“I can’t see a thing in here. Is it supposed to be this dark?” Shihwan asked with an awkward laugh.

He had no clue where he was. It was pitch black; only the soft classical music in the background and occasional whispers and sounds of glass clinking indicated that he was not in some dark abyss. 

He felt around, looking for something that would tell him where he was.

“Oh, sorry,” Shihwan exclaimed as he retracted his hand when it landed on someone’s bare shoulder. He paused, realizing that he had touched what felt like the strap of a dress.

His eyes widened. “I’m sorry,” he said again, bowing slightly, forgetting that he was surrounded by darkness. “That was an accident. I didn’t mean to touch you.”

He heard the rustling of movement, and the stranger shifted away from him. For some reason, his hand instinctively reached out and grabbed the stranger by the arm.

He immediately released her when he felt her body tense up.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, then paused. There had been something odd about the arm he had held. It was slim but not small, and he could very easily feel smooth but noticeable muscle beneath. While he knew some women who were certainly athletic and strong, the build just felt more like a man’s.

“Can you—uh, stay with me?” he asked sheepishly. “I really can’t tell where I am, and I can’t seem to find my way back.”

For a moment, only silence responded to his plea. But then he heard a soft sigh. It was a little deeper than what he was used to hearing coming from a woman.

It sounded strangely familiar.

A few seconds later, the woman settled back down into her seat.

Shihwan awkwardly sat down beside her and cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure what to say in such a situation.

“Do you… come here often?” he asked.

The immediate reply was another sigh before the woman finally spoke to him. “Do you even know where you are?”

Shihwan blinked in confusion. “A club. I think it’s called Atrium?”

She sighed again, this time loudly, making her annoyance obvious. It felt familiar. “You’re in the backrooms. This is where patrons meet in the dark to search for potential partners.”

“Partners?” he repeated. “Oh. Sorry, are you waiting for someone?”

“No,” the woman replied after another tense silence. “But I was hoping to meet someone.”

“Oh,” said Shihwan, knowing that he should probably leave her alone. And yet, he made no move to leave.

“Do you plan to just sit there all night?” the woman asked, her voice tight with an emotion Shihwan couldn’t pinpoint. “Didn’t you come here for that same purpose?”

Shihwan shook his head. “No, I helped the bartender with a situation, and he sent me here.”

The woman softly cursed under her breath, and he turned to her.

A faint scent of roses and citrus wafted into his nose.

The woman shifted away slightly, and Shihwan politely placed his hands on his lap.

“So exactly what do people do here, in the dark?” Shihwan asked, trying to drum up conversation after another moment of awkward silence.

“If you don’t know, why are you here? Why did you agree to the bartender’s idiotic offer?”

Something in the way she spoke made Shihwan pause. There was something very familiar about it. The terseness, the sarcasm, the questioning of his sanity. He had heard it many, many times before.

He cleared his throat. “I came with a friend who had a meeting here.”

The woman stilled, he could practically feel her freeze, so tense was the atmosphere around her. “And is this friend so special for you to follow to a place like this?”

A place like this?

“I… yes, he is,” he replied. “He’s important to me, and I didn’t want him coming here alone.”

The woman didn’t reply, and Shihwan tried hard to peer at her through the darkness. For some reason, she seemed angry.

“So you’re an idiot who followed his crush to a gay club and now you’re trapped in a den of wolves without knowing how to get out?”

Shihwan blinked. How did she…? “How did you—?”

The sounds of the cushion shifted beneath him caught his attention. Shihwan turned just as he felt the woman lean into him. Soft silk brushed against his arm, and he stilled.

“You want to know what we do in a place like this, don’t you?” she said, her voice huskier than before and charged with that emotion he had heard earlier.

Shihwan gulped. The change in mannerisms was so stark that it threw him off. He wasn’t sure why she was suddenly acting like this.

But at the same time, something about her drew him in.

It might have been the sarcastic, irritated way in which she spoke or the husky voice that tickled his ear with its familiarity.

It was magnetic. 

He felt a long finger trace the muscles in his forearm, and his breath caught in his throat. There was something incredibly compelling about this person, and, despite himself, he found himself very, very interested.

“So why don’t I show you?” she whispered, her breath brushing against his ear.

What?

Badump. Badump.

“I…” he blinked. He hadn’t come here for this, but…

“You’re single and reeling from a heartbreak,” she continued as she leaned further into him. The silk fabric of her dress rested on his arm, the heat of her chest seeping into his skin. “I’ll show you just how good it feels to mend a broken heart.”

.