Don't Remember Saying "I Do"

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟭 - 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟲

...

The night deepened. The music changed—something slower, dirtier, a beat that pulsed in the blood like a second heart. The crowd thinned as the hour grew truly late, leaving only the dedicated and the desperate. Soo-jin and Maksim were still at the bar. They had shifted closer, their knees almost touching, their voices lower now. The space between them had become charged, electric, like the air before a storm.

"You haven't looked at your phone in an hour," Maksim observed.

Soo-jin blinked. He was right. She'd forgotten about Jun-ho. About i********:. About the black heart and the sunbae and the VIP booth. The phone lay dark and silent on the bar, a forgotten weight. "Huh," she said. "Look at that."

"Progress." She continued.

He sips on his drink, smirking. "Or distraction."

She laughed softly, shrugging. "Sometimes they are the same thing."

She turned to face him fully. The violet light caught his gray eyes, making them look almost silver. His expression was unreadable, but there was a tension in his jaw, a stillness in his body that hadn't been there before.

"Why are you here?" she asked softly. "Really. A man like you doesn't end up in a Hongdae club alone without a reason."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then, "I do not sleep well in new cities. I walk. Tonight, I walked here."

"That's not an answer."

"No. It is an evasion." He looked at her, and something in his gaze softened. "You are perceptive, Shin Soo-jin."

"I'm nosy. There's a difference." She smiled.

"Perhaps I am here because I was meant to be." His voice was low, almost a murmur, barely audible over the thrum of the music. "Perhaps the universe, as we discussed, is correcting its mistake."

Her heart did that fluttery thing again. "That's a line."

"It is the truth."

"You don't even know me."

He leaned closer. His breath was warm, sharp with vodka. His eyes dropped to her lips, then back up, and the air between them thickened. "I know enough. You feel everything too deeply. You fight even when you're losing. You laugh like you're surprised you still can. And... you have terrible taste in men."

Her throat tightened and pouted. "That's... a lot from a few hours."

"I am an excellent observer."

"And what's the verdict?"

His hand moved. Slowly, giving her time to pull away. His fingers brushed a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. The touch was feather-light, almost reverent, and it sent a shiver down her spine.

"The verdict," he said, his accent thickening, "is that you deserve better than a ghost who haunts your phone, Soju."

She should have corrected him. Reminded him her name was Soo-jin. But the nickname, the way he said it—soft and fond—made something in her chest ache. "You don't even remember my real name," she whispered.

"Then remind me. Properly. So I will not forget."

She swallowed. "Shin Soo-jin."

"Shin Soo-jin." He said it slowly, carefully, his accent wrapping around each syllable. "Excellence. Truth. Treasure. I was correct. It suits you."

And then, because she was drunk and heartbroken and he was looking at her like she was the most interesting thing in the entire city of Seoul, she did something very, very stupid. She kissed him.

It wasn't a gentle kiss. It wasn't tentative or questioning. It was a collision—mouths meeting in the violet dark, the taste of soju and vodka and something cold and electric. His hand slid into her hair, fingers tangling at the nape of her neck, and he kissed her back like he'd been waiting for permission. Like he'd been waiting all night. The bar faded. The music faded. There was only his mouth, his warmth, the solid reality of him.

When they broke apart, they were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against hers. His eyes were dark, the gray swallowed by black.

"That was..." she started.

"Unexpected," he finished. "But not unwelcome."

"I don't usually—"

"I know." His thumb traced her jaw, a slow, deliberate path that made her breath catch. "I know, moya krasavitsa."

"What does that mean?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he kissed her again. Slower this time. Deeper. A promise.

...

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 - 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟔

𝗧𝗢 𝗕𝗘 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗨𝗘𝗗!