#dk angst

"You said we'd go to lunch and we've been here for an hour and a half," he whines, popping another grape into his mouth as you scowl.

"I just moved in, Soonyoung. I have nothing at my apartment and don't forget, you begged me to tag along. I told you I'd swing by your place after I was done!" You scold, only for him to stick his tongue out at you as you toss a sack of apples into the cart, nibbling on your lip as you peruse the produce. Your list was crumpled and long forgotten in Soonyoung's jacket pocket, and the blond groaned loudly as you tentatively picked up a pineapple and brought it to your face, "quit that before I send you to go sit in my car."

"At least the car has AUX." "Kwon Soonyoung, I mean it."

"Alright, alright…" he trails off, sighing as he looks around the supermarket. You place the pineapple into the cart, the scent sweet and lingering as you cross your arms before Soonyoung's gasp grabs your attention.

"What? What? Is it an old teacher? Are they pregnant?" You look up, your eyes darting around the produce section before Soonyoung's hand grabs your jaw gently and tilts it towards the pile of 'organic plums' — your eyes landing on a white shirt stretched exhaustingly across the broad expanse of shoulders far too familiar. Your jaw tenses at the sleeves that leave nothing for the imagination, straining against toned biceps as your eyes travel further, a slim waist cinched by a black belt and holding up a nice pair of light blue denim jeans. A wallet is tucked into the back pocket and you follow the movement of the arm tying up a plastic produce bag full of said plums — decorated in a singular silver ring on the pinky and a thick watch on the wrist.

"Lee Seokmin, in the flesh!" He calls, and you feel your face hot as said Lee Seokmin turns around, a bright smile spreading on his face as he spots Soonyoung as his hand drops from your face. He makes his way over, the basket in his hand flexing the tendons in his forearm as he gives Soonyoung a one-armed hug, "good to see you, buddy. Did you get a chance to catch up with Seungkwan? We're planning that dinner next month with the guys, it'd be really great to get everyone together…"

He trails off as he sees you standing next to him, a softness glazing over his eyes as he extends his hand to you, "My apologies, I didn't see you. You look…familiar."

You hadn't changed much from high school. Maybe grew a couple of spontaneous inches, learned how to properly do your makeup, stopped acting like you didn't care about other's perception of you and actually put an effort into being more social. He tilts his head as Soonyoung shoves your shoulder, your hands twitching at the hem of your denim miniskirt you'd foolishly worn in the biting Wisconsin wind.

"Sorry," you mumble, taking his hand and giving it a quick shake. "We went to prom together."

"Oh my God, so it's true! I heard that you'd moved back home but I wasn't sure if Yoon Jeonghan of all people was worth getting my news from," he rolls his eyes, before the smile on his lips grows slightly warmer. "It's good to see you, Y/N. You look…nice."

"You hesitated." Soonyoung huffs, shoving his friend's shoulder. "Coward."

"Soonyoung," you elbow him, pressing your lips into a firm line as you nod at Seokmin. "It's fine. You look great, I'm glad to see this town did someone well."

Soonyoung pouts at the insinuation that he's not that someone, making you snicker inwardly as Seokmin eyes you carefully. Like he's studying you, like something is different and he can't figure out what.

"Are you settling in okay? Is Soonyoung being helpful?" He asks, leaning against the apple display, hooking his thumb on his belt loop. You tongue your cheek as you look up at Soonyoung, who acts like the Virgin Mary herself is calling his name as he clears his throat, "oh, look. They have…uh…rotisserie chicken. I'll get you one! You guys catch up!"

He scurries off, and you just shake your head as you move stuff around in the cart.

"I'm settling in fine. I only came back to spend time with my parents, Gyu moved out to go to grad school, but I'm sure you knew that." You shrug, "Soonyoung is Soonyoung. He helped me unload the boxes from the moving truck but I'm taking the weekend and next week to unpack. Just me and a glass of whiskey on the rocks…or two, or three."

You smile as he nods, "do you need help? I'm free all weekend."

"Oh, I'm alright." You respond quickly, almost too quickly. "I've uh…become quite the collector of things. Things I don't exactly need everyone to know I like."

"Vintage Playboy magazines, huh?" "Shut up!"

He laughs softly, his eyes forming crescents as he glances down at the cart, "have you met up with anyone from here?"

The question stings slightly, but you force yourself to brush it off as you shake your head. "No one to meet up with besides Soonyoung, you know. Wasn't always that good at keeping bad company around, you know me."

He does.

He does know you.

The thing about Lee Seokmin is that he knew everything there was to know except where you went the moment you peeled out of this stupid town — small and not at all living up to the Pleasant Hill name. Wisconsin was still Wisconsin, and you still loved the cheese curds from Culver's but the fact of the matter was that Lee Seokmin was likely the only memory you allowed yourself to revisit when you thought about this stupid place.

Sweet, understanding Seokmin that graduated the same year Mingyu did. Sweet, understanding Seokmin that was so cute and absolutely your (and all your friends') hallway crush from grades six through eleven, before you got a boyfriend halfway through your junior year. He still waved at you in the halls, and you still smiled back — but eventually, the boyfriend grew tall enough to block your line of vision and the idea of Seokmin melted from your mind.

You met Seokmin when you were nine years old. He'd been your brother's friend for ages but only when you were in fourth grade was Seokmin officially allowed to come over to your house to spend the night with Mingyu. Your brother would lock his bedroom door as his friends huddled over baseball cards and delicious sandwiches made by your father with the crusts cut off. Eventually, your friend Minghao made it into your brother's get-togethers — effectively rendering you hypoethetically friendless until one of the boys slipped out of Mingyu's room for snacks or water, or even to suck up to your father for an extra serving of dinner before bolting back into the room.

Before Seokmin came around, you had Jihoon, Soonyoung and Minghao — they usually huddled up with you at the dinner table and asked about your friends and your schoolwork. They'd ruffle your hair, they'd pinch your cheeks and steal home fries off your breakfast plate; so they were like three more version of Mingyu you never asked for, but loved nonetheless. You'd swat at them, shove them away before they inevitably got picked up and left you to get thrown around by Mingyu on the trampoline in your backyard as he debriefed all the girls that they liked that were in your grade.

Then, Seokmin moved in next door.

His family bought the beautiful brick two-story with a wrap-around porch that once housed the town doctor before he up and took off out West, chasing a wild wet dream (read: his mistress.)

He was suddenly over at your house every single day, glued at Mingyu's hip — tossing a pigskin around, tinkering around under the hood of your mother's 1969 Cadillac Deville…bothering your father for a sandwich with the crusts cut off because Mingyu was a big baby. He'd split it with your brother on the porch and ask about your day as you stomped up the steps after dance practice. You'd never delve too deep into details, simply shaking your head or giving him a thumbs up before ducking inside and burying your head in the books.

Mingyu and his friends graduated, going all over the country for college — but Seokmin stayed. He went to state school to stay close to his parents, but not so close that he didn't get that same taste of freedom that your brother and Minghao were enjoying at Rutgers in New Jersey. You were a senior in high school, trying to make the best of all the changes — only for it to be the worst year an 18-year-old girl could have.

You got (and crashed) your first car, which was Mingyu's before it was yours so it had that gross 'I give my friends rides home from football practice' smell permeated in the seats. You failed your first semester of Calculus and had to go to tutoring and Saturday school for six weeks to even attempt to earn a C. You injured your foot during practice and got benched for the rest of the year, so there was nothing to look forward to (not that they would've kept you on the team anyway, since you failed Calculus.)

To top it all off — your best friend and your boyfriend were in cahoots. Six years of friendship (and her gross crush on Mingyu) and almost a year and a half of dating were wasted, and both presented their end three weeks before prom — which was two days before graduation.

You'd stared at your dress for a good while the night before it was all supposed to happen. It'd been hung up on your closet door, the one thing you looked forward to after such a shit year that wasn't graduation — and it was sullied. The sparkly butter yellow tulle made your stomach hurt, the sweetheart neckline littered with glittering rhinestones making your eyes prickle with tears. You stared at the French pedicure you'd gotten at your local nail salon that would've peeked out the bottom of your dress — your shoes six-inch tall heels and the straps were decorated with flowers.

You were a nominee for Prom Queen. You had your hair and makeup inspiration saved to a Pinterest board you'd been curating since you found out prom was a thing that would happen in your life. Your ex-boyfriend's matching tie and corsage sat on your dresser, abandoned. You didn't have a date, and now an extra ticket to a gathering you weren't sure you wanted to attend.

Until Mingyu knocked on your door.

He'd come home from college for the summer a week earlier, making the drive back to Wisconsin right after his last final. He dropped Minghao off at his house, and skirted right into the driveway of your house, welcomed lovingly by his parents and confused when his little sister was holed up in her room, staring at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to her ceiling.

"I'd go with you if I could, pipsqueak." He said softly, sitting on the edge of your bed as you let hot tears pool in your eyes. "But I know you'd think that's mega lame."

"It is mega lame. Gyu." Your voice had been so thick you could hardly understand yourself, but he squeezed your ankle through the blanket before sighing. "Mingyu, why has this year been so shit? Was your senior year this shitty?"

"Well." He adjusted slightly, "I got dumped because I chose Rutgers over staying here, and I had to take Minghao to prom. We still had a good time…maybe you can take Soonyoung. He's in town again, I know he swung by earlier to see how you were holdin' up."

"I look like such a loser taking a friend to my fucking prom. It was supposed to be me and my boyfriend." You huffed, angrily wiping at your eyes. "I don't even have a cute guy that I could pretend is into me."

The silence that blanketed over you both was deafening, before you met each other's eyes in that way siblings do when something is so good but it's crazy. It's so good, and it'd work so well — but it's absolutely insane.

Mingyu grabbed the tie and corsage while you practically tumbled down the stairs in your pajamas, running out the front door and across the lawn barefoot as the sprinklers started going off. You banged on the front door of the Lee house, hearing rustling before the door swung open and your fist was caught by one Lee Seokmin.

"Go to prom with me."

Naturally — as a favor to an old friend's little sister, Seokmin agreed. He blindly agreed as Mingyu instructed him to be your arm candy all night long, to show you off, let you be the star of the show. Pretend that an older boyfriend in college was far more interesting than some cheap party thrown together by the school in a fancy hotel — essentially, make you something worth envying.

It worked.

It worked like a dream — he stayed by your side the entire night, speaking softly to other dates, getting along with your dance team members, even greeting his old teachers with a bright smile that made them forget he was there with a student and wasn't one himself. They asked if he was your boyfriend, and you interrupted with a loud yes — his cheeks tinging pink as he held you close and kissed your temple. It was sweet, it was cute, and it was triumph coursing through your veins as you were crowned Prom Queen and left right after.

You sat in your mother's '69 Cadillac Deville with him, parked at a Dairy Queen on the outskirts of town with a sweet vanilla milkshake in your hand. He's thrown his suit jacket in the backseat, the top button of his shirt undone and his tie haphazardly pulled off. He rolled his sleeves up, leaning his head back against the seat when you snorted.

"You know what's funny?" "What's funny, sweets?"

He toyed with the straw of his own milkshake, his silver watch glinting in the low light.

"You can't tell Mingyu I said this." "I wouldn't tell Mingyu anything that's happened tonight if he paid me."

"I was supposed to lose my virginity tonight," you roll your eyes, kicking your heels off and crossing your legs at the knee. You stare up at the sky, "I was going to go to a motel with him, my ex. Get it over with so that I wouldn't go to college a virgin. Stupid, isn't it?"

"If that's the only reason you were going to do it, then yeah. A little bit." He nodded, plucking the cherry out of his cup and pulling the syrupy fruit off the stem with his teeth. "But I'm not any better, so I can't judge because I'm speaking from experience."

"You're not a virgin? I thought you were." "Haven't been since last summer. Why are you even thinking about it? I'm nineteen. I do…things." "Sure, man. Was it good? Is that TMI?"

"No," he snorted, shaking his head as he sighed, sucking his teeth. "It was just…there. The opportunity, I mean. I wasn't dating the girl either. It was a mistake and I regret it but life goes on. It should be with someone you trust and actually like, it adds to it. I guess. What do I know?"

"Lots of stuff." "Name two things." "You know my favorite color and you know how to drive. I trust you with my life, I think."

He laughed then, shaking his head as he played with his straw, "yeah, well. I'm sorry your senior year turned out this way. If it's any better, mine was pretty shit, too."

"Nah. I'd say it ended pretty well. I'm eighteen, I have a license, I graduate on Sunday and then I'm gone. I'm off to California and I never have to see this shitstain town again." You shook your head, sucking your teeth as you twisted in your seat. His eyes were wide, "you hate it here that much?"

"I have no good memories." "That might be a stretch, but I understand." "Thank you." You shrugged, tracing the stitching in the leather. The thread was a custom cobalt blue, to match the exterior of the car and paired with creamy beige seats. "Hey, Seok?"

"Yeah?" "Do you remember how you used to say hi to me everyday before you graduated last year? In the halls?"

He smiled, and you swore you saw a hint of a blush creep up the shells of his ears as he nodded, "yeah, of course I remember."

"Why'd you do it?" "Because…I don't know. It was a habit, and I liked seeing you…I don't know. It's courteous." "When you say I don't know…you mean you do, but you don't want to tell me. Right?"

"Right." He agreed, and you leaned slightly closer, holding your pinky out to him. He glances at it, and you scoot closer to him on the bench seat so your thigh is brushing his as you push your hand into his space.

"Pinky promise I won't tell Mingyu." "Mingyu doesn't scare me anyway."

He rolled his eyes, but linked his finger with yours. You waited for him to let go, but he interlaced his fingers with yours and held them on this thigh.

"For starters, everything I said is also true." "I figured, yes." "I think…I had a little bit of a crush on you. Nothing insane, of course. Just…a little one. Hallway crush, I think I heard Mingyu call it once."

You shifted then, your hand subconsciously squeezing his as you cleared your throat.

"And you never said anything?" "You're my best friend's little sister. Even I saw the cliché there. It's not that…I wouldn't have made a move, I just didn't think it was a wise choice in the long run."

You nodded, "yeah…that makes sense."

Neither of you moved away or unfurled your fingers, but Seokmin sighed, "I'm sorry."

"No, don't be. You're very right, Mingyu would've knocked our heads together." "…Our?"

"You think I waved back because it was courteous? Get with the program, Lee." You snorted, shaking your head as you stared up at the sky. The stars twinkled, almost mockingly as you sighed, "though, it's much worse with it's best friend who likes the little sister. It's kind of expected for the little sister to like the best friend, you know? Clichés and all that…always blamin' it on the girls. Like it's my fault Mingyu has cute friends."

"Plural?" "Singular, sorry."

"Would you have let me kiss you?" He asked suddenly, and you lolled your head to the side, scanning his face with your eyes before shrugging. "Y/N."

"Depends. Are you kissing me because you want to or because it gives you the rush of kissing your best friend's sister?" "Mostly the first." "Cynical." "I'm honest."

You laughed then, squeezing his hand before sitting up properly. You tucked your legs under you, the fabric of your dress hanging off the edge of the seat as you kneeled next to him, your knees pressing into his thigh as you pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"Thanks for taking me to prom. You didn't have to." "I don't do these things for free, you know. Pay up, sixty bucks."

The smile on his lips said he was joking, but you feigned shock anyway and softly smacked his shoulder. He laughed, pulling his hand out of yours to wrap his arms around you. You let him pull you into his embrace, your arms wrapping around his shoulders as you buried your face into his neck. He patted your back, humming softly before he spoke.

"Thanks for thinking I was the right choice to leave a lasting impression. College boyfriends don't do this sort of thing, at least none of the ones I know."

"Well, you're my college boyfriend for the night." You shrugged, pulling back slightly. Your eyes met his, your faces centimeters apart. He shamelessly glanced at your lips, shifting slightly, "I'm sorry I missed your birthday. I know Mingyu came home, I was slammed."

"Are you going to keep talking about my brother or are you going to kiss me?"

You try not to remember the kiss, or the soft scent of vanilla floating off both your mouths.

Quite often, you shove it out of your mind and force yourself to think about what could've been if he'd said no. If your mother had called just a moment earlier, before your lips met his. If your brother had texted him just three minutes before his hand cupped your face gently and pulled you closer, milkshakes forgotten as his tongue slipped into your mouth.

You never retell the story with the kiss included. You always just say your brother's best friend took you to prom and took you to milkshakes after. That he drove you through the outskirts of town in your mother's '69 Cadillac and made you feel like a princess.

Every single person lets you know that they think that 'brother's best friend' had a crush on you.

So to stand in this grocery store and know that Lee Seokmin has kissed you, has had a crush on you, has seen you cry — it feels vulnerable.

"Let's have dinner soon, if you're not busy. I'd love to catch up." He spoke softly, and Soonyoung was still acting stupid around the selection of rotisserie chicken, acting as if lemon herb and garlic rosemary were such hard choices. You gave Seokmin a small smile, holding up a finger as you called across the store, "pick a damn bird and get over here!"

Soonyoung pouted, grabbing one of each as you turned back to Seokmin. He was still looking at you with that same twinkle in his eyes, like he still wondered if you thought about him. If you thought about that night, if you thought about the sweet vanilla on his tongue as he kissed you for what felt like decades in the bench seat of your mother's car. If you thought about the way he pulled you into his lap, the way you pulled his hand up the expanse of your thigh that peeked out through the slit of your dress.

If you thought about the way he stopped kissing you before it could end the way most prom nights end — losing your virginity to him in a car. If you thought about how embarrassed he looked that he let himself get carried away, kissing down the slope of your neck and how he apologized because you were Mingyu's sister, because he was a year older than you and had more life lived, because, because, because.

Never in those reasons did he say because he didn't want to.

"We should, if you'd like. Uh, I'd offer my apartment but…" You rubbed your neck sheepishly, and he only shook his head, pulling his phone out of his pocket and opening a new contact. He handed it to you, your fingers trembling as you typed in your number, "was Mingyu very annoying while I was gone?"

"He actually told me earlier that I'm not allowed call him annoying." Seokmin scoffs, "because I'm, in his words, ten times as annoying but I don't think that's all that true."

"It's not." "Of course you say that, he's your brother."

"Birds of a feather flock together, Seokmin. If you're annoying, so is he." You deadpan, typing your name into the contact file. "But, you're less annoying because I have no obligation to tolerate you. If you piss me off, I can just walk away. Can't do that with Mingyu, I'll just have to see him again. Family and all."

You roll your eyes, handing his phone back. He nods, "valid."

"I see you've gotten acquainted once more," Soonyoung tries to ease into the conversation, but frowns as you and Seokmin both point your eyes at him. "Yah, you'd think I asked about that stupid prom night kiss."

"Anyway." You speak quickly, your cheeks hot as Seokmin's ears tinge pink under the fluorescent lights of the supermarket, "uh, Friday? Does Friday work for you?"

"Friday's great!" He blurts, "we can just do it at yours. I don't think you should be unpacking all those boxes by yourself."

"She doesn't even have a mattress, Seokmin. A mattress!" Soonyoung exclaims, and you nibble on your lip in embarrassment as Seokmin shoves his shoulder lightly, "you should be helping her!"

Soonyoung scoffs, wrapping his hands around the cart handle and pushing it forward, "I don't have to take this shit from you guys. I'm the glue that holds this family together, damnit."

He stalks away, head held high as Seokmin shakes his head.

"He's dramatic." "Oh, tell me about it. He's been whining about how hungry he is when I told him this would take time."

You sigh, your face still hot as you take a tiny step back, "well, it was nice seeing you, Seokmin. Uh, Friday, yeah? I'll send you my address."

"Sure, sure." He nods, clearing his throat. Things feel awkward in the air between you, "sorry about Soonyoung."

"It shouldn't be awkward. It was years ago," you try, but still cover your face with your hands. "God, I'm sorry."

"No! It's okay, it was just…not something I was expecting today." His laugh is still warm, but there's something else in it. Maybe embarrassment, maybe frustration.

Maybe guilt.

You extend your hand, "well, it's fine. Friends, right?"

He glances at it, taking it gently. He runs his thumb over your knuckles, "friends. Now, run along. I can see his blond head in the bakery from here, he's gonna make you buy him a cake."

"It's the least I could do," you snort, squeezing his hand carefully. "Bye, Seok."

"Bye, sweetheart. Be safe."

YOUR APARTMENT IS STILL A MESS WHEN SEOKMIN ARRIVES.

You are still a mess when Seokmin arrives, a pout on your lip as you open your front door and see him nicely dressed in a soft sweater and a crisply pressed pair of chinos under his brown peacoat — and the little black hoops looped through his ears that you hadn't seen in ages.

He only laughs, gently pinching your cheek between his knuckles and stepping inside to a mess of broken down boxes and old tape rolled into a ball, chucked over your coffee table. You've got an old, paint-stained t-shirt that used to belong to Mingyu over your pajama shorts, and you insist that you'll be ready soon — which he only smiles at your half done hair and full face of make-up (sans lipstick.)

"Take your time," he shrugs, "seems like you had quite the week getting this place fixed up. Nice work."

"Don't praise me, it won't bode well." You huff, scurrying back to your bathroom to make sure the curling wand didn't burn a hole into your sink.

The week had been insane — you paid Soonyoung in cheesecake on Monday and Tuesday to help you unpack your kitchen and your bathroom, and then told him not to bother you until Sunday because you were going to do the rest on your own. You managed to get most of it done, including getting a mattress delivered and your bedframe set up by Wednesday…

But the lingering boxes, trash and the like were all cause of your frequent back-and-forth texting with one Lee Seokmin.

You caught up on minute things — him leaving UW-Madison his sophomore year and meeting Mingyu and Minghao at Rutgers. Him getting a masters degree, you getting a masters degree. You living in California for six years and four in Oregon, and the unspoken knowledge that the other four were purely for a boyfriend.

One that you wound up breaking up with (and one that fueled the fire of you moving back home) after catching him in your bed with his ex-girlfriend. From high school. Who was also engaged to his best friend!

There was a joke in the conversation from Seokmin, asking how college was as a virgin. You fired back that it was much better than having a crush on your brother's best friend, to which he replied with a frowning emoji and insisted he was better to crush on than some snotty-nosed frat boy who drank like a fish.

You both silently acknowledged that the Mingyu wedge was still present, and neither of you would be making the move to overlook it…even if you silently hoped he would.

You also swapped social media accounts in the process — his was full of adventures. Trips to Seoul and Osaka with your brother and other friends of his, trips to the mountains and skiing out east. Gardens in New Jersey and his graduation from Rutgers (and the impressive Cornell, despite not being nearly as snooty as half the other people you'd met in California that had come from the Ivy League.)

Yours had been curated carefully — luncheons, aesthetically taken shots of you by your old roommates who had all moved home back east. There was summer vacation carousels, photos of you with Aperol Spritz' in your hand and lounging on boats in bikinis you begged your brother not to tell your mother about (who only asked why you weren't showing more skin when you called her that following Christmas.)

Seokmin only liked the latest carousel on your profile. Your goodbyes to the beautiful wilderness that surrounded you in Oregon, and a promise to return someday — a photo of your packed up apartment, a cat lounging in the mid-morning sun atop your U-Haul, a thickly packed bagel with one for the road written across the top corner in an Instagram font you used almost too heavily during your days as a sorority girl hoping to reach prospective sisters.

And a selfie of you and Minghao, who had flown out from Boston to help you make the drive back home. Your heads were touching, his long hair ruffled against yours as you both winked at the camera, holding up to-go cups of hot tea and coffee — which you never liked, even if it was winter.

You ignored the shirtless photos on his profile.

"Have you decided where you want to go? So I can dress for the occasion." You called from your bathroom, having turned the curling wand off and opening the door to relieve some of the warmth you felt all over your face. You slipped out, seeing Seokmin staring at your wall of trinkets. Little clown figurines made by an Oregon artist that were grouped with Nyota and Skullpanda figurines you'd gotten in blind boxes, a couple of framed photos of you and Mingyu as kids, a snowglobe with a picture of you and your mother in it when Mingyu and your father got stuck in New Jersey during your senior year of high school.

"Uh, there's a nice place in Madison, if you don't mind the drive. Plus the potential traffic, it is a Friday." He nods, "just wear a dress? Maybe a long one?"

"Gotcha, yep."

You rooted around and found a long dress you'd worn back in California once for a Christmas dinner with your boyfriend during grad school. It had off-the-shoulder long sleeves, and a skirt that stopped at the ground with the right pair of shoes (read: your favorite pair of black heels.) You scurried around, grabbing your shoes and nibbling your lip at the slit that ran high up your thigh in the dark red fabric in the mirror of your vanity.

It felt a little…derivative.

You put your jewelry on, swiping on a creamy layer of lipstick before grabbing your purse and switching things around to your clutch. Your winter coat was in the hall closet, and you held your heels in one hand as you exited your bedroom hurriedly. Seokmin glanced over his shoulder from the pinned tour posters on your wall, turning around fully as you fixed your hair in the mirror that hung on your wall.

"Is this okay?" You ask, not bothering to look at him as you wiped the corners of your lips.

"Yeah, perfect. You look great…and we're running late." He teased, making you groan as you look at him in the mirror, "you told me to take my time!"

"I didn't think that meant forty minutes, sweetheart. Hop to, or we'll miss our reservation." He taps his watch, "where do you keep your coat?"

"Hall closet," you sit at a chair in your dining room, bending at the waist to pull on your shoes as he ducks past. He returns with your coat and a red mark on his forehead, a pout on his lip as you look up from your shoes, "what happened?"

"Your box of photo albums fell on me. How did you not hear that?" He whines, and you coo as you let him help you slip your coat on. Your fingers gently rub at the spot, "you'll be okay."

"Yeah, easy for you to say." He huffs, and you roll your eyes, pressing a kiss to your fingers before patting them against his forehead.

"Yeah, it is. Now, move along."

The drive to Madison was slow, but the restaurant he chose had been well worth it. You were sat at a rounded booth in the back, the lights dim and the environment cozy with soft jazz playing overhead. The waiter was sweet, but a bit too flirty for your taste — and clearly for Seokmin's as well, because he pulled you closer to him by your waist, his fingers lingering on your hip long enough for the waiter to see as he brought your drinks from the bar.

Dinner was relatively fun. Soft conversations, bringing up old memories, catching up on things. Seokmin asked about your psychology degree, you asked about his sudden move to Rutgers.

"Home isn't as fun without having a neighbor girl to bother." He stated, shrugging his shoulders as you gave him a deadpan look. He swiped a scallop off your plate then, making you scowl because you were not going to take a bite of his steak. "Plus, it was quiet. Madison is nice but Jersey was new and exciting. I roomed with Mingyu, Minghao and our friend Wonwoo, and it was fun until I would come back to one of their rooms with a sock on the door."

"Ew, I don't want to know about their adventures. I got enough with Hao complaining about his boyfriend wanting them to move to New York. Something, something, is the sex not filthy enough that he wants to move to Manhattan?" You scrunched your nose, making him laugh as you crossed your legs at the knee. Your dress splayed open, your thigh exposed to the warm air of the restaurant and the soft fabric of Seokmin's pants.

He didn't bother looking down, only tapping your knee before pulling the fabric over it.

"They're going to end up moving. Junhui has a hold on Minghao that you wouldn't believe. You would love him." He nods, "I helped Junhui plan the proposal."

Your eyes widened at that, and Seokmin swore you into secrecy before spilling the beans of your childhood friend potentially getting engaged before the end of the year.

Dinner came and went, dessert was sweet on your tongues despite the dark chocolate and Seokmin pouting when you had the last bite. You kept talking — your families, how shitty the holidays are as you get older and lose the childlike wonder of Santa Claus and gifts under the tree, girlfriends, boyfriends…

Your jaw tight as he mentioned his, his tight when you mentioned yours and a frown gracing his lips when you mentioned the Oregon boyfriend in particular.

"Well, he sucks." Seokmin clicked his tongue as he held the door open, the receipt blowing in the wind between his fingers. He'd fought you to pay the bill, shoving his card in the waiter's hand as he pinned you to your seat with a hand on your thigh.

A move that neither of you spoke about but both knew it could've created something neither of you were too sure you'd dislike. Not that either of you knew the other felt the same about the latter, but it wasn't your business to know.

Not yet, anyway.

The drive back is comfortable. You took AUX as he drove, complimented the recently refurbished bench seat of his truck. He smiles, says he also helped your mother get her '69 Cadillac get a beautiful new layer of that cobalt blue paint she loves. He prompts you to sit closer, and you end up resting your head on his shoulder with his hand low on your hip as you drive back into Pleasant Hill.

He's warm. He smells floral, like iris and neroli with a hint of cedarwood. He's drumming his fingers against you, running his hand slightly up and down your hip as you watch the sky become clearer the further you get into your small town.

He feels like home.

"Did you miss me while I was gone?" You ask suddenly as he rolls to a stop at a red light just half a block before your apartment complex. He raises a brow, looking down at you with an amused expression.

"You think I didn't?" "I wouldn't be asking."

"Of course I missed you, Y/N." He shakes his head, subconsciouly squeezing your hip. "I left Pleasant Hill because I missed you. I came back because I missed you."

"Or because my brother asked you to." "Your brother is the closest thing I get to you, so you have to give me some credit. Hallway crushes don't disappear as easily as I thought, especially not after you kiss her on prom night."

Your cheeks burn as the light turns green, your hand on his knee tracing circles as he presses on the gas.

"It's been ten years since then, Seokmin." "No, it's been nineteen. I've liked you since I was ten years old."

Your eyes widen as he pulls into your apartment complex, expertly slipping into a shaded parking space. He turns the car off as you look up at him, "you should head inside. It's late and you'll need your rest to finish unpacking."

"Mingyu's coming in the morning to help me." You murmur, and he nods simply, "he always was a nice guy. He's making long distance work with Tzuyu."

"Seokmin." "Yes?"

"Are you going to keep talking about my brother or are you going to kiss me?" The words slip from your mouth as easily as they did ten years ago, but he doesn't bother responding before he presses his lips to yours. Soft, smooth but hungry as he pulls you on top of him, his hand wrapping around your neck and holding you firmly in place. Your hands pulled at his sweater, shoving it up as his tongue slipped into your mouth. He let go of your neck, shoving your coat off your shoulders as you sucked on the tip of his tongue, your fingertips toying with the buckle of his belt before he pulled back.

"We can't." "We can." "Mingyu—"

"You came up for a nightcap and helped me unpack. Too drunk to drive home and spent the night on my couch." You unbuckle his belt as he groans, his hands eagerly pulling at the slit of your dress to expose your thighs. His fingers are warm as they slide up the plush flesh, squeezing shamelessly as you pull his belt through the loops and toss it to the side, "not embarrassed about your little collections anymore?"

"What I do with my Maxim subscription is between me and the comfort of my bedroom." "Better read than Playboy, eh?" "With the same beautiful women. Are you going to Prom Night me or what, Seokmin?"

"We're using that as an adjective now? Prom Night-ing?" He huffs, your lips parting with a soft gasp as lithe fingers squeeze the swell of your ass over the lace of your underwear. "I wasn't going to take your virginity in a car."

"Well, someone else has that shit now, and we did it on a fraternity beanbag." "I don't want to hear about that. The guys you've been with didn't deserve you in the first place."

"Then prove you deserve me more than they did." You whisper against his lips, "and it'll be like it never happened. Just you, just me. Yours, and mine."

He sits for a moment, his eyes boring into yours as he slides his hands over your hips carefully. He kneads the soft skin between his fingers, nibbling on his lip as his thumb toys with the hem of your panties before plucking at it.

"What if you regret it?" "Seokmin, we've had a thing for one another for the last nineteen years. We're as cliché as they come. Probably down to the ring and the house and the kids, if you want them."

He blinks, nodding slowly as he clicks his tongue.

"You think Mingyu knows?" "Are we going to keep talking about my brother?"

He presses his lips to yours, a mumble of no slipping out as he pulls you higher on his lap. Your fingers undo his pants easily, the sound of the zipper catching his attention as your hand dips beneath the fabric of his boxers to palm at his cock. His fingers immediately slip between your legs, pulling the embarrassingly damp fabric of your panties to the side to circle your clit with his thumb. Your thighs tighten around his hand, your gasp swallowed by his lips before you pull away, letting him kiss down the expanse of your neck and littering the soft skin with nips of his teeth.

His fingers slip lower as your thumb swipes over the leaking head of his cock, shaky breaths falling from your lips as he circles your entrance with his fingertips before pushing in slowly. He sighs against your chest at the wet sound of your cunt swallowing his fingers, a whimpered groan falling from your lips into his shoulder.

"Seokmin, we s-should—" "We should go upstairs."

It's a tumble to get out of the car, his pants hastily buttoned and your fingers shaking as you try to unlock the door. He pushes it open from behind you, shoving it closed with his foot once you both step inside and pinning you against it. He pulls your coat off as he kisses you desperately, throwing the coat over a bunch of boxes labeled bedroom before his hands wrap around your thighs and lift you up. You wrap your legs around him instinctively, the kiss turning to teeth and tongue as he carries you in the direction of your bedroom.

"I could worship you for the rest of my life and it still wouldn't be enough to deserve you." He mumbles against your lips as he nudges the bedroom door open, your cheeks heating as he sets you on the edge of your bed gently. He pushes you back against it, kissing you carefully — a total switch up that makes your head spin as he cups your face with one hand, his knee slotting between your thighs as you move to lean back on your elbows. "I would've waited ten more years if it meant you'd come back to me."

"Seokmin," you pout against his mouth, only for him to kiss you chastely before his hands move to gather the fabric of your dress at your hips. You sit up, letting him pull the dress over you and toss it across the room before his hands slid down your sides. His eyes don't make you feel self conscious as they trail over you, his fingers hooking with the waistband of your panties and easily pulling them down your thighs. He shamelessly tucks them into his pocket, smiling inwardly as he kisses your parted lips.

"You're a pervert." "You're beautiful." "Well don't be nice to me, it ruins the purpose."

"It's banter, gorgeous." He trails his lips down your jaw, making your skin prickle as his hands spread your thighs. He traces a path down your chest, murmuring soft praises as he kisses each of your nipples before kissing down your soft belly, his hands massaging the muscle of your thighs as he spread them further. He drags his lips across your hips, peering up at you through his lashes as he litters kisses on the inside of your thighs, kneeling at the edge of your bed.

"Seokmin." "Patience." "I waited ten years, isn't that enough?"

He raises a brow, sinking his teeth into your skin and making you flinch, before quickly running his tongue over the mark.

"I waited ten years, too, you know." He says pointedly, his lips ghosting over your clit before he presses an open mouthed kiss to it. Your thighs twitch around his head as he pulls you closer to his face, "I spent the entire week fucking my hand, thinking about you in that little skirt at the grocery store."

He doesn't let you reply, opting to slip his tongue between your folds in long, languid strokes — gathering your arousal in his mouth before swirling the tip of his tongue around your clit. Your spine arches off the bed as he sucks the bundle of nerves into his mouth, your hand carding through his hair and giving it a harsh tug as soft pants fall from your lips. His fingers slide down your thigh, prodding at your entrance gently before sinking in carefully, your thighs closing around his head as he works you over with his tongue. Your mewled moans of his name fill the air, your hips rutting against his face earning nothing but hums and curls of his fingers as he finds that spongy spot that makes your legs tremble around his head. Your heels dig into his shoulders as the wet sound of your cunt around his fingers hits your ears, your cheeks burning hot as the coil in your belly snaps with a whimper from your lips.

You can feel him smile against your skin, the smug bastard.

"Did so well for me, honey." He whispers against your thigh, his fingers slipping out of you slowly and circling your clit. Your skin prickles as you jerk away from him, closing your legs around his hand as he catches your ankle before it hits him, using it as leverage to pull you flush against the tent in his pants. "You can give me another, can't you? Just one more, baby."

He keeps his eyes on you as he kisses up your calf, his fingers still tracing circles on your clit as you squirm. He kisses the side of your foot, his teeth tugging at the strap of your heel around your ankle to grab your attention.

"One more." "On your cock." "Whatever you want, baby."

He slips his hand out from between your thighs to shuck his sweater off, tossing it somewhere in the room before reaching into his back pocket and pulling his wallet out — procuring a gold foil packet between his fingers. You sit up, rolling your eyes as you pluck it from his hand, flicking it across the room before pulling him closer to you and kissing the bulge in his pants. Your fingers unbutton them swiftly, mouthing at his cock over his boxers.

His hand drops his wallet as your fingers curl around the waistband, his own raking through your hair as your spit soaks through the fabric before you pull them down his thighs. Your hands circle the muscle, digging your nails into the side as you lick the tip of leaking precum. He bites down on his lip as take him deeper in your mouth, peering up at him through your lashes as the tip hits the back of your throat. You sink slightly further, your nose brushing his lower stomach as he groans, gathering your hair in his hand asyour hand slides up his thigh, cupping his balls as you slowly bob your head up and down his length. You pull off briefly with a soft gasp, lips swollen as you kiss his shaft before he pulls you away gently.

"Later," he whispers, bending to press a kiss to your spitslick lips. "Lie back, baby."

"Seok—" "Later, I promise."

You pout but do as you're told, leaning back on your elbows as he kicks off his pants, toeing off his shoes before you reach to undo your heels — only for him to grab your ankle and pull your leg away from you, "leave them on."

"Freak."

He doesn't reply, only smiling inwardly as he spreads your thighs for him, your cunt still glistening with his spit and your cum. He wraps his hand around himself, sliding the thick head of his cock through your slick folds with a soft moan. You rut your hips up, begging for any kind of friction when he pins you to the mattress, "be patient."

"Fuck me." "I am."

"You're taking your sweet ti—" Your sentence is cut off by his cock sinking inside you slowly, a smirk playing on his lips as your eyes flutter shut. He holds your thighs apart, his eyes trained on the way your cunt sucks in him, his lips parted as he buries himself to the hilt inside you. Your breathing is shallow as he presses his chin to his chest, the low light of your bedroom light showing off all the soft contours of his body as your fingres itch to touch him.

He leans forward, brushing a kiss to your lips as your hands slide up his arms, digging your nails into his shoulders as he gives a tentative roll of his hips. A punctuated fuck falls from your lips, making him trail wet, open mouthed kisses down the curve of your throat. His hand snakes between you, thumb finding your clit and pressing against it hard as he rocks into you with a barely controlled pace that settles the idea in your brain that he wants you just as bad as you want him.

"Feel so good, baby," he whines into your neck, his hips meeting yours with hard thrusts that make your breath hitch in your throat. "Such a good girl, yeah? Say you're mine."

"'M yours," your voice is hardly steady as you can taste the embarrasingly close end on the back of your tongue, your limbs fuzzy as you drag your nails down his back. He shivers, your walls clamping around him as he drags his lips down your neck, holding your knees tight to your chest as he swirls his tongue over one of your nipples. You thrust your chest up, your back bent in half as his cock drags deliciously in your spasming walls as you stave off your orgasm. "Want to you cum inside me, p-please."

"Please, huh? My baby's so polite…" he kisses back up your chest, dragging his tongue up the slope of your neck before his teeth tug at your earlobe. "You're mine, right? My girl. Mine."

You nod with a soft whine, your orgasm ripping through you and making your body feel hot as he spills inside you. Your fingernails are digging into his biceps, tears pricking at your eyes as he fucks you through it, your thighs shake around his waist, his hands quickly sliding over them and squeezing the soft flesh. Your skin is slick with sweat as he kisses down your chest, "you did so good for me, baby. So good."

You drape an arm over your eyes, embarrassment coating your cheeks in warmth as he carefully undoes the strap of your heels without pulling out. You feel his fingers gently circle the reddened dip of the straps, massaging the spot as you clench around him. He jerks in response, making you gasp as you close your legs as much as you can with him holding your ankles. He's still hard inside you, his hands pulling your ankles together over one shoulder and giving a slow roll of his hips; your hand darting out to push his hip away.

"S-Seokmin—" "Just one more. You can do it, I know you can."

Your hand on his hip slides off, "slow. I mean it."

"Whatever my girl wants." "You." "You have me, baby."

"And you're mine, too?" You peer up at him, eyes glossy with unshed tears as he nods, stopping his movements to press a kiss to the tip of your nose. You scrunch it, pursing your lips for a kiss. He obliges, speaking against your lips.

"I'm yours, Y/N."

IT'S VERY OBVIOUS THAT NEITHER OF YOU REALLY STUCK TO THE STORY THAT SEOKMIN GOT DRUNK AND COULDN'T DRIVE HOME.

You're twenty-eight years old, sitting on your couch with your twenty-nine year old (newly pronounced) boyfriend as your brother (unfortunately, also his best friend) screams like a husky wanting out of the house. He goes on and on about the integrity of a promise — apparently, Mingyu did know that Seokmin had the hots for you way back when, and made him swear he would never make a move on you. It doesn't help that you and Seokmin both spill the beans at the same time about how the two of you almost slept together the night of your prom — making Mingyu rub his face in embarrassment as he paces in front of you both.

"Fine, fine! Whatever!" He exclaims, throwing his arms up in defeat. "You win! Just don't ruin my sister's life and I won't fucking kill you."

You chew on your lip, shifting in your brother's old, paint-stained t-shirt as he huffs, crossing his arms on his chest.

"So you're not mad at me, right, Gyu?" You murmur, and Seokmin immediately scoots closer to you, tucking you into his chest as your older brother sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Well, it's not like I didn't expect this." He mutters, "neither of you are very good at keeping your feelings a secret."

"Then why are you over here yelling like a banshee?" You ask, and he sighs again, crouching next to your coffee table.

"Because you're my sister. It's my job to embarrass you and also yell at any of my friends that think they have a chance with you." He says pointedly, before looking at Seokmin. "I mean it. She was gone for ten years, and if I lose her again I'm killing you. The grave will be a ditch in Appalachia and no one will ever find your fucking body."

Mingyu didn't stay to help unpack, instead handing the task over to Seokmin with the label of it being 'to prove he was worthy of being with you.' He left with a kiss to the side of your head and a sniff at Seokmin, stalking out of your apartment and slamming the door so hard the walls shook.

"…He wouldn't actually, would he?" "No, I'm pretty sure he would. It's the could that I'm skeptical about, Mingyu can't even go hunting."

Seokmin snorted, laying back on the couch and pulling you on top of him with a soft brush of his lips to your cheek.

"Well, he doesn't have to worry about it. After all, I could spend the rest of my life worshipping you and it still wouldn't be enough."

You think it just might be.

ON THE EDGE OF THE VILLAGE, THE FOREST WAITS FOR YOU. Its open mouth is rimmed with teeth of black bark and bone-white birch trees, its canopy in knots against the fading sky that swallows the last traces of light. The window moves through the trees and you hear the whisper of leaves as it swells in the branches above, the sound of old timber creaking with the wind. 

No one else walks in the woods. 

Not at night, anyway. Plenty of people are happy to walk through the dappled shadows of the trees when the sun is shining and peaking through waxy leaves, but the woods belong to spirits and other dark things at night. 

Belongs to you at night, now. 

The cottages of the village fall behind you one by one, their lanterns glowing like watchful eyes. There’s a few curtains open, your neighbors and fellow citizens watching you vanish beneath the trees. No one stops you. They stopped trying to keep you away from the pine a few months ago, losing the strength to argue or reason with you.

Grief does that to a person. Makes people less willing to fight with them, to turn them into bystanders as grief eats away at a person, a corrosive no one is willing to stop. 

The grass is damp beneath your shoes, the earth breathing cold against your skin. As fall begins to approach, the forest changes. It smells like moss and damp loam, the metallic tang of roots split open from the morning frost. The silence here is endless, pressing in against you as you walk deeper. 

Eventually, you come to a glade. Always this glade. It’s far enough into the woods that the sound of the village cannot reach you, but not far enough to get lost. You sink to your knees, skirts soaking through with evening dew. Your fingers knot together in your lap, but you hesitate. 

You’re not sure who you’re calling out to anymore. The gods don’t answer you. Your prayers to them have gone unanswered for weeks. What once started as holy please have turned into a slow self destruction, a knife slowly sinking further and further into your gut with each unanswered prayer. 

Still, you try. 

Bowing your head, you breathe in. it smells like damp earth, the crickets around you singing. Somewhere, a group of coyotes start up, their chatter and yipping sending a wave of goosebumps down your arms. You’re unworried about them - wouldn’t stop them if they came for you anyway. 

“Please,” you whisper to the dark, voice barely audible above the wind. “I don’t want to be alone anymore. I cannot bear this silence.” 

Your throat closes on the last word. Your tears no longer come hot and fast like these used to. Instead, they have become slow and inevitable, a quieter grief than the hot, violent flood that drowned you a few months ago when you first started coming here.

When you first lost Joshua, the grief had been an ugly thing with teeth and claws. Now it has morphed into something heavy, something sinking deeper and deeper into the heart of you. You feel like you’re already forgetting the sharpness of his features, the exact lilt of his mouth. 

This is the part that kills you. The fading. The fear that despite knowing every shape and line of him, that you’ll forget him anyway. 

At this point, you’re not sure what you’re praying for. Tales of someone being brought back from the dead are few and far between here. Perhaps you’re begging to remember him in perfect detail. Or maybe you’re asking him to visit you in your dreams. Whatever it is the Gods will give you - anything they’ll give you.

So far, they’ve given you nothing.

The forest listens. You feel like it’s the only thing that feels your grief out here. The air tightens and holds, the shadows lean in. You feel the forest listening to you, the hairs on your arms rising. But nothing comes. It is the Gods who must answer your prayers, not the forest. 

Like every night before, you return home with nothing but the grief rotting in your stomach. 

-

The next night, you return. You always return.

The villagers stare at you as you pass their shuttered windows, their faces soft circles behind warped glass. Perhaps they believe you chase Joshua into the trees, following where no soul ought to go. Perhaps they think madness gnaws at you, that grief and longing has undone whatever tether bound you to common life. 

They’re not wrong, really. Joshua is gone, yet your heart refuses to rest, ever straining toward the silence of the trees. 

Tonight feels different. The shadows shift more than usual, the branches bending not with the wind, but as though drawn to you. You lick your lips, sure that it’s a trick of the light, an illusion fueled by a heart that has been left alone for so long. 

At the glade, you kneel again. The damp grass clings to your skirt, the ground cold. You sit in silence for a while, staring unseeing at the dark grass as you recall the soft curve of Joshua’s smile, the twinkle in his brown eyes. He was always so handsome - so painfully handsome and charming. 

And he’d chosen you. 

Now he is gone. A stupid accident ripping him from you in the blink of an eye. 

“Joshua,” you whisper, his name drifting.

It feels strange to say his name outloud, like calling out in a house you already know is empty. The memory of him thins at the edges and you grasp for him, frantic and terrified that soon the loneliness will make you forget the exact shade of brown of his eyes, the cadence of his laughter.

“Can’t you bring him back?” You ask the trees. They say nothing. “I’ve heard of people coming back. Of the Gods granting wishes. Why will you not grant my wish? What must I do?”

No one answers. You lean forward and press your forehead to the soil, desperate to crack yourself open against the earth as though you can bleed your grief into the trees and make them hear you. Make them feel what exists inside of you. The silence trembles with your suffering with-

Something moves.

Your head snaps up. There is no one but you in the glade, but you feel the shift of the trees again and know they’re listening. The forest leans toward you, the black between the trees thickening as if solidifying itself. For a moment you swear you see a shape in the darkness, your heart beating wildly as you think your prayers have been answered.

Then a breeze makes the clouds shift, a beam of moonlight falling across a fox that lopes away. 

You crumble. You press your face to the earth, cries wracking through you. The Gods will not answer you. It doesn’t matter what you do or say, you are left broken. Worst of all, you are left alone.

Always alone.

-

It feels like a kind of insanity to return to the glade. Yet, you do. Tonight, your steps feel heavy. As always, you kneel in the same damp grass and knot your fingers together to mutter the same prayers, the shape of Joshua’s name turning thin, the syllables like paper disintegrating in your mouth. 

The Gods do not answer but you beg anyways. Beg for them to take the grief. Beg for them to take the silence. To fill your world with something. Anything. To please rid you of this feeling of loneliness, to either save you or end you. 

As always, the first listens.

It always listens. Shadows stretch toward you, the dark hum of the trees drawing your gaze upward. Tonight, something in the darkness shivers. You feel it like a hum in your ribs, your heart beating as you shift on your knees, eyes darting over the void between the trees. 

Something moves. Not the fox from last night, not the groan of boughs in the wind or the flutter of wings. This movement is slower and larger, your eyes drawn to it like a gravitational pull. The dark thickens at the edge of the glade, so black it looks solid. Your breath catches and for the first time in months, you feel like you’re not alone, a presence buzzing against you.

Shadows unspool from the dark and you feel a spark on your skin, watching as they bend and gather as someone steps from the shade of the trees. 

For a split second, you imagine it’s Joshua. But it’s not. No, this stranger should terrify you, you think. He’s tall and broad, a luminous glow to his golden skin. His dark hair falls in his eyes, which flash amber before fading to molten brown, an unearthly spark of light around his pupils.

His clothes are dark, shifting in texture between shadow and substance, like they’re stitched from dusk. When he moves, the trees seem to bend with him, the air pulling tight. His mouth though - you suck in a breath - his mouth is shaped in a sorrowful smile, hinting at grief. Understanding. 

He looks at you as though he knows you. As though he’s felt the same cavern crack open in his chest. The forest stills around you. No breath of wind. No cry of coyotes. Only you, kneeling in the damp earth, and the man made of shadows stepping softly into the glade, answering your summons. 

The man lingers at the edge of the glade, half in shadow and half in moonlight. His gaze is unflinching, fixed to you. You feel your heartbeat scatter, tripping over itself as you stare at him, unsure what he is. Your lips part, but no sound comes out. The air between you is heavy and crackling, the buzz of his presence pressing against you. 

“You’ve been calling,” he says finally. His voice is soft and warm.

His words ripple through you. For a moment, your breath hitches. You realize that someone has answered you - a God, a demon, a creature. The forest. You don’t know what he is, but he has answered you. 

You lick your lips, nodding. “You answered.”

A faint curl touches his mouth, not quite a smile, not quite grief. “No one else would.” His amber eyes burn like coals beneath ash. “And I cannot bear to see you break yourself against the dark for nothing.”

You can’t look away from him. 

Every instinct in your body should be screaming to run and hide. You know this. And yet you feel no panic, no fear. You stare at him with a hunger you didn’t know you had, a desperation fueled by grief and loneliness, by the knowledge that someone answered.

Your heart hammers so violently it aches. You haven’t felt like this in months, not since Joshua was still alive and smiling. The sensation is so sharp you almost mistake the joy for a heart attack. It feels too good to be true, so panic begins to set in. 

Rubbing your sweaty palms on your skirt, you dare not look away from him as you whisper, “You’re not real, are you? I’ve finally gone mad?”

His head tilts. “Why would you think that?”

“You materialized from the darkness.”

“Strange does not equal nonexistent.”

You swallow past the dryness in your throat, nodding. “So what are you, then?”

He doesn’t answer. Not yet. He only watches you, as though waiting to see if you’ll run. But you don’t. You stay on your knees in the damp grass, every nerve alive, and realize with something like terror that you want him to step closer.

As though he can hear you, he does. He steps forward, slow enough that he doesn’t startle you. When you don’t bolt, he smiles a bit and moves more confidently into the moonlight. Shadows cling to him like they know him, keeping close. 

He’s more ordinary than you thought, when he moves closer. His clothes are simple - dark tunic, loose trousers. His hair falls untamed across his forehead, dark enough to blend with the forest behind him. It’s his eyes that keep you pinned, though. They catch you and hold you, a fathomless color that’s not black and not brown, but something in between that reflects the moon. 

When he reaches the center of the glade, he lowers himself to the grass. He doesn’t come near enough to touch you. He sits just close enough that you can hear the quiet rustle of fabric, to see the way his shoulders lift and fall with every breath he takes. 

“Tell me,” he says, low and even, “What grief drives you to cry into the dark? What name do you whisper to the trees every night, as though you would tear yourself open with it?”

Your throat catches. You lick your lips and drop your eyes from his peerless gaze. Trying to gather your courage, you take a deep breath. The forest has finally answered you, and you are determined not to squander it, even if your companion is a man made from shadows.

“Joshua,” you whisper. The name feels raw in your throat. “His name is Joshua.”

The man tilts his head slightly, though unearthly eyes unblinking. He seems sorrowful, like Joshua’s name brings him equal grief as it does for you. You feel the tightening in your throat, the oncoming sign of tears. You try to keep them back, watching as the man nods, placing his palms on his knees. 

“Joshua,” he repeats, testing the shape of the name. “And what did you lose, that your heart bleeds for him still?”

The question strikes too close, pulling the air from your lungs. You want to turn away, to close yourself off as you have with every villager, every concerned whisper. But his gaze does not feel prying, and for the first time since Joshua’s death, you feel the urge to answer. 

You swallow. Your voice cracks on the first attempt so you clear it before pressing forward. “He was…everything. My Joshua. He was my husband.”

The name burns, but you cling to it. You keep speaking before you can lose courage.

“He was laughter in a crowded room. He was the sound of the river when it thawed in spring. He was-” You sniff, pausing as your throat catches. “He was my whole life. And the world just tore him away from me. A stupid accident hunting. No sickness, no war, just… a bad fall.” 

The man does not interrupt. He doesn’t flinch or murmur platitudes like the villagers do. He only watches you, eyes fathomless, reflecting your grief back at you until you feel it heavier than before. The sob that leaves you is quieter than the ones you used to shed, a grief warmed under the man’s gaze. 

“I thought if I prayed enough, the gods would listen,” you tell him, tears hot. “That they’d see how much I loved him, how much it breaks me to be without him. But no one answered, and still I come here, because I don’t know what else to do.”

The forest absorbs your words, the night deepening. You close your eyes, letting the tears streak down your face. You collect yourself, breath shaking, hands trembling. You wipe at your cheeks, ruddy with tears and then open your eyes.

When you do, the man is still there. His gaze softens with something that resonates in your chest. He leans forward slightly, his hands resting on his knees. “No prayer is wasted. Even when the Gods ignore you, there are other things that still listen.”

The way he says it sends a shiver through you. You can’t tell if he means the forest, the night, or himself. His stillness unsettles you. It’s the kind of stillness of something older and deliberate, like a tree that has chosen not to sway with the wind, or a God who has turned his back on his children.

“Who are you?” You whisper. “Are you sure you’re real?”

For the first time, something like humor flickers in his eyes and he smirks. “You can call me Seokmin.” 

Seokmin.

The name hangs between you, soft as a thread and just as binding. You turn it over silently, lips parting but not speaking, afraid to break whatever spell has tethered him here. 

“And what are you?”

“Something that has answered your calls.” He pauses, regarding you. “If you wish, I will meet you here every night to keep you company, as you have asked.”

The words sink into you like water into dry soil, filling cracks you’ve been trying to mend for months. Something hot stirs at the back of your eyes, not grief this time, but the first fragile edge of relief.

“Why? Why would you do that?”

His expression shifts. His eyes catch the moonlight strangely, like light reflecting off of deep water. You see grief and sorrow echoed there, but not pity. Never pity. What you see in that gaze makes you feel seen. Known. 

“Because,” he says simply. “I cannot bear to watch you grieve alone.”

Nodding, you press your hands into fists, your nails biting into the skin sharply. “Thank you. Thank you… Seokmin.”

When you say his name, he smiles. It’s warm like stones heated by a fire, like embers burning in the dark. He nods his head, eyes never leaving yours. He glances up as wind rustles the trees, making them bend and dance. 

“You should head home,” he murmurs, watching the dark canopy. “It’s going to rain soon.”

“Are you a God?” Your question draws his gaze back to you. He shakes his head but says nothing. You nod, having assumed so already. “You’ll be here tomorrow?”

“I promise.”

The night swallows the glade around you as you rise to leave, skirts heavy with dew, palms damp with cold earth. Seokmin does not move. His eyes linger on you, unwavering. It makes your skin buzz with warmth for the first time in months. 

Before you leave, you look at him once more. He remains sitting in the center of the glade, watching you leave. You offer a weak smile and he echos it, eyes glinting. With the promise that he’ll be there every night, you turn and head home.

As you walk back toward the village, the trees whisper over your head. The moonlight vanishes as thick clouds with the promise of rain stretch above, lightning flashing in the distance. The cottages are dark now, windows closed. You’re alone again, but this time there is a knot of confidence that there’s someone else. Something else. 

Joshua’s absence is still a hollow ache, but something in the promise of Seokmin’s presence makes it bearable, if only slightly. The forest has given you an answer, not the one you expected, but one that hums in your bones with quiet inevitability.

-

A smear of clouded silver makes up the night sky above. The village lies in muted shadow, quiet as the day dies for night. You leave the small warmth of your home behind, walking with the same familiar dread that has always carried you to the forest, but now sparked with hope. 

Part of you is terrified Seokmin won’t be there. You’d been unable to sleep last night, positive that it had all been a strange dream. Your fear makes you walk faster, skipping into the trees as your breath quickens. It feels like the path to the glade is made longer by your anxiety, every rustle of the trees magnified by your anticipation. 

The glade opens before you, pale in the moonlight and waiting. Your heart slams in your chest when you see the familiar shape of Seokmin sitting at the center, cross-legged, eyes catching the moonlight as he smiles at you. You don’t realize it until you’re sitting down, but you feel a smile on your face, wider and brighter than you’re used to. 

“You’re here,” you whisper, a mixture of relief and disbelief. 

“I promised, didn’t I?”

You swallow, unsure if the tears pooling again in your eyes are grief or something else, something unnameable and dangerous. The distance between you feels immense and intimate at the same time. You want to sit closer, but fear coils in your stomach, twisting tight. Fear of being swallowed by this presence, fear of letting yourself hope, fear of daring to be comforted.

“I know what it means to be hollowed out,” Seokmin says when you settle. “To wander through the dark carrying more grief than the body can hold. I don’t want to leave you to bear it alone.”

You look at your lap, fingers pulling on stray strings from your skirts. “That’s incredibly kind.”

“Some would call me selfish.”

You look up fiercely at that. “They’re wrong.”

His smile is soft and doesn’t reach his eyes. “Tell me about Joshua. Tell me what made him him. I find that preserving the ones we love out loud are far better than trying to remember them in silence.”

So you tell him. For the first time in months, you talk about Joshua. You remember him outloud. You tell Seokmin how Joshua was stubborn and gentle, incredibly brave above all. How he had a laugh that made the air feel lighter, like Joshua was spun from the sun itself. 

Seokmin listens without interruption. When you falter, pressed by the weight of the sadness, he doesn’t move. He sits patiently, watching you with eyes that understand every hitch in your breath, every tear that falls. The air around him remains quiet and expectant, letting you unfold months of wanting to talk about Joshua. 

“You carry it well,” Seokmin says eventually. “Not the burden itself, but the willingness to let it be seen. Most try to hide it. You let yourself feel it.”

You let out a bitter laugh. “It doesn’t feel like strength. I have come here for months begging anyone to take it from me because I don’t want it.”

“Not giving up is courage, even if it feels like something else.” 

For a moment, the world shrinks to the two of you, the glade, the hush of the forest. The dew-soaked grass, the rustle of unseen creatures, the faint moonlight catching in his eyes. It feels safe here. 

“I don’t know what I want from you,” you admit carefully. “I didn’t expect anyone to answer. Not really.” 

He smiles then, a slow, careful curl of lips that seems impossibly human, impossibly real. “You asked, and I came. For now, I’ll listen. Watch. Sit with you. If you want something else, ask it of me. Or if you no longer need me, I will leave.” 

A smile touches your lips and you nod. “Thank you, Seokmin.”

Seokmin smiles. “Anything for you.”

-

Grief is a fickle thing. It never really leaves, but the weight of it presses less sharply against you as a week passes. Then another. Two weeks of walking the same damp path from the village. Two weeks of finding the glade, Seokmin sitting like a shadow in the center. Two weeks of finally feeling the pressure subside, no longer feeling like you’re going to burst at any second. 

Tonight, mist curls on the ground, threading through the trees like smoke. The woods smell like most and cold air, the season turning in full. Your boots squelch softly in the grass as you approach the glade, the moon smeared silver behind a drifting cloud. 

Seokmin sits in the center like always. His gaze follows you as you approach, patient and unblinking. There is warmth between you now, subtle and pressing against your ribs. You sit down, sighing shakily glancing at him where he waits, mouth quirked.

“Hi,” you whisper.

“Hi.”

“How are you tonight?”

“Well.” His eyes drink you in. “You seem a little troubled. Not with grief, but something else.”

You raise your brows in surprise. You didn't think he could read you that well, but you suppose it isn’t surprising. He isn’t human or a God, but he is something. You haven’t dared ask him to be specific, so you’re left to guess at the details. 

“The villagers are a little…” You drift off, searching for the right word. “Frustrated with me, perhaps. They think I’m mad because I’ve been wandering the woods at night but I no longer seem to be drowning in grief.”

You glance at him. The glade is silent except for your words and the faint rustle of leaves. Seokmin does not comment, does not offer advice, does not intrude. He simply sits there, and in that stillness, you feel his attention like a hand pressed against you lightly, comforting. 

“I feel like a shadow here,” you admit. “Like I’m meant to be a part of the trees and during the day when I’m in the village, I can only cast a shape of myself.”

“Shadows can be just as substantial as the real thing,” he says. Seokmin leans back on his hands, head tilted as he watches you. “People are afraid of shadows because they don’t understand them. But there are those who can see into shadows well, and realize they’re just as real as anything else.”

The words are simple, but they feel warm. You find yourself smiling, a little, despite the tears that linger at the corners of your eyes. He doesn’t pry, doesn’t question, but his quiet acceptance makes you want to talk anyway. So you keep talking, telling him about your village. 

When the words slow and you grow tired, you let silence hang between you. You’ve been staying out here longer and later, sleeping in and waking up late in the afternoon after spending an entire night sitting here with him. You don’t mind. You like the change of pace, the company.

You glance at him, hesitating. The way the moonlight brushes across his face makes it seem impossible that he could be entirely real. You’re still not entirely sure that he is. There is always a tiny sliver of fear, the panic of what if this is all in your head. You suppose it doesn't matter, but your curiosity drives you anyway.

“Do you sleep?” You ask finally. 

He tilts his head, grinning. You feel relieved when he doesn’t get irritated, rather he seems amused. “I do. But not like you do. I rest when I’m not here.”

“Do you wait here for me or do you get to leave?”

“I’m not always here, though you are the easiest part of my day.”

You bite your lip, the faint humor in his words pulling a shaky smile out of you. “And what else do you do, when you’re not here?”

“I wander. I watch.” His eyes linger on yours, unfathomable and bright in the dark. “But I like being here best.”

“Really?”

Seokmin doesn’t answer immediately. He studies you, expression careful, almost unreadable, until at last he says, “Yes. You keep me company. I sometimes feel lonely too. You make it less so, even if only for a little while.”

The words press softly against your ribs, a strange heat blooming there. You look down at your hands, folding them in your lap, feeling lighter and yet more exposed than you have in months. The air hums around you, leaves shifting ever so slightly as if the forest itself is leaning closer.

The glade is quiet, the mist curling around the bases of the trees. You trace your gaze over him, over the way the moon catches the planes of his face, the calm in his posture, the impossible spark in his eyes.

“What are you?” You ask gently. 

“I am…” he begins slowly, carefully, “something dark.”

Your chest tightens. “Should I be afraid of you?”

He grins. It’s not mocking or cruel, but gentle amusement. Your heart quickens and you mimic his smile, feeling how silly the question is. He answers it anyway, tilting his head. “Most people would be afraid of me. I walk in shadows, I move with the night. But you should never be afraid of me. Ever.”

His gaze meets yours, unwavering, fathomless. The spark in his eyes is unnatural, but it is steady now, warm in a way that makes your chest ache. His words settle over you, heavy and soft all at once. You want to ask more, but you feel like you’ve questioned him more than enough for the night.

Instead, you change topics. Tell him a story from your childhood. Seokmin smiles all the way through, the dark clinging to him like it belongs to him.

And you are not afraid. 

-

Seokmin is not sitting where you expect him when you enter the glad. He’s not in the center like usual, but rather sitting directly across from where you usually sit. For a heartbeat, disbelief stuns you. Your hands clutch your skirts as you walk, breath catching. He doesn’t flinch when he sees you, just merely sits there with a soft grin on his face, eyes crinkling. 

Delight blooms in your chest. Tentatively, you lower yourself onto the damp cross in front of him, careful not to touch. Even with the space between you, the nearness sends a shiver up your spine, the back of your neck tingling. 

“This is a new spot for you,” you say by way of greeting.

“Is that alright with you?”

“It is.”

He smiles. “I thought perhaps I could tell you a little about myself, tonight.”

Your pulse hammers in your ears. You’ve wanted answers for weeks now, but you haven’t been brave enough to ask since the night he told you that you had nothing to fear from him. You lick your lips and knot your fingers in your lap.

“Really?”

“Mhmm.” His gaze holds yours, warm and steady. “I would like to.”

“I am older than the Gods themselves,” he starts slowly. His voice is measured, eyes watching for your reactions. “I’m bound to this wood, to its darkness, to the shadow. I am a guardian of this place, of sorts.” 

You swallow hard, gaze drifting over him, taking in the familiar lines of his face, the strange, unnatural light in his eyes that now feels more alive than ever. “Bound… to the darkness?”

He nodes slowly. “Shadow is my nature, my existence. It is what I am. Frightening to some, but not to you.”

“No,” you agree, a small smile tugging at your lips.

He echoes it and continues, “This place is mine. Or rather, it belongs to me as much as I belong to it. It’s one of several bound to me, but this is perhaps my favorite. It’s one of the spaces where I may dwell freely.”

You glance around, awe prickling at your skin. The mist curls and drifts, almost aware, as if it hesitates and shifts at his presence. The very air seems thicker near him, the night pulse slow and deliberate, as though the world itself bends to his will. A chill curls along your spine, but it is not fear. It is awe, fascination, the quiet thrill of something both vast and dangerous leaning toward you.

“Others?” you ask, hesitant.

“Yes, domains.” He leans closer, ever so slightly. “Spaces where I am called, where I am bound. Mortals have called me demon, but I think the word is limiting. I am what I am, bound to the dark. Yet I do like the moonlight of this glade.”

You swallow hard, the word demon hanging unspoken between you like a shadow you can feel but cannot see. The air presses close, thick with the scent of moss and earth, with the faint undercurrent of something strange and wild.

After a long pause, curiosity blooms, delicate and insistent. You tilt your head, eyes tracing the subtle planes of his face, the way the moonlight lingers in his eyes, the quiet strength in his posture.

“You said before that my grief has been your own,” you say hesitantly. “Is that because you are timeless?”

Seokmin smiles at you, but it doesn’t reach his eyes this time. “You’re smart.”

“I like to listen to you.”

That gets a little laughter out of him and you smile nervously. “Yes, it is because I’m timeless. Perhaps more than you can imagine. I have seen mortals I cherish fade from the world as time pulls them away. It is not only the loss of them, but the echo of what was shared, a new hollowing I always carry with me.”

You draw in a shuddering breath, the weight of his confession pressing against your chest. “You feel it so deeply? Like me?”

He nods, the moon reflected in his glassy eyes. “Yes. I have watched my kin fade, drifting away from me either through bitter fights or simply because we exist for eons. I am left alone again and again, only with the shadows for company.”

The air feels heavier now, the mist curling thicker around your legs and the bases of the trees. The ache of your own grief tangles with the raw honesty of his. He has known loss longer than you could even measure. He has wandered longer than the memory of your world stretches. And yet, here he is, sitting close, choosing to be present in your pain.

“And me.” He looks up at that. You stare at him, for once unwavering. “You have the shadows and me for company.”

For the first time, his laughter is so loud it fills the glade. It’s not mocking, but delighted - truly, honestly delighter. You watch with a smile as he tilts his head backward, the moonlight painting his throat silver as he laughs toward the sky. 

Seokmin’s laughter isn’t Joshua’s. It’s deeper and darker, tinged by something sharp. His warmth isn’t Joshua’s either - it’s crackling and heavy, making the world feel heavier. But this is nice. To have him here like this, so close your knees are almost touching, not in replacement of Joshua, but side-by-side with Joshua’s memory. 

“I like you,” Seokmin says when his laughter dies, smiling at you. “I’m glad I answered your call.”

“So am I. Thank you.”

“It is I who should thank you. For the first time in a long time, I am not alone.”

You draw in a slow breath, letting his words settle into you. The forest seems to hold its breath around you. The night itself presses close, shadows folding in like curtains, leaves brushing softly with a whisper of wind. The pull between you and Seokmin tightens, delicate and undeniable, making your breath catch. 

Tentatively, Seokmin reaches a hand toward you. You lift yours, fingers trembling as you place your hand in his. He wraps his long fingers around yours, squeezing. The feel of his hand is rough and warm, more solid than anything else you’ve ever felt recently. You laugh, delighted, tears burning at the corners of your eyes. 

Seokmin links your hands together, letting them fall into his lap silently. You don’t need to talk, don’t need to say anything. His presence buzzes against yours, the warmth where your hands are linked addicting and grounding. 

“Obviously I know. But I’ve known you for way longer than him. Don’t I get like, friendship superiority over him?”

Hansol sighed on the other line, his voice crackling through the speaker. “That’s not how that works and you know that. Come on, dude. You’re both really important to me. I know things didn’t end great between you-”

“That’s one way to put it.” You scoffed, scraping the vegetables from the cutting board into the pot waiting on the stove.

“...Fine. I know things ended horribly between you two, but I really want you both to be there. You’re my oldest friend, and he’s one of my best friends.” You could practically hear the puppy-dog eyes your best friend was putting on through his pout. “Can’t you just put it aside for one night?”

You paused, contemplating the question for a moment, “No.” you quickly hung up before he could protest, your irritation showing in the way you aggressively stirred the pot on the stove. ‘Things didn’t end great between you’ you scoffed as you recalled Hansol’s words. ‘Not great’ was certainly one way to put it.

FIVE YEARS AGO

You and Seokmin had been together for nearly four years. You’d met him through Hansol, your best friend since before you could walk. Him and Hansol had the same birthday, so one year, they’d decided to have a joint party with all of their friends- including you. You and Seokmin hit it off immediately. He was just your type; tall, goofy, and a little shy, with a pretty nose. 

Your relationship was nothing short of perfect. Seokmin was possibly the only person in the world that made you feel comfortable in your own skin. The way he was able to make you open up so quickly was something no one else had ever been able to do. You knew you loved him after your first date- he was everything you’d ever wanted- and he felt the same. You moved in with each other a month after you started dating, which was something nearly all your friends protested. But it worked for you.

You were so sure that Seokmin was ‘the one’. Before him, you’d always thought the idea of soulmates was stupid. You were never much of a romantic. But Seokmin changed that. He changed a lot about you. You remember the look on your friend Minghao’s face when you told him that you and Seokmin were planning on getting married. You’d known Minghao since high school, you went to college together, and worked at the same company. He knew you better than most- he knew that before Seokmin, you were just like him when it came to love: a total cynic. He was concerned about how fast you two were going- he told you that getting married to someone you knew for barely a year was too quick, that you weren’t thinking straight.

It hurt a little bit- to be told by one of your best friends that you had your head in the clouds, but you listened. You and Seokmin slowed down. You knew that it hurt Seokmin when you told him you couldn’t get married that quickly- but he understood. And now here you were, three years later. Still not married, but happy.

“I love you.” He sighed between kisses, his hands gently holding your face, his thumbs lightly running over your cheekbones. “I love you so much.”

Your nights often ended like this; the weight of your boyfriend on top of you, his lips all over you, your nails gently scratching his scalp as he planted his lips on yours again. Your smile widened and your face flushed at the way he planted soft kisses all over your face so intently, as if he was trying to paint your face with his lips.

He took one of his hands away from your face, bringing it up to yours, his fingers entwined with your own, and he brought it down to hold against the mattress with a gentleness that no one else had ever shown you. Seokmin wasn’t your first relationship- not by a long shot. But he was the only person you’d been with that you really loved. Even if you had a hard time showing it sometimes, he knew how to coax it out of you. “I know you love me, too. Say it for me, my pretty girl.”

“I love you.” You didn’t hesitate to say it. You felt him smile against your lips at your words, his hand squeezing yours a little tighter. He pulled away with one final peck to your bottom lip, his eyes filled with nothing but adoration as they met your own, your face flushing even brighter as he stared. “Stop that.” You took your hand from the back of his head to cover his eyes, a grin spreading across his face at your shy demeanor.

He wrapped both arms around you and rolled over to switch places, your body now on top of his. You removed your hand from his eyes to rest your head on his chest, planting a peck on the tip of his nose on your way down. The feeling of warmth you felt in your chest was indescribable as Seokmin soothingly ran a hand through your hair, his chest rumbling warmly as he hummed your favorite song.

You were sure he told you he loved you again as you drifted off to sleep, he always did. There was never any room for doubt in your relationship. Seokmin loved you, and he made sure that you knew it.

CURRENT DAY

You caved in. You couldn’t just not go to your best friend’s birthday party. Despite the fact that you knew he would be there. Despite that it was technically his party too, you were here for Hansol and Hansol only.

“There you are!” Speak of the devil. Hansol’s face broke out in a grin as soon as he spotted you in the sea of people swarming his house, making a beeline for you, holding his cup of mysterious alcohol above his head as he parted his way through the crowd. He wrapped his free arm around you as soon as he got close enough, dragging you with him into the kitchen, pouring a drink for you as quick as he could. That was a bad sign. Hansol wouldn’t willingly pour you a drink unless he knew you’d need it.

You eyed him suspiciously as you took a sip- there was definitely vodka in there. That bastard. “Happy birthday.” You mused as the alcohol actively burned your throat.  Hansol stayed quiet, just giving you a sheepish look, taking another sip of his drink to ease the tension.

“What?”

Hansol sighed at the sharp question, pinching the bridge of his nose as if you were already giving him a headache. “...Just don’t kill me, okay?”

“I already know he’s here, Hansol. Just tell me what room he’s in so I can avoid it.”

“No, that’s the thing, dude.” He took a deep breath and set his cup on the counter. You followed suit and he gently took your wrists in his hands, probably so you wouldn’t run away after whatever he was going to say. His eyes met yours and your stomach dropped at the almost guilty look on his face. “...He wants to talk.”

“No.” You immediately tried to pull away, but Hansol’s grip on your wrists prevented you from fleeing. “Hansol, let me go.”

“Just let me finish first.”

“I’m not talking to him. I don’t give a fuck about what he has to say. Now let me go.”

“Don’t…yell.” He sighed, your protests starting to attract odd looks from the other partygoers. He dropped one of your wrists before turning around and practically dragging you across the house. He took you into his room, letting you go and standing in front of the door as if he was guarding it. “Okay, now you can yell.”

“I am not going to talk to him. I don’t fucking care about what he has to say.” You were practically in tears as you raised your voice at your friend, who stood his ground in front of the door.

“I know you and him are…complicated, but I really think you should hear him out.”

“Complicated? Are you even hearing yourself right now? Do you even remember what I was like after?”

“God, obviously I remember!” Hansol snapped, causing you to fall silent. “Do you remember who was there for you after all of that? Do you remember who stayed up late with you while you cried yourself to sleep every night for two months straight? Me. I did. Me and Minghao. Despite the fact that Seokmin is one of my best friends and I knew he was hurting too, I put you first.”

You sat on Hansol’s bed as he took his turn airing out his frustrations. You knew he was right. He’d been there for you completely unconditionally through yours and Seokmin’s breakup. He listened as you cried over your broken relationship, let you stay in his home while you were in the process of moving out of Seokmin’s apartment, stayed up with you until the early hours of the morning, holding you as you cried. He was there for you. He knew how badly you were hurt.

“I know what the breakup did to you. I know how badly it hurt you. But I also know how badly it hurt him.” Hansol moved away from the door to take a seat next to you on his bed, wrapping an arm around you. Your head instinctively went to his shoulder, his head rested on top of yours as he continued. “Please…I know it hurts, but it’s been like, five years. Just listen to what he has to say…It’s my birthday.”

“Alright, shut up.” You rolled your eyes, pulling away from him slightly. He looked up at you with those big brown eyes, silently pleading for you to do the right thing. “...Fine.”

“Really?” He sat up straight, giving you an excited shove, his face breaking out into a grin. “Are you serious? You’ll talk to him?”

“God, just go get him before I change my mind. Seriously.”

He nodded quickly, practically leaping off the bed and running out of the room, leaving you sitting on the bed. You took a shaky breath as the weight of what you just agreed to settled on your shoulders. You hadn’t spoken to Seokmin since the night you broke up. Even as you were moving out of his apartment, you didn’t speak to him once- and Hansol and Minghao were the ones who did most of the actual moving.

Your heart plunged into your stomach as you heard the sound of two people approaching the room. You could hear what was obviously Hansol’s voice muttering as he paused outside the door, the handle rattling as he grabbed a hold on it on the other side.

Your heart pounded as the door creaked open, Hansol peeked his head in to give you a fleeting smile before he ran off to enjoy his party- you felt guilty for making him have to deal with your problems on his birthday. But the feeling of guilt was quickly replaced by an indescribable pain as the face of Lee Seokmin replaced your best friend. You remained silent as he slowly entered the room, quietly closing the door behind him, keeping his eyes on your face as he did so. You purposely avoided his gaze as he stood, his hands folded in front of him, his back resting on the door.

“...Hey.”

FIVE YEARS AGO

“Say it again.”

You giggled as Seokmin pressed you against the wall, his breath tickling your ear as he planted soft fleeting kisses on your neck. He had your arms pinned gently against the wall, your jacket threatening to slip off your shoulders as he attacked your neck.

“Okay! I love you! Now, let me go. I have to go to work.” Seokmin hummed at your request, his hands moving from your arms to your waist, his lips moving from your neck to your jaw, to your lips.

“Hmm…five more minutes.”

“Seokmin!” You planted your hands on his chest, giving him a gentle push. He pulled away from your face to meet your gaze, his eyes practically sparkling as he looked down at you. “I have to go to work. Minghao can’t keep covering for me forever.”

“Please- he’d do anything for you. Just say it one more time and I’ll let you go.” He grinned at you innocently as his firm arms around you held you in place against the wall.

“...I love you…God, I can’t wait to marry you.” You leaned in and gave a little love bite to the tip of his nose before planting a peck on the same spot, adoring the little giggle that escaped his mouth as you did so.

Seokmin grinned before fully pulling away from you, satisfied with your admittance, he adjusted your jacket back over your shoulders, and marched you to the door. He leaned down to kiss you one more time, his lips gently pressing against yours, his fingertips ghosting your jawline. “I love you, pretty girl.”

|

“He does that a lot, doesn’t he?” Minghao mused as he took a bite of his salad. The two of you were on your lunch break, sitting on a bench outside in the warm spring air.

“I’m sorry, is it not normal for my boyfriend to tell me that he loves me?”

“Not that. I mean him not replying when you say you want to marry him..”

You hummed as you took a bite of your sandwich, looking over to your friend as he brushed his long hair behind his ears. He always seemed to have his reservations about yours and Seokmins relationship. “Does he have to? I mean, we’ve been together for almost four years now, we’ve lived together for almost that whole time, my family loves him, his family loves me, we don’t have to worry about each other's friends not liking us because we have the same friend group. I know it was too early when we first started talking about it- I know that now. One year in is too early. And I mean, we were so young. But four years? I think that’s a good time to start at least thinking about it.”

Minghao sighed, taking another bite of salad. “I don’t know, kid. I don’t think you’re looking at this from the right angle.”

“...What do you mean?”

He turned to you as if he’d been waiting for you to ask, setting his salad aside and running a hand through his hair as he faced you. You were put slightly off-guard at the serious expression on his face. What had started out as a conversation based around you gushing over how much of a romantic your boyfriend was had quickly turned into what you were sure was going to be one of Minghao’s lectures.

“You really want to get married to him?”

“...Yes?”

“You always have?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re always the one that brings it up?”

“I guess?”

“It’s a yes or no question.”

“...I mean…Yes?”

He took another breath, running a hand over his face. An anxious pit had started to form in your stomach.

“Does he want to get married?”

Your heart dropped into your stomach at the question. Somehow, in all your years with Seokmin, you’d never thought about that. He did. He definitely did. Sure, you were always the one to bring it up, you were always the one talking about how much you wanted to get married, how excited you were to have a wedding and start a family with him. You wracked your brain, trying to remember one singular time where he’d been the one to bring it up first, searching desperately through your own memories to try and find any instance where he’d mentioned getting married without you prompting it.

Did he want to get married? Was that ever something he wanted? You loved Seokmin, you really did, and you knew he loved you, too. He told you every day. But did he want to marry you? He never told you he didn’t- but he never told you he did.

“Hey.” Minghao’s voice sounded distant as he rested his hand on your shoulder. “I don’t mean to freak you out, I just…I want to make sure that you’re not wasting your time with someone who doesn’t have the same end goal in mind as you.”

The alarm on your phone rang, signaling the end of your lunch break before you could respond. Minghao kept an arm wrapped around you as the two of you walked back into the building, his hand rubbing your bicep comfortingly as your mind spiraled.

CURRENT DAY

“You know, we’re going to have to actually talk at some point.” Seokmin sighed between kisses. “I actually have things I want to say to you.”

You hummed against his lips, the pleasant feeling of his hands under your shirt offset the shame-filled pit in your stomach as you pulled at his hair, causing his mouth to fall open in a silent gasp, allowing you to slip your tongue into his mouth. Seokmin sighed deeply, pulling you tightly against him, forcing you to sit fully on his lap as he tilted his head, deepening the kiss even more.

“Then talk.” You abandoned his lips, moving your mouth down to his neck, nipping gently at the sensitive skin. Seokmin bit his lip to hold back the sinful noises that threatened to escape his mouth at the feeling of your weight on his lap, your lips on his neck, and your hands in his hair. He didn’t know how he’d survived nearly five years without feeling you.

“I thought you hated me.” He whispered, his hands trailing down to your hips, holding them firmly in place.

“I do.” Your hands abandoned his hair, now resting on his chest.

“I hate that thought.” He continued, his thumbs gently running over the exposed skin between the hem of your shirt and your jeans. “Never meant to hurt you. My pretty girl.”

“But you did.”

How did you even end up here? You were fully prepared to scream and shout at your ex- you knew he would’ve just stood there and taken it, waited until you had nothing left to say until he even thought about opening his mouth. But once he was actually in front of you, your mind went blank. All the scathing insults that you’d thought of over the past five years suddenly left your mind at the sight of Lee Seokmin.

Seokmin took your silence as a good sign, taking the initiative to sit next to you on the bed- leaving a respectable distance between you. You hadn’t meant for it to happen- you looked up at him to try and see if you could see what he was thinking through his expression. He always wore his thoughts on his face.

All it took was one slight shift in his expression- the parting of his lips and a slight curve of his brow- for the energy of the room to change. It took less than a second for you to practically tackle him. The two of you immediately melting into each other as you had countless times before. The familiar smell of Seokmin’s cologne filled your mind with such a comfortable haze, you almost forgot why you were here in the first place.

Seokmin groaned as you shifted in his lap, one of his hands resting on your back to make it easier for him to flip you over and lay you flat on your back. He leaned over you, immediately planting his lips back on yours. He’d always been a muscular man- it was one of the first things you’d noticed about him, but as he held you tightly against him, pressing you into the mattress with his arms tightly around you, his body felt firmer than when he’d last held you like this.

He groaned as your nails raked down his chest, his lips detaching from yours to take a breath. He rested his forehead on yours for a moment, breathing you in as you squirmed beneath him, wordlessly begging him to put his mouth on you again.

“God, I’m so sorry.” He breathed out as your hands sneaked under his t-shirt, exploring the expanse of his firm torso. “I love you so much, I’m so sorry.”

You paused.

You opened your eyes to find Seokmin staring at you intently, the passion in his eyes unmistakable as his chest heaved with his heavy breaths. Tears welled in your eyes as you shook your head. “Don’t tell me that.”

“I needed to tell you. I’m so sorry. I love you so much, I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. I regretted everything I said the second you left.”

Seokmin didn’t protest as you pushed him off of you, he rolled onto his side as you sat up, the weight of the past fifteen minutes suddenly crashing onto you all at once. The two of you stayed silent, Seokmin sitting up next to you, unsure of whether or not he would get his head ripped off if he made an attempt to comfort you.

“I fucking hate you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.”

Seokmin sighed deeply, standing up from his spot next to you. He adjusted his clothes and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes welling up as he watched your shoulders shake, your head in your hands as your thoughts spiraled, your mind feeling like it was caught in the midst of a hurricane.

“I know I hurt you.” He slowly started, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. But if you ever want to hear me out, my number hasn’t changed.”

You stayed silent as Seokmin walked to the door, his hand resting on the handle as he looked back at you. “I really do regret the things I said. I was childish. And I was wrong. I just want you to know…it's been five years. And I still love you.”

FIVE YEARS AGO

“You love me, right?”

Seokmin raised an eyebrow at your question as he stirred the pot of soup on the stove, your hands slightly shook as you nervously asked the question, the bread knife in your hand reflecting the light from the soft ambient lamps that littered the living room that connected to yours and Seokmin’s kitchen.

“Do I not tell you enough? Of course I love you.” Seokmin rested his hand atop of yours, preventing you from potentially cutting your hand instead of the bread on the cutting board. “You know I love you.” He brushed your hair back, a soft lazy smile on his face. “My pretty girl.”

You smiled shyly, looking down at your hands as Seokmin looked down at you with that sparkle in his eyes. “I love you, too.” You mumbled, setting the knife down and taking his hand in yours, squeezing it gently before looking up at him tentatively.

“Why do you ask?” He turned back to the stove to turn the heat down to a simmer before looking back at you, his eyes concerned as you looked away.

“I just…I had a conversation with Minghao during lunch today.”

This conversation might have been a mistake, is what you thought as Seokmin slowly nodded, removing his hand from yours to stir the simmering soup again. He cleared his throat before asking, “...A conversation about what?”

“Nothing. It’s not important.” You went back to slicing the bread on the counter, your hands shaking more now.

“No, I wanna know. It’s obviously bugging you.” He rubbed your back in what you were sure was supposed to be a soothing manner, but it just set you on edge even more. You looked back up at him to find him looking at you still, that concerned look still in his eyes. Your bottom lip trembled as you recalled yours and Minghao’s conversation. The idea that Seokmin didn’t want you the same way you wanted him- the idea that he didn’t see the two of you starting a family and growing old together- it had been eating at you all day.

“Do you…want to be with me?”

He laughed in shock; the question absolutely absurd to him. “Of course I do. What are you talking about?”

“No, I mean…do you want to be with me like…forever?”

“Of course, babe. You’re my girl.”

“No, Seokmin…” You took a frustrated breath, setting the knife down and turning to fully face your boyfriend. The confusion on his face only grew as he saw the frustrated tears starting to well in your eyes, your bottom lip trembling before you asked the dreaded question. “Do you even want to get married?”

He laughed nervously, his eyes averting yours as he aimlessly stirred the pot. “Come on, you know I love you.”

“Seokmin, just answer the question.”

“We’ve been together for four years, why are you asking me this now? What did Minghao say to make you think like this?”

“For the love of god, Seokmin. Answer the question. Do you want to marry me?”

Seokmin fell silent, his hands dropped to his sides. There was no changing the subject. No avoiding the question. “Do you remember…way early on…when we started talking about getting married, and our friends all thought it was a bad idea because we’d only known each other for like, a year?”

“Of course.”

“Do you remember what Minghao said?”

You paused, wracking your brain in an attempt to remember what your friend could have possibly said that would have Seokmin still thinking about it three years later. Seokmin ran his hands over his face at your silence, taking a deep breath before turning to you. “He said…He said that we were being stupid, not thinking straight, we were still in the honeymoon phase, and if we got married so young, we’d probably regret it. Because what if we found someone else? What if we ended up realizing that we weren’t meant for each other after a few years?”

“But that was…three years ago, Seokmin. We’ve been living together that entire time. We’re basically already married- we do practically everything that married couples do! You’ve been to my family reunions, I buy your parents and sister birthday and christmas presents. So just answer the goddamn question. Do you want to marry me?”

Seokmin bit his cheek, his own eyes welling up as he saw the tears falling down your cheeks. His mouth opened and closed, as if he was trying to speak but the words just wouldn’t come out. He ran a hand over his face again, taking a deep breath, his voice wavering as he answered. “...No. I don’t.”

You kept your mouth clamped shut, a stomach-churning sob threatening to escape your mouth. You turned away from Seokmin- you couldn’t look at him. You didn’t see the tears falling from his eyes as you buried your face in your hands, leaning against the kitchen counter. The tension in the air was thick from Seokmin’s confession, your whole world felt as though it was crashing around you due to those three words he’d uttered.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He whispered through his own tears, unsure of how to comfort you- or whether he should comfort you. He should have just said yes.

“I don’t understand, Seokmin. I just don’t understand. We’ve been together for so long, just…why?”

“I don’t know…We’re both still so young…I don’t know where we’re gonna be in five years. I don’t know how I’m going to…feel.”

His words felt like a slap to the face. Four years together. Four years of spending every day together, eating dinner together every evening, falling asleep in each other's arms every night. Four years, and he ‘didn’t know’. “You don’t know how you’re going to feel, or you don’t know how you’re going to feel about me?”

Seokmin stayed silent, which was an answer in itself. “I can’t fucking believe this. Why are you still with me if you don’t know if you’re still going to love me five years from now?”

“Because I love you. I love you now, but…we’re so young still.”

You couldn’t help the way you rolled your eyes at his words. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

Seokmin turned the stove off completely, the tears in his eyes blurring his vision as he turned back to you. “...I didn’t know if we were going to be together forever…I didn’t know if I wanted to marry you…but I knew I didn’t want you to leave me.”

You’d heard enough. You wiped the tears from your eyes, standing up and walking towards the front door, leaving Seokmin trailing behind you.

“Where are you going?” The thing that irritated you most was the way his voice wasn’t particularly concerned- it was more annoyed than anything.

“I don’t know. Hansol’s. Maybe Minghao’s.”

Seokmin watched, totally speechless as you pulled on your shoes, words only coming to him as you grabbed your jacket and keys from the closet. “...Why?”

You ran your hands through your hair, turning to him with the most incredulous expression he’d ever seen. “Because…I’ve wasted four years of my life on someone who’s still unsure about whether or not he really loves me. Through everything we’ve been together, all the time we’ve spent, you’re still unsure. And you never told me, because you were scared that I’d leave you…because you’re selfish.”

You turned to open the door, your hand pausing on the handle as you turned to look back at Seokmin. You had no more words for him, simply shaking your head at the pitiful look on his face.

CURRENT DAY

Your head was in Minghao’s lap as you laid on Hansol’s couch, his fingers running through your hair, gently detangling any knots he found. Seokmin had apparently left the party after your ‘conversation’ with him. Hansol had come to find you after he saw Seokmin leave his house, finding you staring at the floor, seemingly still sitting in the same spot he’d left you in. He brushed away the tears from your face while you vaguely relayed what Seokmin had said- leaving out the bit where you’d made out with your ex on his bed.

He let you hide in his room, quietly pulling Minhao aside to tell him what happened, the two of them subtly ended the party, turning the music down, and telling people that Hansol had to be up the next morning.

Hansol sighed deeply as he set a cup of tea on the table in front of you, frowning as you quietly cried into Minghao’s lap. He moved your legs so he could sit on the couch, letting your calves rest atop his thighs, absently massaging them as he shook his head. “How the hell did things end up like this?”

“Happy birthday.” Minghao joked, shaking his head along with Hansol. The two had very different stances on yours and Seokmin’s relationship. Hansol loved the two of you together- he thought you were soulmates, that you still loved each other deep down, that if you just talked it out, then you’d realize that you really were meant to be together.

Minghao had always had his reservations about yours and Seokmin’s relationship. He thought you two always moved too fast, without even really talking about the long-term, and that’s how you ended up here. He knew better than anyone- except maybe Hansol- how difficult your past relationships had been. That you weren’t sure if you really even believed in love before Seokmin came along. And he felt that made you vulnerable and naive, and that Seokmin might have, whether intentionally or not, taken advantage of that.

“I’m so sorry, Hansol.” Your voice was quiet, almost unintelligible as you spoke through the tears. Your friend just patted your leg, a silent reassurance that he didn’t mind. Minghao hummed as he worked on a knot in your hair, slim fingers gently pulling apart the locks as he thought.

“Maybe this is a good thing.”

“Dude…” Hansol immediately rolled his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“No, hear me out.” His hands left your hair and shifted in his seat, prompting you to sit up straight on the couch, your knees curling up for you to rest your cheek on them, turning your face towards Minghao as he continued. “I know he fucked you up. Really bad. I mean, I was there, I remember. But…I mean…you guys have been broken up for longer than you were together at this point. Maybe this is a turning point for you to get over it.”

You could hear Hansol audibly facepalm behind you, Minghao immediately regretting his words the second he saw the way your bottom lip trembled. “...Get over it?”

“Wait, wait, wait. I didn’t mean it like…get over it, get over it. Just like…move on?”

“Dude. Stop.” Hansol whispered as Minghao stumbled over his words. You rolled your eyes at your two friends and leaned back into the couch, letting them argue in whispers over you.

“Then what the hell should she do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe actually talk to him! I know he has some things he wants to air out, and it sounds like he didn’t get the opportunity to say any of it.”

“And that’s her fault?”

“Did I say that? No! I didn’t. I’m just saying, she should give him a chance.”

Minghao scoffed at Hansol, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “She did give him a chance. Five years ago. And he fucked it.”

“Five years ago! Exactly! He’s had plenty of time to think about this.” Hansol leaned over you, his arm resting on the back of the couch above your head as you sank further into the couch cushions.

“And she gave him a chance tonight. And where did that go? Nowhere.”

“Maybe because he didn’t actually get the chance to say anything because they were too busy making out on my bed!” Hansol turned to you, holding up a finger before you could protest. “Yes. I know about that. We’ll unpack that later.”

“Wait- what?” Minghao turned to you as well, the shock on his face palpable, his jaw dropped in what you were certain was disgust. “You made out with Seokmin? You made out with your ex? Who you hate?”

“On my bed!” Hansol added on, crossing his arms and shaking his head like a disappointed parent.

“That’s none of your guys’ business! I didn’t want to talk to him in the first place!”

“Then maybe you should! Next time you see him, keep your tongue in your mouth and your hands to yourself, and listen to what he has to say!”

Your jaw went slack at Hansol’s words- but you almost laughed at the way his expression changed once he realized what he’d said. “I’m…just gonna go to bed. I’ll talk to you two about this tomorrow.”

The two boys stayed silent as you made your way to Hansol’s guest bedroom, closing the door behind you and immediately falling face-first onto the soft sheets. You heard them continue their argument as soon as the door closed, but you paid them no mind, your brain fuzzy and tired from your several consecutive hours of crying.

You knew your friends just wanted you to be happy. They both thought they knew what’s best for you. But you don’t even know what’s best for you. Maybe you were just bitter- bitter at the way Seokmin had practically led you on for four years- letting you think that he wanted to get married and start a family, while he never really had that intention.

But still, his words from earlier buzzed in your mind; “it's been five years. And I still love you.” That scared you. The idea that he really did regret what he said, that you’d been actively avoiding him for five years, hating him the whole time, when all he wanted was to take back what he said as soon as he said it. It haunted you.

But another thing he’d said came to mind; “if you ever want to hear me out, my number hasn’t changed.”

|

You knew it was stupid. Possibly the dumbest thing you’ve ever done. Sneaking out of your best friend's house in the middle of the night to see your ex boyfriend who you told you hated not even a full day ago. Definitely a bad idea.

But you needed to hear what he had to say.

It was stupid. All you had to send him was two words; “it’s me.” before he was sending you his address, telling you to come over whenever you wanted to talk. You didn’t know how long you stood outside his door, finger hovering over the doorbell. You could potentially be making a huge mistake. You hated him. You did.

Or maybe you didn’t.

He had to have been waiting by the door all night with how quickly he answered after you pressed the doorbell. You internally sighed at the sight in front of you. Seokmin wore his typical sleepwear; a white t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants, his glasses dangerously askew on his long nose, his hair wild, as if he’d been running his hands through it habitually. A soft smile graced his face as his eyes met yours, stepping aside, silently inviting you into his home.

His new apartment was slightly smaller than the one you shared- but it was still very him. Several warm lamps filled the living room, various plants littered the area, a kitschy rug on the floor in front of his brown leather couch. He trailed behind you as you walked towards the couch, hesitantly sitting next to you as you settled in.

“So…you wanted to talk. Talk. I won’t say anything until you’re done.”

He nodded quickly, his eyes eager as he opened his mouth…and quickly closed it. You raised an eyebrow at him, waiting patiently for him to speak. But he stayed silent. “...Are you going to say something?”

“I was going to.” He laughed nervously, fiddling with the string of his sweatpants, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I’ve kind of spent the past five years perfecting the great big speech I was gonna give you when you gave me the chance…but I’ve kind of forgotten all of it.”

You silently cursed the small amused smile that creeped onto your face. “Well…I wish I could say I’m surprised.”

He laughed again, more relaxed this time. “Yeah, it’s pretty on-brand, isn’t it? Guess I have to speak from the heart now.” He clasped his hands in front of him, looking at you directly as he began. “I’m sorry and I still love you.”

You inadvertently rolled your eyes, jaw dropping in disbelief. “That’s how you’re starting?”

“You said you weren’t gonna say anything until I was done!” He protested. You nodded silently, admitting your fault, gesturing for him to continue. “Okay. Yeah, so…I love you. I never stopped loving you. I don’t expect you to forgive me, and I know you probably don’t want to hear how horribly depressed I was after we broke up, because I’m sure you had to deal with enough of that on your own…but, you know, I was.”

His leg shook as he continued, his fingers nervously tapping together as he continued. “And I’m not gonna tell you how I regretted everything I said as soon as you walked out the door, because that’s just bullshit- I mean, it’s true! But it doesn’t really mean anything. Because I didn’t stop you from leaving. And I never really…made much of an attempt to reach out. I was stupid.” He sighed, planting his face in his hands, discreetly ridding his eyes of the tears that threatened to fall. “I thought that if I gave you some time, you’d like…calm down, and reach out to me first. That was stupid. That was…really really stupid. For whatever reason, it didn’t occur to me that I should be the one to reach out first. Even though I was, one thousand percent, the asshole here. Not even just an asshole…I hurt you so so deeply-”

He cleared his throat as his voice cracked, his tone wavering intensely as he attempted to hold back his tears. “I was scared that you would leave me. That’s pretty much it. The whole time. Even in the beginning- everything that Minghao said about us being too young, about how we might not love each other the same way ten years down the road- it scared the shit out of me. That thought just stuck itself in the back of my mind. I was scared to commit because of the thought that you might leave me at some point…” He took a deep breath, a pitiful attempt to level his shaking voice. “And then in the end, my fear of you leaving, my fear that we might fall out of love with each other, my fear of commitment, my selfishness…it’s what made you leave.”

The end of his speech left the room in silence. You hadn’t noticed the hot tears that had begun streaming down your face, matching Seokmins as the two of you quietly cried on opposite sides of the small couch. Five years of blind hatred towards him. Five years of wincing at the mere mention of his name. Five years of daydreaming about all the insults you would hurl his way if you ever saw him again. And now here you were on his couch, listening, understanding…and forgiving.

You…somehow…forgave him.

It wasn’t a conscious decision. But his words made it feel like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. It was odd how one speech could make five years of anger dissipate so quickly. But you knew deep down, you were never really angry. Just hurt. But you knew that you’d hurt him, too.

“...Can I say something?”

Seokmin nodded, attempting to wipe away the constant stream of tears with the palms of his hands. You shifted in your seat, palms folding in your lap as you struggled to verbalize your thoughts. “I…am sorry.”

You avoided his gaze, but you could practically feel the confused way he looked at you. “I’m sorry that it took me five years to sit down and listen to your side. I mean, neither of us really reached out, but I was just so blinded by my own hurt that I didn’t even think to hear you out. We were both stupid and young. I’m just sorry…and I do forgive you, by the way.”

Silence washed over the room once again, the two of you sitting awkwardly stiff on your respective ends of the couch, deliberately avoiding each other's gaze. Seokmin sniffed, nodding his head as your words settled on him. “So…I mean, I obviously…forgive you, too. That feels weird to say, but I do…so what do we do now?”

You shrugged your shoulders, still refusing to look at his face again, keeping your eyes trained on your hands as they lay resting in your lap.

“Because…and I hate to bring it up this way, or at all, really. But you did kind of jump my bones earlier.”

“Oh, god.” Your face flushed, burying it in your hands at the mention of your actions earlier that night. Your nervous laugh was muffled by your palms as your brain struggled to come up with an excuse. “I don’t…uh…I don’t know what came over me.”

“That’s okay. Just…I know I’ve said it a lot tonight, but you know I still love you…and I didn’t mind it.”

You peeked up at him through your fingers, his face just as red, if not more so, than yours. Somehow, despite everything, you always were so nervous around each other when it came to things like this. “Oh…okay.”

You had just noticed the way your bodies had inadvertently drawn closer together, your knees nearly touching. Despite your years apart, it was like your bodies were drawn together like magnets, like muscle memory, your hand found his at it rested on his lap, your fingers entwining with his.

You should have known it would happen again. Whether you knew it or not, you lived to breathe him in. That moment in Hansol’s bedroom earlier that night was the most alive, the most connected to your own self that you’d felt in years. Deep down, you needed him like you needed air. Life without him was like living in black and white. But as you touched him again, it was like you could feel the color seeping back in.

The second your lips met his, the veil of haze that had been draped over your world was finally lifted. His arms quickly wrapped around your waist, pulling you into his lap for the second time that night. His hands went to the sides of your face, his thumbs gently running over your cheekbones as your hands wandered all over him, eventually finding their place with one on his chest and the other in his hair.

“I love you. I love you. My pretty girl.”

Neither of you paid any mind to the tears that ran down both of your faces as you pulled away for air, resting your forehead on his as you breathed heavily. “...I love you, too.”

You didn’t miss the grin that broke out of his face before he started attacking your face with gentle, fleeting kisses. Your hands went to his cheeks, holding his face in place so you could look at him- really look at him for the first time since the night you left. Your eyes dancing over the freckles scattered across his face, his tan skin glowing in the warm lamplight, his cute ears, his chocolate brown eyes, and his long nose, which you loved so much.

You could feel his eyes observing you just the same, the smile never leaving his face as he memorized every freckle, every blemish, every little detail of your face. You leaned in to lay a gentle peck on his forehead, then between his eyebrows, then the bridge of his nose. Seokmin let out a small giggle as you gently bit the tip of his nose before planting a kiss on the same spot.

Seokmin sighed, leaning his head back, the smile still on his face, though a wrinkle formed between his brows. “...What are we gonna tell Hansol and Minghao?”

You groaned, already dreading all the potential ways your friends would react to yours and Seokmin’s sudden reunion. You shook your head, leaning over to attach your lips back to his. “Let's worry about that tomorrow.”

Seokmin’s smile grew, his arms wrapping around your waist again, pulling you close as he could. “Sounds good to me.”

As late night turned into morning, you ignored the buzzing of your phone as the numerous texts from your two friends questioning your whereabouts started coming in. The only thing on your mind was making up for the five years you’d spent apart from the only one you ever truly loved. Your Seokmin. Your soulmate.

Its for a photo exhibition tasked to capture the lives and scenery of a coastal locale—aiming to use your artistry in a form of publicity to promote their undiscovered beauty.

Already starving for a few days without any proper plan—who are you to resist an all expenses paid work trip. Right?

The staff you spoke to on the phone as you arrived gave you the directions to their office. A small house-like space nestled in the center of the city, in the middle of restaurant chains and a bakery—easy to spot yet also easy to miss.

You sat quietly in front of a desk, fiddling with your fingers as your backpack nestled on the tiled floor. There were a lot of people walking around, carrying stacks of paper, loud phone calls, and a bunch of desks close together with their owners doing their own things.

"I would like to welcome you to our city—I hope you give us your best work", he says behind a pile of papers, sweat evidently trickling down his forehead from the hot and stuffy atmosphere. "Thank you for giving me this job too, I won't let you down", you smile bowing your head down.

"I tried to find someone to give you a tour for your pictures but I believe none of us in the office is available for a full day tour", he anxiously shares, his fingers propping his glasses in place.

"Are you okay working with someone else?", you answer him with a reserved nod, a grimaced smile follows afterwards.

"There's a fisherman here who's son is like everyone's go-to guy", he leans in, "You don't have to worry about him misbehaving because he's a very reliable person—he agreed to show you around town in his motorcycle"

"I see. When can I get started?"

"Tomorrow. He'll be here by 8 AM so meet him here by then"

"will you stay?"

"of course. what is there left to do anyways?"

The sun was awfully a lot unbearable than yesterday.

You stood in front of the office for a long time now—and this so called 'reliable guy' isn't anywhere in sight. 8:30, you check your watch again; a frustrated grumble leaving your lips as your eyes trail each side of the road for an approaching motorcycle.

"My camera will melt at this point", you mumble.

Suddenly, the front door of the office opens. You turn around to see the staff you had talked to yesterday— "You're still here?", he exclaims, shutting the door behind him.

You nod, "Are you sure he's gonna come here? I think we already wasted a few minutes", you say. He checked his watch and hissed, "I see. But please wait for him, he might be in traffic right now"

"I think i'll just go ahead and start on my own, when he gets here please tell him that I won't be needing his help", you start to walk away, the crunch of gravel under your boots filling the protest of the staff.

Then, the sharp revving of a motorcycle cut through the still morning air.

You turned, startled.

A pale blue motorcycle skidded to a graceful stop beside you. The rider killed the engine, kicked the stand down, and pulled off his helmet with one hand—slow, casual, like he had all the time in the world.

Messy black hair. Sun-touched skin. That lazy kind of smile that made you irritated just for how easy it looked on him.

“You're leaving without me?” he asked, voice light but steady. His eyes, soft around the edges, scanned yours with a quiet amusement—as if he hadn’t just made you wait half an hour.

You blinked, caught between annoyance and disbelief.

He offered a hand—not an apology, not an excuse. “Name's Seokmin. Sorry I’m late— there was a boat issue earlier, and my mom made me eat.”

"Now get in since we already wasted a few minutes", he ushers you, throwing a red shiny helmet in your direction to which you almost failed to catch.

"Hold on tight because I'm gonna leave you if you fall down"

The whole day has been exhausting.

Althroughout that awkward and rough motorcycle ride accompanied by Seokmin's sudden cheering and you holding on for dear life—he haven't made the rest of the tour enjoyable.

He showed you around; from the temples, a quick chat with ladies from the market who generously treated him like a baby, the public library, around his favorite restaurants, and everywhere else—he made sure you captured around twenty images per destination.

Now you were catching the sunset on the beach. His motorcycle was parked farther from which he originally planned, the sea hushed around you, and the sun was on its way for a proper goodbye.

You nestled your camera on the sand, making sure it doesn't fall as you began taking pictures of the scenery—Seokmin standing behind you.

"You really know how to capture beautiful moments", he sighs, watching as your finger hits the shutter button once in a while. You rolled your eyes and focused—to which he playfully encouraged.

"You people just look at the camera and say 'wow this is good', but how often do you actually live the moment?", Seokmin grinned—not accusing—just plainfully curious. He carefully adjusted around you and faced in front, his frame caught in camera.

You stop for a moment. At this point, it didn't matter that he was 'ruining' your shot. What he said truly made you stop and reflect— "living the moment?", you thought.

When have you lived in the moment. Back in Seoul, there was no more option for living—everyday was meant for surviving. If you took the time and slowed down for a while, you will bump into numerous people. You will get walked on and trampled on—living in the moment isn't possible.

Seokmin notices your silence and turns around lightly, enough to see you huddled behind the camera. Instead of a photo, you hit record—a few soft seconds of Seokmin standing beneath the fading light.

"Can you move? You're blocking the shot.”, he stands smack in the middle of the frame, arms loose at his sides, a stupid grin already forming— “I don’t think I want to.”

“I’m serious. Move.”

“I am too,” he says, bending down casually, scooping up a handful of sand.

“Don’t you dare—”

Before you can move, he tosses it. Not hard, just enough to scatter toward your legs and the hem of your clothes.

“You—Seokmin!”, you exclaim in frustration yet Seokmin's laughing already—loud, carefree, utterly unapologetic.

You abandon the camera on its tripod—still recording—and start running toward him, your voice tangled in half-hearted threats and breathless laughter.

“I'll kill you!”

“You’ll have to catch me first!”, he sticks his tongue out and bolts, feet kicking up sand as he darts down the beach. You chase after him, clumsy and determined, hair flowing against the wind and your voice echoing across the open shore.

The camera stays behind, lens pointed at nothing in particular—just the sea, the falling sun, and two of you chasing around each other like children.

It captured everything: down to your the footsteps you both left behind, his laughter, him nearly tripping, your slippers flying in the air, and the sea.

And for a few seconds, you’re not a hungry photographer or a stranger in this town. You’re just someone laughing in the golden light, chasing a boy who throws sand and smiles like it's summer forever.

You lunge forward, fingertips grazing the back of his shirt when he suddenly turns.

Seokmin catches you mid-dart, his hands instinctively wrapping around your wrist just in time to steady you. Your momentum halts. The laughter dies on your lips—not all at once, but like it’s being slowly reeled back inside.

You’re suddenly still. His grip is gentle, but firm. Sand clings to your knees and sleeves. Your chest rises and falls too fast for this quiet, and yet—its there. That stillness. That strange second where the world forgets to move.

You look up. He’s already looking at you. Yet neither of you says anything.

His hands are still around your wrist. Your eyes meet in the soft orange light. And for a moment, it feels like the tide has paused—like time has pressed its thumb gently against both your backs.

Your breaths slow. His smile falters, not into discomfort, but something softer—more real.

And then, as if the moment realizes it’s been caught staring too long; you both shuffle and step back—laughing a little, awkwardly and looking around anywhere but at each other.

“You're fast for someone who hides behind a camera all day,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck before sitting down at the sand.

“And you’re annoying for someone who clearly wants to be in front of it,” you reply, trying to sound normal, even though your heartbeat is anything but—sitting down beside him.

"I had fun" he exhales, looking up ahead. "The sun is almost gone," you mutter, "Because of you I don't have any good shots", you exclaim, looking back at where you positioned your camera.

Seokmin turns to you with a light smile, "Why are you guys so obsessed with taking sunset pictures?", he says obnoxiously. "Because it's good, it looks good", you retort back.

"The internet has already seen a lot of sunset pictures—would it kill you guys if you actually witnessed it for once"

You roll your eyes at his response—not defeated, just accepting.

"It's beautiful", you say, your breath caught as the beauty indeed is amazing to see first hand.

"I know—it always has been"

"will you stay?"

"i will go once the sun stops shining for us"

Earlier was full of surprises—your night was full of reviewing photos and editing.

You grumble to yourself in the small room inside the office. Your eyes burn from staring at your laptop the whole day—catching up to you in your most vulnerable moments.

Confidently, your progress was utmost 75%. All there is left to do is review the rest of the album and conclude your task it by submitting entries for printing.

It was almost 8 PM in the office. Despite the promised accomodation, you were expecting a five-star rated room and a buffet—only to be met by makeshift bed in one of the rooms inside the office. But luckily for you, their wifi was fast and small space had airconditioning.

Your stomach rumbles with each tap on the keyboard. With new photos appearing, it adds to the hunger building up. You admit defeat and stand up from where you are seated. Although they have given you food for dinner, it wasn't enough to make you feel satisfied.

The night in this city only got more beautiful. There was a warm glow emitted from each story, filled with sizzling stove tops, glasses clanking together, cheers from drunken men, and laughter from children that played on the street.

You walk beyond realization—not knowing where to go.

"Should I just get noodles?", you ask yourself, halting in front of a vibrant store. Nodding to yourself and your budget, you head on inside to find what you are looking for.

There were many selections: lots of choices to choose from. Soup-based, dry noodles, even cold noodles—this store has it all.

Tempted to get a lot, you settled for everyone's spicy favorite: Shin-Ramyeon. You walk to the front to pay only to be met with an empty counter—you looked around for the owner.

The counter sits unmanned, a lone plastic calculator resting beside a buzzling radio. You glance around the small shop—aisles neatly stocked, a few tired posters on the walls—but not a single sign of life.

“Hello?”, you call out, half-expecting no answer.

A moment later, the curtain behind the counter rustles—and out steps a familiar someone—Seokmin.

His black shirt clings slightly from the heat in the backroom, sleeves rolled, a towel still draped over one shoulder. His hair is an evident mess, like he either napped or wrestled with a rice sack.

“Sorry for the wai—”, he cuts himself off when he sees you. That friendly shop owner gesture replaced with a lopsided grin when you appear— “Oh, you.”

You blink, “You work here?”. He scoffs and steps behind the counter, "This is my mom's store. Do you think fishing is the only lifestyle I have?", Seokmin laughs dramatically, hand caught in his stomach for a more comical approach.

"Shut up and let me pay", you mutter, setting the cup in front of him.

“Is that a way to talk to your tour guide? The one you have a crush on?", he says without missing a beat, an annoying smile etched in his lips like he's all-knowing.

You stare, “Excuse me?”

“Come on,” he grins, leaning one elbow onto the counter. “You found out where I am. You showed up during my shift. You bought the exact cup noodles I like. It’s a little obvious.”

You shake your head with a small, incredulous laugh, “You think I went here because of you? You didn't think it was dinner time and I am hungry?"

“Sure,” he says, dragging out the word. “Let’s go with that. Totally not a crush.”

Seokmin slides the cup toward you after calculating the price. His fingers brush against yours—a casual touch, but it lingers a half-second longer than necessary. You can feel it, the way he’s watching you, like he’s waiting to see if you’ll flinch or grin or tell him off.

“You’re annoying,” you say flatly.

“And yet...” he smiles, “you’re still standing here.”

Before you can offer a clever retort, the curtain rustles again—and a warm, firm voice calls out— “Seokmin-ah!”

A woman in her late 50s emerges from the back room, wiping her hands on a floral apron, hair tied in a neat bun. She halts when she sees you at the counter, eyes narrowing just a bit.

“Who’s this?”

“Customer,” Seokmin says, stepping slightly aside, suddenly very innocent.

“Customer?” she repeats, staring pointedly. “Why are you both standing there awkwardly", she adds. “Mom,” he groans under his breath.

But she’s not done. Her gaze flickers to your face, and then her expression shifts— “Wait, are you the photographer?”

You nod cautiously, “From the city?”

“Yes,” you reply. “For the tourism project.”

Her face lights up like someone flipped a switch, “I’ve heard all about you! The mayor won’t shut up. You should’ve said so right away!”. She waves her hand, already moving back behind the curtain.

“Come, join us for dinner. I’ll set an extra plate.”

You glance at Seokmin, who just winces. “This is happening,” he mutters, “Just... don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Is this how you treat all your customers?”

“No,” he says, pushing open the curtain for you, "Only the pretty ones"

"That dinner was...something", you say to Seokmin, patting your stomach, a small burp erupts forward.

The whole time was you eating homecooked meals for the first time in years, Seokmin's mom telling you stories about when he was a child, showing embarassing baby pictures to which you took photos off to tease him afterwards, and Seokmin wailing around afterwards.

Now, after helping them wash the dishes—his mom tasked him to walk you back to the offices or he'll never see the sun shine ever again.

"Your mom really knows how to cook", you say, already reminiscing the flavors you missed. Seokmin rolls his eyes, still not feeling solved from his life literally ending earlier.

"Promise me you won't spread those pictures", he pleads. You laugh at his request, "To whom will I share those even"

The night has dawned upon both of you. Seokmin shuffles his hands inside his pockets as you look up to see the moon and the stars shining brightly. Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath as you walked slower.

Seokmin does the same, looking up to see what got you tantalized— "this would be the perfect time to whip out your camera and take pictures", he jokes.

You chuckle at his comment and open your eyes, "If only—I would stand here and do that definitely"

"But someone says to live in the moment so that I shall do", you smile, turning to him. Seokmin grew amazed by what you said, clearly signifying that his comment didn't pass by your ears earlier.

"Live in the moment", your voice trailed, "What does that mean to you Seokmin?"

He thinks about it for a bit, looking forward on the path— "For me, it's not caring about what happens around you. It's staying still and look at what's in front of you"

Your lips part at his words, amazed by the sincerity of his voice. Seokmin's head turns towards you and asks the same— "How about you?"

You only shrug in response, trying to find more things to say. “I don’t know yet,” you murmur, your voice quieter now. “I haven’t begun to start living in the moment yet.”

He hears it—the softness of your voice, the tired honesty in your words. And when he glances at you, Seokmin catches something in your expression that wasn’t there earlier: a flicker of something unspoken and that vulnerability you hadn’t meant to share.

But he doesn’t push. He continues to walk beside you, the silence between you wasn't awkward, but gentle—understanding.

When the office finally comes into view, tucked quietly under the sleepy glow of the streetlights, you both slow to a stop.

You turn to him with a small smile, “Thanks for walking me.”

“Would’ve been a scandal if I didn’t,” he says with a grin. “The mayor would’ve kicked me out of town.”

You let out a soft laugh and take a step toward the door, reaching for the handle—when— “Wait—”, his voice comes out a little too fast, almost like he surprised himself.

You turn back, brows raised.

“Do you..” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck, “do you have anything to do tomorrow?”

You shake your head. “Not really. Why?”

He shifts from foot to foot, clearly stalling, clearly overthinking— “There’s this night market down by the pier. Just something small. Food stalls, paper lights, probably a guy singing off-key with a guitar.”

You blink, smiling at the vision he paints, “Sounds charming.”

“It’s very locally chaotic,” he says with a sheepish grin. “I was thinking maybr if you’re free... you could come with me?”

He glances up, adding quickly— “Not a date or anything. Just a hang out. As your official part-time tour guide.”

You pause—just long enough to watch him squirm. Then, sweetly, “Okay.”

Seokmin's head tilts, “Okay?”, trying to sound it out to reality. “I’ll come,” you say, “For the guitar guy, mostly.”

He chuckles, bright and dorky, and his eyes crinkle. “Cool. Cool. I’ll, pick you up here? Seven?”

“Seven,” you nod.

There’s a beat of silence, both of you lingering. He gives you a small wave, backing away slowly, still smiling.

“Goodnight, ms photographer”

“Goodnight, mr wore a diaper till he was five.”, he chuckles in embarassment, that nickname obviously referenced from one of his childhood stories revealed earlier.

“Try not to miss me too much.”, he adds.

You scrunch your nose, “I make no promises.”

He stumbles slightly over the curb, laughs it off, and jogs the rest of the way down the road, waving once more before disappearing around the corner.

You wait a moment longer, your cheeks warm, smile refusing to leave. Then, finally, you turn and slip inside—heart fluttering a little louder than before.

Maybe tomorrow is the day you begin to live—and maybe he’ll be the reason why.

"will you stay?"

"just for one more night"

The town had dressed itself in lights.

From where you stood, waiting just outside the office, the street ahead looked nothing like the sleepy place you’d first arrived at a few days ago. Tonight, it was glowing—lanterns floated like fireflies overhead, strung between lamp posts and tree branches, swaying softly in the wind. The buildings, usually muted and gray, reflected hints of color in their windows, like even they were smiling.

You pressed your hands into your coat pockets to calm your nerves.

Then you saw him.

Seokmin jogged lightly toward you, his hoodie zipped halfway, his hair a soft mess from the breeze. He looked like he wasn’t even trying to be charming, but somehow was anyway. When he caught sight of you, his face broke into that familiar smile—wide, warm, just a little crooked.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone important,” he teases lightly.

You raise a brow, “I was. Guess you’ll do.” He laughs, mock-wounded, placing a hand to his chest, “Ouch.”

You rolled your eyes, but your lips curved up involuntarily.

The both of you rolled into laughter, falling into step beside each other as you made your way toward the pier where the market had set up. The breeze carried scents of roasted chestnuts, fried batter, and something sugary and citrusy that made your stomach grumble. The sounds of chatter, laughter, and off-key music grew louder with every step.

The market bloomed open like a painting—warm and golden, pulsing with life. Lanterns in soft reds and yellows swayed over narrow walking paths. Stalls lined either side, with vendors selling everything from grilled squid to sweet potato donuts to handmade rings and wooden toys.

“Where do we begin?” you asked, eyes wide. “Easy,” Seokmin said. “Food, then games, then more food, then regret.”

You snorted, “You’re really selling the experience.”

“You’ll thank me when your third skewer changes your life.”—and it kind of did.

You started with seasoned chicken, the spicy kind that made your lips tingle, and Seokmin couldn’t stop laughing at your reaction until he ate one and immediately downed his entire drink. Then came the sweet potato—warm and coated with sugar, which you both bit into too fast and burned your tongues, only to laugh even harder. You shared desserts, argued over which stall’s fishcakes were better, and took turns holding the plush prizes you won at dart booths.

“Look at this guy,” you said, holding up a stuffed pufferfish. “He looks like you when you get hit with spice.”

“He looks like me after hearing that insult.”, he retorts, mouth full with more food.

At a bracelet stall, you lingered too long on the beaded ones, and Seokmin noticed. He waited until you walked ahead, then slipped back and bought the one you kept reaching for but never picked up.

“Here,” he said later, holding it out casually like it was nothing.

You blinked at it, “What’s this?”

“Don't miss your chance and not get what you want—you have to live in the moment remember?"

You tried to roll your eyes, but your heart was already fluttering.

Everything felt brighter with him, even the lights.

Eventually, the two of you made your way toward the pier. You wandered off the path a little, finding a quieter dock tucked behind one of the larger boats. The water stretched wide and glimmering ahead, and the buzz of the market faded into a gentle hum behind you.

You sat stood side by side, the waves imitating the way you both swayed your bodies.

For a while, you just watched the sea, silent.

“Did you have fun?” Seokmin asked eventually, his voice softer now. You nodded slowly, a smile on your lips as you turn to him— “More than I expected,” you said honestly.

“That’s a relief,” he murmured. “I was worried I peaked too early with the pufferfish.”

You chuckled under your breath, then went quiet again. The lanterns above swayed, casting warm shifting halos across the dock.

“I like it here,” you said, staring at the sea. "I feel like I have a place to breath again". He didn’t say anything at first, just plain listening to what you have to share, “It gave me that, too.”

You looked over at him. He wasn’t looking at you; his head was directed at the sky.

And then—a whistle cracked in the air.

The first firework burst open.

A golden flare scattered above, showering light down like sparks from a dream. Then another—blue, then pink, then red. One by one, they bloomed and echoed, painting the sky in color and sound.

You tilted your head back, mesmerized— "Woah", you mutter.

But once the fireworks caught everyone's attention, Seokmin who had his eyes up earlier, looked down—he looked at you.

He watched the way your eyes lit up with each explosion, how you whispered “wow” under your breath without realizing it, how you leaned forward slightly like trying to get closer to it all. There was something so alive in your expression.

And maybe it was then that he reached for you.

Slowly, nervously, his fingers brushed against yours. And when you didn’t pull away, he let them settle—tenderly—between yours. His hand was warm; familiar.

You turned to him, startled at first, yet eager to see what his reaction was.

Only to see that he wasn’t watching the fireworks—he was watching you.

Your breath caught. You blinked once, twice—and then your eyes welled with tears. Not from sadness, not from fleeting joy, just from feeling deeply.

Like something cracked open inside your chest, “Thank you,” you whispered, voice trembling, heart thudding. “Thanks to you, I think... I’ll start living in the moment now.”

Your words hung there, suspended in the air between bursts of color and echoing cracks in the sky. He didn’t answer right away, he knew he didn’t need to.

Seokmin just leaned in, slowly, carefully, and wrapped his arms around you.

And you folded into him—completely. Your face pressed to his shoulder, your arms wrapping around his back. It wasn’t a grand kiss. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic.

It was something better—It was safe and it was home.

Above you, the final firework exploded in a thunder of gold, sending falling sparks across the night. But down here—under lanterns and stars, on the dock of a small town—you found something even brighter.

Seokmin.

"will you stay?"

"i ran out of time"

It was the event proper for the city's anniversary.

The fireworks yesterday night was merely an opening—a warm gesture and welcome for today.

Seokmin was still caught in his feelings; the hug, the 'thank you', and the moments that lead up to that ending still lingered in his mind. It was to a point where his mom had nagged him from smiling all of a sudden, daydreaming, and chuckling while eating.

She said he looked stupid, like he had hung the stars. But Seokmin didn't care—he was in love and he isn't apologetic about it.

The first day of the event needed his help. All morning, he had helped people move their stuff to the venue, carrying boxes, fishing with his dad, cleaning, and all sorts of things—but he was more occupied in trying to find you.

In fresh clothes and a bouquet of handpicked flowers, he sniffed and fixed them up properly, walking through the heaps of stalls he had helped set up earlier.

In Seokmin's mind, he was gonna see you and have another wonderful day with you.

But to his demise, he could not catch glimpse of you early on. Despite his best to search, ask around if you came by, he would get 'no' as an answer. Thinking that you were probably busy and chooses to visit the event later—Seokmin finds his way walking to the office on behalf of you.

The sun was shining not so brightly. It had a warm cast that soothed his skin rather than hurt it.

The distance from the venue to the office wasn't as far. He chose to walk instead of using his trusted motorcycle. There was also a reason why he didn't opt to use his motorcycle yesternight—Seokmin wanted to be with you longer than intended.

The office was bustling just from the outside. Seokmin could see from outside that people were busy, probably from the demand and stress of planning this event.

Patiently, he waited outside—hoping someone would notice him and tend to his needs.

And someone did, the person that introduced him and you in the first place. "Seokmin! What brings you here?", he asks, facing his phone to his shoulder to shield the ongoing call he had. "Oh, I was wondering if the photographer is here", Seokmin asks, a small smile on his face.

The staff grew conflicted, a recalling look on his face as he looks back inside—"You guys didn't meet each other?", he asked, confused. Seokmin shakes his head in response. "She didn't tell you then?"

"Tell me...what?"

"She's going back to Seoul today."

"will you stay?"

"no"

Seokmin wasn’t anywhere close to being a runner.

Maybe he had chased a few chickens for his aunt a few times, rushed around to catch crabs, or maybe got called to the Mayor’s office fast—but he definitely wasn’t a runner.

Yet somehow, upon hearing those words—his feet had never moved this fast.

"She's going back to Seoul today"

He barely heard the rest. The words rang loud in his ears, louder than the pounding of his steps against the gravel road, louder than the breath he couldn’t catch, louder than the doubt rising in his chest.

You were leaving.

His heart thrashed like a tide in his ribcage. The wind whipped against his hoodie as he turned corners, leapt across puddles, nearly knocked over someone’s laundry basket. It was almost funny—how he never once ran like this when you were still here.

And yet now—now that you were on your way out of this town that had somehow, impossibly, made room for you—he could barely breathe for the thought of missing you.

The bus stop came into view.

And there you were.

Sitting alone under the curved roof of the waiting shed, camera bag at your side, knees drawn up just slightly. You hadn’t noticed him yet. Your eyes were fixed on the road, unfocused.

Seokmin stopped a few feet away, chest heaving, lungs burning.

For a second, he just looked at you.

You looked the same from the day he had met you—and yet not at all. The same jacket. The same soft hair caught in the wind. But something about this was so different.

“You didn’t tell me.”

You turned sharply at the sound of his voice. Eyes wide. Lips parted. You stood up a little too quickly.

“Seokmin—”, your voice faltered. “Why are you here?”, you asked, genuinely confused about his sudden appearance.

“Why wouldn't I be?” he asked, walking closer, eyes searching yours. "After what happened yesterday night, you should expect me to be everywhere but away from you."

You looked away, guilt passing over your features— "I didn’t want this to feel heavier that it should be". Seokmin takes another step forward, “Then you should’ve at least let me carry some of that weight,” he said gently.

A long silence stretched between you. The wind rustled the bus schedule posted on the shelter wall. A motorcycle passed behind you and faded into the distance.

“My job’s done,” you said quietly. "I came here for work, and now it’s over"

“I know that it's over,” he said. His voice was low, careful. “Does that mean that what we are is over too?”. You looked up at him—eyes wet, but not falling. Thinking of a response, you only sigh in defeat.

Seokmin took a breath. A long one.

“I’m not gonna beg you to stay,” he said, a bit of a sad smile on his lips. "I think this town gave you what you needed—". Seokmin paused, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous.

“I just wanted to see you. One more time. To say thank you. For all the little moments. For laughing with me. For letting me be in your frame.”

You laughed, breath catching on something in your throat. “Thank you too” you whispered— “For reminding me to live in the moment.”

That cracked something in him. He stepped forward. And without asking, without waiting, he pulled you into him.

Your head tucked into his shoulder, arms wrapping around his torso like you had done that a thousand times before. Like it was natural and like it was home.

The minutes slowed.

You could hear everything—the call of a bird, the wave of wind through nearby fields, the faint hum of a bus coming from far down the road.

“Will you keep in touch?” he asked quietly.

You didn’t answer right away.

When you finally pulled back, your eyes shimmered with uncertainty—but also something warm.

“I don’t know,” you said honestly. “I'm not good at those things”

“But,” you muttered, reaching for his hand, squeezing it tightly, “if I ever find myself lost again—I’ll come back to where I last remembered myself.”

Seokmin's heart ached at that but he acknowledged reality as it is.

The bus turned the corner in the distance. Its headlights cut through the curve in the road. You reached for your bag. Slung it over your shoulder. Exhaled.

“Goodbye, Seokmin.”, you waved.

“Not goodbye,” he said, smiling sadly— “Just give me hope that i'll see you again next time.”

As the bus pulled up and you stepped inside, he stood there in the settling dusk, watching through the window as you found your seat and looked out at him.

You pressed your fingers softly to the glass—then to your heart. And he lifted his hand back, smiling to himself as he waved.

Once the bus closed and began to drive away, Seokmin stood there alone, hand still raised, eyes not leaving the road until the last trace of you had vanished.

"Let me see you one more time"

"will you stay?"

"no. but I think you gave me something to come back to"

That sign of hope and connection Seokmin had wished from you never came to his aid.

After you left, he was waiting for a phone call or a small message. Maybe a sudden appearance or a note you had left for him. But it was all nothing.

Slowly, he had began moving forward himself. Seokmin had lived life much better this time in behalf of you. It made him think of how much of a hypocrite he'll be if he hadn't taken the advice he had given you—living in the moment.

So he did. Seokmin continued to live in the moment. Much more slower yet meaningful this time.

It was just another slow afternoon.

The kind where the clouds hung low, and the sea barely bothered to move. Seokmin was crouched on the floor near the dining table, finishing up late lunch.

The fan spun lazily overhead. The radio crackled with some old trot song. The same regulars wandered in and out of the store, bell chimes following each soft step.

He didn’t expect anything different.

“Seokmin-ah!” his mom called from the front of the store. “A letter came for you!”

He was still mid-bite, “From who?”

“Don’t know,” she replied. “But it says 'Seoul' in the stamp.”

That got his attention.

Seokmin wiped his hands on the hem of his shirt and made his way to the counter. And there it was—propped neatly beside the old radio like it had always belonged there.

Square. Sun-faded. His name written in gentle, curved handwriting he hadn't seen in months but instantly recognized—your handwriting.

His fingers hovered for a second before picking it up—carefully, like it might crumble. The front was a photo.

It wasn’t a landscape or a golden-hour skyline. No sunset. No sea.

Instead, it was him—mid-laugh, turning his head, a puff of sand still floating in the air. His mouth open like he’d just said something dumb, his hoodie sleeves flailing a bit as he bolted.

Behind him—blurry and in motion—you. Sprinting after him, arm stretched forward, a grin carved wide on your face.

It was chaotic. A little shaky. Off-center.

Seokmin was immediately sent back to that day.

The day he threw sand at you and you chased him across the beach, laughing like someone who had finally started breathing again. It was the first moment you both forgot time—forgot why you came, forgot what came after.

He flipped the card over, heart caught in his throat. The back was simple—only two lines written in pen, slightly smudged.

“The sea is still here—for the both of us.”

“Seokmin, the tide will guide me back to you soon”

For the first 46 times, he had been foolishly optimistic. For the first 46 times, he still thought himself a king, like he was the first time, his first life. But here, in the 47th (or what could have been his thousandth at this point), Seokmin watched you drop his hand—king of nothing, loser of everything.

He had thought the 47th time would be different. But then again, he had thought that about the 46th. 

In the 46th, he first saw you at the market, laughing—loud, unabashed, bright enough that every head turned toward you. You were tucked between crates of peaches and dried herbs, a smear of pomegranate staining your bottom lip, the sunlight catching in your lashes. A leather satchel hung from your shoulder, worn at the edges, and you walked like someone with places to be and time to waste. You didn’t even glance at him.

That life, Seokmin had sold ink. Hand-ground, bottled in glass, sealed with wax. You visited his stall every week, even though you barely needed supplies. You’d spend long minutes just standing there, brushing your fingers over the shelves like they were familiar somehow. You never lingered on him—but you always lingered.

You asked questions you already knew the answers to. You always added a little extra money to the pile of coins. Once, you’d looked at him for a second too long and said, “It’s strange. You feel like a face I dreamed about.”

Then you’d smiled, tossed a coin onto the table, and left.

You weren’t his, not in that life. You married a cartographer—a good man, Seokmin remembered. He hadn’t hated him. Smelled like cedarwood and carried maps that curled at the edges like flower petals. He’d watch you walk back to the cartographer’s booth, the hem of your skirts catching the breeze, your satchel bouncing against your hip, and think—at least she’s happy.

You died giving birth to your second child. Seokmin found out from a friend of a friend. He didn’t go to the funeral.

And still, your absence gnawed at him in ways he never admitted aloud. He hated himself for thinking it stung a little less that time. Like grief was something you could grow used to.

He closed the stall early the next day. Burned every ledger with your name in it.

This time, in the 47th, you had been the one to say his name first. In this life, you were a singer. Jazz, mostly—low, smoky notes that curled through the air like perfume. He heard your voice before he saw you, carrying out the back of a bar he hadn’t meant to stop at. It had been years—lifetimes—since he last found you, and hearing you again hit him like a blow to the chest.

He’d stepped outside to clear his head. The alley behind the bar was quiet except for the scrape of a match. When he turned, you were already leaning against the brick wall, a cigarette balanced between your fingers.

“You got a light?” you asked.

He fumbled with his lighter. “Yeah. Here.”

Your fingers brushed his as you took it. Your touch felt exactly the same. You lit your cigarette, exhaled a ribbon of smoke, and looked at him for a beat too long.

“What’s your name?” you asked.

“Seokmin.”

You smiled. “Seokmin,” you repeated, like it tasted good on your tongue. “I feel like I’ve said that before.”

Later that week, you sang for him alone. After the last show, after everyone else had gone. You stood barefoot in the dressing room, still in your stage makeup, and sang something soft and unhurried. He watched you from the chair, hands clasped between his knees, trying not to hold his breath.

In that life, you let him stay.

You fell asleep with your hand curled into the front of his shirt. You let him make you breakfast. You danced with him barefoot on cold tile floors, laughed at his terrible jokes, pulled him into bed when you were too tired to talk. You never once said the word soulmate, but some mornings you looked at him like you were starting to remember.

He almost believed the curse was lifting.

Three weeks later, he read in the paper that the bar had been raided. Police found illegal opium stashed under the floorboards. One casualty. Female. Unnamed. Mid-twenties.

He read the sentence again. And again. The words didn’t change.

He didn’t even finish the article. Just threw the paper into the fire and stood in front of it until the smoke made his eyes sting. He didn’t speak for days. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t breathe without hearing your voice in his ears.

The worst part was that it was different, this time. You’d let him love you. You’d leaned into it. And for a moment—just long enough to hurt—he’d thought you might stay.

When the fire burned low in the hearth, and your scarf still hung on the back of the chair, Seokmin realized he was already mourning the 48th.

The first time he had known you, truly known you, he had worn a crown made of thorns and gold.

The thorns were metaphor, at first: guilt threaded through power, a boy-king raised too fast, carved sharp by grief and coronation. But over time, the weight grew real. Heavy. Gilded. Cutting. On colder nights, he would remove it and find faint red grooves across his temples, like the memory of someone’s fingers pressing too tight.

You had never touched the crown. You never bowed, either, not when the court looked on, not when his voice carried over the fields and froze armies in their march. Your head only ever inclined out of habit, not reverence.

You were not a queen. You had never wanted to be. You had been his warhound. His iron nerve. His blade and the hand that steadied it. You walked three steps behind him in court: silent, precise, eyes ever-moving. But in battle, you rode so close your knees brushed. He had memorized the rhythm of your breathing beside him: steady as the northern wind, sure as thunderclouds in spring. He trusted you more than he trusted his gods.

You bled for him, once.

An assassin’s blade had found its mark, but not the one it sought. He remembered the scream—his own—and how it had barely broken free before you collapsed. Steel had kissed your ribs. You had grabbed the attacker by the hair and run them through before falling.

That night, he paced the length of the war tent, blood soaked through his hands, staining the floor in places the servants would scrub for hours. The physicians had whispered, muttered things about odds and infection and prayers.

But you had lived.

And he had never again worn his crown without hearing your ribs break beneath his fingers.

He never said thank you. You never asked him to.

After, something shifted.

He began reaching for your wrist before any decree. You no longer waited to be summoned. He told his advisors he did not dream. You knew he did. (You were the only one who stayed when he woke screaming.)

And then, the witch came. 

Not cloaked, not veiled, not smoke and shadow. No, she came clothed in grief. In mourning black, with a spine stiff from loss and a voice that broke on the names of her sons. She stood in chains before the court, and the king stood tall as justice was read to her face.

But he flinched when her eyes found you.

Because the witch saw it. The way his gaze darted to you first. Always first. The way he moved closer to you without realizing, even now, even here. The way his hand curled—not around his crown—but around the hilt of his sword, every time her voice rose.

“You strung my children in your gallows,” she said, voice dry as sand. “For every son I buried, you will live a life. And in each one, you will find her again.”

The court murmured. The king stilled.

“And in each one,” she whispered, “she will not know you.”

He tried to kill her then. Blade unsheathed, a scream tearing from his throat. But the magic had already rippled through the chamber, warping the air. By the time his steel reached her, she had turned to dust.

He fell to his knees in it. In her. In the curse that still trembled on the marble floor.

He had dreamed of you, every night before the curse. After, he dreamed only of losing you.

He never told you what the witch said. Maybe he should have. Maybe you would’ve believed him. But how could he? How could he say, I think I’m going to lose you for a hundred lifetimes, and still hold you like it wasn’t already happening?

He tried to make the most of it. He held your hand longer. He stole minutes, lingered in rooms just to watch you fasten your cloak or pull your hair back with a cord. He memorized the scar on your collarbone, the way your mouth curved when you were amused but trying not to show it.

And when the end came—when a blade meant for him found your heart instead—he didn’t scream.

He only whispered, “Please. Not yet.” And somewhere, in the distance, the witch laughed.

The next time he woke, he was in a crib. Small hands. Weaker lungs. No crown.

But still, even as a child, he dreamed of you.

And he remembered everything.

In the 19th life, you had been a lighthouse keeper’s daughter.

A quiet girl, born of fog and brine, made of solitude and wind-whipped cliffs. You spoke with your hands more than your mouth. You hummed sea shanties under your breath and slept in a narrow bed beneath a round window that framed the moon like a portrait.

The nights were long. You were used to ghosts.

That life, Seokmin came to you in a storm; not a man so much as a memory trying to remember itself. His ship had shattered itself against the rocks sometime before dawn. You found him tangled in a net of driftwood and broken oaths, sea-foam in his lashes, a gash on his forehead like something the ocean had kissed and bitten in the same breath.

You dragged him inland, breathless and barefoot, the hem of your nightgown soaking in salt. He coughed up seawater and a name you didn’t recognize.

When he woke, it was to the sound of your fire and the creak of old wood settling in your cottage walls. He bled on your sheets. He slept in your father’s clothes.

You fed him soup without asking questions. He answered them anyway.

“My brother,” he said, fingers twitching against the wool blanket. “The sea took him.”

You didn’t tell him the sea takes everyone, eventually.

He watched you when you weren’t looking. You always were—looking, that is. Out toward the rocks. Up at the sky. Across the slow breath of the sea. But never at him.

Still, you brought him what warmth you could: your silence, your bread, your presence. And he, in return, gave you stories of constellations; of stolen ports and stars that guided without mercy; of the ship he had sailed, black-flagged and silver-rigged, bearing the symbol of your father’s enemy.

He didn’t know you had kept the flag.

Your father did.

He found it three days later, soaked and tangled in the wreckage like a secret unraveling.

He came home with the wind behind him and blood already in his eyes. The storm had passed, but it howled still in the bones of your home.

You stood between them — the man you had nursed back into life, and the man who had given you yours.

“Please,” you said, your voice cracking like driftwood underfoot. “He didn’t come here to fight.”

But your father had known too many men like him. Men with soft eyes and hidden blades. Men who flew foreign flags and left entire villages burning in their wake.

Seokmin tried to stand. He was still weak. Still foolish. Still yours.

“I would never hurt her,” he said, voice hoarse, hands raised as if in prayer.

But prayers are no match for grief. And your father’s blade was already moving.

The hunting knife sank in just below the ribs. 

Small. Cruel. Inevitable.

Seokmin tasted iron. Then salt.

Then the press of your hand over the wound, trembling, desperate, too late.

You cradled his face like something fragile and fading. Like driftglass worn smooth by time.

“Why does it feel like we’ve done this before?” you whispered, tears carving salt lines down your cheeks. “Why does this feel like an ending I already know?”

He opened his mouth.

He wanted to tell you: Because it is. Because I’ve loved you this way before. Because I always lose you.But his lungs were filling, and your hands were shaking, and the candlelight was flickering like it knew what came next.

So instead, he closed his eyes and let the sea take him again.

Death came easy, the 19th time. Almost like falling asleep to your voice.

He never woke from that dream. Not until the 20th.

In the third life, you had been a thief, laughing as you ran, skirts hiked, hair wild like a storm had fallen in love with you.

Seokmin had been a soldier then: duty-bound, spine straight, boots loud. He’d seen you first at the edge of the market square, slipping an apple into the folds of your shawl with a wink at the grocer. You’d moved like a secret, like the city itself was built to part for you. You were sunlight in the cracks of stone, mischief bottled in human form.

He hadn’t meant to follow you.

But that’s the thing about you. You happened to him. Like falling. Like gravity.

He chased you through alleyways for reasons even he didn’t understand—at first because it was his job, then because it was you.

You let him catch you once.

Once.

You turned around in the dark, lantern light catching the gold flecks in your eyes. “You’re not very good at this,” you told him, grinning as you pressed him to the wall. “A real guard would’ve cuffed me by now.”

“I forgot the cuffs,” he’d said, heart stuttering.

You laughed into his collarbone.

You were made of quick fingers and quicker stories. You never told him your real name.

You whistled as you walked. Stole buttons from his coat just to stitch them into your own. Called him “soldier boy” until he stopped asking you not to.

He kissed you like he didn’t know it would end. Like maybe it wouldn’t. And you let him. You let him want you.

The last time he saw you, your laugh echoed too far ahead.

You had stolen something you shouldn’t have—something political, or dangerous, or cursed. He couldn’t remember now. Only that you had turned and run, and he had followed.

You were already bleeding when he caught up.

A blade between your shoulder blades. A pool of red blooming at your spine like the worst kind of flower.

You collapsed in his arms, breath catching like it didn’t know whether to stay or go.

Even then, you looked up at him and smiled. Like he was the one who had stolen something. Like he was the lucky one.

“You almost had me,” you whispered, voice broken but bright.

He pressed his forehead to yours and lied. “I’ll find you next time.”

You died before he got the last word out.

In that life, he carved your name into the hilt of his blade. Even though you never gave it to him. Even though you never said it once. Even though he wasn’t sure it had been real.

Still, he wrote it in the steel.

Seokmin thinks the lives where he doesn’t see you die are the worst of all.

When death comes suddenly—when he holds your body in his arms, when your final breath stutters against his skin—there is at least a shape to the grief. An ending, cruel and sharp, but certain.

But the lives where you just fade? Where you disappear in the blur of traffic, or laughter, or time? Where you leave without knowing him, without ever realizing what you meant, who you were—those are the ones that ruin him slowly.

There’s no body to mourn. No grave to kneel before. Only the ache of unfinished things. Unkissed mouths. Unspoken names. An entire love story dissolving like fog in morning sun.

He tells himself it’s mercy, that maybe not seeing the end means there wasn’t one. But deep down, he knows better.

The 88th time, he’d been your professor.

He knew it the second you walked into his lecture hall: late, breathless, a pen tucked behind your ear, hair still damp from the rain. You slid into a seat near the back, opened your notebook with fingers that trembled from the cold. You didn’t look at him once that entire hour. Not when he stammered over a line of Yeats that reminded him of the 9th life, or when he dropped his chalk mid-sentence because you had tilted your head in the exact way you used to when you were a queen’s ghost in his bed.

He pretended not to notice you. Tried to be good. Tried to be just a man teaching literature to a room full of strangers. But you weren’t a stranger. Not to him. You were the poem.

You stayed after class one day, weeks in, to ask about a line in The Waste Land. You tapped your pen on the margin like you always did when you were thinking. He watched the ink smudge on your thumb, the same way it had when you'd written him battle reports by candlelight in your first life. You said, “It’s funny, this part—about memory being a kind of burden.” And you laughed.

He forgot how to breathe for a moment. Because for him, memory was everything. And it was crushing him.

He resigned two weeks later. Left behind a half-finished syllabus and a note to the department chair. You never saw him again. But he saw you, from a distance, months later, laughing in the courtyard with someone else, your copy of Eliot annotated to death. You had underlined the line "These fragments I have shored against my ruins."

So had he.

The 72nd time, he was your neighbor. Third floor, two windows across.

You liked to play music late at night—old jazz, mostly. Sometimes rock. Sometimes nothing at all, just the clink of a spoon against ceramic as you stirred your tea. He watched the glow of your lamp through the blinds, a moth to something warm and unreachable.

You passed each other in the hallway every morning. You wore headphones, always. He would nod. You’d smile, distracted, polite. Once, you left your laundry basket in the communal room and he guarded it like a temple, sitting cross-legged in front of it with his back against the dryer until you returned. You thanked him with a granola bar and said, “You’re sweet.”

He wanted to tell you that once you had sewn up the wound in his side with your bare hands. That once you had taught him how to peel mangoes with a knife curved like a crescent moon. That once you had died cradled in his lap, whispering a name he hadn’t used in that life—but it was his all the same.

But all he said was, “Anytime.”

You moved out six months later. He never saw where you went.

But for years after, he still left his window open at night, waiting for the sound of your record player.

The 91st time was different.

You met in a secondhand bookstore. It was raining, the kind of rain that turned the city soft and slow. You were in the classics aisle, thumbing the cracked spine of a copy of Wuthering Heights like you couldn’t decide whether to take it home. You looked up when he reached for the same shelf.

He should’ve walked away.

Instead, he picked up the book and offered it to you, holding it out with a sheepish grin. “You look like you’d like this.”

You tilted your head at him. “That obvious?”

He didn’t know what came over him then—maybe it was the scent of the rain in your hair, or the shape of your mouth on a word like obvious—but he said, “You just remind me of someone who once loved tragic things.”

Your eyes narrowed. “And how’d that end for her?”

He could’ve said: with a sword through her chest in a burning chapel or: with your hand in mine on a battlefield, dying with your mouth full of my name or: you don’t want to know, not really.

But instead, he smiled and shrugged. “She loved anyway.”

You paid for the book. Wrote your number on the receipt. Said, “Just in case you have any other doomed recommendations.”

For three weeks, you met in quiet corners of the city. Cafés, museums, bookstores with creaky floors. You kissed him in a park under a jacaranda tree, your hands in his hair, and he thought—please, this time. Just this once.

But the dreams came.

You woke up one night, tangled in his sheets, your breath short, a name you didn’t recognize on your lips. You stared at him like he was a ghost. And maybe he was.

The next morning, your number stopped working.

He never returned to that bookstore.

Time no longer moved straight for him. It twisted, coiled like smoke in a sealed jar, writhing just out of his grasp. It folded in on itself, looped through seams he couldn’t stitch shut. Days became out-of-order photographs, blurred at the edges. Sometimes he woke with dirt beneath his fingernails and someone else’s name on his lips. Other times he woke mid-sentence, his voice hoarse, body trembling, your name already half-formed in his throat before he could stop it.

He’d come to in the middle of moments he hadn’t yet earned.

One time, he opened his eyes and your hand was in his. Candlelight flickered across your features, dancing shadows onto the wall, and you were laughing. Your smile was soft and wine-stained, and he thought, pleasepleasepleaseplease don’t let this be the middle or the end. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease let this be the beginning.

But then the world exhaled, and so did you. And just like that, you let go. The wax had melted too far. The moment was already behind him.

He was always late. Or far too early.

Once, he walked past a street performance in a rainy city, the smell of chestnuts thick in the air, and a violinist was playing your song. You were in the crowd, arms linked with someone else. You didn’t look his way. That was the 59th life. You’d been happy. He’d gone home alone and carved your name into the baseboard with a penknife.

There were lives where he found you on accident: caught in laughter in a passing car, your head tipped back, wind in your hair. He'd pull over. He’d get out. He’d run after you. By then, it was always too late. Always.

And then there were lives where he lived entire decades without knowing you were there. Lives where your name never passed his lips, but his dreams were full of you anyway. Your eyes in faces of strangers. Your laugh hiding behind glass storefronts and voices on the radio.

Once, he met you on the first day.

He had blinked into existence and there you were, leaning over a record store counter, your chin in your palm, chewing a pencil that had no eraser left.

You didn’t even look up as he entered. “New here?” you asked, thumbing through a crate of old CDs.

He couldn’t speak. Could only nod.

You turned then, slid him a mix tape in a clear case with handwritten words across the label: for the sad boys.

You raised an eyebrow. “You look like one of them.”

And then—God, then—you smiled.

Not the kind of smile made for anyone else. The kind he remembered from lifetimes ago, before curses, before loss. The kind you gave him when you’d collapse into a tent after battle, dirt on your cheek and blood on your blade, and he would press his forehead to yours and whisper, you made it. That smile.

He didn’t breathe until he was out the door.

In his 98th life, he kept that tape in the top drawer of his nightstand. Even when the store burned down. Even when you left before winter. He never played it. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to know what songs you’d chosen. He didn’t want the sound of your past to be louder than your memory.

And still, some nights, when the silence stretched thin and the moonlight spilled like milk across the floor, he’d take it out of its case. Run his fingers over the letters, worn down by time and hope. He'd hold it to his chest and listen, not to the music, but to what was missing.

You always felt just out of reach. Like a word he once knew. A breath he hadn’t finished taking. A promise made on a night neither of you could remember.

And the worst part was this: You didn’t know he was waiting. You never did.

By the 99th, he no longer prayed for you to remember.

He didn’t beg the stars, didn’t barter with fate, didn’t scream into the ocean the way he had in the 57th life. Didn’t offer up his name like a chant or a wound. No, by then, Seokmin asked for nothing more than time. A brief stay. A held breath. A quiet life, even if it flickered out too soon.

In the 99th, he found you behind a glass door painted with chipped celestial decals, a crescent moon flaking off the ‘o’ in “OPEN,” a trail of stars skimming the corner of the window like they were escaping. The bell chimed as he stepped in, sharp and unkind.

You looked up. You wore a threadbare tank top and boredom like armor, curled on a stool, a single earbud tucked under your hoodie’s drawstring. The whir of a needle hummed from the back room. He thought, just for a moment, that he’d walked into a dream stitched together from old memories. But no, it was you, older, sharper, your smile missing. You hadn’t seen him yet.

He didn’t know what compelled him to speak. Maybe it was the ache in his chest. Maybe it was the way his heart clenched like it always did when it sensed you in the room.

“I don’t have an appointment,” he’d said, voice unsteady.

You glanced at the empty chairs, then at him — his fingers fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve, his breath shallow.

“No one does anymore,” you replied, voice dry. “Sit.”

He lowered himself into the cracked leather chair like a man about to confess.

You set your gloves on with the kind of efficiency that told him you were good at this — careful hands, precise eyes, the kind of focus that once won wars in other lives. You didn’t ask many questions. Just raised a brow as you prepped the machine.

“What are we doing?”

“A sun,” he said. “Small. Over the heart.”

You didn’t laugh. Just nodded.

“Bold placement,” you murmured, your touch ghosting across his chest as you wiped the spot clean. Your fingers were cold. He felt his ribs shudder under them.

When the needle buzzed to life, he barely flinched. Pain was easy now. Familiar. It grounded him, steadied his breathing. He focused instead on your face: the soft crease between your brows, the way your mouth tugged slightly to one side in concentration. The same mouth that had once commanded armies. That had once kissed him behind a curtain of falling snow. That had once whispered his name as you drowned in the 34th life.

You didn’t speak. You didn’t have to.

The silence between you was velvet-lined, thick with memory he could not share.

But then, when it was over—when the ink had settled beneath his skin, permanent and small like a secret—you lingered.

You stared at the sun, your thumb brushing gently around it, not quite touching.

You tilted your head.

“Feels familiar,” you said.

The words weren’t soft. They were hushed. Like they didn’t belong to the present at all. Like they’d spilled out from another life by accident.

Seokmin’s throat tightened.

He wanted to say, It’s because you’ve drawn it before. On my wrist, in the 18th life, when we were both seventeen and on the run. Or the 42nd, when you painted it in the sky for me with fireflies. Or the 65th, when you carved it into the bark of an apple tree and told me you’d always come back.

But he didn’t say any of that.

He just nodded. Quiet. Reverent. Grateful.

And you didn’t press.

He left with a bandage over his heart and the ghost of your fingers still clinging to his skin.

He didn’t ask for your number.

He didn’t need it.

You were always a life away.

And this one was almost over.

When his 100th life comes, Seokmin almost forgets.

Time, by then, is waterlogged: bloated, heavy, slipping through his fingers before he can name it. He wakes sometimes and feels seventeen. Other days, he’s all of them at once: soldier, scholar, ghost, god. There are lifetimes he can no longer separate from dreams. Some where he knows he died before you. Others where you didn’t die at all, just vanished, like smoke trailing from the edge of a candle, leaving him in the dark.

But in this life—in his 100th—Seokmin finds himself with a crown on his head and your hand in his.

It startles him. The symmetry. The cruelty of it. Or maybe it’s mercy. He hasn’t decided yet.

The palace is quieter than he remembers. Not the gold-dripping empire of his first life, where bells tolled and sycophants bowed. This one is quieter. Older. Cracks in the stone. Ivy on the columns. A throne made of wood instead of war.

He looks down, and there you are: fingers woven between his, knuckles familiar.

You’re not in armor this time. No blood on your boots. You wear blue. The soft kind. The same blue as the ink that once stained your hands, satchel heavy with pomegranate. The same ink you dabbed on his trembling skin as he told you he wanted a sun on his chest. Permanent. Just above the heart. The fabric sways when you move, like you’ve never known a battlefield. 

But your gaze?

Your gaze is sharp as ever. It slices through the years. Finds him like it always does.

And this time—this time—it lingers.

There’s something different in your eyes. Not just fondness. Not just fate.

Recognition.

He swallows.

You smile. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’ve seen you,” he says, and it’s the closest he’ll ever come to falling to his knees.

You smile at him as the court rises, as banners are unfurled above their heads.

He lifts his eyes to the crest on the silk.

A sun.

Gold and jagged and familiar, encrusted in diamonds atop your crown.

You wear it differently than he ever imagined. Not like royalty. Not like a symbol. You wear it like it’s always been yours. As if, somewhere in you, your hands remember what it was to trace its shape onto his skin. Onto tree bark. Onto war maps. Onto history.

He turns to you, and for a moment, you're no longer queen—you’re the daughter of the man who had once stood on a gallows, made martyr by the very flag Seokmin now rules under. You had screamed that day—not words, just grief. And even as they pulled you away, he had met your eyes. In that life, his 23rd, you never forgave him.

But in this one, your palm finds his. And stays.

You lean in, as the crowd dissolves around you, a blur of robes and oaths and rustling pageantry.

“I had a dream last night,” you say, soft and faraway. “We were in a forest. I had a sword. You were bleeding. I held your face and told you not to die.”

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Did I?”

“No,” you whisper, brushing your thumb across the inside of his wrist, where he swears the skin still remembers the kisses you pressed there 43 lives ago. “You came back.”

The throne behind you is carved wood. No gold. No fanfare. Ivy spills from its corners like it’s always been part of the earth. And maybe it has. Maybe this kingdom is a little quieter, a little humbler, shaped by all the lives he never got to finish. All the ones he watched you slip through like sand.

But here—in this 100th, his last—he thinks maybe it was all worth it.

Because when he looks at you now, all the pieces come together. You laugh with the same mouth that once kissed him behind a bookshop, that once shouted orders on horseback. You smile like a thief who never got caught. You hold his hand like a promise.

And when you kiss him,  it tastes like ink and salt and rain.

He feels it then: every life pooling into this one.

Every sun he ever wore.

Every name you ever said, even when you didn’t know why it made your chest ache.

Every version of love that wasn’t enough—until now.

Until you.

Until you knew him.

And this time, he doesn’t need to pray.

This time, he just stays.

That is all.

“What?”

“This. This isn’t real, (Name).” He says gesturing between you two (and mentally convincing himself that this is all you two are—friends who became a fake couple).

The sky is dark with the cut in half moon to keep it company. It’s night time—10 p.m. to be exact. And here you are throwing a fit instead of studying for your next assessment.

You hook your teeth under your bottom lip as your vision begins to blur. “I know that.”

“I know that better than anyone, and yet, I can’t tell if you think the same way.”

The boy watches as your eyes gloss over. His pitiful reflection is visible. In Dokyeom’s head, he’s wondering what you mean. Your so-called relationship only became a thing to protect each other from your exes. There’s nothing real about it. So, why are you confusing his actions to be real or fake? Why is he confusing his actions to be real or fake?

“You’ve been dodging my calls, avoiding me at any given moment, and then you only contact me after I allegedly spend a day with another girl?” Dokyeom spouts. “If it did happen, why does it matter to you?” He doesn’t mean to say it. He doesn’t mean it either, but part of him wonders, do you like him too?

“I don’t want to be humiliated.” Your words leave your mouth in a shaky tone. “You’re my boyfriend to everyone else. Just imagine what they’d think if you were caught with another girl.” You look away, too embarrassed to let your tears fall in front of him. You can’t seem vulnerable, that’s the last thing you want to be portrayed as.

There’s a beat between your sentence and the boy’s reply as he thinks. Why are you reacting in such a way over something that didn’t happen? Did he cross the line? Do you feel a certain way about him?

“(Name).” Dokyeom calls, but you don’t budge.

“(Name), look at me.” He reaches out for your hands and you pull away, turning your head in the process.

“What?” You ask.

“To you,” he begins. “To you, what are we?”

Dokyeom knows that becoming something real won’t be good for either of you. That’s something he knows better than anyone. There’s no way you could go back to being friends too. The feelings will still be there. The number one rule within your fake relationship is to not catch feelings because you decided it was better for both of you. You were the one who made it a rule, not him. So why are you reacting as if he’s the one at fault?

Either way, it’s obvious you both failed.

“I don’t know.”

His breath catches in his throat. “I don’t either.”

Silence.

In all honesty, you don’t know where the two of you will go from here. You won’t be friends again, there’s no way you could be. But you don’t want to continue this ‘relationship’ either. You hate how everything that happens is fake.

Hell, you don’t even know how Dokyeom feels.

A tear trickles down your cheek and Dokyeom is looking at you with remorse.

“Dokyeom.” You utter. See, compared to the many other times where you’ve said his name, this is the one that had the most effect on him.

It hurts.

He hums in response, awaiting your next words. He has a feeling he knows what you’re going to say. It’s for sure the better option. He knows that it’s for the better.

“I can’t go any longer with you. I think it’s best we end whatever this is.” You wipe at your fallen teardrop, praying that more don’t fall. It hurts Dokyeom to see you this way. Honestly, it really does. He wants to reach out to you and wipe away your falling tears himself, but with how you pulled away earlier and what you said a brief moment ago. He doesn’t want to risk it.

“Yeah,” he forces out. “It’s for the better good.”

SEVENTEEN PERM TAGLIST — @himewonu @s0shroe @ijustwannareadstuff20 @ningizuo @paradiseoflosers @cheruphic @hollxe1

meanwhile, mingyu, seungkwan, soonyoung & jeonghan started a game of truth or dare, and soon seokmin was pulled back into the chaos, dragging you along with him, your hands still intertwined. his need for physical contact didn’t go unnoticed, and his friends exchanged knowing smiles as seokmin refused to let go, giggling and clinging to you as if his life depended on it.

“alright, seokmin!” mingyu called out with a mischievous grin. “truth or dare?”

seokmin’s eyes sparkled with a challenge. “dare,” he said, puffing out his chest dramatically, earning laughter from everyone.

“i dare you… to do your most embarrassing dance move in front of all of us,” mingyu said, barely holding back his laughter.

seokmin’s eyes widened, and he groaned loudly. “nooooo, mingyu, why?” he whined, but his smile never wavered. reluctantly, he lets go of your hand just long enough to stumble to his feet and perform the silliest, most exaggerated dance move he could muster, waving his arms around and flailing like a muppet. everyone burst into laughter, the room filling with cheers and claps as seokmin collapsed onto the floor in mock exhaustion.

you couldn’t help but laugh, tears forming at the corners of your eyes. seokmin, red-faced and still giggling, crawled back over to you and wrapped his arms around your waist, resting his head on your lap. “did i impress you?” he asked, looking up at you with wide, hopeful eyes.

“definitely,” you said, running a hand through his messy hair. he hummed contentedly, closing his eyes and nuzzling closer.

“okay, okay, your turn!” soonyoung said, pointing at you. “truth or dare?”

you smirked. “truth.”

“boring!” soonyoung groaned, but he leaned forward, eyes sparkling with curiosity. “what’s the most embarrassing thing seokmin’s ever done in front of you?”

seokmin’s eyes shot open, and he sat up, clinging even tighter to you. “nooooo, don’t tell them!” he begged, his voice cracking in mock terror.

you chuckled, looking at him fondly. “be careful! we don't want to have to deal with a sulky & pouty seokmin.” seungkwan warned.

“okay, fine. but remember that time you tried to serenade me with that cheesy love song and tripped over your guitar case in the middle of the chorus?” you teased.

seokmin’s face turned even redder, and he groaned, hiding his face in your lap. “why would you bring that up?” he whined, making everyone laugh even harder.

the game continued, the atmosphere buzzing with laughter and energy. seokmin’s clinginess only intensified, and he kept his hands on you—holding your hand, leaning his head against your shoulder, & even playing with the ends of your hair absentmindedly; as if it was all so natural for him. he was practically glued to you, and his cheeks were flushed a deep red from both the alcohol and his constant smiles.

“alright, seokmin, truth or dare?” jeonghan asked, his voice smooth and teasing.

seokmin perked up, a little too enthusiastically. “truth!” he declared, squeezing your hand like he needed the extra courage.

jeonghan’s eyes gleamed with mischief, “what’s the biggest secret you’ve been keeping from all of us?”

the room went silent for a split second before bursting into oohs and curious whispers. seokmin bit his lip, glancing nervously at you. his grip on your hand tightened, and his laughter suddenly seemed forced, his eyes betraying his inner turmoil.

“biggest secret?” he echoed, stalling for time. he swallowed hard, and you could feel his palm starting to sweat. you glanced over at him, eyebrows raised, and whispered, “you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

but seokmin shook his head, the playfulness draining from his expression. he was quiet for a moment, the tension thick in the air, before he turned to face you fully. his eyes were glassy, and he let out a nervous laugh.

“my biggest secret,” he began, voice cracking, “is that i’m completely, hopelessly in love with you.”

the room fell silent, and all eyes turned to the two of you. seokmin’s face was a deep shade of red, and he looked like he was about to burst into tears as the realisation of what he said dawned on him. he immediately slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide with horror. “oh no,” he mumbled, voice muffled. “oh no, oh no, oh no.”

you were frozen in place, heart pounding so loud in your chest you could hear it in your ears. “s-seokmin-ah…” you whispered, but he shook his head frantically, his other hand reaching out to grip your arm like it was a lifeline.

“i’m so sorry,” he whispered, tears welling up in his eyes. “i didn’t mean to say it like that, not when i’m drunk, not like this.” his words began to tumble out faster, voice cracking with panic. “i ruined everything, didn’t i? you’re gonna hate me now that i ruined out friendship like this and-and i just-”

before he could finish, you leaned in and kissed him, cutting off his frantic rambling, hoping this somehow reassures him. his eyes widened in shock, but then they fluttered shut, and he melted into the kiss, kissing you back instinctively, his grip on you tightening impossibly more. the cheers and whoops from your friends faded into the background as you pulled away just enough to rest your forehead against his, your faces inches apart.

“you didn’t ruin anything,” you whispered as you smiled up at him. you pray he doesnt notice the trembling in your voice.

seokmin’s eyes were still dazed, his lips parted as he tried to process what had just happened. “you… kissed me,” he said softly, his voice full of wonder, almost as if he still doesn't understand why you kissed him.

you nodded, cheeks flushed. “i did.”

his eyes slowly lit up as he starts to understand why, a smile breaking through his glassy eyes, and he let out the loudest, happiest laugh, his joy so contagious that the boys around him couldn’t help but smile. he leaned into your touch, his heart bursting with love and relief, and whispered, “this is the best truth or dare ever.”

“okay okay very sweet, really,” soonyoung said, “but I asked you, what's the biggest secret you've been keeping from us, you still didn't answer us!”

“what do you mean?” seokmin asked.

“it means we all knew you were in love with her, you dumbass! it was so obvious to everyone!” soongoing exclaimed, genuinely in shock that seokmin thinks he's slick. “come on, answer us and finish the game!” soonyoung whined.

seokmin’s laughter rang out again, filling the room with warmth. he looked around at his friends, still clinging to you like you were the only thing grounding him. “fine, fine,” he said, the last traces of his embarrassment melting away as he gazed back at you with stars in his eyes. “my biggest secret? it’s that i’m the luckiest guy in the world... because the person i've been in love with for the past 3 years just kissed me.”