elle

You sighed and rubbed your temple.

"How could you get Starbucks! WITHOUT ME," he yelled dramatically.

"I'm sorryyyyyyy," you sighed again.

"No, you're not," Dongju sneered.

Your face fell into an are-you-serious face.

"Don't give me that look," he commanded sassily. "I'll be in my room watching my dramas."

He continued to walk down the hall then dramatically spun around.

"At least Vincenzo won't let me down," he called and then rushed to his room.

"You're so annoying," you muttered under your breath.

You sat back in your seat in shock. You hadn't even fully walked in before Dongju was on you. He had seen the empty Starbucks cup and went into full-blown hysteria and for what? Only God knows.

Realizing that you had nothing better to do you whipped out your phone and decided to surprise him.

|*|

"Dongju," you called cautiously.

You peeked into his room and saw him watching Vincenzo, just as he had told you.

"Dongju," you called again.

He ignored you once more. Sighing, you walked over and closed his laptop.

"Xion!"

"What do you want from me, traitor?"

"I'm sorry," you apologized again.

"No you're not," he groaned, rolling over to face away from you.

You crawled onto the bed and pulled him into a spooning position.

"But I am," you whined into his neck.

"Well, if you were it wouldn't have taken you a full episode for you to come and cuddle me," he answered.

You and you're pettiness, you thought.

"I love you," you giggled.

He 'hmphed' and tried to get out of your embrace.

"I love you," you repeated in a sing-songy tone.

"Ughh, that's embarrassing," he countered sassily.

"You have to say it back," you chastised, beginning to kiss his neck.

"Come on, say it," you pushed as you continued to give pecks to his nape. "You have to."

"No I don't," he smirked.

"Well, you will," you smirked back.

Your hands moved to his stomach and began to tickle him. He began to wiggle away and you simply followed him.

"Say it," you threatened.

"I love you," he relented. "I love you, fine. Now, s-stop it!"

You took your hands off of him and ran out of the room.

"Hey! Come back here. I love you! I do, I promise! Babe?"

He pouted and began to wiggle around on the bed in exasperation.

"Surprise," you exclaimed, returning with an iced americano.

He sat up and you saw his eyes light up.

"You didn't," he gasped.

"I did. You're welcome, brat," you smirked.

"I'm gonna let that pass, just this once. Thank you," he giggled as he made grabby hands at you.

"Here you go," you smiled.

"I love you, I love you, I-I-I-I-I love you," he sang.

"Aww, thanks," you chuckled.

"Say it back," he mocked.

"I. Love. You."

|*|

“Registrations have closed. The game will now commence,” the feminine robot voice announced.

The now familiar, haunting voice came from speakers that couldn't even be seen. You could only see the flash of red that drew the border of this game arena. This time you were in some kind of basement since you had to climb down a ladder. A ladder that had been pulled upwards, out of reach, once you set your feet on the ground and crossed the vibrating red light.

You looked around in the dimly lit space that felt all too tight for the ten or so people crowded there. The place smelled musty as if it hadn't been aired in a long time and there was some kind of weird smell too that you couldn't quite place but it reminded you of stuffy alleys behind the bad kind of bars. Everybody around you looked anxious, not knowing what to expect and eyed one another suspiciously. You knew that feeling well, in this place one could never really trust anybody. Or well, not just anybody.

The Borderlands were good at turning people against each other for survival.

“Difficulty level, King of Hearts,” the voice continued and a screen flickered on one of the walls of the entirely closed room. You gulped when you saw the card even though you knew what it was going to be. You had seen the huge blimp and the hanging card from it above before you had found the entrance where you had to leave your knife because the trapdoor to this place clearly stated ‘no weapons allowed in the game arena’.

“Game: Minotaur.”

You sucked in a breath, your mind jumping from idea to idea, wondering if the game would have anything to do with the myth of Ariadne who helped Theseus kill the Minatour and escape by a thread leading him out of the labyrinth. You wondered if it meant that there would be a monster somewhere inside. You shook your head at the absurdity of the thought because monsters weren't real and despite how unrealistic the Borderlands felt with its supernatural twists and power that seemed to come from above, people dying left and right, the control it had over lives… everything within the games were real and logical. There were no ghosts, monsters or demons, there were only people playing children's games at deadly costs. It would most probably be a wild animal if there was a ‘minotaur’ to begin with.

Suddenly you felt a warm, slightly rough hand grazing against yours, fingers slipping between yours and you felt more secure than before, your wild thoughts stopping because you knew who it was. You flashed a quick, nervous albeit genuine smile at Theo and squeezed his hand back before turning back to the screen. Having him by your side made every crazy game feel less daunting.

“Rules: escape the labyrinth before your visa runs out,” the instructor carried on and you gulped because you had only one day to live anyways if you didn't win any games that could have earned you as many days as their card value.

The thing about the Borderlands was that you had no choice but to play because if you didn't, if you didn't risk your life through these deadly games, your visa would run out and a laser would shoot you dead from the sky. So you would rather die playing a game, fighting for your life than die like that as if you had given up. Suddenly starving to death wasn’t your main concern because apparently if you didn’t manage to get out before the countdown on your device reached zero, you would die anyway.

“Clear condition: the King of Hearts cannot leave the labyrinth with you. Those who manage to escape without the King clear the game,” the voice said as the screen demonstrated the rules with an animation. Ah, so it was an individual effort kind of game. But it didn't sound deadly so far, and didn't prompt people to sacrifice each other just to save themselves. But it was a Hearts game, so you were sure there was a twist there. “There is no time limit. The game will continue until all players get eliminated or the King of Hearts is eliminated. The King can be eliminated either by getting killed or not being able to get out with any of the players.”

Ah, there it was.

“But who is the King?” Somebody mumbled, their confusion and anxiety clear from their scared tone. You had encountered the King of Spades before, a one man army creating a massacre out on the streets and you had played a rope scaling game against the Jack of Clubs before. These new games were always against the citizens in one way or another, so the King must have been there as well. 

“He is probably one of us,” Theo beside you said calmly and he was probably right. Your enemy was either the minotaur himself or somebody disguising himself as a player. You had heard the Jack of Hearts had done the same. Now that would have made it a Hearts card-worthy game, one in which people couldn't trust each other and would want to escape alone. At least, you knew you could trust Theo. You had been through too many games together not to.

“The game will now begin. Good luck!” The robotic voice said in an emotionless voice and the screen had gone black at the same time as four doors opened to equally dimly lit, long, narrow corridors in every direction. They looked the same, so nobody moved, unsure if there was a right or wrong way to go. What if you would die if you choose the unsafe path? What if there were other dangers along the way?

“It’s not a Diamonds game, so there’s probably no logic in which one we should choose,” one ragged looking middle-aged man said as he walked from one corridor’s entrance to another, checking them closely.

“Would there actually be the mythological minotaur?” A younger girl with a deep cut on her shoulder asked and you were glad that you weren’t the only one who knew that story.

“Shouldn’t we just kill it if there is?”

“That would be right for a Spades game but it’s the King of Hearts, there must be something else,” the man from before hummed and you could see the logic behind his words.

Each card represented a game within the Borderlands. The higher their number was, the more difficult the games were and once all pip cards were collected, the Second Stage started: the face cards. The even deadlier games against citizens of this godforsaken place. Each suit of cards required a different set of skills in their games: diamonds for intelligence, spades for physical capabilities, clubs for teamwork and hearts for psychological endurance. Hence the King of Hearts was supposed to be the most wicked game of all.

You remembered the first and so far only Hearts game you had played, it was Eight of Hearts, the Yakuza, a version of the infamous Mafia game in which a dealer was a criminal and the innocent residents had to find out who it was before they killed off everybody. With your eyes closed according to the game rules during at the end of every round, you had to hear five people die right beside you, flinching at the sound of their screams before their body fell to the ground with a thud and opening your eyes you could only see the blood that made you want to vomit. Since then you avoided Hearts games when you could but in the Second Stage you didn’t have much of a choice, not with only one day left on your visa.

Ideas were thrown back and forth, nobody really knowing what the game’s purpose was but you all knew that since it was the highest card in its suit, it must have been an especially difficult game to win. Was it maybe a huge, almost impossible maze? Would you starve to death if it wasn’t for your visa deadline? Not even Theo’s closeness could stop you from spiraling as you listened to the others’ theories.

“Fuck it, you indecisive idiots. We will all die if we just stay here,” a hooded guy stood up and walked to one of the corridors confidently. The moment he crossed the threshold, something roared in the distance. Something that sounded like a bull and eyeing the darkness where the sound came from suddenly nobody was keen on staying. Everybody started running in the opposite direction.

Theo still held your hand as you followed the group of people into the maze. The narrow roads gave you a feeling of claustrophobia and you had difficulty controlling your breathing as you went on. Seven or six turns later and kilometers in your feet you had lost count of how far you were from the center. You thought the farther you were, the more safe you would be but it was a naive thought. The woman from the front screamed and everybody froze, barely daring to pant, craning their necks to see what scared her. You let out a quiet sigh of relief when you saw that there was a full-size mirror in the next corner of the maze and the woman probably confused her own reflection with something else. You had almost suggested going forward when you saw something move in the mirror, something that wasn’t either of you.

“Don’t!” You yelled at the man who was on the front but he didn’t listen to you and the moment he turned the corner, an animalistic growl was followed by a painful scream and the man was trampled upon. The last thing you saw was the man’s nails digging into the ground before his blood painted the walls red.

The woman on the front screamed again as you turned 180° on your heels and started running backwards. You totally lost your sense of place and time by the time you got back to the central room, you had no idea if there was a good decision to begin with. The remaining group turned down one of the two other corridors where you hadn’t set your foot previously but before you could have followed them, Theo gently pulled you back.

“Let’s split up from them,” he suggested and after a quick consideration, you nodded. In a Hearts game it was better to be by the side of somebody you trusted. The King could have been one of them, trying to escape the labyrinth with you. Or who knew when he was going to start killing the players off one by one? Would he have tried to turn the people against each other? Trying to turn them into sacrificial lambs?

Just then you noticed that on the screen where previously the rules had been displayed, you saw the statistics about the game: the time played so far (47 minutes), players eliminated (1), players escaped (0) and remaining players (8). You gulped and turned towards the entrances instead.

There were two corridors you could choose from if you didn't want to go in the same direction as others nor go back where you had just been. The one where the roar had come from or another. You wondered if maybe the roar was a test itself and you should have chosen it in order to survive but Theo pulled you towards the other entrance and you let him. You were still panting a bit from the earlier run, sweat beads on your forehead, the reality of the deadliness finally settling in your bones. Most of the time it was easier to pretend that it was just a long, long nightmare.

This corridor smelled like decay, like old libraries without books. When the path separated into two, you kept choosing the right one for easier remembering and when you ended up at a dead end, you went back to the last decision point to change that choice. Whenever you heard muffled noises or screams you pretended not to hear them.

“How long does this go on?” You asked after running into another thick brick wall and you started getting tired.

“Maybe that’s why it’s a psychological game, because we will go crazy before we get out," Theo sighed and unclipped the flask of water on his belt, taking a small swig. He sat on the ground and started drawing in the layer of dust. You leaned over it, recognizing the lines of the maze soon enough to help him remember the road you had taken through the first entrance. It didn't help much but mapping out the turns and the dead end corridors made it certain that it was a rectangular labyrinth. You even took a calculated guess of its size and how many path options it could have based on what you had seen so far.

"We have been here for about two hours and mapped out a quarter and about a half. If it wasn't for that animal, it wouldn't be impossible to go through the whole thing in a decent amount of time," you said, glancing down at your watch, wondering why this game didn't have a time limit if it was a solvable riddle. "Do you think the minotaur guards the exit? That's why we couldn't bring weapons?"

"Maybe. Or to not kill the King of Hearts so easily," Theo hummed, furrowing his eyebrows as he watched the makeshift map. You thought about and wondered how long it would have taken for people to start killing each other, fearing that the other might be the King. The Witch Hunt game had dozens killed by another player due to distrust.

“They must have named the game Minatour on purpose. What if getting out has something to do with Ariadne's thread?” You asked out loud, still wondering about it, searching for the game's meaning.

“Probably. I doubt we would find our way out by pure luck," the boy agreed. "No wonder the game has no time limit, it might be that we could run around forever if it wasn't for our visa or that animal. Maybe the exit is hidden or changes over time, maybe we're supposed to believe that we won't be able to get out of here."

Every game could be won, even in the Borderlands, you had learned, even the ones that seemed impossible. There must have been a solution. But it was unlikely that you would find your answers just like that, so you decided to explore the path from where you had first heard the roar.

You walked in silence but you were glad that Theo was right beside you. Without him, you would have long gone crazy in this inhuman world. You could share your small joys (finding your favorite candy in a rundown grocery store), your sorrows (crying over seeing a child die in front of you) and your silences with him. You found solace in his closeness and hummed lullabies to him when he couldn't sleep near your clumsily made campfire. You didn't talk much about your lives before the Borderlands but sometimes you felt like you had known him your whole life.

Theo hissed at a sudden halt when he almost walked into a wall and you bumped into his back, fingers curling into the material of his hoodie.

"Are you okay?" You asked, worried, but the guy just shrugged.

"Yeah, just my injury."

"Let's sit down a bit… No, don't tell me we can't," you interrupted Theo's upcoming protest firmly. You had already been walking for another hour since your last stop and even though you hadn't run into neither the other players nor the minotaur, your anxiety levels were high. Not higher than your worry for Theo though, so you encouraged him to pull up his tee and examined his bullet wound, hoping it didn't get worse.

Even though you both had gained 11 days on your visa from the Jack of Clubs game, Theo got injured as you were running away from the King of Spades, one of his shots catching him, so you had to sit out some days to patch him back up. There was no way you would have let him participate in any games in that kind of vulnerable condition, even if that endangered your own visa validity. You had pulled out the bullet from his flesh – at least your nurse education had come in handy then – and stayed with him even when he had been feverish from the wound and when he had been out for days.

"I really wish we knew each other in real life. I never had anybody take care of me like this," he had said one night, still delirious.

'Real life', he had called it and really, you had no better way to describe it. The Borderlands felt like it was a tangible alternative reality but who had the right to tell which one was the real one? What if both of them were? Nevertheless, the Borderlands had its own set of rules and even though nobody could be sure what would happen when all the games had been played, since the Second Stage started when all 40 non-face cards were collected, it wasn't too abstract to believe that something would happen when the rest of the card set would follow. You could only hope it would be the end, being able to go back where you came from and not a Third Stage since there were no more cards left. But you hadn't wanted to get philosophical with the barely conscious Theo, instead you had told him that you wished that, too. That he deserved somebody who cared for him.

That night he had also told you that he admired you because you were so kind and kindness in a cruel world like this was a special strength. He had seen you try to help an older lady in that game of Boiling Death even though the elder hadn't stood a chance and that had been when he decided to pull you out of that crumbling ceiling's way. That had been how you had first met, sweaty and scared, him feeling like a safe haven in that chaos. When you had stood outside of the arena, watching it crumble down, the boy had turned his back to you, leaving and maybe it was the first time since you had gotten to the Borderlands that somebody saved you without expecting anything in return, you couldn't let him just walk away like that. You had followed him, thanked him, asked for his name, offered him your hideout if he hadn't had any. Looking back, you might have sounded desperate but you couldn't help it, you had been lonely and scared alone despite surviving games on your own before. You just wanted a friend, an ally, anything.

Theo closed his eyes briefly as if he had just recalled the uncomfortable crawl you had done through the ruins of the stadium in order to get up. Both of you had been full of scratches and bruises by the time you got out but you were still alive. You were going to survive this as well, you told yourself as you brushed his sweaty brown locks out of his forehead gently.

"If we get out–" The boy spoke up again, his voice weak and hoarse.

"When," you corrected him stubbornly.

"When we get out, I hope I will remember you," he then whispered, not arguing, and fell asleep into a fever dream.

You hoped so too, so when you finally managed to convince Theo that you could take a break, you didn't expect the boy to bring up such a topic as he pulled the hem of his tee down.

"If that animal or the King will be with us when we find the exit, you have to get out first and clear the game. You only have one day, I still have a few more," he looked you in the eye, his gaze unwavering as if he had been thinking about it as soon as it became clear that it wasn't that easy to escape from this maze.

"Exactly! You joined this game just because of me. I won't leave you behind!" You protested with wild head movements. There was no way you would leave alone.

"I will be right behind you, I promise, but you have to go first, okay? It's unlikely but please, promise me," Theo pleaded and he sounded so desperate as if his peace depended solely on your promise but you… you just couldn't. Even though what he said was reasonable, he had more time to get out and he was better at these kinds of games but still, he was injured and selfishly, you didn't want to lose him.

The thing was that he kept saving you, even during your first game together when you had been confused and lost, he had saved you and had put up with you even though you were sure that you had been a deadweight and nuisance back then. It was the Seven of Spades, the Boiling Death, in which a hot geyser erupted beneath the baseball stadium you were in and you had to escape before the building would have collapsed or the water burnt you. Ironic that you were once again, running for your lives.

Something made a noise and you looked up, alarmed. Your eyes met Theo's and saw the same anxiety in them that you felt. You looked left and right, knowing that one was a dead end where you came from and the monster was coming from the other one based on the noises. You gulped, feeling stuck and your heart was pounding from fear. You had been close to death many times since you had been in the Borderlands but it was always the promise of fast death. A collar around the neck that would blow up, a killer laser that would go through your body to halve you, falling into terrible depths… you never imagined it happening by an animal tearing you apart, a slow, painful death.

You wondered if it was better to hide by the dead end, hoping that the animal would turn around or go against it, bravely, despite knowing by the lessening numbers of players that you had a low chance without any weapons in a place like this. You wanted to grab Theo’s hand to tell him that you were ready to be brave, that you didn’t want to die like a coward, that you would have at least given it a try before giving up. But the boy didn’t look at you or towards the source of the noise, he looked up.

“Are you thinking…” You muttered, understanding his idea. If there was no way right or left, no way out, you could still go up. It had a ceiling above the high and narrow enough walls, so you couldn’t escape but could get out of the reach of this animal.

“We have to try,” Theo said and you didn’t waste time. The walls had nothing to hang on or climb up on but since they were close, you could push yourself up with your back on one wall and legs stretched towards the other. It wasn’t an easy task because the wall was dry, your feet slipped on it, so you had to be careful and slow while the approaching growling only made you more nervous. But you made it, you were high up, high enough to touch the ceiling, more than two meters above the ground when the bull showed up. Its horns were bloody and it looked feral, hungry for more. Trembling, you kept yourself up, unmoving and silent until the wild animal turned the corner, disappearing after the view. Only when you turned your head to look at Theo by your side, planning to ask about running the other way, you froze up because of a different reason.

"Theo… I think there's something on the lamp," you pointed out, seeing the interesting pattern on the side of the lamp between the two of you. The entire maze was dimly lit due to these bars of lamps high above. Now, that you leaned closer, twisting your body as much as you could without risking falling down. From this close, you could clearly see the line of gilded material forming a clear symbol. Your eyes gleamed. "It's an arrow!"

So this was it, the solution to this maze. Right above your head, right in the light.

"Oh, is it our Ariadne's thread?" Theo whispered back before he encouraged you to get down.

Once your feet hit the ground, the two of you ran in the direction the arrow pointed at. It was luckily the opposite of where the bull went but knowing that the path there ended at a dead end, you knew the animal would turn back around sooner or later. You stopped at the next junction and climbed up on the wall to check the lamp to confirm your theory and indeed there it was: the arrow clearly showing you which way to choose. Relieved, you followed its advice until it led you back to the center with the screen displaying the time played so far (4 hours 12 minutes), the number of players eliminated (6), players escaped (0) and remaining players (3).

Damn, only one player was left other than you. One player and the King of Hearts. You could only hope you wouldn't run into the latter on your way out. Would he guard the way out, would he know where that was or was he just as trapped as you are, not being able to leave by himself and that's why the rules stated leaving without the King?

Following the arrows on the lamps eventually led you from unwalked paths to a familiar one or maybe you couldn't tell them apart because they were all the same except for the dead bodies and blood on the floor and walls at some parts. You had to look away from the grotesque sight but it haunted you: the agony on the morbidly frozen faces.

Theo called your name, reaching for your hand, pulling you forward but you stumbled into his back when you saw a wheezing man at the next corner, still alive but injured, holding his bloody side with a hand as he leaned against the wall.

"It's the guy with the mustache. He's the King of Hearts," the man in his sixties rasped out, forcing himself to take a step. You didn't think, you rushed to his good side to help him keep his balance.

"We know where to go, we will get you out, too," you said and flashed a reassuring smile at the struggling man.

Theo, distrustful as always, looked at the man warily but didn't say anything. He stepped to the other side of the man and the two of you helped him along. It was slower like this but eventually you reached the end where the arrows led you.

"That's it?" The old man asked, seeing the dead end, and you turned to Theo as well when he just came down from the last lamp in the row with a grim look on his face. Something was not okay.

"Yeah, that's it," the boy sighed but you knew him well enough to suspect that there was something he wasn't telling you. It was in the crease on his forehead, in the furrow of his brows, it was in the way he looked at you knowingly, warningly.

"Do you want to check it?" He asked you and you knew he wouldn't have asked in this situation if he didn't want you to, so you nodded, a bit dazed and uncertain, letting go of the injured man to climb up yourself. Your shoulders and back ached already but you concentrated on the task and gulped when you saw the familiar symbol of circular arrow on the panel.

"Should I–" You looked down on Theo but before you could have finished the sentence, you heard the bull's approach.

"Hurry!" Theo yelled and you didn't waste any more time before pushing down on one side of the horizontal lamp’s panel until it turned 90° to a vertical direction. You landed on the ground the exact same moment as the wall that closed the road off moved, opening a door. The exit.

Relief rushed through your body so close to winning the game but then you saw the lamp panel slowly turning back into its original position which closed your way out inch by inch too. You looked back on the boy behind you but he pushed you ahead forcefully, to the other side of the wall as well as the almost invisible red line, out to safety, and that was when you realized what he was about to do. Too late.

"Theo, no!" You yelled but the last thing you saw from the boy was his turned back, trying to keep the old man back from following you.

That was when you understood it, Theo's doubts, why he acted so alarmed: there were only three players left and the King was one of them. You couldn't leave with him or else you lost, and damn if your good heart didn't trust the old man then you wouldn't have been there: on one side of the closing wall, pounding on the brick material, yelling Theo's name like a maniac, screaming, crying when you heard a painful yell.

Theo had said kindness in this cruel world was a strength but no, kindness was danger, kindness was a dagger to a heart, kindness was an 'at least one of us should live' when all you wanted to be was to be together.

"Game cleared. Congratulations," the robotic voice said cheerfully and you slid down the wall, watching the burning blimp fall down from the sky, the King of Hearts card falling to pieces, with tears streaming down your face.

(name) sighs as they stare at their phone. minhee had cancelled on them again, something about helping hyeongjun with something, but hyeongjun had just told them that he was having dinner with serim, so now they are positively confused.

why was minhee avoiding them? could, could someone else be taking up his attention?

"shut up, don't think like that." (name) chastises themself, standing up and locking their phone. "he's just busy, that's all."

--

"so wait, minhee lied to you and said he was with hyeongjun when hyeongjun was actually with me?" serim asks and (name) nods. they are talking with serim and allen, hoping that the older members could maybe help them find out what was going on with their boyfriend.

"do you want us to talk to him? it's clearly stressing you out." allen says, tone soft, and (name) shrugs. they don't know, really they don't know anymore, and they say as much to the two men in front of them.

"that's understandable." serim says, placing a gentle hand on (name)'s arm. (name) huffs. why was this so difficult?

"can, can you just keep an eye on him? i don't wanna seem overly possessive, but i'm so worried there's someone else." (name) whispers. both serim and allen nod, swearing to keep (name) updated before turning to other topics to distract them.

--

"sorry, (name), i'm gonna be home late again today." minhee says after lunch, and (name) sighs. once again. settling down their chopsticks and swallowing the last bite of their food, they shift their attention to minhee.

"why?" they don't like asking, trusting minhee to be honest with them, but considering the amount of times minhee has cancelled on them recently, they are starting to get concerned.

"just, just gotta do something." minhee stutters and (name) scoffs.

"sure. just be honest with me, please." (name) sighs and minhee rolls his eyes.

"i am being honest." minhee protests and (name) scoffs again.

"you're not though, are you?" (name) snaps and anger flits across minhee's face, arms crossed over his chest.

"what is your problem?" minhee says and (name) laughs dryly.

"my problem? my problem is that my boyfriend is constantly cancelling on me and coming home late and i'm starting to think there's someone else." (name) says, words trailing off as they finish speaking. it hurts voicing the idea again but they can't stop themself.

"seriously? you think i'd do that?" minhee says, clearly hurt, and (name) sighs.

"i just want honesty. otherwise, how can i stop my mind from wandering." (name) says, tears pricking the corner of their eyes.

minhee says nothing as he stands up and not even thirty seconds later, (name) hears their front door slam, tears quickly falling from their eyes.

"why? why did i have to be so stupid?" (name) sobs.

had they just ruined everything?

--

"maybe you would've avoided this if you'd just been honest, minhee." hyeongjun chastises him, slipping a piece of chocolate past his lips once he's finished speaking. minhee just sighs. he should've been more honest, but he also didn't want to ruin the surprise.

and walking out had definitely only gone and made things worse.

"will you come with me tomorrow then?" minhee said, changing the topic and momentarily pushing aside the heartbreak that was effusing through him.

"of course. i may think you're stupid for what you did to (name), but you're still my best friend, minhee." hyeongjun says and minhee smiles, glad that hyeongjun was still on his side.

"thank you, junnie."

--

(name) alerts to the ringing of their doorbell and gets up from the couch, crossing to the front door and peering through the peephole. on the other side stands minhee. with a sigh, (name) opens the door.

"minhee." (name) deadpans, attention quickly diverting to the box on the floor beside minhee's feet. it's got a bunch of holes in it and (name) finds themself confused by it.

"can i come in? i've got a surprise for you - that's why i haven't been with you much." minhee says, shy and afraid and with a nod, (name) moves from the doorway to allow minhee, and the large box, in.

once they settle in the living room, minhee gestures towards the box.

"open it." he says softly and (name) sinks to their knees in front of the box with a sigh. gently tugging the lid from the box, their confusion trails off into shock as a gasp leaves their lips from the sight before them.

a small golden retriever puppy lies asleep in the box, soft golden fur rising and falling as they breathe.

"minhee..." (name) trails off, confusion flooding through them again.

"it's for you. you said you get lonely when i'm not here, so i figured a puppy would maybe keep you company." minhee says, joining (name) on the floor, gently taking (name)'s hands in his.

"oh minhee. this is wonderful, thank you." (name) turns to their boyfriend, gently kissing his cheek before turning back to look at the puppy.

"i'm sorry for not being more honest with you. i spent so long trying to find the perfect puppy for you that i started neglecting you in turn. i'm sorry." minhee says, voice gentle and (name) smiles.

"it's okay, i forgive you." (name) says softly. minhee smiles and shifts away, gently picking the puppy up from the box and handing it to (name). they take the puppy in their arms, gentle with it, and smiles softly.

"so cute. now, what should we name the new member of our family?"