It starts like any other day.

Unsuspiciously, Hak awakens to the sound of his roommate's off-key singing. The hum of the pipes resonate through his tiny shoe box of an apartment and all is normal in the world. Mornings are still the devil's hours and Jae-Ha still has no respect for their neighbors. On all accounts, today is just another day, and the floorboards creek beneath his feet as he stands.

He really should invest in some slippers. Or socks that won't slip off of his feet in bed. Or— Hak looks down wearily at his twin mattress — maybe he should really think about saving up for a bigger bed and really start pinching his pennies.

Ah, well. It's not like he's going to be bringing anyone else into his room anytime soon. Really, as long as it stays just a him problem and not a multiple people problem, he can live with it. At least until spring break anyway. Sleep is only temporary anyway; the daily grind (and actually staying awake during lectures) is the real struggle, and his boyhood mattress has nothing to do with that.

The singing echoes more loudly throughout the hall. Hak grinds the heel of his palm into his eyes and groans, groggily dragging himself into the kitchen and pouring himself a luke-warm cup of coffee. He drinks it black, without much thought, and grimaces as the bitterness hits the back of his tongue. Ah, well. Nothing to be done about that. It's senseless, to waste sugar and creamer, when he knows Jae-Ha goes through the stuff like candy. Someone in the apartment has to be sensible with their finances.

Sometimes he feels like an 80 year old man in an 20 year old boy's body. Sometimes — at times like this, as he cracks his neck and flicks the bathroom lights from the outside — he feels more like he's going through the motions than really living at all. Almost like he's from the outside looking in.

But oh well. Another day, another cup of joe. Jae-Ha's using up all of the hot water and Hak still has to at least wash his hair before class.

.

He doesn't get the chance.

But it's fine, whatever. He pulls a beanie over his ears and calls it good enough. It's cold anyway, at six-thirty in the morning, and wet hair would just get crunchy and weirdly icy in the early chill anyway. He'll deal.

It's sort of his motto these days. Most days. Maybe it's always been.

The wait for the bus is uneventful, per usual. The same overly cautious dude is already there on the bench waiting, reading a book, very primly. Hak bites back the urge to ask if the white is his natural color because it's too early to be ribbing the guy, no matter how comical his reactions always are, and instead stands by the bench, book bag slung over one arm, mug of (now) cold coffee in his other hand. Hak sips sleepily and allows a sigh.

From the right, the tow-haired guy flips his page and hums. "The bus is late."

"Mmm." Hak squints down the foggy lamp-lit street. "Isn't it always."

"So unprofessional."

It's not that deep. Hak bites back a snide comment and rolls his eyes. "It'll get here."

"It's only the third week of classes. You'd think they'd make more of an effort to be timely."

Eh. The longer Hak has to sit and wait, the better, honestly. He's not bothered by some minor tardiness, especially from city workers. Whatever, really. He knows how to feels to have a duty, and knows what it feels like to roll with the punches in order to fulfill it. Sometimes things happen that are unforeseen, and sometimes you have to just deal with those issues as they come. Like last minute students, sprinting to the bus stops. Like traffic. Red lights.

Hak snorts and sips the rest of his coffee. "You'll make it on time, relax."

The guy sniffs primly. "I hope so. I wouldn't want to leave a bad impression on my professor so early in the year."

He'll be fine, Hak thinks dryly. He'll be just fine.

The bus comes only three minutes late, despite his bus stop partner's impatience, and Hak finds himself dropping into the only available seat on the bus and staring very pointedly out the front window. Morning commute is the best time to dissociate, he's found, and with as broken sleep as he's been getting the past few weeks, some dissociation is required for future clarity. At least, he should probably be more alert and present come class hours, and all present brain power should be further preserved.

Sounds and colors just sort of blur around him as he hits that nice place, finally. Nothing really exists but the sound of the bus starting and stopping, the hum of the heater, the road before them. It's easy to temporarily lose himself in the sensation of it, this mindless commute, and for a solid five? (Ten? Fifteen?) minutes, Hak finally fully allows himself to stop being a person and just space out.

"Good morning," says the driver, very dryly, as heels click onto the entryway of the bus. Somewhere in the back of Hak's mind, he wonders who in the right mind would wear heels at nearly seven in the morning on the way to class, but he doesn't get to finish the thought before curiosity gets the best of him and he looks up.

After all, he'd known that mess of red hair anywhere.

"Thank you!" Yona chirps, and her voice is just as clueless as it'd been three years ago, when he'd left for school.

It all comes rushing back to him at once, and very suddenly Hak's mindless, routine morning has flipped upside down. There are butterflies, disgustingly so, squirming in his gut, and he almost dreads the recognition that flashes through her wide eyes as she turns and sees him, too.

Christ. It's like no time has passed at all. He is fifteen, and crushing, and stupid, and— the white haired brat seated next to him is quicker to jump to his feet.

"Here!" He is all nervous smiles and sparkling eyes, and Hak has half the mind to kick at his knees, just to knock him off his stupid high horse. "Miss, you can take my seat, I'm wearing more comfortable shoes—"

His babbling doesn't even kill the moment. Yona smiles politely at him and drops down to sit, elbow brushing against Hak, and it's like every nerve in his body has switched to red alert. He is fifteen, and Yona's smile is still somehow the only thing capable of tying his tongue in useless knots.

Stupid. He's not a child anymore. He has coffee in his system. He is awake and this isn't a dream, dammit.

"Public transit, princess?" He finally grits out, summoning the strength within him to smile crookedly at his boyhood crush. There's something strange and very jarring, about running into her as an adult, outside of middle school, even high school — and yet there's something very normal about it after all, something very familiar, at the same time, about the way her hair curls around her ear. Nostalgic, even.

What's more familiar is the aching in his bones and the tug in his chest. Hak calls upon years of willpower and buries the feeling, tucks it back where it came from and locks it up tight, safe and sound. Not now. Not now.

Her pretty expression sours and it does nothing to dull his frustrating attraction to her. "It really is you, Hak," she says, pouting. "Nobody else uses that stupid nickname but you!"

"If the shoe fits," he says.

"It doesn't!" It always has. She's spoiled. Sweet, but still, she's spoiled — always has been and apparently always will be, if her choice of footwear is any evidence. "I see you're still a brat."

"Some things never change."

"Apparently." But her expression perks, as it always does, and the smile she gives him is so brilliantly eager that he has to mentally kick himself in the ass to keep himself from thinking too much of it, because— "I haven't seen you in years! How have you been? I'm lucky Soo-won slept in this morning, or else I wouldn't of run into you at all—"

The ballooning in his chest rightfully deflates, and yes, he thinks, squashing down whatever hope had been swelling there, too. Put me back into my place.

"That doesn't sound like him at all." Hak looks away from her blinding stare and brushes his thumb along the lip of his mug instead. "Leaving the princess to fend for herself in the morning. I ought to have a talk with him."

"Stop calling me that," she says, bumping his shoulder. The white-haired guy from the bus stop stares, a little shrewdly, at the two of them. "He had a long night last night, okay? It was—"

"His birthday," Hak finishes for her. Funny. He hadn't even thought about it, and still it'd come to him, like dawn, sure as day. It was Soo-won's birthday yesterday, wasn't it. Huh. "Did you guys have fun celebrating?"

He regrets asking as soon as it leaves his head and enters the real world. Once there, it gains tangible reality, and Yona's resulting blush will forever haunt him. It's almost sad, the way his stomach sinks at the almost bashful way she presses her lips together, and why is he looking at her again. Doesn't he know better?

Stupid. He'd already resolved to be over this by now. He's not some selfish brat. Her feelings were always more important than his own. Her happiness was of prime importance, even then, at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. And if Soo-won brought her that happiness, well, then Hak was happy to step back and allow the two of them to bask in that honeymoon phase forever. It's what she'd always wanted, after all. Even as just a girl, she'd tell him about it, in eager, childish whispers. She'd dreamed about marrying the guy since she was at least twelve.

"It was fun!" Yona says, finally, full of that characteristic brightness of hers. "We got together with some of his college friends and went out for dinner and a movie. It was—"

The bus lurches to a stop. From in front of the, the white-haired guy stumbles, and Hak reaches out, mindlessly, to grab his forearm and sturdy him. Yona blinks once, twice, and then looks between the two men.

"... Do you two know each other?"

"Barely," Hak says, letting go.

"We wait at the same bus stop every morning," the guy says, still very flustered, understandably, from Hak's reflexes.

"Oh!" Yona says, brightly. "So you have to put up with this big oaf every morning!"

Hak is too old now to take offense to her ribbing. Instead, he fits her with a dry look and she grins, giggling.

"Oaf," the guy says, "yes, that's a good way to describe him."

"Thanks for putting up with my old friend," Yona says, then holds out a hand to him. "My name is Yona. What's yours?"

It just now dawns upon Hak that he also doesn't know this guy's name, and they've been meeting at the same bus stop every morning for the past month. Jesus.

"Kija," he says, looking flattered, that she'd think to introduce herself to him. "It's very nice to meet you, miss Yona."

"Just Yona," she says, waving a hand. "Don't bother with the formalities—"

"Watch it," Hak cuts in, eyes crinkling. "This one is royalty. She can have you beheaded, if you're not careful. And she has diplomatic immunity."

"Hak!"

Once a princess, always a princess, and it seems he can't resist pushing her buttons. And well, if he's not too old for this now, at least he can allow himself to bask in their childhood games, instead of dwelling on his stupid crush on her. It's easy, almost too easy, to fall back into his old habits with her. He jabs and teases, she blushes and scolds him, and then they're Hak and Yona, and once again, he's the big brother figure. And that's safe. He can watch over her that way, at least. He can be near her without allowing himself to overstep any boundaries, and she—

She can be happy. She can have who she wants. And he won't ruin that for her.

The soreness in his chest is a wound long left dormant. But it's almost funny, in a sad way, how even after all this time, it still hasn't closed up. And by that, he means it isn't funny at all. And he's still pathetic.

.

"You should call me!" Yona insists, as they get off the bus at the same damn stop. "Or at least text me, or something! I know Soo-won would love to get back into contact with you. You guys were always so close when we were kids."

Walking side-by-side with her brings back far too many memories. Hak thinks he should probably pull a u-turn and park himself back into his shitty twin bed and fully process the roller coaster of feelings he's been forced to stumble through this morning, all in the matter of fifteen or so minutes.

"I don't have your number anymore," Hak says, as if it's an excuse, as if he hasn't had the number memorized for years. "I got a new phone."

She stops, then holds out her hand, expectantly. "Give it here!"

"You don't know my passcode."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Then unlock it for me, dummy."

Yeah, the little princess hasn't changed a bit. Hak smiles wistfully and does as she says anyway, despite his better judgement. But what else is he supposed to do? Perhaps he's a glutton for punishment, but even despite his… feelings, erm, for her, she was once one of his closest friends. And he's big enough now to ignore misguided attraction and just let himself be her friend. It doesn't bother him. It won't bother him.

Yona snatches the smartphone from his hands and navigates to his contacts with unnerving ease. Types in her number and tops it all off with a selfie contact picture that he definitely will not stew over later like a creep.

"There!" Yona hands his phone back to him and then jabs a skinny finger into his bicep. "You better— whoa."

He raises a brow.

"... You're like—" she pokes him again, brows furrowed. "Hard."

"That… is called muscle, princess." And there's a petty part of him that wants to ask - does Soo-won's arm not feel the same way? But he squashes the thought before it has chance to really flourish. It is neither the time nor the place for pride, not like that. Besides — he schools his expression into something of indifference — if she'd wanted muscles, she wouldn't have fawned over Soo-won all through high school. Though good looking in his own right, Hak supposes they'd been at two very different ends of the spectrum.

Whatever. It doesn't matter. He won't let it bother him.

"I know what a muscle feels like!" She blurts, ears pink. "It's just— I didn't expect yours to be so… beefy."

He can't help it. Hak laughs. "Beefy."

"Shut up!" She pouts, again, nose bunching up adorably. "You know what I mean! You're, like—"

He tries not to allow the praise to puff up his chest like a bird's. Instead, he tries to settle only with something of a smug grin, watching her flounder for the words. The Yona of their childhood would rather eat worms than compliment his physique and even imply that he was physically attractive. Her go-to insult had always been that he wasn't cute. And, well. He can't say she was ever wrong.

But still. She strokes something long left dormant in him, ancient and hungry, as she slaps a hand to his shoulder and attempts to shove him back. But she can't, not really, not when she's half his size and a quarter his strength, and he has half a mind to shrink down to her height and really get in her face about it.

"I'm what," he says, then, pushing, smirking, still towering over her.

"Oh! You brat, like you don't know," she spits, still pushing off of him and marching ahead, heels clicking with purpose. And it's cute. It's just as cute as she's always been. Yona would never drop her pride, not like that.

He shakes his head and follows after her. "Still want me to text you, princess?"

"Stop calling me that!"

.

Once home, and safe from her pint-sized fury, he changes her name in his contacts to 'Princess', because he is an ass and she's funny when she pouts. Plus, it feels personal enough to sate some age-old insecurities that make his fingers itch, but just distant enough to allow himself to not get carried away.

Still, it seems as though this is too funny a prank, because Jae-Ha catches him grinning about it on the couch and proceeds to stick his nose in it.

"I don't think I've ever actually seen you smile," he says, brow raised, leaning against the doorway of their living area.

Hak stuffs his phone into his jeans pocket before he gives him roommate another opportunity to grill him on it. "I feel joy occasionally. Sometimes memes aren't the worst."

"Sure," Jae-Ha says, very clearly not convinced in the slightest. He's never one to let anything go, and Hak mentally berates himself for being foolish enough to let his guard down in his own home. The last thing Jae-Ha needs is ammunition to make his life living hell with. "I'm sure it was a meme that had you smiling like that."

"I don't smile," Hak says, deadpan. "I smirk at the expense of you, usually."

"You were smiling. It was nice." Jae-Ha innocently picks lint off of his arm, very nonchalantly. "It was almost cute, dare I say it."

The response is as automatic as it is robotic. "I'm not cute."

"Blind to your own beauty as always, I see." Jae-Ha plops into the loveseat across from him and grins in that smarmy way of his that makes Hak want to deck him. "A shame, really. You're quite the looker."

"Cut the flirting, Romeo."

Jae-Ha laughs it off. "Maybe someday you'll give in!"

Not likely. Not if he's still hung up over the same girl he's been annoyingly in love with since he was a kid. Hak huffs and melts back into the couch, willing himself to disappear completely and avoid this interrogation completely. "What. Stop staring at me. Out with it, already. I know you want to ask."

"How was your day?" Jae-Ha asks, almost too eagerly. "You've been in a peculiar mood since you got home from class this morning, and you keep looking at your phone and smiling like a school girl—"

"Definitely not like a school girl," Hak cuts in, flatly.

"A lot like a school girl." He's almost serene about it and it's creepy. Jae-Ha is having way too much fun with this. "I just think you should feel comfortable telling your big brother about your day. I'm here for you, you know, if you need someone to talk to."

Not on his life. Also. "You can't call yourself my big brother and then flirt with me in the same breath, you weirdo."

"Daddy?"

"I am leaving."

"Hak," Jae-Ha says, pleadingly, catching his wrist as Hak stands to beeline for the door. "I'm being serious. Did something happen today to put you in such a good mood? I'm happy for you."

Hak chews on the words before they have the chance to see the light of day. He is Hak, after all, the immovable man, made of stone (and beef, apparently) and something like running into his childhood crush won't break him. He's too old, now, to run to anyone and gush about his feelings. Feelings that aren't requited. Feelings that've never been and never will be.

Still. There had been a gap left behind, without Yona around to dote on, and even as frustrating and clueless as that spoiled rich girl is, she'd still been the closest thing he'd had to a best friend, growing up. Her and her darling Prince Charming. And he'd be lying if there wasn't a part of him, however tiny and childish, that still missed having them around. That missed having that purpose in his life.

Hak rubs his forehead and sighs. "It's nothing. Really. I ran into an old friend today on the bus."

"A cute friend?" Jae-Ha asks, hopefully.

"Does it matter," Hak asks, very dryly. "I'm not you."

"Ouch," he says, and lets go of Hak's wrist to rub his chest in mock-pain. "You wound Daddy."

He is the actual worst. Hak doesn't think twice about immediately vacating the premise; fuck stewing on his feelings in the safety of his own living room, Hak thinks, very passionately slamming the door behind him. He'd rather be anywhere else than putting up with this.

.

Going out isn't exactly his style either, though.

But he can't just sit at home and allow Jae-Ha the opportunity to continue doing… whatever it is he was doing, ugh. So he goes out with Shin-Ah, the quiet guy who often sits beside him in calc, and finds himself sitting in the back of a dive bar, silently drinking cheap beer in his company while they people watch.

It sounds more pathetic than it actually is. Living in a college town has its merits, and people watching is close to his favorite pastime. And Shin-Ah, unlike Jae-Ha, minds his damn business and doesn't feel the need to fill the space with incessant babble. He might be quiet, but the company isn't unwelcome, and though he nurses a Diet Coke instead of booze, he doesn't seem to be having any less of a good time.

Going out like this is more his speed anyway. Hak watches a skinny blond kid — probably no older than 17 — plop down beside them at the bar and heave a heavy sigh.

Shin-Ah stares intently at him, in that curious, uncanny way of his. Hak knows he won't say anything though, not to a stranger.

Ah, well. What could it hurt to ask. "You good?"

The boy plants his face in his hands and sighs again. "I don't know what I'm doing here. My friend dragged me out with her and her boyfriend, but they disappeared at least thirty minutes ago, and my face is too pretty to be surrounded by all of this pit stink—"

That's fair. Hak keeps his expression even and takes pity on the guy because really, the place does kind of smell like armpit and mistakes. "What's your friend look like? Maybe we've seen her pass by or something."

"Short, with long red hair—"

Goddammit.

"Of course she does," Hak mutters under his breath. Why wouldn't she? It sounds just like Yona, getting herself lost, potentially getting herself into trouble. It'd been exactly why he'd appointed himself her personal body guard when they were children. Apparently nothing really has changed in the time he's been away, and for a brief moment, a bout of worry surges over him; how has she managed without him around to keep track of their surroundings? Soo-won was no better; he had special awareness, at least, but there was always a lost, dreamy look in his eyes, one that always seemed to skirt over her rambunctious head.

"Huh?"

Well. He might as well check. "Does her name happen to be Yona by any chance?"

The blond kid squints at him. "You know her?"

Shin-Ah's curious stare switches to Hak, instead, and yeah, okay, that's fair too. Though not on his level, Hak is kind of an anti-social kind of guy. Or, at least, he doesn't tend to talk to many girls. Especially girls with boyfriends.

"Childhood friend," Hak says, as if it explains everything. "You said she was with her boyfriend?"

"Yeah. His name's Soo-won. You can't miss him. Tall and blond, almost as pretty as I am," the guy stops, for a moment, and rubs his temples. "Which is why I can't understand how they managed to get lost. She isn't exactly a quiet girl!"

No, she's not. But she still has a funny way of slipping through the cracks sometimes. Has an even funnier way of attaching herself to people who otherwise wouldn't want anything to do with her. Hak sighs and stands from his stool. "I'll see if I can find her."

The kid's eyes widen. "I didn't mean you had to go off and make your own search party—!"

"Childhood friend, remember?" Hak asks, cracking his neck. He tries to play it off cool, as if he isn't worried sick, wondering where the two of them have gotten off to — but he's never been that great of an actor, not really, and the anxiety of it all has start to make him annoyingly twitchy. Enough so that Shin-Ah keeps shooting him concerned looks from beneath his hoodie.

"Tell her Yoon sent you!"

Yeah. Alright. An alibi.

Bars aren't really his scene, but the patrons part like the Red Sea as he pushes through the room. He supposes he has his height to thank for that (and perhaps his beef, he thinks, vaguely amused) but it does end up making his search harder. The tighter people pack together into groups, the harder it is to spot Yona in a crowd. Which is weird. Her hair is not exactly a normal color. One would think she'd be pretty easy to pick her out of a group of people.

Which makes him think she's not really in the actual bar at all. Palms sweaty, he wipes his hands on his jeans and makes his way to the hall by the bathrooms realizing, very quickly, that he has no real way of checking to see if she's in the ladies room or not without looking like a complete creep. Instead of barging in, like he wants to (for her safety!) he sort of… loiters in the hall by the door. Like a creep. And doesn't feel any better about this limbo he's in, either.

Yeah. Fuck that. Hak ditches the bathrooms, deciding that if Yona were really in trouble, he'd be able to hear her wailing through the door.

So Hak decides to poke his head outside, instead, and scope out the perimeter for her fiery mop of hair. It's the easiest way to pick her out of a crowd. For all she complains and whines about it, that unruly head of hair has served as her tell for as long as he can remember. There are plenty of girls about her height and about her weight; there aren't many people with a mane like hers, though.

The alley behind the back door smells like cheap cigarettes and weed. College town. Hak makes a face but grimaces through the haze of smoke and shuts the door behind him, squinting suspiciously. It seems quiet back here, and maybe almost innocently so, but there's a dumpster and a sniffle and Hak's feet kick into autopilot.

.

She's always been tiny. Petite, slender, and when they'd been children, he'd always just sort of assumed it'd been because she was two years their junior. Now, though, he supposes he can't use that same logic anymore; she's fully grown now, despite the watery way her eyes sparkle when she cries, the stupid way her nose wrinkles up and she scrubs at her face like a child. She's fully grown, now, and no eighteen year old girl should be curled up next to a dumpster behind a dive bar crying like a ten year old.

She'll be the death of him. Seriously.

"Hey," he tries, but there's a tightness in his voice, an urgency he can't seem to shake. But this is the role he's always played, he thinks - Yona's big protector, tending to her stubbed toes and bruised knees and papercuts, while Soo-won charmed the world around him and healed the wounds of the heart. "H… Hey, are you alright?"

There's a squeak, and her shoulders bunch up for a moment before she peeks over the rise of her knees, and oh, her mascara's smudged. She'd be mortified if she knew.

"Hak," she says, sniffling. "What're you doing here?"

"People watching." What else. "I don't think you get to be the one to ask that, though. What're you doing here? Your friend Yoon is looking for you."

She blinks, wearily, lashes heavy and dark with the weight of her tears. It's weird; he's seen this crying face of hers a thousand times, but there's something different in it, now. Her face is a little less soft, a little less pampered. The difference between sixteen and eighteen on her is startling.

"I… oh, Yoon," she mumbles, slurring a bit, and part of Hak wonders who'd given her alcohol. He can at least pass for older than 21 - and though she's shed some of her chubby cheeks in the time between sixteen and eighteen, the little princess will always have a baby face, he thinks. "Yoon… that's right."

"It's not like you to be so forgetful," he says, then drops to sit by her, unconsciously wedging himself between the dumpster and her shoulder. He makes room for himself, there, nearly twice her size, and Yona relents, scooting over, burying her face back into her arms and knees and sniffling. "You wanna talk about it?"

"No," she replies, very miserably, very muffled. "You'll make fun of me."

"When do I ever make fun of you?"

Yona looks up from her pity party long enough to give him a deafening side-eye. And alright. That's fair.

"I won't make fun of you," he says, instead of apologizing.

"Hak."

"Where's Soo-won?" he finds himself asking, instead. "Yoon said he was here with you, and it's not like him to leave you all alone in the dark. It's not safe for girls to hang out by themselves in places like this-"

"He had matters to attend to," she says, still peeking at him from aside, but her brows furrow, barely, for a second. Yona seems to choose her words carefully, weighing them on her tongue before she allows them weight, and it's unlike her, the spoiled little rich girl, to be so thoughtful in the moment, especially after what smells like a few spiked lemonades. "Or… sum'thin…."

Still. Unlike him, to leave their precious childhood friend alone at night. "Did he tell Yoon he was leaving at least?"

"I wanted to spend the night with him," Yona whines, then scoots enough to lean her head on his arm. He wants to make a comment, a dig at her about muscle and beef and how it must not be comfortable, Princess, but he resists. Another urge is more difficult to bite back, and Hak tries to wrangle in the desire to slip an arm around her shoulders and pull him to her.

He cannot take advantage. He's not that kind of guy. Certainly not a creep. "Don't you spend every night with him?"

"Noooo," says Yona, blinking sleepily. "Noooo. I wanted… I wanted…"

Something drops in Hak's stomach, not unlike a bowling ball, and very suddenly he gets what Yona had wanted. He should probably not be here. This is probably a mistake, and he shouldn't be the one having this conversation with her. Yona's squandered libido is decidedly out of bounds for him, he thinks - he feels guilty enough, most days, for harboring feelings for her at all, but this- well, this is just cruel. Cruel to the both of them.

Hak sighs and rubs his own face, then. "There'll be other chances." And he doesn't dare push further.

She's quiet, and for a moment he's afraid she might've fallen asleep, but when he chances a glance at her he finds she's just staring at him instead, thoughtfully, eyes misty. Her eyes are so dark, for a girl with so little worry in her life, and he finds himself getting lost for a spell, as he always does.

But then she pivots and presses her hand to his face instead, and Hak snaps out of it very quickly.

"Am I not a woman?" she asks.

"I don't think I like where this conversation is heading."

"Am I still just a child to him?" she presses on, anyway, in that headstrong, reckless way of hers. He takes her wrist into his hand and pulls her away from her face, lest she feels the beginnings of a blush start to warm his cheeks. "It's been months, and yet he still refuses to-"

Noooo nonono, he does not need to know. "Princess," he tries, "I don't think that's the case-"

"I love him," she says, and she's sniffling again, of course. "I want to show him that, but he won't let me. Or he doesn't want me to, and I don't know what that means, and everyone else already has-"

Yeah, he did not sign up for this. "Okay, horny pants," he says, then stands, suddenly, and she nearly tumbles back, if not for the grip he has on her wrist. Instead, she dangles back like a puppet, watching him with wide, dark eyes, and he berates himself mentally for allowing this conversation to go on as long as it has. "You're going to go home and take a cold shower."

"I showered before I came," she whines, then goes completely dead weight, like a jelly-legged toddler. Ridiculous. Hak continues to try and pull her to her feet by grabbing her other wrist too and lifting. "You don't understaaaaaand."

"Don't be stupid."

"You're stupid! Big stupid bully!" But he gets her to her feet anyway, even if her legs don't lock in to place, even if her knees have decided that they are not her own. She dangles back, watching him, lower lip tucked beneath her teeth and sighs pitifully.

Fine. If she wants to play this game, he'll play this game. If she wants to be ten, he'll treat her like she's ten; Yona weighs maybe 95 pounds soaking wet, and hefting her into his arms is not even a little bit of a challenge. She squeaks, flailing, but her arms find their way around his neck with unnerving ease, and something roars in his chest, ancient and repressed, because this is nice, having her so close to him. This is nice, feeling the weight of her against his chest, the warmth of her hands on the back of his neck, even as her fingers twitch and tangle a little in his hair. It's nostalgic. It's dangerous.

It's not the time or the place for it. Hak says, "Let's go, virgin," and laughs at her kitten screams as he hefts her back into the light of the street lamps and meets Shin-Ah and Yoon, waiting for them at the entrance.

This is what he does, after all. What he's always done. If he doesn't look after her, hell, who will?