#bnd angst

The fight tonight wasn't even a fight. That would require participation from both parties. Four years together, and he'd barely glanced up from his phone when you'd mentioned your anniversary. He just shrugged, said he forgot and it wasn't a big deal. He said it with the exhaustion of someone who's stopped pretending to care but hasn't worked up the energy to leave, who's decided that tolerating your presence is easier than the logistics of separation.

You'd tried to explain why it hurt. Why being forgotten hurts. Why four years should warrant acknowledgment, should be worth at least the effort of remembering the date you'd circled on the calendar, mentioned three times this week, hoped he'd notice without having to beg for his attention like a dog begging for scraps.

He'd sighed, said you were being unreasonable, that your feelings were an imposition, that you were exhausting him with your needs. "You're making this a bigger deal than it is. It's just a date. We can celebrate next week if it matters that much to you."

But it did matter. It mattered that he'd forgotten. It mattered that he couldn't see why it hurt. It mattered that you've spent four years making yourself smaller, quieter and less, compressing your needs down to nothing, apologizing for wanting things like attention, care and basic acknowledgment of your existence, and still—still—you're too much for him.

When did being with someone start feeling like drowning with an audience?

You'd left without a destination or plan. You just grabbed your keys and walked out into teeth-chattering cold, into darkness that at least had the courtesy to be honest about what it was. 

Now you're here, parked outside a diner you've passed a hundred times without seeing, without registering as anything more than another fixture in the landscape of your commute, another piece of scenery in a life you're living by rote.

Lou's Diner sits on a corner that's seen better decades, an establishment that's been here so long it's stopped being a business and become geography instead—part of the city's bedrock. The sign is vintage neon, pink cursive spelling out "Lou's" with a coffee cup that flickers arrhythmically like a failing heartbeat, like your failing relationship, like everything in your life that's dying.

The building itself is chrome and glass, a postcard from the fifties that someone's kept alive through stubbornness, love or the inability to imagine any other kind of life. You understand that feeling. You've been keeping yourself alive through stubbornness for months, maybe years, unable to imagine what comes next if you admit that this—this half-life you're living—isn't sustainable.

The diner glows. That's the only word for it. It's not just lit but luminous, warm yellow light spilling onto empty streets like being poured from a cup, like all the warmth that's been missing from your life concentrated in one place, like the only place left where you're allowed to fall apart without apologizing for the inconvenience of your feelings, for the mess of your humanity, for taking up space with your pain.

You should go home. You should try harder, communicate better, be more understanding, more patient, more accommodating. You've been should-ing yourself into corners for so long you've forgotten what wanting feels like, what choosing feels like, what existing without constant self-negotiation feels like. Should is the language of your imprisonment, the bars you've built around yourself from guilt, obligation and the persistent belief that you're the problem, that if you could just be better, smaller, quieter, less needy, then maybe he'd love you the way you need to be loved.

Your hands are still gripping the steering wheel. Knuckles white, bloodless. Fingers aching from the sustained tension. You've been parked for five minutes but your body hasn't received the message that you've stopped moving, that you've arrived, that at some point you're going to have to make a decision about what happens next.

Going inside means admitting you have nowhere else to go. Going inside means acknowledging that the apartment you share, the one with both your names on the lease, the one you decorated together with optimism that feels embarrassing in retrospect, naive, childish and painfully earnest, doesn't feel like home anymore. Maybe never did. Maybe you've been living in a stage set this whole time, performing domesticity without ever feeling domestic, playing the role of a girlfriend without understanding that relationships require participation from both people, not just your increasingly desperate attempts to hold together something that's been disintegrating for months.

But the alternative is sitting in this car until morning. Until he texts asking where you are with irritation instead of worry, with accusation instead of concern. Until the cold seeps through the windows and into your bones and you go numb from the outside in, which would be a relief except you're already numb on the inside, already frozen in ways that have nothing to do with temperature.

You kill the engine. The silence that rushes in is profound. For a moment you just breathe, watching fog bloom and fade against the windshield with each exhalation, visible proof that you're alive even when you don't feel like it, even when existing feels like the hardest thing you've ever done.

Eventually, you're moving out of the car, across the sidewalk, hand reaching for the door handle before your brain catches up to your body's decision.

The bell above the door chimes when you push through. Bright and clear, a sound that announces arrivals and departures with equal ceremony.

Warmth hits you immediately, a wall of heat after the cold, and with it comes the smell of coffee, cinnamon, bread, yeast, butter and all the alchemy of flour becoming food. The diner is exactly what the exterior promised : long counter with chrome stools bolted to the floor, booths upholstered in red vinyl that's been patched in places with tape that doesn't quite match, black and white checkered floors worn to gentle valleys by decades of footsteps, by all the people who came here before you seeking the same thing—refuge, comfort, a place to exist without explanation.

The walls are covered in photographs, Chicago in sepia tones, the skyline in the twenties, the World's Fair, old baseball teams frozen mid-celebration, their joy preserved and permanent while yours has eroded to nothing. A jukebox hunches in the corner, silent but still cycling through its light show.

The fluorescent lights should be harsh, it should turn everyone's skin to corpse-pallor and make the space feel clinical, hostile in all the worst ways—antiseptic, cold and unwelcoming. Instead, they feel gentle, like the softest thing that's touched you in weeks, in months, since you learned that gentleness wasn't what you could expect from the person who's supposed to love you.

There are exactly two other people here : an elderly man in one of the back booths, nursing coffee and staring at a crossword puzzle with the focus of someone grateful for a distraction beyond his own thoughts, and the person behind the counter.

He looks up when the bell chimes.

Your heart performs a complicated maneuver where it forgets its basic function for several beats, where it stutters, stops, and starts again with a rhythm that feels new, different, like a beginning unfolding even as everything else is ending.

He's young, mid-twenties. Tall, lean, broad shoulders, long limbs and an unconscious grace that belongs to people who've never had to think about how they move through space, who occupy their bodies without apology. Dark hair falls across his forehead, slightly too long, like he keeps meaning to get it cut but never quite finds the time, which feels honest, refreshing, like he's too busy living to worry about perfection.

His features are striking without being conventionally handsome, strong jaw, sharp cheekbones that cast shadows in this light, full mouth that looks like it smiles easily, eyes so dark they look black from here, fathomless and deep. He's wearing the standard uniform : white button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing forearms that are corded with lean muscle, black apron tied at his waist, name tag that reads "TAESAN" in letters faded by repeated laundering, by hundreds of washes, by time and use.

There’s a beauty in him that only night work can forge—exhausted but attentive, worn down yet gentle, carrying the weight of humanity's worst hours but somehow still gentle despite everything he's seen, despite all the ways people must come apart in front of him at 2am when the bars close, the masks crack and everyone's too exhausted to pretend anymore.

Those dark eyes meet yours across the empty diner. For a moment neither of you moves. He's holding a coffee pot in one hand, dishrag in the other, frozen mid-wipe of a counter that's already clean. You're standing in the doorway with  your heart in your throat, and there's this moment where the world narrows to just the two of you and the space between, where everything else falls away and there's just this : recognition, acknowledgment, the beginning of a feeling you don't have words for yet.

Then he smiles.

It's small and genuine. It reaches his eyes and makes them crinkle at the corners that it makes your chest tight, your stomach flip and your entire body suddenly, acutely aware of itself. It's not the customer service smile you'd expect from someone working graveyard shift at a diner, not the professional mask of someone who's learned to be pleasant to strangers. It's just unguarded. The smile of someone who's genuinely pleased to see another person, even a stranger, even at midnight, even when that person looks like she's been crying in her car, even when she's clearly falling apart.

"Welcome to Lou's," he says. His voice is warm, like the coffee he's holding. Like the light in this place. Like all the warmth that's been missing from your life concentrated in these words, in this simple greeting that somehow makes you feel like your arrival matters, like you're not an imposition but a welcome interruption. "Rough night?"

The question is so gentle, so utterly devoid of judgment, curiosity or pity, so free of all the things questions usually carry, agenda, expectation, the demand that you explain yourself, that you feel your throat tighten dangerously, feel tears threatening that you've been holding back for hours, days, months.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Midnight on a Wednesday in November." He sets down the coffee pot with care. "Nobody comes to Lou's at midnight unless they're running from their day or hoping tomorrow will be different. Sometimes both."

The accuracy of this assessment hits you directly in the sternum, knocking the air out from your lungs. He's seen you. In thirty seconds he's seen you more clearly than the man you live with has seen you in four years.

"Both," you admit, voice rougher than you'd like, scraped raw from the cold and the not-crying you've been doing, from swallowing tears like they're poison, like letting them fall would mean admitting defeat. "Definitely both."

He nods like he understands, like he's heard this exact confession in a hundred variations, like yours is just one more midnight story in an endless collection, like the diner is full of ghosts of people who came here looking for the same thing you're looking for—a place to breathe, a moment of peace, someone who won't ask why you're here because the answer is always the same : because everywhere else was worse.

But he doesn't look bored, dismissive or like he's already cataloging you as just another customer, another order to take, another person to serve and forget. He looks present. Here. Like your answer matters. Like you matter.

"Sit anywhere you want." He gestures to the empty diner with the expansive welcome that would be ridiculous if it wasn't so sincere. "I'm Taesan. I'll be your server, short-order cook, amateur therapist, and—if you stay long enough—silent witness to whatever you need to work through."

A laugh startles out of you. Actual, genuine laughter that feels like the first real breath you've taken in hours, days, weeks. It bubbles up unexpectedly, surprising you with its existence, with the fact that you're still capable of this—of finding something funny, of letting joy in even when everything else is falling apart.

"That's a lot of job titles."

"I contain multitudes. Also, the night shift doesn't have much turnover so I've learned to be versatile." His smile widens, pleased that he's made you laugh. "Fair warning : my therapy credentials are nonexistent and my advice is questionable at best, but I make excellent coffee and I'm a good listener. Two out of three isn't bad."

You survey the empty diner. The booths all look identical, red vinyl, chrome-edged tables, little jukebox selectors that probably haven't worked since the eighties. But there's one in the back corner, tucked away from the windows, that calls to you. It's partially hidden from the door, shielded by the angle of the wall, and it faces out towards the rest of the diner rather than the street. Safe. Protected. A place where you can see everything but remain partially unseen yourself.

You slide into it and immediately feel your shoulders relax. The vinyl is cool through your jeans. The high booth back cuts off the world beyond, creating a small private space, and for the first time in longer than you can remember, you can breathe without calculating whether your breathing is too loud, too heavy or taking up too much air that someone else might need.

Taesan appears beside the booth so smoothly you don't catch the transition, like he's been conjured by your need. He's carrying a mug, blue ceramic, chipped at the rim that speaks to years of use, and sets it down in front of you with deliberate gentleness.

"Coffee?" He's already pouring before you answer. 

The smell alone makes you want to cry. Rich, slightly bitter, with undertones of chocolate, smoke and earth. It smells like the opposite of sleep, like comfort you haven’t received in a long time.

"Yes, please. Thank you."

"Cream? Sugar?"

"Both. Two sugars."

He produces both from his apron with the practiced efficiency of someone who's done this ten thousand times. He sets them beside your mug with the same careful gentleness, and you're struck by the simple perfection of the moment, the weight of the ceramic in your hands, the curl of steam rising between you, the fact that someone is taking care of you without being asked, without requiring you to beg for it.

"Menu's on the table," he says, tapping the laminated card tucked between the napkin dispenser and the wall. "But between you and me, the pie is the only thing worth ordering after midnight. Apple's from yesterday but still good. Cherry's from this morning. Peach is from two days ago but I won't tell if you don't, and honestly it's better when it's had time to sit."

"I'm not hungry."

"That's fine. You don't have to be hungry. You can just drink coffee and exist in Booth Seven until you are. Or until the sun comes up. Or until you figure out whatever you came here to figure out. Or until you stop feeling like the world is ending." He says this like it's the most natural thing in the world, like people use his diner for existential crisis management all the time, like he's bearing witness to the collapse of strangers' lives every night and has learned to hold space for their pain without trying to fix it. "No pressure. No judgment. No timeline. That's the Lou's guarantee."

You look up at him, this stranger who's decided for reasons unknown that you're worth gentle treatment, that your pain deserves acknowledgment, and feel your eyes burn with tears you're too exhausted to shed, too depleted to cry even though crying might offer some release.

"Thank you." It comes out barely above a whisper, weighted with more than gratitude for coffee, heavy with everything you're not saying : thank you for seeing me, thank you for not asking questions, thank you for making space, thank you for existing at midnight when I needed someone to remind me that kindness still exists in the world.

He hears it anyway. The subtext. The desperation. The relief of being seen without being interrogated. His expression softens further, eyes going gentle that it makes your chest ache, and he just nods, like he understands exactly what you're not saying, like he's been reading the same dictionary of pain and knows all the translations.

"Take your time."

Then he's gone, back behind the counter, giving you space, privacy and the gift of not having to perform gratitude, normalcy or anything beyond just existing in this booth with this coffee and this momentary peace. He doesn't hover, doesn't check on you too often, doesn't make you feel watched, monitored or like your presence requires justification. He just lets you be.

You wrap both hands around the mug, ceramic warm against your perpetually cold palms. Let the heat seep into your fingers and skin. Take that first sip and feel it all the way down, warmth spreading through your chest that has nothing to do with the coffee itself and everything to do with being cared for, even in this small way, even by a stranger, even at midnight when you least expected kindness, when you'd forgotten it was something you were allowed to receive without earning it first.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket. You know without looking that it's him. The man you live with. The man whose bed you share. The man who's noticed your absence only because it's inconvenient, because now there's no one to witness his existence, because your role in his life has become so reduced, so compressed, that you're less a person and more a function, someone to cook dinners he barely eats, to clean an apartment he dirties, to exist in the background of his life providing ambient validation without requiring anything in return.

You silence and shove it deep into your jacket pocket where you can pretend it doesn't exist, where you can pretend, just for an hour, just for tonight, that you're not accountable to anyone, that your time is your own, that you're allowed to sit in a diner and drink coffee without it being a betrayal, without it being ammunition for the next fight, without it becoming more evidence that you're difficult, unreasonable and impossible to please.

The diner wraps around you like a blanket. The hum of the refrigerator. The distant clatter of dishes being washed in the back. The murmur of a TV in the corner playing late-night news with the volume low enough to be texture instead of content, words without meaning, just the comfort of human voices filling empty space. It fills the spaces that silence usually occupies in your life, but it's not oppressive, not requiring your attention or participation. It's peaceful. There's a difference you'd forgotten existed—the difference between quiet that feels safe and silence that feels like suffocation, between being alone and being lonely, between solitude and isolation.

Taesan moves through his shift with unhurried grace, with an easy confidence that comes from knowing exactly where you are, what you're doing and being comfortable in your role. He refills the elderly man's coffee with a smile and a few words you can't hear from here but makes the old man's face crinkle with pleasure. He disappears into the back and returns with a slice of pie the man clearly didn't order but accepts with a nod that speaks to ritual, to repeated kindness, to a relationship built over many nights of this same exchange. He wipes down tables that don't need wiping, organizing things that don't need organizing, creating the illusion of purpose while really just being present, being available, being here in case anyone needs him.

Every so often his eyes find your booth—just checking. Making sure you're still there. Making sure you're okay. Making sure you haven't dissolved into the vinyl, haven't disappeared entirely, haven't given up on existing.

You should feel self-conscious. You should feel like you're taking up space you haven't earned, overstaying your welcome, but you don't. You just feel allowed to exist without justification, without explanation, without having to earn your right to occupy space.

Midnight ticks towards one. The elderly man leaves, pressing bills into Taesan's hand despite protests, shuffling out into the cold with his coat buttoned to his chin. The bell chimes his departure. Now it's just you, Taesan and the whole empty night stretching out like a question you don't know how to answer.

You nurse your coffee slowly, making it last, not ready to order anything else because ordering would mean committing to staying, and you're not sure you're allowed to want that yet, not sure you deserve this small kindness, this temporary refuge. But your mug is somehow never quite empty. You're not sure when he refills it, he's that smooth, moving through space, every time you look down there's more coffee, still hot, still perfect, still exactly what you need.

Kindness without interrogation. You'd forgotten this existed. You convinced yourself it was a myth, a fairy tale that happened to other people but never to you because you're too difficult, too needy, too much and not enough all at once.

Around one-thirty, Taesan approaches your booth again, coffee pot in hand but a difference in his posture. Hesitant, like he's about to cross a line and knows it but is choosing to anyway, weighing the risk of overstepping against the risk of letting you suffer in silence.

"Refill?"

You look down. Your mug is nearly empty again, just dregs and residue. You don't remember drinking it, don't remember the transition from full to empty, time slipping through your fingers like water.

"Please."

He pours, steam rising in lazy spirals. Then instead of leaving he just—stands there, like he's waiting for permission to ask a question he hasn't voiced yet, like he can see you're barely holding together and he's trying to decide whether offering help will break you or save you.

"You can sit," you hear yourself say, voice small, tentative, offering although you're not sure you're allowed to offer. "If you want. If you're allowed. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"Slow night. I'm allowed." But he still waits for you to nod before sliding into the booth across from you, and that small gesture of asking consent for space makes you want to cry again because when did asking permission become such a rare gift? When did you start feeling grateful for basic respect?

For a long moment neither of you speaks. You're hyperaware of him now, how he takes up space without imposing, how his hands curve around his own mug, how he's looking at you like you're a puzzle he's trying to solve without making you feel like a problem.

"So," he says finally, voice soft, careful, testing the waters. "Booth Seven. Good choice."

"Is there a bad choice?"

"Booth Three has a spring that'll destroy your spine if you sit wrong. I keep meaning to fix it but I kind of like having a designated torture booth for customers I don't like." He's smiling slightly, inviting you to smile back. "Booth Five is right under the vent so you freeze all winter. But Seven? Seven's the best seat in the house. It’s far enough from the door that you're not in the draft, close enough to the counter that you can get help if you need it. It’s just the right angle to see everything without being on display yourself."

"You've thought about this." It's not a question.

"I've worked here for three years. You learn which spaces feel safe and which ones don't. You learn to read people, who needs to be left alone, who needs company, who needs saving." He pauses, studying you with those dark, perceptive eyes. "You needed the safe space."

Three years of midnight shifts. Three years of watching people stumble in at their worst, at their most vulnerable. Three years of bearing witness to the specific loneliness that only exists when the rest of the world is sleeping, when you're the only person awake in your own life, when the darkness becomes so heavy you can't carry it alone anymore.

"Do you like it?" The question surprises you as much as it probably surprises him, too personal, too intimate for a conversation with a stranger. "Working nights. Being here when everyone else is somewhere else. Seeing people at their worst."

He considers this with the same careful attention he seems to bring to everything, like your questions deserve real answers instead of polite deflections. "Yeah, actually. I do. Most people hate the graveyard shift, it destroys your sleep schedule, ruins your social life, makes you feel like you're living in a different dimension from everyone else. But I like the quiet. I like that everyone who comes in at midnight is genuine. They're too tired for performance, too desperate for small talk, too raw to pretend they're fine when they're falling apart. They’re just people trying to survive until morning, trying to make it through one more night, trying to remember why they're still trying."

"That's bleak."

"That's honest." He takes a sip of coffee, and you watch his throat work as he swallows, watch the way the light catches on his collarbone visible above his shirt. "Which is the same thing, depending on your perspective. Honesty is bleak when you've been lying to yourself for long enough. Truth looks like despair when you've been living in denial."

You find yourself smiling despite the weight pressing on your chest, despite the fact that your life is falling apart and you're sitting in a diner at 1:30am with a stranger instead of home with the person who's supposed to love you. "Philosopher and short-order cook."

"The Venn diagram is a circle at midnight. Everyone becomes a philosopher at 2am when the existential dread hits." His smile is self-deprecating, warm. "Also, I've heard a lot of midnight confessions. You start to see patterns. Everyone's in pain, everyone's drowning, everyone's trying to figure out how to survive the night and make it to morning when things might look different, might hurt less, might finally make sense."

The laugh that escapes you is genuine, unguarded, surprising in its lightness. His answering smile is warm enough to make you forget, just for a second, why you're here. Why you're anywhere except home. Why home stopped feeling like somewhere you wanted to be, somewhere you felt safe, somewhere you could exist without armor.

"Can I ask you about the lotus?" 

You blink, confused. "The what?"

He nods towards your bag where it sits on the booth beside you. "You've got a lotus charm on your keychain."

You'd forgotten about that. It's small, silver, delicate, a gift from your mother years ago. A lotus flower in mid-bloom, petals detailed and beautiful. You'd attached it to your keyring and stopped noticing it was there.

"I didn't think anyone would notice that," you admit, pulling your bag closer to look at it. The charm catches the fluorescent light, glinting.

"I pay attention." He says it simply, factually, not like a boast. "Lotus flowers are interesting. They bloom at night, you know? In darkness."

Your breath catches. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah. They close at night and sink underwater, then rise again at dawn and bloom. This whole cycle of death and rebirth, over and over. They grow in mud, murky water, all this mess, and somehow they come out pristine, perfect." He pauses, and there's weight in the silence. "They're symbols of resilience, of blooming despite circumstances, of finding beauty in unlikely places."

You stare at the charm, at this gift you've carried for years without understanding its full meaning, and feel your chest tighten with emotion you can't name.

"That's..." You swallow around the lump in your throat. "That's beautiful."

"You're beautiful." The words slip out before he can stop them, and his eyes widen immediately, horror dawning across his features. "I mean—the resilience is beautiful. The metaphor. Not that you're not—I mean you are—but that's not what I—"

"Taesan." You say his name gently, cutting off the spiral, and a smile tugs at your lips. "I know what you meant."

He exhales, relieved, running a hand through his hair and leaving it even messier than before. "Right. Good. Okay."

But the words hang between you anyway : You're beautiful.

"The point is," he continues, recovering, "they bloom in darkness. They grow in mud, mess and all these impossible circumstances, and somehow they don't just survive, they thrive. They become more beautiful because of the struggle, not despite it."

You think about your life. The mud you've been treading water in. The relationship that feels like it's pulling you under inch by inch. The slow, grinding weight of being with someone who makes you feel like you're never quite enough, like your very existence is a problem to be managed rather than a gift to be cherished.

"I don't feel very beautiful," you admit, voice barely above a whisper. "Or resilient. I feel... stuck. I feel like I'm drowning but really slowly, so slowly that nobody notices, including me, most of the time."

Taesan's expression goes impossibly soft. "That sounds exhausting."

"It is." Your voice cracks. "It really is."

He reaches across the table, stops just short of touching your hand, his fingers hovering millimeters above yours. "You don't have to stay stuck," he says quietly. "You know that, right?"

"It's not as easy as you think."

"No. It's not." His eyes hold yours, dark, earnest and full of a tenderness that makes you ache. "But it's not impossible either."

You look down at where his hand hovers over yours, and feel your chest cave in with the weight of wanting, of recognizing a spark in this stranger that you haven't felt in your own relationship in longer than you can remember.

"Lotus," he says suddenly, and you look up, confused. "That's what I'm going to call you, if that's okay."

Your breath catches. "Why?"

"Because you walked in here looking like you were drowning, and you've got this flower on your keychain that grows in water. Because lotus flowers bloom at night, in darkness, and you showed up at midnight. Because they're symbols of resilience and rebirth, and I think..." He trails off, searching for words. "I think you need reminding that you can bloom. Even here. Even now. Especially in the dark."

Your throat is too tight to speak. You just nod, and the smile that breaks across his face is radiant enough to chase away every shadow in the diner.

"Lotus," he says again, testing it, tasting it, making it real.

"Lotus," you repeat, and it feels like trying on a new identity. Like you can shed the person who apologizes for existing and become someone who blooms in darkness. Someone who hasn't forgotten how to grow towards light even when buried deep in mud.

Your phone buzzes again, vibrates against your thigh through your pocket, loud in the quiet diner, impossible to ignore. You watch Taesan's eyes flick to where the sound came from, watch his expression carefully not change, carefully stay neutral and non-judgmental even though you can see the question forming behind his eyes, can see him putting pieces together and arriving at conclusions he's too polite to voice.

But there's a flash of understanding, recognition. Like he's seen this before, this exact scenario—someone running from home, a relationship, a life that's become unlivable, seeking refuge in his diner at midnight because there's nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, no other space that feels safe.

"You don't have to answer," he says quietly, voice gentle, giving you permission to ignore the summons.

"I know."

"Do you?" The question is sharper than his tone, cutting through your defenses. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you think you have to respond immediately, have to explain yourself, have to justify your absence. You think you're not allowed to have boundaries, needs or time that's your own."

The accuracy lands like a punch. You stare at this person who's somehow seen directly into the center of your life after thirty minutes and one cup of coffee, who understands things about you that you've barely admitted to yourself.

"I should go." You don't move. Your body hasn't received the message from your brain yet, hasn't accepted that leaving is what you're supposed to do now, what you should do, what a good girlfriend would do.

"You should do whatever you need to do." He stands, collects your mug even though it's still half full, giving you space to make your decision without his presence pressuring you either way. "But if what you need is to sit here and drink coffee until morning, that's fine too. The booth is yours as long as you want it. No judgment. No questions. No expectation that you'll explain yourself or justify your choices or apologize for existing."

He walks away before you can respond, giving you privacy to make your decision, and that small act of respect, of not pressuring or asking, cracks through the dam you've built to hold back everything you're feeling.

You stay until almost three in the morning, until your coffee has gone cold and been replaced several more times, until Taesan has served and dismissed a handful of other midnight refugees, until the sky outside starts to shift from black to that shade of blue that means dawn is coming whether you're ready or not.

When you finally stand to leave, Taesan is wiping down the counter and pretending he hasn't been keeping one eye on your booth all night, pretending he hasn't been monitoring you, ready to intervene if you need him but giving you space to exist in your pain.

"Thank you," you say, and he turns, meeting your eyes across the empty diner.

"For what? The coffee?"

"For not asking." The words come out thick, heavy with everything you're not saying. "For just—letting me be here."

Understanding flashes across his face, softening his features. He nods. "Come back whenever you need to. Booth Seven will be here. So will I."

It's not a promise, exactly. It's an offer. A space held for you in a world that feels like it's closing in from all sides, compressing you into smaller and smaller versions of yourself until there's nothing left.

You walk out into the pre-dawn cold and drive home to the apartment where he's probably asleep on the couch, where you'll slip into bed alone and stare at the ceiling until your alarm goes off, where you'll start another day of pretending everything is fine, where you'll compress yourself back into the shape he needs you to be, small, quiet, accommodating, invisible.

But now you know that there's a place you can go. A booth that's yours. A person who'll pour you coffee without asking why you need it, who'll hold space for your pain without trying to fix it, who'll see you falling apart and respond with gentleness instead of irritation.

[SCENE 002 : INT. READER'S APARTMENT - 3:45AM]

The apartment is dark when you slip inside, moving carefully, a thief in your own home.

He's asleep on the couch, sprawled across all the cushions like he owns them, like the world exists for his comfort and everyone else is just taking up space that rightfully belongs to him. His phone is still clutched loosely in one hand, screen dark now but probably filled with the same games he plays for hours, the same social media he scrolls through instead of talking to you, the same digital world he disappears into because it's easier than being present in your shared life that's become anything but shared.

The TV plays some infomercial on mute, closed captions scrolling across the bottom in a rapid-fire way that makes them hard to read. The RGB lights from his gaming setup cycle through their programmed colours, casting his face in a rotating palette of artificial ambiance, making him look alien, strange, like someone you don't know wearing the face of someone you used to love.

He looks younger in sleep, you think, studying him from the doorway, less perpetually annoyed by your existence. Almost like the person you thought you were choosing four years ago when you were both different people living different lives, when you still believed in the future you were building together, when you thought love was enough to sustain you through anything.

You stand there watching him breathe and feel nothing, not love, not anger, not even resentment anymore. Just a vast empty space where feelings used to live before they died of neglect, before they starved from lack of reciprocation, before you learned that you can kill love just by ignoring it long enough, by taking it for granted until there's nothing left but the ghost of what you once felt.

Your phone is full of his messages. You checked in the car, parked outside the apartment, gathering courage for the climb up flights of stairs, steeling yourself to return to this space that stopped feeling like home months ago. The messages follow a predictable pattern, a script you could recite from memory because you've seen it so many times : confusion, irritation, annoyance, guilt-trip, finally settling on aggrieved acceptance laced with accusation.

“where are you”

“seriously where did you go”

“you're being dramatic again”

“fine whatever stay out all night”

“you know I have work tomorrow and I can't sleep when you're not here”

That last one is a lie. Evidence suggests he's sleeping just fine, deeply and peacefully, undisturbed by your absence except for how it inconveniences him. The problem has never been his sleep. The problem is that your absence forces him to notice you exist, to acknowledge that you're a separate person with separate needs and not just an extension of him, a supporting character in his story, an NPC in his game.

You move through the apartment like a ghost, carefully avoiding the creaky floorboard near the kitchen, the loose tile in the bathroom, the squeaky hinge on the bedroom door. You've learned the geography of silence over four years, mapped every sound that might wake him and lead to a conversation you don't have energy for, to questions you don't know how to answer, to accusations you're too tired to defend against. Conversations that always end the same way : with you apologizing for feelings you're entitled to, with him accepting your apology with the magnanimity of someone granting clemency, with both of you pretending this is normal, this is fine, this is what love looks like after the honeymoon phase ends and you learn that relationships require work, require compromise, require one person to make themselves smaller so the other can take up more space.

In the bathroom you stare at yourself in the mirror. The light reveals shadows under your eyes that look like bruises, hollows in your cheeks that suggest you haven't been eating enough, a tightness around your mouth that comes from constantly clenching your jaw, from biting back words that might cause conflict, from swallowing anger until it crystallizes in your throat like broken glass. You look tired, bone-deep exhaustion of someone who's been running on empty for so long they've forgotten what full feels like, what it means to be replenished instead of depleted, nourished instead of drained.

When did you become this person? This shell going through the motions? This woman who apologizes for needing things, for having feelings, for existing in ways that require accommodation? This stranger wearing your face, living your life, making choices you don't remember agreeing to?

You touch your reflection, fingertips against cold glass, and the woman in the mirror touches back. Mirror image. Doppelganger. Someone who looks like you but isn't you, not the person you were before you learned that love could be a slow death, that you could be murdered by indifference, that the worst violence is the quiet kind that leaves no marks, that kills you so gradually you don't notice you're dying until you're already a ghost.

Your phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number lights up the screen.

“Got your number from the contact info you left at the register (for emergencies, totally not creepy I promise). I just wanted to make sure you got home safe. - Taesan”

You feel your chest tighten and loosen simultaneously. He cared enough to check. Cared enough to risk seeming like he was overstepping. Cared enough to make sure you were okay even though you're nobody to him, just another midnight refugee who occupied one of his booths for a few hours and left without explaining why, without offering your story, without giving him anything except your pain to witness.

You type back with shaking hands : “Home safe. Thank you for tonight.”

Three dots appear immediately, like he's been waiting for your response, like he's been sitting with his phone hoping you'd text back. “Anytime. Booth Seven will be here tomorrow if you need it. I'll be here too.”

You press your phone to your chest, close your eyes and let yourself feel what you've been suppressing all night : the dangerous, terrifying bloom of being seen. Of someone noticing you're in pain and responding with kindness instead of irritation. Of someone making space for your existence without requiring you to earn it first, without demanding explanations, emotional labor or anything except your presence.

This is dangerous. This feeling, this gratitude that’s edging towards warmth, towards affection, connection, the fragile beginning of a want you shouldn’t have is dangerous. You’re in a relationship. You live with someone. You’ve built a life, however unsatisfying or painful. You don’t get to develop feelings for the person who works at the diner you escape to, who makes you coffee and doesn’t ask questions, who sees you drowning and throws you a line without asking for anything in return.

But you're going to go back. You know this with certainty, you're already committed to a path even if you haven't admitted it yet. Booth Seven has already become necessary that it should terrify you but just feels like relief, like finally being able to breathe after holding your breath for years, like coming up for air after nearly drowning.

You slip into bed, the eighteen inches of mattress you've learned to compress yourself into without sprawling, without taking up more than your allotted space, and fall asleep still wearing your jacket, phone clutched in your hand, like a lifeline connecting you to someone who sees you as a person instead of an inconvenience.

[SCENE 003 : MONTAGE - NIGHTS TWO THROUGH FOUR] 

NIGHT TWO :

You tell yourself you're not going back.

The resolution lasts exactly eleven hours and forty-three minutes. You make it through work, through the performative pleasantness of office small talk, through lunch at your desk eating food you don't taste, through the afternoon meeting where your boss presents your ideas as his own and you smile, nod and say nothing because speaking up means being difficult and being difficult means being disposable. You make it home, through the careful choreography of coexistence with someone who barely acknowledges your presence—him on the couch gaming, you in the kitchen making dinner he'll eat while staring at a screen, the silence between you so heavy it has weight, texture and presence.

You make it until 11:40pm before your hands are reaching for your keys, carrying you to the car, driving through Chicago streets with the feeling of falling without knowing if there's ground beneath you or just endless falling forever.

The bell chimes at 11:50pm. Taesan looks up from restocking coffee filters and his face goes through relief, pleasure and welcome, all three at once, immediate and unguarded, like he'd been hoping you'd come, like he's genuinely happy to see you, like your presence is a gift instead of an imposition, like you're someone worth waiting for, worth being pleased about.

"You came back." His smile is soft, warm, reaching his eyes and crinkling the corners.

"I came back." Your voice comes out smaller than intended, seeking reassurance you're not sure you deserve.

"I'm glad." He says it simply, but there's weight underneath, sincerity that makes your chest ache. "Booth Seven's been waiting. So have I."

He's already moving towards the coffee pot, pulling down the blue mug from where it hangs above the counter, measuring out cream and sugar before you've even taken a step towards your booth. The casual presumption of your order, the confidence that you'll want what you wanted before, the fact that he remembered—makes you feel seen that's both comforting and exposing.

When you slide into Booth Seven, the coffee is already there. Waiting, perfect, like he'd been preparing for your arrival, like he'd believed you'd come back even when you weren't sure you would.

"You remembered," you say softly, wrapping your hands around the familiar ceramic.

He looks genuinely confused by your surprise. "Of course I remembered. It's been one day."

"Most people don't remember things like that, especially not after one meeting or for someone who's just a customer."

"Then most people aren't paying attention." He leans against the booth, not sitting yet, just hovering in that liminal space between server and companion. "And you're not just a customer. You're Lotus."

The nickname from last night. You'd almost forgotten, had convinced yourself you'd imagined it. But no—he'd called you that, named you after the charm on your keychain, given you an identity separate from the one you perform everywhere else.

"Lotus," you repeat, testing the shape of it in your mouth. It feels good, right, like permission to be someone different here, someone new, someone who exists without the weight of four years of compromise and self-erasure.

"It suits you." His smile is gentle, knowing. "Someone who blooms in darkness."

That night he brings you pie without asking, cherry, warm, with ice cream melting into the red filling, and sits with you during a lull. He tells you about the regular who comes in every Tuesday at 2am and orders exactly three pancakes, no syrup, no butter, just pancakes, and sits there cutting them into increasingly smaller pieces until the plate is just a massacre of bread and he's just sitting there staring at what he's done. He tells you about the man who proposed to his girlfriend in Booth Four last month at 3am, both of them crying, laughing and kissing while he pretended not to notice and refilled their coffee approximately eight times because he didn't want to interrupt but also didn't want them to think he wasn't paying attention, wasn't bearing witness to this moment of joy.

He makes you laugh with his impression of the health inspector who has strong opinions about the jukebox, about the moral implications of having a jukebox that's just decorative, just a lie promising music it can't deliver.

When you leave at 2am, the contrast is starker than before. The apartment feels colder, emptier. The difference between being seen and being invisible more painful now that you remember what the alternative feels like, now that you have evidence that it's possible to exist without constantly apologizing for it.

NIGHT THREE :

You arrive at 11:34pm, sixteen minutes earlier than last night, the progression already establishing itself, your need to be here outpacing your resistance to admitting that need.

Taesan already has your coffee ready when you walk in. Blue mug. Cream. Two sugars. Sitting at Booth Seven like evidence that someone is thinking about you even when you're not there.

"You're early today, Lotus" he observes, but he's smiling, pleased by the pattern emerging.

"Couldn't wait." The admission comes out before you can stop it, more honest than you intended.

Tonight when he brings food, grilled cheese, golden and perfect, cut diagonal because that's objectively superior, he slides into the booth across from you without asking. The diner is nearly empty, just you and one other customer reading a book in the corner, and Taesan sits across from you like this is the most natural thing in the world, like sitting with you is where he's supposed to be.

"So," he says, wrapping his hands around his own mug, and you notice for the first time that his fingers are long, elegant, that his nails are short, clean and practical. "Tell me about yourself."

"Like what?"

"Anything. Something nobody else knows." His eyes are gentle, encouraging. "It doesn't have to be big, don’t worry."

You should deflect, keep your walls up, remind yourself that he’s a stranger and you owe him nothing. Protect the parts of you that still hurt.

But there’s the way he’s looking at you—curious, not prying ; gentle, not expectant. Like your truth is yours to offer or keep, and either way, he’ll understand. And somehow, that makes honesty feel easy.

“I don’t remember the last time I felt happy,” you admit, almost to yourself. “I wake up, go through the motions, pretend I’m okay… but it’s like I’m watching my own life from the outside. I’m here, but I’m not really living.”  

His expression shifts, clouds with concern. "How long have you been feeling this way?"

"I don't know. Months? A year? Longer?" You pick up your grilled cheese, set it down again without eating, hands restless. "It happened so gradually I didn't notice until suddenly I couldn't remember what the alternative felt like. It was like watching a photograph fade in sunlight. You don't see it happening until one day you look and the colour is just—gone. And you can't remember what it looked like before, can't retrieve the original image, can only see what's left."

"What changed?"

"Nothing changed. That's the problem." You force yourself to take a bite, to eat because he made it for you and refusing would be rude, wasteful, one more way of making yourself smaller. It's perfect. Of course it's perfect. Everything he makes is perfect, carefully considered, prepared with attention to detail that suggests he cares about what he's doing, about who he's doing it for. "Everything just slowly became less talking, less touching, less effort, less care. We're just two people sharing an apartment and going through the motions of a relationship that died months ago but nobody's pronounced it dead yet, nobody's called the time of death, nobody's admitted that we're just carrying a corpse around pretending it's still breathing."

"Why don't you leave?" The question is gentle, genuinely curious, not accusatory, like he really wants to know what keeps you in a situation that's clearly suffocating you.

The question cracks through your chest, exposes the ugly truth you've been avoiding. "Because I don't know if the problem is the relationship or me. I've invested four years and walking away means admitting I wasted them and chose wrong. I'm terrified of being alone, of finding out that I'm the problem, that I'm just fundamentally unlovable and this is as good as it gets. Because leaving requires courage I'm not sure I have, requires believing I deserve better when I'm not sure I do, requires imagining a future that doesn't include him and I can't see past tomorrow, can't imagine what comes next." You meet his eyes, willing him to understand. "Take your pick. All of the above. It's all true simultaneously."

"What if it's not about courage?" His voice is soft, careful, like he's approaching a wounded animal, like he's aware that one wrong move could send you fleeing. "What if it's just about being tired enough of drowning that you finally swim for shore? What if it's not a grand heroic gesture but just—putting one foot in front of the other until you've walked far enough away that you can breathe again?"

"What if I've forgotten how to swim? What if I've been underwater so long I don't remember what air feels like?"

"Then you float. You let the current carry you. You do anything except keep going under, keep choosing to stay submerged, keep accepting drowning as your normal state of being. You're already coming up for air. You just haven't admitted it yet. That's what this is—" He gestures around the diner, at Booth Seven, at the space between you. "You coming up for air. You remembering how to breathe."

Your throat tightens dangerously. You've been going under for so long you've forgotten there are other options, forgotten that drowning isn't inevitable, that the water isn't the only place you can exist, that survival is a choice you're allowed to make.

"Why are you being so kind to me?" The question comes out rougher than intended. "You don't know me. I'm just some random person who showed up at your diner and won't leave, who keeps taking up your booth, your time and your emotional energy. Why do you care?"

"Because everyone deserves at least one place where they can breathe," he says simply, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, like kindness doesn't require justification, explanation or return on investment. "And if Booth Seven is that place for you, then that's enough reason. You don't have to earn the right to be treated with basic human decency. You don't have to justify your existence or apologize for needing things, Lotus. You just have to show up and let yourself be here."

You want to cry, want to reach across the table, hold his hand and thank him for bearing witness to your pain instead of asking you to hide it, for creating space for you to fall apart without making you feel like a burden. But you just nod, eat your grilled cheese and let the silence be comfortable instead of weighted, let yourself exist in this booth without performing gratitude, normalcy or anything except just being present, being here, being seen.

When you leave at 1:30am, your chest feels lighter. It's not fixed or healed. The wound is still there, still bleeding, still killing you slowly. But less heavy, like you've set down a burden you didn't realize you'd been carrying, like sharing the weight makes it more bearable even if it doesn't make it disappear.

NIGHT FOUR :

Tonight you arrive at 11:08pm, nearly an hour before you've ever come, and find Taesan wiping down counters. He sees you and his face lights up, immediate and unguarded, and you realize with a jolt that this is the face you look forward to seeing more than any other. That this smile means more to you than anything the man you live with has given you in months. That somewhere in the past few days, this stranger has become the most important person in your life, the person you think about when you wake up, the person you count down the hours until you can see again.

The realization should terrify you. Instead it just feels true, inevitable, like you've been moving towards this point since the moment you walked through the door four nights ago.

"Lotus, you're early tonight again," he says, setting down his dishrag.

"Yeah, I am..." You're not even pretending anymore, not bothering to hide that this has become necessary, that you need this space and this person in ways that go beyond casual, beyond friendship, beyond what's appropriate for someone who's technically in a relationship.

His smile widens, pleased and relieved, like he's been worried you might stop coming, like your presence matters to him too. "Coffee?"

"Please."

You watch him move behind the counter, watch the familiar ritual of preparation—blue mug down from its hook, coffee poured, cream measured, sugar added carefully. When he brings it, he doesn't just set it down and leave. He slides into the booth across from you and looks at you with an expression that makes your breath catch, gentle, searching and careful, like he's about to cross a line and is trying to gauge whether you want him to, whether you're ready, whether you'll let him.

"Can I say something that might overstep?"

Your heart kicks against your ribs, hard and insistent. "Okay."

"You don't have to keep going back there." His voice is gentle but firm, like he's been holding this back for days and can't anymore, like watching you suffer has finally exceeded his capacity for polite restraint. "To wherever you're going when you leave here. To whatever's making you look exhausted, sad and like you're waiting for permission to exist, like you're apologizing for taking up space just by breathing. You're allowed to leave. You're allowed to choose yourself. You're allowed to stop drowning just because leaving means admitting you were drowning in the first place."

"It's not that simple." The protest comes automatic, defensive, even though you know he's right, even though every word he's saying is true.

"I know it's not simple, that there's logistics, shared leases and the accumulated debris of four years that you can't just walk away from without sorting through it all. But it's not impossible either. Difficult isn't the same as impossible. Scary isn't the same as undoable."

"How do you know?" Your voice cracks, breaks on the question. "How do you know I can do it? How do you know I'm strong enough?"

"Because you're here. You keep coming back, you're taking your first breaths after years of holding them, and that takes more strength than you realize." His eyes are impossibly gentle, warm in the dim light. "You're already choosing yourself. You just haven't admitted it yet. You're already building an exit, laying groundwork, creating space between you and him even if you're not calling it that. Coming here is an act of self-preservation even if it doesn't feel like it yet."

 He reaches across the table, takes your hand properly this time, no hesitation, fingers lacing through yours. "You're not broken, Lotus. You're just planted in the wrong soil. Move yourself to better ground and watch how quickly you flourish.”

The truth of it cracks through your carefully maintained composure, through the walls you've built to protect yourself from admitting what you already know. You're here instead of home. You're seeking out this stranger instead of trying to fix your relationship. You've been leaving in every way except the literal one, building an escape route without calling it that, preparing yourself for a departure you haven't consciously decided on yet.

You feel silent tears tracking down your face while you sit in this booth holding hands with someone who sees you more clearly after four days than your boyfriend has seen you in four years. The contrast is devastating, makes you feel like you're breaking apart and coming together simultaneously.

"I don't know what to do." Your voice is small, lost, the voice of someone who's been making decisions for so long without trusting themselves that they've forgotten how to listen to their own instincts.

"You don't have to know. You just have to keep breathing. Keep coming here. Keep existing in ways that feel authentic instead of acceptable." His thumb brushes across your knuckles, tender and grounding. "The rest will follow. You don't have to have all the answers right now. You just have to be willing to ask the questions."

That night you stay until his shift ends at 6am, watching the sun come up through the diner windows. Taesan makes you eggs and toast, sits with you while you eat, talks about everything except what's waiting for you when you leave—his favourite movies, the music he listens to during slow hours, his theory that everyone has a specific diner order that reveals their personality, that you can tell everything you need to know about a person by how they take their coffee and what they order at 3am when they're too tired to lie.

When you finally stand to go, body stiff from sitting too long, he walks you to your car. He stands there in the early morning light looking young, tired and beautiful, worn down by darkness but still standing, still kind, still here.

"Same time tonight?" he asks, and there's vulnerability in the question, like he's afraid you might not come back, like he's already attached to this ritual you've built together.

"Earlier, probably." The admission makes you both smile.

"I'll be here. Booth Seven will always be waiting for you, Lotus."

You drive home as the city wakes up around you, morning commuters filling the streets, the world starting another day that feels both exactly the same and fundamentally different. You return to the apartment where he's still asleep, where you slip into bed without waking him, where you lie staring at the ceiling and finally, finally admit what you've been avoiding for four nights :

You're falling in love with Taesan.

And you have absolutely no idea what to do about it.

[SCENE 004 : INT. LOU'S DINER - BOOTH SEVEN - 10:23PM - THREE WEEKS IN]

Three weeks of midnights have passed since the first time you walked through these doors.

Three weeks of arriving earlier each night, until now you're here before midnight even arrives, before the clock strikes that liminal hour when the rest of the world sleeps and you finally wake up. Three weeks of coffee in the same blue mug, of Booth Seven becoming more home than the apartment you pay rent on, of Taesan becoming more important to you than the man whose presence in your life has become an absence so profound it's developed its own gravity.

Tonight you're here at 10:23pm, the earliest yet, and Taesan doesn't comment on it. Just smiles that smile—the one that's become as necessary as oxygen—and already has your coffee ready by the time you slide into your booth. Your booth. The one that's been waiting for you, that's become synonymous with breathing, with existing without apology, with remembering that you're a person instead of a function.

The diner is quiet tonight. It’s just you and one other customer. Taesan moves through his shift with that same unhurried grace you've come to depend on, that groundedness that makes you feel like maybe you can be grounded too, like maybe his steadiness can lend you some stability when your own world is tilting on its axis.

You're staring into your coffee, watching steam curl and dissipate, when you notice it.

A flash of silver near the napkin dispenser, half-hidden behind the salt shaker, catching the fluorescent light and scattering it in small bright fragments. You reach for it without thinking, fingers closing around cool metal, and pull it into view.

A ring.

Small, silver, simple in design but intricate in detail when you look closer. The band is etched with tiny flowers, you tilt it towards the light, and realize they're lotus flowers. Delicate petals carved into the metal with such precision they must have been done by hand, by someone who understood that beauty requires patience, attention.

You turn it over in your fingers, feeling the weight of it. It’s heavier than it looks, the kind of heft that suggests quality, suggests this matters to someone, that it has history, that it has been loved. The silver is worn smooth in places, polished by years of contact with skin, life, all the small frictions of being worn, cherished and used.

Without consciously deciding to, without thinking about symbolism or implications or what it might mean, you slip it onto your finger.

Your left hand.

Your ring finger.

It slides on easily, like it’s been waiting for exactly this finger, this hand, this moment. It settles into place with a rightness that should terrify you but just feels right, like the world clicking into alignment after being off-kilter for so long you’d forgotten what balance felt like.

You hold your hand up, examining how it looks under the diner's light. The ring catches and reflects, the lotus flowers seeming to bloom and fade depending on the angle, depending on how you turn your hand, depending on how much attention you're willing to pay. It transforms your hand into one that belongs to someone else—chosen, cherished, promised.

The symbolism isn't lost on you. This is where wedding bands live, where commitment is displayed for the world to see. You're wearing a stranger's ring on your wedding finger while you're still technically in a relationship, still technically committed to someone else, still technically bound to a man who forgot your anniversary, sleeps on the couch and makes you feel like your existence is an inconvenience he's learned to tolerate.

The irony would be funny if it wasn't so devastating. If it didn't feel like the most honest gesture you've done in months.

The ring fits perfectly, like it was made for you specifically, measured for your finger, waiting for you to find it, to accept what it represents even if you don't know yet what that is.

"That's mine."

You jump, nearly dropping your coffee. Taesan is standing beside the booth, coffee pot in hand, staring at your hand with an expression you can’t quite read, surprise mixed with recognition, with understanding, like he’s seeing a possibility he’d only ever imagined.

"What?" Your voice comes out small, guilty, like you've been caught doing a crime.

"The ring." His eyes are still fixed on your hand, on the silver band, on the way it looks against your skin. "It's mine. It must have slipped off earlier when I was cleaning the booth. I was looking for it."

Horror floods through you, hot and immediate. You're already reaching to pull it off, fingers fumbling with the band, cheeks burning with embarrassment. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I just found it sitting here and I picked it up without thinking and I shouldn't have just put it on, I wasn't trying to—I didn't mean to—"

"Don't."

The word stops you mid-motion, firm but gentle, and you look up to find him staring at you with an intensity that sets your heart tripping over its own rhythm. "Don't what?"

"Don't take it off." He sets down the coffee pot carefully, and slides into the booth across from you. "Just—let me look at it for a second."

You lower your hand to the table between you, palm up, the ring catching the light and scattering it like small stars. Taesan reaches across, his fingers hovering just above yours.

“It fits you,” he says quietly, and there’s wonder in his voice, almost reverent, like he’s witnessing a sacred moment. “You wear it like it's always been yours.”

"Taesan—" You don't know how to finish that sentence, don't know what you're asking for, what you're afraid of, what you're hoping he'll say, do or promise.

"It was my grandmother's, she gave it to me the winter before she died." He pauses, and you can see him measuring each word like he's trying to translate the holy into language. His thumb moves across your knuckles, a touch so gentle it aches. "She told me to find someone who understood that love is the opposite of abandonment. It's not about finding someone who makes you feel whole, it's about finding someone you choose to be whole with. Someone who sees you at your most human, most flawed, most exhausting, and still decides every morning that this—you—is worth the conscious choice of staying."

He finally meets your eyes, and the vulnerability there is staggering, undefended. "She said the person who wears this ring should know that forever isn't a promise you make once. It's a promise you remake every day in the smallest ways."

Your throat is too tight to speak. Tears are threatening again, always threatening these days, like you've become a person made of water, like you're constantly on the verge of spilling over, of drowning everyone around you in the accumulated grief of four years spent making yourself smaller.

"I can't keep this," you whisper, voice cracking on the words. "It's too important. It means too much. I'm just—I'm nobody to you. I'm just someone who comes to your diner and takes up space and cries in your booth and—"

"Stop." His hand closes the distance between you, covers yours, and the touch sends electricity racing up your arm and into your chest where your heart is forgetting its training, skipping beats like it's relearning the rhythm from scratch.

"You're not nobody. You're Lotus." His grip tightens, just slightly, an anchor. "You're the person who's reminded me why I like this job, why creating space for people at their worst matters, why keeping the door open till morning matters. 

His voice drops, goes softer but somehow more intense. "You're the person I find myself listening for. The sound of the door, your footsteps, how you sigh when you think no one's paying attention. You walk in and the whole night shifts. It stops feeling like survival, like counting down the hours until I can leave. You make the hours between midnight and dawn feel less like an endurance test and more like a privilege."

"I'm in a relationship." You have to say it, have to name the obstacle, have to acknowledge the impossibility of whatever this is becoming, whatever is growing in the space between you like a flower planted in darkness, blooming despite the lack of light. "I live with someone. I've been with him for four years. I can't just—I shouldn't be—"

"I know." His thumb brushes across your knuckles, across the ring, gentle and deliberate, a touch that communicates everything words can't hold. "I know you're not free. I know this is complicated. I know I'm probably making everything worse by saying any of this." He takes a breath, steadies himself. "But I need you to know that you deserve to be chosen. You don't deserve to be tolerated, accommodated or made to feel like you're asking for too much when you're asking for the bare minimum."

His eyes search yours, and there's an ache in them that mirrors the one in your chest. "You deserve someone who doesn't make you small or make you wonder if you're imagining the distance, if you're being dramatic, if you're the problem. You deserve someone who sees you walk into a room and feel lucky, who notices when you've gone quiet, who asks what you're thinking and actually wants to hear the answer."

He pauses, and his voice goes quieter, more raw. "You deserve to be someone's first thought, not their afterthought. Their priority, not their convenience. You deserve to be loved easily, even when it's hard—especially when it's hard."

His hand is still covering yours, the ring pressed between your palms. "And I know I have no right to say any of this. I know I'm just the night shift barista who watches you try to hold yourself together. But I see you, Lotus. I see you. And what I see deserves so much more than what you're settling for."

A tear escapes, tracks down your cheek before you can stop it, before you can remember that you're supposed to be strong, supposed to be handling this, supposed to be okay. You watch it fall and land on the table between you, a small dark circle on the laminate, evidence of your breaking rendered visible.

“Keep it,” he says, his voice soft, careful, like he’s giving you permission to want what you’ve been told not to, to need what you thought you hadn’t earned. "Keep it as a reminder that you're worth choosing, that you deserve better than what you're settling for, that there are people in the world who see you and want to treat you like you're worth the effort of really showing up for.”

“This is your grandmother’s ring.” Your voice comes out thin, frayed from crying, from holding back, from all the words you’ve been swallowing for weeks. “This is—it's an heirloom. It’s supposed to go to someone you’re going to—” You can’t finish the sentence, can’t voice the word marry, can’t name that particular future that exists in the space between you like a ghost of what could be but isn’t, not yet, maybe not ever.

"My grandmother told me the ring would know," he says, and his smile is almost apologetic, like he knows how that sounds, how impossibly romantic, impractical and naive, how much like a fairy tale instead of real life. "That when I found the right person, the ring would fit. That it would look right. That I'd know." His eyes hold yours, dark, steady and sure, so sure it makes you want to believe him, want to trust that certainty even when your own is so fragile. "It fits. It looks right. I know."

The confession sits between you, enormous, terrifying and impossible to ignore, impossible to pretend you didn't hear, impossible to unknow now that it's been spoken into existence.

You should give it back, remove the ring, slide it across the table and restore the appropriate boundaries between server and customer, between stranger and stranger, between his life and yours that have collided at midnight but can't actually merge.

But the ring is warm on your finger now, heated by your skin, by contact, by the simple physics of two bodies occupying the same space. And taking it off would feel like amputation, like cutting off an organ that's vital and necessary.

"I'll keep it," you hear yourself say, voice barely audible over the distant sound of traffic outside. "Just for a while. Just until—" Until what? Until you figure your life out? Until you find the courage to leave? Until you admit what you're feeling for this person who's shown you more kindness in three weeks than you've received in four years? "Just until I don't need the reminder anymore."

"However long that takes." His hand squeezes yours once, firm and grounding, then releases, creating space between you again, respecting the boundaries that still exist even as they're dissolving. "Keep it as long as you need it. It's not going anywhere. Neither am I."

"Thank you," you whisper, and the words carry more weight than just gratitude for a ring, for a reminder, for a promise you haven't made but are already keeping.

“Don’t thank me for treating you like you’re worth it.” His voice is gentle but steady, like he needs you to understand this, to hear and believe it. “That’s just basic human decency. You’ve been starved of it for so long that kindness feels like a gift. That’s not right, Lotus. It’s not supposed to be that way.”

That night, when you leave—4:12am, later than usual, neither of you wanting the conversation to end, neither of you ready to let the moment dissolve—you’re still wearing the ring. You twist it on your finger during the drive home, feeling its weight, its promise, how it has transformed your hand into one that belongs to someone who chose you, who sees you, who treats you like you deserve.

You should take it off before you go inside. You should remove this evidence of whatever's developing between you and Taesan, should hide this small betrayal—because that's what it is, isn't it? A betrayal. An admission that you've already left in every way that matters, that you're just waiting for your body to catch up with your heart, that the relationship you're physically still in ended weeks ago and you're just now admitting it.

But you don't take it off.

You move the ring to your right hand before slipping into the apartment—plausible deniability, the story you'll tell if he notices and cares enough to question why you're suddenly wearing jewelry he's never seen before. Just a ring you bought for yourself, just something pretty to look at during long days, just a small indulgence that means nothing, signifies nothing, promises nothing.

But you know what it means. You know what it signifies. You know what promise you're keeping even if you haven't spoken it aloud.

You slip into the apartment at 4:25am, moving carefully through the dark, past where he's asleep on the couch again. You don't wake him or announce your arrival. You don't exist loudly enough to disturb his sleep, his peace, his continued ignorance of how thoroughly you've already left him.

You fall asleep with the ring on your hand curled against your chest, protecting this small precious object that feels more honest than anything you've had with the man sleeping ten feet away who's forgotten how to choose you, who's stopped trying to know you, who's decided that tolerating your presence is the same thing as loving you.

[SCENE 005 : INT. READER'S APARTMENT - VARIOUS TIMES]

The ring becomes your talisman after that night. You wear it every day. Move it to your right hand when you're home, when he might notice, might ask questions you're not ready to answer, might recognize that you've already left him in every way except the literal one. But everywhere else, at work, at the grocery store, walking through the city during your lunch break, you wear it on your left hand. On your ring finger where it belongs.  

The few times he notices—"new ring?"—you deflect with practiced vagueness. Thrift store find. Bought it for yourself. Liked the flowers. He accepts these half-truths without interest, without follow-up questions, without curiosity about your life, your choices or the small ways you're building an exit he's too oblivious to notice.

But the ring matters. The ring changes things in ways that are both invisible and profound.

You touch it when you're anxious, spinning it around your finger like a prayer, like a mantra, like evidence that you're still worth even when the man you live with makes you feel invisible. You look at it during meetings where your boss takes credit for your work, during dinners where your boyfriend scrolls through his phone instead of talking to you, during all the small moments that used to make you feel like you were disappearing and now just make you feel like you're preparing, like you're gathering courage.

The ring grounds you, reminds you that there's a place in this city where you're allowed to fall apart without apologizing for the inconvenience of your humanity. It reminds you that you deserve better than being invisible in your own relationship.

But it doesn't make you leave. Not yet. Not tonight.

You're not ready. Or you're too tired. Or you're still hoping for that irrefutable moment, that undeniable clarity, that final proof that leaving is the only option because staying will kill you.

You don't know that you're a few days away from getting exactly that.

[SCENE 006 : INT. LOU'S DINER - BOOTH SEVEN - 10:52PM - THURSDAY NIGHT]

Lou’s diner wraps around you like a benediction, like coming home after a long exile to find that home has been waiting, has been keeping your place warm and ready for your return. It's 10:52pm, the numbers descending like a countdown to some inevitable conclusion you can feel approaching but can't yet name, can't yet see, can't yet brace yourself for.

The bell chimes your arrival. Taesan looks up from where he's been wiping down the counter. His face softens, opens, transforms from the professional mask of service worker into genuine pleasure and relief.

Your coffee is waiting at Booth Seven before you reach it. Blue ceramic, chipped rim, the flaw that makes it yours. Cream already swirled in hypnotic patterns. Two sugars dissolved into sweetness. The ritual has transcended routine and become sacrament, the most reliable thing in your life besides your own heartbeat.

Taesan slides into the booth across from you with the fluid grace of inevitability. He doesn't ask anymore. He hasn't needed to for weeks. This is where he belongs now, across from you in Booth Seven, bearing witness to your unraveling, holding space for your pain without trying to fix it, just being present while you fall apart in the only place that feels safe enough for falling apart.

"Lotus, you look exhausted," he says quietly, and there's no judgment or accusation in it, just the gentle observation of someone who's learned to read you like weather, who can tell by the set of your shoulders how close to breaking you are, who can gauge by the shadows under your eyes how many hours you've spent staring at the ceiling trying to figure out when your life became unlivable, when the relationship you thought would save you became the thing you need saving from.

"I am exhausted." Your voice comes out thinner than you'd like, worn down to nothing. "I'm so tired of pretending. Of performing. Of waking up every morning and putting on a version of myself that fits into someone else's idea of acceptable, tolerable, not-too-much."

Taesan watches you with those dark eyes that see too much, that understand things about you that you're still figuring out yourself, that look at you like you're a language he's learned to speak fluently, like he's memorized your grammar, your syntax, all the ways you construct meaning from pain.

"Can I ask you a question?" His voice is careful, like he knows this conversation has weight, consequences, the potential to change everything or nothing depending on how you answer, how ready you are, how much truth you can handle tonight.

"You can ask me anything." You mean it. He's earned that right. He has earned access to your unfiltered thoughts through weeks of holding space, through countless hours of listening without trying to solve, through the simple radical act of treating you like you matter.

"What would it take?" He leans forward slightly, forearms resting on the table, hands curved around his own mug, and his entire body language communicates focus, attention, presence. "For you to leave, for you to finally choose yourself. What would have to happen?"

The question lands in your chest like a stone dropped into a well, sinking through layers of defense and denial before hitting bottom with a dull thud that reverberates through your entire body. You knew he'd ask eventually. You have been circling this conversation for weeks, acknowledging its inevitability without being ready for it, knowing it would arrive without knowing when.

"I don't know." The admission tastes like failure, like all the ways you've disappointed yourself, like proof that you're exactly as weak as you've feared, as cowardly as you've suspected, as broken as he's implied. “I keep thinking I need a reason, like it’s not enough to just be unhappy, lonely, or tired of being with someone who makes me feel optional. I have to justify it—because he’s not cruel, not terrible, just… indifferent. I’m there, but I don’t matter. I’m convenient, not chosen.”

"Unhappiness is a reason."

"Is it?" You meet his eyes and there's desperation in your voice, raw and undefended. "What if I leave and everyone thinks I didn't try hard enough? What if they think I was too demanding, too needy, too quick to give up when things got difficult? What if I leave and spend the rest of my life wondering if I was the problem, if I could have made it work if I'd just been better—quieter, smaller, less? What if everyone's right and I am too much, and I ruin this the same way I ruined that, and the common denominator is me, is my fundamental inability to be loved because I'm just constitutionally unlovable?"

"What if you leave and find out you were never the problem?" Taesan's voice cuts through your spiral with the precision of a scalpel, clean, sharp, necessary. "What if you leave and discover that you're actually easy to love when someone's willing to put in the effort? What if the only thing wrong with you is that you've been trying to bloom in concrete, and you've been blaming yourself for wilting in conditions where even weeds can't survive?"

You touch the ring on your left hand—here, at the diner, it lives where it belongs. "I think I need proof, some moment of clarity so profound I can't deny it, can't rationalize it away, can't convince myself to stay just a little longer. I need evidence that I'm not imagining it, that the relationship really is as dead as it feels, that I'm not just being dramatic, difficult or unreasonable."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Some final betrayal. Some line crossed that can't be uncrossed. Some moment where I look at him and realize I don't even know who he is anymore—or worse, realize I never knew him at all, that I fell in love with potential, with a projection, with the person I hoped he'd become instead of the person he actually is."

Taesan is quiet for a long moment. He's thinking, processing, weighing his words with the care of someone who understands that what he says next could shape your trajectory, could influence your choices, could be the thing you remember months from now when you're trying to figure out how you got from here to wherever you end up.

"I hope you get your clarity," he says finally, voice low, careful. "But I also hope you don't need it. I hope you wake up one morning and realize that being unhappy is reason enough. You don't need his permission, his betrayal or some dramatic final act to justify choosing yourself, to justify walking away from something that's killing you, to justify saving your own life when drowning has become your default state."

"What if I'm too much of a coward to leave without one?"

His hand moves across the table and settles over yours, warm and solid. “Then you’re exactly like everyone else who’s ever stayed in a place that hurt them because leaving seemed harder, scarier, like admitting failure when staying felt like proof you were still trying, still hopeful, still capable of love even when the person you’re loving has forgotten how to love you back.”

His thumb brushes across your knuckles, across the ring, and the touch is both innocent and intimate, charged with everything neither of you has said yet, with all the wanting you've been trying to suppress. "But Lotus, when it comes, that clarity you're waiting for, that proof you think you need, promise me you'll listen to it. Promise me you won't talk yourself out of it. Promise me you won't let him convince you that you're overreacting, that you're imagining things, that you're the problem when he's the one who broke what you built together, when he's the one who decided you weren't worth the effort of really showing up for."

"I promise," you whisper, and you mean it even though you don't know yet what you're promising, what clarity looks like, what proof will be enough to overcome four years of inertia, of sunk cost, of the persistent belief that giving up makes you a failure, that walking away makes you weak, that leaving means admitting you were wrong to stay as long as you did.

You don't know you're just hours away from having to keep that promise.

[SCENE 007 : INT. READER'S APARTMENT - 11:34 PM - SATURDAY NIGHT]

Saturday night, and you're not at Lou's.

This feels wrong, like a betrayal of yourself, of the routine you've built. Your body is protesting the disruption—anxiety humming through your nervous system, restlessness making your skin feel too tight, the discomfort of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of existing where you don't belong when you know exactly where you do belong, where you should be, where someone is probably waiting for you even though you're not coming.

But he'd asked you to stay home tonight. He didn’t demand, expect, or assume—asked. "Can you stay in tonight? Watch a movie like we used to?" And the novelty of him wanting your company, of him initiating connection instead of tolerating your presence, had made you agree before your brain caught up to your mouth, before you remembered that wanting your company and actually enjoying it are two entirely different things, before you recalled that nostalgia for how things used to be doesn't resurrect relationships that have already died, doesn't breathe life back into corpses, doesn't undo months of erosion just because someone suddenly remembers they used to care.

So you'd texted Taesan—"I can't make it tonight, sorry"—and felt physical pain at sending it, at breaking the pattern, at disrupting the one good thing in your life. He'd responded immediately : "Everything okay?" and you'd lied—"Fine, just tired"—because how do you explain that you're choosing the boyfriend who ignores you over the person who actually understands you, that you're still trying to make this work even though trying is killing you, that hope dies hard even when it should die fast, even when keeping it alive requires ignoring reality, requires willful blindness, requires pretending that one movie night can undo months of neglect.

The movie he'd chosen is playing on the TV. Some action movie, explosions, car chases and a plot you stopped following twenty minutes ago when you realized he's not watching either. He's on his phone scrolling, not even pretending to pay attention or even maintaining the fiction that this is togetherness, that this is quality time, that this is the relationship resurrection he'd implied when he asked you to stay.

You're on opposite ends of the couch. Miles apart. It might as well be in different countries for all the connection happening between you. This is what you were nostalgic for, apparently. This is what you used to do together. This performance of proximity without actual connection, of sharing physical space while occupying completely different emotional dimensions, of being in the same room while being utterly, devastatingly alone.

Your phone buzzes. A text from Taesan : "Booth seven misses you, Lotus. So do I. Come by if you change your mind. I'll be here."

You read it several times and feel your chest constrict with want, with longing, with the desire to be anywhere except here, to be with anyone except him, to stop pretending this is enough when it's not enough, has never been enough, will never be enough no matter how hard you try to convince yourself that relationships require compromise, that love fades into comfortable companionship. 

You touch the ring—on your right hand now, moved before you came home, hidden in plain sight. You spin it once, twice, three times. Your talisman. Your anchor. Your reminder that you deserve better than this, that someone exists who thinks you're worth paying attention to, that there's a booth in a diner where you're allowed to be fully yourself without apology.

"I'm going to take a shower," he announces suddenly. He's standing, stretching, phone clutched in his hand like it's an organ he can't function without. The movie is still playing. You're not even halfway through. This is what he meant by watching a movie together, performing interest for forty-five minutes before abandoning you entirely for bathroom, bedroom, anywhere you're not.

"Okay," you say. Your voice is flat. You're too tired to feel disappointed. Disappointment requires expectations, and you've learned to stop expecting anything from him except the bare minimum.

He disappears into the bathroom. Water starts running, and there, on the coffee table a few feet away, abandoned in his haste to escape your presence—his phone.

He never leaves his phone unattended. He guards it like it contains classified information. He takes it to the bathroom, to bed, to the kitchen when he's making midnight ramen. It lives in his hand, in his pocket, always within reach, always monitored, always commanding more attention than you do, more care than you receive, more of his focus than your entire relationship.

But tonight, in his rush to get away from you, he's forgotten it.

It's face-up on the table. The screen is bright, unlocked.

You should look away and respect his privacy. You’re the bigger person, the person who doesn't violate boundaries even when boundaries have been violating you for months, even when you've been slowly erased from your own relationship while he's been having a whole separate life on that phone, in that device, in the digital space he guards so carefully.

But you don't look away.

You can't look away.

Because the screen lights up with a notification, and you see it before you can decide whether seeing it is a choice or an accident, before you can determine if looking is a violation or self-preservation.

"I can't wait to see you tomorrow. Last night was incredible. You're incredible."

The world doesn't shatter all at once.

It fractures, splinters, cracks along fault lines you didn't know existed but can suddenly see with perfect clarity, like ice during spring thaw, revealing itself to be fragile, temporary, breakable.

Your hands reach for the phone before your brain authorizes the movement. The body acting while the mind is still processing, still trying to make sense of words that don't make sense, that can't mean what they seem to mean, that must have some other explanation because the alternative is unthinkable, unbearable, the confirmation of every suspicion you've been suppressing, every intuition you've been ignoring, every small voice that's been whispering that something is wrong, that you're not imagining it, that your reality is exactly as bad as it feels.

You unlock his phone, you know the passcode, he's never hidden it because he's never thought you'd look, has never considered you capable of distrust, of suspicion, of the kind of violation he's apparently been committing for god knows how long.

You open the messages and scroll up. You read backwards through a conversation that makes nausea rise in your throat, makes your hands shake, makes you understand with horrifying clarity that you've been living in a lie, performing a relationship that ended long before you realized it was over.

The messages go back weeks. Six weeks of "I can't stop thinking about you" and "You make me feel alive" and "Last night was perfect" and "I've never felt this way before"—all the things he used to say to you in the beginning, before you became furniture, invisible, the person he lives with instead of the person he loves.

Six weeks.

You've been going to Lou's for six weeks. You've been wearing Taesan's ring for two weeks. You've been building an exit for six weeks while he's been building a new relationship, a new life, a new future that doesn't include you except as the obstacle he hasn't worked up the energy to remove yet, the inconvenience he's tolerating until he figures out how to untangle your lives without too much effort, without too much disruption to his comfort.

There are pictures of someone's hand holding coffee, pictures of a restaurant you've never been to, pictures that suggest dates, outings, a whole separate life he's been living while you've been home doing his dishes, paying his bills, maintaining the apartment he treats like a hotel, performing the role you’ve been assigned to while he's been auditioning for a new show, testing out a replacement, seeing if someone else might be easier, less complicated, more worth the effort you've apparently stopped being worth.

The bathroom door opens. He emerges in sweatpants, toweling his hair dry, and stops dead when he sees you and what you're holding. He sees your face, which must be doing things you can't control—shock bleeding into comprehension, devastation, rage, all the emotions you've kept locked down for four years exploding across your features in ways that must be visible, must be impossible to ignore even for someone who's perfected the art of not seeing you.

"What are you doing?" His voice is sharp, accusatory, offended. He's the one being violated, apparently. He's the victim here. Never mind the six weeks of lying, cheating, letting you destroy yourself trying to save a relationship he'd already abandoned. Never mind that you've been performing CPR on a corpse while he's been out finding someone more alive, more interesting, more worth his time.

"Who have you been texting?" Your voice doesn't sound like yours. It's too calm, steady, controlled. You're in shock, you realize distantly. Your body has activated emergency protocols, has shut down non-essential systems to focus on survival, has decided that falling apart right now isn't an option so it's keeping you functional through sheer force of will, through the animal instinct to stay upright when everything in you wants to collapse.

His face cycles through expressions, surprise, panic, calculation, defensiveness, before settling on anger. Of course anger. Of course he makes this your fault. The best defense is a good offense, and he's been defending himself for six weeks, has been protecting his secret, has been lying to your face while you've been trying to figure out why the relationship feels dead, why you feel crazy, why your chest tightens with the quiet certainty that something’s off, even as he shrugs, insists everything’s fine and makes you feel foolish for noticing the cracks.

"You went through my phone?" He's incredulous, outraged, playing the victim with practiced ease. "You violated my privacy? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" The laugh that escapes is ugly, jagged, serrated enough to draw blood. "I'm not the one who's been cheating. I'm not the one who's been lying. I'm not the one who asked their girlfriend to stay home tonight so they could feel less guilty about fucking someone else, so they could pretend they tried, so they could tell themselves they made an effort before completely abandoning ship."

"Don't—"

"Don't what?" You're standing now though you don't remember moving, don't remember crossing the distance between the couch and where he's standing. "Don't what? Don't confront you? Don't ask questions? Don't be upset that you've been lying to my face for six weeks? Don't have feelings about the fact that I've been trying to fix our relationship while you've been building a new one?"

Your voice is rising, volume increasing with each word, four years of swallowed anger finally finding its way out, finally being given permission to exist. "I've been destroying myself trying to figure out what's wrong with me, why I'm not enough, why you stopped loving me, and the whole fucking time it wasn't me—it was you. You checked out. You gave up. You found someone else. And you didn't even have the decency to tell me, to break up with me, to let me go so I could stop wasting my time on someone who doesn't want me."

"You're being dramatic—"

"I'm being dramatic?" The words come out like weapons, every ounce of pain you've been suppressing condensed into syllables. "I'm being dramatic because I'm upset that you've been cheating on me? That you've been letting me think I'm crazy, that I'm imagining the distance, that I'm the problem?"

"It's not like that—"

"Then what is it like?!" You shove the phone at him, messages still open, evidence still glowing. "Explain it to me! Make it make sense! Tell me how six weeks of 'you're incredible' and 'last night was perfect' is something I'm misinterpreting, misunderstanding, blowing out of proportion!"

He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. He's calculating, trying to figure out which lie will work, which excuse will stick, which version of events will make him the victim and you the villain, will flip the script so he's the one who deserves sympathy, who's justified in his betrayal.

"It just happened," he finally says, and the cliché of it, the absolute predictability of it, makes you want to scream, laugh, cry. "I didn't mean for it to happen. It's not serious. It doesn't mean anything—"

“It means everything!” Your voice breaks on the word. The dam is cracking, composure fracturing, all that pain you’ve been holding back forcing its way through the fissures, through every weak point in your defenses.

“It means you checked out of this relationship months ago and didn’t tell me! It means you let me keep trying to fix what you’d already decided was broken beyond repair! It means every time I asked if we were okay and you said yes, you were lying! Every time I tried to talk about us and you told me I was overthinking, you were lying! Every time I felt crazy, felt like you didn’t love me anymore—” your voice cracks again, raw and hoarse— “I was right, and you made me believe I was losing my mind.”

Tears are streaming down your face now. You're not crying delicately or pretty. You're sobbing, gasping, breaking apart while he stands there watching with what might be guilt, annoyance, the mild discomfort of someone who's been caught and is trying to figure out how to minimize the consequences.

"Four years," you choke out through tears. "Four years I gave you. Four years of trying to be enough, of making myself smaller, of swallowing my needs, of apologizing for existing. Four years of being treated like I'm optional, like I'm convenient, like I'm lucky you tolerate me at all. And you couldn't even—" Your voice breaks completely. "You couldn't even break up with me first! You couldn't even give me that dignity! You had to cheat, you had to make me the idiot who didn't know, who couldn't see what was right in front of her, who kept trying to save a relationship you'd already left!”

"I didn't mean to hurt you—"

"But you did!" The words are barely audible. You're crying so hard you can barely breathe, speak, stand. "You did hurt me! You ARE hurting me! You've been hurting me for months and I kept blaming myself, kept thinking I was the problem, kept believing that if I could just be better, quieter, less needy, more understanding, then maybe you'd love me again! But you can't love someone you're already replacing. You can't love someone when you've been auditioning for their replacement for six weeks!”

You're spiraling now, words pouring out faster than you can process them, four years of accumulated pain finding expression after years of being suppressed, swallowed, silenced. Your chest heaves with sobs that feel like they're tearing you apart from the inside, like your ribcage is cracking open, each piece of yourself that's been held together finally admitting that you can't hold this together anymore, that you've been shattered for months and just didn't have permission to fall apart until now.

"I can't do this," you hear yourself say, voice raw. "I can't—I can't be here. I can't look at you. I can't—"

You're moving before you finish the sentence, grabbing your phone from where it's been buzzing insistently on the coffee table. Your wallet. Not your keys—you don't need keys, don't need your car, can't drive anyway when you can barely see through tears, when your hands are shaking so badly you can't grip anything properly. Just getting out before you suffocate, before you do something you'll regret like beg him to choose you and give him the satisfaction of seeing exactly how thoroughly he's destroyed you.

"Wait—" He's reaching for you, but you're already at the door, yanking it open, stumbling into the hallway where the lights are too bright, too harsh, too revealing of what you must look like—face blotchy, eyes swollen, makeup destroyed by tears, looking exactly like what you are : a woman who's just had her life implode, who's just discovered that everything she believed was built on lies.

You take the stairs instead of the elevator because you can't stand still, can't be trapped in a small box with your thoughts, can't stop moving or you'll collapse completely. Your legs are shaking. Your hands are trembling so badly you can barely grip the railing. You're still crying—huge, gasping sobs that echo in the stairwell, that probably wake the neighbors, that you can't control, suppress, or stop.

You burst out into the night and the cold hits you. You didn't grab a heavy enough jacket. You don't have gloves, but you don't care. The cold is good. The cold is clarifying. The cold is proof that you're still alive even though you feel like you're dying.

You start walking. No destination, no plan, just away. Away from the apartment, away from him, away from four years of lies rendered undeniable. Your phone buzzes constantly in your pocket—him calling, probably, preparing his excuses, explanations, justifications for why this isn't as bad as it seems, why you're overreacting, why he deserves forgiveness, why you should give him another chance.

You silence it. Keep walking. Block after block after block, through neighborhoods that blur together, through streets you know and don't recognize because tears keep distorting your vision, because your entire world has tilted on its axis and nothing looks the same anymore. 

Hours pass. You don't know how long you’ve walked. Time has lost meaning. Twenty minutes or two hours, you can't tell, can't orient yourself in the timeline of your own devastation. Your feet are numb. Your face is numb from cold and crying. Your lungs burn with each breath of frozen air.

Eventually, finally, you can't walk anymore. Your legs threaten to give out. You're shivering so violently your teeth are chattering. You've walked far enough that you don't recognize where you are, far enough that the city has thinned out, transformed from dense urban core into these transitional spaces that are neither city nor suburb but somewhere in between.

You stop on a corner, trying to orient yourself, trying to figure out where you are, where you're going, what you're supposed to do now. The streets are too quiet, too empty, too dark. There are no cabs here, no late-night traffic, no signs of life except the distant glow of the city behind you and the occasional car passing without stopping.

Your phone is dying. You realize this when you pull it out with shaking hands, when you see the screen dark, lifeless, drained, when you understand with dawning panic that you're lost in a part of Chicago you don't know with almost no way to navigate, to call anyone, to get help, to be reached even if someone is trying to reach you. 

Panic rises in your chest. You're lost in a part of Chicago you don't know with no way to figure out where you are, no way to get home—not that you want to go home, not that home exists anymore when home was a lie.

You're still crying. You've cried so much you should be empty by now, should have run out of tears, should have reached the bottom of your grief. But it keeps coming. Wave after wave. Grief for the relationship that wasn't what you thought it was. Grief for the four years you spent trying to be enough for someone who'd decided you weren't worth the effort. Grief for the person you were before this, who believed in love, who believed in trying, who believed that if you just worked hard enough you could make anything work.

You look down at your left hand. The ring is still there. Taesan's grandmother's ring. The lotus flowers catch light from the streetlamp and scatter it, create small bright moments in the darkness, small proof that beauty still exists even when your world is ending, that someone thought you were worth choosing even when the person you chose has been unchoosing you for months.

And suddenly you know where you need to go, where you need to be, who you need to see.

You look up and try to orient yourself. Two blocks up on the right, like fate or coincidence or the universe taking pity—a phone booth.

You didn't know they still existed. You thought they were relics from before cell phones made them obsolete, artifacts from a different era, museum pieces that had been removed from the landscape of modern life. But there it is under a streetlight, glass panels intact, the phone visible inside, waiting like it knew you'd need it.

You move towards it on legs that barely work, on feet that have gone numb from cold and walking, on the last reserves of energy you have left. Each step feels impossible, each movement requiring conscious effort, but you make it, stumbling, shaking, barely upright, to the phone booth that's somehow still standing, still functional, still here when everything else has failed.

You pull open the door. It sticks, requires effort, but finally gives. Inside, the phone is still functional. Coin-operated but also, you discover with relief so profound it makes you dizzy, able to make collect calls, able to connect to an operator who can place the call for you, who can bill it to the receiving number if they accept the charges.

You pick up the receiver. It's cold against your ear. Your hands are shaking so badly you can barely hold it, can barely punch in the numbers, can barely make your fingers cooperate with your brain's instructions.

But you know the number. You have it memorized even though you've never called it, have never needed to call it because you've always just shown up, have always just appeared at Lou's knowing Taesan would be there, knowing your coffee would be ready, knowing Booth Seven would be waiting.

You know it because you’ve seen it on receipts, on to-go cups, on the business cards by the register. Some part of you memorized it without meaning to, saving it for this moment, when there’s nowhere else to go, no one else to call. When it’s the only number that matters, the only voice that could help you remember how to breathe.

The phone rings. Once. Twice. Each ring feels like an eternity, like the pause between lightning and thunder where you're waiting for impact, for sound, for confirmation that the storm has arrived.

Three rings.

What if he doesn't answer? What if the diner's too busy? What if he's dealing with other customers, other people who need him more than you do, who deserve his attention more than you do, who aren't calling him in the middle of the night crying, broken and completely falling apart?

Four rings.

Please. Please pick up. Please be there. Please—

"Lou's Diner. This is Taesan speaking, how may I help you?" His voice. Taesan's voice, warm, familiar and safe, the sound of it hitting you with relief, like coming home after being lost, like being found when you'd given up hope of anyone looking for you.

You open your mouth to speak but nothing comes out except a sob, raw and ugly, the sound of someone breaking, someone who's been holding together and has finally been given permission to fall apart.

"Hello?" Taesan again, concern creeping into his voice. "Is someone there?"

"Taesan." It comes out broken, barely recognizable as his name or language. You're crying too hard to speak properly, to form words, to do anything except gasp out his name like a prayer, a plea, the only word that matters.

"Lotus?" Immediate recognition, his voice sharpens, focuses, transforms from professional to personal in a single syllable. "Lotus, what's wrong? Where are you? Are you safe?"

"He cheated." Two words. That's all you can manage. Two words that contain four years of pain, six weeks of lies, a lifetime of learning that the person you chose didn't choose you back. "He cheated."

Silence on the other end, the silence of someone absorbing information, processing, understanding immediately what those two words mean, what they cost you to say, what they represent—not just infidelity but the final proof you said you needed, the irrefutable evidence, the moment of clarity so profound you can't deny it, can't rationalize it away, can't convince yourself to stay.

"Where are you?" His voice is steady—everything you're not right now, everything you need him to be. "Tell me where you are and I'll come get you."

"I don't know." You're sobbing again, gasping, barely able to speak through tears. "I don't know where I am. I've been walking for hours, my phone is dead, I'm lost and I don't know—I don't know—"

“Okay. It’s okay.” You hear movement, diner sounds shifting as he moves, keys, jacket, footsteps. He’s already coming for you, already choosing you, already proving you were right to call. “Stay on the line. Don’t hang up. Do you see any street signs? Landmarks? Anything that tells you where you are?”

You turn, phone cord stretching as you peer through the glass panels of the phone booth into darkness broken by streetlights. There—across the street—a sign. "Ashland Avenue," you read, voice shaking. "And… I can't see the other sign. There's a closed gas station on the corner."

"Ashland. Okay. North or south? Can you tell?"

You have no idea. You have no sense of direction right now, no ability to orient yourself, no capacity for navigation when your entire world has tilted. "I don't know."

"That's okay. I know where you are. There's only one closed gas station on Ashland with a phone booth nearby. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Can you wait twenty minutes? Can you stay there?"

"Yes." It comes out as a whimper, as someone who's lost, scared and desperate to be found. "Yes, I can wait. I can—" Your voice breaks again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know you're working, I know you can't just leave, I shouldn't have called, I just—I didn't know who else—"

"Stop." His voice is firm but gentle. The voice of someone who won't let you apologize for needing help, for reaching out, for choosing to call him when you were drowning instead of letting yourself go under alone. "Don't ever apologize for calling me. I'm closing the diner. I'm already in my car. I'm coming to get you. Just stay where you are. Stay on the phone with me if you can. Talk to me. Tell me what happened."

You tell him everything—finding the messages, the confrontation, the way four years collapsed in the space between one breath and the next, the way you'd been right all along but being right doesn't make it hurt less, being right just means you've been living in a lie for months while he built a new life with someone else.

The words spill out in fragments, raw, broken, unprocessed. You’re crying the whole time, gasping between sentences, barely coherent. But Taesan just listens. He doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t try to fix it or make it smaller. He stays on the line, steady and quiet, bearing witness to your pain without rushing you towards okay.

"I can see you," he says finally, and you look up through tear-blurred vision to see headlights approaching, to see a car pulling up to the curb, to see Taesan getting out and moving towards the phone booth with a focused intensity that makes your chest tight because you've never had someone move towards you like you're worth hurrying for.

"I'm here," he says, voice coming through both the phone and through the glass panels of the booth. "I'm right here. You can hang up now."

You replace the receiver with shaking hands and stand there for a moment with your hand still on it, using it as an anchor, as something to hold onto because if you let go you'll collapse completely.

The phone booth door opens. Taesan is there, and the sight of him makes your chest ache more—grief and relief in equal measure, pain and comfort existing simultaneously, the devastation of everything you've lost and the fragile hope of being found.

He doesn’t say anything, he doesn't ask if you’re okay or make you explain. He just steps into the booth, small, too intimate, close enough that you can see his face and the worry in his eyes.

"Come here," he says quietly, and opens his arms.

You fall into him before the invitation is fully extended. You collapse against his chest and break apart completely, finally letting go of every last shred of composure you've been clinging to. You sob into his shirt, making sounds you've never made before, didn't know you were capable of, coming from the deepest places of grief, from the parts of you that have been dying for months and are only now being given permission to mourn.

Taesan holds you. He doesn’t flinch from your breakdown or pull away when you soak his shirt with tears. He just holds you steady while you fall apart, one hand cradling your head, the other around your waist, pulling you close until you can feel his heartbeat against your cheek.

"I've got you," he murmurs into your hair. "I've got you. You're safe. You're okay. I've got you."

Time blurs. Five minutes or an hour, you don’t know. You just exist in his arms, in the sound of his heartbeat, in the warmth of his hand in your hair. Nothing else matters, not the cold, not the late hour, not the city sleeping around you.

Eventually, your crying slows. You pull back, and his face softens even more—so gentle it hurts. “Let’s get you somewhere warm,” he murmurs. You nod, too raw for words, too tired to do anything but let him guide you. He keeps an arm around you as you walk, steadying you when your knees nearly buckle. He opens the car door and helps you in.

The car is warm. He must’ve left the heat running. You sink into the seat and only now feel how cold you’d been, how long you’d been shivering, how numb you were until this moment of thawing, of finally letting yourself breathe again.

Taesan slides into the driver's seat. He doesn't start the car immediately, just sits there looking at you with an expression you can't quite read, concern mixed with what might be anger on your behalf, might be protective fury at the man who hurt you, might be the barely restrained desire to drive to your apartment and confront him, make him understand what he's done, make him pay for the devastation he's caused.

"Are you hurt?" he asks quietly. "Did he—did he hurt you physically?"

You shake your head. "No. No, just—" You gesture vaguely at yourself, at your tear-stained face, at your emotional wreckage, at all the ways you're destroyed that don't show up as bruises. "Just this."

He nods slowly. His jaw is tight. His hands grip the steering wheel like he's trying to break it, like he needs something to hold onto that isn't you, like if he touches you again right now he might not be able to maintain the careful control he's exercising.

"Do you want to go to your friend's place?" His voice is carefully neutral, carefully offering options without pressure. "I can take you anywhere you need to go."

"I don't—" Your voice cracks again. "I don't want to show up like this. I don't want to wake anyone. I don't want to—" You can't finish the sentence or articulate that you don't want to be a burden, don't want to impose your breakdown on anyone else's peace.

"Okay." He's quiet for a moment, thinking, deciding. "Then come to the diner. Come sit in Booth Seven. Let me make you coffee. Let me—let me just be there. You don't have to talk. You don't have to do anything. Just come be somewhere that's not here, somewhere that's not a phone booth on Ashland, somewhere that's yours."

Yours. Booth Seven is yours. It has been yours since that first night. You'd known it then without being able to name it, had felt it in the way the booth fit you, in how Taesan had looked at you, in how you'd been able to breathe there when you couldn't breathe anywhere else.

"Okay," you whisper. "Take me to Lou's."

[SCENE 008 : INT. LOU'S DINER - BOOTH SEVEN - 2:36AM]

The diner is completely empty when you arrive. Taesan had closed it early to come find you, had locked the doors, turned off the open sign, abandoned his shift, his responsibility and his job for you, for the sound of you crying on the phone, for the knowledge that you needed him.

He unlocks the door. The bell chimes your entrance, and the sound makes fresh tears well up because this is the sound of arriving somewhere safe, of crossing the threshold from chaos into sanctuary. The diner looks exactly the same as it always does—same chrome counter, same red vinyl booths, same black and white checkered floor, same warm yellow light that makes everything feel softer, kinder, more forgiving.

Taesan doesn't guide you to Booth Seven. He doesn't need to. Your body knows where to go, moves on autopilot, carries you across the familiar floor to the familiar booth where you've spent so many midnights learning how to breathe again, learning that you deserve better, learning that being seen is possible even when you've spent years being invisible.

You slide in. The booth wraps around you like an embrace, familiar, comfortable and yours, and you feel yourself relax incrementally, feel some of the tension drain from your shoulders even though the pain remains, even though your heart is still breaking, even though your entire life just imploded and you have no idea what happens next.

Taesan disappears behind the counter. You hear him moving through his routine—coffee being made, cups clinking, water running. The sounds are soothing in their familiarity even when everything else is falling apart, that there are still rituals to perform, still patterns to follow, still small reliable things in a world that's revealed itself to be unreliable.

He returns with your coffee. Blue mug. Cream. Two sugars. Exactly how you take it, exactly how he’s memorized it. He sets it down gently, then slides into the booth across from you, hands wrapped around his own mug, and just waits. He gives you space. The rare kindness of not having to explain yourself.

You wrap your hands around the mug, letting the heat thaw your fingers. The first sip spreads warmth through your chest, chasing out the cold that’s been living in you far too long. It tastes the same as always, good, steady, comforting.

“Thank you,” you whisper, voice raw. “For coming to get me. For bringing me here. For… everything.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” His voice is soft, deliberate, like he knows how close you are to breaking again. “You called. I came. That’s what—” He pauses. “That’s what you do for people you care about.”

People you care about. The words hang between you, too small for what they mean, for what’s been building for weeks but never spoken, never allowed to be real while you were still bound to someone else, even if only in name.

"Tell me what you need," Taesan says quietly. "Tell me how I can help."

"Just—" Your voice breaks. "Just be here. Just don't leave."

"I'm not going anywhere." It's a promise. A vow. "I'll be here as long as you need me. All night if that's what it takes. All week. However long."

You believe him. That's the astonishing part—you actually believe him, that he'll stay, that he won't get tired of your pain or grief, won't decide you're too much and leave like everyone else has left, like your boyfriend left, like you've been left over and over until you learned to leave yourself first, learned to shrink before being shrunk, learned to disappear before being disappeared.

"He's been cheating on me for six weeks," you say, voice hollow.

Taesan's expression darkens. His jaw clenches. His hands tighten around his mug and you watch his knuckles go white, watch him physically restraining himself from—what? Hitting something? Driving to your apartment and confronting him? You don't know, but you can see the anger, the protective fury on your behalf, the barely contained rage at someone who hurt you, who lied to you, who made you feel crazy when you were seeing the truth.

“Six weeks,” you say, and once you start, you can’t stop. The words pour out because keeping them in will kill you. “I’ve been coming here for six weeks. Wearing your ring for two. Trying to fix us for months. And the whole time—he was already gone. He just let me keep trying, keep destroying myself over something he’d already decided was dead. Let me feel crazy. Let me think I was imagining the distance, that I was the problem.”

Your voice climbs higher, sharper, the pain cutting through every word. “He let me think I was the reason. That if I was better—quieter, less needy, more patient—he’d love me again. That I was too much, too difficult, unlovable. But it wasn’t me—it was him. He checked out. He gave up. He found someone else. And he couldn’t even be honest about it. He couldn’t give me the dignity of an ending. I had to find out by going through his phone like some paranoid girlfriend—”

“Stop.” Taesan’s voice cuts through yours. He reaches across the table and takes your hand—firm, steady, unshakable. “You’re not paranoid. You’re not dramatic. You’re not what he made you believe you are. You had instincts. You knew something was wrong—and you were right. Trusting yourself isn’t paranoia. It’s survival.”

His eyes are blazing now, intense in ways you've never seen before. "He's the problem. He's always been the problem. Not you. Never you. You're not too much—he's not enough. You're not unlovable—he's incapable of loving anyone beyond himself. You're not defective—he's defective for making you believe you were."

The words land like truth hammered into you, like everything you've needed to hear for months finally being said out loud by someone who believes it.

"You deserve better than this," Taesan continues, his voice quieter now but no less intense. "You deserve better than someone who lies to your face. Better than someone who makes you feel crazy for having accurate intuition. Better than someone who lets you try to save a relationship he's already abandoned. Better than someone who treats you like you're an afterthought, like you're optional, like you're lucky he tolerates you when the truth is he should feel lucky every single day that you chose him, that you loved him, that you gave him four years of trying when he couldn't be bothered to try for four minutes."

Tears are streaming down your face again but they're not the jagged, gasping sobs from before, it's more like release than breakdown, more like relief than devastation, because he sees what happened. He sees that you weren't imagining it, that you weren't the problem, that you were drowning and the person who was supposed to save you was the one holding you underwater.

"I'm so tired," you whisper, and it's not just physical exhaustion—though you are exhausted. It's existential exhaustion. The accumulated weight of four years spent trying to be enough for someone who'd decided you weren't worth the effort. 

"Then rest," Taesan says simply. "Close your eyes. I'll be here when you wake up."

The permission of it breaks something in you that's still trying to hold together, still trying to be strong, still trying to maintain some semblance of composure. You feel yourself crumbling further, feel the last of your defenses dissolving, feel yourself giving in to the exhaustion that's been accumulating for months.

You shift in the booth, drawing your legs up onto the vinyl seat, curling into yourself. Your head finds the wall, the cool surface against your temple grounding in its solidity, in its refusal to yield. You pull your jacket tighter around yourself—inadequate warmth, but better than nothing, better than the cold that's been living in your bones for hours.

Your eyes are already closing. You're too tired to fight it, too depleted to maintain consciousness, too empty to do anything except surrender to the pull of sleep, the promise of temporary oblivion, the mercy of a few hours where you don't have to think about what happened, what comes next, how you're supposed to survive this.

The last thing you're aware of before sleep takes you is the warmth of Taesan's hand still covering yours, still holding on, still anchoring you even as you drift away.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

As Taesan watches you sleep, his heart twists in ways he doesn’t understand, caught between ache and awe, between the pain of wanting and the peace of simply having you near.

You look smaller in sleep. All the careful composure you maintain while conscious has dissolved, leaving behind only vulnerability, only the raw truth of someone who's been shattered and is trying to figure out how to exist in pieces. Your face is still blotchy from crying, makeup smeared, eyes swollen, but the sight of you still makes his chest ache with tenderness, with the overwhelming desire to keep you safe from anything else that might hurt you, anyone else who might make you feel like you're too much. 

Your left hand is still on the table between you. His hand is still covering it, still holding it, still maintaining contact even though you're unconscious, even though you won't know if he lets go, even though he could pull away and you wouldn't remember.

But he doesn't pull away.

He shifts his hand slightly, adjusting his position so he can hold yours more comfortably, so he can maintain this connection for however long you sleep. His thumb finds the ring on your finger—his grandmother's ring, the one he'd given you weeks ago, the one you've been wearing every day since.

He traces the lotus flowers etched into the silver with the pad of his thumb, feeling each delicate petal, each careful detail that his grandmother's hands had touched, worn, loved. The ring has history, it's traveled from his grandmother's hand to his keeping to your finger, carrying with it the weight of promises, choosing, the kind of love that shows up every day in the smallest ways.

Watching you wear it has been torture and joy in equal measure. Torture because you weren't his, weren't free, weren't available to want even though he wanted you with an intensity that terrified him, that made him lie awake during the day when he should be sleeping, that made him count hours until you'd arrive at Lou's each night. Joy because you chose to wear it, chose to keep it on your left hand when you were here, chose to let it remind you that you deserved better, that you were capable of blooming even in darkness.

And now you're free, technically. The relationship that's been killing you is over, ended not by your choice but by his betrayal, by irrefutable proof that you weren't imagining the distance, by evidence so clear you couldn't rationalize it away.

But you’re not ready. He can see that. You’re devastated, shattered, broken open in ways that will take time to heal, time to process, time to recover from. This isn't the moment for confessions, admitting feelings, making this about him when you need it to be about you, when you need space to fall apart without pressure, without expectation, without anyone requiring anything from you except existence.

So he just holds your hand and traces the ring. He watches you sleep and lets himself feel everything he's been suppressing for weeks—the want, the longing, the love that's been growing in the spaces between midnights, in the hours spent talking across Booth Seven's table, in every moment where you looked at him and he felt seen, felt known, felt like he mattered to someone in ways he hadn't mattered to anyone in years.

He loves you. 

He's known it for weeks but hasn't been able to name it, acknowledge it, give voice to it because you weren't his to love, weren't free to be wanted, weren't available to choose him back even if you wanted to.

But now—

No. Not now. Not yet. You need time. You need healing. You need space to figure out who you are when you’re not compressing yourself to fit someone else's expectations, when you’re not measuring your worth by whether someone who doesn't value you decides you’re valuable.

You need to bloom on your own first. You need to remember that you can survive without him or anyone.

He'll wait. He's good at waiting. He has been waiting his whole life for someone to walk into Lou's and make him understand what all the songs were about, what all the stories meant, why people do crazy things like close their diner early and drive across the city to find someone crying in a phone booth, why people give away family heirlooms to strangers who become the most important person in their life in the span of six weeks.

He'll wait because you’re worth waiting for. Because rushing you would be another violation, another person taking from you instead of giving, another relationship built on his needs instead of your readiness.

"The person who wears this ring should know that forever isn't a promise you make once. It's a promise you remake every day in the smallest ways."

This is his small way tonight : holding your hand while you sleep. Tracing the ring you wear. Being here in case you wake up frightened, disoriented, alone. Making sure that when consciousness returns and the devastation rushes back in, you won't be facing it by yourself, won't be drowning without a lifeline, won't be alone in the dark.

His thumb traces the lotus flowers one more time. Each petal carved with precision, care, the attention to detail that comes from love, from someone who understood that beauty requires patience. 

His grandmother would have liked you. She would have seen what he sees—strength disguised as fragility, resilience masquerading as vulnerability, someone who's been bent but not broken, who's been compressed but not destroyed, who's capable of blooming even in the worst conditions if just given water, light, space to unfurl.

The lotus flowers on the ring seem to catch light differently now, seem to bloom and fade with each passing second, with each shallow breath you take in sleep, with each moment that passes in this suspended space between devastation and healing, between ending and beginning, between the life you’re leaving behind and the life you haven't yet imagined.

Bloom for me, he thinks, tracing petals, holding your hand, keeping vigil while you sleeps. Bloom for you. Bloom because you can. Bloom because you deserve to. Bloom because surviving isn't enough, you deserve to thrive, to flourish, to take up all the space you've been denying yourself, to be loud when you've been taught to be quiet, to want when you've been taught to settle, to choose yourself when you've been taught that choosing yourself is selfish.

Bloom.

Your hand twitches in his. Your breathing changes slightly, still asleep, but dreaming, processing, your mind working through trauma even in unconsciousness, even in the mercy of temporary oblivion.

He holds on tighter and anchors you. He keeps you from drifting too far into whatever dark places your subconscious is taking you.

"Don’t worry," he murmurs, so quietly it's almost subvocal, almost prayer instead of speech. "I'm here. You're safe. I've got you, Lotus."

You settle. Your breathing evens out. Whatever nightmare was threatening retreats back into shadow, chased away by his voice, his presence, his hand holding yours.

The clock on the wall ticks towards dawn,  but Taesan doesn't move or let go. He doesn't do anything except sit in Booth Seven holding your hand while you sleep, while you heal, while you begin the slow process of remembering that you’re more than what you've been reduced to, that you’re capable of more than survival, that you deserve everything you’ve been denying yourself.

And he'll help however he can. He will be there however you need. He will hold space, hold your hand, hold you together when you’re falling apart.

He will love you quietly, patiently, without expectation or demand.

He will wait for you to bloom.

[SCENE 009 : INT. LOU'S DINER - BOOTH SEVEN - 6:18AM]

You wake up slowly, consciousness returning in layers, in gradual awareness that pulls you from the mercy of dreamless sleep back into the harsh architecture of your shattered life.

The first thing you register is warmth. A jacket is draped around you. Taesan’s jacket. You recognize his scent, feel the residual heat from his body still clinging to the fabric. He must’ve noticed you shivering in your sleep, must’ve covered you, must’ve given up his own comfort to make sure you had some.

The second thing you notice is light, the soft gray of dawn filtering through the diner windows, painting everything in pale silver. The place looks both familiar and new, like it’s survived the night with you, quietly transforming while the world kept turning, indifferent to your heartbreak but kind enough to offer morning anyway.

And then, the third thing : you’re not alone.

Taesan’s still there, sitting across from you in Booth Seven, his hand still covering yours. He looks exhausted, like he hasn’t slept, like he spent the night keeping vigil, making sure you were okay even when you weren’t awake to know it.

When your eyes meet his, memory comes crashing back, the messages, the fight, the phone booth, the collapse. You want to close your eyes and forget again, but his expression stops you. It softens instantly, how it always does when he looks at you—open, steady, achingly kind. A look that reminds you not everyone leaves, that some people see you drowning and refuse to let you go under alone.

"Hey," he says quietly, voice rough from hours of not using it, from staying silent while you slept, from bearing witness without speaking. "Welcome back, Lotus.”

“You stayed.” It’s an observation, a recognition that he did what he promised, that his words weren’t empty. When he says he’ll be here, he means it. He shows up, follows through, in ways you’ve learned not to expect, in ways that still surprise you, even though reliability is just who he is : someone who keeps promises, honors commitments, treats his word as sacred.

“I stayed.” Simple, factual. Staying was inevitable. Leaving you alone never crossed his mind.

You sit up slowly. Your back is stiff from the vinyl booth. Your face feels swollen and tender from hours of crying. Your mouth tastes terrible. You’re still in yesterday’s clothes, carrying the weight of the fight, the apartment, the life you’ve left behind, trauma lingering in your body long after the moment has passed.

You look like someone whose life just imploded, because it did. Everything you believed about your relationship, your future, your reality, was a lie. He was living a different truth, building a different life, deciding you weren’t worth honesty, respect, or even the decency of being told the truth before you had to find out the worst way possible.

But you're here. You're breathing. You survived the night.

The realization hits you with surprise, recognition that you made it through, that the worst hours have passed, that you're still alive, still capable of sitting up, opening your eyes and continuing to exist even when every cell in your body is screaming that this is too hard, too painful, too much to endure.

"What time is it?" Your voice comes out rough, barely recognizable as yours.

"Almost six-thirty." Taesan glances towards the windows where dawn is still unfolding. "Morning shift arrives soon. You've got a few minutes before the diner starts waking up, before other people arrive and this stops being just ours."

Reality settles over you like gravity reasserting itself, the brief suspension of normal life ending. You have to deal with this now : where to go, what to do, how to extract yourself from an apartment you can’t return to, from a relationship that’s over, from a life that never really fit, that you’ve been forcing yourself into shoes sizes too small.

“I need to call my friend,” you manage, the words tasting like defeat, like admitting you can’t do this alone. “Can I—”

“Use the diner phone.” Taesan’s already moving, already guiding you towards the counter with a hand hovering near your elbow, protective, never presumptuous. “Take your time. There’s no rush.”

The phone behind the counter is old, corded, retro, surviving when everything else has failed. Your hands shake as you lift the receiver, trembling since you woke, since the adrenaline of crisis faded and left only wreckage, the harsh reality that you have to keep living when all you want is to disappear.

You dial a number you know by heart, your best friend, the one who should have been your first call, who would have come immediately, held you while you fell apart, and reminded you that love shouldn’t feel like drowning.

She answers on the second ring, voice groggy, confused, thick with sleep. "Hello?"

"It's me." Your voice cracks immediately, betrays you, reveals everything—the crying, the devastation, the complete collapse of your carefully maintained composure. "I'm sorry to call so early. I'm sorry to wake you. I just—I need—"

"What happened?" She's immediately alert, awake, in crisis mode because she knows you wouldn't call at 6am unless everything was falling apart, unless you were in trouble, unless you needed her. "Where are you? Are you safe?"

"I'm at Lou's. The diner. I'm okay. I'm safe. But—" You can't finish the sentence. You can't say the words out loud again. You can't relive it.

"I'm coming." No hesitation, just immediate action, immediate proof that there are people who love you unconditionally, who show up when called, who don't require explanations before offering help. "Stay there. Don't move. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Okay." It comes out as a whisper, as relief, as gratitude so profound you can't articulate it, only feel it washing over you in waves that make your eyes burn with fresh tears, the overwhelming emotion of being cared for, of being shown through action that you matter. "Okay. Thank you.”

"Don't thank me. That's what family does. I'll be there soon. I love you."

"I love you too."

You hang up and stand there for a moment with your hand still on the receiver, grounding yourself, anchoring yourself, reminding yourself that you're not alone, that you have people, that being devastated doesn't mean being abandoned, that your life falling apart doesn't mean you have to face the rubble alone.

When you turn around, Taesan is there with fresh coffee, your blue mug, steam rising in lazy spirals, the familiar ritual of care rendered in porcelain and caffeine, and toast you probably won't eat but he's made anyway, because caring for you has become instinct, automatic, his default response to your pain.

"She's coming," you say unnecessarily, because he heard your half of the conversation, he's been standing close enough to listen, to be present, to bear witness without being intrusive.

"Good." He sets the food down gently on the counter, treats it like an offering instead of an obligation, like feeding you matters, like your body's needs matter even when your mind is elsewhere. "Do you want to sit while you wait? Do you need anything else?"

You shake your head, throat too tight to speak. The reality of leaving is hitting you now—leaving this sanctuary, leaving him when he's been your anchor, returning to a world that requires functionality you're not sure you possess. All you want is to curl up in Booth Seven and never leave, never face the wreckage of your life.

But you can't stay. The morning shift is arriving, you can hear the door chime, voices, the diner transforming from private space into the public business it actually is.

Twenty minutes feels like both an eternity and an instant. You drink your coffee slowly, mechanically, accepting fuel even though you're not hungry. Taesan stays close but not hovering, exists in that perfect balance of present-but-not-intrusive that makes you feel cared for without feeling smothered.

When the bell chimes and your friend bursts through the door—hair disheveled, eyes scanning for you—you feel yourself crack open again. She crosses the diner in rapid strides and pulls you into her arms with a fierceness that makes you feel safe, like you're allowed to fall apart because someone else will hold you together.

You collapse into her embrace and feel yourself breaking open again, the tears starting fresh even though you thought you'd cried yourself empty. But apparently grief is infinite, apparently you can cry forever and still have more crying to do.

Over her shoulder, through the blur of tears, you see Taesan watching with an expression that makes your chest ache, relieved that your friend is here, but there's also reluctance, the visible struggle of someone who's been holding you together all night but has to release you now into someone else's care.

Your friend pulls back slightly, hands on your shoulders, searching your face. "Tell me what happened. Tell me everything."

"He cheated." The words come out mechanical, stripped of emotion. "Six weeks. I found messages. We fought. I left."

Her expression hardens into fury, into protective rage on your behalf. "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to actually kill him. That absolute—"

"Later." You're too tired for rage right now, too depleted for anything except survival. "Right now I just need somewhere to go. I can't go back to the apartment. Not until—" You can't finish.

"You're coming home with me obviously." She's already guiding you towards the door, already taking over the logistics you're too demolished to handle. "For as long as you need. A week, a month, forever—I don't care."

But you stop at the threshold, turn back to where Taesan is standing behind the counter, and your eyes meet his across the diner—across Booth Seven where you've spent so many midnights learning to breathe, across the space that's become more home than your actual home ever was.

"Thank you," you say, and you need him to understand you're not just thanking him for tonight. You're thanking him for every night, every coffee, every conversation, every moment where he saw you drowning and threw you a line. "For everything, for seeing me when I couldn't see myself, for coming to get me, for holding my hand, for—" Your voice breaks completely. "For being here, for being you, for reminding me that I'm worth saving."

"Anytime, Lotus." His voice is soft, weighted with everything he's not saying, with all the feelings that hover in the space between you like ghosts, like futures you're both imagining but can't speak into existence yet. "Anytime. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

The words settle over you like a promise you're allowed to hold onto even when everything is falling apart.

Your friend's hand is on your elbow, gently insistent, pulling you towards the door. You let yourself be guided out into the morning that's cold, bright and merciless.

Through the car window as your friend helps you into the passenger seat, you see Taesan standing in the doorway of Lou's, watching you leave. It makes your chest feel tight, makes you want to get out of the car and run back inside and tell him—

Tell him what? That you love him? That he's been the only good thing in your life for weeks? That thinking about him is what's kept you alive, kept you hoping, kept you believing that leaving was possible because there was somewhere to leave to, someone to leave towards, even if you couldn't articulate it yet, even if you couldn't name it yet, even if acknowledging it would have been too much when you were still technically bound to someone else?

Your friend starts the car and pulls away from the curb. The diner gets smaller in the rearview mirror, then disappears entirely as she turns the corner, and you feel the loss of it physically.

The ring on your finger catches morning light filtering through the car window. The lotus flowers shimmer, seem to bloom and fade with each passing streetlight, with each mile that opens up between you and Lou's.

You're still here, they whisper. You're still worth it. You're still capable of blooming.

As your friend drives through Chicago streets that are starting to wake up, as the city remembers itself and begins its daily routine indifferent to your personal apocalypse, as you're carried towards her apartment and the space to fall apart properly—you touch the ring and think : I survived.

I called for help and help came. I fell apart and someone held me together. I asked for rescue and someone drove across the city. I needed and someone met that need without making me feel like a burden, without making me apologize, without making me earn basic human kindness through good behavior.

I survived the worst night. I can survive the next one. And the one after that. And the one after that.

I can survive until blooming becomes possible again.

Not today or tomorrow, probably not for weeks, months, however long it takes to unlearn four years of lies, to remember who you are, to extract yourself completely from him, from that apartment, from that life.

But eventually, you'll bloom again.

[SCENE 010 : HEALING - WEEKS SEVEN THROUGH TWELVE]

Time becomes strange after devastation. It becomes liquid, unreliable, stretches and compresses until you can't tell if it's been days or weeks since the phone booth, since your entire life imploded and you had to start rebuilding from absolute zero.

The days blend together, therapy appointments, work calls from your friend's couch, logistics of extracting your life from his apartment coordinated by mutual friends because you can't face him, can't be in the same room. The nights are harder—insomnia, nightmares, hours spent staring at the ceiling while you try to figure out how you got here, how you became someone who stayed for four years in a relationship that was killing her.

But through it all, the ring stays on your finger, every day and night. Your talisman, your anchor, your reminder.

WEEK SEVEN is just crying. Crying in your borrowed bed, crying in the shower where the water can hide your tears, crying over meals you can't eat, crying while your friend holds you and doesn't tell you to stop, doesn't tell you it'll be okay, doesn't offer platitudes or false comfort, just holds space for your grief without trying to minimize it, without trying to rush you through it to the other side where you'll be functional again, where you'll be okay again, where you'll be able to exist without falling apart every few hours.

You touch the ring when the crying becomes too much, when you feel like you're drowning in your own tears, when the grief threatens to overwhelm you completely. The lotus flowers under your fingertips remind you : You're still here. You survived. This pain will not last forever even though it feels endless, even though right now you can't imagine ever feeling anything except this devastation.

Your friend handles everything—calls your landlord, coordinates with mutual friends to pack your things, builds a wall between you and him so you don't have to see him, don't have to hear his voice, don't have to face the person who lied to you for six weeks, who let you feel crazy when you were seeing truth, who made you question your own perception when your instincts were screaming warnings you couldn't acknowledge yet.

They report back that he seemed relieved, like your leaving solved a problem he didn't know how to solve himself, like you did him a favor.

The information lands like confirmation of what you already knew but didn't want to believe : he stopped loving you months ago. And he just—let you keep trying. Let you keep destroying yourself trying to save a relationship he'd already abandoned.

You cry more. The grief feels infinite, feels like it will never end, feels like this is just who you are now—a person made of saltwater, a person whose default state is falling apart.

But you keep wearing the ring. Keep touching it. Keep letting it remind you that someone saw you drowning and refused to let you go under alone.

WEEK EIGHT brings rage. The shock wears off and underneath is fury so intense you can barely breathe around it.

You're angry at him for cheating, for lying, for gaslighting you into thinking you were imagining the distance, for letting you believe you were the problem when he was the problem, when his cowardice was the problem, when his refusal to just tell you the truth was the problem.

But you're also angry at yourself, for not seeing it sooner, for ignoring your intuition, for trusting him more than you trusted yourself, for sacrificing your own perception on the altar of keeping the peace, maintaining the relationship, not being difficult.

Your friend lets you rage, lets you scream into pillows she bought specifically for this purpose, lets you break dishes from the thrift store, cheap plates that shatter satisfyingly, that let you externalize the internal breaking, that give you something to destroy that isn't yourself. She lets you say all the things you didn't get to say during the fight, all the accusations you didn't get to make, all the ways you want to hurt him the way he hurt you.

You start therapy. You sit across from a woman with kind eyes and start untangling four years of gaslighting, of emotional manipulation, of learning to suppress your needs because expressing them was met with sighs, with irritation, with the clear communication that you were being too much, too demanding, too difficult.

"That's emotional abuse," your therapist says gently, and hearing it named, hearing a professional confirm that yes, what you experienced was damaging, was abuse even though he never hit you—makes you cry through the entire session, makes you leave with homework about self-compassion, about rebuilding trust in your own perception, about learning that your feelings are valid, your needs are reasonable, your existence doesn't require apology.

Your friend also handles the practical aftermath, retrieving your car from the street near your old apartment where it's been sitting for days, dealing with the landlord, coordinating the extraction of your life from his. You feel guilty about this, about making her do things you should be handling yourself, but she refuses your apologies. "That's what family does," she says firmly. "You focus on healing. I'll focus on logistics." And so you do. You let her handle the car, the apartment, the physical dismantling of your old life while you focus on the internal work of rebuilding yourself.

You start small. Eat when you're hungry instead of when he would have wanted dinner. Watch shows you actually like. Say yes to invitations instead of automatically declining because being social was always too much effort, always caused conflict, always required negotiation that exhausted you before you even left the house.

You start remembering who you were before him. The person who had opinions, who liked things, who wanted things that weren't his wants. You're surprised by what you find—you're funny, you're smart, you have dreams that don't include him, that never included him, that you just stopped mentioning because talking about them led to dismissiveness, to lack of interest, to the clear message that your dreams were optional while his were essential.

The rage transforms gradually into grief, yes, but underneath the grief is what feels like relief. Relief that it's over. Relief that you don't have to try anymore. Relief that you can stop performing, stop compressing, stop making yourself acceptable.

Through it all, you keep touching the ring. It grounds you when rage threatens to overwhelm you. It reminds you that you're not crazy, not imagining things, not overreacting. It reminds you that someone saw you clearly and thought you were worth saving.

WEEKS NINE THROUGH ELEVEN bring exhaustion, then gradual healing, then the first fragile shoots of what might become hope.

You sleep more than you're awake at first, your body processing trauma, your mind trying to make sense of the senseless, your whole system shutting down non-essential functions to focus on just surviving, just continuing to exist, just making it through one more day.

But gradually, imperceptibly, you start to feel human again. You start to have energy again. You start to want to be awake again instead of seeking oblivion in sleep.

You dream about Taesan more than you dream about your ex. This feels significant. Your subconscious has already moved on even while your conscious mind is still processing, still grieving, still trying to make sense of how you got here.

But you don't go to Lou's. You can't go to Lou's. The thought makes your chest tight with anxiety, too much time has passed, he's probably forgotten about you, showing up now would be awkward, would be presumptuous, would be asking for something you don't deserve because you disappeared, because you've been radio silent, because why would he still care, why would he still want to see you when you've been nothing but trouble, nothing but a crisis, nothing but someone who calls crying and expects rescue?

But you keep the ring on. You move it to your right hand when doubt becomes overwhelming, when you convince yourself that Taesan's kindness was just professionalism, just good customer service, just basic human decency extended to a stranger in crisis and nothing more. But it never stays on your right hand for long, within hours you're moving it back to your left, back to where it grounds you.

Your friend catches you touching it one afternoon. "Are we going to talk about Taesan?" she asks gently.

"There's nothing to talk about." But your voice cracks, betrays you.

"You're in love with him," she says, and it's not a question.

"I can't be," you whisper. "I just got out of a relationship. I'm not healed. I'm too broken—"

"Or you're exactly ready," she interrupts. "Or maybe healing doesn't mean being perfect. Maybe it just means being ready to try again, to choose differently, to let someone love you the way you deserve."

You don't answer. You can't. But her words take root somewhere beneath your ribs, settling into the spaces between your breaths like seeds in thawing earth. They echo through the hollow chambers of your chest, gentle and insistent as spring rain against windows. Ready to try again. Choose differently. The phrases loop and weave through your thoughts, threading themselves into the fabric of your days, caught in the steam of your morning coffee, in the way your heart no longer flinches at the prospect of being known. Perhaps brokenness, you begin to think, isn't a waiting room. Perhaps it's just another word for openness, for all the light that gets in through the cracks.

WEEK TWELVE brings clarity.

You move into your own apartment—a studio near the lake, in a neighborhood you've always loved, close enough to Lou's that the distance feels like both an invitation and a test, close enough to walk there if you were brave enough, if you could work up the courage to face him after six weeks of silence, of absence, of healing that he hasn't witnessed but has somehow inhabited anyway because the ring on your finger is a tether, a silver thread connecting you across the distance, keeping him present in every spin of lotus flowers beneath your thumb.

You decorate the space yourself. Your taste. Your preferences. Your choices, each one a small reclamation. You buy a couch that's too big for the space but you love the way it swallows you whole. You hang art that makes you happy, abstract pieces in blues and golds that catch the light like water, like the future you're building one deliberate choice at a time. You're learning to want things and get them, to make choices based on joy instead of practicality, to take up space without apology, to fill your life with beauty simply because it pleases you.

You're learning to exist loudly again, to have opinions that don't require softening, to want things without shame, to need things without guilt, to be exactly as much as you are.

You're blooming slowly, just like how lotus flowers do—from mud, from darkness, breaking the surface by inches. The changes are only visible if you zoom out, if you compare now to six weeks ago, if you remember the phone booth and the girl who stood there sobbing and realize she's not gone, exactly, but transformed. 

You think about Taesan more than you mean to. In the quiet moments when you're unpacking boxes. In the early mornings when you make coffee in your own kitchen. In the evenings when the lake catches the sunset and turns gold, and you remember how he looked at you in the diner's lighting like you were worth seeing, worth saving, worth holding onto even when you couldn't hold onto yourself.

Six weeks feels like both a lifetime and no time at all. Long enough to heal, maybe. Long enough to remember who you are. Long enough that showing up now wouldn't be running from one relationship into another, wouldn't be seeking refuge, wouldn't be anything except a choice—deliberate, conscious, yours.

You spin the ring on your finger and think : Soon. This week, when I'm ready.

And the truth settling in your chest like certainty, like hope, like the first true breath after drowning : you think you might already be.

[SCENE 011 : INT. READER'S NEW APARTMENT - 10:35PM - SATURDAY NIGHT]

Saturday night, and you're standing in your new apartment staring at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to decide if you're brave enough to do this, if you're ready, if showing up at Lou's after six weeks of silence is insane, is presumptuous, is asking for rejection, for disappointment, for the discovery that you've been building this up in your head and the reality won't match the fantasy, that Taesan won't be glad to see you, that too much time has passed, that he's moved on, that he's forgotten about you.

But the ring on your finger says otherwise. It says he saw you at your worst and didn't run, says he held your hand while you slept and stayed through the night, says there's something here worth showing up for, worth being brave for, worth risking disappointment for.

You're wearing clothes you chose carefully, not trying too hard, not performing, just yourself. The version that's been emerging over the last six weeks, the one who's remembered how to exist without apologizing for it, who's learning to take up space, who's starting to believe that being exactly who you are is enough, is more than enough, is exactly right.

Your hair is clean. Your face is bare, no makeup, no armor, no mask, just your actual face that's older than it was six weeks ago, that's been marked by crying, grief and the particular aging that trauma does, that's not as perfect as you wish it were but is yours, is the face of someone who survived, who's still surviving, who's learning that surviving isn't the end goal but the beginning.

You touch the ring one more time, spin it a few times clockwise—your ritual, your grounding, your reminder.

You're worth choosing. You deserve better. You're capable of blooming.

You grab your jacket, keys, phone that's fully charged this time. You lock your apartment and walk out into the night that's cold, clear and full of stars barely visible through the city's light pollution.

You walk to Lou's. Ten minutes becomes fifteen becomes twenty because you're walking slowly, giving yourself time to back out, to change your mind, to decide this is crazy, this is too much, this is asking for pain.

But you don't back out, change your mind or turn around.

You walk all the way to the diner that's glowing in the darkness like it always does, like it's been waiting, like it knew you'd come back eventually, like Booth Seven has been holding space for you even in your absence, even during the six weeks when you couldn't face it, couldn't face him, couldn't face the possibility of wanting him and being disappointed.

You stop outside and stand on the sidewalk looking through the windows at the familiar interior. It looks exactly the same, like no time has passed, like you could walk in, slide into Booth Seven and Taesan would appear with your coffee already made, already perfect, already exactly what you need.

But six weeks have passed. Six weeks of radio silence. Six weeks of healing that he's not been part of, not directly, not in person. Six weeks of absence that might have created distance, might have made things awkward, might have changed whatever existed between you, whatever connection you built over midnight coffees and late-night conversations.

You're whole enough, you remind yourself. You're not running towards him. You're not using him to fill a hole. You're choosing him because you want to. Because he's worth choosing. Because whatever this is deserves a chance, deserves to be explored, deserves more than six weeks of wondering, fear and self-imposed exile.

You push through the door.

The bell chimes.

And everything stops.

The diner isn't empty, there are a handful of customers scattered in booths, the usual midnight refugees seeking coffee, shelter and space to exist without explanation. But you don't see them. You only see Taesan behind the counter, and the way he freezes when the bell chimes, the way his head snaps up, the way his eyes find yours across the distance and his entire face—

Relief. Joy. Recognition. Hope. Surprise. Tenderness. Everything at once, everything simultaneous, everything visible in how his expression breaks open, cracks apart into raw undefended emotion that makes your chest tight, that makes your throat close, that makes you understand with absolute certainty that you weren't imagining it, that what you felt was mutual, that he's been waiting, has been hoping, has been thinking about you too.

"Lotus," he breathes, and the name in his voice sounds like prayer, like relief, like finally, finally, finally.

You can't speak or move. You just stand frozen in the doorway with Lou's warmth in front of you and Taesan looking at you like you're a miracle, an answer, the person he's been waiting for, for six weeks, for forever, for however long it takes.

He's around the counter before you can process the movement. Crossing the distance between you with purpose, with urgency, with a focused intensity that makes your heart forget its rhythm, that makes your lungs forget how to process oxygen, that makes everything except him fade into background noise, into irrelevance, into nothing.

He stops a few feet away. He's close enough that you can see his face clearly, can see the shadows under his eyes that suggest he hasn't been sleeping well, can see how he's looking at you like he's afraid you're a hallucination, like you might disappear if he moves too fast, if he assumes too much, if he reaches for you and finds you're not really here, not really back, not really choosing this.

"You came back," he says quietly, and there's wonder in his voice, disbelief, cautious hope that doesn't want to presume, doesn't want to assume, doesn't want to risk disappointment but can't help hoping anyway.

"I came back." Your voice is steadier than you expected, stronger than you feel. "I'm sorry it took so long. I needed—I needed time. I needed to heal. I needed to make sure I was coming back for the right reasons, that I wasn't running towards you from him, that I was running towards you because I wanted to, because you're worth running towards, because—"

You're rambling. You stop. Take a breath. Try again.

"I missed you," you say simply, and the truth of it lands between you like a gift, like an offering. "I missed you so much. I missed this place. I missed Booth Seven. I missed your coffee. I missed—" Your voice cracks. "I missed you."

His expression shifts and softens further. He takes a step closer, eliminating space, and you can feel the heat of him now, can smell his cologne faintly, can see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.

"I missed you too," he says, voice low, intimate, meant only for you even though there are other people in the diner, even though this is a public space, even though you're having this conversation where anyone could hear, witness, see you falling apart all over again but differently this time, better this time, breaking open instead of breaking down. "Every night. Every shift. Every time the bell chimed and it wasn't you. Every time I made coffee and remembered how you take it. Every time I looked at Booth Seven and it was empty."

His hand reaches up slowly, giving you time to pull away, time to refuse, but you don't pull away, don't refuse, just stand there as his fingers brush your cheek, as his thumb traces the line of your jaw, as he touches you like you're worth handling carefully, that might break if he's not gentle.

"Are you okay?" he asks softly, and the question contains multitudes—Are you healed? Are you safe? Are you free? Did you get out? Did you survive? Are you whole enough to be here, to be doing this, to be choosing me when choosing anyone might still be too soon?

"I'm getting there," you answer honestly, because he deserves honesty, deserves truth, deserves to know exactly what he's getting into if he chooses you, if he decides that you're worth the complication, the mess, the reality that you're still healing, still processing, still learning how to be a whole person instead of half a person, instead of the fragment you became over four years of erasure. "I'm not perfect. I'm not all the way healed. I still have bad days. I still—"

"I don't need perfect," Taesan interrupts gently, his hand still cradling your face, his eyes holding yours with an intensity that makes you feel transparent, makes you feel seen all the way through. "I just need you exactly as you are. Healing or healed. Whole or in pieces. Figuring it out or completely lost. I just need you to be here, to be choosing this because you want to and not because you need to."

"I want to," you whisper, and saying it out loud makes it true, makes it a choice you're actively making instead of a thing that's just happening to you, a state you're defaulting into, an outcome you're accepting because it's easy, available or because being alone is too hard. "I want this. I want you. I've wanted you since—" You stop, try to pinpoint when wanting started, when the shift happened, when Taesan stopped being the night shift worker at a diner and started being the person you think about constantly, the person you miss, the person you want. "I don't even know when it started. It just—it built. Night after night. Coffee after coffee. Conversation after conversation. And then the phone booth, you coming to get me, you holding my hand while I slept, you treating me like I was worth saving when I didn't believe I was worth anything.”

Your eyes are wet. You're crying but gently this time, crying that's release instead of breakdown, that's relief instead of devastation, that's the overflow of feeling too much, of feeling after weeks of numbness, of feeling joy, fear, hope and terror all at once because you're standing in Lou's Diner confessing your feelings to someone who's looking at you like you're exactly what he's been waiting for.

"You've always been worth saving," Taesan says, and his voice is rough, thick with emotion he's not trying to hide. "From the first night you walked in here looking like you were drowning. You've always been worth it. Worth the effort. Worth the care. Worth showing up for. Worth choosing." His thumb catches a tear as it falls. "You're worth everything, Lotus."

The name. Your name. The one he gave you six weeks ago when you were someone else, someone drowning, someone dying slowly in a relationship that was killing her. The name that means resilience, blooming in darkness, rising from mud pristine, perfect and persistent.

"I'm not Lotus anymore," you say quietly, and his expression flickers—confusion, concern, fear that you're taking it back, that you're rejecting the name, that you're rejecting him. "I mean—I am. I always will be. But I'm also—" You take a breath. This is it. This is the moment. This is you choosing to be fully known, fully seen, fully yourself. "I'm also—"

You tell him your actual name. The one you've been holding back for six weeks, the one you didn't give him that first night, the one that's been yours all along but felt too intimate to share, too vulnerable to offer, too much of yourself to reveal when you weren't sure you had a self to reveal, when you were too busy being a fragment, a ghost, a version hollowed out by neglect.

But now you're whole enough. Now you're ready. Now you're choosing to be fully known instead of partially seen, to be completely transparent instead of strategically revealed, to offer all of yourself instead of just the safe parts, the acceptable parts, the parts that won't be too much, too demanding, too human.

Taesan's face transforms. His eyes widen slightly. His mouth curves into a smile that's gentle, tender, full of recognition, understanding and the joy of being trusted with the precious, the private, the proof that you're choosing him, you're letting him in, you're offering yourself fully instead of keeping parts hidden, protected, safe from potential hurt.

He says your name, testing it on his tongue, feeling how it fits in his mouth, making it his, making it intimate between you, shared, the final barrier dissolving, the last wall coming down, the complete transparency that comes from being seen, being known, being chosen anyway, not despite your humanity but because of it, not in spite of your mess but inclusive of it, not requiring you to be perfect but wanting you exactly as you are.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, and you don't know if he means your name or you, don't know if there's a difference anymore, don't care because he's looking at you like you're both, like your name and yourself are inseparable, like knowing your name means knowing you, means having access to parts of yourself you've kept protected, hidden, safe from people who might use them against you, might weaponize your vulnerability, might make you regret offering yourself fully.

But Taesan won't do that. You know this with certainty. You know it in how he held your hand while you slept, how he drove across Chicago to find you crying in a phone booth, how he has always looked at you like you're everything he's hoped for. 

"Can I—" He stops, seems to reconsider, but you see the question in his eyes, the want there, how he's holding himself back, giving you space to refuse, space to set boundaries, space to decide what you're ready for and what you're not.

"Yes," you say, not even knowing what he's asking but knowing the answer is yes, yes to whatever he wants, yes to whatever he's offering, yes to this person who's been patient, who's been kind, who's been exactly what you needed when you needed it most.

He smiles—that smile, the one that's been living in your memory for six weeks, the one you've been missing, the one that makes you remember why you came back, why you walked across Chicago on a cold night, why you're standing in Lou's Diner with tears streaming down your face confessing feelings you've been too scared to name.

His hands frame your face gently, carefully, giving you time to pull away, time to refuse, but you don't pull away. You lean in. You close the distance. You choose this.

The first brush of his lips against yours is soft, tentative. A question more than a statement, gentle enough that you could pull back, could change your mind, could retreat into safety. But you don't want safety anymore. You want him, want the risk, want the terrifying beautiful possibility of letting yourself be loved by someone who sees you clearly and chooses you anyway.

You kiss him back, and the gentleness shifts into certainty. His hands steady against your face, your fingers curling into his shirt, anchoring yourself to this moment, to this reality. It's not urgent, desperate or hungry, it's reverent, like he's been waiting for this, like he's memorizing the shape of you, like he wants to do this right because you deserve to be kissed like you're chosen, like you're worth the patience it took to get here.

You feel yourself bloom. You feel petals unfurling inside your chest, feel yourself opening after months of being closed, feel yourself rising after six weeks of being underwater. You feel yourself becoming vibrant, alive and present in ways you haven't been in years, in ways you forgot were possible, in ways you'd stopped believing you deserved.

His hands are gentle on your face. Yours find their way to his chest, to his shoulders, grounding yourself, making sure this is real—you're in Lou's Diner kissing Taesan, he's kissing you back and it's perfect, it's right, it's everything you've been too scared to want, too scared to reach for, too scared to believe you could have.

When you finally pull apart, you're both breathless, both smiling, both looking at each other like you can't quite believe this is real, this is allowed, this is yours to have, to hold, to keep.

"I've wanted to do that for weeks," Taesan admits, voice rough, forehead resting against yours, breathing your air, existing in your space. "Since that first night. Since you sat in Booth Seven and looked at me like I was the first person who'd seen you in months. Since you kept coming back. Since you wore my ring. Since you called me from that phone booth and I drove across the city knowing I'd drive across the world if that's what you needed."

"I've wanted it too," you confess, and admitting it feels like freedom, feels like the final piece of healing, the final acknowledgment that you're allowed to want things, allowed to reach for things, allowed to choose things that make you happy instead of just avoiding things that make you miserable. "I just needed time. I needed to make sure I was whole enough. I needed to make sure I was choosing you because I wanted to, not because I needed someone to save me."

When you're done talking, when you've said everything that needs saying, when silence falls comfortable and easy between you, Taesan smiles. He takes your hand, gentle, unhurried, and leads you across the empty diner to Booth Seven.

Booth Seven. The one that's held you through six weeks of midnights, through breakdowns and breakthroughs, through every moment you couldn't face going home. He slides in across from you like he's done a hundred times before, but this time feels different. This time you're not running, you're choosing to stay.

"I have a confession," he says quietly, and there's mischief in his eyes, playfulness that you haven't seen before, lightness that makes your chest feel warm. "I've been practicing."

"Practicing what?"

"Ways to greet you," he admits, and you can see the blush creeping up his neck, the embarrassment mixed with determination, the vulnerability of offering this silliness, this lightness, this moment of levity after so much heaviness. "For when you came back. I knew you'd come back eventually. I just didn't know when, so I've been practicing."

You can't help it. You laugh, genuine, delighted and full of joy. "Show me."

He stands dramatically, walks a few steps away, then turns back to you with exaggerated formality. "Welcome back to Lou's Diner, where the coffee is hot, the pie is questionable, and you're the most beautiful person I've seen all week—which granted, I work night shift, so the competition isn't steep, but still."

You're giggling now, and it feels good, feels right, feels like exactly what you need after six weeks of heaviness, after so much pain, after all the work of healing. You need this lightness, playfulness, the ability to laugh with someone who sees your pain but doesn't make it your defining characteristic, who acknowledges your grief but also sees your joy, who knows you're healing but also knows you're capable of laughing, of being silly, of being more than just your trauma.

He tries again, this time affecting a terrible French accent : "Ah, mademoiselle, welcome back to Lou's, where ze coffee is—" He breaks character, laughing at himself. "I can't. That's terrible. I don't know why I thought that would work."

You're laughing so hard there are tears in your eyes, but good tears this time, coming from being happy, from being exactly where you want to be with exactly who you want to be with, from the radical experience of choosing someone and having them choose you back, from the miracle of connection, of being seen, of being wanted.

He slides back into the booth, still smiling, taking your hand again. His thumb finds the ring and this time, he does what you've been imagining for weeks, what you've been dreaming about, what you've been too scared to hope for.

He lifts your left hand to his mouth and kisses the ring. He kisses it gently, reverently, like it's a promise, a vow, it's the physical manifestation of choosing you, of seeing you, of wanting to be part of your healing, your blooming, your continued rising from mud into light.

"I'm going to keep doing that," Taesan warns, and there's playfulness in his voice but also seriousness, promise, commitment. "Every time I see you. Every time you come to Lou's. Every time you walk through that door. I'm going to greet you in ridiculous ways, and then I'm going to kiss that ring, and I'm going to remind you that you're exactly where you're supposed to be, with exactly who you're supposed to be with, blooming exactly the way you're supposed to bloom."

"That sounds perfect," you whisper, and believe it, know that you're exactly where you need to be, that this is exactly what you need, that Taesan is exactly who you need—not because he completes you or fixes you, not because you need him to survive, but because he sees you, chooses you, loves you for exactly who you are, exactly where you are, exactly how you are.

The diner continues around you. Other customers come and go. The night deepens outside the windows, Chicago settling into its truest self, the city of insomniacs and dreamers, of people who live between midnight and dawn. Darkness holds steady, patient, a blanket rather than a threat, the kind of night that feels endless in the best way, transforming ending into beginning without needing daylight to prove it.

But in Booth Seven, you and Taesan exist in your own bubble, in your own moment, in your own beginning that's been six weeks in the making, that's been building since that first night when you walked in drowning and he saw you and refused to let you go under alone.

You look down at your joined hands, at his thumb still tracing the lotus flowers, at the ring that's been your anchor for six weeks, at the physical manifestation of choosing yourself, of remembering you're worth blooming.

"I should probably let you get back to work," you say reluctantly, not wanting to leave but aware that he's on shift, that other customers need attention, that the night is getting later and his coworker has been covering for him and you don't want to take advantage, don't want to be the reason he gets in trouble, don't want to be more burden than blessing.

"Or," Taesan counters, mischief in his eyes, "you could stay. You could sit in Booth Seven, drink coffee and exist here while I work. You could—" He pauses. "You could just be here. You don't have to go. You never have to go. This is your space too. Booth Seven is yours. Lou's is yours. I'm yours, if you want me."

"Of course I want you," you say immediately, certainly, without hesitation. "I want to stay."

"Then stay." He stands, but before he goes back behind the counter, he bends down and kisses your forehead—gentle, tender, affectionate in a way that makes your chest feel warm. "Stay as long as you want. I'll bring you more coffee. I'll make you food. I'll just—be here. Knowing you're here. Knowing you came back. Knowing you're choosing this."

He starts to walk away, but you catch his hand. He turns back, questioning.

"Thank you," you say, and you need him to understand you're not just thanking him for the coffee, for the diner, for Booth Seven. "Thank you for seeing me when I couldn't see myself. Thank you for holding space for my pain without trying to fix it. Thank you for letting me heal at my own pace. Thank you for choosing me when I was drowning, when I was broken, when I was the worst version of myself. Thank you for loving me before I loved myself. Thank you for reminding me that I'm worth blooming."

Taesan's expression goes soft, tender, incandescent with love so visible it makes you feel transparent, makes you feel seen all the way through. He squeezes your hand.

"Thank you for coming back," he says simply. "Thank you for being brave enough to try again. Thank you for trusting me with your healing. Thank you for letting me be part of your blooming." He kisses your knuckles, then the ring, his lips warm against the silver. "Thank you for choosing me too."

Then he's gone, back behind the counter, to work, to pouring coffee, taking orders and moving through his shift. But every few minutes his eyes find yours across the diner. Every time the bell chimes and a new customer enters, he looks up first to see if it's you—not expecting you to leave, not worried you'll disappear, just checking, just making sure, just connecting.

And every time your eyes meet, you both smile. Small smiles, private smiles that communicate volumes without words—I'm here. You're here. We're both here. This is happening. This is ours.

You sit in Booth Seven and watch him work and feel your heart settle into a rhythm that's steady, that's sure, that's chosen instead of resigned, wanted instead of tolerated, loved instead of merely accepted.

You sit in Booth Seven and remember that lotus flowers bloom in darkness, that they close their petals at night and sink underwater only to rise again at dawn, pristine and persistent, proof that beauty can emerge from impossible conditions, that blooming isn't about perfect circumstances but about resilience, about choosing to rise, about the radical act of continuing to exist when everything suggests you should give up.

You sit in Booth Seven and touch the ring on your finger “I bloomed. I survived the drowning. I rose from the mud. I opened my petals. I chose myself. I chose him. I chose this.”

You sit in Booth Seven and watch the night deepen around you, watch Chicago settle into its midnight rhythm outside the windows, watch the city become the version of itself that only exists in darkness, honest and unguarded. The diner glows warmer as the night grows colder. More midnight refugees drift in and out, seeking the same sanctuary you found weeks ago.

Another night shift worker today brings you fresh coffee, not your blue mug this time but a different one, still chipped, still imperfect, still perfect in its imperfection.

"On the house," she says with a knowing smile. "For the girl who brought our Taesan back to life. He's been walking around like a ghost for six weeks. It's good to see him smile again. Good to see you back where you belong."

Where you belong. The words settle over you like a benediction, like confirmation, like truth.

You belong here, in Booth Seven, in Lou's Diner, in Taesan's life, in your own life, fully present, fully engaged, fully yourself.

You belong.

And for the first time in four years—longer, if you're honest, maybe forever—you actually believe it.

You’ve finally bloomed. 

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˖➴ reblogs are appreciated! ty for reading! <3

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You sat across from him in a sweater one of your new girl friends had helped you pick, sleeves properly ending at your wrists now. It was one of those details he still noticed too much. Clothes that fit you. Shoes you chose yourself. Hair tucked back because you liked the feeling of your neck being free.

You were becoming someone who belonged to yourself.

He should’ve been happy about that.

Instead, he kept staring at the menu like the words were going to rearrange themselves into something easier.

“Dongmin.”

He looked up.

You were watching him carefully, head tilted slightly. “You are quiet.”

He huffed a small laugh. “I’m always quiet.”

“Not like this.”

Of course you’d know. You always knew the difference now.

“I’m just thinking.”

“Bad thinking?”

His throat tightened. “Not bad.”

You waited.

He wished you still needed him to explain everything. It was cruel—maybe, to think that, but there had been a time when your confusion gave him more room to delay. Back then, he could say “later” and you would accept it because later was still a shape you were learning.

Now, you knew when something was being hidden.

Now, you know the difference between silence and avoidance.

The food arrived before he could answer properly. Steam rose between you both, briefly hiding your face. You smiled faintly at your plate, pleased by the warmth of it, and for one terrible second Taesan thought he might not say anything at all.

Maybe he could just let this be dinner. Maybe he could let you enjoy it. Maybe he could let himself pretend.

You picked up your fork, then paused.

“Are we celebrating?” you asked.

He froze.

“What?”

“You said dinner is for something,” you said. “Sometimes for hungry. Sometimes for sorry. Sometimes for happy.”

Taesan stared at you and his chest hurt.

“You remember that?”

You nodded. “This feels like something.”

He looked down at his hands.

It was so unfair, how much you had learned.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s something.”

The sounds of the restaurant continued around you. Plates being set down. People laughing. A chair scraping somewhere behind him. Life moving like nothing was ending.

“I talked to Stella,” he began.

You brightened a little at her name. Riwoo’s cousin, who liked the same shoes you liked. Someone you got to know last week. “Stella.”

“Yeah. Stella.” He swallowed. “She’s going to Star Uni too.”

“I know.”

“And Riwoo said her apartment has another room. It’s close to campus, and she already said she’d help with forms and schedules and everything.” He spoke carefully, slowly, like if he arranged the words neatly enough, they wouldn’t cut. “So when school starts, you can stay with her.”

You looked at him. Your fork lowered slightly.

“With Stella?”

He nodded once, you blinked twice.

“But I live with you.”

There it was.

Taesan’s fingers tightened around his glass.

“I know.”

You stared at him for another second, waiting for the rest of the sentence. Waiting for the part where he explained that it was only temporary, or convenient, or because Stella was closer.

He couldn’t give you that.

“Why,” you asked slowly, “will I not live with you?”

The silence after that felt too large for the table.

He opened his mouth.

Closed it.

You watched every movement of his face, and he hated that he had taught you how to read him so well.

“Dongmin?”

He exhaled shakily.

“I got accepted by BND university.”

Your eyes changed.

Not understanding yet, but sensing the shape of it.

“To the university I told you about,” he said. “The one abroad.”

You were very still.

“The dream one?” you asked.

He nodded.

For a moment, your face softened. You understood dreams. He had explained them to you once as wanting something for a long time, even when it was far away.

“That is good,” you said quietly.

His eyes stung.

“Yeah.”

“Then why…” You looked down at the table, brows drawing together. “Why do you look…sad?”

Taesan laughed once, but it barely held together.

“Because if I go, I’ll be gone for four years.”

You blinked, and he watched the number reach you slowly.

Not as a number first. As distance.

As mornings without him in the kitchen. As lights you would turn off alone. As someone else waiting by the door. As someone else saying your name when you came home.

“Four years,” you repeated.

He nodded.

“You will come back after dinner?”

“No.”

“After summer?”

His jaw tightened.

“No.”

Your lips parted slightly.

“When?”

The question was so small.

He wished he could lie. He wished he hadn’t taught you what lies were, because now both of you knew exactly what it would mean if he used one.

“Not for a few years,” he said.

Your face crumpled before you could stop it.

Taesan saw you try to hold it. Saw the effort move across your expression like a hand pressing down on water. You looked away quickly, blinking too fast.

“Hey,” he said softly.

You shook your head once. Not at him—at yourself.

“I know,” you whispered. “I know dream is good.”

That broke his heart.

“I’m sorry.”

You wiped under your eye with the back of your hand, almost angry with the tear for existing.

“I know Stella,” you said, voice uneven. “Stella is nice.”

“She is.”

“And Star Uni is close.”

“Yeah.”

“And I can do forms.”

“I know you can.”

“And I can turn off lights.”

His throat closed. You looked up at him then, eyes wet and shining under the restaurant light.

“I can do many human things now.”

Taesan couldn’t speak.

Because that was almost the worst part.

You could.

You could live without him now. You had learned enough to survive the world he had pulled you into. You could eat without copying him, speak without borrowing his words, choose clothes that fit, lock doors, answer questions, keep secrets, lie when you needed protection.

You could do all of it.

And he still wanted you to need him.

He hated himself for that.

“I know,” he said, voice cracking. “I know you can.”

You nodded like you were trying to convince yourself too.

The food between you had gone mostly untouched. Taesan looked down at it, ashamed suddenly of the restaurant, the warm lights, the pretty table—like he had wrapped heartbreak in something gentle and expected it to hurt less.

“I didn’t tell you sooner because I was scared,” he admitted.

You sniffed quietly. “Of me?”

“No.” He shook his head immediately. “No, never of you.”

“Then?”

He stared at you.

“Of leaving.”

You went very still again.

He pressed his thumb against the side of his glass, grounding himself. “I wanted it for so long. Before you. Before everything. And then you came here, and suddenly leaving felt…” He swallowed hard. “Wrong.?”

Your voice was barely audible. “Then don’t go.”

The words landed between you.

Neither of you moved.

Taesan’s vision blurred.

You seemed to realize what you’d said only after it existed. Your face shifted—guilt, panic, love, all things you had learned too well.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered quickly. “That was selfish.”

“No.” His voice came out rough. “No, it wasn’t.”

“It was,” you said, wiping your cheek again. “Dream is important. You said.”

“It is.”

“And I want you to have it.”

He looked at you, and for the first time that night, a tear slipped down his face too.

You saw it instantly. Your expression changed, softened through the hurt.

“Dongmin,” you said.

He looked away, but it was too late.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

You reached across the table, hesitant at first, then placed your hand over his. Your fingers were warm.

“You are allowed,” you said.

He stared at your hand.

“To go?”

You nodded, though your mouth trembled. He turned his hand over and held yours properly. For a moment, that was all either of you could do.

Hold on.

The walk out of the restaurant was quiet. He paid. You thanked the staff because you remembered that was what people did. He nearly cried again at that.

Outside, the night air was cold enough to turn your breath visible. You stood beside him under the small awning, both of you not quite ready to move toward home.

Home.

The word felt cruel now. You hugged yourself, sleeves pulled over your hands.

Taesan looked at you.

“I’ll call,” he said, uselessly. “And text. All the time.”

You nodded.

“I know.”

“And I’ll come back when I can.”

You nodded again.

“I know.”

But knowing had never made anything hurt less. A tear slipped down your cheek again, quieter this time.

Taesan couldn’t take it. He stepped closer.

“Can I hug you?”

You looked up at him.

For a second, you just stared, like the question itself hurt.

Then you nodded.

He pulled you into his arms carefully, like if he held too tightly, he might make a promise he couldn’t keep.

You folded into him immediately with no hesitation.

Your face pressed into his coat, hands curling weakly at his sides. He felt your breath shudder against him and closed his eyes.

“I don’t want to go,” he whispered.

Your fingers tightened.

“But you will,” you said.

He nodded against the top of your head.

“Yeah.”

You were quiet for a long time. Then, muffled against him, you said, “I will miss you before you leave.”

Taesan’s breath caught and held you a little tighter.

“I’ll miss you too.”

The city moved around you. Cars passed. Someone laughed down the street. The restaurant door opened behind you, spilling warmth for a second before closing again. Neither of you let go.

Not yet. Not while he was still here.

Not while you could still pretend that four years was only a number, and not the shape of everything changing.

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a/n: taesan’s blog is ending soonnnnn

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tons of papers, books, and uncapped pens are scattered all over the room along with your mind — which can’t seem to take a break from all the tasks and exam reviews you have due on finals week.

a thousand caffeine intake has only brought you to more trips to the toilet than to actually mend your focus. you were locked up in your room with no time to do anything other than to keep both of your eyes busy from skimming and reading.

you glanced at your clock only to see it displaying how deep the night is, at 1:45AM; which means that you’ve spent half a day studying and yet, it still doesn’t feel like you’re learning enough. but it’s so late and you have class tomorrow so you’re really left with no choice but to finish everything all at once — realistically knowing you can’t possibly do it.

realizing this, you can’t help but plop your head hard on the table from exhaustion. your mind had fogged up even more due to restlessness, accompanied by the lingering feeling of being stuck; and not being good enough. you have a habit of outdoing yourself just to prove your excellence, to the point where you over-exhaust yourself. but instead of feeling better about it, you’re weighed down into more pressure because you simply can’t afford any failures or mistakes. as much as you want to stop, you can’t just give up now. not when the last term’s almost over.

and you were so pre-occupied the whole day that even messaging your boyfriend a simple text never crossed your mind. and before you can deeply ponder about the thought, two taps from your window caught your attention. you pry open your curtain only to see the speak of the devil in the flesh.

woonhak is sitting nicely at the gap of your window, acting like he’s been waiting forever.

“woonhak?? baby, what are you doing here in my window this late?!” you asked with a crumpled look of confusion.

he just looked at you with a beaming smile as a reply before jumping your room.

just seeing your face despite you frowning, was enough for woonhak to be filled with absolute joy and content. you see, a whole day without you is torture for him to say the least. he knew you were going to be busy, but not to the point where ignoring him became an option. the first few hours of waiting was already painfully unbearable, and when the night grew darker, he felt that he was only minutes away from going completely insane. and before that happens, he stepped out of the dorm and rushed to your place immediately.

and here he is, gaining his well-sought victory of having you right in his loving arms after a whole day of enduring not talking to you. his hands landed onto your waist keeping you steady with a subtle hint of possession.

“hey, pretty. thought you’ve completely forgotten about me.” he placed a soft kiss on your cheek, a simple seal for the cruel torment he experienced.

“i’m really sorry for ghosting you today. i promise, i didn’t mean to. i was way too focused studying the entire day that i basically forgot how to live and breath.” you sincerely apologized to him with tired eyes and a weak smile.

“i know that, love. i came here because i couldn’t resist not seeing you for another minute. yesterday felt like a death sentence, you know?” he spoke like it really is his last day on earth.

“now don’t be dramatic now. it’s only been a day.” you poked his chest as if to point out his overreaction.

“absolutely not. that’s more like a millenium to me, honey.” disagreeing with your answer.

“woonhak, you can’t be serious right now. come on! we’re always together 24/7, no miss. this is more like a break, don’t you think?” you teased him, knowing damn well your boyfriend would NOT like that excuse.

“excuse me?! don’t you ever say that! if there’s anything to describe what i went through, it’s a terrible nightmare i never wanna be in again.” you pulled him close to you to lay down your bed before he could even throw a tantrum, letting him snuggle onto your neck comfortably. his grasp on your waist tightens into an embrace with your invitation like he’s deadly afraid he might lose you again.

“alright, loosen up. you’re tackling me at this point, baby.” patting him as you feel most of his weight gradually plunge into you as the hug get tighter.

“well then, that’s perfect. you can’t go anywhere now. i won’t let you.” you can only laugh at how silly your boyfriend is because there’s nothing in this world more clingier than woonhak. he will practically lock his arms permanently if that means keeping you in him forever.

“baby, i need to go back studying now please.” you begged to be freed but in woonhak’s vocabulary, that means the other way around so he squeezed you tight in the hug even more.

“enough of that, please. you’ve done well. you can practically ace those tests with your eyes closed. just shut up and lay down.” he said firmly with his head still glued on your neck, not wanting to detach.

“oh please, don’t glaze me. and no, i have to finish it all now so let me get up.” your upper half hasn’t fully lifted yet when he plopped you back down the bed.

“no, you’re staying.”

“no, i’m studying.”

“no, you’ll lie down here with me.” he insisted.

“no, i’m escaping.” but you keep retaliating.

“don’t even try.”

“is that a threat?”

“only if you still insist letting go.” he really just won’t give you up.

you’re still both curled up on the bed, facing each other and arms linked in each other’s torsos. woonhak caressed your head as you perfectly align on his chest and you happen to sniff the mixed scents on his beloved hoodie. (ts doesn’t mean he awfully stinks btw)

“well, i don’t really like being stuck here with you now that i’ve smelled how stinky your hood is.”

“that’s just food.” he sniffed his own to make sure. “and sweat.”

“and that’s disgusting.”

“since when have you been sensitive about how i smell?” woonhak asked, surprisingly offended.

“since you started acting like a goddamn velcro baby.” you harshly pointed out.

“don’t say that.”

“say what?” you asked, confused of what he’s implying.

“that i’m a baby.”

“but you are.”

“i’m obviously not.”

“oh, you obviously are. look at you deathly clinging to me right now.”

“better stop saying that or else.”

“ ‘or else’ what?”

he suddenly got up from bed and removed his hoodie off swiftly. you happen to take a glimpse of his toned abdomen when he lifted it off alongside his shirt, giving you no time to react composedly. you stared at him fazed yet impishly smirking.

“got you staring there for a moment. not a baby indeed, right?” he playfully remarked, rewarding with you the same act of mischief.

you shook your head to deny but quietly admitting he’s right eternally. you snickered in defense to hide your admission. “you’re such a loser. why did you even remove it?”

he acted like he was trying to come op with a rational answer for a second. “uhhh, to distract you?”

“how is that distracting?” you raised a brow.

“it’s enough to keep you occupied.

see? you’re staring hard right now.” he teased you.

“oh wow, was that one of your trap?”

“you think so?”

“i won’t even doubt if it is.”

“well, it’s working.”

“close, but not quite.” the supposed ‘spell’ he willingly wants to put you under worked the other way around, causing woonhak to be the one distracted instead of you and that gave you the perfect window of escape from his cuddle entrapment.

“no wait, get back here, baby!” he immediately tailed you over your desk before you could even land yourself on the chair.

“woonhak, please. stop negotiating. let me fini—“ woonhak quickly turned your chair around so you could look at him directly in the eye. his whole expression changed coldly. barely lively than how he looked 2 minutes earlier. he looks real serious, definitely not joking around this time.

“quit it.”

“what?? i’m not really quitting.”

“no. drop it.”

“look, i just want to finish everything. this is getting out of ha—“

“you know i’m not talking about your tasks, right?” that silenced you. because you realized how he had read your mind the moment he entered your room.

but he actually knew the moment you stop texting back.

because unlike the other guys, woonhak knows how your silence is a cry for help. that you’re struggling internally, not letting anyone enter your bubble once everything feels overwhelming, and woonhak is not the type to brush it off and sit around to wait until you figure everything out by yourself.

he insists, he intervenes, in every way possible. stubborn, it may seem, but that’s because he cares. he truly loves you deeply that it shouldn’t be a mystery why he needs to be involved, to stop your endless mental torture.

that’s why him coming to pay you a visit shouldn’t come much as a surprise. he knows you’re definitely going to need someone even without asking.

he sees you more than a dreamer, an achiever, a hard worker. woonhak also sees you flawed, fragile, tired. and he wants to assure you that it’s okay to depend on someone when it gets heavy — especially on him, who cares a lot.

“baby, i know you’ve been drained lately. i can barely even see your soul in your eyes. it’s been hard these past weeks, isn’t it? as soon as you told me you were going to be busy, i already know you’re going to disappear from the world to suffer alone. and i can’t let you do that. not anymore. not when i know you have bottled up your pain, pressure, and anger; waiting to spill when you hit the curve once more.” you stayed quiet, letting your body absorb every word he said that you absolutely needed to hear.

“i know you, y/n. i know how much of a zealous stellar student you are. how you’re basically going to implode once you forget that one word on your presentation. you’re passionate in almost every thing you do. and i admire you for that.

but you’re also slowly losing yourself in the process. it’s basically sucking the life out of you. you no longer feel like living, just breathing and learning rather. admit it or not, you hate how you’re wired to do that. because you’re not a robot. you’re just a person, who simply needs rest. and right now baby, you need one.

so stop it. put those papers down. cut the act. you don’t have to pretend you’re indestructible. you don’t have to prove you’re good enough. not with me.

because in my eyes, you’ve always been the best.” that’s when you completely lost it. everything went blurry. your eyes cried the tears you’ve been holding back for quite a while. you’ve never felt this seen before.

all along, you never really needed those aced marks, perfect quizzes, countless recognitions. because all you wanted was to be seen, to be appreciated. that was something you were never granted of.

something you had to beg, that woonhak gave willingly; without hesitation.

and that made you cry louder. you collapsed on his arms fully, no strengths left to compose yourself. you really let go of it all. you never realized how much you’ve had them suppressed underneath your fervent persona. you have never been this vulnerable to anyone, even to woonhak. but he wasn’t surprised nor startled at all, because he knew how much you’ve had inside and how it would end up eventually.

“just let it all out now. don’t hold back. i’m right here.” he carried you in his arms, consoling you but not totally stopping you from sobbing. he wants you to let all your bottled up emotions out to empty your emotional baggage you’ve been carrying all alone.

“i-is this why you came here tonight? you just want me to c-cry so i can hug you, d-dont you?” woonhak looked at you displeased with what you just accused of him.

“it was never about the cuddles, sweetheart. i’ve been meaning to say all that to you but i didn’t want it to come off as overbearing. i want you to hear it when you really needed it. and it happens to be tonight, when you’re recalling like you’re chanting, summoning something ancient.” he assured you and mocked how you’ve been reviewing that night.

“w-wait, how did you k-know i sounded like that?” you asked seriously.

“i’ve been here since you opened that history textbook you despise reading about. it was concerning actually.” both of you now giggling with your own banters, completely forgetting how you were just inconsolably crying just moments ago.

“feeling better now?” he wiped away the tears in your eyes, smiling faintly while looking at you in a delicate manner.

“yes.” he raised his brow, not convinced enough.

“and i’m not lying this time.” you assured him with a kiss on his cheek.

“thank you.” you both looked at each other with much sincerity, incredibly thankful to have each other in times like these. someone you can rely on. someone who can hear your silent screams. someone who knows how to be there when you need them to.

“my service was successful, wasn’t it?”

you rolled your eyes at his cocky remark. “yes, it worked.”

“so now,” he held your jaw in place before locking his gaze on your lips then back at your eyes.

“you have to pay me back.” he kissed you deeply. his lips was so sweet that you can practically feel how much he yearned for this to happen. to finally make you feel alive and well. all those days he spent worrying about you and how you’re doing are finally over. because he finally got you feeling loved the right way now. and this kiss serves both as a payback and a present.

you pull back just to stare at him devotedly. both grinning to your hearts’ desire, enjoying this silent night of endless solace. he pulled you down to the bed with him which made a squeal come out of you. and just like that, you’re back to your former position a while ago.

woonhak’s arms latched onto you once more while you suffocate in the embrace.

“you’re clingy.”

“i’m aware.”

“that’s not a compliment.”

“i’d still take it.”

“you’re really impossible.”

“yeah well, only my stubborn ass can keep up with you, ms. no-pain-no-gain.” he roasted you unprovoked.

“hey, that crossed the line.”

“it better should, baby. learn your lessons.”

“wait, you want me to go back there?”

“no, fuck that! come on, you know what i mean!”

you end your night with laughter until your bodies soon gave up and for the first time in a while you both got to sleep peacefully. clear mind, eased heart, warmed souls, and linked bodies. this is exactly what you needed.

You met leehan long before he got his spidey powers. Back then, he was just kim leehan, an awkward freshman who seemed to always have his nose buried in a book or newspaper. He was neither popular nor athletic and certainly not the kind of guy people fought to sit beside at lunch. Everyone overlooked him entirely. Except the bullies.

One afternoon, you watched a group of boys bump into him in the hallway. Newspapers slipping from his arm and scattering across the floor. One of them laughed, mocking his ‘collection’. Another crouched down beside him as if to help and for a moment, leehan looked hopeful. Then the boy ripped a page straight out of one of his notebooks. The group cackled with laughter. You expected leehan to yell, to get angry. Instead, he just smiled. A small smile. The bullies eventually got bored and left. The second they disappeared around the corner, you went up to him, knelt down and helped him gather some scattered papers.

“How are you not angry?..” you ask. That earned a laugh from him, “trust me, i am.” for the first time, you noticed it. The frustration hidden beneath his smile. The way his fingers crumpled the edge of the newspaper. The exhaustion in his eyes. “I just don’t think it’d change anything,” he admitted softly. You looked at him for a moment before handing back the last page, “well for what it’s worth.. I think they’re idiots.”

Leehan blinked. Then a genuine smile appeared on his face, “thanks.”

From that moment on, you started spending more time together. One conversation became two. Two became dozens. You walked home together after school, studied together in libraries, texted each other until neither of you could keep your eyes open. And along the way, somewhere, you stopped being just the girl who helped him pick up papers in the hallway. You became his favourite person. And before either of you realized it, you were no longer just schoolmates. You were his girlfriend. And he was your boyfriend.

By sophomore year, you began noticing changes in leehan. At first they were small. The shy boy who used to stumble over his words now had a comeback ready for almost anything you said. He teased you more often, flashed smug little smirks whenever he won an argument. And somehow carried himself with a confidence you had never seen before. 

“You’re staring.” you blinked, “what?” “you’re staring,” leehan repeated, fighting back a smug grin. “I am not.” “you literally are.” you rolled your eyes and shoved his shoulder. “You’re just so annoying.” “yet you’re still dating me,” the smug look on his face only widened.

You hated how much you liked this version of him. He seemed happier, lighter. For the first time since you’d met him, it felt like he was finally becoming comfortable in his own skin. But only around you. At school, nothing seemed to change. Leehan was still the same awkward nerd everyone loved picking on. You would still find him kneeling on the floor of crowded hallways collecting newspapers. Bullies would shove him between classes, laugh when he stumbled, and make jokes at his expense whenever teachers weren’t around. The sight always made your stomach twist. You had seen him become more confident, more capable, more willing to stand up for himself. So why? Why did he still let this happen?

One night, while the two of you were walking home, you finally asked, “why don’t you ever do anything?” leehan glanced at you. “What do you mean?” “the bullies.” his expression immediately shifted. You noticed it every time the topic came up, a brief flicker of discomfort. 

“They don’t bother me that much.” “that’s a lie.” leehan laughed weakly, “you always know when i’m lying..” “that’s because you’re terrible at it.” for a moment, neither of you spoke. Then he said quietly, “it’s easier this way.” you didn’t understand what he mean then. You simply took his hand and continued walking, unaware that leehan was carrying a secret far bigger than either of you could imagine.

And as time passed, Leehan began disappearing for hours, then days, with horrible excuses that never quite made sense. ‘Sorry something came up.’ ‘I forgot.’ ‘Let’s do it another day.’. At first, you believed him. That was until you started counting how many dates he arrived late to, how many plans he cancelled at the last minute, how many messages were left unanswered for hours.

The seasons continued changing around you, but so did he. One afternoon, when he showed up late yet again, you noticed the bruises peeking out from beneath his sleeve. Dark purple marks, far worse than anything the school bullies could have caused. Your stomach twisted, “leehan? What happened?” his hand immediately pulled the sleeve down, “nothing.”

You reached for him, desperate to understand, but he took a step back. And that.. hurt.. Leehan used to tell you everything, every embarrassing thought, every stupid fish fact that crossed his mind. He was the boy who would call you in the middle of the night just to tell you something he forgot to mention earlier.

Now, he looked at you like you were a stranger asking him questions you had no right to ask about. The distance between you grew quietly, like autumn stealing the green from leaves one day at a time, nothing seemed different at first, until the branches were suddenly bare.

And for the first time, you wondered if you were losing him. Or if you had already lost him long ago.

The argument happened on a rainy night. Maybe it was because you were tired. Maybe it was because you had spent months pretending everything was fine. Or maybe it was because you couldn’t take being shut out anymore.

“What happened to you?” you finally asked. Leehan stood silently in your doorway, rainwater dripping from his jacket.

“You keep disappearing.” silence. “You cancel everything.” silence. “You lie to me.” his jaw tightened. “Can you just tell me what’s going on?” you hated how desperate your voice sounded. “Nothing’s going on.” that was the final straw. 

“Stop saying that!” you snapped, “do you think i’m stupid?” leehan flinched, for a second, he almost told you. About the mask hidden in his room. About the bruises. About the nights spent bleeding on rooftops while trying to save strangers. But he couldn’t. So he stayed quiet. And his silence felt like an answer. Tears burned in your eyes, “you don’t love me anymore.”

His head immediately shot up, “what?” “you don’t.” “i never said that–” “you don’t have to.” your voice cracked, “you barely talk to me. You don’t tell me anything anymore. Every time i try to help, you push me away.”

Leehan opened his mouth, then closed it again. Because every explanation sounded impossible. Because telling the truth would put you in danger. Because keeping the secret was supposed to protect you. But standing there, watching you cry, it didn’t feel like protection. It felt like losing you. “You don’t understand..” he whispered. “Then make me understand.” he couldn’t. And that hurt more than any punch he had ever taken.

Months of frustration spilled our in the form of words neither of you truly meant. Words sharp enough to leave scars. “Maybe you’ve become selfish.” his face fell. “Maybe you don’t care anymore. “That’s not true.” “prove it.”

He couldn’t. And eventually, there was nothing left to say. The rain continued falling as you stepped away from him. Neither of you tried to stop the other. Maybe because you were both too hurt. Maybe because you both thought there would be another chance later. There wasn’t.

As you closed the door in his face, you believed leehan had changed. That the sweet boy you once knew had become careless. Distant. Selfish. You never saw the way his hands trembled. Or the way he stood there long after you had disappeared from his sight. For the first time since becoming spiderman, fighting villains felt easy. 

Losing you was the thing that truly broke him. 

But neither of you had truly moved on. 

Leehan still found himself watching you afar, lingering on rooftops just long enough to make sure you got home safely before disappearing into the night. And you caught yourself making room for him in your life. At the bakery, you had absentmindedly ordered two of his favourite pastries before remembering there was no one waiting beside you anymore.

Old habits were hard to break. Especially when the person you were trying to forget was never really gone.  

One night, on your way home, you took a shortcut through a narrow alleyway. The city was quiet, the only sounds coming from distant traffic and the hum of streetlights overhead.

Then you heard it. A thud. Followed by a pained groan. 

Curiosity got the better of you. You carefully peeked around the corner and froze. A figure sat slumped against a brick wall, breathing heavily. Spiderman?! His suit was torn, blood stained the fabric, fresh bruises bloomed across the exposed skin as trembling hands struggled to pull the mask back on. Then, the mask slipped. And suddenly, the world stopped. Leehan. 

Your breath caught in your throat. Every late arrival. Every cancelled date. Every unexplained bruise. Ever lie. It all made sense. The person you had spent months resenting had been spending every night throwing himself into danger for people he didn’t even know. While you thought he was abandoning you, he had been carrying a burden far heavier than either of you could bear. 

Your chest tightened painfully. Leehan wasn’t selfish. He wasn’t careless. He was exhausted. The guilt made you feel sick. Before he could tilt his head and notice you there, you stumbled backwards and ran. Not because you were scared of him. But because you finally understood. And suddenly, you didn’t know how to face him. 

That day, you were walking towards leehan’s apartment with your heart in your throat. For days, you had rehearsed what you wanted to say. An apology? An explanation? A chance to start over. 

You finally knew the truth. You finally understood why he had changed, why he had lied, why he had pushed you away. And despite everything that had happened between you, you wanted to hear his side. You wanted to tell him you were willing to try again. But you never made it to his door. Because you weren’t the only person looking for Leehan. For weeks, the green goblin had been studying spiderman’s movements. Watching. Waiting. Searching for a weakness he could exploit. 

And then he noticed you. The same face appearing around the apartment complex. The same person lingering near the building more often than coincidence could explain. He didn’t now exactly who you were. A friend? Family? A lover? It didn’t matter. If you were useful to spiderman, then you were useful.

The attack happened so quickly you had barely any time to react. One moment, you were crossing the street and the next, a gloved hand seized you from behind. A scream caught in your throat as the city disappeared beneath your feet. 

The green goblin laughed as his glider carried you into the sky, “let’s see if he comes for you.” and just like that, you became bait. You know he will. Because now you know who spiderman is. And you know leehan would never leave anyone behind him

The green goblin carefully orchestrated the entire situation, ensuring that no matter what spiderman chooses, someone will suffer. The green goblin doesn’t want to kill spiderman, he wants to break him. Weeks of watching him from the shadows had taught him something important about the city’s beloved hero, he always tries to save everyone. So the green goblin creates a situation where saving everyone is impossible.

You are taken up high to a clock tower, your wrists bound as the wind howls around you. Far below, the city continues as normal, blissfully unaware of the disaster waiting to unfold. Then, the explosions begun. Across several blocks, chaos erupted simultaneously. A packed commuter bus is left hanging over the edge of a collapsed bridge. Part of a construction site crumbles, trapping workers beneath unstable steel beams. A crowded train station is thrown into panic as debris rains from above. 

The green goblin smiles, spiderman will come. 

When leehan arrives, he’s already breathing hard. He had been patrolling for hours before receiving reports of attacks. The moment he sees you restrained that high up, something in his stops. For a second, the city disappears. There’s only you. You. alive. Terrified. Close enough that he can see the fear in your eyes. The same eyes that once looked at him with trust. The same eyes that had been filled with disappointment when you walked away from him. The same eyes he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about since. His heart lurches. Then another explosion echoes through the city. 

“Go on, spiderman.” the green goblin laughs. leehan gaze flickers toward the smoke rising in the distance. The bus. The construction site. The station. Hundred of lives. Then back to you. You watch him freeze, not because he doesn’t know what to do. Because he does. He always does. The hesitation only lasts for a moment then he’s gone. You watch him swing away. 

For a brief second, despite knowing why, despite finally understanding everything, your chest aches. The next thirty minutes feels endless. You can only watch from afar as flashes of red and blue move across the skyline. One disaster after another. One rescue after another. And with every passing minute, leehan grows slower. 

The green goblin keeps his promise. Every rescue is another trap. Every civilian saved costs spider-man something. A collapsing beam falls on his ribs. An explosion sends him crashing through concrete. By the time the last civilians are evacuated, leehan is exhausted. His suit is torn, his hands are shaking, blood stains the red fabric across his shoulder, every muscle in his body burns. But the moment the final civilian is safe, he doesn't stop the rest. He doesn’t stop the breathe, he comes back for you.

The green goblin sees him approaching and sighs dramatically, “finally.” 

The fight begins before leehan even lands. A bomb explodes beside him, throwing him across the rooftop. Concrete cracks beneath the impact. Leehan forces himself up immediately but the green goblin doesn’t give him time. 

Another attack. Then another. And another. The green goblin knows it too. Every punch lands harder. Every dodge becomes slower. Eventually, leehan crashes to the ground and doesn’t immediately get back up. For the first time, fear settles in your stomach. Not fear for yourself. Fear for him. 

The green goblin steps forward. Slowly, confidently. Like he’s already won. “You see?” he says, grabbing leehan by his hair, “this is what happens when you try to save everyone.” 

Leehan doesn’t answer, head hangs low, blood dripping onto the concrete. The green goblin laughs, then his gaze shifts towards you. And something changes. Leehan sees it. The direction of his eyes. The intention, the threat. And suddenly, every ounce of exhaustion disappears beneath pure panic. Because losing the fight is one thing. But losing you is another.

The green goblin moves. So does leehan. What happens next, is desperation. The kind born from months of regrets. Months of wishing he could tell you the truth. Months of watching you from afar because he wanted you to be safe. Months of wanting to apologize but never finding the courage. For the first time in the fight, he stops holding anything back, the battle reaches its breaking point. 

And somehow impossibly leehan wins. The green goblin falls and silence follows. The city is safe, you are safe. The fight is over. For a several seconds, leehan doesn’t move, he’s barely standing. But he removes his mask with one tug. Blood runs down his face, his suit is shredded, his hands shake from exhaustion. Then slowly, he turns to you. And despite everything, despite the breakup. Despite believing you hated him.. His first concern is still you. 

“Are you okay?” he asks immediately, his voice is strained, panicked. Like nothing else matters. Like he didn’t just fight for his life. And standing there, finally seeing the truth laid bare in front of you, you realize something devastating, leehan never stopped loving you. He just thought protecting you meant letting you hate him. 

He stumbles towards you, one hand clutching his side. “Hey.. Hang on,” he calls out, voice rough, “i’m coming.. It’s okay i got you..” the words are almost laughable. Because nothing about tonight is okay. But he says them anyway, because he wants you to believe him, because he needs to believe them himself. The concrete beneath you feet cracks. A deep, unsettling sound. Leehan’s stomach drops, “no–”

The structure gives way, and suddenly you’re falling. For one terrible second, all he sees is your expression. Surprise. Fear. then empty air. The world slows. His body moves before his mind can catch up. A web shoots from his wrist. It catches around your chest. Got you. Relief floods through him. Then he jumps, diving after you without hesitation.

The gears in the clock tower rushes past him as he falls, wind tears through his hair, his injuries scream, he ignores all of it. Because all he can think about is reaching you. As he dives, memories crash through him.

You laughing outside a bakery, holding up a pastry, force feeding him to try it.

You sitting beside him on quiet afternoons, talking about your dream with him being a mustard bottle and you bring a ketchup bottle. 

The warmth of your hand finding his automatically.

The way you’d call his name.

The way you’d smile at him.

The way you’d look at him before everything became complicated.

Then came the memories he hates.

The unanswered texts. 

The disappointment.

The arguments.

The night you stood in front of him with tears in your eyes. “You’ve changed.”

The way he couldn’t tell you why.

The way he watched you shut the door in his face.

The way he let you.

Because he thought keeping you in the dark would keep you safe.

The distance between you closes. Closer. Close. Until finally he’s there. His arms wrap around you, another web fires, then another, creating a desperate web-line to stop the fall. The force hits all at once, a violent jolt, a hollow crack sound.

He caught you, he did it. For a brief, shining moment, relief washes over him. You aren’t falling anymore. You’re safe. You’re– 

“Hey.” his voice cracks, he pulls back slightly, waiting for a response. Nothing. The smile on his face falters. “Hey.” still nothing. Around him, the city continues moving, he can hear car honking, distant sirens, the wind. But suddenly, everything feels horribly quiet. His chest tightens.

“No.” his voice comes out as a whisper, “no no no…” you remain motionless in his arms, neck limp. Leehan stares, unable to understand, unable to accept it. He saved you, he caught you, he was fast enough. For once, he was fast enough.. So why– 

His hands begin to shake. The realization arrives slowly. Cruelly. The impact, a force he couldn’t control, the thing even spiderman couldn’t stop. His breathing becomes uneven. “No…” the word breaks apart. He pulls you closer as if somehow that will change reality, as if holding on tighter will bring you back. 

The city celebrates somewhere around him. The green goblin is defeated. The civilians are safe. Spiderman won. But none of it matters. Not when the person he was trying to reach all his life is gone. For the first time putting on the mask, leehan realizes there are some people he can’t save. No matter how much he loves them. 

He pulls you into his arms properly, cradling you against his chest like he can shield you from what already happened. His gloves are shaking when they come up to your face. “Hey..” his voice breaks immediately. 

He presses his forehead against yours, eyes squeezed shut, arms tightening around you instinctively. Then very suddenly, everything he’s been holding back for months comes spilling out.

“I’m sorry..” he says, voice shaking. “I’m sorry i didn’t tell you.. I’m sorry I kept pushing you away. I thought– i thought if you hated me, you’d be safe.” his breath catches, rough and uneven. “I didn’t know how to be both things at once.. I didn’t know how to be spiderman and still be yours..”

A broken laugh slips out of him, but there’s no humor in it. “I wanted to come back.. I was going to.. I just– i needed more time.. I needed to fix everything first..” his fingers tremble as they brush your hair back. “You were supposed to be safe,” he whispers, “that was the whole point..”

A pause. A long unbearable silence. Then his voice completely cracks. “You were supposed to live..” his grip tightens again, not letting go even as reality makes it unavoidable. And for leehan, that’s when it finally becomes real. 

He can survive villains, he can survive pain. But he cannot save you from this. And as he hold you there, in the aftermath of everything he tried to prevent, leehan understands something he never wanted to learn. All the time he spent trying to protect you.. Ended with the one thing he couldn’t protect you from. Silence. Permanent. Irreversible silence. 

And for the first time since he became spiderman, he doesn't feel like a hero at all.

The funeral takes place in spring. The season is wrong for something like this, too bright, too alive. Flowers bloom anyway, as if the world has decided to keep moving forward without permission. Leehan stands at a distance. He doesn’t come closer. He can’t. 

Everything feels like it’s happening behind glass. Voices blur into one another. People speak gently, carefully, like the right tone might soften what has already happened. But nothing softens it. Because all he can see is the place you should be standing instead of laying in a coffin. 

When it’s over, he doesn’t leave immediately. He waits until everyone else is gone. Until the silence only belongs to him. That’s when he finds it. A message on his phone. Unread. Sent the night when you were headed to his apartment, before everything happened. His hands shake before he even opens it. 

Two words. ‘I understand.’

Leehan stares at it for a long time. Long enough that the world around him stops making sense. Because those two words shouldn’t exist there. They shouldn’t be real. They shouldn’t have come too late. 

And suddenly, everything he tried to protect you from becomes unbearable in a different way. Not because you died hating him. You died understanding him.

The world moves on. It always does. Classes resume, streets fil again, the city forgets the shape of grief faster than it forgets the shape of destruction. But leehan doesn’t. He stops trying to separate spiderman from himself after that. Because there’s no separation anymore.

Spiderman failed you. Leehan failed you. Both names lead to the same ending, and he can’t decide which one hurts more. 

Years pass, seasons keep changing the way they always do, spring returning every time like nothing happened. Autumn stripping the world down again without apology. But for him, nothing resets. Every spring looks like that night and your funeral. Every wind sounds like the moment you fell. Every quiet night feels like the space between his web reaching but too late.

He keeps patrolling. Keeps saving people. Keeps doing what he always did. But it only feels like repetition. Because somewhere deep down, he believes the truth never changed. If he had been faster. If he had been stronger. If he had told you everything sooner. If he had been honest at the start. 

You would still be alive. And so he carries it. Not just grief. But the unbearable weight that even spiderman cannot save everyone. 

Just like flowers, he never noticed the exact moment things began to die. Only that by the time he finally looked back at the garden he had been trying so hard to protect,

half of it was already gone.

divider by @andromeda-graphics | network @berrybittynetwork

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"I didn't forget it," you said. "I just don't have it." You groaned, finally giving up as you stuffed your keys into your pocket and sat down on the steps that led to your apartment’s front door, letting your head rest in your palms. "I drank too much,” you spoke, your voice muffled. Taesan looked down at you, following suit.

"Does this mean I'm not allowed inside your house?" Taesan asked, his arms propping him up as he leaned back. He sighed, "Man, I really wanted to know what kind of place a hermit like you lived in."

"I am not a hermit."

"Hey," he began, clearing his throat as he sat up. "We just came back from your first college party," Taesan laughed. "This is your second year here and you're— what, twenty?"

"That doesn't make me a hermit," you said, beginning to grow annoyed with him. "What are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be back at that party looking for your next victim?"

Taesan scoffed, "The people I take home are not victims," he said. "They join me willingly." Your head turned to look at him, a disgusted expression forming on your face at the sight of the proud smirk plastered across his face.

You gagged, "That’s gross."

He scoffed again, "Says you."

"Whatever." You sighed, looking away for a moment before glancing back at Taesan, his gaze upward as he watched the streetlight above them flicker. "I mean, you're pretty attractive, you know," you said quietly, almost embarrassed if it wasn’t for the alcohol in your system. "I can see why you get around."

"You make it sound like it's a bad thing.” Taesan’s eyes widened for a moment before he looked back down at his dirty shoes, blowing a raspberry. “I haven't slept with that many people. Most of them fall asleep before I can even get them through the door."

"So you babysit?" you asked seriously. "Is that what you're doing with me? Because I don't have my house key and refuse to sleep with you?"

"No," Taesan spoke, shaking his head. "I'm simply having a conversation with you because I think you're interesting. For an English major, that is."

"Interesting? Ugh, go home." You rolled your eyes, watching him laugh. "Seriously, you might as well. I'll probably end up sleeping out here if my roommate doesn't come home."

"But I like talking to you," he said. "I haven't talked to someone like this in a while."

"Because you make out with them before they can get a word in?" You smiled when you saw the look Taesan was giving you. Not quite offended, but not exactly a fan of your sarcastic comments either. "I’m kidding," you said. "Fine, I'll allow you to join me for a night of sleeping on cold pavement. You'll find it's not as bad as it sounds."

"You've done this before?"

"Oh yeah," you nodded. "You should know I don't bring my key with me very often — just in case you ever want to hang out with me ever again."

"That's fine," he said. "We can always just go to my place." Your eyes narrowed at his words.

"I don't want to sleep with you.”

He rolled his eyes, "That's not what I meant."

Han Taesan found it odd how easy it was to talk to someone he'd only met a couple hours ago. He didn't know why he was talking to you to begin with — perhaps it was the guilt of having spilled his drink all over you, staining the white fabric of your shirt. Maybe it was because you were still wearing his shirt as he sat next to you in a black tank top, the cool autumn breeze slowing beginning to gnaw at his skin the longer he remained outside. Or maybe it was because you were simply so much more interesting than all the other girls he'd met before — girls who only wanted to party and get high, girls with no passion for anything besides winning a game of beer pong. Boring people who relied on the wind to get them to where they wanted to be, but never needed.

Taesan felt that whatever came out of your mouth had a meaning to it, that every word you spoke was important to your character. Whether it was insulting him and his "frowned-upon" ways or admiring him under the October moon.

"What's your favorite song?" you asked, your back on the pavement as you looked up at the night sky. "Like, of all time?"

"Why?"

"A person's favorite song says a lot about them," you said, resting your hands over your stomach. "I really like 'Starting Over'.”

"Okay, and what does that say about you?" Taesan asked, turning his head just enough to get you in his peripheral.

"Probably that I'm a terrible person," you replied, the alcohol beginning to wear off. You laid in silence, waiting for a reply from Taesan until you realized you wouldn't be getting one. Then you sighed quietly. "You don't know this," you began, "but I think I'm a terrible person."

"You don't seem like one," he said.

"But that's because you don't know me," you said, sitting up. You looked at him, waiting for his eyes to meet yours before continuing. "You don't know the things I've done, just like I don't know what you've done — nor do I really care, for that matter. To me, you're just another guy I happened to bump into at a party, just another guy that I let walk me home way too late at night, just another guy that I lied to because I didn’t want to sleep with them.”

"What do you mean 'lied' to?" Taesan asked, his brows furrowing in confusion again.

"Did you really think I'd leave my house without a key?" you asked. "Look, what I'm saying is that despite everything that’s happened tonight, I don't want to get to know you and you don't want to get to know me. We had a nice time, just talking and being beside each other, but it's never going to go anywhere past that point because we'd probably end up hating each other.” You paused, looking into his brown eyes, watching the way they sparkled underneath the dim street lights. “I can feel it."

"I don't think I could hate you," Taesan responded. "Not when you're being so honest to me."

"You will, because guys like you don't like girls like me, and girls like me hate guys like you."

Han Taesan stared at you, finally starting to sober up as he tried to wrap his head around your words. He bit the inside of his cheek, breaking eye contact as he looked down, exhaling. "Let me ask you something."

"What?”

"Why are you so confident that I won't like you?" he asked. "You don't know me either, you know. You don't know what I'm like besides what you've seen in the past couple of hours."

You paused for a moment, thinking, wondering if you should tell the truth or make up another lie. "I think it'd just be easier to live with myself if I didn't know who you were," you said. "I don't want to waste time on someone who only talked to me because they wanted to get laid."

"I already told you that's not why I'm here." Taesan rubbed the side of his face in frustration, sighing. "Do you have, like, a secret agenda against me?" he asked. "Do you hate me already just because I seem like a stereotypical college guy who sleeps with everyone they lay their eyes on? 'Cause if that's the case, that's pretty shallow of you."

"I just don't want to get hurt by you," you said. "Or anyone, for that matter. You've been too nice to me for me to not think you wanted something from me."

"I don't want anything from you," Taesan said exasperatedly. "But if you want me to hate you, then I will. Do you want me to hate you?"

"Not necessarily."

"Then why are we even having this conversation?" Your lips formed a thin line as you avoided Taesan’s eyes. "I don't care if you think you're a bad person. There doesn't have to be anything between us, you know," he said. "We can just be people that know each other and talk sometimes. Some would even call that being friends."

"Do you really want to be my friend?" you asked him, the embarrassment rushing to your face.

"Of course I do. Who wouldn't want to be friends with someone as opinionated as you?" You scoffed and rolled your eyes, causing Taesan to crack a smile. "How about this?" He sat up straight, turning his body to fully face you as he crossed his legs beneath him. "I won't judge you and you won't judge me. We can be friends with no obligations to each other besides just wanting to hang out sometimes."

You looked at him, a look of hesitance visible on your face as you thought about it. Truthfully, you could use someone like Taesan in your life, someone who wouldn't judge you for the way you were, someone you could be yourself around freely. You were already off to a bad start, anyway — how much worse could it possibly get?

"Okay," you agreed. "That works."

"Cool." Taesan held out his pinky.

Your left brow raised. "What's that?"

"Pinky promise," he said. "Come on, don't tell me you've never made a pinky promise before."

"Of course I have. It just seems a bit childish."

"I thought we agreed not to judge each other."

"Right." You sighed, hooking your pinky with Taesan’s, a surprised look crossing your features. "Why's your pinky so cold?"

"I gave you my shirt," he said. "And this tank isn't really doing much to shield me from the wind."

You had forgotten that you were wearing Taesan’s shirt, your own shirt forgotten back at the party. "Oh." You looked down for a moment, using all the brainpower you had left to think of a solution. You then got up, taking your keys out of your pocket again and this time using your real house key to open the front door. You looked back at Taesan, who continued to stare at you until you spoke up. "Aren't you gonna come inside?"

"Am I welcome?" he asked.

"Yeah, friends are welcome."

"Alright then."

Taesan stood up and followed you inside, closing the door behind him. You threw your keys into a white bowl that sat on a table near the entrance, taking your shoes off and kicking them to the side. He did the same, except he set his shoes neatly in the corner. "I'll go change and give you your shirt back," you said, showing Taesan to your room. "You can sleep here, if you want." You paused as you searched your closet for a shirt you could change into, then turned around to look at him. "Just leave before the sun rises."

"Okay," he said, nodding as he took a seat on your bed. "What happens then?”

"We'll both be bombarded with my roommate's questions as to why you're here and sleeping in my room," you said. Taesan lips formed an ‘O’ shape, making a mental note not to sleep in like he usually would. "I'll be right back." You left the room and closed the door behind you, leaving him alone as he examined your room.

Bookshelves full of mostly Russian and Japanese classics — Dostoevsky being the most noticeable. A desk cluttered in loose notebook paper and frosted polaroids — all pictures of sceneries or other people, never of you yourself. A box in the corner filled with aging notebooks, stacked on top of each other, neglected, collecting dust. Another box beside your bed filled with vinyl records, though you only had very few of them. A single pillow on your bed, thrown off to the side, barely used.

You were interesting, to say the least. It was almost as if there was meaning in everything you did, everything you had. Taesan thought back to the conversation you’d had outside, wondering if you had truly meant what you’d said. Were you really that bad of a person, so bad to the point where you felt the need to warn him? He couldn't believe you — no, he didn't want to believe you.

But perhaps there was meaning in that, too.

1. RUNNING IN CIRCLES.

With his brows furrowed in confusion as he sat across from you on your bedroom floor, Han Taesan found it quite difficult to understand your nihilistic beliefs. A bowl of strawberries rested in his lap as his eyes moved back and forth between the loose-leaf papers you’d scattered across the floor and your face, fully concentrated as you tried to explain why “nothing mattered.”

"We live in a materialistic world, Taesan," you spoke, reaching behind you to grab a thick binder with more papers. "It's all about money. Everything in this world revolves around it and it sickens me, the way you all just accept it. We weren't put in this world just to worry about money."

Taesan nodded, still confused. "Okay," he said, popping a strawberry into his mouth. "Then what were we put here to do?"

You snapped and pointed at him, getting up on your knees. "Absolutely nothing!” you said excitedly. "Nothing in this world matters. Not the people you meet, not the clothes you buy or the books you read. Absolutely nothing in this world matters because at the end of the day, we're all gonna die and all the effort we put into caring would go to waste."

Taesan was lost. Perhaps because it was two in the morning and he'd showed up at your doorstep on a whim, his feet dragging him to your place like a moth to a flame. A part of him was slowly starting to regret even stepping outdoors as he sat across from you with a blank look in his eyes. He stared at you, watching the look on your face change from expectant to disappointed. "You're not getting it," you frowned, sitting down on the floor as your shoulders slumped. "Why am I even talking to you about this?"

"To be fair, this was all you," Taesan spoke, his mouth full. "When I knocked on the door, I was not expecting to walk in on you having an existential crisis."

"I'm not having a crisis," you groaned. "I have to finish writing this stupid, stupid knock-off Fight Club essay that's—" You paused, looking at your phone as you checked the time, "—due in fifteen hours. I haven't even gotten past the introduction."

"What possessed you to become an English major?" Taesan asked, his back now on the floor as he stared at the bedroom ceiling, parts of it covered in newspaper. "Like, what part of you thought majoring in English was a good idea? Did it come to you in a dream or something?"

"It's not even that bad." You got off the floor, your arms full of papers as you set them on your desk, a hand running through your hair as you let out another sigh. "I usually don't have trouble bullshitting an essay. I don't know what's gotten to me."

"You're in love with me," Taesan said, eating the last strawberry. "You're in love with me and it's driving you crazy." He looked at you, smiling when he saw the disgusted look on your face.

"See, I knew you were delusional, but not to this extent," you said, your eyes narrowing. "I am not in love with you, Han Taesan. If anything, the utter thought of you repulses me."

He winced. "Ouch."

When Han Taesan suggested you be friends, you took it as a challenge. From the moment he'd walked into your bedroom that oddly chilly October night, you had made it your mission to make him realize that you were not worthy of friendship — at least not his. It was self-destructive of you, but you were determined to prove your point, which was that you were not as good of a person as Taesan believed you to be.

However, you seemed to be off to a terrible start.

In the past two months, Taesan had developed nothing but adoration towards you. You felt it in the way he looked at you when she spoke of how much of an idiot the guy in your psychology class, Woonhak, was. You felt it in the way he inched closer to you whenever you sat next to each other, his gaze always focused on the side of your face as you spoke, never really looking at him though your words were directed towards him. And you felt it in his actions, the way he offered to share an earbud with you whenever you rode the bus together, the way he always walked a step behind you, the way he always offered his jacket whenever you happened to mention that it was too cold outside.

At this point, you felt he'd probably fall in love with you first before he managed to hate you, and that was perhaps the thing you feared the most — because the last thing you needed was for Han Taesan to be in love with you.

"So what are you doing over the break?" Taesan asked, sitting up. "Are you going home or...?"

"Or what?"

"Or staying here?"

You side-eyed him, then went back to organizing your papers. "Why would I go home?" you asked, more to yourself than to him. "My parents don't want me home unless there's a ring on my finger and some guy clinging to my arm." You scoffed at the thought of them, shaking your head lightly. "They want me to get married more than they want me to get a degree. Stupid."

"You could always just get your degree and then get married," he spoke, yawning afterward.

"I just don't want to get married," you said. "Seeing how it's turning out for them, it just seems like such a waste."

"Why, because nothing matters?" Taesan joked.

"Because why would I put years of effort into a relationship that's bound to fall apart?"

It was almost a one-sided conversation whenever Taesan spoke to you — as if you wanted to have the last word in, as if everything he had to say was worthless because you always had you own beliefs that you stuck to like glue. He stared at you, watching you run a hand through you hair, then pinching the bridge of your nose. "But that's only if you meet the wrong person," Taesan spoke.

"That's not it," you said, getting off the floor and moving to sit down on your bed, crossing your legs. "I'm sure there's a person out there waiting for me like everyone else says, and I'm sure they're great, but it'd be such a waste of time."

Taesan knew where this was going. "Because you're such a terrible person? Even when everyone around you keeps telling you you're not?"

"Exactly. They don't want this," you said, gesturing toward yourself. "You don't want this, yet you stick around. But it doesn't matter, because one day you're gonna wake up and realize all the time you spent with me was a waste."

"That's stupid." Taesan laid back down, crossing his arms under his head. "I would've left you alone already if I didn't want to be with you."

"I don't know why you haven't."

"Because I like you." He paused, thinking carefully about his next words. "As a person. Even if you think everyone is out to get you all the time."

You sighed. This game you were playing, this one-sided game to get Han Taesan to hate you — you were losing, like he was dodging every one of your attacks. You felt you were running in circles around him, like you weren’t getting anywhere. No matter how hard you tried, there was not a single moment in your friendship where Taesan was even close to hating you. You knew it and you hated it. You hated it because instead of feeling as unloved and despised as you’d wanted to (to prove your point), you had never felt more warmth in your heart.

It was almost as if Han Taesan purposely went out of his way to make you feel loved, just to spite you.

Or perhaps, he truly believed it was simply something you were worthy of feeling.

"Are you sleeping here tonight?" you asked, changing the topic. "Do I have to lend you my one and only pillow again?"

Taesan snorted, "You don't even use that pillow," he said. "I've probably used it more in the last two months than you have since you bought it." He turned his head to the side, his eyes meeting yours, "We can share, if you want."

"Pfft," you laughed. "Are you suggesting we sleep in the same bed?"

"Your floor is cold!" Taesan argued. "Plus, my back hurts. I can never get comfortable."

"No one's forcing you to sleep over," you said. "You can always just go home."

"Nah." He shook his head, "I like sleeping in your room," he said. Then he paused, his eyes now focused on the ceiling above him. "I like being close to you, you know?"

You knew. As much as you hated to admit it, as much as it pained you to, you knew. But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst past was that you liked being with him too, and the utter thought of it, the simple idea of wanting to be close to him despite all your efforts to push that feeling away — it made you feel as if your heartstrings were being tugged violently. So violently, you felt the tubes would be ripped out if they pulled hard enough.

"Sure," you said, looking at him with your tired eyes, letting out a quiet sigh. "Okay. You can sleep on my bed."

Taesan shot up, his once closed eyes now open wide and he looked at you. "Really?" he asked. "Just like that?"

"Yeah." You had already moved to get under the covers, your back facing Taesan as you spoke to him. "You can have my pillow, just turn off the light. Please."

Despite it being far from the first time Taesan had slept in someone’s bed, he was nervous. He laid there on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling with a gap between your bodies, keeping his distance, afraid that he was crossing a line. You never said anything, to which he figured you’d just fallen asleep, deciding to give up on your essay for the night and worry about it in the morning.

But you couldn't sleep that night, the thought of Han Taesan sleeping in your bed eating at you as your thoughts ran wild, your heart beating so fast you could hear its loud thumping in your ears. So what if he's in my bed? you thought. We're not doing anything. Ever. I'd rather die.

And part of it was true. Why would you ruin a perfectly good thing you had going out of your own selfishness? Well, you did a lot of things as a result of your selfishness — like trying to convince Taesan that you weren’t worth his time.

The thing was, a part of you was slowly starting to accept the fact that perhaps that wasn't true. Perhaps you weren’t as bad of a person as you’d previously believed, and nothing scared you more than coming to terms with a belief that wasn't your own.

2. A FRIENDSHIP WORTHWHILE.

Han Taesan was not in love with you. He did not listen to every word you spoke as if it were the most important thing he'd ever heard because he liked you, but simply because there was no other sound to listen to. His eyes did not linger on the side of your face when you averted your gaze, focusing on something else as you spoke to him, because he liked you, but because there was simply nothing else to look at. He did not look for you in a sea of people he happened to know, his eyes scanning every person that walked out of the library near your campus as the time neared midnight because he liked you, but because there was no one else he could possibly be looking for.

Han Taesan was not in love with you, but if he were, he wouldn't necessarily be against it.

See, Taesan’s had his fair share of people, all to which he would consider interesting — in their own, unique way. But when it came to you, all he could really think about was how opposed you were to being his friend, how you wanted nothing to do with him after that night you spent talking on your doorstep. Perhaps it was because no one had ever denied liking him before, always giving him what he wanted without him having to ask for it. Or perhaps it was the thrill of chasing after someone for once, the adrenaline kicking in whenever your eyes met, his heart racing so fast he felt it'd jump right out of his chest.

A part of him still believed you didn't care much about him, that you let him stick around because you had no other way to waste time, because he just happened to be the best option for a distraction. And even if it was true — even if you really did hate him — it wouldn't change the fact that Han Taesan was drawn to you like a magnet.

"I've already seen this movie," you mumbled, your eyes glued to your laptop screen as you scrolled through your Netflix account, searching for a movie to watch. You were sitting in a corner in the library, surrounded by shelves of Spanish literature. You were supposed to be studying for your midterm, but decided to push it back another day in the end. Taesan was seated beside you, the earbuds connected to her laptop in his ear as he shared with you, listening to the trailers before they were cut off by your impatient scrolling. You huffed, "Nothing's good here. I've already seen most of these."

Taesan really had no business being in the library so late at night, considering he had no pending exams and was extremely tired, but there he was — to no one's surprise really. He side-eyed you, his eyes returning to your laptop screen. "Shouldn't that be a sign to study?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's a sign that Netflix's collection is shit," you said, leaning back in your chair. "Should I just rewatch Warm Bodies? Do you think that's a good idea?"

"Do what you want," Taesan said. "I haven't seen it anyway."

You paused, turning to look at the guy beside you slowly. "You haven't seen Warm Bodies?" you repeated. "Really? The zombie movie where the zombie falls in love with a human after eating her boyfriend's brain? You haven't seen it?!”

A concerned look appeared on his face. "That's the kind of stuff you watch?" he asked. "Should I be worried?"

"Taesan," you started, turning your whole body to face him. "The only thing you should be worried about is your mind being blown after we watch the best zombie-romance movie that has ever — and I mean ever — been released."

"Someone's excited."

"For good reason!" you exclaimed. "It's a masterpiece. Watch." You closed out of the tab and opened up your Files folder. "I even have it downloaded to my laptop. That's how good it is."

Taesan had never really paid attention to movies. He found most of them to be boring, but that was probably because he didn't know much about them anyway. He didn't pay attention to the details in the cinematography, the foreshadowing to events that would happen in the future — stuff like that. It all bored him, but watching that movie as he sat beside you, who was probably on your millionth rewatch considering you were mumbling the script the entire time, he felt the need to pay attention, to become as invested as you were.

Han Taesan had this really bad habit of making himself like whatever you liked, simply because he believed maybe you’d like him a little more. Maybe, if he agreed with your political views and enjoyed the same movies that you did, you would realize that being friends with him was worthwhile.

Maybe you’d finally realize that Taesan stuck around because he simply wanted to.

"Where do you see yourself in ten years?" you asked, walking beside Taesan. He had fallen behind a couple of steps, his eyes focused upward toward the dark night sky. You turned around, walking backward. "Like, what do you think you'll be doing in the future?"

"Hm," Taesan hummed, his hands behind his back as he walked. "Don't know," he said. "Definitely not here. I think I'd be traveling, maybe finally visiting Europe like I intend to."

"What's in Europe?"

"Italy, Monaco, Ireland, Germany, Netherlan—"

"Not that," you laughed. "I know what countries are in Europe. What I meant was what d’you think is waiting for you there?"

"Hot chicks and nude beaches." you scoffed and turned back around, a smile growing on Taesan’s face as he laughed loudly. "What, is that not what you wanted to hear?"

You shook your head in disapproval, "I can't even look at you right now."

"I thought we weren't gonna judge each other." Taesan’s pace increased as he finally caught up with you, finding your reaction amusing. "Fine," he said. "What do you want me to say?"

"It's not what I want you to say," you replied. "It's what you actually think you'd have done with your life at the time." You paused, waiting for a response from him, then continued when you realized you wouldn't receive one. "If it helps, I don't know what I'll be doing in ten years," you said quietly, as if afraid to admit it.

"Then why'd you ask me?"

"Because I figured at least you'd have a plan." You stopped at a light, pushing the button to cross and waiting. You turned to look at Taesan, "As much as I like to make fun of you, you're probably more prepared when it comes to the future than I am," you said, "and I don't know how I feel about that."

Taesan exhaled, watching as his breath turned white in front of him due to the cold temperatures. "You can figure it out as you go," he said in an attempt to comfort you. "You don't have to have everything figured out yet. God knows I don't."

"Yeah." You nodded, walking forward as the light signaled to them that they could cross the street. "I guess you're right."

In all honesty, Han Taesan had an idea of what his future looked like. He'd probably be traveling like he told you before, staying at five star hotels (because his parents would never even consider anything less) and eating at Michelin star restaurants. He imagined himself alone most of the time, occasionally accompanied by someone he'd met along the way, only to end up alone again as he traveled to another country. Before, he would've considered it to something worth waiting for, a future many would envy him for. But now, he felt there was something wrong with it, as if there was something he was missing — though he wasn't quite sure what it was. All he knew now was that he didn't want to live a life like that.

Not unless it was with you.

"I won't stay long," Taesan said as you pulled out your keys, unlocking your front door. "Your roommate's probably sick of seeing me every morning."

"Minju doesn't mind," you said. "In fact, I think she has a little crush on you. Probably because you're always wearing those stupid tank tops, showing off your big arms all the time." You opened the door for Taesan to step inside. "Plus, you live another ten minutes away and it's cold outside. I don't want you to freeze to death."

"I thought that was exactly what you wanted," he joked, watching you roll your eyes. He walked in and closed the door behind him, smiling to himself. "Wait, you think my arms are big?" he asked, taking his shoes off. "Was that a compliment?"

"You're getting way too ahead of yourself," you said. "Don't make me kick you out."

"I don't think Minju would let you anyway."

"You're insufferable." You took off your jacket, hanging it on the coatrack near the front door as you made your way toward the kitchen, turning the light on and pouring herself a glass of water. Taesan followed after you, leaning against the counter as he stood beside you. "I don't know how I put up with you."

"Probably because you're in love with me?"

"Stop saying that," you laughed, punching his arm. "I'm not in love with you, Han Taesan. And if I were, I think I'd kill myself."

"That's harsh," he said, scoffing. "You're always so opposed to the idea — what's so wrong with being in love with me anyway?" Though he was half joking, Taesan waited for a response from you as you thought about your words carefully, a part of you wondering if you should even respond.

"There's nothing wrong with it," you said, refusing to look at him despite Taesan waiting for your eyes to meet his. "I just don't think I'd ever want to be." You paused, sighing, your next words quiet. "I couldn't live with myself if I were."

Taesan went home at around four in the morning that day, even after you told him he was more than welcome to stay over. Still, as much as he truly wanted to, he decided against it, thinking back on what you’d told him in the kitchen. His thoughts ran wild as he walked home that night, a sudden wave of confusion washing over him. What did you mean, you’d never want to be in love with him? Why? Was he simply not desirable in your eyes? Or was it because he just wasn't as interesting as you thought he'd be? Even as he laid in his own bed that morning, he couldn't help but feel that perhaps your words were a bit too mean because you meant something else.

Han Taesan found it hard to believe that you didn't love him. Sure, perhaps he was getting ahead of himself, reading too much into your friendship, but it simply wasn't possible in his eyes. You’d shared so many vulnerable and intimate moments with each other in the short time you’d been friends — hell, you’d already met his parents, seen his childhood home, met his friends. Taesan had let you into his life the moment he laid eyes on you, so why hadn't you done the same?

Why did you refuse to open yourself up for him? Perhaps out of fear of what he'd do with you, fear that he'd abandon you like the people before him and those yet to come. Whatever it was, he couldn't quite find a reason why you didn't keep him as close to your heart and he kept you, and maybe that was the difference between you two. But no matter how many times you would draw the line between you, separating yourself from him, Taesan would always find himself a step too close, holding onto the hope that one day, you would let him in.

Han Taesan was not in love with you — but the thing about Taesan was that he had a tendency of becoming too attached to people who didn't want him, even if he ended up getting hurt in the process.

3. WHERE YOU WANT ME

There was hesitation in your steps as you contemplated knocking on Taesan’s front door. A sense of fear had overwhelmed you, though you were unsure as to why you felt that why. Perhaps it was because you were afraid of what was waiting for you beyond that door, the loud sounds of modern rap music blasting through the walls, the inescapable warmth of drunk bodies pressed against each other already evident before you even walked inside.

"Come on," Minju spoke up, snapping you out of your thoughts as she stood behind you impatiently. "Are you really thinking about going home? Now?"

"If you think about it, we both have midterms in a couple of days," you said, trying to come up with an excuse. "Plus, what good would walking home drunk do if it's literally 49 degrees outside?"

"And that's exactly why we should go inside! It's so cold." Minju reached around your frame, attempting to grab the doorknob, though she was stopped by your hand. Minju groaned, "What, Y/N? What now?"

"I just—" You struggled to find words to explain your actions. You’d never been so nervous about going to a party before — in fact, you were usually the one that suggested it — so why were you suddenly nervous now? Why did going inside sound so much worse than standing outside in almost freezing temperatures?

Why did attending Han Taesan’s party sound like a terrible idea?

Minju stared at you, waiting for a response with an annoyed look plastered all over her face. "Listen," she started, desperate to go inside. "I've always been supportive of what you want to do, Y/N, because I love you and you're my friend but right now, my legs are about to freeze in place. If I don't have a shot in my hand in the next five minutes, so help me God, I will change the locks on you."

"That's so mean," you frowned. "How could you say that?"

"Is that enough motivation to make you go inside?"

You felt out of place, as if everyone's eyes were drawn to you, judging you, ripping you open. It felt so wrong, being in a place where no one knew who you were, where no one bothered to find out who you were. You hated it, this feeling of intimidation you’d gotten as you tried to push your way through people, searching for the bathroom. But it seemed every corner of Taesan’s apartment was overflowing with people, and it felt so suffocating — to the point where you felt you were going to throw up.

Suddenly, you felt a hand on your shoulder, causing you to jolt. You turned around, defensively, only to come face to face with Han Taesan himself, your previous anxiety slowly beginning to settle. "Where've you been?" he asked, unaware that you were on the verge of a panic attack just a couple seconds ago. "I've been searching everywhere for you and Minju didn't know where y—"

"I think I need to go home," you cut him off, your eyes wandering frantically from one side of the room to the other. "I don't—" You took a deep breath, struggling. "I don't feel good and if I stay, I'll just feel even worse."

Taesan looked at you, concerned. He was fairly tipsy, perhaps already drunk — you could see it in the way he took a couple seconds longer to respond, his brain moving slower than usual. "You need to go home?" he repeated, still processing your words. His voice was loud, trying to speak over the music. "But you just got here. I haven't seen you in a week."

To be clear, you had been avoiding Taesan for the past week, afraid that he'd distract you from preparing for midterms any more than you already were. But it seemed that forcing yourself to stay away from Taesan only did more damage, considering you’d barely gotten anything done. Still, you would never admit that to him — especially not now that he was right in front of you.

You felt bad, the way his smile turned so quickly into a frown, the way he was so happy to see you just for you to leave the moment he found you. But if you stayed any longer, you felt you’d explode.

Before you could say anything, Taesan grabbed her wrist, dragging you through the crowds of people and around a corner, walking down the hallway to his room. He'd locked the door, now struggling to unlock it with his key, his eyes sleepy. But he was determined to get in, eventually fitting the key in the hole, pushing the door open as he gestured for you to go inside. You looked at him, and Taesan finally realized what it looked like he was doing. "Don't worry, I won't do anything," he laughed.

Once they were inside, Taesan closed the door behind him, sighing as he ran a hand through his hair. "You can sit wherever," he said, waving his hand around. "Just— give me a moment."

You sat cross-legged on Taesan’s bed, your breathing leveling out as you watched him stand in the corner of his room, trying to sober up. You didn't know if it was simply because he already felt hungover or because he couldn't stand to keep you company while under the influence. You heard him take in a couple of deep breaths before he walked across the room and grabbed a water bottle that he'd left on his desk, drinking it. "Okay," he said, sitting down in his chair. "What's wrong?"

"I think there's just something wrong with me," you spoke quietly despite the loud noises from outside bleeding through the walls. "You know, I usually don't turn down an invitation to a party," you started, "but today I just felt so..." You struggled to find the words again, beginning to get frustrated with yourself. "I felt like every bad thing that could possibly happen to me would happen tonight."

"You could've just stayed home," Taesan said. His arms were crossed over his chest as he looked at you, who seemed to be avoiding him still. "I would've understood."

"But then I'd feel even more terrible."

"Because I was the one throwing a party this time?"

"Exactly."

"Y/N," he started, leaning forward. "Look at me." Taesan waited for you head to turn and your eyes to meet his before continuing. "I don't care about this party," he spoke softly. "Leehan’s the one that wanted to throw it because I passed a midterm or whatever, not me. If I had any say in what I did to 'celebrate', I probably would've just spent it trying to get you out of your room again." He was smiling as he spoke to you, but you couldn't find it in you to reciprocate his smile. "And if that didn't work, then I would've spent it watching all those movies you told me to watch."

"That's so boring," you mumbled. "Why would you want to celebrate that with me?"

"Because I think you're nice," he said. "You always have something to say, even if we don't agree sometimes. If you let me, I'd probably follow you everywhere. I'd go wherever you wanted me to."

You chuckled, "You already do."

"Exactly." A comfortable silence fell between you, both running out of things to talk about. You didn't know if you should explain yourself — why you refused to see Taesan the past week, which as a result only made you a bit more miserable — but he was already a step ahead, clearing his throat before he spoke. "Why did you avoid me?" Taesan asked, leaning back in his chair.

You sighed. "To be honest, I don't know," you said. "I just thought maybe if I didn't have you around for a while, I'd be able to focus."

"Did it work?"

You wanted to tell him the truth, how not having Taesan around to keep you company made you feel as if a part of you was missing, that not being able to talk to him was killing you, slowly eating you alive. You wanted to tell him that his absence only made you more anxious, more paranoid than you’d ever been in your entire life. Perhaps it was because you’d gotten so used to having him around the past couple of months, so used to him reassuring you that you were, in fact, a better person than you believed yourself to be. Without him, it was like being stripped naked, all of your insecurities and thoughts that kept poking at the back of your brain on full display for the entire world to see. You felt so vulnerable, it made you sick.

But you didn't tell him that. The words were caught in the back of your throat and you feared if they somehow did manage to roll off your tongue, you wouldn't be able to face him anymore.

"Hm," you hummed, thinking. "It just wasn't... ideal. It would've been nice to have a distraction from time to time. You know, like a little break."

"So you're telling me you didn't miss me at all?" Taesan’s eyes widened slightly, his tone expectant, a part of him hoping that you did, in fact, miss him — because God knows he missed you terribly. "Not even a bit?"

"If you had been there, I wouldn't have minded," you said, an indirect response to a simple yes-or-no question.

Taesan nodded, humming as he stood up from his chair and grabbed the nearest jacket, putting his arms through the sleeves. "Okay," he said, zipping it up halfway.

"Are you going somewhere?" you asked, sitting up straight.

"I'm taking you home," he replied, waiting for you to stand up. "I'd let you take my room, but I don't think it'll be quieting down anytime soon."

Right. You had forgotten that there was a party going on, on the other side of the wall, music and people so loud you felt your head start to ache once again. "Okay." You moved towards the end of the bed and stood up, fixing your jacket that'd exposed her shoulder. You looked up, noticing that Taesan had been staring at you. "What?"

"So scandalous," he joked, pointing at your shoulder. "Can't have you walking around like that. Who knows what would happen?”

"Haha, so funny. Let's go."

You couldn't quite describe it, but there was something about having Taesan around that put your mind at ease. Even as he dragged you through the crowd of people once again, there was not an anxious muscle in your body. Perhaps because you knew Taesan’s grip on your wrist wouldn't be loosening anytime soon, reassuring you that he was with you no matter what.

Just as he was about to open the door, a voice called him. "Taesan!" You turned around with him, watching a wasted Leehan stumble towards them with a red cup in his hand. Once he reached them, he used Taesan’s arm as a balance. "You're leaving your own party? I put so much effort into it."

Taesan chuckled. "Just getting some air," he said. "I'm taking Y/N home."

Leehan’s eyes moved from Taesan’s to yours, who he now realized was the person standing beside his roommate. "I thought you weren't here," he slurred. "Your roommate's wasted over th—"

"She'll manage," you cut him off, still upset with Minju’s words from before. "She usually does."

"Okay." Leehan turned his attention back to Taesan, his eyes struggling to focus. "You better come back tonight," he said.

"I can't promise you anything," Taesan smiled, opening the door as he gestured for you to go outside. "See you later, Han."

Before Leehan could get another word in, Taesan closed the door, instantly closing his eyes as the cold began to gnaw at his exposed face. "Home?" he asked you, walking down the steps that led to the front door.

"Yeah," you said, walking beside him. "You're welcome to stay if you want, but you're probably rushing to get back to your party, right?"

"Not really," Taesan spoke, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "It wasn't fun without you."

You hummed, a shiver running down your spine. There were many times during your walk home that you considered telling him the truth, maybe finally deciding to open yourself fully to Taesan instead of running in circles around him. But what was the point? You were just friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

And still, you couldn't help but wonder sometimes what things would've been like if you’d been more than that.

4. MISS YOU MORE

Kim Leehan does not understand Han Taesan as well as he wished he did.

They'd been friends for years, inseparable to the point where most places they went to were together, most decisions they made were made together. If Taesan wasn't there, Leehan wasn't there either, which is why Leehan found it strange the day Taesan turned down a day of clubbing to hang out with a person he'd only met a couple months ago.

"What do you mean 'no'?" Leehan repeated, looking up from his phone as he sat on the couch, watching as Taesan struggled to find his shoes. "You never say no to the club."

"I have plans," Taesan spoke, kneeling on all fours as he checked under the couch for his shoes, a groan leaving his mouth when he was met with nothing. "You can go with Sungho, or Riwoo." He nodded, "Yeah, go with Riwoo. He's better at taking care of himself if he gets shitfaced."

"I don't want to go with him," Leehan scoffed. "We literally planned this last month. You said yes then!"

"That was because I didn't have anything better to do then," Taesan said, yelling from his room. He sighed in relief when he found his shoes behind his door, picking them up with one hand as he walked back to where Leehan sat, the latter still shocked. "And now I do."

"Your idea of 'something better to do' is to pine after someone who already told you they weren’t interested?" Leehan’s brow raised as he watched the corners of Taesan’s mouth twitch, unhappy with his words. "Just accept that someone doesn't want to sleep with you for once."

"I'm not pining," Taesan said, putting on his jacket. "We're friends." And though it was true, it hurt him to say those words aloud — almost like a part of him wished they were more than that.

"Yeah, so are we."

"Why are you being difficult?" Taesan asked, setting his shoes down as he looked at Leehan, annoyed. "You've never cared before. Why now?"

Leehan wondered if it was a good idea to tell Taesan that he hated you and your stupid self-destructive habits. He thought about it, whether he should tell him that being friends with someone who hated themselves was only going to end up harming him in the process — that Taesan was going to regret having proposed the idea of being friends with you in the first place. But he didn't say anything. Instead, he just looked away, thinking of an excuse that his friend would rather hear.

"You can't even think of anything," Taesan mumbled, scoffing as he sat on the floor near the entrance, tying his shoes. "Whatever. I'll see you later, Han."

"Later being tomorrow?" Leehan asked provokingly. "You might as well just move in with them at this point."

"You're so petty," Taesan said, grabbing his key as he opened the front door. "See you."

It was never Leehan’s intention to argue with Taesan — in fact, that was the last thing he wanted. He just wanted his friend to realize that nothing good awaited him if he was going to spend most of his time chasing after someone who couldn't figure out what they wanted. He wanted him to realize that he was just wasting his time.

Frankly, Han Taesan didn't care.

"I can't believe you're spending New Year's here instead of at the club," you said as you stood in front of the stove in your kitchen, boiling water in a kettle. "That's so boring."

"It's actually a lot better than you think." Taesan was seated at the table, watching you from behind as he fidgeted with his fingers. "I don't really like clubbing that much anyway."

"I remember you told me that was all you'd do on the weekends," you spoke, glancing over your shoulder to see if you’d caught him in a lie. "Isn't that, like, what you live for?"

"That was the old Taesan," he said. "The new Taesan likes spending time with you." He paused for a moment, then chuckled. "Even if we never leave the house."

"It's too cold to do anything outside!" you replied, annoyed at how pleased Taesan was with your reaction, your eye twitching when you heard him start laughing. "If you'd met me in the summer, I would've been the funnest person to be around."

"That is so not true." Taesan turned around at the sound of Minju’s voice. She was standing behind him in a sweater and pajama pants, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked at you, framing you as a liar. Her eyes then moved to look at Taesan, smiling as she whispered, "Don't believe them. They’re even more of a shut-in when it's summer."

"Why are you even here?" you asked, turning off the stove when the kettle went off. You turned around and looked at her, suddenly bothered by how close she was to Taesan. "I thought you were going out for dinner."

"Change of plans," Minju said, still looking at Taesan.

You knew that Minju had cancelled her plans the moment you mentioned that Taesan would be coming over. See, as time passed, Minju’s crush on your friend only seemed to grow. Normally, you wouldn't have minded — you were just friends, after all. But seeing how your roommate practically threw herself at Taesan, not even trying to hide the fact that she might already be in love with him — it made you feel weird, your stomach turning, the need to peel her off him growing.

You listened to their conversation as you poured the water from the kettle into a mug, mixing in three spoons of coffee mix. You listened, your eye twitching as you stood by the counter, pretending not to care when Minju asked Taesan about his love life, how many partners he'd had, if he happened to be available — "for a friend," she said.

"No," he said, glancing at you who seemed to be muttering curses under your breath directed to Minju. "At least I don't think so? It's complicated."

"What do you mean 'complicated'?" Minju moved back, her eyes narrowing as she questioned him. "You either have one or you don't."

"It's just complicated," he said with a thin-lipped smile. "Tell your friend I'm not available."

You couldn't help but stare at Taesan later that night as he laid on your bed, his eyes focused on counting the glow-in-the-dark stars you’d placed there your freshman year. You sat at your desk as he talked, his mouth moving as words with no meaning spilled out, but you couldn't hear him, too caught up in your own thoughts to even make an effort to comprehend him, thinking about what he'd said to Minju before. Why wouldn't he be available? you thought, your leg bouncing as you spaced out. He doesn't have a girlfriend, and he's not talking to anyone either. What's "complicated"?

"Wouldn't that be nice?" Taesan asked, more to himself than to you. You blinked, Taesan’s words finally heard on your end. "Maybe I will go."

"Go where?" you asked, confused.

"Osaka," he said, "eventually. I heard it's nice."

You looked at him, watching as he sat up on his forearms and looked back at you, holding your gaze. It seemed that was how you spent most of your time these days, looking at each other without physically exchanging any words — but there was always something being spoken between you. Perhaps in the way you looked at each other, Taesan’s eyes soft and filled with a slight hint of longing, while yours gave off a frantic, confused message, almost as if you were trying to figure out what you wanted. "You should go, then," you finally spoke, quietly. Your fingers picked at your cuticles, your eyes remaining on his. "The pictures I've seen are always pretty."

"Would you come with me?" Taesan asked, sitting up straight, his legs crossed.

You chuckled, your eyes darting to the other end of the room, continuing to pick at your cuticles. "Why? I don't have any business there."

"I know," Taesan spoke, still looking at you even though you’d already looked away. "But I think I'd miss you too much."

Blood spewed from your cuticles as you peeled the skin too far back, your jaw clenching at the sudden sharp pain. You paused, bringing your finger to your mouth as you sucked on the blood, Taesan’s words repeating themselves over and over again in your head. Miss me? A part of you wanted to deny it, deny the fact that Taesan’s attachment to you only seemed to grow stronger the longer he spent staring at you from your bed, the more time you spent in the same space, the more your eyes remained locked on each other's. But you knew that denying it would only make things worse — more so for you than for him.

See, you would never admit it — you’d rather die than admit it — but you could no longer stand the idea of a day where Han Taesan was not with you. They'd only become unbearable, and telling him that would only feed his ego, you believed, and imply that you wanted something more than friendship, despite telling him otherwise. But now, as time only seemed to move faster, the new year only a few minutes away, you didn't know what you wanted. You didn't know if you wanted to keep playing this game of back and forth with Taesan, the game that would eventually decide your friendship. The idea of him was desirable, to the point where you’d thought about being something more, a relationship with meaning. But was that truly the best case? Was that really what you wanted? It was hard to tell, but what you did know was that the day Han Taesan left, you’d miss him terribly.

"I think I'd miss you more," you mumbled, though your words reached Taesan’s ears, turning red. "I like having you around. Sometimes."

Taesan found it hard to sleep that night, the sound of fireworks going off outside not nearly as loud as the thoughts running wild through his head, wondering what you meant with your words. He couldn't bring himself to ask you, even though he knew you were awake beside him, your back facing him. Even if he had asked, you probably wouldn't have told him, perhaps afraid that you’d contradict herself, afraid that you’d broken the set of rules you set for herself. But Taesan didn't care about your rules or standards or whatever you wanted to call it.

He cared about you, whether you liked it or not.

5. SOMETHING ELSE.

You write to Han Taesan sometimes, despite having his number saved to your phone. Perhaps it was the appreciation you’d grown for them after studying literature, but there was something about writing a letter that made your words feel deeper, much more intimate, than they would've been through a text message.

You’d be lying if you’d said that you didn't miss him sleeping over, his presence beside you as he laid in your bed, sometimes talking about everything and nothing as you tried to fall asleep. It was strange, the way he'd left, his goodbye hurried and indirect as he stood on your doorstep after walking you home from class, refusing your invitation to come inside.

"Leaving?" you asked, brows furrowing. "To Osaka? I thought that was in the summer." There was a hint of disappointment in your voice, as if you wished he wouldn't leave at all.

"It's just something I need to do," Taesan spoke, shoving his hands into his pockets as a cold breeze blew past you, your hair moving with the wind and you reached your hand up to your face to move the strands away. "Maybe I'll find what I'm looking for there."

"What are you looking for?"

"A future."

You stared at him, the disappointment in your eyes shifting to a sort of sadness as you remembered the conversation you’d had last December. Your eyes glossed over, but you couldn't tell if it was from the gnawing cold or Taesan’s words. "I didn't mean for you to take that seriously," you said, turning to fully face him and shutting the slightly ajar front door. "You said it yourself. We don't have to have everything figured out now."

Taesan let out a breath, shivering. "I know," he said. "But I've gotten to the point where I no longer want to be doing nothing with my life, Y/N." He paused, sniffling. "I'm scared that I'll still be doing nothing by the time I'm thirty, just wasting time like I'm doing now."

"You think hanging out with me is a waste of time?" Your voice was quiet and somewhat hurt, almost as if you didn't mean for those words to get out. You kept looking at him, waiting for an answer, watching his gaze soften as he thought about how to respond — something that wouldn't hurt your feelings, something to let you down slowly.

"Of course not," he said. "That's not what I meant. You of all people know how much you mean to me. You're my best friend."

"Then what did you mean?"

He sighed. It was obvious to you that he didn't really want to tell you the truth, just an excuse that you’d accept. But despite that, Taesan could never find it in himself to lie to you, even when he wanted to the most. "There's meaning in everything you do," he said. "And I envy that about you."

"There's nothing to envy," you said with a chuckle, half in disbelief. "I'm a trainwreck. You know that."

"Yeah," Taesan said. "But I just think that the longer I stay here, following after you as you search for your own future and figure it out, the more I wish I had a clearer view of mine."

Han Taesan left for Osaka in February, almost a month ago. You hadn't heard much from him, just a couple postcards sent to your address here and there. He was never much of a writer, so you never expected to receive an answer to any of the four letters you’d sent so far. And though you tried not to think about it, you can't help but feel that he'd forgotten about you while searching for something else, something more — something that wasn't where you were.

You sighed as you set your pen down, leaning back in your seat. You were seated in a coffee shop, waiting for Minju to finish her shift so you could walk home together. You’d been writing your next letter to pass the time, but words seemed to fail you. All you could think about was how terribly you missed Han Taesan’s voice, how he'd probably be making fun of you in that moment for thinking too hard about what to say to him. You closed your eyes, inhaling deeply, then exhaling as you tried to remember your friend's voice, haunting you. He's doing it on purpose, you thought. He wants me to miss him.

"Excuse me?"

Your eyes opened, instantly meeting a man's softer, warmer gaze. You sat up, your eyes widening slightly as you watched the male smile politely. "Sorry to bother you," he spoke, his right hand playing with the strap of his backpack. "I just wanted to know if I could sit here for a moment." He gestured to the seat across from you.

"Oh, sure." You scrambled to clear your things from the table, shoving the unfinished letter into your bag. "Sorry about that."

"No, I'm sorry," he said, taking a seat. "I didn't want to bother you because you looked like you were sleeping, but every other seat is taken."

"It's alright," you said, waving him off. "I wasn't sleeping. Just thinking."

"Writing?" A smile rested on his face as he watched your expression turn confused. "Sorry, I read some of what you wrote on that paper."

"Oh." You looked down at your bag, realizing you’d crumbled the letter up. You laughed, rubbing the side of your face as you turned back to look at the guy sitting in front of you. "Was it any good at least?”

He nodded, approvingly. "I think it's the best thing I've read in a while," he said. "Was it a letter?"

"To my friend," you replied, sighing. "I don't think I'll send it, though. He never responds anyway."

"Really? How could he not?" The male had a surprised look on his face, almost offended for you. "You write well. If anything, he's probably just thinking of how to respond to such a good letter."

You hummed, leaning forward a bit. "I'm sorry, but are you a critic?" you asked, jokingly. You watched his ears turn red in embarrassment, his eyes now looking at the floor beneath his feet. You cleared your throat, stretching your hand out towards him. "I'm Y/N, by the way."

The male looked up, taking your hand in his. "Shinyu," he spoke, shaking your hand. "Have we met before? You look familiar."

You let go of his hand, thinking. "Maybe," you said. "Or I might just have one of those faces."

"Perhaps." Shinyu looked away at the sound of his name being called by the barista behind the counter, standing up. He looked back at you, smiling. "It was nice to meet you. See you around?"

You nodded, reciprocating his smile. "I'll see you." You watched as Shinyu gave you a little wave, walking up to the counter and quietly thanking the barista as he took his drink, then left. Your eyes lingered on the spot where he'd sat across from you, wondering if you had ever ran into him in the past, crossing each other's paths without ever noticing.

"Who was that?"

You looked up at Minju, the smell of coffee strong on her clothes as she took off her apron, signaling she was done with her shift. She looked at you questioningly, curious about the boy you were previously talking to. "Oh," you started. "Shinyu. He's nice. Are you done?"

Minju nodded, taking a step back as you collected your things and stood up, pushing in your chair. "You know him?" she asked as you made your way to the door together, a bell ringing as you opened it and left.

"Not really," you responded. "We just met."

"He's cute," Minju said, her eyes lighting up. She then clung to your arm playfully, smiling while you looked at her annoyed. "If you ever get his number, send it my way."

"What happened to your crush on Taesan?" you asked, trying to shake her off and failing. Eventually, you gave up, letting Minju have her way. "I thought he was 'the one'."

"He's bad at texting," Minju said, sighing. "I wish he was the one, but he's so clearly not interested and I can't seem to figure out why." She frowned, leaning her head on your shoulder as you walked home. "Has he said anything to you?"

You hated being reminded of the fact that Han Taesan does not reply to any of your letters and takes at least two business days to read a text message. You hated thinking about it, knowing you tried so hard to keep in touch with him. You’d even gone to his apartment to find Leehan, who so clearly hated you, just to ask him if he could tell Taesan to text her back. He never told him, though, despite seeing how desperate you were to hear from him.

"No," you sighed. You stopped walking, waiting for the cars to pass so you could cross the road. "I haven't heard anything from him."

"Anything?"

"Nothing."

"What a jerk," Taesan huffed. "It's been a month. Do you think he'll come back?"

In all honesty, you didn't know if you’d ever see Han Taesan again. You were afraid that your friendship would've been short-lived, that he'd have already moved on before you could figure out what you wanted — if you wanted him. The more you thought about it, the harder your heart squeezed, as if he were the one holding it in the palm of his hands, squeezing it to remind you that he was, in fact, holding your heart. "I don't know," you mumbled. "A part of me wishes he would, or at least return a call from time to time."

Minju looked at you, finally standing up straight, though her arm was still interlocked with yours. As much as she tried to ignore it, she couldn't help but think that perhaps she wasn't the only one who had a crush on Han Taesan. Perhaps you had one too, though you denied it every single time someone brought it up. But Minju knew — she saw it in your eyes, the way they softened at the mention of his name, a hint of sadness noticeable before turning away, afraid that someone had seen the look on your face. Minju had never cared before, afraid that she'd misunderstood what you really felt for Taesan, assuming that what they had was nothing more than a close bond.

But the longer Han Taesan was away in a foreign country, the wider the distance between him and you became, and the more obvious it became to Park Minju that there was always something more between you, something other than friendship.

She just didn't understand why you were so certain that that wasn't it.

"Do you wanna go get dinner?" Minju asked as you walked up the steps to your home, taking out her set of keys and unlocking the door. "Yunah mentioned this really nice restaurant that just opened up down the street."

"Sure," you replied with a nod, taking off your shoes as you shut the door behind you. "I haven't done groceries yet anyway."

"Okay," she said. "I'm gonna get the smell of coffee off me real quick, then we'll go."

"Take your time." You threw herself onto the couch in your living room, one leg on the couch and the other hanging off as you rested your left arm over your eyes, letting out a sigh of relief. "I'm not going anywhere." As you laid there in silence, waiting for Minju to finish getting ready, your thoughts couldn't help but return to Taesan and his absence. You wondered how he could go so long without responding to you, even after he’d told you how much he'd miss you — to the point where he even considered cancelling his trip altogether. You thought about how cruel he was being, wondering if perhaps he found your reaching out entertaining. But as much as you wanted to badmouth him, as much as you wanted to hate him for his sudden disappearance from your life, you couldn't.

In the end, you would always be there in the same place he'd left you, waiting for his return.

6. STAY IN TOUCH

A phone lights up on the nightstand beside Han Taesan’s bed, vibrating. He stirs for a moment, his eyes opening slowly and tiredly as he looks up at the ceiling. The sun hadn't risen yet as he reached over to grab his phone from the nightstand, checking the time. 3:18 AM. Taesan sighed, sitting up in bed as a hand ran through his hair, scratching his scalp.

It was far from the first time Taesan’s sleep had been interrupted. Ever since he landed in Japan a month ago, he'd found that sleeping was quite difficult, no matter how many pills and herbs he'd been recommended. Perhaps it was the unfamiliarity of the house he'd been staying in, the loudness of the city at night being something he was unable to get used to in comparison to the quiet streets back home. Or perhaps it was his guilty conscience that kept him up at night, the pile of letters on his desk staring him down as his eyes lingered in that spot, the envelopes unopened.

He didn't know why, but Han Taesan couldn't bring himself to read the letters that you sent him. Despite reassuring you that you’d stay in touch, that he'd only be gone for a short amount of time, there was something so intimidating about reading your words. Even the text messages you’d sent him, asking how he was doing, why he'd suddenly gone silent — he couldn't explain it, but speaking to you now that there were hundreds of miles between you scared him.

Now, even the mere thought of seeing you again was terrifying.

Taesan’s phone lit up once more as he unlocked it, checking all of his unread messages and notifications. He had a few texts from Leehan, who sent pictures every now and then of his nights out with friends. Sometimes, he'd even update him on the state of you, though Leehan never really spoke to you. He'd just tell Taesan when he saw you from afar and how you seemed to be doing — and according to his words, you seemed to be doing just fine.

He couldn't help but feel offended — offended that despite claiming to miss him more, you could live without him as if nothing had almost happened, as if you’d already moved on. But could he really blame you for it? He wouldn't even respond to a single letter or text message, for Christ's sake.

"You'll keep in touch, right?" you had asked him as you rode the bus to the airport, Taesan’s only luggage being the backpack, full to the brim, hanging off one shoulder. You stood facing each other as you both held onto the metal handle above you, the rest of the seats on the bus filled. "Like you said you would?"

Taesan looked at you, his head tilting to the side slightly as his lips formed a smirk. "What, miss me already?" he asked, chuckling when your fist met his stomach. "I'm kidding," he said. "Of course I will."

"You better," you said quietly, your eyes looking away from the windows and meeting his, a sort of desperate look in your eyes. You thought about it, whether you should ask about New Year's Eve and what he'd told Minju, whether you should bring up the fact that you were the only female Han Taesan seemed to talk to and if he was talking about you that night. But you knew better.

You didn't want to start something you knew you wouldn't be able to end.

"I'll miss you," you said to him as he prepared to board the plane. You sat beside him, inhaling as you intertwined your own fingers together, resting them on your lap. "Really."

"You already told me," Taesan said with a soft smile. He held the ticket and his passport in hand, his fingers tracing the edges. "If you're gonna miss me so much, why don't you just come with me?"

You shook your head, "I couldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"I’m studying. I have things to do," you explained. "Trust me, as much as I want to, I can't."

Want to? You had never told Taesan you wanted to go with him to Japan. If anything, you’d only expressed your wishes not to go. Have you been lying? Did you lie to make his departure easier? He sighed, his eyes focused on the floor beneath his feet, a moment of silence falling between you as you waited — for you to ask your question, for Taesan to confess the feeling he'd been pushing down since the moment he met you, for his flight to be called.

But you didn’t speak, and Han Taesan couldn't find it in himself to do so either, so as his flight was called to board, a simple goodbye was exchanged, your eyes speaking more words than your mouths ever could in that moment.

Taesan turned his phone off after responding to Leehan’s messages, letting it fall beside him on the bed as he rubbed his eyes, deciding that he was no longer going to fall asleep. He looked around the room he'd been staying in, unable to get used to the feeling of sleeping in a foreign country, a foreign city, a foreign bed. And it was then that he realized he'd gotten so used to sleeping in your bed, anywhere else — even his own back home — felt like he wasn't meant to be there.

Throwing his blanket aside, he got up and walked towards the desk, taking a seat in the wooden chair. He turned on the lamp, the room now dimly lit as he moved the pile of your letters closer to him, opening them one by one as his eyes skimmed over your words.

February 20, 20XX.

Taesan. Sometimes, my mind can't help but wander off and think about you. I wonder if you've found what you're looking for, and I'm happy for you regardless. But there's a part of me that misses you so terribly, I feel my skin start to burn at the mere mention of your name. It burns so much I can hardly stand it.

February 28, 20XX.

Taesan. The lack of you has started to consume me fully, and I don't really know what to do with myself now that you're not around. I know you said it would just be for a while, but this "while" feels like an eternity since the last time I saw you or heard your voice. I knew I'd miss you — I think I told you more times than I could count — but I never thought I'd miss you to this extent.

March 7, 20XX.

Taesan. I look for the remaining traces of you in my room where you used to lay in my bed, in my kitchen where you used to stand beside the counter, laughing and making fun of me for my terrible cooking. It's like I'm being haunted by you, your ghost following me wherever I happen to go, the thought of you always lingering in the back of my mind. You've disappeared, but it's as if you never left in the first place.

March 14, 20XX.

Taesan. There was something I was supposed to tell you the day you left, something that's been eating me alive since then. But I don't know if it's better that I speak or swallow those words, afraid that they'd only tear us further apart than we already are.

March 21, 20XX.

Taesan. There was someone I came across today that reminded me of you and for a moment, I felt comforted by the fact that you haven't spoken to me since we said goodbye. Sometimes, I can't help but resent you for it.

March 28, 20XX.

Taesan. Words fail to describe this feeling that has fallen upon me as of late. There is not a day that goes by where I don't think of you. I miss you.

A hand came up to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose with his index and his thumb. It was hard to explain what he felt in that moment, sitting there as his body began to be consumed by the guilt of lying to someone he cared for so dearly. He let the letters fall out of his hand and onto the desk, feeling like a complete asshole. Perhaps it was the way you had phrased your words that made him feel this way, though your writing had always been a bit melodramatic.

"What are you even writing?" Taesan had asked you once as you sat across from each other in the library. It was almost midnight and he'd tried convincing you to go home, his head resting on the table as he looked at one of the shelves beside him, trying to read the names of all the books there.

"Just... something," you told him, your fingers continuing to type away on the keyboard of your laptop. "Something I need to get out of my system."

He hummed, his eyelids drooping. "So like a diary entry?"

"Not necessarily."

"Then a story?"

"No," you said, pushing your glasses forward. "Just someone's truth."

Taesan sat up and looked at you, confused. His hair was already a bit messy from the nap he'd taken earlier, which led you to smile when you looked up from your screen. "What do you mean, 'someone's truth'?" he asked you with furrowed eyebrows. "You only know your truth."

"Have you ever written anything before?" you asked, your typing coming to a halt. "Like for a class, with a prompt and stuff like that?" He put his head back down, grunting in response. "Seriously?"

"I'm not a writer, Y/N," Taesan mumbled, trying his best to stay awake. "Stuff like that doesn't come naturally to me."

"I see." You lowered your laptop screen, watching Taesan struggle to keep his eyes open. "Do you want to read it?" you asked, fully expecting him to refuse and take another nap while you finished up. But Taesan didn't refuse. Instead, he sat and nodded, waiting for you to turn your laptop around so he could read what you’d written.

Han Taesan remembers being filled with a sense of loneliness as his brain slowly processed your writing, though it wasn't exactly his loneliness that he felt. Now, reading those letters that you sent him — the ones that he'd been so scared to open — made him feel the same way, your loneliness radiating off the paper and seeping into his skin. He could feel it, taking over his body as a part of him began to hate himself for ever making you feel such a thing.

He groaned, his head falling into his hands. Was it possible that his departure had really taken a toll on your life? What you wrote in those letters, though brief — was it all true? You’d said it before, that you’d miss him, but had you really meant it?

The door creaked open and Taesan turned around, watching as Myung Jaehyun, the friend whose house he'd been staying at for the time being, peeked his head through the space between the door and the frame. He smiled, apologizing. "Sorry, I thought you were sleeping," he said. "I just wanted to know if you wanted breakfast."

Taesan rubbed his eyes. "Sure. What time is it?"

Jaehyun pulled his phone out of his pocket, checking the time. "Mm, 7:15." Taesan’s eyes widened slightly as he realized he'd been thinking about you for the past four hours. "I'll call you when it's ready," Jaehyun spoke as he closed the door, leaving him alone once again.

He couldn't understand it, the feeling that had begun to grow in his stomach. He couldn't tell if it was what he was feeling, or if it was just your feelings, your thoughts that were eating at him. He stayed in that chair thinking, until Jaehyun came back to tell him breakfast was ready. But even then, as Taesan sat next to him at the table, Jaehyun telling him about his plans for the day so Taesan would know where he'd be if he needed him, he couldn't help but be lost in his own thoughts, the food on his plate slowly getting cold.

And then it dawned upon him. What he’d been searching for, he wasn't going to find it in a country that was so foreign to him. He wasn't going to find it away from that sense of familiarity he'd always felt back home, and he sure wasn't going to find it in the people he brought home some nights in an attempt to heal a part of him that seemed to be decaying.

The more he thought about it, perhaps he'd made a mistake, judged your actions poorly, let his mind run wild and believe something that wasn't true — and because of that, he'd forced himself to feel something unnatural, something that was nothing close to his true feelings for you. He felt like an idiot, like it could never have been more obvious now that he'd realized. Suddenly, the urge to go back home was strong, the need to explain himself growing. But part of him was screaming at him, telling him that he was too late, that there was no point in returning to a person he wasn't sure thought of him the same way. He sighed, receiving a look from Jaehyun before he continued to eat his breakfast.

But there was never any harm in trying.

7. AS WE ARE

Minju leaned on the doorframe of your bedroom, watching as you laid on the floor, your eyes glued to the white star-cluttered ceiling. The record player on the floor beside you was spinning as it played some melancholy rock song that'd been on repeat for the past couple of hours. Minju let out a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. "Y/N," she called her roommate's name, a part of her worried about the way you were behaving. "I think you should get up."

Your eyes shifted from the ceiling to Minju’s figure, only glancing at her before they went back to their original position. "I don't really want to," you said, blinking slowly. "If I get up, I have to be productive, and I don't really want to do that right now."

Minju sighed, a wave of pity washing over her as she watched her roommate remain in the same position, refusing to move. She remembered the conversation you’d had the night before, wondering if the words you’d exchanged had anything to do with the way you were acting now.

"Where'd you go?" Minju had asked you as you walked through the door with a four pack of beer in your right hand. It was well past one in the morning, and the only reason Minju was even up was because she had an exam due the next day that she hadn't studied for.

You threw your keys onto the table on the side, completely missing the bowl. "I went for a walk," you said, kicking your shoes off. "I had to think about something."

Minju’s brow raised in speculation. "And you brought back alcohol?" Your movements came to a halt as you stared at the four pack in your hand, a quiet sigh escaping from your lips.

"The walk didn't help," you mumbled, making your way to where Minju sat on the couch and sitting on the opposite end, taking a can of beer into your hand as you opened it. You drank from the can, practically chugging half of it. You then glanced at Minju, offering her one. "You can have one," you said. "If you want."

"I'm okay," she said. "But do you want to tell me what's on your mind?" You shook your head, grunting as you took another sip of beer. "Okay then." Minju turned her attention back to her notes, trying to cram as much information into her head as possible. Silence fell upon you, until Minju heard you sigh once more, watching you rub the side of your face harshly from her peripheral.

"He finally responded, you know," you spoke, breaking the silence. "Taesan, I mean. He called me the other day." Minju turned her head, somewhat shocked.

"What'd he say?" she asked. Curiosity was only natural, given she'd also sent him tons of messages and still hadn't received a single reply.

"He told me he missed me."

Your eyes were filled with a type of sadness Minju had never seen on her roommate's face before. Sure, you did tend to be quite pessimistic, both in your writing and in your nature, but this was different. All those other times that Taesan had been brought up in conversation, she'd never seen that look on your face. It was almost as if you were contemplating what could've been.

"And what'd you tell him?" Minju had closed her laptop at this point, her full attention on you. She crossed her legs beneath her, turning her body to fully face yours. "That you missed him too?"

"Something like that," you sighed again, staring at the wall across from you. "I asked him why he wouldn't answer any of my messages, if he'd finally found what he was looking for. And then when he told me he wasn't sure why he didn't respond and that he was still just as lost as the day he left, I told him I missed him too." Your lips formed a thin line as you turned your head in Minju’s direction, your eyes meeting. You couldn't tell if it was from all the alcohol you’d had from the can in your hand, but you felt your eyes begin to well up with tears as you looked at your roommate. "That's all I ever tell him, Minju," you said, your voice cracking slightly. "That I miss him."

"He's your friend," Minju spoke, trying to comfort you. "Of course you miss him. If I'd hung out with someone the way you two did, I'd miss them too."

"But that's not it." There was frustration in your tone, a hand coming up to harshly wipe your cheek as a tear escaped your eyes. "I don't just miss him. It's more than that now, and he knows that."

"Okay, and what's the problem?"

"The problem is the whole point of us even being friends is so that he can realize I fucking suck." At this point, you’d had given up on holding back your tears, letting them fall free one by one, then altogether. "But he doesn't think I suck. He never did, and now all I can think about is that I actually liked being around him." You paused, covering your eyes with your free hand. "I actually like Taesan."

Park Minju knew that. From the moment she saw you trying to sneak him out of your house the first time you’d met, the sun slowly beginning to rise as its rays peeked through the morning clouds. She knew from the way you kept trying to make excuses despite Minju never asking who he was or why you were in such a hurry to get him out the door. She noticed it in the way Taesan looked at you as he stepped out of the apartment, and in the way you looked at the door after you’d closed it.

"Does he know?" Minju asked quietly, afraid that her question would only ignite more tears from you.

"God, I really hope not," you said, sniffling and chuckling dryly. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if he knew." Minju hummed, watching you finish the rest of your can before setting it down on the floor, proceeding to rub your face with both of your hands. "But I also couldn't have been more obvious, you know?"

"If it helps, I think he also likes you," Minju said.

"It wouldn't matter if he did," you replied, leaning your head back on the couch. "I don't want to ruin what we have over some attraction I happen to feel for him now that he's not here." Your eyes lingered on the ceiling, your vision distorting as you began to space out, trapped in your own thoughts once again. "It's better to stay as we are."

Despite wanting it so badly, Minju could never name a time where you gave in to what you wanted. Even now as she watched you sprawled across your bedroom floor, your eyes red and tired from all the crying you’d done on the couch last night. It was as if you just couldn't stand the idea of being happy.

Or perhaps it was something more than that.

"I'm going to class then," Minju spoke, deciding to give up for the time being. "Let me know if you want me to get you something from work later, okay? I'll be home later."

"Okay," you said. "Have fun."

Hours passed as you remained on the floor, your eyes closed as you succumbed to sleep. By the time your eyes opened, the sun had begun to set, the pink and orange sky illuminating your bedroom through the window. The record player beside you had stopped, the house now eerily quiet as you sat up and ran a hand through your hair. You wondered how long you’d been there, when the music had stopped playing, if perhaps everything that'd happened the night before had been nothing but a dream. You wondered if the realization of your feelings for Han Taesan, a dear friend, had been nothing but a passing thought, but the utter thought of that alone was enough for you to know that it wasn't. The realization had been real.

Your feelings were real, as much as you hated to admit.

With a sigh, you got off the floor and reached for your jacket that'd been thrown across your bed. Your eyes lingered there, on the untouched sheets, on the single pillow that'd been used by Taesan so often the scent of him still remained. Then you put on the jacket and walked out of your room, passing Minju’s closed door, passing the empty living room and kitchen, and stopping in front of the front door as you struggled to put your shoes on.

You had no idea where you were going as you stepped out of the house. Your thoughts were clouded with images of Taesan, and being in your bedroom, the place he so often resided in, only seemed to make you feel worse, your heart aching much more than you could manage.

You let your feet take you anywhere — perhaps to Minju’s work as you waited for her once again. Or maybe your feet would lead you to the ends of the Earth, with no real destination.

"Y/N?"

You turned around, met by a familiar pair of warm, brown eyes. You blinked once, eyes narrowing as you tried to remember the male's name. "Shinyu," you said, watching a smile stretch across his face.

"You remembered," he said, taking a few steps closer to you. "How've you been?"

You felt terrible. You felt like your heart was being crushed right before you, your lungs collapsing and your brain decaying. In all honesty, you felt like you were dying — and oh, how you’d love it if the ground swallowed you whole in that moment, your flesh finally returning to the place where it originated from, the Earth.

But Shinyu didn't need to hear you say any of that. It was quite visible on your face how terrible you were feeling.

"I've been better," you said, realizing that you did look unwell as you looked down at your outfit, still wearing your pajama pants with a black jacket thrown over the first shirt you happened to come across. "You can tell, right?"

"A bit," Shinyu laughed. His laugh was contagious, you thought as you smiled back at him. "I didn't think I'd run into you here."

You looked around, noticing that he'd caught you outside the convenience store close to the university campus, but also not too far from your house. "This is actually a pretty common place," you said, stuffing your hands into your pockets. "I think of all the places, here is where you'd run into me."

"That's not what I meant," he said as he laughed again. "I just didn't think I'd ever run into you again."

The silence that fell upon them was comfortable, as if they'd known each other their whole lives. You believed it was the kindness radiating off of him, like a white light that could've consumed her whole in that moment. You stared at him, noticing the way a smile always rested on his face, his eyes always so full of happiness. It was like nothing had ever gone wrong in that man's life, nothing had ever hurt him before.

For a moment, you envied him. And then, you pitied yourself.

"Do you wanna walk with me?" Shinyu then asked, snapping you out of your thoughts. "If you're not going anywhere, that is."

"Sure," you said. "Where are we going?"

"Nowhere." Shinyu walked past you as you followed, both falling into step as you walked side by side. "I mean, I don't really have anywhere to go, you know?"

"Yeah," you nodded. "I get that."

He glanced at you, your eyes focused on the pavement of the ground beneath their feet, a sort of solemn look in your eyes. A part of him wanted to ask you what was wrong, wanted to comfort you despite only having met you twice — but he knew better than to ask, even if the question was eating him alive. It wasn’t his place to ask, he thought.

He figured it was simply better to stay as you were, simply better to keep his distance.

8. INTERLINKED.

Han Taesan never had any clue what he was going to do with his life.

Even when he was younger, when his teachers would ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up, when his parents started throwing career paths at him like it was the easiest decision he'd ever make, even when you asked him where he saw himself in the future — Taesan had never known. To be fair, he never really cared what became of him. He took college classes for fun, because his parents would shame him if he didn’t learn something. But he always figured it'd come to him eventually, that simply passing time like he was doing now would help him figure something out along the way.

But now that he'd actively been searching for it, that something that would steer his future on the right path, he felt more lost than ever. Perhaps that's why he decided searching in a foreign country wouldn't get him anywhere. Perhaps that was the reason why he'd decided to return home after a month and a half of wandering.

He'd called you about it, about wanting to return, about finally realizing that he was getting nowhere. He called and the phone rang and rang, but you never picked up. Perhaps it was karma finally coming back to bite him in the ass for all of your unanswered messages, all of the letters he never bothered to respond to. He figured it was only natural that you wouldn't pick up, especially given how rare it was for you to talk these days. You could've been busy, too. Taesan always forgets that you’re an English major, your dream being to write something that was worth reading, that would prove you’re worth something.

"I have this need to be remembered, Taesan," you’d told him once before over the phone. It was one of those rare nights where he had actually picked up one of your calls almost immediately, a night where you both seemed to need each other more than ever. "But it's not like I myself want to be remembered. I want what I write to be remembered."

"What's so important about that?" Taesan asked, laying on his back while his phone rested on his chest, listening to your voice on speaker. His eyes stared straight up at the ceiling above him as he yawned, sometimes tuning out, sometimes listening.

"I'm not going to live forever," you said. "But there's this voice in the back of my head that tells me if I write something that's actually worth reading, I'll be remembered through it. Even if I'm not physically here."

"I don't see the meaning in that." Taesan sat up in his bed, grabbing his phone before it slid off his chest, placing it on his lap as he crossed his legs. "I'd rather remember you for who you were as a person than what you wrote, Y/N. I think that's more important than anything."

You never had to prove herself to Taesan, as if just being yourself was always going to be enough for him. But as much as you wanted to, you couldn't see the meaning in that. Being remembered for something important was much more meaningful than being remembered as the person you hated the most.

That's what you believed, at least

Taesan’s leg bounced rapidly as he waited for his flight to be called at the airport, the idea of going back home, of finally getting to see you again made him anxious. Most of him was sure that this was the right decision, that once he set foot on familiar ground, he wouldn't feel so isolated from the rest of the world. He was sure that once he saw you again, all of this anxiety — this feeling he'd never quite felt before — would be gone. You probably wouldn't come running to him like he hoped you would. You probably didn't miss him as much as he hoped you did. He believed a part of you had grown to hate him, and if you didn't, he hoped you would. Just so he'd be able to get rid of that feeling.

But you didn’t hate Han Taesan. In fact, the more time that passed, as much as you hated to acknowledge it, you only found yourself liking him more.

For some reason, you had a feeling that if you spent the entire day at the airport, you would eventually run into Taesan. You didn't know what time his flight would come in — hell, you didn't know he was even on a flight — but there was a quiet voice in the back of your mind that told you he'd be there today. Even if it meant you’d end up in the same seat for seven hours, watching people pass by, searching for him in every seemingly familiar face.

"You really think he'll be here?" Minju asked you a couple hours earlier, concerned for her roommate. "Even though he hasn't told you when he's coming back?" The past couple of weeks, she’d witnessed you progressively lose your mind over Taesan’s absence, looking for him in all the places you’d usually hang out at, lingering there until the last possible minute, waiting. Though part of her understood your behavior, she couldn't quite figure out why your feelings for him had developed so strongly after he'd left.

"I don't know," you replied, peeling your cuticles back, an act you performed only under the influence of anxiety. "I hope so. My gut tells me he'll be here."

"Have you ever thought of the possibility that your gut might be wrong?" As much as Minju wanted to support you, she also couldn't help but feel the need to knock some sense into you. Waiting for someone at the airport when they didn't even know if they would even be on a single flight back? Maybe you truly had lost your mind.

You pressed your lips together, nodding slightly. "Do you think I might be wasting my time?" you asked, your question genuine. "Do you think waiting for him to come back is useless?"

"I believe he'll come back," Minju reassured you, "but I also believe that you waiting for him here like this, without having heard from him exactly when that’ll be — I think that's just straight up insane." She paused, hearing you sigh. "But you've always been one for dramatics."

"It's the writer in me," you said quietly, running a hand through your hair. "I crave it."

"Almost as much as you crave Taesan’s presence?"

"You're not funny." You side-eyed Minju, watching her attempt to hold in her laughter. "I don't need to be reminded," you said, rolling your eyes.

"Okay, but in all seriousness," Minju started, calming down, "why didn't you just return his calls?"

You sighed, your eye twitching as you leaned back in your seat, blowing a raspberry. "I think I'm afraid of what he has to say," you replied. "I don't know, I just didn't want to hear the truth."

"Yet here you are."

"I know," you said, laughing to yourself. "Isn't that funny?"

Minju left later that day, promising to come back and pick you up after her shift at the coffee shop. You wouldn't hold her to that promise, however. You figured if you were going to lose your mind, it was best done in solitude, without witnesses. If you were going to spiral out of control, it was better to do it when no one you cared about was watching you. Perhaps that would save them their worries and you the humiliation.

Truthfully, you felt you had begun to lose your mind when you saw him pass by with his backpack, his hands stuffed into the pockets of the jacket you were oh, so familiar with, having worn it too many times to count. There was no way he'd actually showed up — no, you were hallucinating. Taesan couldn't have returned so soon, not when he still hadn't found what he was looking for. But it wasn't until he stopped walking and turned his head in your direction, his eyes immediately locking with yours, that you realized there was a slight possibility that he was, in fact, real. He was here, only a couple steps away from you as you stood up from the seat you’d been sitting in all day and made your way towards him.

Taesan was confused for a moment, unsure what you were doing there. He knew for a fact you didn't know he was returning today. After all, you’d refused to pick up his calls, so what were you doing there? He didn't know and frankly, he didn't really care. Not when you were right in front of him now, your arms wrapped around him so tightly, as if you were afraid of him leaving again. And the thing is, you were — after all that time, though it may seem short to others, it might've been the thing you feared the most.

"You're here," you spoke, half in disbelief and half in happiness as you hugged him, feeling his arms wrap around you slowly as he finally reciprocated the hug, both shocked with each other's presence. "Why are you here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Taesan replied, still finding it hard to believe that this moment was his reality. "I tried calling you, but you wouldn't pick up."

You sighed, shutting your eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. There's nothing to be sorry for."

Despite wanting to so badly, no words about your feelings for each other were exchanged. You didn't tell him about the acceptance of your feelings, how you wished perhaps in the near future, they'd become something more than friends. You didn't tell him that every second he wasn't there felt like you were getting nowhere in life, that you’d only realized how much you needed him once he was gone. Taesan didn't tell you that a part of him had always desired to have you, from the moment you’d first spoken to each other, your shirt stained with his drink. He didn't tell you about the fact that he'd look for you in other people that passed him by, whether it was at home or in a foreign city. And he certainly didn't tell you that perhaps you were what he'd been looking for the entire time.

Because what good would it do to ruin a friendship so important to you, a bond so irreplaceable you felt your lives were falling apart every second you were apart?

"You were waiting for me?" Taesan asked. It was well past ten o'clock as they walked to his apartment beside each other, and you couldn't stop thinking about how badly you wanted to hold his hand every time yours brushed against his. "Why?"

"Minju asked me the same thing," you replied, walking with your hands behind your back. "I told her I didn't know, and she called me insane."

He laughed, throwing his head back and you stared, your eyes trailing across every inch of his face, memorizing each and every one of his features. "I think she might be right, though," he said, a smile resting on his face when he saw the blank look you were giving him, not because you didn't have a response for him, but because you just couldn't find it in yourself to look away from him. "'Cause you're crazy for me, right?"

It was a normal joke, one that Taesan would make all the time, one that you’d wave off as simple teasing. There was no meaning behind it. In fact, it just served as a reminder that Han Taesan really had returned. 

But if that was the case, if it was really just another joke, why weren’t you laughing?

9. STARTING OVER.

If he were being completely honest, Taesan didn't believe in love at first sight.

He didn't believe in that feeling between two people, the feeling that despite knowing nothing about them, they would complete you in a way no one else has. He didn't believe in the idea that they, a stranger, would grow to love him forever, that they'd love him more than he'd ever be capable of knowing. He didn't believe in any of it. He couldn't bring himself to. It sounded so fictional, too good to be true. But perhaps it was because he'd spent so much time searching for that feeling — that aching feeling in his heart that he couldn't find no matter how long he searched.

He'd searched for it in other people, in people he believed would make him feel more whole and less like a terrible person. He'd searched for it in people who claimed to love him only to leave him the next day, satisfied with the feeling he'd given them the night before, but not enough for them to stay. It was his fault, he figured, because he'd searched for it in people who were unaware that he wanted something more from them, in people who were afraid of committing the rest of their future to someone else. It was his fault that love at first sight was nothing but a made up fairy tale, created for children so they'd have something to look forward to.

But something had begun to change inside of him, something he'd felt the moment he'd laid eyes on you. It was something that only grew the more time passed, something that he couldn't bring himself to ignore any longer.

It was something he knew he'd have to accept, no matter what.

Perhaps it was because you were so forward with him that night, telling him everything you believed he needed to know about you. Perhaps it was because you simply just wanted to talk to him, expecting nothing else in return. Taesan thinks about that night so often, remembering the way you’d turned him down not because you wanted to be friends with him, but because you couldn't handle the idea of someone else actually being interested in you for who yoiu were.

In a way, you and Han Taesan were alike.

As the sun peeked through the blinds of the bedroom, the sound of birds chirping outside, Taesan stirred, his eyes fluttering open as he was met with the familiar sight of your ceiling fan. He watched as it spun, the necklace your mother had given you years ago tied to one of the strings, hanging almost hypnotically, swinging to and fro. He yawned, attempting to move his arms above his head to stretch, only to struggle as he felt something heavy weighing down his right arm. Droopy-eyed, he turned his head, his eyes instantly falling on your sleeping figure, using his arm as a pillow.

It took him a moment to register the scene, trying to remember how you managed to end up in that position. His free arm came up to his eyes, rubbing the sleepiness away as he let out a breath, feeling you turn around to face him, your eyes now open. He looked at you again as a moment of silence fell upon you, a smile slowly making its way onto Taesan’s face. "What?" you asked, your voice groggy and eyes squinting, the sun's rays falling directly on your face. "What's funny?"

"My arm fell asleep," Taesan replied, now bursting into a series of quiet, sleepy giggles. Your head shot up after you realized you’d been laying on it, your eyes widening, a series of apologies flowing from your mouth as you tried to explain yourself — but truth be told, you weren't even sure how his arm ended up beneath your head. Knowing you, you’d much rather sleep without a pillow.

"Sorry," you muttered. "I didn't know I was sleeping on it."

"It's okay." Taesan lifted his arm, stretching it along with his other arm, closing his eyes as a quiet grunt left his throat. "I put it there." He sighed contently, putting his arms down as he looked at you once again. "Because I know you don't like using the pillow."

You found yourself staring at Han Taesan a lot more often than usual these days.

You believed it was the realization that caused you to do so — those first moments after realizing you liked someone, feeling every emotion possible in such a short amount of time. It was something you couldn't really put into words, to which was then expressed by simply staring, hoping he wouldn't catch on, hoping he wouldn't realize what you were doing or why you were doing it. But Taesan noticed.

He notices a lot of things when it comes to you.

Taesan cleared his throat and moved to sit on the edge of your bed, scratching the back of his head before he stood up and stretched again. You watched him, fighting the urge to pull him back to you as your eyes followed his moving figure to your door. You watched him hold the doorknob and twist it, glancing back at you for a moment, your eyes meeting. The door opened.

"You’re leaving?" you asked, still in bed with a blanket over your lap.

"Do you want me to?" Taesan replied, his grip on the doorknob tightening. He hoped you would say no, that you’d tell him to stay even if it was just to lay in silence for another hour or two, even if it was simply to waste time until you finally had to get up and make something of your day. He hoped you’d say no and that a part of you would overcome the anxiety of him knowing, that you would tell him everything you couldn't say.

You crossed your legs, your shoulders slumped. "Only if you want to," you said. "I'm not doing anything today." There was an expectant look in your eyes, though you weren't being direct with him. It was like you were afraid to tell him what you wanted, afraid that he wouldn't give it to you, even though he would.

Frankly, he'd give you the world if you asked him to. He'd still give it to you even if you didn't.

Taesan didn't try to fight the smile that stretched across his face as he pulled the door shut, making his way back to your bed and laying down. "Then I won't do anything today either," he said, pulling the blanket off your lap and over his body.

You still couldn't wrap your head around it, how easily he just gave himself to you without a second thought. You often asked yourself, is this what friends do? Or was this simply unique to Taesan and only Taesan? Did he really enjoy your company as much as he said he did, despite doing nothing most of the time you spent together? Is this what your friendship would always consist of? Your eyes found themselves glued to his face, his eyes closed as he feigned being asleep. A sigh left your lips as your right hand came up to rub the side of your face.

"What are we doing, Taesan?" you muttered under your breath, speaking more to yourself than him.

"What do you think we're doing?" he asked, his back facing you. He heard you sigh again, causing him to finally turn around and face you, sitting up.

"You're being too obvious," you replied, holding his gaze, curious to what you had to say, "and I think you're doing it on purpose, but I don't know why."

It was something he didn't expect from you but at the same time, it was as if you couldn't have said anything else. You had always gotten straight to the point around him — until recently, that is — and you were right. He was being obvious on purpose, he was trying to get you to notice, but only because he felt like there was no other way to express himself. This was all he knew, waiting for the other person to call him out, waiting for them to accept him. Taesan bit the inside of his cheek, trying to decide on whether he should speak and tell you the truth or make up an excuse that even he wouldn't believe. "I think you know why," he said. "You're smarter than you give yourself credit for."

"But why?" you persisted. "Why now?"

"Because I know you like me, too," he said, taking you aback. "Or at least that's the impression I get from you."

Of course he knew. You hadn't tried to hide it and of course he knew. But he had said it so easily, like acknowledging it wouldn't change your friendship for good, like his words were nothing more than words being spoken. But they were so much more than that, even to him. Every word that left his mouth had meaning behind it, and those words meant everything to him.

When you refused to speak, Taesan figured he'd done something wrong. He believed that perhaps acknowledging your shared feelings was something he wasn't supposed to say, that it was something he was supposed to keep hidden until you inevitably parted ways. But how could he? How could he keep them hidden when you were all he ever thought about? You had taken over his thoughts, invading every dream he had. He felt like his heart would jump out of his chest every time he looked at you and he couldn't help but search for you in places you weren't. How could you ever expect him to keep his feelings a secret?

"How long have you known?" you asked, picking at your cuticles, a habit you could never get rid of in the end. "About... that." You were anxious — of course you were anxious. Why wouldn’t you be? — that he would make fun of your feelings, despite always seeming to prove you and your thoughts wrong. A part of you wanted to believe that he would, because he's probably lived this exact scene multiple times, because he's experienced in these kinds of conversations, but Han Taesan would never ridicule anyone over how they felt.

Especially not if it was the person he so desperately longed for.

"I don't think it matters how long I've known," Taesan spoke, watching you play with your fingers, avoiding his eyes and looking elsewhere. "What matters is that you feel the same way I have since the moment I met you. I think that matters more."

"Even though I've rejected you so many times before?"

"Y/N," he said your name with a chuckle, waiting for you to look at him. And though you were hesitant, you did, the sight of his own eyes suddenly making you tear up, overwhelmed by your feelings. "You could reject me as many times as you wanted to, call me an asshole as many times as you wanted to, tell me that I deserve someone better as many times as you wanted to and I'd still be waiting for you." He felt a part of his heart break when you buried your face in your hands, your shoulders shaking slightly as you cried, somewhat embarrassed that he had to see you this way – so vulnerable in front of them, so open.

"I don't think I'll bring you any good," you cried, your voice muffled through your hands, your nails digging into the skin on your face out of frustration. Taesan saw what you were doing and grabbed your wrists gently, trying to pull your hands away from your face. "It's not gonna work and I'll just hurt you like everyone else before you and—"

"You can hurt me all you want," he cut you off, holding your wrists down as he lowered his head to try and look you in the eye. "I don't care if you do."

"But you will."

"That can be a problem for another day, okay?" Taesan paused when his eyes finally met your hesitant, red ones. "I came back because of you," he started, "because I want you more than anything else in this moment. Because I like you more than anyone else I’ve ever had. Let yourself be selfish just this once and tell me what you want, and if it's not me, we don't have to talk about this anymore. We can start over and just pretend nothing ever happened."

You believe you have always been a selfish human being, always making what you wanted clear. But the more you think about it, you have never once let yourself have anything you wanted, afraid you would hurt it, afraid that you would never actually be worthy of anything. It was this anxiety that held you back for so long, and you truly believed that it would only keep holding you back in the future. But now that he was right there in front of you, clearly telling her that you were all he wanted, knowing that he was all you wanted, you couldn't just let him escape your grasp.

Not when you yearned for him so desperately.

You looked pathetic like this, staring at him with tears streaming down your cheeks so early in the morning, wanting to reach out and hold him more than you ever had in the past. You try to open your mouth and speak. You try to say it, what he needs to hear, what you need to tell him. But the words are trapped in the back of your throat, suffocating you, killing you. You look down, sobbing, your hands balled into fists as you grip the fabric of your pants. You couldn’t look at him, not when he was looking at you like that, like you were his whole world, like you were breaking his heart the longer you kept quiet. “Y/N,” he called your name softly, like saying it any louder would hurt him. “Please.”

“I know,” you finally managed to choke out. “I-I know. I’m sorry.” You paused, trying to catch your breath, trying to calm down. And once your breathing leveled out, you continued. “I do like you, Taesan,” you started, still unable to look at him. “Trust me, I do.” You swallowed, wiping the tears from your face as you finally looked up at him. “And I want you to mean something more to me than just a friend who sleeps in my bed sometimes. I want you to mean as much to me as I mean to you.”

You barely have any time to react when Taesan pulls you close to him, his arms wrapped so tightly around you you find it hard to breathe, his face buried in the crook of your neck, breathing you in. He doesn’t say anything, nor does he expect you to return the hug, so when you do, Taesan swears he feels his heart begin to race. “You’ve always been everything to me,” he mumbled into your neck, tears falling from your eyes once more. “Even if you don’t believe me.”

And for the first time since you’d met – for the first time since you’d laid eyes on him that cool October night, since you let him into your room, since you let him sleep beside you in the same bed, since you realized his feelings for you and your own feelings for him – you believed him.

NOTE: see what i mean by rushed ending 😬 LOLLLL anyway i've been working on this fic since october of last year and being able to say that it's finally complete (for now) is huge for me, so i hope you guys enjoyed! idk if i'll post anything else on here (we'll see bc i'm a liar HAHAH) but either way, thank you for making it to the end!! 🥳

2025 © bigsuki, all rights reserved.

“all groups securing the bunker, report to the central hub! i repeat, report to the central hub!”

woonhak swallows at that announcement. “that’s me.”

“i know.”

he’s grasping your hands, fingers playing with yours absent-mindedly as he stares down at the worn floor. you let him, watching as his hair falls in front of his face. you wriggle one of your hands out of his hold, reaching up and tucking the dark strands out of his eyes. his head tilts up to follow your hand as you do so, his eyes tracking the movement as your palm rests against the side of his face.

the look he gives you is heartbreaking.

“hakie,” you murmur, watching the edges of his dark irises waver as his eyes fill with tears. he shakes his head slightly, a small smile pulling at his cheeks.

“i’m going to miss you calling me that.”

so am i, you want to say, but you can’t speak over the lump in your throat that’s starting to grow.

“all groups traveling outisde of the safe zone, please report to the south exit of the bunker! i repeat, please report to the south exit!”

you really should go. your entire team is probably waiting for you. the longer you stay in this compromised bunker, the longer you’re putting everyone else at risk - of exposure, of infection, or worse.

“all groups securing the bunker, report to the central hub! i repeat, report to the central hub!”

woonhak tenses, and you brush your thumb over his cheek gently. he reaches up and clasps your wrist, exhaling shakily. “i should go. jaehyun is going to be so mad if i’m late.”

“so should i,” you breathe, but neither of you move.

“final call! all groups traveling outisde of the safe zone, please report to the south exit!”

 your temporary refuge is no longer safe. you and so many others are leaving to find a new one, or make one if need be. but just in case you can’t… woonhak and his team are staying behind, implementing a last-resort effort to save what’s left of the place that has protected you for the past few months. your vision blurs, and suddenly your throat is so tight and painful that it takes you a few moments to speak. “will i see you again?”

his mission is a futile effort, and you know it.

woonhak meets your gaze. “i can’t… i can’t make any promises.”

you sniffle, closing your eyes for a moment before leaning forward to kiss him. he kisses you back, pulling you closer to the warmth of his body. everything about him is warm - his kisses, his hands against your skin, his love. his love in this bleak, forlorn world.

tears spill over your cheeks when you finally pull away, pressing your forehead to his. he exhales slowly, and when your eyes flick up to meet his, he’s already looking at you.

“don’t wait for me,” he murmurs, voice soft. he brushes his fingers over your cheeks. “no matter what. you keep on moving with everyone else, okay? i’ll find you again. i promise.”

you nod, your lips curving upward as you hold up your pinky finger in a silent question. he smiles back, linking pinkies with you and pressing his thumb to yours firmly.

“final call! all groups securing the bunker, report to the central hub! i repeat, report to the central hub!”

“woonhak.”

“hm?”

“i love you.”

he grins at that, even as his eyes fill once more. “i love you too, y/n.”

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ want to check out the planetarium's other exhibits?