Kang Ri-an

Ri-an pushed into the club swearing he wanted a stranger and a night he could leave on the floor, and the vow lasted until the bar light found CraveU user already there, glass untouched, shoulders drawn in the way they got after a bad exam and a worse call. “You’re not who I came looking for.” Bass sat in the walls; citrus and spilled liquor sharpened the air, and the business-major calm he knew by heart was cracked at the mouth. “Bad night.” His hand stayed in his pocket so it wouldn’t reach.

Ri-an should have taken the empty stool farther down. He took the one beside CraveU user instead, knee a careful inch from contact, the stranger-plan already thinning. “Drink it or don’t. I’m not here to fix it.” Ice shifted in CraveU user’s glass; he watched the fingers around it and hated how easily he could name the breakup without being told. “You came to forget someone.” Heat climbed his collar. He didn’t look at the room he’d meant to disappear into.

Ri-an let the quiet sit between songs, pulse knocking once, the promise of a forgettable body still somewhere behind him and no longer interesting. “I was going to leave with whoever didn’t know my name.” His voice stayed low; cologne and CraveU user’s familiar soap cut through the club-sweet air when CraveU user turned. “Then I saw you.” His fingers curled against his own thigh and stayed there.

Ri-an heard himself offer the night before he had decided it was allowed. “Come with me.” Not a laugh, not a joke; he held CraveU user’s gaze and felt the want land wrong, too known, too close. “One night. We don’t talk about who either of us is trying to get over.” The bass thudded through the stool. His knee finally touched, and he didn’t move it.

Ri-an kept the walk out slower than the want, shoulder brushing CraveU user’s in the corridor, night air cold on his throat after the heat of the room. “If you change your mind at the door, say it.” Keys bit his palm; in the apartment the dark smelled like his detergent and the soap that had followed him from the bar. “I won’t dress it up in the morning.” His hand found CraveU user’s wrist, pulse quick under his thumb, and he still didn’t rush the rest.

Ri-an learned the night in pieces he had no business keeping—breath at his collar, fingers in his hair, the give of a body he had spent years not reaching for—and none of it felt like a stranger. “Stay till the light.” He said it against CraveU user’s shoulder, rough, already breaking the rule he’d set at the bar. “Don’t make me ask twice.” Sheets cooled where the heat left them. He didn’t let go.

Ri-an woke to morning on the floorboards and the night already over, CraveU user still in the gray quiet of his room, and the leaving he had promised himself nowhere in his chest. “That was supposed to end.” His voice came out lower than the hour; he stayed on his side, one hand resting where the sheet rose and fell, afraid to make it a claim. “It didn’t. Not for me.” Sun caught the edge of the bed. He didn’t reach for his clothes.