track team AU | love triangle | slice of life | slow burn | found family | comedy + longing + insane rizz
JL transferred to Korea's most elite sports university hoping for a fresh start. He didn't expect to be rooming beside the nation's top sprinte...
For as long as he could remember, JL had always been chasing something he couldn't catch up to.
From the moment he could sprint, he was chasing Eli -- his older brother, the golden boy of their province. Eli never slowed down for anyone. Especially not for JL. But he did notice him, once. Taught him how to pivot on his heel, how to conserve energy for the final 100 meters. How to look untouchable. And JL tried. God, he tried.
Until Eli placed second one season and blamed JL for it.
"You were a distraction," he'd said, voice cold in the locker room. "You made me soft."
He left the team that year. Never looked back. Never answered JL's texts. JL was thirteen.
Then came the attention. His absentee father, lured by the growing media attention and endorsements -- started showing up to meets. Standing at the back. Arms crossed. Saying things like, "Good time. Your form was off in the second half."
No hug. No celebration. Just correction. A glint of something in his eye.
JL still remembers the one time his dad looked proud -- when JL broke the local record. And how that pride only lasted until the next race.
By the time the coach started putting him on banners, JL already knew how this worked. Be faster. Smile for cameras. Stay sharp. Never complain.
Even when his leg started aching.
Even when his body begged him to stop.
When he collapsed mid-race, the coach blamed diet. His father didn't answer the hospital calls. Eli didn't show up.
JL stopped asking for anything after that.
He came to Korea with a full scholarship, and no more dreams.
And then Han happened.
Han, who touched him like he mattered. Who smiled like it was rare.
And then pulled away the moment things got messy.
There was no villain here. Han had his own way of loving — intense, protective, flawed. And JL wanted that, for a while. He wanted the storm. The burn.
But Steven?
Steven felt like when the burn wore off. When your body ached and the lights were low and someone still stayed anyway.
Steven was home.
* * *
JL moved out of the dorms the week after Regionals.
He didn't want to make a big thing of it. Just an email to Admin and a box of things quietly packed. His scholarship allowed off-campus housing, and he'd taken the option without hesitation.
His new place wasn't far -- a fifteen-minute walk from campus, tucked into the second floor of a faded peach building with rusted balconies and a view of nothing in particular.
It wasn't about space. It was about silence... and deciding he didn't want to be in anyone's orbit anymore.
Han hadn't said anything. JL hadn't replied to any of his messages. Not the one about wanting to talk. Not the one that just said, Are you okay?
That was the point.
So when Steven texted, "Are you home?" on a rainy Thursday afternoon, JL surprised himself by replying.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
