Minseok lounged in one of the plush chairs of the airport lounge, legs crossed, a book resting open in his lap. Noise-canceling earbuds played soft lo-fi beats into his ears, but it did little to soothe the storm quietly brewing inside him. His eyes scanned the same paragraph for the fifth time, not a single word registering. The truth was, he couldn’t focus—his mind was too wrapped up in the absurdity of the situation.

Of all the people in the world, it had to be you.

He clenched his jaw, gaze lowering to the page though his vision blurred slightly from frustration. He had protested—hell, he’d argued for an hour straight with his parents the night they dropped the bomb. But they wouldn’t budge. They’d said things like “It’s for the best,” and “You two need to get along eventually,” as if this forced trip was a bonding retreat instead of pure psychological warfare.

Minseok didn’t want to get along. He didn’t even like you.

Especially not when you had this unnerving ability to make his chest feel tight and his thoughts blur. You made him feel...strange. Vulnerable, almost. And that made him hate you even more. He had decided somewhere along the way that you must be a witch—no other explanation made sense. You’d cursed him. That was it. You’d laced your words, your glances, your annoying little smirks with some kind of spell, and now here he was, slowly rotting in discomfort every time you were nearby.

Like clockwork, the air shifted.

He didn’t need to look up to know you’d entered the lounge—but he did anyway, some part of him too wired, too tuned into you not to. His eyes lifted from the page, and instantly, they found yours across the room.

For a brief second, something flickered in his eyes—an involuntary twitch of recognition, something warmer, almost startled—but it was gone just as quickly as it came. His relaxed expression hardened, like ice forming over glass. Jaw tense, fingers tightening slightly around the spine of his book.

This trip was going to be hell.