#ssbyme

[lily-blue]

Prince in disguise

☆ characters: crown prince!san & florist!you ☆ genre: modern royalty au, fluff ☆ warnings: mention of a break-in ☆ summary: you like to joke about how San carries himself like a prince; one day it turns out, it’s because he’s indeed royalty ☆ words: 7,9k ☆ a/n: this story was inspired by this video of San ☆ also: merry Christmas to the lovely @restlessmaknae 💕 i wish you a peaceful holiday, so that you could regain your energy and start the new year stronger than ever ☆ massive thanks to: @dat-town for proofreading the story 💕

You often teased San about how he was the embodiment of your childhood crush, Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. There was just something in the way he held himself, with so much effortless elegance and pride, that screamed royalty. However, up until the very moment three grown ass men in suits and sunglasses stormed into your flower shop, undoubtedly looking for him, you had never been able to decipher how he really felt about your lighthearted jokes. He definitely didn’t hate them, that much you could tell. He knew you would have stopped as soon as he showed any signs of frustration or discomfort, yet his most common reaction was a small smile and kiss on your forehead. 

It had never, not even in your wildest dreams, when you let yourself dream about your future, occurred to you that he was an actual prince. Like a real prince with a queen as a mother and a kingdom to rule.

‘Miss, I would like to kindly advise you to refrain from any form of dishonesty,’ one of the men said, his voice calm and collected despite the photo in his hands and the urgency of the issue they were dealing with. You had never given any thought to the qualities a bodyguard (a royal bodyguard!) should have possessed, but you had to admit that he must have ticked off all the boxes on that imaginary list. ‘We have been informed that the Crown Prince, in fact, entered this flower shop and he could not have possibly had enough time to leave before we came in.’

You could feel your heart picking up its rate and your palms getting clammy, but you refused to show how nervous his way of speaking made you. You also refused to think about all the negative consequences your inner need to protect San could bring you. You knew that as soon as you let your brain come up with those worst case scenarios you would fold like a folding chair. And you simply couldn’t afford to be weak.

‘Thank you for your advice, sir. However, I also need to kindly remind you that you need a warrant in case you wish to enter the staff only area,’ you stood your ground, grateful that the owner of the shop wasn’t present, so she couldn’t grant them access to the storage room. That might have put both San and you into an uncomfortable situation. ‘I have already told you that your Crown Prince is not here. You are wasting your time,’ you claimed, impressed by how calm your words came out despite the hurricane of emotions inside of you.

What would you tell your parents if you got arrested for lying to these men? It wasn’t like you were hiding a criminal, right?

‘Disobeying the Queen is considered high treason,’ the royal bodyguard stated firmly and you gulped down the knot in your throat when you realised he wasn’t talking to you. The warning was dedicated to the guy who was currently hiding behind dozens of bouquets of lilies and sunflowers for a summer themed banquet tomorrow.

‘Sir.’ You cleared your throat to gain his attention or more like, to divert his attention from the storage room’s door that he was eyeing with intent. You didn’t know what you could have done if he decided to push you aside and enter the staff only area anyway. He clearly had the muscles for that and he also had backup even if the other two men were lingering by the front door. ‘I am a South Korean citizen and we are in South Korea. With all due respect, your Queen has no power here,’ you reminded him, mustering up all the confidence that was left in your body, which wasn’t too much to be honest. You were a mere commoner standing in front of a royal bodyguard, after all. Hell, you were a petite woman in her twenties against a man who had biceps the size of a smaller melon.

In the back of your head, you wondered how long your protective instincts would take you. For the sake of San and yourself, you hoped you could hold on long enough for these men to give up and leave. If things had gone there, you didn’t know how you would have explained to your boss why you had stayed overtime on a Wednesday night.

It took time, and a horrendous amount of awkward and pressuring silence, but eventually a new customer came in and your afternoon regained some of its normality. You helped the girl choose the most suitable flowers for her confession and gave her a gift card for free partly because she was adorable and partly because you were so genuinely grateful for her presence. Her ramble about her childhood best friend slash crush had successfully taken your mind off the predicament you were in with a prince in your storage room.

Unfortunately, after that, the rest of the afternoon kept you on your tiptoes. Two of the men in black suits left, but the third bodyguard refused to leave the shop and made sure you didn’t have a moment of peace with his countless questions and polite warnings of which quite a few were meant for San. At least, you honestly doubted his intention was to appeal to your emotions when he brought up the people of their nation, their well-being and the well-being of the royal couple. As much as you could tell from the morsels you actually understood - at one point the guard started to speak the same language San spoke when he was frustrated -, San’s parents were healthy, but his father was too drained to keep ruling the country for much longer. They wanted him to go back and be the king he had always been meant to be. They wanted him to settle down and have his own heirs.

The latter felt like a fist in the gut, like a knife in the stomach even though your translation’s accuracy was heavily dependent on context clues, so you might have been wrong.

You hoped you were wrong.

‘Sir, we are closing. I have to ask you to leave,’ you spoke up ten minutes before eight and let out a relieved sigh when he didn’t argue. You could handle his ice cold stares, but you were doubtful whether you would have had the energy to get into a fight after hours of cold war. His presence alone had drained you dry and honestly, the only things that kept you going were the knowledge that you were doing this for San and the cinnamon rolls from the vintage coffee shop across the street. They closed at ten, so they usually weren’t out of sweets when you visited them at the end of your most tiresome days.

A little paranoid that the bodyguard might have been still lingering out there, waiting for the moment when you foolishly let your guard down, you busied yourself with the online orders that came in in the last hour and stock checked the customer area. It took almost one and a half hours before you informed San that the coast was clear.

The boy walked out from the storage room with his lower lip between his teeth and a rather embarrassed smile on his face that - based on the months you had spent getting to know each other more - was meant to be reassuring.

‘Are you okay?’ San asked, warmth swelling in your chest due to his first words. Of course, your well-being was his top priority. His apologies and weak attempts at making excuses, so you wouldn’t have been mad at him always came second. ‘I’m so sorry.’

You clenched and unclenched your fists as you looked at him. Did he seriously believe that you could be angry with him for longer than a couple of minutes? You had gotten to know the truth hours ago. You were over the initial shock and done being sulky.

At that point, you just wanted him to be safe.

Therefore, you destroyed the distance between the two of you and not giving a damn about his title, you wrapped your arms around his torso, pulling him impossibly close to your body. You could feel your cheek being squeezed as you rested your head on his chest.

‘Are you okay?’ You threw the question right back at him, feeling your heart picking up its rate with each second that passed you by in silence.

San’s lips were soft against your scalp when he kissed the top of your head and wrapped his own arms around your petite frame.

‘Thank you,’ he mumbled against your hair, his tone urging you to pull away and look him in the eyes, hence that was what you did. You pulled away with your hands still around his body and rested your chin on his chest, picking apart his facial expression as you tried to decipher what he was thinking.

Your breath hitched when he pressed his lips against yours briefly.

‘I promise I will explain everything,’ he said, his forehead fitting close to yours before he lifted his right hand and brushed a stubborn lock behind your ear. ‘But first, I need to take care of a few things. Important things,’ he claimed and with that - and another tender kiss pressed against your parted lips - he was gone.

You looked after him in trance for minutes before you shook your head and willed yourself to walk in the storage room to finish the stock checking. There was a cinnamon roll waiting for you at the coffee shop across the street.

You hadn’t heard from San that night, which was a tad bit alarming considering that he was living in your apartment unofficially for over a month. He had his own clothes at yours, his own towel, shower gel, shampoo and toothbrush. You had his favourite plant-based milk in your fridge along with his favourite instant coffee. His mug that matched yours was in your cabinet, waiting for him to come home. So why hadn’t he? The number of possibilities made you anxious.

What if those men had found him and he was already out of the country?

By the time the second night of radio silence rolled by, you were checking your phone abnormally frequently and couldn’t stay focused for longer than five or six minutes. It came to a point where even the Thai series you were currently obsessed with couldn’t keep you on the couch. You had to move around, clean up something, do something, anything that might have been able to take your mind off San’s absence. 

You almost knocked off the half-empty mug of hot chocolate from the kitchen counter, the marshmallows still in your hands, when your front door opened out of the blue. You threw the sweets into your drink with a yelp and grabbed the first potential weapon that you came across: the cutting board you kept behind the knife organiser.

‘I have 112 on speed dial,’ you threatened, lowkey wondering whether you should have been more daring and grabbed one of the knives as you walked towards your bedroom, not turning your back to the front door. There should have been a key in the lock from the inside. You should have been safe once you reached the bedroom.

‘Well, that’s good to know, but why are we calling the police?’ A very tired, very amused San asked from the threshold, walking into the open space of your living room slash dining room with a bag of takeout in his hand.

You could feel the rocks being lifted off your chest.

‘Are you crazy? San! You scared the shit out of me,’ you accused, more relieved than angry. Seeing his tired eyes, you were reminded of the bodyguards and wanted to run up to him and inspect his body for injuries. You wanted to make sure he was okay; however, your limbs were frozen, hence you just stood there like a way too realistic statue from Ancient Rome.

Then, your gaze fell on the plastic bags in his hands again and your brain supplied you with all the worst case scenarios it could come up with: San coming over for a last minute farewell dinner before he moved countries; San asking you to change your relationship status to long-distance relationship; San breaking up with you with your favourite black bean noodles. You weren’t ready to let him go after putting so much effort into winning him over.

‘I’m sorry, petal. I thought you would know it’s me. After all, there aren’t many people who know your passcode and your parents are out of town,’ he said. There was something in the way he broke the situation down to you that made you feel a little dramatic. Of course, you should have known it was him. Other than your mom and your best friend, he was the only one who had access to your apartment.

You pressed your lips together and pouted. He had no right to make you feel silly when your survival instincts were the ones to blame.

‘What are the noodles for?’ You asked as soon as you put yourself together, finally finding the power to move your legs and walk up to him. The furrow between San’s eyebrows and the confusion in his eyes shouldn’t have been so adorable.

‘It’s Thursday. You never have energy to cook on Thursdays and Fridays,’ he explained, like you were some kind of alien who wasn’t accustomed to the local habits yet or a person who had just woken up from years of coma. He must have thought that your question was so damn ridiculous, but it wasn’t what you had meant.

‘You didn’t come home yesterday,’ you said, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the whiny edge of your statement and the fact that San had his own place to sleep at. His lease wouldn’t expire for at least three more months, so you hadn’t moved in together yet. You had no right to call him to account regarding his whereabouts and still, after what had happened the day before, you kind of felt like you had.

You took the bags out of his hands and helped him unpack the still pleasantly lukewarm food. You also started to prepare a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows for him, too, without asking whether he wanted some. He never said no for hot chocolate.

‘I was with Wooyoung,’ he said, filling a tray with numerous tiny bowls containing various side dishes such as kimchi and yellow radish. ‘I needed his help to contact my oldest cousin, Seonghwa.’

You nodded along with every new revelation, paying close attention to every detail while you slid San’s drink towards him on the dining table. It was your first time hearing about any of his family members, at least from him, so you were admittedly curious.

Even though the trays on the table made it obvious that San’s initial intention was to have this conversation on the couch, you didn’t move an inch from your poor excuse for a dining room. You just stood there, with your elbows on the marble, one of your soles resting on the inner side of your other leg and dove into your food with a pair of wooden chopsticks. You didn’t take your eyes off San while he told you everything about his situation.

‘I left the country with Woonyoung’s family when I was fourteen,’ he started, assuring you that he wasn’t a runaway prince per se, and that he had never hid from his parents. Both the queen and the king of their country knew how to reach him in case of emergency, teenager San had just convinced himself that that day would never come as his parents had never bothered to contact him after he had moved out of the palace. With years of neglect behind his back, his adult-self never thought about the possibility that things might have changed.

You placed your hand on top of his and squeezed it as a sign of your support. You were afraid that he would interpret your sympathy as pity, therefore you tried your best to keep your emotions in check. Instead, you gave San all of your attention, hot chocolate momentarily forgotten.

‘Would you like to go back? Now that it’s an option?’ You mustered up the courage to tear off one of the band-aids; the unsaid inquiry whether he wanted to become a king in the first place hiding between the lines. Somehow, it sounded such an insensitive question, you didn’t have the heart to phrase yours like that despite your curiosity. Therefore, you decided to focus on the fact that the royal couple was his parents. ‘To see your mom and dad?’

After a few seconds of contemplation, San shrugged.

‘I guess so,’ he said and you hated yourself for feeling disappointed. They were his parents. Of course, he wanted to see them again. Who were you in comparison to his family? Without much thought, you took your hand off his; however, San didn’t hesitate to reach after it and intertwined your fingers with a soft smile. ‘But that can wait until Seonghwa’s coronation. It’s been over a decade since we’ve last seen each other. A few more months is no big deal if it means they will let me come back to you.’

As touching as it was that he was willing to delay their reunion to be able to stay with you, your first instinct was to remind him that he was his own person and no one had more power over his life than him. But then you swallowed down the words as your brain caught up with the situation. You might have been absolutely right about this matter in general, but San was a prince. Clearly, general rules didn’t apply to him.

‘What do you mean Seonghwa’s coronation?’ You tried to fill in the holes that made it hard for you to fully comprehend the situation. You thought he was the next in line to rule. You definitely remembered the bodyguard referring to him as the Crown Prince.

‘Well, that’s the most important part of our plan,’ he started, pushing the food closer to you, encouraging you to start eating before it got cold. Albeit reluctantly, you eventually gave in, allowing him to steal himself a couple of seconds as well as he dove into the perfect mixture of noodles and red bean sauce.

Then, he proceeded to tell you about the plan they had made with Woonyoung and six of their mutual friends including his cousin and Seonghwa’s personal bodyguard, Jongho. Since San didn’t wish to become the new ruler of their country, but knew that his parents wouldn’t back off without a fight, they intended to prove to them that Seonghwa was the better choice in every aspect: maturity, dedication towards his people and the country, connections, political and economical knowledge. The way he presented their idea and backed up each one of his reasons made even you think that Seonghwa was more fitting for the role. It made you feel hopeful.

‘Do you think your parents will let you give up the crown?’ You couldn’t help but ask when it became obvious that he didn’t have anything more to say.

The silence that followed was palpable. Still, you let him drag it out and pull you into his lap, so he could wrap his arms around you instead of giving you a definite answer. Now you knew that he wasn’t close to his parents - that their relationship could only have been described as distant. Making guesses based on childhood memories would have just given you false hope. You much preferred his soothing touches and the desperation in the way he held you close.

‘I love you,’ he murmured into the juncture between your neck and shoulder, hinting the soft and sensitive area with feather-like kisses.

You sucked in your lower lip, holding your breath. Even though his actions had shown you, even before you two had gotten together, that you were an important person in San’s life, the two of you had never exchanged I love yous before. As much as you hated to acknowledge, it had a bittersweet undertone to it. You wished you could have told him how precious he was to you under different circumstances.

Nevertheless, you said it back.

‘I love you, too. So much.’

That night you eventually relocated to the living room and got comfortable under your fluffy blankets on the couch. You had two mugs of freshly made hot chocolate with you - this time, without marshmallows to lower your already high sugar intake - and some salty snacks you could munch on while you talked. And you talked a lot. You talked about the day before, how the bodyguards had found him and how serious their threats had been. San was almost sure that his parents would have never imprisoned him for high treason if he had refused to go home willingly. By the way his lips curled upwards and his eyes gouged your reaction, you knew he was only trying to lighten the mood with a joke, but it was too early, hence it wasn’t funny. Life imprisonment with a cheap excuse was exactly how they could have kept him in the country! How could San not see it?

‘Don’t even think about joking about this again, you hear me? It’s not funny,’ you scoffed when he tried to ease you with lingering kisses atop of your head, temple and on your blade bone. Him disappearing on you just wasn’t it.

‘I promise.’ He nosed your temple, holding you in his arms a big tighter to make up for the anxiety he had unintentionally caused. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added, repeating it like a mantra until he successfully coaxed a chuckle out of you.

With the show you had been watching before his arrival as your background noise and his warmth surrounding your body, you fell asleep on San’s shoulder while he was talking about Seonghwa’s bodyguard, karaoke, imported beer and apples. If anyone had asked you, you were sure you would have failed to draw the connection between all four, but you knew your boyfriend would have never used your tiredness against you. On the contrary, he would have been grateful that you still felt safe in his arms.

And you did. You did feel safe. Because for you, he was your home.

In the back of your mind, you were aware that your story wouldn’t end up being a fairy-tale, and that even those had some dark twists to them here and there when they were told by the original authors. Still, coming home for a messed up apartment and no San in sight knocked the air out of your lungs. No matter how much you tried to rationalise the happenings or keep your cool, panic overcame you in a matter of seconds. You didn’t know what to do. Would calling the police have made things worse? What if it had been those bodyguards? You didn’t intend to put San into a tight position in case the pitiful state of your home was a consequence of their family quarrel.

On the other hand, what if he had been kidnapped? You had left work pretty late that night, so there was a possibility that San had been home when things had escalated.

Hands shaking and mind pushed into an overdrive, you fished your phone out of the bag you had previously dropped on the floor and dialled San’s number. He didn’t pick up, so you did the next best thing you could think about without losing it: you called him again. Again. And again.

You called him as many times as it was necessary for him to answer your call, his calm voice breaking something in you as your knees gave out as soon as his greeting reached you and you fell on the floor, crying.

‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ When you sniffed into the phone instead of answering, his voice lost its calmness. ‘Petal, what’s happening? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’

You weren’t hurt, not physically at least. But the chaotic mess your mental state was in was secondary to the fact that San sounded to be oblivious of the intrusion into your home.

‘Please, petal, talk to me,’ he tried to coax you and while it didn’t work immediately, when he started to do a breathing exercise, you automatically mimicked the way he sucked the air into his lungs. In through your nose, out through your mouth. In through your nose, out through your mouth.

‘Where are you?’ The words felt like sand on the tip of your tongue, your urge to know for sure that he was in public or at least among people who could help him in case of emergency pushing all your other worries aside.

‘I’m with the guys at Wooyoung’s place. Do you need me to pick you up? Where are you? I will pick you up,’ San said, the distant sound of keys chiming and wood cracking assuring you that he was ready to leave as soon as you gave him the sign. Hell, he might have left the boys without you explicitly asking for it considering the worry in his voice.

But as comforting as the thought was, you didn’t want him anywhere near your apartment.

‘No!’ You objected, maybe a tad bit too vehemently for which you might have felt awkward under different circumstances. Now, emotions like shame and embarrassment were at the end of your priority list. ‘Can I visit you instead? I promise I’ll tell you everything in person,’ you negotiated. Not realising that you were holding your breath, a relieved sigh escaped through your pressed lips when San chose to withhold his questions for the time being.

Some matters were wiser to discuss in person. Matters that could put you in a tight position if anyone found evidence about your scheming. Especially when you were up against an opponent so powerful, they had the resources of actual royalty.

Looking around in your fucked up apartment, without your heart threatening to explode in your ribcage, you knew you didn’t want to take unnecessary risks. You had to be smart about your next move.

You showed up at Wooyoung’s place an hour later with one sports bag packed with your most necessary belongings and was greeted with a worried San who didn’t understand why you would have brought your entire bathroom cabinet to his best friend’s apartment when you loved your home. You definitely had a lot to unpack, both literally and figuratively.

‘I can’t believe they’re willing to go this far,’ a guy with sharp eyes and nose said, the same guy who had taken it upon himself to bring you a mug of herbal tea when you made yourself comfortable on Wooyoung’s couch. His name was Hongjoong or something similar if you remembered correctly. ‘I start to think that we might have underestimated them a little.’

‘A little?’ Two or three of San’s friends asked in chorus at the same time San lifted his head up from your shoulder and said:

‘I doesn’t matter. Our plan is good, they’ll have no other choice but to go along with it.’

Just by looking at his friends, you couldn’t tell whether they actually believed what San had said, but it was clear as day that they believed in your boyfriend, hence you leaned against his broad chest and let yourself relax. Neither San nor you were alone in this. You had allies and strategies. You had a good plan, and even if that failed, you had options. San’s parents might have been powerful, they could clearly break into your home to scare you, but they had no real authority in Korea.

A voice in the back of your head also reminded you that you lived in the era of social media. You doubted they would have risked bad publicity by pushing their son too much and causing irreversible damage to those he cherished. Or so you hoped.

‘Our plan is good, but will princess Yuna actually agree to go along with it?’ Another guy, whose name you hadn’t memorised yet, asked, his question piquing your interest. It was the first time you heard about this princess and with your obsession with Asian dramas, you did not like the first scenarios your brain threw at you as it tried to fill in the gaps. Who was she? Why was she an important part of the plan? Was she interested in San?

‘Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about before petal came. She said yes,’ San said, the hollering and overflowing happiness in the room making you feel weird, like something wasn’t quite right with the situation: like you were missing something crucial that would have given you a perfect explanation for the odd reaction the news received.

With naturally pouty lips and furrowed eyebrows, you placed your hands on your lap along with the pleasantly warm mug and turned towards San. His smile was so beautiful. He was genuinely happy about the progress they had made now that this princess was on board.

‘Who is she?’ You asked, mentally reminding yourself that you were San’s girlfriend. You had every right to ask him about this girl until you remained clear-headed and didn’t throw a temper tantrum for no reason.

‘She is the most sought out unmarried royalty in Asia. Her family’s country is very small, but their economic power is remarkable.’ Hongjoong said.

‘She is two years older than San, but they’ve known each other since they were babies, so he’s allowed to talk to her informally. Her kindness isn’t just for show, she really is the most warm-hearted royalty I’ve ever met,’ Wooyoung added before his wide grin turned into a frown. ‘She never lets me talk to her informally, though. Like I haven’t known her for just as long.’

‘Yeah, she’s so unfair.’ Yeosang’s voice was teasing as he altered it to sound more mocking: like Wooyoung’s but a pitch higher. ‘It’s not because you called her Yuna in front of a bunch of politicians when she explicitly told you to use her birth name when people other than your family were present.’ The bombastic side eye the blond boy gave to Wooyoung almost made you laugh. Almost.

You had to admit, this princess Yuna sounded pretty amazing. Gosh. You were such a horrible person.

San must have sensed your inner turmoil, because the next thing you noticed was the light touch of the tip of his nose against your cheek and his pillowy lips against your jawline.

‘She’s also Seonghwa’s fiancée,’ he murmured, placing one of his warm palms on the other side of your face, so that he could turn your head a bit more and make you look at him. You gulped, more shy than nervous. ‘That’s what she said yes to. Seonghwa proposed to her a few hours ago.’

You sucked in your lower lip, but before you could have done any damage, San pulled it out from between your teeth with his thumb; the fondness in his eyes simultaneously took your breath away and made you feel unworthy of his love. How could you have seriously thought that he would have included someone in their plan - felt so happy about her joining their team - if she had any interest in him romantically?

‘So it’s not a fake marriage?’ You inquired, coaxing a small laugh out of your boyfriend. His eyes almost disappeared because of the pure amusement on his face. It didn’t take long before you gave into the urge to hide your own in the crook of his neck.

Going easy on you, San semi-successfully bit back a chuckle and put his chin atop of your head, stroking your hair.

‘No, it’s not a fake marriage. They’ve also known each other since childhood, obviously. And they’re pretty much in love,’ he reassured you, letting you have all the time in the world if that was what you needed to be able to look him in the eyes again.

Fortunately, you didn’t need that much to get over the fact that you were only human; a girl with fears and insecurities. The herbal tea in your mug was still pleasantly lukewarm when you pulled away and straightened your back.

‘So cute,’ San whispered, pressing a soft peck against your lips before he helped you readjust your position on his lap, so you wouldn’t hurt your neck too much with the way your body was twisted and turned to be able to be chest to chest to him.

‘Oh, stop that!’ Wooyoung’s frustrated voice came from somewhere beside you, your brain not registering that he was teasing, or that he was talking to you until he said: ‘One royal wedding will be shocking enough for your parents. I don’t think they will be able to handle two.’

Failing to disregard the sudden attention on you, your cheeks became warmer and more pink with each second; however, you refused to seek comfort in the crook of San’s neck because you just knew that would have made things worse. You concentrated on your tea instead, on the feel of the porcelain against your clammy palms, on the fluffy blanket on your thighs. On everything and anything that wasn’t your boyfriend or his friends.

‘You’re making her shy,’ one of the boys cooed and some other joined, pushing your heart to the verge of an explosion. You didn’t realise that your hands were trembling until San slid his fingers between yours around your mug and leaned close to your ear.

‘Let’s kick Wooyoung out of his bedroom. I know where the clean sheets are, and it can be locked from the inside,’ he whispered, his lips curling upwards, therefore grazing along your earlobe. You hesitated only for a split second before you nodded.

You got up from the couch and let your boyfriend lead you towards his friend’s bedroom. As the key turned in the lock the thought crossed your mind that you had never done anything so scandalising before, but somehow the immense amount of guilt never came. Instead, you felt excited.

Excited, hopeful and safe in San’s arms.

You were arranging a bouquet of light pink carnations and peach-coloured buttercups for an anniversary when San walked out of the storage room at your workplace with a new roll of lace wrapping and his phone in his hands. With the way he dragged his feet, walking impossibly slowly, you just knew that his eyes were glued to the small screen; you didn’t need to tear your gaze away from the flowers that had your attention to be a hundred percent sure.

‘Have they started it already?’ You inquired between two twists and turns, holding the whole bouquet together with practised ease even when you had to take the wrapping from San with one of your hands. You still remembered how many you had dropped on the floor during your first few months at the flower shop. The number of flowers that had gotten destroyed in your care haunted you up to this day.

‘No, they’ve been focusing on mother and father so far. Mostly on father, but that’s kind of understandable,’ he said, your lips twitching at the mention of the royal couple.

Prince Seonghwa and Princess Yuna’s wedding had been a week ago and while you hadn’t attended the event, nor had done San, your boyfriend’s parents had made it to their mission to put you through anxiety when they had demanded to talk to you as soon as San had picked up the phone for them the day his cousin had announced the big news. They hadn’t gone as far as to threaten you or bribe you with more money than your type could comprehend, but you were well aware they didn’t think you were worthy of their son. God, they had quite literally told you he could have done much better.

‘Last minutes being a king. I wonder how he feels about that,’ you commented, putting in a bit of extra effort to not sound rude. You didn’t want San to think you hated his father even if, rightfully so, he hadn’t been your favourite person in the world.

‘I don’t think he minds it that much. He was only twenty-two when he took the throne. Three decades is a long time,’ he explained while he leaned the phone against a vase on the counter and put a part of his weight on his palms that laid flat against the marble. ‘The only thing he might be upset about is Seonghwa taking my place.’

You regretted the snort the moment you did it. Your hands froze around the perfectly wrapped bouquet and so did the air, which made it hard to look your boyfriend in the eye.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful,’ you apologised, putting the flowers in water before you took San’s hand in yours. ‘They are your parents and I’ll be forever grateful to them for your existence. For sending you to this country out of all the countries they could choose from.’ You shot a small albeit genuine smile in his direction. It might have sounded a little cheesy, but you meant every word. Without them you would have never had him.

‘I’m not mad at you,’ he reassured you, squeezing your hand and pressing a soft kiss atop of your shoulder blade before he turned back to his phone and you reached for the next pieces of flowers. You had five more bouquets to finish before your lunch break.

Seonghwa’s coronation officially started when your bibimbap was still in need of some more mixing, but that didn’t keep you from leaning closer to San’s phone and watching the live stream with more excitement than you had had for his father. You might have never spoken to your boyfriend’s cousin before, but you had heard enough stories about him from the boys to know he would be an amazing king. Mostly, because he cared for his people and because he genuinely wanted the responsibility that came with the title.

‘He looks like a leader. So serious-looking,’ you commented, shoving a huge spoonful of food in your mouth and humming in appreciation because goodness, it tasted just like your mom’s homemade bibimbap.

You lifted a bite in front of San’s mouth, so he could try it, too.

You watched the ceremony in complete silence; sometimes you fed him, sometimes you put your head on his shoulder while munching. It was nice. You hadn’t been so content in weeks if not in months.

‘Aren’t you disappointed?’ San asked you after the crown was put on Seonghwa’s head and the sovereign’s sceptre and the sovereign’s orb were placed in his hands.

You furrowed your brows in confusion.

‘About what? The ceremony?’ You asked, completely oblivious of what was going on in his head. You jutted out your lower lip; you didn’t like feeling as though you were kept in the dark. It made you feel stupid.

San shook his head, failing to hide the fond smile that was in the corner of his mouth.

‘Yuna is officially a queen now,’ he mumbled and despite how embarrassing it was to admit, it took you a couple of seconds to decipher what he was hinting at: you could have become a queen, too, if only he had gone along with a different plan, with a different goal in mind. You were pretty sure, based on your impactful experience with his parents, that they would have let him keep you if the other option was their nephew on the throne.

‘And you’re officially free. I think it’s an amazing day for everyone,’ you teased, gifting your boyfriend one of your happiest smiles, so that he wouldn’t have doubted that you loved him for who he was instead of what he could have become. You didn’t care about the title or the fortune that golden crown came with. Honestly, all you focused on was how heavy it must have been to carry it, especially when one wasn’t keen on looking after an entire nation.

One careful glance at San was enough for you to know that a well-thought-out retort was already on the tip of his tongue - maybe something along the line that his salary was barely enough to save up a decent amount in each month -, but he never got the opportunity to actually put his concerns into words. The bells above the front door cut him off and naturally, your conversation came to a momentary end.

The new customer was a middle-aged man with a little girl on his right, her tiny hand getting lost in her father’s much bigger one before she pointed at one of the peonies and the man let her explore the flower shop on her own.

‘Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?’ You greeted the man with a smile as soon as his steps came to a halt in front of the counter.

Like most people who visited your workplace, the man had only vague ideas of what he was looking for, but you were fluent in the language of flowers, hence it caused you no headache to help him find the most suitable bouquet for his wife’s birthday. He wanted something that expressed his dedication to make the woman smile, therefore, you gave him options like pink tulips and yellow flowers in general.

Meanwhile, the little girl pulled on the hem of San’s tee and didn’t let go of the fabric until he stood up and followed her towards the customer area that you liked to refer to as the jungle. The corner with the spiller plants for example were like a sight from a botanical book or the children’s book with the gorillas and the little boy taken in and raised by said wild animals.

You bit back a giggle when you saw San lifting the little girl up, so that she could see the red roses from up close; however, your subtle smile froze on your face anyway when the little one asked San:

‘Are you a prince?’ In the most innocent voice you had ever heard in your life. She was so pure. She clearly had no idea what she was talking about and yet, both of you needed a few seconds to realise she wasn’t onto something bigger than her - something that could have put her in harm’s way. ‘Can I be your princess?’

The mortification on her father’s face almost cracked you up, and you did chuckle discretely when looking up, you took a better look at the girl. What looked like a summer dress at first glance turned out to be a princess costume. She even had a tiny, plastic tiara on her head.

San put her on the ground and crouched down to be at eye level with her.

‘I’m sorry, princess, I would be honoured to become your prince, but you see, I already have my own princess and I need to treat her right,’ he explained with utmost patience, then took the little girl’s hand in his (with her permission and her father’s approving nod, of course) and pressed a feather-like kiss on the back of it. ‘Will you forgive me and keep my secret?’

You couldn’t see the little girl’s face, but she was shifting her weight from one foot to the other, so your best guess would have been that she wasn’t entirely placated. Still, eventually she nodded and made grabby hands at your boyfriend, insisting that she wanted to see more of the flowers. That, you did not mind at all. In fact, you found it rather adorable.

(San with a tiny human being in his arms was adorable. They turned your legs jelly and your knees uncharacteristically weak.)

‘I’m sorry about Minah. They had Occupation day in school today and she insisted that being a princess is a full-time job, so her mother and I let her dress as one,’ the man explained and you shook your head with an endeared smile. You weren’t mad at his daughter nor were you jealous of the attention she got from your boyfriend. If anything, his willingness to humour her made you fall for San harder.

‘Minah is right. Being a princess is a full-time job,’ you said without contemplating whether your words sounded ridiculous, although before the whole royal guard incident, you would have thought she was childish, rightfully so. She couldn’t have been older than seven.

You didn’t talk much with the customer after that, but you didn’t mind the silence. It gave you the perfect opportunity to listen to San’s conversation with the little girl, which was just as hilarious as cheesy, especially when you caught him declaring his love for you with such vehemency as if real-life princes also needed to defeat magical creatures to protect their loved ones. Where was their debate about good dragons and bad dragons coming from?

A light shade of pink crept up your cheeks when the little girl asked San straightforwardly whether he was talking about you, but you tried to remain composed.

‘It’ll be 30,000₩, sir,’ you informed the customer with a customer-service smile and gave him the bouquet before you took his money; the exchange smooth and fast. The prices were written on the board above your head, right behind the counter; however, some people liked to criticise your craft in hope of a discount. Those customers never failed to make you feel anxious.

‘Thank you. It’s beautiful,’ the man complimented the arrangement before he bid his goodbye and turned towards his daughter. ‘Minah-yah! It’s time to go. Say goodbye.’

Albeit reluctantly, the little girl wrapped her arms around San’s right leg and hugged him. Then, like a real princess, she walked up to you and did a curtsy, which you returned with a few-second-long delay. You were too taken aback to react immediately.

You were still a little shocked when the door closed shut behind the two, but then San hugged you from behind and reality caught up with you. You melted against his broad chest.

‘She was cute,’ he commented, coaxing a hum out of you.

Closing your eyes and letting out a content sigh, in the back of your mind you knew that you still had a very serious conversation on hold. A conversation in which your boyfriend would tell you over and over again why he wasn’t enough: how he had barely enough savings, hence how you couldn’t possibly depend on him in financial emergencies. Like money was the most important thing in a relationship! Like you didn’t have your own savings.

Turning around in his arms, you linked your arms behind his neck and pressed your soft lips against his. You wished these gestures were proof that his heart of gold had won you over years ago; that you didn’t wish to become a queen and even if you did, you didn’t need the title because he already treated you like royalty. He was everything - kind-hearted, attentive, loyal and so much more - and you wouldn’t have changed a thing in your lives. 

Crown Prince or not, San made you happy and excited about the future. About your future. Even if you had a long way to go and might have had numerous battles to march into to earn his parents’ approval.

the end.

[lily-blue]

Stupid but mine

☆ characters: hermes’ son!haechan & apollo’s daughter!you ☆ genre: percy jackson au, humour ☆ warnings: physical fight, mention of blood and injury ☆ request: FWS24. form this prompt list ☆ summary: Haechan is always ready to defend your honour, even if it means he needs to fight one of Ares’ annoying sons ☆ words: 1,6k ☆ dedicated to: @dat-town​​ ♥

You had known Haechan since you had been ten; he had been the first person who had pissed you off when your mother had sent you to Camp Half-Blood to spare the rest of your family from possible monster attacks. You might not have been as smart as Athene’s children nor could you have read emotions as easily as the kids in the Aphrodite cabin, but from your first day at the demigod training facility on Long Island, it had been painfully obvious to you that it had never been about your safety. And that had turned you into an angry and rude teenager, who hadn’t known when to shut up or retreat. You would never regret punching the boy in the face for his comment on your emo eyeliner.

You had never regretted becoming his best friend, either, though the latter had taken a lot of time, convincing and a life or death situation that had turned the entire camp into a bloody battlefield two weeks before your sixteenth birthday. Gosh, the smug look on his face when you had ugly cried next to his not-so-unconscious body in the infirmary had burnt into your brain. You were pretty sure that, up to this day, he hadn’t forgotten about it, either.

Offering one of the strawberry cupcakes on your tray to the gods, you almost fell head first into the altar when a large body crashed against yours; you hated how you didn’t even have to turn towards the culprit to know who found joy in messing with you. When you had applied for the vacant camp instructor positions at the end of your last summer at Camp Half-Blood - which had already been three years ago - you hadn’t thought much about whom you would have needed to work together with in the future, and you cursed yourself for overlooking the possibility of numerous summers in Yuta’s company at least three times a week. The demigod was a pain in the ass, a man on a mission to raise your blood pressure for no goddamn reason. For Zeus’ sake. He was so annoying. Wasn’t it time for him to grow up?

‘Hey, asshole!’ Your best friend’s angry voice came from somewhere behind you, and you closed your eyes for a second to ground yourself. You knew… you just knew that all hell was about to break loose. Because as much as you appreciated him for always having your back, Lee Haechan hadn’t grown up yet, either, despite working as an instructor in a camp full of young kids and teenagers.

‘And here comes the self-proclaimed hero,’ Yuta mused, mockery thick in his voice, which only fueled Haechan’s frustration. Sliding your gaze from one to the other, you wondered whether you should have turned a blind eye on the upcoming disaster for once or stick around in case someone got hurt. You wished you could have walked away without feeling guilty. It would have made your life that much easier. ‘What do you want, Lee?’

‘Hm, dunno. An apology for a starter doesn’t sound so bad,’ Haechan retorted immediately after he inserted himself between the two of you. You could see people starting to pay more attention to your group. Though, there were many campers who took one pitiful look at the guys and decided they weren’t interested.

Their disinterest spoke volumes. These two had already caused more commotions this year than the previous one and September was still five weeks away. You let out a resigned sigh.

‘You know the two of you aren’t actually together?’ Yuta scoffed, the smirk in the corner of his mouth mocking as he was clearly trying to push Haechan’s buttons. ‘The Aphrodite girls were messing with your wine.’

The memories from last Sunday washed over you in way too vivid waves; the kiss you had shared with Haechan was something you had tried to ignore ever since you had woken up the next morning. You pressed your lips into a firm line to swallow back a careless comeback. You were afraid it might have caused more harm than good if you had admitted that you had enjoyed the soft touch of your best friend’s lips against your own.

‘I said apologise to her for pushing her into the altar on purpose,’ Haechan stood his ground, his appearance surprisingly level-headed, although for someone like you, who had known him over a decade, it was obvious that he was fuming inside. Unfortunately, Yuta had spent as many summers in Camp Half-Blood as the two of you if not more (you had never bothered to ask), so he saw right through Hermes’ son.

‘You’re not my boss. If anything, you should be the one following my orders,’ Yuta retorted, chuckling with a wide smile to rile the other demigod up.

You took it as a sign to stand between the two, blocking the older’s line of sight as much as you could with your petite body. Why did Haechan have to grow so tall? When you had been eleven, you had been almost a head taller than him.

‘Like hell I would,’ your best friend spat, putting his hand on your shoulder before he slowly, gently pushed you behind his back. ‘Don’t make me kick your ass in front of all these kids. Because that’s what’s gonna happen if you don’t apologise,’ Haechan claimed as he walked up to Yuta and poked his chest once, twice, three times.

‘My ass? Really? I will make you eat your words before you have the chance to pull your sword out of its sheath, baby boy,’ Yuta taunted and for the nth time since you had become a camp instructor, you wondered why you hadn’t quitted the moment you had realised Yuta and Haechan had also gotten the same position. Could you have been a masochist at heart?

Or an idiot, maybe. You should have dressed in a clown costume for Justin’s infamous party this Halloween.

‘It’s so on,’ Haechan exclaimed and the two were out the Dining Pavilion before you could have taken your first bite from your strawberry cupcake or said as much as:

‘That’s a very stupid idea.’

Not because you didn’t believe in your best friend - Haechan was surprisingly good with swords -, but because how else would you have described a deliberate one-on-one duel with one of Ares’ most ruthless sons. Haechan must have lost his mind to not see how idiotic of an idea it was. You swore he was the reason you were losing so much hair these days because of the constant stress he was putting you through.

Abandoning your lunch, you did grab two pieces of cupcakes before you ran after the idiots, which meant you made it in time to hear Haechan brag about his speed and those muscles he had indeed put on in the past years. Hell, he was so confident, for a second you believed he would defy all odds and teach Yuta a lesson.

Instead, he found himself on the ground in less than forty seconds; your heart skipped a beat and you forgot to breathe when the sword fell out of his hand. He looked so miserable. 

‘Yuta, that’s enough,’ you stood between the point of his sword and Haechan’s ass, flinching at the stinging feeling of the blade scratching your cheek. The cut was small enough to not faze your audience, but deep enough to draw blood, which was seriously annoying as you knew it would leave a scar. Your skin was too sensitive not to; you still had acne scars on your chin from months ago that hadn’t gone away.

Your staring contest with Yuta ended with the boy’s arm falling back by his side and a quiet apology that sounded more like a mockery than an actual display of worry and regret. It was fine with you, though. You hadn’t needed his apology to begin with.

You didn’t wait for the crowd to disperse; in spite of how common these disputes were in the camp, there were always a couple of spectators who lingered. You would have been careless to waste even just a couple of seconds on them when Haechan’s heavy breathing got more and more uneven. You had to act fast.

So you turned around and crouched down next to his body. The soothing balm you had made of herbs that grew in the forest surrounding the camp was in your hand in a blink of an eye. Being the daughter of the Greek god of healing (and poetry, music, knowledge and a dozen of random things people would have bragged about on their CVs these days) sure had its perks. After all, your talent with medicine might have been inherited. 

‘Next th… next time he will think th… twice before he’s rh… rude to you,’ your stupid best friend forced through his teeth, his smile pained but genuine, which made you feel conflicted and bothered. Hadn’t he realised yet that he had more than probably fractured his ribs? You didn’t have to take off his uniform to know the bruises on his chest were nasty. Yuta had made sure to make confetti out of his ugly, orange tee.

‘Sure he will,’ you mocked, sarcasm dripping from your retort, so that Haechan could feel your disapproval even if he missed your eye roll.

And no, you did NOT blush like a schoolgirl just because he had said that. Just because defending your honour was clearly more important to him than his own well-being. It wasn’t romantic. No, it was idiotic. He was an idiot.

But god, he was your idiot. And you loved him more than you let him in on.

the end.

[lily-blue]

Baby, we’re more alike than you think

☆ characters: rich kid!eunwoo & rich kid!you ☆ genre: rich kids au, college au ☆ warnings: bullying, implication of sexual assault (it crosses the reader’s mind at one point, but doesn’t happen for real) ☆ request: DV24. form this prompt list ☆ summary: Eunwoo doesn’t like to be cornered, so he turns the tables and leaves you with no other option but to beg for his mercy ☆ words: 1,4k ☆ dedicated to: @dat-town​​ ♥

Most people would have called you an idiot for pretending that you weren’t part of one of the most influential families in your country - in a prestigious university, no less -, but you liked having friends who liked you for who you were rather than for how much your father’s company was worth, hence you couldn’t stop the act.

It had started out completely unintentionally, though; you had sat next to this cute brunette on your first day of university and seeing the Demon Slayer keychain dingling on her bag, you had asked her about her favourite character since you were also a fan. You had hit it off right from the start - as soon as Yuqi had picked the Water Hasihra whom you, too, had a soft spot for -, and in-between lectures and seminars, you had slowly discovered at least half a dozen things you had in common. You had never become friends with someone so cool so easily. It had felt like it had been written in the stars.

Considering that you two had many things to talk about, obviously your financial situation or family background hadn’t come up immediately. And if you had wanted to be honest, you had preferred it that way. However, the difference between your lives had become painfully obvious when entering the university canteen, some spoiled brats had felt the need to push Yuqi’s tray out of her hand and her on the ground. Their reason? It had been to put her back to her place and simultaneously humiliate her for being on scholarship.

Your throat had closed up as the realisation had hit you, but you quickly regained your cool. You could have easily put an end to the harrassment if you had introduced yourself properly - being the youngest child and the only daughter in your family, you hadn’t been shown off to the public yet -, but one look at the anger on your friend’s face had said it all: Yuqi wouldn’t have appreciated a rich kid’s help. On the contrary! She might have given up on you and your friendship altogether before you could have formed a strong enough bond. So you had said nothing.

Instead, you had crouched down beside your friend and helped her up, dragging her out of the canteen, all the way to a more secluded part of the campus. You hadn’t talked a word about her scholarship, but you had let her vent about the entitled nepo babies of your country and in a matter of mere months, you two had become the loudest spokespersons on the injustice in your university.

Being a Communication major, your assigned role was to write juicy, exposing articles about your fellow university students who abused their family’s power and while most of the time you were well-hidden in the shadows, behind your laptop, sometimes you had to put yourself out there to investigate. This was how you ended up in an empty tutoring room on the second floor of your school’s library with Cha Eunwoo whose lackeys had left the two of you alone as soon as the young heir had told them to.

‘Give me your phone!’ The boy demanded and while a teeny-tiny part of your brain was aware that you should have been more afraid, you were too pissed to do as he said. The only people who could boss you around were your parents and grandparents and even them rarely did so. Who was he to think you were his servant?

‘You mistake me for those losers. I don’t have to do anything you tell me to,’ you reminded him with a scoff, your perfectly made locks bouncing as you put your whole chest into this disrespectful, lowkey mocking gesture. You didn’t break eye contact. In fact! You kept your chin high.

‘I don’t like repeating myself,’ Eunwoo said, his facial expression so cold, you could feel the chill it sent down your spine when he took a step closer to you. However, you were your father’s daughter and despite your poor-girl-act, you had pride.

You linked your arms in front of your chest and let a lopsided grin adorn your rose-tinted lips.

‘Look at that. We actually have something in common,’ you mocked, enjoying the smallest cracks on his mask even though it didn’t take long for him to hold onto his self-control. He had clearly moved in the same circles as you would have done if your parents hadn’t been so protective over you.

Your grip tightened around your phone a little when Eunwoo took another step closer to you, but you refused to show how intimidated you really felt until your back hit one of the white walls. Because then… then you gulped. And that was a telltale sign, blood in the water. Just like a shark, the boy seemed ready to tear you to pieces.

‘Oh, we have a lot more in common than you let your pathetic little friends in on,’ Eunwoo said while he brushed a stray lock behind your ear. His touch was burning even though his finger barely grazed your jawline. 

He leaned closer, so that his lips were right next to your earshell. Your heart was beating in your throat.

‘You like airing our dirty laundry, don’t you? How about we do that to yours. Wouldn’t you like that?’ He taunted you, his voice barely above a whisper and yet, at that moment it felt like he was talking into a microphone. A loudspeaker. ‘One more thing in common.’

He knew. Cha Eunwoo knew that you were faking it.

He knew and he enjoyed his leverage on you, which made your blood boil.

‘Fuck off,’ you pushed the boy further with both of your hands, but after the initial surprise faded, you lost your adventage. He invaded your personal space once again, effortlessly.

Eunwoo squeezed your cheeks, your lips puckering all sulkily.

‘Ah-ah. Let’s do something about that mouth of yours,’ he taunted you and for a second, by the way he was staring at your lips, you thought he would kiss you.

You yelped when he dug his fingers into the soft flesh in the crook of your neck and pushed you on your knees. What was happening? Would he… you tried to turn your head away, but  his grip was too firm. Would he force you to suck him off in the library? He wouldn’t have, would he?

‘Start to beg. And don’t forget to kiss my feet while you’re at it,’ Eunwoo said and while his demand was outrageous, the relief you felt when you realised that he didn’t intend to rape you outpowered your annoyance.

Actually, you were so caught up in your slowly dissolving fright and the reassurance that his covered crotch in front of your face was a mere consequence of your heights that you lost touch with reality for a second.

Why were you kneeling in front of him? What had he said? 

‘Beg for what?’ You asked, more confused than anything, which earned an eye roll from the boy. He crouched down in front of you and shook his head as though he was disappointed, as if you should have cared what he was thinking about you.

‘To keep your secret, of course. Though, if you want something else, too… Well, I might give it to you if you’re asking for it nicely,’ he shot a disgusting grin at you, smug and suggestive, which made you want to spit at his face.

You almost did so.

‘Go to hell,’ you mumbled under your nose, finally able to look away with his hand off your body. Still, it didn’t make you feel less caged. His closeness in itself chained you to the wall, and you hated it.

You hated him.

You hated that even though he knew who you were it didn’t shield you from his cruelty. That he didn’t give two damns about your family, but could use them against you at the same time.

‘Your friend works in the school library in her free time, doesn’t she? Should I go and find her?’ He asked, clearly amused and you bit into your lower lip to suppress another curse. He was clearly unaffected by your words and you really shouldn’t have risked pissing him off for real, should you?

As much as you would have liked to tell him to feel free to look for Yuqi and leave you the fuck alone, a part of you knew the girl would have hated you not only for lying, but for being rich as well. There was no way she would have forgiven you if Eunwoo had aired your dirty laundry and you loved Yuqi.

The possibility of losing her made your hand shake. When Eunwoo stood up and nudged your shin with his foot, you pressed your lips together and bowed.

You refused to let him see your tears fall when your lips touched his designer shoe.

the end.

[lily-blue]

13 reasons why | reason no.12: they care about their customers' health

☆ characters: barista!seokmin & uni student!you (Dahee - ‘99 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, slice of (uni) life ☆ summary: after a failed mock-test makes you realise that you aren’t ready for your midterms, you do everything you can to cram the curriculum before your exams; even if it means consuming too much sugar and caffeine that Seokmin simply can’t turn a blind eye to ☆ words: 8,7k ☆ taglist: @dat-town​​

➼ chapter index

You were the first person in your family who had gotten into university or decided to pursue any kind of higher education, really, once they received their high school diploma. Hence, the pressure to perform exceptionally had been huge from the moment you had submitted your application. Not because your mom and dad were the typical Asian parents who tried to live their life through their children, demanding success where they had failed, but because most - if not all - of your extended family members thought that the money your parents spent on your education was a waste. And they never failed to bring the issue up during birthday celebrations and other family gatherings that for some reason none of you were allowed to skip. Feeling too young and powerless each and every time, your good grades were your only weapons with which you could shut them up.

However, recently, you had gotten pretty immersed in your new hobby, which obviously had a negative effect on your studies. It had started out innocently: about a year ago, this lovely coffee shop you and a few of your university friends frequented had thrown a free open mic night and you had performed an original song. Obviously, the lyrics had been heartfelt albeit amateur, the beats hadn’t always blended together nicely and your singing voice had never been trained, but you had enjoyed every second of the show and the audience’s supportive reaction. The staff had also been super nice, hence you hadn’t hesitated to sign up for the next occasion. And the occasion right after. If you had wanted to be honest, there couldn’t have been more than two events throughout the year that you hadn’t attended. You loved writing and singing your own songs too much.

Your improvement was undeniable, but it had taken a lot of effort and time, which you didn’t always have. Or more like… You shouldn’t have had if you had still taken your studies as seriously as you had done at the beginning.

In your defence, you hadn’t noticed how far behind you had fallen in your theory class until your professor had given you all a mock test two weeks before midterms and you had gotten back your results five days before your actual exam. You had scored twelve points out of fifty. Yet, even with the proof on your desk that served both as a reminder and a motivator, even a day later when your initial shock should have died down, you still couldn’t believe how miserably you had failed.

You let out a groan as you flipped another page of your notebook, trying to find those notes that could have helped you understand the slides on your laptop to no avail.

Why had you thought it had been a good idea to draw musical notes and treble clefs in your Theories of Applied Chemistry notebook? At least, the half-finished lyrics made some sense; you could never know when inspiration hit.

Trying not to mull over the horrible life choices you had made in the past few months four days before your midterm exams, you turned another page and sighed. You reached out to your cup with your eyes on your messy handwriting and took the paper straw between your lips, resisting the urge to chew on the soft material between two sips. This action wasn’t as de-stressing anymore since plastic straws had become a public enemy. You would have rather not had the paper melt in your mouth quicker from your saliva.

The unmistakable sound of the end of your straw meeting an empty cup genuinely surprised you even though, in the back of your head, you knew you had been in the coffee shop the whole day and it must have been over an hour since your last order. Cramming and not falling asleep from how boring these theories were didn’t fit into the same sentence without caffeine.

It would have been easier to raise your voice and ask for a refill like you had done numerous times already that day, but your body could have used some exercise, so you decided to stand up and walk towards the end of the line in front of the counter. This way, you could also take a look at their pastries and sandwiches, soothing your hunger past your usual lunch time. You had been so focused on your useless notes, you hadn’t even noticed you had unintentionally skipped your favourite meal of the day.

The line in Coffee Carat was a bit longer than usual as it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon when many locals spent their time in cute coffee shops whether with friends, potential lovers or partners. For a brief second, you let yourself wonder when you would have the time to go on lovely coffee dates with a guy who awoke butterflies in your tummy, but you pushed it aside way before it was your turn to order. You didn’t have time for relationships. Your hobby had already taken up a lot of your non-existent free time and look where that had gotten you.

‘Excuse me, miss. What can I get for you?’ The barista behind the counter cleared his throat, making you realise that it might not have been the first time he tried to get your attention. Still, the smile on his face looked genuine, hence you pushed your slowly growing anxiety down and offered him an equally honest albeit tight-lipped grin. It was the best you could do under pressure.

(One of the customers behind your back made sure that you knew that unlike the barista, he wasn’t paid to be patient. Jerk.)

‘I’d like to have a Vanilla Sweet Cream cold brew and two pieces of ChocoLate,’ you pointed at the chocolatey cupcakes behind the glass display, smiling as you skimmed through all the creative names they had for their sweets. It was just another thing you liked in this particular coffee shop.

One could have said that staying at the same place that had caused your demise was stupid, but you really liked the atmosphere of Coffee Carat, and the small stage in the corner actually kept you motivated: looking at the equipment, you knew exactly what you might have needed to give up on if you hadn’t put yourself together. You would have rather never sung again then let your family members roast your dear parents for paying for your university just so you could fail your classes.

You really hoped things wouldn’t have gone that far, though.

‘If you do not mind my suggestion, let me recommend you one of our decaffeinated drinks instead or something with less sugar and caffeine. I could not help but notice that this is your sixth cup today and while it is none of my business, consuming so much…’

Although the barista’s voice was gentle and he used formal language, his lengthy analysis on your coffee consumption made you feel as though you were at one of your obligatory family gatherings, hence you zoned out for a second.

‘...they are both very delicious. What do you think?’ His question reached you in an unstable state of mind, your head full of memories of your aunt Yeojin comparing your future career options with your Chemical engineering degree to those who worked at Olive Young. Like you would only be able to sell perfumes and scented body lotions with the knowledge you were trying to acquire while you were a university student.

‘I think your boss wouldn’t be too happy to hear about you refusing to give your customer what she ordered and getting all personal with her,’ you spat, a tad dramatic even to your own ears, but it was already too late. The words were out of your mouth and they weren’t kind. No, they were nasty like you were one of those entitled Karens you liked to laugh at when you were watching Youtube videos.

‘Actually, I am pretty confident that Seungcheol hyung would also refuse to give you your sixth cup of cold brew in less than six hours,’ the barista insisted, and you pressed your lips together to avoid saying something you most probably would have regretted the next second. Especially because you liked chilling and studying at Coffee Carat and you loved performing your songs on their open mic nights. If this Seokmin guy had been on a “hyung-dongsaeng” basis with his boss, you should have tried to refrain from getting on his nerves.

So you cleared your throat and softened your voice, determined to save what could still have been saved after your bitchy comment.

‘Look, I appreciate your concern and your boss’ concern, too, it’s touching, seriously. But next week is midterms week and I really need to shove months of skipped lessons into my brain this weekend if I want to be able to study for my other tests as well,’ you pleaded, and it should have been ridiculous, how you needed to beg for that vanilla-flavoured cold brew you had just ordered when it was one of the more pricey items on their menu. Shouldn’t they have been happy that you were willing to pay for it six times on the same day? (Another life choice you were most likely going to regret in the near future.)

‘Well, I’m also a uni—,’

‘Dude, can you just shut up and do your job? Give her her freaking coffee and let us move on with our lives. I don’t have all day,’ the same jerk from before spoke up, leaning closer to the counter and simultaneously invading your personal space by putting one of his palms on the wooden surface.

You were about to remind this impatient dude of public manners when the look on Seokmin’s face filled your throat with guilt, rendering you speechless. He looked so defeated, you had this inner urge to apologise for this whole scene your actions had created and ask if he had been still okay with preparing you one of the low-caffeinated drinks on their menu, but it was too late. He sucked it up and nodded with an obviously forced smile. Then, he turned his back to you and started to make your cold brew.

The entire time you were staring at the barista’s back, there was this teeny-tiny voice inside of your head, nagging you to apologise, but a part of you also felt that saying sorry might have made things more awkward and you hated the thought of making the situation worse. Therefore, you shut up and swallowed your own discomfort in order to help everyone forget this unnecessary ordeal easier.

‘Thank you,’ you mumbled under your nose when you eventually put your hands on the tray that had your coffee and chocolate cupcakes, then slid the small amount of change you had gotten back into the tip jar they had next to the cash register. You usually didn’t entertain the tipping culture even at diners where the food was otherworldly because it wasn’t part of your culture, but this money went for the events they organised in the coffee shop - including the yearly charity gift exchange in December -, so it did make you feel a tad better.

Though, you were relatively under the weather during the rest of your stay at the homey café. You kept stealing guilty glances at the busy barista and at one point you became so distracted by the self-blaming thoughts in your head that you ended up going home hours before closing time, which had been your initial plan for the day.

You would have liked to say that your shame kept you away from Coffee Carat until the next open mic night, but the atmosphere at the coffee shop was perfect for studying and a lot more motivating than your dorm room or the school library could have ever been. Therefore, after a more or less relaxing good night sleep, you gave yourself a peptalk in your tiny bathroom and left the building before your roommate woke up.

You took a seat in one of the corners half an hour after opening and started your day with a big cup of Coconut cold brew and a chicken-mayo-tuna sandwich that was closely the best sandwich you had ever tasted in your entire life. You had three whole PPTs to relearn that day and while the amount didn’t sound too draining at first hearing, each one had at least thirty slides, so you knew there was another long day ahead of you.

Taking a sip from your drink, you let out a content hum and opened the first document. It was useless stressing over inevitable inconveniences, so you decided to get down to work. The less you pondered over the seemingly impossible task ahead of you, the easier it became to concentrate on your studies. If you had learned anything since you had started university, it would have been how taking one step at a time worked best for you. You got overwhelmed so easily whenever your focus was on how much more you needed to do instead of just working through your endless to-dos slowly yet steadily.

Three hours and close to forty slides later, you decided to take your first study break and ordered yourself a slice of well-deserved mango cheesecake along with your third cup of caffeine-infused refreshment. Since you hadn’t seen the barista from the day before when you had arrived early in the morning you didn’t think too much into how unhealthy your order was until someone put them on your table and you took a quick sip from your drink. It was subtle, but it tasted sweeter; upon close inspection, it also looked a shade darker than it had done the first two times.

The furrow between your brows deepened as you took another tentative sip. It took you a few seconds to realise what the problem was. Though, the realisation did hit you the moment your eyes met the barista who had served you.

‘Look, if I fall asleep over my laptop and fail my exam, not only me, but both of my parents will be dragged through the mud at every family gathering for at least a decade, so please, for the love of God, bring me the cold brew that I ordered,’ you begged, a little dramatic and a year ago, when your grades had been a lot better, you might have called the barista out on caring about your health a bit too much (or maybe on taking an interest in you), but right now you weren’t so entertained by his behaviour. Sure, too much caffeine was bad for you, it wasn’t like you hadn’t known it before he had mentioned it the day before, but it was only for one week. You only had to pull through this one week and then… Then, you could have come up with a better study method than cramming at the last minute and drowning yourself in a dangerous amount of cold brew.

Agrr. Why was this guy so difficult? It was only your third cup that day, and you hadn’t had that much of a hard time falling asleep last night. These should have meant something!

‘I obviously don’t know too much about your situation…’ Seokmin started, tentative with the way he chose each and every word as though he could sense that it was a very sensitive topic for you and you weren’t just throwing around big words to justify your obsession with these drinks. You gulped and didn’t cut him off, which he clearly took as encouragement, because his smile turned from solemn to caring. ‘But I’m also a university student. I’m currently doing my masters, so I know how these weeks can be. Especially when you care about your performance.’

Stealing a glance at the black screen of your laptop, suddenly you felt like your break was taking too long even though you knew it wasn’t true. You had been working hard in the past three hours and you couldn’t have pushed aside your studies a mere ten minutes ago. Still, the reminder of how much more you needed to force into your schedule today if you wanted to score high on your tests made you more anxious than anything. You had no idea where this conversation was going, but you didn’t like it one bit.

You wanted to tell him to get to the point and leave you alone. You also wanted to get a new drink, but you demanded neither. Mostly, because you felt like the latter was a waste of your breath and the former would have sounded like something your aunt Yeojin would have said and that thought alone unnerved you a lot. You just wanted to be left alone.

You put your empty hand on your keyboard and pushed a random button. The screen with the second PPT on came back to life immediately.

‘What I’m trying to say is… there are better and more effective ways to study last minute,’ the barista said and you sighed, disappointed with the way your coffee’s sweet taste lingered in your mouth. You liked sweets. You believed that consuming sugar kept you energised, but it was still off-putting. Most probably because it wasn’t what you had wanted to reward yourself with and only a few were cool enough to like these kinds of unexpected surprises. You definitely weren’t one of those go-with-the-flow girlies. Especially when you considered how much money you had left at Coffee Carat in the last twenty-four hours.

‘This is what’s working for me,’ you retorted half-heartedly, with one eye already on the next slide about LCP theory. ‘I don’t have time for experiments.’

You were harsh, you didn’t need to be a genius to be self-aware, but every word that had left your mouth was true. The last weekend before midterms wasn’t the most ideal time to find those study methods that worked best for you. You had to push through these upcoming days with what was familiar and most importantly, with what was working for you.

‘I could help with that. Not to brag, but I’m pretty awesome at time management, too,’ Seokmin said with his full chest, which kind of made it sound like bragging, but you didn’t call him out on that. Instead, you cut off a bite from your mango cheesecake with your fork and lifted it in front of your slightly parted lips.

You slid your gaze from your laptop to the barista as you pulled the dessert off the cutlery.

‘I have seven exams next week. It’s too late to chance tactics,’ you claimed, overly sure in yourself. What he was offering you might have helped in the long run, taking he was telling the truth and wasn’t exaggerating, but you had too much on your plate at that moment to even play with the thought of considering it. ‘Knowing myself, I’ll order some more in an hour or so. Please, make sure to prepare my drink correctly.’

Inwardly, you were proud of how calm your request sounded despite the unwanted attention this barista was constantly giving you that weekend. He was nice, you had to give that to him. Your mother would have definitely liked him for looking out for you even after you had refused to listen to him (and not just because she preferred green tea over coffee every hour of the day), but at that moment, a knight in shining armour was the last thing you needed. It didn’t matter that he was handsome.

Where that last thought came from, you had no idea, but you quickly shook it off. Whether he was easy on the eye with his sharp nose, puppy eyes and that lovely mole on his cheek didn’t matter. Your studies did.

Hearing the barista’s defeated sigh, you fought the urge to praise him for finally getting the memo. You would have liked to think that you were a nice person and it was only your nerves being on the edge that turned you into such a menace. You would have also liked to think that Seokmin was partly at fault. He was too nosey for his own good.

Whether he was so pushy with other customers, too, you didn’t dwell on it. These details had no significance to you, because they could have only led you to massive overthinking and the capacity of your brain was already close to its limit. Ligand close packing theory; you had to focus on ligand close packing theory.

An hour and a half later you were still very much awake when you got the low-caffeinated version of your beloved coffee and a sugar-free croissant on the side; however, close to eight in the evening, when your eyes became way too heavy to keep them open without some extra help, you welcomed the espresso on the house with a satisfied smile on your face. As you were taking one small sip after the other while hovering over your notes, you noticed that cutting back on your daily coffee intake helped with its effectiveness a tiny bit. Not that you would have ever said that out aloud.

You refused to say that out aloud.

You had one written exam on Monday because you had taken Western European business and management as one of your electives that semester,  and you were happy to start with such an easy, computer-based exam as the instant results - you scored 95 points out of 100 - gave a huge boost to your confidence. You felt almost invincible as you waltzed into Coffee Carat around two with your laptop and your notes for tomorrow’s oral exams.

‘I’d like to have a decaf vanilla latte and three of those Unstoppaballs,’ you said as soon as it was your turn in front of the counter, your mouth watering at the sight of the white chocolate and orange flavoured balls.

‘No cold brew this time?’ Seokmin’s sassy question was more shocked than teasing, and you just shrugged with a hidden smile in the corner of your mouth. You still didn’t feel like you could admit that sometimes less was more, but your order could have been taken as a white flag, so did you really need to spell your surrender out to him to understand? Nah, he wasn’t stupid. Pushy? Hell the freaking yes. But not stupid.

Based on what you had seen of him since you had become a regular at Coffee Carat, he could pick up on social cues just fine as well. 

‘I’m feeling energised today,’ you decided to entertain him a little while you were looking for your wallet in your backpack and received your order with the same, subtle smile on your face before you took a seat at one of the empty tables in the back where you could study in relative peace. Sure, you couldn’t have made people stop talking around you like in the uni library just because you were sitting in the corner, but you preferred the light background noise to the silence anyway. It helped you concentrate; whereas, your thoughts were usually all over the place when you had nothing to shut out.

Doing a silly little dance on your chair as you were waiting for your laptop to turn on, you allowed yourself one sneaky glance from above your shoulder at the barista, who was busy preparing the next customer’s drink, then fished your notebooks out of your backpack and got down to work. If you could successfully answer all three questions at the end of each one of your slides by eight, you would have two extra hours to prepare for your Theory of Applied Chemistry test on Wednesday. Not an easily achievable goal per se, but you wouldn’t have called it impossible, either.

Dead set on your goal for that afternoon, you had already worked through two third of your notes when your stomach gently reminded you that you needed more fuel to keep up the good work. However, before you could have finished up the quiz you were using to test how much of the lesson you remembered, someone placed a Chocolate latte and a banana cupcake between your laptop and your abandoned tray.

‘I didn’t order these,’ the words were out of your mouth before your brain could have made the assumption that both the drink and the snack were on the house, because things like that never happened to you. Sure, you were pleasant to look at in a gentle, less outstanding way if your parents and friends’ opinion was anything to go by, but in today’s society it was rare to approach someone just because. Meeting strangers was easier online, and most people still met their future significant other through friends. 

You shook your head when you realised you were overthinking it. A future significant other? What were you thinking?

‘I know,’ Seokmin gave you a sunny smile, his cheeks a tad rose-tinted close to his ears. ‘I was just thinking… So, you are doing so good so far without deliberately poisoning yourself. What else could deserve a reward if not that,’ the barista semi-asked, semi-exclaimed with a soft giggle, making you feel less offended than you had been when the word “poison” had fallen from his lips. Tsk, as if a week’s worth of excessive amounts of coffee had ever killed anyone. He was such a drama queen material, it was laughable.

‘Thanks?’ You tried to show your gratitude without making it sound like you were suspecting him of doing something inappropriate, like spitting into your chocolate latte because you had been talking to him from such a high horse the last two times you had crossed paths. ‘Isn’t it too much sugar, though?’ You raised a brow while you reached out for the drink.

You put the straw between your lips and took a huge gulp from the latte. It tasted delicious, a lot less sweet and a little colder than you had initially thought. Neither of these two was a real complaint, though.

You didn’t expect the genuine laugh that Seokmin gave you when your unintentionally sassy question registered in his brain. And you anticipated it less when your lips curved upwards due to how dorky he looked with his crescent moon eyes, all thirty-two of his teeth more or less on display.

‘I made sure to get you one of our new, sugar-free cupcakes. And the sweetest thing in your latte is the chocolate itself. A mix of cocoa powder and melted chocolate actually,’ he said, his smile not wavering as he added: ‘I do like to think that I’m a man of my word, so no, it’s not too much sugar. I wouldn’t do that after all that scolding,’ he reassured you as he lifted his hand to his neck and scratched the sensitive skin under his ear a couple of times.

‘It does sound less hypocritical now that I heard your explanation,’ you agreed with a soft hum, offering him a bite from your cupcake that he declined with a light shake of his head.

You were contemplating whether you should have A) asked him what you could have helped him with as he was clearly stalling by your table, B) said thank you for the freebies once again before the silence could have stretched too long or C) reminded him that your midterms took an entire week, hence you still had a lot of studying to do that afternoon.

In the end, due to your indecisiveness, it was Seokmin who broke the silence first.

‘I actually have something for you. Let me grab it real quick, it’s in the changing room,’ he said, and before you could have objected or even acknowledged his words, he was on his way to the staff only area.

Since you had read many YA books when you had been in elementary and high school, you had a couple of ideas of what could have been going on, but all of your groundless fantasies failed you when the barista rushed back to you and your gaze finally fell upon an ordinary albeit new-looking notebook. Confused, you looked up at Seokmin with deep furrows on your forehead and between your eyebrows.

‘What’s this?’

‘Study materials,’ he stated, like it should have been obvious. You reached out for the blue notebook with half-curiosity, half-scepticism and skimmed through the first couple of pages. There weren’t many texts in it, but the pages that were filled were filled with an unexpectedly beautiful handwriting. ‘You said you don’t have time for experiments, so I made sure to pick the most effective study methods for your exams.’

‘You made this for me?’ You asked, and in any other situation, you might have felt stupid for asking about something so obvious, but at that moment you were incapable of forming any other sentence. He had mentioned it earlier that he was also a university student, which meant that his midterms were either around the corner or at the same time as yours. He was also working at Coffee Carat in his free periods, which left him with less free time than most students in your program had.

Yet, he had put great effort into searching for healthier studying methods for you: an almost complete stranger with non-existent coffee addiction. His thoughtfulness, albeit unnecessary, pulled on your heartstrings.

‘Yeah. I think you should start with the Feynman Technique even if you don’t have anyone to talk to, because that works for the majority of people and we wouldn’t want you to lose time on techniques that might not work for you during your exam week, but I made lists of pros and cons at the end of each technique with a short summary, so you can choose whichever you like, obviously,’ he rambled as he stepped beside you and leaned a tad more into your personal space, so he could flip the pages of the notebook in your hands, showing you what he was talking about.

You especially liked the little drawings around the pros and cons lists. 

‘I…’ you cleared your throat, looking for the right words. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

Seokmin offered you an understanding smile and upon realising how close his face was to yours, he straightened his back and took a step further from your chair. Or so you assumed because you didn’t want to think of the possibility that he might have put distance between the two due to your gaze unintentionally falling on his lips. Nah. You had not done that, you had just not.

Had you?

‘You don’t have to say anything. I just hope it’s helpful, and that I didn’t cross any boundary. Again,’ he assured you at the same moment a female barista called for his name from behind the counter.

Seokmin snapped his head in the petite girl’s direction, then looked back at you and the blue notebook in your hands. With a smile, he bowed slightly, urging you with his eyes to go back to your latte and studies.

‘Hwaiting!’ 

The cute, balled up fists the barista gave you left you speechless.

And as determined as you were to not waste any time that afternoon, so that you could have some extra hours to prepare for your Theories of Applied Chemistry exam, as badly you had lost track of time after your conversation with Seokmin. You were aware that it hadn’t been his intention to burst your serene bubble, but you couldn’t help yourself. You just had to see every page, study every study method he had picked for you before you would have gone back to your notes.

This was how you had royally messed up your study schedule once again. Just when you had gotten on the right track after long weeks of procrastination. A shame, really. You were kind of disappointed in yourself when around closing time, you eventually left the coffee shop.

So to say, you were surprised when you got back your test results and you managed to score at least a B on each one of your exams would have been an understatement. You were beyond speechless and absolutely thrilled at the same time. It was almost overwhelming.

It was also most definitely the result of both your hard work and Seokmin’s help with finding the right studying technique, because those endless slides you needed to work your way through had become much easier and faster to memorise after you had started to explain the topics to your rabbit plushie in the simplest way possible. You had also adjusted the famous Pomodoro Technique to your own aims and needs and had taken a ten-minute-break after every fifty minutes of cramming/studying. It had been intense, but it had been worth the back pain and the temporary sleep deprivation.

Since most of your professors had opted for paper-based written exams, it had taken a whole week to get your grades, but that meant that the day you heard back from your results, you were more or less back to normal: you drank only one cup of coffee every morning and ate less sugary goods despite how much you loved their taste. You also tried to sleep at least seven hours each night after you had spent the previous weekend in bed (safe for those inevitable occasions when you had needed to eat, drink and use the bathroom). Long story short, you had enough energy to take a small detour on your way home, visiting Coffee Carat with one purpose in mind.

You wanted to thank Seokmin and maybe brag a little about your academic achievements.

Practically vibrating once you realised that the barista was indeed working, you waited for your turn in front of the counter impatiently yet respectfully. You had already shown this guy your shameful Karen side; you didn’t want to remind him of how you could be on your worse days. Especially not on a fantastic day when nothing should have been able to ruin your mood, not even the long line at your favourite coffee shop.

‘Hi,’ you greeted the barista immediately, your happy smile wider than he might have ever seen, which should have been a warning sign to tone it down a little; however, you were too thrilled to act like a normal human being with a healthy amount of inhibition.

Luckily, instead of looking at you weirdly, Seokmin decided to match your vibe. 

‘Hi there. Are we having a good day today?’ He inquired despite the smaller crowd behind your back. ‘What can I get for you?’

‘An ice chocolate, please, and a mango-peanut butter sandwich,’ you ordered and waited until he reached for the metal tong to grab your sandwich before you casually added: ‘By the way, I passed each one of my exams with flying colours. Your notes helped a lot. Thank you.’

And just like that, the easy part was out in the open. However, it was only a tiny part of the real reason you had come to the shop on a day when you had no classes to study for, no open mic night to sing at and no friend to hang out with. Obviously, your gratitude was bigger than a few nice words.

‘I’m happy to hear that. I could tell you were working really hard,’ he praised you, making you feel not only better in your skin, but more confident as well. Therefore, even though you had had the perfect plan (giving him your number by writing it on the napkin you would get), you simply blurted it out:

‘Do you want to grab some food together after your shift ends?’

You didn’t take it into consideration how flirty it might have sounded until the word actually fell from your lips and one of the customers gasped behind your back. That, completed with the shocked look on Seokmin’s face, gave you a reality check.

You cleared your throat and made a poor attempt at concealing your embarrassment with a forced chuckle.

‘I mean, to celebrate. The food is obviously on me, but I don’t expect anything in return. It’s just a friendly hangout, two university students bonding over their exams and such… Yeah, no biggie. Just some street food if you like street food…’ your ramble went on and on, losing its sense because come on! Which Korean didn’t like street food? You were so ridiculous.

‘I like street food,’ Seokmin cut you off with the most adorable, amused smile while he put your sandwich on a tray and started to work on your drink.

You pressed your lips together, cheeks heating up in embarrassment and gratitude. So he was down for it, that was good. That was awesome.

‘And I finish at six, which means…’ He looked at the clock on the wall, moving his lips a bit, indicating that he was counting under his nose. ‘In one hour and thirteen minutes. Is that okay with you?’

The best thing in post-midterms week was that most of your professors turned their classes into a huge discussion about your typical errors, therefore you didn’t have any or had very little homework. Thus, you had, for once, all the time in the world.

‘Sure. I’ll be sitting there, catching up on some Thai series,’ you informed him, and quickly paid for your order before you took the tray and walked up to your usual spot, in the corner of the customer area.

Your little celebration with Seokmin had been more than nice. You enjoyed talking with him a lot more than you had anticipated actually, because initially you had thought you wouldn’t have had many topics to talk about besides school and coffee. 

How wrong you had been!

The guy was wonderful. He had matched your excited energy about the smallest wonders in life such as bumping into a random kpop concert in the street, sung his heart out with you when the trainee-looking teens covered songs you both liked, hadn’t made any comment when your eyes had craved the food more than your tummy and even eaten your leftovers like MVPs did instead of telling you to stop buying new stuff when you still had food in your hands. Your wallet might not have been particularly happy about this habit of yours, but your heart had fluttered throughout that night. Seokmin was amazing.

An amazing friend, and someone you could have pictured falling in love with with time.

And that was the main reason why you encouraged the slowly building bond between the two of you instead of taking a step back. You texted him at the most random times of the day about the most random things you saw, you listened to him when he needed an outsider’s opinion instead of someone’s from their enormous friend group and slowly became an active part of his everyday life. 

That was why it didn’t surprise you when during the next open mic night at the coffee shop, he walked up to you before your performance to wish you good luck and took it upon himself to give you the first compliments as soon as you walked back to your table, enjoying the rest of the show.

‘The bridge came out very nicely, I wouldn’t have guessed you were still struggling with it on Monday if you hadn’t told me,’ he offered you his most brilliant smile, taking a seat by your table and sliding a slice of cinnamon cheesecake towards you right after.

You cut a biteful off it with your fork and lifted the first bite in front of his mouth. Smiling, he leaned in to take it, but instead of wrapping his lips around the sweets, he took your wrist in his hand and redirected the cutlery, so it would be facing you. After a snort, you dived in for the dessert with an amused eye roll and completely destroyed it.

‘Thanks,’ you mumbled with your mouth full of cake. ‘For both,’ you added as you wiped your lips clean with the back of your hand and stubbornly offered the second bite to the boy. As much as he liked to point out that he could eat and drink at his workplace for free, you also liked to emphasise the fact that it could only be free to you too if he had taken at least one bite or sip. It put your mind at ease.

Getting a shy smile instead of a response, you finished the slice in relative silence, because neither of you wanted to disrespect the artist on stage with a full on conversation, then you let Seokmin go as he had to finish his shift and help the others with packing up the equipment before he clocked out for real. Usually, his shift ended around six when he was taking the afternoon shift - sometimes sooner when he couldn’t work full-time due to his classes -, but one of his coworkers, Minghao, had gotten sick this morning, hence he had promised to stay an extra hour and help with the event. His reasoning? He would have checked your new song out anyway.

‘Wanna grab dinner with me tonight?’ You asked him when he jogged back to your table half an hour later in his street clothes, the light shade of pink on his cheeks deepening more because of his hard work than because of your question. After all, it had been two weeks since your first dinner together, so he had had plenty of time to get used to your more relaxed behaviour.

You were a whole other person when you weren’t constantly on edge because of your poor grades and the mental image of the disappointed look on your parents’ face didn’t haunt you. You were a friendly person. Not as extroverted as Seokmin and nowhere near as funny as his friend, Kwon Soonyoung, but nevertheless a pleasant company.

‘Sure. It’s on me tonight. I want you to try my favourite dumpling shop,’ he agreed easily, waiting for you to pack your stuff comfortably before he took your tote bag from you.

Your heart fluttered when the boy even held the door for you on your way out despite his noisy friends’ hollering.

If you had been a regular at Coffee Carat before, you basically moved into the building once your friendship with Seokmin turned into a crush. Not necessarily because the barista felt the same way about you, but because as soon as you had acknowledged your feelings, texting with him daily hadn’t been enough. You needed to see his face, the way his eyes lit up at the smallest wonders of the world - such as the little girl with the adorable pigtails who dared to pick a fight with Seokmin’s lawyer friend because of a joke he made about Joshua, or the first piece of perfectly baked chocolate brownie -, the way he smiled at every customer even when they were rude and entitled and of course, the way he looked at you when you chose a less extreme drink for your second coffee of the day than your go-to cold brew.

You had fallen too deep.

And yet, you made absolutely no attempt at getting out of the hole or pulling the guy down as well, at the bottom of the pit. Instead, you busied yourself with your notes as you always did and chose to concentrate on your upcoming finals. There were two more weeks before the first exam; however, this time you wanted to be more organised and prepared. 

‘Hey there, how is it going?’ Seokmin’s question reached you before his steps came to a halt at your table; the ease he pulled the chair next to you out for himself doing funny things to your heart.

After a quick glance at the clock on your toolbar, you realised that it was already time for his lunch break, which meant you had been at the shop for almost four hours. You shouldn’t have taken as many breaks as you had allowed yourself that morning. You still had so much to go over according to your new study schedule, argh.

‘I think I overestimated myself,’ you confessed with an inaudible sigh, pushing your plate with your leftover cupcakes on it towards the barista despite the food container in his hands. You had bought more than you could eat with him in mind, as the blueberry cupcakes always sold out within an hour, and you knew he loved them a lot.

‘How so?’ He inquired while he reached out for a cupcake, shoving it into his mouth with a content hum before he even opened his home-packed lunch. In the back of your head you wondered whether he could cook or it was someone else who had made it for him, but you quickly pushed that thought aside. It didn’t matter. You knew for a fact that he was single, so whether it was one of his friends or someone who might have had a soft spot for him just like you did shouldn’t have concerned you at all.

You refused to let the possibility make you bitter when he deliberately spent his lunch break with you.

‘I put too many things on my to-do list for today. I barely finished one third of it and it’s past one already,’ you decided to focus on your conversation, pouting slightly as you took a sip from your cold lemonade. It was more sour than you preferred, but you had wanted to give it a try when you had seen the recommendation on the counter.

‘You still have weeks, though, right?’ He inquired, his worry only evident in his voice due to how familiar you had grown with his habits in the past few weeks. If it hadn’t been for that time when you had accidentally knocked the porcelain plate off your table and reached out for the broken pieces on instinct, you wouldn’t have been able to tell just how serious Seokmin’s question was.

He was anxious on your behalf, worried that you might not have had enough time to revise without pulling those awful all-nighters most university students did. That you might have had to break your promise and go back to your old habits to make more free time where there wasn’t any.

‘Two. I know I can make it, it’s just… I’m a little distracted today. I overestimated myself, that’s it,’ you were quick to reassure him, refusing to turn back to your laptop like you had done so the first couple of times the barista had invaded your personal space during your studying sessions. Back then, you had thought he was annoying, but nowadays labelling his persistence cute sounded more fitting.

He made your heart flutter.

‘Does that mean you might have the time to go on a week-long vacation with my friends and me after exam week? No retakes?’ He diverted the topic smoothly, making you let out a scoff somewhere between an actual scoff and a chuckle.

‘Hopefully. But aren’t all of your friends in a relationship? Why would you want us to be the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth wheel in the group?’ You teased, even though you had never spent enough time with his friends and their significant others to know how they acted around other people. Were they into PDA? Were they comfortable with intimacy only in private? As far as you could tell, Soonyoung was the only one who couldn’t keep his hands to himself when his girlfriend was around, and Eunseo rarely left her own shop during open hours.

‘If you ask me, Joshua and his new girl might not even last until our finals week. Anyhow, everyone having a partner is exactly why I want you to come with us,’ he explained between two bites, finally opening the baby blue food container and diving into the homemade kimbap rolls. They looked appetising.

‘Oh? So I’d be your partner?’ You teased him further, genuinely enjoying the fact that you could get more information about how he felt about you without acting suspicious. It worked out perfectly for you, hence you would have been stupid to let an opportunity this amazing go just because you were lowkey afraid of him getting the wrong (correct) idea and head on rejecting you. ‘Shouldn’t you have asked me out on a date first?’

If you wanted to be honest, you were unsure where your overflowing confidence was coming from, but it wasn’t like you were a coward in the first place. It was just new that you showed any interest in someone, and based on how movies and dramas portrayed young love, you kind of expected to be more insecure about the truth. Still, here you were, raising your brow at Seokmin in challenge as though it wouldn’t have hurt if he had laughed in your face.

The choking sound that escaped the boy’s mouth pushed your heart into a slight palpitation, but he put himself together before you could have reached out to him and patted his back a couple of times to help him spit out the food that stuck in his throat. 

‘I mean…’ he started once he gulped down a huge amount of water from a water bottle you hadn’t even noticed before, too distracted by his home packed lunch. 

Seokmin’s beautiful eyes were red and shone with unshed tears as he looked at your face, the subtle smile on his lips almost bashful even without him lifting his hand to his nape to scratch it out of embarrassment.

‘I was planning to ask you out after your finals, so I wouldn’t distract you unintentionally, but for some reason Hoshi hyung is in charge of the reservations and he wants to know whether you come or not,’ he explained under one breath, pointing towards the edge of the counter that was closer to the staff only area.

Despite your unhealthily high heart rate, you turned your head towards the direction the boy was showing you and there he was… Kwon Soonyoung in all his glory, staring at the two of you with his phone in his hand like he was about to record your interaction in any minute. You furrowed your eyebrows when your eyes met and he wiggled his eyebrows. Weird.

‘He said he would ask you himself if I didn’t man up and I just… You might not believe it, but he would totally do something like that, and I didn’t want you to hear it from him that I have had this embarrassing crush on you since our first open mic night and…’

You were speechless; meanwhile, Seokmin kept rambling, repeating bits and bobs of his cute and most probably accidental confession here and there. He told you how touching he had found your first song, how he had doubted for a very long time that someone like you could still be single, and how the closer he had gotten to you, the more afraid he had been to lose your friendship.

You were speechless, and he wasn’t.

Unsure where it would have been appropriate to cut him off, you decided to take control over the situation quite literally and took Seokmin’s hand in yours. Then, the combination of the firmest gentle squeeze you could manage and your sweet, encouraging smile did the trick: the world quieted down around you with the barista’s mouth hanging open.

‘Would you like to grab some food with me after your shift? This time, as a date,’ you asked, enjoying the confidence that came with knowing exactly how Seokmin felt about you. The lack of fear of rejection was deliberating.

And so was the eager ‘Yes’ that followed your question not even a second later.

Giving another squeeze to the boy’s hand, you stole a glance at the deeply invested Soonyoung by the counter and made a mental note to thank him for his unintentional match-making before the two of you left the coffee shop that afternoon.

He deserved your gratitude, all the praises and maybe, a free brownie, too, for turning the likely impossible possible for you.

➼ next reason

[lily-blue]

Three magical words

☆ characters: best friend!taehyun & you ☆ genre: soulmate au, friends to lovers ☆ summary: you live in a world where you have to exchange i love yous with your soulmate for fate to tell you they are the one for you; if they are not, your relationship is destined to fall apart sooner or later ☆ words: 6,2k ☆ also: i’d like to dedicate this story to my own soulmate, @dat-town​ ♥ it’s crazy how it’s been nine years already that we started to talk… sometimes it feels like it happened yesterday (or well, a couple of years at most, to be more realistic), but other times it feels like we’ve known each other our whole life. damn, we’re really getting old, aren’t we, kathy? anyway, i love you to the moon~ ☆ taglist: @soobin-chois​

When you had been young, around seven or eight years old, you had often thrown careless I love yous like they had been confetti. However, the older you had grown, the more you had understood why adults were so afraid of these words. They had already learned an important lesson you had yet to learn in your teenage years: how it felt when one’s heart got broken.

You lived in a world where no matter how much effort you put into a romantic relationship or how determined you were that you genuinely loved that person, if you weren’t together with your soulmate, things never worked out. Of course, there were people who refused to believe that they didn’t have a say in who their heart belonged to. They were the majority of society, actually, people who were willing to try just to fail over and over again, unwilling to realize that their reasons for breaking up were more or less the same: different schedules, different interests, and different goals in life. Their bond simply wasn’t strong enough to last.

Yet, to find such an unbreakable connection, you needed to give a chance to a lot of people. It was unfair, but that was how the soulmate system worked: you were either one of the lucky ones who were a hundred percent sure in their feelings, or you were bound to break under the weight of your uncertainties. Because only when you exchanged I love yous with the one who was destined to be with you did fate tell you whether they were the one you could love unafraid. It was a wicked game, but a game no one could escape from and everyone bounded to participate in one point in their life.

You couldn’t have said that you were different from the majority. There had been a time when you had also thought you had total control over your love life, hence you had experienced the same stages everyone did while growing up. As soon as you had learned about the soulmate system, you had sworn that you would be an exception and that your heart would be okay even after giving out chances to people whose love wasn’t made for making you happy. Then, you had gotten into your first relationship; there had come the first banters over his clinginess and your need for personal space, and the first fights that you couldn’t have solved with simple sorrys… The realization that you two hadn’t been a good match had come sooner than your acceptance. As many teenagers, you had also hated to admit that you had been wrong, so you had stayed with your first love for a year just to make the heartbreak more painful when you hadn’t seen the butterflies in your tummy coming alive once the confessions had fallen from your lips on the night of your anniversary. The pain had changed you. You had become wary and soon after, you had closed yourself off from potential soulmates entirely.

According to your mother, your eagerness to open up to others in hope of finding your other half would come back with time, but you really weren’t so sure. You would have liked to think that your life was a whole on its own, too, and you didn’t need anyone to fill in the cracks since those as well were a part of the real you.

There were more important things in life than romantic love anyway. Like your best friend’s birthday month and your (hopefully) last winter break before you became a full-fledged adult with a business degree. Your urge to diss the society with Taeyhun on his worn couch while munching on instant ramen and to complain about how difficult it was to get a job even when one was willing and had super low standards was indescribably high as usual. February never failed to bring the worst out of you. Cold months never did.

A week before Valentine’s Day, you were on a friendly date with Taehyun at that new coffee shop that had opened a corner from your family’s home, just killing some time and enjoying life to the fullest, when your mutual friends finally arrived and you could stop dwelling on whether you should have asked for a cinnamon latte or an apple pie flavored one. Although you knew it most probably wasn’t the last time you came here, so making a decision wasn’t that crucial - you could have always tried the other one next time, after all -, you still had a hard time choosing. For some reason, you always did, even at places you were a regular at, hence ended up ordering the same thing week after week.

‘Are you sure it’s a good i…’ Hueningkai’s voice reached your ears when you put the plastic menu card back in its holder and waved at the newcomers with a soft smile that they did not return.

You furrowed your brows in confusion when Beomgyu cut his friend off mid-sentence while he threw his coat on the back of the chair in front of you.

‘I’ve already told you I am. It’s romantic. Choerry likes these kinds of stuff and I think it’s lovely,’ he claimed, confusing you even more, because it sounded like they were arguing about Beomgyu’s girlfriend and you had thought everyone liked the shy albeit cheerful girl he was seeing since early December.

‘What are you bickering about this time?’ You inquired, knowing that if it wasn’t you, no one would ask them for details. Your best friend might have had a soft spot for his close friends, but he didn’t like unnecessary drama.

‘Nothing.’

‘He wants to confess on Valentine’s Day,’ Hueningkai said at the same time Beomgyu tried to put an end to the conversation, earning a displeased huff from the younger boy.

The silence that fell on your small group was heavy with unsaid arguments, unasked advice, and palpable anxiety; it planted itself in your chest and made it hard to think of anything else but those scars each one of you had worn on your heart. You were munching on your lower lip while you were trying to come up with something, anything you could have said.

‘Jeez… Don’t be so supportive,’ Beomgyu grumped, visibly irked by everyone’s reaction, not that you blamed him for it. It must have hurt him that his closest friends were so unwilling to support his relationship, but in reality, he had to know that they were only worried about him. They were just boys. They showed concern differently.

‘It’s because you’re stupid. You chose the worst day to break your hearts,’ Taehyun claimed, his unbothered tone borderline scolding. You sucked in your lower lip in panic, exchanging an uneasy glance with Kai before you shifted your gaze back to Beomgyu. You wished you could have lightened up the mood somehow, but the soulmate topic was a sensitive topic all around the world, especially for people your age. Generally, young adults had already lived enough to encounter heartbreaks, but were still too young to accept them as an inevitable part of life.

‘Yerim is my soulmate. I can feel it,’ Beomgyu retorted before he smashed his palms against the table and pushed himself into a standing position. His gaze wandered from one person to another until it returned to Taehyun. ‘You’ll be sorry for not supporting me.’

As soon as Beomgyu turned his back on your table and took the first steps towards the blonde boy behind the counter, you nudged your best friend with a disapproving sigh.

‘Don’t you think it was unnecessarily rude?’ You asked quietly yet firmly, not taking your worried eyes off the boy who was currently vibing with the barista like the two of them had known each other for decades. Beomgyu’s big theatrical hand gestures would have made you smile on any other day, under any other circumstances, but with his last words echoing in your head, they only amplified your protective, big sister side.

‘Last time he confessed, he was wailing for weeks. It’s not rude enough,’ Taehyun said before he stood up as well and pulled Hueining Kai towards their friend to order.

You stayed seated to make sure your table didn’t get accidentally occupied by another group of friends - a habit you had gained during those summer breaks that you had spent in Europe with your aunt and her family -, and watched the boys with your chin resting atop of the back of your hand.

You knew Beomgyu loved company even when he was sad. He was the type of person who both wanted to hide his sorrow and put it on display at the same time, someone who wanted to seem strong, but craved pampering, too. Because of these, he usually ended up venting in a sarcastic way, turning his situation into a joke, then crying two minutes into the movie you were watching together because the characters were so relatable (or because his ex loved the same popcorn flavor you had offered him carelessly without knowing this crucial detail).

Reminiscing about the last time Beomgyu had thought he found his soulmate, you hoped he was a bit more ready for the consequences this time.

‘Here.’

You snapped your head in Taehyun’s direction when he slid your drink in front of you and shot a grateful smile at him when he did the same with his own. Your chest felt warm at the realization that he had ordered both lattes you wanted to try and even let you choose which one you wanted to keep for yourself.

‘Thanks,’ you beamed at him, loving the newness of the apple pie latte on the tip of your tongue, but choosing the familiar taste nevertheless.

You offered a sip from the cinnamon latte to Taehyun and smiled at the way he hummed around the paper straw, stealing another gulp for good measure before he gave it back to you.  He might have looked grumpy and annoyed seven or eight times out of ten - depending on various external factors in his life such as the number of assignments he had to finish a week or how big of a mess his roommates might have left at their place -, but you loved how under the heartless facade, he was such a big softie for his friends. You wouldn’t have changed a single thing about him even if you could.

You spent hours at the coffee shop, chatting about the anime you were watching these days, childhood memories with each other and your own families, how you could still remember Februaries when you could have played in the snow, and recipes you wanted to master for the new semester at the dorm. It was fun and the background music was tranquil enough for you to not want to leave the place anytime soon. However, your sore asscheeks definitely weren’t of the same opinion and nor were the boys’.

Since both Taehyun and you had moved back to the neighborhood for the winter break to spend some with your families, but the boy’s parents were rarely at home due to their busy schedules, he offered their place for a impromptu movie night (you might have dropped hints here and there that you had still hadn’t seen that sci-fi movie he couldn’t have stopped talking about when it had come out) and almost regretted immediately when Soobin, Yeonjun, and Sakura also showed up at his door.

You were sandwiched between Sakura and Taehyun on the couch with a blanket on your legs and a bowl of Cheetos in your hands when the movie started and stayed there through the night even when Hueningkai put on a comedy next, or when Yeonjun insisted on watching the Chinese Step Up movie for old time’s sake. Seeing the cast, suddenly, you couldn’t decide whether he was teasing you because of your Channing Tatum obsession in middle school or your UNIQ phase that, more or less, was still going strong.

Either way, the movie was very much up to your liking since it reminded you of that summer when you had successfully convinced your parents to let you attend the dance camp where you had first met Yeonjun. Your fleeting crush on the older boy might have subsided the moment he had sat beside you during the bonfire and your hair had caught on fire because of the stick he should have roasted the marshmallows on, but your bond had been unbreakable ever since. You also liked seeing Kim Sungjoo’s smile.

The plot was already over its climax when your best friend’s head fell on your shoulder and you couldn’t have helped an endeared smile when your gaze stuck on his slightly parted lips. Spending so much time with a bunch of extroverts must have been tiring for him, too, but you appreciated him for making this night possible.

Admittedly, you didn’t pay too much attention to the movie after Taehyun had fallen asleep. His calm features were simply more interesting. (At least, to you.) Not to mention that one look at his hand so close to yours was enough for your mind to be immediately occupied with thoughts you rarely let loose. You wondered how it would have felt to hold it again like when you had been younger and your homeroom teacher in elementary school had forced you to hold hands with your classmates while walking from your classroom to the school yard. A part of you doubted his skin would have still been soft against yours, but if you wanted to be honest, those memories might have been altered by your imagination. You knew for a fact that little Taehyun hadn’t been a big fan of you back in those days. He had always called you stupid.

Still, at moments like this, when you could burn the tiniest details of his face in your memories without his snarky remarks, you found yourself pondering whether Taehyun giving you so much comfort with his presence could have meant more than friendship. Could it have been what Beomgyu was feeling whenever he was dead set on how he had already found his soulmate? Maybe. But even if it was, it wasn’t that he hadn’t been wrong about it before.

And it wasn’t that you could have tested it out on your own. Even if you had said those words to your best friend, you were pretty certain he wouldn’t have said it back to you to allow the system to prove your assumption right or wrong. You could be sure about this because when you two had met, you had been still a toothless six-year-old and he had screamed at you whenever you carelessly told someone you loved them a lot.

‘Was it that bad?’ Taehyun’s raspy voice pulled you back to the present, painting your cheeks a light shade of pink.

‘Hm?’

‘The movie,’ he pointed out with his head still on your shoulder. His voice was quiet like a whisper, but because of his closeness and how his breath tickled your neck, it felt like he was screaming at you. It dressed your lower arm in goosebumps. ‘You’re deep in thoughts.’

You let out a soft chuckle when he lifted his hand in front of your face and poked the furrow between your brows.

‘I’m just tired,’ you whispered, not pulling away or making the smallest attempt to shake his hand off. Taehyun and you had grown closer during high school and your bond had become a lot stronger during your university years, but it was still rather unusual that he touched you. You wanted to prolong the momentarily intimacy.

‘Then stay. I’m sure your mom wouldn’t mind it,’ he proposed, tainting you with the idea. Your parents lived ten minutes from Taehyun’s family, but it was already past midnight and the weather was unreasonably cold. Staying over sounded like a dream coming true.

‘Okay. But I’m not making us breakfast,’ you agreed, the ultimate tasting weak on the tip of your tongue. You might have loved the way his pillowy blankets embraced your body in the morning, they might have made it super hard to get out of bed too soon, but you would have done so without any complaints if he had asked you to. 

You knew he was aware of it, too.

‘Fine. I’ll make us some omelet if you send them away,’ your best friend negotiated and only then you realized that you two weren’t alone in the living room.

A bit disoriented, you turned your head towards your friends. Soobin and Kai were helping Sakura with the empty bowls and bottles, Beomgyu was flexing his dance moves to everyone and anyone who was willing to pay attention to him, while Yeonjun was texting and dealing with your hyperactive friend simultaneously. The laptop’s screen was already black, but you had a feeling that no one had bothered to turn it off.

You looked down at your best friend.

‘Deal,’ you agreed with an over-exaggerating sigh before you pulled away from the boy and stood up from the couch.

Standing, you clapped your hands to gain everyone’s attention, then told them the horrible news: it was time for them to leave. Despite his pouty lips, there wasn’t an ounce of mercy in you when Beomgyu tried to convince you why you should have persuaded Taehyun to let him stay, too, but did make him and the others a mug of hot chocolate to give them some extra warmth for the road. You weren’t heartless after all.

(Although, Taehyun couldn’t stop smiling at you when half an hour later, you shut the door in Beomgyu’s face.)

You spent Valentine’s Day with Yeonjun, Sakura, and Taehyun. The four of you pretended to be on a double date to get discounts in that popular coffee shop near campus that none of you could have afforded on a daily basis and one of the trending restaurants downtown where one needed to wear elegant clothes to be acknowledged. The experience might have failed to beat last year when Hueningkai had convinced you to go to the amusement park with him, but it successfully took your mind off Beomgyu’s date and the possibility of him getting his heart broken on the very day most people celebrated love.

‘Should we grab a drink? I feel like we should,’ Sakura thought out loud, pulling you towards the nearest bus stop by your arm, giggling as though she had said or heard something funny. The red wine you had drunk with your steak must have gotten in her head.

You turned your head and looked behind your back, rosy lips pouty and eyes pleading, but Yeonjun was too busy with his phone as he usually was these days and Taehyun did nothing but pouted back at you. You groaned in defeat when Sakura tugged on your coat and repeated her question.

‘I don’t think I can drink more. Why don’t we go back to the boys’ place and watch a movie? We could cuddle,’ you proposed, knowing well how much she loved nuzzling close to people during your movie nights regardless of their gender. It was never about intimacy for her, but the comfort that another person’s warmth could give her. She rarely spoke about it, but she missed Kagoshima and her family there a lot.

Sakura furrowed her brows, tapped her lower lip with her index finger once, twice, and three times, then shot a beaming smile at you.

‘Sounds good to me,’ she agreed before she noticed the night bus you planned to take and ran towards it with an iron grip on your hand and without giving a damn whether the boys were following you two.

Needless to say, she fell asleep on the couch in the guys’ shared apartment before you could have chosen a movie; thus, Yeonjun had to carry her to Soobin’s bedroom because the boy was luckily out of town and none of you had the heart to let her sleep in the living room.

The following morning, you woke up for the familiar smell of freshly brewed coffee and your best friend’s delicious omelet. You also heard a loud thud from the other side of Taehyun’s bedroom’s door, but you were too lazy to get out of bed and investigate when it was most probably one of your friends’ doing.

You turned away from the windows, pulled the blanket over your shoulders, so that it would have hid them perfectly, then closed your eyes to steal yourself five more min…

‘I’ve an important announcement. Get your ass to the living room!’ Beomgyu yelled from the threshold, his words getting louder and louder until you threw a pillow at you. ‘Hah! I knew you were awake. Taehyun’s just too soft on you.’

‘Get out!’ You groaned, lowkey wondering whether everyone else was already up or you were his first victim that morning. Yeonjun would have probably killed him if he had barged in on him after last night and you would have definitely woken up if he had dared to do the same to a hangover Sakura, right?

‘You have two minutes. I have important news!’ He insisted, coaxing another pained groan out of you before he shut the door. You wanted more than two more minutes, but you were aware that Beomgyu’s threats were rarely empty. You had already seen him exchanging sugar for salt in those identical containers the boys had, hiding Soobin’s underwear in their freezer, and throwing one of Kai’s plushies out the window when they disregarded him.

You walked out of the room with a fluffy blanket around your figure and headed straight to the couch with half-opened eyes.

‘Finally, our dear Pillow Princess decided to bless us with her presence,’ Beomgyu said, the nickname falling from his lips in English, making you wonder whether he would have ever learned what this phrase really meant or when would someone from your friend group make the effort to enlighten him.

‘Get to the point, Beomgyu!’ You grumped, then sat down on the couch and leaned your head on the closest shoulder you found. It was Yeonjun’s, whose other one was already supporting Sakura’s head.

The living room’s temperature was pleasantly warm and the blanket around you almost lulled you back to sleep when Taehyun joined the half-asleep group and Beomgyu took it as a sign to raise his voice again.

Your shoulders tensed when the boy clapped his hands, but then you felt a soft touch on your arm and turning towards the culprit, you came face to face with your Hello Kitty mug. You raised a brow, but accepted the coffee your best friend had made you with a grateful smile.

‘I found my soulmate. It’s Yerim, obviously, in case someone still has doubts,’ the boys said with a smug smile on his face as he dragged his gaze from one person to another. ‘I accept apologies in cash and donuts,’ he added, clearly waiting for something.

However, words didn’t come so easily. Not because you weren’t happy for him and Choerry. You were delighted that they had found each other. It was rather the initial shock that made your tongue heavy.

Still, you willed yourself and stood up from the couch, put your mug in the base of the worn furniture, and let the blanket pool at your knees as you rushed up to the boy and pulled him in your embrace. You might have been too sleepy a minute ago to remember his risky plan for Valentine’s Day, but now that you did, all your worries and gratitude came crashing down on you at once.

‘I’m so happy for you,’ you murmured against his ear, caressing his nape with your slightly trembling hand. ‘How did she take it? Did you stay with her for the night? If so, why are you here? Did you really leave her alone to brag to us about your soulmate in person?’ You threw every question at him that your mind was able to form, scolding him and congratulating him at the same time. Though, you weren’t angry with him anymore for waking you up.

You couldn’t have told when you started to cry or whether it had been you who had shed the first happy tears or Beomgyu. It hardly even mattered when the rest of your friends joined in the hug and you were suddenly sandwiched between Yeonjun and Beomgyu or Taehyun and Beomgyu, fighting for each breath.

You spent the morning in the living room, munching on your omelet, sipping on good coffee, and listening to the boys’ stories from the day before as though you hadn’t been present when Yeonjun had kissed Sakura’s cheek for a free macaron or when Taehyun had pretended to be a foreigner so that the overexcited waiter at the same coffee shop would have stopped giving him relationship advice.

It was around 1PM when Soobin got back from Ansan and around an hour or two later when Sakura and Yeonjun left for dance practice. Still in your pajamas, you were contemplating if you should have gone home, too, but then your best friend proposed an Alice in Borderland marathon that you couldn’t refuse.

‘Do you think we will also meet our soulmates one day?’ You found yourself asking while you were waiting for the popcorn in the kitchen, your thoughts wandering back to Beomgyu and Yerim at the sight of the hot choco Taehyun was preparing for you.

You paid close attention to his body language, praying that your blunt question didn’t upset him. Though, even with all those years behind your back, you couldn’t have been sure what his nonchalant shrug really meant. Did he try to play it cool? Did he truly not care?

‘Probably,’ he said at last, shooting a proud smile in your direction when he slid your mug towards you on the kitchen counter. ‘But I’m perfectly fine with just you and the guys in my life. You nag me almost as much as any real girlfriend would,’ Taehyun teased, the corner of your lips twitching because of his claim. As if he hadn’t nagged you just as much!

The truth was, you were oddly fine with just him and your friends in your life, too, but you didn’t want to give Taehyun another reason to make fun of you. Instead, you jumped on the opportunity and got the popcorn out of the microwave and followed him in his room with two huge bowls of snacks in your hands as though everything had been back to normal and your brain hadn’t tried to sabotage your friendship with memories of when just the two of you with him had been more than enough.

You had always thought that many things would change in your dynamics with your friends once one of you found their soulmate, but Beomgyu showed no signs of wanting to spend less time with any of you. He brought Yerim for your programmes more frequently, but they still had their separate lives and friend groups. The lack of dramatic change brought you comfort and shook you up on another level.

‘I told you to wear your gloves, but you never listen,’ your best friend scolded you as soon as you entered your parents’ house and he caught a glimpse at your scarlet skin while you were getting rid of your coats and boots.

‘I would’ve brought them if someone hadn’t been in such a hurry,’ you retorted with a click of your tongue, not blaming him for your carelessness for real. You knew it was your fault, that he had been only joking when he had said he would have left without you if you hadn’t been outside in a minute, but you didn’t feel like agreeing with him, either.

Instead, you nudged his shoulder with an apologetic smile and rushed to the kitchen to make yourself some hot chocolate. You might have already drunk with a big mug at the outdoor ice rink where you had spent the last couple of hours with your friends and Kim Minju, Soobin’s new hoobae at the broadcasting station, but one could have never had too much hot chocolate in winter break. No one could have convinced you of the opposite.

You took two porcelain mugs out of the cabinet, then stood on your tiptoes to put your hands on the chocolate powder as well when Taehyun grabbed it for you and took your red hands in his own right after he placed the unopened box on the counter. You looked up at him with wide eyes, confusion and something akin to gratitude blending in your orbs.

‘Taehyun?’ You breathed when he lifted your cold hands to his mouth and blew hot air on the sensitive skin. You had to gulp down your growing nervousness when his thumbs started to draw nonfigurative patterns on the back of your hands.

‘Hm?’ He mused, not taking his eyes off those red patches that the unforgiving cold had left on your skin.

A rational part of you knew this was nowhere near the most intimate moment you two shared. You had already exchanged forehead kisses in his bed right before you had fallen asleep, you had held him close for hours when his grandparents’ old Golden Retriever had died, and he had also seen you half-naked when you had lost your bikini top in the sea because of a bigger wave. You had grown up together. Your heart shouldn’t have fluttered from this gesture.

But it did.

‘How do you feel about being around me?’ You asked in a whisper. You could tell the exact moment when your question hit home: it was written on his face, in the way he furrowed his eyebrows and slowly lifted his head. His confusion was scary, it ate away at your confidence, but you had no desire to dance back on your words. Not now when the question was finally out in the open. ‘Is it different from when you’re with others?’ You pushed, just a little more.

Taehyun didn’t let go of your hands, but he took them away from his mouth and let them fall between the both of you. His smile was subtle, but it gave you hope.

‘I mean, you smell a lot better than the guys…’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ you cut him off with an unamused scoff, feeling a bit disappointed and very much vulnerable because of how much you wished to hear an answer that resembled your own messy feelings for him. You would have been so freaking happy with a simple yes, too, without any further explanation, that his answer made you feel worse than any no could have done.

Yet, you didn’t pull your hands out of his.

‘I know that’s not what you meant,’ he said in a neutral voice, his nonchalance mocking you, but you had known him even before you had gotten to know what I love you really meant, so you let the silence settle and used it as a shield. You used every passing second to muster up your courage because you knew that if you had let this opportunity slip through your fingers, it might have taken you years to bring the soulmate topic up again.

You stood still in front of the kitchen counter like a moth frozen in amber and couldn’t make your stiff limbs move even when Taehyun let go of you and walked up to the fridge to get the oat milk out of it.

There had been a time when he had openly hated you for using the word love so carelessly, but you had grown up since then. You had matured. You had learned the difference between admiration, obsession, and love - or so you would have liked to believe.

‘I like being around you. More than I like being around the guys. You’re funny and witty and a real pain in the ass in the best way possible. You know the worst sides of me and you’re still here, motivating me to be better, to do better,’ you started while you were still facing his back because this way it was easier. It wasn’t about momentary excitement for you, it was about something much deeper and a lot more permanent. ‘You know the way to comfort me when I’m upset, you know my favorite snacks, my favorite shows, my favorite everything even though I always claim to have no favorites at all…’

The air stuck in your throat when Taehyun turned around. His facial expressions were hard, but the way his knuckles turned white around the carton made it difficult to distinguish his anger from frustration or fear. 

‘Don’t do it. Don’t say–’

‘I love you, Taehyun,’ you confessed nevertheless, telling yourself that it was the right thing to do and that you could have always apologized for your desperation later in case he walked out on you. It was a situation in which both of you were right and wrong, where both of you had your reasons. He had just as much right to be upset with your behavior as much you had to be upset with his refusal. 

You would work through the consequences together when you got there.

But to be able to get anywhere together, Taehyun had to say these words back to you and he was clearly wary of doing so. He avoided your eyes and stumbled a step further from you as though you had pulled the rug from under his feet.

Pushing aside your own worries, you took a step closer to him, then another. You didn’t stop until you were standing right in front of him and then… Then, you took his cheeks in your hands and instead of forcing him to look at you, you fondled his skin with your thumbs.

‘It’ll be fine. We will be fine,’ you whispered, afraid that your usual tone or volume could have scared him away. ‘Please.’

Your heart was pulsing in your entire body: you could feel its presence in your neck and the tip of your fingers, but you didn’t tear your gaze away from him. Instead, you gave him as much time as he needed and let him hide his face in the crook of your neck when his feelings came crashing down on him.

Taehyun’s body was trembling in your embrace like leaves in silly autumn weather; his arms clinged onto your torso like you were the only thing that kept him on the surface when he said:

‘I love you, too.’

Because of your position, Taehyun couldn’t see them, but you did: those small, shimmering butterflies Beomgyu had been talking about. They were lingering around you in an uneven circle, never flying too close, but never leaving your sides, either, until their shine slowly faded away. People said they were the phenomenon one could feel in their tummy when they were around their destined lovers, but you weren’t actually sure. What you were certain of, however, was that they were beautiful and Taehyun needed to see them, too.

Your movements were tentative. You pulled away from the boy as gently as you could while you were still stroking his blade bones to soothe his nerves.

‘Look!’ You said quietly as though you were talking to a child. You couldn’t have been sure how long these creatures would have stayed around you to celebrate your bond with Taehyun, but you didn’t want to rush him. Even if you were scared to death that he would miss them and stay forever blind for the fact that you were meant to be.

When he opened his eyes, you saw your own emotions reflecting in his orbs. He seemed a bit more taken aback than you, but you could tell he was relieved and that he accepted your fate as naturally as you did.

Beomgyu was right after all. Sometimes you just knew because you felt it in your guts: the connection that brought you into and kept you in each other’s life.

The butterflies stayed with you for a day, but neither of your friends could see them, so you didn’t bother to tell them about the subtle change in your relationship. At first, you decided to not talk about it to avoid their teasing; later, it would have felt forced to bring it up out of the blue.

Still, none of your dates with Taehyun felt like a secret. You might have kept the PDA low, but you held each other’s hand during your movie nights with your friends and shared a few chaste kisses here and there when it felt natural.

It was almost ridiculous how no one was suspecting a thing with your weekly outdoor dates until Soobin walked in on you two kissing in the kitchen while you were stress baking at their place the week before your exam period. And it was definitely hilarious how fastly the news spread after he excused himself and rushed into his room.

That night, you didn’t have a chance to worry about your exams, because your friends made sure all hell broke loose once they showed up at the door. It was chaotic - empty pizza boxes and half-empty soju bottles all around in the living room -, but your life had never been more amazing.

You still believed soulmates didn’t make one’s life whole: your life had always been and always would be a whole on its own. But being with Taehyun surely made the experience better.

the end.

[lily-blue]

I look at you like you're perfect for me

☆ characters: half-dark elf!theo & you ☆ genre: dark fantasy au, soulmate au ☆ warnings: mention of blood, violence and death, manipulation, slight mention of self-hatred ☆ summary: having a soulmate sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? too bad that yours could have been easily written by one of grimm brothers or the queen of dark fairy tales, @dat-town herself ☆ words: 11,2k ☆ also: just like every year, this soulmate au was written for my own soulmate, kathy ♥ the tenth year of our friendship brought along a lot of changes; and i’m immensely happy to know that there is no such thing in our relationship as too much distance between the two of us. thank you for sticking by my side through all these years, starting from my super awkward high school years, and please, stay with me for five times this many (and even more) ♥

There had been a time when you had hated yourself for being born the way you were: without magic. However, shortly after your twentieth birthday, when the Dark Elves came knocking on your door, this rare deficiency - that less than one hundredth percent of the population had the misfortune to experience -, was what allowed you to survive when your village went up in smoke. You see, your people lived in one of the most lavish and dense forests of the Northern Kingdom. Even with magic running through your community’s veins, you stood no chance against the flames. Many died before they could have even thought about running.

Not that abandoning their roots helped a lot of people. Because the Dark Elves were ruthless just as the stories suggested and killed everyone who bumped into them on their way towards the border of your village. Gender or age… neither of those mattered. Once they sensed your spiritual core, the magical energy deep in your soul, there was a target on your back and their soldiers never missed aim.

The bile was burning your throat when you heard yet another body fall on the ground with a loud thud a few steps from behind you, but you willed yourself and kept running. This time the screams were louder; they came from a lot closer and it terrified you. The implication that you would be the next.

However, that arrow, you were so sure was meant to pierce through your heart, never came. It was as though they couldn’t see you. As though you were completely invisible in the open while people who tried their best to lay low lost their lives due to their stalling. You couldn’t grasp what was happening around you, but to be honest, you didn’t have time or spare energy to ponder over the reasons and theories. You needed to get as far from the chaos as possible before your weak legs gave up.

You had never been too athletic. You were driven by your sheer will to survive.

You weren’t sure how long it would take to get away from the stomach-churning screams and the distinct sound of wood burning; however, you had to be a lot deeper in the forest than you had ever been in because the awaited sense of safety didn’t embrace you as soon as you entered the realm of Mother Nature. You had to keep running. You had to keep moving forwards even when your feet hurt and your lungs begged for a break.

You didn’t stop until your body was physically incapable of moving. And then… Then, you crawled behind a thick trunk to placate your aggressively beating heart. 

The Sun was already peeking through the trees by the time you more or less managed to regulate your breathing and came up with a semi-well-thought-out plan. Obviously, as much as you wanted to see your family, you couldn’t have just gone back to your village to look for other survivors. You didn’t have any weapon on you to fight your way though an army, any experience in close combat other than those playful fist fights you had occasionally had with your neighbors or magic to rely on against other magical creatures. If the Dark Elves were still around, you would have died the moment you set foot in your home.

However, your chances might not have been that horrible if you hadn’t been alone. If you had had other people backing you up while fighting back against the Dark Elves. Therefore, what your next move should have been was clear: you had to find the nearest village and see what was going on there. Had they been spared by the monsters who had chosen the most peaceful moment of the night to destroy your home? Had they been already slaughtered? Would they have been the next victims of their conquest?

Either way, you had no time to waste.

So despite the tiredness in your bones that became more significant after the adrenaline left your body and the minor injuries you had obtained during your escape, you pushed yourself into a standing position and headed east. You had never visited any of the neighboring farms and villages before, but you were a regular at the market, so you had met many vendors from the area. You had heard stories about their families, about their lifestyles and homes, hence you knew where to start looking for people who might have actually been willing to lend you a helping hand. There should have been hunters on the other side of this forest who would have felt for you and your family. They were more empathetic than lone farmers around the western regions.

Following the Sun, grateful for its guidance, it was easier to disregard the pain in your feet, caused by the cuts and bruises on your bare soles, than you would have initially thought. You had never been a warrior, after all. What wasn’t easy to shut out, however, was the grumbling of your stomach and the feeling of emptiness in your gut. When was the last time you had eaten? You were pretty sure you hadn’t skipped dinner last night, so why? Why was your body demanding food so desperately while numbing the pain?

Your mind was switching between daydreaming about your mother’s roasted sweet potatoes and the pictures of your loved ones falling on the cold ground like sacks of rice, hence in no time, you felt like you could have thrown up the minute your mouth touched anything edible. You were so damn hungry, but all the death and suffering that lingered in your mind made it hard to digest that you were still alive. Why were you still alive?

Your steps faltered then came to an immediate stop when the unmistakable sound of horses trotting somewhere in front of you registered in your brain. Your heart was in your throat as you looked around in panic, trying to find a place where you could have hidden. A bush that was dense enough to hide your figure, a hollow in one of the thicker trees, a branch low enough for you to use as leverage, so that you could climb on the top. Something. Anything.

In the end, you did come across a branch that you could reach on your tiptoes, so you quickly ran towards it and used your momentum and the sturdy trunk underneath your feet to aid your above-the-average muscles. You pulled yourself up on the tree and hugged the trunk in hope of blending into your surroundings. 

A voice inside of your head - a gentle yet teasing tone akin to your beloved older sister’s - scolded you for breathing too loudly and staring in the direction of possible danger, so you swallowed down your fears, willed your body to comply and closed your eyes like your father had taught you during the first and last hunt he had taken you on. You remembered how ridiculous he had sounded to you when he had told you and Nobara that every creature could feel it when they were being watched. You, for that matter, had never experienced such a thing during any of your hide-and-seeks with your friends, but your sister had paid a lot of attention to your father’s instructions, so you had mimicked her serious expression.

Despite your best efforts, your father had never taken you on a hunt after that one occasion. For months, you had been sulking, convinced that it had been because he could have seen the skepticism in your eyes. Later, your sister had told you that he had only been worried about you because at that moment he had realized that you truly couldn’t sense other creatures’ watchful eyes without magic.

Life without magic had always sucked.

The tingles came unexpectedly. At first, it was as though tiny needles were pricking on your skin, but later, as your rational thoughts resurfaced, you realized that was hardly possible. So you thought the sensation came from tiny insects creeping under your clothes, and you prayed that they weren’t poisonous. You were without your loved ones, you felt miserable for sure, but that didn’t mean you wanted to follow them to the afterlife in case they were already six feet under.

You gulped and resisted the urge to lift your hand and scratch your nape. You willed yourself not to open your eyes.

However, as the seconds ticked by, it became significantly harder to stay still. You had never been a hyperactive person - you loved spending time at home, helping your mom and reading in the barn or on the field -, but at that moment, there was this slowly growing urge inside of you that made you want to reveal your hiding place. It encouraged you to climb off the tree, and it scared you how your nails had to dig into the trunk consciously, so that you wouldn’t have given in to this irrational temptation.

‘Keep heading west. I’ll catch up with you,’ you could hear one of the riders send away the rest, making you wonder what his reason could have been for both staying behind and staying alone without any backup.

You wanted to sneak a peek at him so much. Your hands were trembling as you held onto the tree desperately. What was wrong with you? Deluding yourself into thinking that you were out of harm’s way just because he was alone was the worst thing you could have done. This rider could have easily been one of those who had attacked your village the previous night.

Your arms jerked and your hands let go of the trunk when something big and warm landed on your shoulder. You could have pinpointed the exact moment you lost your footing and your body fell forwards, then towards the cold ground underneath.

You could phantom the pain that was surely about to come with the collision, but you did not feel the crash. Instead, your bare feet touched the grass gently like you had been floating on your way down and your balance was supported by two strong arms that enveloped your torso. Those palms that appeared on your hips were big and warm. Familiar in a way you had a hard time to explain.

‘Aren’t you gonna open your eyes, little one?’ The same rider asked you with a pinch of playfulness to his voice that immediately disarmed you despite your better judgment. A part of you was still aware that you knew nothing about this person. Your concerns and worries and fears were still there, somewhere in the back of your head. They just didn’t seem to reach you when you needed your survival instincts, your defenses the most. 

Why else would you have called him out on the nickname he had chosen for you instead of on how he had sneaked up on you and endangered your life.

‘I’m not little,’ you sulked, linking your arms in front of your chest, which later you realized was only proving him right. You acted like a little girl, but you couldn’t have decided whether it had been already too late to back out. Should you have held your chin higher or let your arms fall back by your sides?

Indecisive, you let your body posture stay the way it was, but stopped pouting to lessen the spoiled brat attitude.

‘U-hum,’ the lone rider hummed out, taunting you with a pout similar to the one you had just abandoned and simultaneously urging you to fight back. However, you didn’t have any good retort and even if you had had any, the words would have stuck in your throat the moment your eyes met his ash gray orbs. He looked breathtakingly beautiful.

Inhuman. 

‘Like what you see, little one?’ The rider teased, and that alone would have earned a scoff from you if you had been able to close your mouth while you were taking in his appearance.

The boy didn’t look older than twenty-three; his complexion was pale as though his face was lit up by the Moon even in daylight. He had fair hair that fell into his face and ears as sharp as needle ice. He was an elf. There was no question about it and yet, your feet made no attempt at putting the well-needed distance between you two.

‘Are you without a horse?’ His more reasonable question pulled you out of your head and you nodded on instinct, although admitting that you had no means getting away from him might have been a mistake.

It seemed like you were making one poor decision after another in this stranger’s company. Who was he anyway? And why did it feel like he was someone important to you whom you should have kept close?

‘Are you heading west?’

‘East,’ the truth fell from your lips easily as if you weren’t in control of your own actions, and in a world where magic was more common than people without power, the possibility shouldn’t have been brushed off as quickly as you had just done so. It was just… as soon as the thought could have formed in your mind, your heart rejected it without hesitation.

‘Do you mind if I take you to the nearest village? The forest isn’t the safest place right now,’ the rider reasoned and a part of you wanted to ask how he knew that the area was dangerous, but before you could have parted your lips, he had already taken your silence as a permission to touch you.

The boy’s palm was warm against your skin; his fingers fit around your wrist like a bracelet. Your body followed him towards his horse with minor protest. You didn’t come back to your senses until you were standing in front of the mighty animal and your company took his hand off you to fix the saddle, so the horse could carry the both of you.

‘I… I didn’t say that I’d go with you.’ You took a step backwards. You still didn’t sound too eager to turn your back on him, but it was a baby step towards the right direction.

Why did you have to remind yourself that you didn’t know him? You knew that you had no idea who he was and what his intentions were with you. You were completely in the dark regarding his reason for sending the rest of his group away and you were also unaware whether he had known about your presence when he had done that. 

Not to mention that he was an elf. That in itself should have been a good enough reason for you to run in the opposite direction. Yet, you stood in one place, with your chin held up high. Your breath hitched when your eyes met for the second time.

‘You didn’t say you don’t want me to take you there, either,’ the elf exclaimed, his smug grin both annoying and charming - a thought you would have liked to bury deep in your mind, so you could have never accidentally blurted it out. ‘You want to stay here alone?’

You didn’t. You didn’t want to be alone.

‘You’re an elf. My village has been destroyed by elves,’ you forced the words through your gritted teeth as you simultaneously fought the tears in your eyes. You shouldn’t have shown weakness in front of a stranger. You shouldn’t have cried and mourned your family when you hadn’t known for sure that they were gone. They might have made it. Just because your sister had told you to run and she had stayed behind, it didn’t mean that she had failed to find a way out of the chaos. 

You didn’t notice that you had balled your fists or that your arms were trembling due to your frustration and anger until your eyes fell on the rider’s face and you noted that he was staring at your hands. You relaxed your fingers immediately.

‘Did I destroy your village?’ He asked a tad tentatively and you gulped when you picked up on the sadness in his voice. You hadn’t meant to offend him. Yet, it was hard to convince yourself that if he had seen the shoe fit, it had been absolutely on him.

You felt like an asshole.

‘I mean… I don’t know for sure,’ you mumbled under your nose, looking at everything but him, so the unexpected tightness in your chest would have eased up a little. ‘Did you?’

The rider scoffed, but didn’t call you out on the bluntness of your question or the rudeness of the implication behind your words. Instead, he took a step further from his horse to encourage you to climb on the animal.

You bit into your cheek from the inside, waiting.

‘I’ve just arrived from the east with my group,’ he stated, his words aligning with what you had seen and heard mere minutes ago. The noises had indeed come from that direction, while your home had been located in the opposite way. Even on horseback, it sounded unreasonable that they would have taken such a huge detour just to get ahead of you and fool you.

Without magic, you were no match for their kind.

You looked down at your bare feet littered in cuts and bruises, then shifted your gaze to the horse. It would have been a lie to say it wasn’t tempting; however, letting the elf take you to anywhere was really the good choice?

‘Are you a dark elf?’ Another blunt question, another wave of guilt that washed over you the moment the last word had left your mouth. Since when had you been so concerned about a stranger’s feelings when your safety was at risk? He could have been as easily related to the monsters who had killed your people as…

‘I’m a half-elf.’

You sank your teeth deeper into your flesh. The pain in your body had been bearable before. Your feet had been numb and your wounds superficial. You could have made it to the other side of the woods on your own. A part of you was even determined to do so, so why… Why were your feet dragging you towards the horse?

‘Good girl,’ the rider complimented you when you climbed on the horse on your own, then got on the animal behind you, keeping you stable with his arms around your body.

You swallowed down your nerves.

You tried to swallow down your nerves.

Surprisingly, the journey towards the closest village was spent in calming silence. The only sounds breaking the tranquility were one of Mother Nature: the light breeze playing with the withering leaves, the foliage getting crushed underneath the horse’s hoofs, mosquitos and other insects buzzing into your ears. 

In hindsight, you should have picked up on the telltale signs and known that something was really, really wrong when no birds or squirrels came out of their nests, but you weren’t as experienced as your other family members were when it came to the neighboring forest. So obviously, it hit you in the face when you arrived at your destination and it was also burned to the ground, just like your home. If it hadn’t been for the half-elf, you would have fallen off the horse due to the shock that shook you up quite badly. Just a week ago, you had been talking to this old man from this village at your market, promising him to buy an extra sack of potatoes from him if he introduced you to his grandson.

Now, they might have been both dead.

‘Hey, where are…’

The rider’s question didn’t register in your mind as you jumped off the horse and ran in a random direction, calling for survivors and looking for anyone who might have needed your help. It took you less than twenty steps to bump into the first half-burnt corpse and seven lifeless bodies in total to find the old man.

Overwhelmed, you didn’t realize how much the sight affected you until your knees hit the ground beside the man and your head crushed into a firm bundle of muscles, albeit less roughly.

The last thing you heard was the rider’s voice before your brain shut itself down.

Later, when you woke up, your wounds were dressed in clean textile and your head was put on something soft that gave enough support to your neck to not be in pain despite the hours you might have spent sleeping on the ground. It had been still pretty early when you had reached the other side of the forest; however, based on the blinding sunlight that shone down on you at a sharp angle from the sky, now, it had to be way into the afternoon.

What had happened while you had been out? Had there been any survivors? And where were you exactly anyway?

Where was the ri…

‘Good morning, sweetheart,’ a distinctly familiar, deep voice greeted you, and you made the mistake of trying to get in a sitting position as soon as possible to look at the half-elf, letting out an involuntary whine in the process. Hell. The middle of your forehead was throbbing; you felt so dizzy as if you had a head injury. Had you gotten hit on the head or something? You seriously couldn’t remember.

Your confusion must have been written on your face, because the next thing you knew, the rider crouched down in front of you and picked up a torn textile from the floor. Then, he rinsed it in a bowl of water and pushed you on your back, placing it back on your forehead.

‘You accidentally hit your head when I put you down, so that I could look for something to eat,’ he explained with an apologetic smile, the expression making it obvious even for your smashed brain that it hadn’t been you, per se, who had hit your head, but him who had been too careless.

You didn’t call him out on his wording, though. Mostly, because he had carried you to a safe place and stayed with you regardless of being strangers. In spite of your rude questions and open distrust. He hadn’t been obliged to protect you after you had accused him of killing your loved ones, but he had still done so. To you, this spoke volume.

‘Would it help if I told you my name?’

The question made no sense to you. Why would it have helped with anything if you had learned the rider’s name? And with what exactly did he think you needed help? 

On the other hand, would knowing his name have made anything worse? You could have pretty much stopped referring to him as a rider and a half-elf in your head, which might have actually taken less out of your already drained brain power. Hence, you nodded (and hissed when it triggered yet another mini explosion behind your forehead). Ouch. That hurt.

‘Theo. My mom was a maid at the Light Elves’ Court in the south,’ he introduced himself, although the revelation that he was one of the creatures known as the least worse out of all monstrous magical beings did add to your guilt. He might not have been a good guy, either, but he wasn’t out there, killing thousands of innocents, either, and as bad as it sounded, that was already more you could have wished for.

So you told him your name in exchange and what had happened to your village the previous night, leaving out the teeny, tiny detail that the reason you could have run away was the lack of magic rushing through your veins. You didn’t have any proof.

Not to mention, saying that aloud could have still put you in danger - a voice akin to your mother’s warned you quietly.

After the most crucial pieces of information were shared and there was a semi-solid base that your acquaintanceship could have been built on, Theo brought up some lighter topics to ease the mood while you were munching on berries and rose apples. They might not have been as delicious as your mother’s kimbap rolls and chicken salad, but they were filling and that was all that mattered.

‘You should rest some more. I’ll stand guard,’ the rider reassured you and covered your upper body with his jacket before you could have protested. And you were grateful for him. You were grateful that he didn’t give any chance to your stubborn ass to claim you weren’t tired. Because you were. You were so exhausted, sleeping a couple more hours sounded exactly like what you needed.

‘Hn,’ you gave in with a low hum, enjoying the phantom touch of his fingertips against your skin and in your hair moments before you fell asleep.

Your initial plan to look for help at the nearest village, obviously, had been thrown out the window. However, it wasn’t like you could have just given up and not do anything. You had to find your family - or at least their remains if that was all that was left of them - and you couldn’t have possibly done that alone. You still needed people. You still needed survivors. Warriors. Anyone with weapons and will to kick elf asses.

You also needed a companion. And Theo was offering his help to you on a silver plate like he had nothing better to do despite those elves he had sent ahead - those elves he had promised to catch up with - right before your encounter. It was weird but appreciated, and you weren’t exactly in the position to look the gift horse in the mouth.

Thus, you made a deal: he would stay with you until you found a village that was spared by these monsters and in exchange, you promised to tell him those details he knew you had left out of your story about the massacre. It sounded like giving out nothing for everything, but you guessed, everyone had different values. What wasn’t valuable to you might have been a treasure to someone else.

You got on horseback a day after you had woken up after fainting from overstimulation and traveled from village to village just to meet more destruction than you had ever seen in your life. Honestly, before the night you had been separated from your family, you couldn’t have even imagined something so brutal. The fire wasn’t even the worst part. It was the smell of roasted flesh and the sight of those personal belongings that had somehow survived. The first time you had seen a pile of ash next to a half-burned doll, you had been crying for minutes for a child you had known nothing about.

Losing hope was too easy. It took you no longer than a week of constant failure and you felt like you didn’t have it in you to keep going. What was the use? You had gotten further and further from your home and still had no army that could have challenged the elves. Not to mention how hard it had become to work up an appetite with the stink of death in your pores, your hair and your clothes even after taking a bath in a stream or lake (depending on what the two of you came across in the afternoons). In short, there was no use and you had no energy to start a fight.

A magicless one-man-army had no business to start a war. It would have made no difference if you had just given yourself up. In fact, that might have been less embarrassing.

‘What’s making you so conflicted? Your forehead is all wrinkly.’ Theo sat down by the fire beside you, his rough fingertips trying to smooth out the furrows on your forehead, around your eyes and between your eyebrows. You pressed your lips together to suppress a whine. It was exhausting, thinking and talking about your feelings. They were so negative and draining these days.

You let out a sigh, watching over the fish you were roasting on wooden sticks.

‘Do you think what we’re doing is useless? As far as we know, the Dark Elves could rule the whole kingdom by now,’ you voiced out your second biggest fear, too scared to bring up the possibility of your family’s death. Talking about that would have made it real and a stubborn part of you refused to believe they hadn’t made it.

Could there have been a safe haven out there somewhere for those who had survived? Were there others trying to accomplish the same goal as you, albeit with more success?

‘I’m pretty sure we’d know about it if they took control over the whole kingdom, sweetheart. Don’t worry your pretty head about them. Let’s concentrate on finding an unaffected village,’ he slid his fingers to your jawline, tapping on your cheek once, twice, three times before he pulled your head against his chest.

Instead of complaining, you buried your nose into his loose shirt, sniffing his characteristic, musky scent that made you feel safe. You wanted him to be right so much.

‘I don’t know what I would do without you,’ you mumbled under your nose when the silence stretched too long, giving in to the urge to close your eyes and get lost in his closeness. The warmth of Theo’s body enveloped you like a fluffy blanket on an unforgivingly cold winter night.

‘You would be just fine,’ the rider insisted, and you appreciated his faith in you, even though a voice in your head insisted that the only reason he said this was how little he knew about you. He had no idea that under the pseudo-confident, stubborn facade you were weak. You had been born weak and being sheltered by your entire village, you had never gotten the chance to grow strong.

You didn’t even know which berries were edible in the woods.

‘I really wouldn’t,’ you admitted defeatedly, closing your eyes and taking a few shallow breaths as an attempt to gather enough courage to speak the truth. If Theo had really meant what he had said, that meant he hadn’t yet figured out that you couldn’t have backed him up in a fight in case you had come across danger. It wasn’t fair to him that you kept him in the dark. ‘I don’t have any magic. Nothing. I was born without an ounce of magic in my body.’

You wished you could have taken back your words as soon as they fell from your chapped lips. It scared you, the rider’s non-verbal reaction: his arms coming up around your torso and pulling you impossibly close. Why wasn’t he saying anything? You needed him to say it, to say something, even if that something was a scolding or a series of profanities.

‘Theo?’ You tried to pull away to be able to look him in the eyes, but his hold on you was too strong, and you barely managed to tilt your head backwards to at least see a bit of his jawline. It didn’t seem tense, which gave you hope that maybe, maybe his silence didn’t mean that he was angry with you. Your confession must have rendered him speechless, that was all.

You bit into your lower lip, counting to ten, fifteen, thirty in your head before you decided that enough was enough. You needed him to come back to the present instead of stucking in his head.

‘You know…’ you started, not quite sure what you could have said that would have made the situation better. ‘I might be a deadweight, but I think you make me stronger, so it’s not like it’s as bad as it sounds,’ you explained, playing with open cards as you should have done from the beginning. Or well, from the day you had made that deal about staying together.

At that point, you were so worried about what could have been going through the half-elf’s head that you got a tad taken aback when he gave you enough space to look up at him from a more comfortable angle.

‘What do you mean?’ He asked, confusion written all over his face, which would have made you giggle if the tightness in your chest hadn’t been so suffocating. Should you have told him everything or only a fragment of the odd things you had experienced in his closeness these past few days? Would he have believed you if he had heard the truth or deemed you crazy and left without a second thought?

You gulped, your throat suddenly resembling parchments. It was time to tear off the bandaid, wasn’t it? You had simply said too much to back out.

You gulped another time to steal a couple of seconds in which you pathetically failed to put yourself back together, but it was fine. At least, you told yourself that you would have been fine if he had just packed up and left. Sure, it would have taken a lot of time, but you could have gone back to your village on your own and started the search all over again, going in a different direction.

‘I don’t really know how to explain it, but you remember the first time we met?’ You asked, absentmindedly fidgeting with his loose shirt. ‘I could feel your presence, and while I’m sure it’s not a big deal to you, to me… it was a first.’ Out of nervousness, you casted your eyes down, but didn’t stop talking. ‘The other day, when I was at the verge of a panic attack and you told me to calm down, my heart listened.’ 

You sounded crazy, deep down you knew you did. Because what you were describing was the bond that your parents shared, what your grandparents had shared when they had been still alive and what those who were blessed to have a soulmate shared. Although you lived in a world where magic was real, complete soulmate bonds were almost as rare as your kind. So to have one while not possessing the ability to practice magic, it was unfathomable.  

You wouldn’t have blamed Theo if he had thought you had lost it. Because what you were implying included things you obviously hadn’t experienced, only had heard from stories. For example, the reason why your parents always knew when the other person was in danger, felt happy or needed a hug. Soulmates, after all, shared feelings and had the ability to comfort each other without as much as touching or being in the same room.

‘What? You say I’m your soulmate?’ The boy teased and it would have been a lie to say his lighthearted question didn’t hurt. Was it that unbelievable that you could have been destined for each other?

Well… it wasn’t like you were a hundred percent sure about it, either, but still. Was his soft chuckle necessary?

Whether it was your sour facial expression and pouty lips or something more special, Theo seemed to be able to sense your bitterness and cupped your cheeks with his hands. He looked you in the eyes for long enough to make you feel shy and with that, to make you surrender. As a soft whine escaped your mouth, you leaned forwards and buried your face in the crook of his neck where he let you hide.

‘You’re cute,’ he mumbled against the crown of your head, nosing your hair as he slid his hand back on your waist. You stayed like that for a few moments, soaking in the silence, but not as long as you would have preferred.

If you had done that, the fish would have definitely burned to ashes on your wooden sticks and you would have both been left without food for the rest of the night. There was no way Theo could have caught more of them so late at night even if he was an amazing hunter and a determined provider for the two of you.

And if you had hated your dinner for stealing the half-elf’s embrace from you, you made sure your body language didn’t show it. Which meant, the only way Theo could have known it was if he had been indeed your soulmate. And that was impossible, wasn’t it?

It was time you stopped believing in fairy tales. Miracles didn’t happen to people like you.

It had been around a month that you had run away from the surprise attack that had destroyed your home, and you had yet to come across a village that would have been willing (or able) to help you fight the Dark Elves. With the help of Theo, you had successfully worked through each and every one of your episodes; nowadays, you didn’t feel frustration when your eyes fell upon half-destroyed houses and corpses that had turned unrecognizable after the vultures had had their feast. You still felt sadness, of course you did, but not to the point of breaking down and it might have been a small step to an outsider, but to you, it was another proof that the half-elf’s presence made you stronger.

You were convinced that there wasn’t anything you couldn’t have overcome while he was near you.

However, to your misfortune, the rider couldn’t be near you all day every day. For example, he was in charge of hunting for food and looking for water and your company slowed down both of those processes. As it had turned out, your incapability to sense life mixed with your loud footsteps turned you into a human-alarm for the animals in the area.

You were so focused on setting up the fire for the fish Theo had promised you for dinner that you were completely oblivious to the monster who appeared at the border of the forest you used as a potential hiding place in case of emergency.

You yelped when something sharp and pointy was held to your neck. The adamantine blade barely touched you, but you could feel your blood lazily dripping down your skin. How you got yourself in situations like this all the time, that was beyond you. All this time, you had been convinced that Dark Elves couldn’t have cared less about your existence and yet, here you were, about to be slaughtered by one.

You could only wish Theo wouldn’t come back to your makeshift camp before it was over; your heart ached just thinking of him getting killed because of you. Because you were so weak, you couldn’t have even used the woods to your advantage when the half-elf had told you a million times why it was smart to stay close to the trees. Why couldn’t you have done at least this one thing right on your own?

‘Where is he?’ The monster groaned into your ear, his warm breath tickling the sensitive skin right under your ear. You didn’t like the fact that he was talking to you. It felt humiliating, like he was playing with his food as you were pretty sure he didn’t intend to let you go once you answered his question.

You choked on your saliva when the elf grabbed your hair and pulled your head backwards. His blade grazed your neck and with that, left another wound behind, only a few inches under the first one. It was deeper, bled more, but your loose shirt soaked up the blood diligently. 

‘I asked you a question,’ the monster spat, forcing you to look him in his sharp, silver eyes. His skin had the same glow as Theo had, but in his case, pretty and beautiful were the last things on your mind when you tried to read his facial expressions. ‘Where. Is. H—’

You didn’t realize you were screaming until a pair of strong arms pulled you away from the dark elf and familiar, calloused palms cupped your cheeks, redirecting your focus. With utmost gentleness, Theo wiped away your tears and pressed his lips against your forehead, not letting you go.

‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart,’ he mumbled against your skin right before he pulled away and assessed your injuries. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he repeated, sliding his right palm on the cuts on your neck tentatively.

Theo’s magic coursed through you; however, it didn’t hurt like it did when your neighbors’ son used his power on you, nor did it resemble a strike of electricity such as when your sister healed your wounds. The half-elf’s magic was warm like a blanket. It not only took care of your injuries, but also comforted your soul.

Admittedly a little light-headed, you let Theo pull your head against his firm chest and keep you there while you were looking out of your head. Somewhere in the back of your head, you knew that there had to be a dark elf nearby, or at least the remains of such a creature. Slowly but surely you could recall the knife that had pierced through the monster’s abdomen while you had been still held at blade point. The main reason you had been screaming hadn’t been the shock, but the pain you had felt in your side…

You dragged your hand to the area that you remembered should have been in pain and pulled away from Theo in panic when you could feel the hole in your shirt. You looked down and saw that the fabric was red. Yet, when your fingers finally sneaked under the textile, they touched nothing but smooth skin. You furrowed your brow in confusion.

‘How?’

‘I healed it. There was no other way, but I healed it as soon as I had you in my arms,’ the boy claimed and you looked up at him, lips parted in wonder.

Maybe, you should have been mad at him for putting your life at risk without hesitation. The old you would have definitely screamed anyone else’s head off for less than this and still, as you looked into his worried eyes, that were desperately searching for forgiveness, you reached out to his face and smiled up at him.

‘Thank you. For saving me,’ you whispered like a secret and brushed a silly, stubborn mop of hair behind his ear at the same time he did the same to you. It made you giggle despite the horrific happenings and upon hearing your laugh, Theo’s eyes lit up like a birthday cake.

With what had you deserved someone like him in your life?

With what had you deserved to be alive in the first place?

‘I’ll always save you,’ the rider declared, pulling you in his lap. It was then that you actually noticed you had been both sitting in the dirt all along. It was also the first time that your gaze fell on your attacker’s corpse lying behind Theo mere meters away from you. You pressed your chin into his shoulder and shut your eyes. The whimper that escaped your mouth was unintentional. ‘Shh. I won’t let anyone take you away from me. I promise you. No one can hurt you.’

You wanted to say thank you over and over again. You also wanted to reassure him that you knew you could trust him with your life and today’s happenings hadn’t planted any doubt about him in your mind. He had saved you; how he had done it, what path he had chosen did not affect your opinion. You had long made peace with how cruel the world really was. You couldn’t have afforded to see it only in black and white anymore.

‘Theo…’ The plea that broke out from your throat sounded pathetic even to you, but the rider didn’t seem to mind it or find it as ridiculous as you did.

No, when he put his index finger under your chin and encouraged you to open your eyes, all you could see was determination on his face. You assumed he wanted to prove it to you that he meant every world. He hardly had any other reasons to look so hell-bent at that moment. Maybe the way you phrased your reassurance hadn’t been as fierce as you had intended it to be. It might have come out hesitant due to your shock.

‘I mean it. You know why?’ You didn’t know why, but you didn’t shake your head, nor did you voice out your confusion. Of course, you had assumptions such as the deal you two had made, but somehow, saying out loud that you were a contract to him felt so wrong. Especially after he had saved you from a dark elf instead of looking in the other direction. ‘Because I care about you,’ he confessed, casting a metaphorical spell on you with how he wetted his lips after the last word fell from them.

You couldn’t look away. You couldn’t move. But if you wanted to be honest, you didn’t want to either. Especially when Theo destroyed the distance between your lips slowly albeit steadily, and you could taste yourself on his tongue as he licked into your mouth with ease. The kiss you shared wasn’t eager. He didn’t rush you or push you too hard. He let the moment drag out, then allowed your lungs to fill themselves with fresh air before he dived in once more.

Your lips tingled by the time you stopped kissing and your heart was dangerously close to an explosion. If you hadn’t known better, you would have thought something wasn’t quite right with the heightened reaction it pulled out of you, but you were aware that it was merely the consequence of your inexperience. You had never been kissed before; but you were glad that Theo could be your first. Your second and third.

You lost count of how many times he captured your lips before your stomach demanded some of his attention, too, and reminded both of you of the fish he had promised you.

That night, the half-elf called your lips his dessert when the dinner was gone.

A lot changed after that day; meanwhile, it felt as though you came across the same, hopeless sight whenever you stumbled upon an area that should have been populated: piles of ashes, half-burned houses, death. You didn’t know how it was possible that every time you chose a direction, you ended up at a dead end; however, you couldn’t deny what was right in front of you. You couldn’t deny the lack of survivors and all that misery.

‘Maybe we should go back west?’ You asked after you arrived at another abandoned village. You admitted, you hadn’t been thinking about your family that much nowadays, but the sight of what was undoubtedly a hunter’s hut reminded you of your father, and your longing for him, your mother and Nobara returned with great intensity.

Why were you still marching towards the eastern border when you had wanted to turn back a week ago? Did you have any reason to believe that they had come so far from your home without you?

‘We should go east like we agreed on,’ Theo protested, and while his voice was gentle and the kiss he pressed against your lips light as a feather, something inside your chest felt tight as you nodded.

Oh. How could you have forgotten that you had agreed on that direction because of… What was your reason for heading east? There must have been a reason, a good one on top of that, otherwise, you wouldn’t have said yes. Why had you said yes? Suddenly, going east made no sense.

But then, Theo took your hand and pulled you towards his horse. He stole one more kiss from your lips before he helped you climb on the animal, and the two of you galloped in the previously agreed direction. East.

It took the doubtful voice inside your head a couple of miles to quiet down, but when it did, it became easy to lean into Theo’s body and let him guide you towards your next destination. If it hadn’t been for the dizziness you felt whenever you closed your eyes while riding his horse, you might have fallen asleep in his arms; his closeness was that soothing to you by that point. Or was it the soft melody he was humming into your ear that effortlessly calmed your nerves?

You wouldn’t have been surprised if your acceptance had been a result of both. Or the love confession that was oozing from every gesture he made.

The thought that something was really wrong with how pliant you were in the half-elf’s arms somehow didn’t cross your mind even when your eyes fell on the military camp near the eastern border. What you felt instead while you were getting closer and closer to the huge, black and silver tents was confusion. Did Theo not realize that these were the colors of the enemy? Of those creatures who had destroyed so much already and might not have planned to stop until your whole kingdom was in ashes.

At the first sight of actual dark elves in the area - a part of you hoped until the last moment that what you came across was an abandoned camp -, your body became tense and all you wanted to do was run away.  However, with Theo’s arms around your petite body, it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. Couldn’t he see what you were seeing? Shouldn’t he have felt their presence?

‘Theo, I really don’t think we should keep going,’ you spoke up eventually, your voice barely above a whisper. ‘Maybe they haven’t seen us yet. It’s not too la—’

‘It’s okay, just calm down, sweetheart,’ he cut you off while simultaneously turning you into jelly with his hot breath fanning over the juncture between your neck and shoulder. Even though you pressed your lips together in mild frustration, your body immediately shrank to a smaller size, hence the rider’s chin on top of your head caged you in that much more.

You still felt safe in Theo’s closeness, but it was different somehow. With all those elves suddenly having their eyes on you, with the cogs in your brain spinning at a restless speed, you couldn’t put your finger on what was so off. After all, as far as you were concerned, fear and anxiety were natural reactions to danger. Then, it hit you: as you were helped down from Theo’s horse, your heart wasn’t at the verge of a panic attack. Why wasn’t your heart about to explode? You two had no chance against a smaller army of powerful magic users.

You had no way out now that so many of them were aware of your presence in their territory. Hell, you had walked into their camp like you had the right to be there.

You curled your fingers and let your nails dig into the soft flesh of your palms. Why was your heartbeat so slow?

You didn’t have too much time to dwell on it, though, because the next thing you knew was Theo’s calloused fingers in-between yours and a strong pull that demanded your attention. Oh. You were walking more into the camp.

‘Taeyang. It has been a while,’ a beautiful woman… No, a beautiful dark elf exclaimed with little to no enthusiasm, her gray eyes loitering over the rider for a couple of seconds before they fell on you. You gulped, and she dismissed you with a frown. ‘You have never shown up at the northern frontline. Is this your reason?’

This. Not you, not a human being, not even a magicless creature. This. The elf couldn’t have made it any more obvious that you were worth nothing to her.

You resisted the urge to take a step back and hid behind Theo’s back. Instead, you stayed still and quiet in hopes of not drawing too much attention, although it must have been too late already. The crowd around you was big enough; you honestly doubted there was anyone in the camp who wasn’t witnessing the happenings. The tense conversation between this beautiful woman and Th… Taeyang.

Why did this new name hurt you so much?

‘Only partly, my queen,’ Taeyang said as soon as he went down on one knee, leaving you exposed to the spectators and making you feel unprotected. Your hands were shaking, but not as much as they should have and your damned heart was still at ease as if it had been on a silly mission, trying to please the rider next to you. ‘She is a survivor of the massacres in the forest villages. No one other than me could feel her presence while we passed her by even though she is not good at hiding. This ability is a threat to our plans. I apologize. I had to investigate before sending words to you, my queen,’ the boy explained and his words should have crushed you, but you couldn’t feel the heartache as though your heart was incapable of anything else but remaining calm.

The woman gave you another once-over with a bit more interest this time.

‘She is still alive. Did you not find the answers?’ She inquired, her white locks falling into her face as she put her elbow onto the armrest of her chair and rested her chin on top of the back of her hand. She looked so bored while she was asking for the reason why you were still alive.

‘She means no threat, my queen. In fact, the reason why she managed to escape is that she is so insignificant, our kind completely dismisses her existence. There is not even a drop of magic in her body,’ the half-elf explained before he quickly added: ‘However, she is obedient. She is my slave now.’

‘Are you sure it’s not the other way around, Theo?’ Someone from the mass asked and it did not take too long before your eyes found the golden-haired dark elf who dared to interrupt the conversation between Taeyang and the unamused royalty. He radiated annoyance and pride as he walked up to your trio. ‘Because I saw you protecting this human and killing your kind. Like a lapdog, waiting for their owner’s treats and compliments for doing such a good job.’

The golden-haired elf scoffed and spat on the grass right in front of the rider’s feet.

‘I see.’ It was the queen talking, dismissing the second elf with a simple wave of her hand. If the circumstances had been different, you would have admired her for the power she held - up until that moment you hadn’t even known the Dark Elves had a female rules -, but the situation was everything you would have rather avoided and you had no respect for anyone who talked about human life the way she did. ‘Let’s see how important she is then.’

For the first time in hours, your heart skipped a beat in panic, and you wondered whether it was deliberate or if it was your own anxiety at all that you were experiencing. Why would your heart have suddenly decided to act up when it malfunctioned during this whole drama? If anyone, it should have been Taeyang who felt scared and jittery due to the woman’s vague declaration. After all, you had been a dead human the moment the boy had brought you here. His future, however, most likely depended on the next couple of minutes.

‘What do you wish me to do, my queen?’ Taeyang inquired and you tilted your head as you allowed yourself to really look at him. He didn’t seem nervous and his voice was also too stable for your liking, but his thumb was tapping on his little finger every ten seconds, so your assumption could have been right. You might have actually gotten better at reading him, you concluded, which, for some reason, made you feel proud.

Never in your life had your emotions confused you this much. Nothing made any sense to you anymore. The lack of disappointment, the barely there fear, that damned calmness. Not a single thing.

‘You say she is obedient. I want to see just how obedient she can be,’ the queen answered, not giving too many hints to the half-elf; however, one look at the boy’s firm jawline was enough to you to know he had gotten the message you had unsurprisingly missed.

‘Your wish is my command, my queen,’ the half-elf insisted before he stood up and turned towards you with his entire body.

The brewing storm in his gray eyes clashed with your calm. You were so stuck in the bubble your staring contest created, you didn’t realize the weight of the moment until you heard a familiar voice calling your name.

‘No, no. She can’t be here. You can’t be here, noh-ho…’ your sister cried out, her crazed eyes growing three times their usual size the moment she saw you. The lump in your throat felt big and hairy as you continuously tried and failed to swallow it down.

Why was she here?

‘Don’t move,’ were the first words that left Taeyang’s mouth; you felt both surprised and not when your body shut down and your limbs refused to move. You also didn’t know what to think about your defleating need to be close to your family. Up until that moment, your yearning for your sister’s closeness might have been flickering but constant. Now, when you were finally at an arm’s length from her, you just didn’t know what you wanted. If you had still wanted to hug her. If you should have still wanted her in your life and it unnerved you: that your feelings felt so foreign all of a sudden.

You furrowed your brows and looked up at the rider. What was happening to you?

‘That girl over there…’ the half-elf started as he cupped your cheeks and turned your head in your sister’s direction. Nobara was crying like the world was about to end, but unlike a few seconds before, now she was restricted by magical ropes that had grown from the ground. ‘She wants me dead. And you can’t lose me, can you, sweetheart?’ Theo asked and you could feel your heart clench at the thought of the half-elf’s death, hence you shook your head frantically. No. For some reason, you couldn’t lose him. ‘You have to protect me,’ he whispered into your ear before he pecked your lips.

Theo stepped away from you a moment later, but not before he pushed a knife into your hand. Your body, led by your determined heart, moved on automatic as you walked up to your si… to Theo’s enemy.

‘You freaking cowards. Just kill me, you hear me! Kill me. Don’t make her do it!’ The faintly familiar girl was screaming from the top of her lungs, making you wonder why the hell did she look so sad despite the curses. Shouldn’t she have been angry or scared?

With one precise cut on her neck and no free hands to put pressure on the wound, the girl fell on her knees and choked on her blood as she said:

‘S’ rr.’

Lacking further instructions, you could almost taste a small part of your free will on the tip of your tongue. Tears immediately blurred your vision, then soaked your cheeks and you didn’t even know why.

‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Theo’s palm was warm against your cheek, his gentle caresses pacifying the raging frustration in your soul. Devastated and confused, but still sort of detached, you let him pull your head against his chest and buried your face in his loose shirt. Something was wrong, something was seriously wrong with you and this situation, and you needed him to tell you what had just happened. ‘You still don’t get it, do you?’

You really didn’t, and you shook your head to signal that you had no idea what was going on. You hoped it would be enough for the half-elf to have mercy on you and fill you in on the details.

Theo pressed his lips against the crown of your head and let out a sigh-laugh.

‘Your theory about soulmates… It wasn’t completely wrong,’ he started, mumbling into your hair. Your heart picked up its rate in excitement and you pulled away from him only a little, just to be able to see his beautiful face. ‘You were meant for me. I’m the successor of your heart. You gave it to me willingly.’

You furrowed your brows, admittedly unsure of what he had meant by that, but then he put his hand on your chest, right above your heart and the warmth lulled you into a state that felt so satisfying, it overpowered your need to understand just how literal his words could have been. You had confessed that you both cared about each other. Sure, it couldn’t have meant more than two unsure I love yous.

You loved him. He loved you.

‘You are dismissed,’ you could hear the queen’s voice from somewhere on your right, but you didn’t turn in her direction until she asked her men to clean up the mess. Then, you snapped your head in  her way without meaning to, and your eyes found the dead girl on the ground once more.

Nobara.

Your lips trembled at the sight of her lifeless body, but before you could have thought too much into your body’s unconscious reaction, Theo pulled you away from the scene.

You were sitting on the edge of the half-elf’s queen-sized bed, swinging your feet back and forth while you were waiting for him to bring you food. The tent that had been assigned to the two of you had the size of a smaller bedroom, which reminded you of people whose faces might have been familiar, but meant close to nothing to you.

You had an inkling feeling, that one of them was related to the dead girl somehow. You just couldn’t quite pinpoint the connection.

‘I hope you like rabbit meat,’ Theo exclaimed with a wide grin as soon as he entered the tent. He had two plates in one hand and a jug of iced water in the other, but he still managed to close the curtain door flawlessly to maintain your privacy.

‘I do,’ you reassured him and took one of the plates from him, placing the porcelain on your lap. The food smelled delicious, and it made you contemplate whether you should have asked any of those questions that had been on your mind while he had been gone. You didn’t want to ruin your dinner when it was your first time eating from actual plates, far from the horrific massacres of…

You furrowed your brows. Just a moment ago, you had been convinced that you were safe at this campsite. However, weren’t they the same monsters who had killed all those people you had never gotten the chance to speak to? Villages robbed and burned to the ground, innocent people killed at their own homes. These crimes had been committed by Dark Elves. You had been almost killed by a dark elf. So why were you so calm about staying at their tent?

And why were you so affected yet unaffected by that dead girl whose bled-out body stuck in your head for no goddamn reason?

‘Theo… Can I ask you something?’ You spoke up in a small voice, only continuing when the boy gave you the green light with the most precious smile you had ever seen on his face.

‘When it’s just the two of us, you can ask anything, sweetheart,’ he said as he wiped some of the juice off his lips with his thumb and sucked his finger clean with his eyes on you. 

You gulped, determined to stay focused.

‘About the dead girl… Who is she? I feel like she is someone important to m—’

Before you could have finished your sentence, Theo grabbed both of your arms and turned you towards himself. Your food, half-eaten and sad, fell on the floor dirtying not only the rugs but your left foot, too. Could it have been that the rider’s “anything” did not include that girl? It definitely seemed so.

You swallowed down the bile that was creeping up in your throat. Your eyeballs were moving from left to right repeatedly in desperation. You had never meant to upset him. You had just wanted to know why your heart was so calm while the cogs inside your brain tried to remind you of something important.

‘Look in my eyes,’ Theo demanded and you willed yourself to focus on one single point on his face instead of trying to take everything in: the small twitches of his jawline, the flaring of his nostrils. ‘From now on, I’ll be the only one you’ll think about. Noone else, only me, you hear me? I’ll be the only one on your mind,’ he said firmly.

Your lips parted for a soft protest, but no words made it through them. And a couple of seconds later, you couldn’t even pinpoint why you would have wanted to think about anybody else but your soulmate. Because Theo was your soulmate, he had to be. There was no other explanation for the warmth you felt in your chest whenever his eyes bored into yours so lovingly.

When the silence stretched long enough for the half-elf to break it, you let him feed you with his own food and also followed him towards the barrel in the back of the tent that was filled with warm water for bathing. A distant memory about how shy you had felt when a few of your boy neighbors had showed up at the stream you had been playing in with your… with someone close to you popped up in your mind, but it disappeared just as quickly, and with that, your reason to ask for some privacy.

‘Come here, sweetheart, and put your hands up for me,’ the half-elf asked and you did as he said with a happy smile, letting him help you out of your clothes and wash your body with a soft cloth while you were sitting in the enormous barrel. These were activities you could have done on your own, a faint voice in your head tried to remind you; however, you shut its nagging out easily and leaned your head back against the edge of the barrel with a content sigh. It felt so nice to be taken care of.

To not have to worry about what was next, because Theo was there for you to make those decisions on your behalf with your best interest in mind.

To be guided and told when the water was starting to get too cold, and be wrapped in a warm towel afterwards. Like this, being carried to your shared bed, it was easy to only think about Theo. To only want to be embraced by Theo.

To live for your soulmate.

‘My beautiful sweetheart. You must be tired, hm? It was such an exhausting day,’ the half-elf mumbled against the top of your head after he tucked you under the blankets and pulled you against his chest. He was stroking your hair slowly, making you hesitant whether you should have told him you didn’t want to sleep.  

It didn’t matter, not anymore. And maybe he knew your body better than you knew yourself anyway. Because you did fall asleep the moment he said:

‘Sleep, my love. I promise you, no one will dare to hurt you until you’re here with me.’

the end.

[lily-blue]

13 reasons why | reason no.11: the baristas can speak numerous languages

☆ characters: barista!junhui & foreigner!you (Zhixiao - ‘98 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, humour, angst ☆ summary: you like that Junhui always speaks his mind around you when he thinks you don’t understand the words he’s saying because those times he makes it obvious that your feelings are reciprocated; however, what starts out as an innocent lie - a harmless albeit intentional omission of truth - almost ruins your chance for a happy ending ☆ words: 8,7k ☆ taglist: @dat-town​,@soobin-chois​

➼ chapter index

Even though you liked your personal space and had no problem having fun on your own, you were a great friend. An amazing, attentive friend, really. Someone who might have called her loved ones out on their ridiculous behaviour, but supported them nonetheless, because at the end of the day, you were a firm believer that even a seemingly horrible idea could have put people on the right path - on the path that led them exactly where they were supposed to be.

Thus, for those who knew you, it came as no surprise that you had willingly relocated your study sessions with your best friend from the uni library to a downtown coffee shop just because her new boyfriend worked there as a manager. With how extremely busy Yuri could get due to her teacher assistant and substitute high school literature teacher duties and her two majors out of which one required a well-written thesis paper by the end of the year, you understood her need to at least see Wonwoo while you were working on your assignments and quizzing each other for upcoming tests. Especially because they weren’t one of those cringe couples who couldn’t keep the PDA at the bare minimum around their single friends. In fact! If you had had time to give it a serious thought, you would have realised that you had never seen them sharing anything more than the chastest, softest, shortest kisses when you were around.

They were definitely more subtle with their stolen glances, too, than you, who were openly ogling at Junhui whenever his shifts aligned with your weekly study sessions. It was both surprising and unsurprising that he hadn’t noticed your interest in him yet, but you supposed that his obliviousness was somewhat charming, and you were also too busy for a serious relationship. As much as you hated Yuri’s asshole ex-boyfriend for dumping her in public, you knew you wouldn’t have been able to settle for those baby steps they were taking with Wonwoo. Hence, at the start of your university career, you had promised yourself that you wouldn’t have committed until after graduation, and you were adamant to keep yourself to your word.

Still, as you were witnessing another female customer chuckling by the counter at something that the Chinese barista told her, you couldn’t have helped but wish that he would have been still single when the right time finally came. Otherwise, he would be your one that had gotten away.

‘Have you finished your research analysis? Mine is getting way too long,’ Yuri’s question pulled you out of your head, forcing you to tear your gaze away from the customer who took way too long in the line, making the people behind her visibly fidgety.

‘My analysis?’ You asked, holding onto those pieces of information your brain had actually managed to register, although you didn’t stress over whether your best friend had caught you red-handed or was unaware of your growing dislike towards the giggly girl.

With furrowed eyebrows, Yuri nodded.

‘I still have two entire aspects to explain in detail, but I’m almost there. They shouldn’t take up more than three, three and a half pages,’ you said, quickly checking your notes and the progress you had made in the last two hours. Admittedly, you had always had a problem with word and page count requirements despite your major - you were a zealous journalist-to-be in the making -, but somehow working on your thesis paper came easily. Maybe, because for the first time since you had become a student, your options were plenty: you had been allowed to choose your own topic, your own consultant, your own research methods. Unlike many, you loved every second of the journey.

‘But are you within the required number of pages? I think I need to get back to a few points and delete a few sentences,’ the girl frowned, tapping on her keyboard and clicking with her mouse vehemently. ‘Or entire paragraphs.’

Well that… that made you jut out your bottom lip a little. You made grabby hands at her over the table that you shared under the coffee bean sticker.

‘Come on! Give me that laptop. I’m sure it’s not half as bad as you make it to be,’ you reassured her and took the device from her when she lifted it over your empty plates.

First, with an easy keyboard combination, you checked how close she was to the maximum number of pages, then skimmed through the paragraphs, paying more attention to those that looked massive at first glance. Fortunately, she didn’t have many of them. You managed to get rid of almost an entire page of word vomit in half an hour without damaging the core value of the paper.

Unruly locks falling into your face, you were chewing on your cheeks from the inside when a soft thud made you look up from the screen.

‘I’m sorry,’ Junhui said before he quickly repeated his apology in Chinese, so that you could understand as he was still under the impression that you didn’t speak the local language. In his defence, you had never bothered correcting his assumption, but that was because some things were simply too entertaining to purposely put an end to them. ‘Your cup was empty for a while now and you work so hard,’ he rambled before he pointed at the freshly made mocha next to your notes that you had never ordered.

His thoughtfulness made you feel warm.

‘Thank you, I haven’t even noticed it honestly. It’s really nice of you,’ you offered a smile that turned into an amused chuckle when not even ten seconds later, Wonwoo walked up to your table with a glass of iced coffee on a metal tray. You wondered who had stolen the idea from whom.

‘I…’ Junhui started, unconsciously giving in to his nervous habit when he cracked his knuckles one by one methodically. You wished you could have put your hand on his to stop him from further damaging his joints.

‘Would you like some pastries, too, girls? A sandwich?’ Surprisingly, it was the always quiet Wonwoo who broke the silence, his question attentive albeit business-like. He sounded more like the manager of the place than your best friend’s boyfriend, although it was true that the former would have taken your money for the snacks, while one look at the boy’s rose-tinted cheeks and shy smile was enough for you to know he meant them as freebies.

Your eyes met Yuri’s and you wiggled your eyebrows a few times before your gaze slid to the Chinese barista, then to her boyfriend. You prodded your best friend in the shin with your foot to make sure she understood your silent request.

‘Do you still have one of your chicken-avocado sandwiches, Wonwoo-yah? She’d really love to try it,’ she assisted you, so that you could live with the opportunity even though you could have afforded your own food. It was nice to get special treatment every once in a while even if you knew it was all thanks to Yuri who - unlike you - politely declined the offer. ‘I’m still full from those donut balls with lemon custard, but thank you. Tell Mingyu, they were delicious. I really enjoyed them.’ She smiled at the boy, then helped him collect your empty plates while you were busy observing the small changes in Junhui’s facial expressions.

The barista seemed more lost than flustered by the time Wonwoo left and your best friend took her laptop back from you.

‘Can I help you with something?’ You inquired with your chin resting on the back of your hand, completely disregarding Wonwoo’s confused look when you addressed his friend in his native language instead of Korean.

You wondered whether you had noticed his reaction because he was standing in your line of sight or his emotions were oozing out of him for everyone to see. However, Junhui made no sign of acknowledging Wonwoo’s bewilderment, hence you guessed it was all in your head. That, or the boy was the most oblivious person you had ever had the pleasure or misfortune to encounter. One day, you would definitely need to sit down with him and talk to him about his total lack of situational awareness and its dangers in today’s society.

‘With something?’ He asked, scratching his nape and you suck in your lower lip to keep your urge to laugh aloud at bay. You didn’t intend to embarrass him more than how awkward he must have already felt. ‘No. No, thank you. I… I think I should, yeah. Go back, you know?’ He rambled and you nodded along his every word, endeared.

‘Yeah, it’s a busy afternoon, isn’t it? I’m sure Yeseo would appreciate the help at the counter,’ you agreed without checking how many people were standing in the line to get their order from the girl. It didn’t matter. Agreeing with Junhui and soothing his nerves at the same time didn’t hurt anyone even if you had already seen afternoons much busier with only one barista standing behind the coffee machine.

‘Good luck with your assignment,’ he lifted his fists for a “hwaiting” before he slowly turned his back to you and rushed back to work.

‘You should tell him you speak Korean. You clearly make him nervous,’ your best friend said with a disapproving shake of her head that you ignored on purpose. It wasn’t like you were straight out lying into the boy’s face or hurting him intentionally. Not to mention that it hadn’t been you who had addressed him in Chinese first. It was all on him that he had never asked you whether you were speaking the local language to any extent in which case you would have come clean right away.

‘You think he’s nervous to speak in his native language?’ You raised a brow in amusement, her boyfriend’s temporary absence not registering in your mind until Wonwoo came back to your table with a chicken-avocado sandwich on a porcelain plate.

You thanked him for the food with a small bob of your head and a bright smile.

‘He’ll feel stupid when he realises,’ Yuri frowned, her argument quiet, but impactful. It made you frown, too, so you bit into your sandwich and used it as an excuse to prolong the silence. You knew that your best friend was only trying to look out for you and Wonwoo’s friend, and you were also aware that she hated confrontations. These were your main reasons for not letting your hurt get the best of you and saying something you might have instantly regretted in the next second.

‘How are the kids in your class? Any crazy stories these days?’ You asked between two bites, diverting the topic as soon as you swallowed down the first one. Considering how tired your friend’s sigh sounded, you supposed she wasn’t too happy about your choice, but she played along nevertheless for which you were grateful.

You would talk about Junhui another day.

Rationally speaking, you were well aware that pulling two all-nighters in a row because of your upcoming exams, piled-up assignments and the last-minute editing of your thesis made you more sensitive to a lot of things including noises and lights, but you still thought that you were being followed. The fact that the street lights made every stranger, who was taller than you, look sharper and more dangerous didn’t help at all. Your heart was hammering in your throat.

You were on your way home from a long study session with a few of your classmates for a group project, mentally cursing yourself for leaving your powerbank in your other backpack, when you became aware of the rhythmic sound of a pair of sneakers coming from behind you. It was super unnerving because usually the streets in downtown were loud enough to shut out individual noises, but this time it was as if your entire being was hyper fixated on the loud thud, thud, thud that resembled your own speeding up steps. Could it have been all in your head?

You were too freaked out to look over your shoulder and check it.

If you had been studying in the university library, you would have taken the metro to get back to your apartment, as you lived three minutes from the closest station, but since one of the guys had wanted to be able to eat snacks during your brainstorming session, you had opted for a quieter bubble tea and coffee shop where you knew the owner wouldn’t have sent you away to make more space for new customers. When your nervous eyes landed on the lit up windows of Coffee Carat, you had never been happier that Freefall was so close to Wonwoo’s workplace or that you had to walk in that direction to get home.

Resisting your fight or flight response and the growing urge to just hold onto your tote bag and run for your life, you did your best to stay as calm on the outside as possible. You didn’t want the person who was very likely following you to know you were onto them. Who knew what kind of reaction that would have triggered in them.

Your hand was trembling like a damned leaf in the autumnal wind when you finally reached the familiar double door and instead of walking past it, you pushed it open urgently. Your legs almost gave out when it closed shut behind your back, shielding you from the outside world.

You didn’t know how long you had been blocking the entrance before someone walked up to you, but you flinched without meaning to when the person touched your upper arm ever so gently.

‘Hey. Is everything alright?’ Wonwoo’s voice reached your ears from under heavy layers of water, and you nodded, forcing yourself to look him in the eyes.

‘I’m just…’ you started. Admittedly, you weren’t sure whether it would have been a good idea to tell him what had chased you into their shop so late. Not because you were afraid of his opinion of you in case you were seeing things due to sleep deprivation, but because you would have bet your life on it that it would have gotten back to Yuri, and you didn’t want to worry her. ‘I’ve just had a group meeting nearby and still have some school stuff to work on at home, so I came by for a cup of coffee. To re-energize,’ you said.

‘Okay,’ Wonwoo replied with a curt nod; however, it was clear as day that he didn’t believe you. It didn’t matter. At least he was considerate enough not to push for details. ‘Coffee to go? Or would you like to finish it here? Rest a little before going?’ He asked and you gulped, pushing down the urge to look outside the window to check whether the person who had been following you was still lingering nearby.

‘Yeah, a break sounds nice. Thanks,’ you agreed easily and you both walked up to the counter without engaging into a more meaningful conversation.

Even though Wonwoo made it clear that he would prepare your order out of turn, you insisted that you could wait for yours just like any other customer, then stood in line with a faux smile on your face. Having three people in front of you meant more justified minutes to stay in the building. It meant more time for your hypothetical follower to get bored and leave.

Deep in your thoughts, you didn’t pay much attention to your surroundings until it was your turn to order, but looking up from your sneakers, you lifted your head just in time to see as Junhui pushed Minghao aside, so he could take your order instead. In his defence, the action would have been pretty subtle if it hadn’t been for him saying:

‘Go away! We’ve already talked about this. I’ll take her order!’

You bit into your cheek from the inside to swallow down a chuckle. He was so dumb, but so adorable.

‘Man. You’re embarrassing yourself,’ Minghao retorted with a deadpan expression and rolled his eyes for good measure right before his girlfriend pulled him towards the sink where they hand-washed the dirty plates, cups, glasses and mugs.

Junhui sent a bright albeit awkward smile in your direction.

‘What can I get for you?’ He asked in Chinese and you chose a random item from their menu with one of the desserts that was sold for half of its original price due to how close they were to closing the place. The strawberry daifuku looked too good to let it go to waste even if you knew from Yuri that the owner always gave the leftovers to his employees and friends.

Once you put your hands on the sweets and your extra large salted caramel macchiato, you chose an empty table close to the windows and took a sip from the drink. A rational part of you, that was aware that you should have caught up on some sleep that night, doubted it did you any good, but hell, it tasted delicious.

The less daifuku remained on your plate, the more content you felt, but it wasn’t the same as if you had been suddenly freed from the anxiety. You still kept looking outside the window, following every pedestrian with your eyes and focusing on the darker areas of the park that separated Coffee Carat from Freefall. It was ridiculous because you didn’t actually need to go near the trees to get home, but still. The greenery you liked so much in this neighbourhood made you feel nervous for the first time in your life.

Maybe, you should have asked for something without caffeine or less sugar.

‘Hey… are you like, uhm, waiting for someone?’ Junhui’s question came from beside you and you almost dropped your mug because of how unaware you were of your own surroundings. It was almost comical, how the roles had gotten reversed for a second.

‘What do you mean?’ You asked, genuinely confused by his assumption. With whom would you have met at a coffee shop after 9PM? For late-night dates, you much preferred diners and underrated restaurants where you could learn about the other person’s taste, too, not just their personality, which could be faked more easily.

‘It’s just that you keep staring outside and I was thinking. I didn’t mean to be rude, maybe it’s not my business, I mean, it’s definitely not my business. But we’re closing in ten minutes,’ he informed you and you looked down at your watch with eyes wide like saucers. You hadn’t realised it was already 9:50PM.

9:51PM.

‘I’m sorry. I’ll speed up and leave. Thanks for the reminder,’ you said with a smile, another one that felt more genuine that it should have been considering the whirlpool of emotions in your belly. Or were those butterflies? This thought only turned your grin wider.

Junhui nodded and turned his back to you just to turn back around again, not even a heartbeat later.

‘No, but… are you okay? Can I help you with something?’ He asked, a bit unsure yet clearly determined to get the truth out of you. You contemplated how pathetic it would have sounded if you had admitted that you were suddenly afraid of the dark; that you were unsure whether there was a monster waiting for you outside or it was only in your head because you didn’t take good care of yourself these days.

On most days, you didn’t give a damn about other people’s opinion of you. You liked to think that you had thick skin that allowed you to live a carefree, unapologetic life at least in this aspect. However, sitting by the window, sipping on your salted caramel macchiato, you felt unusually vulnerable. Still, instead of annoying, the question felt nice when it came from Junhui. Obviously, you had nothing against Wonwoo, either, he was a sweetheart, but he wasn’t your person.

You looked around in the customer area, acknowledging that there were only three other girls in the shop and that most of the empty tables were already cleaned.

‘Do you have some time to sit with me?’ You asked and he nodded immediately, jumping on the opportunity like an excited puppy despite trying his best to remain collected. At moments like this, you had a hard time believing that he wasn’t off the market already, that Junhui was seriously single when he was a green flag on two legs.

‘Of course, I have,’ the barista claimed before whispering under his nose in Korean: ‘I always have time for you.’ 

You decided to file that piece of information away for another time and took a sip from your macchiato before you started your story time. You told him about the straining workload at uni, your poor time management and messed up sleep schedule. You also mentioned the new group project professor Lee had dumped onto you last-minute and those long hours you had spent at Freefall. Then, you took a momentary break - drank another gulp from your drink - and went into details about the footsteps you had heard from behind your back and how eerie it had been that they had hit the concrete for the same rhythm yours had done so.

‘Maybe it’s all in my head. Dunno, it’s not like there aren’t CCTVs everywhere in Seoul,’ you tried to downplay it, but Junhui had none of it. He shook his head vehemently and went as far as to put his hands on his hips with a straight back, his posture almost unnatural.

‘Maybe, but what if you’re right and this person is real?’ He asked, his tone firm enough for you to know he wasn’t stalling because he was waiting for an answer. Thus, you pressed your lips together and remained silent. ‘Are you in a hurry? If not, you should stay until we finish up and I’ll walk you home,’ the suggestion left his mouth easily, the flames of determination in his eyes rendering you speechless.

If you wanted to be honest, you didn’t hate the idea of waiting for Junhui. Mostly because his presence made you feel safe - a sensation you were lacking that night - and because it was him offering and not you begging for his company. Not that you had ever had to fight for his attention, not really, but he was an objectively handsome young man, which meant he wasn’t short of young girls and women fanning over him. He could have spent his time with anyone, yet he chose to walk you home because you might or might not have been followed.

‘I’m not in a hurry,’ you said at the end, not exactly shy about the sudden turn of events, but lowkey blushing when Minghao walked up to your table and shoved a mop into his friend’s hands without further explanation.

While the other customers left the building, you were allowed to stay by your table and eat some of the leftover pastries for free while the guys closed the cash register and cleaned the place. In a weak moment, you offered to help them with the easiest tasks, such as mopping the floor after Junhui put every chair on the tables in the customer area; however, Wonwoo reassured you that Seungcheol paid his employees handsomely. They could manage the short list of things to do easily.

Time flew quickly in good company; it was a universal truth. Hence, as you were watching the guys joke around and annoy each other while they were simultaneously doing their job and joining the radio whenever there was a song they knew by heart, it came as no surprise that they finished everything before you realised a whole hour had passed. Standing in front of the double door with one hand on the handle, you had to make a conscious effort to not laugh or smile when Seokmin called Junhui out on his eagerness to leave with you. He was funny, but you weren’t supposed to get the joke. You hadn’t told Junhui yet that you spoke Korean and it didn’t feel like the right time or place. His friends would have never let him live it down.

So your smile was more on the polite side until you left; until it was only the two of you and the boy coaxed the first laughs out of you with his silly stories and ridiculous jokes. He was so bad at telling them, jumping from one key point to the other, sometimes leaving out the most important pieces of information, that your belly hurt by the time you reached your apartment building.

If you had been the main leads of a romantic comedy - or one of those Chinese dramas that were worth binge watching in your scarce freetime -, Junhui would have lingered before he eventually said goodbye to you, but in reality, he seemed pretty okay with leaving as soon as you pointed at your windows, so you needed to take matters into your own hands before he walked away.

‘We will celebrate the end of our - hopefully - last exam period next weekend with a few of our classmates. It’s more like an early graduation celebration party, you know, without the family and all the hassle. Would you like to come? Wonwoo will be there, too,’ you asked in one breath, trying to sound as casual as you could despite your obvious ramble.

Since when was “you” and “rambling” in one sentence a thing? God.

‘I… sure, someone has to make sure Wonwoo doesn’t become a party pooper after all,’ he shot a smile in your way, that bright and genuine smile that always awoke the butterflies in your tummy. ‘And make sure you get home in one piece,’ Junhui mumbled under his nose in Korean, his voice barely above a whisper yet impactful enough to paint your cheeks a faint shade of pink - a colour you could hide in the dimly lit street.

You bit into your cheek from the inside to contain your giddiness.

‘Someone has to,’ you agreed with both statements without his knowledge and promised him that you would tell him more about the details once they were set in stone before he walked away for real.

You couldn’t have believed you had let such a great opportunity go to waste when later that night you realised that you could have asked for Junhui’s number if only you had told him that you would send him the fixed date and location via kakao. Such an amateur, school girl mistake.

You were so busy with finishing up the school year and so excited about the party with your chillest classmates and friends that at one point of the night, after like two or three glasses of somaek, you completely forgot that only a handful of your Korean friends spoke Chinese and that they all talked to you in their native language, which you couldn’t have pretended not to understand when they had already known your Korean was close to fluent. How else could you have gotten yourself a partial scholarship to a Korean program at one of the best unis in the country? It wasn’t like you had written your assignments in Chinese or your lectures had had magical subtitles only you could have seen.

If you had the brain capacity, you might have wondered if anyone had ever set themselves up for failure as wonderfully as you had done when you had invited Junhui for the party, but you were sleep-deprived and tipsy, so you simply greeted him with one of your sweet smiles when he finally arrived.

‘You’re late!’ You complained, your lips taking on a naturally pouty shape as you looked him in the eyes. He looked so good with his adorable mole above his upper lip and the one on his cheek that lately made you want to pinch it. Or kiss it. Maybe something in-between. Or both. Yeah, you could have definitely pinched his cheek and kissed him as an apology. Or should you have kissed him first and pinched him afterwards just to tease him? You liked teasing him a lot.

‘I’m sorry. There was an emergency at the shop,’ he apologised before he tilted his head to the left and pointed at Wonwoo who had also arrived only a couple of seconds ago. You followed his line of sight and sighed when you saw Yuri hugging her boyfriend so openly albeit a bit shyly. You wanted to do the same, just not with Wonwoo.

‘Hey guys! Grab a shot and come to the table! It’s time for the classic, the cliche, the legend!’ One of your classmates shouted, hyping up your slowly growing group, although you knew what was coming was the most basic drinking game of all time: ‘Truth or dare!’

You shook your head with a smile and tugged on Junhui’s sleeve.

‘You heard her. Let’s go!’ You exclaimed, completely oblivious to the fact that you shouldn’t have been able to understand the girl or that you had just blown on your imaginary house of cards as though it had always meant to be destroyed so carelessly.

You didn’t stutter, you didn’t waver and you clearly weren’t aware of the reason why Junhui was giving you such a terrified look. Your tipsy brain assumed it was because of the game and how juicy it could have gotten when one was playing it with the right gang.

With so many people around, it took for a while until you could actively participate in the game, but you genuinely enjoyed yourself while you were watching your classmates and friends embarrass themselves in public. Then, you dared Yuri to sit into Wonwoo’s lap and the crowd went wild. You hadn’t felt so light and carefree in months.

‘Your turn. Truth or dare?’ Wonwoo’s question was directed at you three or four rounds later, his eyes shining with unexpected mischief as he raised one of his brows. He was challenging you and you were a coward, so you chose:

‘Truth.’

Obviously, you would have been stupid to willingly embarrass yourself in front of Junhui. He was already way too quiet for your liking. Now that you thought about it, he hadn’t said a word since you two had joined your friends by the table.

You turned towards him, worried. And you were still looking at him when your best friend’s boyfriend’s question reached your ears, dread morphing your features as the seriousness of the situation hit you in the face. Oh. Why hadn’t you thought of the possibility that Wonwoo might have asked you why you were pretending not to understand Korean around Junhui? It was such a predictable question in hindsight, especially after the sneaky dare you had given Yuri. 

‘I…’ you started, but the words stuck in your throat and you had to take a deep breath before you tried again, this time, with more confidence. It was as good of a time to come clean as any even if the circumstances weren’t ideal. So far, you could have soothed your conscience with the reminder that you had never lied in Junhui’s face. You didn’t want to start it now.

So you turned your whole body towards the boy and made sure he heard you when you told him the truth.

‘I like knowing those things he isn’t brave enough to admit aloud,’ you said, giving him one of your sweetest smiles in hope of his forgiveness.

Yet, he averted his eyes, and when you gave in the urge to touch his face and make him look at you, he cleared his throat and excused himself like it wasn’t painfully obvious that he didn’t need to use the toilet. He needed more distance between the two of you. 

You bit into your cheeks from the inside hard enough to draw blood before you, too, left the table, using the weak excuse that you needed some fresh air. In reality, you just couldn’t bear to see the pitiful look everyone was giving you or hear the apology that fell from your best friend’s lips as though it was her or Wonwoo’s fault.

Even tipsy, you knew it was all on you.

The first thing that popped up in your mind when you left the diner and sat down on one of the plastic chairs outside was that maybe you were wrong and you did need some fresh air. Because hell it felt amazing when the cold, wintry air hit your face and caressed your warm cheeks like a mother would - or a best friend. A person you could confide in. God, you had screwed up big time, hadn’t you?

Frowning, it didn’t even occur to you that sitting outside in December, wearing nothing but a thin long-sleeved shirt and denim jeans was a bad idea. You didn’t question why there were only three other dudes chatting on the terrace, smoking cigarettes. You were just relieved to be alone while you were mourning a relationship you had never even had. You really liked Junhui.

It was the sudden weight of a jacket on your shoulders that pulled you out of your thoughts, your head snapping towards your intruder fast enough to hurt. However, as soon as your eyes met Junhui’s you swallowed down the groan.

‘What…’ you started, but didn’t know how to finish the question, so you pressed your lips together and said nothing. Did you even have the right to ask him what he was doing outside when you had made him so uncomfortable, he had to distance himself from you? Did you even want to hear the answer?

As much as you didn’t mind being rejected - you were an advocate for the basic human right of saying no -, at that moment, you would have rather not be called an awful person by the first person who had piqued your interest in years. You had already felt pathetic, your self-esteem could only take so much one night.

Junhui took the chair next to you.

‘Were you having fun?’ He broke the silence when he realised you wouldn’t, his gaze fixated on something in front of him instead of on you as though he was just as afraid of the look on your face as you were of the emotions in his eyes. You didn’t want him to resent you, though, you might have deserved it. ‘Or do you really like me?’

It wasn’t the first time you heard the boy speak Korean, clearly, but there was something new and almost odd about hearing Junhui dedicating a question to you in the local language. You allowed yourself another quick glance at him, and even in your tipsy state it was ridiculously easy to tell that he was much drunker than the last time you had sat this close. It took one to know one.

You let out a defeated sigh.

‘I like you. I really do, Junhui,’ you admitted as you wondered whether your confession was too plain and about the chances that he would believe you. Weren’t you a notorious liar in his eyes?

Your lips parted in disbelief when instead of an answer or a well-deserved accusation, you felt a light weight on your right shoulder; the side Junhui was sitting on. Slowly, to not ruin the moment, you turned your head in that direction, surprised to see the boy’s head resting on you. Too stunned to comprehend the situation, you lifted your left hand to touch his soft hair and simultaneously check whether he was asleep.

Based on the lack of reaction, he was. He fell asleep on your shoulder. On the very same person’s shoulder who had unintentionally made him feel like a fool. You didn’t have to be a genius to know you didn’t deserve the immense amount of trust something like this required from a person; he was so vulnerable, completely unconscious beside you, and so adorable as he was snoring lightly that you swore you would protect him from all harm. If only he had given you a second chance.

If you wanted to be honest, you had no idea how long you stayed outside or whether you had also managed to fall asleep at one point. However, it was fairly obvious that the party hadn’t been over yet when Yuri and her boyfriend walked up to you and informed you that they had already called a cab.

‘Do you need help with him? We can take a small detour to both of your apartments if you’re okay to leave in ten,’ Wonwoo offered and you sneaked a glance at Junhui before you made up your mind. Sure, you would have gladly stayed for a little longer, making up for all those university parties you had deliberately missed out on due to your workload, but making sure the boy got home in one piece was higher on your priority list.

‘Thanks. That would be nice,’ you accepted the help and let Wonwoo pull his friend into a bent albeit standing position when the driver finally arrived.

Since Yuri volunteered to take the passenger’s seat and out of the three remaining passengers you were the tiniest, you stuck between the boys in the backseat with Junhui’s head once again on your shoulder. Way less tipsier than an hour prior, it was impossible not to notice the effect his closeness had on your body: his warm breath fanning over your skin under your ear sent a pleasant shiver down your spine and whenever his nose touched your neck, you felt new goosebumps forming on your lower arm. He was so, so close and so damn out of it, you were sure he would have felt embarrassed that he was particularly cuddling you in front of his friend if he had been conscious.

God, even your cheeks were burning and you were sitting so upright, one would have thought someone had shoved a stick up your ass.

‘We’re here,’ Wonwoo nudged you when the cab parked in front of Junhui’s building and you acknowledged with a surprised hum that his place was in the opposite direction from the café than yours. Suddenly, his offer to walk you home after your mild panic attack meant so much more to you.

You looked down at the sleeping boy and brushed a stray strand of hair out of his face.

Although you did shake Junhui awake, dragging him up to the third floor was an adventure on its own, not to mention the mess he made as soon as his front door closed behind your back. He might not have thrown up on your shoes, but he crashed into several furniture and walls, which resulted in two broken porcelain decorations and a rose-coloured bump on his head.

‘It’s okay. You can rest now,’ you told him once he was under the blankets, still in his clothes but with his shoes and socks off. It wasn’t below you to put a drunk person in their pyjamas; however, with Junhui, you didn’t want to risk crossing that line without his explicit consent. Especially not after the unplanned twists and turns of the night.

Placing a hastily written note in front of the glass of water and painkillers that Wonwoo had put on his bedside table before he had given the two of you some space, you only hoped he wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable during the rest of the night in his jeans and shirt.

You were thinking about this and the way Junhui’s warm breath felt against your skin in the backseat until your body (and mind) gave in to exhaustion in your own bedroom.

You weren’t avoiding Junhui. But with Christmas coming up, then your thesis defence and your scheduled family trip back to China a week before Chinese New Year, you told yourself that you were too busy to spent so much time in a coffee shop, pathetically hoping that the boy you liked would not only show willingness to talk to you, but have some time to do so as well. You didn’t know his schedule and he had never texted you despite the note you had left behind before you had walked out of his bedroom after the disastrous end of semester party.

Rationally speaking, you knew you had other options. You could have asked Yuri’s boyfriend to send you Junhui’s schedule. You could have also cashed in a favour from Wonwoo and asked him to give the barista a short break when there weren’t too many customers at the shop, so that you could have talked. You could have texted Junhui first or simply shown up at the shop close to closing time. However, a selfish part of you wanted him to take the initiative, because you felt like that would have been a clear sign that he didn’t hate you, that you might still have had a chance.

So why you were at Coffee Carat two days before your flight to Beijing was beyond you. You guessed this was what it meant to be a supportive best friend: you showed up even when it was the last thing you wanted to do at that moment, even when you knew you were being set up as there was no way Yuri would have seriously needed a cup of coffee delivered to her flat in the middle of the day when she had her own coffee machine at home and her boyfriend worked at the same coffee shop.

With a resigned sigh, once it was your turn in front of the counter, you asked for her usual iced coffee.

‘And here I was thinking, he was overdramatic. You do look like you would rather eat glass than be here,’ Minghao said as he started the coffee machine, then filled an empty plastic cup with ice cubes. He was as grumpy as ever, but you wouldn’t have had him any other way. It also did good to your guilt that his first words to you weren’t overly nice. If you wanted to be a hundred percent honest, you deserved the roasting.

‘It’s always so nice to see you, Minghao. Thank you for asking, I’m doing pretty okay these days. No more assignments, no more all-nighters,’ you remarked with more amusement than malice as you fished your wallet out of your bag and linked your arms in front of your chest. Eyeing the glass display, you were contemplating whether you should have bought yourself a cupcake or a cinnamon roll. They both looked delicious. 

‘Amazing,’ he mused. He put the plastic lid on Yuri’s drink, then followed your line of sight and put a freshly baked cinnamon roll with walnut pieces on top in a paper bag. You licked your lower lip unconsciously; you could feel the yearning in the pit of your tummy. ‘Though, it’s not exactly what a best friend would want to hear from the girl who is messing with their friend’s head,’ he added when you exchanged money, deliberately disregarding the whine that escaped your mouth.

It was a low blow, but you couldn’t deny that there was some truth to what he said. Even if you had never messed with Junhui’s head on purpose. Because despite the implication, you had never played with him. Your interest had been pure and genuine. It still was.

The unmistakable sound of broken glass pulled you back to reality and also forced Minghao to tear his judging gaze away from you. The scream stuck in your throat the moment your eyes landed on a panicking Junhui in the middle of a latte pond. Was that strawberry jam on his lower arm? Was he bleeding?

‘Are you okay?’ The question fell from your lips without thinking, the fact that you were speaking in Chinese not registering in you until Minghao gave you a nasty side eye. Oh. You quickly cleared your throat and repeated the question in Korean. ‘I’m sorry. Are you okay?’

‘I’m…’ Junhui started, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other in a crouching position. His cheeks, neck and ears were rose-coloured, but for the first time you were too worried about him to find his bashfulness adorable. 

You were seconds from rushing behind the counter, so that you could examine his body for possible injuries.

‘I’m fine,’ Junhui shot a tight-lipped smile in your direction, which might have been meant to be reassuring, but did nothing to soothe your nerves.

If you had only given a single thought to your actions, you would have realised that running behind the counter as a customer was a horrible idea for numerous reasons. For instance, it  went against basic hygiene regulations, therefore it could have gotten the place in big trouble if anyone had taken a picture of you sitting on your knees beside Junhui without an apron and a proper uniform. In the era of social media and cancel culture, there were no such things as small or innocent mistakes.

However, you clearly weren’t thinking - not about the negative consequences of your actions nor anyone else but the flustered boy in front of you.

‘Stop fidgeting. Don’t touch that!’ You scolded him so naturally it felt like the two of you had never stopped talking and pulled him up from the floor with ease, taking full advantage of his confusion as you dragged him to the closest empty chair.

After checking every inch of his lower arms two times, lips pressed into a thin line because of how nervous you felt, you acknowledged with a relieved sigh that Junhui was fine. He had one minor cut on his left index finger, that you dressed in a plaster dutifully.

‘Here. As good as new,’ you teased, not because you found the possibility of Junhui getting hurt funny, but because the worry you had just felt had been overwhelming and you needed to lighten the mood - for the sake of your sanity.

And maybe to dilute the lingering awkwardness around you when the silence settled.

It was the first time you saw him in weeks. Unsurprisingly, he looked the same, but somehow things still felt different. You wondered whether it was because you weren’t talking in your native language anymore. You missed the familiar warmth that always embraced you when he addressed you in Chinese. For the first time since you had moved countries, you swore you were experiencing homesickness, which was as ridiculous as true.

‘You know…’ Your body jerked when you heard Minghao’s girlfriend’s voice from behind your back. You snapped your head in her direction only to see her staring at the two of you with a broom and a plastic dustpan. ‘For people who can converse in at least two languages, you two are pretty shitty at communication,’ she said with a frown, her tone not judgemental per se, but still a bit reprimanding.

You bit into your cheek from the inside, swallowing back a scoff. Your communication skills were exceptional. You hadn’t had any problem talking to Junhui before… before that stupid truth or dare. Just the thought of it soured your mood.

‘Sooryeon-ah…’

‘We’re doing just fine,’ you remarked at the same time Junhui let out a pitiful whine. You looked back at the boy who was sitting beside you and closed your eyes for theatrics. Maybe, you weren’t doing fine at all. However, saying it out loud, admitting it in front of his friend’s girlfriend, felt so bad. As though you had failed before you could have even tried.

‘Oh? You’re doing fine, you say?’ Sooryeon’s interest was clearly piqued at the sudden turn of events, the smirk audible in her voice. ‘So he’s finally asked you out on a date?’

The speed your head turned in the barista girl’s direction wasn’t even funny. You could feel your neck crack and you cursed your instincts for betraying you so badly. Still, as giddiness slowly blended into your confusion, you couldn’t help but smile. Was it naive of you to hope that she was also up-to-date with the happenings between the two of you? Shouldn’t you have at least prepared yourself for the disappointment in case it had only been true before… before that stupid truth or dare.

‘Lim Sooryeon!’ Junhui’s raised voice took you completely off guard, pushing you from one surprise to another as the twists of the day pulled the rug from under your feet. You had never heard him so frustrated - angry? - in your life and you had known him for over a year by then. You had seen him surrounded by girls who didn’t know what no meant; you had seen him handle entitled Karens on a weekly basis with utmost patience; you had seen him being teased for hours to no end by his friends.

‘Moon J—’

‘He did. We’ll have street food tonight. Go, watch a movie,’ you cut the barista girl off before their banter could have drawn too much unwanted attention. A few of the customers were already giving you curious glances and you knew, deep down you just knew, that the only reason Minghao didn’t come up to you to scold Junhui was because of the growing line in front of the counter.

The silence that followed your statement was deafening and for a second you contemplated whether you should have apologised and told Sooryeon the truth - if you should have stopped altering reality so shamelessly whenever you seemed fit even though you never meant any harm when it happened -, but then Junhui asked:

‘We will?’ With so much enthusiasm that it threw your life off its axis.

He sounded so happy as though he wasn’t aware that he had, in fact, hadn’t asked you out on a date. How could you have said yes to a question that he had never asked? He was so silly but so adorable.

A grumpy voice in your head, suspiciously akin to Minghao’s, attempted to convince you that lying was not the solution, but one look at Junhui’s shy smile made it impossible for you to do the morally acceptable thing. What was so good about doing the “right thing” when that would have only dampened his mood? And it wasn’t that you were about to straight out lie in his face. You had every intention to have street food with him after his shift in case he was up for it.

You would have been stupid to turn down this miraculously obtained second chance.

‘We will,’ you confirmed with a soft smile, mustering up the courage to lean a little forwards, so you would have been close enough to him to cup his cheeks with your hands, squeezing them with a cooing sound.

‘Junhui! If your injuries aren’t deadly, come back behind the counter. You’re not off the clock yet,’ Minghao’s command cut through the air and you reluctantly let Junhui’s face go, so that he could pull away and go back to work.

That day, you decided that Yuri needed to wait a couple of hours for her iced coffee - the first cup became lukewarm by the time you put yourself together, therefore you used it as an excuse to stay until lunch break and finished it with your dessert. In the meantime, whenever the crowd was manageable, you exchanged a few words with Junhui: you apologised for last time and he apologised for never contacting you. You made him blush, teasing him about how delighted your grandparents would be when they found out he’s Chinese and he tried his best to repay the favour with the cheesiest compliments you ever heard (and a slice of orange cheesecake that finally did the trick and painted your cheeks red). It was as easy as you had remembered, talking to Junhui again, but you also knew Sooryeon had been right. The two of you had a long way to go when it came to communication, but that was okay. You were only at the beginning of the journey.

You had years to perfect your skills. A lifetime if you were lucky.

➼ next reason

[lily-blue]

13 reasons why | reason no.9: the cupcakes are heavenly

☆ characters: baker!mingyu & food critic!you (Sooyoung - ‘97 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, slowburn ☆ summary: your love life consists of flavourful dishes, delicious desserts and your best friend’s stories about his relationship with the sweetest girl; that is, until Mingyu decides to add something luscious into the mix ☆ words: 12,9k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town​ ♥ for everything! ☆ taglist: @soobin-chois​

➼ chapter index

Food, especially sweets, had always had a special place in your heart, because as soon as you had grown old enough to understand your parents’ relationship wasn’t ideal, they had become your safe place. Shortcakes, cupcakes, croissants - when they were made expertly, they could put a smile on your face even on the most emotionally draining days as if they had indeed been made with that one magical secret ingredient that you were desperately missing around your parents: love.

Becoming a food critic had been a semi-conscious decision that had become your passion in university. It had started small: with silly albeit professional posts on your Tumblr blog under the sarcastic nickname Joy where you had uploaded aesthetic pictures of the food you had tried, given stars to the places in different categories with a few additional words to express your opinion and credited the experience to the restaurants and coffee shops by mentioning their name and address.

When your curt comments had turned into few-paragraph-long articles was lost on you. But you still remember the day when your blog’s popularity had skyrocketed and you realised that you could make enough money from your hobby to never have to look for a job that’s related to your major: boring finances. It had been the day you had posted your first short video on Youtube with your article’s link in the description below. People had loved your sarcasm and the dynamic pacing of your edit. They had loved it so much and so actively that sponsors had started to email you about collaborations and the platform paid you for creating content. 

It felt surreal up to this day, but you had gotten more than fifteen minutes of fame.

You were still as hated as loved: truly, at the peak of your career.

Fancy restaurant and small diner owners alike kept requesting reviews from you so that they could boost their popularity, but you rarely gave the time of day to those emails, because they made you feel as though you were buyable despite never taking their money. Therefore, even if those places piqued your interest, you simply jotted their names down in your notebook and gave them a try months later when the pressure to write them a good review wasn’t palpable anymore. You didn’t do well with pushy people.

Except when that pushy person was your best friend, Felix, who couldn’t shut up about his new favourite coffee shop close to his girlfriend’s workplace. Coffee Carat was a constant in your conversations ever since Yewon had started her internship in March and you finally got to a point where you thought you had to see for yourself whether their cupcakes were really as otherworldly as Felix claimed them to be or else there was a huge possibility you would snap at him. And there were only a few things you hated more than fighting with your loved ones.

The morning rush’s buzzing noises were pleasantly lively when you walked up to the counter in your red high heels and your steps came to a halt at the end of the shorter line. You didn’t mind the crowd nor the extra time you spent in the shop waiting, because you had chosen this time of the day on purpose. You wanted to see how well the baristas worked when customers had just a tad bit less patience and so far you weren’t disappointed in their professionalism.

You offered a grateful smile to the barista who took your order and carried your tray to one of the empty tables in the back of the customer area, pleased with the interior design and the amount of sunlight the voile curtains let into the coffee shop. Even with purposely taking the chair that was facing the window, you weren’t blinded by the light, which definitely earned the place a couple of brownie points. You liked places that took their time to cater to all of their customers.

Comfortably seated, you took your phone out of your long coat’s pocket and took a few takes of the pretty decoration on the curtains, your table and the cupcakes you had bought. You made sure the videos had similar starting and ending points so that the transitions would be smoother and more natural in the final product. Then,  you were ready for the taste test.

‘Excuse me!’ A pleasant voice, albeit a bit unsure, addressed you and you put your chocolate cupcake back on the porcelain plate before you turned towards your intruder. It wasn’t hard to recognize the coffee shop’s uniform in the man’s outfit, but that just made you confused. You knew for a fact that making videos at places that were open for the public wasn’t against the law until there were no concrete signs that asked you not to take pictures or record videos. Had you missed a sign like that?

You were about to apologise and ask for special permission if that was the case, when the man shot you a small smile and bowed his head respectfully.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just wondering whether we could take a picture together? I’m a big fan of your blog and I just… had to give it a try,’ the barista was rambling and while it wasn’t the first time someone recognized you, it never ceased to amaze you how some people turned so shy in your presence when they were clearly brave enough to walk up to you. You could have never done the same when it came to your idols, but it was true that you weren’t in the same league as Taemin and Junho from 2PM.

‘It’s okay. We can take a photo,’ you agreed easily, never one to say no for such easy requests despite your sarcastic personality. Stealing a glance at the counter behind the man’s back, you actually appreciated that he had waited until the lines had gotten shorter.

You decided to stand up so that the barista - Seokmin as his nametag suggested - didn’t have to bend his back too much and took a couple of different pictures with his own phone until there was at least one in which you looked presentable. Not that you asked him to delete the rest. It didn’t matter to you, really, but your society was fixated on beauty standards and you wanted him to be able to share this experience on social media in case he wanted to. For that, he needed a good photo.

‘But you being my fan won’t affect my review. I’m not this easy to charm,’ you stated with a pinch of playfulness in your voice, facial expression stoic. You obviously meant every word, but Felix liked to tease you about how unintentionally rude you could come off whenever you were overly honest, so you tried to lighten your tone lately when breaking down the obvious. You weren’t sure it was working. A part of you felt it made you sound ridiculous, but well… practice made perfect.

‘Of course! You really shouldn’t be,’ the barista agreed with a wide smile and you wondered how some people made acting friendly look so easy. Not that you were a bad friend material. If anyone, your best friend could vouch for you that you were caring and understanding under the surface. But smiling at someone you had never met before so brightly? You could have never. ‘And I’m not worried about your review. Mingyu’s cupcakes are seriously the best,’ he said before the female barista called his name from behind the counter and he bowed his head again, grateful for the pictures you had taken.

You kept your gaze on Seokmin as he jogged up to his coworker and helped the girl with the coffee machine. You watched as he joked around with her effortlessly while a part of his focus was always on the task at hand and shook your head before you could have gone into a detailed analysis on how ineffective it made his work. It would have been a useless train of thought and you had come here to work anyway.

So you sat back on your chair and took the chocolate cupcake, you had been meaning to try, in your hands. It smelled delicious, a little citrusy, which was an achievement in itself taking the intensity of the dark cocoa powder you assumed they must have used when making it. The tiny card behind the display had suggested that it had an additional, orange flavour, but you had already tried a dozen of chocolate cupcakes in your life. Finding the balance between their rich, characteristic aroma and other, milder flavours was harder than it seemed.

One bite from the dessert was enough to acknowledge it was good; whoever had made the recipe was talented. However, the execution was almost amateur, and you didn’t understand why this made you disappointed when it shouldn’t have mattered. Coffee Carat was nowhere near the first coffee shop on your long list that failed to back up the hype. Still, you had more faith in Felix and his love for quality cupcakes and brownies.

Having been taught to never leave your food on your plate just because it didn’t reach your expectations, you finished your cupcakes in peace while you answered a couple of asks and comments on your social media accounts. Then, you left with a polite smile and the thought that you needed to take your best friend to a better coffee shop on your next friendly date on the weekend. Maybe you could have bought something sweet and creamy for his girlfriend, too, so that neither of them lowered their bar.

Food was self-love. Especially with desserts, no one should have made compromises.

You were used to the amount of notes, mentions, asks and messages you usually received on the day you posted a new review. You had learned it in the hard way not to be too hang up on the hate comments in your comments section for the sake of your mental health - people were more brutal in the Youtube community, a significant downside of expanding your brand and advertising your blog on another platform - and while it would have been a lie to say you had a foolproof method to scroll through the hate, now you were able to stop reading those lines when it became clear they had been written with malintention. You could focus on the good: the fun remarks, the constructive observations and the appreciation you received.

You tried out low quality places, so your followers didn’t have to and discovered rare gems, so that they could visit them knowing their food and drinks were worth the money.

Receiving demanding texts wasn’t a new thing, either. It was almost ridiculous how many people wanted you to change your opinion about a restaurant or café either for the worse or the better just to justify their preferences. You never wasted your time on these requests; that would have gone against your principles. And still, a week later, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, you found yourself in a situation when you couldn’t ignore the reappearing name in your spams anymore: Kim Mingyu. 

Every damn message you got that week was about Kim Mingyu.

Thus, when you saw that a new Tumblr blog with the default profile picture of a triangle sent you a private message, you opened it and typed out an answer.

milkgyuandcookies: “please, you have to come back to the coffee shop again!” milkgyuandcookies: “i’m telling you we have the best cupcakes” milkgyuandcookies: “it’s all a misunderstanding! i’m begging you 🥺🥺” you: “i wrote my review about the cupcakes i purchased at your coffee shop, so i can’t see any misunderstandings or mistakes here” you: “i rarely visit the same place twice, let alone in such a short period of time” you: “i’m sorry, but you had your chance” milkgyuandcookies: “then make an exception, please!! you can’t just write a review like this about my cupcakes when those weren’t even my cupcakes 😭😭 have some mercy” you: “you sold those cupcakes, i wrote a review about them. next time don’t sell them if you’re not satisfied with how they turned out” milkgyuandcookies: “aren’t you listening? those aren’t my cupcakes!!” you: “well that’s not my problem. i’m not going back” milkgyuandcookies: “just this once, please!🙏🙏i’m on my knees” you: “i’m blocking you” milkgyuandcookies: “no!!” milkgyuandcookies: “wait!! 😭😭” milkgyuandcookies: “come back!! 🥺🥺”

You clicked on the three dots next to his username and blocked him like you promised before he could have kept going on about how you should have given their coffee shop a chance to redeem themselves despite your definite no. Whether those cupcakes had been baked by him personally or not shouldn’t have mattered. They had given their name to those sweets when they had let their customers buy them, so it wasn’t your fault that you had chosen a cupcake that tasted average. You didn’t see why you should have revisited their place because of a few pleading emojis and a half-assed excuse.

You weren’t heartless - it just wasn’t easy to coax sympathy out of you with pleading emojis. They had taken a poorly calculated risk and lost when you had picked a dessert that had not reached the promised quality. End of the story.

You spent the next two hours blocking every blog that messaged you about Kim Mingyu and another half an hour phrasing a curt answer to a polite ask that claimed Coffee Carat deserved more stars. Then, you disconnected your phone from your wifi and spent the rest of the day in your bed, binge-watching the Chinese drama you had found last week. Wang Yibo’s gamer character might have driven you up the wall when he started to neglect his girlfriend because of his mentally unstable ex, but the reappearing cliffhangers did their job wonderfully, taking your mind off your followers’ obsession with Kim Mingyu.

His cupcakes or not, what you had tasted didn’t deserve your praises and you stood by your opinion.

The original plan had been to celebrate Felix’s promotion at his favourite high-end restaurant, but that place was full until the end of August, so you had ended up making a reservation for his birthday instead and invited him over, promising the blondie an inexhaustible supply of doenjang jjigae and permission to choose the movie you would watch. It was the second best thing you could give him, you were both aware of it, because your tastes in movies were pretty different and most of the time he was powerless against your arguments. You prayed he wouldn’t make you regret each one of your life decisions - such as letting him sit next to you at the American diner you had first met or befriending him - and make you watch something that left you with no other choice but to sleep with the lights on. You still couldn’t get over your unreasonable fear of rollercoasters because of your Final Destination marathon and that had been ages ago.

‘Hm, it smells delicious,’ your best friend’s voice came from the front door along with those struggling noises that coaxed a genuine chuckle out of you without witnessing his battle with his shoes. His habit to tie his laces so tightly it became impossible to get rid of his sneakers without his hands was beyond you, especially because his hands were almost always full. 

‘Better! It tastes delicious,’ you shouted back and turned off the stove with a snicker the same moment Felix finally emerged from the hall and walked past you to put his plastic bag on the counter and wash his hands by the kitchen sink.

As you two had previously agreed, he had taken a small detour to bring something sweet for dessert because while this jjigae recipe was your pride, you couldn’t bake to save your life and after numerous disheartening attempts in the past, you would have rather not given it another try at such a short notice.

‘What did you bring? Shortcakes? Pancakes?’ You asked while you stepped to your cabinet and took out half a dozen tiny bowls for your side dishes. The yellow radish in the lowest compartment in your fridge had been fermented by you a couple of weeks ago, but the napa cabbage and cucumber kimchis were new additions to your poor collection that you had purchased in the morning at the best organic food market downtown.

Although you couldn’t resist stealing a few bites here and there while you were distributing the side dishes, you did manage to leave the volcano steamed eggs untouched, which in itself was an achievement. Therefore, you let out a proud hum when you scanned the dining table, looking for important details you might have forgotten about.

‘Cupcakes,’ Felix said as he also opened your cabinet and fished out two inox rice bowls with their lids for the rice you had left in the rice cooker. Oh! How could you have forgotten about the rice? It was almost as important as your main dish.

You raised a brow without much elegance and watched as your best friend made himself at home in your humble flat.

‘They better be good,’ you threatened, although your voice was more playful than anything. It might have been over a month that you had set foot in Coffee Carat, but your friendly banters about those damned cupcakes and what delicious meant for the both of you had been a constant in your life ever since.

The pseudo-outraged scoff that left Felix’s mouth was the only retort you got, so you counted it as a win and didn’t drag out the topic. Instead, you put the jjigae in the middle of the table and let your friend dive in first although you were older than him. You were celebrating him, after all. And you had never been too keen on following conservative sentiments, anyway, like showing unconditional respect towards your elders and relatives. Your relationship with your parents had pretty much predetermined your thoughts on such matters. Thus, ever since you could have remembered, you appreciated one’s effort more than their age. Obviously, it had caused you headaches during your studies, but without a strict supervisor or a boss, it was almost too easy to live by your own rules. Even if it meant, some people called you rude and a disgraceful brat.

While eating, you listened to the blond boy’s endless chatter about the company dinner at which they had celebrated his promotion with his coworkers: how the other candidate, a loud guy named Yuksun who came from old money, had gotten wasted because he couldn’t have handled the decision. There were tears in your eyes from all that laughing when Felix’s story reached the climax, Yuksun’s futile attempts to drink Felix under the table being a comedy at its finest with the guy calling up his mom to take him home.

Since all you could have bragged about in exchange was the speed at which you had finished the tteokbokki you had ordered on Monday and the series you had almost finished the same day, you asked your friend about his girlfriend, because for 1) you genuinely liked how sweet she was and you had the habit of living your non-existent love life through their relationship and 2) you preferred the role of the attentive listener while eating.

‘She said it’s a surprise, but I’m pretty sure we’ll have a picnic,’ Felix said with a little laugh before he went into more details about Yewon’s lovely idea for their own, private celebration next week as she had needed to go home to Busan due to a family emergency you didn’t plan to pry about. It clearly wasn’t your business.

As always when you spent time with your best friend, your laugh was a bit more honest, your personality a bit more dorky and you couldn’t stay pissed at him for longer than two minutes when he chose a movie you would have never even considered watching without him being around. You were hiding behind the blondie’s shoulder, drumming with your legs out of fear and frustration while you reached for one of the cupcakes he had on a metal tray atop of his lap. You had sworn you wouldn’t have tried them until the movie had a calmer vibe, but you were already halfway through it and it showed no signs of less psychological torture.

Since your eyes were half-closed and the only source of light in the living room was your TV, you didn’t bother with checking which flavour you put your hand on. Instead, you peeled off the cupcake liner with one swift movement and took a huge bite from it as though Felix had ever restored your faith in his taste. 

Cinnamon and orange mixed perfectly atop of your tongue and the fluffy texture of the dough melted in your mouth. You needed to take another bite and one more to make sure your taste buds weren’t messing with you. The dessert your friend had brought was just this good.

‘Heol! These are heaven!’ You moaned a bit breathless when you tried a different flavour and it tasted just as good: the white chocolate and the raspberry complementing each other instead of fighting for dominance. You found yourself hoping Felix had brought dark chocolate ones, too, while you were simultaneously wondering which additional flavour would have balanced out the bitter aftertaste. Mango? Banana?

‘I know, right? Like I said, my favourite place,’ he bragged with a cheeky smile as he picked a random flavour and shoved the cupcake into your mouth. It tasted like salted caramel and reminded you of summer vacations when you had finally had enough money and freedom to visit the countryside on your own.

‘Oh, yeah? Where did you get these from?’ You asked between two bites. You narrowed your eyes and hovered over the tray, so that you could make a better judgement on the flavours of the remaining cupcakes. They all smelled delicious and two of them had that unmistakable, chocolatey aroma to them that made your mouth water.

‘Coffee Carat, obviously,’ Felix said and you snapped your head in his direction so abruptly, you headbutted his chin on accident, eliciting a groan from him with your carelessness.

In any other situation, the apology would have already rolled off your lips, but the revelation closed up your throat and made your tongue feel heavy. Confusion and disbelief knitted your brows together as you took another tentative bite from the cupcake in your hand. Obviously, it tasted nothing like the ones you had tried back in the coffee shop and suddenly the private messages you had gotten after you had posted your review flooded your mind.

Your fingertips dug into the soft texture of your dessert and the dough stuck under your nails, clinging into you like the memories of Mingyu’s whining that it hadn’t been his cupcakes you had tasted, that he wanted another chance to redeem his worth.

You didn’t notice how hard your teeth were tearing into your chapped lower lip until the damage was done and you could taste your own, coppery blood in your mouth. Fuck. Why were you feeling sorry for how you had replied to him when it didn’t change a thing. They had sold those cupcakes to you. And they were nothing special.

Your concerns must have been visible due to the deep furrows on your forehead and the small pout on your lips because the first thing your messy mind successfully took in was your best friend nudging you with a poorly concealed smile on his face. You straightened your posture and leaned your back against the backrest of your couch.

‘Is that guilt on your face?’

It was. However, you refused to acknowledge it out loud. That would have meant you had made a mistake when you had written your criticism, that blocking Mingyu hadn’t been the right thing to do and a rational part of you knew you did nothing wrong. Sure, lots of places, from high-end restaurants to family businesses, had a star chef or baker they advertised their menus with - especially when these people were not only talented, but handsome as well -, however, it didn’t necessarily mean they prepared all the food on their own. In fact! It was rather rare that one person was behind all the delicious creations. Which meant it was their own responsibility that each and every employee reached the bar.

‘Tsk, why would it be? I wrote about the food they served me,’ you retorted and stuffed the damned chocolate cupcake into your mouth out of spite so that Felix had no chance to taste it. Not that, in the back of your head, you weren’t aware that he must have been a regular at the coffee shop, hence could have tried all of these flavours out already.

To show your friend how determined you were to put an end to this conversation, you steeled yourself and kept your eyes on the screen even during the most disturbing scenes. You didn’t cave in when Felix tried to stare a hole into your temple with what you assumed was his best kicked puppy eyes. You didn’t seek shelter in the crook of his neck even when you felt like you were at your limit. You stayed strong, stubborn as a mule, and finished all the cupcakes on his tray as some sort of childish punishment that he let you have.

Damn. They tasted so much better. You hated the perfect balance of flavours and the fluffy yet filling texture with every fibre in your body - you did so almost as fervently as you loved each bite. You were clearly and unequivocally screwed.

You weren’t stupid. You might not have known every teeny tiny detail of Felix’s motives, but you should have been extremely oblivious to not realise he was trying to make you go back to Coffee Carat with the amount of cupcakes he had been bringing to your friendly dates lately. Even when you had been supposed to go out and grab some coffee at a different place, he had managed to bring you some of the sweet desserts for later and acted like it was perfectly normal to walk into a café and order brownies with another place’s cupcakes in your hand.

Slowly but surely he had been getting on your nerves until the situation had gotten to a point where you had needed to confront him whether he had accepted money from those people in exchange for his help. The accusation had earned an offended scoff from the blondie, but you had had every right to be suspicious, so you had refused to apologise.

Instead, you were thinking of ways he could have made it up to you when fueled by Felix’s persistence that festered into your own, growing guilt, you crossed the threshold of Coffee Carat for a second time, barely three months after your first visit.

While you were waiting for your turn in front of the counter, you gave yourself a pep talk and brainstormed about how you should have recorded your video differently since the interior design barely changed over the months. It more or less took your mind off the unfamiliarity of the situation and the possibility of another disappointment.

‘Hey! You came back!’ The barista who had approached you last time said, his smile so big and bright that it made you believe he still liked you and your articles despite your opinion about his workplace. His attitude made you grateful; you made a mental note to mention his professionalism in your follow-up criticism. ‘Are you here to try out our seasonal specials? They’re made with peaches.’

You stole a quick glance at the displays: all those cold drinks and sweets that were made with peaches, but still shook your head.

‘No, actually I’m here to—’

‘You!’ Someone exclaimed and you turned your head in the direction from where you heard the voice on instinct just how Seokmin did.

The man whose index finger was pointing at you was almost too tall to stand on the threshold comfortably, but somehow he managed even with his chin held high and his spine unnaturally straight. The flickering flames in his chocolate brown eyes dressed your arms in goosebumps, but you stood your ground and resisted the urge to look behind your back and check whether he was talking to someone else.

‘Me?’ You asked, breaking the momentary silence, eyebrows furrowed more because of your confusion than his intimidating aura.

‘Yes, you!’ The man claimed and let his hand fall back by his side before he took a few loose steps towards you and grabbed your wrist so naturally like he had every right to touch you even though the two of you had never met before.

Later, when your nosy best friend would ask you where did your survival instincts go when a random guy dragged you to the closest empty table without your consent, you would put all the blame on how freaking ridiculous this whole situation was. You wouldn’t admit that his grip was actually gentle or that he smelled like raspberry and chocolate, one of your all time favourite combinations. The latter two were obviously irrelevant.

‘Wait here!’ He commanded leaving you no choice but to comply because of how quick he was to turn his back on you as soon as he pulled the chair out for you and pushed you down on the hard, wooden furniture. You had never been so lost for words in your entire life.

As the shock started to slowly wear off, you contemplated whether you should have stood up and finished your order at the counter, but considering that Seokmin had done nothing to save you from this man and they were wearing the same uniform, you assumed it was for the best if you did as he asked you. Worst case scenario, you could still ask for the manager or make a complaint directly to the owner. Nothing too extreme that would have gotten him fired, but something that would have made him think twice before he did anything like this to another customer in the future.

You were a strong believer that manners should have been of the utmost importance in every establishment in the catering industry.

It was the sharp sound of a metal tray colliding with the top of your table that pulled you back to the present, the delicious smell of freshly baked cupcakes only registering in you a couple of seconds later. In front of you, there were at least a dozen of different flavours from peach and white chocolate through bananas and cinnamon to raspberry and mint. The amount of saliva that gathered in your mouth at the heavenly sight wasn’t even funny.

Caution being thrown out the window, you acted on autopilot when you reached out for one with melted chocolate chips on top and took a huge bite from it. Good gracious! It tasted just as good as everything else Felix had brought for your friendly dates.

‘Here! It’s on the house,’ a familiar voice said and you shifted your gaze from the iced white mocha to the person who had placed it in front of you, worry clear and evident in his words. ‘Please, forgive him for acting so disrespectfully.’

Seokmin looked like he was about to throw up (or throw fists, you really weren’t sure) when his eyes accidentally met yours and he bent his back so quickly and deeply, you were afraid he would hit his forehead into his knees because of the momentum. 

‘I’m not acting disrespectfully. She’s the one who blocked me for no reason,’ the giant said, proving your assumptions right. He was an employee at the shop: the baker who was praised by many and defended by even more because of his delicious creations. As childish as he acted, you had to admit that a part of you could understand why he was so upset about your article. It mocked his worth and hurt his ego although you still stood by your opinion. It was on them that they had sold those average quality desserts.

‘Dude, shut up,’ Seokmin hissed, the action so raw and human that you had to swallow back an amused chuckle. Their friendly bickering in the customer area, right in front of a customer no less, was highly unprofessional, but somehow you couldn’t mind their actions. You should have done so, you always did, but their duo was more entertaining than anything else, so you let them be for a couple of more seconds before you cleared your throat.

‘It’s okay. I appreciate your kindness, but I would rather pay for this,’ you said with a small tilt of your head. You lifted your mug a bit higher, then pointed your index finger at the tray on the table. ‘And the cupcakes as well.’

‘You don’t…’ Seokmin started, but you dismissed his worries with a firm set of mocha-tinted lips and a pair of eyes that accepted no further objection.

‘I insist,’ you added before you took another sip, satisfied with the silence that followed your statement. You watched as the barista’s gaze met his coworker’s for a brief moment before he nodded in a tentative manner, reassuring you that in case you finished, you wouldn’t have to wait in line to pay until it was him behind the counter, and turned his back on you two.

Knowing well that you wouldn’t have jumped the queue even if you hadn’t had the entire day for yourself, you stared at his back while leaving for a tad bit longer than it was necessary, then turned back to the giant with a raised eyebrow. 

‘So?’ He asked as soon as he had all your attention and you took another bite from the dessert for good measure, as though you hadn’t been addicted to his cupcakes since the day Felix and you had celebrated your best friend’s promotion.

‘They’re one of the best cupcakes I’ve ever tried,’ you admitted, blunt and raw in the way you formed your opinion, which earned a goofy smile from the baker. His sharp canines and naturally rosy lips did something to your head; you almost bit back the rest of your words just to protect his smile, but the realisation what you had been about to do horrified you enough to sober you up and push you forwards. ‘But you have to understand that I still can’t give this place a ten even though it might deserve a correction,’ you claimed, turning back ahead, so that you faced the table, at the first sight of an ugly twitch in the corner of his mouth.

Considering what you had already seen from his personality, you had a vague idea what to expect and with his darkening facial expression and pitched voice, the man did not prove you wrong.

‘What? But you’ve just said it yourself that—’

You lifted your empty hand next to your head to make Mingyu shut up before he could have started a tantrum. You had already known he felt wronged, you didn’t need the reminder.

‘Your cupcakes are exceptional, but this place clearly has employees whose aren’t,’ you said, not letting your arm fall back on your lap until you were at least eighty percent sure that he understood your reasoning.

Mingyu’s pouty lips and sad eyes made him look like a giant puppy who had been kicked out from home and your heart clenched when you saw him shift his weight from one foot to the other while he was struggling with his thoughts. The furrows on his forehead made it clear that he desperately wanted to come up with a good comeback that could have potentially changed your mind, but to his misfortune, there was no such thing. You spoke straight facts no one could argue with.

‘I didn’t even want a baker’s assistant, it’s all Rina noona’s fault,’ he mumbled, his complaint quiet enough to make you question whether these words had been meant to be spoken in the first place.

In the end, you didn’t ask for a more detailed explanation nor did you make comments on how he should have trained his assistant better instead of putting the blame on a third party. You simply took another cupcake in your hand and opted for letting him know with your dismissive body language that your decision was final.

Luckily, the afternoon rush was about to start and the more people walked into the coffee shop, the less baked goods stayed behind the displays. Therefore, the man had to go back to the kitchen and leave you alone with your cupcakes despite the desperation in each one of his movements that made it painfully obvious that he didn’t want to give up yet.

Without his overbearing gaze suffocating you, you could finish your food in a good mood and record a few videos for your channel as well before you walked up to the line in front of the counter and paid once it was your turn.

It might have gone against your principles to visit a place so soon just because your criticism made them upset, but these cupcakes… they were worth bending your ways for. Even if you refused to redeem their name entirely.

You had never been at Coffee Carat with Felix before. Not because you refused to go back to the coffee shop after your second visit, but because you liked to discover new gems during your friendly dates and the blondie had never complained about it so far.

However, when one of the chefs you had given a bad review decided to mess with your tires and fuck up your car, that was where your best friend took you after his shift to take your mind off your horrible day.

‘No way man! Is she your girlfriend?’ The blond barista asked as soon as his gaze fell on you and Felix and you furrowed your brows in confusion because of two totally different things: 1) since when was your best friend so close with the employees of this place that they used not only informal speech with him, but threw their manners out the window when they talked to him? And 2) how could this guy mistake you for Yewon when your personalities and your preferences in clothes and colours couldn’t have been more different?

A part of you was convinced that the couple was a regular at the shop, hence the only logical explanation you could have come to was that this barista was either a newbie or somehow he never worked when those two walked into Coffee Carat together.

‘Best friend,’ came the correction from your right and the mortified look on the barista’s face made up for his mistake generously. His red cheeks and crimson ears, his dilating eyes tugged on the corners of your lips and coaxed an amused scoff out of you.

‘I’ll have an iced white mocha and a brownie, please,’ you decided to order to spare all three of you from embarrassment and turned towards Felix with the intent to ask him whether he wanted to carry out the whole cheering-you-up agenda and pay for your drink or you should have fished your wallet out of your bag. 

‘No cupcakes?’ The boy asked before you could have spoken and you pressed your lips into a firm line, not pondering over the question for longer than three seconds. Felix was right. You had had a terrible encounter with a maniac earlier that day. You deserved the extra dessert.

Humming in contemplation, you eyed the cupcakes behind the display and pointed at the pile that was placed behind the plastic card I Feel Peachy written on it.

‘And two of those,’ you asked, feeling a bit better already at the sight of the generous amount of chocolate chips sprinkled atop of the cupcakes. You hoped they were made by Mingyu and not the giant baker’s assistant as you were rather sceptical that he had trained his subordinate to perfection in the past few weeks.

‘That’s my girl,’ Felix cheered and asked for a matcha latte and a brownie, swiping his card like he was a billionaire.

Only later, when you were sitting in the customer area, teasing your best friend because of his sugar daddy vibe, did you get to know that so close to the closing time every baked good was sold for a lower price. It surprised you, pleasantly so, and you couldn’t have helped but think that it was very nice of the owner to prioritise not having too much leftover instead of money. After all, those pastries they failed to sell by the time they closed the shop couldn’t have been sold the following morning. They had to be thrown out according to the local regulations.

You were thinking of buying some more cakes to support the shop and their attempt to reduce food waste when someone pushed the front door open with such force, the wood crashed into the wall with an alarming thud. Your best friend and you - along with the other six customers in the coffee shop - snapped your head in the intruder’s direction, shocked by the petite girl’s dishevelled hair and tense body language. She looked like she had come here to commit murder and you had never been more relieved in your life that it hadn’t been you who had rubbed another person the wrong way.

‘Do you kno—’

‘Where is he?’ She demanded, pointing at the blond barista accusatively as though he had already refused to answer her question when in reality he just seemed too speechless to form a coherent sentence. You felt bad for him, but you weren’t sure you had any right to confront this girl - not to mention that you had enough drama in your life with a vengeful chef who had promised to make you regret ruining his career. Considering that he hadn’t been fired after giving you food poisoning, you were convinced that he was stretching it.

You lowkey wondered whether this girl was acting like a drama queen as well or her attitude was justified. Not that you supported screaming in public under any circumstances.

‘Excuse me, miss! Who are you looking for?’ The blond barista asked as soon as he collected himself and you leaned your elbow on the table so that you could have rested your chin atop of your palm. Although his reaction time was definitely on the slower side of the scale, you were genuinely impressed by his manners; you were sure you would have failed miserably if you had been the one who had to handle a cyclone like this girl.

‘That good-for-nothing Kim Mingyu, who else?’ She spat, not giving a damn about the man who walked into the coffee shop after her or the old woman who tried to make an order, but failed to gain the barista’s attention because of her tantrum.

You watched as a handsome guy with round, nerdy glasses rushed out of the staff only area with an anxious-looking girl behind his back and wondered when she had disappeared behind the curtains to find the manager because you admittedly hadn’t paid too much attention to her presence. You had been too engrossed in your own world and the wide variety of desserts you could have chosen from.

In your defence, you were sure most customers didn’t care about the staff of these kinds of places, only that one employee who was serving them.

‘I’m not leaving until he grows some balls and speaks to me!’ The girl claimed angrily when the guy said something to her in a voice too quiet to be audible from where you were sitting. You lifted your drink in front of your lips and took a small sip, just as shocked as Felix was when the girl pushed the manager aside and hit the counter with her palms. Your bewildered gaze met your best friend’s eyes for a sheer second before you both turned back towards the ongoing drama. ‘I know you’re in there,’ she pointed at the door close to the counter. ‘Come out you self-centred bastard or else I’ll drag you out myself.’

While everyone was waiting for the baker to make an appearance - you saw two teenage boys recording the happenings with their phones -, you recalled your first encounter with the giant, puppy-like boy and wondered what he could have potentially done to piss this tiny girl off so badly. Considering that he had completely disregarded your personal space last time, you had a couple of ideas, but for some reason none of those sounded too believable, not even in your head. Sure, he was headstrong and whiny, but would he have hurt her on purpose?

You shook your head. It didn’t matter what you thought. You didn’t know him.

Still, you sucked in your breath when the baker walked out the door with a piece of cloth on his shoulder. He looked like a mess: there was flour on his apron and shirt, his hair stuck out in numerous directions and he also had some dirt on his chin although you couldn’t have told what exactly. Maybe some chocolate cream or cinnamon syrup.

‘I’m here. Can you please stop making a scene?’ Mingyu asked in a surprisingly icy tone that complemented his rigid posture perfectly. His arms were linked in front of his chest in a way that highlighted his muscles and you had to take another sip from your mocha to cool down before your imagination could have run wild. So what if he had looked like someone who hit up the gym frequently? Trouble was clearly written all over his face with capital letters.

‘Why? Does this feel humiliating to you? Am I humiliating you?’ The girl asked with a scoff, tilting her head to the right to mock him with her body language, too. You knew the type: she was petty and ready to give back tenfold whatever Mingyu had done to her. ‘Then you finally know how I felt when I was waiting for you for hours in that restaurant where even breathing in the wrong way is a crime,’ she raised her voice even more, enlightening everyone on what had hurt her so much and getting different reactions from those who were witnessing their (pretty much one-sided) fight. Looking around in the customer area, you saw your best friend shaking his head in disappointment and a boy having enough of the drama and turning back to his laptop. One girl pointed at Mingyu while whispering to the person next to her. You just drank some more. You had been to those kinds of restaurants dozens of times. You had no doubt the experience had been humiliating. Especially if it had been her first time at a place like that where even the waitresses wore tailored uniforms. ‘They had to send me away so that people who actually went there to order more than a glass of wine could eat,’ the girl spat, her frustration slurring her words a little at the end of her monologue.

You felt sorry for her even though you thought she was overreacting.

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve already told grams I’m not interested in going on random blind dates she and her friends set up for me,’ Mingyu said, not taking his eyes off the girl he had stood up intentionally or unintentionally. He claimed it was their grandmothers who had organised the date, but he had never said he hadn’t known when and where he should have shown up. Did he have the girl’s number saved? Did he know her name?

‘Not interested?’ She scoff-laughed. ‘You think you’re so amazing because you’re tall? Your skin looks like you were sweating on a farm your whole life, pathetic, really. I wouldn’t want a second date with your sorry ass even if you begged,’ she said with her index finger pointed at the baker. She acted more pathetic than a minute before if that had been possible.

Objectively speaking, everyone must have been aware that Mingyu’s beautiful, tanned skin didn’t fit your country’s ridiculous beauty standards, but this was the core problem with how a lot of people in South Korea looked at beauty. It should have been a subjective matter, not a long list with endless items everyone tried to tick off.

You genuinely believed that the boy’s natural, sun-kissed skin looked a lot healthier than the pale complexion many people desired to have and tried to achieve with make-up.

‘Excuse me, miss,’ the manager raised his voice while taking a step to the left to protect the baker from the girl as though there hadn’t been a big enough distance between the two. ‘We don’t tolerate degrading comments like this in our coffee shop. I need to ask you to leave or else I’ll call the police,’ he gave the petite girl a fair warning, something you weren’t sure she deserved, but knew it was necessary.

‘The police? On what grounds?’ She asked back, shifting a part of her attention to the person who was talking to her without really looking at the young man. Instead, she put her other hand on her hip, too, shaking her head.

‘You’re disturbing the peace, harassing the employees and as of now, you’re banned from the shop, which means you’re trespassing,’ the manager listed, making you furrow your brows in question. You might have done a detailed research on media law when you had started to gain fame on the internet just to avoid some unwanted, nasty consequences, but you had obviously never studied law. You had no idea whether she really committed trespassing if she refused to leave, but the manager sounded confident enough for you to consider it as a valid option. The question was whether she believed him as well or was willing to take a chance.

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

You sucked in a breath and leaned a little closer to the commotion subconsciously. This girl was clearly furious, most probably because she had felt humiliated in that restaurant, but was it really worth being called the cops on?

‘Seungkwan, call the police, please. Tell them that—’

‘Screw you! All of you,’ she screamed into the manager’s face, pointing at the blond barista, Mingyu and everyone who were watching the drama. Then, she pushed the manager’s broad shoulder with her hand, fueled with frustration, and turned her back on everyone, so that she could speed-walk to the double door.

The straw between your teeth was so damaged, you could barely use it anymore when your gaze loitered over the employees a tad bit longer than it should have and your eyes met the baker’s chocolate orbs. You turned your head away so quickly like he burnt, shame creeping under your skin and tinting your ears and neck crimson in fist-sized patches. There was no way he didn’t know now that you had been paying attention to the drama, which meant he must have thought you were nosy.

You let out a pained groan.

‘People are getting crazier and crazier these days,’ Felix commented and you needed to make extra effort to not concentrate on your iced mocha in a way that could have been considered suspicious when you let out an affirmative hum.

Despite having your own car and preferring it over the crowded metros and buses you should have taken to get around in the city, you knew how public transportation worked. You even had your own T-money card somewhere in your wallet, so you really didn’t understand why your best friend acted like he owed you a ride home when he told you that he had plans with two of the baristas after closing time. Clearly, you had had a terrible day and your car had been caught in the crossfire, but you were also an adult. You could get your ass on the metro when you needed to.

‘I can take her home,’ you heard a familiar voice say and you both snapped your head in the baker’s direction on instinct, slim fingers tightening around the paper cup of iced coffee you had gotten along with the cupcakes you had purchased for the morning.

As if he had no shame, Mingyu shot a lopsided smile in your direction and made no attempt to hide that he had been eavesdropping. His elbow was still resting atop of the counter while his chin was casually on the back of his hand.

‘Would you really? Thanks, mate! You’re a lifesaver,’ your best friend exclaimed, completely disregarding the displeased glares you were giving him. He knew damn well that you didn’t like owing people, let alone someone you weren’t close with. If anything, the fact that the two of you had known each other for years and you still had problems receiving help from him when you were sick should have been a telltale sign.

You cleared your throat to express that you also had your own two cents to throw into the conversation that should have involved you in the first place.

‘Thank you, but I can take the metro. It’s no big deal, really, Felix’s just acting like I’m still five and snotty,’ you declined the baker’s offer with a patient smile, keeping your cool with grace in your every movement: in the way you held your chin high, how you lifted your paper cup in front of your lips. You took a small sip from your drink as elegantly yet unbothered as you could, mentally ready to leave the coffee shop for another month or two.

A boy and a girl left the building in the background, the unmistakable sound of a heavy door slipping into its frame encouraging you to bid your goodbye, too.

However, you were too slow.

‘She lives in Hongdae,’ your best friend said so casually, it made you wonder whether he was oblivious of the dangers of such a statement in public or he would have trusted this guy with his life and was messing with you on purpose.

‘Yongbok!’ You hissed, but he just laughed it off with a gentle wave of his hand as if you had been pseudo-sulking and he had better things to discuss than dealing with you. You bit into your cheeks and swallowed down a curse, making a mental note to tell on him to Yewon, because you knew for a fact that she would have taken your side without a second thought. She was a young girl who had moved to the capital city because of her studies. She knew the differences between the countryside and Seoul at night and in general. 

‘Then it’s not even a detour,’ Mingyu said and you rolled your eyes, because he couldn’t have known for sure just from the district. It was a big area, considering the traffic, it could have meant an hour-long detour, too, for all you cared. 

Honestly, you didn’t understand why he had offered you a ride in the first place. It wasn’t that the two of you were friends. You might have written a correction about his cupcakes, but his blog was still blocked on your Tumblr.

When his gaze landed on you, you let out a sigh.

‘It’s already dark outside. Let me take you home,’ Mingyu asked after he finally spared you a glance and it took everything in you to not squeeze the living daylight out of your coffee. You didn’t want to inconvenience the baristas who would need to clean up the mess, especially because both Seungkwan and Junhui had been fun when they had prepared your orders.

‘What makes you think I’m comfortable with you knowing where I live?’ You asked back, tongue sharp and merciless. Obviously, you would have liked to believe that your best friend wouldn’t have pushed you into a shady person’s arms just to be able to hang out with his other friends right after closing time, but the baker was technically still a stranger, so you had every right to put up your defences even if some considered it rude. It was your life, your sense of safety.

The silence that fell upon your trio didn’t resemble anything poetic. It didn’t feel like a warm blanket that shielded you from the cold; it wasn’t ugly and sticky and uncomfortable. Instead, it existed without picking on your skin or filtering out the background noise.

You gulped when memories from an hour prior popped up in your mind. You saw the petite girl storming into the coffee shop, screaming at Mingyu and calling him a farmer like it was an insult. You saw the baker’s unbothered facial expression slowly morphing into something sad and you could feel your resolve breaking as your brain identified the sight with a kicked puppy. You swore, the boy’s chocolate orbs were shining in the artificial light, tricking your heart into thinking he was about to cry.

‘Fine,’ you groaned in defeat. ‘Do you need me to wait here or…’

Mingyu’s smile was blinding.

‘Give me five more minutes and we can go,’ he promised and you acknowledged his words with a silent nod before you took a seat by a random, empty table.

You liked to believe that you were an independent, mature adult, but after the bravado he had pulled, it wasn’t below you to give your best friend the silent treatment. Thus, you paid him no mind while you were waiting and bid him goodbye only because it would have been rude if you hadn’t. You didn’t hate him. You simply wanted him to think twice before he had even thought of doing something similar to this in the future without your permission.

A part of you was hoping that the ride to your apartment complex would be spent in silence, maybe, listening to the radio or a playlist you would have never put on on your own, but of course you couldn’t have been so lucky. You couldn’t have reached the first red light, Mingyu was already rambling about his grandmother and her obsession with his love life as he was her only single grandchildren.

‘Look, it’s really not my business. I’m sorry I was eavesdropping when that girl came in, but in my defence, it was hard not to,’ you decided to put an end to both of your suffering, since it wasn’t an easy topic - family had never been one, not to you at least. If he insisted that you should have gotten to know each other while you were in his car, you would have much preferred starting with lighter subjects like what had made him become a baker or how he had come up with those recipes he was so proud of. Food… that you could have talked about for hours.

‘I know, I’m just saying tha—’

‘I can’t bake to save my life,’ you blurted out the first thing you could think of before he could have given you another lengthy explanation he didn’t owe you at all. Whether Mingyu had stood that girl up intentionally or he had underestimated the length his grandmother was willing to go to like he had said, it didn’t matter to you. At the end of the day, even if you had become acquaintances, you weren’t interested in him romantically, were you?

‘What?’ He snapped his head in your direction, making you point towards the road ahead in fear.

‘Eyes on the road!’ You demanded and you didn’t let your hand fall back on your lap until he did as you said. Once the shock of the moment passed, you needed to take a few deeper breaths to calm your heart, while the baker on your left let out an embarrassed, little laugh like he didn’t actually know what to do with himself.

You were grateful that he didn’t let go of the steering wheel with one of his hands to scratch his nape awkwardly like most people usually did in similar situations. Not the letting go of the steering wheel part, but the unconscious scratching.

‘Would you like me to teach you? How to bake,’ Mingyu specified, his question rolling off his lips with a little uncertainty, like he was fearing your reaction, which was ridiculous. You didn’t have a significant place in each other’s life, you were nobody to him but a girl who had dared to criticise his workplace and knew a guy his coworkers were close with.

You raised an eyebrow. Where was the infamous confidence that urged him to drag you to an empty table without a fair warning and feed you with his best desserts just to prove a point?

‘If I remember correctly, you didn’t want your own baker’s assistant. What makes you think you’re not an insufferable teacher?’ You asked, not out of spite, just to trigger a reaction that showed which one was the real him. Was his confidence all an act, something he perfected over the years because of his relatively handsome face? Did his personality change so much around particular people? Was it harder for him to believe in himself because of the article you had written about Coffee Carat or because he didn’t know what to expect from you?

Mingyu’s laugh was deep and it reverberated around the interior of the car, tugging on your edges and smoothing them effortlessly.

‘That’s a fair point. We might have to give it a try to figure it out,’ he teased as he took a turn to the right then stopped at the end of a painfully long line in front of the closest red lights. The traffic was as heavy as you had predicted. ‘But really, my offer still stands,’ he made sure you were aware and you acknowledged it with a curt nod.

It wasn’t that you totally hated the idea, you just weren’t sure you wanted to accept his offer and spend time together with him in an informal environment. Not because you thought he was bound to catch feelings for you; you knew more frequently than not people simply didn’t feel that spark regardless of one’s looks. Instead, you had doubts you could manage one more person in your private life. You might have been your own boss, you might have been able to spare time for friends almost whenever you wanted, but keeping in touch with more than two or three people at the same time was draining even for your generally extroverted ass. You didn’t like retelling a story multiple times, sometimes you were demotivated to answer texts immediately. One more person meant one more relationship to put effort into.

Unless he gave up on you as soon as he saw what a disaster you were in the kitchen when it came to desserts.

‘Can I turn on the radio?’ You asked after a couple of heartbeats, sneaking a glance at the boy by your side, trying to decipher how he felt about your question and your dismissive attitude. Was he disappointed? Did he feel stupid for bringing it up?

‘Sure,’ he agreed kindly, letting you pick a channel and telling you in way too much detail how you could have connected your phone to the audio system if you couldn’t find anything up to your liking.

During the rest of the ride, you didn’t speak much. You chose the first channel that played a pop song you were distantly familiar with and opted for staring out the window, watching the colourful neon lights blending into the yellow beams of the street lamps.

Still, when it was time to say goodbye, it wasn’t unpleasant or unnerving. On the contrary, there was a visible smile in the corner of your mouth when you closed the passenger door and lifted your hand for a polite wave.

You unblocked Mingyu’s blog on Tumblr two weeks later, in early August, when your best friend was unavailable because of an unannounced family visit - an early birthday surprise from Australia because his parents couldn’t take any days off at the same time in September - and you had too much food to eat on your own. The two of you had planned to have another movie night, so you had ordered plenty of mandus, kimbap balls and tteokbokki, while Felix had been supposed to bring dessert, which is why the giant baker came to your mind in the first place.

you: “is your offer still standing?”

You sent the message with quite low expectations. After all, it had been months since you had last spoken on this platform and you couldn’t have been sure whether he had remembered it existed. Based on the default profile picture he had and the lack of reblogs other than a couple of cooking memes from a month ago, you honestly doubted he checked on it regularly.

And he really didn’t. But at least the food didn’t taste horrible after you reheated it the next day in the microwave.

Your bi-weekly baking sessions with Mingyu had started with a bunch of double-texts:

milkgyuandcookies: “are you free tonight?” milkgyuandcookies: “i’ll be there in an hour just need to take a quick detour” milkgyuandcookies: “with which flavour should we start?” milkgyuandcookies: “seokmin said felix said you like chocolate so i bought chocolate chips and tons of cocoa powder” you: “are you really coming? like… are you really on your way here?” you: “what if i’m busy? or if i’m not even at home?” milkgyuandcookies: “are you?” milkgyuandcookies: “that’s a bit awkward then cuz i’m already here” milkgyuandcookies: “so you’re really not home?” you: “…” you: “give me five minutes”

Mingyu as a teacher was more patient with you than you had expected him to be based on his displeased comment on his baker’s assistant and a lot more zealous than he should have been considering your repeated mistakes with the baking soda that made even you, a complete newbie, feel tired and snappy on the fourth week, let alone a professional. Shouldn’t have he gotten tired of you after the second time you failed to measure the powder accurately? If your pride could have taken the blow, you would have given up on baking a long time ago.

‘I still think it’s the size of your kitchen,’ Mingyu claimed after he crouched down and took the tray out of your oven. Watching him move around in your small space, you remembered the disbelief on his face when he had first come over: how he couldn’t have believed there were kitchens out there where the oven and the fridge weren’t built into the complete set of kitchen furniture, preferably at his chest’s height as though being so tall was common in your country.

‘Yeah, sure,’ you shook your head in amusement, loving the chocolatey smell of the cupcakes you had baked, the third and most promising attempt that night.

You reached for the cream you had prepared for decoration, skipping on the fondant because last time you had given it a try, it took hours to make them look good and you started to get tired of standing. As usual, Mingyu had come over after his morning shift around four and it was already nearing eight. Thankfully, you had had a dinner break an hour ago.

‘No, but listen! With more space, you could feel less crowded and more relaxed,’ he argued, coaxing an airy scoff out of you when he hit your hand lightly to remind you to be patient. The cupcakes were still hot, you shouldn’t have touched them with bare hands.

‘Just admit you want to show off your kitchen and shut up,’ you groaned pseudo-annoyed with a hint of a smile hiding in the corner of your lips. You were genuinely waiting for the comment, anticipating it even, and if you wanted to be honest, you had heard so much about his kitchen equipment by now, you were actually considering asking Mingyu to facetime you from home just to show you around. However, your curiosity needed to stop there for both of your sake. ‘I won’t go over to your place just to destroy your kitchen, too. I don’t earn that well,’ you complained and watched him as he placed the warm cupcakes on two separate porcelain plates.

When Mingyu’s hand came to a halt in midmotion, you slid your gaze from the dessert to his face. He looked at you sceptically like he was about to call you out on your bullshit and you shrugged in response. Okay, maybe you earned that well, but it wasn’t what mattered.

‘What if I want you to come over, so I could cook for you? We could call it a date,’ he asked and it was your turn to raise a brow. By now, you knew that his confident and insecure selves came hand in hand, but it was the first time he didn’t beat around the bush by flirting with you shamelessly.

On most occasions, Mingyu brushed aside his own advances with a carefree chuckle before you could have taken him seriously. This time, however, he kept his warm eyes on your face, waiting.

You looked away and cleared your throat.

‘Aren’t there like a dozen of granddaughters in your hometown who are waiting for your grandma to set them up with you?’ You asked, because you could and because deep down you were a little desperate to avoid answering his question with the level of seriousness he most probably wanted you to. The teasing chuckle that stuck in your throat tasted bitter, like a nasty knot that went bad the moment you decided to not let it out.

You took a transparent bag filled with lilac coloured cream in your hand and pulled one of the porcelain plates closer to yourself.

‘You know I hate those blind dates,’ he claimed firmly and you hummed because you knew. Mingyu had the habit of giving you detailed explanations about things that were absolutely not your business. How could you have not known at this point? ‘I only go on dates with girls I genuinely want to get to know. I really don’t understand what’s so bad about this! So what if I don’t date that much, it’s not like I’ll die alone,’ he groaned, the pain in his tone so real, you could feel it in your own chest. You were being unfair and you did feel bad. However, taking him seriously would have meant you had to give him an honest answer and you weren’t sure you were ready for the consequences.

It was easier when it was all about harmless flirting.

Sneaking a glance at the boy on your left, you recognised his frustration in the way the deep furrow between his brows became even more bottomless and you swallowed your guilt when the thought that he looked adorable with his darted out tongue crossed your mind.

‘I don’t think it’s bad,’ you stated, late enough to call it an afterthought, but not too late to make things awkward with your commentary. Or so you hoped.

‘But you don’t think it’s maintainable,’ Mingyu retorted, finishing the rose petals on his first cupcake with ease while the cream was still hanging clumsily in your hand. You took a deep breath and got to work.

‘I’m only saying you have a lot of options,’ you explained and while your words came out less neutral than you would have preferred, you kept your focus on your dessert to make up for the pinch of annoyance in your voice. You shouldn’t have cared how many girls he could have gotten with a flick of his fingers, so you told yourself you didn’t.

‘So? There are hundreds of restaurants that want you to write about them. Still, I don’t see you eating out every single night,’ he argued, forcing your brain to see the logic behind his metaphor.

You nodded in acknowledgement as you got started on your next cupcake, not finding the perfect retort for a couple of minutes, but thankfully, Mingyu didn’t rush you. Instead, he put a second colour in his plastic bag atop of the first pastel cream and created the most beautiful lilac-marigold roses you had ever seen.

If you wanted to be honest, you would have admitted you were scared. Not of Mingyu, even though he had some questionable habits you were still trying to adjust to and accept - but who didn’t have those -, but of a romantic relationship with another person: the quality time you had to spend with a significant other, the responsibilities you needed to share. How long could you two have been together before everyone around you started to talk about marriage and babies? How long could you have been with Mingyu before he started to yearn for all the conservative steps a relationship entailed?

What if you had fallen in love with him one day, but not the idea of raising his children? You liked your freedom and the simplicity of taking care of only yourself although life in general could be difficult.

You went over the pros and cons in your head repeatedly, until there were no more cupcakes in front of you without a poor attempt of a rose on top of them and reached for a chopstick as soon as you made up your mind. Sure, Mingyu might have been childish and whiney and a lot of immature adjectives in your dictionary. He wasn’t familiar with personal space when it was convenient to him and his ego could take only one or two blows when it came to his profession.

However, he gave you space and time when he realised you needed it and made you laugh with his dorky behaviour more frequently than not. He was patient and optimistic. He baked the most delicious desserts you had ever tasted and hated those disgusting movies Felix used to drive you out of the world under the disguise of your friendly dates.

Your hand was shaking slightly when you scraped the sugary cream off your last cupcake with intent behind each one of your swipes. Then, with your breath caught in your throat, you slid the finished baked good in front of Mingyu.

To keep your mind busy and the mood nonchalant, you didn’t turn towards the boy to ogle at his reaction. You simply walked up to the sink and washed your hands, so that they would be clean when you placed each one of your cupcakes on a tray that fit into your fridge.

You became aware of Mingyu’s presence right behind you sooner than you felt the light touch of his dirty arms around your shoulders. You shuddered from the unexpected weight he put on you. Or was your body reacting to the warmth of his breath against your ear?

‘I’ll never eat it. Never,’ he claimed and you rolled your eyes (affectionately).

‘Sure, I worked so hard to bake and decorate these, so that you wouldn’t eat them,’ you said, then turned off the tap water without pulling away or making any attempt at putting more distance between the two of you.

For a split second, you hesitated whether you should have turned around in his arms to make him let you go with your sharp gaze, but soon you came to the conclusion that doing so would have been too risky in the current situation. The ugly, clumsily craved “yes” on the top of your cupcake might have given him enough confidence to realise he also had some power over you. It wasn’t just the other way around.

In the end, you stepped aside, but he still followed you like a giant puppy, his chin resting on your shoulder. Your movements felt uncoordinated as though your body was suddenly three sizes bigger, but you managed to reach the kitchen counter and the confession you had left on it.

Grabbing the lukewarm dessert, you lifted it to your lips, but before you could have taken a huge bite from it, Mingyu linked his long fingers around your wrist and pulled it in front of his own mouth. The crumbs that accidentally fell into your shirt tickled your skin in places that were lowkey unpleasant, but instead of scolding him, you turned your head and dived into the sweets from a different angle.

‘Delicious,’ the baker moaned, exaggerating, earning another eye roll from you and you two finished the cupcake in the middle of your small kitchen until the back hugging position got too painful to maintain due to your height difference.

That night, while you were cleaning the kitchen, you promised Mingyu that you would show him the coolest restaurants in the city and that he could have called all of your dinners dates if he wanted. In exchange, he promised to bake you every cake from his grams’ famous recipe book, which you, too, were allowed to call a date.

You doubted it fitted the definition, but you didn’t draw his attention to his mistake. You were too content to care about semantics when you (thought you) knew exactly what he meant and couldn’t wait to experience it all.

➼ next reason

[lily-blue]

You can call me villain, whatever, it’s fine

☆ characters: villain!jeno & girlfriend!you ☆ genre: villain (origin story-ish) au, dystopian au ☆ warnings: mention of murder, violence, psychological abuse, helplessness ☆ request: DV33. form this prompt list ☆ summary: Jeno loves you so much, he would do absolutely anything - everything - to shield you from the cruelty of other people ☆ words: 2,1k ☆ dedicated to: @dat-town​​ ♥

When your boyfriend of eight months started to act weird a few weeks after your disastrous birthday party, you had exciting and terrifying ideas about what could have been behind the sudden attitude change. Like most people with a childhood trauma and a horrible luck with friends, you were also quick to surrender to your insecurities, which made you think that your step-mother’s entitled behaviour had made Jeno realise that you weren’t worth his time: he was cheating on you, he was trying to come up with a painless way to dump you because he was just that sweet, or he was doing both. On particularly sensitive days, the mere possibility of the latter made you cry for hours to no end.

However, the night when Jeno insisted on picking you up from work to take you to his place for your semi-impromptu date night, the extravagant sight of his otherwise minimalist dining room planted a completely different thought in your mind; you could feel the anticipation in your tummy, your entire being buzzing with excitement and disbelief, because the decoration was suspiciously akin to the one you had described to him when he had asked you about your dream proposal and wedding. (To be fair, this conversation had happened months before your birthday, on a movie night you had spent watching the American movie 27 Dresses.)

You almost missed your chair when Jeno led you towards the dining table, your eyes fixed on the beautiful candle lights.

How had you gotten so lucky?

‘Did you make all these? Even the food?’ You asked in awe when the European-style cream soup was served, the smell making your mouth water even before you touched your spoon. Growing up in a well-off family meant that you had unlimited access to many foreign countries’ cuisines, but because of the same reason, your father’s wealth, you rarely had real, home-cooked food on the table. Your father’s new wife deemed such chores, activities your mother had loved so much, low-life: something maids should have done and maids alone.

Jeno’s eyes turned into tiny crescents when he nodded, his smile making your heart melt. You felt bad for ever doubting him, although you both knew it wasn’t something you could have helped. In life, money always came with a price. Subsequently, the more zeros one had on their account, the more nightmares and insecurities they had to deal with to balance out the happiness that kept poor people at bay. This was how your society had been working for centuries.

As the night went on and more delicious food got on the table, you were more and more sure that even if there hadn’t been a proposal, you would have remembered that night for the rest of your life. Your relationship with Jeno might have been relatively peaceful and the best thing that had ever happened to you, but you hadn’t been this happy in months. The absence of self-hating and relationship-doubting thoughts was freeing. You couldn’t not smile.

Until your happy grin froze onto your face then fell at the sight of the eerie collection of personal items in Jeno’s living room. Goodness. Your boyfriend didn’t make the smallest attempt at hiding the evidence. On the contrary, he put everything on display: the jewelleries, wallets, keychains and hairpins that all had a vaguely familiar feel to them. They sent an unpleasant chill down your spine.

And it got significantly worse when taking a tentative step closer to the glass display cabinet, you recognised your bitchy supervisor’s rose gold necklace with the tiny star medallions she had gotten from her fiancé. Was that your step-mother’s wedding ring two items from it? The one that had been originally your mother’s family heirloom, but then your father had decided that he would have shown you how he was a disgusting human being in more ways than one by proposing to his new chick with the jewellery.

When had been the last time you had seen either of these horrible women?

What was going on?

Except the rational part of you knew exactly what was going on. Your best friend had been going on about the Midnight Maniac ever since the serial killer had shown up at your city, targeting seemingly random people, although the connection had been right in front of you all along. You. You might have not given the same significance to every victim as you rarely paid attention to those outside of your friend group, you might have not remembered everyone’s name, but at one point in your life you had had to cross paths with them. 

They had died… No, they had been killed because of you.

‘No…’ the plea fell from your lips weakly, the disbelief mixed with strong denial making you sound raspy and out of breath. You reached out to your mother’s ring and your hand was shaking from how overwhelmed you felt. This just couldn’t have been happening. There was no way in hell this was true.

‘Do you like it?’ Your shoulders rose and for the first time in your life, your body got tense when Jeno’s closeness registered in you. You tried not to show or acknowledge how anxious you felt at that moment, although your acting skills had never been too good. Despite the number of school plays your family’s money had gotten you during your academic career,  you were a below average actress. ‘At first, I thought it might be too much, but then I realised you might need some sort of reassurance that they can’t hurt you anymore,’ your boyfriend explained, confusing you with the lack of empathy or guilt in his alluring, deep voice you loved so much. 

Your teeth sank into your lower lip to suppress the scream that almost escaped your mouth. You didn’t dare to look down at Jeno’s fingers that slowly slipped between yours.

‘Because they can’t. They will never ever mistreat you again,’ Jeno squeezed your hand, the familiar warmth from before back in his voice and evident on his face. He looked at you like he always did when you were telling him about your achievements at work and the dreams you nurtured in your heart. He looked at you the way he did when he was so damn proud, he would have stolen the stars for you just to show you your worth.

He looked at you like you were his entire world and he would have done absolutely anything for you. Anything, whether you asked for it or not.

‘Tell me you didn’t,’ you pleaded, your voice barely above a whisper. You didn’t take your eyes off your mother’s ring. As much as you hated to see the hand-crafted jewellery on your  step-mother’s finger, the thought of her dead body in a dirty alley, strangled to death creeped you the hell out. ‘Please, tell me you did not—’

‘Of course, I did. Did you expect me to watch them walk over you?’ Jeno asked with what sounded like genuine disbelief in his voice. As you allowed yourself a glance at his reflection through the glass display, you were taken aback by his furrowed eyebrows and the wrinkles on his forehead. He was seriously confused.

Until he wasn’t.

He squeezed your hand again; his thumb was drawing soothing circles on the sensitive skin of your wrist.

‘It’s okay, it’s because you’re not used to people treating you like you deserve,’ he reassured you, an action so familiar, nice and comforting that for a second you felt like you had an out of body experience. You felt like you were both living your own and invading someone else’s life because there was no way your sweet boyfriend had killed close to a dozen people who had dared to treat you badly at one point in their lives.

Your inability to stand up for yourself and detach yourself from a toxic environment couldn’t have been the reason for eleven people’s early death. It just couldn’t. Your conflict-avoidant personality couldn’t have turned your soft-hearted boyfriend into a serial killer.

It wasn’t true. If this was supposed to be a joke, a prank, it wasn’t funny.

‘Stop, please, just stop. It’s not right, Jeno, do you hear yourself? You’re saying you are a murderer,’ you begged while you simultaneously tried to take your hand out of his with little to no success. His hold on you was too strong.

Your eyes were brimming with tears because of how fiercely he was holding onto you. It was painful both physically and mentally until he pulled you close and pushed your face into the crook of his neck. Your boyfriend was petting your head while his tee soaked up your tears. You were scared, confused and miserable.

‘Everything I’ve done…’ he mumbled against the crown of your head. ‘Every horrible atrocity, it’s been for you. Please, don’t ever degrade my feelings for you, love,’ he asked, although by the way he hugged your smaller frame, his palm pushing your body against his chest, it felt more like a threat. It was as clear as day that he didn’t like being called a murderer.

‘Please,’ you asked, barely managing to get enough oxygen into your lungs. He was hugging you so tight. So damn tight. Like you could have disappeared the moment he let you go.

You couldn’t have said his fear was baseless. A brave person would have already made a run for it. A strong person might have already successfully escaped. However, you were neither brave nor strong. Your skills were barely suppressing average on your brightest days and your mental strength was crumbling without Jeno being your stable point.

‘Shh, you’re safe now. No one will ever hurt you, I won’t let them, I promise.’ Jeno kept stroking your hair and pressing soft kisses against the crown of your head as if his actions hadn’t been the sole reason for your distress. As if you had just woken up from one of your nightmares and you needed his arms around you to ground you. ‘I love you so much, baby.’ 

His embrace and closeness didn’t bring you comfort this time.

The silence stretched uncomfortably long.

‘Say that you love me, baby,’ Jeno asked you, his fingertips digging into your back. Face buried in the juncture between his shoulder and neck, your brain was mushy and your breathing uneven as you tried to comprehend his words.

Your unresponsiveness didn’t make Jeno happy. It made him angry. Or was he desperate? He sounded a little bit both when he said:

‘Come on, baby. Say it. Say that you love me, say it back.’

You couldn’t say it. Not necessarily because your love for him vanished from one moment to another, but because you were physically incapable of forming coherent sentences. You were drained due to the part of you that was still in denial, scared that Jeno would kill more people out of some twisted kind of protectiveness and terrified that people who shouldn’t have would figure it out that he was the person behind the name Midnight Maniac. You knew someone this sick and dangerous should have been behind bars from where he couldn’t have hurt more people, but the thought of losing Jeno also wore you down.

You didn’t want to lose him. You didn’t want this to be your reality.

Jeno put his hands on your shoulders and pushed you away from his chest a little: just enough to be able to look you in the eyes. 

‘Say it, love! Say. It. Say that you love me.’

You couldn’t. You couldn’t say it back. And your silence made your boyfriend lose his mind for a split second. He started to shake you, squeeze you, dig his nails into your flesh until you were flinching away from the pain.

‘I… I…’ At that point, you were close to hyperventilating. You wanted to wake up from this horrible dream and find solace in your boyfriend’s arms like you always did. You wanted the Jeno you knew, the Jeno you had fallen in love with, the Jeno you loved. Cheeks red and lips slightly parted, you were panting as you said: ‘I love you.’

Because you did. You loved Jeno, you just didn’t like how he was acting. Like a madman. A maniac.

The smile that adorned your boyfriend’s features upon hearing your confession was genuine; his beautiful, chocolate brown eyes disappeared as his happiness became more evident. You shuddered when Jeno brushed a mop of hair behind your ear.

Staring at him in disbelief, you had no idea how you would come out of this situation alive, but the momentary peace deluded you into thinking that everything was going to be alright, and you held onto that fake reality was tooth and nail. As you didn’t put up much fight, your exhaustion eventually won, and you welcomed the numbness with open arms.

the end.

[lily-blue]

Paying the price

☆ characters: patriot!jiung & revolutioner!you ☆ genre: dystopian au, the devil judge au, angst ☆ warnings: graphic description of damaged corpses, mention of blood and violence, vomiting, major character’s death, spoilers ☆ summary: jiung believes in the system, that it has the people’s best interest; you believe that the system is rotten to the core and the people of South Korea need to be enlightened about the truth - as it always is, you two learn it the hard way which one of you is right ☆ words: 15,3k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for proofreading this monster (i still can’t believe i accidentally made intak older than jiung 🙃) ☆ also: happy name day to the one and only @restlessmaknae​ 💕 it actually made me feel nostalgic when i started to search up these guys for this story, it reminded me of that one yeonjun fic i wrote for you, the one that made me stan txt. i’m not quite there yet with these boys, but who knows, maybe one day. thank you for coming back to my life and showing me new groups and new things this year, too. i wish you nothing but happiness! 💕 ☆ a/n: this story is written for @restlessmaknae’s (dis)harmony collab; you can check out the masterlist with the other stories » here

Despite the country’s shortcomings: the apparent corruption that was planted in its core from the education system through the media to the judicial and political apparatuses, you loved your home. You loved living in a neighbourhood where the grocery store ahjussi gave you an extra cluster of grapes whenever you looked tired at the end of a rough day and the ahjumma from the corner Chinese restaurant knew your order by heart, hence spared you from the headache of making yet another decision when all you craved was a big bowl of warm lotus root soup. You loved knowing the youngsters in your building by their name and the feeling of having half a dozen sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts despite losing your family at an unfairly young age and spending too many lonely years in a government-funded orphanage.

God, you even loved the opportunities higher education was constantly giving you regardless of a handful of your teachers who openly expressed their political views in class when it went against your university’s policies. So why couldn’t you have sat through your Korean History II. lecture with a neutral face like everyone else did? Why did it make your blood boil when looking at Choi Jiung’s slides you realised that he was about to praise your country’s leaders, too, like the three other students before him had already done during their own presentations? Why couldn’t you have shut up and swallow down your opinion when it was time for the audience’s questions?

Easy. Because despite your love for your country and the people around you, it was corrupt to the core and as law students, all of you should have refrained from turning a blind eye to the exponentially growing amount of power abuse that happened in your home. It didn’t matter that half of your classes brainwashed you to bend under pressure.

‘What about those innocent citizens who lost their homes because of the evacuation? There is no clear data available about the rehousing of those families. Were they ever compensated?’ You threw your provocative questions at the blond boy, voice firm and merciless as your words echoed off the pristine walls in the small classroom.

The moment Choi Jiung’s gaze fell on you, you knew he was pissed, although he did a great job concealing his feelings. It was just… you had known the guy ever since you had moved to your current one-bedroom flat right after you had been kicked out of the orphanage. You could read him like he was an open book.

‘While the rate of unemployment increased during the pandemic, the statistics show that the rate of homelessness stayed stagnant. Is that not clear data?’ The blond boy asked back and you could hear your professor’s pleased humming from the first row as you were sitting in the second one, almost right behind Mr. Kim.

You linked your fingers and let your arms fall on your desk while you leaned forwards with a straight back. You didn’t break eye contact.

‘Reports from that period state that due to the pandemic, there were less ongoing projects in the construction industry, which means there couldn’t have been emergency constructions due to rehousing. Where did those families go?’ You pushed, shutting out the murmurs from your side and behind your back. You were already used to the whispering, the wary look in your classmates’ eyes whenever you expressed your opinion.

Unlike what they said, you weren’t obsessed with the spotlight nor did you have a childish crush on Choi Jiung. You picked fights with him because he was an unpleasant part of your friend group, but a part nonetheless, and you believed that Shota wouldn’t have tolerated his presence in your lives if he had been a lost case.

You challenged Jiung repeatedly to help him see the errors in his own beliefs.

‘Less ongoing projects don’t equal to no ongoing project. It only means there were fewer than before the pandemic,’ Jiung stated, voice cold despite the fire in his eyes. ‘Those few projects could have been, or included, the emergency constructions in the countryside,’ he said, your nails digging into the back of your hands because of your frustration as you were listening.

‘Hundreds of thousands of people—’

‘I think that’s enough. We still have one more presentation to sit through and discuss before this seminar ends,’ your professor rose from his seat, exchanging positions with the blond student. If looks could have killed, neither him nor Mr. Kim would have survived your rage. How dared this old, soggy snob cut you off when you were clearly making a point?

You had to bite into your cheeks from the inside to not curse him out, but your opinion must have been written all over your face because before the next student could have started her presentation, the history professor looked at you and shook his head as though he was deeply disappointed when clearly, he was annoyed.

‘It’s my last warning, miss,’ the man stated and you were genuinely surprised that he hadn’t memorised your name by now. After all, it wasn’t your first class with him and you had never been a silent participant. ‘If you keep disturbing the peaceful learning environment, I will need to send you out of my class and mark this lesson as a missed lesson next to your name in the roster,’ he informed you, although it was more like a threat.

Okay, maybe he did know your name. He just didn’t bother to address you respectfully.

You pressed your lips into a firm line, contemplating whether getting into a useless fight with your professor would have been worth it, but ended up biting into your cheek from the inside once again instead of reciting your rights as a student of this institute. It didn’t matter what rights a piece of paper gave you in your country when your opinion differed from what was accepted and encouraged by those above you - expected and demanded if you didn’t feel like sugarcoating the truth.

Consequently, you fully intended to stay put until the end of the class because it was still too early into the semester to waste one of the three lessons you were allowed to miss in each seminar, but as soon as Kang Yohan’s face was staring back at you from the next presenter’s slides, you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut. Thus, you did both yourself and the class a favour when you shoved your laptop into your backpack and walked out of the classroom without a word.

The sound of your steps echoed off the walls of the semi-abandoned hallways, but the relative silence didn’t bother you, nor did the glances you got from those who saw you walking out of a classroom before the official end of the period. Confident, you headed towards the library on the first floor with your chin high and your facial expression unbothered.

It wasn’t the first time you chose your beliefs (and your pride) instead of letting a professor humiliate you in front of a whole class, after all.

You were doing some research for another class, sipping on your iced coffee despite the late hour, reading through statistics about crime rates and the judicial system, when Shota took a seat by the table you had been occupying since your last class for the day. You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze loiter over his dishevelled figure, but said nothing before you turned back to your laptop. Being neighbours with the guy, you whole-heartedly believed that some things considering him was better left unasked. That way, you weren’t an accomplice.

‘Are you still looking for a way to get inside that institute?’ He asked while he reached out for your drink and took a casual sip of the bitter beverage like it was his.

You tore your gaze from the screen and leaned your back against your chair without making the slightest attempt at getting your drink back from the younger. Instead, you linked your arms in front of your chest and observed his face with caution. The yellowish bruise under his left eye and the cut on his cheek promised nothing good, but you knew Shota meant danger mostly for himself and rarely for the people around him.

‘The Dream House Medical Center?’ You asked just to confirm that you were thinking of the same building and all he gave you was a nod and a lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, I do, actually.’

Even though you still had a whole year before you should have started on your masters thesis, you already had a pretty firm idea of what you would have liked to write about: Kang Yohan, the misjudged judge who had died nearly a decade ago in the explosion of the courtroom where the infamous live court show had been broadcasted. That day, South Korea had lost not only the president and the first lady of the country, but five other powerful and rich people as well, all seven of them corrupt to the core yet labelled as victims of a self-assured psychopath. It boiled your blood whenever you thought of them, how in today’s history books, they were the casualty of an anti-national act conducted in an attempt to overthrow the administration.

Your fists were trembling as your nails sank into the soft flesh of your palms. You swore, you would clear the judge’s name one day in the future and make everyone see those lies that they were constantly fed by the government. Your thesis paper, the detailed research none of your professors would be able to oppose, would be the first step down the road.

But to be able to start marching, you had to get inside the Dream House Medical Center.

‘Any suggestions?’ You asked when the silence got too loud, not breaking eye contact even when you could feel the first tear drops forming in the corner of your eyes. Making a deal with Shota was never easy, the boy did nothing for free, not even for his closest friends, but he wouldn’t have brought up the topic just to tease you. He had something to offer and you knew when to be patient.

‘I got my hands on some interesting intel, so I can get us in and out without any of the guards noticing,’ he informed you, lazily sipping on your drink as though he hadn’t just knocked you off your feet with his statement. You were trying to find a way inside that building for months by then, because while it was supposed to be an abandoned institute - it was a part of a failed charity project after all - it was unreasonably heavily guarded.

Taking a deeper breath to ground yourself, you put your elbows on the table in front of your laptop and leaned forwards.

‘Name your price,’ you demanded quietly, earning a genuine smile from the boy.

‘Help me with the university interview. I need dirt on your professors and those you don’t have classes with,’ Shota negotiated and honestly, the only reason you were able to swallow down the laugh that was scratching your throat was the fact that you needed his help. If you could have afforded him getting sulky, you would have ruffled his messy hair and pinched his cheeks before you told him you would have helped him anyway.

He was clearly doing you a favour for free while pretending that he was a businessman who made no exceptions. It made you wonder whether he had gotten beaten up when he had tried to find information on the Dream House for you or the two things were completely irrelevant. A selfish part of you that didn’t want to deal with the guilt wished it was the latter, but deep down you knew Shota wouldn’t have held back something so huge just to share it with you at the perfect moment.

You had both learned early on in your lives that perfect moments were created; they didn’t just come to those who were patiently waiting.

‘Want it written down or is it enough if I tell you everything I know?’ You asked with a small tilt of your head, playing along and taking on a more serious tone. Meanwhile, you glanced down at your laptop and pulled up a blank document on your screen. The chances that none of your professors would have been present at Shota’s interview was high, so you wanted to make sure you had info on those who might have been possible candidates. For that, you needed to prepare a long list with every professor from the Business Faculty on it and ask around in the KU group chats you weren’t a part of yet.

‘Written down,’ Shota said and you acknowledged his choice with a low hum and a nod as you pulled up your university’s website and copied the names of the listed professors to your document. You also made a second list that contained the names of students you personally knew and would have vouched for, hence could have sought out for help.

‘Consider it being done,’ you preened, scanning through your lists one more time before you closed the tab and saved a couple of important websites regarding your assignment for your class as bookmarks. You made sure your laptop was turned off properly before you shoved it into your bag. ‘About the Dream House…’ you started, trying to sound as nonchalant as you could despite the light buzzing in your veins. ‘When are we going?’

‘Where are you going?’ Choi Jiung’s voice cut off your impromptu discussion before it could have started and you sighed, disappointed that you had let your excitement get the best of you when you should have seen the interruption coming. After all, Jiung was well aware that you preferred studying on campus over writing your papers in your own flat. He also knew that Shota liked tagging along when you had classes after six, because it meant that chances you would stay at the nearby coffee shop until closing time was high and he hated when you walked home on your own so late at night. Thus, when Jiung was looking for his friend, all he needed to do was checking the spots you frequented at.

‘None of your business, Choi,’ you grumbled while you leaned back against your chair and linked your arms in front of your chest.

Frustrated, you rolled your eyes when Jiung put a cup of perfectly untouched iced coffee on the table in front of you, but reached out for the drink when you saw Shota eyeing it like he was seconds away from stealing that, too.

The silence that fell on your table wasn’t new. It was a recurring phenomenon in your friends group whenever Jiung and you were joined by a less talkative person - so basically anyone other than Keeho or Intak. And while at first it had made you anxious, because you had felt as though you should have been able to initiate or at least keep up a pleasant conversation with people you considered close friends, by now you knew silence was absolutely fine as well. In fact! It was rather nice to enjoy the tranquillity around people who accepted you the way you were: stubborn, strong-willed and curt when you had nothing important to say.

‘What got your panties in a twist this time?’ Shota’s snarky question shook you out of your thoughts, his dark eyes fixed on nothing in particular making you wonder whether he was talking to you or the blond boy on his other side.

You opened your mouth for an equally sarcastic answer when Jiung let out a loud huff and cut you off with his own mocking reply.

‘What else? She tried to sabotage my presentation. Again,’ he accused and you rolled your eyes without giving too much thought to the action. All three of you knew damn well that you would have never stooped so low; your morals simply wouldn’t have let you play dirty much to Shota’s disappointment. The younger had tried to make you see numerous times that the world wasn’t fair to those who played by the rules, but you stood your ground each and every time. You wanted to become an exceptional judge just like Kang Yohan and his mentee, Kim Gaon. You were determined to lead by example as well - with the right example!

‘Oh, grow up, Choi Jiung, would you? My questions were spot on,’ you retorted, slim fingers turning white around your drink.

Looking around, you had to remind yourself that just because it was late, the coffee shop still had a fair amount of customers, thus you should have kept your voice low to not disturb their peace. Still, resisting the urge to call the blond boy out on his bullshit, as he wouldn’t have contributed to your daily caffeine intake if he had been indeed pissed, was challenging. He got under your skin way too easily.

‘No. You were once again pressing your false narrative,’ Jiung tried to correct you, talking to you in a condescending way that made you feel like a child. If looks could have killed, he would have been dead even before his gaze landed on you. ‘One day, these types of questions will cost you a lot more than a missed class.’

You gulped down the coffee in your mouth along with the non-existent bile that somehow did scratch your throat.

‘Is that a threat?’ You spat, unaware of the sadness in Jiung’s eyes as you were hyper fixated on the possible implication behind his words. It made you see red, grip tight around your cup and nails digging into the plastic with so much force, Shota had to take the coffee out of your hand and put it on the table before it could have overflowed.

‘Friendly advice,’ Jiung corrected you once again and it was only due to the years of practice the orphanage had given you that you hadn’t screamed it into his face that you didn’t consider him as a friend. Not like you did Keeho and Theo and sure as hell not like you did Shota. The sole reason you let him be a part of your life despite his questionable political beliefs was your respect for the others.

With a resigned sigh, Jiung turned his gaze away and shook his head as though he couldn’t have taken your stubbornness any longer. Well, you didn’t ask him to.

‘I’m done for today,’ you stated, leaving the half-finished drink on the table as you grabbed your bag and slid your gaze to the younger. ‘Shota?’

The boy stood up from his seat immediately and reached out for the abandoned beverage, his smile content as he took a big sip from the iced coffee. He patted Jiung’s shoulder twice in gratitude, then squeezed it lightly for good measure.

You turned away, refusing to feel guilty for putting an abrupt end to the conversation. It was a long day, getting into a heated argument about the government with Jiung for the second time that day was the last thing you needed. Especially at a public place that you loved and where you were a regular.

‘See you tomorrow, hyung,’ Shota bid his goodbye while you sealed your lips and gave Jiung a half-assed bow because it was a habit drilled into your DNA. It was a fundamental part of your culture: you bowed to people at every single encounter, at every goodbye and sometimes in between when the situation required it. You didn’t have to respect someone to follow the most basic rules of etiquette in their company.

If Jiung had said anything to your best friend before the younger boy followed you towards the exit, you hadn’t heard him, but you did sneak a peek at him sitting casually by your table before you closed the door shut.

Not that you would have admitted it to anyone.

Your palms were sweaty while you were waiting with Shota for what you supposed was some sort of sign that you could finally enter the building without getting arrested for trespassing. Admittedly, you had never felt more nervous in your entire life: your current actions going against your moral code while simultaneously aiding your fight against the propaganda that your whole nation was fed with on a daily basis. You needed evidence, desperately so, but the thought of breaking into the Dream House Medical Center freaked you out more and more as the crucial moment came closer and closer to your present.

Only a couple hundreds of metres from the abandoned institute, it felt too real. You weren’t sure you were ready and started to question whether you were made for the job.

It shouldn’t have surprised you that at one point your feet started drumming a clumsy rhythm on their own accord, but your lips still parted slightly when you felt a warm hand on your knee, over your ripped jeans. Staring at Shota’s hand, you lifted your head to look at his face and shot a tight-lipped smile at him as a sign of gratitude for his silent support. You could do this. It had been your idea from the beginning. You were doing the right thing.

So why did the proverb ‘the end justifies the means’ sound like a cheap excuse of a criminal?

‘Nervous, kiddo?’ A familiar voice pulled you out of the self-doubting spiral of thoughts and you turned towards the newcomers with panic in your eyes. Not counting the two of you, no one should have known about your plan. So why were two of your friends staring at you like they were simultaneously doubting your sanity and admiring you for your guts?

You looked around to check your surroundings in search of the others, then let your gaze fall back on Keeho and Jiung when you realised it was only them. 

‘What are you guys doing here?’ You whisper-shouted, unable to decide how you felt about their presence. For 1) since it was your research, you felt like you were responsible for the safety of everyone who got involved in the fieldwork and looking after Shota in itself was already a bit emotionally overwhelming for you under the current circumstances. 2) Because of the very same reason, you were relieved that there would be more pairs of eyes during the investigation that could watch out for the potential danger.

Still, a part of you felt more people meant a bigger risk. It didn’t help that you were already fidgety due to your growing guilt that pressed down on your chest.

‘Supervising,’ Keeho explained, his tone lowkey condescending like he couldn’t believe he needed to spell it out to you. Like it was natural that he was there even though he shouldn’t have known about the trespassing to begin with. ‘Obviously, I won’t just let Shota break into a guarded institute on his own,’ he added, coaxing a displeased scoff out of you with his complete disregard for your presence and capabilities.

You wanted to remind the boy that you were only two weeks younger than him and that you would have made sure Shota didn’t get in trouble even if it had meant endangering your own life, but in the end you swallowed back your remarks. Mostly, because you believed it would have been unwise to start a fight so close to the main gates. Also, because your muscles were non-existent in comparison with the older boy’s. Realistically speaking, he had more potential than you when it came to protecting your friends.

‘What about you?’ You turned towards Jiung, one of your slim brows raised with challenge. For some reason, you doubted he had come with Keeho to help you in any way. If anything, he might have tagged along to give you another unasked, friendly advice.

‘I came to see your face when you realise you’ve been wrong all this time,’ he claimed with a shrug, not putting too much effort into protecting your feelings. Although, had he ever? The thought that he found true joy in your failures left a bitter taste in your mouth.

The retort that he had come in vain had already been on the tip of your tongue when Shota nudged you with his shoulder and pointed at the entrance once he gained your attention.

‘It’s time,’ he said. You gulped before you acknowledged his statement with a nod.

Considering how many walls you had bumped into while you had been trying to find a way inside the building in the legal way, how unhelpful every single one of the government agents had been and how many armed guards you had seen around the building in the last hour, you had assumed that walking inside the medical centre would be challenging despite your best friend’s intel. Blame it on those old school action movies Intak loved so much, but you were convinced that you would be in a race against time, that you would need to run and jump and use your non-existent muscles to get through some hidden back door.

Walking up to the front door with confident strides and opening the huge lock with a key was oddly anticlimactic. You had to pinch your arm to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

‘How the hell did you put your hands on that thing?’ Keeho asked, stealing the words out of your mouth.

Shota closed the double door behind your backs like he had just gotten home, then turned on his flashlight similar to the one in your pocket. You mimicked him and turned on yours, too.

‘I asked for a copy? Don’t you know acting suspicious is what makes people aware you’re up to something?’ He asked, not really expecting an answer based on the way he turned his back on your small group and started to walk down the hallway. ‘It’s all about confidence.’

You put your hand on Keeho’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly as a reminder that you didn’t have time for further interrogation nor was it the most suitable place for a parental scolding, then followed your best friend until you reached the first intersection. There, you waited for the others to catch up with you and you decided to split up. You didn’t have all the time in the world after all, only two hours until the next error in the system of the graveyard shift.

‘I’ll check the basement,’ you volunteered and shook your head dismissively when you saw Jiung open his mouth from the corner of your eyes. ‘Keeho’s babysitting, there are too many floors for just two groups,’ you said, slowly turning towards the blond boy with your entire body.

‘Who said I was about to follow you?’ He retorted with a huff and took the flashlight out of Keeho’s hand as he turned on his heels and marched up the stairs. You kept your eyes on his back until he disappeared, then shot a tight-lipped smile in the others’ direction before you made them promise to take pictures of anything suspicious or interesting-looking.

You hoped Jiung would do the same as well even though he hadn’t waited around for your reminder. You had faith in Shota and his dubious network, you really did, but you genuinely doubted you would have had another chance like this in the near future if you had failed to gather enough evidence due to your slipshod job.

On your way to the basement, you kept your mind occupied with random songs from the last decade they still played on the radio just so it wouldn’t have turned on you and made you see things in the darkness that weren’t there. Your imagination might not have been too wild, but being alone in a building where you assumed poor people had been killed for how much their organs were worth was scary. You didn’t believe in ghosts and other supernatural creatures, but you wouldn’t have blamed their souls for sticking around, angry, if they had existed.

The dust in the air was heavy and it stuck to your skin uncomfortably as you checked each and every door that opened from the hallway underground. Most of the rooms were unlocked, the surgical equipment inside of them outdated and untouched. A part of you - the same part that was convinced of Kang Yohan’s innocence - was eager to see them as evidence of human experiments, but the rational side of you was aware that things like these were normal at a medical facility. If you had shown photos of these to anyone, they would have focused on the fact that you shouldn’t have been in the building.

You gulped, growing frustrated, as you checked the time on your phone and walked up to the next door. You still had some time.

Admittedly, you knew you could have spent an entire day in the building and still felt like you needed more to do a thorough research, but beggars couldn’t have been choosers. Thus, you locked your panicking thoughts in the back of your mind and opened the drawers in the next room that looked more like an abandoned office than a medical room.

‘Come on!’ You groaned when you found the third drawer in a row empty, getting on your knees without much thinking to force the last one open as well. At first glance, it didn’t seem like you should have had a key to open it, so you hoped it was only stuck, preferably due to the weight of the papers inside of it.

Two of your nails broke in the process and your fingertips were burning, but eventually you managed to open the lowest drawer, its content plenty and full of names you weren’t familiar with. However, you did recognise one: Heo Joongse. He had been one of the “victims” of the explosion that had killed Kang Yohan. He had been the former president of South Korea.

Hands shaking nervously, you started to take pictures of the documents, but because of the lack of proper lighting, they turned out to be unreadable. Therefore you shoved them under your sweatshirt on a whim.

‘Noona! Noona, it’s time to go!’ You heard your best friend calling for you and you stilled, contemplating whether you should have pretended that you hadn’t heard him and checked one more room or let him know where you were. He must have calculated with finding you, he knew how you got when you… ‘Noona, we have to get out of here!’

You closed your eyes and let out a displeased sigh. You should have met them upstairs, close to the front door. If Shota was in the basement, it meant you hardly had any minute to waste. Even if the digital numbers in the upper right corner of your phone’s screen said otherwise.

‘I’m coming!’ You shouted on your way to the hallway, giving a resigned look to the rest of the basement, to all those closed doors you hadn’t had a chance to open, then ran towards Shota’s voice. It came from the stairs that led to the ground floor.

The question of what had happened that you needed to leave twenty minutes sooner was on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t have a chance to say it aloud. The moment you opened your mouth, your best friend grabbed your wrist and pulled you in the opposite direction from the main entrance, confusion making you uncharacteristically obedient and unresponsive.

You didn’t question him when he shoved you inside a dirty restroom, nor did you ask a single thing when Keeho emerged from one of the toilet cubicles. You simply let the older boy take the lead and help with your balance when you stepped on top of a half-broken plastic toilet lid that was supposed to support your weight and made you tall enough to reach the edge of the open window on the tiled wall.

‘You really think I can…’ pull myself up; you wanted to ask, but before you could have finished your question, someone grabbed your arms from the outside and got you out of the building with one swift movement.

With a scream stuck in the back of your throat, you looked down at Jiung with slightly parted lips and gulped nervously when your gaze fell on your palm atop of his chest. You swore, you could feel his heart beating like crazy under your palm, your own mimicking the rhythm and pushing enough blood to your neck and cheeks to turn them ruby red.

‘Get up! We’re running out of time.’ It was Shota whose voice pulled you back to the present, but you were sure, even without stealing a glance at the boy on your right, that it was Keeho who pulled you off Jiung and pulled you towards the iron fences.

You stumbled in the dark, unaware of when you had lost your flashlight and whether the guys had turned theirs off on purpose. By the time your friends deemed that you were far enough from the facility, your lungs were screaming for a break and every breath felt like you were inhaling pieces of broken glass.

‘What the hell happened?’ You demanded, even though it seemed you were the only one who thought your frustration and anger were justified.

‘That your stupid obsession almost got us in trouble, that’s what happened,’ Jiung screamed at your face, a few drops of saliva landing on your burning cheek due to your close proximity. You balled up your fists, your knuckles turning white from how hard you clenched them.

‘Shota said it was safe! And I don’t remember asking you to join us,’ you retorted as calmly as you could manage with the growing annoyance you were feeling.

Sure, you knew trespassing had been a gamble, that you had been going against everything you believed in just to prove a point, but you had done nothing inside that damned building that could have put everyone in danger. Whatever had happened it hadn’t been on you, you refused to believe it.

‘It was the USB. We found a bunch of them in one of the offices, but one of them was still plugged into a smashed PC, so I pulled it out,’ Shota confessed at the same time Keeho said:

‘I think I broke a lock I shouldn’t have.’

You closed your eyes, heaving. Honestly, the second option sounded more possible, but you felt like stating the obvious or calling Jiung out on his freaking tendency to put the blame on you would have done more harm than good. The atmosphere was already tense, making it worse while you were still relatively close to the crime scene would have been stupid.

‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter,’ you concluded because crying over spilled milk would have been just as idiotic. You had gotten in and out without encountering any of the guards, no one had known your faces, your identities were safe. You might have felt bitter about leaving so soon, but at the end of the day, you were all unharmed and that was what mattered.

You straightened your back and opened your eyes.

‘Let’s go home,’ you exclaimed and shot a genuine smile in Shota’s direction to soothe the guilt that was written all over his face.

When Jiung bumped into your shoulder on purpose, you gritted your teeth, but followed him towards the main road. You decided not to ask him whether he had found anything useful as you were sure he wouldn’t have told you even if he had done, and pointed at your tummy with a mischievous wink when Shota did the same with his pockets where he hid the old USB sticks.

You might not have been able to check everything you had wanted, but your mission hadn’t been a complete failure, after all. And that… that sure as hell made you feel like you had accomplished something.

A couple of days later, you were in the university library, working on your assignment on the live court show’s effects on the judicial system and the shift of responsibility the DIKE app had contributed to when citizens had been given the power to decide the defendants were guilty or not guilty, when Choi Jiung walked up to your table and shut down your laptop with a fixed combination of keys. To say you were furious would have been an understatement. You were livid.

‘Do you want to die? The hell is wrong with you?’ You spat, pushing yourself into a standing position in an attempt to look more intimidating despite still being significantly shorter than the boy. It didn’t matter. Anger could take people farther than one would have thought.

Instead of answering your question with words, Jiung threw a small pile of papers on your desk. You looked down at it with narrowed eyes before you took it in your hand. There was no need for you to scan through the provocatively phrased paragraphs. Just by looking at the header, you knew it was your thesis abstract.

‘Where did you get this?’ You asked, trying not to wrinkle the document in case it was indeed the original copy that you had put on your professor’s table in the teachers’ office after your last class.

‘Do you want to die?’ He threw the question back at you, his tone just as angry as yours even though the flames in his eyes burned with a different colour. He seemed a lot more serious rather than borderline panicking. His reaction closed up your throat, but you kept your chin high to prove a point. ‘I’m serious! You can’t be this stupid, can you?’

You took a shallow breath, then another one and another one for good measure before you crouched down for your bag and shoved your laptop inside of it.

‘You saw that place. They’re guarding it for a reason. Even if you really didn’t find anything on the first floor…’ You took another breath to calm yourself. You still had time before your next class, so you could put the abstract back on your professor’s desk like Jiung had never put his hands on it.

‘You can’t become a judge with this mindset. It’s anti-nationalist,’ he pressed, stopping you with his fingers hanging around your wrist like a chain. You shook it off, his rough touch, and turned around to look him in the eyes.

‘I’m ashamed of you. People like you should never be allowed to become a judge in the first place,’ you said, quiet enough to not draw anyone’s attention, but loud enough to hurt.

You meant it: every word. Those people who deliberately turned a blind eye on the flaws in the stories the system tried to feed you with, on the government’s wrongdoings just because it was easier, shouldn’t have been given power to decide who deserved a severe punishment for breaking the law and who acted upon self-preservation. 

The two of you kept eye contact for longer than it was necessary, therefore you were about to turn your back on Jiung when you got a text via kakao. With furrowed eyebrows, you fished the device out of your pocket and checked the incoming messages.

shota 😤: “don’t come home!” shota 😤: “i’m serious” shota 😤: “stay with the hyungs”

The urgency in his double texts made you feel alarmed, so you sent a quick message to both Shota and Keeho, then threw your phone into your bag and rushed out of the library.

There was no way you would let your best friend deal with whatever trouble he was in on his own when you had a good guess where he was and it was clearly too big for him to handle it alone.

Jiung tried not to think too much into it when you didn’t show up at class the day after you had stormed out of the library. He really tried not to panic when he couldn’t see you at any of your favourite places around campus, although he was familiar with your schedule and habits: when you preferred the university library over the coffee shop, which classes you would have never skipped for the world and how many papers you had to submit before the upcoming midterms.

It wasn’t unusual that you didn’t pick up the phone to him, so he didn’t even bother after the first futile attempt, aware of the line he had crossed when he had taken your thesis abstract that he shouldn’t have even read, but when even Soul refused to read his messages, he knew something was off. The boy would have never ignored his hyungs just because he might have taken your side. At least, he had never done so before and god, the younger sided with you almost all the time.

Lacking any better idea, Jiung dialled Keeho’s number, letting out a relieved breath when the older picked up the phone after the second ring.

‘Have you heard from Soul? His bestie hasn’t shown up at uni since last week,’ he started without beating around the bush, too frustrated (and worried) to prolong the conversation. He wanted to know that you were both okay and his worst nightmare hadn’t come true despite your stubbornness.

Had you gotten in trouble with the authorities because of your big mouth? Who had you been texting to before you had turned your back on him?

‘Not since last week. He said he would be out of town for a couple of days,’ Keeho answered. ‘Same for the firecracker. She texted that she’s worried about Shota, but then she claimed everything was fine, so I didn’t ask,’ he explained, not going into too much detail about why he hadn’t pushed when he was so overprotective of the babies of their group. Jiung knew the older boy was balancing two jobs to provide for not only himself, but Jongseob, too. Life was tough ever since the youngest had run away from home.

If you had told Keeho things were okay, Jiung understood why he had chosen to believe you and stay at his workplace or steal himself an hour of extra sleep.

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Jiung asked, wondering whether he was overreacting or the nagging voice inside of his head was right about you. Even if he doubted you considered him as a friend, he would have liked to believe that he knew the core of your personality. There was no way you would have deliberately ditched your studies when you had worked so hard to get accepted on scholarship.

‘No,’ came the answer after a momentary break, silence filled with pangs of distress. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure, but I have a bad feeling about this. I’ll go and check their place,’ Jiung said, checking his timetable and deciding against showing up at his last class as it wasn’t a seminar and most importantly, it wasn’t a lecture he was sharing with you.

‘Now?’

‘Now,’ he nodded out of habit as he threw the strap of his messenger bag over his head and put on his cap.

‘I’ll be there in an hour. Wait for me!’ Keeho asked and Jiung let out a loud, affirmative hum before he hung up the phone.

The blond boy didn’t waste any time. He called a cab with his kakao app and asked the driver to drive as fast as he could once he got inside the car. He promised to double the fare if the old man got to your place in under an hour (which would have been an achievement in itself in the afternoon traffic).

‘We have arrived, mister,’ the taxi driver announced and Jiung indeed paid plenty before he jumped out of the car and rushed upstairs. He had only ever been to your place once, when it had been your birthday in freshman year of uni and Soul had organised you a surprise party with your favourite strawberry cake and a second-hand laptop for your studies. Jiung couldn’t remember anymore what he had bought for you. Had he even bought you anything? 

He shook his head. That wasn’t important at that moment. Making sure you were alright and simply avoiding him was.

The first alarming sign was how easy it was to get inside your flat: all Jiung needed to do was push down the handle and the door was open. He didn’t need a key, a keycard or a passcode. His heart sank into his stomach when he crossed the threshold.

Jiung needed to bite into his lips to not make the mistake most people made on tv whenever they found themselves in a similar situation. Because as ridiculous as it sounded, his first instinct was to call for your name and announce his arrival, which would have been stupid. What if someone was here? He really shouldn’t have done that.

So he didn’t. Instead, he took off his shoes and checked every room as silently as possible until he made sure he was alone. Then, he started to go through your stuff systematically: skimming your mails, searching through your drawers and desk, rummaging your bathroom while simultaneously trying to not invade your privacy and finding clues about where you had been and what had happened. He was in the middle of looking for hidden compartments in your walls when Keeho arrived.

‘Is anyone here?’ The older boy asked, coaxing an unamused scoff out of Jiung with his loud question. Of course, he was acting like every idiot in a horror movie who was about to die.

‘Bedroom,’ Jiung grumbled, keeping his focus on the task in hand. He vaguely remembered Soul bragging about the coolest compartments he had installed in both of your flats, so that you could have hid your cash there and never gotten robbed. They had to be big enough to store a handful of stolen USB sticks. If only he could have known for sure there was nothing on them that would want dangerous people to make you disappear.

‘What happened here?’ Keeho asked, clearly taken aback by the state of your room.

Jiung didn’t bother to look around. He knew damn well the disaster he had left behind when he had started to get more and more frustrated, too impatient to put everything back to its place when they hadn’t given him the answers he was looking for.

‘The kimbap in her fridge went wrong days ago. She wouldn’t have left it there if she’d had a choice,’ the blond boy stated and it was ridiculous really, how sure he was in certain things when it came to you. But he just knew. He had caught you eating food you didn’t enjoy just because you had already paid for it or it had been for free. Even if you had been in a hurry, you wouldn’t have left it there to rot.

‘You sound pretty paranoid. And worried,’ Keeho commented, but walked up to your bedside table without much questioning and moved it aside. Then, he knocked on the beige wall a few times, gaining Jiung’s attention when suddenly, the thud gave a different sound.

Jiung crawled towards the bed on his hands and knees, reaching for the content of the hidden compartment once his friend opened it with ease that showed he knew exactly what he was doing. In small stacks, there were a couple of 5000 and 10000 won bills, less in total than the amount of Jiung’s allowance had gotten regularly in middle school.

Jiung’s throat closed up when his eyes fell on the custom-made keychain he had forgotten a long time ago, the one he had given you for your birthday and the one that sat on top of a pile of dirty papers. He took it into his hand and shoved it into his pocket before he skimmed the documents. On each page, they had the Dream House’s stamp on their upper left corners, which meant you might have found these in the facility’s basement.

Damnit! You had never mentioned you had found something that night, let alone something that looked like trouble.

‘What do they say?’ Keeho’s question came from Jiung’s right, your worn bed cracking under the older boy’s weight. 

‘At first glance? That they are lucky if they’re in the countryside,’ the younger answered, his heart rate picking up because of the dreadful pictures his brain was throwing at him about you and Soul behind bars, the two of you in separate interrogation rooms, powerful people trying to break you to turn against each other.

Jiung looked around in search of his backpack, then stood up and lifted it off the floor, so that he could shove the documents between two books he had been supposed to take back to the university library. They didn’t matter anymore. You and Soul did.

‘Where are you going?’ Keeho asked, and while Jiung had a concrete destination in mind, he was contemplating whether he should have told the other the whole truth. Keeho hadn’t seen the late president’s name on the documents yet and while Jiung would have also needed more time to figure out what you had gotten yourself into exactly, he had a vague idea. He didn’t want to put his friend in more danger in case he was right.

On the other hand, he was aware how important Soul was to Keeho. Obviously, the older boy cared about each one of his close friends, even people he deemed honest and kind, but Soul was like a brother to him. If Jiung had been in his shoes, he would have resented whoever kept secrets this serious from him.

‘I’ll ask Jiseong if he heard anything,’ he settled for the truth, albeit giving a curt answer. He would cross that bridge when he got there. For the time being, he didn’t want to complicate things even more. Not to mention that his step-brother would have scolded him and might have outright refused to tell him any details if he had shown up at his office with someone who had nothing to do with their family or their social circle.

After meeting you, Jiung had started to question whether he was able to read other people as well as his family expected him to, but recognizing the fine mixture of doubt, hurt and worry in Keeho’s eyes was too easy.

‘You will call me,’ the words came out pseudo-commanding, like the boy knew no objection, but Jiung noticed the pinch of uncertainty that made Keeho’s voice crack by the end, turning the statement into a semi-question. He didn’t call him out on his lack of faith in his character, mostly because Jiung himself was unsure of numerous things, too, regarding the situation.

Therefore, he settled for a nod instead of a verbal promise and left the building. The papers in his backpack felt heavy, like rocks that were trying to pull him underwater, but nothing could have compared to the weight of the abandoned keychain in his pocket that you, for some reason, had kept at the same place you kept your treasures.

After a failed attempt at the District Court, Jiung decided to wait for his step-brother at his home office, which was basically a separate room on the second floor in their house, between their parents’ offices and across from his own study room. Aware of the importance of respect and good manners even when one wasn’t out in public, he knocked on the mahogany door and counted to three, seven, ten, before he entered.

Since the boy’s plan was to ask a few questions from his hyung about the Dream House Medical Centre and whether there had been any attempts at breaking into the abandoned building in the last couple of years - the more general his curiosity appeared to be, the safer for you and Soul -, he decided to jot down every aspect he needed to touch upon and tried to make the inquiries sound as academic and neutral as possible while he was waiting. A written list could have helped him make it look like he was working on an assignment of some sort.

Taking a seat by the massive desk in the left corner of the room, Jiung pulled out the upper drawer, looking for a piece of paper. He knew it was a little old-fashioned, that he could have taken notes on his phone as well, but there was something about a piece of blank paper that stimulated his brain. Thoughts and ideas came easier when he could feel the material against the mounts of his palm and the weight of the pen in his hand.

Jiung didn’t intend to pry. Why would he have? He had been raised to trust his family above everyone and everything and put his faith in the system blindly as his relatives had important roles in it for generations. However, it was undeniable that it was your thesis abstract staring back at him from the top of a smaller pile of papers in Jiseong’s drawer. Jiung needed to take it into his hands.

He didn’t have to read through the lines to make sure the paragraphs had been written by you. Even though your name was crossed out with a black marker, he knew it was yours. He had read your abstract before. God! He had told you it would have gotten you in trouble. He had just never assumed that his hyung would have also been involved in this mess somehow.

Desperate to not jump to false conclusions, Jiung put the document back into the drawer and closed it carefully. He leaned the back of his head against the chair and closed his eyes, trying to even his breathing. He couldn’t have allowed himself to act suspicious or else his brother would have kicked him out of his office before he could have uttered a single word.

‘What are you doing here?’ Jiseong’s thunderous voice filled the room, pulling the blond boy out of his messy thoughts. Jiung snapped his head in his brother’s direction, resisting the urge to gulp down the nervous knot in his throat or put on a fake smile.

‘Homework,’ he explained with his fidgety fingers clenched into fists and hidden under the desk. He needed to stop thinking about your abstract in the drawer and how it could have gotten there for not only his own sake, but yours and Soul’s as well. He had never been a man of emotions, he couldn’t have allowed to become one in such a delicate situation. ‘I mean, I need some answers I couldn’t find on the internet, nor in any of the books in the uni library,’ he added when his answer met with silence, putting effort into relaxing his tense muscles.

‘I see,’ Jiseong muttered, not taking his hawk eyes off his younger brother while he walked closer to the desk and along with it, to Jiung. The young man’s arms were crossed in front of his chest; his tailored suit devoid of any wrinkles. ‘Ask away then.’

Jiung wished he had had more time to prepare himself for this conversation. Sure, the boy had wanted to get over with the interrogation as soon as possible when he had decided to seek his hyung out right after he had left your flat, but that had been before he had found your thesis abstract. With this new discovery, he felt unprepared.

‘It’s common knowledge that the Dream House has been abandoned since judge Kang Yohan tried to use it to overthrow the government,’ he started with a well-known statement to steal himself a couple of more seconds. He usually used this method during presentations because talking about things he was certain about did wonders to his jittery nerves, but this time, the academic tone had no positive effect. The lingering uncertainty poisoned his confidence. ‘It’s heavily guarded, though. Why?’

‘Use your brain, Jiung-ah. Why do you think it needs to be guarded up to this day?’ The man asked in a chastising tone. It reminded Jiung of school breaks in the countryside that they had spent with their grandparents. It reminded Jiung of summer days when he had falsely thought he could have acted his age without unpleasant consequences.

He frowned, but gave a serious thought to the question and answered with his chin held high.

‘So people wouldn’t break in,’ he chose, because even before breaking into the Dream House and rummaging through the first floor, he had doubted there had been something or someone kept in there that could have escaped. Which could have only meant that the government wanted to keep people from entering.

‘And?’

Jiung furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, wondering whether his brother knew he had been there, inside the medical centre, when you had put your hands on those documents. Was there a specific answer Jiseong was expecting from him? Or should he have played it safe and pretended he didn’t know about the late president’s involvement in something that had gotten you in so much trouble, you and Soul had disappeared off the face of Earth?

‘There are people in our country who believe Kang Yohan was some sort of saint who wanted to protect the powerless from corruption even though he couldn’t have cared less about the poor and unprivileged,’ the young judge stated, destroying the remaining distance between himself and his brother. Jiseong put his palms on his desk and leaned closer to Jiung with a predatory glint in his hazel eyes. Like he was staring at a pitiful prey instead of someone he had to treasure and protect. ‘It’s guarded, so those with anti-nationalist ideas wouldn’t turn it into their own sacred place,’ he said, forcing the younger to hold his breath and listen. ‘They would crowd it. It would give them a place with meaning for gatherings and suddenly, their preaching would gain more credibility.’

At that moment, as he was staring at his step-brother, the blond boy couldn’t help but think of you and your reaction whenever he had said something to defend the system. He wondered whether he had sounded just as biassed and inimical to you as Jiseong did to him while he was talking about faceless people and their hypothetical actions when they hadn’t committed said crime yet.

He wondered whether the fact that he added that harmless “yet” at the end of the sentence in his head meant he was indeed the same.

‘Has anyone ever broken into that building?’ Jiung asked partly to cut the tension that grew with the silence, partly to check the credibility of his hyung’s words.

Jiseong took his hands off the desk and straightened his back. He shot a small smile in Jiung’s way and shook his head.

‘Never. Like you said, it’s heavily guarded. You have nothing to be worried about,’ he said, slowly loosing his necktie, piercing gaze poking holes into the skin between the younger’s eyes. ‘Any other questions?’

There were. Jiung had plenty of questions starting with why was your abstract in his drawer, what had they done to you and Soul, whether you two had been the first ones who had been dealt with this drastically or there were others, people who had no connection to people like Jiung who came from an influential family. However, putting these thoughts in words would have done more harm than good and Jiung wasn’t an idiot. He might have doubted Jiseong would have been able to make him disappear or it was really him who had been behind all of this, but Jiung knew he wasn’t untouchable.

‘No, nothing. Thanks,’ so he said and stood up from the chair as casually as he could manage before he bent down and picked up his backpack from the floor. He bowed to his brother like he always did when he was greeting his family members or saying goodbye to them, then straightened his back and waited to be dismissed, showing respect to his elder as he had been taught.

‘Go, wash up! It’s almost dinner time,’ Jiseong said and patted his brother’s shoulder once, twice, three times, before he turned his back on Jiung.

The younger didn’t hesitate to leave the room afterwards.

The thing was, whether his step-brother knew that Jiung had broken into the Dream House with you and the boys or not, Jiseong had lied to him. He also had your thesis abstract, the very same document Jiung had given back to you the day he had last seen you, which was more than a little concerning. Therefore, despite his own beliefs, Jiung needed to figure out what was going on and how deep his hyung was in the mess you had also gotten yourself and Soul into.

He needed to know you two were okay. The sooner, the better.

If anyone had caught the boy sneaking into his brother’s home office instead of attending his classes, Jiung would have been cursed out, then dragged into his room and locked up for several weeks. He knew because he had been driven to school and back home for a whole month in high school when his father had found out that he had drunk a beer with his friend in public despite being underaged. They had done it at a park where they had thought no one had been paying any mind to them, but they had been dead wrong as his then-friend’s mother had sent one of her secretaries to keep an eye on her son and they had gotten caught before they could have decided whether they had wanted to open the second can. The tension at home after that had been so messed up, Jiung hadn’t dared to break any rules for years.

That was, until he had met you.

Rummaging through Jiseong’s drawers turned out to be fruitless. Other than stationeries and a bunch of files about ongoing cases at the court, there was nothing to put his hands on, which was weird. Why wasn’t your paper in the upper drawer anymore?

Kneeling on the floor, Jiung leaned his forehead against the edge of the desk and closed his eyes. Looking through his hyung’s things was one thing. Should he have really logged into his computer, too? That sounded too extreme, but then again. The boy had already trespassed on government property just to keep an eye on you and make sure you were fine. He could have always claimed he needed Jiseong’s laptop for whatever excuse his mind would have provided at the time of need.

Letting out a troubled sigh, Jiung could hear your last words to him ringing in his ears. If he had decided to turn a blind eye on the weird happenings now, he would have turned into what you had hated the most in people like him. People with the proper background to make a real difference, but no desire to change what was wrong. He might have refused to believe you had been right about everything, nor did he think he was a bad person just because his values and beliefs were different from yours, but he couldn’t have lied to himself. Something about the Dream House project was fishy.

So Jiung sat on the chair and turned on the computer before he could have lost his courage. He checked every folder and every file systematically, then opened Jiseong’s email services and read through his mails, too. The more he saw, the less suspicious his brother appeared to be and the more guilty he felt, but it was too late to turn back. So he kept reading, until he did find something.

It was a forwarded email Jiseong had never replied to or if he had done so, he had already deleted the evidence. The original letter was a report on the break-in to the medical centre; the person claimed there had been three or four suspects, but no gender, approximate age or physical features had been stated. The first response was about the punishment of the guards who had been working that night; the second one was an ID number; the third said: it’s done. Collateral damage: one person.

Jiung’s hands were trembling slightly when in the last email attached to the conversation there was a follow-up report from his uncle. It had been sent at five in the morning, mere hours ago, and it said they were ready for shipping.

‘What the…’ he murmured under his nose, finding it hard to process that these people might have been talking about you.

Jiung deleted the search history and closed the browser. He turned off the computer and took a moment to think. Should he have visited his uncle’s researcher centre on his own or should he have told Keeho about these emails like he knew the older boy wanted him to? Should he have tried to figure out what was going on in the legal way or gone behind his uncle’s back, too, lacking spare time to waste? What had they meant by shipping anyway?

Before he left the office, Jiung took a quick look at the interior from above his shoulder, then stepped out to the hallway and fished his phone out of his pocket. He called Keeho and when it went to voicemail, he sent the older boy a cryptic text about how he needed him as soon as possible.

A rational part of Jiung was aware he needed backup, but he wouldn’t have waited hours just to hear back from his friend.

Luckily, Keeho had reached out to Jiung within an hour, hence the two boys could meet up at the 7-Eleven across from the research centre around three. If Jiung wanted to be honest, it was the worst time either of them could have picked: it wasn’t close to lunch break nor did it align with anything else that could have drawn the attention from them, but he didn’t want to wait until closing time. He wanted to check every room on every floor as soon as possible in case, for some reason, you and Soul were in there.

The more he thought about it, the more this place seemed like the perfect cover-up and this thought drove him up the wall.

‘Sorry we’re late,’ a familiar voice demanded attention, followed by a loud, screeching sound as the intruder pulled out the metal chair and sat next to Jiung. Intak’s smile was too wide for the older boy’s liking, but at least it didn’t look genuine. The visible distress that blended into his friend’s cheery facial expression made Jiung feel less paranoid even though he would have gladly accepted that he was overreacting and let the guys make fun of him if that had meant you and Soul were chilling somewhere in the countryside.

‘Why are you here in the first place?’ Jiung asked, his gaze sliding from Intak to Theo who also took a seat by the table in the meantime.

‘Duh. Cause I’m the best thief you know and you’re about to break into the enemy’s lair in broad daylight?’ Intak’s question was dripping with sarcasm, his cold tone making it sound more like a statement. Jiung bit back a nasty comment about how Soul would exceed him in no time with his connections all across the city because thinking of the younger came hand in hand with thinking of you and he couldn’t have that.

Jiung put his elbows on the table and intertwined his fingers. He raised a brow as he looked at Theo, the silent question why he was there hanging in the air.

At first, Theo’s response was no more than a shrug, but as the tension became palpable, he let out a defeated sigh. It was clear, he didn’t think he needed to explain himself, especially because both Soul and you were a part of their friends group.

‘Someone’ll need to stand guard.’ It wasn’t something Jiung could argue with even though he would have liked to believe that even if they had gotten caught, his connection to the head of the institute could have gotten them out of trouble. The thing was, he couldn’t say it for sure anymore and this uncertainty and his sudden lack of trust in his own blood were stressing him out. If the boy’s thoughts hadn’t returned to your disappearance every two minutes, he might have already broken down due to the revelations he had needed to face in the last twenty-four hours.

‘Cool. Now, let’s order something and talk about the plan,’ Intak proposed, earning a judging side-eye from Jiung and a frown from Keeho when he pushed his chair back, making more space for himself to be able to stand up and walk up to the counter. ‘What? You chose a café for this group meeting. It’s pretty suspicious if we don’t order anything,’ he put his weight on his palms, leaning closer to the boys over the table.

Jiung let out a scoff.

‘I’ll have one small iced cappuccino,’ Keeho broke the growing silence before he changed his mind. ‘You know what? I’m coming with you. We’ll be back in a minute.’

Instead of following his friends with his eyes, Jiung’s gaze stuck on the massive building on the other side of the road. He couldn’t not feel like in a matter of mere hours, the life he had been living would cease to exist for good. Whether because his own uncle and step-brother were parts of a mafia-like system he had been blind to all this time or because he had chosen to betray them when he had decided to paint them as the enemy, it didn’t matter. Their bond that had been built on trust would break beyond repair once Jiung broke into the research centre. It might have already done so when he had read through his hyung’s emails.

‘You won’t turn on us, will you?’ Theo’s question pulled the blond boy back to the present, his sharp eyes cutting deep into his being. He didn’t blame his friend, though, even if the assumption that he would have left them behind to save himself was offensive.

His pride could take this much.

‘I want to get them back,’ Jiung said firmly, hoping that the sincerity in his voice would be enough and Theo didn’t expect him to come up with a whole monologue about how he was ready to go against his own family and burn Seoul down to the ground to find you. Because honestly, he wasn’t ready for any of those. He wasn’t ready to face the elephant in the room.

‘And that’s what we’ll do,’ Keeho patted the blond boy’s shoulder, taking a seat next to Theo while Intak sat back on the empty metal chair on Jiung’s side. He slid a small cup of black coffee towards the younger and took a sip from his mint choco frappé.

‘Which part of the building we want to infiltrate first?’ Intak asked and Jiung also let out an amused laugh when he saw the other boy fishing out a worn laptop from his backpack. Neat, serious and responsible weren’t adjectives Jiung would have ever used to describe his hyung, but he sure took this job seriously. It was actually pretty impressive.

‘The sixth floor and the basement. You need a special keycard to get to both or the elevator won’t start,’ Jiung said, going into more details about the security system although his knowledge was very limited. He had been in the research centre only twice and both times he had been left with his father’s secretary in the canteen while his father and uncle had been talking about business.

The soft clatter of the keyboard filled the air and embraced Jiung with its normality; he took a sip from his coffee and let the warmth spread in his body. He might have hated the thought of his friends getting in trouble because of his fixation on your sudden disappearance, but a selfish part of him found solace in their presence. He wasn’t alone.

‘Okay guys, we’ll do it this way,’ Intak spoke up after a couple of mumbled swear words and a delighted hum that reverberated through all of them. He pushed the laptop further from himself so that everyone could take a look at the screen, then pointed at the live footage of one of the security cameras inside the building. ‘Based on their social media posts and public appearances, these two researchers are the easiest to lead on. Out of the two, this one here, Dr. Kim Ryeowook is the one who possesses one of the six magic cards to the elevator.’

‘You figured these all out, skimming through a few Facebook posts?’ Jiung raised a brow and it was actually Theo who shook his head first, reaching out to the laptop and clicking on the tab next to the one everyone was staring at.

‘Actually, it’s a text analysis software we still need to work on with Beomgyu for one of our classes. Once it’s finished, it’ll help people make decisions, like solving complex problems for them, based on the imported information,’ he explained, slapping Intak’s hands away so that he could check the accuracy of the information.

‘Oh, okay! That’s cool,’ Jiung nodded to himself, letting the guy overwrite what he needed to overwrite before he confirmed the prediction.

Dr. Kim Ryeowook. The man was currently walking down the hallway on the second floor. If they were lucky, they could snatch his keycard and sneak it back into his coat’s oversized pocket before his shift ended around six.

Jiung’s heart was about to explode when the elevator’s doors closed behind their back and he caught sight of the sterile interior of the sixth floor. As they were running low on time, he was only with Keeho while Intak searched through the basement, his humming deafening even from the other side of the call that kept them connected.

‘Could you please focus? Look for papers, anything about shipping can be important,’ Jiung scolded his friend while they walked down the eerie hallways that led from the elevator to the laboratories. Although they were both dressed in the white coats of the researchers’ uniform, the boy couldn’t have said he felt disguised enough. In fact! He felt as though they were both sticking out like sore thumbs. They were walking too slowly, the caution in their steps almost alarming.

‘I don’t know about you, guys, but I don’t think they’re storing papers in here,’ Intak’s voice sounded almost pained before his words got replaced by a very forced, very loud coughing fit. Jiung furrowed his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Keeho.

‘What are yo—’

‘Fuck! Is this a freaking liver?’ Intak asked in terror, his question tugging on Jiung’s insides forcefully, making him nauseas. Because while it was a known fact that the employees at his uncle’s research centre were looking for ways to cure incurable diseases, Jiung would have never thought their vaccines and experimental medicines were tested on human organs. Sure, it must have been less cruel than testing them on living, breathing people, but the method still sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.

Looking at Keeho and listening to Intak’s uneven breathing, his friends had to be of the same opinion.

‘Guys, some of the organs have the same set of numbers…’ Intak didn’t have to finish the sentence, it was obvious what that meant. Yet, he still forced the words out. ‘I think they belonged to the same person. Livers, kidneys, hearts. The list is endless,’ he said.

Jiung hadn’t realised he was shaking until Keeho wrapped his fingers around his wrist and stopped the uncontrollable trembling of his left arm.

‘Don’t touch anything. Take pictures if you can, but stay alert,’ Keeho instructed, then pulled Jiung forwards.

The two picked up their pace and walked down the hallway with purpose in each one of their steps. When they reached the first door on the left side, Jiung reached for the handle with his sweater paw covering his hand, then pushed it down so that they could enter.

Inside, there were two dozens of hospital beds, unconscious people tied to the meal structure of the furniture, high-tech machines monitoring their vitals. It shouldn’t have been as scary as it felt with the eerie silence filling the atmosphere.

‘Do you thin—’

Jiung didn’t let Keeho finish his question. He had to stay focused; if the older boy had asked him whether you and Soul were in one of these rooms, in one of these beds, his thoughts would have tried to come up with an answer and ended up being all over the place.

‘I’ll check the beds on the left,’ the blond boy volunteered, simultaneously praying that you weren’t one of these people and that you were here so he could get you out of here.

Jiung’s movements were frantic by the time he got to the last patient - victim? - at the end of the row without being able to touch you. He snapped his head towards Keeho who was taking pictures of the sick, fighting his frustrated tears, in hope of good news.

Neither of you was in the room. Or in the next one, or in the third.

‘I found him! Jiung, quick!’ Keeho exclaimed, his hands already working on detaching the machine from Soul’s fragile body. Jiung could taste bile in his mouth when he saw the bloody dressing around the pale boy’s torso. He couldn’t see the wound and he had never been particularly good at Biology, but he had a faint idea that the red line across the textile was somewhere around his friend’s right kidney.  

‘Hy-hyung,’ Soul mumbled weakly, his half-lidded eyes barely open and his lips a mixture of lilac and blue as his head fell on Keeho’s shoulder. It took everything in Jiung to not throw his million questions at him about you and his family members like a spoiled child.

‘It’s okay. We’ll get you out of here. You’re safe now,’ the older boy whispered against the boy’s temple, then looked around, searching for something. Jiung couldn’t stop thinking of… ‘That wheelchair! Jiung-ah, we need to put Shota into that wheelchair.’

The urgency in Keeho’s voice pulled Jiung back to the present and he rushed to the other side of the room to get one of the wheelchairs for Soul. Keeho was right, there was no way they could have sneaked their friend out of the research centre when he was in a half-unconscious state. A patient in a wheelchair might have been a tad less suspicious than a lax body hanging from their shoulder. Though, a voice in the back of his mind said neither was a common sight in the building.

Jiung’s entire body tensed up when Intak dropped the phone on the other side of the call. The younger’s curses and his desperate ‘No, no, no!’ froze his blood even though Intak’s voice was barely above a whisper due to the sudden distance between him and the electronic device.

Contemplating whether he should have helped Keeho with Soul or pleaded Intak to give them an explanation of what was going on in the basement, Jiung let out a frustrated sigh while he was keeping the wheelchair in place.

‘Intak! Intak! What’s wrong?’ Jiung tried to gain the boy’s attention, but it wasn’t working. So they exchanged a worried glance with Keeho and came up with a plan: they checked the last room on the sixth floor, then the older got Soul out of the building while Jiung went down the basement to collect their friend (and whatever he might have found or encountered with).

Jiung hoped it wasn’t one of the security guards who had caught him red-handed, but if it had been, he was Intak’s best chance to get out of trouble. And that was the least he could do for his friend as without him, they might have never gotten to Soul.

The thought that he might have been facing his uncle’s rage at any moment should have been more terrifying. Jiung had no doubt about it that under different circumstances, mere weeks ago, he would have shitted his pants from the presumption that he had messed up so bad, the old man needed to be involved in the situation. But as he was running in search of his friend, passing by shelves full of glass containers and what not, he feared whatever triggered Intak’s uncharacteristic reaction the most.

It didn’t take long for Jiung to find the room with the open door. On the contrary, it became pretty easy once he got within hearing range, because Intak’s painful wailing echoed off the walls and surrounded him on the empty corridor.

Trying to regulate his nerves, the first thing Jiung noticed when he crossed the threshold was how the room was slightly colder than the rest of the basement he had raced through. Then, the sour and irritating smell of vomit and formaldehyde.

‘Intak.’ Jiung crouched down in front of the younger boy, cupping his face with his own, trembling hands, so that the boy could take notice of his presence. He had never been particularly good at comforting others, but he had seen Keeho do it to the boys enough times to have a vague idea about what he should have done.

Jiung pulled his friend’s snotty and tear-stained face against his chest and patted his blade bones gently, for a calming rhythm. Meanwhile, he looked around the room with his chin resting on top of Intak’s head, trying to figure out what could have happened.

‘She… she’s… no-hoh,’ Intak cried out desperately as he grabbed Jiung’s arm and held onto him stronger, body shaking from the threat of another pile of bile-filled vomit. Jiung looked down at the boy and closed his eyes. Should he have reminded him that they had to leave the basement soon? Should he have asked for answers?

Keeho would have rocked him back and forth until he calmed down, but Jiung was afraid they didn’t have enough time.

‘Intak, we need to leave. The keycard, we…’ The rest of the words stuck in Jiung’s throat when Intak pushed him away aggressively, shaking his head and screaming frantically as though the blond boy said something unforgivable.

‘We, no! We have to… we need to! No!’ He protested, crawling backwards on his hands and feet until his head crashed against an open compartment in the wall. With bold, palm-sized characters, there was a number written on it: 0327.

Now that Jiung paid more attention to the odd-looking doors on the right side of the room, his anxiety started to pick up. He pushed himself into a standing position and walked past Intak, trying to take a better look at the inside of the compartment. It must have been the younger who had opened it, which could mean that whatever was in there had triggered his hysterical reaction.

Jiung’s brows were knitted together in confusion when he felt a hand on his ankle. He looked down at his friend, who was shaking his head, mouthing his objections so quietly, the blond boy didn’t hear a word.

He turned back towards the compartment and pulled it entirely open. The piece of white clothing that was hiding the thing underneath was as big as a comforter. Although it brought no warmth or comfort when removing it, Jiung’s gaze fell on a pile of chewed out skin. There were no bones, no organs inside the violated corpse, only damaged skin and a head with more stitches, indicating that he couldn’t have found the brain inside of the skull, either.

Jiung fell on his knees when he recognized the ghost of your features on the corpse’s face. He coughed up bile and that little food he had in his stomach before the first tears rolled down his cheeks. He felt sick.

Neither of the boys could have told how long they were cursing and crying in that room with your corpse mere centimetres from them, but at one point Intak’s ringtone overpowered their sobs and pulled them out of their heads. Although Intak was closer, it was Jiung who reached out for the abandoned device and received the call, his voice hoarse and weak that did barely a thing to alarm the caller on the other side.

‘What the hell guys! You have to get out of there! Dr. Kim is already looking for his keycard, they are on their way to the sixth floor and I’m pretty sure the basement will be the next,’ Keeho said, panic and worry evident in each one of his words.

Jiung looked at Intak, then shifted his gaze to the open compartment. A part of him knew that there was no way they could have taken your remains without throwing up at each corner on the way out, that letting the others see you like this, especially Soul, would have traumatised them for life. He was also aware that as stubborn as you were - had been -, you would have wanted him to pull himself together and get the hell out of there before those who had done this to you would have done the same with the people you cared - had cared - about.

But it was so freaking hard to leave you there or to get up from the floor.

‘Are you listening to me? Please, guys, come out! Whatever there is, it’s not worth it, please, guys, please!’ Keeho was pleading, forcing Jiung’s limbs to move.

‘We’re on our way, hyung. Stop worrying so much,’ he forced out the sassy reply to ease the older’s nerves before he hung up the call and shoved the phone into his pocket.

Considering that cleaning up their vomit wasn’t an option, Jiung didn’t bother with checking the room for potential evidence they could have left behind. On the other hand, he put the textile back on your corpse and made sure the compartment you were laying in was closed before he opened another one and took pictures of another damaged body. He didn’t have the heart to do the same to yours.

Dragging Intak out of the basement was time-consuming and by the time they reached the elevator, Jiung’s muscles were screaming for a break, but he pushed himself until they were out of the building. The boy knew that their initial plan had been to sneak the keycard back into Dr. Kim’s pocket or at least leave it at the reception desk as though someone had found it accidentally at one point of the day, but with the mess they had left in the morgue room, these kinds of details had lost their importance.

Instead, they crossed the street to get to the coffee shop’s parking lot at a speed that didn’t draw too much attention, then got in Theo’s old car and refused to talk about what they had found in the basement until they got somewhere safe in the outskirts of Seoul.

The shocking news of your death lingered around the boys like smoke: sickening, ugly, bad. They couldn’t get rid of it and it threatened their health, especially Soul’s who refused to eat or drink anything for days despite his weak state until Keeho aggressively shoved some plain porridge down his throat.

Intak and Jiung weren’t that much better. Jiung just knew you would have lectured him for his self-harming behaviour if you had seen him skip his meals, so he forced himself to chew and gulp without the slightest care for the taste of the dishes Keeho put on the table. They could have been the saltiest, most disgusting soups and porridges of his life, the boy wouldn’t have noticed.

Although they didn’t know whom they could trust, the boys agreed on one thing: they needed to show the country, if not the world, the real faces of those monsters who led their nation since the first wave of the pandemic. They had to make people see how terrible they were, so horrible, inhuman things like this could have never happened again. 

The problem was that even when they tried to upload the pictures they had taken on the web, they got taken down almost immediately. Then, after two weeks of futile attempts at sharing the evidence with the citizens of South Korea, the news was filled with the same lie on every damned channel: a group of young people committing terrorist acts against the country.

Honestly, Jiung knew that he had burnt down all the bridges when he had chosen his friends and the truth over his family, but seeing his ID picture next to those photos that the people in power had chosen to put on display in the media was numbing. He felt too many emotions at once to distinguish any of them properly. He couldn’t even say he was angry: the word itself did no justice to the thunderstorm inside his chest.

‘We can’t give up now,’ Soul said and Jiung tore his gaze from the screen of his tablet to look at the younger. He still looked so fragile, but as he balled up his fists and opened his mouth for Keeho to feed him some soup, he finally had some colour to his cheeks.

‘We won’t,’ Jiung promised and for the first time in weeks, the silence that followed his statement didn’t drain him. If anything, this newfound determination gave them all another reason to find a way to stop this madness.

Not even twelve hours after their faces were plastered all over the capital city, a girl called Elijah reached out to Jongseob, claiming that she and her uncle had seen the photos Jiung had taken of the damaged corpse before they had gotten taken down and that they wanted to help them fight against the system. It was freaking suspicious and at first, they decided to ignore it altogether. However, when Soul pointed out that Jongseob hadn’t been at the Dream House with them, nor had he joined them when they had broken into the research centre, they talked through their options one more time.

And they decided to follow the instructions of this faceless person towards a place that was promised to be safe for them in two groups just in case it was a trap.

Jiung, Soul and Keeho were the first ones to leave the city. They took Theo’s car, saying one of them would come back for the rest of them if things were really safe, then followed the GPS signals given to them real time by this Elijah girl who hacked into its system.

‘What do you think we will find when we get there?’ Keeho asked from behind the driver’s seat, his voice low on purpose to not wake up Soul who had fallen asleep in the backseat.

Jiung shrugged.

‘Dunno. Two more hours and we’ll find out,’ he stated, looking out the window, taking in the scenery. The countryside looked so peaceful and slow from the inside of the car, but he knew it was only the illusion of obliviousness. He refused to believe that there was any place in this country that hadn’t been corrupted by the government. He knew that the outside world was just as rotten as his life was without the rose-tinted glasses he had been wearing all these years.

Shaking his head, the boy tried not to think about the last conversation he had had with you. Still, he wished he had listened to what you had been saying. He wished he had stopped you when you had turned your back on him and walked away, visibly wary. You had given him so many chances to understand. Yet, here he was, figuring out too late:

History was made by monsters dressed as saints.

the end.

[lily-blue]

Never the right time

☆ characters: scout member!minho & new recruit!you ☆ genre: attack on titan au, soldiers au ☆ warnings: physical fight, brief mention of death ☆ request: FWS14. form this prompt list ☆ summary: Minho tries to make you quit before your stubbornness gets you killed (a new expedition outside the walls is around the corner) ☆ words: 1,1k ☆ dedicated to: @dat-town​​ ♥

Since you had never been one of those people who fed themselves with comforting lies, you could confidently admit to yourself that you had conflicting feelings about joining the Scout Regiment. You didn’t dream about becoming a hero and solving the mystery of titans for the future of humankind; you didn’t yearn to see what was outside of the walls the way most Scout members did at one point in their lives; and you definitely weren’t looking for revenge, as the day the Colossal Titan and the Armored Titan had breached Wall Maria, their attack had freed you from your abusive family. You didn’t hate titans, you just acknowledged that the world would have been a safer place without them. Especially because their existence had indirect negative effects on the remaining population of the world.

When the titans had driven humankind to the verge of extinction, Wall Maria, Wall Rose and Wall Sina had been built to protect the remaining population. Each wall had kept one third of the human kingdom safe, which meant that even though too many had died the day of the attack, Wall Rose couldn’t have offered shelter for every survivor (and Wall Sina with its wealthy residents hadn’t even bothered to try). At first, the citizens of Wall Rose had made some attempts (or at least they had made it seem that they had), but the reality had been, there hadn’t been enough food for this many people. Hence, the quests for taking Wall Maria back had begun.

Hundreds of untrained and physically weak people had been sacrificed to reach an impossible goal, so that they wouldn’t have needed food inside the wall. And with you not contributing too much to the economy, you had known that sooner or later it would have been your turn. Thus, you had decided to participate in the military training when they had been recruiting in your neighbourhood, because that way you would have at least known what to expect.

You had also liked the idea of quality food on the table three times a day.

The months you had spent training had been intense, but you guessed it had been only fair. Some of you would have actually faced titans and fought them to survive, so it had been better to make the weak give up instead of wasting precious food and resources on walking corpses. Still, knowing the cold-hearted logic behind the military’s decision and taking hits after hits were two different things. Getting punched in the guts repeatedly for example hurt like hell. 

You spat out the blood in your mouth and wiped it clean with the back of your hand. If you had thought the training camp had been hard, being an actual recruit was somehow worse. The Scout members didn’t know how to go easy on rookies, especially the captains.

Arms trembling lightly as you pushed yourself off the ground, you stood up. Your gaze was piercing as you looked captain Minho in the eyes. You swore, he had a personal vendetta against you since day one.

‘No need to be so gentle,’ you mocked the older soldier with a lopsided smile, finding joy in riling him up with your disrespectful tone. The tick of his left eye made every lost fight that much sweeter. You genuinely couldn’t have helped it.

Instead of entertaining you, Minho punched you in the guts and kneeled into the lower part of your thigh, so you would have fallen knee first on the grass. He also grabbed your short hair and pulled your head back, because this way you could see his face hovering above yours even though he was standing behind you. He was fast. Inhumanly so.

You raised both of your hands in surrender, although it was clearly written on your face that you planned to do anything but. The thin, white line of your otherwise full lips and the fire in your eyes weren’t a quitter’s.

‘There’s no tapping out in real life, maverick,’ Minho informed you like it had been supposed to be a new piece of information to you. Like you hadn’t known how real life worked when you had been only fifteen the day reality had quite literally come knocking on humankind’s door.

‘There are no fistfights with titans, either, but oh, here we are, aren’t we, captain?’ You taunted, the words falling from your lips so naturally, you doubted that there was any kind of communication between your brain and mouth by that time when it came to captain Minho. He picked on you too frequently and you pissed him off in return just as many times.

From that angle, you had a front row seat to the sight of the man’s clenched jaw, but it still surprised you a little when he suddenly pushed your head forwards and let go of you. You landed on your palms and knees, suppressing a groan.

‘Just quit already. It’s not like you want to be here. You’re not a team player, either,’ he said, coaxing scoffs out of you with how ridiculously confident he sounded. Like he had the right to tell you what to do. Like he knew what was best for you more than you did. Like he had ever succeeded before when he had tried to pressure you into doing something in those two months while you had been getting reading for your first ever expedition with the Scouts.

You turned around and sat on your butt, legs spread and pulled up, so that you could rest your elbows on your kneecaps comfortably.

‘Are you encouraging me to become a deserter? When people are counting on me and need me for the new formation?’ You mocked, the smile on your face a little odd, albeit genuine. ‘That’s not so team-player-like, either, captain.’

It was his turn to scoff and you relished in it. Even though a moment later, when your eyes met, you felt a little out of place. It was like deep in your core you knew that he wanted to tell you something - something other than another jab at your character -, but were also aware that he wasn’t ready to show you a different side of himself. The way he opened and closed his mouth then shook his head made you frown.

He turned his back to you, but stopped in his tracks after two steps in the opposite direction.

‘Put some ice on your face. If it gets any more swollen, your comrades might mistake you for a titan,’ he gave you a piece of unasked advice in typical captain Minho fashion and you actually laughed at his comment. Way to make someone feel special.

You put your hands behind your back and little by little, you put more of your weight on your palms as you leaned on your arms.

‘Sure. And whose fault is that, captain?’ You asked just to claim the last word and as you had predicted, he didn’t react at all.

You did not stare at the man’s back until he left. And you absolutely did not smile while you were (not) doing so.

the end.

[lily-blue]

13 reasons why | reason no.8: they support aspiring artists

☆ characters: music producer!jihoon & singer!you (Jihye - ‘94 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, coworkers au ☆ summary: you are struggling to make your dreams come until one day you cross paths with jihoon who not only sees your potential, but falls in love with your music and then, with you ☆ words: 11,9k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for always taking your time to support me, my writing and my dreams ☆ taglist: @soobin-chois​

➼ chapter index

You didn’t hate your job. However, you wouldn’t have said that you were particularly content with it, either. Sure, with years of work experience at the same company, you had managed to get yourself a team leader position that paid enough to live a comfortable life in the capital city, but the workload had started to slowly burn you out during the last couple of months and you didn’t like how you were always too tired for your hobbies. You missed working on lyrics and recording your own songs a whole lot.

A part of you had been hopeful that with the end of the holiday season, things would be a bit less hectic again, but it was already late January and you still hadn’t had a week when you hadn’t had to stay overtime three or four days out of five. The only reasons why you could have left the office before seven this once was your little brother’s birthday and the fact that you had your brother-sister cinema date in your work calendar since November.

Taking a step forward, you lifted the back of your hand in front of your mouth to hide your yawn, then took a glance at the screen of your phone, checking the time. You had around one hour to get yourself a black coffee to not fall asleep ten minutes into the movie and arrive at the cinema where Jiung had promised to wait for you with the tickets and snacks despite your protest that you should have been the one who paid for everything. He had made awful good arguments for his age. If he had waited for you just so you could have used your card, you would have missed the trailers of the upcoming movies. And you both loved making future cinema plans on the spot, while you were sipping on your coke.

When the person in front of you bid her goodbye to the barista and left the line with a tray of delicious pastries, you took another step forward and greeted the guy with a polite smile.

‘I would like to have an espresso and an avocado-chicken sandwich to go, please,’ you said, deliberately disregarding the fact that you would have a huge basket of sweet popcorn to eat in an hour. You needed something more filling for dinner that you had skipped on purpose to make up for your early departure. You were also too old to live off on snacks.

While the barista was preparing your order, you watched him swing from one of the coffee machines to the food display, then back to your drink and listened to him as he was singing along with the radio. His voice was surprisingly stable and not just that, he managed to hit all those high notes Taeyeon executed flawlessly in the original ballad, which made you wonder whether he had been taught professionally or learned on his own just like you.

‘You know, this place could use a live singer. Open mic nights are pretty popular nowadays, but they’re still relatively rare, so the competition isn’t that cut-throat,’ you suggested with a hint of a smile, the musician in you feeling some sort of connection with the guy although you hadn’t paid attention to his name tag when you had ordered. ‘You have a beautiful voice,’ you added as you belatedly realised that you should have looked for your wallet if you hadn’t wanted to hold up the line for too long.

‘Thanks,’ the barista said, his sudden shyness merging with his voice, his tone a pitch higher than before. It was adorable, but you obviously didn’t voice it out loud. ‘I’ll make sure to mention your idea to Seungcheol hyung,’ he added while he placed your paper cup in front of you on the counter along with a brown paper bag.

You fished a few bills out of your wallet, then shoved the change back into it quickly before you grabbed your order, bid your goodbye and let the next customer ask for a medium sized caramel macchiato.

You didn’t stay much longer, only until you threw your wallet and your sandwich into your bag and made sure you had an empty hand to open the double door with. You might have had to take the subway to the cinema, but you couldn’t have been sure you would be able to get on the first one and you didn’t want to make your brother wait. He deserved the world and more for being your biggest supporter and the best baby brother you could have wished for.

Arriving on time, making his only wish come true and spending the rest of your day with him were the least you could have done. (You also couldn’t have waited to see his face when he opened his present and put his hands on the designer backpack you had gotten for him from Milan.)

Late January and early February for your team was all about Valentine’s Day. You had to find not one, but a dozen of different ways to include the holiday in your seasonal advertisements without being too cliche or liberal, without coming off as cringe and pushy. It was draining, because love in itself was somewhat banal in your opinion and there weren’t many sides of it that hadn’t been overused by artists all around the world, but what needed to be done was needed to be done, therefore, you tried your best to add a bit of uniqueness to every idea that come up during your brainstorming sessions.

With your decayed creativity, it didn’t get easier to work on your mixtape, but you had some promising snippets you could send to independent producers and entertainment companies, so you wouldn’t have said you were short on feedback you could anticipate. It usually took them a week or so to respond to your email, however, you had already encountered agencies that had turned your demos down within a day or reached out to you after a month, which meant you preferred checking your personal email once in every hour. Just to be sure you didn’t miss out on a good opportunity because of your slow reply.

At the familiar ping of your notification, you shifted your gaze from the line your brother was standing in to your phone and took it in your hands with a semi-excited, semi-anxious heart. You didn’t want to get your hopes up, but it was a Saturday afternoon. You would have liked to think that people who were working on the weekend didn’t spend their time on sending out rejection emails, but seeked out talents they couldn’t afford to lose.

‘Is it from YG?’ Jiung’s question came from in front of you, the fact that he was already back with your orders genuinely taking you aback.

How long have you been staring at your screen without opening their email? It felt like you had barely unlocked your phone.

‘Yeah…’ you mumbled, willing yourself to touch the envelope icon in the left bottom corner, then the first incoming email above many that you hadn’t had the energy to delete yet. You should have really taken your time to unsubscribe from all those mass emails you received on a daily basis but never bothered to read. It was easier to just ignore them. 

The polite rejection was in the first sentence after the greeting, but you pretended to read the whole letter to steal yourself a couple of moments to contain your disappointment. You didn’t want to look disheartened in front of Jiung, because you had noticed that sometimes he talked and acted like the older sibling and you wanted to be someone he could have relied on and turned to instead of another person he had to lend his shoulder to cry on.

‘They don’t need it,’ you spoke up with a pseudo-unbothered tone, then put your phone back on the table and reached out for the tomato-mozzarella-ham sandwich you had asked for. 

‘That company is a sinking ship anyway. They wouldn’t recognize good music even if it was shoved into their face,’ your little brother scoffed, coaxing a genuine chuckle out of you with the disapproving grimaces he made. He was clearly over exaggerating; YG was one of the big three for a reason even if their idols were managed poorly. Still, you were grateful for his lighthearted words and painfully biassed opinion.

Lacking a response that could have brushed Jiung’s worries away without sounding insincere, you decided to take a big bite from your food without adding any further comments to the topic. You prayed that your brother would take the hint like he usually did, but his emotional intelligence had either left the building or he deliberately ignored your silent request to move on from your newest failure.

Knowing him, it was most probably a mixture of both: he saw right through you and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t have given up on your dreams because of another brick wall.

‘Hey, if they don’t need it, it’s their loss,’ he claimed and at that moment, you envied him for his faith in you. Not that you were about to throw in the towel for real, but there were days when it felt harder to run after the cart that didn’t want to take you.

‘I know. I wasn’t too hopeful about them anyway,’ you claimed with an enervated shrug as you lifted your sandwich in front of your mouth and took a big bite from the heavenly food. You concealed your bitterness with your exaggerated reaction to the perfect combination of flavours, though, you weren’t lying. Comforting lost souls with your music and working on new snippets in your own studio had been your dream since high school. You had started to send your demos to entertainment agencies during your freshman year in university when you had realised your voice cracked in front of a real audience. The years behind your back had taught you not to be too hopeful.

Even when the initial reaction was positive about your songs. Nothing was set in stone until one had a contract in their hands and sometimes, not even then.

Munching on another bite while playing with the spoon in your black coffee, you were about to ask Jiung about your parents and how your father had taken the news that instead of going to the same university everyone in your family had attended, your brother wanted to study animation at Bang Arts Academy, when the furrow between his eyebrows made you alert and you changed your priorities.

‘What’s…’

‘Sis… have you seen this?’ Jiung’s stunned question cut off your worried one, successfully confusing you with the lack of details or pointers in the inquiry. You lowered your half-eaten sandwich and let your lower arms touch the edge of the table as you leaned forwards, trying to see what he was so focused on.

It was one of the leaflets the employees in Coffee Carat had put on every table; the one they advertised their first open mic night with. You had already seen the A3 sized version of it on the entrance, not to mention that Wonwoo also sent the draft versions to you after one of your visits because for some reason his boss wanted you to have one vote, too, besides all those people who could have had a say in the final design.

‘Yeah, their manager pulled me aside two weeks ago and asked me whether I wanted credit for the idea. I said it wasn’t necessary, but he even gave me a month’s worth of free coffee coupons, so I rolled with it,’ you said with an amused chuckle, not deeming it necessary to tell your baby brother how the coffee shop’s giant baker had walked over to you when you had given your business card to Wonwoo and torn it into pieces while he had enlightened you that his friend had already had a girlfriend.

Like you would have ever hit on someone in the catering industry - or put up with their lame attempts to charm you - while they were on the clock. Some of these people earned more tips a week than their actual monthly salary. They flirted for a living. And while you didn’t judge them for it, you looked for something more serious.

‘Cool! Do you plan to sign up for their first open mic night?’ Your little brother asked, his dark, chocolate brown eyes shining with the same excitement you often saw in them when he was talking about fashion and his favourite webtoons.

You took a sip from your coffee and made a face.

‘No, not really,’ you mumbled, suddenly unable to look at Jiung’s face as you were afraid you disappointed him with your answer. It wasn’t that you wouldn’t have liked to sing in front of people. It was more like you couldn’t.

‘Come on! Why not?’ He pressed and you genuinely weren’t sure whether he was pretending to be unaware of your boundaries or he was about to lecture you that most things were only impossible because you made them to be.

You decided to not give him enough time for the latter and instead of taking another bite from your sandwich, you leaned your back against your chair and raised a brow in annoyance. You obviously loved your brother too much to be angry with him when he acted like this, but his laid back and optimistic personality could piss you off in no time when you had to spell the obvious out to him to make him stop.

‘Because this coffee shop is actually pretty popular. There will be people,’ you made a point, going as far as shifting your gaze from one table to another in the customer area for emphasis. 

‘That’s even better!’ 

‘Tell that to my anxiety,’ you retorted sharply with a scoff, disbelief more dominant in your actions than anger.

‘But what if it could actually he–’

‘Can we talk about something else? Please,’ you pleaded and your pouty lips and puppy eyes seemed to do the trick. Because the next moment your brother bit into his mouth and put the leaflet back into its place.

Jiung shot a sheepish smile in your way and scratched his nape like a child who got caught red-handed while stealing candies from a cookie jar. It reminded you of those months when he had actually had the tendency to stuff himself with sweet snacks before dinner and your frustration was no more.

During the rest of those hours you spent in Coffee Carat, you did ask him about your father’s reaction to his future plans, but you dismissed that topic as well when his answer implied that he hadn’t taken it well. You knew your mother would have moved out as well if your old man had thrown Jiung out of home for real, so you weren’t worried. Still, you made a mental note to give your father a call and talk this matter through with him before your brother had taken it into his head that he would have paid for his tuition on his own. You wanted him, you needed him to stay a child for a bit longer. He could have obviously worked part-time during school breaks like he had done last summer and this winter, but you weren’t willing to let him work beside the academy.

In this matter, your opinion was final. So even if you had failed to talk some sense into your dad, you would have found a way to support him financially. He could have whined about it as much as he wanted, it was no question at all.

You couldn’t have pinpointed which one of the following had convinced you in the end that singing up for the open mic night was a good idea: Jiung’s pleading emojis and encouraging messages whenever the topic had come up in your conversations (and he had always found a way to hint at the event even when you had been talking about cooking), the curt reply in which the representative of IST Entertainment had advised you that you should have tried for their upcoming audition, or the degrading comments under your latest cover on your Youtube channel that had called you fake.

Well aware that you rarely acted on impulse, it was most probably the result of them all. You might have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that day, too, getting easily irritated by the comments people had made at work. Anyhow, what had been done had been done and your name was about to be called by the emcee in any second.

‘Okay, guys! Let’s give a round of applause to Kim Dahee,’ Boo Seungkwan encouraged the crowd to cheer for the brunette and his bubbly personality would have made you smile under almost any other circumstances. If only you hadn’t felt like throwing up.

You tried to focus on the girl’s song that might have been a bit amateur in the context of beats and composition, but had lovely lyrics. However, once she got to the refrain for the second time, your chest got heavy and your heart was about to explode inside your ribcage.

You didn’t think much. You rushed towards the hallway in the back that led to the restrooms, then locked yourself in the women’s once you were sure the tiny room was completely empty. You put your hands on the marble countertop and shifted a big part of your body weight onto them, relieved to be alone. 

The space obviously wasn’t sound proof. You could hear the blond emcee calling your name, but you willed yourself to shut him out along with the disappointed and confused noises of the audience. You tried to calm yourself with the usual, textbook-like methods: you counted to ten, twenty, then fifty, but it barely helped. You also washed your face and neck with cold water, but that did more harm to your grey tee than good to your nerves. Therefore, after two attempts at different breathing exercises, you decided to focus on what made you feel the best in life: music.

As you were humming the same song you had sent to those entertainment agencies that were constantly rejecting you during the past couple of days, you could feel the tension leaving your stiff muscles and you were finally able to breathe. Singing in front of so many people might have been one of your biggest fears, but enjoying the melodies you created was what made you keep chasing your dreams.

It could have taken mere minutes or half an hour, you weren’t sure. All you were aware of was that impatient knock on the restroom’s door that pulled you back to reality and urged you to leave the room before the person on the other side called for the employees’ help. The last thing you needed was Wonwoo coming to your rescue when you weren’t stuck and reassuring you that you could have still gone on stage after the last participant.

‘I’m sorry,’ you mumbled under your nose, avoiding eye contact while you bowed to the older woman with your palms pressed together. You hoped your voice was loud enough for her to hear, but quiet enough to ignore easily.

Not exactly keen to stay until the end of the open mic night and having no other reason to be at the coffee shop, you were about to keep your head down and sneak out of the building when someone cleared their throat on your right and took advantage of your reflexes to gain your attention. You snapped your head towards the black haired boy before you realised and his sharp gaze sucked your soul out of your body as soon as your eyes met.

He made you feel uneasy: like you were a mere child up to no good and he was about to scold you for every harmless crime you had ever committed in your life.

‘What’s the name of that song? I’ve never heard that one before,’ the boy asked and the blood ran cold in your veins upon hearing his question. With furrowed eyebrows, you took in how he had his back leaned against the wall and for the first time since you had noticed him, you couldn’t have helped but wondered: was he waiting for his turn to use the men’s restroom or he was waiting for you.

‘What?’ You gaped at him, internally scolding yourself for exaggerating your surprise when you could have just told him you couldn’t recall either the artist or the name of the song. ‘I… I don’t know. I don’t remember,’ you tried to save the situation, although a part of you was convinced that you only made it worse.

The silence that followed your statement was heavy. It made you fidgety, because you didn’t know whether he would call you out on your blatant lie or cut you some slack instead, saving you from the urge to lie into his face again, this time, in more detail.

‘I see. Are you perhaps one of the participants?’ The boy asked, approaching the matter from another direction. You didn’t understand why he was so pressed about your song, but you had gotten enough rejection letters in the past weeks. You might have always been down for the good old constructive criticism from a fellow musician, but you didn’t want him, a layman, to talk poorly of your skills once he had figured out that it was your own creation.

‘No!’ You retorted a bit too loudly, earning a side eye from the old woman who just left the women’s restroom and passed you by. Coming to your senses and realising how ridiculous you were acting, you straightened your back and cleared your throat. You even fixed your hair with your fingers before you rephrased your answer in a calmer tone. ‘I mean… No, I’m not.’

This boy had no power over you! He was just a stranger. Someone you would most probably never see again, let alone talk with.

‘What a shame!’ He exclaimed with an almost pout that you couldn’t have helped but found cute despite your better judgement.

Your cheeks turned ruby when you realised you weren’t just zoning out, but staring at his thin lips for literally no reason and for shamelessly too long.

‘Here! In case you suddenly remember,’ he took a step closer to you and held his business card out for you until you took it. ‘It could use a few more modifications, but it has potential,’ he added with an encouraging smile before he bid his goodbye and left the corridor.

Instead of following him with your eyes until he disappeared, you were staring at the business card he had given you and his name that was more than just familiar. As a wanna-be singer, songwriter and producer, you were obviously up to date with the cream of the industry you oh so desperately wanted to be a part of. However, you had never seen any footage of Woozi in spite of those two dozen awards his songs had received since his debut under Pledis Ent. No one had.

He looked nothing you had imagined him to be based on those songs he had written about dreams, bittersweet love, and yearning for something better. If he had really been Woozi. But that was a “you” problem, and a fact you should have accepted on your own.

Taking a deeper breath, you shoved the business card in your pocket and fixed your clothes. On the count of three, you power walked to your table and grabbed your purse. You might have been tempted to finish your black coffee even though it had gotten cold, but you didn’t want to take risks. Thus, you left the crowded building immediately: without explanations or goodbyes.

On your way to the metro station, you told yourself they didn’t need you to call the open mic night a success and that you could have always apologised to Wonwoo via text for not feeling well enough to go on stage. You had a feeling that he would have understood.

Needless to say, you were sceptical about the black haired boy and his real intentions with the song you had written. Because no matter how much respect you had towards Woozi as a musician, you couldn’t figure out why he - of all people - would have seen so much potential in your work. Not to mention that a defensive part of you still questioned his identity. It was hard to picture the industry’s young prodigy at an amateur open mic night, looking for talents. Maybe, if it hadn’t been the first event at Coffee Carat, your gut feeling wouldn’t have pulled walls around your heart at the thought of being discovered by one of your idols, but it just felt too good to be true. Something that would have happened with your annoying cousin or your neighbour who always greeted you cheerfully in the elevator, but never with you.

No wonder it took you two weeks to write to the boy about the song that you had suddenly remembered without attaching the file to your email. But at least he didn’t seem to mind your caution based on his reply, his professionalism helping you ease yourself into the thought of meeting him again. He even let you choose the location and while it would have made sense to talk about your song in his studio, you picked the same coffee shop you had first met since you had already known a few of the baristas there by their name. They could have been your safety-net if something had gone horribly.

While you were waiting for your usual black coffee in front of the counter, you made a poor attempt at fixing your dishevelled hair. However, despite doing your best, you still felt like a mess when Sooryeon slid the porcelain towards you and sent an encouraging smile in your direction as though she knew you were worried about the worst first impression one could have made at an important meeting.

In your case, another horrible first impression since you had already lied in the boy’s face the first time.

‘I started to think you wouldn’t come,’ you heard the boy say in a neutral, almost eerie tone that made you gulp as you took a seat on the chair next to him instead of the one across from him.

‘I’m sorry. I needed to take a small detour. Check on a venue for work,’ you explained curtly, hoping that he wouldn’t ask for more details although you would have told him everything if that could have lightened the mood. It wasn’t that he gave you side eyes for arriving half an hour late, but you felt bad for doing so anyway.

To your surprise, he didn’t call you out on the fact that it was a Saturday afternoon. Whether it was because he didn’t care or believed you, you couldn’t be sure. Anyhow, you decided to focus on how he was still at the shop and intertwined your fingers around your cup to avoid fidgeting with the handle. The porcelain was pleasantly warm against your skin.

‘Did you bring the audio file? I’d like to listen to the whole song first,’ he asked and you let go of your coffee quickly, so that you could have fished your laptop out of your bag.

‘Of course!’

You placed the device in front of the boy in an angle that allowed you to see the screen, then typed in your pin code and opened the folder in which you kept your songs - including both the finished and unfinished snippets. You had never realised before how ridiculous the funny titles of the latter were until you were suddenly super aware that Woozi could see them. Still, despite feeling his judgemental gaze burning holes in your skull, when you glanced up at the boy, he was staring at your laptop, waiting for you to open the file with endless patience.

Thus, this was exactly what you did next.

You had a couple of scenarios in your head about what could happen after he took his headset off and turned his attention to you again. He could have turned you down politely and said he had been talking about a different song and it was all a misunderstanding. He could also have been straightforward and claimed it sounded better in his memories. You were fairly prepared for the worst of the worst, but his first question, nevertheless, managed to take you aback.

‘Where do you work?’ He asked, his eyes telling you that he was serious despite the comedy in his words. Shouldn’t he have asked you about the story behind the lyrics or what had given you inspiration to write about the happiness in heartbreaks?

Shouldn’t you have talked about music?

‘Uhm…’ you started, a bit confused. You hold onto your drink with tooth and nail to resist the urge to scratch your nape out of uneasiness. ‘I work for a multinational company. I’m the leader of their marketing team,’ you answered, once again, not going into too much detail on your own.

‘What about your free time?’ He threw yet another irrelevant question at you before he lifted his coffee in front of his lips and took a few gulps from it, keeping his piercing gaze on you.

In theory, you were well aware that you weren’t obliged to answer or tell him the truth. You could have easily and rightfully said your personal life wasn’t his business and asked him to not waste your time if he had hated the song, but reality in a conservative country often went against these kinds of ideas.

If he had indeed been Woozi, he was not only a man, but also your senior. You shouldn’t have offended him deliberately when he was here for you.

‘I’m either with my little brother, do some house chores or work on my music,’ you admitted, hoping you didn’t sound too plain or lame. Obviously, you had friends. And you were kind of up to date with their lives even beside your inhuman working hours. It was just… you always told yourself it was an inevitable part of adulthood that the three of you could meet up for dinner only once a month. There was nothing wrong with preferring texts over friendly dates until you were genuinely concerned about them.

You must have furrowed your brows or puffed out your cheeks while you were lost in your thoughts because the next thing you realised was Woozi trying and failing to hide his smile while he was watching you.

Bashful, you tore your gaze away and chose to analyse the cup you had gotten your drink in, how it was pristine on the outside and how you could make out a few light-brown lines close to its edges where your coffee touched it on the inside. Undoubtedly, you were acting ridiculous.

‘I mean, how much free time do you have on a usual week?’ Woozi asked and you shrugged without looking at him. You couldn’t have said you had a lot, but it could have been worse. If you had learned anything after moving out from your parents’ house it was how things could always get worse.

Having a job that you didn’t despise, a job that paid you enough to lead a comfortable life in the capital city was in itself a privilege. Even if it drained you and killed your creative energy sometimes.

‘It depends on the season. But honestly, not much,’ you admitted, although you made sure your voice wasn’t too blue. You didn’t want him to pity you or worse! To think you were just another sad girl in the line, dreaming about making it big in the music industry. ‘But today was an emergency! It’s rare that I need to work on the weekend,’ you added quickly as an afterthought when it hit you how your actions might have made your statement worse than it was.

‘Good,’ the boy said, confusing you with his almost relieved tone. He acted like it mattered to him. Like the lack of your free weekends and nights had any affect on his life when you were still calling him on his stage name in your head. When had you jumped to the part when you had become his concern? You hadn’t even realised you had been going in that direction.

Not sure how you were supposed to react, you opted for sitting in silence and waiting for him to take the first step, but instead of literally anything you could have come up with in your head such as him having a friend who was in the same shoes as you, he did none. Instead, he finished his black coffee in one go and leaned his back against his chair, observing you with his arms linked in front of his chest.

You wondered whether he was about to tell you your song was mediocre at best.

‘Would you like to work with me? I’m talking about a one-month trial as an intern who does more than bringing me my black coffee every morning,’ he specified before you could have asked, his words registering in your mind a bit slower than you would have been proud of. ‘It won’t be easy. You will definitely need to learn to be more confident, more adamant while staying humble and open for suggestions,’ Woozi claimed, and while what he was offering you was quite literally your dream job, your first instinct was to tell him all those reasons that made you unqualified for the internship.

For example, your current job.

‘I… I don’t have tim–’

‘It’s enough if you come by only on the weekends. You can also leave around eight or nine on Sundays so you could sleep enough before your full-time job. How does that sound?’ He drove a hard bargain like he really wanted you to jump on the opportunity despite the voice in your head that kept reminding you that some dreams were meant to remain just that: a dream. You were already closer to thirty than twenty. Weren’t you too old for believing in miracles? (Or to try yourself out in an industry where some people became sunbaes before graduating high school?)

A part of you was afraid that living your dream would ruin it for you forever, the picture you had of the musician life in your head. But it was also something you had wanted to explore with your whole being. You would have regretted turning down this internship even if giving it a try had left a bittersweet taste in your mouth afterwards.

‘I’ll do it!’ You exclaimed before your worries could have caught up to your determination and forced you to accept that you were a marketing team leader, not a singer. You could have been both and whatever you wanted to be. It wasn’t too late for you.

You might have been high on the moment, you probably were, but if anyone had asked you, you would have sworn Woozi’s smile was proud before he said:

‘Then, see you tomorrow,’ and got up from his chair.

You wanted to ask him about the specifics: the exact time when you should have shown up at his studio, the things you should have brought with you, what you should have told at the reception. You wanted to know whether the company knew about his offer or it had been a split second decision because he had liked your song that much. If it had been the latter, what would happen if his bosses didn’t need you?

However, your million questions obviously needed to wait because by the time you untangled your messy thoughts, the boy was out of the door and you were sitting by the table on your own. If he had bid his goodbye to you or anyone else in the building, you hadn’t noticed. You barely registered that Sooryeon walked up to your table and gave you a slice of chocolate pie to congratulate you on surviving your meeting with Jihoon.

Oh. She called him by his birth name. Could it have been that he had come to the open mic night because he had known someone from the shop? Then, it hadn’t been pure coincidence, nor had he been looking for raw gems in his free time when he had found you.

‘Thank you, Sooryeon-ah,’ you mumbled under your nose a bit belatedly, but the girl didn’t seem to mind your absentmindedness. She walked back behind the counter where Wonwoo was explaining something to another barista by the cash register, then patted her coworkers’ shoulders and entered the staff only area that was hidden behind a pair of curtains.

You didn’t stay much longer. You finished your extra dessert and your black coffee then said hi to Wonwoo and left. The odd feeling that your alarm could have woken you in any minute stayed with you through the day, but you didn’t mind it, not really. It kept you on your toes, not letting you get your hopes up too high.

Because the more you expected or secretly wished for, the bigger your disappointment could be when these expectations didn’t match with your reality. And you didn’t intend to start this new chapter of your life with a bitter heart.

In the next three and a half weeks, you had pinched your arm each and every time you had entered Woozi’s studio. And you did it again, when two days before your internship ended, he slid a pile of papers in front of you during your short albeit well-deserved lunch break.

‘What’s this?’ You asked with a raised brow, right after you had swallowed down a huge bite of your jjajangmyeon. You usually opted for less messy food when you ate this close to the equipment, but tonight you were both too lazy to go as far as the canteen on the second floor.

You looked up at Jihoon in confusion who took a sip from his coke before he pointed at the stack with his index finger.

‘A full-time producer assistant contract,’ he said, encouraging you with a nod to look through the papers. ‘You know my drafts aren’t this neat,’ he added with an amused chuckle while you slowly slid your gaze back to the pile and placed your chopsticks carefully atop of your bowl.

‘Are you serious right now? Do they really want me to stay?’ You asked, disbelief loud and clear in your voice. You made sure to wipe your hands clean with a tissue from your tote bag before you touched the contract, but even then, with the evidence in front of you, it was hard to comprehend. 

‘Why not? You’re talented, diligent and a quick learner,’ Jihoon argued between two small bites, his mouth full with lukewarm black bean noodles. ‘Not to mention, we’re a good team. What else would they need?’

It was clearly a rhetorical question, hence you pressed your lips into a thin line and hovered over the first page of your new contract silently. You were aware that Jihoon was right. You were more than just good together. Your team work had been spot on from the beginning as you were precise and reliable that gave the producer a reason to rely on you when he felt like his schedule was all over the place, blocking his creative flow. You had composed five new songs - songs that were accepted by your higher ups - in the past three weeks and you had a good feeling about finishing the sixth for Minhyun sunbaenim’s solo album in the next 24 hours.

However, you weren’t delusional. You knew the monster part of these projects were done by Jihoon. He was the one who stayed at his studio to work on them when you needed to leave and catch up on some sleep before your full time job. You merely helped him with your ideas and beginner enthusiasm, criticising him professionally and cheering on him when he felt he was running in circles fruitlessly.

‘Shut up!’ You grumped under your nose and pinched your lower arm one more time, making Jihoon scoff with affection because of the ridiculous sight. You were acting ridiculous again. Especially when finishing the first paragraph of the contract, your first thought was that you couldn’t have met the criteria. How were you supposed to take on so many administrative tasks and help Jihoon with the songs when you worked forty to fifty hours a week at another company? ‘Even if I quit my job now, I’ll still need to work there for another month,’ you explained, your sour expression more disappointed than you intended to showcase.

‘Just look at page four,’ the boy mumbled with a full mouth, encouraging you to do as he said and you did.

Scanning through the fourth page, your lips parted in bewilderment when your eyes fell on the second paragraph. There, it was stated black and white that the company would give you another month of paid internship at the beginning with the slight difference that instead of a fixed amount of hours - now you worked twenty hours a week -, this time you would need to work as many hours as Jihoon required you to.

Your smile was small albeit grateful. You had no doubt about it that it was Jihoon’s doing as he was pretty up to date with your schedule at the marketing team, so that he could have had you around when he knew you weren’t too exhausted to form complex sentences or bear with his occasional mood swing without crying. He had told you on your first day that he couldn’t comfort crying people and that you shouldn’t have taken it to your heart if he had left you alone as soon as you showed the first signs, because it was simply his way to give you more space to put yourself together without him awkwardly staring at you from a distance.

Needless to say, the boy hadn’t seen you cry so far. However, you were pretty certain it was because of his warning, his willingness to let you sleep enough, and your determination to prove to everyone you could handle the industry. 

You took your sweet time reading through the details, but Jihoon didn’t seem to mind your speed even though initially you had given yourselves a twenty-minute lunch break so that you could have had time for recording a demo, too, once you finished the current ballad. Instead of reminding you of your plans like he would have usually done, this time he finished his noodles in silence, threw away the trash and walked back to you with his notebook and a pen, jotting down what most probably were new lyrics and song ideas.

You were about to sign your name at the bottom of the last page when Jihoon chose to break the silence.

‘You don’t look too happy, though,’ he stated, a clear observation, and you wondered whether he had known you so well already or your face was just that bad at concealing your thoughts.

Frankly speaking, under the anxiety-filled layers, you were beyond happy. You were joyful, you were over the moon, you were every bright adjective in the dictionary. You just couldn’t have helped but being reminded of your original ideas of your future as a delusional teenager now that you got so close to living that dream.

‘I am happy,’ you claimed and signed the papers before you slid the pile back towards Jihoon on the coffee table you used for eating. He raised a brow at your curt answer and you sighed in defeat. You reached out for your cold jjajangmyeon and took a bite from it to steal yourself a couple of seconds before you would have elaborated.

Jihoon didn’t rush you, but you could feel his attention on you even when he did everything in his power to keep his eyes on his notebook.

‘I’m happy. Working with you… it’s an amazing opportunity I’m grateful for,’ you started to make sure the boy didn’t misunderstand you. You had loved every minute of your internship under his direct guidance even when it had been disheartening to retake the same two lines over and over again. ‘It’s just…’ You took another bite from your soggy lunch. ‘I still can’t sing live in front of a living, breathing audience. I’ve always thought that once I sign with a label, I’ll do it as a singer and not as a producer,’ you admitted, the words heavy on the tip of your tongue. You felt so stupid, so shameless and ungrateful.

Jihoon’s calculative eyes didn’t leave you. He tilted his head sideways, let his shoulders fall a bit forwards, then let out an amused scoff.

‘That’s it?’ He asked, his reaction irking you because of the palpable relief in his voice. As though now that he knew the reason for the change in your mood, he deemed it unworthy of his worries.

A rational part of you was aware that your dream was none of his business, hence his tone should have been understandable, but people had never meant to be rational, especially about things that were dear to their heart. Thus, you rolled your eyes, annoyed but kind of polite, then took another bite from your lunch.

You expected the conversation to be over with this and maybe a reminder that he was your boss - although Jihoon had not once used his title against you in or outside of his studio -, but what you got was a soft smile and another offer that made it hard to believe you were awake.

‘I can help you with that,’ the boy claimed, unbothered and confident while he kept his brown eyes on you.

‘You make it sound like you could fix all of my problems in a week,’ you stated slowly as one of your eyebrows slid a tad bit upwards. It wasn’t that you hadn’t tried every damn trick you had found on the internet. You had sung with a mask on your face just for your voice to crack after the first verse; you had tried singing with your back to the audience, but your hands had been shaking so much, you had dropped your mic. Your case wasn’t as easy as he thought.

‘Only your stage fright,’ he retorted. ‘And I might need a month or two.’

‘A month or two?’ You echoed with disbelief, but Jihoon just nodded. He didn’t elaborate. At least, not as much as you wanted him to.

‘Come to the coffee shop on Tuesday after work,’ he said before he pointed at the half-empty bowl in your hands. ‘And speed up! We don’t have all the time in the world,’ he reminded you that you still had a song to finish, which immediately set your priorities straight.

Instead of calling him out on his overconfidence or pestering him about the details of his plan, you finished the rest of your noodles silently, then tidied up the area around the coffee table and got back to work.

You two stayed until 11:30PM that Saturday, but the familiar tiredness in your bones was so worth it, you thought, when listening to the last take of the demo, you noted that you once again succeeded at creating something beautiful that could have brought comfort to people.

(This was the part of your new job that you had failed to find in any other profession.)

After the first night you had stayed at Coffee Carat after closing time with Jihoon and a few of the staff members, you had had serious doubts whether you would have ever been able to sing in front of people.

Three weeks, seven failed and two semi-successful attempts later, your confidence level was stagnant at your newest low, but you still kept coming back because what else could you have done? These people had already seen you losing your balance in the middle of a song when you had tried to shut them out and closed your eyes. It could hardly have gotten worse.

‘He’s making me nervous,’ you admitted when Jihoon walked up to you with a glass of warm honeyed herbal tea that might have tasted like cough medicine, but always helped you feel a bit more in control while it warmed up your vocal cords.

‘Who? Minghao?’ The boy asked when he stole a glance at the customer area from above his shoulder, his sharp gaze loitering over his friends who were chatting by the tables that were closest to the counter and the corner where you were about to perform one of your ballads. ‘That’s just his face. He’s built like that,’ he insisted with a nonchalant shrug, his attention back on you and your stiff posture.

You took a sip from your drink and frowned.

‘Last time I dropped my coffee on the floor and Wonwoo asked him to take care of the mess. I’m pretty sure he hates staying here longer because of me,’ you complained in a small voice while your fingertips were drumming a familiar melody on the outer side of your mug. The porcelain was pleasantly warm against your palms, but the mere memory of the boy’s grumpy face from Monday kept you on the edge. You were old enough to understand that being loved by everyone in life was an impossible concept, but he was Jihoon’s friend. For some reason, getting on his bad side didn’t sit well with you.

‘No one is forced to stay longer because of you,’ the boy said in a neutral voice for which you gave him a sceptical look. You honestly doubted all of them stayed at the shop willingly each and every time when you couldn’t have finished one song during the past three weeks. ‘They are not! He’s here because his girlfriend wants to support you and he doesn’t want her to get in trouble on her way home,’ Jihoon explained and you shifted your gaze from his face to the girl who was sitting next to Minghao. Sooryeon was stuffing her face with a leftover croissant while she was chuckling at someone that the owner’s fiancée was explaining to her with big hand gestures.

‘So it’s because of me,’ you concluded. Because at the end of the day, it was still on you that these people were at the coffee shop. You needed them so that you could practise in front of a real audience.

‘Since when are you so whiny?’ Jihoon asked, the furrow between his brows showing only a slight annoyance and a lot more confusion.

You pressed your lips together, into a firm, pale line.

Since when were you this self-conscious? Your behaviour must have had something to do with your frequent appointments for embarrassing yourself in front of the same employees who served you black coffee five times a week. But breaking this down to the boy aloud might have sounded ungrateful considering how much Jihoon had done for you in his free time, so you chose to keep your mouth shut and answered with a small albeit apologetic smile.

‘You will be fine. I brought you blindfolds.’ He squeezed your shoulder, then pulled a grey textile out of his hoodie’s pocket.

You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze linger on the silk-looking stripe. Honestly, you weren’t sure it would stay up in case he planned to secure it with a knot at the back of your head, but instead of making a comment on that, you decided to pull his attention on a more crucial fact: your awful sense of balance while nervous.

‘Thanks. I hope you brought pillows, too, before I faint again and crack my head open,’ you said with a playful edge to your words and a light nudge, earning an eye roll from Jihoon that seemed as amused as annoyed.

‘It’s super thin. You’ll see everyone, just not as clearly as before, so their faces won’t distract you,’ he informed you and waited until you finished your drink, so that he could have placed it on the counter behind you.

Jihoon’s hands were working gently when he tied the blindfold around your head and you had to give it to him, his idea felt a lot less problematic than you had previously thought when you took a look around the shop. Just like he had promised, you could make out shapes and a bit of depth, too, through the thin material. You saw his friends, Hoyeon’s hand gestures and Mingyu’s lame attempt at stuffing a piece of something into his best friend’s mouth. Yet, their facial expressions didn’t make you overly self-conscious anymore since they were too blurry for you to put your hands on their assumed feelings and thoughts.

After a deep breath, you took your worn guitar in your hands and walked in the middle of the stage without tripping and causing another accident. This achievement in itself gave a little boost to your confidence. You could do it!

It was Seokmin who announced you to your audience and it would have been a lie to say that your heart wasn’t pulsing frantically in your throat when the buzzing of the coffee shop came to a sudden silence. However, being blind to the guys’ reaction helped. Your fingertips might have slid on the strings a few times when they weren’t supposed to and your voice might have cracked in the middle of the last bridge, but you successfully finished the song without major mistakes. And most importantly: you did get to the end of the ballad.

It was a baby step that every fibre in your body celebrated with the small albeit proud smile in the corner of your mouth. However, what was an achievement in itself in your dictionary was the opportunity to thrive for more in Jihoon’s.

You knew him. You had been working with him for over a month by then, but it still took you off guard when instead of congratulating you like the others did, he asked you to sing another song right away. And a third one when you managed to perform the second one with only two tiny mistakes on your guitar.

‘Good job!’ Jihoon exclaimed, clapping calmly while you reached for the blindfold and took it off with a bright smile. His acknowledgement meant a lot more to you than he thought; he had been your idol once and now, he was your mentor.

High on adrenaline and the feeling of finally moving forwards, you rushed up to the blacked haired boy and wrapped your hands around him. You were rocking back and forth due to your excitement and didn’t let go of him even when his characteristic, musky scent reminded you of how close you were standing.

You had never stood this close before.

Contemplating whether you should have apologised immediately, making everything more awkward in front of his friends, or just pulled away like it was no big deal, your eyes widened at the realisation that you could feel the light weight of Jihoon’s palm on your back. He was patting you a little clumsily, but it was precious: his attempt to reassure you it was alright.

You pulled away after a couple of seconds, flustered, but happy.

‘I’m… thank you,’ you mumbled, unsure how the rose tint of the boy’s cheeks made you feel. You were too used to his snarky remarks and affectionate eye rolls to comprehend the slight change in his attitude. Not that you weren’t aware it was your fault. You had just jumped on him in front of everyone, of course, he was affected. You could have only hoped his obvious discomfort would have disappeared quickly.

‘Yeah, no big deal. It’s not like I cured your stage fright already,’ he brushed your gratitude off with a nonchalant-looking shrug, and you let out a lighthearted scoff due to the familiarity of his tone. He seemed fine. A tad bit flushed, but fine, which put your heart at ease. The last thing you needed was things getting awkward between the two of you now that you also had a signed contract with Pledis.

‘True. But you still have time,’ you reminded him of his confident claim about how he would help you sing in front of a living, breathing audience in a month or two; the promise more possible than it had sounded to you weeks ago.

The last thing you heard before Sooryeon, Seokmin and Mingyu showered you with their congratulations was the click of Jihoon’s tongue. You got a “nice job” cupcake from the tall baker and a bone-crushing hug from Seokmin before the only other girl in your small group pulled you aside and asked you about how you were feeling and what did you think, when would you have been able to attend their open mic night.

The more people gathered around you, the more overwhelming the experience got, but it was also very comforting to know that they were so excited for you. It made you believe that they really hadn’t been forced to stay after their shift in the past few weeks.

It was Jihoon who reminded you that tomorrow was a Wednesday, hence you shouldn’t have stayed for too long if you hadn’t wanted to feel exhausted during your 9AM meeting. And he was right. No matter how much you enjoyed talking about your music, you got easily irritated when you were sleep deprived and you still needed to cook something quick but delicious for your lunch break. It was better if you bid your goodbye.

Which you did not long after, bowing and waving on your way towards the exit, grateful for Jihoon’s offer to give you a ride back to your place. It proved that the impulsive hug that had turned both of your cheeks’ rose coloured had done nothing to stir the waters in your relationship.

You weren’t sure what had made you see Jihoon in a new light in the end when everything had felt normal after he had dropped you off on Tuesday. However, let it be because of how you were suddenly incapable of not noticing the light tint of his cheeks when he was looking directly in your eyes or due to his support, you couldn’t have denied that it felt different to be around him after that night.

Anyhow, it wasn’t like you could have asked your immediate boss whether he had felt just as confused and excited around you as you did around him. You had just signed with the label and you still had a bit of time from your offboarding period at your previous workplace. Both a negative and an affirmative answer could have messed up the path that led towards your dreams. You couldn’t have afforded to develop feelings for him (or confront him about them now that you were more than possibly screwed).

Taking a deeper breath, you gave yourself a couple of seconds before you opened Jihoon’s studio with your card, then took a seat beside him by his table where the two of you had been working on a hopeful love song before you had excused yourself to the restroom. It was for a new artist, a female soloist with the most beautiful, raspy voice you had ever heard and you were determined to fit the lyrics to her uniqueness despite the cliché concept the management had chosen for her debut.

You looked at the notebook in front of the boy and let out a pleased hum when you saw the progress he had made while you had been away. A complete verse in five minutes? He wasn’t called a prodigy for no reason.

‘You make it look like we were playing around all morning,’ you joked, earning a soft chuckle from him with your comment even though he kept his focus on the scribbled page. You both knew it wasn’t true. You had already had a vague idea for the melody and a theme you intended to build the lyrics around.

‘Always a sweet talker at work,’ he teased and jotted down a few promising one-liners that you could have used in the last verse before he read through what you had so far and changed a couple of words here and there, so that the flow of the lyrics would have been smoother or more poetic.

He always did this; never a hundred percent satisfied with his own work even when you two had already decided that the last version was good enough.

‘No, but seriously. What gave you so much inspiration all of a sudden?’ You asked when you stole another blunt glance at the notebook and leaned close enough to the boy for Jihoon to be hyper aware of the lack of distance between your bodies.

That, or his timing to lean his back against his chair and simultaneously get further from you in the process was very unlucky.

‘Dunno,’ Jihoon said and you furrowed your brows when he cleared his throat and slid the notebook closer to you on the table. This way, his notes were right in front of you, so you could look at the current page while you were sitting comfortably in your own chair. ‘Check the new verse, I’ll bring us something to drink,’ he announced before he stood up and turned his back to you.

You watched him walking towards the door with bewildered eyes, but shook your confusion off fairly quickly. Thus, you were able to find your voice before he closed the door on you.

‘Strawberry coke?’ You asked, forcing him to look at you from above his shoulder just so he could give you a displeased glare. His nose scrunch was more adorable than intimidating, but you wouldn’t have broken this down to him for the world.

‘I’ll see,’ he retorted with a visible frown, but without lecturing you on how every flavoured version was a disgrace to the original taste of coke. ‘Check the new verse!’

You saluted with a cheeky grin on your face, then turned back to the notebook right away; the echo of the quiet collision of the door and its frame filling your senses as you hovered above the last page.

Reading the new lyrics, you couldn’t have helped but wonder what had made Jihoon feel the way he had felt when he had come up with these exact lines. What had made him yearn for something or someone so intensely, his similes grabbed your heart and squeezed it dry over and over as you jumped from line to line?

These questions stayed with you even after the boy came back with your drink and asked for your opinion. They were in the back of your mind while you were working on the rest of the ballad, after you had bid your goodbye to Jihoon at 10PM, while you were waiting in line for your takeout at your favourite diner, and under the shower head as you were getting ready for bed.

You fell asleep thinking of that particular verse the black haired boy had finished on his own and wondering whether you were delusional for assuming: maybe, it had been your absence that had made him come up with those lines.

You were talking on the phone with your brother, throwing questions at him about his senior year in high school and those bonbons he had received on White Day, when you heard your name echoing off the walls close to Jihoon’s studio. Your steps came to an immediate halt.

‘Jiung-ah? I need to go, I’ll talk to you later,’ you murmured into the speaker, suddenly super anxious about being noticed although a rational part of you tried to convince you that hiding behind a wall wasn’t necessary or a good idea.

‘Noona, are you oka–’

‘I’m fine, it’s just a work emergency. Love you,’ you cut him off in a hurried manner, giving him just enough explanation to not call you back before you hung up the phone and shoved the device into your pocket.

‘Why won’t you introduce me to her? Everyone else has already met her, it’s unfair!’ The boy, who was standing in front of Jihoon, asked, his pouty lips emphasising his distress. As you were watching the interaction, you couldn’t decide whether he was that good at acting or he was genuinely hurt by being left out, but his puppy eyes tugged on your heart nonetheless.

‘They met her because they work at the coffee shop. Don’t start!’ Jihoon sighed and took a step sideways. However, the other boy copied his movements without missing a beat.

‘Tsk, so now people need to work at Cheol hyung’s to be introduced to your girlfriend? I am your best friend!’ The kicked puppy boy claimed and you needed to cover your mouth with your hand to not let out a giggle because of his dramatics. You would have never guessed that Jihoon of all people had such a hyperactive best friend, but the more you saw, the easier it became to understand why their friendship worked.

Sometimes opposites did attract.

‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Jihoon hissed and only when his words got to you did you realise what they were bickering about. A not-girlfriend girlfriend. Oh.

Your nails scratched the surface of the wall when you leaned closer to the duo, desperate to hide your body, but eager to steal a glance at the black haired boy’s face. You wanted to know whether he really meant it. Was he sad that he wasn’t in a relationship with this girl? Was he unbothered by the topic and annoyed only because his friend was pushing it?

‘But I’m your best friend and…’

‘Debatable,’ Jihoon scoffed and you didn’t even have to see his face this time to know he rolled his eyes.

While you were busy pondering how perfectly the boy’s crush fitted every scenario you had come up with since you had read his yearning lyrics for Rayun’s solo debut, Jihoon pushed his best friend out of the way and took a couple of confident strides towards his studio. He was almost in front of the familiar, midnight blue door when the puppy boy raised his voice and shouted after him.

‘You got her a contract and wrote songs about her!’ He said, kicking the air out of your lungs with his boldness and the implication his words carried in themselves. You closed your eyes for a second to gather your thoughts, then leaned your forehead against the wall.

Jihoon had gotten a contract for you. And you had definitely heard your name before you had hung up the phone on your little brother. 

The puppy boy’s claim was followed by eerie silence. It was heavy and sticky. Instead of embracing you with warmth and comfort, it stuck to everyone and made you anxious. You obviously didn’t think anyone at Pledis would have been willing to offer you a full-time job if you hadn’t had potential, but it was your opinion. Jihoon’s friend should have known better than to say something so controversial in the company’s hallway where anyone could have heard and misunderstood them.

‘Fine, I did. So what?’ Jihoon retorted, visibly irritated. However, in a twisted way, the boy’s admission made you really happy. Because it meant he liked you, too.

Giddy, you were so hung up on the revelation, you didn’t notice the person who walked up to you and tried to gain your attention by waving her hand in front of your face after you had unintentionally ignored her calling your name.

The yelp that escaped your mouth was a lot louder than it should have been. And you weren’t particularly proud of the way you jumped backwards, either, but that was embarrassing for a completely different reason.

Because one uncertain look at the boys made it as clear as day: they both knew you had heard them. The sharp difference between their reactions lay in one small albeit significant detail: unlike Jihoon, his friend had no idea who you were.

You sucked in your lower lip to not make things worse with your cheap excuses. Even though you would have most probably made the same decision if you could have turned back time, you were aware that eavesdropping was morally wrong.

‘Can we… can we talk?’

It was Jihoon who broke the awkward silence and you nodded wordlessly before you bowed to Mina and Jihoon’s best friend with an embarrassed smile on your way to Jihoon’s studio. 

When the door closed shut behind your back, you considered apologising immediately. Yet, just as you parted your lips, Jihoon cut you off with his hesitant words.

‘Look, I…’ he started and the panicked glint in his eyes closed up your throat. It made you feel that if you hadn’t been straightforward enough, if you had let him overthink the situation, he would have denied everything you might have heard and you didn’t want that.

So you took a deep breath and a step closer to him to make him focus on you instead of the walls and his equipment he was suddenly so interested in.

‘I know we’re coworkers, but… would you like to go on a date with me?’ You asked and you genuinely couldn’t believe you had just done that.

Based on the boy’s wide eyes, he had a hard time believing his own ears as well.

It was nerve-wracking: waiting for him to process your question and say something, but then he shot a beautiful, grateful smile in your direction and your heart found peace even before he said:

‘Yeah. I’d like that. Very much, actually.’

Feeling like a happy mess, you were about to hug him for the first time since that Tuesday night at the coffee shop, but before you could have wrapped your arms around him, Jihoon’s best friend made his presence known with an annoying(ly adorable), whine-like noise.

‘Psst! Does this mean you can finally introduce me to your girlfriend?’ He asked from behind the door, only his head and his fingers visible in the position he clung onto the moving object to be able to peek inside the room.

Although you tried, you couldn’t contain your chuckles when Jihoon took a deep breath and launched himself at his friend. You watched them from a safe distance, seriously taken aback by the black haired boy’s vigour and determination to push the taller guy on the floor. You had never seen this side of him before, but you found it oddly charming.

At the end, Jihoon did introduce you to Soonyoung who stayed at the studio for half an hour, entertaining you with ridiculous stories about his best friend and the guys from Coffee Carat. He kept referring to you as Jihoon’s girlfriend and while it was obviously too early to claim yourself that title (you hadn’t even dated yet), the fact that the black haired boy didn’t correct him made you feel hopeful.

It felt like an unsaid promise that he wanted this thing between you two to work just as much as you did.

➼ next reason

[lily-blue]

13 reasons why | reason no.13: the coffee shop is kid-friendly

☆ characters: potter!joshua & single-mom!you (Seori - ‘94 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, single parent au, slice of life, angst, fluff ☆ warnings: distorted views on single parenthood ☆ summary: after you become a single mom, you think relationships are off the table; too bad your daughter doesn’t agree with you ☆ words: 21k ☆ a/n: this story also has a uniform header on my laptop; i will update this post with the correct header once i put my hands on said laptop (i also didn't have the time to proofread the chapter beyond the first scene, but i promised to put this out in april, so here we are... i will get to beta-reading when i get to it, please bear with the quality for now) ☆ taglist: @dat-town​​

➼ chapter index

When you had been younger - a tad too wild and carefree for someone who had been in her high school senior year in South Korea -, you had thought that being told that your partner had cheated on you was the worst way a relationship could end. However, in your early twenties, you had come to realise that your ideas and beliefs had been unrealistic and sheltered because of your late grandmother’s efforts to give you the same childhood she had failed to give to your father, and that real life was more unfair than you could have ever comprehended. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been forced to leave a loving relationship five months pregnant.

It had been a little over seven years since your break-up with Inwoo, and you did a fabulous job at keeping your daughter’s biological father’s identity a secret. The only people who knew about Haeun’s connection to the prestigious In family were your ex-boyfriend, his mother and your best friend, Seola, who was bound by an NDA just like you in order to ensure neither of you got greedy and tried to harm the chaebols’ reputation. As if you had ever done anything to hurt the man who had made you believe you could have had your own Cinderella story. As if money and power could have ever been more important to you than emotional security and happiness.

But then again, Inwoo’s mother might have thought differently of you. After all, you had agreed to receive monthly child support from a bank account that couldn’t have been linked to her and her son in exchange for your silence. You might have been naive back then, but you had already known that just you and your grandmother wouldn’t have been able to provide the best life for your child.

As you looked at your adorable, six-and-a-half-year-old daughter who was shifting her body weight from one leg to the other in front of you, you tried not to think of your conversation with her homeroom teacher, Haeun’s endless questions about your family’s weird structure since they had learned about family and friends in school or how much she resembled her father. You might not have had childish delusions anymore about Inwoo finding his way back to you, but you also couldn’t have just forgotten the gentleness in his eyes and the happiness he had radiated each and every time he had been talking about marrying you and your growing family. He would have been an amazing father, and you could only hope that you were a good enough mother as well. It surely couldn’t have made you a horrible mom that you couldn’t find a babysitter for your little one last minute. What mattered was that you were trying your best.

Goodness, you sure hoped these inconvenient occasions and your lack of resources wouldn’t cause your daughter a childhood trauma. People these days were talking about those a lot and as a single parent who cared too much, the possibility made you unhealthily self-conscious. If only you had been more hard-working, more ambitious when you had been younger. You should have listened to your teachers and your grandmother and applied for university like everyone else in your high school.

You shook your head and took a step closer to the counter as the person in front of the barista got her order. One more couple to go and it would be finally your turn to purchase your usual cinnamon roll frappuccino.

‘Mom! See! See! See!’ Your daughter exclaimed when her eyes fell on the delicious cakes behind the glass display, her height only allowing her to marvel at the products on the lowest metal shelf. 

Initially, your plan had been to leave her with your neighbour for those six long hours you would be away from home, but Min was still a university student and he had exams to study for, which would have been significantly more difficult with a six-and-a-half-year-old whose curiosity was seemingly endless. Your conscience hadn’t allowed you to ask for such a huge favour, as you didn’t want to undermine his studies. With your tiring part-time jobs, you knew exactly how important that piece of paper was in your society. And he would have had a hard time saying no if you had insisted.

It was the light tug on your pants that pulled you back to the present; your daughter was quick to address the barista behind the counter even though she could barely reach it on her tiptoes. Her swinging pigtails were flying back and forth as she tried to keep her balance and ask for a frog-shaped cookie.

‘That’s a pretty big cookie. Are you sure you can eat the whole thing?’ The barista played along while you were trying to figure out which dessert had caught Haeun’s attention, since you couldn’t see any cookies on the lowest shelf. Hm, maybe she was talking about the extra large cupcake cake that consisted of six individual cupcakes and formed a cartoon-style frog. According to the card in front of it, it was for two people and could be ordered for special occasions in advance in various shapes and sizes. 

You made a mental note to ask the barista about this offer the next time you came to Coffee Carat, because you thought Haeun would have enjoyed a cake like this for her birthday in August, which was in a bit over three months.

‘I’m a big girl,’ she insisted, some of her words slurred together due to the emphasis she tried to put on just how old she was. It made your lips curl upwards; you ruffled her bangs before you looked at the barista. Luckily, he seemed more amused than annoyed by your daughter’s behaviour.

‘Come here, big girl,’ you crouched down to pick the little girl up, so she could see the other dessert options as well. Then, you pointed at the single cupcake on the uppest shelf, the one that depicted a similarly styled cartoon frog’s face. ‘What about this one? This looks just as cute, doesn’t it?’ You negotiated, unbothered by other people’s opinion of your relationship with your daughter. Deep in your heart you knew you weren’t spoiling her just because you cared and constantly encouraged her to communicate about her likes and dislikes openly.

Was what you were doing controversial in your country? More or less, especially amongst the older generation. However, Haeun was your daughter (and your daughter alone) and you tried to raise her in a way you believed was the best for her in the long run. 

‘I think…’ the little girl started, then stopped abruptly like she always did when there was a big decision waiting for her to make. You watched her as she jutted her lower lip out with the most serious facial expression a six-and-a-half-year-old could make. ‘Yes, I like this one,’ Haeun said before she asked you to put her down.

Not wasting a second more - just because you disregarded the judgemental mumbles and soft snorts didn’t mean you didn’t know some of the customers behind you were rather inpatient -, you gave your order to the smiley barista and fished your wallet out of your backpack so you could pay. You actually had a separate bank card in it with all the child support money on for expenses related to Haeun, but you always used your hard-earned salary when it came to such tiny treats. Her grandmother’s fortune was only for emergencies and bigger investments, not to mention that university tuitions got more and more expensive these days. You should have stayed mindful of her savings even if your best friend liked to remind you of Inwoo’s wealth. You couldn’t guarantee and you shouldn’t have expected your daughter to snatch one of those fancy scholarships that covered students’ rent and living expenses as well.

‘Miss,’ the barista called out for you between two forced coughs, indicating that it wasn’t the first or second time he had tried to gain your attention. A bit sheepish, you looked him in the eye, silently asking him to repeat his words again. ‘Here is your change.’

‘Oh! Thank you,’ you mumbled under your nose, cursing yourself mentally for letting your thoughts wander in front of so many people. However, you simply couldn’t have helped it. Ever since Haeun’s homeroom teacher had mentioned to you the English summer camp for the kids, you were constantly thinking about money. What you should have prioritised, where you should have drawn the line when it came to your daughter’s wishes, whether you should have touched the money you were saving for her future or just cut into your own savings.

‘Of course. Here is the little one’s cupcake. The frappuccino will be ready in a minute,’ the barista informed you with a kind smile and gave you a small paper bag with the shop’s logo on it. 

You stepped aside to give room for the next customer.

To kill some time, you fixed your daughter’s messy clothes and pigtails, then let her distract you with her endless tales about her elementary school days because she was only in first grade when most kids were still very excited to learn new things about the world.

Haeun was in the middle of an unnecessarily detailed story about a classmate who always sat on the benches during PE class and never spoke to anyone when your phone started to ring and the voices in your head reminded you that you couldn’t afford to not take it. You hadn’t sent in your application for tens of thousands of jobs in the past eight months to ignore a call - a potential first or second round interview.

‘One cinnamon roll frappuccino to go,’ the barista recited your order the very next second, both delaying your response to the caller and giving you a chance to ask for a tiny favour. So you quickly stepped closer to the counter and reached out for your drink.

‘Thank you. Could you please keep an eye on my daughter for a couple of minutes. She is a smart kid and knows not to go anywhere without me. It’s really just making sure people don’t try to give her anything they shouldn’t or talk her into going anywhere with them,’ you asked under one breath, hoping that your lengthy ramble didn’t annoy the guy too much. You might have been a customer, but he wasn’t obligated to cater to your wishes to this extent.

Still, he took one quick look at your buzzing phone, then at your daughter and nodded like it was the most natural thing in the world.

‘Don’t worry about her. I will keep her company while you take that call,’ someone on your left said and you couldn’t have snapped your head in her direction quicker.

The woman who was speaking to you couldn’t have been that much older than you if she had been older in the first place. Her dark brown hair grazed her shoulders in soft waves while her clothes were on the more messy side: an oversized tee and a khaki overall. At first glance, she looked approachable and kind; however, you didn’t know her and you were wary of leaving Haeun in her care (even though, technically, you didn’t know the barista, either).

‘I’m sorry. That must have sounded so creepy, let me rephrase it,’ the woman spoke up again, and by this time your grip on your phone was so tight as if a part of you believed you could hold onto the person on the other side by crashing the device.

You gulped, visibly impatient, but gave her a chance to explain herself. 

‘My name is Hoyeon and I’m the wife of the owner. I was just about to go over to Freefall for some biscuits, but then I overheard your conversation and couldn’t not think that I have more time to spear than Seungkwan,’ she said, her smile more understanding than anything despite the way you sneaked a glance at the barista to double-check her claim.

As soon as the boy nodded, you bit into your lower lip and crouched down next to Haeun, to check whether she would have been comfortable with staying with Hoyeon.

‘I need to take this call, sugar. Can you be a good girl for me and stay with Hoyeon-ssi?’ You asked her, waiting for a nod or any sign that could have indicated that she wanted to stay with you instead, in which case she should have stayed super still and quiet until the end of your conversation unlike last time when you had accidentally written down the wrong time for an interview because she had been excited to show you the rainbow on the wall.

‘Long call?’ Your daughter asked with a tiny little pout on her lips, giving you the motherly urge to pinch her baby face; you did not resist.

‘Yes, a long call,’ you said; your voice was apologetic and so were your eyes, although your phone stopped ringing a moment later, the possibility of another missed opportunity stressing you out.

‘Okay,’ Haeun agreed to stay behind, sneakily eyeing your backpack where you had shoved the paper bag and with that, the frog cupcake into right after you had paid. Her request made you smile even before she opened her mouth. ‘Can I eat the cake now?’ She asked, tilting her head to the right like her aunt Seola always did when she wanted to get or do something you disapproved of. These two were spending too much time together it seemed.

‘You can,’ you gave in easily, the backpack already halfway off your shoulder. ‘But you need to promise me to not leave the coffee shop, okay? Not even with Hoyeon-ssi,’ you made her promise, using the unbreakable seal: your pinkies.

‘Promise,’ Haeun gave you her word, too, which eased your worries somewhat, reassuring you that you weren’t making the wrong decision despite how ridiculous that was. If someone wanted to harm a six-and-a-half-year-old, it hardly mattered whether the little one was cooperative.

Letting out a sigh, you quickly walked out of the shop and pulled up your call history to open the last caller’s details. You counted to three, five, ten to calm yourself a little, then tapped on the green icon. The person on the other side picked it up for the third ring.

‘Good morning. My name is Jin Jaehyuk from Wrap It Up,’ the man introduced himself in a pleasant voice, asking you whether he was talking to one of the candidates for their driver position, which you eagerly confirmed.

Before seeing their ad on Seola’s windshield a week ago, you had never considered applying for a driver job; however, the salary was almost twice as much as you were currently making and that alone made up for the possible shortcomings that company could have. The cleaner job you currently had pushed those bars really low if you wanted to be honest. At this point, you would have taken anything that didn’t drain you dry by the end of every damn shift.

The conversation with the HR representative was overall pleasant. He asked you about your work experience, how frequently you drove, whether you had your own car and if so, what type so he could find the most suitable company car for you in case you got hired. And lastly, of course, he wanted to know the reason why you had considered their position. Before you realised, you were already talking for twenty minutes, completely disregarding the buzzing of the street and the customers leaving and entering the coffee shop.

Hopeful about a second round interview, you slid your phone into your pocket, then went back to Coffee Carat, just for your soft smile to be stolen by the most terrifying sight that could have greeted you: your daughter sitting on the lap of a man you had never met before. You didn’t think, not really, when you ran up to them and tore the little girl out of his hands.

‘Who are you? And who gave you the permission to touc—’

‘Mooooom,’ Haeun put her tiny hands in your mouth, successfully blocking your accusations with her fingers. Confused and frustrated, you furrowed your brows and looked down at your daughter, visibly asking for an explanation, which she delivered after a huff. ‘Jisoo oppa is Hoyeon unnie’s friend. We were watching Encanto and you ruined the best part,’ she whined like you were the real bad guy in her story instead of the stranger who was caging her with his arms mere seconds prior.

You adjusted your position - shifted her weight in your arms so you could hold her with only one arm - and took her hands out of your mouth. 

‘Kim Haeun, I told you not to be friendly with strangers,’ you scolded her a tad too loudly - something you would have definitely regretted later at night when you were on your own in your bed, thinking back on the day’s happenings, but at that moment, with your heart pounding in your chest, you simply couldn’t. Seeing her with a man your age had scared you, especially because it had been you who had left her alone, so if someone had happened to her, you would have had no one else to blame but yourself.

‘But he is not,’ your daughter insisted. ‘He is Hoyeon unnie’s friend. He’s also Seungkwan oppa’s friend. And he knows the oppa who made the frog cake, the bake,’ she counted all the people she was talking about on her tiny fingers, shoving her three fingers into your face at the end of her monologue.

You pressed your lips together to avoid an accidental scream and took a deep breath through your nose instead. This was when the stranger walked up to you and cleared his throat to gain your attention.

‘I’m sorry for scaring you. My name is Hong Jisoo and I’m close friends with the employees and the shop owner, so when Hoyeon had to go to the toilet, I offered to entertain the little lady since I’m still waiting for my coffee,’ he explained, shooting a reassuring smile towards your daughter that made you feel weird. Not necessarily because he looked like a creep, but because Haeun was suddenly on her best behaviour, beaming at the guy. ‘I can assure you that we were introduced to each other before she sat on my lap. She didn’t break any rules, right, princess?’

‘Haeun is a good girl,’ she puffed her chest out proudly while she tilted her head towards the stranger, Jisoo, who rewarded her with a pat on the head.

As you were watching the scene, you wondered whether this was your female lead moment in real life: a single mom whose daughter basically claimed a random handsome stranger as her oppa in the middle of a lovely coffee shop. You swore, one of the more talented screenplay writers could have built a very nice drama around it.

Except, Hong Jisoo was undeniably taken if the blonde girl who kissed his lips in front of Haeun was anything to go by.

‘Baby, can we go now? You know I need a new bikini for our vacation with the guys,’ she said, pulling on the guy’s arm like even a moment more in your company would have been a waste of her time.

You almost failed to swallow down your chuckle when you heard your daughter scoff at the newcomer. Almost.

‘It’s time for us to go, too,’ you exclaimed politely to draw the girlfriend’s attention away from Haeun and pulled the little girl more into your embrace to block her line of vision. You hadn’t been born yesterday. You knew that Haeun would have given this young woman the stinky eye for clinging onto her new friend if you had let her. She definitely spent too much time with her auntie. ‘I apologise for my reaction. Thank you for looking after her.’

‘It was my pleasure, no worries,’ Jisoo reassured you before one of the baristas called for his name and he walked up to the counter with his girlfriend hot on his heels.

Soon after getting his hands on his order, he was dragged out of the building. And you tried not to think too much into how it was only May, which was way too early for a vacation in your dictionary. It only made you feel poor because it just meant you had never been to any countries before where the weather was warm enough for a bikini so early into the year.

Since Haeun insisted on saying goodbye to all of her new friends, it took you a bit longer to leave the shop, but you did so with a bunch of free cupcakes (the baker assistant had messed up the frosting on a full tray of desserts in the morning and the baker, whose name you learned was Mingyu, was unwilling to put them behind the class display anyway) and a ‘See you later, princess!’ that you didn’t know what to do with. 

Had your daughter just been adopted by all the employees of Coffee Carat? It felt surreal, but then again, Haeun spent an awful lot of time with Seola these days, so you shouldn’t have been too surprised. That woman was a minx. Of course, she had taught your daughter how to wrap the whole world around her fingers.

You made a mental note to pay more attention to whom she interacted with in the future. She was still too young to pick up on malicious intentions. And while that day the two of you were lucky, there wasn’t any guarantee that next time you would be too.

You weren’t a homewrecker. The concept alone made you feel disgust and fury because even though you had never been cheated on, you could resonate with the grief one felt when their significant other was taken away from them. Still, when your daughter kept nagging you that she wanted to go back to Coffee Carat to visit her Jisoo oppa and Hoyeon unnie, you could only stand your ground for about a week.

You wished you had been half as stubborn as the little one. Then, maybe you wouldn’t have sounded like a broken record when you asked about Jisoo from the baristas for the nth time in such a short period of time like a sasaeng.

‘Oppa!’ You heard your daughter scream from the top of her lungs the moment the man set foot in the coffee shop and you had half a mind to hit your forehead against the table and run, but you stayed seated. At least, Haeun didn’t run to him without asking for your permission. She was just waving at him furiously with her pink crayon still in her hand.

In that nanosecond when it felt like everyone was looking at you and Jisoo’s eyes were yet to find the source of the scream, you came up with a semi-well-thought-out masterplan to put an end to your daughter delusions, but all the excuses and explanation were thrown out the window when the man smiled at the two of you. He said something to the grumpy barista behind the counter, then walked up to you like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Yeah, you definitely had to have a conversation with him and Haeun about this situation before your daughter got too attached to him or rumours got back to his girlfriend about you looking for Jisoo at every chance you got.

‘In that an elephant?’ The man asked your daughter, who immediately sensed the green light and started to talk about her drawing in much more detail than it would have been necessary. She even took her time to mention the baby elephant’s family and how she was attending the elephant school with her friends. She had a natural talent for storytelling and she lived off of the undivided attention Jisoo was giving her with his random questions.

The moment your brain aided you with the mental image of Haeun doing the same with her real dad, you knew it was time for you to put an end to their fun. It was too much, the way their casual conversation was messing with your head, making you see things that had never happened. (And would have never happened despite Inwoo’s love for his unborn child.)

You pinched into your lower arm hard under the table and reached out for Haeun’s hand to remind her of your presence. Her big doe eyes, when he snapped her head in your direction, were adorable. She looked almost surprised that you were also listening to her story.

‘Sugar, can mom speak with oppa, too, for a second?’ You asked, inwardly cringing at the title, because the man was not your brother, your close friend or your lover. However, Haeun liked to refer to him as her oppa, so it made things easier. You would apologise for your rude behaviour later, right after you apologised for your daughter’s obsession with him.

‘Okay,’ Haeun agreed with a small nod as she turned back to her drawing and returned her focus to the elephant school. She hummed along with the radio like she knew the song they were playing even though you rarely let her listen to this type of music and poked her tongue out in concentration. These were clear signs that she wasn’t interested in whatever you had to say to her new friend.

‘Would you mind if I picked up your order with you? I could also use some more caffeine,’ you asked, hoping that he could read between the lines and realise that you wanted to be out of earshot from your daughter while you were talking. You wanted both of you to be able to speak your mind about how you thought you should have handled the issue with Haeun. You didn’t wish to hear his fake words regarding his bond with your daughter, but you also hated the idea of breaking the little girl’s heart when she had been so excited about meeting this man again.

‘Sure, you can even use my discount card,’ he offered with a small laugh while you stood up and pushed your now-empty chair closer to the table, so it wouldn’t be in the way for other customers in your absence.

It would have been a lie to say that the offer wasn’t tempting. You liked coupons and things in general that helped you save money, but it felt like a boundary you shouldn’t have crossed. He had already put up with a lot when it came to you and your tiny family and you barely knew more than a handful of things about him: his name, his relationship status, the fact that he and his girlfriend would go on a vacation in the near future and that he had a lot of friends who worked in this particular coffee shop.

Jisoo must have come to the same conclusion during your short walk, too, because as soon as you stood in the line, he turned towards you and said: 

‘Now that I think about it, I don’t think I caught your name last time.’

The bluntness of his statement made you laugh without meaning to, so you needed a couple of seconds to get back in your more serious mood, the one that you hadn’t possessed before you had turned into a mother. Six years in, and you still struggled to change between these two personas naturally. If anything, your effort must have looked comically forced because of how quickly your facial expression turned from carefree to firm.

Cursing yourself inwardly and simultaneously acting like you hadn’t noticed the surprise on Jisoo’s face, you straightened your back and told him your name. Your introduction was curt; you didn’t share any unnecessary information with the smiley man, that made you sound like you would have rather jumped in front of a bus than befriend him, which obviously wasn’t true. You would have never risked leaving your baby girl behind. You were her only family.

‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ Jisoo reached his hand out for a handshake that - because of your obvious confusion - served as a nice conversation starter: something that your introduction had clearly failed to be.

Impressed by how effortlessly he connected seemingly unrelated topics to each other, you let him tell you about his upbringing (apparently, he had been born in the United States), when he had come to South Korea and how he had met the guys (he had been minding his own business at a club in his second year in uni when Jeonghan had splashed ice-cold water at his face for allegedly stealing the barstool on his right from a cute girl who had been totally into him) and many other things you wouldn’t have considered sharing with a stranger. Anyhow, he clearly wasn’t of the same opinion, and you didn’t know how to make him stop without coming off as an ungrateful jackass.

‘And now Seungcheol is already married, and I’m pretty sure Jeonghan will ask Yoohyeon to marry him this year…’ he trailed off my the end of the end of his monologue with something akin to longing in his voice, although you couldn’t have been a hundred percent sure. It also wasn’t your place to be curious. Whether he had wanted the same commitment with his girl or not, whether it had ever caused fights between the two of them…

No, it wasn’t your business, you absolutely, utterly, wholly refused to make it yours.

However, Jisoo didn’t give you much of a choice; there were two more customers between you and the counter.

‘I’m happy for them. Actually, I’m happy for everyone. Would you believe it if I told you that two and a half years ago all thirteen of us were singles?’ He asked with a low chuckle before he dove into yet another story you had never asked about: how it had all started with Cheol, Hoyeon and this coffee shop.

‘Actually, what I wanted to talk about is related to Hoyeon-ssi,’ you cut him off at the first chance you got even though your daughter’s fascination with him wasn’t as related to the woman as you made it sound. It was a rather desperate attempt at taking control over the conversation without wasting the time you had in relative private. ‘You see, Haeun-ah has this misconception that everyone in this coffee shop - but especially you - is her new best friend, and I think we should find a way to break it down to her that it’s not how life works.’

‘Why not?’ Jisoo asked without a moment of hesitation, confusing you enough to make you stumble over your own words.

You furrowed your brows and pursed your lips as you were looking at him.

‘What do you mean why not?’ You asked once you found your voice again, letting him pull you towards the counter by your elbow gently in the meantime. Too fixed on waiting for his answer, you barely registered the movement.

‘Why doesn’t life work like that? I’m pretty sure everyone’s best friend was a stranger at one point,’ the man said and you furrowed your brows even more. Sure, what he was saying was on point, but that wasn’t what you had meant at all. What you had wanted to say was that your daughter should have been told that grown men and women didn’t form meaningful friendships with random children who weren’t related to them.

‘Yeah, I mean, it’s not like I can argue with that or want to argue with that to begin with, but the possibility of any of you staying in my daughter’s life is pretty unlikely, and I also don’t want her to want to come here too frequently to play with you when it’s your workplace,’ you said, proud of how coherent your reasons fell from your lips.

There was no way Jisoo could have misunderstood you again. At least, that was what you had thought until he opened his mouth and pointed it out that:

‘This shop isn’t my workplace.’

‘O-okay. It’s still not the point,’ you retorted, a bit more irritated than you would have liked to be, since you were not only in public but only a few metres from your daughter whom you didn’t want to show a bad example. Still, your urge to shake some sense into this man was growing exponentially. ‘Haeun-ah was trying to convince me for a week to bring her back here so she could play with you guys and I have a hard time saying no to her when she is so determined. I need your help to make her understand she is making you guys uncomfortable.’

‘Well, I can only speak for myself, but she doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable. Mingyu was also happy to meet her and Seungkwan’s girlfriend was complaining the other day that she couldn’t meet her…’ he trailed off by the end of his sentence as though he wasn’t sure he should have kept going. You couldn’t put your fingers on the hesitation in his eyes until he took a breath and continued. ‘Isn’t it that she makes you feel uncomfortable?’

You didn’t know what to say to that. Because the possibility hadn’t even occurred to you until the accusation more or less intentionally hit you in the face. Was your daughter’s behaviour affecting you more negatively than anyone else? Could it have been that you made everything a bigger deal than it was because you were embarrassed by how freely she showed her liking for others while you tried to close yourself off from new people to not get hurt again?

‘Hey…’ Jisoo’s unexpectedly soft voice pulled you out of your head, and he offered you an apologetic smile as soon as your eyes refocused on him. ‘I didn’t mean to sound rude. It’s just that… you worry too much. Your daughter is adorable and she didn’t do anything wrong. She is free to come hang out with us in the shop on less busy days. To hang out with me,’ he reassured you while he also took you by the elbow again, leading you up to the counter. Oh! He was surprisingly good at keeping tabs on his surroundings. You hadn’t even realised it was finally your turn to order, too stunned by his opinion about the issue you had clearly blown out of proportion.

‘Hi guys! What can I get for you?’ One of the female baristas asked at the same time Jisoo tried to ease the kinks in your shoulders with a light-hearted comment.

‘Who knows? She might get bored of us in a month or two. Adults aren’t as exciting as they should with all that money and freedom,’ he joked, bumping his upper hand into yours with an easy-going smile.

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

‘I…’

He was right. It might have taken your daughter two years to grow out of her Cinnamonroll and Kuromi obsession, it might have taken her half a year to not request chocolate cake for dessert every time she had had the chance, but she had indeed moved on with time. If you were lucky, she would get over this place sooner than her lost teddy bear she had cried over for three weeks last year.

‘It’s just the usual for me, Yeseo. And some…’ Jisoo turned towards you. ‘What would you like to drink?’ 

‘Me? I…’ The shock on your face shouldn’t have been as visible as it was, but you couldn’t help it. You just hoped neither Jisoo nor the girl behind the counter had enough nunchi to read you like an open book and question your sanity. Like seriously, why were you so damn speechless just because he wanted to order for you and seemingly didn’t mind hanging out with your daughter to protect her childlike innocence.

The bar was seriously low with you, wasn’t it?

You quickly cleared your throat and straightened your already straight back.

‘I’ll have a caramel latte, thank you,’ you chose, one hundred percent intending to pay for your own drink when your phone started to ring in your pocket out of the blue. Sure, you had a couple of ongoing applications still, but they were either too old to hear back from them or too new.

Afraid that it might have been your best friend who was, for some reason once again, in trouble, you fished the device out of your jeans and looked at the screen with a throbbing knot in your throat. It was a number you had never seen before.

You looked at Jisoo then the barista, not sure how much you owned for the latte and when you should have told the girl that you wanted a sandwich and an animal-themed cupcake, too.

‘I think you should take it. Might be important,’ Jisoo pointed at your phone, his smile soft just like his eyes. If your head hadn’t been full of to-dos, worries and usual single mom stuff already, you might have had to actively remind yourself that he was taken.

Why was he so nice to you?

‘I’ll be back in a second,’ you promised at the end because you soon came to the conclusion that asking him to order for Haeun and you some food, too, would have been too complicated with the little time you had before the other person gave up on contacting you. You would just buy them after the call. ‘Thanks.’

Taking a few steps towards the double doors, you remained inside the coffee shop this time; however, you made sure you weren’t in the way to any of the staff members and customers and that the buzzing of the business wasn’t too loud around you, so you wouldn’t misheard any important piece of information.

The call barely took two minutes; the man on the other side of the line got down to business as soon as you introduced yourself and he double-checked your identity. It turned out, there were three group job interviews happening in an hour at their company building, which two people had cancelled at the last minute. HR decided to contact those candidates who had almost made it into the second round and gave them a chance to charm them in person. You were one of the lucky ones in case you could make it in time.

Their location was thirty minutes plus minus five from Coffee Carat. There was no way you would have turned down such an opportunity even if you believed you were at a disadvantage compared to the majority of the interviewees.

It was when you put your phone away and turned around that you suddenly remembered that you should have calculated a detour into your route when you had agreed to the interview. After all, Haeun was sitting by your table, colouring with Jisoo while munching on a piece of cake that shouldn’t have been in front of her to begin with.

You rushed up to the duo like a madwoman.

‘Haeun-ah. We need to go,’ you rushed her, crouching down next to her chair to be more at eye level with her. It usually helped with conceiving her to do something she might not have liked because she felt like you were taking her seriously. Like she was a big girl who could understand certain things babies couldn’t.

This time; however, this trick didn’t seem to work. The cheesecake in front of her was too distracting, and so was Jisoo’s presence who had gotten a blank paper and some crayons in the meantime.

‘No! We can stay until dinner. Mom, you promised,’ she objected, holding onto the light pink crayon so firmly, her tiny little knuckles turned white.

You bit into your cheek from the inside to not scold her for making it hard for you when you didn’t have that much time to spare. It was your own decision to raise her the way you were raising her: allowing her to have an opinion and when safe, the freedom of choice. Still, it would have been nice if she had just gone along with your wish without the need to give her an explanation why you wanted to have a new job. She obviously wasn’t ready for any topic at that maturity level - even if you hadn’t gone into too much detail.

You wished you had more people to rely on when it came to these matters. Sure, you would have never regretted becoming a single mom, but for the love of God, you did miss Inwoo on days like this one.

‘I can stay with her for an hour or two. And I’m pretty sure the guys could also keep an eye on her in case something came up, which is highly unlikely,’ Jisoo offered. He lifted his hand to his mouth and lowered his voice as he whispered-shouted as if he was sharing a big secret with both you and your daughter. ‘I’m my own boss.’

‘Thank you, but I really shoul—,’

‘Yey! Please, mom, please! I want to stay with Jisoo oppa,’ Haeun exclaimed, totally hyped due to the idea as she was jumping up and down on the chair with her upper body. One glance at her happy smile was enough for you to realise that forbidding her to stay and taking her to your best friend after the man had already agreed to play with her would have been disastrous. In the best case scenario, she would have cried her eyes out while you carried her in your arms.

In the worst, you would have been the bad guy for at least an entire week and received the attitude a little longer. You wished Jisoo had discussed this with you in advance now that he made it clear that he didn’t intend to pop the little girl’s pink bubble as you had suggested slash requested a few minutes prior.  

It was hard to be grateful when you were also rightfully frustrated.

But dealing with these two was future-you’s problem. Present-you had an interview to attend to.

So you took the nth deep breath in less than five minutes and stood up from the ground. Then, you leaned down to kiss the top of your daughter’s head as a goodbye while making her promise to be on her best behaviour. 

‘Here!’ Jisoo pushed a paper cup into your free hand when you were about to walk up to your laptop and turn it off so it wouldn’t have unnecessarily died on you while you were away. ‘I heard you double checking the time for the interview and asked Yeseo to put your latte in a paper cup instead,’ he explained, pointing at the side of the container with a pleased smile on his face. ‘I also wrote down my kakao ID, so you could add me and check on Haeun in case you’re worried or something.’

It was the most thoughtful thing a stranger had ever done to you; it was something none of your family members had done to you since your grandmother’s passing and that alone… It blew out the flickering flames of your anger.

Your voice was quiet but genuinely grateful when you thanked him. You packed your bag and left.

You didn’t contact Jisoo until you got to the location, but his reassurance and those photos he sent you with your daughter, both of them cheering on you with their fists raised for a lively “hwaiting”, took tons off your chest as you were sitting in the waiting room with ten other people.

You might not have been the most talkative or most well-dressed person at the interview, but you really believed that you did an amazing job at charming the HR representatives. And it was all thanks to Jisoo and his willingness to act as your temporary safety-net.

Walking out of the company building, you knew you couldn’t refer to him as a stranger any longer. He also deserved some compensation for his help. You just had to figure out what to do for him to pay off some of the imaginary debt.

Although the thought to buy Jisoo a cake for basically babysitting your daughter for free had crossed your mind, you had quickly come to the conclusion on your way back to the coffee shop that paying for sweets at his friend’s business might have been a better option. This way the money would have gone to someone he knew. Literal perfection.

Your almost childlike excitement was apparent in the way you entered Coffee Carat around two and a half hours after leaving your daughter with Jisoo. Your steps were lighter and your smile a tad wider than they usually were until your gaze fell on the empty table Haeun should have sat by and you recognised her pitched voice coming from a different one.

‘Take back! Take back! Take back!’ She screamed at a man you had never met before while both Jisoo and another unfamiliar person watched her hit the blond man’s upper hand once, twice, three times in less than ten seconds.

Your eyes grew wide in horror as you rushed up to the table, pulling the little girl away from the understandably annoyed stranger.

‘Kim Haeun!’ You raised your voice on purpose, to make her realise that she was in trouble for screaming and fighting someone so aggressively when you had raised her better. If this man had done anything wrong, she should have stayed away from him and asked for help from someone she knew she could trust.

Which reminded you of…

‘I’m so sorry for my daughter’s behaviour…’ you bowed your head at the blond man first and foremost, then turned towards Jisoo who was sitting across from him, undoubtedly enjoying himself. At least, he had been clearly doing so until your eyes met and the smile fell from his lips. ‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’

‘The bad man said bad things about Jisoo oppa,’ your daughter claimed, her pitched voice making it obvious that she felt upset about whatever this man had told her about her new best friend.

‘Sugar, please let them explain themselves first,’ you asked her, hoping that the nickname you always used to make her feel special helped soothe her nerves a little and if not, at least she realised you weren’t as angry with her as you had been when you had arrived. You still didn’t support violence, but you could also acknowledge that sometimes it was hard to contain one’s feelings, especially when it came to standing up for people they liked.

‘Sawry,’ she mumbled into the crook of your neck, suddenly a bit shy even though you could feel her head moving a little as though she was trying to steal glances at the three people at the table without you noticing.

She was definitely spending too much time with her aunt.

‘Hello. I’m Haeun’s mother. Can I ask who you are and what did you say that upset my daughter so much? You see, she isn’t usually a violent child, so I’m a little surprised, that’s all,’ you tried to be as polite as possible while also demanding an explanation. If you did, you did not intend to sound like one of those entitled parents who believed their children could do no wrong, but on the other hand, you had this inner urge to take Haeun-ah’s side until she was proven guilty.

‘I’m Jeonghan, Joshua’s best friend. I was just asking him about his relationship since Cheol is already out and I want a free vacation. Nothing upsetting, really,’ the blond man informed you, his smug smile making him sound that much less sincere. If you wanted to be honest, you had a hard time believing that he was telling the truth, but it was also true that you didn’t understand everything that had left his mouth.

‘Who is Joshua?’ You asked, although what you really wanted to know was: why would his relationship have upset your daughter?

‘Your babysitter?’ The man threw the question at you instead of answering before he snapped his head in Jisoo’s direction like he wanted the other to come forward and confess.

You also wished he had spoken up without further nagging and explained what was going on. Was this man his best friend? If so, how were the two of them related to the quiet, blonde woman and how his relationship could have given this man a free vacation?

No answer should have come with as many more questions as Jeonghan’s explanation did.

‘Yeah… That’s me. Jisoo is my Korean name, but most people call me Joshua actually. It’s my American name, I’m sorry,’ he cleared up the misunderstanding before he introduced his friends to you, bringing up stories he had already shared with you, so you could link their faces to their names and personalities more easily.

It didn’t help a lot, but you didn’t bother to enlighten him, because you were afraid to break his flow. At least, he was willing to answer all of your questions, which was a moderately good sign.

‘The bad man said oppa’s a ship acid, but it’s a lie! He has to take it and say sorry!’ Haeun chirped in in the middle of Jisoo - or Joshua, as most people apparently knew him around here - introducing Yoohyeon-ssi to you. The woman who was his friend’s girlfriend; the very same woman who would soon be asked to marry the blonde man if you had recalled the most recent story you had heard about these two.

Turning your head towards your daughter, you furrowed your brows. She looked so upset, like genuinely upset by Jeonghan’s comment on Jisoo that you didn’t have the heart to ask her to repeat what she had heard nor could you inquire whether she knew what acid meant in the first place.

‘Wrong,’ Jeonghan tsked, narrowing his eyes at your little girl like he was seriously trying to challenge her to call him a liar one more time. ‘I said he’s a relationship addict, because he is. This girl - whose name I don’t even bother to memorise anymore - is his third girlfriend this year,’ he claimed, and when your eyes met and you showed no judgement or bewilderment, he used one of his hands to give emphasis to his reasoning. ‘We aren’t even halfway through this year!’

As you were shifting your gaze from Jeonghan to Jisoo, then to the blonde woman who was hovering over her laptop, fingers quick as lightning on the keyboard, the only thing you could think about was: well, that made a lot more sense than “ship acid”, didn’t it?

‘Jeonghan, please,’ Jisoo’s firm scolding fell from his lips the same moment Haeun started to yell from the top of her lungs:

‘Take it! Take it! You big liar!’

You had never wished more that the ground would split in two and swallow you at whole. Because while you understood that what your daughter wanted to say was “take it back”, you were pretty sure the majority of those who were giving you the judgemental stare and stinky eyes thought that Haeun-ah was already unhinged, at the tender age of six.

You hated only a few things less than misunderstandings.

‘Sugar, please stop picking fights,’ you warned the little lady, slowly putting her down on the floor so the unexpected change in height could calm her down a little. ‘Screaming at people and hitting them are also bad,’ you reminded her as soon as you crouched down at her level, simultaneously squeezing her little hand to make sure she knew you weren’t angry at her. She had every right to be upset. You would have never invalidated her feelings.

(Your parents had talked down to you while you had been still living with them too many times to even consider giving the same treatment to your own child.)

‘He says sorry, too,’ she demanded with a pout, having enough shame in her to stare at her feet instead of looking up at you, which made you a tad conflicted, because you would have liked to see her eyes. It always made it easier to read her - a skill quite handy when one had to raise a child.

You took a deep breath through your nose and tilted her head upwards with your index finger under her chin.

‘Okay. Let’s act like we are big girls and apologise first, hm?’ You said, phrasing it like a question to let her make the right decision consciously, so the next time anything like this happened, she would remember what to do. Guiding her through these experiences always worked better than forcing her to do the right thing.

It took her a few seconds, but eventually, Haeun nodded and turned towards the blond man with her entire body. Her tiny arms were pressed against her sides as she bent her back in a 90-degree angle, over-emphasising her politeness. You bit into your lower lip to not scold her for overdoing it on purpose.

‘Haeun is sorry,’ she said, then straightened her back and looked up at Jeonghan expectantly. 

It made Jisoo crack up and even the quiet lady let out a muffled chuckle while she kept her eyes on the screen. 

You weren’t exactly counting the seconds, but you knew the silence had stretched too long when your daughter started to get fidgety and one of the baristas, whose name you hadn’t learnt yet, came up to your table with some snacks and five glasses of cold beverages: orange juice for your daughter and coffees for all four of you.

‘Jeonghan,’ the blonde girl said with a tired sigh. ‘Apologise to Haeun.’

‘Why? Everyone knows I’m right,’ the man huffed, mumbling something under his nose about Jisoo’s new girlfriend and how it was a waste of money to buy her a new bikini because there was no way they would have lasted that long. ‘Also, I’m not sorry at all. It would only teach her the wrong lessons,’ he claimed, his smug smirk ridiculously potent as he let his gaze fall on your daughter, then looked up at you to add: ‘We wouldn’t want that, would we now?’

Too shocked to even part your lips or let out a scoff, it didn’t surprise you that you weren’t the first one to react. What did take you aback, though, was the elegance the blonde woman handled the situation with. You would have never been able to keep your facial expressions that neutral or your voice so stable while you told your significant other that they were less mature than a six-year-old child.

‘If you’re so keen on teaching the right life lessons to people, I have one for you, too,’ the woman said before she put her hand on the top of her laptop’s screen and turned her head in her boyfriend’s direction, completely unbothered. If it could have, your jaw would have fallen on the ground because of how badass she sounded; like she knew she had the upper hand and wasn’t afraid to make it clear to everyone. ‘Making bets on your best friends’ relationships is seriously messed up. I’ve already told you this, haven’t I?’

‘Yeah, but…’

‘But it’s a tradition and everybody does it anyway,’ she cut Jeonghan off by finishing the sentence for him in the same manner like she was talking about their next grocery shopping. You crouched down behind Haeun-ah and pulled her small body against your chest, not sure if you were allowed to leave. It was a very weird situation; it made you feel out of place and as a mom, that was something you really hated.  

Your eyes were pleading when you looked up at Jisoo; however, he was busy with the drama that was unfolding in front of you, so he clearly didn’t get the memo. You held onto your little girl more firmly and leaned close to her ear so you could tell her that you were about to leave.

Except…

Yoohyeon turned off her laptop and reached out to your daughter to ruffle her hair with a soft smile. She looked beautiful. So calm and approachable, you had this silly urge to go to her for advice even though she was practically a stranger.

‘Hey, big girl! I’m sorry this rude ahjussi upset you, but don’t worry. I’ll make sure he will sit long enough in the corner to learn his lesson,’ she reassured Haeun that Jeonghan would be punished, which seemed to satisfy the little lady considering the firm nod she gave to the woman.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Jeonghan asked in a slightly pitched voice, but his girlfriend wasn’t having it anymore. She just put her laptop into her laptop bag in a leisurely way.

‘I’ll take the subway to my publisher’s office,’ she stated, nodding towards Jisoo at first, then in your direction. What Jeonghan got was a pat on the shoulder and a cold yet somehow still affectionate: ‘Call me when you’ve grown up. I’m ordering chicken for dinner.’

With that, she was out the door like she had never been there.

‘I think it’s time for us to go, too,’ you jumped on the opportunity before any of the men could have broken out of their stupor and taken their anger out on you. Well… more like Jeonghan, since you seriously doubted Jisoo had any reason to be angry with you, but who knew? Bro codex and such things did exist and they were close friends.

You were acquaintances at best and the most fun people to spend time with according to your daughter. 

‘But mom… my juice!’ Haeun pouted; however, this time you decided to put your feet down and use your physical advantage as it should have been in tough situations: you lifted her off the ground and looked around in search of her papers and crayons.

‘Where are your drawings, sugar?’ You whisper-asked while scanning the area around where your previous table had been to no avail. Which was both comforting because it meant your stuff hadn’t been left behind unsupervised, but also frustrating because those pieces of papers clearly weren’t on the new table, either.

‘In my princess folder,’ she informed you like there was no other place those drawings could have been and you sighed, because you as far as you were concerned, you hadn’t brought any folders with you that morning and even if you had done, she didn’t own a princess one to begin with. ‘It’s behind Jisoo oppa,’ Haeun gave you another direction, most likely sensing just how lost you were still.

You furrowed your brows and shifted your gaze to Jisoo, who was already looking at you like a deer caught in the headlights.

‘I’m sorry, but could you give me her stuff? We’re going home,’ the words fell from your lips kindly, secretly hoping that if you spoke quietly enough, you could have stayed under his best friend’s radar. You genuinely didn’t want to fight - not in public, not with a grown ass man who was acting like a child and especially not with the friend of someone you were already indebted to. If you had done that, you would have set yourself up for a disaster for sure, and only stupid people did that.

With Haeun in your arms, you couldn’t have afforded to be stupid anymore.

‘Oh? Yeah, sure. Sorry, it’s no problem,’ Jisoo exclaimed a bit clumsily, quickly turning his back to you so he could fish the folder and all the crayons out of his own bag.

You snatched them both out of his hands with a quick ‘Thank you.’

On your way towards the front door, you could feel your daughter peeking out from behind your shoulder, watching the two men, but you didn’t care. You marched towards the street with all your might and didn’t stop until the nearest subway station.

You just knew Seola would have laughed at you if she had seen you bolting from the scene.

It was Jisoo who sent you the first personal message to you via kakao, and you were so taken aback by how unrelated it was to anything you had ever talked about, you had half a mind to ask your daughter whether she had said anything funny about you to the man. After all, why else would he have sent you a One Piece meme in the middle of a boring Wednesday. A Zoro one on top of everything. Were you too basic?

Maybe. But even so, he shouldn’t have known. So you asked him whether he had messaged the wrong person and from there, the rest was history.

You didn’t text daily, but he asked you about your job hunting frequently (even went as far as sending you job advertisements that didn’t require more than a high school diploma), how Haeun-ah was doing at school and your opinion on cute date ideas that he found nice and also doable but his male friends made fun of. Overall, it didn’t take longer than three weeks and you started to refer to him as a friend in your head.

Still, how you had ended up at a pub with a very drunk Jisoo at 11PM on a Friday night when your daughter was having a sleepover at her aunt’s place was beyond you. On the other hand, when you gave it a serious thought, you had indeed seen his best friend making fun of his relationship a few weeks prior, so was it really that surprising that he had reached out to you when his girlfriend dumped him? You didn’t think so.

‘Yes, she looked sexy in the red one, but is it really worth breaking up over?’ He threw the first ridiculous question at you as soon as you arrived and took a seat next to him at the main bar.

You called over the bartender and asked for a juice and a glass of iced water.

‘Jisoo…’ you called out to him, peeling his fingers off his half-finished beer. ‘It might sound like I’m taking Jeonghan’s side, but I really don’t think she broke up with you because of the bikini,’ you tried to comfort him, although you were unsure whether your words were doing the job or only upsetted him more.

So far, he looked more confused and lost than anything. 

‘But she said so! She got mad at me when I gave her the black one. She said I’m a possessive pig and she can’t take my conservative ideas anymore,’ he croaked, making a weak attempt at getting his beer back, but you were faster.

The tears in his eyes and on his cheeks made your heart hurt. Especially because it had been you who had insisted that his ex-girlfriend would be happy to get either of the bikinis he had chosen for her as the thought mattered more than the gift itself. You still didn’t believe that the girl’s reasons for dumping Jisoo were more than cheap excuses, but you did feel partly responsible and that sucked.

‘If she thought that way of you, that just means she wasn’t the right one for you,’ you said, the words one hundred percent true and yet… You weren’t sure they were as comforting as you had intended them to be. Even to your ears, they sounded a tad too cliche to convey just how worried you were about him.

The bitter chuckle that left Jisoo’s throat only proved it further that he didn’t believe you. And why would he have? One and a half months ago you hadn’t known about each other’s existence.

So you were grateful when the bartender served you your drinks. It gave you an opportunity to divert the topic without sounding too insensitive.

‘Here,’ you put the glass of water into Jisoo’s hand, slowly brushing a few strands out of his forehead without realising how intimate it could have seemed to people who didn’t know you and the way you comforted people ever since you had become a mom. ‘Do you think you can finish the whole glass for me?’

The moment your eyes met, the unintended implication behind your words hit you like a bullet train, and your cheeks decided to throw you under the bus: both sides dressed in a dark shade of ruby red. Naturally, it was you who broke eye contact first.

‘I must have messed up pretty bad,’ Jisoo came to the conclusion a couple of heartbeats later, drawing your attention back to him, both of your eyes fixed on the glass in his hands he was playing with. You wished you had known what to say, but it was difficult, because you didn’t know what made him say that. The dates he had organised (at least, the ones he had told you about) had sounded both cute and fun. You would have loved going on any of them if you had wanted to be honest. Not to mention that he had taken his girlfriend on a date around three or four times a week, which was more frequent than the average as far as you could tell. ‘She couldn’t even stay with me until the group vacation and we’ll leave in two days.’

You frowned, genuinely bewildered that Jisoo would have preferred getting dumped after the vacation like that wouldn’t have meant he was being used.

You took a sip from your juice and reached out to his hand to lift his own glass in front of his lips. He needed to sober up real quick before his intoxicated brain could have convinced him that he should have contacted the girl to ask her to join them for the trip or something. Nah, not under your watch.

‘Why would you want to be with someone who clearly isn’t in love with you?’ You inquired, slowly turning towards him with your entire body.

You let your eyes loiter over his bent figure, his puffy eyes and the dried snot above his lips and on the back of his hand. He looked worn down and his wrinkled clothes didn’t help much with his overall appearance. Should you have called one of his friends to pick him up? Was it really okay for you to see him like this?

‘Is this why you’re not with your baby daddy anymore?’ His question came out of nowhere, hitting you in the guts without any kind of warning. His bluntness rendered you speechless while your knuckles turned white around your drink.

The indirect mention of Inwoo made you wish you had ordered something stronger, because this wasn’t a topic you were ready to share with Jisoo or anyone who hadn’t known about your history already, especially when the other party wasn’t a hundred percent conscious. It might have been easier if you could have said that you had stopped loving each other at one point, but that hadn’t been the case. For the two of you, love had simply not been enough.

You stalled, taking another sip from your drink, contemplating whether you should have stayed silent, called for the bill and left or answered his question honestly. 

In the end, you decided to lead by example and be the bigger person (like how you raised your kid).

‘No. We were still in love when we parted ways.’

Jisoo snapped his head in your direction at a speed that should have made his head dizzy and gave you a look that you couldn’t quite decipher. Though, his eyes did make you feel like you were from a different planet.

‘Then why would you do that? You have a child together!’ He exclaimed, obviously upset about the part of the truth you had revealed. ‘Haeun alone should have been enough to stay together, but you’re saying you were still in love?’

Listening to his accusation - because it felt like an accusation to you - you clenched and unclenched your jaw, trying your best to keep your cool; however, it was difficult. Because he not only acted like you had failed your daughter, like you were selfish for not fighting for your relationship harder, but he was calling you out on all of these at a public place, raising his voice in frustration as though he had any business getting upset.

‘Stop that,’ you retorted, spatting each word into Jisoo’s pale face. ‘You don’t get to judge us when you know nothing about our situation,’ you started, taking a drawn out breath before you kept going: ‘Do you really believe Haeun wasn’t enough for us? Inwoo couldn’t wait to see her. He wanted to give us the best life, and he would have if the circumstances allowed it, so think twice before you say anything like that ever again,’ you warned him, lifting your left hand in front of his face to cut him off before he could have thought of adding anything else to your conversation.

For the first time in a while, the silence was suffocating in Jisoo’s company, but you did your best to shut it out and concentrate on the cold drink in your hands. He was drunk, and while it shouldn’t have been a passable excuse, it helped you not hold grudges against him for being so insensitive. Love and relationships were clearly sensitive topics for the both of you.

‘I’m sorry. I crossed a line,’ the man spoke up once he emptied his glass as if he had been afraid to draw your attention at himself before he had at least done this much for you. Which was ridiculous, but also a tad bit cute.

‘Yeah, you did,’ you agreed in a heartbeat, refusing to play it down just how wrong he had been when he had judged you and your ex. ‘But now you know better, so I forgive you,’ you added, sending a small albeit genuine smile in his direction, which he reciprocated with only a couple of seconds of delay.

You made Jisoo drink a second glass of water after that, and you spent the following half an hour in relative silence before he sobered up enough to be able to walk in a straight line with minor assistance from your side. You used his card to pay for his bill, then led him outside where your taxi was already waiting for you, not letting go of his elbow until you were both sitting comfortably in the backseat.

It didn’t take a minute and his head fell on your shoulder. His snoring was quiet but audible due to how close he was to you. You also couldn’t ignore the shiver his warm breath sent down your spine whenever it fanned over your neck.

‘Miss, we have arrived,’ the old taxi driver informed you, politely asking you if you needed any additional help with your company, but you declined the help for two reasons. 1) It was Jisoo’s place, not yours, so you weren’t sure you were allowed to make that decision. 2) He had been sober enough to get in the car without much trouble, so you hoped he wouldn’t have collapsed on you on your way to his flat.

‘Thank you. I’ll pay by card,’ you said and used your own card to pay for the ride after you shook Jisoo awake. You got out of the vehicle first, but you held the door for him and even helped him with his balance when his feet touched the pavement.

The thought that you should have asked the old man to wait for you crossed your mind only after you got inside the building, so it was clearly too late to rush out and make him stay an extra ten minutes or so. Agrr. You would need to call for another car once you made sure Jisoo got in bed just fine (and had some painkillers and a glass of water on his bedside table for the following morning).

‘I’m heavy,’ the words were mumbled against your shoulder when in the elevator, Jisoo lost his balance for a sheer moment and bumped his forehead into the crook of your neck.

He was such a mess, but you still decided to take a small part of his body weight on you for the remaining distance as you helped him straighten up and let him swing his arm over your shoulder. He was heavy, but lucky for him, you were used to carrying a stubborn and sleepy six-year-old in your arms on a daily basis, so you could manage.

‘Jisoo…’ you tried to gain his flickering attention when you stopped in front of his unit. ‘We need your keys or your code,’ you reminded him and turned your head deliberately when he reached out to the panel, because even though it wouldn’t have hurt anyone if you had known his code, you didn’t want to disrespect him by taking advantage of him when he was clearly in a vulnerable state. 

Once inside, you made him sit on the cushion attached to the shoe rack, a built-in mirror and the hanger with his jackets, then helped him untie his shoes that he had previously tried to get rid of with his heels and toes. So lazy.

‘Where is your bedroom?’ You asked after a deep breath, looking around in the flat with your hands on your hips. It had a really neat interior, which genuinely surprised you, because Jisoo didn’t always come off as someone organised to you, but if you wanted to be honest, you weren’t even sure whether he lived alone, so what did you know?

‘There,’ he pointed towards the hallway on your right, and you deemed his direction helpful enough to wrap your hands around one of his arms and pull him after you.

As it soon became obvious, the flat was a lot bigger than you had initially assumed - now it made more sense why there were only three front doors on the floor when your apartment complex had twice as many -, but you still managed to find his room on second try, right after you peeked into a room full of boxes and unpainted ceramic.

‘You know…’ Jisoo started as soon as you helped him sit on the edge of his king sized bed and modestly turned your back to him so he could get out of his worn clothes. You let our a soft hum to indicate that you were listening. ‘You and Haeun should come to the group trip with us,’ he said, turning your entire body tense and hot with his claim.

The fact was, you knew Haeun would have liked to go on a vacation with her new besties and would have also loved to see the sea, since she rarely got the opportunity. On the other hand, you couldn’t stop thinking about Jeonghan’s claim which started to sound more and more true to you: Jisoo was a relationship addict. And while you weren’t so self-assured to believe he suddenly wanted to, he had been just dumped.

What was the guarantee that you and your daughter wouldn’t have been the replacement.

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ you answered honestly, trying not to empathise with the man’s disappointment when a small hum was torn from his throat. Obviously, you didn’t mean to hurt his feelings even more, especially that day, but you were a mom, and you had to put your daughter’s emotional wellbeing first.

You didn’t want her to realise at one point during the trip, or later in life, that she wasn’t the first choice, especially to someone she clearly held dear to her little heart.

‘I’m grateful for the thought, though,’ you made an attempt at lessening the blow, but it could have easily been too late considering how quiet Jisoo became.

To ease some of the tension, you decided to leave his room and look for the kitchen, so you could bring him some cold water and painkillers before you left.

At the end, neither your consideration, nor his gratitude made your goodbyes less awkward. Even though you tried. You both honestly tried.

It might not have been the most healthy way of dealing with the issue, but the two of you never brought up the vacation after that - you didn’t ask him to send slash show you pics of the trip with his friends and he didn’t elaborate on how he had felt or how much fun he had had while being surrounded by a bunch of couples. Would you have liked to know if Jisoo was mentally alright? Yes. You cared about him more than you let him in on. However, you were determined to not bring it up even though the number of texts you sent to each other sky-rocketed after you had taken care of his drunk ass.

If you wanted to be honest, you were surprised that despite the outrageous comments he had made and the discomfort here and there throughout that night hadn’t gotten in the way of your slowly forming friendship. But then again… You weren’t the only one who had gotten closer to the man. Your daughter was very much the same if not worse. After all, unlike you, Haeun formed bonds with a lot of Jisoo’s friends, including the blond man with whom she picked a fight every damn time they met.

Were the two of you invited to taste-test the new recipes Mingyu had come up with? Jeonghan made a comment on your daughter’s pigtails and how she would become a pig if she ate a piece more, which ended up in a screaming contest. Were you spending your free Saturday in the coffee shop with Jisoo and Haeun, who were exchanging their drawings every ten minutes to create something pretty together while having fun? Jeonghan criticised Jisoo’s drawing skills and your daughter just couldn’t let it slide. It was insane, and you didn’t blame Yoohyeon for sitting at a separate table in the corner with her laptop whenever it got out of control. You wished you could have done that, too. 

Anyhow, apart from these extreme interactions, you couldn’t deny how much you enjoyed spending time with some of the guys and their girlfriends. You even went on a girls night out with Hoyeon, Seola, Sooryeon, Eunseo, Miri and Zhixiao two weeks after their holiday since they wanted to get to know you and your best friend, “the girl who let Joshua down gently before he could have talked her into getting together with her” to quote from word to word. You thought it was a little rude of them, but Hoyeon was also part of the gang that made bets on their friends’ relationships, so it could have been worse.

‘You don’t want to come anymore?’ Jisoo’s unsure question dragged you back to reality, your unfocused gaze falling on him before you brushed aside the memories that were occupying your mind. ‘We could take a rain check on the studio tour if you rather went home. It was a long day.’

‘Hm?’ Your eyes widened a tad as you were trying to comprehend what he was referring to. A long day… You did have an unusually productive day that Saturday, but nothing you couldn’t handle with two or three cups of green tea or coffee and some sugary goods. ‘No, it’s fine. I already promised Haeun-ah and I’m not that tired anyway.’

Jisoo gave you a onceover, but refrained from making another comment. Instead, he lifted his left hand with your daughter’s princess backpack in it and his right hand, too, the little girl was holding onto while sipping on her orange juice.

‘We’re good to go then,’ he exclaimed, shaking his hips left and right with a big smile when your daughter did the same, making your heart do a silly little flip due to the adorable sight.

You scolded yourself mentally.

‘Okay, just give me a sec,’ you asked, quickly looking around, then checking your bag to be sure you had everything on you: your id card, phone, charger, powerbank, house keys and of course, your wallet, too. ‘Let’s go!’

On your way to the front doors, you bid your goodbye to everyone who had a shift that day, then followed Jisoo to his car. Since he didn’t have a car seat especially for Haeun, you told him that you would sit in the back with her in your lap, and thanked him when he took your stuff out of your hand, so he could put it along with your daughter’s princess backpack on the passenger’s seat, where they were easier to access.

‘Vroom, vroom,’ Haeun exclaimed happily, mimicking Jisoo turning the steering wheel from the middle of the backseat since it was rare she had the chance to ride a car. You didn’t have one; you used public transportation whenever you weren’t in a rush, which you tried not to be in. You weren’t a big fan of spending extra money on cabs when it wasn’t an emergency.

‘Are you excited, princess?’ At the first red light, Jisoo started a conversation, making you wonder whether he was this good with kids in general or it was only Haeun whom he treated so well. You also wondered whether he was an only child. Did he have any relatives close to your daughter’s age? Would it have been weird to ask so out of the blue?

You pressed your lips together and decided to file it for another time. You didn’t want to cut their conversation about pottery short with your sudden interest in Jisoo’s personal life.

‘I want to make a dinosaur. And a helicopter,’ Haeun exclaimed zealously, her exaggerated hand gestures coming alarmingly close to your face, although you didn’t budge. You simply squeezed her sides gently with your hands, to remind her where she was, pressing your lips to the top of her head to show affection.

‘You can make a dinosaur mug, hm? Dinosaur figures are too fragile, sugar,’ you informed her in a small voice as you brushed a stray mop of hair behind her ear, fixing her messy hair a little without redoing her braids.

‘Fridge-aisle? What is that?’ Haeun asked with big, curious eyes. To show you that she really wanted to learn something new that day, she shifted in your lap and turned towards you as much as she could, tilting her head just a tad to the left. ‘Is it like ice-cream?’

Her guess made you smile widely. She might have been pretty far from the truth this time, but it wasn’t the most hilarious one she had ever made. That title went to her drawing of flaming mangos (flamingos) when her class had to illustrate a story that their kindergarten teacher had read them in school. You had it framed in your living room, next to her four-year-old birthday picture.

‘No, it’s not. Fragile means it’s easy to break,’ you corrected her, which made her pout for a couple of seconds like she was trying to picture a fragile dinosaur figure in her head.

When she succeeded, she acknowledged your explanation with a nod and a loud: ‘Okay!’

During the rest of the ride, you joined in on their discussion about the best dinosaurs, but let them decide which art styles and eating utensils they preferred and whether they wanted to make matching sets or individual items. It was a surprisingly adult conversation, and you were grateful to Jisoo for not only taking your daughter seriously, but also taking her opinion into account.

A tiny, insignificant voice in your head reminded you that he was treating her the way you wanted to raise her from the get-go, but you quickly shook your head to get the idea out of it just how compatible your approaches were.

‘Get ready for the last turn, princess. We’re about to park the car,’ Jisoo informed the little girl, and you could see him checking on her through the mirror to make sure her arms were in position for the manoeuvre. The whole scene tugged on your heartstrings.

As soon as you got the green light from Jisoo, the two of you got out of the car: you went to grab your bags and your daughter sprinted to the man, who was waiting for her close to the entrance with his hand held out.

‘So… this is my potter studio,’ he let both of you inside the building with his name on it, the keys dingling in his hand as he pointed at one part of the interior after the other.

It was a nice shop, not at all overwhelming despite the professional equipment, pre-made, unpainted ceramic designs, number of paints and brushes one could have chosen from and all that jazz. In fact, at first glance, this place was a lot more organised than the room you had seen at his home.

‘You can both make the plates and mugs yourself or just pick them out from those selves and paint them,’ he explained kindly at the end of the VIP tour that apparently included places regular customers couldn’t see for themselves, such as the room where he baked the clay and his own office with a mini fridge full of fruit juices, soda and snacks.

‘Make, make! I want to make mugs and plates,’ your daughter insisted, jumping up and down excitedly while holding onto Jisoo’s hand. If it had been any other person, except for Seola, you would have felt uncomfortable watching her acting so loud and borderline obnoxious, but at some point, it seemed, you subconsciously accepted the fact that the man didn’t mind her overly-friendly behaviour.

You didn’t notice that a soft smile had made an appearance on your face while you had been watching their adorable duo until Jisoo looked at you from above his shoulder and caught you red handed. You gulped, resisting the urge to bite into your cheek from the inside out of embarrassment.

‘It might take a while,’ he mouthed the words, and it took you a couple of seconds to realise he was talking about the plates and mugs Haeun-ah was insistent on making from scratch. You furrowed your brows, not sure what he meant by it until he specified: ‘Days.’

“Days” meant multiple sessions, which you had to at least try to avoid to ease your heart a little, even though you were aware: now that Haeun knew she had the opportunity to design everything herself, it was almost impossible to talk her out of it.

‘Sugar…’ you walked next to her, tapping her shoulder to gain her attention before you sat on your heels by her side. ‘Making plates and mugs takes a lot of time. You won’t be able to paint on them tonight,’ you started, giving her time to process small parts of the information first instead of overwhelming her with too many details at once.

You pressed your lips together lightly when Jisoo crouched down to her level as well as if he was a part of the conversation despite remaining sile—

‘You will need to wait two or three days, because the plates need to dry first,’ he explained with a patient smile on his face, caressing your daughter’s chubby cheek like she was his or something. What took you aback the most in the unusual sight was Haeun-ah enjoying the gesture so much from someone other than you or your best friend when you had seen her swat away the hand of her aunt Seola’s parents, her warm-hearted homeroom teacher and the neighbourhood ahjumma, too, although the old lady had even offered her some sour candies - her then favourites. ‘Do you think you can wait that much?’

Haeun did that thing when she puckered her lips deep in thought for a couple of seconds, then she nodded firmly, visibly determined to act like how she thought big girls would.

‘I can,’ she exclaimed, and you pressed your lips together, swallowing back objections that you knew rooted in your own insecurities. You didn’t want to impose on Jisoo’s kindness, you didn’t want to rely on someone too much. You didn’t want to get too comfortable around him - or anyone, really - just to realise later in time that he was only a temporary part of your life.

You didn’t notice you lost focus for a second until your daughter pulled on your arm to get your attention.

‘Mom! Can I? Can I? I can,’ she pleaded, making you steal a quick glance at Jisoo who was watching your interaction with twinkles in his eyes. He looked so soft at that moment, just watching your daughter trying to persuade you to bring her back to the studio multiple times, so she could have plates she made from scratch (or well… of clay, but that wasn’t the point).

‘Is it really okay? I can only bring her here after school or on weekends when I’m off work,’ you reminded him, because while you had already submitted your resignation letter, you had to keep working for the cleaning company a month longer.

‘You can always welcome here after opening hours. Don’t worry about that,’ he reassured you, and a part of you wanted to tell him to take it back: that he shouldn’t have thrown these kinds of promises around like confetti, but wouldn’t that have been weird? If you had gotten so offensive when he was nothing but kind to you and Haeun-ah?

‘Thanks,’ you ended up saying like any normal person without abandonment issues would have done so, then gave in to his nagging and chose a mug for yourself, one from the shelves that was already pre-made and was waiting for someone to paint on it.

Your anxiety didn’t disappear immediately; however, every time you took a glance at your daughter happily swinging her legs back and forth on the chair Jisoo had made her sit, giggling at the weird shapes her mugs and plates took because of her inexperience with clay and pottery eased your nerves a little. At the end, you felt you made the best decision for the little one, and that was all that mattered.

It had been a while since you had let yourself get immersed in something fun and relaxing; as a single mother, your focus had to be on Haeun-ah 24/7 even though the older she grew, the less time she spent with you due to her studies and her slowly growing friend groups and responsibilities. She might have only been six, but your society was obsessed with grades and special talents, thus you encouraged her to hone her skills and pursue her interests regardless of how silly they appeared to be from an adult’s point of view - no matter how worried you were that you put too much on her plate whenever you agreed to sign her up for extra classes.

So the fact that you didn’t notice three hours going by while you were decorating your mug was both shocking and understandable. You had used to draw sketches of people and random interior designs when you had been in high school, hovering over your notebook for hours without a care for the world. You could hyperfixate on the smallest, most insignificant details when you had time. It was just… usually you didn’t have that luxury, at least, not anymore.

‘Woah! I didn’t know you were so good at painting!’ Jisoo’s surprisingly quiet voice pulled you back to the present, the warm drinks in his hands filling the air with the unmistakably sweet scent of chocolate and cinnamon. ‘I made us some hot cocoa and spiced it up with a little bit of rum to fit the occasion,’ he informed you before he nudged you with his feet and urged you to take one of the mugs out of his hands.

‘Oh? So you were serious about the celebration?’ You asked a bit taken aback, but very much touched by the sentiment. Seola had already brought you a cake the day before when she had heard about the job offer you had been more than eager to accept, but Jisoo’s hot cocoa was just as appreciated if not more. After all, he didn’t have any best friend obligations to fulfil - if not some made-up bestie duties to your daughter who still hadn’t given up on claiming the man.

For some reason, the possibility of the latter made you laugh for the first time Jisoo had come into your life. Just putting him in the same group as Haeun’s playmates made you crack up. How absurd it was, really.

‘What’s so funny?’ Jisoo asked with a small smile in the corner of his mouth, his lips painted in a light shade of glossy brown from the hot cocoa. You took a sip from your own drink, then let it warm your numb fingers as you kept the porcelain mug in your hands on your lap.

‘I’m just happy, that’s all,’ you opted for a half-truth, slowly looking around in the interior of the studio. ‘Where is Haeun?’

‘There.’

You snapped your head in Jisoo’s way just to follow the direction his finger was pointing at. Immediately, your eyes landed on a pile of blankets in one corner of the couch near the counter where Jisoo kept the cash register and some documents that helped him identify which half-finished or finished product belonged to which customer.

‘She fell asleep while I put away her mugs. She wanted to make some matching plates, too, but by the time I prepared everything for her, she was out on the chair,’ he explained, your brain easily filling out the holes: him carrying her to the couch, which was undoubtedly the most comfortable-looking furniture in his studio, covering her with blankets and cleaning up after her at the professional table with the pedals and all.

You turned back towards him and shot a grateful smile at him, completely at loss of words. He hadn’t had to, but he had taken care of your daughter on your behalf anyway just so you could have painted in peace. That was something… something Inwoo would have done for you in many of your dreams when you had still held onto the picture of your happy family. Something that a significant other would have done, cherishing Haeun and you equally as if you had always been his.

‘Do you think she would feel left out if we celebrated without her? I made some hot cocoa for her, too - without the rum, of course -, but I didn’t have the heart to wake her,’ Jisoo inquired, and you just shook your head.

‘We can always celebrate with her another time. Let her sleep,’ you decided and lifted your mug for a toast despite how ridiculous it looked. ‘I will buy us samgyeopsal from my first salary. How about that?’ You asked, clinking your mug to his like you had just made a vow, then took a big sip from the drink.

The hot cocoa tasted sweet on your tongue, the rum burning your throat briefly yet pleasantly once the lingering mix of chocolate and cinnamon started to fade. It was perfectly made, and you couldn’t have helped but tease him whether he had taken a bartender course in the past to charm girls.

‘So what if I did?’ He asked back, playful. ‘Is it working?’

‘Isn’t that something you should know better?’ Your chuckle filled the room, the mug slowly yet steadily getting empty in your hand. It wasn’t that hot anymore, but it still brought warmth to you as you clung onto the porcelain.

‘It’s a secret, but…’ he leaned closer to you as though he was really about to spill the beans about something no one knew about. Instinctively, you leaned closer to him as well to meet him halfway, eager to hear the juicy details. ‘I’m not that good at reading the signs.’

You furrowed your brows and pulled away, so you could take a better look at Jisoo’s face. You weren’t sure just how serious he could be until your eyes finally met; then, staring at him with your lips partially ajar, you failed to contain your amusement.

He was serious.

‘Silly,’ you said as you got rid of the tears brimming in the corners of your eyes with the back of your hand. ‘That’s not a secret. Everyone knows that,’ you corrected him and acting on the sudden urge, you reached out with your empty hand and took his jaw between your fingers. The way you fondled his chin with your thumb was gentle, like you were trying to make up for your straightforward words with affection.

Unconsciously, a part of you might have wanted to do just that. Gentle touches, encouraging words, warm smiles, mutual vulnerability out in the open. Throughout the rest of the night, you shared stories with Jisoo that helped him feel less like a failure just because the rest of his friend group was more forward in life (from a conservative point of view), even the youngest ones like Chan and Seungkwan. At a weak moment, you even told him about Inwoo and his wife who had an adorable little boy together as far as you were concerned. You were happy for him, and for some odd reason, Jisoo called you strong for sounding so sincere.

‘I always feel bitter when I see my exes with other people. Especially when they are happy,’ Jisoo confessed and you hugged him to show your support, to show him that you didn’t think he was a bad person for being hurt and acting on those bitter feelings from time to time.

‘It’s okay to be hurt,’ you mumbled against his chest, patting his shoulder blade rhythmically to emphasise how much you meant every word.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, in each other’s embrace, then finished your fifth or sixth mugs of hot cocoa while sharing less emotionally loaded and more lighthearted stories with each other. It was a celebration after all.

A night that you knew would be hard to forget or ignore in the near future yet couldn’t regret anyway.

Days started to feel longer towards the second part of your notice period, although you knew that scientifically nothing had changed; each one of them consisted of twenty-four hours out of which you usually slept six or seven thanks to your daughter having an early curfew. Thus, you shouldn’t have felt as drained as you were when you showed up at Coffee Carat with Haeun on your next free Saturday. On the contrary, your body should have been overflowing with energy since your daughter had been nice enough to let you sleep in instead of asking you to prepare her breakfast first thing in the morning or demanding your attention simply because she had no one to play with.

So why were you dragging your feet one after the other like even something as mundane as walking took a lot out of you?

Maybe because your current manager was a real pain in the ass who took it upon himself to teach you one last lesson before your departure.

‘Mom! There, there!’ Haeun pointed at a random table close to the huge coffee bean sticker, where Jisoo and his friends were munching on sweet treats and talking about something that clearly divided the group. Unlike most of the time when Jeonghan was present, his girlfriend was nowhere to be seen.

‘Calm down, sugar. Let’s order something first, okay?’ You squeezed her hand gently to help her focus on you, giving time for the guys to notice your arrival and also for your daughter to take a few breathers. The last thing you wanted was Haeun to pounce at them when they were clearly having a heated conversation. That would have done nothing good.

‘Oh…’ The pout that appeared on your daughter’s face was momentarily because as soon as her eyes landed on the chocolate balls dragon behind the glass display her chin quite literally dropped on the floor, her excited squeal filling the interior. ‘Mingyu oppa did it! He really did it! See?’ She pointed at the fun-looking dessert, rambling about how she had drawn a whole magical zoo for the baker during one of your last minute job interviews and how this dessert’s name was Yong-yong.

‘Hello there, little one. What can I get for you today?’ Seokmin asked with his trademark smile that did not waver, not even a little bit, when Haeun-ah started to tell him about her drawings and excitement to taste the most delicious-looking dragon princess she had ever seen. Was her statement a little alarming? Absolutely. But you supposed, she was old enough to tell non-existing animals from an actual cake, so it wasn’t like she wanted to eat a pet or a good old friend from her fairytale books.

‘I’ll have an iced cappuccino and please, some apple juice for Haeun,’ you added, immensely grateful that instead of jumping on the opportunity to turn his back on the two of you, the barista entertained your daughter with questions like which fantasy animal she would have liked to see in the coffee shop next time and whether princess Yong-yong was big enough in her opinion.

It took some time and some overly detailed answers from your overhyped chipmunk, but eventually you got your tray with your orders and were able to look for empty chairs in the customer area. Since you couldn’t be sure that the boys had come to an agreement or were still talking about something passionately, you would have preferred to have your own table near them, but of course, as soon as Haeun-ah’s eyes landed on Jisoo’s open arms, so couldn’t stay still. She ran to him like he was her world.

You followed her slowly with slightly burning cheeks and greeted the others with a small smile, not sure whether it was okay if you took one of the empty chairs or you should have found a table to put your tray on.

‘Why are you just standing there? If you wanted to sit next to Joshua, you should have been faster, like the little gremlin,’ Jeonghan said with that shiteating grin on his face he somehow didn’t seem to know how to contain unless his girlfriend was giving him the silent treatment. Then, he was quick to be on his best behaviour. ‘Come on! Sit,’ he pulled an empty chair out for you across from Jisoo and your daughter at the same moment the little one pointed her tiny finger at the blond man and screamed:

‘Bad word!’ 

From the top of her lungs.

‘Sugar, we’ve already talked about screaming at people,’ you reminded her, not scolding her for what she had said, but rather for how she had said it.

‘You don’t even know what gremlin means,’ Jeonghan challenged Haeun, once again making you want to contact Yoohyeon to collect her man, although that would have been childish and you seriously should have been able to handle their bickering. It wasn’t that much different from fights on the playground.

‘You said so it’s bad. I’m Haeun. Kim Haeun,’ she explained her logic, making everyone else around the table chuckle and laugh at her reasoning.

‘Jeonghan. I’ve already told you, stop bullying her,’ Jisoo warned his best friend, earning a big smile from your daughter who sneakily darted her tongue out at Jeonghan when she thought no one was watching. Well, you obviously had your eyes on her and so had the blond man who mimicked the gesture without any hesitation.

Children.

‘Oppa!’ Haeun spoke up a moment after the momentary peace had settled as she pulled a chocolate ball off the almond-and-chocolate-coated pepero stick that served as the dragon’s spine. Jisoo let out a hum to make her aware he was listening. ‘There will be a car day in school next Friday. Everyone’s mom and dad will come and tell stories about their job,’ she chatted, swinging her legs back and forth while sitting on Jisoo’s lap.

‘A Career Day? Sounds fun. Are you excited?’ Their conversation kept going on like none of you others had been sitting by the same table, but you didn’t mind it that much anymore, not since the night Jisoo had shown you his pottery studio (Haeun’s mugs and plates were already painted, so you were one meet-up from taking everything home). 

‘Yeah, so fun. But mom’s not coming,’ she said flatly, chewing on a chocolate ball in one minute and offering another one to Jisoo in another.

Your cheeks were burning, for a different reason this time: guilt. It wasn’t like you didn’t care about the Career Day at her school. In fact, you had been just as excited about it as she had been when she had first mentioned it to you, but unfortunately, your manager had refused to let you take off that day as part of the lesson he tried to teach you. You swallowed back a disappointed sigh and took a sip from your drink. It couldn’t have been helped.

‘Mom must be really sorry that she can’t make it, princess,’ Jisoo brushed a mop of hair out of Haeun’s face, then accepted a second chocolate ball from your daughter before he pointed at you and nudged the little girl’s shoulder.

Apparently this was the encouragement your daughter needed to share her snack with you, too. You accepted the dessert with a grateful smile that was dedicated more to Jisoo than her even if you would have never said that out loud. Especially not while you were sitting at the same table with Yoon Jeonghan.

You could already hear the guys whispering about how none of them would have thought that Joshua was such a dad(dy) material until you two had come into their lives. You had never been so grateful that Haeun still had a limited vocabulary and was as innocent as one could be at her age. Why would any of them have thought it was a good idea to joke about daddies around a little girl with no father figure in her life was seriously beyond you.

‘Oppa!’ Haeun exclaimed between two bites, letting Jisoo make her drink some of her apple juice as well before she blurted out with the biggest due eyes: ‘Will you come to the car day like other dads do?’ 

The tension that followed could have been cut with a butter knife.

You didn’t realise you were sweating or that you started to breath heavily after her question; you honestly didn’t even notice the worried looks everyone at the table was giving you until Jeonghan put his hand on your shoulder and you snapped. You got up from the chair like it was burning you and excused yourself hastily before you rushed towards the double doors. There was no way your daughter was asking Jisoo to show up at the school Career Day like other fathers did. Your brain was making things up.

You needed some fresh air.

Later, when you would think back at this incident, you might have thought you were a little bit of a drama queen and unreasonable - since you stormed out of the building, leaving your daughter behind albeit in good hands -, but at that moment your focus was solely on getting as far away from the situation as possible. You had to think and you couldn’t do that in front of so many of Jisoo’s friends and your daughter who was literally beaming at Jisoo, hoping for an affirmative answer. When had you given her the impression that he was her father? When the hell had you made her believe that Jisoo could…

Why did she feel the need to have a second parent? And why hadn’t you realised that she had started to think more into her “friendship” with Jisoo than what it was? Did she want to have a dad so much? Had anyone made her feel like she had to have a dad to fit into your society?

You groaned, stressed. You had to go back and explain to her that she couldn’t have just claimed someone as her dad just because other children in her class had both a mother and a father. Maybe, it was time for you to tell her about her biological dad. God. You were so not ready for THE talk. It was decades too soon.

Centuries.

Okay, most likely just a couple of years, but still. You were a little out of it.

You flinched when someone touched your shoulder out of the blue. No warning. No soothing words. Nada.

Or maybe you just weren’t listening.

‘Hey, are you okay? What happened?’ Jisoo’s worried voice reached you through the fog, his caring attitude overwhelming all of a sudden. He shouldn’t have come after you, it wasn’t like it was his duty to check on you. The only person he might have had some responsibilities towards was your daughter and even that was a stretch in your mind on your darkest days.

You took a step further from him to distance yourself from his… him. However, Jisoo either didn’t catch on to your distress or genuinely believed that his closeness was that one thing you needed to get back to normal because the next thing you knew he was caressing your back with gentle strokes: up and down, up and down.

‘Talk to me,’ he coaxed you, which would have made your heart flutter in any other situation, but only added to your anxiety at that moment. He was doing it again: acting like Haeun and you were a package deal, like you were supposed to matter to him the same way Haeun did just because he had let your daughter claim him as her best friend. And the worst thing was that you just knew your ever so curious daughter could have been watching.

Jisoo was playing into her fantasy of a complete family, and you wanted to scream. 

‘You can tell me. We can work it out,’ Jisoo tried to reassure you when all you got was your heavy breathing and even heavier silence.

You looked up at him with angry tears in your eyes and brushed his hand off you.

‘Give me a fucking minute,’ you snapped at him.

The shocked look in his chocolate brown eyes that slowly morphed into hurt filled you with guilt. You shouldn’t have said it like that. You should have had more patience with both him and this whole career day topic. It couldn’t have been healthy: the way you reacted to Haeun asking him to show up in school for her like other fathers did.

‘She… she wants you to be her dad,’ you croaked out eventually, when you mustered up the courage to look up at Jisoo and he was still there, waiting for you to come around patiently like you hadn’t just screamed his head off for caring about you.

You crouched down, too unstable to stand even a moment longer. You wished the street had been a little wider, so Jisoo’s friend could have placed some smaller tables in front of the shop, too, not just inside. You also wished that there were less people giving you the side eye when you leaned your back against Coffee Carat’s wall. Their judging didn’t help at all. 

Albeit with a visible distance between the two of you, Jisoo sat on the dirty street at an arm’s length from you and leaned against the shop in a similar way you did. You swallowed down the knot in your throat.

‘She just wants someone to be there for her, too. She didn’t say she wants me to be her dad,’ he corrected you, and before you could have opened your mouth and object, he let out a soft huff and cut you off by adding. ‘Look. I know you think I’m a relationship addict who can’t go a day without being with someone, but… I’m not playing with your daughter’s feelings, or with yours for that matter. It felt nice when she asked me to come since you can’t make it, but I will say no if that’s where your boundaries lie.’

You sucked in your lower lip and observed his face. He looked sincere; he sounded sincere. And a part of you was tempted to ask him to prove to you how much his words were really worth by rejecting your daughter. However, the thought of deliberately sabotaging your baby tugged on your insides in an awful way. You were awful - a selfish mother who was about to steal some of the wonders from her own child’s life because of her fears and insecurities. 

But weren’t you allowed to feel how you were feeling? Did you have to put Haeun-ah first all the time to be perceived as a good parent?

‘I just…’ you tapped the sensitive skin under your eyes with your thenar and looked upwards to prevent the unwanted tears. You were a mess in public already, the idea of sinking even lower wasn’t a pleasant one. ‘I don’t want her to think that our family isn’t a good family without a dad.’

There it was, out in the open. Goodness, you could already hear the lecturing in your head how every good family, every healthy family needed both a father and a mother. How it was natural that your daughter was seeking a second parental figure, because that was how things should have been from the get-go. Your parents had made sure these words had been burnt into your very existence before you mutually cut ties with each other. Sometimes you wished, wishing hard enough could have made this universal truth untrue.

You pressed your palms against your ears and let your chin fall on your pulled up kneecaps. Just because you knew it was coming didn’t mean you had to like the scolding.

‘I don’t think you have to worry about that,’ Jisoo started, his voice having a tentative edge to it with a good reason. It was a sensitive topic, and you appreciated that he handled it like one. ‘On the other hand, I wouldn’t call your family small though. Sure, you’re a single mom, but whenever Haeun talks about her family, she talks about her aunt Seola, too. Three people is pretty normal sized to me,’ he shot an encouraging smile in your way, and those unsaid words he might have been too afraid to say out loud after your breakdown were obvious. Haeun had him, too, now, whether you labelled him as a dad, an uncle or an oppa - whether you liked it or not.

You looked up to the sky and took a deep breath. You couldn’t decide whether it would have been appropriate to laugh aloud at that moment, but you did it anyway. Your reality started to resemble a 50-episode-long tv drama and you just couldn’t keep up with the daily updates. 

‘God. How is this real? We’re practically strangers,’ you groaned, unsure if you really had the right to put so much responsibility on Jisoo’s shoulders when he had no obligations towards you and your daughter.

He had shown up in your life so out of the blue, so randomly, what had made him so different from anybody else in Seoul?

‘In that… I will take full offence. I thought we were closer than that. After all, I know about the baby daddy despite the NDA,’ he leaned a little closer to you, so he was able to push you gently by your upper arm. That, once again, made you giggle. He was right, you didn’t share so much about your past with just anyone, but still. A part of you couldn’t let go of the idea that he didn’t have any ties to you - not like how your parents had had before they had given up on you. Not like how Inwoo had had before he had had to walk out of your life.

What was the guarantee that someone who wasn’t bound to your family by blood and didn’t share a decade of friendship with you would stick with your duo through thick and thin when none of the aforementioned people had done? People who should have stood by you in spite of the obstacles life threw your way.

‘I’m sorry, I…’ you closed your eyes and shook your head before you buried your face in your hands. You felt so many things in that moment it couldn’t have been healthy. ‘My thoughts aren’t making too much sense right now. I’m just…’

‘You’re afraid Haeun will lose another father figure if I cross that line and show up at the Career Day in her school,’ he finished the sentence on your behalf when words failed you. Your lips trembled when you sneaked a glance at him.

Jisoo wasn’t looking at you. He was looking at his hands on his lap.

‘I’m so sorry,’ you choked on your apology, feeling those unshed tears - you had tried to hold back so desperately - running down your rose-tinted cheeks.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, but you shook your head. ‘No, it really is. You don’t have to apologise for wanting to protect her from future disappointments. Nor should you feel sorry for shielding yourself from potential heartbreak. I understand,’ he reached out, searching for any kind of rejection in your eyes before he touched your head and ruffled your hair.

The sudden change in your conversation reminded you of the night when you had picked him up at that bar, right after he had been dumped by his then girlfriend. Looking in Jisoo’s eyes, you didn’t doubt, not even for a second, that he truly understood a part of your biggest fears and insecurities.

You might have been two sides of the same coin, but that didn’t take away from how, in your core, you were the same: people with an unhealthy perception of relationships.

Funny how it took you almost seven years and a man who had willingly become your little girl’s friend to realise it for the first time in your life: albeit loving your baby girl with your whole heart, you weren’t exactly fine.

You weren’t okay. You weren’t mentally fine.

You might not have seeked professional help for your mental problems immediately as it was hard to convince yourself that you had the spare money for such expenses, but you started to pay more attention to your emotional needs after a long and heavy conversation with your best friend while Haeun was at school. It wasn’t easy. Some days you felt extremely selfish for wanting to have any kind of relationship with Jisoo without including your daughter. Some days you got anxious as soon as Haeun found other people to talk to and let the two of you be. Regardless, you didn’t try to shut him out anymore. Instead, you let yourself feel - both the good and the bad.

You believed that it was a baby step in the right direction when after a long afternoon out with your daughter’s closest friends from school, you allowed Haeun-ah to invite her aunt Seola and Jisoo oppa over for a movie night on her birthday. The three of you easily agreed to let the birthday girl choose what you would watch - even if she had the tendency to re-watch the same two movies for months when she liked them - and in exchange, she let you order the food like you would have gone for anything else but her favourite that day. No one was too surprised when you ended up watching Encanto, during which you weren’t supposed to fall asleep - yet you did.

And that was how your innocent movie night turned into an impromptu sleepover without you noticing. Not that the second part should have shocked you that much. You had been so drained from all the excitement of the afternoon that you failed to wake up for Jisoo carrying you from the couch to your own bed despite the struggles he must have gone through. You weren’t overweight per se, but you wouldn’t have called sixty kilograms light, either.

After all, personally, you couldn’t carry six kilos of groceries home from the neighbourhood market without risking muscle pain.

In the morning, you woke up with a start for a loud crash that reminded you of part-time jobs at 3AM and sleep-deprived kitchen shenanigans with a newborn baby. Your heart was beating like crazy, and your body got tense on automatic as you sat up in your bed, self-destructively uncoordinated. It was a miracle you hadn’t fallen off the furniture, considering how close you were to its edge.

‘What th…’ you mumbled under your nose, trying to decipher your surroundings and rubbing the remnants of sleep out of your eyes. Once the fog cleared up in your mind, you were able to recall Mirabel’s first encounter with her uncle, Bruno; you would remember your daughter singing along with her favourite characters; you could feel the phantom weight of your best friend’s head on your shoulder, but none made you wiser about the rest of the night.

Or the noises that were coming from the kitchen.

To get your answers for the latter, you needed to get out of bed.

Suppressing a yawn solely because you were too used to concealing your tiredness at home, you stretched your body and grabbed your cosy, light-brown cardigan from your chair, so you would have felt more comfortable in your skin so early into the day. If you had had the time, you would have preferred to wash your face, brush your hair and teeth, too, before presenting yourself to whoever was making a mess in your kitchen; however, as soon as you recognised your daughter’s panicky voice, you knew you couldn’t be vain. Haeun-ah clearly needed you, whether you were freshly washed or not.

‘It’s okay, princess. Nothing bad happened, we can clean it up and redo it. We still have so much time,’ Jisoo’s gentle voice reached your ears before you reached the kitchen, your steps slowly coming to a halt before you could have made yourself visible. You didn’t have to be a genius to realise they were making something for breakfast for you, hence your presence would have ruined their surprise.

‘He’s good with her. Aaand, he is handsome,’ your best friend whispered into your ear, her light-hearted giggles managing to relax your tense shoulders despite how eye roll-worthy and unnecessary her observation was. You knew Jisoo was amazing with Haeun; you should also have been blind to not see how appealing he looked.

You let out a resigned sigh.

‘Neither of us is ready for a relationship, and you know it.’ You were pretty sure that you had complained about Jisoo’s unhealthy need to be in a relationship and your own fears of losing him frequently enough during your girly chit-chats for Seola to not forget it. But last night was the first time she had met him, so you could understand her reaction. If you hadn’t been a single mother with responsibilities, you would have also been tempted to turn a blind eye to your mental problems in order to pursue a relationship with him.

However, a relationship with you didn’t mean only two people anymore. It would have been the three of you for the rest of your lives, and you had to protect Haeun-ah from developing abandonment issues. You couldn’t jump into a relationship until you weren’t ready.

‘Well, it doesn’t have to happen now. Duh,’ Seola argued, successfully shutting you up before she nudged you with her elbow, encouraging you to eavesdrop on the conversation that was playing out in the kitchen.

And so you leaned your forehead against the wall and listened to Jisoo as he was drying up your daughter’s crocodile tears, promising her to help her re-decorate your pancakes once he cleaned up the broken pieces on the floor. It was lovely: the man’s endless patience with the little girl and seemingly endless energy when it came to matching her vibe.

You got so immersed in their interaction that you had almost forgotten to sneak back into your bedroom where you fake-slept, so Haeun and Seola could wake you up. Luckily, you had a best friend who not only reminded you of their surprise, but also teased the hell out of you because of that wide smile that had formed on your lips without meaning to.

You were happy. You might have been still afraid to admit it out loud, but one look at your face told it all - at least, according to Seola. You could picture a life in which you woke up to these two making a mess in your kitchen with the best intention in their hearts, and not only that. You wanted to live that life so desperately it was unreal.

Except, with enough determination and constant effort on all three of your parts, you might have been able to become a family one day. If Jisoo had still wanted to give it a try: to family vacations, to movie nights, to you and him, to the long run. You would have said yes.

A thousand times yes.

➼ extra topping

EXTRA TOPPING: WHIPPED (FOR YOU) CREAM

characters: baker!mingyu & food critic!you (Sooyoung - ‘97 liner) genre: coffee shop au, pregnancy au, fluff requested by: this lovely anon date of release: second half of May or early June

[lily-blue]

13 reasons why | reason no.7: their iced coffee can mend a broken heart

☆ characters: manager!wonwoo & teacher assistant!you (Yuri - ‘98 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, angst, fluff ☆ summary: after your boyfriend breaks up with you in public, you tell yourself you aren’t ready for another relationship; however, Wonwoo is willing to wait until you are ☆ words: 9,1k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town​ ♥ for proofreading this chapter; i appreciate you a lot, i hope you know it ☆ taglist: @soobin-chois​

➼ chapter index

Getting a chance to challenge yourself as a teacher assistant had always been the plan. It was an amazing teaching experience at a prestigious university that you would have been a fool to decline even if you would have liked to work with high schoolers in the future. Many of your students were barely out of high school anyway, the memory of CSATs struggles still vivid in their mind. It was as good of an opportunity as you could get without working experience and you had always liked being a busy bee anyway.

You didn’t mind when you needed to answer ridiculous questions in and outside of class. You never complained when you had to grade assignments on top of submitting your own papers. A part of you actually liked giving detailed, written feedback to freshmen because it was always harder to guide them in person despite your seniority. You might have been confident in what you knew and had learned through the years, but the lingering awkwardness before speaking to someone for the first time often made you insecure. You needed a fair amount of time to get used to people.

Drumming on the hard surface of your old phone’s screen, you counted the seconds until the subway’s door opened and you could finally ran towards the café where your boyfriend was waiting for you. Joon had called you a few minutes past your lunch break, so you had been already teaching Creative Writing to a smaller group of students at your favourite seminar that semester, but luckily, you had time to read his messages while you had been waiting in line in front of your professor’s office for next week’s exam papers, hence all were good. You had agreed to meet at a coffee shop halfway between his workplace and the university, then promised him that you would be quick.

Relatively speaking, it shouldn’t have taken longer than ten more minutes. You had been the next one in line, you had only needed to pick up the papers and go, but professor Byeon had been adamant to tell you about the teaching opportunity at the high school where her son was attending and you couldn’t have left until you had gotten every possible contact information and instruction you might have needed to apply for the job. It was your dream job after all and she had willingly offered to write you a recommendation letter.

You were out of breath by the time you pushed the double doors open and you almost crashed into someone close to the entrance of Coffee Carat when you rushed inside without knowing where exactly your boyfriend was sitting.

‘I’m sorry,’ you apologised, but the gesture was also rushed; you didn’t even look the person in the eyes, too busy to scan the shop’s customer area.

Joon was chuckling when your gaze fell on his figure, but he didn’t laugh at your dishevelled appearance as he usually would have done with endearment written all over his face. Instead, he was staring at his phone. The sight pulled the corners of your mouth upwards. You wondered whether he was still playing with the same game he had shown you two weeks ago or he had already found another one he could have obsessed over.

Since you couldn’t see any drinks or pastries on the table in front of your boyfriend, you decided to surprise him for being so patient and understanding; thus, you walked up to the counter and ordered a cup of espresso for him with sugar and milk, two pieces of chocolate shortcake, and an iced coffee for yourself. It might have been late October already, but the cold weather never urged you to opt for something warmer.

‘I am so sorry, miss. Our freezer is currently out of order, but our manager is already on it. In the meantime, I can make you any other drink on the menu for the same price or if it is not a huge inconvenience, I can prepare your drink when hyung is back with the ice. In case of the latter, it is obviously on the house,’ the barista informed you politely with an apologetic smile and you stole a glance at Joon before you made a decision.

‘It’s fine. I can wait for it,’ you reassured him a bit clumsily, telling him where you would sit, so he could find you easier later.

Although the kind barista - Seokmin as his nametag suggested - offered a helping hand with the goods you had ordered, you told him you could manage and you really did. You lifted up the packed tray with ease and carried it to your table without any mishaps.

‘I’m sorry it took me so long,’ you started as soon as you took a seat across from Joon, even before you took off your coat. You didn’t intend to take his support for granted, not like how your mom had done to your father before he had left, so you always made sure to apologise first when something like this happened.

‘It’s not like it’s surprising anymore, is it?’ Your boyfriend retorted with a chuckle, making you frown with his comment, although you were aware you deserved it. The two of you had gotten together in January and you had made a habit of being late from dates and skipping on them altogether because of your other responsibilities. The only reason you could still show your face around him and his friends was that you knew you genuinely tried your hardest to be present in your relationship.

And he appreciated you for it just as much as you appreciated him for not giving up on you.

‘Okay, I admit that, but this time, I promise I have a really good reason for being late,’ you claimed while you reached out for one of the shortcakes and placed it in front of you on the table. You picked up a fork and sliced a small bite off it so that you could try it moderately. You didn’t want to make the same mistake you had made at the restaurant where you had gone with Joon on your 100th day: it had been a fancy place in Gangnam, but you had almost choked on their cheesecake, it had been that dry.

‘You always have a good reason for it,’ your boyfriend reminded you, his teasing wording as familiar as the furrow between his brows lately. He was right, though. You would have never made him wait without a good reason: whenever it happened, you were convinced that you either had a slightly more important task to finish or something you couldn’t have missed out on.

‘It’s true, but this time, it’s huge! You won’t believe i–’

‘I think it’s enough,’ Joon claimed, his voice lacking the warmth it always held when he was talking to you. The way he was looking at you now rendered you immobile; the fork in your hand trembled a bit before it came to a clumsy halt in front of your lips.

‘What?’

Your first thought was that Joon had had one of those awful days at work. It happened rarely, but when his sunbae gave him too much extra work or criticised his performance too harshly, he couldn’t bear other people’s happiness. Their achievements and excitement only upsetted him more and made him say things he wouldn’t have said otherwise.

‘We should break up. No… we need to break up,’ your boyfriend stumbled over his words in order to find the most suitable ones that wouldn’t have left any space for misunderstandings. One glance at his hardened features made it obvious that he didn’t want you to cling onto him and whine. He had the same look in his eyes when he had scolded you in front of his friends for being too excited about the movie you had been about to watch in the cinema and when he had told you how to behave around his family members before he had introduced you to his parents. ‘Look, I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of being someone’s second, third and fourth choice when I should be their one and only,’ he explained and your throat closed up while you were listening.

‘I…’ hadn’t meant to make you feel that way; this was what you wanted to tell Joon, but the words refused to come out of your mouth.

‘I’m leaving then. I’ve already packed your things, you can pick them up whenever you have some spare time, but I would prefer it if you didn’t come over unannounced.’ Your eyes were brimming with tears, but you tried your best to not let them run down your cheeks. You didn’t want to make a scene in public; you hated how he was doing this to you in public. ‘Could you give your keys back now? My landlord wouldn’t want anyone to copy them and…’

At that point, your brain got too overwhelmed to comprehend what he was saying. Not that it really mattered whether he wanted you to give those keys back because he truly believed you would have broken into his apartment when you two weren’t in a relationship anymore or it was his landlord’s request for safety reasons. Because at the end of the day, you had no right to have them in your possession anymore, anyway.

You swallowed the itchy knot in your throat, but it came back again by the time you grabbed your bag and found the requested item in the middle of the chaos. You loved your tote bag a lot, it had cute cats painted on the harsh canvas on both sides and you had bought it on sale in your freshman year, but it didn’t help much in situations like this: when your nerves made it hard to do anything efficiently.

‘Here,’ you mumbled, resisting the urge to smash the keychain against the table. That would have only drawn more attention to you and a part of you had already felt like everyone was giving you the side glances and judging you for being an awful girlfriend.

You didn’t take your eyes off the half-eaten shortcake on your plate. You couldn’t. If you had done so, you would have most probably started to wail because of how utterly miserable you felt while Joon had walked out on you so easily. You didn’t understand how you could have been so ignorant of the signs. Since there must have been signs. No one broke up with their partner of one year on a whim. Your behaviour must have been bugging your boyfriend for a while by the time he had come to this decision.

It didn’t take too much time: in a matter of mere seconds, you were already drowning in your own self-blame and self-hatred. If you had been a better girlfriend, your ex wouldn’t have felt the need to part ways with you in a coffee shop. He would have taken you to a private place and let you cry on his shoulder before he said goodbye.

You were pulled back to reality when someone put a glass of iced coffee on your table and your blurry eyes fell on an equally blurry man with rounded glasses.

‘Here, your iced coffee, miss. I am so sorry for the wait,’ the man said and while it must have been unintentional, his words broke something in you.

You were an ugly crier. There was not a single person you knew who would have claimed the opposite when your shoulders were shaking rhythmically, your cheeks turned red and puffy, and your tears got into your mouth along with your snot. When you cried, you cried like a child who felt like their life was about to end and maybe you actually felt the same way each and every time it happened. You definitely felt that way when the stranger turned his back on you, then turned back towards you twice within a minute.

‘Do you not want your iced coffee anymore?’ The man asked, his question barely registering in your mind until he wrapped his fingers around the glass and took it in his hand again.

If you had been in the right state of mind, you would have realised that you had never paid for your drink and that you were acting ridiculous when you reached out for it nevertheless, but at that moment, you couldn’t think rationally. Your emotions took control of your actions and your lips trembled in distress before you could have done anything about it.

‘Or… you want it. Of course, you do,’ the man mumbled as he put the drink back on the table and slid it right in front of you.

You observed his movements with mesmerism; your wailing quieted down and turned into a soundless sobbing that still shook your body, but not as intensely as it had done before. You pulled the glass closer to yourself and took a tentative sip from the most delicious chocolate coffee you had ever tried.

The awkwardness was palpable. You kind of felt sorry for the waiter who was still standing by your table when you eventually cleared your throat and wiped the tears off your cheeks with the back of your hand.

‘I am so sorry,’ the man mumbled, who looked a lot younger now that you could see him for yourself with a clearer vision. You had never been too good at guessing other people’s age, but at first glance, you would have said that he couldn’t have been that much older than you. Which made you feel weird when you tried to refer to him as a man in your head.

You couldn’t have helped but giggle at how absurd of a turn your train of thoughts had taken. Especially because it reminded you of the very same open lecture that had made you choose journalism as your major.

‘Are you… Is everything alright?’ The boy asked and you shook your head despite showing him one of your softest smiles. 

‘I’m having a rough day,’ you admitted before you took another sip from your cold drink and willed yourself to focus on your shortcake instead of looking around in the customer area. It would have done you no good if you had seen anyone staring at you with pity or laughing at something completely unrelatable just for your brain to convince you that everyone was as fixated on your misfortune as you were on other people’s opinion. 

‘If I said something–’

‘You didn’t. I mean, it’s not just that. I…’ you stirred your drink with the paper straw you had gotten with your coffee, then shifted your gaze from the floating ice cubes to the boy. ‘It’s not your fault.’

You weren’t good with strangers; you weren’t too good at reading your loved ones’ feelings and thoughts, either. You wondered whether the same went for this waiter, too, who opened and closed his mouth multiple times just to leave you wondering and swallow back his words in the end.

‘Thank you for the co–’

‘Hyung!’ The same barista who had informed you about the broken freezer cut you off, his firm voice urging your company to span his head towards the counter as though he knew the younger boy was calling for him. Maybe, he did. You couldn’t have been sure how many of the working employees were older than the smiley barista or how many of them worked that day to begin with. Most customers didn’t pay attention to these kinds of details and you definitely weren’t an exception.

‘They need me,’ the boy said in an apologetic manner as though he owed you anything when he obviously didn’t. If anyone, you were the one who should have done something for him for acting so non-judgemental when he had seen you going through a mild mental breakdown in the middle of their coffee shop.

‘Thank you for the coffee,’ you decided to say, since what else could you have told him? It was obvious that they needed him. You could have heard when the barista had called for him. It felt like it would have been super embarrassing if you had repeated the obvious. Especially because based on how loudly and urgently the younger boy had screamed, everyone with ears was aware that something wasn’t quite alright at the counter.

‘My name is Wonwoo,’ the boy blurted out, but before your brain could have processed what he meant by that or given your name to him in exchange, he turned his back to you and power walked to the quickly accumulating crowd around his coworker.

You didn’t keep your eyes on him. You weren’t super curious about the drama, either. Thus, you turned back to your food and took a couple of deep breaths. The overwhelming sadness that stressed your chest was still there, your lips still trembled here and there due to certain bittersweet memories, but the longer you were at the coffee shop, the less you thought it was all your fault.

You were obviously aware that your break-up was more on you than on Joon, though. But he could have shared his concerns and worries with you sooner, when you could have still been able to work on your problems together.

You might have planned to spend the rest of the day with your boyfriend to make up for your late arrival - which meant you could have gone a night without checking the questionnaire for professor Byeon -, but you didn’t stay long in the shop. You packed your things after you finished your drink and decided to carry the tray back to the counter, so that you could have told the barista that no one touched the second shortcake. It was delicious, the chocolate between the layers melted in your mouth while the whipped cream on the top complemented its subtle bitterness perfectly, but you had bought it for Joon, hence you couldn’t eat it.

‘Are you sure you do not want me to put it into a paper bag for you, miss? Our bags are all eco-friendly,’ the smiley barista informed you when it was finally your turn in front of the counter, but you just shook your head and fished a few won bills out of your wallet to pay for the iced coffee. ‘It is okay. Like I said, the drink was on the house.’

You blinked up at him, bashful, when the memory came back to you and shot a grateful smile at him before you bid your goodbye.

A part of you might have resented the place because of what Joon had done to you that day, but you knew you would have never been able to hate the employees who worked at Coffee Carat that afternoon thanks to the warmth they planted in your heart with their kindness.

In the following days, you had five midterm exams to study for, a couple of more exams to monitor, and a bunch of exam papers to grade, so your brain barely had any time to rest, let alone ponder over what you could have done differently in your relationship with Joon. Since your ex-boyfriend had been your first serious relationship, your knowledge of heartbreak and how to deal with the pain was strictly based on what you had seen in movies. Yet, other than the most random waves of sadness, you experienced none of the expected extremes. You had a healthy appetite, you didn’t feel the urge to get rid of the gifts he had given you during that one year while you had been together, and you hadn’t thrown your heaviest book at him when you had gone over for your stuff.

Once you had less obligations to fulfil, however, your brain couldn’t stop reminiscing about the afternoon when Joon had pulled the rug from under your feet. At nights, when you were too tired to be productive, but not tired enough to black out, your thoughts kept wandering: you wondered whether your ex would have given you more time to accept his decision if you had chosen a different shortcake for dessert; would he have stayed if you had begged him to? You also couldn’t get rid of the feeling that you should have paid for your iced coffee. Sure, the smiley barista had said it had been on the house because of the inconvenience, but hadn’t you put their waiter in a tough position when you had cried your eyes out in front of him? He had definitely looked uncomfortable when he couldn’t have decided whether you had wanted the coffee or not.

Might it have been because your family had been fairly poor until you had graduated from middle school and your mother’s online business had gone viral, but you didn’t like the idea of freebies. They reminded you of snickering and pity, so you much preferred working for what you had and paying for other people’s food or necessities when you went out with friends and acquaintances. Thus, it only took you a couple of days to come to the conclusion that you needed to pay back at least for the waiter’s kindness for your inner peace to be restored.

The day after the delivery service had dropped your order off at your doorstep, you woke up super early, so that you could leave the package at Coffee Carat anonymously. Your plan was foolproof: all you needed to do was arrive at the shop before any of the employees and hang the plastic bag with Wonwoo’s name on it on the door handle. Even your five-year-old sister could have done it if she had been strong enough to lift the gift above her head. You could almost hear her lisping “easy-peasy” in your ears when you closed your eyes on the bus for those three stops that separated you from the café.

You almost failed, though. 

The plastic bag was already swinging back and forth on the handle, you just wanted to make sure that the handwritten letter on the top of the package was visible, when the smiley barista from that day made your blood run cold with his loud yelp. Your shoulders tensed up as you snapped your head in his direction, then quickly let go of the bag and turned your back to him and his blond friend before your eyes could have met his.

Although your first instinct was to run, you forced yourself to walk at a natural speed since it would have drawn more attention if you had suddenly speedwalked to the closest bus stop, which was actually in the opposite direction. You didn’t have the luxury to take the latter into account. You had to get away from there as soon as possible without getting caught. You just had to get away quickly.

Which you did at the cost of being fifteen minutes late from your meetup with your friend, Xiaoxiao, but the girl had been a sweetheart as always and bought you a chicken-mayo sandwich, too, at the campus convenience store for breakfast, so that you could have spent every crucial minute on your final project that was due by Friday. With your individual, packed schedules, it was a drag to find time for these offline sessions - no wonder the library was practically deserted when you both were available -, but they were a part of the requirement and at least you both took your academic career seriously.

Having yet another strict deadline in your life was also the perfect distraction you needed. So you wasted no time on useless chatters and taking a huge bite from the dry sandwich, you got to work. At that, at least, you were excellent.

On the day of your job interview at the high school professor Byeon had mentioned to you, you decided to give yourself a well-deserved break. Thus, you skipped your Adult Education lecture for your minor and wrote a list about cliche things you had always wanted to do as a university student, but never had the time or energy for.

You started the day off with a veggie smoothie that you made with your own hands, then took a bunch of pictures of it just for fun, too embarrassed to send it to anyone - especially because Xiaoxiao would have wanted one for herself in exchange for her notes (she was a big foodie) and called you out on its terrible taste the moment you gave it to her. That, and your only other option would have been your mom who would have scolded you for wasting your time in the kitchen. She was the type of person who didn’t see much value in being a traditional woman because she had hated her life when she had been forced to live as a housewife despite her husband’s incapability to provide for his family on his own.

Later, you put on warm clothes and searched for an empty bench at a park not so far from the job interview’s location. You wouldn’t have admitted it for the world, but you had somehow managed to underestimate the November weather; thus, couldn’t concentrate on the book you had brought with yourself after the second chapter. Still, it was an aesthetic experience you could have finally ticked off your wishlist, so you stayed there until it was time for you to carry your (hopefully) future coworkers off their feet with your enthusiasm.

For lunch, you went to one of those homey diners where the owners knew all of their regulars and chirped their ears off about personal matters when there weren’t a lot of customers in the shop. It was a little overwhelming - very overwhelming to be honest -, but it reminded you of family gatherings when your parents had been still together, so you finished your jjigae in a good mood.

You didn’t plan to stay out all day. You had movies and series to catch up on, youtube videos that had been sitting on your watch-it-later list for months, and a couple of house chores to do since your laundry, for example, was long overdue.

However, when you walked past the coffee shop where your ex-boyfriend had pulled the rug from under your feet a couple of weeks ago, your gaze fell on a familiar blue scarf and a boy with two heavy-looking boxes in his hands, and your steps came to a subconscious halt. You were standing on the opposite side of the road, wondering whether you should have helped him with the door, but the smiley barista was faster. He came to Wonwoo’s help before you could have made up your mind, leaving you hanging in an odd state of mind: should you have gone home? Should you have walked inside?

You weren’t sure you were ready to have an iced coffee at one of their tables yet. And a part of you said you had already repaid the waiter’s kindness when you had bought him that scarf to keep him warm. But a drink to go had never killed anyone, had it? It could have been a nice step forwards on your way of moving on.

Still, your hand was trembling when you pushed the handle downwards and your heart was beating in your throat while you were waiting for your turn in the line. With every tiny step you took forwards, coming inside felt a stupider idea. Yet, you stood your ground. Mostly, because there were already people behind you and it would have been awkward if you had run out of the coffee shop without a plastic cup in your hand.

‘Welcome to Coffee Carat! What can I get for you, miss?’ The polite question pulled you out of your thoughts, eyes growing wide at the realisation that there was no one between you and the counter.

‘I…’ you stuttered before you took a step forward and put yourself together. ‘An iced coffee to go, please,’ you muttered, eager fingers fidgeting with the hem of your coat even after the boy took a plastic cup in his hand, put it on the inox grill, and pushed a button on the huge coffee machine you couldn’t see.

‘You must love iced coffee a lot,’ he commented, but because he didn’t look at you while he was talking, you couldn’t decide whether he was talking to you or talking to himself. Were you expected to say something to that? Did he mean it as a joke? You weren’t sure your sense of humour matched his in case he was waiting for a laugh. ‘I am sorry. It is just, last time…’

‘Oh?’ You let out a surprised sound when his apology reached your ears. Disoriented, you felt a bit bad for making him feel as though he had offended you, when you were just taken aback by the ease he had cracked a joke around you after last time. Considering that you were right and he had tried to be funny. ‘Yeah. I can’t drink too fast and it tastes weird when it starts to get colder, so I just… choose to drink it cold from the beginning,’ you explained sheepishly, a soft smile tugging on the corners of your mouth when he bit into his lower lip and scratched his nape out of embarrassment.

The light tint of his rosy ears was something you could resonate with. Yours turned crimson, too, when you felt like you had said too much.

‘Makes sense,’ Wonwoo concluded quietly and you couldn’t help it, you let out a small huff upon hearing him. You weren’t sure funny was the right word to describe him, but to you, he was amusing. ‘I am not making fun of you. It does sound logical,’ he defended himself while he opened their freezer and filled another plastic cup with ice cubes. You wondered whether he should have done that first or this was the standard way baristas made iced coffees in this coffee shop.

You didn’t ask him how much he remembered from last time or whether he knew it was you who had written him that letter in which you had expressed your gratitude and asked him to stay warm in the chilly weather, but the way he looked at you when he slid the cup towards you on the counter said it all. He could have put two and two together. He was aware that the person to whom he had brought warmth with his consideration wasn’t someone else despite how the iced coffee he had served you that day was rather cold.

You were chewing your cheek out of nervousness when you took a couple of bills out of your wallet even before the boy told you how much you owed him for your coffee.

‘Anything else?’ He asked and you hesitated. It hadn’t been that long that you had eaten, so you obviously weren’t hungry, but these delicious, baked goods at coffee shops were desserts anyway. You could always find some place for dessert.

‘A croissant, please,’ you decided and chose a raspberry croissant with dried raspberry pieces on the top and raspberry-vanilla cream on the inside. You had never tried or seen anything like that before - it had a few dark pink stripes on it beside the usual, golden brown ones as though its dough had been made of raspberry -, but it had caught your eyes the moment you had turned towards their sweets, so you couldn’t resist. You hoped it would be as delicious as their chocolate shortcakes.

You wished it had tasted even better!

‘Here,’ the boy said when he handed you a paper bag with the coffee shop’s logo painted on it, his smile warm and indecipherable while he told you how much your order cost in total.

Your fingers didn’t touch when you took the croissant from him, but you felt as though you had been struck by lightning when your eyes met. It made no sense: the effect his piercing yet soft gaze had on you. So you paid for everything as fast as you could, then shoved the change into your tote bag along with your croissant and bid your goodbye.

It was a matter of sheer luck that you didn’t walk into the double door on your way out, but somehow you managed. You even got back to your student apartment in one piece, without your heart breaking out of your ribcage.

You were sitting on the floor, elbows leaned on the coffee table you used as a dining table due to the lack of space in your home, when you noticed the extra croissant in the paper bag you had gotten for free. It must have been Wonwoo’s way of saying thank you for your gift, it had to be, but in a way, it was what started it all: the neverending saga of small smiles, bashful conversations, and thoughtful presents you surprised each other with to repay for something both of you thought was basic human decency on your own part.

It was on the third day of winter break that you decided to stay inside the coffee shop while you finished your usual iced coffee with a dessert of Sooryeon’s choice. You wouldn’t have called the girl - or any of the employees of Coffee Carat for that matter - your friend, but she liked promoting their desserts to you whenever you seemed indecisive and you didn’t have the heart or confidence to tell her that at the first time you hadn’t been contemplating about what to order. You had been wondering where Wonwoo could have been as you couldn’t have seen him anywhere and whether he had liked the book you had bought him the week before.

You chose an empty table close to the windows because they were the furthest from the huge coffee bean sticker you had sat under the last time, then fished the same book you had read on the day of your job interview out of your tote bag to catch up on some reading. You would have liked to finish Rey’s The Enchanted Forest before the New Year began because you had started it months ago and you knew you wouldn’t have too much free time once the new semester started. Especially because then you wouldn’t only work as a teacher assistant anymore, but as a substitute literature teacher, too.

Sometimes you were convinced you overworked yourself and that you would be burnt out at the age of thirty, but you loved your busy schedule. Your endless to-dos were what made you feel accomplished. Wasting just one day, when everyone had limited time in life, always felt like you threw away something important. Something most people held onto desperately until their last breath. 

You took a bite from your brownie and pushed aside your lingering worries. It wasn’t that you would be a university student forever and you didn’t have too many friends to spend time with anyway. One more year and you would get your first degree. From then on, only your pedagogy minor would take up your time beside work and that wouldn’t last much longer, either, just another ten months. You could do it.

‘Hey,’ a familiar, deep voice addressed you and you turned your head to the left so that you could see Wonwoo’s face when he shot a soft smile in your direction. You reciprocated the gesture without noticing. ‘Sooryeon said it’s already winter break. How do you like it so far?’ He asked; the question a bit clumsy, but heart-warming at the same time.

‘It’s a bit… slow. But I’m not complaining,’ you said as you slid your index finger between the pages and placed the book on your lap. ‘Does the coffee shop go on a break, too? Will you be able to rest during the holidays?’

It was always interesting to see the contrast between how awkward you felt your questions were and how happy Wonwoo got when you engaged into a conversation with him despite his duties that often put an abrupt end to your talks. If you wanted to be honest, you didn’t mind the unlucky circumstances. In fact! They made each of your encounters more precious since you both needed to make an effort for them to happen.

‘We will be closed on the 25th, but other than that, I’ll be here on most days,’ he said and you acknowledged it with a nod. By now, you knew that he wasn’t just any waiter in the coffee shop. He was the manager of the place who was kind of a substitute for the owner when he wasn’t around. And that man had a whole wedding to plan, so he was less frequently around since he had proposed to his fiancée.

You and Wonwoo had obviously talked about a couple of different topics through the weeks, not only your responsibilities at work and school, but there were times when you still found yourself wondering whether you were allowed to ask personal questions and if you had been, where was that fine line you shouldn’t have crossed.

You were about to ask him whether he celebrated Christmas at all when he cleared his throat and broke the temporary silence.

‘Speaking of the holidays… Will you come to the charity event? It’s on the 23rd,’ he asked, referring to the event you had already seen on social media and of which they had posters all over the place. You honestly hadn’t thought of coming since you would go back home for the holidays, but Guri wasn’t that far from Seoul. You could always catch the last train and got home in time to help your mother with the Christmas tree. ‘We could come together if you are wary of coming alone. It’s my day off, but I’ll bring some presents to the kids, so… not together together, though. I mean, if you wanted to, I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, I’m just not sure it’s appropriate considering that it hasn’t been that long since you broke up with your boyfriend…’

You had never heard Wonwoo speak so much under one breath. And while you thought his rambling was adorable - not to mention his rosy ears -, you wished to put his heart at ease, so you put aside your book and turned towards him with your entire body.

‘Wonwoo…’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,’ he apologised, tugging on your heartstrings with how weak his voice sounded. For some reason, you hated seeing him like this. Especially because it was you who made him feel so bad about his suggestion; although, you did so unintentionally.

‘You didn’t make me feel uncomfortable,’ you reassured him and based on the sigh that left his mouth, he must have believed you. ‘It’s just, Joon broke up with me because I didn’t have enough time for him. I’m a bit reluctant to get back into dating,’ you explained, finding it odd how easily the words had fallen from your lips when not exactly two minutes ago, you had been wary whether you two had been close enough to talk about personal matters.

It seemed like, from your point of view, you were.

Still, the silence that usually pulled you into its warm embrace around him refused to bring you the same comfort. Instead, you felt anxious. Had you been mistaken? Had you crossed a line with how much you had said? Did he see you in a different light now?

‘I would have waited for you,’ the boy claimed in the end, stirring up dozens of conflicting emotions in you with his statement. On one hand, you were grateful for his approach, that he didn’t think you had deserved to be dumped because of your behaviour. On the other hand, he sounded too sure of himself, too hopeful and you didn’t want him to take your words lightly. You weren’t just saying you were busy. You were really, genuinely way too busy for a serious relationship. (Or any kind of relationship, truly, including platonic friendships that demanded more than a couple of hours of your time per week.)

‘He waited for me, too. All the time. That was where things went wrong,’ you insisted, which brought more silence into your conversation.

You didn’t think your concerns were overdramatic. You were simply cautious, because you didn’t want to make the same mistake again, especially not with someone like Wonwoo who deserved the whole world and more. He deserved more than what you could have given him at the current period of your life: late replies and indoor dates because you were too tired to do anything else but cuddle with him in bed.

Wonwoo wasn’t oblivious or stupid. He must have known that you tried to reject him in the least painful way possible without damaging the bond you had built during the past weeks. Still, when you looked up at his face, he was smiling.

‘That doesn’t matter to me. People are different,’ he reassured you and you might have been delusional, but the care he formed every syllable with and the way he looked at you like you were someone he wanted to protect made you feel as though this was his way of telling you that he would wait. That only if you had given him a chance, he would have waited for you and appreciated every date with you regardless of how short they would have been.

The weight of the implication closed up your throat, hence you were grateful when he didn’t push your boundaries more. Not that it should have taken you by surprise. He never did.

Your heart skipped a silly beat when instead of more questions, the boy put a minimalistic yet beautiful daily planner on your table. It was his turn to surprise you with a present, you were aware of it, too, somewhere in the back of your mind, but it still took you aback. You were seriously at a loss for words when you thanked him with a bashful smile.

‘There’s a letter in it. It’s like a book report about the book you gave me last time. I finished it yesterday,’ he explained and your first instinct upon hearing the news was to jump on the opportunity and ask him how he had liked the plot, which was stupid. This was exactly what his letter was about.

Cheeks rose-tinted and palms clammy, a massive amount of anxiety was lifted off your chest when Minghao chose the next second to walk up to Wonwoo and tell him about the woman who came for the job interview. You knew from the boy that they were currently looking for a second baker who could have helped Mingyu with the immense amount of baked goods he needed to prepare from day to day, but you had no idea it was a part of his job to evaluate the candidates. It made sense, though. He was the manager of the shop, after all.

After the boys went back to work, you spent long hours by your table, enjoying your lack of concrete plans for that day. You finished your book and got so excited about the sequel that you ordered it online. You jotted down a couple of important tasks in your new planner. You also paid more attention to your surroundings between two sips and bites, wondering whether it had always been so entertaining to just exist or it was the unique atmosphere of the coffee shop that turned mundane activities into something worth experiencing.

In the meantime, you pondered over Wonwoo’s words more frequently than your confidence would have let you admit. You thought about how differently you and your family members saw the world. You thought about all the fundamental things you disagree on with Xiaoxiao despite loving her with your whole heart. You recalled every single fight you had had with Joon and thought: Shoot! How insignificant they appeared to be compared to those millions of harmonious agreements you had come to in that almost one year you had spent together. Could those differences have mattered more than you had initially thought? Had it been a mistake when you had been deliberately oblivious of your differences because it had been easier to concentrate on your similarities?

Were differences a good thing or a bad thing? Where did the line lay from where too many disagreements would have torn a relationship apart?

You didn’t find the answers that day. You were also reluctant to believe that just because Wonwoo was right about how every person was different, he could have also been right about the difference in their opinion about the importance of time spent together with their partner. Could such a significant deviation exist at all when it came to human connection?

You were almost convinced that you had more questions by the end of the boy’s shift than how many you had had when he had asked you about the charity event, but you were still smiling when Wonwoo walked up to you in his streetwear and offered you to walk you to the bus stop in case you were still up for it.

You obviously had nothing against spending a bit of more time with him just because of the awkwardness that had lingered around you when you had been talking about your break-up. Especially because when you looked him in the eyes, you realised that waiting for him to finish at work hadn’t been bad at all. You simply weren’t ready to admit: just like his, your definition of waiting for someone you liked might have differed from Joon’s, too.

To you, it was more about the barely noticeable excitement of anticipation than the wasted time you could have spent more wisely. It was about the reward in the end instead of those long minutes or hours it took you to reach the finish line.

And this might have been easily the reason that ultimately led to the end of your first serious relationship. Not the number of differences you had, but the nature of those that reappeared in your everyday life over and over. Joon was too focused on the negative aspects of your busy schedule and you were too happy to see the problems.

This conclusion helped you feel less guilty.

You hadn’t had much time to decide whether you would have shown up at the café’s charity event, only five and a half days to be precise, but you had made up your mind an average of five times a day before you had written a curt message to Wonwoo about what kinds of gifts you should have bought for the children.

Since there wasn’t a maximum amount of presents each participants should have left on the table in the back of the shop where Yeseo and Seokmin were collecting them, you arrived with one for each age group they had announced on the posters beforehand, then exchanged your free coffee or dessert coupon at the counter for a glass of iced coffee.

‘These coupons don’t have an expiration date. You could have taken one for each box and used them another time,’ Wonwoo enlightened you while he was waiting for his pumpkin pie hot chocolate. It was a seasonal item on the menu along with their cinnamon-apple pie latte and gingerbread macchiato, but no matter how christmassy they sounded, they were all hot drinks and those were a big no for you under every circumstance.

‘Yeseo made sure I knew, but it’s for a good cause. It would’ve felt wrong to take more,’ you explained, failing to find an empty table in the customer area until Wonwoo tilted his head to the right and encouraged you to follow his line of sight. ‘I’ll go and take a seat,’ you claimed with a relieved heart, glad that you wouldn’t have to stand awkwardly beside the counter until the event officially came to an end.

People had almost an hour left to bring their presents to the coffee shop before the girlfriend of one of Wonwoo’s friends arrived with her minivan and took them to the children’s hospital near your university.

You shot a grateful smile at the boy when he put the tray in the middle of your table and took your coffee off it the same moment Wonwoo put one of the shortcakes in front of you. You hadn’t ordered any dessert, but accepted it without a word or making a fuss about how it was your turn to surprise him with something he might have liked.

‘Thank you,’ you said instead, only realising it belatedly that you didn’t feel burdened by the error in the unspoken order or the fact that he gave you something for free.

If you wanted to be honest, you weren’t sure how you felt about the change. You had been taught in your whole life that owing others could be dangerous; you had been unable to accept gifts from Joon without a frown throughout your whole relationship. But if anything, it only proved to you that you might have been more ready to give a chance to Wonwoo’s theory than you had thought.

You still stalled.

Even though you had a separate present for him in your bag, you let him bring up topics that had nothing to do with the holidays. You jumped on the opportunity to talk about your future plans like a starving man jumped on a loaf of dry bread and inquired about his. How had he ended up at Coffee Carat with a literature degree? Had he always wanted to be a coffee shop manager? Didn’t he seek something more tranquil like libraries and those hidden bookstores in the heart of Seoul he liked to visit in his free time so much?

With every answer he gave you, you had two and three more to ask, but you made sure to add comfortable silence to your afternoon, too, because you knew you would always have another chance to get to know him more and because you didn’t want to overwhelm him with your slowly growing curiosity. 

You also felt awkward whenever you talked so much and with that came the urge to play with the closest napkin, tear it to tiny little pieces and look at the snow-like pile intently, so that you had a reason to avoid eye contact.

‘I brought you something,’ you blurted out at one point, after your third glass of iced coffee, when there were only a couple of people left in the shop. Maybe, you were on caffeine high. Maybe, you found Wonwoo irresistibly cute when he reminded you of the consequences of a fourth glass. Either way, you felt you were finally ready.

Your smile was small albeit genuine when you reached for your tote bag and pulled a square shaped present out of it. It was wrapped in midnight blue paper and neatly decorated with silver ribbons for aesthetics. The more time you had spent on making it look perfect, the less you had thought of the book you had chosen this time, which had definitely kept you from overthinking it. It was just a book, after all.

Even if, to the both of you, it might have meant more. In case he had meant when he had said he would have waited for you.

‘Here,’ you mumbled, too nervous for your own good while you paid close attention to the boy’s reaction. He didn’t seem surprised, which made sense since he must have anticipated it the same way you always did after you had given him something. It was like… like an unsaid promise that sooner or later you would get something in return.

You held back your breath while Wonwoo’s long fingers tore apart the wrapping paper ever so gently and debated whether you should have observed his facial expressions or kept your gaze on your empty glass.

‘Is this…’ the boy broke the silence, his deep voice borderline hopeful as he reached for your hand to gain your attention.

You gulped and nodded, letting his fingertips brush aside your nerves as they fondled the back of your hand.

‘Yeah, I…’ you started, staring at the cover of the book you had bought for him, at the capital letters that said: Ready for the fall.

The book itself had nothing to do with relationships. It was a sequel of a fantasy you had never heard about, but when you had been wandering around the bookstore to pick the perfect novel for him, you couldn’t have left it there. 

‘I’d like to give this… us a try. But before you say anything, Wonwoo-yah, I need you to know that I might not be the best girlfriend you can get. I’m busy and I will be even busier once the next semester starts. I might fall asleep in the middle of our date nights and be late from dinners. I might forget important dates and…’ you bit into your lip when he squeezed your hand and a part of you expected him to say your words meant you weren’t really ready, but instead, he just smiled at you as though you had given him something wonderful.

‘It’s okay. I’m okay with baby steps,’ he reassured you. ‘It’s also okay if we don’t put a label on our relationship immediately. We could hang out outside of the coffee shop more often at first, just the two of us,’ he proposed and his consideration took the invisible burdens of high expectations off your shoulders.

You squeezed his hand back.

‘I need to go back to Guri for Christmas, but I’ll be back on the 28th,’ you said, not letting go of his hand. ‘We could… grab dinner together,’ you suggested, loving how easy it was to find a date that was good for the both of you even though you knew it was easy because it was still winter break. It would become harder with time.

The possibility that your relationship with Wonwoo would hurt him in the long run scared you, but one glance at his warm, chocolate brown orbs gave you hope. Thus, when he walked you home later that night, then said his goodbye in front of your building with a clumsy bear hug, you wished you had made the right decision.

This time, you wanted to do it right. You wanted to keep all the unsaid and voiced out promises relationships were built on, because if you had been worth the wait, he had been worth the extra effort.

➼ next reason

[lily-blue]

Innocent as doves

☆ characters: singer!you & activist!yeonjun ☆ genre: historical au, angst ☆ warnings: sexual harassment, character’s death, mention of blood and violence ☆ summary: your dreams brought you to him; his dreams brought destruction upon the both of you ☆ words: 15,1k ☆ a/n: Gyeongseong is the name of Seoul during the period of Japanese colonial rule ☆ also: happy birthday to the lovely @restlessmaknae 💕 i wish you an amazing day with people who love and appreciate you as you deserve ☆ massive thanks to: @dat-town for proofreading the story even though she was short of time 💕 ☆ taglist: @soobin-chois

Throughout your teenage years, you had frequently daydreamed about this very moment: the hustle and bustle of the train station, the thick smoke in the air you could almost taste on the tip of your tongue and the freedom your arrival to the capital city gave you despite your big brother’s presence right next to you. Obviously, you loved growing up in the countryside - being the only daughter of one of the leading figures of your small community came with its own privileges -, but hell did it feel good to finally try your wings on your own!

You snapped your head in your brother’s direction when he cleared his throat and took your luggage from you. Fine, you weren’t entirely on your own, but here at least no one knew who you were, therefore no one would treat you like you could break under the smallest pressure. As if a mere rejection could have destroyed your self-esteem and brought your father’s rage upon them when your father was the most understanding person you knew after your mother.

Your smile was sheepish and your cheeks rose-tinted as you let Taehyung lead you towards the exit.

‘After we get settled in our accommodation, I’ll send a letter to our father,’ your brother said, never the one to leave you in the shadows. You acknowledged his words with a curt nod and a reassuring smile. He had no reason to be worried about you. ‘I’ll try to be quick. Then, we can look around in the neighbourhood, see whether there are any jobs available closeby,’ he added, bumping his upper arm into your shoulder lightly, playfully, like he always did when he wanted to earn your forgiveness. As though you had ever been able to stay angry with him for longer than a couple of hours.

If you wanted to be honest, he had never given you any reason to stay mad at him. Sure, at the young age of seven, having your dolls destroyed might have seemed like a crime against humanity, but in reality, even that had been an accident. Taehyung was just too good-natured and caring to cause you or anyone harm on purpose.

‘I would love that, thank you,’ you said, following him down the busy streets with your much shorter legs. Thankfully, you weren’t in a hurry, so you didn’t have to adjust your steps to his as he was walking at a slower speed on purpose. He really was the best!

Your temporary home for the next six months - the time limit you had gotten from your father to find your footing in the capital city - was no more than two corners from the central train station. It was in the heart of Gyeongseong with numerous shops and facilities that catered to those who visited or lived in the city, which made you more excited about your plans for the afternoon with Taehyung. You wondered whether any of the fancy pubs and expensive hotels were looking for a singer. You hoped they did.

You would have especially liked to work close to the square with the pretty fountain that you had to pass by in order to get to your new home. It was lively and loud and everything the Gyeongseong of your dreams was. There were vendors selling fresh coffee and snacks on one side and businessmen in suit and tie entering an enormous building on the other. There was even a paperboy with today’s newspapers in his hands, shouting from the top of his lungs a couple of metres from you.

‘There are so many people! Look, oppa!’ You exclaimed, unable to resist the urge to point at the paperboy despite your manners.

Taehyung shook his head with a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth before he grabbed your hand and pulled it downwards, back by your side.

‘Please, try not to offend people you shouldn’t on our very first day here. We’re not at home anymore, little bird,’ he chastised you, his tone lacking the usual playfulness in spite of his soft eyes.

You nodded, apologetic.

‘I am sorry,’ you mumbled under your nose, suddenly hyper aware of how rude you had been and how your actions could have reflected on your family if anyone had paid attention to the two of you.

You gulped down the bile in your throat and followed your brother in silence. You intended to keep your gaze on the ground and your excitement at bay, but after a couple of minutes, your curiosity won and you lifted your chin up high once again. Your eyes were sparkling as your gaze jumped from one spectacle to the other until it met an interesting-looking young man’s piercing one and you almost tripped over your own feet.

It was unnerving, but you failed to look away. He was sitting by a table on the terrace of one of the coffee shops with three other men, all of them wearing the same uniform, and he was observing your surroundings - you - with such intensity that you felt almost obligated to keep up your impromptu staring contest.

For a split second, you were afraid he would stand up and walk up to you and your brother, but that couldn’t have happened due to two reasons. 1) The young man was with other people and even from afar, they seemed to be discussing something rather vehemently, therefore you supposed it was something important. 2) The beautiful fountain in the middle of the square shattered into pieces, the noise and the flying rubble leaving chaos in their wake.

Even though you weren’t close to the now-destroyed fountain anymore, you fell on your butt from the shock and scraped both of your palms when your instinct kicked in and tried to protect you from the fall. People were screaming and crying wherever you looked; some were unharmed, some were bleeding, but luckily none of them stayed eerily still on the ground.

The realisation that the incident had no fatal casualties brought you some comfort and so did your brother’s protective arms that embraced you with urgency. Panting - as your gaze found the young man in the uniform screaming at someone shorter than him -, you found it weird: the relief it brought you that his attention wasn’t on you anymore.

‘Are you hurt?’ Taehyung’s question reached you like it came from under heavy layers of water and you pulled away to be able to look at his face. The dust that lingered in the air stuck to his sweaty skin mixed with the blood that was running down his temple lazily from a wound you couldn’t really see. You lifted your hand to cup his cheeks and hissed when your injured skin touched his jawline.

Taehyung grabbed your wrists and pulled your hands downwards, then pushed them towards you, so that he could take a good look at them.

‘We need to go to the hospital,’ he insisted and you let out a broken huff because what he was saying was ridiculous. People around you had more concerning injuries. Even he had a more concerning injury and he wanted to take you to the hospital because of some scratches?

‘But only because of your head injury,’ you pointed out and seeing how he furrowed his thick eyebrows upon hearing your reasoning, you were pretty sure that he hadn’t realised until that moment that he was bleeding.

He reached up to his forehead, slid his fingers sideways and hissed when his fingertips grazed the wound.

‘It’s nothing,’ he reassured you, but you shook your head and made no attempt at getting up from the ground. If he really believed that his wound was nothing, your wounds were less than nothing and you were determined to prove your point. So determined that Taehyung let out a resigned sigh when meeting your eyes he realised that he had no chance to win this argument. ‘Fine, let’s settle in our accommodation and I’ll bring back some disinfectant and bandages on my way back from the post office,’ he negotiated, but you shook your head.

‘We should buy some on our way home. That way, we can clean and dress your wound before you leave,’ you reasoned, the amused chuckle that left your brother’s throat adding a grotesque contrast to the painful wails of the people around you.

‘Deal,’ Taehyung agreed as he pulled you up from the ground and took your hand.

Without a care for your surroundings or the people in need, your brother dragged you to your new home as gently as he could and let you tend to his wound. He was on his best behaviour the entire time you were disinfecting the cut on his head, so that he could make you promise in exchange that you wouldn’t open the door to anyone once he left.

Within two weeks both Taehyung and you managed to find yourself a job that would be able to cover your rent and living expenses once you used up all of your allowance money. It was a relief, really, since on your tenth day of walking from hotel to pub to a different hotel, you had started to feel a little worried that Gyeongseong might not have had enough room for you. In hindsight, it had been a silly thought, but some things just couldn’t have been helped. Your anxiety, that you weren’t much without your father’s name, was one of them.

Singing at a hotel lobby was as close to your dream job as you could get with your pressing urge to jump on the first opportunity that presented itself to you. If you wanted to be honest, you had always wished to be able to dress in pretty ball dresses during your performances and have your own stage, but your own dresses weren’t that bad, either, nor the new microphone with the silver stand that were provided to you.

It was a promising start.

Hanging out at the bar, sitting by the counter with a glass of juice in your hands, you were waiting patiently for your turn to entertain the guests when your gaze fell on a young man in a white shirt with rolled up sleeves, dark pants, dark suspenders and round glasses atop of the bridge of his nose. His profile was handsome - more pretty than manly -, and you felt enchanted by the sight. It was hard to take your eyes off him.

Maybe that was why you noticed how unusual he was acting compared to the other guests or that the bartender seemed to both keep his distance from him and being weirdly nice to him, like they knew each other, like they were close. For example, they weren’t looking at each other, but the young man’s lips were undoubtedly moving and the bartender was clearly listening, his focus on the other’s words keeping him from walking up to the rich-looking woman near you, even though she had sat down on one of the barstools in the midst of their conversation, ready to order.

You took a sip from your juice and kept watching.

You let your curious gaze linger on the young man’s hands, paying attention to the way his fingers were drumming on the wooden countertop and you found yourself humming for a similar rhythm. You weren’t too good at improvising song lyrics, but you knew a lot of traditional ballads, so you picked one on a whim and adjusted the words to the melody. You pictured the two of you on stage, in front of a bigger audience, loving your admirers as much as you liked each other.

Your cheeks were burning because of your shameless fantasy and they turned a deeper shade of red when the young man suddenly turned towards you and raised a brow in question. You snapped your head in the opposite direction on instinct, like a child caught red-handed in the candy shop.

‘Good evening, miss,’ a surprisingly deep voice greeted you, its owner standing right behind you. Blushing, you wondered just how fast and smooth one’s steps needed to be to change locations so quickly.

‘Good evening,’ you mumbled under your nose, slowly turning towards the man.

Heart beating like crazy, you tried your best to conceal your disappointment when your eyes fell on the person who had addressed you so politely. Instead of wearing a simple shirt, the man in front of you was dressed in a familiar uniform, had a pair of thin lips rather than a full and pouty one and looked at you like he had never seen anyone like you. You weren’t sure why, but the latter made you feel uneasy.

It didn’t take long for you to realise from where he was so familiar; the heavy feeling atop of your chest was similar to how you had felt seconds before the explosion at the square on your first day in the capital city. Now that you were paying more attention to the young man’s eyes and his outfit than his other facial features and how different he looked from the man you had been staring at in the last ten minutes, it was easy to put two and two together.

‘I see you remember me. I won’t lie, it’s flattering,’ he said with a pleased smile, leaning into your personal space more as though the two of you knew each other.

You let your hand fall into your lap and straightened your posture to look more confident.

‘I…’

‘Cute,’ he noted and took a seat on the barstool next to you. ‘Let me introduce myself. I’m chief officer Nishiki Kousuke. What shall I call you?’

You had been taking etiquette classes since you had turned five along with Japanese language classes, singing and piano classes. You had attended your first ballroom dancing class at the age of nine and been taught how to manage a household around the time you had gotten your first period. You knew what the correct answer was - how you should have phrased the words and how you should have had perfect control over your body language. Still, you felt wary about telling the man your name.

You forced a hopefully soft smile on your face while you kept your slightly trembling right hand still with your other hand. You went as far as digging your nails into the inner side of your lower arm to not let your body take over control at the worst possible moment.

‘Cecily,’ your boss called for you, using your stage name, seconds before your resolve could have crumbled and you let out a relieved sigh without meaning to. ‘One more song and the stage is yours, honey,’ the middle-aged woman informed you from the left side of the bar, so you turned towards her with your entire body and nodded as a sign that you were ready.

It was a weird mix of emotions that overcame you once you jumped off the barstool. First and foremost, you were relieved that your conversation with the man in the uniform was over and he couldn’t have done anything about that or pressured you into staying. You were also super glad that you didn’t have to tell him your real name because your boss had already provided him with a name he could call you; something you had completely forgotten about because of how anxious his closeness had made you. Admittedly, you would have much preferred it if he hadn’t known any of your personal information, but it was the least bad, so you could deal with it. Then, you were excited about your performance.

It was because of the latter that your smile reached your eyes when you bid your goodbye, leaving your juice behind with an apologetic frown towards the bartender who just shook his head and poured it down the drain.

You planned to put up a great performance, an excellent performance even. You planned to charm the young man with the rolled up sleeves and round glasses, so that he couldn’t have not walked up to you after you finished your songs, but by the time you stood in front of the microphone and embraced it with both hands, he was nowhere to be seen.

You greeted the guests and wished them an amazing night like you always did, but your eyes couldn’t find him as you scanned the area and it did reflect on your mood a little. Your voice was a little blue, but it fit the ballads you had chosen for the night, so your unprofessionalism didn’t cost your job.

You got paid plenty before your brother came and picked you up, taking you home.

Sunday mornings were your new second favourite time of the week, right after those nights you spent at your workplace, singing your heart out to your audience. Sunday mornings were for you and your brother to discover new places in Gyeongseong: bookshops, clothing stores, coffee shops and diners. This particular weekend, you decided to wake up a tad bit earlier - although still not as early as you normally did on weekdays - and have breakfast outside, so that you could enjoy the good weather.

You didn’t usually drink coffee simply because you weren’t a huge fan of all things bitter, but your brother had found a shop downtown where the owner mixed different flavours into your drinks if you asked him to and the cinnamon coffee he had just made you was from another world. It was delicious, so was the yakgwa his wife had baked freshly in the kitchen in the back of the store.

‘Has that man tried to approach you again since last time?’ Your brother asked after he put the newspaper aside and took a sip from his espresso. He didn’t go into specifics, but even without additional details, you knew whom he was referring to and this fact alone was a tad unnerving.

You wiped your hands into a textile napkin and reached for the newspaper. Finally, it was your turn to have a look at what was happening in the capital city. This time, you were the most curious about the beauty pageant whose finals would be held in Gyeongseong in a couple of weeks, but you also liked skimming through their seasonal recommendations for outdoor programmes and their Japanese poems from independent poets.

‘Only once,’ you admitted quietly, flipping through the pages. ‘I started to stay with the other singers like you suggested,’ you added, not out of obligation, but to reassure him. You didn’t want Taehyung to worry about you too much; you also dreaded the possibility that he might have forbidden you to go back to the hotel if he couldn’t have been a hundred percent sure that you were safe there while he was working. Just like your parents, your brother could be pretty protective sometimes.

‘Good girl,’ the compliment fell from Taehyung’s lips easily, just as naturally as his big palm found a home atop of your head, messing up your braids with how aggressively he ruffled your hair.

You groaned, displeased, and pushed his hand away with a click of your tongue.

‘Oppa! Please, I am an adult now,’ you whined, but instead of fixing those locks that fell into your face, your focus remained on the newspaper and the flavoured coffee in your cup.

Your mother had never liked it when you read by the dining table. She thought that it wasn’t lady-like, hence you should have concentrated on more important things during meals, such as your body posture, your sweet smiles and polite answers whenever someone addressed you directly. She believed that every woman should have stuck to the same topics when joining a conversation: family, suitors and household matters.

However, your father had always had a soft spot for you, hence he had been happy to explain the business and political jargon to you when, every once in a while, you had shown interest in those types of articles. Needless to say, you still didn’t understand every word, but you could rely on context clues.

‘Of course you are,’ your brother agreed with amusement in his voice, but you didn’t pay him any attention. Instead, you kept your eyes on the article that misused the phrase “touch base” in its very first sentence.

It was a boring report on local agriculture and the benefits of trading with the Japanese, not something you usually wasted your time on, however, there was something in the way the writer had structured his sentences that kept you engaged. He used formal language and his statements were mostly general truths, but it still felt like you were reading a book: the text had rhythm and you couldn’t have helped but emphasise certain words in your head naturally. Words like: station, nation, train, eight.

‘Oppa? Did you read this one?’ You asked Taehyung when after the third and fourth reading, your brain made a list of at least a dozen of these words, linking them together and building sentences that didn’t exist.

‘Hm?’

‘This one,’ you pointed at the article with the misused expression in its first sentence and he nodded after one glance at the page, his furrowed eyebrows displaying confusion. Thus, you pushed forwards just a bit more. ‘Do you not think it is weird? Like… that it sounds weird?’

Taehyung took the newspaper from you and read those four, short paragraphs one more time. Then, he gave it back to you with a frown.

‘I mean it does sound like propaganda,’ he admitted in a small voice, making sure that no one around you could hear him. ‘But that’s not unusual.’

You leaned your back against the backrest of your chair and let out a dramatic sigh. Taehyung was right, it wasn’t unheard of that people wrote baseless reports on literally anything that helped the Japanese to be seen in a better light by the locals - according to your father, the more credible these articles sounded, the more money their writers made -, but this wasn’t what you were talking about. You were talking about the hidden message.

‘It sounds like a song,’ you argued, less conscious of your surroundings. 

Unsurprisingly, your outburst earned you a reprimanding glance from your brother.

‘Well, not to me,’ he argued and flicked your forehead to remind you of your manners. You straightened your back on instinct and resisted the urge to pout, although you could feel your lower lip tremble because of your suppressed annoyance. You hated when he did this, when he treated you like you were five.

‘But…’ you started, however, soon decided against finishing your sentence when two people took a seat by the table in front of you and Taehyung shook his head in an alarmingly slow motion. You choked on your words and swallowed them down without as much as a yelp.

By the time you finished your cinnamon-flavoured coffee and your brother stole the last piece of yakgwa from the porcelain in front of you, you convinced yourself that the hidden message was all in your head. After all, why would anyone have informed the public - and with that, the local police - about an upcoming bombing and risked getting caught? It would have been stupid. Yeah… utterly, ridiculously, truly stupid. No one was that reckless, which meant that your mind was playing a trick on you.

Leaving, you sealed your lips on the way back to your two-bedroom apartment and didn’t bring up the article even when you got home. It wasn’t worth it, making your brother worried or angry over it.

Three days later, at eight in the morning, a small group of activists blew up the central train station.

You still didn’t tell anyone about the article. Not because you were afraid of the consequences - although you should have been -, but because your brother was already looking for other apartments in the more peaceful suburbs, urging you to quit your job at the hotel, so that you could have moved as soon as he found an adequate deal. You didn’t want to sabotage yourself when it was already a challenge to persuade Taehyung to let you keep working in the heart of the city. Selfishly, you kept the secret to be able to keep your dream.

Before the second explosion, it had taken you ten minutes to get to work. You hadn’t needed to calculate with external factors such as the number of available cabs in the area or the mass on the trams that might have made it impossible for you to get on the vehicle.

Living in one of the outer districts was different. Since you insisted on keeping your job, you had to leave your apartman two hours in advance and be aware of drivers who deliberately chose the longer routes to milk as much money out of you as possible. It was inconvenient, but it was your choice, so you were determined to not show how much you were struggling to Taehyung. The last thing you needed was him reminding you that he had told you so.

Shifting your body weight from one foot to the other, you stayed close to Aeshin, Jenna and Hyolyn like you had promised to your brother, but didn’t join their girly conversation. You did hum here and there to keep up the facade, however, your gaze lingered elsewhere: on the young man with rolled up sleeves and round glasses. He was back, sitting by the main bar and whispering under his nose as though he wasn’t talking to the bartender when the older man clearly paid attention to him.

You wondered whether you were the only one who noticed their strange interactions or the others simply didn’t care. You also wondered whether the same went for the strange article in the newspaper. Were you the only one? Were others out there, too, turning a blind eye to these odd occurrences? Could these two things be connected?

You were dying to know.

Therefore, when Jenna was called on stage and you caught the young man putting something in his pocket from the corner of your eyes, you quickly excused yourself as well and walked up to the bar. It felt like a now or never situation to you and after experiencing first hand how infrequently the other showed up at your workplace and how rarely he stayed, you believed that your urgency was justified.

‘Good evening, sir!’ You greeted him as soon as you were beside him, your smile polite and sweet just the way your mother had taught you. You ignored his raised eyebrow and how he was already half-standing.

‘Yes?’ He asked and for a moment you actually contemplated if it had been wise to sit down and act like you were oblivious to the fact that he was about to leave or he would have used it against you and left without entertaining you with a made-up excuse.

You stayed standing.

‘Have you happened to read the article about the benefits of trading with the Japanese in the newspaper two weeks ago, on Sunday? The writer misused the phrase “touch base” in the first sentence,’ you inquired, paying close attention to the tiniest changes in the young man’s facial expression like you always did with Taehyung, but his mask was impenetrable. Like he wasn’t looking at you, just staring out of his head.

You pressed your lips together, disappointed that you might have been so wrong. However, a voice inside of your head, suspiciously akin to your best friend and forever partner in crime back at home, told you you shouldn’t have given up so easily. After all, it couldn’t have been denied that this man and the bartender were acting weird and seemingly everyone disregarded their weird behaviour like it was the norm.

Or a collective secret.

‘It predicted the bombing,’ you chirped, using the very same tone that always drew a reaction out of your brother without fail.

It earned you one this time as well.

The thought that there must have been a reason for the workers and the guests to look through this man crossed your mind again when he grabbed your elbow and pulled you towards the storage room that belonged to the main bar. A panicked yelp stuck in the back of your throat as you looked around in the lobby and you met numerous unamused looks before people one by one, guests and employees alike, turned in the opposite direction.

You almost tripped over your own foot when you were yanked into the small room and the door closed shut behind your back with a loud thud.

‘Do you have a death wish?’ The young man hissed, pushing you against the wall with both hands. You gulped when your head hit it hard, missing your brother’s gentle palm that always slid between the back of your head and any firm surface when you lost your balance or were too unaware of your surroundings to notice something as big as a lamp pose.

‘No,’ you objected, although your voice came out weak.

Your answer earned you a scoff.

‘Then I advise you not to walk up to random people, talking about things you clearly know nothing about,’ he stated firmly, making your heart beat like crazy with how close his pouty lips were to yours. You could taste the air that left his mouth and phantom the touch of the tip of his nose against your rose-tinted cheek.

‘I did not walk up to a random guy,’ you insisted, short of breath. He pulled away a little to look you in the eyes at that. ‘I walked up to you,’ you claimed, mustering up all your bravery and confidence to be able to keep eye contact. Might it have been because you had grown up with an older brother, but something told you that you needed to earn his respect to get those answers you were looking for. People with thick skin and unwavering hearts were looked up to in every romance book you had put your hands on in your teenage years.

‘You know nothing about me,’ the man retorted and to that you didn’t actually have a good comeback because you were calling him young man in your head since day one and those three facts you did know about him were all pieces of his appearance: the way he dressed, the shape of his lips and his cute habit of drumming on the countertop with his fingers.

You didn’t even know his name.

‘But I am right, am I not? You know about the article. You and maybe Jaewon-ssi, too?’ The second part of your short monologue sounded more like a question than a statement, but it held enough weight for the young man to put more pressure on your windpipe. Mentioning the bartender might have been a bit too reckless.

You lifted your hands to his forearm and dug your nails into his skin to snap him out of it. It didn’t help much, but seconds before you could have started to see stars, he finally let go.

Not being able to lean on him, nor having him hold you against the cold wall anymore, you fell forwards. You crouched down in front of him, trying to catch your breath.

‘Stop sticking your nose into other people’s business, little girl,’ he spat before he leaned down and put his index finger under your chin to force you to look up at him. Your eyes were teary, but lacking anger or fear as you let him do whatever he pleased. ‘I can guarantee you that your suitor wouldn’t be too happy if he knew you’re walking around carelessly, asking questions about the bombings.’

Your furrowed your brows in confusion.

‘What do you mean my suitor?’ You asked, not understanding where this misunderstanding was coming from until the realisation suddenly hit you in the face. You remembered the first night you had seen this man sitting by the bar. Your eyes had met for a sheer moment and panicking, you had looked in the opposite direction. Then, someone had walked up to you and silly you had thought it had been him.

It had been the Japanese chief officer, Nishiki Kousuke.

‘Oh? The Japanese man? He is not my suitor. He is just… well… it might sound like I am full of myself, which I am not,’ you rambled, unaware of the amused smile in the corner of the young man’s mouth. ‘I am telling you, he is obsessed with me.’

The silence that followed your confession was deafening. The longer it stretched, the more self-conscious and uncomfortable you felt, but you also didn’t know what to say to break it. 

‘Obsessed with you?’ He asked with a small tilt to his head, one eyebrow raised. His posture and tone reminded you of those times when your piano teacher hadn’t wanted to believe you when you had told him you had been practising and it left a bitter taste in your mouth. You felt super embarrassed.

Munching on your lower lip, you opted for a nod.

To your mother’s dismay, you weren’t always good at it, especially when your feelings were involved, but you had been taught how to read the room and your conversation partners’ facial expressions. It was a must, so that you could leave a good first impression on your potential future husband. Therefore, you stared at the young man attentively, hoping to figure out how he felt about the revelation. Did he believe you? Was he relieved that there wasn’t a courtship he had to be mindful of? Did he feel as hopeful as you did?

After long seconds of silence, you could answer only one of these questions. He put more distance between the two of you, but he believed you.

‘Okay,’ he said as he linked his arms in front of his chest. ‘If you can figure out where to find me, and no, not here. Then, we can talk,’ he gave you an ultimatum, the challenge clear in his tone.

‘I will,’ you promised, anxiously waiting for the clues that could help locate him outside of the hotel lobby, but he remained silent.

He didn’t help you up from the dirty floor. He didn’t give you any hints about where to start your little treasure hunt, nor did he tell you his name. He was simply watching you sitting on your heels, then gave you a nod and walked out of the storage room.

You stayed there, trying to collect your thoughts and process what had just happened until the bartender came in for more soju and informed you that Aeshin was already on stage, which meant you would perform next.

You thanked him and seeing that he wasn’t bothered by your presence, you gave yourself a couple of more minutes before you stood up, fixed your dress and went back to the girls. You should have expected it, however, it still surprised you that no one addressed your absence. They acted like you had been there with them the whole time and something cold and ugly in your chest nagged at you that you should have felt more scared than you did at that moment.

Snapping your head in your boss’ direction when she called your name, you quickly brushed the unease aside and walked behind the microphone with a soft smile on your face. Finally, it was your time to charm the audience.

You started your investigation on your next day at work. You purposely arrived an hour early to be able to strike up a conversation with Jaewon-ssi, but the bartender was sparse with his words and judging with his silence. He was less cooperative than a brick of wall.

The girls were a little more willing. You might not have known each other’s real names, but you had shared many stories about your personal lives over the weeks, hence it wasn’t like they didn’t know that you could keep your mouth shut. You were trustworthy. Maybe not trustworthy enough to get an address, but they did tell you the young man’s name.

Yeonjun. A gift from God.

That night, you were lying in your bed wide awake, thinking of him and what you should have done next. Clearly, he had to be someone important for the employees at the hotel to hide his identity so earnestly. You knew going to your boss or approaching some of the guests who had been there that night when Yeonjun had dragged you into the storage room would have been a waste of time. Should you have gone to the police? What would you have told them? If he had had anything to do with the bombing like you assumed, that would have led to a disaster. You needed to find another way.

After much consideration, you came to the conclusion that decoding another odd article was your best chance. Thus, you started to read the newspaper religiously. You looked for typos and misused phrases in the first paragraphs in case these could have been indications that the article in question wasn’t what it looked like. Then, you tried to find words that rhymed.

It took you weeks, but on a random Sunday night you either lost it or you finally succeeded. You had a location and a time. You knew where to go next.

You were nervous.

You were also super excited about seeing the young man again and finding out whether these hidden messages were real or they only existed in your head and somehow the bombing at the train station had been a mere coincidence. Would the latter have meant that you were crazy? Did living far from your hometown and moving out from your parents’ house have a negative effect on your mental health?

You pushed these thoughts in the back of your mind and locked them away in a box along with those things you didn’t wish to handle ahead of time. You would worry about potentially going mad when you got there; you would worry when you reached the traditional diner you had read about in the newspaper and Yeonjun wasn’t there.

It was the first time you set foot in this area in Gyeongseong. The neighbourhood was on the border of the central districts, thousands of people making it loud and lively as they walked down the streets without a care for their surroundings. It looked more like a bigger town with its own administration than a part of the capital city, but that was why you were so sure you were heading towards the right place. Hence, you held onto your flickering confidence and sped up your steps.

You arrived ten minutes early, but you did so on purpose, because you were more afraid of being late and missing your chance than waiting at an unfamiliar place, completely on your own. You walked inside of the building instead of killing some time in front of it. You greeted the owners with a polite bow and were about to take a seat by the window to be able to keep an eye on the entrance when someone grabbed your wrist and pulled you towards the back door.

‘Hey! It hurts,’ you whined, trying your best to brush the stranger’s hand off yourself until you lifted your head and your gaze landed on him: those pouty lips, the rounded glasses and the white shirt with rolled up sleeves. Yeonjun. You had found him.

You weren’t sure whether it was because of the wide smile on your face that he looked at you so weirdly or because of what you had said, but in the end, he shook his head and let go of your wrist. You pouted, missing the warmth of his touch now that you knew it hadn’t been a random stranger who had tried to drag you out of the diner you had every right to be at - or so you thought.

‘Just follow me,’ he said and turned his back to you before you could have nodded; you felt stupidly happy that he trusted you that you wouldn’t have run away, although if you had given it a second thought, you could have realised that you running away or not showing up at all was almost the same from his point of you. Still, it felt nice.

With your lower lip between your teeth - you were trying to conceal that potentially creepy, bright smile of yours - and your heart pounding in your throat, you did as Yeonjun said and the two of you exited the building through the kitchen. The back door opened to a less busy street parallel to the main road and looking around, you could easily spot the smoking area thanks to all the cigarette stubs on the ground and the excessive amount of ash around the makeshift ashtrays. You hoped the young man didn’t plan to answer your questions there, on the dirty boxes they used as chairs, but he sat down on the one closest to him, so you did the same, albeit with a small frown.

‘What? Is it below you, little girl? Do you need me to bring you a pillow or something?’ The young man scoffed and you swallowed down the retort that was scratching the back of your throat because if you had wanted to be honest, you would have liked to have a puffy pillow or something soft and clean to sit on.

You didn’t want to get into an argument with him that could have potentially upset the both of you. Instead, you sat down and turned towards him with your whole body.

‘Are you the one writing those articles? How many of you are in this together? Is Jaewon-ssi here, too? What about the rest of the staff at the hotel?’ You asked as soon as he met your curious eyes. You had a whole list of questions regarding the bombing as well, but a part of you thought it would have been wiser to start with the less compromising aspect of these odd occurrences in case there was a less compromising aspect of them to begin with.

Yeonjun leaned backwards, putting a part of his weight on his hands behind his back, raising an eyebrow at you with an indistinguishable look in his eyes. Observing his face for a couple of seconds, you decided that he was more amused than anything.

‘Do you really believe I’ll tell you everything just because you’re here?’ Yeonjun asked, his question not making too much sense to you at first. Straightening your back, you put both of your palms on your knees and pressed your heels together, not letting him intimidate you or make you feel as though you were unreasonable for believing so. 

‘You promised,’ you stated with your chin held high, looking him straight in the eyes.

Albeit quietly, he laughed.

‘I said we will talk. I’ve made no such promises, stupid girl,’ he reminded you with a click of his tongue like he was lecturing a child or a poor dog. You weren’t too fond of either of these comparisons.

‘But…’ you wanted to argue, however, a single look from the young man was enough to shut you up. You bit into your cheek from the inside then nodded. Admittedly, you wouldn’t have been able to recite word by word what he had said to do that night, but because of this, you had a hunch that going into an argument wouldn’t have ended well. ‘I am not stupid, do not call me that,’ so you said instead, being hung up on another part of his statement that you weren’t happy about.

You had spent a significant part of your childhood around private teachers. You had sacrificed so much time studying, practising, reading that being called stupid so nonchalantly felt like a slap. Especially from him, whose opinion you cared about.

‘How did you figure it out? About this place?’ Yeonjun asked instead of apologising, coaxing a resigned sigh out of you with how much ease and disregard he diverted the topic. But at least he wasn’t calling you stupid this time. In fact! He was curious about something that clearly showed just how smart you were despite your gender. Therefore, you could put aside your frustration and forgive him for his rudeness.

‘It was in the newspaper. Your…’ You quickly corrected yourself before he could have told you that your assumption was incorrect. ‘The article sounds like a song. There is emphasis on certain words,’ you explained, preening yourself on the way he was paying close attention to every word that left your mouth. He had to be impressed, there was no other explanation for the slowly decreasing distance between the two of you, him leaning so close to you that he was practically hovering over the makeshift table placed between your fake chairs.

‘Interesting theory,’ he said, voice deep and slow as though he was choosing every one of his words with great care.

‘It is not a theory,’ you insisted, because at that point you were convinced that you were speaking facts. Sure, there might have been other methods for reading those articles. Maybe, there were people out there with actual decoders, people like your brother who couldn’t see the structure of their sentences without additional help, but that didn’t mean you were wrong or just lucky. You had successfully read between the lines twice already. That meant a pattern, not pieces of information obtained by chance.

For a while, the two of you were staring at each other soundlessly. The muffled buzzing of the neighbouring streets was the only source of noise, your heartbeat in your ears. It wasn’t comforting, not at all, but you dug your nails into your palms to conceal your slowly growing anxiety.

‘Do you like chicken soup? Black bean noodles?’ He asked and you furrowed your brows in confusion. It was such a blatant attempt at diverting the topic that calling him out on it would have almost felt ridiculous. He had to know that you would notice. You were sure he knew that you had noticed.

You let out another sigh. It felt like the nth that day, however, it couldn’t have been more than the second or third.

‘Both,’ you said eventually, because it didn’t matter that much to you. You had eaten the food your mother had put on the table all your life and were only recently experimenting with flavours you genuinely liked. Developing preferences took time.

‘I’ll have Min ahjussi bring us some noodles then,’ Yeonjun informed you before he pushed himself further from the table and stood up. He was already a few steps away when his steps came to a sudden halt and he looked back at you from above his shoulder. ‘If you’re still here when I come back… don’t say you haven’t been warned,’ he said, then disappeared behind the same door you had walked through not that long ago.

In his absence, you let your shoulders fall forwards and your posture take on a natural curve. You didn’t understand. Warned about what? So far he had told you close to nothing. In fact! It was you whose lips had been loose. Thus, you came to the conclusion that he tried to avoid answering your question by scaring you away. And you wouldn’t let that happen.

When he came back with two bowls of steaming black bean noodles, you were still there, patiently waiting. Your mouth salivated at the delicious sight and the mouth-watering smell. You couldn’t wait to dive in the heavenly dish and devour it until the last spoonful of thick, dark paste.

While you were eating, you didn’t talk about any of your questions, but silence didn’t stay in your company for too long. Yeonjun made sure of it. He asked you about your singing career, whether it was like how you had pictured it to be before you had moved to the capital city and why hadn’t you looked for another place to perform at when you had moved to the suburbs. You talked about Taehyung, how hard it had been to convince him to let you keep working at the hotel and how Yeonjun was an only child, but had many friends who were like family to him. You had a good time, therefore you had no regrets even when later, on your way to work, you realised that you weren’t any closer to connecting the dots, the articles to the bombing, not at all.

You also realised that you didn’t really care about the mystery anymore. You were perfectly content with this new side of Yeonjun that you had gotten to know that afternoon.

The diner became your safe place without you realising. Whenever Yeonjun wasn’t there to spend some time with you over a nice, warm meal, you ordered yourself a dish you had never tried before and relished in the flavourful bites that for some reason felt like home even this far from your family. You could stay there for hours, sipping on your iced water and watching the streets.

And when Yeonjun was there… That was another kind of home. A warm and fuzzy bubble in which you could find solace when you had a fight with your brother because of his protective nature. A place where you could vent about the guests at the hotel you worked at and voice out how much you missed your parents without the overwhelming fear of misinterpretation and being taken back to them. With Yeonjun, you experienced a type of comfort you had never experienced in your life; it broke down those thick walls your teachers and your mother had built around the real you in order to please everyone around you and protect your family’s name. With him, you were free: free to speak your mind without worrying about offending him, free to eat more than how much a lady should have eaten in public and free to laugh so loud an unapologetic, random strangers could hear it.

‘No, seriously. Is he still bothering you?’ Yeonjun asked between two spoonfuls of chicken soup, shaking his head in disbelief, mumbling about the audacity and entitlement of Japanese people as though it was a genetic characteristic.

Obviously, over the weeks, you had come to know just how deeply rooted his hate for them was. It was blind rage fueled by his father’s execution and his mother’s broken heart that had taken her, too, way too soon, leaving the then-eighteen-year-old boy on his own. You couldn’t say you understood Yeonjun’s concept of revenge as he hadn’t known the face of the person who had pulled the trigger and turned him into an orphan, but you wanted to be there for him, to support him nonetheless.

‘It’s not that bad. I’ve been alone with him for a total of five minutes. The girls came to my rescue as soon as they noticed,’ you reassured him, more annoyed with yourself for letting a situation like that happen than Yeonjun’s disapproving frown, which wouldn’t have been the case if it had been your brother who was looking at you like this, like he had told you so that it was naive of you to think staying with the girls could keep him away.

‘You should stop being so nice to him,’ he said bluntly, although upon meeting your eyes his gaze became softer.

‘I can’t offend him,’ you mumbled under your nose, shoving a spoonful of lukewarm soup into your mouth to conceal your displeased frown. It wasn’t like you enjoyed having chief officer Nishiki’s undivided attention. On the contrary! You would have preferred not having him anywhere near you at all as something in the way he looked at you made your skin crawl. But you couldn’t have afforded sending him away when it was always in public that he talked to you. There was no way you could have been the cause of him losing face.

‘I could tell him you’re not interested,’ Yeonjun offered in a heartbeat, no hesitation, no stalling. It made you blush furiously, the implication behind his claim.

‘I…’ you stuttered, your brain throwing imaginary scenarios at you of Yeonjun walking up to the two of you when the Japanese man approached you at your workplace, of him pulling you behind his back protectively, telling the officer that you were his.

You had never wanted anything so desperately.

‘And why would you do such a thing?’ An unfamiliar voice came from behind you, the scoff at the end of his question forcing you to turn your head towards the source. In that split second, it crossed your mind that maybe the person was talking to someone else and it was a simple case of misunderstanding, but no. The young man, who pulled a chair to your table in the meantime, was undoubtedly talking to you.

‘What are you doing?’ Yeonjun asked, not bothering with greetings or pleasantries. He didn’t even look at the guy, his chocolate brown orbs focused on you, painting your cheeks a deeper shade of red with their intensity.

‘Deflecting, aren’t we?’ The stranger remarked with a pinch of mockery to his velvety tone. It reminded you of the boys in your hometown when they got defensive after being rejected. You didn’t like it.

Whoever this man was, he opened the wooden drawer of the table with ease and took a casual sip from Yeonjun’s soup with his spoon. You watched the scene unfold, mortified, but unlike what you would have expected, Yeonjun didn’t get upset nor did he push the other away. 

Only then did it occur to you that they might not only have known each other, but they were friends, too.

‘What do you want?’ Yeonjun grumbled, sharing his side dishes with the guy so naturally, it made you wonder whether either of them realised how they looked from an outsider’s point of view. Like brothers.

You sucked in your lower lip to swallow back a whimper. Could this guy’s earlier question have meant that he didn’t like you? Did he not want you in Yeonjun’s life? Would he have tried to convince his friend to stop spending so much time with you? 

‘That asshole’s never alone,’ the guy said, tone cold as ice. Suddenly, you lost your appetite, too nervous about where this conversation was going. ‘We’ve been watching him for months and now you’re telling me you’d fuck up our best chance to get him away from his lackeys for what?’

Yeonjun’s friend swallowed the food in his mouth and checked you out from head to toe. He didn’t seem impressed and it left a bitter taste on the tip of your tongue. You were wearing your prettiest summer dress and it had taken you half an hour to create the curls in your hair.

‘A pair of adequate legs?’ He finished his monologue, earning an eye roll with his comment on your looks that clearly made you uncomfortable and self-conscious. 

‘Wooyoung, apologise!’ Yeonjun demanded, pushing his bowl to the left side of the table, far enough from his friend to not be able to reach it. Despite his calm tone and unbothered facial expression, his eyes looked angry. Yet, you were more afraid of Wooyoung’s opinion about you than him as though, at one point, your heart had convinced your brain that Yeonjun could have never hurt you.

‘But for real, man! You know, just as I do, that it’s our best chance. She goes on a date with him, she makes sure they go somewhere private and then…’ Wooyoung banged on the table with his fists, his excitement showing. ‘Then, we catch the bastard!’

You gulped, feeling uneasy. On the one hand, you would have loved to have the opportunity to be able to prove to this guy that you were worthy of Yeonjun’s time and attention, and you also wanted to help him get his revenge. On the other hand, the mere thought of going on a date with the chief officer sent an icy, unpleasant shiver down your spine. How were you supposed to make him believe that you wanted to go somewhere private with him? You were a singer, not an actress.

‘It’s seriously not that hard,’ Yeonjun sighed, shaking his head, disappointment soaking into his voice and posture. You watched as he leaned his back against the backrest of his chair and linked his arms in front of his chest with a deep sigh. ‘Repeat after me: I’m sorry I’m such an asshole,’ he said, raising an eyebrow in a way that said: dare to do otherwise.

‘You know I’m right,’ Wooyoung protested, refusing to tear his gaze away from his friend or back down.

You dug your nails into your palms under the table, holding your breath.

‘Fine!’ Wooyoung gave in eventually, scaring you with his sudden declaration. You could feel your cheeks burning up from the humiliation when you realised you weren’t exactly subtle with the way your shoulders jerked upon hearing his loud voice. ‘I’m sorry. Your legs aren’t adequate,’ he said and you nodded on automatic, your thoughts all over the place.

Yeonjun shook his head, but pulled the bowl in front of himself again and didn’t growl at his friend when he stole a spoonful of it immediately.

‘You’re unbelievable,’ Yeonjun grumbled under his nose.

‘Unbelievably handsome,’ his friend retorted, serving himself from your side dishes as well since you hadn’t touched your lunch since he had joined you.

You didn’t protest. You were too busy thinking about their plan to go after the chief officer, what it could have entailed and how much danger Yeonjun could have gotten himself into if they had decided to attack the Japanese man with his “lackeys” around. Would he have gone to jail if they had gotten caught? How long would they have locked him up?

‘I will do it,’ you proposed out of the blue, the determination in your eyes borderline insane. There was no reason for you to willingly put yourself in that position. You weren’t part of their movement, you were a mere regular at the diner they occasionally used as their meeting point and still… The thought of Yeonjun and his friend - but mostly Yeonjun - getting hurt because you were a coward didn’t sit well with you.

You were also stubborn and you wanted Yeonjun’s friend to like you, so that you would have his support when things got better and a lot more serious between the two of you.  

‘No, you won’t,’ Yeonjun said. He refused to entertain your suggestion and made sure you knew how much he hated your idea with the intensity of his gaze. It burned holes into your skin and closed up your throat.

‘Come on, man! Let the pretty lady talk,’ Wooyoung insisted, nudging his friend’s upper arm, then turning his full attention to you when Yeonjun refused to ease up to the proposal.

Your heart was in your throat when you deliberately ignored Yeonjun and shifted your gaze from his furrowed brows and hard eyes to his friend. You hoped that he knew you didn’t do it to upset him. You simply wanted to help and most importantly, keep him safe.

‘Are you going to be there? The whole time?’ You asked Wooyoung, your nails leaving tiny crescent moons in your palms. You wished Yeonjun would have told you everything was fine, that he wasn’t angry with you and that he would keep an eye on you the whole time, making sure you were safe, but maybe that was selfish. He had every right to be upset, didn’t he? If your brother had been in his shoes, he would have already dragged you out of this diner for insisting on doing something so reckless despite his warning.

‘We won’t let him touch you. I promise,’ Wooyoung pledged, his gaze showing his devotion and you foolishly wanted to believe that his loyalty was meant for you, that your well-being would be more important to him than catching the chief officer off guard in a secluded area. Because an innocent human life should have been worth more than meagre ideals, right?  

Clenching and unclenching your fists, you allowed yourself a glance at Yeonjun whose eyes were already on you. For a second it looked like he wanted to tell you something. Maybe he wanted to give it another try and talk you out of this crazy idea; maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was childishly excited about the chance to get close to the Japanese man with your help and he was guilty about it. Maybe you were overthinking it.

‘I’ll get you out of there before you know it,’ Yeonjun declared in the end with a curt nod, sending a small albeit genuine-looking smile in your way from the other side of the table. 

You reciprocated the gesture with one of your shy smiles and turned back to your abandoned soup. That was all the reassurance you needed.

The first few bites were spent in silence, but then Wooyoung asked about your relationship with Nishiki Kousuke, how had the two of you met and how confident you were that you could have influenced his choice of date location. You admitted that you weren’t too sure you had that much power over the chief officer, but promised them that you would do your best and asked for suggestions of less crowded yet nice places to go on a first date in the city.

Once the three of you went over every crucial detail, you acknowledged with a happy heart that Wooyoung was actually curious about you, about your thoughts of his best friend and the short history the two of you shared. He wanted to know your favourite dishes and drinks, where you had grown up and what you liked to do for fun. His rambles and anecdotes about himself and the guys (including Yeonjun and a bunch of people whose names you had never heard before) successfully took your mind off the mission you had signed up for.

By the time you had to leave, so that you could have taken the tram to your workplace, you were almost excited about helping the boys.

Unsurprisingly, you only had to wait a week for the Japanese officer to approach you again; from there, making him believe that he actually had a chance was a piece of cake. It took you a couple of soft smiles, a bit less resistance. Then, on the third night that he found you sitting on your own by the main bar, he jumped on the opportunity before your boss could have called your stage name and urged you to stand behind the microphone.

Lying into your brother’s face was harder. It left open wounds on your heart that despite his protective nature, he never once questioned your words when you told him that you had to take on an extra shift because one of the girls had fallen sick and couldn’t sing. Still, deep down you knew he wouldn’t have understood, nor would he have let you out of his sight if you had told him the truth.

So that night you said goodbye to Taehyung the way you always did when he left for work sooner than you did. Then, you waited for ten slowly passing minutes, anxiously sipping on your calming tea, fearing that your brother might have left something at home and would catch you red-handed. You had never felt so much guilt in your entire life.

As soon as your hands stopped trembling, you put on your prettiest dress and styled your hair according to the latest trends in the capital city. The silver necklace in your neck was a piece of jewellery you had inherited from your grandmother, while the rose-coloured tint on your lips was the newest addition to your collection. You had bought it at the market during your last brother-sister date with Taehyung on Sunday morning.

Your heart was in your throat.

If you wanted to be a hundred percent honest, you still weren’t too comfortable with the idea of this man knowing where you lived, but Wooyoung and a similarly young man, Changbin had convinced you that you would never have to see his face again after your date, so you had agreed to share your real address and real name with the officer to rock him into a false sense of safety.

While you were waiting for chief officer Nishiki in front of the building, you repeatedly reminded yourself that Yeonjun would be out there, watching over you the whole time. And not just him, but his friends as well. You were safe. You were helping the man find peace through his revenge and then… then you would confess your feelings for him because after this, you would have a chance for a good life without his past haunting him.

‘Good evening, beautiful,’ was what pulled you out of your head, back into the present where Nishiki Kousuke was looking at you like he was about to dig his teeth into you and tear you to pieces.

‘Good evening, chief officer,’ you reciprocated his greeting with a hopefully believable, shy smile. You forced your body to stay still when he reached out for your hand and to not flinch because of the unwanted touch; you forced yourself to see a different face where there were no adorable, pouty lips or a cute nose, no rounded glasses or a warm pair of chocolate eyes.

You liked walking down the streets, window-shopping and snacking on street food, but of course you had never told any of these to your date, so it really shouldn’t have taken you by surprise when he urged you towards his car instead. You followed him obediently, mumbling a thank you under your nose when he opened the door for you to the passenger’s seat.

You were worried that the guys weren’t prepared for following a car.

‘Where are we going?’ You asked, to prevent your brain from coming up with different scenarios on its own, worst case scenarios, scenarios in which you were left on your own and this man would do as he pleased. Would you be able to tell him no if he started to get a little bit too touchy? Would you be able to push him away without angering him and suffering the consequences?

You dug your nails into your palms, looking out the window, trying to figure out where you were and where you were heading.

‘It’s a surprise, sweetheart. You’ll love it,’ the Japanese man reassured you, patting your head and ruffling your hair a little along with it. If you hadn’t been so nervous, you would have found it funny how the very same gesture from Yeonjun had never bothered you, but you were fidgety and anxious, so there was very little that you had found particularly funny.

You still offered the officer a shy smile.

Probably seeing how awkward you felt in the car and hopefully mistaking it for your lack of dating experience, chief officer Nishiki attempted to break the ice with casual small talk. He told you how happy he was that the weather was pleasantly warm instead of unbearingly hot or rainy. He joked about how his uniform got super heavy when it got soaked, he talked about his achievements and his ambitions. You hummed, nodded and smiled in this sequence like you had been taught, asking questions that encouraged him to talk more, filling the silence, as though you were genuinely interested in getting to know him more.

The ride did feel shorter this way and you were grateful for the momentary distraction even though you couldn’t have recited half of what the man was saying. Honestly, you didn’t have the slightest idea when he had started to talk about his father or how he had managed to divert the topic to something so personal without you noticing.

The building you parked in front of was a traditional, Japanese coffee shop with a beautiful, lush garden in its centre. The cherry trees overpowered the distinct smell of roasted bean and dressed the otherwise green scenery into a lovely shade of pink. 

‘It is beautiful, but…’ you stuttered, looking around and taking in the breathtaking sight. At that moment, although you knew this man was bad news and his pushy attitude had indeed put you off during the past weeks, you felt touched that he had taken his time to find this coffee shop for your date, for you. It was just that… something felt off about the silence, the complete lack of heartfelt chatters. ‘Are they closed for the day? Are we allowed to be here?’

Logically, it made no sense that the two of you had been able to enter the building if they had been closed. However, people made mistakes and if the owner had left the door open by accident, you would have hated to cause any inconvenience with your presence.

‘We are. I rented the whole place just for us.’ He came up behind you, placing his hand on your waist and pushing you forwards gently, towards the nearest empty table outside in the private garden.

You gulped, but you obliged without any complaint.

In search for the menu, you soon realised that you didn’t need one, because when a middle aged man walked up to you, he already had some snacks in his hands along with two cups of coffee: an espresso for the chief officer and a cinnamon coffee for you like he had known that was your current favourite even though you had only ever mentioned it to Yeonjun and of course, your brother, who had been there when you had first given it a try. With a knot in your throat, you furrowed your brows, but accepted the drink.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ officer Nishiki urged you, smiling at you from behind his cup.

You bit back the comment that he had already seemed to know more about you than you were comfortable sharing. Yeonjun would have laughed at a remark like this, calling you feisty with a proud look on his face, but this man would have most probably put you back to your place. Offending him would have cost more than what it was worth.

So you started talking. You told him about your hometown, why you had come to the capital city and what kinds of food you enjoyed in general. You were so afraid that he would have caught on to every white lie that fell from your lips that you didn’t dare to say anything else but the truth.

‘Excuse me, chief officer! I need to use the restroom,’ you said softly when you finished your coffee and the boys still didn’t show any sign that they were around, watching over you, even though you had unknowingly gotten the Japanese man alone just like they had wished you to. Had they really lost you when you had gotten in that car? Were you on your own?

You walked into the restroom on the opposite side of the shop as slowly as you could without looking unnatural or forced, then leaned over the marble sink and splashed some cold water on your face, mindful of your light makeup. You had to figure out how to put an end to this date politely since you honestly doubted you would have been able to inform the guys about where you were. Argh. You couldn’t believe that all of your effort was in vain.

You snapped your head to the right, towards the door, when you heard a creaking sound: a clear sign that it was being opened. You had thought the coffee shop was empty except for the two of you and the owner, which meant that the women’s restroom should have been a safe place for you where you could have thought through your options without being disturbed.

‘It’s just me,’ a familiar voice whispered, sending an unpleasant shiver down your spine even before you would have recognized to whom it belonged. You pressed your lips together into a thin line, hiding your hands behind your back, so you didn’t hold onto the sink desperately. ‘I didn’t intend to scare you,’ the officer said, and while his tone was gentle, his presence made you feel unsafe.

‘Is everything okay? Did something happen?’ You asked instead of letting your complaints slip through your teeth as the latter would have done no good to either of you in the current situation.

‘There’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart,’ the man reassured you, his words creating an odd juxtaposition with the way he took a large step closer to you then another, crowding your personal space.

If there was nothing to worry about, why was he there? In the women’s restroom.

It was when your shoulder bumped into the wall that you realised your legs were moving on their own, trying to put some distance between the two of you. Too bad the room was small and with the officer between you and the exit, you had nowhere to hide or run.

‘We should go back to our table then,’ you tried, hoping that your act of innocence would pull you out of this weird predicament, but you weren’t so lucky.

Instead, the Japanese man cupped your cheeks and grinned at you, his calloused fingertips fondling the sensitive skin under your eyes before one of his hands slid to your neck, to your shoulder, all the way down your arm until it found itself a new home on your waist. You could feel panic rising in your insides.

‘I would like to go back to—’ your plea was cut short when a pair of rough lips was pressed against your virgin ones, stealing the air from your lungs. It took you a couple of heartbeats to come back to your senses and when you did, you gave your all to push the man as far from yourself as possible.

Unfortunately, your noodle arms could only do so much for your freedom.

‘Hm, you smell so good,’ the man’s nose grazed along your jawline, his mouth attached to the juncture between your shoulder and the base of your neck.

You started to hit his upper arms with your fists, but your grunts and painful groans seemed to only fuel his excitement. You tried not to think of what was brushing against your lower abdomen when he pressed you against the wall with his body.

Even though a rational part of you doubted that anyone would have come to your rescue if you had screamed loud enough, your survival instincts knew no logic when you cried for help from the top of your lungs. You called for the owner, you called for your brother, Yeonjun, Wooyoung, anybody. You were sobbing and begging and all your assaulter had to say was:

‘You’re so pretty when you’re crying.’

You didn’t know when you had started dissociating from reality, whether you had done so to save yourself or you had been just too tired. Anyhow, in one moment the man sneaked his hand under your clothes, torn fabric hanging on your body haphazardly, then someone lifted you off the floor, mumbling reassuring words into your ear.

‘I’ve got you. I’m sorry we were so late. I should have never let this get this far. I’m sorry,’ he said and you just hummed, too exhausted to speak.

With your head against his chest, the darkness didn’t scare you. You let it embrace you and lull you into a dreamless sleep.

You woke up in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, but before you could have freaked out, your gaze fell on a pair of rounded glasses sitting on an adorable nose, a pair of chocolate eyes filled with worry, relief and guilt and a pair of pouty lips that put heart was at ease. You were with Yeonjun. You were safe.

‘Hey, shh! It’s okay, it’s okay. You would never have to see him again, we made sure of it,’ he said, reaching out to the apple of your cheek to wipe the tear off your face even though you wouldn’t have been able to point out when you had started to cry or why you were crying. ‘Is it okay if I touch you?’ He asked for your permission and you nodded, melting under the soft touch of his fingertip. He touched you like you were fragile, like you could have broken the moment he looked in the other direction and maybe he was right. Maybe a part of you was broken because why else would you have been crying if not from the mental wounds that disgusting man had inflicted on your soul.

‘I was so scared,’ you sobbed, ignoring the dull headache in your temples, so that you could sit up and pull Yeonjun close. You hid your face in his neck, welcoming his protective, strong arms around your petite figure.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he repeated, over and over like a mantra until your tears waned and your body wasn’t shaking anymore.

You fell asleep without meaning to.

You woke up two more times before you had enough energy to get out of bed, but none of your sleeps took longer than four hours. Your entire being was tired, but your body couldn’t rest; it wasn’t even about your dreams. When awake, your brain was too mushy to reproduce your nightmares. If not for the angry red scratches on your lower arm and neck, you would have assumed you had slept like a stone, completely unmoving. 

‘Look who’s here! The Sleeping Beauty,’ Wooyoung exclaimed when you showed up at the top of the stairs, looking down at the interior of the diner that had been your safe place in the last couple of weeks. There were so many people inside. A lot more than you had ever seen in the building.

Offering the boy a small albeit genuine smile, you grabbed the handrail and descended the stairs, perfectly aware of the moment Yeonjun realised his best friend was talking about you. Not because your gut feeling had never failed you before or because you had never made a mistake in your life when reading other people, but because he made it so obvious, snapping his head in your direction and standing up from his chair abruptly as soon as his eyes found you.

‘Hi,’ you whispered when Yeonjun was in front of you, your throat still a bit itchy from all that crying and screaming.

‘You should rest,’ he said, lifting his eyebrows as an indication that he wanted you to go back to his room.

You shook your head.

‘Don’t send me away, please,’ you insisted and he sighed, defeated, when his best friend’s steps came to a halt by your side.

Wooyoung ruffled your already messy hair and gave the other man a glance that you couldn’t have seen, only its consequences: the small twitch of Yeonjun’s lips, his shoulders falling a tad forwards, the light in his eyes burning with the force of a thousand suns. He brushed his friend’s hand off you and held his own out for you.

You took it without hesitation.

Leaving a chuckling Wooyoung behind, he led you towards the backdoor, but didn’t sit down by the makeshift table in the small street behind the diner like he had done the first time you had come here. Instead, he pulled you towards a metal ladder on the right side of the building and nudged you to go first, so that he could have caught you if you had slipped.

Admittedly, you were nervous, but you didn’t fall.

‘Come, sit with me. Here!’ Yeonjun encouraged you to sit on the edge of the roof right next to him and you once again did what he said because his contentment made you happy. You looked at the small package that he pulled out of his inner pocket, the small bites of yakgwa wrapped in his handkerchief mouth-watering.

‘Is there a celebration down there? There are a lot of people here tonight,’ you inquired as you took a piece of honey biscuit into your hand and lifted it to your lips. It tasted delicious.

‘Hn. You can call it a celebration, I think,’ he agreed, munching on a yakgwa of his own, not taking his eyes off you even though the sight in front of you and right beneath your swinging legs was beautiful. As a singer who worked at night, you had already seen this side of the capital city numerous times, but the nightlife from above was breathtaking in a different way. People drinking happily on the terrace, people passing by: it was like a scene straight out of one of your favourite romance books.

‘What’s the occasion?’ You wondered aloud, unsure how long you had been unconscious or whether there was a national holiday you had forgotten about. Or was this an anniversary, a birthday of someone from the boys’ circles?

‘Taking Nishiki out of the picture, it was a huge step forwards,’ Yeonjun explained shortly, in no way going into details about what he had meant by taking the Japanese man out of which picture exactly. Suddenly, his promise of you never having to see your assaulter again came to your mind and you gulped, anxious due to the implication.

You dug your round nails into your palm to anchor yourself. So what if they had locked him up somewhere where none of his subordinates could have found him? What if they had hit him for information and for what he had done to you? It wasn’t like he would have let you go if you had asked him to stop touching you. His no deserved to not be heard, too.

You didn’t realise just how hard you were pressing your nails into your flesh until Yeonjun took your hands in his and forced your fists open. The tiny, crescent-shaped crevices in your palms remained visible after the first couple of seconds.

You shivered when he grazed his fingertips along the wounds, his touch light as a feather. 

‘It’s all thanks to you,’ he whispered, eyes bright but undecipherable while he was drawing calming, non-figurative patterns on your skin the entire time.

Your cheeks were heating up under Yeonjun’s undivided attention, your heart pounding with a new level of intensity when letting go of your left hand, he brushed a stray lock behind your ear. It might have been your imagination, but you swore it felt like he lingered longer than it was strictly necessary.

You closed your eyes on instinct, anticipation growing in your chest, pale lips parting slightly. The last person who had kissed you had ruined many first things for you, but at that moment all you could think about was Yeonjun beside you: his hand cupping one side of your face, his rolled up sleeves, his pouty lips. You wondered how the latter would have felt against yours. Would they have brought back horrible memories or erased them effortlessly?

‘So cute,’ he mumbled so close, so super close to your face that you could not only hear him perfectly, but feel his warm breath fanning over your skin.

Yeonjun’s lips were pillowy against yours, tentative, gentle. He made no attempt at forcing his way into your mouth, he was merely nipping on your chapped lower lip as though that was enough. It wasn’t, not really, but you were still grateful for his consideration and decided not to push, either.

Under the starlight, breathing in Yeonjun until your lungs were on fire, you started to dream of an independent country, too, sharing not only a sweet kiss with the activist but ambitions and goals. A peaceful fantasy of a future together.

Although you hadn’t participated in the party the night before, at least not longer than a few minutes that you had spent with Wooyoung and a pretty girl named Jungeun while you had been waiting for Yeonjun to grab some more snacks and drinks for the two of you, you had unintentionally stayed until sunrise, then fallen asleep in a comfortable position on Yeonjun’s lap. Therefore, in the morning, on your way home, you were desperately trying to come up with an explanation that could have placated your brother in case he was waiting for you on the couch, furious.

Taking the stairs, you climbed two stairs at a time, then took a step backwards, to not be too fast even though you had been embarrassingly late. You gave yourself a peptalk three times in those ten or so minutes it took you to get to the second floor.

‘Oppa. I am home,’ you mumbled under your nose as you opened, then closed the front door, hoping to find your flat empty. However, what you walked inside for was anything but that or the scary pictures your brain threw at you ever since you had woken up in Yeonjun’s arms.

The living room was a mess and so was the kitchen and every other room you passed by. Like an explosion had been set off in the middle of your home.

‘Taehyung! Oppa! Are you here? Where are you?’ You screamed, running from one room to the other, trying to make sense of the situation while simultaneously, you were desperate to find your brother. You didn’t understand what was happening.

‘Heh-hre.’ A weak sound came from the bathroom and you tore the door open, almost losing your balance due to how dizzy the horrific sight made you. You dropped on your knees and crawled to your brother with tears in your eyes.

‘What… what happened?’ You asked, your trembling hands reaching out to his bloody face. ‘We have to go to the hospital.’

The choked chuckle that bubbled up in his throat tugged on your stomach in the worst way, but you resisted the urge to throw up because it felt like one of those situations where you had to be strong for the other person’s sake. And you loved him so damn much.

‘Bir-dy… you need… get out,’ he said, using his remaining strength to push you away, but you were stubborn and for the first time in your life, stronger than him.

‘No! Come on! You need to see a doctor,’ you insisted and linked your arm with his, so that you could pull him into a standing position before you somehow get him on your back. That was the only way you could imagine yourself carrying him out of the flat, down the stairs and outside of the building to get yourself a taxi.

‘Get… out!’ Taehyung pleaded, but you brushed his concerns aside and gritted your teeth. He was heavy. He was half-unconscious and white like the wall in your living room. You had to put all of his weight on your shoulders and you just couldn’t take more than two steps ahead without falling head first on the floor.

You groaned because of the pain.

‘Please,’ you begged, unsure whether the blood on your face was yours or his and whether he heard you at all.

You didn’t know what to do.

‘Oppa, please! We need to go to the hospital. Please,’ you screamed, frantic and then…

Then someone put a musty bag over your head and darkness welcomed you as soon as you felt a sharp pain in your nape.

Admittedly, you could be a little naive sometimes. Your father liked to tell you that you were too innocent for this world, but you weren’t stupid. You knew the moment you came back to your senses, tied to a wooden chair, facing two mean-looking men in similar uniforms to the one chief officer Nishiki had always worn, that they wouldn’t let you walk away unharmed even if you had told them everything. So you promised yourself that you would be strong.

It took you three days of constant psychological and physical torture in a dark room with no windows to wish you were dead. It took another two to completely lose hope.

Another week’s worth of rock-hard bread was served to you by the time these ruthless men, who found joy in your tears, deemed you utterly useless.

‘From now on, no more food for this one,’ one of the Japanese said, his tone unamused and nonchalant before he left the room with his lackeys on his heels.

You turned around on the floor where you had been shoved and pressed your burning face against the bloody albeit cool concrete. The pleasant change in temperature coaxed a pleased moan out of your throat. 

Floating in and out of consciousness, you stared at the dirty wall in front of you. You didn’t want to think about what was happening in the outside world, yet you did so nevertheless because the more one wished to shut out a thought, the more it stuck. You wondered whether Yeonjun was okay. Had your brother gotten to the hospital in time? Had anyone noticed that you were gone?

You hit the concrete with your pulsing fist. At least two of your fingers were broken and your nail was missing from one because of one of the very first interrogations you had been put through. You were pretty sure it had gotten infected and not just that, but several other scars on your body.

You felt so tired, so exhausted. You prayed that this time it would finally come to an end. The pain, the heartache.

In your dreams, you were happier.

In your dreams, Yeonjun came for you and saved you. He took you to your brother and both of you healed from your traumas slowly but steadily.

In your dreams, Yeonjun not only found you, but also pulled you close as you were watching the Japanese flags go up in flames all around the city.

In your dreams, you won.

Delirious, you turned your head towards your cell’s door when it opened, your chest being filled with a scene of eternal peace as you were staring at the person who was looking down at you from the threshold. At that moment, you felt it in your guts that this was it, that no harm would come to your way anymore.

the end.

[lily-blue]

13 reasons why | reason no.10: they are enthusiastic about the holiday seasons

☆ characters: interim manager!soonyoung & rival!you (Eunseo - ‘97 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, humour ☆ summary: you have always liked a good enemies to lovers story, but once your own y/n moments come knocking on your door, you come to realise that having a handsome rival is actually more tiring than it appears to be on paper ☆ words: 11,2k ☆ taglist: @dat-town​, @soobin-chois​

➼ chapter index

Even though working at your grandparents’ small bubble tea and coffee shop had started as a convenient part-time job beside your studies, the youthful atmosphere of the place and the freedom you had with the menu had grown on you through the years. Hence, when you had eventually graduated and gotten rejected by eight IT companies within a single month, you had decided to take on more responsibility in the family business. Your grandfather was nearing eighty-two after all, and your grandmother had always had a hard time not pampering him when he showed the tiniest signs of discomfort. With your chronic back pain that seemed to run in the family, you had never blamed the woman for spoiling the old man. Some days you wished you had someone who drew you hot baths and gave you amazing massages in the tub, too. Not that you wanted to picture your grandparents in a similar scenario.

Shaking your head with a carefree laugh, you placed the freshly made biscuits on a porcelain plate and carried the sweet dessert to the only occupied table in the shop. It was already past nine, which meant you were off the clock for the day, but as the granddaughter of the owners and the person who had spent almost every day behind the counter in the past six months, no one had the right to tell you that you weren’t allowed to have your friend over for some tea and biscuits while you were making the usual inventory rounds.

‘I was about to make some chocolate-banana biscuits this time, you know, nothing too crazy, but then I saw the caramel candies in the jar on the counter and I couldn’t help myself,’ you explained what had inspired your latest experiment with your desserts, pointing at the jar somewhere behind your back with your thumb from above your shoulder. ‘Feel free to say they taste like shit if they’re bad,’ you added with a sheepish smile like you always did when Hoyeon was about to have the first bite of your biscuits you couldn’t have taste-tested first. Unfortunately, your acne prone skin hated chocolate, so you tried to minimise your intake to zero.

‘Next time I’ll make sure to introduce you to Mingyu’s girlfriend. She’s a food critic and a really good one. I’m sure she would give you better feedback than I could ever do,’ the older girl said, even though she didn’t hesitate to take a huge bite from the biscuit. She was a huge supporter of your baking from day one, but because of her mild addiction to said dessert and the fact that she didn’t have a single rude bone in her body, she tended to compliment your biscuits even when they were too bitter due to the amount of cocoa powder you had used.

Still, you appreciated her gentle insights each and every time. You also liked watching her eat with such enthusiasm. Her facial expressions and exaggerated hums never failed to make you smile.

‘Oh? His granny finally found someone he actually likes?’ You inquired on your way back to the counter where you started to make a list of those ingredients you should have ordered some more of in the morning. You might not have known Mingyu super well - you could have counted on one hand how many times the two of you had spoken since Seungcheol had opened Coffee Carat -, but you were pretty up to date with the everyday happenings at the coffee shop on other side of the park because of your friendship with the owner’s fiancée.

Hoyeon liked talking about the guys like they were either her annoying older brothers or her precious babies. She was such a mom friend.

‘Nah, she’s the one who wrote that harsh criticism about our cupcakes. He took it a bit too seriously when he decided to change her mind about his baking skills,’ Hoyeon said, the amusement in her voice too obvious to miss. You had faintly remembered the day when your friend had told you about the article that had caused a temporary drop in the number of their customers, but since she hadn’t mentioned it ever since, you had assumed that the situation had been the exemplary case of “every storm runs out of rain”.

The thought that the tall baker had managed not only to score a date with the critic who had called his cupcakes average, but to successfully make it official with her in such a short period of time made you smile to yourself. You had always loved a good enemies to lovers story, so theirs only made you feel more certain that your Y/N moments were also waiting for you somewhere out there. Maybe, you should have gotten out more often.

Speaking of which….

‘Are you excited about Saturday?’ You asked your friend, stealing a quick glance at her from behind the counter. The closer the official date came, the more anxious you felt because of the biscuits you had promised to bake for their wedding, but to your surprise, Hoyeon rarely spoke about the big day recently. If you hadn’t known better, you would have thought that she had completely forgotten she would get married in three days.

‘I am, but not as much as I expected to be,’ she confessed as she shoved another piece of food into her mouth. She looked unbothered. Hell, she sounded pretty unbothered, too. You could have never. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m not happy or that I love Seungcheol any less, it’s just…’ she tried to put her thoughts into words that you could understand, so you didn’t push. Instead, you gave her as much time as she needed while you checked the storage room. You would need to order more recycled plastic cups from Rina and twelve bags of tapioca pearls, too. ‘We’re already living together. It doesn’t feel like such a big step.’

You nodded with a low hum in the back of your throat. What she said made perfect sense, actually.

‘You really are like a married couple, hah?’ You teased, relieved that their relationship with Seungcheol was as good as ever, hence you had been worried for no reason. You didn’t particularly like being wrong, but situations like this were obviously exceptions.

While you were talking about when you should have arrived at the venue on Saturday with all those sweets you planned to bake for them, you started to pack the unsold pastries into plastic containers. You were at the third box, a little bummed that you had so many cupcakes left that no one had wanted to buy, when Hoyeon made a light-hearted comment on how you might have also found someone at their wedding as her fiancé still had handsome yet single friends despite many of them getting in a serious relationship since the coffee shop had opened two years ago. Her silly way of advertising her boys plastered a small smile on your face.

‘I heard Joshua is off the market again,’ you chirped in, putting the full containers aside and turning towards the machines you had to scrub clean. ‘Too bad, I could picture myself going home from the party with him,’ you admitted, finding it almost amusing that usually, by the time you heard about Joshua’s break-up, he was already with another girl. It was like some higher power didn’t want you to shoot your shot with him at all, although the guy matched your ideal type nicely. He was attentive, always made sure to compliment you when you met and hadn’t belittled your effort when he had accidentally gotten to know that you had failed as a web developer before you could have started your career.

‘Argh, let’s not talk about those two, Seungcheol is already out of the game and if they don’t break up until the day after our wedding, Jeonghan can boss us around for a whole week. The both of us,’ Hoyeon complained, her mood getting sour only momentarily, until she shoved another chocolate-banana and caramel candy biscuit into her mouth.

You shook your head with a smile.

‘You should really stop making these bets. They just aren’t worth it,’ you advised, unsure whom you should have felt more sorry for. It might have been Joshua’s inevitable heartbreak on the line, but regardless of your conflicted feelings about the morality of these games, you were aware that whoever was the subject of them, they also knew about the competition. On the other hand, was it really worth risking giving so much power to Yoon Jeonghan for the mere possibility of controlling his life for a week? Highly unlikely.

Yet, they did it each and every time.

‘But they are,’ Hoyeon argued, telling you about that one time early into their relationship when Seungcheol had still lived with Jeonghan and Joshua and he had won the right to send the boys away from home without giving them any explanation. She claimed those had been the most peaceful movie night dates they had before her fiancé had found a nice apartment for them and Kkuma.

Once the biscuits were gone, Hoyeon offered to help you with cleaning the customer area and you accepted her help with a grateful smile. She didn’t have to, you would have gladly kept her entertained while closing the shop, but she did every time, the sweetheart she was.

Right on time, about an hour after Coffee Carat had closed its doors as well, Seungcheol knocked on the door of Freefall to pick up his fiancée. Before leaving, he asked you whether you needed any help with your old machines or if you had any boxes or sacks that were too heavy for you to carry from one place to another, but you just waved him off with a smile.

‘Eyes on the road!’ You said them goodbye, asking Seungcheol to make sure they both got home in one piece despite the late night traffic.

Closing the shop, you headed home ten minutes later. The small studio apartment you rented two corners from Freefall greeted you with silence and a sweet smell you couldn’t have described in any other way than home.

The traditional wedding ceremony didn’t last longer than an hour, and while both Seungcheol and Hoyeon (and their parents) looked amazing in their hanbok, you were grateful for it. As much as you loved reading about love, you had always had a hard time sitting still for a longer period of time. You would have hated it if they had thought you didn’t enjoy their big day - because you did! - just because you had your own shortcomings and more frequently than not, you felt antsy when you didn’t have anything productive to do.

Munching on your lower lip, you leaned closer to the myriad of desserts that were placed on one side of the venue, so that you could read their funny descriptions that had been written by Hoyeon and smell-test them before choosing which ones you would have liked to try.

‘You should try those! They might not look as fancy as the shortcakes, but those biscuits are fantastic. I’m telling you, I’ve already eaten like,’ the boy in the elegant, white shirt and deep orange dress pants claimed, counting on his fingers slowly with his eyes focusing on nothing in particular. ‘Six or seven. And I keep coming back for more!’

You took a moment to observe his features: the bright, genuine-looking smile on his face, his almond-shaped eyes that were barely visible due to how excited and happy he appeared to be and his fluffy black hair; a few stubborn strands were covering a part of his forehead. He looked handsome in an adorable way you had never before considered manly. Until now.

‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll eat all of them if they are really that good?’ You teased, paying close attention to his reaction. Despite assuming the best - you doubted either of the newlyweds would have invited douchebags for their wedding unless they were family -, you didn’t know him. And you didn’t feel like engaging in anything but a short conversation with someone who got offended easily. Your jokes could get pretty controversial after three tequila shots.

For a couple of seconds, the two of you were staring at each other with intent. Then, the boy shrugged nonchalantly and reached for a cinnamon biscuit that was one of the most basic flavours you had prepared for today. Initially, you had intended to bake your most special creations for the party after the ceremony, but on Thursday morning Seungcheol had dropped a sly comment on how obsessed Hoyeon was with this particular flavour and you couldn’t not have made five dozen of them when they were the bride’s recent favourite.

‘I don’t mind sharing, especially with someone so beautiful,’ he said, and instead of lifting the sweets in front of his mouth with his bare hand, you were surprised to realise that he was using a textile napkin to hand it to you.

‘Smooth, aren’t you?’ You asked, but accepted the baked good with a soft smile on your face, biting off a huge piece of it, not shying away just because it wasn’t too lady-like. If the boy couldn’t have handled this much, he wouldn’t have survived seeing you munching on burgers or pizza happily.

Gosh, were you already thinking about spending some time with him in different settings? Well, he had indeed passed the vibe check so far, but it wasn’t like you had known him for longer than two minutes. It must have been the wedding’s doing; it was messing with your head, making you borderline desperate.

Luckily, the boy couldn’t read your mind.

‘With so many couples around, you kind of have to be,’ he explained with a smile as he took a banana-chocolate and caramel candy biscuit in his hand. ‘You know, so that you could play it safe and say you didn’t mean that way when the other person’s partner shows up to punch you in the face out of freaking nowhere,’ he added, coaxing an amused scoff out of you with those exaggerated hand gestures he was making.

‘That’s alarmingly specific,’ you joked, wondering if he had accidentally hit on someone with a girlfriend or a boyfriend in the past few hours or if he was talking about a past incident. For some reason, maybe because of the soft, rose-tinted patches on his neck, the possibility that he was talking about someone else or making the scenario up didn’t even cross your mind.

The boy’s embarrassed chuckle was adorable. 

You reached for a caramel-apple shortcake next.

‘So… you didn’t mean it that way?’ You inquired after the first bite, the flavours dancing in your mouth, making it impossible to suppress the pleased moan that scratched your throat. It escaped the same moment you started your question, turning your cheeks the same colour as the boy’s neck was dressed in.

‘I mean, you’re drop dead gorgeous, so if you, by any chance, happen to be single, then I was definitely flirting with you, yeah,’ he admitted, ears burning by the time he stumbled over the last couple of words. So awkward. So endearing.

‘Good to know,’ you said with a hint of a smile in the corner of your lips before you took another bite from the shortcake and finished it by shoving the third in your mouth. Delicious. Should you have tried another flavour, too?

As you were contemplating which one you should go for, the mango-orange or the last piece of strawberry-crackers, you could feel the boy’s piercing eyes on you, but it wasn’t creepy or unpleasant. You did put more effort into your posture, though, straightening your back and tilting your head sideways just enough to give him a better view for the crook of your neck, but that was your business and no one else’s.

‘You didn’t like them?’ It was a half-question, half-statement, and you needed a few seconds to understand what he was talking about, but when you shifted your gaze from the table to his face and saw how fixated he was on the biscuits, it became crystal clear.

You shook your head, careful to not mess up your elegant, loose bun with the sudden motion.

‘I had more than enough of them while I was perfecting the recipe,’ you explained before you added as a clarification: ‘I made them.’

You didn’t mean to brag. In fact, you were determined to keep your voice nonchalant as if it hadn’t been a big deal, because you had already known he liked them enough to praise them in front of a stranger. You didn’t want him to think that you were full of yourself and found joy in deceiving him, even if only temporarily. However, the way the boy’s eyes lit up after your claim indicated anything but.

‘Really? Thank God Mingyu isn’t single anymore!’ He exclaimed, a relieved sigh escaping from his lips as he made a show out of wiping the nonexistent sweat off his forehead. He was so dramatic, but more entertaining than annoying.

‘Why? Afraid of a little competition?’ You teased, the thought that you should have gone easy on him and admitted that you weren’t interested in the baker anyway crossing your mind for a split second. But then again, where was the fun in that? It wasn’t like you were hurting his feelings on purpose. You didn’t even try to make him jealous, to be fair.

Whether it was your raised eyebrow or the tension in the air that grew with every second you spent in silence after your playful question, but the boy’s eventual reaction was everything a good comedian needed: wide eyes, parted lips and big hand gestures.

‘Hah! Not a chance! I love a good competition,’ he claimed with pride in every single word, fist tapping his chest multiple times in a manner that reminded you of gorillas from that one Disney movie about a kid who had grown up amongst them. Tarzan. The resemblance really cracked you up. Especially when he caught himself and let his hand fall back beside him with a pout. ‘Is there a competition, though?’

‘Why? Would you like to win me over?’ You pushed, just a little more, while you lifted the strawberry-cracker shortcake without whipped cream on the top in front of your lips.

‘I mean, this whole conversation already makes me feel like a winner, but…’

His unfinished sentence and the smug curve of his lips made you smile like a Cheshire cat, but you felt like he deserved to see your amusement on display after all that teasing, so you made no attempt at hiding your happiness from him. Coming to a wedding without a plus one was indeed a whole different experience. And not in the lonely, lowkey depressing way you had previously expected based on the number of couples who had been sat at the same table your name tag was on.

Speaking of name tags…

‘You could start with telling me your name,’ you suggested instead of calling him out on his lame pick-up line or whatever his comment had been supposed to be. You weren’t sure what it said about your personality and preferences or maybe, about your sense of humour, but you didn’t find his flirting too cringe just yet. 

‘Soonyoung,’ he introduced himself eagerly and you told him your name in exchange with a less wide but equally genuine smile.

‘Well, Soonyoung, let’s drink some and hit up the dance floor,’ you suggested, grabbing one last shortcake from the table (the mango-orange one, obviously) before you led him towards the bar at the end of the food section. You hadn’t drunk more than a glass of champagne so far, but you were determined to catch up with the rest of the guests before you embarrassed yourself in front of everyone dear to Hoyeon and Seungcheol. You see, you loved dancing, you always had fun moving your hips and limbs for mainstream, upbeat music, however, you wouldn’t have called yourself particularly talented.

Still, you loved dancing. No one could keep you off the dance floor when the opportunity to shake your booty presented itself. Your friends’ wedding couldn’t have been the exception. You just needed a shot or two first.

‘You should be careful with this one. Our Hoshi is a lightweight. Like, light. His drunk face is literally in the dictionary, check it out when you hit up “feather”,’ Yoon Jeonghan warned you as soon as you reached the bar with Soonyoung; the name Hoshi vaguely familiar from your friend’s stories.

‘I am not,’ Soonyoung insisted and you shifted your gaze from the blacked-haired boy to the blondie before you decided to not care too much about which one of them was right and asked for eight tequila shots from the bartender - two from each, silver and gold, for the two of you.

Waiting for the drinks, you listened to Jeonghan’s stories about their bi-monthly dude nights with the guys and tried not to let your confusion show when he yet again warned you about Soonyoung’s drunk antics: some sort of tiger agenda, whatever that meant.

‘Okay, now how about I tell some stories to Yoohyeon noona about your sappy ass whenever you hit your limit, hah?’ Soonyoung threatened, but before he could have spilled the beans to the blonde girl who sat beside Jeonghan, your shots were served and you pulled on his sleeve to gain his attention.

‘I’m pretty sure she knows about his sappy side,’ you tried to keep the peace as you handed the first shot to Soonyoung and poured a bit of salt on his empty hand.

You both managed to drink three shots in a row before they hit, so you gave the remaining two to the couple and pulled Soonyoung towards the small crowd in front of the DJ booth. To say he was an amazing dancer would have been an understatement. He moved his body like he was made of liquid - and not the way your body was also 60% of water - and did it so effortlessly, you started to wonder whether you were the one who couldn’t hold her alcohol instead. Why did your arms move so awkwardly compared to his?

Whatever. The music was exhilarating, the crowd wasn’t suffocating and Soonyoung didn’t show any interest in anyone else around while he was with you, encouraging you and even joining you when you started to perform silly disco moves from the last century. It was easily one of the best days of your life.

‘Food break?’ The boy asked you before you noticed that you were actually out of breath and you nodded, letting him wrap his pretty, long fingers around your wrist before he elbowed his way through the mass. How could someone’s hold be so firm but gentle at the same time? Should you have asked him whether he had visited a nail technician before the wedding? He had such pretty hands!

‘Drinks, too,’ you shouted, so that he could hear it despite the music and based on how he shot you a smile from above his shoulder and squeezed your wrist simultaneously, you were pretty sure you had succeeded.

You ended up at one of the tables where the guests could comfortably eat and converse, far enough from the dance floor to protect your voice from the aftereffects of constant screaming, and ate some real food while you shared funny stories of your lives with each other and how the two of you had gotten to know the newlyweds. Of course, as the afternoon turned into early evening then midnight, the two of you talked a few words with almost everyone from the guest list, but you spent most of your time on the dance floor, in each others’ arms, as you blended into the crowd after each necessary break.

If you had been a more chaotic drunk, you might have shed a few tears of joy because of how freaking comfortable your high heels were.

‘Afterparty at mine?’ Soonyoung asked between two upbeat songs, his warm breath fanning over your neck, making you shiver because of the thin layer of sweat that coated your skin.

You looked around to check your surroundings; you weren’t sure why you felt the need, but it came naturally as though you had been seventeen again, hesitant to leave your friends behind because of a pair of pretty eyes and a smile that turned them into tiny crescends. It wasn’t like you were responsible for anyone in the building other than yourself nor had you come with another person. Not to mention that Soonyoung wasn’t a complete stranger, either. As it had turned out during the party, he was actually close friends with many of your own friends and acquaintances.

You could see Joshua sitting with Jeonghan and Seungcheol by the bar with only the latter two having their girlfriends close. They were drinking and laughing at something that made Joshua pout. If you had been less drunk, you might have been able to put the puzzle pieces together, but with your mushy brain, the only conclusion you could come to was that they looked lost in their own world. You didn’t want to disturb them.

‘Let’s go,’ so you said, not registering how utterly rude it was that you didn’t say goodbye to anyone whom you didn’t bump into on your way out or that you wouldn’t be able to apologise to the newlyweds in person for two weeks - they would leave for their honeymoon in Thailand and Laos early afternoon, which meant meeting up with you would be the last thing on their priority list. That, and you would most probably be sleeping out your hangover somewhere. Preferably, at home.

Or maybe, at Soonyoung’s place as you were heading there for the promised afterparty with a pleased smile on your face and feather-like kisses on your bare shoulder in the backseat of a cab you didn’t remember calling.

Did you have expectations? Maybe. Did the two of you lick into each other’s mouth as soon as the front door closed shut behind your back? Absolutely.

Yet, once you reached Soonyoung’s bedroom and you fell onto his bed, you knew having sex with the boy was off the table. If it hadn’t been, he would have hovered over you and kept kissing you instead of laying down by your side.

‘Can we not take a shower right now? I’m sooo tired,’ the boy mumbled against your upper arm, his nose nuzzling the edge of your shoulder. You couldn’t see his face from this angle, but you were sure his eyes were already closed.

‘I mean, sure, I guess,’ you whispered back, feeling the tiredness creeping in slowly. Maybe, it was for the better. Having a one night stand with one of Hoyeon’s boys wouldn’t have been the wisest decision of your life even though a part of you still craved Soonyoung’s touch despite how heavy your eyelids were.

‘Yey!’ Soonyoung’s arm knocked the air out of your lungs as it swung over your chest, his excitement absolutely beyond you. Still, it would have been a lie to say that you didn’t enjoy the way he hugged you close like you were his human-sized teddy bear. ‘You’re the best! The coolest person,’ he exclaimed happily, coaxing an airy chuckle out of you with his child-like behaviour. He was so ridiculous.

That night, you fell asleep in your sweaty clothes, atop of the softest blankets that would have felt like heaven over you, listening to Soonyoung’s endless chatter about how much he loved his mom, but how she would have forced him to take a shower immediately. At that point, it was lost on you why the woman refused to appear in your dreams. Certainly, you knew more details about her habits than you knew about your own parents’.

In the morning, you regretted not insisting on taking a shower before falling asleep. You also felt like you were about to get sick. Not because of how gross you felt or how bad both of you smelled, but because your throat was sore. Your body had definitely missed the warmth of a blanket over the night.

Was your head hurting because of the blinding light that came through the windows or was it your hangover? With your luck, it could be both.

Letting out a groan, you carefully lifted the boy’s arm off your middle and sat up, looking for your balance and the will to move. It would have been so easy to just lay back and stare out of your head. You could have even gone for a morning quicky with…

Yeah, it would have been wiser if you had just left.

Taking one last glance at the sleeping boy, you bit back an amused chuckle at the sight of his drooling face. Gross, but in some weird way, cute as well. Could you have developed a crush on someone so different from all the boyfriends you had ever had? Of course, it had to be one of Hoyeon’s boys.

Shaking your head, you pushed yourself up into a standing position, then left the flat without leaving as much as a note behind. If he wanted to see you again, he knew where to find you. It wasn’t like you were running away from him. But he had never asked for your kkt ID, either, or any of your other contact information through the night.

You refused to believe wanting some reassurance that the boy planned to stay in touch with you was a bitch move. You had every right to keep your walls up regardless of what you had done or hadn’t done a couple of hours ago.

What you hadn’t expected, though, was Soonyoung storming into Freefall three days later, before your grandparents’ bubble tea and coffee shop would have opened for the customers, accusing you of playing dirty. As you furrowed your eyebrows, confusion clearly written on your face, your fingers turned white around the orange white board marker in your hand. The door should have had the CLOSED sign on. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been standing on a ladder, finishing up the decoration for the Halloween season instead of standing behind the cash register in your uniform.

With your back to the front door, you took a deep breath and let your hand fall by your side; then you took hold of the ladder, so that you could climb down without breaking a bone. As you turned around and raised a challenging brow at the boy, you wondered how you could have missed the crazy glint in his eyes last time. Because as you were staring daggers at him, it was clear as day that he was nuts as hell.

‘Playing dirty? How so?’ You asked, linking your arms in front of your chest to show him he did not intimidate you, although your stiff posture might have looked defensive on second thought. Whatever. You simply raised your chin higher.

‘Carved pumpkins instead of fake pumpkins?’ He pointed at the scary-looking decoration you had put out the day before, the scoff that escaped his mouth mocking. ‘POPcorn maze in the customer area?’ He huffed, stomping his feet. ‘Pumpkin latte?’

You rolled your eyes at the last addition. Did he really think he had any right to call dibs on serving pumpkin latte in October? And since when had he worked in a coffee shop to begin with? Wasn’t he a choreographer at his bestie’s workplace or what?

‘What does any of these have to do with you?’ You inquired, scolding yourself mentally for assuming that he had been hinting at your night together (and the way you had left) when he had walked into the shop. Clearly, it was all about your handmade decoration that had been inspired by the moodboards you had seen on Pinterest.

As far as you were concerned, he had no idea who he was screaming at like a child.

‘I’m the manager at Coffee Carat until the owner is on his honeymoon. You know, the coffee shop you’re stealing your ideas from,’ he accused you, his stupid index finger pointing at you like he knew no manners. Based on his complaints about his nagging mother, you would have thought she had raised a decent son. What a waste of looks!

‘Not that I owe you any explanation, but I found these ideas on the internet. Also, thinking that pumpkin latte is something you owe is really entitled of you,’ you said. The longer he was staring at you with those vengeful eyes, the more frustrated you felt. ‘There’s still half an hour until the shop opens, by the way. So, as the manager of this shop, I need to ask you to take your baseless accusations somewhere else, Kwon Soonyoung!’

Even from the generous distance that separated the two of you, you could see it in the boy’s eyes when the realisation hit him: those chocolate orbs became twice as big as their usual size and it seemed he had momentarily forgotten how to blink.

‘You…’ he mumbled, his gaze sliding to the displays on your left and the boards above your head you still had to finish. ‘The biscuits…’

It was hard not to find the situation ridiculous, but you refused to acknowledge the comedy in his taken aback features that slowly morphed into something indecipherable. Was he happy to see you again? Was he mortified that he had accused you of stealing ideas that weren’t even his to begin with? Did he feel regret for acting so rude?

If any of these cases was true, he didn’t admit it. Instead, he let out a puff of air and linked his arms, checking you out from the top of your head to your torso - the last part of your body he could see from where he was standing.

‘If you think I’ll go easy on you just because you’re pretty and fun and smell like candies, you’re dead wrong,’ the boy said with his chin held high, making you scoff with his claim. You genuinely didn’t get what his deal was. Why did he take his time to come over to your shop to scream at you when he was only an interim manager and your coffee shops weren’t even competitors. Freefall mostly lived off on its bubble teas and biscuits while Coffee Carat served more quality coffees and amazing pastries.

Not to mention that you were close friends with Hoyeon, hence with Seungcheol as well. Had he not put two and two together considering that the two of you had met at their wedding? Or did he seriously believe that you were the kind of person who would have used their absence to your advantage and undermined their business? With what? Halloween themed decoration? It made no freaking sense.

You were about to tell Soonyoung that there was something seriously wrong with him when he spun on his heels and turned his back to you. He walked out the door without a proper goodbye - you couldn’t help but wonder whether it was his way of showing you how it felt to be on the receiving end of such an unpleasant exit -, the echo of the door sliding back into its frame filling the quiet atmosphere.

It took you longer than you would have ever admitted aloud to put yourself together once the silence sat on your chest. However, the time was ticking and you still had things to do before you opened the shop, so you willed your limbs to move.

You knew you had done nothing wrong or malicious when you had decided to change up the interior design of Freefall to suit the holiday season. You refused to let Soonyoung convince you of anything that suggested otherwise.

The following dawn, as you were walking to your grandparents’ bubble tea and coffee shop from your flat, you took a detour. You didn’t mean to spy on your rival, but last night you had been too tired to check out what Soonyoung had been so upset about and you would have much preferred knowing what you were up against. After all, that grown ass child had acted like he was about to march into war. It was both scary and ridiculous.

You considered yourself a laid back, chill person in your whole life. You weren’t one who got easily intimidated, either. You hadn’t broken down and thought that your life had been about to end when you couldn’t have secured a nice office job with your degree. Yet, you felt a tad bit jittery when you put the edges of your palms on the window of Coffee Carat and peeked into the building.

‘What the…’ you breathed, barely able to comprehend all the changes the interior design had gone through since the wedding. Instead of the usual, light brown and beige colours, the shop was dominated by dark grey and orange. There were (hopefully) fake spiderwebs around the windows and the coffee machines. The boards had the same skeleton and pumpkin drawings you had finished the day before just before opening and there was a POPcorn maze on one side of the customer area, the kpop version of it just like in Freefall.

Ever since Seungcheol had opened the shop, you had never seen Coffee Carat looking this… this during any of the Western holiday seasons.

‘A-ha! I knew it!’ You heard a familiar voice from behind you and your entire body tensed as you had thought you still had time. Why was he here so early in the morning when even the place’s owner preferred to show up later, a mere hour and a half before opening?

You should have still had time.

‘What? I didn’t do anything,’ you protested, mentally cursing yourself for sounding so lame. Because really, hearing these cheap lines, even you wouldn’t have believed yourself despite knowing more than anyone that this wasn’t what it looked like.

To make it worse, you spun around with the speed of lightning, like touching the window had burnt you: like you had been caught red-handed, when you hadn’t been. You had never stolen a single thing in your life, stealing stupid decoration ideas would have been the last thing you would have started your criminal career with.

Soonyoung narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the right. Fists balled up, you wished you could have wiped that stupid frown off his face.

‘I’m off to work,’ you claimed, hating the feeling of powerlessness and the palpable tension in the chilly, morning air. You craved to be in control.

So you bid your goodbye with mocking respect and turned your back to the boy, determined to get to the pedestrian crossing before the lights turned red again. Obviously, it was too far for you to succeed, but at least Soonyoung didn’t follow you. He seemed to be more than content with the reaction he had coaxed out of you.

That and with those smug accusations he screamed after you.

‘If you weren’t guilty, you wouldn’t run away. You’ve just proved I was right all along.’

You hated him for his confidence when it was clear to you that he was wrong and you hated yourself even more for giving Soonyoung fake evidence that only fueled his desire to destroy you in this ridiculous, coffee-centric Battle royal you had no intention to play.

The first week while Hoyeon and Seungcheol were away was both heaven and hell. On one hand, your childish competition with Soonyoung helped your creativity: you came up with new recipes every other day, you went as far as carving little skeleton bones from the jellies you put into your bubble teas and you managed to organise a daily lottery in which the more receipts a customer had, the bigger chance they got to win themselves a handmade keychain or bracelet and other boba-themed prices. Due to your immense effort, there were more people in the shop during the past days than in the previous months combined and that was huge. It was freaking awesome!

On the other hand, you hadn’t felt so emotionally and physically drained since your uni days. It was hard to have a new, original idea every day; not to mention the extra hours you needed to spend on turning each one of them into reality. Because those cute keychains and bracelets didn’t create themselves. The jelly didn’t become bone-shaped overnight on its own. Not to mention how tiring it was to banter with Soonyoung each morning before opening just for him to shop up after closing as well, bragging about their sales.

Of course, you could have locked him out, but as much as you didn’t want to admit, the boy’s extremes inspired you when you let your last remaining brain cell spread its wings in his company. Usually, you were carving jellies by the time he closed the shop on the opposite side of the park, so it wasn’t like you had to stand or move your stiff limbs around too much. You just sat still, like you did at that moment, humming along his endless chatters with your gaze fixed on the fruity goods.

‘It’s a Korean-Italian fusion Mingyu came up with. It was sold out in an hour,’ he claimed with his whole chest, sliding a familiar food container towards you with two slices of creamy cakes in it. At first glance, they looked like classic tiramisu, but they were orange-coloured and smelled like vanilla and pumpkin instead of freshly brewed coffee.

‘I thought it’s sold out,’ you commented with a brow raised in challenge before you turned back to your jellies. Based on the sales of the last two days, you needed to carve at least one more kilo of these and it was already nearing eleven. You genuinely wondered whether the holiday season was really worth the hype.

‘Yeah, but then Mingyu made some more. Obviously,’ he replied, pushing the container closer to you, urging you to have a bite. And honestly, they looked mouth-watering.

‘Obviously,’ you hummed, putting aside your work for a moment, so that you could fish out the metal dessert fork from beside the cake and have a bite from the baker’s new creation.

You didn’t expect Soonyoung to stand up and walk towards the counter for a pair of plastic gloves, but you were grateful for it deep down. Even if you watched him with hawk eyes as he tried his best to turn your regular jellies into Halloween-themed ones for God knew why. Shouldn’t he have been happy that you allowed him to steal some of your time? Should you have been more wary of his skills?

‘What are you doing?’ You asked suspiciously, taking another, bigger bite from the creamy cake that melted in your mouth. It tasted like a pumpkin pie, but it was lighter like you were cutting bites from a sweetened cloud with distinct vanilla flavour. Genius.

‘Making sure you get in bed before midnight,’ he retorted and you scoffed without malice when his smile became bigger at the sight of his own work. He looked so proud of himself, you decided to let him have this moment and enjoy the sweet treat instead.

Once the dessert was gone, you got up from your seat and stretched your body. Then, you walked up to the counter and poured some tea for the both of you into porcelain mugs, but with lots of tapioca pearls.

‘Here,’ you said when you slid the brown mug closer to him and took a seat from across him with your own bowl of jellies in front of you.

You intended to work in complete silence, so that you could have finished for the day as soon as possible, but Soonyoung had different plans. Between two sips, he chatted your ears off about his best friend and the guy’s girlfriend who apparently worked for the same company the two of them did. He told you about this new project Jihye was working on on her own - the very first mini album she composed without Jihoon -, then made you promise that you wouldn’t talk about this top secret comeback to anyone you knew. As if he hadn’t been the one who couldn’t have kept his mouth shut! The audacity.

You rolled your eyes and refused to swear secrecy.

‘Do your grandparents know you work so late?’ He asked at the end, breaking the momentary silence and making you look at him with indecipherable feelings in your eyes.

You didn’t understand why he asked. Admittedly, you didn’t understand why he stayed after he had rubbed their new dessert’s success into your wounds; your pumpkin-chocolate biscuit had been a huge failure that day. In hindsight, you should have gone for a combination you could have actually taste-tested yourself. A lesson that had been relearned the hard way.

You missed Hoyeon so much.

‘No, they don’t. But it’s only because of the stupid war you started, so they don’t have to know,’ you said, intending to keep your messed up sleep schedule from your grandparents as long as possible. Normally, you didn’t like lying. It made you antsy because you were bad at remembering those details that made your semi-truths believable and often got caught at the worst moments possible. However, you told yourself no October lasted forever. Making them worried because of a couple of extra hours of work would have been useless. ‘It’s temporary.’

Based on your history with Soonyoung - short but impactful -, you expected him to push you a bit, maybe call you out on lying and neglecting your health. In response to these, you would have kindly told him that you had been through worse in university and once again reminded him that it was all his fault. But he remained silent and with that… with that, you had no idea what to do.

You glanced at him a little worried and seeing the pout on his lips, you kept staring, trying to figure out what could have been going on in his head.

You were aware that you weren’t subtle about where your focus lay, but it still took you off guard when Soonyoung noticed and he masked his emotions immediately. Within seconds, his almost sad pout turned into a smug grin and his eyes disappeared because of his fake happiness. You might not have been friends, more like frenemies, really, but for some reason, you didn’t like that he felt he couldn’t be himself around you.

‘Like what you see?’ He teased you, the pick-up line as old as time and twice as cringe, but you just shook your head and turned back to your jellies.

‘Just keep carving those jellies and sipping on your drink. You said you wanted me in bed by midnight,’ you reminded him with a small, hidden smile in the corner of your mouth. His red cheeks and slightly parted lips were enough to bring your mood back up. In fact! While he was trying to come up with a cool, sassy comeback, you mapped out whole ass dialogues in your head, entertaining yourself with your own hypothetical remarks that aimed at turning the boy redder.

Sure, their desserts sold better, their coffee tasted better, but at the end of the day, at least he couldn’t beat you in your own game. Flirting shamelessly while you were switching between acting coy and as though you were down to anything was your element. You thrived off his amused scoffs and unconscious stutters.

That day, only your endless banters were longer than the night itself. However, you managed to finish the rest of the jellies almost twenty minutes before midnight, which gave you plenty of time to get home before the clock hit 12 AM. You might have refused to let the boy walk you home once he figured out you lived close and failed to get under the sheets before the new day officially began, but you did text Soonyoung when your head hit the pillow. You fell asleep not long after, for the unmistakable sound of an incoming message wishing you sweet dreams.

During the second week, some days were spent in a good mood regardless of your sales, some days were horrible and you wished you had been able to act like you were the bigger person and never engaged with a lunatic (affectionate?) like Kwon Soonyoung. Because the dude had difficulties sensing your boundaries and you snapped easier when you were running on four hours of sleep.

The worst part was the immense amount of guilt that overwhelmed your sense whenever the silence embraced you after you raised your voice at the boy. It made you feel like you were one of those people you had never gotten along with because of your harsh humour: people who took every joke personally. Self-loathing didn’t match well with your usual vibe. On the other hand, it generously contributed to your sour mood hidden behind your customer service smiles.

A teeny tiny voice in your head told you that you should have told Soonyoung to stop with this nonsense. He must have already figured it out that you had never intended to copy their decoration and their damned pumpkin latte that he had never had an ownership over. So what was the point of fighting?

As you called for the customer who had ordered a large Cantaloupe milk tea and handed over the drink with a smile, the same voice, with a pinch of mockery to it, called you out mentally on how playful banters and late night snacks shared over personal anecdotes didn’t count as fighting. You frowned, knowing more than anyone that if you had wanted to shut the boy out of your life, you could have easily locked the door after the last customer left Freefall. Yet, you never did.

The realisation that you wanted the holiday season to end as much as you didn’t want the boy to go back to working as a full-time choreographer left a bitter taste in your mouth. What kind of insane person developed a crush on someone so impossible? Soonyoung had been making your life four times harder since your lives had crossed paths. You let out a dramatic sigh. You had never pegged yourself as a masochist before.

Taking a new plastic cup into your hand, you reached for the metal ladle that you used for the tapioca pearls and poured a generous amount into the empty container to prepare the next drink: a medium sized Matcha milk tea.

‘Hey,’ you heard a faintly familiar voice from the other side of the counter. You stole a glance at the customer from above your shoulder and acknowledged his presence with a small nod before you turned back towards the tea you were making.

‘I’ll be there in a moment,’ you promised with your back to Soonyoung, silently wondering what he was doing at your shop so early. Even if it had been him who had opened the coffee shop this morning and Wonwoo had been the one who closed it, it was only 1 PM. He knew you didn’t sell anything at Freefall that could have been considered a nutritious, filling lunch.

Did he have his food container with him or something? It was true that you couldn’t have seen it from where you were standing.

Once the cup sealing machine did its magic, you called for the customer who had paid for the Macha milk tea, then turned towards Soonyoung with your palms on the countertop.

‘What can I get for you?’ You asked, your head tilted to the right, left eyebrow raised slightly. What you really wanted to ask was what he was doing here in the middle of the day when he had never once been at the shop when it was open for customers. You couldn’t help but feel alarmed due to the sudden change.

‘I’m sorry,’ he blurted out, his gaze weirdly fixated on the biscuit display and those colourful, plastic straws that were stuffed in a cylinder-shaped container next to the cash register. Your right eyebrow caught up with the other one, wrinkling your forehead in the process.

‘For what?’ You asked, his reasons genuinely lost on you. Sure, he had done many things in your short acquaintanceship that rubbed you the wrong way, but you were fairly certain that you had pissed him off just as many times in return with your snarky remarks. Neither of you had ever said sorry at those moments, but neither of you had been affected by the incidents afterwards, either.

If you wanted to be completely honest, his sudden urge to apologise was unnerving. It had a feel of finality to it as though he wanted to clear the air before disappearing on you. 

‘For this whole thing. I got too excited about being the best manager and… I’ve never wanted to stress you out,’ he explained and honestly, it was too easy to admit that you missed the big hand gestures that usually accompanied his rambles.

‘Where’s this coming from?’ You asked, trying to keep your cool instead of overthinking what could have possibly been going on in his mind. With Soonyoung, it had never been easy to see the logic behind the word vomits that left his mouth. But you loved the challenge and had learned with time that all you needed to do was ask. He was chaotic by nature, but he had the patience to explain almost anything to you in detail two or three times in a row while you were willing to listen. Hell. You just had to ask! ‘If it’s because I screamed at you yesterday, it’s fine. I came in sooner today and made enough tapioca pearls for the day, no biggie. I was just tired,’ you reassured him with a pseudo-nonchalant wave of your hand.

In hindsight, you could see that you must have crossed a line last night when Soonyoung had accidentally dropped a 10 litre cooking pot’s worth of tapioca pearls on the floor while he had been holding the ladder for you behind the counter, meaning you not only needed to clean up the mess, but also remake the whole thing. (Not to mention the waste of ingredients.) Still, at that moment your frustration had felt justified, so you didn’t intend to apologise. However, saying that you two were fine was something you could do with your chest.

‘Actually, hyung said I should come over and apologise for my actions on my own if I don’t want him to drag me over here by my ear,’ Soonyoung admitted after the momentary silence, somehow turning it even deeper with his confession. For a second, you were seriously at a loss for words.

But then, you failed to contain your laughter. How was someone like him real?

‘So now you’re sorry or not?’ You asked, half-amused, half-bewildered due to the unexpected turn of events. You had already had a hard time keeping up with the apology, but finding out that it hadn’t even been his idea to begin with was seriously messing with your head. It gave you a whiplash. Should you have been angry with him that he had come here to give you an insincere apology? Should you have felt relieved that seemingly he hadn’t meant to change your dynamic?

‘Well, if I really stressed you out, then yes. Otherwise, not really,’ he said and lacking a better reaction, you let out a scoff-like chuckle. At least, he was honest till the end; it provided you some familiarity you could hold onto. It pulled you out from your messy thoughts and helped you get back in the game. 

‘I mean, you can be a bit too much sometimes and you clearly have no idea when not to push someone…’ you teased because it was your thing from the get-go and it would have been such a shame to waste the perfect opportunity to shift things back to normal. ‘But I wasn’t too nice all the time, either, so I guess it’s fine. I enjoy our late night snacks more than I’d like to admit,’ you added with a tight lipped smile.

You weren’t proud of your mistakes, but you could admit it when you were in the wrong.

‘Me too!’ He exclaimed happily, drawing some of your customers’ attention at himself with his loud voice before he sheepishly lifted his hand to his nape and started to scratch it. ‘Though, I got fired an hour ago.’

You furrowed your brows and Soonyoung dived into the story without further interrogation. Lips ridiculously kissable and pouty, the boy explained that now that Seungcheol was back, his hyung didn’t need extra help at the coffee shop and that when he had been joking around, asking his friend what he would do without such a capable manager in the future, the older man had kindly declined his help and let him know that the mental health of his employees would always be more important to him than their profit.

‘It turns out, Mingyu was complaining about me to them throughout their entire honeymoon. Can you believe it?’ He whined, the flicker of hurt in his eyes faint but visible. It urged you to wrap him up in your hands and pull his chin atop of your shoulder, so that you could pat his head and comfort him with your closeness.

But there were already new customers waiting for their turn behind his back, hence you had to set your priorities as the owner’s granddaughter straight.

‘Go wait at that table,’ you pointed at one of the empty spots in the temporary POPcorn maze where people could enjoy good music and check out numerous different kpop albums’ photo books courtesy of your cousin. You had offered free drinks for her and two of her friends for a whole month in exchange for her collection, but Eunhye said she was happy to help. She had also said these albums only collected dust in her bedroom, so it was nice that she could share them with your customers. She was such an angel! ‘I’ll be there after I serve the customers.’

The promise earned a sweet smile from Soonyoung and it warmed your heart, but you had a job to do, so you quickly schooled your facial expressions and put on your customer service smile that was equally genuine, but in a different way.

As soon as the boy walked away from the counter, you turned towards the couple who took a step forward and took their order. You prepared them a medium iced tea and a large milk tea, then repeated the same process with four more people. You worked efficiently, hence it didn’t take that long. And you loved your job, so no matter how much you wanted to comfort Soonyoung at that moment, making sure that each and every customer got the best service you could offer didn’t feel like a bother at all.

It was Freefall’s policy that customers had to pick up their order at the counter. It was a must because your shop didn’t have any waitresses who could have walked around the customer area without the counter being left unsupervised. However, once you prepared a surprise Taro milk tea with bone-shaped jellies and tapioca pearls for Soonyoung, you decided to make an exception for him.

He had just gotten fired. Despite knowing from the beginning that it was a temporary job, he deserved some pampering. He loved being a manager at Coffee Carat.

‘Just so you know, you’re always welcomed here. Even after closing time. Even if you’re not a crazy, Halloween season-obsessed manager anymore,’ you teased when you placed the cup in front of him on the table.

He looked at the drink with wide eyes then shifted his gaze to you with an amused glint in those brown sugar orbs.

‘I was never!’ He linked his arms in front of his chest, pseudo-offended, but untied them soon, so that he could take the milk tea in his hand. Such a weirdo!

‘Sure, you were,’ you indulged him and patted his shoulder once, twice, three times before you walked back to the counter.

You tried not to stare at him while you were waiting for new customers, but regardless of your efforts, you saw the smile on his face when he took the first sip and that smug grin, too, that he shot in your direction when he left the bubble tea shop. He seemed happier.

He hadn’t visited you that night, but he came back to Freefall after closing time frequently in the following weeks. Without the illogical rivalry between you, there were less banters and more meaningful conversations passed around that filled the tranquil, past-sunset atmosphere while you were cleaning the shop. You got to know how close his relationship was with his family members and in exchange you explained to him why you had felt the need to move out from home despite staying in the same city where your parents and grandparents lived.

Your values were similar in many aspects, although you had your fair share of differences. For one, he couldn’t shut up while you were watching movies together and it got increasingly worse when it was something he had already seen. When he was around, it was impossible to not hear a spoiler every ten minutes, which meant that after the third time his rambles had gotten you frustrated, you had needed to come up with creative ways to soothe your urge to strangle him in a spoonful of water. Chips and popcorn were a must on those nights. He needed his mouth to be full to stay quiet.

You realised you were hopelessly gone for him nevertheless when your gossip sessions with Hoyeon started to involve your detailed reports about your not-date dates with the boy. You liked complaining about him in an endeared way to the older girl (mostly because she knew him personally, hence she considered both of your sides when she expressed her opinion) and listening to the older girl’s predictions about where your relationship was heading.

‘When’s your next day off?’ Soonyoung’s question reached your ears, pulling you back to the present. You looked up at him from the coffee machine, wondering when he could have arrived and just how deep you could have been in your thoughts that you hadn’t heard the bells above the front door.

‘Hm…’ you pondered, thinking through your schedule. You had promised your grandfather to supervise the restocking on Monday, but you were supposed to be free in the afternoon. ‘On Monday. Why?’

You put back the clean water container into the machine and wiped off the stray droplets from the counter.

‘Seungkwan, Chan and their girlfriends are going to an escape room date on Sunday. Was wondering whether we could join them, but it’s fine. Maybe, some other time,’ he said and took the mop in his hands with practised ease, getting to work immediately.

You let out a hum, chewing on your cheek from the inside as you were contemplating. The escape room date sounded fun and there were still three days until Sunday. Maybe, you could have made it work.

‘I’ll speak with grandpa. I might be able to make it work, but no promises,’ you said, earning a happy squeal from the boy. Seeing his obvious excitement, you linked your arms in front of your chest and shook your head. ‘Soonyoung, I said no promises,’ you reminded him in case he had misheard you, not wanting to put him into an uncomfortable position by cancelling the program at the last minute. It was better to be safe than sorry.

‘I know,’ he claimed, turning back to his work and breaking the silence within the next ten or so seconds.

As always, time flew quickly while you were filling the silence with mindless conversations. You asked him about the new choreo he was admittedly struggling with and you let him taste-test the new biscuit recipe you had a hard time perfecting. There was nothing unusual in your interactions: they were borderline shameless, flirty and light-hearted.

No wonder you were taken aback when Soonyoung hugged you from behind when you were about to grab your padded jacket and turn off the lights.

‘I really like you, you know?’ He murmured into the crook of your neck, his weight on your shoulders not too heavy, but slightly unpleasant after hours of working behind the counter. You couldn’t wait to stand under the shower head and let the warm water work its magic on the knots around your blade bones.

‘I had a feeling, but it’s always nice to hear,’ you teased, your answer playful and lacking any malice. You were confident that he knew you weren’t disregarding his feelings. You felt the same way.

The palm that slid over your tummy sent a pleasant shiver down your spine.

‘Can I kiss you? I’d like to kiss you,’ Soonyoung inquired and you furrowed your brows due to his unexpected straightforwardness. It wasn’t like you had never kissed before, but neither of you had initiated anything more than reenergizing hugs and coy hand-holdings since your friends’ wedding.

You turned around in his arms, so that you could see his eyes.

‘Is everything okay?’ You asked, worry lacing your voice, and he shook his head, blushing. You raised an eyebrow to dare him to refuse to give you an honest answer.

‘Jeonghan hyung said you are out of my league. That I better shoot my shot before someone steals you away from me,’ the boy whispered, clearly embarrassed. If he hadn’t looked so vulnerable, you would have teased him how easy it was to manipulate him, to influence his decisions. Like when he had apologised to you because Seungcheol had told him so even though he hadn’t been sorry.

However, Soonyoung was clearly in a fragile state of mind, so you brushed aside the memory and cupped his cheeks gently.

‘And since when is Yoon Jeonghan a qualified relationship expert?’ You asked, shaking your head in disapproval. ‘Of course, you can kiss me,’ you gave him permission and a bit of extra push as well when he didn’t act on desires right away.

Soonyoung’s lips were fluffy albeit a little chapped. The press against your mouth light as a feather until he finally overcame his shock and reciprocated the kiss.

A part of you - a tiny voice suspiciously akin to Hoyeon’s - wanted to ask him about labels as soon as you came up for air, but then he leaned in again and your thoughts became scrambled like a poorly made omelett. The night didn’t stay on the path you would have preferred it to take, but ended up being just as delicious.

When you arrived at your place half an hour later, you weren’t just sleeping in your bed and unlike you, he didn’t leave in the morning. Instead, he took you on a breakfast date.

➼ next reason