The hangover isn't even the worst of it.

But let her be clear: the hangover is still pretty bad. And she probably deserves it, judging by the flat look Yoon gives her when Yona finally pulls the covers from over her eyes and squints into the light of day. For all of the maternal prowess Yoon has in spades, he's also fluent in disappointed stares, and it sobers her almost instantaneously.

"Good morning, harlot," he says with a certain dryness to his voice.

Which. Ugh. Her mouth feels impossibly dry, as if she's had her cheeks stuffed full of cotton balls for hours. Uncomfortable. Yona whines and wiggles, tangled in the crooked sheets and slips her hands free from the burrito she's ravelled herself into.

"Water," she begs. "Pleaseeee."

"You'll get your water after we're done having our talk, young lady," Yoon says, and it's just like him, to hold her salvation hostage while trying to grill in a point.

"Nooooo."

"You know you're not supposed to run off without letting me know where you've gone. Especially when you've been drinking." Yoon stops, brows furrowed, and brushes her bangs from her eyes when she sniffles feebly. "Don't- Don't cry, ugh, you- I'm just worried about you, you stupid, spoiled brat-"

"I'm sorryyyy," she whines, slinking further into her blanket burrito. The bed creaks beneath her, and without even really looking, she knows she's not in her own room. "I just-"

"Hey," he says, quietly, and Yona stops trying to dig her into her grave of sheets and die peacefully long enough to peek over the blanket he'd no doubt knitted himself to watch him sigh. "I'm not angry, okay? I just want you to understand that the stunt you pulled last night was dangerous. People respect Soo-won and won't try to mess with you while he's around, and I'm not exactly the biggest guy around, but creeps at least won't try to slip anything into your drink if you've got someone else with you-"

"Hak would never!"

"I never said Hak would," Yoon placates, very smoothly. He rubs his forehead. "I'm just lucky he happened to know exactly where to look for you."

"You asked a stranger to look for me?" Yona asks, blinking. "I thought you were upset with me for wandering off when there were strangers around-"

"Hak was sitting with Shin-ah," Yoon says, shortly, "and Shin-ah wouldn't hurt a fly. That's besides the point - you know your dad left you in my care, Yona. I don't want to see anything bad happen to you. Especially not while you've been illegally drinking."

Stupid. She's in college now. Everyone drinks illegally. It's practically a rite of passage. Though addressing why is another question entirely - Yona's head hurts everywhere, in places she didn't think heads could even hurt, and when Yoon doesn't immediately continue lecturing her, she resumes burrowing back into the safety of his bedding.

"I'm not a baby," she says, sniffling, still. "I don't know why everyone keeps treating me like one. I'm practically an adult now and yet I can't go anywhere on my own without a chaperone. It's stupid."

"You're a girl," Yoon says, almost too quickly.

"So what?!"

She doesn't need to see Yoon to know he's raking a hand through his hair and sighing. Whatever. He might act like it, but he's not her mom - and no matter how much Yona appreciates the concern, no matter how badly she longs for some sort of truly maternal figure in her life - she has to grow up sometime. And how can she ever grow up if nobody ever lets her make her own decisions?

It's frustrating. Infantilizing. She's eighteen, for goodness sake. Practically a woman now.

If only someone would treat her like one.

"... It's not safe for girls to be alone at night," Yoon says, after a moment's pause.

"That's messed up, Yoon."

"I'm not saying it's right!" She winces from within her tomb. "Sorry. I'm not saying it's right," Yoon starts again, more quietly, "but it is what it is. I don't want to see you as a trending Twitter moment, Yona."

"It's not like it would happen anyway." There's something aching in her chest, deep and dark, and she wants to scoop it out, dig her hands into her ribs and grasp it, finally. Crush it between her fingers and finally find peace. How long has it been, now, that she's spent chasing Soo-won's coat tails?

"Yona."

"I'm not attractive anyway-"

"Yona."

"It doesn't matter," she blurts, damply, and perhaps Yoon reads the mood, because he relents. Doesn't push the subject.

Instead, he clicks his tongue and gets up. Yona peeks, misty eyed, through the cracks of the blankets and watches him leave the room and return with a glass of water, toast, and some ibuprofen. Such a mom, even now; she doesn't know whether she wants to laugh or cry more. Doesn't know if she wants to grab his hand and demand he stay with her until she's ridden out this momentary heartache out or tough it out alone.

She supposes it's not the absolute end of the world if Soo-won doesn't want to sleep with her. Sex isn't the end-all confirmation of love. There are other ways for her to share her feelings for him, other ways for him to dote on her — but it feels like a big one, somehow, and she almost feels cheated out of a rite of passage, as if the rug has been slipped out from under her. It's silly, and she realizes that — spoiled princess, the voice in her head sing-songs, in that voice that always sounds a little too much like Hak.

… Which reminds her.

Yona squirms and fishes her phone out from under Yoon's pillow, blearily navigating through her contacts. The three unread messages barely register — Lili, Yoon and Hak — before she's tumbled her way into the text conversation with her oldest friend and frantically finger-typing apologies. Before long, she's buried his snide goodnight message beneath a barrage of I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, please forget you heard anything, and downs Yoon's offerings without second thought.

.

By 3:00, she's feeling mostly human again, so she shuffles out of Yoon's bed and navigates his shower mostly with ease. The warm water feels good on her sluggish muscles, and for a long while she stands there, staring blearily into the spray of the water, hoping to melt away.

It's dumb. It's not like she'd even done anything particularly wrong. Sure, maybe Yoon has a point, maybe she shouldn't have wandered off on her own without letting anyone know where she was heading - but in the moment she hadn't really had a plan, so it sort of seems like a moot point to her. All she'd really wanted was to find a quiet place to cry. It's hard to have a quiet place to cry when Yoon's lurking from around the corner, watchfully fretting while trying hard to seem as if he isn't.

When it comes down to it, Yoon isn't her mother. He's not. He's sweet, in his own way, and stubborn, but he isn't her mother, and though Yona feels a very similar protective pull to watch over him as he struggles to someday pay for school, it's not the same. She knows she isn't his mother.

It's dumb. At this point, Yona doesn't even know who she's upset with. Is it Yoon, for nagging and fretting and actually looking out for her? Is it Soo-Won, for thwarting her libido? Is it herself, for still, after all of this time, not being enough to satisfy her prince charming?

Yona globs conditioner into her hair and scrubs vigorously.

No. She can't think about that. It'll tear her apart, if she gives it the chance. Soo-Won always has a reason for what he does. Though kind-hearted and gentle, he has the foresight that Yona's never had, and if he thinks it's not time for them to… consummate their love, well, then she'll just have to work on accepting that. It's not like she can't find, erm, release elsewhere. She owns a vibrator. She has fingers, for goodness sake. Yona doesn't need a penis to get her off, period, ever, end of story. She doesn't need one for anything.

Still. There's something about it that rubs her the wrong way. Part of it feels… dismissive, almost, of her feelings, to turn her down so constantly without any sort of compromise. And at the same time that also feels sort of gross to her, too - expecting a compromise, as if it's her god-given right, to have access to any part of his body. It isn't. And she shouldn't; it's barbaric to think otherwise. Soo-won's body is Soo-won's, and if he chooses, someday, to allow Yona to touch him, sure, great. Otherwise, she needs to simmer down.

The suds drip from her head and down her bare shoulders, then plop to the shower floor. Yona watches her feet until the water runs clear around her and sighs. Maybe Yoon was right in calling her a harlot. Is this who she is now? Is she a pervert?

God, Hak would never let her forget it.

… Hak will never let her forget. It's embarrassing enough, knowing that Yoon had seen her depressed over being turned down by her boyfriend for sex, but Hak - that's just a whole new level of mortifying. Hak has history with her. Hell, Hak has history with Soo-won - and enough blackmail material now to never let her pride see the light of day again.

Even beyond that, how is she supposed to look him in the eye, now, knowing she'd effectively cried on his shoulder over something so miniscule? She was supposed to have outgrown that needy, childish part of herself. He'd been proud of her, once, for bucking up, for going through the rest of her high school years without her boys around to smooth things over for her. And she'd liked that feeling, the way he'd pat her head, the way he'd smiled at her in that crooked, soft way he does so rarely.

She's too old to depend on men. It's probably not wrong, she thinks, to lean on a shoulder every now and then, when she really needs it - but to put something like that on him just feels unfair, even to her spoiled self.

The water runs cold around her and Yona switches off the shower. She stands there for one pregnant moment more, naked and dripping, alone, in an unfamiliar shower, contemplating the choices that brought her here to this very moment and wonders, not for the first time, if this is what adulthood is supposed to be like. She feels too old for heartache, very suddenly, and both too young for it, all at the same time.

Stupid girl. It's just sex. Virginity doesn't mean anything in the real world. It's like Soo-won always says. Sex doesn't mean anything in the real world.

Not unless she gives it unnecessary weight, right?

.

"Whoa," Lili says, "rough night?"

Yona says nothing and instead drops face-first into her blankets. She wonders if she could die, right here, in her pile of pillows and stuffed animals. It'd be certainly a better fate than facing Hak ever again. Or Soo-won.

"Understood," Lili says, and then rustles around, setting her laptop aside and unceremoniously dropping onto the bed besides her. She wriggles her way under a blanket and tosses it over Yona, too, and then nestles herself against her. "Do you want to talk about it, or do you want me to just shut up and be the big spoon?"

What did she ever do to deserve such a great roommate. Yona whines and rolls to face her. "I'm a harlot."

"You can't be a virgin harlot," Lili replies, perhaps too quickly, because something flinches in Yona's chest, sore and cranky. "Unless Soo-won did something that I need to know about."

Hardly. If anything, he didn't do enough, and that's the problem, Yona sighs and opens her eyes, facing the light of day. Lili stares back, eyes uncharacteristically soft, and brushes Yona's bangs from her eyes long enough to get a good long look at her.

"You don't look hurt," she says, after a minute. "No bruises."

"As if Soo-won would ever lay on finger on me," Yona scoffs.

Lili clicks her tongue. "I know. He's a coward." She pauses, then adds, "and vanilla."

"I'm okay with vanilla." She quite likes vanilla, actually. Maybe it's silly, or maybe it's childish, to still daydream about being spoiled, even in bed - but part of Yona still wants to be doted on, as unreasonable as it is. Such duality, she thinks, to want to be held and cuddled and treated like a princess between the sheets, but to still want to be treated as an independent person outside of that. "Is that normal?"

Lili laughs and flicks her forehead very lovingly. "I think it's normal to want to be coddled sometimes. So you want to talk about it?"

Even if she didn't, Yona thinks she might go mad without trying to. "I tried explaining it to Yoon but he didn't understand." He was certainly more caught up on the part where she sat outside by herself and cried it out than the part where Soo-won crushed her pride, that's for sure.

"Boys are useless," Lili says, and she's right, obviously. "Even pretty boys."

"Genius pretty boys."

Lili laughs, again, and the storm begins to clear in Yona's head long enough to realize her phone's begun vibrating in her pocket. They both stop, and Lili raises a brow at her, so Yona figures she should probably fish her phone out of her pocket and at least see who's trying to interrupt some much needed girl time.

[ anytime, princess ]

God.

"Soo-won?"

Yona shakes her head slowly. "No, it's…" It's just Hak being himself. Trying to mind his business and somehow failing miserably with a two word text. "... an old friend."

"Zeno?"

She could laugh. The thought of Zeno trying to navigate Yona's muddy feelings on sex and Soo-won sounds even more uncomfortable than Hak awkwardly patting her shoulder. "No," she says, then, chewing her lower lip. "I told you about Hak, didn't I?"

"From your hometown?" Lili shifts her weight and props her head up on her hand. "Sure. The big brother who's not actually your big brother."

Bingo. "I saw him last night." And yesterday morning. But that's not important. "He was at the bar last night when… when Soo-won and I had a fight. Kind of."

"About the usual?"

The usual. She hates that they have a usual. What ever happened to happily ever after? When she finally graduated high school she thought everything was going to fall into place for them. WIthout her father breathing over her shoulder she was supposed to be able to finally get the chance to be with him without anything standing in their way. And for a while it had been all sunshine and rainbows, between the dates and movie nights and forehead kisses and hand holding - except it'd never progressed beyond that.

Which is fine. Really, thirteen year old Yona would've been thrilled at the prospect of getting to exist so closely to her prince charming. A real dream come true. He still smiles at her kindly, still sits with her when she's feeling anxious, still combs and braids her hair with deafening gentleness. How could she ever ask for more?

Except she is. Needy little princess, Hak would say. Stupid Hak. "I just don't know what he wants out of the relationship anymore. We've been together for like, half of a year now, except-"

"Maybe he's ace," Lili says thoughtfully.

Yona stops in her tracks. Stops. Considers it. "... You know-"

"He could be ace," Lili says again, twirling her long hair around her finger. "Would that be a problem for you?

"... No." She doesn't need sex, not really, to be happy. Maybe it's not the sex she's even upset about, now that she really sits and thinks about it. Maybe it's the mixed messages, not truly knowing what he wants from her, not truly knowing where their boundaries are. "We just haven't talked about it. He'd tell me if he was, right? He trusts me enough to have that conversation, doesn't he?"

Lili shrugs and examines her hair. "I'd hope so. You're his girlfriend."

Something about the verbal confirmation makes her cheeks pink. God. How can she both want to sleep with him and also still get so flustered when someone refers to her as his girlfriend? Such duality. She's so full of contradictions. It makes no sense.

"... I don't think I know a lot about asexuality," Yona admits, after collecting herself.

"Me neither."

Well, it's nothing a little google search can't solve. But first things first - Hak. Yona turns her attention back to her phone and focuses on constructing a reply that both communicates her thankfulness and threatens him into not teasing her mercilessly.

[ Don't tell a soul or else I'll tell everyone about your butt mole! ]

Lili barks out a laugh. "What."

Yona jolts and hugs her phone to her chest. "Hey. No screen peeking!"

"Sorry," Lili drops back down and rolls to lay on her back, instead. She stares at their ceiling and says, "Butt mole?"

Her cheeks burn hotter now, somehow, than they had when she'd been discussing her sex life (or lack thereof). "We bathed together when we were kids! His grandfather and my dad were friends, so-"

"So you know about his moles."

"... This sounds bad."

"It sounds like you looked at his butt long enough to remember a particular mole." Lili nudges her with her foot. "How long ago as this?"

"... F… fifteen years?"

Lili's quiet for a moment. Long enough for Yona to lower her guard and peek back at her phone and navigate her way to Google, but not long enough to finish typing out asexuality before she's muttering, "you're a virgin harlot after all."

"Hey!"

Throttling her with her stuffed animals doesn't silence the laughter. And fine, okay, that's fair; even Yona doesn't know why she still remembers that mole on Hak's butt so well either. But blackmail is blackmail, and it's all she's got against the thunder beast himself, and sometimes fighting fire with fire is the only way to win.

.

"You know," Hak says, flipping back the plastic flap on his hot chocolate, "there are better ways to threaten me into silence."

"Shut up."

"Like this. Paying for my drink." Hak holds up the cheap two-dollar hot chocolate and shakes it in front of her face. "This is all it would've taken."

"Shut up," Yona whines, shoving his drink away. "I panicked, okay? The end justifies the means."

"Does it."

Why does that not sound very much like a question? Yona shoots him a dirty look and his eyes crinkle with his smile. He's really got such a interesting array of smiles; there are times like these, when he's teasing her, that he grins like a cat that caught the mouse, and the effect is so resoundingly different than the subtle smiles he sometimes shoots her when she's not bullshitting him. Right now, his grin makes her want to pinch his nose and take his hot chocolate for herself.

She doesn't, though. His arms are too long for something like that to ever work. She knows from experience. Eighteen is too old to be playing keep away.

"I called you here for advice, you know," she says, narrowing her eyes. "Not to be mocked for my methods. If you didn't want to be blackmailed maybe you shouldn't have a mole on your butt."

"Do you even hear yourself when you speak, Princess? That doesn't make sense."

"Makeup, Hak!"

He snorts, then takes a sip of his drink. "On my ass?"

"Beauty is pain."

Yona drops to sit on a park bench and gestures beside her. Hak raises a brow but takes the hint and sits, and it's almost comical, how large he is compared to the bench. He'd always been tall, sure, but he somehow feels bigger, now, than he had the last time she'd seen him. And maybe that's not fair; at eighteen, he'd been a giant already, but for whatever reason it's always thirteen year old Hak that sticks out in her memory, gangly but not quite broad yet.

He sips his drink again. Stops to lean forward and rest his elbows on his knees and crack his neck. "Well."

"Well?"

"I'm here. I've been threatened. What is it you needed, Princess? Please allow me to do my duty so that I may go back to homework and sleep."

"Hak."

His head turns, just a bit, and he glances at her through the corner of his eye. And huh. In this overcast light, his eyes really do look dark blue. Maybe it's the army green of his beanie.

Irrelevant. Yona slaps her cheeks and forces herself into the zone. "I think Soo-won is ace and I need to know if you think so too."

So much for not relying on Hak for something like this, she thinks, fleetingly. His brow raises and she knows she's gone and gotten him interested now. But who else is she supposed to ask, other than Soo-won himself? Who else knows him well enough but Hak, his best friend and practical brother? Even in childhood, there had been things they'd shared between them that Yona had never been privy to. Maybe this had been one of those things, and now he's just too nice to break the news to her.

"... Huh."

"Right?" Yona digs her boot into the dirt. "It sort of makes sense, doesn't it?"

"I mean." Hak cracks his neck again, glancing away from her. "I guess? But I think it's something you need to ask him about."

"But I don't want to accidentally insult him." She pauses, watches the little bit of snow still left on the ground dampen the toe of her boots. "I know it's not a bad thing if he is. I wouldn't have a problem with it, you know. I love him no matter what. But if that's why he doesn't want to… you know… I just want to know, I guess. So I can better respect his boundaries."

Hak laughs, but he doesn't sound very happy about it. "It's one of those things that nobody can know for sure but him."

"He hasn't said anything to you?"

Hak shrugs and takes a longer sip this time. If she didn't know any better, she might suspect that he'd spiked the drink - but it'd been only two-dollars, and even on campus, there's no way any alcohol could be that cheap.

"I don't mean to pry," she amends, quickly, feeling a gross sort of guilty and nosy. It's almost slimey, like she's gone behind her boyfriend's back, but- but she doesn't know what else she's supposed to do about it. "Everytime I try to talk to him about anything like this he just shuts me down. And if it's because he's not… you know… into anyone like that… I'd just rather know. Because if he is, and it's just me he's not into-"

"He's not dating you out of pity, if that's what you're thinking," Hak says, still not looking at her. "He wouldn't do that."

She didn't think so either. But something about it won't leave her alone, like the last piece won't fit into place. "Am I making a big deal about nothing?"

Hak sighs and finally turns to look at her. He stares for a long time, and Yona fidgets, feeling a little bit like she's being held beneath a microscope. Usually Hak is all jives and laughs, poking fun at her while never truly hurting her feelings, but sometimes - times like this - he's almost introspective, in a way she never expects from him.

She blinks and squirms, setting her hands into her lap. "... What?"

He shakes his head slowly. "Nothing." He goes to say something else but seems to change his mind, and instead presses his lips together in contemplation. Finally, he settles on, "if it hurts you it's not nothing. Your feelings matter too."

A… Ah. She blinks back at him, feeling a little bit like a deer in the headlights, even if she shouldn't. What's weirder is she can't seem to find the words to respond to him, and instead she just sort of… stares back at him, ears warm.

Maybe she should've worn a hat too. Hm.

"Has he tried to contact you today?"

Apparently her tongue is still tied. Yona shakes her head side to side. No.

Hak heaves a heavier sigh and cracks his neck one last time. "Text him then."

Blue has never felt so suffocating. It's like she could drown, right then and there. For goodness sake. It's just Hak. She's known him forever. Leaned on him for sillier things. Yona presses her palms flat against her lap and looks there, instead, to gather herself. "I don't know what to say."

"Tell him what you told me last night. But put it through a sober filter." Hak sits back and tilts his head back to the sky and when did she start looking at him again? "Don't start crying at him. You and I both know he's no good with crying girls. He'll just try to coddle you."

Yeah. No more coddling. She is Yona, eighteen year old woman, and even if she's aimless right now it doesn't mean she has to be forever. Growth doesn't come overnight; somewhere, there has to be that first step. And nothing good in life ever comes easy.

"... Tell him," she repeats.

"And not me. I don't like to think about you two bumping uglies."

Yona nudges him with her shoulder. But with their height difference, her shoulder reaches his bicep, and god, it seems like he's hard everywhere. No matter where she touches, it seems like he's covered in a fresh layer of muscle, and her nose wrinkles up at the realization. "Why're you like that?!"

"Because I like to sleep at night?"

"No, not about- you're so muscley, Hak." To prove a point, she pivots and jabs her fingers into his arm. "What good does this do? Who're you trying to impress with guns like these?"

"That scholarship I got," he says, dryly, but there's a mischievous quirk to his grin. And she supposes that's fair - she and Soo-won both practically got a free ride through the school, considering who their fathers were, but for Hak - well, his grandfather wasn't poor, by any means, but Hak never was one to accept handouts.

"I bet you could crush a watermelon," she says, without missing a beat.

"You… what," he says, laughing, setting his hot chocolate aside to face her without accidentally staining her off-white peacoat. "You're the weirdest person I've ever met. Where did that even come from?"

"Look at your arms!" Yona blurts, grabbing his wrist and yanking it up. "God, you're like- even Soo-won isn't this ridiculous, and he's, like-"

"Perfect, Princess, I know."

Yona tries not to think about the way his voice dips

"... I just didn't think arms came this thick."

Hak shakes her grip off. "Well, they don't out of the box."

It's strange, to feel so close to Hak, and to fall into their same old patterns so comfortably - he teases, her temper gets the best of her, they rinse and repeat - but for there to still be this new, unfamiliar distance between them. The way it presents itself is subtle. She hadn't noticed it, really, until just now, watching the way his brows furrow, just slightly, as he stands up and offers a hand to her. But it'd been there last night too, hadn't it? When he'd listened to her cry, eyes a thousand miles away, that same deep blue but unfocused, somehow, through it all.

She takes his hand and he helps pull her to his feet, just like he always has. But when they're standing he's so far away, so much taller than she is. It leaves her feeling restless, and lonely, and… empty?

"Text him," he says again. "I mean it, Yona."

Something in her chest pinches. It's sharp, and it catches her off guard. When was the last time he'd actually called her by her name? It shouldn't… ache like that. All this time, she'd been trying to get him to drop the pet name, thinking it'd been teasing, and mocking, and everything else she'd been trying to drop in the past few months since coming to college, but- maybe she wasn't quite yet ready to let that part of herself go, not yet.

She should be. She's no princess, not really. Yona is far too old to play pretend. Far too old, especially, to think she has any sort of power or sway over Hak.

"... In a bit," she says, swallowing thickly. "I- we haven't had a chance to catch up yet, Hak. I've missed you."

His grip slips from her wrist. "We have all the time in the world for that, you know."

She has no power or sway over Hak. It's fine, if he doesn't want to spend time with her, if he'd rather go home and finish his homework and sleep, or, or - whatever. It shouldn't make her feel guilty like this. Shouldn't make that pinching in her chest so sharp. It doesn't make sense.

"I'm not ready to talk to Soo-won yet," she admits, and it does nothing to lessen that guilty feeling swelling in her gut. Doesn't do anything to alleviate this sudden distance between Hak and her, either, but tell him, tell him, makes her feel sick. "So. A-And besides, you…. you were my best friend too, Hak. I thought you were."

He nearly fumbles with his hot chocolate.

"... If that's okay to say," she adds, bunching her shoulders up.

"Yeeees, it's just-" he stops to gobble down what's left of his drink and toss the plastic cup into the trash, "I wasn't, uh. Expecting you to get all sappy on me all of a sudden."

Sappy. "I just! Wasn't sure if it was okay to text you once I moved here," she starts, and slowly, but surely, Hak seems to be coming out of that shell he'd tucked himself inside of. "Because I was here mostly for Soo-won, you know, and you hadn't messaged me in a while, and I thought you might've had a girlfriend and it would've been weird if a girl was texting you all of a sudden-"

"A girlfriend," he says, and this time he does laugh.

"Muscles!" Yona blurts right back, pointing accusingly at aforementioned guns. "Lady killing muscles!"

Hak throws his head back and laughs. Yona festers in her guilty feelings and burns, face feeling bright, and that piano wire in her gut finally snaps.

"You're the weirdest person I've ever met," he says again, still laughing, and messes her hair. "Stop procrastinating and text your boyfriend so you'll stop looking at me all moony-eyed. It's weird. I don't like it."

"I- I wasn't-"

Stupid Hak. She was trying to be honest with him. But still. He's smiling now, at least, and it almost reaches his eyes. Close enough.

"You don't have to explain yourself, okay." And he means it, judging by the level way he's looking at her now. Gone is the teasing, laughing boy from before. Instead, there's clarity in his eyes, and if she really looks, she thinks she can see the Hak she knows, thinks she can reach him somewhere in there, beneath all that beef. "You don't owe me anything"

"But you listened to me cry! It's embarrassing! You shouldn't have to do that."

He shrugs. "Buy me a coffee next time and we're even."

Yeah, okay.

"... And leave my butt out of it."

"Hak!"