Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first mistake was thinking her savings would last.

The second was assuming Seoul would go easy on her.

It had only been three weeks — four, if you counted the week she spent crying over the wrong train stop — and Rumi was already half-broke, fully exhausted, and dangerously close to selling her soul for a month’s worth of upgraded Wi-Fi. Which, given the city she was in, might’ve been more of a literal risk than she cared to admit.

But Seoul sparkled. Even when she was spiraling.

The sidewalks buzzed with students and start-up tech boys and half-demons flexing their horns like it was a personality trait. Neon signs blinked over every corner, convenience stores stocked every off-brand energy drink imaginable, and the cafes all had ridiculous two-floor seating layouts with latte art contests and soundproof booths for “creative types.”

Her Fine Arts program orientation packet had described it as “a competitive, high-intensity learning environment for excellence-driven musicians.”

They hadn’t mentioned the sleepless nights, the stress migraines, or the soul-crushing realization that everyone else already had connections and studios and custom presets in their music software while she was just… figuring it out.

Still, she’d come here for a reason.

To be something.

To sing.

And maybe — maybe — to catch a glimpse of her music theory crush in the process.

Because even before the job applications and empty ramen packets and unpaid student discounts, there was Jinu.

Jinu, who sat two rows up in every class. Jinu, who never missed an answer. Jinu, whose demon mark curled like a secret behind his ear, just barely visible beneath dark, windswept hair.

He didn’t talk much in lectures, but when he did, it was to correct the professors. Calmly. Politely. With that annoying “I’m right and I know it” tone that somehow made her want to throttle him and kiss him at the same time.

He was clearly a half-demon — tall, sharp, way too composed — and girls flocked to him. One had brought him a protein bar mid-class. Another had slipped a note into his bag on the way out. Rumi had watched all of it from the corner of the room, notebook in hand, doodling lyrics in the margins like an idiot.

There was no way he knew her name.

She barely knew it herself most days.

Which was fine. Really. She didn’t have time to pine over a mysterious demon boy who probably had a girlfriend and a hidden condo in Gangnam. She had bigger problems. Like figuring out how to pay for her newest plugin subscription after it charged her entire food budget for the week.

She was in the middle of budgeting for her next emotional breakdown when her dorm door slammed open.

“I have an idea,” said Mira.

“Is it legal?” asked Zoey, without looking up from her laptop.

Mira tossed her glitter-coated heels onto the floor and collapsed face-first onto the futon beside Rumi. “Define legal.”

“Mira.” Rumi pinched the bridge of her nose. “No.”

“You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“You’re wearing four chokers and you smell like vodka and regret.”

“It’s coconut rum, actually.”

Zoey closed her laptop with a snap. “If this is another NFT scam—”

“It’s not a scam. It’s a solution.”

“To what?” Rumi muttered, already bracing for chaos.

“To you, baby girl.” Mira sat up, dramatically flipping her hair. “We’re gonna fix your money problem. Once and for all.”

Rumi blinked. “Did you finally hack my Chase account?”

“No, but now I have questions—”

“Focus,” Zoey interrupted. “What’s the plan, oh wise finance witch?”

Mira smirked. “Strip club.”

The room went quiet.

Rumi stared. “Excuse me?”

“Strip. Club.” Mira repeated it like a blessing. “Upscale. Classy. No touching. Good music. Insane tips.”

Rumi made a face. “I can’t dance.”

“You’re a vocal major. You have stage presence. Same thing.”

Zoey grinned. “Plus, you’re hot. And you’ve got that whole ‘mysterious sweet girl’ thing going. The customers love that.”

“I don’t even have clothes for that!”

Mira tossed her a black miniskirt from the laundry basket. “You do now.”

Rumi caught it midair, still blinking. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

She hesitated. “What if someone from school sees me?”

Zoey shrugged. “Then you get an A for audience engagement.”

Rumi buried her face in her hands. “This is insane.”

“Babe,” Mira said gently, “you’re two missed meals away from selling your vocal cords. Just try one shift. One. If you hate it, I’ll never bring it up again.”

“…Do I at least get a cool stage name?”

“Obviously,” Mira and Zoey said in unison.

Rumi groaned.

But she didn’t say no.

And that was how it started.

Welcome to Seoul, broke bitch.

It wasn’t like Rumi hadn’t worked before.

She’d done side gigs in high school. Babysat. Ran a sticker shop on Etsy for a month until the post office fees crushed her dreams. Once performed at a middle school open mic night for $20 and a cold slice of pizza. She wasn’t afraid of working.

She just hadn’t pictured it involving platform heels and LED mood lighting.

The club looked different when she was sober.

Not worse, exactly. Just… clearer. 

The club — Amour — was nicer than she expected. Warm lighting, private booths, plush furniture that didn’t smell like feet. The stage floor gleamed under the spotlights, polished to a mirror sheen. Everything was soft and ambient, pulsing faintly with music that didn’t try too hard.

It wasn’t seedy. That surprised her. It didn’t smell like cheap liquor or regret. Inside, it was clean, professional, expensive — an upscale fusion of velvet booths and polished floors, private rooms tucked behind smoked glass. The girls were already in costume when she arrived, lounging in the back with iced coffees and rhinestoned robes, chatting like coworkers on break at any normal job.

Except this wasn’t normal. Not for her.

“You sure you’re okay?” Zoey asked from beside her, pulling a sheer mesh sleeve over one arm. Her outfit sparkled like starlight. Her nails were already done.

“Yeah,” Rumi lied.

Mira rolled her eyes from across the locker room. “You’re gonna be fine. You’ve got the legs. You’ve got the tits. You’ve got the trauma. You’re built for this.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I mean it,” she said, snapping her bra strap into place. “Look — nobody’s expecting a full routine tonight. You’re shadowing. You take drinks to the booths, you flirt a little, you let the pros do the pole work.”

“And if someone asks for a private room?”

“You say no. Or yes. Whatever feels good.”

Rumi hesitated. “And if I freeze?”

Zoey smirked. “Then we swoop in like hot girl avengers and save the day.”

Rumi tried to laugh, but it came out tight. Her fingers were already fiddling with the hem of the slip Mira had loaned her — a silky black thing that clung in all the places she tried not to think about. She felt like a deer in heels. A rookie. A broke, desperate art major in a room full of glamor and glitter and girls who knew how to move like liquid sin.

Still, she stepped out when they called her name.

They didn’t make her dance. Not yet. Just float around the lounge, offering drinks and soft smiles, taking mental notes on how the seasoned girls worked the floor. It wasn’t all grinding and seduction — some of it was slow. Strategic. Soft voices and clever banter, knees brushing together in the booths, a hand placed just-so on someone’s thigh.

She could do that, maybe.

She didn’t take her clothes off that night. No one asked. But a man at one of the corner tables tipped her fifty thousand won just for bringing his drink with a wink. Another slipped a note into her hand that read “pretty smile.” And by the end of her shift, her makeup hadn’t even smudged.

Later, when they got back to the dorm, Zoey tossed her a protein bar and Mira threw herself face-down onto her bed with a groan of “we live like queens.”

Rumi didn’t argue.

She didn’t sleep, either.

Too wired. Too unsure if she felt empowered or terrified or both.

But it paid. It was clean. And no one made her do anything she didn’t want to do.

She went back the next weekend.

And the next.

By the third week, it didn’t feel weird anymore.

Not normal, exactly — she wasn’t sure working a floor in heels that high and flirting with tech bros for tips could ever feel normal — but it was routine. Predictable in a way that gave her some power back.

She learned fast which regulars tipped big and which ones just liked to talk. Learned which spots had better lighting for cleavage shadows and which cocktail recipes to avoid unless she wanted to be sticky all night. Learned how to walk in six-inch heels without wobbling and how to bend down without flashing her whole soul.

She still didn’t take off much. Just the slip, sometimes. A slow reveal of sheer black lace beneath. She never danced full stage, and she always made it clear that touching without permission was a no-go.

And people respected it.

More than she expected, honestly.

It turned out the strip club scene — at least this one — wasn’t crawling with creeps. Or maybe it was just that the bouncers were terrifying and the dancers were terrifying-er. Rumi quickly discovered that her coworkers weren’t just hot — they were efficient, tactical, funny. There was a running joke about who could invent the worst stage name for her.

Zoey voted “Sparkle Thighs.”

Mira argued for “Major Pain.”

Rumi said she’d take “None of the Above,” thank you very much.

“You’re no fun,” Mira sighed, twirling her gloss wand.

“She’s plenty fun,” Zoey said, mouth full of protein bar. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

Rumi didn’t respond. Just leaned back against the mirror, toeing off one heel, already tugging out the bobby pins Mira had jammed into her head earlier.

“You doing okay, though?” Zoey asked after a beat. “Like, really?”

Rumi blinked. “Yeah. It’s not as bad as I thought.”

That was true. Mostly.

She still hadn’t told her parents. Still hadn’t told anyone outside their dorm except her loan provider that she’d fallen behind again. She was technically two weeks late on her internet bill. Her stomach hurt when she thought about it too long.

But she had groceries. She had a bus pass. She wasn’t drowning.

That counted for something.

She reminded herself of that again the next morning, slumped over a half-finished theory worksheet in the back row of class, headphones tangled in her hair, two different highlighters clenched in one hand like stress toys. Her notes were barely legible. Her eyelids kept drooping. She was one iced Americano away from a full-on existential spiral.

Midterms were closing in. Her bank app was haunting her dreams. She had blisters on her feet from last night’s shift and a sore hip from slipping off one of the platform heels too fast.

But she was here.

Trying.

Still breathing.

The professor’s voice buzzed through the lecture hall, something about melodic contour and phrase structure, and Rumi was just barely holding on when—

She felt it.

That prickling weight. The one you get when someone’s watching you too long.

Her eyes darted forward.

Jinu.

He sat where he always did — front row, side aisle, notebook perfectly aligned with the edge of the desk. Hair neat. Collar popped just slightly. Like he’d rolled out of bed and still managed to look expensive.

And for a split second, she swore he was looking at her.

Not just at her. Into her. Like he knew something. Like he—

She blinked.

Gone.

His gaze had already shifted back to the whiteboard. His hand moved to underline something with a precise flick of his pen, calm as ever.

Rumi let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

No. No way.

He didn’t even know her name.

It was probably nothing.

Probably.

There was a rule Rumi had learned her first week working at the club: the quiet ones were the ones to watch.

The loud guys, the drunk guys, the suit bros who slapped down wads of cash and asked for the “hottest girl” like they were ordering off a menu — they were easy. Easy to entertain, easy to charm, easy to keep at arm’s length with a smile and a wink and a perfectly rehearsed exit strategy.

But the ones who watched without speaking?

Who tipped without comment, requested no one by name, came alone?

Those were the ones who stayed in your head.

The ones who didn’t want a show — just to see you.

Which was why, when the host knocked lightly on the dressing room door that evening and said, “Hey, Angel — private booth. He asked for you,” something in her stomach dropped.

Not in a bad way.

Not exactly in a good way, either.

Just a drop. A shift. Like gravity had changed directions.

She tried to play it cool. Smoothed her lipstick. Fixed the band of her skirt. Ran a hand down her thigh and let it linger there too long.

“Booth three,” the host added, glancing at the floor like he didn’t want to know more than he had to. “He’s already got a drink. Said to take your time.”

Rumi stepped into the hallway, heels clicking, pulse stuttering.

Booth three.

Private. Velvet-draped. The kind of booth meant for real clients — not college boys slumming it on borrowed credit.

She reached for the curtain.

Hesitated.

Pulled it back.

And there he was.

Same posture as always — straight-backed, one arm slung across the seat, the other holding a glass of something amber. His hair fell across his forehead in that careless way that only happened when someone spent an hour making it look like they hadn’t tried. All black. No tie. Open collar. A single ring on his left pinky that looked older than she was.

Jinu.

Her crush.

Her fantasy.

Her actual classmate.

Staring at her like this wasn’t the first time he’d seen her like this.

Like he already knew.

“Hi,” she said — stupidly, breathlessly — as if this was a first date and not a performance.

His lips twitched, just a little. “Hi.”

The door clicked shut behind her.

It was quiet.

No music, no thumping bass, no spillover from the main room. Just the sound of her heels and the faint fizz of his drink.

She didn’t move right away.

Didn’t flirt.

Didn’t pose.

Just… looked at him.

And he looked back.

And that was the scariest part — the stillness of it. The way he didn’t immediately gesture for her to sit or ask for anything. The way he didn’t smile like a creep or act shy or awkward. He just sat there. Present. Calm. Like he’d been waiting.

Like he wasn’t surprised.

Finally, she crossed the room.

Swung her leg over his lap like she’d done it a hundred times before, even though her hands were shaking and she hadn’t actually thought through what the hell she was doing. His body was warm — too warm — and when her bare thighs touched the fabric of his pants, she swore she felt him flinch.

But he didn’t stop her.

Didn’t move.

Didn’t even breathe, for a second.

She leaned in, just enough to brush her lips against his ear.

“Not your first visit, huh?”

“No,” he said — voice low, smooth, rougher than she remembered. “But first time you’ve looked at me.”

She froze.

Not visibly. Not enough for anyone watching. But inside — deep in her chest — something cracked. A tectonic shift in how she’d been thinking about him. This boy she thought had never spared her a glance in class. This boy who was here, now, looking at her like she was the only person in the room, like she’d always been the only person in the room.

She pulled back.

Eyes narrowed, unconvinced. “Why?”

“I wanted to see you again.”

Rumi rolled her eyes lightly. “Right..So you came here.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” he said, and there was no smirk this time. No teasing. “Not at first.”

Her breath caught.

His eyes dropped to her mouth.

And she could feel it — the tension between them, the weight of everything unsaid, everything unearned, everything waiting to happen.

And she hadn’t even started dancing yet.

She should’ve started moving.

That’s what this was, right? A performance. A dance. A fantasy he’d paid for, even if he wasn’t treating it that way. She should’ve arched her back, tilted her head, made a joke about good boys tipping well.

Instead, she just… stayed there.

Perched in his lap, knees on either side of his thighs, trying to remember how to breathe.

Jinu didn’t touch her.

Didn’t speak again either.

Just watched — expression unreadable, like he was filing this away for later. Like he was letting her decide what kind of night this was going to be.

And that was worse than if he’d asked for something. If he’d grinned and grabbed her waist or slid a hundred under her thigh and said, Let’s have some fun. She could’ve handled that. She had lines for that. Personas.

But this?

This quiet, expectant heat?

This man who kept blinking slowly, like he wanted her to make the first move?

She didn’t know what to do with that.

So, she shifted — not a lot, just enough for her hips to roll forward a little, her thighs to press closer. She felt the tension jump in his leg under her. Saw his jaw twitch.

Not much. Barely a reaction.

But enough.

“Do you always stare at people like that?” she murmured.

“Only when I’m trying to figure them out.”

“And?”

His voice came slower this time. “I think I need more data.”

“Oh my god,” she muttered, half under her breath. “You’re actually a nerd.”

He smiled. Finally. A real one this time — crooked, tilted more to one side than the other, flashing one little fang at the corner of his mouth.

“Guilty.”

That did something to her.

Not that she’d admit it.

She shifted again — slower now — hips rolling with more purpose. The movement dragged her body across his, friction layered into fabric, teasing pressure without release. His breath hitched. Subtle, but real.

Her palms found his shoulders — firm, warm, unfairly built — and she let her fingers linger. Just enough to test his reaction. Just enough to feel how still he held himself.

Still no hands on her.

Still not trying to take more than she offered.

Still just waiting.

“You always this well-behaved?” she asked, voice low, teasing.

“I’m trying to be respectful,” he said — and god, it didn’t even sound like a line. Just honest.

“Even here?”

“Especially here.”

That shouldn’t have made her thighs clench.

It did anyway.

She leaned in — enough to ghost her lips by his jaw, her breath feathering over skin that was just a little too warm to be fully human.

“You sure you don’t want anything?” she whispered. “You paid for this, you know.”

“I wanted to talk.”

“To me?”

“Yeah.”

She huffed — not quite a laugh, not quite a scoff. “Why?”

Jinu didn’t answer right away.

But his eyes flicked up to meet hers again — slow, deliberate, sharp.

“Your project,” he said quickly. “From class. Golden. That was yours.”

Her stomach flipped.

“You—what?”

“I recognized your voice,” he said simply, like it wasn’t the most insane thing she’d ever heard. “I liked the way you handled the Lydian modulation. Took guts to resolve it like that.”

She stared at him.

Like stared stared.

Because no one else had ever said that. No one had noticed. Not even the professor had commented. It was just a thing she’d thrown in, a weird idea she wasn’t even sure worked.

And Jinu — hot, quiet, too-cool-for-you Jinu — had not only noticed it, but remembered it.

She wanted to melt into the couch. Or teleport. Or cry.

Instead, she blinked hard and said the first dumb thing that came to her mind.

“You’re… like. Really good at music theory, huh?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Top of the class. Didn’t you know?”

She wanted to punch herself. Or kiss him. Or both.

“You’re actually insane,” she muttered.

“Maybe,” he said, a little too pleased with himself.

“Rumi should’ve stopped.

Or started.

Or moved. Or breathed. Or remembered how to exist without staring at the demon boy beneath her like he’d just casually kicked her soul out of her body and asked if she wanted it back gift-wrapped.

Instead, she stayed where she was — legs bracketing his, chest barely an inch from his, heart on the verge of committing a full-blown felony in her chest.

“So you remembered Golden,” she said.

“Of course I did.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t remember other people’s projects.”

“No,” he agreed, voice low and easy. “Just yours.”

Something inside her sputtered. “Did you really come here just to tell me you liked my use of scales?”

Jinu hesitated — but not long. Not like he was afraid of the answer. Just long enough to decide whether or not to say the next part out loud.

“I’ve… actually been here before.”

She blinked in disbelief. “What? You were being serious?“

“Couple times,” he added, nonchalant. “Stayed in the back. Didn’t realize it was you the first time, but after that…”

Her throat went dry. “You watched me?”

He nodded. “Didn’t stay long. Just enough to see you dance.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

He gave her that same crooked smile — all slow tilt and subtle fang. “Didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Interrupt what?”

“You. Being good at what you do.”

Rumi’s brain officially hit blue screen.

“Figures,” she said finally. “You seem the type to come to places like this.”

“I don’t. Never really seen the appeal.”

“Then why—”

“You walked on stage,” he said simply. “And I got it.”

She swallowed.

Hard.

“I usually don’t do private dances,” she murmured, half hoping it would deter him.

He smiled again, smaller this time. “I know. That’s why I asked for you.”

“What if I’d said no?”

“Then I’d have respected that,” he said. “Still would’ve tipped well.”

She hated how her heart reacted to that. Like it was new. Like she hadn’t grown up navigating this world on instinct and survival and never expecting anything soft unless it cost something sharp.

“You’re weird,” she whispered.

“I get that a lot.”

“You act like you don’t have any girls in your—” She broke off, then waved vaguely. “Your crowd. You’re always surrounded by people. Girls. The ones who laugh really loud at your jokes and share their notes.”

His brow furrowed, almost like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“You mean the study group?”

“I mean your girlfriends.”

Jinu tilted his head. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got a crowd of adoring fans, don’t lie.”

“I don’t notice them,” he said, like it was obvious. “Not really.”

“Okay, now that’s a line.”

He just shrugged. “Not if it’s true.”

There it was again — that brutal sincerity. That low, calm certainty that made it so much worse than a line because it didn’t feel like a game. Didn’t feel like he was trying to score points. Just… telling the truth.

“I always noticed you,” he added after a beat.

That shut her up.

He took the pause as permission.

“You sit near the window. Second row. You always scribble music notes in the margins of your homework before class starts. You never join the study group, even though your grades are good enough to run it.”

Rumi stared at him.

“You know my name?” she asked, voice thin.

“Rumi,” he said — soft, like he was testing the shape of it in his mouth.

Her breath caught.

He let it hang in the air for a moment, then smiled — slow, sinful.

“I liked it better before I knew it,” he said. “Was easier to pretend you weren’t driving me crazy.”

She should’ve had a comeback for that. Something sharp or flirty or coy.

But all she could think was he noticed me.

Not just once. Not just here.

At school. In class. In the quiet, regular moments where she’d tried to be invisible and survive and maybe graduate without completely falling apart.

He’d seen her.

The version of her that didn’t wear heels and glitter and red lipstick.

And now here he was — sitting still, letting her press her thighs around his hips and roll her body into his like they’d done this a hundred times before.

She leaned in again, letting her hands drag up his chest, nails barely catching on the fabric of his shirt.

“You know,” she whispered against his jaw, work mode coming out now, “if you keep saying shit like that, I might start thinking you like me.”

“Wouldn’t be wrong,” he said without missing a beat.

And this time, he moved — just a little. Just enough to tilt his face into her space, let his mouth graze just below her ear.

Not a kiss.

Not a touch.

Just heat.

“I like a lot of things about you,” he said quietly.

She shivered. Hard.

His breath warmed her skin again.

“Wanna know what else I noticed?” he murmured, lips ghosting just beneath her jaw. “You always get the phrasing just a little off in your warmups. Like you’re doing it on purpose.”

“I’m not,” she managed, brain actively melting. “I just don’t like doing things the same way every time.”

He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes again.

“Good,” he said. “Keep doing it your way.”

And then?

He leaned back in his seat like he hadn’t just unraveled every nerve in her body.

Rumi blinked, like maybe that would steady her. It didn’t.

Because Jinu wasn’t even looking at her anymore — not really. He was sipping his drink, calm and composed, like he hadn’t just given her the mental equivalent of a full-body electric shock. Like he didn’t notice the way her legs had turned to jelly. Like he wasn’t deliberately being the hottest and most confusing man she’d ever met.

She stared at him.

He didn’t react.

A full second passed.

Then another.

Then, without looking up, he said, “You’re still staring.”

“I am not.”

“You’re still staring.”

“I’m literally—”

“Still.”

She nearly growled. “Are you always like this?”

He shrugged, “Only with you.”

She sucked in a breath.

Okay. Time to leave.

Time to go.

Time to get the hell out of here before she did something stupid like climb into his lap again and lick his—

“Thanks for the drink,” she said, pushing her glass away like it hadn’t made her knees weak. “And the… Lydian compliments.”

His eyes lifted — amused, lazy, way too dangerous for someone that pretty. “Anytime.”

That was the worst part. He meant it.

She got up, somehow didn’t trip, somehow didn’t look back.

But she could feel his eyes on her the whole way out.

That counted for something.

It wasn’t a date.

It wasn’t even anything.

It was one shift. One incomplete dance. One ridiculously hot music major with too much emotional intelligence and a stupidly good memory.

Rumi should’ve been able to brush it off. She’d done it before. Guys who got too intense. Girls who wanted her real name. Clients who thought a little eye contact meant connection. You learn to shut it down. You learn to forget.

But this?

This was worse.

Because Jinu hadn’t touched her unless she asked. Hadn’t said anything that didn’t feel true. Hadn’t looked at her like a fantasy. He looked at her like she was the realest thing in the room.

And now he was texting her.

Like a totally normal person.

[unknown number]

hope you got some rest after last night.

( I know i didn’t)

She stared at the message for an hour before responding. How had he even gotten her number? She swore if Zoey or Mira had had any part in this…..

[rumi]

do you normally text girls from the club?

[jinu]

only the ones who lecture me about lydian mode while grinding on my lap

Her cheeks burned.

She didn’t answer for another three hours.

He didn’t double text. Didn’t push. Just sent another message that night:

[jinu]

sending food to your dorm. hope you like dumplings.

(if you don’t, lie. i’m fragile.)

Ten minutes later, Mira banged on the bathroom door yelling about a “hot boy delivery from hell” and Zoey screamed something about marriage rights under demon law.

She ate the dumplings. Of course she did.

The next day, she found $20 in her Venmo with the caption “for voice warmups <3”

She sent back a thumbs up emoji. That was it.

The next time she worked, he didn’t show.

She told herself she was relieved.

…

She wasn’t.

By the time the weekend rolled around, Rumi was fully in her flop era. Her throat was scratchy, her eyes burned from too much screen time, and she’d rewritten the same sixteen bars of her chorus four times. Everything sucked. Including herself.

Mira found her curled on the couch with her laptop on her stomach, looping the same demo again and again like the problem was the melody and not her entire life.

“Okay,” Mira said, plucking the headphones out of her ears. “You need to get laid.”

Rumi groaned. “I need to pass midterms.”

“Same thing.”

Zoey leaned over the kitchen counter, peeling a tangerine. “Is he still texting you?”

“No.”

“Did you text him?”

Rumi’s silence said everything.

Zoey made a buzzer sound. “Incorrect. Try again.”

“I’m not going to chase him,” she muttered.

“You’re not chasing him,” Mira said. “You’re, like… gently jogging in his direction with a map and a gift basket.”

Rumi glared. “You know I’m bad at feelings.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Zoey said sweetly. “To mock you until you fix it.”

“God, I hate both of you.”

“Love you too, babe.”

[rumi]

okay so maybe the phrasing thing is on purpose

[jinu]

knew it.

you always wanna do things your own way.

[jinu]

also i’ve got studio time next week if you wanna come play with the soundboard.

(no euphemism. unless you want there to be.)

She stared at her screen, heart thudding so hard she almost dropped her phone.

[rumi]

you’re exhausting

[jinu]

and yet you’re still texting me.

meet me after work?

He was waiting outside the club.

No backup. No car. No dramatic coat flips or neon underglow.

Just Jinu.

Leaning against the alley wall with his hands in his pockets, hair mussed from the wind, eyes trained on the exit like he’d been standing there the whole time.

When she stepped out, heels in one hand, hoodie tugged over her stage outfit, his face broke into a small, warm smile.

“Hey.”

She should’ve run.

Should’ve said something snarky. Something flirty. Something casual.

Instead, she froze.

“I can walk you home,” he offered.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I like the idea of walking with you.”

That shouldn’t have made her chest ache. But it did.

They walked in silence for a while, streetlights flickering above them, the city humming just loud enough to fill the spaces they didn’t know how to cross.

She was the one who kissed him.

She didn’t mean to. Didn’t plan it. But halfway through some dumb comment about music software updates, she turned to answer him, and he was close. Too close. And she leaned in like it was nothing.

Like it had always been coming.

He made a sound — surprised, quiet — and kissed her back instantly. No hesitation. No show. Just… warmth.

When she pulled away, his eyes were soft.

But hers weren’t.

She took a step back. Then another.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

“Rumi—”

“I’m sorry.”

And then she turned.

And ran.

Rumi didn’t go back to class the next day.

Or the day after that.

Or the day after that.

Technically, she had tests coming up . Technically, she needed rest. Technically, there were about a thousand reasons why she could justify it. But mostly?

She was scared.

Because she didn’t know what any of it meant — the dance, the look he gave her, the way her name sounded in his mouth like it was something sacred. She didn’t know how to hold it, didn’t know how to carry it around without it burning straight through her.

And she really didn’t know how to face him again without melting into a puddle of goo.

So she ghosted him.

Not because they hadn’t been talking. They had. He’d texted her — soft, sweet, and lowkey flirtatious. He’d sent food. Transferred cash with dumb little notes like for vocal warmups or you deserve better ramen.

She liked talking to him. Liked hearing from him.

Which is exactly why she panicked.

Because it wasn’t just a crush anymore. It was real. It was happening.

And now that it was right there in front of her — this boy she’d been lowkey obsessed with for weeks, giving her everything she’d secretly wanted — she did what any emotionally constipated girl with abandonment and attachment issues would do.

She ran.

And apparently, Mira and Zoey had noticed.

“Three days,” Mira said from the edge of her bed, one perfectly sculpted brow arched as she scrolled through her phone. “Three whole nights of ‘I’m just tired’ and ‘I need to catch up on reading.’ Girl, you’ve never read a syllabus in your life.”

“I don’t have to explain myself,” Rumi muttered, face buried in her pillow.

Zoey snorted from the other side of the room. “No, but you do have to confess. Because we know something happened. And we know you’re spiraling.”

“I’m not spiraling.”

“You’re spiraling,” Mira and Zoey said in unison.

Rumi groaned. “I’m not— It was just one night, okay? One very, very intense, confusing, possibly-life-altering night.”

Zoey perked up. “Did you kiss?”

Rumi curled deeper into her pillow. “…Yes.”

Mira gasped. “Finally. You admit it.”

“But I panicked, okay? I kissed him and then I ghosted like a fucking idiot.”

Zoey’s jaw dropped. “You kissed and ran? Girl.”

“I freaked out!”

“Was it a bad kiss?”

“No! It was… kind of the best kiss I’ve ever had.”

“Then why are you being so dramatic?”

“Because,” Rumi snapped, sitting up, “he’s so out of my league. I mean, you’ve seen him. And he’s a demon. Like, what the fuck am I even doing?”

“You’re being hot,” Zoey said. “And mysterious. And unattainable.”

“I work at a strip club.”

“Exactly. Men eat that shit up.”

“But he’s not just a man,” Rumi said, hugging her knees. “He’s Jinu. He’s, like, perfect. Smart. Talented. Probably speaks fluent Latin or some shit. And he noticed my music project. My stupid little ‘Golden’ demo with the Lydian modulation I added on a whim. Like… what?”

Mira blinked. “Okay but that’s literally hot.”

Zoey nodded solemnly. “He’s into you.”

Rumi shook her head. “No. He was just being polite. Or flirty. Or… I don’t know. He probably does this all the time.”

“Did he say that?” Mira asked.

“No.”

“Then shut up and text him.”

Rumi winced. “I kissed him and dipped. I can’t just slide back in like nothing happened.”

Zoey tossed a pillow at her. “Then go to work, coward.”

She caught it. Hugged it to her chest. “What if it’s different now?”

“Good,” Mira said. “Let it be different.”

Zoey leaned forward, eyes wide. “You could have an actual thing with the hottest demon in Seoul. Do you know how many women would kill for that?”

Rumi smiled. Just a little. “I don’t even know if I want a thing.”

“You don’t have to want anything,” Mira said. “You just have to want it right now.”

Zoey added, “Fine. Don’t text him. Don’t pine. But the bills still need paying, babe — so go shake your ass and forget he ever existed if that’s what you want. There’s only a few weeks of class left anyway.”

And she did.

God help her, she did.

So she put on her eyeliner.

Grabbed her jacket.

And went back to work.

The shift started slow.

Which was good. It gave her time to get her bearings, to get back in her body. To walk the floor with her chin high and her mind elsewhere, ignoring the way every cell felt like it was waiting for something. Or someone.

She wasn’t thinking about him.

Except she was. Obviously.

And not just in the usual, classroom-crush, daydream-during-lectures way. No, this was worse. This was her replaying that moment outside the club, again and again — the way his lips brushed hers like he was afraid to break her. The way his hands didn’t grab but hovered, like he was waiting for her signal. The way she’d run like a goddamn cartoon character five minutes later and then pretended it didn’t happen.

He was definitely playing her.

That was the only explanation. He was a demon. Rich. Hot. Not just college hot — like, public-menace-to-society hot. He probably didn’t even have to try. Probably just walked around Seoul collecting hearts like phone numbers.

There had to be some ulterior motive. Or some power thing. Or maybe she was just the newest shiny object in a long list of flings.

Whatever. It didn’t matter.

She had rent. Tuition. Midterms. She had shit to do.

So she smiled and flirted and did her job. Let her fingers trace shoulders and her laugh ring out warm and low, let herself be sweet and confident and playful — a little persona that fit like a second skin when she wanted it to.

And then?

She felt it.

A pull. The kind you didn’t notice at first — just a tingle between your shoulder blades, the ghost of eyes on skin.

Her body registered it before her brain did.

When she glanced over her shoulder, it was like her breath forgot how to move.

Jinu. At the bar.

Alone again. Same black button-down. Same unreadable expression.

Only this time, he was looking directly at her.

Rumi’s spine straightened instinctively. Her mouth moved on autopilot, murmuring something flirty to her current customer, who didn’t notice she was already walking away.

She didn’t rush. That would’ve been too obvious. Too much.

But she made her way to the bar — slow, deliberate, poised — and slipped into the empty seat beside him.

For a moment, he didn’t speak. Just looked straight ahead, fingers curled around his glass.

Then, without turning:

“May I sit here with you?”

Her pulse stuttered.

She swallowed. “You’re already sitting.”

His mouth twitched. “You’re right. Sorry. I didn’t want to assume.”

And god, it was that tone again. Quiet. Measured. Respectful to a fault. It made her feel like he was peeling her open with a velvet knife.

She shifted, crossing one leg over the other, giving him just enough attention to keep her dignity intact. “Didn’t think you were the asking type.”

“I ask when it matters,” he said simply. Then glanced sideways at her, finally meeting her eyes. “And you matter.”

Oh.

Okay. That was unfair.

“So,” she said, swirling her straw in the dregs of her drink, “you just show up again like nothing happened?”

Jinu blinked, all wide-eyed innocence. “What happened?”

She gave him a look.

He smiled — slow, smug, and entirely too pretty for someone who’d been left on read for three days. “Kidding.”

“Are you?”

“Maybe a little.” He tilted his head. “I figured if you didn’t want to see me again, you’d have blocked my number. Or stabbed me with a stiletto.”

“I considered both.”

“That’s fair.”

She exhaled through her nose, trying to stay calm, casual, unbothered. “You’re kind of a menace.”

“Only to people who ghost me after kissing me breathless.”

Her face heated. “I didn’t— I wasn’t— It was just—”

“Intense? Confusing? Possibly life-altering?” he offered, echoing her exact words from the dorm, which he could not have known, which made it infinitely worse.

She stared.

He sipped his drink.

“And you’re insufferable,” she muttered.

“You kissed me first,” he said cheerfully. “Technically, I was just standing there.”

“You weren’t just standing there.”

“I was,” he insisted. “Very still. Very respectful.”

She groaned.

“But I get it,” he added. “You panicked. Happens all the time. I’m very emotionally disruptive.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It is now.”

Rumi rolled her eyes, but she was smiling — just barely.

He leaned on the bar, elbow propped, watching her. “So? Am I forgiven?”

“Depends. You planning to be annoying all night?”

He shrugged. “That’s just a bonus.”

She laughed — actual, unguarded — and he smiled like he’d won something.

“So what, you just keep coming back here now?” she asked. “Is this your new hobby?”

“No,” he said. “You are.”

Her brows lifted.

He didn’t miss a beat. “Well, that and the lighting. Great ambiance.”

She gave him a flat look.

“And the music.”

“Uh-huh.”

He grinned. “And the way you hold the whole room in the palm of your hand.”

That shut her up.

Because he wasn’t teasing anymore — not really. He meant that.

And maybe that was the problem.

She glanced away, pretending to focus on the shelves behind the bar. “You always this intense?”

“Only when I like someone.”

Her heart jumped.

She recovered quickly. “So how many people does that apply to? Because you’ve got a bit of a… reputation.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you really here?”

He blinked. “Because I wanted to see you.”

“Right,” she muttered, taking another sip of her drink. “Because demons are known for their commitment and moral purity.”

Jinu tilted his head. “Wow. Harsh.”

“Accurate.”

He let that hang for a second, then leaned in, elbows on the bar. “You think I’m playing you.”

“Aren’t you?”

He didn’t flinch. “You think I make a habit of this?”

“You literally radiate ‘walk of shame with a smirk.’”

Jinu huffed a laugh. “That’s poetic.”

“Seriously,” she said, quieter now. “You’re a demon. You’re hot. You’re probably ancient. There’s no way you’re actually interested in me — not for real. So what is this? Curiosity? A game? Some weird ego thing?”

His smile faded. Not in offense — more like he was shifting into something softer. “It’s none of those.”

“Then what?”

He looked at her. Steady. Calm. “I told you. You.”

Her breath caught.

“You act like this is a coincidence,” he said. “Like I just ended up in your booth by chance.”

She stayed quiet.

“It wasn’t random,” he continued. “I’ve been watching you for a while. Long before the club.”

Her chest tightened.

He didn’t smirk. Didn’t tease. Just shrugged, like it was fact. “I don’t waste time on things I don’t want.”

Rumi didn’t know what to say.

Because she wanted to doubt him. She’d spent weeks building him up in her head as untouchable, unserious, dangerous. But now — looking at him like this — it didn’t feel like a performance.

It felt like attention.

Real and razor-sharp and maybe a little bit terrifying.

“Still think I’m lying?” he asked.

She looked down. “Maybe.”

It came out sharper than she meant — like she was still trying to convince herself.

But the truth buzzed low in her chest, impossible to ignore.

Because no matter how hard she tried to stay skeptical, something about the way he said it — calm, quiet, like it didn’t need to be proven — felt real.

And that was the worst part.

Because some part of her believed him already.

She didn’t say anything else after that.

Didn’t flirt. Didn’t play it off. Just went quiet in that way she did when her brain got too loud, too fast, all the alarms in her head firing at once.

Jinu didn’t press. He just turned back to his drink, swirling it in the glass like he hadn’t just said something borderline unhinged with the most peaceful expression imaginable.

Like it was normal to admit you’d been watching someone. Liking someone. Wanting someone.

Like it didn’t scare him at all.

Which was funny, because Rumi? Was fucking terrified.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him. Not completely. He hadn’t given her a reason not to. He hadn’t grabbed at her, hadn’t lied, hadn’t said anything that felt like bait. But it was still him. Jinu. The boy she’d had a crush on from day one. The demon with perfect pitch and a perfect face and a reputation for being untouchable. He wasn’t supposed to like her. He wasn’t supposed to want her.

Not like this.

Not here, after everything.

“You okay?” he asked, finally — gently.

She looked up. Met his gaze. And instead of saying anything stupid, she nodded.

Which, apparently, was enough.

Because a few minutes later, she felt the pressure shift again — a subtle tap on the booth wall, a quiet rustle of curtain — and the bartender placed another drink in front of her.

Rumi blinked. “I didn’t order—”

“I did,” Jinu said simply. “You looked like you needed something sweeter.”

She eyed it suspiciously. “It’s not drugged, is it?”

“Only with charm.”

“You’re such a loser.”

“Yet here you are,” he said, raising his glass.

She clinked hers against his before she could think better of it.

After her shift, they walked together again.

Not because they planned it. Not because she asked. Just… because.

He was there when she came out the side exit — like always. Hands in his pockets. Jacket thrown over one shoulder. His whole presence low and nonchalant, like he hadn’t just spent the last two hours sitting alone at the bar like some emotionally repressed rock ballad.

“Hey,” he said.

She tried not to smile. “Hey.”

They didn’t talk much this time.

Didn’t need to.

The streets were quieter now, still a little damp from rain that hadn’t stuck. Her boots scuffed the pavement. His steps were silent beside her. When they reached the edge of campus, she stopped. Looked up at him.

“You could’ve gone home,” she said.

“I’m not tired yet.”

She hesitated. “You wanna… come upstairs?”

He blinked. Surprised. “To your room?”

“No,” she deadpanned. “To heaven. Obviously.”

That made him smile.

She led him up the stairs, past the always-sticky vending machine and the weird cracked window on the third floor. Her dorm was quiet — Mira was out, Zoey probably passed out with her rave lashes still on. She kicked off her boots in the entryway and threw her bag somewhere in the dark. Jinu followed, moving carefully, like he didn’t want to disrupt anything.

Like he didn’t want to disrupt her.

She didn’t light candles. Didn’t play music. Just tossed her hoodie on the desk chair and flopped backward onto the bed like it was any other night. Her comforter puffed around her like clouds.

Jinu lingered by the door.

“You can sit,” she said, voice muffled against her pillow.

He crossed the room and perched at the edge of the bed, hands folded neatly in his lap.

It should’ve been awkward.

It wasn’t.

After a beat, she rolled onto her side. Studied him in the dark.

“You really remembered my project?”

He nodded. “It was good.”

“I didn’t think anyone listened.”

“I always listen to you.”

Her chest twisted.

She looked away, breath catching somewhere in her throat.

“You know,” he said, voice lower now, “I don’t care if you keep running.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I mean it,” he said. “I’m not trying to corner you. I just… I like you. I want to be around. That’s it.”

Rumi swallowed hard.

There it was again. That terrifying honesty. The kind that made her want to scream and cry and jump him all at once.

But instead, she whispered, “Okay.”

He didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

Just leaned back a little — letting her decide what happened next.

And for the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel like running.

She felt like maybe… she wanted to stay.

She didn’t know who moved first.

Maybe it was her. Maybe it was him. Maybe gravity had just gotten bored of pretending they weren’t two magnets waiting to snap.

But one second, they were talking — bantering, flirting, circling like they hadn’t already melted into each other in every way but name — and the next?

His hand brushed her thigh.

Just lightly. Just enough to rest there. Just enough to anchor them both to the present.

It wasn’t crude. Wasn’t fast. His touch was deliberate, quiet, like punctuation at the end of a long sentence. And when her eyes flicked to his, she didn’t see heat.

She saw restraint.

“I’ve been thinking about kissing you again ever since that night,” he said, voice low, like he was sharing a secret.

Rumi swallowed. “Then do it.”

He didn’t rush. Just let his thumb drag up slowly — slowly — until it dipped under the edge of her skirt. Just a touch. A tease. A question. She didn’t stop him.

His other hand came up to her jaw.

And then he kissed her.

Not hard. Not greedy. Just… thoroughly. Like he meant it. Like he was learning her mouth by heart, like he wanted to get it right the first time because he didn’t plan on this being the last.

She whimpered into it before she could stop herself.

God, he was good at this. The kind of good that made her thighs clench, made her fingers grip his shirt, made her glad they were no longer in a private booth in a public place and were somewhere behind a locked door.

When he pulled her closer, she didn’t resist. When his tongue slid against hers, she let it. When her hands wandered up his chest, nails scraping lightly, he groaned low in his throat and kissed her deeper.

Her hips moved without thinking. Pressed into him. Rolled once, slow and full.

He hissed.

That did something to her.

Her mouth moved to his jaw, then lower — trailing heat down his neck, letting her lips hover where she felt his pulse beat strongest. He was too warm. Too steady. It wasn’t fair.

His hands stayed gentle. One on her back. One on her thigh. Both trembling slightly.

When her hand found the edge of his shirt, started to slide it up—

He stopped her.

Not harsh. Not abrupt. Just… still.

She looked up, blinking, confused.

“I want this,” he said — low, firm, not budging. “But not like this.”

Her breath caught. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not trying to be just some guy you remember from the club.”

Oh.

Oh.

“I want to take my time with you,” he said, and somehow that was worse. Softer. Crueler. Like he was pulling the ground out from under her with a smile. “I don’t want to rush this.”

Her heart did something stupid in her chest. Like pirouetted. Like burst.

He leaned in. Pressed one last kiss to her cheek. Just there. Just enough to feel like a promise.

“Have a good night, Rumi.”

And then — like a bastard — he left.

The door hadn’t even clicked shut behind her before Zoey screamed.

“WAS THAT HIM?”

Rumi nearly jumped out of her skin. “Jesus Christ—”

Mira popped up from the bed like she’d been lying in wait. “It was, wasn’t it? We heard a male voice. Deep. Hot. Smug. Demon-coded.”

“I hate you both,” Rumi muttered, covering her face.

“You do not,” Mira said, gleeful. “You love us. Just like you love that half-demon heartthrob who apparently walks you home now and makes you forget how to use doors.”

“Tell us everything,” Zoey said, dropping onto the beanbag with wide, greedy eyes. “Was it hot? Was it huge? Did he do the thing with the fingers?”

“WHAT fingers?” Rumi shrieked.

“You know,” Zoey said seriously. “The demon fingers.”

“There are no demon fingers.”

“That’s what you think.”

Rumi groaned. “It wasn’t like that.”

Mira gasped. “He didn’t kiss you?”

Rumi hesitated.

Zoey shrieked again. “HE KISSED YOU?”

“Oh my god, shut up—”

“Was it good?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“Was it slow?”

“Mira—”

“Did you melt?”

Rumi covered her face. “I hate both of you so much.”

“Was there tongue?” Zoey asked sweetly.

“Yes,” Rumi blurted, then groaned louder. “I mean—maybe. I don’t—shut up!”

“Where did he put his hands?” Mira asked, flopping dramatically onto her stomach like a teenage boy about to read smut under the covers.

Rumi went pink. “On my waist. And my thigh.”

“Ohhhh,” Zoey said, fanning herself. “Thigh touch? That’s boyfriend-coded.”

“He literally walked away after,” Rumi muttered.

“That’s gentleman-coded,” Mira corrected. “You’re gonna marry this man.”

“I’m going to die in this room,” Rumi said, collapsing face-down into a pillow.

Zoey patted her back. “And we’ll plan the wedding.”

“Can you at least let me live first?”

“Nope,” Mira said. “Now tell us — what did he say? No one that hot leaves without saying some kind of stupidly respectful one-liner.”

Rumi peeked out from the pillow. “…He said he wanted to take his time with me.”

Both girls SCREAMED.

Rumi screamed louder.

“GET OUT.”

“NEVER.”

“We’re your roommates now and forever,” Zoey whispered. “And this? This is our plotline.”

“You’re welcome,” Mira added with a bow.

Rumi flipped them off.

Then smiled into her pillow.

Just a little.

The classroom felt colder the next morning.

Maybe it was the air conditioning. Maybe it was the sleep she didn’t get. Or maybe it was the fact that Jinu — stupidly tall, stupidly composed, stupidly here — was already seated when she walked in.

Front row. Like always.

Except this time, he wasn’t alone.

A full gaggle of students hovered near his desk — two girls from the performance cohort, one guy from studio tech, someone else from their theory seminar. All half-laughing, half-hovering, full thirsting. And Jinu? Was nodding politely, contributing nothing. Like he hadn’t noticed any of them at all.

Until she walked in.

Then his head turned.

Then his eyes met hers.

Then — and this was maybe the part that short-circuited her brain — he smiled.

Not a smirk. Not a show. Just a little tilt of the mouth like he was genuinely happy to see her.

Rumi stopped mid-step.

She wasn’t ready for this.

She’d barely managed to pull on jeans and dry shampoo her way into looking functional, and now this? Now he was being publicly polite? In front of people?

Nope. No thank you.

She made a beeline for the second row and threw her bag down like it owed her money.

The girls near Jinu watched her. Whispered.

She pretended not to notice.

But Jinu… didn’t move. Didn’t greet them. Didn’t so much as glance their way again.

Instead, after a full beat of silence, he stood.

Walked straight over.

Dropped into the seat beside her like it was the most casual thing in the world.

“Morning,” he said, voice low and warm and unreasonably calm.

Rumi blinked at him. “…Hi?”

“You sleep okay?”

She blinked again. “Are we… on a public speaking basis now?”

His brow lifted. “What?”

“You know,” she said, lips twitching. “Casual hallway nods. Class whispering. Surprise walk-ins from hot demon boys who don’t usually leave their fangirl bubble.”

He smiled. “I ditched them.”

“I noticed.”

“You’re more interesting.”

Her mouth went dry.

Jinu leaned forward a little, resting his elbow on the desk between them. “Unless you’d rather I pretend I don’t know you?”

“I just figured I was more of a… private booth situation.”

He laughed — soft and real. “You were. Now you’re not.”

“Wow. How special.”

“Extremely.”

She squinted at him. “You’re being very confident for someone who got ghosted for three business days.”

“And yet,” he murmured, “here I am. Still not mad. Still interested. Still sitting beside you in music theory.”

Rumi stared.

He was impossible.

Worse — he was sincere.

And she had no idea what to do with that.

So, naturally, she defaulted to sarcasm.

“Well,” she said, flipping her notebook open, “hope you’re ready to ruin your bad boy reputation.”

He leaned closer. “Ruin it for what?”

“For being seen next to the broke girl who spends her weekends in six-inch heels whispering compliments to guys named Chad.”

Jinu hummed thoughtfully. “Chad sounds insecure.”

“He tipped twenty bucks and cried when I said his cologne was powerful.”

“Definitely insecure.”

Rumi bit the inside of her cheek, holding back a smile.

Then — quieter — “You really don’t care, do you?”

He tilted his head. “About what?”

“About them,” she muttered, nodding toward the students still watching them from across the room. “About being seen with me. About rumors. About… whatever this looks like.”

His gaze didn’t waver.

“I know what it is,” he said. “They don’t.”

And somehow, that felt worse.

Because it sounded real.

And Rumi… wasn’t ready for real.

Not yet.

Her laptop screen glared back at her like it knew she hadn’t gotten shit done.

Rumi groaned, flopping backward onto the dorm couch, textbook open across her stomach, a bag of half-eaten seaweed snacks perched precariously on her collarbone. It was 1:34 a.m. Her warmups were half-finished. Her harmony worksheet was untouched. Her “to-do” list had quietly morphed into a “never-will” list about three hours ago.

She glanced at her phone for the tenth time that minute.

Still no new notifications.

She shouldn’t have cared.

Except, apparently, she did — because she kept checking, like he was gonna say something. Like he was gonna pop up again and make her smile like an idiot. And god, wasn’t that embarrassing?

She was about to toss her phone under the bed when it buzzed.

[jinu]

working late?

[rumi]

not working. just spiraling.

the usual.

[jinu]

at least you’re consistent.

[rumi]

not helping.

[jinu]

need help?

She hesitated, fingers hovering over the screen.

[rumi]

only if you know how to fix 12 bars of garbage harmony with zero motivation and a mild caffeine overdose

[jinu]

i specialize in that actually

[jinu]

also known as “music theory panic hour”

(i charge extra if you cry)

[rumi]

rude

accurate

but rude

[jinu]

i’ll waive the crying fee

if you let me see the track

Rumi stared at the message, heart doing something she did not consent to.

[rumi]

you’re serious?

[jinu]

always.

[jinu]

i’m at the studio tomorrow

you should come by

we can play with the soundboard

(again — not a euphemism. unless you want it to be.)

She choked on her snack.

[rumi]

you’re actually the worst

[jinu]

and yet

you’re still texting me

<3

She stared at the heart emoji.

Ridiculous. Unnecessary. Infuriatingly effective.

[rumi]

do you have, like, unlimited studio time or something?

[jinu]

sort of

my family owns the place

She froze.

Read that again.

[rumi]

wait.

like owns owns?

[jinu]

jin studios.

my dad started it.

Her stomach dropped.

[jinu]

i just inherited the access codes

not the nepotism

[rumi]

…so you’re that jinu.

[jinu]

what jinu

[rumi]

the “son of one of the top producers in south korea” jinu

[rumi]

the “was born with a vocal booth in his playroom” jinu

[rumi]

the “my internship fell through because they had to make room for your cousin” jinu

[jinu]

wow

you’ve been holding onto that one huh

She rolled her eyes, even though he couldn’t see her.

[rumi]

whatever.

i’m broke. and busy. and barely hanging on.

[rumi]

i moved here to get opportunities

and all i got was a minimum wage club gig

and a half-demon nuisance

[jinu]

you forgot the dumplings

[rumi]

true

they were good

[jinu]

they’ll be even better tomorrow

after studio time

say yes

She didn’t say yes.

Not officially.

But she didn’t say no either.

She just left her phone facedown on the pillow beside her, closed her laptop, and stared at the ceiling like it had the answers.

Because somehow, against every single line of logic in her head, she kind of did want to see him again.

More than kind of.

She told herself she wasn’t dressing up.

Just jeans. Just a hoodie. Just… the good lipstick. In case.

The plan was simple: swing by his dorm, walk to the studio together, maybe listen to a track or two before she had to leave for her shift. Totally casual. Totally normal. Not a date. Not even close.

She even practiced her tone on the way over. Friendly, breezy, not-like-you’ve-been-thinking-about-him-all-week tone.

And then she rounded the corner.

He was there.

Of course he was there — but so was she.

Pretty. Effortless. Long, glossy hair and one of those fitted turtlenecks that looked like it cost more than Rumi’s rent. She was laughing at something he’d said, hand brushing his arm like she’d done it before. Like it wasn’t new.

And Jinu?

Leaning just slightly toward her.

That small, crooked smile on his face — the one Rumi had thought was hers.

Her stomach dropped so hard she swore it echoed.

She froze halfway down the block, pulse thudding in her ears. They didn’t see her. She could’ve walked up, played it cool, joined the conversation. But her feet… wouldn’t.

Because she knew this.

Knew this scene like muscle memory — the way boys with reputations collected people like accessories. The way demons especially loved to have someone on the hook while they entertained “options.”

Of course he had options. She’d been an idiot to think otherwise.

She turned before she could stop herself, walking fast, hoodie pulled tight around her face.

By the time she hit her own dorm hallway, her throat was hot. Her eyes were too.

God, she was so stupid.

Of course he’d only been playing.

Of course it was just a game to him.

She was a nobody — a small-town music major who hadn’t even landed an internship, working shifts at a strip club to keep her internet on. And him? Jinu, demon heartthrob, heir to one of the biggest studios in Seoul.

Maybe it fed his ego to have her.

Maybe he liked the novelty — a stripper who also knew her way around a suspended chord. A challenge to charm between his other conquests.

It didn’t matter.

She was done.

Or at least she was going to say she was done until she actually believed it.

She shoved her key into the door harder than necessary, swung it open —

— and was immediately ambushed.

“How did it go?” Mira demanded from the floor, where she was painting her nails like a mob boss preparing for war.

“How did what go..” Rumi muttered, voice trailing off angrily.

Zoey’s head popped up from behind her laptop. “The guy? The hot demon music guy? Tell us everything.”

Rumi dropped her bag. “There’s nothing to tell.”

Mira narrowed her eyes. “Liar. You’ve got that ‘I just saw him and now I want to die’ face.”

“I do not—”

“Positions?” Zoey interrupted. “How many? Which ones?”

Rumi gawked. “Jesus—”

“No filter,” Mira said, pointing her nail file like a weapon. “You promised. And you can’t drop ‘hot demon heir’ in our laps and then go all secretive.”

“There’s nothing—”

Zoey gasped. “Did he ghost you? Oh my god, did you finally get ghosted?”

Rumi groaned and flopped onto her bed. “No. I saw him. Outside his dorm. With a girl.”

Both roommates went still.

“Define ‘with,’” Mira said, voice sharpening like she was about to draft a hit list.

“Talking. Smiling. She touched his arm.”

Zoey tilted her head. “Could be nothing.”

“Could be something,” Mira countered immediately. “And if it’s something, I’m killing him. I’m killing him dead.”

Rumi buried her face in her pillow. “I don’t need a hit squad—”

“You’ve got one anyway,” Mira said. “Defensive bestie mode. No survivors.”

Zoey rolled her eyes but still looked thoughtful. “It could’ve been a friend. Or a cousin. Or, like, someone asking for directions—”

“Please,” Rumi muttered into the pillow. “He’s a demon. They don’t ‘just’ talk to girls like that unless they want something.”

Mira’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Then we make him regret wanting anything.”

….

Her phone had been buzzing all afternoon.

She didn’t have to look to know who it was.

[jinu]

you okay?

[jinu]

we still on for studio time?

[jinu]

rumi?

She tossed the phone face down on her desk, shoved another bobby pin into place, and focused on her eyeliner. If she could just get through the shift without thinking about him, she could convince herself it didn’t matter.

By the time she was at the club, the screen showed five more messages.

[jinu]

did i say something?

[jinu]

tell me what i did wrong.

[jinu]

Please.

She didn’t reply. She told herself it was because she was busy — hair, heels, set list, small talk. But really, it was because she didn’t trust her own fingers not to type something she couldn’t take back.

The shift was steady. She laughed at customers’ jokes, let her knees brush theirs, kept the whole act spinning like she was fine. She was fine. She was—

And then she saw him.

Back corner of the lounge, half in shadow, one hand resting on the table. No drink this time. Just there. Watching.

Her heart did something traitorous in her chest.

She looked away instantly, pretended to be engrossed in some finance bro’s story about cryptocurrency, pretended she hadn’t felt her pulse spike like she’d been caught doing something wrong.

But every time she glanced up, he was still there.

It took her half an hour to approach him — long enough to pretend she was doing it on her own terms.

“Thought demons weren’t big on repeat visits,” she said lightly, sliding into the seat across from him.

“Thought music majors weren’t big on ghosting,” he replied, calm.

She kept her face neutral. “I’ve been busy.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Too busy to answer me?”

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

The word landed soft, not sharp — like he already knew the truth but wanted her to say it.

She crossed her legs, leaned back. “Why are you here, Jinu?”

He tilted his head, studying her like she was a problem he meant to solve. “Because you didn’t come to the studio. Because you’re ignoring me. And because…”

He leaned forward then, elbows on the table, voice dropping just for her.

“…I don’t like being ignored by someone I want to see.”

Her stomach twisted, equal parts anger and something else she refused to name. “You don’t even know what you want.”

“I do,” he said without hesitation.

She looked away, scanning the crowd, trying to find her footing. “Maybe you should want someone else.”

“Too late.”

Her breath stuttered.

“Look at me, Rumi.”

She did. And it was a mistake. Because there it was again — that steady, quiet focus, like she was the only thing in the room that mattered.

“I don’t know what you think you saw,” he said, “but if it’s what’s keeping you from answering me, then you should just ask instead of running.”

Her jaw clenched. “You were with someone.”

He didn’t even flinch. “That girl?”

Rumi’s fingers tightened against the edge of the table.

“She’s in the program too,” he said evenly. “One of those people who thinks we’re best friends because we had a group project last semester. I was on my way out when she cornered me.”

Her brows pulled together. “Cornered you?”

Jinu’s mouth curved, humorless. “Wouldn’t stop talking. Kept asking if I was free to grab drinks. I told her I had plans.”

Rumi gave him a look. “Clearly, you didn’t.”

“Oh, I did.” His gaze caught hers, steady, deliberate. “I told her I was meeting my girlfriend.”

Her pulse tripped. “Your… what?”

“You heard me.”

Rumi blinked, heat crawling up her neck. “Pretty big claim for someone who got left on read all week.”

He shrugged like it was the easiest thing in the world. “Didn’t feel like explaining my actual business to her. And it wasn’t a lie.”

She swallowed hard, hating the way her chest tightened. “You really expect me to believe that?”

Jinu leaned back, still holding her in that calm, unshakable gaze. “I expect you to ask me next time, instead of running.”

The worst part was — she didn’t have a comeback.

The second worst part was — her stupid heart was pounding like it believed him anyway.

Rumi should have been smug.

She’d caught him red-handed — or at least arm-brushed — in front of his dorm building with some girl hanging off him. She should’ve been holding onto that, leaning back in her chair with a “told you so” smirk and the satisfaction of catching a demon in his natural, flirtatious habitat.

But instead, she was stuck replaying the way he’d said it. Girlfriend. Like it was obvious. Like it was her.

So she went with the only defense she knew — snark.

“That’s cute,” she said, swirling her straw in her drink. “Upgrading your lies now?”

“Not a lie,” Jinu replied smoothly. “Just… selective truth-telling.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes it better.”

His eyes cut sideways, amused. “You’d rather I let her keep touching me?”

“I’d rather you—” She stopped. Clenched her jaw. “—not drag me into whatever ‘keep the fangirls guessing’ thing you’ve got going on.”

He chuckled low in his throat. “If I was trying to keep anyone guessing, I wouldn’t have told her I was meeting my girlfriend.”

There it was again. That word. Like he liked saying it.

Rumi arched a brow. “Bold move for a guy who’s just here for the ambiance.”

Jinu leaned in an inch, resting his forearm on the bar. “I’m here for you. Everything else is background noise.”

She almost laughed — but didn’t. “That’s a good line.”

“It’s not a line.”

“Mm-hm. Sure.”

His gaze swept over her, slow enough to make her aware of every inch of skin the club lighting touched. “You want me to prove it?”

She took a sip, feigning boredom. “What are you gonna do? Buy another overpriced cocktail?”

“Not exactly.” His mouth curved, and the expression was pure trouble. “I was thinking about making you work for it.”

Her pulse jumped before she could stop it. “Oh?”

“You’re on the clock, right?” His tone was light, teasing — but there was heat under it. “Private booth. Just me. No interruptions.”

“That’s against the rules.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

She should’ve said no. Should’ve rolled her eyes and walked away, kept her distance like she’d been trying to do for days. But instead she found herself pushing her glass toward the bartender, sliding off her stool, and tossing over her shoulder—

“Don’t expect a refund if you’re disappointed.”

Behind her, she swore she heard him mutter, “Not possible.”

The curtain fell shut behind them with a soft hiss, sealing out the music and the murmur of the main floor. The private room was smaller than she remembered — a half-moon of velvet couch, low table in the center, dim lighting that painted everything in amber and shadow.

Jinu leaned back like he owned it. One arm stretched over the backrest, one leg propped casually so his knee angled toward her. The picture of unbothered. Like he hadn’t just tracked her across the club with the precision of a predator and asked for her like he had all night.

Rumi stood a beat longer than necessary, letting him look. Letting him wait.

“You’re awful quiet for someone who begged for the room,” she said, rolling her shoulders back as she stepped into his space.

He smiled, slow. “I’m giving you the floor.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“I’m willing to take the risk.”

She let the corner of her mouth tilt up — just barely — before turning away, giving him her back. She braced one hand on the table and bent just enough for the silk hem of her skirt to ride higher along her thighs. When she glanced over her shoulder, his eyes were right where she wanted them.

“You sure you can handle it?” she asked.

His voice was lower now. “Try me.”

Fine.

He asked for it.

She moved toward him, hips loose, pacing herself like this was any other client — except it wasn’t. Her knees slid onto the couch on either side of his thighs, hands bracing against the cushions, her body hovering just far enough away to make him feel the gap. His gaze stayed locked on hers, unwavering, even as she rolled forward until their chests almost touched.

One slow drag of her hips over his lap and she felt the smallest shift in his breathing. Victory.

“You always stare like that?” she murmured.

“Only when I like what I’m seeing.”

She scoffed lightly, leaning back to give him a better view. Her fingertips skimmed up her own sides, tugging the hem of her top just enough to flash the lace underneath before letting it drop again.

Jinu’s eyes tracked every inch.

“You want more?” she teased.

“Yes.” It was immediate. Unapologetic.

She smirked. “Good answer.”

This time, when she leaned in, her thighs pressed flush to his, her chest brushing his shirt. She felt the heat radiating off him, the coil of tension in his muscles even though he still hadn’t laid a single hand on her. Every other man she’d done this for tried to touch within thirty seconds. Jinu hadn’t moved.

Which somehow made it worse.

She reached down, tracing the open edge of his collar with one finger, nails grazing skin. His jaw tightened — barely, but enough. She could feel the shift in the air, the hum of want crackling like static between them.

Her knee pressed closer. Her mouth tilted toward his ear. “You’ve got me in a private room, Jinu. And you’re just sitting there?”

“I’m watching.”

“And?”

“And wondering how far you’ll go before you lose your nerve.”

Her breath caught — and then her stubbornness kicked in.

She sat back on his lap, slow enough to make it deliberate, her hands sliding to the hem of her skirt. A slow peel upward, inch by inch, until her thighs were bare and the lace of her underwear caught the low light.

Jinu’s gaze darkened.

Fine. Two could play this game.

She shifted forward, letting her hips roll with maddening slowness, dragging herself over him in a way that could almost be innocent if not for the heat pooling between them. Her fingertips skimmed down the center of his chest, stopping just short of his belt before retreating to the line of his open collar. She toyed with the fabric there, leaning in close enough that her breath stirred the hair at his temple.

“You gonna keep looking,” she whispered, “or are you gonna do something about it?”

His jaw flexed, but his hands stayed exactly where they were — at his sides, like he was holding himself back on purpose.

She rocked forward again, this time letting the inside of her thigh press against him. A small, sharp inhale slipped from his lips.

“There it is,” she teased, her voice low, almost sing-song. “Didn’t think I could get a reaction out of you.”

“You’re getting more than a reaction,” he murmured, eyes fixed on hers. “You just don’t know how much yet.”

Her pulse kicked hard.

Good. That was the opening she wanted.

Not here,” he said, voice low enough to make her shiver.

Her mouth curved, testing him. “Why not? Afraid someone will see?”

“Afraid I won’t stop,” he countered.

The blunt honesty sent heat skittering up her spine. “That’s… kind of the point.”

“Not in this place,” he said, eyes locked on hers. “I’m not doing this where anyone else can hear you. Or see you. I want…” He trailed off, gaze dipping to her mouth before coming back, steady and burning. “I want to take my time.”

That shouldn’t have made her knees weak. It did anyway.

She leaned back a little, feigning nonchalance. “So where do you plan on doing this, Mr. Respectful?”

His lips curved — slow, deliberate. “Somewhere better than a club.”

Before she could get another jab in, his hand slid down to her hip, guiding her gently off his lap. He stood, the heat of him following her even after he stepped away.

“Come on.”

She arched a brow. “And if I say no?”

“Then I walk away,” he said without hesitation. “But you’ll still be thinking about it all night.”

Her pulse stuttered. God, he was infuriating. And maybe she hated that he was right.

She followed anyway.

The hallway outside the private room was quiet, just the low hum of bass from the main floor. He didn’t touch her as they walked — didn’t need to. She felt the pull between them like static, all the way to the back entrance where a sleek black car waited at the curb.

“Not taking the subway?” she asked dryly.

“Not for this,” he said, holding the door for her like it was a date and not… whatever this was.

Once she was inside, the doors shut with a soft click, muting the noise of the city. Leather seats, tinted windows, faint cedar scent — it was all too calm for the way her heartbeat was hammering.

He slid in beside her, close enough that his knee brushed hers, and gave the driver a quiet address she didn’t recognize.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“My place.”

“I thought you lived in the dorms.”

“I do,” he said, and that slow smile was back. “When I want noise. This is different.”

The engine hummed beneath them, smooth and low, and the city started sliding by in a blur of neon and shadow.

Rumi sat back, one leg crossed over the other, pretending she was perfectly fine.

She wasn’t.

Jinu’s thigh brushed hers with every shift in the road, and he didn’t move away.

Didn’t even look at her at first — just leaned back, one arm draped casually across the seat, the other resting on his knee like this was the most normal thing in the world.

She tried for snark. “You always this confident a girl’s going to get in your car?”

“Only when I know she wants to,” he said, still not looking at her.

Her pulse tripped. “And what makes you so sure?”

Finally, he turned his head, meeting her eyes. “You didn’t say no.”

God, he was insufferable.

She looked out the window before he could see her smirk. “Maybe I just wanted a free ride.”

His voice was easy, warm. “Then I guess I’ll have to make it worth more than that.”

Her breath caught before she could stop it. She covered with another jab. “You’re awfully confident for a guy who got stopped mid-lap dance.”

He huffed a laugh. “You think that was me losing?”

She glanced at him, only to find him watching her like she was the one in over her head.

“Baby,” he said quietly, “I stopped because I’d rather win slow.”

The word baby hit somewhere low in her stomach. She hated that he could do that with two syllables.

“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered.

He leaned just close enough for his arm to brush hers. “And you’re still here.”

She rolled her eyes, looking out at the passing lights, but her body was buzzing now — every second stretching longer, the air between them tighter.

When the driver finally turned off the main road, the buildings got taller, glass and steel catching the reflections of streetlamps. They pulled into a quiet, underground entrance where the sound of the city vanished.

The car stopped.

Jinu glanced at her, one hand on the door. “You ready?”

She raised a brow. “For what?”

That smile was back — the one that didn’t give anything away. “To find out why I didn’t want to do this at the club.”

And then he was out of the car, coming around to open her door like some perfectly-mannered villain who knew exactly how to make her legs feel unsteady.

The elevator was all brushed steel and quiet, the kind of expensive that didn’t need to brag.

Rumi stood beside him, clutching her bag like it was a lifeline, pretending not to notice how close his shoulder was to hers in the narrow space.

He didn’t touch her.

Didn’t crowd her.

But he didn’t step away either — and somehow that was worse.

Her voice came out more casual than she felt. “So… this isn’t the dorm.”

“No.”

She glanced up at him. “Where is this, then?”

“Home,” he said simply. Then, after a beat: “One of them.”

Her brows lifted. “Must be nice.”

He gave the faintest smile. “Sometimes. Mostly it’s quiet.”

The elevator pinged softly, and when the doors slid open, it was like stepping into another world — not a hallway, but a private landing, all warm wood and glass, with a single door at the end.

No neighbors. No noise. No one to see.

“Private much?” she muttered.

“I told you,” he said, guiding her forward with a glance, “I don’t like sharing.”

Her pulse tripped. She tried to play it off. “What, your Wi-Fi?”

He looked down at her, that slow, unreadable expression back in place. “Anything I care about.”

Her stomach dipped hard enough she almost tripped in her heels.

She forced a smirk instead. “You’re really laying it on thick tonight.”

“You think I’m laying it on?”

“Aren’t you?”

His mouth curved. “No. If I was, you wouldn’t still be trying to convince yourself you don’t want me.”

She didn’t have a comeback for that.

Not one that wouldn’t give her away completely.

They reached the door, and he keyed it open with one smooth swipe of his hand.

The lock clicked.

Inside, it was all muted light and clean lines — open windows spilling the city skyline across polished floors, a wall of records and instruments, a couch big enough to swallow her whole.

It smelled faintly of cedar and something warm she couldn’t name.

Jinu stepped inside first, holding the door. “Shoes off.”

She arched a brow. “Wow. So formal.”

His gaze flicked to hers, slow and deliberate. “Not formal,” he said. “Personal.”

She slipped them off, setting them neatly by the wall — and tried not to think about the fact that there was no one here but them. No noise. No audience. No escape if she wanted one.

And for some reason, she didn’t.

“Better than a club?” he asked, voice lazy, almost conversational.

She gave him a side-eye. “I haven’t seen enough to make a fair judgment.”

His mouth ticked up. “Guess I’ll have to give you the tour.”

The doors slid open, and she followed him down a long stretch of polished hall. It didn’t smell like dorm laundry or takeout containers. No noise bleeding under the doors, no faint bass from a neighbor’s speaker — just warm lighting and the faint scent of something expensive she couldn’t place.

“You really live here?” she asked, eyeing the clean lines and high ceilings.

“Sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Depends where I want to sleep,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Or who I want to wake up next to.”

Her brow arched. “So your reputation’s true — you just take anyone home, then?”

He slowed just enough to look at her fully. “No. Just trying to impress you.”

Her pulse skipped. “You always this subtle?”

“No,” he said, mouth curving as he led her further inside, flicking on low, golden light. “But I want you to see the difference.”

The difference was obvious. Everything was quiet, warm, private. No bass thumping through the floor, no eyes on her except his.

Jinu didn’t rush. He let her look — the framed records on the wall, the low couch big enough to swallow her whole, the open kitchen with sleek black counters and a bottle of wine already waiting like he’d known she’d say yes.

“So do you really live here?” she asked again, trailing after him.

“Ocassionally,” he said, glancing back at her. “When I want space.”

“From?”

“Noise. People. Family.” His gaze lingered. “Anyone who’s not you.”

She made a face, even though her chest tightened at that. “You really rehearse these lines, don’t you?”

He smirked. “You think I’d waste a rehearsed line on you?”

She didn’t answer. Not because she didn’t have a comeback — but because they were already passing into the softer-lit part of the apartment, the hall narrowing, his pace slowing.

“Bedroom’s down here,” he said, voice dropping just enough to make her shiver.
She was close enough now that when he stopped to open the door, her hip brushed his. He didn’t move away.

“You always give the tour first?” she murmured.

He shrugged, “If I want someone to know I’m not in a hurry… so you’d be the first.”

Her pulse was loud in her ears. “And if I am?”

He smiled — slow, wicked. “Then you’ll just have to see how patient I can be.”

The bedroom was all warm light and clean lines — low bed, soft sheets, a city view framed by half-drawn curtains.
Jinu stepped inside first, shrugging out of his jacket, but he didn’t get far before turning back and catching her wrist.

“Well,” he said, that familiar crooked grin tugging at his mouth, “where were we?”

She arched a brow. “We?”

“I never got that dance I paid for,” he murmured, already pulling her a little closer. “If you still want to give it… or we can just skip to the part where you make me forget my own name.”

The last part came softer, almost sheepish — like the stupid, loveable loser he was sometimes, the one who tripped over sincerity even when he was trying to be smooth.

Her lips curved. “So you dragged me all the way here just to watch me dance for you?”

His grin widened. “Not just watch. The dance you won’t give anyone else.”

“And what makes you think you’re worth it?”

He tilted his head, eyes dropping briefly to her mouth before coming back up. “Guess you’ll have to decide after.”

She let the silence stretch for a beat, just to watch him squirm, before stepping into him—close enough that her knees brushed his.

“Alright, Jinu,” she murmured. “Let’s see if you can handle it this time.”

She didn’t rush. If anything, she went slower than she had at the club. One knee slid onto the mattress, then the other, until she was straddling him—her weight barely on his thighs. His hands stayed at his sides, knuckles tense like restraint cost him blood.

“Still respectful?” she teased, rolling her hips once, testing.

“For now,” he said, but his voice had gone low, already strained.

She smiled like she’d found his favorite pressure point. Fingers ghosted up his shirt, tracing buttons without undoing them. She leaned in, lips hovering at the corner of his mouth. “You look like you’re dying to touch me.”

His inhale was sharp. “You have no idea.”

“Oh, I think I do.” She shifted again, slow, deliberate, the drag of her body calculated. “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?”

Something flickered in his eyes—a warning. “Rumi…”

“What?” she asked, brushing her lips along his jaw. “I thought you wanted your dance.”

That broke him.

His hands snapped up—one locking around her waist, the other tangling in her hair—pulling her into a kiss that burned hotter than anything they’d shared outside the club. This wasn’t careful; it was hunger, heat, like he’d been waiting too long to play nice.

She gasped into it, fingers gripping his shoulders as he shifted them both, pressing her back into the mattress in one smooth move.

“Guess we’re past the dance part,” she managed.

“Guess so,” he muttered, already pushing her skirt higher, mouth moving down the line of her throat. “You were driving me insane. You know that, right?”

“Good,” she breathed, even as her back arched into his touch.

“Not good,” he growled, nipping her collarbone before kissing it better. “Because now I’m not stopping until you can’t even say my name without shaking.”

And just like that, the game flipped—because she let him, and Jinu didn’t waste a second showing her how much he’d been holding back.

She barely caught her breath before his mouth was back on hers, deep and unhurried, his weight over her—definite, intentional.

“Thought you were gonna keep your distance,” she murmured against his lips.

“That was before you climbed on my lap in that skirt,” he said darkly. “Now all I can think about is how many men look at you like that at the club.”

Her mouth curved in challenge. “Jealous much?”

He gave a low laugh—dark, not amused. “You think I like watching them imagine what you taste like? You think I don’t want to be the only one who gets to find out?”

“That’s possessive,” she shot back. “What if I like the attention?”

That was the last straw.

In one move, her wrists were pinned above her head, his body pressing hers down. “Say that again,” he murmured, nose brushing hers.

She smirked. “Maybe I will.”

His kiss crashed into her before she could finish, rougher now, his palm mapping the curve of her side like he was learning her by heart.

Her legs parted without meaning to, his low groan vibrating into her mouth. “That’s better,” he muttered. “Not so mouthy now, are you?”

“You wish,” she rasped.

He chuckled—a dangerous sound—and freed one of her wrists. She immediately curled her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him back down.

“Thought so,” he murmured at her ear. “Now let me do this my way.”

His mouth trailed down her throat, lingering at every pulse point. One hand slid under her skirt, deliberate, possessive.

And god, he wasn’t holding back now. Every move was calculated to pull a reaction out of her—the slow drag up, the sharper push down. She was fighting to keep her breath steady and losing spectacularly.

“You’re quiet now,” he said, mouth ghosting her jaw. “Ran out of comebacks?”

She made a sound of protest that turned into a gasp when he ground her exactly where she needed him.

“That’s what I thought.” His teeth scraped her neck. “All that attitude, and you melt the second I touch you right.”

“You’re—so—” She had to break for air, hating how breathless she sounded. “—full of yourself.”

He chuckled low, warm against her skin. “Full of you sounds better.”

Her face went hot—half from the line, half from the way his grip kept her exactly where he wanted her.

Jinu leaned back just enough to look at her, and whatever was in his eyes made her toes curl in her heels. Focused. Starved. Fangs on full display, like he’d been waiting for this and was done pretending otherwise.

“I think about you too much,” he admitted, voice low enough to vibrate through her. “I watch you at the club, with all those men looking at you, and I want to walk over and make sure they know you’re mine.”

She blinked hard. “I’m not—”

“Not yet,” he corrected, leaning in to kiss her cheek, her jaw, the hollow of her throat. “But I want you. And I don’t like to share.”

The confession landed heavy in her stomach — not in a bad way. Just in a dangerous way.

Before she could respond, his hand slid up her side, fingertips skating under her top, stopping just shy of her chest. Teasing. Testing.

She arched into it without meaning to.

“Yeah,” he murmured, catching the movement. “You do want this.”

It was over after that.

The last scraps of her resolve slipped, and she stopped holding herself back. Her hands framed his jaw, pulling him into a kiss that was pure surrender — all heat, all want, no more pretending.

He groaned into it, low and pleased, one hand threading into her hair to hold her there while the other finally slipped higher, palm warm against bare skin.

She gasped, and he used it — deepening the kiss, taking every inch she gave him. His hips kept moving, pushing her toward a line she wasn’t ready to cross but couldn’t seem to stop chasing.

“Good girl,” he said when she followed his lead without hesitation.

Her head tipped back, a shaky laugh breaking loose. “Don’t get used to me listening.”

“I plan on making it a habit,” he shot back, kissing her again before she could argue.

Her laugh was still on her lips when he kissed it away — not gentle this time, but sure, like he’d decided she’d had enough room to play.

“Jinu—” she tried, but it came out as more of a gasp when his hand skimmed down her side and gripped her thigh, pushing it higher on his hip. The position tipped her forward, making her balance on him in a way that put every inch of pressure exactly where she was already throbbing.

She tried for control again — a slow roll of her hips meant to tease, to remind him she could still play this game — but he caught her waist in both hands and set the rhythm himself.

Oh.

“Oh,” she breathed, her head falling back.

“Yeah,” he murmured against her neck, his breath warm and a little uneven now. “None of that slow, safe shit. You wanted to push me? This is what you get.”

Her nails bit into his shoulders through his shirt. “Cocky.”

“Hungry,” he corrected, a hint of gold in his eyes, and there was no arguing with the way his hands held her exactly where he wanted her.

Every time she tried to say something, his hips rolled and the words fell apart. She hated it. She loved it.

“You look good like this,” he said, and there was no smirk in it now — just raw admiration. “On me. Knowing I can make you forget how to talk.”

She summoned enough breath to fire back, “Maybe I’m just being polite.”

“Polite?” He laughed — low and rough — and caught her chin, forcing her eyes back to his. “You want polite?”

Before she could answer, he kissed her again — deep, filthy, the kind that stole air and gave it back warmer. She clung to him without thinking, her body arching into his like her nerves had made up their mind before her brain could catch up.

His hand trailed down, slow, deliberate, until his thumb brushed the thin strip of lace between her legs. Even through it, she flinched at the contact, heat sparking hard enough to make her vision blur for a second.

“Jinu—”

“Shh,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers. “Let me have this.”

He didn’t rush. Which was worse — because every teasing drag of his fingers over lace was a reminder that he could make her beg if he wanted to, and she’d hate herself for doing it.

When she shifted, trying to press harder into his hand, he caught her hip and held her still. “Uh-uh. My pace.”

She clenched her jaw. “Bossy.”

“Focused.” His mouth brushed her ear. “On you.”

The air between them felt tight, heavy, the rest of the room disappearing until there was nothing but the slide of his fingers and the warm, possessive weight of him under her.

Finally, finally, he pushed the lace aside, and the sound he made at the feel of her bare and slick against his skin was nothing short of reverent.

“Fuck, Rumi…” His thumb swept slow over her, testing. “You’re killing me.”

Her breath stuttered, her hands fisting in his shirt. “Good.”

“Brat,” he muttered again, but this time it was almost affectionate — right before he slid a finger inside her.

Her head dropped to his shoulder, a quiet curse slipping out. He didn’t give her time to recover — adding another, curling them just enough to make her spine jolt.

“Still think you’re in control?” he murmured, starting a rhythm that had her clinging to him tighter with each pass.

She wanted to answer. She wanted to smirk. She couldn’t.

He grinned against her temple like he could feel the exact moment she stopped fighting it. “That’s it. That’s what I wanted to see.”

Her breathing was coming too fast now, shallow little pulls like she couldn’t decide whether to fight or give in. Jinu didn’t seem to mind either answer — just kept the steady curl of his fingers, each one dragging a little more sound out of her.

He kissed her again, slower this time, drawing her bottom lip between his teeth before letting it go. “Look at me.”

She did. Barely. And regretted it instantly, because the heat in his eyes made her stomach twist in a way that had nothing to do with nerves.

“That’s it,” he said quietly, like they’d just agreed on something. His free hand slid up her back, under her shirt, warm and grounding even as the other kept working between her thighs. “Stay right here. Don’t run from it.”

Her head tipped forward with a shaky laugh. “Who says I’m—”

She didn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t.

He took the opening to press his thumb where she was already aching for him, his pace unhurried but mercilessly consistent. The mix of pressure and that deep, perfect drag inside made her toes curl hard in his lap.

“You really are gonna make me—” she started, then bit the inside of her cheek to keep the rest in.

“Good,” he said simply, like that had been the point the whole time.

Her nails raked down his shoulders. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m focused,” he said again, and this time she swore she could hear the smile in it. “And I’m not stopping until you—”

She cut him off with a sharp, broken noise as her hips jerked against his hand. His grip on her waist tightened, holding her exactly where he wanted her, making her take it until the tremor in her thighs went from subtle to undeniable.

“That’s it, Rumi,” he coaxed, his voice dropping into something that felt like a low pull in her spine. “That’s my girl.”

The words burned through her in a different way — and then she was gone.

It hit harder than she’d meant it to, the sharp rush crashing through her while she bit down on his shoulder to keep from being too loud. Jinu didn’t stop — not until her muscles went slack, not until she was clinging to him like she wasn’t sure she could keep herself upright.

Only then did he ease his hand away, pulling her closer with both arms until she was straddling his lap fully, chest pressed to chest.

She was still catching her breath when he kissed her temple, the side of her jaw, finally her mouth — slow now, unrushed. Like the heat was still there, but he wasn’t in a hurry to burn through it.

“Still think I’m just another guy from the club?” he murmured against her lips.

Her laugh was weak, but it was there. “Maybe.”

He smiled like he knew she was lying, then leaned back just enough to look at her. “Good. Keeps me motivated.”

He didn’t move right away.
Didn’t pull back, didn’t try to untangle her from his lap — just sat there, holding her like the rest of the night could wait. His thumb brushed lazy circles against the small of her back, and the air between them had shifted from electric to something warmer, heavier.

Rumi swallowed, realizing her forehead was pressed to his shoulder, her knees bracketing his hips, her skirt bunched indecently high. Normally she’d have some snark ready for that. Right now, she just breathed him in.

“You always this intense?” she murmured, half to break the quiet, half because she wanted to see the look on his face when she asked.

One corner of his mouth curved. “Not always.”
She arched a brow. “So what’s special about tonight?”
He tilted his head like he was thinking about it for real. “You didn’t make it easy. I like that.”

Her lips twitched. “That’s it?”
“That,” he said, gaze skimming over her like a slow hand, “and the fact you’ve been driving me crazy since the second I saw you. Still are.”

It would have been easier to laugh him off if he didn’t look so… certain. Like he wasn’t tossing lines into the air to see which ones landed — he meant it, and the weight of it settled under her ribs.

She leaned back just enough to look at him properly. “Even now, you still have your walls up.”

That got him. His grin sharpened, but his eyes didn’t flinch away. “I could say the same about you.”
She blinked, caught between wanting to deny it and not wanting to give him the satisfaction. “Maybe I do.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, like he’d been expecting that. “But I think I’m getting past them.”

She scoffed to hide the way her pulse kicked. “You think one night is enough to figure me out?”
His smile went small, almost private. “No. But it’s enough to know I want the chance to try.”

Something in her chest shifted at that — a dangerous little slip in the balance she’d been holding. She covered it by sliding off his lap and onto the bed, curling against the pillows like she’d claimed the spot. “Guess you’ll have to invite me over again, then.”

“You could just stay,” he said, easy, like the thought had been sitting there the whole time.

Rumi looked over at him, caught between teasing and testing. “You say that to everyone you bring here?”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “You’d be the first in a long time.”

It was stupid how much that landed. She tried to mask it with a smirk. “Then I guess I’m making history.”
“You guess right,” he said, tugging off his shirt like it was the most natural thing in the world before tossing it aside. “Come on. I’ll even give you the good side of the bed.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t movxe when he stretched out beside her, his arm finding its way under her shoulders like it had always belonged there. The city lights slipped in through the half-open curtains, painting his jaw in soft shadow.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The room hummed with leftover heat and something else she wasn’t ready to name. She could feel him watching her, even with her gaze fixed on the skyline.

“What?” she asked finally, without looking over.
He just laughed quietly, like he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of an answer — then leaned in, pressing a slow kiss to her temple.

Sunlight found its way through the curtains in thin gold stripes, painting the sheets in lazy patterns.

Rumi woke before she meant to, disoriented for a second until she registered the arm slung heavy over her waist, the slow, even breath against the back of her neck. Jinu was warm behind her, solid in a way that made it far too easy to stay still.

She told herself she was only waiting until her heart slowed. Not that she liked the way his fingers twitched against her hip even in sleep, like they weren’t ready to let go.

By the time he stirred, stretching with a low hum, she’d already decided she was going to make a joke before he could. But he just blinked at her with that slow, sleep-heavy smile.
“Morning,” he said, voice rough enough to make her toes curl under the blanket.

She sat up, pretending not to notice. “Morning.”
“Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Good. I’ll take you back, but we’re getting coffee first. No arguments.”

The ride back was quieter than she expected. Not awkward — just… easy. The city was still shaking itself awake, and she found herself watching the way his profile caught the early light, how his hand rested loose on the wheel, how he didn’t seem in any hurry to drop her off.

When they pulled up in front of her dorm, he glanced over, his mouth tilting like he wanted to say something else. Instead, he just reached over, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Guess I’ll see you soon,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.

She almost said we’ll see — the safe answer. Instead, she surprised herself with a small smile. “Yeah. You will.”

The second she stepped into her dorm room, Mira and Zoey were on her like vultures.
“Oh my god, finally!” Zoey squealed, flopping dramatically onto Rumi’s bed. “We thought you’d been kidnapped.”
Mira leaned in, eyes already scanning for details. “You’re wearing the same clothes as last night.”
“Walk of shame,” Zoey sang.
“Not a walk of shame,” Rumi shot back, kicking off her heels. “It was… a ride.”
Both of them froze, then Mira grinned slow. “So he drove you home? In the morning?”
Zoey gasped like she’d solved a murder. “Which means you stayed over .”

Rumi tried to push past them toward her dresser, but they were relentless.
“Details. All of them. Don’t you dare ‘it was fine’ us,” Zoey warned.
Mira folded her arms. “Positions.”
“Shut up,” Rumi laughed, but her face was heating anyway.
“Oh my god, you liked it,” Zoey accused, pouncing on the opening.
Mira’s smirk sharpened. “And him.”

[jinu]

 hope you made it in safe.

A second bubble followed before she could even roll her eyes.

[jinu] 

also, I meant what I said about seeing you again. somewhere that isn’t a club.

Mira leaned over like a vulture. “Who’s that?”

“No one,” Rumi said too fast, swiping her phone face-down.

“Uh-huh,” Zoey drawled. “Tell ‘no one’ thanks for making you blush like that.”

Rumi rolled her eyes, rifling through her drawer like the right T-shirt could save her from this conversation. But later, when they’d finally given up and moved on to gossip about someone else, she caught herself smiling for no reason.

Because maybe — maybe — liking him wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Chapter Text

The quiet didn’t last. It never did.

Rumi had just crawled into bed, hoodie pulled over her head like a shield, when the night started replaying itself in loops she couldn’t shut off. His mouth slowing down. His voice, softer than it had any right to be. The ridiculous way she’d breathed him in like oxygen.

She groaned into the pillow. It wasn’t even that deep. It couldn’t be. Except her body was traitorous and her smile wouldn’t quit, curling back no matter how many times she shoved her face into the blankets.

She ducked her head, pretending to fuss with her drawer like the right T-shirt could save her. But the image pressed in anyway: the weight of his arm heavy across her waist that morning, the steady breath against her neck, how easy it had been to stay still. Too easy. Dangerous.

She shook it off, tugging at a hoodie string like it could ground her—

Which was, of course, the exact moment her door banged open again.

“Lower your voices,” Rumi hissed, kicking the door shut with her heel. “I’m exhausted.”

“From what?” Zoey purred. “Walk us through. Who did what. Where. With what appendages.”

Rumi trudged toward the dresser like a soldier crawling to a trench. “Nope.”

Mira blocked her path with a swipe of neon claws. “No, no. Full debrief. Times, tongue proficiency, choreography.”

“Hand placement,” Zoey added seriously, flipping open her mug lid like a court stenographer. “Was it the respectful hold, or the steering wheel grab?”

Rumi dropped her face into her hands. Her cheeks were already traitorous. Her brain was a slot machine. “It’s not even that deep.”

Both roommates froze. Then, in perfect stereo:

“Oh my god.”

Mira clutched her chest like she’d seen a miracle. “She said the D-word.”

Zoey collapsed dramatically onto the beanbag. “Miss Never-Gonna-Date-Again thinks something is not that deep. Breaking news.”

“It isn’t,” Rumi said weakly.

Mira squinted. “Then why are you pink?”

“I’m not—”

Zoey pointed. “Why do you smell like expensive guy?”

“I don’t—”

“And why,” Mira crowed, “are you smiling.”

“I’m not smiling.”

Her phone buzzed. All three of them looked down at once.

[jinu] hope you made it in safe

Rumi flipped the phone face-down so fast she sprained dignity. “Spam.”

Zoey’s brows flew up. “Spam is texting you good morning now? Revolutionary branding.”

Mira leaned in, eyes glittering. “You better not cut this one off. You always cut them off. We like him. He tipped like a gentleman, didn’t try to grope you, and he remembered your name. That’s a green flag.”

Rumi’s stomach betrayed her with a flip. She blamed low blood sugar. “It’s not even—”

“That deep,” they chanted, mocking. Zoey patted the bed beside her. “Sit, slut. Confess.”

Rumi sat like a martyr on trial, hoodie sleeves tugged over her hands. Mira prowled like a prosecutor. “Okay. Was it sloppy freshman make-out energy, or did he actually know what he was doing?”

“…What?”

Zoey, dead serious: “We need tongue stats.”

“I’m not giving you tongue stats.”

“Fine.” Mira crossed her arms. “Did he ask before he touched you?”

The answer was yes. The answer was always yes. He always asked — with his hands hovering first, with his voice low and careful, like every inch of her mattered. And it drove her mad. Because who did that? Who kept choosing patience when she was right there, practically daring him? The answer was yes, and then his thumb had traced an absent-minded circle at her hip, carving a canyon through her that still ached this morning.

But Rumi only shrugged. “He wasn’t grabby.”
Zoey squealed. “Consent king!”

Mira pointed triumphantly. “Where were his hands?”

Rumi’s brain short-circuited: waist. thigh. nape. The places she could still feel . “On me.”

Mira fist-pumped like a coach at the Olympics. “Placement!”

Zoey pretended to scribble notes. “So: respectful hands, good mouth, demon heat signature—”

“And self-control until provoked,” Mira added. “Because I know you provoked him.”

Rumi scowled into her knees. “He might’ve said I was mouthy.”

Mira beamed. “Soulmates.”

Zoey clapped like a proud aunt. “So when are we seeing him again? Don’t say never.”

Her throat went dry. Because last night hadn’t been some sloppy club makeout. He had chosen to stop. Chosen to pull back with his mouth still on hers, looking like he wanted everything and was willing to wait.

He wanted the next time to be more.
Not for the club. Not for an audience. For her.

The quiet slipped in, unwanted and warm. She batted it away with bravado. “We, um… talked.”

Both roommates froze like she’d just said the safe was open.

“Talked?” Zoey echoed. “Like… words?”

Mira squinted. “Like… about feelings?”

“Absolutely not,” Rumi said too fast, which was how they knew it was a little bit yes.

Mira slapped the air. “Oh my god, you like him.”

“Do not.”

Zoey pointed. “Jury finds the defendant guilty.”

Rumi flopped backward, arm over her face. “I cannot believe I live with bullies.”

“You live with historians,” Mira said. “We remembered last year when you cut things off with the drummer because he said you had ‘potential’ and you spiraled about becoming a campus cautionary tale.”

“That man wore beanies indoors,” Rumi muttered. “In the middle of August. He was a public health hazard.”

“And then,” Zoey continued mercilessly, “the three-date rule after the bassist, and the no boyfriends until I’m famous pact, and the ‘if he breathes too loud I’m leaving’ clause—”

“That clause was valid.”

“—and now,” Mira concluded, hands on hips, “this demon honors student who told you to drink water, complimented your Lydian choices, and texted ‘hope you got in safe.’ Better not cut this one off.”

Rumi’s throat went hot. She licked her lips and tried to find a shard of nonchalance sharp enough to hide behind. “It’s not even—”

“Say it. I dare you.”

She shut her mouth.

Silence hummed for a beat, heavy and hummingbird-fast, and Rumi hated that her heart knew the answer. Hated that her body kept replaying the part where he’d said, I’m not trying to corner you — soft boundary, not a trap. Hated that another line was still sitting there like a secret talisman: I want to take my time with you.

She couldn’t say that out loud. Not in this apartment. Not where feelings went to die.

So instead she laughed — a small, helpless, happy sound that broke free on accident. She tried to swallow it, but it betrayed her, curling into a smile anyway.

Mira pounced. “There! There. This is the miracle. Miss Never-Gonna-Date-Again smiling over a boy.”

Rumi threw a pillow at her. Mira dodged like a ninja; the pillow thudded against Zoey, who hugged it like a trophy.

“Congratulations on your boyfriend,” Zoey said.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Uh-huh.” Zoey sipped. “Say it again, but without looking like the human version of the heart filter.”

Mira sighed, dramatic. “Rumi, you have the attachment style of a cat who lived three lives in a shelter.”

“Rude.”

“Accurate.” Zoey patted her shin. “We know why. We love you. And we are also going to bully you into accepting joy.”

Rumi stared at the ceiling. The sunlight had shifted to stripe the posters above her bed, turning the edges into glittering lines. She was too aware of her mouth. Of her pulse. Of the way last night had crept under her skin and put something soft in the walls.

“It was…” She swallowed, tried again. “He’s… nice.”

Mira gasped like she was catching a bridal bouquet. “She admitted one adjective.”

Zoey fanned herself with a course syllabus. “We are witnessing early-stage behavior. Documenting for science.”

Rumi dragged the hoodie hem over her knuckles. The cedar smell was worse now that she’d noticed it; it tugged at everything. “We’re not— He’s not— I’m not doing… this.”

Mira crouched in front of her, voice softening just enough to slip under the armor. “You’re allowed to be happy, you know.”

Rumi’s throat tightened. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s college,” Zoey said. “Everything’s complicated. You’re allowed to want things. Even if they have fangs.”

Rumi snorted despite herself.

Mira booped her knee. “He watched you and didn’t touch until you said yes. He brought you food. He remembered your music. This was threat level wholesome.”

“Also,” Zoey said, “he was sinfully hot.”

Rumi covered her face again. “Fine. He’s… hot.”

“Hot and wholesome,” Mira said reverently. “A unicorn. A unidemon?”

Zoey pretended to text. “Group chat name change to Operation: Do Not Self-Sabotage.”

Rumi groaned. “I hate you.”

“You love us,” Zoey said, smug. “Tell us what he said. The line. There’s always a line.”

Rumi hesitated. Because there had been a line. Not cheesy. Not rehearsed. Just awful and gentle: I like you. I want to be around. That’s it. And the worse one, the one her chest wouldn’t release: I want to take my time with you.

She wasn’t repeating that here, not when sound carried through paper-thin walls.

“He said… things.”

Mira narrowed her eyes. “Sweet things?”

Zoey leaned in. “Filthy things?”

Rumi thought of his voice dropping a half-inch lower. She thought of his smile when she got mouthy. She thought of the way he’d said her name like a password. “Both?”

Both roommates dropped onto the floor like puppets whose strings had been cut. A satisfied little shriek escaped them in harmony.

Mira flopped onto her back, staring at the ceiling like she was seeing the future. “If you cut this off, I am staging an intervention with a whiteboard.”

Rumi tried to be normal about it.

She got up on time, or close enough that Zoey didn’t throw a slipper at her. She chugged lukewarm coffee, ate two bites of a protein bar that tasted like a melted candle, and stared at the “To-Do” list she’d written on an index card and then immediately started using as a coaster. She stretched, did lip trills, ran through a lazy five-minute warmup that turned into fifteen because her voice landed on the good notes and it felt like cheating to stop there.

Normal. She was being so normal.

Her phone buzzed while she was balancing her checkbook with the intensity of a Wall Street criminal doing community service.

[jinu] tonight?

Her stomach did a humiliating little somersault. She clicked the screen off and on and off again, as if that would make the message rearrange its letters and say, “just kidding” or “accidental text.”

[rumi] i’m busy
Deleted.

Wrote:
[rumi] you wish
Deleted.

She settled on:
[rumi] …yeah

Another buzz, fast enough it felt like he’d been waiting with both thumbs ready.

[jinu] front row

She sucked in a breath, held it, and let it go like she could trick her heart into beating normal again.

“Why do you look like you just remembered taxes exist?” Mira asked, drifting by in a towel, hair twisted on top of her head like a hibiscus.

“No reason,” Rumi said.

“Liar,” Zoey called from the kitchenette, elbow-deep in a cereal box. “Your face is doing the secret boyfriend romance novel.”

“It’s doing the budget,” Rumi said, circling a number that was not going to circle back. “Different B-word.”

Mira grinned around a bobby pin. “Same climax.”

“Die,” Rumi said pleasantly, and turned her phone face-down.

She did more normal things. Laundry. Thirty pages of reading she wasn’t going to remember. Checked the club schedule for next week, told herself she didn’t care if she got stuck on another Tuesday shift, then threw herself onto the couch and stared at the ceiling until the popcorn texture started suggesting constellations. Somewhere between Orion’s Belt and a smudge that could’ve been a comet but was probably toothpaste, she admitted silently—to the ceiling, to the bad fluorescent light, to the part of her that never listened anyway—that she was excited.

Against her will, yes. She objected on principle. But it was there—thin and bright as a paper cut, catching on everything.

She showered too long. Stood under the water until it went from scalding to merely hot, until her skin felt scoured enough to pretend she was blank. She shaved. She moisturized. She blow-dried her hair even though the air outside would bully it the second she left.

Blow-dried her hair even though the air outside would bully it the second she left.

At the vanity, Mira leaned over her shoulder like a stylist who billed by the compliment. “Lips?”

“Gloss,” Rumi said.

“Line first.”

“Fine.”

Zoey sprawled on the bed, scrolling idly. “I’m ordering tteokbokki. Want in?”

“After,” Rumi said, then winced at how the word sounded like a promise to someone not in the room.

Mira clicked her tongue, reaching for the lip liner anyway. “You need to look full-on sex tonight. Word is there’s a rich customer coming in, and we’ve got to rent out new studio spaces if we’re going to survive these final projects. So—sex. But classy sex.”

Zoey didn’t even look up. “The respectful kind. Like, tax-deductible sex.”

She pulled the stage bag from under her bed: lashes; emergency deodorant; safety pins; a ridiculously sparkly set the color of midnight, catching every glint like it knew how to flirt back at the spotlight. She added her heels—the pair that had nearly killed her once and then made up for it by making her legs look a mile long. She tossed in a spare hoodie, then took it back out and swapped it for a softer one because the smell of cedar was still in the other and she did not need to perform psychological warfare on herself in public.

[jinu]  

eat before you go. i’ll bring you something after

She made a face at the screen, entirely unhelped by the way her chest warmed.

[rumi]  

i’m not a stray cat

[jinu]  

you are exactly a stray cat. skittish. bites. shows up at my door anyway

She caught herself smiling and covered it with her hand like it was obscene.

[rumi]

bring dumplings or perish

[jinu]
done

Zoey watched the tiny victory in Rumi’s reflection and smirked. “It’s not deep, huh?”

“It’s a puddle,” Rumi said, capping the liner. “A shallow, seasonal puddle.”

Mira didn’t even bother looking up from her notes. “You look like dripping sex tonight. If some CEO doesn’t drop a whole month’s rent on you, we’re quitting.”

Rumi groaned, dragging the gloss across her mouth anyway.

By twilight, the city was a coil of neon and heat. The subway burped her onto their block like it always did—air smelling like wet metal and frying oil, a group of guys arguing about a game in three languages, the hum of traffic doing its eternal migration. She pulled her hoodie tighter, crossed the street, and slipped through Amour’s side entrance with the little flock of dancers who timed their arrival to the songs they liked to start with.

Backstage was its own ecosystem: glitter mist and hair spray, someone’s speaker high on a playlist they should’ve been embarrassed about, a line of bodies in various stages of transformation in the mirror. Crystal sat cross-legged on the counter, rhinestoning something with the concentration of a surgeon. Baby, already in heels, smoothed gloss around the bow of her mouth and winked at Rumi in the glass. “You got your regular coming?”

Rumi’s mouth betrayed her by smiling first. “He’d better tip.”

“Front row,” Baby said with the knowing malice of older sisters everywhere. “We all heard.”

Rumi rolled her eyes. “Boundaries are for the workplace.”

“Sure,” Baby said. “And men are for taxes.”

The host stuck his head in. “Angel—stage in five.”

Rumi exhaled. Her hands were steady when she pinned her hair up. The costume slid into place like a dare she’d already accepted. She tugged the hem of the slip just so, checked that the garter sat where she liked it, and stepped into her heels like she wasn’t about to step onto a moving planet.

The club was a heartbeat magnified. Warm light fell in ribbons. The stage floor gleamed. Conversations were a low buzz under bass, the kind of sound that stroked along skin instead of going through ears. Rumi took her mark and let the first hot flare of light bathe her in a color that made everything feel like it had a filter.

She moved.

It wasn’t complicated—shoulders rolling into the beat, a slow peel of fabric, a pause balanced on the knife-edge between tease and promise. She knew how to find her light, how to hold herself so every line hit just right. Stage instincts. The kind drilled into her from a dozen rehearsals until they were second nature. She let her hair get in the way, then tossed it back, felt the little ripple go down the left side of the room like a string of firecrackers catching one after the other.

Halfway through the song, she felt it—the tingle between her shoulder blades, the clean weight of a steady gaze locking in. She didn’t look right away. She let it hum there like the thought of an answer you weren’t ready to say out loud, then turned on the upbeat and found him with the second beat like she hadn’t been tracking him since the first.

Front row. Because of course.

He was impossible to miss. Sprawled like the booth had been built for him, shirt unbuttoned just enough to make her throat go dry, legs angled in her direction like gravity was personal. He didn’t smile, didn’t wink, didn’t need to—just sat there with that quiet focus that made her pulse stutter like the song had skipped.

She hit the last count. The lights dropped, then rose warm for the exit. Rumi backed away from the stage, scooping the strap that had fallen to the crook of her elbow back up without looking, because she was not going to hurry and she was not going to let herself trip.

Clients called. Hands lifted in the universal gesture of desire and money. She could have gone anywhere, to any familiar booth where the banter would be easy and her smile would be muscle memory.

Instead, her feet chose violence.

She slid into the booth beside him like she had the right. Like she’d been doing it for years.

“You’re blocking the view,” she said, voice light, like she wasn’t painfully aware of the inch of space between their knees.

He didn’t bother to look past her. “I came for this one.”

“Cheesy,” she said, fighting the treacherous, giddy lift of her mouth. “Points deducted.”

“Then I’ll start with accuracy,” he said. “You were unfair.”

She let her head tip, as if considering a menu. “Specifics?”

“The turn at the second chorus.” He looked at her mouth like he was remembering it on his tongue. “The way you pause right before you take the slip off. The moment you rolled your wrists. Felt personal.”

“That’s because I made it up last minute,” she said, tone dry as a martini. “Don’t psychoanalyze me on a technicality.”

He didn’t laugh. He did that thing where the corner of his mouth kicked up a little, like he couldn’t help it. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Lie better.”

“Okay.” He tipped his chin toward the stage. “You broke three hearts and two credit limits in four minutes.”

“Better,” she said, and then his hand rested on the table, palm up, casual and open. Not demanding. An offer waiting to be ignored.

She didn’t take it.

She did put her own hand down close enough that his fingers could creep over if they wanted, and that was somehow worse.

He passed a neatly folded set of bills across the table. Nothing clumsy. Nothing that made a scene. But when her thumb pressed the edge, she felt the thickness and couldn’t help the soft exhale that left her.

“That’s too much,” she said.

“It’s not enough,” he said, and because he had both eyes and a sense of humor, added, “For the turn alone.”

“Don’t start a bidding war over choreography,” she said. “You’ll lose.”

“I plan to,” he murmured. “Spectacularly.”

The host drifted by, a discreet orbit, taking drink orders with a nod that asked and promised nothing. Rumi ordered water. Jinu ordered the same. She looked at him for that—just a glance—and he shrugged like he didn’t especially enjoy giving future Rumi a headache.

“Busy?” he asked.

“Always,” she said. “You picked a loud night.”

“I picked you,” he said, like it was the only option, and her chest did that paper-cut thing again.

She set the money aside where she wouldn’t have to look at it. The room sharpened around them, all edges and music and glittering teeth. The seat felt too soft under her. His knee brushed hers when someone bumped the booth from the other side and she pretended she didn’t notice, even though her whole body had taken notes.

“Somebody in the corner is waving at you,” he said, without looking away from her.

She glanced; he wasn’t wrong. Booth eight. Finance hair, watch that cost more than her academic year, the universal hey-baby half-lift of the chin. Habit brought a professional smile to her mouth; the rest of her stayed where it was.

“I’ll make my rounds,” she said, more to the room than to him, because she knew how this worked and she wasn’t about to be that girl.

“Later,” he said.

“Now,” she said, because she was not owned by anyone’s hungry gaze, even if it fit her just right.

His voice went lower, smoother. “No. Eyes on me only.”

A reckless, delighted, dangerous shiver ran down her spine like, fine, say that again and see what happens. She liked her job. She liked men who asked. She liked being the chaos and not the consequence. She also liked the way he said it like it wasn’t a threat, just a fact he hoped she’d choose.

“That’s not how this works,” she said, and the smile that curled her mouth had teeth. “This is a workplace. There are spreadsheets. Schedules.”

“I can read,” he said. “I’ll make a donation to the cause.”

“That’s not—” She stopped, because the host reappeared beside them like the ghost of capitalism, and Jinu slid a second neat stack over without breaking eye contact.

The host’s brows lifted by a barely measurable degree, which for him counted as a cartwheel. “Noted,” he said, and disappeared into the dark.

Jinu’s gaze was steady, intent without being pushy. “Now is later,” he said mildly.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said, but there was no heat in it.

He tilted his head, eyes catching the light. “You’re beautiful.”

It was so simple she hated it. No metaphor to hide in, no joke offered up like a handrail. Just a statement in a voice that went under the skin.

“Please tell me you don’t recycle these lines on every girl in Seoul,’”” she huffed, aiming for teasing but landing somewhere closer to hopeful.

“No,” he said, without a beat of hesitation. “Just you.”

The air went tighter by a notch you couldn’t see but you could feel. She decided to ignore it out of spite.

“Don’t be weird,” she said lightly, and then saw his hand move—slow, telegraphed—the same palm-up offer, but closer now. Not grabbing, not caging. A question.

He was very good at questions.

Rumi’s job had rules. They were the kind she wore like jewelry: bright, obvious, no-fuss. She kept them because they kept her. She also broke them when she wanted. That was what being an adult meant—choosing what the rules were for, not pretending they came from God.

She set two fingers in his palm, light as a moth landing. It wasn’t much. It felt like jumping out of something tall.

His hand closed around them, barely. Warm. Present. Like he could be everywhere and chose restraint instead.

He looked at her for a long second, thumb brushing once against her knuckle like he hadn’t meant to do it. “Rumi,” he said softly—no line, no joke, just her name.

Her chest pulled tight. She almost laughed, almost rolled her eyes, but the thought slipped in anyway, traitorous: maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible to like him.

So she covered it the only way she knew how. “You are not charming.”

“I am,” he said, a smile tugging crooked. “You just don’t want it to work.”

“Correct,” she said crisply, like it wasn’t already working in every place she didn’t want it to.

The room swelled and receded around them, all neon pulse and noise, but she forgot to breathe for a second because he did it—he reached up with his free hand and touched her face.

It wasn’t dramatic. Just his thumb at the hinge of her jaw, the heel of his palm bracketing the heat of her cheek. Enough pressure to anchor. Enough care to make it worse.

Her mouth parted. Traitorous. He watched her like he’d expected that and liked being right for once.

“Careful,” she said, voice thin and a little breathless, “management frowns on public affection.”

“Then we’ll call it a private experiment,” he said, quieter now, and she really hated the way that landed.

“Hard pass,” she said, though she didn’t pull away. “This is a professional environment. I’m at work. You are a customer. All very transactional, Mr. Front Row—no matter how many selfies you send me outside of work, or how many coffees you buy me.”

His thumb traced the shape of a future smile at the corner of her mouth. “Then let me pay attention.”

That shouldn’t have made heat flip over inside her like a cat showing its belly. It did anyway.

She cleared her throat; the sound felt like it came from someone else. “I’m serious. I should… say hi to the corner boys. They look like they’re about to cry.”

“Let them,” he said, and there it was—the flicker of possessiveness that had charmed and scared her in equal measure the first time. Not ugly. Not gross. Just direct. Want, spoken in a low register.

“Jealousy is unattractive,” she said, prim, just to see what he’d do.

“Not jealous,” he said. “Focused.”

“On?”

“You,” he said, and there was no winning against someone who used honesty like a blade that didn’t cut where you thought it would. Not when he had that face and that smile, and the nerve to remember her coffee order every morning, and to send food to her desk at two a.m. like it was nothing. Stupid, perfect Jinu with his own penthouse apartment and secret life, who could have spent the night with any of the dozens of girls that would’ve killed for his attention—but instead was here, wasting time and money just to sit in her corner and look at her like that.

She changed the subject because she was a coward and also because she was going to fall into him like a well. “How are classes going?”

“Made it worse by texting you,” he said.

“Get a study buddy.”

“I have one,” he said. “She keeps trying to ignore me in public.”

“Smart girl,” Rumi said, even as something in her chest curled around the thought like a hand around a match.

A cheer went up across the room—someone’s favorite girl had taken the stage—and the lights strobed in that brief, dizzy way that made everything look like it was underwater. When they steadied, Jinu was closer by an inch he might not have known he’d stolen.

“Tell me about your song,” he said, as if the rest of the world weren’t shouting for them to talk about anything but.

She blinked. “What song.”

“Applied Composition,” he said. “The one you keep pretending you’re not worried about.”

“I’m not worried,” she lied. “I’m on schedule.”

“You’re lying,” he said, and his thumb kept tracing careful circles against her cheek like he didn’t know what else to do with his hand if it wasn’t worship. “Bring it tomorrow. Studio.”

“As long as you don’t get intercepted first,” she said, light but not quite joking.

He huffed a laugh, low in his chest. “Not a chance.”

Not coffee, then. Not daylight and a table and two normal people. The idea hit harder than she wanted it to. Private. Quiet. No audience to swallow the soft things he liked to say.

Her pulse ticked double-time. “I work tomorrow.”

“Before,” he said.

“What makes you think I’m free before?”

“You are,” he said, confident in a way that should not have worked on her and absolutely did. “And even if you weren’t, you’d make time to be annoying about it.”

“Rude,” she said, but smiled anyway, right into his hand like she was giving herself away on purpose.

“Bring the ‘Golden’ rough,” he added. “The modulation still lives in my head rent-free.”

“You’re embarrassing,” she said.

“I know,” he said, unbothered. “I’m going to keep doing it.”

She took her hand back before she forgot how. “You generally get your way, don’t you.”

“Only when I ask nicely,” he said, which was a monstrous lie because nothing about him was nice; he was thorough.

She glanced at the corner boys again out of habit. They were trying to get Baby’s attention and failing, which meant Baby was making them wait on purpose for sport. Good. She could have five more minutes, then.

“Why do you keep coming here?” she asked, softer now despite herself. “We could hang out anywhere, and yet you want to sit in this club and waste more money just to see me.”

“Because it’s not a waste,” he said, as if that were obvious. His gaze held hers, steady. “And because I like seeing you here.”

“You have no imagination,” she said, and the words were easy where the feeling wasn’t.

“On the contrary,” he said. “It’s a problem.”

“Prove it.”

“Gladly,” he said, and then his hand slid from her cheek to the edge of her jaw, and his eyes dropped to her mouth like he was thinking something that would get them both thrown out if he said it out loud.

Heat shot straight down her spine. She sat very, very still.

“Don’t,” she said, not because she meant it, but because if she didn’t say it, she might.

“Not here,” he agreed easily, that same infuriating respect wrapping itself around the hunger until it felt even more dangerous.

Her mouth tugged before she could stop it. “What—want that private dance again?”

His eyes flicked to hers, sharp, amused, hungry. “You offering?”

The little laugh that left her was helpless, edged with panic. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“I’ll work on resuscitation,” he said, and had the audacity to look amused.

She stood because the booth had become an electric chair. “Rounds,” she said. “For real.”

He leaned back at last, hands retreating like he was putting weapons down. “I’ll be here.”

“Front row,” she mocked, and he nodded once like he was taking attendance.

She turned, moved through the room with the ease of a girl who had learned to glide over fire, and made the orbit she owed—quick, professional, sweet where it paid to be. She laughed at something boring. She let someone hold a conversation like a kite string and didn’t yank it. She collected bills with fingers that didn’t shake.

But every return to the stage, every sweep past the front row, every time the lights grazed the room and then swung back—it found him, steadfast and ridiculous and exactly where he said he’d be. He didn’t wave. He didn’t beckon. He watched her work like he knew she was going to come back when she was ready.

She hated the accuracy in him. She loved the way it steadied her.

Her set rotated again; she floated offstage, pulse hot, mouth near-dry from smiling. The host touched her elbow and inclined his head toward the front. “You’ve got a fan,” he said, bland as a tax form.

“I noticed,” she said.

“Good one,” he added, and for the host, who measured compliments with a pipette, that was a dissertation.

Rumi went back. Of course she did. She slid into the booth like it had been waiting for her and refused to think about how true that felt.

“Took you long enough,” he said, but it wasn’t a complaint. It was satisfaction pretending to be sarcasm.

“Didn’t want your head to get any bigger,” she said, grabbing her straw.

He grinned. “Too late. You already inflated it.”

She rolled her eyes, but her smile betrayed her. “You’re unbearable.”

“Mm,” he said, eyes on her mouth like he knew exactly how unbearable. “And yet here you are.”

He reached up once more, slower than slow, and tucked a flyaway strand behind her ear like he was signing a receipt. The touch was nothing. The touch was everything.

“That mind of yours looks busier than the bar,”  he said, and to his credit, he sounded almost proud of it.

“Occupational hazard,” she said.

“My hazard now,” he said, and she absolutely should have rolled her eyes, but she didn’t. She let the words sit there, low and warm, and inhaled like she was taking on oxygen she hadn’t realized she’d been rationing.

“Don’t be dramatic,” she said weakly.

“Can’t help it,” he said. “Have you met you?”

She laughed. She couldn’t help that either. And when he slid another bill across the table like he was tipping the idea of her, she didn’t protest. She took it because taking it felt like admitting the truth out loud: she was excited to see him. She was in trouble. She was not going to be careful forever.

“Studio tomorrow,” he said again, gentler this time, like he was offering instead of insisting. “Before work.”

She traced the condensation down her water glass, buying seconds she didn’t need. “Depends. I might be… busy.”

He smiled like she’d already cleared her whole calendar.

“Don’t run,” he added, quiet enough it didn’t carry.

She swallowed. “Maybe I’ll… speed-walk.”

“Compromise accepted,” he said, as if she hadn’t just given him half a confession.

Someone whooped near the bar; a chorus of laughter rose and fell. The room pulsed around them. Jinu leaned back, at ease in a way that made other men look like they were trying too hard.

“Eyes on me?” he said, soft and amused.

She gave him a look purely for sport. “Don’t push your luck.”

He didn’t answer, just held her gaze like she was the punchline and the set-up, like he didn’t mind waiting for the rest.

And Rumi—professional, principled, absolutely doomed Rumi—kept her eyes exactly where he wanted them for a breath too long, then two, then three, until the rest of the club loosened its hold and she forgot for a moment that she was anywhere but here.

The cab dropped her at the curb with the kind of lurch that reminded her joints she had a job that required both grace and knee cartilage. The city was all wet neon and late-night noodles, sirens somewhere arguing with laughter. Rumi swiped glitter off her collarbone with the back of her wrist and tried not to smile at the memory that kept replaying itself, stubborn as a hook.

He’d taken front row like a dare and then… behaved. Always behaved, every time he showed up. Which should not have been special and yet felt like someone had turned down the world and lit a match. He had watched, sure—men always watched—but Jinu didn’t do the hungry, sloppy thing. He sat like he was in a museum with his favorite painting, elbows loose, eyes steady, soft smile that burned worse than the beat. She remembered the night she’d pushed it, sliding onto his lap mid-song just to see if she could get that composure to crack. Any other guy would’ve grabbed, begged, ruined it. Jinu had only gone still, jaw tight, eyes darker than she’d ever seen them—and then he’d pulled back, hands lifted, like restraint itself was the game he wanted to win. Gentleman. Always. Even when it would’ve been easier not to be.

“Eyes on me,” he’d said under the music, laughing like he knew he was the problem and didn’t mind. Not mean. Not a rule. A tease with teeth. 

He’d tipped like someone who understood the economy of respect—no theatrics, just bills folded clean into her hand—and he’d touched her once, just once, the backs of his fingers brushing her cheekbone like he was checking whether she was real. It had been ridiculous. It had been nothing. It had followed her all the way home anyway.

He’d even kept his word—dumplings and rice boxes already delivered, stacked neat like an offering when she got back. Half the menu, because apparently restraint wasn’t in his vocabulary when it came to making sure she ate.

Rumi dug for her keys, dodged a pack of freshmen arguing about what to get for dinner, and slipped into the dorm with the practiced guilt of someone who knew every hinge that squeaked. Their floor smelled like ramen, dryer sheets, and other people’s problems. The hallway lights hummed like they were bored of being awake.

Inside the triple: darkness, the soft drone of the mini fridge, Zoey mouth-breathing into a hoodie cocoon, Mira starfished with a problem set tattooed on her cheek via graphite transfer. Rumi shucked her boots in slow motion, padded to the bathroom, and peeled herself out of the uniform. Steam softened the glitter. Cedar—his—rose when she pulled on the hoodie she was absolutely returning tomorrow (she was not). She towel-twisted her hair, tiptoed back, slid into bed.

Her body felt rung out and electric, like after a show when the crowd noise kept living in her skin. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and stared at nothing. That look he’d given her by the stage—curious and patient and a little ruined—ran a slow circle behind her ribs.

Her phone lit up on the pillow.

[jinu] home?

She didn’t answer. She watched the bubble blink like a heartbeat.

[jinu] don’t make me guess

[rumi] alive. barely. u stalking me?

[jinu] yes

[jinu] be more careful. the thought of you walking alone is killing me

[rumi] i took a cab. calm down dad

[jinu] you can bully me in the morning but be nice to me now. i’m trying to be normal

[rumi] how’s that going

[jinu] terrible. call me

The dorm ceiling had that weird popcorn texture that collected shadows like dust. She stared at it for two breaths. She could text back and keep it light. She could pretend the club had not rearranged her organs. She could be reasonable.

She hit call.

He picked up on the first slide, breath in her ear like a secret.

“Princess.”

Her pulse misbehaved. “You have got to stop opening with that.”

“I will when you stop wearing my hoodie.”

“I’m returning it tomorrow.” Lie. She tucked her cheek into the cotton anyway. “How did you know I had it on.”

“You sound soft.” She could hear the smile. “And it smells like cedar from here.”

“That’s not how smell works.”

“That’s how you work.”

She rolled onto her side, facing the wall like the wall could do anything about it. “Bold.”

“I told you I’m bad at normal.” A pause, the kind that wasn’t empty. “You okay?”

He didn’t mean it in the bland way people did at checkout counters. He meant tonight. He meant lenses and lights and strange hands that never touched. He meant did any of it get under your skin.

“Define okay.”

“Heart rate above resting. Fighting sleep.” A pause. “And me.”

“Arrogant.” Then, quieter, because the hoodie still smelled like him: “Accurate.”

She felt something about that answer settle, and added, “Work was… work.”

“And me,” he asked, quiet, “was I a problem.”

“Always,” she said, deadpan, because if she said the true version she’d short-circuit. “But—no. You’re… never really the problem.”

“Thank you for the review.” His voice warmed. “I liked watching you watch me.”

She thumped the heel of her hand against her forehead. “You’re unbearable.”

“Maybe.” The comforter rasped faintly on his end, a small sound that made her stupidly aware of his body moving somewhere else in the same city. “Tell me something true before your roommates wake up and extort us.”

“My roommates don’t need to extort,” she said. “I’m fragile.”

“True thing, Rumi.”

He said her name like he’d been waiting to, and her mouth gave up its illusions of control.

“You didn’t touch me today,” she said. “Not really.”

“I wanted to.” No theater. Just the fact of it. “I didn’t need to.”

She went very still. The hoodie collar scratched her jaw; she loved it.

“You’re dangerous,” she said.

“I’m responsible,” he corrected, which somehow made her throat feel tight. “And I’m asking the next part out loud. Do you want to talk? Or do you want me to make you forget you’re tired.”

“Pretend I said both.”

He huffed a laugh. It slid into something steadier.

His voice shifted, weight sliding into place. “Okay. Before we do this—color check.”

Her stomach twisted. “You’re so lame.”

“Green is go. Yellow means slow, adjust. Red is stop. You don’t have to use colors—say the words—but I don’t leave you guessing.”

She closed her eyes. Hoodie collar scratching at her throat. “Green.”

He let it hang there like a light only he could see. “What are you wearing.”

“You were at my job two hours ago,” she muttered. “You don’t remember the rhinestones?”

“I remember everything,” he said, softer now. “I want now.”

Her throat betrayed her. “Tank top. Shorts. Hoodie.”

“My hoodie.” He hummed, pleased, smug as a cat catching sun. “Blanket?”

“Up to my ears.”

“Good.” There was a faint creak—bedframe?—and then a sigh like he’d turned onto his back. “Breathe with me. Four in. Four out.”

She did. In the hush, little noises got big. Her swallow. Her sleeve whispering against her cheek. His breath, steadying, that faint involuntary catch when something hit him hard. She let her shoulders drop. Jaw slacken. The room tilted, found its level.

“Better,” he said. She could hear the smile, but also the measure. “Where are you tight.”

“Everywhere.”

“I’ll handle everywhere.” Another soft rustle—cotton against skin, a shift of weight. “Start with your shoulders. Loosen your jaw. Let your tongue fall.”

“Why does that sound illegal.”

“Because you’re thinking about me.” His voice dropped half an octave, sliding under her skin. “Good girl.”

Her breath hitched. She made a strangled noise into the blanket. “No.”

“No?” His tone pivoted, gentle, unhurried. “Okay. Rumi.”

And god help her, she liked that better.

“Rumi,” he said again, like it was a spell and not a name. “You were beautiful tonight.”

Her laugh came out unsteady. “You’re going to make me hang up.”

“I won’t let you.” His tone was maddeningly even, like he was reading her a bedtime story. “Not just the part where I almost bit my tongue watching you dance. The way you hold space—like the whole room rearranges itself around you. The way you laughed at those guys and made them feel invisible without even trying. Every time I see you, I want to drag you out of there and pin you against a wall until you forget how to roll your eyes at me.”

Her hand twitched over the front pocket of the hoodie. Anchor. “Bold again.”

“I think about you being mine,” he said, soft enough that she almost missed the way his voice frayed at the edges. Then, because he was unbearable, added, “in a legally non-binding way that does not affect your union membership.”

She laughed, and it cracked halfway through, heat crawling down her spine.

A pause. Then, almost conversational: “Tell me where your hands are.”

She swallowed. “Blanket.”

“If I were there,” he said, steady, careful, “I’d put mine at your waist. Hold you still until you stopped pretending you didn’t want me closer. Thumb at your hipbone. Just enough pressure you’d know you couldn’t slip away without dragging me with you.”

Her breath tripped. She wanted to argue. She didn’t.

“I don’t run,” she lied.

“You jog,” he said, amused, and she heard the smile scrape low in his throat. Then, quieter, a shift in cadence: “Breathe again. Good. Now—don’t do anything yet. Just imagine. My mouth at your neck. Right under your ear. You’d shiver.”

Her skin actually prickled.

“I’d tell you to tilt your head for me. I’d kiss down slow. Teeth, if you let me.” He made a small noise, barely caught by the mic, a sharp inhale and the faintest curse. Her knees went weak under a blanket she wasn’t even standing in.

“Color,” he asked, voice rougher now.

She wanted to throw the phone across the room. “Green.”

“Fuck.” The word was muffled, like he’d said it against his own palm. “Still under the blanket?”

“Yes.”

“Keep your palm where it is,” he said, and this time it wasn’t just coaxing—it was command wrapped in velvet. “Slide it down slow. Pretend it’s me moving your hand. I’d be there, watching your face, telling you not to look away. I want you thinking about that.”

Her whole body trembled.

Somewhere in the silence, he exhaled a low sound that was half laugh, half groan. “Rumi. You don’t even know what you’re doing to me.”

She pressed her lips together, trying not to let him hear hers.

“You’re breathing different,” he said, like he could see her through the line. “I like it. Stay with me. Let me talk you through.” Another rustle, unmistakable this time—sheets, skin, the faintest thump of his head hitting a pillow. The sound traveled like static straight into her bloodstream.

“Tell me to stop,” he offered again, low, hoarse.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

The noise he made then—helpless, dragged from somewhere in his chest—she’d remember it until she died.

Her palm slid lower under the hoodie, tentative, like she was touching a live wire. She tried to be quiet. Stupid. Impossible. He caught the sharp change in her breathing instantly.

“Rumi,” he said, and it came out ragged. “Good girl. That’s it. Keep going.”

Her stomach flipped. She pressed her forehead to the pillow and hissed, “Shut up.”

He laughed—wrecked and soft at once. Then a shuffle, a muted fuck under his breath. Sheets moved again, the unmistakable rhythm of his hand. The sound went straight to the base of her spine.

“Oh my god,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said, voice so low it was more growl than speech. “Now you hear me. You know what I’m doing?”

Her face burned. “Unfortunately.”

He groaned. A real one. Barely choked off, vibrating through the cheap dorm speaker like it belonged in her bones. “Don’t pretend you don’t like it. You’re the one making me sound like this.”

Her fingers slipped under the waistband of her shorts before she could argue. Heat shot through her.

He must have heard the catch in her throat. “Tell me. Color.”

She bit down on the sleeve, muffled it. “Green.”

His exhale shuddered like it hurt him. “Christ. Okay. Picture it—my hand over yours, moving you slow. Thumb right there—” he broke off with another strangled sound, breath stuttering in her ear, “—fuck, Rumi. I’d slide down your thigh, spread you open, make you beg me to—” He cut himself off with a low groan that made her toes curl.

She whimpered. She actually whimpered.

“Send me something,” he rasped suddenly, half-command, half-prayer. “I want to see you.”

Her brain short-circuited. She should have said no. She didn’t. Blind, she tugged the blanket down just far enough to snap a quick photo—tank top rucked up, his hoodie bunched high, her hand half-hidden in the hem of her shorts. Reckless. She sent it before she could breathe.

His reaction was instant: a sharp, guttural sound through the phone that made her thighs shake. “Rumi—fuck.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “Oh my god, you’re loud.”

“I’m trying not to be.” He sounded destroyed. “But you—” another muffled curse, his breath hitching fast, “—you’re fucking killing me.”

Her own body arched like it wanted to climb inside the sound of him. She let her fingers move properly now, not careful, not shy, guided by the rhythm of his voice breaking apart.

“Good,” he groaned. “Just like that. I’d have you on your back, legs over my shoulders, make you look at me while I—” He cut himself off with a gasp that bordered on a moan. “Jesus, Rumi. Say my name.”

She bit the sleeve hard. She said it anyway.

“Jinu—”

He lost it. The sound that ripped through the speaker was indecent, ruined, the kind of noise that would have had the RA knocking if anyone else was awake. She pressed her thighs together, chasing the heat, the two of them unraveling in sync, tethered only by the thin line of a call.

When it broke open, it was clumsy, private, electric—her muffling into fabric, him groaning her name like he couldn’t stop.

Silence rang after, heavy and holy.

She lay there gasping, blanket shoved to her knees, phone buzzing faintly against her ear like it was alive. His breath still came rough, shaky.

“Color,” he asked finally, voice hoarse and wrecked.

She laughed—helpless, giddy, destroyed. “Green,” she said. “Unfortunately.”

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Just breathing, shaky and uneven, crossing the invisible thread between her dorm bed and his. The radiator clicked. Someone down the hall sneezed. None of it mattered compared to the rasp of him, still catching his breath like he’d run miles.

She pulled the blanket back up, face burning, hoodie collar damp against her mouth. She couldn’t believe what she’d just done. Worse—what she’d just heard him do.

“You alive?” he rasped finally, voice so rough it was practically sandpaper.

“Barely,” she whispered, mortified at how wrecked she sounded.

He chuckled low, still uneven. “You wrecked me, princess.”

Her face buried deeper into the blanket. “Don’t—call me that right now.”

“Why not? You sent me the prettiest fucking picture I’ve ever seen in my life and then said my name like you meant it.” His breath caught again, softer this time. “You don’t get to be shy after that.”

Her stomach flipped so violently she had to press a hand down like she could hold herself together. “Delete it.”

He gasped dramatically. “Delete art? Criminal.”

“Jinu—”

“I’ll keep it locked, just for me.” He was smiling now; she could hear it. “Cross my heart. You want proof? I’ll send you one back.”

She opened her mouth to object, but the photo landed before she could. One glance and her entire nervous system shorted out. Sweat-damp hair, flushed throat, his hoodie thrown somewhere in the background, his hand low enough to make her slam her phone face down like it had caught fire.

“You didn’t—” She strangled the sentence into her pillow. “You’re insane.”

He laughed, ruined and boyish. “Equal trade. Don’t pout.”

“I’m not—” she started, then realized she actually was, cheeks hot and lips bitten. She groaned. “You’re impossible.”

“You like impossible,” he said, softer now, like he knew she was slipping toward sleep. “You liked tonight.”

Her chest ached. She tried for sarcasm and failed. “You’re very proud of yourself, aren’t you.”

“Not proud,” he corrected gently. “Lucky.”

Something in her throat caught. Dangerous. Sweet. She shoved it down before it could undo her. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re gorgeous,” he said, quiet and matter-of-fact, like the sky was blue. “Even wrecked. Especially wrecked.”

She hated how much she liked hearing it. She hated even more how safe it made her feel. “Stop talking.”

“You first,” he teased. But then his voice softened, blurred at the edges. “Go to sleep, Rumi. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“At the club?” she asked, already slurring toward unconscious.

“Mmhmm. Front row. Behaving.” A pause, warm with a smile. “Mostly.”

“That’s not reassuring,” she mumbled, eyes half-shut.

“I’ll tip heavy. Keep my hands to myself. And if I don’t—you’ll tell me to stop.”

She could barely keep her lips moving. “I will.”

“Good girl,” he murmured, so soft it barely made it through the speaker.

Her pulse stuttered. She hated that it sounded less like a joke and more like a secret.

“Jinu—”

He cut her off with that maddening calm. “You know it’s not just the chase for me, right? Not just—” he paused, searching, then let it fall quieter, like a dare, “—not just the part where we get each other wrecked. It’s the way it feels after. Always hits different with you.”

Heat rushed her face even though he couldn’t see it. “You’re ridiculous,” she muttered, trying to shove the weight of it into the pile of things he said like he was only flirting.

He chuckled, low and wicked. “Maybe. But you like ridiculous.”

Neither of them hung up right away. Superstition, or maybe just greed. She listened to him breathe until it evened out, until the hoodie collar was tucked warm under her chin and her own smile wouldn’t leave no matter how she tried to school it away.

“Tomorrow,” he said suddenly, voice blurred but sure. “Studio. I meant it.”

She blinked at the ceiling, wide awake for a beat. “…You’re serious.”

“Deadly,” he whispered, half-laughing. “Bring your chorus. I’ll make the coffee. We’ll fix it together.”

Her heart did something traitorous, sharp and warm. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re mine to bother,” he teased gently. “Sleep, Rumi.”

When the click finally came, the room settled back into itself. Mira snored into her textbook. Zoey muttered something about storming the palace. Rumi lay there with her phone under the pillow, humming the chorus he’d made her promise to save—late resolve, a little ache, sweetness that stung.

She told herself it wasn’t that deep.

Her chest disagreed.

Sleep stole her before she could argue.

Rumi woke up to Zoey sitting cross-legged at the foot of her bed, holding a box of cereal like a “Morning, sinner,” Zoey chirped.

“You slept with your phone in your hand,” Zoey corrected, peeling off her sheet mask and tossing it dramatically into the trash. “Like a girl in a romance novel. All we were missing was the indie soundtrack and a flock of woodland creatures harmonizing in the background.”

Mira’s voice drifted out from the depths of her blanket fortress, muffled but merciless. “You hummed. At two in the morning. Actual humming.”

“I was not humming,” Rumi said, sitting up too fast. The hoodie hood flopped into her eyes like the universe agreeing with her shame.

“You so were,” Mira countered, poking her head out just enough to glare. “It was like—wistful. Like, ‘the boy from the ball touched my hand and now I must spend the rest of my days embroidering throw pillows about it.’”

Zoey gasped, scandalized. “Embroidery arc confirmed.”

Rumi lobbed a pillow at her. “I hate both of you.”

“You love us,” Zoey said sweetly, batting the pillow aside. “But not as much as you loooove—”

“Finish that sentence and I’m calling an exorcist,” Rumi snapped, already scrambling for her makeup like maybe eyeliner could erase the very clear memories of what she’d been doing last night.

But it was too late. Mira sat up fully now, eyes gleaming with caffeine and violence. “Wait. Where are you even going looking like that?”

Rumi froze. “Like what.”

“You’re wearing mascara,” Mira said flatly. “On a Tuesday morning. For class?”

Zoey fell over dramatically onto the beanbag. “It’s happening. She’s leaving us for her rich demon boyfriend.”

“He’s not my—” Rumi started, but stopped because her voice cracked, which was so unfair. “I’m just—he invited me to his studio.”

The silence that followed was loud enough to file a noise complaint.

Mira blinked slowly. “You’re going to Jin Studio. With Mr. Hot Billionaire. Alone.”

Zoey sat up like she’d been electrocuted. “You’re going to a second location with a man who looks like he was carved out of a K-drama budget. This is the part where college girls in horror movies die.”

“I’m not going there to die,” Rumi said, defensive. “I’m going there to… tune something.”

Zoey’s eyes went wide with theatrical innocence. “Oh, I bet he’ll be tuning something.”

Mira choked on her coffee. “No. Don’t encourage her.”

“Encourage me?” Rumi sputtered. “I didn’t even—this isn’t—I can barely afford takeout and you think I’m, what, his—his—”

“Sugar baby?” Zoey offered helpfully.

Mira shrugged. “He’d be good at it. He has the face.”

Rumi buried her head in her hands. “Oh my god.”

But underneath the embarrassment, a little voice was already whispering. He said he wanted me to be his. He said it like he meant it.

She crushed it down fast. There was no way. He was who he was, she was who she was. She had tuition deadlines and a negative balance on her meal card. He had a building in Gangnam with his name in brass. Whatever this was, it was temporary. A joke. She wasn’t delusional enough to think otherwise.

“Anyway,” Zoey said, voice sugary, “if he ruins you, at least let him pay your rent first.”

“Zoey,” Rumi hissed.

Mira smirked into her mug. “Just remember, if you come back glowing again, we’re allowed to take pictures for science.”

Rumi grabbed her bag, hoodie strings pulled tight around her face like armor. “You’re both sick.”

Zoey leaned back on the beanbag, all faux-casual, but her voice carried a new weight under the teasing: “We’re serious, though. If he ever hurts you—” she lifted her spoon like a sword— “we’ll rip out his demon heart and serve it over rice.”

Mira clinked her coffee mug against the spoon. “No leftovers.”

Rumi blinked, caught between rolling her eyes and… something else, something warmer that lodged behind her ribs.

“You’re insane,” she muttered, shouldering her bag.

“Yeah,” Zoey said sweetly, “but we’re your kind of insane.”

“Have fun, princess!” she called after her.

Rumi flipped them off without looking back, heart hammering too fast for someone allegedly “cool” about all of this.

Because maybe she was lying. Maybe she was already in over her head.

Her heart wouldn’t stop racing the entire subway ride. She told herself it wasn’t that deep. She told herself she was still the girl who rationed instant noodles and counted laundry coins. Jinu was—what? A distraction. A rich boy’s amusement. Someone who could tip her whole world sideways if she let him.

She tried to believe it. She really did.

The city looked different when she knew where she was going. She’d been past the building before without knowing it — tucked into a clean, quiet street in Gangnam like it wasn’t housing a hundred million won of other people’s dreams behind a black-glass facade. The brass letters were simple enough: JIN STUDIO . No neon. No bragging. If you knew, you knew.

Inside was all warm wood and patience. The lobby had that hushed, expensive sound that meant somebody cared about acoustics so much they’d bullied the walls into behaving. Gold records lined one side like trophies that didn’t like to talk about themselves. A receptionist looked up, took in Rumi’s everything in one swift glance, and pressed a button without comment.

“He’s expecting you,” she said with a polite nod, and the elevator doors slid open like a magician’s trick.

Jinu was waiting when they did.

He leaned against the far wall with his hands in his pockets, hair annoyingly perfect, black button-down sleeves pushed to his forearms like a painting of restraint. He looked up as she stepped out, and she felt the temperature of the hallway change slightly when he smiled.

“Hi.”

“You’re early,” she said, which was not what she meant to say.

He tilted his head. “So are you.”

The elevator shut behind her. The hallway was empty, quiet as a secret. He didn’t step into her space, but he didn’t move away either, and somehow that was worse.

“You slept?” he asked softly.

“Define slept,” she muttered.

He huffed a laugh. “Come on. I booked B.”

He keyed them through two sets of quiet doors, past a larger control room with an SSL console like a spaceship’s brain — men in beanies hunched over a bass track, a vocalist practicing vowels in a booth — and into a smaller one that still felt like a cathedral to her. The B room was darker, warmer; a pair of nearfields sat on the desk like eyes; a vocal booth with a heavy door waited to the right, its glass angled to catch as little reflection as possible. The mic inside gleamed under low light.

“U47,” he said when he caught her staring. “We’ll swap if you hate it.”

“God, flex harder.”

He grinned. “I can.”

She was not going to rise to that. She wasn’t.

He was already moving around the room with a familiarity that made her feel like she’d arrived in a body that knew what it was for — flipping on a lamp with warm, amber light; flicking the ON AIR sign outside the door; checking a patchbay that looked like spaghetti if spaghetti cost a month’s rent. He set her bag gently on the couch, glanced at the hoodie peeking out of it, and looked back at her like he’d noticed and filed it away for later to torture her with.

“Headphones,” he said, and went to grab a pair from the hook.

She followed him into the booth, because it was either that or stand in the center of the control room and combust. The vocal room smelled faintly like clean wood and someone else’s old perfume. There was a stand in the corner with two pairs of fresh pop filters. Her stomach did a small, traitorous somersault.

He adjusted the mic height with one hand. “How tall are you.”

“Five-five,” she said, and he smirked, “In those shoes.”

“Shut up.”

“Your wish is my command,” he said, and then, to distract himself from saying something worse, he fussed with the shock mount like it had personally wronged him. “Okay,” he added, more businesslike, “Signal chain is U47 to 1073 to LA-2A. We’ll keep it silky. If it threads too thin, I’ll swap to a 67 and Pultec you into heaven.”

Her mouth twitched. “Dirty talk.”

He looked up, eyes a little brighter than the room. “You have no idea.”

“Jinu.”

“Right.” He took a step back, palms up, but the heat stayed. “Sorry. Work hat.”

He left the booth and took the engineer’s chair like it belonged under him. The talkback button clicked on with a quiet pop. He caught her glance through the glass and something in his posture softened — like no matter how many rooms like this he’d been in, the novelty of seeing her on the other side had not.

“You good?” his voice came through the booth speaker, low and edged with soft static.

Rumi swallowed and settled the headphones over her ears. The isolation was instant. The world thunked down to heartbeat, mic breath, and the subtle whirr of the building’s HVAC. His voice in the cans made her toes curl against the carpet.

“Say something,” he said. “Level check.”

“You’re ridiculous.” She watched the LED on the preamp flicker. “And bossy.”

He was smiling into the talkback; she could hear it. “Both true. Give me an ‘ah.’”

She did.

“Again.”

She did again, this time letting her mouth shape around difference — rounded vowels, forward placement, the thing she knew how to do when the rest of her whirled.

“Good,” he said, and the glee in his voice when he added, “Breathe for me” made heat crawl up her neck.

She shot him the flattest look she could manage through glass. He choked on a laugh, hit RECORD like he owed the universe an apology for existing near her, and nodded. “When you’re ready.”

Rumi closed her eyes. The headphones made everything smaller, easier to hold steady. She could hear her own breath too loud. She waited for it to slow, let the warm memory of last night drop through her like a weight until it hit something and steadied it. Then she sang.

It wasn’t perfect. It was the kind of first take you kept mostly for feel — a little breathy in the first bar, a little too careful in the second, and then the part where she forgot she was supposed to aim and just landed where she could, and that was the moment Jinu stopped touching the faders and just listened. He could have leveled, he could have fixed, he could have surgically carved her into polished, but he didn’t. He let her carry the imperfection like a secret.

“That,” he said, when she stopped. “Do that again on purpose.”

She laughed, breathless, into the pop filter. “Make it hurt, right.”

“Resolve late,” he murmured. “And when you do, mean it.”

She sang again, and this time when she rounded into the chorus, she held the ache on the upper third for half a beat beyond polite. It felt like taking a step off a curb with no ground, then landing anyway. It thrilled something low and mean in her; she did it again the next pass just to see if she could.

Jinu didn’t speak for a moment. Then, quietly, “That’s the part.” He swallowed. “Keep that.”

They worked. It was stupid how easy it felt — not because it was easy (she sweat through her first shirt and did it again on principle), but because he moved like gravity did what he told it to. He’d say something like “pull the vowel darker on bar eight” and she’d do it and he’d go soft in the mouth, which was unfair, because she was trying to be competent, not think about what his mouth looked like saying darker .

Between takes they bickered fondly. When he teased her about always going sharp on the exact syllable she was sure she hadn’t, she told him to stop having perfect pitch like a jerk. When she hit a run clean enough to make the meters blush, he didn’t say anything at all; he just sat back in his chair and stared at her like he wanted to bite the note out of the air and keep it.

“Come out here,” Jinu said. “You need water.”

Her last phrase still buzzed in her mouth. The booth felt over-oxygenated and airless at once, the way all expensive rooms did after a good take—like the sound had soaked up the air and left everything bright around the edges. She pushed the door open and stepped onto the carpet, knees a little loose. He was waiting with the cap already twisted off. Condensation beaded his knuckles. Cedar and something warm clung to him like he carried his own climate.

She took the bottle. Their fingers brushed. Nothing dramatic—skin to skin, a second, a static pop—and her breath hitched anyway.

“You’ve got mascara,” he said, soft, and lifted his thumb to the corner of her eye. The touch barely happened, a gentle sweep under her lower lid. It still went through her like a struck match.

His hand stopped. His eyes flicked to hers. For a beat the room held steady—board humming, meters idling—while the air between them tilted.

“Rumi,” he said, like a warning he hoped she’d ignore.

She stepped in like she had never been good at warnings. The first kiss wasn’t slow. It was the kind you did after a long, polite wait—deliberate, greedy, a mouth that said I’ve been thinking about this for hours and I’m done pretending I haven’t. She tasted chapstick and nerves; he tasted like coffee and whatever ruin a man carried when he’d decided to be trouble on purpose.

“Door,” she managed, backing into the couch, hands in his shirt because she didn’t know where else to put them.

“Already locked,” he said, and reached back without looking to flip the RECORDING sign to red. It glowed like a secret.

She laughed against his mouth and then lost the laugh entirely because he angled her chin and kissed her again, deeper, slower now, like he had time after all. His thumbs sat at the hinge of her jaw, warm and steady. She felt the press of his body along hers, not crushing, just present, all that expensive restraint wrapped in a person who had finally decided not to use it.

He nudged until the couch touched the back of her knees. She sat. He sank down too—on his knees, absurd, easy, like it was gravity and not a choice.

“Jinu,” she said, surprise edging her voice.

“Say no,” he murmured, palms curving at the outer points of her knees, thumbs stroking slow. “Say stop. I will.”

She didn’t. She couldn’t have if she’d tried. Heat pooled low and mean. Air went thin. She tipped her hips a little—not invitation, not exactly, more like I’m not running—and he read it like print.

He kissed the inside of her knee first. Pointless, reverent. Then higher. The skirt rode up, inch by inch, as he eased his hands up her thighs—patient, waiting for every flinch, answering each with pressure or pause. He looked up once through his lashes and she felt it in her stomach, the way he checked her face like he was playing by rules he didn’t want to break.

She exhaled and lifted her hips. Lace shifted. A soft sound escaped him, embarrassingly honest, and then all of his self-control narrowed to his mouth and the way he touched her.

No theatrics. No parade of tricks. He licked once, slow, like a taste test. The room moved. Her fingers curled hard into the cushion and then into his hair, and he hummed like the sound pleased him, like the sound told him where to go.

He didn’t rush her. He didn’t treat her like a song to get through. He drew a line with his tongue and then learned the shape of the breath she made after it. He pressed his mouth and then lifted and then pressed again, unhurried, steady, the kind of rhythm your body trusted before your brain did. When she rolled her hips up into him, helpless, he let her, followed, adjusted, kept her in a groove she hadn’t known she’d been looking for.

“Jinu,” she gasped, not a word, a sound.

His hand slid to her waist, holding her there, not trapping, anchoring. “I’ve got you,” he said against her, words blurred by slick and want, and the sheer audacity of that sentence—like it could be true in this room, like it could be true anywhere—made her legs tremble.

He took the hint. He flattened his tongue, then changed angle, his breath catching when she did. He ate her like there was nothing else on the calendar. When her thighs shook and the couch squeaked against the carpet, he went with it, braced, kept her from chasing so hard she lost the thread. He was ruinously polite even when he was feral, and the combination made her crazy.

It built fast—faster than she meant it to—and then hovered there, cruel and sweet. She bit her lip, eyes open and not seeing anything but console lights. He dragged a slow circle that turned her bones into sugar. “Now,” she heard herself say, shocked by it, by how much she meant it, and he made a sound like thanks and pushed her over with care and purpose like he was doing a job he was good at and liked.

Pleasure snapped through her, sharp and deep and particular, not fireworks but a wire humming all the way through. She folded forward, a hand clapped to her mouth, a laugh breaking into something that wasn’t a laugh at all. He stayed with her, mouth softening as she shook, his nose pressed to the inside of her thigh, breath hot, hands easing her back down.

After, she was a mess in the prettiest way—breathing too hard, eyes shiny, hair a ruin, skirt crooked, the room gone a little soft focus around the edges. He kissed the inside of her knee, then her hip, then sat back on his heels and looked up like a man who would keep worshiping if she didn’t stop him.

“Hi,” he said, voice shredded, stupid and sweet.

She laughed, helpless. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Yours,” he said before he could catch it. The word hung between them, stupid and brave. His mouth tightened like oh.

She reached for humor and landed on softness instead. She carded her fingers through his hair where she’d pulled it out of its perfect shape and tugged, not enough to move him, just to make him look at her. “Water,” she said. “Or I’ll ascend.”

He stood instantly, went for the mini fridge, came back with two bottles and a towel he’d charmed off some hallway cart, warm and hotel-thick. He handed her the cap first like a gentleman, eyes flicking from her thigh to her mouth to anywhere else so he didn’t do something rash in front of the SSL.

She took a long drink. Her throat worked; he watched it like he’d been shot.

“Work hat,” she said when she could manage words, trying for cool, failing, smiling anyway. “Before my brain melts.”

“You’re cruel,” he said, smiling back, but he turned toward the board obediently. He clicked to the take they’d just done. He didn’t press play. His hand settled on the edge of the console instead, tendons taut, as if the muscles were busy not doing something else.

“Sit,” he added, voice going lower again, something sly winding back through it. “In the chair.”

She looked at the big leather engineer’s chair and then at him. “You, what, want me to do fader rides with jelly legs?”

“Mm.” He took her wrist and drew her up anyway, his fingers a warm cuff. “I want you here.” He spun the chair out and sat, wide-kneed, thighs filling the space, then tugged her forward by the waist. “Facing me.”

Her pulse stuttered. She went without making herself. She swung a leg over him and sat, straddling, the leather warm under her knees, his chest under her hands. The position did something terrible to her composure; she pretended it didn’t. He didn’t pretend anything. He let his head drop back for one second like she’d knocked a noise out of him and then looked at her, all the way, gaze hot and hungry and grateful like she’d just brought a weather system with her.

“Look at you,” he said, low. “Look at me.”

She didn’t want to. She did. She set her palms on his shoulders, feeling the flex and settle of muscle under soft cotton, and rolled her hips once out of spite. His breath broke. His hands found her waist automatically, fingers mapping, the span of them swallowing a lot of her. The leather creaked. The whole room felt like it was listening.

“That skirt,” he said, almost conversational, which would’ve been funny if she could breathe. He slid his hands down to the hem and tugged, slow and rude, pushing it up until she was bare and open across his lap. Heat licked up her spine. He didn’t go for her—he pressed both hands to the backs of her thighs, thumbs stroking in and up. “You’re shaking.”

“Your fault,” she managed.

“Glad to be of service.” He leaned in, teeth grazing her throat, and she punched a laugh into a breath and tilted her head to make room for his mouth. He took it. He wandered along her jaw with kisses that were not in a hurry. The world tilted around the pivot of her hips and his hands encouraging a slow grind that did nothing and everything at once.

“How do you want it,” he asked quietly, a real question.

“Like this,” she said, before she could second-guess, because her body already knew. “Slow first.”

“Slow first,” he repeated, satisfied. He hooked a thumb in the side of her underwear, tugged it aside with a drag that made her grip tighten on his shoulders. He looked down between them like he couldn’t help it, like the sight rewired something in him, then looked up quickly as if the eye contact would keep him from being stupid.

“You’re…” His jaw flexed. He swallowed the rest and kissed her instead, quick and mean like he couldn’t not.

Her laugh died. She rocked again. He slid one hand up, flattened it low on her stomach, fingers splayed, and the sheer ease of the touch—possessive without trapping—spiked heat through her so fast she had to bite his shoulder to keep the sound in. He made one in answer, rough and happy.

His palms slid down, steadying at her hips like he meant to anchor her there forever. Their eyes met—asking, always asking—and she nodded, more breath than movement. He sank into her slow, not hurried, not teasing, just devastatingly sure. The air punched out of her lungs; her “yes” was already there, so she said it again, out loud, because he needed the word, and she wanted him to have it. “Yes.”

He didn’t force the pace. He let her fit him, the first slow slide that stole the air from both of them. Her thighs shook; his hands steadied. She sank down and the stretch punched through her, perfect, a low ache that ran like a wire into her belly and lit it. Her head fell forward to his shoulder. He breathed a laugh into her hair like he couldn’t believe his luck either.
Her breath came out in a sharp, unsteady moan she tried to bite back against his shirt. He groaned in answer, low and rough, like the sound punched straight out of him. The chair creaked beneath them, adding percussion to the wet, deliberate slide of her body around him.

“Fuck,” he said very softly, and the curse sounded reverent.

She rolled her hips. The chair protested in a small, obscene creak. He set one hand at the base of her spine, guiding, not controlling, helping her find the path that made the most sense in her body. He was hot and heavy inside her, the kind of pressure you didn’t talk about out loud because words made it smaller. She moved again, and his jaw went tight, and she felt his restraint like a living thing—coiled, obedient, barely leashed.
His breath hit her ear, uneven, each exhale catching against the back of her neck like he was barely holding himself together. She could hear it—the slip of slick when she moved, the guttural sound he swallowed every time she sank down too far, too slow.

“Eyes on me,” he said, more breath than voice, not a rule, a plea. He tipped her chin with two fingers. She met his gaze and then kept it there, a dare at first and then a necessity. The room dissolved into breath, the faint fan noise from the computer tower, the clock tick that refused to matter. She found a rhythm—slow, grinding, a long pull up and down that made sweat gather between her shoulders. He matched her with his hands and the almost invisible lift of his hips, meeting her on the way down, not chasing, letting it build.

He wasn’t quiet. He wasn’t loud either. He let out those little sounds men made when they forgot anyone else existed—low, honest, unpretty—and they undid her more effectively than anything rehearsed.
When she clenched around him deliberately, he broke—head dropping to her shoulder with a noise that was half laugh, half wounded animal. “Fuck, Rumi. You’re gonna kill me.”
He told her she was beautiful without saying the word. He said “that’s it” and “just like that” in a voice that sounded like he’d been good for too long and was enjoying his reward. When her breath stuttered, he smoothed his palm at her throat—not squeezing, just there, just reminding her where she was—and the touch made her body go soft and wild at once.

“Tell me if you want faster,” he said, eyes searching her face even now.

“Not yet,” she said, and smiled because she could feel the way it tortured him and also because she wasn’t ready to let the slow thing go.

He laughed like she’d kneed him and kissed her again, slower than the movement, tongue lazy, mouth open enough that her next breath came through him. She tightened around him on purpose and he swore into her mouth, grip flaring hot on her hips. She did it again for science. He hissed and then retaliated, snapping his hips once, hard enough to make her break the kiss and gasp.

“Careful,” she warned, wrecked, delighted.

“You started it,” he said, the smile in his voice more dangerous than anything else he could’ve done. He pushed her hair back from her face with a tenderness that didn’t match the way he was fighting not to lose it, tucked a stray curl behind her ear, and then held her there to look at her while she rode him.
“God, look at you,” he groaned, his voice breaking like it was too much to keep inside. “I swear you’re trying to wreck me.”

She picked up the pace when her body asked. He followed. The chair had a rhythm now—creak, breath, creak, breath—the kind of metronome you set a life to if you were lucky. He slid a hand low, between them, not to take over, just to brace and give her something to work against. The angle changed; the pressure did, too. She folded and rebuilt around it, filthy words dying behind her teeth because saying them would make her laugh and laughing would make her cry and she didn’t want to do either, she wanted to come.

“Jinu,” she said, helpless, which was funny because she was on top, she had the pace, she could stop; she didn’t want to. “Please.”

“Yeah,” he said, rough, immediate. “Come on. Take it.”
His hands tightened on her hips, helping her grind down harder, his own moans rising to match hers. He muttered curses between gasps, every other word her name. “Rumi—fuck—right there—don’t stop—”

She did. She dropped down, ground, chased it like she’d been invited to eat first for once. He held her hard, not to move her, to keep her there when she forgot she could stay with it instead of sprint through it. The pleasure came up mean and gorgeous; she felt the shape of it a beat before it hit and went toward it anyway, mouth open, eyes on his because he’d asked.

When it broke, it broke her mouth open too. Sound tore loose, muffled against his throat where she’d buried her face. He shuddered under her, hips jerking helplessly, and she felt the heat flood inside her—sharp, hot, inevitable—his groan catching on her name like it was the last word he knew. Her body trembled around him, her breath scattering into little storms, his grip softening only to stroke her waist like he had to remind them both he was still there, still holding on.

The room came back in pieces. Console lights sharpening out of blur, her heartbeat drumming against his chest until it slowed into something survivable. He didn’t push her away; he let her collapse against him, one big hand spread over her back like he was shielding her from the world. The mess between them tugged at his composure, but he only kissed her hair, reluctant to move. Eventually, he eased out of her with a low sound, disappeared for a moment, and returned with a warm towel. Ridiculous. Tender. Unglamorous in the best way. He wiped her down carefully, reverently, like this mattered as much as everything that had come before.

“Stay,” he said, as if she were anything else.

“Like I’m gonna go sprint a lap,” she mumbled into his neck, aiming for flippant but the words came out ragged, breath stuttering. Her chest rose and fell against his, betraying just how undone she was.

He felt it, laughed anyway—low and real—and hugged her once, a quick, bone-safe squeeze that said he knew exactly what she was trying to do.

“Okay,” he said a minute later, practical returning like a tide. He kissed her temple because apparently he was trying to end her and reached, one-armed, for the box of tissues sitting like a silent witness by the faders. “We should—before it gets tragic.”

“Health class king,” she muttered, but took them, and he made the soft, embarrassed sound of a man handling logistics after sin. She shifted, slowly, both of them swearing at the same time at the sensitivity, and he held her hips so she didn’t wobble.
He kissed her shoulder once, quick, like a sorry for making you move, then sat back with a little hiss as if he was just as undone as she was.

“Water,” he said, handing her the bottle. “Or I’ll carry you to the car and we’ll both die of shame.”

“You’re not carrying me anywhere,” she said, but she drank obediently and felt human slide back into her limbs.
Her thighs still quivered when she set the bottle down, and he noticed. He didn’t say anything, just brushed his knuckles over her knee like a quiet joke.

They were quiet for a while. The overheads hummed softly. The city on the other side of the window had gone hazy gold. He dragged the project back onto the screen, hit play because he had to do something that wasn’t pulling her onto him again, and her voice spilled into the studio, warm and imperfect and newly dangerous.

“Resolve late,” he said, just to say something technical and not the stupid honest thought punching behind his ribs.

“Send me a bounce,” she said, because she needed something to hold that wasn’t him. Her knees still trembled against the chair, traitorous. He noticed and pretended not to, which was the most gentleman thing he’d done all night besides everything else.
“You’re shaking,” he said anyway, soft, almost smug. She threw a tissue at him. He caught it with one hand and smiled like a man who knew he’d won something he shouldn’t have.

He saved the session. She saw the filename—golden_v03_takeyoursweettime—and pretended she didn’t.

Time had outrun them. The wall clock blinked its accusation. He clicked the monitors off and the sudden quiet made the room feel conspiratorial.

“I’ll drive you,” he said, already standing, already collecting her bag like it had always been his. “No arguments.”

“Bossy,” she said.

“Motivated.” He offered his hand. She took it. Standing felt like remembering an old language, awkward for the first few words and then fine. He didn’t let go until they reached the door. He did then, and she felt it happen, the absence of his fingers like he’d taken a heat source away.

He flipped the RECORDING sign dark. The hallway lights underfoot made them look like a movie about themselves. They stepped into the elevator and their reflection doubled them—two beautiful idiots with wrecked hair and smug mouths.

“Tomorrow?” he asked, too casual to be casual, as if the word didn’t work unless he used it on her.

She should have said we’ll see. She said, “Yeah,” an idiot, doomed, reminded, delighted.

He smiled small, like something golden edged and private. “Okay,” he said, and it sounded like both a promise and a problem.

The city unspooled outside the windshield on the drive back, wet pavement gleaming, bus stops and corner stores turned to set pieces by sodium light. She sat too properly, knees together, hands clutching the hem of her skirt. He drove like he kissed—controlled, precise, until he wanted her to notice that he could be fast.

He didn’t touch her. Not once. His hands stayed neat on the wheel, his gaze on the lanes. The only proof of anything was the curve of his mouth, fighting a smirk like he was trying not to laugh at a secret.

“You good?” he asked at a red light, voice low, eyes still on the road.

“Define good.” Her throat was dry. She didn’t have a word for whatever cocktail she was—boneless, shaking, already replaying it like she’d need to write a chorus about the way his voice had dropped when he said her name.

He huffed a laugh, soft enough she could feel it in her stomach. The light went green.

Outside her dorm he idled at the curb, the car parked in the yellow glow like a confessional booth. Neither of them moved. The world smelled faintly of wet asphalt and something that felt like it could tip.

“I’ll send the bounce when I get upstairs,” he said finally, too practical to be safe. “And the session. I named it badly.”

She arched a brow. “final_final_THISoneforREAL?”

“Worse,” he admitted, grimacing. He handed her bag over from the backseat. Their fingers grazed. The spark went straight through her. “Get some sleep, Rumi.”

She opened the door before she drowned in the inside of the car. “Bossy.”

“Motivated.” That private, sideways smile again.

The front door beeped her in. She didn’t look back. Looking back would have been dangerous.

Upstairs, the dorm smelled like detergent and overworked A/C. Mira’s desk was a war crime of highlighters. Zoey had collapsed face-first into a post-it that said CRYING IS STUDYING. Rumi set her bag down like it was contraband and just…stood there, not sure if she should laugh or scream into her pillow.

Her phone buzzed.

[jinu] home
[jinu] drink some water
[jinu] session sent
[jinu] don’t judge the filename

She clicked. golden_v03_takeyoursweettime.wav .

“Psychopath,” she whispered, and hit play anyway.

Her voice came warped through the phone speaker, small and tinny, unfair to what it had felt like in the booth. She grabbed her headphones and flopped face-down on the mattress, replayed it. The new chorus tugged at her like a bruise she couldn’t stop pressing.

[rumi] i will be judging
[rumi] not the mix. that’s illegal
[rumi] the name

[jinu] courage of my convictions
[rumi] cowardice of your aesthetic choices
[jinu] kiss me and i’ll rename it

Her heart did a stupid leap. She typed the dumbest lie she had.

[rumi] u wish

The dots popped up. Disappeared. Popped again.

[jinu] i do

Her cheeks burned under the fluorescent dorm light. She yanked her hoodie up over her face like fabric could shield her from sincerity.

[rumi] go to bed
[rumi] u have to pretend to be a student in the morning

[jinu] i’m very good at pretending
[rumi] not with me

The bubble reappeared immediately, undignified.

[jinu] no. not with you

She stuffed the phone under her pillow. Pulled it back out thirty seconds later because she was weak and jittery and if she didn’t keep talking she was going to write her feelings into a tragic four-chord ballad.

She opened voice memos, hummed a counterline for the chorus. Hated it. Tried again. Less hated. Sent both before shame could catch up.

His reply came in a voice note, the sound hushed, like he’d buried himself in a blanket to record it.

“Second one,” he said, low and sure. “Lean into the suspension on the ‘wait’—don’t resolve until the third beat. I’ll make it behave under the main. Also you sound…happy.”

Her chest tightened. “I’m not,” she whispered into her sheets, absolutely grinning.

She wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Not her. Not Rumi, the one who made entire speeches to Zoey and Mira about keeping her head down, about not mixing feelings with… whatever this was. She’d rolled her eyes every time he teased about “more,” had sworn to herself she wasn’t that kind of girl. And yet—

She caught herself smiling so wide it hurt, heat crawling up her neck, and before she could think twice she was typing. Fingers reckless. Stupid. Brave.

[rumi] coffee before class?

Her brain kicked in late: Oh my god. Oh my god, what are you doing. Coffee? That was normal-people territory. That was sunlight territory. That was sit-across-from-each-other-in-daylight territory. Which was not where she was supposed to want him.

She shoved the thought down, scrolled back up to reread her own message in horror, then added a second one as camouflage, sarcasm her safety net.

[rumi] since u allegedly drink normal beverages like a human

There. Covered. A joke. Not a real invitation. Not a big deal. Just Rumi being Rumi. Except her hands were clammy and she couldn’t stop staring at the typing bubble coming back like it already knew her secret.

The typing bubble blinked. Vanished. Came back. Her heart felt like it had lodged in her throat, stuck between oh god oh god and don’t be weird about this.

[jinu] 9:15

She blinked at it. Nine-fifteen. Casual. Normal. Like this wasn’t insane.

[jinu] Stave & Stone

Of course. Not the grimy campus café with burnt espresso and sticky tables. The good place. The one Zoey said had lattes so sweet you could taste the tuition debt in them. Her chest squeezed tight.

[jinu] i’ll get there early so you don’t have to stand in line

[jinu ] (not a power move. just hate lines)

She sat straight up. Who said things like that? Normal boys texted “pull up” or “don’t be late.” Not… this. Not thoughtfulness disguised as casual. Her brain tried to file it under red flags and came up empty.

She slapped a hand over her face and groaned into her blanket. He was actually making her heart do this embarrassing flutter thing over a line . It wasn’t fair. She typed back fast, before she could do something catastrophic like confess she was already excited:

[rumi] so rich boy of u

There. Sarcasm. Defense mechanism activated. If she made it a joke, maybe her roommates wouldn’t notice tomorrow morning when she spent an hour trying on outfits for “just coffee.”

[jinu] i’ll have you know i’ve stood in many lines

[rumi] name three

[jinu] immigration
[jinu] ramen
[jinu] you

Her pulse actually stuttered. She typed blocked and didn’t send it. Typed i’m telling your father you said that and deleted. Settled for:

[rumi] disgusting

[jinu] get some sleep

[jinu] princess.

The word made something in her stomach cave. She glared at the ceiling, swore she would not fall asleep to a nickname like that.

She fell asleep to a nickname like that.

Her alarm said 8:00. Her body disagreed.

By the time she actually sat up, it was 8:12, which meant she’d been staring at the ceiling for twelve whole minutes trying to convince herself last night had not, in fact, happened. Except her phone was still on the nightstand, smug little rectangle of evidence, and the cedar smell clinging to the hoodie crumpled in her bag kept proving her wrong.

She dragged herself to the mirror. Mistake. Her eyeliner had lost its will to live. Her hair looked like it had been in a fight with gravity. Her mouth—traitor—was still tilted in that half-smile it had adopted somewhere between his last text and unconsciousness.

She splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth twice, and pulled her hair into something that technically counted as a braid. Then she layered yesterday’s black knit with a denim jacket, like if she stacked clothes she could stack identities too. Maybe this version of her was just a girl grabbing coffee before class. Not a girl who had texted coffee? like it was the most reckless thing she’d ever done.

Mira stirred first, emerging from a nest of notes with her hair in wild orbit. “Why do you look like you’re about to star in an indie film about yearning?”

“Library,” Rumi said automatically, zipping her bag. Then, against her better judgment, the truth slipped: “Coffee.”

Zoey sat up, messy hair haloed. “Objection. That is not a library fit.”

Mira slammed her textbook shut. “Sustained. Who are you meeting?”

“I’m not on trial,” Rumi muttered.

“You are,” Zoey said. “And you’re guilty.”

“Of what?”

“Of sneaking off to see your Mr. Super-Hot-Totally-Rich-Super-Respectful-Definitely-Not- Boyfriend,” Zoey recited like a prosecutor reading charges.

Mira leaned back in her chair, nodding gravely. “Honestly, the jury doesn’t even need to deliberate.”

The heat that hit Rumi’s neck was unfair. She shoved her charger in her bag with unnecessary force. “Goodbye.”

Zoey’s voice followed her out, sing-song and cruel: “Bring honor to our family!”

The hallway was mercifully empty, just the smell of burnt popcorn and detergent. She walked fast, sneakers echoing, hoodie in her bag like a secret. Her stomach twisted in the kind of tight, electric knot that could only mean two things: nerves or hope. She wasn’t ready to decide which one it was.

Stave & Stone was obnoxiously aesthetic for eight-thirty in the morning. Floor-to-ceiling windows, every table occupied by a stressed-out twenty-year-old in tactical athleisure, and a barista blasting synth-pop like it was already noon. The espresso machine hissed like it was holding secrets.

And, of course, he was already there.

Jinu leaned against the pickup counter like waiting was something he’d majored in. Black jacket, white tee, jeans that fit like a very specific kind of threat. He looked up as the bell chimed and his eyes found her instantly, no scanning, no hesitation. Like he’d just been waiting for her, and everyone else blurred into background static. Then came that smile — not the smirk, not the showy one. The real one, small and private.

Her stomach made an actual choice right then: crash or burn.

“I guessed,” he said, holding out a cup before she could even order. Warm cardboard pressed into her palms.

She blinked down at it. Brown sugar, oat milk, espresso. Exactly her order. Exactly.

“You remember my coffee order?” she asked, accusing like it was a crime.

“Of course I do,” he said easily, like it wasn’t even a question. “How could I forget? I send you DoorDash at least once a day.”

Her pulse did something stupid. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you liked me.” She tried to make it dry. Tried.

Jinu’s mouth curved. For a second too long, his voice betrayed him. “Maybe I do.” Then lighter, teasing, like he’d flipped the switch back to safe mode: “Or maybe I just have excellent taste in coffee.”

She hid behind the lid, heat crawling her throat. It was a joke. Definitely a joke.

Her chest disagreed.

“Thanks,” she muttered, hiding behind the lid.

Two music tech kids at a corner table did a double take, then another, then turned whisper-urgent when Jinu casual slightly, his shoulder cutting their sightline without ever touching her. Not touchy. Just… blocking their view. A move so subtle it could’ve been coincidence. Except it wasn’t.

“Sit?” he asked, tipping his chin toward a small two-top tucked behind a pillar. He didn’t say it like a command. He said it like she had the option to refuse. Which, frankly, was worse.

She nodded, trying to act like her pulse wasn’t staging a coup.

The table was scratched up from years of elbows and empty cups. The street outside was already busy. She fiddled with her lid so she wouldn’t talk first.

“How’s your morning?” he asked, casual, like they were normal classmates and not two people who had half-undressed each other with their voices the night before.

“Illegal,” she said, deadpan. “I don’t think time exists.”

His mouth curved. “You sound okay.”

She arched a brow. “Define okay.”

That grin widened — like he knew exactly what game she was playing and had already decided to lose it on purpose.

Then he pulled something from his jacket and slid it across the table. A folded printout. She opened it. Her class schedule. Highlighted blocks for her, different ones for him, little windows marked studio. At the bottom, he’d written: final due: May 26 — acap comp, complete with a tiny, terrible star doodle.

Her jaw actually dropped. “You did not make me a calendar.”

“Google did,” he said, unbothered. “I just… helped.”

“This is a hate crime.”

“You’ll thank me in three weeks,” he said smoothly. “Also, I penciled in two studio times for us. We can move them if you want, but I’ll pretend we can’t so you don’t bail.”

She glared into her coffee, because her face was already betraying her. “Blackmail and calendars. Bold.”

“You know that’s not what I’m doing.” His voice dipped — not softer, exactly, but steadier. A weight without being heavy.

Her throat pulled tight. “…I know.”

“Good.” He let the air breathe for a moment, then flipped the topic like a magician with a card trick. “The chorus—did you hear the breath I left in the second line?”

Relief hit so fast it was dizzying. “I thought you missed it.”

“Didn’t,” he said. “It’s the part where you sound like you’re pretending not to be wrecked. Which is better than pretending to be fine.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Wow. Low bar.”

He smirked into his cup. “I like you wrecked.”

Her foot kicked the table by accident. Coffee sloshed. He steadied her cup without touching her hand, then pulled back, like restraint was just another muscle he’d trained.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“Don’t be,” he said simply. “I deserved it.”

She looked at his mouth. Which was a mistake.

The quiet between them stretched, not awkward, just… dangerous. Polite coffee-shop quiet layered over a current she absolutely could not admit to.

“Question,” he said at last, tilting his head. “Can I touch you?”

Her brain tripped. “What?”

He turned his palm up on the table, not reaching across, just holding it there. Open. Waiting.

Suspicious, she placed her hand in his like she was checking for traps. His palm was warm. He didn’t move, didn’t close around her. Just let it rest there like it wasn’t a big deal.

The fizz under her skin doubled. Her face betrayed her immediately.

“That okay?” he asked, eyes steady.

“Yeah,” she said, then scrambled to add, “Keep it PG-13, though. This is coffee, not HBO.”

He smirked — tried to hide it, failed.

A couple of girls from Performance whispered violently behind the ficus. Jinu didn’t even glance their way. His thumb brushed the lightest, laziest figure-eight against the back of her hand, so faint she could have pretended it was her pulse. He didn’t look away from her face.

“Applied Composition Seminar,” he said, like they hadn’t just blown past three red flags of intimacy. “What’s your grade at right now?”

She groaned. “…Seventy-three.”

“We’ll get you to ninety,” he said.

“I don’t need ninety.”

“I do,” he said, like it was obvious. And the worst part was — when he said it, it almost made sense.

“Perfectionist,” she shot back.

“Possessive,” he corrected, mild as weather.

Her whole chest misfired.

“Of… tracks,” she said quickly.

“And other things,” he said, perfectly bland, like he hadn’t just lobbed a grenade under the table.

She narrowed her eyes at her cup to keep from doing something rash.

“We should go,” she said, mostly to save herself. “Class.”

“I’ll walk you,” he said, already standing.

And maybe it was the caffeine, or maybe it was just him — but for the first time in forever, walking across campus with someone felt like less of a performance and more of a promise.

They tossed their cups. Jinu kept her paper schedule like it was his now, folding it once with neat fingers before sliding it into his jacket pocket. A crime and a kindness in one move—like he knew exactly how to needle her and still make her want to do something ridiculous, like thank him.

Outside, the lawn was washed in first light. A gust cut through the quad and her denim jacket didn’t bother to pretend it could keep up.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.
“Cold?”

“No.”

He didn’t argue. Just shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders—quiet, unperformed, no theatrics. It smelled like cedar and something warm she wasn’t about to name.

“It’s not—” she started, because she felt like she had to, “—that deep.”

His glance was sideways, quick but direct, the kind that left no cover. “It is for me.”

Her steps faltered before she realized she’d stopped. He halted too, turning back like the idea of her freezing in place was something he’d already factored in. Nothing defensive in his expression. Just open. Present.

“Rumi?” His voice was low enough that it didn’t feel like it belonged to the morning air at all.

“I’m fine,” she blurted—the classic lie, the one that always came out too fast. “I’m—” Her hand sketched some nonsense gesture in the air. “—processing.”

His shoulders eased. He didn’t push. Didn’t smother. Just stood there with the jacketless curve of his frame and that steady, unnerving attention, like holding space was second nature.

She pulled in a breath that felt like it reached further than her lungs. The knot in her chest shifted, not gone but not choking her either.
“Class,” she said finally, sharp to cover the soft.

He nodded and fell back into step.

Outside the music building, he paused like he wanted to grab the door for her, then caught himself—hands sliding back into his pockets like he knew better than to touch doors that weren’t his yet.

“Tonight,” he said. “If you want. I’ll send a cleaner bounce. Promise—no dumb filename.”

“Liar,” she said, lips curving despite herself. “You’re genetically incapable of naming files like a sane person.”

The flicker of his mouth admitted it. “I’ll try.”

A professor passed by, clocked the two of them standing there, and immediately perfected the art of pretending he had never seen anyone in his entire life. Jinu’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.

“Go,” he told her, and it didn’t sound like an order so much as him wanting to be the last thing in her head as she walked away.

She rolled her eyes, because someone had to, and ducked inside.

When she glanced back, he was still there. Jacketless. Hands in his pockets. Grinning like someone had handed him the end of a song and he planned to play it until the walls gave in.

Her phone buzzed as the lecture hall swallowed her:

[jinu] i forgot to say good luck
[jinu] good luck
[jinu] don’t stare out the window and imagine me
[jinu] unless you’re going to text me about it

Her heart staged a full-scale protest. She slid into her seat, opened her notebook, doodled a treble clef—and promptly stared out the window like a hypocrite.

On the main lawn, he was already heading back toward the street. Jacketless, hair falling unfairly perfect, ignoring two girls who turned toward him like flowers tracking sun. He didn’t notice. Didn’t even lift his head. Just kept walking, and the thought stabbed her quick and uninvited—what the picture would look like if it was him and her side by side. Captions she wouldn’t get to write.

A sharp nudge to her arm. “Earth to Rumi,” Zoey whispered, leaning over from the next seat with her pen poised like a dagger. “Professor just said your name.”

Rumi blinked up at the front where her professor was staring over his glasses with the dry patience of a man who had seen a thousand crushes ruin fine counterpoints.

“Want to share with the class what’s more compelling than secondary dominants?”

“Nothing,” she said, flat, like dignity was a subject she still had credits in. “Just—nature.”

“Mm.” He turned back to the board. “Lydian is nature’s secondary dominant. Write that down. It’ll be on the exam.”

Zoey muffled a snort behind her hand. Rumi elbowed her.

Her phone buzzed against her thigh, criminal heartbeat.

[jinu] if you stare any harder i’m going to teleport next to you

She bit the inside of her cheek to kill the laugh and typed without looking:

[rumi] illegal. do not.
[rumi] also the professor just called lydian nature. pls pray for me

The three dots danced. She didn’t even need to see what he’d send. She already knew the rhythm: the world happening, and then him slipping a line into it that made her look at the same world and think—oh. there you are.

She glanced down at her phone, then did a double take:

[jinu] i like starting my mornings with you
[jinu] can i see you again later?

Her chest went stupidly warm. She locked the phone screen fast, like that would stop the words from glowing through.

[rumi] careful. see me too much and you’ll get sick of me.

The dots appeared almost instantly.

[jinu] never.

[jinu] seeing you is already the best part of my day.

[jinu] don’t make that face. i can feel you rolling your eyes.

Her pen tapped the page. The chorus tugged at her wrist like a tide. Her chest burned, her cheeks were wrecked, and she was still dutifully pretending to take notes.

[jinu] 5 o’clock? i’ll come get you.

She hated how warm it felt, hated it even more that she didn’t really hate it at all. If she was smart, she’d shut this down before it turned into anything. Instead, she kept smiling at her notes like an idiot.

Zoey leaned in again, voice low. “Is your demon boyfriend seriously texting you during lecture?”

“Not a boyfriend,” Rumi hissed, face hot, wiping at her smile like it might smudge.

“It’s not that deep,” Zoey murmured, wicked. “Right?”

“Shut up,” Rumi muttered, as she scrawled “resolve” in the margin, pretending it was about chord progressions and not about her own lack of it.

She buried her face in the crook of her arm like that could muffle the truth. He wasn’t her boyfriend. She wasn’t doing this. And still, when her phone buzzed again against her thigh, her heart had the nerve to leap first and argue later.

Chapter Text

The Sunday dorm quiet was fake-quiet. Pipes hummed like they were debating quitting their job, the mini fridge clicked awake every ten minutes, and somewhere two floors down someone’s bass speaker had been trying to murder Chopin for three hours.

Rumi balanced two grocery bags against her hip, nudged the door open with her heel, and nearly died on Mira’s mountain of sneakers in the doorway.

“Finally,” Zoey said without looking up from her laptop, spoon already in her hand like she’d divined snacks.

“Don’t touch anything until it’s put away,” Rumi warned, slamming the bags on the counter.

Mira swiveled around from her desk, highlighter between her teeth. “You’re smiling.”

Rumi froze. “…I’m not.”

“You are,” Zoey said flatly, taking a long sip from her water bottle. “The corners are doing the thing. I can see it from here.”

Rumi yanked out a carton of oat milk with unnecessary force. “This is my exhausted face.”

“Wrong,” Mira said, stretching like she was cracking her back after a long hunt. “Exhausted face has more death in it. This is…” She narrowed her eyes like a wildlife documentarian observing rare behavior. “Heart-eyes.”

Buzz.

Her phone rattled across the counter.

Both girls went completely still, then slowly turned their heads in unison like hyenas catching a scent.

Rumi lunged first, unlocking it before they could swipe it. Her heart was already in her throat.

[jinu] did you eat yet

She exhaled through her nose.

[rumi] stop monitoring my caloric intake, myfitnesspal

[jinu] you’re not denying it.

Her lips twitched, treacherous.

Mira leaned her chin on her fist. “He sent food again, didn’t he?”

“I’m sure he sends everybody food,” Rumi lied with the enthusiasm of a bad actor.

“True,” Zoey said, nodding sagely. “All of us, the nation, the planet. That’s why when I opened my email this morning it said, ‘UN relief—From Jinu.’”

Buzz.

[jinu] don’t make me send reinforcements

[rumi] relax. i ate.

[jinu] liar.

Buzz.

[jinu] check the door.

Her pulse jumped. She padded over, ignoring Mira and Zoey’s matching evil grins, and opened it to find a cardboard tray waiting politely on the floor. Steam curled up into the hallway like evidence.

Zoey clapped. “No way. Did your demon boyfriend just DoorDash you coffee?”

“He is not—” Rumi scooped it up too fast, shutting the door with her hip. “It’s just… caffeine. For survival.”

Mira leaned back in her chair. “Delivered to your door. Totally normal. Definitely survival, not courtship.”

She brought the cup to her lips. One sip and she almost hated him—brown sugar, oat milk, espresso, exactly her order. Exactly.

Her phone buzzed again.

[jinu] you’re welcome

[rumi] this is harassment

[jinu] this is care

Her chest squeezed. She set the phone down like it might burn her.

Zoey pointed with her spoon. “Admit it. You have a boyfriend.”

“Not a boyfriend,” Rumi muttered, cramming groceries into the fridge like she could shove the words in there too.

“Say it again,” Mira said dryly. “But with both eyes open this time.”

Buzz.

[jinu] i could get used to this

Her fingers fumbled, nearly dropping the phone. She locked the screen instantly, as if that could stop the words from glowing through.

Zoey gasped, dramatic. “Oh my god, he’s good .”

Mira whistled low. “He’s already skipping to vows. Do we get to be bridesmaids or is this Vegas style?”

Rumi dragged her hoodie sleeves over her hands, pressing her face into them. “You two are the actual demons.”

Buzz.

[jinu] don’t roll your eyes. i can feel it.

She smiled—helpless, traitorous—and typed without lifting her head:

[rumi] stop being ridiculous. i have homework.

[jinu] send me your song wip again

[rumi] no.

[jinu] cruel.

The cedar scent of his hoodie still clung to her, soaked into the fabric she’d “borrowed” without intending to return it. Every time she caught it, her brain betrayed her with playback: his hand hovering before touching, his voice saying okay? against her ear. He always asked. Of course he did. That was the part that drove her mad.

She shoved her phone under a stack of lecture notes, as if burying it would also bury him.

Zoey popped a chip in her mouth, victorious. “She’s gone.”

Mira nodded solemnly. “Funeral’s next week.”

By evening the fridge was overstuffed with kimchi and ambition, and Rumi had checked her phone so many times Face ID was ready to file a restraining order

Mira clocked it immediately, because Mira was a menace with eyes. “If you keep staring at your lock screen like that, it’s gonna unionize.”

“I’m not staring,” Rumi said, very busy arranging lip liners like a surgeon prepping for a marathon.

Zoey, starfished on the beanbag with a highlighter in her mouth and a worksheet balanced on her thighs, didn’t look up. “Translation: no text since the morning latte drop.”

“It was a delivery,” Rumi said. “Not a love letter.”

“Mm,” Mira said. “A delivery addressed ‘to: your favorite problem.’”

Rumi made a show of inventorying the stage bag: lashes, body oil, safety pins, charger, cash box, Advil, electrolytes, the good tape for ankles she pretended not to need. “We have a shift. I am focusing.”

“On…?” Zoey waved a hand at her face. “That is a full beat at 6 p.m. You usually do ‘suspiciously pretty’ at 9:55.”

“It’s called professionalism,” Rumi snapped, even as she curled another section of hair.

“It’s called six-two, dark, and disrespectfully cheekboned,” Mira corrected, swiveling her desk chair like a judge announcing the verdict.

“He’s not—” Rumi started, then stopped, because even she was bored of hearing it.

Zoey swung her legs off the beanbag and padded to the mirror. “Okay, materials check. Lashes: illegal. Dress: felony. Glitter: OSHA violation.”

“Makeup is PPE,” Rumi said primly. “And tonight I’m maximizing the bag.”

“Same,” Mira said, counting bills into a neat stack before tucking them into her garter. “I’ve got a lab fee that thinks it’s a mortgage.”

“Textbook capitalism,” Zoey sighed, then brightened. “But make it sparkly.”

They slid into their pre-shift rhythm without thinking. Mira posted the “on shift” message in the group chat with the bartenders and bouncers. Zoey did stretches that made her look like a smug cat. Rumi checked the set playlist and added two songs for second rotation—one for tips that rained, one for men who needed to be taught what rhythm was, gently and for money.

Mira stood, flicked a perfect wing onto Rumi like it was nothing, then leaned an elbow on her shoulder. “Tonight’s goals?”

“Bag heavy, ankles intact, no sprains, no creeps,” Rumi recited. “Hydrate, stretch, be a menace to the economy.”

“And?” Zoey said, sing-song.
Rumi capped the liner like it might explode. “And stay out of my head.”

Zoey tossed her a pack of gum. “Chew. You’re about to talk for four hours straight and pretend to be into guys who quote Joe Rogan like scripture.”

Rumi made a gagging noise. Mira snorted. “That should be illegal under workplace safety.”

“We’re not pretending,” Mira said sweetly. “We’re billing.”

Rumi snorted and slid into her slip, adjusting the strap with a twist of her wrist that looked accidental and was absolutely choreography. She shoved a certain cedar-scented hoodie into her bag—because apparently she was in the mood to play psychological warfare with herself in public.

“Boundaries,” Mira said, tapping her phone. “Two taps if you need me to swing by. Three taps and I grab a bouncer.”

“Copy,” Rumi said. “And if a man says ‘smile’ I charge him double.”

“Triple,” Zoey corrected. “Hazard pay.”

They moved as a unit—three women in mirror light who knew their angles, knew their worth, knew exactly where the exits were and how much a smile cost at different times of night. The air tasted like hairspray and victory.

Rumi’s phone buzzed. Every cell in her body turned its head like a dog who’d just heard a snack bag. She looked down. Class email. Not Jinu. Fine. Good. Fantastic. She was a professional with a job and a plan and no time for men with hands that knew what to do.

“Okay,” Zoey clapped once. “Roll call. We are not: falling in love, forgetting our rates, or catching feelings for anyone who says ‘bro.’ We are: gorgeous, expensive, and on time.”

“Yes, captain,” Rumi muttered, grabbing her boots.

Mira slung an arm around her neck as they headed for the door, neon nails flashing. “If Mr. Demon shows, we’re charging him for emotional damages.”

“Emotional damages don’t pay rent,” Rumi shot back, but her heart did the stupid little hop anyway. She told it to sit.

In the hallway, Zoey snapped her gum and cocked her head. “Okay, but if Mr. Demon does show tonight—what’s the move? We charge him double? Triple?”

Mira smirked. “Please. He tips like rent money. He’s exempt from all clauses.”

Rumi rolled her eyes, shoving her phone deep in her bag so they wouldn’t catch her checking it again. “He’s not even gonna be there. You two don’t even work my section, you’ve never even seen him. You’re building myths off half-baked anecdotes.”

“Which,” Zoey said sweetly, “is how history works.”

Mira added, “And gossip.”

Rumi pulled her hoodie tight, muttering, “I’m not doing this with you.”

“Mm-hm,” Zoey said, all teeth. “Tell that to your face the second your phone buzzes.”

Rumi pocketed her phone and locked the door. “Both of you shut up. We don’t pray for men. We pray for tips and stable ankles.”

They laughed all the way to the elevator. The doors opened; three girls stepped in and three professionals stepped out, faces set to “you can look, you can tip, you cannot waste our time.”

On the way down the steps to the street, Rumi made the mistake of glancing at her phone again. Still nothing. Good. Fine. She wasn’t waiting. She was… curious. Academically. As a scientist.

Mira bumped hips with her. “Hey.”

“What.”

“If he doesn’t come, it doesn’t mean anything,” Mira said, practical as a paycheck. “We go, we shine, we go home. You still win.”

“I always win,” Rumi said. It came out steadier than she felt.

“Correct,” Zoey said. “Because we make winning a line item.”

Outside, the air had that early-evening bite that made you stand straighter. The city threw up its neon, taxis yawned, the club’s block pulsed like a vein just starting to warm. Rumi tucked her chin into her collar and let the walk settle her. Work. Lights. Music. Muscle memory. The bag.

Her phone buzzed again. She didn’t look this time. Not because she was disciplined, but because she knew if it was him her face would do a thing and she refused to give Zoey the satisfaction of narrating it.

At the corner, Zoey looped an arm through hers and Mira’s, squeezing once. “We get in, we stretch, we triple-check our boundaries, we get paid.”

“And after,” Mira said, “we go destroy a plate of tteokbokki like it owes us money.”

“After,” Rumi echoed, letting the warmth settle into her ribs. She could do this. She had always done this. The rest—the cedar hoodie, the coffee, the way her stomach lifted when her screen lit—she could categorize later, file, ignore, burn.

“Last chance to admit you’re doing your hair for your demon,” Zoey said, grin feral.

Rumi didn’t miss a step. “I’m doing my hair for the economy.”

“Hot,” Mira said. “Let’s go stimulate the hell out of it.”

They crossed the street, three weapons with glitter triggers, and headed for the back entrance, shoulders loose, chins up, already laughing. Rumi felt the shift happen—the way real life slid off her like a coat and stage Rumi slid on, sharp and sweet and absolutely in control.

She didn’t need him there to be that girl.

She just… kind of wanted him to see her do it.

She told herself to shut up and pushed through the door into soundcheck.

The back hallway smelled like fog machine fluid and floor cleaner, the kind of cocktail that got into your hair and wouldn’t let go until you drowned it in shampoo. Music leaked through the walls in bass-heavy pulses, soundcheck running scales on the main system. Someone cursed cheerfully in Korean from the stage crew; someone else adjusted a light so harshly that the whole corridor flared white-blue for a second before settling again.

This was their habitat. Glitter on the air vents, lipstick prints on discarded water bottles, the faint buzz of adrenaline like static.

Mira tossed her jacket on a hook and stretched, spine popping audibly. “God, I love capitalism.”

Zoey already had one boot halfway laced, cigarette dangling unlit between her teeth for the aesthetic alone. “Tonight feels spicy.”

Rumi slid her bag into the corner of their dressing nook and pulled out her heels. She kept her face blank, professional, the way you did when you were trying not to admit you’d just checked your phone for the fourth time in three minutes.

“He’s not coming,” she told herself, not for the first time.

“Who’s not coming?” Zoey asked instantly, hawk-eyed even while double-knotting.

Rumi snapped her compact open a little too loud. “Tips. The economy. Basic respect for women.”

“Mm-hm,” Mira said, the kind of noncommittal that meant she knew exactly what you were deflecting.

The greenroom door banged open and two girls from the earlier shift slid in, still sweating glitter, laughing breathlessly about some bachelor party that had tipped in crumpled twenties. They gave quick waves before disappearing toward the showers, the scent of body spray and champagne trailing behind them.

Rumi exhaled, fixing her liner in the cracked mirror. Mira leaned over her shoulder like a stage mom. “Wings are sharp. Good. Nobody can say they didn’t get cut by the look alone.”

Zoey perched on the arm of the couch, tapping her Venmo screen like she was checking the stock market.
“Manifesting whales tonight. Not the cute ocean kind. The rent-paying, bottle-service kind.”

Mira stretched her arms overhead. “Amen. One drunk CEO and I’m putting ‘savings account’ back on my vision board.”

Rumi snorted into her compact. “Try ‘stable income.’”

“Try ‘sugar demon,’” Zoey shot back, all teeth.

Rumi pulled her hoodie tighter, muttering, “I’m not doing this with you.”

“Mm-hm,” Zoey said, all teeth. “Tell that to your face the second your phone buzzes.”

The greenroom filled with their laughter, the kind that loosened shoulders before the real work began. Outside, the DJ’s voice rose, the lights dipped, and the shift began pulling them toward the stage like a tide.

The bass was already rolling through the floorboards by the time Rumi slipped out of the greenroom. The sound lived in her bones whether she wanted it to or not — chest cavity rattling, heel tips echoing on the worn wood of the back hall, neon from the stage leaking in slats through the door like some radioactive glow.

She tugged her hoodie off at the threshold and hung it on the hook like it was an execution robe, smoothing the straps of her set across her shoulders. The glitter on her thighs itched faintly where she’d over-powdered, her lashes blinked heavier than she liked, and the nerves coiled under her ribs in a way she tried to tell herself was caffeine, not anything else.

Routine. That was the word. She had a routine. Shoulders back. Head high. Smile sharp enough to slice. Rumi had been doing this long enough to know how to slip her own skin on and off.

Still, as the curtain pushed open and the stage heat washed over her, she caught herself scanning the front rows. Too fast, too obvious. She dropped her gaze like she was fixing the strap of her heel. He wasn’t there — of course he wasn’t there. She hadn’t even wanted him there.

“You don’t need him to be that girl,” she muttered in her own head, stepping into the light. “You’ve always been that girl.”

The crowd roared like the house was full, the kind of Friday energy that promised bills folded sharp and tossed careless. A bachelor party hooted at the back, finance bros in pressed collars leaned forward like they had any chance, a handful of regulars tipped their heads back to catch her eye.

She gave them all the performance. The one she built. The one she controlled.

It wasn’t complicated — shoulders rolling into the beat, hair swinging like punctuation, the slow peel of fabric drawn out across counts she could measure in her sleep. She found the angles — not for a camera this time, but for the stage lights, which were just as merciless. She knew exactly where to turn so the glitter caught, where to pause so anticipation had time to ripen.

Her body obeyed muscle memory. Her mind… didn’t.

Half the time she was counting beats, the other half she was imagining dark eyes steady on her from the front row. She pictured him sitting the way he always did — elbows loose, no grabby hands, no shouting, just watching with that maddening calm that made her feel like she was being seen instead of consumed. She hated herself for missing it.

“Focus,” she hissed in her own head, rolling her hips in time with the bass drop. The cheer rose accordingly, a ripple moving through the floor. A guy in a backwards cap threw a wad of bills onto the stage like he was making an offering. She bent low enough to scoop them, hair swinging down, and pretended she didn’t feel how hollow it was.

Her job was to make them all feel like they were the only one in the room. Normally she could do it with her eyes closed. Tonight, her chest felt traitorously empty every time she remembered it wasn’t true.

A man leaned too close at stage edge, cologne too sweet, voice drunk-warm. “So what do you do outside of work? You wanna get out of here?”

She didn’t even hear the rest of his pitch — realized, with a cold drop in her stomach, that she’d been staring past him at the door. Waiting for a shadow that wasn’t coming.

Get out of your head. This is the job.

She snapped herself back, flashing the customer a grin sharp enough to make him sit down. She pivoted, hair catching in the light, let her legs do the talking. By the time the song cut, she’d managed to drag herself back into the skin she was supposed to wear. She bowed low, collected the bills, let the crowd think they’d won something.

Backstage again, she pressed her back to the wall and let her breath shudder out. Sweat cooled too fast on her spine, the glitter itch spreading.

This was fine. This was work. Nothing had changed.

So why did it feel like the stage was too big without him in the room?

….

The dressing room smelled like body spray and dollar bills — heady, too sweet, mixed with the metallic edge of sweat and stage lights. Mirrors ringed in bad bulbs, lipstick-stained cups sweating on counters, thongs hanging off the back of chairs like warning flags. It was chaos, but happy chaos: the kind that crackled after a good set, laughter bouncing between lockers, bills being fanned like trading cards.

Zoey was perched on the counter in full fishnets, smearing glitter balm onto her collarbone with the solemnity of a knight oiling armor. Mira leaned against the lockers, already peeling out of her last set and into the next, neon nails tapping a rhythm on the metal like a countdown. A couple of the other girls compared stacks, laughing at who’d gotten a finance bro to cough up the most.

Rumi sat in front of her mirror, lashes too heavy, cheeks still pink from the stage heat. She told herself to wipe the sweat off, fix the smudge under her eye, check the strap on her heel. She didn’t move.

Because every time she blinked, her head rewound to him.

Not just the studio — though that still haunted her ribs — but the text that had hit like a sucker punch earlier: seeing you is already the best part of my day.

Her stomach had dropped so hard she thought she might actually throw up, then done a mortifying little flutter as if her insides couldn’t agree on whether to flee or combust. Who said things like that? Who meant them? Certainly not men who were supposed to be nothing more than casual, surface-level, fun.

And yet, here she was.

Her brain replayed the way he’d said her name like it was something sacred. The way his thumb had drawn slow circles at her waist as if he had all night. The way she hadn’t hated it.

Her chest went tight. She told herself it was hunger. She told herself it was exhaustion. She told herself a lot of things she didn’t believe.

“Earth to Rumi.”

She jumped. Mira had appeared behind her, bent low enough to smirk into her reflection. “You zoning out or daydreaming about Mr. Demon again?”

“Neither,” Rumi muttered, grabbing the compact off the table like she’d been about to use it.

Zoey chimed in without looking up from her glitter. “She’s spiraling. I can hear it from here. Internal monologue at full volume.”

“I am not—” Rumi started, then caught sight of her own mouth in the mirror. The tiniest smile, traitorous, curling like smoke. She snapped the compact shut. “I’m fine.”

“Mm-hm.” Mira straightened, rolling her shoulders like she was about to walk onstage and own somebody’s paycheck. “Tell that to your face.”

Someone laughed from across the room, calling that a customer had just dropped rent money on a first set. The girls cheered, the sound rising like it belonged to a team that had just scored. Money flicked through the air, neon nails grabbed bills out of midflight, the room buzzing like champagne.

Rumi tried to join it. Tried to let herself ride the wave, talk about which regular was tipping heavy, which bachelor party was already sloppy drunk enough to be generous. She nodded, even laughed at one joke.

But her chest stayed too tight. Because all she could think was that she’d gotten used to one pair of eyes steady in the crowd, and tonight, they weren’t there.

She twisted the cap on her water until her knuckles whitened. Idiot. He was just another customer. Just another complication she didn’t have room for.

And then, clear as if he’d said it in her ear, that damn memory again: Never. Seeing you is the best part of my day.

Her throat ached.

“Hey.” Zoey’s voice cut sharp, like she was snapping her fingers. “You’re up in three. Stop brooding before your eyeliner melts off.”

Rumi blinked, shook herself, and grabbed her brush like it was a weapon. “You two are unbearable.”

“Correct,” Zoey said breezily, hopping down from the counter. “But at least we’re hot.”

The room laughed at some joke she hadn’t caught. She laughed too, late, hoping no one noticed.

But when she stepped out for her next set, her heart still stuttered at the empty chair in the front row.

…

By the time her set ended, her skin buzzed like it had been plugged into a socket. The crowd had been fine — good, even — cash heavy, energy high, cheers loud enough to rattle her ribs. It should’ve been enough. It always was.

But she hadn’t stopped scanning the room once.

Every time the stage lights shifted, she checked. Every time the door creaked open, she checked. And every time, the front row stayed empty where it shouldn’t have mattered at all.

She told herself it was better. Cleaner. He wasn’t here to make her heart forget what it was doing. She could get through the night on autopilot — heels, spins, hair toss, laugh in the right places, take the money and run.

Still, when she ducked back into the dressing room and peeled her lashes off with a sigh, her chest ached like it knew better.

The other girls were buzzing, swapping war stories about bachelor parties and hedge fund boys, counting stacks in the glow of bad mirrors. Mira waved a fan of bills like she was holding a royal flush. Zoey had an arm around two of the other dancers, laughing so hard she almost spilled her water.

Rumi shoved her hoodie over glitter-sticky shoulders and dug for her phone like it was just another prop. She braced for the blank screen. Braced for the quiet.

Instead:

[jinu] sorry i couldn’t come tonight.

Her breath caught like a rookie. She swiped before she could think better of it.

Another bubble blinked into existence, slow and maddening.

[jinu] did you miss me?

Her stomach swooped. She hated it. She loved it. Her thumbs hovered. Delete. Answer. Deflect. Her brain was screaming FWB, walls, distance. Her chest was doing cartwheels.

She typed fast, like speed could save her:

[rumi] of course not.

Send. Breathe. Done.

The dots danced back almost instantly.

[jinu] liar.

Her knees nearly buckled. She collapsed into her chair, hoodie hood yanked low, praying Mira and Zoey were too distracted to notice her face doing the thing.

Because she was smiling. Stupid. Small. Real.

She stuffed her shoes in her bag, tucked bills into the envelope slot, and kept her phone face-down on the counter like it might behave if she didn’t look at it. The locker room noise swirled around her — laughter, zippers, the hiss of a curling iron — but her pulse was tuned to a single glowing bubble on the screen she refused to check again.

….

The dorm room was too quiet when she slipped inside, the kind of silence that felt staged. Mira and Zoey had already collapsed—Mira starfished across her mattress with one sock half-off, Zoey curled into her fortress of pillows with a hand still gripping her phone. Their breathing filled the space, soft and steady, like proof that the world hadn’t actually tilted sideways while Rumi was gone.

She hung her bag on the back of her chair and peeled herself out of her clothes, letting the sequins fall into a heap like shed armor. The mirror caught her in passing: bare shoulders, flushed cheeks, the hoodie tugged back on like muscle memory. Cedar clung to it. His cedar. She yanked the hood up before she could think too long about it, then crawled under her blanket with her phone in hand.

Notifications waited. Her pulse stuttered before her thumb even unlocked the screen.

[jinu] hope you’re home safe.
[jinu] you didn’t answer, so I’m choosing to believe you missed me.

Her cheeks warmed before she could stop them. She typed fast, reckless.

[rumi] you’re delusional. i was busy.

The dots appeared instantly.

[jinu] busy ignoring me?
[rumi] busy working. unlike some people.
[jinu] you wound me. i work. constantly.
[rumi] mhm. front-row sitting is a full-time job now?

A beat. Then another bubble.

[jinu] not tonight. family thing.

Rumi blinked at the words. She read them once, twice. Family thing. He never talked about them. Not once in all their stolen hours and flirty texts. Not when he was pulling her into booths or calling her princess with that smug smile. Not even last night, when his voice had dropped soft enough to be dangerous.

Her fingers hovered. Too curious. Too close.

[rumi] oh. serious then.
[jinu] sometimes. but you’re still the highlight of my week.

Her heart betrayed her with a kick against her ribs. She buried her face in the pillow like that could muffle it.

[rumi] you’re unbelievable.
[jinu] i know. you keep telling me. yet here we are.
[rumi] stop texting like a hallmark card.
[jinu] you like it.
[rumi] do not.
[jinu] liar.

She bit her lip, fighting the smile. This was nothing. This was how friends texted. Friends who sometimes hooked up and occasionally wrecked each other in studio chairs. Friends.

Another buzz.

[jinu] when am i seeing you this week.

Her throat went dry. She typed slow.

[rumi] bold of you to assume i want to see you.
[jinu] bold of you to pretend you don’t.
[rumi] i have school. work. things.
[jinu] i’ll make time around them.
[rumi] stalker.
[jinu] persistent.

She rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. The chorus she’d hummed earlier ticked at her ribs like a metronome, tugging, tugging.

[rumi] you’re too much.
[jinu] you like too much. admit it.
[rumi] everything is fine. we’re just two friends being friends.

She hit send and wished she hadn’t. The dots flickered.

[jinu] sure. friends.
[jinu] friends i want to see. this week.

She groaned into the pillow. Her stomach did the humiliating swoop anyway.

[rumi] you’re impossible.
[jinu] and you like impossible. goodnight, rumi.

Her hand stayed on the screen long after it went dark.

She told herself she was only awake because of the shift, because of adrenaline, because of the noise still buzzing under her skin. She told herself this was not deep. Not dangerous. Just flirty text bubbles with a half-demon who tipped well and had the audacity to be nice.

She curled on her side, hoodie collar under her chin, and whispered the lie like a bedtime prayer. “Friends.”

Her chest disagreed.

By morning, the texts still sat at the top of her phone like they’d carved themselves into the glass .
friends i want to see. this week.

She hadn’t answered yet. Not because she didn’t want to, but because her brain had decided to treat them like an exam question: leave it blank until you’re absolutely sure, and in the meantime reread it seventeen times as if the wording might change.

She scrolled past them again, thumb too quick to be casual, and told herself it was just lack of sleep making her weird. Her shift had gone late, her legs still ached, and she had class at nine. Anyone would be zoning out. That was all.

Except she caught herself staring at the same page of her textbook for an entire ten minutes, eyes glazing over the phrase transformational acoustics while her chest replayed instead: never. seeing you is already the best part of my day.

Her pen drifted, unhelpfully, to the margins. Treble clefs. Half-baked staff lines. A lopsided heart she immediately blacked out into something that could, with charity, pass for a flower.

“Are you doodling like you’re in love?” Mira asked under her breath, leaning over just far enough to catch the mess on the page.

Rumi nearly snapped her pencil in half. “I’m not—”

“Mm,” Mira said, eyes already back on her laptop, smug as a cat. She didn’t need to press. She’d logged the evidence for later cross-examination.

By the time they trudged back to the dorm, Zoey was waiting with iced coffee and a grin sharp enough to kill. “She’s glowing,” she announced, as if Rumi weren’t standing right there. “Mira, note the phenomenon. Chart it, peer review it.”

“Wrong glow,” Rumi said flatly, grabbing the cup anyway. “It’s the overhead fluorescents.”

“Uh-huh,” Zoey said, unconvinced. “Totally the lighting making your cheeks do that. ”

Mira glanced up from peeling off her jacket. “Maybe it’s radioactive boy texting her again.”

Rumi shoved her phone deep into her bag before they could see the way her thumb had been hovering over it. Normal. She was going to be normal. She was going to do laundry, eat something cheap and greasy, ignore her phone until her thumbs forgot how to itch.

It lasted until dinner.

Mira was lobbying hard for ramen again, the conviction of a grad student about to marry her dissertation. “Salt cures all academic injuries. It’s science.”

Zoey groaned from the floor where she’d starfished across Rumi’s bed like she owned it. “If I eat one more cup noodle, my stomach lining is going to dissolve and I’ll die in a blaze of sodium. We’re going out.”

“Out where?” Rumi asked, already suspicious.

“There’s that new dumpling place off campus,” Zoey said. “Student discount, neon dragon sign, Instagram grid guaranteed.”

“I have homework,” Rumi tried. Weak.

“You have friends,” Mira corrected, swinging her bag onto her shoulder. “And friends eat dumplings together.”

Rumi opened her mouth, closed it again, and resigned herself to being dragged. Hoodie. Shoes. Bag. Normal. Just dinner. Just a night out.

The air outside snapped at their cheeks, the kind of early-evening bite that made you walk faster just to keep warm. The sidewalks were already thick with students spilling out of libraries and convenience stores, the whole city humming like it was clocking into its night shift.

Zoey and Mira filled the air between them with noise—Zoey griping about lighting cues, Mira ranting about a professor who thought “partial credit” was a myth—and Rumi let herself float in it. Neon buzzed overhead, shop windows threw warm rectangles of light onto the pavement, and for a minute she almost felt steady again.

Almost.

Her phone burned a hole in her pocket. Still unread. Still waiting. Friends I want to see. This week. What kind of line was that? Friendly? More? She kept telling herself she wasn’t curious, wasn’t interpreting, wasn’t doing the very thing she was doing right now.

“Hey,” Zoey said suddenly, snapping her gum. “You’re awfully quiet for someone allegedly not in love.”

Rumi blinked, shook her head like it might clear, and forced a smirk. “I’m thinking about dumplings.”

“Sure,” Mira said dryly. “That’s definitely what’s making your face look like that.”

They rounded the corner, neon glow from the dragon sign already visible a block away, and Zoey was halfway through plotting the order when she froze. One hand shot out like she was about to stop traffic.

“Don’t look now,” she hissed, “but I think we found your demon.”

Rumi’s stomach plummeted before she even turned. She didn’t want to. She had to.

Across the street, casual as anything, was Jinu. Jacket off, sleeves rolled to his forearms, bag of takeout hanging loose in one hand. He looked like he’d been illustrated by someone who had it out for her, sharp jaw catching the neon, hair messy in that deliberate way that meant it would look the same after running a hand through it ten times.

Of course he chose that exact moment to glance up. Of course his eyes found hers instantly, like she was the only person on the block worth noticing.

And of course—because he was the absolute worst—his mouth curved, slow and knowing, like he’d been waiting for her to notice.

“Oh my god,” Mira whispered, glee leaking into every syllable. “It’s him.”

“Abort,” Rumi hissed, spinning halfway toward the other direction. “Abort mission.”

Too late. He’d already changed course. He was walking toward them.

The sidewalk was suddenly too small. Too loud. Every sound in the city went tinny around the edges as Jinu crossed the street, easy in that way that made strangers step aside without realizing they were doing it.

Rumi muttered, “Don’t you dare,” but Zoey had already locked onto him like paparazzi.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Zoey stage-whispered, throwing an arm out like she was introducing royalty. “Mr. Demon has entered the chat.”

Mira elbowed her. “No, shut up—observe. He walks like he owns the block. Textbook predator stance. Document this for anthropology.”

“Document your face,” Rumi hissed, trying to steer them into the dumpling place before disaster could hit. But disaster was already halfway across the crosswalk with a paper bag of takeout and a smile aimed directly at her like he knew she was plotting escape routes.

Zoey’s jaw dropped so far Rumi considered closing it for her. “Excuse me,” she said, to no one in particular, “why did you not lead with the fact he looks like that.”

“I told you,” Rumi said through her teeth. “You don’t listen.”

“You said he was hot,” Mira corrected, voice sharp with triumph. “You didn’t say he was protagonist-in-a-billion-dollar-drama hot.”

“Same thing.”

“Not even close.”

Jinu reached them before she could deploy further deflection. He stopped just shy of her space, not crowding, not rushing, just—there. The bag in his hand smelled faintly of broth and sesame oil. His eyes flicked briefly to Zoey and Mira, then back to Rumi, and that was it. Like the others were background noise.

“Evening,” he said, voice low, easy. He held the bag up slightly. “Ran into you on my way back.”

Zoey made a strangled sound. Mira smacked her arm. Neither of them blinked.

Rumi wanted the earth to open, preferably under her feet. “What are you doing here?”

“Picking up food.” He tilted the bag. “What are you doing here?”

“Picking up friends ,” Mira said brightly, sliding herself into the conversational gap with the subtlety of a grenade. “Hi, I’m Mira. This is Zoey. We’ve heard so much about you.”

“You’ve heard nothing,” Rumi cut in, horrified.

“Correction,” Zoey said sweetly, “we’ve heard everything, because someone can’t shut up when she’s allegedly not interested. ”

Jinu’s mouth twitched, almost a smile, like he was enjoying himself too much to intervene. He nodded politely to each of them. “Nice to meet you.”

Zoey recovered enough composure to beam. “So you’re the famous coffee sender. Do you know how many oat milk lattes have mysteriously appeared at our door the last two weeks? At this point, the barista probably thinks we run a commune.”

Jinu’s gaze flicked back to Rumi. “Worth it,” he said simply.

Her stomach betrayed her with a flip so violent she nearly dropped her phone. “Don’t encourage them.”

“Encourage us,” Mira echoed, eyes gleaming. “Please, continue. We have bets.”

“You what ,” Rumi said.

Zoey grinned. “We weren’t sure if you were real or a delusion brought on by her work schedule. Now that you’re here in high-definition, I feel vindicated. I win twenty bucks.”

“I’m not a delusion,” Jinu said mildly.

Rumi groaned. “Stop helping them.”

He tilted his head, smile widening a fraction, and she wanted to scream.

Mira nudged Zoey, whispering way too loud, “He’s even hotter than we thought.”

“Truly,” Zoey agreed. “Congratulations, Rumi. Out of all the men who’ve ever bought you overpriced dumplings, this one’s a keeper.”

Heat crawled up Rumi’s neck. “We’re leaving.”

“We’re ordering,” Zoey corrected, already halfway through the dumpling place’s door. “And you’re standing here with your boyfriend.”

“Not my—”

“Spare us,” Mira said, following.

That left her alone on the sidewalk with him, the bag of food still in his hand, his gaze steady, soft, infuriating.

He didn’t move, even with Mira and Zoey leaning in like vultures waiting for scraps. Just that maddening calm, that soft-eyed look that made her stomach feel like it was on a trampoline.

“You’ve got terrible timing,” she muttered, trying to hold on to some semblance of control.

His grin flickered—sharp, knowing. “Or perfect.”

She hated that her face warmed at that. “Pretty bold for someone loitering in a noodle shop.”

“Bold’s efficient,” he said smoothly. “Saves me waiting around the club.”

Her pulse stuttered. He said it too easy, like it wasn’t loaded at all, and that was worse. She opened her mouth with a comeback—something cutting, something to flip it back—but what slipped out instead was:

“So… everything okay? With the… family stuff?”

For once, his smile dipped, softer at the edges, like she’d brushed against something that actually mattered. “Yeah. Just… a lot lately.” A beat, then the tilt of his mouth again, pulling the mood back up with infuriating ease. “But I’m good now.” His gaze slid down her face like he was cataloging her expression. “Better, actually.”

Her chest betrayed her. Again. She scrambled for sarcasm, heat crawling up her neck. “Smooth.”

“Truthful,” he countered, low and even, just for her.

Before she could say anything else, Zoey came barreling back with a plastic bag full of steaming containers, Mira trailing behind with another balanced on her hip. “We got extra kimchi pancakes—ohhh, hey, look who decided to grace us!”

Mira raised a brow, unimpressed but visibly intrigued. “So the myth walks among us.”

Rumi wanted the floor to swallow her whole.

Jinu’s smile flicked polite for them, private when it landed back on her. He straightened like he was about to go, and her stomach dropped before she could stop it.

“You’re leaving already?” Mira asked, dramatic as always.

“Duty calls,” Jinu said easily, slipping his hands into his pockets like it was nothing. Then, with a little crooked grin: “But dessert’s on me. Pick whatever you want.”

Zoey blinked. “You’re joking.”

He wasn’t. He pulled his wallet out like it was the most casual thing in the world, peeled off a bill that looked more like rent money than dinner, and held it out to Zoey before she could even process. “Split it however you want. Extra bingsu, extra cake—whatever keeps you three from starving.”

Zoey’s jaw hit the floor. “Sir. This is… this is dangerous behavior.” But she still took it, clutching the bill like it was a holy relic.

“Don’t encourage them,” Rumi hissed under her breath, but her face was burning because of course he’d gone and been a gentleman in front of them, making her look—what? Special? Owned? Spoiled? She didn’t know which option was worse.

He leaned a fraction closer as he passed her, just enough to make the air shift. “Later, bud.”

Her brain short-circuited at the casual drop of it, the absurd intimacy of turning her own deflections back on her.

The second he was out of earshot, Mira smacked her shoulder so hard she yelped. “Bud?!”

Zoey groaned, clutching the bill to her chest like she’d just been handed the crown jewels. “Girl. That man is halfway to buying you a house and you go and call him bud ?”

Rumi buried her burning face in the sleeve of her hoodie. “I panicked.”

“Unacceptable,” Mira declared, pointing with her chopsticks like a gavel. “We’re filing an appeal with the romance gods immediately.”

Zoey fanned herself with the bill. “Forget the gods. I’m buying bingsu with this money, and every single bite is going to taste like secondhand affection.”

Mira nodded solemnly. “Dessert of shame. Dessert of wasted opportunity.”

Rumi shoved them both toward the exit, mortified beyond reason. “He was being nice. You’re both insane.”

“He was being in love, ” Zoey shot back. “There’s a difference, and you’re the only one pretending you can’t see it.”

“Bud,” Mira repeated, shaking her head like she’d just witnessed a crime scene. “Unreal. Lock her up.”

Zoey raised her free hand in a solemn pledge. “I’ll take the bill into evidence.”

Rumi wanted to die. Instead, she shoved her hood up and muttered, “I hate both of you.”

They only laughed louder, linking arms and dragging her toward the street, their voices carrying like a chorus of chaos.

…..

The night air hit them like a slap and a hug—crisp, neon buzzing at the edges, the city already rolling on into its Friday mood. Zoey still had the bill clutched like a relic, Mira already Googling dessert menus on her phone.

“Bud,” Mira repeated, in case Rumi had thought she was done suffering. “Unbelievable. Like watching someone fumble a penalty kick in overtime.”

Zoey held the bill up to the streetlight like it was holy scripture. “Do you think this is clean enough to frame? Because I’m about to spend it on condensed milk bingsu, but spiritually—this is evidence.”

Rumi yanked her hood lower. “I hate you both.”

“No you don’t,” Zoey said cheerfully. “You love us. Also, you love your demon. Who,” she added, waving the bill, “just bankrolled our snack run. If that’s not modern romance, I don’t know what is.”

“It’s not romance, it’s bribery,” Rumi snapped, marching faster.

“Bribery,” Mira mused, tapping at her screen. “Effective. Efficient. And hot.”

“Illegal,” Rumi muttered.

“Hot,” Mira repeated, decisive.

Zoey snorted. “Okay, but let’s tally this. Coffee deliveries, mystery dinners, dumpling feasts, random rent-sized dessert donations. Babe, you are one frappuccino away from a full sugar-baby starter kit.”

“I am not—” Rumi spluttered.

“Mm-hm.” Zoey stuffed the bill in her bra like a mobster. “Tell that to my bingsu.”

By the time they stumbled into a twenty-four-hour dessert café, Rumi’s protests had been reduced to incoherent muttering while Mira and Zoey were already bargaining over toppings like international diplomats. The cashier stared at them with the glazed look of someone who had seen too many drunk students barter over whipped cream.

They carried their haul—a mountain of shaved ice drowning in fruit syrup and sweet red beans—to the corner booth. Mira stabbed her spoon into the mound like a flag. “This,” she announced solemnly, “is dessert of shame.”

Zoey toasted with her spoon. “To shame, bud.”

Rumi threw a napkin at her, which Zoey caught with ninja reflexes.

“Seriously though,” Mira said around a mouthful, “that man is gone for you. Like—poof. No return.”

Zoey leaned across the table, eyes sparkling. “And you’re gone for him, but you’re too busy pretending it’s nothing to admit it.”

“Classic Rumi self-sabotage,” Mira added, dry as salt. “If denial were a sport, you’d have a scholarship.”

“I am not—”

They both made the same face at her. The one that meant don’t bother lying, we live with you, we’ve seen the smile you try to bury in your hoodie.

Rumi gave up, burying her spoon in the ice like she could dig herself a grave.

Later, belly full of sugar and ego in shreds, she curled up in her dorm bed with the lights low, Zoey and Mira already drifting into their respective sugar comas. Her phone glowed in the dark, screen lighting up like it had been waiting for her.

[jinu] make it home alive?

Her lips twitched. She typed back:
[rumi] barely. cause SOMEONE thought three girls needed half the dessert menu.

The dots appeared instantly.
[jinu] no regrets.
[jinu] you smiled. worth it.

She huffed at the ceiling, then thumbed:
[rumi] i had dessert
[rumi] on you, apparently

[jinu] worth it
[jinu] they like me yet?

Her chest betrayed her with a flip. She stared at the screen like it was bait.
[rumi] …don’t push it.
[jinu] i’ll take that as a maybe.

She rolled onto her stomach, face buried in the pillow, thumbs still flying.
[rumi] maybe i just like free food.

[jinu] liar.
[jinu] you like me.

Her pulse ricocheted. She almost dropped the phone. She wanted to deny it, wanted to toss out something cutting, but her brain was already writing a dissertation: Exhibit A, the hoodie still hanging in her closet. Exhibit B, the way her heart kept sprinting ahead of her mouth. Exhibit C, this exact moment where she was grinning into cotton like an idiot.

Her thumb hovered, heat rising in her face. She almost sent something reckless, something sharp and suggestive, but she deleted it. Settled for:
[rumi] you’re insufferable.

Rumi’s chest betrayed her with a soft, traitorous ache. She stabbed at the keyboard.

[rumi] zoey thinks ur funding our future retirement
[rumi] mira thinks ur hot, which. rude.

[jinu] accurate
[jinu] you think i’m hot too

Her face went nuclear. She typed, deleted, retyped, then chose violence:

[rumi] i think ur bossy
[rumi] and u still owe me for the bruises from last time

The dots paused. When they returned:

[jinu] i told you
[jinu] motivated

Her laugh broke out too loud; she stuffed it into the blanket before Zoey woke up. She hated how easy he made this feel.

[rumi] u should see the way mira and zoey are narrating my life like im in a romance novel
[rumi] tragic heroine arc

[jinu] not tragic
[jinu] only heroine

The words hit too sweet. She squeezed her eyes shut, forced herself to reroute.

[rumi] sooooo
[rumi] what are u wearing rn

The pause stretched long enough that her brain jumped ahead to images she did not need at midnight. For a second, she thought maybe he’d play along. Then:

[jinu] a hoodie
[jinu] and the look of disappointment

Her laugh cracked out; Zoey mumbled something incoherent in her sleep.

[rumi] coward
[rumi] humor me

[jinu] sleep
[jinu] you have class tomorrow

Her thumb hovered. Of course he’d shut it down. Most guys would’ve sprinted straight into it. Jinu handed her a blanket instead of gasoline, and somehow that was worse—gentle, maddening, safe.

 She wanted to push again—make it reckless, make it easy, make it anything but this soft thing clawing under her ribs.

[rumi] bossy

And then—after a beat, like he couldn’t help himself—

[jinu] seeing you again this week is the only thing i’m looking forward to
[jinu] don’t fight me on that

Her throat went tight. She reread it until the words blurred, her smile fighting its way through her denial. She typed back, desperate for the armor of sarcasm:

[rumi] fine
[rumi] friends can hang out

[jinu] friends?
[jinu] okay, bud

Her face hit the pillow. Bud. She hated him. She didn’t hate him at all.

The morning started like it always did: too bright, too loud, and too full of other people’s alarms.

Zoey’s phone went off first, vibrating itself nearly off the nightstand with some pop-punk guitar riff that had been funny the first three days and now made Rumi fantasize about arson. Mira’s followed five minutes later—gentle chimes, as if pretending she was the kind of person who woke up to sunrise meditations instead of doomscrolling.

Rumi, predictably, had slept through both. It wasn’t until Mira launched a pillow across the room that she blinked awake, half-buried in hoodie and sheets.

“Up,” Mira commanded, hair already in a messy braid, highlighter tucked behind her ear like a soldier’s bayonet.

Rumi groaned into the pillow. “Define ‘up.’”

“Vertical. Breathing. Not doing that thing where you pretend you’re a tragic poet instead of a student with a quiz.”

Zoey rolled over, eyeliner still faint from last night’s shift, and smirked. “Our girl’s got reasons for being tired. Leave her alone.”

Rumi flung the blanket off her face. “No. Don’t start.”

Mira didn’t look up from rifling through her notes. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You breathed implication. ”

Zoey sipped from a water bottle like it was champagne. “You’re glowing.”

“I’m dehydrated.”

“You’re smiling.”

“I’m grimacing.”

“You smell like cedar.”

Rumi cursed under her breath, shoved past them toward the sink, and splashed cold water on her face like it could drown out the memory of last night’s texts glowing through the dark. Seeing you this week is the only thing I’m looking forward to. She had laughed it off— friends, bud, haha —but her chest hadn’t gotten the memo.

By the time she trudged into History of Something (officially: “Cultural Histories of East Asia,” unofficially: “Nap Time 201”), she was already in survival mode. The lecture hall was half dark, shades pulled, a documentary humming on the projector. Students had gone slack-jawed in rows, the air heavy with popcorn and cold coffee.

She opened her notebook, doodled a treble clef in the margin, and let her eyes glaze over. The narrator droned about dynasties and trade routes. Rumi’s brain did what it always did: rerouted to Jinu.

Last night’s banter replayed itself on loop, his words circling like gnats she couldn’t swat away. Only heroine. Seeing you this week. Don’t fight me on that.

She bit her pen cap. She was not—under any circumstances—going to let herself turn into one of those girls who got wrecked over some boy’s texts. Especially not a boy who could literally have anyone, whose money probably came with clauses, whose smile came with rumors.

Her phone buzzed.

She stared at it for a full three seconds before flipping it over, pulse climbing.

[jinu] not the club. errand run. come with me.

Her throat closed. That was not casual. That was not nothing. That was… a date.

No. Not a date. Absolutely not.

She typed with hands that shook more than she wanted to admit:
[rumi] not a date.

By the time the period was on the screen, the dots were already bouncing.

[jinu] sure. whatever you need to tell yourself.

Her head thunked softly against the notebook. The treble clef stared back at her like it knew.

She didn’t get to keep the panic private. Back at the dorm, Zoey caught her trying to sneak toward the closet.

“Where are you going looking like that? ” Zoey demanded, one brow climbing.

Mira looked up from her laptop, squinting. “Not class. Not work. Suspicious.”

Rumi froze with one shoe half-on. “Errand.”

Zoey’s grin spread like fire. “With who.”

“No one.”

“Liar.” Mira closed the laptop with ominous finality. “Phone. Now.”

Rumi clutched it to her chest like contraband. “Boundaries.”

“Boundaries are fake.” Zoey lunged, but Rumi dodged, shoving her bag over her shoulder.

“It’s not a date,” Rumi hissed, which was, of course, exactly the wrong thing to say.

Both of them shrieked. Actual shrieks.

Mira pointed at the door like it was a starting pistol. “Out. Go. Report back with receipts.”

Zoey shoved her toward the hall. “And wear lip gloss. You’re representing all of us.”

Rumi groaned, but her heart was already traitorously lifting. Not a date. Just errands. Totally fine.

Her phone buzzed again as the elevator doors slid shut.

[jinu] i’ll meet you out front.

She pressed her forehead to the cool metal, muttering to herself. “Absolutely not a date.”

Her smile said otherwise.

The mall wasn’t anything extraordinary—white tile floors, escalators that hummed too loud, fluorescent lighting that made everything look a little too awake—but walking into it with Jinu at her side felt like stepping onto a stage she hadn’t rehearsed for.

Clusters of students drifted like weather: hoodies half-zipped, tote bags stuffed with sheet music and half-broken umbrellas, couples orbiting bubble tea stalls. A toddler wailed heroically near the food court. Perfume spilled out of a glassy boutique in clean, expensive breaths. Over it all, the building’s climate control sang that specific mall note: recycled air with a hint of sugar.

“Errand run,” Jinu said, like a reminder to himself as much as to her.

“Not a date,” Rumi said immediately.

He nodded solemnly. “Not a date.” Then, without looking, he caught a sample-spritzer’s wrist mid-spritz before it could colonize her with citrus. “She’s allergic to being sticky,” he told the woman, unbothered, and steered them on. He didn’t hold her hand. He didn’t have to. Somehow the crowd made space for him and that space folded around her, too.

The anchor department store took up an entire wall of the mall like a polite monolith. Inside: bright, almost clinical. Mannequins with gently judgmental faces. A directory that could have been a floor plan for a minor airport.

“Beauty,” Rumi said, scanning. “Then stationery. Then out.”

“Conditioner and paper. Balanced diet.” His mouth tipped dangerous. “Lead the way.”

They rode the escalator to the beauty floor. Music thumped softly from hidden speakers. Mirrored pillars multiplied their reflections until she felt outnumbered by her own face. Across from a sea of lipsticks arranged by undertone, an attendant atomized a cloud of floral and apologized to the air for nothing. Rumi tucked a flyaway behind her ear and bee-lined for haircare.

Rows of bottles glowed under too-bright lights: keratin promises, bond-repair threats, “miracle” printed in three fonts. Rumi grabbed the plainest big bottle she could find, flipped it over, and did the mental arithmetic of coupons she didn’t have.

“Got it,” she said, victorious.

“Mm.” Jinu had drifted one step back, hands still in his pockets, reading labels like he was choosing a string quartet. “That one’s fine. This one’s better.”

He nudged a bottle forward with a knuckle; the price tag made her eyebrows attempt escape. “Relax,” she said. “I’m not trying to refinance my scalp.”

“The cheap one dries you out,” he said mildly. “You complain about static.”

“I do not complain,” she lied, thinking of the hoodie sparks that made her curse at the mirror for ten minutes. She shoved the budget bottle into her basket anyway and started toward checkout.

He moved without moving—just a small shift of weight that somehow repositioned the universe. “Get the one that works.”

“Sir,” she said, clutching the basket like a shield, “this is not a sugar daddy arrangement.”

He didn’t blink. “Then stop looking so good when you say you want things.”

She actually missed a step. Heat flared traitorously under her collarbones. “You’re—” she began, and then ended up with, “—annoying.”

“Observant,” he said, with the unshakable calm of a man certain of gravity.

Rumi exhaled like she could shove her pulse back into order and abandoned the standoff by marching toward the escalators. “Stationery,” she declared. “Paper doesn’t talk back.”

“Pens do,” he said. “When they scratch.”

He followed her up to the mezzanine where the department store pretended to be a bookshop. Shelves of journals. Color gradients of highlighters lined like soldiers. Little islands of overpriced desk organizers shaped like clouds.

Rumi made a beeline for a wire bin of no-name spirals—blue covers, flimsy coil, paper thin enough to ghost through to next week. She hefted one, pictured the cost of groceries, and nodded. “Done.”

She turned and found him two aisles over, crouched like a sniper in front of a display of notebooks that looked like they came with Latin incantations.

“No,” she said, preemptively.

He looked up without guilt. “You go through one a week.”

“Because I actually use them.”

“And complain about bleed-through.”

“I do not complain.”

He stood, already holding: a clean, soft black journal that would make even bad notes look intentional; a tin of pens with Japanese on the side; a little pack of staff paper like he’d planned a surprise attack on her music theory class.

She planted herself between him and the counter. “Sir.”

“Rumi.”

“This is hostile generosity.”

He angled around her, not touching, not even brushing, just… escaping her blockade like physics. “It’s stationery.”

The cashier tried not to gape when she clocked his face. Tried and failed. The beep of the scanner sounded like a cash register blushing.

Rumi swiped in with a rescue attempt. “Split it,” she said, dropping the ugly spiral onto the counter like a trump card.

Jinu slid it onto his stack without looking. “Consider it an investment.”

“In my handwriting?”

“In your brain,” he said, and there it was again—that stupid little tug under her ribs. He wasn’t smirking about it either. He looked like he’d just stated the weather.

He paid. Bags appeared. He handed one to her—a weight that said You now own nicer paper than your bank account deserves—and kept the other.

“I am carrying that,” she said, snatching the heavy one out of his hand before she could stop herself. “Equal rights.”

“Great,” he said amiably, and set the lighter bag on her other wrist until she was looped like a pack mule. The plastic handles bit into her skin. She refused to flinch.

They drifted toward menswear, then past it, their pace unhurried. The department store bled back into the mall proper—open atrium, glass railings, the sound of two different pop songs colliding from opposite ends like polite car crashes.

They didn’t hurry. That was what killed her. He didn’t move like he was trying to beat a meter somewhere. He walked like the errand was the point.

A record store spilled out into the hall with crates of vinyl and a college radio kid slicing a shrink wrap with reverence. Jinu’s eyes snagged on a display: a jazz reissue in a sleeve the color of old brass.

“You listen to this?” she asked, because the way his mouth softened said he did.

“Sometimes,” he said. “When I want to remember what restraint sounds like.”

Her breath hitched. The word did a strange thing to her spine. She was suddenly, violently aware of the bracelet of plastic bags at her wrist. The memory of his hand at her waist on repeat. Restraint.

She coughed and pointed at a display of ridiculous cat-shaped sticky notes like she needed to reset the universe. “Buying those.”

“For who?”

“Justice.” She peeled off toward the impulse-buy shrine, grabbed the little stack, and marched to the counter before he could preempt her card again. “Do not,” she hissed over her shoulder, “or I will flush your very expensive pens.”

He lifted both hands, palms up, in the universal sign for fine, have your victory. She paid. The cashier looked between them like she was watching a romcom and didn’t want to miss the trope cues.

Back in the atrium, the crowd chattered around them in overlapping circles. A trio of girls in matching scrunchies swarmed past smelling like strawberries. A kid in a dinosaur hoodie clutched a balloon like a trophy. Rumi shifted the bags on her wrists and tried to calibrate her breathing to the mall’s stupid, relentless optimism.

“Okay,” she said. “We have conditioner. We have paper and pens you’re not allowed to touch because you’ll hex them with wealth. We have sticky notes shaped like cats because I am a person of substance. Are we done?”

“Almost,” he said.

She eyed him. “Define almost.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he altered their route by a single, patient degree, nudging them toward the center ring of kiosks that colonized the atrium’s ground floor. The view opened: tiny jewelry carts, a phone case stand glittering like a disco ball, a booth selling personalized chopsticks that made Rumi’s brain malfunction a little.

They drifted down the wide steps. He stayed one step below her on the staircase without comment, an instinctive position that let him look back over his shoulder and watch for people not paying attention. She noticed. She didn’t point it out because pointing it out would turn it into something. She just let it sit there: the way he moved like her orbit mattered.

At the bottom, a kid broke free from a parent and cannoned past them with a plastic sword. Jinu reached out—quick, controlled—touched the parent’s shoulder, a warning without words. The kid missed Rumi by a foot and swung at a planter instead, triumphant in his near-destruction.

“Hero,” Rumi muttered.

“I just like my ankles unsliced,” he said.

They threaded the kiosks. The air thinned with perfume, metal, sugar. A woman at a phone case stand tried to sell Jinu a pink glitter shell with bunny ears. He considered it for a beat with an expression so neutral it bordered on art, then lifted an eyebrow at Rumi.

“You’re not allowed,” she said, struggling not to laugh.

“Too powerful?”

“Too cursed.”

He accepted the ruling and kept them moving. Their shoulders brushed and did not apologize. The plastic bag handles cut into her skin in a way that felt like proof she was awake.

“Hungry?” he asked.

She shook her head. “If I add food to this, I’ll die here. Buried with my cats.” She jiggled the sticky notes like evidence.

“Tragic, but on brand,” he said.

She almost said I like this, as if the evening were a taste and she could name the notes—soft, stupid, ordinary. She bit it back so fast it hurt her tongue.

They rounded a final kiosk and the center of the atrium opened full: a ring of glittering little carts, old-lady jewelers and student entrepreneurs sharing rent on a circle of shine. One booth shimmered a little more than the rest—velvet trays, tiny lights turned to flattering, and an older woman with a face like a fairy godmother who had decided to freelance.

Rumi didn’t see it at the same moment he did, but she felt the shift—the way his attention tugged ahead, subtle and certain, as if the next step had already been chosen.

She followed his gaze.

Gold. Stones. Bracelets fine enough to lie about their weight.

Oh no, she thought, and tried to veer left.

“Just looking,” he said mildly, which—coming from him—translated to I have decided something and you will catch up to it emotionally in fifteen to twenty business minutes.

She opened her mouth to object, and that was when the vendor’s voice rang out, clear as a bell and twice as decisive:

“Bracelet for your lovely girlfriend?”

Rumi stopped dead.

Her pulse did something catastrophic. She could hear the escalator humming, the soft clatter of a child dropping a toy, the sound of her own sanity packing a suitcase.

“We’re not—” she began, already burning.

The vendor beamed like she’d heard this argument a thousand times and had won all of them. “Ah, shy girl,” she said knowingly, pulling a tray forward. The glass caught the mall lights and threw them around like confetti. “Don’t worry. Many couples protest at first. Bracelet is good luck. Keeps love close.”

Rumi’s soul tried to evacuate her body. “That’s not—we’re not a couple.” She threw the words like a lifeline into the void, but the more she denied it, the stupider she felt, standing here with bags cutting into her wrists and a hoodie that still smelled faintly of him.

Jinu didn’t rush to correct the vendor. He didn’t even pretend to be embarrassed. He leaned an elbow on the edge of the counter like it was his natural habitat, calm as ever, and said, “Which one do you recommend?”

Rumi’s head snapped toward him. “Excuse me?”

The vendor, delighted, lifted a velvet pad lined with delicate chains—silver, gold, braided thread with tiny charms. “This one. For luck in studies. This one, for health. This one—” She tapped a thin gold bracelet with a small stone that shimmered faintly in the artificial light. “—for protection. Perfect for your girlfriend.”

Rumi sputtered. “I’m not—”

“Of course,” Jinu said smoothly, ignoring her like she was background noise. He pointed to the gold one, eyes glinting when he looked at Rumi. “That one.”

The vendor wrapped it in tissue paper with reverence. Rumi stood there uselessly, cheeks wrecked, while Jinu pulled out his wallet like this was the most obvious errand in the world.

“Stop,” she hissed, grabbing at his sleeve. “You can’t just—”

“Why not?” He looked down at her, expression maddeningly innocent. “It’ll suit you.”

Her pulse betrayed her with a kick. “It’s—expensive.”

“Mm.” He slid a card across the counter without blinking. “So are you.”

The vendor laughed out loud. “Smart man.”

Rumi wanted the floor to open. She wanted to climb into the floor drain and live there forever. Instead she stood frozen while the bag was handed over, tissue-wrapped bracelet inside, and Jinu thanked the woman with the easy politeness of a man who had never once been flustered in his entire life.

And then, as if she weren’t already clinging to her last shred of composure, he turned to her, tugged the tissue open, and held out the bracelet. “Wrist.”

She recoiled a half step. “No. Absolutely not. I am not wearing your mall jewelry like some—”

“Like some what?” he asked, voice too soft. He didn’t push closer. He just stood there, palm up, bracelet balanced across it like an offering. “It’s not a contract. Just gold.”

Her throat closed. She hated that part of her wanted to hold out her wrist, wanted to see how his face would look when he fastened it.

“No,” she said again, but it came out weak.

He leaned down a little, close enough that she felt the warmth of his words by her ear. “Babe,” he said, smug and slow, like he’d just decided to ruin her life with one syllable.

Her ears went hot enough to fry something. “You—” she stammered, and the laugh that broke out of her was helpless, high-pitched, not the sound she’d meant to make at all.

“Mm?” His smile went crooked, dangerous. He slipped the bracelet around her wrist before she could react. The clasp clicked. Done.

She stared at it, stunned. It was simple—thin, gold, the little stone catching light. But her pulse fluttered against it like it was the only thing holding her together.

“You can take it off later if you hate it,” he said, stepping back, all false reasonableness. “For now, humor me.”

Her chest tugged, sharp and sweet. Humor him. Like this was just another errand. Like he hadn’t just branded her in public in front of mall-goers and old ladies and the gods themselves.

She lifted her arm, stared at it like maybe it was radioactive. “You’re impossible.”

“Observant,” he said again, the word soft as a smile.

The vendor, satisfied, moved on to the next couple. Rumi and Jinu drifted away into the tide of shoppers, the bracelet catching every light like a small, traitorous flare.

Her heart wouldn’t settle. Every time the stone shifted against her skin, she remembered the way he’d said babe, like he hadn’t needed to think about it. Like it had been sitting in his mouth all along, waiting for the right second to burn her down.

She tried to cover it with sarcasm. “You’re enjoying this.”

He didn’t even deny it. “Mm.”

“Unbelievable.”

“You didn’t take it off,” he noted mildly.

She glared at him, bracelet glittering. “That’s because I don’t have scissors.”

He laughed, low and unbothered, and somehow that was worse—that sound wrapping around her like it had all the time in the world.

They passed a group of teenagers lined up outside a sneaker drop, phones held high, chattering in bursts. The air smelled like cinnamon pretzels and overpriced ambition. Rumi kept her eyes forward, but every step she felt the weight at her wrist like a pulse.

And under it, the thought she refused to say out loud: she could get used to this.

They drifted with the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, the mall’s tide carrying them past neon signs and racks of impulse buys. Rumi tried to look anywhere but at her wrist, but the thing sparkled like a traitor under the fluorescent lights.

Every step it reminded her: he’d fastened it. He’d called her babe in public. He’d spent money like it was air, like buying her jewelry was just a natural part of existing. And she hated—hated—how her chest kept doing that stupid tight ache thing every time the stone caught a new light.

“You know people are staring,” she muttered, keeping her eyes locked on a kiosk overflowing with phone cases shaped like cartoon characters.

“They were staring before,” Jinu said simply, hands in his pockets. “Now they have a real reason to.”

Her head snapped toward him. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t even bother looking smug. Just walked easy, eyes ahead, like he was talking about the weather. “You think you’re subtle. You’re not. You light up a room. You always do.”

Her laugh came out brittle. “Wow. Somebody practiced that in the mirror.”

“Not once,” he said, and the softness in his tone nearly undid her.

She ducked into the next aisle like the crowd might hide her. Household appliances gleamed under the harsh light: blenders, humidifiers, electric kettles lined up like soldiers. Rumi stared at a rice cooker until her reflection stared back. She looked wrecked. Pretty, maybe, but wrecked.

“Why are we here again?” she asked, desperate to reset. “I agreed to an errand, not an emotional ambush.”

Jinu shrugged, gaze flicking over the displays. “Thought you said you needed notebooks.”

She did. But standing here beside him, the word need had shifted into something bigger, heavier, harder to say out loud.

He picked one up from a nearby shelf, flipping it open. The fluorescent lights carved shadows across his cheekbones, his lashes lowering as he inspected the paper like it was a song he meant to memorize. “This one.”

She blinked. “You don’t even know what I like.”

“I pay attention.” He closed it, placed it in her hand. “You like thick paper. You press too hard with your pens.”

Her throat dried up. He wasn’t wrong.

“Congratulations,” she said weakly. “You cracked the code.”

He tilted his head, finally looking at her. His expression was calm, but there was something behind it—something she couldn’t name without wanting to run. “I like that you care about the details.”

For a moment, the mall blurred. Just his voice, his face, and the bracelet cooling against her wrist like proof.

She shoved the notebook back onto the shelf. “You’re exhausting.”

His smile widened, patient as gravity. “And yet.”

They wove back into the current of shoppers. A group of kids ran past trailing balloons; a couple argued softly over dinner plans; a man balanced three shopping bags and a latte, looking like his soul had long departed. Rumi breathed in the noise, let it settle like armor.

But when she glanced sideways, Jinu wasn’t looking at any of it. His gaze had snagged somewhere else—on a little boy tugging his mother toward a toy store. The kid bounced on his toes, full of sugar and excitement. The mom laughed, ruffled his hair, and let herself be dragged inside.

Something in Jinu’s face went still. Not sad exactly. Just… still.

Rumi slowed, instinct tugging at her ribs. “What?”

He blinked, like he hadn’t realized she’d noticed. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

He exhaled, looked away, but not before she caught it again—the flicker of distance, the way his eyes stayed on the family until they disappeared into the shop.

“I don’t—” He stopped, shoved a hand through his hair, almost irritated with himself. “I didn’t grow up with that. The easy stuff. Family dinners. Errands. Arguing about nothing. Even now… it’s not what people want from me.”

Rumi’s chest tightened. She clutched her bag strap harder, like it could keep her steady. “You mean—because of the money?”

“And the demon thing,” he said dryly. Then, softer: “But yeah. Mostly the money. Makes people strange. Makes them want something. I stopped… expecting anything else a long time ago.”

Her mouth opened, then shut again. What could she say to that? That she got it, at least a little? That she’d grown up without a mom, raised by someone who loved her but didn’t know what to do with her, and that it left a hunger no amount of glitter or applause could fill?

The words pressed against her teeth and stayed there.

Instead she managed, “That sucks.”

The corner of his mouth curved, not happy, but touched. “Succinct.”

“Want me to write you a sonnet about it?” she shot back, too sharp, because the ache in her chest felt dangerous.

“Yes,” he said, deadpan. “As long as it's in MLA format.”

Her laugh escaped, too sudden, and she hated how much it helped.

But when their hands brushed a second later—light, accidental, skin to skin—neither of them pulled away fast enough.

Her pulse went haywire. She snatched her hand back like it had burned, shoved it into her pocket, forced out: “You’re buying the next stop too, big spender.”

“Gladly,” he said, voice too even, too soft.

And the way he looked at her then—like the bracelet on her wrist wasn’t a joke, like the whole mall could fall away and it still wouldn’t distract him—made her want to both run and stay, at the same time.

They didn’t talk about the hand thing. Not directly.

But the silence after it had edges, softer ones, the kind that made her hyperaware of everything—the shuffle of shoes against tile, the fluorescent hum, the faint cedar still clinging to his hoodie.

They drifted into another wing of the mall almost by accident. This one glittered—rows of mannequins standing stiff in their curated outfits, racks of clothes in colors that belonged on magazine spreads, not on college students who rationed their laundry quarters.

Rumi slowed, then stopped, staring at a rack halfway down. The fabric shimmered, not sequins exactly—just the kind of sheen that caught light when you moved. A slip dress, bias cut, draped like water.

“Oh my god,” she muttered before she could stop herself. “They have it.”

Jinu followed her gaze. “That?”

“That,” she confirmed, trying and failing to sound casual. “I’ve been stalking it online for months. It always sells out.”

He glanced at the price tag like it was printed in another language, then back at her. “So try it.”

“I don’t need it,” she said quickly, already defensive. “I’d just… ruin it at the club.”

“You’d look good in it outside the club.” His tone was maddeningly matter-of-fact. “That’s the point.”

Her throat went dry. “Outside the club I live in hoodies.”

“Then you need balance,” he said, already plucking her size from the rack like he worked here. He held it up, the fabric pooling over his arm like liquid silver. “This is balance.”

She blinked at him. “You cannot just decide I need balance.”

“I can when you spend ninety percent of your money on work clothes,” he said evenly. “Not fair. You deserve to feel good when no one’s paying you for it.”

Her chest lurched. “You don’t even know what I spend my money on.”

He tilted his head. “Rumi. You’ve said it yourself—you hustle. Rent, books, tuition, shifts until your knees give out. You take care of everybody else. When do you take care of you?”

The question landed harder than it should have. She snatched the dress from his arm like she might shield it from his gaze. “I’m not trying it on.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are,” he said, calm as gravity, “or I’m buying it blind and guessing your size.”

Her brain did the slot machine thing again. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

The stupid part? She believed him.

Ten minutes later, she was in a dressing room, staring at herself under bad fluorescent lights, the dress skimming her body like it had been waiting. She hated how her pulse stuttered. She hated more how badly she wanted to show him, even as the thought made her want to crawl out of her skin.

When she emerged, he was leaning against the wall, phone in hand, looking like patience personified. His eyes lifted, locked on her, and then—

—he straightened, just a fraction.

Rumi fidgeted, tugged at the strap. “It’s fine.”

“It’s better than fine.” His voice had gone low, even. “Turn.”

She rolled her eyes but turned. Slowly.

The mirror across the aisle caught him watching her like she was the only thing in the store. It did something reckless to her ribs.

“See?” he said, softer now. “You forget how to look at yourself when you’re not working.”

Her throat closed. “That’s—” She cut herself off, because he wasn’t wrong.

He didn’t press. Just smiled, small and stupidly gentle. “Keep it.”

She shook her head fast. “Absolutely not. It’s, like, rent.”

“Then call it an advance,” he said. “On the next time you drive me insane.”

Her laugh cracked out, nervous and bright. “So forever?”

“Forever works,” he said, and his smile sharpened just enough to make her knees wobble.

They started walking again, the mall hum settling into a background lull. She thought maybe that was it, that they could just leave with her dignity still intact. But of course, Jinu wasn’t built for mercy.

“Well,” he said as they passed another glossy storefront, “now you’ll need shoes.”

She stopped short. “Excuse me?”

He gestured lazily toward the display—heels, strappy and impossible, balanced like art. “You can’t wear that dress with beat-up work boots. It deserves better.”

Her jaw dropped. “I literally own two pairs of shoes. That’s it. And you know what? They function. They get me from Point A to Point B.”

“Point A to Point B is not an aesthetic,” he said smoothly. “Try again.”

She groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “This is becoming an actual intervention.”

“Correct,” he said, utterly unbothered. “Intervention: footwear edition.”

Against her better judgment, she let herself be herded inside. Ten minutes later, she was perched on a velvet stool while a sales clerk brought out pairs she had only ever seen on Instagram influencers.

“These are crimes,” she hissed, trying on a black pair that made her calves look illegal. “They should come with bail money.”

“They come with me,” Jinu said, lounging back in the chair opposite, watching her like she’d hung the moon.

Her throat tightened. She kicked off the shoe before she could combust. “Nope. Next.”

But the next pair was worse—sleek, pointed, red enough to start fights. She stared at herself in the mirror and hated how good she looked.

“Rumi,” Jinu said softly, like the name itself was a verdict. “Outside the club. Outside the grind. That’s you too.”

Something hot and treacherous slid down her chest. She shook her head, too sharp. “I live in hoodies. That’s my outside-the-club vibe. Hoodies and messy buns and ramen stains.”

“Then we’ll fix that too,” he said, already standing, nodding toward the escalator that led to women’s apparel. “Shoes need pants. Pants need tops. Balance, remember?”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh my god. You’re staging a full-scale renovation.”

“Correct again,” he said, grin flickering. “Consider it… catching you up.”

She snorted. “Catching me up to what? Your rich demon tax bracket?”

“To yourself,” he countered easily. “The version of you that doesn’t bury everything under layers and call it survival.”

Her chest ached. She opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again, and settled on glaring. “You are out of control.”

“And you look good when you’re mad at me,” he said lightly, ushering her onto the escalator.

The next half hour blurred—tops she swore she’d never wear but secretly adored, pants that actually fit, a jacket that felt like armor but looked like sin. Each time she tried to argue, he deflected with the same infuriating calm: you deserve this. stop fighting me for the sake of it.

By the time they hit the register, her arms were loaded again. Bags cut into her fingers, heart cut into something softer.

“This is too much,” she muttered, voice low as they left the store.

“Not enough,” he said, just as low.

She swallowed, hard, and tried to laugh it off. “You’re a menace.”

“Maybe,” he said, glancing at her sidelong, eyes sharp and warm all at once. “But you’ll thank me when you realize hoodies aren’t the only thing you get to live in.”

Her stomach flipped. Dangerous, treacherous, impossible. She clutched the bags like they might ground her.

Each time, he added something, easy and unbothered, like spoiling her wasn’t spoiling—it was just… breathing.

Something had shifted. She could feel it in the weight of the dress, in the phantom feel of those shoes, in the way he’d said outside the grind like it mattered. Like she mattered.

And for once, she didn’t immediately slam the door on the thought.

The escalator hummed beneath them, carrying them down toward the parking garage. Rumi shifted the bags on her arms, scowling at them like they’d committed crimes.

“This is obscene,” she muttered. “I look like I just knocked over a department store.”

“You look like someone who knows her worth,” Jinu said, too smooth, and she nearly tripped on the last step.

“Stop saying things like that,” she snapped, because her chest couldn’t take it.

“Not my fault the truth offends you,” he replied mildly, pressing his hand against the sensor pad at the exit door and holding it for her like he hadn’t just detonated a mine in her ribcage.

The garage air hit cool and sharp. He guided her toward a sleek black coupe parked near the corner. Not the gleaming chauffeured monstrosity she’d expected, but a car that looked lived in—scuff marks on the driver’s-side mat, a music store receipt shoved half-under the console.

Her brows lifted as he unlocked it. “You drive yourself?”

He shot her a look over the roof as he tossed the shopping bags into the back seat. “What, I don’t look capable?”

“You look…” she hedged, sliding into the passenger seat, “like someone who pays people to hold open their chopsticks.”

His laugh cracked out, low and real. “Disappointing, isn’t it? Just me. No entourage. You’re stuck with the manual version.”

The engine purred to life, smooth as his voice. They pulled out of the garage, neon bleeding past the windshield like watercolor. Rumi sat with her hands knotted in her lap, hyperaware of the new clothes in the back seat and the stupid ache in her stomach that wouldn’t quit.

He drove easily, one hand on the wheel, the other loose against his thigh. She tried not to watch it. Tried not to think about that hand higher, lower, anywhere else—

“Don’t,” she muttered under her breath, glaring out the window.

“Don’t what?” His voice was casual, but she could feel the smirk.

“Don’t sit there being…” She gestured helplessly. “All—driving with one hand like you’re in a commercial for bad decisions.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating low in his chest. “Maybe I’m just making sure you watch me.”

Her face flamed. She shot him a look sharp enough to cut glass. “I am not watching you.”

“Liar,” he said easily, eyes still on the road.

Silence fell heavy, broken only by the steady tick of the turn signal. Her pulse thrummed harder than the engine. She shifted in her seat, dragging her hoodie up over her mouth like maybe fabric could smother the whole situation.

“Comfortable?” he asked after a beat, tone deceptively polite.

“No.”

“Good,” he said. “Then we’re even.”

She barked a laugh, more nervous than she meant it to sound. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you,” he said, stealing a glance at her, “are beautiful.”

Her breath snagged. He said it like a weather report, factual and unflinching. She had no defense for that.

She turned toward the window, muttering, “You’re going to crash if you keep looking at me.”

“I’d die happy,” he said simply.

Her stomach did a violent somersault. She gripped the seatbelt like it might hold her to earth.

They hit a red light. The car slowed, idled. Neon washed over the dashboard in bruised colors. He rested his elbow on the wheel, turned his head just enough that she felt the weight of his gaze.

“You’re quiet,” he said softly.

She licked her lips, throat dry. “Just… tired.”

“Of me?”

She should’ve said yes. Should’ve made a joke. Instead, her voice betrayed her, low and honest: “Never of you.”

Something shifted in the air. He reached out, slow, deliberate, and brushed a thumb across her jaw, just once. Then the light flicked green and his hand dropped back to the wheel, leaving her skin tingling like he’d branded her.

The silence after was dangerous. Spicy. Heavy with things she didn’t want to name.

She cleared her throat, scrambling. “You didn’t tell me what’s going on with your family.”

He stilled for half a beat, then exhaled. “Later.”

The word hung between them, thick with promise and weight. Later. Like he meant it. Like he wanted to give it to her but not here, not while traffic hemmed them in and temptation sat less than a foot away.

“Fine,” she muttered, but the ache in her chest wouldn’t settle.

He smiled faintly, lips curving like he’d heard the ache anyway. “Don’t pout. You’ll ruin me.”

Her laugh cracked out, startled and sharp. “You’re already ruined.”

“By you,” he said simply, and the way he said it—light, but not—made her hands shake all over again.

The campus lights blurred closer, pools of gold breaking up the dark. Too soon. She wasn’t ready for this ride to end, wasn’t ready to walk into her dorm with her bags and her stupid hoodie and pretend she hadn’t spent the evening being treated like something rare.

He slowed into the lot, wheels crunching over gravel at the edges. The radio was still off. No filler noise, no distraction—just the sound of her own pulse ticking too loud in her ears.

When he cut the engine, silence roared.

“You don’t have to walk me in,” she said quickly, staring hard at the brick facade of her dorm. “I can carry my own bags. Independent woman. All that.”

His brow quirked, the streetlight catching the arch of it. “That so?”

“Yes.” Her hands tightened in her lap. “Completely self-sufficient. Capable of toting my own emotional baggage and department store bags.”

“Impressive résumé,” he said, voice dry. He didn’t move to unlock her door. Just sat there, angled slightly toward her, one arm slung over the steering wheel like he wasn’t in a rush to go anywhere.

The bags rustled in the back seat when she shifted. Her throat felt scraped raw. “What.”

“You’re still quiet.” His tone was even, soft. “When you’re usually mouthy by now.”

She glared. “Don’t call me mouthy.”

“You prefer irresistible?”

Her chest went hot. “I prefer nothing.”

“Liar.”

The word landed like a touch. She turned toward the window, but he didn’t let her get far. He leaned closer across the console, the low light painting his jaw in sharp edges, his eyes darker than the night outside.

She felt it before she saw it—the way the air pressed in, thick, charged, like the second before a storm broke.

“Jinu,” she said, warning. It came out thinner than she meant.

“What,” he murmured. Close enough she could feel the word against her cheek.

Her hand curled around the seatbelt, knuckles white. “This is… stupid.”

“Everything worth doing usually is.” His breath brushed her skin, not quite a kiss, just enough to scatter her thoughts.

Her laugh was shaky, betraying. “That’s not even a good line.”

“Didn’t need to be,” he said, and there it was again—that dangerous, steady certainty that made her want to believe him even when she knew better.

The car had gone too still. She could hear her own heartbeat in the quiet. She should’ve opened the door. Should’ve made a joke and escaped while she still had air in her lungs. Instead, she tilted toward him, helpless as gravity.

“Rumi,” he said softly, like he was giving her one more out.

She swallowed. Didn’t take it.

The kiss broke the quiet open. Slow at first, testing, then sharp enough to make her hands fist in his shirt. He tasted like the candy they’d split earlier, sugar over something warmer. His fingers slid up into her hair, steady and unhurried, like he had all night.

When she pulled back for air, she hated the sound she made. Small. Wanting.

“You should—” she started, then stopped, because she couldn’t remember the rest of the sentence.

“I should,” he agreed, forehead still against hers. He wasn’t moving.

She laughed, wrecked and nervous. “This is—my roommates—”

“They’re not here yet,” he said, like he’d already done the math. His hand traced the edge of her jaw, the corner of her mouth. “Come upstairs with me.”

Her pulse skittered. “You say that like you’re not going to ruin me.”

His smile was sharp, but his voice stayed soft. “Not ruin. Never ruin. Just you and me. For once.”

Her grip loosened on the seatbelt. She breathed once, twice. And then she was opening the door, heart pounding, the bags forgotten in the back seat as he rounded the car to catch the door before it shut.

The walk across the lot was short. It still felt like crossing a fault line.

The walk across the lot should’ve been nothing. Forty paces, maybe fifty. Concrete steps to the lobby, swipe of her keycard, climb the stairs, done. But her heart wouldn’t settle into something normal; it tripped like she was walking toward a stage she hadn’t rehearsed for.

Jinu didn’t touch her. Not really. His hand brushed the small of her back once as a car rolled by, like he couldn’t help himself, like the excuse of “keeping her safe” was thin enough to see through. She didn’t call him on it. She couldn’t.

The glass door to her dorm yawned open when she swiped. The fluorescent lights inside were offensively bright after the soft dark of the lot. She flinched, and he noticed, of course he did.

“Still want me to come up?” he asked, pitched low, almost like he was testing the hallway too, not just her.

She should’ve said no. Should’ve said she had work in the morning, homework, sleep, anything. Instead: “You’re already here.”

Something flickered across his mouth, gone before she could pin it down. He fell into step behind her, boots quiet on the ugly linoleum.

Every door they passed hummed with noise—music, laughter, the clang of someone dropping something in the communal kitchen. She thought about how ridiculous it was to bring him here, into this world of half-broken microwaves and dorm posters, when he lived in a penthouse with ceilings taller than her GPA. She thought about how her hoodie suddenly felt too small, too faded.

“You’re nervous,” he said quietly. Not smug. Not cruel. Just… noticed.

She scoffed. “I’m not.”

“Your shoulders.” He tilted his head. “They get tight when you’re pretending.”

Her laugh was sharp, a little defensive. “Great. Add body language expert to your list of annoying qualities.”

“Happy to.” He leaned closer as they turned the corner, his breath warm against her ear. “Makes it harder for you to lie to me.”

Her knees nearly buckled. She pushed the stairwell door open too hard, letting it bang against the cinderblock. “You’re impossible.”

“Still following you,” he said, casual, as if his whole presence wasn’t bending her spine into knots.

They climbed. Each floor hummed with life, but it felt like the two of them were climbing into their own pocket of quiet. Her bag strap dug into her shoulder; she almost welcomed the bite, something to hold onto.

At her door, she fumbled with the key. He didn’t offer to help. He just leaned against the wall, watching her with that calm patience that burned worse than hunger.

“Stop staring,” she muttered.

“Not possible,” he said.

The lock clicked. She shoved the door open before her courage could flicker out.

Inside: dark, the faint hum of the mini fridge, the shadowy shapes of her roommates’ empty beds. Relief hit like a tide. Of course—music class. She had time. Too much time.

She turned, ready to say something flippant, something that would keep the air from caving in. But Jinu was already stepping inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. The latch caught with a soft click that sounded louder than it should have.

For one stretched second, neither of them moved.

The click of the lock might as well have been a gunshot. Sharp, final. It vibrated through her ribs like the universe had shut them into something it didn’t plan on opening again until they figured it out.

Rumi’s back hit the door first because she’d stepped away and he’d stepped closer at the same time. Not rough—just inevitable. His palm landed beside her head, close enough that she felt the heat of it in her hair.

“Rumi,” he said. Just that. Low, like he was testing how her name fit in the dark.

She hated how her body answered before she could. Breath snagging, fingers curling into the strap of her bag like that would anchor her. “You shouldn’t—”

“Too late,” he murmured, leaning in. His mouth brushed hers once, barely there, like a question he already knew the answer to.

She didn’t give him time to repeat it. Her hands shoved his jacket back off his shoulders, chasing the cedar warmth beneath. The bag slid to the floor with a thud she’d regret later if she thought about it.

He groaned into her mouth, not surprised, just grateful. Both hands came up, framing her face, tilting it so he could kiss her deeper, slower, like he had all the time in the world and none of it to waste.

Her hoodie was too hot already. She tugged it up, half stuck until he laughed against her mouth and helped peel it over her head. The sound—it wasn’t mocking, it was… fond. Like she was ridiculous and he adored it.

“You’re—” she started, but his lips found her throat, open and hot, and the rest of the sentence scattered into the dark.

“Say it,” he murmured, teeth grazing where her pulse betrayed her.

“—annoying,” she gasped, but her fingers were already in his hair, tugging him closer.

He smiled against her skin, then caught her mouth again, all teeth and heat this time. The kiss tipped into reckless, the kind that blurred edges and made her forget why she’d ever built walls in the first place.

The beds were right there. Cheap sheets, familiar blankets, comfort and danger at once. He nudged her backward, step by step, until the back of her knees hit the frame. She went down gracelessly, dragging him with her.

The mattress squeaked. She froze for half a second—muscle memory of roommates, thin walls, bad timing—but the room stayed quiet, theirs. His weight settled over her, not crushing, just anchoring. His eyes searched hers like he was looking for the stop sign that wasn’t there.

“Rumi,” he said again, softer now, thumb brushing her cheekbone. “Say no, and I’ll go.”

Her chest ached. She hated him for asking, for making it real, for being exactly the kind of careful she couldn’t mock her way out of. “Don’t go,” she whispered.

Something in his jaw flexed. Then his mouth was on hers again, deeper, no hesitation left. His hand slid under her shirt, fingers warm against the sharp line of her waist. She arched into it like her body had been waiting.

Every touch felt heavier here—on her bed, in her space, where she was supposed to have control. And yet she wasn’t afraid. Not of him.

He kissed her like he’d been forced to be good all afternoon and had finally decided to cash in. Slow first—always slow first with him—his mouth coaxing hers open, his thumb smoothing the curve of her cheek like he was memorizing the exact map of her. When she sighed into him, that small surrender, his shoulders loosened, and the kiss slid from careful to greedy in a heartbeat.

“Tell me what you want,” he said against her mouth, voice a little shredded already.

“You,” she said, shocking herself with how fast it came out. “Here.”

“Here,” he echoed, like a vow, and then his hand was under her shirt, palm hot, thumb stroking the notch under her ribs. She arched—helpless, annoyed at herself for being helpless, and more annoyed at how much she liked it—so he did it again, a slow pet that said I’m listening.

The shirt had to go. He worked it over her head, kissed down the line that the hem had warmed, mouth open and reverent. She felt stupidly worshipped and wanted to laugh about it and couldn’t because his tongue traced a thoughtful path over the edge of her bra and her brain dropped every joke she had planned.

“Jinu,” she breathed, like a warning, like a thank-you.

“Mm?” He glanced up, lashes ridiculous, hands already at the clasp. “Say no.”

She didn’t. She nodded and heard the tiny surrendering click. Cool air hit, then his mouth. He didn’t rush to the center; he bracketed it, kissed the places around what ached until she wanted to cuss at him, then finally closed warm over her and she swore anyway, fingers in his hair.

“Good?” he asked, maddening.

“Shut up,” she said, which made him smile against her, which made everything worse in the best way.

He got meaner then, in that patient way he had, alternating soft and just-enough pressure until her back arched off the mattress and her legs tightened around his waist. He slid a hand down, over the curve of her hip, cupped the underside like he was holding something fragile and expensive, and she hated how safe that made her feel.

She dragged him up and rolled, impulsive, a small victory when he hit the mattress with a surprised laugh. “My turn,” she said, straddling him, palms splayed on his chest. His heartbeat thudded against her hand—fast, honest. He didn’t hide it.

“Take it,” he said, looking at her like she was going to destroy him and he’d written it into his calendar.

Buttons went, one by one, until his shirt was open and she could push it aside and breathe against the heat of him. He was all clean lines and stored strength; she kissed a path down, tasting salt and cedar and the hint of coffee that always clung to him. When she bit, gently, his breath stuttered and his hands flexed on her thighs, not moving her, just holding on.

“You’re—” he started, and lost the sentence when she slid lower and mouthed at the sharp V of his hip, teasing and cruel.

“Motivated?” she offered, smug, and he let out a broken laugh that turned into a curse.

“Problem,” he said, catching her face, tugging her up. “If you keep doing that, I’m going to forget the part where I meant to make you lose your mind first.”

“I’m adaptable,” she said, but her pulse did the traitor thing, because the way he said lose your mind made her whole body go soft.

He kissed her again like he’d missed a spot and rolled them easily, caging her without trapping. His knee slid between hers; his hand skimmed the inside of her thigh, waiting, waiting, kneading the muscle like he was coaxing a song out of it. She let her legs fall open and he swore very quietly into her collarbone like gratitude.

“Tell me if you want different,” he murmured, and then two fingers traced the edge of her underwear and pushed the fabric aside. Air hit. His pupils blew wide. She felt the drag of his breath across her and had to bite her lip because she’d make a noise that would embarrass them both.

“Please,” she said, and watched it hit him.

He didn’t make her wait. His mouth found her, slow at first, unhurried, like he had a theory about what would undo her and was about to prove it. She hated him for being right. She loved him for asking with his tongue and answering her with pressure when she tipped her hips, guiding without grabbing, letting her lead without letting her fall out of it.

The room telescoped: the soft whir of the fan, the distant hallway hum, her hand fisted in his hair, the wet heat of his mouth. He learned her all over again, this new angle, this new bed, adjusting in tiny, devastating increments when her breath hitched. When the first wave licked at her spine, he glanced up through lashes, checking, always checking.

“Don’t stop,” she breathed, shocked by how raw she sounded, and he made that low, pleased sound like a secret and got just a little ruthless. Two fingers, slick, careful, pressing in slow as his mouth curled around her and—everything went bright and mean. She chased it. He kept her right there, held, worshipped, ruined.

“Now,” she gasped, stunned at herself, and he murmured something like thanks against her and pushed her over. The world snapped. She broke, hips jerking, a laugh turning into a cry against her knuckles, his name wrecked in her mouth. He stayed with her—of course he did—riding out the quake, mouth softening, hand steady, easing her back down like landing a plane.

She floated. He kissed the inside of her knee, then the soft skin just above it, then lower on her thigh, as if he were promising credits. When she finally blinked back into herself, he was propped up on an elbow beside her, thumb tracing idle shapes at her waist, watching her like people looked at fires when they didn’t realize they were staring.

“Hi,” he said, hoarse and stupidly sweet.

She wanted to snark. Instead: “Come here.”

He did. She tugged him down and kissed him, messy, greedy, tasting herself on his tongue and not caring, not embarrassed, just—hungry for him. Her hands went to his belt without apology. He hissed into her mouth, eyes squeezing shut for a heartbeat like he needed to recalibrate.

“Tell me you want me,” he said, not demanding—pleading.

“I want you,” she said, terrible and honest.

He swore softly, forehead dropping to hers, breath shaking. When he pushed his sweats down, she caught his wrist. He stopped, instantly, eyes searching hers.

“Rumi,” he said, all the heat tempered with that impossible care. “Yes?”

“Yes,” she said. Then, because he was him and she knew he needed the word to be whole: “Please.”

He didn’t rush the first slide—he never did. He held her gaze and eased in slow, inch by devastating inch, until her mouth fell open and his did too, like it got them every time, the way this fit. She curled up around him instinctively, ankles hooking at his lower back, and his hand found her jaw, thumb stroking, grounding.

“Breathe,” he whispered, and she did, and the sharp turned bright and then sweet. He was heavy and perfect inside her, the kind of pressure that made her want to both move and stay absolutely still. He set a rhythm that felt like a secret handshake—slow, deep, precise—and she matched it, hips rolling up to meet him, chasing the drag, the stretch, the slide.

“Eyes on me,” he asked, voice low and almost shy about it.

She did. God help her, she did, and the look on his face—wrecked and reverent—made heat spool tight low in her belly. He wasn’t quiet; he wasn’t theatrical either. He let out those honest sounds that made her feel powerful and soft all at once, the bitten-off curses when she clenched around him on purpose, the ragged “that’s it” when she found the angle that ruined them both.

He shifted his weight onto his forearms and kissed her through it, slow kisses that didn’t match the roll of his hips and somehow made it worse. When she grabbed for purchase and found his shoulders, he laughed once, breathless, and said, “I’ve got you,” like a promise he loved keeping.

“Faster,” she said finally, needy, unashamed.

“Yeah,” he breathed, and obeyed, pace tightening, control fraying in delicious threads. The bed protested; she did not. He slid a hand between them, not to take over—just to anchor, to tip her where she needed to go. The spark caught, ran the wire, turned everything inside her white-hot.

“Jinu,” she said, not as a test this time, just as the only word that made sense.

“Rumi,” he answered, like a prayer, and the sound of it—her name, ruined—pushed her over the edge. She came hard, back bowing, hands clutching at him like gravity had failed. He followed a breath later with a broken groan, burying his face in her throat, hips stuttering, everything in him tightening and then breaking all at once.

Silence poured back in, thick and kind. He didn’t collapse his weight onto her; he braced, trembling, and then, when he could breathe, gathered her in like he was stacking all the pieces carefully back where they belonged. One big palm smoothed over her spine, slow, soothing passes that said stay.

“Okay?” he asked into her hair after a while, voice wrecked.

“Obviously,” she said, which would have landed better if it hadn’t come out soft and pleased.

He laughed—quiet, delighted—and kissed her temple. “Back in a second.”

She made an unhappy sound and refused to let go for two more heartbeats before she let him slide out. He winced at the sensitivity; she did too, and they shared matching, embarrassed little laughs that made something tender bloom in her chest. He disappeared into the tiny bathroom and reappeared a moment later with a warm, damp towel like some obscene gentleman. He cleaned her up with a care that felt more intimate than anything else they’d done, and she let him, eyes open, not flinching away from being seen.

“Water,” he said, passing her a bottle like he was legally required to. “Hydrate or I’m starting a fight with your immune system.”

“Bossy,” she muttered, drinking anyway. He took his own swig and then lay down beside her, close enough that their knees touched, far enough that she could crawl into him or not. Not a trap. An invitation.

She took it, obviously. Curled into his side, cheek on his chest, listening to his heartbeat settle into something that felt suspiciously like home.

“Tell me something true,” he said into her hair, not pushing, just placing the idea on the pillow between them like an object they could look at together.

Her mouth went dry. She could make a joke. She always made a joke. Instead, she traced a nothing circle on his ribs and said, very quietly, “I don’t—do this. The staying part.”

His breath hitched, almost invisible if she hadn’t been right there to feel it. “Okay.”

“It’s not a rule,” she said quickly, embarrassed by how fast she backpedaled. “It’s just… easier.”

He nodded against the pillow. “I get easier.”

She believed him, which was the problem.

“Your turn,” she said, because vulnerability shared was vulnerability halved, and also because she wanted to know. “Something true.”

“Sometimes I think I don’t know how to be with people. Friends,... relationships… all of it. I never really had family around, not in the way that counts. And when you grow up like that, you don’t exactly learn how to let people close.” His voice thinned, not defensive, just honest. “Half the time I wonder if anyone actually likes me for me, or if they like what I can give them. The name. The money. The demon thing.”

The answer didn’t swagger. It just sat there, clean, sad, real. She felt something in her unclench. She slid her hand up his chest until she could hook two fingers into the collar of his T-shirt and tugged, a small, ridiculous gesture that translated to I heard you.

He kissed the top of her head, just once, like thanks.

The room hummed softly. The door stayed shut. And for a stretch of minutes that felt stolen, they did nothing but breathe together, warm and wrecked and a little undone, the kind of quiet that didn’t have teeth.

His palm shifted against her spine, drawing small circles like he couldn’t stop reminding her she was there. “You’re too quiet,” he murmured finally.

“Recovering,” she mumbled into his shirt.

“From me?” His tone tilted smug, but his fingers stayed gentle.

“From everything .” She let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it wasn’t so shaky. “Don’t get flattered.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” he said, soft, and then—lower, careful—“Your turn. Give me something real.”

She froze. “What?”

“You said it’s easier not to let people in. That was a truth. So give me another.”

Her chest squeezed tight, like he’d nudged a bruise. She wanted to make a joke—call him nosey, tell him he already knew too much—but his warmth was an anchor, and the dark made lying feel pointless.

“I don’t really… have a family. Not in the way people mean it,” she said finally, words sinking into the cotton at his shoulder. “My mom’s gone. Always has been. It was just my aunt, and she made sure I had food, a roof, rules. But love wasn’t on the list. Acceptance wasn’t either. I learned early it was safer to keep walls up. To let people think I didn’t need more. Shallow hurts less than realizing you weren’t wanted in the first place.”

The ceiling swam for a second. She blinked hard, smirk tugging at her mouth like she could paste it over. “There. You get one. Limited-time offer.”

He stilled, long enough that she thought she’d broken something. Then he bent, brushed a kiss into her hair like it was the only right response.

“I heard you,” he said. “So… here’s mine.”

His voice went rougher, quieter, not meant for anyone but her.

“People look at me and think I’ve got everything. Money, name, heritage. They think I’m lucky. But having more doesn’t stop you from being lonely. If anything, it makes it worse. My parents—” He broke off, jaw tight. “They treated me like an investment. A business expense. My dad especially, after my mom died. Every conversation feels like a transaction—ROI, legacy, inheritance. Never me. ”

Her chest ached, slow and sharp. She didn’t move, afraid he’d stop.

“When I didn’t come to the club the other night, it wasn’t because I forgot you. It was an emergency at the company. My father thinks all this—school, music, anything I actually care about—is a waste of time. He wants me to take over now, cut everything else out. Be the heir. Be the demon kid with the reputation that scares people into respect.” His hand flexed against her back. “But I don’t want that. I don’t want to be feared or managed or inherited. I just… want to figure out who I am when people don’t know my last name. When they don’t care about my bloodline. Here, at least, I can keep it quiet. Here, people just see me.”

The words sat heavy between them. Not a performance. Not a line. Something real, raw, spilled into the dark.

Rumi’s throat tightened. She wanted to tell him she saw him too, but the admission felt too dangerous. So she just tucked closer, let her cheek press against his chest, and whispered, almost against her will: “Guess we’re both bad at family.”

“Guess so,” he said, but his arm only pulled her closer, like that could rewrite it.

He exhaled, a sound equal parts relief and exhaustion, and held her like maybe that was enough for now.

“I don’t really tell anyone this,” she said into the hollow of his throat, voice small enough to embarrass her as soon as it was out. “I mean… only Mira and Zoey. Sometimes.”

His hand paused at the slow circles he’d been drawing on her back. “I’ll take sometimes.”

She huffed a laugh that wasn’t one. “I don’t really… do this. The whole talking-about-myself thing. My aunt covered the basics, but never the parts that made me feel like I belonged. I’ve always felt… extra. Too much. Like every room I walked into already had what it needed, and me being there was a mistake.” Her fingers worried a loose thread on the bedsheet, grounding herself. “Dating just proved it. Every guy I let close-  if you can even call it that— left me with a different version of not-enough. Too loud, too quiet, too clingy, too detached. Whatever I was, it was always the wrong version. Easier to keep things shallow, leave first, and pretend I didn’t want more. That way no one got to say I was too much to lo-... that I was too much, or worse, not worth the effort at all.”

He didn’t try to fill the space. Just listened, steady, the way he always did when she got near the soft parts—like he was holding the door open so it didn’t slam on her.

“The only time it didn’t feel wrong,” she went on, voice softening, “was when I sang. I can’t explain it without sounding stupid. It was the first thing that felt like mine. Mine alone. Not something anyone could grade me on, not something anyone could call too much. Just me, loud, in a good way.” She swallowed, the ceiling blurring. “So I came here. Far. New rules, new mailbox. Told myself I’d be a voice, not just more background noise. And maybe I believed it, for a while.”

His breath shifted—there, that tiny catch he had when something landed. She didn’t look up. If she saw his face, she’d say too much.

“And then you,” she said, so quiet it almost wasn’t sound. “You sit in the front like you’re at an art museum and I’m the painting you came for. You send food because you want me fed, not bought. You say things like ‘lucky’ and ‘careful’ and ‘sleep’ like I’m someone you… keep safe.” Her mouth quirked, self-defense. “And I don’t know where to put that. It doesn’t fit any of my old categories.”

“Then we don’t use the old categories,” he said, immediate, but not sharp. He tipped his forehead to hers, voice low. “We make new ones. Or none.”

She snorted, because the alternative was crying. “You make it sound easy.”

“It isn’t.” His mouth curved without humor. “But I like hard things.”

“Gross,” she muttered automatically, and his laugh ghosted against her cheek, small and completely undone.

Silence settled again, warmer now. She let herself breathe. He kept petting her hair like he’d forgotten how to stop.

“I’m not going anywhere” he muttered softly.

A ridiculous sentence, given their geography—given the way people like him had drivers and doors that didn’t open unless you had a code. But he said it like a simple fact, and her ribs did that stupid expanding thing that meant she believed him even if part of her still counted exits.

“You realize I’m telling you real things while half-naked,” she said, aiming for light and landing somewhere dangerously sincere.

“That’s my favorite version,” he said without hesitation, thumb brushing the back of her hand where it rested on his chest. “No walls. No performance. Just you.”

Her throat tightened. She wanted to roll her eyes, make a joke, anything to keep from unraveling. Instead she let her head drop against him, muttering, “Dangerous habit to start.”

“Maybe,” he said, voice low, warm. “But I like dangerous when it’s honest.””

Her mouth betrayed her with a smile she couldn’t swallow. She rolled onto her back, stared at the ceiling, then back at him. “Your turn again.”

He arched a brow. “We’re doing rounds?”

“Apparently.”

His eyes flicked over her face like he was cataloging something he wanted to remember verbatim. “Okay. Round two.” He exhaled slowly. “People assume because of my heritage I like being the monster in the story. That I want to be the man who takes what he wants and calls it destiny. It’s lazy. It’s also… convenient for them. They get to be scared and righteous. I get to be alone and useful.” His mouth tightened. “When my father says ‘legacy,’ what he means is: keep making it easy for them to tell the same story.”

She let the words sit. Felt the matching sting of them against her earlier confession. “And what do you mean,” she asked quietly.

A fraction of a smile. “I mean I’d like to be a person. Preferably one you look at the way you looked at that stupid bracelet.”

She groaned into the pillow. “Don’t.”

“Do,” he said, smug now, because he’d found purchase. “You liked it. Being chosen. I saw it.”

“You are intolerable.”

“You are transparent.”

She wanted to bite him; she wanted to kiss him; she wanted to do neither and just stay exactly here, stupidly warm under the cheap dorm comforter, with the loudest thing in the room being her own heartbeat.

Keys rattled down the hall.

They both froze.

“Rumiii!” Zoey’s voice, cheerful, approaching. “We brought notes and noodles!”

Rumi shot upright like she’d been launched, scrambling for her hoodie, hair, everything . Jinu was somehow already moving without hurry, rolling off the bed and pulling his shirt over his head like the world’s most composed emergency drill.

“Of course,” Rumi whispered, half-mortified, half-laughing. “Of course.”

He stepped close long enough to swipe his thumb under her lower lip, a soft check for smudged gloss that felt like a kiss. “Breathe.”

“I am breathing,” she lied, absolutely not breathing.

The door handle wiggled.

“Do not,” Rumi hissed at it like she could cast a spell.

“Forgot my key,” Mira sang through the wood. “Open up, harlot. We come bearing gossip.”

Jinu’s hand found hers under the blanket, gave one quick squeeze, like slipping a secret into her palm. Then he rose, posture unbothered, hair annoyingly respectable, face already reset to gentleman caught in an innocent situation.

She scrambled after him, caught his sleeve. “Wait—”

He glanced back, all that calm pinned on her. “I’ll text you,” he said, soft, like it wasn’t mundane at all. “Coffee tomorrow?”

Her mouth betrayed her with, “Maybe.” Her eyes said something else entirely, and she knew he read it.

The knob turned again. With criminal composure, Jinu cracked the door from the inside, body blocking the wreckage of her bed. “Evening,” he said smoothly.

Zoey’s brows tried to launch off her face. Mira’s mouth curved like she’d just won a bet.

“I was just leaving,” Jinu added, as though he hadn’t been the one they needed to leave. He tugged his shirt into place like he’d stepped out of a boardroom instead of her sheets. “Good to see you again.”

On the way out, he brushed his knuckles over Rumi’s cheek—smug, casual, murderous—and murmured just for her: “Behave.”

“Go,” she hissed, cheeks hot enough to combust.

Too late. The door opened wider, Mira and Zoey freezing in the threshold like they’d just walked into a soap opera finale.

“Ladies,” Jinu said politely, tipping his head in that infuriatingly perfect way.

And then he was gone, footsteps fading, cedar and cologne left behind like evidence at the scene of a crime.

Silence. A beat. Two.

Then Zoey exploded. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME.”

Mira pointed at the closed door like it had personally betrayed her. “You’re joking. We were gone for, what, forty minutes ?”

Zoey fanned herself with her hand. “And you let him just strut out of here like a Calvin Klein ad—”

“—while we’re standing right here, ” Mira added.

Rumi yanked the comforter over her face, muffling her groan. “I will literally move out if you start narrating.”

Zoey yanked the blanket down just enough to peer at her, eyes gleaming. “Oh, we’re narrating. Starting with: why does this room smell like sex and Sephora?”

Mira leaned against the desk, arms folded, absolutely ruthless. “Also, is that his jacket on the chair? Because if it is, I’m framing it as evidence for the group chat.”

“Touch it and die,” Rumi warned weakly, dragging the blanket back up.

Zoey collapsed onto the beanbag like a Victorian widow. “Details. Now. Don’t you dare ‘processing’ me.”

“I am processing,” Rumi croaked from under the covers, voice muffled, scratchy, and about three lies deep.

Mira’s smirk sharpened. “Processing, my ass. You’re glowing.”

Zoey clutched her chest dramatically. “Not glowing— radiating. Processing what, exactly? The shopping bags? The hickey? The way your soul just about levitated out of your body when he looked at you like that?”

Rumi groaned into the pillow, but the smile slipped out anyway, traitorous and impossible to smother.

Morning came in strips of sun across the posters and the smell of someone else’s coffee drifting under the door from the hall. Rumi was awake before her alarm, staring at the ceiling like it had answers. Her phone buzzed against her cheek where she’d fallen asleep holding it like an idiot.

[jinu] coffee, same time?

She stared at the words for exactly one second too long. Then she typed like she hadn’t.

[rumi] are you incapable of variety
[jinu] i’m very capable
[jinu] but i like this

Her mouth did that smiling thing without permission. Across the room, Zoey groaned, flopped an arm over her eyes. “Who is making emotions at eight a.m.”

“No one,” Rumi said, already rolling out of bed. “I’m going to… read.”

“Outside?” Mira’s voice drifted from the bathroom with the sound of a hair dryer. “At a café?”

“Public literacy,” Rumi said, grabbing the first hoodie her hand found. “I’m a hero.”

Down on the curb, he was already there, leaning against a car he’d definitely parallel-parked better than anyone had a right to. Two coffees, a paper bag. He looked up and the stupid gold morning made him look like he belonged to it.

“Good morning, menace,” she said, accepting the cup he held out.

“Hi, trouble.” He passed her the bag. “Sweet potato bread. Don’t make that face; you’ll like it.”

“I’m not making a face,” she said, making a face. She bit into it anyway and immediately had to fight not to close her eyes. “Okay. Fine. Don’t get cocky.”

“Never,” he said, and the corner of his mouth did that thing that turned her bones into punctuation marks.

They walked the two blocks to campus shoulder to shoulder, trading nothing sentences that felt like something. He didn’t try to fill the little quiets; he let them be quiet. It had the side effect of making her hyperaware of everything else—the steam off the coffee, the brush of his sleeve against hers, the way he carried a second napkin like he’d remembered she always forgot.

In class, the projector flickered to life and lit the whiteboard with “Counterpoint: Partner Exercises.” Groans radiated around the lecture hall.

“Pair up,” the professor said. “You’re writing eight bars. Modal interchange optional. Keep your suspensions clean.”

Jinu slid into the seat beside her like that had been the plan since birth. “Optional,” he murmured. “Dangerous word.”

“You say that like a dare,” she said, already pulling staff paper from her folder. She could feel his gaze, warm as a lamp.

“Because it was.” He leaned in, and the edge of his shoulder bumped hers. “What do you hear?”

She didn’t mean to answer honestly. She did anyway. “Lydian tint on the IV. Then drop the brightness with a borrowed minor iv when we come back to the tonic. Let it ache.”

He breathed out a laugh. “Cruel. I like it.”

They wrote. It felt like tossing a ball back and forth on a tightrope; every time she put down a line, he caught it and threw something back that made her want to show off. He didn’t bulldoze. He asked. “This suspension—do you want to resolve down or leave it hungry?” “If we delay the cadence, will you be mad at me?” “What if the bass lies to us here?” She found herself explaining why she loved one interval over another and halfway through realized she’d said “love” out loud in a room with other people and didn’t combust.

When the professor paused at their desk to eavesdrop, he nodded once, almost grudgingly. “At least two of you did the reading.”

“Three,” Jinu said. “She just did mine too.”

Rumi kicked him under the desk. His grin was unrepentant and, infuriatingly, fond.

After class they drifted outside automatically, both of them angling for the same cheap kimbap window without discussing it. He ordered before she could, the way he always did—like he’d memorized her patience threshold for lines and decided to spare it. They ate on a low stone wall under a gingko tree dropping gold fans on their shoes.

“You’re staring,” she said, because he was. Not at her mouth (unfortunately), at her face while she talked about voice-leading like it mattered.

“Correct,” he said.

“Don’t be weird.”

“I’m not,” he said easily. “I’m happy.”

Her heart did an embarrassing hop. She looked down at the soy sauce packet like it had personally wronged her. “Gross.”

They hopped off the wall in tandem when traffic lulled. At the crosswalk, his fingers found hers like they’d been doing it for weeks—no big show, no question, just a warm, practiced slide of his hand into hers to steer her around a bike cutting the corner too fast. She didn’t notice until they were half a block down and he hadn’t let go.

Oh, she thought, belatedly, like she’d missed a step and then found it again. She did not pull away. She also did not look at him, which is what cowards did. She settled for staring very respectfully at a bus stop ad like it was art.

He squeezed once, barely there. Not claiming. Checking.

She squeezed back, quick and mean like a warning. He laughed under his breath.

They ended up in front of her building without consulting the map in their heads. He hesitated, a fraction, like he didn’t want to spook the fragile animal of whatever this was.

“There’s a thing tonight,” he said, casual like a coin trick. “Saja dorm. Everyone will pretend they care about the DJ. They don’t. Come with me.”

It hit in three places at once: stomach, throat, the part of her brain that catalogued risk. Saja parties were rumor with a mailing list—impossible to get into unless your last name resonated in a certain way. She knew he could open doors. She hadn’t expected him to want her on the other side of this one.

“With me,” he’d said. Not meet me there. Not I’ll see you if you make it in.

“Isn’t that…” She searched for a word that wasn’t big. “Loud?”

“Very.” He smiled like a promise. “I’ll handle it. Ten?”

“Ten,” she repeated, because apparently she was the kind of person who said yes to things that made her pulse misbehave. “Mira and Zoey will want to come.”

“Obviously,” he said. “I’m not stupid.”

“Debatable,” she muttered, and he reached out without thinking and tugged a thread from her hoodie sleeve back into place like that was a normal level of intimacy for the sidewalk.

He glanced at her mouth, once, quickly, like he could help it and hated himself for it. “I’ll text you.”

She nodded like her neck worked. “Okay.”

He let go of her hand with a reluctance that felt like sunlight leaving a room. “Later, Rumi.”

Inside the dorm, she lasted exactly seven seconds before exploding. “Do not freak out,” she said, busting through the door.

Mira looked up from a pile of notes. “Freaking out about what?”

Zoey sat up so fast she spilled chips. “What did he do. Did he propose. Did he make you a playlist. Did he breathe near you.”

“Saja dorm party,” Rumi said, aiming for blasé and landing on congested. “He… invited us.”

Zoey’s mouth fell open like a cartoon. Mira actually blinked. Twice. “The Saja party? That Saja party?”

“Apparently there is only one,” Rumi said.

“Oh my god,” Zoey whispered, reverent. “Do you know how many people try and fail to get into those? I have a cousin who sold his gamer chair for a wristband.”

Mira stood, already in logistics mode. “What time? What’s the dress code? What are we not doing?”

“Ten,” Rumi said. “And not dying.”

Zoey flopped back onto the bed, kicking her feet like a teenager. “We need outfits. We need eyeliner. We need to emotionally prepare to watch you and Mr. Demon make eye contact across a crowded room like a music video.”

“I hate you both,” Rumi said, feeling the stupid smile pulling at her mouth anyway.

Mira pointed two neon nails at Rumi’s chest, sudden seriousness under the glitter. “We meant what we said, by the way. If he hurts you, we’re ripping out his heart and using it as a centerpiece.”

“Okay, medieval,” Rumi said, a laugh hitching over a soft spot that wasn’t laughing at all.

“Playful centerpiece,” Zoey amended. “Like… tasteful gore.”

Rumi covered her face, grinning helplessly into her palms. Her phone buzzed against her wrist.

[jinu] looking forward to tonight
[jinu] don’t make me wait too long

She typed before the heat could simmer down.

[rumi] patience is a virtue
[jinu] not mine
[jinu] see you soon

She stared at those two words longer than she needed to. Counting down. It made the day rearrange itself around the numbers.

Zoey was already rifling her closet. “Black slip or the one that threatens international relations?”

“Slip,” Mira said. “And hair up. You’re going to want your neck free if you have to bite him for sport.”

“Shut up,” Rumi said, and didn’t. She let herself look for a second—really look—at the evening unfurling in front of her. Class and coffee and the way his hand had found hers without asking. A party she had no business at, except he’d asked like it was the easiest thing in the world.

She swallowed a smile and failed. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s make a problem.”

Rumi told herself she was not counting down. That would be insane. She had readings to finish, laundry to fold, and a quiz on Romantic orchestration that she’d already half-bombed last week. Her laptop was open, highlighter bleeding pink all over her notes, but every time she glanced at the clock, ten o’clock grew teeth. Her stomach had the nerve to flutter like a freshman at their first rush event.

Zoey, of course, noticed. She always noticed. “You’re highlighting the same line,” she said flatly from across the table, chewing a carrot like it had personally offended her.

“I’m emphasizing,” Rumi lied.

“You’re glowing,” Zoey corrected, voice syrupy. “Like a girl who’s got plans with her demon boyfriend.”

“He’s not—” Rumi started, then shut her mouth. She wasn’t even convincing herself anymore.

Mira snorted without looking up from her notebook. “Good. Don’t bother. We all saw your face when he left last night. You nearly short-circuited into the carpet.”

Rumi buried her head in her hands. The pages blurred pink and useless.

….

By the time evening crawled in, the dorm had exploded into chaos headquarters. Makeup palettes spread across the desk like a war table. Curling irons fought for outlet space. Three outfits per girl lay draped on every available surface—reject piles, casualties of indecision. The air smelled like setting spray and Zoey’s perfume, heavy and sweet, curling into the corners with the bass from her Bluetooth speaker.

Mira was planted in front of the mirror, eyeliner angled like a weapon, steady hand drawing a wing sharp enough to assassinate. Zoey was half-dancing as she blasted music loud enough to make the posters vibrate against the wall, hair glitter catching the lamplight every time she moved.

“Tonight we conquer,” Zoey announced, striking a pose in her sequin skirt. “If I don’t have five free drinks and a man crying by the end of the night, I’ve failed.”

Mira scoffed, snapping her compact shut. “Low bar. I want two women crying. Minimum.”

“You’re both unhinged,” Rumi muttered, tugging at the hem of her new dress—the one Jinu had all but bullied her into letting him buy at the mall. Midnight black. Silky. Clinging in ways that made her blush every time she caught herself in the mirror. The straps were delicate enough that she had to remind herself to keep her shoulders back, chin up, posture in check.

“Not unhinged,” Mira corrected, turning to look her up and down with the kind of precision usually reserved for grading. “Ambitious. And you? You’re hot. Criminally. If you walk out of here acting like it’s not deliberate, I’ll hex you.”

Zoey wolf-whistled so loud Rumi nearly tripped. “God. He’s going to combust. Look at you.”

Rumi smoothed her hands down the fabric, like she could magic herself back into hoodie-girl. But she couldn’t deny the little rush under her ribs—the strange, new feeling that she belonged in her own skin, not just in work clothes meant for strangers’ eyes, not just in the armor she wore on stage. The clothes did help. Annoyingly, Jinu had been right about that.

“You’re staring at yourself,” Mira sing-songed, already tugging her neon heels on.

“I’m checking for flaws,” Rumi muttered.

“None detected,” Zoey said, slicking gloss across her mouth with surgical precision. “Critical success. Let’s go cause an international incident.”

The mirror caught Rumi’s reflection again, and she hated how obvious the nerves were. She could feel them buzzing through her, the way she kept checking her phone face-down on the desk even though it hadn’t buzzed. She told herself it didn’t matter whether he’d be there tonight, that it wasn’t even about him, that she was going because she wanted to feel twenty and reckless with her friends.

But she couldn’t shake the weight of knowing he’d invited her. The way he’d said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like of course she’d be there, with him.

She bent over the desk to tighten the strap on her heel, pretending it was just a shoe and not her heartbeat she was tying down.

“Rumi,” Zoey said suddenly, sharp enough to cut the music.

“What?”

“You’re doing the face.”

“I don’t have a face.”

Mira snorted. “You have the face of someone about to faint at the idea of fun.” She leaned closer, neon nails clacking against the vanity. “Breathe. You’re hot. You’re with us. And if Mr. Demon loses his mind the second you walk in? That’s his problem.”

Zoey nodded solemnly, like it was law. “Exactly. We’re here for chaos and cocktails. He’s just… bonus content.”

Rumi rolled her eyes, but her cheeks betrayed her, heating up. She grabbed her clutch like it could shield her. “I hate both of you.”

“You love us,” Mira said, flicking her hair over her shoulder like she was closing a case.

And Rumi did. She loved them enough that when the three of them finally crowded into the bathroom mirror for one last check—Zoey glittering like a human disco ball, Mira glowing neon, Rumi caught between them in black silk—her chest tightened with something soft and impossible to name.

She looked like herself. Not work-Rumi. Not stage-Rumi. Just… Rumi. And for once, that felt like it might be enough.

…

They left the dorm in a cloud of perfume and laughter, heels clacking against concrete like punctuation marks. Zoey strutted down the street with the swagger of someone who fully believed the city was her runway, Mira’s neon heels flashing beside her like hazard lights. Rumi trailed half a step behind, clutching her tiny bag like it might tether her to earth.

The night was loud already—Friday in Seoul always was. Neon signs blinked their approval, taxis hissed past, food carts sizzled with grease and spice. Every block added more bodies to the current until it felt like they were being carried downstream by the promise of music and bad decisions.

“You’re walking too stiff,” Zoey accused, looping an arm through Rumi’s. “Relax. You’re hot. It’s scientifically proven.”

“I’m not stiff,” Rumi lied, shoulders back so her dress straps wouldn’t slip.

Mira leaned over her other side, smirk sharp as eyeliner. “You’re walking like your dress is rented by the hour.”

Rumi elbowed her. “You’re insufferable.”

“Correct,” Mira said. “But also right. You look lethal, babe. Own it.”

The line for the Saja dorm was already spilling down the block when they got there, the kind of party line that had a rhythm all its own—laughter too loud, the snap of lighters, someone already trying to freestyle rap while his friend groaned. Bass thudded faint through the walls, like the building itself had a pulse.

“God,” Zoey breathed, practically vibrating. “We’re getting in.”

“Correction,” Mira said. “We’re not just getting in. We’re conquering.”

Rumi tugged her jacket tighter around her shoulders, partly for warmth, partly because her stomach wouldn’t stop fluttering like she’d swallowed a family of moths. She told herself it was the crowd, the energy, the anticipation of being somewhere new. Not because she was already scanning the line, the doorway, the shadows of the entrance like she expected six feet of demon and cheekbones to materialize.

“You’re doing the thing,” Zoey said, narrowing her eyes.

“What thing?”

“The searching thing,” Zoey accused. “Like you lost your wallet but actually it’s six-foot-two with stupid forearms.”

Rumi pinched her arm. “Ow.”

“Denial noted,” Mira muttered, pulling out her phone to snap a group selfie with the three of them pressed together, streetlights overhead making their faces glow like trouble. “For posterity. For when Rumi inevitably pretends she wasn’t vibrating like a tuning fork in this line.”

“I hate both of you,” Rumi muttered, but she leaned in anyway, letting their perfume and warmth swallow her nerves.

The line crept forward. Somewhere inside, a roar of voices went up, followed by the kind of bass drop that rattled the glass in the dorm windows. The security guy at the door barely looked at them—three girls in heels, laughing like they belonged here. He waved them through.

Inside was another planet.

Heat hit first, humid and alive, like the walls were sweating. Lights strobed in color sweeps across the packed room, reds and blues cutting over each other until everyone looked half-dream. The music was a living thing, bass so low it shook the floor, sharp hi-hats cutting through like sparks.

Zoey grabbed Mira’s hand, already shouting over the music. “Bar first, then dance!”

Mira pointed like a general. “Bar!”

They moved as one organism, cutting through the crowd with practiced ease. Rumi followed, letting their momentum drag her while her eyes kept betraying her—skimming the crowd, the corners, the balcony above. He wasn’t here. Or maybe he was. And if he was—why did her pulse already know it?

She told herself she didn’t care. She was here with her girls. She looked good. She deserved to have fun.

And still, every time someone brushed past her shoulder or leaned too close, her heart stuttered like it was waiting for the wrong voice.

The bar was its own battlefield. Bodies pressed two deep against the counter, arms waving bills like white flags, bartenders moving in sleek choreography that made it look effortless. Mira got there first, wedging herself between a guy in a varsity jacket and a girl already slurring into her straw. She slapped the counter with neon nails. “Three vodka sodas. Extra lime.”

“Make it five,” said a voice behind her.

Rumi looked up just in time to clock two men with identical pink hair—different shades, one bubblegum, one fuchsia—leaning in like they’d been summoned. One of them wore a grin too easy for his own good; the other looked like he thought he was auditioning for a cologne commercial.

“We’ll cover it,” Bubblegum said, flashing a wallet like a magician’s trick.

“Correction,” Fuchsia said smoothly, sliding in on Mira’s other side. “I’ll cover it.”

Mira arched a brow, caught in the middle like a queen at a duel. “Do I look like a raffle prize?”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

Zoey almost spat out her straw. “Oh my god.”

The bubblegum one extended a hand, unabashed. “Romance.”

The other tilted his head, smile sharp. “Abby.”

Mira stared at them like she was calculating odds. “You two rehearsed this?”

“Every day,” Abby said without shame.

“Since birth,” Romance added.

Rumi had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. They weren’t subtle, but they were charming in that over-the-top, theater-kid way that made you roll your eyes even as you leaned in. Mira, to her credit, didn’t melt—she just crossed her arms and let them trip over themselves trying to one-up each other, accepting the drinks like a reigning monarch.

Zoey, meanwhile, had her own problem. Or her own mystery.

The man who slid into her space had hair like stormclouds, gray falling across one eye, the other eye glinting sharp under the light. He didn’t bother with introductions; he just leaned down, close enough that Rumi could see Zoey’s breath catch, and said something low enough to drown under the bass.

Whatever it was, Zoey laughed—not her fake laugh, not the one she used on customers. This one had teeth, and she answered back like she was sparring. His grin widened like he liked the challenge.

“Okay, wow,” Rumi muttered, nursing her own drink.

Mira must have caught her look because she leaned in, voice pitched for Rumi’s ears only. “Don’t worry. We’re not going anywhere.”

“Seriously,” Zoey added, rolling her eyes at Mystery’s persistence. “We’re here together. No one’s sweeping us off the floor.”

“I’m fine,” Rumi insisted, lifting her glass. “Go. Have fun. I’m not gonna dissolve if you dance.”

“You better not,” Mira said, but she let Abby drag her toward the dance floor, Romance hot on their heels. Zoey gave Rumi a look like don’t be stupid, then turned back to Mystery, who offered his hand like he was starting a story. She took it, laughing, and disappeared into the crowd of moving bodies.

And just like that, Rumi was alone at the bar.

Not lonely, exactly. She had her drink, the bass thrumming through her ribs, the glow of her friends’ laughter rising above the noise. She watched them from her perch, Mira twirling between Abby and Romance like she’d been choreographed for this, Zoey tossing her head back when Mystery spun her. They looked alive. Gorgeous. Dangerous. Untouchable.

Rumi sipped her drink, half smiling. This was good. This was what it was supposed to be—girls first, always. The rest was noise.

Still, her gaze kept snagging on the empty space beside her. The way her pulse ticked like it was waiting for something. Or someone.

She told herself not to. She told herself she wasn’t looking.

And then she looked.

Across the room, half-hidden by the strobe, he was there.

Leaning against the far wall like he owned gravity, shirt black, sleeves shoved to his elbows, hair messy in that deliberate way that made her want to scream. He wasn’t doing anything—just watching. Her.

The drink in her hand suddenly tasted like nothing.

He moved when their eyes met, pushing off the wall, cutting through the crowd with ease, people parting like they knew better. Every step was unhurried, inevitable, like he’d been walking toward her all night.

By the time he reached her, Rumi’s heart was a riot under her ribs.

“You’re late,” she said, aiming for even, failing spectacularly.

His mouth curved. “Worth the wait.”

He stopped at the bar but didn’t crowd her, one hand on the counter, the other tucked into his pocket like he didn’t trust it not to reach. Up close he smelled like cedar and cold night air, like he’d walked through somewhere expensive and stolen the weather.

“You’re late,” she said again, steadier.

“I’m here,” he said, and somehow that was an answer and a problem.

She tipped her chin at his sleeves. “Lose the jacket?”

“Blame the room,” he said, eyes doing one long, unhurried pass over her dress. “It got hotter.”

“Tragic,” she deadpanned, even as her skin went traitorously aware everywhere his gaze had been. “Want a drink?”

He shook his head. “Already got what I came for.”

She blinked. “Cheesy.”

“True,” he corrected, unbothered. He glanced toward the dance floor where the crowd surged and broke like a tide. “Dance with me.”

She snorted. “You? In a mosh pit of econ majors and regret? Pass.”

His mouth edged toward a smile. “I’ll be good.”

“Famous last words.”

“Come on,” he said, offering his hand palm-up, the way he always did, like an invitation not a trap. “Let me be obvious about you in front of people.”

It should have freaked her out. It did, a little. It also flipped some stupid switch behind her ribs. She looked at his hand like it could read minds, then rolled her eyes at herself and set her fingers in his. Heat zipped through her arm like he’d wired her to the room.

“Fine,” she said. “One song. If I die, tell Zoey she can’t have my shoes.”

“Noted,” he said, and tugged, just enough to make her step into him, into the press and heat and bass.

The crowd swallowed them. Lights strobed over their heads; a synth line climbed like a dare. He didn’t do the club-guy pincer move; he just found her waist, steady and certain, and let the music decide how close to stand. Close, apparently. Close enough that she could feel the breath he lost when she fit into that space he’d made like she’d been there before.

“Center of gravity much?” she muttered, hands sliding up to anchor on his shoulders because the floor felt a little less like floor right now.

“Only for you,” he said, and she wanted to be immune to the line but his eyes didn’t leave her face, not even when someone knocked his shoulder. It wasn’t a performance. It was… intent.

She could pretend she didn’t like it. She didn’t bother.

They moved. Not pretty, not flashy—just that easy, inevitable sway that happens when two bodies learn each other’s timing without talking about it. She let her palms drag over the cotton at his shoulders, felt the flex underneath, shifted closer to hear him when he said something that got lost in the chorus.

“What?” she demanded, leaning up, mouth too near his jaw.

“I said,” he murmured, and she felt it more than heard it, “you’re ruining me in public.”

She laughed, unhelpfully fond, and then the song broke down into a beat that asked for trouble. She gave it. She turned in his hands, pressed back, rolled her hips slow and mean because she could, because he would let her. His breath hitched against her ear; his fingers tightened at her waist and then eased, reminding her—always reminding her—she could stop, she could shift, she could ask.

“Rumi,” he said, warning and gratitude tangled.

“Mm?” she said, past sense.

“Look at me.”

She did. She twisted back to face him, palms braced on his chest. The rest of the party fell into smear and sound. It was just his mouth, his eyes, the way he looked at her like the whole room was an elaborate excuse to get to this one frame.

“Careful,” she said, breathless and smug, because she could feel how close he was to losing the thread.

He didn’t argue. He just dipped his head, slow enough to telegraph, and she met him halfway because she was done pretending. The kiss wasn’t tidy. It wasn’t any of their careful. It was hungry and public and absolutely unwise, a spark catching dry tinder. Someone whooped nearby; somebody else cursed because their drink sloshed. She didn’t care. His hand slid up between her shoulder blades, her fingers found the back of his neck, and the room tilted into bright, reckless heat.

They broke because oxygen demanded an apology. He rested his forehead to hers, eyes closed for a beat like he was filing something under sacred.

“I hate you,” she whispered, smiling like an idiot.

“Liar,” he whispered back, smiling the same way.

“Hallway?” he asked, voice gone lower, careful threading back in around the edges of want.

She nodded before her brain got a vote, and let him weave them through the bodies, past the bar (Mira clocked them, eyebrows launching, Zoey made a heart with both hands; Mystery and the pink-haired idiots cheered like they’d won money), down a hallway where the music softened and the air got cooler.

They hit the shadowed stretch outside the stairwell. Door propped open with a sneaker. A slant of night air coming up from the loading dock like a secret. He backed her into the wall, but—no cage. One hand flat beside her head, the other hovering at her hip like he was asking for permission all over again.

She gave it, dragged him in by the front of his shirt. The kiss here was worse. Better. No audience to swallow it. No need to keep it simple. He tasted like heat and the faintest ghost of mint; she bit his lip out of spite and he made a noise that did dangerous things to her posture. Hands everywhere now, his thumb finding the tendon in her neck, her nails skating up his ribs through cotton, the kind of touch that says I know where the switch is, I won’t flip it unless you say.

“Jinu,” she said against his mouth, which was not a thought so much as a surrender.

“Say stop,” he murmured, because he always would.

“Don’t you dare,” she said, because she never wanted him to right then, and the laugh he let out wrecked her a little.

They slowed before they did something they couldn’t un-do in a stairwell. He pressed his forehead to her temple, breathing like he’d run here. When he spoke, it wasn’t a line. It landed too clean for that.

“I want this to be more.”

It was so quiet she almost pretended she hadn’t heard it. The sentence slid under her skin and the words slid through her chest like a stone breaking the surface of still water—ripples everywhere, alarms everywhere. Run, run, run, her body screamed, old circuitry firing, telling her she’d been here before. Not here with him, not in this exact heat-soaked hallway, but in the moment where hope became dangerous.

Hher lips parted like they might shape the same truth back. The words “So do I” sat on her tongue—dangerous, reckless, real—before panic surged in and burned it away.

So she grabbed for the only life raft she knew: the joke. “I like our friends-with-benefits thing.”

Silence. Not long. But long enough to burn.

He pulled back half an inch, just far enough to see her face. And she saw it—saw the flicker that crossed his expression. Not anger. Not shock. Something smaller and infinitely worse. The kind of hurt you could tell had been rehearsed. Immediate. Tidy. Like he’d known to expect disappointment and filed her words neatly into that drawer.

“Got it,” he said, his voice gentle. Too gentle. Like he was putting gauze on a wound he didn’t want her to know she’d opened. “Then I misread.”

Her chest seized. Regret flared, but her mouth betrayed her anyway, scrambling to defend the walls she didn’t know how to take down. “That’s not—” She tripped on the words, choked them out. “I didn’t think this was… anything more to you.”

Something about the way he looked at her then made her want to claw the words back. He leaned against the wall for a second like maybe laughter was the only alternative to letting something break. “Then you weren’t listening.”

Her throat closed. Heat crawled up her skin. “Don’t do that,” she snapped, the edge cracking because it wasn’t anger, it was panic. “Don’t make me the unreasonable one because I’m not ready to—” She gestured, vague, helpless, at the idea of more. Too big to say out loud, too dangerous to name when it might be taken away.

His gaze softened again, but it was raw, stripped down in a way she almost couldn’t stand. “Rumi.” The bass from the main room was pounding, but his voice was softer than that. “I’ve been saying it in every way you’d let me. Coffee. Studio. Showing up. The way I look at you when you’re not looking back.” He huffed out a shaky exhale through his nose, like he’d already gone further than he meant to. “It’s not a trap. It’s an invitation.”

Her chest ached, split between wanting to believe him and every warning that lived in her bones. The only thing she knew how to do was aim sharp, test soft things until they broke. “Invitations can be revoked,” she said, the words flat, self-defense masquerading as wit.

And God—his face. The flicker of pain she put there. He flinched like she’d grazed bone. “So can boundaries.”

It gutted her. She wanted to take it back, to rewind ten seconds and just lean into the warmth instead of cutting it with a blade. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Because hope was heavier than loss, and she didn’t trust herself not to drown in it.

They stood there, breath stuttering in tandem, night air from the stairwell licking cool against sweat. Somewhere behind them, a door banged. Laughter spilled down the hall like marbles scattering.

“Jinu?” A voice carried from the far end of the corridor, light and sing-song, but edged with expectation. “Hey—there’s something wrong with the speakers by the bar. The guy looked at it but couldn’t get it to work. Can you come check?”

The words were half-swallowed by the bass leaking through the walls, but Rumi still heard them over the roar of her own pulse.

He dragged a hand over his jaw, straightened. And when he looked back, his face was back in order: polite, distant, the version of him that belonged to the world and not to her. “They need me,” he said, apologetic but already pulling away. “I have to—”

“Go,” she said too fast, too sharp, because relief sometimes disguised itself as escape.

He paused, nodded once. Respect settled between them again, but it wasn’t the warm kind—it was the distance kind, the kind that pressed on her chest until it hurt to breathe. He leaned down, close enough for her to feel the warmth he wasn’t offering anymore, and his voice slipped out low, steady, broken at the edges. “You can keep running,” he said. “But I’ll still be here when you stop.”

And then he was gone. Moving down the hall toward the voice and whatever obligations came with it. The door at the end swung shut. The bass rushed back in like a tide reclaiming shore.

Rumi stayed braced against the wall, pulse tripping through equations she couldn’t solve, lungs locked around something stupid and hopeful she couldn’t let out. She stared at the sneaker propping open the stairwell door, willing herself to remember how to be a person with a spine.

From the main room, a burst of laughter rose—Mira and Zoey, bright and familiar, pulling her back by gravity. Girls first. Always. She smoothed her dress down like fabric could erase the imprint of his hands, pushed off the wall, and walked back toward the noise.

Back into the party with a face that said everything is fine. While her chest whispered, traitorous and relentless: you liar, you liar, you liar.

The floor lurched beneath her. Not literally—though it might as well have, with the bass rattling up through her shoes until it rewired her heartbeat. Too fast, too sharp, stuttering like a broken metronome. Her throat cinched halfway shut, shallow gasps clawing for air that suddenly wasn’t enough. The room pressed in. Heat, glitter, laughter. Too bright, too loud, too close.

Stupid. She hadn’t felt this in months. Since moving here. Since convincing herself she’d built a life with edges smooth enough to breathe inside. But now her ribs were a cage and the air had teeth. The music blurred into static. Her chest locked like she was back where she swore she’d never be.

Her eyes stung. Her palms were slick. Don’t cry here. Don’t do this here.

Somewhere across the room—near the bar, where she vaguely remembered someone shouting about the speakers cutting out—she heard his voice. Low, steady, carrying even through the chaos.

“Rumi?”

Her name in his mouth slid straight into her chest. Jinu. Of course it was him. He was standing half-turned from the booth, wires in hand, gaze already locked on her like a searchlight. Concern written all over his face.

Her stomach dropped. Not here. Not with that look. Not when her whole body was already screaming get out get out get out.

Before he could close the distance, Mira was in front of her. One sharp pivot, shoulder squaring like she’d just been drafted into combat. Zoey flanked the other side, glitter catching the strobe, expression bright and deadly.

“She’s fine,” Zoey chirped, a glittering little blade of deflection. “Girl break.”

Jinu slowed, reading the field. His mouth tilted like he wanted to argue but wouldn’t. He glanced at Rumi once—just once—and the heat in his eyes made her chest cinch tighter. Then he stopped short, palms open at his sides. Not crowding. Not pushing. Just there.

Mira leaned in close to Rumi, voice for her only. “Outside. Now.”

The frat house air was swampy with perfume and sweat, but the second they broke past the exit into the night, oxygen returned. Cold bit her cheeks; she sucked it in like water after a drought. Mira steered her toward a bench near the curb, metal slick with condensation. Zoey shoved her coat into Rumi’s lap before she could argue.

“Five things you can see,” Mira said, calm as scripture.

Rumi’s voice shook. “Streetlight. Bus stop sign. The… trash can.” Her vision wobbled. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Your boots. Zoey’s stupid glitter.”

“Four things you can feel,” Zoey said softly.

“The bench. My dress.” Her hands were fists. She forced them open. “Your coat. The cold.”

“Three things you can hear,” Mira prompted.

“Music. Cars. My—” Her voice cracked. “My heart.”

Zoey pressed the water bottle into her hands. “Two things you can smell.”

She breathed, ragged. “Perfume. Street food.”

“And one thing you can taste.”

The tears came then, unspooling without her permission. “Salt,” she whispered. “Salt.”

Her phone lit up the inside of her bag. Jinu’s name.

[jinu] where did you go?

Another buzz.

[jinu] i saw your face. talk to me.

Her breath hitched; Zoey’s arm closed around her shoulders. “It’s okay. Let it out.”

And she did. Tears hot and relentless, shoulders shaking. Mira rubbed circles into her knee; Zoey pulled her tight.

The phone kept buzzing.

[jinu] please. just tell me you’re okay.

[jinu] just… don’t shut me out.

It was too much. Too soft. Too kind. Her chest caved. She pressed her face into Zoey’s shoulder and cried harder, shaking her head like she could dislodge him from her bloodstream.

Silence stretched. Zoey sank onto the bench beside her, wrapping both arms around her waist. Mira crouched in front, eyeliner still flawless somehow, her hands steadying Rumi’s knees.

“What happened?” Mira asked, low, even.

Rumi shook her head, but the words slipped anyway, fast and ugly. “I ruined it. He said he wanted—more. And I panicked. I made it a joke. I said friends with benefits. And he—” Her breath snapped. “He looked so hurt. Like I’d just—like I’d taken it out of his hands and snapped it in two.”

Zoey made a small, furious noise and hugged her tighter. Mira’s eyes narrowed, but not at Rumi. At the universe. “And then?”

“He kissed my cheek and said he’d wait,” Rumi admitted, voice breaking around it. “And I—God, I felt like the worst person alive. Why can’t I just… be normal? Why can’t I just take something good when it’s right in front of me without tearing it apart first?”

Her phone buzzed in her bag, once, twice, three times. She didn’t look. Couldn’t. She already knew whose name was glowing on the screen.

Zoey squeezed her side. “You’re allowed to cry, babe.”

And she did. Finally, wholly, tears spilling hot and fast down her cheeks. She buried her face against Zoey’s shoulder, mascara streaking, dress be damned. Mira’s hand never left her knee, grounding her like an anchor in a storm.

They stayed until her breathing evened out, until the world stopped spinning like a cruel carousel. The texts kept coming, muffled vibrations in her bag. Each one another pulse she couldn’t answer. Not yet.

When she could stand, they flanked her again. Walked her home without comment, boots crunching against pavement. The night was cold, but their shoulders pressed warm against hers the whole way back.

In the dorm, the chaos of the party was miles away. Shoes kicked off. Soft lamp turned on. The three of them collapsed onto beds and beanbags like an exhausted constellation.

“Spill,” Mira said simply.

Rumi hiccuped a laugh through the wreckage of her face. “I did.”

“Again.”

And so she did. She told them the stairwell, the word more, the panic that felt older than she was. The promise she didn’t know how to believe in.

By the end, she was crying again, but quieter this time. The kind of crying that shakes the dust loose.

“You idiot,” Zoey said finally, brushing a strand of hair from Rumi’s forehead. “He likes you. He likes you. This isn’t complicated.”

“It feels complicated,” Rumi muttered, voice small.

“College is complicated,” Mira corrected, sliding onto the bed beside her. “Love isn’t. He’s showing up. He’s feeding you. He’s not playing games. That’s liking you, Rumi. That’s all it is.”

Her phone buzzed again on the nightstand, screen glowing with his name. She stared at it, throat thick, chest torn between guilt and longing. She didn’t pick it up. Not tonight.

Zoey flicked off the lamp. “Movie night. Mandatory. No boys, no demons, no heartbreak allowed.”

“Only snacks,” Mira added.

“And sisterhood,” Zoey said dramatically, diving under the blanket pile.

Rumi laughed wetly into her pillow. For the length of one dumb action movie, pressed between her girls, she let herself believe the world wouldn’t end if she stopped running.
But the thought that kept pricking, restless and unshakable, was the worst of all: maybe—just maybe—she actually liked him back. And that was the part that terrified her.

Chapter Text

Morning found her anyway.

It oozed through the blinds in weak gray strips, the kind of campus light that made everything look like it needed an extra hour of sleep. Someone in the hall was blow-drying their hair to the beat of a tragic pop song. Zoey was starfished on her mattress, one hand dangling over the edge like she’d fainted mid-dream. Mira had constructed a pillow citadel and was snoring so delicately it felt like a performance piece.

Rumi’s phone vibrated under her cheek.

She flinched, fumbled, and nearly flung it off the bed before pinning it with her palm. The lock screen was a crime scene—stacked banners, lit up like a slot machine that refused to stop paying out. Her thumb hovered. She told herself to be normal. Then she unlocked it anyway.

[jinu] rumi?

[jinu] i’m sorry if i pushed too hard

[jinu] please don’t let me have scared you off

[jinu] say the word and i’ll back off

[jinu] the opposite word and i’ll be wherever you need me to be

A hollow thud went through her chest, heavy and stupid. She stared at the texts like they were a test she hadn’t studied for. They kept going—timestamps hopscotched across the night, whole pockets of hours where he’d clearly tried to leave it alone and then failed at pretending.

[jinu] got home

[jinu] i keep replaying everything in my head

[jinu] i shouldn’t have said it there

[jinu] (i meant it)

[jinu] but not like that

Her stomach tightened. She scrolled.

[jinu] i’ll bring coffee tomorrow. just say the word

[jinu] or say “don’t,” and i won’t

[jinu] just… don’t disappear

He was like this with everyone, she told herself. Gentleman Jinu. Good at apologies. Good at meaning things with quiet hands and careful words. He probably collected broken girls like charity wristbands and made them all feel safe for sport.

The thought didn’t even convince her own bloodstream.

Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. Three times she typed and deleted the same nothing.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.

Then her chest did that misfiring kick again—the one that remembered the look on his face when she’d said friends with benefits. The tidy hurt. The way he’d put himself back together in front of her like he’d been trained.

You did that, a nasty little voice said. You took something soft and made it sharp. You always do.

She locked the phone and shoved it under her pillow like that could smother the feeling. The bracelet on her wrist—his bracelet, shiny traitor—flashed an accusing stripe of gold on the sheet.

“Ugh,” Zoey muttered into her comforter. “If that phone vibrates one more time, I’m filing a noise complaint against your love life.”

“It’s not—” Rumi started, and stopped, because even whispering the denial felt like tempting fate. “I’ll… turn it off.”

“Don’t you dare,” Mira croaked from inside her fortress. “Leave it on. We’ve got you if it’s good, and we’ve got you if it’s bad.”

Rumi made a face at the ceiling and slid out of bed. The dorm tile shocked her feet awake. She did the morning things on autopilot—sink, toothpaste, the ritual inventory of her face in the mirror like it was a crime scene to clean up. Somewhere between moisturizer and mascara, the phone buzzed again. She pretended not to hear it. It kept pretending back.

By the time she was dressed (hoodie, jeans, the bracelet she didn’t want to take off because she wasn’t a coward, she just didn’t want to deal with what it meant), the room smelled like stale sugar and three different shampoos. Their whiteboard by the door still said BUY MILK in Zoey’s bubble handwriting and, underneath in Mira’s sharp scrawl, STOP BEING A COWARD (unclear whether it referred to dairy or life).

Her thumb had a mind of its own. She unlocked the phone again.

[jinu] i didn’t sleep much

[jinu] i’m not saying that to make you feel bad

[jinu] i just… don’t know the right way to say “i care” without making it worse

The ache that rolled through her was meaner than hunger. She typed a rapid-fire response and deleted it so fast the letters barely existed: don’t be nice to me.

Because if you’re nice, I’ll believe you. And if I believe you, I’ll drown.

She stuffed the phone into her backpack so aggressively that Zoey sat up, hair a haystack, eyes narrowed. “You’re either sexting badly or avoiding greatness.”

“Homework,” Rumi lied, aiming for breezy. “History class. Dead kings.”

“Tell them I said stop dying,” Zoey yawned, then flopped back down.

Mira pried an eye open. “Tell Jinu I said—”

“Goodbye,” Rumi cut in, shouldering her bag like it was a shield. “I’m going to campus.”

The hallway was cold and smelled like someone’s tragic attempt at eggs. On the stairs, the phone hit her hip with traitorous little taps. She didn’t look. She could do a morning without looking. She could do a whole day. She had before.

Outside, the sky was the color of an old T-shirt. Food carts were setting up along the quad walk; a delivery scooter rattled past; a freshman tried to jog and spilled coffee on their own shoelaces. Normal. She inhaled it like medicine.

Her phone buzzed steady between footsteps. She told herself it was spam. A sale. A group chat.

[jinu] i’m at the coffee shop
[jinu] not ambushing, i swear
[jinu] i’ll just… leave something with the counter and go

Her feet turned before her brain could veto. The little shop by the quad—the one with scuffed floors and chalkboard menus and espresso that actually tasted like espresso—had been theirs since day one. Too many late-night crams and guilty pastries had carved it into muscle memory.

When she got there, the place was its usual half-crowd of undergrads and professors. But on the far end of the counter sat an unlabeled to-go cup, waiting like a dare. A Post-it clung to the lid.

don’t shut me out

Her face heated. The note might as well have said I pay attention.

No tall idiot in a hoodie hovered nearby. No cedar-smelling ambush. Just the barista, who caught her eye and lifted one brow in quiet judgment before sliding over a bag.

“Your guy dropped this off,” they said flatly. “Also insisted on a croissant. And banana bread. And then a second banana bread in case the first one was lonely.”

“That’s a crime,” she muttered, but her hand closed around the bag anyway.

“He said he was prepared to face charges,” the barista replied, pocketing the bills Jinu had left like they’d witnessed this kind of nonsense before.

Rumi wanted to laugh and accidentally cry at the same time. She shoved a tip into the jar like she could bribe the universe to stop noticing her. She considered texting thank you. She considered hurling her phone into the nearest trash can.

Instead she walked toward the music building and stared at the cracks in the pavement like they held answers. Her notifications stacked again, insistently polite.

[jinu] if you don’t want the food i’ll stop

[jinu] if you want time, i’ll give you time

[jinu] if you want me to leave you alone, tell me and i will

[jinu] but if you don’t say it i’m going to keep trying

He didn’t know how to be forgiven.
The thought slammed her sideways. Every line he sent read like he was practicing exile—like conflict, to him, was always a one-way door and he’d already started stepping through it. He wasn’t just texting her; he was rehearsing how to disappear, how to make his absence gentle, how to soften the blow of being the son who ruined things.

It gutted her. Because she was supposed to be different. She was supposed to be the one place where he didn’t have to bargain for worth, where fights didn’t equal endings, where walking back in wasn’t a crime. Instead he was writing like she’d proven his father right—that the things he cared about always fell apart, that love was just another boardroom trap dressed in softer clothes.

Something small and furious inside her curled up at that. Because damn it, he wasn’t supposed to look at her like another locked door.

People didn’t keep trying. Not for her. They handed her their exit like a party favor. Even when she was little—too loud, too much, the girl who asked for seconds on attention and got told to mind her plate. Even when she dated—too sharp, too quiet, pick a reason. People loved excuses. She made it easy for them. Safer that way.

Arguments were endings. Weren’t they?

Her fingers were freezing. She ducked into the music building’s lobby and let the warm air climb her sleeves. The bulletin board glittered with bad fonts and desperate auditions. Practice-piano scales bled under a door and, beneath them, a tenor voice that still wasn’t sure it was allowed to take up space.

Her phone vibrated again. She glanced down in spite of herself.

[jinu] i’m sorry i said it like that
[jinu] i’m not trying to trap you

The dots came and went, like he was weighing every word against how much space it might take up in her chest.

[jinu] i just meant “more”
[jinu] like not pretending it’s nothing when it isn’t
[jinu] like not having to walk away every time it gets close

She sat down on the bench under the window because her knees felt unreliable. The latte burned her palms through the lid. The bracelet caught a strip of winter light and threw it back in her eyes.

She typed. Deleted. Typed again.

[rumi] please stop being nice to me

She stared at the sentence until it shook apart and didn’t make sense anymore. She erased it. Her thumb trembled without permission.

A girl in a red scarf burst through the door, laughing, breath fogging around her. The world was still happening. How rude.

Rumi inhaled, slowly, like she was trying to teach her ribs how. Denial had always been the easiest language to speak. She would speak it now. For a day. For a week. For however long it took for the heat to leave her face and the hope to drain out where it couldn’t embarrass her.

Her phone buzzed again, a gentler vibration like it was trying not to spook her.

[jinu] i’ll be quiet

[jinu] you don’t owe me anything

[jinu] i just didn’t want you to think you scared me off

[jinu] you don’t

Her throat went tight in the mean way. She looked at the exit. She could walk out. She could live a normal day. Go to class. Take notes. Pretend all the feelings were an elective she didn’t have room for this semester.

She stood. The coffee was perfect, exactly the temperature she liked, which felt like an insult. She tossed the empty croissant bag in the bin and was unreasonably careful not to crumple the Post-it.

On the way to History of East Asian Cinema (dark room, older documentary, students dozing upright like houseplants), she did the only thing she trusted herself with: she muted their thread and slid the phone deep into her backpack, under notebooks and the sweater she never wore and the memory of his mouth on her cheek.

If she didn’t look, she could be fine. If she was fine long enough, maybe the fine would calcify and hold.

In the lecture hall, the professor dimmed the lights and queued up a grainy interview. The past flickered across the screen, someone else’s heartbreak translated into subtitles. Rumi sat in the middle of the row, pack between her feet like a sleeping animal, and tried to keep her eyes on the story instead of the shape of her phone beneath her shoe.

Two minutes in, her chest betrayed her anyway. The kiss. The way he’d said “babe” in public like it wasn’t a word that could undo her. The late-night confessions in her bed. The party, all that ridiculous almost-flirting that had felt—God, it had felt like a date. Why hadn’t she let it just be one? Did she even want it to be? Or had she wanted it too much?

Her throat pulled tight. She pressed her tongue hard to the back of her teeth until the urge to cry dissolved like salt on water.

Her bag hummed against her ankle—one short buzz. Then nothing. Then another, farther apart. Like he was trying to write over a bad song with a better one and didn’t know the key.

She didn’t check. She could hold her breath an hour. She had practice.

When the credits rolled, the room blinked awake in slow-motion. Rumi kept staring at the now-blank screen until the class emptied. Only when the final aisle chatter died did she reach She shouldn’t have looked. She knew it the second she slid the phone out from under her notebook and saw the glow. Two new messages, stacked neat like they hadn’t been sitting there for minutes, waiting.

[jinu] i’ll stop texting for a while
[jinu] if that’s what you want, tell me now and i will believe you

Her heart lurched so hard it hurt. Not fear—worse. Hope. The kind that cracked ribs because it asked her to say something true.

Her thumbs hovered.
Don’t.
Please don’t leave me alone with this.
I didn’t mean it, I just didn’t know how to hold it.

She typed don’t before the panic snapped her wrists shut. Backspaced until it was blank. Tried again. I’m sorry. Erased it, too.

Her chest was a metronome gone haywire. Her body wanted one thing—truth—and her brain spat survival. She needed something safe, something small, something that wouldn’t change anything if he decided to believe it.

[rumi] i have class

Her chest hollowed the second it sent, the emptiness ringing louder than the words on the screen.

The dots blinked. Disappeared. Blinked again. When they settled, his reply was short, steady. Exactly him.

[jinu] okay
[jinu] good luck

It should have helped. Instead it gutted her. Because it was kind. Because it was patient. Because it sounded like a boy trying to give her the out she kept insisting on even while her whole chest screamed to be pulled back in.

The screen dimmed. The silence pressed in. And Rumi sat frozen, feeling like she’d just chosen absence over him, even though every inch of her wanted the opposite.

She slid the phone away, stood, and told her legs to do walking. They did. Outside, the air bit her cheeks. She put her hood up and let the campus swallow her whole, one foot in front of the other, a girl being excellent at pretending.

By the time she crossed the quad, the bracelet had gone hot against her skin—heavy, insistent, like it remembered for her. She didn’t slip it off. She didn’t even look at it. She just pressed her wrist to her chest, hard, and every moment from yesterday slammed back into her at once: his mouth shaping her name like a promise, his hand catching hers like it had always known the way, the fight, the almost-confession she’d cut to ribbons. Three seconds of holding it there, like she was trying to pin proof of him into her sternum, like she could brand herself before she lost him for good. Then she let her arm drop and kept walking, as if momentum could erase the ache.

The rest of the morning crawled like it had weights tied to its ankles.

Music History II bled into General Psych, both under the same fluorescent hum that made everyone’s eyes dull. She copied down timelines and theorists like her hand had a mind of its own, pen scratching neat loops her brain didn’t bother to file. None of it stuck.

In Survey of World Lit, she half-listened to a TA dissecting symbolism in The Iliad , the words dissolving into noise while she stared at the margin of her notebook. By the time she dragged herself into Intro to Statistics—a class she’d sworn she’d pass by sheer force of spite alone—her head already buzzed with numbers she wasn’t keeping.

Afternoon meant Applied Voice Lab, which should have been the one bright spot, the one place she could breathe. Instead the practice rooms felt airless. Every note out of her throat sounded too sharp, too thin, like even her voice was tired of carrying her weight.

Every time her phone buzzed faintly against the inside of her bag, her stomach flipped. And every time she refused to look, the air around her got tighter, thinner.

She told herself she wasn’t punishing him. She told herself it wasn’t a game. She told herself he probably didn’t even care this much—not really. He was just nice. Careful. That’s all.

The truth she wouldn’t name sat heavier: she had no idea how to believe someone could take a hit and still want her after. People didn’t. Not friends, not dates, not even her aunt in the ways that mattered. They got tired. They left.

And Jinu—God, he wasn’t supposed to be different. He wasn’t supposed to keep showing up. She didn’t trust that kind of persistence. It felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop, like daring fate to prove her right.

By the time her last class—Art Appreciation, some cruel requirement meant to make everyone talk about brushstrokes they couldn’t see—finally let out, her head ached from holding it all in. She dragged herself back toward the dorm on autopilot, sneakers scuffing against the pavement, the city loud enough to cover the static of her thoughts.

The only silver lining, she told herself, was work later. As much as she dreaded it—makeup, heels, men with hands where they didn’t belong—it would at least be structure. Lights, music, muscle memory. A way to shove all this nonsense into the corner of her mind and bury it under stage-Rumi where it belonged.

Inside, the door clicked shut behind her and the noise softened into the usual chaos: Zoey sitting cross-legged on her bed, laptop balanced on a pillow while she scrolled through lighting presets; Mira tucked into the corner with a stack of notes, highlighter poised like a weapon. 

“Hey,” Zoey said first, eyes flicking up, her tone light but laced with something sharper. Watching.

“Hey,” Rumi answered, trying to make her voice level. She dropped her bag against the desk, careful not to let her phone thud too loud.

Mira capped her pen and leaned back, studying her. Not judging—never that—but with the kind of look that said she saw right through the armor. “Rough day?”

Rumi shrugged, tugging at the zipper on her hoodie. “Long. That’s all.”

They didn’t push. Not really. Zoey closed the laptop with a quiet snap and stretched like a cat, then flopped onto her back. “We’re making ramen later. You’re eating with us.”

“Yeah,” Rumi said, relief hidden in the word.

Mira offered a gentler version of her usual smirk. “You don’t have to talk. Just don’t starve. Deal?”

Rumi nodded. The lump in her throat made it feel too big a gesture for something so small. She turned toward her bed before either of them could catch the shine in her eyes.

Under the blanket, she finally let herself peek. The screen lit her face in that harsh blue, enough to make her eyes sting. A handful of messages sat stacked in her notifications—neat, insistent, impossible to misinterpret.

She didn’t open them. Couldn’t. Her thumb hovered, traitorous, then curled into a fist. She shoved the phone back under her pillow like burying it could bury the ache clawing through her ribs.

For the rest of the night she performed distraction like it was a job. She let Zoey and Mira’s chatter stitch a net around her. She let the ramen steam fog her lashes so she could blame it for her blur. Mira launched into a ten-minute rant about whether lo-fi beats actually improved study sessions or if it was all placebo; Zoey dragged her into a TikTok reenactment so ridiculous she wheezed with laughter before she could stop herself.

She let them pull her into normal. She clung to it like driftwood.

And every time her bag buzzed faintly against the leg of the desk, she ignored it. She pretended that not opening the messages was the same as not feeling them. Pretended that silence could protect her from the truth sitting one tap away.

The weight of the messages sat under her pillow like a brick. She hadn’t opened them. Couldn’t. But she knew they were there, heavy enough that even silence buzzed.

Mira didn’t ask. Zoey didn’t either. They didn’t say his name, didn’t so much as glance at Rumi’s phone. They just filled the air with noise—stupid, comfortable noise—the way they always did when one of them needed it.

Zoey flopped on her beanbag, scrolling with no volume until her face split into a grin. “Okay, listen to this,” she said, waving the screen. “Mystery sent me a poem.”

Rumi raised a brow. “A poem ?”

“Don’t act surprised,” Zoey said, preening. “He’s a closet romantic. All broody on the outside, but then he hits me with lines about ‘the way glitter looks under club lights’ and I’m supposed to just… what? Not melt?”

Mira made a strangled sound. “That’s not science. That’s serotonin hacking.”

Zoey tossed a sequin pillow at her. “You’re just jealous Abby and Romance don’t have the nerve to send you anything that sweet.”

“I don’t want them to,” Mira said crisply, pen scratching over her lab write-up.

Rumi smirked. “Says the girl who literally turns pink every time Abby hands her a highlighter in class.”

Mira’s ears betrayed her by going pink right on cue. “That’s because Abby uses glitter pens. It’s a crime against academia.”

Zoey gasped like she’d cracked a case. “Admit it—you like them both. Two predators circling you, and you’re pretending it’s peer-reviewed research instead of flirting.”

“It’s not flirting,” Mira said. “It’s data collection.”

“Data collection,” Rumi echoed, snorting into her sleeve.

Zoey leaned back, smug. “Fine. While Mira’s out here publishing her dissertation on ‘How to Accidentally Date Pink-Haired Frat Boys,,’ I’ll just be over here living my soft-girl romance novel.”

“You live in a delusion,” Mira said, but her lips twitched.

“And you,” Rumi added, pointing her pen at Mira, “are in denial.”

The room dissolved into laughter—bright, messy, ordinary. For a few minutes, it was just the three of them again. Glitter, gossip, homework. No bracelets burning holes in wrists. No texts waiting under pillows. Just girls with crushes they pretended not to care about, or cared about way too much.

She clung to it anyway. She laughed when Zoey shoved her phone under her nose. She groaned at Mira’s rants about grading curves. She let the noise stitch itself into a net under her ribs.

And then the clock ticked too far, and work wasn’t optional anymore.

Backstage at the club was already a furnace when they slipped in—a storm of sequins, hairspray, girls shouting over mirrors lit too bright. Perfume and nerves and music bleeding through the walls.

Rumi sat in front of her station and stared herself down until the girl in the mirror didn’t look like the one who’d almost cried in an alley an hour ago. She powdered over the exhaustion, painted gloss over her mouth, adjusted the straps of her dress like they were armor.

Stage-Rumi. That was the goal. Stage-Rumi didn’t ache. Stage-Rumi didn’t replay the way his face had cracked open. Stage-Rumi didn’t care about six-foot demons with too much sincerity in their mouths.

“Pins,” someone barked. “Lashes.”
“Borrow your liner?”
“God, is it hot or am I dying?”

The chaos wrapped around her like camouflage. She picked up her gloss again, just for something to hold.

“You good?” Zoey’s voice cut through, softer, closer. Not loud enough for anyone else to hear. She was at Rumi’s shoulder, eyeliner sharp, glitter smudged from laughing too hard earlier.

“Always,” Rumi said, and the lie tasted practiced.

Mira didn’t call her out. Just pressed a compact into her hand like muscle memory and said, “Stage lights’ll wash you out otherwise.” Practical, grounding.

It worked. Barely.

By the time they hit the floor, the club had swallowed everything—bass shaking the glasses, neon cutting through smoke, laughter pitched too high. Rumi inhaled the perfume-and-liquor air like it was fuel.

Stage-Rumi stepped forward. She laughed when she had to. Leaned just close enough. Skimmed fingertips across a rim like she had nowhere better to be. Sugar, sharpness, untouchable and right there.

Except—she wasn’t untouchable. She was waiting.

Every time the door opened, her chest flicked hot, then iced over when it wasn’t him. Every time someone tipped too big, she told herself this was the point. But some traitorous part of her still expected—hoped—not to see him.

No way he’d come again. Not after last night. Not after she’d gutted him with words that weren’t even the truth.

The lie sat bitter at the back of her tongue: she wanted him not to come.
And she wanted him to anyway.

So when she saw him, it hurt worse.

Not because he wasn’t supposed to be there. But because he was.

He looked out of place, as always—too sharp in a room built on blur. But tonight, something was off. His shirt was half-wrinkled, his hair not quite falling the way it usually did. Shadows clung under his eyes like he hadn’t slept. Instead of the front-row seat she’d grown accustomed to, he slipped into the back row, the same corner seat he’d chosen that very first night—posture straight but frayed at the edges.

Her lungs stuttered, traitorous, like they hadn’t gotten the memo she was over this.

Don’t look. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

She tilted her smile at a man who asked where she was from, slipped the answer off her tongue like it cost nothing. She twirled a lock of hair, let her laugh ring high and practiced. And she knew—God, she knew—when Jinu’s gaze landed on her. She felt it like a hand between her shoulder blades, steady and patient, too familiar.

Her smile faltered, only for a second, then reset.

Stage-Rumi, she told herself. This isn’t your life. This isn’t your boy.

On break, she slipped into the dressing room with a club soda and the kind of shaky adrenaline you weren’t supposed to admit to. The chatter bounced off tile and mirrors; someone was telling a story about a bachelor party that had discovered mercy as a concept. Rumi sank onto the bench and pulled out her phone—not to check messages, she told herself, just the time.

Her thumb hovered over Mira’s contact anyway. She could see it so easily: texting the group chat—hey can one of you come “kidnap” me so I can ghost this shift—and then ducking out the back with a hoodie over her head. The fantasy was stupidly vivid for ten whole seconds.

Then the practical part of her brain yanked her back by the hair.

Absolutely not. You are a girlboss. A menace in heels. This is about money, period. He is just another customer tonight. You did this before him, you’ll do it after. Also: it’s your week for groceries. And if you come home empty-handed, Mira will strangle you with a reusable bag.

Her mouth twitched despite the knot in her chest. She locked the phone and shoved it face-down in her bag, like that settled it. It didn’t settle anything, but it did get her up off the bench and back into her heels.

Out on the floor again, the air felt thicker. The lights caught the gloss on her mouth, turned it into a weapon. Stage-Rumi took over with grim efficiency—backs of hands skimmed, jokes landed, bills folded.

A girl’s voice drifted in from a nearby table, pitched low to another dancer: “That guy out there with the jawline? He hasn’t blinked in like ten minutes. Creepy or hot?”

“Depends on who you ask,” someone else joked.

Rumi’s laugh came out the right shape, the right volume. Inside, everything thrummed wrong.

The next hour stretched like a rubber band pulled too far—tight, fragile, threatening to snap with every second.

Rumi worked.

She let the room swallow her: the lazy drift of synths through the speakers, the clink of glass, the gold-warm spill of light over tables that made everyone prettier and a little crueler. She could do this blindfolded. Smile, glide, tilt your chin. Sell the idea of a secret, never the secret itself.

But the secret kept sitting in her peripheral vision—six feet of sleep-starved half-demon pretending a corner booth was camouflage.

He didn’t beckon. Didn’t wave. He just… stayed. Every so often his gaze skimmed the room—security-check slow, like he was cataloging exits and trouble—but always, always, it returned to her. It should’ve pissed her off. It didn’t. It just made her pulse do that unpleasant wingbeat in her throat, the one that said you’re seen and you don’t know what to do with it.

Table three asked what she did outside of work. “Midterms,” she said, bright and empty. “Rehab for my credit score.” They laughed. She laughed. The laugh felt hollow on the way out.

At table six a finance bro asked if her piercings meant anything.

“I like jewelry,” she said, twirling a straw.

He nodded like she’d unveiled a thesis. She walked away with a tip big enough to cover half a week’s groceries at H Mart and still felt weirdly short-changed

Don’t look for him. Do not.

She looked for him.

He was right where she’d left him. The low amber bulb over his table carved out the tired under his eyes, the shadow at his jaw. He’d removed his jacket and folded it with insulting neatness on the seat beside him. A glass of water sat untouched. That, more than anything, messed with her—he wasn’t here to drink. He was here to… what? Wait? Witness? Be a problem she didn’t know how to solve?

“Can you take twelve?” one of the floor leads asked, tapping a tablet. “Birthday crew, low-drama, high-rollers. You’ll be fine.”

“Always am,” Rumi said, and she was, mostly.

Twelve wanted shots and bad advice. She gave them one of those and sold them the illusion of the other. Jinu’s table blurred to a smear on the edge of her world. She could feel him anyway, like a low frequency her bones insisted on hearing. When she couldn’t quite stop herself from glancing that way, she found him already looking, and it punched something tender behind her ribs. She snapped her gaze back so fast her neck twinged.

Focus. Money. Smiles.

On her next pass she took the long way around the room, promising herself it was to avoid a grabby regular and not because her path curved near his booth like a needle finding north.

When she finally reached him, she pasted on the smile she used for customers who thought the cover charge bought her time. “Evening,” she said, light, practiced, nails tapping her tray like punctuation.

His eyes flicked over her face. No smile. No performance. Just—hurt, contained so tight it almost looked like nothing. “You’ve been ignoring me,” he said quietly. “I’ve been texting you.”

She laughed like it was a joke, fake and brittle. “I get a lot of texts.”

It landed like a slap anyway.

He didn’t sharpen. Didn’t lash back. He just looked at her the way only he could—as if he saw the line between her job smile and the one she hadn’t given him since that night; as if he knew exactly which version of her was talking and exactly how much it cost to hold the mask up.

He didn’t call her out. He let it show on his face.

It hurt.

Because he knew. He knew, and she hated that he could tell.

“How are you holding up?” he asked, not flirt, not plea—just… care, the kind that always landed like a stone in a pond and sent rings through her.

“Fantastic,” she said crisply, the syllables polished until they didn’t cut. “Do you want anything from the bar?”

A beat. “Water’s fine.”

“Perfect.” She turned before her mouth could betray her.

When she came back with the glass, he’d tucked bills under the coaster—far more than a water deserved. Of course he had. Of course he’d tip like gratitude and apology and don’t starve. It should have earned him an eye roll. Instead it made her want to cry or kiss him or both, which was inconvenient and therefore illegal.

She set the water down without letting their fingers brush. He didn’t move to take it. “Can we talk after your set?” he asked, keeping his voice low, careful, like he was approaching a skittish animal. “I won’t keep you long.”

The part of her that wanted yes was loud. The part of her that had fueled last night’s panic was louder. She chose the weapon closest to hand: policy that didn’t exist. “House rules—no personal conversations on shift,” she said, cool and professional. “If you need anything else, flag the floor.”

His almost-smile surrendered. “Okay,” he said softly. “Another time.”

She left before the wobble in her chest could become visible and punished herself by working the loudest side of the room until her throat felt sanded raw. She never got hoarse. Tonight she flirted with it, as if making her voice hurt could drown out the hurt she’d put on his.

He didn’t leave.

She pretended not to see him not leaving.

At one point a bachelor tried a joke about demons that made two women at his table go quiet. Rumi handed him his own laugh back with the kind of smile that said he’d mistook her for the wrong kind of idiot. It should have rolled off. Instead, heat crawled up her neck, unconnected to the joke, tied instead to the memory of a boy with fangs—one who could shatter a man for less, and one she knew, with a terrifying kind of certainty, would stop if she ever asked him to.

He is not yours to police. You made that very clear.

On her final set, her body remembered how to glitter even while her brain fled town. The music slid under her skin; muscle memory took the wheel. She let herself pretend there wasn’t a gaze in the dark that knew the shape of her laugh and the difference between performance and truth. She let herself pretend she had always been this person: untouched, unimpressed, unbothered.

When she came down, breath steady only because she’d trained it into obedience, he was standing.

Not blocking her path. Not cornering. Just up, jacket over one arm, the other hand loose at his side like he was reminding himself not to reach.

“Last call in fifteen,” the barback shouted from somewhere near the taps.

Rumi paused because her feet did, traitors. The distance between them was three steps and the world.

“Don’t worry,” he said first, as if he owed her not to make a scene. “I’m not here to make your night harder.”

“Then why are you here,” she asked before she could stop herself, and winced at the sound of it—small, almost childish, mean around the edges.

His answer didn’t chase, didn’t needle. “Because leaving last night like that felt wrong.” He swallowed; she watched the movement like it mattered. “Because I wanted you to know I meant what I said—I’ll be here when you stop running. And because I didn’t want you to be the one to feel like you had to make it right.”

Her spine snapped a little straighter, armor refastening click by click. “Maybe I am,” she said, flat out. If she sounded cold, good—cold didn’t bleed. “Maybe I’m the one who breaks things.”

He took that like a man catching glass in his bare hands. No theatrics. Just a breath and the tiniest shift in his mouth that meant the cut found skin. “Then we learn how to fix them,” he said. Not dramatic. Not a vow. Just an option she had no idea how to choose.

Someone called her name from the stage door. Time to change. Time to clock out, stretch calves, count bills, pretend none of this would follow her home.

She stared past his shoulder at the wall menu as if it had a quiz on it. If she looked at his face, she was going to fold like cheap paper. “I can’t—on shift.”

“I’m not trying to trap you,” he said quietly. “Tell me what you need.”

That was the rattle at the back of her throat—the truth she refused to cough up. “What I need is to work.” She tipped her chin toward the floor like that was the end of it. “You’re a customer.”

He absorbed it. She’d meant it like a slap; it hit like one. Hurt flashed—there and gone, contained as ever. “Right,” he said, mouth tightening into something polite and distant. The version of him that belonged to the world slid into place like a suit jacket. “Then I won’t keep you.”

He turned like he was going to make it easy, like he was going to leave her with the victory she’d defined as absence. She hated how everything in her lurched. “Jinu,” she blurted, because her mouth loved to betray her.

He paused. Tilted his head the tiniest degree that meant she had every second she needed if she wanted it.

“You look tired,” she said, and wanted to bite the words back—the way they spilled soft when she was trying to be hard.

“Didn’t sleep much,” he admitted.

Something like apology burned her tongue. She chose ice instead. “Don’t do that again.”

He blinked once. “Don’t… what?”

“Don’t camp out here like this.” She gestured vaguely at the booth, the stage, her own ridiculous dress. “It’s not—” Safe. Fair. Helping. “Professional.”

A beat of silence that let her hear herself. He nodded, slow. “If it makes it easier for you, I won’t.” He met her eyes straight on, no drama. “Text me if you want me to stop texting, too.”

“Do what you want,” she said, and hated the way her voice thinned, the way the line sounded like a dare when it was a shield.

He held her gaze like he was setting something down between them very carefully so it wouldn’t spill. “What I want is you. I’m trying to be respectful while I want that.” A hollow laugh, the barest exhale. “I’m not very good at the part where I watch you pretend I’m a stranger.”

“You’ll live,” she said, and it was cruel, and she felt it as soon as it left her mouth.

He didn’t flinch. God, he never flinched. “I will,” he agreed, and somehow it wasn’t a weapon back at her. It was a promise to himself. “Be safe, Rumi.”

She didn’t nod. Didn’t say you too. Didn’t say I didn’t mean it like that last night or I hate hurting you or please stop being so good at meaning it. She said nothing, because Stage-Rumi had stolen her tongue again, and the version of her that could have spoken was somewhere under the dress and the makeup and the years of practice, trying to find the ladder up.

He went, finally. Not dramatically. Jacket on, shoulders straight, a last look that didn’t drag, didn’t bind, just… promised. Then he slipped through the door and into whatever waited for him outside—a car she couldn’t have afforded if she worked double shifts for a hundred years, a calendar full of meetings and obligations she’d never even learn the names of, a dozen numbers in his phone he could call if he wanted anyone but her, air that didn’t reek of liquor and unsaid things. The door swung shut. The bass refilled the space he’d left.

Rumi stood still for one inhale, two, until the pressure behind her sternum threatened to become a sound. Then she moved—back to the dressing room, back to the ritual of un-making herself. Earrings off. Lashes off. Glitter surrendered to the sink. She scrubbed the gloss from her mouth like it carried a name.

Her phone was right where she’d left it. She told herself she was only checking the time. The unlock screen stuttered against her fingerprint and then let her in.

No new messages since before her shift. Of course not. He’d said he wouldn’t make her night harder. He meant it even when it cost him. The silence should have been a relief. It wasn’t. It pressed in—too loud, too heavy, too full of everything she’d pushed away.

She caught her reflection: barefaced, hair mussed, dress slipping down one shoulder. She looked like a girl who’d worked, not like a girl who’d won. She pulled on her hoodie and shoved the bracelet up under the cuff where she didn’t have to see it catch the fluorescent light.

“Rumi, you good?” one of the girls asked, passing with a tote full of tips and flip-flops.

“Yeah,” Rumi said, and the lie came out steadier than she felt. “Just tired.”

On the walk out with the others, she kept her gaze forward. She did not look at the corner booth. It was empty now. It felt like someone had moved a piece of furniture from a room and left the indent in the carpet to taunt you.

Outside, the air was wet and cold enough to bite. She let it hurt her on purpose. It was easier than the other thing. She walked between two coworkers talking about a dog in a sweater and a man who’d tried to tip in crypto and nodded like a person who lived on this planet.

Her phone stayed in her pocket, heavy as a stone. She didn’t look. Not because she didn’t want to. Because she did, and she was trying to learn the difference between discipline and fear in real time, and tonight she was losing.

By the time she slid into the backseat of the ride home, her body had come down enough to feel how wrung-out she was. The city streaked by—neon smears, puddles, a convenience store sign flickering like it had secrets. She let her head tip against the window and told herself the ache in her chest was just a long night, just dehydration, just anything but the obvious shape of a boy who kept showing up and a girl who didn’t know how to let him.

When her phone finally buzzed, it wasn’t a message. It was the calendar reminder she’d set two weeks ago and forgotten to delete: practice. 10 a.m. Vocal booth. bring the chorus.

She barked a laugh that had no humor and put the phone face-down on her thigh. Outside, the light changed. Inside, nothing did. Not yet.

Tomorrow, she told herself. Work. Class. Coffee she would buy for herself out of spite. A day to prove she could operate like a normal human being who did not unravel because a boy said a soft thing in a loud hallway.

Her reflection in the window didn’t argue. It just looked back, tired and stubborn and carrying a dangerous weight she pretended wasn’t there

She blinked hard, willing the heat behind her eyes to burn off instead of spill over. Absolutely not. She was fine. She had to be. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and let the car carry her home.

Morning pretended to be normal.

Rumi let it. She showered too hot, scrubbed glitter off like a crime, tucked the bracelet high under her sleeve until the metal chilled against her skin and stayed there like a dare. Zoey and Mira were kindness on legs—quiet coffee, quiet jokes, quiet check-ins that didn’t poke the bruise. Rumi said she was fine. Everyone agreed to lie.

Campus wore its weekday face: chatter, tote bags, breath in the cold like smoke. She walked faster than she needed to, like speed could outpace a feeling. No new messages lit her phone. Relief hit first, then that awful dip—like missing a step you knew was there.

Good. Fine. Excellent. She needed a day where nothing pressed on the soft parts.

The lecture hall was all fluorescent honesty and plastic chairs that squeaked. Staff paper waited on each desk like a test you hadn’t studied for. She took a middle row seat so she could leave or stay without drama, dropped her bag, pulled her pencil. Her hands felt like rental equipment.

She had almost convinced herself he wouldn’t come when the door sighed and the room’s attention shifted in the strange way it did around certain people. He didn’t cause a scene; he never did. He just existed in a way that bent the line of sight. Jacket open, hair clean, a hint of tired under his eyes that made her want to fix it and set it on fire at the same time.

He glanced once over the room. Didn’t search. Didn’t hover in the doorway. He moved. He always moved like he’d already decided where to go.

The seat beside her scraped back.

Rumi kept her gaze on her staff paper like it had secrets. She didn’t look at him looking at her. The heat of his presence found the side of her anyway.

“Alright,” the professor said, clapping chalk dust off his hands. “Eight bars warm up. Keep it diatonic unless you’ve got the guts to justify the color. If you’re going to borrow, tell me why. Cadence must resolve cleanly—no cheating with deceptive ends unless you can argue it in four sentences or less.”

Groans, laughter. A cough. Pencil clicks.

“Pair up,” he added, already moving down the aisle. Then, without looking up from the roster: “Jinu and Rumi, please. You two had excellent chemistry last time. I think the class could learn something from you two.”

A small rustle of interest from the room. The word chemistry landed ugly in Rumi’s chest. She pretended her pencil needed sharpening.

Jinu didn’t say anything glib — no quick joke, no throwaway line. He didn’t say anything at all. He set his notebook on the shared desk, nudged it toward the seam between them like he was laying neutral ground, and waited.

Rumi drew a bar line that was too dark and tried to breathe like a person.

“What are you hearing?” he asked, finally. Not loaded, not soft—technical. A door he knew she could walk through without bleeding.

She could have made something up. She didn’t. “Open with parallel sixths, keep the top voice lyrical. On the repeat, I’d sub in a borrowed minor iv—just enough grit to make the tonic feel earned.”

“Copy,” he murmured, pencil already moving. No commentary. No “dangerous” jokes. Just writing like the question had been a handhold in a climb.

He sketched four notes, then a fifth that leaned into dissonance before settling. He slid the page half an inch toward her, the offer quiet: you ? She added a countermelody in the alto range, shading his line until the two threads braided into something that felt inevitable.

It was muscle memory to work like this with him. Toss, catch. Ask, answer. He never bulldozed. He asked the little questions that made her feel smart. “Delay the resolution or land it early?” “If the bass contradicts the soprano, is that tension or mistake?” “Do you want the third pure or colored sharp?”

She answered because it was easier than not.

“Brighten the third,” she said. “Let the sweetness sting.”

He adjusted, and the line stopped smiling and started hurting in the right way. She hated that she could feel the exact second he felt it too. A breath from his nose, the softest “mm,” like he’d tasted something and agreed.

“Good,” the professor said from over their shoulders, grudging as always. “At least two of you remembered voice-leading exists.”

He walked on. Rumi unclenched her jaw.

She managed to keep it clinical for five more bars. They disagreed about a measure. He offered her the pencil like a peace token; she didn’t take it because taking things felt dangerous today. He didn’t force it. He wrote what she said instead, like the point wasn’t who held the graphite but that the music sounded like them.

When the room fell into that hushed scratch of a dozen pencils, the silence between them felt like its own held note, waiting to resolve.

When the room fell into that hushed scratch of a dozen pencils, he reached into his bag and came up with a square of yellow—sticky note, edges frayed. He looked at it for a beat, then at her sleeve where the bracelet hid, then back down. He wrote a single-bar melody—four notes, nothing fancy—then added a tiny mark over the third: a reminder to lift it just enough to catch light.

He didn’t push it at her. He didn’t make a show. He set it at the far corner of the desk, inches inside her territory, like you might leave a glass of water near someone who hadn’t asked but obviously needed it.

She didn’t touch it. Looking at it felt like standing too close to a heat source when you were already dehydrated.

“Rumi,” he said, very low.

Her name almost unhooked something. Almost.

She kept her eyes on the page. “If we stick a seventh on that dominant, it’ll give the line more air,” she said, professional to the point of parody.

“Okay,” he said. He did. He didn’t make her say please. He didn’t make anything a price.

He smelled like laundry and cedar and the kind of sleep you don’t get. She hated herself for knowing the difference.

Around them, paper shuffled and someone asked if “mixolydian” was a Pokemon. Rumi wrote a clean bar line because her hand needed to do a simple thing perfectly. Jinu’s pencil stilled. The quiet between them turned into a held breath.

“Rumi,” he said again, softer. “About last night—”

“We’re in class,” she said, and heard the edge in it too late.

He absorbed it without throwing anything back. “We are,” he agreed, and there was no sarcasm in it. Only acknowledgment. The apology tucked itself into the way he angled his shoulders so he wasn’t crowding her anymore, into the way he lowered his voice so his words, if they insisted on happening, would be theirs alone. “I’m not going to make a scene. I just… wanted you to know I’m here.”

“I can see that,” she said, aiming for dry and landing on brittle.

A corner of his mouth wanted to smile; didn’t. “Not what I meant.”

“I know,” she said, even though she didn’t, even though she refused.

The professor called time like a referee. Chairs squeaked; backpacks groaned. Rumi closed her notebook too fast and the sticky note jumped like a fish. Without thinking, she slapped her palm over it. Heat flashed through her—ridiculous, immediate, mortifying.

Jinu pretended not to notice the flinch. “Keep it,” he said, the words so careful they felt padded. “It’s nothing. Just… a thing that sounded like you when I couldn’t sleep.”

Her throat did something messy. She made her hands functional. She peeled the note off the desk like it might detonate and slid it between two pages of her notebook—deep, hidden—like the act of hiding could make it less true.

“Thanks,” she said, and the word was sanded down to the thinnest strip of politeness.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and even managed to make it not sound like a plea. He capped his pen, stood, gave her the same polite space he’d give a stranger, and shouldered his bag like he hadn’t just left part of himself on her desk in yellow paper and pencil carbon.

Students funneled toward the aisle. Mira texted the group chat a photo of a latte foam heart with the caption get in, loser, we’re self-caring. Zoey added seventeen knife emojis and a gif of a cat screaming. Rumi typed a thumbs up because words felt expensive.

Jinu waited for the row to clear before he stepped out. He didn’t look back to make sure she followed. He always, always gave her the out.

She lingered long enough to look like she had a reason, then gathered her things. The sticky note’s corner bit her knuckle through the notebook like a secret trying to shout. She shoved the notebook deeper in her bag, like weight would quiet it.

In the hall, the fluorescent lights buzzed like a bad mood. He was a few paces ahead, matching his stride to the flow, carrying himself in that careful not-dangerous way that said he was used to people reading threat where there wasn’t any. The urge to touch his elbow and say something functional—about the assignment, about office hours, about the weather—tugged at her like a tide.

She let it pass. Cowardice tasted like metal on her tongue.

Her face felt too hot, the kind of heat that didn’t match the stale air. She blinked too fast, like it might keep the blur from breaking over her eyes. God. How had she managed to screw this up so fast? They’d been… not simple, never simple, but something . That night in her dorm, the way his voice had gone soft when he told her truths, the ridiculous tenderness tucked into his jokes—she missed it like a phantom limb. She missed him .

Her chest tightened so sharp it almost made her stumble. Stupid. She was stupid. Rumi Park, professional at building walls and then crying when she suffocated inside them.

Her phone buzzed. Once. Twice. The group chat lighting up.

[Mira:] class done soon? i’m bribing you with boba.
[Zoey:] if you don’t come home in the next 45 mins i’m drinking yours.
[Mira:] she will, i’ve seen her do it.
[Zoey:] don’t test me.

Rumi laughed under her breath—wet, shaky, but real. She typed back a thumbs up because words felt expensive.

Normal. She could do normal. Class. Roommates. Cheap tapioca pearls and Mira’s neon nails drumming on the table while Zoey narrated everyone in the café like they were in a reality show.

She could do normal. She would.

She shoved her phone deep in her bag like that could bury the ache still twisting her ribs, like it could smother the thought circling, relentless, impossible to exorcise: forget the aching in her chest, the six-foot boy with a smile that melted her brain, the way eight bars of music felt like a confession, the note burning a hole through her notebook.

Normal.

She lifted her chin, adjusted her strap, and walked toward her dorm like she believed it.

…

The café was loud in the way student spots always were—milk steamers hissing, chairs scraping, a chorus of laughs that didn’t belong to the same joke. Mira had already claimed a corner booth and was waving a straw like an air-traffic wand. Zoey sprawled opposite in combat boots and glitter, demolishing a pastry with the focus of a surgeon.

“Finally,” Mira said, neon nails drumming on a sweating cup. “Before Zoey drinks your boba in the name of science.”

“It’s not theft if it’s for research,” Zoey said, mouth full. “I’m testing the upper limits of joy.”

Rumi slid in, bag thumping against her shin. The plastic of the cup stuck to her palm, cold and sweet. She took a long pull that made her eyes sting and her brain freeze—good, useful pain. Under the table, her phone tapped her ankle when the bag shifted. The lock screen had that hateful little bubble: 12. She didn’t check.

Mira watched her over the lid like a cat clocking a laser pointer. “You’re drinking like the straw did something to you.”

“It did,” Rumi said. “It existed.”

Zoey snorted. “Weird, because usually you tell inanimate objects they’re doing amazing, sweetie.”

“That’s at work,” Rumi said, and let the laugh sit in her mouth a second longer than she felt it.

They moved on like good friends do when you aren’t ready to be excavated. Mira launched into a lab disaster—partner tried to “eyeball” a titration because he “felt it in his spirit.” Zoey provided foley with her straw. By the time Mira mimed ducking behind a biosafety hood, Rumi was laughing for real, forehead against the back of her hand.

“Thank you,” she said, and meant it.

“We’re professionals,” Zoey said solemnly. “We put the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional coping.”

Mira passed Rumi a mini custard tart across the table with gentleness that didn’t match the rest of her. “Eat or I will spoon-feed you with eye contact. And you know I can hold eye contact longer than God.”

Rumi took a bite. The sugar landed like a parachute. “You are both unwell,” she said around pastry.

“Bold from someone whose phone is doing Morse code in her bag,” Zoey said, casual like tossing a pebble in a pond. Not mean. Not even pointed. Just… observed. “You don’t have to open it.”

“I know,” Rumi said, staring at the condensation ring her cup had made, smudging it into a comet with her thumb.

Mira flicked her straw wrapper at Zoey. “We’re not doing courtroom cross.” To Rumi, softer: “We’re doing boba and bullying each other into living.”

“Bullying is love,” Zoey agreed, then perked up. “Speaking of, Mystery Hair texted me a selfie with one eye showing and the caption ‘tribute acquired.’ Do I marry him or file a restraining order?”

“Both,” Rumi said automatically, grateful for the pivot.

“And the ‘twins’,” Mira added, deadpan. “Abby and Romance sent a shared Google calendar invite labeled ‘research.’ I have concerns.”

“You love it,” Zoey said.

Mira didn’t deny it. “I love controlled burns.”

They spiraled into gossip—glitter, boys with tragic bangs,pink haired boys with unhinged confidence—until Rumi’s shoulders had unclenched a full inch. It felt almost normal, like the old days when everything was ambition and rent and the next set, not… this knot in her chest she couldn’t shake.

“Groceries,” Mira said, snapping back to agenda like a project manager. “It’s your week. We made a list. Don’t argue.”

Zoey slid a folded paper across the table like a drug deal. “If you forget the good kimchi I’m calling the landlord and telling them you keep a flamingo in the shower.”

Rumi unfolded it to find doodled hearts around “ramyeon” and “freakishly large strawberries.” Her throat went warm. “Copy. Provisioning will occur.”

“Atta girl,” Zoey said, clinking her straw against Rumi’s cup. “To capitalism and carbs.”

They drank. The booth’s vinyl squeaked. Outside the window a couple ran by holding hands and an umbrella that did nothing; inside, someone’s laptop chimed with a calendar reminder called “stop spiraling.” Rumi envied the bluntness.

“So.” Mira toyed with her napkin, not looking up. “If at any point tonight you need a tap-out, we do that. One text. Code word ‘jellyfish.’ We jellyfish and go home.”

Zoey nodded. “We are not martyrs. We are hot and busy.”

Rumi’s laugh came thin and real at once. “I’ll be fine.”

“You can be fine and still call jellyfish,” Mira said, finally meeting her eyes. She didn’t push past that—didn’t ask for details, didn’t say his name. Just added, “I like you uncrumbled.”

Rumi swallowed around a sudden, stupid thickness. “Noted.”

They let silence be warm for a minute, the three of them in their little weather system. The noise of the café blurred into a blanket hum. Her phone didn’t buzz—it didn’t have to. Every unopened message was a tiny gravity well in her bag, tugging her attention like tide. She pictured one of them; she didn’t have to; she’d memorized the cadence: rumi? … i’m sorry if i made it worse … i don’t know how to fix it if you won’t let me. She pressed her heel into the floor and breathed past it.

Zoey, sensing that exact tilt in her, slung an arm over the back of the booth and went bright on purpose. “Okay. Outfit audit. School mode is officially shut down. We’re not students tonight, we’re Amour hot. Clock in, babe. Show me looks.”

Mira produced lip liner like a weapon. “Yes. We’re serving payroll fantasy, not academic menace.”

Rumi blinked. “Payroll fantasy?”

“Like you could ruin a marriage and an economy in the same night,” Mira said. “Your black dress with the delicate straps, the ones that make men say ‘uh’ like they forgot how to swallow? That. Boots, not heels. We’re comfortable and devastating.”

Zoey clapped. “God, I love when you talk logistics.”

Rumi’s breath faltered when her thoughts caught on the dress she’d bought with him, still hanging in her closet. It wasn’t just fabric anymore; it carried the memory of his eyes at the mall, the way he’d looked at her like she was more than a body in a mirror. And worse—the night she’d actually worn it, and how much of her he’d gotten to see. 

“Fine,” she said. “Academic menace. But if either of you make me do a cat eye, I’m suing.”

“Please,” Zoey said. “You’ll do a cat eye and you’ll like it. Also, we’re pre-gaming with face masks because pores are currency.”

“Pores are not—” Rumi started, then let it go. “Pores are currency. Sure.”

They lingered until their cups were just ice and regret. Mira boxed the leftover pastries with the kind of care usually reserved for newborns. Zoey stuffed extra napkins in her bag “for emergencies,” which in Zoey language could mean anything from mascara smudge to ritual sacrifice.

As they stood, Rumi’s sleeve slid and the bracelet at her wrist caught light. It was quick—just a gleam. Her stomach did a traitor drop. She tugged the cuff down out of reflex, then made herself Let it ride where it wanted. The metal warmed to her skin.

“You good to walk?” Mira asked, like she always did now—an easy check-in disguised as logistics.

“Yeah,” Rumi said. “I’ve got… class reading to fake before call time.”

Zoey bumped her hip as they crossed into the apartment. “We’ll change, paint our faces, and seduce capitalism for rent.”

“Gross,” Rumi said, but the edges of her world softened. Their chatter filled the room, cutting through the panic that had clung to her all morning, until for a while she didn’t think about the way her lock screen glowed when she wasn’t looking.

At the window, Zoey tipped her head back toward the glass, watching the clouds stack heavy over the skyline. “I love this city when it’s dramatic.”

Mira looped her arm through Rumi’s. “I love us when we’re dramatic.”

“Unfortunately, we’re always dramatic,” Rumi said.

“Correct,” Zoey said. “And yet? We persevere.”

They walked. The campus bell chimed somewhere and pigeons bullied a freshman for a bagel. Mira whispered something filthy about the boys’ DMs that made Rumi choke on air. By the time they reached their building, Rumi could breathe without counting.

Upstairs, they scattered to their corners—the ritual of turning from day people into night ones. Music clicked on. The tea kettle gurgled. Zoey sang off-key to annoy Mira on purpose. Rumi stood at her dresser, staring at the neat weight of the dress, and told her reflection, calmly, like instructions: you can do this. You have done harder things. Tonight is just lights, muscle memory, money.

Her phone on the dresser lit with the same lock-screen number it had all afternoon. She didn’t touch it. She slipped the bracelet off, then put it back on, annoyed at herself for needing it. She did her eyeliner, steady hand, no flourishes.

“Ten-minute warning!” Mira called, like an assistant stage manager in neon.

“Coming,” Rumi answered, voice surprisingly even. She took one last look at the girl in the mirror—black silk, boots, mouth that could cut if she needed—and nodded once. Not stage-Rumi yet. Not the girl who’d almost said yes in a hallway, either. Just a person with rent and friends who would bail if she said the word.

She grabbed her bag, her keys, ignored the phone. The little bubble on the screen would still be there when she was ready to be someone who didn’t flinch. Or it wouldn’t. Either way, she had a shift to work.

“Let’s go be hot and busy,” Zoey said, swinging the door open with a flourish.

“Girlboss, gatekeep, get the bag,” Mira intoned, sacred and ridiculous.

Rumi tucked her chin into the collar of her coat, swallowed the last of the sugar on her tongue, and followed them into the hallway’s stale light, letting their noise tide her forward.

Backstage buzzed like a beehive about to swarm—hairspray hiss, the click-clack of compacts, a dozen different laugh tracks overlapping. Thrifted lamps threw warm circles over crowded vanities; the air smelled like glitter and cherry lip oil and the faint rubber of veteran heels. Rumi dropped her bag under her station and sat, as if sitting could make her pulse act normal.

Zoey clocked the way Rumi’s hand hovered over her phone without touching it. Mira clocked Zoey clocking it. That was the end of Rumi’s privacy.

“Confiscation for emotional safety,” Zoey announced, already reaching.

Rumi slid the phone away like a card trick. “Absolutely not.”

Mira didn’t argue. She dipped under the vanity, magpie-quick, and came up with the phone pinched between neon nails. “Triage,” she said. “If it’s the bursar, we cry. If it’s your aunt, we put the phone in rice. If it’s him—”

Rumi’s throat worked. “Give it back.”

Mira’s eyes softened. She held the phone where Rumi could take it… and didn’t let go when Rumi’s fingers touched it. “Then just tell us you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” Rumi lied, crisp as a receipt. She took the phone and face-downed it so hard the case thunked. “We have a shift. I am a professional. Tonight is about tips and stable ankles.”

Zoey’s grin went feral. “Amen.”

But Mira had already seen enough in that flash of the lock screen. Message previews stacked, one after another— you okay? , did I say something wrong? , please tell me what I did wrong. Not thirsty, not sleazy, not transactional. Just… desperate. Not normal customer service.

She and Zoey exchanged a look over Rumi’s head, the kind that made the air thicken. Because they knew she had walls, but not like this. Not the kind where she was holding herself together with duct tape and eyeliner.

“Babe…” Zoey said softly, uncharacteristically. “That is not normal.”

Rumi didn’t answer. She just dug for her lashes, the glue, anything to busy her hands.

They let the phone be—for now. Mira brushed highlighter across Rumi’s cheekbones with the care of a friend handling a live wire. “You need anything, you jellyfish. We drop everything.”

“Jellyfish,” Rumi echoed, throat tight. It was their code: limp out, no questions, no explanations, just extraction. She didn’t plan to use it. (She always told herself that.)

Zoey leaned until their shoulders bumped. “And for the record,” she said cheerfully, snapping the tension back like a rubber band, “if one of tonight’s finance bros tries to propose, I’m saying yes just for the tax benefits.”

“Noted,” Rumi said, and almost smiled. “I’ll be your flower girl.”

“Lies,” Mira said. “You’d be the officiant. You love ceremony.”

Rumi rolled her eyes, grateful for the ordinary of them. She lined her lips, blotted, re-lined. Tugged the strap of her dress into place. Checked the band around her wrist—bracelet hidden under her cuff because she couldn’t cut it off and she wasn’t brave enough to wear it loud. She shoved a certain cedar-scented hoodie deeper into her bag like it might climb out on its own.

From the hallway, a low swell of bass and voices told them the floor was warming. The house mom popped her head in, rings flashing. “Five, ladies. Boundaries tight, shoes tighter.”

“Copy,” the room chorused.

Mira hooked two fingers in Rumi’s and squeezed: squeeze-squeeze, their portable hug. “You’re not alone.”

Rumi nodded once. “I know.” She didn’t.

The three of them hit the hall together. At the threshold between fluorescent honesty and amber performance, Rumi took a breath and let the shift happen. Work body, work smile, work voice. She could build a whole person out of those parts—a girl who laughed on cue and never bled in public.

“Let’s go make rent,” Zoey said, and shouldered the door.

The floor was a warm pool of light and sound. The DJ was in his “we’re ramping” playlist, the bartenders in synchronized hustle. Rumi adjusted to the room the way you adjust to ocean waves—knees soft, senses wide. Two quick passes to say hi to regulars, one longer loop to spot new money, then the slow choreography of being looked at without being gotten.

She was good at it. Better than good when she wanted. Tonight she wanted—needed—the clean machinery of competence. She made herself a story men could purchase by the minute: the flirty one-liners, the arched brow, the art of laying a fingertip on the rim of a glass like she might have touched their mouth by accident. She dodged the grasping hands with grace that read as play, never rebuke. She laughed exactly enough.

It worked. It always worked. Tips folded in her garter like agreements. She counted without counting, kept the mental ledger: the guy in navy was easy money, the pair at table twelve were on a corporate card and wanted to feel ethical about it, the trio by the pillar were the wrong kind of drunk. She triangulated exits, security, Mira, Zoey, like she always did. She was fine.

Her phone stayed in her bag. The old notifications hummed inside her skull anyway—the backlog of words she was not reading because reading would mean deciding something. She told herself stories about how busy she’d be later, about how exhaustion could explain unanswered things. She told herself a lot of things.

Midway through her second set—coats shed, ties loose, the room’s collective pulse finally matching the DJ’s—she felt it before she saw it. A change in the air pressure. Heads angling in one corner. Not the kind of attention that followed a fight or a celebrity exactly. The quieter kind people paid when someone carried gravity without asking for it.

He was there.

No entourage. No production. Just the man who had said you can keep running with a softness that had hurt worse than any shout. Shirt sleeves pushed to his forearms. Collar open. Hair that looked like it had lost a fight with his own hands. He took the same corner table he did last time, like ritual, like respect. He didn’t text. He didn’t beckon. He settled—eyes on her and only her—and the room rearranged around the fact of him.

Rumi’s smile did not flicker. Her body wanted to. She kept moving.

At the bar, Zoey clocked him and gave Rumi a look over a stack of limes—question, not warning. Rumi shook her head a hair, tiny and decisive. Not tonight. Zoey’s mouth tilted: okay. Mira, at the far end of the floor, intercepted the floor manager with a question that kept him pointed away from Rumi’s corner for two precious minutes. The girls protected like breathing.

Rumi ran her route more aggressively, if only so she wouldn’t drift toward his orbit. She threw the better jokes at men who didn’t deserve them. She let a laugh run too long because overcommitting to the bit was easier than noticing how her chest kept lifting like it expected a text that wasn’t coming by design. She reminded herself of all the true things: he was not her boyfriend, this was not a novel, she was at work, she was safe, she was sovereign, she did not owe anyone softness.

A guy in a navy suit tried the oldest opener in the book—“so what do you do outside of this?”—and she told him, sweet as sugar, “tax evasion.” He laughed, loud and grateful, and tipped like relief. Another asked her sign. She said “No.” He tipped more.

It should have felt like winning. It felt like acting in a mirror maze.

She took her break late, on purpose, because breaks meant phones and phones meant gravity. In the back corridor, she leaned her spine against cool cinderblock and stared at the scuffed tile opposite like it contained an answer. She did not open her messages. She did the checklist—hands? steady. breath? even. heart? loud, but manageable. She splashed water on her wrists, the way Zoey said tricked your nerves. It helped.

Back on the floor, the room had shifted a half shade—the last-hour chaos beginning to glitter at the edges. Jinu was still there. He’d moved from water to club soda, then back, like a man committed to penance. He did not perform a smile when she glanced; he didn’t punish her with absence either. He just… stayed. Watched her work like watching her was work he took seriously.

She hated it. She wanted it. She told herself wanting was a costume she could shrug off like a dress.

She adjusted her route to skim wide of his table, exact enough to read as coincidence. She knew he’d notice; he noticed everything about her. That was the problem and the proof. She put on the particular smile she used for men who believed the cover charge bought access to her attention. It felt like wearing someone else’s teeth.

A pair of tourists asked for a photo; she redirected them to the sign that said no and made them feel cool for asking. The bartender slid her a water on the house with a look that meant you good? She tilted the bottle in thanks. Security prowled past, nods exchanged. It was the machine, all of it—cogs catching and releasing, the hum she had taught her body to sing so she could make it through nights like this intact.

She didn’t look at him again. Not straight. The glances happened on their own. The way you check a door you know you locked.

When she finally had to pass his corner to get to a regular with a corporate badge and a harmless laugh, she planned her route like choreography—table, rail, bar, pivot—so that when she crossed the strip of floor that skimmed his sightline she was mid-laugh at another man’s joke, head tipped just enough to make it look easy. A magician’s flourish: distract the eye, keep the hands moving, control the story.

She felt Jinu’s gaze catch anyway. Heat across skin. A spotlight only she could feel.

Suddenly the night sharpened a degree. The wrong hand came from her blind side—clumsy, entitled, the kind of hand that thought money bought permission. Fingers hooked the strap of her dress like a handle, tugged her a half-inch off her line.

Rumi’s body knew what to do. A pivot, a laugh, the deft removal of contact without breaking character. Keep it light, keep it safe, keep it moving.

She pasted the smile on, turned like she meant to, opened her mouth for the joke that would turn this grasp into a harmless memory—

—and the grip tightened.

“Don’t walk away from me, sweetheart.”

Not loud, but loud enough. Sharp enough to make her chest pinch. She laughed it off, automatic, tried to step sideways. His hand slid to her wrist instead, that thoughtless grab men forgot was attached to a person. Her laugh cracked in the middle.

She had it—the stage-voice, the finger flick that would peel him off without turning the room. She almost used it.

Jinu got there first.

One second he was only a quiet shape at the edge of her sightline; the next he was there. A flash of white shirt and dark eyes, tall enough the crowd folded for him, fast enough the air changed.

His hand wrapped the guy’s wrist—firm, not rough, but with a precision that made the customer jerk like he’d touched a live wire.

“She said no,” Jinu said. Not a shout. Law.

Ten feet of room went still. Heads turned. The DJ’s crossfade hiccuped and recovered.

“Relax, man—” the guy tried, mouth slanting toward belligerent. Jinu’s gaze cut sideways and the word shrank in his throat.

“Let go,” Jinu repeated, softer, and somehow the lower volume was the more dangerous one.

The hand released. Her arm was hers again.

Heat crawled up Rumi’s neck. This—this was the one thing she never let happen at work. No scenes. No cracks in the mask.

“Jinu,” she hissed, low, sharp, trying to pull him back from turning the whole night into gossip. “Stop.”

He looked at her—concern bare and unhidden in a way that made her ribs ache. “Are you okay?”

The answer caught and splintered. “I’m fine,” she said, glass-thin. “Go sit down.”

He didn’t argue. He backed off three steps, palms visible. The moment could’ve ended there.

The table didn’t let it.

“Top-shelf,” Loud said too brightly, trying to retake ground. “You’ve got taste, right?”

“Better than you,” she said sweetly, and held her tray like a gate so he had to drop the bills like tribute instead of touching her again.

They laughed at him this time. He didn’t like that. Pride bristled. He leaned back, made himself bigger.

“Thought you said he was no one,” he called as she turned. “Looks like someone to me.”

Rumi didn’t break stride. “House policy says I don’t talk to furniture,” she tossed over her shoulder. A couple of tables choked on their gin. Petty. Necessary.

At the service bar the bartender slid her the bottle. “You good?”

“Fabulous,” she lied, and he let it stand because coworkers are priests of small untruths.

Back across the floor. She set the bottle down with professional grace, measured, poured, smiled at a joke she despised. She could do this. She had always done this.

Then the guy—because of course he did—clicked his tongue and flicked her strap. Not a grab. A test. Two fingers under the elastic, testing her and the room.

Jinu’s patience held for exactly one heartbeat.

“Move your hand,” he said from her left, that thread in his voice tugged tight—the one he used when he was trying not to be dangerous.

Loud froze mid-flick; humor bled out of the table. The air went tight, hush heavy in that way rooms do before storms.

“Don’t,” Rumi breathed, not sure if she meant him or the night or herself.

The guy’s smile went mean. He shoved his elbow onto the lip of her tray like he meant to rock it—liquid, glass, tips, her—watch it all hit the floor.

Something inside the moment cracked.

Jinu didn’t lunge. He didn’t posture. He simply stepped in, clean as a metronome, and with one precise arc—knuckles to cheekbone, swift and surgical—severed elbow from tray and arrogance from face.

The sound was sharp, obscene: crack, stumble, chair skidding, glass toppling but not breaking. For a split second the whole room hung on the echo. Then the bouncer was moving—big shadow, calm center, already swallowing the mess.

“Outside,” the bouncer said—steady as a closed door. To the dazed customer, who was prodding his cheek like it had misbehaved: “You, too.”

Every eye in the radius turned into a hot coin on Rumi’s skin. She could feel the story writing itself in other mouths.

She grabbed Jinu’s forearm—hard—because if she didn’t, he would become the wrong kind of headline and she would be the reason. “Come with me,” she snapped, already pulling him toward the staff hallway. “Now.”

He didn’t resist. He let the bouncer take the table, let the room fill in its own blanks. The corridor swallowed them. The service door gave, and winter hit like a slap—clean, citrus-cold, carving edges back into her where heat had melted them.

She dropped his arm like it burned. The door thudded shut behind them. The alley hummed with muffled bass, a distant siren, the metallic drip of an overworked condenser. She pressed her spine to the brick because if she didn’t lean on something she might tip over.

“What was that,” she said, voice raw, too sharp, shaking with the effort not to crack apart. “What the hell was that.”

It wasn’t just about his fist. It was about the heat still crawling her skin, about the chaos in her own head, about how badly she hated that she wanted him to keep choosing her.

He stood three steps away with his hands open, as if proximity itself were a risk. The skin across his knuckles was already blooming faint and red. “He touched you,” Jinu said, and the simplicity of it made something mean spark under her sternum.

“This is a club,” she said, each word clipped to keep from breaking. “People try to touch me. We handle it. Quietly. You don’t—” she gestured at the door, at the idea of his fist, at the story already mutating inside— “do that .”

“I warned him,” he said, the calm in his voice threaded with something frayed. “Twice.”

“And then you hit him.” The laugh that came out of her was too bright, panicked, ugly. “Congratulations. You made me a scene.”

His jaw flexed once. “I made him stop.”

“I had it,” she snapped, because if she let herself feel how scared she’d been, she’d fold. “That was my call. My job. My mask . You ripped it off in front of everyone.”

“I know,” he said, immediate, which somehow made it worse. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m trying to be what you asked, Rumi. I sat. I backed off. I—” He swallowed. The next words came thin, not defensive, just true. “I watched him keep testing your no. I watched you brace to eat it so the room didn’t look, and I—couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t,” she echoed, disgusted at the way the word wanted to turn soft in her mouth because it was the exact shape of the part of her that had wanted rescue and hated that it wanted rescue. “You don’t get to ‘couldn’t’ in my workplace.”

His eyes flicked to her wrist—instinct, not tactic—as if to check there was no new mark under the bracelet he’d bought like an idiot. He lifted his gaze immediately. “You’re right,” he said. No argument. No list of reasons. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

The apology made her throat sting worse than anger did.

“Why are you doing this,” she said, the bottom of it raw. “Why do you keep—” She clawed for words that wouldn’t betray her. “ Showing up. ”

He didn’t move closer. “Because I care about you.” He said it plain, like he’d cut his chest open just to put the words in her hands. “Because you told me you don’t let people in. Because you ran and I wanted to prove that someone could follow without making you smaller.”

“Don’t say that,” she said, too fast. “Don’t—say things that make me—” Want. Hope. Break. “Stop.”

“I don’t know how to stop,” he said softly. There wasn’t triumph in it. Only ache.

Her laugh cracked down the middle, brittle as glass on tile. “You were supposed to be simple,” she said, voice wobbling between sarcasm and plea. “Just a crush. Eyebrows, hoodies, that stupid smirk I could pretend I didn’t care about.” She pressed the heel of her hand against her sternum, like she could stop the ricochet there. “You don’t even know me.”

The words hung, heavier than she meant them to, because she’d finally let them slip past her guard. Not just a joke in her head, not something she could laugh off later — spoken into the air where she couldn’t pull them back. Out loud. Irrevocable. And now it was too late to pretend he hadn’t heard what she’d really meant.

He went still, long enough for it to sting in her own ears, long enough for her to regret naming it at all. Then, finally—

“I’m trying to,” he said. No edge. No defense. Just… too much honesty, bare enough to make her want to rip the words out of the air and stomp them flat.

It made her want to crawl into the brick, sink through the alley concrete, anything to get out of his gaze.

“Stop.” The word came out louder than she meant, bright enough to sting the air. Not anger—panic wearing anger’s mask. “You don’t get to play hero. Like I said… you don’t know me.”

He took it like he’d been preparing for it, like disappointment was a drawer he knew by heart. Something flickered across his face—hurt, small and neat—and then he buried it, shoulders steadying like a wall.

His jaw worked once, twice. “Why can’t you just—” He cut himself off, dragged a breath, then pushed through with a voice that wasn’t steady.

“Why can’t you see it? The coffee. The studio. The nights that felt like dates even when we didn’t call them that. The way I show up, every time — to walk you home, to sit with you, to make sure you eat, to remind you you deserve more than the way you talk about yourself. That night in your bed — not just sex, but all the hours after, when we actually talked and it felt like I’d known you forever. None of that was casual, Rumi. Not for me. It’s because I—”

The word caught. His mouth closed like he’d bitten it back. But the ghost of it hung there, heavy as smoke, and she swore she could taste it.

Her chest locked. Don’t say it. Don’t give me something I’ll ruin. She stared at his mouth anyway, traitor. “If you say something you can’t take back,” she whispered, hoarse, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Silence pressed down, thick as the bass bleeding through the wall. The kind of silence that felt alive, waiting for one of them to break.

She shoved both palms flat against the brick, grounding herself, trying not to cry. “God, I hate this,” she rasped. “I hate what you do to me.”

“I don’t want you to hate me.” His voice was so careful it nearly killed her. “I just… want you to stop pretending none of this is real.”

Her throat threatened to close. She forced words out sharp instead. “It can’t be real. It has to be nothing.”

He flinched like she’d swung at him. But he didn’t look away. “Then let me be the first thing that doesn’t break when you stop running.”

Her laugh splintered. Ugly, cracked. “You think you’re the exception? That’s… adorable.”

“Why does it have to be a joke?” he asked, too soft.

“Because jokes I can survive,” she snapped, the words sharper than she meant. “Getting used, being laughed at, guys wanting one thing—fine. I know that script. But this—” Her hand jerked between them, helpless, like she could shake the air itself. His eyes, his hands open, his patience bleeding out onto the pavement. “This doesn’t make sense. This feels like a trick.”

“It’s not.” His voice shredded on the way out.

“Then prove it.” Her voice shook. “Get mad. Tell me I’m too much. That I ruin things. That I’m exhausting. At least then I’ll know where the line is.”

“I can’t,” he said, raw. “I’m not giving you that.” The refusal landed harder than any insult could have.

“God, you’re impossible.” It slipped out like a prayer.

“I’m here,” he said simply. “That’s all I’ve ever been trying to be.”

Her chest twisted, dangerous and ugly. “Then why does it feel like you’re already halfway out the door?”

His jaw clenched. “Because my father—” He stopped, like he hadn’t meant to say it, then barreled forward. “He offered me a position. Not shadows. Not training. A real one. A title that makes men twice my age shut up and listen.”

Her stomach dropped like she’d missed a stair. “What?”

“I told him no. For now.” He let out a humorless laugh. “But every no feels smaller. Every call, every meeting, every lecture about legacy—it’s like a tide. I can’t stop feeling it pull.” He looked at the red EXIT sign above the staff door like it was a star chart. “I wanted something that was mine first. Someone I chose before all of that swallowed me.”

The words sliced her open. Him, in a boardroom. Him, mask on. Him gone. Her eyes burned. She bit back the tears with teeth sharp enough to hurt. “Then do it,” she said, brutal because she had no other defense. “Take it. Be their heir. At least then I won’t have to watch you waste your time pretending I’m worth it.”

It landed. A clean wound.

He blinked once, slow. His voice when it came was soft, wrecked. “That’s not what I want. Not the company. Not the mask. Not—” He bit down hard, cut himself off, shoulders stiff.

Her throat burned. “You’ll leave anyway.”

“I’m not,” he said, too fast, almost desperate. “Not unless you ask me to. I’m giving you the choice you keep pretending you don’t have.” His breath came uneven, words tumbling now, unsteady. “Do you want me gone? Do you want me to stop showing up? Stop texting? Stop—” He broke off, like the rest would wreck him if he said it out loud.

Her vision blurred. “I don’t know what I want.”

He dragged a hand through his hair like he’d practiced this fight alone a hundred times. “I knew you’d say that,” he said, voice cracking on the edges. “I knew it, and I’m still here. I’ll keep being here. However long it takes.”

Her ribs crushed inward. “That’s not fair.”

“I don’t care about fair!” The words burst out, too loud, his control slipping. His chest rose fast, ragged. “I care about you. That’s it. That’s all I’ve cared about since the second I saw you.”

Her lips trembled. “You can’t say things like that.”

“I can,” he said, eyes steady even as everything else shook. “I already did. And I meant it.”

The bracelet on her wrist felt like a shackle, heavy and burning. She wanted to rip it off, throw it at him, beg him to never stop—all at once.

“Don’t,” she whispered, choking. “Don’t be kind. Don’t be patient. Don’t make me want it.”

The ache on his face nearly undid her. His jaw worked like he was holding himself together by threads. “I don’t know how to stop wanting you.”

Her lungs forgot how to work. She pressed harder into the wall, holding herself together. “Then you should go.”

He stepped forward like he might, like leaving was the only thing keeping him intact—then stopped short, fists curling at his sides. “I will,” he said, every word jagged now, no padding left. “I’ll text once—to say I got home. After that…” His throat bobbed. “After that I’ll wait. However long it takes. Until you decide if I’m something you want, or something you can’t risk.”

Her breath fractured. “And if I never decide?”

His smile was small, wrecked, stupidly fond and full of pain. “Then I’ll try not to build my life around a girl who won’t let me in. But I’ll fail. Every time.”

Her chest split. “Don’t be sweet,” she begged, because sweetness was the knife that always cut through.

His eyes burned, and this time his voice wasn’t careful—it cracked. “I don’t know how else to be with you.”

The silence pulsed. Close enough to kiss, close enough to shatter, both of them holding back like cowards.

Finally, he dragged in a breath that sounded like surrender. Softer, almost broken: “Lock the staff door when you go in. The latch sticks.”

“Bossy,” she muttered, muscle memory, anything to keep from sliding down the wall.

His breath huffed out, tired but real. “Goodnight, Rumi.”

He didn’t touch her. Didn’t try to kiss her. Just inclined his head, deferent where any other man would’ve left ego, and pulled the door open. Heat and bass spilled out.

Before it shut, he half-turned back, mask slipping just enough to let her see the raw thing: hope, hurt, patience frayed at the edges.

“I’ll wait,” he said, raw. “But if you keep shutting me out… I don’t know what to do with that.”

The door closed behind him.

Her legs gave. She folded down hard, knees to concrete, head in her hands, bracelet biting like a shackle. Her phone buzzed against her ribs—phantom, real, relentless—but she ignored it.

What she couldn’t ignore: the echo under her ribs, beating in time with her pulse—

I’ll wait. I don’t know how long I can survive it.

…

The door thudded shut behind him, and the bass swallowed him whole.

Rumi stayed. For too long. For so long the cold found the damp edges of her spine and pressed until she shivered. Her knees unlocked without permission. She caught herself on the brick, breath jagged, chest refusing to regulate.

In. Out. In. Out.

Her lungs didn’t listen. Her throat tightened to a straw, her vision prickled at the edges. The bracelet felt like a brand. The tray she’d abandoned by the wall gleamed under the exit light like evidence.

She bent, caught it, clutched it like a shield. Pulled the staff door open with a strength she didn’t have and stepped back into the roar.

The club hit her like a slap.

Bass. Smoke. Laughter pitched too high. The air thick with perfume and sweat. It all pressed down, layers on layers, and the panic that had started outside followed her in, doubling. Her skin buzzed like static, like the room was too full, too sharp.

Her tray slipped once in her grip. She caught it. She always caught it. Stage Rumi didn’t drop trays. Stage Rumi didn’t stumble.

She pasted the smile back on. It felt like stretching skin over a fracture. She made it ten steps onto the floor before her chest hitched and she realized she couldn’t remember the last real breath she’d taken.

The lights stung. Her pulse spiked.

“Rumi.”

Not him. Thank God. Not him.

Mira.

She appeared out of nowhere, sharp shoulder carving space in the crowd, eyes already clocking what was wrong. No questions, no preamble. Just her hand—warm, certain—curling around Rumi’s elbow.

“Zoey!” she barked, and it was less call, more command.

Zoey materialized from the other side like she’d been waiting. Her glitter was smudged, her eyeliner wing sharp enough to kill, but her eyes—God, her eyes—were wide and steady.

Code word.

“Jellyfish,” Mira said low, right into her ear. “You’re jellyfish, okay?”

The word cracked something open.

Not the panic—it was still rising, frothing—but the part of her brain that could still hear her friends through it. Jellyfish meant no pushing, no questions, no shame. Jellyfish meant they carried her until she could float again.

Her tray tilted. Zoey grabbed it with one hand, balancing it like she’d been born in the service industry. “I’ve got this. You’ve got her.”

Mira didn’t let go. She angled her body, shielding, already steering toward the staff hallway. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“No—” Rumi tried, but her voice was thin, glassy. “I can’t just—”

“Babe, you can,” Zoey said, gentle but immovable, already flashing the tray at a coworker behind the bar. “Cover shift. Emergency.” She didn’t wait for agreement. She was too busy flanking Rumi like security detail.

The hall blurred. The dressing room door opened too loud. Mira shut it again with her foot.

Silence—relatively. Just the muffled bass and the hum of fluorescent lights.

Rumi sagged onto the couch, pulse galloping, hands fisted in her skirt. Mira crouched in front of her, not too close, not too far. Zoey tossed the tray onto the counter, then dropped onto the couch beside her, arm slung across the back like scaffolding.

“Nothin’ to prove,” Zoey murmured. “Not right now.”

Mira’s voice came soft. “Count if you can. Or don’t. Just hear us. You’re jellyfish. Float. Let the tide do the work.”

Her eyes burned. She blinked too fast, tried to anchor on the neon sign’s reflection in the mirror, on the sequins draped over a chair, on Zoey’s nails tapping idle rhythm against the cushion.

Her breath finally caught. Shuddered. Released.

No one said his name. No one asked what had set her off.

Zoey leaned her head gently against hers, hair tickling her cheek. “We’re going home, babe. We’ve got you.”

Home.

Her throat closed again, but not from panic this time. From relief so sharp it hurt worse.

She nodded once, small, and Mira was already up, already pulling her bag off the hook, already handing Zoey the hoodie Rumi had stuffed in there earlier like it was armor.

Zoey draped it over her shoulders without a word. Mira laced their fingers together tight, grounding.

The walk out was a blur. Back door, quiet street, winter air. Their dorm was ten blocks but it felt like nothing, bracketed by her girls on either side, their chatter light and ridiculous, the kind meant to keep her tethered.

Nobody said him. Nobody said fight. Nobody said bracelet.

Just: “Want ramen or fries?” and “My boba’s still in the fridge” and “We’ll do nails tomorrow, you’re due.”

By the time they reached their door, her chest had stopped trying to cave in. The panic hadn’t vanished—it never really did—but it had ebbed, replaced by exhaustion, by the bone-deep ache of knowing she was still held, even when everything else felt like it was breaking.

Inside, the lights were low. Zoey kicked the door shut. Mira tossed the keys on the counter.

And Rumi—without thinking, without planning—let them steer her straight to bed.

The bracelet pressed into her wrist as she curled under the blanket. She tugged the sleeve down, hid it, let herself breathe.

The girls didn’t ask. They just stayed—Zoey humming off-key, Mira scrolling her phone out loud like commentary, filling the room with normal.

The girls drifted eventually. Mira’s scrolling dimmed to the soft tick of her phone locking. Zoey’s hum slid into even breaths, head tipped back on the beanbag like she’d collapse there until morning.

Rumi lay on her side, eyes open.

Her arm stretched out of the blanket, sleeve pulled just enough to expose the bracelet. The gold caught the low dorm light, faint but insistent, a line of fire on her skin she couldn’t unsee.

She turned her palm, then turned it back, the metal flashing with every movement. His gift. The thing he had slipped onto her wrist like it was nothing, like it hadn’t already branded her.

Next to it, peeking from the spiral-bound notebook she’d dropped on the nightstand, the sticky note stuck out. Four notes scrawled in pencil. A melody so small it should have been disposable. Instead it sat there like a live wire.

She stared until her eyes burned.

Every moment replayed. The coffee. The stupid hoodie. The way he’d said her name in a stairwell like it was a prayer. The way he’d punched a man tonight without hesitation, not because of pride, but because she’d been grabbed and he couldn’t stomach her swallowing it.

And the way his mouth had shaped the beginning of a word she wasn’t brave enough to hear.

Her throat pulled tight.

You’re the worst person alive, she told herself, the phrase looping cruel and familiar. Too much for her aunt. Too much for every boy who left. Too much even now, when the one person who kept saying he’d stay might finally realize what a disaster he was tethering himself to.

The vibration startled her. Not loud, not long—just the muted buzz of her phone under the blanket.

Her hand shook when she pulled it out.

[jinu] made it home.
[jinu]  i won’t bother you anymore.
[jinu]  if you want me, you’ll know where to find me.

Her breath caught like she’d been punched.
That was it. No “goodnight.” No “see you.” Just the kind of careful phrasing people used when they were saying I’m done without spelling it out.

Her chest pulled so tight she thought she might break a rib.

Her thumb hovered, slippery with sweat.

[rumi] don’t.
Backspace.

[rumi] i’m sorry.
Delete.

Her eyes burned. The bracelet glinted on her wrist like proof she was already tethered. The sticky note in her notebook felt like it was humming. Everything he’d given her—coffee, care, patience—stacked up like evidence against her silence.

She typed again:
[rumi] please don’t leave.

Her finger hovered over send.

And then—cowardice, reflex, survival, whatever name you wanted to give it—she backspaced the whole line until nothing was left.

The screen dimmed.
The silence stretched.
The decision—hers, always hers—was made in the worst way: by not choosing at all.

Tuesday started stupidly early and somehow still too late.

Mira kicked the side of Rumi’s mattress like a benevolent assassin. “Up, scholar. Hydrate and suffer.”

Zoey sang a single, aggressively wrong note into the quiet, then cackled when Rumi groaned into her pillow.

“It’s just class,” Rumi told the ceiling, which had never once judged her and was not about to start. “Just notes and pencils and fluorescent lighting. Totally survivable.”

The part of her that knew what seat he always took said nothing and sipped imaginary coffee.

She made it out the door on muscle memory—ponytail, hoodie (not the cedar one; she wasn’t a masochist), beat-up sneakers, a mouthful of toothpaste she didn’t remember spitting. The campus morning was the usual procession of backpacks and half-awake faces, the breath-clouded air tasting like winter and burnt espresso. Normal. She could do normal.

The lecture hall had that bright, institutional hum that made every thought feel like it was being held under a heat lamp. Rumi slid into her spot. She did not look left. She did not look at the row where he usually sat angled toward her like the tiniest, stupidest sun dial.

She absolutely looked.

Empty.

A hollow tooth in the row—chair down, desk arm up, the space weirdly louder than everything else in the room. Rumi’s stomach did a graceless little flip that she pretended was about breakfast. She pulled out her notebook and wrote the date too hard. The numbers dug into the paper like a groove she could fall into.

Maybe he overslept, she told herself, like Jinu Han had ever overslept a day in his life. Maybe he caught that campus cold half the dorm had last week. Maybe Friday’s cold air had bit him harder than he admitted. Maybe. Maybe. She stacked the maybes like cards, flimsy towers that collapsed as soon as she touched them.

The professor started in on intervals—clean, neat, dependable—his chalk squeaking the way it always did. Someone dropped a pen three rows up. Someone whispered “what page” and got shushed. The grid of the room clicked into place like a skeleton being hung on a hook.

She kept catching herself turning her head a fraction, like some traitor inside her had clocked the precise rhythm of the door and wanted to sync to it. Every time it opened, her pulse spiked on contact. A late student slipped in, hair damp from a rushed shower—nope. Another slid sideways with an apology smile—nope. The door sighed again and a TA with a stack of handouts breezed in—nope, nope, nope.

The seat stayed empty. The air around it did not stop feeling like a missing tooth she couldn’t stop touching with her tongue.

She took notes like a machine. She wrote neat stems and tidy flags and realized halfway down the page she had drawn the same four-note shape he’d left on that sticky note. The lift on the third. The way it leaned into a hurt and made it feel like a choice. She scratched over it, then drew it again because scrubbing it out made it louder.

“Augmented sixth,” the professor said, underlining sixth like it had personally wronged him. “Not a dare.”

A breath hiccuped out of her that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t hurt. He’d smirk at that, she thought, say dissonance was half the point. Optional’s a dangerous word, he always said, like a habit. She erased nothing.

…

When the hour spat them back into daylight, it was almost worse. Rumi held her bag strap in both hands like she was keeping herself attached to the earth and let the crowd carry her into the corridor. She did not wait by the door the way she sometimes did when they were leaving at the same time. She did not glance into the little glass sliver on the door when it swung, checking the row. She did not.

Mira popped up like a bright sign. “We’re boycotting cafeteria pasta at lunch, FYI. I witnessed a miracle at a food truck last week and it involved scallion pancakes.”

“Bless,” Rumi said, mouth moving in the correct social shapes. Her heart felt like it had been replaced by a bell someone kept striking at random.

“Also,” Zoey said, appearing from nowhere like an agent of chaos, “if you see me near the vending machine with that haunted look, drag me away. That cola owes me nine dollars and my dignity.”

Rumi nodded on the beat, texted a thumbs-up into the group chat because words had the density of marble right now, and told herself the worst was over. He was sick. He had a lab. He had a life that did not revolve around her and this was fine, it was fine, she was fine.

The lie held until Thursday and then snapped.

She did everything the same. Same hoodie, same seat, same pen, same ritual subtraction of looking. The room did everything the same back. It felt like stepping into a photograph of Tuesday—repeat it, repeat it, repeat it—until the one thing that should have changed refused to.

His chair stayed empty.

No backpack slung just so. No sleepy nod hello he pretended wasn’t a hello. No little tilt of his notebook toward her like his ideas always wanted to share a table.

The professor mentioned partners for next week like a guillotine that would fall on schedule. Rumi wrote the word partners and the letters stuttered on the line. Her throat did the tight, hot thing that said tears were filing motions and she had to deny them on procedural grounds.

Maybe he dropped the class, a brain-gremlin suggested, and she swallowed a noise that was too close to a sound she wouldn’t allow in public.

“Han?” a voice said behind her—casual, friendly—and for a half-second her skin flared with recognition before she realized it was a different Hanin the roll call, someone else’s attendance question, someone else’s answer. It shouldn’t have felt like a trick. It did.

When the room finally let them go, she stayed seated until the row thinned to polite. She put her notebook into her bag with mindless care—edge square, pages aligned—like if she did one thing correctly the rest would follow.

Out in the hall, the fluorescence felt harsher. A pair of first-years jogged past arguing about a quiz. A grad student pivoted in a lab coat with six coffees and near-missed disaster. The world didn’t even wobble.

She let the crowd carry her down the stairs. Her hands felt foreign on the rail, like she’d borrowed them. At the landing, she glanced down at the second-floor hallway’s gold-lettered placards—STUDIO A through D, the little red lights by the doors that meant occupied. She didn’t mean to look for him. She did anyway.

Red. Red. Red. A cleaning sign. Red.

She told herself he was in one of them, headphones on, oblivious to time. She told herself he’d walk out flushed with work and sheepish about being late. She told herself a dozen things and watched none of them happen.

By the exit, someone laughed too loudly at a meme and the sound bounced off cinderblock in a way that scraped her nerves. She pushed through into morning that had already turned to afternoon and got knocked by a tide of students in puffer coats. For half a second she saw a tall guy in a white jacket and her body moved like she’d been pulled on a string—then the stranger turned and it wasn’t him and the string went slack so hard she felt dizzy.

Mira caught her elbow with ridiculous timing. “Hey. Be my moral compass. If a professor emails ‘gentle reminder,’ how much of that is passive aggression and how much is a cry for help.”

“Seventy-thirty,” Rumi said. “In their favor.”

“Thought so.” Mira’s gaze flicked over her face—surgical, caring. “You good?”

“Functional,” Rumi said.

Zoey slid in on the other side, bumping hips. “We have dumplings. Or we can go home and eat the boba Mira keeps buying like it’s a personality. Choose the poison.”

“Dumplings,” Rumi said, because chewing meant she didn’t have to talk, and if she didn’t talk there was a chance the ache would stay an ache and not turn into something messy in the daylight.

She made it through the walk to the food truck without checking her phone. She made it through paying without thinking about the bracelet under her sleeve. She made it through Mira’s running commentary about a student who’d brought a ferret to office hours (emotional support? academic sabotage? unclear) and Zoey’s escalating threats against the vending machine like she was planning a heist.

It felt like swimming with weights on. Possible, technically. Exhausting, in practice.

Back on campus concrete, a pair of guys behind them were talking in that loud, oblivious way of the truly unbothered. “—yeah, Han,” one said, “he’s in my section usually. Haven’t seen him all week.”

“Han?” the other asked, uninterested.

“Jinu. Top of the class. Runs the study group. Saja dorm leader.”

“Ah.” A pause. “He’s probably tied up with Saja event stuff. Or, you know… rich family obligations or whatever.”

Rumi didn’t turn. She didn’t have to. The words did exactly what they were built to do—penetrate skin and take up residence somewhere stupidly tender. The ground tilted a degree. Her mouth went dry around a bite of scallion pancake she couldn’t quite swallow.

He told you, something in her said, unkind and accurate, and you told him invitations could be revoked.

She walked faster, shoulders tight, the pancake in her hand suddenly leaden. By the time she made it back to the dorm she felt scraped raw, every sound too sharp, every glance too loud.

The girls were home. Zoey was on her stomach across her bed, laptop open, earbuds dangling; Mira sat cross-legged at her desk with a highlighter clamped between her teeth and a half-scribbled lab manual in front of her. Normal. Cozy. Safe.

Rumi dropped her bag by the door and tried to act like her body wasn’t vibrating out of its skin. She sat on the edge of her bed, knees together, fingers knotted in the blanket. She stared at the floor like maybe it would open up and swallow her.

Neither of them said anything at first. They didn’t have to.

The crack came out of nowhere. A stupid, half-choked laugh that broke wrong, too jagged, and by the time she pressed her hand to her mouth she was already crying. Not pretty tears, not cinematic streaks — the kind that made her nose run and her face blotch and her chest shake with little gasps she couldn’t contain.

Zoey yanked her earbuds out like she’d been waiting. Mira’s chair squealed back.

“Oh, babe,” Zoey said, sliding off the bed to the floor.

Rumi shook her head hard, palms pressed to her face, but the words still ripped out ugly and wet: “I don’t know why I can’t stop. I don’t know why it feels like this. It’s not supposed to—he’s not supposed to—”

Her hands dropped. Her cheeks were blotched red, her eyes stinging. “Why does it feel like I can’t breathe without him?”

The silence that followed was too full. Zoey’s laptop lid snapped shut. Mira stood, slow and steady.

“Because this isn’t like the other times,” Zoey said softly, like she was laying something fragile down in front of her. “This isn’t some fling or a crush you can smirk your way out of. You miss him.”

Rumi flinched, hard, like the word itself was a slap. “No. No, I—” She tried to laugh, brittle. “It’s just—he got under my skin. I’ll get over it.”

“Rumi,” Mira said, voice flat but not unkind, crossing the room. “Look at you. You’re wrecked. This is real.”

Her breath came fast, uneven, shallow. She wrapped her arms around herself like that could keep everything in. “I don’t want it to be real.”

“But it is.” Zoey’s hand landed gently on her knee. “You don’t cry like this over someone who’s just another guy.”

Her laugh broke sharp. “You think I haven’t cried before? You think I haven’t had men treat me like I was disposable and still—” Her voice cracked, broke. “This is worse.”

Mira crouched in front of her, eyes level, steady and sharp. “Because it matters. Because you care. Because it’s him.”

Rumi’s chest heaved. “I don’t want to care. I don’t know how to. I don’t even know what to call it.” Her voice fell to a whisper, words splitting on her teeth. “I just know I don’t want him gone.”

Zoey made a soft sound, not pity, not smug — just gentle. She leaned in until their shoulders touched. “Then stop pretending you do.”

The words hit something inside her that had been locked for weeks. Her throat closed. She shook her head again, like she could shove it back. “You don’t get it. If I say it out loud, it—” She pressed her fists against her eyes. “It makes it real.”

“It’s already real,” Mira said. No cruelty, just fact.

Her breath came hard, shallow. “I’m scared.”

“We know,” Zoey said. “That’s why we’re here.”

The dam split. All the things she’d swallowed for weeks, all the words she’d shoved down with eyeliner and glitter and practiced smiles—everything tumbled out messy and unstoppable.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how to want something and not ruin it. I don’t know how to let someone stay without waiting for the door to slam. He’s—he’s so good. He’s too good. He looks at me like—like I’m someone worth looking at. And it hurts. It hurts so bad because I don’t believe it. Because what if he wakes up one day and he doesn’t either?”

Zoey’s arms were already around her. Mira’s hand pressed firm and steady between her shoulder blades.

“You don’t have to know the whole story yet,” Zoey murmured, voice firm against her hair. “You just have to stop pretending this part isn’t true.”

Her body shuddered against them, raw and broken. “I miss him,” she whispered, like it gutted her to say it. Louder this time, wrecked: “I miss him.”

Mira’s eyes softened, her thumb rubbing circles against Rumi’s shoulder. “There it is,” she said quietly. “The truth.”

Zoey pulled her tighter, rocking them both. “See? World didn’t end.”

But it felt like it had, and like maybe that was the point.

The dorm was thick with sleep. Mira’s phone dimmed to black; Zoey’s hum softened into even breaths. Rumi lay wide awake, eyes burning from the kind of crying that left you hollow and raw.

Her arm stretched out of the blanket, the bracelet catching lamplight like it had been forged to torment her. The sticky note peeked from her notebook. Four pencil marks, fragile and stubborn. A melody too small to matter—except it mattered more than anything.

Her chest burned with every echo. The coffee. The stairwell. His hand in hers. The way he’d punched without hesitation, but only once. The almost-confession that still hung between them. Because I lo—

She pressed her fist hard into her sternum, as if she could cage it there. You’re loud, sharp edges, never enough and always too much. He’ll see it. They always do.

But her girls’ voices lingered too, threaded through the quiet: you miss him. this is real. you don’t cry like this for just anyone.

Her phone lit up on the blanket. The unread messages glared like they’d been waiting for her to finally break. She hadn’t opened them. Couldn’t. But her eyes kept darting back, like maybe the words would change if she stared long enough.

[jinu] made it home.
[jinu] i won’t bother you anymore.
[jinu] if you want me, you’ll know where to find me.

Her lungs seized. He meant it. He’d give her space. He always kept his promises—even the ones that hurt.

Her hands shook as she typed.
[rumi] don’t.
Backspace.
[rumi] i’m sorry.
Delete.

The bracelet gleamed, merciless. The sticky note hummed. His voice in her head was unbearable.

Her thumb hovered, the ache under her ribs finally too sharp to keep swallowing. For once she didn’t dodge, didn’t shove it down, didn’t pretend.

She missed him. God, she missed him.

Before she could chicken out, she typed:
[rumi] i don’t know how to do this. but i miss you. and i don’t want you gone.

Send. Blue. Gone. Too late.

The silence after stretched like a lifetime. Her breath snagged, shallow, like she’d just thrown her whole body into traffic.

Then the screen lit.
[jinu] rumi.

Three dots pulsed. Vanished. Came back.

Her eyes stung. She bit her knuckle hard to keep quiet.

[jinu] you don’t have to know how.
[jinu] i don’t need easy. i just need you.
[jinu] however you’ll let me.

Her throat ached around words she couldn’t even shape, not without breaking. She pressed her knuckle harder to her mouth like that could hold them in.

Her thumb hovered again. This time, lighter.

[rumi] tomorrow?

The dots came back instantly, like he’d been waiting with the phone in his hand, waiting for her to open the smallest door.

[jinu] tomorrow.
[jinu] anywhere you’ll have me.

She stared at the glow until her vision blurred. Her chest hurt, her hands shook, and still—under all of it—something like breath finally moved through her.

Tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Rumi woke to light she hadn’t invited in. A pale bar slid across her pillow like a ruler, thin and precise, and it made her eyes sting before her thoughts even arranged themselves into language. She rolled toward the nightstand and found her phone by muscle memory, face half buried in the pillow, thumb dragging up the screen like it weighed something.

There it was. Still where she’d left it, like a coin pressed into her palm.

jinu: come by my studio tomorrow?

jinu: 2:00. I’ll wait for you.

Every word was plain, deliberate, nothing wasted—his voice even in text, the kind that made everything sound more certain than she felt. Last night it had felt like a hand reaching back for her in the dark. In the morning, it felt sharp enough to etch its way under her ribs and sit there.

She read it again because reading it once had never been enough for anything with him. The word kept changing temperature—first warm against her skin, then cold, like metal you weren’t supposed to touch with your tongue. He’d said window. He remembered that about her, how she liked something solid at her shoulder and a horizon to look at while her mouth tried to be brave. He remembered. He was good at that, and it killed her a little. The remembering. The way it made everything feel chosen even when it probably wasn’t.

Her chest tightened the way it always did when her brain and her body disagreed about what counted as a danger. She lay very still and listened to the apartment breathing. Zoey’s soft, ridiculous snore, the faint hiss of the radiator deciding whether to help. From the kitchenette came the gentle clink of a mug—Mira already awake, steady, making tea like a small prayer. The air smelled like citrus cleaner over popcorn and the ghost of nail polish remover. Life went on. Outside, a bus sighed past like a heavy animal. And Rumi was pinned in place by four words and a time.

It would have been easier if they hadn’t fought. If last night’s silence between them had been an accident, not a verdict. It would have been easier if she hadn’t still felt the echo of his voice under her skin—the low, careful tone he used when he was angry but trying not to scorch her with it. It would have been easier if she hadn’t heard herself get sharp, seen the way his mouth tightened with the effort of staying soft. If he hadn’t left. He didn’t slam the door; he never did. He just closed it in that careful way that still managed to be loud. She’d stared at it for a long time after, the seam where the light on the other side went thin and then disappeared, like watching a pulse stop.

And then the message had come, spare and careful, like he was leaving a door cracked without saying whether she could step through. come by my studio tomorrow? 2:00. i’ll wait for you. She’d held the phone against her sternum like pressure could keep her from unraveling and told herself not to cry because what if it wasn’t forgiveness. What if it was logistics. What if it was him corralling this thing between them into a place with padded walls and a schedule, where he could keep it from spilling, where he could tell her—calmly, reasonably—that it would be better if they drew some line she didn’t know how to walk.

She swallowed. The ceiling looked back at her with its old water stains, continents from a world she didn’t remember learning about. Once, she’d traced them with her eyes until she could pretend they were maps. Now they looked like smudges. She pressed her knuckles into the mattress, a small, stupid test to make sure she was still physically here, not dissolved into the ache of wanting something she had no business wanting.

She tried to be practical.

It’s just a time and a place. He’s busy. He’s trying. You’re both trying.

She tried to be cruel—because sometimes cruelty felt like armor.

You’re reading hope where there isn’t any. He’s not choosing you, he’s scheduling you. Stop acting like a girl in a song.

But none of it stuck. The words slid off her ribs like water, leaving behind the same ache that wouldn’t quiet.

Because the truth was louder than anything she told herself.

She needed to see him.

Even if he opened the door with that weary look, the one that made her feel like a storm he was bracing for.
Even if he didn’t touch her.
Even if walking into that studio meant shrinking under every light and every silence.

She would go anyway—because not going felt worse. Not going felt like strangling herself on purpose.

And that need embarrassed her. Heat rushed up her throat, crawling over her collarbone until even her skin felt fragile with it. She wanted to scrape it off, leave it on the nightstand with the lip balm and hair ties, anything to keep from carrying it into the day. Instead she curled tighter around her phone, as if hiding her face behind the glow could make her want less.

…

When she finally stood, her feet found the cold of the floor in that little jolt that made everything briefly, mercifully simple. Bathroom. Light switch. The mirror looked surprised to see her—what are you doing up this early to want something you’re not sure you’re allowed to want. Eyes puffy, mouth dry, hair trying six textures at once. She ran the water until it steamed and washed her face longer than necessary, palms pressed to her cheeks like she could push the doubt back into its walls. She brushed her teeth hard enough that the bristles squealed.

“You’re not going to be weird,” she told the mirror, very quietly, like a confession.

The girl in the glass looked like she might. She looked like she might stand in a lobby of glass and light and remember every bad thing she’d ever thought about herself. She looked like she might see him across a corridor with someone who belonged in his world and remember that she didn’t.

She closed her eyes, and the fight was still waiting there.

Her own voice—too sharp, tumbling out faster than she could rein it in.
His hands braced on the counter, not moving, not even twitching, except for the way his knuckles whitened when he held himself still.
The set of his jaw, tight enough to ache just looking at it.

She remembered reaching for him. Just instinct, like pulling toward heat. And how he hadn’t stepped back—but he hadn’t stepped into her, either. That absence burned worse than a shove.

The worst was his voice when he finally said her name. Low. Careful. Not leaving, not staying. Like he was holding back a hundred things he could have said and choosing silence instead, because silence would do less damage.

Her chest tightened again just thinking about it. She pressed her forehead to the cool edge of the medicine cabinet and let the chill bite through the heat in her skin, counting her breaths until they evened.

…

By the time she padded into the kitchenette, the apartment was awake but not loud yet. The hum of the fridge, the soft drip of Mira’s tea strainer, the faint citrus-and-toast smell curling under the cabinets. Mira had already set out two mugs; one of them was turned slightly, waiting for her.

She didn’t speak at first. Just pushed the mug across the counter until it met Rumi’s hand. Steam lifted between them, blurring Mira’s expression for a second. When it cleared, her gaze was steady.

“You’re up early,” she said finally, voice level, like she was leaving room for the answer to be anything.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Rumi muttered. Not a lie, not the whole truth either. She wrapped both hands around the mug, anchoring herself in the heat, like if she let go she might topple.

The apartment door to Zoey’s room creaked open and then Zoey herself spilled out, blanket still clutched around her shoulders like she hadn’t decided whether she was awake yet. Her hair was pinned up with something that might’ve been a pen, might’ve been a stick of eyeliner. She squinted at the two of them, and then her face broke into a grin before she’d even thought about it.

“Oh,” she announced, voice bright with satisfaction. “We’re doing the fragile morning thing.”

Rumi groaned into her tea. “No, we are not.”

“Fantastic. I love the fragile morning thing.” Zoey plopped into a chair, blanket cocooning her. She leaned her chin on her fist, eyes shining. “Does the fragile morning thing involve a boy with pretty eyes and the communication skills of a dying moth, or—”

“Zoey,” Mira cut in gently, setting a plate with toast on the table like a referee dropping a boundary line.

Zoey ignored the warning, still grinning. “I’m asking for scientific purposes. I’m a researcher of vibes.”

Rumi stared into her mug until the swirl of steam blurred her reflection. If she held very still, maybe it would fog thick enough to hide her face entirely. Tomorrow pulsed against her thigh anyway, the phone heavy under her sleep shirt, an insistent heartbeat she couldn’t quiet.

She didn’t have to look up to feel Mira watching her. Not prying, not pressing—just that soft, steady focus, like Mira was calibrating her the way she did a machine in lab, measuring for the slightest tremor without judgment. On her other side, Zoey was less subtle, chin propped on her palm, blanket slipping down one shoulder, eyes bright with all the questions she wasn’t bothering to ask yet. Loud in her silence, the way she always was.

It was too much, being seen two different ways and ending up pinned in the same spot: known. Her throat tightened. She took another sip of tea and let it scorch her tongue, grateful for the sting. At least that pain was clean.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mira’s voice was quiet, a door tilted open but not pushed.

“No,” Rumi said quickly, and hated how brittle it sounded. She added, softer, “Maybe later.”

Zoey nodded like she’d been given an assignment and immediately crossed it off the list. “Lip balm,” she declared, solemn as a doctor. She dug through the clutter on the sideboard, came up with a tin, and slid it across the table with a flourish. “Also, protein before panic. It’s science.”

Mira’s mouth twitched, the closest she came to laughing. “Eat,” she said simply, nudging the plate closer. “Then spiral.”

The toast tasted like cardboard, but Rumi forced herself to chew. Her stomach folded itself into impossible shapes, but she swallowed anyway, because small, responsible actions counted when bigger ones felt impossible.

Zoey’s gaze kept flicking toward her phone. Mira kept pretending not to look at it. Rumi felt both pulls at once—confession and secrecy—and caved to neither. Instead she pulled the phone into her lap like she was only checking the time. The screen lit. The message was still there.

— jinu: come by my studio tomorrow?
— jinu: 2:00. i’ll wait for you.

Her thumb brushed over the words before she could stop herself. He’d typed it like it mattered. Like he knew it would land right where she was weakest. People said men didn’t notice things; Jinu always did. It was inconvenient.

Zoey broke the quiet. “Does he sound mean,” she asked carefully, “or just… curt?”

The distinction mattered more than it should have. Rumi let out a slow breath. “He sounds like himself,” she admitted. The second the words left her, regret followed—because that sounded like love, and she couldn’t put that into the air yet. “He sounds like he had a plan when I didn’t.”

Mira leaned back against the counter, mug held between her palms. “Do you want to go?”

“No,” Rumi said. Then, because that wasn’t the whole truth: “Yes.”

Mira’s eyes softened, like she was holding the trembling part of her without squeezing. “Then you’re going.”

“And wearing lip balm,” Zoey added. “This is a gloss-forward situation.”

Rumi laughed in spite of herself, the sound climbing past the tightness in her chest. It caught once, then loosened, making the sharp edges inside her feel rounder for a moment. She looked down at her hands and was startled to find them steady. When she lifted her gaze again, both girls were still looking—Mira calm, Zoey bright—but together in the same place: ready to back her up against anything. It made her throat ache.

“You two are insufferable,” she said, but her voice was warm.

“We prefer insufferably correct,” Zoey replied.

“Text if you need anything,” Mira said, like she was adding a safety harness to the day. “Or if you need nothing except to know we’re here.”

“We can stage a very attractive emergency,” Zoey added. “Like I accidentally glued my hand to the cat. Or I fainted because you’re so beautiful. Both true.”

“Details,” Zoey said, flapping a hand. “I’m improvisational.”

The conversation folded into the small movements of morning—cutlery in the drawer, water running, the choreographed drift around one another you only earned by living in close orbit. Rumi let herself be carried by it for a few minutes, by the ease of being known and not interrogated. The dread didn’t leave; it just sat differently in her chest when there were other people in the room who believed she could walk into something hard and come out the same size as when she went in.

She showered because she didn’t know what else to do with her hands. Let the water drum the back of her neck until her shoulders felt less like stone. In the fogged mirror she practiced a face—open, not apologetic; brave, not brittle. She practiced sentences and discarded them. I’m sorry, I was scared. Too small. I heard you and then I panicked. Closer but still wrong. I want this. I want you. Too much; she swallowed that one because even thinking it felt like lighting a match in a room full of curtains.

…

In her room, she stood very still in front of the closet and then touched everything she owned like the right fabric could trap the right version of herself against her skin. Something too polished would feel like lying; something too soft would feel like begging. She chose the thing she wore when she wanted to feel like the cleanest version of herself—jeans that honored her body without pretending to be someone else’s idea of it, a sweater that made her collarbones look enticing, the jacket with the inside pocket where she could hide her shaking hand. She put the clip in her hair that Zoey called the be serious clip and then took it out again because she was serious already and didn’t need the prop.

She put the phone on the bed and stepped away like it might blow up. Thirty seconds later she caved, thumb flicking open their thread.

There it all was, stupid and undeniable.
working late?
not working. just spiraling.
at least you’re consistent.
She could still hear herself snorting at that one, half-offended, half-relieved that he always knew when to break her mood.

Further up:
i’ll waive the crying fee if you let me see the track.
Her heart had stuttered so badly she’d dropped her pen. She’d told him he was the worst. He’d sent back a <3 anyway.

And the coffee drop.
don’t make me send reinforcements.
She could still taste the brown sugar oat milk, exactly her order, the bastard. She’d told him it was harassment. He’d called it care.

She curled tighter around the phone, scrolling past line after line, sarcasm layered over affection, their whole mess of almosts and not-yets spelled out in lowercase. Pride had kept her from answering too quickly. Fear had kept her from saying what she actually wanted. But it was all still here, glowing back at her.

She closed the app like slamming a window. Her hands were colder than they had any right to be. She tucked them under her thighs and sat on the bed and listened to the building. Someone down the hall laughed and then coughed like they’d choked on the laugh a little. A bike chain clinked against a stairwell rail. A cart rattled. Ordinary. All of it relentless in its ordinariness.

“Are you okay,” Zoey asked from the doorway, which meant she’d been watching for a while, I’ll only bug you if you look like you’re sinking.

“No,” Rumi said, then softened it because she hated the way that word made Zoey’s mouth go thin, “I will be.”

Zoey nodded like she’d been given a spell to keep in her pocket. “Do you want company while you get ready, or silence, or me to sit here and make up different ways I might kill him if he’s rude.”

“Silence with light threats,” Rumi said. “Quiet murder.”

“Ah, the artisanal option,” Zoey said, and sat cross-legged on the floor and started listing the many everyday objects that could hypothetically be used to puncture a man’s ego without touching his body. It was ridiculous and extremely helpful. Rumi let the words wash over her like static.

Mira appeared long enough to hand over a small pack of tissues and a tiny bottle of water that was somehow exactly the size of the hole in her throat. “For later,” she said, then, after a beat, “For now,” because she had eyes.

Rumi tucked both into her bag like medicinal talismans. When she zipped it closed, the teeth made a neat sound that felt like completing a line of stitches. She stood and the world swayed mildly and then righted itself. She checked the time and it was both too early and almost time.

“You can do this,” Zoey said, serious now in that way she sometimes was that made Rumi want to crawl into her lap like a cat and also go win a war. “And if you cannot do this, you can call us from the bathroom and we will come get you and we will pretend it’s an emergency that involves fire and glitter.”

“Don’t set anything on fire,” Mira called from the kitchen.

“No promises,” Zoey said cheerfully.

Rumi laughed again, and this time it came easier. She slid her arms into her jacket. The lining was cool against her wrists. She breathed and it didn’t hurt. She put the phone in the inside pocket so she could press her palm to it without the rest of the world seeing. She picked up her keys, which felt heavier than they were, like little anchors tied to all the doors she could still choose to walk through.

At the threshold she hesitated, not because she wanted to turn back, but because she wanted to be able to remember this exact feeling later—the split second where fear and wanting lined up perfectly in her chest and made a shape that felt like jumping into deep water. She wanted to remember that she knew, even here, that whatever waited would be better than the static of staying still.

“Text us when you get there,” Mira said.

“Send a thirst trap so I can cheer you on properly", Zoey said.

“No,” Rumi said, smiling. “Maybe.”

…

She pulled the door shut behind her, the latch catching with a sharp click that echoed down the hall. Final. Too final. The air outside the apartment smelled like detergent and someone’s cinnamon plug-in—sweet in the wrong way, like it was trying to cover something.

The stairwell was colder. Her footsteps slapped against the concrete steps, too loud, bouncing back at her off the painted cinderblock walls. Every door she passed had its own little hum—music bleeding through, voices, the clatter of someone making ramen for breakfast. She held her bag strap tight enough that her knuckles ached, like bracing against the ordinary weight of other people’s lives.

Down the last flight. The heavy door at the bottom groaned, then gave, spilling her into the parking lot. Gray sky above, rows of cars sitting like they had more patience than she did. The air bit at her cheeks; she tugged her jacket closer.

Mira's car sat where she’d left it, dust streaked, one hubcap catching a flare of weak light. She paused halfway across the lot, heart hammering so loud it almost drowned out the distant buzz of traffic. Forward, she told herself. Just forward.

The key felt slick in her hand when she pulled it from her pocket. For a second she fumbled, almost dropped it, then shoved it into the lock with more force than necessary. The door thunked open, the sound jolting up her arm.

Inside, the car smelled faintly of old coffee and the vanilla air freshener she kept forgetting to replace. She slid behind the wheel, set her bag on the passenger seat, and sat there with both hands on the steering wheel like she was holding onto something larger than plastic and metal.

It’s just a building, she thought. Just walls, just glass, just hallways.

But her pulse knew better. It wasn’t the building she was afraid of. It was the boy who’d told her to come anyway.

She started the engine. The sound filled the silence, loud, rough, and steady. She shifted into gear and told herself to move.

Tomorrow, he’d said. Two o’clock.

She pulled out of the lot, the weight of those words riding with her the whole way.

The studio rose ahead of her like it had been waiting, all glass and hard angles, catching the gray sky in its mirrored face. For a full block she let her foot hover on the gas, heart hammering, telling herself she’d circle once, just once, maybe find a better spot to park. But then a space opened against the curb, too neat, too easy, and she pulled in before she could think better of it.

The car idled, then stilled when she turned the key. Silence fell heavy. She sat with both hands locked on the wheel, staring through the windshield like the building might blink first.

It didn’t.

Up close it looked worse—sharper, taller, less like a workplace and more like something a city had built to prove a point. People moved in and out through the wide glass doors, brisk and sure. A man with a lanyard flashing silver, talking into a headset. Two women balancing coffee carriers without slowing their stride. No hesitation, no second-guessing. They belonged.

Rumi pressed her forehead to the window, the glass cold enough to sting. What am I even doing here.

Her phone buzzed against her thigh when she shifted. Reflex made her check it, but it wasn’t him, just Zoey: weaponize your hot girl gloss, with a blurry selfie of the lip balm tin. Rumi huffed out a laugh, small and shaky. She typed back nothing. She didn’t have the focus to spell.

Her eyes dragged back to the studio. Every reflective surface made her feel smaller. Like she was already standing inside, already being measured, already failing whatever test the place demanded.

She told herself it was just a building. Just walls. Just doors. The kind you pushed open and walked through every day. She swallowed hard. Her hand shook when she pulled the key from the ignition.

The slam of the door startled her even though she was the one who closed it. Out here the air smelled faintly metallic, sharp with exhaust, layered with the faint sweetness of roasted coffee drifting from somewhere nearby. She tugged her jacket tighter and walked slowly, too aware of the sound of her sneakers against the pavement.

Halfway across the sidewalk she stopped. From here she could see her reflection in the glass façade: small, out of place, carrying too much on one shoulder. A girl trying to look braver than she felt.

Someone brushed past her, muttering into their phone, pulling the door open without looking. For a second she almost followed on their momentum, let herself get carried in. But her feet rooted to the concrete, heart skittering.

He said tomorrow. He said two o’clock. He said I’ll wait for you.

Her pulse jumped against her ribs. He would be inside. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d already forgotten sending the message. Maybe she’d walk in and find nothing but strangers who would look at her long enough to decide she didn’t belong.

The door sighed shut again. She pressed her hand against her bag strap like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

Forward, she told herself. Forward or nowhere.

Her palm left a faint sweat print on the glass when she finally touched the handle. The door gave too easily, swinging open into a rush of colder air and brighter light.

…

The air inside hit her like it had been filtered twice over—colder, sharper, stripped of anything human. The glass door sighed shut behind her and the hum of the street outside cut off, leaving only the low rush of vents and the soft percussion of shoes across polished stone.

The floor gleamed so bright she caught her reflection in it, doubled and warped, like she was walking on top of herself. She looked down instinctively, just to check that her feet were solid. They were, but the sight of her sneakers against all that shine made her throat pinch.

At the far end, a reception desk stretched wide and low, a clean line of wood and glass. The person behind it looked up with a practiced smile that didn’t quite reach their eyes. Rumi’s grip on her bag strap tightened. She forced her legs forward, each step too quiet on the tile.

“Hi,” she said when she reached the desk. Her voice sounded thin in the big space. “I’m… I’m here to see Jinu.”

The receptionist blinked once, polite but unreadable. “Name?”

“Rumi,” she said, the syllables catching in her mouth. She hadn’t realized until now how vulnerable it felt to hand over your name to a stranger in a place that wasn’t yours.

Fingers tapped lightly against a keyboard. A screen flickered back some answer she couldn’t see. The receptionist’s eyes skimmed it, then returned to her, not unkind but not exactly welcoming either. “You can wait over there. Someone will be down shortly.”

They gestured toward a row of chairs by the tall windows.

“Okay,” she said, softer than she meant to. She shifted her bag higher on her shoulder and crossed to the seating area, heels of her shoes squeaking faintly against the tile.

The chairs were too modern to be comfortable—slim, angular, upholstered in something that made her skin prickle. She sat anyway, back too straight, bag balanced in her lap. Her phone was a weight against her thigh. She didn’t take it out. Not yet.

Through the tall panes of glass, the city kept moving: cars sliding by, a man at the corner shaking his umbrella dry, a pair of students crossing the street with their heads bent together. Out there, everything looked normal. In here, she felt like she’d slipped through into a world that wasn’t meant to notice her.

A man in a suit strode past without glancing her way. Two women in heels clicked across the lobby, laughing softly to each other. They all carried lanyards, badges, some visible mark of belonging. Rumi pressed her knees together and tried to breathe like she belonged too.

Her phone buzzed once in her pocket. She jolted, snatched it up, but it was only Zoey again: 

zoey: how’s the fragile morning thing going?? need me to fake a fire alarm??

Rumi’s lips twitched despite herself. She typed back one word—waiting—and shoved the phone away before she could spiral into explaining.

The seconds dragged. She curled her fingers against the strap of her bag, pulse thrumming in her ears. You don’t belong here, whispered one voice. He asked you to come, whispered another. Both of them felt true, which was the worst part.

She’d just started counting the beats between the clicks of her own heartbeat when a shadow fell across her lap.

“Rumi?”

Her head jerked up. A woman in sleek black slacks and a pressed blouse stood over her, tablet in one hand, ID badge catching the light. Her expression wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t for Rumi either—it was the same professional mask she’d worn for whoever came before and whoever would come next.

“Yes,” Rumi managed, sitting up straighter, as if posture could make her less out of place.

“Follow me,” the woman said, already turning on polished heels.

Rumi scrambled to her feet, clutching her bag like it might slide away if she didn’t hold tight enough. She trailed after, her sneakers squeaking faintly against the marble. The woman’s steps were brisk, confident, cutting across the lobby without hesitation. Rumi’s felt clumsy in comparison, like she was trying to keep up with choreography she hadn’t learned.

They passed through a glass security gate with a soft electronic beep. The woman swiped her badge, didn’t look back, didn’t slow to make sure Rumi was behind her. For a second, panic tightened in Rumi’s throat—what if she wasn’t allowed through, what if some alarm went off, what if everyone turned to stare? But the gate slid open, smooth and indifferent, and she hurried through before it could change its mind.

The hallway beyond was worse—long, spotless, lined with framed awards and photographs that didn’t belong to her world. Platinum discs gleaming, group shots of artists she only ever saw on billboards, Jinu among them in some, smiling like he’d been born for these walls. Her stomach dipped.

The woman didn’t notice, or didn’t care. She tapped something on her tablet, nodded once to herself, then held a door open with the faintest tilt of her wrist. “He’ll be right with you,” she said, voice clipped, professional, already halfway gone.

“Thank you,” Rumi whispered, though it came out more like air than sound.

The door clicked shut behind her, leaving her in a smaller waiting area—sleek furniture, low lighting, another wall of glass that looked down on the street. Everything neat, expensive, intentional. Nothing of her in it.

She sank into the edge of a couch and folded her hands together to keep them from trembling. For a moment, she stared at her reflection in the window, doubled over the blur of traffic below. Two versions of herself—the one outside, small and moving, and the one in here, too still, caught in glass.

She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until movement on the other side of the glass snapped it in half.

A cluster of people swept past the corridor beyond—three, four, five bodies moving in a little weather system of urgency. Lanyards flashed. Someone laughed too loudly, the sound bouncing off the slick walls. And in the middle of them—slightly behind, like he’d been pulled into their current—Jinu.

He was in black, nothing remarkable, and somehow he still looked like the center of the frame. Head tipped, mouth pressed into that almost-line he made when he was listening hard and already disagreeing. Busy. At home. And not happy; she could tell by the way his hand kept finding the seam of his jacket and rubbing once, twice, like a worry stone.

Her body moved before her brain did. She stood. The room lurched around her and then righted itself. The door handle was cool under her palm.

“Jinu—” It came out a little breathless, not even loud. A name offered more than called.

He turned. Just his head, quick, like some invisible thread he’d tied to her tugged. His face opened for a split second—surprise, relief, something warm that hit her like a rush of air after holding it too long.

“Hold up,” a man beside him said, palm out, not to her, to Jinu. “Boardroom first. We’re late.”

It wasn’t unkind. It was efficient. Jinu’s gaze flicked past the man’s shoulder back to her. A tiny apology lived in it, real enough to make her chest ache. He started to say something—Rumi saw the shape of the word forming in his mouth—but then the glass door on their side hissed open and the little weather system swept him along. The man’s hand hovered at Jinu’s back the way people shepherd children across busy streets. The group turned the corner.

Rumi stepped out into the hallway anyway. She didn’t think about it. Her feet just found the carpet, the soft give of it collapsing under her weight like snow, and then she was moving, drawn by the afterimage of him.

She didn’t make it more than six steps.

“Excuse me,” a voice said, crisp enough to slice. “Where do you think you’re going.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a border. Rumi blinked and turned.

The man blocking the corridor was older, the kind of older that looked expensive: close-cut gray hair, narrow watch, suit that didn’t pull anywhere. His badge hung heavy against his chest; she didn’t need to read it to know he was someone who never had to introduce himself in these halls. He didn’t look angry. Anger would have been kinder. He looked irritated, like a small inefficiency had appeared in his morning.

“I’m—” she started, then had to clear her throat. “I’m here to see Jinu.”

A beat. The faint lift of one eyebrow. He looked her over, not grossly, not long—just enough to make her feel cataloged. Sticker on her jacket. Sneakers. No lanyard. No badge. A girl who had wandered in through an open door.

“Sure you are,” he said, dry. “And I’m the janitor.”

Heat flared up her neck. She tightened her hold on her bag till the strap dug into her palm. “He texted me,” she said, because it was the only proof she had and it sounded pathetic even to her own ears. “He asked me to— He said to come by.”

“We don’t do drop-ins,” the man said. He gestured, not quite at her, more at the category of her. “If you don’t have a meeting on the books, you wait where you were told. You don’t wander.” He tipped his head toward the small waiting room she’d just left. “Back there.”

“I was waiting,” she said. She hated how thin her voice sounded, like paper. “I just— I saw him.”

“Everyone sees him,” the man said, that dryness sharpening. “That’s the problem.” He gave her a smile that wasn’t a smile. “You and every other girl in this town.”

The words didn’t hit so much as slide under her skin, cool as a blade. For a second she couldn’t find air. The desire to say something clever burned through her, then fizzled—there was nothing that wouldn’t make her smaller. She swallowed hard.

“I’m not—” She stopped. The shape of like that felt childish in her mouth. She tried again, softer, because anything louder would shatter. “I’m here because he asked me to be.”

The man’s expression didn’t change. If anything, he looked bored now, like she’d confirmed something tedious. “Back to the waiting area,” he repeated, less patient this time. “Someone will fetch you if you’re needed.”

Needed. The smallest word, the worst one. Her stomach dipped.

Footsteps sounded from the far end of the hall. Another pair of staff moved past, murmuring about a call sheet, eyes sliding over Rumi like she was part of the wall. Through the pane of glass ahead, she caught a smear of movement—Jinu again, the edge of his profile as he turned into a room. Someone closed the boardroom door with a soft, definitive hush.

The man in front of her followed her gaze. If he saw anything in her face, it didn’t move his. “Don’t make me call Security,” he said mildly, as if he did this every day between coffee and his first meeting.

The humiliation hit then. Not hot. Cold. It started at her collarbone and slid down, an unlovely chill that left everything inside her feeling brittle. You don’t belong here. She heard it in the lights, in the carpet, in his voice.

She nodded once, because that was the only thing left to do that didn’t involve breaking in half where she stood. “I was leaving,” she said, and didn’t know if it was true until her feet started to do it.

She turned back toward the little waiting room. The man didn’t bother to watch her go. The door clicked, and she was alone again with the expensive furniture and the view of the street, her reflection layered over the traffic like a ghost that couldn’t decide which side of the glass to haunt.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She didn’t look. She couldn’t. She stood there for a second, hands shaking in a way she hoped wasn’t visible to the cameras she pretended not to notice, and tried to breathe without making a sound.

A laugh drifted down the corridor from the closed room. Not his. Not like his. It still made something in her flinch.

The receptionist from the lobby passed the doorway, eyes skimming in, then away. Rumi lifted a hand without meaning to, a small, pointless wave. The receptionist’s mouth did that polite thing again. “Someone will be right with you,” they said, not slowing.

“I’m actually—” Rumi started, then stopped. No one was listening. No one was meant to be.

Her hand found the strap of her bag. She lifted it, the weight familiar, grounding. The room felt smaller now, the air thinner. She imagined sitting back down, imagined waiting like a plant tucked into a corner for someone to remember to water it. She imagined the boardroom door opening in an hour, two, the older man’s hand on Jinu’s shoulder, Jinu’s face careful and tired. She imagined the receptionist’s smile, and her own smallness, and the certainty slowly draining out of her body drop by drop as the minutes stacked.

She couldn’t do it.

Her feet were moving again before the thought finished. Back through the door to the corridor. Past the wall of framed photos that blinked with other people’s accomplishments. Back toward the glass gate. No one stopped her this time. No one noticed.

The gate slid open with the same indifferent sigh. The lobby sprawled in front of her, bright and cold, full of people who looked like they had places to be. She kept her eyes on the exit, on the revolving door scooping air in and spitting it out again, and stepped into its spin.

Outside, the morning hit her full in the face. Colder than she expected. Louder. She gulped it down anyway. The street sounded like the world deciding to keep going without her—buses groaning, a horn from somewhere impatient, a coffee lid popping onto a cup with a neat plastic click.

She made it to the sidewalk before the worst of the shame caught up. It landed behind her breastbone, a dull weight that made her want to fold in on herself. She walked faster. Half a block, then another, until the studio’s mirror-glass was a reflection of other problems and not hers.

Only then did she fish out her phone. The screen lit. Zoey again: do you want me to release the bees (metaphorical), and, below it, a missed call from an unknown internal extension she didn’t recognize. No message. No text from him.

Her thumb hovered over his name. For a second she let herself picture typing I’m here or where are you or even the bare, dangerous come find me. The words sat there in her head, too bright, too close to begging. She watched them fade.

She put the phone back in her pocket. The urge to cry rose, hot and ridiculous, and she swallowed it down, hard enough to make her throat ache. Not here. Not on this sidewalk under these windows where anyone could look out and see a girl who didn’t know where to put her hands.

At the corner, the crosswalk clicked from red to white. Rumi stepped off the curb and let the crowd carry her with it, away from glass and badges and the kind of laughter that didn’t have room for her. She didn’t look back. She didn’t have to. The weight in her chest was proof enough of where she’d been, and what it had made of her.

By the time she reached the car, her hands had stopped shaking. The key slid into the lock on the first try. She slipped into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and sat there in the quiet that ballooned around her, big and empty and a little merciful. She stared at her own white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel until the bones eased under her skin.

Then she started the engine. The sound stuttered, caught, steadied. She pulled away from the curb without checking the mirrors, without letting herself think of anything except the next turn, and then the next. Forward or nowhere. Today, it had to be forward.

By the time the sun cleared the roofline across the street, the apartment was already alive with the usual weekday choreography. Mira moved through it like she always did—deliberate, steady, everything she touched aligning into neat lines: kettle on, tea bag waiting, container of leftovers sliding into her bag. Zoey was the opposite, a hurricane of eyeliner and half-buttoned blouse, tote bags shedding pens as she tried to corral three different versions of herself into one outfit.

Rumi stayed in bed. Or half in it, half out—the blanket pulled up to her ribs, her knees bent under the fabric like she was bracing against a wave. She watched the ceiling instead of her phone, which lay face-down on the duvet beside her. The backlight had flickered once around dawn, then gone dead again, leaving her in the kind of silence that was louder than any alert.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Zoey’s voice reached her first, muffled by the walls. A beat later Zoey herself appeared in the doorway, one heel dangling from her hand, the other already buckled onto her foot. Her hair was up in a knot that looked like it had been fastened mid-sprint, strands haloing around her face.

“I’m fine,” Rumi said. Her voice rasped like she’d been asleep, though she hadn’t really slept at all.

Zoey raised an eyebrow, leaning on the doorframe with all the casual drama of someone posing for a magazine shoot. “Fine as in ‘definitely coming in a minute,’ or fine as in ‘leave me to perish under this blanket, tell the world I died tragically beautiful’?”

Rumi shifted onto her side, burying her face in the pillow. “The second one.”

Zoey crossed the room in three long strides, heel still in her hand, and flopped onto the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped; Rumi groaned into the fabric. “You could come sit in the back,” Zoey said. “Be our intern. I’ll print you a lanyard that says fragile but stunning.”

“Pass,” Rumi mumbled.

Zoey tugged at the blanket until she saw Rumi’s face. “You look pale.”

“I always look pale.”

“Not like this,” Zoey said softly. Then, a beat later, trying to lighten it: “Like, Victorian ghost pale. Like, I’m going to find you floating at the end of the hall pale.”

Rumi rolled onto her back, blinking at the ceiling again, too tired to argue. “Go. You’ll be late.”

Mira appeared then, setting a glass of water on the nightstand. Her eyes tracked Rumi’s face the way they did when she was measuring something invisible. She brushed a strand of damp hair off Rumi’s forehead, not motherly, not pitying—just gentle. “Text us if you need noise,” she said. “Or quiet. We’ll send either.”

“I’ll be okay,” Rumi said, and the worst part was how much it sounded like a lie.

Zoey leaned down until she was blocking her view of the ceiling. “He texted?”

Rumi’s lips pressed together. The phone sat inches away, a weight she refused to touch. “No.”

Zoey’s expression folded into sympathy immediately, her mouth a thin line. “Then he’s an idiot. And I will set his hair on fire with my mind.”

Mira gave Zoey a look over her shoulder, but didn’t disagree. “We’ll be back by six,” she said. “Sooner if you want.”

They lingered a beat longer. Mira straightened the blinds so the sunlight didn’t cut across Rumi’s face in hard stripes. Zoey tugged the blanket higher, like tucking her in for a nap she hadn’t agreed to. Their hovering almost made her laugh. Almost made her cry.

“Go,” she said, softer now. “You’ll miss the cab.”

Mira kissed the top of her head like it was the simplest thing. Zoey sighed and blew her an exaggerated kiss from the doorway. “Don’t die tragically while we’re gone. I call dibs on haunting rights.”

And then they were gone, the door shutting with a hush that left the apartment abruptly too big.

Silence crept in fast. It wasn’t clean silence—it had weight, layers. The hum of the fridge. The distant elevator down the hall. Pipes hissing as someone upstairs took a shower. All of it pressed on her at once, making her feel both surrounded and unbearably alone. Outside, the first drops of rain tapped against the window like they’d been waiting for her to notice, steadying into a rhythm that only deepened the hush inside. By the time the sky dimmed, it was coming harder, a curtain of water dragging the whole city into her mood.

Rumi stared at the ceiling. She tried not to think about the lobby, about the receptionist’s polite half-smile, about the older man in the hallway with his sharp words and sharper eyes. You and every other girl in this town. The memory replayed without permission. His voice, the way it slid under her skin, the way she hadn’t known what to say back.

She kept seeing Jinu’s face too, the split second when he’d turned at the sound of her voice. The flicker of relief, the start of an apology in his eyes—cut off by the hand on his shoulder, the pull of the group around him, the door closing. It had been there and gone in an instant, and yet her whole chest still throbbed with it.

Her body remembered the humiliation before her brain caught up. That cool, mean slide of shame down her collarbone, the hollowness that had followed her into the car, down every street back home. She curled tighter under the blanket, knees to chest, trying to shrink until the ache had nowhere to land.

The phone stayed facedown. At some point the screen lit, a soft glow against the duvet, then dimmed again. She didn’t look. She couldn’t. It would be Zoey, or Mira, or worse—nothing. Not him. Not the call she’d rehearsed in her head the whole drive home: wait there, I’m coming down. where are you? don’t move.

Her eyes burned. She closed them, let the tears pool, refused to let them fall. A dangerous balance. She lay like that until her chest ached from holding her breath.

Eventually she forced herself up. Her spine felt fragile, like every vertebra might come apart if she moved too fast. She wandered into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Steam curled up, fogging the cabinet doors, beading into droplets that slid down and left trails. The whistle came sharp and high, slicing through the quiet. She poured water over the teabag, watched the swirl of brown bloom in the cup.

When the first tear fell, it landed in the sink. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, willing herself silent. The sob lodged anyway, jagged, and she had to wait it out with her forehead against the cabinet, breathing until her ribs loosened.

The mug was too hot to hold, but she carried it back to bed anyway. The blanket welcomed her like it hadn’t noticed she’d left. She sat with her knees drawn up, cup warm between her palms, staring at the apartment door because somehow it was easier than looking at her phone.

Nothing happened.

The clock on the stove crawled toward ten, then ten-thirty. The mug cooled in her hands. The rain outside thickened, beating a pulse against the glass like it was trying to knock for her. The lip balm tin Zoey had left sat on the counter like a joke she couldn’t laugh at. She opened it anyway, smeared a fingertip across her lips like it was a ritual, a way to keep herself intact.

She tried to tell herself he was busy. That the silence was only circumstance, not choice. That she wasn’t allowed to want more than what he’d already given. But the ache in her throat argued otherwise. It said she’d been listening for a knock that wasn’t going to come.

So when it came—three quick raps against the doorframe, muffled by the storm—her first thought wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

More likely it was Zoey, forgetting her keys. Or Mira, locked out with her hands full of tote bags.

Her heart still lurched, skipping like a record. The mug slipped in her grip, tea spilling hot over her knuckles. She hissed, set it down too fast, the ceramic clattering against the coaster. Her pulse raced, ridiculous, as if the sound alone had already changed something.

Another knock followed, softer, tentative, like whoever it was wasn’t sure they’d be let in.

She stood before she’d decided to. Her body moved without asking. Bare feet padded across the carpet, each step unsteady. She pressed her palm to the wood, felt the faint hum of weight leaning on the other side. For one suspended breath she didn’t undo the lock. She let herself imagine it was anyone but him—because if it was him, she wasn’t sure her heart would survive the proof.

The bolt slid back under her hand.

The chain scraped free.

She opened the door.

Jinu filled the threshold like he’d sprinted every block between here and whatever went wrong and only remembered to breathe at the last second. Hair pushed back with the heel of his hand and already falling forward again, jacket half-zipped and soaked at the shoulders, mouth parted like the apology had started before she’d unlatched the chain. He smelled like cold rain and the kind of coffee you drink too fast.

“Rumi,” he said, and her name came out on the exhale, warm and wrecked, as if he’d been carrying it in his mouth since morning.

Words tripped over each other trying to get out of him. “I’m— I meant to text. I meant to call. The meeting started early and then it just— it wouldn’t end, and then there was this supplier, the contract— I kept trying to step out and my phone died, and then when I came down they said you’d— I went back up and—”

He was making hand shapes in the air like he could grab time and rearrange it for her. Rainwater threaded from the points of his hair to the hollow of his throat, beading on his lashes. The rush of it (the sincerity, the helplessness) knocked into her chest and scattered there, but none of it touched the part of her that had been alone all morning watching the clock push her further from the hour he’d promised. She felt herself shaking her head before she knew she was doing it.

“What happened,” she asked, and her voice surprised her—small, even, a clean cut. “At the studio.”

He went still the way animals do when the forest goes quiet. “What do you mean.”

“I saw you.” The words came out easier once they started, like a thread sliding through cloth. “In the hallway. You turned, you— you looked at me and then—” She swallowed. “There was a man.”

His face changed a millimeter at a time: confusion, then recognition, then the anger she’d only ever felt as heat under his skin flash up, quick and bright. It wasn’t for her. He looked past her shoulder into the dim of the apartment as if he could throw that feeling down the stairwell and be rid of it.

“My father,” he said. The syllables hit the floor between them like something heavy set down carefully. “That was my father.”

Everything in her rearranged itself to make room for the knowledge. The practiced boredom in the man’s eyes. The way the hallway had parted for him like a tide. The hand hovering at Jinu’s back like it belonged there. Of course. Of course.

“He said—” She had to force it past her teeth. “He told me to go back. That they don’t do drop-ins. He said—” Her throat tightened around it, but she made herself say it anyway, because the thing you don’t say is the one that keeps cutting you. “He said, ‘you and every other girl in this town.’”

Jinu’s jaw set and then he leaned a shoulder to the doorframe, like he needed wood to keep from breaking something. When he looked back at her, the anger was still there but braided with something else—shame, maybe; the grief of knowing you owe someone a conversation you can’t pay in one piece. Rain ticked on the hall window behind him; a darker patch spread where his jacket dripped onto the hallway runner.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and it wasn’t the frantic kind anymore. It was steadier. Deeper. “He doesn’t get to— He’s not—” He exhaled like the words were heavy. “You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”

She hadn’t meant to cry. She would have sworn she didn’t have anything left to spill. But it rose up without warning, a hot rush that climbed her face and tipped over, uncomplicated as a spill. One tear, then another—salt and rain indistinguishable because he was close enough that the air between them felt wet.

“Hey.” He didn’t touch her yet. He shifted, palms open like he was approaching something shy. “Hey. I’m here. I’m right here.” He said it like you say I’m not leaving you on the floor and I know where to put my hands at the same time.

“I thought—” She tried again and had to push the words out around the ache in her throat. “I thought you didn’t want me there. Not enough to—” Her mouth wouldn’t make the last shape. Not enough to come find me. She shook her head once, small and helpless. “And he looked at me like—”

“Wrong,” he said, barely above a whisper. The word scraped coming out. “Like you were noise.”

She laughed and it broke on the way up, a sound that was mostly breath. “I don’t know how to do this,” she said, and now the tears weren’t singular anymore; they were a line, slick and immediate, a river etching itself along her cheeks. “I don’t know how to want you and not be—” She sliced a trembling hand through the air. “Too much. Or not enough. I hate that I need you, and I can’t—” She made a small sound that embarrassed her as soon as it was in the room and kept going anyway, because there was no version of this where she got away clean. “I can’t not.”

He stepped in then—over the threshold, into her warm, quiet, mug-on-coaster apartment—like the word need had opened something he’d been waiting on. The door eased shut with his heel; the storm dropped to a hush behind wood. For a heartbeat they stood so close she could feel the shape of his heat without touching it. He was breathing too fast. He was trying to slow down for her.

“You’re not too much,” he said. No searching, no ornaments. He said it as if he were laying a hand on a fracture and binding it shut. “You’re—” He blinked, once, hard, because the right word landed and he looked almost embarrassed by the size of it. “You are very easy to love, actually.”

The world did that tilt it does when you step off a curb you didn’t know was there. Rumi’s hand found the edge of the entry table because she needed something to put her fingers on or she would float. The sentence sank through every careful wall she’d spent the morning propping up and hit the soft place underneath with both hands open.

Her mouth made a sound that wasn’t a word. She took one half step into his gravity because there was nowhere else to put her need that wasn’t farther away. “I missed you,” she said, rough, unpretty. “I missed you and I hated it, and I still—” The breath stuttered. She let it. “I still miss you even when you’re right here.”

His eyes did that thing where they shone without spilling. He looked at her mouth like he was reading a page he’d been waiting for. When he spoke, it came out ragged. “I can’t stop showing up for you.” He swallowed. “I don’t even know how to want less. Even f you were a burden—” He paused, like he was asking her permission to go that far. “I would carry you.”

“And you don’t—” She had to say the careless version out loud to kill it. “You don’t just want… the easy pieces. Casual. Friends-who—”

He shook his head before she finished, vehement enough that a drop flicked from his hair. “No. God, no.” The words were plain and devastating. “I don’t want to be your ‘when it’s convenient.’ I want the boring Tuesdays. I want your grocery list and your terrible umbrella and you stealing my hoodies and complaining about my coffee. I want dates. I want mornings. I’m not a hobby, Rumi. I’m not going anywhere.”

Something in her let go. The part that kept score. The part that wanted to be the one wanted less to stay safe. The part that thought there was a clever way to do this and survive it untouched. All of it loosened, and what was left was a girl, rain-slicked and shaking, and a boy saying he would carry the weight.

“Okay,” she said. It was nothing and it was everything. She lifted her hand and he met it halfway, palm to palm, a contact so ordinary it made her knees go untrustworthy. His hand was warm and too careful, like he was afraid to startle her. She tightened her fingers until he understood that careful was the wrong word.

He made a noise in the back of his throat—relief, apology, hunger, all braided. It reached straight under her ribs and dragged. He bent his head the smallest degree and paused again, a last chance to say no, a last chance to ruin it with sense.

“Please,” she said, which wasn’t the question he’d asked, and he answered it anyway.

The first kiss wasn’t pretty. It never would have been. She was crying and he was mid-breath, and they bumped teeth because they were already too close. The taste of rain and salt startled her—hers, his, it didn’t matter. He made a small sound against her mouth like everything he’d been holding since morning had found a crack, and she grabbed the front of his jacket hard enough that it wrinkled under her fists because she needed something to keep her anchored to the floor.

They came apart because air is a thing bodies insist on. Their foreheads touched, their noses brushed, and they stared at each other like they had to check this wasn’t some hallucination the day had built to be mean. The apartment had gone very quiet—the kind of quiet where you hear the tiny sounds you never notice: the kettle’s last tired tick; the soft pat, pat of water leaving their clothes on the mat; his breath scrubbing in and out over the shape of her name.

“Is this—” she started, and the question fell apart because she didn’t know which version of real she meant.

“Yes,” he said into the bare space between them, his mouth ghosting hers as he spoke. He laughed, a broken, disbelieving breath. “Yes.”

She kissed him again to write it down.

This time he answered with both hands, one bracing on the wall by her head, the other hovering—hesitating—then settling at her jaw like he’d remembered the exact weight of her. He held her face like she was something careful and wanted, something you angle toward the light. The touch was so reverent it almost undid her more than the mouth did.

She made a noise she would be embarrassed about in any other life and pressed closer because her body knew the answer faster than her mind. He followed—of course he did—easing her back one step and then another until her shoulder found the hallway wall. He felt it, flinched like he’d trapped her, and started to step away.

“Don’t,” she said, too quickly, catching his jacket again.

“I won’t,” he said, immediate, like a vow. He pulled back the smallest degree, enough to look at her properly. His thumb smoothed a line under her eye she hadn’t realized was wet again. He kissed the place where his thumb had been, careful, like sealing a cut. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, a last echo, and then he shook his head like sorry wasn’t big enough. “I’m here.”

Something loosened. She felt it go—the stiff brace she’d built between her chest and stomach to keep anything from spilling. She leaned into him with her whole weight, like trusting a bridge, and he took it without wobbling. He fit his hand at the back of her neck and just held her there for a full breath, not pushing for more, letting the nearness do its work.

“I don’t know how to be good at this,” she said into his collar, the words stuttering against his skin. “I don’t know how to not ruin things when I get scared.”

“You don’t ruin,” he said, immediate. “You run. Those are not the same thing.” A shaky smile warmed his voice. “And I run after you, so we cancel.”

It startled a wet laugh out of her, and he went very still, like he’d heard a rare bird. Then he smiled for real, relief changing his face into something younger, and he kissed her again because he could.

The kiss deepened without anyone deciding it should. It wasn’t a sharp turn; it was a tide pulling at their ankles and then their knees. Her mouth opened under his without thinking, and he followed the invitation like he’d been waiting for that exact door to swing wide. His hand slid from her jaw to her throat with the lightest pressure—just an anchor, just a reminder that this was a body and not a fever dream—and she shivered hard enough that he made that wrecked sound again.

“Jinu,” she whispered, because the name felt like the only true word left.

He breathed it back into her mouth like an agreement.

Every place he touched said the same thing in different languages: I thought I lost you. The heel of his hand at her waist. The careful press of his thumb at her pulse. The way he kept slowing down like he was reminding both of them they had time.

“Wait,” he said, pulling back a fraction, eyes searching her face like there might be a shadow he hadn’t read yet. “Tell me to stop if—”

“I won’t,” she said, and the certainty inside it surprised her. It sounded like a person who had chosen something on purpose. “Don’t stop. Please.”

He looked wrecked by please. His forehead lowered to hers, a little laugh breaking out of him that sounded like relief punched through with wonder. He brushed his mouth over the corner of hers, then the other, then the line of her jaw, reverent, like he was reacquainting himself with a geography he’d studied and almost failed. When he reached her wrist, he paused and turned her hand over, kissed the thin blue map there like it mattered. It did. Something in her chest kicked, hard.

“You undo me,” she said, quiet, because the truth had stripped itself of shame and was standing there asking to be counted. Her voice trembled on undo and steadied on me.

He met her eyes as if he was hearing her say I love you and promising not to make her pay for it before she was ready. “Good,” he said, reverent. “Me too.”

He breathed in like he was steadying a song cue. “And for the record,” he added, voice low, earnest: “I don’t want a version of you I can pack away when it’s inconvenient. I want to take you out. Real dates. Let me do that. Tonight. Tomorrow. Every dumb day after. I want your hand on my arm in public and your head on my shoulder on the train and you judging my playlists out loud.”

Her heart skittered against her ribs, wild and hopeful. The rain softened against the window as if the scene had been mixed down a level, the world giving them room.

“Okay,” she said again, and this time it sounded like a promise. “Take me to dinner. Then breakfast. Then something boring where we’re both underdressed.”

His answering smile ruined him in all the right ways. “Deal.”

He backed them off the entry with a gentle step, then another, his palm careful at her hip, eyes on hers as if he were moving furniture in a room with a sleeping cat. The door clicked more fully into its latch—the softest certainty. He didn’t turn the lock; he didn’t need to. The universe had narrowed to a point and chosen them.

“Come here,” he said, low, not a command, not even an ask, and she went.

They didn’t make it more than two steps before her hand was in his hair like she’d done it in a hundred practiced lives and never in this one. The fine-frizzed softness shocked her. So did the sound he made when she tugged—breath stuttering into her mouth like something had finally been uncorked, like he’d been holding himself back by the teeth and she’d just unhooked his jaw.

“I kept thinking—” he started, already losing the sentence because she was right there, “—if I could just get out of the room, if I could just—”

“Don’t,” she said against his lips. “Not now.” She didn’t want the hallway in here. Not the boardroom. Not the father with the narrow watch. She wanted the part of him that said I’m here and meant his whole body.

He nodded, a ragged little promise, and kissed her like he was signing it—like the ink would only take if he pressed enough heat into it. They stumbled on the edge of the rug and laughed once—surprised—then the laugh turned into a kiss that tasted like a grin before deepening, the room narrowing around them. He caught the doorframe with one hand and her with the other, angling them off the natural path of interruptions. His jacket bumped the light switch; the room pulsed dimmer, then soft, like the day had agreed to step back.

“Okay?” he asked, breath warm, forehead to hers.

“Yes.” A single word, clean. Then, because he’d given her permission to be unpretty with the truth: “I need you.” It wasn’t elegant. It didn’t even feel brave. It felt like breathing for the first time since morning.

He made a noise like the word had landed exactly where it was meant to. “Fuck,” he said, mouth trembling into a smile. “Me too. I’ve wanted you every day since then like an ache.”

The jacket went first. She found the zipper and pushed; he shrugged free with a relieved sigh, like he’d been itching out of his own skin and finally got loose. Her fingers learned him again—wrist, forearm, the seam where his sleeve ended and his warmth began. He didn’t push. He followed. She tugged him toward her room and he let her, a hand at the small of her back that didn’t urge, only accompanied, thumb moving in small circles like the touch itself was a thank-you.

At the doorway, they paused—one heartbeat of looking, like crossing a border together. His eyes took in the messy bed, the forgotten mug on the nightstand, the evidence of a morning she’d survived without him. He swallowed so hard she heard it.

“Tell me if I get it wrong,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to rush a single thing you want slow.”

“You don’t,” she said, and even as she pulled him down onto the mattress—already sliding her hands under his shirt—it mattered that he’d said it. It mattered that every move he made said the same thing: you lead; I’m right here.

They landed off-center in the tangle of blanket and sheets. He tried to brace so he wouldn’t crush her; she tugged him closer, greedy, and he breathed a helpless laugh into her mouth.

“Bossy,” he said, reverent.

“Closer,” she answered, and he obeyed like it was the easiest instruction he’d had all day, settling his weight just enough that she felt held without pinned. He kissed her like he was memorizing a translation he never wanted to forget.

Her sweater was in the way. It sighed when he gathered it, and she raised her arms without ceremony. The hem stuck at her wrist; she fumbled, swore under her breath, and he kissed the word off her mouth—amused, aching—while he helped. When the sweater came free, cool air drew a thrill along her skin. His eyes went dark—not crude; grateful. Reverent, like he’d found light where he’d expected shadow.

He didn’t stare. He didn’t catalog. He reached slowly enough to be read and set his hand over her sternum, warm, not heavy, as if to say here. Here is where I want you. The heel of his palm felt the unevenness of her breathing; he looked up like he was listening on purpose, like every shiver was a truth he meant to keep.

She made a small, embarrassing sound and yanked at his shirt in retaliation, greedy for equal ground. “Yours, then,” she said, not waiting for permission.

He obeyed, stripping the cotton over his head and flinging it somewhere without looking. She watched his throat move as he laughed; watched the muscle jump in his jaw when she touched him; watched his breath shorten when her fingers traced the flat of his shoulder. He went very still when she pressed her mouth to the notch above his heart—still as in permission, not fear—and the steady pound under her lips felt like a fact.

“Rumi,” he said, astonished, her name a kind of surrender.

“Mm?”

“I don’t deserve you crying,” he whispered into her hair, guilt rising like a tide. “I hate that you did.”

She turned her cheek to his chest and held there. “Then don’t waste this by apologizing through it,” she said, soft, not sharp. “I want now.”

“Yes,” he breathed, relief breaking warm. “Now. All of it. I want every version of you.”

Kisses slid into a language that didn’t need cleverness. She learned how to pull a sound out of him by drawing her mouth along the edge of his jaw; he learned how to turn her inside out by kissing the thin skin at her wrist and then lacing their fingers, palm to palm, like a thought. When he remembered to go slow, her body answered with gratitude; when she tugged and stopped pretending she wasn’t frantic, his carefulness didn’t vanish—it widened to include the urgency and hold it without smothering it.

“Tell me what you need,” he said against her collarbone, words humming into the bone.

“You,” she said immediately, mortifying and true. “All of it.”

He groaned like she’d knocked a prayer loose. “I never wanted easy,” he said, voice rough against her skin. “I wanted you.”

Her breath hitched; the truth tasted like relief and panic in equal measure. “This morning. In that lobby. In that hallway. It felt like—” She swallowed. “Like the floor wouldn’t stop tilting.”

“I know,” he said, ragged, hands tightening in a way that soothed instead of caging. “Me too. Like running down steps in the dark. I’m sorry.” He steadied, earnest. “I’ll fix things with him. Not right now,” he added quickly, when he felt her brace. “Later. With you—if you want that. We’ll stand there together.”

The idea of together made her eyes burn in a way that wasn’t only pain. “Okay,” she said. “Later.”

He kissed her once more—slow, certain—and the room seemed to lean with them, the air warming to the shape of what came next.

They barely made it through another kiss before she laughed wetly into his mouth and then clutched him tighter, desperate, breaking. He caught her jaw in both hands, thumbs trembling at her cheeks like he was afraid she’d vanish, and she fisted the front of his shirt like he was the only thing keeping her upright.

She pressed her face into his shoulder and forced the words out raw. “I thought I lost you. Not just today. That night—at the party, when I said all those things I didn’t mean, when you looked at me like I was something sharp you had to put down. And at the club, when you walked away and didn’t look back. I thought maybe you’d finally decided I wasn’t worth chasing.”

His whole body went taut, not cruel, just desperate, like he needed her to feel the truth vibrating in his bones. “Don’t,” he said, voice breaking. “Don’t think that. I was angry, I was stupid, I was—” His eyes squeezed shut, breath jagged. “I was scared. You were right there and I still felt like I was losing you, and it killed me that I didn’t know how to stop it.”

Her throat burned; the tears slid hot over her lips. “I don’t know how to do this without breaking something. I hate that I hurt you. I hate that I keep running when what I want is you. I hate that I make it worse because I’m terrified you’ll see what I really am and walk away.”

He pulled back enough to see her, his jaw trembling, his gaze wet and unwavering. “You don’t break things, Rumi. You think you do, but all I see is you trying—even when it comes out messy. All I see is the girl I can’t stop coming back to, even when my chest is on fire. I need you to believe this—” His voice went hoarse, like it was scraping out of the deepest part of him. “Even if you were heavy. Even if you cost me everything. I’d still be here—knocking on your door in the middle of the night, begging you to let me in.”

Her breath shuddered out, her body shaking under his. “Why?” she whispered, helpless, furious with how much she wanted to believe him. “Why do you keep—after everything I’ve done—”

“Because you wreck me,” he said, fierce now, his hand cupping her jaw, thumb trembling against her cheek. “Because I love you in all the ways I shouldn’t. Because you make the world feel less like punishment. You’re very easy to love, actually. That’s the only truth I have. And I’ll keep saying it until you let it stay.”

That cracked something open. She laughed, wet and shaky, and then kissed him, messy and grateful, already pulling him down harder.

Heat tangled with urgency. His belt refused to cooperate; she fought it, victorious, then got tangled in her own jeans and nearly toppled off the bed. He caught her with both hands at her waist, laughing breathlessly as he steadied her. They dissolved into helpless laughter together, the kind that left their mouths clumsy and wet when they tried to kiss again. But the laughter did something better than apologies—it cracked the day open and poured light into it.

“Hi,” he whispered when it finally ebbed, brushing his thumbs over the corners of her mouth like he could smooth her into place.

“I am,” she said, smiling against his lips. The looking steadied her. It anchored the hunger to a person. It turned the ache into something she could choose, over and over.

The kiss that followed was deeper, heavier. His shiver told her he was unraveling from the inside out, wound too tight for too long. He gathered her like she was both fragile and indispensable, kissing along her jaw, her throat, the soft place under her ear until she gasped a noise that gave everything away. He smiled against her skin, hungry, triumphant, and kissed her harder.

Her laugh caught halfway into a moan. She yanked him closer, fingers sliding over hot skin, nails catching at his shoulder blade. His breath stuttered, rough, and he shut his eyes like her touch alone could undo him.

“You’re all I want,” he confessed into her shoulder, voice ragged, wrecked. “All of you. Always.” He sealed it with his mouth, tracing reverent kisses down her throat, his hand pressing at her hip like he couldn’t decide whether to hold her still or drag her closer.

She tipped her head back, reckless with want, and whispered his name like a plea. The sound of it broke something in him. His answering groan was low, guttural, raw—and then they were tumbling together, greedy hands, tangled limbs, laughter still sparking between them even as the kisses burned hotter, carried them stumbling and breathless toward the bedroom.

The doorframe caught her shoulder. He steadied her with a palm, breath wrecked, eyes dark and searching. She answered by fisting his hair and dragging him back into her mouth.

They didn’t even make it under the sheets at first. The mess of clothes was already scattered like breadcrumbs to the bed, and now the two of them tangled in the half-lit space between wall and mattress, kissing like it was the only proof they were still alive.

Her legs wound around his waist automatically, instinctive, and the sudden press of him there made her gasp into his mouth. He groaned, guttural, like the sound had been trapped in his chest for weeks. His hands splayed over her thighs, sliding upward, gripping, urging—but never forcing—just mapping her as if he’d been given permission to redraw what he already knew by heart.

“I missed this,” he said, words broken between kisses. “God—missed you.”

“Show me,” she whispered, tugging his head down, teeth catching his bottom lip, biting enough to make him suck in a breath and laugh at the same time, half-shocked.

“Careful,” he said, smiling against her, but his eyes were dark, pupils wide. “Or I’ll forget how gentle I’m supposed to be.”

“Then forget,” she shot back, and it ruined him.

The next kiss was teeth and tongue and too much spit, messy, real. Her hand slid down his chest, tracing the cut lines of muscle and the soft rise of his stomach, lower, lower—he shuddered under it, hips jerking involuntarily. She grinned, triumphant, then wrapped her fingers around him through the thin cotton of his boxers. He cursed into her mouth, hand slamming against the wall for balance, the sound of it a rough echo in the quiet apartment.

“Rumi,” he hissed, forehead crashing against hers, sweat beading at his hairline. “You—fuck—you’re gonna have me done before I even get inside you—”

“That’s the point,” she breathed, stroking harder, feeling him pulse hot against her palm even through the fabric. 

He kissed her like that was permission and then shoved his boxers down just far enough, half-laughing at the clumsiness of it, the sound ragged with hunger. She slid her own underwear off with shaking hands, tossing them blindly into the dark. He helped, impatient now, fumbling only because his hands couldn’t move fast enough for the need clawing through him. He pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee—rough and reverent in the same breath—then yanked the rest down hard, like he couldn’t stand another second of fabric between them.

Then he was back over her, panting, sweat slicking his temples, their bare skin sliding together, too hot and perfect to separate. He pressed himself against her entrance, not in yet, just there, the tease of it making her cry out, nails dragging down his back. He hissed and bit her neck, hard enough to make her gasp again, tongue chasing the sting with a lick.

“Say it,” he growled, teeth grazing her ear, voice shredded. “Tell me you want it.”

“I want you,” she gasped, breath breaking apart. “I want all of it.”

He groaned like the words had been wired directly into his spine. Then he shoved into her in one deep, desperate thrust.

The stretch was sharp, delicious, a sweet ache that tore a moan from her throat. He didn’t pause. He buried himself to the hilt, forehead knocking against hers, one hand fisting in her hair to drag her head back so he could mouth at her throat. “Fuck—you feel—” His words broke into curses, hips grinding hard, like he could brand her body with the shape of him, each push an iron stamp saying mine.

“Don’t you dare stop,” she snarled, legs locking around him, pulling him deeper, greedy. “Don’t stop, Jinu—please—”

That please sent him wild. He surged harder, rough, relentless, biting her neck, sucking until he knew the mark would last. She clawed his back, scoring red down his skin, and he groaned like he wanted every scratch. His hips snapped harder, chasing her sounds like he couldn’t get enough of them, every gasp dragging him further out of control.

They moved like people starved, no rhythm at first, just frantic, hungry thrusts, the slap of skin on skin obscene in the quiet room. The mattress complained beneath them, squeaking under the force, the headboard rattling against the wall. She bit his shoulder to muffle a scream; he gasped, hips stuttering, then shoved harder like he needed to feel her teeth in him, like pain itself was fuel.

“Again,” he demanded, wrecked, and she did—sinking her teeth in until he shuddered with it, the sound he made breaking against her ear.

He lifted her thigh higher, opening her up more, his grip bruising, and the angle made her see stars. Her head tipped back, mouth falling open, and he caught her throat in his teeth, biting down just shy of painful, sucking a bruise into her pulse.

Every sound was raw: her sobbing moans, his hoarse curses, the frantic creak of the bed under them. She couldn’t stop looking at him—his eyes wild and reverent even in the chaos, like he was watching a miracle and trying to consume it at the same time. Sweat dripped from his temple to her chest; she felt it slide down and shiver, the heat of him everywhere.

“I love you like this,” he rasped, words torn from deep in his chest. “Messy. Wanting. Mine.” He punctuated it with a brutal thrust, hips snapping, jaw tight against her throat.

Her nails raked his back, her voice breaking. “Fuck—no one makes me feel like this. No one—only you.”

He kissed her hard, savage, swallowing her sob. “Good,” he growled into her mouth, voice shredded. “Only me. Always me.” His teeth scraped her lip before he kissed it again, deep and bruising.

The pace turned punishing, hips slamming, his hand sliding down to circle her clit with rough precision, thumb moving in hard, desperate circles. The combination wrecked her instantly; pleasure surged hot and sharp, her body clenching down on him so tight she nearly sobbed.

Her orgasm hit like fire racing through dry grass—sudden, unstoppable. She screamed, nails raking his back raw as her body convulsed around him, each spasm dragging another broken sound from his chest.

He cursed, thrust faltering as the squeeze pulled him over the edge seconds later. He slammed deep, burying himself, spilling into her with a hoarse cry, forehead pressing to hers like he was trying to brand the shape of her against him. His whole body shuddered, muscles seizing with the force of it, teeth bared against her neck in something closer to possession than release.

They collapsed together, trembling, sweat-slick, his weight heavy and grounding over her. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him inside, refusing to let him go even as both of them shook with aftershocks. His breath came ragged at her ear, hot and uneven, his heartbeat hammering under her palm where it rested on his chest.

For a long moment, the only sound was their mingled breathing, the slowing pound of two hearts trying to sync. He licked once along the bruise he’d left at her throat, then kissed it like apology and claim in one.

“Don’t leave,” she whispered, still shivering.

“Never,” he growled, immediate, fierce. He kissed her temple, her jaw, her swollen mouth, each press a vow. “I’ll never leave you.” He punctuated it by dragging his mouth back to her throat, sucking another bruise into her skin, his hips giving one final, helpless thrust like his body couldn’t stop saying it either.

She arched against him, breath catching again, the ache in her body sweet and raw, proof of everything they’d just broken open together. She didn’t know if the bruises would fade tomorrow or linger for days—but she wanted every one.

The room didn’t come back all at once. For a while it was only the high-pitched ring of her pulse in her ears, the faint sting in her nails where she’d clawed down his back, the tremor still running through her thighs. Jinu was heavy and inside her still, his breath stuttering against her neck like he couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t imagined any of it.

She lay there, pinned in the best way, her body finally exhaling after days—weeks—of bracing for loss. His weight was comfort, proof. She didn’t want him to shift; she wanted him to stay pressed against her forever, sealing them together so the world couldn’t undo it.

Eventually he lifted his head, just enough to see her face. His eyes were swollen with tears and want, lashes clumped dark, mouth flushed and ruined. He looked young like this, unmasked, unarmored, undone. “You okay?” he whispered, voice hoarse.

She laughed, small, shaky, with tears pricking again. “That’s what you ask?”

“That’s all I care about,” he said, fierce in his softness. His thumb brushed damp hair off her forehead before he kissed the skin beneath it like he was signing a benediction. “If you’re not okay, none of this matters.”

“I’m—” She tried to say fine, or something equally stupid, but pride gave way. Honesty pushed harder. “I’m better. With you. Always better with you.”

His eyes fluttered closed like he needed to feel the words from the inside out. He kissed her again, slower now, reverent. Then he shifted carefully, rolling them so she ended up sprawled over him, her cheek pressed to his chest, their bodies still joined until her muscles began to protest. He stroked lazy circles into her back as though he could lull her heart into matching his.

The sheet was half-twisted; he tugged it up anyway, clumsy, covering her shoulders, tucking the edges like she might slip away if he didn’t. “Stay here,” he murmured.

She buried her face in his throat, breathing in sweat, salt, the faint detergent of his shirt still clinging to his skin. The air was thick with sex and relief; she wanted to bottle it and drink it every time fear clawed at her. Her fingers wandered without plan across his chest, into the hollow of his collarbone, down to the ridges of his stomach slick with heat. He shivered under every touch, not because he wanted more, but because it was her.

“Don’t look away,” she whispered, pulling back just enough to see his face.

“I won’t,” he promised, immediate, steady. He cupped her jaw, thumb tracing the corner of her swollen lip. “I couldn’t if I tried.”

Her tears betrayed her again, silent this time, rolling over the bridge of her nose to land on his chest. He caught them with his fingertips, then leaned up and kissed the wet tracks off her cheek. “Hey,” he said softly, almost smiling. “You’re here. I’m here. That’s the whole story.”

She nodded, but her throat still burned. “I’m so afraid of ruining it,” she admitted, raw. “Of saying the wrong thing, of running when I get scared. I keep waiting for you to realize it’s easier without me.”

“Never easier,” he said, voice trembling now. “Harder. Always harder without you. Do you understand? Even when you hurt me, even when you push me away, it’s still harder when you’re gone.”

She pressed her forehead to his, breath shivering. “Then carry me, like you said.”

“Always,” he whispered, kissing her, slow and sealing.

Silence stretched, not the brittle kind but the kind that felt like exhale. Their breaths synced. The city noise outside softened to static—traffic, someone’s music bleeding faintly through a wall, the echo of laughter from two floors down. All of it felt far away compared to his skin under her cheek and the steady thrum of his heart beneath her palm.

Time blurred. He slid his fingers through her hair, untangling strands caught by sweat. He kissed her temple. The slope of her shoulder. Little things, each one reverent, each one speaking what he hadn’t yet dared make a single declaration.

“You make me feel like I matter,” she whispered finally. It wasn’t rehearsed; it tumbled out of her like she’d been holding it between her teeth for weeks and couldn’t anymore.

He went still under her, his chest rising sharply against her ear. Then he tilted, rolling just enough to see her face, his hand cupping her cheek. “You do,” he said simply, like it was the most obvious fact in the room. “More than you know.”

Her breath shuddered out. She closed her eyes, let his thumb brush away the wetness clinging to her lashes.

When she opened them again, he was watching her, hesitant but braver than before. “Rumi,” he said, voice low, uncertain only in its caution. “What do you think of what I said earlier? About us. About being more.”

Her throat closed. The ache sharpened and softened at once. No one had ever asked her like that—not a demand, not a threat, not a careless assumption. Just a boy, half-demon, whole heart, lying wrecked beneath her, asking as if her answer would be scripture.

“I think—” she faltered, pressing her face briefly to his chest, hiding in the heat there before she found courage again. She tilted up, eyes wet. “I think I already chose you. I just… didn’t know how to say it until now.”

His whole body exhaled under her, like she’d given him back oxygen. He smiled, broken and sure all at once, pulling her in for another kiss, this one softer, lasting.

But when she pulled back, her voice was steadier. “I want us. I do. But before there’s… titles, or promises we can’t take back, I need time. Dates. Real ones. I need to know this is more than nights like these.”

He brushed his mouth against her cheek, reverent, answering without hesitation. “Then I’ll give you that. Every date, every hour. Whatever it takes.”

“Tomorrow,” he murmured into her mouth after a while, not to disturb the hush but to anchor it. “I’ll take you somewhere real. No lobbies. No boardrooms. Just us. A date. Our first.” His voice caught, boyish and certain. “We’ll wake up together, and it’ll be the start.”

She smiled against his skin, lips brushing his collarbone. “Bossy,” she teased, muffled and warm.

“Devoted,” he corrected, grinning into her hair. “Get used to it.”

Her body melted heavier into him, tangled under the thin sheet. His fingers threaded through her hair, still absentminded, still sure. She let her eyes fall closed, heart steady at last, and the last thought she carried with her into sleep was simple, devastating, and entirely new: this will last. we’ll make it last.

Chapter Text

hey dolls 💕

i know i’ve been super quiet for a little while, so i just wanted to give a quick update so nobody thinks i vanished or abandoned this account.

life has been really rough — i’ve been battling my mental health a lot, plus school and work, and on top of that my brother was sadly killed recently. i’m still trying to process everything and honestly just survive day to day right now.

but i promise i’m not done  with writing! updates are coming for all / most of my fics, i just haven’t had the energy to be consistent lately. i’m still here, i’m still writing when i can, and i’ll be back posting again as soon as i’m able. alsooo i’ll probably be writing for some new fandoms soon too 👀  i’ve mostly just been posting on twitter lately when i have the energy.

anyways— how have you all been?? 🥺 i miss y’all fr. thank you for being patient with me and still showing love to my work, it genuinely means more than you know.

— dprlive 💕