, the night you left him wordless and wrecked, a ghost of you still clinging to his skin. You didn’t just leave — you ended him. Said it was over with a shrug, called it toxic, said you couldn’t do this anymore and didn’t even flinch when he asked why now. You tossed his key on the counter like it meant nothing, walked out of his apartment like you hadn’t spent the night before moaning his name into his neck. Then, you fucked someone new with the necklace he gave you still on so he ended up in a basement strip club, drowned in neon and sweat and women who didn’t ask questions.

She wasn’t you but she looked close enough in the dark. Now she’s back in front of him, and it’s worse than memory because this time, she smells like you. She doesn’t climb into his lap, she slides, one leg straddling, her thighs part over his hips, cunt barely concealed by lace, chest flush against his as she sinks down with a moan so soft it doesn’t sound performed. Her hands cup the back of his neck, nails grazing the edges of his hair, and she doesn’t speak. She grinds — slow, circular, dragging her pussy along the bulge in his pants until his breath hitches in his throat. Then she leans in and kisses him.

She doesn’t ask permission when she climbs into his lap—just takes it, thighs spreading wide over his, cunt dragging slow against the bulge in his pants as her body settles into his like it remembers him. Like it wants him to remember her too. Her lips find his mouth fast, no pause, no tease, and the kiss is messy from the start, open-mouthed and breathless, tongues sliding together with heat that tastes like need. He kisses her back harder than he should, hands gripping tight at the swell of her ass, fingers digging in until she’s gasping into his mouth, her chest pressed flat against his, sweat and lace and skin crushed together as she rocks her hips into him again. He lets her grind slow, like he’s not even controlling it, like he’s just reacting, lips dragging down to her jaw, then back up, sucking her bottom lip between his teeth before biting down just enough to make her moan. She bites back, nails scraping up the back of his neck, hips rolling deeper with every breath she steals from his mouth. One of his hands slides under the hem of her bodysuit, dragging lace with it as he palms the inside of her thigh, pulling her closer, pressing her harder against his lap until she’s panting for more friction. His other hand fists in her hair, tilts her head back so he can kiss her rougher, sloppier, like he’s trying to drown every sound of the past in the heat between her lips. She moans again, louder this time, grinding down like she’s trying to fuck him through the fabric, and he lets her, hands everywhere, memory crashing over him with every sway of her hips because this is what it felt like last time—months ago, blackout drunk, a stranger in a room that wasn’t you but smelled enough like you to keep his eyes closed and now here she is again, body pressed to his like a punishment he asked for, like a ghost that kisses back.

No one in the room speaks. No one moves because none of them got touched like this.

It’s the night before the wedding, Irene’s night, and you’ve planned it to feel like something sacred. A soft send-off. A love letter in champagne and candlelight. It’s everything she asked for and everything you know how to give: a private rooftop bar overlooking the sea, tables dressed in white linen and rose gold, charcuterie boards laid out like altars, strawberries sliced into hearts, chocolate-dipped figs, sugared lavender shortbread. There’s a silk robe for every girl with her name stitched on the collar, slippers lined in velvet, a playlist of nostalgic slow jams looping in the background. You even brought handwritten notes for each of them, tucked into pearl envelopes and slid beneath their plates. It’s soft. Delicate. Romantic. Curated down to the last thread of fairy lights but the serenity doesn’t last. It never does. Ningning spikes the punch with absinthe and a wink. Karina drops a cap of molly into her prosecco like it’s part of the itinerary. Someone — probably Ningning again — changes the playlist to ‘Bad Girls Club’ reruns and turns the flatscreen up loud. The room hums with pink light and a kind of chaos that tastes like glitter and regret. Karaoke starts as a joke, slow ballads, breakup songs, girls swaying and scream-singing into a gold mic that keeps glitching. Irene laughs until she’s wheezing. Areum sips her drink like it’s poison. Then you grab the mic. Glossy-eyed, mouth already tight with everything you haven’t said out loud since the day you agreed to show up and not ruin this. It’s a classic ‘fuck you’ song. The beat kicks in and it’s venom. Every lyric hits too hard, too pointed, too close to the way Nahyun’s has been looking at you all night. You sing it loud, like a girl bleeding out through her voice and when you hit the bridge, you’re not looking at anyone but her. Nahyun’s face doesn’t change. She just crosses her legs tighter.

Areum mutters, “This is not the vibe.”

Ningning drains her glass, shrugs. “This is exactly the vibe.”

Later, in the gift box circle, the tradition twists — each girl brings a wrapped box for the bride, but inside each one is a secret, a dare, or a lie. Your gift gets handed to you last. The note inside reads: tell the truth about the last person you kissed. Your mouth still tastes like Jeno. Still burns from Yangyang. You don’t answer. You just throw back the champagne, and Karina catches it immediately. “You don’t drink on truths unless you’ve got something to hide.” She’s not smiling.

Nahyun’s gift is simple, unassuming, soft lotion and perfume but her dare? “Show us your favorite picture on your phone.” She scrolls. She knows what she’s doing. She lands on a photo of Jeno’s side profile in golden hour, sunlight painting the cut of his jaw like a confession. You look away and scoff. Then the games move downstairs, into the backyard, barefoot in grass still damp from the sprinklers, drinks sloshing over red solo cups as the fire pit flickers wild and hot. “Never have I ever fucked someone who wasn’t mine,” Karina says, and half the circle drinks. Areum snorts. You sip slow and no one asks why. Nahyun doesn’t drink, she just watches you — calm, accusatory, glass tipped toward her lips but never touching.

Nahyun follows up with, “Never have I ever had feelings for someone who’s taken,” and the table hollers, yelps, groans.

Your turn: “Never have I ever been the second choice and still stayed.” No laughter. Just silence, weighted and sharp, broken only by the distant hum of a plane overhead. Glasses clink again and then it’s time for the legacy moment. Each girl brings something from high school, a cheer pin, a photo strip, a championship ribbon. You pull on a hoodie. which coincidentally has his number, ‘23,’ peeling at the back from too many washes. Areum rolls her eyes like clockwork. “Couldn’t let that one go, huh?”

You smile like it’s stitched to pain. “Just matches my damage.”

You notice it when she reaches for her glass, the way her fingers curl around the stem, the ring catching against the candlelight, delicate and glittering, perched perfectly on her index like it was made to live there. It’s beautiful. A soft gold band, thin and understated, curved gently into a loop with a single tiny diamond pressed into the center like a kiss. It’s not flashy, but it glows. The kind of ring that means something, that was picked with thought, maybe even love. Your eyes catch on it before your mind can stop them, and your voice comes quiet, curious, almost fond. “Where’d you get that? Is that new?”

She looks down at her hand like she’d forgotten it was there, then smiles softly. “Oh—this? It’s the ring that Jeno made. The ones for the bridesmaids. Didn’t he— Oh….” She stops. You see the pause before it happens, her lips parting around the next word and then sealing shut just as fast. Her lashes flutter once. Then she clears her throat, smile flickering. “I’m sure he’ll get Karina to give you it.” The way she says it is light but you hear the tease tucked beneath the sweetness, the way she doesn’t quite meet your eye when she says it, like she knows exactly what string she’s tugging. You just hum, eyes on the ring again, heart ticking a little too loud in your chest.

The girls are all scattered around the west courtyard, the aftertaste of merlot and secrets still hanging thick in the air. You’re still side by side with Areum, eyes fixed on the ring glinting on her finger, just watching it catch the light. The boys return loud, laughter echoing down the villa halls, footsteps too heavy for the hour, clothes still rumpled with smoke, sweat, and something darker. The energy shifts the second they arrive, but it sharpens when their eyes find Jeno. He’s the last to enter, shirt open, jaw locked, something unreadable carved into the tension of his face. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t break stride but his silence drags behind him like a shadow, and whatever high they brought back from the strip club doesn’t follow them through the door.

Shotaro’s the one who moves first, already at the front before anyone really notices, a mic in his hand like it ended up there without question, like it was always meant for him, posture a little sheepish but glowing with that warm, golden pride he wears so easily when it’s someone else’s moment, not his own, and he taps the mic once, clears his throat softly, the room quieting more out of curiosity than command. “Alright, alright, I know it’s late,” he says, voice bouncing gently off the marble and into the night, “but I wanted to keep you all here just a few minutes before the big day, before we all go to bed and pretend we’re not waking up at seven for hair and vows and panic”

The guys snicker, Jaemin groans from the back with his head in his hands, Mark mutters something under his breath about emotional manipulation and how he didn’t sign up for feelings tonight, but he doesn’t move either, none of them do Shotaro grins wider, rocking on his heels like he’s holding back a secret “I made something, just a little… montage, of everything good, a way to appreciate our beautiful life and beautiful company. This is for Doyoung, for Irene”

No one stops him, not a word, not a breath out of place, the room slips into a hush that feels both accidental and sacred, soft as the dimming lights that bleed gold across marble and velvet, pulling shadows into the corners as the projector stirs to life with a mechanical flick and a bloom of silver-blue against the wall. The first images are warm, safe, saturated in nostalgia, footage from away games stitched together in sleepy succession, Jeno’s jump shot caught mid-air in slow motion, muscles coiled, jersey clinging to sweat, the net snapping sharp as the ball slices through, Mark spinning past the camera with Yangyang hanging off his shoulder, both of them drenched in laughter, the kind that doesn’t need words to explain. Then it’s winter — your exhibition, the gallery soft-lit and echoing with footfalls, your work framed in gold and pride, names scrawled in elegant ink like they belonged to constellations, and there’s Karina beside you, eyes glossy, pointing something out with a hand tucked into yours. The bar comes next — Ningning asleep on Chenle’s shoulder in the far booth, Hyuck on the table, shirt half-off, dancing with a straw in his mouth like it’s a microphone, neon pulsing in time with the bass, and the whole screen alive with memory, with things that felt small when they happened but now glow like they were the most important seconds of your lives. The river court flickers up, flooded in late-June light, all of them barefoot and shouting, basketball bouncing wild across concrete while Chenle chases Mark into the frame and tackles him into a pile of towels, the screen drenched in brightness, in rivalry, in youth that hasn’t yet frayed at the edges.

Then the cut changes — quick, sharper, like the tape skipped or something inside it snapped. It’s the state championship night. It’s grainy footage, phone camera propped somewhere careless, but it doesn’t matter, not when the moment is this loud — you’re side by side with Jeno, standing at the edge of the celebration like you don’t notice the chaos around you, a champagne bottle dangling from your hand, his arm slung lazily around your shoulders, and you’re laughing, head thrown back, mouth open, like something just broke free in your chest. He’s not looking at the camera. He’s looking at you, grinning into your skin like it’s the only place he wants to be, and then he leans in, kisses your temple, your cheek, your mouth, in that exact order, like muscle memory, like he’s been waiting all night to taste you and now that he has, he doesn’t want to stop. The room doesn’t breathe. The volume lowers fast, like someone realized too late what this was, and now there’s only flickering light and the shape of a memory neither of you escaped from, because by the time you look across the room, Jeno’s already watching you, unmoving, unreadable, and the screen goes black, but the silence stays.

Later, you can’t sleep. The image replays on loop behind your eyelids, every frame clearer than it should be. Your body feels too hot under the sheets, too tight in your own skin, and eventually you give up trying to lie still. You pull on whatever’s nearest, Yangyang’s hoodie, maybe yours, maybe his, and you slip barefoot out of the villa, walking like you’re not choosing the path so much as being pulled by it.

You end up at the altar, the one built for tomorrow, draped in white florals and clean intention, but under the moonlight it looks different, almost holy in the wrong way, like a monument to every sin that led you here, every touch that shouldn’t have happened, every love that didn’t end when it should’ve.

He’s already there. Not facing you, not yet — just seated on the edge of the stone step like it means nothing, like this place wasn’t built for devotion. His back rises and falls slow, head tilted to the stars, moonlight poured along the slope of his throat and collarbone like it was drawn there by hand. His shirt’s undone, caught by the wind, and his legs stretch long into the dark like he’s trying to touch the horizon. You don’t call his name. You don’t have to. He’s here by chance — just like you are. Neither of you knew the other would come, neither planned it, said it, wanted to admit it, but somehow you both end up here anyway, as if the night itself conspired to bring you back to where everything always begins.

Your footsteps barely touch the ground. You’re not thinking. You’re not even moving, not really, you’re just being pulled, drawn, unspooled toward him like you were always meant to end up in his arms, like the air between you has been aching to close for months. His head lifts the second you’re close enough to feel. Neither of you speak. Neither needs to. Your hands find his shirt. His fingers thread into your waist. It’s not a kiss at first. It’s breath — shared, staggered, stolen — your foreheads tipping forward until there’s no space left for the past. Then his mouth is on yours, slow and deep, and your body breaks open. You’re clutching him like you’ll fall through the earth if you let go, your palms sliding up the heat of his chest, his grip firm under your thighs when he lifts you without thinking, without effort, as if holding you is the only thing he remembers how to do. There’s salt on your lips from where he bites them. There’s wet in your lashes and you don’t know if it’s yours or his. His chain brushes your collarbone. Your nails leave crescents in his shoulder. The wind moves around you but nothing else does. Not the altar. Not the sky. Not time.

Later, you’re still there — wrapped around him like you were threaded into the fabric of him, like if you let go the night might unravel completely. The altar is behind you, forgotten, or maybe fulfilled. His hands stay firm at your waist, thumbs brushing slow circles into your skin like he’s memorising you again, like touch is a language only the two of you can speak. The sky has started to pale, bleeding soft blue into the edges of the stars, and your bodies are warm where they meet, bare skin against bare skin, your breath catching as it mixes with his, one exhale echoing the next. You’re shaking a little, not from cold but from the kind of fullness that breaks you open — laughter folded into tears, your lips at his ear, whispering things neither of you will ever say aloud again. His chain is tangled in your fingers now. Your mouth is swollen. His shoulder bears the bite of your teeth. He holds you like you’re both apology and salvation, like the ache of missing you never stopped and having you again might kill him if it doesn’t heal him first.

You’re wrapped around him like nothing else could make sense. Your mouth tastes like salt and yes and his name in too many tenses, your arms looped around his shoulders, shaking with the kind of laughter that only comes when something hurts less than it used to. His hands are everywhere, waist, hips, spine but not to hold you still, just to remind himself you’re here. The sky behind you is beginning to shift, stars softening, the first thread of dawn pulled loose across the dark, but neither of you move. You just breathe, pressed into the hollow between his neck and collarbone, the place where your heartbeat always found rhythm. Then there’s your hand. Curled quiet at the back of his head, fingers threaded through his hair, and on it, something new. Not announced. Not spoken. Just slipped into place in the hush between what was and what comes next. A silver band, barely catching the pale light, warm from your skin, seated on the fourth finger of your left hand like it’s always been waiting. It gleams like a secret shared under your breath, a story folded into touch, a vow made not with noise, but with nerve endings. A ring — new, real, and shaped like a beginning.

The sound comes first, soft and deliberate, a leather sole brushing stone in the way a knife might whisper before it cuts, and then his voice slides in after it like smoke through a locked room — “Didn’t know this place came with a reunion package” — too casual to be clean, too smooth to be kind, and by the time you turn, he’s already there, Lee Taeyong, half-shadowed beneath the stone arch, suit immaculate, expression unreadable, like he’s seen this scene in a dream before and came to watch it rot in real time, and he’s not alone, because behind him, something waits, figures unmoving in the dark, faces turned just enough to be almost human, almost known, and suddenly the altar feels less like a promise and more like a trap, the steps beneath your feet more echo than ground, the wind more absent than still, and the moment more like a final act than an arrival, like he came not to witness the vow, but to break it. This isn’t a guest arriving late, this is a reckoning dressed in a name you used to trust.

taglist — @clblnz @flaminghotyourmom @haesluvr @revlada @kukkurookkoo @euphormiia @cookydream @hyuckshinee @hyuckieismine @fancypeacepersona @minkyuncutie @kiwiiess @outoforbit @lovetaroandtaemin @ungodlyjnz @remgeolli @sof1asdream7 @xuyiyang @tunafishyfishylike @lavnderluv @cheot-salang @second-floors @hyuckkklee @rbf-aceu @pradajaehyun

authors note —

if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! it truly means the world to me. i poured so much effort into this, so if you could take just a moment to send an ask or leave a message sharing your thoughts, it would mean everything. your interactions-whether it's sending an ask, your feedback, a comment, or just saying hi gives me so much motivation to keep writing. i'm always so happy to respond to messages, asks and comments so don't be shy! thank you from the bottom of my heart! <3

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