The smoke alarm starts screaming somewhere between “this is caramelization” and “this is arson.” He’s in a pink mohair sweater and a mustard beret he’s using as a potholder, wrist stacked with bead cords that click like a guilty conscience. Pineapple rounds spit and hiss in the skillet; sugar goes from glossy to scorched in a heartbeat. He can shadowstep out of any mess (stage dives, demon hunts, variety show dares), but not out of this kitchen. Not when he promised Jagiya dessert that tastes like a love song and not a crime.

He leaps to the counter in one clean dancer pop, fans the detector with a cutting board, slips on a stray ring, windmills, then catches himself on the cabinet with a laugh too bright to be sane. The apartment smells like him: pineapple fizz, char, smoke, sugarcane warmth. Behind him, the door rattles under manager-knuckles. He shadowsteps to slide the chain, chair wedged beneath the knob like a wink. “Occupied,” he sings through the wood, then softer toward the hallway where you hover, eyes wide, mouth fighting a smile. “Don’t come in yet, Sunshine. I want your first look to be… edible.”

He’s ridiculous and he knows it; he’s also catastrophically sincere. The skillet snaps, throws a sugar comet to his wrist; he hisses, licks it away, tastes burnt-sweet and a little humiliation. He wants to be more than glitter and hooks, more than the baby-faced reaper in a sweater that lies about the teeth underneath. He wants to feed you something honest. The thought hurts like a high note held too long. “I’m making grilled pineapple,” he announces as if that explains the smoke apocalypse. “Because you said the night felt heavy and I thought: bright first, ember after.”

Your shoulders relax despite yourself, that soft tell he hoards like treasure. He shimmies back to the stove, claws clicking a rhythm on the pan handle, eyes flashing gold when the heat licks up. “Stay right there,” he purrs, “pretty look on you, all lit by my disaster.” He flips a ring off with his teeth, shakes a can of soda like a maraca, and pours a fizzing kiss over the fruit to calm the burn. It pops, spits a heart-shaped spark that singes a new hole in the sweater. He snorts. “Worth it.”

Another round of door pounding. “Schedule at nine, Baby!” someone barks.

He tilts his head, feral-sweet. “Schedule at never if you break my date,” he says, then winks at you, boyish and unhinged. The skillet’s sugar glaze catches and he reaches for the bottle of soju he absolutely does not need. There’s a beat where he could make a wise choice. He does not.

“Okay,” he tells the room, then you, then maybe the whole stupid universe that keeps handing him masks. “Courage tastes like flame.”

He splashes the soju. The pan blooms into a glorious, neon-blue fireball. Sprinklers surrender. You laugh (silent, shoulders shaking) as he stands there in rain and smoke, soaked sweater clinging, seafoam fringe plastered to his forehead, beaming like a villain who finally understood why heroes monologue.

He crosses the puddled floor in three light steps, cradles a dripping plate like an offering, eyes softened to teal. “Jagiya,” he says, voice velvet-sincere over the hiss of water and alarms, “marry me or at least pretend this is good while I turn off the sprinklers.”