#inbetween

If you ask Jay what is the earliest memory he had of y/n, it would definitely be her annoyingly chipped blue nail polish and the faint smell of lotte bubble gum whenever she opened her mouth. They met when they were 16. He sat behind her in class, always doodling on the margins of his worksheets and in between glancing at her coffee stained workbook. “Would you stop?” He would ask, annoyed by her constant movement as she couldn't just stay still resulting in her feet always brushing against his. In reply y/n would turn back and give him a big gummy smile, her braces visible “sorry jay but I just noticed your socks! they are mismatched!”

“You don't have to say that out loud god…”

“They look cute! don't worry!—”

“Shut up please”

She was loud and quick-witted, the kind of loud which would make you wanna join her and sign for a peace treaty for the universe, the kind of loud that made everyone feel warm, feel energetic, feel like they are Monday kinda ready.

And Jay wanted to be one of them. He was quiet, the kind who watched everything and said very little. He noticed the way her collection of pokemon stickers never ran out, the way she highlighted entire pages, the way she chewed her pen when she was thinking and definitely the way her smile made him feel bubbly inside.

Ugh, it's uncomfortable. Until it was not. Until he realised he was yelling at everyone when he couldn't see that gummy smile just for one sick leave.

Their first kiss was in a stupid high school play. It was a disaster, she jumped on him completely ignoring the script and his lips scraped against her braces, amidst the chaos and students laughing jay watched her stupidly fix his brown shirt which had powder stains now, the one he borrowed from his dad.

She wore too much eyeliner. He smelled like old cologne. It was awkward and new.

Jay knew there was no running away after that because of how he had pulled her closer backstage and gave her a big smooch on lips. “T-that's how you do it idiot, I swear to god if you kiss anyone else after this, I'm going to haunt you down” he was a rambling mess and she was burning “i won't! You can count on me!”

They made promises, soft, teenage ones, under the sunroof of his dad's old car. "Let’s not be like everyone else," she whispered. "Let’s not fall apart.”

He touched her pinky with his."I won’t let us.”

And for a while, they didn’t.

They fell in love in coffee shops and libraries, in movie ticket stubs and shared playlists. On the way he walked her home every night, even when it rained. In the way she cheered at his band’s terrible gigs. In the way they said 'forever' like it was a fact, not a hope.

They’re twenty-six now. Living in a third-floor apartment with weak water pressure and a fridge that hums too loud. The walls are the same beige they swore they’d repaint. They never did. Long gone are her braces and Jay's guitar collected dust now and then. “Jay…stop”

She mumbled, feeling his hand on her bare skin, the one he immediately retreated after hearing those two words and thousands others silent. “I'm sorry, you seemed distressed—”

“Lately….” She stared at the ceiling contemplating each and every word that formed in her mouth. “We're just fucking” her voice sharp and ice cold “what's the point if we're just fucking and not making love anymore?”

“…I don’t know,” he whispered. It wasn’t defensive. It wasn’t angry. It was worse, honest.

She turned away, jaw clenched, blinking rapidly.

Jay sat up, back against the headboard, fingers threading through his unkempt hair. “I still look at you like I used to,” he said quietly. “But I think I forgot how to show it. Somewhere between rent payments and late shifts and us pretending everything’s fine, I—I lost the version of me that made you feel loved.”

Silence.

She laughed, bitter and sad. “Then why are we still here?”

He swallowed hard, blinking back the sting in his eyes. “Because part of me still believes we’re worth saving. Even if we’re already halfway gone.”

It’s a Wednesday. The groceries sit by the door. She’s home first but doesn’t move to unpack them. He comes home late, tired, fingers red from biting winter air. They barely say hello. He notices the bags, still full but doesn't say anything. Just walking past them like silence has become their language.

She hears the rustle of his coat hitting the hook, the soft thud of his boots by the door. The sigh he lets out, the one he doesn’t mean for her to hear.

“Long day?” she asks, finally.

He nods, not looking at her. “You didn’t unpack them?”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

He hums, barely audible. Not agreement, not annoyance. Just something to fill the space where connections used to live.

She turns back to the show she isn’t really watching. He disappears into the kitchen. Plastic bags crinkle, cans meet shelves, the fridge opens, closes. For a second, the quiet feels unbearable, for a second, she thinks about asking him what they’re doing. About saying she misses him, even when he’s right there.

But she doesn’t.

And neither does he.

The apartment feels colder than outside.

Their life has turned into habits, two toothbrushes side by side, his cereal on the second shelf, her conditioner always empty. There’s comfort in the routine, sure. But not intimacy. He still keeps her gums stocked. She still leaves the bathroom light on for him when he works late. They exchange small kindnesses that feel like echoes of something bigger. But they don’t look at each other the way they used to.

Sometimes she talks to him from the kitchen and he doesn’t hear her. Or maybe he does, and just doesn’t respond. Either way, she stops talking halfway through.

They don’t fight. They just… don’t reach for each other anymore.

Sunoo and Jungwon still think they’re perfect. Childhood sweethearts. The golden couple. But she can’t remember the last time he looked at her like she was anything more than familiar. Sometimes, she catches him in the morning light, half-asleep, hair a mess, and shirt wrinkled from restless nights. For a moment, she hopes he’ll look at her the way he used to like she held galaxies in her hands.

But his gaze always passes right through her.

He asks if she wants coffee and she says yes, even though it’s bitter now, even though he forgets the sugar. It’s not about the taste, It’s about pretending they still know how to care.

They sit at the kitchen table, across from each other, sipping the silence.

Love was never supposed to feel like a habit.

They try. Sort of. They go on date nights that feel like chores. They talk about taxes, broken heaters, meal prep. She starts working longer hours and he gets quiet when she comes home.

“Remember that poem you wrote to me back in college?”

He nods slowly.

“I don’t think you’ve said anything like that in years.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “You didn't either”

The words hang between them, brittle.

Later that night, she re-reads that old poem. He finds her asleep on the couch with the crumbled paper in her lap. He stares at the paper for a second before picking it up and then glances at the trash can way too hard.

And after he covers her with a blanket he sits beside her for hours, wide awake.

She begins to romanticize the quiet as he begins to fear it.

There were better times.

When they couldn’t stop touching, when dinner was two-minute noodles on the floor of their first rented studio and it still tasted like joy. When they kissed in bookstores and ran in the rain like clichés. When she sat on the kitchen counter and read to him while he chopped onions. When he scribbled song lyrics on napkins and slipped them into her bag.

The day they got the apartment, they danced in the empty living room to a song from a playlist he made for her in college. She had cried and said, “This is exactly what I imagined.”

He remembers that more vividly than anything else.

Now she gets irritated when he doesn’t fold the laundry. He sighs too loudly when she forgets to lock the door. Everything feels heavier.

“Good evening, Mr Park Jongseong. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. We really appreciated your insights and enthusiasm, but unfortunately, we’ve decided to move forward with another candidate—”

He hangs up, he doesn't tell her.

She lands a raise. She doesn’t tell him.

They eat dinner in silence that night. The garlic bread burns.

He says, “It’s fine,” even though it’s not. She nods, even though she’s already halfway gone.

She doesn’t expect much, had stopped expecting things a long time ago, but still, some small, unreasonable part of her hoped he’d remember before the day slipped through his fingers.

He doesn’t.

Not until evening, when he walks in, breathless and wide-eyed, a plastic cake box from the corner grocery in one hand, and a slightly bruised bouquet of lilies in the other. Lillies. She hasn’t liked lilies since college. He used to know that.

“Happy birthday,” he says, voice light, trying too hard to sound casual. Like maybe she won’t notice the rushed panic behind it.

She smiles because it’s easier than not. “Thanks,” she says, her voice even. Flat. Her fingers brush the petals. They’re slightly wilted. She sets them in a vase without water. They eat the cake at the kitchen table, in silence, using mismatched forks. It's dry, overly sweet, and leaves a strange aftertaste. The kind of cake that only gets bought when there’s no time left.

He tells her about his day, meetings, traffic, the new intern who doesn’t know how to scan documents. She nods when it seems appropriate, hums in the right places. She doesn’t say much about hers.

Because what is there to say?

And while he showers, she curls up on the couch in his oversized hoodie. It still smells like him. Cologne and a hint of stale coffee. Her knees are pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them like a shield.

Her phone buzzes on the table beside her. Again. A string of texts:

Sunoo: “Happy birthday, you beautiful soul!! Call me later!! 🧡”

Jungwon: “Hope today’s treating you like gold. You deserve it.”

Voice note – Yoonchae: “I miss you. Tell me what he got you! Don’t say nothing lol.”

Missed Call – Jake.

Text – Mom: “Dad says happy birthday too. We love you.”

She doesn’t open a single one.

Instead, she stares at the closed bathroom door. At the narrow sliver of yellow light beneath it. The hum of the fan. The soft thud of shampoo bottles shifting.

And the water…still running.

She imagines him in there, forehead pressed against the cold tile, letting the heat scald his skin. Washing off guilt. Or pretending to. Maybe he’s thinking of a better version of the day, one where he remembered the sunflowers and baked the cake himself.

Or maybe he’s not thinking at all.

Inside the bathroom, steam fogs the mirror. He leans into the tile wall, breath shallow. Eyes closed. “I’m sorry,” he whispers so softly that even the water barely hears him.

He doesn’t know if he’s saying it to her, to himself, or to the version of them that once lit up every room they walked into.

He just knows it’s cold now.

And not even the hot water can make it feel warm again.

Jay was folding the laundry and sounds of y/n sweeping the floor could be heard. The windows were open, and the air smelled like burnt toast and late spring.

“Do you think we're still in love?” She whispers and he almost misses it. Jay pauses. Not shocked. Just… still.

“I think we’re trying to be,” he says after a while. “But I don’t think we’re happy.”

She sits down. The broom clatters.

“I feel guilty,” she whispers. “Because I still love you. Just not in the way I used to.”

He nods. “Same.”

And there it was, the burning feeling inside her eyes, her head becoming a complete mess as she choked out a few sobs. “Jay..” she cried and lounged towards him, and he caught her perfectly, arms falling in places like they were always meant to be there. Just like how he embraced her in that silly school play.

“Fuck…” he sobs burying his face on the curve of her shoulder. For a while quiet sobs filled the room.

“I thought we were different.” She cried, no more second thoughts no more what ifs, it was raw, came from the bottom of her heart where she was scared to look into.

And he hugged her tighter “We were,” he says. “But life changes people.”

“We let it change us separately.” She broke the hug and cupped his jaw.

His eyes were shaking. God how much he wanted to stop time right now. How much he wanted to scream at himself. How much he hated himself to admit that this moment should never end.

“I don’t regret loving you.” he says. Voice hoarse.

“Neither do I.”

They sit there, surrounded by laundry and broken silence, knowing they can’t fix it. But for the first time in a long time, they’re honest.

They moved out two months later. She took the bookshelf they built together. He took the record player. The apartment is bare on their last day, and as they stand in the middle of it, keys in hand, they finally let the feelings settle in. It's really happening, huh?

“Take care of yourself,” she says.

“You too.”

They hug. No kisses. No promises.

Just a long, quiet goodbye.

She watches him walk away from the front steps, and as her vision blurs she covers her mouth. He shouldn't hear her, he shouldn't look back, he shouldn't.

And he doesn't. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he knows if he does, he might run back.

She lives near the park now.

It’s a small apartment, tucked between a florist and an old record store that closes too early in winter. The walls are thin, the floor creaks in places, and the heater makes strange noises at night, but it’s hers. She painted the kitchen a pale yellow herself one Sunday, with the windows wide open and a sad playlist humming in the background. There’s a chipped mug she drinks tea from every morning and a balcony where a stubborn little plant clings to life in a cracked ceramic pot.

She has a cat, dusty grey, aloof, but with a soft spot for her lap when it rains. She named him “Fig,” after a character in a book she read during a summer she can’t quite forget. Fig likes to curl up beside her when she reads, his tail flicking lazily as if reminding her that he’s there, even when she forgets to be present.

She still keeps one of his old flannel shirts, navy and worn at the cuffs. It sits at the back of her closet, folded neatly between sweaters she doesn’t wear often. Sometimes, on the colder nights, she pulls it out. It’s too big, hangs awkwardly on her shoulders, but it’s soft. Familiar. And when she wraps it around herself, it almost feels like memory.

Some nights, without meaning to, she finds herself glancing at her phone. Waiting…for a text, a name on the screen, a simple “Hey.” She always catches herself before the thought fully forms. He won’t text. She knows that. But hope is a stubborn thing.

He lives by the river now.

A quiet part of the city, near the water where joggers pass in the early mornings and old men fish off the docks. His apartment is smaller than their old place, but neater. Sparse, almost sterile, like he’s afraid that if he lets things collect, they’ll start to resemble the past again.

Every Saturday morning, he walks to a bakery two blocks down and buys a loaf of fresh sourdough. The woman at the counter always smiles, always ties the paper bag with twine. He nods, thanks her, and carries the warmth home with him. It’s a ritual. A routine. Something to do with his hands.

He doesn’t play music much anymore, but sometimes, without realizing it he hums. The same melody she used to play on repeat in the car. Their song. He’ll catch himself halfway through the chorus and fall quiet. Pretend it never happened.

In the top drawer of his desk, beneath old receipts and pens that don’t work, is a folded piece of paper. It’s yellowing at the edges, the ink a little smudged. A poem, hers. He wrote it for her on a napkin one night when they were tipsy and young and in love with the idea of forever. He’s never reread it. But he hasn’t thrown it away either. He couldn’t that night.

They don’t follow each other online.

That boundary was set without words, like most of their end. It’s easier, cleaner. But sometimes, late at night or after too much wine, she types his name into the search bar. Just to see. Just to make sure he still exists in the world.

A new profile picture. Someone tagged him in a group photo. He’s smiling, different, maybe. Or maybe just older.

He doesn’t search her name. Not often. But once, he saw her tagged in a friend’s wedding post. Her dress was dark green. Her smile wasn’t quite the same.

He walks past a bookshop one afternoon, the kind with handwritten signs and poetry scribbled on the windows. In the front display, propped against a stack of leather-bound volumes, is a copy of The Bell Jar, her favorite. He stops, mid-step, blinking against the sunlight. For a second, he’s twenty-one again, listening to her read that very book aloud on a blanket in the park, her fingers tapping against the page with every sentence.

He doesn’t go inside. Just stands there for a moment too long, until someone nudges past and the spell breaks.

She’s in a café on a rainy Tuesday, nursing a lukewarm cappuccino and rereading the same paragraph over and over. The place smells like cinnamon and paperbacks. The speakers hum softly above the clatter of cups and the murmur of voices.

And then she hears it.

Their song.

The intro hits first, a simple piano line. Her breath catches. Her hands go still. Then the lyrics begin, and her throat tightens like it always does when something hurts and you don’t know why. She stands up too quickly, chair scraping against tile, and mumbles something to the barista about fresh air. Outside, the rain is soft but steady. She leans against the wall, arms crossed, trying to swallow the ache.

It’s been months. Maybe years. But some things don’t expire with time.

Some names still echo when whispered.

And some goodbyes never quite finish being said.

The reception is in a garden lit by strings of golden lights, the tables decorated with wildflowers in mismatched jars. He came alone. It doesn’t ache the way it used to. There’s a quiet acceptance in him now, like a song that faded out gently instead of stopping mid-chorus.

He’s standing near the bar, drink in hand, half-listening to the speeches. The couple is radiant, young, stupid in love, and brave enough to believe in forever.

And then the band begins to play.

The notes rise, soft and familiar.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. Just closes his eyes briefly and lets it wash over him. It doesn’t hurt the same anymore. It’s more like touching something from a dream, something warm that you can’t quite hold onto.

“Don't you ever wish it ended differently?”

He doesn't look up. He knows there is no one.

“I wish it lasted longer,” he says honestly. “But I’m glad it happened.

The heavy atmosphere seems to nod and walks away, and the song fades into applause.

They don’t speak. Haven’t in years. They probably never will again.

And yet—

way she checks if someone had their coffee today.

In the way he remembers how another person likes their books dog-eared and worn.

They carry each other still.

Not as wounds.

But as shapes folded neatly into the corners of who they’ve become.

THE END