probably crying over some fictional character

“Yes, speaking?”

“Ah, my name is Kim Da-eun. I’m your daughter’s primary teacher.”

“Oh. Sena?” Even tinny and thin through the connection Jisung’s voice instantly went tight with worry. “Did something happen? Is she okay, is everything—”

“Yes, Han-ssi, she’s fine.” Da-eun looked once more over at Sena, who was now slouching halfway onto the floor. There were still dirt scuffs all over her socks, her uniform skirt wrinkled and grass-stained from the fight. Her eyes glittered, more challenge in them than Da-eun would’ve expected from someone her age, and she quickly turned back to her phone.

“Ah, Sena got into a bit of a…situation just now, on the playground. An older student was bullying one of her classmates and she, ah. Got involved.”

“Oh.” She could almost see Jisung blinking. “Wait, you mean—oh. There was a fight. Oh my god, my baby got in a fight? Sena!”

The girl in question flinched just a bit before crossing her arms and sticking her bottom lip out. “It’s not my fault, I told him to stop but he didn’t so I hit him.”

“Sena…” If she didn’t know better Da-eun could have sworn Jisung sounded exasperated, like maybe he dealt with this sort of thing at home all the time. Maybe even from more than one person. “Baby, we talked about this, violence isn’t the answer—”

“It is when mean people are being dumb and don’t listen.” Sena glared down at the ground. “And it’s not my fault he just went boom onto the ground. Papa always says—”

“Oh no, we’re not talking about Papa and his very questionable opinions right now.” A deep sigh. “Okay. Ms. Kim? Thank you for calling, and I’m so, so sorry for the trouble. I’m stuck at the office currently but can you call my husband? He’ll come pick Sena up.”

“Of course, Han-ssi.”

“And if we need to pay for the other child’s medical bills or any damage to school property—”

“Oh, no, I assure you it wasn’t anything big.” Da-eun shook her head, sent Sena a quick smile. “I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

“Okay, but again, I’m so sorry. And Sena, you go straight home with Papa, okay? No stops, no rewards—”

Da-eun blinked. Rewards?

“—and we’re going to talk about this so much once I get home, okay?”

Sena grunted. “Fine.”

Jisung hung up a moment later. Da-eun glanced over at Sena. “Are you all right?”

The little girl didn’t answer, just continued to pout in the vague direction of the corner, so Da-eun shrugged and dialed the second number.

Ring ri—click. “Hello?”

“Lee Minho-ssi? This is Kim Da-eun, I’m Sena’s teacher—”

“What happened?”

Oh. Well, right to the point then. Da-eun cleared her throat, straightening up in her chair on reflex. “Well, your daughter got into a fight just now. There was an older student who was bullying someone and—”

“Did she win?”

Ah. Wait. No, surely she hadn’t heard that right… “I’m sorry?”

“Did she win?” Minho repeated, and Da-eun just. Blinked.

“Um. I…I guess so? Why—”

“Good.” The jingle of keys in the background, followed by rapid, purposeful footsteps. “She doesn’t need to go to the clinic first, does she?”

“Ah, no, she’s completely fine, just a little scuffed up—”

“Perfect. Sena!”

The little girl sprang straight up in her chair. “Yes, Papa?”

“Be there in fifteen. Ice cream on the way home?”

“Um…” Da-eun didn’t think she’d ever seen a child look so utterly torn. “Um, Appa said we shouldn’t make any stops…”

“Well, your dad obviously doesn’t know anything about the concept of justice.” The sound of a door opening, followed by the distinct beep-beep! of a car. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle him. J-cones?”

Sena grinned. “Yes, please! Chocolate!”

“Yeah, I figured. Just like your dad.” A soft huff of laughter. “Okay, kiddo, see you soon.”

“Bye, Papa!”

Click. Da-eun blinked down at her phone as the screen faded out. Well. That had been…

She glanced once more over at Sena. The little girl was now grinning to herself as she kicked her feet, and shouldn’t Da-eun maybe call Jisung back, tell him what had happened, that he should probably have a conversation with his husband when they got home…except, well. That wasn’t really her business, was it? Whatever Lee Minho and Han Jisung’s relationship was like, far be it from Da-eun to get in the middle of it. 

And, she had to admit, Minho kind of had a point. The bully hadn’t listened when Sena told him to back off her friend, to stop before she made him. And he hadn’t. So she did.

It was their anniversary. One year to the day since what everyone at the clinic now affectionately called the Painted Cat Incident. One year of Han Jisung being a part of his life, of sunset walks along the river and weekend trips to the coast, of warm lazy mornings and breathless, passionate nights, of laughter and light and all the bright glowing wonder that came with finding your soulmate, your person, the one single being in the whole entire universe who made it all worth it.

And now they were supposed to be celebrating, and Jisung hadn’t shown up.

Minho swallowed, glanced down at his empty plate. Thank god he hadn’t ordered anything; he had no appetite, not anymore. Because Jisung wasn’t here, so Minho couldn’t ask him. He couldn’t ask the one question that had been bouncing about his brain the past couple of months, anxious and apprehensive yet also timidly, breathlessly hopeful. So I was thinking, since you’re already over so much of the time and you’ve got a toothbrush and a mug and a change of clothes here and everything, why don’t we make it, you know, permanent?

Permanent, because that’s what Minho wanted Jisung to be. He wanted to wake up every morning to the younger man’s smile, and to go to sleep every night wrapped up in his arms. He wanted Jisung in his space, covering the fridge in takeout menus and using up all Minho’s body wash and leaving ring-shaped stains on the coffee table because he kept forgetting to use a coaster. Minho wanted Jisung to move in, to stay, and…

And now Jisung was nowhere to be found.

His phone buzzed. Minho scrambled for it, stomach tightening with a confused mix of anger and relief when he saw it was a text from Jisung. Then he opened it, and everything froze.

Lee Minho, this is Hwang Hyunjin.

Hwang Hyunjin. He had a vague impression of the name—Jisung had mentioned him sometimes, though Minho had never met the guy. Why would he be messaging now, and from Jisung’s phone?

Another buzz. I’m sorry, but Jisung can’t make it tonight. He’s dealing with an emergency.

Minho frowned and typed out a quick response. A work emergency?

Yes.

He took today off.

Something came up.

Minho stared at Hyunjin’s latest text until his eyes burned. Something came up? It was their goddamned first anniversary, Minho was about to ask Jisung to move in with him, and something fucking came up?

He didn’t let himself think too deeply about his next message. Well tell him if it’s that important then maybe this isn’t going to work out because of the two of us I seem to be the only one with my damned priorities straight.

It took Hyunjin a couple minutes to answer. Minho stared at the three dots blinking steadily at him from the screen, stomach roiling. Was this it then? Was this the end of their story, suffocated and buried before it even really had a chance to blossom?

Then, finally, another message. Only one line. Come to this location.

It was followed by an address, looked like it was in the very heart of Gangnam. Minho blinked down at the text for a moment, entirely lost. Why was Jisung all the way out there?

Well. If they were going to break up then the least Minho deserved was to look his partner in the eyes while it happened.

The address turned out to be a hotel—and not just any hotel. It was the Seoul Continental. Minho stood outside the lobby doors, staring up at the towering building as it loomed up into the sky. He’d never been here before, never even set foot inside the place—and why would he? Everyone knew the Continental only catered to the richest of the rich, the elites who could do whatever they wanted and never suffer any consequences. Why in the world would Jisung be here?

The doorman bowed low as he approached, smile fixed and polite. “Good evening, sir. Do you have a membership?”

A membership? They didn’t even let people enter the lobby without some sort of special insider admission? Jesus. Minho shook his head. “Um, no, but…I’m here to see someone. Hwang Hyunjin?”

“Ah.” The doorman bowed once more. “Very good then. Dr. Hwang’s clinic is on the second basement level.”

Minho blinked. Hyunjin was a doctor? Why would a hotel need a doctor onsite?

Hitting the ‘B2’ button in the elevator did, indeed, deposit him in what looked like the typical waiting area at a doctor’s office. Comfortable couches lined the walls, with shelves full of books and a TV set into the opposite wall playing the local news. There was no reception desk, nothing except a door on the other side that was tightly shut, and a man seated on one of the armchairs, who practically leaped to his feet as soon as Minho walked in.

He was, well. A grim reminder that there were people in the world who had had a much worse night than Minho. The man was wearing an expensive-looking suit, except one of his sleeves was ripped and his shirt was splashed with blood. His short blond hair stuck up in all directions like maybe he’d run his fingers through it a few times, and though his steps were steady as he walked up to Minho still it was obvious just how exhausted he was, eyes dull and face drawn even as he tried a smile and offered a hand. “Hello, Dr. Lee. I’m Bang Chan.”

“Just Lee Minho is fine.” He shook Chan’s hand—solid grip, skin callused and rough like maybe he handled objects for a living. “Where’s Dr. Hwang?”

Chan flinched, though Minho had no idea why. “Ah, he’s working, actually—”

The door behind them abruptly swung open. Another man poked his head out, looking grim. He was wearing a white coat, though Minho could barely tell beneath the fresh bloodstains. “Is he here?” the doctor—Hwang Hyunjin, by the looks of it—said, before landing his gaze on Minho. “Oh, good. You’re the vet, right? Combat medic while enlisted?”

“Um.” Minho blinked. “Yes, how did you—”

“Come with me, I need your help.”

“Jinnie, I don’t think—” But Hyunjin had already withdrawn, door clicking shut behind him, and Chan sighed, glanced at Minho with an expression that was difficult to name. “Come on,” he said, and led Minho through the door.

As expected, the area beyond contained a full medical suite. And Minho might have been shocked by the thoroughness of it: the multitude of shelves lining the walls filled with medications and equipment, the IV stands, the monitors, the bright OR lights above the hospital bed—except that was when he noticed the bed was occupied.

Jisung was dead. That was Minho’s first awful, panicked thought: that his partner was nothing but a pale lifeless corpse lying there on the sheets, unconscious with a breathing tube shoved down his throat and his abdomen covered in blood. Except even as the shock and ice-cold terror surged up Minho saw the steady rise and fall of Jisung’s chest, how blood even now was still oozing freely from what appeared to be three bullet wounds in his torso.

And just like that, he knew what he had to do. Minho turned to Hyunjin. “Did it hit any major blood vessels?”

“A pulmonary artery.” Hyunjin rounded the bed, already pulling on a new set of gloves. “I’ve removed the projectiles and placed a chest tube but the internal bleeding is overwhelming the seal. I need the artery sutured so I can work on his other injuries, including the pneumothorax and the lacerated liver.”

“Okay.” Trying not to think about how the patient they were discussing was not an animal or a military casualty but rather the man he loved more than anything else in the world, Minho turned to Chan. “Scrub me in.”

To his credit, the other man didn’t hesitate. Less than a minute later Minho was standing next to the bed wearing full PPE, trying desperately not to look at Jisung’s slack, sheet-white face as he nodded at Hyunjin. “Hand me the sutures.”

They worked wordlessly for the next two hours, speaking only to exchange information or requests for tools and equipment. Minho sliced and stapled and sutured and applied dressings, and studiously avoided thinking about what this meant. What he was looking at on the bed before him, what it said about the future he’d thought he and Jisung were on their way to building.

Hyunjin declared Jisung stabilized what felt like an eternity later. Minho finished scrubbing his hands at the little wash station in the corner, focusing on the scalding water running over his skin rather than the ruin of Jisung’s fragile body on the hospital bed. When he turned around, he was hardly surprised to see Chan standing only a few feet away, expression unreadable. The other man tipped his head in the direction of a side door. “I’m gonna have a smoke. Wanna come with?”

The door led into a large utility closet that contained a set of shelves and carefully-regulated refrigerators that contained enough meds to treat a small army. Chan stationed himself beneath the vent in the ceiling and reached into his coat pocket for his cigarette pack.

Minho frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, people do this all the time.” The other man shook out a cigarette and offered it forward, and when Minho shook his head he finally sighed, turning to look back at where Jisung slept on in the operating room.

“So,” he said, soft, resigned. “Guess you’re owed an explanation. Or several.”

When all Minho did was stare at him Chan took a moment to light his cigarette, taking a deep inhale before tipping his head back to send a cloud of smoke upward into the vent. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s start with what we are.

“You probably know by now that the Continental isn’t just a regular hotel. Let’s call it instead a…very exclusive club for a very exclusive clientele. People who work a particular type of job, usually involving weapons, intel, and a clearly-defined target.”

Minho swallowed. “Assassins,” he said, flat, almost unable to believe the word as it left his mouth. “You’re all…assassins?”

“Well, Hannie and I are,” Chan answered, casual as you please. “And our other friend Innie too, maybe you’ll meet him someday. But not everybody who works at the Continental is versed in bloodshed. Hyunjinnie, for example, and Seungmin, our sommelier.”

“Your sommelier.” What the hell kind of conversation was this? “What does wine have to do with—with murder?”

Because—oh, Jesus. He almost couldn’t believe it—except, thinking back over the last year, suddenly Minho realized that he really, really could. The scars and old wounds decorating Jisung’s body. The way he got so dodgy about what he did for a living. The occasional times he took days to return texts. The one occasion in which Minho had visited Jisung at home, and been floored to discover he had a penthouse flat in one of the priciest buildings in Yeosan, though it had almost nothing in it, like he barely spent any time there.

Jesus Christ. Jisung was…Jisung killed for a living. Minho’s partner, the man he’d intended to ask to move in with him, traveled around the world murdering people the same way office workers did data entry.

Oblivious to the maelstrom of his thoughts, Chan huffed a soft laugh. “No, Seungminnie doesn’t—that’s not—well, that’s hardly important. Point is, yes, we’re assassins. Not your typical hitmen that you see in the movies, sent out by those secret government agencies or employed by the mafia or whatever. We’re all independent agents, we all take our own contracts according to our own terms. And, well. Some of us are, shall we say, more well-known in this business than others.”

At Minho’s stunned look, he nodded, smile a mix of melancholy and pride. “There are your ‘normal’ assassins, like me and Jeongin, and we’re good, we get shit done but there are limitations. If I took a contract today then I would need intel from a cartographer, weapons from a sommelier, connections with the High Table to get me where I need to go, and, of course, a dinner reservation to take care of cleanup. Each of those steps costs time, money, and the possibility of failure.”

He sighed, took another drag of his cigarette. “Then there are those who we in this business call aces,” he said. “People who can do everything, who can take a job from beginning to end without ever having to involve anyone else. Jisung can gather intel, arm and travel and infiltrate and get the job done in half the time and a fraction of the price, and the scariest thing is? He’s good. People say he’s the best in Asia, in the entire eastern hemisphere, even—some folks even like to speculate what it would look like if he ever had to go up against John—well.”

He coughed. “Point is Jisung is good at what he does, which makes him well-known within the world we live in which, in turn, often makes him a target. He was ambushed tonight, not even working, just going about his business—I think he was on his way to buy flowers? And they jumped him. He’d covered his tracks but all it takes in this business is one person whispering the wrong thing one time. And that’s what happened.”

Oh. Minho stared at Chan, heart tight in his chest. Ambushed. He could see it: Jisung hurrying down the sidewalk toward the little shop on the corner, maybe swiping through a flower-meaning dictionary on his phone, trying to decide what sort of arrangement Minho would like, whether it would fit on the train on his way to the restaurant…and then. Then.

In front of him, Chan took a deep breath as something hardened in his gaze, glinting like stone. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The High Table doesn’t take well to traitors, so let’s just say the manager of the Continental has had their memberships…revoked. They won’t bother Jisung again, but…” He sighed, shoulders slumping. “But that’s what it means, to get involved with someone in our line of work. Shit like this happens, and…and we’ve all talked to him about it, told him all the reasons why it was a terrible idea, but he just…”

He lifted his head then, something so vulnerable in his gaze it made Minho’s stomach flip over as Chan continued, “He just loves you so goddamned much. It’s like—like when he’s with you, nothing else matters. You give him a reason, you know? Something that’s precious, damned near priceless in our world. Lee Minho. You give him hope.”

And Minho just. He couldn’t think of what to say, could barely even breathe as he watched Chan, the sincerity of his expression, the stretched-thin brittleness as if he could shatter at any moment. And he didn’t need to know the details: it was clear Chan loved Jisung, that they’d known each other for a long time and the other man only wanted the best for Minho’s partner. In a world in which connections were the deadliest form of weakness, still Chan had reached out and held on because he saw Jisung as irreplaceable, as family.

But did Minho feel the same?

He swallowed against the lump in his throat, solid as a stone. He loved Jisung, there was no doubt about that—but was it enough? In the face of this series of awful revelations, even if Jisung was the light of his life, the one person he cared about most in the world…even so, was it worth the risk?

Because complicated didn’t even begin to describe their relationship now. For Christ’s sake, Minho was dating a goddamned assassin. What…What did he even do with that? What could he do? He was just a veterinarian, just an ordinary guy who knew how to C-section a Frenchie and who rescued way too many cats. How was he even supposed to envision a future with someone like Jisung, someone who would bring nothing but blood and violence and fear into a life that Minho had fought so hard to make boring and interminably safe?

“Minho-ssi?” Chan was still watching him, steady. “Do you…Do you need anything?”

And. What a ridiculous question. Yes, Minho thought. I need my boyfriend to not be bleeding to death next door. I need to not be in love with a literal gun-for-hire. I need to know what the fuck I’m supposed to do.

“I.” He heard the words as if from the other side of the room, distant and unreal. “I need to go. I need to…to think about this. Tell Jisung I’ll be in touch.”

And then he was turning on his heel and heading for the door. Chan didn’t stop him, and Minho was grateful for that as he passed through the operating suite, pointedly not looking at the bed or its fragile, tiny occupant, and rushed out of the clinic as quickly as he could. And as he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby, Minho couldn’t help the thought that bubbled up inside him, poisonous and dark yet tinted with the bitter tinge of truth.

It was over.

He couldn’t do this. It was too complex, too risky, too…too much for someone like him. Yes. Jisung was better off without him. Didn’t matter how it felt like his heart was being ripped right out of his chest as he envisioned a future without the other man in it.

The elevator rose. Minho blinked back tears, staring as the moving lights carried him further and further away from the man who was the other half of his soul.

It was for the best. It had to be.

Jisung had tattoos.

Minho lay on his side in his bed, tracing his fingers gently over the bare skin of the younger man’s back as Jisung dozed next to him. They hadn’t bothered turning on the lights earlier, too busy tearing each other’s clothes off, so the glow of the city through the window was the only illumination in the room, pale pastels painting Jisung’s shoulders in soft, muted gold.

He was gorgeous. Sure, Minho had already thought so four months ago, when Jisung had tie-dyed a poor unsuspecting cat in order to ask him out. But there was a difference between seeing Jisung at his clinic, all awkward nervousness even with the expensive athleisure and neatly-styled hair, and Jisung now, sprawled out loose-limbed and relaxed across the mattress after having just finished fucking Minho into a whole new dimension of space-time.

He hummed, soft, careful not to wake Jisung as he ran his thumb carefully over the younger man’s shoulder blade, where a burst of color and stark lines outlined a lithe curving body covered in scales, which led down to the rest of the tattoo currently concealed by the blanket. Jisung’s back was almost entirely covered in a massive single piece: dragons and shrines, mountains and clouds and waterfalls. And that was in addition to the fancy stylized letters down his side and the other tattoos along his right pec. When asked, Jisung laughed and joked that he used to be a Yakuza. Minho let it go; he’d learned very early in their relationship that Jisung wasn’t really someone who should be asked a ton of questions.

The reason for that was also written into his skin, though not in the form of ink and bright colors. No. Minho frowned as his thumb bumped over a rough patch of skin just below Jisung’s shoulder. The pale light of the room outlined the scar, ragged around the edges and vaguely circular, and Minho wasn’t stupid.

During enlistment he’d been a medic; there was no better use of his skills from vet school. So he knew what an exit wound from a bullet looked like. As well as a knife slash. A burn scar. A deep, almost disturbingly neat eight-inch-long laceration down Jisung’s right side that he could’ve sworn came from a sword.

Because in addition to the tattoos, Jisung’s body was covered in old injuries. A map of a hundred battles both won and badly lost; a story of violence stamped into his skin through raised angry ridges and blotches of dead tissue. Most of the scars were very old, faded until they were nearly invisible, but a few were fresher, perhaps from as recent as the last year or two.

How had Jisung gotten so beat up? What the hell did he do for a living? Because he sure as shit wasn’t willing to tell Minho. Whenever he asked, Jisung just shrugged and said enlistment had been rough, and that he now worked in private security. And sure, that could explain some of the injuries, Minho supposed—but not all of them. And not the ones that had clearly been etched onto Jisung’s body decades ago.

Just then, the younger man shifted with a rustling of bedsheets. “Mm. Tickles.”

“Sorry.” Minho leaned down to brush his lips over Jisung’s temple. “You want to sleep some more?”

“Hm.” For someone who’d only just woken up, Jisung’s eyes sure were bright and alert. The younger man smirked. “You got a more tempting offer?”

“Maybe.” Minho smiled, and this time when he leaned down Jisung tipped his head up to meet him. The kiss was soft, slow, a relearning of each other in every gentle brush of their lips, in the way Jisung reached up to sift his fingers through Minho’s hair and the tiny little noise that shivered up Minho’s throat as a result.

It was amazing. It was—it was fucking terrifying actually, how everything inside him just lit up whenever he saw Jisung, how whenever the younger man smiled at him Minho’s heart expanded in his chest until he felt it might burst with the depth of the feelings he had for this man. And it was…dangerous perhaps wasn’t the right word, but concerning, at the very least, that they’d only been dating for four months and already Minho couldn’t imagine a life without Jisung’s constant silly texts or the way he whined over the menu at dinner until Minho finally acquiesced and ordered them dessert. When he’d first agreed to a date at a coffee shop four months ago, Minho certainly hadn’t expected to fall in love—yet here he was, reaching out to draw Jisung in, hauling the younger man on top of him as they kissed, as he lost himself in the warmth and light of this man he already knew would be his ruin.

And perhaps that would be in more ways than one—because the biography of Jisung’s body spoke of something big. Something dark, something perhaps even violent that traced the bullet holes and knife wounds like a quiet threat always lurking in the background just out of sight, with glowing eyes and bloody teeth. Because that’s what Jisung was, that’s what his tattoos and scars portrayed: that he was a predator. That there was a side of Han Jisung that no one wanted to get on, that was so outside of the safe, predictable parameters of Minho’s quiet life he could barely even comprehend it.

And yet. Yet. Minho moaned low in his throat as Jisung pressed him back onto the bed and did something wonderful with his tongue, making his whole body quake as heat and arousal shivered down his spine and through all his extremities. And yet he couldn’t give this up. Four months in and he was already lost. He couldn’t walk away, he couldn’t leave Jisung; he was too wrapped up now in the younger man’s smile and touch and the burning weight of his attention. He was caught. He was trapped. 

“He’s here again,” Felix announced as he walked into the back room with a smug smile like the absolute menace he was.

Minho quickly wrestled down the burst of warmth in his chest, of joy and hope and shy longing because no way was he going to give his tech the satisfaction. Clearing his throat, he took the time to finish his note—Ingested large plastic object, removed from stomach via endoscopy, no adverse effects of anesthesia—before turning to Felix with what he hoped was his most bored look. “Who’s here again?”

It was a lie if he’d ever told one, and judging from the way Changbin snorted over his shoulder as he sorted syringes, his clinic manager saw right through him. “The cat guy, obviously.”

Which probably wouldn’t have conveyed a whole lot of information seeing as they were in a veterinary clinic, but still Felix giggled and Minho sighed even as he felt his ears warm. “Oh. That’s, what, the second time this week?”

It was the third, not that he was counting or anything. Changbin shook his head. “Please tell me he at least has some new issue for Minho-hyung to look at, rather than bringing in another stray for a checkup.”

But Felix just shrugged. “It looks like a tabby this time?” he said, and Minho sighed and rose from his computer.

“What room did you put him in?”

The clinic was small, which was just the way Minho preferred it—he’d done his time in the big hospitals, thank you; now that he owned his own business, he liked the coziness and familiarity of his office. It meant he got to actually build relationships with his patients and their owners, to perform follow-up evaluations and create long-term treatment plans. And, of course, he got to meet all kinds of people.

People like the man who rose quickly to his feet as soon as he entered Room 3, rubbing his palms nervously on his thighs. Han Jisung looked about his age, liked to dress in loose hoodies and jeans, had been bringing random stray cats into the clinic over and over again for the past four weeks straight, and was, not to put too fine a point on it, really fucking hot. Minho cleared his throat and focused on keeping his gaze on the man’s face rather than his strong shoulders and really nice pecs. “Ah, Han-ssi. It’s nice to see you again.”

“Yeah. You too, Lee-seonsaengnim.” Jisung flashed him a smile, bright and gorgeous and enough to make Minho’s heart skip a beat even as the other man motioned awkwardly at the beat-up plastic carrier sitting on the exam table. “Sorry to bother you again, but I found another one.”

“Mmhm.” Minho crouched down for a closer look. From the dim interior of the carrier a pair of golden eyes blinked back at him, docile and vaguely bored just like the last cat Jisung brought in, and the one before that. Really, where did he keep finding these animals, and with such good temperaments at that? “Does it show any sign of injury? Vomiting, trouble breathing, odd gait, that sort of thing?”

“Um, no.” Jisung shoved his hands in his pockets. “No, perfectly normal, as far as I can tell.”

Which was also the same as all the other cats he’d shown up with over the past month. A tiny little suspicion took hold at the back of Minho’s mind, even as he reached into the carrier and drew the cat out. It blinked lazily up at him, dangling perfectly from his hold like it got picked up randomly by strangers all the time. Also just like the last one. And the one before that.

“Well.” He set the cat down on the table, gently palpitating its sides. No odd growths or worrying lumps, no signs of physical injury. In fact it looked like it had been eating surprisingly well, for a stray. He glanced back up at Jisung and nodded. “She seems to be doing okay. It’s so nice of you to rescue so many of them, Han-ssi, especially when I’m sure you’re very busy.”

“Yes, well.” Under the bright lights of the room, Jisung’s cheeks were distinctly pink. “I, uh. You know me. I love animals, just want the best for ‘em, you know?”

“I’m sure.” Minho smiled and reached for the pack of alcohol wipes on the counter. “Well, thank you for bringing her to me. She’s beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tabby this color.”

“Oh.” Jisung’s eyes widened. “Um, that’s—maybe she’s a mutant or something?”

“Hm, perhaps.” Minho closed the alcohol wipe gently over the tip of the cat’s tail and gave it a quick, single stroke. Then he held the wipe up to face Jisung. “Or perhaps she’s not actually a tabby, because is this paint, Han-ssi?”

Silence. Minho raised an eyebrow, watching as Jisung’s face slowly turned the color of a tomato. On the table the cat meowed, a little annoyed which, yeah. Minho wouldn’t blame her.

Then, at last, Jisung sighed. His shoulders slumped even as the corner of his mouth quirked up just a bit. “Don’t worry, it’s pet-safe,” he said, and Minho laughed.

“Why, Han Jisung-ssi,” he said, giving the cat a light scratch behind the ears because she surely deserved it after everything she’d put up with. “Have you been dying the same cat different colors over the past month, just to bring her into my clinic again and again in order to see us?”

“Ah.” Jisung reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Not, uh, not your staff. Just you.”

It came out soft, confident, almost matter-of-fact, like of course this was why he’d been just barely skirting the line of animal abuse for the past month. And Minho knew he had it bad when the thought of that only made his heart beat faster, warmth heating his own cheeks as he coughed into his fist. “Well, when you put it like that…” He shook his head, reached into his pocket for his phone. “I don’t have any evening plans tonight. I get off at five and the cafe around the corner makes decent coffee. You know. If you’re not busy.”

Jisung grinned. It was the most beautiful thing Minho had ever seen. “I’d love some coffee.”

“Great. Bring the cat.”

“I can’t. She’s my friend’s, he wants her back by the afternoon.”

“...She’s not even your cat?”

“No. I work a lot?”

And, well. How was this even his life? Minho laughed. “Okay. Five?”

“Five.” Jisung ushered the cat back into the carrier. “Come on, sweetie, Innie said he’d kill me if I bring you back late again.” The cat meowed, and Jisung turned to Minho with a small, shy wave. “I’ll, um. I’ll see you tonight then, Lee-seonsaengnim.”

He was gone before Minho could tell him to just call him by his name, but that was okay. He watched the door swing cheerfully shut behind Jisung, and thought he would never stop smiling. Sure, Changbin and Felix would never let him live this down, but also it looked like he had a date, so.