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Shen Quanrui didn’t come to Korea to fall in love, he came to prove a point. To his parents in Shanghai. To the teachers who thought he was too soft-spoken. To the relatives who whispered that he’d never survive alone.
He wanted to stand on his own two feet, to build something without their hands guiding him. So he transferred. New country. New language layered over the one he already knew. New expectations.
And so he did,
His GPA was almost perfect. Professors liked him. Classmates gravitated toward him effortlessly, Ricky was charming without trying, pretty without arrogance, quiet but never awkward. He built a life that looked impressive from the outside. He went to dinners, study groups, late night convenience store runs. He laughed easily.
And then there was Kim Taerae.
Taerae had already been there for a year when Ricky arrived. A second-year with a voice that carried warmth even when he was teasing someone. They shared circles, mutual friends, shared lectures, overlapping interests in music and film. They’d been in the same room dozens of times before anything changed. Passing conversations, small smiles, casual nods. Taerae said his name the same way he did with everyone else,
Never lingering long enough to matter.
Hanbin’s birthday party was one of those cramped apartment parties where the music is always just a little too loud and the air smells like cheap beer and perfume. Ricky hadn’t even planned on staying long. He’d shown up, gift in hand, ready to socialize just enough to be polite.
That’s when he saw Taerae slip out of a conversation and into the balcony. Something had made him want to follow, curiosity, maybe.
Taerae was leaning against the railing, cigarette between his fingers, the ember glowing softly in the dark. The city lights below blurred into gold and white streaks. The cold wind brushed through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. He looked quieter. Softer. Ricky pushed through the curtains, the bass of the music dulling behind him.
“Those are bad for you, you know.”
Taerae glanced at him, surprised at first, then amused. “So is most of what’s inside.” Their breath fogged in the cold air, standing closer than necessary, closer than people who are acquaintances at most.
Maybe it was the alcohol warming his veins. Maybe it was the loneliness he never admitted to anyone, the weight of constantly being impressive, independent, untouchable. Maybe it was the way Taerae looked at him then not like the charming transfer student, not like someone to admire from a distance but like something fragile and worth holding. The cigarette was dropped, crushed under Taerae’s shoe.
And then they were kissing. It felt like a spark.
It tasted like smoke and soju and something undeniably Taerae. Bitter at first, then dizzyingly sweet. Ricky’s hands fisted in the fabric of Taerae’s sweater, pulling him closer, closer, until the metal railing pressed cold against his back. It wasn’t gentle, it wasn’t careful, it had felt inevitable.
Inside, someone cheered at a joke. Outside, Ricky forgot how to breathe. When they finally pulled apart, Taerae looked dazed. “We’re drunk,” he murmured.
“Probably,” Ricky replied. They kissed again anyway.
They left together, slipping away from crowd without saying goodbye.
Ricky remembers fragments of the cab ride, streetlights flashing through the windows, Taerae’s hand warm on his thigh, laughter that dissolved into quiet tension. By the time they stumbled into Ricky’s apartment, it had escalated too fast, the world had narrowed to skin and breath and the soft click of the door locking behind them.
They hadn’t even bothered opening the lights, everything felt too close, walls too near, air too thin. Taerae pressed him gently against the door once it shut, kissing along his jaw, down his neck. Ricky’s head tipped back against the wood, fingers curling into Taerae’s sweater.
Ricky had practically dragged Taerae down to his bedroom. His back hitting the mattress, pulling a laugh out of him, somewhere between Taerae’s lips at his neck and Ricky trying to muffle the sounds escaping him, somewhere between tangled sheets and hands learning the shape of each other, Ricky said it.
“I love you”
It slipped out like a confession and a mistake all at once. Taerae stilled for half a second, just long enough for Ricky to feel the weight of what he’d done. He could blame it on the alcohol, in the way Taerae had touched him with reverence, in the way Taerae whispered his name like it meant something sacred.
The words hung there.
Taerae didn’t say it back.
The next morning, sunlight was cruel and honest. Ricky lay awake first, staring at the ceiling, replaying the night over and over. Taerae was asleep beside him, hair messy, breathing slow. He looked younger like that. Softer.
Ricky told himself it didn’t matter. It had been a heat-of-the-moment thing. Just words tangled up with adrenaline. But the thing about Ricky was that he didn’t say things he didn’t mean.
The second one happens months later. They’re undeniably closer, something between them everyone can point out but can’t name, they sat next to each other in lectures. Shared headphones. Taerae showed up at Ricky’s place with takeout without asking. Ricky memorized the way Taerae liked his coffee.
It wasn’t dramatic when Ricky said it again. They were lying on the floor of Taerae’s dorm room, textbooks abandoned, soft music playing from someone’s speaker down the hall.
“I love you,” Ricky murmured, almost casually, like he was testing the shape of it in sober air.
Taerae went quiet beside him. Not uncomfortable, just quiet. The air stills, Ricky feels Taerae’s hand on him, his thumb traced slow circles over Ricky’s wrist, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.
Taerae hadn’t said it back, Ricky smiled anyway. He told himself love didn’t need to be symmetrical to be real.
The third time was not soft. It doesn’t slip out in the dark, it doesn’t hide behind sleep or alcohol or the blur of kisses.
It comes sharp. Unsteady. Bleeding at the edges. It happens under fluorescent hallway lights that make everything look harsher than it is.
Ricky doesn’t mean to find out.
He’s not the type to stalk social media, not the type to spiral over speculation. He trusts what’s in front of him. He trusts what Taerae shows him, warm hands, late-night calls, the way Taerae presses his face into Ricky’s shoulder like he belongs there.
But trust is fragile when it isn’t named.
The photo is simple. Harmless, probably. Taerae at a gathering, arm slung around someone Ricky doesn’t recognize. Their faces are close. Too close. Taerae’s smile wide and unguarded, the same one he gives Ricky when he thinks no one’s watching.
The caption is worse. “Mine tonight.” Ricky scoffs at that, it’s probably a joke. Ricky stares at the screen until the words blur.
He tells himself not to overreact, they never said they were exclusive, they never said they were anything. They exist in that blurry space between almost and not quite.
But Ricky remembers Taerae’s hand tightening around his when someone flirted with him at a café. Remembers Taerae’s quiet “He’s with me” that night, voice low and territorial. Remembers the way Taerae kissed him afterward like he was claiming something.
You don’t claim what isn’t yours. Unless you never meant it.
Two days later, he sees Taerae outside the music building, guitar case slung over his shoulder. The sky is heavy, clouds pressing low like they’re listening.
Taerae smiles when he spots him and Ricky feels something ugly twist in his chest. “Hey,” Taerae says easily, stepping closer. “You disappeared.”
Ricky lets out a quiet, humorless laugh. “Did I?”
Taerae’s brows pull together slightly. “What’s wrong?”
There’s something almost cruel about how gentle he sounds. “I saw the picture,” Ricky says.
Taerae stiffens, just a fraction, but Ricky sees it. “It was nothing,” Taerae replies too quickly. “Just a joke.”
“‘Mine tonight’?” Ricky asks. “That kind of joke?”
Taerae runs a hand through his hair, exhaling. “You’re reading into it.”
Ricky’s heart is pounding so loudly he can barely hear his own voice. “Am I?”
Silence stretches. Students pass by them, laughing, unaware that Ricky feels like the ground under him is thinning.
“You know we never said—” Taerae starts.
Ricky cuts him off. “That’s the problem.”
His voice shakes now, and he hates that. Hates losing composure. Hates feeling exposed. “We never said anything,” Ricky continues, swallowing hard. “But you hold me like I’m yours. You kiss me like I’m yours. You get jealous when someone else even looks at me. And then you do this.”
Taerae’s jaw tightens. “I didn’t think it would matter this much.” That sentence lands harder than the photo ever could.
“You didn’t think I would matter this much,” Ricky corrects quietly. Taerae doesn’t answer. Ricky feels it then, that terrifying clarity when denial burns away and all that’s left is truth.
He came to Korea to prove he could stand alone. To prove he didn’t need anyone and yet here he is, unraveling in front of someone who isn’t even sure what he is to him.
“I love you,” Ricky says.
It doesn’t come out controlled. It rips out of him, voice cracking around the edges. Taerae freezes.
“I love you,” Ricky repeats, because if he doesn’t say it fully now, he never will. “Not just when it’s convenient. Not just when we’re alone. I love you in the mornings when you’re grumpy and at night when you won’t let go of my hand. I love you when you pretend you don’t care but you always walk on the outside of the sidewalk.”
His vision blurs, but he keeps going.
“I left everything behind to prove I could do this on my own,” he says, voice trembling. “And I did. I was fine. I was more than fine. But somewhere along the way, you became the one thing I couldn’t just be casual about.”
“Do you love me?” Ricky asks.
The question hangs between them like a blade.
Taerae opens his mouth.
Closes it.
His gaze drops to the ground. His fingers curl tightly around the strap of his guitar case, knuckles pale. He looks like he’s at war with himself.
“I don’t know,” Taerae finally says, voice barely audible. “I care about you. I really do. But I don’t know if I can—” He stops, he doesn’t have to finish. Ricky feels something inside him collapse.
“Can’t what?” Ricky asks, though he already understands.
“Can’t be what you need,” Taerae says.
There it is. Not I don’t love you, but not I do, either. Something worse. Ricky nods slowly, because he refuses to beg. Refuses to cling to someone who isn’t reaching back.
“Okay,” he says. His voice sounds distant, like it belongs to someone else.
Taerae steps forward instinctively, hand lifting as if to touch his arm. “I don’t want to lose you.”
The words almost make Ricky laugh. “You don’t get to keep me in pieces”
For a moment, they just stand there. Close enough to feel each other’s warmth. Far enough to know it doesn’t belong to them anymore.
Ricky thinks about the first time he said it, drunk and reckless. The second time, soft and hopeful in the dark. The third time, like this.
Exposed, shaking, and fully aware.
He steps back, Taerae doesn’t follow and that hurts most of all.
Taerae looks at him like he wants to say something. Like the words are there, caught behind his teeth, but they don’t come out.
And this time, the silence answers for him.