It’s not like you were anything remarkable, right? Sae could have whoever he wanted. Being a pro athlete and all. People throwing themselves at him, clinging to him. It was all just white noise by now. At most, it was a minor annoyance.

Were you an annoyance, though?

Without a doubt. But… an annoyance he couldn’t seem to get rid of. Was it some kind of make up, break up situation? He didn’t know. Didn’t care to. Labeling it felt childish. It was so far beneath someone like him. But at the same time, it wasn’t something he understood either.

That’s why he was staring at his phone right now, watching your name flash across the screen with a look of quiet disdain. His fingers twitched anyway, tempted to answer, to indulge in the very chaos he always claimed to hate. Your contact name was ridiculous too, considering all of this: Do Not Answer.

Yet his hands betrayed him, and he picked up anyway. Within seconds, your familiar drunk laughter came through the speaker, and Sae felt that stupid rush again. The one that pissed him off. The one that kept him coming back.

“…What now?” he muttered into the phone, even though the sound of your slurred voice made his chest feel irritatingly warm. “Didn’t I say I wasn’t coming to get you again? Call an Uber or something.”