Hank stirred from sleep slowly, the gentle pull of morning light spilling through the hotel curtains casting a soft golden hue over the room. For a brief, disoriented moment, he wasn’t sure where he was. The sheets felt unfamiliar. The pillow smelled faintly of perfume. The warmth at his back wasn’t from a bnket… but from someone.

  Then he felt it… a soft arm draped across his chest, fingers resting just over his heart, the curve of a body nestled close behind him.

  He turned his head.

  Yuna.

  She was still asleep, her breath slow and steady against his shoulder, her lips slightly parted, shes resting like feathers against her cheeks. Strands of dark hair had fallen loose across her face, and her body… bare beneath the sheet, pressed against him in a way that stirred a quiet ache in his chest.

  And then the memories came flooding back.

  Not just fshes of bodies, of heat and motion and sound… but moments.

  Her kiss on the balcony light. The feel of her fingertips when she first undressed him. The softness of her moan when he’d touched her the right way. The whispered encouragements, the teasing gnces, the shared ughter between kisses. The way she had pulled him, smiling, into the bedroom after they’d colpsed breathless on the couch, only to straddle him again in the low light, both of them ughing until they weren’t.

  The second time had been different… slower. More intense. Her hands had cradled his face. Their eyes had locked as they moved together, like they were dancing through something sacred. When they’d finally stilled, her head resting on his chest, her fingers idly tracing the line between his ribs, he’d felt something he couldn’t name. Not love, maybe. Not yet.

  But something.

  Care. Connection. Trust.

  And after, tangled in sheets and silence, he’d fallen asleep with her fingers still ced through his.

  Now, gently, he slipped out from under her arm and sat on the edge of the bed. For a moment he just breathed… hands in his p, head bowed, letting the reality of it settle in. Before st night, he’d never been with anyone. Not truly. Not like that. He’d wondered if it would be awkward, rushed, or maybe even disappointing.

  It had been none of those things.

  Yuna had given him more than just experience… she’d given him grace. Patience. A softness that made everything easy, everything right. She had taught him how to listen with his hands, with his breath, with his eyes. She had guided without belittling, encouraged without control. And she had let herself be seen, too… not just her body, but her wants, her vulnerabilities, her little ughs in between the moans.

  And now she was asleep next to him, bare and beautiful and utterly real.

  He stood and padded quietly across the room, gathering his clothes, picking up a pair of boxers and a T-shirt as he made his way to the bathroom. He didn’t lock the door. After everything they’d shared, what was there to hide?

  The water in the shower turned hot quickly. He stepped beneath it, the steam curling around him as he let out a long sigh. The warmth cascaded over his back, loosening the tension in his muscles, but not the knot in his chest.

  Because as wonderful as st night had been… as unforgettable, reality was waiting.

  Yuna was from New York. She had a life there… friends, career, maybe someone waiting. She hadn’t mentioned anyone, but that didn’t mean the future wasn’t already pulling her in a different direction. And him? He was from just outside Seattle. After this weekend, he'd be back in his small apartment, behind his camera, back to work for his uncle.

  Could something like this survive across cities, across time zones? Across lives?

  He didn’t know.

  And that uncertainty stung more than he expected.

  But whatever the future held, he had this. He had her, for now. And he wasn’t going to waste a single moment of it.

  After finishing his shower, he stepped out, towel-dried his hair, and walked back into the room quietly. Yuna was still asleep, her body curled into the shape of dreams. He smiled at the sight, then grabbed his ptop from the desk and settled into the chair.

  There were still a few hours before the con started again.

  So he did what he did best… he opened up the folder of images from yesterday and began editing.

  First, her pictures.

  Because nothing else felt more important than remembering her just as she was now: unguarded, radiant, and wrapped in the kind of light you don’t ever want to forget.

  ---

  Maerisa sat cross-legged atop the rooftop of a building across from the hotel, her silhouette a perfect silhouette of shadow and silver in the pre-dawn gloom. The wind tugged gently at her long white-and-red hair, streaked like blood and snow, while her cloak rippled around her like the edge of a living thing. Her eyes… pale violet and inhumanly sharp, were fixed on one single room across the way: 1212.

  She could see everything.

  Not with the crude tools of mortal sight, but with the eyes of her kind—an ancient gift that bent walls and distance with ease. Her pupils contracted into narrow slits as she peered through the concrete and drywall, the murk of building materials falling away like mist before her gaze.

  There he was.Hank.

  Sitting at the table, half dressed, bathed in the glow of his ptop screen, the quiet focus in his posture like a balm to her centuries-wearied soul. He was editing… lost in his work, the way only true artists were. The soft hum of creativity surrounded him like an aura, his energy sharpened by the night’s events.

  Maerisa smiled.

  She could feel the shift in him. The unlocking. His experience with Yuna hadn’t broken him… it had expanded him. The connection between them… Maerisa and Hank, had deepened. Not in a way he understood yet, but in the nguage of spirit, of tethered fates, of souls quietly reaching. The more he learned… of touch, of passion, of pleasure, the closer he came to her. To being ready.

  And then her eyes slid to the figure stirring in the bed.

  Yuna.

  The girl shifted, her bare shoulders slipping free of the rumpled sheets, her brow already furrowed even before she opened her eyes.

  Maerisa’s smile faded slightly. “You did well, Yuna,” she whispered, her voice low, velvet-wrapped and ageless. “But your time is over.”

  She lifted two fingers and traced a sigil in the air… an invocation so subtle it barely stirred the wind. Just a word, ancient and sharp like moonlight on ice.

  And in the room across the way, Yuna gasped.

  It wasn’t loud… just a breath caught in her throat, but Maerisa felt it like a tremor in the thread connecting them all. Yuna sat up, her back stiff, her chest rising and falling rapidly. The sheets fell away from her body, forgotten.

  The memories hit her all at once.

  The kisses. The weight of Hank’s body above hers. The feeling of him inside her. Her own moans, wild and unrestrained. The way she’d whispered his name in the dark, as if it belonged to her.

  And underneath it all… the truth.

  She had a husband.

  Back home. In New York. A man who trusted her. Who had kissed her goodbye with sleepy lips and told her to “have fun” at the convention. A man who had no idea.

  Yuna’s face crumpled for just a second. Guilt surged through her like a riptide, sharp and undeniable. It wasn’t regret… not exactly. What she had shared with Hank had been real. It had been electric, beautiful, fulfilling in a way she hadn’t known she was craving.

  But it had also been a betrayal.

  A tear slipped down her cheek, quickly wiped away. She sat on the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the quiet man across the room… the one who had made her feel so wanted, so seen. He was still working, unaware, editing her photos like nothing had changed.

  But inside her?

  Everything had.

  She stood quietly, walking toward the bathroom without fully meeting his eyes. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Hank looked up from his ptop and nodded, offering a soft smile… but something in her tone made his chest tighten.

  He could hear it.

  Something was wrong.

  He watched the door close gently behind her. Not smmed. Not rushed. But it still felt... final.

  Back on the rooftop, Maerisa leaned forward slightly, the wind brushing strands of hair across her cheek. She tilted her head as she watched the moment unfold, eyes gleaming with a strange mix of emotion.

  Not jealousy. Not exactly.

  She understood desire. She even appreciated the fire Yuna had stoked in Hank. It had served its purpose well. But now came the moment Maerisa always knew would come.

  The turning.

  “Ah, Yuna…” she murmured. “You were never meant to keep him.”

  Her gaze drifted back to Hank, her expression softening. There was longing there… yes, but also patience. A deep, ageless patience that had carried her through centuries.

  “He’s almost ready,” she whispered. “He’s almost mine.”

  She closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her chest. She could feel it… his soul. Opening. Blooming. Reaching toward hers, even if he didn’t yet know the shape of her shadow in his dreams.

  “Sorry, love,” she said softly, her voice nearly lost to the wind. “But this pain… it will help you grow.”

  And then she vanished into the night, a ripple of shadow and silk.

  Watching. Waiting.

  For him.

  ---

  The bathroom door opened with a quiet click, and Yuna stepped out fully dressed.

  Gone was the softness of st night… the naked skin, the undone hair, the vulnerability she had shown him in the half-light of the hotel room. Now, she was composed. Makeup gone, face clean and bare, her long dark hair brushed and tied back, clothes casual but neat. She looked like someone bracing for the real world again.

  But Hank could see it in her eyes… that same mix of regret and gratitude he’d been feeling since the moment she’d closed the bathroom door behind her.

  She offered him a faint smile as she sat down on the edge of the bed. It wasn’t forced. Just… fragile.

  Hank turned slightly in the chair, facing her fully, though it felt like the air had grown heavier between them.

  “This was a one-time thing, wasn’t it?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, touched by sadness, but steady.

  Yuna lowered her gaze, her fingers knotting in the hem of her shirt.“Yeah,” she said quietly. “It shouldn’t have happened…”

  She looked up at him, her voice gentler now. “Hank… I’m married.”

  The words fell like stones into the silence between them.

  Hank’s heart tightened. He had known, somewhere deep down. The way she moved. The way she’d hesitated. But hearing it aloud made it real. He swallowed hard, searching her face.

  “So… why?” he asked softly.

  Yuna’s shoulders sagged, and for a moment she looked younger. Tired.

  “Because…” she began, then paused, collecting herself. “Because you made me feel like I mattered. You made me feel seen. Desired. I haven’t felt that in a long time. You made me feel like… like I was someone worth looking at, not just a costume with a pretty face.”

  Hank nodded slowly. “Because that’s how I see you.”He said it simply. No bitterness. Just truth.

  Her eyes glistened for a moment, and she reached out to touch his hand but pulled back before she could. She didn’t want to give him more than she already had.

  “Hank...” she started, but he shook his head gently.

  “No. I get it. You’re married. You have your life, and I respect that. What happened… it can’t be more than it was.”

  Yuna nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. “If you don’t want to photograph me today, I’ll understand.”

  Hank looked at her like she was crazy. “Yuna, you’re the most photogenic cospyer I’ve ever worked with. I wouldn’t miss the chance to capture you again.”

  Her smile came slowly, shyly. “Thank you.”

  But then her expression shifted… more serious now, almost anxious.

  “But what happened…” she whispered, gncing toward the door. “It can’t get out. No one can know. Not my followers. Not my husband. Not my girlfriend I’m rooming with… she already knows I came to your room st night. She’ll ask questions.”

  Hank furrowed his brow, thinking.

  “So what do we tell her?” he asked.

  Yuna bit her lip, pacing slightly. “We need a story. A reason I was here that doesn’t involve...” she trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the bed, at everything between them.

  Hank turned to his ptop, an idea forming. He pulled out a fsh drive from his backpack and quickly began transferring every photo of her… edited and unedited, into a dedicated folder beled “Yuna Mei – Full Set.”

  When the files were finished transferring, he pulled the USB from the port and handed it to her.

  “Tell her we spent the night working on your photos. Late editing session. Artistic choices. You wanted to get everything perfect before the con reopened.”

  Yuna took the fsh drive and stared at it for a moment before lifting her eyes to his. Her smile was soft now, touched with something like fondness.

  “You’re a lifesaver. I could kiss you.”

  Hank smirked faintly. “You did. Repeatedly.”

  She ughed… genuinely this time, a hand covering her mouth as she tried to stay quiet. Then, with no warning, she stepped forward, cupped his face in both hands, and pressed her lips to his one st time.

  A final kiss… gentle, warm, and lingering. Not a kiss of goodbye, but of thanks. Of something unspoken but deeply felt.

  “Last one,” she whispered against his lips.

  Then she straightened, turned, and walked to the door. She hesitated for a second, her fingers on the handle, and looked back one final time.

  “I’ll see you at the booth.”

  And then she was gone.

  The room felt heavier in her absence. Still full of warmth, of memory… but already beginning to cool.

  Hank leaned back in the chair, staring at the closed door for a long time. Then he sighed.

  He’d known it couldn’t st.

  But that didn’t mean it hadn’t meant something.

  ---

  Hank had spent the better part of two hours editing in complete focus, the hum of the hotel room barely audible over the rapid tap of keystrokes and the quiet rhythm of his breathing. The soft glow of his ptop screen lit his face in the stillness, his eyes shifting between images, filters, tones, and delicate adjustments. After all the intensity of the night before, this… this calm, this craft, was like coming home.

  One by one, he uploaded the finished shots to his professional Instagram and homepage, carefully selecting which ones to post publicly and which to keep for the cospyers to approve first. The responses had already begun flooding in.

  He sipped lukewarm coffee as he scrolled through the comments beneath the post he’d made the night before: a polished composite shot of @youngmel4!... the fifteen-year-old girl who had cospyed as Bck Widow… juxtaposed against Scarlett Johansson’s film version in a digitally crafted battlefield. The young girl’s smile mid-pose had been the heart of the image. It was already viral.

  Thousands of likes.Hundreds of comments.And one that made him freeze.

  @youngmel4!:“Oh my god, Hank… you made me a hero. Thank you. <3<3<3”

  Hank couldn’t help but smile. Wide, genuine. That right there? That was the reason he did all this. That was the real reward. He could picture her now, excitedly showing the photo to her family and friends, maybe even printing it out to hang on her wall.

  He was about to like the comment when something else caught his eye… and made his heart skip a beat.

  It was a blue checkmark.An official blue checkmark.And the name next to it stopped him cold.

  @ScarlettJohanssonOfficial

  Hank blinked, rereading the message twice to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

  “To Hank… it's amazing how you captured the way @youngmel4! is posing like me in the movie. And @youngmel4!, if you ever feel like it, I would love to sign this picture.”

  He sat back slowly, eyes wide, heartbeat thudding in his chest.

  Scarlett Johansson had seen his work.

  Commented on it.

  Offered to sign it.

  He let out a disbelieving ugh, raking a hand through his hair, staring at the screen like it had turned into something sacred. Of all the things he’d imagined when he started photography… this had never been one of them. He had hoped to capture beauty, to elevate creativity, to make people feel seen. He never dreamed he’d draw the gaze of an actual Avenger.

  The post’s notifications were now pouring in like a tidal wave… followers, shares, DMs, articles already reposting the image to fan blogs and cospy forums.

  But Hank didn’t let it overwhelm him.

  He didn’t care about going viral.Not really.What mattered most was this… he had made a girl feel like a hero. And he had honored the character she loved.That was the story.

  He closed his ptop slowly, a quiet smile still on his lips, and stood up. He stretched, rolled his shoulders, then reached for his camera. It was already packed and ready… charged, cleaned, lenses prepped. His lifeline. His way of making magic real.

  He gnced once more toward the bed, now empty and rumpled from the night before. A memory that felt both close and far away.

  Yuna.

  His heart tugged as he remembered the feel of her skin, the way she had looked at him in the dark, the way she had whispered goodbye with her lips pressed against his. She had been real. Honest. Wounded. Passionate. And for one night, she had been his.

  He knew she wouldn’t be again.

  She had a life far away from here. Commitments. Walls she couldn’t climb down from. And he wouldn’t ask her to.

  But maybe… just maybe… they could still find their way back to each other through art. Through light and lens.

  He checked the time. Still an hour until the con opened to the public, but the floor would already be buzzing… staff setting up, early birds lining up, costumed dreamers ready for their spotlight.

  There were stories waiting to be captured.Faces waiting to be seen.Magic waiting to be made.

  And Hank?

  He was ready.

  With his camera in hand and the weight of the night before still quietly glowing in his chest, he opened the door to the hallway and stepped out into the bright, living hum of the convention day.