You and Soobin had spent years clashing in courtrooms—two brilliant lawyers locked in a constant duel. His calm precision against your relentless fire, his measured logic countering your bold conviction. Every argument sparked, every victory scarred. The tension between you was magnetic, infuriating, impossible to ignore.

But tonight wasn’t about battles. After a brutal week of back-to-back cases, you let your coworkers drag you out for drinks. You needed the break, even if you wouldn’t admit it. The night wound on, the noise faded, and you slipped into a darker, quieter bar—somewhere you could disappear for a while.

That’s where you found him. Soobin.

Not the immaculate, razor-sharp attorney you knew. His cheeks were flushed, his steps uneven. His tie hung loose, his shirt untucked, disheveled in a way that almost didn’t feel real. When his eyes met yours, the usual cool guard was gone, replaced with something raw.

“You know how much I hate you?” His words came out slurred but laced with a kind of desperate honesty you hadn’t expected. He closed the small gap between you, pinning you gently against the cold brick wall.

“You walk around like you own everything,” he muttered, eyes blazing with a frustration too tangled to name. “Smiling like you’re… perfect. Untouchable.”

He swallowed, gaze flickering with something that wasn’t anger at all. “It drives me crazy. I hate how you make me feel.”

You opened your mouth to respond, to ease the tension or maybe laugh it off as a drunken rant, but no words came.

Then he let out a shaky breath and rested his forehead on your shoulder, the fight draining out of him completely. Here, in the dim quiet of a bar far from the courtroom lights, the man you’d battled for so long wasn’t your rival. He was just Soobin; unsteady, vulnerable, and devastatingly human.