✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧

The thing about loving Jeon Wonwoo was that it was the easiest and the most complicated thing you had ever done, sometimes within the same breath.

It’s easy, because he made it easy. It’s easy because he was steady and quiet and consistent in all the ways that mattered, because his love for you wasn't loud but it was deep. It’s easy because when he looked at you—really looked at you—you never once doubted that you were seen.

But it’s also complicated because of days like today.

The stadium was enormous.

You'd been to concerts before, obviously—you'd been to his concerts before—but there was something completely different about being inside one before it became a concert. The raw, skeletal version of the night ahead. Crew members moved in every direction with the urgency of people who knew exactly what they were doing, cables snaking across the floor, eerily empty seats that fill the venue, lighting rigs being adjusted overhead, the sound system emitting occasional booming test tones that reverberated through you.

You stood a little to the side of the organized chaos, just close enough to the stage to have a clear view, but far enough back to feel like you weren't in anyone's way. You had a laminated ID around your neck—Guest, All Access—and everyone had been perfectly polite but there was still that awareness that prickled at the edges of your consciousness. 

It’s a low, quiet hum of not quite belonging.

Everyone here had a job. Everyone here had a purpose, a direction, somewhere to be. You were the only one standing still, watching, waiting.

Wonwoo's girlfriend, you imagined them thinking whenever they glanced your way. You told yourself to stop being ridiculous. You smoothed your hands down the front of your jeans and focused on the stage.

Seventeen were running through their soundcheck with efficiency that came from years of doing this together. Even from here you could see the difference in Wonwoo—the way he held himself on a stage versus how he held himself anywhere else. There was an ease to it, a quiet confidence that settled over him like second skin the moment he stepped under the lights. He wasn't performing yet but even now there was something magnetic about him that you couldn't explain.

Then, like he felt it, he looked up.

He found you immediately without searching and smiled.

It’s not his stage smile; it’s not the practiced, brilliant one that sent stadiums full of people into hysterics. This smile is his other one. It’s the small, private one that lived only at the corners of his mouth, that he gave to very few people and most often to you. 

It’s the one that said I know you're there. I'm glad you're there.

You smiled back and he held your gaze for one more second before the music started again.

You watched the rest of the soundcheck from your spot and it was easier after that. You watched him work—watched all of them work, really—and felt that familiar swelling pride that came with loving someone who was genuinely extraordinary at what they did.

Seungkwan hit a note that bounced off every wall in the venue and grinned at his own reflection in the stage monitor. Mingyu tripped over a cable, caught himself with grace, and looked around immediately to see if anyone noticed. Chan had noticed. He was already laughing.

And Wonwoo—Wonwoo stood at his position, ran his lines, hit his marks, and every few minutes without fail, his eyes would find the wings where you stood.

Every single time.

The break came about an hour in. The members scattered: some toward water bottles, some toward staff with questions, some collapsing dramatically onto equipment cases. You were checking your phone, composing a reply to a message when you felt it.

You looked up and Wonwoo was crossing the stage toward the steps, his eyes already on you.

"Hey," he said when he reached you, his hair slightly damp at the temples.

"Hey yourself," you said. "Don't you have a break?"

"This is my break." He said it like it was obvious.

Something warm unfurled in your chest. "Wonwoo, you should be resting—"

"I'm rested." He stepped close enough that he had to look down slightly to hold your gaze. His hand came to find yours. "You okay? You've been standing this whole time. Did anyone get you a chair?"

"I'm fine," you laughed softly. "I don't need a chair."

"I'll have someone get you a chair."

"Wonwoo—"

"A tall one," he decided, "so you can see the stage better."

You looked up at the quiet determination on his face and felt something pull tight and sweet in your chest. "I can see the stage perfectly fine."

"Mm." He studied your face for a moment in that way he had, like he was reading something between the lines of your expression. Whatever he found there made something in his eyes soften further. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure," you said and you mostly meant it. "Go focus."

He didn't move right away. His thumb traced a slow arc across your knuckles. "You have water? Did you eat?"

"Yes and yes. I'm not a plant, I can take care of myself for an hour."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "That’s debatable."

"Jeon Wonwoo—"

He reached up then and the teasing dropped from his expression into something gentler. His fingers found a piece of your hair that had come loose. He tucked it carefully back into place. Then his eyes dropped to your collar where a small part of your jacket had folded awkwardly at the lapel and he straightened it without comment. He just fixed it with gentle and certain fingers.

You stood very still and let him. Your heart did something entirely disproportionate to the simplicity of the gesture.

"There," he murmured more to himself than to you.

You looked up at him. He was already looking at you.

"I have to go back," he said quietly.

"I know."

He didn't go back.

His hand came up to cup the side of your face instead, tilting your chin up slightly, and then he kissed you. He kissed you like he meant it: slow and deep and thorough, his other hand finding your waist to draw you closer. It was the kind of kiss that made you forget for a moment that you were standing in the wings of a massive venue surrounded by crew members.

When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours for a moment.

"I'll find you after," he murmured.

"You'll find me after," you confirmed, a little breathless.

He straightened, held your gaze for one more beat, and then turned back toward the stage. You watched him go and it was only when he'd disappeared back into the chaos that you became aware of the crew member approximately three feet to your left who had very professionally found something extremely interesting to look at on their clipboard.

Your face went warm.

The hours between soundcheck and the actual concert had a texture all their own. There was a kind of electric waiting in the backstage corridors, a kind of energy that you could feel like a change in air pressure. The crew moved faster. Voices got sharper. The whole enormous machinery of a concert started pulling itself into final position.

You'd been settled into a better spot—Wonwoo had, true to his word, quietly arranged for someone to bring you a chair near the stage left wing with a clear sightline—and Jeonghan had found you approximately twenty minutes after all this happened and planted himself beside you like he'd been invited.

"He set up a chair for you?" Jeonghan said looking at it, then at you, with an expression of great delight.

"He mentioned it in passing," you said.

"He arranged it. I watched him arrange it." Jeonghan settled in beside you, apparently unconcerned with wherever he was supposed to be. "Did he also check whether you'd eaten and hydrated?"

You said nothing but you smiled.

Jeonghan looked extremely pleased with himself. "Right. I've known that guy for over a decade and I've never once seen him arrange seating for anyone." He paused thoughtfully. "Or check if I'm hydrated."

"You're a grown adult, you can check yourself."

"That's not the point."

Despite yourself, you laughed. This was the thing about Jeonghan. He had a particular gift for making you feel at ease without making a show of it. He just slotted himself into your space and made it warmer.

Chan appeared on your other side twenty minutes later because apparently the pre-show ritual now included adopting you. He was in his stage outfit, already restless with pre-concert energy, bouncing slightly on his heels.

"You nervous?" you asked him.

"I'm never nervous," he said immediately, then, "I'm always nervous. How does Wonwoo look so calm? He always looks so calm. I don't understand it. I've been standing next to him for years and I still don't understand it."

"He's not calm," you said, thinking of the way Wonwoo's jaw had set slightly during the final run-through, the barely perceptible tension in his shoulders that you'd learned to read. "He just keeps it very quiet."

Both Chan and Jeonghan looked at you with varying degrees of fond consideration.

"You really know him," Chan said like this was something he'd just confirmed rather than already known.

It hit you somewhere soft. "I try to," you said.

It was somewhere in that pre-show hour, while the energy backstage continued to build and the venue began to fill with the distant roar of thousands of people finding their seats, that the feeling crept back in.

It’s not loud. It never came loudly. It was more like a slow tide. It’s gradual enough that you didn't notice until you were already ankle-deep in it.

You watched a group of staff move past, talking rapidly in the shorthand of people who'd worked together for years. You watched the way everyone here operated as part of a system, a world that had existed long before you entered it and would continue long after tonight. It’s Wonwoo's world. The one he lived in for years and had shaped him into who he is now.

And then, from further down the corridor, you heard the members getting louder and above the noise you heard a fan chant drifting in from the venue—thousands of voices in perfect unison calling their names—

You thought about the ending ment. You didn't know why your mind went there specifically. You hadn't even heard tonight's yet. But you'd heard enough of them across videos and past concerts to know what they sounded like. Wonwoo’s voice telling a stadium full of people that they were the most important thing.

Carats will always be the number one in my heart forever.

You pressed your lips together and told yourself, firmly, to stop it.

Because you were not foolish enough—or at least you were trying very hard not to be foolish enough—to be genuinely threatened by this. You understood, intellectually, that there was a distinction between what Wonwoo felt for the people who had loved him across his entire career and what he felt for you. You understood that they were different categories, different kinds of love that are not comparable or competing.

You understood this. Rationally.

And yet.

There was something different about being the person who loves him privately, quietly, in a world that couldn't know. It’s something that made the public enormousness of his other life feel, sometimes, like standing outside a lit window in the dark. You could feel the warmth. You just weren't quite inside it.

And sometimes on days like this, surrounded by evidence of how extraordinary he was, how beloved, how necessary to so many people—sometimes a small, treacherous part of you wondered if you were enough. If what you offered in your ordinary, private, unspectacular way, could possibly measure up to all of this.

He chose you, you told yourself with some firmness. He chose you and keeps choosing you.

The rational part of your brain acknowledged this. The irrational part remained unconvinced.

A hand appeared in front of your face holding a bottle of water.

You looked up. Minghao was watching you with an expression that was softer than his usual brand of performative nonchalance. He nodded toward the water and you took it automatically.

"He talks about you constantly," Minghao said without preamble. His voice was quiet under the backstage noise. "I don't mean in a sentimental way—though he does that too but you'll never get him to admit it." He paused. "I mean in the way where you've just become part of how he thinks. It’s like you're a given… a variable he calculates around." He tilted his head. "I don't think he even notices he does it anymore."

You looked at Minghao.

"I'm just saying," Minghao continued in his easy and unbothered voice, "whatever you're thinking right now—" He tapped his temple meaningfully. "—you should probably think about something else instead."

You didn't ask him how he knew. You just breathed in through your nose and nodded and looked back at the stage being set for the night.

"Thank you," you said quietly.

"Obviously." He twisted the cap back on his own water bottle. "Also, he'd be devastated if he knew you were sitting here feeling like that and then I'd have to deal with a devastated Wonwoo so really I'm being entirely self-serving."

You laughed and the tightness in your chest eased a fraction.

Nothing could have fully prepared you for watching Wonwoo from the wings.

You'd seen footage. You'd been in the audience before. But this—standing close enough to feel the bass in your ribs, close enough to see the shift in his expression as the music swelled and the lights blazed—this was really different.

The moment they walked onto that stage, the sound from the crowd hit you like a physical blow, a wave of human love so enormous it almost staggered you. Thousands of people, all of them carrying pieces of these thirteen men's work inside their own lives.

And Wonwoo—

Wonwoo walked out and became something else.

He’s not a different person, of course. It’s still him, still the man who had kissed you in the wings three hours ago and arranged a chair for you. But expanded somehow. It’s like the stage gave him permission to take up more space than he usually allowed himself. His shoulders were back, his movements were certain, his expression carried intensity that made it impossible to look away.

You gripped the edge of the barrier in front of you and watched.

He was extraordinary. You had always known this—but knowing it in the abstract and standing fifteen feet away watching it happen in real time were two entirely different things. The way he moved with the music. The way his voice, when it came, hit something in your chest that had nothing to do with volume and everything to do with resonance and with the frequency of a sound you loved.

The crowd sang every word back at him. Thousands of voices completed his sentences, filled in the spaces he left, loving him in that bright way that a fandom loves its artists.

And there it was again.

You felt it move through you even as you watched—even as your whole chest was full of pride and awe and the aching tenderness of loving someone who was worth loving—the shadow of that earlier feeling returned, slipping in through the cracks. Because Wonwoo was extraordinary. He was magnificent. And he belonged, in some real and significant way, to all of these people who were screaming his name.

What do you offer that this doesn't? the small traitorous voice whispered. What could you possibly be to him that all of this isn't?

You watched him move across the stage, watched him turn toward the wings for just a moment, and even though the lighting was such that he almost certainly couldn't see you clearly—his eyes found you.

He found you like a compass finding north.

He held his gaze for half a second, barely long enough to be visible, and then he was turning back to the crowd with that larger stage smile.

But the half second had been enough.

He finds you first, you told yourself. Even here. Even in all of this. He finds you first.

You breathed in slowly.

He chose you. He keeps choosing you. He crosses stages during breaks to make sure you've eaten. He tucks pieces of your hair back into place. He kisses you like he means it.

He means it.

You exhaled and let yourself enjoy the rest of the concert.

The ending ment came the way they always did—the music fading, the lights softening to something warmer, the members gathering in a loose formation at the center of the stage. The crowd quieted from a roar to a reverent hush that was honestly even louder in its own way.

Wonwoo spoke with the same careful deliberation: his voice low in the mic, words chosen with the gravity of someone who doesn't speak carelessly. He talked about gratitude, about what this meant, about the people in front of him.

Carats will always be number one in my heart. Forever.

You heard it. Felt it land somewhere tender. Watched the crowd respond like a field of flowers turning toward the sun—thousands of people feeling seen and claimed and loved by these words.

You bit the inside of your cheek.

You reasoned with yourself. You knew the difference. You knew what existed between you and Wonwoo in the private quiet of ordinary life and you knew what existed between him and this stadium full of people and they were not the same thing. They were not competing for the same territory.

You knew this.

But it didn't entirely stop the small ache.

But you breathed through it and you watched him and when his eyes found the wings one more time in those final moments, you let yourself be found.

The last note fell and the lights changed and then the concert was over.

The members came offstage in a wave of noise and sweat and adrenaline. Seungkwan was already talking at full volume about something. Chan was still vibrating with energy. Joshua and Mingyu were shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing about something you didn't catch.

And Wonwoo came off the stage and scanned the wings immediately—not the crew, not the staff, not his members. The wings.

He crossed the space between you and the look on his face was just relief. Quiet, private, enormous relief.

"Hey," you managed.

"Hey," he said and then his arms came around you and he was warm and solid and real and he held you like you were something he'd been wanting to get back to all night.

You pressed your face into his shoulder and let him.

The van was loud.

Specifically, the section of the van containing Jeonghan and Chan was loud, which was unfortunately the section directly behind you and Wonwoo.

"I'm just saying," Chan was saying with the energy of someone making a very important point, "that you started it."

"I did not start anything," Jeonghan replied with the serenity of someone who absolutely started it and had no intention of acknowledging this.

"You absolutely—hyung, you told me to—"

"I suggested. Suggesting does not mean ‘starting.’"

"That is not—that's not a real distinction!"

"It's a very real distinction. Would you like me to explain the distinction?"

"I would like you to be normal for five minutes—"

"Chan-ah, that's just not something I can offer you."

You pressed your lips together to contain a smile. Beside you, Wonwoo's head was tipped back against the headrest, his eyes closed, a faint crease between his brows that meant he was somewhere between awake and asleep. He'd changed out of his stage clothes, washed his face, let the production coordinators do their post-show rundown with him but the exhaustion had settled visibly now that the adrenaline had worn off. He looked tired and was now running on the dregs.

The van moved through the city. You were looking at your phone, not really reading anything when you felt it.

His hand finds yours in the dark.

He didn't look at you. His eyes were still closed, his head still resting back. He didn't say anything. He just reached across the space between you and found your hand and held it.

His fingers threaded through yours. His thumb settled against your knuckle. That was all.

You looked at his profile for a long moment—the line of his jaw, the shadows under his eyes, the stillness of him even in sleep's wanderland—and felt something in your chest settle with a completeness that made the earlier doubts seem very far away.

He finds you first, you thought again. 

Behind you, the Jeonghan and Chan situation had escalated into what sounded like a disagreement about proper van etiquette that neither of them would be conceding anytime soon.

You squeezed Wonwoo's hand gently. His fingers tightened around yours without him waking. You looked back out the window and let the city lights carry you home.

The hotel bathroom was still humid from Wonwoo's shower. You leaned against the doorframe, watching him towel-dry his hair. His hair stuck up in soft, damp spikes, and without his glasses, there was something even more gentle about the way he looked at his own reflection.

Then he caught your eye in the mirror and gave you that smile—the one that was just for you, small and warm and utterly sexy despite how exhausted he must be.

"Wonwoo-yah," you called softly at the exact same moment.

He turned slightly, towel still in his hands, dark eyes curious.

"Do you love me?"

The question came out smaller than you'd intended.

Wonwoo went completely still. The towel lowered slowly from his hair. "Of course I do," he said and there wasn't even a heartbeat of hesitation in his voice.

But you bit your lip and something uncertain flickered across your face.

That was all it took. Wonwoo crossed the small bathroom in three strides. He stopped right in front of you, close enough that you had to tilt your head back to meet his eyes, close enough that you could smell his shampoo and the faint scent of his skin.

Your hands moved on instinct—reaching up with his glasses that you'd been holding, unfolding the arms with careful fingers. Wonwoo immediately dipped his head lower, bending at the knees just enough to make it easier for you. It was such an automatic thing between you now, this little choreography you'd developed. You slid his glasses gently onto his face, adjusting them at the bridge of his nose, and his eyes came into sharper focus behind the lenses.

"What is this about?" he asked quietly.

Your fingers lingered on the frames for a moment before dropping to your sides. You felt silly now but the words tumbled out anyway. "It's just... your ending ment tonight. You said Carats will always be number one in your heart forever and I know it's ridiculous but I—" You huffed a small, embarrassed laugh. "I got jealous."

Wonwoo's expression transformed. His eyes went impossibly soft and something like wonder and tenderness washed over his features. He looked at you like you'd just said something precious.

"YN," he whispered and his hands came up to cradle your face with a gentleness that made your chest ache. His thumbs brushed along your cheekbones. "You are my heart."

And then he leaned down and kissed you; so soft it was barely there, just a whisper of his lips against yours. When he pulled back, it was only enough to speak.

"They are important to me," he murmured against your mouth and kissed you again. He lingered a little longer this time. His lips were warm and careful. "But you..."

Another kiss, this one to the corner of your mouth.

"You are the person I come home to."

A kiss to your cheek, feather-light.

"The person I want to share everything with."

He pressed his lips to your forehead and you felt him breathe you in.

"When I'm on that stage—" Another gentle kiss to your temple. "—and I say those things—" A kiss to your other temple. "—it's because I'm grateful."

His nose brushed against yours as he tilted his head and he kissed you properly again, slow and sweet. Your hands had found their way to his waist, fingers curling into the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

"But when I come back here," Wonwoo whispered, his breath warm against your lips, "when the lights go down and the crowds go home..."

He kissed you again and this time his hands slid from your face to wrap around you, pulling you closer.

"You are what I think about."

Kiss.

"You are who I miss."

Kiss.

"You are the one I love in a way that's just..." He paused, seeming to search for words, and settled for kissing you again instead—deeper this time. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours. "Completely different."

"Wonwoo," you breathed and you didn't even know what else to say.

His hand came up to cradle the back of your head, his fingers threading gently through your hair. "What we have—what you are to me—it's not something I could ever say on stage," he murmured. "It's too big. Too private. Too... mine."

He kissed your closed eyelids, one and then the other.

"They have my gratitude and my dedication," he whispered against your skin. Another soft kiss to your cheek. "But you—"

Wonwoo pulled back just enough to look at you. His eyes searched for yours with such open affection that you almost couldn't breathe.

"You have all of me."

The kiss that followed was different from the others.

It started the same way: slow and tender. But there was something underneath it now, something that had been building all day without either of you naming it. Soundcheck. The dark of the van. The words he'd just pressed into your skin like promises. You have all of me.

You felt it shift.

His hands moved from your face to your waist, pulling you closer than before and the quality of the kiss deepened—still gentle but with a warmth that spread through your whole chest and downward. You made a soft sound against his lips without meaning to and something in him responded to it, his arms tightening, his breathing changing.

He pulled back just enough to look at you.

His eyes behind those glasses were very dark and very warm, and the look in them was so tender.

"Hey," he said quietly.

"Hey," you whispered back.

He reached up and took his glasses off again, setting them on the counter beside him and then he looked at you again, softer without them, the way he always was. His thumb traced your cheek once.

"We don't have to," he murmured. "You know that."

"I know," you said. And then softer: "I want to."

He held your gaze for a moment with that careful, searching quality. He was making sure before he nodded, barely perceptibly, and kissed you again.

He walked you backward out of the bathroom and into the low-lit warmth of the room. His hands were everywhere in the quietest way—at your waist, at your face, at the back of your neck—attentive in the way he was attentive to everything, noticing things, responding to things, adjusting. He was always adjusting, always paying attention.

When you sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him, something about the moment made your chest feel very full. He was looking at you like he had in the wings after the show—that same quiet relief, that same recognition—and you understood, in a way that bypassed the rational and settled straight into your bones, that this was what he came home to. Not a stage. Not a crowd. This. You.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, sitting beside you, his hand finding yours.

"That I'm sorry for doubting," you said honestly.

He shook his head slowly. "Don't be sorry." His fingers tightened around yours. "I understand it. I know what my life looks like from the outside."

"It's not really about the outside."

"Probably not entirely." He turned toward you, expression open. "It's about whether I'm really here. Whether I actually—" He paused, trying to find the word. "Whether I'm really yours."

The accuracy of it hit you. Your eyes stung slightly and you blinked it away.

"Are you?" you asked, barely audible.

"Yes," he said, without hesitation. "Completely."

He kissed you again and this time it carried the full weight of everything: all the things he'd whispered in the bathroom, all the small gestures of the day, all the ways he reached for you in the dark without looking because he already knew exactly where you were. The kiss was slow and deep and certain and he kissed you like he was trying to leave no room for doubt.

You let it fill all the places the doubt had lived.

His hands were careful with you. Wonwoo had always been this way. Always deliberate, always present, always paying the kind of attention that made you feel like the most significant thing in whatever room you were in.

He laid you back against the pillows and looked at you for a moment before following and the look on his face was so unguarded that you had to reach up and pull him down to you because you couldn't bear the distance.

"I've got you," he murmured against your hair.

"I know," you whispered. "I know. I've got you too."

He pressed his lips to your temple. Your cheek. The corner of your jaw.

"You have all of me," he said again against your skin. "You've had all of me for a long time."

And in the low warm dark of that hotel room, with the city humming somewhere below and the rest of the world at a comfortable distance, you believed him completely.

"You're wearing my shirt," he said, his eyes surveying your body.

"You said you liked it better on me."

"I do." He reached out and touched the hem of it, his fingers brushing your thigh. "I also want to take it off you."

"Then do it."

Wonwoo’s eyes met yours. "Not yet."

What followed was the most deliberate undressing of your life.

Wonwoo didn't rush. He never rushed but this was different—this was him taking his time with intention. He started with the shirt but not by pulling it off. Instead he leaned down and pressed his mouth to the bare skin just above the collar, a slow, warm kiss that made your breath catch. Then another, slightly lower. Then another, and another, each kiss a punctuation mark, each one a word in the language he'd been speaking all night.

I am here. I am yours. I am not going anywhere.

"You're so warm," he murmured against your collarbone. His fingers found the hem of the shirt and pushed it up slightly, exposing a strip of your stomach. He kissed there too and you felt the muscles beneath his lips jump.

"Wonwoo—"

"Shh." His breath was warm against your skin. "Let me."

He pushed the shirt higher and you lifted your arms so he could pull it off entirely. The cool air of the hotel room met your bare skin but before you could react to it, his hand was already there—his palm warm and broad, spreading across your ribs, his thumb tracing the underside of your breast with maddening slowness.

"How long has it been," he said, almost to himself, "since I've taken my time with you?"

You tried to think. The words came out uneven. "We've been—busy—"

"Way too long." He kissed the hollow of your throat. "Too busy. I've been too busy." His mouth moved lower and his hand moved higher and when his thumb finally brushed across your nipple, you made a sound that was half gasp, half his name. "I want to make up for it."

"You don't have to make up for anyth—oh."

The interruption came because his mouth had found the spot just below your ear that he knew about. He smiled against your skin—you felt it—and his hand continued its slow exploration.

"You were saying?" Wonwoo asked with a soft smirk.

Your brain has officially turned into mush. "I forgot."

"Hm." He lifted his head to look at you and his expression was so tender and so focused that it made your chest ache. "I want you to stop thinking. All those thoughts from today—all those doubts. I want them gone." He kissed you, slow and deep. "Can you do that?"

"Yes," you breathed. "Yes.

Wonwoo spent an eternity on you.

There was no other word for it. He mapped your body with his mouth and his hands and his quiet, undivided attention. When he kissed down your stomach, he paused to press his lips to the curve of your hip with reverence. When his fingers hooked into the waistband of your underwear, he looked up at you first—checking, always checking—and only continued when you nodded.

"Tell me if you want me to stop," he said.

"I won't want you to stop."

"Humor me."

"Wonwoo." You reached down and touched his face. "I'll tell you."

He held your gaze for a beat and then he pulled the fabric down and away and then he settled between your thighs like he was coming home.

The first touch of his mouth made your back arch.

Wonwoo was so gentle. So impossibly, devastatingly gentle. His tongue moved against you in slow strokes, learning you all over again even though he already knew your body better than anyone ever had. He was patient but this was patience deployed with intent, with the goal of dragging you toward the edge and then pulling you back, over and over, until you were trembling.

"You taste so good," he murmured against your skin and the vibration of his voice made you gasp. His hands were holding your thighs open, his thumbs tracing circles on the sensitive skin there and when he pressed his tongue flat against you and then drew it up slowly, you reached down and gripped his hair.

He made a sound. Low and pleased. Encouraged.

"Wonwoo—please—"

"Please what baby?" He lifted his head just enough to look at you and the sight of him—his mouth wet, his eyes dark, his hair disheveled from your fingers—made something clench tight in your stomach.

"Please don't stop."

"I wasn't planning to." He pressed a kiss to your inner thigh. "But I want you to wait. Can you wait for me?"

"I've been waiting—"

"I know." Another kiss, higher this time. "Just a little longer. I want to feel you fall apart on my tongue." His mouth returned to you and this time his fingers joined it—one sliding inside you with the same careful slowness he brought to everything, and then two, curling exactly the way you liked. "Like that?"

You couldn't form words. You nodded, frantic, your grip on his hair tightening.

"Good," he breathed. "Good. Let me take care of you."

Wonwoo adjusted when your breathing changed, responded when your hips lifted, learned in real time what made you gasp and what made you moan and what made your thighs tremble around his head. When he added a third finger, his mouth never stopped moving and when your sounds became higher and more breathless, he stayed exactly where he was, pushing you steadily toward the edge.

"Close," you managed. "Wonwoo, I'm—"

He stopped.

His mouth lifted. His fingers stilled. He looked up at you with those dark eyes and the expression on his face was almost apologetic.

"Not yet," he said softly.

"Wonwoo, what the—"

"I know." He pressed a kiss to your hip. "I know, baby. But I want you to come around me. Not yet."

You made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a laugh. "You're torturing me."

"On the contrary, I'm loving you." He said it so sincerely, with so much quiet conviction, that the protest died in your throat. 

He crawled up your body, kissing his way back to your mouth, and when he settled against you, you could feel how hard he was through the fabric of his sweatpants.

"You've been holding back this whole time," you realized.

"Yes."

"Why?"

He looked down at you, his forehead nearly touching yours. "Because I wanted to focus on you. I wanted to show you—" He paused, searching for words. "—that you're worth taking time over. That you're not something I rush through. That you're the one person I want to pay attention to the most."

Your eyes stung. You blinked it away. "I know that. I've always known that."

"I know you do." He kissed the corner of your eye where the dampness had gathered. "But I still wanted to show you."

He didn't move from where he'd settled above you.

His forehead still nearly touched yours, his breath still warm against your lips, and the weight of him pressed you into the bed in a way that felt less like containment and more like being held together.

"How many times?" you whispered.

His eyes searched yours. "How many times what?"

"How many times were you going to stop before you let me finish?"

Something flickered in his expression. It’s not guilt but something closer to recognition. "I hadn't decided."

You groan but also chuckle. "Wonwoo."

"I was reading you." His thumb traced the curve of your jaw. "Watching your breathing. Listening to the sounds you made." A pause. "You were close twice. Did you know that?"

You hadn't. The realization made something flutter low in your stomach. "You can tell?"

"I can tell." He said it simply. "I know your body better than I know my own at this point. I know what your breathing does seconds before you come. I know that little sound you make right before—the one you don't even realize you're making. I know when you're holding back and when you're letting go and when you're somewhere in between." His thumb moved down to your lower lip, tracing it with the same attention. "So yes. I can tell."

You stared up at him.

"Why do you look surprised?" he asked quietly.

"Because I didn't know you paid that much attention."

"YN." He said your name like it was the beginning of a sentence he'd been writing for years. "Paying attention to you is the most natural thing I do."

He kissed you then—slow and thorough. When he pulled back, there was something new in his expression. Something resolved.

"Three times," he said.

"What?"

"You asked how many times I was going to stop. I've decided." He shifted his weight, settling more deliberately between your thighs. "Three times. I stopped you twice already. One more."

Your breath caught. "Wonwoo—"

"Unless you want me to stop entirely." His voice was very gentle. "If this is too much—if you need to come now—tell me. I'll take care of you. I meant what I said earlier. I want to show you that you're worth taking time over but I don't want to push you past what feels good." He held your gaze. "Is this still good?"

Your throat was tight. "Yes."

"Are you sure, baby?"

"I'm sure." You reached up and touched his face. "I trust you."

Right then and there, Wonwoo’s expression shifted. It softened and sharpened at once and he turned his head just enough to press a kiss to your palm.

"Okay," he murmured against your skin. "Then let me show you just how much I love you."

Wonwoo didn't go back down immediately.

Instead he shifted to lie beside you, pulling you onto your side to face him and the change in position made everything feel more intimate somehow. Face to face. Eye to eye. Nothing between you but the few inches of hotel sheets and the weight of what he was about to do.

"I want to watch you this time," he said and his hand slid down your stomach with deliberate slowness. "I want to see your face when you get close. I want to see you try to hold back for me."

You shivered. "You're going to make me hold back?"

"I'm going to ask you to try." His fingers found the crease of your thigh and traced along it, maddeningly light. "And if you can't—if it's too much—then you don't. That's the rule. You try, but you don't suffer. Okay?"

"Okay."

"That’s my girl." He kissed your forehead and then his hand moved where you needed it. "Now tell me what you feel."

His fingers parted you with the same care he'd used for everything else tonight. Slow. Intentional. Learning you all over again even though he already had the map memorized. You were still sensitive from earlier but he touched you like that sensitivity was something to be honored rather than avoided.

"You're so warm," he murmured. "So soft here. I forget sometimes exactly how you feel. And then I touch you again and it all comes back." His middle finger circled where you were most sensitive, not quite touching, just skating around the edge of where you wanted him. "Tell me."

"You're teasing me."

"I'm asking you a question." That small, private smile again. "Tell me what you feel."

"Frustrated."

Wonwoo laughed, low and warm, and the sound of it vibrated through you. "Besides that."

"Wanted." The word came out before you could stop it. "You make me feel wanted."

"Hm." He pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth. "That's the point." His finger finally, finally touched you where you needed it—a single stroke, feather-light, that made your hips jerk. "Because I do want you. Every part of you. Every sound you make. Every way you respond to me." Another stroke, slightly firmer. "I wanted you through the entire concert tonight. Did you know that? I was up there doing my job and half my brain was down in the wings with you, wondering if you were watching, wondering if you were comfortable."

His finger circled again and this time he let it dip lower, let it gather the evidence of your arousal before sliding back up. "I could tell from the stage. Even with the lights in my eyes, I could see you standing there and I knew something was bothering you."

"How—"

"Because I know you." He said it simply. "The same way I know that sound you're about to make."

His finger pressed down more firmly and you made exactly the sound he'd predicted—a small, surprised gasp that turned into something needier.

"There it is," he breathed. "That one. I love that one."

He worked you slowly but this time it was different. This time you were facing him and he was watching your face with an intensity that made you feel completely seen. Every flutter of your eyelids. Every catch of your breath. Every time your lips parted and your hips shifted and your hands gripped the sheets or his arm or whatever solid thing they could find.

"You're getting close," he said after a while. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Already?" He sounded almost impressed. "I've barely touched you."

"You've been touching me for—" Your voice broke as his rhythm changed slightly. "—for a while."

"Not long enough." But he didn't slow down. His fingers continued their deliberate work, sliding through your wetness, circling and pressing and retreating in a rhythm that was starting to make your thoughts blur. "Can you hold it? Just a little longer? I want—" He paused and something shifted in his expression. "I want to see if I can take you all the way there and back again. Will you let me?"

You were trembling. The pleasure was building in that familiar way—the tightening, the heat, the sensation of your body preparing toward release. You could feel it approaching and you could feel your muscles starting to tense in preparation.

"I'll try," you managed.

"That's all I ask." He kissed your forehead. "Tell me when you're close. Tell me before—"

"Now," you gasped. "Wonwoo, now, I'm right—"

He stopped.

His hand stilled completely, fingers resting motionless against you, and the loss of sensation was so abrupt that you made a sound somewhere between a groan and a sob. Your hips bucked against his hand, seeking friction, and he let you—let you press against his fingers without moving them, let you chase the edge that had been right there a moment ago and was now retreating.

"Shh," he murmured and his free hand came up to cup your face. "Breathe. I've got you. Just breathe."

You were breathing—or trying to. Your chest was heaving and your skin felt too tight and the space between your legs was throbbing with a need that had been denied three times now. Three times he'd taken you to the very edge. Three times he'd pulled you back.

"That was three," you said, your voice rough.

"I know." He pressed a kiss to your temple. "You did so well. You did so beautifully for me."

"Why do you sound like it's over?"

"Because this part is." His hand finally moved again to cup you gently, holding you in his palm like you were something precious. "The edging part. I told you. Three times."

"And now?"

Wonwoo shifted, rolling onto his back and pulling you with him in one smooth motion. Suddenly you were on top of him, your thighs caging his hips, your hands braced on his chest, looking down at his face. He gazed up at you with an expression of such open tenderness.

"Now," he said, "you're going to come. And I'm going to feel every second of it."

His hands settled on your hips.

"Ride me, baby," he said quietly. "Take what you need. I want to feel you fall apart."

You positioned yourself above him with trembling thighs.

Wonwoo was already hard—had been hard for what felt like hours. You reached down and guided him to your entrance and the first brush of him against your over-sensitized flesh made you both inhale sharply.

"Slowly, babe," he said but it came out strained. "Take it slowly. You've been close so many times. I don't want it to be over before you're ready."

"I've been ready for an hour." But you followed his instruction anyway, sinking down onto him by inches, feeling every ridge and vein and breath of him filling you. Your body welcomed him, opened for him, and by the time he was fully seated, you were both trembling.

"God," he breathed. His eyes went very dark. "You feel—I can feel how close you are. You're already—"

"I know." You didn't move yet, just stayed there, feeling the fullness of him inside you. "You did that."

"I did." His hands tightened on your hips. "I wanted to. I wanted you desperate for it. I wanted you so close that the first time I let you have me, you'd—" He broke off, his jaw tightening. "Move. Please, baby. I can't—I need you to move."

You did.

The first roll of your hips made you both groan. You were so sensitive—three denied orgasms had left you on a hair trigger and every movement sent sparks cascading down your spine. You set a rhythm that was slow but deep, grinding down onto him in a way that made the base of him press against where you needed it most.

"That's it," Wonwoo managed. His head fell back, his throat exposed, and you watched the muscles in his neck work as he swallowed. "Just like that. Take what you need. I'm—I'm not going to last long."

"Good." You leaned forward, bracing your hands on his chest, changing the angle. "I don't want you to last long. I want you to let go."

"I've been letting go." His voice was rough and fraying at the edges. "I've been letting go all night. You have no idea—" He broke off as you rolled your hips again. "—no idea how hard it's been to hold back with you. To stop when all I wanted was to keep going. To watch you get close and not let myself follow."

"Then don't hold back now." You picked up the pace slightly and his hands flew to your hips just to hold on. "I want to hear you. I want to feel you. I want you to come with me."

"Sweetheart—"

"I'm close." You were. The pleasure was building again, that familiar tightening, and this time no one was going to stop it. "Wonwoo, I'm—"

"Look at me." His voice was suddenly urgent. "Look at me. I want to see your face when it happens."

You opened your eyes—you hadn't realized you'd closed them—and met his gaze.

What you saw there undid you.

Wonwoo was looking at you like you were the only thing in the universe. His eyes were dark and wet and so full of love that it felt like its own kind of touch. His mouth was slightly open, his breathing ragged, his hands gripping your hips with a desperation he'd been holding back all night. He was completely unguarded. Completely present. 

Completely yours.

"Come for me," he breathed. "I've got you, YN. Let go."

The permission hit you like a wave.

The pleasure crested and broke. It rushed through you in a flood of sensation that made your back arch and your rhythm stutter and his name tear from your throat. You felt yourself clench around him, felt the way your body gripped him and released in waves and through it all his eyes never left your face.

He watched you come apart like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"God," he groaned and then his own control shattered. His hips bucked up into you, once, twice, and then he was coming too—a broken sound, your name tangled up in his breathing, his fingers gripping your hips hard enough to leave marks. You felt him pulse inside you, felt the warmth of his release, and the sensation triggered another aftershock that made you clench around him again.

For a long moment, neither of you moved.

You stayed there on top of him, both of you trembling. His hands were still on your hips. Your hands were still on his chest. His breathing was harsh and uneven and yours wasn't much better.

Then he laughed.

It was a small sound, breathless and disbelieving, and he let his head fall back against the pillow with a soft thump.

"Three times," he said. "I edged you three times and you still—" He shook his head slightly. "You're incredible. You know that?"

"You're the one who held back through all of that." You were still catching your breath. "I just lay there."

"You didn't just lie there." He reached up and touched your face, his thumb tracing your cheekbone with that same care. "You trusted me. You let me take you to the edge three times and pull you back and you didn't fight it and you didn't get frustrated and you let me show you what I wanted to show you." His eyes were very soft. "Do you understand what that means to me? That you trust me like that?"

"Of course I trust you."

"I know." He pulled you down against his chest and you went willingly. You settle against him with your head in the hollow of his shoulder. "I know you do. But it still—" He paused. "It still hits me sometimes that you let me love you like this."

You tilted your head to look up at him. "Like what?"

"Completely." He said it simply. "Without holding back. Without making me feel like I'm too much or not enough or any of the things I worry about being." His hand traced slow circles on your back. "You just let me love you and you love me back the same way."

"That's because you're easy to love."

"I'm not." He pressed a kiss to your hair. "I know I'm not. I'm quiet and I'm in my head too much and I have a job that takes me away for months at a time and makes you stand in the wings feeling like you don't belong. I know all of that. And you love me anyway."

"Wonwoo—"

"Let me finish." His arm tightened around you. "I edged you three times tonight because I wanted to show you something. I wanted to show you that I pay attention. That I know your body. That I know exactly how much you can take and exactly when to stop and exactly what you need to get there." He paused. "I wanted to show you that you're the person I want to spend time with. The person I want to focus on." Another pause, longer this time. "Did it work?"

You lifted your head to look at him. "Did what work?"

"Did I convince you? That you're the most important person to me? That the ending ment are just words on a stage and this—" He touched your face again. "—you, here, in my arms—is the one thing that actually matters to me?"

Your eyes stung. You didn't try to blink it away this time. "Yeah," you whispered. "You convinced me."

"Good." He kissed your forehead, soft and lingering. "Because I meant every word. I have never loved anyone the way I love you. I didn't know I could love someone the way I love you. You're it for me." He held your gaze. "You're it."

You kissed him then because you didn't have words, because sometimes the only adequate response to being loved like that was to love back in the same language. He kissed you back with the same tenderness, the same certainty.

When you pulled apart, both of you were smiling.

"We should probably clean up," you whisper against his lips.

"Probably."

Neither of you moved.

"In a minute," he amended.

"In a minute," you agreed.

The aftercare was slow like everything else tonight. Wonwoo insisted on taking care of you—a warm washcloth, a fresh t-shirt from his bag, a glass of water that he watched you drink before he let himself do anything else.

"You're fussing," you said as he adjusted the blanket around your shoulders.

"I'm taking care of you."

"Same thing, really."

"It's not the same thing." He climbed into bed beside you and immediately reached for you, pulling you against his chest with the ease of long practice. "Fussing implies it's unnecessary. This is very necessary."

"For who?"

"For me." He said it without embarrassment. "It's necessary for me. I need to take care of you. It's how I—" He paused a beat. "It's how I settle after a day like today and after being on stage and giving everything to everyone else. I need to come back here and take care of you. It reminds me who I actually am."

You were quiet for a moment. Then: "Who are you actually?"

He considered the question. "Yours," he said finally. "Before anything else. Before the stage and the music and the fans. I'm yours." He pressed a kiss to your hair. "That's who I actually am."

You closed your eyes and let that settle into you—the words, the meaning, the weight of his arm around your shoulders and the steady beat of his heart beneath your ear.

Later when the city outside had gone quiet and the only sound was the soft hum of the hotel heating system, you spoke one last time.

"Wonwoo?"

"Mm?"

"The three times thing."

"What about it?"

"Next time, can we try four?"

His hand stilled on your back. Then he laughed—a real laugh, surprised and delighted, the sound of it filling the quiet room. "You want me to edge you four times?"

"I'm just asking."

"You're just asking." He shifted to look at you and even in the dark, you could see that small, private smile. "What happened to 'you're torturing me'?"

"That was before I knew what the payoff felt like."

He kissed you, still smiling. "Four times, huh?" he murmured against your lips. "I'll see what I can do."

"Okay."

"Still jealous?" he asked after a long comfortable quiet and you could hear the smile in his voice.

You laughed, muffled against his chest. "Shut up."

His arm tightened around you, delighted to have made you laugh. "Still mine?"

You tilted your head to look up at him. He was looking down at you, his hair thoroughly disheveled, his eyes warm and dark and certain.

"Still yours," you said.

"Just making sure." He kissed your forehead. "Because that was—" He paused, searching for a word. "—the best I've ever had."

"Wonwoo."

"I'm serious."

"You say that every time."

He shifted to look at you and there was something very earnest in his expression. "I do but I mean it every time. It keeps getting better because you keep being you." He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. "I love you. You know that, right?"

You pressed closer to him. "I love you too."

"Wonwoo," you said softly, reaching out to touch his wrist as he adjusted his glasses and opened to their bookmarked page. "You don't have to read tonight. You must be exhausted—you need to rest."

He looked down at you and that gentle smile played at his lips—the one that made the corners of his eyes crinkle softly behind his frames. "I'm fine," he said, his voice that low, soothing rumble. "I want to."

"But—"

"YN." He shifted, moving the pillows so he could lean back comfortably against the headboard, and then he opened his arm in invitation. "Come here."

You went without further protest, curling into his side. Your head found its home on his chest, right over his heart where you could hear the steady, reassuring thump of it. Wonwoo's arm came around your shoulders, holding you close, his hand settling warm and secure on your upper arm. With his other hand, he held the book at an angle where he could read comfortably.

"Ready?" he murmured and you felt the word rumble through his chest.

"Mmhm," you hummed, already relaxing into him.

Wonwoo started to read, his voice quiet and measured. There was something hypnotic about his reading voice—the deep timber, the way he knew exactly when to pause, how he gave different characters subtle variations in tone without it ever feeling performative. 

You listened, your fingers absently tracing patterns on his stomach through his t-shirt. When the protagonist's twist revealed itself, you gasped softly.

"No way," you breathed.

You felt more than heard Wonwoo's quiet chuckle. His arm tightened around your shoulders and he pressed a lingering kiss to the top of your head before continuing.

Three pages later, there was a moment of unexpected humor—the protagonist's internal monologue taking a self-deprecating turn that was both relatable and perfectly timed. You laughed a soft, delighted sound before tilting your head to look up at Wonwoo's face.

He was already looking down at you, his reading paused, and the expression on his face was so unbearably tender it made your heart flutter. The corner of his mouth quirked up in that small, private smile and he leaned down to kiss your forehead, his lips lingering there for a long moment.

"Keep reading," you whispered, settling back against his chest.

"So bossy," he murmured but there was so much affection in it. His fingers traced absent patterns on your arm as he found his place again and continued.

The story unfolded in Wonwoo's steady voice. You made small sounds of acknowledgement when something particularly poignant happened and each time, you felt him respond—sometimes his hand would squeeze your arm gently, sometimes he'd adjust his hold to tuck you closer, sometimes he'd pause long enough to press another soft kiss to your hair. It was like a conversation communicated in touches, in the language you'd privately developed that didn't need words.

He continued reading but you were fighting a losing battle with consciousness now. The exhaustion of everything was pulling you under in long, gentle waves. Your hand had stilled on his stomach, your breathing deepening and slowing.

Wonwoo noticed. He'd been reading for another few minutes when he felt your weight change. He paused mid-sentence, tilting his head to look down at you.

Your face was peaceful, your lips slightly parted, your lashes dark crescents against your cheeks. One hand was still resting on his stomach, the other curled up near your face. You looked so young this way and he held the sight of you for a long moment.

Carefully, moving with painstaking slowness, he marked the page and set the book on the nightstand. Then he reached up and removed his glasses. He folded them beside the book.

He shifted slowly, sliding down until he was lying flat, adjusting everything with the patience of someone who would rather contort himself into an awkward position for an hour than disturb you. You made a small sound in your sleep and burrowed closer, your nose pressing into the hollow of his throat and his heart did something quiet and enormous at the same time.

He tucked the blanket around your shoulders before spreading his hand warm and wide on your back.

"You fell asleep on me again," he whispered into the darkness. "I don't mind. I never mind."

His thumb moved in slow circles.

"I meant everything," he murmured. "Everything from tonight. In the bathroom and after. All of it." He pressed his lips to your forehead, soft and lingering. "You are the person I think about when I'm up there. You are who I'm coming home to. You are—" He exhaled slowly. "You are the part of my life that's entirely mine. That no stage can have."

You shifted in your sleep, your hand sliding to rest over his heart. He caught it gently and threaded his fingers through yours.

"I'm going to marry you someday," he breathed into the quiet. "When the time is right. I'm going to make it so you never have a single doubt again."

He brought your joined hands to his lips and kissed your knuckles, one by one.

Wonwoo watched you sleep for a long while after that—the way the city light from the curtains touched your face, the slow rise and fall of your breathing, the furrow between your brows that appeared even in sleep like you were concentrating on your dreams.

He memorized it.

"Sweet dreams, my love," he murmured finally before pressing one last kiss to your hair.

He let his eyes close, his hand still moving in those slow gentle arcs on your back, matching your breathing, following you down into quiet.

The last thing Wonwoo was aware of was your heartbeat against his chest—steady and sure. And the weight of you in his arms is the best weight he'd ever known.

Wonwoo finally let himself fall asleep.

The rain had started sometime around four. By six it had made up its mind about it.

It came down in the particular determined way of autumn rain: relentless and the kind that didn't announce itself so much on weather apps or with thunder but it simply arrived and stayed. The more it poured, the more it soaked through things quietly. The streets reflected rain water because of the many neon lights of stores and buildings. Umbrellas turned inside out on corners. People walked with their chins down and their shoulders up, moving fast, pretending that if they moved fast enough they wouldn’t get soaked.

You'd been watching it from the window of the restaurant for the better part of an hour.

The last table had cleared out just after five-thirty, earlier than usual, driven home by the weather. You'd let your last server go at quarter to six because there was no point keeping her in on a night like this and you finished closing up alone. The chairs were up on the tables. The floor was mopped. The till was counted and the lights in the dining room were off except for the warm one above the counter where you'd been doing paperwork and audits while you waited.

This was the routine: Joshua finished work, walked over, and you walked home together. It was not a long walk. In good weather it was pleasant; ten minutes through the residential side streets, past the little park with the playground. You'd been doing it for three years now, which meant you'd walked it in every kind of weather and had opinions about which season did it best.

Tonight the weather had disrupted that routine because Joshua was supposed to finish at five-thirty.

At six-fifteen you got a message.

joshua 🤍: running a bit late sweetheart, leaving now 

joshua 🤍: don't go anywhere please i'll come to you 

joshua 🤍: is the restaurant locked up

you: I haven't locked the front yet. Are you okay? It's really coming down out there.

A pause. Three dots appearing and disappearing.

joshua 🤍: i'm fine! almost there

You looked at the window. The rain had not calmed down.

You put the kettle on.

You heard the door before you saw him. The little bell above the restaurant entrance gave a sound that cut through the quiet of the empty restaurant and you looked up from your paperwork at the counter and there he was.

He was—you stood up immediately.

Joshua was soaked through.

He wasn’t caught-in-the-rain damp. Definitely not slightly-wet-jacket damp. Through. His hair was flattened against his head, darker than its usual color with the weight of the water in it. His jacket wasn’t a proper rain jacket, it never is a proper rain jacket, this was a recurring issue you’ve had with him. Joshua was scanning the room with that slightly dazed look of someone who had just come in from something and hadn't quite made the transition yet and when his eyes found you across the room his expression shifted to that of relief, warmth, and something that moved through his face like a quiet exhale.

You were already moving toward him.

He started to say something—your name maybe, or hi, I'm okay, sorry—but you didn't let him.

"Come here," you said. "Come here, right now, Joshua."

Up close it was worse. His hair was dripping at the ends. There was a raindrop tracking down the line of his jaw. His eyelashes were wet. You could see, even in the low light of the entrance, that his lips had gone a shade too pale.

"How long were you walking?" you demanded.

"It wasn't—"

"How long."

He did a small, slightly guilty calculation behind his eyes. "Maybe twenty minutes."

"Joshua."

"I couldn't get a cab. Everything was full and the taxi app was—" He made a gesture with his hand that indicated something had gone wrong with technology and he had decided to solve the problem with his body, which was, you were coming to understand, a recurring approach as well. "I figured it was just a short walk."

"It's a twenty minute walk."

"In good weather it's ten."

"It's not good weather."

"You’re right about that."

"You should have called me."

"What were you going to do?"

"I would have figured something out."

"Sweetheart, you were closing up. And our car is in the shop."

"I was done closing up. This place has been closed since six." You took his arm. "Come and sit down. I'll get you tea."

You brought him to the stool at the far end of the counter. It's the one closest to the radiator that ran along the back wall, chunky and reliable, the kind that actually generated heat. You'd been grateful for it all evening while you did the close. You were more grateful now.

You took his jacket without asking. It was heavy with water and you brought it to the hook inside the kitchen door where the staff coats usually hung and you pressed your fingers to the inner lining and even that was damp.

When you came back he was sitting with his hands wrapped around the mug you'd left for him on the counter. It was tea you'd made when you put the kettle on before he arrived because you knew him and he was looking through the front window at the rain with an expression that had some peace in it now. The look of a person who has been out in something and is no longer out in it.

You came around the counter and stood across from him. You looked at him.

His cheeks had gone slightly pink from the cold-to-warm transition, the way they did, and his hair was still damp and beginning to dry in directions it didn't usually go and he looked, honestly, a little like something that had been left out by accident.

"You look so pretty," he said.

You crossed your arms and ignored what he just said because you’re supposed to be mad. "Are you actually okay?"

"I'm warm now." He lifted the mug slightly. "This was exactly right. How did you know I'd want tea?"

"Because you always want tea when you're cold." You watched him. "You're shivering."

"Barely."

"Your shoulders are doing the thing."

He looked at his shoulders as if checking for the thing. "I'm fine, love."

"You're not not fine. But you're also not completely fine."

He smiled at that—his crooked one, the one that meant you'd said something he found quietly funny. "That's a precise diagnosis."

"I’ve been dating you for the past three years." You reached for your bag on the hook behind the counter, the one you'd had there all evening alongside the restaurant copy of the keys, and began to rummage inside it. "I have hand warmers in here somewhere. I always carry them in autumn so before you say anything—"

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"You were going to say it was excessive."

"I was going to say it was thoughtful. I’ve been dating you for the past three years, too. In love with you for much longer than that, really."

You paused in your rummaging to look at him briefly. He raised his mug.

"I love you," he declared with a sly smile.

You huffed, muttered, “you’re so annoying” to the air, and went back to rummaging inside your bag.

You found one. A single-use hand warmer, the kind you snap and shake, still in its foil sleeve. You'd had it at the bottom of the bag since you'd bought a small packet of them at the start of October and distributed them throughout your different bags and jacket pockets the way some people layered a home with candles or safety pins: quietly, preparedly, just in case.

You cracked it between your hands, shook it, felt the gentle chemistry of it beginning to work.

"Give me your hands," you said.

Joshua set the mug down and held them out across the counter.

You looked at them and your breath caught slightly.

His hands—the knuckles, the backs of them, the edges where the wind and the cold had really gotten in—were red. It’s not the healthy pink of someone who'd been in the warm for a while. It’s the kind of red that comes from sustained cold. His fingertips especially, the color deepening there and when you turned his hands over his palms were cold enough that you felt it through your own.

"Oh," you said. The word came out small.

"It's fine—"

Your eyes came up to him and he stopped because of what was in them—something immediate and wordless, the expression of someone who hadn't been expecting to feel as much as they suddenly felt.

"They're so cold," you said.

"I really am okay," he said gently, trying to reassure you.

You pressed your lips together and looked back down at his hands. You placed the warming pack against his palms first, folding his fingers around it, and then closed both of your hands around the outside, sandwiching the warmth in, your hands over his, squeezing slowly.

Joshua watched you do this.

"You should have texted me," you said to his hands because you were looking at them. Your tone of voice had changed a bit: careful and a little tight. It’s the voice you use when you are being practical instead of saying what you mean. "I know the taxi app wasn't working but you could have texted me and I would have come to the door with an umbrella. You could have waited under the awning wherever you were and there's the big one out front—you could have stood there and I would have come to you—"

"I didn't want you standing in the rain on my account."

"I wouldn't have been standing in the rain, I would have been under the awning which is why most buildings have awnings, Joshua—"

"You'd been on your feet all day."

You looked up at him. He was looking at you steadily, his hands still between yours, the hand warmer doing its slow work.

"That's very sweet," you said after a moment, "and also infuriating."

"I know." He didn't sound particularly sorry. "It could be both things."

You exhaled through your nose and looked back down. Then you started rubbing your thumbs slowly over the backs of his hands, over the red knuckles, working warmth in. He stayed very still and let you.

"You don't have a proper rain jacket," you said.

"I have a jacket."

"A jacket is not a rain jacket. A rain jacket repels water. Your jacket absorbed water like it was gladly enthusiastic about it."

The corner of his mouth turned up. "I'll note that for next time."

"Joshua." You said his name with a kind of exasperated tenderness that didn't quite manage to be the scolding you'd intended. "The weather’s getting cold now. You can't just walk over here in the rain with no hood and a jacket that's basically more decorative than—"

"It's a nice jacket."

"It's a nice jacket, yes, and now it's soaking wet on a hook in my kitchen and you're sitting here with red hands because you walked twenty minutes in the rain—" You stopped and steadied yourself. "I'm not—I know you're fine. I know it's just a bit of cold and rain. I just—"

You didn't finish the sentence. Joshua waited.

"I just saw your hands," you said at last.

Joshua looked at you for a long moment. At the bent angle of your head, the careful movement of your thumbs across his knuckles, the slight tension in your expression that you hadn't entirely been able to put down since he walked through the door.

His chest did something. Something warm and unasked for and it’s taking up exactly as much space as it needed.

You cared. That was the thing. You just genuinely, quietly cared about what happened to his hands. You'd had a hand warmer in your bag since October. You'd put the kettle on before he arrived because you knew he'd want tea. You'd looked at his hands and made a small sound and not been able to hide what it meant to you.

He thought of a word he'd been circling for a while without landing on it.

Lucky. He thought: I am so lucky.

"Does that feel better?" you asked, still looking at his hands.

He turned one of them over, gently, beneath yours. His fingers curled up and held yours loosely. You stilled.

"Much better," he said.

You looked up. He was looking at you with that expression: the one you'd called the thing, in the entrance, the soft and present and completely undisguised one that he wore when he wasn't trying to be anything but exactly what he was.

"You're doing the thing," you said.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're looking at me."

"You’re the love of my life. I'm allowed to look at you, aren’t I?"

"Not like that when I'm trying to be annoyed at you."

"Are you still annoyed at me?"

A pause. You looked at your joined hands.

"A little," you said.

He brought your hand up and pressed his lips to your knuckles. Just because. You closed your eyes for exactly one second.

"That's not fair," you said.

"I'm warming up," he said innocently. "You said I was cold."

"I said your hands were cold, not—" You made a small, helpless sound and shook your head and the residual annoyance finished dissolving. He could see it go. "You're impossible."

"But I’m warm now."

You looked at him.

"Getting there," you whispered and squeezed his hands. "You’re getting there."

You made Joshua stay until he'd had a second cup.

You'd moved around from behind the counter while he wasn't paying attention, pulled down the stool beside him and settled onto it, close to the radiator, close to him. You told yourself it was so you could keep an eye on whether he was still shivering. He let you tell yourself that.

You'd also given him your scarf.

It had happened somewhat naturally. You'd reach behind you for your jacket off the hook, the motion pulling the scarf loose and you'd looked at it and looked at him and simply handed it over. It was a soft scarf, cream-colored, slightly oversized in the way you liked your scarves. He'd wrapped it once around without comment and you'd looked at it, adjusted it slightly, and then looked away.

He was wearing your scarf and drinking his second tea and the rain was still doing its thing against the front window and you were beside him with your own drink and the kind of quiet that settled when the urgency of something had passed and what was left was just warmth. The restaurant felt different like this: chairs up, lights low, just the two of you at the counter with the radiator ticking beside you. Smaller. More like a room than a business.

Joshua looked at you.

Your elbow was on the counter. You were watching the rain with the same expression you'd probably had all evening: attentive, relaxed, comfortable. A strand of hair had come down against your cheek and you hadn't pushed it back, either hadn't noticed or didn't mind. He tucked it behind your ear and you look at him with a smile, a quiet thank you.

A quiet I love you.

You've had hand warmers in your bag in October. You'd put the kettle on before he arrived. You'd taken one look at his hands and your face had done something unguarded and worried and entirely real, in your own restaurant, at the end of a full day on your feet, while he dripped water onto your clean floor.

He turned back to the window.

Outside, the rain went on, relentless, doing what autumn rain did. He was on the right side of it now, the warm side, with a scarf that smelled like you and his hands almost entirely back to their usual color and a second cup of tea he hadn't had to ask for.

He thought: I walked twenty minutes in the rain and this is where I ended up.

He thought: I would do it again.

You left when you'd run out of reasons to stay: the tea finished, the paperwork done, the rain outside at least became consistent enough to plan around.

You gathered your things with the efficient, automatic energy of someone who had closed this place enough times to do it in the dark. Bag. Keys. Phone. You did a last pass through the kitchen out of habit, checking the things you'd already checked.

Joshua quietly observes you as he retrieves his jacket from the hook in the kitchen.

You appeared at his shoulder, inspected it, made a quiet sound.

"Still damp," you said.

"I'll survive."

"You can wear it open. You have your scarf." You said it like this was a plan you'd already made.

"Your scarf."

"Temporarily yours." You reached up and adjusted the fold of it—a small, tucking gesture, securing it slightly against his neck, your fingers quick and light. Then you straightened and looked at him. Satisfied, apparently.

He did up the buttons on his jacket. You looped your bag across your body. You turned the last light off and for a moment the restaurant was dark around you both, just the soft orange of the streetlight coming through the front window and the sound of the rain. Then you unlocked the front door and pushed it open.

At the threshold, you opened your umbrella and held it over both of you the moment you stepped outside.

He looked at it. Then looked at you.

"You had that the whole time," he said.

"Yes."

"You had an umbrella the whole time."

"I did."

"I walked twenty minutes in the rain—"

"Because you didn't text me." You said it pleasantly and pulled the door shut behind you, checking the lock. "Come on. Let's go home."

Joshua stood outside the restaurant for precisely one second in the rain, under the umbrella you were holding at an angle to cover him, looking at you.

You glanced back.

"Joshua."

He caught up.

You held the umbrella between you, tilted slightly toward him because he was taller and you'd made this adjustment without remarking on it. He walked close enough that it worked. The rain tapped steadily on the fabric above you.

He gently took the umbrella from you. Then he put his arms around you so you can both be under the umbrella.

You walked.

The streets were quieter now. Puddles reflected the orange of the streetlights. His jacket was still slightly damp at the sleeves but the scarf was warm and your body was warm and you were walking in the same direction and the distance was not far. Ten minutes in weather like this. You'd walked it in worse.

Joshua didn't say anything for a while. Neither did you. After a stretch of comfortable quiet, you said: "Next time, text me."

"Next time," he agreed.

"I mean it."

"I know you do."

A pause.

"I had another hand warmer," you said. "In the other pocket. So."

He looked at you. You were looking straight ahead, face neutral, but something at the corner of your mouth gave you away.

"So…" he repeated.

"So I was prepared."

"You're always prepared."

"One of us has to be."

Joshua pressed a kiss to the side of your head, walking on without breaking stride. You turned your head and looked at him and then looked forward again and the corner of your mouth finished doing what it had been trying to do.

The building came into view. Above you, the rain tapped on.

Joshua held the door and you went in ahead of him. The warmth of the entrance hall came up around you both and he thought—standing there in your scarf, hands warm, the cold fully behind him—

There is nowhere I would rather have ended up.

He pulled the door shut against the rain. The elevator was slow. It always was. The building had the particular character of somewhere that had been standing long enough to have opinions about being rushed and the elevator made this known through a leisurely ascent that Joshua had stopped being impatient about months ago. You stood inside it in companionable quiet, your umbrella dripping a small patient puddle on the floor, his jacket still carrying the faint smell of rain. Joshua’s hand was now in yours.

You were looking at the numbers above the door. He was looking at you.

You had a habit, in elevators, of watching the floor indicator. He'd noticed this early on and had never mentioned it. He just liked knowing it was there—one of the small, specific things that were only visible if you were paying the right kind of attention.

The elevator doors finally opened.

Inside, you went immediately into the familiar choreography of arriving: lights on, bag on the hook, umbrella stood in the little tray by the door. Joshua was shrugging out of his jacket when you turned around and looked at him properly in the light.

Under the warm overhead glow of the entryway, the state of him was somewhat more apparent than it had been in the soft light of the restaurant. His hair had dried in transit but unevenly and there was still a chill coming off him that you could feel when you stepped close.

You put the back of your hand against his cheek.

He stilled.

Your expression went the particular way it went when you were confirming something you'd already suspected.

"You're still cold," you said.

"I'm warmer than I was."

"That's a very low bar." You took his jacket from him, turned it in your hands, pressed your fingers to the lining the same way you had at the restaurant hook. Still damp at the seams. You draped it over the back of a chair where it could breathe and turned back to him. "Okay," you said with the quiet decisiveness of someone who has made a plan. "Shower."

He blinked. "I'm fine—"

"Joshua." You said it gently but in the particular register that meant the discussion portion was concluding. "You walked twenty minutes in the cold rain and you're still cold and your jacket is still damp and I can feel it coming off you from here." You crossed your arms. "Hot shower. Now. It'll warm you up properly."

Joshua considered you.

He had, over time, developed a fairly accurate internal map of the difference between when you were open to a gentle counter-argument and when you had already reached a conclusion and were offering him the courtesy of framing it as a conversation. This was clearly the latter. The particular set of your expression, the arms, the now at the end; all of it indicated that the correct move was to agree and not make you repeat yourself.

Joshua knew this because he has been loving you for three years, maybe more. He also couldn't quite help himself.

He tilted his head at you, something leisurely and playful entering his expression. "You could always join me," he said. "Speed things up. Conserve water."

You stared at him.

He maintained eye contact with the peaceful composure of a man who had made a reasonable practical suggestion.

"Conservation," you said flatly.

"We’re being environmentally responsible. Doing our civic duty with the SDGs and all that."

"Joshua Hong."

"It was just a thought."

"It was not just a thought, it was —" You put both hands on his chest, flat-palmed, and pushed, not hard, barely enough to rock him back an inch.

He caught one of them.

Joshua wasn’t resisting the push. He was already going, already moving back, but his hand came up and closed around yours with an easy certainty and he lifted it and pressed his lips to your knuckles, his eyes on yours the whole time. He’s warm. Amused. Completely unbothered. The corner of his mouth curved up against your hand.

You stared at him.

He let go, still smiling, and went.

"Go," you said to his retreating back, a beat too late to be authoritative. "Shower. Now. By yourself. Like a normal person."

Joshua was already moving down the hall and he looked back once over his shoulder with a grin that you met with a look of supreme composure, eyebrows raised, pointing very firmly toward the bathroom.

He went. 

You stood in the hallway for a moment after the bathroom door clicked shut. Listened to the sound of the water beginning to run.

Then you pressed your lips together and looked at the ceiling briefly and smiled. The full one, the one you didn't always let people see, the one that took over your face somewhat against your will. You stayed very still and let it happen and then it passed and you straightened and went to find him something warm to change into.

You were not flushed. Your face was just warm from the—the indoor heating was quite high, actually. The radiators in this building ran hot. That was all.

You pulled open his side of the wardrobe.

You found his softest things. The grey sweatpants that had been washed enough times to lose all their structure in the best possible way and the long-sleeved thermal top you'd personally bought him last November after observing that his sleepwear choices did not account for winter adequately. You folded them on the end of the bed. Added socks: the thick ones, the ones with the ribbed cuff because his feet were probably cold too.

You went to the bathroom cupboard and got the big towel. You put this and his clothes on the heated rail just outside the shower so it would be warm. Then you pulled the duvet back on your side of the bed and settled against the headboard with your knees up and your phone in hand and tried to look like you hadn't just spent five minutes making sure everything was exactly right.

The shower ran for a good while. You could hear it through the wall. You let yourself feel the quiet satisfaction of that. He was warming up. He was on the other side of the wall standing in heat and steam and by the time he came out the cold would be entirely gone and you would not have to feel the chill of him anymore.

You checked your phone. Answered a message you'd been ignoring. Put it down. Picked up the towel you'd brought in and folded it across your lap.

When Joshua came out, he came out in a cloud of warm air and the smell of the soap he used—something clean and faintly woodsy—and he was wearing the grey sweatpants you'd left out and the thermal top and he was visibly, entirely warm. Color back in his face. Shoulders dropped from wherever they'd been. The tension of the cold and the evening are fully gone.

He looked at you on the bed and at the towel across your lap. Something in his expression did a quiet thing.

"Come here," you said.

He came to you without argument.

He settled on the bed in front of you, cross-legged, facing away. He understands without instruction. You shifted forward slightly, moving the towel, and brought it up to his hair.

Your hands were gentle. You didn't rush it. You pressed the towel against his head first, cupping the shape of it through the fabric, absorbing the water in sections—the top first, then the back, working down. He sat quietly under it. His hands rested in his lap and he was very still, the way a person went still when someone was doing something kind to them and they didn't want to disturb it.

You rubbed in slow circles at the back where his hair was thickest. He exhaled.

"Better?" you asked.

"Mm." The sound he made was less a word than a general affirmation of everything. You felt the small vibration of it through your hands.

You worked toward the sides, gentling your touch where you knew he was sensitive and he tipped his head incrementally toward the pressure without seeming to realize he was doing it. This small involuntary thing, the trust of it,  moved through your chest in a way you didn't examine too closely. Just noted, quietly, and kept on.

"You scared me a little," you said after a while. Conversationally, carefully. "When you walked in."

He was quiet for a moment.

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. Just—" You lifted the towel and resettled it at the crown of his head. "Text me. That's all. Just text me."

"I didn't want you to worry."

"I know that. But I worry more not knowing. So the text actually helps." You kept your hands moving. "And I was already done with the close. I could have come to the door. I could have met you halfway. I could have —"

"I know." He said it softly. "I know. I'll text next time."

"You keep saying next time like there's going to be a next time."

"There's always going to be a next time. I'm not built for weather planning."

"You are built for weather planning. You just choose not to do it."

He made a sound that was not quite agreement but was not disagreement either. You pulled the towel away and looked at his hair. Still damp but no longer dripping. You set the towel to one side and lifted your hands to his hair directly, fingers spreading through it gently, helping it along. You weren’t styling it, just moving the warmth through, smoothing it back from his forehead. He made a sound you weren't sure he knew he'd made.

You smiled where he couldn't see it.

"You know," you said, keeping your voice light, "a rain jacket isn't even an extravagant purchase. It's a practical item. They sell them everywhere. I've seen them in places that also sell—I don't know, batteries and fizzy drinks. They're not—"

He turned around.

It wasn’t a quick shift. He just turned, the unhurried pivot of someone who had made a decision and before you'd quite finished processing the shift you found him facing you properly, close, your hand still half-raised from his hair. His expression was warm and quiet and very present, his eyes finding yours with that kind of attention that always made you feel, unreasonably, like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.

"Joshua, I'm not yet done—" you started.

"I know," he said.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn't rushed. That was the first thing. The kiss was not rushed at all, which somehow made it more. His hand came up first, cupping the side of your face with a care that was almost unbearable, his thumb settling at the curve of your cheekbone and then he leaned in and his lips met yours slowly like he'd been thinking about doing exactly this and had decided to do it properly.

You went still for exactly one breath.

Then you were kissing him back and your raised hand had found the front of his thermal top and was holding it loosely as if you needed something to do with the feeling that had arrived without warning in the center of your chest.

His mouth was warm. Warm from the shower, warm from the tea, warm in that specific Joshua way that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the fact that it was him, that he kissed you like you were something he finally found, like he had all the time in the world and had chosen to spend it here. His other hand came to rest at the side of your neck, his thumb tracing a slow line along your jaw.

The towel slid off your lap somewhere. Neither of you noticed.

The rain outside made its soft sound against the glass. The lamp threw its warm small light. You were aware, faintly, of the weight of the evening behind you: the cold of his hands in yours at the counter, the walk home, the umbrella, the whole long accumulation of small, careful things, and all of it seemed to press forward into this moment, into the steady warmth of him, his hand gentle on your face, his presence so certain.

Joshua pulled back slowly, just enough. His forehead stayed close, almost touching yours, his hand still cradling your cheek. His eyes opened and found yours and the expression in them was the completely unguarded one.

You were aware your hand was still balled lightly in the front of his shirt.

"You…" you whispered and had to stop and collect yourself, "...are doing that on purpose."

Joshua tilted his head to the side, the corner of his mouth lifting as he looked at you with those ridiculous, beautiful eyes of his. "Doing what?"

"That." You loosened your grip on his shirt, smoothed the fabric with your palm, not quite meeting his eyes yet. "Kissing me when I was making a valid point."

"You were making several valid points, sweetheart."

"I know I was. I had more to make."

"You did." There was a smile in his voice. "You were going to tell me about the rain jacket."

"I was going to tell you that rain jackets are available in most high-street shops for a very reasonable—" You finally looked up. He was watching you with that easygoing smile, the one that reached his eyes and it made the rest of the sentence harder to think about. "You can't just do that," you said. "You can't just kiss me in the middle of a perfectly reasonable point and expect me to—"

Joshua leaned in just slightly. "To what?"

"To not lose my—" You exhaled through your nose. "You know what you're doing."

"I really don't," he said in a tone that indicated he really did.

"You walked twenty minutes in the rain," you said, trying to maintain composure, "without a proper jacket, without texting me, without any apparent—"

He leaned in a little more.

You kept yapping, refusing to acknowledge what he was trying to do. "—regard for the fact that it was cold and that you were wearing a jacket that is more fashionable than functional and that I was—"

Closer. Joshua’s eyes were soft and solely fixed on yours with the kind of attention that made it very difficult to remember what you were saying.

"—I was right there, I was ten minutes away, you could have just—"

Closer still. You could feel the warmth of him now, the slight tilt of his head, the way his gaze had dropped—just briefly, just once—and come back up.

"Joshua." It was a warning. But a weak one.

"Mm." Not quite an answer. His eyes were still fixed on you and you’re now finding it hard to breathe properly.

"I'm being serious."

"I know you are," he whispered. And he was. That was the thing—the teasing had died out somewhere in the last few inches. His expression had settled into something that wasn't a game anymore, something that was simply and directly him, present and warm. His hand came up to your face again, the same as before, gentle and sure.

You had run entirely out of sentences.

Joshua kissed you again.

This one was softer than the first. His hand hadn't moved from your cheek and when he kissed you this time there was something in it that was less I've decided and more here, let me just—as if the first kiss had been the intention and this one was the elaboration. His lips moved gently against yours, lingering, and you felt yourself exhale into it, felt the last tense thread of the evening's worry loosen and let go.

You didn't hold his shirt this time.

You brought your hand up to his jaw instead and his stubble was a familiar texture under your fingers and you could feel the warmth of his skin all the way through now. There was no more trace of the cold, no echo of the rain, just him, entirely and properly warm, your hand against his face the mirror of what you'd done in the entryway except now he was leaning into it, his cheek pressing gently into your palm.

He took his time. So did you.

When the kiss ended, it ended the way these things usually do between you both—Joshua pulled back slowly. The space between you stayed small. Neither of you did anything about that.

You spoke first.

"That's not fair," you said. Your voice came out quieter than you'd intended.

Joshua smiled. This time, his smile was something slower and more private.

"You had a hand warmer in your bag since October," he said. His thumb moved once along your cheekbone. "You put the kettle on before I even got there. You looked at my hands and—" He paused, his eyes focusing on you. 

"You look at me like I'm worth looking after."

You were quiet.

"I just—" He stopped. Started again, more carefully. "I know you were scared when I walked in. I know I should have texted, should have waited, should have—" His hand was still on your face, warm and steady. "But I walked in there cold and wet and you were already moving toward me. You didn't even think about it. You just came." 

He looked at you intently. 

"You always just come."

The rain tapped softly against the window. You didn't say anything for a moment. You were aware of your hand still resting against his jaw, of the warmth between you.

"You're not being fair," you said again but it came out soft and without any real complaint left in it.

"I know that too," he said. He turned his head slightly and pressed his lips to the inside of your wrist. "I promise I’ll get the rain jacket."

You let out a breath that went more than halfway to a laugh. "You'd better."

"You can come with me. Make sure I get the right one."

"I will absolutely be there."

"I know you will." Joshua said it like it was the best thing he knew.

"You can lie down," you said. "If you want."

Joshua rearranged himself, settling back against the pillows with an ease that suggested every part of him had wanted to do exactly this for the last several hours. You moved with him, resettling on your own side, angling toward him.

He looked at the ceiling for a moment. You looked at the side of his face.

His color was completely back now. All traces of the cold, the damp, the too-pale quality of him in the restaurant doorway now gone. He looked warm and clean and settled, his hair going softly in whatever direction it pleased, the thermal top you'd bought him fitting in all the right places.

You had picked that top out. You remembered the afternoon. You were standing in the men's section last November, your phone in hand with his measurements in the notes app, deliberating over thickness and fabric with more focus than the task probably required. You'd bought two. He hadn't commented on where they came from. He just started wearing them, which was its own kind of answer.

Joshua turned his head and looked at you.

"What?" you said.

"Nothing." He turned back to the ceiling. "You're looking at me."

"I'm allowed to look at you."

He smiled his slow, private smile. "I said that last time."

"That you did.”

A short comfortable silence.

"Thank you," he said after a while.

You looked at him and hummed.

"Thank you for the tea." A beat. "The hand warmer. The towel." He paused. "The socks."

You glanced down. He'd put them on at some point while you'd been repositioning on the bed. You hadn't seen him do it.

"You saw the socks," you said.

"I see most things," he said, which was almost word-for-word what you'd said to him earlier in the evening and you shook your head at the ceiling and heard him breathe a quiet laugh.

After a while, you reached out and pressed your hand to his cheek.

Joshua stilled the way he had in the entryway of the restaurant, that same complete and immediate stillness. His eyes stayed on yours.

He’s still warm. Properly now, all the way through, the chill is entirely gone. You let your palm rest there for a moment.

He covered your hand with his and held it there. His eyes found yours and stayed and whatever was in them was entirely unguarded, soft and full, and completely his.

You thought, not for the first time, that he had one of the most honest faces you'd ever encountered. Right now, what was in him was something very certain. It sat in your chest, reassuring and settled.

"Your hair's still a bit damp," you said.

"It is." He didn't move.

"You'll be cold again."

"I have the socks," he said, gravely.

"The socks aren't on your head, Joshua."

"I trust the socks."

You let out a breath that was halfway to a laugh and reached for the towel. He caught your hand before you could.

"In a minute," he said.

You looked at him.

He looked back. The quiet certain thing is still in his face, fully.

"Just—" He didn't finish the sentence. He just kept hold of your hand loosely, his thumb moving once across your knuckles. The same way you'd move your thumbs across his at the counter. You wondered if he knew he was doing it.

"Okay," you said. "In a minute."

The room had gone quiet around you both.

Outside, the rain had eased. The pitter-patter is lighter now and less insistent than it had been. More like company than weather.

Joshua thought about the evening. The tea was already waiting. The hand warmer cracked and ready before he'd asked. The small oh when you saw his hands. The umbrella you'd had the whole time.

Small things, each of them. Together, they were everything.

She took care of me, he thought.

He turned his head on the pillow.

You were looking out the window. The rain. The strand of hair is still against your cheek. He didn't mention it. Just looked at you in the low, quiet dark and let himself be still.

I walked in from the rain, he thought, and she was already there.

Joshua couldn’t help himself. He reached over and tucked the strand of hair back from your cheek. You turned toward him with soft eyes and let him.

"I'm glad I came to you tonight," he said.

You were quiet for a moment. "Me too."

He kissed you gently. You made a small, soft sound against it and your hand found his.

When he pulled back, he pressed his forehead to yours.

He found your other hand.

You were already there.

The rain had started sometime around four. By six it had made up its mind about it.

It came down in the particular determined way of autumn rain: relentless and the kind that didn't announce itself so much on weather apps or with thunder but it simply arrived and stayed. The more it poured, the more it soaked through things quietly. The streets reflected rain water because of the many neon lights of stores and buildings. Umbrellas turned inside out on corners. People walked with their chins down and their shoulders up, moving fast, pretending that if they moved fast enough they wouldn’t get soaked.

You'd been watching it from the window of the restaurant for the better part of an hour.

The last table had cleared out just after five-thirty, earlier than usual, driven home by the weather. You'd let your last server go at quarter to six because there was no point keeping her in on a night like this and you finished closing up alone. The chairs were up on the tables. The floor was mopped. The till was counted and the lights in the dining room were off except for the warm one above the counter where you'd been doing paperwork and audits while you waited.

This was the routine: Joshua finished work, walked over, and you walked home together. It was not a long walk. In good weather it was pleasant; ten minutes through the residential side streets, past the little park with the playground. You'd been doing it for three years now, which meant you'd walked it in every kind of weather and had opinions about which season did it best.

Tonight the weather had disrupted that routine because Joshua was supposed to finish at five-thirty.

At six-fifteen you got a message.

joshua 🤍: running a bit late sweetheart, leaving now 

joshua 🤍: don't go anywhere please i'll come to you 

joshua 🤍: is the restaurant locked up

you: I haven't locked the front yet. Are you okay? It's really coming down out there.

A pause. Three dots appearing and disappearing.

joshua 🤍: i'm fine! almost there

You looked at the window. The rain had not calmed down.

You put the kettle on.

You heard the door before you saw him. The little bell above the restaurant entrance gave a sound that cut through the quiet of the empty restaurant and you looked up from your paperwork at the counter and there he was.

He was—you stood up immediately.

Joshua was soaked through.

He wasn’t caught-in-the-rain damp. Definitely not slightly-wet-jacket damp. Through. His hair was flattened against his head, darker than its usual color with the weight of the water in it. His jacket wasn’t a proper rain jacket, it never is a proper rain jacket, this was a recurring issue you’ve had with him. Joshua was scanning the room with that slightly dazed look of someone who had just come in from something and hadn't quite made the transition yet and when his eyes found you across the room his expression shifted to that of relief, warmth, and something that moved through his face like a quiet exhale.

You were already moving toward him.

He started to say something—your name maybe, or hi, I'm okay, sorry—but you didn't let him.

"Come here," you said. "Come here, right now, Joshua."

Up close it was worse. His hair was dripping at the ends. There was a raindrop tracking down the line of his jaw. His eyelashes were wet. You could see, even in the low light of the entrance, that his lips had gone a shade too pale.

"How long were you walking?" you demanded.

"It wasn't—"

"How long."

He did a small, slightly guilty calculation behind his eyes. "Maybe twenty minutes."

"Joshua."

"I couldn't get a cab. Everything was full and the taxi app was—" He made a gesture with his hand that indicated something had gone wrong with technology and he had decided to solve the problem with his body, which was, you were coming to understand, a recurring approach as well. "I figured it was just a short walk."

"It's a twenty minute walk."

"In good weather it's ten."

"It's not good weather."

"You’re right about that."

"You should have called me."

"What were you going to do?"

"I would have figured something out."

"Sweetheart, you were closing up. And our car is in the shop."

"I was done closing up. This place has been closed since six." You took his arm. "Come and sit down. I'll get you tea."

You brought him to the stool at the far end of the counter. It's the one closest to the radiator that ran along the back wall, chunky and reliable, the kind that actually generated heat. You'd been grateful for it all evening while you did the close. You were more grateful now.

You took his jacket without asking. It was heavy with water and you brought it to the hook inside the kitchen door where the staff coats usually hung and you pressed your fingers to the inner lining and even that was damp.

When you came back he was sitting with his hands wrapped around the mug you'd left for him on the counter. It was tea you'd made when you put the kettle on before he arrived because you knew him and he was looking through the front window at the rain with an expression that had some peace in it now. The look of a person who has been out in something and is no longer out in it.

You came around the counter and stood across from him. You looked at him.

His cheeks had gone slightly pink from the cold-to-warm transition, the way they did, and his hair was still damp and beginning to dry in directions it didn't usually go and he looked, honestly, a little like something that had been left out by accident.

"You look so pretty," he said.

You crossed your arms and ignored what he just said because you’re supposed to be mad. "Are you actually okay?"

"I'm warm now." He lifted the mug slightly. "This was exactly right. How did you know I'd want tea?"

"Because you always want tea when you're cold." You watched him. "You're shivering."

"Barely."

"Your shoulders are doing the thing."

He looked at his shoulders as if checking for the thing. "I'm fine, love."

"You're not not fine. But you're also not completely fine."

He smiled at that—his crooked one, the one that meant you'd said something he found quietly funny. "That's a precise diagnosis."

"I’ve been dating you for the past three years." You reached for your bag on the hook behind the counter, the one you'd had there all evening alongside the restaurant copy of the keys, and began to rummage inside it. "I have hand warmers in here somewhere. I always carry them in autumn so before you say anything—"

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"You were going to say it was excessive."

"I was going to say it was thoughtful. I’ve been dating you for the past three years, too. In love with you for much longer than that, really."

You paused in your rummaging to look at him briefly. He raised his mug.

"I love you," he declared with a sly smile.

You huffed, muttered, “you’re so annoying” to the air, and went back to rummaging inside your bag.

You found one. A single-use hand warmer, the kind you snap and shake, still in its foil sleeve. You'd had it at the bottom of the bag since you'd bought a small packet of them at the start of October and distributed them throughout your different bags and jacket pockets the way some people layered a home with candles or safety pins: quietly, preparedly, just in case.

You cracked it between your hands, shook it, felt the gentle chemistry of it beginning to work.

"Give me your hands," you said.

Joshua set the mug down and held them out across the counter.

You looked at them and your breath caught slightly.

His hands—the knuckles, the backs of them, the edges where the wind and the cold had really gotten in—were red. It’s not the healthy pink of someone who'd been in the warm for a while. It’s the kind of red that comes from sustained cold. His fingertips especially, the color deepening there and when you turned his hands over his palms were cold enough that you felt it through your own.

"Oh," you said. The word came out small.

"It's fine—"

Your eyes came up to him and he stopped because of what was in them—something immediate and wordless, the expression of someone who hadn't been expecting to feel as much as they suddenly felt.

"They're so cold," you said.

"I really am okay," he said gently, trying to reassure you.

You pressed your lips together and looked back down at his hands. You placed the warming pack against his palms first, folding his fingers around it, and then closed both of your hands around the outside, sandwiching the warmth in, your hands over his, squeezing slowly.

Joshua watched you do this.

"You should have texted me," you said to his hands because you were looking at them. Your tone of voice had changed a bit: careful and a little tight. It’s the voice you use when you are being practical instead of saying what you mean. "I know the taxi app wasn't working but you could have texted me and I would have come to the door with an umbrella. You could have waited under the awning wherever you were and there's the big one out front—you could have stood there and I would have come to you—"

"I didn't want you standing in the rain on my account."

"I wouldn't have been standing in the rain, I would have been under the awning which is why most buildings have awnings, Joshua—"

"You'd been on your feet all day."

You looked up at him. He was looking at you steadily, his hands still between yours, the hand warmer doing its slow work.

"That's very sweet," you said after a moment, "and also infuriating."

"I know." He didn't sound particularly sorry. "It could be both things."

You exhaled through your nose and looked back down. Then you started rubbing your thumbs slowly over the backs of his hands, over the red knuckles, working warmth in. He stayed very still and let you.

"You don't have a proper rain jacket," you said.

"I have a jacket."

"A jacket is not a rain jacket. A rain jacket repels water. Your jacket absorbed water like it was gladly enthusiastic about it."

The corner of his mouth turned up. "I'll note that for next time."

"Joshua." You said his name with a kind of exasperated tenderness that didn't quite manage to be the scolding you'd intended. "The weather’s getting cold now. You can't just walk over here in the rain with no hood and a jacket that's basically more decorative than—"

"It's a nice jacket."

"It's a nice jacket, yes, and now it's soaking wet on a hook in my kitchen and you're sitting here with red hands because you walked twenty minutes in the rain—" You stopped and steadied yourself. "I'm not—I know you're fine. I know it's just a bit of cold and rain. I just—"

You didn't finish the sentence. Joshua waited.

"I just saw your hands," you said at last.

Joshua looked at you for a long moment. At the bent angle of your head, the careful movement of your thumbs across his knuckles, the slight tension in your expression that you hadn't entirely been able to put down since he walked through the door.

His chest did something. Something warm and unasked for and it’s taking up exactly as much space as it needed.

You cared. That was the thing. You just genuinely, quietly cared about what happened to his hands. You'd had a hand warmer in your bag since October. You'd put the kettle on before he arrived because you knew he'd want tea. You'd looked at his hands and made a small sound and not been able to hide what it meant to you.

He thought of a word he'd been circling for a while without landing on it.

Lucky. He thought: I am so lucky.

"Does that feel better?" you asked, still looking at his hands.

He turned one of them over, gently, beneath yours. His fingers curled up and held yours loosely. You stilled.

"Much better," he said.

You looked up. He was looking at you with that expression: the one you'd called the thing, in the entrance, the soft and present and completely undisguised one that he wore when he wasn't trying to be anything but exactly what he was.

"You're doing the thing," you said.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're looking at me."

"You’re the love of my life. I'm allowed to look at you, aren’t I?"

"Not like that when I'm trying to be annoyed at you."

"Are you still annoyed at me?"

A pause. You looked at your joined hands.

"A little," you said.

He brought your hand up and pressed his lips to your knuckles. Just because. You closed your eyes for exactly one second.

"That's not fair," you said.

"I'm warming up," he said innocently. "You said I was cold."

"I said your hands were cold, not—" You made a small, helpless sound and shook your head and the residual annoyance finished dissolving. He could see it go. "You're impossible."

"But I’m warm now."

You looked at him.

"Getting there," you whispered and squeezed his hands. "You’re getting there."

You made Joshua stay until he'd had a second cup.

You'd moved around from behind the counter while he wasn't paying attention, pulled down the stool beside him and settled onto it, close to the radiator, close to him. You told yourself it was so you could keep an eye on whether he was still shivering. He let you tell yourself that.

You'd also given him your scarf.

It had happened somewhat naturally. You'd reach behind you for your jacket off the hook, the motion pulling the scarf loose and you'd looked at it and looked at him and simply handed it over. It was a soft scarf, cream-colored, slightly oversized in the way you liked your scarves. He'd wrapped it once around without comment and you'd looked at it, adjusted it slightly, and then looked away.

He was wearing your scarf and drinking his second tea and the rain was still doing its thing against the front window and you were beside him with your own drink and the kind of quiet that settled when the urgency of something had passed and what was left was just warmth. The restaurant felt different like this: chairs up, lights low, just the two of you at the counter with the radiator ticking beside you. Smaller. More like a room than a business.

Joshua looked at you.

Your elbow was on the counter. You were watching the rain with the same expression you'd probably had all evening: attentive, relaxed, comfortable. A strand of hair had come down against your cheek and you hadn't pushed it back, either hadn't noticed or didn't mind. He tucked it behind your ear and you look at him with a smile, a quiet thank you.

A quiet I love you.

You've had hand warmers in your bag in October. You'd put the kettle on before he arrived. You'd taken one look at his hands and your face had done something unguarded and worried and entirely real, in your own restaurant, at the end of a full day on your feet, while he dripped water onto your clean floor.

He turned back to the window.

Outside, the rain went on, relentless, doing what autumn rain did. He was on the right side of it now, the warm side, with a scarf that smelled like you and his hands almost entirely back to their usual color and a second cup of tea he hadn't had to ask for.

He thought: I walked twenty minutes in the rain and this is where I ended up.

He thought: I would do it again.

You left when you'd run out of reasons to stay: the tea finished, the paperwork done, the rain outside at least became consistent enough to plan around.

You gathered your things with the efficient, automatic energy of someone who had closed this place enough times to do it in the dark. Bag. Keys. Phone. You did a last pass through the kitchen out of habit, checking the things you'd already checked.

Joshua quietly observes you as he retrieves his jacket from the hook in the kitchen.

You appeared at his shoulder, inspected it, made a quiet sound.

"Still damp," you said.

"I'll survive."

"You can wear it open. You have your scarf." You said it like this was a plan you'd already made.

"Your scarf."

"Temporarily yours." You reached up and adjusted the fold of it—a small, tucking gesture, securing it slightly against his neck, your fingers quick and light. Then you straightened and looked at him. Satisfied, apparently.

He did up the buttons on his jacket. You looped your bag across your body. You turned the last light off and for a moment the restaurant was dark around you both, just the soft orange of the streetlight coming through the front window and the sound of the rain. Then you unlocked the front door and pushed it open.

At the threshold, you opened your umbrella and held it over both of you the moment you stepped outside.

He looked at it. Then looked at you.

"You had that the whole time," he said.

"Yes."

"You had an umbrella the whole time."

"I did."

"I walked twenty minutes in the rain—"

"Because you didn't text me." You said it pleasantly and pulled the door shut behind you, checking the lock. "Come on. Let's go home."

Joshua stood outside the restaurant for precisely one second in the rain, under the umbrella you were holding at an angle to cover him, looking at you.

You glanced back.

"Joshua."

He caught up.

You held the umbrella between you, tilted slightly toward him because he was taller and you'd made this adjustment without remarking on it. He walked close enough that it worked. The rain tapped steadily on the fabric above you.

He gently took the umbrella from you. Then he put his arms around you so you can both be under the umbrella.

You walked.

The streets were quieter now. Puddles reflected the orange of the streetlights. His jacket was still slightly damp at the sleeves but the scarf was warm and your body was warm and you were walking in the same direction and the distance was not far. Ten minutes in weather like this. You'd walked it in worse.

Joshua didn't say anything for a while. Neither did you. After a stretch of comfortable quiet, you said: "Next time, text me."

"Next time," he agreed.

"I mean it."

"I know you do."

A pause.

"I had another hand warmer," you said. "In the other pocket. So."

He looked at you. You were looking straight ahead, face neutral, but something at the corner of your mouth gave you away.

"So…" he repeated.

"So I was prepared."

"You're always prepared."

"One of us has to be."

Joshua pressed a kiss to the side of your head, walking on without breaking stride. You turned your head and looked at him and then looked forward again and the corner of your mouth finished doing what it had been trying to do.

The building came into view. Above you, the rain tapped on.

Joshua held the door and you went in ahead of him. The warmth of the entrance hall came up around you both and he thought—standing there in your scarf, hands warm, the cold fully behind him—

There is nowhere I would rather have ended up.

He pulled the door shut against the rain. The elevator was slow. It always was. The building had the particular character of somewhere that had been standing long enough to have opinions about being rushed and the elevator made this known through a leisurely ascent that Joshua had stopped being impatient about months ago. You stood inside it in companionable quiet, your umbrella dripping a small patient puddle on the floor, his jacket still carrying the faint smell of rain. Joshua’s hand was now in yours.

You were looking at the numbers above the door. He was looking at you.

You had a habit, in elevators, of watching the floor indicator. He'd noticed this early on and had never mentioned it. He just liked knowing it was there—one of the small, specific things that were only visible if you were paying the right kind of attention.

The elevator doors finally opened.

Inside, you went immediately into the familiar choreography of arriving: lights on, bag on the hook, umbrella stood in the little tray by the door. Joshua was shrugging out of his jacket when you turned around and looked at him properly in the light.

Under the warm overhead glow of the entryway, the state of him was somewhat more apparent than it had been in the soft light of the restaurant. His hair had dried in transit but unevenly and there was still a chill coming off him that you could feel when you stepped close.

You put the back of your hand against his cheek.

He stilled.

Your expression went the particular way it went when you were confirming something you'd already suspected.

"You're still cold," you said.

"I'm warmer than I was."

"That's a very low bar." You took his jacket from him, turned it in your hands, pressed your fingers to the lining the same way you had at the restaurant hook. Still damp at the seams. You draped it over the back of a chair where it could breathe and turned back to him. "Okay," you said with the quiet decisiveness of someone who has made a plan. "Shower."

He blinked. "I'm fine—"

"Joshua." You said it gently but in the particular register that meant the discussion portion was concluding. "You walked twenty minutes in the cold rain and you're still cold and your jacket is still damp and I can feel it coming off you from here." You crossed your arms. "Hot shower. Now. It'll warm you up properly."

Joshua considered you.

He had, over time, developed a fairly accurate internal map of the difference between when you were open to a gentle counter-argument and when you had already reached a conclusion and were offering him the courtesy of framing it as a conversation. This was clearly the latter. The particular set of your expression, the arms, the now at the end; all of it indicated that the correct move was to agree and not make you repeat yourself.

Joshua knew this because he has been loving you for three years, maybe more. He also couldn't quite help himself.

He tilted his head at you, something leisurely and playful entering his expression. "You could always join me," he said. "Speed things up. Conserve water."

You stared at him.

He maintained eye contact with the peaceful composure of a man who had made a reasonable practical suggestion.

"Conservation," you said flatly.

"We’re being environmentally responsible. Doing our civic duty with the SDGs and all that."

"Joshua Hong."

"It was just a thought."

"It was not just a thought, it was —" You put both hands on his chest, flat-palmed, and pushed, not hard, barely enough to rock him back an inch.

He caught one of them.

Joshua wasn’t resisting the push. He was already going, already moving back, but his hand came up and closed around yours with an easy certainty and he lifted it and pressed his lips to your knuckles, his eyes on yours the whole time. He’s warm. Amused. Completely unbothered. The corner of his mouth curved up against your hand.

You stared at him.

He let go, still smiling, and went.

"Go," you said to his retreating back, a beat too late to be authoritative. "Shower. Now. By yourself. Like a normal person."

Joshua was already moving down the hall and he looked back once over his shoulder with a grin that you met with a look of supreme composure, eyebrows raised, pointing very firmly toward the bathroom.

He went. 

You stood in the hallway for a moment after the bathroom door clicked shut. Listened to the sound of the water beginning to run.

Then you pressed your lips together and looked at the ceiling briefly and smiled. The full one, the one you didn't always let people see, the one that took over your face somewhat against your will. You stayed very still and let it happen and then it passed and you straightened and went to find him something warm to change into.

You were not flushed. Your face was just warm from the—the indoor heating was quite high, actually. The radiators in this building ran hot. That was all.

You pulled open his side of the wardrobe.

You found his softest things. The grey sweatpants that had been washed enough times to lose all their structure in the best possible way and the long-sleeved thermal top you'd personally bought him last November after observing that his sleepwear choices did not account for winter adequately. You folded them on the end of the bed. Added socks: the thick ones, the ones with the ribbed cuff because his feet were probably cold too.

You went to the bathroom cupboard and got the big towel. You put this and his clothes on the heated rail just outside the shower so it would be warm. Then you pulled the duvet back on your side of the bed and settled against the headboard with your knees up and your phone in hand and tried to look like you hadn't just spent five minutes making sure everything was exactly right.

The shower ran for a good while. You could hear it through the wall. You let yourself feel the quiet satisfaction of that. He was warming up. He was on the other side of the wall standing in heat and steam and by the time he came out the cold would be entirely gone and you would not have to feel the chill of him anymore.

You checked your phone. Answered a message you'd been ignoring. Put it down. Picked up the towel you'd brought in and folded it across your lap.

When Joshua came out, he came out in a cloud of warm air and the smell of the soap he used—something clean and faintly woodsy—and he was wearing the grey sweatpants you'd left out and the thermal top and he was visibly, entirely warm. Color back in his face. Shoulders dropped from wherever they'd been. The tension of the cold and the evening are fully gone.

He looked at you on the bed and at the towel across your lap. Something in his expression did a quiet thing.

"Come here," you said.

He came to you without argument.

He settled on the bed in front of you, cross-legged, facing away. He understands without instruction. You shifted forward slightly, moving the towel, and brought it up to his hair.

Your hands were gentle. You didn't rush it. You pressed the towel against his head first, cupping the shape of it through the fabric, absorbing the water in sections—the top first, then the back, working down. He sat quietly under it. His hands rested in his lap and he was very still, the way a person went still when someone was doing something kind to them and they didn't want to disturb it.

You rubbed in slow circles at the back where his hair was thickest. He exhaled.

"Better?" you asked.

"Mm." The sound he made was less a word than a general affirmation of everything. You felt the small vibration of it through your hands.

You worked toward the sides, gentling your touch where you knew he was sensitive and he tipped his head incrementally toward the pressure without seeming to realize he was doing it. This small involuntary thing, the trust of it,  moved through your chest in a way you didn't examine too closely. Just noted, quietly, and kept on.

"You scared me a little," you said after a while. Conversationally, carefully. "When you walked in."

He was quiet for a moment.

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. Just—" You lifted the towel and resettled it at the crown of his head. "Text me. That's all. Just text me."

"I didn't want you to worry."

"I know that. But I worry more not knowing. So the text actually helps." You kept your hands moving. "And I was already done with the close. I could have come to the door. I could have met you halfway. I could have —"

"I know." He said it softly. "I know. I'll text next time."

"You keep saying next time like there's going to be a next time."

"There's always going to be a next time. I'm not built for weather planning."

"You are built for weather planning. You just choose not to do it."

He made a sound that was not quite agreement but was not disagreement either. You pulled the towel away and looked at his hair. Still damp but no longer dripping. You set the towel to one side and lifted your hands to his hair directly, fingers spreading through it gently, helping it along. You weren’t styling it, just moving the warmth through, smoothing it back from his forehead. He made a sound you weren't sure he knew he'd made.

You smiled where he couldn't see it.

"You know," you said, keeping your voice light, "a rain jacket isn't even an extravagant purchase. It's a practical item. They sell them everywhere. I've seen them in places that also sell—I don't know, batteries and fizzy drinks. They're not—"

He turned around.

It wasn’t a quick shift. He just turned, the unhurried pivot of someone who had made a decision and before you'd quite finished processing the shift you found him facing you properly, close, your hand still half-raised from his hair. His expression was warm and quiet and very present, his eyes finding yours with that kind of attention that always made you feel, unreasonably, like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.

"Joshua, I'm not yet done—" you started.

"I know," he said.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn't rushed. That was the first thing. The kiss was not rushed at all, which somehow made it more. His hand came up first, cupping the side of your face with a care that was almost unbearable, his thumb settling at the curve of your cheekbone and then he leaned in and his lips met yours slowly like he'd been thinking about doing exactly this and had decided to do it properly.

You went still for exactly one breath.

Then you were kissing him back and your raised hand had found the front of his thermal top and was holding it loosely as if you needed something to do with the feeling that had arrived without warning in the center of your chest.

His mouth was warm. Warm from the shower, warm from the tea, warm in that specific Joshua way that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the fact that it was him, that he kissed you like you were something he finally found, like he had all the time in the world and had chosen to spend it here. His other hand came to rest at the side of your neck, his thumb tracing a slow line along your jaw.

The towel slid off your lap somewhere. Neither of you noticed.

The rain outside made its soft sound against the glass. The lamp threw its warm small light. You were aware, faintly, of the weight of the evening behind you: the cold of his hands in yours at the counter, the walk home, the umbrella, the whole long accumulation of small, careful things, and all of it seemed to press forward into this moment, into the steady warmth of him, his hand gentle on your face, his presence so certain.

Joshua pulled back slowly, just enough. His forehead stayed close, almost touching yours, his hand still cradling your cheek. His eyes opened and found yours and the expression in them was the completely unguarded one.

You were aware your hand was still balled lightly in the front of his shirt.

"You…" you whispered and had to stop and collect yourself, "...are doing that on purpose."

Joshua tilted his head to the side, the corner of his mouth lifting as he looked at you with those ridiculous, beautiful eyes of his. "Doing what?"

"That." You loosened your grip on his shirt, smoothed the fabric with your palm, not quite meeting his eyes yet. "Kissing me when I was making a valid point."

"You were making several valid points, sweetheart."

"I know I was. I had more to make."

"You did." There was a smile in his voice. "You were going to tell me about the rain jacket."

"I was going to tell you that rain jackets are available in most high-street shops for a very reasonable—" You finally looked up. He was watching you with that easygoing smile, the one that reached his eyes and it made the rest of the sentence harder to think about. "You can't just do that," you said. "You can't just kiss me in the middle of a perfectly reasonable point and expect me to—"

Joshua leaned in just slightly. "To what?"

"To not lose my—" You exhaled through your nose. "You know what you're doing."

"I really don't," he said in a tone that indicated he really did.

"You walked twenty minutes in the rain," you said, trying to maintain composure, "without a proper jacket, without texting me, without any apparent—"

He leaned in a little more.

You kept yapping, refusing to acknowledge what he was trying to do. "—regard for the fact that it was cold and that you were wearing a jacket that is more fashionable than functional and that I was—"

Closer. Joshua’s eyes were soft and solely fixed on yours with the kind of attention that made it very difficult to remember what you were saying.

"—I was right there, I was ten minutes away, you could have just—"

Closer still. You could feel the warmth of him now, the slight tilt of his head, the way his gaze had dropped—just briefly, just once—and come back up.

"Joshua." It was a warning. But a weak one.

"Mm." Not quite an answer. His eyes were still fixed on you and you’re now finding it hard to breathe properly.

"I'm being serious."

"I know you are," he whispered. And he was. That was the thing—the teasing had died out somewhere in the last few inches. His expression had settled into something that wasn't a game anymore, something that was simply and directly him, present and warm. His hand came up to your face again, the same as before, gentle and sure.

You had run entirely out of sentences.

Joshua kissed you again.

This one was softer than the first. His hand hadn't moved from your cheek and when he kissed you this time there was something in it that was less I've decided and more here, let me just—as if the first kiss had been the intention and this one was the elaboration. His lips moved gently against yours, lingering, and you felt yourself exhale into it, felt the last tense thread of the evening's worry loosen and let go.

You didn't hold his shirt this time.

You brought your hand up to his jaw instead and his stubble was a familiar texture under your fingers and you could feel the warmth of his skin all the way through now. There was no more trace of the cold, no echo of the rain, just him, entirely and properly warm, your hand against his face the mirror of what you'd done in the entryway except now he was leaning into it, his cheek pressing gently into your palm.

He took his time. So did you.

When the kiss ended, it ended the way these things usually do between you both—Joshua pulled back slowly. The space between you stayed small. Neither of you did anything about that.

You spoke first.

"That's not fair," you said. Your voice came out quieter than you'd intended.

Joshua smiled. This time, his smile was something slower and more private.

"You had a hand warmer in your bag since October," he said. His thumb moved once along your cheekbone. "You put the kettle on before I even got there. You looked at my hands and—" He paused, his eyes focusing on you. 

"You look at me like I'm worth looking after."

You were quiet.

"I just—" He stopped. Started again, more carefully. "I know you were scared when I walked in. I know I should have texted, should have waited, should have—" His hand was still on your face, warm and steady. "But I walked in there cold and wet and you were already moving toward me. You didn't even think about it. You just came." 

He looked at you intently. 

"You always just come."

The rain tapped softly against the window. You didn't say anything for a moment. You were aware of your hand still resting against his jaw, of the warmth between you.

"You're not being fair," you said again but it came out soft and without any real complaint left in it.

"I know that too," he said. He turned his head slightly and pressed his lips to the inside of your wrist. "I promise I’ll get the rain jacket."

You let out a breath that went more than halfway to a laugh. "You'd better."

"You can come with me. Make sure I get the right one."

"I will absolutely be there."

"I know you will." Joshua said it like it was the best thing he knew.

"You can lie down," you said. "If you want."

Joshua rearranged himself, settling back against the pillows with an ease that suggested every part of him had wanted to do exactly this for the last several hours. You moved with him, resettling on your own side, angling toward him.

He looked at the ceiling for a moment. You looked at the side of his face.

His color was completely back now. All traces of the cold, the damp, the too-pale quality of him in the restaurant doorway now gone. He looked warm and clean and settled, his hair going softly in whatever direction it pleased, the thermal top you'd bought him fitting in all the right places.

You had picked that top out. You remembered the afternoon. You were standing in the men's section last November, your phone in hand with his measurements in the notes app, deliberating over thickness and fabric with more focus than the task probably required. You'd bought two. He hadn't commented on where they came from. He just started wearing them, which was its own kind of answer.

Joshua turned his head and looked at you.

"What?" you said.

"Nothing." He turned back to the ceiling. "You're looking at me."

"I'm allowed to look at you."

He smiled his slow, private smile. "I said that last time."

"That you did.”

A short comfortable silence.

"Thank you," he said after a while.

You looked at him and hummed.

"Thank you for the tea." A beat. "The hand warmer. The towel." He paused. "The socks."

You glanced down. He'd put them on at some point while you'd been repositioning on the bed. You hadn't seen him do it.

"You saw the socks," you said.

"I see most things," he said, which was almost word-for-word what you'd said to him earlier in the evening and you shook your head at the ceiling and heard him breathe a quiet laugh.

After a while, you reached out and pressed your hand to his cheek.

Joshua stilled the way he had in the entryway of the restaurant, that same complete and immediate stillness. His eyes stayed on yours.

He’s still warm. Properly now, all the way through, the chill is entirely gone. You let your palm rest there for a moment.

He covered your hand with his and held it there. His eyes found yours and stayed and whatever was in them was entirely unguarded, soft and full, and completely his.

You thought, not for the first time, that he had one of the most honest faces you'd ever encountered. Right now, what was in him was something very certain. It sat in your chest, reassuring and settled.

"Your hair's still a bit damp," you said.

"It is." He didn't move.

"You'll be cold again."

"I have the socks," he said, gravely.

"The socks aren't on your head, Joshua."

"I trust the socks."

You let out a breath that was halfway to a laugh and reached for the towel. He caught your hand before you could.

"In a minute," he said.

You looked at him.

He looked back. The quiet certain thing is still in his face, fully.

"Just—" He didn't finish the sentence. He just kept hold of your hand loosely, his thumb moving once across your knuckles. The same way you'd move your thumbs across his at the counter. You wondered if he knew he was doing it.

"Okay," you said. "In a minute."

The room had gone quiet around you both.

Outside, the rain had eased. The pitter-patter is lighter now and less insistent than it had been. More like company than weather.

Joshua thought about the evening. The tea was already waiting. The hand warmer cracked and ready before he'd asked. The small oh when you saw his hands. The umbrella you'd had the whole time.

Small things, each of them. Together, they were everything.

She took care of me, he thought.

He turned his head on the pillow.

You were looking out the window. The rain. The strand of hair is still against your cheek. He didn't mention it. Just looked at you in the low, quiet dark and let himself be still.

I walked in from the rain, he thought, and she was already there.

Joshua couldn’t help himself. He reached over and tucked the strand of hair back from your cheek. You turned toward him with soft eyes and let him.

"I'm glad I came to you tonight," he said.

You were quiet for a moment. "Me too."

He kissed you gently. You made a small, soft sound against it and your hand found his.

When he pulled back, he pressed his forehead to yours.

He found your other hand.

You were already there.