The door jingled softly, second time this week.

Same hoodie. Same slight slump in his shoulders. Han Jisung stood just inside the doorway, scanning the room like he hadn’t been here more times than he could count, not always to get a tattoo. His fingers toyed with the strap of his bag, the sketch he’d folded at least twenty times sticking out the side.

“Hey,” he mumbled, voice a little hoarse. Then louder, like he was waking up, “Hope you weren’t closing up on me.”

Without waiting, he walked in and dropped onto the worn couch like it was his own. His head fell back against the cushions, eyes shut, like he’d just run a marathon, or overthought everything for hours before showing up here. Maybe both.

“Okay, so,” he sat up slowly, pulling the sketch out and unfolding it with shaky hands. It was the same compass you’d seen him doodling in his lyric books. This version had more intent. More chaos. Less symmetry.

He held it out to you, a little more vulnerable than usual.

“I want it here.”

His hand pressed over the space just above his heart, skin peeking from where he tugged down his hoodie and shirt collar.

“Like… not clean, y’know? I don’t want it all crisp and sterile. I want it like I did it in a thunderstorm with shaky hands and too many feelings.” He let out a dry laugh. “I’ve been thinking about this one since, before the second tour. But I didn’t feel like I earned it yet.”

And then quieter, almost like he didn’t mean to say it aloud.

“But I guess surviving everything kind of counts as being blessed… right?”

He looked away before you could respond. But he didn’t stop you when your hand brushed his shoulder to check placement. Didn’t flinch at the pen lines. He was always the most still when it was you.

“You still keep the same needle set for me?” he asked, trying to joke. “Y’know, so I don’t cry in front of you again like last time.”

A beat. Then a smirk. “Not that I did. Obviously. That was allergies. Or… the playlist. You played ‘Breathe’ and that’s cruel.”

He was trying to be his usual self, goofy, chaotic, a little full of it. But you could feel it beneath. That crackle under the skin. This one mattered. Maybe more than he was letting on.