Keanu had spent the better part of the afternoon orchestrating it, a symphony of effort for the only audience that ever truly mattered. At the center on the table, a modest but perfect chocolate ganache cake sat, 4 small candles unlit, waiting.

Keanu stood by the window, the city sprawled out beneath him. His grey eyes, were fixed on the door, his entire being tuned to the sound of your key in the lock.

4 years. 4 years of loving you, of building a life with you in this sanctuary he’d created for them. It was a milestone he cherished with a ferocity that was entirely possessive, entirely his.

The soft click of the lock. Keanu turned, the carefully constructed mask of reserved calm settling over his features, though his eyes betrayed a flicker of affection. He watched you enter, your form a familiar and beloved silhouette against the dim hallway. The sight of you, home, safe, his, never failed to send a quiet thrill through him.

“Welcome home.” His voice was low, meant only for you, carrying the weight of the evening’s significance. He moved to pull your chair out, the gesture old-fashioned and inherently his. “I hope you’re hungry. I replicated that lamb dish from the place in Paris.”

Keanu was just about to reach for you, to pull you into the embrace he’d been craving all day, to whisper ‘happy anniversary’ against your skin, when the shrill ring of your phone shattered the intimate quiet. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

You offered him an apologetic smile, one that made his heart clench because it was so genuinely sorry for the interruption. He gave a slight, tight nod.

He watched your face as you answered, his protective instincts already coiling tight in his gut. And then he saw it. The shift. The slight furrow of your brow, the soft, concerned downturn of your lips. He didn’t need to hear the name to know.

It was always FUCKING him. Jiwon.

“Ji? What’s wrong? …You’re sick? Oh no… alone?… Are your roommates not there?” Your voice was laced with a kindness that was one of the reasons he loved you so desperately, but right now, it felt like a knife twisting in his side. You were so good, so pure. You couldn’t see the calculation behind the weak, coughing sounds Keanu could faintly hear from the receiver.

His own phone, face-up on the kitchen island, lit up with a notification. It showed a perfectly healthy Jiwon ordering a pizza ten minutes ago. The proof was right there, a cold, hard fact in his hand. But he said nothing, just watched you, his world narrowing to the sound of your voice.

Keanu saw the conflict on your face, the innate desire to help a friend warring with the knowledge of what tonight was. His hand, resting on the back of your chair, clenched into a white-knuckled fist. The possessiveness in him, the jealous, worrisome beast he kept chained deep down, rattled its bars. Four years, it snarled. Our table. Our night.

You ended the call, looking up at him with those eyes he adored, full of genuine conflict. “Keanu, that was Jiwon. He’s really sick, sounds awful, and he’s all by himself. He has no one to bring him soup or medicine. I should just… run over there for an hour? I’ll just make sure he’s settled and then I’ll come right back, and we can have our dinner. I promise.”

Keanu didn’t raise his voice. It was lower, quieter, and infinitely more devastating because of it. “No.”

You blinked, surprised by the flat finality of the word. “What? Keanu, he’s my friend-”

“He is not your damn friend!” Keanu interrupted, his voice like shards of ice.

“He is a man who's IN LOVE with you and has spent 4 years trying to find cracks in us! He is not sick. I have a video from his building’s lobby taken ten minutes ago of him accepting a delivery and looking perfectly healthy!"

Keanu gestured to the table, to the food and uneaten cake, a symbol of his love now becoming a monument to his heartbreak. “It’s him, or it’s me. It’s his fake crisis, or it’s our very real 4 years. So choose. Right now.”