i like it simple

It happens to you all the time - Mingyu’s face on the city buses as they pass. Mingyu’s interviews playing on the televisions in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Mingyu’s stupid social media videos in your face. Everywhere you go, no matter the time of day or night - you’re never safe, not unless you save up enough money to move far, far away. 

Unfortunately, you live in a baseball city, and even more unfortunately, Mingyu is their star pitcher or something. 

(Okay, you pretend not to know, but you dated him long enough that you do know the specifics. He’s the closer, not a starter. You can talk extensively about what that means, but… why would you want to?)

Even if you did move out of the city, you wouldn’t escape him. He’s turned into the team’s precious social media darling, because he’s cute and charming and positive. Even the anti-sport girlies know his name. He’s everywhere. You can’t escape your past with Mingyu. It’d be nothing short of impossible.

You get your coffee and grab an express bus to work, surviving still more Mingyu conversation on the way. (“They’re going to need to expand the bullpen eventually,” the business bro standing behind you on the bus says emphatically into his airpods. “What happens if he gets hurt? They’ve got no one.” A curse upon this godforsaken baseball city!)

When you slam your purse onto your desk, your cube-mate Wonwoo turns in his swivel-chair, his expression somehow both flat and indulgent. 

“What’s the count today?”

You sigh. “Only three. But one of them was an elderly lady shoving a magazine cover in my face and asking me if I don’t think he’s so handsome. That should count for five just because she invaded my personal space.”

Wonwoo grimaces on your behalf. 

“Sure,” you say, voice laced with sarcasm as you drop into your chair and wiggle your mouse to bring your screen to life, “he’s good-looking. But did you know, random bus stop grandma, that his farts can clear a room? And that he breaks at least three coffee mugs a month? And that he doesn’t rinse his toothpaste out of the sink no matter how many times you nag him about it?”

Did you know that he’ll tell you he wants a life with you, and then watch it burn to ash?

“She does not know all that,” Wonwoo deadpans. “Maybe you should do an op-ed. The public deserves the truth.”

“Shut the fuck up,” you grumble, but a laugh threatens to tip out of you. You pull up your email, fingers already flying across the keys. “I either need a work-from-home assignment, or I need to cross the city with blinders on like a damn racehorse.”

“We still on for tonight?” Wonwoo asks, entirely ignoring your tirade. 

“Yeah,” you tell him glumly. “I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me.”

He laughs, a bit of exasperation in it. “We’ve been over this.”

You huff, your eyes on your screen, half of your attention on your work and the other half on your conversation. 

“I’ll be back in no time.”

“Months, Wonwoo, you’ll be gone for months.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I will be bored. You better bring me back so many presents.”

In all honesty, you are happy for Wonwoo and his opportunity to take a project abroad. And you know you’ll still talk, and when he comes back you’ll have your Work Bestie back. But it doesn’t change that your day to day will inevitably be a little lonelier without him. 

It doesn’t change the fact that, ever since your breakup with Mingyu, Wonwoo is basically your only friend.

The night, despite being Wonwoo’s big going away event, ends up just like a hundred nights before: you and Wonwoo side by side at the bar, separated by the pitcher of beer you’re sharing, bitching about work.

It isn’t long before you’re also separated by his girlfriend, Seona, who joins you for after-work-drinks about half the time. She squeezes between you, already reaching for the pitcher of beer and the empty glass you’d saved for her.

“Hey,” she greets you, even as her arm snakes around Wonwoo’s waist, her body automatically leaning into his. “What’d you do today?”

“Worked,” you shrug. “FaceTimed my mom. Ate dinner over my sink like a rat. Came here.”

“How’s your mom?” Seona asks, gracefully ignoring the rat comment.

“She’s good,” you say. “Living her best sugar baby life.”

Wonwoo chokes on his beer, spluttering into his glass and coughing twice, wiping at his mouth as Seona pats unhelpfully on his back. 

“Your mom is not a sugar baby,” he objects. 

You shrug again, nonplussed. “Well she’s being taken on a two-month-long overseas adventure by her rich boyfriend and I am here, third-wheeling after a day at my very boring, soulless job, so. I think I can describe it however I want.”

“Did they leave yet?” Seona asks, again stepping cleanly around your nonsense. She’s got it down to an art at this point - you say whatever bullshit, and Seona neatly picks out the one piece of actual information and chases that.

“They leave Sunday,” you say. “When I called her today, she was, like, drowning in piles of clothes. Trying to decide what to pack, you know how it is.”

Your eyes scan the bottles behind the bar as you chat, eventually falling on the television screen behind the bartender’s head. Your stomach sours and you feel the smile fall off your face.

You sip at your drink, making a concentrated effort to ignore the baseball game, but now that you’ve noticed it’s on, you’re noticing everything else too - the many jerseys being worn around you, the shouts and cheers, the way you’re crowded more tightly against the bar tonight, because the sports fans are here.

Wonwoo notices you have this little realization and grimaces at you over Seona’s head. 

“Sorry, bestie,” he says quietly. “It’s the play-offs. If they lose tonight -”

“I know how play-offs work,” you snap. You feel bad for it before it’s even completely out of your mouth. “Sorry,” you add. “I get very…”

“We know,” Seona says, placing a forgiving hand on your arm. “You’re a very nice girl when Kim Mingyu isn’t on the television.”

You try to do better through the rest of the night. You turn sideways so you can look straight at your friends and keep the television more firmly behind you, but you can’t help but glance at the score every now and then. The game is close. 

You haven’t had to care about baseball in over a year, and back when you used to “care” it was only by proxy from dating Mingyu. Of course you wanted your boyfriend’s team to win, back then. 

When he broke up with you, you’d thought you’d be stepping blithely away from the baseball world, happy to exist in ignorance again. And mostly, you have - you don’t turn the games on, don’t listen to the radio broadcasts, don’t seek out the clips or interviews. But fourteen months away from Mingyu haven’t been enough to completely chase the habit - you catch yourself watching the numbers in the corner of the screen, some tiny part of your brain trained to pay attention.

To distract yourself, you talk to Seona about her upcoming relocation - she works fully remote, so she’ll be joining Wonwoo when he leaves for his project in Europe. The distraction works well for a while, as you listen to her talk about the apartment they’ll be leasing, the restaurants she’s already scouted, the museums she wants to get to first. 

But when the stadium’s lights go out on the screen - Mingyu’s dramatic entrance  - you stop mid-sentence to turn and watch.

Most of the people around you do, too. The tvs are muted, so you can’t hear Mingyu’s bass-heavy entrance music, but you know it by heart and it rings in your head as Mingyu strides onto the field. 

His team is down by one in the final inning. The opposing team has two runners on base. Mingyu’s job as the closer is to get three outs without allowing either of those runners to make it home.

He’s good at it. 

He’s amazing at it, which is why he got signed to this team about a year before your breakup, why his salary is more than years of your own, why everyone in the whole country seems to know his name.

Pride and bitterness wage war behind your ribs - the first one coming unbidden and unwanted, followed by the belated recollection that he isn’t yours to be proud of, not anymore. The bitterness churns through the beer in your stomach, but you still can’t tear your eyes from the screen as Mingyu stands astride the pitcher’s mound. 

It burns you up to admit it… but the deepest, most secret place in your heart is still rooting for him. Hoping he does well. Hoping he leaves tonight feeling proud, not dejected.

You want to hate him - you should hate him. But you never really could. 

The whole bar seems to hold its collective breath as Mingyu spins the ball in his hand, narrows his eyes, leans forward to peer at the catcher’s hand signals. 

The first pitch is a ball, too high.

“Come on, Mingyu,” Wonwoo mutters beside you. You shoot him a sideways look, but you can’t blame him. Not when your own inner dialogue said the same thing. Not when you catch yourself clenching your hands into nervous little fists.

“He’s getting too old for this,” someone behind you says, and Seona grabs your elbow before you can turn around and glare. You shouldn’t be fighting to defend his honor, anyway, not after he left you. 

Mingyu’s next two pitches are strikes. The umpire’s shout rings in your head even though you can’t actually hear it. Then, another ball - outside. It’s followed by, thankfully, a third strike.

You exhale. Try to look casual, sip at your beer. Remind yourself that this man broke your fucking heart and you shouldn’t even be watching, let alone feeling anxious for him.

The next batter hits a slow roller towards first base and gets easily tagged out, the first baseman jogging lazily back to his spot after the tag. 

Two outs, but the runners who were out there have advanced, meaning now there’s someone on third base eyeing home plate hungrily. The camera pans the crowd, who are going bananas. Mingyu needs one more out, and then his team will have a turn to bat and hopefully score the necessary two runs to pull ahead. 

The crowd around you presses closer as the next batter walks up. Conversations hush slightly. The guy’s a big hitter.

Mingyu walks him intentionally, four balls in a row. Smart, probably. A good call. But now the bases are fucking loaded.

The woman to your left covers her eyes with her hands and mutters, “I can’t look.”

Ah, play-offs season. A uniquely beautiful time.

The fourth batter approaches home plate. The camera shows Mingyu’s face for a second, focused and serious, then switches to a wider view just in time for him to throw the first strike. 

Two more. He only needs two more.

Your hands tighten around your beer glass as the next ball goes skyward at the sharp crack of the bat- but it lands foul, which counts as a strike. 

You bounce on your feet nervously, watching intently as Mingyu lines up the next pitch. He only needs one more strike and he’s done his job. Your body thrums with tension and nerves - the whole room does. 

The next pitch zips straight down the middle and the batter swings. The camera tracks the ball up and left, and you find yourself holding your breath.

The third baseman gets underneath it and - that’s it. That’s three outs. Grinning wide and wild, Mingyu returns to his dugout amidst back-thumps and butt-pats from his celebrating teammates.

All the tension leaves your body, replaced with the heady waves of relief. You turn back to your friends, lighter, ready to chat again - but the rest of the room has not relaxed. They all still care - very much - if their home team will score the needed two runs to win.

It turns out, you don’t really care if the team does well. You only care if Mingyu does.

–

You don’t always miss Mingyu, but you do always miss the apartment you’d shared when you lived together. High ceilings, big windows, and the best part: in-unit laundry.

Your new place - the one you rent alone - isn’t bad. It’s cosy, affordable, and conveniently located. Your main complaint is that it’s a third floor walk-up, and the laundry room is in the basement. Which means you have to haul your hamper up and down four sets of stairs every weekend. 

You’re distracted today as you make your way down Set of Stairs Number Two with your hamper. You’d seen Wonwoo and Seona off at the airport earlier, and now you’re in a funky mood - a little blue, a lot sorry for yourself. 

Wonwoo wasn’t always your only friend. But you’d lost a lot of them in the break-up, and the few that remained had grown distant in the months that followed. It was your fault, not theirs. It turns out when you isolate as a coping mechanism, there are natural consequences or something. Wonwoo had made it through the Dark Ages simply because you saw him at work every day - you couldn’t shut him out, not from 9-5 on Monday through Friday.

For a second, you let yourself miss your old life - lots of friends, laundry nook adjacent to the kitchen, your best friend kissing you goodbye each morning before you left for work. Then you shove the missing down, remind yourself that things are fine now and to stop looking back all the time -

And then you miss a stair.

–

Things seem to happen in a blink. Mrs. Lee in apartment 1F hears you scream and finds you crumpled on the first floor landing surrounded in dirty clothes. An ambulance ride, a clipboard of paperwork, time passing marked by the shift change and a new nurse introducing himself.

You wait for x-ray results, crying on and off - from pain, from frustration, from helplessness. You’re trying to picture what your next few weeks will look like if you end up on crutches. Your apartment is on the third floor. How will you get groceries up there? How will you make food? How will you stand in a shower long enough to get clean?

You have no one to call for help. Your mom is on her little love cruise, and Wonwoo and Seona are somewhere over Europe by now. 

Just be a fracture, you plead, eyeing your ankle. It’s already bruised purple and black, and swollen twice as big as the uninjured one. Just be a fracture so they can put me in a walking boot and send me on my way. 

The emergency room physician really psychs you out, too, when she pulls back the curtain and says cheerily, “Good news! You won’t need surgery!”

It isn’t the good news you were hoping for. 

The bad news, she informs you, is that you have a bimalleolar fracture, meaning two bones are broken in there. Apparently the majority of bi-mal fractures need surgery, so you were lucky.

“Do I get a cast?” you ask. You’re afraid to be hopeful. You just want to hear a medical professional tell you that you can go home, that you’ll be able to navigate the next few weeks independently, that things will be okay.

The doctor grimaces like she knows you won’t like the answer. “I’m recommending a closed reduction,” she tells you, but this means nothing to you. She interprets your blank face correctly, adding, “Basically, I’m going to adjust the bones so they line up and heal in the right spot.”

Your stomach jolts. “That sounds… not painless.”

She nods seriously. “You’ll be numbed up in that area before the procedure, and given a light sedative.”

You frown. “So I’ll be awake?”

She nods again. “Awake, but groggy. You’ll need someone to help get you home,” she informs you, and your heart sinks heavily. This is what you were afraid of.

How do you explain to this stranger that you have no one you can call?

She taps the end of your bed with the clipboard in her hand and promises to return soon, leaving you to puzzle out what to do. 

You’re almost considering calling Mrs. Lee, who called the ambulance for you - but you don’t have her number. You were too frazzled and in pain to think of it when the paramedics came. You’ve only ever said hello to her in the hallway a few times since you moved in, anyway - you don’t have the kind of relationship where you feel comfortable asking for this much help.

For a short moment, you consider calling your boss. He’s in his sixties, has a daughter older than you. But the idea of him bringing you to your apartment and helping you up three flights of stairs makes you cringe so hard that your jaw makes a popping noise. 

Could you call an Uber and then go up the stairs on your butt, one step at a time? Even if you made it to the top, then what? You have to call someone. You’re going to need help with everything, especially at first.

Your gaze falls on your television screen across the emergency room. It’s playing clips from last night’s play-off game. 

Heartbreaking loss, the closed captions read. Apparently the team hadn’t earned their two runs, didn’t pull out the win even after Mingyu’s heroic inning. 

Which means his season is over. Which means he’s done traveling, done with interviews, done with team activities and daily practices. 

You hate the idea viscerally, even before it fully forms in your mind. 

But you know this for sure about Mingyu: no matter how he feels about you these days, no matter what went down between you two… he’ll help. He’ll make sure you’re okay. He’ll make sure you’re safe, that you have what you need.

He might be the fucker who broke your heart, but Mingyu is a good person.

With a sigh, you pull up his contact info. You never blocked him - didn’t need to. Once he ended things, you never spoke again. No petty subtweets, no late night texts, no drunken phone calls - nothing to indicate that he ever thought of you again. 

You’re nauseated by the time the call connects and the rings start sounding in your ear. He picks up after the third ring, saying your name like a question instead of hello.

You press fingers to your eyes, suddenly close to crying again. Because this sucks. It hurts - your ankle, and your pride, and your heart.

“Mingyu?” you say, though of course it’s him. His voice sounds exactly the same as it always did - low and calm and steady. “It’s me. I’m… sort of at the hospital.”

–

Mingyu arrives after the closed reduction, which means you are high as a kite from the sedative when he enters your room. He’s got a ballcap pulled low and a mask on - to shield his identity at least a little, you know from past experience - but even drugged up, you know those shoulders anywhere.

Your face breaks into a loopy smile. “Mingoooooo,” you croon, and he winces but steps closer, adjusting his expression to something more polite. 

“You’re a mess, huh?” he asks, wryly.

He’d asked you the same question when you’d first moved in together. 

“You’re a mess, huh?” as he peered at the laundry draped over your desk chair, washed and dried but never put away. As he picked up the collection of empty water glasses next to your side of the bed. As he learned that you liked to let dishes soak before tackling them.

You’d just blink at him, each time, all innocence. “I’m so cute, though!” you’d joke, at the beginning, and he’d cave and kiss your head and assure you that you were, despite the clutter. 

You got better about it after a few months of living with his freakishly clean influence, of course. One of the many ways you’d changed for the better, with him.

Sometimes, since the break-up, you’ll leave things untidied on purpose, just to cosmically spite him. One of the many ways you’ve gotten worse, since he left.

You’re heavily drugged from the procedure on your ankle, so you think nothing of it when you lean into the old joke again. “But I’m a cute mess.”

You miss his second wince.

“I take it she’s got something still in her system?” he asks the doctor dryly. The doctor chuckles, so you laugh, too. It must be funny. 

“The sedative will wear off within the next three hours, but the pain medication should last another five. We’ve run another x-ray to confirm that the bones are in the right position,” the doctor tells him. “Once we confirm that they are, then we’ll get her into a cast. Then you can sign her out and take her home.”

The doctor talks over you - to Mingyu - and little snippets of their conversation reach your ears: keep it elevated and dry, here’s the prescription for -, you might also want to get -, six weeks for the cast, follow up in two weeks, she can call to make the appointment…

You don’t remember getting the x-ray results, nor the placement of the cast. You don’t remember being wheeled back down to the lobby, nor Mingyu lifting you and buckling you into his giant SUV.

You’re still groggy when he pulls into your building’s parking lot, but you’re way more coherent.

You blink at the building, a little befuddled. “Did I give you my address?” you ask, because you don’t remember it happening.

“You unlocked your phone for me,” he shrugs. “How do you feel? Does it hurt a lot?”

You shake your head. “It did, but right now I don’t feel it.”

He nods. “Good. That’s good. Let’s… let’s get you inside.”

He gets out of the SUV and walks around to your door. When he opens it, you just stare at him, wide-eyed.

“What?” he asks.

“It’s… my apartment’s on the third floor. No elevator.”

It takes him a second to realize this means he’s carrying you up three flights of stairs. He closes his eyes for a second and exhales, resigned, but when he opens them again to speak he sounds perfectly pleasant.

“We’ll go slow,” he assures you. Then he reaches across you, unbuckles the seatbelt, and lifts you out of the car like it’s nothing. 

The first time he’d carried you, it was because your shoes were hurting your feet at the end of a night out. You still remember giggling into his shoulder, your heels dangling from your fingers as he pretended to huff and puff his way to the front door.

You’re not sure when the last time he carried you was. You hadn’t known it would be the last time, hadn’t paid special attention to it, hadn’t known you would want to remember.

Currently, still groggy, you wrap your arms around his neck and hold on tight, but Mingyu doesn’t falter the whole way up. 

No one giggles, this time.

He unlocks your front door with one hand - when did he get the keys? - and steps inside, using his shoulder to turn on the light in the entryway. You have no idea what time it is, but it’s dark outside. 

“Where’s your bedroom?” he asks quietly, and you are forcibly yanked back in time.

Four years ago, unlocking your door - a different door, a different apartment - unsteadily after a few drinks, Mingyu’s kiss pressing you into the entryway wall, his hands cupping your ass and lifting you until you wrap your legs around his waist. Mingyu murmuring against your jaw, where’s your bedroom? for an entirely different reason.

You swallow back the memory. Your heart thuds, and the nausea has returned. “Past the living room. On the right.”

Mingyu sits you on your bed, leaning you back against your pillows. He adjusts you carefully, then leaves the room wordlessly. You stare at your empty doorway, completely baffled. Fear starts to trickle down your arms like errant raindrops. Is he just leaving you here? Where did he go? Are you alone?

Knowing that your thinking is still a little confused from the sedative and painkiller doesn’t make it any less frightening, and you hear yourself sniffle.

Mingyu’s gone? He left you? Your ankle hurts. Your head hurts. 

Large hands are cupping your cheeks, tilting your face back up. You blink away tears and warm thumbs brush them off of your cheeks. 

“Hey,” a voice is saying, a bit frantic. “What’s wrong, why are you crying? What happened?”

You squeeze your eyes shut, and your head swims wildly. You’re confused, you’re in pain, the nausea is overwhelming, and the emotions are taking over even if they make no sense.

“Y-You left,” you manage through hiccuped breaths. “I got - I got scared.”

His arms wrap around your shoulders, enveloping you. The hug is awkward - he’s standing and you’re sitting, and he’s clearly trying to not jostle your leg around - but you feel yourself calming. He’s always had that effect on you. You close your eyes and lean into him, letting him hold you up, breathing his familiar scent deeply. It works, your breaths coming less and less as gasps, your exhales shuddering less and flowing more smoothly.

When he pulls away, he tells you, “Hey, look at me.”

You do, hazily. He holds your gaze steadily, one hand remaining against your cheek. 

“I’m not leaving you alone,” he tells you seriously. “I will not leave you alone. Okay? Do you understand?”

You nod.

He steps back. Your cheek is warm where his hand had lingered. 

“I’m going to your kitchen to get you some water,” he tells you seriously, keeping eye contact like he wants to make sure you’re paying attention. “I’m going to sing the whole time I’m out there. Just listen to my voice, okay? Keep listening, and you’ll know where I am.”

You don’t register him taking his hand from your face, or him leaving the room again, or even the sounds of rummaging in the kitchen. Drugged and exhausted, the confusion takes back over immediately, hitting you with a fresh wave of fear. 

Alone. Alone, alone - hungry, in pain, confused, tired, and alone.

Mingyu’s voice finds you, singing something slow and crooning. You turn towards the doorway, following the sound. 

Just listen to my voice, okay? 

You nod even though no one is there to see you. You listen to his voice - familiar, comforting, able to wreck you and your heart - and after a moment you hum along sloppily, barely catching the melody.

When he returns with your water bottle, he finds you smiling slightly as you join his song.

He smiles at you affectionately as he passes the bottle over. 

“You good?” he asks, after you take a long drink. “Need anything?”

“Sleep,” you tell him definitively. He bustles around for a second - plugging your phone in for you, turning off the lamp on your desk - then hovers by the bed again, hesitating.

You’re mentally present enough to catch it.

“Mingyu?”

He grimaces a little. “I’m afraid that if I go sleep on the couch, you’ll wake up scared that I left again.”

That sounds like something you would do, considering the last twenty minutes. 

“Can I stay in here with you?” he asks tentatively. “That way, if you wake up, you aren’t alone? I’ll sleep on top of the comforter and just use my own blanket.”

Your heart had lifted and then sank in the same sentence; it feels like whiplash. It feels like a hot air balloon managed liftoff and then got pierced by someone’s slingshot, plummeting to earth again. 

“Good idea,” you say, and you hope that if your voice wavers Mingyu chalks it up to your two broken bones. “Spare blankets are in the -”

“Top of the closet,” he guesses, and you scowl at him.

“You don’t know me,” you protest, only teasing a little - a bit you used to do as a couple when you’d read each other’s minds. 

He crosses his arms and lifts an eyebrow. “Are they at the top of the closet?”

Your scowl darkens. He laughs at you as he heads into your walk-in to get one.

–

The truth is, Mingyu does know you. Better than anyone else alive - even now, even after over a year of being broken up and not talking. You haven’t changed enough to make that untrue, haven’t let a single soul get close to you the way he once was. 

You were together about three years before the end - and they were good years. There’s no other way to put it. You and him… it just worked. You complemented each other in some ways and matched perfectly in others. The balance was just right. 

Like the baseball thing. You didn’t give a fuck about baseball, or even sports in general. But Mingyu had brought you around to the world of it. Over time, you’d reached a point where you could enjoy yourself at a game, could lead a conversation about batting averages and free agents. And Mingyu learned about your interests, too - went with you to concerts, book signings, even the occasional convention.

Or, he had, until he’d gotten called up to his current team. The beginning of the end, in terms of the relationship. Just the beginning in terms of his career, his fame, his legacy. The beginning of a life that had no room for you. You both knew it, even if neither of you had ever been brave enough to face it head on.

The first time he’d joined you at a music festival was also the last, because you’d ended up in the tabloids together. It hadn’t said your name, and the photograph the paparazzi snapped didn’t show your face, but the headline had questioned whether his female companion was getting him into trouble. 

“We just have to be more careful,” he’d said easily, trying to placate you. 

“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” you’d repeated, for what felt like the tenth time. “You weren’t breaking any laws or contract stipulations by going to hear live music.”

He’d shrugged. “We all know what people do at festivals, though, right? We just have to be aware of my image -”

“Your image?” You’d echoed on a laugh, bitterness on your tongue like the ashes of the cigarettes you hadn’t had at the festival - thank god, because that would have been a contract breach, especially if there was photographic evidence. 

You don’t remember how the argument got resolved. Maybe it had just fizzled out, set aside as something you both knew couldn’t be untangled. But you do remember that you stopped going out as much, that Mingyu had gotten a little paranoid over the next few months - constantly watching over his shoulder, checking his phone for alerts or messages from his manager. 

That wasn’t what killed the relationship, though. Certainly, it helped. But you’d held on through his first year, even when he started essentially hiding your existence because he didn’t want your name in the papers. You’d held on when he was gone for months during the season. You’d held on when he’d had to miss your birthday for a team event. You’d held on through videos of sports interviewers flirting with him in front of the whole world, the microphone held up to their perfect, lipsticked smiles. None of those things were enough, alone, to ruin it. You loved each other - so much. It would take more than that. 

It had taken more than that. But it had still happened.

Ironically, it was a night that he chose to bring you into his world that changed things too much for you, that altered the timeline where you’d live happily ever after together.

He brought you to a banquet, a team thing. You’d rented a dress because you hadn’t owned anything nice enough. (Still don’t.)

He’d held your hand, smiled down at you, so handsome. He’d introduced you to the partners of some of his teammates, had squeezed your arm and murmured that he was going to the bathroom (him and the hot girl stomach problems, god) and left you at the bar with them.

“Did he bring you home any gifts yet?” one of them asked you, and you’d started to answer - it wasn’t a gift but you’d gotten a car for the household just last month - when the woman behind her bumped her elbow in playful reprimand.

“Don’t be like that,” she chided, and they both cackled - and you realized, your whole body going hot, that you were the butt of a joke that you didn’t even understand. 

“I - uh -” you spluttered, looking around like someone might rescue you.

“Don’t tease her, she’s new here,” another wife or girlfriend or whatever had said, coming up beside you. When she saw your baffled and embarrassed expression, she ducked her head and whispered, “They’re asking if he’s come home with an STI yet.”

Your face grew even hotter, your mouth dropping open in outrage and indignation. You tried to formulate an answer - the word stigma was involved - when the first one spoke again. 

“We made it through two seasons before it started,” she mused. “So maybe you’ll have another good year before the shit starts!” She said this with cheerful positivity, like she was saying something good and not predicting when exactly your relationship would devolve into lies and infidelity. 

You didn’t have to ask what shit. You’d heard the horror stories.

“Mingyu doesn’t do that stuff,” you’d murmured. 

“Yet,” one of them had said, giving your hand a sympathetic squeeze, and then Mingyu had returned, oblivious, sending them scattering like bowling pins. 

But the words had snaked beneath your skin anyway. 

Not that you thought Mingyu would go full-tilt crazy. You knew his character - he wasn’t a liar, wouldn’t get out of control.

But it was undeniable that his life was about to change drastically. The money, the recognizability, the party scene - they wouldn’t do nothing to him.

Was being with you going to hold him back? Would he start giving you little white lies to make things easier? At what point would it be too many, too much?

Should you even waste both of your time when a checkered finish line was inching closer and closer towards you? 

In the end, you hadn’t had to answer a single one of those questions. Mingyu had ended things before you could try. 

“Things are changing too much,” he’d said - exactly what you’d been afraid of. He was just brave enough to call it before it happened, whereas you’d been prepared to watch the whole thing burn to ash before finally walking away.

Hurt like hell, even if you’d thought the same thing he had.

Still does, actually. Hurts like hell.

–

Your ankle fucking hurts, but that’s not what wakes you. You wake up because you have to pee, and as soon as you roll over it comes crashing back - the pain is immediate, and your blankets trap you because your ex is asleep on top of them, and you can’t go pee because you can’t walk to the bathroom.

Even sleepy, you feel mentally clearer than you had all day, and the reality of your situation slams into you as hard as you’d slammed into the first floor landing twelve hours ago, bringing angry tears stinging into your eyes.

“Fuck,” you hiss, suddenly furious - furious at yourself for getting hurt, furious at your mother for going on her late-in-life romantic adventure, furious at Wonwoo for leaving you here, furious that you have to ask Mingyu of all people for help - when you hate asking for help in the first place. 

“What’s wrong?” His voice cuts through the dark, groggy, and resentment rises in you, as sharp as the pain radiating up your leg.

All you manage in response is a growl. 

His hand pats around on the blanket, trying to find you in the dark, until it lands on your thigh. He gives it a quick pat. “What’s wrong?” he repeats. “Is it hurting a lot? You might be able to take more -”

“Shut up,” you command, your jaw clenched, your voice tight with the tears you’re trying to hold in. 

Mingyu falls silent, but the energy in the room shifts - he’s awake, now, not groggy and affectionate but watchful and wary. He stares at you through the dark as if he can see you perfectly. It’s like he knows you’re about to lash out at him. It’s like he knows you, knows how you respond to things. Because he does - he knows everything.

And fuck him, honestly. Fuck him for leaving you behind, fuck him for shattering your heart and the life you were building together and walking away from it, fuck him for showing up now when you’re down, fuck him for getting to look like such a good guy helping his ex -

He says your name through the dark, and then you hear him fumble for the lamp.

“Turn that shit off,” you snap, but he isn’t listening. He’s peering at your face, squinting through eyes puffy with sleep.

“Why are you crying?” he asks, a little exasperation creeping into his voice.

Because I hate that I have to ask you for help. You, specifically. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it -

“Because I hate you.”

What comes out isn’t the truth, but you’re glad for it, even when you watch him go stiff beside you, his face going carefully blank.

The silence stretches, a thing alive, curling up between the two of you like a lazy cat, rolling to show its belly just so it has an excuse to bite your hand.

“Well.” He turns away from you for just a second, and you watch his throat work. You don’t feel bad. He gives a tiny cough, turns back to you, and deadpans, “Glad we cleared that up.”

You watch him sullenly. You have to tell him. It can’t be helped. “I have to pee.”

He nods, jaw tight, and then he stands and makes his way to your side of the bed. You push the blankets off and he bends to pick you up. You wrap an arm around the back of his neck instinctively - like muscle memory. It makes your breath jump, the pain of it, the agony of your body knowing what it’s supposed to be doing when it’s close to him. 

Getting you on the toilet takes work, but eventually Mingyu gets you seated. 

“Don’t put weight on that leg when you’re handling your pants and everything,” he warns. 

You glare up at him. If you can’t have your dignity, you will have your rage. Or something. 

“I’ve got it,” you tell him sourly.

“Clearly,” he snips back, sarcastic, but before he closes the bathroom door he adds, “I’ll be right out here when you’re ready.”

After he gets you back in bed, he picks up the blanket he’d been sleeping under. “I, uh, I think I could probably move to the couch, now,” he says to the floor. “The drugs from the hospital have clearly worn off, so you won’t be confused if you wake up. ‘Kay?”

You blink, breathe, don’t feel rejected. 

He doesn’t wait for you to answer, and he doesn’t look back. He closes your bedroom door and leaves you alone with the taste of I hate you on your tongue. 

–

The sound of clattering pots and pans wakes you in the morning. You cover your eyes against the bright sunlight streaming around your curtains, taking stock of your situation.

Ankle, still broken, still throbbing in pain. Head, much clearer. Eyes, puffy from crying so much yesterday. Stomach, growling with hunger.

And clearly your ex is still in your apartment, because you can hear him cursing out in the kitchen.

“Hello?” you call, sitting up and trying to fix your hair a little bit. Not like Mingyu didn’t see you with bedhead for three years and change, but still. “Are you robbing me?”

The clattering stops abruptly, and you hear Mingyu’s footsteps approach your bedroom doorway. You can hear the indignation in just the cadence of his footfall.

“No,” he snaps at you, as soon as he’s within eyesight, but there’s no real heat behind it. “I’m making your ungrateful ass breakfast.”

“Well,” you say blithely. You deserve the dig after what you said to him last night, and you know it. You can’t even be mad about it. “My ungrateful ass is starving, so I appreciate that. If you help me out to the table, I can tell you where things are so you don’t have to dig through my cabinets like a grizzly bear at a campsite.”

He rolls his eyes but does as you say, and soon you’re sitting back on a kitchen chair, your ankle propped on a pillow on the chair next to you.

You watch Mingyu work, breaking the silence only to help - “The whisk is in the third drawer”, “the good pan’s buried in the back” - until he busies himself at the stove and you decide to have a conversation with his back. (It’s a nice back. You had always thought so.)

“I’m sorry about last night,” you say. It’s easier, this way - easier to apologize when you don’t have to look him in the eye. The back you’re speaking to tenses.

“For what, exactly?” he asks thinly. He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even glance over his shoulders at you.

“You know.”

“Apologies don’t count if you can’t say what you’re sorry for.”

You exhale, an unpleasant tingle flooding your body. He’s just parroted one of your own relationship rules at you.

“Don’t quote the old magic to me, witch,” you quip, and now he does turn around, his face stormy.

“Okay!” You hold up your hands in defeat. “I’m sorry I said I hate you. I hate this situation a lot, I hate asking for help, I hate needing someone, and I hate that it’s my ex - but I do not…. totally hate you.”

He watches you for a long moment, and then turns to stir whatever is in the pan. “Not totally? So, what percent?” he asks.

“Ninety-seven.”

“Hmm,” he says, mock thoughtfully. “Even after I carried you up three flights of stairs?” 

You pretend to consider this. “Ninety-six.”

“Harsh.”

Him making you laugh makes something in you soften a little. “I’m sorry I couldn’t articulate that the first time,” you say, and this is your real apology, the one he wanted. “I was coming down from all those medications, and I was just feeling a lot and -”

“I know,” he says softly. This means I forgive you. You can still translate him, and you aren’t sure how this makes you feel.

You shrug innocently, as Mingyu comes and places food on the table in front of you, taking the seat across from you and starting to eat. 

The first time he’d cooked for you, it blew you away. You hadn’t seen it coming - this big guy, athletic, math-minded. It never occurred to you that he might cook - and well. He’d asked you to his place, and as soon as his front door opened it hit you - the smell making your stomach growl, the candle-adorned table making your heart flutter, the mischievously pleased smile on his handsome face making your knees weak.

No wonder you’d fallen for him, fast and heedless and stupid.

You eat in silence. You’re overwhelmed, feeling too many things. Your ankle throbs - you need to take your morning dose of painkiller. Your head still hurts a little - maybe from stress, from crying yesterday, from the medications. 

And your ex is sitting across from you eating breakfast like you’ve stepped back in time three and a half years, when things were still good, like everything is fine between you. Like he didn’t basically leave you for dead, emotionally, a little over a year ago.

It hurts to sit and talk with him, to laugh at his jokes and try to parry them back; it hurts because you had this and living it again feels amazing, feels like actual weight is lifted from your chest, feels like everything you wouldn’t let yourself want for the last three years - but you know it isn’t real. 

It’s like all the times you’d dreamed of him - ordinary dreams, nothing exciting at all, but he was there, you were together, he was yours. You’d wake up from them freshly devastated, feeling like you’d lost something all over again.

Now, at your kitchen table, you know this is just an act. You know that when you’re healed enough he’ll go back home and back to baseball - and you’ll be here, alone, with an ankle that twinges when a heavy rain is coming through.

You wonder if this hurts for him, too. Maybe, you think. Maybe it does.

After a bit, Mingyu stops eating, leans back in his chair and looks at you calculatingly. It’s dangerous, that look - it means he’s figuring you out, usually in ways you’d prefer he didn’t.

“I do wonder,” he says thoughtfully, and you fight the urge to roll your eyes as you hear him slide into logistician mode, “why you called me.”

“Mom’s traveling.”

He quirks an eyebrow at you.

You sigh. “She got this new boyfriend? Apparently he’s, like, richer than you, even. He whisked her off on this six-country lovefest. I don’t know. In fact, I try to know very little about it.”

He’s cackling across the table, and you want to be irritated, but you feel yourself smiling. 

“Love that for her,” he jokes. “I always knew she had it in her.”

“Mingyu!”

“What?” he laughs. “Good for her! I hope I have that much game in my sixties!”

You scoff at this, but he’s a little right. 

“What about Seungcheol?” he prods, once he’s done laughing. “He would have helped, no questions asked.”

Your breakfast suddenly tastes like sand. You try to keep your face neutral as you say, “Haven’t talked to him in a while. Any of the guys, really.”

Mingyu’s too sharp for this kind of evasion. His eyes narrow. “In how long, would you say?”

If your leg wasn’t broken, you’d kick him. He knows the answer. He just wants to confirm if he’s right. 

“Little over a year,” you mumble, eyes on your plate.

Mingyu goes quiet. 

“It’s fine,” you say emphatically, protesting to something he hasn’t even said. “I didn’t expect them to take my side -”

“There shouldn’t have been sides,” he growls, and you watch him, trying to work out what he’s angry about. That your friends dropped you when he did? That he didn’t know about it? Both?

“It’s fine,” you say again, more gently. “Normally I have Wonwoo and Seona, but he took a work trip and she went with him -”

“Who?”

“Oh.” It occurs to you that Seona came after Mingyu left your life. Only by a few weeks, but still. “She’s been with Wonwoo… about a year. She’s great. You’ll like - I mean, you’d like her. If you met her.”

This slip startles you both into silence. You shovel another bite into your mouth and chew, even though it still tastes like crap - which is not a reflection of Mingyu’s cooking, just your own emotional state. 

Being together like this again, sitting down to breakfast like it’s any regular Saturday morning, feels like you’ve both just slipped right back into your old roles, old routines - muscle memory of the heart, or something. 

Remembering that it’s nothing like it used to be, that Mingyu isn’t yours and you are certainly not his, is like being doused in cold water.

You eat in silence for a bit, until Mingyu sighs and says, “You’re lucky we lost the playoffs or I’d be across the country right now instead of cooking you breakfast.” 

You grimace. “I’m sorry you guys lost. Wasn’t your fault, though.”

Mingyu freezes, his dark eyes meeting yours. “You watched it?”

You feel yourself flush, caught. “I was at the bar with Wonwoo and Seona,” you try to explain. “It was on the tv.”

He watches you silently, taking a bite of his food, waiting you out. He knows how you work.

You lower your gaze, play with your food a little. “Yeah,” you amend. “I watched. You did great. We… we were rooting for you. You had us nervous.”

Something changes on Mingyu’s face; it’s hard to read, even for you. “Well,” he says, and you can hear a bit of bashfulness in his tone, “I appreciate the support.”

“Of course,” you murmur, but you can’t look at him as you say it, your eyes on your plate. “Anyway… I’m sorry. That you didn’t get to move forward to the championships or whatever.”

You hear him huff out a laugh; he knows you know how the tournaments work, knows that your indifference is an act.

“It’s disappointing,” he says. “But we’ll just get ready to tackle next season.”

Now you do look up at him. “This isn’t a presser, Mingyu. You don’t have to give me the hot-mic answer.”

His smile goes sideways. “Fine,” he says, then taps his fork against his plate a few times, as if he needs a second to give himself permission to be honest. “It fucking sucks. I’m pissed off about it.”

Now you smile. “There he is.”

You’d thrown the same line at him when you broke up, this isn’t a press conference, and you wonder if he remembers. But he’d been careful, clinical, diplomatic in ending your relationship, in telling you he was moving out, and it had infuriated you.

This isn’t a press conference, you’d hissed, hands curled into fists at your sides, like you could fight off what he was telling you. You can say the real reason.

He’d shrugged, collected and unreadable, as if the cameras were on him even then, the perfect picture of their Mingyu - the team’s, his coaches’, the adoring public’s. Not yours. Hadn’t been, for a bit.

Now, in your cramped kitchen, he looks like your Mingyu again, cute and pouty, his frown extra pronounced in case it gets him extra sympathy. 

The rest of the meal passes in silence. When you’re both done, Mingyu rises and takes all the dishes, stands and washes them at your shitty little sink. You watch his back again, trying to read the tension in his shoulders. 

“I’d offer to help,” you say over the sound of running water, “but it’s kind of a task that requires standing.”

He flicks a look at you over his shoulder, just a quick acknowledgement, but doesn’t answer - just keeps washing and drying until everything is done. Then he settles back in the seat across from you, his face pensive. 

“Thanks,” you say quietly. You have a feeling you’ll be saying this a lot over the next few weeks. Might as well lean into it, so as to get past the sour taste of it sooner. 

You look at each other in silence, both serious. 

“So,” you say uneasily, after a few minutes of quiet, “I just wanted to say that I really appreciate you coming to get me from the hospital.”

Mingyu cuts a look at you that means you have a weird way of showing it, but he blessedly keeps his mouth shut. 

“Really,” you insist. “You were really nice to me, and made sure I was okay. But I’m good now, not all loopy from the meds, so you can go back home to your real life whenever you want. I’m okay here.”

He stares at you for a minute, that problem-solving look on his face. Right now, you’re a math equation to him, and you fight the urge to squirm. 

“Alright,” he says slowly, but you can tell from his tone you aren’t going to like what follows. “So let’s say I go home right now. What are you going to do when you need to go to the bathroom?”

“Hobble.”

“Ma’am.”

You smile despite yourself. It’s so easy to fall back into teasing him. 

“Okay, so I need… crutches?” 

He nods. “And a shower chair, probably. But even once you have that… even once you can hobble around the apartment… what are you going to do about food?”

“The microwave and I have a beautiful relationship.”

He says your name so flatly it makes you cackle. 

“What do you propose, then?” you ask. “I’d be fine here most of the time, it doesn’t make sense for you to stay. You have… a life. I don’t need a babysitter. Honestly, if you could just bring my groceries up once a week, I can figure the rest out -”

His brows furrow. “I don’t like that idea.”

You falter. “I know it’s not the most convenient for you, especially with the stairs… but what else could we do?”

He gives you a look you know well - he’s going to say something he knows you’re going to hate. 

“My place makes more sense.”

“Absolutely not,” you say, the words rushing from you with force.

He says your name, a reprimand laced with affection. “Hear me out,” he argues. “I have empty guest rooms on the ground floor - no stairs. Okay, one stair. And I have security, and staff to help us -”

“From the baseball millions.”

“Yes,” he snaps, the first time he’s actually sounded a little pissed. “Yes, I know, my dirty baseball money - how dare I earn a living, how dare I have enough for a housekeeper, how dare I need security systems, how dare I choose a life that isn’t this!” He throws one arm out, indicating your rinky-dink, three-foot long kitchen, and you feel yourself flush hot.

You’re surprised it took this long for an argument to devolve and turn into what you’re really fighting about: the breakup. 

“I never said that,” you say darkly, your voice low and coiled. 

“You did,” he counters, the heat gone from his voice now that his outburst is over, replaced with something sullen and almost pouty. “Maybe not in those exact words, but you did. You hated seeing my life start to change and you made it very clear.”

You stare back at him, something hot and angry fluttering behind your ribs. “Is that why you left?” you ask, full of venom. “Because I wasn’t being nice enough about your sudden celebrity status?”

He laughs silently, humorlessly - a single puff of air through his nose. “Kind of, yeah,” he says, a bit of hateful laughter still present in his tone. He stands and walks into your living room, and you watch him pull his hands through his hair in frustration, his back to you.

You had meant it as a barb, not as an actual question. But you’re wondering if he’d given you an honest answer anyway.

Focus. Neither of you can afford to do this, to deconstruct the breakup, to autopsy the relationship. 

“I’m not going to live in your house, Mingyu.” You say it with as much finality as you can muster. 

He sighs, frustrated. “Let me stay here, then.”

“I’d rather chew glass.”

If you’ve hurt his feelings again, he doesn’t show it. “I’ll leave you alone as much as possible,” he offers. “I’ll just pop in once a day, or something. It would just give me some peace of mind to know that if you have an emergency… someone’s around.”

“I won’t have any emergencies.”

“You’re so stubborn,” he mutters, speaking to you less than he’s speaking to himself. Then, addressing you, he adds, “Humor me until your follow-up appointment. It’s just a few days. If everything looks good then, we can revisit the topic.”

Revisit the topic. It makes your insides swim, the formality of it, the way he’s talking to you like you’re a business deal.

You stay silent, giving him neither a yes nor a no. 

He gives you an exasperated look that used to be wielded only when you provoked him on purpose. 

You deflate. “Fine,” you mutter. “We revisit the topic after my follow-up.”

He nods smartly, pleased, but doesn’t smile about it. “Great.” He pulls out his phone and starts typing. “I’m going to head out for a while and pick up some stuff for you. Crutches, shower chair… groceries? Text me what food you need.”

Something twinges in you, even as he stands, ready for action, ready to start fixing things.

“You’re being really nice to me,” you mumble, eyes on the worn carpet below you.

Mingyu lets out a quiet, breathy laugh. “Maybe it’s penance,” he says.

Your eyes shoot up - you want to ask him what that means - but he’s already clapping a hand against the top of the chair he’d been sitting in and heading away. 

After he gathers his things - he used to tease you by reciting keys, wallet, phone every time you left the house because you’d always forget one - and tells you goodbye, you stare around your empty apartment as if looking for a witness to this madness, this sitcom of your life. 

Maybe it’s more of a tragedy, actually. 

You listen for his footsteps to disappear down the steps out in the hall. You count to a hundred. Then you pull out your phone and call Wonwoo. 

“It is six in the morning where I am, in case you suddenly can’t do math.”

“I broke my ankle and had to call Mingyu to get me from the hospital and now he is insisting on continuing to take care of me. He is out buying my crutches right now.”

Silence on the line. You pull the phone away from your face to check that the call didn’t drop. It didn’t.

“Wonwoo?”

“I left you alone for a day,” he laments, disbelief coloring his tone. 

“I know,” you whine. “Come save me.”

“Not only can I not do that, I also don’t want to. Now go back to the beginning and tell me what happened.”

–

It takes Mingyu three trips to get everything upstairs - though, to be fair, the shower chair by itself took one trip. 

He unloads the groceries, putting everything in its place, leans your new crutches against the end of the couch you’ve been trapped on, and then disappears into your bathroom to put the shower chair in your tiny shower.

(“Does it fit?” you call to him.

“I’ll make it fit,” he grunts back, and you go hot from head to toe and thank every god, universe, everything that he can’t see your face.)

When he emerges, sweaty and huffing, you ask him, “What do I owe you for all that?”

He waves a hand at you. “Don’t worry about it.”

You hate that.

“I will worry about it,” you retort. “I’m not letting you just buy all this shit for me, Mingyu, I am not your problem -”

“I know you’re not,” he cuts you off, not really arguing, but still somehow arguing - a skill you two have always had with each other. “But the cost doesn’t… affect me the way I know it will affect you and I -”

“I’m not your charity case, either!” you snap, suddenly defensive. “I can buy my own groceries, I don’t need my rich ex to swoop in and -”

“I know you resent the baseball money,” he interrupts again, “but I want to do this for you. It makes me happy to do this for you. Please let me.”

You fall into sullen silence. He lets you sulk, knowing you well enough to wait it out. Knowing you well enough to know that when he’s right and you’re wrong sometimes you just need to sit with it for a minute before you let it go.

“I don’t resent that you make good money,” you mutter eventually. “I know I said some bratty things about it, but… that isn’t the problem. I’m happy you’re doing well.”

He makes a face like he doesn’t quite believe this.

You sigh, knowing you have to explain this, but hating the vulnerability it requires. “I don’t resent the baseball money,” you explain. “I resent the baseball life.”

Mingyu’s face is blank. He does - says - nothing, just waits.

You rub your hands over your face. 

“Because,” you say, as if he’d asked, which he didn’t, technically, “as much as we both wanted me to, I didn’t belong in it. Okay? I know it’s been a long time, and I’m over it and everything, but does it make me feel better to be petty and bratty about the career that took over and bumped me out of your life? Yes. It does.”

He turns and heads into the kitchen, his back to you once again. You stare at him, wondering at his reaction. You aren’t sure what you’d expected from admitting this - defensiveness, maybe even an argument. Not a shut-down. Mingyu isn’t usually an ice you out type of guy.

Or, he hadn’t been, until the very end.

But he doesn’t respond to what you’ve admitted at all, doesn’t challenge you or press you for more - just continues bustling around your kitchen with a tense, crackling energy that makes you both nervous and itchy to soothe, the way you used to.

The way you slip into old habits with each other fucks with you, lets you forget that you lost him, and then shatters you with the memory of him walking out. Not to mention it’s becoming more and more clear that you’ve both harbored some feelings - anger, resentment, blame, guilt, who knows what else - and the more time you spend in the same room, the more of it bubbles to the surface. 

You watch tv and Mingyu cooks you dinner early - “So it’s here later, when you’re hungry” - before getting ready to go home. 

You don’t talk about anything else, don’t bring up your past or his present. Mingyu just flits around your apartment until he’s sure you won’t die tonight, and then he tells you goodbye and goes on his way.

Later, after you’re done eating, alone, you make your way on crutches back to your bedroom. You try to read, your mangled ankle propped up on a stack of pillows at the end of the bed, but your eyes are heavy and it isn’t long before you fall asleep. 

You must have slept fitfully the night before, because you knock out for hours - when you wake again, it’s dark outside. You blink, then grab your phone to check the time. 

Two texts from Mingyu wait to be read.

Call my cell if you need anything tonight. Ringer’s on. 

And then, below that, clearly added as a forceful afterthought, Even if you don’t want to. Do it anyway.

–

Of course, falling asleep after eating dinner and waking up near one in the morning means your body had a great nap, and now you’re wide awake. 

You try your best to get comfortable and sleep again, to no avail. Sighing in defeat, you click on your bedside lamp and settle in for a long scroll on your phone.

You’ve scrolled just long enough that you’re starting to find yourself in a strange corner of the internet when a DM notification pops up.

Mingyu: i can see youre online You: 😬 You: well you see… lol Mingyu: 🤨 You: i fell asleep at like… 8 You: so now my body thinks i just had a very refreshing nap You: and i am wiiiiiiiide awake  You: whats your excuse?

Mingyu types, then deletes, then types, then deletes. Your eyebrows raise, curious.

Mingyu: couldnt sleep. tried jogging to see if it helped and now im just sweaty and awake. tragic. You: why cant you sleep?

Again, Mingyu seems to choose between responses, the little dots appearing and disappearing multiple times before his response comes in.

Mingyu: a lot on my mind ig You: want to share with the class? Mingyu: lol Mingyu: not this class You: ouch Mingyu: 🤷

It’s strange, feeling rejected by your ex - someone who already left you in every way a person can. When he broke up with you and moved out, Mingyu went from your best friend, the biggest part of your life, to a stranger - leaving emptiness clinging to the corners of your home, your routines, your heart like spiderwebs and dust. 

You don’t answer him. You feel weirdly stung, and the feeling is compounded by the fact that you know - logically - it isn’t fair. Mingyu isn’t yours. Mingyu doesn’t owe you his thoughts. Mingyu made it very clear, over a year ago, that he wants to exist without you. 

All he’s doing is sticking to the plan. You don’t get to feel hurt by that.

You don’t answer him; you don’t know what to say. But your phone buzzes in your hand again anyway.

Mingyu: how is everything over there Mingyu: you good right now? need anything?

The hurt softens. 

You: i’m fine. just bored lol Mingyu: you sure? i could swing by with food if you need it You: its almost 2am mingyu Mingyu: my phone tells time too Mingyu: im offering

You take a moment, trying to work out how you feel. Confused, you think, by the way Mingyu seems to push you away and pull you back in the same moment. 

It’s almost two in the morning, and the liminal space of late-night-early-morning makes you bold.

You: i dont really understand why youre doing all this

Silence spools out. You wonder if you’ve pissed him off. You wonder if he fell asleep. 

When his answer comes, words on a screen, you can hear the tightness in his voice, can hear the dare in it.

Mingyu: doing what, exactly

You take a bracing breath. 

You: taking care of me, i guess

No waffling over words this time. His answer flies back.

Mingyu: because the alternative is you do this all alone

So what? you shoot back. So let me. And then, when he doesn’t answer, you add on, I’m not your responsibility, and that’s YOUR choice that YOU made so I just. dont understand. 

Just like before, his answer comes in hot.

Mingyu: are we really doing this?

Your pulse jumps, adrenaline spikes. 

You: doing WHAT? Mingyu: pretending that IM the one that left YOU

You’re dizzy, that’s how strongly your fight or flight has kicked in - and it wants you to fight, bad. 

You: pretending??????? im sorry, i dont remember packing up MY shit and moving out You: nor do i remember saying the words “i’m done” or “dont call me” You: who could that have been??? You: ohhhh right. You: that would be you.

You wait, blood boiling, furious and dying for a response because sitting alone with your anger feels worse than if this fight were happening in person, where you could see his reaction, yell about it instead of just typing harder.

His answer is glacial.

Mingyu: so we ARE pretending. got it. Mingyu: thats fine.  Mingyu: call me if you need help. otherwise, i’ll see you tomorrow.

Sleep doesn’t come for you until the sun creeps over the horizon outside your windows, tinting your room pale blue into dandelion yellow. 

You’ve only been asleep for about two hours when your front door slams shut, startling you so badly that you jolt in your bed, sending waves of stinging pain up your leg from your shattered ankle. 

“Ow,” you hiss. You can hear the telltale clatter and footfall in your kitchen that means Mingyu is whipping up your breakfast. You wait for the throbbing in your ankle to abate to something closer to ignorable, and then reach for your crutches. 

It’s a familiar sight, as you lower yourself onto your normal kitchen chair: Mingyu’s back, shoulders tight, his body language letting you know that yes you’re still fighting. But he’s there, even though he’s angry. He still showed up.

“It was just a question,” you say instead of hello. “I think it’s a fair question, actually.”

“My question,” he retorts, whirling around to face you, spatula forgotten in his hand, “is why you would want to antagonize the only person who seems interested in helping you through breaking your leg. Do you see a line of willing friends, lovers, family, or neighbors? No?” His voice is sarcastic and acidic, and you will yourself not to wince. “In that case, maybe you should consider not being such a -”

He cuts himself off. You don’t name-call, even when you’re mad at each other. It’s one of the Old Rules. 

You let it slide. Softer, you say, “It was a real question, Mingyu, not an attack. You walked out on me. You told me to stay out of your life. And it’s wonderful that you’re helping me, because you’re a good fucking person, but I just… find myself feeling confused by how much you’re taking care of me.”

His hands lower, the spatula resting near his thigh, but he doesn’t answer this. 

You lower your eyes to your hands. You never could look at him when you had to say the hard stuff. Hadn’t been able to look at him the first time you told him you loved him. Hadn’t been able to look at him when you told him goodbye. Can’t look at him now.

“Maybe this just doesn’t hurt you like it hurts me,” you try to reason. “I think that’s why I’m… angry. Antagonizing. It just sucks that it’s easy for you to be around me when I’m… the ankle is nothing. Having to sit across the kitchen from you, acting like everything is normal, like we’re roommates, or friends? That shit hurts.”

Quietly, Mingyu murmurs, “Should I cancel the World’s Best Roommate cake, then?”

“God, Mingyu!” You hate that you’re laughing. “I’m trying to be serious. I’m trying to have a real conversation about this.”

He turns back around and flicks the knob to turn the stovetop off, sets the spatula on the counter, and calmly takes the chair across from you, his long legs stretched out sideways because they barely fit under your table.

“It isn’t easy for me,” he admits. You let yourself look at him again, emboldened. He laughs, a little self-depricating. “I can’t even be normal with you, I want to just bundle you up and bring you home and… and… fix everything. It’s awful. It’s not allowed. But I can’t seem to stop.”

You watch your hands on top of the table, watching your fingers grasp each other tightly. “Why not?” you ask.

It’s a dangerous question. The tension shifts around you like oil in water, seeping into the empty spaces, pushing to make room where it needs to. 

“You know why,” Mingyu says quietly. Your heart stops. Or, well, that can’t be possible, but it feels like it. Your chest feels so tight that inhaling seems like a herculean task. 

“No I don’t,” you say, your voice thin and tiny. “That’s why I’m asking.”

He says your name, flat, calling you on the lie. 

Frustration claims you. “No I don’t,” you insist. “Because it seems like you’re saying some version of you still care about me - or something like that -”

“Something like that,” Mingyu murmurs, like it’s a joke he wants to repeat. 

You barrel over him. “But that can’t be right, Kim Mingyu, because if you still felt something like that, that would make absolutely no sense considering that you are the one who left.”

He rolls his eyes and you slap your hand on the table, leaning forward, fury carrying you as close as you can get to leaping to your feet, considering the broken ankle.

“God, you’re impossible!” you snap. “What is that reaction? Am I wrong? Am I telling a lie? Did you or did you not pack up and move out?”

“I did,” he says, so evenly and lightly that it makes you angrier. 

“Okay!” you burst out. “So you can see why I might be confused.”

Mingyu eyes your ceiling, exhaling lightly. “Yes, I think I understand why you’re confused. I’m just not sure we should really be having this conversation right now.” He looks at you in that familiar way of his, like he’s solving puzzles you can’t even see. 

“Why?” you demand.

He shifts his mouth guiltily. “I think it’s just going to… hurt. To dredge everything up. To talk about… the end.”

You’re still bristling with annoyance, but you try to consider what he’s saying. He watches you carefully, his manner still a bit cowed, like he’s regretting this entire topic. 

Finally, you tell him, “Listen, I’m already hurt. I was hurt when you left, and having you around is somehow worse. So if you don’t want to talk about this for your own sake, then fine. But I’d rather hear what you have to say, if it was up to me.”

He wiggles his mouth around, regretful in advance. 

You tap your knuckles on the table absently. “Maybe understanding better will help me… feel better,” you say quietly, eyes on your hands again.

His expression flutters like he very much doubts this, but he reins it in. Then, he looks at you flatly, displeased with the decision you’ve made, displeased with laying this at your feet. 

“Fine,” he says, brittle. “Yes, I’m struggling with this because I still have feelings for you. Yes, I was the one who left. But if we’re having an honest conversation right now, then we both know that maybe I said the words… but I did that because it’s what you wanted.”

Your temper flares - calling you to demand he explain himself, calling you to defend yourself against the claim. But Mingyu’s words are heavy - weighed down with years of the truth he’s held by himself. He isn’t saying them lightly. He isn’t playing a game. Whether you agree with him or not, they’re true to him, and this version of the truth has hurt him, and you owe it to him to hear it.

You bite back whatever retort your temper queued up. “There’s no world in which I wanted you to break up with me,” you say hollowly. “So, I’d really like to know why you thought I did.”

His expression falls, his eyes close for a moment. “We don’t have to do this,” he says, pleading, his expression taut. “We can just let it go.”

Too late for that, you think. You shake your head instead, not trusting your words to be soft, to come out like solid bedrock and not like flint, ready to spark.

He heaves a heavy, defeated sigh. “You pushed me out,” he says simply. “I tried for months to fight you on it, to push back. You shut me out, and eventually I realized I was clinging to… ashes.” He demonstrates, open a fist, and you almost expect to see the ruined sands of your dead relationship slide between his fingers. “You didn’t want to be with me anymore, but you didn’t have the heart to end it. So I did the hard thing for you. Like I always have. Like I always will.” His voice is raw as he says this. It is clear he has thought these words many times, late at night when he’s alone and reviewing the footage of the collapse in his mind.

You don’t know what to say, what to address first. “That’s not true,” you whisper finally. “That’s not what happened.”

Mingyu’s gaze flits to you for only a second, and then he pushes himself out of the chair and stands. 

He slides his hands into his pockets and stares at you, his favorite math equation. “I know you pushed me away,” he says again, like it’s so simple. He gives a tiny shrug. “If you say that wasn’t what happened… maybe the truth falls somewhere in the middle.”

He steps backwards, away from the table.

“Don’t go,” you beg. The words burst from you without warning; you would have never let them out if you’d known they were coming. You hadn’t begged when he left the first time. You hadn’t fought for him at all.

Maybe that was part of the problem. This is the first piece of evidence that maybe he’s right.

He shakes his head. His throat moves, and his gaze hovers around your broken ankle. “I need to,” he says, and his voice is tight. “I’ll come back tonight to make sure you have dinner and everything. Okay?”

“Mingyu,” you say. It’s still a plea. It’s desperate, but it’s years too late. 

“I’ll be back tonight,” he assures you, one hand on the doorknob, his gaze still nowhere near your face. You ache, suddenly, in a way you hadn’t even when he left the first time. 

“Don’t,” you whisper, but the word is barely audible because you’re fighting tooth and claw to hold it in. You’re not sure your lips even part for the word.

He leaves without looking back, just like he did over a year ago.

–

Once he’s put it in your head, you can’t stop thinking about it. You can’t stop turning over every moment in your last year together and examining its underside. 

It looks different than it ever did, now. 

All the nights that you went to bed before Mingyu came home from work, and pretended to be asleep when he checked on you. All the events he’d invited you to that you’d begged out of, claiming work was too hectic. All the phone calls you’d let go to voicemail, had answered hours later with only a text. All the mundane, daily stories about your life that you’d stopped sharing with him. All the times you’d rolled your eyes or made bratty comments as his fame and salary started creeping higher. 

All ways to prepare yourself to lose him, eventually. All ways to make yourself need him less, so when it happened, you’d be ready.

Had they added up to Mingyu feeling like you’d placed him on the outside? 

A tenderness behind your ribs, like a bruise in a place that finds every piece of furniture as you walk, answers you with how could it not?

He was right - you’d pushed him out, made him feel so outside that he thought you didn’t want him there at all. 

“Crap,” you murmur to your empty apartment. 

When he returns, a bag of take-out in his hands for dinner, he enters the apartment quietly, with audible trepidation.

You look at him over the back of the couch, baleful eyes wide. He smiles when he catches sight of you, like the affection he feels has caught him by surprise. 

“What?” he asks, mouth quirking.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter into the crook of your arm. 

He places the bag of food on the table and raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me? I didn’t catch that.”

You huff. “I’m sorry,” you repeat, just slightly louder. “I’m sorry that I… didn’t know you felt that way.”

The smile falls from his face. “That’s what you’re sorry for?” he asks, like he wants you to check your work before you turn it in.

“No,” you admit sourly. “I’m also sorry for making you feel that way in the first place.”

“So, why did you?” he asks easily, head cocked.

You cover your face with your hands, peeking through your fingers at him. “Because it just felt inevitable,” you tell him. “You were hiding me from the press, your life was getting so much bigger, your name was all over the internet… it just felt like something that was going to happen no matter what. Your life was going to move on to a place I couldn’t follow. I just… I was looking ahead and…”

You trail off, but Mingyu picks up your sentence.

“- and making up monsters in the shadows that maybe weren’t there,” he fills in, his voice still affectionate even as it inches towards cutting.

You grimace. “Well, yeah,” you admit. “That’s what I do.” Then, you add a bit petulantly, “You used to slay those monsters for me.”

Mingyu crosses the room slowly, perches on the arm of the couch. “So maybe it’s a little bit my fault,” he muses. “For conjuring up more. For not being there as much as I should have.”

You shrug. “Maybe fault doesn’t really matter right now.”

He meets your eyes. “Maybe. But I… I wish you had told me you were scared.” 

You look away. “I didn’t want to say it. I knew you didn’t deserve my doubts, but I couldn’t stop having them. So I… kept them to myself. Tried to make it only my problem.” This is the truth you couldn’t face for over a year since losing Mingyu. But you’d known it, somehow. 

He mutters something under his breath that sounds like hard-headed.

“I’m sorry,” you say again. “I handled it all wrong.”

He meets your gaze. “I am, too. For my part in it.”

You stare at each other, at a loss.

“Well, now what?” you finally ask. “You’re having… feelings… again?”

“I don’t know if again is very accurate,” he murmurs, voice low. 

You swallow, eye your ceiling, seeking strength. “Do you… want to act on those feelings or… are we just… acknowledging them?”

He watches you steadily. “What do you want?”

You huff an exasperated laugh. “You’re so impossible,” you mutter. “Throw me a bone, here, Mingyu. You left me - I understand your reasoning and my own fault in it, but do I really have to be the one to beg, now, after all that?”

A delighted smile takes over his face. “Are you begging?” he asks, like he’s so pleased to hear it.

You growl at him. “I am rethinking -”

“Okay, okay!” he laughs. “I’d be open to trying again if you wanted to.”

Trying again. What would that look like? Starting over? Starting where you left off?

Maybe it doesn’t really matter, right this second. Maybe there’s time for that later - time to say you can’t hide me from the world this time, time to say I promise to tell you when I’m feeling nervous about something, time to say I know this is hard, but I’d rather do the hard stuff with you than anything easy without you.

“You gonna stand over there and look at me, or are you going to do something about it?” you ask in a grumble.

“You didn’t actually tell me you want to,” he points out. 

“Mingyu, I am this close to coming after you with my crutches.”

He laughs again. “You’re too easy to rile up,” he says, sauntering closer. Something familiar, long-dormant, simmers in your belly. “I kind of missed that.”

“Hmm,” you say, the frustration and anger and months of hurt ebbing away as he approaches. “Tell me what else you missed.”

He sits heavily on your wooden coffee table to be eye-level with you again, leans forward, and catches your mouth with his. It is just how it used to be. It is like no time has passed at all. It is like saying welcome back. 

It is everything.

–

Mingyu’s face is on the tv again. 

It’s an old interview, from back before the season ended. You’ve seen it before. Still, your physical therapist leans closer, whispers conspiratorially, “Isn’t he dreamy?”

You smile back, but don’t say anything. You and Mingyu’s rekindled relationship has been steady, but slow - neither of you wanting to rush it, mess it up by being sloppy. 

She sets you up with ice and puts the timer where you can see it; when it goes off, you can remove the ice, put your ankle brace back on, stop at the front desk to pay your co-pay, and order your ride home.

As you stand, babying your healing ankle, waiting for the receptionist to hand you back your debit card, the physical therapy room goes silent and then erupts in hushed whispers. Alarmed, you look around.

Mingyu stands in the doorway, sending you one of his most bone-melting smiles. 

“Would you like a ride home?” he asks, pretending to be oblivious to the reaction in the room.

“Uh,” you say, eyes wide, not even noticing that the receptionist is pushing your debit card back into your lifeless fingers. “Yes?”

You hobble closer, looking at him nervously.

“Mingyu,” you whisper, casting a glance over your shoulder. Everyone is staring at you, even the old ladies on the stationary bikes. “Everyone here knows who you are. We’ll be a headline.”

He nods, looking thoughtful, like he’s considering the weight of your words. “Guess we better make it a good one, then,” he muses, and then he sweeps you off your feet - literally - and carries you bridal style all the way to the car.

“I can walk,” you hiss, your face aflame, but your smile is a thing alive and you can’t tamp it down.

The headlines come before you're even awake the next morning, your texts and social medias flooding with messages from old friends and acquaintances alike:

Star Pitcher Kim Mingyu Puts Dating Rumors to Rest - “Yes, we’re together.”

--

eventually, minjun noticed you. he started talking to you. you became friends.

and after one too many drinks on a night out, you ended up sleeping together.

the next morning, he asked if you wanted to try the whole friends-with-benefits thing.

you said yes—obviously.

because you were stupid enough to think it’d turn into something more.

but all your hopes crash down whenever you see someone flirt with him—what’s worse is that he willingly lets them. tonight is one like that. 

giselle, who has been taking note of your expression the whole night nudges you and nods at you asking what happened to which you just shake your head and turn your gaze back to the couple.

giselle lets out a sigh, “you know it’s high time you stop thinking about him and start thinking about you.”

“but i,” you stir your drink with the red straw. “i just like him so much, but he just does not even seem to care about me until he wants to get his dick wet.”

“then make him jealous,” she shrugs. “that seems to be the most proven way to get a guy's attention.”

make him jealous. easier said than done.

how are you supposed to make someone jealous, when you don’t have someone to make him jealous with.

but the k-drama gods somewhat seems to be on your side today. you’re just trying to watch your k-drama in peace on a sketchy website, and suddenly this weird ad pops up.

Rent-a-boyfriend!

at first it seems really sketchy, but curiosity gets the best of you and you click on the ad which redirects you to a new site. the site does not look as sketchy as the ad, you think.

Boyfriend for Hire – Fake It Till You Feel It, the title said. below, you see a slideshow of a few men—highlighted ‘our best’. your eyes pause on one particular slide. 

Yoon Jeonghan.

you scroll down and see reviews: 

“(5/5) Booked him to make my ex jealous—ended up jealous of myself. How is he THIS good at fake eye contact?? I still think about the way he said my name.” ~@overitbutnotreally

“(5/5) He remembered my coffee order after one call. Held my hand like he meant it. My friends still ask about him. I had to pretend I broke it off just to save face.” ~@girlwhocriedfeelings

“(4/5) Flawless acting. Too flawless. Caught feelings. Would sue if I wasn’t also lowkey in love. Docked one star for emotional damage.” ~@chaoticrevengearc

that good? you definitely gotta check it out.

you don’t know how this is supposed to work but you hit on the confirm order button and just hope your money does not go in some scammer’s hands.

_

you look at the message for a good 10 minutes. you didn’t know it would actually work. you shake the thoughts out of your head before typing out a reply.

_

you are 15 minutes late. by the time you reach the cafe you were sure if he would have left. when you reached the cafe, not to lie, you were quite surprised to see him not gone, even more that he looks exactly like the pictures—beautiful. his hair’s a little messy—brown, shoulder-length, soft waves that look like he ran a hand through them on the way here. he’s in a plain white tee layered under a charcoal jacket, one arm draped over the back of the chair, the other around his half melted iced coffee.

“sorry,” you apologize meekly as you stand in front of him.

jeonghan looks up and says your name to confirm your identity. you nod once, reaching out your hand to shake his then slide into the seat across from him. 

you don’t say anything for sometime which forces him to speak out. 

“so… what are you looking for?”

“huh?” you look at him startled by the sudden conversation. 

“i mean you booked me, so i assume you have a motive—making your ex jealous, flexing in front of your friends. in case i’m wrong.”

“the first one.” you respond. “to make my situationship jealous… not ex.”

your voice dips at the end, his presence pressing at the edges of your nerves.

jeonghan nods. 

“so do you have any picture of them? for reference i mean. i can’t just go around making random people jealous, if you know what i mean.” he winks.

you don’t know what he means, still you take out your phone and show him a picture of minjun.

“what’s his name?”

“minjun,” you reply.

jeonghan takes one last sip of his coffee before slapping his hands on his thigh and getting up. 

“so, we’ll start tomorrow? dress pretty. we have somewhere to go.” 

You blink. “Somewhere?”

He leans down just a bit, enough for his voice to drop low—like this is some kind of secret.

“Can’t make someone jealous if they don’t see us.”

And with that, he flashes you a devastating smile, slips his coat over one shoulder, and heads for the door like this is just another day on the job.

You watch him leave, still holding your coffee, not entirely sure what you just signed up for. But your heart’s beating a little too fast.

And your phone pings a second later.

—

to make up for yesterday, you got ready early. 

now you’re standing outside the cafe, pretending to scroll through your phone while double-checking your reflection in the window for the third time.

jeonghan reaches the cafe two minutes after you. when he sees you he lets out a low whistle. 

“ooh, not bad!” he comments, eyeing you head to toe. for some reason the comment offends you a bit, but you don’t show it.

“shall we?” you say, not waiting for his reply before walking into the cafe.

—

jeonghan is not as weird as he seems. even though his little attempts at flirting did not exactly impress you, but he is not that bad either. the “date” went better than expected. 

jeonghan would make silly jokes, compliment you—a lot, even make an effort to learn your preferences. 

“so what is the deal between you and this, minjun guy” he asks.

you remain silent for a while, thinking what to say and what not. “we both go to the same college, same friend circle. things happened and we became friends-with-benefits. but…”

“you started liking him and he does not, so you are trying to make him jealous to invoke feelings in him. am i right or am i right?” 

the way he caught onto things so quickly baffled you. 

receiving no reply from you, he just nods. out of the blue asks you to open your phone and take pictures of him. a few turns into way too many—different angles, slight head tilts, half-smiles. he barely even blinks, adjusting his posture like he’s done this before (he probably has).

Finally, he lets out a satisfied hum and hands your phone back. “Post one. This should keep things interesting for a while.”

you raise a brow. “You’re kind of obsessed with yourself.”

he grins. “no, just committed to the role.”

_

jeonghan offered to drop you home—even though, as it turned out, he didn’t have a car. So the two of you ended up taking the bus.

somewhere between stops and shared earbuds, you played 20 Questions. you get to know he almost became an idol once, before he quit.

jeonghan was… fun. Easy to talk to. mysterious in a way that made you curious instead of cautious.

on the walk from the bus stop, it started to rain—a full downpour.  you both ran the rest of the way to your place, soaked and breathless. it only felt right to invite him in.

He was dripping wet, taxis weren’t showing up, and honestly… you didn’t really want him to leave just yet.

you're in the living room, carefully setting down two cups of green tea on the teapoy. he walks in a moment later–towel slung around his neck, hair still damp and curling at the ends. he settles on the couch without waiting to be told. 

you sit at the opposite end, legs tucked under you, trying not to watch the steam curl from his tea. Or the way he keeps glancing over at you, eyes half-lidded, hair still damp where it touches the nape of his neck. the rest of the night just went by, you talked and laughed. the night stretched on as the rain tapped gently against the windows. warm tea turned cold. his laugh lingered in the room. and somehow, without meaning to, he started to feel familiar. and when it was time for him to go back, you hugged.

—

minjun had viewed your story. almost everyone did. your dms were filled with “who is he”, “why didn’t you tell me about him”, “does he go to our college??”

the following week when you walked into the campus, giselle was already waiting. 

she links her arm with yours the second you step into the courtyard, “you have three seconds to explain or I’m spreading my own rumors.” 

you tell her everything—from the sketchy website to last night on the couch. she gasps after almost every sentence, each one louder than the other.

when you settle into your seats, minjun walks in. you are apprehensive of his reaction to the story. you sit up straighter every time he walks closer. but minjun just looks at you before walking away, sitting three rows away from you. 

a quiet disappointment settles in your chest.

the rest of the lecture you don’t look back nor do you listen to what the professor is saying. 

_

when jeonghan hears this, he doesn’t look surprised. 

“he’ll come around.” that’s all he says.

_

jeonghan comes up with more plans. cooking dates, movie dates, “accidentally” running into minjun when on a date. 

you were pretty sure he was enjoying the drama more than the mission. he even had a color-coded schedule. 

_

date 2: cooking date

the kitchen smells like burnt garlic or whatever jeonghan drops on the stove. you’re not sure what it is—you’re too busy laughing.

jeonghan holds the wooden spatula like a mic, licking a streak of tomato sauce off the edge. “chef’s privilege,” he says.

“you didn’t even cook!” you swat him away with a dishtowel. jeonghan just shrugs.

eventually, after the smoke alarm chirps once (just once—thankfully), you both surrender and order takeout.

the stove’s a mess. your hands are stained with something red. you’re sitting on the kitchen floor, backs against the cabinets, passing a bottle of wine between you. there are half-chopped onions on the counter. a single mushroom rolled under the fridge. jeonghan raises his glass, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“we might be the only ones who can burn pasta,” you laugh while having a sip of the wine. jeonghan chuckles.

“to our Michelin-star relationship,” he says, you laugh and clink your glass against his.

_

date 3: movie date

about a week later, jeonghan asks you to come see a movie with him. he shows up with three flavours of popcorn and a slushie that’s the size of your head.

the seats were terrible. jeonghan claims it to be a part of authentic experience.

he talks through the trailers. Comments on the font choices. Tries to predict the plot three minutes into the movie loud enough to get a few shushes.

“That guy’s definitely the villain.”

“He just offered someone a tissue," you retort.

“Exactly. Emotional manipulation.”

he steals your drink halfway through and makes a show of using your straw. “Indirect kiss. Wow. You move fast.”

You hit him. He laughed.

jeonghan insists on walking you back after the movie.

“They should’ve kissed and detonated the building together,” he says, as if that was a normal takeaway.

you stare. “That’s what you got from that movie?”

“Explosive romance. Iconic.”

at your door, he lingered.“hey! i’ll text you about our next date.”

_

jeonghan would text you almost everyday now—with silly things, a pic of pigeons romancing and captions ~you and him one day;), silly memes, and at times his photos captioned ~aren’t you glad i’m your boyfriend ;p

_

you don’t understand why shops insist on changing layouts every week. your favourite choco cereal used to sit comfortably in the middle row. but now? top shelf.

you curse your ancestors for giving you such a tragically short height. 

after a few unsuccessful jumps and increasingly dramatic stretches, you start to consider giving up entirely. but like some saviour a hand reaches from behind taking the box and hands it to you.

as you lift your head to thank the person, you are met with a smirking jeonghan.

“what are you doing here?” you whisper-shout.

“what do you mean? now i can’t even go shopping in my neighbourhood?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.

you just shake your head and start walking away with your cart. 

“seriously though,” he says, glancing into your basket, “this is your grocery list? you planning to live off cereal and frozen dumplings?”

“it’s called survival.”

“it’s called malnutrition.” he starts tossing in things from the shelf. “here. you need greens. fiber.”

before you can argue, a voice interrupts.

“oh! you two look so cute together.”

you turn. it’s an older woman from your neighborhood. 

“young love is so sweet,” she says, smiling between you and jeonghan.

you open your mouth to correct her, but–

“we try,” jeonghan says, sliding his arm around your shoulders like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

you freeze.

“she makes me eat spinach, and i make her watch bad action movies. it works.”

you blink up at him.

he’s not even looking at you—he’s too busy smiling politely at the woman like he didn’t just say that with his whole chest.

she chuckles and gives you a little nod of approval before walking off.

you elbow him the second she’s gone.

“what was that?”

“i don’t know,” he says, casually picking up your cereal box again. “publicity. practice. fun.” then, grinning–

“you blushed, by the way.”

“did not.”

“did too.”

date 4: movie date 2.0

jeonghan plans another date. he just asks you to choose your favourite movie and put a few pillows on the couch.

it’s 8pm when he comes to your house, with 2 packets of potato chips, burgers, and a mcflurry.

“for you,” he says, nudging the ice cream toward you first. “because you’ve been insufferable lately and i thought sugar might help.”

you take it anyway. “you’re so annoying.”

“but charming,” he adds, walking in like he lives there. “you forgot to say charming.”

you both settle yourselves on the couch and start to eat. 

the movie starts. you try to focus—but it’s hard when he’s next to you, talking to the screen, reacting way too dramatically, offering you fries without looking. 

you don’t like how comfortable this feels, how easy this feels.

when he goes back he hugs you, you don’t.

_

you are at your locker when minjun comes at you.

“you said you were not dating.” he barks.

“what?” you ask confused.

“that dude. is he your boyfriend? you weren’t dating anyone like—two days ago.”

“yeah, it just happened! also, why do you care?” you ask, arms crossing instinctively. “we had a pact, remember? when either of us found someone we actually liked, this–”

you motion between you and him, “-would end.”

he goes quiet.

giselle, who has been a witness to everything you, speaks. “do you want us to give you a minute? i can pretend to look at gum or something.”

you almost snort. but your eyes don’t leave minjun.“you made it clear you didn’t want anything serious,” you say. “and i found someone who does.”

you don’t wait to hear his reply and leave with giselle.

_

you’re sitting with jeonghan on a bench at the park, legs barely brushing, the wind playing with your hair.

“the plan’s working,” you say, laughing lightly. “minjun texted me. says he wants to work things out.”

you glance over at him. “you’re free now.”

he doesn’t laugh.

a beat passes before he speaks. “how are we going to end things?” he asks, eyes still on the sky. “he thinks we’re dating.”

you pause. “we hang out at a bar on weekends,” you say slowly. “we could go, make it a show. fight. break up in front of him.”

jeonghan just nods.

_

the bar is packed—dim lights, loud music, chatter buzzing all around you.

you and jeonghan sit in the corner booth, just close enough for it to look intimate. you can feel the weight of minjun’s gaze from across the room. he’s watching.

jeonghan leans in, voice low. “you sure about this?”

you nod, even though your chest feels tight. “let’s make it ugly.”

he exhales, then straightens in his seat. and just loud enough, “you’re unbelievable, you know that?” he snaps.

you blink, caught off guard by how sharp his voice actually is.

“what?” you whisper.

“you dragged me into this whole mess, and now you’re backing out like none of it mattered.”

you raise your eyebrows. “backing out?”

“don’t act like you don’t know,” he says, louder now. a few heads turn.

“you’ve been weird since he texted you. what, you want to run back to him?”

“don’t do this,” you say, voice softer now. “not here.”

he stands. “you want to go back to a guy who never chose you the first time? be my guest.”

you flinch.

he looks down at you one last time, then turns and walks out without another word.

your heart pounds. the booth feels too big now. too quiet.

a moment later, minjun slips into jeonghan’s seat.

“so… that was intense.”

you don’t respond.

he leans in.

“look,” he begins, softer now. “i mean it. i want to try again. properly, this time. if you’ll let me.”

you look at him. his face, his hands, the way he’s looking at you like he means it.

and then you think about jeonghan.

the grocery store. the movie nights. the way he holds your wrist instead of your hand when you're anxious. how none of it ever felt fake.

you shake your head. “i’m sorry.”

before he can say anything else, you get up and run.

_

you catch him just outside the bar, half a block away. he’s walking fast, like he doesn’t want to give himself time to think.

“jeonghan!”

he stops, turns, surprised.

“why are you here?” he asks. “where’s minjun?”

you jog the last few steps to reach him, out of breath. “i said no.”

“what?”

“to him. he asked me to come back. i said no.”

he blinks. “oh.”

you look at him. the stupid hair falling into his eyes. the way his jacket’s slightly off his shoulder. the face you’ve been seeing almost every day, for all the wrong reasons—and somehow, now, all you can think is i want more time with you.

“you,” you say. quietly.

“i want you.”

for a second, he just stands there. “are you saying this because–”

“no,” you say. “i’m saying this because every part of pretending with you felt more real than anything i ever had with him.”

he smiles, small and real. “good.”

he steps closer.

“because i like you too.”

and then, finally, he reaches for your hand. he leans in, and his lips find yours—soft, easy, like he’s been waiting to do it.

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From that moment on, Seungcheol made it a point to bring you flowers regularly. It became his way of showing his affection and making sure that the sight of fresh blooms never left your kitchen countertop.

He loves seeing the flowers he gives you sit in vases around your house. Sometimes they are red, pink, or white. You always say that the kind doesn't matter, but he knows you love it every time he hands you red roses. The smile on your face that reaches your eyes, the sound of your laughter every time he shows up from afar with a bouquet in his hand—these are the moments he cherishes the most.

Oh, how he loves those moments. He makes sure to keep them forever, capturing each one in his heart like a precious photograph.

Besides that, Seungcheol loves that you get flowers for other people, a fact that makes him fall even harder for you. It was lunchtime when he picked you up from work to have lunch together. On the way back to the office, you asked him to stop at the flower shop.

"Didn't I get you some flowers just a few days ago, love?" he asked, worried that maybe he was forgetting something.

You nodded with a smile. "These are for Minji. It's her birthday today."

Seungcheol watched as your smile grew wider the moment you entered the flower shop. Your eyes closed with every breath you took, savoring the scent of the flowers. He couldn't help but look at your face closely, feeling grateful to be the man standing beside you with your arm linked to his.

Seeing you this happy over something so simple made his heart swell with love. He couldn't imagine anyone else being in his place, sharing these precious moments with you.

"What do you want to get for her?" he asked, his mouth drawing closer to your ear, a habit he had whenever he spoke to you.

You turned your head to him, your eyes sparkling. "I was thinking of getting yellow roses, but everything looks so pretty here," you said, your mouth pouting in a way that Seungcheol found utterly adorable.

"Why do you like flowers so much?" Seungcheol finally asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"They're pretty," you said simply. "And they have meaning. You know I love things that are subtle and symbolic."

Seungcheol nodded. You always had a penchant for the symbolic, for gestures that spoke volumes without needing words. It was one of the many things he adored about you.

"Like yellow roses for friendship, sunflowers to show adoration, and irises to show faith and hope," you continued.

Seungcheol smiled, his thoughts drifting to your favorite flower. "How about red and white roses?" he asked.

You pondered for a moment before selecting yellow lilies and white daisies for Minji and asking the staff to arrange them into a bouquet. You shifted your attention back to him and smiled. "Love and purity."

Seungcheol shook his head in disbelief, guiding you out of the store. Though he prided himself on his masculinity, he found himself considering learning about flowers just for you. Every time he saw the joy they brought to your face, he knew it was worth it.

*

You finally visited Seungcheol's office after a long time. He had sent you a text earlier saying he would be busy today and couldn’t pick you up for lunch. However, you asked if it would be okay to visit him instead, and his response was ecstatic. Seungcheol just loved having you around.

Seungcheol waited for you in front of the elevator, a wide smile spreading across his face as soon as he saw your figure revealed by the opening doors. He immediately took everything from your hands, the lunch you brought for the two of you, as he walked you to his office. His staff mostly knew who you were by now. Seungcheol had made it clear that he was dating someone amazing and had proudly introduced you to everyone. They seemed to enjoy the sight of their boss looking completely smitten every time you visited.

Once inside his office, Seungcheol set the lunch down on his desk and turned to you, his eyes filled with affection. "I’m so glad you came," he said, pulling you into a warm embrace.

You two were conversing comfortably as you savored the lunch you brought. You asked him about the job that had kept him busy, and he explained it to you in detail. While talking, your eyes wandered around his office and landed on something that piqued your interest. A single red rose sat in a vase on his desk.

"You have a rose in your office?" you asked excitedly.

He nodded with a smile. "That's your flower."

You didn't understand, so you asked, "What do you mean, my flower?"

"I always take one of your flowers and take care of it just like you do, so I know when it's time to get you another one," he explained.

Your body felt like it had stopped working. That's how he knew how long they would last.

Everything made sense now. He always seemed to know the perfect time to get you a bouquet of flowers—always exactly a day before your current ones began to wilt. Typically, your flowers would last 10 days to two weeks, but sometimes they withered sooner. Yet, Seungcheol always had another bouquet ready, as if he had been with you, watching over the flowers together.

You smiled, feeling a rush of warmth and affection. "You really pay attention to everything, don't you?"

He shrugged with a modest grin. "I just want to make sure you always have something beautiful to look at."

You reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently. "Thank you, Seungcheol. For everything."

He leaned in, "anything for you," he murmured, his voice filled with sincerity.

You looked him in the eyes, your gaze full of adoration, and you couldn't help but pull him closer and kiss him right away. He seemed flustered and mumbled, "We're at my office, love," but you didn't care. You loved him so much and felt an urgent need to let him know.

"I love you, babe," you whispered, smiling as your palm rested on his cheek, caressing it slowly.

Seungcheol closed his eyes as his smile grew wider. "Fuck it, I love you too, love," he said before grabbing the nape of your neck and pulling you in for a kiss.

A kiss at lunchtime in his office.