Archive of Our Own

The knock comes at 2:14 a.m.

Not a text, not a call—just the dull, off-beat thud of knuckles against wood. It carries impatience, need, and a kind of recklessness that makes Leo’s chest tighten. 

He’s still awake, pencils and pastels scattered across the desk, the lamplight spilling shadows across unfinished drawings and empty coffee cups.

Leo doesn’t need to peek. No one else comes to his door at this hour.

When he opens it, Sangwon sways on his feet, half-lit by the hallway’s light. The scent of cigarettes cling to him like a second skin, whiskey curling from the corners of his shirt—all dizzying and bitter. 

His hair is a mess, collarbones jutting under the open fabric of his shirt, mouth tugged into that careless grin he wears when he’s halfway gone. When the world has already caught fire beneath his feet.

“Hey,” Sangwon murmured, brittle at the edges, as if he were trying—and failing—to thread normalcy through the tremor of the night.

Leo inhaled, sharp and reluctant, tasting the acrid curl of smoke, the burn of whiskey, and something more. Something ineffably Sangwon, raw and urgent and unignorable.

“You’re drunk,” Leo said flatly, the words clipped, habitual, a line he had drawn a hundred times before. 

And as always, Sangwon ignored it.

“Yeah,” he slanted into the doorway, eyes glassy, lips tilting into that careless smirk that made the world feel like it could fracture and heal all at once. “You gonna let me in or not?”

Leo should have said no.

He should have stepped back, slammed the door, told Sangwon to go back to his own apartment, to whoever’s, to anyone but here.

But then Sangwon’s hand found his cheek—clumsy, desperate, electric—and everything in him hesitated. 

So, Leo steps aside. Because what is worse?

Being used, or not being needed at all?

Sangwon slides past him like a shadow staking its claim, smoke curling around him, cologne lingering like a memory he refuses to leave behind. 

He collapses onto the edge of Leo’s bed, tilting back until he’s flat, arms splayed wide, daring the world—or maybe daring Leo—to interfere. 

“You should’ve gone home,” Leo murmurs, voice barely rising above the hum of the apartment, fragile as spun glass.

Sangwon tilts his head, eyes catching the dim light, a teasing glint that’s half mischief, half challenge. 

“Then tell me to leave.”

Leo doesn’t. He never does.

He kneels instead, deliberate and careful. Fingers brush against bruised ankles as he unties Sangwon’s shoes, the touch gentle enough to betray the storm coiling inside him. He peels the jacket from his shoulders, letting the scent of spilled liquor drift away, setting it aside like a discarded shield. 

When Sangwon stumbles slightly sitting up too fast, he presses a forehead to Leo’s shoulder, laugh catching in his throat somewhere between amusement and sorrow. 

And Leo’s chest tightens. A familiar, relentless ache.

Every time Sangwon leaves chaos in his wake, Leo swears it will be the last time. 

And every time, he lets him in again anyway.

Because beneath the mess, the danger, the moments that should hurt more than they do, there is a tether—fragile, unspoken, vital. 

And right now, in the trembling half-light of the room, Leo knows with quiet certainty.

Being here, being present, is all that matters.

“I keep telling you to take your clothes off before laying on my bed,” Leo hissed as he fiddled with the buttons of Sangwon’s shirt, his voice low and sharp, a mixture of exasperation and something dangerously close to heat.

Sangwon’s laughter bubbles up, light and shaky, as Leo’s hands trace the line of his hips, tugging gently at the waistband of his pants. 

He leans forward instinctively, arms sliding around Leo’s shoulders, breath hot against the hollow of his neck. 

“I’ll never get tired of how you smell,” Sangwon murmurs, words thick with mirth and haze, eyes half-lidded, lips trembling. His open button-up slipping off one shoulder like it too wants to surrender.

Leo knows this touch means nothing—no promise, no claim, just need pressed into flesh. Nothing permanent, nothing bound to anything remotely real. Just two people falling into a routine because they fit too well, because desire doesn’t wait for clarity. 

Still, Leo wraps his arms around Sangwon’s waist, leans into the heat of his bare chest, feeling the warmth of him. 

The world outside—the city, the streetlights, the night—blurs into a haze. It stops being sharp, stops being heavy. It contracts until it’s nothing but them, suspended in a flurry of heat, skin, need.

And the taut pull of a tether neither of them will name.

Sangwon tips his head, lips brushing the curve of Leo’s jaw, and the touch is electric, impossible. It sends a jolt that makes Leo’s chest ache. 

Leo shivers against him, a small gasp slipping between his teeth as Sangwon presses closer, needing and urgent in a way that leaves no room for hesitation.

And then effortlessly and unannounced, as if it costs him nothing—Sangwon kisses him.

Sloppy, sweet, bitter with alcohol and longing, but it lands with a clarity that feels like fire.

Leo answers immediately. 

Tongue against tongue, hands tangling in hair, pressing into ribs, heart hammering against chest. 

He tastes Sangwon, all of him—the heat, the reckless abandon, the tang of smoke—and it grounds Leo, burns him, swallows the ache he’s carried for so long.

Sangwon’s fingers dig into his back, arms tightening, dragging him closer, desperate and trembling. 

And Leo lets it happen. 

Let himself be claimed in this fragile, fleeting way. 

He presses back, back against the heat and the shiver, the need and the ache. He clutches Sangwon’s body, folds him into the curve of his own. And for one perfect, suspended heartbeat, there is nothing else.

No past. No future. Only this. 

Two bodies colliding in rhythm, two hearts beating in reckless synchronization, the world fading to nothing but the wrong choices they’ve made.

In that heat, in that silence between gasps, Leo knows—Sangwon comes to him like this because he can. 

And Leo will always be here to receive him.

His hand hovers in the dark, inches from Sangwon’s hair, and falls back to the sheets. Because Leo knows how this goes.

He still remembers the first time Sangwon stumbled through his door, swaying in drunken laughter and smoke like it was yesterday. 

But morning always comes.

And Sangwon always leaves.

The semester was ending, and the city felt drunk on its own freedom. Lights bounced off wet pavement, bars spilling music and laughter onto the streets. 

Leo had been trying to convince himself to stay home, to organize his sketchbooks, maybe even finally finish that damn reflection paper in Contemporary Sculptures he’d been procrastinating. 

But the pull of the end-of-semester party and the casual chaos of his friends was too strong.

Leo slipped into the bar, a low hum of bass rattling through the floorboards, the smell of mixed liquor and fried food thick in the air. 

A few familiar faces waved, dragging him deeper into the crowd, but Leo noticed him before he noticed anyone else.

Lee Sangwon.

Leaning against the DJ Booth, one elbow perched on the polished wood, a drink half-forgotten in his hand. He’s laughing too loudly at something someone said, eyes sparkling with mischief and something else.

Something Leo couldn’t name but felt anyway, in the back of his chest. 

Sangwon was impossible to miss, of course. Too radiant, too present, the kind of energy that seemed to bend the room toward him.

They had known of each other long before that night, though never properly. Never through conversations, never through interactions.

Instead, it was through glimpses in overlapping circles—friends’ gatherings that spilled into dimly lit clubs, nights that hummed with bass and laughter, the smell of alcohol thick in the air.

Leo had seen him from across crowded dance floors, leaning against a pillar with a drink or cigarette in hand, dark eyes catching the light and holding it just long enough to make him notice. 

Each encounter was fleeting—an exchange of glances, a shared laugh from someone else’s joke—but each left a residue, a quiet awareness. 

Neither ever spoke then. 

A nod, a smile, a quick lock of eyes in a crowd—they were always near, orbiting the same constellation of people, never colliding until the right moment. 

And in those fleeting, unacknowledged encounters, a quiet curiosity had taken root—soft, persistent, impossible to ignore. It lingered like smoke in the corners of memory, waiting. A burning interest.

Leo could feel it in the last few times they've seen each other. 

A shift in the air, a tension in the way bodies moved, laughter carrying a sharper edge, glances that lingered longer than they should. 

Tonight, the universe had nudged them closer again. 

The same bar, the same pulsing lights, the same crowd—but somehow, everything felt subtly, irrevocably different.

Leo’s gaze lingered longer than he intended, tracing the curve of Sangwon’s jaw, the way his laugh widened the edges of his mouth, the subtle arrogance in the tilt of his shoulders. 

A curl of smoke rose from Sangwon’s vape, haloing him, curling around him like it belonged there. 

Leo blinked, frowning at himself. He’d never been attracted to people who smoked. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t safe. 

And yet, he couldn’t look away. 

Something in the chaos, in the careless curl of Sangwon’s wrist, the mischievous glint in his eyes—it made Leo ache in a way he hadn’t expected.

The people around Sangwon seemed drawn like moths to flame, laughing at everything he said, leaning just a little closer. 

Leo felt the tug, strong and sharp. 

Not just the charm, not just the smoke, but something in the way Sangwon moved, the way he didn’t try—he just was. 

And for reasons Leo couldn’t rationalize, he wanted it all. He tried to look away, but the pull was too magnetic.

Unsurprisingly, Sangwon noticed.

Of course, he did.

“You’ve been staring,” he said, sidling up to Leo with a smirk that was both sharp and lazy, his voice a silky challenge.

Leo didn’t flinch.

“I’m just… observing,” he replied, voice even and deliberate, though the heat rising at the back of his neck betrayed him.

“Observing?” Sangwon arched a brow, a glint in his eye. “That’s a fancy way of saying ‘I like what I see.’”

Leo’s lips twitched. 

He didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, and yet—just so slightly—the corner of his mouth betrayed him. “Maybe I just like to watch chaos in its natural habitat,” he said, measured, though the words made his pulse spike.

“Chaos, huh?” Sangwon laughed, a sound that was sharp. Then slow and teasing, “you think I’m chaotic?”

“You’re… something,” Leo said, choosing his words with precision, “and you pull people in. But there’s a method to it.”

Sangwon leaned closer. Just enough that Leo felt the heat radiating off him, smelled the faint, lingering tang of smoke at the edges of his jacket. 

“Methodical chaos,” he mused, tasting the words on his tongue. “And you? Observing from the sidelines, judging everyone?”

“I prefer noticing patterns,” Leo’s pulse thudded. “Subtle things people don’t see.”

Sangwon’s grin widened, and Leo caught it then—the tilt of his head, almost imperceptible but deliberate. As if he were measuring him, weighing him. 

“I like you,” he said simply. Before Leo could gather his thoughts, Sangwon added with a faint shrug, “not that it matters. Yet.”

The words hit like a quiet tremor through Leo’s chest. 

Sangwon wasn’t asking—he was declaring, staking a claim in the quiet chaos between them.

And it unsettled Leo, threading through his chest with a weight he didn’t want to name.

He opened his mouth, then closed it, swallowing the heat, the sudden tightness, the flutter that ran through his veins. 

Sangwon was havoc incarnate—wild, unrelenting, unpredictable. And somehow, inexplicably, he had Leo caught in his motion in an instant.

Somewhere amid their half-jokes and teasing nudges, the bar’s noise receded. Not completely, but into a muted hum. 

The crowd pressed in around them, yet they manage to exist in a bubble of their own. A private orbit of light and heat, accidental and insistent.

Leo laughed at something Sangwon said, a laugh that surprised him by how effortless it felt. 

Sangwon’s chuckle followed, soft and low, brushing against Leo’s arm in a touch that lingered, deliberate. Too long to be casual.

“You’re warm,” Sangwon murmured, leaning just a fraction closer, voice low and conspiratorial, heavy with something unspoken. “But don't stand too close, you might regret it.”

Leo arched a brow, heart stuttering in time with his pulse, “might regret what?”

“You’ll find out,” Sangwon said, shrugging with lazy confidence, eyes glinting with a challenge and a promise that Leo could already feel coiling around him like a slow, inevitable tide. 

“Everyone does, eventually.”

In that moment, the laughter, the music, the pressing crowd—everything else fell away. 

It was just them, electric and dangerous, teetering on the edge of something neither wanted to name, yet both already felt.

When the bar began to thin, when the music shifted to slower, sticky songs and the lights dimmed, Sangwon found himself tugging Leo toward the door. 

“Somewhere quieter?” his voice was casual, effortless. But the tremor beneath it betrayed something unspoken.

Leo hesitated. He should’ve said no. 

He should’ve stayed still, rational. 

But when Sangwon’s hand brushed his—warm and insistent—the hesitation fell away. Leo let himself be pulled forward, the wet city blurring around them, until only the space between their bodies mattered.

By the time they reached Leo’s apartment, the world had faded into insignificance. 

The lights were low, amber, spilling lazy warmth across the space. Outside, rain drummed a steady rhythm against the windows. 

Sangwon leaned against the doorway, breathless, a grin tugging at his lips. 

Inside, the apartment smelled of paper, ink, and the faint residue of coffee—the essence of Leo’s life made tangible.

Sangwon moved slowly, letting his fingers trace the edges of sketches pinned to the walls, lingering on the delicate creations that trembled like a heartbeat. 

Each piece drew him in. 

The swirl of a cage drawn in graphite, the careful smudges of watercolor capturing light and shadow, tiny marks that spoke of detail and care. 

Sangwon crouched, studied a sketch at eye level, tilted his head, and whispered, almost to himself, “you’re good.”

Leo watched silently, heartbeat quickening. 

Sangwon’s gaze didn’t flinch—it lingered where his own eyes had, tracing lines, searching for meaning, absorbing the fragments of Leo’s world that he’d only glimpsed in passing.

Every painting, every taped note, felt like a trace of Leo—his obsessions, his focus, the quiet care he poured into each one.

“You’re a sculpting major, right?” Sangwon asked, voice low, teasing, a subtle edge of curiosity curling through it.

Leo nodded, hesitant, “yeah.”

Sangwon’s hands found his—slender, delicate, soft—against Leo’s large, calloused, thick fingers. The contrast was electric.

Leo’s throat tightened, a faint tremor running through him.

Did he imagine the way Sangwon’s lips pressed together, biting ever so slightly, eyes tracing the planes and veins of his hands with something dangerously intent?

Or was it the light, the alcohol that was barely in his system?

“So…” Sangwon’s voice drifts low, and with a subtle, deliberate pressure, he guides Leo’s hands to his waist. The motion is casual, effortless—yet charged and magnetic.

The curve of Sangwon’s hips fit perfectly under Leo’s fingers, almost enveloping him. The contact made something coil tight and dangerous in Leo’s chest.

“That means you’re good with your hands, then?” Sangwon murmured, lips curling, eyes holding him in that piercing, teasing way.

Leo didn’t answer, didn’t dare to.

But Sangwon smirked, noticing the slightest tightening of Leo’s grip. He steps closer until the warmth of his body pressed inescapably against Leo’s.

“You smell good,” Sangwon whispered, tipping his head so that the faint brush of his hair and the soft edge of his lips grazed Leo’s face. 

The words were soft, almost incidental, but they carried a weight that settled in Leo’s chest, making it ache.

Leo didn’t resist when Sangwon’s fingers brushed the collar of his jacket. Didn’t pull away when warmth radiated through Sangwon’s palms onto the thin fabric of his shirt, tracing the contours of his chest.

The sketches on the walls, the faint scent of smoke and liquor, the rain pelting outside—they all fell away.

It’s only them.

Two people orbiting the same fragile space, testing a gravity neither wanted to escape, finding it irresistible.

Sangwon leaned in, lips brushing Leo’s in a kiss that was slow, electric, and utterly demanding in its quiet intensity. 

Leo answered without thought, without caution. 

The taste of him was bittersweet, smoke and whiskey laced with something unexpectedly sweet—strawberries, maybe—or just the memory of it.

Nevertheless, Leo decides he likes the taste of Sangwon.

And just like that, Leo knew the orbit they now share wouldn't end with just one night.

Not for him, not for Sangwon.

Leo wakes up first. 

The early light spills pale and gray through the blinds, slicing the room into quiet, slanted beams. 

Every detail is sharpened in the hush of exhaustion. A jacket crumpled on the floor, scuffed sneakers shoved carelessly by the bed, a half-empty water bottle teetering on the nightstand.

And then, there’s Sangwon.

Present, achingly, impossibly there in the way that had become a quiet inevitability over the recent nights they’d spent together.

Sangwon used to be a shadow in the early hours, slipping away before the sun rose, before Leo woke up, before either of them could acknowledge that whatever this—this heat, this chaos, this fucked up thing between them—was already too real to name.

But it hadn’t been like that for a while.

Now, Sangwon is here. 

Sprawled across Leo’s sheets as if he belonged there—one arm thrown lazily over his face, a shield against the world. 

Leo’s shirt that Sangwon threw on last night has ridden up, revealing the pale arc of his stomach and the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing. 

In this soft light, Sangwon looks impossibly younger, stripped of the mayhem he usually drags in his wake.

Leo watches him, each heartbeat sharp and dragging all at once, a simultaneous torment and blessing. 

Every subtle rise of his chest, every languid stretch of his fingers feels sacred, like a secret carved out of the world just for him. 

He wants to memorize this Sangwon—soft, unguarded, untethered from the storms he usually carries—before the mask slides back into place.

Before the casual shrug, the playful deflection, the effortless erasure of what they just were.

The sunlight spills over Sangwon’s cheek, catching the curve of his jaw, the sweep of his lashes. Leo’s hand twitches, betraying the pull of something he's not allowed to name yet can't control. 

He wants to reach out. Desperately.

To brush the stray hair from Sangwon’s forehead, to press his lips there, to whisper stay.

But Leo doesn’t move. Never does.

Sangwon stirs. Slow at first, a tilt of the head, a breath catching, eyes half-open and bleary. Recognition slides in gradually, soft as dawn. 

And then, a smile. Small, soft, and devastating. The kind that undoes you from the inside out.

“Hey,” Sangwon says, voice roughened with sleep but still that teasing cadence, as if this—the two of them here, tangled in quiet light—is normal. 

As if Leo’s world isn’t hanging by a thread.

“Hi,” Leo rasped, voice caught somewhere between awe and surrender.

For a long moment, they just look at each other, a fragile truce in the soft glow of early light. Words are unnecessary, even breathing feels intimate. 

And somewhere beneath the steady thrum of his heart, Leo realizes that mornings like this—slow, gentle, theirs—are the rarest kind of forever.

A slow ruin.

Sangwon sits up, stretching with a groan that echoes through the quiet room, the sheets rustling around him. 

He reaches for the water bottle, hands slightly trembling, and gulps it down in greedy, uneven pulls. The back of his hand wipes at his mouth, and then a low, hoarse laugh escapes him.

“Shit,” he mutters, voice rough, teasing but fragile at the edges. “I was wrecked last night, huh?”

Leo doesn’t answer. He doesn’t trust himself to. The words might betray too much, might let the ache that’s been knotting his chest spill free.

Sangwon leans back on his palms, head tilting toward Leo, eyes catching the morning light in a way that makes them look softer, almost vulnerable. 

For a fleeting heartbeat, the mask slips—just enough for Leo to see the raw, unguarded man beneath the chaos. 

Then, like smoke, it’s gone.

Sangwon shrugs, the careless act too polished to be real, and says, “thanks again, by the way. For… you know, taking care of me.”

“Yeah,” Leo manages, forcing a small, brittle smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Sure. Anytime.”

The words taste like broken glass, sharp against his tongue. Anytime.

Because he means it. 

Because he hates that he means it. 

Because no matter how much he tells himself to step back, to keep boundaries, this—Sangwon—manages to pull him in anyway.

Sangwon hums, turning his attention toward the door, already somewhere else in thought, already mapping out the rest of his morning. 

“I’ve got class in an hour. I should—” he trails off, and Leo knows he doesn’t need to finish the sentence. The implication is enough. 

The leaving is imminent.

Leo swallows, heart tight, watching Sangwon gather his things like a storm folding into itself—swift, messy, as though he was never there. 

Jacket over his shoulders, shoes slid on, a last brush of hands across the counter like a whisper goodbye.

And then the door clicks shut.

Leo exhales, slow and heavy, letting go of the tension he’s been holding in his chest since late last night. 

The room smells faintly of Sangwon—cigarette smoke, a lingering trace of cologne, the warmth he leaves behind. 

And for a moment, the quiet isn’t just silence. 

It’s a reminder of the storm, the chaos, the weight of everything that came with him, and the quiet tether that keeps Leo tied to it anyway.

He sinks back into the sheets, letting the stillness press against him, and wonders whether being close to Sangwon would always feel like both a punishment and a privilege.

The campus thrummed with the kind of afternoon sunlight that polished even the cracked walkways and faded banners into something deceptively bright. 

Students streamed across the quad, voices overlapping in a pleasant cacophony—laughter, footsteps, the rustle of papers being shoved into backpacks, the hiss of campus wide announcements in distant courtyards.

Leo moved through it all, earbuds in, music cushioning him from the noise, eyes flicking over half-finished lecture notes he was still trying to absorb. 

The words blurred on the page, a dull drone against the rhythm of the day.

And then he sees him.

Sangwon leaned against the stone curb of the smoking area by the convenience store nearest the campus gate, the late afternoon sun catching the sharp planes of his jaw. 

The faint curl of smoke wavered from the cigarette dangling carelessly between his fingers, twisting and drifting into the warm air. 

His legs were crossed, one foot tapping lightly against the concrete, posture effortless like he owned this small slice of the world.

He laughed—loud, unrestrained, carrying too far down the walkway—at something Anxin and Xinlong had been arguing about, and it was the kind of laugh that drew eyes without trying, the kind that made you notice him before you even realized it. 

He tilted his head, the sun glinting off the waves of his hair, as if daring the world or anyone walking past to interrupt him.

There was ruin in the ease of Sangwon, a magnetic disorder that made even the hum of the campus fade behind the rhythm of his presence.

Leo slows, because of course he does.

Sangwon exhales smoke into the orange sky, tilts his head back, the sun catching the bruise on his jaw that Leo noticed in the dark last night. 

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” Junseo’s voice cuts through the hum of the passing cars, brow arched as he emerges from the store and pauses beside them.

“What’s the point?” Sangwon waves him off with a lazy flick of his hand. “Half these professors don’t even notice if you show up. I’ll ace the final somehow.” 

His grin is effortless, a careless challenge to the rules he’s supposed to follow.

Leo lingers, the green pedestrian light a distant promise he doesn’t yet cross. He watches Sangwon tilt his head back, laugh too loud, too free, as if the world bends just for him.

A tight knot coils in Leo’s chest. 

He wants to march forward, snatch the cigarette from Sangwon’s fingers—shake him, scold him, tell him he’s better than this. 

Leo wants to grab him and pull him somewhere safer, somewhere quiet. Keep him from burning out before anyone can notice how bright he really is.

But he doesn’t. 

Instead, Leo turns the volume up in his earbuds, pretends the music is enough to mask the ache, and keeps walking.

Because he’s just a friend. Maybe not even.

Just the voice on the other end of a 2 a.m. call. Just the bed Sangwon stumbles into when the night is too heavy and he’s drank too much.

And still, as he rounds the corner, the sound follows him—Sangwon’s laugh, sharp and alive, echoing in the spaces Leo can’t quite escape.

The workshop smells of wet clay, turpentine, and pencil shavings. A haze of creativity thick enough to make the edges of the world feel soft. 

Leo leans over his sculpture, hands smudged with gray, rolling the clay along a curve until it obeys the vision in his head. 

Around him, his classmates chatter, brushes clinking, laughter spilling across the room like sunlight through the tall windows.

He barely listens—until someone brings it up.

“So, like, are you guys seeing anyone?” one of the girls asks casually, spinning a potter’s wheel with one hand. 

The conversation veers into murmurs of dating disasters, vague confessions, teasing about who’s interested in whom.

Leo glances up, half-focused, but something about the cadence, the teasing, the way everyone’s eyes flicker around the room, catches his attention. 

It isn’t aimed at him, yet a strange thread of tension pricks at his chest.

A classmate laughs too loudly, mimicking a swooning partner. Another groans, lamenting a crush gone wrong.

And then, he hears it. 

Someone brings up an unrequited mess—a friend being trailed by a suitor who just won’t quit. 

The story drifts across the studio like fog, followed by a ripple of laughter. It stirs something under Leo’s ribs.

He keeps his hands busy with the clay, but his ears tilt toward the conversation all the same, words catching like burrs on fabric.

A warmth blooms in his chest he can’t quite place, and he finds himself staring at the words like they’re a key, a small puzzle piece he didn’t know he was missing.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t respond. 

The conversation continues around him, but he can’t quite shake it—the thought lingering, unspoken, as stubborn and insistent as a shadow following him across the floor.

“Unrequited,” Geonwoo says, leaning back on his stool with a roll of his shoulder, “that’s brutal. Imagine wasting all that time.”

“Or,” Jiahao cuts in, smiling as he carves into the wood block before him, “maybe they like it. Some people live off the yearning.” His gaze flicks sideways, sharp in its casualness, “right, Leo?”

Leo doesn’t look up. 

He presses his thumb deeper into the clay, shaping a curve that doesn’t need shaping, “I wouldn’t know.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Geonwoo teases, nudging his foot against Leo’s. “You’ve been awfully quiet these days whenever Sangwon’s name comes up.”

Leo exhales through his nose—half a laugh, half a warning, “we’re just friends.”

“Friends who…” Jiahao drawls, twirling his carving tool in deliberate circles, “keep each other up at night?”

Geonwoo lets out a low whistle, “friends who share more benefits than most?”

Leo’s jaw tightens. “It’s not like that,” he snaps, too sharp. Just then, he catches himself, exhales, “we’re just… convenient.”

Jiahao and Geonwoo’s brows lift, eyes darting towards each other in silent knowing, but they say nothing despite wanting to. 

Leo doesn’t look at them, nor does he say anything more. He keeps his gaze fixed on the clay, thumb pressing too hard, smoothing edges he’s already gone through multiple times. 

Because saying anything else out loud makes it sound more and more like the undeniable reality that what he and Sangwon have is impossible.

Like a puzzle with missing and broken pieces.

And the truth—raw and unshaped—sits heavier than the clay in his hands, refusing to be molded into something so simple.

Leo didn't want to be here.

He’d said as much when Harry shoved the house party flyer into his hand at workshop closing, paint still drying on his knuckles, and again when Junmin texted ‘don’t be boring’ three times in a row.

But here he is anyway, swallowed by the suffocating dark of the house’s living room turned dance floor.

Bass hammers his ribs like a second heartbeat. The air is thick—smoke, sweat, perfume bleeding together into something almost poisonous. 

He clutches his drink, half-melted ice in cheap liquor, and tries not to get dizzy in the haze.

And then, Leo sees Sangwon.

The crowd parts, only for a moment, and the lights catch him in pieces—green, then blue, then a brutal white strobe. He’s moving, always moving, shirt hugging his chest, hair styled, mouth curved sharp. 

There are hands on him—friends, strangers, it doesn’t matter. Sangwon leans into all of it, welcomes the pull like the chaos was made for him.

Leo can’t look away.

Sangwon is reckless joy in human form. Head tipped back, laughter spilling, smirk curling like he’s tasted something dangerous and liked it. 

He glows in the ruin of the room, too radiant, too alive, too much.

And Leo feels it—the ache of wanting him, the burn of knowing he doesn’t belong here, not in this world Sangwon thrives in.

Someone collides with Leo, jarring his arm and sending liquor spilling cold down his wrist. 

He mutters an apology swallowed instantly by the bass, wipes the sticky trail against his jeans. He turns back just in time to see it—Leo freezes.

Sangwon’s head tipped, lips parted in a smile too bright, too easy. A guy leans into his ear, mouth brushing close enough to graze skin, whispering something that makes Sangwon’s grin widen, sharp and devastating. 

The guy’s hand lingers on his waist, and Sangwon doesn’t move it away. He basks in it, soaking in the attention like it belongs to him.

It’s the kind of closeness Leo knows he’ll never have in daylight, or anywhere where other eyes could see.

His chest tightens. He looks away, pushing toward the back wall, desperate for air. The heat burns his throat, the floor sticks to his shoes, bodies close in from every angle. 

Leo hates it. He hates all of it. He hates himself, most of all, for coming—for being here just because he knew Sangwon will be.

Time smears, blurred by bass and the bodies that just kept growing in numbers—minutes, maybe more—until Sangwon emerges.

He bursts free of the crowd like he was born of it, hair mussed from too much movement, grin reckless and unrestrained. The kind of smile that dares the world to keep up.

His eyes sweep the room once, twice until they find Leo, sharp and certain, like he’s been searching all along. 

The inevitability of it steals Leo’s breath, as if this moment had been written before either of them stepped inside.

“There you are,” Sangwon says, voice smoothened to velvet, slipping into the narrow space beside Leo as if it belonged to him. “Kangmin said you were around.”

Before Leo can respond, Sangwon plucks the drink from his hand, drains what’s left in a single tilt of his head and grimaces, “that’s weak, and kind of disgusting.”

Leo doesn’t answer, just scoffs with no bite.

Sangwon leans closer, light strobes tangling across his hair, cologne sharp on his skin. His words press against Leo’s ear, coaxing, “don't look like that! You’re at a party, loosen up.”

Leo’s gaze doesn’t break. His voice is quiet, steady enough to cut through the noise, “you seem like you’re burning yourself alive.”

For the barest instant, Sangwon stills. The grin falters, his expression too raw, too open.

Then, gone. 

“I am, aren't I?” a sharp laugh bursts out of Sangwon, careless as ever, as he throws an arm around Leo’s shoulders. “And you’re here to watch.”

Leo swallows the hurt, lets it sit in his chest like ash, and lets Sangwon hold him anyway.

The music is too loud, the air too thick.

At some point, Leo slips away—through the sweat-drenched crowd, past the sticky floors—to the balcony. 

Out here, the bass dulls to a distant heartbeat, more felt than heard. The night air is sharp, cool against his overheated skin. 

He grips the railing until his knuckles ache, staring out at the scatter of city lights, willing his chest to loosen.

The door creaks behind him. 

“I go to the washroom for two minutes and you’re already running away?” Sangwon’s voice, liquor-slick and teasing, cuts through the cold like it belongs there.

Leo turns.

Sangwon leans against the frame, cigarette balanced between his lips, lighter sparking. 

The flame flares just long enough to carve his face out of the shadow—cheekbones sharp, eyes glinting—before the glow dies and smoke fills the gap. He exhales slowly, deliberate, a bitter cloud curling like ghosts into the night. 

Then, with unhurried ease, Sangwon steps forward and slides the balcony door shut behind him.

Leo grimaces, though his pulse stutters. “That’s gonna kill you one day,” he says, voice rougher than he intends.

Sangwon smirks around the cigarette, leaning backwards against the railing. “So dramatic,” he says as he tips his head back, blowing another plume into the night sky. 

“Everything kills you one day.”

“Some things faster than others,” Leo mutters. His eyes track the ember burning down, the way Sangwon’s fingers cradle it, elegant and careless all at once.

Sangwon looks back at him, amused, eyes sharp under the low amber of the balcony light. Then, stepping closer, he holds the cigarette out, hovering it just inches from Leo’s mouth.

“Wanna try? Might as well start counting down together.”

Leo’s stomach knots. He doesn’t move, doesn’t take it—but the nearness, the taunt, the invitation—it’s enough to make his breath falter.

Sangwon laughs softly, pulling it back, “thought so.” He draws in again, lips closing smooth around the filter, cheeks hollowing in practiced ease. 

When he exhales, the smoke unfurls in a slow, languid stream—angled deliberately away from Leo, a bitter cloud curling into the night like something withheld.

Leo’s jaw tightens. 

The dismissal is small, offhand, but it settles like a splinter beneath his skin. 

Sangwon doesn’t even look at him when he says it—like it was inevitable, like Leo would never dare. 

And maybe he wouldn’t. 

Maybe he shouldn’t. 

But the more Sangwon leans into that grin, the more Leo feels the ache of distance. The line between them drawn too clean, too easy. 

Leo decides, right then and there, that he doesn’t want to be left outside of Sangwon’s recklessness. Not tonight. Not when Sangwon’s mouth still glows red in the dark.

So when he hears himself speak, the words land heavier than he intended.

“Let me try.”

Sangwon stills, cigarette caught midair, ember glowing faint between his fingers. His brow arches, slow and curious. 

For a beat, only the music from inside fills the silence.

“You don’t smoke,” he says at last, shifting his weight to one side, elbow propped on the railing like he has all the time in the world to study Leo. 

Sangwon’s eyes linger, half amused and half assessing, the grin tugging at his mouth edged with something sharper, “you’d choke, Leo.”

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,” Leo shrugs, but the gesture is tighter than casual, his head tilting toward Sangwon. 

The skyline stretches past them, windows glittering like a hundred false constellations, but Leo’s eyes don’t stray.

“And you still do,” he says, voice low, steady. “So?”

That earns him a laugh—small, sharp, threaded with smoke, “always the smartass.”

Sangwon lifts the cigarette again, lips closing around the filter. His cheeks hollow, eyes hooded, dangerous in their calm. 

When he exhales this time, it’s intentional—direct—smoke unfurling toward Leo in a slow, deliberate stream.

It curls between them, bitter and intoxicating, reaching for Leo’s lungs before he can turn away. He flinches at the sting but doesn’t move, doesn’t give ground. 

He stays, holding the thin strip of space, holding Sangwon’s gaze through the haze.

Sangwon tilts his head, watching him like he’s testing the edges of a blade. The grin slips into something quieter, sharper, unreadable.

“You sure you want to try?” His voice drops, curling around the words like a dare.

Leo almost says no. Almost. The word teeters at the back of his throat.

But the alcohol hums warm in his blood, and Sangwon’s eyes gleam in the dark like they’re holding the night itself.

And for a second—just a second—he wants to know what it feels like to take something from Sangwon. To pretend he belongs to him.

So, Leo nods.

Sangwon grins, slow and sharp, like he’s just won something he hadn’t even been chasing. 

He lifts the cigarette between two fingers, studies Leo a moment longer—like he’s waiting for him to flinch, to back down—then finally, almost lazily, he holds it out.

“Alright,” he says, voice dipped in smoke and challenge. “Just breathe in.”

Leo takes it, awkward in his grip, the cigarette light between his fingers and yet impossibly heavy. The filter is still warm—Sangwon’s warmth—and for one reckless beat it feels like holding his mouth.

Without giving himself time to think, to hesitate, Leo lifts it and draws a breath. 

Too quick. 

Too deep.

The bitterness hits him at once. 

Smoke rushes into his throat, burns down his lungs like fire and ash. He chokes, coughing hard, eyes stinging, throat clawing against it. 

Leo’s chest seizes, tears prick at the corners of his eyes before he can stop them.

Sangwon laughs—not cruel, but sharp and knowing, cutting through the night. He plucks the cigarette back from Leo’s hand with practiced ease, like he’d known it would end like this.

“See?” he says, still grinning, smoke curling from his lips. “Told you you’d choke.”

Leo’s still coughing hard, thumping a fist against his chest as the remnants of the bitterness claws down his throat. He tips his head back, swiping at the stray tears with the heel of his hand.

“That tasted fucking vile,” Leo hisses between ragged breaths, his voice roughened by the burn.

Sangwon scoffs, a sharp sound edged with amusement as smoke drifts lazily from his mouth, “I know.”

Leo wipes the back of his hand across his eyes, throat still raw. “Then, why do it?” he rasps.

Sangwon only shrugs, lifting the cigarette back to his mouth. “Dunno,” he inhales, slow and measured, exhaling a pale ribbon into the night, “it makes my head quiet.”

Leo flicks him a glance, but says nothing. 

The silence between them stretches, filled only with the hum of traffic below and the faint pulse of music behind the glass door.

“It makes the world quiet,” Sangwon repeats, softer this time. His eyes catch the city glow, glinting with something unreadable, unrecognizable.

And Leo sees it—like a fading light hidden among a tree of bright gleams, something fragile beneath the blaze.

Leo studies him, the way the ember flares in the dark, the way Sangwon’s eyes catch the city light like they’re reflecting something heavier than he’ll ever admit.

Leo’s voice cuts through the smoke, quiet but edged like glass, “show me, then.”

Sangwon stills, head turning back to him.

The ember at the tip of his cigarette burns down with no answer, only the faint hiss of ash dropping against the railing.

He blinks once, slow, like he’s trying to decide if he heard right, “what?”

Leo doesn’t look away, he doesn’t let himself. His pulse is in his throat, his jaw set tight. 

“The quiet,” he says, lower now, steadier, “show me.”

For a moment, Sangwon just watches him, cigarette caught loose between his fingers, lips parted as if he’s going to laugh it off. 

But he doesn’t. 

The smile that finally breaks over Sangwon’s mouth isn’t careless—it’s dangerous, something sharp that curls like a match catching flame.

Sangwon doesn’t answer with words. 

He just takes a long drag, the glow burning bright between his fingers. Then he steps forward until Leo’s back hits the railing with a muted thud. 

They’re close now—too close—the heat of Sangwon’s body seeping through the thin space left between them. His free hand lifts, fingers curving under Leo’s jaw, tilting it. 

Leo swallows, the pulse in his throat betraying him. And then, devastating in its ease, Sangwon leans in. 

Their mouths barely brush before Sangwon exhales. 

Smoke floods between them, searing, bitter, invading Leo’s lungs with a heat that makes his eyes sting. 

He wants to cough, wants to turn away—but Sangwon’s mouth is on his, his hand firm at his jaw, and Leo refuses to break. 

He takes it in, forces the burn down, clinging to the shape of Sangwon’s lips, the warmth of his palm, the press of his body closing him in.

It’s not just smoke Leo’s breathing in. 

It’s Sangwon—his taste, his recklessness, the quiet danger of him. 

It overwhelms, consumes, and Leo lets it. 

Because there’s no air sweeter than this bitter smoke.

Not when it comes from Sangwon’s lips. Not when it tastes like him.

Not when you’re drowning for the weight of someone’s hand on your skin, for the press that says stay, even if it burns.

Not when you’re desperate—pathetic in your want—not to be let go of.

When Sangwon finally pulls back, their lips still grazing, Leo exhales a shaky breath that feels like surrender.

Then, expectedly, Leo coughs against it. 

But the sound is immediately swallowed by Sangwon’s mouth, by the press of his tongue, by the way it feels like kissing fire.

Sangwon’s weight leans into him until Leo has nowhere to go but closer, until the railing digs into his back and the only thing keeping him upright is the boy consuming him whole. 

For one wild second, it feels like belonging—like he’s been burning for this without ever knowing it, like he’s finally caught in the place he was always meant to fall.

Sangwon drops the cigarette, grinding it out under his heel without breaking the kiss. 

His mouth moves against Leo’s with a feverish insistence, hungry and unrelenting, lips parting wider to taste, to take. 

The heat of it is dizzying. 

Every time Leo thinks he can breathe, Sangwon drags him back under, tongue slipping in and claiming.

Leo clutches at his wrists, at his waist, like if he lets go Sangwon might disappear into smoke and night air. 

“Shit, Sangwon—”

Sangwon doesn’t let Leo breathe, doesn’t let him think—pressing closer, tilting his head just so, biting his bottom lip and swallowing the groan that escapes him.

It’s messy, wet, their teeth catching, breaths colliding in shallow gasps that only break to surge in again. 

The railing digs into Leo’s spine, but all he feels is Sangwon everywhere—on his mouth, in his lungs, under his skin.

Sangwon’s hand slips down, slow, purposeful, tracing the heat of his chest. Lower, lower still, until his palm presses firmly over the bulge straining at Leo’s jeans. 

His fingers curl, squeeze, stroke once—deliberate, cruelly slow. Leo moans into the kiss, ragged and gone.

“Hard already?” Sangwon breathes against his mouth, lips curved into a glinting smirk. “Didn’t think a few kisses would wreck you this bad.”

Leo scoffs sharp through his teeth, and in the same breath shoves him back. 

Sangwon’s back hits the wall with a dull thud as Leo cages him in with both arms, chest flush against his, thigh driving between his legs until the friction is impossible to ignore.

The sound that rips out of Sangwon is raw, cut off halfway into a gasp as his hips jerk forward, grinding down hard on Leo’s thigh. 

His fingers claw at Leo’s shoulders, mouth breaking open in a half-strangled moan.

“Fuck,” Leo curses under his breath, his head tipping back for one ragged moment, just to take in the sight.

Sangwon undone, messy and gorgeous, writhing against him like he can’t help himself. 

His voice drops, dark and rough, grazing Sangwon’s ear, “guess it doesn’t take much to wreck you either.”

“Keep talking,” Sangwon’s laugh is low, breathless, a taunt threaded through with need. “See what happens.”

Leo doesn’t need to be told twice. 

He crushes their mouths together again, bruising and wild, teeth clashing. His thigh presses higher, harder, and Sangwon grinds down with shameless rhythm, chasing it like he’s starving for the friction.

Their kiss turns messy, wet—panting into each other’s mouths, devouring like they’ve been holding this in for years.

“Leo, fuck—” Sangwon moans against his lips, voice breaking on the sound, hips rutting down harder.

Leo swallows it with a groan of his own, tugging Sangwon closer, almost lifting him onto his thigh. 

“Greedy,” he growls into his mouth, dark and hoarse, “look at you, already falling apart.”

Sangwon fists a hand in his hair, yanking hard enough to make Leo grunt into his teeth. 

“Shut up,” he pants, but the words dissolve into another shiver of a moan when Leo’s hand slides down, gripping his hip and grinding him down harder against his thigh.

“Won’t,” Leo hisses, catching his mouth again, devouring the gasp that spills out. “Not when you sound like that.”

Every roll of Sangwon’s hips sends sparks flashing through Leo’s blood, every ragged noise bleeding from Sangwon’s throat making his cock throb, straining hard against denim.

They’re not even undressed yet, but it feels obscene.

Sangwon grinding against his thigh like he can’t stop himself, Leo caging him in. The night air thick with smoke and the taste of desperation between their teeth.

The night blurs. 

One second, they’re on the balcony—bitter smoke clinging to Leo’s tongue. The next, Sangwon’s tugging him back inside, through the press of bodies, through lights that flicker across his grin.

“Come on,” Sangwon slurs, breathless, fingers hooked in Leo’s sleeve like he’ll fall without him.

Leo doesn’t ask where. He never does.

By the time they spill into Sangwon’s apartment, it’s past 3 a.m. The quiet feels jarring after the party, like stepping into another world.

The door barely clicks shut before Sangwon’s on him again, shoving him back against it, kissing him hard enough to bruise. 

Their teeth clash, a sharp sting that only makes them hungrier. 

Leo groans into his mouth, hands already dragging under Sangwon’s shirt, desperate to feel skin.

“Fuck,” Sangwon gasps against his lips. His fingers fumble with Leo’s belt, clumsy, frantic. “Need you—now.”

Leo’s laugh is low, breathless, a taunt against his mouth, “can’t even wait, huh?”

“Shut up,” Sangwon mutters, but his hands are shaking as they shove the jacket off Leo’s shoulders, tugging at his shirt next. 

His mouth finds Leo’s jaw, then his neck, biting down just hard enough to make Leo curse and buck against him.

Clothes scatter in a trail—jacket, shirt, shoes kicked carelessly aside—as they stumble deeper inside, mouths glued together, hands pulling and pushing, clawing at each other like they’ll tear apart if they let go.

By the time they reach the couch, Sangwon pushes Leo down with a grin sharp enough to split him open.

He climbs onto his lap, straddling him, grinding down hard enough to make them both groan. 

The friction is brutal—heat pressed against heat, the thickness of denim doing nothing to hide how hard Leo is, how pent up Sangwon already is through his own jeans. 

Every roll of his hips makes it clearer, messier, obscene.

“Fuck, you’re hard,” Sangwon breathes, rocking against him shamelessly, head tipped back, lips parted. “Just because of me?”

Leo’s hands grip his waist, holding him down, forcing him to grind harder. He smirks up at him, voice rough, wrecked.

“Why don’t you find out?”

Sangwon groans, head tipping back as Leo’s mouth drags down his throat—biting, sucking, leaving bruises across his skin. 

The sounds spilling out of him are shameless, loud in the quiet of the apartment, each one spurring Leo on.

Somehow—half-lost in the mess of kissing, grinding, tugging Sangwon’s pants off—there’s lube within reach. Sangwon fumbles it onto the couch cushion, and Leo’s quick to snatch it up, slicking his fingers.

“Relax,” he murmurs against Sangwon’s chest, though his voice is anything but. 

The first finger presses in, stretching him open—slow at first, then faster when Sangwon arches into the touch, gasping, nails digging into Leo’s shoulders.

“Leo, fuck—” Sangwon whines, grinding down, desperate for more. “Do it faster.”

Leo bites at his collarbone, teeth sharp against flushed skin, the sting chased by a hot tongue. “Don’t be a brat,” he hisses.

“Asshole, just—” Sangwon cuts himself off with a shudder, hips rocking helplessly against Leo’s hand, “more.”

Leo groans low, shoving another finger into him, the tight heat clenching around him like a vice. 

“Greedy,” he mutters against Sangwon’s throat, biting down hard enough to bruise as he curls his fingers, dragging a broken moan out of him.

Sangwon claws at his shoulders, back arching. “Ah—shit, there—” his voice cracks, falling into something wrecked, shameless. 

“Don’t stop—don’t—”

Leo doesn’t. He twists his wrist, scissoring him open, his other hand pressing hard at the base of Sangwon’s spine to hold him still. 

Every push is deliberate, stretching him wider, deeper, until Sangwon is trembling against him, sweat slicking down his chest, curses spilling like prayer. 

His cock drags against his own stomach with every move, flushed and leaking, smearing wetness across his skin in messy streaks. 

Each thrust of Leo’s fingers makes him buck harder, desperate for more friction, more pressure, more of anything.

“You’re always so fucking tight,” Leo growls, mouth moving across his collarbones, sucking marks into searing skin. “Taking my fingers so good, Sangwon. Fuck.”

Sangwon’s thighs shake where they’re braced beside Leo, his head tipping back, lips parted in a choked whine when Leo slips in a third finger. 

He’s soaked for it, mess of the lube dripping down Leo’s knuckles, making every thrust sound obscene.

“Leo—” Sangwon’s voice is wrecked, almost pleading. “Need you—need you inside—”

Leo pulls his fingers out slow, savoring the way Sangwon clenches around nothing, chasing the loss. He smirks, slick fingers trailing down Sangwon’s thigh as he leans up to kiss him, filthy and consuming. 

In the same motion, Leo shoves his jeans down, pushing them past his hips, cock springing free—thick, flushed, already slick at the tip. The heat of it drags against Sangwon’s ass as Leo grinds up into him, teasing, making him gasp.

“You need me?” Leo rasps, voice rough as gravel, their mouths brushing, his cock heavy and hard against Sangwon’s entrance. 

“Then beg for it.”

Sangwon grunts into the curve of Leo’s neck, breath scorching his skin, inhaling like he’s trying to brand himself with the scent of him. Then he pulls back, shaky, sweat-damp hair clinging to his forehead, eyes blown wide and feral.

“Fuck me,” he rasps, voice torn raw. His hips grind down, shameless. “Fuck me, Leo. Please.”

That wrecked plea, that look—hungry, desperate, undone—it tears through Leo’s restraint like paper.

That’s all it takes.

In the next breath, Leo is inside him—shoving in raw and deep to the hilt. No space left, no mercy.

Sangwon breaks, the sound that rips from his throat somewhere between a moan and a cry, head thrown back as his spine arches. His nails dig into Leo’s shoulders, leaving crescents behind.

“Ah—” it’s half a gasp, half a sob, the kind of sound that has Leo’s cock twitching inside him.

Leo buries his face against Sangwon’s throat, marking and biting, his hands hold Sangwon’s hips hard enough to bruise before he pulls back and slams in again. The couch jolts beneath them.

Sangwon’s thighs quiver, locking him in, dragging him deeper. 

“Harder,” he pants, shameless, rocking against every thrust, cock leaking hot against his own stomach. “Harder, please, ah—”

“You feel so fucking good,” Leo groans into his skin, every muscle straining, voice low and wrecked. “Taking me so well, Sangwon.”

He snaps his hips again, harder this time, the sound of skin meeting skin sharp in the quiet apartment, their bodies slick with sweat.

Every thrust punches breath out of Sangwon’s lungs, leaves him moaning brokenly into Leo’s ear, writhing like he can’t get enough, like he’ll never get enough.

“God, look at you,” Leo grits out, slamming into him harder, voice low and ruined. “Falling apart already.”

“Shut up,” Sangwon laughs, breathless and broken, grinding down to meet him anyway. “And don’t you dare stop.”

Leo fucks him harder, faster, the couch groaning under their weight until the need to ruin him outweighs everything. 

With a sharp growl against Sangwon’s mouth—Leo stands, still buried deep inside, hauling Sangwon up like he weighs nothing.

Sangwon gasps, arms locking around his neck, legs tightening around Leo’s waist as the sudden shift makes him sink even deeper. 

“Ah—fuck, Leo—” Sangwon’s cry shatters into the air, his head dropping onto Leo’s shoulder, shivering all over.

Leo doesn’t stop moving. 

He takes the few steps to the bed with his cock still nestled deep into him, every stride a movement that makes Sangwon choke out another broken moan. 

When Leo drops him onto the mattress, Sangwon’s body arches, ruined and wanting, his hair a mess and chest heaving.

And then Leo is on him again. 

Pressing him down, thrusting deep and hard, the bed creaking with every violent snap of his hips. 

Sangwon falls apart beneath him, trembling, clawing at the sheets and at Leo’s back, tears streaking his temples as his mouth spills curses and moans without pause.

“Look at you,” Leo rasps, breath hot against his ear, his hand sliding down to press hard against Sangwon’s lower stomach—right where his cock pounds in, where the muscles jump with each thrust. 

“You feel me here, don’t you?”

Sangwon sobs out a sound that could be yes or please, eyes squeezed shut, lips bitten raw.

Leo kisses him, wet and brutal, teeth catching on his bottom lip before he murmurs against his mouth, “so fucking beautiful like this.” 

He fucks into him harder, groaning at the way Sangwon clenches around him. 

“Mine. All mine.”

Sangwon nods helplessly, whimpering into the kiss, his body shaking with every thrust. His cock drips against his own stomach, precum streaking his skin, smearing between their bodies.

Leo pulls back just enough to see him fully—flushed down to his chest, tear-streaked, mouth swollen, writhing under him. 

And for one searing second, the thought cuts through Leo like lightning. He won't ever get tired of this view.

Sangwon, undone by him.

It only makes Leo pound into him harder, desperate to carve himself into Sangwon until there’s nothing left but him.

The sound of their bodies meeting—wet, brutal, obscene—fills the room, mixing with Sangwon’s cries and Leo’s ragged groans.

Sangwon’s hands scrabble for something, anything—his nails dragging down Leo’s back, his fist twisting in the sheets, his voice cracking. 

“Leo, fuck—close—”

“I know,” Leo growls against his throat, biting down at the place where Sangwon’s pulse stutters. He doesn’t let up, hips slamming harder, deeper.

“Come for me,” his hand still pressed against Sangwon’s stomach like he’s holding him in place, forcing him to feel every inch. “Let me see you.”

Sangwon chokes on a sob, his cock leaking against his own stomach. 

And then he’s breaking—body seizing up, head thrown back, mouth open in a wordless cry as he spills hot between them, over his stomach, over Leo’s hand. 

The orgasm rips through him, violent and uncontainable, his whole body shuddering as Leo fucks him through it.

Leo can’t stop watching him, the way Sangwon’s face twists in ecstasy, the tears on his cheeks, the way he clenches so hard around him it feels like he’s being pulled under. 

Beautiful. Perfect. Ruined just for him.

“God, Sangwon,” Leo gasps, kissing him messily, desperately, tasting sweat and tears and his name, “look at you, you’re—fuck—you’re unreal.”

Sangwon is wrecked, still trembling, still crying out with every thrust as Leo drives him down into the mattress, chasing his own breaking point, desperate to come inside him, mark him, never let go.

Sangwon’s still trembling, clenching tight, and Leo feels it, every pulse dragging him closer to the edge.

“Shit—fuck—Sangwon,” Leo gasps, voice cracked, hips slamming erratic now. “You’re gonna make me—”

Sangwon pulls him down, nails digging into his shoulders, lips brushing his ear. 

“Do it,” he pants, wrecked and breathless, every word a plea. “Inside—Leo, please, inside—”

Leo buries himself to the hilt with a broken moan, forehead pressed to Sangwon’s as he shudders, release tearing out of him in hot, thick spurts. 

He spills deep, spilling until it’s too much, until he feels it leaking back around him, dripping onto the sheets. 

The sound he makes is half-groan, half-gasp. His entire body locking up against Sangwon’s as the pleasure crashes through him.

Sangwon gasps at the heat, at the sheer weight of it, head falling back, legs tightening around Leo to keep him there. 

“Fuck—” he moans, voice gone, “fuck, I can feel you—”

Leo’s chest heaves, still grinding into him, as if he could push it deeper, keep it there forever. 

His mouth finds Sangwon’s again, kissing him messy, open, breathless. “Mine,” he rasps against his lips, desperate and hoarse. “All of you—mine.”

And Sangwon—wrecked, tear-streaked, trembling under him—lets out a shattered laugh, pulling him in tighter, like he’d never let him go.

For a long time, the room is nothing but the sound of their breathing, ragged and uneven, the faint drip of sweat down their skin. 

Sangwon lies sprawled across the sheets, limbs heavy, chest rising and falling like he’s run himself empty.

Leo forces himself to move first, even though every muscle screams to stay tangled up in Sangwon forever. He brushes damp hair from Sangwon’s forehead, presses the briefest kiss there before slipping away. 

In the bathroom, he finds a towel and wets it, returns to the wreck they’ve made of the bed.

Sangwon hums faintly at the cool touch when Leo wipes him down, thighs parting instinctively, too spent to even flinch. 

Leo works slow and careful—sweat, come, all of it cleaned away until Sangwon’s body gleams in the dim light, marked only by the bites Leo left behind.

By the time Leo’s finished, Sangwon is already slipping under, lashes fluttering, words tangled in the haze of exhaustion. 

Leo eases a clean blanket over him, careful like Sangwon might shatter if he pressed too hard.

Sangwon lies on his back, chest still rising in uneven pulls, lips parted, skin glowing faint. 

There’s a serenity to him now—like every sharp edge has been dulled, every fire burned down to embers. Peaceful. Untouchable.

In the dark, Leo’s hand hovers, inches from tracing the curve of Sangwon’s jaw, the dip of his collarbone. 

Almost. Almost. 

But he lets it fall, the ache biting sharper for the restraint.

Then, low and slurred, Sangwon’s voice, “stay the night.” He breathes out, eyes peering open just a bit, locked on Leo, “just stay.”

The words hook straight through him. 

Leo swallows hard, the yes already spilling through his chest before he can think better of it.

So he does. 

He lies down, close enough to feel the warmth bleeding off Sangwon, close enough to hear his breathing even out. 

He stays, even though morning will come to ruin it, even though Sangwon won’t remember—or won’t mean it—when the sun breaks through the blinds.

For now, there’s this. The quiet, the dark, the warmth of Sangwon beside him. 

For now, that has to be enough.

Leo wakes to the faint ghost of last night’s cologne, the sharpness dulled into something warmer, worn-in. His arm is deadweight beneath Sangwon’s head, but he doesn’t dare shift.

The apartment is dim, curtains dragged half-shut against the morning light. Clutter sprawls across every surface—empty water bottles, clothes abandoned in uneven heaps. It’s a mess. 

And yet, all Leo sees is him.

Sangwon pressed flush against his side, his breath steady and warm against Leo’s skin. An arm sprawls across Leo’s chest in careless possession, as if it had always belonged there. 

His hair is a dark snarl against the pillow, his throat marked with fading red and purple where Leo’s mouth had been. The bruises trail lower, disappearing beneath the wrinkled collar of his shirt.

For a moment—brief, dangerous, unbearable—Leo lets himself believe this is ordinary. That the chaos around them is just life. 

That he belongs here.

That Sangwon reached for him in the dark because he wanted to, not because he was too drunk to know better.

Leo’s hand lifts before he can stop it, hovering just above Sangwon’s arm. His fingers ache to touch, to trace, to memorize the warmth pressed so carelessly against him. 

To keep.

But the ache wins out. 

Leo lets his thumb ghost over Sangwon’s skin, the lightest stroke, a stolen indulgence he knows won’t last.

Sangwon doesn’t stir. He only breathes, easy and untroubled. And Leo, aching and undone, doesn't move away. He holds onto the illusion with everything he has.

Because if this is all he gets, if this is all Sangwon will give him—then he’ll take it.

He’ll take it, and pretend it’s enough. Because the second he doesn't, the illusion will break.

And Leo isn’t ready to lose it yet.

Eventually, Sangwon stirs, groaning like the weight of the world is dragging him down. 

He shifts, pressing his face against Leo’s shoulder, breath warm and uneven. “Why’re you awake already?” his voice is rough, drowsy, and carries a note of genuine curiosity.

“Habit,” Leo murmurs, careful not to disturb the fragile quiet. Sangwon hums, a low, throaty sound, eyes half-lidded. 

For a single heartbeat, he looks untainted, almost innocent, stripped of the chaos and bravado he wears like armor. 

Then reality—or his usual self—creeps back. 

With a sigh, Sangwon pushes upright, raking a hand through his tousled hair, “fuck, I need water.”

Leo slips free from under him, the sheets falling away, and moves toward the kitchenette. He opens the fridge and sees only a pitcher of water inside, muttering as he filled a glass, “do you not eat? Seriously?”

From the bed, a groan. “I usually order, or eat outside,” Sangwon admits, voice still heavy with sleep.

Leo surveys the cabinets, the counter, a small island of potential sustenance amid clutter. He finds a loaf of bread, a few bruised apples, a tangle of grapes. 

Not much, but enough. 

The simple act—preparing food for Sangwon—feels intimate in a way neither of them might articulate, a quiet tether after the storm of last night.

When Leo sets the sad excuse for breakfast down, Sangwon’s grin hits him first—lazy, wide—legs splayed on the couch, vape curling smoke like a haze around him. 

“Didn’t know you’d play house for me,” he teases, voice rough with sleep and amusement.

Leo rolls his eyes, but it doesn’t reach his chest, which aches all the same. 

He reaches over, plucking the vape from Sangwon’s hand. “At least eat something first,” he says quietly, but firmly, nodding toward the small bowl in front of him.

Sangwon raises a brow, smirk teasing, mischievous. 

“Since when did you get all bossy?” he mutters, leaning back lazily. “Should I be annoyed, or impressed?”

“They’d be the same thing,” Leo murmurs, already chewing a bite of bread into his mouth, eyes flicking to Sangwon.

Sangwon chuckles, low and slow, as he eyes Leo, clearly amused at being managed even a little. “Fine, chef,” he says, tone dripping with mock respect, “but don’t think this means you’re in charge forever.”

Leo almost scoffs. 

The word forever had slipped from Sangwon’s lips so effortlessly, as if he’d claimed it for them both. 

As if he’d decided alone that this—this chaotic, reckless, impossible thing—would stretch on endlessly, and Leo would always be there at his beck and call.

Leo chews the bite in his mouth harder than necessary, tasting frustration and longing in equal measure.

If only forever made sense for them.

They eat together, knees brushing. The morning light is weak but warm through the curtains, casting the room in a soft, intimate glow.

For some time, they exist in this fragile little world—bright apartment, barely real food, laughter that’s half teasing and half something quieter, harder to name. 

Just them in a burning trajectory, pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

And for a moment, Leo almost forgets. 

Almost forgets the ruin, the nights, the ache of Sangwon’s absence when he isn’t here. 

Almost forgets that this—this warm, intimate morning—is borrowed, precarious, and entirely too perfect.

Then, as if they both remembered what this really was, the moment breaks. Reality seeps back in, and the fragile closeness shatters.

Sangwon leans to reclaim his vape, collapsing against the couch arm, exhaling a curl of strawberry-sweet smoke. His gaze drifts elsewhere, casual and free. 

“Last night was fun,” he murmurs, light and careless as if the words mean nothing. “We should go drinking together more.”

Leo swallows, a lump catching in his throat, forcing a short, playful huff, “I’ll pass on drinking.”

Sangwon’s mouth quirks. He tips forward to brush a kiss against Leo’s cheek—brief and thoughtless—before reaching for a cigarette in the drawer beside the couch.

“This strawberry stuff’s too sweet for the morning,” he mutters waving the vape pen, voice lazy and unbothered, stepping out onto the balcony.

Leo lets him. For that morning, he pretends it’s enough, pretends mornings like this are worth something. 

Pretends he’s not already breaking in places Sangwon will never bother to look.

It’s Friday night, but not the kind that pulses with bass and flashing lights.

More like the sticky warmth of a crowded barbecue joint near campus—tables pressed together, chopsticks clattering against sizzling plates, the air thick with smoke, soy, and the sweet bite of charred meat. 

Pitchers of beer foam over, laughter and shouting mixing into a haze that makes Leo’s chest tighten.

He’s only here because Jiahao practically threatened to drag him out of his apartment, and Leo’s stubborn pride had surrendered.

Sangwon’s already there when Leo slips in, sitting like he owns the space, hair damp from a shower, hoodie pulled low over his shoulders, faint traces of cigarette clinging to him but masked under a hint of cologne. 

He looks impossibly good. Too effortless. Too alive.

And just like that, he makes the seat beside him seem like it’s been waiting—specifically, for Leo. 

A small, careless grin tugs at the corner of his lips, and for a moment, Leo swears the world has narrowed to the space between them, the smell of Sangwon, the quiet command in the way he leans back, expecting Leo to slide into that spot.

The table is loud, full of laughter and teasing that bounces off the walls of the crowded restaurant. 

Xinlong nudges Junseo, who snorts into his drink, and someone—probably Anxin—points it out the second Leo sits beside Sangwon instead of anywhere else.

“Of course,” Geonwoo says with a grin, loud enough for half the table to hear. “Your shadow’s here.”

Sangwon smirks, draping an arm lazily across the back of Leo’s chair, leaning just enough to brush against him, “he likes me more than all of you. Can you blame him?”

The table howls—jokes and snorts ricocheting, chopsticks clattering. Leo tries to roll his eyes, cheeks burning, but he can’t look away from Sangwon’s casual, daring grin.

Halfway through dinner, Sangwon steals a piece of Leo’s meat without asking, leaning in close, voice low. 

“You weren’t gonna finish that anyway,” he murmurs, chopsticks tapping Leo’s like a small challenge. It’s casual, familiar. Too practiced for what they are behind closed doors.

“Dude,” Geonwoo groans dramatically from across the table. “He’s literally feeding off you.”

Sangwon ignores him, tipping his glass toward Leo, “drink. Just one.”

“You know I can’t—” Leo protests, a protest that sounds hollow even to him.

“At least taste mine,” Sangwon insists, eyes locked on him. He tilts the glass gently, and the group cheers at the display. 

For a split second, the chatter, the laughter, even Anxin’s exaggerated reaction—all of it falls away. It’s just Sangwon, daring him, burning into him, and Leo takes the smallest sip.

Sangwon grins like he’s won the biggest bet of his life.

By the time they leave, someone from their circle shouts, “see you, lovebirds!”

Leo stiffens, heat climbing up his neck. His stomach twists in a mix of embarrassment and something else he refuses to name.

Sangwon freezes for half a beat, then lifts an incredulous brow, jaw tight with mock indignation. “Lovebirds? Really?” his voice is low, sharp, almost offended, brushing against Leo’s ear as they step into the night air.

Leo glances up, unsure whether to laugh or roll his eyes, but Sangwon doesn’t give him the chance. 

He drapes an arm over Leo’s shoulders—not tender, not soft, just casual and almost defiant—and tugs him closer. “As if, right?” he mutters, voice dripping with dismissal. 

Leo swallows, chest tight. 

Sangwon’s scoff is effortless, like he’s refusing to give the teasing any weight, and yet—Leo can feel it everywhere, in the press of his shoulder, the warmth of his side, the way Sangwon’s presence pushes against him in the cool night.

And just like that, Sangwon turns the joke into a weapon and a shield all at once, leaving Leo both exasperated and inexplicably wanting more.

The teasing still rang in Leo’s ears as they walked down Cheonggyecheon, the night alive with neon reflections bouncing off asphalt, the scent of barbecue and spilled beer mixing in the air. 

He should’ve gone straight home, headphones in, music drowning everything else out, shutting the world away.

But Sangwon was still there, shoulder brushing his as they walked, hands shoved deep in his hoodie pockets, hair tousled by the wind like he’d just rolled out of bed.

And somehow still looked too damn effortlessly beautiful.

“You heading home?” Sangwon asked, voice deceptively casual. “Yeah,” Leo muttered, eyes fixed on the glowing signs above the pubs.

A pause stretched between them, heavy with everything unsaid. Then Sangwon shrugged, slow, almost lazy, like he was asking the time instead of threading into Leo’s chest and making it skip a beat.

“Can I come with?”

Leo blinked, “…why?”

Sangwon’s smile tilted, crooked, teasing—but there was something in it, something brittle that didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Don’t feel like being alone tonight.”

That’s all it takes.

That one simple line, casual on the surface but weighted beneath, tipped something inside Leo. His chest tightened, his mind short-circuiting.

Leo didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. 

The street noise, the neon glow, the press of Sangwon’s side against his own—it all said the words for him.

And just like that, the quiet surrender of a simple yes slipped out before he even realized he’d given it.

“Okay.”

Sangwon collapses onto the couch, stretching out like he owns the place, hoodie riding up just enough to reveal a sliver of skin. 

“I like your place,” he says, yawning. “It’s always so warm,” 

Leo sets down his jacket, trying not to notice how natural Sangwon looks here—like he belongs, like he’s never been anywhere else but this small, cluttered apartment. 

His chest tightens at the thought.

“You still hungry?” Leo asks.

“Always,” Sangwon grins, eyes lighting up as he watches Leo pull out instant ramen. “See, this is why I like you. No judgment.”

They eat on the couch, the room dim except for the flicker of the TV Leo put on for background noise. Sangwon sprawls closer with each passing minute, his knee brushing Leo’s, his laughter too soft when Leo accidentally chokes on a bite.

Leo can’t stop the thought from surfacing, the teasing from earlier echoing like a stubborn heartbeat.

Lovebirds. 

He wonders, foolishly, how that would even feel—if they were actually in a relationship. If he could tell Sangwon how he really feels without fear, how pretty he looks even when he’s not half-drunk or grinning like a troublemaker. 

If he could be wanted like this, fully, not just as a drunken escapade or a game.

By the end of it, Sangwon’s lying sideways, head pillowed against Leo’s shoulder. 

He doesn’t ask. He just settles there, as if it’s the most obvious, natural place in the world.

“It’s getting colder these days,” Sangwon murmurs, half-asleep, his voice curling into Leo’s chest.

Leo freezes, heart hammering. He knows he should push him off, keep the line intact. Instead, he stays still. 

Lets Sangwon breathe against him. Lets himself pretend, just for tonight, that this is something more than a mess.

When Leo glances down, Sangwon’s eyes are closed, lashes fanned across his cheek. 

And somewhere, beneath it all, Leo aches again—the way he’s always a little too aware of Sangwon’s body, his presence, how it makes him feel both foolish and necessary.

He whispers, barely audible, “you should stay the night.”

Sangwon doesn’t hear. Or maybe he does. 

He just doesn't answer.

And still, Leo lets himself imagine—for just a few heartbeats—what it would feel like if the teasing, the warmth, the intimacy weren’t stolen, if it could be theirs.

Leo wakes to pale sunlight slanting through the blinds, the sun barely nudging itself over the horizon.

For a disorienting moment, he convinces himself it was all a dream—the quiet night, Sangwon curled against him like he belonged there, the soft warmth that had brushed against his skin. 

Sangwon stayed the night just because. No reason, no drunken wanting, just the small, intimate ease of it all. 

Leo remembers imagining more.

Mornings where he could tell Sangwon he loved him when he wasn’t drunk, tracing the angles of his face, telling him how pretty he is even when he isn’t trying, just being.

Wanted, held, known. 

He had imagined a life where that was enough, where Sangwon might feel it too.

But now, in the harsh cold, Leo feels it. 

The empty half of the bed. The absence slicing sharper than anything physical.

His chest tightens and implodes in a breath, and he swallows against the sting, but it only makes it worse. 

A bitter, hollow laugh escapes, small and trembling, because he knows—he knows exactly how foolish he’s been, how cruel to himself.

Sangwon’s gone.

As always.

Because no matter how close they get, no matter how intimate the touches, the laughter, the shared silences—Sangwon will never need him the way he needs Sangwon.

Leo lets his head drop back onto the pillow, and the sound that comes out isn’t a laugh this time. 

It’s something ragged, wet, almost a sob, the kind that makes him want to disappear into the mattress and not exist anywhere Sangwon could find him.

You have to stop doing this to yourself.

But Leo doesn’t. He can’t. 

Not when every nerve in him is still tuned to Sangwon, even now, even with the emptiness pressing down like a weight he can’t lift.

He curls up, letting the tears fall, silent, a slow and steady ache that fills the spaces Sangwon once did, and the bed feels impossibly large and unbearably empty.

Like none of it mattered. 

Like none of it could ever matter, because Sangwon doesn’t want him the way Leo does. 

Because he never did. Maybe, never will.

For a few days, Leo tells himself he’s just tired.

He buries himself in the studio—clay crusted beneath his nails, hair falling into his eyes, the wheel spinning until the hum becomes the only thing left inside his head. The air is thick with the scent of wet earth and turpentine, grounding and suffocating all at once.

Every night ends the same.

The lights buzzing overhead, his body heavy with exhaustion, his phone lighting up on the far side of the table. Leo doesn't reach for it.

When Geonwoo and Jiahao show up, the silence breaks too easily.

“You’ve been living here?” Jiahao asks, nudging a stool with his knee. “You’re gonna turn into one of your sculptures soon.”

Leo hums, eyes fixed on the curve of a vase he’s reshaping. “At least I’d be useful for once,” he says, and it usually comes out snappy, a tired joke. 

Today, it comes out too raw, too real. It lands wrong—the kind of wrong his friends can’t fix with laughter.

Geonwoo leans against the counter, studying him with that mix of concern and hesitation that makes Leo’s skin prickle.

“You’re going to that party Sangwon’s arranging with the others, right?” he asks, tone too light, too easy.

Leo’s hands still. The clay slips slightly under his thumb, distorting the shape he’s been molding for hours.

“Why would I?”

Geonwoo and Jiahao exchange a glance—small, uncertain.

“I mean,” Geonwoo starts, clearing his throat, “if Sangwon asks, you usually would. I just figured…”

Leo wipes his hands with a towel, smearing streaks of grey along his forearms. The fabric’s rough against his skin. 

“He hasn’t,” he says finally. His voice is flat, controlled. The kind of tone that warns others to stop asking. “We don’t really talk these days.”

He doesn’t add the truth—that Sangwon’s tried, messages unanswered, calls ignored, his name lighting up the screen like a wound Leo refuses to touch.

The room quiets. The only sound left is the wheel spinning, steady and relentless, and the faint hum of the afternoon campus bustling through the open window.

When they leave, Jiahao sets down a sandwich on the workbench, wrapped neatly.

“Eat something, at least,” he says.

Leo doesn’t.

By midnight, the bread’s gone stale beside the clay structure that never dries right, and Leo’s still turning the wheel, chasing a shape he can’t seem to finish.

A few days later, Leo sees him.

Sangwon’s standing beneath the shade of the Liberal Arts building, sunlight threading through the leaves overhead, gold against his hair. 

His phone’s in hand, a half-empty coffee balanced on the ledge beside him, laughing at something one of his friends said.

That sound—that laugh, bright and clear—hits Leo like a bruise he thought had already healed.

It used to mean something. Used to make his chest tighten with something dangerously close to joy, maybe even hope.

Now, it just tastes like smoke—sharp, familiar, burning at the back of his throat.

He stops mid-step. The air feels heavier somehow. 

Before Sangwon can look up, Leo turns the corner, quick and quiet, heart pounding too loudly in his chest.

He doesn’t need to see Sangwon’s eyes to know what they’d hold—that same careless brightness, that same warmth that never stays more than a second.

Still, something in Leo falters. 

Against his better judgment, he glances back. 

Just once.

And there, across the courtyard, Sangwon’s gaze is already on him.

A pause stretches between them, thin as breath. A flicker of something almost like recognition, almost like need.

Then Sangwon looks away.

And Leo tells himself it’s better that way—even as the taste of ash lingers, refusing to fade.

Days and nights blur together.

The studio lights stay on long after midnight, humming softly against the silence. The air smells of clay, iron, and something faintly sour—like the inside of an old wound.

Leo carves, molds, presses—each motion too harsh, too desperate. The clay takes shape beneath his fingers, trembling in the wheel’s spin, and for a fleeting moment it almost looks human. Almost looks like Sangwon—jawline, mouth, the faint tilt of a smile that felt like gravity.

He doesn’t know if he’s creating something or trying to bury it. Maybe both. Maybe that’s all Leo’s love for him ever was—a kind of building just to break.

His phone lights up on the workbench—once, twice. Leo doesn’t look, doesn’t move. Because if he does, he knows he’ll go back.

And what then?

Sangwon will laugh the same, smile the same, talk about nothing and mean it. He’ll touch Leo like he always has—without promise, without consequence.

Maybe Sangwon’s already found someone else by now. Someone easier to stay with. Someone who doesn’t linger like smoke in his lungs, who doesn’t mistake the taste of burning for love.

Sangwon doesn’t need him, not the way Leo does.

He doesn't long for him in every pause between breaths, doesn’t wait, doesn’t feel the hollowed-out wanting that claws at Leo in the quiet. He doesn't crave the burn.

But Leo aches for it.

He aches for the way it hurt, for the way Sangwon’s touch made him come undone. For the fire that stripped him raw, for the sound of Sangwon’s laugh that felt like sunlight through bruises.

And then comes the thought he can’t shake—the one that scares him most. Which would hurt more?

Letting Sangwon back in, knowing he’ll cut deeper this time, or letting him go long enough that the wound finally heals—smooths over, forgets it was ever there.

Because healing means it’s over.

And Leo still isn’t sure what’s worse—to keep bleeding, or to feel nothing at all?

So he keeps sculpting.

He keeps pretending the silence is peace, pretending the distance doesn’t hurt.

Pretending he can live without the fire, even as the ashes still stain his hands.

In a blink, Leo’s back in the bustle of midterms—sketch deadlines, late night study sessions, caffeine-fueled marathons of half-slept hours.

The world moves, and he pretends to move with it.

It’s the day in exams week he’s been dreading—the one class he still shares with Sangwon. An elective neither of them cared about, except that once, months ago, Sangwon had chosen the seat beside him and never left.

Leo tells himself it won’t matter. That maybe Sangwon won’t show. He almost believes it.

Except Sangwon always shows up for exams.

Always, somehow, even at the last minute, strolling in with a grin and a pen borrowed from someone else, smelling like smoke and something sweet.

So when Leo finishes early and leaves the exam hall without seeing him, not even a glimpse—something in his chest tightens, small and stupid.

He lingers by the stairwell longer than he needs to, watching faces pass, waiting for the impossible.

But Sangwon doesn’t come.

By the time Leo steps out into the afternoon sun, it’s like the whole campus has exhaled without him. He tells himself it’s a relief, that he should be grateful for the quiet, that it shouldn't matter to him whether Sangwon shows up to his exams or not.

They're nothing, not even friends, not exactly.

But walking home, his hands keep twitching toward his phone.

The ache sits heavy under his ribs, that same familiar burn, like something he’s been trying to quit but can’t. Like smoke caught in his lungs—it hurts to keep, but it hurts worse to let go.

Leo swallows the thought, he keeps walking.

By nightfall, he tells himself he’ll be fine.

It was the night before the end of exam week, and Leo was running on scraps of sleep and caffeine, eyelids heavy, mind spinning with formulas and lecture notes he hadn’t even had time to organize. 

Sangwon hadn’t seemed to show up all week—not to his exams, not in the hallways, not anywhere—and the absence gnawed at Leo like a dull ache he couldn’t name. 

Every time he blinked, he imagined Sangwon leaning against his doorframe like he used to at ungodly hours, cigarette dangling, grin all teeth and mischief, and it made his chest tighten.

But that didn’t matter. Not now. Not when there was an exam in five hours and days of material left unlearned. 

Still, even as Leo buried himself under paper and ink, he couldn’t stop wondering what Sangwon was doing—if he’d eaten, if he did take his exams and Leo’s just been overthinking it.

If Sangwon even thought about him at all. 

And that thought, stubborn and persistent, made the ache sharper.

No matter how much Leo tried to focus, or how much he told himself to bury it, Sangwon was always there—lurking at the edges of his mind, impossible to ignore.

2:57 a.m.

The clock glared back at Leo, his eyes dry and exhausted.

He was buried under a fortress of scattered notes, papers curling at the corners, pens rolling across the desk, and he could barely remember the last time he’d eaten. The air smelled faintly of burnt coffee and pencil shavings, his fingers sticky with ink, his hair falling into his eyes.

Then his phone buzzed.

Leo quickly opened it, expecting a message from Geonwoo or Jiahao—having just sent the missing notes he’d asked for, sent from some corner of campus while they, too, were bleary-eyed and muttering revisions under their breath. 

But instead of finding a frantic, typo-laden dump of the lecture notes, his phone lit up with something that made his chest skip—an ache of worry too difficult to tame, sharp and immediate.

A pinned location. A bar he didn’t recognize. And a message, jagged and urgent, almost trembling through the screen.

cme pls. u kno i need u

Leo blinked.

stay there

He didn’t even think. Didn’t pause to change out of his pajamas, didn’t grab a bag, didn’t bother with anything that might slow him down. 

His fingers clutched his wallet like it was a lifeline as he bolted out the door, heart hammering against ribs that felt too small to contain it. 

Every step carried a mixture of dread and desperate urgency—the kind that makes your stomach twist with anticipation and fear at once.

What if Sangwon was hurt? 

What if something bad happened? 

He rattled off the address to the first taxi he dove into without even thinking, voice raw, trembling with a mixture of anger and worry he could barely name. The car rocked over uneven streets, each turn magnifying the pit in his stomach.

He tried to tell himself it was ridiculous—Sangwon could handle himself—but the thought didn’t stick. 

Leo had been ignoring him for weeks, pulling away, burying himself in work. And yet here he was, running back to him anyway. 

Stupidly, irrepressibly, because Leo just needed to.

When the taxi stopped, the night air slapped him awake. 

Leo froze at the steps of the club, stomach twisting, chest tightening, every nerve firing in a painful alert. The sight before him hit like a blow.

Shit.

Sangwon, by the entrance, laughing. Loud, careless, entirely too loud. And not alone.

A guy sat too close, arm draped over Sangwon’s shoulder, hand sliding somewhere it shouldn’t.

And Sangwon didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

Leo’s pulse stuttered, a hot, hollow ache blooming in his chest. For a jagged, terrifying second, he wanted to turn, bolt, vanish into the shadows and convince himself he didn’t care. 

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t.

He wanted to storm forward, rip Sangwon away, shake him until he understood. Until he finally knew. But the anger tangled with something deeper—panic, frustration, helplessness, why me?

The sight of Sangwon smiling—so bright, so reckless, so alive—was a dagger through his chest. The careless tilt of his head, the laugh that had always made something loosen in Leo’s ribs, it was cruel and intoxicating all at once.

And for the first time, he wanted Sangwon to see it. See him.

Not just as an afterthought, not as someone who could be ignored or pushed aside. 

Leo needed him to know.

So he ran. 

Up the stairs, pajamas clinging to his skin, hair falling into his eyes, lungs screaming, heart hammering against ribs like it wanted to escape.

Sangwon spotted him at last. And as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed, he grinned. 

Wide. Careless. Infuriating.

“You actually came,” Sangwon said, voice teasing, hand still resting where it shouldn’t.

Leo blinked, breath hitching, the world narrowing to the curve of Sangwon’s smirk. “What—” his words caught in his throat, air knocking against ribs. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting some air?” Sangwon shrugged, leaning back, eyes glinting with mischief. “Havung fun?”

Leo’s hands curled into fists at his sides. The wind bit through his hoodie, and his pulse felt louder than the music spilling from the bar.

“Fun? Seriously?”

The words came out like a scrape of gravel, rough and too loud.

Sangwon’s head tilted at the sound, the faintest crease appearing between his brows—then smoothing over, replaced by that same careless grin that made Leo want to shake him.

“This—this is what you call fun, Lee Sangwon?”

He laughed once, short and hollow, the sound barely made it past his throat.

“I could be studying right now,” he said, words trembling on the edge of anger. “But you called me out here—me—” his voice cracked, raw and unsteady, “in the middle of the night! I thought—” he swallowed hard, pulse stuttering, “I thought something happened to you.”

Sangwon blinked, slow, unfazed. 

His fingers toyed with the box of cigarettes in his hand, the lighter jutting out the top glinting under faint light. There was color high on his cheeks—maybe from the alcohol, maybe not—and when he finally looked at Leo, there was something defiant in the way he held his gaze.

“I dropped everything to be here,” Leo’s breath trembled. “And you’re just fucking with me? You're just having fun?”

The grin slipped, wiped clean in an instant. A frown cut sharp across Sangwon’s face—like he’d been waiting for Leo to break, but hadn’t expected it to sting when he finally did.

The guy beside him laughed, slinging an arm over Sangwon’s shoulder, and Sangwon let him—didn’t even flinch. His eyes stayed on Leo, something unreadable glinting there.

“What, you his boyfriend or something?” the guy drawled, head tilting, half-drunk and amused.

Leo froze.

The word landed like a punch to the ribs—too sharp, too sudden, too much. Heat flared up his chest before he could stop it, his throat tightening around the silence that followed. He opened his mouth—he didn’t even know what he was going to say—but Sangwon got there first.

“No—no, he isn’t,” Sangwon cut in, fast, almost tripping over the words. Then, after a beat too long, he added a laugh that sounded like glass hitting concrete. “Right, Leo?”

Something in the way he said it made Leo’s throat close. The words wouldn’t come out.

Right. He should say right. He should nod, play along, pretend it didn’t sting.

But his silence hung heavy between them.

The guy looked between them again, awkward now, muttered something about getting another drink, and slipped away into the crowd.

And when the guy was finally gone, all that was left was Sangwon’s uneven smile and the wreckage of everything Leo hadn’t said.

His chest heaved, jaw locked so tight it hurt. 

Leo wanted to punch him—to shatter that infuriating calm, to make Sangwon feel something. He wanted to grab him, hold him, demand to know why he kept pulling Leo close just to push him away again.

But he did none of it. 

He just stood there, heart thrumming against the weight in his throat—furious, spent, tethered.

Because no matter how cruel Sangwon could be, no matter how easily he turned it into a game, Leo knew the truth that undid him every time—he couldn’t walk away.

Not from this.

Not from him.

Sangwon pushed off the railing, cigarette box sliding into his back pocket as he took a slow step toward Leo. The grin stayed fixed, easy and infuriating, like he hadn’t just yanked Leo out of his busy night and into this mess.

“Relax,” he said, voice low, lilting. “You’re mad. Good. I like it.”

Leo’s hands trembled, jaw set tight. He could feel the pulse hammering in his throat. “You think this is funny?” he breathes out.

Sangwon’s eyes flicked over him, sharp with something unreadable. “Are you jealous?” he asked, one brow arching, “knowing I probably got some guy following me around?”

Leo’s stomach twisted. 

“Jealous? I’m—” he broke off, the word catching somewhere between disbelief and hurt. “I’m worried about you! And you—you call me out here to ridicule me? What, payback for disappearing on you?”

Sangwon tilted his head, leaning back against the lower end of the staircase railing, the picture of effortless nonchalance standing before Leo’s trembling form.

“You make it sound like I begged you to come,” he said, voice light, teasing—but his fingers drummed restless, uneven patterns against the wood, betraying a rhythm he couldn’t quite hide. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Because I care about you!” Leo’s voice cracked, sharp against the chill of the night, carrying farther than he intended.

Silence settled like a weight. The city hummed beneath them, lights flickering in windows, cars rolling by, and all Leo could hear was the thrum of his own pulse, pounding in time with his heartbeat.

Sangwon’s grin wavered. The sharp edge dulled, the mask slipping just enough to reveal something fragile, something human beneath the careless façade.

“Yeah, I know,” he murmured, voice low, almost too quiet. Then, after a pause that stretched too long, “I just… didn’t think you’d actually come.”

His gaze flicked away, brushing past Leo, softening in a way that made the air between them tremble. 

“I'm sorry, Leo.”

Leo’s hands clenched into fists, chest heaving with a mix of hurt, anger, and something raw he couldn’t name. 

This—this fragile, fleeting crack in Sangwon’s armor—is exactly what keeps him stuck, the reason he couldn’t let himself walk away. 

Just like that, Leo was back at the bottom of the pit Sangwon had dug for him.

“You like watching me squirm, don’t you?” Leo spat as he pushed his hair back, voice low but sharp, every syllable soaked in weeks of pent-up frustration and fear.

Sangwon leaned forward, brushing a hand against Leo’s, grin curling even more dangerously. 

“Maybe I do,” he said, voice smooth, teasing—but there was a weight behind it, a flicker of something he couldn’t hide. “Or maybe… I just like seeing you come alive.”

He stepped closer, the proximity brushing against Leo’s chest, heat radiating off him. “Makes you feel something, doesn’t it?” he whispers, “makes you want more of me like I want more of you.”

Leo’s jaw tightened, “you don’t get to—”

“Oh, but I do,” his voice drops, low and sharp, a blade against the night air. Sangwon tilts his head, eyes glinting with mischief, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. 

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Leo,” he murmurs, slow, deliberate, “but you make it way too easy to guess.”

Once inside the apartment, Leo didn’t hesitate. 

He shoved Sangwon against the wall, hard enough that he groaned, then leaned in, pressing his mouth to Sangwon’s with all the frustration and longing pent up inside him.

Sangwon responded immediately, hands tangling in Leo’s hair, gripping his shoulders, pushing back just enough to make Leo’s heart hammer harder.

“You’re insane,” Leo growled, pulling back just slightly, forehead resting against Sangwon’s.

“I know,” Sangwon whispered, voice low and teasing, “and I also know you love it.”

That was all it took. 

All the anger, all the pain, all the heartbreak, funneled into raw, desperate heat. 

Leo’s hands roamed Sangwon’s back, chest, gripping him like he couldn’t let him go, and Sangwon mirrored every movement, every tug, every sharp breath.

They were moving against each other, hot and wild, lost in the friction and the bite of teeth and lips, until it wasn’t just anger—it was need, it was every moment of tension burning through.

“Can’t believe you made me wait,” Sangwon rasped between ragged moans, fingers tangling in Leo’s hair, tugging hard, as if anchoring himself to him. “Can’t believe I fucking waited.”

The confession hit Leo like fire. 

He pressed harder, deeper, every thrust a silent answer, every gasp a surrender. He wanted more—needed more—hungry for Sangwon in a way that burned through everything else.

Walls became canvases, the air between them electric, every push and pull both punishment and salvation.

By the time they collapsed onto the bed, tangled and ragged, Leo’s hands still cling to Sangwon’s shoulders. Both of them gasping and trembling, neither could speak, only breathe and feel.

And in that silence, angry and desperate as it had been, there was something else lurking beneath—the ache, the tether, the undeniable fact that no matter how messy or reckless, they needed each other.

Leo comes back from his exam, expecting the apartment to be empty. But the sunlight catches the edges of the couch where Sangwon lounges, casual, TV murmuring in the background.

And for a moment, Leo realizes—he hadn’t really avoided Sangwon all these weeks. Sangwon had never really gone anywhere.

“Hey,” Sangwon says without looking up, voice lazy, teasing. “You survived?”

Leo swallows, chest tightening. He forces a small, casual nod, but the thought lingers, bitter and strange. No matter how much he tried to pull away, Sangwon had always been there, quietly anchoring him.

Leo drops his bag, shoulders brushing Sangwon’s as he moves closer. “Barely,” he mutters. He notices the way Sangwon’s hair falls across his eyes, the casual tilt of his head, the curve of his mouth that still makes his chest tighten.

They trade small talk, messy and disjointed, words tumbling over each other like the residue of sleep and longing, their proximity a reminder neither wants to name. 

Leo’s arm lingers on the back of the couch, the brush of his fingers against Sangwon’s shoulder sending a flicker through him—half-reaching, half-resisting, caught between wanting closeness and bracing for retreat. 

His chest tightens, the words he’s been holding all week clawing at the edge of his throat.

“You didn’t take your exams,” he finally blurts, voice low, cautious. “You never miss exam weeks. Not once.”

Sangwon freezes, fingers drumming lightly against the fabric of the couch, a small, restless motion that betrays more than his casual posture lets on. 

The apartment feels suddenly smaller, the air between them charged and waiting.

Then, slowly, Sangwon shifts just enough to meet Leo’s gaze. The usual teasing sparkle in his eyes is gone, replaced by something raw, a tremor of vulnerability that makes Leo’s stomach tighten.

“You ever feel like you were born already losing?” his voice drops, hesitant, almost too quiet to hear over the hum of the television and the distant city noise outside. 

The question hangs, heavy and sharp, as if he’s testing Leo, daring him to answer—or maybe just daring himself to ask out loud.

And for the first time, Leo sees the cracks in the facade Sangwon has always worn. The reckless, untouchable Sangwon, unmasked, fragile, and dangerously close.

He swallows hard, the familiar ache blooming in his chest—the one that always comes with Sangwon’s half-hidden truths, the one that made him ache for him even when Sangwon didn’t need him the way he needed Sangwon.

Leo wants to reach out, wants to pull Sangwon close, wants to anchor him so he can’t slip away—not this time. But he hesitates, knowing that this question, this crack in Sangwon’s armor, is fragile. 

He doesn’t want to shatter it.

And yet, his heart won’t let him turn away. 

Because even in the threat of loss, even in the fear that he’ll be burned again, Leo aches for the burn. He aches for Sangwon. 

He aches for the possibility that this—whatever it is—could be enough to stop them from running from each other.

Sangwon’s eyes avoid Leo’s, sharp and unblinking. His voice drops lower, rougher than before, carrying a weight that makes Leo’s chest tighten.

“If you’re already meant to lose,” he murmurs, slow and deliberate, “if the game’s rigged before it even starts… why bother playing at all?”

The words hang between them, heavy, like a challenge and a confession rolled into one. 

Leo feels it hit somewhere in his ribs, the ache of wanting, of caring, of showing up when the outcome seems inevitable.

“Then…” his own voice is rough, cautious, tight with tension, “what would you rather do?”

Sangwon exhales, a soft, bitter laugh slipping past him, edges jagged. “I don’t know,” he admits, voice low, vulnerable in a way that makes Leo’s chest ache. “What do you think I should do instead?”

Time tilts, stretches. 

Leo’s heart hammers so loudly he’s sure Sangwon can hear it. He doesn’t think—he can’t. Words tumble out, urgent, raw, spilling faster than reason can catch. 

“Just don’t run away.”

Sangwon stills, caught mid-shrug, a flicker of uncertainty and something fragile passing over his face. Their eyes lock, heavy and unguarded, holding more truth than either has dared say.

Leo leans a fraction closer, voice softening into almost a whisper, breath brushing the space between them. 

“Or let me follow. Every time.”

Sangwon’s lips twitch, maybe a smirk, maybe the ghost of a smile. 

But his eyes are on him, and suddenly Sangwon doesn't seem so untouchable.

The morning doesn’t end with Sangwon leaving.

It spills into the rest of the day, slow and unhurried, like a tide that refuses to recede.

Leo makes coffee, the bitter scent curling through the small apartment. Sangwon steals half of it, grimacing at how sweet it is, but drinks anyway, lips catching the foam in a way that makes Leo’s chest tighten.

When Leo throws together a simple lunch, Sangwon insists on “helping,” though he ends up perched on the counter, legs swinging, teasing every misstep until Leo curses under his breath, burning the meat.

It feels too natural. Too effortless.

Too easy.

And Leo can’t decide if that ease is a comfort or a threat—because in its simplicity, in the way Sangwon lingers, smiles, and reaches across the kitchen counter to brush against him, Leo realizes how much he’s still tethered, how dangerously alive he feels with him here.

After they eat, Sangwon collapses onto the couch, legs draped over the edge, Leo’s laptop open on his lap. He pretends to scan his notes, brows furrowed, but it’s half-hearted at best.

“I barely got allowed to take a special test,” he mutters, voice low, teasingly accusatory, “if I fail this, it’s your fault for being distracting.” His eyes flick up every time Leo shifts, tracking him like he’s simultaneously annoyed and utterly fascinated.

Leo’s chest tightens, a subtle ache he can’t name, but he laughs anyway, settling beside him. He spreads his sketchbook across his lap, pencil moving over paper while sneaking glances at Sangwon.

Every so often, Sangwon leans into him, resting his head on Leo’s shoulder as if claiming it by right, light warmth pressing against him. 

It’s casual. It’s careless. 

And yet, the way Sangwon lingers makes Leo’s chest pound, makes him wonder just how much of this is habit and how much is desire.

By the afternoon, Sangwon’s sprawled sideways on the couch, his feet resting on Leo’s lap, tapping idly on his phone. The sunlight slants through the curtains, catching the edges of his hair, making it glow like it always does. 

He looks up suddenly, grin sharp and infuriating. “Hey, we should go get groceries,” he says, voice too casual for what he just said. “Your fridge is as tragic as mine.”

And just like that, they’re walking to the corner store, plastic bags swinging, arms brushing in the sun-warmed streets. 

They argue over what ramen to buy, Sangwon tossing snacks into the cart with reckless abandon while Leo sighs, pretending to be annoyed, secretly enjoying the chaos.

For a fleeting moment, as they duck through the automatic doors and the city hums around them, they look like any other couple—messy, mismatched, happy. 

Like this little orbit they’ve carved out is normal.

Back at the apartment, Sangwon collapses across Leo’s bed like he owns the place, stretching long and languid. 

“Not bad for a Saturday,” he mutters, voice low, smirking. Then softer, almost vulnerable, “you’re not bad to hang out with, you know.”

Leo swallows, chest tight, heart hammering against ribs he can’t quite steady. 

He wants to say, then stay. He wants to say, don’t leave. 

But instead, his words come out small, cautious.

“Yeah. You too.”

Sangwon grins, satisfied, flips onto his stomach, already absorbed in his phone. 

As if this isn’t monumental. 

As if it isn’t the closest thing to a real connection Leo’s ever had with him.

It’s a weekday afternoon. No clubs, no alcohol, no distractions—just the quiet hum of the city outside and the low buzz of the apartment lights.

But then Sangwon’s text came through, sharp and insistent, and Leo found himself pivoting mid-step, turning back from his own way home. 

Something in the familiar rhythm of it pulled him.

The apartment is still a little cluttered, but more organized than usual. At least, Sangwon isn’t out of his mind this time. 

He’s on the floor, sprawled among half-open textbooks, hair falling into his eyes, a pencil clutched between his teeth as he frowns at the page.

“Studying?” Leo asks, setting down his bag, voice careful but not soft.

“Trying,” Sangwon responds with a dry laugh that escapes despite himself. “Not working.” He gestures vaguely at the chaos—notes scattered like leaves, energy drinks unopened, a notebook teetering on the edge of the table.

Leo sinks down beside him, shoulder brushing his. The contact is small, almost incidental, but it lands with a weight he can’t ignore. 

“You skipped two weeks’ worth of lectures. What did you expect?”

“Miracles,” Sangwon says, grin flashing. He inhales from his vape and exhales a thin curl of strawberry-sweet smoke that drifts between them. “You’re supposed to make me feel better.”

Leo waves the smoke away, chest tightening at the careless charm in Sangwon’s tone. “Maybe if you actually studied and stopped taking hits,” he says, low, controlled. 

Sangwon hummed, “help me study, then. Maybe I’ll actually learn something if it comes out of your mouth.” He tilts his head, eyes glinting with a mix of challenge and amusement.

Leo feels the familiar pull—the tug he’s been trying to bury all these weeks they've been meeting again.

He shakes his head, exasperated, but begins to work through the material anyway, fingers tracing diagrams, lips moving as he mumbles the key points aloud. 

And all the while, Sangwon listens, leaning closer, hair brushing against Leo’s arm, a subtle warmth that shouldn’t feel like this, but does.

Leo notices the ease in Sangwon’s presence, the soft vulnerability hiding beneath the grin, the way he actually wants him here.

At first, Sangwon’s restless, joking, doodling in the margins instead of listening. But little by little, his attention steadies—he asks questions, scribbles notes, even argues over a formula.

It’s quiet, productive, and intimate in a way the drunken nights, the messy mornings, the chaos never were.

For a moment, Leo sees him differently—not the boy who disappears into smoke and noise, but someone who could care. 

Someone who could have a future, if he stopped running from himself.

When Sangwon gets an answer right, his face lights up—bright, unguarded, like a kid discovering something new. 

“See? Not completely hopeless.”

Leo laughs, shaking his head, voice soft but firm, “never said you were.”

The words slip out too naturally, too true, echoing in the quiet of the apartment. His chest tightens, caught between something gentle and something unbearably sharp.

There’s a pause. 

Sangwon looks at him, eyes narrowing slightly, grin softening, expression unreadable—like he’s weighing whether to tease or retreat. 

Then he drops his gaze back to the notes, muttering almost to himself, “guess I just needed the right tutor.”

The air between them thickens, electric. 

The apartment suddenly feels too small, every sound amplified—the scratch of pen on paper, the faint hum of traffic outside, the unspoken weight hanging in the space between them. 

Leo swallows, heart hammering, and wonders how Sangwon makes it feel like the world contracted just for the two of them.

By the time they finish, Sangwon’s lying back against the edge of the couch, pen tapping lazily against his knee. 

“Thanks, by the way,” he says, quieter now, almost reluctant. “I don’t really… I don’t say it much, but right now, you’re kind of the only one who actually gives a fuck if I try.”

Leo’s chest tightens, a pang that lands deep and stubborn. He wants to say I give a fuck because I love you.

But instead, he just nods, keeping his voice even. 

“No problem.”

Sangwon lets out a soft laugh, small and tired, but there’s something unguarded in it. A smile flickers, real and fleeting, and it lands straight on Leo, like a quiet confession he doesn’t need to speak.

It's nearly sunset when Leo leans back against the couch, sketchpad resting heavy on his chest, pencil still in hand, letting his eyes flutter shut. 

The faint hum of the city drifts in through the window, a muted rhythm against the quiet apartment. 

He’s asleep before he even realizes it, body slack, breathing slow and uneven.

Sangwon steps out of the washroom, reaching automatically for his vape, but then he sees Leo. Something in his chest tightens—the sight of Leo so unguarded, exhausted, careless. 

Without thinking, he flicks the vape into the trash.

“Burnt anyway,” he mutters, though the words feel hollow even to him.

He doesn’t move, just stands there, letting the quiet stretch, watching Leo’s pencil still clutched like he might wake up at any second. 

The apartment feels smaller, warmer, heavier with a tension left unnamed.

For a moment, Sangwon allows himself a flicker of recognition—he realizes, maybe for the first time, how much he actually notices Leo. 

How much he’s been tethered to him all along, in ways he never admitted. 

And Leo, oblivious in sleep, doesn’t know that in this quiet moment, everything has started to shift.

The arts studio was alive that morning—machines buzzing, clay wheels spinning, someone blasting music from a speaker, the smell of wet clay and turpentine thick in the air. 

Sangwon had only dropped by to check on Leo, maybe drag him out for food, but the moment he rounded the corner, he froze.

Leo was pressed into the corner, sleeve covering his mouth, coughing hard. 

Gray smoke from one of the installation machines curled around him, clinging to his damp hair and the air like a stubborn fog.

“The hell’s wrong with him?” Sangwon asked, frowning, voice low, half to himself, half to Geonwoo.

Geonwoo barely looked up from his brushes, exchanging a quick, almost imperceptible glance with Jiahao. The unspoken communication—mild exasperation, concern, recognition—hung between them like a silent commentary.

“Leo can’t really handle smoke,” Geonwoo said finally, shrugging. “Weak lungs. Working in here doesn’t help. He just… toughs it out.”

Sangwon’s chest went hollow.

All this time, he’d believed Leo’s scrunched-up nose, his muttered complaints, his constant sharp-edged humor—he’d thought it was annoyance. 

Self-righteousness. A front for disapproval. 

But now he saw it differently. 

There had always been a layer of something real beneath it, fragile and unnoticed, and Sangwon hadn’t bothered to look.

He watched Leo straighten, cheeks flushed, trying to smooth his hair back, forcing the practiced smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

And Sangwon, feeling the weight of the small revelation, unconsciously shoved his lighter deeper into his pocket, letting the moment pass in silence.

His chest tightened in a way that surprised him.

Jiahao and Geonwoo shared another glance, subtle but knowing, and Sangwon realized he had just walked into a part of Leo’s world he hadn’t considered.

And maybe, for the first time, he realized he wanted to know more than a fraction of it.

More than a fraction of Leo.

Sangwon didn’t even notice when he started changing his habits.

Showering before meeting up. Chewing gum until the bitter taste of ash was gone. Skipping the cigarette outside the bar when he knew he’d see Leo after. 

Adjusting the rhythm of his day almost imperceptibly, bending around a presence that was constantly pulling at him, though he refused to name it. 

Not once did he say it out loud, not even to himself.

It wasn’t conscious, not really. More like instinct.

Because every time he lit one up, every drag after, Sangwon’s chest felt heavier than it had any right to. 

And when he stood in front of Leo, smoke clinging to his clothes, swirling around him like a gray halo, it felt… wrong. 

Wrong in a way that made him snap his lighter shut too quickly, step back, shake his hands.

So Sangwon stopped. 

Or at least, he tried.

And he told himself it was nothing. Just a whim, just practicality. Convenience. Self-preservation, even.

But sometimes, when Leo laughed at something stupid—tiny, careless sounds that seemed to fracture the weight of the world for a fraction of a second—and the room felt lighter because of it, Sangwon would catch himself thinking.

What the fuck am I doing?

The thought came with a pang, sharp and insistent. 

It ached in his chest, impossible to shake. He wanted to ignore it, to shove it down and pretend it was nothing.

And yet, every time Leo looked at him with that usual, uncontained warmth, Sangwon realized the truth—he was already chained in ways he refused to acknowledge.

He was walking a line he didn’t want to admit existed, pulled toward someone he shouldn't have—not in the way he wanted, not without risking himself. 

And still, he didn’t stop.

The first thing Leo registers is light. 

Golden morning spilling in through the blinds, slicing across the room in shards that catch the dust in the air.

The second is the emptiness beside him, sheets cooling where Sangwon should be. A jolt of panic shoots through his chest, sharp and insistent. 

Of course, Sangwon always disappears. Always slips away before the world catches them together, before Leo has the chance to feel what it might mean.

But then he sees him.

Sangwon, by the window. Bare legs folded into a chair, perched like he owns the light itself, wearing nothing but Leo’s white button-up. His hair is a soft, careless mess. 

On Sangwon’s lap, a slim book Leo remembers being gifted but never having read lies open, pages spread beneath delicate fingers. He isn’t scrolling through his phone, isn’t laughing at some dumb meme. 

He’s reading—eyes darting steadily across the lines, mouth faintly curved as if the words belong to him alone.

And Leo’s breath stutters.

The faint purpling marks he left last night bloom at Sangwon’s throat, just visible where the shirt hangs loose. His skin glows in the early light, unreal, like something carved from marble but warmed with life. 

For a long, dangerous moment, Leo swears he isn’t human at all but something mythic, something borrowed from a dream.

And for a heartbeat, everything else—the apartment, the sunlight, the silence—falls away.

Leo swallows, chest tightening. He’s mesmerized. 

Vulnerable and untouchable at the same time, Sangwon seems to inhabit the light and the room with the same effortless ease that makes Leo ache without permission.

He closes his eyes, lets it hurt, lets himself remember how much he’ll never have—not fully, not without everything else sliding away.

And then, reluctantly, he exhales.

When Sangwon finally notices him staring, he quirks a brow, playful and careless, leaning back just enough in the chair to make it impossible to look away.

“What? Never seen someone read before?” he teases, voice light.

Leo’s throat goes dry. He shakes his head, words caught somewhere behind his ribs, “not like that.”

Sangwon huffs a short, amused laugh, flipping the book closed with a soft snap. “Poems make sense when the rest of the world doesn’t,” he says, almost to himself, eyes distant for a fraction of a second. “I have a copy of one in my place.”

Leo props himself on an elbow, heart jostling in the cage of his chest. “You… usually read poetry?” his voice is hesitant, disbelief threaded with awe.

“Sometimes,” Sangwon admits, a casual shrug masking the subtle tremor in his tone. Then, softer, almost conspiratorial, “don't tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

Leo catches the weight behind that smile, the flicker of something vulnerable Sangwon doesn’t offer freely. 

And for a moment, the distance between them collapses—not with touch, but with the bare, unguarded honesty in his voice.

The kettle whistled softly in the kitchen, a thin, high note cutting through the quiet morning. Leo’s laptop pinged with the familiar tone of an overseas call, and despite himself, a small smile tugged at his lips.

He padded over and clicked accept, adjusting the screen.

“Leo!”

His mother’s face filled the frame, bathed in the soft glow of a sunset. Behind her, his father waved lazily from the dining table, coffee mug in hand.

“How are you, sweetheart? Eating properly? Sleeping enough?” Her voice carried that gentle edge of worry only mothers could perfect.

“Hi, Mom. Yeah, yeah—I’m fine,” Leo chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, a small warmth creeping up his chest at seeing them. 

“I’m not alone, by the way. I’ve got a friend over.”

Sangwon, stretched lazily across the couch in one of Leo’s hoodies, blinked up at the word friend. 

He made no move to correct it—just tilted his head, raised a brow, and offered a little bow at the laptop camera, a smile teasing the edges of his lips.

“Oh, hello there!” Leo’s mom leaned forward, as if she could step through the screen and pull him into the frame. “And aren’t you just lovely? Leo, are you treating him well? Feeding him something decent?”

Heat crept up Leo’s neck, prickling at the tips of his ears.

“Mom—”

“Because you know you can’t just live off instant ramen. Both of you need real food.”

Sangwon laughed, low and easy, curling through the room like smoke. It was warm, infectious, and it hit Leo’s chest in a way that made it hard to breathe. 

Leo’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table. He glanced at Sangwon, and the smile still lingering there seemed almost defiant. 

For a moment, Leo imagined explaining it all to his mother—the way Sangwon lingered in his apartment, the way he filled the corners with effortless chaos, scattering light and warmth everywhere, leaving him breathless and dizzy all at once. 

How could he even begin to describe the way Sangwon made him feel alive, and completely undone?

But he didn’t.

Before he could even start, Sangwon leaned closer to the laptop camera, eyes glinting with that mischievous spark, as if daring Leo to protest. 

Heat surged to Leo’s cheeks, prickling his ears.

“Hello, auntie,” Sangwon said, voice smooth, perfectly casual. “Don't worry, Leo’s been taking good care of me.”

Leo’s chest thumped in sudden panic and awe. He wanted to hit him, wanted to groan, wanted to melt into the floor all at once.

Sangwon didn’t give him the chance, of course—he just let the corner of his mouth tug into that crooked grin, shoulders relaxing beside him, eyes sparkling with unspoken amusement.

As if this was the most natural thing in the world.

They bantered for a while—Leo’s mom teasing him about his messy room, Sangwon lounging nearby, observing like he was half-amused, half-guarded.

“You can’t just hang up without saying it back, son! That’s cruel,” she scolded, fingers wagging at the screen.

“Alright, alright, I love you, Mom,” Leo muttered, rolling his eyes, cheeks warming despite himself. He smiled, the kind of small, genuine smile reserved for family.

Sangwon watched the whole exchange. His lips tugged into a faint smile too, but it didn’t reach his eyes—not the way Leo’s did. 

His gaze dropped to his hands, flexing them, curling and uncurling as if trying to shake off something stubborn.

But before ending the call, Leo’s mom leaned closer to the camera, eyes softening as they flicked toward Sangwon.

“Lee Leo,” she said gently, voice warm, “you take good care of your friend, okay? Sangwon-ah, come to auntie if this brat is mean to you.”

Sangwon blinked, caught off guard. 

For a fraction of a second, the usual mask of indifferent confidence cracked, and he offered a small, almost sheepish nod.

Leo felt his chest tighten, a strange mix of warmth and ache, seeing Sangwon register something like approval—or maybe just being seen—in a way only family could offer.

When the call ended, Leo shut the laptop and turned, expecting the usual jab—something about being a mama’s boy, or looking stupidly red in the face. 

But Sangwon stayed quiet. 

“You’re not gonna make fun of me?” Leo asked, sinking onto the couch beside him, voice light, almost teasing.

Sangwon shook his head slowly, “nope.” 

The smile he offered was thin, pressed at the edges, tinged with something fragile, something Leo couldn’t name.

For a moment, Leo just stared. Something tugged sharply in his chest, like a hand tracing a hidden fracture beneath Sangwon’s skin.

Then, quiet and low, almost as if testing the waters, Sangwon said, “you seem close with your parents.”

Leo blinked, caught off guard. “Uh, yeah. I guess I am,” he tried to laugh it off, to sprinkle lightness over the moment. “Why, jealous?”

Sangwon’s thin smile lingered, distant, unreadable. 

“Something like that.”

He leaned back, flipping open a book at random as though the conversation had already ended. 

But the words clung to Leo, sharper than they should have been, leaving a hollow pull in his chest that made the apartment feel impossibly quiet, impossibly heavy.

The moment Sangwon stepped out onto the street, the city sounded impossibly loud—horns, chatter, distant music, everything sharper than usual.

He didn’t pause, didn’t glance back. Fumbling for a cigarette, his hands shook slightly—not from nerves, not exactly, but from the weight of having stayed somewhere that felt too normal, too warm.

Too close to something he didn’t know how to handle.

He lit it, inhaling deep and fast like he needed to punish himself for even standing in that apartment, for letting Leo’s world brush against his own. 

The smoke burned harsher than usual, bitter in his mouth, the taste wrong—like a reminder of what it meant to let himself care, even when he swore he wouldn’t.

Sangwon coughed into the sleeve of his—Leo’s—hoodie, the city lights blurring around him.

His eyes flick up at the faint glow of Leo’s apartment window up the building behind him, wondering how something so small could feel so enormous. Why such a simple thing felt like a risk he couldn’t measure.

The street hummed around him, indifferent, but Sangwon stayed rooted for a long moment, exhaling slow clouds that did nothing to ease the weight pressing on his chest.

Leo was juggling a paper bag of takeout, earbuds dangling lazily around his neck, when he noticed the kid at the bus stop.

Not loitering, exactly—more like pacing in small circles, hand gripping the straps of his backpack, expression caught somewhere between embarrassment and quiet panic.

“Excuse me—” the boy finally found his voice, careful, tentative. “Do you know how to get to Haemdong Apartments? I was supposed to call someone, but my phone…” he lifted the black screen like evidence of his failure, cheeks coloring.

Leo blinked, balancing the take out bags, “that’s actually where I’m headed.”

“Really? That’s—oh, that’s great!” his whole face brightened, relief spilling out in a rush. “I’ve been standing here like an idiot for twenty minutes. Thank you, seriously.”

He thrust out a hand like they were on stage at a debate club instead of a corner of the sidewalk. 

“I’m Sanghyeon. Chung Sanghyeon.”

Leo shifted the bag to shake it, a small smile tugging at his lips, “Lee Leo.”

From that moment, Sanghyeon didn’t stop talking.

About graduating high school soon. About maybe applying to Leo’s university. About finally visiting his brother after months buried in college entrance exam prep that had left him exhausted and jittery.

He spoke fast, words tumbling over each other, as though even a pause might swallow him whole. Each sentence carried a nervous energy, a mixture of excitement and something fragile—like he was afraid the world might slip away if he didn’t grip it with words.

Leo listened, letting the paper bag swing from one hand, offering occasional replies when Sanghyeon’s voice ran ahead of itself. 

There was humor there, too—easy, natural, unforced. 

It was a kind of brightness Leo hadn’t realized he’d missed, a contrast to the messy nights, sharp silences, and quiet tension he was so used to navigating.

By the time they climbed the stairwell to Sangwon’s floor, Sanghyeon had already launched into a passionate defense of strawberry milk over banana milk, insisting it “tastes more like a hug.”

Leo chuckled, shifting the bag in his arms. “How’d you even get to that conclusion—” he trailed off, the words dying in his throat as his steps carried him forward without thought.

Sanghyeon stops beside him, eyes widening as they land on the apartment door. The same door Leo had been heading for.

“Wait.” 

Recognition flickered across Sanghyeon’s face, slow and dawning. 

“This is my brother’s place.”

Leo’s stomach lurches, a hollow weight dragging at his chest. His hand clenched the takeout bag as though it could anchor him, “your… brother?”

“Yeah!” Sanghyeon said, bright and unselfconscious, already lifting a hand to the doorbell. “Lee Sangwon.”

The name landed in the hallway like a slap—sharp, sudden, impossible to ignore. Leo’s mind scrambled, heart hammering in a rhythm that didn’t make sense. 

Sangwon’s place. Sanghyeon’s brother. 

The threads of connection snapped tight, and for a breathless second, Leo wondered how he had wandered so blindly into it.

He barely had a moment to catch his breath before the door swung open.

Sangwon stood there—cropped shirt, hair tousled, eyes narrowing as they landed on the scene. Leo, takeout bag in hand. Sanghyeon, grinning like he owned the world, standing a step behind.

The air thickened, taut with surprise and unspoken questions. Sangwon’s gaze flicked between them, sharp and incredulous, as if trying to make sense of some impossible illusion.

Then, with a sharp inhale, he let out a dry laugh, the sound cutting the tension just enough to land between disbelief and irritation.

“Sanghyeon, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Hyung!” Sanghyeon beamed, stepping forward without hesitation, arms wrapping around his older brother in a hug. “I thought you’d be shocked, but not that shocked.”

Sangwon’s eyes softened fractionally, caught between annoyance, surprise, and the faintest flicker of fondness that only Leo seemed to notice.

Sangwon endured the hug with a stiff posture, patting his brother’s shoulder once, quick and perfunctory.

“I wasn’t expecting more—” his eyes flicked to Leo, sharp and assessing, before returning to Sanghyeon, “—company.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Sanghyeon waved it off, grinning like the world couldn’t touch him. 

“My phone died, didn’t want to wait, so I just came straight here. Guess who helped me find your building? Leo hyung!” he beamed at Leo, completely oblivious to the tension hanging in the air.

Leo raised a hand, half-smile awkward, caught between feeling proud and feeling out of place. “Lucky timing, I guess,” he muttered.

Sangwon’s gaze lingered on Leo for a fraction too long—something unspoken passing between them—before he turned back to his brother with a careful neutrality that didn’t quite mask the edge of wariness.

The evening unfolded in a blur of chatter, mostly Sanghyeon’s. 

He filled every pause with stories—the agony of exams, the relief of finishing the CSAT, the teacher who cried at graduation rehearsal, the petty victories and humiliations of high school life. 

His words tumbled out in a rush, spilling energy into the apartment like sunlight through a cracked window.

Sangwon leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded, his posture casual, his voice muttering the occasional mm or a dry, “don’t exaggerate.” 

But Leo saw the flickers—the tiny betrayals of softness in Sangwon’s eyes when Sanghyeon laughed too loud or leaned in a little closer.

Always quick, Sangwon masked it. 

A sardonic smirk, a shrug, a teasing jab at Sanghyeon’s theatrics. 

Leo felt the weight of it—the way Sangwon’s guard slipped just enough to reveal something fragile beneath the surface, and yet he rebuilt the walls immediately, seamless, practiced.

And Leo couldn’t stop noticing.

Every glance Sangwon gave his brother, every subtle shift, carried a gravity that made Leo’s chest tighten. He was both intruder and witness, helpless and fascinated all at once.

Later, once Sanghyeon’s phone finally flickered back to life, it buzzed insistently. Sangwon glanced down, eyes narrowing at the screen.

“Driver’s downstairs,” he said, voice flat, measured.

“You didn’t have to call one—” Sanghyeon began, a frown tugging at his features.

“I didn’t,” Sangwon interrupted, sharper than intended, “they called me.”

Sanghyeon’s lips pressed into a thin line, clearly frustrated, but he didn’t argue. “Fine,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “But next time, I’m commuting again. Don't tell on me.”

At the door, shoes hastily slipped back on, Sanghyeon spun toward Leo with sudden intensity. “Leo hyung, there’s a party this weekend. For me!” he beamed, “you have to come.”

Leo blinked, caught off guard, “me?”

“Yes, you,” Sanghyeon said, grin widening until it was practically blinding, equal parts sweet and threatening. “If you don’t, I’ll hunt you down. I'll text you the details because I know my brother won’t.”

Leo laughed despite himself, nodding, “alright, I’ll be there.”

Behind him, a low murmur—Sangwon, voice sharp with restrained irritation. “Don’t drag him into your mess, Sanghyeon,” he sighed. “He’s busy.”

Sanghyeon waved him off with a theatrical roll of his eyes. “He’s my friend now too,” he said, voice light, unstoppable.

And just like that, he was gone—a rush of youthful energy, laughter fading, the door clicking shut behind him.

The apartment fell into sudden, almost oppressive silence. Heavy and taut. 

Leo glanced sideways at Sangwon, who was leaning back against the door, arms crossed, face unreadable. 

And in his own chest, questions stirred.

Like why the brothers had different last names, and why Sangwon seemed so desperate to keep distance from someone who clearly adored him.

They perched on the edge of the campus fountain, sunlight glinting off the water, papers and sketchbook balanced on Leo’s lap.

He tapped at a sketch, voice quick and eager, “if I can get the texture of the bronze right here, it’ll catch the light exactly the way I imagined—”

He paused, frowning as he traced a line with his pencil. 

“But then the shadows on the base need adjusting, otherwise the perspective’s off.”

Sangwon leaned back on his hands, humming casually. “You really love what you’re doing, don’t you?” he chuckled at Leo’s rambling.

“Of course,” Leo said, eyes bright, earnest. “I’m dedicating my whole life to this. I can’t half-ass it.”

Sangwon tilted his head, a lazy shrug punctuating the air. 

“Jealous,” he muttered, letting the word linger between them like smoke, the sunlight glinting off the fountain water behind him, rippling and catching tiny rainbows in the spray.

After a beat, Leo’s voice cut in, threaded with genuine curiosity, the sketchbook balanced awkwardly on his knees. “So, why pre-law anyway?” he starts. “You don’t exactly strike me as the ‘serious, by-the-book’ type.”

Sangwon’s shrug deepened, casual but teasing, fingers brushing lightly over the edge of the fountain. 

“Maybe I like being serious,” he tilted his face toward the sun, letting the light catch the curve of his jaw, the way the strands of hair fell just so across his forehead. “Maybe I’ve got a dark side you don’t know about.” 

Leo chuckled softly, shaking his head, but he couldn’t help tracing, in his mind, the way Sangwon’s eyes caught the sunlight, the slight tension in his shoulders, the curve of his lips when he spoke. 

“I’m not saying you can’t be serious,” he retorts, “I’m just saying… you don’t really seem to like it all that much.”

A soft gust of wind fluttered the pages of the sketchbook, brushing against his hands. Sangwon’s eyes flickered, narrowing for just a moment, a shadow crossing his features that made Leo pause mid-breath. 

He caught the subtle crease between his brows, the way the light softened the edges of his expression, and felt his own chest tighten without warning.

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Sangwon said quietly, voice softening, almost confessional.

“It’s just… not really me,” he says barely audible over the distant chatter of students passing by and the steady gurgle of the fountain. “It’s what happens when someone else decides for you, and you can only… follow.”

Leo’s chest constricted further. 

His hands grip the sketchbook, the warm sun brushing his skin, the faint scent of the fountain water mingling with Sangwon’s perfume from the day. 

Sangwon scoffs, but it lacks the usually indifferent cuff it has.

“I just followed, mostly because it made them happy.”

“Oh,” Leo murmured, soft enough that only he could hear. “I… didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine,” Sangwon shrugged again, gaze drifting over the fountain’s edge, distant, unfocused. 

“Everyone’s got their things. Mine just happens to be… not being the person I want to be—yet,” his fingers traced a lazy circle on the cool stone of the fountain, unconsciously fidgeting.

“It’s not too late, you know,” Leo leaned forward, earnest, hands resting lightly on his knees, eyes locked on him. “You can still… shift things, choose differently, start doing what you actually want” 

His voice was quiet, but firm, carrying over the soft hiss of the fountain’s water, the occasional laugh of students passing by, the gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze.

“It doesn’t have to be gone forever because you can't be it now, Sangwon.”

Sangwon blinked slowly, a faint, almost reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, quick to vanish as his gaze returned to the rippling water. 

“Easy for you to say, Mr. Fine Arts,” he murmured, voice low, casual, but a shadow of something unspoken lingered beneath it.

“Maybe,” Leo replied, leaning back against the stone ledge, the sketchbook shifted properly on his lap, sunlight catching in the pencil marks, turning the paper to gold in places. 

“But I mean it.”

The words hung between them like the afternoon light itself—warm, steady, and insistent. 

Leo’s eyes traced Sangwon’s profile without thinking. 

The sharp line of his jaw softened in the sun, a stray lock of hair falling over his brow, the way his shoulder shifted as he leaned back. 

There was a quiet weight in the space between them now, an unspoken invitation to see, to hear, to reach, if only one of them dared.

Sangwon’s faint smile lingered a fraction longer this time, and for a heartbeat, Leo felt the almost tangible possibility.

That maybe the world could be different, if Sangwon wanted it to be.

It started with a text from Sanghyeon.

A cheerful bubble blinking on Leo’s screen, an invitation attached, and a puppy sticker so obnoxiously cute it made Leo groan.

dress code is formal btw see u there hyung!!

Leo blinked, sitting up a little straighter. Formal.

A suit?

“Fuck,” he muttered, too loud, the word slipping out sharp. Across the room, Sangwon’s brow lifted, a slow, lazy arch that somehow managed to be both unimpressed and infuriating.

“What?”

Leo’s eyes stayed glued to the screen, stomach twisting. “Don’t tell me…” he starts, “this means a suit. Like actual suit-suit.”

“What,” Sangwon scoffed, flicking a hand through his hair, eyes glinting with disbelief. “Don’t tell me you don’t own one.”

Leo froze, caught mid-thought, vision narrowing to the stark reality of his wardrobe.

“Oh my god,” Sangwon said, half-laughing, half-horrified, stepping closer, voice dropping just enough to tease, “you don’t.”

That’s how Leo found himself in a gleaming store the next afternoon, following Sangwon through sliding glass doors into a grand lobby. 

Plush chairs sprawled across the space, mirrored walls reflecting racks of pressed suits that stood like soldiers at attention, fabric catching the soft overhead light and gleaming. 

The faint scent of polished leather and cologne hung in the air, making his chest tighten.

“Lee Sangwon,” Leo’s voice sounded small, almost absurd against the vastness of the space.

“Yes?” Sangwon’s tone was flat, casual, but his gaze was sharp, flicking over Leo like he’d caught him staring too long.

“You’ve literally seen me survive on instant ramen and convenience store food the past two weeks,” his stomach knotted, “I can’t afford to even breathe in here.” 

His fingers itched to tug at his hoodie, a reflexive attempt to ground himself amidst the overwhelming display of wealth and ease.

Sangwon’s head tilted, a slow smirk curling at the corner of his lips. He leaned against a chair, one hand tucked into his pocket. 

“Who said you’re paying?”

Leo blinked, caught mid-thought. He could feel the heat creeping up his neck. The words landed lightly, but the weight behind them pressed against Leo’s chest. 

Sangwon’s casual command of the room, the way he made decisions without hesitation, always left Leo off balance.

Of course, this would be no different

For a moment, Leo considered bolting—or at least hiding in one of the mirrored corners—but instead, he just froze, heart hammering, feeling like the idiot for thinking otherwise.

They started safe. 

A black jacket, clean lines, sleeves grazing Leo’s wrists. A shirt that clung just enough to outline his frame when he moved, crisp and starched. 

Leo’s hands lingered on the collars, adjusting, tugging—small, precise motions that somehow made every shift of muscle, every curve, more pronounced.

Sangwon watched from the couch at first, sprawled like he didn’t care, but the disinterest was a lie. 

His gaze sharpened with each piece Leo added, each sleeve he slid on, each moment his body filled out the fabric. 

God, he already thought Leo was unfair in hoodies, in the battered leather jacket he wore on nights out like a second skin.

But this—this was different.

The tailored jacket made his shoulders broader, the crisp white shirt beneath outlined muscles Sangwon hadn’t completely let himself notice before, not with all the drunken rage in his system.

Every inch of Leo fit into the elegance he’s currently being showered with, and Sangwon felt it burn through him like gasoline lighting up a dry forest.

By the fourth jacket, Sangwon was already on his feet, heart hammering against his ribs. 

The casual facade dropped, replaced by something sharp, urgent, needy.

“Come here,” he said suddenly, voice low, grabbing a hanger at random. “You’re putting this one on next.”

Leo’s hand hovered over it, “here?”

“No.”

Sangwon’s fingers caught his wrist, firm but not rough, tugging him toward the mirrored stall at the back. Heat shot up Leo’s arm, a spark running through him. 

“I’ll help you.”

The air between them thickened, the scent of Sangwon’s cologne mingling with the faint steamed scent on the shirts, the hum of the store fading into something intimate. 

Leo’s chest tightened, and he realized the trembling in his hands wasn’t just from nerves—it was Sangwon, every glance, every proximity, setting fire to a restraint he hadn’t even known he was holding.

The door clicked shut behind them, muffling the hum of the nearly empty store. 

Before Leo could even think to protest, Sangwon shoved him back against the wall. The hanger clattered to the floor, metal pinging softly against tile, completely forgotten.

“Sangwon, what—”

The rest of his words died at the crash of soft lips against his. 

Sangwon’s eyes were wild under the narrow, warm light, pupils dark, intent and dangerous. Heat radiated off him, sharp and magnetic.

“Relax, no one’s around,” he breathes out, already a desperate tug on his voice, “the next people are three walls over.” His mouth was already at Leo’s jaw, hot breath curling over skin. 

“You have no idea how fucking good you look right now.”

Leo’s pulse roared in his ears. His fingers gripped the edge of the mirror, knuckles white, breath coming in shallow bursts. 

“We’re in public,” he rasped, the words weak against the surge building between them. Sangwon pressed closer, lips brushing his ear, teeth grazing the lobe lightly. 

“No, we’re not,” he murmured, voice low, teasing. A smirk flicked across his face, “and you’re hard already.”

“Still—” Leo’s chest tightened, every rational thought a whisper drowned beneath the thrum of want.

“Doesn’t matter.” 

Sangwon’s teeth nipped lightly at the base of his neck, and his hand slid down the line of Leo’s shirt, palm pressing flat against the hard plane of his stomach. 

Fire and ice at once, the teasing bite and firm touch unraveling every ounce of resistance.

“You’re—” Leo exhaled sharply, surrender nearly threading through him. “You’re crazy, seriously.”

Sangwon laughed, low and electric, vibrating against Leo’s skin. The sound set something inside him alight, and he caught Leo’s gaze in the mirror—dark, gleaming, unapologetic. 

“I know,” he said softly, almost a whisper. “And I also know you love it.”

Desperation pooled through Leo, thick and maddening, hot in his veins.

Sangwon’s hands were already on him, fingers curling into the knot of Leo’s tie with a tug that bordered on violence. 

The knot slipped free with a sharp hiss, heat and air rushing out at once, as their lips met—hard, urgent, relentless. Leo’s chest stuttered, breath catching in ragged bursts, every nerve alight as Sangwon pressed closer. 

“What, are you just gonna stare at me like a fool?” Sangwon’s fingers traced the line of Leo’s jaw, slow, deliberate, teasing. “You think I won’t notice if you hesitate?”

Leo’s throat tightened, “Sangwon, just wait—”

He leaned closer, breath warm against Leo’s ear. “You always think you’re in control, huh? Always trying to play it safe, but look at you,” he bites at Leo’s neck, the skin overheating, “look at how hard you are already.”

Leo shivered, torn between shame and want.

“God, you’re pathetic when you’re like this,” Sangwon murmured, brushing the tip of his nose along Leo’s cheek, lips ghosting over the temple in a teasing, deliberate trail. 

“So predictable, so desperate,” his eyes—dark, sharp, and impossibly magnetic—locked onto Leo’s, reading every flicker of hesitation, every pulse that betrayed him. 

“I could make you beg without even touching you properly. Isn’t that fun?”

Leo’s chest tightened, his hands gripping at the mirror behind him as heat pooled low, his resolve wobbling, splintering. Sangwon’s stare was a tether he couldn’t break, pulling him in despite himself.

Sangwon pressed closer, hand sliding down slowly, palm teasing against the hard line of Leo’s stomach, fingers brushing over sensitive skin, drawing shallow, uneven breaths from him. 

Every movement was a challenge, a dare.

“But I need something else,” Sangwon groaned, voice low, ragged, vibrating with want. “I want you to get rough with me, Leo. Right here, right now.”

Leo’s knees threatened to buckle, his heartbeat thundered in his ears, loud enough that he was sure Sangwon could feel it.

But Sangwon looks too far gone to hear it.

“Make me insane, make me the one who begs for it.”

Leo’s jaw clenched, thoughts scrambling—part of him wanting to push away, part of him aching to give in. 

And in Sangwon’s eyes, sharp and daring, he saw it.

The unrelenting pull of chaos, of desire, of something dangerously delicious—and just like that, his resolve crumbles.

In that one suspended moment, the mirrored walls around them fell away, the world outside didn’t exist. Only heat, breath, and the sharp, delicious edge of wanting.

Their bodies collided back into each other—heat, breath, skin—and Sangwon’s palms slapped against the glass, bracing.

Leo’s mouth found the hinge of Sangwon’s jaw, teeth scraping, then lower, sucking a bruise into the column of his throat. 

A low sound escaped Sangwon, half protest, half plea, muffled against the mirror as Leo’s hips rolled forward, grinding with deliberate slowness. 

The friction sparked white-hot—Sangwon’s cock strained against his own pants, trapped and aching.

“Fuck, Leo—”

“Quiet,” Leo’s voice was velvet and gravel, breath hot against Sangwon’s ear. He reached down, palmed Sangwon through fabric, squeezing just hard enough to make Sangwon’s knees buckle. 

“Look, this is what you wanted, right?”

Sangwon’s eyes flicked up. The mirror showed everything.

His own flushed cheeks, lips swollen and parted. Leo’s pupils blown, tie dangling loose like a leash. Sangwon gets turned back around, a ragdoll in Leo’s command.

Leo’s hand slid lower, popping the button of Sangwon’s jeans, dragging the zipper down with a rasp that echoed in the tight space. 

Cool air hit overheated skin, then Leo’s fist wrapped around him—firm, slick with precome already leaking—and Sangwon’s head thumped back against the glass.

Leo stroked once, twice, thumb swiping over the head, spreading the wetness. Sangwon’s hips jerked, chasing the pressure. 

“You’re dripping,” Leo murmured, lips ghosting over the curve of Sangwon’s ear, warm and wet, teasing. His fingers hooked under the hem of Sangwon’s shirt, tugging it upward until it slipped off his shoulders in a slow, deliberate slide, pooling onto the carpeted floor.

Leo’s voice dropped lower, husky, almost dangerous. 

“Already this gone?”

The words hung between them, charged, as if the room itself had contracted around their heat. Sangwon shivered at the touch, the whispered assessment, caught somewhere between laughter, want, and disbelief.

He couldn’t answer. Words dissolved into a groan as Leo spun him once more—quick and rough—until Sangwon’s chest pressed flush to the mirror, cheek smushed against his own reflection. 

The glass felt colder on his bare skin, a shock against flushed skin, and Leo’s weight pinned him there, thigh shoving between his legs to spread him open.

Fabric tore away one by one with Leo’s impatience, Sangwon’s pants yanked down entirely and discarded. 

Then, Leo’s fingers—two of them, thick and insistent—pushed past Sangwon’s parted lips without warning. 

Sangwon’s tongue curled instinctively, tasting salt and skin, the faint bite of Leo’s cologne. Leo’s eyes in the mirror were black with hunger, unblinking.

“Suck,” he said, low, the single word scraping like gravel. “Get them wet for me.”

Sangwon obeyed, cheeks hollowing, saliva pooling hot and messy. Leo twisted his wrist, sliding deeper until Sangwon’s throat fluttered, a muffled whine vibrating around the digits. 

When Leo pulled free, strings of spit trailed, glistening, and Sangwon’s lips stayed open, panting.

Leo spun him fully now—chest to glass, palms squeaking as they scrabbled for purchase. 

The cold mirror bit into Sangwon’s nipples—he hissed, hips jerking back into Leo’s heat. Leo’s slick fingers found him immediately, circling the tight rim with teasing pressure before one pushed in up to the knuckle.

Sangwon’s breath fogged the glass in a sharp burst. Leo crooked his finger, searching, then dragged over that spot—slow, deliberate. Sangwon’s knees buckled, only Leo’s grip in his hip kept him upright.

“More,” Sangwon rasped, voice cracking. “Leo, please—”

A second finger joined the first, scissoring wide, stretching him open with wet, filthy sounds that echoed in the narrow space. 

Leo’s thumb pressed beside them, not entering, just circling, driving him mad. Sangwon writhed, hips rolling back, chasing the burn, the fullness, the promise of more.

“Greedy,” Leo murmured against his ear, teeth grazing the lobe. “Look at you—begging on my fingers like you were made for it.”

Sangwon’s reflection stared back—mouth slack, eyes glassy, cheeks flushed crimson. He couldn’t look away. 

Leo added a third finger, twisting deep, and Sangwon’s moan cracked open, raw and desperate.

“Please, ah—need you inside—”

Leo withdrew abruptly, leaving Sangwon clenching around nothing, a broken sound spilling from his throat. 

Before he could protest, Leo’s hands were on his shoulders, shoving him down. Sangwon’s knees hit the floor hard, the carpet rough against his shins. 

Leo’s cock—flushed and hard, slick with precome—bobbed inches from his lips.

“Open,” Leo ordered, voice rough. He fisted himself once, twice, smearing the bead of wetness over Sangwon’s bottom lip. 

Sangwon surged forward, mouth watering, taking Leo in with one eager slide. He hollowed his cheeks, tongue swirling, throat relaxing as Leo’s hips rocked shallowly, fucking his mouth with controlled thrusts. 

“That’s it—fuck,” Leo’s hand tightened in his hair, guiding, using. “You’re so pretty like this, Sangwon.”

When Leo pulled out, a wet pop echoed. 

Sangwon’s lips were swollen, glossy with spit and the faint sheen of Leo’s precome, chest heaving in ragged pulls. 

Leo’s hands—broad, trembling with restraint—curled under Sangwon’s arms and hauled him up, spinning him until his palms slapped the glass again, ass arched out in wordless offering. 

The mirror caught them both. 

Sangwon’s eyes wide and dark, pupils blown and Leo behind him, jaw clenched, the line of his throat taut with something fiercer than lust.

Look at him, Leo thought, the words a prayer and a curse. Sangwon’s spine curved, a perfect bow, and Leo’s cock nudged against him—slick, burning, the head kissing that tight ring of muscle. 

He could feel Sangwon’s pulse fluttering under his own skin, could taste the salt of his sweat in the air.

“Watch,” Leo said, voice shredded, meeting Sangwon’s gaze in the glass, eyes shaking and too far gone.

Watch me ruin you and worship you in the same breath.

Then, he pushed in—one long, relentless glide that seated him to the root. Sangwon’s mouth fell open on a silent scream, the stretch perfect, overwhelming, a burn that felt like coming home. 

Leo stilled for a heartbeat, just one, forehead pressed between Sangwon’s shoulder blades, breathing him in—sweat, cologne, the faint sweetness of his skin. 

Mine, the thought thrummed, possessive and desperate. Every inch, every gasp, every tremor—mine.

Then he moved.

Slow at first, dragging out until only the head remained, then sinking back in, savoring the clutch of Sangwon’s body, the way he fluttered and clung. 

“God, Leo—”

Sangwon’s reflection fractured with every thrust—cheeks flushed crimson, lips parted on broken sounds, eyes teary yet still locked on Leo’s as though he was drowning and Leo was the only way to breathe.

“Need you,” Sangwon mutters in between gasps, the words looping frantically behind his eyes. Deeper, harder, need to feel you when I sit, when I walk, when I breathe. 

The mirror showed Leo’s hand sliding up his chest, thumb brushing a nipple, then lower, wrapping around his cock with a grip that made Sangwon’s hips jerk. 

Need to be marked by you, inside and out.

Leo’s rhythm shifted—punishing, hips snapping, each thrust driving Sangwon harder against the glass. The mirror rattled, a constant percussion to the wet slap of skin, the ragged hitch of breath. 

Leo’s free hand splayed over Sangwon’s stomach, fingers digging in, anchoring. “Feel that?” he growled. “Feel how perfectly you take it? Like you were made for this, for me.” 

He leaned in, teeth grazing the shell of Sangwon’s ear.

“You’re unreal,” he rasped, the words spilling out raw. “So fucking beautiful like this—split open, begging with your eyes. Always so pretty.”

Sangwon whimpered, the sound punched out of him, and Leo’s hand tightened on his cock, stroking in time with every thrust. The coil in Sangwon’s gut wound viciously tight, thighs trembling, toes curling against the tile.

“Close—” he managed, voice cracked open.

Leo bit down on the slope of his shoulder, muffling his own groan, tasting salt and skin. “Go on,” he urged, lips brushing the mark. “Mark the mirror, baby. Let them see what I do to you.”

The words snapped the last thread. Pleasure crashed over Sangwon in white-hot waves, spilling in thick pulses over Leo’s fist, streaking the glass in messy, translucent ropes. 

His body clenched hard around Leo, sucking him in, and Leo followed with a guttural sound—hips stuttering, buried deep, flooding Sangwon with heat that felt endless.

They stayed locked like that, panting, trembling, reflections fractured by sweat and come and the tremor of aftershocks. 

Leo’s forehead dropped to Sangwon’s shoulder blade, breath ragged. “Still feeling crazy?” he whispered, lips brushing the bite mark.

Sangwon laughed, weak and wrecked, fogging the glass. 

“Shut up.”

Leo had been to his share of parties—cramped apartments, overpriced clubs, neon lights—but this was something else entirely.

The car rolled to a stop before a mansion that looked like it belonged in another century, its marble columns gleaming under a halo of floodlights. 

Inside, everything was gold and glass—chandeliers dripping crystal, laughter echoing beneath vaulted ceilings, champagne flutes glinting like tiny stars in trembling hands.

It should’ve been dazzling. It was dazzling. 

But all Leo could think, as he followed the hum of conversation deeper into the estate, was how easy it was to feel small here. As though every inch of this world had been built for someone who knew how to glide instead of stumble.

He tugged at the collar of his suit, custom-fit but a little jarring under golden lights, the fabric a little too stiff around his shoulders. 

The air smelled of money—aged perfume, polished floors, imported flowers. Beautiful, suffocating.

Then, across the room, Sangwon.

The noise dimmed. 

Or maybe Leo just forgot to hear.

He was standing near the grand staircase, black tie immaculate, hair swept back, a glass of champagne in hand like he’d been born knowing how to hold it. 

The soft gold light caught on Sangwon’s jaw, his throat, the perfect slope of his nose—each detail carved so finely it felt almost deliberate, as if the room itself had conspired to frame him. Leo’s breath hitched, something tight pulling beneath his ribs.

And then, Sangwon’s gaze found him.

It wasn’t immediate, not dramatic—just a slow, inevitable shift, like magnet to metal. 

Their eyes met across the room, past the glittering crowd and the clink of glassware, and Leo felt the world lurch, the air thinning around him. 

Sangwon doesn't look away. His lips curved—lazy, knowing, a smile that cut straight through the noise.

Leo forgot the rest of the room existed.

He’d told himself he was here because Sanghyeon had invited him, because it was polite, because he’d promised. 

But now, watching Sangwon command a space that bent and breathed around him, Leo felt something entirely different.

Not duty. Not pretense. Something heavier, pulling.

Something like gravity.

Leo knew he didn’t belong here, but the way Sangwon’s gaze flicked across the crowd, onto him, and lingered before he was swept amidst a group of what was probably family, seemed like less—Leo thought maybe belonging wasn’t the point.

Maybe it was being seen by Sangwon.

“Hyung!”

Leo turned, half-startled, as Sanghyeon appeared at the edge of the crowd, waving a hand above the sea of black suits and glittering gowns. 

His cheeks were flushed from laughter and champagne, bowtie slightly crooked, the picture of youth unrestrained.

“There you are!” he said, already tugging at Leo’s sleeve. “You’ve been standing by the door forever. Come on—at least let me show you around before you vanish.”

Leo blinked, caught off guard but smiling despite himself, “I wasn’t planning to vanish.”

“Good,” Sanghyeon said cheerfully, steering him through the room. 

They passed clusters of guests in murmured conversation, waiters with silver trays, a string quartet playing something delicate in the corner. The chandeliers above caught every movement, scattering shards of gold over their heads.

“That’s my uncle,” Sanghyeon said in a conspiratorial whisper, nodding toward a man with a glass of scotch. “And over there—my mom’s best friend. Don’t talk to her unless you want to hear about golf.”

Leo chuckled, “you’re giving me a survival guide like I’ll be staying around.”

“Why won't you?” Sanghyeon grinned, and Leo felt a flutter in his chest at the implication. “You need one for this family.”

They drifted past a display of champagne flutes, and Leo caught a glimpse of Sangwon across the room, mid-laugh with a group of older guests. The sight snatched his breath—the tilt of Sangwon’s head, the line of his jaw under warm light. 

Then Sanghyeon tugged him again, and the spell broke.

“See? Not so bad, right?” Sanghyeon said, glancing up at him. “I was worried you’d be hiding outside.”

“I might’ve,” Leo admitted. “You saved me the trouble.”

Sanghyeon laughed, bright and easy, “then I should get a thank-you drink later.”

“You’re not even old enough to—”

“No, no, I am!” Sanghyeon insisted, huffing playfully. “Don’t ruin the moment.”

They stopped near the edge of the room, where the sound of the quartet softened under the swell of conversation. Sanghyeon picked up a glass from a passing tray, swirling it absently. 

Then he turned to Leo, expression shifting—still warm, but more sincere now.

“And hyung,” he said, voice gentler. “Thanks, by the way.”

Leo blinked, “for what?”

“For taking care of my brother.”

The words landed quietly but carried something deeper than casual gratitude. 

“You’re the first friend he’s ever introduced to us. Even if it was kind of my fault—dragging you here and all,” Sanghyeon’s eyes were shining when he said it, full and earnest. 

Friend.

The word twisted, heavy in Leo’s chest.

He swallowed, trying to match Sanghyeon’s smile. 

“You really adore your brother, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Sanghyeon’s wide grin returned instantly, softer this time, “Sangwon-hyung’s the coolest.”

Sanghyeon grinned, eyes gleaming with genuine affection. “We’ve got this huge gap with our eldest, so we never really clicked. But ever since hyung came to live with us, he’s always been there for me.”

He counted on his fingers, as if cataloguing memories. 

“Walked me home, scared off kids who bullied me, bought me snacks when Mom wasn’t looking,” he laughed softly, a little nostalgic. “He’s smart, brave—everything I want to be.”

Leo’s heart tightened.

“When Sangwon… came to live with you?”

Sanghyeon froze, the rhythm of his words stalling mid-breath. His smile faltered, as if he’d just realized what he’d said.

“Oh.” A beat. “He didn’t tell you?”

Leo shook his head, slow.

Sanghyeon’s smile wilted at the edges. He glanced toward the ballroom doors, where laughter and strings tangled faintly beneath the chandeliers. When he spoke again, his voice had shrunk, cautious—like it might bruise if he wasn’t careful.

“Sangwon-hyung, he…” A pause. His teeth caught his lower lip, worrying at it. “Actually, he’s not really my brother. Not fully.”

A silence bloomed between them—thin, fragile, loud.

“He’s…” Sanghyeon exhaled, searching for words, for a way to soften what couldn’t be softened. “He’s my father’s son. From someone else.”

The air stilled. Even the music seemed to dull, distant now, as if the room itself had drawn back.

Leo said nothing. 

He only stood there, eyes fixed somewhere past Sanghyeon’s shoulder. The chandelier light fractured across the marble floor—reflections sharp as glass, scattering around his shoes like something precious and broken.

Later, when Leo slipped out of the ballroom, the echo of Sanghyeon’s words followed him like static—each syllable sticking under his skin.

Leo was only looking for the washroom. 

He hadn’t meant to overhear, hadn’t meant to see.

The corridor was quiet, insulated from the swell of music and laughter leaking from the ballroom. Light from a crystal chandelier fractured across the polished mirrors lining the wall, scattering reflections of faces and gold and glass. 

Leo’s footsteps softened against the marble until he stopped short.

At the far end stood two figures, stark against the glow—Sangwon, all tense elegance, shoulders drawn tight under his suit, and a man several years older, his voice already slicing through the hush.

“You’ll never amount to anything like this.” 

The older man’s tone was sharp, cultured, dripping disdain. 

“Parties, drinking, wasting yourself—you shame our name every time you step outside.”

Leo’s breath snagged. The words hit like cold steel. 

He could see the muscle twitch along Sangwon’s jaw even from here, the way his hands fisted at his sides.

“Good thing it’s not really my name, then, right?” Sangwon’s voice was quiet, dry, the edge of it trembling with something too sharp to name.

The slap cracked through the hall like a gunshot. 

The sound ricocheted off the mirrors, violent and echoing.

Leo flinched. His stomach turned. 

Sangwon’s head snapped to the side, the sharp line of his cheek catching the light—a flash of red already blooming beneath his skin. 

But he didn’t stagger, didn’t raise a hand. He just stood there, breathing through it, eyes fixed somewhere past the man in front of him.

The older man’s shoes clicked once, twice, then faded down the corridor. Silence returned, heavy and humming.

Sangwon didn’t move. He stayed perfectly still, shoulders squared but trembling at the edges, gaze fixed on the marble floor as though daring it to crack open.

Leo’s fingers curled against the wall, nails biting into polished stone. His body screamed to move, to step in, to do something. 

Leo’s fingers curled against the wall, nails biting into the polished stone. His body ached to move, to step in, to do something—anything.

But his feet were rooted, as if the marble itself held him in place.

His chest tightened. The hallway felt impossibly narrow, the chandeliers’ fractured light cutting across him, sharp and accusing.

If Sangwon hadn’t been ready to tell him about his family, if this had been meant for no one’s eyes but his own, what right did Leo have to witness it?

Every instinct he had whispered to pull back, to vanish into the swell of music and laughter beyond the doors.

The question carved itself into Leo’s chest, now a duller knife than ever.

Who was he to Sangwon, really?

A swell of shame and helplessness rolled through him, bitter and hollow. 

Leo stayed where he was, hidden in the bend of the hallway—heart pounding, shame burning hot in his chest, a helpless ache crawling up his spine. 

He’d never felt smaller.

And yet, even in that fragile stillness, all Leo could think was that he should’ve gone to him. 

To Sangwon.

Later, when the party had melted into laughter and clinking champagne flutes, Leo slipped out into the cool night, letting the sound of music fade behind him. 

The garden stretched quietly, a fringe of lighted paths and hedges, the city sprawled below like a river of molten gold.

Just as Sanghyeon had said, he finds Sangwon on a bench, shoulders tense, gaze fixed on the glittering expanse of Seoul. 

The city lights carved sharp planes into his face—cheekbones catching the glow, shadow pooling under his eyes.

“You found me,” Sangwon said without turning. Flat. Tired. The words carried no accusation, only the weight of inevitability.

Leo slid onto the bench beside him, careful to close the distance without touching. The silence was a living thing, pressing, patient, waiting for cracks to show.

Finally, Sangwon spoke again, voice low, brittle. 

“I know you saw.”

Leo doesn’t answer. 

His throat had gone tight, caught somewhere between fear, guilt, and the ache of wanting to reach across the space between them. 

He wanted to speak, to tell Sangwon he wasn’t judging, that he didn’t recoil, that he cared. 

But the words lodged in his chest.

The wind brushed over them, carrying faint laughter from the distant ballroom, though it felt like another world. 

Here, it was just him and Sangwon, the glittering city below, and a truth heavy enough to split the night in two.

Sangwon gave a humorless laugh, eyes still fixed on the glittering skyline. The moonlight brushed over the bruise on his cheek, highlighting the sharp plane of his jaw, the curve of his throat, the tension in his shoulders.

“Don’t look so haunted,” he murmured, “that wasn’t even the worst of it.”

He tilted his head back, letting the night air brush across his face. “It’s funny, isn’t it? Everyone thinks I’m wasting myself. Maybe…” his voice trails off, breath shaking, “maybe I’m just proving them right. Drowning on purpose.”

Leo’s chest tightened, a slow ache spreading under his ribs.

“Sangwon—” he started, voice low.

“Don’t.”

The word landed soft, but not aimed at Leo. 

It felt like it was aimed at the part of Sangwon that always demanded blame, always braced for disappointment.

Leo didn’t need words to understand. 

He saw it in the tense lines of Sangwon’s body, the way his fingers pressed into the bench, the way he let the city’s glow paint him in fragments. 

He felt the weight of the unspoken—the reasons Sangwon recoiled from tenderness, why he lived so loud, why he pushed every moment of care and connection away.

He knew now, without a doubt, why Sangwon’s edges were jagged, why his nights were chaotic, why his heart had built walls higher than the tallest chandeliers.

Because for Sangwon, love had always been conditional. Always questioned. Always withheld.

Leo swallowed, bitter and helpless, wishing he could tell him that he didn’t have to do this alone, wishing he could reach in and smooth the sharp edges.

But the truth was clear, heavy, and unyielding. 

For Sangwon, trust wasn’t given. It had to be survived.

Leo looked at him then, not as a mess, not as a liability, not even as something broken—just as Sangwon. 

Still here. 

Still unbearably beautiful, even in his ruin.

The night air is crisp, smelling faintly of wet asphalt and distant streetlights. The party’s laughter and music fade behind them, the estate swallowed by the darkness. 

Leo and Sangwon walk side by side, shoulders nearly brushing, but neither says anything at first. 

The quiet is heavy but not uncomfortable, just loaded with the weight of the night.

Leo glances at Sangwon, hesitant. Everything from earlier still gnaws at the edges of his mind. 

“You can smoke, you know,” he says softly, “I know it helps the thoughts go… quiet.”

Sangwon’s brow rises, teasing, one corner of his mouth quirking. There’s amusement there, but it’s guarded, measured. 

“Don’t tempt me,” he murmurs, voice low, almost playful, “I quit.”

Leo stops mid-step, looking at him, “since when?”

Sangwon’s eyes catch his in the dim streetlight, bright and sharp, and hold them just long enough to make Leo’s chest tighten. 

Since you.

“Since a while ago,” Sangwon says instead, all casual shrug and dismissal.

Leo’s stomach twists. 

“Since when exactly?” he presses, the warmth of embarrassment climbing his neck. He wants to laugh, but it comes out strangled, nervous.

Sangwon lets out a soft laugh, low and teasing, leaning just slightly toward him as if to share a secret. 

“Since someone told me just because I could, doesn't mean I should,” he says, almost dropping the words in passing, like a feather on the wind.

Leo’s pulse jumps. 

His mind flares with a thousand thoughts, none of which are coherent. He wants to ask what that even means, wants to tease back, wants to shove Sangwon lightly.

But the vulnerability in that glance, in the tilt of his head, keeps him frozen. His heart pounds with something messy, something he can’t name.

Sangwon glances ahead, eyes scanning the quiet street, but Leo can see it in the subtle curve of his mouth, the way his jaw flexes, that he knows exactly what effect he’s having. 

The tease, the restraint, the claim—all of it pressed against Leo like a silent challenge.

Leo coughs, cheeks hot, looking anywhere but at him. “You always walk this slow?” he asks, trying to anchor the moment, make it casual.

“Only when I’ve got your slow ass with me,” Sangwon replies, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Leo laughs, a little breathless. The sound feels too loud in the soft night. 

He’s still here. Still like this. Still Sangwon.

The quiet that settles after is lighter than before, softened by banter and the ordinary rhythm of their steps.

Leo’s mind wanders to the night, to the way Sangwon carries himself even after the weight of family, after the awkward truths he didn’t ask to be witnessed. 

He wants to say something—I’m here. I see you. But he lets it sit, letting the cold wind of the night do the work instead.

For a moment, they keep walking in silence, the city sprawling around them. 

Distant car lights wobbling across wet asphalt, the hum of tires on bridges, the Seoul skyline framing their profile in light and shadow.

“Hey, Leo.”

Sangwon’s voice cuts gently through the quiet. 

“You wanted to know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t ended up in law, right?”

Leo glances back. 

Sangwon is a few steps behind, hands on his sides, shoulders squared but relaxed in a way that somehow still carries weight. 

He looks almost cinematic against the glow of streetlamps and the thrum of distant traffic.

“A writer,” Sangwon says simply. “I wanted to be a writer.”

Leo blinks, heart tightening. 

The words feel like a confession, fragile and luminous, suspended between them in the night air. 

Sangwon glances at him out of the corner of his eye, a faint smirk tugging at the edge of his lips as he walks past him.

“Keep walking, sir.”

Leo shakes his head, a laugh pulling itself out of his chest. But he feels it, feels the pull of the warmth, the dangerous electricity that has always seemed to follow them. 

And in the silence between words, in the space of shared steps and mutual restraint, he thinks—maybe being with Sangwon isn’t about understanding everything. 

Maybe it’s just about being present.

And tonight, at least, he’s here.

Leo’s books and notes were strewn across the table like a battlefield, pens rolling lazily across margins and sticky tabs fluttering. 

He barely registered the quiet scrape of a chair before Sangwon settled opposite him, slouching with effortless disinterest. 

A notebook balanced on his knee—but it was clearly empty, the pen hovering as if deep thought could somehow manifest on blank pages.

“You’re actually… here,” Geonwoo said, voice low but sharp, leaning against the edge of the table. “In a library. Are you dying? Or is the world ending?”

Sangwon didn’t look up immediately. 

When he finally did, his eyebrow arched, and a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. “Very funny. I’m perfectly healthy,” he drawled. “I’m just here to make sure Leo doesn’t flunk contemporary history.”

“Right,” Jiahao interjected, voice conspiratorial. “The only way Sangwon would be in a library is if it were life-or-death.”

Leo rolled his eyes, hiding a grin behind the open margin of his notebook. 

His chest tightened—not from the teasing, but from the flicker of Sangwon’s eyes meeting his for a fraction longer than necessary before drifting back to his own work.

It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but it pressed in on him, made the air feel warmer, the space between them smaller.

As Leo ducked into another aisle to hunt down a reference book, Jiahao’s shadow fell beside him. 

“Hey,” his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “is it just me, or something’s different between you two.”

Leo froze mid-step, forcing a casual shrug and a humorless laugh. 

“You’re imagining things,” he said, even as a flutter of heat crept up his neck. His thoughts betray him, anyway.

When he glanced back toward the table, Sangwon’s gaze caught his. 

It lingered just a beat longer than usual, enough that Leo’s stomach clenched. 

Just long enough for his mind to spiral—he’s noticing me. That little flicker is all it takes. God, I can’t breathe.

Sangwon tilted his head, pen paused, as if weighing whether to break the spell. 

Then, almost casually, he returned to his notebook, the faintest smirk still playing at his lips.

Leo exhaled slowly, pressing his back against the bookcase as if he needed support. 

He let himself indulge in the warmth of the look, the weight of it, the pull that was neither pure desire nor friendship—something heavier, something delicate. 

And for the first time that day, he admitted it quietly, to no one but himself.

Maybe Jiahao wasn’t imagining things at all.

Late afternoon light slanted through the blinds, casting golden stripes across Leo’s apartment. 

The corner store bags sat half-abandoned by the door, a quiet reminder of errands and normal life waiting beyond this space. 

Leo hunched over his sketchbook, pencil smudging the pads of his fingers, yet the page remained stubbornly blank.

Sangwon, sprawled across the bed like he owned the room, let his gaze linger for a moment before asking, voice low, curious. 

“What’re you working on?”

“Project,” Leo muttered, rubbing at his temple. “Sketch’s almost done, but now they want a ‘textual reflection.’ Whatever that means.” 

His words sounded harsher than he intended, sharp edges of frustration cutting the air.

“Wow,” Sangwon let out a dry, amused chuckle, propping himself up on an elbow. “You’re struggling with words? Didn’t think I’d see the day.”

Leo shot him a look, one part exasperated, one part… something else. 

“It’s different,” he sighed. “I can make something with my hands, build and mold it. But describing it? Feels fake.”

“Let me see,” Sangwon said, tilting his head, eyes catching the light that pooled across the room. There was something soft in that look—curious, patient.

Leo hesitated, thumb brushing the edge of the sketchbook. He tilted it toward Sangwon, reluctant. 

The page revealed a rough drawing of the sculpture. Sharp lines that softened into curves, angles pulling into arcs, a tension between restraint and release, chaos and control.

Sangwon’s eyes traced the shapes, lingering over the shadows Leo had tried to capture. He didn’t reach for words immediately—just looked, and that was enough to make Leo’s chest tighten. 

He felt exposed, yet safe. 

As though Sangwon could see the truth of his work, and maybe, by extension, the truth of him.

“Not bad,” Sangwon finally murmured, voice low, casual, but threaded with an unspoken weight. “You’re… you. Even in pencil.”

Leo blinked, heart stuttering. 

He wanted to argue, to say the words weren’t enough, weren’t right.

But instead, he let his hands hover over the page, listening to the quiet weight of Sangwon’s approval, tasting the strange mix of relief and longing it left in his chest.

Sangwon’s quiet for a moment. 

Then, softly, “maybe you could describe it like this—the moment after a fight. When everything’s still burning, but you’re too tired to swing again.”

His fingers drifted over the sketch, tracing the darker lines, the smudges where graphite blurred into skin. 

“That strange quiet,” he muttered, voice barely above a breath, “where it hurts more to breathe than it did to bleed.”

Leo watched the motion—those long, deft fingers brushing across paper like they might ignite it. The faint tremble of touch, the shadow of his hand hovering over the heart of the drawing.

Something in Leo’s chest tightened. 

His pencil went still, suspended midair, as if even the slightest movement would shatter the moment between them.

Suddenly, Sangwon’s gaze flicked toward him—sharp, assessing, then gone just as quickly. He leaned back, a tremor of diffidence ghosting his lips.

“But I don’t know,” he said, voice turning casual, almost dismissive. “Just what it made me think of. Don’t use it if it sounds stupid.”

Leo stared at him, the words still ringing in his head long after they’d fallen from Sangwon’s mouth.

He could see them now—etched across the curves and fractures of his sculpture, breathing new meaning into the form. 

But more than that, he saw Sangwon in them. 

The ruin and restraint, the ache held carefully beneath the surface.

“It’s not stupid,” Leo said quietly. “It’s… perfect.”

Sangwon didn’t look up, just hummed, thumbing through his phone like he hadn’t just cracked Leo open with a handful of words. 

The screen’s light washed over his face in a soft glow, catching the edge of a half-smile.

Leo couldn’t look away.

Something in him shifted, subtle and irreversible—a quiet tether pulling tighter, another invisible hook slipping deeper into his chest.

A week or two slipped by, blurred edges of days folding into one another. 

The clock moved fast, classes bled into deadlines, deadlines into sleepless nights. Everything felt like running underwater—slow, distorted, but unrelenting.

They stole what moments they could. 

A brush of shoulders in the hallway, a shared cup of coffee left cooling between them, a text at 2 a.m. that simply read, still awake? 

It wasn’t much, but it was theirs.

Somehow, Sangwon even started showing up to his own lectures. The first time he completed a week of attendance, he caught Leo’s incredulous stare and grinned, lazy and triumphant.

“I was in class,” he’d said, voice all mock-offense, smirk tugging at his lips. “Don’t look so surprised.”

But Leo could see it—beneath the teasing, a flicker of quiet pride. A fragile kind of effort, like something in him had started to turn toward the light.

Leo, meanwhile, lost himself to his work. 

His final sculpture for the semester had consumed him—long hours in the studio where sunlight shifted across the floor, where clay stained his wrists and music filled the air in low hums. 

His hands moved by instinct, but his thoughts never quite stayed with the piece.

They drifted—again and again—to Sangwon.

To the look in his eyes when he thought Leo wasn’t watching.

To the ghost of his voice lingering after a laugh.

To the stillness between them in those rare mornings, when the world felt quiet enough to believe in something softer.

And though the days spun fast and relentless, Leo began to realize that every time Sangwon showed up—whether it was for a class, a late coffee, or just their usual midnight escapade—it left something behind.

A trace.

A weight.

A warmth that didn’t fade, even when he was gone.

The lecture room smelled faintly of whiteboard marker and dust—old paper, tired sunlight pooling through the blinds, the slow hum of the air conditioner fighting the afternoon heat.

Sangwon slouched low in his seat, pen dragging lazy loops across the margin of his essay. 

He wasn’t really writing anymore. The words had long since turned into scribbles of thoughts, metaphors spilling out where he’d meant to sound analytical. 

There was something almost embarrassing about it—how feeling slipped through even when he tried to sound detached.

“Lee Sangwon-ssi.”

Professor Kim’s voice cut clean through the hush. Sangwon’s pen froze mid-stroke.

When he looked up, the professor’s gaze was steady—sharp enough to make him straighten a little, but not unkind. 

Still, Sangwon felt the familiar twist in his stomach, that instinctive bracing for impact.

“Yes, sir?”

“Stay after class, please.”

The words were mild, but his pulse stuttered anyway.

He already knew how this went. Maybe his analysis missed the mark again. Maybe the citations were off, or the tone too informal. 

Or maybe it was another variation of the same quiet disappointment—you could do better if you just tried.

As the professor moved on, Sangwon stared down at his paper, the ink still wet where his pen had faltered. His handwriting looked restless, as though even the words couldn’t stay still.

He thought, with a kind of detached amusement, that maybe that was fitting.

When the last of the students filtered out, their chatter fading into the corridor, Sangwon lingered, fingers curled around the edge of his desk. 

The room felt different now—emptier, softer somehow, filled only by the faint scratch of chalk being erased from the board.

He made his way to the front, pulse drumming in his ears. 

Professor Kim stood by his desk, reading glasses low on his nose, flipping through Sangwon’s paper with the careful patience of someone used to looking for what others missed.

“This,” the professor said at last, tapping the corner of the essay, “is one of the best pieces I’ve read this semester.”

Sangwon blinked, unsure he’d heard right.

“Not just for its analysis,” he continued, eyes lifting to meet Sangwon’s. “But for the way you think—how you thread meaning between the lines. Your voice.”

The word voice hung in the air like something sacred.

Sangwon opened his mouth, but all that came out was a stutter, almost too quiet. The defensiveness slipped out by habit, a shield too well-worn to set down.

“I—I just… I was trying.” 

Professor Kim’s smile deepened, kind and sure. 

“Then, you should try more often.” 

He tapped the page again, lightly. “This—what you wrote—it’s alive. And people deserve to know it.”

For a second, Sangwon couldn’t breathe.

He looked down at his own name scrawled across the top of the paper, at the uneven letters and faint smudge of ink where his thumb had pressed too hard. 

It felt strange to think that something born out of sleepless nights and self-doubt could be seen, could mean something beyond himself.

For years, his words had been a form of survival—scribbled in notebooks he never showed anyone, written to make sense of chaos, to keep from unraveling. 

They were confessions, not craft. 

But now, under the low hum of the fluorescent lights and the muted noise of students outside, he realized maybe they could be more.

Maybe they already were.

He left the room slowly, essay clutched to his chest. 

The familiar ache—the one that whispered he wasn’t enough, that he was a disappointment dressed in good looks and bad habits—was still there. 

But it didn’t echo quite as loudly.

For the first time, the silence it left behind felt like space. A room to grow into something new.

The campus had emptied into a kind of hush that only late afternoons could hold—soft gold light slanting between the trees, scattering across brick paths and the slow drift of fallen leaves. 

Leo had just finished a seminar, his bag slung over one shoulder, his mind still half in lecture mode when he spotted Sangwon.

He stood at the far edge of the literature courtyard, framed by the tall windows of the old building. 

He wasn’t moving—just standing there, hands still by his sides, gaze fixed on the glass facade where the reflections of clouds drifted lazily across shelves and staircases within.

He looked distant. 

Like he was staring at the world from the other side of it.

“Hey,” Leo called softly, breaking the quiet as he crossed the courtyard. “What got you zoning out here?”

Sangwon didn’t turn right away. The breeze stirred the edges of his hair, sunlight catching the fine strands, throwing a faint halo of gold over his profile. 

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost like he was speaking to the air itself.

“Scared,” he said simply, quietly. “Scared to do something, but not wanting to do anything else at the same time.”

He exhaled, a soft sound that seemed to carry more weight than it should, “does that make sense?”

Leo slowed beside him, unsure if he was meant to answer. 

From this close, he could see the tension in Sangwon’s jaw, the faint quiver in his throat as he swallowed, eyes never leaving the building.

It hit Leo then—what he was looking at wasn’t just glass or brick or the space between shelves. 

It was possibility. 

It was the terrifying, shimmering edge of wanting something for himself and realizing he might finally be ready to reach for it.

And for some reason, Leo’s chest ached with the thought that he was witnessing it—that quiet moment of Sangwon choosing to begin again.

He wanted to say something—something reassuring, or maybe just something true—but the words caught behind his teeth. 

So instead, he simply stood beside Sangwon in the fading light, watching the reflections shift across the windows like waves.

Sometimes silence was its own kind of answer.

Sangwon turned then, slowly, and for the first time in a long while, the mask slipped just a fraction. His smile was small and real, not teasing, not defensive. 

It softened the edges of his face, and Leo’s chest clenched.

“I got recognized today,” Sangwon said at last, voice soft but threaded with something new, something trembling and bright. “Professor Kim singled out my essay, he said… said I have a voice.”

The words hung in the air between them, fragile as glass.

Sangwon’s mouth curved, hesitant at first, then blooming into a smile that reached his eyes—slow, unguarded, the kind that felt like sunlight breaking through after days of rain.

For a moment, Leo forgot to breathe. 

He could only watch, the world narrowing to that expression—the quiet astonishment, the barest flicker of belief. 

Sangwon looked happy. He looked beautiful.

“Maybe,” Sangwon murmured, almost to himself, “maybe I can be someone. If I actually try. If I stop letting everything fall apart.”

The words weren’t triumphant. 

They were tender, cautious—a fragile beginning held between shaking hands.

And Leo, standing beside him, felt a fierce ache take root in his chest. The sudden, helpless wish that Sangwon would never doubt that again.

Leo reached out before he could think, fingers brushing against the fabric of Sangwon’s sleeve—just enough to ground himself, to keep from being swept under the weight of what hung between them.

“You already are someone, Lee Sangwon.” 

His voice was low, deliberate, the kind that didn’t allow room for disbelief. “You just have to stop hiding, stop thinking you’re only what people see when they’ve already decided who you are.”

Sangwon’s eyes lifted, and Leo swore he could feel the shift.

The faint tremor of something breaking open inside him. 

Those walls Sangwon carried like armor seemed to waver, light threading through the cracks, soft and devastating all at once.

For one impossible heartbeat, it felt like Sangwon might believe him.

And that, Leo realized, was enough to undo him completely.

Sangwon leaned against the counter, half-shadowed by the afternoon sun, arms crossed, watching Leo move through the studio with quiet anticipation.

Leo flitted between easels and stacks of sketches, muttering under his breath, fingers smudged with graphite and clay dust. 

His phone buzzed, and the world seemed to tilt. He froze, staring at the screen, eyes wide and chest tightening.

“Holy shit.”

Sangwon’s head tipped, curious. 

“What’s wrong?”

“My project, it—” Leo whispered, breath catching, voice barely containing the tremor of disbelief and exhilaration. “It got chosen for the university showcase. I’m the centerpiece.”

For a heartbeat, silence hung between them, suspended like a held breath. 

Then Sangwon blinked, a grin spreading slowly, the kind that reached his eyes, lighting them from within. He stepped closer, brushing against Leo’s side.

Without thinking, Leo threw himself into him, arms tight around Sangwon’s waist. Sangwon’s body softened immediately, an arm sliding around Leo, grounding him. 

“You deserve it,” he murmured into Leo’s hair, voice low and warm. “You worked your ass off for this.”

Leo pulled back just enough to catch Sangwon’s gaze, cheeks flushed, lips curving into a grin too bright for words. 

“You’ll be there, right?”

“Duh,” Sangwon said, voice teasing, but steady, unwavering. “Of course, I will.”

A mischievous glint sparked in Leo’s eyes. “Promise me, okay? It’s Saturday night—no parties. You better not pick that over this.”

Sangwon scoffed, stepping closer, their chests brushing, the warmth and subtle weight of him settling against Leo’s body. 

“Who do you think I am? Really think I’d miss seeing you shine?” his voice dropped an octave, teasing and intimate, curling around the edges of Leo’s chest. 

“I’ll be there. First in line. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Leo laughed softly, breath hitching as he leaned into the familiar warmth, the subtle thrum of Sangwon’s pulse under his ear. 

“Good,” he murmured, savoring the proximity, the quiet pulse of pride shared between them.

Sangwon’s hand lingered at the small of his back, a tether, a quiet declaration. 

And for a moment, the chaos of deadlines, exhaustion, and everything else in their lives melted away. 

Here, now, it was just them—two silhouettes in golden light—and the small, perfect victory of Leo’s triumph, felt in every heartbeat and shared glance.

“You know what this calls for?” Sangwon said, his voice low, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “A celebration.”

Leo groaned, laughter escaping despite himself. “I know that look. What are you planning?”

Sangwon leaned closer, shoulders brushing, a smirk tugging at his lips. “A club night. Drinks, dancing… the whole thing. Don’t even think about saying no.”

Leo opened his mouth, ready to protest, but Sangwon’s raised brow stopped him cold. “One night,” he added, voice soft but firm, “you earned it. We’ll drag the whole gang along.”

“Fine,” Leo exhaled, a mix of resignation and amusement, the corners of his lips tugging upward. 

“One night.”

By ten, they were swallowed by neon lights and a tide of sound. 

The club throbbed with bass, the air sticky with perfume, sweat, and the sharp tang of spilled drinks. Strobe lights fractured across faces, hands, and polished floors, casting everyone in sudden, fleeting brilliance.

Their friends clinked glasses, shoved shots into Leo’s hands, cheered toasts to his success. 

Sangwon was the loudest among them, dragging Leo across the dance floor until they were both breathless, laughing into each other’s shoulders, bodies swaying with a rhythm they hadn’t known they craved.

Every so often, Leo caught their friends stealing glances—knowing, teasing smiles that made his stomach flutter, made him aware of the warmth of Sangwon’s hand on his back, the brush of his hair, the way he leaned just enough to whisper something in Leo’s ear that made him grin.

Leo was starting to sink into the chaos, letting it pull him in, when a voice cut through the pulsing music like a knife.

“Lee Leo?”

He turned.

At the edge of the dance floor, framed by the flashing lights, stood his ex—Ha Yunhee. 

That old, careful smile, the one she’d used to disarm Leo, was still there, curling like it always had, and for a moment Leo felt the club’s walls shrink around him.

Sangwon’s grip on Leo’s arm tightened just enough to be felt, subtle, and deliberate. His eyes flicked to where Leo had been staring, jaw flexing, a shadow flickering across his expression. 

Not anger. Not jealousy. Something else—something sharper, protective, territorial.

Or at least, that’s what Leo leads himself to believe.

“Sangwon, hey! We need you for a sec!” a voice called, breaking through the bass and laughter, someone from their group waving over with a new round of drinks.

Sangwon’s gaze slid back to Leo, sharp, unreadable, lips pressing together in a line that both restrained and demanded attention. 

One look, and it’s like a quiet claim has been staked.

Then, almost reluctantly, he pivots toward the table, shoulders squared, eyes still flicking over Leo once, twice, as if to make sure he’s still there.

Still his.

And in that single heartbeat—the space between turns, glances, and the hum of music—the easy celebration of the night hangs suspended. 

Fragile, charged, electric.

As if the world has shrunk down to the two of them and everything else is noise.

But then, Leo catches sight of Yunhee weaving through the small distance between them, neon light glinting off spilled drinks and sticky floors. 

She was still smiling that sharp, practiced smile—the kind that seemed untouched by time, like she’d stepped out of his memory and into the club unscathed.

“It really is you!” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, the motion casual, effortless, but precise. “Wow… it’s been forever.”

“Yeah,” Leo muttered, voice tighter than he intended, the bass vibrating through his chest making it feel louder than it was. “It really has been.”

Her eyes flicked over him, curious, measuring. “Wanna grab some air?” her question was soft, but edged, testing boundaries he hadn’t realized he still had.

Leo scratched the back of his neck, aware of the flush creeping up his face. 

His thoughts screamed to leave, to turn, to find Sangwon wherever he’d disappeared—apologize, steady himself. 

For what, exactly? He wasn’t entirely sure.

But Yunhee’s expectant gaze held him, patient and sharp all at once. There was no easy escape.

Leo let out a low, concealed sigh and nodded.

He answered her questions automatically—about school, his projects, the upcoming showcase—but something colder threaded through the warmth of alcohol pooling in his chest.

Then, Yunhee tilted her head. A sly, knowing smile tugging at her lips. 

“So, are you seeing anyone these days?”

The question landed, and it pulled something taut in Leo’s chest. 

His mind stuttered, flicking unbidden to Sangwon—those quiet mornings, the way he lingered in his apartment, the teasing in his gaze. The heated nights, the sleepless ones included.

But they weren’t exactly dating. Aren’t they?

Just friends. Somewhat.

Maybe more, these days.

Right?

Leo paused, eyes lighting up briefly with a warmth he hadn’t intended. Yunhee’s smile faltered for just a fraction, her tone sharpening. 

“Ah,” a helpless chuckle falls out of her lips, “so you are seeing someone.”

“No,” Leo cleared his throat, shaking his head quickly, the faintest flush creeping across his neck. “Not… not exactly.”

At that, Yunhee flicked a cigarette from her jacket, sparks from the lighter catching the dim light. 

But just as the flame threatened to bloom, a hand clamped over her wrist. 

Slow, deliberate, impossibly strong.

“Not in front of him,” Sangwon said, stepping between them like a shadow molded from purpose. 

The club’s neon haze from the open doors just behind them refracted off his sharp jawline, and the heat of his presence pressed close, a quiet force Leo couldn’t ignore.

Sangwon’s voice is calm, almost casual, but each syllable cut through the faint music and chatter, making Leo’s pulse stutter. 

“Leo can’t handle smoke. You’d know that, if you’d actually dated him properly.”

Yunhee’s eyebrows arched, a flicker of surprise giving way to annoyance, “and you are?”

“None of your business,” Sangwon said, eyes sliding to Leo, softening just enough that the warmth threaded down his spine, brushing against nerves he didn’t know he had. 

“The others said let’s move somewhere else—it’s gotten a bit…” his voice trails off, sending a quick glance at Yunhee, “...stuffy here.”

Leo felt a flush climb his neck, hands clammy, words lodged somewhere between desire and disbelief. He opened his mouth, but the thrum of Sangwon’s nearness silenced him.

He just nods, and Sangwon’s already pulling him away.

Just then, Yunhee caught his arm, insistent. That sharp smile back, eyes flickering with hope, or something else entirely.

“Hey, we should exchange contacts. Lunch tomorrow? My treat. Just to catch up.”

Before Leo could respond, Sangwon’s voice cut through—smooth, lethal, and impossible to ignore. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Leo’s schedule is filled with Lee Sangwon.”

Yunhee blinked, irritation flaring, voice sharp as glass, “and who the hell is Lee Sangwon?”

“I already told,” Sangwon’s smirk deepened, hard, unreadable, shadows playing across his cheekbones in the strobe light. “None of your fucking business.”

His gaze flicked to Leo again, just a flash—intimate, unguarded, full of something he wouldn’t show anyone else. 

It was a claim, a question, and a dare all at once.

Leo’s heart thudded painfully against his ribs, throat tight. 

He wasn’t sure if he was more bewildered, more turned on, or just utterly undone. 

In that moment, there was only Sangwon, and the way he made the world feel impossibly small and impossibly dangerous at once.

They were both soaked when they stumbled into Leo’s apartment, rainwater dripping from their hair and sleeves, laughter dissolving into silence. 

The night still clung to them—the sting of cold air, the echo of the club’s bass, the faint, dizzy warmth of alcohol that hadn’t yet left Leo’s bloodstream. 

It burned at the back of his throat, familiar and jarring, like something he’d once tried to forget but now found himself craving again.

Sangwon disappeared into the bathroom without a word.

The sound of running water filled the space, soft and constant, like something steady against the chaos of Leo’s pulse.

He peeled off his damp shirt, skin prickling with cold and with something heavier. 

“You’re awfully quiet,” he called, trying for lightness and missing. “Not like you, Sangwon.”

No answer. 

Just the hiss of water, the slow, muffled rhythm of breath.

Leo wandered closer, the air between rooms heavy with steam. He leaned against the doorframe, heart still knocking around in his chest. 

“You know,” he said, a half-smile pulling at his lips, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous back there.”

The door opened with a quiet click.

Sangwon stood there, hair wet, shirt clinging to his chest, breath shallow. 

The sharp white light cut across his face, catching in his eyes—bright, restless, honest in a way Leo hadn’t seen in months.

“Maybe I was annoyed,” Sangwon said, voice rough, low. “Maybe I was even jealous. So fucking what?”

The air shifted. 

Not strained like before, not careful—just charged, real, alive.

“Why?” Leo asked, his voice softer now. He stepped closer. “Why are you jealous?”

Sangwon’s throat bobbed. 

“It’s not…that, I’m just—”

Leo moved again, closing the last inch of space until Sangwon’s back hit the bathroom door. 

Water from Sangwon’s hair traced down his neck, over his collarbone, glinting in the light. Leo’s hands came up, bracing on either side of him, caging him in.

“Why?” he whispered again, closer this time, so close Sangwon could taste the question on his lips. The same taste as the drinks they’d shared hours ago.

Sangwon met his gaze, eyes flickering, wild with something he’d been holding back for far too long.

Then, the words broke loose, raw and quiet and devastating.

“Because you’re mine, Lee Leo.”

The world tilted. The last thread between reason and want snapped clean.

Leo’s mouth crashed against his, tasting of rain and whiskey and everything they’d been denying. 

The kiss was messy, unrestrained—teeth, breath, heat. 

Sangwon gasped against him, fingers clutching at Leo’s shoulders as if he might fall apart otherwise. Leo pulled him closer still, chasing the warmth, the truth, the ache.

And for once, there was no pretending, no distance—just the burn of something too real to name.

Raw. Honest. The opposite of everything they used to be.

Leo’s phone vibrated against the bedside table, a quiet insistence in the otherwise still room.

He wasn’t entirely sure why, but a part of him had been waiting—half-expecting it, threading through the edges of his day for weeks, maybe even a month. 

A small, persistent knot of anticipation tightened in his chest, the kind that made the familiar buzz of the phone feel like a small, urgent pulse against his skin.

Leo braced for the familiar cadence of Sangwon’s voice, expecting the slurred, frazzled drawl of “can I come over?” 

Unsteady, halfhearted, tipped by alcohol.

But when he answered, the voice on the other end was soft, steady—calm, almost tender, a stark contrast to the frazzled echo he had been bracing for.

“You nervous about tomorrow?” Sangwon asked, quiet and careful, each syllable deliberate, carrying a weight Leo hadn’t realized he’d been craving.

Right. This is where they are now.

Maybe Leo was reaching for something familiar, a tether in the dark. Maybe clarity—real, honest clarity—was starting to feel far too heavy, too frightening to face alone.

He blinked away the doubt, the corners of his mouth twitching into a small, incredulous smile. A smile that felt like relief, like recognition, like the first slow inhale after holding his breath for far too long.

“A little,” Leo admitted, voice low, almost swallowed by the quiet of his room. “I mean… it’s my centerpiece, and everyone will be there. Professors, friends, family… even scouts.” 

His fingers drummed absentmindedly against his own chest table, the weight of the upcoming night pressing into him.

“Then go in there and show them,” Sangwon said within a beat, no moment of hesitation. “You’ve worked for this. You deserve this.”

Leo’s chest warmed at the simplicity of it, his heart thudding in a rhythm that matched the subtle pulse of Sangwon’s words over the line. 

There was a softness there, a rare tenderness from the boy who usually teased, provoked, pushed him to the edge—and to this day, it still caught Leo off guard. 

“Thanks,” he murmured, almost breathless. “It… it helps, hearing that.”

A pause stretched between them, quiet but not empty, like the space between two held breaths. 

Then Sangwon’s voice returned, hesitant, almost fragile.

 “When you said it wasn’t too late to start doing what I actually want… do you think I can?”

Leo didn’t hesitate. 

“Of course you can, Sangwon.”

The words came immediately, certain, threaded with conviction he hadn’t realized he carried. He pressed the phone closer to his ear, as though it put him closer to Sangwon, “you have people already believing in you. Including me.”

Especially me.

Another pause settled over the line, weighty, intimate. The kind of silence that made every small breath feel loud. 

Then Leo added softly, almost as if he were convincing both of them.

“All you have to do is believe in yourself.”

The quiet stretched again, but this time it felt different—charged, promising. 

The kind that hints at trust, at possibility, at the first threads of something unshakable forming between two people who had learned to hold each other in the dark.

The line didn’t end, but neither spoke again. 

Just the soft hum of night through open windows, the faint buzz of the city outside. Leo let the silence stretch, letting it settle around them both.

He turned his head, eyes falling on the sketches pinned to his wall. 

One in the center caught him. 

The final sketch of his centerpiece for tomorrow’s gallery. 

The sculpture had started as an abstract idea. But over time, it had become something else entirely—a reflection. 

Every twist of the bars, every tense line of the figure, echoed the weight Leo had seen—the restless energy, the walls built, the silent yearning beneath it all.

And threaded through it, subtle yet undeniable, was the pulse of another presence.

The way Sangwon had leaned over his shoulder in the studio, the soft insistence in his voice as he’d traced lines with his fingers, the blanketing warmth of his belief.

Leo traced the sketch with his eyes, imagining the exhibit, imagining the crowd, imagining how it would feel to share something so personal yet unspoken. 

To see someone—someone whose quiet, almost dangerous faith in him had become a tether—watch it, maybe understand without a word.

He realized that the tether didn’t just anchor him, it blurred the already undefined boundaries between them. 

Friends, fuck buddies, something less, something more.

They hadn’t made clear of it, but the gravity between them had shifted long ago. And it’s been pulling in ways that made clarity unnecessary and terrifying all at once.

For the first time in days, Leo let himself breathe. 

Let himself feel. 

Let himself hold both the weight of his work and the fragile, unspoken promise between them, knowing that some things didn’t need names to matter.

At least, Leo believed so.

The day of the showcase is a whirlwind in itself.

Leo’s nerves throbbed in tandem with the background murmur of guests. His family—his sister, his friends—were there. Professors lingered nearby, whispering praise. 

Professionals circulated, leaving cards, invitations to workshops, internships, even hints at future employment. Every compliment sent a shiver of pride and disbelief through him.

And yet, as the hours stretched, there was one person missing. 

Sangwon.

Leo’s friends nudged him, shot quick glances toward the doors, whispered questions he forced himself to ignore. He barely noticed their eyes when they landed on him. 

He smiled politely, shaking his head as if to say, it doesn’t matter. Really.

But of course it did. 

Leo knows that, his friends know it too.

The gallery buzzed with soft chatter, the clicking of heels on polished floors, and the low hum of excitement. Leo’s hands were clammy despite the careful grip on his notes. His eyes kept drifting to the centerpiece, the spiraling cage that had consumed him for weeks.

The figure inside it—hands pressed against the twisting lattice, head tilted toward the top where the bars opened just slightly—had started as a meditation on restriction, on confinement. 

But somewhere along the way, it had become mortal. 

Or rather, Sangwon.

Every curve of the cage, every tension in the figure’s posture, Leo no longer denied mirrored moments he’d seen in Sangwon.

The way he joked to mask frustration, the weight of expectations pressed against him, the longing buried deep. 

The piece had been born from quiet observation, from seeing Sangwon in a light nobody else did—the small sighs, the restless energy, the private, unseen tenderness.

He watched people gather around the sculpture, professors nodding appreciatively, some taking notes. 

A few students whispered about the “emotion captured in the spirals,” how the piece felt alive, like it might move at any second.

Leo’s heart thudded—not from pride, but from the thought that Sangwon had inspired this. 

That even if Sangwon didn’t know it, even if he never saw it, part of him lived in the cage, straining toward freedom.

Still, Leo waited.

Between presentations, scouts’ comments, and photographers’ flashes, he scanned the crowd with taut vigilance. 

Every movement, every figure at the doorway making his chest lurch for a heartbeat before disappointment settled again.

But his texts still went unanswered, the little map he’d sent a week ago still untouched, pins frozen in place. 

Every time he thought he saw Sangwon’s familiar silhouette, it dissolved into someone else, a trick of light and shadow.

By the final hour, as the showcase wound down and applause softened into murmurs, Leo’s composure faltered. 

He had smiled through congratulations, nodded at fleeting compliments, endured the whispers of opportunity—but now, with only minutes left, the absence burned louder than any applause.

His hand drifted, almost unconsciously, over the cool contours of his sculpture, tracing the lines and shadows he had labored over for weeks on end. 

The final light above it flickered and went out, leaving the piece half-swallowed by darkness. 

In the dimness, the small engraved scripture glimmered faintly, the words delicate but weighty.

With thanks to the inspiration, a friend, my muse, LSW.

Leo’s chest tightened further, a strange cocktail of pride, longing, and hurt. 

He had shared everything he could in the sculpture—lines of tension, echoes of restlessness, the silent yearning of what had been unsaid—and yet the person who mattered most wasn’t there to witness it.

He let himself feel it fully for the first time all day. 

The sharp, sinking ache of waiting. 

The tether he’d felt between them over weeks of stolen mornings, shared nights, and the quiet, almost imperceptible gestures suddenly stretched taut.

For a fleeting moment, Leo imagined Sangwon standing beside him, tracing the lines with a finger, reading the unspoken story without a single word.

And though the gallery emptied and the last lights shut off, the weight of it lingered.

An absence that burned.

Leo collapsed onto his bed, towel still damp from the shower, hair sticking slightly to his forehead. 

The car ride home from the airport had been quiet, the hum of the engine and the occasional rumble of tires on asphalt filling the space. 

He had dropped his sister off for her business trip, waved goodbye, and now he just wanted to rot for the next three days the department had mercifully granted them.

The bed felt soft beneath him, a cocoon against the exhaustion gnawing at his bones. He closed his eyes, willing the tension in his shoulders to dissolve.

But Sangwon wouldn’t leave his thoughts.

Why hadn’t he come? 

Why hadn’t he even sent a single text?

He promised. He promised he’d be there. 

Leo scoffed at himself for expecting anything—that something that had meant so much to him could possibly mean anything to Sangwon.

He buried the ache, the hollow thrum of disappointment, the sharp, insistent worry that kept bubbling up.

Fuck Sangwon. 

Fuck all his half-spoken promises, all the easy confidence that left Leo feeling like he was always a step behind.

He told himself Sangwon was probably out somewhere, reckless and laughing, slouched over neon lights or spilled liquor, careless in ways Leo had longed to share but never could. 

That he’d probably come around later, shrugging like nothing had happened, expecting everything to be fine.

But fuck Leo most of all. 

Because the concern coiling in his chest, twisting tight around ribs and lungs, burned sharper than any unfulfilled promise.

Fuck himself because, no matter how loudly he told himself to hate him, he couldn’t. 

Not truly. Not even for a second.

No matter what Sangwon did—or didn’t do—Leo still felt the pull, the connection he couldn’t sever. The dangerous warmth of wanting him there, wanting him whole, wanting him to see what mattered most without needing a word.

Even in the quiet sting of betrayal, the flicker of absence, Leo couldn’t stop caring. Couldn’t stop wanting him. Couldn’t stop hoping.

Because somewhere deep down, he knew—hating Sangwon wasn’t an option.

So instead, Leo tried to ignore the prickling behind his lids. He fails, of course.

At nearly midnight, Leo lay awake, eyes tracing the jagged shadows the streetlights threw across the ceiling. The room felt impossibly still, yet charged, as if it were waiting for something to shatter the quiet.

Then his phone rang.

He doesn't move. 

Only one person would call at this hour, only one person could. So, Leo lets it ring.

Again. And again.

By the third call, Leo exhaled through gritted teeth, bracing himself to snap some sharp, tired words—stop bothering me or what do you want?

But the caller ID froze him mid-breath.

Chung Sanghyeon

Leo’s heart leapt, pulse hammering against ribs like it wanted out, a mix of alarm and anticipation, dread and adrenaline knotting together in his chest. 

His fingers gripped the phone harder than necessary. 

Finally, he pressed it to his ear.

“Hyung?”

The voice on the line was frantic, breaking at the edges.

“Do you… do you know where Sangwon hyung is? Or are you two together?” The words tumbled out, panicked and urgent.

“No,” Leo frowned, his chest tightening. “What do you mean? Where would he be?”

A sharp inhale. 

“He hasn’t been picking up since this morning. I’ve been calling and calling, and it’s my fault. I don’t know where he is, and it’s all my fault he’s—he’s missing.”

The weight of the words hit Leo harder than he expected.

Rain pelted the windows in heavy sheets, a drumming rhythm that synced with the wild thump of his heart. Thunder rolled distantly, low and relentless, echoing the knot of fear twisting through him. 

Every instinct screamed—go, find him, now.

Sangwon was missing.

And suddenly, the room felt impossibly empty.

As if all the light and warmth had been siphoned out, leaving only the cold ache of panic and the relentless pull of worry clawing at Leo’s chest.

Sangwon sat at the breakfast table, the sunlight streaming through the blinds cutting across the white tablecloth. 

His father had called him in—an early morning visit after a few days he’d been quietly keeping to himself. 

For once, Sangwon felt steady. Confident, even. 

He ignored his older brother’s subtle, slicing quips and answered his father’s small talk instead, giving polite, thoughtful responses. 

His dad, trying, offered a tentative smile, clearly glad his son was engaging for once.

The conversation shifted, inevitably, toward futures and expectations. Toward Sanghyeon.

Their father’s voice was even, but beneath the veneer of composure lay something sharp, unyielding.

“Chung Sanghyeon,” he said, each syllable measured like a verdict. “You need to be prepared. The country’s best medical school won’t wait for weakness.”

A silence followed, heavy enough that even the clock seemed to hesitate before ticking again.

Sanghyeon set down his chopsticks, the faint clink against the bowl cutting through the air. His hands trembled slightly—barely visible, but Sangwon caught it. 

“I… I don’t want to do medicine,” he said quietly, his voice a careful thread holding itself together. 

His eyes flicked toward Sangwon, searching for something—courage, maybe, or confirmation that it was okay to finally say it aloud.

The words seemed to hit the table like a dropped glass.

Their older brother scoffed, leaning back in his chair, the corner of his mouth twisting. 

“We let you leave law out of the options because you’ve been weak-willed since you were a kid,” he said, tone casual but laced with disdain. “And now you don’t want to be a doctor either? What are you going to be, huh, Chung Sanghyeon? Be serious for once in your life.”

Sangwon’s gaze flicked up, sharp. Something in him bristled—anger curling low and protective in his chest.

The air was taut now, stretched thin across the table. Sanghyeon’s breath came quicker, visible in the way his shoulders rose, fell.

“Stop hanging around him,” the older brother snapped suddenly, jabbing his chin toward Sangwon without looking. “You’re infecting him with your nonsense.”

The word infecting landed like a slap.

Sangwon’s jaw tightened, but before he could speak, their father cleared his throat, the sound low and warning. 

“Enough,” he said. “We’ll discuss this later.”

But Sanghyeon didn’t sit back down. 

His chair scraped against the floor as he stood, small hands fisting at his sides. His voice trembled, but it didn’t falter.

“It’s my decision, Sangwon hyung has nothing to do with this.” Sanghyeon said. The air in the dining room thinned—like even the walls were holding their breath. Chopsticks stilled midair, the faint hum of the overhead light suddenly too loud. 

“And he’s not a bad influence.”

A long, brittle silence followed, so sharp it could’ve cut through porcelain.

Then Sanghyeon straightened his shoulders, the smallest act of defiance made monumental by how young he still looked, standing against the weight of every expectation that had been carved into him since birth. 

“In fact…” he began, turning toward the men at the table, “Sangwon hyung is the only one who’s ever treated me like I can actually be something.”

His words landed softly but rang through the room like a struck bell.

Their older brother’s eyes darkened, narrowing into a familiar, dangerous glare. He leaned forward, elbows pressing into the table with deliberate slowness—like a predator closing distance.

“And whose opinion do you think matters, huh?” Sangchul’s voice dropped, quiet but edged with mockery. “An outsider’s?”

The word outsider rolled off his tongue with venomous precision, heavy with years of unspoken resentment.

Their father’s voice cut through the tension like a whip, “enough, Sangchul!”

The shout reverberated in the room, silencing everything—the simmering anger, the quiet defiance, the unspoken lines drawn between them.

Across the table, Sangwon’s hand curled into a fist beneath the linen, knuckles whitening. And in that silence, something cracked. 

Not loud, not visible, but a fracture all the same.

Sangwon’s chair barely shifted, but enough to draw eyes. His pulse was steady, but every muscle in his body screamed to intervene, to protect. 

He caught Sanghyeon’s gaze across the table—the younger boy’s lips trembled, but his chin stayed high.

Sanghyeon stood breathing hard, eyes bright and wet. Sangwon could see the reflection of the overhead light trembling in them. 

The reflection of someone who had finally, painfully, chosen to speak.

Before anyone could speak, it was Sangchul who stood—chair legs scraping harshly against the marble floor, the sound splitting through the air like a warning shot.

“Get your act together, Sanghyeon,” he snapped, voice sharp with practiced authority. “Don’t be another embarrassment to this family.”

The words hung there, heavy and sour, tightening the air until it was hard to breathe.

Sangwon’s jaw tensed. Beneath the table, his hands had already curled into fists, nails biting half-moons into his palms.

He forced his tone flat, but it came out like the crack of ice.

“Your incompetence isn’t our responsibility to make up for, Sangchul hyung.”

The older man froze mid-turn, disbelief flickering first—then fury, raw and instant.

“What did you just say to me?” Sangchul’s voice rose, every syllable a tremor of rage. “You bastard child—watch your fucking mouth.”

Sangwon pushed back his chair, the legs scraping across the floor with a low groan. His pulse thundered in his ears. “You can’t force Sanghyeon into something he doesn’t want,” he said, voice breaking through the charged quiet. “Like you did to me, asshole.”

The last word tore itself from his throat before he could stop it.

And for one heartbeat, the room was perfectly still—just the hum of fluorescent light, the shallow breathing of everyone watching.

Then the punch came.

A blur of motion. A sound that was more bone than air.

Pain exploded across Sangwon’s jaw, sharp and electric. The world reeled sideways—the table shuddered, a bowl clattered to the floor. He caught himself against the wall, breath tearing in and out of his chest.

Somewhere in the chaos, their father’s voice barked something he didn’t register. Sanghyeon’s chair scraped, someone shouted his name.

But Sangwon only looked up, blood blooming metallic on his tongue, and smiled—small, defiant, eyes burning through the sting.

“Yeah,” he rasped, voice shaking with something that wasn’t quite anger. “That’s what I thought.”

Another blow came—wilder this time, more out of fury than aim.

Sangwon caught it halfway, his forearm bracing the impact, the jolt running up to his shoulder. He stumbled back, breath ragged, fists trembling in the air. 

Every nerve in his body screamed to fight, to hit back, to finally give the anger somewhere to go.

But before he could move, another shout tore through the room.

Their father’s voice—cut short.

When Sangwon turned, the world seemed to tilt.

The old man’s head had fallen forward, hands slack at his sides, glass slipping with a deafening shatter as it hit the floor.

“Father!” Sanghyeon’s voice cracked first, thin and terrified.

Then came the chaos—chairs scraping, dishes shattering, someone screaming for help.

Sangwon froze. 

The ringing in his ears drowned everything else. 

He saw Sangchul shaking their father’s shoulder, his step-mother rushing from the other room as she called an ambulance, Sanghyeon crying, the noise of it all crashing like waves.

But all Sangwon could hear was the pounding of his heart.

It wasn’t until someone yelled his name that he realized his hands were still shaking, still curled like he’d been waiting to hit back.

After what felt like an eternity later, under the harsh white light of the hospital corridor and the scent of antiseptic sharp in the air, the shouting began again.

“You just can’t stop ruining this family, can you?” he spat, pointing a trembling hand, eyes wild with fury and fear. “He’s lying in there because of you. This is your fault!”

Sangwon didn’t move, didn’t speak. His breath came shallow and uneven, jaw locked so tight it felt like his bones might splinter.

Because it didn’t matter that their father’s heart had been failing for years. It didn’t matter that the shouting wasn’t what stopped it.

None of that ever mattered.

His gaze drifted toward Sanghyeon—pale, tear-streaked, clutching his mother’s shaking shoulders—and something inside him went still.

Not angry. Not broken. 

Just quiet, like the moment before a storm gives up and dies.

Because Sangwon knew.

No matter what he said now, no matter how the truth really unfolded—the blame would always find its way to him.

It always had. 

From the moment he was born wrong, born unwanted, born a reminder of everything this family wished it could forget.

Rain sheared across the windshield, blurring the city into a trembling wash of gray and white. 

Leo’s car cut through it like a pulse—reckless, desperate. Tires hissed against slick asphalt, splashing arcs of water onto the empty streets.

The traffic lights blinked amber in warning, reflections shattering across the hood, but he didn’t slow. 

His foot pressed harder against the accelerator, breath shallow, pulse loud in his ears. His hands were locked on the wheel, knuckles bloodless, jaw tight enough to ache.

The voice from his phone stuttered, rerouting, recalculating, recalculating again—each turn leading him deeper into unfamiliar streets until the glowing map finally stilled.

One destination. One name.

The columbarium where Sangwon’s mother rested.

When Leo reached the end of the road, the city seemed to fall away. The iron gates rose ahead, tall and black, gleaming with rain. 

Behind them, the gravel path glowed faintly under the scattered lamplight, rough and ghostly.

Leo swerved into the gravel path, headlights carving trembling streaks of white through the rain. 

The car barely stopped before he was unbuckled, half out of his seat. He didn’t need to look twice—he could see him from here.

A small, slumped figure at the steps of the columbarium, motionless beneath the downpour. 

Sangwon sat as if the storm itself had chosen him, letting it crash over his shoulders, soaking him to the bone, daring the sky to try harder.

Leo’s heart seized. 

He grabbed the umbrella, flung the door open. The cold hit like a slap, rain lashing against his face, clothes clinging instantly to skin.

“Sangwon!” his voice tore through the storm, sharp and raw. No answer.

He ran, feet sliding on the slick ground, umbrella rattling above him. Two steps at a time, he climbed the stone stairs, the echo of his shoes lost under thunder.

When he reached him, Leo dropped to his knees without thought. The umbrella wavered once before he lowered it, angling it to shield them both—or tried to, at least. 

Rain still slipped past, spattering their shoulders and faces, merging them with the storm.

Only then did Sangwon move.

His head lifted with the slow drag of exhaustion. 

His eyes—bloodshot, hollow, and glinting faintly beneath the downpour—met Leo’s. His jaw was bruised, lip split, water trailing down from his lashes like he’d been crying for hours and the rain had simply joined in.

For a heartbeat, Leo thought he wasn’t even seeing him. Just some ghost of him sitting there.

“Lee Leo,” Sangwon rasped. “You’re here.” 

The words cracked and trembled, barely human. 

No—too human, unbearably human.

The most human Sangwon had ever been, stripped of walls, of deflection, of the armor he wore for the world.

Leo’s chest caved inward, something in him giving way. “I’m here,” he whispered, voice breaking as he reached for Sangwon’s hand.

It was ice cold, pruned from the rain, soft in all the wrong ways. It was like holding on to something that had already sunk too deep.

“Let’s go home, Sangwon.”

But Sangwon only stared down at their hands, rain dripping from his fringe, from his chin. A hollow sound escaped him—half laugh, half sob.

“Home?” he muttered, voice barely audible. “Someone like me doesn’t have a home.”

It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t bitterness. Just the quiet conviction of someone who’d finally stopped fighting the tide.

And when he laughed again—a fragile, cracked sound—it broke clean through Leo’s ribs.

The tears came soundlessly after, slipping down Sangwon’s face in heavy trails, indistinguishable from the storm but heavier somehow, more real.

As if each drop carried a truth he’d buried too long.

Leo reached for him again, but Sangwon flinched, shoving his hand away with a sharp, strangled sound that hovered somewhere between a sob and a scream.

“Why?” his voice cracked, raw and ragged, each word jagged with pain. “Why is it always me? Why is it my fault?”

He stumbled to his feet, rain lashing against his face like punishment. 

“I tried, Leo! I tried to do everything right—to be quiet, to be good, to be useful—and it’s still not enough!”

Leo rose after him, drenched, lungs burning, heart hammering in time with the storm, “Sangwon—”

“Don’t!” Sangwon spat, voice breaking under the weight of everything he’d carried. “Don’t tell me it’s okay. Don’t tell me I’ll be fine. You don’t get it! You don’t know what it’s like to wake up every day knowing you shouldn’t even be here!”

His shout cut through the courtyard, swallowed by the storm, bouncing off gravestones and wrought-iron gates like a chorus of accusation.

For a long moment, Leo just stood there, soaked through to the skin, rain streaming from his hair and down his back, chest heaving. Every instinct screamed to reach out, but he let the storm and the silence speak for him first.

Then he stepped forward, deliberate, measured—but with a tension that could crack stone.

“You think I haven’t seen it?” he snapped, voice sharp as lightning. “Every time you shrink yourself, every time you apologize for existing—you think it doesn’t kill me to watch? To see you convince yourself you deserve it?”

His voice faltered, softened, trembling with the weight of all the nights he had spent watching Sangwon fold under invisible pressure. “Don’t tell me I don’t get it, Sangwon. I’ve been there right next to you, watching you drown and calling it living.”

He took another step, closer, heart hammering against ribs that felt too tight. “Maybe you’re right,” he admitted, breath ragged, almost swallowed by the rain. “I don’t know what it’s like to be you.”

A pause, long enough for the storm to thrash around them and for Sangwon’s ragged breaths to punctuate the silence. 

“But I do know what it’s like to see you punish yourself for being born. To watch you hate the parts of yourself that you never gave anyone else a chance to love first.”

Leo’s hand lifted slowly, steady, tracing Sangwon’s shoulder before curling around him, anchoring him to something real. 

“And I can’t stand it, Sangwon. I can’t stand watching you do that to yourself anymore.”

Sangwon blinked, startled, but Leo didn’t let him look away. The air between them vibrated with grief, fury, and something unbearably human.

Then the fight crumbled. 

The walls Sangwon had built—pride, anger, defiance—buckled. His knees gave out, and his body folded against Leo’s, small and trembling under the weight of months, years, of unspoken fear.

Leo let the umbrella fall, its hollow clatter swallowed by the rain, and caught Sangwon fully, pressing him close against his chest. 

The storm enveloped them, but neither cared. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, the fury and the fear had somewhere to land—and it landed here.

Sangwon’s fingers clutched at Leo’s jacket, trembling and desperate, as if anchoring himself to the only solid thing left in the world. His sobs rose raw and violent, wracking through both their bodies, each shudder echoing in the space between them.

“I didn’t ask to be born a mistake,” Sangwon choked, voice muffled against Leo’s shoulder. “I didn’t ask to carry this shame, this guilt—I just… I just wanted to live.”

His breath hitched, ragged, the last of his strength slipping out in a whisper. 

“I’m so tired, Leo. I’m so tired.”

Leo’s own body shook, soaked through, but he held him tighter, as if sheer willpower and muscle could keep the storm at bay. 

He pressed his cheek into Sangwon’s drenched hair, eyes burning, heart hammering in time with the rain thrumming against the roof of the columbarium.

And as he held him, a thought clawed its way through the ache in his chest. 

He remembered the nights he’d watched Sangwon drive himself into ruin—pushing past wrong choices, taking risks, numbing everything with chaos and self-destruction. 

He’d always assumed it was punishment, self-obliteration to quiet the pain. 

But now, looking at him trembling and raw in the downpour, Leo understood something darker, more urgent.

Maybe it had never been about numbing the pain. 

Maybe it was the only way left for Sangwon to feel anything at all.

To feel real amidst the constant, gnawing weight of being blamed, of never being enough.

Leo’s chest ached with a new intensity, every beat hammering against the cage of his ribs. He could feel Sangwon’s despair pressing into him, soaking through his clothes, a tangible force that seeped into his bones. 

It wasn’t just the rain, not just the cold—it was decades of pain, shame, and isolation crashing down in waves, and Leo realized, sharply, painfully, how utterly alone Sangwon must have felt all this time.

He whispered against Sangwon’s hair, voice raw and uneven, “I know, Sangwon. I know.”

He tightened his arms, holding him closer. 

I won’t let you carry this alone. Not anymore.

Every shaky breath Sangwon drew was a silent plea, a raw code of pain Leo didn’t need words to decipher. 

He could feel the tremor of his tears, the desperate sobs, the way Sangwon’s hands clutched at him as if tethered to life itself. 

You’re not a mistake. 

You’re not just the sum of what’s been done to you.

Leo pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of Sangwon’s soaked hair, letting the rain cascade down their shoulders, running in rivulets that mirrored the storm of grief and fury inside them. 

“I don’t care about the past. I don’t care about the blame,” he whispered into the curve of Sangwon’s neck, his voice low, steady, unwavering. “I only care about you. We’ll get through this, if you let me.”

Sangwon’s sobs slowed, ragged inhalations against Leo’s chest. 

And Leo let himself be consumed by the weight of it all—the anger, the fear, the aching need to protect this person who had been carrying the world alone. 

He wasn’t merely holding Sangwon—he was cradling every fractured piece. The despair, the defiance, the stubborn sparks of life that refused to die.

I won’t let you go like this. Not ever.

The rain hammered around them, but it was nothing compared to the pulse of Sangwon’s heartbeat beneath his hands, the frantic inhale and exhale that tethered Leo to him. 

He pressed his forehead to Sangwon’s temple, breathing in the stormy scent of wet hair and rain-soaked fabric—a mixture at once grounding and suffocating in its intimacy.

The world outside—expectations, family, society, all the invisible hands that had beaten Sangwon down—shrunk to nothing. 

All that remained was the fragile, trembling soul in his arms, and the quiet, fierce determination that he would not abandon him to that weight.

And as he held him tighter, letting the storm wash over them both, Leo realized something that made his chest ache with a strange, fierce joy.

He would follow Sangwon anywhere. 

Into darkness, into chaos, into the rain. 

Into every storm Sangwon had been running from, and every one he might face again. 

Because no matter how broken Sangwon felt, no matter how far he had wandered in shame and fear, Leo would be the anchor—the steady hand, the unwavering presence, the home Sangwon could always return to.

And perhaps, in that tiny, soaked, electric moment, they both finally began to understand that even the wildest storms could be survived. 

Together.

The windshield wipers carved frantic arcs through the relentless rain, the city outside smeared into streaks of gray and silver, neon signs bleeding into each other like wet paint. 

Leo kept his eyes on the road, though he stole glances at Sangwon whenever he could—slumped against the passenger window, pale and drenched, as if the storm outside had seeped into his bones.

The heater roared against the chill, fogging the glass and leaving ghostly streaks where hands had brushed. 

Leo made a mental note to clean the car the second they got home and redressed—his sister would have his head otherwise—but every practical thought faltered under the weight of seeing Sangwon like this. 

Nothing else mattered.

By the time they slipped into the parking garage, Leo’s hands ached from gripping the wheel, chest tight with worry. 

Every drop of rain that clung to Sangwon’s hair and clothes felt like a tether to the raw, unguarded pain he carried. 

He helped him out of the car, bracing him with firm, careful hands, murmuring reassurances that no words could ever fully convey.

“Let’s get you out of this,” he said softly, voice low, steady, carrying a gravity that cut through the remnants of the storm outside. 

He led him inside, each step deliberate and protective, as though by keeping Sangwon close he could shield him from every drop of the world’s indifference.

Leo guided Sangwon toward the bathroom, urging him to wash the storm and the cold from his skin. He lingered just outside the door, pacing in uneven arcs, unable to stay still, heart hammering in his chest. 

Is he okay? 

Should I have told him not to lock it? 

The uncertainty gnawed at him, every second stretching impossibly long.

The click of the door startled him. 

Sangwon stepped out, draped in Leo’s oversized sweater and loose pants, hair plastered to his forehead, chest rising and falling with tremulous breaths. 

The storm had left traces in him—chill in his skin, wet streaks in his hair, the weight of raw exhaustion in his posture.

“Drink this,” Leo held up a steaming mug of honey tea, warmth rising from the surface. “It’ll warm you up.”

Sangwon’s eyes lifted, shadowed but faintly grateful, a silent acknowledgment threading through his gaze. He nodded once, quietly.

“I’ll just shower,” Leo said, slipping past him toward the bathroom. The room smelled faintly of body soap and worn cotton—comforting, familiar, intimate in a way that made the storm outside feel distant.

But then Sangwon’s hand shot out, brushing against his. 

Barely a grip, but enough. Enough to anchor him, enough to stop him in his tracks.

“Thank you,” Sangwon murmured, voice low and raw, carrying a weight Leo could feel pressing against his ribs.

Leo paused, letting his other hand rest lightly on Sangwon’s head, ruffling damp strands from his forehead. He let the warmth of the mug linger between them, smiled faintly, soft but unwavering. 

“I know,” he said, a quiet promise threaded through the simple words.

For a heartbeat, the storm outside and the chaos inside both seemed to pause, suspended in the small, shared space between them.

The calm after the storm, found in the press of a hand and the steadiness of presence.

The apartment was still, the quiet punctuated only by the soft hum of the heater and the distant drone of the city beyond the windows. 

They lay on the bed, back to back, the space between them charged with unspoken words. Leo’s mind raced, scattering in fragments. 

Should he ask? Should he say something? 

Or should he let it lie, hope Sangwon would speak first?

A shift beside him, subtle but deliberate. Then, Sangwon’s voice, quiet, almost a whisper.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your showcase.”

Leo froze, heart hammering, every nerve taut. But before he could push it aside or deflect, Sangwon’s voice came again, firmer now, edged with vulnerability.

“I really wanted to see it.”

The weight of the day, the waiting, the worry—it all collided in Leo’s chest, collapsing into a single, aching lurch that made him inhale sharply.

Another movement. 

Warmth pressed against his back, soft and grounding. Sangwon’s forehead rested lightly against him, heat seeping through the thin fabric of his shirt, a quiet insistence that said more than words could.

“I wanted you to know how proud I am,” he murmured, voice trembling.

Fear, hesitation, the careful walls Leo had wrapped around himself all day—they fell away. There was no space for them here. 

Only Sangwon. Only him.

He rolled over, one arm sliding around Sangwon’s waist, the other cupping his face, tilting it so their eyes met. The weight of their shared silences, pressed into that small, fragile moment.

“You can still let me know right now,” Leo said softly, a small, steady smile anchoring the words.

Sangwon’s eyes glistened, lips swollen from the nervous biting he hadn’t noticed he’d been doing. A tremor of tears lingered, threatening, but he swallowed them, shaking his head faintly.

“I’m proud of you, Lee Leo,” he whispered back.

Leo pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “Thank you,” he murmured, voice low and rough. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

For a heartbeat—maybe a second, maybe a minute, maybe an eternity—they just stared. 

No words, no expectations, only quiet understanding, the rhythm of breath and pulse threading between them.

And then they kissed.

Slow. Tender. Not rushed, not rough, not lustful.

It was everything they hadn’t yet dared to say—the longing, the fear, the relief, the quiet pride, the tether of trust. 

All of it, finally, rendered in that single, unspoken act.

Their foreheads hovered just inches apart, breaths mingling in the dimly lit room. Leo’s thumb traced lightly along Sangwon’s jaw, patient, keeping him to the present. 

Something in Sangwon’s eyes—the flicker, the tremor—told him the dam had finally cracked.

“I used to be… different,” Sangwon murmured, gaze drifting, unfocused. “The kid who tried too hard, that was me. I thought if I ticked every box, I’d… be worth it. Worth their attention. Worth their love.”

Leo stayed still, arm holding him gently, letting the confession come.

“For a while, it almost worked. Or maybe I just convinced myself it did,” his breath shakes, “but after my mom died, it… changed. Suddenly, to them, nothing mattered. Praise, achievements, anything—it was all shadowed by comparisons. By expectations I could never reach.”

Sangwon swallowed, eyes dropping to Leo’s chest, unwilling to meet his gaze. 

“Eventually… I just stopped. If they’d already decided I was a disappointment, why fight it? Why not… be the disaster they expect?” his voice cracked, nearly a whisper. 

“At least then, I control the failure.”

Leo’s fingers tightened slightly, anchoring him. He felt the tremor beneath Sangwon’s skin, years of weight condensed into a single confession.

“You’re not a disaster,” Leo said softly. Sangwon shook his head faintly, a sad, fragile smile tugging at his lips. 

“You are good, Sangwon.”

He pressed his forehead lightly to Leo’s, as if the contact alone could hold him together. His chest heaved, voice rough and trembling.

“I’m not a good person. I hurt you,” he murmured, burying his face in Leo’s shoulder. “I know I do. I ruin you, Leo. And still… you run to me. Even when I disappear, even when I don’t call.”

Leo pressed his cheek to the damp strands of Sangwon’s hair, inhaling the faint scent of him. He let his fingers trace slow, steady patterns along Sangwon’s spine, grounding them both.

“Why do you let me ruin you?” Sangwon whispered, voice brittle, almost desperate.

“I don’t know,” Leo admitted, voice low, soft. “Maybe… because it’s when I’m with you I actually feel alive.”

Sangwon’s breath catches in his throat, tilting his head just enough to meet Leo’s eyes—red-rimmed, shimmering. 

Guilt, love, and longing collided there, raw and undeniable.

“Why?” he breathed, voice cracked, testing the truth of it.

“Because… being with you—it’s different,” Leo murmured, cupping Sangwon’s face, thumb brushing lightly along his jaw.

“It’s messy, yeah, but it’s real. With you, I feel like I’m seeing the world the way it actually is, the way I actually am.”

Leo pressed a gentle kiss to Sangwon’s forehead, warmth seeping through the rain-chilled tension, the touch soft and grounding.

“And that’s rare,” he whispered, voice trembling just enough. “That’s worth holding on to.”

Sangwon’s hands found Leo’s shoulders, gripping as if anchoring himself to the words. 

For once, he allowed himself to simply be—broken, messy, but alive—in Leo’s arms.

Silence pressed in around them, heavy and warm, punctuated only by their uneven breaths.

“I’m sorry,” Sangwon whispered, curling closer, fists tangling into the fabric of Leo’s shirt. “I’m sorry for being like this, for always running away. I thought—I didn’t want to drag you into the mess I am, but I also—”

He faltered, breath hitching, and Leo waited, heart thundering. His fingers found Sangwon’s hand, wrapping around it gently, grounding, patient.

“But I also can’t let you go,” Sangwon finally admitted, voice raw and trembling.

Leo’s chest tightened, as though the words had carved out a hollow just for them.

“So I just…” Sangwon lifted his eyes, wide and wet, raw with sincerity that made Leo ache, “please let me be selfish one more time.”

“About what?” Leo murmured.

Sangwon swallowed hard, lips trembling. 

“Let me ask you to stay. Even when I’m a mess, even when I’m falling apart. Please stay.”

Leo didn’t answer immediately. He could have called it foolish, reckless even—but Sangwon didn’t have to ask. 

He would’ve stayed anyway.

“I will,” Leo said, finally. 

His lips brushed over Sangwon’s clasped hand, slow, deliberate, almost a vow. “But promise me you won’t run again—not from me, not from us, from the things we can face together.”

Sangwon nodded, another tear slipping down, warm against Leo’s chest.

Leo’s thumb stroked the heated skin of Sangwon’s hand, tracing every tremor, every heartbeat beneath it. A small, tremulous smile tugged at Sangwon’s lips, fragile and unsteady but real.

“Stay, Leo,” Sangwon whispered, voice breaking yet certain, “and I’ll give you every reason not to regret it.”

Leo pressed his forehead to his, letting their breaths mingle, letting the quiet swell around them. 

“Stay, too,” he whispered back, soft as a heartbeat, “and I’ll keep finding ways to hold you up, even when you think you’re falling.”

Sangwon closed his eyes, a sound escaping him—a cross between a sob and a laugh—and for the first time in a long while, his grip on Leo wasn’t desperate to leave, to escape before the morning light could define them into something real. 

It was sure, anchored, here.

“I’m scared,” Sangwon admitted, voice shaking.

I might hurt you. I might keep ruining myself. I might never be enough.

“I know,” Leo whispered, chest pressing to his back. “I’m scared too.”

But I’d rather be scared with you than safe without you.

And in the dim, forgiving light of the room, they stayed like that—scarred, messy, bound to each other. 

Two people, fragile and raw, holding on through the weight of everything.

The unspoken promise between them presses deeper than pain, steadier than fear, and more real than the hurt that brought them to this moment.

Sunlight spilled lazily through the blinds, pooling over the rumpled sheets and tracing the curve of their bodies where they lay tangled. 

Their breaths mingled, soft and uneven, a quiet rhythm that filled the room like a fragile promise.

Sangwon was still curled against Leo, head resting lightly on his chest, fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt as if it anchored him to this small, steady reality.

Leo woke first. 

He stayed still for a moment, listening—the faint warmth of Sangwon pressed to him, the rise and fall of his chest, the shallow sighs that marked the line between sleep and wakefulness. He leaned down, brushing a light kiss across Sangwon’s temple, careful not to disturb the delicate peace that had settled over them.

Sangwon stirred, murmuring something unintelligible, then pressed closer. “Good morning,” he whispered, voice thick, soft, and a little rough from sleep.

“Morning,” Leo replied, brushing a hand through the damp strands of Sangwon’s hair. “Sleep well?”

A hum, half-lost in the haze of dreams. 

Leo let himself sink into the simplicity of the moment, letting the morning stretch out like a warm tide. 

No expectations, no chaos—just them, the quiet intimacy of a world paused, and the ordinary tenderness of being exactly where he wanted to be.

Sangwon shifted, eyes blinking up at him, vulnerability lingering but softened by trust. Leo traced a finger along the line of his jaw, careful, “everything alright?”

Sangwon’s lips curved into a tentative, almost shy smile. He pressed his forehead to Leo’s shoulder. 

“Yeah,” he breathed. “I just thought—” his voice caught, a soft hitch of uncertainty, “I wasn’t able to say it last night, but…”

He drew in a long, shaky breath. 

“I want to try,” Sangwon said quietly, finally, “with you. If you’d like.”

And Leo?

Leo wanted nothing else.

The sunlight climbed higher, brushing warmth across the rumpled sheets. 

They remained tangled together, close and quiet, the soft rise and fall of Sangwon’s chest beneath Leo’s fingers a steady rhythm against his own.

Sangwon stirred as his phone, finally charged, vibrated against the mattress. His hand shot out, grabbing it with a tense flicker of worry shadowing his features.

“It’s Sanghyeon,” he murmured, answering quickly, voice low and clipped at first.

Leo shifted closer, letting a hand drift along Sangwon’s shoulder. He pressed a gentle weight into him, a quiet anchor. 

Sangwon’s tense shoulders slowly relaxed as the words reached him.

“He’s okay… Dad’s been stable since last night,” Sangwon’s voice softened, a little shaky but threaded with relief. “They said he’s going to be fine.”

The tension drained from him in a wave. He melted against Leo’s side, face buried in the crook of his neck. “I was so scared,” he admitted, voice muffled, raw. “I didn’t know what I’d do if—”

“It’s okay now,” Leo held him tighter, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “He’s okay.”

For a long, still moment, they stayed that way. 

The room was quiet except for the distant hum of the city, the gentle rustle of sheets. But in that stillness, the world seemed to shrink until it contained only them. 

Sangwon allowed himself to be small, to lean, to be cared for, and Leo let him, heart softening with every breath.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this grateful for anything,” Sangwon whispered, voice low, raw, edged with disbelief. “Not even… not even the things I thought I wanted.”

“Then, that's all that matters,” Leo pressed his lips to the soft strands of his hair, a small smile brushing through. “Now, you’re here. You’re safe.”

Sangwon’s fingers tightened on his side, a shaky inhale following. 

“Yeah, with you.”

The morning light spilled across them, golden and warm. Skin against skin, quiet breaths mingling, they remained pressed together. 

And for the first time in a long while, the weight of everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the past that threatened to pull them under—began to ease. 

For this moment, they were just two people, and everything else could wait.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡

The gallery hummed like a heartbeat. 

Light pooled across polished concrete floors, catching on framed canvases and glinting off sculptures like whispered secrets. Guests moved in clusters, their low murmurs echoing against the high ceilings. 

Glasses clinked, a string quartet played softly near the entrance, and the air carried faint traces of varnish, fresh flowers, and something more—quiet pride, the kind that thrummed beneath skin.

Leo moved through it all like water. 

He shook hands, hugged professors whose teachings still lingered in his memory, greeted friends from the department, offered a polite smile to guests snapping photos near the installation of hanging glass. 

Somewhere near the back, his parents leaned into conversation with the curator, nodding seriously. 

This wasn’t just a student exhibit anymore. 

This was his.

Leo’s first real gallery show, every inch a testament to the nights he’d spent alone in the studio, hands cut and stained, fingers aching from clay and metal alike.

He stopped to thank a small group, and one of them gestured toward the centerpiece—a towering sculpture at the far end of the hall. 

Blackened metal strands twisted upward like smoke, spiraling toward a heart of pale stone. A figure’s hand reached, half-real, half-dissolving, as if caught between existence and memory.

“It’s breathtaking,” a woman said, voice soft with wonder. “What inspired it?”

“Smoke, ruin,” Leo hummed, “and inevitably.” 

But the gallery doors swung open before he could explain further.

And Sangwon stood there.

A bouquet tucked under his arm, long hair falling across his face, cheeks flushed from the cool air outside. His eyes swept the room until they found Leo’s, cutting through the crowd with quiet certainty until he stopped in front of him.

“I hope I’m not late,” he called softly, the corner of his lips tilting into a smile.

Leo’s own smile came slowly, deliberately, warmth threading through every muscle in his face, “you’re right on time.”

Sangwon handed over the bouquet, and Leo let his fingers brush Sangwon’s deliberately—a quiet, grounding spark, small but electric, even after all this time together.

“How are you feeling about the next one?” Sangwon murmured as they walked side by side, voices low beneath the hum of the gallery. “The Jeju foundation sponsoring your installation—that’s huge.”

Leo chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, the heat of nerves and pride coiling in his chest. “It still feels unreal. I keep waiting for someone to say they made a mistake.”

“They didn’t,” Sangwon said with a soft grin, the corner of his mouth lifting just enough to catch the light. “They chose perfectly.”

And then, for a heartbeat, warmth burst through Leo—a sudden, quiet ache of gratitude and wonder. 

How lucky he could be, he thought, to have someone who believed in him like this, so completely, so steadfastly.

“What about the bar?” Leo asked gently, noticing the subtle shadow under Sangwon’s eyes. “You’re almost there.”

Sangwon exhaled, a faint wryness tugging at his lips, like he was both relieved and surprised he’d made it this far. 

“Final round of exams soon. Dad even let me take another term at the literary foundation I’ve been working with. It’s… manageable, I think,” he laughed softly, brushing damp strands of hair back from his forehead. 

“The seminar ran late today. Nearly missed my train back.”

Leo’s chest tightened, catching the flicker of fatigue in Sangwon’s gaze under the gallery lights. 

He didn’t need words to know how much Sangwon had pushed, how finely he surfaced back to balance every dire expectation. 

A camera shutter clicked near them. 

They turned to see Sanghyeon crouched beside a nearby installation, his sleek DSLR glinting under the gallery lights.

“Hey lovebirds, move a little closer—lighting’s perfect,” Sanghyeon teased, grinning.

Leo groaned good‑naturedly, while Sangwon just rolled his eyes. “Ignore him,” he muttered, smiling despite himself. “Film major. He can’t help it.”

“He’s been doing photography on the side, right?” Leo asked with a small laugh as Sanghyeon urged them close for another photo. “He’s been saying he’ll do an exhibit of his own soon.”

Sangwon’s gaze softened, a chuckle falling off his lips. 

“I guess talent just runs in the family.”

“Yeah,” Leo murmured, eyes lingering on him. “It really does.”

They drifted toward the far wall where the gallery’s last piece waited—the same sculpture Leo had once sketched in his studio, now three meters tall, catching the light like a living shadow. The same piece that opened the doors to a multitude of opportunities for Leo.

Smoke‑like latticework rose around the figure, its hand straining outward, frozen between despair and escape.

Sangwon tilted his head, eyes glinting with memory. 

“I still can’t believe your final university project was about me,” he said, his voice low, almost teasing. “I should be paid for being a muse.”

“Really?” Leo huffed a laugh. “That’d bankrupt me. Most of the pieces here are about you.”

“I had my suspicions,” Sangwon snorted, stealing a glance at him.

They stood there a while—silent, side by side—as the crowd blurred and the music dissolved into a hum.

“You know,” Leo said finally, his voice quiet, almost uncertain. “After a while, I realized this piece wasn’t exactly you.”

Sangwon turned toward him, curious, “no?”

Leo shook his head slightly, eyes still on the sculpture. 

“At first I thought it was. Someone trapped—by expectations, by the world, by everything. Reaching for something just out of reach. I thought I was sculpting you—the unreachable.”

He paused, his breath catching faintly. 

“But later, I realized the cage wasn’t built around the figure. It came from it. The shadow was its own. It wasn’t the world holding them back, it was me. My hesitation.”

Sangwon stayed quiet, his reflection flickering in the glass and metal.

“I kept thinking I was reaching toward something impossible,” Leo went on softly. “But all I had to do was move a little closer, push past what I thought I couldn’t have. And then—” he looked at Sangwon. 

“You were there.”

Something flickered in Sangwon’s expression—recognition, pride, love, all layered in one small breath. 

“You did,” he murmured. “You broke through it. You found me.”

Leo’s mouth curved, small and real. 

“Only because you made me see what was past the smoke.”

Sangwon stepped closer until there was barely a breath between them. 

“And you’ll never have to reach that far again,” he whispered, “I couldn’t be far from you now, even if I tried.”

Leo let out a shaky exhale, then pulled him in, the scent of Sangwon’s favorite perfume and flowers still clinging to his coat. The warmth of him—steady, familiar—filled every hollow space Leo once thought permanent.

“I know,” he murmured into Sangwon’s hair, “because I’ll never let you go either.”

“Good,” Sangwon whispered, smiling against his shoulder. “Because I’m never leaving.”

For a long moment, the world stilled. 

The murmur of the crowd faded, and all the pieces that began with him surrounded them like a quiet constellation. 

Leo held the only one he’d ever truly wanted to keep.

The gallery buzzed softly around them—voices, footsteps, the low hum of lights. They stood before the sculpture, hands brushing, their shadows stretching long across the floor. 

And in that stillness, Leo thought of everything that had led him here—the smoke that once choked him, the doubts that caged him, the ache and the longing, and the way Sangwon had always been both fire and comfort.

He realized, finally, that some things didn’t need to make sense to be essential. 

Some presences lingered like smoke—sharp, inescapable—and some people left marks you would carry willingly forever. 

Sangwon was one of those people.

“Why won’t you let me sponsor one of your galleries,” Sangwon nudged him gently, breaking the hush with a groan. “You’re still annoyingly stubborn, you know that?”

“And you’re still impossible to ignore,” Leo smirked, keeping an arm looped around him as they stepped into the crisp night air.

“But I still won’t,” he added, ruffling Sangwon’s hair gently. “Why would I let my boyfriend pay for installations when he’s already my muse?”

Sangwon sputtered, cheeks flushing, and jabbed at Leo’s side—half protest, half laughter—but the curve of his smile betrayed him.

Their laughter spilled into the quiet street, soft and unguarded, carrying with it something lighter than relief, deeper than joy. 

No smoke, no cages, no ghosts of fear lingering in the corners. 

Only the echo of everything they had survived, the ache of every moment they had braved together, and the knowledge that they had carried each other through it all.

And now, finally, they could walk forward.

Pulled not by doubt or shame or fear, but by the certainty of each other.

Maybe that's all it takes to feel enough.