“Thank you for coming tonight. And for cooking for me.”

Cheng looked almost embarrassed when he said it. We were still sitting across from each other at the dining table, the remains of dinner scattered between our wine glasses, and his gaze lingered on me as though there was something else he wanted to say.

“I was worried about you,” he admitted. “You’re working almost every day, and you keep losing weight.”

His hand slipped away from mine.

I noticed the absence immediately, which annoyed me more than it should have.

“I’m fine. I need the money.” I stood and began collecting the empty plates. “I just have to make sure work doesn’t interfere with university. As long as I keep up with classes, I’ll manage.”

It wasn’t exactly the easier life I’d imagined when I left Seoul, but changing countries didn’t magically remove rent, food, tuition or every other responsibility that came with staying alive.

I carried the plates into the kitchen and stacked them beside the sink. When I turned around, Cheng was still watching me from the table, slowly moving the wine around his glass.

“How long are you planning to stay at the hostel?”

“I don’t know. Until I find something better.”

“You’ve been saying that.”

“Because it’s still true.”

He leaned back in his chair. “You barely sleep, you work late, and half the time you end up here anyway.”

I returned to the table and raised an eyebrow. “Are you keeping attendance now?”

“Yes.”

The immediate answer made me laugh.

Cheng didn’t.

“I’m serious, Mae. You already know you can stay here whenever you want.”

“I know.”

That was exactly the problem.

Every night I spent there made the apartment feel a little less like his place and a little more like somewhere I belonged. I knew which cupboard held the tea, where he kept the clean towels, which side of the bed he naturally drifted towards in his sleep.

I was getting comfortable.

Too comfortable.

“The hostel is fine,” I said. “I like knowing I can leave whenever I want. No long contract, no complicated arrangements. It’s... liberating.”

“Liberating,” Cheng repeated, unconvinced.

“Yes.”

“That sounds like something you tell yourself because you hate asking anyone for help.”

I narrowed my eyes and reached for the bottle. “Have some more wine.”

That finally made him smile.

He held out his glass and I poured.

“Fine. I’ll stop bothering you about it.”

“Thank you.”

“For tonight.”

“Cheng.”

He laughed, but the teasing faded quickly.

“I mean it, though. If you finish work late, if you’re exhausted, if you just don’t want to go back...” He shrugged, suddenly looking almost shy. “Come here.”

The simplicity of it caught me off guard.

After everything he had already done for me, accepting more felt wrong.

And yet some selfish part of me liked knowing the offer existed.

“Okay,” I murmured.

Cheng smiled into his wine.

I immediately reached for my own glass before he could see what that simple word had done to me.

That wine... damn.

The room wasn’t spinning yet, but everything had begun to soften pleasantly around the edges.

“You know...” Cheng said after a while. “I really think there’s something between us.”

My glass stopped halfway to my mouth.

He frowned at the wine as if the answer might be hiding inside it.

“I don’t normally become friends with someone this quickly. But with you...” He looked up. “The chemistry feels different.”

Heat rushed into my face.

Was he drunk already?

“Mnh... yeah.”

Brilliant response.

I escaped to the kitchen with the remaining dishes before he could watch me turn completely red.

But as I stood at the sink, I knew exactly what he meant.

There was something between us.

I had felt it from the beginning, even when I was doing everything possible to keep him away.

It was there when he followed me around the city while I handed out CVs, when I waited for his training to finish, when he stayed beside me while I was sick. It was there in the way he had learned to offer his hand instead of simply touching me, and earlier tonight when he had let himself get soaked just to keep most of the umbrella over me.

Small things.

Things I remembered far too clearly.

Sometimes they made me believe I could trust him with everything.

Then the darker part of my mind would wake up.

Maybe Cheng was simply kind. Maybe what I saw as affection was sympathy. His life seemed impossibly far from mine—money, security, this apartment, even a family doctor who called him Young Master.

Maybe someone like me gave him something to fix.

Someone to rescue.

I hated thinking that way because Cheng had never treated me like a charity case.

But I had trusted people before.

My ex-girlfriend knew enough.

My best friend knew enough.

Eventually, they had both left, and things I had trusted them with became rumours. Some were lies.

Some weren’t.

Those hurt the most.

If Cheng knew everything, maybe he would leave too.

The thought should have made it easier to keep my distance.

Instead, the possibility of losing him already hurt.

His hands.

His smile.

His presence had quietly become part of my life while I was too busy convincing myself it hadn’t.

“Can you get me some more wine?”

Cheng’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

I dried my hands and returned to the dining table. He remained in his chair while I stood beside him and poured another glass.

When I lowered the bottle, his fingers closed loosely around my wrist. Not hard.

Just enough to keep me there.

I should go.

Not because I was afraid of him.

Because I was becoming afraid of myself around him.

“Can you stay here tonight?”

I looked down at him. 

“I know you have work,” he added. “But could you stay a little longer?”

“Cheng...”

He released my wrist and stood from the chair. Now we were facing each other beside the dining table, close enough that I could smell the wine on his breath.

“I told you, I have to leave soon.”

“I remember.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Maybe a little.”

“A little?”

His mouth curved into a lazy smile.

I shook my head and stepped away from the table, intending to collect my bag from beside the sofa.

Cheng followed, but he didn’t touch me.

When I reached the living room, the backs of my knees bumped against the sofa.

“Five minutes,” he said.

“You negotiate like a child.”

“And yet you’re still here.”

He had a point.

I sighed and sat down.

Cheng took the place beside me, leaving a small space between us.

“Five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” he agreed.

For a moment, the apartment became quiet again. Rain whispered against the windows somewhere behind us, and the abandoned dishes waited in the kitchen.

Then Cheng lifted one hand towards my face.

Slowly.

I saw it coming.

I could have moved.

I didn’t.

His palm settled against my cheek, warm and gentle, and his thumb traced the edge of my jaw.

My breath caught.

The touch wasn’t threatening.

That was almost worse.

I knew how to react to pain. Tenderness was much more confusing.

“I should go,” I murmured, making absolutely no attempt to stand.

“Probably.”

His gaze dropped briefly towards my mouth.

My stomach tightened. “This is getting weird.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed. “I’m not gay, Cheng.”

His eyebrows rose.

“And I’m guessing you aren’t either.”

He tilted his head. “You’re assuming a lot.”

I stared at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means you should stop deciding things for me.”

Before I could answer, he removed his hand from my face and rested it open between us.

Palm up.

Waiting.

The gesture had become familiar.

An invitation.

My choice. My common sense told me to get my bag and leave.

Instead, I placed my hand in his. His fingers closed gently around mine.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” I muttered.

“I didn’t say it did.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Maybe.”

I rolled my eyes.

Cheng smiled and shifted slightly closer until our shoulders touched. His free hand moved carefully to my upper back.

“You’re tense.”

“I work late and study all day.”

“Exactly.”

His fingers pressed into the muscles near my shoulder blade.

A sigh escaped me before I could stop it.

Cheng laughed under his breath.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I was appreciating my work.”

I let my head fall forward slightly as he continued.

God, that felt good.

Between university, late shifts and sleeping badly, my entire body seemed permanently knotted.

Get away, Chin Mae.

The warning came automatically.

But it was quieter than it used to be.

That frightened me. The real danger wasn’t Cheng.

It was how easily I could become attached when someone showed me affection. How desperately I wanted to believe kindness meant permanence.

I already knew it didn’t.

People could hold you one day and destroy you the next.

Cheng’s fingers moved slightly lower along my back.

My body tensed.

He stopped immediately.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

He waited.

“Just... don’t go too low.”

“Okay.”

No questions.

No teasing.

He moved his hand back towards my shoulders.

Somehow, the fact that he listened made leaving even harder.

“I really do have to go soon,” I said.

“I know.”

I turned my head towards him.

His face was closer than I expected. For a second, his eyes stayed on mine.

Then they shifted lower.

His expression changed.

The collar of my hoodie had slipped sideways while he was massaging my shoulders, exposing part of the skin near my collarbone.

“Wait... what’s that? I never noticed it before.”

My blood went cold.

I followed his gaze.

A faded mark disappeared beneath the fabric.

Not the strange reddish-purple mark he had already seen weeks ago.

This one was old.

Much older.

I immediately pulled the collar back into place.

“It’s nothing.”

“Mae.”

“It’s old.”

Whatever softness the alcohol had put into his expression disappeared.

“Did someone hurt you?”

My throat closed. “Cheng, leave it.”

He didn’t reach for my clothes. He didn’t touch me at all.  But his eyes remained on me.

“I said leave it.”

Silence stretched between us.

I stood from the sofa.

Too quickly.

The room tilted, and I caught the armrest to steady myself.

Cheng half-rose on instinct, one hand moving towards me, but he stopped before making contact.

I straightened and took a few steps towards the entrance, where my bag and jacket were waiting.

“Who did that?” he asked behind me.

I kept my back to him.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to tell you.”

For a moment, neither of us moved.

I pulled my hoodie higher around my neck.

He had only seen one.

One old mark.

There were others beneath my clothes—faded lines around my wrists and torso, old bites, places where restraints had once cut too deeply.

Some had almost disappeared.

Others hadn’t.

And every one of them carried a memory.

Hands.

Ropes.

A voice too close to my ear.

My face pressed against something soft enough to swallow sound.

I dug my nails into my palms.

Not now.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I whispered.

Behind me, Cheng’s voice softened.

“It matters if it still hurts you.”

I froze with my hand halfway towards my jacket.

He wasn’t talking about the scar.

I knew that.

So did he.

“I need to go to work.”

“You’ve been drinking.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You almost fell standing up.”

“I need the money.”

“I know.”

I turned around. “No, you don’t.”

The words came out sharper than I intended.

Cheng was standing now, but he remained beside the sofa instead of approaching me.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” I continued. “I don’t have someone I can call when things go wrong and ask them to make everything disappear.”

His expression changed.

I regretted it immediately.

“That was unfair.” He looked away.

I rubbed my face. “I know you’re trying to help.”

“I am.”

“And that’s the problem.”

His eyes returned to mine.

“You keep doing things for me. You give me somewhere to sleep. You feed me. You looked after me when I was sick. You followed me around while I searched for work. Tonight you got soaked just to keep me dry.”

I swallowed.

“And every time you do something like that, it gets harder.”

“Harder to do what?”

Leave.

The answer came instantly.

I couldn’t say it.

“Nothing.”

Cheng studied me from across the living room.

“Mae.”

There it was again.

That name in his voice.

Soft enough to make me hate how much I liked hearing it.

“If you knew everything about me, you wouldn’t be doing this.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Experience.”

He went still.

“My ex knew me. My best friend knew me.” I looked down. “They knew enough to decide I wasn’t worth staying for.”

“Then they were wrong.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you.”

I looked at him again.

There was no teasing in his face now.

Just Cheng.

“You said there’s something between us.”

“There is.”

“What if you’re only interested because I’m a mess?” I asked. “What if you like having someone to save?”

The words sounded cruel as soon as they left me.

Cheng stared at me.

“Do you really think that little of me?”

He didn’t sound angry.

He sounded hurt.

That was worse.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You think I spend time with you because I pity you? That I wait for you after class because your problems entertain me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think I let you stay here because I need someone broken enough to make me feel useful?”

My throat tightened.

“I don’t know, Cheng.”

Silence.

Then some of the hurt left his expression.

“That must be exhausting.”

I frowned. “What?”

“Thinking everyone has a hidden reason for caring about you.”

The words landed somewhere painfully deep.

“You don’t understand.”

“Probably not.” His answer surprised me. “But I don’t need to understand everything tonight.”

He finally moved away from the sofa, crossing part of the distance between us before stopping several steps away.

He didn’t corner me.

He didn’t block the door.

“If you want to leave, I won’t stop you. If you want to stay, you can stay. And if you don’t want to tell me where those scars came from, I won’t ask again.”

I swallowed.

“But don’t decide for me why I care about you.” His eyes held mine. “That’s my decision.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

I wanted to believe him.

That was the problem.

I wanted it so badly that it frightened me.

My fingers curled around the edge of my hoodie.

He had seen almost nothing.

One scar and already I felt exposed.

If you knew the rest...

I couldn’t finish the thought.

Cheng looked at me for another second before slowly extending one hand into the space between us.

Open palm.

Waiting.

He didn’t come any closer.

I looked towards the entrance.

My jacket was there.

My bag.

Work.

The life I had fought so hard to build without depending on anyone.

Then I looked at his hand.

I should have left.

Instead, I crossed the distance myself.

Slowly, I placed my hand in his.

His fingers closed around mine.

Warm.

Careful.

No force.

No demand.

“Five minutes,” I whispered.

His thumb brushed over my knuckles.

“Five minutes.”

We both knew it wouldn’t be five. And for once, I didn’t care.

Because the truth was far more frightening than staying a little longer.

I didn’t want to leave.

And that was exactly why I knew I eventually had to.