“Tonight, no drama. Swear it.”
Pier looks at both of them with narrowed eyes and a sly grin already tugging at his lips as he lights a cigarette outside the bar. The night is brisk, the neon sign of Interlude flickers above them, and the music barely leaks through the walls.

Hanjae nods, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
He’s wearing the midnight-blue shirt, the one that leaves his collarbones bare and frames the line of his shoulders. His hair is tied back in a messy half-bun—careless enough to look casual. He spent half an hour in front of the mirror, but he’d never admit it.

Jiwoon, next to him, is in his usual black jacket, but underneath a white shirt hugs his chest. Hanjae noticed immediately. And not only him.

“We’re here to have fun, hyung. No drama, promise,” Jiwoon says with a smile, brushing his shoulder lightly against Hanjae’s.

There was a time when Hanjae hated being so aware of his every movement. Now, every brush, every half-whispered word, every tiny gesture slips beneath his skin like a weight.
A new intimacy.
An intimacy that feels like the two of them.

When Jiwoon is close, Hanjae instinctively raises his hand. Jiwoon’s, as if drawn, brushes against it.
A light touch, natural, but far too charged to go unnoticed.

“Shall we go in?” Pier asks, nodding toward the door.

Hanjae turns toward Jiwoon, about to say something, when Jiwoon’s phone begins to vibrate.
He lowers his gaze, reads the name. Then looks up again, but avoids Hanjae’s eyes this time.
“You two go ahead, I’ll be right there.”

Pier nods and heads inside. Hanjae doesn’t move.
“Who is it?” he asks, trying to sound casual. He fails miserably.

A brief hesitation. Then Jiwoon answers quickly: “It’s Minji.”

The name slices through the air like a sharp blade.
It cuts through every certainty Hanjae thought he had nurtured.

Jiwoon looks up at him. Surprise flashes, then annoyance, but most of all something subtler: defensiveness.
“He called me the other night,” he says. “It was late. I thought something had happened, so I picked up.”

He says it fast. Like he wants to shut it down. Like he doesn’t want to hear the questions that might follow.

“I’ll just be a minute, promise,” he adds, raising the phone to his ear as he walks toward the side of the bar, where the music doesn’t drown out voices.

Hanjae watches him leave, blood pounding in his temples. His hands tremble.
It’s insane how much it hurts. Jiwoon never promised him anything. He never said I’ll choose you. And yet, for days, every gesture had seemed to scream it in silence.

Was it all just an illusion?

He pushes the door of Interlude too hard.

Music crashes over him, lights pulsing. The smell of alcohol and the mixed pheromones of alphas and omegas dazes him only slightly.
But that’s not the problem.

Minji.
Minji, again.

Like a shadow always returning—just when he’d begun to believe, only to believe, that maybe this time he might have a chance.

His stomach twists. It hurts in a way he knows too well, a pain spelled insecurity.
Because Hanjae knows: he’ll never be like him.
He’ll never be Minji.

He isn’t the first choice. He never has been.

He greets Seojoon with a nod, gives Joonha a quick hug, trades a glance with Pier. His eyes search for the bar.

“Pour me some shots?” he asks Pier.
“How many?”
“All of them.”

Pier raises an eyebrow, but starts pouring.

The first one burns.
The second, a little less.
The third is just silence.

Just a growing emptiness, a suffocating need to numb himself before that door reopens and his heart shatters completely.

“Hey, easy…” Seojoon says, resting a hand on his wrist. “You’re not a freshman, you know that—”
“Dance with me,” Hanjae cuts him off, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the pounding heart of the dance floor.

Seojoon tries to protest, but doesn’t get the chance. Hanjae spins toward him, grabs his waist, and pulls close. Too close.

They dance.
The music thrums beneath their feet. Lights flash. Hands brush. Seojoon’s body moves against his.
It’s easy to forget this way. Easy to pretend.
Or at least, it should be.

And yet his eyes keep drifting toward the entrance.
Every so often, his heart stutters.
Every time, damn it, he hopes to see that familiar profile walk through that cursed door.

And then, there he is.
A gust of cold. Jiwoon enters. Head down, shoulders stiff. When he raises his gaze, he scans the room carefully.
As if he knows exactly where to look. And he finds him.

He sees Hanjae and Seojoon too close. Their hands brushing, knees grazing. He sees his false, brazen smile—one that doesn’t belong to him.
And Jiwoon stops.

For a moment, he stands frozen.
His fist tightens. His jaw locks. His eyes narrow to slits.
It’s as if everything around him blurs out.

Hanjae looks back at him. His heart pounds wildly, but he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t move away. Doesn’t quit.
Jiwoon had told him he could drive him crazy.
Well, Hanjae would try.

So he stays there, in the middle of the bar, holding someone he doesn’t care about, his eyes locked on the only one who matters.