He groans into my mouth, and I use that moment to push back, trying to take control again. But Han is stronger than he looks, and for once, he's not letting me win.
"Frustrated?" he murmurs between kisses, smirking against my lips.
I bite at his jaw...
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My role has always been to protect them. I was meant to shield them from the worst of this world, to keep them safe when the weight of it all became unbearable. I was their anchor, their shield. I was supposed to hold everything together, no matter what.
And yet, the first time I truly needed to protect someone, I failed.
I failed her.
Soobin was supposed to be safe. She should have been safe. And yet, she wasn't. I wasn't enough to keep her from slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, disappearing before I could even grasp what was happening.
And after that, after the loss and the grief and the way it fractured everything we were—everything we could've been—I tried. God, I tried. I held on as tightly as I could, desperate to keep us together, to hold onto the family we'd built, but in the end...
They were too broken.
I was too broken.
And that was the second time I failed.
We were always stronger together, and yet, somehow, we fell apart. And no matter how hard I fought to pull us back, to stitch the pieces back together, I couldn't stop the inevitable.
I couldn't save them from themselves.
I should have tried harder. I should have done more. But I was grieving, too. I was drowning, just like the rest of them.
And even now, years later, the ghost of it haunts me. The pieces of who we used to be, the shattered remnants of what we once had, are still scattered everywhere. And maybe that's why I never truly let go, why I still reach out to the ones who let me. It started with Lee—I clung to him because I was still holding onto the past.
Maybe if I kept us all connected, if I stopped Yang from slipping into the void we created for him, I could somehow fix everything else.
Yang is the way he is because of us. Because of what we did. Because of what we lost.
And yet, no matter how far apart we are, no matter how wrecked we've all become, I will always try to protect them. To fix what broke.
That's why, when Hwang called me that night—the night Han shattered—I ran.
I didn't hesitate. I didn't ask questions. I ran.
Because Han is like all of us: beautifully wrecked, drowning in ghosts of his own, but unwilling to admit that he needs someone to pull him out. That's why I was there—to pick up the pieces for him when he couldn't do it himself.
And maybe I was right. Maybe coming here, to this event, was exactly what he needed. Because something has changed between him and Hwang. I don't know what, I don't know how, but I feel it. The way Hwang watches him, the way Han's walls flicker and falter when Hwang gets too close. Something's different, and they need to figure it out before it ruins them both.
