You startle at the sound of plates being set down on the small table that decorated the balcony.  You hadn’t bothered to close the sliding glass doors, too high up for bugs to care about and the glass panes that walled in the balcony didn’t have enough of a gap for your cat to somehow escape.  Though if she ever left her little dumpling shaped bed to come outside, you would be shocked.  Looking away from the nightlife, you see Mingi setting down several small bowls between the two small plates. Inside of the bowls were different fruits: halved strawberries, cubes of watermelon, grapes, and apple slices.  Left on the tray he was holding were two glasses of water, two empty teacups, and a small teapot.  You knew from experience that it held enough for two.  He turns briefly back to the glass doors, propping the tray against them for when it was time to bring the dishes back in later, and sits down.  You join him quickly.

“Thanks, Min,” you say quietly, giving him a grateful smile.  A few days now you’ve been out of sorts after you came to a realization and Mingi had finally corralled you into telling him what was wrong tonight.  You’d postponed it as much as possible, knowing your best friend would have some strong opinions once you revealed what you’ve realized.

You two sit in silence for a few more minutes.  He knows not to push you now that he’s gotten you to agree to tell him what’s been on your mind.  You put another grape in your mouth, enjoying the brief initial crunch of the fruit before it gave way to the sweetness of the juice.

Mingi has been in your life since your first day of high school, both of you sharing the same teacher who gave the classic ice breaker, “What’s your favorite animal?”  The two of you were not the only two in the class who said cats, but you were the only ones in the small group of six to really narrow it down to the fat cats, finding them very cute.  It turned out that you were in a few other classes, too, and shared the same lunch period, so it was only natural that you developed a friendship. Sure, the two of you had other friends throughout high school, but no one else really came as close to you as each other.

You two even ended up going to the same university, though to be fair, so did several of your friends as well.  And despite how busy uni was, and all the freedoms it afforded you, you and Mingi didn’t grow apart.  He was your constant, even when you had to split up due to your different majors.  It helped, again, that you had several friends in common and thus weekly gatherings happened at someone’s dorm and eventually someone’s apartment.  Over eight years and you’ve never doubted his loyalty towards you nor yours toward him.

He rested his hand over yours, gently taking your fingers away from your lips where you had been absentmindedly picking at your lips while lost in reminiscing.   Reflexively you lick your lips and sheepishly smile, barely missing how Mingi’s eyes flick down to your lips before looking back to your eyes.

“What did you want to tell me, YN?”  Mingi’s voice is gentle and you can feel the heat of his hand on yours.

“I,” you pause, your throat suddenly dry.  You take a sip of water and Mingi starts rubbing the back of your hand with his thumb, comforting you.  You take a deep breath and start again, telling him what’s been on your mind these past few days.

“I figured it out,” you say abruptly.  “I’m just not the kind of person that people fall in love with.” Your confession hangs in the air between you, but unexpectedly you don't feel the sense of relief that you had thought would accompany saying it outloud.  You look away from Mingi, readying yourself for the inevitable “You need to have more confidence in yourself” speech you’re sure he was gearing up for.

And it’s not as if you’re lacking in self-confidence, you think.  It’s just hard to believe that someone could find you romantically interesting when you’re just.  Cute.  Like a baby duckling or pastel phone cases.  Someone that people want to hang out with but not date.  And you’ve slowly come to terms with it.   Besides, it’s not as if you’ve ever really had any serious romantic thoughts about anyone but Song Mingi.  Ah, sure, you’ve had your crushes here and there, but nothing real. Nothing had... No one had ever measured up to him.

“Mark Lee.”  You look at Mingi, confusion painted over your face as surely as the strawberry juice was staining your fingertips pink.  His voice was low, quiet to match the atmosphere you’ve created.  “He liked you.  A lot.”

You smile in disbelief, scoffing slightly.  “Mark Lee?  The guy from high school trig who forgot the six most used formulas so often I had to write it on a note card for him Mark Lee?”  He was nice, you recall, and always eager to help. He reminded you of a puppy, big eyes and always cheerful.

“He asked you out.”  Mingi’s face was carefully neutral as he said this, his eyes darting around your face to gauge your reaction.

“What?  When?”  You’re sure you would’ve remembered someone asking you out. Especially seeing as he would’ve been the first to do so.

“He asked you to get ice cream with him remember?  And then you made it into a group thing.  Me, Wooyoung, and that upperclassman from drama club Seokmin.  Mark ended up bringing some of his friends, too, to even it out.”

“That was supposed to be a date?”  You ask, shocked.  “I didn’t know that!”

“Evidently,” Mingi says, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

You pout at Mingi’s light teasing.  “Well, he shouldn’t have asked me with you and Wooyoung near me.  He should’ve known that Wooyoung is always down for food and that I would invite you along with us.”  You roll your eyes.  You haven’t kept in close contact with the Canadian boy, but every so often one of you would check up on the other, a strictly platonic situation between the two of you.

Mingi’s eyes were bright with the laughter that he was suppressing.  “Ah, I guess that’s fair.”  He pauses for a moment, thinking, and then says, “Your philosophy of ethics T.A.”

“No.”  You say almost as soon as the words leave his mouth, not even willing to consider it.  “Not possible.  Tae did not like me like that.”

Mingi rolled his eyes and shoots back, “I’m pretty sure you had Kim “Call Me Tae” Taehyung questioning his ethics by the end of the semester.”

“He was a grad student then.  There’s no way he was interested in someone getting their bachelor’s.”  You, of course, also remember Taehyung.  He was friendly and polite and dressed very well.  He also knew how to explain teleological ethics to a group of undergrads who were very much interested in the hedonistic way of life rather than the epicureic.   And, sure, the two of you actually became friends... and had standing coffee shop discussions after class, but that didn’t mean that he-

“Seriously?” Mingi’s voice cuts through your train of thought and you realize that you had said all of that out loud.  “You’re so naïve sometimes; I can’t believe I love you so much when you do things like this.”  Mingi mumbles, exasperated with your lack of awareness, looking down at his jeans where he had been messing with a few loose threads from a rip.  He obviously didn’t think you would hear his confession but your gasp makes his head snap up, and suddenly he looks like a wild animal that’s been cornered with no way to escape.  His eyes dart around, looking for an exit. An exit which you were not prepared to give him.

Silence falls again between you, though much more tense than before; the ambient noises of cars honking and faint laughter and conversations rise up from below.  You watch him carefully and see his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows nervously.

“What,” your voice cracks, barely getting through the whole word with your breath coming unevenly.  You could feel your heart racing, a staccato beat you wouldn’t be able to reproduce with your pen bouncing off of your notes tomorrow.

You hope you heard right

No, you know you did.

Over the years, you’ve gotten good at deciphering mumbly Mingi, as he was a frequent guest whenever you were studying for tests or researching for presentations.

With a start, you realize his hand is still over yours, the heat of his skin combating well against the cold night wind.  Your sudden jerk snaps him out of whatever fearful trance he was in and he starts to take his hand away from yours.  You weren’t having that.  You were not going to have the man you love literally at your fingertips and let him go.  You flip your hand over and grab onto his wrist before he can pull away completely.

With your fingers feeling like they’re burning from adrenaline, you tug on his arm, tilting your head until you meet his eyes.  The dark brown you normally find comfort in is filled with wariness.  You could feel his hand tremble slightly and the weight of the moment hits you with such a force you could almost feel dizzy.   Whatever you said or did next would make or break the nearly nine-and-a-half-year relationship you’ve had with him.

Licking your lips due to nerves, you pull his hand towards you slightly, just enough to cradle his in both of yours.  You look down at his hand where it’s cradled in yours for a moment, tracing the lines of his palm and the veins of his wrist with your eyes to remind yourself that you don’t need to be scared.  You already heard him confess. It’s your turn now.

It was a testament to how much Mingi trusted you that, despite his inner turmoil, he still sat next to you and let you touch him.  You cover his hand with both of yours and look up again.

“Is that why you remember them, Min? Because you were jealous?”  Inhale.  “Because you love me, too?”  Exhale, if shakily.

You can see the change in his eyes when what you say clicks.  “Too?”  He asks, voice as shaky as yours was.

“You’re so naïve sometimes; I can’t believe I love you so much when you do things like this,” you parrot back to him, a grin breaking out across your face and you, too helpless to stop it.  “Mingi, I’ve liked you pretty much the entire time I’ve known you.”

His eyes shine in the light around you and you’re sure your eyes are just the same as you both try to not cry from relief.  The heaviness, the burden that you had felt at the beginning of the night, had finally disappeared.  Both of you just stare at each other with dopey grins, truly letting it sink in that the person each other loved, the one they thought unattainable, loved them back.  Full of happiness, you bring Mingi’s hand to your lips, leaving a soft kiss on his knuckles like he was royalty.  And you decide, after he flushes a beautiful pink, you’re probably definitely going to do it again.

Mingi’s other hand comes up, pushing some fallen strands of hair from out of your face, before gently cupping your face, his warm hand feeling like a branding iron against the wind-bitten cold of your cheek.  The both of you lean forward, like raindrops combining on a window, and he traces his thumb along your bottom lip.

Can I kiss you, the unspoken question.

You nod ever so slightly and press your lips to his.