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He grinned wolfishly. “Do you care? I don’t.”

He pinned me harder with his hips, and I had to bite back a groan when I felt just how much he didn’t care.

“Joon,” I whined.

“Baby, make that noise again when I have you naked beneath me.”

Then we were moving. He carried me to bed and laid me down, and I did make that noise again.

Several times.

Afterwards, I lay in his arms, watching his fingers trailing softly up my arms as he curled around me, warm and safe. His fingers reached my wrist, dancing across the few freckles I had there, which reminded me of the entire reason I’d snuck up here to begin with.

I wriggled and flipped onto my side to face him, pushing his hands away.

“Baek Jihoon, I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” I said with as much indignant fury as I could reasonably muster whilst utterly naked.

He looked momentarily shocked and then bafflingly charmed. “Jagiya,” he crooned. “Such fury. What have I done? And how can I make it better?”

He reached for me, but I batted his hands away again, which only made him grin, before he flopped onto his back with a dramatic sigh and put his hands behind his head.

“What the hell were you doing giving me a twenty thousand dollar bracelet?” I demanded.

“Is that how much it was?” he replied, as though the amount were the least interesting thing in the world.

“You know it was!”

“Am I supposed to feel guilty for giving my girlfriend a pretty piece of jewellery?”

“Joon, you have to have known how identifiable it was. You might as well have given me a dog tag with your name and phone number on it.”

His smile faded as he flinched, and he looked away for a moment. Something like shame flitted across his face.

My eyes narrowed. “Was it deliberate?” Which was what I’d suspected.

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “It is plausible deniability,” he said carefully.

“So it was deliberate.”

His eyes returned to mine, and there wasn’t so much playfulness in them now, as a kind of intensity that made me pause, my righteous indignation halted. Not gone.

“I can not walk down streets with you, jagiya. I can not hold your hand at shows. I had to walk so far in front of you at the premier that it was as if we had never met. It all hurts. Maybe this was too much, maybe it was too obvious, but I–” he stopped himself, breaking off with a shake of his head before continuing. “No. I did not give it to you to let the world know you’re mine. I gave it to you because you’re mine, and I thought you would like it, and I want that. I want to give you things. But,” he dragged the word out, reaching for my hand and stroking his thumb over it, “if people suspect… would that be such a bad thing?”

I went still as his words sank in, and then I pulled my hand away. “Joon, that’s not the point.”

He frowned as his eyes darted up to mine, and just as he opened his mouth to speak, I cut him off.

“You don’t get to decide if it would be good, or bad. You don’t get to put a label on me and expect me to just roll with it. This is my life, Joon.”

This time when he opened his mouth, I didn’t interrupt, but he closed his mouth again like I had. He did it again, as if every time he thought of what to say, the words evaporated as they reached his tongue. Until, eventually, he swallowed, and sat up fully, looking down at the hands in his lap.

“I did it again,” he said in a tone thick with regret. “It was not what I intended, but…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Kaiya. I really am.”

I let out a weary breath. “Joon, I see you trying. I do, but we can’t tempt fate like this. It’s not fair to me.”

He nodded and looked up at me, and when he reached for my hand again, he did so slowly, as if giving me ample opportunity to pull away. I didn’t. Nor did I move forward. He had to reach for me to hold my hand. He picked it up and brought it to his mouth, placing kisses upon each of my knuckles.

“I know,” he murmured. “I did not think. I swear, I really did not intend it as some sort of public declaration. But also, I did not consider what might happen if people recognised it. I should have. Your life, your career – these things are not a game to me, Kaiya. I did not mean to make you feel like they are. I am sorry.” He held my eyes unflinchingly, and for a moment I didn’t know what to say. I had expected him to brush it off, maybe, or justify it somehow. I hadn’t expected him to just agree.