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Why is he in her room?
The thought barrels into Kitty’s mind, sharp and disorienting, as if she’s been yanked out of one reality and dropped into another. Her dorm had been quiet just moments ago, just her, her lecture notes, and the dim glow of her bedside lamp casting soft shadows against the walls.
But now, Minho is here.
She can only stare, unblinking, as he shuts the door behind him with a quiet click. The air shifts, thickens. He doesn’t belong here, shouldn’t be here, but he walks in like he does, like he’s done this before, like he has every right to.
She’s still clutching her notes, the thin paper crumpling slightly beneath her grip, but whatever she was studying a minute ago has completely evaporated from her mind. Her pulse stumbles, an uneven rhythm against her ribs.
“Covey,” he greets.
Just that.
Like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
She grips the pages in her lap a little tighter. “What are you doing here?”
Minho doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he crosses the room, closing the space between them until he’s sitting at the edge of her bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. He’s close enough now that she can see the way his lashes cast shadows over his cheekbones, close enough that she catches the scent of his cologne — something clean, expensive, infuriatingly familiar.
“I need to tell you something.”
Kitty barely processes the words before she blurts, “Wait, me first.” Her voice is a little too fast, a little too breathless, but she pushes forward anyway.
“I understand why you shut me down when I tried talking to you about Stella. So when you accused me of just being jealous, I—”
He lifts a hand and presses a finger to her lips.
“Okay…”
Her thoughts stutter to a stop.
She blinks at him, bewildered, frozen in place. His touch is featherlight, barely there, but it still sends a jolt straight through her. Her lips part involuntarily, as if she’s about to say something, but she doesn’t. She can’t.
He exhales, his voice quieter now. “You were right.”
Kitty’s brows pull together. “About what part?”
His jaw clenches. He looks down, then back at her, and for a second, he just looks at her, something heavy and unreadable in his expression.
“All of it,” he admits. “Stella is some kind of evil mastermind, and she never really liked me.”
The sharp edges of her confusion soften. “Minho…”
But he keeps going, his voice dipping lower, rougher. “And I was in denial about Stella because I was trying to convince myself that I was over you, but the truth is, I’m not.”
The words slam into her, sucking the air from the room.
Her fingers tighten around the sheets, her stomach twisting painfully.
No.
No, no, no. This isn’t happening.
He holds her gaze, unwavering. “And I know you said it can never work out, but… do you still feel that way?”
Her throat is dry. She doesn’t know how to answer that. Doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say, what she’s supposed to feel.
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
Minho studies her for a long moment. Then, slowly, carefully, he reaches out, his fingertips grazing her cheek before settling against her jaw.
“Yes you do, Covey.”
Her stomach drops.
Her breath hitches. The room feels smaller somehow, the walls closing in, the space between them practically nonexistent. His fingers are warm against her cheek, a stark contrast to the chill skittering down her spine.
His words reverberate through her, low and insistent, settling into the hollow of her chest like a weight she can’t shake. His voice is softer than she’s used to, none of the usual teasing lilt, none of the arrogance that normally laces his words.
This is something different. This is something dangerous.
Kitty should say something. Push him away, crack a joke, pretend this moment isn’t happening, that her stomach isn’t twisting itself into impossible knots. But she can’t move, can’t think. All she can do is look at him — really look at him.
His hair is messily tousled, so unlike him, and there’s something painfully delicate about the way it falls over his forehead. His black tank top clings to his frame, the smooth expanse of his skin catching the dim light, the sharp angles of his arms doing unspeakable things to her ability to form coherent thoughts.
He’s beautiful.
The realisation slams into her with dizzying force. Minho is beautiful.
And he’s looking at her like she’s something precious. Like she’s something he’s afraid to lose.
Her heart is pounding so loudly she’s sure he can hear it.
She’s still trying to process what’s happening when his gaze flickers to her lips. It’s so brief she almost thinks she imagined it — almost — but then he’s leaning in, slowly, deliberately, like he’s giving her a chance to stop this, to stop him.
She doesn’t.
Instead, her own body betrays her. Her eyelids flutter shut, her lips part slightly, instinctively, and she finds herself tilting forward, erasing the last bit of distance between them.
Minho’s breath mingles with hers, warm and uneven, and the moment stretches, delicate and fragile. Her pulse is thrumming wildly, her skin buzzing with anticipation, and then—
His lips brush against hers.
It’s the lightest of touches, barely there, but it sends a shiver down her spine, sets something electric crackling through her veins.
He lingers for half a second, hesitating, waiting, before pressing in deeper, his lips moving against hers with a kind of tenderness that makes her head spin.
It’s intoxicating.
He cups her face with both hands now, tilting her head slightly, drawing her in like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he lets go.
And God, she’s melting. She’s sinking into him, into this, her fingers fisting into the fabric of his tank, anchoring herself because she feels like she’s floating, like she might slip right out of her own skin.
She should be freaking out right now. Should be scrambling away, putting miles of distance between them, demanding to know what the hell is happening. But she’s not.
This doesn’t feel wrong. Right now, this feels inevitable.
She’s still pressed against him, still breathing him in, still feeling the shape of his lips against hers like an imprint that won’t ever fade.
He pulls back first but doesn’t stray far. His hands are still cradling her face, his thumbs tracing slow, absentminded circles against her cheekbones.
Kitty’s eyes flutter open, and that’s when the panic starts to creep in.
What the hell just happened?
He’s still watching her, gaze dark, intense, his expression unreadable. She can still taste him on her lips — warm and wanting and dizzyingly familiar. Her insides feel like a tangled mess of frayed strings.
This is Minho.
The Minho who gets under her skin just by existing. The Minho who rolls his eyes at her every chance he gets. The Minho who drives her insane with his dramatics and his ego and his stupidly perfect face.
This isn’t supposed to happen.
But it’s also Minho, who helped her cook an entire Chuseok feast when she could barely keep up. Minho, who held her in the rain, his arms a steady anchor when her world was falling apart. Minho, who never says the things she knows he feels, but still makes her feel them anyway.
Before she can second-guess herself — before she can think at all, really — she moves.
Her hands fist into the front of his top, pulling him back in.
Minho barely has time to react before her lips crash against his, more urgent this time, more desperate, like something inside her has snapped. Like now that she’s started, she doesn’t know how to stop.
He lets out a soft, surprised sound against her mouth, but then he’s kissing her back just as hungrily, fingers threading into her hair, tugging her closer, closer, closer.
It’s messier now, all heat and hands and reckless abandon.
Kitty’s heart is pounding out of her chest, her skin burning everywhere he touches, and she doesn’t understand this, doesn’t understand herself, but she doesn’t care.
Because right now, nothing else matters.
Nothing except the way Minho’s hands slide down to her waist, the way his lips part for hers, the way her entire body feels like it’s on fire.
They finally break apart, foreheads resting together, panting for air.
Her fingers are still clutching the fabric of his tank, knuckles white. His hands are still on her, grounding her, but it doesn’t help much. She feels like the world’s just tilted on its axis, spinning her into a whirlpool of uncertainty and tangled emotions.
Her eyes dart to his lips, pink and swollen from kissing hers, and something inside her tumbles.
Her voice is barely a whisper. “We should… talk about this.”
Minho exhales a quiet laugh, lips twitching. Then he shakes his head, softer than she expected.
“Shh.” His fingers trace lightly over the curve of her jaw. “Go to sleep, Kitty. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
Kitty stares at him, still trying to catch her breath, still reeling from everything that’s just happened.
And then he’s reaching for the crumpled lecture notes still tangled in her sheets, smoothing them out before setting them aside on her desk.
He turns back to her, eyes flicking over her like he’s making sure she’s okay, then, to her complete and utter shock, he gently tugs her blankets up over her, tucking her in.
Tucking. Her. In.
Her brain short-circuits.
Minho doesn’t move for a moment, just lingers there, watching her, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.
Then, slowly, he leans in, his movements careful, deliberate, like he’s afraid any sudden motion will shatter this fragile moment between them.
Kitty barely has time to process it before she feels the soft press of his lips against her forehead.
It’s not like the kiss before — heated, desperate, dizzying in its intensity. This one is different. It’s lingering, gentle, impossibly tender. It’s as if he’s memorising her, like he’s tracing something into her skin that she won’t understand until much later.
Something in her chest clenches, tight and aching.
It’s stupid, how much it affects her. How much she wants to close her eyes and let herself sink into the warmth of him, the way his touch feels like something meant to stay. But the feeling is already slipping through her fingers, fleeting, intangible, and she hates how much she wants to chase it.
He pulls away, slower than necessary, his breath ghosting over her skin. For a second, he just looks at her, searched her eyes, like he’s afraid of what he might find.
Then he starts to pull back, his body shifting away, the space between them threatening to return.
No.
Her hand moves before she can stop it, fingers wrapping around his wrist, the warmth of his skin solid beneath her palm.
“Wait.”
Minho stills.
His eyes flicker to where she’s holding him, then back to her face, guarded, hesitant.
Kitty’s stomach twists. She doesn’t know why she says it, doesn’t know why she can’t let him go, but the words are already slipping out, quiet and uncertain.
“Will you stay with me?”
A beat of silence.
His expression doesn’t change right away, but something about him does.
Something in the way his shoulders drop slightly, in the way his eyes soften just the tiniest bit. He exhales, and the sound is barely more than a breath, but she feels it like an unraveling thread, tugging loose something she doesn’t have the words for.
“Yeah, Covey,” he murmurs. “I’ll stay.”
He moves carefully, like he’s still not sure if this is real, if she’s real.
But then he’s sliding under the covers beside her, his body warm against hers, and suddenly, it feels inevitable. Like this was always going to happen. Like maybe this moment has been waiting for them all along.
Kitty hesitates for half a second, then turns toward him, drawn in like gravity.
And Minho doesn’t hesitate at all.
His arm comes around her waist, pulling her against him with a certainty that makes her chest ache. He holds her like it’s natural, like it’s easy, like they’ve done this a million times before.
She fits against him too well.
It’s unfair, really, how her head settles perfectly against his chest, how the steady rhythm of his heartbeat thrums against her ear, lulling her, anchoring her.
She feels small in his arms. Small, warm, safe.
She should be panicking right now. She should be pulling away, putting up walls, demanding to know what this means.
But she’s so tired.
Not just physically — though exhaustion clings to her limbs, drags at her eyelids — but tired of fighting this, whatever this is. Tired of pretending she doesn’t feel something shifting inside her, something she’s not ready to name.
So she doesn’t fight it.
She just exhales, slow and shaky, and lets her body relax into his.
Minho’s hold tightens, just slightly. Just enough.
Her heart is still hammering against her ribs, loud and insistent, but she doesn’t try to quiet it. Doesn’t try to make sense of any of this.
She just closes her eyes.
And lets herself fall.
One second, blissful sleep. The next, a scream so unhinged, Stella nearly falls out of bed.