SUGAR KISS [YEONBIN] ✓

seventeen

I don’t want to think about the elimination last night.

We had another pretty much cake challenge the night before last, and Yeonjun and I were . . . better. By better, I don’t men good by any definition of the word, but not actively trying to tear each other’s throats out the entire time, so that’s. Well. Something.

Still. We’re off, and nothing is flowing like it should and no one thinks we can just go on like this. Toes on the line of aggression.

We still haven’t talked. Still haven’t gotten shit sorted out that honestly, I recognize now, we definitely need to get sorted out.

And I was clearly an idiot thinking this wouldn’t affect it.

Because obviously, it does, and it has.

We were in the bottom two teams last night. We skated through, but we . . . we are not going to skate through again. Not on barely tolerating each other.

Not on weird.

I blow out a long breath and poke at my dinner. The next challenge is tomorrow morning, and I need to talk to him before then or we’re out. And everyone knows it.

I stand from the table, square my shoulders, and walk to where Yeonjun is sitting,

“Hey,” I say.

He raises an eyebrow. “Hey.”

“We need to talk.”

He sets down the Coke in his hand and says, “You’re gonna condescend to speak to me now?”

I want to swallow all the words I’d planned back into my throat, because the anger just boils right back up. But I don’t. I say, “You planning on insomnia again tonight?”

Yeonjun looks at the table. Considers. Drums his fingers on the hard surface. Then says, “Two, like clockwork.”

“What if I came down to the common room and interrupted it?”

Yeonjun sighs and meets my eyes. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll see you.”

He leaves.

🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂

I set my alarm for two, even though I’m pretty sure my internal clock will wake me up. And it does—1:45 and I’m lying there, blinking into the dark.

I’m sure Taehyun appreciates not being wrenched from sleep at this ungodly hour, so that’s . . . good, I guess.

Very little is good before, like, ten in the morning, though.

So I’m not enthusiastic.

I slide on a sweatshirt over this tank top, so it’s that and pajama bottoms for this clandestine meeting. Very fancy, very seductive.

And slip downstairs.

I’m there a few minutes early, but Yeonjun’s already waiting for me.

He’s reading something I can’t see from here, and I have this annoying surge of something positive I can’t put a name to in my chest. Something I quiet before I can pinpoint. But I like people who read. It’s instinctive.

I shake my head.

“Hey, Choi,” he says without looking up from his book. He’s not whispering, but his voice is low enough I’m not concerned about waking anyone up.

“Yeonjun,” I say.

I walk softly over to him in my socks, padding on the fancy old rug, and he just silently slides his feet from where they were kicked up on the back of the couch to the floor. So once again, I wind up sitting beside him at two a.m. by the fire.