Psycho

Fuck you Jimmy Olsen you know what you did.

One week later.

Gyeongbokgung was, in Dairyu's considered opinion, the kind of place that made you feel small in a way that was actually good for you.

He'd been drifting through the palace grounds for the better part of an hour, no agenda, no itinerary, just him and a tourist map he'd stopped consulting twenty minutes in. The late morning crowd was manageable.

The architecture was enormous and calm and old in a way that made the rest of the world feel like a recent and temporary problem.

He was eating tteokbokki from a paper cup near one of the outer pavilions when he heard, "You really do just show up everywhere, don't you?"

Dairyu turned.

Sakura was standing a few feet away, dressed down — cap, sunglasses, a long cardigan that said she'd been hoping not to be recognized — holding a coffee that was still steaming. She was looking at him the same way she had in the bar: like she hadn't decided yet whether he was a coincidence or a problem.

"I should be saying that to you. You're the famous one," he said. "I'm just a tourist."

She fell into step beside him anyway, which he counted as a win.

They walked for a while without pressing it — past the changing of the guard ceremony, along the edge of Hyangwonjeong pond, letting the silence sit the way it can with people who are comfortable enough to not fill it. Eventually, Sakura took her sunglasses off and tilted her face up at the pavilion roofline.

"Chaewon called you 'Sakura's boyfriend'," she said, like she was reading it off a document.

"I heard."

"That was very fast."

"I thought so too." He finished the last piece of tteokbokki. "For the record, I didn't correct her. She seemed like she had places to be."

Sakura gave him a sideways look. "She kissed Aki about thirty seconds later, so I think you were right."

"Good. Physics over chemistry."

"Your dad's line."

"My dad's line," he agreed.

Another stretch of quiet. A group of tourists passed them going the other direction, phones up, not looking where they were walking. Dairyu stepped slightly in front of Sakura without thinking about it, let them pass, then stepped back.

She noticed. Didn't say anything.

"So," she said eventually. "Sakura's boyfriend."

"Is this the part where you tell me that it can't be done and your career is at stake?"

"This is the part where I ask what you think about it."

Dairyu looked at her. She was watching a pair of magpies on the pavilion railing, or pretending to. Her expression was doing the thing he'd already started recognizing — the one where she asked something real while appearing to be looking at something else, so she had somewhere neutral to look if she didn't like the answer.

"I think," he said, choosing his words with some care, "that I spent one evening with you, cooked you ramyeon, and got voluntarily recruited to a party. And I'm currently walking around a palace with you on what is technically a day off." He paused. "I think the word boyfriend is probably ahead of schedule. But I'm not offended by the direction."

Sakura was quiet for a moment.

"That's a very long way of saying you like me."

"I'm a pro wrestler. We don't do anything concisely."

She laughed — a real one this time, unguarded, different from the reluctant almost-laugh in the bar. She seemed mildly annoyed at herself for it, which made it better.

"I'm not looking for something complicated," she said, when she'd composed herself.

"Neither am I."

"I've been complicated before."

"So have I." He shrugged. "We don't have to be."

She seemed to be considering this — or deciding whether she believed it — when footsteps came slapping hard against the stone path behind them, and a you, a man Dairyu's a little under his height but half his width appeared at his shoulder, breathing as he'd sprinted from two gates over.

"Ryu," you breathed out — mid-twenties, handsome in a slightly frantic way, dark curly hair, Italian-inflected Korean — grabbed Dairyu's arm with both hands. "I need your help."

Dairyu looked at you. "Leonardo. What."

"There's a girl," you caught your breath. "She's a succubus. Like an actual succubus. And she is trying to drain me."

A beat of silence.

Sakura looked at you. Then at Dairyu. "Is he serious?"

"When it comes to women, yes...Unfortunately," Dairyu said. "Leonardo, this is Sakura. Sakura, Leonardo. He's a musician I met at the jimjilbang four days ago. He has the worst luck with women of anyone I've ever met."

"The worst," you confirmed, with the sincerity of a man who had accepted this about himself. You turned back to Dairyu. "She followed me here. She is right there —" he jerked his head back toward the main gate "— and I need you to —"

"Run interference."

"Please."

Dairyu turned to Sakura with an expression that was genuinely apologetic. "I'm sorry. This is going to take twenty minutes, and then I want to finish this conversation."

Sakura stared at him. Then to you. Then back at him.

"Define succubus," she said.

"You'll see," you said, already backpedaling. "I'm going to hide. She'll be here any minute." And then you were gone, swallowed by the tourist crowd.

Dairyu stared at the space where he'd been standing. Then he sighed, turned to Sakura, and found her smiling.

"Your friend," she said.

"My friend," he agreed.

True to Leonardo's word, a young woman appeared from the direction of the main gate a few minutes later. Long dark hair, a soft and almost girlish presence — she looked around the palace grounds with wide, searching eyes, the kind of girl who seemed like she'd wandered out of a coming-of-age drama. She was also, as Dairyu noted with some alarm, walking with the slow and absolute confidence of someone who had already decided today was going to go her way.

She spotted them and approached.

"Excuse me, Hyung, Unnie — have either of you seen a boy?" She held her hand up to approximately Leonardo's height. "About this tall. Tired-looking. Hopelessly handsome. Green eyes."

Dairyu's first instinct — and he was not proud of this — was to point her directly at Leonardo's hiding spot. He suppressed it. Due diligence first.

"Can I ask why you're looking for him?"

The girl blinked at him like this was an odd question. "He said nice things to me. So I want to make him mine. Obviously."

"What kind of nice things?"

"He said I have pretty eyes and nice hair." She said it with the gravity of someone recounting a legally binding contract. "So obviously he wants to date me."

Dairyu opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again. "That's not always — um." He pivoted. "Can I get your name?"

"Ahyeon." She smiled, sweet and uncomplicated. "Nice to meet you."

"Ahyeon." He nodded carefully. "Did you maybe think about — asking him out? Directly?"

She looked at him like he'd said something charmingly stupid. "Why would I do that? Obviously, he wants to marry me."

Dairyu and Sakura looked at each other. The sheer romantic momentum radiating off this girl was almost a physical thing — not malicious, not calculated, just pure, unfiltered lovesick certainty pointed at a man who was currently crouched behind a palace pillar somewhere. It was a lot.

"Sakura," Dairyu said.

"No," Sakura said.

"She's also an idol. You have context; I don't."

"That's not a reason."

"I genuinely don't think I have the right touch for this."

"And I do?"

"You're already in older sister mode; you've been in it since she walked over. You're fighting it right now."

Sakura glared at him. He was, unfortunately, correct. She could feel it happening — the particular frequency Ahyeon was broadcasting on had activated something involuntary in her, the same way Chaewon's late-night visit had. It was like a reflex.

She clicked her tongue, gave Dairyu one last look that clearly communicated we are discussing this later, and turned to Ahyeon with a softer expression.

"Okay," she said. "Ahyeon-ah. Walk with me."

Dairyu gave a thumbs-up toward the retreating figures of Sakura and Ahyeon, then turned around and went looking for you.

He found you behind a pillar. Exactly where you said you'd be.

"Boo," he said.

You nearly left your body. "It's you —"

"It's me." He leaned against the pillar beside you, arms folded. "I met Ahyeon. She's not a succubus."

"I was being hyperbolic." You peered around the pillar to check your sightlines. "She has the energy of one. Do you know she asked me whether our kids would have my eyes or her eyes? Within four minutes of meeting me?"

Dairyu blinked. "...I didn't know that part."

"So you understand."

"I understand she's an idol who went into the industry very young and probably hasn't had a lot of chances to develop normal romantic instincts. I think you could cut her some slack."

"Absolutely not."

"Can I ask why?"

You thought about it for a second, getting your words in the right order. "Because she's a young idol, which means her company is going to be watching anyone she talks to. And if anything goes sideways — anything — she's going to go from lovesick to something much harder to navigate. I don't need that."

Dairyu was quiet for a moment. Then: "Or. You could just not do anything wrong, and be a bridge boyfriend."

You stared at him. "A what?"

"Bridge boyfriend. You're not her endgame — you're the person who helps her build the emotional vocabulary she never got to develop. Helps her understand what a relationship actually is, what it feels like, how to have one without going straight to wedding planning." He shrugged. "She gets a soft landing. You get a good story. Everybody walks away better than they arrived."

"Why does it have to be me?"

Dairyu's eyes shifted to something just over your shoulder. His expression settled into the particular calm of a man watching an inevitable outcome arrive on schedule. "Because she's already imprinted on you. And I don't think you're going to be able to outrun that."

"You'd be surprised," you said.

"Oh, really."

"Hi, Leonardo."

You spun around.

Ahyeon was standing right behind you, Sakura at her side. She looked calmer than the version you'd fled from — whatever Sakura had said on that walk had taken some of the temperature down — but the lovesick undercurrent was still there, patient as a tide.

"I had a really nice talk with Kura-unnie," Ahyeon said, tilting her head. "She told me I may have scared you a little. With the things I said about marrying and babies." A pause. "Is that true?"

You looked at Dairyu. He looked back at you with an expression that said, very clearly: be gentle and be honest.

"A little," you admitted. "But you seem like a really sweet girl, Ahyeon."

Her whole face opened up. "Can we go on a double date then? The four of us?"

The question landed on the group like a stone into a still pond. Ahyeon looked between all three of you, genuine and bright-eyed and completely unaware of the silent negotiation happening above her head.

Dairyu looked at Sakura.

Sakura looked at Dairyu and mouthed, slowly and with great satisfaction: this is revenge.

He sighed through his nose. Nodded.

You looked at the exit. Weighed your options. Arrived at the same place.

"Sure, Ahyeon. I'll go on a date with you."

"Yay!"

She clapped both hands together in front of her chest — the gesture purely, helplessly cute, the kind of thing that would have looked at home on a middle schooler — while the rest of her remained entirely, unavoidably adult. The combination was, as always, a lot to process.

Sakura caught your eye over Ahyeon's head with a look that said she sympathized.

Dairyu caught your eye with a look that said he absolutely did not.

After the palace, the four of you piled into Dairyu’s rental and headed for a karaoke bar that Ahyeon and Sakura swore by.

“It’s the perfect double date,” Ahyeon announced from the back seat, already settled in close to you in a way that left no room for negotiation. “We get to know each other better, and Kura-unnie can show me how I’m supposed to be presenting myself.”

You nodded along. Somewhere in the last twenty minutes you had discovered that Ahyeon’s eyes were genuinely, unreasonably difficult to say no to — big and warm and fixed on you like you were the most interesting thing she’d ever encountered. You were starting to understand why Leonardo was a documented historical figure to her after one compliment.

In the front seat, Sakura watched the whole thing play out in the side mirror.

“When she figures it out,” she murmured to Dairyu, “she’s going to break hearts.”

Dairyu glanced in the rearview. “Definitely.”

The karaoke bar was small, loud in all the right ways, and apparently exactly what it needed to be — Sakura had Dairyu pay for two hours before he’d fully processed what was happening, and then the time disappeared.

You and Ahyeon found a rhythm quickly. Away from the open air of the palace and the pressure of her own intensity, she settled into something easier — still warm, still relentlessly attentive, but less like a tide coming in and more like someone who was genuinely, simply enjoying herself. She was funny when she relaxed. Diligent about learning the words to songs she didn’t know. Competitive in a way she tried to hide and couldn’t. The lovesick teen was still in there, but so was a person — hardworking, bright, good company — and the two of them coexisted in interesting ways.

What neither of you noticed until the session was winding down was that Dairyu and Sakura hadn’t sung a single song.

Ahyeon noticed first. “Unnie.” She pointed at the screen, then at Sakura. “You haven’t gone.”

Sakura tried to deflect. Ahyeon did not accept deflections. Two minutes later, Sakura was on her feet performing Yume de Kiss Me with the practiced ease of someone who had been doing this since before you were old enough to remember, and Ahyeon was filming it on her phone with the reverence of a devoted student.

Then the two of them turned to Dairyu.

He immediately picked up his drink.

“I’m good.”

“You haven’t done one song,” you pointed out.

“My voice doesn’t really suit—”

“Pick something you like,” Ahyeon said.

“I don’t know many Korean—”

“English is fine,” Sakura said.

“The acoustics in here aren’t great for—”

“Dairyu.”

He tried three more deflections. They closed off everyone. He sighed, stared at the ceiling, and picked up the tablet like a man reviewing his own sentencing paperwork.

He scrolled for an unusually long time. Past the obvious choices, past the safe ones, past everything that would have made this easy on everyone. The three of you watched him narrow it down with the quiet focus of someone who had decided that if he was going to be forced into this, he was going to be honest about it.

He stopped scrolling. Looked at Sakura.

“You said to show you what I’ve got.”

“I did,” she said.

“Okay.”

He put the song on.

One minute and twelve seconds later, Sakura and Ahyeon were sitting very close together on the bench, united in something that looked like the early stages of shock.

On screen: Counting Worms — Knocked Loose.

On the mic: Dairyu, delivering the kind of vocal performance that suggested his throat had at some point made a private arrangement with something unholy.

Ahyeon leaned slowly toward Sakura without taking her eyes off him. “I didn’t know a human voice could do that.”

“Neither did I,” Sakura said, in the tone of someone filing away a piece of information they hadn’t asked for.

“Holy shit,” you said. You were grinning despite yourself. “I didn’t know you could do that, dude.”

Dairyu finished, set the mic down, and picked his drink back up with the energy of a man who had been asked to show his cards and had simply shown them.

“Good acoustics in here actually,” he said.

Sakura stared at him for a long moment.

“Yabai yatsu,” she said, for the second time since she’d met him. She was smiling when she said it