Kai Lee

The drive back to the warehouse was the longest of my life. I was three hours late, my uniform was wrinkled in ways that told a very specific story, and my GPS log looked like a heart monitor for someone having a cardiac arrest.

Juno was waiting at the bay, his clipboard tucked under his arm. He took one look at my face, at the faint, lingering flush on my neck and the way I wasn't even trying to hide my lopsided grin, and he just shook his head.

“Supervisor’s in his office, Lee. He’s got the termination papers ready. He said, ‘stationary for three hours’ is a record even for a burnout.”

I didn't even flinch. I felt a strange, soaring sense of relief. I reached into my pocket, pulled out the keys to the van, and dropped them onto Juno’s clipboard with a metallic clack.

“Tell him he can keep the severance,” I said, already turning toward the exit. “I’ve spent too long carrying things that didn't belong to me. I’m moving on to something with a bit more... heavy lifting.”

“Where are you gonna go, Kai?” Juno called out, sounding genuinely stunned.

“To a place where I don't need a scanner to tell me I've arrived,” I called back.

Three months later, the gray polyester of the delivery service was a distant memory. I traded the van for a whistle and a stopwatch, landing a job as a physical trainer at a high-end athletic club. It turns out that years of hauling eighty-pound boxes up five flights of stairs gave me a physique people were willing to pay for. Now, the only things I delivered were sets of squats and better posture.

But the best part of the change wasn't the career—it was the destination after the shift.

Min Jae’s new place wasn't a fortress of solitude like Brookhaven Heights. He’d moved into a sun-drenched brownstone on the edge of the city. As I climbed the stairs to 2B, I remembered the day he told me why he’d fled his old life.

“It felt like a museum of my own loneliness,” he’d confessed while we were packing his things. “Every time a neighbor looked at me, I felt like they were seeing the ‘kinky guy’ or the ‘weird hermit.’ I had to leave that apartment because I couldn't breathe in a place where I’d spent so much time waiting for a doorbell to ring just to feel human.”

I knocked on the door—a habit now, though I had my own key in my pocket. Min Jae opened it, wearing an oversized sweater that made him look soft and approachable.

“You're late,” he teased, though his eyes were warm.

“The gym ran long. Mrs. Higgins refused to believe her form was off,” I grumbled, stepping inside and pulling him into a hug. He smelled like clean laundry and the expensive tea he’d started drinking. “How was the data today?”

“Tiring. But the silence is different here,” he whispered, leaning into my chest. “It’s not empty anymore.”

We ended up in his bedroom, the space a far cry from the stark, clinical setup of his old unit. There were plants in the corner and photos on the dresser—one of us at a street fair, both of us laughing.

“Kai?” Min Jae asked, his voice dropping into that quiet, velvet tone that always made the hair on my arms stand up. He began to unbutton my workout shirt, his fingers deft and certain.

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking about the ‘Personal’ envelope I gave you. About how I told you I wanted to be known.” He pushed the fabric off my shoulders, his palms sliding over the muscles of my chest.

“I’ve spent so much time being the 'receiver.' I think I want to be the one who takes charge tonight.”

I felt a surge of heat hit my gut. I reached for his waist, but he caught my wrists, shaking his head with a small, wicked smile.

“No,” he murmured. “Sit.”

I obeyed, falling back onto the edge of the bed. Min Jae reached into the nightstand and pulled out a single strip of black silk—the only relic from his 'distraction' days. He didn't use it on himself this time. He stepped between my knees, the silk taut between his hands.

“I want to see if you can handle a delivery you didn't see coming,” he whispered, leaning down until his lips brushed my ear, his breath hot against my skin.

He raised the silk to my eyes, the world beginning to blur into darkness as he tightened the knot. I felt his hands move to my belt, the click of the buckle sounding like a starting gun in the quiet room.

“Min Jae...” I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“Don't move, Kai,” he commanded, his voice trembling with a new kind of power. “You're off the clock. And tonight, the only one who needs to sign for anything... is you.”

I felt his weight settle over me, the mattress dipping, and the scent of him overwhelming my senses just as his fingers ghosted over my skin, finding the places he knew I’d been aching for him to touch.