#ailea.writes

Sunwoo was probably one of the most complex pieces that attempted to fit into your puzzle in the wrong slot, but despite that, he seemed to try—hard. How you came to meet, you don’t really remember, because since meeting him, your primary focus was to get under his skin, the same way he was trying to get under yours. The things you hated about him the most—his stubbornness, his competitiveness, and sometimes his bad attitude—only pushed you to be more stubborn, more competitive, and have an even worse attitude with him.

At first, your friends—the mutual ones by which you meet Sunwoo in the first place—thought it was kind of amusing. In the beginning, they found it endearing; two people butting heads in constant competition, but it got to the point where sometimes they couldn’t even stand to go out with the two of you at the same time.

Which was unfortunate, because his friend group was your friend group and as competitive as the two of you could be sometimes, it came down to splitting some of the boy’s time for separate occasions. The last time they would take the two of you out, it turned into a competition to see who could sprint down the side of the river the fastest, and ended with him bumping into you (perhaps on accident, but you didn’t question it at the time) and you shoving him clean off the bank and into the river, yelling about him being a cheater and trying to trip you up just to win a short dash.

Changmin took it upon himself to take you out to coffee to see if you could work things out.

“He’s infuriating,” you stated plainly when he asked you what your beef with Sunwoo was. “Everything with him is a competition, he’s always better than everyone at everything and—”

“And you feel it’s necessary to remind him that he can’t just do whatever he wants—”

“And have whatever attitude he wants! He’s stuck up and snooty!”

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this, but have you ever considered he’s just playing around?” Changmin asked. He didn’t want to rub you the wrong way with that question, but when you were just about as stubborn as Sunwoo was… you crossed your arms over your chest, and that about ended your coffee outing.  

It was never just playing around when everything the other said was an eyebrow-twitching, corner-of-the-mouth-turning, edge-of-a-spat retort. Sunwoo always had something to say after you; it never mattered what it was about, he always refused to let you be the last voice heard. Needless to say, it got on your nerves, and fast, to the point where whenever he’d chime in while you were a part of the conversation, you gave him a taste of his own medicine. Everything always quickly escaladed into a near screaming match and you, trying to be the bigger person, usually stormed off when one of the boys would gently touch your arm.

You walked away, but not by your own wishes; teeth-gritting, nose-snarling, fire in your eyes as you stared him down until you finally turned away, and if you ever saw the cocky upturn of his lips in a victorious smile, it may be the last time anyone saw Sunwoo.

To be honest, you would have been fine being completely removed from Sunwoo and still able to keep your friends—his friends. The only upshot that came with that was the boys constant badgering about your beef with Sunwoo, to which you frequently fired back with the same idea, “Whatever his beef is with me.”

A couple of boys had honestly never considered it; that fiery boy was always that way, and they’d never considered him to be any different; but that one eye-opening comment turned them upside-down, and consequently so on Sunwoo. When he was barraged with questions about what his problem was with you and why he always had to have the last word and why everything was a competition, he simply answered the same way you always did: it was always the other’s fault.

You didn’t need thinking—you were only ever that way with him because he was that way with you first. Others decided the tone of your relationship with them; but he was a different case. The questions lent themselves to long nights on the river bank, throwing any size stone across the water no matter the weather for Sunwoo. All the intense thinking had him hyperaware of every crease and crevice, every imperfection on the smooth faces of the river stones he skipped across the placid water. No matter how many rocks he skipped, no matter how many he just chucked out there in frustration, no matter how many times he ran a hand through his hair—he refused to look the problem straight in the face.

“You’ve been out here for hours,” Changmin commented, taking a seat in the plush grass of the bank next to his younger friend.

“I don’t get it. I go through every scenario over and over. Obviously, I don’t know what I’m doing because it had to be pointed out to me; what I don’t get is why,” Sunwoo replied with a frustrated sigh on the tail end, chucking another rock deep into the river’s current.

“I think you’re approaching it from the wrong angle,” Changmin suggested, picking up a smooth rock from his side, rubbing his thumb across it to get the proper hold before flicking it across the water, skipping it all the way to the other bank. “You always act without thinking, first. What is the purpose behind the things you say, the challenges you make?”

“That’s the part I can’t figure out,” Sunwoo answered dejectedly.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Changmin’s lips.

“You’re trying to get attention, but you’ve never been very gentle about it,” Changmin replied, casting another stone across the water. His stones always skipped further, had the right amount of finesse. “Maybe if you’re a little softer, you’ll get a better result.”

__

When it was suggested to you that maybe you should try hanging out with the group again with Sunwoo there, you avidly rejected the idea; slander on his attitude flew out of your mouth faster than you could breathe because why should you give him another chance when he already ruined the fifty before that?  It took some coaxing, but his change in attitude almost gave you whiplash.

At every corner, you were ready to cut him off when he had some retort after everything you said; you were always on your toes, waiting for him to issue another challenge. This mild-mannered boy was foreign to you, and if anything, it only made you more suspicious of him. He never sat next to you or even engaged with you too directly. It was like his abrasiveness had been stripped away, and this was the quiet boy you were left with.

He seemed to be able to sense your hesitation about him, now that he was focused on checking himself at every breath, quickly realizing that it was just him approaching the situation from a bad angle. He felt your eyes on him just as much, but differently now. They were no longer daggers looking to defend from any semblance of a fight; instead, they were almost curious, and when he met eyes with you, they didn’t hold the same fire he was notorious for. They were soft, glittering like the moonlight against the river, the gentlest gaze he’d ever graced you with since meeting him.

Even then, he didn’t say anything as he sat catty-corner at the game table set up in your apartment. In fact, you could have sworn he almost smiled before his gaze cast down at the table and back to the cards in his hand.

Progressively, you opened up and let your guard down. When you had a game night, or went out for a movie, or anything that involved the two of you, you laughed freely, conversed freely, observed freely… often catching Sunwoo’s gaze with yours before he would quickly look away. You began overthinking it—maybe he was chastised for the way he acted around you and now was reduced to this mute replacement who hardly ever engaged with you anymore.

He quickly proved you entirely wrong that same night that you were leaving the cinema when the weather got unpredictable and a little chilly. While the boys, properly bundled or unaffected by the cold, stood around to chat, you were finding yourself staving off goosebumps that crawled underneath your skin with every brush of the wind. Sunwoo, quiet and observant as he’d newly become, was the first and maybe the only to notice.  

Undetected, he shifted out of the circle and moved a few boys a couple of steps to stand between you and Changmin, your closest safety net int the group, and before you could even feel the new presence make itself known, he was already draping a warm piece of clothing over your shoulders which felt familiarly like a leather jacket.  You looked over, not finding Changmin where he was just a moment ago, and instead was captured in the gaze of those same shimmering eyes that now held a different type of look for you.  One second away from protesting, he was the first to speak.

“I wasn’t going to stand there and watch you shiver for however long we’re all going to pointlessly chat,” he whispered to you, casting off his sentence with a gentle laugh—one you’d never heard from him before. Sunwoo was the farthest from gentle; at least, you’d always known him so. Your jawed queued something to say multiple times, but instead you remained quiet while your fingers reached for the opening to pull it tighter across you, blocking a little more wind out.  

At long last, your hesitation for the other shoe to drop vanished. Sunwoo was far more manageable and frankly, garnered your attention far more often than not. You had brought it up like word-vomit on your weekly coffee outing with Changmin, and after that, things changed even more.

“So, what’s with Sunwoo? Did you all yell at him or something?”

Changmin smiled against the vented lid of his coffee cup with knowing eyes and continued with his sip before setting it down.

“Why do you ask?” Changmin asked, trying to play dumb.

“I just mean that he’s being a lot nicer, a lot less aggressive and competitive and stubborn and all those other words I previously used to describe him. He’s actually… pretty sweet,” you answered, forfeiting a lot more information that you had hoped to a little too early, and consequently your gaze snapped to his to make sure you actually did say all those things. The smile spreading across Changmin’s lips only confirmed your fears, and you were fighting the burning on your face and the surprise in your eyes as you looked back at him.

“I know exactly what that means,” he replied, bringing his coffee up for another sip as those plotting gears started spinning in his head.

__

A late summer night brought Sunwoo to the bedroom window of your place, a collection of small pebbles in the pocket of that same leather jacket. One by one he plucked them out, throwing them up to the glass pane that glowed with the soft yellow light from a bedside lamp through thin white curtains. You had to have still been awake—he hoped you were still awake.

Pebble by pebble he threw, some hitting the shiplap of your apartment building and others landing against your window, hitting a few times before you finally got up to investigate. When you drew the curtain, Sunwoo was sure his heart leapt into his throat. Nerves suddenly overtook him and he considered dashing, or at least slinking into the shadows; but he shook it off and stood his ground—he needed to say what he came to say.

You pulled the glass up after spotting him, but your tone wasn’t as welcoming as he anticipated.

“Sunwoo, what are you doing here?” you snapped. Was this it, the other shoe dropping?

Just as yours had done so in the past, his jaw queued a couple of responses. The moonlight on his face made his skin glow to perfection, his eyes shimmer that same gorgeous way they always did as he looked up at you and finally decided what to say.

“I… I came to apologize,” he called up to you, his shoes shifting against the grass of the landscape as he stirred for some confidence.

Although you may have been interested in what he had to say, it was too little too late and your hands grabbed the bottom sash of your window with the intention of pulling it closed—

“Please, hear me out,” he snapped before you could close the window on him. “Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, it was a rough start and, frankly, a long rocky road. I was wrong for the way I treated you, and I needed a little guidance to realize my purpose. I see now that it may have seemed like I despised you, but in all honesty, I’m just really bad at trying to get your attention.”

You swallowed hard, unsure of where exactly this was going, but suddenly your small confession to Changmin seemed like an avalanche waiting to fall. He would never rat you out, would he?

“That’s all I ever wanted. I just wanted you to notice me, to stand out among the others. My approach was… garbage, to be nice. I just wanted you to see me—”

“I don’t think you lacked there,” you replied stiffly. He scoffed.

“So, I’m not really good with words either, and I know you’re hurt with me for the way I treated you, but I thought maybe with the way things have turned around, with how much more open you’ve been with me and actually allowed me to get closer to you, that we could start over?” he inquired. “I heard along the grapevine that you’ve had a change of heart, too.”

And that was it; the avalanche came crashing down like a ton of bricks, and the only defense you thought you had left came out like word vomit.

“You think after everything you did, that I’m just going to come down there and we’re going to kiss and make up?

A smile broke on his face as his gaze cast down to the grass. “I knew deep down in there, that you were just as stubborn without me exacerbating it. Despite that, I don’t think you’re any less beautiful. I don’t think you’re any less sweet, or attentive, or desirable. The fire is one of the biggest reasons I was attracted to you in the first place.”

“Kim Sunwoo,” you almost growled, almost choking on that knot in your throat, especially when his gaze turned back up to you.

“Give me a chance,” he answered. “If you’re going to use my full name like that, certainly I poked at affectionate feelings in there, huh?”  

You wanted to smile; something about him just brought that tingling to your lips that you tried to hold back as you cocked an eyebrow.

“And if you did?” you dared.  

“Then I might just return to my stubborn roots, and poke them until you come down here.”

You took the sash of your window and tugged it closed, but Sunwoo looked up at it hopefully. He could see the shadow move around behind the drawn curtain and, with a twinge of a smile, waited patiently for the sound of your front door closing behind you. It wasn’t long before you stood in front of him, a light cardigan over your shoulders that you pulled across your body, stepping eye-to-eye with him.

He looked at you with eyes glittering like the universe, the way he had been looking at you for quite some time now, and you didn’t even flinch when he lifted his hand to gentle brush his fingertips against your cheek before you leaned into his touch, pressing his warm palm flat against your skin.

“You know, you’re a lot sweeter than you were before,” you told him, your fingertips somehow finding his on his free hand, playing gently with them as a shy smile cracked against his mouth. He took your hand entirely in his and brought it up to his lips where he kissed the back of your palm and subsequently every single one of your fingers, all the while never once looking away from you.

“I tried to meet fire with fire, because that’s what men with big egos do, and sometimes we need to be kicked down a little bit.”

“A little bit?” you asked.

You head is still tilted down towards your book, but you’re watching him move about the bedroom under your lashes. He tugs the curtain across your window for just a moment, looking out to see the way the droplets hit against the pane, illuminated by the street lamps below and occasional flashes of lightning. Low thunder rolls overhead, but it’s peaceful in some way, especially as the two of you continue to not say anything to each other.  You watch the way he digs through a drawer after pulling the curtain back closed, and he doesn’t hear the way your book closes when he tugs the tee-shirt he’s been wearing all day over his head to pull on a dark tank top instead and you can almost hear the way he says it gets hot at night when you ask him about it just by watching him. The drawer rolls shut and you place you book on the bedside table in the same place it’s sat for a good week.

He turns around to see you looking at him, Choi In gets an embarrassed smile on his face, wondering how long you’ve been watching him. He loves the way your eyes glitter from the dim light bouncing around the room, captivated by your gaze as he wanders over to the bed and places his hands against the duvet, still perfectly made on his side, as his knee finds the edge of the bed to climb up. He’s slithering over to you, and you barely have enough breath to say his name before one of his tender hands takes your chin and tilts you lips up into his.

It’s almost a protest, the way your hand comes up to rest on his shoulder with the intent of giving yourself enough room to say what you were going to say, but for some reason, when his lips finally depart yours as slowly as cold molasses, dripping away from yours with the brush of his nose against your cheek, you find that your hand is furling against his shoulder and sliding to the back of his neck to pull him back. The way his lips curl up into a smile lets the butterflies loose in your stomach, accompanied with the soft sigh the exhales through his nose—a warm breath against your face while his hand leaves your chin to take purchase of the mattress on the other side of your hip to come in a little deeper.  

“In,” you finally whine when you tilt your head away, but he’s made it clear he’s not done with you. He places a few lingering kisses down your neck, that hand previously in the mattress tugs at your side. When he finally pulls away for a second, he recognizes the shirt that’s hanging over your shoulders, swallowing your body—a shirt that belongs to him and it only brings that smile back to his face.

“You wearing my clothes is about the most adorable thing I can think of,” he tells you sweetly, quietly, almost getting lost in the sound of the rain and rolling thunder and perhaps would have if he didn’t whisper it right next to your ear. He’s progressively pushing you over until you finally plant your hands behind you and move your legs out to get some leverage to fight against him.

You find your way to your knees as if you’re going to put him back a bit, but soon realize it’s a mistake, the way his warm hands slide against your legs and under his shirt you’re donning and against your hips to tug you over his lap just far enough that he can fall onto his rear and encase you between his legs. His arms lay loosely around your waist when he feels you’re adequately tugged up to him, which is usually never close enough, and proceeds to place chaste kisses against every inch of your face only punctuated by the soft looks he gives you in between until you quietly request he stop for a moment.

Minho slapped his feet off the coffee table, roughly taking a seat next to the older male with a grin that only his mother could love—perhaps a crude interpretation of the devil himself. Chan hated the look with a passion, because he knew what that look meant: Minho was up to no good. He’d hoped his conniving little brother hadn’t seen the way he stowed his phone under his leg in a surprised panic, but the grin on Minho’s face was all too telling, and yet, never telling enough.

“I have a surprise for you,” Minho uttered, next to inaudibly. He knew Chan was the type not to be excited about surprises, so the look on his face was less than pleased. Still, the tiny light of curiosity burned brightly and it must have flickered in Chan’s eyes, because Minho was ready to continue. “I’ve set you up on a blind date.”

“You what!”

__

Just the thought of telling you what had happened, of what could happen, was tearing Chan apart by the second. A couple of loathsome days had passed since Minho dropped that bomb on him, and of course you were the first person he thought about.  Your relationship was particularly tricky; it wasn’t that it was taboo, but you weren’t exactly comfortable with the situation considering Chan’s little brothers—close friends, but still overwhelming. Although Chan had offered you meet them one at a time, it was perhaps a little too fresh in your relationship to consider meeting them already. He talked extensively of those boys, like a doting eldest brother should, and although you felt like you knew them vicariously in some form or fashion, the idea of actually meeting them immediately turned you away.

Chan, the most understanding and compassionate man you could have ever had the pleasure of being in a relationship with, respected your boundaries, and that was the last you would talk about it until you were ready to meet them. But now, things had turned a little more complicated. Your thread sat idle on his phone as he thought about what to say, if there was anything to say; maybe he could just let this whole thing go through, blow over, and be done with it. Would it be best if you never knew? It was hard to say, but the burning desire to say something to you was manifesting in his fingertips, aching to type you a message.

He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Could he betray you and rat you out to his friends that he had been dating you the whole time, and therefore couldn’t go through with the blind date? He would get heat about it, undoubtedly. The entire situation was as delicate as a china-hutch. But on the flip-side, what was the chance he could just go through with this and get away with it, especially with Minho who would be bound to check for contact and maybe even continue setting him up? What would the probability be of you never finding out?

There was a part of him that could have just said no, that he didn’t want to do it. But that opportunity came and went and he knew Minho would never let him have a win for that one, especially since he’d already said Chan would be there. With a sigh, he clicked the screen of his phone off and slid it into the pocket of his slacks, turning to the mirror on his dresser to smooth the collar of his shirt.  

The minute hand hitting twelve in the sixth hour meant there was no more time for guessing, no more time for thinking things through because that tiny little hand on the face of his watch meant that while he was standing there in front of the coffee shop he’d agreed to meet at, his ‘date’ would walk up any moment.  

“Are you Bang Chan?” a small voice uttered from his side, almost jolting him out of his skin. He looked over to a small frame, a little shy and none-too-abrasive.

It was definitely too late to turn back, now.

__

He immediately went to your place, despite Minho blowing up his phone about the date, because he couldn’t take the feeling in the pit of his stomach. For a fact he knew he was distant, hard to talk to, not really engaging but that didn’t seem to stop the persistence of his date. From the moment they started talking, he had an feeling in his stomach he couldn’t quell—he figured the best option would just be to come clean with you directly, to talk it out.

The knock on your door came at an hour you weren’t particularly comfortable with, but you were just lounging on your couch, so you waited.  Another urgent knock came, this one stirring you a little bit more under the throw blanket in which you resided. Then, his voice, a little strained, pushed through the cracks in the door, calling your name.

“Chan?” you asked, mostly to yourself, and tossed the blanket away from you as you finally stood to approach the door.  The locks tumbled under your fingertips, slowly unlatching the door until his warm body fell into yours. For a moment, you relished the way he held you, the way his face sunk into your neck, wide palms running down your back from your shoulders to your hips. His rickety breath against your neck signaled his urgency far more than his knock on the door did, so after you spent a few moments recuperating from the abruptness of his body against yours, you were prying him away from you to see his face.

The only words spoken were silent exchanges of glances when you were finally able to look into his eyes. Your warm hands cupped his cheeks, attempting to ask him what was happening, why he was so anxious because you could feel it in the clamminess of his skin, you could see it in the shimmer in his eyes, it beat against your face in rickety breaths.

“Tell me,” you whispered as his arms fell to his sides, feeling like he was prohibited from touching you.

“I… I made a mistake…” he uttered. “I made a choice, and it was a bad one, and I feel so guilty and I was stupid to ever think I could just let this go under the radar and—”

“Christopher, slow down,” you encouraged, hands stroking so tenderly against his face before he finally pried them away to hold them in his. He took half a step away from you to gather his thoughts, to think out exactly what he was going to say to you because it already wasn’t easy.

“Minho… set me up on a blind date… and I went,” he told you.

He watched your jaw clench almost in slow motion. He watched the way tears cropped up against your waterline, the tugging of your hands away from his felt like a hammer on his fingertips.

“You… what?” you asked, trying to wrap your head around the situation, trying to understand why he couldn’t just say no and while the answer was boldly obvious—because you hadn’t revealed your relationship and the boys were bound to the understanding that Chan was single—just the though of him going out with someone else on a date really tore your insides up like a woodchipper.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what side to pick. On the one hand, do I betray you and give you up to them—”

“You betrayed me anyway,” you spat back, taking a step away from him.

He knew this was going to happen; he knew he should have just fought it in the first place, he should have just told Minho no in the first place. For a moment, his jaw clenched, gritting his teeth so tightly he thought they were going to break as he tried to push the tears away from his own eyes. At that point, he couldn’t even look at you, and instead the floor where the carpet met the tile occupied his gaze as he thought about something else to say.

For the first time ever, he felt uncomfortable standing in your home. He could see your arms raise to cross against your chest, staring at him in disbelief.

“Did you kiss them?” you asked, your mouth betraying your conscience, knowing full well that was a question you didn’t want the answer to.

“Of course not; I barely even looked at them,” he replied solemnly, almost inaudibly.

“Don’t lie to me, Chan,” you replied through gritted teeth of your own.

“I would never lie to you,” he shot back, finally finding the confidence to look back up at you. “I would never lie to you.”

“How can I believe that?”

The crack in his neck as a result of the tilt of his head was almost menacing. Now you were rubbing him in a way you probably shouldn’t, but with how torn up you were—the millions of things running through your mind that were all fully possible considering the inconclusiveness of your relationship—thinking logically was about the last thing you could do.

“Have I ever lied to you?” he asked.

“No,” you replied weakly.

“And if I had any intention of hurting you further, would I come here to give myself up to you in a most vulnerable fashion; if I didn’t love and respect you, would I be here telling you that any of this even happened?” he asked, voice raising a tad which had you shrinking in return.

You’d never seen Chan like this. In fact, you’d never seen him even mildly worked up, but this was obviously a situation that panged his heart in a way you couldn’t imagine, especially apparent in the way his voice cracked during if I didn’t love and respect you. He was licking the dryness off his lips, eyes looking everywhere as he battled the tears threatening to spill again, and all you could do was think about that simple sentence.

“Do you?” you asked quietly, the tenseness in your clenched fists softening a bit, as did your gaze upon him.

“Do I what?” he asked roughly.

“Love me?”

It came out as a squeak, nervous to even say it. You watched his jaw shift, and finally his eyes came back to yours. They glittered in the soft light resonating from your tableside lamp, the only light in the living room in which you both stood, and he looked at you with perhaps the softest expression once the tenseness had finally faded. His lips parted to say something, but nothing came out until he corrected his tone.

“Of course, I love you…” he trailed off, his tone as soft as yours, finally welcoming and inviting once more. “I love you so, there was no right answer in this situation, and I tried to pick the least damaging. Every passing second of every day, I only thought of you, thought of how I was going to deal with this, thought of how I was going to tell you. Was I supposed to give you up to them, when I knew you didn’t want that?”

“You knew it would have happened that way if you had outright rejected Minho,” you replied, trying to fill in the gaps and finally you were starting to understand his predicament.

“Exactly. I never wanted to hurt you. Trust me when I say I battled with telling you beforehand, but would that have made the situation any better? I needed to tell you in person, so I came straight over. Please, believe me,” the desperation in his voice made the battle convincing—he only ever had your best interest in mind and wanted to do everything to protect the secrecy of your relationship for as long as you needed.

Your jaw quivered, still trying to process everything as you reached up to dab a couple of tears away, only for your hand to be replaced with one larger, stronger, warmer, but far more tender than you could have ever fathomed. Finally, he was standing in front of you again, pushing the tears off your once immaculate cheeks as he looked down at you with defeat staining his gaze.

“I love you,” he uttered again, bringing your hand up against his chest to feel his heart through his shirt, feel the way it beat hard against the cage of his chest and under your touch, “and my absolute last intention is to hurt you. I only ever want to protect you.”

“I know,” you replied, a low whisper still.  You couldn’t stand the way he was looking at you anymore, so you took the step; a measly half step into his chest to tuck your head under his chin, both of your hands splaying against the expanse of his firm chest as you waited patiently for his arms to encapsulate you. He wrapped around you like a cocoon, slowly but comfortingly. The rapid beating of your heart refused to calm. It was the first time in the relationship that you had ever said that word, love.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pressing his lips into your hair like it was the last time he was ever going to get to kiss you. Like when he let go that would be the end.

“I love you,” you replied, finally letting it out of your chest like a can of butterflies, flowing up your throat and out of your mouth like a smooth melody.

It would be a bit before he would let you go after that, because his arms only closed on you tighter, making sure you knew exactly his intentions, his emotions, his feelings about you. He didn’t reply, mostly because he didn’t need to—the way his fingers carded through the hair on the back of your head and kissed against your forehead was reciprocation enough.

He surprised you with a date to the aquarium; San was always attentive like that. Never wanting to pry, he always waited for you to talk to him, when you felt comfortable, about the things that had been going on in your life—he was a doting boyfriend who always took care of you, and looked at you like you were all the stars in the universe, but a little more concerningly when he could see the way you started curling in on yourself and attempted to make it look like nothing was wrong.

But he wasn’t fooled, and you knew that he knew you better than that—still, you persisted, until he surprised you with two passes to the aquarium on a day he knew it would be empty so that you could spend all the time in there you wanted. As much as you loved him, you couldn’t wait to get through the doors to see all the aquatic life you were sure you’d seen a thousand times over, but it never got boring for you.

San just looked at you, dotingly, as you bounced on the balls of your feet, hanging on to one of his arms as you rambled about all the lovely things you wanted to see, to inform him of all the fish knowledge you kept pent up in your brain. He adored every bit of you, but especially that. Even if he spent the whole afternoon quiet, being with you was the greatest joy he could ever fathom.

So, when you finally got in the doors, he was less than surprised to watch you dash off to the first exhibit. He could only imagine the way your eyes lit up as you looked into the lit tank, marveling at whatever beautifully colored creature happened to inhabit it. Sometimes, depending on the exhibit, it was a game of spy as the creatures often blended in with their surroundings, sometimes in plain sight.  You turned it into a game with San, whoever spotted it first got a kiss from the ‘loser’. Turned out San was a lot better at ISpy than you were, which resulted in you giving him a lot of loving pecks against the cheek—at least for the first half of the afternoon.

The second half of the afternoon was spent with you mostly ignoring him, which he never minded because watching you go from exhibit to exhibit possibly the most starry-eyed he had ever seen you was the greatest gift to him. The glow on your face was brighter than the moon and your smile beamed like a shooting star; being in your company when you were completely yourself, completely relaxed, and completely unfiltered was more than enough.

It wasn’t long before you came up on your favorite room of exhibits, and San was fortunate that there was a small bench he could sit on, because he knew it was going to be a while. He watched the way your eyes light up, brighter than he thought was possible, when you both walked into the dimly lit room containing a number of lit exhibits with the prettiest jellyfish imaginable.

Even if the signs all around warned not to touch the glass, it never stopped you; you were so captivated by all the beautiful colors and shapes, how elegant and eccentric these beings were, you traced your finger against the glass as if to touch them. Some were translucent, some were radiant colors like blue or magenta or orange, and you marveled at some of their anatomy like the arms which seemed to cascade down like draping iris flowers with tentacles as wispy as the spring breeze. Intricate designs peppered the hoods, geometric or linear or abstract somehow, colors playing beautifully with the light reflecting off the water at every possible angle.

San watched you in complete adoration, watching the way your fingertips traced the glass, the way you stood on your toes to get a better look, the way you smiled because he loved the way you looked when you were positively affectionate, and it didn’t even matter that it wasn’t towards him because when you were radiant, you were beautiful even if it meant admiring from afar.

You moved from tank to tank, shifting eventually behind the large tank freestanding in the middle of the circular room. He peered at you through the glass, distorting you in a way that made him chuckle, before you reappeared on the other side. Only then did you look over to him, looking at him like a deer caught in headlights when you realized he was looking at you. He gave you that signature smirk, a quirk of his eyebrow, and with the flick of his head encouraged you to continue admiring.

Even though you caught him, you were still unabashedly yourself, something he admired about you the most. You were unapologetically you with and around him, and it only made him think you were more dazzling, captivating him every single day. Even though he was happy to see you beam from afar, he was even happier to see you beam from up close when you’d finally had enough of the jellyfish and meandered back over to him.

You plopped down next to him on the bench, thoroughly aquarium-ed out after three hours and almost one of them looking exclusively at jellyfish, and tilted your head against his shoulder. He smiled down at you with a soft hum, even if you weren’t looking at him, and relished your warmth next to his. He reveled in the fact that when everything was said and done, right back next to him was where you’d take your place. With a contented sigh, he turned and kissed against your forehead and maneuvered his arm around you to bring you into his warmth before settling his chin atop your head.

“Yeah, she seems like she needs some space, so I’m just trying to respect her boundaries,” Chan replied, hitting a barrier in his racing game and, with a huff, shut his screen off just to sigh rather dramatically.

“Is that what she told you?” Sejun asked, sending a quick text to his girlfriend, which made Chan a little suspicious, particularly with the lilt Sejun put on his sentence, which was particularly implicative that he knew something that Chan didn’t. Carefully, Chan eyeballed the younger male, the gears in his head spinning at an rpm he couldn’t register, at least, that was how it felt. He almost wanted to ask what he meant.

A few silent moments passed as Chan continued to think. He could hear the soft rain outside, even as the sun peaked through the clouds to reflect off those drops. He knew you loved sun-showers, so he hoped that you were doing well and enjoying a seat on your patio to watch it.

“You didn’t hear it from me, but distance from you is the last thing she wants,” Sejun commented and stood from the couch, patting the older male on the shoulder before disappearing—he knew what to do. So, it didn’t take long for him to get up from the couch and pull on a light jacket and some shoes and took off out the door.

You were out on the patio, as he had expected, sitting in one of the chairs you had out there to feel the sun on your face and the gentle spritz of rain against your skin. You loved the way the sky glittered with reflective droplets, the rainbows that often formed from those droplets probably off in the distance where you couldn’t see. You could faintly hear the knock on your door from out there, the sliding glass door back inside barely cracked, but the knock came more than once and then you could really hear it.  

The doo cracked open before you had a chance to get there—only one other person had a key and you were sure you locked the door. Needless to say, the tension in your shoulders faded immediately upon seeing the face of your lover. He poked his head around the door with a sweet smile, a bundle of flowers in his arm and a bag and a cup of coffee in the hand of the same arm while the other unlocked the door.

“I figured you were sleeping,” he told you, leaning further in the door to softly collect your lips before you even had a chance to reply. You couldn’t help but sigh against his mouth, soft fingers rising to touch against his jaw before he pulled away. “I didn’t want you to be alone, so I stopped off some places to get some things for you,” he continued, finding his way through the door completely enough to see the bundle of orchids in his arm—of course, he’d never forget your favorite kind: tiger face in moon. You vaguely remembered taking the cup of coffee from his hand and the aroma that wafted through the air was a sweet mix of that and a scent on him that drew you to him like bees to flowers.

You closed the door behind him and followed him into the kitchen where he looked for a vase to put the flowers in, setting the bag of things against your countertop so that he was able to do so more freely. Standing there to lean against the counter, you couldn’t help but look over him—his broad shoulders and back working over your kitchen sink, the man of your dreams had just brought you flowers to cheer you up just because, and some coffee because he knew you needed a pick-me-up, so you could only guess what was in the bag.

“I got some treats for later at the store,” he told you, pulling a couple of bags from the reusable vinyl bag to set against the counter, and watched the way your eyes gleamed at them and then at him.

“You’re so good to me,” you whispered to him, still cupping that coffee even as he rounded the corner of the counter to take you by the hips, eventually sliding his hands around to the small of your back before locking arms around your body to hold you against him.

“Always have to take care of my girl,” he replied, leaning down to kiss you again, tasting the coffee against your lips with a smile. “Let’s go watch the rest of the sun-shower,” he suggested, and pulled back to take one of your hands to lead you back outside to the patio. His hand never left yours as you plopped back into your chair, and he in the chair next to that, fingers still entwined. The way he slumped in, getting settled—that was your favorite. You could just look at him for hours, that serene smile on his face that touched his eyes as he looked out into the glittering atmosphere before feeling your gaze against the side of his face.

You half expected him to ask what you were looking at.

The sweet early spring sun set, casting rays between the blinds on the sliding glass door of your top floor apartment. His soft chuckles in your ear sent a shiver down your spine as you were wrapped loosely in his arms, settled between his legs, resting on the couch. Seldom did you get any moments like this with him—typically only chaste goodnight kisses when he’d crawl into bed at late hours, just missing you as you fell into slumber trying to wait up for him.

Soothing piano played in the background on the stereo, the only sound not immediately produced by either of you, that echoed through your home. You adored the way his legs shifted with yours under the throw blanket, the way his warm breath spread across your neck as he rested his chin against your shoulder, gently pecking against your cheek, your jaw, anywhere he could reach. His fingers were loosely laced with yours in your right hand, the other teasing the fingers of your left, occasionally tugging it over your own shoulder so that he could press his soft lips against your fingers, your hand, your wrist, sometimes nibbling the tips of your fingers just to hear you giggle.

Often times, few words were exchanged between you. It was enough to exist peacefully with one another, silent conversations conveyed in subtle motions whether that be the brush of your foot against his leg, the shift of his face into the crook of your neck, or the loll of your head against his shoulder. Sometimes he could tell what you were thinking just by the way you were breathing, and would aptly respond when he knew you wanted a little more affection by tightening his hand around yours and his arms around your middle to pull you deeper into his body.

Long fingers traced the rays of sun against your skin, the rusty hues giving an orangey tinge to everything in its path. It gave a glow to your skin he truly admired, adding on to everything he loved about you. The warmth of that sun, though, paled into comparison to the fire he lit with just the touch of his fingers, tracing a path that burned sweetly in its wake. You didn’t miss his soft sigh, feeling the goosebumps raise on your skin under his fingers.

“Geum,” you uttered, trying to stave the goosebumps.

A knowing chuckle reverberated in his chest, subsequently against your back, as he turned his face into your cheek to kiss it chastely.

“Duchess,” he whispered into your ear, breath on your skin only exacerbating your goosebumps. Your feet planted into the couch cushion, shivering the goosebumps off and pressed even tighter against his chest.  

Over your shoulder, you turned to the best of your ability. His eyes glimmered in the russet sunlight like melted pools of dark amber, looking back at you from such a proximity that you could feel a quivering in your abdomen. A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, a smirk that had you gnawing on your bottom lip. Just a look from him sent you in a smitten spiral, as it should have.

A stray finger rose to trace along your jaw, retreating enough to pull the curtain of hair away from your face that had fallen out of place as you tried to look at him. Your eyes couldn’t help but scan his face, away from his gorgeous eyes and down the slender column of his nose to his mouth, soft subtly pink lips that pressed against yours only a moment later.

Your breath caught in your throat, surprised by him, but your eyes fell closed nonetheless to relish the sweet moment, fleeting by Geumhyuk’s nature. And just as it began, it ended, but not without the lingering imprint of his soft smile against your mouth as he pulled away.

“The sun has set, my darling, and dinner is yet to be had,” he reminded you, waiting for your eyes to flutter open, which they did soon after.