Jaeyong’s facing away from me, looking towards the screen, his broad back leaning into the pillow I’ve clutched around my middle. I hold my breath, keeping still as can be, as he starts moving, pulling his legs up onto the couch, bending at the knees, not enough space for him to really stretch out, one arm pillowing his head on my freaking thigh.

He’s also really, really warm, his clothes still clinging to the odd scent of his cologne—something I can’t place but reminds me of citrus—and some soju if I’m picking it up right. He groans deep in his chest, trying to get comfy, and then finally settles and I’m afraid to move, afraid to even breathe so I don’t wake him up.

I’ve slept on this couch already, yeah, and it’s not the most comfortable, but I also didn’t wake up with any kind of aches and pains. Then again, I’m smaller than Jaeyong, so yeah, maybe he didn’t sleep well last night. Maybe he’s finally resting after packing in his own personal schedule, trying to see friends and family while he’s on his temporary hiatus.

I try not to read too much into it, hoping and wishing for something more, when I know full well that when exhaustion like Jaeyong’s hits, there’s not much you can do in the face of it, let alone fight if off.

So I stay still, let him sleep on top of me, since it means he feels safe, somewhere at a visceral level, in his lizard brain—he feels safe with me, even as he’s out cold.

And while it means something, yeah, it doesn’t have to mean what I would like it to mean, it doesn’t mean that I can be the one to offer him this all of the time.

It doesn’t mean that Jaeyong likes me back, is crushing on me like I’m crushing on him.

The world doesn’t really work like that outside of a romantic K-drama.

So while I want, I let myself be what my old buddy needs, give him somewhere to rest.

It’s no skin off my nose, just kind of hurts my heart a little. Okay, a lot.

Jaeyong does a lot of blushing when he does finally wake up, apologizing a little too much when he stumbles upright, swaying for a second that I think he’s going to keel over when I reach out a hand to steady him, but he takes a giant step back with his super-long legs and puts that space between us, so I keep to my spot, not wanting to push.

Must suck being touched without your permission, must suck to be asked all the time—giving and giving and giving.

But I wouldn’t know a thing about that. Nope, not me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, shit.” Jaeyong’s cheeks blaze with his flush and he keeps patting his hair down, trying to keep it out of his eyes and making sure it looks all right.

I shrug, keeping my voice low and calming even while he keeps rubbing his face with his hands, throat bobbing like he’s swallowing down a hard pill.

“It’s fine, you fell asleep. I still got to watch Netflix, like, I’m not mad about it.”

Jaeyong shakes his head, dropping his hands from his face, even more pink than what he was before, golden skin darkened with his blush. It hurts a little, how very beautiful he is, it really does.

“I never do that, just pass out like that. That’s dangerous.”

I shrug again, taking my seat back on the couch, making myself as non-threatening as possible even though I’m sure I could take him in a fight if push came to shove. “I’m not going to go after your virtue, my prince,” I snort with an exaggerated roll of my eyeballs, then turn back to the TV, the show on pause, catching both characters in mid-blink, super terrifying and what nightmares are made of.

“Virtue? You meant to say virtue?”

I nod, glancing back, finding Jaeyong pinching his lips with his fingers, looking like he’s trying to keep himself from busting a gut laughing. Dread crawls through my insides, icy and slimy.

“No, no, shit, what the hell did I say? Jaeyong?”

I lose him to a fit of laughter. He throws his head back and clutches around his middle, trying to hold himself together as his booming laugh dominates the room, replacing my dread with the infectious need to join in. Oh, man, Min Jaeyong, you put a spell on me, there’s just no other explanation.

He shakes his head, laughing hard enough to bend at the middle, laughter turning into howls, my heart doing a complicated gymnastic tumbling routine that defies the very laws of gravity as I smile, cheeks pulled tight and starting to hurt, watching him laugh, knowing I’m the one that made him laugh like this.

Euphoria, maybe that’s what it’s called.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe not.

Jaeyong’s nearly bent double right now, losing his balance altogether for how much grace he possesses when he’s dancing on stage, under all those hard, unforgiving lights, his hands barely catching him in time before he’s on his hands and knees.

It doesn’t take long after that for the tears to come, Jaeyong’s laughter dying down, petering out into soft chuckles that set him off again for a minute, clutching at his stomach from the pain of it, then finally coming to, sniffing.

“Fuck, I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”

I want to say something right now, call him out on his lie, knowing that the guys in Trickshot are actually hilarious, and I watch as much of their content as I can when I’m in a bad mood. There’s something about watching guys my age fail at common things, trying to take care of themselves outside of dancing, outside of rehearsing and singing and being careful on how they interact with humans at fansigns and concerts.

I know they’re hilarious—so why’s he lying, and am I really going to ask him about it?

Nah.

Jaeyong wipes his eyes, sniffs hard again, catching his breath, sitting on my floor like he’s comfortable there, not giving off any kind of asshole millionaire vibe (since he belongs to that group now), looking down at my one-bedroom apartment that suits me just fine. He’s just not, not turning up his nose at any of my cheaper belongings, opting for comfort over style and aesthetic, wanting my apartment to feel like a sanctuary from the day outside more than anything else.

Fireworks go off in my belly knowing that he likes it, that he feels comfortable here, enough to fall asleep on me.

“My abs, shit, my abs.” He rubs them down, groaning as he leans over to his side, flopping until there’s a whole Min Jaeyong in the middle of my apartment floor, taking up a lot of space and looking like he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

I can’t really find it in myself to get mad about it.

Jaeyong looks at me then, done with petting himself (I mean, fair), sitting upright and tilting his head at me like an inquisitive puppy. I tilt my head back, watching him from the different angle, trying to figure out where he fits in this apartment from this vantage point. And since we’re both looking in the same direction, it could be he’s wondering the same thing about me.

“What are your plans for today?” he asks, and I shrug back at him, tilting my head back to its original position.

“I usually shop for groceries over the weekend, so gotta do that today or tomorrow, and I wanted to go out to some of the cafes nearby, take myself out on a date, you know?”

Jaeyong’s eyebrows leap up his forehead as if to say hello to his hairline. “You haven’t been set up with a blind date yet?”

“Excuse me? I didn’t catch that.” I was distracted by how cute you look.

“Blind dates—they’re how people meet. When I was a trainee, I got set up on so many blind dates.” He waves a hand across the space in front of him. “It’s the dating scene here to go on a date like that, getting set up and vetted by friends.”

My heart starts kicking hard in my chest, thinking about what that would look like. “So, hold on, you actually don’t message beforehand on a dating app first?”

Jaeyong shakes his head, shrugs, and I feel the blood drain from my face.

“So I gotta find out if I like somebody over an awkward cup of coffee, asking each other stupid surface questions before getting to the good stuff, and then deciding if it’s going to go anywhere at the end of the night even if you both haven’t made your intentions clear?” Jaeyong nods again, something like a glint in his eye. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was getting a real kick out of my reaction. But I do know better.

“That sounds like a special place in hell to me.”

Jaeyong rolls his shoulders, less of a shrug and more of a release of tension, working out aches and pains. “I don’t know, I kind of like it. There’s no real expectations beforehand, you kind of get what you get.”

I shake my head, shivering at the mere thought of it. How are you supposed to screen for assholes and hopefully get a diamond in the rough? How many blind dates do I have to go on to figure that out? Where’s the algorithm doing the work for me?

“Hold on.” I put my hands in a T. “Time out, you’ve been out on dates as an idol?” I press my palms to my cheeks, like that scene in Deadpool. “That must’ve been an experience.” I don’t make comments of what little I know about no dating clauses in K-pop idol contracts; I don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes, and it’s none of my business.

“It’s not like I announced it to the public. I had to vet a girl through our staff to keep it quiet, and make sure nobody leaked anything.” He shrugs, the kind of movement that belies the weight on his shoulders.

“Was it weird?” I ask, ignoring that odd curdle in my belly, the incinerating heat at the back of my rib cage, threatening to burn me through, even while I try to shake it off. “Must’ve been super weird.”

Jaeyong nods slowly, looking off to the side. “It was a disaster from beginning to end. I don’t know what she was expecting, but I wasn’t it.”

“Oh, hey, that’s happened to me too!” I raise my hand like I’m back in high school, waiting my turn to answer a question. “Sucks, huh?”

“Raleigh…” Jaeyong says my name like it’s soft and sweet in his mouth, his favourite kind of candy. My heart hammers against my sternum, palms immediately sweaty, and yup, I’m holding my breath hostage in my lungs.

“What do you think about dating someone like me?”

I can’t tell if he’s lying.

I used to be able to, the way his face would betray everything, the way he couldn’t keep his lips from pulling into a strained smile, like he was smiling through the pain, like keeping the truth from me was physically painful.

Now, though?

There’s no tell-tale smile. Jaeyong actually looks serious. Serious.

I choke on air, and have to pound my chest like I’m giving myself an odd version of CPR before I can breathe again, Jaeyong having slid on his knees to me, extra as fuck, but still so much the boy I knew it freaking hurts, dancing and bopping in the times where he could just walk somewhere.

“What? What?! Oh, God, my life flashed before my eyes,” I swipe a hand over my eyes, an old film reel rolling on through along the backs of my eyelids. There isn’t a whole bunch of exciting anything.

Sure, I’ve had accomplishments over the years—my undergrad degree from McGill University, a first for the immediate Montgomery clan; acceptance into the Teacher’s College of my dreams, getting my certification to teach English as a foreign language in Seoul and moving my ass here, the biggest thing I have ever done, to finally learning about and becoming a fangirl of Trickshot and then finding out about Jaeyong.

There’s a smattering of other accomplishments, too, but nothing huge—and it messes me up.

I don’t know, in my head, when I was younger, I thought I would be something more, I don’t know what exactly, just more. Better, stronger, smarter. All of it.

I’m still trying to swallow the hard pill that is being happy with my current situation, and now this?

Way to get thrown a curve ball, shit.

Yikes!