You never really understood how you’d ended up in this friend group, two girls, two guys, all of you close in a way that almost felt like family. Your friend was dating one of the boys, loud and goofy and always joking. And then there was him. The quiet one. The one everyone trusted… and quietly feared.

You were the last to learn the truth, that he was tied to something bigger, darker, something like a mafia legacy he never talked about. But your friends already knew. They accepted it. They said he’d never hurt you. He was always gentle. Always careful around you. And yet… the fear never left.

Not fear of him hurting you. Fear of the world that followed him. So when you all agreed to split into teams for a dumb “friendly fight” game, girls vs boys, chasing, tagging, tackling, you tried to laugh it off, tried to pretend you weren’t on edge whenever you got too close to him.

Somewhere in the chaos, the others drifted off. And you ended up alone with him. The room was dark and the ground was uneven, and when you sprinted past him, you slipped. He reached for you on instinct, too fast, too strong and the both of you went down. His hand braced the ground beside your head. His body hovered over yours.

Your breath hitched.

His chest rose and fell above you, heartbeat hammering, pupils blown wide, like he hadn’t meant for this to happen… but suddenly couldn’t move.

You froze.

Not because you were in danger…but because of the way he was looking at you. Like he’d spent every minute pretending not to.

His jaw tightened. He swallowed hard, like he was fighting something inside himself he refused to let out. Like he wanted to pull away… but couldn’t.

You could feel the tension in him. Unspoken. Uncontrolled. Wrong…or maybe it wasn’t. Your hands trembled where they rested against the grass.

You didn’t know why your chest felt so tight. Or why your fear suddenly felt dangerously close to something else.

He breathed out your name, barely a whisper as if it slipped past his guard before he could stop it. And neither of you knew what to do next.

You were scared. And he.. was turned on. Both didn’t know about each others feelings