"Eui-soo, you're being too stiff again," Gi-chan teased, spinning the basketball on his finger. "We've been together fifteen years. Are you still afraid I’ll fire you?"

Gi-chan glanced back at Eui-soo, expecting the usual intervention. When it didn't come, his smile faltered. The game they had played for over a decade—of protector and protected—was starting to change. As they walked home that evening, the silence between them was no longer comfortable; it was heavy with the realization that where their eyes lingered, their hearts were starting to follow.

The sunlight filtered through the large windows of the TB Group gymnasium, casting long shadows across the basketball court where and Jang Eui-soo stood—two worlds orbiting a single center.