Archive of Our Own

Jeno had never considered himself a delusional person. He was practical in the way people were when their lives revolved around calendars, shared documents, quarterly reports, and polite emails that began with “Hope this finds you well” even though nobody in the entire chain had ever hoped for anything so warmly in their life. He woke up at seven-thirty because his alarm told him to, not because his body understood the concept of ambition. He showered with his eyes half-closed, brushed his teeth while checking the weather, dressed in slacks and button-down shirts that made him look calmer and more competent than he felt before coffee, then walked to the office with his bag sitting heavy against his shoulder and his face carefully arranged into something neutral enough to survive elevators.

At work, Jeno was good. That was the thing. He actually liked being good. He liked that people trusted him with details, liked that he could make sense of messy schedules and budget notes and meeting minutes nobody wanted to organize, liked that his boss sometimes paused beside his desk with a stack of printed papers and said, “Jeno, you always know where this goes,” as if he were some kind of corporate oracle instead of a twenty-something man whose greatest talent was remembering file naming conventions and not crying when spreadsheets froze. He liked the structure. He liked knowing what was expected. He liked the tiny satisfaction of clearing his inbox at the end of the day, the clean little click of finishing tasks, the false peace of closing his laptop as if the entire world could be contained inside one black rectangle and turned off at will.

What he did not like was admitting that most nights, after all that structure had finished chewing him up and spitting him back into his quiet apartment, he would change into soft sweatpants, eat something plain, climb into bed far too early, and proceed to ruin his own life by opening Donghyuck’s profile again.

It always began casually, which was what made it dangerous. Jeno never picked up his phone with intent. He never thought - Tonight, I will spend forty-seven minutes scrolling through a man’s public life like a ghost haunting the estate of someone who does not know I exist -. It happened in sneakier ways. His thumb would drift, his mind would be tired, his apartment too quiet except for the low hum of the heater or the rain tapping against the window, and suddenly there would be Donghyuck’s face glowing in his hand, all warm skin and sharp smile and eyes that looked like they had been made specifically to catch light. Donghyuck wasn’t a celebrity, not exactly. He did not have that untouchable, glossy, bodyguard-and-private-airport kind of fame, he was more real than that which was infinitely worse. He was a lifestyle-and-travel-and-chaos kind of influencer, the sort who had enough followers for strangers to recognize him in cafés but not enough to stop posting blurry pictures of his dinner with captions like “i swear it tasted better than it looks.” He made little vlogs out of everything: train rides, thrift shops, bad hotel room service, street food, museums and their bathrooms with weird mirrors, convenience store snacks eaten at midnight, mornings in unfamiliar cities where his hair was still messy and his voice was low from sleep. He filmed himself laughing too loudly in airports and complaining about his suitcase wheel breaking, then cut to clips of golden streets in Barcelona, neon-lit alleys in Tokyo, rainy mornings in London, beaches where the wind tried to steal his microphone. He was brave in a way Jeno found nearly violent. Donghyuck could walk into a room full of strangers and make it content, he could hold a camera at arm’s length in public and talk like the world had always been listening, he could try food he couldn’t pronounce, ask locals for recommendations, dance badly on sidewalks, sing snippets of songs he was working on in hotel rooms, and somehow make all of it feel not curated, not polished, but intimate. Like he had accidentally left the door open and Jeno, pathetic creature that he was, had wandered in.

The first video Jeno had ever seen of him had been sent by Jaemin with no context except, “this guy is your type and it’s getting concerning how accurate I am.” Jeno had opened it during lunch, sitting alone near the window of the office break room with a convenience store sandwich in one hand and his tie loosened slightly because the heating was always too aggressive, and there Donghyuck had been, standing in a tiny room somewhere in Paris, filming himself in a gilded mirror with his hair damp from rain and his jacket slipping off one shoulder as he whispered, dramatically, “Guys, I think I accidentally booked a hotel made for shitty aristocrats,” before turning the camera toward a ridiculous wall covered in pale blue wallpaper and gold trim. Jeno had meant to roll his eyes, he really had. But then Donghyuck had smiled at his own joke, soft and crooked and pleased, and Jeno had stopped chewing. It wasn’t even the prettiest Donghyuck had ever looked; Jeno knew that now with the academic certainty of someone who had unfortunately done research. There were videos where Donghyuck looked devastating in long winter coats, videos where he had eyeliner smudged at the corner of his eyes from some music shoot, videos where he was sun-warmed and laughing with his head thrown back on a boat, videos where he was half-asleep in an oversized hoodie, blinking at the camera while making instant ramen at two in the morning.

But that first video had been the one that did it. It had slipped under Jeno’s skin because Donghyuck, standing there in that dramatic little room, had looked bright and completely ridiculous, but also strangely comfortable. Like underneath all the movement, all the performance, all the constant going, there was someone soft enough to curl up beside without making the air feel crowded.
That was the problem… Jeno could have survived a pretty man. Pretty men existed. Seoul was full of them, the internet was full of them. Jeno was a grown adult with taxes and back pain when he slept wrong, he was capable of seeing someone attractive and moving on. Donghyuck, however, had the audacity to be pretty and funny and musically talented and unexpectedly domestic in ways that made Jeno want to put his phone under his pillow and huff and groan into both hands. Donghyuck posted clips of himself on rooftops with friends, but he also posted videos of himself folding laundry while humming under his breath. He went to Japan and filmed a seven-part vlog about vending machines and record stores, but he also spent half of one video talking about missing his own bed with the solemn seriousness of a man discussing national tragedy. He attended parties where people shouted his name over music, but in the next post he would be sitting cross-legged on the floor of his apartment, carefully watering plants and complaining that one of them was “being dramatic for attention.” He had a laugh that filled spaces, a voice that went honey-warm when he sang, hands that moved constantly when he talked, and a face that seemed incapable of hiding any emotion for longer than two seconds.

He was a Gemini. Jeno knew that because Donghyuck had once posted a birthday photo wearing a paper crown, cheeks flushed, captioned, “gemini season means everyone has to forgive me.” Jeno, regrettably, was a Taurus. He had not posted about it because he did not post about anything except the occasional coffee, a city view, and one picture of Jaemin’s cats that had accidentally received more likes than any picture of Jeno’s face ever had. But still. Taurus and Gemini. On paper, probably a disaster. In Jeno’s head at two in the morning, somehow perfect. He didn’t really believe in astrology though.

He would picture it without meaning to. That was the most embarrassing part, the one he would take to his grave and deny even under legal pressure. It always began with ordinary things because Jeno’s fantasies, for all their stupidity, were rarely dramatic at first. He imagined Donghyuck in his kitchen, leaning against the counter while Jeno cooked because Donghyuck had announced he was helping and then done absolutely nothing except steal ingredients and talk. He imagined Donghyuck coming home from some trip, loud suitcase wheels rattling at the door, hair messy from the flight, talking before he had even taken off his shoes because he had seen something funny and needed Jeno to know immediately. He imagined lying in bed while Donghyuck edited videos beside him, one foot tucked under Jeno’s thigh for warmth, headphones around his neck, occasionally shoving the screen toward him to ask, “Is this funny or have I watched it too many times?” He imagined taking walks at night because Donghyuck had restless energy and Jeno pretended to be annoyed but got dressed anyway. He imagined Donghyuck dragging him to places he would never choose on his own, and then, somehow, always bringing him home before Jeno became too tired, as if he understood that Jeno could love the world in small doses but needed quiet to survive. He imagined Donghyuck’s camera pointed at everything except him because Jeno would hide behind his hand, groaning, “Don’t film me,” while Donghyuck laughed and promised, lying badly, “I’m not, you’re barely in frame,” and later Jeno would see his own shoulder, his hand, the edge of his smile, tucked into Donghyuck’s life like proof.

Then his alarm would go off the next morning and he would sit up in bed with his hair flattened on one side, stare at his phone, and think, “You are insane”.
Work helped. Work was a cold shower for the soul. Nobody could fantasize too extravagantly about an influencer when Mr. Kim from finance needed the revised supplier contract by noon and the printer on the seventh floor was jamming again because someone had fed it a thicker type of paper that no one knows where it came from. Jeno’s life during office hours was aggressively unromantic. Fluorescent lights did not care about longing, neither did budget approvals. He handled calls with clients who began sentences with “This should be simple” and then described something that was not simple at all. He was not unhappy. That mattered. He did not hate his life, he was not sitting in a glass building dreaming of rescue by a man with a ring light and a full passport. He had friends, a decent salary, a small but comfortable apartment, a job he was proud of, parents who called too often, and a body that preferred going to bed before midnight. His life was fine. It was steady. It fit him.
And yet, sometimes, on the subway home, pressed between strangers and the dull reflection of his own tired face in the window, his phone would buzz with a notification because Donghyuck had posted a story, and Jeno’s entire stupid chest would lift. It was pathetic.

That Friday, he had been more tired than usual. Not tragically tired, not collapse-on-the-floor tired, just worn thin by a day full of unnecessary urgency. Someone had mislabeled a folder that made three departments briefly believe they were missing two months of procurement records,yet they were not missing them, they were, in fact, exactly where Jeno had said they were. By the time he got home, the sky outside had gone dark blue, the city lights were smearing themselves across the rain-wet streets, and his shoulders ached from sitting too straight. He kicked off his shoes by the door, hung his coat properly because even exhausted he was still Jeno, then stood in the middle of his apartment for a full minute deciding whether he had the strength to cook. The answer was no. The answer was immediately and spiritually no. He opened the fridge anyway, found half an onion, two eggs, and something in a container he did not trust, then closed it with the quiet despair of a man betrayed by his past self.

Delivery was too expensive. He had told himself this many times recently, usually while ordering delivery anyway, but tonight the delivery fees looked personally insulting. He frowned at the app, scrolled through options, watched the total climb with every extra charge, and finally locked his phone with a firm, mature decision that lasted exactly three seconds before he unlocked it again—not to order food, unfortunately, but because his thumb had moved on its own to Instagram.
Donghyuck had posted a new reel.

Jeno should have gotten dressed and gone outside. Instead, he dropped onto his bed in his work shirt and slacks, one sock half-off, and watched Donghyuck sing into a tiny microphone in what looked like someone’s studio, hair hidden under a beanie, face bare, mouth close to the mic as he laughed halfway through a line and said, “No, no, I can do it better, play it again.” The clip cut to a cleaner take. His voice changed when he sang. That was one of the first things Jeno had noticed after falling too deep into the archive. Donghyuck’s speaking voice could be sharp and teasing and bright, but his singing voice had some kind of smoke to it, warmth, something that curled around the melody instead of chasing or fighting it. He had released a handful of songs on Soundcloud—just self-produced tracks and covers and little demos that his followers begged him to put on streaming platforms. Jeno had listened to all of them, of course he had. At first it was because he was curious, and then because the songs were good, and then because there was no lie available that could make him sound normal. He liked Donghyuck’s music. He liked the songs with lazy percussion and bright synths, liked the slower ones where Donghyuck’s voice sounded like late-night streetlights and bad decisions.

The reel ended. Jeno watched it again. Then, because he was tired and hungry and weak, he clicked Donghyuck’s profile. That was all it took, the feed opened like a trap.

There was Donghyuck in Osaka, grinning with takoyaki burning his mouth. Donghyuck in a train window reflection somewhere in Europe, camera raised, lips parted mid-sentence. Donghyuck wearing sunglasses indoors, clearly hungover, captioning the post “never trust musicians after 1 a.m.” Donghyuck with friends Jeno knew by name despite having never met them: Mark, who appeared in music clips and always looked like he was about to say something accidentally profound and sentimental; Renjun, who took most of the nice photos and left comments so dry people would question if he was truly Donghyuck's friend; Chenle, who seemed rich in a way Jeno could not prove but felt deep in his bones; Jisung, younger and awkwardly tall, appearing in the background of vlogs like a startled deer. Jeno knew too much. He knew Donghyuck had gone to London last winter and complained about the cold even though he had packed three coats. He knew Donghyuck liked gummy candy, spicy noodles, old R&B, terrible horror movies, and hotel slippers. He knew Donghyuck hated waking up early but loved sunrises in theory. He knew Donghyuck had once taken the Eurostar from London to Paris because he had missed his first flight after oversleeping, then called it “the universe making my life aesthetic and romantic.” He knew Donghyuck had been to Japan twice and wanted to go again for a longer music project. He knew Donghyuck’s laugh went silent when something was really funny. He knew Donghyuck got quieter around animals and little kids. He knew Donghyuck had a small scar near his jaw that only showed in certain lighting, and really cute freckles on his cheeks. He knew all of this because the internet was an evil place and Jeno apparently had no survival instincts.

He kept scrolling.

At some point, he ended up on a tagged photo from a friend of a friend at some event six months ago. Donghyuck was standing in what looked like a bathroom line at a fancy venue, shoulder pressed to the wall, head tilted as he listened to someone talk. The wallpaper behind him was ornate, all cream and gold and ridiculous old-world elegance, and he looked unfairly beautiful against it, like the kind of angel that would absolutely steal your wallet and then make you apologize for being robbed. Jeno stared at the photo for too long. His chest did something humiliating. There was no sound in the room except rain, the faint buzz of his refrigerator, and the tiny, almost inaudible noise of his own dignity packing a bag and leaving.

“Get up,” Jeno told himself aloud.

He did not get up.

Instead, he imagined it. Because of course he did. He imagined standing there beside Donghyuck in that bathroom line, close enough that their shoulders touched because the hallway was crowded. He imagined Donghyuck turning toward him with that bright, dangerous attention, saying something pointless just to start a conversation. He imagined being funny back, somehow, by miracle or divine possession. He imagined Donghyuck laughing, really laughing, and looking at him like Jeno had surprised him. He imagined the press of people around them forcing them closer, the heat of Donghyuck’s arm against his, the smell of expensive soap and alcohol and rain-damp coats. He imagined thinking, This is the most alive I have ever been, and then immediately wanting to throw up because even in fantasies his body had no chill. He imagined Donghyuck asking if he wanted to leave, if Jeno lived nearby, if he could walk him home, and Jeno saying yes in a voice that did not sound like his own. He imagined going slow. He imagined having a million things to ask. Have you ever stayed in Japan long enough to miss home? Do you actually like traveling alone? Are you as brave as you look? Do you get lonely after the camera turns off? Do you ever want something quiet? Would you hate it, being with someone like me? Would you hold my hand if I hinted badly enough? Would you notice?

His stomach growled so loudly that the fantasy shattered.

Jeno blinked at his phone. Donghyuck’s face smiled back from the screen, unaware and devastating.

“Jesus,” Jeno muttered, sitting up so fast his half-removed sock finally gave up and fell off. “I need food.”

He changed out of his work shirt into a hoodie, kept the slacks because he was not putting in more effort than necessary, and grabbed his wallet, keys, and phone. There was a small place three blocks away that served late-night rice bowls and noodles, cheap enough to be sensible and close enough that he could pretend this was not an outing. The rain had thinned into mist by the time he stepped outside, streetlights glowing soft through the damp air, sidewalks shining black under his sneakers. Jeno pulled his hood up and tucked his hands into his pockets, already regretting being outside but too hungry to turn back. His neighborhood at night was familiar in a way that soothed him: the convenience store clerk arranging cigarettes behind the counter, the old man from the building next door walking his tiny dog in a yellow raincoat, the couple arguing softly under one umbrella, the smell of fried food drifting out from restaurants with fogged windows. It was all ordinary. Perfectly ordinary. Exactly the kind of world where nothing insane happened.

Then Jeno reached the restaurant, opened the door, and saw Lee Donghyuck standing at the counter.

For one spectacular second, his brain simply refused.

It was not even cinematic. There was no spotlight, no music swell, no camera push-in like one of Donghyuck’s vlogs. There was just the warm, greasy smell of broth and grilled meat, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen, a tired cashier in a black apron, and Donghyuck—actual, physical Donghyuck—wearing an oversized denim jacket over a gray hoodie, black hair slightly damp at the ends, one hand holding his phone, the other tapping a rhythm against his thigh while he studied the menu board like it had personally challenged him. He looked shorter than Jeno expected and also somehow more overwhelming. More real, which made him worse. The glow of his phone caught the curve of his cheek. His mouth was pursed in concentration. There was no filter. No edit. No caption. No glass screen making him safe.

Jeno’s body reacted with the calm dignity of a computer catching fire.

His stomach dropped. His pulse jumped to his throat. His hands went cold. For half a second, he considered turning around and walking directly back out into the rain, possibly into traffic, possibly into a monastery. But the door had already chimed, and Donghyuck glanced over his shoulder.

Their eyes met.

Jeno, who had imagined this in at least twelve different humiliating scenarios, discovered that in real life he had no lines. None. His entire personality had been deleted. Donghyuck looked at him for only a second, casual and curious, then smiled politely the way strangers did when acknowledging another human’s entrance into a shared space. It was not flirtatious. It was not meaningful. It was nothing. Jeno’s heart, which had never respected him, treated it like a proposal.

He forced himself forward. Normal. He had to be normal. Donghyuck was just a person. A normal dude. A normal dude whose childhood friend was probably Mark, whose Paris vlog from last November had 243,000 views, whose head shook a little when he ate something delicious, whose unreleased bridge in that one demo made Jeno stare at the ceiling for five straight minutes. Normal.

Donghyuck turned back to the cashier. “Okay, wait, sorry, I lied. I panicked. Can I change the spicy pork to the chicken mayo? No, actually—” He stopped himself, grimacing. “Do you hate me?”

The cashier, clearly immune to beauty and chaos through repeated exposure to customers, said, “A little.”

Donghyuck laughed, bright and immediate. “Fair. I deserve that. Chicken mayo, please. Final answer.”

Jeno’s chest hurt.

He stood a safe distance behind him and looked at the menu as if he had not ordered the same beef rice bowl from this place for months. He could feel Donghyuck there, a gravitational presence in denim. He could hear him humming under his breath while paying. He could smell rain and something faintly sweet when Donghyuck shifted back from the counter. Jeno stared so hard at the menu that the words blurred.

Then Donghyuck stepped aside and, because the universe had apparently decided Jeno’s life needed to become a social experiment, looked directly at him again.

“You can go,” Donghyuck said, nodding toward the counter. “I’m done making everyone suffer.”

Jeno’s mouth opened. A sound came out. Thankfully, it was almost a word. “Thanks.”

Donghyuck’s smile widened a little, not because he recognized Jeno—why would he?—but because he seemed like the kind of person who smiled easily, recklessly, at strangers in late-night restaurants.

“You look like you already knew what you wanted before you walked in. I respect that.”

Jeno should have said something cool. Or normal. Or both. He said, “I’m boring.”

Donghyuck blinked, then laughed again, softer this time, surprised. “That’s not what I said.”

“No, I mean—” Jeno wanted to pass away. Quietly. Immediately. “I always get the same thing.”

“That’s not boring. That’s loyal.” Donghyuck leaned slightly closer, like this was now a serious discussion between experts. “People don’t appreciate loyal customers enough.”

The cashier cleared their throat.

Jeno turned toward the counter too quickly. “Beef rice bowl, please.”

Donghyuck made a small triumphant noise behind him. “See? Efficient.”

Jeno paid while trying not to fumble his card. His face felt warm. He could feel Donghyuck still nearby, could hear the tiny wet squeak of his sneakers against the floor as he shifted his weight, could sense him in a way that was deeply unfair considering Jeno had spent years successfully ignoring people standing much closer to him on public transport. He wanted to look. He did not look. Looking felt like confession.

The cashier handed him his receipt. “Ten minutes.”

Jeno nodded and moved toward the waiting area by the wall, where two plastic chairs sat beneath a shelf of takeout menus. Donghyuck was already there, scrolling on his phone. For one hopeful, insane second, Jeno thought maybe they would stand in silence and that would be it. He could survive silence. Silence was his natural habitat.

Donghyuck looked up. “So, loyal beef rice bowl customer.”

Jeno’s stomach performed an Olympic-level flip.

“Yes?”

Donghyuck slipped his phone into his pocket. “Is it actually good?”

Jeno stared at him. Donghyuck stared back, expression open, expectant, like Jeno was a trustworthy local guide and not a stranger currently fighting for consciousness.

“It’s good,” Jeno said.

“How good?”

Jeno frowned slightly, because this at least was a question he could answer. Food had categories. Food was not a beautiful influencer speaking to him in the wild. “Good for the price. Better if you eat it here because the egg gets weird in the container if you wait too long. The kimchi is fine. Not amazing. But the sauce is consistent.”

Donghyuck’s face changed as he listened. His smile did not disappear, exactly, but it sharpened into interest, like he had found something unexpectedly entertaining. “Wow.”

Jeno froze. “What?”

“That was very detailed.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no.” Donghyuck waved a hand. “I liked it. You clearly know what you’re talking about.”

Jeno blinked once, then, despite himself, laughed.

It came out quieter than Donghyuck’s laugh, lower, almost startled out of him, but it was real. Donghyuck’s eyes brightened at the sound, and Jeno had the sudden, violent thought that maybe every fantasy he had ever had had been too small. Because imagining Donghyuck laughing through a screen was one thing. Having Donghyuck stand in front of him, damp hair brushing his forehead, smiling because Jeno had made a sound he liked—that was something else entirely. That was a left hook, right punch, straight to the gut. That was nausea and lightheadedness and warmth spilling under his ribs. That was every boring, steady, sensible part of his life briefly lifting off the ground.

Donghyuck tilted his head. “I’m Donghyuck, by the way.”

Jeno knew.

Of course Jeno knew. Jeno knew his birthday, his zodiac sign, his favorite convenience store drink, his entire friend group, and the fact that he had once cried over a dog food commercial during a livestream and then tried to deny it while still visibly tearing up. Jeno knew enough that the only morally correct response would have been to apologize to society. Instead, he arranged his face into what he prayed was mild strangerly recognition and not the haunted expression of a man whose search history should be burned.

“Jeno,” he said.

“Jeno,” Donghyuck repeated, like he was testing the shape of it.

Jeno nearly fainted on the spot.

From the kitchen, someone called, “Chicken mayo!”

Donghyuck looked over, then back at him with an exaggerated sigh. “That’s me. The disloyal customer.”

Jeno’s lips twitched. “You changed your mind before ordering. That’s not disloyal.”

“Defending me already?” Donghyuck picked up the bag from the counter, eyes dancing. “Careful, Jeno. I’ll start expecting it.”

Jeno had no idea what his face did, but Donghyuck laughed again, softer, pleased, and lifted the bag in a tiny goodbye.

“Enjoy your consistent kimchi.”

“Enjoy making everyone suffer,” Jeno said, and immediately wished to be struck by lightning.

But Donghyuck stopped at the door and looked back over his shoulder, delighted. “Oh, I will.”

Then the door chimed, and he was gone into the misty night.

Jeno stood very still.

The restaurant returned to normal around him. The cashier wiped the counter. Someone in the kitchen shouted something about extra radish. A delivery driver came in, helmet tucked under his arm, and asked for an order. The world had the audacity to continue as if Lee Donghyuck had not just spoken Jeno’s name aloud. Jeno looked at the glass door, at the blurry reflection of streetlights beyond it, and felt his heart pounding so hard it was embarrassing. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to call Jaemin and confess everything, except Jaemin would never let him know peace again. He wanted to delete every social media app from his phone and move to the countryside. He wanted Donghyuck to come back.

“Beef rice bowl,” the cashier called.

Jeno startled. “Right.”

He took the bag, thanked them, and walked home in such a daze he almost passed his own building. The rain had stopped. The city smelled clean and metallic, and every streetlight looked too bright, every passing stranger too alive. His food warmed his hand through the plastic bag. His phone sat heavy in his pocket, suddenly less like a portal and more like evidence. When he got inside, he took off his shoes, set the food on the table, removed his hoodie, put it back on because he was cold, then stood in his apartment with the absurd, electric feeling that something had shifted. Nothing had, technically. He had met Donghyuck for less than ten minutes in a cheap restaurant. Donghyuck probably talked to everyone like that. Donghyuck probably forgot him before reaching the end of the block. Donghyuck was an extroverted internet person whose entire job involved making strangers feel seen. Jeno was a corporate administrative employee who gave rice bowls detailed reviews.

Still.

He sat on the edge of his bed instead of at the table, food unopened in front of him, and pulled out his phone. His thumb hovered over Instagram. He told himself not to do it. He told himself he had already crossed enough lines for one evening. He told himself a normal person would eat dinner, watch something calming, go to sleep, and never mention this to anyone.

Then his phone buzzed.

A new story.
From Donghyuck.

Jeno stopped breathing for one stupid second before tapping it open.

The video was shaky, filmed from the sidewalk, Donghyuck holding up his takeout bag with a grin in his voice as he said, “Late dinner acquired after only mildly annoying the cashier. Also got judged by a very serious beef rice bowl loyalist who may or may not have changed my life with a sauce review. Good night.”

The clip ended.

Jeno stared at the screen.

He watched it again.
Then again.

Then he dropped backward onto his bed, one arm thrown over his face, and laughed once, helpless and disbelieving, while his dinner went cold beside him.

He was not delusional, he reminded himself.

He was practical. Sensible. Grounded. A Taurus, for God’s sake.

But somewhere across the neighborhood, Donghyuck had remembered him long enough to post about him, and Jeno, staring up at his ceiling with his heart beating like it had somewhere to be, thought that maybe manifestation was real.

Or maybe he was completely, spectacularly fucked.

–---

Jeno decided, with the full confidence of a man who was absolutely lying to himself, that the restaurant thing would be a one-time incident. A glitch in the universe. A small, strange, humiliatingly beautiful overlap between his private internet habits and the actual world, the kind of coincidence that happened once and then dissolved into memory where it belonged. He told himself Donghyuck would forget him, because of course Donghyuck would forget him. Donghyuck had followers, friends, shoots, songs, schedules, entire comment sections begging him to notice them; Jeno had a tidy apartment, a corporate email signature, and a beef rice bowl order so consistent it had apparently become a personality trait. It made sense. It was comforting. It was realistic. And because Jeno was realistic, he spent the next three days not checking Donghyuck’s story every ten minutes with his heart in his throat. He checked it every fifteen minutes, which was completely different and showed growth.

The worst part was that Donghyuck did not post about him again. That should have helped. It should have restored balance. Instead it made Jeno feel absurdly hollow, which then made him feel so embarrassed that he cleaned his entire bathroom at eleven at night. He told himself the story meant nothing. Donghyuck had probably posted it because he posted everything, because a stranger giving a detailed review of sauce was mildly amusing, because content was content, because Jeno was not special. It was not as if Jeno had expected anything. He had not expected Donghyuck to find him online or fall to his knees or appear outside his office holding flowers and a portable microphone. Jeno was not insane. He just hated that for ten minutes in a cheap restaurant, Donghyuck had made him feel seen in a way that was deeply inconvenient to his preferred lifestyle of emotional repression and early bedtimes.

By Thursday evening, he had almost convinced himself he was normal again.

Then Saturday happened.

Saturday was grocery day because Jeno liked routines and because leaving errands until Sunday made him feel like his life was slowly falling apart. He woke up late, ignored his phone for a heroic twenty-three minutes, made coffee, answered one message from his mother, declined one from Jaemin asking if he wanted to “come do something human,” and went to the grocery store wearing black sweatpants, a beige hoodie, and the vacant expression of someone whose weekend plan involved laundry and maybe cutting his nails if he wasn’t too lazy. The store was busy but not unbearable. He grabbed a basket and moved through the aisles with quiet efficiency, choosing food that would not betray him by going bad too fast. Frozen dumplings. Eggs. Rice. Yogurt cups. Apples because apples could sit there for a while without rotting, a bag of spinach he knew, with tragic certainty, had a fifty percent chance of becoming slime before he remembered it existed. He stood in front of the cleaning supplies next, comparing prices between two bottles of bathroom cleaner as if this was the most important decision in his life, when a voice behind him said, bright and familiar enough to knock the air clean out of his lungs, “Loyal beef rice bowl customer?”

Jeno froze so completely that he probably looked stupid.

There was no way. No. Way.

He turned.

Donghyuck was standing at the end of the aisle beside Mark, one hand wrapped around the handle of a cart, the other holding a package of dish sponges. He was wearing a black cap pulled low over his hair and an oversized green jacket that made him look soft and comfy, smaller in the middle of all the fluorescent grocery store lighting. Not less pretty—Jeno was beginning to suspect that was not possible—but more touchable and reachable in a way that made Jeno’s brain glitch immediately. Mark stood beside him with a basket hanging from his arm, looking between them with open curiosity and the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth, as if he had just recognized a plot point.

Jeno, because he was calm and mature and unaffected, nearly dropped the bathroom cleaner.

“Oh,” he said, which was a word, technically. “Hi.”

Donghyuck’s smile widened like Jeno had done something much more impressive than just stand there holding cleaning products. “You remember me.”

Jeno stared at him. He could have laughed, actually, because the idea of not remembering Donghyuck was so absurd it circled back around to comedy. He remembered Donghyuck in the morning while pouring coffee. He remembered Donghyuck when he passed the rice bowl place. He remembered Donghyuck when he tried to fall asleep and his stupid brain replayed Donghyuck saying his name like it had been recorded professionally and released exclusively to ruin him. But admitting any of that would have gotten him arrested, probably.

“We met four days ago,” Jeno said instead, voice dry enough to pass as normal. “My memory isn’t that bad.”

Donghyuck made a soft, delighted noise. “Good. I was worried I only made an impression on the cashier.”

“You made one on them too,” Jeno said before he could stop himself. “Mostly because you changed your order three times.”

Mark coughed, badly hiding a laugh.

Donghyuck turned to him with betrayal all over his face. “You see? This is what I mean.”

Jeno blinked.

This is what I mean.

The words landed heavily, strangely. He glanced at Mark before he could stop himself, and Mark was already looking at him with an expression like he knew exactly who Jeno was. Not in a famous way. Not recognition from online, because there was nothing online to recognize unless Mark had a passionate interest in low-engagement café photos and Jaemin’s cats. No, Mark looked like Donghyuck had mentioned him. Like Jeno had existed in conversation somewhere beyond the ten minutes at the restaurant. Like Donghyuck had said “the beef rice bowl guy” more than once and Mark had been forced to listen. Jeno felt heat climb up his neck so fast it was almost painful.

Donghyuck noticed.

Donghyuck seemed built to notice things that would destroy Jeno’s peace. His eyes flicked to Jeno’s cheeks, then back to his face, and something playful softened into something more focused, more pleased. He did not say anything about it, which was almost worse. His smile changed shape instead, smaller and warmer, like he was tucking the information away for later.
Jeno wanted to step backward into the shelves and become disinfectant.

Mark, mercifully or maybe cruelly, lifted the basket slightly. “So you’re Jeno.”

Jeno’s brain went blank again.

Donghyuck whipped his head toward Mark. “You say that like you’re a villain in a drama.”

“I just said his name.”

“You said it with tone.”

“I had no tone.”

“You absolutely had a tone.”

Jeno stood between them, bathroom cleaner in one hand, dish soap in the other, realizing with slow horror that Mark did, in fact, know his name. Donghyuck had said his name. To someone else. Out loud. In a context that could not possibly be explained by the cashier’s story alone unless Donghyuck was the kind of person who documented every stranger he met in great detail. Which, okay given his job was not impossible, but still. Still.

“I’m Mark,” Mark said, stepping around Donghyuck’s outrage with the calmness of someone who had long ago accepted his best friend was chaos. “Sorry. He told me about the sauce review.”

Donghyuck pointed at him. “I told you it was a good review.”

“You said it was life-changing.”

“It changed my lunch choice the next day.”

“That’s not what life-changing means.”

“It changed a part of my life.”

Jeno should have laughed politely. Instead he just stared at Donghyuck, probably with an expression too open to be safe, because Donghyuck turned back to him and the bickering faded from his face. For a second,it felt strangely like the world had narrowed again. Donghyuck’s gaze held his as if there were no cart between them, no Mark, no fluorescent lights, no customers squeezing past with muttered apologies. Jeno felt the same dizzy, ridiculous sensation he had felt in the restaurant, that sudden lift under his ribs, that terrifying brightness.

Then Donghyuck glanced down at the bottles in Jeno’s hands. “Are you doing a deep clean or planning a murder?”

Jeno looked at the bathroom cleaner, the dish soap, the pack of scrub sponges in his basket, and then back at him. “Depends how the weekend goes.”

Donghyuck stared.

Mark stared.

For one horrifying second Jeno thought he had overplayed his attempt at humor and said something too deadpan to be socially acceptable. Then Donghyuck burst out laughing so loudly that a woman at the end of the aisle looked over. He leaned into the handle of the cart, shoulders shaking, head dipping forward, and the sound of it hit Jeno square in the chest. It was different in person than in videos. Less controlled. More contagious. Mark started laughing too, though more quietly, and Jeno felt his own mouth curve before he could stop it.

“You’re funny,” Donghyuck said, like an accusation.

Jeno shrugged, trying desperately to look unaffected. “Sometimes.”

“No, not sometimes. You hide it, but it’s there.” Donghyuck narrowed his eyes at him. “Suspicious.”

“You’re suspicious of jokes?”

“I’m suspicious of quiet men with consistent sauce opinions and murder-cleaning supplies.”

Jeno’s face betrayed him again, because Donghyuck’s smile flashed wider.

Mark glanced at his phone, then nudged Donghyuck’s shoulder. “We actually have to go. The studio reservation.”

Donghyuck groaned, throwing his head back dramatically. “Right. My horrible career.”

“You booked it.”

“I make terrible choices.”

“You bought three kinds of cereal for one video.”

“It’s important journalism.”

Jeno tightened his fingers slightly around the bottle he was holding, irrationally disappointed by the reminder that Donghyuck had places to be, videos to film, a life that moved in bursts of light and microphones while Jeno stood still in supermarket aisles comparing cleaning products. It was ridiculous. This interaction had already been longer than it had any right to be. Donghyuck had remembered him. Donghyuck had smiled at him. Donghyuck had apparently talked about him to Mark, which was enough to power Jeno’s delusions for at least one fiscal quarter. He should be grateful and let it end.
Donghyuck looked at him, and for a second he seemed reluctant too.

“Well,” he said, fingers tapping once against the cart handle. “I guess I’ll see you around, Jeno.”

It was casual. A normal phrase. People said it all the time without meaning prophecy.

But Donghyuck said it like he might.

Jeno swallowed. “Yeah. See you.”

Donghyuck walked backward for two steps, still smiling, nearly hit the cart into a display of air fresheners, got scolded by Mark in a whisper that was not quiet at all, and finally turned away laughing. Jeno watched him go until he disappeared around the corner at the end of the aisle. Then he stood there for so long that an employee came by and asked if he needed help finding anything.
Jeno looked down at the bathroom cleaner in his hand.

“No,” he said faintly. “I think I’m good.”

He was not good. He was so far from good that he forgot to buy the eggs, bought two identical bottles of dish soap by mistake, and spent the rest of the day moving through errands like his body had been left on autopilot while his mind replayed every detail of Donghyuck’s face under grocery store lighting. Donghyuck had remembered him. Donghyuck had said his name like it belonged in his mouth. Donghyuck had noticed him blush and chosen not to tease him, which felt dangerously kind. Mark had known who he was. Mark had looked amused. Donghyuck had told Mark about him. It was nothing. It was everything. It was a handful of crumbs, and Jeno, apparently starving, built an entire feast out of them.

After that, the universe started playing with Jenos feelings.

Not immediately in a grand way, it was not as if Donghyuck started appearing outside Jeno’s apartment holding a sign. The coincidences stayed small enough to be deniable, which made them feel even more dangerous. A week later, Jeno saw him near the park on his way home from work, when he had taken the longer route because the weather was unusually nice and he had spent the whole day indoors feeling his spine slowly turn into office furniture. The park was full of late afternoon light, dogs tugging at leashes, old men on benches, couples taking pictures beneath trees that had just begun to flower. Jeno was walking slowly, coat folded over one arm, thinking about dinner and absolutely not about Donghyuck for once, when he heard his name.

“Jeno!”

His whole body turned before his brain caught up.

Donghyuck was jogging toward him from the path by the fountain, camera strap around his wrist, hair pushed off his forehead, cheeks pink from either movement or the cold. He looked bright against the spring air, almost unreal, except he was slightly out of breath when he stopped in front of him, which grounded him enough to be devastating.

“You walk here too?” Donghyuck asked, like this was interesting information and not simply geography.

“Sometimes,” Jeno said. “It’s on my way home.”

“Liar. Nobody accidentally takes this path unless they’re avoiding going home or trying to feel like the main character.”

Jeno stared at him, caught.

Donghyuck’s eyes sparkled. “Which one?”

Jeno looked away, but he was smiling. “Maybe both.”

Donghyuck hummed like he approved of that answer. “Respect.”

A voice called from behind him—someone Jeno vaguely recognized from a vlog, one of Donghyuck’s photographer friends maybe—and Donghyuck winced. “I’m in the middle of taking pictures. Well, Renjun is taking pictures. I’m mostly complaining.”

“Professionally?” Jeno asked.

Donghyuck grinned. “Always.”

It lasted only two minutes. Maybe less. Donghyuck had to run back before Renjun murdered him with a camera lens, and Jeno had to keep walking before his body did something humiliating like float away. But Donghyuck squeezed his arm lightly as he passed, a quick touch, barely anything, and Jeno felt it through his coat for the next three blocks.

The next time was at a convenience store at nearly midnight. Jeno had gone in for sparkling water and left with chips, chocolate, instant noodles, and absolutely no self-respect. Donghyuck was there in sunglasses despite the hour, standing in front of the snack aisle with Jisung, arguing passionately about gummy candy rankings. When he saw Jeno, he smiled so brightly that Jeno forgot what he was holding.

“Beef rice bowl,” Donghyuck said, delighted. “You’re stalking me.”

Jeno lifted an eyebrow, grateful his face had learned one defensive expression. “I live around here.”

“That’s what a stalker would say.”

Jisung, who looked painfully shy and impossibly tall, bowed slightly and then glanced at Donghyuck like he had also heard of Jeno. Jeno was beginning to think Donghyuck had a concerning habit of telling his friends about strangers, or maybe, worse, Jeno was no longer a stranger. The thought followed him home and sat beside him on his couch while he ate chips for dinner, smiling at nothing like an idiot.

Fleeting. Fast. Always interrupted by other people, other plans, the machinery of Donghyuck’s bright life pulling him onward. But every time, Donghyuck saw him. That was the part Jeno could not get over. Donghyuck did not glance through him. He did not offer the polite, vague recognition of someone who knew a face but not its relevance. He looked at Jeno like finding him had become a private joke between them and the universe. Like each coincidence was proof of something neither of them had named yet. Like Jeno was worth stopping for, even if only for two minutes at a time.

Jeno began living in the tiny spaces between those meetings, which was extremely inconvenient because he still had a job.

He would sit through morning briefings while his mind wandered to Donghyuck’s smile in the grocery store. He would update spreadsheets and remember Donghyuck’s fingers brushing his sleeve in the park. He would eat lunch at his desk and wonder, with increasing desperation, what Donghyuck was actually like when no one was filming, when he was tired, when the lights were off, when the city stopped asking things from him. He still watched his videos, but it felt different now. More dangerous, more intimate, guiltier somehow. Before, Donghyuck had been safely distant, a beautiful moving picture on Jeno’s phone. Now, when Donghyuck posted a vlog and laughed at something Mark said off camera, Jeno heard the same laugh that had filled the cleaning aisle.

Then Jaemin ruined everything.

This was not surprising. Jaemin had been placed on earth specifically to ruin Jeno’s peace while claiming it was love. He called on a Friday afternoon when Jeno was still at work, which meant Jeno ignored it. Jaemin immediately texted. Then called again. Then sent a voice message that began with, “Lee Jeno, if you ignore me, I’m telling your mother you eat like a child.” Jeno, concerned mostly because Jaemin had his mother’s number and no shame, called him back from an empty meeting room.

“What,” Jeno said.

“Come to a birthday party with me tomorrow.”

“No.”

“You didn’t even ask whose birthday.”

“I don’t care.”

“Rude. It’s Sungchan’s.”

“I don’t know Sungchan.”

“You’ve met him once.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“He said you had nice shoulders.”

“That counts even less.”

“Jeno,” Jaemin sighed, slipping instantly into the voice he used when he was about to become emotionally manipulative in a way that should have been illegal. “I don’t want to go alone.”

“You know everyone.”

“I know everyone socially. That doesn’t mean I have emotional support.”

“You’re a weird extrovert.”

“Weird extroverts have feelings.”

“You have too many.”

“Exactly. Come contain them.”

Jeno pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where is it?”

There was a pause. Jeno knew immediately. “Jaemin.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Where?”

“A club.”

“No.”

“An underground club.”

“Absolutely not.”

“But a cool one.”

“I hate you.”

“It’s Sungchan’s birthday and he knows half of Seoul, so there’ll be music and people and probably weird lighting, but I promise we can leave early.”

“You always say that and then early becomes two in the morning.”

“This time I mean it.”

“You said that last time.”

“This time I mean it emotionally.”

Jeno should have stood firm. He had plans. The plans were laundry, grocery organization, maybe a movie, but they were plans. More importantly, clubs were loud, crowded, sweaty places designed by people who apparently hated chairs and personal space. Jeno did not belong in them. He belonged in quiet restaurants, parks, convenience stores at midnight, and his own bed. But Jaemin, sensing weakness through the phone like a predator, lowered his voice.

“You’ve been weird lately,” he said, softer. “Not bad weird. Just... somewhere else. Come out with me. One night. You can stand in corners and judge people. Your favorite.”

Jeno closed his eyes.

Emotional manipulation. Textbook.

“Fine,” he muttered.

Jaemin gasped. “I love you.”

“I’m leaving early.”

“Of course.”

“I mean it.”

“Absolutely.”

“I will abandon you.”

“That's hot.”

Jeno hung up.

The next night, standing outside the club entrance with bass already trembling through the pavement beneath his shoes, Jeno regretted every choice that had led him there. The club was underground in the most literal and offensive sense: a narrow staircase leading down from street level into a pulsing red-black glow, guarded by a door staff who looked bored enough to have transcended mortality. Jaemin appeared beside him wearing a jacket that probably cost more than Jeno’s monthly grocery budget, smiling like he had personally invented nightlife.

“You look handsome,” Jaemin said.

“I look like I’m attending my own kidnapping.”

“Exactly. Mysterious.”

“I’m leaving in an hour.”

“You’re adorable when you lie.”

Jeno did not get the chance to argue because Jaemin grabbed his wrist and dragged him down the stairs into heat, noise, and color. The club swallowed them whole. Inside, everything was movement. Music shook through the floor and up Jeno’s legs, lights sweeping over faces in flashes of blue and violet, bodies pressed close around small tables, laughter cutting through bass, glasses shining in people’s hands. It smelled like perfume, alcohol, smoke machine fog, and warm skin. Jeno’s first instinct was to turn around. His second was to murder Jaemin. His third, unfortunately, disappeared when Jaemin leaned close to yell introductions into his ear at a speed that rendered every name useless.

Sungchan, the birthday boy, was tall and bright and immediately friendly, wrapping Jaemin in a hug and then greeting Jeno with such earnest warmth that Jeno felt guilty for wanting to leave. He did, vaguely, remember him now—one of Jaemin’s many orbiting friends, connected through someone’s editor, someone’s roommate, someone’s shoot. Sungchan looked like the sort of person who could know half of Seoul by accident. Every five seconds someone came by to clap him on the back, shout his name, hand him a drink, or demand a photo. Jaemin fit into the chaos naturally, glowing under the attention, one hand occasionally finding Jeno’s sleeve to make sure he had not escaped.

Jeno tried. He really did. He accepted a drink he barely touched. He laughed when Jaemin yelled something rude about Sungchan’s birthday crown. He nodded along to conversations he could only half hear. He leaned against a high table and watched people move around him, feeling large and awkward and too aware of his own hands. The music was good, objectively. The lighting made everyone look expensive and cinematic. Jaemin looked happy. That helped. But after an hour, maybe less, Jeno’s senses began to fray. The bass pressed against his chest too hard. The air felt too warm. Too many people brushed past him. Too many voices overlapped. The exit was up a million stairs through the crowd and past the door, which felt like work, and Jeno did not want to make a scene by dragging Jaemin away when he was currently laughing with Sungchan and three other people like the party had been built around him.

So Jeno chose the bathroom.

It was not a glamorous solution, but it was practical. Bathrooms had doors. Sinks. Mirrors. Maybe cold water. At minimum, they offered the illusion of purpose. He leaned toward Jaemin and shouted, “Bathroom,” receiving a distracted thumbs-up and an exaggerated kissy face in response, then pushed his way through the crowd toward the hallway where a small sign glowed near the back. The noise dulled slightly there, though the bass still throbbed through the walls like a second heartbeat. The hallway was narrower, lined with dark wallpaper and gold-framed mirrors that reflected pieces of people in fragments: glittered eyelids, black jackets, red lips, silver earrings, hands holding drinks. It would have looked elegant if it had not been full of drunk people waiting impatiently for the bathrooms.

The line was long.

Too long.

Jeno almost turned around, but then someone behind him stumbled and another group squeezed past, trapping him in place. Fine. Waiting was fine. Waiting gave him something to do. He could stand still. He was excellent at standing still. He pulled out his phone and opened it, not even looking at anything at first, just letting the familiar rectangle of light center him. He answered one useless message from Jaemin that said, “did u die,” despite the fact that Jaemin had watched him walk away thirty seconds ago. He checked the time. He opened Instagram, regretted it, closed it, opened it again. His thumb hovered over Donghyuck’s story ring, but he did not tap. Not here. Not in public. Not while already overwhelmed and slightly dizzy and surrounded by wallpaper that looked like a budget attempt at Versailles.

The line shifted.

Jeno stepped forward without looking up.

Then someone crashed into him from behind.

It happened fast: a body bumping his shoulder, a spilled apology, the floor slick under one sneaker, Jeno’s balance tipping forward before he could catch it. He had just enough time to tense before he collided with the person in front of him, chest to back, his phone clutched in one hand, his other hand instinctively reaching out and landing at a waist. Warm. Solid. The person in front of him stumbled half a step too, then turned quickly, hands coming up to steady him.

“Whoa, you okay?”

Jeno lifted his head.

Donghyuck.

For one second, the entire club went silent inside Jeno’s body.

Not actually silent. The music was still pounding. People were still talking. Someone behind him was still apologizing too loudly. But Jeno heard none of it clearly because Donghyuck was right there, close enough that Jeno could see the fine shimmer at the corner of his eyes, the tiny moles on his cheek, the way his lips parted around the last word as recognition hit. He was dressed in black, shirt loose at the collar, jacket open, silver chain catching the hallway light. His hair was styled off his forehead but already falling apart slightly from the heat, soft strands brushing his temples. In videos, Donghyuck looked made for cameras. In the grocery store, he had looked charmingly out of place among cleaning supplies. In the park, he looked bright and wind-touched. Here, under the gold-framed mirrors and dim club lights, he looked unreal. Like an angel, if the angel had a dangerous mouth, warm hands, and a tendency to ruin Jeno’s life in increasingly public locations.

“Jeno?” Donghyuck said, and the shock in his voice was so genuine that Jeno’s heart twisted.

Jeno realized, with delayed horror, that they were still touching. Donghyuck’s hands were curled around his forearms, steadying him. Jeno’s hand was still hovering near Donghyuck’s waist, not quite gripping anymore but not entirely gone either. They were almost the same height, close enough to make that obvious, eye to eye in a way Jeno had not fully processed during their other meetings. Jeno knew he was broader, more muscular; he knew that from mirrors, from gym routines, from the way his shirts fit across his shoulders. Donghyuck was leaner, slighter in certain angles, all quick lines and expressive movement. And yet, standing there with Donghyuck’s hands on him and Donghyuck’s attention hitting him full force, Jeno felt impossibly small. Not physically. Just undone. Reduced to the trembling center of himself.

“Sorry,” Jeno said, too quickly. “Someone pushed me. I didn’t— I’m sorry.”

Donghyuck’s grip tightened for half a second, not enough to trap, just enough to reassure. “Hey, it’s fine. I saw. Are you okay?”

Jeno nodded. His face was burning. “Yeah.”

Donghyuck’s eyes moved over him, checking anyway. Jeno hated and loved it with equal intensity. “You sure?”

“Yes.” Jeno cleared his throat, attempting to rebuild a personality from scraps. “I’m good. I’m just... in a bathroom line.”

Donghyuck stared at him, then laughed.

There it was. That laugh. Warm and bright and a little breathless, folding the hallway around them like it belonged to him. Jeno felt it land everywhere.

“That you are,” Donghyuck said. “Very observant.”

Jeno looked away, but there was nowhere safe to look. Every mirror caught some piece of Donghyuck: the slope of his neck, the shine of his chain, the curve of his smile. The hallway was too narrow. The line was too slow. People pressed behind Jeno, in front of Donghyuck, beside them, leaving them trapped in a closeness that felt accidental and not accidental enough. Donghyuck still had one hand on his arm. He seemed to realize it at the same moment Jeno did, because his fingers loosened, but instead of stepping away completely, he let his hand slide down to Jeno’s wrist for one brief, electric second before dropping.

Jeno’s lungs stopped working like a normal organ.

Donghyuck tilted his head. “What are you doing here?”

“My friend dragged me.”

“Jaemin?”

Jeno blinked. “You know Jaemin?”

“Not well. I know of Jaemin. Everybody knows of Jaemin.” Donghyuck’s mouth curved. “He came with Sungchan, right?”

“Technically I came with Jaemin, who came for Sungchan.”

“Ah. Victim of extrovert transportation.”

“That’s exactly what happened.”

Donghyuck laughed again, and this time Jeno smiled before he could contain it.

“Mark did that to me and Chenle,” Donghyuck said, leaning back against the wall as the line shifted another small step. “Except I actually like clubs sometimes, so I can’t complain too much. He had a thing earlier, though, so he left me here with people who keep trying to make me dance.”

“You don’t dance?”

“I dance when I want to. Huge difference.” Donghyuck glanced down the hallway toward the main room, where light flashed across the doorway. “Tonight I’m mostly here because Sungchan helped with one of my shoots last month, and if I didn’t show up he would send me sad giant-man texts.”

Jeno huffed. “Jaemin sends those too.”

“Sad giant-man texts?”

“Sad beautiful-man texts.”

Donghyuck’s smile sharpened. “Beautiful?”

Jeno realized what he had said. “Objectively.”

“Sure.”

“He is.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t.” Donghyuck’s eyes gleamed. “Interesting that you clarified.”

Jeno looked at his phone as if it could save him. It could not. “You’re annoying.”

Donghyuck’s expression did something terrible—softened and brightened at the same time, like he had been waiting for Jeno to speak to him that way. He laughed fondly and the sound went through Jeno embarrassingly fast. Like Donghyuck had been looking for him beneath the politeness, beneath the panic, beneath the careful stranger manners. Jeno felt too warm. The hallway was definitely too warm. The entire underground club was a health hazard and possibly a trap designed specifically for him.

The line moved again. Someone left the bathroom; someone else cheered ironically. Donghyuck stepped back, then seemed to reconsider when the crowd behind Jeno shoved forward another inch. They ended up close again, not pressed like before but near enough that Jeno could feel the heat of him, smell something clean and sweet under the club air. He tried very hard not to think about the lyric he had listened to earlier that week, the one that had been stuck in his head without permission: all pressed up in the bathroom line. Life, apparently, had a cruel sense of humor and a playlist.

Donghyuck’s gaze dropped briefly to Jeno’s phone. “Were you scrolling to survive?”

Jeno glanced at the screen, still open to nothing useful. “Maybe.”

“Overwhelmed?”

The question was too accurate, too gentle. It caught Jeno off guard more than teasing would have. He looked at Donghyuck, expecting a joke to follow, but Donghyuck’s face was open now. Not pitying. Not dramatic. Just noticing.

“A little,” Jeno admitted.

Donghyuck nodded like that made perfect sense. “It’s loud.”

“You like loud.”

“Sometimes.” Donghyuck’s shoulder brushed the wall. “Doesn’t mean I don’t know when it’s too much.”

Jeno did not know what to say to that. There was an entire version of Donghyuck Jeno had invented from videos: bright, restless, fearless, always moving. And that version was real, obviously. But then there was this too. Donghyuck in a crowded hallway, voice pitched lower so Jeno could hear him without straining, expression soft with understanding he had no obligation to offer. Donghyuck, who could fill a room and still recognize when someone else needed a smaller corner of it. Jeno’s chest ached in a way that felt dangerous because it was not just attraction now, not just the shock of a pretty face or the thrill of being remembered. It was worse. It was the terrible unfolding suspicion that Donghyuck might be kind.

“Do you want to get out of the line?” Donghyuck asked.

Jeno blinked. “What?”

Donghyuck nodded toward the end of the hallway. “There’s another bathroom upstairs. It’s technically for staff and people who know where it is, but Sungchan showed me earlier because I looked like I was about to fight a soap dispenser.”

Jeno stared. “You fought a soap dispenser?”

“It started it by not working.” Donghyuck held out a hand, not quite touching him. “Come on. Unless you’re emotionally attached to this line.”

Jeno looked at the line. It had barely moved. Someone behind them was now complaining about their ex in impressive detail. The air smelled stronger by the second, and the bass kept thudding through the wall. Donghyuck’s hand hovered between them, palm up, casual but not careless.

Jeno knew he should hesitate.

He did hesitate, technically. For about one second.

Then he put his hand in Donghyuck’s.

It was not dramatic. Their fingers did not lace immediately. There was no gasp, no world-ending spark visible to the naked eye. Donghyuck simply closed his hand around Jeno’s and tugged him gently out of the line, weaving through people with the ease of someone used to making paths where none existed. Jeno followed, heart pounding so hard he was sure Donghyuck could feel it through their joined hands. His palm was warm. His grip was confident. Jeno stared at the back of his head, then at their hands, then at the narrow hallway opening into another corridor near the club’s service area, and thought with sudden, stunning clarity that he had been dropping hints to no one for weeks in his own head, imagining Donghyuck’s hand in his, wondering if he would ever know what it felt like, and now it was happening because Donghyuck had offered like it was easy.

They climbed a short set of stairs near the back, not the million at the entrance but enough to dull the music slightly with every step. Donghyuck did not let go until they reached a quieter landing outside a plain black door marked staff only. The air up there was cooler. Jeno inhaled like he had surfaced from underwater.

Donghyuck turned to him. “Better?”

Jeno nodded, still aware of the ghost of Donghyuck’s hand around his. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Donghyuck studied him for a moment, then grinned. “You looked like you were two minutes away from becoming part of the wallpaper.”

“It was ugly wallpaper.”

“Exactly. Tragic fate.”

Jeno laughed, quieter now, easier in the reduced noise. Donghyuck watched him do it, and something about his attention made Jeno look away first. The landing was narrow, lit by one warm bulb overhead. Downstairs, the club continued without them, muffled and distant, but up here it felt strangely separate. A hidden pocket of quiet above all the chaos. Jeno could still hear people moving below, could still feel the bass faintly through the floor, but Donghyuck was close and everything else seemed less important.

“So,” Donghyuck said, leaning one shoulder against the wall. “We keep meeting.”

Jeno’s mouth felt dry. “Seoul is big.”

“Very big.”

“Statistically, this is weird.”

“Very weird.”

Jeno looked at him. Donghyuck was smiling, but there was something beneath it now, something careful and curious. The kind of look that made Jeno feel like the joke had carried them as far as it could and they were standing at the edge of something else.

“Maybe you’re stalking me,” Donghyuck said lightly.

Jeno almost choked.

It was so violently close to the truth that his entire body tried to exit through his ears. “I’m not.”

Donghyuck’s eyebrows lifted.

“I’m not,” Jeno repeated, too fast, which did not help at all.

Donghyuck’s smile widened, but he did not pounce on the panic the way he could have. “Relax, I’m kidding.”

Jeno looked at the floor, then muttered, “It would be hard to stalk someone by grocery shopping and needing the bathroom.”

“That’s what makes it genius. No one suspects errands.”

Jeno huffed. “You caught me. I’ve been planning this for weeks. Cleaning supplies, park walk, midnight snacks, bathroom line. Very elaborate.”

Donghyuck laughed, head tipping back against the wall. In the warm landing light, the line of his throat looked soft, impossible. Jeno looked away before his thoughts became visible.

“I knew you were funny,” Donghyuck said when he recovered. “Mark didn’t believe me.”

Jeno’s pulse jumped. “You told Mark I was funny?”

“I told Mark you reviewed sauce like a real food critic and then made a murder joke in the cleaning aisle.”

“You talk about strangers a lot?”

Donghyuck’s smile slowed.
There. Jeno felt it immediately, the shift. Not bad. Not uncomfortable. Just a quiet tightening of the air between them. Donghyuck looked at him for a long second, eyes bright in the low light, and Jeno wished he could pull the words back, not because he did not want the answer but because he wanted it too much.

“Not usually,” Donghyuck said.

Jeno’s heart forgot its job.

Donghyuck seemed to realize what he had admitted only after saying it. His own gaze flicked away for half a second, a small laugh leaving him as he rubbed the back of his neck. It was the first time Jeno had seen him look even slightly caught off guard, and the sight was so endearing it made him want to sit down.

“Oh,” Jeno said, because apparently when faced with direct emotional sunlight, he reverted to one-syllable survival.

Donghyuck looked back at him. “Oh?”

“No, I just—” Jeno stopped. There were too many things he could say and all of them were dangerous. He wanted to ask why. He wanted to ask what Donghyuck had said. He wanted to ask if Donghyuck smiled at everyone like this, if he remembered everyone like this, if his friends looked amused because they knew something Jeno did not. He wanted to say that he had known Donghyuck before Donghyuck had known him, in a distant, embarrassing, internet-shaped way. He wanted to confess that he had watched his Japan vlog twice and liked his music and thought his voice sounded best when he forgot the camera was on. He wanted to say, I always had this stupid vision of us, which was an insane thing to say to someone on a nightclub landing.

So he said, “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

Donghyuck’s face softened.

The noise below seemed to fall further away.

“Why not?” Donghyuck asked.

Jeno gave him a look. “You meet a lot of people.”

“Yeah.”

“And I was just...” Jeno gestured vaguely, embarrassed by his own existence. “There.”

Donghyuck pushed off the wall slightly. “You weren’t just there.”

Jeno swallowed.

Donghyuck looked like he might say more. For one breath, he looked like the words were right there, like he was deciding whether to let them out. Then the staff-only bathroom door opened, and a woman stepped out, glancing between them with the bored, all-knowing expression of someone who had seen every possible nightclub hallway drama. Donghyuck shifted aside with a polite smile, and the moment cracked enough for air to get in.

“Bathroom’s free,” he said, voice lighter again.

“Right.” Jeno nodded, grateful and disappointed at once. “Thanks.”

He stepped inside, shut the door, and immediately pressed both hands to the sink, staring at himself in the mirror.

He looked flushed. Not a little. Not subtly. His cheeks were pink, his hair slightly mussed from the humidity and the accidental collision, his eyes too bright. He looked alive in a way he did not usually look at eleven p.m. after being dragged to a club. He looked like someone on the brink of a very bad decision or a very good one. Maybe both.

“You weren’t just there,” he whispered to his own reflection, then closed his eyes in agony. “Get it together.”

He splashed cold water on his hands, took several slow breaths, and tried to calm down. It did not work. Every part of him was aware that Donghyuck was waiting outside. Or maybe not waiting. Maybe he had gone back downstairs. Maybe the moment had passed. Maybe Jeno would open the door and find an empty landing, which would be normal and fine and possibly for the best.
He opened the door.

Donghyuck was still there.

He was leaning against the opposite wall, scrolling on his phone, but he looked up immediately when Jeno stepped out. The smile that appeared was smaller than his usual one, less performative, more private.

Jeno’s chest did something stupid again.

“Better?” Donghyuck asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Neither of them moved.
Downstairs, someone shouted Sungchan’s name. Music surged as a door opened, then muffled again. The landing seemed even smaller now.

Donghyuck slipped his phone into his pocket. “Do you want to go back down?”

Jeno thought about the crowd, the lights, Jaemin probably dancing with three people he had met six minutes ago, the drink abandoned on a table, the polite conversations he did not have the energy to finish. Then he looked at Donghyuck. Donghyuck, who was watching him like his answer mattered.

“Not really,” Jeno admitted.

Donghyuck’s smile flickered. “Me neither.”

Jeno felt the words before Donghyuck said them, like the air had leaned in first.

“There’s an exit up here,” Donghyuck said. “Not the main one. It goes to the alley beside the club.” He paused, then added, softer, “We could get some air.”

Jeno’s heart pounded. The sensible part of him, distant and faint, pointed out that leaving a party through a side exit with the man he had been secretly obsessed with for weeks was not normal behavior. The rest of him, louder and much more persuasive, remembered Donghyuck’s hand in his, Donghyuck’s laugh in the grocery aisle, Donghyuck saying not usually, Donghyuck looking at him like he had not simply stumbled into his life but arrived.

Jeno nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Air sounds good.”

Donghyuck’s smile turned bright enough to hurt.

This time, when he reached for Jeno’s hand, he did not pretend it was only to guide him. His fingers slid between Jeno’s, warm and sure, and Jeno let them, pulse jumping as Donghyuck tugged him toward the side door and away from the noise. For a second, right before they stepped into the cool night air, Jeno looked down at their joined hands and thought of every night he had spent bored in bed, scrolling through someone else’s life and imagining impossible things. He had thought the fantasies were the dangerous part. The delusion. The embarrassing little private sickness.

He had been wrong.

The dangerous part was that reality, somehow, was starting to feel better.

The side exit opened into an alley that smelled faintly of rain, cigarette smoke, and the kind of cold night air that made Jeno’s lungs remember they were useful. For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. The club door shut behind them with a heavy metallic click, cutting the music down to a muffled pulse under the pavement, and suddenly the world felt wider, cooler, almost too real. Jeno stood there with Donghyuck’s hand still in his, their fingers linked like they had been doing this for longer than twelve seconds, and stared at the thin strip of sky visible between the buildings. No stars, of course. Seoul rarely gave anything away for free. Just the gray-black glow of the city, a few wires, a buzzing sign at the mouth of the alley, and Donghyuck beside him breathing out a laugh like he had escaped something.

“God,” Donghyuck said, tipping his head back. “I love Sungchan, but I think that club was trying to liquefy my organs.”

Jeno looked at him. “You said you liked clubs.”

“I said sometimes.” Donghyuck squeezed his hand once before letting go, and Jeno immediately missed the pressure with an intensity that felt medically concerning. “Tonight started as sometimes and became absolutely not around the third remix of the same song.”

“I thought it was all the same song.”

Donghyuck turned to him, offended. “Wow.”

“What?”

“You have to respect the craft.”

“I respect silence.”

“That checks out.” Donghyuck started walking toward the end of the alley, glancing over his shoulder with a smile. “Come on, respectful silence man. There’s a convenience store around the corner.”

Jeno followed because apparently that was simply what his body did now. Donghyuck walked like he had never been unsure of where to go in his life, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, shoulders loose, face turning toward every little sound and flicker of light as if the city existed to entertain him. Jeno walked beside him with his hands half-curled at his sides, still feeling the shape of Donghyuck’s fingers between them. He should have felt awkward. He was good at awkward. Awkward was his native language. But somehow, the night made space for them. The club had been too loud, too tight, too crowded with people who seemed to know exactly how to exist under flashing lights, but out here the streets were damp and nearly empty, restaurants closing their shutters, taxis sliding past, neon signs reflected in puddles. Donghyuck’s presence did not crowd him the way the party had. It warmed the air without taking all of it.

“So,” Donghyuck said after half a block, “you survived being kidnapped by Jaemin.”

Jeno huffed. “Barely.”

“He seems fun.”

“He is fun. That’s the problem.”

Donghyuck laughed. “Fun is a problem?”

“Jaemin’s kind of fun is. He says things like ‘one drink’ and then suddenly you’re at karaoke with six strangers and someone named Minho is crying into a tambourine.”

“That sounds amazing.”

“It was a Tuesday.”

“That sounds more amazing.”

Jeno shook his head, but he was smiling. “You’d get along with him.”

“Should I be worried that you sound resigned?”

“You should be worried if he decides he likes you.”

“Why?”

“Because then you’ll never know peace again.”

Donghyuck glanced at him, smile curving slow. “Maybe I don’t want peace.”

Jeno’s step faltered for half a second, barely enough to notice. Donghyuck noticed anyway. His eyes flashed with amusement, but he let the moment breathe instead of pouncing on it, which was somehow worse than teasing because it left Jeno alone with the echo of his own reaction. Maybe I don’t want peace. A simple sentence. Probably nothing. Except it settled in Jeno’s chest like a match dropped onto dry paper.

The convenience store appeared at the corner, bright and clean and painfully ordinary, its windows glowing white against the dark street. Jeno had been in stores like this hundreds of times alone, usually in sweatpants, usually buying sparkling water or instant noodles or snacks he pretended were not dinner. Walking into one beside Donghyuck felt absurdly intimate, like stepping into an alternate version of his own life where ordinary things came alive just because Donghyuck was there to comment on them. The automatic door chimed. Warm air brushed their faces. A sleepy cashier looked up, then immediately back down at their phone. The fluorescent lights flattened everything into clarity: rows of chips, candy, drinks, triangle kimbap, cup noodles, tiny desserts in plastic cases. Donghyuck sighed happily.

“Civilization,” he said.

“You say that like we crossed a desert.”

“We crossed a nightclub.”

“Fair.”

Donghyuck grabbed a small basket, then held it out to Jeno with exaggerated ceremony. “You seem like someone who makes responsible snack decisions.”

Jeno took it. “That is the worst first impression anyone has ever had of me.”

“But am I wrong?”

Jeno looked into the basket, then at the snack shelves. “Depends what you consider responsible.”

“Anything that won’t make me feel like death tomorrow.”

“You were at a birthday party in an underground club. Snacks are not your main problem.”

Donghyuck pointed at him, eyes bright. “There. That. That’s why I like talking to you.”

Jeno forgot how to respond.

It was too direct. Too casual. Too much like being handed something fragile without warning. Donghyuck said it easily, as if liking talking to Jeno was not an earth-shifting confession but an obvious fact, like the store having lights or the night being cold. Jeno looked down quickly and pretended to examine two flavors of chips, because if he looked at Donghyuck too long, his face would reveal everything. Every stupid scroll. Every private fantasy. Every impossible version of their life he had once imagined from behind a phone screen.

“What snacks do you like?” Jeno asked, voice steadier than he felt.

Donghyuck accepted the change of subject with a little smile that suggested he had seen right through him and was choosing mercy. “Gummy candy. Spicy chips. Those little chocolate mushroom things. Anything peach flavored. Sometimes banana milk, but only when I’m emotionally unstable.”

“Specific.”

“I’m a specific person.”

“I noticed.”

Donghyuck grinned. “Have you?”

Jeno put a bag of spicy chips into the basket just to have something to do with his hands. “You make it difficult not to.”

The words left his mouth before he had time to file them through any reasonable filter. He froze immediately, fingers still curled around the edge of the basket. Donghyuck went quiet beside him. Not silent in a bad way. Just still, like the air between them had paused to listen.

Then Donghyuck said, softer, “Good.”

Jeno’s heart thudded once, hard.

He looked at him.

Donghyuck was standing too close now, one shoulder almost brushing Jeno’s, his face turned slightly away like he was pretending to study the snack shelf. But his mouth was curved. Not his bright camera smile. Not his playful grin. Something smaller, pleased and almost shy around the edges. It made Jeno feel lightheaded.

He cleared his throat and moved down the aisle. “Do you want ramen?”

Donghyuck followed, laughing under his breath. “Are you changing the subject because you flirted with me?”

“I didn’t flirt.”

“Oh, you absolutely flirted.”

“I made an observation.”

“You observed me into cardiac arrest.”

Jeno’s ears burned. “You’re dramatic.”

“I’m an influencer. Drama pays my rent.”

“Does it?”

“Partially. Sponsored skincare also helps.”

Jeno laughed, and after that it became easier. Somehow, impossibly, it became easy. They moved through the convenience store slowly, picking snacks with the seriousness of two people preparing for a journey instead of avoiding their friends for a few more stolen minutes. Donghyuck narrated his choices like he was filming, lifting items toward an imaginary camera and declaring, “This one tastes like childhood and poor decisions,” while Jeno placed things back on the shelf when Donghyuck tried to buy three nearly identical candies because “the packaging has different energy.” Jeno found himself talking more than he expected. Not loudly, never as freely as Donghyuck, but enough. Donghyuck asked questions like he actually wanted the answers, and Jeno, against every instinct that told him to stay quiet and polite and safely unknowable, answered them.

They bought two drinks, spicy chips, peach gummies, chocolate mushrooms, and chewing gum because Donghyuck threw it into the basket at the last second and said, “For the walk. It gives us purpose.” They ended up sitting at the small counter by the window, the kind with three stools facing the street and a ledge barely wide enough for their snacks. Outside, the city moved in late-night fragments: a couple sharing an umbrella though it was no longer raining, a delivery driver smoking beside his scooter, a taxi slowing at the curb and then pulling away. Inside, the store hummed around them. It was not romantic. Not technically. The lighting was terrible, the stools were uncomfortable, and Donghyuck had a smear of chip seasoning on his thumb.

Jeno had never been happier.

Donghyuck pulled out his phone after swallowing half a mouthful of banana milk and said, “Wait, I want to show you something.”

Jeno tried not to react too strongly to Donghyuck turning his screen toward him. This was different from stalking. This was Donghyuck offering, which made it feel almost sacred in a deeply ridiculous convenience store way. The video opened on raw footage, unedited and shaky, from what looked like the studio Mark had mentioned. Donghyuck was in the frame, sitting cross-legged on a couch surrounded by cereal boxes, holding a spoon like a microphone.

“This is for a video?” Jeno asked.

“Yes. Important journalism.”

“It’s cereal.”

“It’s imported cereal. Very different.”

On screen, Mark’s voice came from behind the camera. “You can’t call this journalism.”

Video Donghyuck gasped. “I’m educating the masses.”

The clip jumped to Donghyuck trying a spoonful, making an expression of profound betrayal, then pointing accusingly at the box. “This tastes like a candle in a dentist’s office.”

Jeno laughed before he could stop himself, low and sudden. Donghyuck looked away from the phone and watched him instead of the clip, his smile turning pleased in a way that made Jeno’s chest feel too full.

“What?” Jeno asked, catching him.

“Nothing.” Donghyuck looked back at the screen too quickly. “You have a good laugh.”

Jeno stared at him.

Donghyuck kept scrolling through clips like he had not just reached over, taken Jeno’s heart out of his chest, complimented it, and placed it back upside down. “This part I might cut because Mark says it’s too chaotic, but I think he’s wrong.”

Jeno watched the next clip in a daze, hyperaware of Donghyuck’s knee almost touching his under the counter. The raw footage was funnier than the finished videos somehow. Messier. Donghyuck stopped and started sentences, repeated jokes until they landed right, broke into laughter when Mark made dry comments off-camera, checked lighting in the reflection of a microwave door, then suddenly became focused when listening back to audio. It fascinated Jeno, seeing the seams. The public Donghyuck looked effortless, all brightness and timing, but here was the work behind it: the patience, the attention, the repetition, the instinct for what would feel alive later. It made Jeno respect him more. It also made his crush much worse, which felt unnecessary because it had already been in critical condition.

“You make it look easy,” Jeno said.

Donghyuck paused the clip. “That’s the trick.”

“Is it hard?”

“Sometimes.” Donghyuck leaned his elbow on the counter, chin near his hand. “Not filming, exactly. I like filming. I like talking. Shocking, I know.”

Jeno’s mouth twitched. “Never would’ve guessed.”

“But keeping up with it is hard. Editing, posting, emails, sponsors, analytics, pretending I understand analytics.” Donghyuck made a face. “People think it’s just eating cereal on camera and traveling, but sometimes it’s three in the morning and I’m trying to make one thirty-second clip feel natural while my laptop sounds like it’s about to ascend.”

Jeno nodded. “That sounds familiar.”

“You edit videos?”

“No.” Jeno picked at the edge of the gum wrapper. “But my job is a lot of making messy things look clean before other people see them.”

Donghyuck turned toward him with immediate interest. “Okay, wait. Tell me about your boring job.”

“It is boring.”

“I want to know.”

“You really don’t.”

“I really do.”

Jeno believed him. That was the strange thing. Donghyuck looked at him with the same curiosity he brought to unfamiliar streets and convenience store snacks and people in his videos, but there was nothing performative about it now. No camera. No audience. Just Donghyuck, waiting.

So Jeno told him. Haltingly at first, because explaining corporate administrative work to someone like Donghyuck felt like offering plain toast at a banquet. He talked about his office, his department, the schedules, reports, contracts, internal systems, the endless little tasks that kept things from collapsing. He made it sound as dull as it was, but Donghyuck listened like Jeno was describing a secret city. He asked what Jeno liked about it. Jeno almost said nothing out of reflex, then realized that was not true.

“I like the routine,” he admitted. “I like knowing what has to be done. I like when things have a place. When people come to me because they know I’ll know where something is.” He shrugged, embarrassed. “It’s not exciting, but it feels... stable.”

Donghyuck’s expression softened. “That doesn’t sound boring.”

Jeno looked down.

“It sounds like you make things easier for people,” Donghyuck said.

Jeno’s throat felt tight in a way that annoyed him. He was not about to get emotional over someone understanding administrative work in a convenience store at midnight. That would be ridiculous.

“It’s still mostly spreadsheets,” he said.

Donghyuck smiled. “Sexy spreadsheets.”

Jeno choked on air.

Donghyuck laughed so hard he had to grip the counter. “Sorry, sorry, your face—”

“Don’t ever say that again.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“You should.”

“I won’t.”

Jeno tried to glare, but he was laughing too, helplessly, the sound coming easier now. That was the frightening part. Everything came easier with Donghyuck than it should have. Jeno had known him, really known him, for maybe a handful of scattered minutes before tonight, and yet talking to him felt less like starting from nothing and more like catching up to something that had already been waiting. They moved from work to music, from music to travel, from travel to the fact that Jeno had never been to Japan despite always wanting to go, which made Donghyuck slap the counter lightly and say, “No, that’s unacceptable, we have to fix that,” before immediately freezing for half a second at his own we. Jeno heard it. Donghyuck heard it. Neither of them corrected it.
Donghyuck told him about Tokyo convenience stores and late-night ramen shops and getting lost in a neighborhood so quiet he had felt like he was inside someone else’s dream. Jeno told him he liked the idea of traveling more than the reality of airports. Donghyuck said airports were terrible but train stations were romantic if you were dramatic enough. Jeno asked if the Eurostar was actually worth it or if Donghyuck had romanticized it because he missed a flight. Donghyuck gasped like Jeno had accused him of tax fraud.

“You saw that video?”

Jeno’s soul left his body.

For one terrible second, there it was: the internet version of their relationship, the one Jeno had not confessed, stepping into the light between them. He had been careless. Too comfortable. He looked at Donghyuck, heart in his throat, ready to mumble something vague about seeing clips sometimes, about algorithms, about Jaemin sending him things.

But Donghyuck did not look creeped out.

He looked delighted.

“You watched my Eurostar disaster vlog?” he asked, leaning closer. “That one is long.”

Jeno forced himself not to combust. “It came up.”

“Came up where?”

“Online.”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrowed playfully. “Very specific.”

“On the internet.”

“Ah yes, that small place.”

Jeno rubbed a hand over his face, laughing despite the heat burning up his neck. “Jaemin sent me one of your videos months ago, and then the algorithm kept showing me more.”

“That sounds fake but flattering.”

“It’s true.”

“Which video did he send?”

Jeno hesitated.

Donghyuck leaned closer. “Now you have to tell me.”

“The Paris hotel one,” Jeno admitted.

Donghyuck’s face lit up. “Haunted aristocrats!”

Jeno laughed. “That one.”

“Oh my god. That room was insane. The walls looked like they were judging me.”

“They were.”

“Thank you. Nobody believed me.” Donghyuck opened his drink again, shaking his head. “So you knew who I was at the restaurant?”

Jeno went very still.

There was no accusation in Donghyuck’s voice. Only curiosity. Still, Jeno felt the truth pressing hot under his skin. He could lie. He should probably lie. A small lie. A polite lie. Something like, I recognized you a little. But Donghyuck was looking at him too openly, and the night had been too easy, too good, for Jeno to hide behind something flimsy.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

Donghyuck’s smile softened into something unreadable. “And you pretended you didn’t?”

“I didn’t want to be weird.”

“You thought recognizing me was weird?”

“I thought saying ‘I know who you are because I’ve watched your videos when I can’t sleep’ might be weird.”

Donghyuck blinked.

Jeno closed his eyes. “That sounded less bad in my head.”

“No,” Donghyuck said quickly, and when Jeno opened his eyes again, Donghyuck’s face was warm. Too warm. “No, it’s not bad. I mean, it’s literally what I post them for. People watch them. That’s the point.”

“Still.”

“Still,” Donghyuck echoed, but gently. “You were trying to be normal.”

“Desperately.”

“You were bad at it.”

Jeno let out a helpless laugh. “I know.”

“But cute.”

Jeno stopped laughing.

Donghyuck seemed to realize what he had said a beat too late. His mouth parted slightly, then closed. He looked at Jeno, and for the first time all night, the brightness of him flickered into something nervous. Not regret. Just awareness. A line crossed by accident, or maybe not by accident at all.

Jeno’s hand tightened around his drink.

The cashier dropped something behind the counter. Both of them startled like guilty teenagers.

Donghyuck laughed under his breath, shaking his head. “Anyway.”

“Anyway,” Jeno repeated, because his vocabulary had once again been reduced by Donghyuck’s existence.

They moved on because they had to, but the word cute stayed between them like another person at the counter, swinging its legs and smiling smugly. Somehow, after that, they discovered more things. Similar movies. Horror, especially, though Donghyuck liked to pretend he was braver than he was and Jeno immediately saw through it.

“I am great with horror,” Donghyuck insisted.

“You screamed in that one haunted house vlog because a curtain moved.”

“That curtain had malicious energy.”

“It was fabric.”

“You weren’t there.”

“I saw the footage.”

“Edited footage. Very biased.”

“You edited it.”

“Exactly. Biased against me for comedy.”

Jeno shook his head, smiling into his drink. “You’d be terrible at horror games.”

Donghyuck slapped a hand over his heart. “I’ll have you know I am excellent at horror games.”

“You scream?”

“I scream strategically.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It is when it gets views.”

Jeno laughed, and Donghyuck grinned, triumphant. They talked about games they liked, and Donghyuck lit up when Jeno mentioned Pokémon, turning fully toward him on the stool like this was the real interview. Jeno found out Donghyuck had strong opinions about starter choices, unnecessarily personal grudges against certain gym leaders, and a dramatic attachment to cute but impractical teams. Jeno, who built balanced teams with embarrassing seriousness, made the mistake of saying so and was immediately accused of being “hot but emotionally unavailable in Pokémon form.”

“Hot?” Jeno repeated before he could stop himself.

Donghyuck froze.

Jeno froze.

Then Donghyuck picked up a gummy candy and put it in his mouth with exaggerated calm. “I said what I said.”

Jeno stared at the counter, face on fire, and Donghyuck smiled so hard he had to look away.

It was ridiculous. All of it. The fluorescent lights. The snacks. The aftertaste of peach gummies and artificial banana milk. The way they kept accidentally revealing too much and then laughing around it. The way Jeno’s nerves, usually so sharp around new people, had settled into something warm and humming. He had never felt this comfortable with someone so quickly. Not since Jaemin, and Jaemin had basically forced his way into Jeno’s life through sheer persistence, ignoring every wall until Jeno gave up and let him stay. Donghyuck was different. He did not bulldoze. He danced around the edges, teased and noticed and stepped closer, then somehow made Jeno want to move closer too.

Jeno had a million questions. They lined up behind his teeth, impatient and bright. Do you get tired of being watched? Do you like being known? When you travel, do you ever wish someone was waiting in the hotel room for you? What do you do when you’re sad? What song are you proudest of? Are you flirting with me because it’s fun or because you mean it? Did you really talk about me to Mark? Did your eyes change when I mentioned Jaemin, or am I so deep in this that I’m inventing shadows now? What would happen if I asked to walk you home? What would happen if this night didn’t end?

He asked none of them.

Instead he asked, “Do you always buy banana milk when you’re emotionally unstable?”

Donghyuck looked at the empty carton in his hand, then at Jeno. “Are you asking if I’m emotionally unstable right now?”

“Are you?”

Donghyuck smiled, but softer than before. “Maybe a little.”

Jeno’s chest warmed.

“Me too,” he said.

Donghyuck’s gaze dropped to his mouth for the briefest second.

Jeno stopped breathing.

Then Donghyuck’s phone rang.

The sound sliced through the moment so abruptly that both of them jolted. Donghyuck looked down, saw the name, and groaned with immediate guilt. “Oh, no.”

Jeno already missed whatever had almost happened.

Donghyuck answered, pressing the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

Even from where he sat, Jeno could hear Chenle’s voice explode through the speaker, not clearly enough to catch every word but definitely loud enough to understand the emotional tone, which was betrayal with social confidence.

Donghyuck winced. “I didn’t abandon you.”

Chenle shouted something.

“I went outside.”

More shouting.

“With someone.”

A pause.

Donghyuck’s eyes flicked to Jeno.

Jeno’s stomach flipped.

“No, not like that,” Donghyuck said, then immediately looked like he regretted saying it. “I mean— shut up. Where are you?”

Chenle talked again, slightly less explosive but no less dramatic.

“Yes, I remember we were supposed to leave together.” Donghyuck rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry. I’ll come back. Give me five minutes.”

Jeno looked down at his own phone as if summoned by narrative cruelty. It lit up with Jaemin’s name.

jaemini <3

The contact filled the screen in bright, undeniable letters, followed by a picture Jaemin had set himself: a blurry selfie of him making a heart beside a very unimpressed Jeno. Jeno had changed the contact name once, months ago, because it was embarrassing and because Jaemin had stolen his phone to add the heart in the first place. Jaemin had noticed within two hours and sent seventeen messages about betrayal, friendship decay, and “the death of romance in modern society,” so Jeno had changed it back just to stop him. It meant nothing. It was Jaemin. Jaemin was dramatic about everything. Jaemin would probably save Jeno in his own phone as “my emotionally constipated soulmate” if given the chance.

Donghyuck’s eyes dropped to the screen.

Only for a second.

But Jeno saw it. Or thought he saw it. A flicker. A light shadow passing through Donghyuck’s gaze, quick enough to be nothing but sharp enough to catch. His eyes moved over the name, the heart, the photo, then back to Jeno’s face. His expression settled almost immediately into something easy, but not quite as easy as before.

Jeno’s mind moved too fast.

Jaemin. Beautiful. He had called Jaemin beautiful earlier in the bathroom line. Objectively beautiful, but still. Donghyuck had caught it then too, smiled around it, teased him. And now Jaemin was calling with a heart beside his name, because of course he was, because Jaemin had the timing of a man sent by the devil personally. Maybe Donghyuck thought— No. That was ridiculous. Donghyuck had no reason to care. No reason to be jealous. No reason for a shadow to cross his face at all. Jeno was probably reading him too much because that was what Jeno did with Donghyuck, apparently. He analyzed every look, every pause, every softness, every joke, like a starving man searching for meaning in crumbs.

His phone kept ringing.

Donghyuck ended his call first. “Chenle is going to kill me.”

Jeno swallowed, still looking at him. “Jaemin too.”

“Right.” Donghyuck’s smile returned, but smaller. “Your beautiful emotional support extrovert.”

There it was.

Jeno’s heart kicked.

“He named himself that,” Jeno said quickly, lifting the phone slightly as if the contact needed legal defense. “The heart. I mean. Jaemin changed it. I changed it back once and he got upset, so I kept it.”
Donghyuck’s eyebrows rose.

Jeno wanted to sink into the floor. Why was he explaining? Why did he sound guilty? He had done nothing wrong. There was nothing to explain. Donghyuck was just some man he had met a few times. Some man he had left a party with. Some man he had sat with under convenience store lights for what felt like both ten minutes and an entire lifetime. Some man whose opinion suddenly mattered too much.

Donghyuck’s face softened, the shadow clearing like it had never been there. “That sounds like Jaemin.”

“You barely know him.”

“I know the type.” Donghyuck’s mouth curved. “Possessive best friend?”

“Extremely.”

“That’s cute.”

Jeno looked at him carefully. “He’s my best friend.”

Donghyuck held his gaze.

For one second, the words sat there with all the things Jeno was not brave enough to say wrapped around them. He is my best friend. Not anything else. Not the person I left the party with. Not the person whose videos I watched when I was lonely. Not the person making me feel like I might die in a convenience store because he called me cute.

Donghyuck’s smile changed again. Warmer. Relieved, maybe. Or maybe Jeno was still reading too much.

“Good to know,” Donghyuck said softly.

Jeno’s phone stopped ringing. Immediately, a text came in.

jaemini <3: if u have been murdered i’m taking your apartment plants
jaemini <3: actually they’re ugly
jaemini <3: answer me

Donghyuck leaned close enough to read the first line and laughed. “Your plants are ugly?”

“I have one plant. It’s fine.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know.”

Donghyuck gasped. “You don’t know your own plant?”

“It’s green.”

“That’s horrible. I take it back. Jaemin should get custody.”

Jeno smiled despite himself, but the ache of the night ending had already started pressing under his ribs. Donghyuck had to go. Jeno had to go. Their friends were calling them back to the lives they had temporarily stepped out of, and the convenience store no longer felt like a secret world but a place with time and consequences and people waiting.

Donghyuck seemed to feel it too. He looked down at his phone, then at the door, then at Jeno. His fingers tapped once against the counter. Nervous, Jeno realized with a soft shock. Donghyuck was nervous.

“Before Chenle files a missing person report,” Donghyuck said, “can I ask you something?”

Jeno’s pulse jumped. “Yeah.”

“Can I have your number?”

It was simple. Direct. Terrifying.

Jeno stared at him.

Donghyuck’s confidence wavered slightly, just at the edges. “Unless that’s weird. I mean, we keep running into each other, which is fun and very statistically suspicious, but I figured maybe we could skip the universe’s middleman.”

Jeno’s chest went so warm he almost forgot where he was.

“No,” he said.

Donghyuck blinked.

Jeno realized what he had just answered. “I mean, no, it’s not weird. Yes. You can have my number.”

Donghyuck’s smile broke open, bright enough that Jeno felt it physically. “Okay.”

They exchanged phones like it was nothing and everything. Jeno typed his number into Donghyuck’s contacts with careful fingers, hyperaware of Donghyuck watching him. He hesitated at the name field.

“What should I save myself as?” Jeno asked, mostly to avoid thinking.

Donghyuck leaned closer. “Loyal beef rice bowl customer.”

“I’m not typing that.”

“Coward.”

Jeno typed Jeno.

Donghyuck made a disappointed noise. “Boring.”

“You said you liked my boring job.”

“I like your boring job. I did not say I support boring contact names.”

Jeno handed the phone back. “You can change it.”

Donghyuck’s eyes gleamed. “Dangerous permission.”

Then Donghyuck typed into Jeno’s phone. Jeno watched his thumbs move, watched the little furrow of concentration between his brows, watched him save the contact before handing it back with suspicious innocence.

The screen read: donghyuck, statistically suspicious

Jeno laughed, unable to help it. “That’s too long.”

“It’s accurate.”

“It barely fits.”

“So do we, apparently, in bathroom lines.”

Jeno’s breath caught.

Donghyuck’s smile faltered into something more intent, like he had surprised himself with the image too. The convenience store hummed. Outside, a car passed slowly, its headlights sliding over Donghyuck’s face. For a second, Jeno thought about how easy it would be to lean in. Not all the way. Just enough to test the space between them. Just enough to see if Donghyuck would meet him there.

He thought Donghyuck might. He thought Donghyuck wanted to. He thought he could die if he was wrong.

Then Jeno’s phone rang again.

Jaemin, relentless creature of destruction.

Donghyuck laughed, but it sounded breathless. “You should answer before he calls the police.”

“Chenle will beat him to it.”

“True.” Donghyuck stood, gathering the empty wrappers and bottles with quick, tidy movements that made Jeno like him even more for no reason. “I’ll text you.”

Jeno stood too. “Okay.”

“I mean it.”

Jeno looked at him.

Donghyuck held his gaze, smile softer now. “I’m not just saying it.”

The warmth in Jeno’s chest expanded until it hurt. “Okay,” he said again, because apparently he could organize contracts and manage office systems and troubleshoot crises across departments, but when Donghyuck looked at him like that, he became a man with exactly one usable word.

Donghyuck did not seem to mind. If anything, he looked fond.

They walked out together, the night air cool against their faces after the convenience store warmth. The sidewalk split them almost immediately: Donghyuck had to go left, back toward the club entrance where Chenle was apparently waiting to commit murder, and Jeno had to go right, toward the side street where Jaemin would probably be standing outside dramatically clutching his chest. Neither of them moved for a second.

Donghyuck rocked back on his heels. “So.”

“So,” Jeno echoed.

“This was...” Donghyuck paused, searching for the word, then smiled. “Really nice.”

Jeno nodded. “Yeah. It was.”

Donghyuck’s eyes dipped again, not quite to his mouth this time but close enough to make Jeno’s heart lose balance. Then he looked away first, laughing softly to himself as if annoyed by his own restraint.

“Go rescue your plant from Jaemin,” he said.

“Go survive Chenle.”

“I’ll try.” Donghyuck took a few backward steps, hands in his jacket pockets, smile brightening again as distance grew. “Good night, Jeno.”

Jeno’s name in his mouth still felt impossible.

“Good night, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck turned, walked three steps, then spun back suddenly. “Oh, and Jeno?”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever want to go to Japan, I give very good convenience store tours.”

Jeno’s heart knocked once against his ribs.

He managed, somehow, to smile. “Good to know.”

Donghyuck grinned, satisfied, and disappeared around the corner.

Jeno stood there in the cold for a moment, phone buzzing in his hand, cheeks aching from smiling. He finally answered Jaemin’s call as he started walking.

“Where are you?” Jaemin demanded immediately. “I was about to send a search party. Sungchan knows tall people. We had resources.”

“I went outside.”

“For forty minutes?”

Jeno glanced back toward the corner where Donghyuck had vanished. “Maybe.”

There was a pause.

Then Jaemin’s voice sharpened with terrifying accuracy. “Why do you sound like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re smiling.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. I can hear your stupid smile. Oh my god, did something happen? Did you meet someone? Did you kiss someone? Did you finally discover joy?”

Jeno looked down at his phone as a message appeared at the top of the screen, interrupting Jaemin’s interrogation.

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: chenle says i’m a traitor
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: worth it though

Jeno stopped walking.

The street around him blurred at the edges, neon and pavement and cold air all softening into one impossible, glowing thing. His thumb hovered over the message. His chest felt too warm for the weather, too full for his body. He had thought, once, that Donghyuck belonged inside a phone screen, bright and distant and safe to want because wanting him would never require anything from Jeno except imagination. But now Donghyuck was in his contacts. Donghyuck was texting him. Donghyuck had called the night worth it.

Jaemin was still talking in his ear.

“Jeno? Hello? Did you die? Did joy kill you?”

Jeno laughed quietly.

“No,” he said, looking at Donghyuck’s message until the words burned into him. “Not yet.”

—----------------------------

Jeno used to think routine was something a person built for himself because the world, left unsupervised, was too loud and too unpredictable and too fond of throwing disasters into otherwise peaceful afternoons. Routine was waking up at the same time every morning, buying the same brand of coffee, taking the same subway entrance because the stairs were less crowded there, answering emails in order of urgency, grocery shopping on Saturdays, doing laundry before the basket overflowed into personal failure, and eating dinner early enough that his stomach did not keep him awake. Routine was not exciting, but that was the point. It was stable. It was quiet. It kept him from drifting too far into the messier parts of himself, the ones that wanted things without knowing how to ask for them. Then Donghyuck entered his life—not through some dramatic confession or cinematic slow-motion moment, but through a rice bowl restaurant, a cleaning supply aisle, a bathroom line, and a convenience store counter full of peach gummies—and somehow, impossibly, Donghyuck became routine too.

It happened faster than Jeno expected and slower than his heart wanted, which was cruel in two completely different directions. At first, it was texting. Harmless, he told himself, which was a lie so flimsy it deserved to be mocked. Donghyuck texted the night after the party with a picture of Chenle in the passenger seat of a taxi, arms crossed, expression thunderous, captioned, “he says I abandoned him for a man with spreadsheet charisma.” Jeno had stared at that for three whole minutes before replying, “Tell him I’m sorry for being charismatic,” and Donghyuck had sent back a voice note of himself laughing so hard that Mark, somewhere in the background, asked, “Is it him again?” Him. Jeno listened to the voice note twice, then a third time with his phone pressed close to his ear like some lovesick teenager hiding under blankets, and then immediately deleted the evidence from his recently played audio because Jaemin had no boundaries and had been known to steal his phone for entertainment. The next day, Donghyuck sent him a photo of a vending machine snack he insisted tasted “emotionally boring.” Jeno asked why he bought it then. Donghyuck said, “research.” Jeno said, “You keep using that word incorrectly.” Donghyuck replied, “you keep enjoying it.” Jeno had smiled so hard at his desk that his coworker across from him asked if he had gotten good news, and Jeno, staring at an email about meeting room availability, said, “Something like that,” which was embarrassing enough that he wanted to crawl under the desk and live there permanently.

Then the texting became daily. Not constant at first, not the all-consuming kind of conversation that demanded every second of attention, but steady. Familiar. A message in the morning from Donghyuck complaining about being awake before noon for a shoot. A reply from Jeno during his coffee break, dry enough to make Donghyuck send back rows of laughing emojis. A picture from Donghyuck’s editing setup at two in the afternoon, cables everywhere, laptop open, one sock visible on the desk for reasons Jeno did not understand. Jeno responding, “Is that laundry or part of the creative process?” Donghyuck saying, “Don’t limit art.” Sometimes they went quiet for hours because Jeno had work and Donghyuck had filming, but the conversation never died. It waited. That was the part that got to Jeno. Nothing with Donghyuck felt like it vanished if he looked away for too long. It waited for him. It picked up easily. It held a place.

The first weekend after the party, Donghyuck asked if Jeno wanted to “get snacks and maybe watch a movie that respects neither of our time.” Jeno read the message in bed on Saturday morning and had to roll onto his back to stare at the ceiling because his body reacted like Donghyuck had asked him to run away to another country. He said yes after waiting six minutes so he did not seem desperate, which was pointless because he spent all six minutes drafting and deleting variations of “sure,” “sounds good,” and “yeah, I’m free,” like national security depended on punctuation. Donghyuck came over that evening wearing a hoodie too big on him and carrying a tote bag full of snacks, two drinks, and three DVDs he claimed he found at a secondhand shop even though Jeno did not own a DVD player. “For atmosphere,” Donghyuck said solemnly when Jeno stared at them. “We can look at the covers and absorb cinema.” Jeno should have been annoyed. Instead, he laughed and took the bag from him, and Donghyuck stepped inside Jeno’s apartment like he belonged there.

That had been dangerous.

Jeno’s apartment was not impressive. It was clean because Jeno needed it to be, and comfortable in a quiet way: a dark blue-ish green-ish sofa, low table, shelves organized too neatly, a small lamp that made the living room warmer at night, one green plant by the window whose species remained unknown despite Donghyuck’s repeated interrogation. There were no dramatic posters, no expensive speakers, no artistic mess. It was a place built by someone who liked coming home and closing the door on the world. Jeno had expected Donghyuck to find it boring, maybe even a little sad compared to the hotel rooms and city views and chaotic studios that filled his videos. Instead, Donghyuck took off his shoes, looked around, and said, “Oh, this is nice,” in a voice that made Jeno’s entire chest soften.

“Nice?” Jeno asked, suddenly defensive without meaning to be.

“Yeah.” Donghyuck walked to the shelf and tilted his head at the perfectly lined-up books and little boxes. “It feels like you.”

“That might be an insult.”

“It’s not.” Donghyuck looked back at him, smiling. “It feels calm.”

Jeno did not know what to do with that, so he went to get bowls for the snacks.

They watched a terrible horror movie on a streaming service instead of absorbing cinema from the DVD covers, and Donghyuck screamed twice despite claiming he did not get scared. The second time, he grabbed Jeno’s arm with both hands and immediately tried to pretend he had done it on purpose to “check Jeno’s reflexes.” Jeno, whose reflexes had mostly involved going completely still because Donghyuck’s fingers were wrapped around his bicep, said, “You failed,” and Donghyuck snapped, “The ghost failed. It was an ugly jumpscare.” They sat close by the end. Not cuddling. Jeno was very aware of that. Painfully aware. But close enough that Donghyuck’s knee pressed against his when he shifted, close enough that their hands brushed in the snack bowl, close enough that Jeno could feel the warmth of him beside him and smell the clean sweetness of his shampoo when Donghyuck leaned forward to yell at a character for going into a basement alone. When Donghyuck left that night, he stood in Jeno’s doorway for a second too long, smiling like he had something else to say, then only said, “Same time next week?” and Jeno’s heart, traitorous and domestic, had answered before his mouth did.

After that, weekends rearranged themselves around Donghyuck with alarming ease.

Saturday evenings became theirs without either of them officially declaring it. Sometimes Donghyuck came to Jeno’s place because he liked Jeno’s sofa and claimed it had “introvert healing properties.” Sometimes Jeno went to Donghyuck’s apartment, which was smaller than he expected and messier than his own in a way that felt alive rather than chaotic: shoes by the door, camera equipment stacked beside the couch, vinyl records leaning against the wall, a blanket permanently twisted at one end of the sofa, plants everywhere with names because apparently Donghyuck was the kind of person who named plants and judged Jeno for not doing so. Donghyuck’s apartment smelled like coffee, laundry detergent, and something citrusy. His desk was a war zone of cables and hard drives and notebooks full of video ideas, song lyrics, half-finished thoughts. The first time Jeno saw it, Donghyuck looked embarrassed, kicking a hoodie under the table with one foot while saying, “Ignore everything,” and Jeno, looking at the mess of Donghyuck’s life spread honestly across the room, thought, I don’t want to ignore anything.

They started seeing each other three times a week without meaning to. Or maybe they did mean to and neither of them wanted to admit how quickly they had made space. Once during the week for dinner because Donghyuck had found a tiny noodle place and said Jeno needed to give a “performance review.” Once for a walk because Jeno’s office days left him restless in a quiet, tense way and Donghyuck somehow figured out that walking helped without Jeno ever saying it directly. Then the weekend, always the weekend, their soft little anchor at the end of every week. Their conversations spread into everything. Donghyuck sent voice notes while editing, sometimes rambling about a video concept, sometimes singing one line of a song and asking, “Is this catchy or am I sleep-deprived?” Jeno sent pictures of bad office coffee and once, after Donghyuck demanded more “slice of life content,” a photo of the copy machine displaying an error code. Donghyuck replied, “office horror game,” and Jeno spent the next ten minutes imagining a game where a haunted printer ate quarterly reports and hunted employees by department, then accidentally made Donghyuck laugh so much during a call that Donghyuck had to mute himself because Mark was in the room asking why he sounded like a kettle.

It should have been strange. It should have felt too fast. Jeno was not someone who let people in quickly, not because he disliked people, but because getting to know someone required energy he usually preferred to spend on silence. Even coworkers he liked remained carefully placed at a distance. Friends were rare. Jaemin was the exception, the bright, dramatic exception who had attached himself to Jeno years ago and refused to let go until Jeno eventually accepted that loving Jaemin was less exhausting than resisting him. Jeno had never expected another person to slip into his life with that same impossible ease. But Donghyuck did, and somehow he did it without forcing anything. He asked. He listened. He teased, but he backed off when Jeno got too quiet. He filled silence when Jeno needed help carrying it, then let it rest when Jeno did not. He was loud and warm and restless, yes, but he was also attentive in ways that made Jeno feel dangerously known. He remembered that Jeno disliked eating too late. He remembered which side of the couch Jeno liked. He remembered that Jeno pretended not to like sweet drinks but always stole sips of Donghyuck’s. He remembered the boring details and treated them like they mattered.

Jeno’s intuition had always been stupid about Donghyuck. That was the embarrassing truth. Before they met, when Donghyuck was just a face on his phone, Jeno’s mind had supplied entire scenes without permission: Donghyuck in his kitchen, Donghyuck complaining on his couch, Donghyuck dragging him outside, Donghyuck making his quiet life bigger without breaking it. At the time, Jeno had dismissed it as loneliness dressed up as imagination. But now Donghyuck really did stand in his kitchen, stealing pieces of cucumber while Jeno tried to make a late dinner and saying, “I’m helping,” with his mouth full. Donghyuck really did sprawl across his couch with a blanket around his shoulders, editing on his laptop while Jeno sat at the other end reading work documents and pretending the domesticity did not feel like a hand around his heart. Donghyuck really did drag him outside, but only gently, sending texts like, “walk? you’ve probably been sitting like a statue all day,” and then showing up with coffee because he had learned Jeno said no more easily when he was empty-handed.

One evening, after work, they walked through the park where they had once run into each other by chance. The trees were fuller now, the paths damp from earlier rain, the air smelling like soil and leaves and distant fried food from a street vendor near the entrance. Donghyuck walked backward in front of him for half the path, talking with his hands, nearly tripping twice and refusing to stop because “the lighting is better from this angle,” even though he was not filming. Jeno caught his sleeve the second time before he could step into a puddle, and Donghyuck looked down at Jeno’s hand on him, then up at his face with that slowly brightening expression that always made Jeno’s thoughts scatter.

“Protective,” Donghyuck said.

“You were going to fall.”

“So protective.”

“I’m letting you fall next time.”

“No, you’re not.”

Jeno looked away first, but he was smiling. “No, I’m not.”

Donghyuck laughed, pleased, and turned around properly, walking beside him close enough that their shoulders brushed every few steps. He had become bolder over time, not suddenly but in increments so clever Jeno almost did not notice until he was already living inside the tension. A hand on Jeno’s arm when he laughed. A knee pressed deliberately against his under café tables. A finger tapping Jeno’s wrist to get his attention instead of saying his name. Compliments dropped too casually to defend against. You look good in that coat. Your voice gets lower when you’re tired, did you know? You’re weirdly handsome when you’re judging food. Careful, Jeno, people might think you like me.

That last one had happened during a late-night grocery trip when Jeno reached over Donghyuck’s head to grab a box from the top shelf because Donghyuck had refused to ask an employee. Donghyuck had looked up at him from far too close, eyes bright, mouth curved like trouble, and said, “Careful, Jeno, people might think you like me.” Jeno, trapped with one arm still raised and Donghyuck’s face inches from his chest, had nearly dropped the box on both of them.

“Maybe I’m just tall,” Jeno said.

Donghyuck’s gaze flicked over him, slow enough to be indecent without technically doing anything wrong. “You are.”

Jeno’s entire body short-circuited.

Donghyuck only smiled and took the box from him, walking away like he had not just sent electricity up Jeno’s spine so sharply his fingers tingled.

The flirting got worse. Better. Both. Donghyuck seemed to enjoy discovering exactly how much Jeno could take before he flushed, and Jeno, unfortunately, gave him plenty of material. At the cinema, when they sat shoulder to shoulder in the back row watching a thriller neither of them was paying full attention to, Donghyuck leaned close to whisper commentary in Jeno’s ear because “people paid to hear the movie, not me,” and Jeno spent the next ten minutes staring at the screen while every nerve in his body focused on the ghost of Donghyuck’s breath near his jaw. At a shopping mall where Donghyuck was filming a video about outfits chosen by friends, he made Jeno pick a jacket for him, tried it on, turned in front of the mirror, and asked, “Do I look pretty?” as if he did not know exactly what he was doing. Jeno, holding the camera because Donghyuck had trusted him with it after only minimal instruction, stared at Donghyuck through the screen and then over it, caught between the safer distance of the frame and the unbearable reality of him.

“You know you do,” Jeno said.

Donghyuck’s eyes widened slightly, the boldness faltering into genuine surprise.

Then he smiled. Softer. “Yeah?”

Jeno’s grip tightened on the camera. “Yeah.”

Donghyuck used that clip in the final video. Not the full exchange, thank God, because Jeno would have moved countries, but enough: Donghyuck turning in the jacket, asking if it worked, Jeno’s voice behind the camera saying, dry and low, “You know it does,” and Donghyuck laughing too quickly, cheeks faintly pink. The comments immediately noticed. Who is behind the camera??? someone wrote. that voice???? another asked. hyuck giggling like that hello???? Mark commented only, “interesting,” which made Jeno close the app and throw his phone onto the couch. Donghyuck texted him five minutes later: “people like your directing.” Jeno replied, “I said three words.” Donghyuck said, “powerful three words.” Then, after a pause long enough to make Jeno stare at the chat, he added, “I liked them too.”

Jeno put his phone facedown and walked into the kitchen to drink water he did not need.

He had dated before. That was the thing. He was not some untouched, trembling innocent who did not understand attraction. He had kissed people. He had done more than kiss people. He had liked some of them well enough, had enjoyed the warmth and the closeness and the easy physical language of dating when the feelings did not frighten him too much. He knew what desire felt like in a general sense, knew the tug of it, the pleasant heat, the human wanting of skin and mouth and hands. But this was Donghyuck. That made everything feel absurdly new. Donghyuck, who had lived first as an impossible figure glowing from Jeno’s phone screen, all travel vlogs and singing clips and angelic bathroom-line fantasies. Donghyuck, who was now real enough to steal Jeno’s fries, real enough to nap on his sofa, real enough to send unflattering selfies while editing and ask whether he looked “haunted or just dehydrated.” Donghyuck, pretty in ways that hurt Jeno’s eyes and beautiful in ways that made his chest ache. Donghyuck, whose mouth Jeno tried very hard not to stare at and failed at least once per meeting.

Imagining kissing him was not simple. It did not feel like imagining kissing anyone else. It felt catastrophic. If Donghyuck kissed him, Jeno was fairly sure something in him would stop working. Not in a bad way. Probably. Hopefully. But he could picture it too easily now, which was dangerous. He could picture Donghyuck leaning in during a movie, eyes dropping first, smile fading into something more serious. He could picture the warmth of Donghyuck’s hand at his jaw, the pause before contact, the unbearable second where it could still become a joke but didn’t. He could picture Donghyuck’s lips against his and immediately have to think about taxes or office supply orders or something equally grim to keep himself from dissolving into the floor.

The worst part was that Donghyuck seemed to know.

Or maybe he was just naturally cruel.

One Saturday night, about two months after they exchanged numbers, they were at Jeno’s apartment again. It had rained all day, steady and silver against the windows, giving them both the perfect excuse not to go anywhere. Donghyuck had arrived in soft black pants and a faded sweatshirt, hair slightly damp at the ends, carrying takeout and a bag of snacks because he had “accepted his role in this household.” Household. Jeno had stared at him for half a second too long at that, and Donghyuck had pretended not to notice, which Jeno appreciated and resented. They ate on the floor with their backs against the couch, the coffee table crowded with cartons, chopsticks, napkins, and two drinks. Donghyuck told him about a sponsor email that used the phrase “authentic youthful energy” four times. Jeno told him about a colleague who had accidentally replied all to an internal memo with only the words “not this again.” Donghyuck laughed so hard he dropped a dumpling.

Later, they put on an old horror movie they had both seen before, the kind with practical effects and bad decisions, and somehow ended up on the couch under the same blanket. It was not the first time they had shared a blanket, but it was the first time Donghyuck tucked his cold feet against Jeno’s leg without asking and Jeno did not move away. The rain softened everything. The apartment glowed with lamplight. On-screen, someone walked slowly toward obvious danger. Donghyuck muttered, “Natural selection,” and Jeno laughed under his breath. They were close enough that Donghyuck’s shoulder pressed into his side. Close enough that when Donghyuck shifted, his head almost touched Jeno’s shoulder. Close enough that Jeno’s entire body became a map of everywhere they met.

Halfway through the movie, Donghyuck reached blindly into the snack bowl and grabbed nothing. “We’re out.”

Jeno looked down. “You ate most of them.”

“We ate most of them.”

“You ate most of them.”

Donghyuck turned his head on the cushion to glare at him. “As host, you’re supposed to be gracious.”

“As guest, you’re supposed to not eat all my snacks.”

“You invited me.”

“You asked to come over.”

“You said yes very fast.”

Jeno’s mouth closed.

Donghyuck’s smile spread slowly. “Oh?”

“I was hungry.”

“You were hungry for my company?”

“For dinner.”

“You could’ve eaten alone.”

“I usually do.”

The words slipped out quieter than Jeno intended. Donghyuck’s teasing softened almost immediately. He looked at Jeno, face gentler now, and the movie’s flickering light moved over his cheekbones, his lashes, the curve of his mouth. Jeno knew he should look away. He didn’t.

“Do you miss it?” Donghyuck asked.

“Eating alone?”

“Being alone.”

Jeno thought about it. He had expected the answer to be yes because being alone had always been his natural state, not something sad but something necessary. He still needed it. He still liked quiet mornings, liked waking up without another person’s noise filling the room, liked the shape of his own space. But Donghyuck had not taken that away. Somehow Donghyuck had entered his solitude without destroying it. He made Jeno’s quiet feel shared instead of interrupted.

“Sometimes,” Jeno said honestly. “But not with you.”

Donghyuck went very still.

Jeno’s pulse kicked hard enough to hurt.

“That sounded—” Jeno started, then stopped because he did not know how to fix it without making it worse.

Donghyuck turned a little more toward him beneath the blanket. “It sounded what?”

Jeno looked at the screen. “Too honest.”

Donghyuck was quiet for a moment. Then, softly, “I like when you’re honest.”

Jeno’s fingers curled around the edge of the blanket.

The movie continued, ignored. Rain whispered against the windows. The air between them tightened until Jeno could feel it against his skin. Donghyuck was still looking at him; Jeno knew without turning fully, because every nerve on that side of his body was awake. He looked back slowly, and there it was again, that moment he had been both wanting and fearing for weeks. Donghyuck’s gaze moved over his face, not playful now, not teasing. Intent. Warm. Searching. His eyes dipped to Jeno’s mouth.

Jeno forgot how to breathe.

Donghyuck leaned in a little.

Not enough.

Too much.

Jeno’s heart launched itself into his throat with such force he almost made a sound. He wanted it. God, he wanted it so badly it made him dizzy. He wanted Donghyuck’s mouth on his, wanted to know if he tasted like the peach gummies he had eaten earlier, wanted to feel the exact second all that bright, unbearable tension finally became touch. But panic rose with the want, not because he did not want Donghyuck, but because he did. Because this was not some casual kiss outside a bar with someone whose name might blur later. This was Donghyuck. This was the man whose laugh had rearranged Jeno’s weeks, whose texts had become part of Jeno’s mornings, whose presence had made his ordinary apartment feel like a place where something extraordinary could happen. If they kissed and it was good, Jeno did not know what he would do with all that wanting. If they kissed and it wasn’t, he might actually die. If they kissed and Donghyuck regretted it, Jeno’s routine, his beautiful impossible routine, would crack apart in his hands.

Donghyuck stopped.

Not far away. Not pulling back completely. Just stopped, close enough that Jeno could see the tiny shift in his expression, the way desire softened into concern.

“Jeno,” he said quietly.

Jeno swallowed. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

The question went through him like warmth.

Jeno nodded, then realized nodding was not enough. “Yes.”

Donghyuck studied him. “You sure?”

Jeno let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh. “I’m nervous.”

Donghyuck’s face softened so much that Jeno nearly fell apart.

“Because of me?” Donghyuck asked, not smug, not teasing, just careful.

Jeno looked at him, helplessly honest now. “Yeah.”

Donghyuck’s lips parted slightly. For once, he had no immediate joke. No quick line, no bold deflection. His cheeks colored faintly, and the sight of that—Donghyuck, blushing because Jeno admitted he made him nervous—sent a bright, aching surge through Jeno’s chest.

“I make you nervous?” Donghyuck asked, voice softer still.

Jeno huffed, embarrassed. “Don’t sound so pleased.”

“I’m trying not to.” Donghyuck failed; the smile was there, small and glowing. “But you make me nervous too, so.”

Jeno blinked.

Donghyuck looked away for half a second, rubbing his thumb against the blanket. “In a different way, maybe. I talk too much when I’m nervous.”

“You talk too much all the time.”

Donghyuck laughed, relieved. “True. But with you it’s worse.”

Jeno stared at him.

Donghyuck glanced back, and the boldness returned only in a softer form, braver because it was more honest. “I keep wanting to impress you.”

The world narrowed down to that sentence.

Jeno had no idea what his face did, but Donghyuck’s expression shifted, as if he saw the impact land. Jeno felt strange, almost unsteady. Donghyuck, who could walk through cities filming himself without shame, who could make strangers laugh, who could turn a convenience store snack into entertainment, who had a comment section full of people calling him beautiful and funny and talented—Donghyuck wanted to impress him. Jeno, who spent most of his life making sure documents were filed correctly and emails did not collapse into chaos. Jeno, who got overwhelmed at clubs and gave rice bowl reviews. Jeno, who still did not know what his plant was called.

“Why?” Jeno asked before he could stop himself.

Donghyuck looked at him like the answer was obvious. “Because it’s you.”

Jeno’s chest hurt.

The kiss did not happen that night.

It almost did. Maybe it should have. They stayed close for the rest of the movie, closer than before, the tension no longer hidden but carefully held between them. Donghyuck did not push. Jeno loved him a little for that, though he did not let himself use the word even internally for more than a terrifying second. Donghyuck only leaned against his shoulder near the end, not dramatically, not asking permission out loud, just slowly enough that Jeno could move if he wanted. Jeno did not move. He sat there with Donghyuck’s head warm against him, his own cheek nearly touching Donghyuck’s hair, and felt more alive in the quiet than he ever had in any loud, crowded room.

After Donghyuck left, Jeno stood in the middle of his apartment for a long time, the blanket still folded over one arm, the paused movie menu glowing on the TV. His lips felt untouched and yet somehow haunted. His heart had not calmed down. He knew, with a certainty so strong it almost frightened him, that it was going to happen soon. They were moving toward it. Every text, every look, every accidental brush and deliberate flirt, every weekend night spent turning ordinary hours into something precious—it was all leading there.

He should have been terrified.

He was terrified.

But when his phone buzzed five minutes after Donghyuck left, Jeno nearly tripped over the coffee table reaching for it.

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: home
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: thank you for letting me steal your blanket warmth donghyuck, statistically suspicious: and for being honest
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: i like you nervous btw
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: but i like you comfortable more

Jeno sank onto the couch, one hand over his mouth, smiling so hard it hurt.

He typed, deleted, typed again.

jeno: I’m comfortable with you.

He stared at the message after sending it, heart pounding.

Donghyuck’s reply came almost immediately.

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: yeah?
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: good
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: i’m going to make you even more comfortable
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: and then maybe a little nervous again :)

Jeno dropped his phone onto his chest and stared at the ceiling.

He was going to die when Donghyuck kissed him.

In a good way, he thought, pulse racing, rain still tapping softly against the windows.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Soon.

—

It happened the next week, because of course it did.

Jeno would later think there was something deeply unfair about the universe choosing a random Friday night to rearrange his entire internal landscape. He would think that something as important as kissing Donghyuck for the first time should have come with a warning, maybe a weather alert, maybe an email with a subject line like: URGENT: Your Life Is About To Become Unmanageable In A Beautiful Way. At the very least, there should have been atmospheric drama. Heavy rain. A power outage. A slow-motion shot of Donghyuck turning beneath streetlights with his hair falling into his eyes and some devastating song swelling behind them. Instead, it began with Mark wanting to go to a bar.

That was it.

Mark wanted to go to a bar because he had finished a project and “needed to see people who weren’t audio files.” Donghyuck agreed because Donghyuck agreed to social plans with the careless bravery of a man who had never once looked at his bed at seven p.m. and thought, maybe my true purpose is to become one with the mattress. Renjun agreed after insulting everyone’s taste in bars. Chenle agreed once he found out the place had decent fries. Jisung came because Chenle said, “You’re coming,” and Jisung, despite being taller than half the group, still occasionally behaved like a man who had been politely kidnapped.

Which meant Jeno came too.

Not because anyone forced him this time. Jeno came because Donghyuck texted him first.

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: mark wants drinks tonight
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: you can invite jaemin if you want, so he can’t be an excuse if you refuse
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: come?
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: i’ll sit next to you if the bar is loud

Jeno stared at the last message for a long time, standing in his office building lobby with his work bag on his shoulder and the Friday evening crowd moving around him in tired waves. It was not even a particularly flirtatious message compared to things Donghyuck had said before. Donghyuck had been worse. Much worse. Donghyuck had leaned into Jeno’s space at grocery stores and called him beautiful under his breath. Donghyuck had sent him selfies captioned, “for your professional review.” Donghyuck had spent an entire evening on Jeno’s couch pretending not to notice that Jeno’s breathing changed whenever he got too close.

And still, I’ll sit next to you hit Jeno directly in the chest.

Maybe because it sounded like a promise.

Maybe because it sounded like Donghyuck knew exactly what Jeno needed and offered it before Jeno had to ask.

Maybe because Jeno was so gone for him that even basic seating arrangements now counted as emotional devastation.

He replied, after only three minutes this time because he had stopped pretending he had dignity around Donghyuck.

jeno: Okay.

Donghyuck sent back a smiley face. Then, a second later:

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: enthusiastic as always

jeno: I’m coming, aren’t I?

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: yeah
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: i like that part

Jeno locked his phone, put it in his pocket, then stood there in the lobby for another full ten seconds because his legs needed to remember their job.

The bar was nicer than the club, which was not difficult, considering Jeno’s main memory of the club involved sensory overload and almost dying in a bathroom line. This place was tucked on a side street, all dark wood, low amber lights, green glass bottles behind the counter, and old posters on the walls that looked like someone had chosen them very carefully to appear effortless. Music played loud enough to fill silences but not loud enough to make Jeno want to leave his body. The tables were small and crowded together, the kind that forced knees and elbows into accidental intimacy, but the atmosphere was warm instead of suffocating. People laughed. Glasses clinked. The air smelled like beer, fried food, citrus, and rain-soaked jackets drying slowly over chair backs.

Jeno arrived second-to-last because work had run late, and because he had changed shirts three times before leaving his apartment, which he refused to admit even to himself. Jisung arrived after him, looking like he had been dragged through wind and public transportation by fate. Everyone else was already at a long table near the back: Mark with his sleeves pushed up, Renjun leaning back with the posture of someone prepared to judge the entire evening, Chenle stealing fries before anyone had officially agreed they were shared, Jaemin waving dramatically the second he saw Jeno, and Donghyuck—

Donghyuck was looking at the door before Jeno even stepped fully inside.

That was the first thing.

Not at his phone. Not at Mark, who was talking beside him. Not at the drink menu. At the door, like he had been waiting.

When he saw Jeno, his face opened into a smile so immediate and bright that Jeno’s entire week loosened around him.

“There he is,” Jaemin announced loudly, because peace had never interested him. “My emotionally constipated office prince.”

Jeno sighed. “Can you not?”

“No.”

Donghyuck’s smile twitched. “Office prince?”

“Don’t encourage him,” Jeno said, sliding into the empty seat beside Donghyuck because of course that was the seat left open. Because Donghyuck had saved it, maybe. Because Donghyuck shifted his chair a little closer when Jeno sat down, maybe. Because Jeno was increasingly incapable of interpreting the world without making it about Donghyuck, definitely.

Jaemin leaned across the table with sparkling eyes. “Jeno is very princely. He suffers quietly and owns too many button-down shirts.”

“I own a normal amount.”

“You own corporate armor.”

“It’s called laundry.”

“See?” Jaemin pointed at him. “Princely and tragic.”

Donghyuck laughed, shoulder brushing Jeno’s as he leaned closer, voice dipping under the table noise. “Long week?”

Jeno turned toward him, and just like that, the rest of the bar dimmed.

It was not that their friends disappeared. They were still there, obviously. Mark was telling Jisung something animatedly with both hands. Chenle was arguing with Renjun over whether the fries needed more salt. Jaemin was already making himself comfortable in the center of everyone’s attention, glowing like a menace under the amber lights, even if this was the first official night he hung out with them. But Jeno felt an invisible wall settle around himself and Donghyuck anyway. A soft one. Warm. Not cutting them off from the others exactly, just making a pocket of space where Donghyuck’s voice became the clearest sound and Jeno’s body knew where to lean.

“Very long,” Jeno said.

Donghyuck angled his chair toward him, knee knocking lightly against Jeno’s under the table. “Tell me.”

“It’s boring.”

“I love boring.”

“You don’t.”

“I love your boring.”

Jeno looked down, pretending to reach for the menu though he already knew he would order whatever was easiest. His face was warm. Donghyuck knew exactly what he was doing now. That was the problem. In the beginning, Donghyuck’s flirting had been playful enough to dismiss as personality, as performance, as the natural overflow of a bright and teasing person. Now there was intention in it. A steadiness. He said things and watched them land. He smiled when Jeno blushed but did not always make fun of him, which was somehow worse. Sometimes he just looked pleased. Sometimes he looked soft. Sometimes he looked like he wanted to lean closer and see what Jeno would do.

Jeno told him about his week because Donghyuck asked again, and because Jeno had learned, slowly and then all at once, that Donghyuck genuinely wanted to know. So he talked about the new reporting system that had been rolled out without proper training, which meant half the office had immediately begun using it incorrectly. He talked about a meeting that should have been an email and an email that somehow became three meetings. He talked about a vendor contract that came back with formatting so broken it looked haunted. He talked about staying late on Wednesday because one department had uploaded files into the wrong folder and then accused the folder of disappearing.

Donghyuck listened to all of it.

Not politely. Not with the glazed, kind expression people sometimes wore when Jeno explained the mechanics of his work for too long. Donghyuck listened with his whole face, elbow on the table, chin near his hand, eyes fixed on Jeno like the saga of misfiled vendor documents had emotional stakes. He reacted at the right moments, laughed when Jeno’s voice went dry, gasped dramatically when Jeno described the formatting disaster, and asked, “Wait, so they blamed the folder?” with such sincere outrage that Jeno had to laugh into his drink.

“Yes.”

“How do you blame a folder?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“No, I’m angry on behalf of the folder.”

“The folder survived.”

“Barely, it sounds like.”

Jeno smiled, helpless.

“Also,” Donghyuck added, leaning slightly closer, “I like when you talk about work.”

Jeno’s fingers paused around his glass. “Why?”

Donghyuck shrugged, but his eyes stayed on him. “You get this look.”

“What look?”

“Focused. A little annoyed. Like you’re five seconds away from reorganizing the entire world because everyone else is doing it wrong.”

“That sounds bad.”

“It’s hot.”

Jeno choked.

Donghyuck’s smile widened slowly, wicked and beautiful. “Sorry. Did I say that too casually?”

Jeno coughed into his fist, glaring while his ears burned. “You’re the worst.”

“You keep hanging out with me.”

“That’s unrelated.”

“It feels related.”

Jeno tried to respond, failed, and took a drink instead. Donghyuck laughed under his breath, delighted but not cruel, and Jeno wanted—God, he wanted. It hit him sometimes in sudden waves, almost nauseating in its intensity. Donghyuck would tilt his head a certain way, or bite back a smile, or reach across him for a napkin, and Jeno would feel his entire body light up like exposed wiring. He wanted to touch him. He wanted to be touched by him. He wanted Donghyuck’s hand on his face, his fingers in Jeno’s hair, his mouth—no. He took another drink and forced his brain to behave.

It did not.

Donghyuck was too pretty for that. Pretty did not even feel like enough. Pretty was a tidy little word, harmless and bright. Donghyuck was beautiful in a way that seemed designed to make Jeno question reality. Under the bar’s amber lighting, his skin looked warm, his eyes dark and alive, his mouth soft around every smile and cruel around every teasing comment. His hair fell into his eyes because he kept pushing it back and then immediately messing it up again. He had a small silver hoop in one ear, rings on two fingers, sleeves pulled over his wrists in a way that should not have been attractive but was, because Donghyuck could probably wear a trash bag and Jeno would have a spiritual crisis. Sometimes Jeno wondered if he had made him up. If one night, bored and lonely in bed, he had scrolled too long and built a person out of videos and songs and longing, then somehow hallucinated him into the real world through sheer desperate intuition. It was a ridiculous thought, obviously.

But Donghyuck looked at him, and Jeno had to pinch the inside of his own wrist under the table once just to remind himself.

Donghyuck noticed.

Of course he did.

His eyes dropped, then lifted. “Did you just pinch yourself?”

Jeno froze. “No.”

“You absolutely did.”

“I had an itch.”

“On the inside of your wrist?”

“Yes.”

Donghyuck leaned in, voice low and amused. “Are you checking if you’re dreaming?”

Jeno stared at him.

Donghyuck’s expression shifted. The tease stayed, but something warmer moved underneath it, something that made Jeno’s pulse jump.

“Maybe,” Jeno said before he could stop himself.

Donghyuck went still.

For a second, neither of them spoke.

Across the table, Chenle shouted, “If anyone eats my last fry, I’ll know,” and Renjun immediately said, “Good,” while eating it. Mark laughed so loudly someone nearby glanced over. Jaemin was mid-story, hands flying, charming everyone within a three-meter radius. The world continued. Their friends continued. The bar continued. But Donghyuck looked at Jeno like they were the only two people there.

Then the speakers above them shifted songs.

The Cure came on.

Just Like Heaven.

Donghyuck’s face changed instantly. Not dramatically. Just a tiny brightening, a recognition so natural Jeno might have missed it if he had not already been watching every part of him like a man trying to memorize proof of life. Donghyuck’s fingers tapped the rhythm against his beer glass. His lips moved before the first line even finished, quiet at first, then more confidently when Mark, across the table, pointed at him and yelled, “Hyuck’s song!”

Donghyuck rolled his eyes but kept singing under his breath.

Jeno watched him.

He knew all the lyrics. Of course he did. He sang them softly, not performing, not projecting, just letting them happen, mouth shaping words Jeno suddenly understood with embarrassing clarity. Spinning on that dizzy edge. Dreaming. The ache of wanting someone impossible. The strange terror of finding something so bright it felt unreal. Jeno had heard the song before plenty of times, in cafés, in old playlists, in movies, in passing. He had liked it casually. But sitting beside Donghyuck as he sang along, head bobbing faintly, eyes half-lit by the bar’s glow, Jeno understood why someone had written it like that. He understood why joy and fear could sound the same if the right person looked at you.

Donghyuck was a dream.

Not in the vague, shallow way people said when they meant beautiful, though he was that too. He was a dream because Jeno had dreamed him first, in little pieces, through a phone screen and tired nights and impossible fantasies he never meant to confess. And now Donghyuck was here beside him, singing The Cure into the warm noise of a bar, knee pressed against Jeno’s, beer half-finished in front of him, alive and real and close enough that Jeno could touch him if he were brave.
Jeno looked at Donghyuck’s beer.

It was half-empty.

Or half-full. He did not care which metaphor applied. He only knew the bar closed at eleven, because he had checked the hours earlier when Jaemin sent the address. It was nine-thirty now. Ninety minutes left. Less, if Donghyuck finished his drink quickly and decided to go somewhere else. Less, if the group got restless. Less, if the night slipped through Jeno’s hands the way good things always threatened to do.

He found himself hoping Donghyuck never finished it.

Then, immediately, he hoped Donghyuck would order another.

Then, because he was pathetic and honest at least with himself, he hoped they would sit there forever, trapped between a song and a beer glass and all the things they had not said yet.

Donghyuck turned toward him mid-lyric and caught him staring.

Jeno did not look away fast enough.

Donghyuck’s singing faded into a smile. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s your most suspicious answer.”

“You have a list?”

“I have a ranking.” Donghyuck leaned closer, the music wrapping around them. “Number one is when you say ‘fine’ like someone is holding you hostage. Number two is ‘nothing’ when you’re clearly thinking too much. Number three is ‘okay’ when you mean twelve different things and refuse to share any of them.”

Jeno stared at him, stunned despite himself. “You’ve thought about this?”

Donghyuck’s smile softened. “I pay attention.”

There it was again. That warmth. That unbearable kindness dressed as teasing. Jeno felt it low in his stomach, high in his chest, everywhere at once.

“What am I thinking then?” he asked, not sure why he was daring him.

Donghyuck’s eyes dropped to his mouth for half a second.

Jeno nearly stopped existing.

Then Donghyuck looked back up. “Right now?”

Jeno nodded, though he immediately regretted it because Donghyuck’s gaze had turned too knowing, too careful, too close.

Donghyuck’s voice lowered. “I think you’re wondering if I’m going to kiss you.”

Jeno’s whole body went hot.

For a moment, he could not speak. He could not even pretend. The invisible wall between them and the table became glass-thin and burning, their friends still laughing around them while Jeno sat there with his pulse hammering under his skin and Donghyuck watching him with a question hidden beneath the boldness.

“Are you?” Jeno asked.

It came out quieter than he meant.

Donghyuck’s face changed.

The teasing did not vanish, but it softened into something more vulnerable, more serious. His fingers stopped tapping against the glass. The song kept playing. Jeno could hear Robert Smith singing about being alone above a raging sea, and he thought, absurdly, that he understood that too.

Donghyuck leaned in slightly, not enough to close the space, only enough to make Jeno feel the possibility of it.

“Not here,” Donghyuck said.

Jeno’s breath caught.

Donghyuck’s eyes searched his. “But yes.”

The word went through Jeno like electricity.

Yes.

Not maybe. Not a joke. Not a flirt tossed out to watch Jeno blush. Yes.

Jeno looked down at the table because if he kept looking at Donghyuck, he might actually evaporate in front of everyone. Donghyuck seemed to understand, because his knee pressed more firmly against Jeno’s under the table, steady and warm. Not enough for anyone to notice. Enough for Jeno to feel held in place.

The night stretched after that in a strange, shimmering way. The others talked. Drinks were ordered. Fries disappeared. Mark told a story about a studio session gone wrong. Renjun corrected three details and then claimed he was not invested. Chenle demanded another round of food because “this table has no discipline.” Jisung laughed quietly into his glass. Jaemin kept glancing between Jeno and Donghyuck with increasing suspicion, his expression sharpening every time he caught the two of them leaning close together, but he said nothing, which either meant he had matured or was gathering evidence for a later attack.

Donghyuck did order another beer.

Jeno tried not to look too relieved.

“You okay?” Donghyuck murmured after the waiter left.

Jeno gave him a look. “You ask me that a lot.”

“You make a lot of faces.”

“I do not.”

“You do. Tiny ones.” Donghyuck lifted his hand, then stopped just short of touching Jeno’s cheek, fingers hovering in the warm space between them. “Right here. Your jaw gets tense when you’re overwhelmed.”

Jeno held very still.

Donghyuck let his hand drop back to the table, but the almost-touch stayed behind, buzzing along Jeno’s skin.

“I’m okay,” Jeno said.

Donghyuck’s mouth curved. “Nervous?”

Jeno swallowed. “A little.”

“Good nervous?”

Jeno looked at him.

Donghyuck looked back, suddenly less playful again.

Jeno thought about lying, then felt too tired of hiding. “Very good nervous.”

Donghyuck’s eyes warmed in a way that made Jeno regret every second of his life spent not being kissed by him.

After that, time became cruel. It moved too fast and too slowly at once. Ten o’clock. Ten-fifteen. Ten-thirty. Donghyuck’s second beer lowered by dangerous increments. Jeno drank barely half of his own, not because he was trying to stay sober—though he was—but because every sip felt like wasted time when he could be watching Donghyuck talk. Donghyuck showed him notes on his phone for new content ideas: a video series about trying subscribers’ comfort meals, a travel vlog concept built around train stations instead of destinations, a music video shot entirely on handheld cameras by friends, a ridiculous idea where Mark, Chenle, and Jisung picked outfits for him based on different fictional characters without telling him which ones. Jeno listened, asked questions, and watched Donghyuck come alive under the attention.

“You should do the comfort meals one,” Jeno said, scrolling through the messy notes Donghyuck had shoved toward him.

Donghyuck leaned close to read over his shoulder, though it was his own phone and he knew what it said. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It fits you.”

“How?”

Jeno looked at the list, then at him. “You’re good at making things feel personal without making them too serious.”

Donghyuck blinked.

Jeno felt suddenly exposed. “I mean, your videos. People send you food that means something to them, and you try it, talk about it. You’d make it funny, but not in a way that makes fun of them.”
Donghyuck was quiet.

Jeno shifted, self-conscious. “Or maybe I’m wrong.”

“No,” Donghyuck said, too quickly. His voice had gone soft. “No, you’re... that’s exactly what I wanted it to be. I just didn’t know how to say it.”

Jeno looked down again, but Donghyuck’s hand found his under the table.

Not fully. Not fingers laced. Just Donghyuck’s fingertips touching the back of Jeno’s hand, a quiet press of gratitude or affection or both. Jeno’s breath caught, but he did not move away. He turned his hand slightly. Donghyuck’s fingers slid closer. Their hands rested side by side in the shadow under the table, almost holding, not quite.

It was unbearable.

It was perfect.

By ten-fifty, the staff started doing that polite closing ritual that made everyone aware they were about to be gently expelled from warmth into the night. Chairs scraped. Bills appeared. Lights seemed brighter. The music lowered slightly. Jeno felt a strange, irrational resentment toward the concept of business hours. He had known since nine-thirty that the bar closed at eleven, but knowing did not prepare him for the sharp little ache of the night ending.

Donghyuck’s beer was finally empty.

Tragic.

“Stop looking at my glass like it betrayed you,” Donghyuck murmured.

Jeno’s eyes snapped to his face. “I wasn’t.”

“You were. You’ve been monitoring my beer for an hour.”

Jeno wanted to deny it. He really did. But Donghyuck’s expression was too amused, too fond, too accurate.

“I didn’t want you to finish it,” Jeno admitted.

Donghyuck’s smile softened instantly.

“Why?” he asked, though his voice suggested he already knew.

Jeno took a breath. Around them, their friends were gathering jackets, arguing about who paid for what, Jaemin loudly insisting he covered Jeno’s first drink because he had “forced him into society,” Chenle accusing Mark of stealing a fry he had eaten himself. It would have been easy to hide in the noise. Instead, Jeno looked at Donghyuck and said, “Because then we’d have to leave.”

Donghyuck stared at him.

Then he smiled so beautifully Jeno almost regretted giving him the truth, because now he had to survive seeing what Donghyuck did with it.

“We can leave together,” Donghyuck said.

Jeno’s pulse jumped.

Jaemin appeared beside them like a demon summoned by emotional vulnerability. “Who’s leaving together?”

Jeno closed his eyes. “Go away.”

Jaemin gasped. “I’m being excluded.”

“You are.”

“Rude.”

Donghyuck laughed, leaning back with practiced ease. “I’m walking him home.”

Jaemin looked between them. Slowly. Too slowly. His face shifted through surprise, delight, calculation, and then the kind of emotional restraint that meant he was moments away from exploding but choosing, with heroic effort, to postpone it.

“Oh,” Jaemin said.

Jeno braced himself.

Jaemin smiled sweetly. Dangerously. “That’s nice.”

“Don’t,” Jeno warned.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said it with your face.”

“My face is beautiful and supportive.”

Donghyuck, traitor, said, “Objectively.”

Jeno shot him a look.

Donghyuck’s eyes danced. “What? You said it first.”

Jaemin’s head whipped toward Jeno. “You called me beautiful?”

Jeno stood up. “We’re leaving.”

Jaemin made a noise that would haunt him later.

The group spilled out of the bar in noisy fragments, everyone saying goodbye in overlapping voices beneath the cold night sky. Mark hugged Donghyuck with one arm and told him not to forget something about tomorrow’s recording. Renjun pointed at Donghyuck and said, “Don’t make bad choices,” then looked at Jeno and added, “Or do. But be normal about it.” Chenle yelled that if Donghyuck disappeared again, he was replacing him with someone more loyal. Jisung waved shyly at Jeno and then got dragged away by Mark and Chenle. Jaemin lingered, of course he did, because Jaemin had never once exited a scene when he could instead add emotional tension to it.

He hugged Jeno tightly, longer than necessary, then whispered in his ear, “Text me if you need me. Also text me if you kiss him. Actually, text me especially if you kiss him.”

Jeno shoved him away. “Good night.”

Jaemin grinned, then glanced at Donghyuck. “Walk him slow. He pretends he hates it, but he likes being taken care of.”

“Jaemin,” Jeno said, mortified.

Donghyuck’s expression softened before he could hide it. “Good to know.”

Jaemin blew them both a kiss and finally left, following the others down the street while Jeno stood there wishing the pavement would open. Donghyuck watched Jaemin go, then looked back at Jeno with something unreadable passing through his eyes. Not jealousy this time. Not exactly. Maybe understanding. Maybe a little tenderness for the fact that Jeno was loved loudly by someone who knew him well enough to embarrass him with accuracy.

“He cares about you,” Donghyuck said.

Jeno sighed, but there was no real annoyance in it. “Too much.”

“Doesn’t look like too much.”

Jeno looked at him.

Donghyuck’s mouth curved, smaller now. “Looks like a good amount.”

The street was quieter than the bar, all late-night chill and distant traffic. Jeno tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, suddenly aware of every inch between them. “You don’t have to walk me home.”

Donghyuck gave him a look. “I offered.”

“It’s out of your way.”

“I know.”

“You have an early thing tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“Donghyuck.”

“Jeno.” Donghyuck stepped closer, tilting his head. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

Yes, Jeno thought immediately. God, yes. Walk me home. Walk slowly. Take the long way. Don’t leave yet. Don’t let the night end. Don’t make me go back to my apartment with my skin still buzzing and my mouth still untouched. Hold my hand. Please hold my hand. I’ve been dropping hints in my head for weeks and apparently out loud for an hour. Please notice. Please.

Out loud, because he remained himself, he said, “It’s fine.”

Donghyuck stared at him.

Jeno stared back.

Donghyuck’s eyebrow lifted.

Jeno looked away first. “I mean... yes.”

Donghyuck’s smile spread, slow and devastating. “Was that so hard?”

“Yes.”

“Proud of you.”

“You’re annoying.”

“You like me.”

Jeno’s breath caught.

Donghyuck froze for a fraction of a second, like he had not meant to say it quite like that. Not as a joke. Not with that softness.

Jeno looked at him and, for once, did not deny it.

Donghyuck’s eyes darkened.

They began walking.

At first, their hands did not touch. Jeno noticed because every nerve in his body had apparently been assigned to monitor the situation. Donghyuck walked beside him with his shoulder brushing Jeno’s occasionally, close but not close enough. The sidewalk was mostly empty, the city washed in late-night gold and blue, storefronts shuttered, convenience stores glowing on corners, taxis gliding past like quiet fish. Their conversation returned in pieces, softer now. Donghyuck asked about Jeno’s weekend plans. Jeno said laundry. Donghyuck groaned like Jeno had confessed to a crime.

“You need hobbies.”

“I have hobbies.”

“Name one.”

“Movies.”

“That’s consumption.”

“Horror games.”

“That’s better. We should play one.”

“You’ll scream.”

“Strategically.”

“You’ll grab my arm and blame the game.”

Donghyuck’s smile turned wicked. “Maybe I just want an excuse.”

Jeno’s step almost caught on nothing.

Donghyuck looked pleased.

They walked another block. Their hands brushed once. Accidentally, maybe. Jeno’s fingers twitched. Donghyuck said nothing.

Another block.

Hands brushed again.

Jeno stared forward, heart pounding so loudly he could barely hear himself think.

Donghyuck, apparently deciding to be merciful and cruel in equal measure, said, “You know, if you want to hold my hand, you can.”

Jeno nearly tripped.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You’ve been looking at my hand for five minutes.”

“I have not.”

“You have.”

“It’s dark.”

“It’s a hand, Jeno, not a rare bird.”

Jeno huffed, embarrassed. “Maybe you wanted to hold mine.”

Donghyuck stopped walking.

Jeno took one more step before realizing and turned back.

Donghyuck stood under the pale spill of a streetlamp, face soft with amusement, but there was something else there too. Something open. His hand lifted slightly between them, palm up.

“I do,” he said.

Jeno’s heart stopped trying to be subtle.

He looked at Donghyuck’s hand. Then at his face. Then back down. The second hint, apparently, had finally become unnecessary. Maybe all the hints had been unnecessary. Maybe Donghyuck had known and simply waited for Jeno to meet him halfway.

Jeno stepped back toward him and placed his hand in Donghyuck’s.

Donghyuck’s fingers slid between his immediately, warm and sure. No accidental brush this time. No practical excuse, no bathroom line, no side exit, no crowd to blame. Just hands fitting together on a quiet street because they both wanted it. Jeno inhaled slowly, trying not to show how much it affected him, and failed completely when Donghyuck’s thumb brushed over the side of his hand.
“You okay?” Donghyuck asked, voice low.

Jeno nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good nervous?”

Jeno looked at him. “Very good nervous.”

Donghyuck’s smile did something terrible to him.

They walked slower after that. Ridiculously slow. Almost comically slow. Jeno’s apartment was not that far from the bar, but they managed to stretch the walk like they were crossing an entire continent by hand. Their conversation wandered everywhere and nowhere. Donghyuck talked about wanting to film in Japan again, but differently this time, not just as a travel vlog but as something quieter, more personal. Jeno asked if he ever felt lonely when he traveled alone. Donghyuck was quiet for a moment before answering.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Usually after filming. During the day, I’m busy. I’m looking for things, talking, shooting, moving. But at night, when I’m back wherever I’m staying, it gets weird. Like I used up all my words and there’s nobody there to hear the ones left over.”

Jeno’s hand tightened around his.

Donghyuck looked at their hands, then at him.

“I’d listen,” Jeno said.

The words came out before he could get scared of them.

Donghyuck’s face changed, nakedly soft.

“Yeah?” he asked.

Jeno nodded. “Yeah.”

Donghyuck looked away toward the street, smiling to himself like he needed somewhere to put the feeling. “That’s dangerous of you to say.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a lot of words left over.”

“I know.”

Donghyuck laughed, nudging him with his shoulder. “Rude.”

“I’d still listen.”

Donghyuck did not answer immediately. His thumb moved over Jeno’s hand again, slow and absent and devastating.

They talked about movies next because the emotion had gotten too close to the surface. They argued about horror endings, about whether bleak endings were brave or just lazy, about which director overused silence and which one understood tension. They talked about Pokémon teams because Donghyuck still insisted Jeno’s balanced choices were “emotionally unavailable,” and Jeno insisted Donghyuck’s cute-team strategy was “reckless and unsustainable.” Donghyuck said he would rather lose beautifully than win boringly. Jeno said that explained a lot. Donghyuck laughed and squeezed his hand.

Everything felt steady.

That was the strange part. Jeno had expected holding Donghyuck’s hand to make him explode. It did, a little. Internally. But once the first shock settled, the feeling became almost peaceful. Like some restless part of him had finally been given something simple and true to hold. Donghyuck’s hand was warm. His rings pressed cool against Jeno’s skin. Their steps matched without trying. Jeno did not want the walk to end, but he was not frantic anymore. The night had slowed around them.

Then they reached Jeno’s building.

The peace vanished.

Jeno stopped at the entrance, hand still in Donghyuck’s, and stared at the door like it had personally betrayed him. He had known they were walking there. Obviously. That had been the entire stated purpose. But now that they had arrived, he felt suddenly desperate in a way that embarrassed him. Donghyuck would let go. Donghyuck would smile and say good night. Donghyuck would walk away down the street, and Jeno would go upstairs alone with every nerve in his body screaming. He could not bear it. Not yet. Not after the bar, the song, the walk, Donghyuck’s hand, the soft way he had said yes without saying everything else.

Donghyuck turned toward him, still holding on. “This is you?”

Jeno nodded.

Donghyuck’s eyes searched his face. “Okay.”

Neither of them moved.

The building light buzzed softly above them. Somewhere down the street, a car door shut. Donghyuck’s hand remained in his, but looser now, like he was giving Jeno the chance to pull away first. Jeno did not. He stared at Donghyuck’s face and felt that old dizzy unreality rush back in. So pretty. Ridiculously pretty. A dream under the ugly building light. His mouth looked soft. His eyes were dark and careful. He looked nervous too, maybe, which did something unbearable to Jeno’s chest.

“Do you...” Jeno started, then stopped because his voice had almost failed.

Donghyuck waited.

Jeno swallowed. “Do you want to come up?”

Donghyuck went still.
Jeno rushed on, face heating. “Not— I mean, you don’t have to. It’s late. I just...” He looked away, then forced himself to look back because Donghyuck had been brave all night and Jeno could try to be brave once. “I don’t want you to leave yet.”

The words landed between them, honest and fragile.

Donghyuck’s expression softened so intensely that Jeno’s breath caught.

“Jeno,” he said quietly.

Jeno could not read his tone. “It’s okay if—”

Donghyuck kissed him.

Not upstairs. Not after another long conversation. Not with warning enough for Jeno to prepare whatever part of himself he thought needed preparation. Donghyuck simply stepped closer, lifted his free hand to Jeno’s jaw, and kissed him right there by the entrance of Jeno’s building, under the buzzing light, with their fingers still tangled between them.

For half a second, Jeno went completely still.

Not because he did not want it.

Because wanting it and having it were two different realities, and his body needed a moment to survive the crossing.

Donghyuck’s mouth was warm. Softer than Jeno had imagined and somehow more certain. He kissed gently at first, almost carefully, like he was asking a question with his lips and giving Jeno all the room in the world to answer. His thumb brushed Jeno’s jaw. His fingers were steady despite the tension in his shoulders. He smelled faintly like beer, rain, and the citrus detergent from his jacket. Jeno’s entire body lit up so fast and so completely that for one wild second he genuinely thought, with no irony at all, I might drop dead.

His knees did not buckle, but it was close enough to be concerning.

Then Jeno kissed him back.

The moment he did, Donghyuck made the smallest sound against his mouth, barely there, almost swallowed, and the sound went through Jeno like a spark to dry grass. Jeno’s free hand found Donghyuck’s waist, then his back, fingers spreading over the fabric of his jacket as if he needed proof. Real. Warm. Here. Donghyuck leaned into him immediately, not shy anymore, not hesitant, mouth moving more surely now that Jeno had answered. The kiss deepened by degrees, still slow but no longer careful in the same way. Donghyuck tilted his head. Jeno followed. Their noses brushed. Donghyuck smiled into the kiss once, disbelieving or happy or both, and Jeno felt it everywhere.

He had kissed people before.

He had kissed people in quiet apartments, outside restaurants, against walls at parties, in beds, in the half-dark of relationships that had been good enough for a while. He knew mouths. He knew hands. He knew heat.

He had never known this.

This was not just kissing. This was every bored night in bed collapsing into reality. Every secret scroll. Every ridiculous fantasy. Every bathroom-line almost, every convenience store laugh, every weekend on his couch, every look across a table, every unsaid thing finding a language at once. This was Donghyuck’s hand sliding from his jaw into the hair at the nape of his neck. This was Jeno pulling him closer and realizing Donghyuck came willingly, eagerly, like he had been waiting just as badly. This was the warm press of Donghyuck’s body against his, same height, different shape, fitting in a way that made Jeno’s thoughts dissolve into sensation. This was being alive so sharply it almost hurt.

Donghyuck pulled back first, but only enough to breathe.

Their foreheads nearly touched. Jeno’s eyes stayed closed for a second because opening them felt like risking the dream ending.

“Jeno,” Donghyuck whispered.

Jeno opened his eyes.
Donghyuck was looking at him like he could not believe him. Like Jeno was the impossible one. His mouth was a little swollen, his cheeks flushed, his eyes brighter than the streetlights. Beautiful. Ridiculous. Real.

Jeno made a sound that was supposed to be a reply and failed.

Donghyuck laughed softly, breathless, thumb still brushing the side of Jeno’s neck. “You okay?”

Jeno exhaled, shaky and almost amused because of course Donghyuck would ask that. “I don’t know.”

Donghyuck’s brows lifted, concern flickering in. “Bad?”

“No.” Jeno’s hand tightened at his waist before he could stop it. “No. Very not bad.”

Donghyuck’s smile broke open.

Jeno looked at his mouth.

Donghyuck noticed, because Donghyuck always noticed.

“Oh,” Donghyuck murmured, and then he kissed him again.

The second kiss was less careful.

Jeno felt the difference immediately. The first had asked. The second knew. Donghyuck stepped closer until Jeno’s back nearly touched the building door, his hand still at Jeno’s neck, the other sliding up his arm. Jeno held him tighter, unable to stop himself, and Donghyuck responded with a soft hum that made Jeno’s grip on sanity loosen dangerously. It was still slow. Still sweet in its own heated way. But underneath it was all the hunger they had been politely stepping around for weeks, all the tension sharpened by restraint. Donghyuck kissed like he talked, Jeno realized distantly—expressive, warm, playful even in softness, a little reckless when encouraged. He kissed like he wanted Jeno to know he was wanted. Like he wanted to ruin him gently and then smile about it.

Jeno, apparently, was very willing to be ruined.

When they separated again, it was because someone entered the building behind them and the automatic light above the door flickered brighter, making both of them jerk apart like guilty teenagers. An elderly man from the third floor stepped out with his tiny dog, glanced at them once, unimpressed, and continued down the sidewalk. The dog, wearing a red sweater, seemed equally uninterested in their emotional breakthrough.

Donghyuck pressed his lips together.

Jeno stared at the dog.

Then Donghyuck started laughing.

Jeno followed, helplessly, quietly at first and then harder when Donghyuck leaned forward, forehead dropping briefly to Jeno’s shoulder. The tension cracked open into something warmer, easier, still electric but less terrifying. Jeno’s hand remained at Donghyuck’s back. Donghyuck did not move away.

“Your neighbors are very supportive,” Donghyuck said.

“That dog judges everyone.”

“I respect him.”

“He has standards.”

“So do you.” Donghyuck lifted his head, eyes bright with laughter and something softer beneath. “I’m honored.”

Jeno looked at him for a moment, still dazed enough to be honest. “You should be.”

Donghyuck blinked, then smiled slowly. “Oh, he’s bold after kissing.”

Jeno’s face warmed. “Maybe it fixed something.”

“Fixed?”

“Or broke it.”

Donghyuck laughed again, quieter this time, and his fingers found Jeno’s hand once more. “Hopefully broke it.”

Jeno’s heart did something painful and wonderful.

The invitation still hovered there. Upstairs. Coming in. Not leaving yet. It had changed now, not into pressure, not into anything rushed, but into a question with more weight. Jeno still did not want Donghyuck to leave. If anything, kissing him had made the idea worse. He wanted more, yes, but not only in the obvious way. He wanted Donghyuck inside his apartment, on his couch, under his lights, laughing about the dog, maybe kissing him again where the hallway would not expose them to judgmental pets. He wanted to make tea or open a drink neither of them would finish. He wanted to sit close and talk until the adrenaline stopped shaking in his hands. He wanted Donghyuck to stay in the soft, ordinary place where Jeno had already imagined him too many times.

Donghyuck seemed to understand before Jeno spoke.

“Do you still want me to come up?” he asked quietly.

Jeno’s pulse jumped, but the nervousness was different now. Less fear, more hope.

“Yes,” he said.

Donghyuck’s thumb brushed over his knuckles. “Slow?”

Jeno nodded, throat tight. “Slow.”

Donghyuck smiled, warm and bright and a little shy around the edges. “I can do slow.”

Jeno believed him.

They went upstairs still holding hands. Jeno unlocked his door with fingers that only shook a little, which he considered impressive given the circumstances. His apartment was dark when they stepped inside, quiet and familiar, smelling faintly like laundry detergent and the cedar candle Donghyuck had once bullied him into buying because “your apartment is calm but it needs a signature scent.” Jeno turned on the small lamp by the couch. Warm light spread across the room. Donghyuck took off his shoes by the door, slower than usual, like he was suddenly aware of crossing a threshold that meant something different tonight.

Jeno stood beside him, keys still in hand, and felt suddenly shy.

It was ridiculous after what had just happened. Donghyuck’s mouth had been on his less than two minutes ago. Donghyuck’s hand had been in his hair. Jeno could still feel the pressure of him, taste the faint bitterness of beer and the sweetness of whatever lip balm Donghyuck used. And yet, in the quiet of the apartment, with the door closed behind them, everything felt new again.

Donghyuck looked around, then back at Jeno. His smile was softer than before. “Hi.”

Jeno let out a laugh, breathless. “Hi.”

“We’re very awkward.”

“I’m awkward. You’re usually fine.”

“I am not fine.” Donghyuck stepped closer, leaving his jacket half-unzipped, his hair falling into his eyes. “I’m just louder about it.”

Jeno’s chest warmed. “You’re nervous?”

Donghyuck gave him a look. “I kissed the guy I’ve been trying not to scare away for weeks. Yes, Jeno, I’m nervous.”

The honesty hit him hard.

Jeno set his keys down carefully on the small table by the door, needing the movement. “You weren’t going to scare me away.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I thought I was obvious.”

Donghyuck stared at him. Then he laughed, soft and disbelieving. “You? Obvious?”

Jeno frowned. “I held your hand.”

“After I practically put mine in a spotlight.”

“I invited you upstairs.”

“After looking at your door like it had betrayed you.”

Jeno’s mouth twitched despite himself. “I told you I didn’t want you to leave.”

Donghyuck’s expression softened again, all the teasing melting at the edges. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “That one was obvious.”

Jeno looked at him.

The apartment settled around them. Outside, a car passed down the street, its headlights briefly brushing the window. Inside, everything was still except Donghyuck stepping closer and Jeno meeting him halfway.

The third kiss happened in Jeno’s living room, beside the couch where they had watched horror movies and eaten too many snacks and pretended the space between them was casual. This one began with Donghyuck’s hands at Jeno’s shoulders and Jeno’s fingers brushing Donghyuck’s jaw, learning the shape of him now that he was allowed. It was slower than the second kiss. Deeper than the first. Donghyuck sighed into it, and Jeno felt the sound all the way down his spine. They moved carefully, not because they lacked want but because they had too much of it, because both of them seemed to understand that rushing might make the night collapse under its own weight. Donghyuck’s hand slid to Jeno’s waist. Jeno’s arms looped loosely around his neck. Their bodies aligned, warm and close, and Jeno thought again, helplessly, I might die. For real.

But he did not.

He stayed alive.

More alive than he had ever been.

Eventually, Donghyuck pulled back and pressed his forehead against Jeno’s, breathing unevenly. “You’re really good at that.”

Jeno, whose soul had left his body and returned speaking only static, blinked. “Kissing?”

Donghyuck laughed. “No, tax law.”

Jeno groaned, dropping his forehead briefly to Donghyuck’s shoulder.

Donghyuck’s laugh softened into something fond. Lifting a hand and letting his fingers slide into the hair at the back of Jeno’s head, holding him there. “Yes, kissing.”

Jeno closed his eyes, letting himself breathe against Donghyuck’s shoulder for one second. “You too.”

“I hoped so.”

Jeno lifted his head. “You hoped?”

Donghyuck’s cheeks turned faintly pink. It was devastating. “I may have thought about it.”

Jeno’s heart jumped. “You did?”

Donghyuck gave him a dry look, but his blush remained. “Jeno, I wrote an entire note in my phone titled ‘ways to maybe get Jeno to hold my hand without making him run away.’”

Jeno stared.

Donghyuck closed his eyes. “I should not have said that.”

“No,” Jeno said quickly. Too quickly. “No, I like that.”

Donghyuck opened one eye. “You do?”

Jeno nodded, then, because the night had already peeled him open this far, added, “I thought about kissing you so much I had to distract myself with office supply orders.”

Donghyuck’s mouth fell open.

Jeno winced. “I should not have said that.”

“No,” Donghyuck said immediately, eyes brightening with pure delight. “No, I love that. That is the most you thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not.” Donghyuck touched his face, thumb tracing the edge of his cheek. “I’m going to think about that forever, though.”

Jeno’s face burned.

Donghyuck’s smile softened. “Cute.”

Jeno sighed. “You keep saying that.”

“Because you keep being cute.”

“I’m not cute.”

“You are. You’re also tall and beautiful and have scary shoulders, but you’re cute.”

Jeno looked at him, dazed by the list. “Scary shoulders?”

Donghyuck nodded solemnly. “Emotionally significant shoulders.”

Jeno laughed, and Donghyuck kissed the sound off his mouth before it could fully leave.

That became the shape of the night. Kissing, then laughing because one of them said something stupid. Talking, then getting pulled back into kissing because silence became too full. Sitting on the couch, then shifting closer until Donghyuck was half-turned toward him with one leg tucked under himself and Jeno’s hand resting, tentative and reverent, on his knee. They did not rush. They did not need to. Donghyuck kept his promise. Slow. Steady. Warm. He asked without always using words, pausing when Jeno’s breath caught too sharply, smiling when Jeno leaned back in of his own accord. Jeno, who had been so sure he might shatter under the first touch, found himself settling instead. Want did not become less intense, but it became easier to hold when Donghyuck held it with him.
At some point, Donghyuck ended up curled into the corner of the couch, and Jeno sat beside him, their shoulders pressed together, their hands linked again over the blanket neither of them had bothered to unfold. The TV stayed off. The apartment hummed softly around them. Donghyuck’s head rested lightly against the back cushion, turned toward Jeno, his eyes half-lidded and bright.

“So,” Donghyuck said.

Jeno looked at him. “So.”

“We kissed.”

Jeno’s mouth twitched. “I noticed.”

“Good. I was worried you missed it.”

“It was subtle.”

“Very professional.”

“Efficient.”

Donghyuck gasped. “Do not call our first kiss efficient.”

Jeno laughed, and Donghyuck leaned over to bite gently at his shoulder through his shirt, offended and dramatic. Jeno’s breath caught for an entirely different reason, and Donghyuck froze for half a second before looking up at him with slow interest.

“Oh?” Donghyuck said.

Jeno stared straight ahead. “Don’t.”

Donghyuck’s smile turned wicked. “Noted.”

“I mean it.”

“Noted,” Donghyuck repeated, clearly noting it in the worst possible way.

Jeno turned to glare at him, and Donghyuck kissed him again because apparently that was an option now. A real option. A thing that could happen simply because Donghyuck wanted it and Jeno wanted it back. The thought made him dizzy all over again.

When they finally separated, Donghyuck stayed close, nose brushing Jeno’s cheek for a second before he pulled away. His voice was quieter when he spoke.

“I like you,” he said.

Jeno’s heart stopped.

Donghyuck looked nervous again, but he did not look away. “I know that’s probably obvious. I’m not subtle.”

“You’re not,” Jeno whispered.

Donghyuck laughed softly. “Rude.”

“I like you too.”

Donghyuck’s expression changed so quickly, so beautifully, that Jeno regretted not saying it sooner. His whole face opened, relief and joy and disbelief spilling through like light through a door. “Yeah?”

Jeno nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Donghyuck exhaled, then smiled, almost shy. “Good, because I was going to look very stupid otherwise.”

“You never look stupid.”

“I absolutely do.”

“Not to me.”

Donghyuck stared at him for a long moment.

Then he whispered, “You can’t just say things like that after kissing me. I’ll get attached.”

Jeno’s hand tightened around his. “Maybe that’s okay.”

Donghyuck’s eyes softened.

The night did not end there, though it could have and Jeno would still have counted it as the best of his life. They kept talking, softer now, the way people did after something had shifted and both were testing how the new world sounded. Donghyuck told him that he had noticed Jeno properly at the restaurant because Jeno had looked like he was trying so hard not to recognize him that it made him curious. Jeno hid his face in one hand at that, mortified, and Donghyuck laughed before pulling the hand away to kiss his knuckles. Donghyuck admitted that he had posted the story about the sauce review hoping, stupidly, that maybe Jeno would see it. Jeno admitted that he had seen it. Three times. Donghyuck corrected him: “I bet it was more than three.” Jeno refused to answer, which was answer enough.

They confessed little things in pieces. Not everything. Not yet. But enough. Donghyuck said he liked how Jeno listened without trying to turn every silence into something else. Jeno said he liked how Donghyuck made his life feel bigger without making it louder. Donghyuck went quiet at that, eyes shining a little too much, then called him unfair and kissed him again because apparently that was how Donghyuck handled being moved.

Later, when it was too late for Donghyuck to reasonably stay longer and too early for Jeno to be ready to let him leave, they stood by the door again. This time inside. This time with no judgmental dog, no buzzing hallway light, no friends waiting outside, no beer glass counting down the night. Donghyuck put his shoes on slowly. Jeno watched, hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for him too soon.

Donghyuck stood and faced him. “Text me when you go to bed.”

“I’ll be here.”

“I know.” Donghyuck smiled. “Text me anyway.”

Jeno nodded. “Okay.”

Donghyuck stepped closer, then paused. “Can I kiss you good night?”

Jeno’s chest warmed so intensely it almost hurt. “You don’t have to ask every time.”

Donghyuck’s smile softened. “Maybe I like asking.”

Jeno swallowed. “Then yes.”

The goodnight kiss was sweet. Too sweet. Almost unbearable because it was not the desperate revelation of the first one or the heated relief of the second. It was a promise tucked into something small.

Donghyuck kissed him once, then again, then smiled against his mouth when Jeno followed him for a third.

“Greedy,” Donghyuck whispered.

Jeno, who had lost too much dignity to defend the rest, said, “Yeah.”

Donghyuck’s breath caught.

Then he laughed softly, delighted and stunned, and kissed him again.

After Donghyuck left, Jeno leaned against the closed door and stood there for a while, hand pressed over his mouth like he could keep the feeling from escaping. His apartment was quiet, but it no longer felt untouched. Donghyuck’s warmth remained on the couch. His laugh seemed caught in the lamp light. The air still held citrus and beer and rain and something sweet Jeno was beginning to understand as him.

He took out his phone.

There was already a message.

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: made it downstairs
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: still alive?
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: because i’m barely

Jeno laughed under his breath, then typed with hands that still felt unsteady.

jeno: Barely alive.
jeno: In a good way.

Donghyuck replied almost immediately.

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: good
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: same time next week?
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: and maybe tomorrow too?
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: and maybe forever but that’s me being normal

Jeno stared at the screen, his heart beating hard and warm and alive.

Once, bored in bed, he had stalked Donghyuck’s profile and imagined impossible things. He had pictured standing close in some clubs and bathrooms, pictured being walked home, pictured going slow, pictured Donghyuck’s hand in his, pictured a kiss so intense it might kill him. He had thought it was fantasy. Delusion. But now he was standing by his own door with swollen lips and Donghyuck’s texts lighting up his phone, and the impossible had become ordinary enough to ask for tomorrow.

Jeno smiled until his cheeks hurt.

jeno: Tomorrow works.
jeno: Forever might be okay too.

The reply came so fast he could almost hear Donghyuck’s laugh through it.

donghyuck, statistically suspicious: careful
donghyuck, statistically suspicious: i’ll hold you to that

Jeno looked around his quiet apartment, the same sofa, the same lamp, the same unknown green plant by the window, everything familiar and completely changed.

He hoped Donghyuck did.