#jnnul

nicholas was always a fool. he'd forget your favorite color or the fact that you had date night but he'd never forget what made you you. nicholas would worship the ground you walked on if you let him. he'd memorize your soul and make his own heartbeat copy yours.

but nicholas was too much. he was always too much. his love was too much and his ambition was too much. you loved him beyond belief - even beyond the belief that he would change for you.

you were too calm, too deliberate to compete with his lifestyle. you enjoyed tiny flowers in the cracks of the sidewalk where nicholas was always looking towards the fansticks that mimicked the stars across a pitch black sky. the paparazzi, the insane hours, the doubt, the practices, the diet, it was just all too much.

so you broke up with him. told him that you just couldn't handle it anymore.

he'd taken it pretty well, when you'd broken up with him. said that he understood and that he'd be back whenever he could to pick up his things and leave. for a man so fiery and full of passion, you thought it'd turn into a big fight where you'd yell until your voice was hoarse and then he'd yell back in equal fury and passion.

it's been seven months since then, and he still hasn't been back for his things. frustrated that he didn't try and fight for you, the relationship, or the last year that you had been with nicholas, you blocked him everywhere. deleted his number, took his secret account off of your social media, deleted your couple's food account, and donated all of his hoodies. a year's worth of love, gone like it had been a fire doused by a mound of snow.

you hadn't cried. nicholas's reaction was just too calm for you to feel anything. made you feel ridiculous for feeling sad about losing each other. so you didn't. just deleted everything and picked up the pieces to move on with your life.

but you kept the letters. stashed in an inconspicuous box under your bed, stowed away with your summer clothes. you hadn't read them since you and nicholas broke up but some part of you never allowed you to throw them away. there was too much left unsaid that you couldn't bring yourself to forget.

you look back at your phone, the glass of water you'd woken up for abandoned near the sink.

the black screen haunts you, taunting you to play the message one more time.

you shakily hold the phone up to your ear one more time, closing your eyes and listening to the voice of the man you'll never be able to leave behind.

"i love you. god, i fucking love you so much..."

the pain creeps up, slowly, and then all at once. it suffocates the cries that escape your lungs as you press the play button over and over again. it takes the strength from your legs as you collapse on the floor. it steals the last bit of hatred you have for nicholas as tears stream down your cheeks, sobs wracking your body.

at some point, even the pain isn't able to choke out the embers that start to turn into an inferno of sheer agony.

why was the universe so cruel? why did he call you now? seven months later? why was the one person you wanted most the one you couldn't have? why couldn't you forget him? why was nicholas who you wanted? why couldn't it have been anyone else?

why him? why was it you that he had met that fateful night in the convenience store? why was it him that you had poured your heart out to? why was it each other that the other found solace in?

why couldn't you just love him?

you don't know how long you spend like that, crumpled on the ground, crying until you have no tears left and no energy. you lay there, staring at the ceiling of the apartment.

where was he? why was he that drunk? why did he call you?

questions cloud your mind like unforgiving thunderclouds, drowning out any other sound. suddenly, you're overcome with panic, fumbling for your phone, cast aside on the ground next to you.

you unsteadily press your passcode in, frustrated when the phone registers the wrong numbers from your shaking. 070902.

you open the phone app once more, staring at the unsaved number the voicemail came from. you hesitate for just a moment, finger hovering over the 'call' button.

you had broken up with him for a reason. and he was drunk out of his mind, if euijoo's intervention was anything to go by.

either it was your subconscious mind's eagerness or the way your hands were trembling but your finger tapped the call button, ringing silently.

you held the phone to your ear, almost reverently as you waited for the phone to click. you knew he wasn't going to pick up. he was too drunk and euijoo was too good of a friend to let him call you back. this was all just a mistake.

you're about to put the phone down, a mix of disappointment and regret setting into your spine when the ringing stops and your breath catches in your throat.

you'd recognize that voice anywhere. but more than anything, you know there's only one person in the world who would ever say your name like he does.

"y/n? is that really you? y/n?"

the two of you had gone to the same elementary school, middle school, and now, high school. but while you'd doodled his name in the corner of your assignments, only to hurriedly scratch it out before submitting it, you knew for a fact that sungchan barely knew you existed.

it'd made you upset at first; the way he walked past you without so much as a spare glance while you'd rack your brain, trying to come up with ways so that you could end up in his general vicinity, drawn like a moth to a shining star.

and then, it became natural. in the stories, the shy, quiet girl only got the handsome, charming boy if she had a glow up that involved a) tutoring the said charming boy or b) if she took off her glasses.

unfortunately for you, neither of those things worked on sungchan. so you were left with just awkward interactions in the hallways when you'd accidentally bump into him or stumbling over your words when he asked to borrow a pencil.

in the past fourteen years you'd been aware of sungchan, you don't think you'd crossed his mind even once.

but then something changed.

the way that he used to glide past you in the hallways turned into a slow, deliberate saunter. he held your gaze as you passed out papers with the teacher. his voice dropped to gentle tones when he asked you what you'd gotten for number seven.

it was devastating, being noticed by sungchan. you couldn't pinpoint what exactly had drawn his attention. so you spent hours every morning, dolling yourself up as much as possible in the constraints of your uniform, hoping that the prettier you got, the more of his attention you could steal.

soon, sungchan began asking you about yourself. your name. which university you wanted to go to after high school. what you wanted to do with your life. why you were in microeconomics of all classes together with him.

it was everything you'd ever dreamed of. there had been decades where you'd prayed that he would just turn around and look at you, standing at the other end of the hallway, your gaze following him. and now, he was sitting and talking to you, asking you things that you didn't think he would ever care to ask.

but every moment felt like you were waiting for the other shoe to drop. it was excruciating, feeling giddy and answering his questions as you felt your stomach clench with the foreboding thought in your mind that all of this was so temporary. that he was bored with his perfect friends, his perfect life, and his perfect everything, that you were just the little fixation of the day.

that he was just making friendly conversation since you were in the last three months of high school, leaving all the people you'd known since you were unable to even pronounce words fluently to venture onto adventures in places you still couldn't pronounce.

and then there was the stupid, hopeless part of you that just kept wishing that it was because he'd finally opened his eyes. that sungchan had turned and saw you at the end of the hallway and decided to walk towards you. that he had chosen you as the one he wanted to walk out of high school with.

it was a stupid, hopeless notion.

sungchan loved his girlfriend too much to even entertain the thought of you as anything but just a pity case of a person that he wanted to get to know before he locked all of high school into some folder in his mind that he never quite felt compelled to open.

she was gorgeous too. never seemed to ever be able to just melt into a crowd. somehow, crowds parted to carve her a path, people tripped over their own feet to help her in her times of need, and people always noticed her. she was so sweet. it nauseated you. so smart. it infuriated you.

and she was so in love with sungchan that you physically felt ill every time you looked at the two of them. all six feet of him and all five and a half feet of her. the skirt that seemed to flop around uselessly around your thighs and seemed to accentuate her every curve.

the way she waited so patiently every time sungchan cut away from her to talk to someone, his arm still reaching out blindly for her waist.

the way she invited you to her graduation party when she'd spoken to even less than sungchan had just because sungchan stopped in the hallway once to ask you about how the microeconomics exam had gone.

the way that sungchan had looked at her, beaming with pride.

it was devastating, feeling as though the butterflies were beating themselves to a horrid, tragic death as you realized that for all of your primping and priming, sungchan had only ever noticed you as yet another somewhat friendly face in the crowd. never the romantic interest that you always wanted to be to him. just someone that he'd wave at on the street but never cross the street to talk to. someone else that he could add to his repertoire of people he knew.

and the worst part? you were sure that he didn't even think about it that way because you were sure he didn't even think about you enough to define it.

when he asked you to sign his yearbook, three days before the last day of school, you almost said no. what would he do with your wishes when he wouldn't even remember you existed the moment graduation was over?

but then he looked at you with those big brown eyes that could melt the fiercest glaciers in the arctics and you were a goner. you tried to ignore the way that the cage in your stomach where you stored all the butterflies that gave you that funny feeling when you looked at sungchan jung was starting to give when his hand brushed against yours. the way that you could feel them slip out of the cage, slowly, quietly, and then all at once.

have a great summer, sungchan. thanks for all the funny feelings, all these years. - y/n

you knew he didn't and wouldn't read it. your handwriting was too small, having shoved the letters in between so many others, pages filled to the brim with all of his well-wishers.

and yet, the cliché is right, when he sees you again all these years later.

he's standing across the street at an intersection in the heart of a city you never thought you'd ever be able to afford to live in. he's alone, in a three piece suit and a coffee cup in his hand. you don't see him this time, much too preoccupied with the funny text that a coworker had sent you.

but the butterflies start, even before you look up and you just know. your head lifts, frantically searching the crowd as you melt into it, so sure of his presence and yet being unable to find him.

you stand on the other side of the street, eyes filled with tears. why? for losing him for the second time? for the fact that sungchan was still the reason why you had a funny feeling in your stomach? you don't know.

unsure of what to do or where to search, you adjust the strap of your briefcase, smiling a bitter smile as you sigh. perhaps you were always meant to be perpendicular. meant to meet, never meant to stay.

you turn, ready to compose yourself and shove the butterflies back into the cage but you can't. not when he's staring at you, having never crossed the intersection.

he's watching you carefully, as though he's worried that he might offend you with his memories. that the fact that he remembers exactly who you are when you might not remember him is the singular most devastating thing he can think of.

"what did you mean by that?" he asks. it's the first thing that he says in years. it's one of the twenty-six conversations you'd ever had with him.

"i'd loved you for a long time," you admit.

sungchan just watches you, steam rising from the coffee cup, evidently freshly brewed. "why didn't you tell me?"

you shrug. "you never asked."

"i didn't know."

"about my love or about who i was?"

"i'm sorry."

you sigh again, smiling a sweet and yet so melancholy smile. "it's okay. it was my fault."

"do you wanna catch up? how have you been since high school?" sungchan looks nervous, foot pawing at the ground, scuffing his freshly polished loafers. you tilt your head, and now, it's your turn to watch him.

"yeah, let's catch up some time, sungchan," you say finally. he smiles that stupid, gorgeous smile and you know you're done for.

the butterflies no longer can be confined in their cage as they flap outwards, occupying every inch of your body as he types his number into your phone.

"you haven't changed your number," you bemuse.

"neither have you. changed your number, i mean. you've changed a lot though," sungchan says.

"yeah?"

"yeah. i'll tell you how over a cup of coffee."

you laugh, and sungchan is unable to keep the smirk off his face. you just wave him off and start towards your office, promising to text him later in the day.

"oh and y/n?" sungchan calls out from behind you. you don't turn around but you pause your movements, ready to hear him out.

just as you’re about to head back inside to make a phone call to jungwon’s office to get a hold of him, an unfamiliar toyota pulls up to the curb of the airport pick up area. jungwon rolls down the window and your breath catches in your throat when you see him.

he’s a little bit more masculine than he was from your memory. a little more filled out, with more muscle than baby fat that had all but melted off of his body. he’d grown out his hair a bit, long enough that he had to shake it out of his eyes. his eyes were a little more tired but still full of life, just as you remembered. 

“long time, no see,” he quips, offering you a slight smile - one that you reciprocate. 

“it’s only been four years,” you point out as he exits the driver’s side to help you load your bags (the only two that you had) into the back of the car. 

when he’s shut the door to the backseat, he turns to look at you and you suddenly realize that he’d somehow grown even taller. you hesitate for a moment before stepping forward, and jungwon envelopes you into a gentle, tender hug.

“a lot can happen in four years, y/n,” jungwon says softly into your hair. you don’t say anything, not trusting your voice to speak without giving way to the tears threatening to slip from your eyes. but you know he knows by the way his grip on your frame grows just the slightest bit more firm before he lets you go. 

you try not to think about the implications of the fact that it almost physically hurts to see him pull away, as he took his warmth with him. 

jungwon opens the passenger side door for you, closing it gently when you’ve sat down and settled in your seat. 

he pulls out of the airport pick up area, merging onto the highway with ease - as though he’s done this many times before. he’s gotten used to tokyo, with the winding roads and the traffic that far exceeds seoul’s own traffic. your heart grows tight in your chest before you remind yourself that you’ve lost all right to feel anything anymore. 

“have you told hyewon that i’m in tokyo?” you ask after a couple minutes of jungwon driving in silence. jungwon hesitates before nodding.

“yes. she knows you’re in tokyo,” jungwon concedes. you sigh, leaning back into the seat.

“i’m sorry i couldn’t make it to your wedding,” you say. jungwon just shakes his head as he takes an exit off of the highway.

“it’s alright. i’m sorry to hear about your grandmother,” he says and you just turn to look at the scenery outside. there’s a slight drizzle as you and jungwon drive through the busy streets of tokyo that slowly morph into less busy residential areas.

“she missed you,” is all you have to offer in comfort. jungwon sighs, closing his eyes when the car rolls to a stop due to the traffic. 

“i’ve missed her - and your grandfather - too,” he confesses and somehow, the words bring more sadness than happiness that jungwon still cared for the past that the two of you shared - even if he didn’t care about you as a person anymore.

“i’m sorry.” jungwon stares at the road in front of the two you with a particularly confused look and you know that the look is meant for you. 

“for everything,” you continue, pressing forward with your eyes focused on the landscape outside, not once looking at jungwon, who sounds as though he’s about to protest. “for not coming to the wedding. for not telling you about my grandma. for not explaining anything before i called because i needed a place stay. for not being a good girlfriend while i had you. and - and for still loving you even when i have no right to anymore.”

jungwon is silent, and you know you’re not being fair to him at all. but jungwon is the one person that you’ve always been truthful with, even when it’s not fair and you know it’s not fair. because he’s the only person you’ve ever loved and quite possibly the only person you will ever love. 

“it’s not your fault,” jungwon promises.

he puts the car in park as you pull up to a standalone home near the outer ring of the city. 

somehow, the fact that he’s not upset with you the same way that you were upset with him makes you want to cry just a bit more. 

you get out of the passenger seat once jungwon unlocks the door, hesitating before stepping out. 

the house is nice - especially considering how expensive homes were this close to the city. it was two stories tall, with a well maintained lawn and a couple of rose bushes that lined the path to the front door. the entire house was white and gray, painted a color that was muted but somehow still lively against the dark tokyo skies. 

it was picture perfect. just like jungwon.

and jungwon and hyewon’s marriage. 

“come on, y/n,” jungwon says, carrying both of your bags. he’s standing at the point where the driveway gives way to the entrance of the home and for some reason, you want to take a picture of him like this. in front of this perfect home, looking every inch the man you’d fallen in love with as a young woman. 

maybe you could look back at the picture later, pretending that it was your house that you’d bought with jungwon. if you closed your eyes shut tightly and tried hard enough, you could imagine browsing houses until you found one that you and him both like. you could imagine making sure that the neighborhood was connected to a good schooling system for your future children. you could imagine waking up in bed next to jungwon everyday, knowing that it wasn’t a luxury to be able to do so because he was the man you’d married.

you open your eyes.

jungwon is standing in the entrance of the doorway turned to look at you, where jo (yang, you have to correct yourself) hyewon is standing with him, watching you.

[seoul, 1982]

“what would you do if we broke up?” you asked, playing with jungwon’s fingers. you already knew what jungwon’s answer would be but you can’t help the question anyway, needing to hear it from him.

“we’re not going to break up,” he said gently, shifting to look at you but you continued to stare up at the sky, watching the stars twinkle in the dead of the night. you’re not supposed to be on the rooftop of one of the college lecture halls with him like this but you figured that if you weren’t rebellious in the last few months of college, you’d never get the chance to do it again.

“but if we did,” you persisted, letting him weave his gentle and calm fingers with your own restless ones. “what would you do?”

jungwon was silent, the same way he was every time he was in deep in thought. it was one of the things that you loved about him the most; jungwon never said anything lightly or just for the hell of saying it. he was always so soft and gentle, thinking every word through before putting it out into the universe.

“i don’t know,” he confessed finally. he turned to look at the stars with you. “i don’t know what i would do. but i do know that i would never be the same. i don’t know if i could ever live a life without you, y/n.”

in that moment, the world felt so big and yet all yours. 

now, you knew it was just the foolishness of young lovers but at the time, it just felt like the truth. you’d taken jungwon’s presence, his love, and all of his patience for granted at the time, thinking that it was an infinite resource that you could always call upon.

it wasn’t until you were forced apart by fate that you realized just how silly the notion was.

[tokyo, 1988]

the interior of jungwon’s house is nearly as perfect as the rest of him. there’s cozy furniture placed tastefully, every inch the comfortable and inviting home. the dark wood of the house contrasted with the emerald green accents and the occasional gold decorative piece made the entire house look incredibly put together and well thought out. an elegant balance between a cozy look and and an expensive taste.

“hyewon picked it out,” jungwon says from behind you. you nod, swallowing down any bitter words as you try to offer the younger woman a sincere smile.

“it’s very beautiful,” you manage, a little bit softer than you were hoping. hyewon is silent for a moment, a habit you know she’s picked up from jungwon, before a small yet hopeful smile spreads on her lips. 

“i’m sure you see a lot more impressive people at work,” she says shyly, and you feel a tight squeeze in your chest when you realize just how young and sweet she is. 

“being a doctor seems a lot more fancy than it really is,” you cough drily, forcing a smile when you see that hyewon’s seems to have faltered, receding into her shell a bit. “but it is really special to be able to study the brain in ways you never would’ve expected.”

at this, hyewon seems to perk up once more, seemingly enthused that you held no contempt for her. 

you honestly didn’t. nothing that happened between you and jungwon was her fault. and while it hurt that she was living the life that you’d wished for so long was your own…it really wasn’t her fault. as much as you might hate the circumstances of your arrival back in jungwon’s life, you really couldn’t hate her.

“y/n, why don’t you go ahead and take a shower in the guest room? the flight to tokyo might be short but i know how much you hate not taking a shower the second you get home,” jungwon offers, head inclined towards the interior of the house - where you assume the guest room is.

you hold the bag in your arms a little closer to your chest before smiling sadly. “i don’t get that paranoid about not taking showers as soon as i get home anymore. there’ve been a few too many times i’ve collapsed without showering after a twenty-four hour shift at the hospital.”

jungwon falters, and almost as if to search for comfort, his eyes drift to hyewon. your heart feels tight in your chest when he does. there’d been so many times that he’d done that with you. when you were the person he sought out amongst people he knew and loved, just because he knew he would always be the most comfortable with you.

“but,” you choke out, clearing your throat. “i should take a shower this time. it seems that it’s the time of year where everyone has a runny nose and a cough.” 

the tension in jungwon’s shoulders melts in just the slightest as he nods, and you follow him further into the house. of course, the entire house is decorated similarly to the living room, with all dark wood paneling and…heated flooring?

“you have heated flooring even outside the bedrooms?” you ask incredulously, examining the warmth that seemed to be radiating beneath your feet. jungwon laughs sheepishly before opening one of the doors next to the kitchen area, leading you into the guest bedroom.

“hyewon gets cold pretty easily so we decided to get heated flooring installed everywhere for the colder months,” jungwon explains, depositing your bag at the foot of the bed. you hum in understanding before your eye catches on a specific painting faced away from you, so that you would see it laying in bed but not when entering the room.

you draw closer to it, breath catching in your throat as you recognize the painting.

“it’s the one you painted for my birthday,” jungwon says gingerly, and you nod, the lump in your throat not allowing you to verbalize your inner thoughts.

“i didn’t think you’d keep it after - after we broke up,” you confess and jungwon shrugs, looking at the painting with you.

it’s a simple painting. it’s just a crude painting of an emerald jewel that you’d painted after taking a painting class with jungwon in college. you’d always promised that you would show your magnum opus that you’d been working on for the entirety of the course to him when it was finished, finally presenting it to him on his birthday.

when he asked you what it meant, you’d cited his own words.

“we’re not going to break up. so this emerald is meant to represent our love, since emeralds symbolize deep, unconditional and everlasting love.”

the irony of the situation is not lost on you as you stare at the painting until the emotions inside of you overwhelm you to the extent that you feel like you can’t even breathe properly, forcing your head away from the painting.

jungwon coughs before turning away as well, padding over to the other end of the room, pushing a door open to reveal the attached restroom.

“feel free to use anything in there,” jungwon mumbles before rushing out of the bedroom, leaving you there, alone, with nothing but your racing thoughts and beating heart.

“thanks,” you whisper to no one particular, a cold loneliness setting in your bones - even with the heated flooring.

[incheon, 1981]

“who’s most likely out of all of us to get married first?” lee heeseung wondered aloud, slurping from his ramen. there were six of you huddled around a campfire, bundled in blankets and warmed up by the ramen that park jongseong had boiled for all of you.

“logically, it should be you, heeseung, since you’re an old fart,” park sunghoon said, twisting away when heeseung threatens him with the lid of the pot that the precious ramen was resting in. “but honestly, probably jungwon and y/n.”

you and jungwon shared a shy look before turning away, huddling closer in the much too thin blanket that heeseung had brought. 

“nah, it’s probably going to be jay and sumin,” you pointed out. it was then your turn to evade death by ramen pot lid, ducking into jungwon’s warm embrace when jongseong (who’d gotten the name ‘jay’ due to the time he spent in america before his family moved to seoul) started wielding the pot particularly intimidatingly.

“we’re only twenty-three years old!” bae sumin protested, but you see her leaning further into jongseong’s embrace, and it was clear that she wasn’t all that put off by the idea of marriage.

“so? my mom and dad got married and had me by the time they were twenty-one,” sunghoon snorted and you and jungwon had twin expressions of alarm on your face.

“i’m twenty-one, sunghoon and i’m nowhere near having a child!” jungwon exclaimed, and you nodded. while marriage wasn’t completely foreign to the two of you, with you having established that having a career set in place was most important (the path to becoming a doctor was a long and tiring one), you inevitably had to push back any plans of marriage for later than perhaps most couples who’d dated as long as the two of you.

after all, dating for six years was usually an experience that people heeseung’s age were more likely to have rather than your own peers as juniors in college.

“yes, but by the time that y/n gets into medical school and jungwon’s in a good place for his job, you’re going to be around twenty-four? maybe twenty-six if jungwon goes to military service right after college?” jay pointed out, finally putting the lid back on the ramen pot instead of wielding it around like a shield.

“heeseung will be his late twenties by then,” sunghoon sniggered and heeseung rolled his eyes, taking another slurp of his ramen.

“i’m only going to be twenty-eight or twenty-nine. i don’t know why you guys make me sound like an old fossil,” heeseung said sullenly, shaking sunghoon’s hand off of his back when he rubs his back in a part sympathetic and part sarcastic gesture.

“you already are an old fossil,” sumin joked, joining in on making fun of the oldest friend in the group.

the rest of the night was more fun at the expense of heeseung, the ramen pot lid being tossed from person to person to prevent decapitation at the hands of the enraged eldest.

you and jungwon hadn’t said anything at the time, just sharing a sweet smile and all too thin blanket.

[tokyo, 1988]

“when do you start work?” jungwon asks from across the dinner table. hyewon’s laid out a korean dinner filled with all of your favorites - almost like your grandmother did for you when you lived in the house she’d shared with you, just two months ago. 

staying in the house that you had been born in and your grandmother, the only parental figure you’d ever had in your life after your grandfather died three years prior, died in was far too much for you to handle, which is why you’d all but uprooted and ran away from seoul with little formality as soon as you could.

it’s funny, how something as simple as bulgogi can shake even the strongest of minds, taking them back to memories that they’d prayed to move past. 

you thank hyewon when she hands you a pair of wooden chopsticks that have a design engraved into them, shaking you out of your thoughts. they were a nice pair of chopsticks; not just a random pair of chopsticks that you give to guests for a single use. the knowledge that one of them had bought you a pair of nice chopsticks in case your stay extended long enough to need them makes you feel strange.

“i technically start on the fourteenth but i have to go in on the twelfth to get some paperwork in,” you explain, waiting for hyewon to sit to begin eating.

“do you need a ride to work?” he asks, reaching over the table to deposit some rolled omelette cutlets into his bowl, smiling up at hyewon when she does it for him instead.

“uh, yes, i would appreciate that. at least until i buy a car,” you say softly, eyes fixed on your own plate, unsure of if you really had it in you to look up and see more of their intimacy. 

“that reminds me,” jungwon begins, taking a bite of the omelette once hyewon’s also sat down next to him. “there are a couple of dealerships near hyewon’s school. we can all go together after i pick up hyewon from office whenever you’re free.”

you nod, chewing on a spring onion slowly. “sounds good with me. i was planning on going on the twelfth so you won’t have to be driving me around for more than a week.”

jungwon waves you off. “it’s not a bother for me. the hospital is owned by the university that hyewon’s doing her masters at so it’s not out of my regular route.”

“you’re doing your masters?” you ask hyewon, who’s been silent throughout the meal. hyewon seems to be startled, as though she had been checked out completely before she nods belatedly.

“yes, i’m doing my masters. i worked for a couple years but i realized that i wasn’t really getting promoted because i’m a married woman and because i don’t have higher education,” hyewon elucidates. jungwon opens his mouth to say something - undoubtedly to comfort her by saying that the sexism of those around her was not an accurate representation of her caliber but you beat him to it.

“you’re a smart and talented person, hyewon. higher education just gives you a certificate to prove it but i’m sorry that people don’t want to acknowledge your talent without a simple, largely useless piece of paper,” you say, voice steady and clear. hyewon pauses mid-bite and jungwon also freezes, his chopsticks halfway between his bowl and his mouth, his omelette slipping from his chopsticks and falling into the bowl.

they exchange a look before hyewon smiles - a real, genuinely touched smile.

“that means a lot coming from you, y/n,” jungwon says and you know he means it in more than one way. 

the rest of dinner is relatively quiet, with hushed requests for one dish or another but for some reason, it finally feels as though the tension in your shoulders has started to melt and you feel like you can take a breath of fresh air.

after dinner, hyewon decides to retire early, leaving you and jungwon to do the dishes, even though both of them protest heavily. 

“what kind of host would i be if i let you wash the dishes?” jungwon complains, physically trying to nudge you away from the sink with his hip but you ignore him, starting to move the various dishes into little containers once you find the correct cabinet.

“i’m living in your house as an uninvited guest until i find a house of my own, jungwon. i can’t take advantage of your hospitality,” you chide, snapping the lid of the tupperware open to line up the leftover cutlets inside.

“please don’t feel like a guest or feel uncomfortable. you moved to a new country and we’d love to make your move as easy as possible,” hyewon says, having changed into sleep ware as she unscrews her water bottle to fill it up with hot water she’d heated up before heading upstairs.

you just shake your head as you stack each filled container on top of each other, moving the emptied dishes into the sink. “i won’t feel like a guest and please don’t treat me like one. think of me as long lost family, if that makes you feel better about me doing the dishes.”

jungwon frowns as he sets the washed dishes into the dishwasher next to the sink to let them dry. “i’m not letting you do the dishes, y/n. but i will be very thankful if you could put those containers in the fridge.” 

hyewon just watches as the two of you work in tandem, slipping into a familiar rhythm as she turns around to head back upstairs, her water bottle still empty and her heart feeling as though it was going to beat out of her chest.

[tokyo, 1988]

hyewon wasn’t unaware - not of your history with jungwon. he’d been very open about his past and only previous relationship with you and had told hyewon very early into their relationship. she knew about how you and jungwon had been friends for years before realizing that perhaps there were more than just platonic feelings for each other. she knew about how he’d asked you out during your first year of high school at the suggestion of his friends, park sunghoon and park jongseong.

neither of them had come to jungwon and hyewon’s wedding - only lee heeseung and bae sumin.

hyewon knew about how the two of you dated for eight years before breaking up due to various reasons. she knew about the wreck jungwon had been after breaking up with the girl who was his first love, best friend, and inspiration to work hard all during the breakup. she knew about the eight months that hyewon and jungwon had tiptoed the line between friendship and something more when jungwon moved to tokyo, a year after you and him had broken up. 

she knew that he told her that he fell in love with her at first sight but he was carrying so much guilt from everything from his past relationship that he couldn’t cross the line in good consciousness until hyewon crossed it for him. she still remembers the look in his eyes when she kissed him as he was rambling about how he wasn’t good enough for her and that she deserved someone who wasn’t such a mess. god, he was so in love with her that it almost breaks her heart to realize how long it’d taken for her to really understand that look in his eyes.

so when jungwon told her that you were moving to tokyo after the death of your grandparents, hyewon thought she was okay. she had all the facts laid out in front of her and she knew that jungwon, while he would always hold a soft spot for you, was no longer in love with you anymore. she knew all of this as a fact because jungwon had promised that he wouldn’t open their doors for you if hyewon was even a bit uncomfortable with the idea that you would stay with them for however long it took you to get on your feet in a new country.

he told her, in words that were a lot more gentle and less charged, that the year of marriage that the two of them shared was a lot more important to him than the eight years of love and eleven years of friendship you’d shared with jungwon.

so yang hyewon had said that she was alright - that she wanted you to stay with them as long as you needed to. 

but when you appeared, stepping out of jungwon and hyewon’s red toyota, somehow hyewon lost the quiet confidence she’d had previously. not her confidence in jungwon. not when the moment jungwon parks the car, and perhaps even before, his eyes begin to search the entryway of their shared home for her, drinking up the sight of her the moment she opens the front door.

it’s when you step out of the car with so much grace, so much poise, carrying yourself with a sense of regality that hyewon cannot begin to emulate. that’s when hyewon starts to lose confidence in herself.

you’re elegant, with every step you take filled with a self-assuredness that hyewon knows only comes from having been battered down by the world in every way possible and still getting up every time. your blouse was pressed neatly, tucked into your slacks as though you’d walked off a ralph lauren runway, rather than the runway of an airport. 

your hair is perfectly pulled back into a low but neat ponytail, mascara smudged ever so slightly so it gives you a touch of humanity rather than looking messy. your eyes are analytical but still full of warmth when you look at jungwon - whether you realize or not.

and then you looked at her, and you’re skeptical. of what, hyewon’s not sure. maybe of the way she looks? her age? the way that she carries herself? her clothing? suddenly, hyewon feels like an awkward teenager again as she looks down, examining her body.

she’d gained a bit of weight after finals last semester, prone to late night meals after spending too much time studying. not so much that she felt she’d changed drastically, but hyewon can clearly see that there’s more fat around the circumference of her thighs than she remembered there being. her clothes are wrinkled at the ends of her shirt - not so much that it’s obnoxiously obvious but for some reason, hyewon feels as though you were able to see right through her and at all of her flaws.

see how she was just a young woman fumbling through life, trying to prove to the entire world that she was capable of being a career woman. it feels like it’s just not possible, though, when she knows that you’re a doctor (a neurologist, at that) and that you’re everything that hyewon wishes she was. intelligent, strong, brave, hard-working, elegant, and somehow, the right amount of detached and attached from and to the world.

for some reason, for some explicable reason, hyewon wants to prove herself to you. prove that jungwon was in good hands, even if you’d broken up with him. she wants to prove that even though she was two years younger, she was still mature enough to be included in every conversation. that she was able to hold her own household - one that included her husband. 

and then you enter the house, saying that the interior was beautiful and suddenly, everything makes sense to hyewon. 

hyewon was guilty. she felt guilty that she’d gotten all of the blessings in her life at your expense. at the expense of your relationship with jungwon. at the expense of your happiness.

she wanted to prove that she was worthy having everything that you wished for. just as you had everything she had wished for.

and as jungwon holds her to his chest, his other arm running through her hair gently, hyewon can’t help the tears that stain his satin pajamas - something that jungwon chooses to keep to himself, just holding her even tighter.

[seoul, 1987]

“i’m sorry man, i just really don’t think i’ll be able to make it to the wedding,” sunghoon said over the phone, tucking the cup of the phone into his shoulder as he pours two mugs of coffee.

“is everything alright in seoul, sunghoon? jay called me yesterday and told me that he’s not making it either,” jungwon said over the other end. his voice sounds grainy, somewhat choked up but sunghoon couldn’t tell if it was because of the connection or because of the emotion in his voice.

“i really am sorry, jungwon,” sunghoon said simply, sliding over one of the mugs to where you were sitting at his dining table, stretching the cable of the phone thin as he padded over to the table and then having to spring back before he pulled the phone box out of the wall. 

jungwon just sighed, and sunghoon felt a pang of guiltiness in his chest before jungwon spoke again, sounding almost defeated. “it’s alright. i just - i won’t have half of my friends on the biggest day of my life. i just always wanted to have all of you here with me but i understand that life doesn’t work the way we want it to sometimes.”

he was silent, perhaps waiting for sunghoon to change his mind and retract his statement but when sunghoon didn’t say anything either, he just whispered a soft goodbye before the phone clicked, indicating he’d hung up. sunghoon put the phone back in the phone box before slipping into the seat across from you, where you were sitting, a blank look in your eyes.

“i wouldn’t blame you if you go,” you said softly, never looking up from the inky recesses of the coffee you were sipping from. sunghoon reached over, covering your hand with his.

“i’m not going because i don’t agree with what he did, y/n. not just because of your - history with him. that wouldn’t be fair to him and it really wouldn’t be fair to you either,” he said, patting your hand gently before lifting his mug to his lips, retracting his hand from yours. 

“he did what was right, considering the situation, sunghoon,” you protested, but your voice was weak even to your own ears.

sunghoon thought for a moment, shaking his head when he came to his own conclusion. “no. he didn’t. leaving you when your grandfather had just passed was not right, no matter what you try to say.”

“sunghoon, you’re not being fair,” you tried to say but it was clear that your words were falling on deaf ears.

“he could’ve postponed going to tokyo, even if you guys had already broken up by then. we were all friends even before you guys started dating. it’s ridiculous that he forgot that conveniently,” sunghoon said, and your gaze grew concerned when you realized that his grip on the mug had turned his knuckles white. 

“don’t do that sunghoon. maybe that was his way of trying to get over everything. a fresh start in a fresh place. grandpa was always fond of jungwon, like a son. it must’ve been hard on him and he moved to a new country while he was mourning the loss of a father figure.” sunghoon was silent and you knew that no matter what you tried to say would’ve been moot to him - sunghoon had always been like an overprotective older brother towards you and had been the first person to draw lines between you and jungwon when you broke up. your first ally.

“you’re too kind to him.” 

“i love him.”

sunghoon shook the hair out of his face, looking at you with a strange expression as he analyzes your words carefully. 

“you love him?”

“i can’t help myself. i’ve spent twelve years out of twenty-six being in love with him.” 

[tokyo, 1988]

the drive into downtown is surprisingly less awkward than you’d expected it to be. hyewon and jungwon are engaged in quiet conversation in the front and you’re left to dissect your own thoughts in the back, feeling as though you’d be intruding on a private conversation if you were to listen to them speak. 

like an uncomfortable guest in a cozy home.

you shift in your seat, watching the skies turn from pinkish-orange to blue as the sun rises in the sky, later than you’d expected, shocked by the inky skies when the three of you had piled into the car twenty minutes ago. it seemed like the sunrise was even later than it was yesterday, when you and jungwon had headed out together for you to complete your paperwork at the hospital.

“y/n, you’re the first one on route,” jungwon says, turning onto a smaller street off the main one. you nod before realizing he couldn’t see you and coughing out an, “alright.”

“my classes are over at three and jungwon gets off of work at six o’clock,” hyewon explains, twisting in her seat to meet your eyes. “when do you get off of work today?”

you sift through a couple of papers that you’d been handed yesterday to learn your schedule before starting your rotations today, squinting as you read when you would be ending today. “today…i get off at three o’clock.”

hyewon hesitates before speaking, clearly not having discussed what she was about to say with jungwon. “would you want to go to the dealership with me before jungwon gets off work? it’s not too far of a walk from the university and it’d be good to look at your options before finalizing a car. unless - unless you already have a car in mind?”

for some strange reason, there’s a funny feeling in your stomach when you hear hyewon lose her confidence as she speaks and it’s plainly obvious that jungwon senses it too when he glances at her out of the corner of his eye.

“i have a few models in mind but i’d love if i could get a second opinion before i get a third,” you say as gently as you can, trying to make it obvious that this was as close to an olive branch as you would be able to extend.

hyewon hums in satisfaction and turns back around, but not before you see the shy smile on her lips. jungwon meets your eyes through the rearview as the car draws to a stop in front of the hospital and as you set foot outside the car, he nods.

thank you.

you tug your bag over your shoulder, stuffing the other papers you’d been examining into the bag somewhat haphazardly as you head into the hospital, not once turning around to watch the car drive off into the distance.

the hospital itself is much larger than you’d thought it would be when you first arrived yesterday, given that it was a sister hospital to the hospital you’d originally been working at had shifted you to as part of the fellowship program you’d applied to.

everything is white and glass, looking as though it’d been pulled straight from the future, with top to bottom glass windows and various, streaking pillars of sterile white that supported the entire hospital.

you fumble with your keycard as you pull it out of your bag, flipping it upside down once or twice before finally figuring out how to swipe it through the glass gates that separated the employee entrance from the rest of the hospital. you tuck the keycard into your bag before rushing through the gates as they start to close on you, letting out a sigh as you manage to make it through.

“it was pretty confusing on my first day too,” a voice says from behind you. you turn around to confront the new voice, only to have your gaze continue to travel upward as you come to face an extraordinarily tall man, who looks at you with a cheeky grin.

“i see,” you say simply, turning back around. the man doesn’t seem too discouraged however, reaching out from behind you to press the up button as you wait for the elevator to arrive.

“my name is riki. riki nishimura,” the man continues and you turn around once more to get a good look at him. he’s tall, dark, and every inch the type of beautiful that makes you a little nervous. the type of beautiful that an elegantly carved dagger might be - dangerous and yet so captivating.

he has dark hair that’s strewn across his forehead in a carefully calculated way so that he still looks put together and yet so casual at the same time. angles draw the harsh lines on his face, with a sloping nose and a gaze that makes you feel like he’s reading you inside out. but all of his lines are somehow softened by his lips, which are full and…currently moving, sounding out words that you most definitely have not been listening to.

“the elevator’s here,” the man - riki - is saying when you tune back in and you turn in horror to see that the elevator, in fact, is very much open and the doors are about to close in your face when riki’s hand shoots out to prevent them from closing. you rush inside abashedly, scolding yourself internally for being so caught off guard.

this wasn’t the first time that you saw a pretty face and most certainly wouldn’t be the last time you saw a pretty face. that didn’t mean that it was alright to stutter and trip over yourself every time you did, and for the elevator ride up to the ninth floor, you’re completely silent, chiding yourself for acting so immaturely.

“ladies first,” riki says, extending his arms in an almost overly gentlemanly way. you just bow your head in his general direction before hurrying out the elevator, turning to enter the neurology department’s office, only to belatedly realize that riki had not only not gone the other direction, but was actually patiently waiting for you to enter the office so that he could enter behind you.

you clear your throat, willing yourself back into the composed, analytical version of yourself you’d grown so accustomed to before opening the door to the office, not bothering to keep it open for riki.

there aren’t many people in the office, you notice, as you enter. there are a few very tired looking interns and residents who are scattered throughout the office, with majority of them taking power naps on the long table at the far end of the office or filling up yet another cup with coffee from the coffee machine.

you duck your head forward to see if you can catch sight of your little office from here, only to rear backwards when riki moves directly into your line of sight.

“are you dr. l/n? the new neurology fellow?” he asks, his hands tucked into the pockets of his white coat. you nod, attempting to side step him to make your way to the office but riki stands in your way once more.

“i’m sorry, can i help you?” you ask, shifting so that the bag sat a little more comfortable on your shoulder. riki watches you for a moment - a moment that makes you feel more nervous than you care to admit - and then he shakes his head with a grin.

“you’re spearheading the biomedical research on the new study on neuron death, right? and it’s relation to age and lifestyle?” he asks and your heart for a sinks for a split second as you realize why exactly his face had struck such an impression on you (or at least enough to render you speechless long enough to nearly miss an elevator).

“you’re my resident for the next three months,” you say drily and riki’s grin grows even cattier, if that was even possible. “i was told that you’d be showing me around the hospital today.”

riki offers a mock bow before straightening up quickly when he realizes that the other people in the room have started to brighten up from their fugue state at the presence of a new doctor.

“i’ll be showing you around the hospital and the laboratory facilities. and i’ll also be at your beck and call for the next three months - you’re the only doctor at the university of tokyo’s medical hospital studying synapses and i’m the only resident who’s on any of the neurology research related rotations,” riki explains, looking all too smug as he does so. 

you hum in understanding before turning to him with a question swimming in your eyes. “there’s so many residents in here. how are you the only resident on the neurology research rotations?”

riki finally steps out of your pathway and the two of you exit the main office to walk through the hallway to your office (which was the size of a broom closet, much to your delight) in tandem.

“they’re all first year residents so they have to go on all of the rotations. i’m a second year resident, so i get a little bit more control over the specialties i work in. not to mention that neurology research is a fairly difficult area of specialty to get into in the first place,” riki says as you stop in front of your office, pulling out your keycard to swipe into the small office, trying to keep the wonder off your face at such advanced technology when the lock to the office clicks open.

“i see,” you say absentmindedly, dropping your bag on your chair as you draw the blinds open, pleasantly surprised by the view, as you were greeted with the view of tokyo’s streets filled with people embarking on their own journeys.

“i hear that you’re the youngest doctor to be conducting neurology research,” riki says, making you aware (as if you could forget) of his presence in the cramped room.

“korea’s system is a bit different from japan’s medical system,” you say, turning back around to start pulling out the necessary papers from your bag. 

“i think you’re being too humble,” riki smirks, folding his arms over his chest. “i read your file, you know. wanted to see who would be taking over such a big research project. that was when i saw that you graduated at the top of your class in medical school and that you’d already published research as a medical student, two years earlier than other students. and then that you’d finished your speciality residency in two years, meaning that you’re the youngest fellow at our hospital.”

you blink, genuinely taken aback at the amount of research that riki has done into your academic history. “uh…i didn’t know any of that was publicly available information.”

riki just smiles, fingers tapping his arm as he watches you carefully. “it’s not.”

you frown, but before you can ask riki what the hell he means by that vaguely ominous statement, he slinks out of the room - presumably to check in at the computer in the front of the office, leaving you bewildered and somewhat worried in the room.

you take a deep breath, pulling out more papers when your eyes fall on jungwon’s signature on one of the forms.

emergency contact: yang jungwon.

a pang of guilt runs through your body, a dull ache like thunder after lightning, and for some reason, you can’t bring yourself to even begin to wonder where the guilt came from.

[seoul, 1983]

jungwon held your hand tightly between two of his own, tears threatening to escape from his eyes as he sat in the chair that he’d pulled up to the side of your hospital bed. sunghoon stood at the foot of the bed, frowning as he examined your state.

he’d just returned from military service a couple days prior, excited to see his friends (other than jay and heeseung, who he was forced to see everyday in the military) after making his rounds with his family, only to have to rush to the hospital in shock after jungwon called him that morning.

“sunghoon? hello? sunghoon?” jungwon had warbled out, immediately striking fear into sunghoon. in all the years that he’d known the younger man, sunghoon could count on one hand the number of times that he’d heard jungwon be that concerned.

“jungwon? what happened?” he said, already rushing to the entryway of his apartment to grab a coat from the coatrack. 

“y/n - she - she’s been working so hard lately because she’s doing research and she’s just started her first year of medical school,” jungwon said, it’s only then that sunghoon realized that he’d completely misread jungwon’s emotions. while there was definitely concern swimming in his voice, he could finally hear the sheer panic that jungwon was facing.

“jungwon. where are you?”

“at the hospital. y/n’s medical school called me, saying that she passed out. sunghoon, i’m her emergency contact.”

sunghoon tried his best not to show his displeasure on his face as he watched jungwon, who had his head down, buried into the hospital bedsheets.

“i’m her emergency contact.”

for some reason, jungwon’s words kept running through his mind like a never-ending chant as sunghoon tried to think. it wasn’t the words themselves. no, the words themselves were…fine. 

it was jungwon’s tone. the way that he sounded like he was somewhat in disbelief that he would be your emergency contact. the way that he almost sounded…unhappy? no. no, jungwon would never feel unhappy. he simply wasn’t the type to sound unhappy about anything that was related to you - or at least, as far as sunghoon was aware.

so what was it? what was it that was rubbing sunghoon in all the wrong ways?

it’s only when you finally woke up, two hours later, promising jungwon that you wouldn’t work yourself that hard again, that sunghoon finally realized what exactly was wrong about the whole situation.

it was jungwon’s panic, as if the reality that you cared about him more than he could ever realize, had just set in.

and somehow, sunghoon had a feeling that it was a reality jungwon wasn’t ready to face.

[tokyo, 1987]

“jungwon, please,” hyewon cried, reaching out to try and hold onto jungwon’s hand. jungwon stood as still as a statue, and for a moment, hyewon thought that he was going to shake her hand away, that he would cringe from her touch. but jungwon relaxed as she coaxed her hand into his, and it looked like all of the fight left his body as he slowly sank to the floor.

he looked up at hyewon, who was seated on the couch, watching him worriedly with eyes filled with unshed tears. jungwon closed his eyes, letting himself cry freely and hyewon falls to the floor, gathering jungwon in her arms as she cried into his hair.

“i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, hyewon,” jungwon sobbed, clutching at her tightly, as though he was scared that she would disappear if he didn’t hold onto her.

“it’s okay,” she whispered softly, tucking his head under chin as they sat, kneeling on the floor.

“it’s not, hyewon. it’s just not fair. it’s not fair to you because it’s not fair that i’m still crying about y/n when i just married the woman of my dreams less than a month ago.”

hyewon remained silent, knowing that jungwon needed to spit up all of the guilt that had turned into poison, sitting deep inside his soul, to finally get better.

“it’s not fair because i loved her so much. i loved her so much that i thought i was going to die when she broke up with me. i - i knew that we weren’t perfect, that there were so many things that came in our way at the end of our relationship. but i thought that we would get past it. we’d made it eight years, and i can’t help but think that if i had just made it past those last eight months, we would’ve lasted.

“and i just feel so frustrated with myself because i cannot believe that i’m even saying that because if things had actually worked out, i never would’ve met you when you’re the single best thing that has ever happened to me, hyewon. the day that you changed your name from jo to yang, i swear to god, i thought that it would be okay if god decided to take me from earth that very second because at least i’d die the happiest man on the planet.

“but - but there’s a part of me that i just can’t understand. did - did all of those eight years mean nothing? did i even love y/n like the way i thought i did? i did at some point, because i wouldn’t have been so broken when we ended our relationship…right? but if i loved her then and that was true love, then what is this? and if this is true love, then what was that? is my doubt the real reason why we broke up? then will i be the cause of destruction for our relationship too? it’s my fault that i couldn’t introduce you to my friends - the friends that i’ve spent half of my life. i’ve destroyed every single relationship i’ve ever made for myself. maybe…maybe you and i - ”

jungwon never finished his sentence, his rambling mind given a pause when hyewon pressed her lips to his, firm and so sure of herself.

and between salty tears and apologies, jungwon finally learned how to forgive himself.

[tokyo, 1988]

you’re unsure of what to say, what to do when hyewon finally meets your eyes.

“why the hell would you tell me that, hyewon?” you ask, unable to keep the anger from staining your tone. “what could you possibly achieve from telling me about the intimate details of your marriage?”

your voice is soft but deadly, and yet hyewon sits, unfazed by the sheer venom in your voice.

“i couldn’t sleep these last few weeks,” hyewon confesses, holding her books closer to her chest. you look at her incredulously.

you’d just come back home after a grueling week at work, where you were meeting people that you didn’t particularly care about meeting, fending off riki’s double-meaning words, and trying to figure out how the hell anythingworked in japanese hospitals. where you were hoping for some quiet, perhaps some peace of mind, hyewon had asked you to follow her upstairs, into her and jungwon’s shared bedroom.

jungwon wouldn’t be back for another two hours, so you had been confused on why hyewon wanted to speak with you and hyewon’s recollection of the first month of marriage with jungwon was certainly doing a very poor job of helping you understanding anything.

“i’m really not following what you’re trying to say, hyewon. i’d be very thankful if you could just tell me,” you say gruffly, and hyewon looks at you strangely, as if you were the weird one for not understanding her intentions.

“i haven’t been able to sleep for a week - not because i was worried that something would happen. i see the way that you look at him, you know. i know that you still love him, and it’s so incredibly heartbreaking to see you love him so much because you need to know that it’s just not worth it.”

hyewon’s words feel as though as she’s struck you with something very large, very heavy and very painful as the wind gets knocked out of you.

“it’s not worth it? what’s not worth it?” you eke out once you manage to find your voice.

hyewon looks at you with sad eyes, an unreadable expression on her face. “loving him this much, now, isn’t worth it. maybe it would’ve been worth it back then, when you spent night after night working at the hospital instead of spending time with jungwon, but you chose to prioritize your career.”

“are you seriously saying that because i chose to become a doctor, my relationship with jungwon failed?”

hyewon shakes her head rapidly, almost as though she was begging you believe her. “no! no, that’s not what i mean. i mean…jungwon thinks that the reason that your relationship didn’t work out is because of his own doubts that you didn’t love him as much as he loved you. and there’s some stupid, dark, twisted part of him that won’t admit it but i know that it was because he felt insecure. all the doubt, all of the complaints about the long hours at the hospital, all of it came from his insecurity and i know that because i love him so much, i want him to be the proudest person on the planet. i want him to always hold his head up, being the most perfect person in the room and - and i just want him to be happy with himself.”

you’re shocked into silence, unsure of what to say - or if there even was anything that you could say at this point.

“and i’m telling you all of this because you love him so much that you keep loving this vision of him that you’ve glazed over in rose-colored glasses, holding onto a love that only exists in the past. and it’s just not worth it, y/n. you’re everything that i’ve ever wanted to be and i can’t bear to see you look at jungwon like that,” hyewon says, tears streaming down her cheeks.

you gulp, trying to force down the lump in your throat painfully. “like what?”

“like you’ll never be able to love anyone but him ever again.”

you sigh, turning your head so that hyewon wouldn’t be able to see you cry, brushing away the tears in your eyes as quickly as they form in your eyes.

“why are you telling me this, hyewon? all of a sudden? two weeks after i’ve been living in your house? are you telling me this because you want me to leave? what do you want from me? are you trying to see if i’m going to try to steal your husband? what do you want that i could possibly even give you?” you manage to eke out, trying your best to keep your emotions out of your voice.

“i want you to know that you might not have jungwon but you have so much,” hyewon says, slipping down from the bed to sit next to you on the loveseat on the other side of the room. “and that what you went through with jungwon’s parents was the same i went through. maybe that my career, or my profound lack thereof, was the reason why they pushed jungwon to marry me, even though we had only been dating for a year. that his insecurity about your career wasn’t jungwon’s issue alone, but the thoughts that his family had been shoving down his throat - but you already knew that.”

you laugh, a dry and grating laugh that sounds bitter even to your own ears. how could you forget? how could you forget the way jungwon’s mother had tried to convince you to quit medical school when your grandfather brought up marriage for the first time with the families? the way that jungwon’s father had turned his nose up while your grandmother bragged about the seventy-eighty hours a week you’d spend studying, working, or in class? the way that jungwon’s bright eyes clouded over with doubt at some point, whenever you brought up the future?

the way that sunghoon had been silent the whole time that you’d been in the hospital during your first year of medical school, slipping out quietly when jungwon asked you why you made him your emergency contact, a look of anger and sadness on his face.

“i still don’t know why you’re telling me any of this,” you say, looking up at the ceiling to physically push the tears in your eyes back to where they came from.

“because even though it’s so much easier said than done, you need to fall out of love with jungwon. you’ve gone through so much in your life and if there’s something that i know about you, it’s that you deserve to be happy. and you’re never going to be happy stabbing yourself with a double-edged sword of heartbreak. you deserve to heal, y/n,” hyewon says, mimicking you as she looks up at the ceiling.

“why now, though? why are you telling me all of this now?” 

“i don’t know. i’ve always been a patient person but i just felt like i needed to tell you. it was eating me up day and night for the past few weeks. i just - i just thinking that maybe if my older sister was still alive, she’d be a lot like you. and i’ve never wanted her to be anything but happy.”

“you want me, your husband’s ex-girlfriend, to be happy? the one that i’m sure your in-laws have been completely defaming for the past two years? the same one that happens to be living in your house without paying a cent of rent?” you ask, and this time the laugh in your voice sounds just a tad bit less sad than before, more shocked than anything else.

hyewon smiles through her tears, shrugging. “i’ve learned that anyone my in-laws don’t like is someone that i should definitely go out of my way to talk to.”

“how rebellious for the princess,” you say sardonically, and hyewon turns to you with a nostalgic melancholy written plainly on her face, seemingly not having picked up the dryness in your voice.

“my older sister used to call me princess,” she whispers, voice full of adoration, and it’s clear that hyewon’s older sister was an important figure to her - wherever she was. you turn to her, and for the first time in two and a half months, you feel as though there’s something that’s keeping you tethered to the ground beneath your feet. someone to keep you tethered.

“i’m sure your sister would be so proud of the way her younger sister has grown,” you say, turning away when hyewon starts crying even harder, trying to hide her tears from you, and you two sit there for almost an hour, just trying to be okay with not being okay.

[tokyo, 1988]

“are you avoiding me, dr. l/n?” riki questions, leaning against the inside of the door to your office, having had stormed into your office quite early in the morning as you sit at your desk, looking through some previous literature.

“i’m not even avoiding my ex-boyfriend that i live in the same house as when his wife told me that i need to fall out in love with him because she wants to see me happy after twenty-eight years of sheer tragedy,” you respond, not even looking up from your papers. “not to mention the fact that i quite literally can’t buy a house right now because i’m not a japanese citizen so my ex-boyfriend and his wife are my sponsors in this country so i can buy a house in another two months - even though this country colonized mine just forty years ago.”

“uh…i don’t know if you’re being completely serious about that or not but i hope you know that i personally don’t (and didn’t) condone the japanese colonization of korea…” riki says, his usually suave demeanor giving way to his genuine worry. you crack an ironic smile, looking up at him finally.

“i’m not avoiding you, riki,” you counter, setting down your pen to give him your attention. “and i’m being completely serious. although…i’m not sure why i told you any of that.”

riki hums, ducking to see if anyone was looking into your office before sitting down in the chair across from you. “i haven’t been in the lab for the past week.”

“you haven’t?” you ask sarcastically. “i never realized that my only resident never showed up to work.”

riki rolls his eyes before checking his pager to make sure that he hadn’t been paged before leaning forward in the chair.

“it took some threatening but i heard from dr. watanabe that you’ve been scheduling me conveniently on his rotations more often rather than your own. that sounds like you’re avoiding me,” riki points out and you shrug, neatly stacking the papers in front of you into piles.

“i hear you’re considering neurosurgery as the speciality you want to declare next year - dr. watanabe is one of the best neurosurgeons this department has to offer. i figured you might want to get as much exposure as possible before you go ahead and grab a scalpel,” you explain drily but riki’s gaze doesn’t soften in the slightest, jaw tight as he watches you.

“i’m considering neurosurgery. i might also want to go into neurology research too; i don’t know how i’m supposed to make an informed decision if i only have enough information about one career path because my fellow keeps pushing me away,” riki says and for a split second, your movements pause at the iciness of riki’s tone.

“i’m sorry riki. as your fellow, i thought i was doing you a favor so that you’d be able to make decision towards a cooler profession,” you confess, eyes soft and tone gentle, as though you were speaking to a petulant child - and this only serves to piss of riki even more.

“i’m twenty-seven years old, dr. l/n,” riki says after a moment of silence. “if i felt a certain way about being scheduled on your rotation, i am more than capable of saying so.”

“i’m glad to hear that, riki. i’m sorry for overstepping,” you say, attention diverted to the articles in front of you once more, completely oblivious to the grim line that riki’s lips were set in. the caring tone of your voice should convince riki that you might be shedding some affection on him but it’s not the caring warmth of someone who loves another.

it’s the type of care that a babysitter might offer to the child. like the affection between a young child and a daycare worker. platonic, mentor-like, and just far too coddling.

he watches you for a couple more seconds before getting up suddenly, the squeak of the chair when he does so resounding through the tiny room, startling you enough to accidentally mix up a couple articles. 

“dr. l/n, you may be the brightest person in the room when it comes to neurology but…” riki never finishes his sentence, shaking his head as he leaves the room, leaving you just as bewildered as you always seemed to be in his presence.

[tokyo, 1988]

“hey, you guys know my cousin? the korean one?” one of the residents said excitedly, waving a piece of paper suspiciously as he spoke.

“uh, the hot, married way too soon one?” riki asked, flashing the resident a smirk when he groans.

“yes, hyewon. anyway. she told me that we’re getting a new fellow from korea,” the resident continued. riki yawned, looking around to see if the line for the hospital cafeteria had reduced enough for him to go and get lunch.

“…and she’s SO hot, i actually think i got a nosebleed when i snatched this,” the resident said, taunting the other men around him by hiding the piece of paper from them, which riki belatedly realized was likely this hot new fellow’s application.

riki snatched the paper from him, ignoring the protests from the resident as the other men crowd around him, and immediately, a gasp seems to echo through the four of them. and riki couldn’t even blame them.

dr. l/n, y/n. god. even your name was gorgeous. 

his eyes traveled down the paper at lightning speeds, trying to soak up every piece of information he possibly could before he eventually lost grip on the paper that everyone else was trying to snatch away from him.

“she’s hot and she’s smart? we’ve got to keep her as far away from riki as possible,” one of the other residents joked, merely laughing when riki glared at him.

“i can’t believe that riki’s playboy antics are going to cross international borders,” the first resident snorted, rolling his eyes when riki’s eyes stare daggers into him.

“all of you need to shut up,” riki muttered, and the men finally seemed to register riki’s displeasure with their joking because the clump broke up as the men took their seats.

“why sleep with seven nurses in the same hospital if you didn’t want the reputation of it?” the resident said, stuffing the paper back into his coat pocket. he’s about to say something else (which most likely would’ve led to his death) but he was interrupted by his pager going off, groaning as he gets up to throw out the rest of his unfinished lunch.

“is it true that you actually slept with seven nurses?” one of the other residents, one who still has a bit of shine in his eyes, asked before leaning back when riki raised a very critical eyebrow.

“i don’t know who the hell started that rumor but i highly doubt that spreading lies like that led to too much of a laugh,” riki replied simply, and some of the men groaned, upset that the rumor of the neurology resident stud was untrue.

“you’re lowering our street cred, riki! if people find out that the rumor isn’t true, then no one is going to want to join neurology anymore!” they bemoaned but riki just ignored them, getting up to finally get his lunch since the line had grown so short.

but every step riki took to the lunch line felt like his legs were made of cinderblocks as he kept thinking about the beautiful doctor on the paper. not only was the doctor drop-dead gorgeous, but also well studied and extremely accomplished for only being a year and a few months older than riki.

he sighed as he dug his hands deep into the pockets of his white coat. there’s no way a woman like that could ever fall for him, he decided finally. no matter how riki portrayed himself, he was well aware of his capabilities and his capabilities seemed to lie exclusively in falling for women who wouldn’t even look at him twice. 

granted, there weren’t that many people who fell in that category in the first place, but that made riki’s predicament even worse.

y/n.

something about that name, that face everything made riki feel as though his entire body had been doused in cold fire.

it was confusing, invigorating, and frustrating all at the time. little did he know that it was only to get more confusing, invigorating, and frustrating, just with your mere presence.

[tokyo, 1988]

“dr. l/n!” you hear someone call out behind you, and you slow your pace as you turn to meet the person who’d called for you. you’re face to face with a man that you’ve grown quite accustomed with over the past few weeks in your time at the hospital, and it’s clear that he’s had to speed up quite a bit to catch up with you by the way he’s perspiring just the tiniest bit when he reaches you.

“dr. watanabe,” you greet, adjusting the strap of your bag over your shoulder. dr. watanabe flashes you a crooked smile, running his hand through his hair.

“dr. l/n,” he says and you look at him strangely, even with a hint of a smile threatening at your lips.

“you already said that line,” you remind him and this seems to snap him out of his stupor as he shakes his head.

“right. sorry. brain fog,” he explains as the two of you start making your way to the revolving door. “i’ve learned that a neurosurgeon should never do more than three surgeries a day to keep from going a little loopy.”

“i’ll keep that in mind?” your voice lilts upwards, as though you were asking a question rather than making a concrete statement. 

“right. you don’t do surgeries. sorry. brain fog,” he repeats as he pushes the first panel of the revolving door so it would be easier for you to push your own, given how heavy the doors were.

“is there anything you wanted to speak with me about, dr. watanabe?” you ask once the both of you are standing on the other side of the revolving doors.

dr. watanabe shoves his hands into his pocket before shaking his head, and then nodding, moving his head in circles from the conflicting motion. you watch him with a bemused expression before a small laugh escapes your lips, clearing your throat to regain your composure.

“i’ll get going then?” you say, feet pointing towards the parking garage you stationed your brand new toyota everyday. dr. watanabe’s hand reaches out, as if to physically stop you before he retracts it quickly, shoving deep into the pocket of his coat.

“i just - i just wanted to ask if you maybe wanted to get some drinks?” he asks, blinking his eyes quickly (due to what you presume to be nerves). noticing your hesitation, he adds, “it’s with the entire neuroscience department! or the ones who are either fresh grads or young residents, anyway.”

“oh, i’m not sure…” you trail off, checking your watch. but for some reason, hyewon’s face flashes through your mind and you look up at dr. watanabe, who’s looking at you as though you’d physically hung the sun in the sky yourself, an uncharacteristic shyness for someone so intelligent.

“i understand if you’re busy, dr. l/n,” he says softly and you bite your lip, debating your options when your eye catches on riki, who’s looking at you from the other side of the glass, an unreadable expression on his face as he watches you.

“no. i’m not busy - and please. call me y/n,” you say, smiling up at dr. watanabe, who returns a megawatt grin as he tells you to also call him by his first name.

“here, the bar’s not too far away from the hospital (which is honestly a safety concern, now that i really think about it) so you can leave your car here. also, you can’t have more than a drink if you’re driving back but you can leave your car in the parking garage and i can drop you off at home if you drink more than one drink over an hour,” haruto rattles off as the two of you start walking in the direction that you presume the bar is. you nod along, tucking away the important information as you walk. of course, you weren’t planning on having more than a drink (or staying longer than one or two hours) so that wasn’t much of an issue but it was still kind of haruto to look out for you. 

it was strange that he cared about your safety as much as he did though - whether out of just politeness or gentlemanly tendencies or even a crush that he’d happened to develop of the course of mere weeks and few conversations outside of neurology was still yet to be discovered.

in fact, it was very surprising that dr. watanabe of all people were to invite you to this gathering. out of everyone in the neurology department, you were closest to riki, due to working with him nearly every day for the last month. so the fact that this invitation had been extended by haruto rather than riki was surprising to say the least.

“dr. watanabe - i mean, haruto…is it alright if i invite riki too? i really don’t know anyone besides him and you, of course, but i’d hate to occupy your attention the whole time,” you explain, finding an answer in the intention behind dr. watanabe’s actions when he bristles at the mention of the younger man.

and riki said you were oblivious to things. you can’t help but turn your nose up a little bit, proud of yourself for not being out of the realm of worldly desires for so long you forgot what it was like to have someone like you.

huh. have someone like you. that, you were no stranger to. have someone like you back. that…it’d been a long time since you’d felt that.

you wait for haruto to mumble out an, “of course - i love riki!” before hurrying back inside, where you see riki pressing the button outside the elevator door to go upwards through the glass.

you fumble with your keycard, which you’d tucked deep into your bag, thinking you’d no longer need it for the day, cursing when you see the elevator door open through the employee’s entrance.

you rush through the door, hurrying to stop the elevator from closing on you but you groan in despair when the elevator doors close before you even get within three meters of it. you sigh, a bit too tired too really contemplate your uncharacteristic behavior (you couldn’t remember the last time you’d had the energy to run for anything) after nearly twelve hours of running experiments in the lab.

you’re about to turn around to rejoin haruto, somewhat dismayed, when the doors slide open, bringing you face to face with riki.

he doesn’t say anything, just looking at you with those piercing eyes, a sense of mirth swimming through them as he watches you take deep breaths to regain your balance. and somehow, you can’t find words to piece into the situation, as you watch him from the other side of the elevator. you watch as the doors are about to shut in your face before riki takes one step with those long legs so that he’s outside of the elevator vestibule, far too close for comfort.

his chest nearly presses against your own as he waits for you to acknowledge your behavior - or at the very least, say what you chased him down to say.

but instead, you just look up at him, unsure if you could find the right words to offer to him, tired and every bit confused of what exactly you were doing. it felt as though your brain was fuzzy, filled with cotton instead of brain matter and its a feeling that instills a deep seated panic in you. 

this was riki. the boy - man that you saw more of a younger brother than anything else…right? a mentee? a student? definitely nothing similar to siblings, if you really think about it. but…what? why was it that suddenly, being this close to riki made you feel like taking too deep of a breath was too intimate?

you couldn’t remember the last time you felt this way. had you ever felt this way? reckless and confused? utterly flummoxed by the person opposite from you?

you don’t get an answer to your own question as riki just smirks, cocking his head. 

“let me grab my stuff and sign out,” he says, not once breaking eye contact with you. 

he steps back into the elevator, and even with the distance between you now, you still feel like you’ve just run a marathon with how short of breath you are - all the way until the elevator doors close in your face.

you turn around, your back hitting the wall rather roughly as you try to catch your breath. 

something about it all makes you feel as though every single nerve in your body had been set on fire and then doused in icy cold water soon after.

[seoul, 1980]

“you really think that this is a good idea?” you questioned, ducking under the umbrella that jungwon holds out, shielding you from the pouring rain. 

“does it matter? we’re only twenty and stupid once, y/n,” jungwon reminded you, smiling when you nearly tripped into his embrace.

“true…so what does being twenty and stupid mean to you right now?” you asked, looking up at him, drinking up every single inch of perfection that jungwon always reflected.

“in this moment?” jungwon whispered, leaning in so close, you can see the individual water droplets that are starting to collect together from where he’d gotten soaked running to get you an umbrella. “it means we finish the soju in your apartment. sumin is staying at jay’s place tonight.”

“how do you even know that?” you retorted, inevitably smiling when jungwon presses a rather deep kiss to your lips.

“because jay asked me if i have any spare condoms,” jungwon snickered and you gasped, looking around as though anyone would be outside your apartment complex at two in the morning, eavesdropping on your conversation.

“jungwon! you can’t just say things like that!” you reprimanded him, but to no avail, clearly, when jungwon just ignored you to clasp your hand in his tightly, running straight through the cutting rain to make it all the way from the convenience store your apartment complex faced to your apartment building.

“but i just did!” he called out over the rain and you couldn’t help the shy grin that twists at the corner of your lips. it wasn’t often that jungwon acted like that - like a normal twenty-year old instead of an old man, as you so often teased him for acting like. jungwon always acted as though he was well into his forties and always spoke as though he’d had at least three lifetimes of experience before he’d even hit fifteen years old. it was usually endearing and definitely fit into the slow, innocent love that you and jungwon shared.

but the way that jungwon looked at you in that moment made you feel as though your entire body had been doused in gasoline and then set on fire. there was something different in his eyes - something that you hadn’t seen in the past four years that the two of you had been dating.

a hunger that you’d only dreamed of in the most private of your dreams but never really seen in your kind, sweet, calm boyfriend.

even the way he had one arm wrapped around your waist, and you could feel the intensity of his gaze on your back as you looked determinedly forward, almost too nervous to look back and see what exactly you were faced against.

the way that jungwon had been tapping his foot, waiting for you to unlock the door to your apartment with uncharacteristic impatience as you fumbled with the keys.

the way that his clothes got your own as wet as his when he presses you up against the door of your apartment the next second that you manage to click it closed.

the way that he grasped at every inch of your body in a way that wasn’t foreign or unwelcome but in a way that made you feel as though he was burning your skin with every touch.

the way that he made you gasp as his lips started to lead downwards - further down than you’d ever remembered them going. 

the way that it suddenly felt suffocating for the two of you to be in so many clothes. 

the way that you felt absolutely complete and satiated in his presence.

[tokyo, 1988]

“you’re being cruel, y/n. come on, we all know each other way too well and you’re already a bottle of soju in and you won’t even let a single secret loose!” one of the residents cries from the other side of the table at the restaurant all of you were seated at.

you laugh, waving the overenthusiastic resident off. little did he know that you were about half a shot of soju away from absolutely word vomiting about everything you’d ever done in your entire life - starting with all of the secrets you’d sworn never leave your little box of ‘cannot ever share’. but you’re glad that night after night of drinking yourself nearly to death whenever you’d crossed the legal limit for hours you could work a week had allowed you to perfect this poker face you had going on.

or rather, a very precarious grip on your lips.

“i’ve told you a lot about myself,” you laugh, ignoring the protests of those around you. namely, you very determinedly ignore the way riki is staring at you out of the corner of your eye and the way haruto is slumped over pitifully on your other side.

“you’ve told us that you’re twenty-eight, a neuroscientist, and that you want to adopt a dog. you’re not exactly revealing world class secrets here,” another resident points out and you can’t help the drunken giggle that escapes you.

if there was one thing that you were good at, it was keeping your mouth shut. which made the fact that you told riki the real situation you were faced against early into your working partnership all that much more compromising for your sanity but that would have to be an issue when you could stand on your own feet without teetering over as a drunken mess.

“what else do you want to know about?” you hiccup, smiling at riki when he passes you a water bottle, still determined to keep from looking him straight into his dark, probing eyes. somehow there’s a pool of fire in the pit of your stomach that takes you back eight years but you just can’t place the time or the feeling exactly.

all you know is that if you have any more alcohol and you do make direct eye contact, all sense of propriety and decorum would be going straight out the window. and you did not have the confidence to keep it from doing so.

“tell us about your first love!” the original resident calls out from the other side of the table and the entire table immediately erupts into a series of cries and protests (the two women present, who were thankfully more on your side) and wolf whistles (wildly inappropriate and incredibly drunken behavior from the rest of the twelve or so men barring haruto and riki). 

“you think that such a big secret will come out just like that? come on, dr. y/n. take a shot and at least slip us half a secret or so,” the other most proactive (read: drunk) resident retorts, sliding over a shot glass filled to the brim with soju.

“you’re telling me that i have to take a shot and i have to spill a secret? how drunk are you guys?” you laugh, pushing back the shot glass. the table groans, having failed to get their mysterious new fellow to spill her guts but somehow you find that the shot glass has made its way back to your side of the table.

you look up, and you regret it for just a moment when you see just how deep riki’s gaze is when you meet it. he pushes the shot glass just a tad bit closer to you, a challenge hidden in the way looks at you and with a sense of absolute lack of control over his sobriety. or perhaps, that was just the way that he looked, with the red blush that dusts over his cheeks and the way his eyelids are heavy as his gaze grows naturally sultry.

and for some reason, you accept the shot glass and knock it back in one smooth motion - and no one notices, having dispersed into their own little conversations by the time you do. in fact, even haruto is too busy trying to keep his head up at all to even pay attention to the fact that you and riki have slapped down a few thousand yen bills and have shrugged your coats on and left.

but it doesn’t seem to make much a difference because the rest of the night is a blur and you can’t seem to remember a single thing after you left the restaurant with riki.

[tokyo, 1988]

there’s a violent pounding in your head when you come to and you severely regret whatever it was that you did last night - even though you can’t quite remember what exactly it was that you did last night.

you remember bits and incriminating pieces as the previous night fades in and out of your mind like a sick and twisted person had to decided to play a rerun but decided to leave all the crucial parts.

you try to sit up but slip, and your head meets the pillow rather unceremoniously when you realize two things: these sheets were silk and that was an issue. not because the sheets are ridiculously high quality silk.

but because you (or rather, jungwon) doesn’t own high quality silk sheets.

you gasp, lifting the covers of this foreign bed ever so slightly, wincing when you realize that you were wearing nothing but a men’s t-shirt and boxer shorts - both of which you did not own.

you take a deep breath, trying to recall as much of last night as possible before you get a migraine from thinking too hard.

there are a few things that come to mind:

you were at a little company ‘dinner’ with all of the neurology residents.

you left said company dinner early after getting violently drunk like you haven’t in quite some time.

you left with riki nishimura, one of the main reasons you got as drunk as you did.

you remember having wine with him after you got back to his apartment.

you remember asking him about his first impression of you.

you’re woke up in his bed wearing his clothes.

it’s not much to go off of but it doesn’t take a neuroscientist to figure out what had happened last night. your worst fears are realized when you twist to the best of your efforts and come face to face with riki. or rather, chest to face, as you realize that riki had, and some point in the night, laid his long (rather well built!) arm across your body, from the way that his arm falls just short of your thighs.

you twist back as quietly and gently as possible, trying your best to refrain from any sudden or large movements that might wake the slumbering giant next to you. you lean just slightly out of the bed to catch the time written on the alarm clock, cussing when you realize that you’re not only too late to make a clean escape back to jungwon and hyewon’s place without either of them realizing, but way too late to make it on time for your shift.

“i called us both out sick. the hospital knows that the neuro residents get rowdy during these dinners - they only let us do this twice a year,” a deep voice rumbles from behind you.

you freeze. okay. this is fine. there has to be a solution for this situation. 

attack it systematically. the facts are laid out in front of you. what next?

you decide to slowly sit up in the bed, realizing that there was no way that you could make it out of this situation without having a conversation with the unfortunate owner of the bed you were currently in.

“oh. uh. good to know…i think,” you say, swallowing as you realize just how dry your throat is. “do - do you know what happened last night?”

riki is silent and you steel yourself to sneak a glance at him, only to realize that he was already looking at you with those stupidly hard to escape eyes, full of depth and a promise to something that you’re not quite sure of.

he shifts so that he’s also sitting up and turns so that he’s sitting facing you, much to your horror.

“you don’t?” he asks, eyes not leaving your face even once. you swallow again, pretending to be very interested in the thread count of riki’s bedspread (at least a few hundred, you gather, from how soft these sheets were) rather than having to face him like the grown woman you were.

“not really. i remember pretty much everything up until insisting that you don’t call me a taxi home,” you confess, still trying to memorize every stitch of satin. “i can’t remember a single thing after taking a sip of the wine.”

the silence that fills the room feels stifling as you wait for riki to say something. to put you out of your misery by addressing the elephant in the room. or even better, not address it at all and pretend as though it never happened.

“i see,” he says finally, and there’s a twinge of pain that forces you to finally tear your eyes away from the sheets to look at him. he looks the same, you think. there’s no change in expression on his face…but there’s a twitch of the eyebrows, a look in his eyes that gives way to the inner war that you know he’s going through.

not because riki was easy to read. but because of the way that the same war seemed to ravage at your own chest. stupidly enough, you wanted him to feel the same tear in his chest that you felt in your own.

about what, why, or what you were even feeling, you didn’t have a single clue. all you knew was that you didn’t want to feel alone in these feelings. it felt like after the loss of your grandmother, you’d been alone for so long. 

and although this wasn’t the catalyst you’d expected would finally get you to start processing the sheer amount of trauma she’d left behind, for some reason, you just didn’t want to feel alone in this. even stranger, you wanted riki to accompany you in these feelings.

for the first time in about four years, jungwon wasn’t the one on your mind.

“do you want to talk about it? or acknowledge this at all? or do you want to pretend it never happened and bury it?” riki says finally, shaking you out of your thoughts. a question that you don’t have an answer to.

“i don’t know,” you answer honesty. “do you?”

riki sighs, running a hand through his hair. “i can’t believe that you don’t remember anything that i said last night.”

your eyebrows furrow. “what does that mean? what did you say?”

he looks at you, and this time, you can’t even pretend to not see the heartbreak written so plainly on his face. 

“forget it, y/n. let’s pretend this never happened, if that’s what you want.”

and although that is what you wanted initially, for some reason, there’s a tightness in your chest that, like everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, you can’t explain.

[tokyo, 1988]

the torment doesn’t end when you make it back to jungwon’s home. as it unfortunately appears, both hyewon and jungwon had been so worried sick about your whereabouts that they had taken the day off from school and work to wait and see if you’d make it home before presumably notifying the authorities.

neither of them were strangers to days where you were so busy with a patient or an experiment that you wouldn’t be able to make it back but you were usually really good about phoning home or leaving a voice message about your whereabouts.

so when you finally stumble through the door, exhausted both physically and mentally, by the events of the past day, you’re immediately greeted by a teary eyed hyewon wrapping you up in a deep hug.

“where have you been y/n?” jungwon asks from behind her, arms crossed and his eyebrows furrowed. his tone is stressed, angry, worried, and even a little bit disappointed, you register vaguely.

“i’m sorry, i should’ve called,” you concede, setting down your briefcase next to the umbrella stand as you manage to peel off your jacket and hat the best you can with hyewon still lingering around you.

“yes, you should’ve called. but can you at least explain what you were up to for the last twenty hours that you’re completely unaccounted for?” jungwon says and you’re taken aback for a moment. yes, it was irresponsible of you to get that drunk in a foreign country. and yes, it was very kind of jungwon and hyewon to extend their home to you considering the history between you two. 

but you were also an adult woman who was free to do what she pleased, according to your own free will. you were a neuroscientist for crying out loud. you were more than capable of making intelligent decisions for yourself.

…is what you wish you could say.

you just sigh and shake your head, hanging the jacket and hat up on the coatrack. “i’m sorry jungwon. the neuro department had a dinner last night and i had a few too many to drink. a coworker took me back to their place.”

jungwon doesn’t seem to be appeased by this answer and begins to start questioning even further but hyewon thankfully cuts into the conversation, latching her arm around yours as she guides you to the bedroom you were using. 

“come on, you should get some food and a nice hot shower in you. i can’t imagine how tired you must be right now,” hyewon says, turning around to undoubtedly shoot jungwon a death stare when he starts to protest behind you.

“thank you,” you whisper when the two of you have moved far away enough from the overprotective man standing in the foyer.

“don’t mention it,” hyewon says, but it’s clear that the conversation is far from over when she closes the door behind her when the two of you reach the guest bedroom.

“what’s wrong?” you ask, trying not to think about the fact that the bedspread that you’d been using for the past three months suddenly felt so much less comfortable than you remember it being as you sit down on the bed. hyewon wrings her hands, clearly unsure how to bring up whatever was on her mind.

“i got a phone call from my cousin. i’m not particularly close to him or anything - so i’m sure you can imagine my surprise when i got the call,” she begins and you start to grow worried as she seems to contemplate every word that leaves her lips. 

you nod, wanting to give her the space to approach the topic however she felt most comfortable.

“he mentioned that you had left the dinner with riki, one of the last year residents. mind you, he was drunk out of his mind and he said that riki was probably just making sure that you sober up and get home safe. i just know riki’s reputation so i wanted to talk to you about it. or at least let you know that i’m here if you want to talk to me about it,” she says finally, looking up tentatively. “i didn’t want to tell jungwon because you know he gets about people he feels protective over.”

you just look at her, not quite sure what to say. “right…”

“yeah. that’s all i really wanted to talk about,” hyewon concludes, wrapping her cardigan around her lithe frame a little tighter.

you nod, processing this new information that had been added to the equation. “can i ask what you meant by riki’s reputation?” 

hyewon bites her lips as she contemplates for a moment. “i mean, from what my cousin has told me, riki has a bit of a reputation as a playboy. i don’t know how true it is - and i also know that my cousin is very prone to exaggerating things to make them seem cooler but i figured it was better to tell you than find out that you had no clue later on.”

“i didn’t,” you whisper, a hot rush of shame rushing up your shame. 

“what?”

“i didn’t know that riki had that kind of reputation,” you explain, swallowing with great difficulty as it feels as though some obstruction was forcing your throat shut. “i didn’t realize that. i mean, i worked with the man for what, three months? i must’ve really been living in a bubble these past few months.”

but even as you speak, you find yourself more confused than ever. what did it matter if riki had this reputation? riki was a grown man and could have relations with whoever he pleased and however he pleased. you had no stake, claim, or even reason to wish for anything over him. 

and yet there’s a whisper of a certain green-eyed monster sitting on your shoulder that you have to physically shiver to shake off, unsure of why it was there in the first place.

“i wouldn’t take it too seriously. i just wanted to let you know since - uh - it seems that the two of you are rather close,” hyewon says, trying to backpedal and take back her words. you just shake your head, offering hyewon a bitter smile.

“thanks for letting me know, hyewon.”

[seoul, 1984]

“hey, are you alright?” sunghoon asked, shaking you out of your contemplation. you were sprawled out on his couch, exhausted after another grueling day of talking to people who thought of you as much as they thought of a piece of gum stuck on their shoes. patients and fellow doctors alike.

“i’m fine,” you offered with a smile, accepting a cup of coffee that sunghoon offers you.

“you know this is the third all-nighter you’ve pulled this week, right?” he reminded you and you just nodded tiredly.

“don’t worry about it. i signed up for this,” you sighed and sumin rustled from the other side of you, adjusting so that she was facing you as she spoke.

“yeah…but did jungwon?” she inquired carefully. you and sunghoon both tensed up alike at this. jay’s eyebrows were furrowed, clearly wary of what she was going to say.

“i’m sorry - what does that mean?” sunghoon demanded and sumin just shrugged, taking a sip of her own coffee.

“i mean, you knew that you were going to be working long hours and everything but it kinda feels like jungwon was left in the dark about all of it,” she explained and you looked at her in shock.

“he knew what y/n was signing up for. he was the one who pushed her to apply to medical school. he gave up on korea university to go to seoul national university with y/n so that they could both work on getting her into medical school,” jay fought back and for some reason, it feels like your vision is tunneling as the tensions in the room start to rise.

sumin rolled her eyes as jay spoke, and it was clear that wasn’t the first time they’d fought about this very topic.

“yeah. and then he couldn’t get a job for six months because all of his connections preferred a candidate from korea university,” she reprimanded and you’re stunned by the anger in her voice.

“sumin, did jungwon say something to you? it feels like you’re kinda saying things deliberately but i’m just not sure where it’s coming from,” you retorted. sunghoon sat down next to you, his grip on his coffee mug rather tense.

sumin set down her cup of coffee on the table in front of the two of you, silent as she chose her words.

“it’s just…don’t you realize how much jungwon has given up for you? he chose the same university as you to support your goals and ambitions. he fights with his parents about you spending long hours at the hospital. he pushes off his own wants and needs for you. and he even gave up on marrying in his twenties like he dreamed of because he knew that you wouldn’t be ready to even think about marriage until you started fellowship. and then the only time that he really feels how important he is in your life is when you list him as your emergency contact. you don’t call him while you’re at the hospital. you don’t have the energy for dates.

“even now, you’re only sitting here because heeseung emotionally blackmailed you into being here because we haven’t seen you in four months, y/n. can you believe that? we all live within twenty minutes of each other by walking distance and you haven’t even called anyone. it’s either we reach out to spend time with you or we don’t even see you.

“i can’t even imagine how tired jungwon must be. he put in all of this effort - he changed his entire life just for you and it’s just not fair to see him get bogged down by all of the realities of how much effort he puts in to treat you well and how much you just don’t do the same.”

“i do love him,” you whispered, tears welling up in your eyes. sumin looked at you with a sympathetic look but it was clear that she felt no mercy as sunghoon just gave her a death glare and wrapped an arm around you loosely to ground you to the situation instead of being lost in your own mind and insecurities like sunghoon knew you tended to do.

“i believe you, y/n. but i just don’t think that it’s enough for him. and to be honest, there are a lot of other things that i think that he’s so kind to just brush past in your relationship but i really don’t think that it’s my place to say any of that,” she concluded, picking up her coffee mug once more.

“i think that’s quite enough. you’ve said a lot of things that weren’t your place to say,” jay said finally, getting up rather abruptly. he stormed into the kitchen and you exchanged a look with sunghoon, and you left sunghoon’s side to go talk to jay, knowing that it was best sunghoon that stayed with sumin right now than you.

“hey. you okay?” you asked quietly, watching carefully as jay stared out of the tiny window above the kitchen sink. jay was silent, but you knew that he didn’t mean to use the silence as a weapon. the two of you were similar in that; silence was a friend, not a foe and you and him both knew that you being there was enough of a comfort for both of you to try to sort through your thoughts.

“i’m sorry about that,” he said softly, loud enough for you to hear but not loud enough to drown out the tension in the other room. “i wish i had an excuse for her behavior but she’s been acting the same way with me these last few weeks.”

“i’m sorry to hear that, jay,” you consoled him gently, sighing as you set down your coffee mug. “it’s not easy to be in a relationship for so many different reasons. sometimes…you learn that it’s best to call it quits than to try to force it.”

jay looked at you through the corner of his eye carefully before shifting his gaze back to the stars. “you really want to call it quits on an eight year long relationship? you think that’s fair?”

you figured that it was a rhetorical question at the time so you didn’t answer, even though in retrospect, you probably should’ve.

you probably should have told the truth about just how much pain you felt every time you had to leave jungwon’s sleeping figure to creep out in the middle of the night and head to the hospital. about how you used to cry yourself to sleep in the on call room when you missed anniversary after birthday after promotion after the next reunion with friends. explained how you loved them all beyond belief but the only way you’d ever be able to win over your mother’s family was to show them just how successful your grandmother and grandfather had raised you to be.

there was so many truths that should’ve come out in that moment. perhaps if they had, jay would’ve helped you explain the situation to jungwon and heeseung, who were late to the reunion due to work. maybe it would’ve pushed him to be more honest with sumin about their relationship’s troubles, and maybe jay and sumin wouldn’t have broken up three months later. 

maybe when jungwon came home that night with news about a promotion to the tokyo office, you wouldn’t have encouraged him. and maybe that gray house with the wood and emerald green interior would be yours and his.

but you didn’t. and the price you paid came at the expense of your friends, your lover, and every bit of warmth left in seoul.

[tokyo, 1988]

“you’re avoiding me,” riki says, echoing his statements from just a few weeks ago. this time, he doesn’t knock. doesn’t offer you any pleasantries about his day or even sound slightly amused by the way that you’ve been dodging him. you don’t look at him, pipetting the buffer solution into the tube carefully. 

“you’re not my resident anymore, riki,” you remind him, ejecting the pipette tip into the little bucket before sticking a fresh one onto the pipette.

“since two days ago, y/n. you’ve been avoiding me for the past week and a half!” riki exclaims, running a frustrated hand through his hair

“i had no assignments for you to get done. i already submitted a glowing recommendation if you choose to do neurology research and patient care,” you offer in rebuttal, but you know that once again, you’re doing everything to avoid addressing the actual issue. 

“you’re not being fair, y/n,” he says, and although you can hear the pain and just how fed up he is, you still can’t bring yourself to give him the closure that you know that he’s seeking.

“you said that we didn’t have to talk about it if i didn’t want to talk about it,” you say softly, carefully moving the tubes over to the freezer to chill the specimens over night. 

“i said we could pretend it never happened,” he corrects, although it’s hard to believe the kindness in his words when he says them through gritted teeth. 

“so let’s do that!” you exclaim, ripping your gloves off.

“yes, but that means that we have to be able to exist in the same space, y/n!” riki yells back. you give him a hard stare before turning away.

“just because you have practice doing this doesn’t mean i do,” you murmur under your breath, hoping he wouldn’t hear you. but alas, riki catches it because as you try to leave the workbench, riki corners you against the wall, so that you’re forced to look at him.

“what is that supposed to mean?” riki says, his voice dangerously low. you try to duck out of sight, not wanting to have this conversation here, where either of the two other professors who use this lab space could come back.

“forget about it, riki. i didn’t mean to say that,” you say, avoiding his gaze.

“didn’t mean to say it or didn’t mean that i would hear it?” he presses.

you squirm. “what difference does it make? either way, it doesn’t matter.”

“it makes all the difference in the world, y/n. if you didn’t mean it, then you’re so stressed because of something that you’re just saying things you don’t mean. if you did mean it, then there’s something you want to talk to me about that you’re just not brave enough to raise,” riki retorts.

“brave enough?” you pause your squirming, and for some inexplicable reason, a wave of fury flushes over you. “don’t you dare talk to me about being brave enough for something, riki.”

you push your finger into his chest, angry beyond belief. “i came to a foreign country by myself because i couldn’t bear being in the same country that i lost all the parents i’ve ever had. my mom, my dad, my grandfather, and then my grandmother. and i’m still here, trying to do my best to stay afloat and not break.”

riki is silent, staring at you in shock, but you’re not done yet.

“i’ve lost so much, riki. i’ve lost my parents. my grandparents. jungwon. my friends. i’ve lost so many people for reasons that were completely out of my control. so i started to just push everyone away! the second that i feel like i start to want to see someone in my life, i push them away before they go ahead and leave on their own.

“so when i woke up in your bed, not knowing what the hell happened the night before, what do you think was going through my head? i didn’t know what i did with you, what i told you, or even how i got there in the first place. i don’t even know why anything that happened happened. i don’t know why i asked you to come to the dinner. i don’t know why i couldn’t even get those words out, to ask you to come.

“i don’t know why my heart feels like it’s going to fall out of its chest when i see jungwon at home and then i come here to see you and suddenly, i get the same damn feeling. i don’t know why i started stumbling over my words the day we first met. i don’t know why i’ve worked this hard for this position and i lost so much in the process, only for it to somehow make sense when i met you.

“you frustrate me beyond belief for reasons that i kept telling myself i didn’t know, when the reality was that i just didn’t want to accept the truth that i possibly could’ve started to like someone. the last person i liked was the love of my life! the man that i had dated for eight years. the man that i thought i would get married to. what the hell do you think that i felt when i got that funny feeling in my stomach when i saw you being so…charismatic? handsome? with that stupidly probing look in your eyes, like you could read me to filth? only for hyewon to tell me that i’m one of maybe fifty women who also feel like that! to know that whatever the hell i might feel about you was probably completely not reciprocated!”

your chest heaving, and you’re painfully aware of how crazed you must look in this moment. hair in every which way from the way you’d been tugging at it in frustration. eyes wide and teary with rage and confusion. the slight goggles line on your forehead from a good four hours with them on. the way your lips are swollen from the way you’d been biting at them all day.

yet, he just looks at you, eyes fixated on your own. 

almost as though he can sense another rant coming on, he lifts his hands to cup your cheeks.

and suddenly, his lips are on yours. soft. insistent. but gentle. sweet. tender. you want to push him away, yell at him for doing that. but you can’t. even as your lips don’t move, shaking as you try to process everything. even as you raise your arms to push him away, to shield yourself from the vulnerability that comes with being so intimate with someone, you just can’t. 

even when you break, so damn tired of fighting him away.

even as your arms snake around his neck to pull him even closer, feeling the warmth radiating off of him.

his hands drift from your cheeks to your waist, pressing your body directly against his own. it feels as though all of the anger that you’d been harboring was slowly starting to melt away the longer he held you in his arms, enough pressure to keep you anchored to him but gentle enough to let you run away at any moment.

but you don’t. you find that your heart is tired of running and so you let it rest here, in his embrace.

riki doesn’t push you away, even when he pulls away. he lets out a soft sigh as he catches his breath, resting his forehead against your own.

“are you still angry with me?” he asks, eyes traveling across your face, as though trying to commit every inch to his memory.

“yes,” you whisper, although you’re well aware that there isn’t a shred of anger in your voice.

“that’s okay,” he laughs softly, bundling you up in his arms. “now that i know you feel the same way towards me that i feel towards you.”

“what about all the other women you’ve used the same line with?” you retort drily. riki finally pulls away from you to ensure that you can see the sincerity oozing from his eyes as he speaks. 

“i’m not sure where i got this playboy reputation from, y/n. it’s true that i was flirtatious with women in the past but i’m not a player. i don’t do one night stands. i had a phase when i was in college but i’ve grown out of it. my reputation followed me into medical school and i never felt the need to correct anyone because i never liked anyone enough to want to dispel the rumors. but hear me loud and clear when i say this: i have never loved someone like i love you.”

you can’t help the tears that gather in your eyes again, and suddenly even his gaze feels too intimate for you. you look away, trying to brush away the tears that slip from their confines.

“i don’t think that i can love you, riki…not yet…” you warble. riki just smiles a sad little smile as he steps closer, using the pads of his thumbs to brush away your tears.

“that’s okay, y/n. for you? i’ll wait until whenever you’re ready. i’ve got enough for the both of us.”

[seoul, 1987]

“you know, since jungwon moved on and is getting married, you could also put yourself out there again,” sunghoon said, confiscating your soju bottle. you didn’t even have the energy to fight him, letting him steal your solace from you without so much as a peep.

“i don’t even have enough time to take care of myself. where would i get the time to go date someone?” you lamented but sunghoon looked neither bemused nor sympathetic.

“you drink yourself half to death and then max out your hours at the hospital very much voluntarily, y/n. i’m not throwing you a pity party here,” sunghoon said firmly. you couldn’t dispute his statements. he was right. the death of your grandfather and breaking up with jungwon were both things that happened to you somewhat out of your control. the alcoholism and working yourself to the bone at the hospital was all your own doing.

but it just wasn’t fair.

“did you see the picture of her in the wedding invitation?” you asked sullenly, slumped over sunghoon’s table. sunghoon just stared at you for a moment before sighing, sitting down in the seat next to your own.

“i did,” he admitted.

“she’s gorgeous.”

sunghoon was silent. he agreed.

“i want to move on, sunghoon. you think i don’t hurt? i might’ve broken up with him but it wasn’t because i loved him any less than i loved him when we started dating. i honestly love him even more than that! you know that’s why i broke up with him. and you know how much my grandfather meant to me. after everything that happened with my mother’s side of the family, he still was the one to fight with all of them and cut all of them off when i landed on his doorstep.”

“i know.”

“so then why won’t you let me be sad, sunghoon? why won’t you just let me ruin my own life when i’ve already lost two of the most important people i had!” you cried, but even through your tears, you could feel how ridiculous you were being. 

“i love you, y/n. you’re one of the most important people i have. and i refuse to make that past tense.” so simply. that was it. sunghoon loved you and you loved him. he was the brother you’d always wished you had. the family that you wished you had when you saw other children bring their brothers and sisters to the park to play with them. 

sunghoon took one look at you before covering your hands with his own. “would you let me do this to myself?”

you sniffled. “no.”

he finally cracked a smile at the speed of your response. “so i’m not going to let this happen to you. you’re my little sister, right? i’m gonna protect you.” 

and that was how you finally started healing.

[tokyo, 1988]

“do you have any christmas plans next week?” hyewon asks. it’s a rare feat to have all three of you sitting together for dinner, with jungwon often coming home late due to the end of the year projects at his office. it also didn’t help that you had taken on more patient care work, meaning that your hours were all over the place, trying to treat patients and also complete your research in time for the holidays.

“not really,” you say. “do you two?”

jungwon and hyewon exchange a look before jungwon clears his throat, leaning forward in his chair.

“we were going to hyewon’s uncle’s place in the evening…” jungwon trails off and you can surmise the parts that the two of them are struggling to say.

“go. please. i am a big girl and am more than capable of spending time by myself,” you laugh. more time to get some paperwork done, you think. maybe even spend some time calling sunghoon, since he’d also been very busy with the end of the year projects he had to complete.

“i know…but still. i remember how much christmas meant to your grandmother. i don’t want you to feel like you’re alone on the holidays,” jungwon explains gently and your breath catches in your throat for a moment before you’re able to swallow down the pain.

“oh, don’t worry about that. grandma always wanted me to be a successful doctor more than she wanted me to be a family woman because of everything that happened with my mother’s…you know what. don’t worry about it. i’m gonna be just fine, trust me,” you rasp, picking up your chopsticks again. hopefully shoving more food down your throat would make you feel less like throwing up.

“honestly y/n, i’m more than fine with skipping this dinner if you want to do something together instead,” hyewon says earnestly, but you just shake your head.

“no, please, i don’t want you to miss out on spending time with your family on my account. i heard christmas is a couple’s holiday in japan anyway, right?” you say, trying your best to keep from sounding too sardonic. “besides, i’m not going to be alone.”

hyewon nearly falls out of her seat. “you’re not gonna - do you have a boyfriend?”

you think for a moment before shaking your head. “not a boyfriend.”

“then what? if you know that christmas is a couple’s holiday, and you’re not going to be alone, that means that you’re in a relationship - right?” jungwon interrogates. 

you shrug. “you don’t have to have a boyfriend to be in a relationship.”

“well, then do you have a girlfriend?”

“no.”

“significant other.”

“…jungwon.”

“so then what do you have?”

“i don’t know. we’re taking things slow. it’s only been two weeks. i’m not ready to put any labels on this just yet,” you say casually but your explanation doesn’t seem to satisfy jungwon, who just chews on his shoga-yaki rather intensely.

“uh…but it’s a something?” hyewon asks tentatively. you pause before nodding slowly, tapping your chopsticks on the plate as you think.

“it’s a something,” you agree. “but i’m being very serious when i say that i want to take things slow. i’m a bit out of practice and this is the first time i’ve liked someone since…”

suddenly the wasabi in front of the three of you looks incredibly interesting. hyewon clears her throat, the first to recover. 

“well, whatever it is, i hope it makes you happy, y/n. you deserve a lifetime of happiness,” she says, scooting out of her chair to start putting the leftovers away. jungwon looks at you with a certain look in his eyes - one that you know all too well.

you saw it quite often right before you broke up with each other. 

the feeling that you’re being pulled in opposite directions from each other.

“you’re too sweet, hyewon,” you say, unable to take your eyes off of jungwon - who holds your gaze. he wants to say something - you can tell by the way his grip on his chopsticks grows just that much firmer. you wait, and it feels as though the tension is physically rising to suffocate you…and then jungwon’s grip grows lax again as he turns his gaze back down to his nearly empty plate.

“oh, speaking of big changes,” you begin, getting up slowly. “i have some news for the two of you. i haven’t said anything yet because nothing was finalized but i think that there are only a few steps left.”

hyewon turns off the sink she was washing dishes at, turning to you with a worried look. “is everything okay y/n?”

you nod. “everything’s more than okay - you guys remember the apartment i went to see a few weeks ago? well, i just got my clearances back today and the landlord said we could move forward with the process! i’ll be out of your hair in less than a month, at the maximum! it’s in azabu, so the other side of shibuya but the commute to work is much shorter.”

hyewon leaps forward to wrap you with a tight hug. “that’s so amazing, y/n! you’re never a bother for us but it must be so exciting to have your own place and everything now!”

you laugh and hug her back. but even as you do so, you are distinctly aware of jungwon still sitting at the table, silent. hyewon seems to register this as well by the way that she peels herself off of you to look at him.

“jungwon, aren’t you so happy for her?” hyewon asks, her arms still resting on your own. jungwon doesn’t respond, instead putting the dishes in the sink and then heading upstairs wordlessly, not once looking at you or hyewon.

[seoul, 1984]

“you want to break up?” there’s no anger in his voice. no surprise, no disbelief, nothing. 

you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him. 

“it’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?” you could hear the sheer exhaustion in your own voice.

jungwon sighed, running a hand through his hair as he contemplates. “i don’t know.”

“when did you start waking up and knowing that this wasn’t going to work?”

“i don’t know.”

he sounded equally as tired. you swallowed, almost afraid to ask the question that had been pressing on your mind since sumin had confronted you two weeks ago.

“do you still love me?” you ventured. jungwon looked at you as though you’d asked him if you were suddenly glowing and bright blue. and for the first time since you’d sat him down half an hour ago, saying that you needed to talk, there’s an emotion other than tiredness jungwon’s face.

“i love you so much it hurts, y/n. but sometimes, love isn’t enough.”

[tokyo, 1988]

“what are your plans for christmas, riki?” you ask. you don’t look at him, casually flipping through the pages of your literature. not a word on those pages register in your mind as you wait for riki’s answer.

riki hums, tying his shoelaces. it’s been a long day for both of you - riki was officially in the surgery rotation and was being pummeled left and right with long hours and back to back surgeries. his suspicion was that haruto was taking out his anger on his resident but you thought that haruto was too nice to do something that petty.

“i’m not sure. my parents don’t really care for christmas so…i guess it depends on what the girl i’m seeing wants to do,” he says smugly. you can feel the heat rise up your spine and settle on your cheeks, ducking out of sight from riki before he takes notice.

but it’s clear that riki had spoken with a clear goal in mind, with the way that he smirks from across the desk.

“uh, that’s nice,” you manage, clearing your throat. “and if she wants to just stay at home?”

riki shrugs. “that’s fine by me. i’m not scheduled for christmas so i’m alright with doing whatever you’d like.”

you nod, setting down the papers that were blocking your face once you’ve managed to compose yourself. you’re about to say something (perhaps another quip at the ‘girl riki was seeing’) when a wave of nausea washes over you, forcing you to grip the handles of your chair as you try to fend off the wave.

riki looks at you with concern, watching you keel over as you try to take deep breaths to keep yourself from emptying your lunch all over your desk.

“y/n? are you alright?” he asks tentatively, getting up to squat down in front of you. his brown eyes are full of palpable concern and you try to muster a smile, waving him off. 

“i’m fine,” you manage. “i’ve just been having these bouts of nausea lately. i think that the sashimi i had a couple days ago has been taking a toll on my body.”

riki doesn’t laugh at your attempt at lightheartedness, instead calculating in his mind. “y/n…you know, it’s been around four weeks since we…”

you lift your head slightly. “yeah?”

riki takes a deep breath, taking one of your hands in both of his. “did you get your period this month?”

you reel backwards, snatching your hand away from riki in the process. “don’t be crazy riki. it’s food poisoning, not a child.”

riki raises his hand in surrender, still kneeling on the floor. 

“i believe you!” he says, but you can tell that he’s not fully convinced. “but wouldn’t it be better to be safe than sorry?”

you just stare at him, unable to process anything all of a sudden. you had been having pretty bad migraines the past week. and your appetite was suddenly nowhere nearly as robust as it used to be. but you had chalked all of it up to working too hard over the past few weeks, trying to tie up all the lose ends before the end of the year. 

no. all of that was just due to stress. there was just no way that you were pregnant. you were dr. l/n y/n, for heaven’s sake! there’s just no way that you would be pregnant of all things. not after you’d done everything to run away from a family, there’s just no way that the universe could be so cruel to give you the one thing that you were the most afraid of.

but something about the way that riki was looking at you made you feel as though there was a cause for being concerned.

“i - we didn’t use protection?” you ask incredulously. riki pauses before slowly nodding his head and then shaking it.

“we did…the first two times,” he says, somewhat sheepishly. and even as you’re scared shitless, you can’t help the startled giggle that escapes you.

“riki, i need you to tell me exactly what happened that night.” your voice is serious, but not unkind and riki sighs before getting up, dragging the chair on the other side of the desk to the side that you were on.

he holds your hand once more before taking a deep breath, and recounting what had happened that night.

[tokyo, 1988]

“i’m not drunk, i swear,” you promised, but riki was thoroughly unconvinced by the way that you couldn’t walk in a straight line. riki was nowhere near sober (in fact, he was vaguely sure that he was also on the verge of blacking out) but at least he could tell his left from right. with about 10% confidence. 

and somehow, that was better than you were faring.

“yeah, and i don’t have the world’s fattest one sided crush on you,” he snorted, somewhat under his breath and somewhat for you to hear.

it’s clear that even if your occipital lobe might not be functioning at 100% capacity, your auditory system was sharper than ever. you pause, stumbling into riki a little bit.

“you what?” you asked, hiccuping slightly as you gasp. “did you, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven years, old use the word crush?”

riki rolled his eyes. “that’s what you’re fixated on?”

you giggled. “it’d be so beyond stupid of me if i never noticed the chemistry between us.”

this took riki aback, sending him stumbling into the alleyway behind him. in any circumstance, riki would be wary of being in such an alleyway in the middle of the night in the dead center of tokyo but he’s too fixated on what you said.

“you knew?” he whispered incredulously. you shrugged, clearly not understanding the weight of the words you were saying.

“that you had a ‘crush’ on me? not really. but i always felt kinda attracted to you - like magnets, you know? i figured it wasn’t one sided if the tension was that strong.” you said it so nonchalantly, as though you were reminded riki that there are 365 days in a year or that uracil is found in RNA, not DNA. 

the next thing riki remembered is the look in your eyes when he drew closer and the gasp when his lips were on yours.

after that? nothing.

[tokyo, 1988}

you look at riki, trying to gauge whether he’s messing with you or being completely serious. “you don’t remember anything after that?”

riki shakes his head. he ducks quickly to avoid the angry swat you aim in his direction. “hey! it’s not like i was sober either!”

“but you remembered enough to know that we…you know…more than once!” you splutter, and riki lifts up a finger as if to protest.

“i only know that because of contextual reasoning, actually. i found the condom wrappers in the trash later but i know we went to sleep around four or five in the morning because my alarm went off at five and you nearly fell out of bed because you thought it was a fire alarm,” riki says, eyebrows drawn tightly together as he tries to piece together what happened that night.

you let out an exasperated sigh. “if we were both that drunk, i can’t imagine we were making all the best decisions regarding sexual safety.”

riki’s hand latches itself back onto your own. he looks up at you earnestly, sincerity oozing from him. “i mean this so genuinely, y/n: no matter what happens, we’ll figure it out, okay? pregnant or not, we’ll figure this out. just promise me one thing.”

you look at him, almost afraid of what he was going to ask of you.

“what?”

“just promise me that you won’t run away. promise me that you’ll let me be by your side. promise that you’ll actually lean on me. promise me that we can figure this out together,” riki asks, emotion thick in his voice. you blink, shocked that that’s what he wanted you to promise. 

he could’ve walked away at any moment. pregnancy or not, you knew that the blame always fell on the women. especially in asia? pregnant? when you and riki weren’t even in an established relationship, much less not married? you knew that the implications would be enough to make you lose your job, just for the absolute tarnishing of your reputation.

but riki wants to be here with you, and take the fall with you? the fall. oh. you’re gonna lose your job. and riki’s gonna lose his job for standing by you. and then…and then it’ll all go to shit. all of the things you’d worked so hard for your entire life would be for nothing. all the sacrifices you’d made to get here would be moot. everything your grandparents gave up for you to become a doctor would be meaningless.

riki seems to register that you’re starting to spiral by the way your breathing grows more rapid, as if there wasn’t enough air in the room. he gets up, and gently guides you into his embrace as he leans over to hold you to his chest. his chest is firm, and so is his grip on you, but in the way that a snug sock might be. firm but not demanding. gentle and reassuring. maybe not like a sock then.

“it’s okay, y/n. i promise,” he whispers into your hair. and suddenly, it’s as though he’s unlocked something inside you as the tears start to flow, soaking riki’s button up shirt. 

“how can you say that?” you sniffle through your tears and riki’s heart seems to physically break at the pain in your voice. he might not know what you’ve gone through for you to seem so distraught or unbelieving of the fact that everything was gonna be okay but riki made a solemn vow to himself in that moment.

he was going to make sure that you never had to doubt that he would be there with you. that you’d have to struggle to make everything okay on your own.

“because i’m here with you, y/n. and i promise that i will be for as long as you’ll have me.”

riki doesn’t move as you just cry for the next twenty minutes.

[seoul, 1985]

you sat, almost numb to the coldness of the hospital chair as you tried to commit your grandfather’s every minuscule movement to memory. your grandfather had always seemed so strong - as though he’d been made out of the thunderclouds that were threatening torrential rain outside. he was tall and still fairly muscular - remnants from his youth as a farmer’s son. he always had a bright smile and a looked like he hadn’t aged past forty well into his seventies.

it was so strange seeing him laying there in that hospital bed. he looked so small and fragile. completely opposite from the grandfather that you remember teaching you how to ride a bike or write a check. the grandfather who’d knock on your door and bring fruits while you were studying and didn’t have time to eat.

it felt wrong.

your grandmother came back into the room with two cups of coffee, extending one out to you. you sat up in your chair as you accepted it and she sat down next to you, watching the gentle rise and fall of her husband’s chest.

“i can’t believe he has cancer, grandma,” you said, unable to keep the worry out of your voice. your grandmother looked at you before looking back at her husband.

“i told him that those cigarettes would be the end of him,” she sighed, but you could hear the pain in her voice. “but he was a stubborn old man and he always used to tell me that they were his one solace when you weren’t at home.”

a feeling of guilt sat low in your belly, like it was churning its sickness into you. 

“i should’ve come home more often,” you whispered but your grandmother waved you off.

“we wanted you to work hard and become a doctor. it was your mother’s dream, after she saw her sister become a dentist but things never really worked out,” your grandmother sighed. you paused, your breath catching as you turned to your grandmother slowly.

“my mother had a sister? i thought you told me that you only had mom and that’s it,” you said. your grandmother paused, as though she were deciding to rectify her slip or to smooth it over. the truth won out as your grandmother sighed, leaning back in her chair. you watched with bated breath, shocked at the possibility of having a family that your grandparents had withheld from you.

your grandmother kept her gaze on the cup of coffee in front of her.

“your mother had a sister. she was from your grandfather’s first marriage.” your grandmother took a long sip of her coffee as she waited for you to at least somewhat recover from her shocking revelation.

“what happened to her? i knew that grandpa had a wife but i didn’t know that they had a child,” you spluttered. your grandmother nodded.

“they had a child. your mother and her were very close when they were children, even though they had different mothers. her mother died when she was young so i was like her real mother. and it was all alright until she went to college. your mother must’ve been fifteen or sixteen when her sister went to college.

“i don’t know what happened. it was as though she went as a happy, loving child and came back so broody and snappy all the time. that was around the time that your mother and her sister started growing distant. eventually, she stopped coming home.

“she started to cut us all out slowly, only keeping in touch with her father. and then one day, she showed up on our doorstep with a wedding invitation with some rich boy. his parents had looked at our family background and offered her an ultimatum: denounce her family or be unable to marry their son.”

your grandmother sighed, looking down in her lap. had she always looked so weathered? the lines in her forehead seemed so prominent all of a sudden.

“she chose the boy. she wrote to your grandfather a few times but that was about it. and then your mother grew to become an english teacher and got married to your father and got pregnant with you. she always missed her sister, no matter she tried to hide it. she invited her to her wedding but she never came. i think she had someone drop off congratulatory cash though.

“your grandfather was so upset by that that he forbade any of us from speaking to her - not that that was possible. he wrote her out of the will and never allowed us to speak about her. but your mother, she had a heart that was too soft for her own good. after - after she died giving birth to you and your father died in that car crash on the way to the hospital, we found out that she wanted you to grow up under her sister’s care if something happened to her and her husband.

“the last time we saw your mother’s sister was when she came to our house to say that she wouldn’t adopt you because her in-laws were too obsessed with pedigree. they said that they didn’t want to adopt someone who was born to poor parents and…a child who had ‘killed’ her parents before she was even born. it didn’t help that your father also didn’t have his parents and didn’t have a huge sum of cash to fall back on. your grandfather was so furious at her words that he held her by her elbow and threw her out of the house.”

the tears streamed down your cheeks silently as you listened, unable to even think straight as you tried to process her words. your grandmother chuckled drily, shaking her head.

“that old soul loved you from the moment he laid eyes on you. said that he lost his daughter for only three minutes because she was finding her way back as you,” your grandmother said and you choked as you tried to catch your breath, winded by the realization of just how much your grandparents had sacrificed for you.

“i can’t believe you didn’t tell me this,” you said, unable to speak properly because of the tears clogging your throat. your grandmother tried to smile, rubbing your back gently.

“what good would’ve that been? you are our angel, y/n. our blessing. we got to experience being parents all over again because of you. but that’s why your grandfather and i always pushed you so hard to be a successful doctor. we wanted you to do everything your mother couldn’t do…and prove to them that pedigree has nothing to do with the amount of money you have, but the way you grow,” your grandmother said, and you leaned into her warmth as she continued to rub your back.

“i will grandma. i am going to be so successful that grandpa is going to be able to walk down the streets with his head held high because that family is going to weep because of how successful i’d become,” you promised, eyes red with determination.

and even though in hindsight it was probably just coincidence, there was a slight smile on your sleeping grandfather’s face as you grit your teeth and set your sights on ambitions higher than the clouds in the skies.

your grandmother swore, two weeks later, that that determination is what finally allowed him to rest easy when he closed his eyes for the last time.

[tokyo, 1988]

riki looks at you, beyond shocked at what you’ve revealed to him as the two of you sit on his couch at his apartment. the two of you had decided to move from the hospital to his apartment so that you could take a walk watching the tokyo sunset to calm down your emotions a bit after buying the pregnancy test. you laugh through the tears streaming down your face as you fan yourself.

“that’s the first time i’ve ever told that actually. i can’t believe how much burden has been lifted off of my shoulders by talking about that,” you say. riki is still frozen as he tries to process this incredible amount of information that you’ve disclosed with him.

“i - i don’t know what to say, y/n,” he says honestly. “i am so thankful you trust me enough to tell me though.”

you brush at your cheeks to wipe away the tears. “i felt like i had to explain my spiral from earlier.”

riki finally moves, raising his own hand to cup your cheek and brush away your tears. “you don’t have to justify yourself to me, y/n. but thank you for telling me. it makes a lot more sense why you told me you were so protective about your job…and your hesitation with pregnancy.”

“yeah, having your mom die during pregnancy and then being called a killer for her dying in labor doesn’t really prove to be a great way to embrace motherhood,” you eke out, failing to keep the dark dryness out of your tone.

riki lifts his other arm, twisting so that he was facing you as he sat, and cups your other cheek. “y/n, if you take that pregnancy test and it’s positive and you don’t want this child, i am here for you. it’s one hundred percent your decision and my approval or lack of it means absolutely jack shit but just know that if you want to abort this baby, we will abort this baby. you are the most important person here right now and i want to do whatever you want to do.”

you nod, unable to come up with the words to express your thankfulness. not just at the way riki has placed so much of the deciding power in your hands, but also because of how gentle and kind he has been throughout the entire time you’ve been spiraling.

“i wish i could tell you how much that means to me,” you whisper gently, leaning into riki’s warm touch for just a moment longer before taking a deep breath and pulling away.

“you okay?” he asks, slowly retracting his arm. you hesitate for just a moment before resting your hand on his arm, trying to offer him a comforting smile.

“i’m perfect, riki. i - i think i should take the test. it’ll take half an hour to get the results anyway,” you swallow and riki just watches you carefully before slowly nodding.

“alright. well. you know where the bathroom is - let me know if you need anything, okay?” he says softly. you nod, but you can’t hear him well over the pounding of your heart as you slowly make your way to the restroom.

the process itself takes a lot less time than you’d expected. between opening the package and peeing on the stick, you manage to finish the whole thing in less than seven minutes (which you know for a fact because you count out each individual minute for the last four minutes). the rest of the time that you’re in the bathroom (six minutes, that you also count out) is you biting your nails, trying to figure out how to break this to jungwon.

whether it was negative or positive, there was just something that seems to have clicked when you were sitting with riki on his couch, talking about things that you’d never had the courage to talk about prior to this evening.

with jungwon, things had always been so easy - everything just happened because it felt like it should happen. there was no hardship until the moment that the two of you grew up, and realized just how much you would have to sacrifice for each other to stay together. it felt like when push came to shove, the two of you had been so used to the comfort of always having each other’s presence that you never truly imagined how difficult it would be to adjust outside of that life.

but with riki, every step seemed to be the universe offering you a new life lesson. there was so much growth that came with riki and yet, it felt right. riki never ran away from you, no matter how much you thought you were a burden in his life for all of the unresolved, messed up, jumbled feelings that seemed to weigh you down everyday.

and in the few short weeks you’d been seeing riki, somehow you were presented with more difficult decisions and more conflict than you were exposed to with jungwon over the near decade that the two of you were dating.

and the fact that riki was able to coach you through all of them, despite the fact that he was younger than you, and give you the support that you needed (never mind the near magnetic compulsion you felt towards him) gives you the courage to step out of the restroom.

riki is standing just outside the restroom, back leaned up against the wall as he seems to be reassuring himself quietly, rubbing his thumb over his own knuckles in a rhythmic motion.

“how are you holding up?” you ask quietly, and riki’s head whips towards you when he realizes you’re out of the restroom. he shrugs, running a hand through his hair but you know that there are words he wants to say that are on the tip of his tongue.

“i’m fine,” he says. you nod, almost ready to take this as an answer before a chord of dissonance strikes through your body and you turn around to face him once more.

“are you sure, riki? i mean, this is a big decision for you too,” you say gently. and it’s as though these are the words that riki needs to hear for the dam of his emotions to just break. he looks at you for just a moment, taking in every single inch of your aura as he just stares.

and then he pulls you in for a kiss that feels as though he’s physically trying to mould your soul into his. like he’s trying to transfer every single ounce of his doubt, fear, and love into your brain just by the force of his kiss. 

your hand trails up his arm to cup at his cheek, gently caressing it as riki begins to calm down, his heart rate growing steadier and slower with your touch. he pulls away to rest his forehead against yours, eyes closed as he tries to steady his breath.

“i’m so scared. but i’m also so ready for this. and maybe our relationship happened all out of order and without convention but i just…i know that there’s something here. something i can’t let go of, y/n. no matter what,” riki whispers.

these words uttered by anyone else, would make you want to run and scream and bury your head in the soil, running far far away. but from riki? it just feels right.

you just look up at him and smile, taking a deep breath. “i’m here for you riki. just as much as you’re here for me.”

riki nods and then pushes the door to the bathroom open, where the pregnancy test is sitting on the counter and you don’t even have to look at the test to know the answer.

instead you just see riki melt into you, wrapping you up in a protective, warm, and vulnerable hug.

it’s positive. 

[tokyo, 1989]

“that’s the last of the boxes, i think,” jungwon huffs, dusting his hands off as he sets down a large cardboard box. you and hyewon had been a little too excited when you’d gone furniture shopping together for your new apartment so the number of boxes that were now lined up against the walls were far too many to count.

“thanks for helping out, jungwon,” you say, offering him a glass of water that he accepts with a tight smile. hyewon was downstairs, in the lobby of the apartment building, picking up the carry out food that you’d ordered to your apartment.

or at least, this was the excuse that she was using to escape from the sure to be nuclear fallout that would emerge after jungwon found out that you were pregnant, which she’d convinced you to reveal today.

you’d told hyewon pretty much right after you’d found out. they’d just come back home from christmas dinner, and hyewon had been looking so light and bubbly.

“you know what, y/n. i wish that you’d get married to that boy soon. i just visited my niece and she is just the most precious person on the planet! i wish i’d get pregnant to have my own bundle of joy but until then, i’m gonna hound you until you have one,” she’d said, folding her formal attire and putting it away in the closet. you didn’t notice in the moment, but she was looking at you with a strange, almost knowing look as she spoke. you hummed, nodding along as you meditated on whether or not to tell her that her wish may be coming true sooner than hyewon might expect.

you glanced at the shut door that led to the bathroom, where jungwon was taking an obnoxiously long shower. 

“hyewon…” you began, a thumb running over your knuckles in an effort to ease your nerves. “i have to tell you something.”

hyewon turned around slowly, her gaze growing serious at the pensiveness in your tone. “is everything alright?”

you nodded, and indicated for her to follow you out of the master bedroom. she might’ve invited you up there to chat but you still didn’t want jungwon to see you speaking in hushed tones with hyewon. he’d been a little distant from you since you told him that you were going to be moving out and you didn’t want to put hyewon in an awkward place if he saw you confiding in her.

not to mention the fact that there was no way in hell that you could even tell jungwon about the pregnancy.

“everything’s fine hyewon. do you wanna drink some hot cocoa with me? i brought some from my date,” you said, trying to calm hyewon down. she nodded, though clearly not satisfied with your secrecy.

the two of you made your way downstairs, each lost in your own thoughts. the entire time that you fix up two mugs of hot cocoa, you’re silent, unsure of what exactly to say to her. 

“are you pregnant?” hyewon was the one to break the silence and you turned to her, shocked. 

“how did you know?” you asked, dumbfounded that she’d known so quickly. hyewon accepts the mug of hot cocoa that you handed her as she thought, trying to find the words to answer your question.

“i’ve known for a while,” she admitted quietly after a few moments of silence. “there’s a glow that you didn’t have before. at first i thought it was because of the man you were dating but it’s almost…softer than that? i don’t know. there’s a maternal energy that you have that is a lot more prevalent now. you’re a lot warmer now.”

there’s a blush on your cheeks as you listened to hyewon. had you truly changed that much? were you that different of a person? in the short time that you were aware of your motherhood, you had never really considered that anyone else would be able to recognize your inner tsunami of emotions.

much less that anyone would be able to tell that you were growing a new life - a thought that was equal parts frightening and beautiful.

“does anyone else know?” she asked, and you’re forced back into the quiet hum of the heating in the background.

“just riki - the father - and you,” you confessed and hyewon nodded, taking a long sip of her hot cocoa.

“does sunghoon know?” she continued. you shook your head, opting to drink from your own cup instead. you’re not sure if it’s the morning sickness or the realization that you need to tell sunghoon but there’s a queasiness in your stomach that doesn’t seem like it’s going to leave anytime soon.

“not yet. and obviously, neither does jungwon,” you said. hyewon nodded, silent as she contemplates your words.

“neither of them are going to react well to this,” she said plainly and while you’re somewhat taken aback at her matter-of-fact statement said so bluntly, you knew that was the truth. seeing the panic on your face, hyewon got up, pausing for just a moment in front of you before wrapping you in a deep hug.

“but even if they don’t, know that i am happy for you. if you want this baby, i will be here for you every step of the way. they’ll come around. they just love you a lot,” hyewon said.

you hoped so.

“hello? earth to y/n?” hyewon says, waving her hand in front of your face.

“sorry, i was just spacing out,” you say, blinking as you’re brought back to the present.

“you’ve been really spacey over the last two weeks, y/n. is everything alright?” jungwon asks. it’s the first time that jungwon has spoken to you about anything other than basic small talk ever since you’d broken the news that you were moving from their place. 

hyewon and you exchange a look and hyewon mumbles something about using the restroom and escapes once again, leaving you to face jungwon alone.

“jungwon, i have to tell you something,” you say with a deep sigh. jungwon stares at you, unsure of exactly how he was supposed to react to that statement. he settles for just nodding, and the two of you head from the kitchen to the living room, where the only furniture that had been set up was a couch and an ottoman.

you sit on the ottoman, across from jungwon, who sits on the couch. but as you open your mouth to tell him the news that had been causing you to be so distant lately, there’s a buzz at the door and your stomach sinks. 

in your rush to move all the boxes and all the furniture into the apartment, you’d completely forgot that you had invited riki to come over and help with the move in process, thinking that jungwon and hyewon would leave by the time he would come over. you curse as you check your watch, realizing that you’d miscalculated just how long it would take to move everything in. 

jungwon gives you a strange look. “are you going to answer the door?” 

you swallow, nodding as you get up, buzzing riki in. “jungwon, i need to tell you about someone and…you’re going to meet him right now and i need you to like him. okay?”

“y/n, what are you talking about?” 

you’re not sure what compels you. maybe it’s the fact that this is the longest conversation that you had with jungwon in over a month. maybe it’s the growing pressure to tell him. maybe it’s the nerves. the probing look in his eyes. or maybe…maybe it’s the comfort that you feel in jungwon. the comfort that you felt years ago, when you were head over heels in love, and felt like it was almost a crime to keep anything from him because you knew just how much he cared. 

“i’m pregnant, jungwon. and riki is the father. and you don’t know riki. but he works with me at the hospital. he’s a year younger than me and i’ve been seeing him for two and a half months. and i - i think i love him.” 

the words practically trip over themselves as they rush out, each one more disastrous than the one before. jungwon grows pale with your confession, before a flush rises in his cheeks, anger so obvious in his eyes that for the first time in your life, you’re afraid in his presence.

and as if the universe hadn’t had enough contempt for you very existence, there’s a knock at the door and you don’t have time to react. jungwon leaps up, faster than you can move, and opens the door in the blink of an eye. 

everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion. jungwon grabbing riki’s collar. riki locking eyes with you and keeping his hands behind his back. jungwon pulling riki into the apartment. pushing him against the wall. hyewon rushing out of the bathroom. riki doing nothing to stop jungwon when he draws his fist back. hyewon trying to physically pull jungwon away from riki.

“YOU PIECE OF SHIT - YOU KNOCKED HER UP? HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO HER? DO YOU KNOW WHAT SHE DID TO GET TO WHERE SHE IS NOW? AND YOU JUST RUINED HER LIFE?”

jungwon was screaming, but for some reason, you can’t process anything he’s saying. all you can do is stare, dumbfounded. 

riki just looks at him, almost as if he’d expected this explosive reaction, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons. you’d told riki bits and pieces of your past with jungwon - especially about why you were so hesitant to jump into a serious relationship - but nothing significant enough for him to just stand there while jungwon was threatening to beat him up.

“i love her, jungwon.”

jungwon’s fist just barely swings past riki. you don’t give him a chance to wind up and aim properly this time. you leap out of your seat and push jungwon away, and it’s clear that jungwon is taken aback by the statement when he practically topples over from your slight push.

“you what?” jungwon whispers, chest heaving as he looks at riki as if he’d grown a second head. hyewon looks tense from behind him, her arms still circled around his waist.

“i said, i love her. and i’m gonna stick by her. and…and if she wants to keep the baby, i’m gonna marry her,” riki says, almost matter-of-factly. this time, you almost topple over. it’s as though the sheer nonsensical nature of the situation has knocked all the anger out of jungwon as he just stares at riki. and then you. and then riki.

“you’re…what?” he says.

“you - you’re - you…what?” you echo. riki nods, looking down at you with a warm yet concerned gaze. he lifts his arm, no doubt to wrap you in a protective hug, but decides against it when he looks at jungwon again.

“if you want to keep the baby, i’ll marry you, y/n. not because i think that marriage is going to magically take away all the issues or anything. but i want life to be easy for you. i want life to be good for our baby. i want you to have a family - if that’s what you want.” his voice is soft, but firm. earnest and sincere but full of conviction. 

if he was running for a political seat, you’re sure that you would’ve already cast your vote for him. 

“huh?” at least the confusion was causing jungwon to steer away from anger as he just looks at you with an almost visible question mark floating above his head.

riki is the one to answer his (many) questions. “i’m a doctor at the hospital y/n works at. i’ve known about her since way before she and i even met and i’ll be honest - it was love at first sight for me. but i didn’t think that she would ever look at me like how i looked at her.”

“youngest in her class to be a fellow. top graduate from one of the best schools in korea. at the forefront of innovation in her field. sincere and dedicated to all of her patients. she was just about perfect in every way, shape, or form. and then i met her in person.”

“she was gorgeous, intelligent, and every inch of a walking goddess that i had envisioned her to be. but she didn’t see me. not the way that i saw her. at first, i thought it was because of my age; the fact that i was a year younger than her. or perhaps that i wasn’t nearly as accomplished as her. or even that i scared her. i didn’t know what it was.”

“then one day, she casually mentioned you - jungwon - and her living situation. she mentioned in passing, like she wasn’t thinking about it but for some reason, it was stuck in my head. and then i realized that she didn’t see me because she wasn’t seeing any man - any man but you. so i tried to give up. i tried to forget it but when you know, you just know. no matter what i did to try and push away my attraction - writing it off as lust or just puppy love, i couldn’t. i was in deep.”

“and then…she walked into the hospital and suddenly i just knew. knew that even if she wasn’t completely over you, maybe i had a chance. maybe she would open her eyes and look at me - see me for me. see me the way i had been seeing her the whole time.”

“imagine my surprise when she confessed, drunk out of her mind, that she saw me at least somewhat like i saw her. we were both at the neuro department’s dinner and had one too many drinks. and with that confession and all that alcohol, one thing led to another and…we…slept together. i woke up with the woman of my dreams in my bed and i was beyond ecstatic - did this mean that we could progress past the relationship of a fellow and her resident? did she see me as a man instead of an immature person who followed her around?”

“she said she wanted to forget it ever happened. i didn’t know what to do. it felt like my entire world was crumbling to pieces. i had hoped, dreamed, and twisted my heart into so many different shapes that i didn’t think it could handle any more bending before breaking. did she just see me as a one night stand? or worse…did she even know that it was me? was her confession just an alcohol induced babble? i was lost. and then she stopped talking to me. avoided me when i came to talk to her. pretended she didn’t see my pages. assigned me to so many surgeries, i was too tired to search for her.”

“there were more times than i can count that i staked out in front of her office, determined to catch her and confront her. only to fall asleep before i could. i always woke up to a warm jacket wrapped around my shoulders and another intern waking me up to tell me to sleep in the on call room. i knew she cared - i just didn’t know why she was running away.”

“and then she kissed me and suddenly, nothing mattered anymore. she kissed me, she was in my arms, she was running and she chose to come back. and that’s all that mattered. everything else, i would figure out. i would help her fix it all. not because she needed me or my help. but because i wanted nothing more than to be hers. i wanted to be in every inch of her life that she would let me touch. i just wanted her to trust me and tell me everything that she’d been afraid of, excited for, and ever in love with. i wanted her past, to heal her. i wanted her future, to be a part of it. and i wanted her present, because i wanted her to realize just how beautiful she was. inside and out.”

“then came the pregnancy. when she was taking the test, i was nervous. not because i didn’t want a family with her. no. i knew from the moment she ran up to the elevator, flummoxed by the badging in system that she was the woman i wanted to marry. but i was nervous because i was scared she would run again. and this time, i was scared that she would run away from me. and there wasn’t a thought scarier than that. but she didn’t. she looked at one of the most frightening moments i can only imagine straight in the eyes, grabbed my hands, and decided to run headfirst.”

“i want to marry her, jungwon. she was my inspiration to be a better man before i ever even met her. when i was just her resident, there wasn’t an effort i spared to try and impress her so that she would notice me as anything other than just her resident. when we became something more, there wasn’t a star i didn’t thank for getting so lucky with her. and then when she became pregnant, there wasn’t a god i didn’t pray to that we would get through this and she would let me stand by her side. i want to marry her because she’s been in every beat of my heart since i started counting the moments that i have with her. i want to marry her because she’s been in every dream since i developed dreams beyond just waking up every morning. i want to marry her because i want to be there for her in all of her moments. when she’s sad, angry, happy, upset, frustrated, ecstatic, proud. i want to just be there for her in it all.”

“and as much as i hate it, this world won’t look kindly upon her if she were to give birth without a ring on her finger. to me, marriage is just a paper to declare something that i already know: i found the love of my life. but i want nothing more than for her success to be expressed in its fullest. i want people to look at her with all of the respect and love that she deserves. and if this world were any more fair, they would regardless of a baby. but if they won’t, i’ll do everything to protect her - and our child.”

for the first time in a very long time, your heart has never felt so light. even with everything, this was enough for you. you throw your arms around riki, not caring for who was watching or what they were thinking, tears streaming down your face.

“will you marry me?” he whispers into your hair, and you feel the weight of the velvet box in his pocket when he says the words. so tender. so gentle. so forgiving.

“i will, riki. i’ll marry you."

[tokyo, 1989]

jungwon doesn’t look at you. the door to the bedroom that the two of you are sitting is closed but you’re well aware that hyewon and riki have already left the apartment. they’d mumbled some excuse or another as they herded you and jungwon into the bedroom and shut the door behind them.

you look at jungwon, trying to memorize every curve and line of his face. not in the way that you used to, hoping that if you stared at him for long enough, you’d be able to commit his face to memory to carry you through long nights studying and clinical shifts.

just…because you forgot what it was like to search through every dip and curve of his face to read him. it had been so long since you’d felt like wanting to do so.

“you’re going to marry him?” he still doesn’t look at you. 

“i’m gonna marry him,” you affirm. “he’s a good man, jungwon.”

jungwon sighs, hanging his head low between his knees. you look away, almost ashamed of causing jungwon to feel like he has to do so. it isn’t for another few moments that you realize that jungwon is crying.

as if there hadn’t been enough shocking moments today, jungwon’s shoulders start shaking as his sniffles grow louder.

“are you - are you crying?” you ask. it’s a stupid question but the universe has thrown one too many curveballs today. 

jungwon doesn’t answer, but his cries grow even louder, despite his best attempts to conceal them. you watch for just a second longer before scooting over, weaving in between the boxes scattered across the room. you pause…but then you hug jungwon.

it was strange. it was jungwon that you were hugging. your jungwon. your first boyfriend. your first chance at universe’s best gift. your first love. but it didn’t feel the same. something had changed. it felt like you were hugging an old friend, one that you were greeting after years apart.

someone who’s changed in the absence but cares about you just the same.

“where did all fall apart, y/n? i couldn’t be happier with hyewon. she’s everything that i’ve ever needed. she loves me despite my flaws and my faults. she’s the most patient, loving woman i have ever had the pleasure of loving in life. she’s everything to me. she’s my everything. i couldn’t live without her but…where did…where did we end? was it the day we broke up? the day that you and sumin fought? when my parents confronted your grandparents? when your grandfather died? when we committed to the same college?”

you’re silent, unsure of what to say. when had it all fallen apart? but when you try to pinpoint a singular moment, you find that you’re unable to.

“i don’t know, jungwon. but you’re never going to stop being important to me,” you admit. “you’re always going to be my first love. and we have grown apart, into different people. i know it’s strange. but…i think it was meant to happen. it feels strange that someone who was my entire world is someone that i can walk away from - into a new apartment and into a new life. but trust me when i say this jungwon: i will always be here for you. think of us going back to the start. we never fell apart; we’re just going back to the way things were supposed to be. we’re going back to being friends.”

“i thought that you stopped loving me. i thought i stopped loving you. i was dead wrong about myself - i don’t think that i could ever stop loving you,” jungwon confesses. you smile, despite the tears in both of your eyes.

“jungwon. you know that it’s not the same. i will always love you. but i’m not in love with you. and you love me. but you’re not in love with me. i’m in love with riki, the man who challenges me and supports me in every way possible. you are in love with hyewon, the woman who inspires you to be a better man everyday.”

“this is all so complicated.”

“it’s life and we’re humans, jungwon. it’s all meant to be complicated.”

“how the hell are you gonna break this to sunghoon?”

“i was hoping i could leave that to you.”

“he already hates me. i’ll be sure to invite you to my funeral though.”

[tokyo, 1988]

“i hope to find love again,” you said, kissing the coin in your hand before flipping it into the fountain before sighing, gathering your bags as you headed towards the hospital to sign your paperwork.

on the opposite side of the fountain, unbeknownst to the you, a tall man stands, holding a coin tightly in his fist.

“i hope she’ll love me back one day,” riki wished, flipping the coin into the fountain.

maybe it was luck. maybe it was fate. or maybe it was the will of the universe when the coin flips onto the fountain and lands right next to where a young, heartbroken woman’s coin had fallen.

the two of you walk in opposite directions but life has a funny way of working out. between gray clouds and broken hearts and reconciliation, tokyo in the year 1988 would prove to be the year that everything fell apart and seemingly fixed itself all over again. 

dongmin snorts before finally giving the 'blueprint' a solid look to decipher exactly what donghyun's plan was.

"your plan is to get down on your knees before first period and ask her out in front of the entire class with - are those chocolates or suspiciously small grenades? - chocolates and flowers? and you think that she's going to be first of all, comfortable with this and second of all, willing to say yes?" dongmin shakes his head, shoving a handful of goldfish into his mouth. "even if she does have feelings for you, she'll probably say no just because of this plan."

donghyun lets out another groan as he lays on the floor, cursing his luck. when he'd run the plan by jaehyun, the older had said that it was the perfect plan. although, if myung jaehyun thought that this was a good way to ask someone out, that really should've been donghyun's first sign of danger.

"also did you even need an entire sketch for this? i mean, it seems pretty straightforward," dongmin says, barely dodging assault by very well aimed marker.

"well, if you're done snarking on my plan, can't you help me figure out how to ask her out?" donghyun says, flipping over to serve dongmin his killer move - puppy eyes. the motion is clearly lost on dongmin when he just shovels more goldfish into his mouth but after a painfully long moment of chewing dongmin moves from the couch to the floor.

"alright, alright, fine...here's what you're gonna do..."

TRIAL ONE: DONGMIN'S PLAN

"hey jihyo," donghyun says casually, nodding to you as he spoke with your best friend, han jihyo. it was 7:30 in the morning and while donghyun usually couldn't be bothered to woken up before 7:45 in the morning (when he would eventually be yelled at by his mother and then scramble to get to school), he felt surprisingly excited to get up early in the morning to get to the school.

jihyo looks at donghyun confusedly as she takes her seat right next to you, where you had your textbooks open in front of you, just like he knew you would. "hey donghyun. what's up?"

donghyun shrugs, trying his best not to look at you scribbling away as he converses with jihyo. "nothing much. i was just wondering if you were busy later today? dongmin got us tickets to watch a movie but our friends dropped out."

"which movie?" jihyo asks, eyes sparking up at the mention of donghyun's best friend.

"uh..." donghyun wracks his brain, trying to come up with a movie name on the spot. dongmin hadn't prepared him enough! "interstellar?"

"are you asking me or telling me?" jihyo says, just barely suppressing her laugh. next to her, you look like you're in a similar situation, eyes bright and sparkly with the efforts to not completely laugh in his face.

while donghyun would usually take this in a win in itself, he decided to push his luck just a bit further. "i'm telling you; it's dongmin's favorite movie."

he pretends to ignore the subtle elbow jab that you offer to jihyo, fighting down the corners of his lips that keep creeping upwards. perhaps this plan could help donghyun and dongmin - two birds one stone. even if in this situation, dongmin was completely oblivious to jihyo's affections...

"yeah, i'm free later on," jihyo says before turning to you, her hair covering her face so donghyun can't see her facial expression as she's speaking with you. "you're free too, right y/n? you're coming with us?"

"i mean, i am free but i don't want to intrude. we don't even know if dongmin has enough tickets," you point out, a little shy as you look anywhere but donghyun and jihyo - which is a little hard considering that jihyo is practically in your face and donghyun is a good two meters tall (or at least, that's what it feels like).

"i have tickets," dongmin says, announcing his presence with an arm slung around donghyun's shoulder.

"perfect! so then we'll meet you guys in the courtyard at the end of school," jihyo says, fluttering her eyelashes not so subtly at the sight of the large man currently dangling off of donghyun.

he flashes an 'ok' sign as the two boys make their way to the back of the classroom, dongmin snickering at donghyun's dazed expression.

neither of them realize that you've turned around in your seat, a soft look in your eyes as you steal glances at donghyun.

+++

"i hate you," donghyun mutters under his breath. dongmin slaps his forehead with the heel of his palm, staring at the tickets in his other hand.

"you didn't exactly give me enough time to secure four tickets to interstellar of all movies," dongmin hisses, turning to flash a sweet smile to jihyo and you, waiting in the line patiently for some popcorn as the boys stood outside the theatre.

"well you didn't prepare me with a movie name! i did the best i could," donghyun whispers back, pulling dongmin to the side when an older couple tries to enter the theatre behind them.

"yes, and now look. we've got four tickets scattered across the hall," dongmin says, waving the tickets in donghyun's face.

donghyun sighs, running a hand through his hair as he tries to figure out a solution to the situation.

"what if we just bounce and do something else? there's no point in watching the movie if we're all gonna be on opposite sides of the theatre," donghyun says and dongmin frowns, looking down at the tickets once more.

"wait wait...there's two seats that are next to each other. it's just the other two that are on the opposite sides of the theatre," dongmin says, pointing out the seat numbers on the tickets.

"so y/n and i will sit in those seats, and then you and jihyo will sit on opposite sides of the theatre?" donghyun asks, reaching out to grab the tickets when dongmin draws his hand back quickly, holding them out of reach.

"what happened?" you ask, voice soft and gentle as you and jihyo walk up to the boys with arms filled with popcorn and soft drinks.

donghyun and dongmin exchange a look before handing over the tickets sheepishly. jihyo takes the tickets with furrowed brows after handing over (dumping) the soft drinks in dongmin's arms.

"hm. okay, give me one sec, i'll text you guys," she says somewhat mysteriously before disappearing into the theatre where trailers were playing.

"uh...i feel like one of us should go with her," donghyun says before pushing dongmin through the door behind her. the bewildered look on his face is quickly covered by the doors that cover him in darkness.

the giggle that leaves your mouth might as well been a choir of angels by the way that donghyun feels weak in the knees, unable to tear his away from your frame.

"here, let me hold that," donghyun says, gently taking the larger than life tub of popcorn from your arms. you thank him shyly, tugging your jacket over your shoulders.

"do you remember the last time we watched a movie together?" you ask, a faint warmth in your cheeks. donghyun nods, tossing a kernel of popcorn into his mouth.

"i've learned that you should be kept far far away from horror movies," donghyun says cheekily. you pout, tucking your hair behind your ear.

"no one warned me that there would be that many jump scares," you complain, chewing on a piece of popcorn.

"i remember how you were shaking while the murderer was searching the house," donghyun laughs, dodging when you reach out to slap his arm. "you wouldn't let go of my arm until the murderer was put in a jail cell."

you clear your throat, trying to will away the heat that was building on your nape and cheeks. "interstellar doesn't have any jump scares does it?"

you look up to meet donghyun's eyes, only to realize that they're already looking into yours. big, bright, sparkly and looking at you as if he's trying to commit every detail about you to memory.

"no, no jump scares," he says softly, and suddenly you get the feeling that you're stumbling into a territory you've never explored before as he draws closer to you.

"um, that's good," you whisper, the moment suddenly too intimate to speak. donghyun looks at you for just a second too long before stepping back when there's a buzz in your pocket.

"dongmin and jihyo?" he asks, shoveling more popcorn into his mouth before you walked in, knowing that dongmin was prone to eating everything in sight when watching movies.

you nod, reading the text message out loud. "jihyo somehow convinced two people to switch seats so we've got seats all next to each other."

"cool. let's head inside then," donghyun says, the warmth of his body leaving yours. he pauses just before he enters the dark theatre, looking at you with a soft smile.

"and y/n? even if there aren't any jump scares, feel free to hold onto my arm."

+++

"what happened afterwards?" kim woonhak asks, sprawled out on park sungho's bed. sungho reaches over to smack him on the arm when woonhak opens up a bag of cheetos, only to spill them all over his bed.

"nothing, obviously. the fool started getting so into the movie that that's all he would talk about for a good hour before y/n said she had to go home and study," dongmin says, slapping donghyun upside the head when donghyun starts to contest his recollection of the situation.

"you're really stupid," lee sanghyeok says, accepting the packet of haribo gummy bears that jaehyun throws in his general direction.

"sure. but this is all because i listened to dongmin's idea. i was supposed to ask her out at the end of the movie in some weird, complicated speech that dongmin came up with," donghyun protests.

"see, that's your issue," sanghyeok says, wincing when woonhak rips the head off of a gummy bear as he eats it. "i don't know why you'd listen to the least romantic person in this room about how to ask a girl out."

"then what do you think i should do?" donghyun asks.

"well, as the only person out all of you fools with a girlfriend, here's what i think you should do," sanghyeok starts, holding up an ipad with a drawing on it.

"when the two of you are cleaning the classroom after classes..."

TRIAL TWO: SANGHYEOK'S PLAN

"uh, what do you mean that y/n's sick?" donghyun says dumbfoundedly. jihyo gives him a weird look as she continues to take down two copies of notes, confirming that y/n is most definitely not at school.

"i mean that she's sick. she caught something from her brother. she's not coming to school today," jihyo repeats, staring at her notes for a moment before continuing to write again.

"oh," donghyun says defeatedly, thanking jihyo before heading to the back of the classroom. dongmin appears in the doorway of the classroom not even two minutes later, lollipop in his mouth as he drops one on jihyo's desk before heading to the back of the classroom to sit down next to donghyun.

jihyo twists in her seat. "this is y/n's favorite flavor. i'll give it to her later when i drop off some soup my dad's making her."

"you're going to y/n's house?" donghyun asks, leaning forward on his elbows, looking like he was pretty close to toppling over the desk and onto the student in front of him.

"uh, yeah." donghyun scrambles out of his seat to head over to the front of the classroom where jihyo was sitting.

"can i come with you?" donghyun asks. jihyo looks at him strangely for a moment before craning her neck to dongmin behind him. it seems whatever she sees is enough to convince her because she nods after a beat of silence.

"sure. you can come too. i'm heading over after we clean the classroom," jihyo says, nodding over to where dongmin was sitting and thumbing through his phone with earbuds in. "bring dongmin too."

"why?" donghyun questions with an innocent expression, backing off when jihyo fixes him with an unimpressed look.

"consider it a favor exchange. my friend for yours."

+++

"you know what, i thought sanghyeok's idea was stupid anyway," sungho says over the phone. donghyun can vaguely hear the sound of weights being lifted and dropped and he figures that his college going friend was likely at the gym when donghyun had emergency called him with a need for a new plan.

"so what do you think i should do? i mean, i only have a couple minutes until jihyo comes out of her house after picking up the soup. how do i come up with a plan in the next three minutes?" donghyun asks worriedly, shoving dongmin away when he sees that dongmin's dangerously close to his phone, trying to figure exactly what sungho was saying on the other end.

"well, clearly food is out of the picture, since you don't have time and because you're a walking hazard when it comes to anything related to a stove," sungho says, more to himself than to donghyun.

"if you could come up with a way to help without snarking on my cooking skills, that would be highly appreciated," donghyun says drily, winding up to kick dongmin when he starts snickering from where he's leaned up against the wall.

"alright, alright. here's what you do, alright? first, when you get to her house..."

TRIAL THREE: SUNGHO'S PLAN

"you've seriously never been to tokyo?" dongmin asks incredulously, his hands shoved in his pockets. jihyo shakes her head, setting down the soup from where she'd just reheated it on your stove.

your parents were out of town on a business trip and according to what she knew about your brother, jihyo figured that park sunghoon was out frolicking around in the snowy streets with his own friends.

"i've never been on a plane before," jihyo explains, satisfied with the heat of the soup finally. dongmin just shrugs, looking around your house with a renewed interest when donghyun pads out of your room to where the other two were standing in the kitchen.

"is she still sleeping?" jihyo asks, trying the soup herself. donghyun nods, rubbing his hands to create some friction and warm them up.

"yeah. she seems to be waking up but i think that she's still pretty out of it right now," donghyun explains before picking up the container of soup. "do you think that you can bring the paracetamol? it looks like y/n has a pretty bad headache."

"how can you tell she has a headache?" dongmin asks, his question turning to a whisper when jihyo looks at him with a withering glare.

"it's called having empathy, han dongmin," jihyo calls out, looking for the paracetamol in one of the medicine cabinets.

"empathy? i have plenty of empathy," dongmin says under his breath sullenly as he follows jihyo into your bedroom.

you're laying in bed, curled up in carefully laid covers, clearly donghyun's work by the way he's examining the bedspread with rather severe scrutiny, as if he's willing the hearts on your bedspread would turn into mini heaters to provide warmth to your sick and tired body. your eyebrows are furrowed, even in your sleep, as though you were fighting away the illness with a physical weapon with effort.

"y/n? you gotta wake up soon. sunghoon said you've been sleeping for hours and that you haven't eaten anything yet," jihyo says, setting the paracetamol down on your nightstand.

"yeah, where is sunghoon anyway?" dongmin asks, watching as donghyun wakes you gently, offering you a smile so sweet, even dongmin feels himself swooning.

"gallivanting on the streets. he's still sick himself but there's no containing the man," you explain, sitting up in your bed. you somehow don't seem all that alarmed that there are so many foreign people in your room, looking worse for the wear.

"here's soup. don't worry, i didn't make it - jihyo's dad did," donghyun says softly, handing the bowl of soup over with so much care, it seemed as though he were handling a live grenade.

you let out a mellow laugh, coughing at the effort as you accept the bowl of soup, letting out a blissful sigh after sipping a spoonful. "tell your dad i said thank you, ji."

jihyo just waves you off, unzipping her backpack to search for her other copy of notes. "here are the notes from today. the biology lecture really gave me a headache so i wouldn't even try to decipher that until you feel better unless you want to feel like a tightrope walker with an anvil on your head."

"that's...really descriptive," dongmin says, laughing when jihyo shoves him.

"i can help you," donghyun says, watching you carefully as you take another sip of soup, thankful for the liquid warming you up from the inside.

"you're willing to sit with me to study biology? are you sure that you don't think it'll be a bother?" you ask, looking up at donghyun through your lashes. donghyun's breath catches in his throat when you do. somehow, even with a runny nose, mussed hair, and granny pajamas, donghyun thinks you look like the vision of beauty.

"it's not a bother to me. spending time with you could never be a bother," donghyun says offhandedly, looking at the label on the paracetamol. it's only when the entire room goes silent does he realize that he'd spoken out loud.

he looks around nervously for a moment before his eyes land on you, staring at him, bright-eyed and every inch the reason why donghyun has trouble sleeping at night these days.

"i mean, you're my friend, right? why would it be a bother to spend time with your friend?" donghyun backtracks and he hears jihyo and dongmin let out a breath behind him. you still look somewhat confused before you nod slowly, finishing your soup.

"friend, right."

+++

"you were at her house and you still fucked it up," woonhak laments, wincing when jaehyun chucks a pillow at him.

"language," the older boy says before flopping on sungho's bed next to woonhak.

"why do you delinquents always have to come to my room? can't we ever hang out in sanghyeok or jaehyun's room? or better yet, why can't we ever hang out at your guys' houses?" sungho complains, but he still sits down next to jaehyun, shoving the two boys a little bit over to make space for himself.

"because your room is the cleanest," sanghyeok points out, never looking up from the homework he was working on at sungho's desk.

"yeah, unfortunately sanghyeok's room is currently serving another purpose," jaehyun snorts.

"what, as a pigsty?" dongmin quips, a smirk drawn out on his lips when sanghyeok fixes him with a thoroughly unimpressed look.

"all of you are useless," donghyun wails, swatting sungho's hands away from his hair. "i've been trying to confess to her for a good week and a half now and all i've managed to do is make a fool out of myself three separate times."

"you didn't make a fool out of yourself, donghyun," woonhak comforts before jaehyun sits up from where he was scrolling on his phone, shaking his head.

"nope, he definitely did. the first time, when dongmin booked four separate tickets and jihyo had to save your ass so you could attempt to confess after the movie, just to ramble about physics and black holes for hours. and then when y/n never showed up to school so you couldn't confess to her while you were cleaning the classroom like sanghyeok suggested. and then when he couldn't even take care of her properly like sungho suggested while she was sick because he can't cook if his life depended on it." woonhak nods when jaehyun finishes his spiel, much to the horror of donghyun, who was now starfish on the floor, looking ready to throw a tantrum.

"yeah, i can see why she would think he's weird," woonhak says with an air of seriousness.

"you guys think she thinks i'm weird?" donghyun cries out dramatically.

"no, otherwise you wouldn't be going to the library together on sunday to go over biology," sanghyeok points out logically, flipping through the pages of his textbook with a crease in his forehead from focusing.

"see, the issue is that all three of those fools are way too subtle with their confessions. sungho's ideas especially was stupid," jaehyun says. "i mean seriously, telling her that you're half in love with her while she's gotta killer migraine must've been the stupidest idea i've ever heard."

"you thought that asking her out in front of the entire class was a good idea," dongmin reminds jaehyun, who just rolls his eyes.

"you guys have no sense of romance."

"i have a girlfriend."

"shut up, sanghyeok."

"damn, alright. i didn't realize all of you were that salty that you're single losers."

"SHUT UP SANGHYEOK!"

after sanghyeok has been served with enough slander for being an insufferable boy in love, woonhak and jaehyun turn to donghyun with twin expressions of evil on their faces.

"you need to man up, donghyun! here's how you tell her that you like her..."

TRIAL FOUR: JAEHYUN AND WOONHAK'S PLAN

"so the reason why this question is phrased this way is because you're supposed to focus on the oxygen affinity for fetuses versus adults based on this curve," donghyun explains patiently, pointing at various points on the diagram in front of him as he speaks.

you nod hesitantly as you follow his hand around the paper before ultimately shaking your head, slumping down on the table.

"i'm sorry donghyun, this entire thing might just end up being a waste of your time. i have no clue what any of this means," you mutter disheartenedly looking at donghyun.

donghyun just shakes his head, smiling as he closes the textbook and stretching. at the table over from the two of you, dongmin and jihyo are bickering about the best my chemical romance instead of studying for english like they'd promised when your teacher announced the upcoming exam on friday.

in the ideal world, dongmin and jihyo would be off being a cute couple (whether they realized it or not) somewhere where donghyun couldn't see them and be jealous but the effervescent feeling he gets from spending time with you is more than enough to douse that jealousy.

"you're shoving a lot of information into your brain. it's hard to get on the fiftieth try, much less the first," donghyun says gently, and you peek up at him, only to cast your gaze elsewhere when you realize just how overwhelming it is to look at him.

it's a warm feeling that spreads through your body as you realize that donghyun looks at you as though you may as well have put the stars in the sky personally for him.

funny. did he ever realize that you looked at him the same way?

but you're left to leave your thoughts with the disarray of papers when donghyun stands up, shrugging his jacket and scarf on.

"come on, let's go get you some coffee," he says, lifting up your jacket to hand it to you. you offer him a small smile as you put your jacket on, following him out of the library once he's stopped and dongmin and jihyo's table to ask them to watch your stuff.

"bring me back a latte!" you faintly hear jihyo whisper-shout, to which donghyun turns around to flash her a thumbs up before leading you out of the library.

the weather outside is surprisingly clear and warm for how much it's snowed over the past few days.

"you didn't put a scarf on?" donghyun chastises, unwrapping his own scarf and draping it around your neck. you try to protest, giving donghyun back his scarf but he just ignores you, expertly ducking and weaving as you try to drape the scarf back on him.

"you're going to get cold!" you exclaim, but you don't fight him when he wraps the scarf around your neck properly.

"you know, i wanted to be your friend since the day i saw you, back in middle school," donghyun says, his breath leaving his lips in clouds as the two of you walked the three blocks between the café and the library.

you wrack your brain, trying to recall the first time that you'd met donghyun. "i thought we met in high school, though? at jihyo's birthday party?"

donghyun just smiles, looking up at the clear skies. "that's when you first saw me. i saw you back in middle school."

"really?" you ask quietly, shocked by the knowledge that donghyun had been thinking about you in whichever capacity for so long.

"yeah. i remember you had braces back then but you still were the prettiest girl in class. you always used to be so quiet and kept to yourself but you were so sweet to everyone around you. i remember when jihyo found out that she was nearsighted, you used to write her notes for her every period until she got glasses. and then again, when she had lasik surgery," donghyun says casually, opening the café door as the two of you enter.

"you - you weren't even in our class," you say, shivering even in the warmth of the café. donghyun seems to notice, by the way that he draws closer to you - so close that you can see the faint freckle by his eye.

"no," he agrees simply. "but i knew anyway."

"you paid that much attention to me?" you ask incredulously. donghyun shrugs, nudging you forward when the person in front of you orders.

"i've always paid that much attention to you, y/n. i just don't think you ever paid that attention to me," donghyun says faintly. you feel weak in the knees at the insinuation, moving forward somewhat dazedly.

"a caramel macchiato, vanilla latte, an americano, and a hot ginger tea please," donghyun says, completely ignoring you when you offer your card to the cashier, swiping his quickly.

"you didn't have to buy coffee for me," you say, tucking your hair behind your ear. donghyun tilts his head, eyes forming little crescents at your gesture.

"hmm." the two of you find a table to sit at while you wait for your orders to come out before you turn to donghyun, curiosity blatant on your face.

"how did you know my coffee order?"

"like i said, y/n. i've noticed you for a while before you ever noticed me."

+++

"you had everything in place! why didn't you tell her about your feelings?" jihyo cries out from where she's sitting in donghyun's beanbag chair, dongmin sitting right next to her, squishing the poor beanbag to near smithereens.

"i agree with her! why didn't you tell her about your feelings?" dongmin exclaims. donghyun rolls his eyes, throwing the tennis ball in his hands at the ceiling before catching it and throwing it back up.

"why is she invited to this anyway?" woonhak asks, even as he offers jihyo a chocopie from the stash of snacks that sungho and jaehyun had gathered after raiding donghyun's pantry.

"because she's the object of this guy's affections for the past four years," sanghyeok says, pointing at jihyo and then donghyun. "it's good to get all of the firepower you can get, with how much a dunce this kid is."

"first of all, i'm not a dunce. and second of all, i haven't asked her out because i don't want to ask her out using one of you idiots' plan," donghyun explains. "i wanna ask her out the way i wanna ask her out."

dongmin sighs, shaking his head. "how is it that you're so mature and suave when you're speaking with y/n and you're such a child when you're with us."

"i think woonhak has cooties and donghyun somehow imbibes them whenever he's in a forty kilometer radius of him," jaehyun offers as explanation.

"shut up. you and i had the same idea for how donghyun should ask y/n out," woonhak reminds jaehyun to which jaehyun has no choice but to just nod along, munching on a chocopie.

"anyway. can we talk about dongmin and jihyo for a second. how the hell is it that y/n and i went to the café while you two were fighting like cats and dogs about the best mcr song and we come back to you to basically making out in the library," donghyun says, turning in his swivel chair to smile smugly at the conjoined twins on his beanbag chair.

"shut up!" jihyo yells, throwing a chocopie wrapper, only to incite more laughter from the boys when it falls to the floor pathetically.

"hey, to be fair, it only took us about two years of knowing each other to start dating," dongmin specifies. "it's just that the past month of trying to push you and y/n together pushed us together enough for us to realize that maybe dating wouldn't be such a bad idea."

jihyo and donghyun exchange a look (a threatening glare from jihyo and very thinly surpressed smirk from donghyun) - something, which unfortunately, does not go unnoticed by the rest of the boys. especially dongmin, who twists to look at his girlfriend with an unbelieving look.

"no way. don't tell me you also have some pining love story like donghyun," dongmin incredulously. at jihyo's silence, the entire group erupts into chaos, with sungho and donghyun (after feeling guilty) trying to silence them in vain.

"oh my god, just when i thought they couldn't get any more insufferably cute!"

"god, i hate both of them."

"why is everyone so bad at confessing their feelings."

"i'm gonna tell my girlfriend about this; she's gonna find this hilarious."

"i REALLY need to stop being single."

dongmin just ignores all of them, pressing a chaste kiss to jihyo's cheek when he realizes that she's gone bright red from the attention to her feelings.

donghyun mimes throwing up when he does so but can't help the smile on his face when he turns to his phone.

"anyway, anyway. back to the donghyun and y/n intervention," jihyo says, clearing her throat. she still earns a couple cheeky grins but manages to turn the gazes of the group to the individual sitting at his desk, frozen in his spot.

"what's wrong?" woonhak asks concernedly. donghyun just lifts up his phone to show the others in the room.

y/n (<3): hey, can we talk?

TRIAL FIVE: DONGHYUN'S PLAN

"y/n? is everything alright?" donghyun says, his footsteps masked by the snow that didn't melt from when it snowed again a few days ago.

you look up at him with a nervous smile. "yeah, everything's fine. um...do you wanna sit down?"

you scoot over to make space for donghyun on the bench you were sitting on. the bench faced the pond, somewhat concealed from the busy streets of seoul by the various coniferous trees that lined the public park.

"sure. yeah." donghyun takes a seat next to you, knee bouncing nearly as soon as he sits down.

"you look nervous," you say gingerly.

"you look nervous," donghyun echoes.

"touché." you fiddle with your hands, the evening suddenly feeling a lot colder than you thought it would be. donghyun notices, just as he notices everything, and for some reason, he shifts so that he's sitting on his hands. almost as he was physically stopping himself from doing something.

"so...what did you want to talk about?" donghyun asks, watching as a young child tries to escape his father's grip to run straight down the little slope that fed into the pond.

"nothing," you squeak out before shutting your eyes tight when you feel donghyun turn to look at you instead of the pond.

"oh. did - did you just want company as you sat outside for a bit?" donghyun stutters, not sure of what to do with himself.

"no," you start, before shaking your head at your own words. "i mean, i do have something to say. i'm just trying to find the words to say it."

"you know, i've been meaning to tell you something to you too," donghyun says tenderly and you immediately nudge him, encouraging him to go ahead and say his piece first.

"no way, you have to tell me first," donghyun defends, turning his nose up away from you when you try to catch his eye, trying to grasp his jacket to turn him towards you.

"i'm nervous, donghyun. can't you do me a favor and go ahead first?" you plead and donghyun melts, unable to hear any sort of sorrow in your voice - for whatever reason.

"alright, how about we say it at the same time?" he proposes and you concede as you nod, retracting your hand, not noticing the way that donghyun's gaze follows your movement.

he lifts three fingers, then folds one, until there's only one left. you shut your eyes, unable to see the expression on his face.

"i like you!"

"i love you."

you immediately open your eyes, jaw hanging as you stare at donghyun, who looks equally flummoxed by your words.

"you like me?" he asks, pointing a finger at you. you turn the finger back at him incriminatingly.

"you love me?" you gasp and donghyun's gaze grows tender, taking his other hand to trap your hand between his two large ones.

"for a while," he admits sheepishly, a shyness so uncharacteristic to the gentlemanly and smooth donghyun you were used to. "i've been trying to confess to you for the past month now. you just...never noticed."

you laugh besides yourself, immediately willing all laughter away when donghyun looks at you with a hurt expression.

"you've been trying to confess to me? donghyun, i've been trying to confess to you for the past month!"

"what?" he stammers. "you've been what for the past month?"

"yes, you fool. i've been trying to confess to you for months. i've liked you for months! and then when you asked jihyo and i to the movie, i figured that it was dongmin's scheme to ask jihyo out so i decided to use the chance to ask you out. and then the whole tickets fiasco happened," you explain, inching closer to him. donghyun uses the opportunity to thread his hand with your own, tugging you close to him so that his body warmth could envelope your shivering frame.

"and then you spent the next hour talking about the movie and you just seemed so excited that i didn't want to distract you. and you know, you're cute, when you're excited," you continue, grinning stupidly when donghyun turns away his head to hide his shy expression.

"so this whole month, you've been trying to confess to me too?"

"donghyun, you say i haven't paid attention but i swear to god, you are so dense sometimes."

TRIAL SIX: Y/N'S PLAN

"look, look," jihyo whispers under her breath as donghyun enters the classroom. you don't look up, not wanting to feed into jihyo's taunts, knowing that it would only serve as fodder for her teasing later on. you wait for donghyun to pass by your desk to the back of the classroom, where he sat everyday, staring out of the window rather than paying attention to any of the classes. any of the classes other than biology, that was.

but to your surprise, donghyun stops at your desks, talking to jihyo about some movie or another. a pang of jealousy that you try to swat away strikes in your chest before you hear dongmin's name and hear donghyun's attempts to keep from snickering in jihyo's face

ah. so he was just the messenger for dongmin.

you continue to write, not sure of what exactly you were writing anymore as you were trying not to make it overt that you were listening to jihyo and donghyun's conversation.

"i know you have tutoring today, but push it back until seven in the evening," jihyo whispers hotly once donghyun has disappeared from earshot.

"you have a movie date."

+++

"are you going to finally use this chance to ask him out?" jihyo asks when she catches you staring at the tall boy conversing with his friend outside the theatre hall as the two of you stood in line for refreshments.

"that's the goal," you respond with a sigh. "i don't know if he feels the same but i don't want to regret never telling him about my feelings."

jihyo nudges you softly. "hey, don't have such a negative outlook. you don't know how he feels, right? don't knock it before it happens."

you don't respond, watching donghyun chasing his friend around with a blithe smile, waving the tickets in the air.

+++

"i personally thought that the best part of the movie was when the dad ended up inside..." donghyun rambles excitedly, holding scoops of popcorn in his hands as he explains his theories to dongmin. you can't help the smile on your face as you watch him act so carefree and enthusiastic. dongmin nods along, explaining his own theory every so often.

jihyo's eyes dart between donghyun and dongmin before she slumps down, taking a long sip of her fanta. "somehow, i don't think that any level of confession is going to happen today."

you just laugh, content to listen to your friends discuss their favorite scenes from the movie before clicking your phone open, only to curse when you realized you only had a few minutes before tutoring.

"i'm so sorry - i have to get going!" you say hurriedly, gathering your things as quick as you can before you rush out of the theatre, wincing when you realize the amount of courage you'd have to work up once again to confess to him.

but donghyun just watches your uncomfortable expression as you rush away, unsure of it was his fault.

+++

you sit up in your bed, accepting the bowl of soup that donghyun hands you, trying your best to ignore the tingle of electricity that runs down your spine when your fingers brush against his.

your focus fades in and out of the comfortable rhythm of the conversation as you sip on the soup when jihyo drops the daunting copy of notes she'd written for you on your desk.

"i can help you," donghyun says, anchoring back to the conversation. you try not to show the fact that your heartbeat is now around the same decibel as a plane taking off, instead trying to deny his offer for fear that spending too much time together might cause to spit out the words you've been chewing on day and night for the past few days.

but something about the way that he says he's more than happy to help you and that you're not being a bother by asking for help makes you stutter for just a moment and in a second of weakness, you accept his help.

"friend." the word feels surprisingly bitter on your tongue when you echo the way donghyun says it, like its been dripped in lead in the way that it sits so heavy.

not when you wanted so much more

+++

"you know what, this will be the perfect timing for you and i to ask them both out," jihyo says, opening the door to the library as the two of you head inside.

"i still cannot believe you and him have been fighting like cats and dogs and you think that it's peak romance," you laugh as jihyo shoves you playfully.

"whatever," she says before turning to you, surprisingly serious. "alright, promise me that you'll ask him out. whenever i'm alone with dongmin, i'll confess my feelings for him so you have to promise that you'll confess your feelings to donghyun."

you interlock your pinky with her, only to drop your hands when you stumble across donghyun and dongmin, who are sitting with their heads together, looking not too unlike head-butting bulls.

"oh. have we interrupted something?" you ask through a stifled giggle, causing donghyun and dongmin to spring apart. you swear that dongmin quite literally is suspended in air for a good two seconds before landing once more in his chair.

"no, no, not at all. come y/n. you and i can sit here," donghyun says, pulling out a chair for you to sit in.

you try your best to ignore jihyo's gaze as you pull out your textbooks, ready to learn as much biology as you possibly could. and maybe put off any sense of confession for as long as possible.

+++

"weren't you the one who said that you didn't want to regret not confessing your feelings to him?" jihyo points out, stirring a mug of hot chocolate. you nod, slumping in your chair.

"i know..." you scramble to straighten your posture as you lean over the table to look at jihyo. "how did you ask out dongmin?"

she shrugs, uncharacteristically shy as she takes a sip of hot chocolate. "i didn't. dongmin asked me out."

you groan, sliding down your chair once more. "why can't donghyun ask me out? what if i just never work up the courage to ask him out?"

jihyo just laughs at your torment when her phone buzzes. she pulls her phone out of her pocket before reading the text message.

dongminnie mouse: donghyun's house in twenty. you're officially on the donghyun and y/n intervention squad >:)

she pockets her phone once more before sliding her hot chocolate over to you before gathering her belongings.

"where you going?" you call out, passing off the hot chocolate to your brother padding down the stairs. jihyo slips her shoes on before turning around with a shit-eating grin.

"to go and fix your issue for you!"

TRIAL SEVEN: FATE'S PLAN

"that's one killer best friend," donghyun huffs as he pieces together the entire situation together. "if only dongmin was as competent; we'd have had this conversation months ago."

you rest your head against donghyun's shoulder, watching as the sun slowly begins to start its descent into the horizon.

"i don't know. i'm kinda glad that things worked out the way that they did. what if i didn't feel as strongly as i do now? maybe this was all meant to be," you say softly. donghyun smiles, turning to look you in the eyes.

just as sparkly, bright and so full of affection as you knew his eyes would be.

he leans in close, just a breath away from you as his eyes never leave yours.

"really? and if i say i love you right now?" he asks, and you forget why you'd ever been scared to confess to this boy, so full of love just for you.

you lean in even closer, pressing your lips against in a sweet, tender kiss, smiling when his lips seem follow yours even with his eyes closed.

"does that answer your question?"

[march 19, 20XX, 12:27 A.M.] [mount justice, happy harbor, rhode island]

“let me get this straight and please, feel free to stop me at any point you think that this is batshit insane: you landed in ace chemical factory, and in your panic, you screamed at supersonic levels and everything around you shattered. after that, you didn’t want to be put in jail or whatever you thought was going to happen so you ran and wandered aimlessly around gotham before you ended up at the bank and met artemis. oh, and how could i forget, you didn’t know you could do that?” sunghoon recaps in an almost satirical voice, rubbing the outside of his ear, having just recovered his sense of hearing. y/n nods, somewhat sheepishly, having been pacified when yuna shin, the magician from the justice league, had been called in to fix the necklace using a spell. yujin sighs, rubbing her forehead as the two of them start to piece together what had happened that night.

“still doesn’t explain how icicle sr. managed to get from the yacht bridge to the bank in that time frame,” yujin says and y/n raises her hand hesitatingly.

“i don’t know if this is relevant but there was some guy wearing a huge parka in the middle of march that was riding down a huge…bobsled with ice that kinda appeared wherever he moved? i wasn’t sure if that was normal in this dimension so i didn’t say anything but they’re both icy,” she says, fidgeting with her hands. 

“did you see anyone else with him?” sunghoon asks, and y/n wracks her brain, trying to think if she saw anyone else that night.

“some really pale lady with spiky blue hair?”

yujin and sunghoon exchange a look before yujin groans, pulling out her phone to call belrev and let the maximum security prison wasn’t nearly as high security as they thought it was. 

“those three are all money hungry people who ally with each other every time they want to pull off a serious heist since they all use ice as their method of attack. they were probably all working together to pull off the yacht bridge incident,” sunghoon explains as a lightbulb goes off in his head. “that’s why we only saw shattered glass and nothing else. the ice probably melted by the time that we got there.”

“well that explains that. what that doesn’t explain is the canary cry. no one else in the justice league - or the injustice league, for that matter - has the canary cry. at least not since that impersonator was put into prison but even she couldn’t use the canary cry well enough to make stone break,” yujin says once she gets off the phone.

“right…” sunghoon turns to y/n, who’s fidgeting with the necklace in her hand. “do you mind if i look at that for a second?”

y/n stares at the necklace for a moment before handing it over somewhat reluctantly.

the necklace itself seems rather plain. it’s a gold necklace, with a single pearl dangling off of it but other than that, it had no identifiers to suggest why this necklace was so important to y/n.

“it was my mother’s,” she says softly and sunghoon hears yujin have to contain her gasp where she was standing. “it’s the only thing i have from her and the only thing that my father hasn’t tried to take from me when it comes to memories of my mom.”

that would explain the sentimental attachment.

sunghoon eyes the pearl, which seems to be dazzling in the light, even though there was very little in y/n’s room, as though it were exuding light, rather than reflecting it. well. unless pearls operated differently in y/n’s dimension (which, at this point, sunghoon couldn’t even say definitively that they didn’t), there was something about this necklace…

“you don’t know who exactly your mother is, right?” yujin asks and y/n nods, hands twitching as she watches sunghoon fidget with the necklace before he drops it back onto the nightstand. she snatches it up quickly, putting it back around her neck, seeming much more calm now that the necklace was on her.

“no. all i know is that my father and my mother went to the same high school and that i was born when they were both still in school, which is probably why i ended up with my dad instead of my mom,” y/n says, thumbing at the pearl. yujin exchanges a look with sunghoon, and this time, sunghoon is the one to leave the room, pressing buttons on a flip phone to call someone.

“look, i don’t want to give you any false hope or even give you any information that you don’t need right now,” yujin starts, taking a deep breath. y/n doesn’t say anything, just watching yujin as the taller girl gets up to start pacing around the room that suddenly feels surprisingly cramped.

“but with the cry and everything that she’s told us about how she discovered her powers and everything…we have good reason to believe that your mother is black canary.”

y/n’s breath comes out as a staccato as it catches in her throat.

“…and we don’t know if she knows you exist."

[march 19, 20XX, 1:02 A.M.] [mount justice, happy harbor, rhode island]

“what did the bat say?” yujin asks a disheveled looking sunghoon. the tall man just shakes his head, sitting down next to her on y/n’s bed, the owner of said bed watching him from the other side of the room on her beanbag chair.

“he can’t confirm or deny anything right now because black canary’s not in the u.s. right now. she’s out of the country on some top secret mission and cannot be called back under any circumstances,” sunghoon sighs and yujin’s eyebrows furrow.

“it took you half an hour to find out that we can’t get in touch with black canary?” 

“there were…other things. just alpha clearance level things,” sunghoon says and yujin immediately leans back. y/n’s eyes bounce back and forth between sunghoon and yujin before clearing her throat nervously.

“uh, what does alpha clearance mean?”

“it’s just our classification system to ensure that the information from the team and the justice league is kept safe,” sunghoon explains. “each person has a certain clearance level they request or are approved for. more than anything, it’s so that people in the league or on the team don’t bite off more than what they can chew.”

“for example, superboy has the lowest clearance level - level eight. we trust him with our lives and know that he’s the first person to run headfirst into danger if he felt that was right,” yujin starts and y/n nods slowly, following where yujin was going with her logic.

“but if someone who was that quick to action were to be given higher clearance knowledge, then it would be hard to reestablish which missions are his priority and which aren’t, since he would probably feel they were all important,” y/n continues.

“and while they are all important, some require more planning than brute force. it’s hard to explain that to someone when they’re already extremely emotionally invested in a mission,” sunghoon finishes.

“it’s really more about how emotionally detached someone can get from the mission to ensure that actions are being put in place for the greater good,” y/n summarizes and yujin and sunghoon both shrug.

“that’s one way of thinking about it. it’s like a chain of command, honestly. if something were to happen to me, there needs to be someone who would be next in the chain of command so that the team doesn’t get split into five different directions because five different people think that the team should operate differently,” sunghoon says and y/n nods, leaning backwards into the plushiness of the beanbag chair.

“is it alright that you’re telling me all of this though? i asked because i was curious - but i’m curious about a lot of things. things that are probably less confidential than the inner workings of how an espionage and covert operations team works,” y/n asks, and although her words would set sunghoon on high alert coming from anyone else, he feels strangely understanding when it comes from her.

which had implications that he wasn’t ready to think about just yet.

“well, if you want the truth, there’s two aspects to it: a) it’s in our best interest to be as honest with you as possible so that you can be as honest as possible with us to help us with stopping the light. and b) i’ve been having private conversations with various members of the team about you joining the team - if that’s what you want - and everyone’s on board with the idea,” yujin says, watching y/n’s reaction to this (what she thinks is, at least) bombshell of information. “that’s actually part of what sunghoon and i wanted to talk to you about before the whole canary cry situation.”

“join the team?” y/n repeats slowly, her posture growing more timid as she sinks even further backwards into the chair. sunghoon refrains from reaching forward to comfort her, for fear that he might scare her even more.

“it’s not an obligation and we’d definitely understand if that’s not something that you want. but we figured that we’d present the option to you whenever you’re ready. i think that you’d be a great addition to the team,” sunghoon says gently, his eyes never leaving y/n’s.

“you do? but i don’t have any combat experience; i’d just drag you all down and put you in danger,” y/n murmurs softly, and yujin catches the faint blush on her cheeks as her eyes dart to the floor for a moment’s reprieve from sunghoon’s gaze. cute.

“we all started from somewhere, y/n,” sunghoon reminds her.

“yeah. boy wonder’s the only one out of all of us who came out of the womb fighting,” yujin snorts, punching sunghoon in the shoulder. “and besides, i saw you hold your own in front of icicle and his stupid gang. anyone who can blast that frosty old snowball into a sedan is someone i want on my team.”

y/n smiles softly, her thumb rubbing over her knuckles as she’s lost in thought, weighing her options in front of her almost plainly on her face. sunghoon taps yujin’s knee slightly and the two of them get up from where they were perched on her bed and begin to make their way to the door to leave y/n to her thoughts.

“can i - could i, maybe, watch you guys train tomorrow? soojin said that you guys are training altogether tomorrow and maybe that’ll help me make a decision?” y/n asks and sunghoon’s nodding his head before he even fully processes the question.

“whatever you need, y/n. just be sure to bring an ice pack in case you decide to join the fight,” yujin says with a wink as she walks away. sunghoon rolls his eyes before shaking his head when he see’s y/n’s eyes widened with worry.

“she’s joking. you absolutely don’t need to spar with us to watch, y/n,” sunghoon says softly and he sees some of the tension in her shoulders visibly melt.

“thanks, sunghoon,” she murmurs back, getting up to close the door as sunghoon retreats as well, a small smile on his face.

sunghoon. he liked the way that his name sounded on her lips.

[march 19, 20XX, 9:52 A.M.] [mount justice, happy harbor, rhode island]

y/n winces as superboy crashes to the floor with a resounding thud. jay huffs as he lays on his back for just a moment, the mat sounding out a depressing ‘SUPERBOY - LOSS’ as he stares up at the ceiling.

“i’m getting really tired of getting beat up by people half my size,” jay groans as he accepts yujin’s hand as she hoists him up back onto his feet. 

“to be fair, yujin is pretty much your height,” jake points out, hand deep into a family size bag of chips. he was already well past his first defeat at the hands of his girlfriend and had wisely decided to spend the rest of training with some form of food shoved into his mouth.

“i don’t think that’s gonna make him feel better, kid. and he’s pretty tall,” soojin says but jay just shrugs.

“eh, i’ve only got two or three inches on her but if there’s anything i’ve learned from training with artemis and black canary, it’s that you should never judge a book by its cover. especially a girl. those are books you could read your entire life and never understand,” jay snorts, and soojin and yujin exchange an exasperated look when jake hollers out an ‘amen brother!’.

“i don’t know. i don’t think girls are really all that hard to understand,” sunghoon announces his presence, unwrapping the bandages on his knuckles as he joined the team in the sparring room. he was a boxing aficionado as of late and had taken to doing some boxing training in solitude before training with the rest of the team.

he’d tried to hook soojin and jake on it but soojin had incinerated the boxing gloves and jake had accidentally phased right though the sandbag. needless to say, boxing became more of a sport of solitude after that.

“of course our resident player says that; that’s how he gets all the girls to fall for him,” jake teases and sunghoon just rolls his eyes.

“i’m not a player.”

“says the man who hasn’t dated a woman for longer than three months at a time.” yujin crosses her arms over her chest as though she was daring sunghoon to challenge her statement.

“that doesn’t mean i’m a player.”

“can you count the number of women you’ve dated on all of your appendages?”

“does my tongue count?”

“gross.”

y/n’s eyes dart back and forth between yujin and sunghoon, and sunghoon is almost taken aback to the night before, with artemis and him going back and forth with their usual banter. ah. while the other members of the team knew to just ignore the two of them (or watch, if they wanted some entertainment for the day), y/n probably thought they were genuinely fighting. 

it wasn’t as though she had many friends to banter with and the ‘friends’ that she did have weren’t exactly the bantering type. sunghoon shudders as he tries to imagine vandal savage engaging in harmless banter.

“did you hurt yourself?” y/n says softly, nodding at sunghoon’s bandages that were balled up in his fist. he looks down, eyebrows furrowed before realization strikes him.

“oh no, these aren’t bandages because i’m hurt; these are wraps that boxers wear to keep their fists protected when they’re boxing,” sunghoon says and even jake (who’s usually the most oblivious one of them all) can sense the shift in sunghoon’s tone when addressing y/n. where sunghoon was prone to having a rather stoic first impression, he was soft and gentle when speaking to y/n.

my bet’s that they’re gonna kiss in the next three weeks,jake says through the mind link.

i’m going for four, jay contests. sunghoon tries not to make the indignant feeling bubbling in his chest too obvious on his face.

i wouldn’t put it past sunghoon, but i’m giving the girl two months. i don’t think she really understands how romance works, yujin points out.

she’s watched the notebook. she knows what romance is, soojin disagrees.

“are you guys having a conversation without me in your minds?” y/n asks, glancing between them, and the team belatedly realizes that the room had been silent for too long to be appropriate. especially not with sunghoon looking at the rest of them as though he wanted to throw something sharp and pointy at them.

y/n crosses her arms over her chest and for the first time, sunghoon saw sheer disappointment on her face. the look made his chest tight and for some reason, he really didn’t want to see that look on her face directed towards him ever again. ever. “i really can’t tell if that’s really cool or…really, really rude.”

“sorry, it was something really stupid,” yujin says, trying appease y/n. her expression doesn’t give any leeway, and soojin makes her way over to y/n to nudge her slightly.

“really, it was super stupid. but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t rude. sorry y/n. we’ve grown rusty with welcoming new people when all of us are together since we haven’t had a new member since…well, since yujin,” she explains and y/n finally uncrosses her arms and sighs.

“it’s fine - i mean, i get that you guys have a super important history together and i would never do anything to try and intrude on that,” y/n concedes. 

“look, i’m really sorry,” sunghoon says and y/n’s shoulders melt in the slightest when he does - something that doesn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the group.

“it’s okay. now - uh, who do i shoot with a fireball first?”

“i thought you were just watching?”

“what can i say? i’m all fired up.”

“you and i are going to get along just fine.”

“shut up, kid.”

[march 19, 20XX, 10:21 A.M.] [mount justice, happy harbor, rhode island]

“break - break! jesus christ, what have they been feeding you in that other dimension?” jake wheezes, pressing a hand to his chest as he tries to catch his breath. y/n blinks innocently from where she’s standing on the other side of the mat, looking rather unfazed by the whole experience.

“uh, human food, i’m pretty sure. no ovens or refrigerators, remember?” y/n points out and jake blinks, now on the other side of the room, mid-bite as he was scarfing down a 7,000 calorie protein bar made specially for him.

“it was a rhetoric question,” he says in between bites and y/n nods as though she were taking mental note. 

“right. uh - so who am i sparring next?” she says, awkwardly holding her hands out in the same position as she had done so before - effective, if jake’s wheezing is to say anything, but clearly off in practicality and skill.

“how about you spar with me?” sunghoon offers, casting his boxing gloves on the bench. he’d taken a break to watch y/n and see how she would adapt to a sudden situation where she could only rely on instinct rather than her underdeveloped pyretic skills, only to realize just how far behind she was in technical skill.

but if there was anything that her match with jake had indicated, what she lacked in technical skill, she made up for in sheer ability, with her ability to nearly predict what her opponent was going to do - even if said opponent was operating at superhuman speeds.

sunghoon figures that it’s a trauma response developed to sort of predict the behaviors of those around her in such an unpredictable environment. she also had a tendency to rely on her feet instead of her hands, which was a good thing when facing an opponent such as kid flash, who relies on his speed and arm skills and disadvantageous for pretty much everyone else.

“be careful, newbie. sunghoon’s undefeated against all of us except for yujin,” jay warns from where he’s also taking a break next to jake, soojin not far from him.

“i only beat him that one time he broke his leg,” yujin points out, but she’s quickly shushed by jake, who says something along the lines of, “don’t lose your street cred in front of your girlfriend.”

yujin, of course, lobs a sweaty towel at him shortly thereafter, but it was the thought that counted.

“should i be nervous?” y/n asks, and sunghoon shakes his head before stepping into the ring.

“don’t worry - i’m not trying to beat you or anything; i just want to correct a few small mistakes i’ve been seeing,” sunghoon explains gently, watching y/n’s worried expression melt off her face, although her limbs were still stiff with anticipation.

sunghoon steps one foot forward, to which y/n lunges backwards, wary and apprehensive of every move sunghoon made. “i’ m not going to hurt you, y/n.”

y/n nods, but it’s clear that she’s scared witless and sunghoon crosses his hands over each other to form a ‘t’ to indicate a time-out, casually walking forward towards y/n in hopes of making her feel more at ease.

but no sooner does he get within a foot of her does she lunge forward rather brashly, causing sunghoon to stumble backwards and toppling downwards - just barely saving himself by flipping over so that he was in a pushup position.

“get him while he’s down!” he hears yujin cry.

“i can’t believe a noob is about to beat sunghoon!” jake exclaims. 

“oh my god, i can’t watch,” soojin says, her fingers crossed in front of her face with enough space that it was clear her eyes were 100% still watching.

“i might have never been taught how to fight - ” y/n begins, sweeping at sunghoon’s arms so that he would fall. he just barely avoids it by rolling forward, crouched on the balls of his feet as he watches y/n carefully. “ - but i did learn a thing or two about how to stay unsuspicious.”

“i’ll give you that,” sunghoon concedes after standing up, dipping into a gentleman’s bow, twirling out of the way when y/n tries to take the moment to push sunghoon down. “but it’s not enough to take me down.”

“i don’t doubt it,” y/n admits, awkwardly holding her arms out in what it she deemed to be a ‘threatening offense’ as she carefully circled the fight space, mirroring sunghoon’s movements.

“you don’t seem very bogged down by the truth,” he remarks and a catty smile flashes across y/n’s lips before disappearing just as soon as it had appeared.

“you don’t seem to be very discontent in my inability to take you down,” y/n throws back lightly.

“how long are they going to keep doing that?” jay whispers to soojin, who still has her fingers spread across her face, her face strangely tinted pink rather than her usual pale pallor.

“keep flirting or keep fighting?” yujin snorts from the other side of jay, ducking out of reach when soojin leans over to push yujin.

“they’ll hear you!” soojin shushes and jake rolls his eyes with a goodnatured shake of the head.

“the only person who has super hearing is jay and he’s sitting right next to you. i doubt they’re going to be able to hear us from forty feet away,” jake points out and soojin harrumphs, crossing her arms over her chest.

“we don’t know if y/n has super hearing,” soojin reminds the group and the three of them simultaneously face forward to see if y/n was listening to their conversation. either she was an incredible actress or she genuinely couldn’t hear anything because by the time they refocus on the scene in front of them, sunghoon’s warding off another well timed kick and the succeeding side swipe.

but what he doesn’t account for is y/n’s ability to turn around nearly as fast as sunghoon to try and land a punch. and while sunghoon does manage to swat away y/n’s fist, she’s unable to recover as quickly as sunghoon as she loses her balance trying to beat sunghoon. and sunghoon, in his panic to try and shield y/n’s fall, manages to topple downwards with her.

down, down, down until suddenly, every inch of y/n’s body is pressed against his own. from her toes to her - to her lips, pressed against sunghoon’s and although y/n’s powers are pyrokinetics, sunghoon feels as though his entire body has been doused in cold water as he realizes that technically, he is kissing y/n. or honestly, she’s kissing him but somehow the logistics of the situation are lost on sunghoon when he looks into her eyes, wide-eyed and confused. 

have y/n’s eyes always been so…so bright? 

it’s only when jay coughs obnoxiously loudly that he remembers his audience, and it seems that this is an adequate reminder for y/n as well, who rolls off of him rather unceremoniously.

the room is silent, almost painfully so as sunghoon and y/n seemingly process what just happened. 

ardor - win. sunghoon - loss. the mat rings out unhelpfully and y/n looks as though she’s rebooting as she rises to her feet.

“is there any way to correct the system? i - i don’t think i actually won. not with conventional tactics anyway,” she splutters as sunghoon also composes himself enough to get off the floor.

“a win is a win!” jake calls out, wincing when sunghoon shoots him a withering look. this seems to kickstart the rest of the team back to life as jay offers y/n a water bottle and soojin flashes an award-winning smile at her.

“not bad for your first day on the training mat,” yujin says, casually throwing an arm around y/n’s shoulders.

jake, seemingly haven shaken off sunghoon’s nonverbal warning rather quickly, turns to the still somewhat confused man with a shit-eating grin. “you lost. you know what that means, right?”

this catches jay’s attention as well as he appears at the scene of the crime with an equally frightening smirk. “i vaguely recall someone saying that if someone beat him - ”

“ - he’d be their personal servant for a month?” yujin finishes and soojin giggles, quickly trying to hide her grin when sunghoon’s glare transfers from the terrible threes and lands on her instead.

“oh, oh no - i’m so sorry!” y/n exclaims, her face twisted into an expression somewhere in between guilt, shame, confusion, and anxiety. “please don’t regard this as a loss; the…accident from before was completely my fault and that wasn’t an official sparring match so - so that shouldn’t count as a win and you shouldn’t be held to those conditions.”

yujin watches as sunghoon turns to her, his gaze growing soft but somewhat guarded as he shakes his head with a good-natured smile. 

“you won. there is no changing the system. and besides, in the field, one must be prepared for sorts of conditions and trials; it was my own fault that i lost so i must uphold the conditions i proposed,” sunghoon says but the words don’t seem to appease y/n’s mind at all.

soojin seems to notice as she steers y/n towards the exit of the training room.

“y/n, trust me. when it comes to wins from sunghoon, you take them where you can get them,” she says and y/n just nods, which is as much of a concession of her victory as soojin figures she’s gonna get. 

yujin’s left in the training room with sunghoon by the time jake and jay gather their belongings also start to file out the training room (but not before jake smirks at sunghoon, indicating that they were gonna talk later).

“stop thinking so much,” yujin says, arms folded across her chest. sunghoon rolls his eyes before heading over to the bench to pick up his bandages and boxing gear.

“i’m not thinking,” sunghoon says and yujin snorts.

“normally, i’d love to agree with that statement but you’re overthinking and every single one of us can tell. including y/n.” yujin nods to y/n’s receding figure before turning back to sunghoon with an unimpressed look. “it was an accident.”

“i know,” sunghoon says, a little too quickly. “i mean, i know.”

yujin fixes him with a probing look before giving up, shrugging as she also starts to head out of the training room. 

but it seems the surprises for the day are still abundant as y/n bursts into the room, looking more alarmed than yujin’s ever seen her before.

“don’t ask me how i know this but klarion’s back in town,” y/n trembles, eyes full of panic.