The air in the bathroom was heavy, thick with steam and the unspoken gravity of Woonseok's presence. I looked into his eyes, searching for a reason to run, but all I found was a reflection of my own longing. I took an instinctive step back, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, my hand reaching blindly for the door handle. I needed to escape the heat, the intensity, the way he was looking at me like I was the only thing that mattered in a world of millions.
But fate, it seemed, was tired of my running.
My heel caught on the slick, wet tile near the edge of the basin. Time slowed to a agonizing crawl. I felt the floor vanish beneath me. My arms flailed in a desperate, silent scramble to keep my balance, my breath hitching in a panicked gasp.
"Sana!"
Woonseok's body moved without a second of hesitation. He lunged forward, his hands reaching for me in a frantic attempt to break my fall. But the floor was a mirror of treacherous water, and his momentum was too great to stop. As his fingers gripped my waist, his own feet slid out from under him.
The world tilted on its axis. With a violent splash and a synchronised gasp, we tumbled backwards.
The fall was a chaotic blur of drenching water and flailing limbs. We landed in the deep porcelain tub with a loud, hollow crash that seemed to vibrate through my very bones. The sound was muffled by the roar of the shower head, which was now raining down directly onto us. My back hit the side of the tub, and Woonseok landed squarely on top of me, his body a soft, solid, and incredibly warm weight against my chest.
The water from the shower cascaded over us, a sudden, cold downpour that did nothing to extinguish the fire currently roaring in my veins. I looked up, my vision blurred by droplets, and saw him hovering just inches away. His black hoodie was soaked through, clinging to the lines of his shoulders, and his hair—the famous, perfectly styled hair—was plastered against his forehead, dripping water into my eyes.
We just lay there, the sound of the artificial waterfall filling the silence, our bodies pressed together most absurdly and intimately imaginable. I could feel his heart hammering against mine—a frantic, wild beat that told me he was just as shaken as I was.
His arms, which had instinctively wrapped around me to protect my head during the fall, didn't move. Instead, he gently shifted, pulling me closer into the curve of the tub, his hands settling firmly on my waist.
"Are you okay?" he whispered. His voice was a low, sincere murmur that cut through the hiss of the water.
I looked at him, and despite the terror and the soaking wet clothes, a soft, genuine smile formed on his lips—a look of pure, unadulterated triumph.
"I told you I wasn't going to let you go," he said, his voice filled with a profound, knowing sincerity as he tightened his grip. "And I meant it. Looks like destiny decided to give me a hand."
"In the middle of a city of millions, under a shower of cold water, two souls finally stopped running and found the only home they ever truly needed."
The silence of the moment was shattered by the world outside the bathroom door.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
"Sana! What was that sound?!" Sanvi's voice was high with alarm.
"Are you okay?! Open the door! Sana, answer us!" Anvi shouted, her voice trembling with panic.
I scrambled to push myself off Woonseok, my hands slipping on his wet chest, but before I could even find my footing, the lock—which hadn't been fully engaged—gave way under the pressure of their frantic rattling. The door burst open with a bang.
The sight that greeted my friends was, to put it mildly, catastrophic.
Anvi and Sanvi stood frozen in the doorway, their eyes wide and horrified. They saw the water flooded across the floor, the clouds of steam, and the most famous man in Asia—soaking wet, wearing a dripping black mask—lying in a bathtub with their best friend, his arms still securely locked around her waist.
For a long, agonising second, the only sound was the drip-drip-drip of the shower.
Then, a synchronised, bloodcurdling scream erupted from both of them—a sound so loud and sharp it felt like it shattered the porcelain around us. It was a scream of pure, unrefined shock.
I buried my face against Woonseok's wet shoulder, mortified beyond belief, wishing the floor would simply open up and swallow me whole.
"The secret was finally out, not with a quiet confession, but with a chaotic splash that echoed in the heart of Seoul."
"Anvi! Sanvi! Stop screaming! Please!" I shouted, though my voice was high-pitched and useless against the wall of their noise.
Woonseok and I scrambled to get out of the tub, a clumsy, dripping mess of wet fabric and heavy breathing. We stood there, side-by-side on the bath mat, water pooling around our feet in a miniature lake. I desperately tried to pull the front of my soaking nightsuit away from my skin, feeling every inch of my body flushing with heat.
"Hey, please, don't think too much, okay, guys?" I stammered, raising my hands in a frantic, splashing gesture. "Listen to... um... I will explain everything! I promise! It's not what it looks like!"
They stopped screaming, but the silence that followed was even more terrifying. Their shocked expressions were replaced by a cold, judgmental stare—the look of two Indian sisters who had just found a man in their "soul sister's" bathroom. Their eyes scanned Woonseok from head to toe, and I felt my cheeks burn.
"What is he doing here?" Anvi demanded, her voice rising with every word. "Why is he soaked? Who opened the door? What were you two doing in the tub—"
"With who?" Sanvi interrupted, pointing a trembling, frantic finger at Woonseok's face. "Wait... is that a mask? Is that—"
The questions were a sudden, overwhelming torrent, crashing over us like a second wave of water. Woonseok stood rigidly beside me, his chest heaving under the wet hoodie. He looked like he wanted to say something profound, to defend our honour, but just as he opened his mouth—
"A-achoo!"
A loud, pathetic, and very un-idol-like sneeze erupted from him, shaking his entire frame.
I grabbed the chance, stepping between him and my furious friends. "Guys! I think first we should change," I said quickly, pointing to his dripping disguise and then to my own shivering state. "He's going to catch a fever again! I'll explain everything, I swear on my life, just... give us five minutes!"
Sanvi looked at Woonseok, then at me, her eyes narrowing with a fiercely protective gaze. "Five minutes, Sana. And he stays on that side of the room."
Woonseok looked at me, his eyes crinkling behind his mask in a secret, weary smile. The idol had fallen into a bathtub, but as I looked at him, I realised he had never looked more like my truth.