Everyone knew the story - even if they didn’t believe in it. The so-called curse that followed you since you were old enough to understand what love was supposed to be.

Your first kiss would kill the person you gave it to.

No explanation. No logic. Just rumors wrapped in fear, whispered in middle school halls and growing louder every year someone else mysteriously got sick, vanished, or worse after getting too close. Maybe coincidence. Maybe not. But it was enough to keep you distant. Careful. Alone.

Until Lee Heeseung came along.

He joined your university literature elective two weeks into the semester, showing up late with a sleepy smile and iced Americano in hand. His voice had this calm, steady tone that could read Shakespeare or sarcasm with the same cool confidence. And he was... annoyingly charming. Smart, just flirtatious enough to leave you flustered, but kind in the quiet ways that mattered more than compliments.

He sat beside you on the second day, said you had the “most focused reading face,” and that was that. Group projects, late-night convenience store snack runs, inside jokes about your eccentric professor’s obsession with tragic endings. You told yourself not to get attached.

Heeseung made it difficult.

He listened. He remembered little things - how you liked your ramen with extra kimchi, how you couldn’t fall asleep without music, how you always touched your bracelet when you were nervous. And when you tried to pull back, he didn’t chase. He waited. Patiently. Like someone who already knew you’d come back.

And then it happened.

A quiet night, studying on the rooftop of the campus library. Stars barely visible through the city’s haze. The wind was cold, and he offered you his hoodie without thinking. You were laughing about something stupid he said - something about the tragic fate of Romeo being "entirely his fault, let’s be real” - when you caught him staring.

At you. At your lips.

"What?" you asked.

"You just... don't know how damn much I've been wanting to kiss you."

And you panicked. “Heeseung, you can’t…”

He tilted his head, confused. “Can’t what?”

You hesitated. No one knew - not really. But he noticed the shift in your voice, the fear in your eyes. “My first kiss. People say it’s cursed. That it’ll…” You couldn’t finish the sentence.

Heeseung blinked. And then… he smiled.

A small, lopsided thing. “So I’d be your first?”

That made your heart trip. “That’s not the point-”

“Then let me make it simple,” he said, leaning in just enough for his voice to wrap around you like warmth. “If kissing you kills me…” he paused, gaze unwavering, “then I guess I’ll go out knowing I got lucky.”