Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Yerin is arriving soon, Luke thought to himself as he stood outside the door to Jess's flat, clutching a bouquet of flowers in one hand while shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

With his other hand, he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. They kept slipping, probably because he was warm beneath his thick winter coat and the wool scarf wrapped snugly around his neck, and definitely not because he was nervous—because he wasn't nervous, he told himself firmly, even as his stomach twisted itself into increasingly elaborate knots.

Across the street, he could see someone step out of a car.

At first, Luke couldn't make out who it was. Winter had a way of making everyone look vaguely the same—shapeless figures buried beneath layers of oversized coats, hats, gloves, and scarves, which was hardly surprising given that it was rather cold.

He narrowed his eyes, squinting through the crisp winter air as the figure began walking toward the building.

It was her.

Yerin.

She looked even more beautiful in person than she had on any Zoom call, or in any photo he had perhaps spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at over the past few months (strictly for work-related reasons, of course).

The cold had dusted a soft pink flush across her cheeks and the tip of her nose, while the pale winter light caught in her hair in a way that made her seem almost unreal. And when she spotted him standing there waiting for her, a smile spread across her face so suddenly and brightly that Luke felt something in his chest give a helpless little lurch.

Before he even realised what he was doing, he was smiling too, so broadly, in fact, that his cheeks were beginning to ache.

He raised a hand and waved, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, though, truthfully, he couldn't bring himself to care.

And as she crossed the pavement towards him, Luke couldn't shake the strange, inexplicable feeling that his life was about to change.

"Yerin, hi," he called, grinning. "It's nice to finally meet you."

Unfortunately, the greeting was about as far as his carefully planned conversation managed to get. Before she could even open her mouth to respond, Luke found himself stepping forward and pulling her into a hug.

She fit perfectly against him, her small frame disappearing into his embrace, her face tucked neatly into the crook of his neck while the sweet scent of vanilla shampoo—somehow exactly as he'd imagined it would be—drifted through the cold air. For a second, Luke forgot there was a world beyond the two of them.

And if it had been up to him, he might never have let go.

Eventually, however, he reluctantly forced himself to loosen his hold and step back, if only because, much as he hated to admit it, continuing to cling to her would probably make for a rather unfortunate first impression (and considering this was, in fact, their first impression, that seemed best avoided).

"It's nice to finally meet you too," Yerin replied, her smile widening as she looked up at him.

Luke found himself staring for a second longer than was socially acceptable, and then another.

In his defence, she wasn't making it particularly easy not to, and, to be fair, he'd waited months to meet her. Surely that earned him at least a few extra seconds, especially when she was standing there, unfathomably even more perfect in person than she had been through a screen (though, admittedly, that wasn't really helping his case).

She was everything he'd dreamed she would be, and somehow, impossibly, more.

Right. Fantastic.

Because he was already beginning to suspect that Yerin was going to be a problem.

Which meant it was probably for the best that he stopped paying such close attention to her face.

Unfortunately, that became rather difficult when he noticed that the pink flush colouring her cheeks appeared to have deepened ever so slightly since she'd arrived.

Or perhaps that was simply wishful thinking on his part.

"Oh!" he exclaimed suddenly, remembering the bouquet still clutched awkwardly in his hand. "I got these for you."

Luke held out the flowers in what he hoped was a very normal and casual way (he suspected he failed miserably), and he watched as her eyes widened.

"Thank you..." Yerin trailed off, accepting them from him. She glanced down at the bouquet before looking back up at him with a smile. "They're beautiful."

They were, Luke thought, though truthfully not nearly as beautiful as her.

Unfortunately, that seemed exactly like the sort of thing that should remain firmly inside his head.

"I hope you like them," he said instead.

"I do."

"Well..." Luke said, gesturing towards the door, doing his best to pretend he wasn't now hyper-aware of every single thing he was doing. "Should we go in, then?"

He reached past Yerin to ring the Ring doorbell, and for a fleeting second his sleeve brushed against hers. It meant absolutely nothing, of course—it was just a completely normal and unavoidable consequence of two people standing near each other—but his traitorous brain seemed determined to make a much bigger deal out of than it had any right to.

The door opened almost immediately. Probably too quickly, actually.

Jess had definitely been spying, Luke decided, and suddenly he was very aware of the fact that their first meeting had likely been observed from start to finish.

Great.

Someone else had just watched him embarrass himself in front of a girl (or rather, the girl) he'd technically known in person for minutes and would now be spending the next several months working, filming, and travelling with.

"So..." he trailed off, glancing down at the tacos in front of him.

They looked incredible, admittedly. Jess had done a good job, and, having served the food in front of them, she had left them alone to get to know each other properly—to build chemistry, as she had put it.

Under normal circumstances, Luke would have already demolished at least one of the tacos by now.

Sadly, his appetite seemed to have vanished entirely.

Which was unfortunate, really, because the tacos looked delicious. Yerin, who was sat directly opposite him, simply happened to be considerably more distracting.

"How was the flight?"

"Long," she said with a laugh, the sound soft and warm and far more distracting than it had any right to be. Luke was determined not to read anything into that fact and was consequently reading far too much into it. "But better than I thought it would be."

"And how are you finding the weather?" he asked, a crooked smile tugging at his lips.

Yerin groaned immediately.

"So bad. I mean, I knew it was going to be cold, but knowing it and actually stepping off the plane into it are two completely different things. Back home it's so hot right now."

Luke watched over the rim of his glasses as she reached for a taco and took a bite, a strand of dark hair slipping forward across her cheek as she leaned over the table, and for some reason he found himself completely fascinated.

By the way she tucked one leg beneath herself in her chair, by the way she seemed entirely focused on the food in front of her, and by the way she looked so comfortable despite having landed in a different country only a few hours earlier. 

She reminded Luke of a storybook fairy somehow—so effortlessly lovely that Luke was caught by the strange feeling that she couldn't possibly be real.

He didn't realise quite how intently he was watching until she glanced up and caught him staring, and he found himself looking into the soft brown of her eyes.

Suddenly, it felt as though he'd forgotten entirely what they'd been talking about.

A smile spread across Luke's face before he could stop it, and a laugh escaped him as he took in the sight of her still hunched over the table, a taco halfway to her mouth. It was, for reasons he couldn't quite explain, oddly endearing.

And then she laughed too.

God, he could get used to that sound.

His gaze drifted back to her just in time to see her brush a stray crumb from the corner of her mouth with her thumb.

That, unfortunately, proved to be a mistake.

Because now all he could think about was kissing her.

Behave, Luke, he told himself firmly. You've only just met her.

The problem was that kissing her wasn't some impossibly hypothetical scenario. Soon, they would be filming scenes together. Romantic scenes. Scenes in which he would be expected to look at her as though he was completely, hopelessly in love.

He would be kissing her as Benedict though, and not Luke.

A very important distinction, and one that, for the sake of his own sanity, he intended to keep reminding himself of.

Benedict could stare at her like that.

Luke, on the other hand, needed to get a grip.

"Why don't you play something?" Yerin asked, gesturing towards the piano tucked away in the corner of the room.

Luke glanced over at it before looking back at her.

"...And how exactly do you know that I play piano?" he asked, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

The moment the words left his mouth, he watched a faint blush creep across her cheeks.

"Okay, so..." Yerin began, already sounding guilty. "After I got the role, I might have looked you up online a little bit."

"A little bit?" Luke echoed, raising an eyebrow.

Yerin groaned and dropped her face into her hands.

"It wasn't in a weird way! I wasn't stalking you, I swear. I was just curious. We were going to be working together and doing interviews and spending loads of time together, and I figured it would be weird if I knew absolutely nothing about you, so I watched a couple of interviews and then somehow that turned into several interviews and then—"

She stopped abruptly. Luke was openly laughing now.

"—which is not helping my case, is it?"

"Nope," Luke said.

"Right. Great."

"But," he added, his grin softening, "it's fine."

"Is it?"

"Of course it is." He shook his head. "Yerin, you don't need to explain yourself."

The colour in Yerin's cheeks deepened ever so slightly, and Luke found his gaze lingering longer than it probably should have.

She looked unfairly lovely when she blushed.

Not that he had been paying attention.

(He very much had been paying attention).

At this point, he suspected he would have noticed if she so much as blinked.

"Besides," he continued, pushing himself to his feet, "if you've apparently done your research, I suppose I can play something for you."

Yerin followed him over to the piano, abandoning the remaining tacos on the table. Luke had, in the end, remembered to eat some himself and, in fairness, they had been very good.

He pulled out the stool and sat down in front of the piano, flexing his fingers absentmindedly as he considered what to play.

The problem was that he suddenly couldn't remember a single piece of music he'd learned in his entire life.

This was, admittedly, a slight exaggeration, but not by much.

He was acutely aware of Yerin standing just behind him, close enough that he could feel her presence without even turning around, and the knowledge that she was watching made him far more nervous than it had any right to.

Which was ridiculous.

He had played in front of many audiences before, and yet somehow the prospect of playing the piano in front of one girl felt infinitely more daunting than any of them.

Luke glanced down at the keys.

"I'll play a bit of Clair de Lune, how about that?"

"Okay," Yerin said softly.

He nodded, rubbed his suddenly damp palms against his trousers, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and placed his fingers on the keys.

He chose that exact moment to silently pray to any higher power that might be listening not to let him embarrass himself.

Particularly in front of her.

And so, before he could give himself the opportunity to overthink it any further, Luke pressed down on the first keys.

The first notes of Clair de Lune floated into the room, soft beneath his fingertips. Luke had always loved the piece for its dreamlike quality, the way it seemed to drift weightlessly. It felt almost suspended in between fantasy and reality.

Which, he realised as the melody unfolded around them, was rather fitting.

Because with Yerin standing beside the piano listening, he found himself wishing this moment would last a little longer.

No matter how nervous he was beforehand, everything seemed to settle the moment he actually started playing. Muscle memory took over where conscious thought failed, his hands moving across the keys with an ease that years of practice had ingrained into him. He allowed himself to focus entirely on the music.

It was only after a minute or so that Luke risked a glance over his shoulder—a big mistake.

Yerin was standing beside the piano now, her arms folded loosely across her chest as she listened. She was watching him, and only him, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.

She looked genuinely captivated.

For a brief, ridiculous moment, he found himself wondering if she was looking at him the same way he'd been looking at her all evening—the thought alone was enough to make his stomach do an alarming little flip.

Naturally, that was the exact moment he slipped up, one wrong note and then another. Luke winced.

"Right," he said, lifting his hands from the keys before things could get any worse. "I'm choosing to pretend that didn't happen."

Yerin laughed. He glanced up at her and smiled.

"So..." He shifted slightly on the stool. "Do you want to try?"

"Oh, no." She shook her head immediately. "Honestly, it's fine. I can't play anything."

"It's okay," Luke said. "We'll start with something easy."

Before she could protest further, he shuffled along the piano stool and gestured to the newly vacated space to the right, beside him. Yerin hesitated.

"Luke—"

"Trust me."

To his immense satisfaction, she finally relented, and as she sat down beside him, their shoulders brushed. Which made sense - the stool wasn't particularly large.

And Luke was definitely not complaining.

In fact, if anything, he was discovering that the stool was exactly the right size—probably not a thought he should be having.

"We can try Bach," Luke said. "Prelude in C. It's easy, I promise."

Yerin looked unconvinced. Luke just laughed.

"Just copy what I do an octave above."

He played the first few notes slowly, giving her time to find the keys.

"Right there," he said. "G, C, E. Thumb, middle finger, pinky. Then repeat."

Yerin pressed down tentatively, immediately hitting the wrong note.

"Wait, no, sorry."

She tried again, and missed it again.

"Here."

Before he could think too hard about what he was doing, he reached over and gently placed his hands over hers. Her fingers stilled beneath his, and for a moment there was nothing else.

All he could focus on was the warmth of her skin beneath his own and the faint scent of her shampoo as she leaned slightly closer to the keyboard, her shoulder just barely brushing his sleeve with each small adjustment.

"Like this," he said, determined to sound normal. Whether he succeeded was another matter entirely.

Carefully, he guided her fingers to the correct keys, pressing them down together.

"There," he said. "Feel the pattern?"

Yerin nodded.

"Yeah."

"Good. Just follow that."

He was far too aware of everything—the way her breathing seemed to slow as she concentrated, the slight tilt of her head as she watched his hands over hers, the fact that she didn’t pull away. He should probably have moved his hands away then, but instead he found himself lingering for a second longer than strictly necessary.

Eventually, he forced himself to let go her.

The absence of her hands was (almost) worse than the contact had been, and the warmth of her skin seemed to linger against his palms long afterwards.

Luke immediately redirected all of his attention back to the piano.

"So, tell me a bit more about yourself?"

By now, they had migrated to the couch, Yerin curled up comfortably beside him with her legs tucked beneath her while Luke sat angled towards her, one arm resting along the back cushions.

"Well..." he began, scratching his head. "I was born here, in England, but my family moved to France when I was really young, so I grew up there in a tiny town."

Yerin nodded along.

"Anyway, I moved back to England when I was older because I wanted to pursue acting, which, in hindsight, was a slightly insane career choice. Very unstable. Not exactly what careers advisors dream of hearing."

"But it worked out, didn't it?"

"Somehow," Luke agreed.

"What made you want to become an actor?"

Luke paused. It was a question he had been asked countless times over the years, and yet he found himself thinking about the answer more carefully than usual.

"I think..." he said slowly, glancing down at his hands before looking back at her. "I've always loved stories—films, books, theatre, all of it. I liked the idea that, for a little while, you could become somebody else and see the world through their eyes."

He shifted slightly in his seat.

"Acting's strange, though. People think it's all about pretending to be someone else, but I think it actually lets you reveal parts of yourself too. You bring pieces of yourself into every role, whether you mean to or not."

Yerin nodded, listening intently.

"And I suppose one of the reasons I was drawn to it in the first place is because it lets you do both at once. Reveal yourself and hide yourself." He gave a small shrug. "I can be completely myself around the people I know and trust, but publicly..." He trailed off, searching for the right words. "I don't know. Acting gives you a bit of distance, I think. It lets people see something honest without feeling like they're seeing all of you."

Luke huffed out a quiet laugh and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Sorry. I think I went on a bit of a tangent there."

Yerin laughed.

"No, don't apologise. I liked it."

"You did?"

"Yeah."

She smiled at him then, and Luke found himself smiling too before he even realised he was doing it. There was a warmth to her smile that made it feel almost impossible not to.

"I think it makes sense," she said.

"Well..." Luke said, pointing at her. "Now it's your turn."

Yerin blinked.

"My turn?"

"Mhm."

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"What made you want to act?"

Yerin thought for a moment.

"Well... I've always liked performing. Singing at family barbecues, putting on little shows for people, that sort of thing." She laughed softly. "But I never really thought about acting as an actual career until I went back to Korea one year and saw my grandmother perform in a play."

Her smile softened at the memory.

"It was kind of a eureka moment, I guess. Like suddenly everything clicked into place. I remember sitting there and thinking, oh. This is something people actually do. This can be a job." She shrugged. "And after that, I never really looked back."

Luke listened intently, nodding along as she spoke—not that listening required much effort.

His attention drifted to the small details without meaning to: the way her eyelashes fluttered whenever she laughed, the way the warm glow of the lamp caught in her dark hair and turned the edges of it gold, the animated way her hands moved whenever she spoke about something she cared about.

She seemed to light up when she talked about acting, and Luke found himself watching her with the same quiet fascination he'd been trying (and failing) to suppress since she'd arrived.

Fortunately, Yerin appeared entirely unaware of this fact.

Unfortunately, Luke was all too aware of it.

Because the longer he sat there talking to her, the more he found himself wanting to keep doing exactly that.

He was so, so screwed.

“Guys, not to interrupt or anything, but it’s already ten…” Jess appeared in the doorway. Luke blinked—he had entirely forgotten she was even here.

That probably said something about how the evening had gone.

He glanced over at her, then back at Yerin, still seated on the sofa beside him. Somewhere along the way (he couldn’t quite pinpoint when) it felt as though the distance between them had quietly, imperceptibly shrunk. It might have just been his imagination.

But it didn’t feel like it.

Suddenly, it hit him—it was ten o’clock.

She had arrived at five.

They had spent five whole hours with each other. And yet, it felt like the evening had only just begun.

The strangest part was that it didn’t feel like nearly enough time, not even close.

He could have kept going, kept talking. Kept sitting together, with her, on this very couch.

He could speak to her forever, really, which, he was fairly sure, was not a particularly sensible thought to have after meeting someone for the first time (but it was there in his mind anyways).

“Oh! I should really get back to my hotel then.” Yerin stood up a little abruptly, as if the realisation had only just properly caught up with her. “Thank you so much for having me,” she added, turning to Jess with a quick smile. “Luke… I’ll see you tomorrow at the table read?”

“Yes, of course,” Luke replied, a fraction too quickly, following her lead and getting to his feet once his brain remembered how legs worked again.

He trailed after her into the hallway where their coats had been hung up earlier, the small space suddenly feeling much more cramped than it had before.

“Here, let me help you,” he said, reaching up for the peg where her coat was hanging.

“Thank you,” Yerin said softly.

Luke held the coat open for her and helped her into it, careful as he guided it over her shoulders. The fabric settled around her shoulders, and he bent down to pull the zip up. It was one of those long winter coats that reached her knees, which, he suspected, might also have had something to do with the fact that she was, in fact, quite a bit shorter than him.

He reached for her scarf next, lifting it from the hook and stepping in close as he wrapped it carefully around her neck, looping it once and smoothing it down into place. From this angle, he became properly aware of how much smaller she was than him, the way she practically disappeared into the coat and scarf and winter layers, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder when she tilted slightly.

Still, he did his best to ignore that particular observation.

Finally, he handed her bag back to her, the bouquet of flowers he’d given her earlier peeking over the top

“Jess, I just realised,” Yerin began suddenly, turning slightly. “I’m really sorry, but can I stay just a little bit longer? I need to call an Uber.”

“There’s no need for that—London traffic is terrible even now at ten, and you won’t get back till late,” Luke cut in quickly, already shrugging back into his own coat. “Come with me on the Tube.”

“I don’t want to bother you…” she started, hesitating, her fingers tightly curled around her phone.

“Honestly, it’s nothing,” he said, far too casually for someone who very much did not feel casual at all (in truth was he was hyper-aware that he was choosing to keep her with him, even if just for a little while longer). “How far is your hotel? We can figure out the stop.”

“Like five minutes,” she said, already unlocking her phone. “I’ll just put it into Google Maps.”

They stepped out together in silence, though it wasn’t awkward. That was the strange part—if anything, Luke thought, it was almost worse that it wasn’t. Because that only made him more aware of it.

Of every step he took, unconsciously matching his pace to hers.

Of the way she glanced down at her phone and he followed a second later without meaning to.

Of how he subtly adjusted so she stayed on the inside—the safer side of the pavement.

The Underground was louder, brighter, busier than the flat had been, but somehow that only made her feel closer when they were standing side by side on the platform. They were surrounded by everything and still she was only thing he was properly aware of.

He guided her through the turnstiles without thinking.

It was unnecessary—she clearly knew what she was doing, and she had undoubtedly used public transport before—but his hand still remained, hovering near her back.

Inside the carriage, they ended up with him standing directly in front of her seat, one hand braced lightly against the overhead bar above her, the other clenched, tucked into his coat pocket.

She looked up at him from her seat, and Luke had the very inconvenient, entirely unhelpful realisation that this angle was making it significantly harder to think clearly.

At all.

“The next stop is yours,” he said after a moment, leaning in slightly so she could hear him over the noise of the carriage, his voice dropping instinctively.

His breath was warm against the shell of her ear, much closer than he had any reason to be.

He offered a hand to help her up, and she accepted.

Yerin stood as the train began to slow, and then the carriage suddenly lurched forward with a sharp, violent jolt as the brakes caught, catching them both off guard.

She stumbled into him without meaning to, and he moved instantly.

His hands came up to steady her before he could think better of it, palms firm around her arms as he anchored her back upright, her briefly pressing into his chest as the train shuddered again.

It was strange how well she fit there in his arms.

Then, as the carriage finally came to a stop, he reluctantly loosened his grip, letting his hands fall away.

“Sorry about that…” she said, slightly breathless.

“Don’t apologise,” Luke said quickly, still very aware of where his hands had been a moment ago. “It’s fine. Really.”

She stepped off the train, turning back once on the platform.

Luke lifted a hand in a small wave from where he was still standing inside the carriage, watching her through the glass like he might miss something if he looked away too soon.

And only when the doors slid shut between them did he realise he’d been holding his breath.

It was late, nearing eleven, but Luke couldn’t sleep. He was really too old to be awake like this, he though.

He groaned quietly and reached blindly into the darkness for the lamp switch, flicking it on. Warm light spilled across the room, and he blinked against the sudden brightness.

He pushed himself up slightly, leaning against the backboard and reached for his book out of habit, already half-settled into the idea of reading himself to sleep.

“…Ah, fuck,” he muttered to himself.

His glasses weren’t there.

He lay back for a second, staring up at the ceiling as the memory slowly surfaced—he’d taken them off on the sofa earlier, somewhere between laughing too much and sitting far too close to Yerin, and somehow left them behind at Jess’s flat.

Of course he had.

He had never forgotten them before.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, rubbing a hand over his face in quiet frustration, then reached for his phone instead, squinting slightly at the harsh glow as the screen lit up the dark.

A message would have to do, he thought, unlocking it and opening up his chats.

Luke closed his phone and set it on the bedside table beside him. He stared up at the ceiling, trying—and failing—not to think about her.

Eventually, he exhaled, a small laugh leaving him under his breath as the absurdity of it all caught up with him.

He would see Yerin again tomorrow.

And, if all went to plan, have his glasses back.