just wanna stay in that lavender haze

The sound echoed in the entryway and immediately you felt guilty. Not guilty enough to do anything about it, but guilty in the low-grade, background way that had been following you around all day like a cloud that wasn't quite dark enough to rain.

You dropped your bag. Kicked off your shoes in a direction that was not the shoe rack. Stood in the entryway of the apartment for a moment, staring at nothing, running through a mental list of everything that had gone wrong today. It took longer than it should have.

From the living room, nothing. Then:

"Door do something to you?"

Minho's voice was even, completely unbothered. You could picture him without looking: stretched out on the couch in some position that defied ergonomics, not even glancing up from whatever had his attention.

"I don't want to talk about it," you said.

"Okay."

A pause. You waited for a follow-up question. It didn't come.

That was the thing about Minho. He almost never pushed. He'd simply wait, patient as a cat himself, until you came around. It was either the most respectful thing about him or the most aggravating, depending on your mood. Today it was somehow both.

You shuffled into the living room.

He was exactly where you'd pictured him, one leg dangling off the armrest, scrolling through his phone with the mild expression of someone thinking about absolutely nothing in particular. Dori was asleep in a compact circle on his stomach, rising and falling gently with his breathing. Soonie occupied the armchair like a small, judgmental sovereign. Doongie was nowhere visible, which meant he was either under the bed or planning something.

Minho glanced up at you. Did a quick, wordless read of your face.

"Sit down," he said, already shifting to make room.

"I'm fine standing."

"You're not, though."

Your jaw tightened. "Minho."

"I'm not arguing with you. I'm just moving my legs." He did, swinging them off the armrest and sitting up in one fluid motion that disturbed Dori not at all. She simply rearranged herself onto the cushion beside him without opening her eyes, deeply unimpressed by the whole situation. He patted the space next to him.

You sat. The couch received you.

For a moment you just breathed. The apartment was warm and smelled like the candle Minho liked, something cedar-ish that you'd made fun of when he first bought it and now privately found very comforting. The TV was off. It was quiet in the way that felt intentional rather than empty.

Soonie stepped off the armchair, considered the room, and then, with great deliberation, walked over and stepped directly onto your lap. He turned a slow circle, kneaded twice with a focus and intensity that suggested this was serious structural work, and then sat down.

You looked at her.

He looked at you.

"He likes you," Minho said.

"He tolerates me."

"From Soonie, that's the same thing." He leaned back, watching him with a faint proprietary pride. "He doesn't sit on people he doesn't like. He just stares at them until they feel bad."

You put your hand on Soonie's back, gently. He didn't move. You took that as permission.

"Everything was just..." you started, and then stopped.

"Mm."

"I don't even know where to begin."

"You don't have to."

You looked at him. He was watching Dori, not you, which made it somehow easier to talk.

"It was one of those days where everything was someone else's problem until it became mine," you said. "And nobody said thank you. And I had to redo something I'd already done perfectly the first time because someone didn't read it correctly and decided that was my fault. And then on the way home..." you stopped. "It sounds so stupid."

"It doesn't."

"It kind of does."

"That's what makes that kind of day the worst kind," he said, simply. "Because none of it is big enough to feel justified being upset about, so you just carry all of it." He finally looked at you, direct and unhurried. "That's exhausting."

Your throat did something inconvenient.

"Yeah," you managed.

He reached over and tucked a piece of your hair back, the gesture so casual it took a second to register. Just his hand, there and gone, easy as breathing. Your whole chest went sideways.

"Did you eat?" he asked.

"Sort of."

"What does ‘sort of’ mean?"

"I had coffee and half a granola bar."

The look he gave you was deeply unimpressed. Not unkind, just the specific expression of someone who had very strong opinions about eating properly and was restraining himself from a lecture out of mercy.

"I'll make something," he said, and stood.

"You don't have to..."

"I'm hungry too." He was already moving toward the kitchen. "You can keep complaining from there, I can hear you."

"I wasn't complaining."

"You were about to."

You opened your mouth. Closed it. He had a point. Soonie shifted on your lap, resettled, and began to purr. A low, rattling sound, unhurried and steady, like a tiny engine finding its rhythm.

From the kitchen came the sounds of Minho cooking: the tap running, a cabinet, the click of the stove. He'd started humming something under his breath, tuneless and distracted. You recognized it vaguely as a song he'd had stuck in his head for the past week.

Dori woke up, stretched magnificently, and relocated to the armchair. Doongie emerged from wherever he'd been, took one look at the living room, and decided to go back. You watched this happen with the particular blank comfort of someone whose brain had quietly requested a break from thinking.

"The thing is," you called toward the kitchen.

"Mm."

"I'm not even that upset anymore. I'm just tired."

"That tracks." A pause. The sound of something sizzling. "Tired is worse. Upset has energy in it."

You considered this. "That's very wise."

"I'm very wise."

"You also smell like gas station sometimes and you talk in your sleep."

"I contain multitudes." He reappeared in the doorway briefly, wooden spoon in hand, with an expression of complete serenity. "Ten minutes."

"You don't have to make a whole..."

"It's not a whole thing. It's rice and eggs and whatever vegetables I find." He looked at Soonie, still firmly installed on your lap. "He's claimed you."

"Is that good?"

"It's the highest honor he bestows." He disappeared back into the kitchen. "You should feel very privileged."

Your cheeks went warm. You looked down at Soonie. He gazed back at you with his slow, amber eyes, radiating the serene self-assurance of a creature who had never doubted himself once in his life.

"Lucky me," you said quietly.

He blinked, slow and deliberate. You'd read once that a slow blink from a cat was the equivalent of a smile. You chose to believe that.

Dinner was simple: rice, eggs cooked the way you liked them without being asked, some vegetables that Minho had found and made interesting through sheer force of will. He set yours in front of you and dropped back onto the couch with his own bowl, and you ate the way you sometimes did, not talking much, the quiet between you the comfortable kind that didn't need filling.

Halfway through, Minho said, without looking up from his bowl: "For what it's worth. Whoever didn't say thank you today was wrong."

You looked at him.

He was eating, expression neutral, like he'd commented on the weather.

"That's it?" you said.

"That's it."

"You're not going to say anything else wise?"

"I used up my wisdom earlier." He glanced at you briefly, a flicker of something warm in it. "You did a good job today. Even if nobody said so."

The back of your throat went tight again. Soonie had relocated to the space between you on the couch, purring his steady purr, radiating heat against your leg.

"You don't even know what I did," you said.

"Doesn't matter. You showed up. That's the part that counts."

You looked at your rice. Pressed your lips together. Decided not to say anything because whatever came out would probably embarrass you.

"Eat," he said gently. "Before it gets cold."

You ate.

Outside, the city settled into evening. The candle burned low on the shelf. Dori slept in the armchair. Doongie reappeared, walked a full lap of the apartment, and left again on some unknowable errand.

And you sat on the couch next to Minho, shoulders almost touching, the warmth of a meal in your belly and a cat pressed against your leg, and felt, slowly and quietly and without any particular fanfare, completely fine.