He didn’t expect an answer. Or at least, part of him wanted to pretend he was not expecting anything. But almost immediately, the reply came: Where are you?

My apartment.

And just like that, Kaimin was there. Standing in the doorway of V’s apartment. There was a quiet electricity in the air, heavier than words could carry, and V’s chest thumped as he watched Kaimin closed the gap between them.

V’s hands moved before he even thought, pulling Kaimin into him. Their lips collided with the heat of remembered storms. He tasted the wine coating Kaimin’s mouth, sending a shiver down V’s spine. V’s fingers threaded into Kaimin’s hair while Kaimin’s hands found his hips, pressing them together as if to erase the space between them entirely.

The kiss deepened hungrily. Kaimin broke it just long enough to murmur against V’s mouth, “You’ve been waiting for this.”

V’s laugh was breathless and hoarse. “You have no idea.”

Kaimin’s hands gripped his waist, dragging him closer, and V let himself fall fully into the storm again, into the fire that had never truly gone out.

It became a pattern. Kaimin would appear, sometimes at odd hours, and V would meet him with a mixture of anticipation and raw need. Maybe it was Kaimin who drew the line. Maybe it was V. But there’s an unspoken understanding that to speak would be to open wounds that had never healed. Words would confront fractures that would never mend. So, they didn’t explain. They didn’t ask. Words had no place here. They were fragile, inadequate, liable to shatter the precise, urgent intimacy they’d carved out for themselves. So, they communicated in bodies. They wrote in touch and grip. They whispered in tongue and breath blended into something almost sacred in its chaos.

V’s mind, however, was alive with everything words could not capture. He thought about how much he had missed the press of Kaimin’s body, the burn of his hands along V’s back, the weight of his chest against his own. He thought about the ache that lingered in his chest, the empty hollows that no physical intimacy could erase, yet still found a strange solace in this fire, in Kaimin’s unrelenting presence. He had missed him than he realized and cared to admit.

The routine became a pulse in V’s veins, a rhythm he could feel even when Kaimin wasn’t there. Days blurred into nights, hours into minutes, all measured by anticipation, by the weight of the moments they would steal together. V thought about Kaimin constantly, not the person he had known outside the bedroom, not the polite, unreadable man of daylight, but this presence: sharp, consuming, demanding. He missed it before it even left.

The longing burned into recklessness. It started small, almost imperceptible. A lingering touch here, a quick brush of fingers there but soon it became impossible to contain.

One afternoon, during a long discussion with the LMC, V felt it flicker again. Kaimin sat beside him, calm on the surface, but V could feel it in the small shifts, the way Kaimin’s thigh brushed against his under the table, the subtle pressure of his hand near V’s own. Each time their fingers accidentally, or perhaps not, touched, V’s pulse jumped, and the ache in his chest flared.

By the time the meeting stretched into near eternity, V could no longer sit still. He rose under the guise of grabbing something from the pantry, and Kaimin followed without hesitation, as if he had been waiting for the excuse. The door clicked shut behind them, muffling the voices in the conference room. Then, without thought, without planning, their lips collided. V wrapped his arms around Kaimin’s neck. Kaimin’s hands dug into V’s sides, pulling him flush. The walls of the pantry, the faint smell of paper and coffee, the ordinary hum of the office, they all became inconsequential as fire and desire took over. They came back, never together to avoid suspicion, as if a fire didn’t just burn V’s skin.

The bar buzzed with post-meeting chatter, low music, and clinking glasses. V’s glass was never empty, each sip heavier than the last. Suhyun, perched on a stool nearby, leaned in slightly, voice hesitant. “Don’t drink too much, V,” she said, as if she feared what might happen if he did. Since he came back, Suhyun seemed to be concerned about how much alcohol he consumed. 

V just grinned, tipping back his glass, eyes scanning until they landed on Kaimin who was swirling wine in his glass. Their eyes met briefly, and in that silent second, the room shrank around them.

Soojin nudged, smirking at Kaimin. “Back to drinking now, huh?” she teased.

“Old habits die hard,” Kaimin replied smoothly, glancing briefly at Soojin before going back to V as he took a sip of his wine. There was something sharp in that look, a pull that V could feel deep in his throat.

Kaimin slipped out first. V’s eyes caught the movement, and before he could think, he was following, waiting only for laughter and clinking glasses to swell loud enough to cover his absence. He found him in the store room, a narrow space of shelves, boxes, and the faint scent of alcohol and dust.

The door clicked shut. V didn’t hesitate. He pressed against Kaimin, heat meeting the steady burn of his body. Their mouths crashed together, beer and wine tangling on his tongue. Kaimins’s fingers wove into V’s hair, brushing the nape of his neck, while V’s grip on Kaimin’s waist was firm, as if he could anchor himself there. The noise outside dissolved. V’s pulse thundered as he pressed harder as if proximity could fill the hollow he carried.

Then a soft click of the outer door made him freeze.

The bartender’s shadow fell across the threshold. When his eyes landed on them, his cheeks flushed. He brushed his hair with his fingers nervously. “Uh… everything okay in here?” he asked, trying to sound casual but obviously failing. He was a different bartender than the one V had known more than two years ago.

V’s stomach dropped. Panic surged through him like electricity. He straightened, cheeks burning, words fumbling and catching in his throat. “I… we… I—”

Kaimin’s hand landed firmly on V’s chest, pressing him back down just slightly, and the eyes that had commanded so many quiet moments now held a calm authority. He turned toward the bartender with an almost disarming tug on the lips. “We’re fine,” he said smoothly, carrying that quiet confidence that V had always found impossible to argue with. “Thank you for checking.”

The bartender protruded a smile and didn’t press further. He bowed before closing the door shut. V’s heart was still racing. His mind was spinning with the thrill and panic of being caught.

Kaimin’s fingers brushed V’s jaw in a subtle, grounding gesture, and his lips curved in the faintest hint of amusement. “Relax,” he murmured, almost teasing, yet steady. “No one’s saying a word.” He bit V’s lower lip deliberately as if he was test tasting a dessert.

“If you say so,” V whispered before drowning the nerves by exploring Kaimin’s mouth with his tongue.

V returned to the group first, cheeks flushed and slightly unsteady, carrying the heat and chaos of the pantry with him like a secret badge. The LMC noticed his presence immediately.

“Where have you been?” Han asked, voice tinged with concern and curiosity. “You looked like you’re really, really drunk.”

V let out a short laugh, brushing a hand through his hair. Suhyun’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Where’s Kaimin?” she asked carefully, like she already suspected the answer but wanted confirmation.

V shrugged, popping open another can of beer with a casual air he didn’t entirely feel. “How would I know? Probably vomiting somewhere.”

The group laughed, the tension easing slightly, though Hana’s brow rose in amusement. “Impossible,” she said, shaking her head with a smirk. “An alcoholic like him doesn’t just vomit.”

“Alcoholic?” V asked.

Hana frowned. “Kaimin’s an alcoholic. Doesn’t everyone know that? Oh, wait. It's probably news for you V since you were not here when he became really into alcohol.”

“Sure, but I thought he stopped drinking,” Suhyun answered, reaching for another can. Her tone was matter-of-fact, like it was an old topic they’d discussed before.

Soojin sighed, her expression softening. “Well, people have different ways to cope.”

“Cope?” Hana leaned forward, eyes narrowing in curiosity. “Kaimin is coping about what exactly?”

Soojin only shrugged, lifting a shoulder as if the answer was obvious and unknowable at once. “Who knows. He never talks about anything personal.”

The table went quiet for a beat, just long enough for the clink of a bottle cap to sound louder than it should. Someone laughed nervously, and the chatter picked up again.

V tipped back the beer, swallowing against the knot in his throat, pretending the bitterness was only from the drink.