The air shifted when a new student, , approached Gi-chan with a bright smile, asking for his number. For the first time, Eui-soo didn't step forward to intervene with a professional "he’s busy." He stood back, watching the exchange with a sudden, sharp pang of something that felt dangerously like jealousy.

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.

"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?"

Eui-soo didn't blink. "My job is to ensure your safety, not to entertain your whims."

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.

But the tension between them wasn't just about duty. It was in the way Gi-chan’s gaze lingered a second too long on Eui-soo’s stoic face, and the way Eui-soo’s knuckles whitened whenever Gi-chan got too close to anyone else. Their friendship was a fragile glass bridge, built on unspoken rules and a shared history that neither dared to define.

Han Gi-chan, the sole heir to the TB Group conglomerate, wiped sweat from his brow. To the public, he was the untouchable golden boy; to Eui-soo, he was a chaotic force of nature that needed constant guarding. Eui-soo, his "bodyguard" and lifelong shadow, stood by the bleachers, his expression as unreadable as the suit he wore.