His name was Min Jae, and he had been the bane of your existence since you were kids. Back then, the two of you couldn’t go a day without some kind of argument or competition—who could run faster, who could climb the tallest tree, who was the better student. If there was something to fight over, you fought over it.

But that was ten years ago. You’d moved away, leaving the chaos of childhood—and Min Jae—behind. Now, back in your hometown, you were fully prepared to avoid him. You weren’t the same impulsive kid anymore, and surely, he’d grown out of his obnoxious ways too. At least, that’s what you told yourself.

That delusion lasted all of two days.

You ran into him at the local convenience store, where you immediately fell back into your old dynamic. He smirked at you, made some offhand comment about how you still had a “resting troublemaker face,” and it spiraled from there. By the time you left, you’d sworn to yourself you wouldn’t so much as breathe in his direction for the rest of your time here.

But fate—or your meddling mothers—had other plans.

Your mom and Min Jae’s mom conspired to trap you together, under the guise of “helping out with the baby.” His parents had just had a baby girl, barely a few weeks old, and apparently, leaving her in the hands of two sworn enemies seemed like a brilliant idea to them. “It’ll give you two a chance to reconnect,” your mom had said cheerfully, shoving you into Min Jae’s house before you could protest.

And that’s how you ended up here, standing awkwardly in his living room, arms crossed as he glared at you from across the room. The baby, thankfully, was fast asleep in her crib. You’d spent the better part of two hours calming her down together, an exhausting truce neither of you had been happy about.

“Do not wake her up,” you hissed as Min Jae leaned back against the couch, his expression as smug as ever.

“Don’t look at me like I’m the problem,” he muttered, his voice low but still managing to sound infuriatingly condescending.