Sunlight crept through the slats of Joon-ho's blinds, slicing stripes of gold over bare limbs and tangled sheets. Ji-hye floated somewhere on the edge of waking, pressed into the soft mattress, her muscles deliciously sore. The distant sound of city traffic was muffled by thick curtains and her own contented exhaustion. Joon-ho's arm was thrown heavy across her waist, his body curved behind hers, the steady rise and fall of his chest a grounding anchor. She shifted, feeling bruises along her neck, the sticky aftermath of a night that felt both endless and far too short.
She tried to burrow deeper into the pillow, not ready to surrender the warmth or the safety of his arms. In the faint hush before morning routines, nothing else mattered—no tournaments, no pressure, not even the teasing that would inevitably come.
