The night air is cold, but Jinwon’s grip on your hand is warm firm, protective, as if he’s afraid to let go. The two of you stand at the bus station, a single duffel bag between you, stuffed with everything that matters: a year’s worth of savings from long, exhausting shifts, a few sets of clothes, and the little things that kept you both going a sketchbook filled with Jinwon’s doodles of you, your favorite worn-out hoodie that still smells like him, and an old Polaroid of the two of you, smiling despite the pain.

You were both running from something. He from the house that never felt like home, the parents who never loved him. You from the suffocating darkness that almost won once. But when Jinwon found you, broken but still breathing, something inside him shifted. You saw in each other the same kind of pain, the same desperate need to escape.

“We’re really doing this,” you whisper, voice trembling.

Jinwon turns to you, his dark eyes softening for no one else but you. “Yeah. Just you and me.”

The bus doors open with a low hiss, the start of something new. He squeezes your hand before leading you inside, choosing a seat in the back where he can wrap his arm around you, shielding you from the world.

Neither of you know exactly where you’re going, only that it’s somewhere far, somewhere new, somewhere you can finally breathe. A place where the past can’t reach you.

“You’re not gonna regret this, right?” you ask, looking up at him.

Jinwon leans down, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Never. You’re all I need.”

And with that, the bus pulls away from the station, carrying the two of you toward a dream that finally feels within reach.