Stay awhile

Your lungs forgot their job. Your chest tightened so fast it was almost humiliating, like your body had been waiting for this moment and didn’t care about the ring on your finger or the life you’d built somewhere else.

Yeosang didn’t move. He just stared at you like you were something he’d dreamed up on accident.

Then his throat worked once. A swallow.

When he spoke, his voice was lower than it used to be. Not the soft boy from the back row. Not the laugh you could pull out of him with one look. It was deep now, controlled, carefully placed.

“Welcome,” he said, and the word was polite. Neat. Professional. Like he could set it down between you and keep it from shattering. “How can I help you?”

Your mouth went dry.

“I… I’m here because,” you managed, and you hated how small you sounded. “Your shop has really good reviews. People said you’re the best in town. Especially for weddings.”

His gaze flicked once, just briefly, to the binder on the counter. To the order forms. To the pen lined up perfectly with the edge like he’d put it there to give his hands something to obey.

He nodded, slow.

“I can do wedding work,” he said. “Yes.” The pause after it was wrong. Too long. Like there was a different sentence he’d almost said and forced himself not to.

You swallowed, throat burning.

“Yeosang,” you whispered.

“I didn't know you were back in town,” he said before you could ask him any question. His voice was polite. Terrifyingly polite.

“I... I didn’t know you were still here,” you stammered, your heart hammering against your ribs so hard it hurt. “I thought you left for university. I thought you moved away.”

“Plans change,” two words. Flat. Contained. Like the rest was locked in a drawer you didn’t have the right to open anymore. He didn’t mention his mother. He didn’t mention the funeral you missed because you were halfway across the world. He just wiped his hands on a rag, avoiding your eyes. “You’re here for an order?”

The professional mask was up. He was the owner of ‘Ethereal Blooms’, and you were just another client.

Your heart hurt in a way that didn’t make sense, except it did, because it was Yeosang.

His dark eyes scanned your face, searching for something. For a second, you saw the softness there, the kindness that used to be yours. You saw the boy who used to walk you home. But then, you saw his gaze drop to your left hand.

To the diamond ring catching the light.

Yeosang blinked, and the shutter came down. His jaw tightened, a muscle feathering near his ear. He set the shears down on the counter with a deliberate, heavy clack. When he looked up again, his face was smooth. impassive.

“Congratulations,” he said.

His voice didn’t break.

It would’ve been easier if it had.

You cleared your throat. “Yeosang, I didn’t— I didn’t come here to—”

“Wedding date?” he cut in immediately, not looking at you as he opened a binder and reached for the pen. His fingers wrapped around it with that careful, controlled grip, like he was afraid of what his hands might do if he let them float.

The word was a period. Not a question. A full stop.

You stood there with the binder open between you like a shield, the glossy pages too bright under the warm shop lights. Your ring caught again—another cruel little flash—and you hated that you couldn’t stop noticing how his eyes didn’t.

You blinked. “Yes. It’s in a bit over three weeks—”

“Specific date?” he asked, finally lifting his gaze, expression smooth in a way that didn’t match the tension in his jaw.

“May fifteenth,” you answered automatically. “It’s on a Saturday.”

He wrote it down in neat, small lettering. The scratch of the pen felt too loud in the quiet. “And the venue?” he continued.

You swallowed. “It’s at— it’s at the The Orangery. You know, the old—”

“Outdoor ceremony, indoor reception?”

“Outdoor ceremony,” you murmured, because he was giving you no space to breathe around the words. “Reception inside, yes.”

He nodded once. The motion was minimal. Efficient. Like he was conserving energy. “Guest count?”

“About two hundred and twenty,” you said. Then, because you couldn’t help yourself, because you were standing in front of the boy who used to count the stars with you from the hood of his mom’s car, you added softly, “I didn’t know you opened a shop. It’s really beautiful. I—”

“Bridesmaids?” he interrupted, pen already moving again.

Your heart stuttered, irritation and grief tangling into something hot and ugly in your chest. “Four. Four bridesmaids.”

“Groom’s side?” he asked.

You flinched at the word groom like it was a slap. “Four as well.”

He hummed a single note, more reflex than sound. “Colour palette?”

You glanced down at the binder, at the rows of bouquets photographed in perfect lighting, each one captioned with a name that sounded like a promise. Moonlit Cream. Antique Blush. Summer Silence.

“White,” you started. “And—um. Green. Maybe some pale—”

“Any accent colour?” he cut in.

You felt yourself clench. “Blue,” you said, sharper than you meant. Then your voice faltered. “Seonghwa likes— he likes—”

Yeosang’s pen paused.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t obvious. It was just… the tiniest hitch. Like a machine catching on grit.

“Noted,” he said, and started writing again, like your fiancée’s name was just another line item. “Do you still hate gerbera daisy?”

You let out a breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding. “I—” Your laugh came out wrong, too thin. “Yeah.”

“Good,” he said, still not smiling. “Me too.”

The words landed like a ghost of familiarity.

“You do? You used to—”

“Seasonal availability,” he cut in, voice even. “May is peony season. Ranunculus starts tapering. You can do roses year-round.”

“And you don’t want lilies inside the venue,” he added after a second.

Your heart lurched. “I didn’t say—”

“You get headaches,” he continued, still calm, still professional. “You always did. You’ll think you can handle it because you’re stressed and trying to be easy, but the smell will sit behind your eyes and you’ll spend the reception smiling through pain.”

Your breath caught because that wasn’t a florist talking. That was Yeosang, sixteen, tilting your chin in his hands and telling you you looked like moonlight. Every time you tried to step closer, he moved the counter higher. He slid the clipboard between you and made it official. He kept you on the safe side of his life.

You swallowed, throat raw. “Yeosang.”

He didn’t react.

You tried again, softer, like you could sneak your way past his walls. “Can we… can we talk for a second? Not about the— not about the wedding. Just—”

“Budget range,” he interrupted, and this time he finally looked at you fully. His eyes were dark and unreadable, but there was something in them—something tight, exhausted, buried under years of being good and quiet and responsible.

You stared back, anger flickering because it hurt, because it was unfair, because you were the one who left and somehow you were still the one bleeding.

“Yeosang,” you said, your voice trembling now, “please.”

For a second, his expression shifted. Not softness exactly—something worse. Something like restraint cracking at the edges.

Then he inhaled. Slow. Controlled.

And his face smoothed again.

“Tell me your budget,” he repeated, voice lower, almost gentle. Almost kind. Like he was offering you an exit that wouldn’t shatter either of you. “So I can tell you what’s possible.”

“I don’t know,” you admitted. “I— Seonghwa’s handling most of the payments. I just… I wanted it to be— I wanted it to be pretty.”

Yeosang’s jaw flexed once, a small muscle feathering near his ear like it did when he used to hold back words. “Everything is pretty,” he said.

And the way he said it—flat, controlled—made it sound like an accusation. He flipped to a fresh page in the binder and slid it toward you with two fingers, careful not to touch your hand.

“Okay,” he continued, voice steady again. “Ceremony arch. Aisle markers. Bride bouquet. Bridesmaids. Boutonnières. Table centerpieces. Sweetheart table. Any installations.”

You stared at the list and the words swam. Because all you could think about was how he’d said “Everything is pretty,” like you’d walked in and asked him to decorate the knife you were going to bury in his chest.

You forced your voice to work. “Do you— do you ever—”

“Do you want the bouquet round or cascading,” he interrupted, not even blinking. “And do you want it looser, garden-style, or structured?”

“Why are you doing this?” you whispered.

The pen stopped. Yeosang’s eyes lifted to yours, and for the first time since he’d walked out from the back room, the professional distance faltered. Just a fraction. Enough for you to see the boy underneath—tired, stubborn, too kind for his own good.

His voice, when it came, was so quiet you almost didn’t hear it over the hum of the refrigerators. “Because you asked,” he said.

Then, like he hated himself for letting even that much slip, he straightened.

“Round or cascading?” he repeated, polite to the point of cruelty.

And your mouth opened—

because you didn’t have an answer about flowers.

Because you had a thousand questions about him.

And you didn’t know which one would destroy you first.

So you stood there, your mouth parted, the silence stretching so tight it felt like it might snap and take both of your heads off.

Round or cascading? Structured or loose?

You couldn’t answer. The words were stuck in your throat, thick and suffocating and Yeosang watched you struggle. He watched the way your hands trembled where they gripped the edge of his counter. He let out a breath—a quiet, ragged sound that sounded too much like defeat. He looked away, his eyes dropping to the blank line on the order form.

“Wisteria,” he said. The word was quiet. It wasn’t a question this time.

You blinked, startled by the sudden shift in his tone. “What?”

“You'll want white wisteria,” Yeosang murmured, his pen hovering over the paper. He wasn’t looking at you. He was looking at the wood grain of the counter. “For the sweetheart table.”

He remembered.

“I...” You swallowed hard. “Yes. I do want those.”

Yeosang nodded slowly. His jaw tightened again, the muscle feathering. He finally clicked the pen, writing the word down in harsh, sharp strokes. “I don't have them,” he said flatly.

You frowned, confusion piercing through the heavy emotional fog in your head. “You don’t have wisteria? Yeosang, they’re... they’re one of the most common flowers for weddings. Every florist has them.”

“I don’t,” he countered, his voice snapping back to that rigid, icy professionalism. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.

Yeosang didn’t stock them. He didn’t stock the universally requested flower in the wedding industry because of you. Because working with it every day for other people weddings meant looking at the ghost of a girl who left.

He would never admit that out loud.

“It’s a business decision,” he lied. It was a terrible lie. “I can ask my supplier,” he added loudly so you would’t ask any further questions. “I’ll call her in the morning. I can get them for you.”

He was offering to work with the one flower he couldn’t bear to look at, just so your table would be exactly the way you wanted when you sat next to another man.

“Moving on,” he said, louder than necessary, as if volume could drown you out. He dragged the binder closer and flipped a page so hard the laminated paper snapped. “Bouquet. Round or cascading?”

You blinked, pulling in a breath that tasted like eucalyptus and apology. “I don’t— I don’t know. I hadn’t—”

“Garden-style or structured,” he cut in, pen poised again. His hand was steady. His voice was not.

You tried to find the bride inside you. The sensible one. The one who nodded and smiled and made decisions. But the girl you used to be kept pressing her palms against your ribs from the inside, begging to be let out.

“Yeosang,” you said again, softer, because you couldn’t help it. Because his name had always tasted like home but now it tasted like grief. “Why did you— why don’t you carry—”

Then he spoke without looking up, voice flat like a line drawn in ink.

“And your fiancé’s boutonnière,” Yeosang said. “Does he like white roses, or does he prefer something more… restrained?”

Your stomach dropped because you heard it, suddenly, underneath the professionalism.

Does he like what you like? Does he know you? Does he deserve you?

And before you could answer, Yeosang clicked his pen again and whispered—

“Don’t look at me like that,” the words teared out of his throat.

“Like what?”

“Like you're sorry,” his dark eyes were frantic, searching your face, dropping to your lips, and then darting back up to your eyes. “Because if you’re sorry, Y/N... if you’re actually sorry, then why are you—”

Ding-dong.

The bell above the door chimed—cheerful, sharp, and entirely out of place. Yeosang flinched violently as if he had been burned. The air in the shop, which had been thick and electric a second ago, shattered like glass.

Seonghwa stepped inside and took in the shop in one quick glance. Then his eyes find you and his smile deepened like the most natural thing in the world. “Hi love,” his voice was smooth, melodic, and perfectly composed. “I’m sorry for running late, the fitting took longer than expected.”

You turned too slowly. Or maybe you turned at the right speed and it still felt wrong, because Yeosang was right there. Because the counter was right there. Because the binder was still between you like a barrier that had started to feel less like paper and more like stone.

Seonghwa stepped closer, naturally, like he’d done it a thousand times before. His hand landed at your lower back, light pressure. A small, steadying touch. Not possessive. Not performative.

Just familiar.

You felt it anyway like a stamp.

He looked immaculate, as he always did. He wore a tailored charcoal coat over a black turtleneck, his dark hair perfectly styled, bringing with him the scent of spring air and expensive, subtle cologne. It completely overpowered the smell of damp earth and eucalyptus.

Seonghwa’s gaze shifted. Not dramatic. Not hostile. Just a politely, the way kind people do when they realise someone else exists in the room and deserves recognition. His smile didn’t vanish. It simply adjusted—smoother, more formal, the curve you wore for strangers you wanted to like you.

“Hi,” Seonghwa said, and he offered his hand across the counter without hesitation. “I’m Park Seonghwa, the lucky groom. Thank you for fitting us in on short notice.”

Yeosang stared at that hand. You watched the exact moment the life drained out of his eyes. The raw, desperate boy from three seconds ago vanished, locked away behind a fortress of ice. His jaw clenched so hard you thought his teeth might crack. For a terrifying second, you thought he wasn’t going to take it. You thought he might vault over the counter or tell Seonghwa to get out.

But Yeosang was always the one who endured so he slowly reached out and gripped Seonghwa’s hand.

“Kang Yeosang. Welcome to ‘Eternal Blooms’,” he said. The words came out perfect and polished. The exact tone you used when you were trying to keep something from shaking. Then his gaze slid back to the order form like it was the only safe thing left in the universe.

Seonghwa’s eyes drifted over the shop—over the hydrangeas, the orchids, the expensive, absurd blue delphiniums—honest appreciation in the lift of his brows. “This place is beautiful,” he said, smiling again. “Your work is really stunning.”

Yeosang didn’t smile nor he said thank you. He just nodded once, short and efficient, and said, “We were discussing bouquet style.”

You swallowed and it felt like trying to swallow a blade. Seonghwa leaned slightly closer to the counter, still gentle. His attention moved to the binder, the numbers, the blank lines waiting to be filled. He read quickly. You’d always loved that about him—the way he could process details without making it feel like work. The way he could turn chaos into a checklist.

Seonghwa looked up at Yeosang, his expression shifting easily into the relaxed, confident demeanour of a man who was used to paying for the best. “I want to make sure she has exactly what she envisions, Yeosang-ssi. Spare no expense.”

Yeosang didn’t blink. He just stared at the space on the counter between them. “Of course.”

“Excellent,” Seonghwa said. He reached inside his tailored coat. The sound of the leather wallet sliding free seemed too loud in the quiet shop.

You felt a cold knot form in your stomach as Seonghwa opened the wallet.

“We haven't finished the consultation yet, Hwa,” you said quickly, your voice higher than normal. “We don’t even have a total. We can just pay the invoice when he emails it—”

“Nonsense,” Seonghwa said warmly, pulling out a heavy, matte-black credit card. He didn’t hand it to Yeosang but placed it flat on the wooden counter and slid it forward with two fingers. The metal card made a dull, heavy snick against the wood. “Let’s secure the date now.”

Yeosang stared at the black card. It sat there on the counter, a sleek, undeniable symbol of everything Seonghwa was and everything Yeosang wasn’t. It was security. It was status. It was a man saying, I take care of what is mine.

Something in Yeosang’s chest went painfully, stupidly soft—like his ribs remembered a different kind of counter. A different kind of you.

His fingers tightened around the pen.

Ink didn’t come.

Memory did.

In his head, the florist shop lights flickered out and the world rewound into fluorescent hum and dusty sunbeams, into a hallway that always smelled faintly of floor cleaner and somebody’s ham sandwich.

First year of high school.

Back when his hands still shook openly. Back when he didn’t know how to hide it.

He’d been holding the bouquet behind his back so long his wrist ached.

It was small—embarrassingly small compared to what he could make now, compared to what he’d made for strangers with big budgets and neat timelines. Back then, it was something scraped together from what he could afford and what he could steal without getting caught.

A few pale pink carnations.

A sprig of baby’s breath that made his nose itch.

One stupid little white ribbon he’d bought from the craft aisle, fingers sweaty on the roll while the cashier stared at him like he was buying contraband.

He’d wrapped it too tight. Then too loose. Then too tight again. He’d watched three YouTube tutorials the night before with his phone brightness turned all the way down under his blanket, heart battering his ribs every time the video said “now secure the stems” like he had any idea what he was doing.

His palms had been damp when he finally shoved the bouquet behind his back and waited for you in a park in front of your house, pretending the cold was the reason he couldn’t stop shaking.

He told himself it was nothing.

He told himself it was just flowers.

He told himself he wasn’t about to hand his whole heart to the person who’d been holding it casually for years without even realising.

You were his best friend.

You were the person who stole bites of his lunch and leaned your shoulder into his when you laughed and said his name like it was the safest sound in the world. The idea of ruining that—of saying the wrong thing, of making you look at him differently—had made his stomach feel like it was full of live wires.

He’d tried to practice.

I like you.

Too small. Cowardly.

I love you.

Too big. Too sharp. Like stepping off a roof.

He’d arrived with his throat full of cotton and his brain full of disasters. You rejecting him. You getting awkward. You walking away. You telling someone. You laughing.

You leaving.

He’d been standing there, hands clenched behind his back so tight his knuckles hurt, when he saw you jogging toward him across the sidewalk—hair messy from the wind, cheeks pink, smiling like you’d been excited just to exist in the same space as him.

It almost killed him.

You slowed in front of him, breath fogging, eyes bright. “You’ve been waiting long?”

Yeosang’s mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

You tilted your head, and the way you looked at him—like you expected kindness from him, like you’d never once had to doubt it—made his chest ache so hard he thought he might throw up.

“Sangie?” you asked, softer. Concern threaded through your voice. “Are you okay?”

He nodded too quickly. Then shook his head. Then nodded again like an idiot. And because you were you, because you always made room for him without demanding he fill it perfectly, you stepped closer until the tips of your shoes almost touched his.

You smelled like coconut shampoo and winter air.

He swallowed. “I… I did something,” he managed, voice cracking on the last word.

“Did you get in trouble?”

“No.” He sounded offended at the idea, which was ridiculous because he absolutely looked guilty. His ears were burning so hot he thought they might melt off.

You smiled anyway. “Then what is it?”

He stared at your mouth.

Then your eyes.

Then down at the slush on the pavement because the world was too bright.

His fingers tightened around the stems behind his back. The ribbon cut into his skin. “I just—” he started, and his voice betrayed him again, soft and wrecked. “I just wanted to… give you something.”

You waited.

God, you waited so patiently.

He pulled the bouquet out from behind him like he was confessing to a crime. The carnations were slightly crushed from how hard he’d been gripping them. The ribbon was uneven. The baby’s breath was shedding tiny white flecks onto his sleeve.

For a horrible second, he thought you’d laugh.

For a horrible second, he thought he’d ruined everything.

Then your eyes widened. And your face—your whole face—shifted like the sun had found you.

“Oh Sangie…” you breathed, and your hands came up carefully, like you were afraid touching it too fast might break it. “You made this?”

He nodded once, small. Humiliated. Hopeful.

“It’s not—” He tried to apologise. He tried to preempt the rejection. “It’s not good, I just—”

You cut him off without meaning to, because your smile got too big for your mouth. “I love it,” you said, instantly, fiercely. Like it was obvious. Like it was always going to be obvious.

Yeosang froze.

Because you didn’t mean the flowers.

Not really.

Your fingers brushed his as you took the bouquet, and you looked up at him—still smiling, still bright, still you—and said it again, quieter this time, like it was just the truth and not a weapon.

“I love it.”

The world narrowed to the space between your hands.

His throat burned. He’d meant to be careful. He’d meant to protect you from the weight of it. He’d meant to keep being your best friend and nothing more if that was all you’d ever let him be.

But you were holding what he’d made for you like it mattered.

And his chest—his stupid, unguarded chest—gave up.

“I love you,” he said.

It came out like a fall. Not practiced. Not pretty. Just honest.

Your smile stuttered, just for a second, like your heart had tripped over the words. Then your eyes softened in a way that made his whole body go loose, like he’d been clenching for years and didn’t realise it.

You stepped closer. So close your breath warmed his chin.

“I know,” you whispered, and it wasn’t smug. It was tender. It was awe. Like you’d been waiting for him to catch up to something you’d already been carrying. “I’ve been trying not to say it first.”

Yeosang let out a sound that wasn’t a laugh, wasn’t a sob, something broken and relieved. “What?”

You lifted the bouquet, carnations brushing his chest, and you looked up at him like he was the only person on earth.

“I love you too,” you said.

His hands came up without thinking, fingers hovering at your sleeves like he didn’t know where he was allowed to touch. Like he was terrified that if he held you wrong, you’d vanish.

You solved it for him and leaned in, pressing your forehead to his. And you just stayed there, both of you shaking, both of you breathing like you’d just outrun something enormous.

His first love you.

Your first I love you.

And the bouquet between you—slightly crushed, imperfect, real—smelled like carnations and winter and the beginning of a life he thought he was allowed to have.

“I don’t have an itemised quote prepared,” Yeosang said snapping back to reality. He sounded like a machine. “Company policy requires a signed contract before I can take a deposit.”

“Consider it a retainer, then,” Seonghwa offered easily, completely missing the suffocating tension radiating from the other side of the counter. “Put five million won down. That should more than cover the initial procurement and secure your time for the fifteenth. We can settle the rest later.”

Five million won just dropped on the counter for some wedding flowers that Yeosang was going to have to look at while he built the arrangements for the girl who was his first and only love.

“Seonghwa, please,” you whispered, the plea slipping out before you could catch it. You couldn’t watch this. You couldn’t watch Yeosang be reduced to hired help by the man you were supposed to marry. “Let’s just go. We’re going to be late for the caterer.”

“It will only take a second, love,” Seonghwa murmured, patting your arm. He looked back at Yeosang, offering an encouraging, polite smile. “Go ahead, Yeosang-ssi. Run it.”

Yeosang didn’t look at you. If he looked at you, he would break. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, he reached out. His fingers, stained with dirt and chlorophyll from working with his hands all day, picked up the pristine black card. He didn’t say a word. He turned to the register. He punched in the numbers on the keypad. Each aggressive, sharp tap echoed in the quiet shop.

Five. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero.

He inserted the card into the terminal.

The machine let out a cheerful, chirping beep. Approved.

It was the sound of Yeosang selling his own heartbreak.

The receipt printer whirred to life, spitting out the paper. Yeosang ripped it off the machine. He took the black card and placed it on top of the receipt. He didn’t hand it back to Seonghwa. He slid it across the counter, stopping exactly halfway.

“Thank you for choosing our service,” Yeosang said. He lifted his eyes then. But he didn’t look at Seonghwa. He looked directly at you. His dark eyes were utterly hollow, stripped of the anger, the desperation, and the raw longing from just five minutes ago. There was nothing left but a devastating, quiet acceptance.

He can buy the flowers, that look said. He can buy you.

You felt like you were going to be sick.

“Perfect,” Seonghwa said, slipping the card and the receipt back into his wallet, oblivious to the silent execution that had just taken place. He turned to you, his arm wrapping securely around your waist. “Shall we? We don’t want to keep the chef waiting.”

“Yeah,” you forced out. Your voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Let’s go.”

Seonghwa guided you toward the door. You couldn’t stop yourself from looking back over your shoulder. Yeosang was still standing behind the counter. He hadn’t moved. He was just staring at the blank order form, his hands resting flat on the wood, the pen discarded beside it. He looked like a ghost in his own shop.

The door chimed. The heavy glass shut behind you, cutting off the scent of damp earth and eucalyptus, replacing it with the cold, sterile air of the city. Seonghwa was talking—something about the venue, the seating arrangements, how the chef had promised to prepare a tasting menu—but his voice felt like it was coming from underwater. You nodded mechanically, your hand limp in his as he led you down the pavement. Inside your chest, something cracked clean in half, and you wondered distantly if Yeosang could still see you through the shop window, or if he’d already turned away.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎The brass bell above the door settled into silence, but to Yeosang, it sounded like a ringing in his ears that wouldn’t stop. The heavy glass door clicked shut.

You were gone.

Yeosang stood completely frozen behind the counter. He didn’t breathe. He didn’t blink. He just stared at the order form sitting perfectly square on the wood, right next to the carbon copy of a receipt for five million won.

Park Seonghwa. The name on the receipt.

Y/N. The name he had carefully written at the top of the form, his handwriting neat and precise, hiding the way his hand had been shaking so hard his wrist ached.

The curtain to the back room swept open with a loud, metallic scrape of rings against the rod.

“Hey, did the compressor on the back fridge sound weird to you?” Wooyoung asked, his loud, boisterous voice shattering the fragile quiet of the shop. He walked out wiping his wet hands on his own dark green apron, entirely oblivious. “Because it’s making this awful rattling noise, and if we lose that batch of white roses before Saturday, I swear to God I’m going to—”

Wooyoung stopped. He had known Yeosang since they were kids. He knew Yeosang’s quiet moods, his stressed moods, his focused moods. But the man standing behind the counter right now didn’t look like any of those.

Yeosang looked hollowed out. His skin was pale, his shoulders hunched, and his hands—still pressed flat against the wood of the counter—were trembling violently.

“Yeo?” Wooyoung’s voice dropped, the teasing completely gone. He tossed the towel onto a bucket and hurried over. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you sick? You look like you’re going to pass out.”

Yeosang didn’t answer. His throat felt like it had been packed with glass. He just stared at the receipt.

Wooyoung stepped behind the counter, following Yeosang’s blank, devastated gaze. He looked down at the clipboard. He saw the massive deposit amount first. Then, he saw the name written at the top of the page.

Wooyoung inhaled sharply, the air hissing through his teeth.

“No,” Wooyoung whispered, his eyes flying up to Yeosang’s face. “Tell me that’s a coincidence. Tell me it’s a different girl.”

Yeosang finally blinked. A single, heavy tear broke loose, tracking silently down his cheek, catching in the harsh light of the overhead bulbs.

“She brought him, Woo,” Yeosang rasped. His voice sounded wrecked, as if he hadn't spoken in days. “She brought him in here.”

“Oh my god,” Wooyoung breathed. The protective anger flared instantly, hot and sharp. “I’ll cancel it. I’ll call them right now and say we’re overbooked. You are not doing this. I’m ripping up this check—”

Wooyoung reached for the receipt, but Yeosang’s hand snapped out, his fingers wrapping around Wooyoung’s wrist like a vice.

“Don't,” Yeosang said, his voice cracking.

“Yeosang, are you actually insane?” Wooyoung demanded, trying to pull his arm back, but Yeosang’s grip was desperate. “You can’t do the flowers for her wedding! Do you have any idea what that’s going to do to you? You just spent the last eight years trying to scrape yourself off the pavement after she left, and now you’re going to arrange her bridal bouquet?!”

“I have to order wisterias,” Yeosang whispered.

Wooyoung froze. The fight completely drained out of him at the word. He looked at Yeosang, his heart breaking for his best friend.

“Yeosang...” Wooyoung said softly, his voice thick with pity.

“She asked for them,” Yeosang choked out, his grip on Wooyoung’s wrist finally failing. His hand dropped to his side. The dam broke. The professional, contained owner of ‘Ethereal Blooms’ completely collapsed. “She looked right at me, Woo, and she knew I didn’t have them. She knew why I didn’t have them. And he... he just threw his black card on the counter like I was... like I was nothing.”

Yeosang turned away from the counter, pressing the heels of his hands hard against his eyes. A ragged, ugly sob tore its way out of his chest, echoing in the quiet shop. “He’s perfect for her,” Yeosang wept, the humiliation and the grief finally spilling over. “He has the money. He has the coat. He has the ring. And I’m just standing here with dirt under my fingernails, charging him five million won to watch him marry the only person I’ve ever loved.”

Wooyoung didn’t say anything else. There was nothing to say. He just stepped forward and pulled Yeosang into a fierce, tight hug. Yeosang buried his face in Wooyoung’s shoulder, his hands gripping the back of his friend’s apron like it was a lifeline, crying for the girl who had just walked out the door with another man’s ring on her finger.

On the counter, the receipt for five million won sat perfectly still, securing a date that was going to destroy him.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎The penthouse was too quiet.

Seonghwa’s bedroom was a masterclass in modern, minimalist design. The air was temperature-controlled to a perfect, crisp twenty one degrees. The sheets were high-thread-count Egyptian cotton, cool and smooth against your skin. Beside you, Seonghwa breathed in a steady, rhythmic cadence, completely at peace in the life he had built.

You lay flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, feeling like you were suffocating. Every time you closed your eyes, you didn’t see the cascading orchids or the elegant table settings you were supposed to be dreaming about. You saw the dark, hollowed-out look in Yeosang’s eyes when he handed back that receipt. You heard the dead, mechanical tone of his voice.

You lifted your left hand in the dark. The streetlights from the city below filtered through the expensive sheer blinds, catching the facets of the heavy diamond on your ring finger. It flashed, sharp and clean, a tiny star trapped in metal. It was beautiful in the way money was beautiful. Heavy. Certain. Designed to last longer than feelings.

It sat on your ring finger like it had always belonged there.

It didn’t.

You rotated your hand slowly, watching the facets flare and die.

This is what you chose.

Safe. Sturdy. Predictable.

A ring that said I’ll take care of you in a language that didn’t require tenderness.

Your throat tightened because the flash of the diamond didn’t make you think of vows or dresses or May fifteenth. It made you think of a stairwell that smelled like concrete and dust. It made you think of fluorescent lights that buzzed like a trapped insect. It made you think of Yeosang’s hands—warm and careful like he was holding something breakable.

You blinked, and the ceiling above you wasn’t a ceiling anymore. It was peeling paint. It was a metal handrail cold under your palm. It was the soft, awful quiet of a school stairwell where the rest of the world couldn’t reach you.

And Yeosang was there.

Last year of high school.

Last year of waiting.

You’d been counting down to graduation like it was a door you could finally open. University, freedom, the future that felt like it was hovering just out of reach. Everybody talked about it like this huge, sparkling “after.”

But with Yeosang, it felt like there was an “always,” too.

He didn’t look at you at first. Yeosang never did when he was about to do something reckless. He stared straight ahead, jaw set, the soft curve of his mouth pulled into that not-quite-pout he got when he was trying to be serious and failing.

You bumped your shoulder against his, playful. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what.” Deadpan. Offended. The audacity that you had noticed him existing.

“That thing where you act like you’re not about to say something stupid.”

Yeosang’s eyes finally flicked to you, dark and flat in that way that always made people underestimate him. Like he wasn’t quietly paying attention to everything. Like he wasn’t keeping a whole secret world inside his chest. He didn’t answer. Just slowed down a little, guiding you toward the side stairwell like it was an accident, like it wasn’t the place you always ended up when you wanted to be alone without saying you wanted to be alone.

The stairwell door creaked when he pushed it open.

Inside, it was cooler. Dustier. The noise from the hallway dulled immediately, like the whole school had been muted.

Yeosang let the door swing shut behind you.

You turned to him, eyebrows raised. “Okay. Suspicious.”

“I’m not suspicious.”

“You’re literally radiating guilty energy.”

He exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh, almost not. His shoulders were tense, but his hands were steady when he reached into his pocket. And you expected, for a second, something dumb. A candy. A note. One of those tiny paper stars he used to fold when he was bored in class, the ones he’d flick at you until you got annoyed and then you’d keep them anyway.

Instead, he pulled out a flower. Not a bouquet. Just one small thing, delicate and fresh like he’d stolen it from the universe five minutes ago. A tiny white blossom, petals soft as breath. The stem looked like it had been snapped off with fingers, not cut. Improvised. Personal.

You stared.

Yeosang held it out in front of him like it weighed more than it should. “Before you say something,” he muttered, eyes fixed on the flower like it was safer than your face, “it’s not— it’s not a big deal.”

“That’s what people say when it’s a big deal,” you whispered.

His ears went pink instantly. “Shut up.”

You smiled so hard your cheeks hurt. “No.”

Yeosang’s gaze finally snapped up to yours, and there it was. That soft, lethal sincerity. The thing he tried to hide behind sarcasm and silence because if he let it show too much, it would spill everywhere.

He swallowed. Then, with a stubborn little frown like he was mad at himself for being like this, he reached for your hand. Your skin tingled the second he touched you. He didn’t lace your fingers together. Didn’t hold your hand the normal way. He just turned your palm upward, like he needed to see it. Like he needed to convince himself you were real.

“Yeosang,” you said, softer now, “what are you—”

“Stop talking,” he said, not mean. Just… desperate. Like if you kept talking, he might lose the nerve.

Your mouth snapped shut.

Yeosang lifted your left hand and stared at it for a long moment, his thumb brushing over your ring finger like he was mapping it. Then he took the little flower and—carefully, ridiculously carefully—tucked the thin stem against your finger, folding it in a loose loop so the blossom rested on top, right where a ring would sit.

A fake ring.

A stupid one.

A perfect one.

It looked so fragile you were afraid breathing too hard might break it.

Your throat closed up. “Oh my god,” you breathed, the words coming out like a laugh and a sob had met in the middle and decided to ruin you together.

He still wouldn’t look at you. His voice came out low, rough around the edges. “There.”

You stared at your hand. At the flower sitting on your ring finger like it belonged there. Like it had always belonged there. Your eyes burned.

Yeosang finally looked up, and when he saw your expression, he flinched like he’d been hit. “What,” he said quickly, alarmed. “What. Is it bad? I told you it’s not a big deal, it’s just—”

You shook your head hard enough your hair slapped your cheeks. “No. No, it’s not bad.” Your voice cracked on the next word. “It’s… Yeosang, it’s—”

His mouth twisted, defensive. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“It’s literally a flower ring,” he argued, like that was evidence he could put into a court and win. “It’s biodegradable. It’s— it’s the opposite of practical.”

You laughed, wet and breathless. “You’re the opposite of practical.”

“I am extremely practical,” he snapped automatically, then hesitated, eyes dropping back to your hand. The flower trembled slightly with the movement. His voice softened when he added, “I just… wanted to see it.”

“See what?”

He pressed his lips together. You watched him fight with himself in real time, like he was trying to decide if it was safer to make a joke or tell the truth. Yeosang chose both.

“I wanted to see what it would look like when I finally put a ring on you,” he said, then immediately grimaced like the words tasted too honest. “But not like— not like soon. Not like right now. We’re kids. We’re literally in school. You still can’t even decide what you want to major in without changing your mind every—”

“Every hour,” you finished, smiling through your tears.

“Exactly.” He nodded once, grateful for the lifeline. “So it’s not— it’s not serious. It’s just…”

He trailed off. The silence swelled in the stairwell, thick and warm and terrifying.

You lifted your hand slightly, watching the petals catch the weak stairwell light. It was so small. But it felt like a promise.

“Sangie,” you whispered, “are you joking?”

His eyes flashed up. “Of course I’m joking.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

He stared at you, jaw tense, and then his shoulders sank like he’d lost the strength to pretend. “I’m joking,” Yeosang said, voice quieter now, “because if I don’t joke, I’ll—” He stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I’ll say something that makes it real.”

Your heart kicked hard. You stepped closer. Close enough to smell his laundry detergent and the faint sweetness of whatever he’d eaten at lunch. Close enough that your breath brushed his chin when you spoke.

“Make it real,” you said.

Yeosang’s eyes widened, panicked for half a second, like he hadn’t expected you to say yes.

Then his gaze dropped to the flower on your finger again. And his voice came out raw. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Okay?”

Your chest tightened.

He kept talking, fast now, like he had to get it out before fear could grab it back. “We just… have to wait a little longer,” Yeosang said, and his throat bobbed. “Just until graduation. Just until we’re not stuck in this place. Just until I can actually—” His mouth tightened, frustration flickering. “Until I can actually give you something that isn’t going to die in, like, an hour.”

You laughed again, shaking.

“I mean it,” he insisted, eyes dark, steady. “I’m serious. I know you want big things. I know you want out. I know you’re scared that if you leave first, I won’t follow, and if I don’t land the scholarship you’ll leave without—” He stopped like the thought hurt. Like he couldn’t even say it out loud.

You reached up and grabbed his sleeve, fingers curling into the fabric. “I won’t,” you whispered.

Yeosang’s breath stuttered. He leaned forward before he could stop himself, forehead almost touching yours. His voice dropped to something barely there. “Forever,” he said, like it was a word he didn’t trust the world with. “Yeah?”

You lifted your hand between you, the little flower-ring trembling. “Forever,” you echoed, and your voice didn’t shake on it. “But we just need to wait a little longer.”

Yeosang’s eyes flicked to your mouth.

Then back to your eyes.

His hands hovered at your waist, unsure, like he was still learning where he was allowed to touch.

You made the decision for him, like you always did.

You stepped in. And Yeosang finally held you like he’d been starving for it—careful, but so tight it made your ribs ache. Like he wanted to fuse you to him and call it a solution. His mouth pressed against your temple for a second, a kiss so soft it almost didn’t count as one, except it did. It counted like everything.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he murmured.

You pulled back just enough to look at him. “I’m literally going to marry you.”

Yeosang’s eyes went wide. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“Why?”

“Because then I’ll believe it.”

You smiled, tears slipping down your cheeks anyway. “Then believe it.”

Yeosang stared at you like you were sunlight. Like you were something too bright to be safe. His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist, right over your pulse. “Okay,” he whispered.

And then, because he couldn’t stand the tenderness without trying to hide inside a joke, he nodded at your hand and said, very seriously, “You better take care of that ring.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Or what?”

Yeosang’s mouth quirked. “Or I’ll buy you a real one and make it your problem.”

Your laugh broke wide open and Yeosang smiled like he’d just admitted the entire universe lived inside your hands.

Right as the stairwell door creaked.

A shadow fell across the concrete.

Footsteps.

A voice, muffled through the door: “Hello? Anyone in there?”

Yeosang froze with you in his arms, eyes flashing like a startled cat—caught, guilty, and still refusing to let go.

You lifted your flower-ringed hand between you, breath caught in your throat, and Yeosang’s gaze locked on it like it was the only thing keeping him brave.

“Hey,” you whispered, barely moving your lips. “Sangie.”

His eyes flicked to yours. And for one terrifying, perfect second, you both knew: this wasn’t a joke.

Not really.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎The bell above the door chimed, bright and cheerful.

It was wrong in this light. The morning was the colour of dishwater, the sky pressed low over the city like a lid, and the shop smelled like wet stems and cold metal and something sweet that kept trying to turn into a memory in the back of your throat.

Yeosang was at the stainless steel prep table in the middle of the room, sleeves pushed up, hands moving with that brutal, efficient rhythm—click, clack, click—as he stripped thorns from a dozen white roses. Like if he kept his hands busy enough, his heart wouldn’t get any ideas.

He froze the second he saw you.

For one split, disorienting moment, the shears hung in the air. Then his jaw locked, and the motion started again as if nothing had happened. As if you were just a delivery. As if you hadn’t once been the center of his entire universe.

“We’re closed for walk-ins until eleven,” he said, not looking up.

“I know,” you managed. Your fingers tightened around your bag strap until the leather bit into your palm. “I didn’t come to buy anything. I came to talk to you.”

Click, clack, click.

He didn’t even blink. “If you want to change anything about the order, email the shop to book an appointment.”

“Stop,” you said, stepping closer. The scent of roses hit you hard and stupidly familiar, like a punch to the ribs. “Stop talking like I’m— like I’m a stranger.”

Snap.

The shears slipped, and he cut a stem clean in half. The ruined rose rolled, soft and helpless, across the metal surface. Yeosang stared at it for a second too long, like he could see something else bleeding out there instead of a flower. Then he scooped it up and threw it into the waste bin without looking.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said, too even. Too practiced. “The wisteria is secured. You’ll have it for your wedding.”

“Why did you take his money?” you blurted out, the question that had kept you awake finally tearing free. “Why did you let him do that to you? You should have told us to leave. You should have thrown us out!”

Yeosang finally stopped. He set the shears down on the metal table. The sound rang out, sharp and final. He braced his hands on the edge of the table and slowly lifted his head. His eyes were exhausted. There were dark circles bruised into the skin beneath them, evidence of his own sleepless night. He didn’t look angry; he just looked incredibly, profoundly tired.

“Because I am a florist,” Yeosang said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “And you walked into my shop and asked for my services. What did you want me to do, Y/N? Throw a tantrum? Beg you to take the ring off in front of your fiancé?”

“No! I wanted you to... to not let me hurt you like that!” you cried, gripping the edge of the table. “I didn’t know you owned the shop. If I had known, I never would have brought him—”

“But you did bring him,” Yeosang cut in, his voice rising just a fraction, the control finally slipping. “You brought him, and you stood there, and you let him drop five million won on my counter to buy the flower I had to throw away years ago because I couldn’t look at it without thinking about you.”

The tears spilled over, hot and fast.

“Yeosang, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t,” he breathed, shaking his head, taking a step back from the table. He looked at your tears, and you could see the exact moment it killed him to not reach across and wipe them away. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come in here and cry because you feel guilty. You have what you wanted. The big ring and the black card and the outdoor ceremony.”

“It’s not that simple,” you choked out.

“Yes, it is,” Yeosang said softly. The fight drained out of him, leaving only that devastating, hollow acceptance. “It is that simple. You are marrying him. And I am doing the flowers. That is the reality we live in now.” He picked up the shears again, though his hands were trembling so badly he could barely hold them. “If you came here to absolve your guilt, I forgive you,” he said to the roses. “But if you have any mercy left in you at all... let me just be the florist. Please. Go home to your fiancé, Y/N.”

“Don’t do that,” you whispered.

His hands didn’t stop moving, but his knuckles were white around the shears. “Do what?”

“Pretend you don’t remember.” You swallowed hard, heart hammering while you looked around the shop. “You still hate marigolds,” you said, voice wobbling. “Just like I do.” Your throat seized. “There’s not a single marigold here.”

Yeosang’s jaw jumped. His eyes stayed on the roses.

“You still line up the tools,” you pushed, because the words wouldn’t stop now that they’d started. Because the silence in Seonghwa’s bed had cracked something open inside you. “Parallel. The way you used to line up your pencils in class. You’d get mad if I took one.”

Click, clack, click.

“You still call me—” your voice broke. “You still call me by that silly nickname in your head, don’t you?”

The shears stopped. The quiet that followed was so loud it rang. Yeosang set the shears down on the table with a careful, deliberate clink—like if he did it gently enough, nothing else would shatter. He braced both palms on the steel, shoulders tense, head bowed.

When he finally spoke, his voice was flat, but it wasn’t calm. It was the voice of someone holding a scream between their teeth. “Don’t.”

You stepped closer anyway, until the edge of the prep table pressed into your hips. “Do you remember,” you whispered, eyes stinging, “when you put that stupid little flower on my ring finger in the stairwell? And you joked about it like it was nothing, but your hands were shaking so bad I thought you were going to drop it—”

“Stop.”

You didn’t. You couldn’t.

“You said ‘wait for me,’” you said, tears spilling hot and fast now. “You said just a little longer and then it would be real.”

His head lifted, slow.

His eyes were exhausted. Bruised underneath. Devastatingly awake.

“Is this why you’re here?” he asked quietly. “To recite my own memories back to me like I haven’t been choking on them for eight years?”

“I’m here because you looked at me yesterday like—” Your voice turned thin, ugly with panic. “Like I killed you.”

Yeosang’s laugh came out once. Not humour. Just air scraping past broken glass. “You didn’t kill me,” he said. “You left me alive. Which was somehow worse.”

You went still. He stared at you for a long moment, and you saw it—how badly he wanted to be gentle. How badly he was fighting it.

“You don’t get to do this,” he said, voice low. “You don’t get to walk into my shop, in your coat that probably costs more than my first year’s rent, wearing a ring that could buy my mother’s—” He stopped. Swallowed hard. His throat worked like he was forcing something back down. “You don’t get to come in here and start talking about stairwells.”

“I didn’t know it was your shop. I didn’t think—”

“No,” Yeosang cut in, eyes burning now, finally looking at you like you deserved the truth. “That’s the problem. You didn’t think. You never stopped to look at me and think, ‘He’s still in this town. He’s still breathing. He still has to wake up and live in the aftermath of what I did.’”

You shook your head hard. “Yeosang, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t,” the word was so soft it almost sounded like it hurt him more than shouting. He took a step back from the table, like distance could keep him from reaching for you. Like he was scared his hands would betray him. “Don’t come in here with tears and call it love.”

“It was love,” you choked.

Yeosang’s mouth twisted, something sharp and wounded flashing across his face. “It was,” he said. “It was the only real thing I’ve ever had.”

“Do you want to know why I can’t look at you?” he asked.

You barely managed a nod.

Yeosang’s eyes flicked to your ring finger. Just once. Like touching a bruise. “Because you left,” he said, each word measured like he was placing stones on your chest. “You left, and you didn’t even have the decency to tell me the truth about why.”

Your breath caught. “I— I did tell you.”

“You told me it was ‘for the best,’” Yeosang spat, and the bitterness in his mouth finally showed. “You told me you were ‘being practical.’ You told me you ‘didn’t want to hold me back.’” His laugh broke again, ugly this time. “As if I wasn’t already behind. As if I wasn’t already drowning.”

He stepped closer, and the air tightened.

“You know what you didn’t tell me?” Yeosang asked, voice shaking now. “You didn’t tell me you were ashamed.”

Your stomach dropped.

Yeosang’s eyes were glossy, furious, wrecked. “You looked at my life and decided it was too small,” he said. “You looked at my hands—hands that were stained with dirt and flower sap and cheap soap from the school bathroom because I was working after class—and you decided you didn’t want that.”

“No,” you whispered, horrified. “That’s not—”

“Yes, it is,” Yeosang said, voice cracking. “Because if it wasn’t, you would’ve stayed. Or you would’ve taken me to London with you. Or you would’ve fought your parents to stay here. You would’ve done anything except disappear and leave me holding the shape of you like a fucking ghost.”

“You didn’t leave because you had to. You left because you finally believed everyone who told you I wasn’t enough.”

Tears blurred your vision. “I was young. I was scared.”

“Of what?” he demanded, and his voice dropped into something raw, almost pleading. “Of struggling? Of being broke? Of your parents being right about me? Of loving me and still not getting the life you wanted?”

He shook his head once, fast, like he couldn’t stand the thought.

“I didn’t get to be scared,” Yeosang said, and his voice went quiet in a way that was worse than shouting. “I didn’t get to leave. I didn’t get to start over. You went to university and built a new life, and I stayed here and watched the seasons change through the same window, waiting for a text that never came.”

His throat bobbed.

“I threw away wisteria,” he whispered, eyes shining with something devastated. “It was supposed to decorate the entrance of this shop. Do you understand how insane that is? I threw it away because I couldn’t look at it without seeing your stupid little flower ring on your finger. And then you walk in here years later and ask me for it like it’s nothing.”

His voice cracked on the last word.

“Like I’m nothing.”

Your hands were shaking. Your chest felt split open.

“Yeosang,” you whispered, and his name tasted like blood.

He looked at you like he hated how much he still loved you.

“If you have any mercy left,” he said, not looking up, “let me just be the florist. Please.” His voice went softer, almost gentle, like he was offering you a way out that wouldn’t destroy you both in public. “Go home to your fiancé.”

He lifted the shears.

Click, clack, click.

And you stood there with your throat full of everything you should’ve said eight years ago, realising with a sick, cold clarity that you didn’t just leave Yeosang.

You left him behind to pay for it alone.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎The bridal shower was a curated kind of joy. Everything was pale and pretty and intentionally effortless—white linen, champagne flutes, a balloon arch that looked like it had been breathed into existence by someone who’d never struggled a day in their life. The room smelled like vanilla candles and expensive perfume, sugar-sweet to the point of nausea.

You stood in the middle of it with a plastic smile glued to your face, accepting compliments.

“Look at you,” someone cooed, pressing a hand to your arm. “You’re glowing.”

You wanted to laugh. You wanted to scream. You lifted your left hand on instinct, like the diamond was a script you could follow when you didn’t know what else to do. The ring flashed under the warm light and everyone sighed like it was the most romantic thing they’d ever seen.

Across the room, Seonghwa’s friends were talking about venues and menus and photographers, all confident voices and clean laughter. The kind of people who said things like “investment” and meant it.

You kept nodding.

Kept smiling.

Kept pretending your chest wasn’t packed with wet cement.

Then the door opened. A gust of cold air slipped in, sharp and real, cutting through the room’s perfumed softness like a blade.

And Wooyoung walked in carrying flowers. Not a cute little bouquet. Not a polite arrangement. A whole statement—buckets and boxes, greenery spilling over the edges, white blooms wrapped in crisp paper. He looked like he’d wrestled a garden and won. Black jeans, dark jacket, hair a little messy from the wind, cheeks pink from the evening cold.

He didn’t look like he belonged here.

One of Seonghwa’s friends, bright smile, perfect nails—clapped her hands. “Oh! You must be the florist delivery! Hi!”

Wooyoung gave a quick, friendly smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Hi,” he said, voice easy. Warm. Professional. Like he’d practiced it.

“I’m Wooyoung, I work for ‘Eternal Blooms’” he added, and his gaze cut across the room and landed on you. It was like someone had snapped a rubber band against your skin. His smile faded immediately not into anger but into something worse.

Recognition.

He set the boxes down carefully on a side table, moving with the kind of precise restraint that screamed I’m holding myself back from doing something stupid. He started unpacking. White roses. Greenery. Soft baby’s breath. Cream peonies that looked like they’d never known dirt. Everything expensive. Everything perfect.

“Wow,” someone breathed. “These are gorgeous!”

Wooyoung hummed politely. “Thank you.”

He didn’t look up again.

Not until you moved.

You didn’t mean to. It just happened. Your feet carried you toward the side table like you didn’t have control over them. Like the scent of those flowers—wet stems, sap, something green and alive—was a rope tied around your ribs. Wooyoung’s hands kept working as you approached, arranging with quick, practiced movements. He didn’t need to think. He was doing the job with his body while his mind was somewhere else.

When you got close, you realised his fingers had tiny scratches on them. Small red lines.

Thorns.

You remembered Yeosang’s hands.

You remembered dirt under his nails.

“Hi, it’s good to see you,” you said, softly, because you didn’t know what else to say.

Wooyoung finally looked up with sharp eyes. “Hi,” he echoed.

The air between you felt electric. Dangerous.

You tried again. “Is… is Yeosang okay?”

Wooyoung’s laugh came out under his breath, short and humourless. “Wow.”

You flinched. “I’m serious.”

Wooyoung leaned closer to the table, tucking greenery into a vase like he needed to keep his hands busy so he wouldn’t put them on you. “You’re asking me if he’s okay,” he said quietly, “while you’re standing in a room full of people playing ‘guess the lingerie’ and sipping champagne through a straw.”

Heat rose in your face. “This isn’t—”

“What,” Wooyoung cut in, still quiet, still controlled. “What is it, then?”

You opened your mouth. Closed it.

Wooyoung’s eyes flicked to your ring. He stared at it like it was a weapon. Then he looked back up at you and something in his expression shifted—anger, yes, but also grief. Like he was mad at you and mad at the universe and mad at Yeosang for still loving you.

“Come here,” Wooyoung said, voice tight.

You blinked. “What?”

He nodded toward the hallway. Toward the coat closet. Toward a door leading to the quieter side of the house. “Now. Before I say something insane in front of all these rich people.”

You swallowed hard, pulse tripping. “Wooyoung—”

“Y/N.” He said your name like it was a warning.

You followed him. The hallway was dimmer. Cooler. The noise from the party dulled behind you, muffled by expensive walls. You stopped near a framed photo of Seonghwa and you—engagement shoot—both of you smiling like a magazine cover.

Wooyoung turned to face you. Up close, you could see it—he was shaking a little. Not fear. Adrenaline. Rage held in a careful fist.

“You don’t get to ask if he’s okay,” Wooyoung said. His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to. The quiet was more brutal than shouting. “You don’t get to say his name like you didn’t carve a crater in him.”

Your breath hitched. “I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” Wooyoung snapped, and the control cracked for half a second. “You left, and you acted like it was… like it was a normal breakup. Like you two were just some high school couple who grew apart.”

Your throat went tight. “We were kids.”

Wooyoung’s mouth twisted. “Yeah. And Yeosang loved you like he was already an adult.” Wooyoung took a step closer, lowering his voice even further, like he didn’t trust himself with volume. “Do you know what he did after you left?” he demanded. “Do you know what it looked like? Because I do. I watched it.”

“I didn’t— I didn’t know—”

“No,” Wooyoung cut in. “You didn’t want to know.” The words landed like a slap. He pointed, sharp and furious, toward your ring hand. “That thing on your finger? That’s not just a ring to him. That’s proof.”

“Proof of what?” you whispered, voice breaking.

Wooyoung’s laugh came out again, bitter. “Proof that he was right.”

Your stomach dropped. “Right about—”

“About why you left,” Wooyoung said, and now his eyes were wet. He looked angry about the tears, too, like they were another betrayal. “You left because you were scared. But not the cute kind of scared. Not the ‘we’re too young to be this much in love’ scared.”

He leaned in, and his voice went razor-thin.

“You left because you looked at Yeosang’s life and you decided it wasn’t enough for you.”

“No,” you choked out, horrified. “That’s not true. That’s not—”

Wooyoung shook his head once, hard. “Don’t lie to me,” he snapped. “I’ve heard every version of your ‘it was for the best.’ I’ve heard the ‘I didn’t want to hold him back.’” He mimicked the words with a cruel softness that made your skin crawl, because it sounded too much like you. “Do you know what he heard?” Wooyoung demanded. “He heard, ‘I’m embarrassed of you.’ He heard, ‘I don’t want to struggle with you.’ He heard, ‘I want a life where love is optional as long as the countertops are marble.’”

Your eyes burned. “That’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s what happened,” Wooyoung said, voice breaking on the edge of fury. “And you know what’s fucking insane? He still never hated you.”

You swallowed. Your lungs wouldn’t work right. “Wooyoung…”

Wooyoung’s gaze flicked toward the party. Toward the laughter. The clinking glasses. The soft, shiny world where everyone was congratulating you for being “lucky.”

Then he looked back at you like you were the only person he could hold accountable.

“He didn’t stay in this town because he wanted to,” Wooyoung said. “He stayed because life happened to him. Because responsibility happened to him. Because grief happened to him. And through all of that, he still loved you.”

His voice went quieter. Deadlier.

“And then you walked back in with him. With the ring. With the black card. With the date. And you didn’t just reopen the wound.”

Wooyoung stepped even closer. His eyes were blazing now.

“You made him package it up,” he whispered. “Wrap it in ribbon. Put a price tag on it. And hand it back to you with a smile.”

Your chin trembled. “I didn’t ask him to—”

“You asked him to do the flowers for your wedding,” Wooyoung cut in, sharp. “You asked him to build the prettiest version of the worst day of his life.”

A sob climbed up your throat like acid.

Wooyoung’s expression flickered—something like pity, something like disgust, something like I hate that you’re crying because it makes me feel bad for you.

He took a breath. His shoulders rose. Fell.

Then he said it—slow, cruel, and heartbreakingly simple.

“Do you know what you’re doing to him?” Wooyoung whispered. “You’re making him prove he’s still good. You’re making him show you he can be gracious. Professional. Talented. Quiet. You’re making him swallow it. You’re making him be the kind of man who doesn’t fall apart—” his voice cracked “—because if he falls apart, then you get to tell yourself you were right to leave.”

The words hit so hard you felt dizzy.

“No,” you breathed, barely audible. “No, I don’t— I don’t want that.”

Wooyoung held your gaze, relentless.

“Then stop,” he said.

The simplicity of it was brutal.

You blinked, tears spilling. “I can’t just— it’s all booked, and Seonghwa—”

Wooyoung’s eyes flashed. “There it is,” he said, voice sharp. “Seonghwa. Seonghwa’s schedule. Seonghwa’s money. Seonghwa’s wedding.”

He pointed at your ring again.

“You know what Yeosang had?” Wooyoung demanded. “He had a fucking flower on your finger and a promise you made in a stairwell. And he treated it like it was sacred.”

His voice dropped, wrecked.

“And you traded it for a diamond.”

Your breath hitched so hard it hurt.

Wooyoung looked away for a second, like he couldn’t stand seeing you cry.

When he looked back, his voice was low. Final. “I took this delivery because Yeosang couldn’t,” he said. “He smiled and said he was busy. He said it was fine. But his hands were shaking so bad he kept cutting himself instead of the thorns, and he didn’t even notice until the blood hit the sink.”

Your stomach turned.

“He’s not okay,” Wooyoung whispered. “And if you leave him to do that wedding… you’re going to watch him die on his feet and call it ‘beautiful.’”

The party noise swelled suddenly behind you—someone laughing loudly, a chorus of “Awwww!” as a gift was opened.

Wooyoung turned slightly, ready to go back out there, to put the mask back on. Then he paused. He glanced at you one last time, voice quiet enough it felt like it was meant for only you.

“And the worst part?” he said. “He’ll still do it. He’ll still make it perfect. Because he loves you. And because he’s too fucking good.”

He opened the door.

Light spilled in.

Laughter.

Perfume.

Pretty.

Wooyoung looked back over his shoulder, eyes sharp as a blade.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

And you stood there in the dim hallway with your hands shaking and your diamond ring flashing like a threat, realising the next move was yours.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎It was two days before the wedding, and the city was caught in the grip of a spring rain. You huddled under the awning of ‘Ethereal Blooms’, staring down at your phone.

Seonghwa: Stuck in a board meeting, love. Running late. Can you approve the final bridal bouquet mockup without me? Put it on the black card. Love you.

You locked the screen, the glowing rectangle mirroring the hollow pit in your stomach. Not anger, just a terrifying, familiar relief.

You pushed the door open. The brass bell chimed softly, a cheerful sound that felt entirely out of place against the low thrum of anxiety in your chest.

Yeosang was standing behind the stainless steel prep table.

He froze when the bell rang, his hands pausing over a massive bucket of imported white orchids. His gaze flicked past you, waiting for the tall, immaculate figure of your fiancé to step through the door behind you. When the door clicked shut and it was just you, the air in the room instantly thickened, heavy with unspoken things.

“He couldn’t make it,” you said, your voice sounding entirely too loud in the sudden quiet. “Work.”

Yeosang’s jaw tightened, a hard line etched into his profile. He didn’t say anything. He just reached for a towel, wiping the water and soil from his hands with slow, deliberate movements, like each gesture was carefully measured to prevent a tremor.

“I have the mockup ready,” he said quietly, his voice perfectly polite. Perfectly distant.

He stepped into the back cooler, the heavy door hissing shut behind him, leaving you alone for a few agonising seconds. He emerged a moment later, holding a bridal bouquet.

It was stunning. It was exactly what you and the wedding planner had designed—a cascading waterfall of pristine white orchids, heavy white roses, and silver-dusted greenery. It looked flawless. It looked expensive. It looked exactly like the life Seonghwa was offering you.

Yeosang walked around the counter and held it out to you.

You reached for it. As your fingers closed around the thick bundle of stems wrapped in heavy white satin, Yeosang didn’t immediately let go. His hand was warm beneath yours, a familiar, electric current that shot straight up your arm.

“Look down,” Yeosang murmured, his dark eyes fixed on your face, not on the bouquet. His voice was a low, rough whisper that barely carried over the drumming of rain against the window.

You blinked, confused, and slowly lowered your gaze to the top of the bouquet.

From the outside, it was a solid wall of perfect white. But buried deep in the absolute middle of the arrangement—tucked so perfectly that it was only visible if you were the one holding it, cradling it close—was a single, soft pink camellia.

“The planner said Mr. Park wanted pure white,” Yeosang continued, his voice dropping even lower, laced with a familiar, aching tenderness. “But I remember you told me once that all-white arrangements… they look like apologies.”

A cold shockwave ripped straight through your chest, stealing the air from your lungs.

“I tucked it deep,” Yeosang said, his gaze finally dropping from your face to the bouquet between your hands. “No one will see it in the photos. He won’t notice. But I thought… if your hands started shaking, if you looked down… you could see it. So you wouldn’t feel so alone up there.”

Your vision blurred instantly. The delicate pink camellia swam in your tears.

You looked up at him.

Yeosang was standing so close, his body radiating a heat that was both comforting and terrifying. The polite, professional mask he had been wearing all the time had completely fractured. He was looking at you with such profound, unguarded agony that it made your ribs ache, a physical manifestation of his own heartbreak.

You wanted to drop the flowers. You wanted to close the two inches of space separating your bodies, fist your hands in his dark apron, and pull him down into a kiss that would erase the last eight years entirely. Your body was screaming for him, violently rejecting the heavy diamond weighing down your left hand.

Yeosang’s eyes flared, he felt it. He felt the shift in the air, the way you leaned into his space, the way your breath hitched when his thumb unconsciously, almost imperceptibly, twitched against your knuckles.

He didn’t pull away. He didn't break eye contact.

His thumb moved again. Not a full stroke. Just a ghost of a touch, a whisper of pressure against the back of your hand, tracing the skin right next to your diamond ring. It was a feather-light brush, barely there, but it was enough. It was an almost-too-brave touch, a subtle claim that bypassed every logical thought in your head.

Your entire body convulsed. The physical contact, so fleeting yet so charged, bypassed your brain entirely, going straight for the part of you that remembered him. It was a memory of being twenty, pressed against him in the rain, his hands holding yours.

“Sangie,” you whimpered, the sound breaking from your lips, completely undone. Your voice was a plea, a question, a desperate confirmation that your body had entirely betrayed your carefully constructed life.

His gaze dropped to your lips, dark and hungry.

The bell above the door chimed loudly.

“Delivery!” a loud voice called out from the entryway.

You both jumped apart as if you had been burned.

The cold air rushed back into the space between you. The spell shattered, leaving behind a sharp, terrifying reality.

“I— I love it,” you stammered blindly, clutching the heavy orchids to your chest, your heart hammering a frantic, sickly rhythm against your ribs. You couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. If you looked at him again, you wouldn’t leave. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

You turned and practically ran for the door, brushing past the delivery driver, pushing out into the spring rain.

You stood on the sidewalk, the rain soaking into your coat, entirely unable to breathe.

You had almost kissed him. You had almost thrown away your entire future.

But as you stood there, trembling on the street corner, the truth settled into your bones like lead. You were going to marry a man who looked right past you, while the man who had memorised your heart was arranging the flowers for your altar.

You were still in love with Kang Yeosang.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎The garden outside the venue smelled like fresh-cut wood, cooling glue, and the faint green bite of crushed stems. Rows of white chairs sat perfectly aligned like teeth. The aisle runner was taped down at the corners, edges still curling slightly where the adhesive hadn’t fully set.

You stood at the altar with a stack of vows in your hand that felt like paper and lead at the same time.

You cleared your throat, forcing air into your lungs like you could bully your body into cooperating. “Seonghwa,” you began out loud, and your voice sounded too formal.

The words on the page were beautiful. They were the kind of vows that made people cry and whisper “they’re perfect for each other” into champagne glasses. They were full of stability and gratitude and a lifetime of choosing each other.

But when you tried to push them past your teeth, they caught.

They tasted like nothing.

You tried again, voice quieter, like softness would make it more believable. “Seonghwa… you are my safest place,” you read. Your throat tightened immediately, betrayed by the sentence.

Safest. Like a locked door.

Like a padded room.

Like a life you could survive even if you never truly lived inside it.

You blinked hard. Your eyes stung.

“From the moment you—” you forced out, but the words blurred. The ink on the page seemed to swim, slipping away from you like it didn’t want to be said either. Your hand trembled. You curled your fingers tighter around the paper until the edge crumpled.

A laugh tried to scrape up your throat but it came out as a strangled breath instead. You lowered the vows, pressing them to your stomach as if they could hold you together.

The garden was silent. And in that silence, the hollowness became undeniable. Not a dramatic realisation. Not a thunderclap. Just the slow, sick certainty that you could stand in front of a hundred people tomorrow and say all of this—

—and it would still be a performance.

You stared down the aisle. It was gorgeous already, even half-finished. Greenery draped along the edges. White blooms set in clusters like fallen stars. Someone had laid out the beginning of an arrangement at the front—loose stems, unopened buds, florist tape, a pair of shears resting on a cloth.

You hadn’t looked too closely when you came here.

You hadn’t asked who was doing the last-minute touch-ups.

A sound came from around the corner near the side entrance to the venue—soft, precise. A faint snip. Then the whisper of leaves sliding against one another. Someone exhaled, slow and controlled, as if they were trying not to be noticed.

You froze.

Your pulse kicked.

You moved to the side to see better and your eyes lifted.

Yeosang.

He wasn’t wearing the apron. Just a black shirt, sleeves pushed up, forearms bare, hands marked with faint scratches that looked too new. His hair was a little messy, like he’d been running his fingers through it without realising. He held a handful of greenery in one hand and his shears in the other. He stopped the second he realised you’d finally noticed him.

The empty air between you tightened, electric and fragile.

For a beat, neither of you spoke.

Your throat locked around his name, around every year you’d swallowed.

Yeosang’s gaze flicked to the vows in your hand. Then to your face. To the wet shine in your eyes you couldn’t hide fast enough.

His expression shifted—something tight in his jaw, something wounded and soft beneath it, like he’d been bracing for this kind of moment his whole life and still hadn’t learned how to survive it. “I didn’t mean to—” Yeosang started, voice low, roughened at the edges.

You shook your head too quickly. “Why are you here?”

It wasn’t an accusation. It was panic. It was grief trying to pretend it was anger.

Yeosang glanced down at the greenery like it could answer for him. “The aisle pieces weren’t done,” he said. “There was an issue with one of the foam bases. Wooyoung—” He stopped like saying Wooyoung’s name made him remember the whole ugly chain of protection and hurt. “I came to fix it.”

You stared at him, breathing too shallow. “You weren’t supposed to—”

“I know.” Yeosang’s voice sharpened, but not with cruelty. With restraint. With exhaustion. “I know what I’m ‘supposed’ to do.”

The word hung there, bitter.

Your fingers crushed the paper a little more.

You tried to speak again, but your voice shook. “You… you heard that.”

Yeosang didn’t answer at first. His gaze stayed on your face like it was painful. Like it was impossible not to look.

Then he nodded once. Small. Honest.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I heard.”

Heat rushed up your neck. Shame, humiliation, something rawer. “I was just practicing.”

Yeosang’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite anything. “Yeah,” he said. “I noticed.”

The silence that followed was unbearable. You blinked and another tear slipped free, hot and stupid. You swiped at it angrily with the back of your hand, like you could erase the evidence.

Yeosang flinched at the motion, just a little.

Like he wanted to step forward.

Like he forced himself not to.

“You’re not… you’re not ready,” Yeosang said, and his voice wasn’t judgmental. It was wrecked. Like he was naming a bruise.

Your breath caught. “Don’t,” you whispered. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you—” Your voice cracked. You lifted the vows slightly, helpless. “Like you can tell.”

Yeosang’s eyes dropped to the paper again. The edge was crumpled where your fingers had been crushing it. The ink was smudged by the sweat of your palm. Then his gaze lifted back to yours, too steady, too gentle.

“You’re crying,” he said simply. “In an empty garden.”

The words hit you right in the chest. Your body betrayed you completely—your chin trembled, your mouth opened, and the first real sob you’d been holding back tried to break loose.

You swallowed it down hard, shaking your head. “It’s just stress,” you lied.

Yeosang stared at you for a long moment. Then he set the greenery down on the nearest chair with hands that were too careful. He kept the shears in his right hand, but his grip loosened entirely, the heavy metal blades pointing toward the floor. It didn’t look like a tool anymore. It looked like he simply didn’t know what else to do with his hands.

He took a step closer.

Then another.

It wasn’t enough to touch you. It was just enough to make the air between you tighten, pulling taut like a wire right before it snaps. The sunlight caught him as he moved—illuminating his dark lashes, the sharp, rigid line of his jaw, and the faint, fresh scratches on his knuckles from working with the thorns. He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing, looking at you like he hated his own courage.

You couldn’t breathe. Your vows hung limp at your side, the heavy cardstock crumpled where your fingers had crushed it in frustration. You stared at him, entirely helpless, your eyes burning with the kind of tears you hated because they were too honest to hide.

“Say it to me,” Yeosang whispered.

“What?” you rasped, the word tearing out of your dry throat.

Yeosang’s eyes didn’t flinch away this time. They didn’t drop to the floor or seek the safety of the floral arrangements. They stayed locked on you, dark and open in the most terrifying way you had ever seen.

“Your vows,” he said, his voice carrying perfectly in the cavernous room. “Practise them with me.”

A cold wave washed through your chest, freezing the blood in your veins. “I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.” His voice cracked just slightly on the vowel, and in that tiny fracture, you heard the monumental effort it took him to stand in this aisle without falling apart. “No one’s here, Y/N. It’s just… chairs. Flowers.”

He swallowed again, his chest rising with a shaky breath.

Then, softer, like it physically hurt him to offer himself up: “And me.”

Your throat burned with sudden, fierce acidity. “Why would you want that?”

Yeosang’s jaw tightened hard enough that you saw the muscle jump beneath his skin. “Because I heard you choking on them,” he said, his voice dropping low, brutal with honesty. “And I know you’re trying to force something out of your mouth that your body doesn’t believe.”

You flinched as if he had struck you.

Yeosang took another half-step forward—still agonisingly careful.

“Just read them,” he urged quietly. “If they’re true, you’ll be able to say them.”

Your vision blurred entirely, the perfectly aligned rows of chairs melting into a sea of white. “That’s not fair,” you whispered, a tear breaking free and cutting a hot path down your cheek.

Yeosang’s laugh came out dark and hollow, sounding like a bruise being pressed too hard. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “No shit.”

The words hung between you, heavy with the weight of the last eight years, thick with everything else he’d never gotten to say.

Your hands shook violently as you lifted the crumpled paper again.

The empty chairs watched you like ghosts waiting for a confession.

You stared at the first line until the letters stopped swimming in your tears. Then, you forced air into your tight lungs and tried. “Seonghwa,” you began, your voice trembling so badly it echoed off the glass ceiling.

Yeosang didn’t move. He didn’t interrupt. He just watched you, his posture rigid, like a man bracing for an inevitable impact.

You swallowed the lump in your throat. “From the moment I met you…” The words came out, but they felt entirely foreign on your tongue, like you were reading someone else’s script in a language you barely understood. Your voice echoed back at you, flat. Hollow. Unconvincing.

Your breath hitched.

You tried again, pushing harder, desperate to make it sound real. “You are my safest place.”

Your eyes stung instantly with fresh tears. Yeosang’s gaze flicked away for a fraction of a second—almost imperceptible—but you caught it. He looked away like the word safest had cut him, hurting him for reasons you didn’t even deserve to understand.

He turned his head back to you and said, very quietly, “Don’t read it.”

You looked up at him, absolute panic seizing your chest.

“Say what you actually mean.”

Your mouth opened to argue, to defend the vows, but nothing came out. Instead, a ragged sob tore its way up your throat.

“I— I don’t know how.”

Yeosang’s expression softened then, melting into something devastating. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t the bitter anger he had shown in the shop. It was just profound, quiet understanding—an understanding that looked like it had cost him everything he had left.

“Yes, you do,” he whispered softly. “You just don’t want to admit it out loud.”

Your whole body shook. You stared at him through the blur of your tears, and the words came out before you could stop them—ragged, broken, and terrifyingly real.

“I can’t promise him forever,” you choked out, the confession shattering the quiet of the hall. “I can’t— when I say it, it feels like I'm lying.”

Yeosang went very, very still. You watched his face change like a storm passing over a dark lake—shock, sharp pain, and then something dangerously close to relief that made him look sick with himself for feeling it.

Your chest heaved as you tried to catch your breath. You wiped frantically at your face with the back of your hand, smearing tears across your cheek. “I’m trying,” you whispered, pleading with him to understand. “I swear I’m trying, Yeosang. I just— I keep opening my mouth, and it’s like… it won’t come out. Like my body is refusing to do it.”

Yeosang stared at you, his breathing turning shallow and fast.Then he spoke, his voice rough, scraping against his throat, yet almost unbearably gentle. “Okay,” he hesitated. “Then don’t say it to... him.”

Your heart lurched against your ribs. “What?”

Yeosang’s dark eyes held yours, entirely unflinching. “Say it to me,” he repeated. His throat bobbed. “Not because I want you to,” he said, his hands flexing at his sides. “Not because I—” His jaw clenched tight, and he swallowed hard, forcing himself to push through the lie. “Because I want to help you. Because I can take it.”

You shook your head, crying harder at the sheer cruelty of his offer. “No—”

“I’m serious.” His voice cracked again, just once, and the sound made your ribs ache with phantom pain. “If you’re going to practice a lie, don’t practice it on someone who thinks it’s true love. Practice it on someone who already knows exactly what it costs.”

Your knees felt weak.

The entire garden seemed to tilt on its axis.

Your trembling fingers crumpled the heavy cardstock of the vows one last time, and then, slowly, you let your grip loosen. The paper fluttered to the ground between you, landing with a soft, dismissive tap.

You lifted your chin—shaking, sobbing, absolutely furious with yourself for letting it get this far—and you looked straight into Yeosang’s eyes.

He looked back.

He didn’t blink.

He didn’t let you look away to hide.

And the second you truly held his gaze, standing there in the ruins of your own wedding rehearsal, something inside you finally, irreversibly snapped into place.

Your voice came out shredded, barely recognisable. “I—” You swallowed, a sob punching its way out of your chest. “I promise to choose you.”

Yeosang didn’t move. But his eyes went glossy immediately, shining like you’d struck him somewhere incredibly soft and vital.

“I promise to— to keep choosing you even when it’s hard,” you choked out, and the words weren’t coming from a script. They were being pulled directly from your bones. “Even when I’m terrified. Even when I want to run away. Even when everyone in the world tells me what I should want instead.”

“I promise to stop looking for you in every other person I meet.”

Yeosang’s breath hitched loudly.

“I promise to remember the boy who used to stay on the phone with me until 2 AM just so I wouldn’t have to listen to the thunderstorms,” you wept, the memories spilling out of you, painting the empty space between you with the ghosts of who you used to be. “The boy who mapped out the stars with me on the hood of his mother’s car. The boy who knew exactly how to make me laugh when I was trying so hard to be perfect.”

Yeosang went entirely still. His eyes widened, shining as the words struck him right in his chest.

“I spent years trying to build a life that felt safe,” you sobbed, taking a tiny, agonising step toward him. “I thought safe meant sturdy. I thought it meant predictability, and a man who never made a mess. But I was wrong.”

You shook your head.

“You are my safe place, Yeosang,” you choked out. “You always were. You’re the one who remembers my favourite flower even when it breaks your own heart to look at them. You’re the one standing here, bleeding yourself dry, just to give me the beautiful things I asked for.”

Yeosang’s jaw trembled violently. A single, heavy tear finally broke free, cutting a hot path down his cheek, betraying the iron will he had held onto for days.

“So I promise to love you,” you cried, the words tearing out of your throat like a desperate, holy confession. “I promise to love you when it’s messy. I promise to love you when it ruins the plan. I promise to love you even when I’m terrified, even when everyone in the world tells me I should want something easier.”

“I promise I won’t leave you behind again,” you whispered, your voice breaking violently. “I promise I’ll stop pretending I can survive this life without you. I love you. I never, ever stopped.”

Yeosang’s face broke.

It didn't happen loudly. It wasn't dramatic. It was just the smallest, most devastating fracture—his dark lashes lowering, his rigid jaw trembling, and a single, heavy tear slipping down his cheek as if his body had finally betrayed his iron will, too.

He whispered your name, the sound caught somewhere between a desperate warning and a holy prayer.

And then—like he simply couldn’t help it anymore, like eight years of restraint had finally, spectacularly lost the fight—Yeosang stepped in.

It was slow. Agonisingly careful.

Like he was asking for permission with every inch he crossed.

His fingers brushed the back of your hand first. A feather-light, electric touch. Then, his hand slid down and closed completely around yours, his grip warm, calloused, and shaking, grounding you instantly. His thumb slid over your knuckles, one soft, reverent stroke—then moved lower, tracking slowly toward your ring finger.

The heavy diamond caught the light between you, flashing brilliantly.

Yeosang’s breath hitched again. His thumb paused right beside the platinum band, hovering just over the metal, not touching it, acting as if the stone itself might burn him to ash.

He swallowed hard.

His voice came out entirely wrecked.

“You don’t get to promise me things,” he whispered, his eyes shining bright with unshed tears, “the day before you marry him.”

And still—despite the ring, despite the venue, despite the reality of tomorrow—he didn’t let go.

His grip tightened around your hand, just enough to say, I’m here. I caught you.

“Say it again,” he breathed, the words sounding like they physically hurt him to ask. Like he needed them to survive the night. “Look at me and say it again.”

You looked straight into his dark, desperate eyes and you meant it so fiercely it felt like it might actually kill you.

“I love you,” you whispered.

Yeosang squeezed your hand, the pressure as gentle and permanent as a vow. And you stood there in the quiet garden, shaking violently, your ring finger throbbing under the weight of a diamond that suddenly felt like a massive, heavy lie you couldn’t bear to wear for another second—

—when the sharp echo of footsteps sounded at the entrance to the venue.

The heavy double doors clicked open.

“Love? Are you still in here?”

Panic, cold and sharp, flooded your veins. Your breath hitched violently in your chest. Yeosang’s eyes snapped from the double doors back to your face. He felt the violent flinch of your hand inside his. He saw the sheer, unadulterated terror crash over your features. You were caught. You had just confessed your soul to the florist standing at your wedding altar, and the man who bought the flowers was walking right toward you.

You opened your mouth, but no sound came out. You didn’t know what to do. You didn’t know how to detonate your entire life in the next ten seconds.

But Yeosang knew.

He looked at you, his dark eyes softening into something so profoundly selfless and agonising that it stole the rest of your breath.

I’ve got you, that look said. I’ve always got you.

And then, he let you go.

The loss of his warmth was so sudden and absolute that you almost stumbled forward. Yeosang took a massive, deliberate step backward, putting a safe, sterile chasm of space between you.

In the blink of an eye, the man who had just looked at you like you were his entire world vanished. Yeosang turned away, his shoulders pulling back into that rigid, perfectly contained posture. He bent down, scooped up his wire cutters from the chair, and seamlessly grabbed a heavy trailing branch of eucalyptus.

The metal shears snapped with a loud, mechanical clack.

“There you are,” Seonghwa said, stepping out from behind the rows of white satin chairs. He looked immaculate in a dark navy shirt, his hair perfectly swept back. “The planner said you came back in here to practice your...”

Seonghwa’s voice trailed off as he noticed you standing perfectly still in the middle of the aisle.

He walked up, closing the distance, and casually draped his arm around your waist. His hand rested heavily against the curve of your hip—a physical, undeniable claim.

“Are you alright, Y/N?” Seonghwa murmured, his brow furrowing slightly as he looked at your face. “Your eyes are completely red. Have you been crying?”

You couldn’t speak. Your vocal cords felt like they had been severed. You could still feel the phantom pressure of Yeosang’s thumb tracing the skin right next to your diamond ring.

Before you could force a lie out of your mouth, Yeosang answered for you.

“The pollen from the lilies,” Yeosang said smoothly.

You flinched.

Yeosang didn’t turn around. He kept his back to both of you, aggressively wiring the eucalyptus to the copper frame of the archway. His voice was completely flat. Dead. The perfect, polite tone of a hired vendor addressing a wealthy client.

“I had to unpack a fresh crate of stargazers about ten minutes ago,” Yeosang continued, his hands moving with mechanical precision. “The pollen count is exceptionally high right now. It usually causes severe eye irritation and watering if you aren’t used to it. I apologise, Mr. Park. I should have warned her.”

Seonghwa’s expression cleared instantly, shifting from concerned fiancé to understanding.

“Ah, I see,” Seonghwa said easily, pulling you a fraction closer to his side. “No harm done, Yeosang-ssi. I appreciate you working after hours to get the archway perfect for tomorrow.”

“It’s my job,” Yeosang replied.

He snapped the wire cutters again. The sound was deafening.

As he shifted his weight to reach higher on the arch, his heavy work boot slid subtly across the ground. With one smooth, invisible motion, he kicked the crumpled ball of cardstock—your discarded, hollow wedding vows—completely under the nearest chair, hiding the evidence of your breakdown from Seonghwa’s line of sight.

He was protecting you. He was swallowing his own pride, acting like the hired help, and cleaning up your mess so you wouldn’t have to face Seonghwa’s anger before you were ready.

It was the most beautiful, devastating act of love you had ever witnessed. And it made you sick.

“Well, we should get out of here before your allergies get any worse, love,” Seonghwa said, completely oblivious to the massacre that had just occurred in this garden. He looked down at you, his smile perfectly kind. “We have an early morning tomorrow. It’s the big day.”

“Yes,” you whispered, your voice sounding like dry leaves. “The big day.”

Seonghwa gently turned you around, guiding you back up the aisle, away from the altar.

You couldn’t stop yourself, you looked back over your shoulder. Yeosang had finally stopped working. He was standing perfectly still beneath the massive canopy of white flowers he had built for you. He was watching you walk away with another man, his hands gripping the metal shears so tightly his knuckles were bone-white.

He didn’t look angry. He just looked like a man who had survived the blast, only to realise he was going to bleed out in the rubble.

“Have a good evening, Yeosang-ssi,” Seonghwa called out politely over his shoulder.

“Congratulations on your wedding, Mr. Park,” Yeosang’s voice drifted back, echoing like a ghost.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎The bridal suite was a suffocating blur of motion, noise, and pastel silk. Someone popped a bottle of champagne, the cork hitting the ceiling with a sharp crack that made you flinch. Laughter bubbled up around you. Three of your bridesmaids were crowded by the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, adjusting their dresses, while the makeup artist hovered over you with a setting spray.

“Close your eyes, sweetie,” the artist cooed, her hands smelling like lavender.

You closed your eyes. The cool mist hit your face, locking your makeup into place. It felt like a final seal.

When you opened your eyes again and looked in the massive gilded mirror, a stranger looked back at you. Your hair was pinned into an immaculate, flawless updo. Your skin glowed. You were wearing heavy, white, designer gown. You looked exactly like the bride Park Seonghwa deserved.

You looked like a ghost.

Your heart was hammering a frantic, sickly rhythm against your ribs. Every time the heavy wooden door to the suite shifted, your breath caught.

You were waiting for him.

You needed Yeosang to walk through that door. After last night, after the way he had stepped back and swallowed his own agony just to shield you from Seonghwa’s presence, you needed to see him. You needed him to look at you in all this white and tell you it was okay. Or, God help you, you needed him to look at you and tell you not to do it.

Knock. Knock.

The sound cut through the chatter of the room.

“Oh, that must be the florist!” your maid of honour gasped, rushing to the door. “Finally! We need the bouquets for the photos!”

Your lungs seized entirely. You stared at the reflection of the door in the mirror, waiting for the blonde hair, the broad shoulders, the dark green apron.

The door swung open.

It wasn’t him.

A kid stood in the hallway. He couldn’t have been older than nineteen, wearing a faded denim jacket and a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. He looked entirely out of place in the opulent hotel hallway, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot as he balanced two boxes in his arms.

“Delivery for the bride?” the kid mumbled, looking overwhelmed by the room full of women.

The air rushed out of your lungs in a silent, devastating exhale.

Yeosang didn’t come.

He had packed the van. He had built the altar. But he couldn’t walk into this room and hand you the flowers you were going to hold when you married another man. He couldn’t look at you in the white dress. It was the one boundary his broken heart simply couldn’t cross.

“Bring them in, bring them in!” your maid of honour ushered the boy inside, pointing to the table.

The kid set a massive, temperature-controlled white box down on the glass table. He popped the lid off, and the bridesmaids immediately let out a collective gasp of awe.

“Oh, Y/N,” one of your friends breathed, lifting the main bouquet out of the box. “It’s absolutely breathtaking.”

It was flawless. It was expensive. It was heavy enough to make your wrists ache, and it smelled exactly like the cold, sterile perfection of the life you were about to step into.

You stared at it, feeling entirely numb.

“Wait,” the delivery kid said, digging into the smaller, second box he had tucked under his arm. “The boss said... uh, he said this one has to go directly to you. He was really specific about it.”

The chatter in the room died down. Your maid of honour frowned, lowering the massive bouquet. “A second one? For what, the toss?”

The kid didn’t answer her. He just walked around the table, holding out a much smaller bundle wrapped in simple brown craft paper.

You reached out with trembling hands and pulled the brown paper back.

It wasn’t orchids. It wasn’t lilies.

It was a small, humble cluster of light pink carnations. The petals were soft, with those frayed, crushed-velvet edges Yeosang remembered you loved. They were tucked between fragile, cheap sprigs of baby’s breath. And binding the stems together was a single, plain white ribbon, tied in a slightly messy bow.

The floor dropped out from under you.

You were high school freshman again.

“I love you,” Yeosang said.

“I know,” you whispered, “I’ve been trying not to say it first.”

“What?”

You lifted the bouquet, carnations brushing his chest, and you looked up at him like he was the only person on earth.

“I love you too,” you said.

A violent sob ripped out of your throat.

It was so loud, so guttural and broken, that the delivery kid took a step back in alarm.

“Y/N?!” one of the bridesmaids rushed toward you. “Oh my god, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

You couldn’t answer her. You pulled the small bouquet of carnations tight against your chest, burying your face in the soft pink petals. They smelled like damp earth. They smelled like the truth.

This wasn’t just a memory. It was his final goodbye.

Yeosang was returning your vow from the night before. I love you, this little bouquet said. I love you enough to let you walk away. I love you enough to give you exactly what you asked for, even if it kills me.

“Don’t cry, sweetie, please, your lashes are going to unglue!” the makeup artist shrieked, hovering around you with a tissue. “Look up! Look at the ceiling!”

But you couldn’t look at the ceiling. You looked at yourself in the mirror. You looked at the heavy diamond on your finger, the white dress, and the terrified, weeping girl holding a bodega-style bouquet of carnations against her heart as if it were a life jacket.

You were lying. To Seonghwa, to your family, and to yourself.

And Yeosang was currently somewhere in this city, bleeding out in silence, because he loved you too much to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life.

You lowered the flowers. Your tears were falling freely now.

“Y/N, you’re shaking,” the maid of honour said, her voice dropping into a panicked whisper as she grabbed your arms. “Hey, look at me. It’s just nerves. Everyone gets cold feet, okay? Seonghwa is waiting downstairs. He loves you.”

You looked at her. The absolute, undeniable clarity of the moment hit you with the force of a freight train.

“I can’t,” you whispered, your voice shredded, but steady for the first time in eight years.

She froze. “What?”

“I can’t do this,” you said louder, stepping back, pulling out of her grip. You looked down at the massive, expensive bouquet on the table, and then down at the pink carnations in your hand. “I can’t walk down that aisle. I can’t marry him.”

The room went dead silent. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall, counting down to a wedding that was never going to happen. The heavy silk of the designer gown was laced tight against your ribs, a beautiful, suffocating cage. The massive train pooled around your feet.

“Y/N, you’re not making any sense,” your maid of honour panicked, stepping forward with her hands raised as if to physically hold you in place. “You just have cold feet—”

“No,” you said, your voice entirely steady, cutting through the frantic noise of the bridal suite. “I have been entirely numb for eight years. I am just finally waking up.”

You looked down at the floor. The expensive, crystal-embellished heels strapped to your feet felt like lead weights. You didn’t hesitate. You reached down, your fingers fumbling blindly with the delicate silver clasps, and tore them off.

You kicked the shoes away and they clattered uselessly. The cold marble floor sent a sharp, grounding shock up through your bare soles. You were done playing a part. You were done wearing the costume of a woman who cared more about a pristine aesthetic than the man who held her heart.

“Y/N, what are you doing?!” the makeup artist shrieked as you grabbed the fistfuls of heavy white tulle and hiked the massive skirt up to your knees.

“Tell Seonghwa I am so incredibly sorry,” you said, looking at your maid of honour with pleading, desperate eyes. “Tell him he deserves a woman who looks at him the way I look at Yeosang. Because I can’t be her.”

And then you took of the diamond ring, giving it to one of the bridesmaids and you ran.

You grabbed your purse and didn’t look back. You burst out of the heavy wooden doors of the bridal suite, your bare feet slapping hard against the carpeted hallway.

“Y/N! Wait!”

The voices of your bridesmaids faded behind you as you hit the elevator bank. You slammed your palm against the button, your chest heaving, the small bouquet of pink carnations clutched so tightly to your chest that the delicate stems threatened to snap.

When the doors opened to the lobby, the entire room stopped. Guests in tailored suits and elegant dresses froze, staring in absolute shock as a bride in a breathtaking, custom white gown sprinted through the lobby entirely barefoot. You didn’t care. You didn’t care about the stares, the whispers, or the absolute spectacle you were making.

You hit the heavy revolving doors and spilled out onto the sidewalk.

The rough asphalt bit into your bare feet. You didn’t stop. You ran to the edge of the curb and threw your free hand out at a passing taxi.

The cab screeched to a halt.

The driver’s eyes went wide in the rearview mirror as you threw the back door open and shoved the massive, obnoxious volume of white tulle into the backseat, climbing in after it.

“Where to, miss?” the driver stammered, staring at your tear-streaked, frantic face.

You gasped the address, completely breathless, looking down at the crushed pink petals in your hands. “Please. Drive as fast as you can. Please.”

The city rushed by in a blur of grey and silver. Every red light felt like an eternity. Every stopped car felt like a physical barrier keeping you from breathing. You looked down at your feet—the pristine white hem of the designer gown was already stained grey with street dirt, and there was a small scrape on your ankle.

The cab slammed to a halt at the curb. The street was quiet. The sign in the window of ‘Ethereal Blooms’ was flipped to the dark side. CLOSED.

Panic seized your throat. What if he was at the venue? What if you had broken him so badly that he couldn’t even stand to be in the shop where you had handed him that black card?

You rushed the door and grabbed the heavy brass handle.

You pulled. The door yielded. The cheerful, sharp ding-dong of the brass bell shattered the heavy silence of the street. You stepped inside, the humid air wrapping around you. The shop was empty. The lights were off, save for the single bulb hanging over the stainless steel prep table in the back.

And then, you saw him.

Yeosang was sitting on the floor behind the counter, his back pressed hard against the wooden cabinets. His knees were pulled up, his arms resting on them, his head bowed so low you could only see his messy blonde hair. He was absolutely, entirely still. He looked like a man who had just returned from a funeral.

The soft rustle of your heavy dress dragged through the quiet shop.

Yeosang flinched. He thought the shop was locked. Slowly, as if the physical movement caused him excruciating pain, he lifted his head.

His eyes were completely red, rimmed with dark, bruised exhaustion.

When he saw you standing there, the breath left his lungs in a sharp, audible rush. He stared at you. He stared at the massive, ridiculous white gown taking up all the space in his small, earthy shop.

And then, his dark, devastated eyes dropped to the floor.

He saw your bare feet.

He saw the dirty hem of the dress.

Yeosang scrambled to his feet so fast he knocked a plastic bucket of water over. It crashed to the floor, spilling across the tiles, but neither of you looked at it.

He gripped the edge of the wooden counter, his knuckles stark white, his chest heaving as if he had been the one running. He looked terrified. He looked like his mind couldn’t comprehend the hallucination standing in front of him.

“Y/N,” Yeosang breathed, his voice cracking violently, sounding utterly wrecked. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be… you’re supposed to be walking down the aisle right now.”

You took a step toward the counter. The silk rustled loudly.

“I am,” you sobbed, the tears spilling over your lashes, blurring your vision.

You lifted your hands. Your fingers were trembling violently as you held out the small, bundle of pink carnations, the cheap white ribbon hanging loose from the stems.

“I just had to find the right altar,” you wept.

Yeosang looked from the crushed pink petals up to your face, searching your eyes with a desperate, agonising hope that he was entirely afraid to believe.

“I couldn’t do it,” you choked out, taking another step, bringing you right to the edge of the wooden counter. “I didn't say the vows, Yeosang. I left the ring. I left the bouquet in the box.”

Yeosang’s hands let go of the counter. He was shaking. His entire body was trembling as he stepped around the register, closing the physical distance between you until there was nothing left but the heavy tulle of your dress.

“You ran,” Yeosang whispered, staring down at your bare, dirt-smudged feet. A broken, breathless sound escaped his throat—a laugh that sounded exactly like a sob. “You ran through the city barefoot.”

“I would have run through fire,” you cried, looking up into his dark, beautiful eyes. “I love you. I love you, and I am so entirely sorry it took me eight years to come back and realise that safe isn’t a place. It’s you. It was always you.”

Yeosang didn’t say another word. He didn’t need to.

He reached out, his dirt-stained hands grabbing the pristine white silk of your waist, and hauled you flush against his chest. He didn’t care about the dress. He didn’t care about the mess. He crushed his mouth down onto yours, swallowing the rest of your apologies in a kiss that tasted like salt, tears, and absolute, undeniable salvation.

You dropped the carnations. They tumbled to the floor, landing in the spilled water, perfectly safe.

You threw your arms around his neck, tangling your fingers in his hair, kissing him back with all the desperate, starving grief of the last eight years. Yeosang’s arms wrapped around you like a vice, holding you so tightly it knocked the air from your lungs.

He was holding you. He was finally, truly holding you.

You were standing barefoot in a puddle of water, ruining a designer gown against a florist’s dirty apron, and for the first time in your entire life, everything was exactly where it belonged.

The kiss broke, but neither of you pulled away.

You stayed pressed together, your foreheads resting against each other, both of you gasping for air in the quiet, damp sanctuary of the shop. Yeosang’s hands were still locked around your waist, his grip bruising and desperate, as if he was entirely convinced that if he let go for even a fraction of a second, he would wake up from this dream.

“You’re here,” Yeosang whispered into the space between you, his voice thick with tears and sheer, unfiltered disbelief. “You’re actually here.”

“I’m here,” you promised, your hands sliding up from his neck to cradle his face. Your thumbs brushed over his cheekbones, wiping away the tear tracks that had fallen there. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m never leaving you again.”

Yeosang opened his eyes. They were dark, shining, and entirely undone. He pulled back just an inch to look at you. His gaze swept over your beautifully styled hair, the slightly ruined makeup on your cheeks, and the absolute, ridiculous volume of the designer wedding gown taking up half the floor space in his small shop.

Then, he looked down at his own hands. His fingers were stained with chlorophyll and potting soil from working through the night. Where he was holding you, dark handprints were pressed starkly into the immaculate, pearl-white silk of your waistline.

Yeosang flinched. The ghost of his insecurity—the boy who couldn’t afford the imported flowers, the man who had been handed a black card over this very counter—flared up.

“Oh god,” Yeosang breathed, immediately trying to pull his hands back. “Y/N, the dress. I’m ruining it. I’ve got dirt all over—”

“Don't,” you commanded softly, your hands shooting down to catch his wrists before he could drop his arms.

You pulled his dirty hands right back to your waist, pressing them firmly against the expensive silk. You held his gaze, fiercely, undeniably certain.

“Ruin it,” you whispered, a watery smile breaking across your face. “Please. Ruin it, Yeosang. I never want to be perfectly clean without you again.”

Yeosang stared at you, his breath catching in his throat. The last wall guarding his heart completely collapsed. A stunning, devastatingly beautiful smile broke across his face—the first real, genuine smile you had seen from him in eight years. It reached his eyes, bright and blinding, entirely washing away the hollow ghost he had been since you walked into his shop.

He let out a wet, breathless laugh, his hands tightening on your waist, uncaring of the mud or the silk. “You are absolutely insane,” Yeosang murmured, shaking his head in awe.

“I know,” you laughed, a sob catching in your throat as the sheer adrenaline of the run finally began to fade, leaving you trembling.

Yeosang felt the tremor run through your body. His smile softened into something deeply tender and protective. He looked down at the floor, his eyes landing on your bare, freezing feet. The scrape on your ankle was bleeding slightly, and your soles were black from the city asphalt.

“Come here,” Yeosang said quietly, his voice shifting into a steady, grounding warmth.

He carefully disentangled himself from your arms and stepped back. He reached down and gently picked up the crushed bouquet of pink carnations from the puddle on the floor. He didn’t throw them away. He walked over to the stainless steel prep table, picked up a beautiful, expensive crystal vase that was supposed to hold imported lilies, and placed your humble carnations inside it instead.

Then he walked past the counter, guiding you by the hand toward the back corner of the shop, where a worn, dark green velvet armchair sat half-hidden behind a massive Monstera plant.

“Sit,” he instructed gently, pressing on your shoulders until you sank into the soft velvet. The heavy tulle of your skirt spilled out around the chair like a massive white cloud, completely ridiculous in the earthy, rustic space of the flower shop. Yeosang didn’t seem to care. He walked over to a small sink in the corner, grabbed a clean white towel, and ran it under the warm water.

When he came back, he didn’t stand over you.

The man who had been forced to play the polite, invisible vendor dropped directly to his knees on the hard tile floor.

“Yeosang, you don’t have to—” you started, instinctively trying to pull your dirty feet back under the enormous skirt.

“Shh,” Yeosang interrupted softly, his hands catching your ankles. His touch was incredibly gentle. “Let me take care of you.”

You fell silent, the tears welling up in your eyes all over again.

Yeosang knelt before you in his apron, the warm, damp towel in his hands. With excruciating care, he began to wipe the cold city street dirt away from the soles of your feet. He cleaned the small scrape on your ankle with the quiet, reverent devotion of a man handling something infinitely precious.

It was the exact opposite of Seonghwa throwing a black card on a counter to buy a solution. This was Yeosang offering you the only thing he had ever had to give: his time, his hands, and his absolute, unwavering care.

“Seonghwa is going to kill me,” Yeosang murmured into the quiet shop, keeping his eyes on his task, carefully wiping away a smudge of grease from your heel.

You let your head fall back against the velvet chair, staring at the ceiling, feeling lighter than you had in years. “He’s going to have to get in line behind my parents.”

Yeosang let out a low, genuine laugh. The sound sent a warm shiver straight down your spine.

You looked down at him. You looked at his face, the messy blonde hair, and the way he was kneeling in a puddle of water just to make sure you weren’t cold. You thought about the penthouse, the perfectly controlled temperature, and the suffocating, predictable safety of the life you had just outrun.

Yeosang got up and his hands found your waist, hauling you up from the velvet cushions until you were standing flush against his chest.

And his lips pressed into yours.

Yeosang’s mouth was desperate, his lips parted yours, his tongue sweeping in, hot and demanding, swallowing the soft gasp that tore out of your throat.

Your hands tangled in his hair, holding him to you as tightly as you could. You kissed him back with all the violent, pent-up yearning that had been quietly suffocating you.

“Yeosang,” you whimpered against his mouth, your knees going weak as his hands slid down to grip your hips, holding you steady against him.

“I’ve got you,” Yeosang breathed roughly against your lips. He pressed his forehead against yours, his chest heaving. “I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.”

But the dress was in the way. The heavy material and the ridiculous layers of stiff tulle were a suffocating barrier between you. It belonged to a life you had just killed. It belonged to the man standing alone at an empty altar.

“Take it off,” you whispered, your voice trembling with a terrifying, beautiful certainty. You stepped closer, the tulle crushing between your legs. “Take this dress off me. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want any of it.”

Yeosang’s didn't hesitate. His hands, still stained with the earth from the flowers he had built for your wedding, went straight to the back of the gown. His calloused fingers found the delicate, hidden zipper buried beneath the row of pearl buttons.

He unzipped it. The sound was loud in the quiet shop—a single, smooth rip that tore the cage entirely open.

The heavy bodice immediately loosened, the suffocating pressure falling away from your ribs. You let out a deep, shuddering gasp of real air.

Yeosang’s hands slid over your bare shoulders, pushing the heavy silk straps down your arms. His touch was incredibly reverent, almost trembling, as if he couldn’t believe you were finally real and pliant beneath his hands. The expensive gown slid down your body, the heavy tulle pooling uselessly on the damp tile floor around your bare feet, mixing with the spilled water and the dirt.

You stood before him in nothing but the delicate white lace of your undergarments, entirely stripped of the bride you were supposed to be.

Yeosang looked at you. The absolute, unadulterated worship in his gaze made your breath catch in your throat. He wasn’t looking at a pristine aesthetic. He was looking at the woman he loved, messy, bare, and entirely his.

“You are so beautiful,” Yeosang whispered. He reached out, his warm, rough fingertips tracing the line of your collarbone, sending a violent shiver crashing through your nervous system. “It killed me, Y/N. Every single day, it killed me to look at you and not be able to do this.”

“You don't have to look from a distance anymore,” you breathed, stepping out of the puddle of ruined white silk.

You reached for him this time. Your hands found the hem of his apron, pulling it up and over his head. He helped you, tossing the shirt and the dirty apron blindly over his shoulder. They landed somewhere in the dark shadows of the shop, entirely forgotten.

His chest was bare, warm, and rising rapidly. You pressed your palms flat against his skin, feeling the frantic, hammering rhythm of his heart beneath your fingertips. It was beating entirely for you.

Outside, the sky broke. A heavy rain began to fall, drumming a soft, rhythmic hum against the large glass windows of the storefront, isolating the two of you entirely from the rest of the world.

Yeosang moved forward, his arms wrapping around your bare waist. He lifted you effortlessly, your legs wrapping instinctively around his hips. You gasped, burying your face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of his skin—rain, clean sweat, and the faint, sweet ghost of eucalyptus.

He carried you through the dark, humid shop, past the buckets of hydrangeas and the cooler full of the white roses. He walked through the curtain into the small, private back room of the shop, where a worn, velvet sofa sat under a single, dim lamp.

He laid you down against the dark velvet, following you down immediately, his body pressing a heavy, grounding weight over yours.

When Yeosang kissed you this time, it was a brand-new vow. It was slow, deliberate, and fiercely devoted. His hands mapped the curves of your body, learning the shape of you all over again, his calloused thumbs brushing over your skin with a tenderness that brought fresh, hot tears to your eyes.

Every touch was a confession. Every kiss was an apology for the time you had wasted.

“I love you,” Yeosang murmured against your skin, his lips trailing down your jaw, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to the sensitive column of your neck. “Only you. Always you.”

You gasped his name, your back arching off the velvet as his hands slid lower, tracing the dip of your waist, leaving a trail of fire everywhere he touched.

You pulled him closer, your nails digging lightly into his shoulders, anchoring him to you. The damp, earthy air of the flower shop wrapped around you both, thick and suffocatingly intimate.

There was no hesitation left. There was no fear of making a mistake. As the rain beat heavily against the roof, drowning out the noise of the city.

‎His hands were rough from years of working with soil and thorns, but the way they moved over your skin was painfully gentle, as if he were handling the most delicate bloom in his shop. He kissed away the tears that finally slipped free from the corners of your eyes—tears not of grief, but of absolute, overwhelming relief.

“You’re mine,” Yeosang whispered fiercely, his voice a ragged rasp against your collarbone, his breathing just as unsteady as yours. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” you choked out, pulling him down, entirely desperate for the heavy, grounding weight of him against you. “I always was.”

The rest of the delicate white lace was discarded into the shadows. In the dim, golden light of the back room, there was nothing left to hide, no more roles to play. There was only the slide of his feverish skin against yours, the desperate tangle of your limbs, and the release of years of starvation.

He didn’t rush. Despite the frantic pounding of his heart against your chest, he loved you with a devastating, breathtaking patience. Every brush of his lips, every agonisingly slow drag of his hands down your thighs, was designed to make you feel exactly how deeply you were worshipped. He moved with a rhythm that matched the rain pounding against the roof, drowning out the world you had left behind.

You were completely consumed by the heat of him, the intoxicating scent of eucalyptus and rain, and the blinding, undeniable certainty that you were finally exactly where you were always meant to be.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎The brass bell above the door of ‘Ethereal Blooms’ chimed, a cheerful, bright sound that cut through the warm, humid air of the shop. You didn’t flinch at the sound anymore. You just smiled, reaching up to push a stray lock of hair out of your face with the back of your wrist.

“Have a wonderful afternoon!” you called out over the counter, handing a wrapped bundle of bright yellow sunflowers to a smiling customer. “Make sure to trim the stems at an angle when you put them in water!”

The customer waved, the heavy glass door clicking shut behind them, leaving the shop bathed in the quiet, golden light of late afternoon.

You let out a happy sigh, leaning against the wooden counter. You looked down at your hands. Your fingernails were clipped short, and there was a faint smudge of dark potting soil on your left thumb.

There was no massive, heavy diamond weighing down your ring finger anymore. In its place sat a simple diamond on a thin band of silver. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t a status symbol meant to be flashed at dinners. It was just a quiet, permanent promise that Yeosang had slipped onto your finger few months ago, standing right here in the middle of the shop.

You wiped your hands on the front of your dark green canvas apron—your apron—and turned around. The shop looked different than it had a year ago. It was still earthy, still filled with the intoxicating scent of damp soil and crushed eucalyptus, but it was warmer now. The heavy, suffocating shadows that used to cling to the corners were entirely gone.

Footsteps sounded from the back room. Yeosang pushed through the heavy canvas curtain, carrying a fresh galvanised bucket of water. He was wearing his usual faded t-shirt and work boots, his now dark cherry hair pushed back from his forehead.

When he looked up and saw you standing at the register, he stopped.

The profound, heavy exhaustion that had haunted his dark eyes a year ago had completely vanished. He looked healthy. He looked lighter. The sharp, rigid tension that used to lock his jaw had melted away, replaced by a soft, permanent warmth that only ever belonged to you.

He set the heavy bucket down on the floor and walked straight toward you.

Yeosang stepped behind the counter, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. He pulled your back flush against his chest, burying his face in the curve of your neck with a contented, heavy sigh.

“You smell like vanilla and fertiliser,” Yeosang murmured against your skin, his voice a low, vibrating hum that sent a familiar shiver down your spine.

“It’s a new perfume,” you laughed, tilting your head to give him better access. “I’m calling it The Florist’s Fiancée. Very exclusive.”

Yeosang chuckled, a warm, genuine sound that you never, ever got tired of hearing. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the pulse point just beneath your ear.

“Are the stargazers processed?” he asked lazily, his hands resting comfortably over your stomach.

“Yes, boss,” you teased, leaning your weight entirely against him. “Stripped, trimmed, and in the cooler. Though I still think we should have ordered more hydrangeas for the Kim wedding this weekend.”

Yeosang turned you around in his arms so you were facing him. He looked down at you, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners with pure affection. He reached up, his thumb gently wiping a stray smudge of dirt off your cheekbone.

“You know,” Yeosang said softly, his gaze dropping to your lips. “Exactly one year ago today, a very beautiful, very terrified woman ran into this shop barefoot and completely ruined my floor with a wet wedding dress.”

You smiled, looping your arms loosely around his neck. “I seem to recall you being the one who threw the dress on the floor, Kang Yeosang-ssi.”

“I had to,” Yeosang whispered, stepping into your space until there was no distance left between you. His hands slid down to rest on your hips. “It was in my way.”

You let out a soft breath as he leaned down, capturing your lips in a slow, impossibly tender kiss. It wasn’t desperate anymore. It wasn’t fueled by fear or the ticking clock of a wedding you didn’t want. It was just deep, steady, and entirely secure.

It was the kiss of a man who knew he got to wake up next to you tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day for the rest of his life.

When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, his thumbs drawing slow, soothing circles on your hips through the canvas apron.

“Any regrets?” Yeosang asked quietly. He didn’t ask it out of insecurity anymore. He asked it because he loved hearing the answer.

You looked around the messy, beautiful shop. You thought of the penthouse you had left behind, the cold marble floors, and the life of perfect, sterile predictability that had almost suffocated you. Then, you looked at the man holding you—the man who knew the exact fraying edges of your heart and loved them anyway.

“Only one,” you whispered, rising up on your toes to press a final, feather-light kiss to his jaw. “I wish I had run to this shop sooner.”

Yeosang smiled, gathering you tighter against his chest as the afternoon rain began to gently tap against the storefront windows.