The cursor kept blinking, patient and indifferent, while Jae-min sat frozen in front of it for longer than he could account for.
He thought back, methodically, the way he hadn't let himself in weeks—not in fragments, not in the guilty flashes he usually allowed himself before shoving them back down, but properly, start to finish, laid out like evidence in a case he was finally willing to examine.
The night he'd found Seo-yeon on the floor of her room, glass in her hand, sobbing into his chest until she fell asleep from exhaustion. The vow he'd made standing over her, glass biting into his own palm. Min-woo's *I'm in*, easy and immediate, six years of friendship compressed into two words. The photos. The staring at Jihan's face for hours, convincing himself he saw exhaustion instead of warmth, cracks instead of a person.
The morning commute. Three failed attempts, a fourth that worked. *Lee Jae-min*, spoken like it belonged to him.
