Catie ✨️

And yet, he still came to this place, filled with people who only greeted him and laughed beside him because of his fame, people who grabbed his arm to drag him from one side to another, telling him about a nephew who was a huge fan, or about a friend of a friend who had seen him at a concert years ago.

If he was being honest, he could’ve left hours ago. He could’ve grabbed his things and gone back home, laid down against his soft, comfortable sheets and slept until the next day, ignored the invitation and moved on with his life. He could’ve done that. But doing so meant ruining the only chance he had to see you again.

And he couldn’t allow that to happen a second time.

“Sorry, I need to make a quick call. I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He just pushed himself up from the chair, squeezing past the guys blocking his way so he could finally escape toward the bar’s exit. He really needed some air.

Almost fifty minutes had passed since the party started. Why weren’t you here yet? You had always been responsible, always arriving a few minutes early to everything, prepared, organized, always one of the first people there to avoid problems.

Were you really not coming?

“Leaving so early?”

Jin wasn’t the kind of person who could recognize people by their voice. Faces, yes. Expressions too. But voices? That was his weakness, and hearing the voice of someone he hadn’t seen in over ten years was, well, impossible.

Or at least that was what he thought until now, because somehow, his body reacted instantly the moment he heard your voice.

“Y/N?”

He didn’t look up right away. He didn’t think he was capable of seeing your face without dying in the process. His heart was killing him, slamming against his chest so hard he felt like he might collapse from the pain at any second, and his stomach was an even bigger mess.

So he looked at your shoes first. He recognized them immediately. They were the same ones you had talked about years ago, the pair you desperately wanted because they were the perfect combination of comfort and elegance. He could still remember all the times you insisted that a good pair of shoes could take you somewhere good, because at the end of the day, they were what carried you through the world.

Your legs were covered by lime green pants, tight around your thighs and loose below your knees, a style he had always seen you wear back in high school, except back then the fabrics had been simpler, denim and cotton, sometimes even scraps of old clothes that would’ve otherwise been thrown away. You had always been good at giving forgotten things a second life.

The last thing he noticed before reaching your face was your shirt, cream-colored, made of a shiny fabric he himself had worn hundreds of times during performances in the past and whose name he had never managed to learn. It looked so much better on you. More natural. More harmonious.

Almost as beautiful as your face.

You hadn’t changed at all. Your hair was longer now, sure, and he was pretty sure the color looked lighter too, but your face was still the same. You still had that calm gaze from back then, the same shy smile you used to greet him with every morning, the same expression you wore every time a new school year started.

You looked even better now, with your confident posture and steady eyes.

Probably nothing compared to his flushed cheeks and parted lips.

“I didn’t think you’d remember me after all these years.”

You adjusted your bag over your shoulder, stepping closer until you leaned against the wall beside him. Just like old times, when you used to stand outside convenience stores together to hide from the rain, or simply to grab a quick snack.

“What?” He frowned, almost sounding offended. The audacity you had to say something like that to his face was unbelievable. “Of course I remember you. I spent six out of seven days a week with you.”

“Yeah. Sixteen years ago.”

“That’s not that long.”

“That’s basically the age of a teenager.”

“I don’t really see the difference between a teenager and a baby, you know?”

Saying his heart tightened when he heard you laugh would’ve sounded ridiculously cliché.

Pretending it didn’t happen, though, would’ve been a lie.

He hadn’t even realized how much he missed hearing your laugh until now. He didn’t know if he could go home knowing this might be the last time he’d ever hear it.

“You really haven’t changed at all, have you?”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No.” You shook your head, lowering your gaze toward your feet. It was hard to make out your expression with your hair covering part of your face, but Jin could swear you were smiling. “It’s exactly how I imagined it, actually.”

“How I imagined it?” he repeated quietly, trying to make sense of your words through the chaos in his head. “You imagined this?”

“Us meeting again? Of course. You were… are my best friend.”

“Are? Present tense?”

He watched silently as your hand lifted to brush your hair away from your face and god, you really looked beautiful under the moonlight. Or maybe it was the streetlights. Did it even matter what was lighting up your face right now? The result would’ve been the same.

You still would’ve looked like the most beautiful woman he had ever known.

“No one could ever take that place.”

You nodded with a smile, trying to hold his gaze and failing completely. He noticed it in the way you looked away the second your eyes met his, in the way you shifted awkwardly with a broken little laugh, and in the soft pink spreading across your cheeks.

“Oh…”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“I wasn’t leaving,” he said quietly, answering the question you had asked earlier.

He knew what he was about to say could make everything awkward. He knew he was taking a huge risk. But what exactly did he have to lose? He didn’t even have your number. If things went badly, he’d just… go back to living his life the way he had before seeing you again.

“Not before seeing you again.”

“What do you—?”

“I came to this reunion because I wanted to see you again.” Not even performing on the biggest stages in the world had ever left him feeling as breathless as he did right now. “It was the only way I could contact you again. I couldn’t let it slip away.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

His heartbeat echoed in his ears, his hands were cold with sweat, and he didn’t even want to think about the horrible trembling in his legs. He was sure he was about to throw up right there, sure he was about to hear a direct rejection to… whatever it was he had just confessed, and spend the rest of his life drowning in embarrassment and regret and—

Did you just laugh?

Seriously?

God, he knew it. He knew he had sounded ridiculous. This was his fault for opening his mouth without thinking twice.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Let’s just go back inside. You haven’t even greeted anyone yet, right?”

He let out a nervous laugh, wrapping his trembling hand around the door handle. He was more than ready to drown himself in alcohol and use every acting skill he had to pretend nothing had happened out there when suddenly, a hand wrapped around his wrist, stopping him instantly.

“I came here just to see you too.”

“You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better.”

“I mean it.”

Throughout all the years you had been friends, he could swear he had never seen your eyes shine the way they did right now. He couldn’t help wondering if his looked the same.

“I wasn’t even going to come because I thought that, you know, since you’re an idol, you’d avoid places like this. Yujin texted me a few minutes ago to tell me you were here.”

“That’s why you were late…”

“I didn’t know if this would be my last chance to see you.”

He remembered hearing once that best friends thought and acted the same way. Now he understood why people said that.

“Why did you want to see me?”

The question slipped out before he could fully process it. Yes, he had thought about it the moment you explained why you came, but he hadn’t wanted to ask. He didn’t want to risk even more than he already was.

But then again, he had already taken too many risks tonight, and every single one of them had worked out.

So he was hopeful now. Certain, even, that this answer would be in his favor too.

He prayed it would be.

“For the same reason you did.” You smiled softly. “Or at least, I’d like to think so.”

Cheater.

You knew exactly what you were doing.

Neither of you fully dared to take the next step. At least not explicitly.

A heavy silence settled between you. Everything felt more intense than before: the floral scent of your perfume, the colorful lights reflecting against your clothes, the distant sounds of cars and strangers passing by becoming barely audible to Jin.

He supposed this was what it felt like when you were seconds away from saying something you had kept buried inside yourself for more than half your life.

“I love you,” he whispered as quietly as he could.

He didn’t want anyone else to hear it. He didn’t want anyone else to know about whatever this was between the two of you, because it belonged only to you. He couldn’t share it.

He didn’t want to.

“I couldn’t say it back then, but I couldn’t keep living knowing you’d never understand how I felt.”

Felt, he said.

As if there weren’t still traces of those feelings left.

As if, even now, he didn’t still dream about what his life could’ve been if the two of you had stayed in contact.

This time, when he looked at your face, there was no laughter.

No surprise either.

Just… a smile. One you tried to hide by biting the inside of your lip. The expression of someone who had waited a very long time to hear those words. To hear that they had been right all along.

“I know,” you whispered back in the same soft tone, your hand slowly moving from his arm to his neck, until finally cupping his cheek. “I love you too.”

The two of you stared at each other in silence for a few seconds. You, holding his cheeks between your hands, studying his flushed face as if it were one of the wonders of the world, and him, leaning into your touch, trying not to look at your lips for too long. Not here. Not in public. Not where anyone could see the two of you and—

To hell with it. He had waited sixteen years for this.

“I’m pretty sure we’d get into trouble if we did anything here,” he murmured softly, his hand settling against your lower back. “So… would you like to come home with me?”

“Woah, I don’t remember you being this bold, Kim.” Your laugh sounded lower this time, quieter, a tone he had never heard from you before, but definitely one he wouldn’t mind hearing again. “I didn’t drive here.”

“Perfect. Then I’ll take us.” He pulled his car keys out of his pocket, swinging them back and forth with a smug smile tugging at his lips.

He knew he probably should’ve gone back inside to say goodbye. It would’ve been the polite thing to do and all that… but he couldn’t find a single part of himself that wanted to return to that place instead of getting into the car with you and spending the night at home together.

He had already lost his chance once, and now? Now he refused to lose it a second time.