Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sunday was supposed to be the only day of the week that Yeon Sieun got the privilege of sleeping for at least 16 hours straight without anyone disturbing him. Normally, office workers didn’t work Saturdays. But Jeon Yeongbin, that son of a bitch, never let him off easy without demanding an extra report on whatever nonsense he could dream up. The glorious dawn of Sunday crept up on him when he finally managed to finish the report and email it to Chief Jeon at 7am, and he felt like a comatose would feel great at this point.

Suddenly, the delightful sound of iPhone’s default ringtone sang across his studio apartment, with the word ‘Dad’ written on the screen. Sieun didn’t have a great feeling about this.

“Yes?”

“Son, why do you sound like a zombie, it’s 7 in the morning. Where’s the energy that young people like you should have?” His dad seemed to be in a good mood.

“Please get straight to the point, Dad.”

“It’s your day off today, right? I’m gonna visit your place at… 10AM.” Sieun couldn’t help but sigh, he knew his father would come to visit him every once in a while, but he always had to choose the wrong time. Is there even a right time? And his father never gives him a heads up one or two days in advanced, just appears out of nowhere, without any warning or permission from him. “You better prepare something nice, it’s been a while since we have lunch together!” His father said gleefully.

“…Right. See you at 10 then.” Before the man could say anything else, Sieun already hung up. It’s always like this, he had hope for today, because he had a perfect plan - sleeping for 16 hours straight, but that plan was definitely canceled. Every time his father pays a visit, he has to drag his corpse to the grocery store to fill his always empty fridge. He wasn’t sure if his dad even cared, but internally he knew new adults who had just moved out always feel like they have to prove to their parents that they’re living a well and healthy life, even when they’re alone, like “Hey, I could take care of myself better than you think!” Sieun’s dad definitely didn’t take care of him for well over 83.5% of his adolescence, but ever since Sieun got a job, he felt like he couldn’t let his dad know that he was still living off of instant ramen.

Closing the laptop that was still showing the email that was sent 15 minutes ago, Sieun stood up to take his gray hoodie that already had his wallet in one of the pocket, putting his phone in the other.

He was living in a small studio apartment in the middle of Seoul, but the splendor of the city definitely didn’t leak into this rundown area that almost resembled a rathole. Luckily, living in the middle of the city meant that he didn’t have to travel far for grocery, just a 5-minute walk to the nearby grocery store was enough. He got some ingredients for hotpot, since making hotpot was the easiest meal he could come up with that would still be considered a treat to his father. Plus, it was winter already, the old guy would probably feel cold from all the travelling.

When Sieun got out of the store, a shadow quickly passed by him. It took him a good 3 seconds to realize that was a high-school kid, probably being chased. Young people are always so energetic, he thought, just like how his dad wanted him to be, though he was never energetic even when he was their age. Now Sieun had to muster up the energy for another 5-minute walk back to the building, a 3-minute wait time for the elevator, 30 minutes to clean up the apartment, 30 to prepare the ingredients, 20 to go wash—

“That’s him! Don’t let him get to Ahn Suho!”

Before Sieun knew it, 3 teenagers were suddenly running towards him, pointing fingers at him shouting nonsense like “I’ll beat his ass so bad his mom wouldn’t be able to recognize him anymore!” Huh? Are they seriously—

Sieun didn’t have time to think. It’s human natural reflex to run when they see someone chasing them down. Oh, they were definitely chasing him right now. Come to think of it, that shadow that passed him a moment ago also had a gray hoodie and similar figure to him, didn’t he? These motherfuckers were chasing down a random person even when that person was holding 2 bags of groceries, Sieun couldn’t help but thinking that those kids lack some very necessary brain. But that didn’t matter because, 1. They didn’t look like they’re down for a calm explanation and 2. Sieun is running out of breath. He was never excel at PE class.

When he was running towards the end of the alley, a boy in a red windbreaker perked up. He seemed to recognize the 3 guys behind Sieun, since he was already breaking his knuckle and stretching his long legs, already loosening up like he was ready to throw hands, and Sieun only had one way of running straight towards him. Is this how he’s gonna die, being hunted down by four teenagers that he had nothing to do with? But the boy suddenly pulled Sieun’s arm and stand in front of him in one swift movement, even smirked when he said, “Don’t worry, hyung is here.”

Excuse you, you are definitely not the hyung here.

Before Sieun could protest, red windbreaker already swung his fist towards the face of one guy, and the two others behind him came to a halt. They seemed reluctant to fight hand to hand with this boy, but had to nonetheless. Mr. Hyung quickly dodged all the punches that were aimed at him, audibly chuckled, then continued to kick one guy so hard he flew straight to the dumpster behind him. Are teenagers supposed to be that strong? The remaining guy was visibly scared by now, so he went and pulled his friend who smelled like rotten trash up, then quickly ran up and retrieved their fallen soldier who was knocked out cold from the first second of the fight. When the triplets already ran away, windbreaker also turned back to face Sieun.

“You oka— wait, what?! You’re not Mingi. Are you from Byeoksan too? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

Wow, so you also didn’t recognize this Mingi friend of yours before pulling a stranger behind you. Sieun now was sure that teenagers of this generation all lack some very necessary brain. And he mentioned Byeoksan, which can only be Byeoksan high-school, one of the two high-schools in this area.

“No, I am not Mingi, and you’re definitely not my hyung. Now excuse me, I have somewhere to be at,” Sieun grumbled in his most annoyed voice. He shrugged away from the boy’s grabby hand while glaring at him – why is this kid so fucking tall? The glare definitely didn’t channel when you have to crane your neck up 40 degrees. Sieun then clutched his groceries bags, ready to head straight home.

“Ya, shorty, at least a ‘thank you’ would do! You were chased down by them and I actually fought for you! YA!” Sieun had already walked away, but the boy kept standing there, shouting.

On that day, Yeon Sieun mentally noted to himself that he would call the cops right at the moment he sees any high school delinquent.

Sieun finally collapsed on his bed after surviving his father’s surprise visit. The man had left thirty minutes ago, satisfied with hotpot and blissfully unaware that his son was about to pass out in a state of emotional and physical bankruptcy.

He had exactly zero plans left for today except for sleeping like a rock until Monday came to drag him back to corporate hell.

Until his phone buzzed. With a friend request on Kakaotalk from an account with the name “Ahn Suho”. Even if Yeon Sieun wasn’t always ranked the TOP 1 student back in his school days and had dementia, he could definitely still recognize this guy’s striking features and the eye-blinding red windbreaker from his profile picture. The boy. The chaos goblin. The self-proclaimed hyung who punched another teenager into a dumpster.

He stared at the request, then let his head fall back into his pillow like he’d just suffered a life-threatening injury. He had options. Very viable, tempting options. Ignore it. But in a moment of bewilderment, then before he even knew what he was doing, curiosity got the best of him.

He accepted Ahn Suho’s friend request.

A text immediately came through, as if the other guy was sitting there waiting for Sieun’s response.

Ahn Suho

hey gray hoodie hyung 🩶

u dropped this earlier 🪪

Attached was a blurry photo of his wallet, sprawled out on someone’s desk beside an open bowl of instant ramyeon.

What the fuck. Sieun blinked. Then blinked again. How the hell... and how did this kid—

Then let out the most guttural sigh known to mankind.

Right. The business card.

He considered pretending it never happened. Throwing the phone into the trash. Blocking the number and living off the grid. Yes. That sounded very healthy.

Sure, he’d lose his wallet. But how bad could that be?

His brain started doing quick math:

• His ID: half a day at the district office. He would be a citizen without an ID card for a while until it got reissued and sent to his apartment.
• Bank card: thirty-minute, a signature he hadn’t used since university day and an awkward conversation with the bank teller that no, he doesn’t want to consider their affiliated insurance program.
• Work access card: an “Are you okay?” from a very concerning Beomseok and a 45-minute passive-aggressive tutorial from the HR intern on “keeping company property safe.”
• Subway card that he had just recharged, punch card for that overpriced café, and the 5,000 won cash he’d left in the sleeve pocket—

He was a man on the verge of giving up on life. It was either suffering through all the bureaucracy this godforsaken city had to offer, or talking to this kid, AGAIN. He was seriously considering it.

Not worth it.

Yeon Sieun

Did you get this number from my business card?

Ahn Suho

damn u r pretty smart

ur card

v professional btw

v grown up

"Assistant Brand Operations Manager" 👨‍💼✨

so serious. so tragic.

Yeon Sieun

Just return the wallet.

Ahn Suho

no "thank u for saving me, cool stranger"?

i could’ve sold this for a bag of chips

Yeon Sieun

That’s theft.

Ahn Suho

that’s capitalism 🫡

Yeon Sieun

I don’t have time for this. Where.

Ahn Suho

the grocery store where i saved ur ass

no running this time btw

unless you want me to 🏃‍♂️💨💨

u buying me an energy drink as thanks

Sieun was already out of bed.

Yeon Sieun

10 minutes. And I’m not buying you anything.

Ahn Suho

see u soon, hyung 💖

The grocery store stood at the corner, squat and unremarkable, its flickering sign humming against the dimming sky. Sieun spotted the boy immediately—leaning against a battered delivery motorcycle like it owed him money. One booted foot propped on the curb, helmet hanging off the handlebar, a canned drink sweating in his hand.

Of course he has a motorcycle. Of course he's one of those kids, a poster child for "questionable decisions."

Sieun approached without slowing. “Wallet.”

“Wow, not even a ‘hello’. Cold,” the boy said, straightening up. His voice was casual, amused, like he’d been expecting this exact tone. Still, he pulled the wallet from his hoodie pocket and handed it over without argument. “Everything’s in there. Even your expired coffee point card.”

Sieun flipped it open. ID, cards, a handful of wrinkled receipts. The tofu slip from two days ago was still tucked in, mocking him.

Figures. He’d spent a full hour today considering how much hassle it’d be to replace every single card just to avoid this exact interaction. Apparently, fate wasn’t on his side.

“Thanks,” he said. “Goodbye.”

He turned to leave.

“Wait,” the boy called, taking a few steps forward with the easy, restless energy of a puppy who never stood still for long. “You’re really not gonna tell me your name?”

“You already know my name.”

“Right. Yeon Sieun, Assistant Brand Blah Blah Manager.” He grinned, brushing messy bangs from his forehead. “But I meant, like... the real you.”

Sieun stopped. Turned.

Stared at the boy with all the enthusiasm of a man asked to work unpaid overtime on a Sunday.

“It’s still Yeon Sieun.”

The boy laughed—just a quick exhale through his nose, like he genuinely found that funny. “Ahn Suho,” he said, patting his own chest like he was introducing himself at a school talent show. “Since we’re apparently fated or whatever.”

“We’re not.”

“Sure, keep telling yourself that, hyung.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“No promises.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The street was quiet, washed in the cold fluorescence of the GS25 store sign. It was nearing 11PM. The sky above was a solid sheet of navy, starless and still. Inside, the buzz of refrigerators and the low hum of overhead lights sounded louder than they should’ve.

Suho didn’t say much as he guided Sieun through the automatic doors. His windbreaker was zipped up halfway, exposing the crumpled uniform of the BBQ joint’s underneath. Sweat clung to his temple, but his eyes were frustratingly alert.

Sieun, meanwhile, looked like he’d barely survived a mugging. He blinked against the harsh lighting like it physically pained him.

Suho moved through the store like someone on autopilot. At the drinks aisle, he grabbed a hangover relief bottle—brown glass, green cap—then added a water bottle and two vitamin jelly packs. No hesitation. No price-checking. Just habit.

Sieun looked like he was curious, but didn’t want to initiate a conversation. Suho handed him the drink, explained anyway. "I work nights. You’d be surprised how often drunken adults ask a waiter like me for life support."

Sieun drank in silence. The bitterness of the hangover tonic clung to his tongue like punishment. After the water, he felt about 3% more human—enough to notice Suho hadn't left. He was sitting outside now, phone in hand, scrolling aimlessly.

Sieun hesitated by the entrance, then stepped out.

"You eat yet?"

Suho looked up, one brow raised. "You buying me dinner now?"

Sieun shrugged, trying not to wobble. "You saved my life. And last time my wallet. Least I can do is buying you something."

Suho’s lips twitched, but he stood up without arguing. They wandered the aisles again, side by side this time. Suho picked tonkotsu. Sieun reached for spicy Shin ramen and tossed an energy drink into the basket before heading to the counter.

He paid before Suho could even pretend to reach for his wallet.

Minutes later, they sat at a flimsy table outside, the kind that wobbled no matter how you adjusted the legs. The night air was crisp, just cool enough to make the rising steam from their ramen curl like ghosts between them.

Suho slurped like he was in a competition. Sieun stirred his slowly, watching the noodles soften.

"You’re weirdly good at taking care of people," Sieun said, voice low.

Suho shrugged with one shoulder. "I live with my grandma. She’s usually the one fussing over me, but sometimes it flips.”

A beat.

"And it’s not that hard, you know. Just takes noticing."

Sieun didn’t reply. He lifted a mouthful of noodles and chewed slowly, almost mechanically.

Suho cracked open the energy drink. His voice softened a little. "That guy who stuck close to you—the one with the round glasses. He’s your friend?"

Sieun nodded. "Beomseok. Yeah. Kind of my only real one."

Suho tilted his head. "He looked like he wanted to cry when you downed that last shot."

Sieun blinked. "He did?"

"Yeah. Kept staring at you the whole time. Thought he might jump in and start a rescue mission."

Something in Sieun’s chest tightened. He stared down at his ramen. It was he himself who started the rescue mission because Beomseok didn’t know how to reject the drinks that were coming his way, but Sieun ended up looking so horrible that Beomseok worried sick?

Somehow he shrunk even smaller, almost embarrassed. He had been too wrapped up in his own exhaustion, his own numb spiral, to notice anything beyond the burning in his throat.

Suho leaned back in his chair, arms folded loosely. "You sound like no one cares about you."

Sieun gave a short laugh, more breath than sound. "It’s not that. People care. They just... eventually don’t."

There was no bitterness in his voice. Just resignation. Like after years of rolling and tumbling between the shores, his heart worn out like sea glass.

Suho didn’t speak right away. He sipped his drink and looked at Sieun in that annoyingly direct way of his—like he was scanning for damage.

"You always drink like that at work dinners?"

"No. Just when my boss is a menace and my friend looks like he’s about to have a breakdown."

"Sounds healthy." Suho huffed a laugh. But his gaze stayed thoughtful, and he didn’t poke fun beyond that.

They finished eating slowly, the silence stretching between them—not awkward, just present. A quiet interlude after a too-loud week.

When they were done cleaning up and dumping their trash, they lingered at the edge of the sidewalk.

"You gonna make it back in one piece?" Suho asked.

"I live two buildings over. I can crawl, worst-case scenario."

Suho squinted. "You sure? You still look like the final stage of a tragic anime protagonist."

"That’s just my face."

Suho smiled. Not wide, but real.

"Text me when you get in. Just so I know the elevator didn’t eat you."

Sieun vaguely waved him goodbye, already turning toward his apartment.

He walked the short path home alone. The night felt colder now, or maybe just quieter.

On his floor, just as he approached his door, he paused.

From the unit next door, he could hear laughter. A child's high giggle. A man’s voice—probably a father—saying, “No more snacks or you’ll never sleep.” The soft murmur of a woman following up with something warm.

Sieun turned his key slowly. The lock clicked.

Inside, the apartment was dark and still.

No reason to turn the lights on. His fingers found the fridge handle by habit. A half-empty milk carton, eggs, a lonely yogurt that might already be expired. He shut the door without taking anything.

Dropped his bag on the floor.

Collapsed onto the couch.

The cushions barely creaked as he slumped into them. One arm flopped over his eyes, it was just… easier not to see anything.

He could still feel the warmth of the ramen bowl on his fingers. Still taste the bitter tang of the hangover drink on the back of his tongue. Still hear Suho’s voice—half amused, half concerned—saying, You sound like no one cares about you.

He didn’t mean to. He didn’t want to. But something in him curled tight at that.

It was embarrassing, really. Not the drinking. Not the wobbling. Just the fact that someone noticed. That someone cared enough to say it out loud.

He pulled out his phone.

Beomseok’s name hovered at the top of his chat list. The profile picture was dumb—a coton de tulear puppy in round glasses. It looked like the guy, harmless and screamed, “Please be gentle with me!”

Sieun stared at it for a while.

Typed: You okay?

Deleted it.

Typed: Sorry.

Deleted that too.

What was he even apologizing for?

Existing weirdly? Being drunk? Making him look like he was gonna cry?

He turned the screen off.

Tossed the phone somewhere onto the cushions. It landed with a soft thud. Beomseok was probably asleep already.

He sat there a while, elbows on knees, forehead resting in his hands. Not crying. Not spiraling. Just... sitting. Like a soda bottle after someone’s shaken it—sealed tight, fizzing quietly from the inside out.

He wasn’t lonely.

He had Beomseok. He had coworkers who tolerated him. He had a bed and a job and working legs and good grammar.

He wasn’t lonely.

He just didn’t know why Suho had to care for a stranger like him.

He just didn’t know how to let himself be cared for without immediately ruining it.

Eventually, he peeled himself off the couch and went to brush his teeth. Not because he felt like it, but because it was easier to follow the routine than to think.

He didn’t text Suho, but he knew Suho would probably assume he got in fine. He’d proved himself competent, hadn’t he? Got home without passing out in a bush. Bought ramen for the kid like a functioning adult.

The mirror fogged slightly from the tap.

He looked at his own reflection. The puffiness around the eyes. The way his mouth stayed in a flat line, like smiling had been turned off at the root.

“You survived,” he said quietly, to no one.

Then he turned off the light and went to bed.

Sleep didn’t come for a long time.

But at least, this time, the silence didn’t feel quite so empty.

The hospital room was washed in bluish light. A machine beeped steadily somewhere near his ear, and the sheets felt too tight around his middle, like they were holding him down.

He was nine. His arm was wrapped in plaster, propped on a pillow that smelled like disinfectant. The pain wasn’t sharp anymore—it was a heavy, pulsing ache that throbbed all the way up to his neck. But the worst part wasn’t his arm.

It was the voices outside the door.

His mother’s voice came first—sharp, controlled, the kind that sounded scarier because it was trying not to yell.

“If you had been watching him properly, this wouldn’t have happened.”

His father snapped back immediately, louder. Defensive.

“Oh, so now it’s my fault? You think I wanted this to happen?”

“He fell off a chair, Sungkyung,” she hissed. “A chair. Why the hell was he even climbing it? Where were you?”

“I was in the living room! It’s not like I was out clubbing—”

“And you didn’t hear anything? You didn’t even check—?”

“Don’t you dare put this all on me!” His voice cracked, raw now. “You’re never home! You’re always working late or gone with your friends on weekends—”

“I have to work! Someone has to make money in this family.”

“Oh, so you wanted me to stay at home and support your career by being a stay-at-home dad, but now I’m just the useless one again, huh?”

Silence.

Then her voice, quieter but colder than before:

“I’m saying our son is in a hospital bed because neither of us were there when he needed us.”

There was the squeak of a shoe against the cold hospital flooring. Then his father, bitter now, like every word had been soaking in anger for hours.

“You always act like you care more, like you’re the better parent, but if you do care then you would actually be there for him. He’s been getting sick, falling down—who knows if there’s something else going on with him.”

“And now you’re blaming him?”

“No—I’m saying—” His voice faltered. “I don’t know what I’m saying. You’re impossible.”

A door handle clicked. Footsteps. 

Sieun hadn’t moved an inch. His eyes were squeezed shut, but the tears had started welling up anyway.

They always fought. But this time, once again, it was about him.

The voices got quieter, mere murmurs. The door creaked open. More footsteps shuffling, further away. 

Until it was dead silence.

He was alone again.

His hand ached. His chest hurt in that full, stuffy way crying brings. But he couldn’t lift his good hand. Couldn’t roll over. Couldn’t even swipe at the warm, ticklish tears sliding down toward his ear.

Sieun stared at the blurry ceiling through watery lashes, his body heavy and hot with pain. He wished someone would come back. Not to yell. Just to sit beside him. Just to be there.

He didn’t know what was worse—the hurt, or knowing it made everyone start fighting again.

He cried as quietly as he could until the tears stopped on their own, until his eyelids drooped from exhaustion, until sleep dragged him down like a slow tide.

When he woke up, his pillow was damp. His throat felt raw.

The apartment was dark. Silent. The faint outline of the window blinds cast stripes across the floor.

For a moment, he lay there, staring up at the ceiling like he was still nine years old. Like the hospital lights had just blinked off and he was still trapped in that tiny, aching body.

Then he blinked, swallowed, and turned over, burying his face in the crook of his arm.

He didn’t cry. He was too old for that. Too used to it.

But he stayed that way for a long while—curled inward, barely breathing—until the morning light filtered in, pale and indifferent, through the gaps in the grey blind.

Suho’s Saturday began with silence.

No reply.

He stared at the unread message on his phone a little longer than he meant to.

Just checking in. You okay?

Sent two hours ago. No double tick, no read receipt.

He didn’t expect a long reply or anything. Honestly, even a thumbs up would've done.

But nothing.

He shoved the phone into his pocket with a sigh and slung his delivery bag over one shoulder.

It was Saturday, and that meant work.

Not the kind where you clock in and get a break every four hours. Not the kind where adults politely look you in the eye and say "thanks" and "good job."

This was the kind where people looked at your face, saw a teenager, and assumed that meant "doormat."

The kind where someone twice your age could yell in your face over pickled radish and think that was perfectly okay.

He adjusted his cap and zipped up his windbreaker. His bike waited by the curb, scratched and loyal in the way only objects can be. He checked the app. First delivery: Gangnam-gu, Rich neighborhood.

He groaned under his breath.

Great.

The house was bigger than it needed to be. Marble stairs, sleek digital locks, a lawn trimmed like it had an Instagram following. He stood at the gate for a few seconds, waiting, until a small boy jogged out, maybe ten or eleven, in brand-name hoodie more expensive than Suho’s entire closet.

“Delivery,” Suho said, pulling out the food.

The kid took the bag and held out a wad of cash, too much for what was owed.

Suho counted out the change quickly and handed it over.

The kid looked at the money, shrugged, and turned around. The door closed with a soft click.

Suho got back on his bike, rolled maybe five meters down the street, and—

“Excuse me! Hey! You—wait!”

He turned around. A woman stood on the porch now, sharp lipstick and a silk robe, holding her phone like it was a weapon.

“You didn’t give my son any change.”

Suho blinked. “Sorry?”

“The food was 18,000. He gave you a 50,000 bill.”

He blinked again, slowly. “I gave him 32,000 back.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Are you calling my son a liar?”

“No, I’m just saying—he took the change and went inside.”

She scoffed. “He said you didn’t give him anything.”

Suho opened his mouth, then paused. Over her shoulder, he saw the kid.

Standing behind the glass door.

Expressionless.

Not even pretending to look surprised. Just… blank. Like this didn’t matter.

His throat tightened. “I’m not lying.”

Her face twisted, irritation blooming into full-blown accusation. “You know what? I’m calling your manager. What kind of service is this? A delivery boy pocketing tips and calling children liars—what kind of person does that? Is this what your parents taught you?”

He flinched.

“Ma’am,” he said tightly. “I’m not pocketing anything. I gave him the money.”

“Well, I don’t see it.” She crossed her arms. “Either you hand it over, or I’m filing a complaint.”

And that was it. One bad review and the app could suspend him. A manager call, and he could lose the shift. Maybe the job. And then no money for groceries this week. And then—

He didn’t say anything else. Just pulled out his own wallet.

The bills felt heavier than usual as he counted them out.

“Here. Thirty-two thousand.”

The woman grabbed the cash with a smug little nod. “Next time, don’t try anything funny.”

Suho didn’t respond.

The kid was still watching from behind her, eyes blank, lips flat.

Not even a twitch of guilt.

He turned back to his bike, shoved his hands into his pockets. His stomach felt hollow.

It wasn’t the money.

It was the way they looked at him.

Like he was nothing. Like he should be guilty.

He got on his bike and started the engine again, the wind biting against his skin, the heat of anger trapped behind his ribs with nowhere to go.

This was just job one. He still had a full shift tonight at the chicken joint.

Still had to be the grandson who smiled at his grandma when she welcomed him home.

Still had to figure out how to stretch ₩12,000 into groceries.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t complain. He just kept driving against the wind.

The rain came without warning.

One second the air was just heavy with mist, and the next, it cracked open. Sheets of water blurred the road, bounced off his bike’s mirror, slid down the back of his neck. Within seconds, his windbreaker was soaked through. It clung to his skin, offering about as much warmth as a wet napkin.

He didn’t stop. Just hunched down lower, twisting the throttle, jaw locked.

His last delivery of the night.

His last one, he told himself again. He’d already said it three times today.

Suho’s body throbbed. His wrists hurt from gripping the handlebars too tight. His lower back burned. Rain hit his face like pinpricks. He could taste sweat and road-dust and whatever was leaking from his delivery box.

He thought of the 32,000 won. Not exactly pocket change.

He thought of the woman’s voice—loud and cold and mean, unironically just like this downpour. To her, he was just an annoying uneducated fly that she could easily squash.

Thought of the door slamming in his face.

Thought of how he didn’t even flinch.

Didn’t fight back.

Why does being poor mean you have to act grateful while getting spat on?

The streetlights buzzed dimly through the downpour. He stopped at a red light and checked his phone.

No new messages.

Still no reply.

Still no read receipt.

Just checking in. You okay?

That was the last thing he’d sent. Late last night, lying flat on the floor of his room, staring up at the ceiling fan like it might spin out of its screws and end him.

Raindrops ran down from his helmet, dropping on the screen. He’d told himself it didn’t matter if Sieun replied or not.

But now, soaked and shivering, something stupid and childish inside him said: he should’ve replied.

He arrived at the address. A squat, aging apartment block with water-stained walls and a half-dead fluorescent buzzing above the lobby door. The kind of place where the elevator groaned when it moved, where the bulletin board was covered in lost cat posters and takeout coupons from restaurants that had closed a year ago.

No one looked at him. No one told him to take off his shoes. Still, he felt like dirt just for being there.

The elevator up was slow. One of the buttons flickered like it was shorting out. The back of his neck itched where his hair had stuck to it.

Maybe he should quit. Just stop showing up.

But then he thought of the pharmacy.

They’d upped the price on grandma’s meds again. Last time he bought them, the cashier had winced at him, pity for the kid, like it was her wallet taking the hit.

“Just one more,” Suho muttered. It barely sounded like his own voice.

He reached the unit. Pressed the buzzer. Cleared his throat.

“Delivery,” he called. Tried to make it sound routine. His fingers trembled.

Silence. Then—

Click.

The door creaked open.

Standing there was Yeon Sieun.

Hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands. Eyes puffy, rimmed pink. Hair an uneven mess like he’d fallen asleep in a spiral and never got out. Barefoot on the linoleum, blinking slow like he was trying to place where he was.

They stared at each other.

Rainwater dripped from Suho’s nose. His windbreaker clung to him like a second skin.

Neither of them moved.

Neither of them said it first.

Finally, Suho let out a breath.

“...You ordered food?”

Chapter Text

Just like that, they were face to face again.

They both spoke at the same time.

“Do you need a towel?”—“Can I have some water?”

Suho’s voice cracked a little on the last word. He hadn’t meant to ask, but the warmth that hit him from Sieun’s apartment—a direct contrast with the harsh downpour at 11PM, was enough to snap something loose. A quiet desperation clung to him, soaked into the hem of his shirt, heavier than the rain still dripping from his hood.

Sieun blinked at him, like he was still buffering.

Then, with the weary calm of someone who’d long since run out of reactions, he stepped back and pulled the door open wider. Sieun turned and shuffled toward the fridge. His movements were stiff, like his limbs still hadn’t forgiven him for the hangover. He pulled out a chilled water bottle and tossed it gently in Suho’s direction.

Suho caught it, scanning the apartment in the meantime. Sparse, dim, clean in that too-empty kind of way. Nothing cluttered, nothing personal. Like a model unit someone had almost lived in. He hesitated on the threshold, water still dripping from his pants onto the doormat.

“I’m—uh. Wet,” he said, as if that needed clarifying.

“I’ve seen water before,” Sieun replied, already turning toward the fridge. “Get in.”

Suho obeyed, peeling off his shoes with a squelch. His socks followed, pitiful and soggy, as he padded in like a stray dog who wasn’t sure if he’d get fed or kicked. In the 18 years of his life, Ahn Suho swore he had never felt awkwardness like this before

“Thanks,” Suho muttered toward the water bottle.

He hovered a second longer, unsure where to sit. Eventually, he lowered himself to the floor, careful not to drip on anything important. The water bottle was cold in his hands, condensation already fogging up the label. Then, as if remembering something important, he placed a plastic bag on the coffee table with uncharacteristic care. “Uh… this was supposed to be your dinner.”

Sieun didn’t answer. They lapsed into silence. Not exactly comfortable, but not hostile either. Just… neutral. Exhausted.

Suho cracked the seal on the water and took a long drink. When he looked up, Sieun had sat down on the couch, legs pulled up, hoodie sleeves bunched around his wrists.

“I texted you yesterday, you know?” Suho blurted.

Sieun blinked slowly. “Huh?”

“Last night. After we split. Just to check in.”

There was a pause. Sieun furrowed his brow like the memory was fighting its way to the surface. He looked around on the couch. After some blind groping, he pulled out his phone. The screen lit up too bright in the low light, illuminating his puffy face in soft blue.

Sure enough:

Just checking in. You okay?

12:34 a.m.

He made a soft, sheepish noise. “Oh.”

Suho raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Sieun looked up with a shrug. “Didn’t see it.”

Suho snorted. “Yeah, figured. Didn’t expect a thank-you anyway.”

But a part of him had.

Sieun rubbed at his face. “Thanks,” he said finally. Quiet. “I’m okay.” A little scratchy.

Suho stared at him for a beat, feeling all his sulkiness from before mysteriously disappeared after Sieun’s response.

Then he sneezed—loud and ungraceful.

Without comment, Sieun stood and returned with a towel, tossing it onto Suho’s head like he was lobbing a pillow.

“Thanks,” Suho said again, voice muffled. “You always this charming to guests? Or am I just special?” he added, towel still over his face.

“I don’t usually have guests,” Sieun replied.

“That tracks.”

Suho peeked out from under the fabric. His hair stuck out in clumps, his eyes half-lidded. Sieun slouched back down against the couch, arms crossed, posture loose in the way people get when they’ve stopped pretending to be fine.

“That hangover stuff help?” Suho asked after a beat.

Sieun tilted his head, considering. “A little.”

“See? Deluxe ingredients. That was top-tier convenience store craftsmanship.”

A breath of something like a laugh escaped Sieun’s nose.

He leaned his head back and exhaled. “How many jobs do you have, anyway?”

Sieun’s tone was casual, but Suho caught the edge of something else underneath. Curiosity, maybe. Or worry.

“Three,” he admitted. “Well, two and a half. I can only do morning shifts on the weekend.”

Sieun nodded once. No judgment. No sympathy, either. Just… acknowledgment.

Suho kept his gaze on the ceiling. “Just trying to make it through life. And meds. They upped the price on one of my grandma’s pills again. I don’t know why they have to make those stuff so hard to access.”

“Mm.”

They let the silence stretch.

Suho didn’t feel the need to fill it.

“You always live alone?” he asked finally, half-curious, half looking for something to bounce off.

“Yeah.”

“Doesn’t it get lonely?”

“I don’t mind quiet.”

Suho hummed. “Normally I hate it. But I’m getting used to it.”

The room felt smaller after that. Not in a claustrophobic way—just close. Like two people accidentally sitting in the same grief-colored pocket of the world.

Sieun opened the bag that Suho left on the coffee table earlier, revealing a container of dumplings. The steam wafted up, warm and almost comforting.

Right on cue, Suho’s stomach betrayed him—loud and unapologetic.

He froze. “That wasn’t me.”

Sieun looked at him, unimpressed.

“Swear to God. It could’ve been… the fridge.”

Sieun raised an eyebrow, picked up a dumpling and popped it into his mouth. Then, without looking, nudged the container toward Suho.

“Take it. I don’t eat much.”

“I don’t think you need a diet,” Suho muttered.

“Just take it. Consider it an apology for not reading your text.”

“Wha—Hey! I’m not that petty!” Suho protested, already reaching for a dumpling. “But I will eat it. Because you offered so nicely.” He can never reject free food, that’s a crime.

They ate (well, Suho ate) in silence. But this one was different. Softer. The kind that formed when two people had stopped talking but hadn’t stopped listening.

Suho’s hair was still damp. He rubbed the towel over his head with slow, lazy movements. It was soft with just a hint of floral-smelling, like it had been forgotten in a pile of clean laundry for a week. He didn’t know why that detail lodged itself in his brain, but it did.

The apartment wasn’t warm, strictly speaking. The air was lukewarm at best, and the walls were bare, the furniture minimal. But there was a kind of warmth here that crept in sideways—through the way Sieun had handed him the towel without making a show of it, through the fact that the dumplings were good even though they were not intentionally bought for him, through the quiet thud of the fridge humming like an old, tired heart.

Sieun didn’t hover, didn’t ask if he was okay, didn’t make a fuss—and weirdly, that helped more than any kind of sympathy would’ve. He just moved through the room like someone who didn’t expect company, but wasn’t particularly bothered by having it either.

Suho wasn’t used to this kind of space. Sieun’s apartment almost resembled grandma’s kitchen in some ways, but with school and part-time jobs, he rarely have a moment at home. Most places he crashed at were loud, cramped, or halfway between disaster and eviction notice. Sitting on a floor that didn’t creak under him, wrapped in a towel that wasn’t his, trading silences with a guy who barely looked alive most days—he felt something strange settle in his chest.

It might’ve been comfort.

It might’ve been the dumpling smell.

Hard to say.

But whatever it was, it made him sink a little deeper into the floor, just enough to admit, quietly and without fanfare: “Not bad.”

Sieun looked up. “The dumplings?”

“Everything.”

After a while, Suho stretched with a groan and rubbed his eyes. “If I don’t go home now, I’m gonna fall asleep on your floor.”

“You say that like I’d stop you.”

He stood anyway, handing back the towel, which Sieun took wordlessly.

“Thanks,” Suho said again, quieter this time. “For the towel. And… water. And dumpling charity.”

At the door, he hesitated. Then turned back.

“Can I call you hyung now?”

Sieun looked at him, utterly unamused. “Since when do you care about what I think?”

Suho grinned and threw a finger heart over his shoulder as he stepped out into the hall.

The door clicked shut behind him.

The apartment fell silent again.

Sieun looked around. The towel on the table. The empty dumpling container. The faint trace of someone else’s warmth, not quite faded yet.

He didn’t smile. He just sat there a while.

And for the first time in a long time, the quiet didn’t feel quite so empty.

It started, as most stupid things in Suho’s life did, with a meme.

A grainy, low-effort screenshot of a penguin lying face-down on the ice with the caption:

"me on my way to another pointless meeting that could’ve been an email 🐧"

He sent it without thinking. No message. Just the penguin.

To his surprise, Sieun replied.

that’s not even a penguin

that’s a seal

still me tho

penguin seal solidarity

The next one he sent was a clip of Mr. Incredible typing on a tiny keyboard. The caption read:

"pretending to be productive while dissociating at work"

Sieun hearted it.

That was how it began.

Somehow, between dumpling charity and dripping towels, their weird little relationship shifted. Not into something as straightforward as friendship. But into a kind of semi-consensual texting arrangement that evolved with alarming speed into full-on hanging out.

At first, Suho asked because he was bored.

u free tonight? pool?

promise i won’t cry this time when u destroy me

Sieun’s responses were usually short, sometimes delayed by hours, but not dismissive.

i’m off at 7

come to the one near jongno. less kids

Suho, of course, showed up at 6:55.

They played pool, and Suho lost every single time. Horrifically.

“You’re cheating,” he accused, as Sieun sunk another impossible shot with barely a flick of his wrist.

Sieun just shrugged, lining up the next ball. “I used to be good at math.”

“You can’t geometry your way out of this, hyung.”

“Then stop letting me win.”

“I am trying, stop being so smug!”

To any outsider, the sight had to be deeply confusing—some tired, hoodie-wearing adult playing pool with a high school student like it was the most normal thing in the world. But somehow, it didn’t look weird.

Maybe it was Sieun’s size—short and sleep-deprived, dressed in loose t-shirts and zip-up hoodies that made him look like a perpetually-overworked senior preparing for his college entrance exams.

Or maybe it was just the way he stopped feeling like an adult entirely when he was with Suho. With Suho, there was no forced laughter, no faux workplace camaraderie, no passive-aggressive "team synergy" comments. Just trash food, dumb jokes, and the occasional secondhand embarrassment from watching Suho try to flirt with the PC-bang lady who was definitely married.

Weirdly, Sieun found himself saying yes more often than no. Maybe because he didn’t have anything better to do. Or maybe because, on some level, it felt easier to breathe when Suho was around.

They made a habit out of it.

PC-bangs were a regular stop now. Suho taught Sieun how to play PUBG, though the first few sessions were rough.

“This is a grenade,” Suho said, watching in horror as Sieun accidentally threw it straight at their feet.

Boom.

“You just murdered us both.”

“I thought it was health.”

“You thought the grenade was health?”

Sieun learned fast, though. Too fast. Within two weeks, he was racking up headshots with sniper rifles and calling out enemy positions like a veteran.

“Where’d you learn to aim like that?” Suho asked, squinting at his screen.

“Calculus.”

“Of course.”

Then there were the bookstore visits. A temporary ceasefire zone.

Sieun would disappear into shelves lined with brain-melting nonfiction—titles like The Neuroscience of Memory Encoding or Cognitive Dissonance in Modern Decision Theory. Suho, meanwhile, drifted toward the manga section, sitting cross-legged on the floor and devouring three volumes of Jujutsu Kaisen in one go.

They didn’t talk much in those moments. But they didn’t need to. The silence felt companionable. A black cat and a golden retriever choosing to nap in the same sunbeam.

Back in his own orbit, Suho noticed a different kind of shift.

He giggled. A lot.

At his phone, mostly.

Which would’ve been fine—except the BBQ restaurant ajumma noticed.

The conversation happened during one of his dinner break.

“You’ve been smiling at your phone like that for ten minutes,” she said, leaning over the counter with a look of faux concern. “What’s her name?”

“Huh?”

“Your girlfriend. She must be funny.”

Suho flushed, trying to hide his screen. It showed a reel with Dwight from 'The Office' saying: "You only live once? False! You live everyday. You only die once."

He could totally see Sieun saying that.

“I—it’s not like that,” he muttered. “Just memes. Nothing serious.”

“Mm-hmm,” the ajumma said, clearly not buying it. “Tell your ‘not serious’ meme supplier to take you out for real food next time. You’re getting too skinny.”

He grumbled something noncommittal, poking at his rice.

Later that night, stretched out on his stomach with one ear pressed to the pillow, Suho opened Instagram, stared at his feed for a while, then switched to messages.

He hovered over Sieun’s name.

No new memes today. No stupid reels saved.

Instead, he typed:

today was long as hell

Then stared at it.

No context. No punchline. Just that.

He hit send anyway.

Ten minutes passed before a reply came:

you okay?

Suho blinked at the screen.

Usually, Sieun ignored his random texts for an hour or more. Sometimes didn’t respond at all.

He considered brushing it off. Thought about replying with a dumb gif. But instead, his fingers typed:

just tired

There was a pause. The typing bubble appeared. Disappeared.

Then nothing.

But the next time they met—outside the convenience store near a PC-bang, Suho yawning hard enough to make his eyes water and glancing a little too quickly over his shoulder—Sieun handed him a banana milk without a word.

Suho stared at it. “What’s this for?”

“Just drink it,” Sieun said, already turning away.

Suho finished the banana milk in three long gulps.

It was still cold. Fresh from the store. The kind of small, forgettable kindness that somehow lodged itself in his brain and refused to leave.

He crushed the empty carton, lobbed it into the trash can outside the convenience store, and trailed behind Sieun into the neon-lit glow of the PC-bang. The place was thick with the scent of instant noodles, greasy keyboards, and teenage sweat. A kid two rows over was already screaming at his squadmates in League. Normally, Suho liked this kind of chaos. Background noise for a couple hours of zoning out.

But tonight, something in him couldn’t settle.

His eyes kept flicking to the windows. The way the overhead lights bounced off the glass made it hard to tell if someone was standing out there. Watching. Waiting.

“Suho,” Sieun said without looking over, already sliding into his seat. “You in?”

“Yeah.” Suho dropped into the chair beside him, headset on, screen glowing blue. He cracked his knuckles, but the usual buzz of adrenaline wasn’t there. His fingers felt sluggish.

He was fine.

Probably.

Just tired.

Just—tired of this stupid, invisible threat.

At school, everyone still looked at him like he was some kind of urban legend. A hallway myth with fists.

“Isn’t that the guy who bodied three Sangmun thugs behind the gym?”

“I heard he used to do cage fights. Like, actual MMA.”

“He broke Kang Jinho’s nose with one punch, no joke.”

Half of it wasn’t even true. Or if it was, it got retold with extra explosions and anime sound effects.

He didn’t hate it. The reputation came in handy. Teachers left him alone. Seniors nodded at him in the halls. Being at the upper league of the hierarchy for teenagers, nobody shoved him around, nobody called him names.

And when someone from his school got cornered by the Sangmun punks—thugs from the neighboring high school who thought bullying was a sport—they came to him.

Suho, the guy who doesn’t lose.

Some of them even paid for his “services”—stupid amounts of allowance money just to walk them home or deal with a snatched phone. Easy cash. He never turned it down.

Because fighting was easy. It made sense. You hit, you get hit, you walk away. Boys fought. Either got your ass kicked or learned how to throw a better punch. That was just how things worked. At least in his world.

But lately, it wasn’t just bruises and cheap jabs.

It started with a stare.

A guy in Sangmun uniform, with orange bleached hair and a bad limp had cornered him behind the school building last month.

“You think you’re some kind of hero?” he’d hissed, trembling but furious. “You think you’re better than us?”

Suho didn’t even answer. Just stared. Let the silence stretch until the guy cracked and ran off.

That should’ve been the end of it.

But the messages started not long after.

The first one came from a blank Instagram account—no profile picture, no posts.

bet your grandma’s nice. hope nothing happens to her :)

It had taken him three reads before the words landed.

He wasn’t scared. Not really. He’d been in plenty of fights. He could handle five punks, seven punks, hell—even ten if they were slow.

But this was different. It wasn’t about fists anymore.

Then he noticed someone loitering outside the BBQ restaurant where he worked. Hood up. Didn’t come in, just stood across the street. Smoking.

Suho stared at him through the window for ten minutes. Can't really see his face, but the guy never moved.

He didn’t come back the next day.

But Suho still switched shifts. Told the ajumma he had a school project to finish. She gave him a suspicious look, then mussed his hair and said he was growing into a fine young man.

He didn’t feel fine. He felt wired. Like he was bracing for a punch that hadn’t landed yet.

He didn’t tell anyone.

Not his grandma. She’d worry herself into a heart attack. Probably call the police, or worse—try to confront someone herself.

And he sure as hell wasn’t going to dump it on Sieun.

What was he supposed to say? Hey, there’s a group of teenage psychopaths possibly stalking me, and I’m starting to worry they might use my grandmother to get to me. Yeah so do you want to play pool today?”

Yeah. No.

So he kept his mouth shut. Acted normal. Played games. Cracked jokes. Pretended every shadow in the corner of his eye wasn’t a threat with teeth.

But lately, even his reflection looked on edge.

Eyes a little too sharp. Shoulders a little too tight. Like he was constantly bracing for a fight that hadn’t started yet.

That night, after they finished their last game and parted ways, Suho slipped on his helmet and kicked his motorbike into gear. The engine rattled to life with its usual stubborn growl, echoing against the alley walls.

He didn’t put in his earbuds. No music. Just the night sounds, filtered through the wind and the hum of the road.

Crickets. A dog barking somewhere in the distance. The thrum of his wheels over uneven pavement.

He kept his eyes moving—rearview mirror, side streets, alley mouths blurring past in the periphery. Every shadow looked a little too still. Every corner felt like it was holding its breath.

Nothing followed. No headlights. No silhouettes on bikes. Just the usual Seoul night—sullen and restless.

Still, Suho didn’t take his usual route home.

He weaved through side roads, took the longer way around the park, circled once before finally pulling up to his house. The porch light was on, flickering slightly. That sight alone loosened something tight in his chest.

He killed the engine, parked beside the gate, and rolled the scooter silently into place before stepping inside.

His grandma was curled up on the floor in front of the TV, bundled in her usual pink-flowered blanket, half-watching a rerun of some drama. She looked up with a gentle smile.

“You’re home,” she said.

“Yeah,” Suho replied, pulling off his hoodie. His voice came out rougher than he meant.

“You eat?”

“Later.”

He toed off his shoes and shut the door to his room behind him. The moment it clicked shut, the weight he carried all the way home caught up with him.

He dropped to the floor beside his bed, his legs stretched out stiffly, like they’d been bracing too long. He pressed his head to the mattress, letting the cool fabric ground him.

The silence wrapped around him like a blanket—heavy, not warm.

He didn’t know what the Sangmun kids were planning. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe they were just blowing smoke, trying to rattle him.

But it didn’t feel like nothing. Not when someone was watching the restaurant. Not when someone had sent a message about his grandma.

If they ever came for him—at school, at work, here—he’d be ready.

He had to be.

But tonight, at least, he was home.

And his grandma was still watching her dramas.

Not yet, he thought to himself. Not her.

Chapter Text

Suho didn’t realize anything was wrong until he squeezed the brake and nothing happened.

He was cruising downhill just past the underpass, taking the longer, quieter way home—habit by now. His helmet was snug, the wind tugging at his jacket, the night air sharp in his lungs. He wasn't even going that fast. Just enough to coast the curve near the concrete barrier.

Then he tapped the brake.

Nothing.

He blinked, gripped tighter, squeezed again. Still nothing.

A jolt of confusion shot through his chest, then bloomed into panic as the curve came rushing toward him. He tried the rear brake. Too late. The bike fishtailed violently, tires screeching as he swerved to avoid the barrier.

His heart slammed once, hard, before the road ripped it away.

The impact was brutal.

The bike skidded out from under him, metal shrieking against pavement. Suho’s shoulder hit first, then his hip, then his knee—raw, dragging pain tearing through every nerve. His helmet slammed against the ground with a sharp thunk that echoed inside his skull. The world tilted, spun. A smear of red lights and concrete.

He didn't remember the fall. Only the feeling of flying for a second—and then the ground hitting back.

Then nothing.

When he came to, everything was noise.

Distant shouting. A car honking. Footsteps on pavement.

“…Hey! Are you okay?”

A stranger’s face hovered over him, backlit by headlights.

“Kid—can you hear me?”

Suho tried to sit up but his body didn’t listen. His leg felt wrong. His arms wouldn’t stop shaking. His helmet was gone, hands raw and stinging. He tasted blood at the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t move—ambulance is on the way!”

He mumbled, trying several, “I’m okay”. But the world was buzzing, edges blurring.

Sirens started wailing from somewhere up the road.

He closed his eyes.

He woke up in the emergency room.

Harsh lights. Beeping monitors. A plastic wristband around his arm. He blinked, disoriented, until it all started coming back.

The curve. The brakes. The crash.

Pain bloomed again as soon as he shifted—his ribs aching, knee throbbing under the brace, a dull pressure behind his eyes.

A nurse noticed him stirring and came over, voice gentle.

“You’re at Suseong General. You were in a motorbike accident. Just rest, okay?”

She checked his vitals, said the doctor would be in soon, then left.

Suho lay there, jaw clenched.

The brake hadn’t worked. At all.

It wasn’t just bad luck.

He didn’t know how, or who, but he’d felt the difference. Something had been off the second he touched the lever. There hadn’t even been resistance.

Not a failure.

A cut.

His stomach turned. Not from the pain this time—but from the dawning certainty that someone had wanted him off that bike.

And that they’d nearly succeeded.

“You’re lucky,” the doctor said, flipping through the chart. “You didn’t break anything, but you’ve got deep bruising along the ribs and a torn ligament in your knee. Could’ve been worse if you weren’t wearing your helmet.”

Suho sat stiffly, shoulders tense under the hospital blanket.

“You’ll need to rest the leg for at least three weeks. Keep the brace on, avoid heavy activity, and absolutely no riding until you’re cleared.”

Suho nodded automatically, but his mind was already elsewhere—on the hospital fees, on his grandma, on the delivery job he couldn’t afford to miss.

He knew he couldn’t stay.

He didn’t have insurance. Not the kind that covered multiple nights and imaging fees and braces that cost more than his monthly food budget.

He’d sent a text to his grandma, said he was staying at a friend’s to study late. No reply. She was probably asleep already. He was relieved.

There was no way he was going to let her see him like this—bandaged, limping, hooked up to machines. Her blood pressure would shoot through the roof. And once she started worrying, it’d never stop.

He reached down slowly and touched the brace around his knee. The pressure was tight, steady, unforgiving.

“Three weeks” wasn’t going to happen.

He needed to get back on his feet now.

So, that night, once the nurse finished her rounds, he quietly undid the brace, slipped on his hoodie, and limped his way out of the building.

The next few days, he moved slow. He skipped his part-time shifts. Told his friends at school he was helping his uncle paint a house and twisted something on a ladder. No one probed. The bruises helped sell the story. So did the fact that Suho, despite everything, didn’t seem scared—just tired.

He still texted Sieun. Sent dumb memes. Commented on work complaints. Even joked about missing the way Sieun lined up pool shots like a machine learning algorithm in a hoodie. But he didn’t ask to meet up.

Not until a full week had passed.

“You free tonight?” he texted.

Sieun replied, a little slower than usual: ‘pc bang or pool?’

‘pool. been a while.’

Sieun hadn’t gotten much done all morning.

His inbox was full. The project folder for Lurène’s spring campaign had a dozen unanswered comments. Beomseok kept trying to discreetly get his attention about the updated slide deck.

And yet—Sieun kept staring at the corner of his screen, where the time ticked by way too slowly. Every now and then, his eyes drifted to his phone, even though it hadn’t buzzed since yesterday.

He told himself to focus.

But every time he blinked, he saw that faint bruise on Suho’s cheekbone. The way Suho limped—not all the time, just enough for Sieun to catch it between turns at the pool table. Just enough for the puzzle pieces to click into place.

That was three nights ago.

Suho had shown up in his usual hoodie, acting like nothing was wrong. Same cocky smirk. Same dumb jokes. But Sieun saw the way he leaned more on his left leg. The way his dominant hand shook a little when he took his shot.

Sieun asked, of course—low voice, casual tone.

“Did you fight at school?”

Suho shrugged. “Yeah, just some scrap, no big deal.”

Which told him nothing, really. And Sieun knew better than to push. Knew that boys like Suho only talked when they were ready. Knew that sometimes, they never were.

Still, it lingered. The feeling.

That dumb kid. Big and loud and full of snark, still bruised and grinning like a cartoon troublemaker. Still pretending to be invincible. Still limping like a guy trying not to limp.

Sieun leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling like answers might live in the water stains up there.

Suho kept texting him like always—memes, random updates, occasional complaints about homework. But now that Sieun had seen him in person, now that he knew something had happened, the texts felt too carefully normal.

Like Suho was trying to convince him there was nothing to see.

Sieun closed his email draft, leaned back, and rubbed a hand over his face. He hadn’t felt this level of low-key dread since... he couldn’t even remember. Finals week, maybe.

But this wasn’t about a project deadline. This was a kid. That kid.

He wasn’t even sure when it started, the way he felt protective of Suho. Maybe sometime between the hangover morning and that rainy night at his apartment. Maybe when Suho offered him the hangover medicine like it was nothing. Maybe when he realized the dumb reels made his evenings feel less heavy.

Whatever it was, it had stuck.

And now, every time Suho brushed off a limp or skipped a hangout, it hit Sieun square in the chest. Harder than it should’ve.

High school boys were dangerous in the stupidest ways. He remembered. He’d seen it firsthand—boys breaking bones just to impress someone, running wild off adrenaline and boredom and one too many energy drinks. Some had nothing better to do than test how close they could get to ruining their lives.

He knew how things could spiral. How quickly a group of teenagers could go from messing around to messing someone up.

“Sieun-ah?”

Sieun looked up. Beomseok stood beside his desk, holding a plastic cup of coffee with both hands like he needed something to fidget with.

“You okay?” Beomseok asked, voice soft. “You’ve been... kind of out of it today.”

Sieun blinked. “I’m good.”

“Oh. Okay. Just wondering.” He paused, clearly hesitating. “I mean, if you need to talk or anything—I brought coffee. It’s the one you like.”

Sieun’s mouth tugged into a faint smile. “Thanks.”

He didn’t say anything more.

Beomseok didn’t press. He never did. Just nodded and left the coffee on his desk before walking off, looking vaguely relieved and vaguely nervous—his default state.

Sieun watched him go. Then glanced at his phone again.

Still no new messages.

He picked it up anyway. Typed a short text:

don’t forget to rest your leg

Then stared at it. Debated deleting it.

Instead, he hit send.

Because even if Suho didn’t say anything… even if he never would…

Someone should be checking in.

The glow of Sieun’s laptop screen cast a pale rectangle across his unmade bed. The rest of the room was quiet, save for the low hum of his space heater and the occasional pop from the radiator. His dinner—a mug of barley tea—had long gone cold on the side table.

He sat cross-legged on the mattress, sleeves pushed up, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Work tabs were minimized.

Instead, the cursor blinked in a Naver search bar:

“Byeoksan High School news.”

He wasn’t even sure why he was doing this again. Just… curious. Just making sure. Nothing serious. Suho had replied to his texts—nothing unusual. Nothing alarming.

But he hadn’t closed the laptop either.

He hit enter.

The first few results were harmless: posts on X from students about exam stress, old photos from a sports festival, a snarky article rating Seoul school uniforms. He skimmed without really reading, scrolling through grainy images of students in white shirts.

Then a headline caught his eye.

“Third-Year Student Injured After On-Campus Altercation – Authorities Investigating”

No names. No school officially mentioned. The article was vague—just a short blurb buried in a neighborhood crime roundup. No quotes from staff. No photos of the student. It might’ve been nothing.

But something about it felt off. The kind of off that gets quietly swept under the rug.

He opened a few more links, this time broadening the search:

“high school violence Seoul”

“school gang fights 2025”

A police blotter summary. An op-ed about rising teen aggression. Another incident report.

And then—there.

A poorly lit photo, likely taken by someone on a phone and posted to an old forum thread.

The image was blurry, but in the background, a group of students stood clustered near the front gate of a school. A few wore the white shirts and black-lined collars he’d seen on Suho.

And near the bottom corner—half-cropped, partially obscured by motion blur—was a red windbreaker.

Sieun stared at it.

It wasn’t definitive, but he didn’t need it to be. He’d seen Suho wear that same jacket enough times to know the slightly fraying hem at the sleeves.

The memory came back—unexpected and sharp.

That day, the first time they met. Three teenagers chasing him down, until Suho had shown up, all quirks and flying fists, protecting Sieun while mistaking him for a student from Byeoksan.

Suho was from Byeoksan. Which meant those kids weren’t.

Another school, then. A rival school.

So what exactly was going on?

He sat back slowly, the creak of the mattress loud in the silence. His hand moved automatically, reaching for the tea that had gone lukewarm. He didn’t drink it.

Instead, he stared at the screen. At the picture. At the blur of a jacket that may or may not have been worn during a fight Suho would never admit to.

Suho hadn’t said a word. Not about the limp. Not about the bruises. Not about why he’d been on edge recently.

Of course he didn’t. That wasn’t how Suho operated. He was loud about everything—except pain.

Sieun rubbed a finger over his cracked lips, exhaled through his nose.

He should stop. He should close the tabs and go to sleep and forget about this. It wasn’t his job to worry.

But the thought of Suho walking to class with a busted knee, trying to act normal, hell, even trying to save others, while the kids out there were still throwing punches—

It made Sieun feel a little sick.

He clicked the lid of the laptop closed, the screen going black.

Tomorrow, after work, he’d go take a look.

He didn’t need to interfere. He just needed to understand.

It was just a walk.

That’s what Sieun kept telling himself as he zipped up his gray hoodie and tugged the black cap lower over his eyes. No big plans. No confrontation. Just some light field research. The kind of thing people in documentaries do—walk past a location, observe, move on. Easy.

The office lights had gone out two hours ago. He’d taken the subway out to the area, stepping onto cracked sidewalks lined with neon-lit chicken joints and quiet, closed hagwons. Byeoksan High was already behind him, its campus lights still on, windows faintly glowing in the dusk.

Now, it was Sangmun territory.

The neighborhood here felt different. Narrower streets, tighter corners. Convenience stores with flickering signs. A faint reek of burnt instant noodles and motor oil.

He told himself he was just walking off the work stress. Getting fresh air. Definitely not doing anything suspicious.

But that excuse started to crumble when two boys stepped out from a shadowed alley between a boarded-up coin karaoke and a hardware store. They looked around Suho’s age—maybe younger. One had a mop of bleached-blonde hair and a faint scar above his brow. The other wore a knockoff North Face jacket, holding a small white box in one hand like it was no big deal.

Sieun’s eyes flicked to the box—just a glance, but enough.

Fentanyl. The print was in English, hard to miss.

Shit.

The boys noticed him too.

“You him?” the bleached one asked, eyes narrowing as he scanned Sieun’s outfit. “You messaged for the pickup, right? Grey hoodie with a cap? ”

Sieun felt his stomach turn to ice. He looked pointedly at them. “You’ve got the wrong person.”

The boys didn’t look entirely convinced. “You sure?” the one with the box said. “'Cause you look exactly like what the guy said.”

“I said I’m not.”

They didn’t back off.

“You ain’t a cop, are you?” the blonde one asked, tone tilting toward something less casual. “Not some neighborhood watch bullshit?”

Sieun stayed still, meeting their eyes. “I don’t care what you’re doing.”

There was a silence. The air tensed, like a rubber band pulled too tight.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” the one with the scar said. “Maybe we should make sure you don’t say shit.”

The guy with the fentanyl stepped slightly forward, lifting the box a little like a threat, though it looked ridiculous in his grip—like he wanted it to mean more than it did.

Sieun didn’t flinch. “This has nothing to do with me. I’m walking home.”

The silence stretched.

Something about his gaze and the way he said it—dry, bored, unimpressed—made the kids hesitate.

“…Tch. You’re lucky we’re not in the mood,” the blonde muttered, jerking his chin toward the alley again. “Let’s go.”

They disappeared back into the dark, muttering something about ghost accounts and wasting time.

Sieun stood there for a beat longer. His heart was pounding now, but his face didn’t show it.

Then he turned and walked.

Fast. Purposeful. Hands in his hoodie pocket to hide the slight tremble in his fingers.

He didn’t stop until the streets started to look normal again. Lights. People. A convenience store he could trust. He leaned against the wall beside it, taking his cap off, letting the air cool his scalp.

Now he knew for sure.

This wasn’t about juvenile fights anymore. It wasn’t just delinquency or after-school brawls.

This was a whole world Suho was wrapped up in. Kids playing with drugs, turf, and danger far bigger than bruised fists and detention slips.

And Suho… was somehow surviving in it.

Alone.

By the time Sieun made it back to his apartment, his legs ached and the cold had finally crept through the thin layers of his hoodie. He didn’t even remember the walk from the station. Just the hum of anxiety in his chest, quiet but relentless.

His key was already in hand when he turned the corner to his unit.

He stopped.

Someone was sitting on the floor, slumped against his door.

For a split second, he thought it was a drunk neighbor who got the wrong apartment. That happened sometimes.

Then he saw the red windbreaker.

The same red windbreaker that had been burned into his memory after seeing that blurred photo online. The sleeves were soaked—dark, not just from rain. Something deeper.

His stomach dropped.

“Suho?” His voice came out quiet. Uncertain.

He rushed forward, keys clattering to the floor. The hallway light flickered overhead, barely catching the dull sheen of blood smeared along the side of Suho’s jacket.

“Suho—hey, hey—what the hell—” Sieun crouched, hands shaking as he touched Suho’s shoulders, trying not to press too hard. “Wake up. Look at me. Suho—!”

No response. Just the limp weight of a boy who shouldn’t be here, whose skin was too cold and too pale.

Sieun’s eyes darted lower—and that’s when he saw it.

A deep stain spreading across Suho’s stomach. Crimson, soaking through his shirt and jacket, sticky and glistening under the hallway light.

He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Shit. Shit, no—Suho, come on,” he whispered, shaking him again, harder this time. His heart was pounding out of rhythm, full of words he didn’t know how to say. “Wake up. Wake up, please—”

And then, just barely, Suho stirred.

His eyelids fluttered, unfocused. His face twisted in pain.

“Hyung…” His voice was a cracked whisper, raw and barely audible. He had never sounded so… weak before. “Help me… it hurts…”

Sieun swallowed a gasp. His fingers pressed gently against Suho’s shoulder, grounding him. “I will. I’ll get you to a hospital—”

“No.”

Suho’s hand twitched, catching Sieun’s wrist. Weak. Desperate.

“No… no hospital…”

His voice dissolved into a breathless groan. And then, just like that, he passed out again.

Completely still.

Sieun stared at him, frozen, panic clawing up his throat.

He didn’t know what had happened.

He didn’t know who did this.

And he didn’t know why Suho had come to him—bleeding, broken, and begging.

But right now, none of that mattered.

He had to keep him alive.

Chapter Text

(*Adding visualization of office worker!Sieun and Beomseok because this is how they look like in my head, and obviously they can't look exactly like highschool kids lol
Suho doesn't need one because he looks the same as in the series but I'm adding his pic just for fun)

https://x.com/dienanamite/status/1920054423952486527

By the time Sieun managed to drag Suho inside, his arms were trembling from the effort. Suho was heavy—dead weight, literally—and Sieun’s doorframe had never felt narrower, more impossible to navigate with a half-conscious teenager bleeding out in his arms.

The second the door slammed shut behind them, Sieun dropped to his knees beside Suho on the living room floor, gasping for breath. His carpet was ruined. His shirt was soaked. None of it mattered.

This was bad. This was really bad.

He had to stop the bleeding.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, voice barely above a whisper. “Okay. Okay, think.”

But he couldn’t think. His mind keep skipping, stuttering. Like a super computer with half its wires torn out. Blood— there was so much of it. And Suho wasn’t moving anymore.

For a moment, all he could do was sit there, hunched over, staring at Suho’s pale face.

Then his body jolted into motion.

His hands were shaking, but he forced them to move. First, he stumbled into the bathroom— grabbed his first aid kit, a towel, bottled saline, scissors. His old stash of gauze, the antiseptic pads he hadn’t touched in years, a box of gloves he wasn’t sure were still sterile. He’d used most of this on himself more than once. Split knuckles. A gash on his cheekbone when he was fourteen. But never… never this much blood.

When he returned, Suho was too still for his liking.

Sieun knelt, opened the jacket as carefully as he could, then peeled up the blood-slick shirt. The wound on Suho’s abdomen was jagged and messy—like someone had shoved a broken bottle into him and twisted. Deep, but not gushing anymore. Not pulsing. Maybe that was good. Maybe that was very, very bad.

He bit back a rising wave of nausea. With this kind of wound and the fact that an ambulance won’t be here soon (even considering Suho’s no hospital wish), Sieun would need to do some stitching. He knew how to, but he really, fucking hated that.

“Sorry, I know this hurts,” Sieun whispered, mostly to himself as he poured saline over the wound. Suho flinched violently, a soft whimper leaving his lips. “You have to live.”

He cleaned the wound as best he could, wiped away the blood clots, and began stitching with trembling fingers. The needle pierced through torn skin, and Suho groaned.

Sieun paused. “I know,” he said. “Just… bear with me.”

Suho’s eyelids fluttered again.

“Hyung…?”

Sieun’s breath hitched. “Yeah. I’m here.”

Suho squinted at him, barely there. “You’re… really pretty.”

“What?”

“Like an angel… A guardian angel… But that supposed to be my role…” Suho slurred, his words turning to mush. “Wait. Did I die?”

“No,” Sieun’s voice cracked. “You’re on my carpet.”

“Damn. That sucks…” Suho let out a pained noise. “I wanted heaven to have air conditioning.”

Sieun pressed a gauze pad a little harder than necessary to the wound. “OW—okay, okay, I’m alive!” Suho hissed.

“Good. Stay that way.” Sieun’s hands shook as he resumed stitching. “Or I’ll kill you myself.” Suho didn’t answer. His eyes rolled back again, and his breathing turned shallow—but steady.

His fingers were shaking, hands were sticky with blood, and the edges of his vision were starting to buzz with exhaustion. Still, he moved to the other wounds—some gashes along Suho’s ribs, his arm. Bruises everywhere. A welt blooming along his collarbone like someone had stomped on him. How had he even made it this far?

Why didn’t you just go to the hospital?

Why come here?

Why the hell would you crawl up to my door like this and expect me not to take you to professional care?

He didn’t have answers.

All he knew was that if he’d come back five minutes later—if he’d stopped at the convenience store, or gotten off at the wrong station—Suho might’ve died outside his apartment.

Alone.

And that thought made something deep inside Sieun break, slow and quiet.

It took everything Sieun had to keep going. He blinked hard. Bit the inside of his cheek until the taste of iron grounded him. The stitches weren’t perfect, but they’d hold.

When it was finally done, Sieun collapsed onto the floor beside him, soaked in Suho’s blood and his own sweat. His hands were still shaking.

His living room smelled like antiseptic and panic.

And Suho, unconscious again, looked impossibly young.

Sieun dragged a pillow over and gently tucked it under Suho’s head. He covered him with a blanket, then sat cross-legged beside him, not even trying to clean up yet.

He had no idea who had done this.

No idea how Suho had gotten here.

But that red windbreaker had bled into the floor of his apartment, and now it was his problem too.

“Just… let me catch my breath. Just five minutes,” Sieun whispered eventually, more to himself.

Five minutes turned into ten.

And Sieun stayed beside him the whole time, watching Suho’s chest rise and fall with every shallow breath.

The first thing that registered was pain. Deep, dull, and thick—like something inside him had been scooped out and stuffed with fire.

He groaned.

Or maybe he thought he did. It was hard to tell with how heavy everything felt. His mouth. His limbs. Even the air.

His eyelids cracked open to a dim, quiet room. Warm light pooled near the floor. A shadow shifted beside him.

“Suho.”

The voice was soft, tight. Familiar.

He blinked again, sluggishly dragging his gaze upward.

Sieun.

Perched next to the couch. Hoodie sleeves pushed to the elbow. Eyes darker than usual—exhausted, maybe. Maybe scared.

That thought made Suho’s stomach twist, or maybe that was just the stab wound still burning like hell.

“You’re awake,” Sieun said, voice hoarse. He reached over with the back of his hand, gently pressing to Suho’s forehead. “No fever yet. Good.”

Suho’s mouth moved. “You stayed…”

“Of course I did,” Sieun muttered. “You passed out bleeding all over my floor.”

He said it like a joke, but his voice cracked halfway through.

Suho looked away, the ceiling spinning slightly.

“You need a hospital,” Sieun said next. Quiet. Firm. “This isn’t some scraped knuckle from a schoolyard brawl, Suho. You were stabbed.”

A pause.

“And you were… drugged?”

Suho flinched.

Shit. So he had said that out loud earlier. In his delirium. Of course he did.

“I’m not weak,” he mumbled, barely getting the words out.

Sieun didn’t reply, but the slight movement of his eyebrows told Suho he was listening. Not judging. Just waiting.

“They got me with something,” Suho said. His tongue felt thick, each word dragging behind the next. “It was fast. I didn’t see it. Couldn’t fight back.”

His hands clenched weakly into the blanket. “I’m not weak.”

“I know,” Sieun said. Soft. Unshaken.

Suho took a shallow breath.

“If I go to the hospital…” He swallowed hard. “They’ll report it. Police. School. My grandma. She’ll—she can’t—”

His voice broke, jagged around the edges. “This would kill her.”

Sieun didn’t speak for a moment. The silence held something weightier than words.

“I’m sorry,” Suho whispered, eyelids fluttering. “I just—I didn’t know where else to go. It was dark, and cold, and I kept thinking…”

His breath caught.

“You… felt safe.”

His eyes met Sieun’s again, glassy with exhaustion but sharp in the places that mattered.

“I knew you’d help me,” Suho murmured. “Not because you had to. Just because… you would.”

Sieun didn’t answer right away. Just looked at him—eyes wide, unreadable, but something raw flickering in them.

“You’re such a stupid kid,” he whispered eventually. But his hand stayed against Suho’s arm, firm and steady. “You really are.”

Suho let his eyes slip closed again.

But this time, he wasn’t afraid.

By the time the sun rose, Sieun’s eyes felt like sandpaper.

He hadn’t slept. Not even a nap. Instead, he sat hunched over the edge of his bed, one eye on Suho, the other on the tiny, silent clock on his nightstand that kept reminding him how bad of an idea this all was.

The kid was breathing evenly. Chest rising, falling. Skin clammy but not burning up.

No signs of infection—yet.

Sieun exhaled slowly, shoulders tight from holding the same position for hours.

He glanced at the clock again. 7:02 a.m.

Right. Work.

He grabbed his phone and fired off a single line to his manager, thumbs moving fast:

Calling off sick today. Sorry for the short notice.

He didn’t even bother adding a fake excuse. What was he gonna say—Sorry, I have to nurse a stab victim because he bled all over my hallway last night?

Knowing Yeongbin, the man would probably call an emergency team meeting about “employee accountability” by 7:30.

With that done, he turned back to the bed.

At some point during the night—maybe around 3 a.m.—Suho had stirred, groaning and half-conscious. Somehow, between the bleeding and the delirium, the kid had insisted on not being left on the floor like roadkill. Sieun had half-carried, half-dragged him onto the bed, grumbling under his breath the entire time.

And now?

Now the idiot was sleeping like the dead, face half-buried in Sieun’s only good pillow.

Sieun rubbed his eyes. He felt gross. He needed a shower. But more importantly, he needed to feed the walking hospital bill currently leaking into his blanket.

He checked the fridge.

Bottled water.

He checked the cabinet.

Barley tea. Coffee. Three kinds. That was it.

He stared for a beat, then thought to himself, “I’m going to get arrested for child neglect.”

After some quick search on Naver—“easy meals for blood loss recovery” followed by “recipes even dumbasses can cook”—Sieun scribbled a grocery list and slipped out, locking the door behind him.

Fifteen minutes later, he was back, arms full of overpriced ingredients and an irrational amount of guilt. He dropped the bags in the kitchen, peeled off his jacket, and stared blankly at the rice cooker like it had personally wronged him.

Half an hour and three cooking tutorials later, he was stirring porridge on the stove. Chicken and rice. Basic. Nutritious. Supposedly good for post-trauma healing.

He wasn’t sure if it looked like porridge or congealed failure, but it smelled edible.

As he stood there, poking the pot with a wooden spoon, his brain replayed that line from last night:

“You… felt safe.”

Sieun blinked slowly, gripping the spoon tighter.

He’d never had anyone say that to him before. Not sincerely, anyway. Most people didn’t find him safe. Or warm. Or even particularly likeable. They found him cold, awkward, expressionless. The guy who sat alone, at school or in the break room, who didn’t laugh at dumb office jokes or show up to birthday lunches.

He hadn’t really meant to be that way. It just happened. Life made more sense when you didn’t expect anything from anyone. When you didn’t offer much in return.

But now—

Now some half-delirious high schooler with bruises on his ribs and blood on his shirt had looked at him, of all people, and said he felt safe.

Like Sieun was someone worth crawling toward when the whole world went dark.

He frowned, something tight blooming behind his ribs.

He’d never had to take care of anyone before.

He’d never been taught how. No one had taken care of him long enough for it to stick.

But he was learning. Right now. Right here. Stirring porridge with raw eyes and stiff shoulders, making sure Suho didn’t get a fever, didn’t get an infection, didn’t get left behind.

He didn’t know what this made them. Didn’t want to name it yet.

But Suho felt like a little brother.

And for the first time in his life, Sieun wanted to protect something that wasn’t his own peace.

By early evening, Beomseok had sent six unanswered texts and two polite but increasingly worried “Hey, are you okay?” messages.

Sieun never called off work. Not without warning. Not without a cryptic text or a calendar update. And definitely not without telling Beomseok.

By the time work ended, Beomseok had chewed through half his thumbnail and flinched every time Yeongbin asked where Sieun was like it was his fault.

So, he did the most terrifying thing a non-confrontational man like him could imagine: he showed up uninvited.

Armed with porridge, vitamin drinks, and a deeply anxious heart, he knocked on Sieun’s apartment door with more force than usual.

No response.

He knocked again, voice cracking. “Sieun? It’s me. I brought you… uh, food. Are you alive?”

A long pause.

Then the door opened a sliver. Sieun stood there, hoodie wrinkled, face pale, hair a disaster.

Beomseok blinked. “You look… really bad. I mean—sorry, I just—are you sick?”

Sieun didn’t answer. He looked over his shoulder, then turned back and said, “I’m fine. You didn’t have to come.”

“You didn’t reply all day,” Beomseok mumbled, clutching the bag tighter. “I just… wanted to check…”

“Thanks. I’m okay now. You can go.”

Beomseok hesitated. There was a rustling sound from inside. A cough. Low and pained.

His anxiety spiked.

“…Is someone else here?”

Sieun’s eyes flicked toward the hallway behind him. “Beomseok-ah.”

The warning tone usually worked. It made people back off. But Beomseok—nervous as he was—swallowed hard and stepped forward.

“You never miss work. And you never ignore me like this.” His voice cracked. “Just let me see. Please?”

Sieun’s jaw tightened.

But he didn’t stop him.

Beomseok stepped inside. The smell hit him instantly—disinfectant, dried blood, something raw and metallic underneath it all. His stomach flipped.

He walked stiffly down the hallway. Toward the bedroom door.

“Sieun…?”

The door was slightly ajar. He peeked in.

There—on the bed—lay a boy.

Younger. Barely conscious. Hair damp with sweat. A deep bandage wrapped around his stomach, stained faintly red. His breathing was shallow, but steady.

Beomseok froze, his blood going cold.

He turned slowly to Sieun, his voice barely a whisper. “W-who is he?”

Sieun stepped past him, eyes unreadable. “A friend.”

“A friend? He’s a kid! And he’s stabbed!”

“He came here on his own.”

“You’re—you’re hiding an injured minor in your apartment!” Beomseok’s voice rose. “Isn’t that—I mean—Sieun, this is serious. You could—you could go to jail—!”

“I know that,” Sieun said quietly.

“Then why?! Why wouldn’t you take him to a hospital?”

Sieun’s shoulders sagged, as if the weight of that question had already been dragging on him all day. “…He begged me not to.”

Beomseok’s mouth opened, then closed. “But why would he—?”

“He was drugged. Outnumbered. Then stabbed. He said if the police or school or his grandma found out…” Sieun trailed off. “He was scared it would kill her. Literally.”

Beomseok looked at the unconscious boy again. “Oh my god…”

“I couldn’t say no,” Sieun said. “He trusted me. I think he still does.”

Beomseok bit his lip, eyes darting between them. His hands trembled slightly around the bag of porridge. “I-I mean, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I just—what if you mess up? What if something happens while he’s sleeping? What if—”

“I’ve been monitoring him all night,” Sieun said, sitting at the edge of the bed. “No fever. His breathing’s steady. I’ve read enough to know what to look for.”

“…Of course you have,” Beomseok muttered. “You always know everything.”

That wasn’t meant to be bitter, but it slipped out anyway.

Sieun looked up. “Beomseok-ah.”

Beomseok flinched. “Sorry. That’s not fair. I just—I’m scared, okay? I’m not good at this kind of stuff. You always handle everything. You never need help, and I… never know how to help.”

There was a silence.

Then Sieun said, softly, “You came here.”

Beomseok blinked. “What?”

“You came. When I didn’t answer. That’s help.”

Beomseok stared at him, stunned. Then glanced awkwardly at the bed again. “…Should I… do something?”

Sieun, tired as he was, leaned his back against the side table and closed his eyes for a second. “Beomseok. I appreciate you coming. Really. But I can handle this on my own.”

Beomseok blinked, a little startled. “Oh. O-okay. I just thought… I mean, two people is better than one, right?”

“I know. But he’s still recovering. If he wakes up and sees a stranger hovering over him—well-meaning or not—he might panic.” Sieun opened his eyes and looked at him, steady. “He’s… been through a lot.”

Beomseok bit his lip and nodded. “Right. Yeah. I get it. I wouldn’t want to make things worse.”

There was a pause, and then he said, very softly, “Still… if you need anything. Anything at all. You can call me. Even if it’s just to yell.”

Sieun gave the smallest of nods. “Okay.”

Beomseok stood awkwardly. Picked up his now-empty bag. “I’ll head out then. But… don’t disappear on me again, alright?”

Sieun didn’t promise. But he didn’t brush it off either.

“Thanks, Beomseok-ah.”

That was enough.

With one last worried glance at the boy on the bed, Beomseok slipped out the door, quietly closing it behind him.

The sky outside was turning indigo, the apartment painted in soft bluish hues. The stew Sieun had made earlier had gone cold on the stove, untouched.

Suho stirred with a low groan, eyelids fluttering before they opened, hazy and bloodshot. He shifted, then winced, hand twitching toward his side.

“Careful,” Sieun said quietly, moving to his side. “You’ll tear the stitches.”

Suho blinked at him, recognition slowly surfacing through the fog. “…Sieun-hyung?”

“Yeah. You’re at my place. Again.” He crossed his arms. “Now you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on.”

Suho winced, not from the wound this time, but from the tone. “…You’re mad.”

“I’m not mad.” Sieun’s voice was flat. “I’m trying really hard not to be, because you’re injured. But now you’re going to explain. No dodging.”

Suho didn’t respond right away. He just stared at the ceiling, swallowing hard. Then he shifted, gingerly propping himself on his elbow with a grimace. “So recently, there are these guys I saw hanging around near the gas station and the restaurants I work at.”

Sieun nodded, quietly waited for Suho to continue.

“I don’t know how many of them they got. They don’t always show their faces, but… I’ve felt it. Eyes on me. Places I’m supposed to be safe.” His voice cracked a little at the end—not fear, exactly, but a kind of exhausted alertness, like someone who’d been running too long and still didn’t feel safe stopping.

“Why would they stalk you?”

A humorless huff. “Because I pissed off the wrong idiots.”

He sank into the pillow and closed his eyes for a beat, gathering the words. “I’ve been helping kids at Byeoksan. Getting them out of trouble, mostly from the nearby school, Sangmun. Scaring off older jerks who think they can pick on freshmen. Easy stuff.”

Sieun’s voice was dry. “And they paid you for it.”

“Not a lot,” Suho said, defensive. “Just enough to help with bills. Spare me, okay? Being a waiter and deliveries aren’t enough sometimes. And it’s not like they could go to a teacher.”

Sieun leaned forward slightly. “So someone decided they had enough of your white knight routine. Drugged you. Stabbed you. Left you to bleed out.”

“It was some kind of cloth. Sweet smell. Knocked me off balance before the fight even started.”

“You think this was Sangmun huh?”

“I… yeah.” He swallowed. “And it wasn’t just to scare me. This time felt different. They knew where to find me. Knew my schedule. One of them sent a message a week ago. Said they’d come for my grandma next.”

Sieun’s fingers curled tight around the mug. “Is that why you’ve been on edge lately?”

Suho nodded.

Sieun looked at him hard. “Your leg injury. A few weeks ago.”

Suho met his eyes and didn’t deny it. “It was a bike accident, but I checked my brake line after. It was sliced.”

Sieun’s stomach turned. There was a cold kind of fury rising in him—sharp, restrained. “That’s not just some teenage grudge.”

Suho flinched slightly but didn’t argue.

Sieun exhaled through his nose. “I’ve been looking into Sangmun too. Not for your sake. Just because… I was curious.” He paused, then added, “Actually, last night I ran into two kids trying to sell fentanyl.”

Suho turned sharply. “What?”

“They were twitchy. Barely sixteen. They didn’t even try to be subtle.” Sieun leaned back against the wall, rubbing his eyes. “So no, I don’t think this is just about you making enemies. I think you got in the way of something bigger.”

Suho looked shaken, the full weight of it finally settling on him. “A drug ring?”

“Or something like it. Something that uses kids like foot soldiers and doesn’t care what happens to them. You probably messed with their business.”

Suho swallowed. “I didn’t mean to get involved in something like that.”

“I know.” Sieun’s voice was flat. “But you did.”

They sat in silence for a long while. The room was dim, and Suho stared at his hands, then up at the ceiling again.

“I didn’t come here because I thought you’d fix it,” he said quietly. “I just… didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t want to scare my grandma. And I—” He hesitated. “You felt safe.”

Sieun blinked. That, again. So that wasn’t just random words he said when he was delirious.

“I don’t know why,” Suho added quickly this time, like he was embarrassed. “You’re kind of a cold bastard.”

Sieun didn’t react. He just got up and walked over to the bed, adjusting the pillow behind Suho’s back. “Don’t move too much. Your stitches might open.”

“You’re avoiding the moment.”

“I’m prioritizing your circulation.”

Suho snorted. Then, softer, “Thanks.”

Sieun glanced at him. “You’re not sleeping on the floor tonight.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“And if anyone shows up again—Sangmun or not—you’re telling me.”

Suho didn’t answer immediately. Then, finally, he nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Morning came quietly. The light through the curtains was soft and gray, and for a second Sieun forgot the mess they were in. Then he got up from his couch and saw Suho still asleep, curled slightly toward the wall, a band of gauze taped carefully across his stomach.

Sieun crouched next to the bed, watching the slow rise and fall of Suho’s chest. His skin wasn’t as pale as it had been yesterday. A good sign. Still, seeing him like this — stilled, fragile — sparked a strange tightness in Sieun’s chest. Suho was always in motion, always either smirking or punching or limping toward something with that infuriating, chaotic energy. This version of him — quiet and wounded — didn’t feel right. And Sieun hated how much it bothered him.

He worked silently. Changed the bandage. Checked the fever. Adjusted the blankets. He left a tray on the nightstand: congee, pain meds, vitamins, water, even a peeled tangerine. It looked like something his mother would’ve left him as a child, but she never did.

When he finally put on his coat, Suho stirred.

“You leaving?” His voice was scratchy with sleep.

Sieun nodded. “Work. I’ll come back during lunch, or if you call.”

“I don’t need babysitting,” Suho said, trying to sit up. He managed halfway before wincing, his hand darting to his side. “Shit—”

Sieun was at his side in an instant. “Proving a point by passing out is a weird choice.”

“I’m not—” Suho clenched his jaw. “I’m not useless.”

Sieun froze. The words hit harder than expected.

“I didn’t say you were,” he said softly. “Just don’t make me come home to a reopened wound.”

That shut Suho up. For two seconds.

As Sieun grabbed his bag, Suho added quietly, “Hey... you know there’s a limit to how much caffeine a person can survive on, right?”

Sieun blinked. “What?”

Suho nodded toward the kitchen. “You downed two cans of coffee and half a cold brew since I woke up yesterday. You’re gonna start vibrating.”

Sieun glanced at the empty cans on the coffee table and scoffed, but he didn’t deny it. He never did. He’d always needed caffeine to feel like a person, but lately, the stress had turned that need into something hungrier. His hands had been shaking all morning, but he chalked it up to nerves.

The department meeting was the usual circus: Yeongbin barking about deadlines, praising himself for ideas he hadn’t had, and giving everyone a headache by micromanaging designs. Sieun stared ahead, trying to pretend he was listening, but the Sangmun school forum was still open in a tab on his laptop.

“Yeon Sieun.” Yeongbin’s voice snapped him out of it. “Would you care to repeat what I just said?”

Before he could reply, Beomseok cut in. “Sorry. That was my fault. I sent him a message just now—about the Lurène pitch edits.”

Yeongbin narrowed his eyes. “This is a professional workplace, not a high school group project.”

Beomseok shrank slightly in his seat but didn’t say anything else. Sieun lowered his eyes, shame prickling behind his ears.

Afterward, Sieun cornered him in the hallway. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Beomseok gave a small shrug. “We're friends, can't I just feel like doing that?”

Sieun opened his mouth to thank him, but Beomseok looked... scared. More than usual.

“You’re not okay,” Beomseok said. And they both knew it wasn’t just work stress.

Sieun hesitated.

“I’m serious,” Beomseok whispered. “I don’t know what’s going on, but someone already got stabbed, right? This isn’t some joke. Whatever you’re doing — stop. Tell the police. Don’t try to solve this alone.”

He nodded. “I’ll be careful.”

But Beomseok didn’t look convinced.

The clock blinked 1:13 AM. A shallow rain tapped at the windows, and the apartment sat in its usual silence, broken only by the soft click of a mouse and the occasional shuffle of blankets from the futon. The screen cast a bluish light over Sieun’s face, pale and unslept. His tabs multiplied by the hour—forums about youth violence, vague rumors about school turf wars, anonymous posts with phrases like “Byeoksan snitch”, a grainy photo that might show a Sangmun jacket, a blurry screenshot from a now-deleted account claiming to know where the pills come from. He copied everything. Screenshotted, saved, sorted into folders with cold, clinical labels. He wasn’t sure what would matter later, so he saved it all.

His desktop looked like it belonged to someone trying to solve a murder. Or maybe someone trying to prevent one.

From behind him came a muffled sound—Suho, stirring. A small grunt, the creak of the futon, then silence again.

Sieun glanced over his shoulder. Suho, asleep and messy-haired, had kicked his blanket halfway to the floor again. Without thinking, Sieun stood, padded over in socks, and pulled the blanket up over the kid’s legs. Suho shifted again, muttering something about kimchi stew in his sleep, and then went still.

This had become his new routine.

Every night since the stabbing, Sieun had been quietly orbiting around someone else’s needs. He set alarms to check Suho’s stitches. He tracked his meals and made sure there were real vegetables on the plate—something he'd never bothered with when cooking for one. Yesterday, he bought seaweed to make soup, then panicked halfway home because maybe Suho hated seaweed. (He didn’t. In fact, he asked for seconds.)

It was strange. Not unpleasant. Just unfamiliar.

Back at his desk, Sieun sat and stared blankly at the open doc.

His cursor blinked on an unfinished sentence: “Evidence suggests long-term exploitation of local teens by…”

He leaned back in his chair.

His fingers paused.

Suddenly, a memory rose uninvited—something irrelevant, random. A memory of his father, standing at the stove one night a few years back, poking half-heartedly at a pan of burnt spam and tossing a name into the air mid-conversation—Na Donghyuk. Retired police chief. “Good guy. Helped me with a mess back in Busan once.”

At the time, Sieun was seventeen, halfway through a math olympiad prep problem set, and wholly uninterested in adult networks of favors. Just nodded, maybe. Let it pass. But now, sitting here three nights after a kid bled out on his welcome mat, that name felt like a string dangling from a ceiling—inviting him to pull.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

His dad had always been there in the literal sense. Paid the bills. Came home late. Bought the right textbooks. Showed up to award ceremonies, stiff in his old dress shirt, clapping politely while Sieun stood onstage with a medal too heavy for its ribbon.

But they never talked. Not about anything real. Not about how quiet the apartment got after mom left. Not about how Sieun sometimes couldn’t sleep because the silence was so thick it made his chest ache. His dad just… did his best, in the way men like him thought they were supposed to. Work hard. Provide. Nod. Clap.

It was only recently—after Sieun moved out—that he started trying. A box of vitamins sent to his office. An awkward lunch here and there. Awkwardly passing across the samgyeopsal tongs like it made up for the years he wasn’t there.

Sieun knew what that meant. “I miss you.” Or maybe, “I wish I’d done better.”

And it terrified him.

Because it meant the past didn’t excuse the distance forever. It meant he had to decide whether to keep holding that grudge or to meet halfway.

And now—now he needed a favor. A real one. One that could put them in the same room, breathing the same strained air, pretending it wasn’t strange to be talking like father and son.

Sieun pressed his forehead to the edge of the desk. The thought of calling felt like swallowing glass.

Why did everything get harder when emotions were involved?

He glanced at the futon again.

Suho was sleeping like the world hadn’t tried to kill him twice in a row. He looked younger like this. Softer. His brows relaxed, his breathing steady. The bandaged wound rising and falling beneath the blanket. Sieun had memorized the rhythm by now. He woke up twice nightly just to make sure it hadn’t changed.

He was getting used to this—looking after someone. At first it was just necessity. But now?

Now, it was something else.

When Suho dramatically groaned on the futon about how this situation was killing his part-time wallet, then cracked a grin at his own joke, Sieun had nearly snapped at him—but didn’t. That kid deserved better than another scar. Better than a world where he had to fight to survive because adults kept failing him.

The other day, he made Sieun sit through two episodes of Vigilante Cop 2, pausing every ten minutes to explain plot holes or laugh at the sound effects. Sieun had pretended to be annoyed.

He wasn’t.

He knew now how Suho liked his rice just a little sticky. That he hated soggy green onions. That he always kicked his blanket off exactly an hour into sleep and muttered nonsense during dreams.

And maybe that shouldn’t matter. But it did.

Caring for someone… it didn’t come naturally to him, but it made sense now. In his own quiet, obsessive way, it gave him something real to hold onto.

Because no one ever made an effort to know Sieun like that when he was younger. No one ever noticed when he stopped eating, or when he couldn’t sleep. No one asked him if he liked his soup salty or mild. And now, there was this kid who trusted him—recklessly, stupidly, like Sieun wouldn’t let him down.

So maybe it wasn’t just about protecting Suho from a gang anymore.

Maybe it was about being the adult Sieun wished he’d had.

Chapter Text

Sieun’s hand hovered over the doorbell button, not moving. There was no fear. Sieun had never feared his dad. The old man had never yelled, never laid a hand on him, never even demanded anything. But there was this odd tightness in Sieun’s chest that he couldn’t name. Like stepping into a place he’d long sealed off. Like the air there might still remember the version of himself he didn’t like to think about.

After a while, he took a deep breath and pushed the button.

The doorbell rang the same way it always had—clunky and slightly off-tempo. The hallway light flickered above him like it always used to when he got home late from school.

The door creaked open.

His father blinked once. “Sieun-ah?”

Sieun stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “I was nearby. Figured I’d drop in.”

The old man stepped aside without a word, and Sieun stepped into a version of his past.

The apartment looked nearly the same. Same table. Same chairs. Same worn cushions on the couch that had a permanent dent in them from his school backpack. The only differences were a few oddly arranged attempts at decoration: a healthy-looking potted plant by the window, a motivational quote framed on the wall about perseverance, and a cluttered display of medals and certificates—old math olympiad medals, academic awards, certifications, and photos of Sieun from all stages of his life.

A few featured the two of them together. Most didn’t.

“Coffee?” his dad asked, heading toward the kitchen. “Or juice?”

Sieun hesitated. “Juice’s fine.”

There was a pause—just a beat—but his father glanced at him, mildly surprised. “Didn’t you used to hate juice?”

Sieun didn’t respond. He remembered, vaguely, back when he was just a tiny version of himself, maybe 9 or 10, how the man always used to hand him juice after school, insisting it was good for his brain or immune system or something. But the older Sieun grew, the less he saw his dad at home. Didn’t matter, Sieun always found it too sweet anyway.

The taste hadn’t changed.

They sat at the kitchen table, glasses between them, the silence stretched thin like a thread pulled taut. Every creak of a chair leg, every clink of a spoon against glass, was magnified.

Finally, Sieun cleared his throat and tried to keep it casual. “You remember that friend of yours? Na Donghyuk?”

His dad looked up. “Of course. We were pretty close back in the day.”

“I was wondering if you could get in touch with him.” Sieun shifted in his seat. “It’s about Sangmun High. There’s something going on there. With some students.”

His father said nothing, just listened. Sieun went on.

“It’s... complicated. I’ve been keeping an eye on it. A friend’s involved. I have some info, and I think it’s worth checking out.”

He didn’t say the word gang. Didn’t say drugs either. Just left it hanging.

The silence stretched again. Sieun took another sip of the too-sweet juice and tried not to overthink it.

Then, finally, his father gave a slow nod. “If you’ve gathered that much, I’ll get in touch with Donghyuk. He owes me more than one favor.”

Relief washed through him—cool and awkward and immediate. “Thanks,” Sieun murmured.

Another silence followed, but this one didn’t feel quite as sharp. Just... there.

Then, unexpectedly, his father spoke again. “You’ve always been so independent. Never asked for much. I guess every parent wishes their kid was like that.” He chuckled softly, a little to himself. “My friends always complain about their sons getting into fights or skipping class. But you? Always quiet. Always took care of things on your own.”

Sieun didn’t respond. He thought of the times he came home with bruises on his ribs or a busted lip. How he’d slip into the bathroom before his dad got home, press frozen peas against his face, patch himself up. How the one time his father had seen a scrape, he just said, “It’s okay for boys to fight. I bet my son gave them a good beating, right?”

But it wasn’t like that. He hadn’t been fighting for fun or pride. He’d fought the kids who tried to push him down, yes. But what he could only admit to himself was, he also fought because of something else. Something hot and bitter lodged in his bones, like a scream that couldn’t get out.

No one had ever asked why.

His father continued after a pause. “I always thought you’d become a lawyer. Maybe a scientist. That’s what your mom wanted, too. But you became an office worker.” He looked at him then. Really looked. “And now you’re trying to protect someone, huh?”

Sieun lowered his gaze. Nodded.

That was all. He didn’t owe him more than that.

“Okay,” his dad said simply. “Then I trust you. You’re doing the right thing.”

When Sieun stood up, his father followed suit. Walked him to the door, even—something he hadn’t done since middle school.

As he slipped his shoes back on, his father spoke again. “You can come by, you know. No need to wait for a reason.”

Sieun looked at him, unsure. The words caught somewhere in his throat.

Then, quietly, “Okay. Maybe next time, I’ll bring someone who likes your over-sweet juice.”

It wasn’t quite a joke, but his father let out a soft, genuine chuckle. A sound Sieun hadn’t heard in years.

As he stepped out, the door clicking shut behind him, Sieun caught a glimpse of a bottle of supplement tablets sitting on the dining table. He hadn’t noticed them before. Joint pain. Something about that made his chest ache—not sharply, but like a bruise he hadn’t realized was there.

On his way home, Sieun made a quiet mental note to buy some supplements next week. Maybe something good for the joint, the heart, the memory. The man was getting old, after all.

And for the first time in a long time, Sieun felt lighter.

Not fully healed.

But something had unclenched.

The café was tucked behind a bank and a pharmacy, the kind of place where the coffee came in paper cups but the booths were private and no one looked twice at anyone. Sieun sat across from a man in his late fifties, shoulders broad even in civilian clothes, with a face that looked like it had forgotten how to smile.

Na Donghyuk—the ex-chief of police and an old friend of Sieun’s father—flipped through the file without saying much. Page by page. Photo by photo. A neat, terrifying summary of Sangmun High’s quieter corridors, the shady adult faces behind them, and a web of transactions no one had expected a civilian to pull together.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low but sharp. “You sure you weren’t followed?”

Sieun shook his head. “I’m careful.”

Na looked at him for a long second. “You’re your father’s kid, alright.” Then, softer, “You know this isn’t child’s play. You get caught doing this kind of digging, you could end up in the hospital. Or worse.”

Sieun stared into his coffee. “I’m not trying to be a hero. I just want a kid I know to be safe.”

That seemed to land. Na sighed, closed the file, and tapped a finger against the folder’s spine. “It’s thorough. Too thorough to ignore. I’ll follow up quietly. I still have friends in the force who’ll listen.”

Sieun nodded. “That’s all I need.”

No handshake. Just a nod. Then they left the café separately, like nothing had happened.

The next week passed like fog lifting off a road. Slowly, then all at once.

Suho had healed enough to go back to his own home, moving around comfortably without wincing now. His grandma never noticed a thing. He picked up his part-time jobs again—back to delivering around the neighborhood and stacking beer crates at the BBQ joint. Back to sleeping through most of his classes at Byeoksan.

The cuts on his face and his arms had scabbed over, faded to something that wouldn’t alarm anyone.

He didn’t bring up Sangmun. Not once. And Sieun didn’t ask.

But the one-way banters returned—badly timed reels at midnight, screenshots from action dramas they’d watched together, dumb commentary on fight choreography. Sometimes a text would just say, “This guy looks like Yeongbin if he worked out lol.”

Sieun usually replied with a like emote, or a dry “not funny,” but he always read them.

One night, after a lazy game of pool and some fishcakes at a cart near the bus stop, Suho tilted his head at Sieun and said, “I’ll take you home.”

Sieun blinked. “It’s fine. I’ll—”

Suho didn’t wait. He was already unlocking his now-fixed bike and shoving the spare helmet toward him. When Sieun hesitated, Suho stepped close and plopped the helmet over his head with a dull thunk.

Then, offhand, as if he was just commenting on the weather, Suho said:

“I think they’re done.”

Sieun didn’t ask who they were.

He just climbed on behind Suho and said, “Good.”

The engine hummed to life. They rode through the soft night wind, no words between them, the silence not heavy but steady. Like they were finally on the other side of something—something ugly, unspoken, but now past.

As the streets blurred past, Sieun held on—not tightly, not afraid, just present.

And for the first time in a long while, things felt… quiet. Just quiet enough to breathe.

It began with an unexpected compliment.

Sieun hadn’t expected much from the quarterly review meeting. He’d come armed with exactly three things: a thermos of black coffee, a copy of the Lurène spring deck just in case someone decided to "reference it casually," and enough practiced blank expression to pass as attentive. The conference room was, as usual, aggressively minimalist — all cool gray walls, glass partitions, and the scent of burnt coffee wafting from a sad Nespresso machine.

He was sandwiched between two other team leads who were nodding at nothing. Across the table, standing with his powerpoint, Yeongbin was already in performance mode, tossing out terms like “brand voice equity” and “omnichannel synergy” like candy at a parade.

Sieun sipped his coffee and wondered how many years of marketing jargon it took to sound that confident saying absolutely nothing.

Then Director Min turned to him.

“Yeon Sieun,” he said, smooth and even. “Your work on the Lurène spring campaign was sharp. Your customer journey mapping and insight into buyer personas were dead on. We’ve had feedback from the client—said it was like we read their mind.”

Sieun blinked. Not at the praise, but at the fact he’d remembered his name. He rarely referred to anyone lower than Senior Manager level unless they’d messed something up.

Beside him, Yeongbin’s shoulders stiffened. The shift was minor, but noticeable—like someone pressing pause mid-peacock display.

Director Min went on, his tone thoughtful. “We have a major pitch coming up. National rollout. We’re building a core team, and I want you on it. Possibly even leading the creative strategy.”

There was a short silence.

Sieun, who had just been calculating whether he could sneak out early and pretend to work from home, sat up straighter. “I—thank you. I’ll do my best.”

A few heads turned. Yeongbin smiled too widely. “Of course he will,” he chimed in. “He’s our dark horse.”

Sieun knew that tone. It was the same one Yeongbin used whenever someone brought cheap makgeolli to a company dinner. Pleasant. Condescending. Faintly mocking.

And dangerous.

Two days later, Yeongbin dumped a stack of folders onto Sieun’s desk with the subtlety of a bulldozer.

“Need the Lurène deck revised by Monday,” he said with too much cheer. “New mockups. Adjust the buyer touchpoints to align with that new segmentation data. And refresh the digital timeline—we’ll need a more aggressive Q2 rollout.”

Sieun stared at the folder. It was thicker than usual, stuffed with scribbled feedback notes and half-baked strategy pivots. “By Monday?”

Yeongbin grinned. “Plenty of time. You’re the best we’ve got, aren’t you?”

Translation: I’m testing you. Or punishing you. Probably both.

Beomseok leaned over from his neighboring desk as soon as Yeongbin left.

“That’s an insane turnaround,” he whispered. “Are you sure he’s not trying to kill you?”

Sieun shrugged. “Wouldn’t put it past him. If I drop dead, he can take credit for my corpse’s Google Slides.”

“You want help? I could stay late this weekend—”

“No.” Sieun waved him off. “You’ve got your own stuff. I’ll manage.”

Beomseok looked unconvinced. “You’re gonna burn out.”

“I’m already burnt,” Sieun muttered. “At this point I’m just crispy residue.”

The next three nights blurred into one long, fluorescent-lit headache.

The office emptied by seven, but Sieun stayed, hunched over his desk while the city darkened outside. His dinner was whatever was left in the snack drawer—a crushed granola bar, stale seaweed crisps—and enough vending machine coffee to keep his hands jittering.

He built slides until his vision fuzzed. Adjusted color palettes for the moodboard. Clicked. Dragged. Typed. Stared blankly at a spreadsheet for twenty minutes trying to remember what “stage two touchpoint leakage” meant.

His phone buzzed sometimes. Suho, as usual, was the only person outside of work who still texted him unprompted.

[9:13PM] Suho: I swear the girl at the tteokbokki stand asked if I had a boyfriend.

[9:14PM] Suho: Do I say yes next time and see what happens

[9:15PM] Suho: btw u ate yet?

Sieun read the texts with a faint twitch of a smile but didn’t have the energy to reply. Once, nearing midnight:

[11:48PM] Sorry, working late again.

[12:03AM] You though, don’t stay up too late.

He hoped Suho didn’t take it personally. He just couldn’t think. He was surviving on instinct—dragging pitch decks across timelines like someone pushing rocks up a hill just to have them roll back down again.

On the fourth night, the sky opened up.

Sieun stepped out of the building and was immediately hit by the downpour. No umbrella. No taxis in sight. He stood there for a moment, watching the rain like it was a personal insult.

Of course, he thought. Why not. Let’s add pneumonia to the pitch.

He considered waiting it out but decided he’d rather drown in his own bathtub than in office ennui. So he half walked, halfed ran home. The rain flattened his hair, soaked through his blazer, dripped down the back of his shirt. His shoes squelched by the time he reached his apartment.

By then, he was too tired to care.

He peeled off his clothes like seaweed from a rock, popped two aspirin, and collapsed into bed still damp.

He knew something was wrong the second he opened his eyes.

His entire body ached. His limbs felt like soggy cardboard. He coughed once and nearly threw up. His head throbbed so hard it felt like someone had installed a speaker behind his eyes and set it to max volume.

So this fucking body was still the same. He could grow older, but his immune system couldn’t be stronger than when he was 7.

He stared at the ceiling.

He could call in sick. It would be reasonable. Rational. Even responsible.

Instead, he crawled out of bed, put on his cleanest shirt, and dragged himself back to the office.

He spent the day floating—half-there, half-lost. His slides looked like they were written in a foreign language. He submitted mockups and couldn’t remember what color palette he’d chosen. The whole thing was held together by caffeine and spite.

When he got home that night, it was past nine. He kicked off his shoes in the hallway, stumbled two steps toward the couch—and collapsed.

Just like that. No drama. No cinematic fall.

Just... down.

And everything went dark.

Heat.

It clung to his skin like wet cloth, soaked through and unshakable. His breath came shallow and slow, each inhale dragging as if through syrup. Time unraveled—one minute he was lying on his apartment floor, blinking sluggishly at the ceiling, the next, he wasn’t there at all.

He was seven again.

And it was raining.

Not a polite drizzle, but the kind of torrential summer rain that made the air taste like metal. The soccer ball skidded across the muddy schoolyard, chased by a dozen boys with scraped knees and too much energy. He was one of them. Laughing, soaked, slipping and sliding like an idiot. It was fun. Stupid, reckless fun—the kind only kids believed they were immortal enough to enjoy.

No one had brought jackets. No one cared. They were just boys playing in the rain, daring each other to fall harder, shout louder, kick further.

No other kids were sick afterwards, because their parents were home to dry their hair and warm their body. But not Sieun’s parents.

And the day after, all the kids were fine.

Except for him.

He lay in bed, hot and dizzy, tiny fingers trembling as he tried to dial numbers on the landline with the kind of focus usually reserved for defusing bombs. His lips were dry, his pajamas damp with sweat. His head throbbed, and his chest hurt when he coughed.

No one was home.

It was his birthday, too.

He was turning eight.

Either it was seaweed soup for his birthday or chicken soup for his cold, he had none. No candles. No warmth. Just a cold apartment and silence that rang in his ears.

He’d whispered into the phone like it might understand. “Mom…? Are you… coming home…?”

It rang. And rang.

She didn’t pick up.

She was in another country, like always—at a conference, maybe, or at a hotel. Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk to a sick kid crying on his birthday.

But Dad did answer.

And Dad came.

The memory fractured slightly here. The fever blurred the edges.

But he remembered the sound of the door slamming, the rough press of a cold hand against his forehead, and the angry voice echoing from the living room as Dad barked into his phone. “He’s burning up and no one’s home?” “What the hell do you think being a mother means?”

Sieun had blinked up from his bed, dazed, a tiny voice caught between fever and longing. He didn’t want yelling. He just wanted someone to stay.

His dad didn’t say happy birthday. He didn’t buy a cake. He shoved two bitter white pills into Sieun’s mouth and fed him lukewarm water. His face twisted like he’d swallowed something foul—maybe guilt, maybe rage, maybe both.

And that was it.

No hugs. No presents. No smiles.

Only the ceiling above him. Only the ache in his chest. Only the sense that even when people came, they didn’t really stay.

A door slammed somewhere far away.

“Hyung.”

A voice, low and shaking. Knees hit the floor.

“Hyung—fuck, what the hell—”

Sieun didn’t stir.

“Sieun-hyung, wake up. Please. Look at me.”

Hands touched his face. Cool palms brushing damp hair back. His fevered skin flinched at the contrast.

“I called three times,” Someone said, breathless. “I knew something was wrong, why didn’t you pick up—”

Still no answer. Just the faintest twitch in Sieun’s lashes. A broken sound in his throat.

And then, barely audible:

“Sorry…”

The words spilled out of him like water from a cracked glass. Broken, quiet, raw.

“I’m sorry...”

He didn’t know who he was saying it to.

To his father, for being sick and inconvenient and ruining his mood?

To his mother, for being a constant burden in her flourishing career?

Or to that small, fevered boy from so long ago—curled up under a thin blanket on his eighth birthday, asking the universe to send someone, anyone, to remember him?

His voice cracked, and he coughed, shoulders spasming. And this time, tears followed. Slow at first, then all at once. Wet tracks trailing down his cheeks as his body shivered under the weight of it.

Like a broken record.

“I’m sorry.”

Suho froze.

He’d never seen Sieun cry.

And he couldn’t take it anymore. He pulled Sieun up into his arms, letting the older man’s weight fall against his chest. Sieun didn’t resist, head lolling against Suho’s shoulder, still trembling.

“I’m here,” Suho whispered, holding on tighter. “It’s okay now. You’re not alone.”

He said it over and over again, hoping something—anything—would reach him.

But Sieun just kept crying. And as if being held in someone’s arms, someone’s warmth, was all Sieun ever silently begged for his twenty-three years of living, his cry just became more and more heartbreaking and desperate.

This was the kind of sadness that had been waiting decades to break.

Chapter Text

The dream was sticky. A fever-soaked mess of half-formed images and memory, dragged from the deepest corners of Sieun’s mind where he’d long since locked away what he didn’t need to remember. Cold rain. Mud squelching under sneakers. Laughter. Crying. A birthday. Just old enough to know what loneliness felt like, young enough to believe someone might still come home if he cried hard enough.

Even in the haze of sleep, his body recoiled. His fingers curled into his own palm, sticky with sweat, as though trying to hold something invisible together.

A voice broke through the dark.

Real. Present. Warm.

“Hyung…”

Sieun’s breath hitched.

He didn’t open his eyes. Somewhere between the edges of sleep and waking, he felt the unmistakable sensation of another hand—warm and solid—curled over his. Protective, like it was shielding him from something. Something only the holder could see.

“I’m here. It’s okay now. You’re not alone.”

Sieun finally blinked slowly, light filtering in through heavy lids. The room was dim, curtains drawn, the soft blue glow of early morning leaking in from the edges of the window. His entire body ached like someone had wrung him out and left him to dry in winter wind. His head throbbed, dull and hollow. His throat was raw.

And there, sitting beside him at the edge of the bed, was Suho.

Head bowed slightly, like he hadn’t meant to fall asleep. His shoulders were hunched from staying in the same position too long, one hand still wrapped around Sieun’s with unconscious stubbornness, like letting go would somehow make everything worse again.

Sieun stared, quiet and dazed.

His mind lagged behind his body, catching up to the sight in slow pieces. Suho, still in his working uniform at the BBQ, short hair messy and sticking to his forehead with sweat. A deep crease between his brows. The faint puffiness under his eyes that only came from a night of bad sleep.

And his hand. Still warm. Still holding.

Sieun didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t look away. There was something strangely steady about the weight of Suho’s palm over his. Steady, and warm in a way that reached through the cotton-thick haze of illness and hit him somewhere unguarded.

Suho stirred at the same time, sleep dragging off his face with a blink.

“Oh—shit,” he said under his breath, straightening. His eyes dropped to their joined hands, wide for a split second, before he quickly let go.

“Sorry. That’s—uh.” Suho scratched the back of his neck, gaze flicking anywhere but back at Sieun. “You were kind of holding on. I didn’t mean to, like, weird you out or anything.”

Sieun said nothing.

Instead, Suho leaned forward slightly and reached out again, this time pressing the back of his hand to Sieun’s forehead.

“You’re cooler now,” Suho murmured. “Fever broke.”

Then came the exhale. Half-relieved, half-exasperated.

“You scared the hell out of me, hyung.”

Sieun turned his head slightly, eyes unfocused.

Why?

The thought was wordless, but it thudded in his chest. Why would Suho be worried—again—just because something slightly bad happened to him? Like that night at the BBQ, and now too.

It was getting hard to tell what this was between them.

Some sort of odd friendship, maybe. Or something flimsier—an obligation. He couldn’t be sure. A part of him wanted to believe that this was just Suho’s way of “repaying” the favor. After all, Sieun had taken care of him once when the kid was bleeding out in front of his house, hadn’t he? Nursed him after the stabbing. Let him stay several nights. Gave him soup, even if it tasted awful.

So maybe Suho was doing this just to balance the scale. Maybe he’d leave once the debt was repaid.

That part of him—the cautious, logical part—tried to hold onto that theory.

But the other part, the quieter part, knew better.

Suho would do this for anyone. That was the truth of him. The kid was too good-natured for his own good. Anyone in need, anyone with a limp or a fever or a wound to hide—Suho would jump in headfirst. He didn’t know how to walk away.

Sieun wasn’t special.

Just one more person in need.

“...You can go home now,” Sieun said, voice hoarse.

Suho looked at him like he’d just been kicked in the ribs.

“What?”

“I’m fine,” Sieun mumbled, barely above a whisper. “Just a cold.”

The expression Suho made was somewhere between disbelief and insult.

“You fainted on your damn floor.”

Sieun looked away.

“What, is it like, 4AM right now? You can eat something here before going to school—”

“Hyung.” Suho’s tone sharpened, but only for a second. He sighed. “Just... let me stay a bit longer, okay? I want to be here.”

Sieun blinked. Something in his chest shifted at the quiet sincerity in Suho’s voice. Not forceful. Not dramatic. Just a simple truth said plainly, like it didn’t need explanation.

He didn’t know how to respond to that.

Instead, Suho stood and moved toward the kitchen, rummaging for something. When he came back, it was with a steaming bowl and a plastic spoon, the scent of warm rice and sesame oil trailing behind.

“You need to eat,” he said, placing it gently on the nightstand. “Before you take your meds.”

Sieun didn’t move at first.

His appetite was shot. His stomach turned just thinking about swallowing anything, and worse, the moment Suho said “pills,” a reflexive wince cracked across his face.

Suho noticed immediately.

“What?” he asked. “You claim to be a responsible adult but you can’t take pills?”

“It’s not that,” Sieun muttered. “I just… hate them.”

Suho raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Your black coffee is no less bitter than those pills.”

“It’s not about the taste.”

And it wasn’t.

It was the feeling. The memory. Those oversized, chalky white pills that always got stuck halfway down his throat when he was little. The endless array of bottles—cold meds, fever reducers, vitamin supplements, syrups—lined up ironically like trophies on a sick kid’s shelf. The way the pills made him gag sometimes, how even now, the ghost of them scratched at his throat.

But he didn’t say that. Didn’t want to sound like he was whining.

He tried to sit up instead, wincing at the tug in his back, but managing.

“I can feed myself,” he said stubbornly when Suho was going to help him to sit up.

“Sure,” Suho said, but he sat nearby anyway, quietly watching.

Sieun took a few tentative bites. The porridge was actually… good. Better than good. Warm, silky, with just enough seasoning and a few small pieces of chicken and chopped vegetables. He wasn’t sure if it was the fever or the hunger or the simple kindness of it, but it sat comfortably in his belly.

“You made this?”

Suho perked up a little. “Yeah. Told you I could cook.”

Sieun raised an eyebrow.

“It’s good.”

“Tastes better than whatever you made me last time,” Suho grinned.

Sieun exhaled, a half-laugh catching in his throat.

Suho leaned back slightly, arms crossed behind his head like he was proud. “I’ve had practice. My grandma gets sick a lot.”

Something about that made Sieun’s chest pinch. Suho was still just a kid, really. Eighteen. He should be out with friends, wasting time at karaoke or watching dumb variety shows. Not… here, boiling porridge for a fevered adult and checking temperatures with the back of his hand like someone twice his age.

When Suho passed him the pills, Sieun took the first one—and nearly choked. It stuck halfway down, gagging him.

He set the glass of water down, eyes watering.

Great. Pathetic.

But Suho didn’t laugh. Didn’t even comment. He just picked up the rest of the pills, broke them in half without a word, and passed them back one by one.

Sieun stared at him.

Suho was always loud. Always had something to say.

But in moments like this, he became someone else. Still. Attentive.

It unsettled something inside Sieun. Or maybe it settled something. He couldn’t tell.

After a pause, Suho smiled faintly. “We really are bonding in the weirdest ways, huh?”

“Hm?”

“I get stabbed, you feed me barely edible soup,” Suho said, counting on his fingers. “You collapse, I make five-star congee.”

Sieun didn’t argue.

“Just… Get better soon. I miss playing pools and PUBG with you. Also I haven’t been to the bookstore in a while, bet that Kagurabachi has a new volume already.”

And at the hour when no one should be awake at, Suho kept rambling. Something about groceries, about needing to buy more ginger and a new thermometer, how Sieun should at least get a proper humidifier if he wanted to avoid dying in winter. His voice drifted in and out as Sieun sank back against the pillows, lids already growing heavy again.

The warmth from the porridge spread through him like a tide. The heaviness in his bones didn’t feel quite as crushing with Suho there, his voice buzzing softly at the edge of hearing.

Sieun wasn’t sure when he fell asleep again.

The bowl sat empty on the nightstand, and Sieun’s chest was rising slow and even under the rumpled duvet, lips slightly parted in a way that made him look absurdly young for someone who worked a nine-to-five and paid taxes.

Suho sat on the chair next to him, elbows propped on his own knees, chin in his hand.

It was almost 4:30 in the morning.

The apartment was quiet in that very specific pre-dawn way. Not midnight stillness, but something heavier—quieter than quiet. Like the city was holding its breath. The occasional hum of the refrigerator. The tick of the wall clock. Somewhere, a faucet dripped once.

And in that silence, Suho found himself thinking again about what Sieun had mumbled earlier in his sleep. Half-conscious, soaked with fever, voice thin and trembling.

“Sorry.”

Over and over.

Soft, like a chant.

Suho didn’t know who the apology was for—if it was even meant for anyone real—but it haunted him in the quiet. That word. That tone. The way Sieun’s hand had clutched at his like something was slipping from his grasp and Suho was the last thread left.

So Suho held on tightly to him.

“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

It didn’t match the Sieun he knew. Not on the outside, at least.

The Sieun he knew was the guy who blinked at his boss’s idiocy with a deadpan calm, who won ten straight rounds of pool with the same blank expression and never bragged. The guy who ate triangle kimbap standing in the cold and muttered about inflation like a grumpy grandpa.

Yeah, he was tired. All the time. Annoyed with life. Perpetually inconvenienced.

But not fragile.

Not weak.

He was small—at least next to Suho’s broad shoulders and thick arms—and his wrists looked like they could snap under pressure. But behind the sleep-deprived eyes and sardonic sighs was someone sharp. Capable. The kind of guy who read scientific journals for fun and could explain compounding interest without sounding smug. Someone who took care of himself even when no one else did. Someone who—

Suho's throat tightened.

Someone who had taken care of him.

He still didn’t fully understand it. That night when he stumbled into Sieun’s apartment, bleeding, too hazy to explain what happened—and Sieun just... accepted it. No judgment. Just towels and porridge and a quiet place to sleep. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, Sieun had quietly, methodically, gotten rid of the gang that threatened him.

Without telling him.

Without needing thanks.

Like it wasn’t even a question.

Suho looked down at Sieun’s sleeping face again.

His lashes were long. Ridiculously so. They cast small, feathery shadows under his eyes, especially in the dim, blueish light coming through the window. His skin was flushed with the last remnants of the fever—pale cheeks tinged pink at the edges—and his hair, still damp from the towel earlier, flopped over his forehead in uneven strands.

There was something stupidly pretty about him.

Not the flashy kind. Not the kind that made people’s heads turn. But the kind that crept up on you when you weren’t looking. The kind that made Suho’s gaze linger longer than it should, tracing the gentle curve of Sieun’s jaw, the slope of his nose, the way his bottom lip had a natural pout to it that he’d definitely deny if Suho ever pointed it out.

And the worst part?

No one else had ever seen this.

Not like this.

Not this close.

Sieun didn’t let people in. That was obvious from the start. He dodged personal questions like a pro. Never invited coworkers to his place. Didn’t talk about his family. Didn’t complain about being alone, because that would mean admitting he expected anyone to be there in the first place.

But Suho was here.

He was in.

And for some reason, Sieun let him stay.

That thought made something giddy twist in Suho’s stomach. Something light and stupid and warm.

He dropped his head and groaned into the blanket.

“What the hell is wrong with me,” he muttered, voice muffled.

He was eighteen.

He was supposed to be dumb and reckless and maybe a little cocky, yeah—but not this. Not watching some overworked office dude sleep like it was the most fascinating shit in the world. Not mentally cataloging every flutter of Sieun’s lashes, every soft breath, like he was afraid he’d forget it.

What kind of guy got all fluttery over someone just because they let you cook in their kitchen and hold their feverish hand for five minutes?

Apparently, him.

He couldn’t even play it off as respect anymore.

It wasn’t just admiration. It wasn’t just gratitude. It wasn’t just that he wanted Sieun to trust him.

He wanted something.

He wanted to be the person Sieun relied on—not just during a fever, not just when some gang was sniffing around, but always. Wanted Sieun to see him the way the kids at school did—cool, confident, capable. Someone you could count on.

But also…

Suho rolled onto his back with a sigh, staring at the ceiling now.

Also, he wanted more.

He wanted Sieun’s attention—not the distracted nods or half-smiles he gave at work, but the real thing. Wanted Sieun to laugh at his stupid jokes. To tilt his head and smile when Suho said something clever, or dumb, or both. He wanted Sieun to be flustered for once, just to see what it looked like—what it felt like to make someone like him blush.

Girls at the BBQ joint always blushed when he smiled. They'd whisper about his jawline, or his eyes, or his arms. Ask for his number. Tell him he was hot.

Sieun never said any of that.

And Suho wasn’t sure why that made his chest ache a little.

It wasn’t like he needed compliments. It wasn’t about vanity.

It was about him.

He wanted Sieun to think he was… worth staring at. Wanted him to sit a little closer when they were on the bike, maybe hold a little tighter—not because of traffic, but just because it was cold out. Because it was winter. Because Suho didn’t want him getting sick again. That was all.

Just that.

Just… something small. Something real.

He turned his head again.

Sieun was still asleep, face pressed slightly to the pillow, a strand of hair brushing his eyebrow.

He looked peaceful now. Unguarded. No sarcasm. No weariness. No distance.

And for a moment, Suho let himself imagine reaching out—just brushing that hair aside. Just the lightest touch of his fingers against warm skin. Just enough to feel the reality of it. Of him.

But he didn’t move.

He just watched.

There was no good answer to the question “Why the hell do I feel like this in a grown man’s room?”

Only the warmth blooming in his chest, wild and restless.

When he woke again, his throat felt like sandpaper, his head a thick fog, but the fever had ebbed to something manageable—more ache than burn now. His eyes blinked open slowly, still hazy with sleep, and for a moment, he didn’t move at all. Just breathed.

Then he remembered.

He had work today.

The realization pressed against his brain like a dull thud. There would be emails. Deadlines. Yeongbin yelling whatever fresh nonsense he picked up from LinkedIn this week.

Sieun groaned, shifted onto his side, and reached for his phone without lifting his head off the pillow. He squinted at the screen—7:04 AM.

He thumbed open KakaoTalk, clicked into his team chat with an irritated sigh, and typed with the energy of a man crawling through a desert:

Chief Jeon, I’m working from home today. Caught a cold. Will update the deck later.

It wasn’t a request. It was a declaration.

A second later, as an afterthought, he opened his private chat with Beomseok. The guy would definitely panic if Sieun just disappeared for a day again.

Just a cold. Don’t worry.

He locked the screen and dropped the phone onto the mattress with a sigh, then finally turned his head fully toward the other side of the room.

And blinked.

The apartment was still. Quiet.

Suho was gone.

Of course he was. It was a school day. The kid probably had to run off at sunrise, maybe even earlier, uniform collar skewed, hair damp from a rushed shower, backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder. It was normal. Expected.

Still, Sieun’s fingers curled loosely on the blanket as an odd, unwelcome heaviness settled in his chest.

It was subtle, some kind of… emptiness.

The kind that lingered in rooms where someone had only recently been. Where warmth still lived in the folds of a blanket, or the dent left by a body that had been sitting close for a long time.

But it was just Suho. And Suho always had to leave.

Sieun closed his eyes again briefly, hoping sleep would take him. But when it didn’t, he sighed and sat up slowly, wincing at the pressure in his sinuses. The shift in posture made the world spin for a second, but he steadied himself with a hand on the wall and blinked away the dizziness.

That’s when he noticed the nightstand.

Or rather, the small mountain of carefully arranged supplies on it.

A bottle of water. A clean towel. A fever patch still in its packaging. A new thermometer. A plastic bag with sliced fruit sealed in cling wrap. Cough drops. Vitamin C. Another sealed box of fever-reducing pills, this one smaller than the ones he took last night—probably chewables, or something easier to swallow.

And in the middle of it all, leaning against the tissue box, was a yellow sticky note.

The same dull, practical post-its Sieun usually used to label files at work or write passive-aggressive reminders to himself like "reply to client" or "revised done by 3"

But this one…

This one had big round handwriting, slightly messy but weirdly enthusiastic. The letters leaned in different directions, like they were dancing across the page. And there was a smiley face, scratched in with wild lines and a wide grin, complete with what might’ve been tiny arms raised in triumph.

Eat the fruit. Take the pills (they’re smaller now). Sleep more. I’ll be back after school :)

– Suho

Sieun stared at it.

Then let out the faintest huff of laughter.

It escaped his lips before he could stop it. A small, tired, surprised thing. Like a hiccup made of warmth.

He pressed the edge of the note lightly with his finger. There were no flowery words or declarations of concern.

But it was… nice. Weirdly nice.

He thought about how late it must’ve been when Suho went out to buy all this. Or how early. He had found Sieun around eleven, right? That meant all of this had been gathered in the dead of night, or maybe right before dawn, while the rest of the city slept. While stores were just lifting their shutters, and morning delivery trucks passed empty streets.

That idiot. That reckless, good-natured idiot.

Sieun leaned back against the headboard, pulling the blanket with him. His whole body still ached, but there was a strange comfort growing in his chest now, spreading through his limbs like a slow kind of warmth. Like something steeped in tea and steam and sleep.

He let the sticky note rest lightly between his fingers.

God.

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. He needed more sleep.

And less Suho.

With a small sigh, Sieun placed the note carefully back on the nightstand, turned toward the wall, and slipped under the blanket again. His body was still too heavy to move much.

And in the quiet, with the distant hum of a car passing on the street and the faint rustle of the heater kicking in, Sieun allowed himself the rare indulgence of doing absolutely nothing.

For once, there was no one to answer to. No emails. No meetings. No colleagues hovering over his shoulder.

Just this small apartment. A warm blanket. And the lingering echo of a boy’s voice saying, “I’ll be back after school,” like that was just what people did. Like being here was the most natural thing in the world.

Sieun’s breathing slowed.

The world dimmed again at the edges.

I deserve this.

Oh Beomseok was the most non-confrontational man on Earth.

He was the kind of person who apologised to furniture after bumping into it. Who bowed ninety degrees to taxi drivers even when they were the ones who almost ran him over. Who once let a seven-year-old cut him in line at a convenience store because the kid looked like he had “important yogurt business.”

And yet.

Here he was.

Standing in front of Yeon Sieun’s apartment door, his arms full of bags of vitamin drinks cough drops and a vague sense of déjà vu clinging to his spine like static.

The last time he came here like this—two weeks ago, exact same bag, exact same post-work gloom—he found a bleeding teenager sprawled out on Sieun’s bed like some kind of very realistic PSA about juvenile crime. And Sieun, ever the emotionally constipated genius, had brushed it all off with a "he’s fine" like fine included stab wounds now.

So this time, Beomseok came prepared.

Not with weapons or police reports—don’t be ridiculous—but with a quiet hope that maybe this time, there wouldn't be anyone leaking bodily fluids on the furniture.

Sieun did text him he was sick today. That was already miles ahead of the radio silence from last time.

He reached for the doorbell with the solemn grace of a man about to commit to a mission—one finger extended, brows furrowed, bag slightly cutting off circulation to his arm—

And then, a red blur flew at him from the left.

Beomseok startled so hard his soul briefly left his body. He blinked. Then blinked again.

Approaching with the speed and chaos of a meteorite was a boy—no, a very bright boy, wrapped in a red windbreaker so loud it offended several of Beomseok’s personal values.

The kid radiated the same energy as a fire alarm that had just discovered caffeine. Beomseok’s fight-or-flight response chose a third option: stand perfectly still and hope the child loses interest.

Unfortunately, he did not.

“Hey!” the kid beamed, coming to a stop so suddenly that his sneakers screeched against the hallway tiles. “Are you my Sieun-hyung’s friend?”

Beomseok opened his mouth. He wasn’t sure what sound was going to come out. But the kid didn’t wait.

“Oh yeah! You were that glasses dude that was also drunk off your ass at the BBQ, Beomseok-hyung right?” the boy continued cheerfully. “You were hilarious. You kept clinging to Sieun-hyung’s arm like he was a flotation device.”

Beomseok’s entire brain flatlined.

Excuse me??

He squinted at the boy. Not in anger. No, Beomseok had never truly felt anger. But in deep, unsettled confusion.

This was the kid. The one with the stab wound. The one Sieun apparently knew. The one that was now, alarmingly, recognizing him from a night Beomseok had tried very hard to forget.

He was too loud. Too familiar. Too... red.

Beomseok decided immediately and with great confidence: this kid was going to be a pain in the ass to deal with.

Before he could say anything—anything at all—the kid turned to the apartment door, punched in the passcode with the familiarity of someone inputting their own phone PIN, and swung it open with a shout that echoed down the hallway.

“HYUNG, I’M HOME!”

It wasn’t so much a sentence as it was a public declaration. A boy-band comeback. A victorious war cry.

Beomseok stood in the hallway, slack-jawed, holding a bag of oranges and fever patches like a confused housewife caught in someone else’s drama.

He’d known Sieun for two years. He’d been to this apartment maybe five times. He had never once touched the keypad. Never even seen the keypad up close. And yet this kid—who Sieun had known for what, a month?—just strolled in like the lease was under his name.

What in the actual hell.

Beomseok reluctantly shuffled inside, removing his shoes like a well-trained guest. His eyes scanned the room, landing on Sieun’s familiar, slouched form on the bed. Even from a distance, the guy looked wrecked—like a stock photo of “burnout” come to life.

With genuine concern, Beomseok started to step forward, already halfway into a soft, “Hey, are you—”

THWUMP.

The kid in red beat him to the chair. Slid into it like it was his designated throne. His arm dangled casually over the backrest. Legs spread like he was claiming the territory.

Beomseok remained standing. Mid-step. Mid-sentence. Mid-life crisis.

Then he noticed the nightstand.

Everything he had bought—exactly what he bought—was already there. In slightly better packaging. Arranged neatly, like someone had studied a Pinterest board titled “How to Take Care of a Sick Guy 101.”

He stared at the fruit. At the medicine. At the water bottle that looked suspiciously like the same brand he picked.

He’d been beaten. By a teenager. At caring.

This was humiliating.

“I—” he started, voice cracking slightly.

“Ah, Beomseok,” Sieun said hoarsely from the bed, lifting his head just enough to make eye contact. His voice was weak, but his eyes softened, the kind of subtle appreciation Sieun reserved for people who did his Excel sheets or brought him canned coffee.

“This is Suho.”

The kid in red grinned and gave a peace sign.

“Oh. Yeah. We met,” Beomseok muttered.

Sieun nodded like this was the most natural development in the world and reached for a tissue.

The room settled into a strange triangle of silence. Beomseok standing awkwardly. Suho lounging like a golden retriever with his owner on his side. The owner, Sieun, halfway alive and wiping his nose.

Then Suho tilted his head and said, “Why do you talk so polite with him?”

Beomseok blinked. “Huh?”

“You and Sieun-hyung are the same age, right?” Suho asked, looking genuinely puzzled. “But you talk like he’s your boss or something. All that ‘how-are-you-feeling’ and ‘should-I-leave-this-here?’ stuff.”

“That’s just... how I talk,” Beomseok said defensively.

Suho looked thoughtful. “You should be more casual, man. I mean, you were clinging to his arm and everything.”

“That was one time,” Beomseok muttered under his breath, his ears turning pink. He glanced at Sieun, who looked like he might pass out any second. “He doesn’t seem like he’d want me to talk casually.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Sieun said, eyes closed, voice raspy. “Talk however you want. Just not loud.”

Suho immediately lowered his volume by maybe 3%. “Sorry, hyung,” he whispered loudly.

Beomseok pinched the bridge of his nose.

Before he could come up with a dignified reason to leave, Suho clapped his hands once and said, “Let’s eat dinner here!”

Beomseok blinked. “What?”

“Yeah, stay for dinner. I was gonna make something anyway. You can help.” Suho beamed like this was a generous offer and not a trap.

Beomseok stared. This was absolutely the moment to politely excuse himself. To say, “No thank you, I have plans,” or “Actually, I have work stuff,” or “My cat is on fire.”

Instead, he said, “...Okay.”

Okay.

He said okay.

He was definitely possessed.

Suho was already on his feet, rummaging through the fridge, wagging his imaginary tail with house privileges. Beomseok stood there, numb, watching a teenager take over an apartment that was not his, trying to process how he had become the second most awkward guest in a room he’d once been proud to be invited into.

He cast a glance at Sieun, now dozing off again under the covers, a faint crease of comfort in his brow.

Fine.

Beomseok sighed and rolled up his sleeves.

If this kid was going to be loud and unfiltered and annoying, then someone had to make sure the vegetables were washed and that Sieun didn’t die of auditory exhaustion during recovery.

For now, he’d stay.

But tomorrow, he was absolutely going back to being non-confrontational.

Chapter Text

They sat together at the tiny table, the three of them boxed in like mismatched puzzle pieces forced into the same frame.

Sieun looked better. Less zombie, more upright human. That had to mean something.

Suho thought—for one second—that he didn’t need to regret the fact that he was the one who invited Beomseok to stay for dinner.

Then the guy started talking.

“So Yeji used a fake placeholder name on the pitch deck,” he said, fiddling with his chopsticks. “But instead of deleting it, she left it in. The client almost saw ‘Brandy McBrandface’ on page one.”

Sieun let out a low, amused laugh, half-buried under a mouthful of porridge.

Suho stared down at his own bowl. The food was good. He’d put real effort into it—cut the ginger, soaked the rice, even minced the scallions like his grandma usually did. It was warm and easy to eat, and had a little kick. Something with comfort. Personality.

But now this guy was stealing all the laughs over some boring office disaster with fonts and fake names.

“Yeongbin nearly combusted,” Beomseok added with a sheepish smile. “He made us rehearse how to say ‘McBrandface’ with a straight face.”

“Sounds like a circus,” Suho muttered. His voice came out flat and weird. He glanced up—Sieun was still smiling, not with the corners of his mouth, but from his eyes. A quiet one. Soft and real.

But it wasn’t for him.

Beomseok looked over, just briefly. His gaze was mild, polite—too polite. It felt like a pat on the head. You wouldn’t get it, kid.

And maybe it was true. Maybe he didn’t get it. The office stuff. The meetings and projects and weird little inside jokes that only made sense if you’d spent years sitting under fluorescent lights and getting headaches from deadlines. Suho had never been in a meeting. He’d never filed a report. He didn’t even know who Yeji was, and he barely knew Yeongbin through Sieun’s (very rarely) attempts at story.

But he had drove Sieun home when he was drunk. He’d watched him cry—the expensive fountain pen that only write sharp, snarky comments now broken down into messy, fragile streaks of ink. He’d made that porridge from scratch, not from a packet. He’d sat by Sieun’s bed last night while the city turned blue and thought—just for a second—that maybe he was the only one who really saw him. Not work-Sieun. Not cold-Sieun. Just… him.

That had to count for something. Right?

Then Sieun coughed, hard, and choked on a bit of porridge.

Suho was already halfway up, reaching for the water.

But Beomseok was faster. He leaned in, hand on Sieun’s back, rubbing careful circles like he’d done this a hundred times before.

“Careful,” Beomseok said gently. “Eat slowly.”

Suho froze at the sink, fingers tight around the glass. He felt a weird throb in his chest. Like something had snapped quietly inside him.

Somehow he forgot that this was the guy who clung to Sieun’s arms during that BBQ party like they are workplace-soulmates. And now back-patting and intimate leaning and gentle voice modulation was also their thing?

He couldn’t believe that just a few hours ago, he was feeling all giddy just because he could sit in Sieun’s room.

He slammed the glass down on the table, a little louder than necessary. “Here. Drink.”

Sieun gave him a look—eyebrows faintly raised—but took the glass without comment.

Then came the meds.

“I already broke the pills into half for you,” Suho said. He tried to sound casual, but it came out sharp. He was talking to Sieun—but straight up looking at Beomseok.

“Oh,” Beomseok said, blinking. “O-okay, that’s very thoughtful of you.”

He pulled out a small, rattling tin from his bag. “Also, these help with throat irritation. Lozenges. Uh, our family nurse used to recommend them.”

Of course. Of course he had a family nurse. Of course he carried medical lozenges in classy little medical tins that looked like it belonged to a British grandmother.

Suho narrowed his eyes. “So… old people candy.”

“They’re not candy—”

“I’ll try them later,” Sieun said flatly, taking the pills that Suho was offering on his palm. That felt triumphant.

Suho glanced between them. Beomseok, with his round glasses and his tailored pants. The way he said things like “used to recommend” and “pitch deck” and didn’t fumble once. The way he never raised his voice. The way he just fit. Like this whole apartment and this whole evening had been carved out just for people like him. 

Suho, by contrast, was still in his school uniform. His voice cracked when he spoke too loud. He was an explosion in those action movies, the one that doesn’t occur in Sieun’s tape of life.

And it hit him—like a punch in the gut.

Beomseok and Sieun are from the same world.

He didn’t hate Beomseok. That wasn’t it. His grandma raised him better than that. But something in his chest burned anyway. 

Because last night, when he sat beside Sieun’s bed watching his eyelashes fluttered ever so slightly, it felt like they were the only two people in the world. And Suho thought—stupidly, maybe—that he was the only one who could get through to Sieun. That he had cracked something open no one else had.

But maybe not. Maybe that soft laugh Sieun gave Beomseok had always been there.

“I’ll do the dishes,” Beomseok said suddenly, rising from his seat.

Suho straightened. “No. I’ll do them. You’re the guest.”

“It’s okay, you already cooked.”

“Do you even know where the soap is at?”

“You—”

“Are you two getting along?” Sieun’s voice cut through the tension like a knife.

They both froze.

“Yes,” Suho said, and beside him, Beomseok nodded along.

Sieun gave them a long look—tired, judgmental, unimpressed. Then he pointed. “One does dishes. One sweeps. Or both of you leave.”

Suho ended up with the broom.

He swept near Beomseok’s feet, obnoxiously close. Hoping the guy would flinch or glare. Something.

Nothing. Beomseok barely noticed.

Of course he didn’t. He was probably used to this. Bringing groceries. Staying late. Sharing stories Sieun understood.

Suho thought he was never a self-concious person. He never let thoughts spiral more than they should. But now, the thought sank deep in his chest, like a rock dropped into a pond.

Maybe to Sieun, I’ve always just been a kid.

A temporary charity case. A project. A loud distraction from real adult problems. Not someone special—just someone young. Someone with bandages on his knuckles and too much time on his hands.

He watched Beomseok rinse the bowls, his sleeves slipping down a little, revealing a faint tremble in his fingers. 

Suho squinted.

Beomseok nearly dropped the spoon. He caught it with a clatter, glanced over and saw Suho staring, then smiled, almost nervously.

“Sorry. I really want to help but I’m a little clumsy sometimes.”

Suho blinked. Beomseok’s hands were moving fast but awkward. Like he was trying too hard to get it right. His shoulders were tight. His posture was weirdly stiff.

Maybe he wasn’t smug, wasn’t polished, wasn’t the embodiment of aristocrats during the 18th century.

Still, none of that registered properly in Suho’s brain. His thoughts were too tangled. All he could see was how different they were. How much older Beomseok felt. How natural he seemed at fitting into Sieun’s space.

When Beomseok stood at the door, shoes back on and shoulders straightened like someone about to clock into work, Suho stayed sprawled half on the floor.

“I’ll text you when I get home,” Beomseok said to Sieun.

Then he glanced at Suho—still in his uniform and messy hair, slumped like a dog guarding a bone.

“Don’t let this one keep you up too late,” Beomseok added, tone light.

Suho didn’t look up. “Night, Glasses Hyung.”

The door clicked shut.

He rolled onto his back with a sigh and stretched his arms out like he owned the floor.

“You’re staying?” Sieun asked.

“Obviously,” Suho said. “I told you I would.”

That was just fact.

Still, his thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning.

He wasn’t jealous. That would be stupid. Jealousy was for people who had something to lose. He didn’t even know what this was. And anyway, he wasn’t—

He wasn’t that.

He just… liked being the one who stayed. The one Sieun trusted. The one who made him laugh without trying. The one who got to see the parts no one else did.

But maybe he was wrong about that too.

Maybe all of that only happened because he was a kid. Someone who didn’t belong in the adult world Sieun actually lived in.

Maybe he was just a guest here too. 

Returning to work after a week of being sick felt like stepping back into a sitcom that had kept running without you.

Sieun’s desk still bore the aftermath of pre-sickday chaos. Yeongbin was still talking like a man who thought he was on a campaign trail, hands waving and metaphors flying as if every team meeting were a televised debate. Slack was a battlefield again, filled with passive-aggressive emoji chains and oddly personal thread replies about printer etiquette.

It was almost disappointing how normal everything felt.

Being sick had been miserable, sure, but it had also been quiet. Simpler. Nobody asked about brand synergy or reminded him to smile in client calls when he was in bed with a fever. That peace was gone now. But strangely, one thing remained constant—Suho.

The first time Suho brought lunch, he didn’t even make it past the building lobby.

He’d apparently tried to march right in with a takeout bag in hand, only to be stopped by a very unimpressed security guard who didn’t buy the “I’m just here to drop something off for a friend” excuse—especially not from a teenage boy in a rumpled school uniform and a suspiciously bright red windbreaker.

So Suho had called Sieun instead.

“Come down,” he said, when Sieun answered with a wary "What?"

“Come downstairs. Outside. I brought you something.”

Sieun was, not to exaggerate, bewildered. A few minutes later, he stepped out the glass doors to find Suho standing just outside, looking triumphant.

“You had coffee for breakfast,” A statement. Suho said without preamble, holding up the takeout bag like a gift basket.

“It’s 12PM,” Sieun replied. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re gonna skip lunch too.”

The words were half accusation, half concern. The kind of tone one might use for a reckless toddler. Or a war criminal.

“There’s a convenience store downstairs,” Sieun muttered.

“Yeah. But this is better.” Suho shoved the bag into his hands with a shrug that suggested this whole ambush was perfectly normal behavior.

It was barbecue and rice from the place Suho worked part-time. Warm, greasy, and annoyingly good. Better than the usual kimbab-and-instant-coffee routine, Sieun had to admit—even if he pretended not to.

It became a routine faster than Sieun could stop it.

Three or four times a week, Suho began showing up. Sometimes he texted ahead. Most times, he didn’t bother.

He came with lunch. With snacks. With drinks balanced precariously in both hands like a schoolboy version of a dedicated housewife. 

And then there were the evenings.

When Sieun stayed too late at the office or dragged himself home with no energy to cook, Suho would appear again—holding plastic bags of dinner and talking like he’d just happened to be in the area.

At first, Suho would “accidentally” fall asleep on the couch. The first time, Sieun tried nudging him awake. Then shaking. Then offering to call his grandma.

Nothing worked. Suho had the stubbornness of a cat pretending to be dead.

By the third time, he stopped pretending.

“Can I crash here?” he asked one evening. “Sleeping on desks messes up my back.”

Sieun stared at him blankly. The kid blinked back, all wide eyes and moral confidence. In the end, he said nothing and let him stay.

It was just one night. Then another. Then a few more.

Somehow, Suho decided he was in charge of home maintenance too.

He started oiling the squeaky window tracks. Fixed the loose table legs without asking. One night, Sieun walked into the kitchen and found him under the sink, flashlight wedged between his teeth.

“What are you doing?”

“Pipe’s leaking.” Suho didn’t even pause. “I saw it last time.”

“…So you’re fixing it?”

“Yeah. You don’t notice this stuff, but I do.”

He said it casually, like most high schoolers moonlighted as handymen. Later, Sieun learned Suho had picked everything up from YouTube tutorials—yet another absurd detail he couldn’t make sense of.

It wasn’t just home repairs. Suho started managing him.

If he forgot to plug in his phone, Suho would silently do it. If he sighed too loudly, Suho would wordlessly offer him a banana milk or a snack. If Sieun skipped a meal, Suho would act like he'd committed treason.

It was never dramatic. But it was constant.

A presence that hovered just enough to be felt—never demanding, but impossible to ignore.

The oddest thing that Sieun noticed, however, were the attempts at—the only thing Sieun’s logic can only come up with—trying to impress.

Suho started mentioning things in passing. How he was rebuilding his motorbike’s engine. How he’d taught himself how to fix faulty wiring. How he could dismantle a rice cooker and put it back together.

Sometimes, he challenged Sieun to games of PUBG again, narrating his moves like a streamer and trying far too hard to win.

Other times, it was more serious.

“There’s a kid in my class,” Suho said one night, mouth full of pork belly. “He’s getting bullied. I’ve been showing him some self-defense stuff.”

He looked away for a moment. Then, too casually: “If you ever wanna learn how to throw a punch, I can teach you too.”

Sieun didn’t respond. He just took another bite of radish. Maybe he did not notice the weight in Suho’s voice.

It was subtle, but something about Suho had shifted.

There was a tightness in his energy lately. A current under the surface—like someone trying to keep up with something faster than them. Trying to prove something.

It had the feeling of someone running alongside a moving train, convinced that if they just ran hard enough, they could jump on board.

He was still loud. Still a blur of bright red in how he hovered. But Sieun couldn’t shake the thought: Suho was trying too hard lately.

And yet, he looked at Sieun the same way every time.

Like he’d been waiting all day just to be let in. Not in the apartment, no, Suho literally made himself at home a long time ago. But for something else, like Sieun’s approval—however mild, however quiet—was worth more than any full meal or warm bed.

Sieun had seen the look before. On a dog. A three-month-old puppy, specifically. One that had been fed once, patted twice, and decided you were the center of its tiny universe.

It was ridiculous. Unreasonable. Almost funny.

But also—safe.

He wasn’t sure when it started, or how it kept happening, but somewhere along the line, Suho had become a part of his daily routine.

Like noise. Like the hum of a fridge. Like breathing.

Yet, there was something about Suho’s behavior that Sieun found too odd to be explained logically.

It was the end of the Lurène project.

Which meant long hours, last-minute revisions, and the worst part—after-hours messages.

Client feedback didn’t care about business hours, and neither did internal reviews. Notifications bled into the evenings like water through a crack. And unfortunately for Sieun, he had to reply.

Fortunately for Sieun, most of those messages were with Beomseok.

They’d gotten into a rhythm—efficient, light, and occasionally sprinkled with Beomseok’s terrible-but-endearing sticker collection. His current favorite was a chubby white cartoon puppy who seemed to express every emotion under the sun: crying, clapping, cheering, fainting. Beomseok used them unironically. That alone made Sieun grin sometimes, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, usually without thinking.

He didn’t expect anyone to notice.

But Suho always did.

If Sieun happened to check his phone while Suho was around, the reaction was instant. A glance. Then a silence. Then, like clockwork, a comment that felt offhand—but never actually was.

“He must be a very funny person to be around,” Suho said once, casually flipping through his drink straw like he wasn’t paying attention. “At least to you. From the last time we met, I didn’t know that Beomseok hyung was the type to crack a joke.”

Another time, while Sieun was replying to a particularly convoluted message and chewing the inside of his cheek in concentration, Suho flopped sideways on the couch and muttered, “Are you busy with your work-soulmate again? Bet you wouldn’t even notice if I didn’t come over anymore.”

And then, one evening, without any lead-up at all:

“You two married yet?”

Sieun looked up from his phone. “What?”

Suho just grinned—wide, cocky, and not the least bit amused by his own joke.

“You two married yet?”

Real funny, Ahn Suho. You could be a stand-up comedian.

The pathetic excuse of a joke—because yes, it was a joke, not a cry for attention, not a jealous jab, not anything emotionally compromising whatsoever—still haunted him two days later. Even now, stuck in his last-period class, eyes aimed forward but brain absolutely elsewhere.

Not that he had any plans to study anyway.

He couldn't get a single word the teacher was saying into his skull. Something about the Korean War? Or trigonometric identities? Honestly, it could've been either. All Suho could think about was that moment—when Sieun had smiled down at his phone, soft and unguarded, like something warm had just brushed by him.

And Suho had glanced over like an idiot. Curious. Then annoyed. Then bitter, for no good reason.

It wasn’t like he cared that it was the Beomseok on the other end of the message. Or that Sieun’s thumb hovered fondly over that dumb sticker—what was it again? Some balloon-shaped dog? It looked like a piece of uncooked tteok with eyes.

Why the hell did grown men even use stickers?

And why did Beomseok always talk like he was afraid his voice might upset the wind or something? “U-uhm, I think we can submit it like this, if that’s okay with you…” Suho could imitate it perfectly. He wouldn’t, but he could. Maybe he should get a signature sticker set of his own—something cooler. A shark wearing sunglasses. Or a crow flipping someone off.

Not that he’d be texting Sieun with them or anything.

His phone buzzed.

Suho blinked and looked down. A new message.

From a stranger.

Kang Naeun.

...Who?

He clicked on the chat.

Hi!! Are you Suho oppa??

I got your number from Wooyoung oppa!! He said you used to be friends in MMA club?

I’m his little sister! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I’ve heard about you lol. I go to Dongsung High. Apparently, you’re kinda famous?

I thought you were just another tall scary guy but you’re cuter than I thought lmao

Wanna get lunch sometime?? ;)

Suho stared at the screen.

Kang Wooyoung. Right. They used to train together before Suho quit the club. Wooyoung was cool—they were two guys at the same age who utilize their punches better than their brains—but they drifted apart after Suho started retreating from the scene. Still on good terms, though. Guess Wooyoung passed his number along.

He squinted at the chat again.

Naeun didn’t seem shy. Not even a little. She was coming in full force, and Suho was not stupid. Compliments, emojis, and a damn lunch invitation within five texts. It was... kind of impressive, actually.

And yet, all Suho could think about was Sieun again.

Would Sieun even notice if he stopped coming over? If he started hanging out with girls more—being a normal high school boy with normal high school interests and a normal fixation on people his own age, maybe even the opposite gender?

Wasn’t that healthier?

This thing with Sieun—it wasn’t anything. It couldn’t be. But still, it scared him sometimes. The way Sieun’s expressions lingered in his mind. The way he always wanted to make him laugh. The way he felt weirdly seen just by sitting next to him on that narrow couch, like they existed in some invisible bubble only they could breathe in.

It wasn’t… normal.

It couldn’t be.

So, maybe… yeah.

Maybe a lunch wouldn’t hurt.

Suho

Sure. When?

And just like that, he hit send.

And tried to convince himself that it didn’t feel like betrayal.

Even though, technically, there was nothing to betray.

Suho had no idea why he said yes.

Okay, he did know. Sort of. It was the same reason he put on his best hoodie and actually used hair wax that morning. A dumb attempt to be normal. Like flirting with a girl over lunch could somehow reboot his brain.

The tonkatsu place Naeun chose was loud and overhyped, buzzing with energy and packed with students. Suho spotted her right away at the back booth, waving her phone in the air like a flare.

She was cute—very cute. And she knew it. Glossed lips, curled hair tied up with a trendy claw clip, oversized school cardigan slipping slightly off one shoulder in a way that was definitely calculated. She was the kind of girl who knew exactly how much eye contact to make and how long to hold it before guys forgot their own names. And judging from her confident wave and the way the boys at the next table glanced over when she laughed—yeah, people noticed her.

“There he is! Suho oppa!” she grinned, pocketing her phone as he approached. “I thought you were gonna ghost me.”

He slid into the seat across from her. “I said I’d come.”

“Yeah, but guys say a lot of things.”

He smirked. “You sound like you’ve been ghosted a lot.”

“Not really. Most of them fold in two texts.”

That earned a small huff of amusement from him. She was bold, he’d give her that.

Honestly, Suho wasn’t bad with girls. He knew college girls at the BBQ giggled too much when he served them pork belly with a wink and joked about giving bigger portions if they praised him loud enough. On high-energy days, he was practically untouchable—loud, bright, a walking serotonin boost. Girls liked that. He liked being liked.

But lately, even those reactions barely registered. Because the only reaction he found himself craving didn’t come from girls. It came from one specific man, blinking blankly at memes Suho sent at 1AM and smiling faintly whenever Suho lost a bet and had to buy him coffee.

The food came quickly—crispy pork cutlets with golden breading, cabbage slathered in dressing, and miso soup steaming gently in their bowls.

“You’re a lot quieter than I thought,” Naeun said, tearing open her chopsticks. “I was kind of expecting a cocky fighter guy. You know, with your rep.”

Suho shrugged. “Guess I’m full of surprises.”

“Yeah. Or secrets.”

She popped a piece of pickled radish into her mouth, then peered at him with an amused look. “By the way… who is that guy?”

Suho glanced up, puzzled. “What guy?”

“The older dude. You posted him, like, three times. Once he was eating bungeoppang, once passed out on a desk, and one with the caption ‘He’s going to kill me when he sees this.’ Ring a bell?”

He paused, chopsticks mid-air. “You’re… looking at my stories?”

“I watch everyone’s stories,” Naeun said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “It’s kind of my job. Girl duty. Don’t act surprised—your account is not on private mode either.”

Suho didn’t answer. He just returned to his plate, but the way he speared a chunk of pork felt more aggressive than it needed to be.

“I tried to figure out who he was, since I want to know more about you,” she went on, twirling a strand of hair. “But he’s a ghost. Like, zero digital footprint. No Insta, no Facebook, not even a LinkedIn. And trust me, I checked.”

“He doesn’t use social media.”

“Obviously. But I did notice something,” she added, leaning in slightly, voice dropping to a casual murmur. “In one of those pics—he had a keycard lanyard clipped to his belt. Kind of blurred, but looked like an office badge. And there was this other one where his shirt cuffs were buttoned all the way and ironed to hell. Like a salaryman. So I figured, he’s older than you. By a bit. Not a lot, but still.”

Suho blinked, thrown off. Most people never gave it a second thought. Sieun’s delicate face and quiet demeanor made him easy to mistake for a high schooler—or even a university kid on a sleepy day. When they were out together, no one stared.

But Naeun had noticed. And quickly, too.

“He’s cute, though,” she added with a grin. “At first I thought he was your classmate. Like, one of those top-of-the-year, soft-spoken types who wins math competitions.”

Suho let out a short, almost startled laugh.

“I’m not wrong, am I?”

“You’re… close,” he muttered, pushing his rice around with a spoon.

“I’m always close,” she said, chin resting in one hand. “It’s a gift. So?”

“So what?”

“Who is he?”

Suho hesitated. “Just… someone I know.”

“Hmm.” Naeun took a slow sip of her soda, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You take a lot of pictures of him for someone you just ‘know.’”

He didn’t respond. Because she wasn’t wrong.

There was no real reason for Suho to post those photos, except maybe for himself. They weren’t even good shots. One was blurry from a moving bus, one was of Sieun slumped at a PC-bang in a hoodie too big for him, and the last one was from that rainy night, Sieun squinting at his phone under Suho’s umbrella, expression scrunched in quiet concentration.

Maybe he just liked remembering those moments. Or maybe, on some level, he wanted someone to ask about them.

But now that someone had, it felt gross. Like something private had been put under fluorescent lights.

Naeun laughed. “Relax. I’m not judging. Just curious why you would hang out with an adult.”

Suho leaned back in his chair and forced a grin.

“He’s just a hyung,” he said. “That’s all.”

Just a hyung. 

Just someone older. Just a guy Suho couldn’t stop thinking about even when sitting across from a cute, confident girl who literally asked him out.

Just a hyung.

“Maybe I’ll introduce you sometime,” he added, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“You’d probably like him. He’s polite. Pretty. Quiet. Your type, no?”

Naeun raised an eyebrow, lips curled. “Are you trying to set me up?”

“Just being generous,” Suho said with a shrug, tasted something bitter under his tongue. “Who knows. Might be fun.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Naeun scrolled through something on her phone, her foot still bouncing beneath the table. Suho tried to focus on his food, but the conversation looped in his head like background noise.

She was perfectly fine. Funny, confident, and easy to talk to. A lot of guys would jump at a chance to sit across from her. Hell, he would’ve too, a few months ago.

But now?

Now it just felt like watching someone else’s life play out. One he’d probably enjoy, if not for the ghost of a faint smile in his memory. 

Naeun didn’t press him again. She must’ve picked up on something, because she just chatted about her friends, her teachers, even her brother’s ridiculous sense of humour. Suho nodded, laughed when it was expected, and even threw in a compliment or two when she teased him for being too pretty to fight.

It was fine.

Just lunch.

He didn’t really look at her after that. Just pulled his phone from his pocket and lit up the screen.

No new messages.

Of course not.

Chapter Text

One evening, several weeks later, they sat cross-legged on the floor of Sieun’s apartment, sharing a container of lukewarm tteokbokki that Suho had brought over. The sauce had thickened in the plastic tub, congealing into something stickier than it should be. Sieun’s laptop was on, volume low, showing an episode of some variety show neither of them was watching.

Suho scrolled on his phone with one hand, poking at the rice cakes with the other.

Then, without warning, he said, “Oh, by the way. I’m kinda seeing someone.”

Sieun blinked. “Oh.”

Suho didn’t look up. “Her name’s Naeun. Kang Naeun. You wouldn’t know her—she’s Wooyoung’s sister. From the MMA club, remember?”

“Mhm.”

Sieun’s chopsticks hovered before he resumed stabbing a rice cake with a bit too much precision. The plastic container shifted under his pressure.

“That’s nice.”

Because it was nice. It was the kind of thing a boy his age would do. Healthy. Predictable. The sort of life marker that made perfect sense on a timeline. Suho was eighteen. Good-looking. Social. It was even surprising that, for the past few months that they knew each other, this was the first time Suho mentioned anything like this. From Sieun’s experience at his age, Suho should be quite popular among girls.

So why did something in Sieun’s chest feel… off-kilter? Like a picture frame slightly tilted, that he only now noticed had been crooked for a while.

“Anyway,” Suho said, stretching lazily, his arms raised high like he needed to shake the moment off. “She’s really bold. Kinda dragged me into it.”

Sieun hummed, watching the TV without seeing it.

Now that Suho had said it out loud, something clicked into place—an awareness of a shift that had already happened. The shorter visits. The new overly sweet cologne that didn't match Suho’s usual sun-and-fabric-softener scent. The way his replies came hours later than they used to. The silences that filled their conversations, not awkward, but not comfortable either. Hesitations before he spoke, like he was running his thoughts through a filter first.

Not gone. Just… thinner. Like Suho’s presence had been ironed flat, less textured somehow.

Sieun hadn’t noticed it then. Or rather, he had, but hadn’t cared enough to think about it. Guess he was busy with work. 

And that was normal, wasn’t it? People grew up, branched off, recalibrated their priorities. He should be happy Suho was figuring things out for himself.

Still, he found himself thinking about how Suho used to arrive without warning, even bringing something ridiculous with him—a can of strawberry flavored energy drink, a broken gacha toy, a wild flower in his jacket’s pocket, one that he picked up somewhere on his delivery trip. How he used to poke around Sieun’s apartment like he belonged there. How he used to laugh more.

Maybe he still did, just… not here.

“That’s good,” Sieun said finally, offering a faint smile. “You’re young. You should date.”

He said it evenly. Neutrally. Like someone commenting on the weather.

Suho glanced at him. Something unreadable passed across his face. Then he leaned back on his elbows and stared at the ceiling.

The silence stretched thin between them.

Sieun chewed a rice cake. It had gone cold, the chew slightly rubbery. He didn’t really taste it.

He knew he was supposed to say something more—ask what she was like, how long it had been, whether he liked her—but the lines didn’t come. The whole situation felt off-script, like he’d been dropped into a conversation meant for someone else.

So instead, he said nothing at all.

The weeks that followed unfolded with quiet irregularity.

And it was something Sieun—the once straight-A student, the so-called little genius, according to Suho—couldn’t figure out.

Suho still came by, but less often. And always with a reason—he was in the area, Wooyoung had bailed on their hangout (he and Wooyoung seemed to hang out a lot now), his grandma was napping and the house was boring. Not like before, when he’d just show up and sprawl on the floor like it was natural.

Sometimes he messaged late at night, sometimes not at all.

When he was around, he smiled more, talked more, but there was a slight delay to everything. Like his mind was split somewhere else. Like he was trying harder to act the way he used to—casual, loud, familiar. It wasn’t wrong, exactly. But something about it felt... rehearsed.

Sieun didn’t mention it.

He’d always preferred silences anyway. They were easier than trying to explain why the sound of someone slowly pulling away was quieter than footsteps down a hall.

He told himself he didn’t mind.

That this was good for Suho. Honestly, Suho had been spending too much time with him, it was natural to move on. For him to find new friends, new relationships. That this was the healthy adjustment of two misaligned people returning to their respective lanes.

But every now and then, he’d catch himself listening for Suho’s signature shout of “Delivery!” in front of his door. And when it didn’t come, there was a kind of stillness left behind that wasn’t quite peace.

Just space.

Just silence.

He lived in it like he always had.

And when Suho did visit now, there was a pattern—every conversation somehow bent, gently but inevitably, toward Naeun.

He’d start off with something casual—what the school cafeteria served, some idiot in his class, a dumb meme he’d found—but within minutes, her name would surface. Naeun said this. Naeun dared me to that. Naeun bought me these stupid matching keychains.

Sometimes it was funny. Sometimes it wasn’t. Sieun laughed either way.

Because that’s what you’re supposed to do when someone, especially someone you consider your younger brother at this point, shares a piece of their happiness.

He made sure to nod at the right places, to smile, to comment lightly: “She seems like a handful,” or “Sounds like you two match well.” Words that sounded sincere enough, supportive enough, even if they came out a little too measured.

It wasn’t hard. Mirroring back what people needed to hear, avoiding the parts of himself that didn’t fit into their story—he learnt how to do it at some point when he became an adult. He just didn’t think one day, he would unconsciously use it with Suho.

And maybe, on some level, he really did think it was nice. That Suho had someone his age. Someone who could meet him at the right tempo, with none of the strange mismatched stillness that hung around their time together now.

But sometimes—just sometimes—after one of Sieun’s politely approving comments, Suho would go oddly quiet.

Just a flicker.

He’d glance at Sieun like he was waiting for something that hadn’t arrived. Then he’d shake it off and change the topic—quickly, brightly. He’d laugh louder, or nudge Sieun’s arm, or throw himself onto the floor with exaggerated groaning, like the silence hadn’t just crept between them.

Sieun didn’t ask.

He assumed Suho was just tired, or distracted. Maybe relationship stuff was complicated. That’s not something Sieun could help him with, considering his zero experience in said field. Or maybe he just needed someone to vent to.

That’s what people did when they were close, right?

So Sieun kept nodding. Kept listening. Kept being supportive. It was the least he could do for Suho in this weird state of limbo they were stuck in.

And Suho kept talking about Naeun.

But the more Sieun agreed, the more Suho seemed vaguely dissatisfied. As if he'd expected a pushback, or something warmer than Sieun could give without knowing how.

It was all very normal.

It just didn’t feel that way.

Naeun looked pretty tonight. Her lip tint matched her hoodie drawstrings, and her hair smelled like cherry when she leaned in to show him something on her phone. Some TikTok with a cat freaking out over a cucumber. She was already laughing before the video finished.

Suho smiled, automatically.

Her head bumped lightly against his shoulder as she shifted closer. She kept scrolling, laughing at things he barely registered. He didn’t really mind. She was soft-spoken, a little quirky in a way people found charming, and being around her was easy—structured. It came with a script. Compliments, hand-holding, the occasional forehead bump when they laughed too hard.

It should’ve felt warm. Comfortable.

Instead, it felt like sitting in a jacket that didn’t quite fit—like the sleeves kept falling over his hands and the collar itched a little every time he shifted.

She nudged him. “Hey. You’re zoning out again.”

“Just tired,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Did you sleep over at Sieun oppa’s place again?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “No, no I didn’t. Just... stuff.”

Naeun shrugged, letting it go. She didn’t press. Naeun wasn’t clingy like that. She was easy to be around. She didn’t mind silence. She didn’t ask too many questions when he didn’t feel like talking. That was part of what he liked about her—he didn’t have to perform. She didn’t make him feel like he had to be anything more than what he already was.

But lately, that too—the version of him she saw—felt like a mask peeling at the edges.

They sat side-by-side on the couch in her apartment. Mom and dad is out, and oppa is at the practice room, she said. Their legs barely touching. Her hand found his naturally, fingers looping through his without resistance. He gave a small squeeze. But because it seemed like the thing to do.

He had meals with girls before, maybe a few flings that never had a label. So this was new for him too. He wondered if this was how relationships worked. You do what people expect to happen in a romcom movie, and eventually your feelings catch up.

She turned toward him slightly, gaze warm, hopeful. “Hey,” she said, half-teasing. “You’re not gonna make me beg for a real kiss, are you?”

The question was playful. Light. A green light if he wanted it.

Suho didn’t think. Or maybe he thought too much. 

And he did it before his brain could register anything. He leaned in and kissed her—quickly, mechanically. 

There. First kiss. A milestone. Check it off the list.

Her lips were soft. Warm. It wasn’t unpleasant.

But it just… didn’t matter.

She blinked in surprise when he pulled back, then laughed. “That was so fast, I almost missed it.”

He laughed too, but it came out crooked. “Next time, I’ll slow down.”

He meant it as a joke. But even to himself, it sounded like a deflection.

The worst part wasn’t that he didn’t want to kiss her.

The worst part was that he didn’t even register that it was his first.

Like it got lost in the noise.

Like his body did the gesture, and his mind was kilometeres away, standing in front of a familiar apartment door, waiting for it to open.

His stomach twisted.

Why did it feel like he’d taken something that didn’t belong to him?

She leaned into him again, content, and Suho wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He didn’t want to seem weird. Distant.

He stared ahead at nothing, trying to hold still.

After a moment, he spoke. Too suddenly.

“I was thinking,” he said, voice a little too casual, “next time I hang out with Sieun hyung… I’ll bring you.”

Naeun looked up, surprised but smiling. “Yeah? You talk about him a lot.”

Do I? he thought, but didn’t say it out loud. The idea caught him off guard. Did he really mention Sieun that much?

“I think you’d like him,” he added, almost to himself. Everyone should like Sieun.

But he didn’t know why he said it. He didn’t want her there. Not really. Not between them.

But some voice in his head whispered: Do it. Bring her. Make it real. Make it make sense.

If he saw the two of them in the same space, maybe whatever he felt would untangle itself. Maybe the confusion would disappear if exposed to light.

Maybe it would finally stop this ache in his chest that flared when Sieun smiled at someone else, or when his replies came too brief, too polite. Like the door that had always been open was slowly starting to close.

Later that night, Suho lay awake in bed, one arm thrown over his face, Naeun’s kiss still on his lips but fading like a dream. He kept thinking he should message Sieun something dumb. Before whatever the mess he got himself into right now, he just did it as an instinct. But now nothing came to his mind. A random story, a joke. Anything.

He opened the chat, stared at it.

Typed:

you ever think ramen packets are just salty tea?

Deleted it.

Typed again:

ur prob sleeping but

Deleted that too.

He set his phone down and rolled onto his side, frustrated.

Not at her.

Not at Sieun.

Just at himself—for not knowing what he was doing, or who he was trying to be.

And worse, for realizing too late that when he gave his first kiss away, he hadn’t just given it to the wrong person.

He’d taken it from the person he was actually waiting for.

Without even knowing.

The bowling alley was louder than Naeun expected. Neon lights blinked from mounted signs. A birthday group screamed from lane 7. The air smelled like nacho cheese and teenage sweat.

Suho bounced on the balls of his feet beside her, fidgeting with a red bowling ball. “Sieun-hyung said he’d be a bit late,” he said, scanning the crowd.

Naeun nodded, tugging her hoodie sleeves over her hands. She didn’t mind waiting. Suho had been chattier than usual on the walk here—half-explaining his and Sieun’s shared love of snack bars, pool halls, and action games (that Suho showed Sieun how to play, obviously). She mostly just listened. Cataloguing.

Then, like a coin flicked into a slot, Suho lit up.

“Sieun-hyung!” he shouted, his whole frame pivoting toward the entrance.

She turned to look.

The man who approached didn’t look like the type who bowled often. Long legs, dark trousers, a white button-down too clean for this place. His hair was pitch black, a little messy, like he hadn’t checked a mirror before leaving. A canvas tote slung over one shoulder. He came straight from work, didn’t bother to return home and change out of his office attire.

He looked like someone who hadn’t meant to come—but came anyway.

And yes, there were the expected things that she already knew from the pictures. The eye bags. The tired mouth. A sort of neat detachment. The kind of person people easily underestimated.

But what struck her more than how he looked was how he looked at her.

A blink. A single second of misalignment, like his brain hadn’t filed this part of the night under the right category. She recognized it immediately—he didn’t know she would be here.

“Hey,” he said, voice calm and polite. “Sorry I’m late.”

Naeun smiled back, gentle. “Hi. I’m Naeun.”

“I know,” Sieun said, dipping his head slightly. “Suho told me you’re hanging out with us tonight.”

But he hadn’t. 

She could tell from the way he hadn’t prepared a neutral expression, the half-second gap before his smile. It wasn’t insulting—just honest in the way lies sometimes were. A little late. A little flat.

Still, he tried.

That was clear, even in the small things.

He picked bowling balls that weren’t chipped. Let Suho take the spotlight in every game. When she asked questions—What kind of work do you do? Do you like this music?—he answered plainly, clearly. But even mid-sentence, his gaze sometimes drifted—not unfocused, just… elsewhere. Like he was tracking something. Or maybe someone.

He was used to being out of focus. Maybe even preferred it.

He reminded her of Wooyoung, her older brother.

Not in the way they spoke or dressed or stood—Sieun didn’t have Wooyoung’s laugh or “bad boy/fighter” charisma—but in the way he handled Suho’s energy. Gave space without stepping away. Let Suho be loud, messy, show-offy, without reacting much at all. There was no jealousy, no real annoyance. Just this quiet… watching.

It struck her, suddenly, that even though she wasn’t the only one observing Suho that night, their kind of gaze wasn’t the same. 

He was watching out for him.

Like he felt responsible for the moment. For how Suho might come across. Like he had to be the one keeping things balanced.

Sieun, for all his tiredness, was present in the way that wasn’t emotionally loud, not attention-seeking, but always calculating the periphery. Making sure the night stayed smooth. Making sure Suho was okay.

Wooyoung had been like that too, when she brought friends home. Sure, he was fucking annoying—always teasing and fighting with her when it was just family. But not when others were around. He’d stand in the kitchen, offer them drinks if their mom didn’t, crack light jokes that didn’t embarrass anyone too much. And all the while, he’d watch her from the corner of his eye, just… checking.

And Sieun had that same energy now.

When Suho stumbled on a joke, Sieun didn’t laugh at him, didn’t correct. He just filled the pause with a small remark, a casual tilt of the head—subtle social glue to hold the moment together.

Naeun realized, with a quiet sort of awe, that he was performing for Suho.

Or rather, because of him. Like he wanted to leave a good impression for Suho’s sake, not his own. Like Suho had brought someone home and now he had to be the adult in the room. Well, he was, anyway.

But it was kinda strange, still.

Because Suho had never needed anyone to protect him—not in any obvious way. He was confident. Fierce, even. Capable of holding his own in a fight or a conversation or a game of bowling, even if his score was abysmal.

But still, Sieun stood there like a silent umbrella over the night. Careful not to cast too large a shadow. Careful not to say too much.

Even towards Naeun, Sieun made sure she never felt unwanted. If anything, he over-corrected. Stepped aside, let her choose snacks, even offered her the hand sanitizer from his bag after they’d touched the greasy arcade tokens.

At one point, when Suho went to the bathroom, she leaned slightly toward him and said, “You really don’t like bowling, do you?”

His lips twitched. “Not my specialty.”

“Pool’s better?”

“I always win at pool.”

She laughed. Not because it was funny, but because he was being honest.

He didn’t smile much. Maybe never. But somehow, she still sensed he was trying. Just didn’t know how else to be.

Suho didn’t notice, of course. He was in full bounce-mode, trying too hard to fill in silences with noise, jokes, bragging about his perfect hook shot that kept hitting the gutter.

Naeun kept quiet. Observing.

Suho, too, was also being strange. Maybe not in a bad way, but it was off.

Suho was more physically affectionate than usual. He’d casually looped an arm around her waist while they waited in line for shoes. Brushed her hair out of her face when it got in her eyes. Even tapped her cheek lightly, almost teasingly, when she’d zoned out during one of his longer rants about bowling physics. These weren’t unwelcome gestures—far from it. She liked Suho’s warmth, the easy way he moved through the world. And usually, she was the one nudging him toward that kind of closeness. She’d have to tug at his sleeve, touch his hand first, initiate the hug or the lean.

But tonight, it was all coming from him.

And the strange part was—she didn’t think it was really about her.

She cast a glance toward Suho, who was still fiddling with the bowling ball, shooting grins in both their directions like a spotlight that couldn’t decide where to land. But even that brightness felt performative. A little louder than necessary.

That’s when the thought struck her.

It wasn’t just that Suho was being more physically affectionate. It was that he was being more physically affectionate in front of Sieun.

As if his hand on her waist, his grin as he leaned close to whisper something dumb in her ear, wasn’t really for her benefit.

It was for Sieun to see.

It didn’t upset her. Not exactly. But it made her pulse flicker with unease. Because if she was reading it right, then Suho wasn’t just showing off their relationship. He was asserting it. Proving something. Like a student proudly presenting a finished project—Look, hyung. I did this. I have this.

Which meant… what exactly?

She watched how Suho’s eyes flicked toward Sieun too often. How he reacted when Sieun said something dry under his breath—like Suho wanted to laugh louder than necessary, like he wanted that attention back.

And Sieun too. This was where he stopped resembling Wooyoung. How his smiles for Suho looked a touch with something, different. Quiet, yet warm.

She supposed it wasn’t something that should bother her. But there was something there between them, and despite how intrigued Naeun felt, she still couldn’t pinpoint yet. Like the breath before a sentence that no one had dared speak aloud.

Later, when the night wound down, Suho talked the whole way when they were walking together towards his bike. His hand was warm around hers, and she liked the way he talked, even when he rambled. But she was still thinking of Sieun.

Of what she’d seen.

Of what she wasn’t supposed to.

While Suho was distracted digging in his pocket for his key, she said lightly, “Your friend’s nice.”

Suho blinked. “Huh? Oh, yeah. He is.”

“Seems like a good hyung to have around.”

Suho nodded, but something in his face shifted. Like he didn’t know how to agree or disagree with her.

The conference room was unusually quiet.

No fake laughter, no obnoxious interruptions. Just the low hum of the AC and the occasional shuffle of presentation files being distributed by an intern who looked like he might vomit from nerves.

Yeon Sieun sat in his usual seat—third from the front, beside the coffee station, exactly equidistant from the projector and the exit. Optimal for visibility and escape.

He adjusted his collar, eyes flicking toward the large LED screen at the front that simply read:

Q3 Flagship Launch Project – Core Creative Briefing

The door opened.

In walked Director Min, flanked by an unfamiliar figure. Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark-grey suit tailored so well it probably cost more than Sieun’s rent. Hair slicked back neatly, not a strand out of place. No smile.

“Good morning, everyone,” Director Min greeted, voice warm but clipped. “I’ll keep this short. After the phenomenal reception of the Lurène campaign, the board has greenlit our most significant launch this year—” he tapped the projector remote, switching to a clean black-and-white slide:

Client: SENA Group | Product: Re:Spring Global Launch | Budget: XXX,XXX,XXX USD

Sieun exhaled quietly. That was huge. He didn’t know Sena Group even worked with firms outside their in-house teams.

“This will be the flagship creative campaign for our firm this fiscal year. And our client has specifically requested innovation, cultural resonance, and a fresh image.”

Murmurs of excitement rippled through the room. Director Min gestured toward the man beside him.

“Meet Jeon Seokdae, Senior Creative Director from the HQ. He’ll be leading this project.”

A pin-drop silence.

So this was him, Sieun thought. The rumored ex-army-brand-strategist who tore down campaigns with three words. “Jeon Seokdae doesn’t tolerate mediocrity,” someone had once whispered near the office microwave like they were reciting ghost stories.

“Some of you may know me,” Seokdae finally spoke, voice low and steady. “Most of you probably know the rumors.”

A nervous chuckle from somewhere. He didn’t smile.

“I’m not here to be liked. I’m here to make a campaign that stuns the market. And I’m told that among you is the person who saved Lurène’s spring launch when it was about to flop.”

Sieun blinked.

“Yeon Sieun,” Director Min interjected, clearly pleased. “He’ll be working as the core creative on this project. And by his recommendation, we’ve brought on Oh Beomseok as junior creative coordinator.”

A small noise of surprise came from Sieun’s right. Beomseok, who had been sitting modestly behind a sea of department heads, looked like he’d just been outed in class. His shoulders tensed, but he gave a quiet nod when Director Min gestured his way.

Sieun caught his eye for a split second. Gave him a small, reassuring smile. Beomseok looked like he was suppressing a million anxieties behind his glasses.

He hadn't told Beomseok about the recommendation ahead of time. Figured it would be less pressure that way.

Seokdae’s gaze landed on them both—first Sieun, then Beomseok. He nodded once.

“Good,” Seokdae said. “Then I look forward to seeing what you’ve got.”

No smile. No warmth. Just the kind of tone that made you want to impress him and not get fired at the same time.

Two weeks passed quickly in the cycle of work.

To Sieun’s surprise, Seokdae turned out to be everything Yeongbin wasn’t.

Where Yeongbin barked vague feedback, Seokdae gave concise, pointed notes. “Make the transition smoother. You’re losing visual tension here. The color grading isn’t telling a story—fix it.”

He didn’t compliment often, but when he did, it was clean and direct. “This concept is strong. Keep pushing.”

He didn't waste time. Meetings ended early. Pitches were sharpened. Deadlines were strict, but not hellish.

And most of all—he listened.

Sieun found himself challenged but not drained. Working late didn’t feel like punishment anymore. For the first time in a while, he felt… competent. Valued, even.

“Don’t water down your ideas to please everyone,” Seokdae told him during one of their late-night slide reviews. “Your instinct is good. Trust it.”

Sieun didn’t say it aloud, but he trusted Seokdae back. Slowly.

And Beomseok—he rose to the occasion. Shy as ever in meetings, but precise and quietly sharp behind his monitor. He double-checked timelines, filled in slide gaps without being told, made quick mockups from Sieun’s rough scribbles and somehow always knew what color palette Sieun was mentally circling.

It was easy to fall into a rhythm with them—this strange, functional little trio. Calm voices. Well-matched caffeine tolerances. Shared inside jokes that made Sieun blink in amusement. No weird tension. No unexplainable glance. No Suho.

And maybe that was a good thing. With Suho drifting further away—busy with school, part-time jobs, and a girlfriend—Sieun had been left with a quiet sort of emptiness he couldn’t quite name. Maybe this project, this team, was exactly what he needed. Something stable. Predictable. A safe space far from the noise of a high school kid who’d somehow made a home in his heart, only to leave as easily as he came.

Chapter Text

Suho stared at his phone.

The message had been “delivered” for over an hour now. The three dots never came. He considered sending another, something casual, like “u saw this?” or maybe something more pointed like “ur not dead right?” But both sounded too clingy.

So he didn’t send anything.

Instead, he checked the bookstore’s app for the third time that day. Volume 8 of Weak Hero was finally out. The one where the protagonist loses his memories and accidentally kisses his best friend because he thinks they’re soulmates. Suho had been texting memes about it to Sieun for a week. They always said they’d go pick it up together. Ritual.

When Sieun finally replied, it was short.

Sorry. Still at work today. Can’t go.

That was it.

Suho locked his phone, unlocked it again. Sighed. This was the fifth time Sieun had rejected his invitation this month—not that he was counting or anything. It’s not like he had a spreadsheet called Sieun Hangout Ratio.xlsx hidden in his Google Drive or whatever.

But the point is, five times. Five.

And sure, Suho knew Sieun was working on something big now. Some huge project with a fancy client and a new team. Suho didn’t really understand what exactly—it all sounded like ad agency jargon—but he understood it was serious. Important. Sieun was always serious about work. He admired that.

Still. He hated it.

Especially because lately, Sieun hadn’t just mentioned Beomseok—who maybe was fine, quiet, harmless—but also a new name. Seokdae. His new team leader. According to Sieun, this guy was surprisingly not a dick. “Kind of strict, but thoughtful,” Sieun had said the other day. “Professional. Knows his shit.”

Suho had frowned at the way he said it.

Because who the hell was Seokdae to get a compliment like that from someone like Sieun? And how did someone new—someone Sieun only met a month ago—show up twice in Sieun’s rare, begrudging work stories?

Sieun hated everyone. Or at least, he claimed to. Especially authority figures. It took months for Suho to crawl into his heart and he guess that Sieun talked about him, in an endearing way, to Beomseok. And yes, Suho had accepted it. Beomseok had been working with Sieun for 2 years, so it made sense that they could be closer than what he initially thought. And yet, Sieun was, voluntarily sharing details about this Seokdae guy. Unprompted. Twice.

Twice.

Suho didn’t know if this guy was being “nice” to Sieun in the same harmless way the ajumma at the BBQ joint was nice to him—as in treating him like her youngest son. But it didn’t feel like that.

And this, this meant that Sieun cared. At a certain level. Maybe at a concerning level.

And why did that make Suho feel sick to his stomach?

Sieun was rejecting him again tonight. Because of work. Because he was staying late at the company. Which probably meant staying late with Seokdae. And Beomseok, too, sure.

The problem was… what if they hung out afterward? Just the three of them. Or worse, two. Some late-night, post-work thing. A wind-down session at one of those sleek, adult cafés with low lighting and overpriced herbal teas. Not a forced team dinner like Yeongbin would host—but something natural. Something nice.

How many “adult café sessions” had they been on already?

Were they that close now?

Close enough for Sieun to cancel on him for the fifth time?

Suho sighed, leaned his head back against the headboard, and stared at the ceiling fan spinning lazily overhead.

He guessed he was being ridiculous. Obviously. Sieun had to work. He had responsibilities. He was trying to move up in his career. He needed to build connections and get to know people. Suho knew that.

But knowing didn’t make it easier.

Didn’t make it feel any less like Sieun was slowly, quietly replacing the space that used to belong to him—with new coworkers, new routines, new after-hours coffee habits that didn’t include a chaotic high schooler who still got energised drinks from convenience stores.

Didn’t make it feel less like being left behind.

And maybe—God, maybe he was being dumb—but Suho kept thinking about how, the last couple times they did hang out… he’d invited Naeun too.

Not on purpose. Not to third-wheel anyone on purpose. It was just… convenient. They were already together, and he thought it might be nice. She liked bookstores too. And Sieun didn’t seem to mind.

But what if he had minded?

What if Sieun had hated it—watching the two of them hold hands, laugh at inside jokes, share food in that casual, coupley way people do when they forget someone else is there?

What if Sieun saw all of that and didn’t say anything, just like always?

And what if now—he was avoiding Suho because of it?

Suho sat back in his chair, stomach twisting. That was… stupid. Right? Ridiculous. Sieun didn’t care about stuff like that. He was cold. Detached. He didn’t even like people that way. Right?

Still…

He remembered how Sieun had smiled—small and tight—when Suho introduced Naeun that first time, at the bowling hall. How he’d said “She seems nice,” when Naeun went to the bathroom, and then spent the rest of the evening staring at Suho looping his arm around Naeun’s waist.

And the second time? Sieun barely talked at all. Just nodded at their banter and sipped his iced Americano like he was stuck in a mildly uncomfortable work lunch.

And then, what made him spiral worse: Sieun was supportive. Weirdly supportive.

More supportive than his grandma, who had literally baked a whole sweet potato cake when she found out he had a girlfriend. Sieun just… accepted it. No teasing, no awkwardness. Just, “You should treat her well,” “Spend more time with her.

And, “You look happy.”

Like he was fine. Completely fine with purposefully pushing Suho away.

So why did it feel like something had gone sour since then?

Why was Sieun suddenly always too busy?

Was it because of Naeun?

No. That didn’t make any sense. Sieun didn’t like him that way. He never had. There was nothing between them. No blurred lines. No secret tension. Just… whatever they were. Some undefined, strange, almost-friendship with jagged edges and weird comfort.

Still, the thought dug into Suho’s chest like a splinter he couldn’t tweeze out. It hurt in a way he couldn’t explain, and he hated that he cared this much.

He hated that he missed Sieun.

Missed him like someone misses a room that used to feel like home.

Suho

ig im staying at home on a friday night

He didn’t mention that he’d turned Naeun down in advance. That he’d saved this night just for Sieun. That he thought—maybe—they’d have a quiet evening like old times. Just the two of them.

Just the two of them.

Another 37 minutes passed before Sieun replied.

You should do your homework then.

Of course. Of course that was his answer.

Once upon a time, Suho would’ve smiled at that. It was Sieun’s way of caring—stiff, naggy, infuriating. “Do your homework.” “Don’t skip meals.” “Be nice to your grandma.” All sharp-edged concern disguised as judgment.

He used to love those texts.

Now?

Now it sounded like an adult talking down to a child. Like a parent scolding their kid for staying up past bedtime. Like someone who’d made up their mind that Suho was immature, foolish, and not worth rearranging plans for.

He stared at the text for a while, something bitter coiling tight in his throat.

Then he set his phone face-down, leaned back in his chair, and glared at the ceiling like it had answers.

Sieun didn’t check his phone until long after it buzzed. His eyes were fixed on the tangled spreadsheet open across two monitors, blinking against the harsh white glow of the office’s overhead lights. It was nearly 8PM, and SENA Group’s product specs still didn’t align with their branding tone, which meant hours more of reshaping copy with two departments who didn’t even like each other.

Somewhere in the middle of rewriting a slogan for the fifth time, he finally stretched, cracked his neck, and tapped open his messages. A new one from Suho blinked at the top of the list.

ig im staying at home on a friday night

Sieun sighed.

His thumb hovered above the keyboard before typing out a plain reply.

You should do your homework then.

It was automatic at this point. Short, practical. Like all his texts.

And maybe that was the problem.

He hadn’t meant to ignore Suho all day. He just didn’t have the time to respond to his chaotic voice notes from the school cafeteria. The SENA project had swallowed his hours, and after rejecting Suho’s invitation—again—Sieun realized this was probably the fifth time he’d done it this month.

Not that he was counting.

Still, something about that number lingered in his head. Like a quiet guilt pressing at his ribs.

The thing was, he didn’t mind saying no. But he did mind why he kept saying no.

It wasn’t just the workload. It was Suho showing up to their last hangout with Naeun in tow. And the time before that. And the time before that, too.

He hadn’t asked if it was a date, or if it was casual, or if he was just tagging along. Sieun never asked things like that. Not when he could pretend it didn’t bother him.

But it had bothered him. Sitting across the table from Suho and Naeun, who were both smiling and bright and loud in a way he would never be. Watching them laugh over fries, pass their drinks back and forth, casually invade each other’s space. It all made him feel like an accidental extra in someone else’s movie. A quiet observer to something warm and unreachable.

Guess this is the new norm now, he thought.

Suho and Naeun.

And the zombielike office worker who somehow always got invited out of obligation.

He shut his phone and leaned back, rubbing his temples.

“Should we call it a day?” a deep voice asked behind him.

Sieun looked up. Jeon Seokdae stood near the end of their shared desk pod, arms crossed, posture casual—but commanding, like always. He was the kind of man who looked like he used to be a security chief or maybe a special ops agent in a past life. Built like a wall. Jaw like a sculpture. His voice always sounded like it belonged in a sound booth recording movie trailers.

Beomseok glanced up from his monitor too, blinking owlishly. “Is it… okay to stop here?”

Seokdae nodded. “You’ve both been running at full speed all week. Let’s not overheat the engine before we even start.”

There was a pause. Then:

“How about seolleongtang?” Seokdae added. “My treat. We’ve been grinding together all week. Might as well share a bowl.”

Beomseok froze, visibly hesitating. He glanced sideways at Sieun like he needed a second opinion.

Sieun considered it for a beat. He was tired. The idea of eating next to anyone made him want to sink into the floor. But somehow, Seokdae didn’t trigger the same alarm bells that other people did. He didn’t pressure. He didn’t fill silences with fake laughs or empty chatter. And he never expected Sieun to be someone he wasn’t.

“Okay,” Sieun said finally, standing to grab his coat.

Beomseok blinked. Then, as if afraid to be the only one left behind, nodded quickly too. “O-okay. I’m in.”

Seokdae smiled, just a small quirk of his lips. “Good. There’s a place not far from here. They do proper broth—none of that instant nonsense.”

The three of them walked under flickering streetlamps, the night surprisingly quiet for a Friday. The seolleongtang restaurant was tucked between a tailor’s shop and a shuttered stationery store, old-fashioned and a little too bright inside. The kind of place that hadn’t changed its wallpaper since 2002.

They sat in a corner booth. Seokdae offered to order for everyone, and they didn’t argue.

“I used to come here when I pulled all-nighters,” he said. “Back when I was still new to Seoul. This broth saved me more than once.”

“You weren’t from Seoul?” Beomseok asked.

“Daegu,” Seokdae replied, eyes scanning the menu anyway like he hadn’t already memorized it. “Grew up surrounded by mountains. I used to think the buildings here looked like they might tip over.”

Beomseok laughed politely, but Sieun actually found that image funny—giant towers toppling like dominoes.

It was strange. Seokdae looked like someone who could break bricks with his hands. But then he’d say something odd and vivid, and Sieun found himself surprised into a laugh he didn’t expect.

Seokdae noticed it too. Just barely.

He didn’t point it out. But his gaze lingered a beat longer than necessary before shifting away.

Later, when the food arrived and the steam from the broth clouded Beomseok’s glasses, the conversation slowed into something quieter.

Beomseok picked at his scallions. “Do you… eat dinner with your old team like this too?”

“Sometimes,” Seokdae said. “But they weren’t like you two.”

Sieun raised an eyebrow. “What were they like?”

“Louder. More fights. We had to replace three monitors in the first month.”

Sieun almost choked on his soup.

“You’re serious?” Beomseok asked, stunned.

“Dead serious,” Seokdae said. Then, a beat later, added, “One of them brought a hammer to work. Said it helped with stress.”

That had to be a joke. But Seokdae delivered it in the same deadpan voice as everything else.

It took Sieun a full three seconds before he let out a quiet snort.

“See? That’s why you two are a breath of fresh air,” Seokdae said, reaching for the salt. “No hammers and chaos.”

He looked at Sieun again as he said it. Not too long. Not too pointed. But Sieun felt it.

They stepped out of the restaurant into the cool night air, their breaths fogging faintly as the street hummed with distant traffic. Beomseok rubbed his arms against the breeze while Seokdae adjusted the strap of his messenger bag.

“I’ll grab something to-go,” Sieun said, pausing just before they split at the corner.

Seokdae turned slightly. “Still hungry?”

Sieun shook his head. “No. It’s for a kid I know. Still needs food to grow.”

Seokdae looked at him for a moment, unreadable as ever, then gave a small nod. “You’re thoughtful.”

Sieun shrugged, already stepping back into the restaurant before the conversation could stretch longer.

Inside, the warmth and steam of the seolleongtang shop clung to him as he waited, arms folded, eyes half-lidded. Three nights ago, Suho had texted him at some ungodly hour: Craving seolleongtang so bad I could cry.

He hadn’t seen it until two hours later. Too late to do anything. He’d just replied with: Next time let’s go eat seolleongtang together.

Next time.

Ironically, when “next time” arrived—tonight, when Suho actually invited him somewhere—he turned it down.

At least I was really working, he told himself. It wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to see him with Naeun again. That’d be childish.

Still, he felt guilty. He hoped Suho hadn’t already eaten it in the past three days. That maybe, maybe, he still wanted it. That maybe bringing him a bowl tonight would undo a little of that neglect Sieun didn’t know he was capable of until lately.

He paid for the takeout and stepped outside. Beomseok was waiting under a flickering streetlight, brows raised.

“You’re giving it to Suho, aren’t you?”

Sieun didn’t look at him. “He said he was craving this.”

He didn’t say more.

Didn’t say how Suho’s message sat unread for two hours because work had eaten his attention whole. Didn’t say how every text from Suho now arrived with a faint pressure in his chest, as if he was disappointing someone who never asked for anything but still made Sieun want to give more.

Didn’t say how he hated the idea of being the third wheel to Suho and Naeun. How it made him feel obsolete, like an optional side character in someone else’s happy ending.

The taxi rolled up.

Sieun climbed in with the takeout bag clutched loosely in his hand, and gave the driver an address to Suho’s place.

Sieun stood at the gate, thumb hovering over the buzzer. The iron bars were cool under his fingers, the garden blooming lazily with spring flowers in mismatched pots. A crooked sign hung on the wall beside the gate—beware of dog, even though there hadn’t been a dog in years.

He rang the bell.

He hadn’t rehearsed what to say. Just showed up like this made it worse. And the longer he stood there, with the seolleongtang bowl cooling in the plastic bag in his hand, the more stupid this all felt.

The door creaked open.

Suho stared at him. Not annoyed. Not smiling either. Just… surprised. That same expression he’d been giving Sieun more and more lately. Like he didn’t know what to expect from him anymore.

“Hey,” Sieun said, weakly.

Suho stepped aside without a word, and Sieun walked in.

The inside was the same as always—cozy and cramped, with faded wallpaper and an ancient electric fan perched on top of a dresser. The scent of ginger and rice lingered in the air. The little potted succulents along the windowsill had been joined by a new row of marigolds.

Sieun placed the container down on the table.

“Here,” he mumbled. “You said you were craving this, remember?”

Suho glanced at it. “Three days ago.”

Sieun swallowed. “Yeah. Sorry. I was—working.”

He didn’t add that he’d seen the message late, replied even later, and then never followed up. He didn’t say that the guilt had clung to him since, that he’d thought about it more than once, that he kept hoping Suho hadn’t already had it somewhere else.

Suho sat down but didn’t touch the food. He didn’t even thank him. Just sat there, tense.

Sieun stood awkwardly by the door. “You should eat it before it gets cold.”

Suho finally looked up at him.

“Why do we never hang out anymore?”

The question hit like a slap. Not loud, not sharp—but blunt. Honest. Unfiltered.

Sieun blinked. “I thought you were busy. School, work, your girlfriend.”

Suho’s mouth twitched. “I’m not that busy.”

“Well, I am,” Sieun said, trying to sound calm. “I’ve been working late almost every night.”

“With Seokdae and Beomseok?”

Sieun’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Suho stood. “I’m just saying—it’s weird. You always have time for them.”

“They’re coworkers.”

“Right,” Suho muttered, pacing. “Coworkers you eat dinner with. Late nights. Seolleongtang runs.”

“Just get to the point. What are you even trying to say right now?”

“I’m just trying to figure out when exactly I stopped mattering.”

The words caught him off guard.

Sieun’s chest tightened. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“You keep blowing me off,” Suho said, voice rising. “And when we do talk, it’s like you’re not even there.”

Sieun snapped, “Because I’m tired, Suho! I work, I come home, I try to rest, and—”

“And I’m the one exhausting you now?”

Sieun paused. “That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you meant, isn’t it?”

He looked away.

“You act like I’m some stupid kid,” Suho pressed, stepping closer. “Like everything I say is a joke.”

“You’re literally in high school.”

“And you’re five years older, not fifty.”

“That’s not the point—”

“Then what is the point, hyung?” Suho’s voice cracked. “Why are you even here if you don’t want to be?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to be—”

“Then say something that proves otherwise!”

Sieun couldn’t.

He wanted to. God, he wanted to.

But everything inside him twisted and coiled like barbed wire. Saying anything real felt like peeling his skin off. So instead, he said the thing he didn’t mean.

“You’re right,” he said coldly. “This whole thing is weird. A grown adult hanging out with a teenager—what are we even doing?”

Silence.

Suho stared at him, eyes hard and wet. “So that’s what you think of me.”

Sieun clenched his jaw. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yeah,” Suho whispered, backing away. “I think you did.”

Sieun’s throat burned.

And then Suho laughed once, bitterly. “Guess we shouldn’t have had anything to begin with, huh?”

The words crashed down like glass shattering.

Sieun felt it in his chest. A sick, curling weight.

They were both breathing hard now, standing too close in a room suddenly too small.

And Sieun—he didn’t know what to say anymore.

He wanted to say I’m sorry. He wanted to say I missed you. He wanted to say I was scared of how much I liked being around you.

But all that came out was silence.

And when he turned toward the door, his face was blank.

Sieun walked out without another word.

And Suho let him.

The iron gate clinked shut behind Sieun. Quietly, like everything he did. Even in the middle of a fight, Sieun left like a ghost.

Suho stood frozen on the front step, one hand still on the doorknob. The night air stung, colder than before. His chest felt hollow—like the fight had scooped something out of him and left him gaping.

What the hell just happened?

He took a breath. It didn’t help. His throat was tight. The words still echoed—his own voice, bitter and louder than he meant it to be. I guess we should never have anything to begin with.

God. He winced.

That wasn’t what he meant. That wasn’t what he wanted to say. Not even close. But everything had slipped—rage, confusion, something he couldn’t name—and it all came out so wrong.

He turned back inside, shutting the door slowly. The living room was quiet, dim, the floor lamp casting a small glow over the table.

The takeout bag sat there.

Neatly tied. Still warm. The scent of beef bone broth clung to the air.

Suho stared at it like it was mocking him.

He’d texted Sieun about this three nights ago. Craving seolleongtang. Stupid, random craving. He’d probably sent a dumb meme with it too, something like “I’m a growing boy, hyung, I need my calcium.”

Sieun didn’t reply for hours.

When he did, it was just: Next time, let’s go eat seolleongtang together.

Suho hadn’t thought anything of it. Just a brush-off, like most of Sieun’s texts. Casual. Distant. He thought that was the end of it.

But now the damn soup was here. Because Sieun remembered.

He actually remembered, and bought it, and came here with it—after work, after probably staying late at the office with Seokdae and Beomseok, like he always seemed to be lately.

And Suho repaid that kindness by starting a fight.

His stomach twisted.

He flopped down onto the floor, back against the couch, arms resting on his knees. The plastic bag crinkled beside him.

He didn’t know what they were anymore. What this was.

Sieun was supposed to be just a hyung. Just some tired office worker who shared meme humor and had a weird talent for games he happened to like. That was it.

But somewhere along the way, Suho started waiting for Sieun’s replies more than anyone else’s. Started wondering if Sieun was eating well. Started noticing when he laughed—not just at jokes, but the way his eyes looked softer when he did. Started caring too much about who he hung out with, and why Suho wasn’t invited.

Started getting jealous.

Of Seokdae, of Beomseok, even of Naeun sometimes. Because Naeun didn’t know Sieun like Suho did. Didn’t get those small, dry smiles, the low tired laughs that only came out after midnight. She didn’t know the way Sieun’s eyes looked when he was really annoyed, or the way he tried so hard to hide when he was sick, even as he cried in his sleep.

Only Suho knew that.

And yet he couldn’t even admit it to himself—what it meant.

He clenched his jaw. Anger burned under his skin, but it wasn’t for Sieun. It was for himself.

He should’ve said, I missed you. Should’ve said, I don’t like it when we don’t talk. Should’ve said, I feel stupid when I wait for you to reply, and you never do.

Instead, he picked a fight like some petulant kid. Shoved all his feelings under jokes and sarcasm until they exploded.

And now…

Now Sieun was gone.

What if he didn’t come back?

What if this really was the end?

Suho stood up abruptly. Pushed open the front door again. The street was still empty. No sign of Sieun. Just the tail end of footsteps, maybe. Or his imagination.

He could still chase him. Could catch up before he reached the main road.

But what would he even say?

“Sorry I’m a mess?” “Sorry I don’t know what I’m feeling?”

“Sorry I might like you more than I should?”

He stood there, helpless.

Then shut the door again. Slowly. Quietly.

The soup was still warm. And now, somehow, it felt cold.

The cab ride home was silent.

Sieun sat with his arms crossed, the streetlights flickering through the window and onto his lap like a slow metronome. He didn’t ask the driver to turn on the radio. Didn’t scroll his phone. Didn’t do anything. His mind was a blank canvas being stretched taut, refusing to let any single thought settle too long.

When he reached his apartment, he unlocked the door, took off his shoes, and turned on every single light.

Then he started cleaning.

He scrubbed the sink, wiped down the counters, vacuumed the already clean rug. Changed his bedsheets, even though they weren’t dirty. Emptied the trash, reorganized his spice rack alphabetically, cleaned up every nook of his once-filled, now-empty fridge.

Then he sat at his desk and opened his laptop. Brought up the pitch deck files for the SENA project and stared at the same slide for twenty minutes. Then he started revising—small tweaks, then full rewrites. He adjusted the font hierarchy. Re-colored graphs that didn’t need it. Rewrote copy that was already approved.

Anything. Anything to keep moving. Anything to not stop. Because if he stopped, even for a second—

Even for a second, he’d remember.

Suho’s face. The way he looked so… young and hurt when he asked why they never hang out anymore. The sharp, stupid fight that escalated like wildfire. The quiet that followed after that sentence.

“I guess we should never have anything to begin with.”

Sieun blinked hard.

He shouldn’t have gone to his place tonight. Should’ve just ignored the guilt, the stupid craving text from three nights ago, the bowl of soup in his hands. Should’ve just let things fade like he usually did with people. Pretend distance was natural.

But he went anyway.

And it still ended. Just like any other nice thing in his life.

They both said it, didn’t they? Neither of them used the word goodbye, but it was there—buried under every bitter line. This might be the end of whatever they were. If it had even been anything in the first place.

And now that he was sitting here, in a spotless apartment, every task complete, every file saved—he had nothing else left to do.

So he laid down.

The ceiling stared back at him, quiet and blank.

Fifteen minutes ago, he checked his phone. Just one notification.

Beomseok: Did you get home safe?

No Suho.

Not a word.

He didn’t know what he expected.

A sincere “I didn’t mean it like that” maybe. A half-hearted “you left your spoon here” joke. Even a shitty “I’m still mad but I didn’t throw out the soup.” Anything.

But nothing came.

And as he laid there, staring into the dark, the sting hit him quietly.

He felt it before he registered it. A wet trail sliding down the side of his face. Then another. They pooled quietly into his pillow. He blinked, eyes wide, as if surprised they were even there.

He didn’t cry anymore. Hadn’t since he was ten. Not when his parents told him they were going to divorce. Not when he was hit in the school yard and got a rib broken. Not even when he moved to Seoul and realized how completely, utterly alone he really was.

Not because he didn’t feel pain. Not because he didn’t care.

But exactly because he cared, so numbness was easier. Like scar tissue over a wound that never quite healed. You learn to live with it. You learn to keep your back straight and your mouth shut and your voice even.

But water isn’t as hard as ice.

And warmth from the Sun melts things you never wanted melted.

Maybe that’s what Suho did. Brought warmth. Annoying, loud, chaotic warmth that had slowly, unknowingly, softened something in him. Made him laugh again. Made him hope for something outside of routine. Made him, for once, wanted to radiate warmth again.

And now the Sun was gone.

Sieun didn't wipe his tears away. Didn’t move. Just stared at the ceiling until his eyes burned and the world blurred into gray.

Hurting in a way he’d almost forgotten how to name.

Chapter Text

Beomseok couldn't remember if he was born unconfrontational, or if life simply carved him into something quiet.

As a child, he used to count the days by the shadows on the church floor. Mornings were gold and silent, evenings blue and longer than his limbs. He was one of many forgotten kids at the orphanage tucked behind an old chapel in Gangwon-do—gray-roofed, drafty in winter, always smelling faintly of boiled rice and cheap detergent. The nuns were kind in the way institutional caretakers are kind: practical, stretched thin, and never cruel, but never warm either. He thought his life there was bleak, but tolerable.

Until one day, a car came to take him away.

He was seven when he was adopted. A black car, the shiny kind that made the other boys crowd the windows, rolled into the church yard. A man stepped out in a navy suit, not smiling, not bending down to speak to him. "This one," the man told the sister, with a disinterested glance at Beomseok’s file. That was the first time Beomseok learned that being chosen could feel scarier than being forgotten.

The man was a newly elected governor—Congressman Oh. Charismatic, patriotic, and always hungry for public affection. Adopting an orphan, it seemed, would boost his image as a “family values” politician. Beomseok thought it meant he finally had a family. He thought he would get a dad, a mom, maybe siblings. Dinner at a long table. Gentle laughter. Birthday candles.

But instead, he walked into a mansion with glass walls and iron gates, and the feeling of being watched all the time.

The man had a temper that detonated without warning. One broken dish, one slip in posture, one misplaced “yes, sir” instead of “yes, father”—and Beomseok would be dragged by the collar into a locked room, punished with cold fury that left bruises under his sleeves. His wife, a socialite with a demanding public schedule, was rarely home. He saw her more in magazines than in real life. Once, she mistook him for a servant when she returned from a gala. She didn't even blink.

And then there was the older son.

Oh Jinwon.

Jinwon, with his pressed school uniforms and perfect grades and piano competitions. The golden child, who looked at Beomseok the same way he looked at the housekeeper’s kid—an unfortunate presence, best ignored. Jinwon never hit him, never yelled. But that made it worse. Because the way he refused to speak to Beomseok made it clear he wasn’t a brother. He wasn’t anything.

Beomseok grew up walking on soundless eggshells. He taught himself how to blend in. How to lower his voice until it became invisible. How to stand without taking up space. He was tall, even as a teen, but it was the lanky, folded kind of tall. His shoulders sloped inward, like they were apologizing for existing.

At school, the students knew who he was. "The adopted son of that assemblyman," they whispered. It was enough to shield him from bullies, but not enough to make him a friend. No one dared touch him, but no one invited him to anything either. In group projects, he got assigned the easy parts. In gym class, he was picked last. He was a name people remembered, but a face they skipped past.

Even now, in adulthood, he sometimes flinched when someone raised their voice. Even when they weren’t yelling at him.

His first few jobs were nerve-wracking. He said sorry too often, didn’t talk enough in meetings, and constantly feared he was one mistake away from being fired. Praise embarrassed him. Criticism made him spiral. He smiled too much and never made eye contact. If someone offered to eat lunch together, he felt like crying from relief.

Then, he met Yeon Sieun.

He didn’t know when it started. Maybe it was the way Sieun never engaged in office small talk. Or the way he stayed quiet during meetings unless he had something relevant to say. Or maybe it was how, despite that cold exterior, Sieun never looked down on anyone.

The first time they spoke was in an elevator. Sieun had a black coffee in hand, tired eyes, and gave a stiff nod when Beomseok greeted him. That was it. But it stuck with him.

Over the next few months, they kept ending up near each other. Coffee runs, awkward elevator rides, once even sharing an umbrella during a client shoot gone wrong. At first, Beomseok thought Sieun was aloof—emotionally constipated, maybe.

But the moment that changed everything was when Beomseok froze during a client call. His throat locked up, chest tightening, unable to read the script he had prepared. He stared at his screen in silent horror.

Then, Sieun’s voice cut in smoothly. “What he meant was—” and the conversation continued, as if nothing had gone wrong. No judgment. No sighs. Afterward, Sieun didn’t say anything about it. Just handed Beomseok a bottle of juice and reminded him the deadline had moved up.

That was when something cracked open in Beomseok. Something warm.

Sieun never asked personal questions. Never pried. But slowly, their shared silences became comfortable. They started having lunch together. Sometimes, when Beomseok mumbled about how Yeongbin was an asshat, Sieun would silently lift up the corner of his lips. It was never loud. Never dramatic. But Beomseok, for the first time in his life, felt like someone actually saw him.

And lately, he’d been thinking—maybe Sieun saw him as a friend, too.

He didn’t know when it shifted. Maybe after that high schooler started appearing in Sieun’s life. Ahn Suho. The boy with a bruised cheek and too much confidence. It was the first time Beomseok saw Sieun crack a real smile.

And after that, Beomseok noticed a change in Sieun. He texted back more often. Sometimes brought him coffee first. Even asked him how his weekend went, once. It was subtle, but Beomseok—who was used to reading shifts in tone, in silence, in body language—noticed.

They’d even hung out a few times outside of work, just the two of them. And Beomseok found himself feeling...happy. Content.

But something changed this week.

Sieun looked tired. Not the usual “I stayed up working on pitch decks” tired. This was something deeper. Like he’d lost sleep, but not because of deadlines.

At meetings, his eyes kept drifting. He tapped his pen without realizing it. He forgot the names of clients he knew well. His fingers curled tighter around his coffee cups. He stayed past 10 p.m. even when there was nothing urgent.

And that silence he carried with him? It wasn’t calm anymore. It was heavy.

Beomseok noticed it most during lunch. He’d asked something lighthearted—“How’s Suho doing these days?”. But instead of the usual curt but calm reply, Sieun paused his chopsticks and looked at nowhere for a long time.

Then, slowly, said, “I guess he’s fine.”

That pause unsettled Beomseok more than any answer could.

He remembered the night they all hung out—him, Seokdae, and Sieun. The night Sieun bought seolleongtang takeout for Suho afterward. A quiet gesture, but one that clearly meant something. Beomseok had texted him that night: “Did you get home safe?” The reply came two hours later: “Yeah. Thanks.”

It wasn’t out of character for Sieun, sure, but maybe it was from the day after that, Sieun started changing.

And Beomseok, whose whole life had been about staying quiet, wanted to do something.

He knew someone like Sieun wouldn’t just open up. And someone like Beomseok had no idea how to be the one asking.

But before he could overthink this whole ordeal, he took a breath, gripped his phone, and typed, Hey, you wanna grab dinner tonight? Just us, I mean.

He didn’t expect much.

The reply came within a minute.

Yeah. Let’s do that.

And just like that, Beomseok smiled.

The restaurant was the kind of place people went to when they were tired of the world but still needed a place to belong. Warm lights softened the corners of the room. Mismatched wooden chairs creaked gently when you shifted in your seat. The smell of sesame oil and simmered broth clung to the air. A handwritten menu stood lopsided between the salt and pepper shakers. It wasn’t fancy. Just homey—like a kitchen someone forgot to stop loving.

Beomseok had picked it on purpose. He thought maybe Sieun would find it calming. Familiar. Less like a confrontation and more like a quiet pause in the middle of everything.

They were seated at a corner booth, far from the front window. Their soup arrived still steaming, the kind of heat that fogged your glasses and tried to coax you into comfort.

"So, uh," Beomseok began, fumbling with his chopsticks for a beat too long, "have you tried the soup here before? They add radish slices—like actual big ones. It’s kind of nice."

Sieun, who had been staring into his bowl like it held the answer to some moral question, glanced up briefly and gave a faint shake of his head. “No.”

Beomseok nodded to himself, like that was a real response. “It’s supposed to help with fatigue…”

Sieun hummed, noncommittal. He didn’t touch the food.

The silence stretched a little. Beomseok fidgeted with his napkin under the table. This was harder than he thought it’d be. He’d rehearsed asking—Hey, you okay?—in the elevator, while washing his hands. But now that he was here, across from the person he quietly cared about most, it felt like walking a tightrope without a net.

Finally, he gave up trying to ease into it. He put down his spoon and asked, softly, “Did something happen between you and the kid?”

Sieun blinked. He didn’t look surprised. It seemed that Sieun already guessed why they were here.

He didn’t answer right away. Beomseok waited, chewing on his bottom lip.

Then, quietly, as if testing how it might sound out loud, Sieun said, “I guess we’re done now.”

Beomseok straightened a little. “Wh–what do you mean by that? You and Suho are done?”

Sieun exhaled through his nose. Not quite a sigh, but not far off.

“I said things I probably shouldn’t have. He said things he didn’t mean. Or maybe he did.” He finally picked up his spoon, but only stirred the soup without eating. “I don’t know. Either way, we don’t talk anymore.”

Beomseok swallowed. “So… you fought?”

“I don’t think it was even a fight,” Sieun said, eyes fixed on his reflection in the broth. “It was more like… a realization. A quiet kind. Like when you finally admit to yourself that something good wasn’t meant to last.”

There was something brittle in his voice—fragile, like the edge of a porcelain plate. Beomseok felt a dull ache bloom in his chest.

He had never been on the receiving end of Sieun’s honesty before. Not like this. People didn’t tell Beomseok things. Not real things. Not things that cracked them open.

He glanced down at his own bowl. “I’m… sorry.”

Sieun looked up, surprised. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Beomseok admitted. “I just—You look really tired lately. I didn’t know how to ask. I just thought maybe it wasn't work, but I guess…”

Sieun was quiet for a long moment.

Then: “He was always loud. Always texting me the stupidest things. He’d ask me to hang out in the middle of the week like I didn’t have a job. He called me a nerd. A lot.”

Beomseok smiled faintly at that. “Sounds like him.”

Sieun’s voice lowered. “And somehow, I got used to it. I got used to someone… just being there. Without asking for anything.”

Beomseok didn’t know what to say to that. The silence between them now felt heavier, like it had weight and temperature.

“I’m not really the kind of person who gets attached,” Sieun continued. “Not because I don’t want to. I just—never learned how. And he’s… younger. He still has time to be many things. I didn’t want to be the one who ruined that.”

Beomseok looked at him. “Why would you ruin anything?”

“Because I’m me.”

There was no self-pity in his tone. A quiet resignation, a fact.

Beomseok wanted to say something—You’re not broken. You’re not a burden. You matter. At least to me. But those kinds of words sounded foreign in his mouth. He had never been someone’s safe place before, and neither did someone say those things to him.

So instead, he picked up his spoon again and said, “Your soup’s getting cold.”

Sieun blinked, then actually smiled—barely, but it was there. A flicker of something.

“I’ll eat,” he said. “If you stop staring like you’re about to cry.”

“I wasn’t crying,” Beomseok protested weakly.

“I know.”

And somehow, that small acknowledgment made the silence after feel less heavy.

They didn’t talk about Suho again. Not that night.

But Beomseok stayed with him through the meal, even when they weren’t speaking. And when they walked out into the quiet dark, when Beomseok’s shoulder brushed against his just slightly, Sieun didn’t move away.

The fluorescent glow of the PC-bang buzzed quietly above them, rows of high-end monitors humming with the chaotic symphony of gunfire, keyboard clacks, and teenage laughter. The place smelled faintly of instant ramen and sugary sodas. Suho slouched in his gaming chair, fingers loose on the mouse, staring blankly at the screen while the PC loading screen flickered.

Next to him, Naeun was grinning excitedly.

“I made an account,” she announced, her voice a little too chipper. “I practiced too. Just a little.”

Suho blinked, turning to her. “For PUBG?”

“Mhm. Let's do Duo mode.” She smiled and tilted her head. “You always talk about how fun it is with Sieun hyung. I figured I should see what the hype’s about.”

He stared at her a second longer than he should have. His heart flickered with something unnamed. Still, he nodded slowly. “Okay… yeah. Let’s queue.”

In the plane, Suho pinged a drop point. The map was Sanhok, so he was aiming near Bootcamp—and parachuted in without much coordination. Naeun’s character automatically followed behind him, tumbling on the roof before falling off the side.

“Wait, how do I pick up stuff again?” she asked, panicking.

“F. And tab to open your inventory. Grab a gun. Any gun. Then find a vest.”

“I have a pan. Is that good?”

He almost laughed. “It’s... unkillable. Like you,” he said without thinking, and his lips curled. But it felt hollow.

Mid-match, they got ambushed on a hill near Paradise Resort. Suho crouched behind a tree, pinging the enemy.

“Northwest! 325! Behind the blue house! No, don’t run out—!”

“Where? I don’t see—!”

“Jesus—don’t think! Just follow me. Normally Sieun hyung knows what to do but since you don’t then just—!” He stopped, realizing too late. “—Just try not to die.”

But Naeun was already down. A sniper bullet. Her headset clattered a bit as she leaned back, lips pressed together.

Suho didn’t apologize. Just exhaled a sharp breath and finished the match, more aggressive than usual. They placed 28th.

“Again?” she asked softly.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Second match. This time, she stayed close, barely looted anything, just followed him like a shadow. They moved across the map in silence. The circle shrunk. 16 teams left. Then 8. Then 5. He had six kills. She had one, a bot. But she was proud about it, nonetheless. His adrenaline was kicking in; his voice changed into that sharp, low command he always used in-game—focused, precise.

Two enemies left. Last team.

“...eun-ah! 350 rock! 350 rock, cover the left!”

Silence.

Not from the game, but the real world.

He didn’t realize what he’d said.

Until Naeun whispered, “Did you just call me Sieun?”

The realization hit like a cold wave. He turned to her, eyes wide.

“No—I said Naeun-ah. I meant—”

But she was already standing, and her character stood up too, exposing their position. In-game, a quick burst of bullets ripped through their avatars. Match over. “Better luck next time!” was written on the screen.

No one said a word. Naeun took off her headphones with trembling hands. Then she laughed bitterly, soft and tired, and clattered them on the table.

She walked out.

“Naeun—wait.” Suho barely remembered to remove his headset before rushing after her. He threw a few crumpled bills at the counter and chased her out onto the dark street, where the humid air felt too heavy to breathe.

He caught up to her by the corner of the convenience store. “What’s wrong? Why are you—”

“You mistook me for someone else,” she whispered. Then louder, “While we were on a date, Suho.”

“I didn’t mean to,” he said immediately, heart pounding. “I just—I was focused, it was a habit, alright? It was the heat of the moment—”

“Yeah? Then what about the past two weeks?” Her voice cracked as tears filled her eyes. “Have you been in the heat of the moment every time you zone out on me? Every time I try to hold your hand and you flinch? When I text you and you reply hours later, only to say you’re tired?”

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“I planned this night. I told you that we’re going to the PC-bang just because I thought you would enjoy it,” she said, biting back a sob. “I haven’t touched a game in my life, Suho. I made my brother teach me just so I could understand something you enjoy. I wanted to laugh with you. I wanted you to look at me like I mattered.”

She sniffled and wiped her cheeks, embarrassed.

“I liked you. So much. Much more than anyone I liked before, and I tried way harder for you too. You’re warm, and funny, and I thought… I thought if I just keep trying, maybe I’d get to see that version of you again. But you’re not here, are you?”

“I am here,” he said, desperate now. “Naeun, I— I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I can explain—”

“Explain what?” she almost screamed, frustratedly. “That you lashed out at me because I happened to be Naeun and not your Sieun hyung?” Naeun air-quoted the last part—his name—as if it was a cosmic joke. “Sieun hyung this, Sieun hyung that. Do you know that all you ever talk about is Yeon Sieun? And once you stop talking about him, all you ever do is zoning out?”

The words hit like a punch. He took a step back. “It’s not like that.”

“Yes, it is.” Her tears were quieter now, but her voice held steel. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

“I…” His throat closed. “What are you talking about?”

Naeun smiled. Not kindly. “I’ll tell you that. You are in love with him.”

Silence stretched between them, too raw to fill.

Finally, she inhaled shakily. “Let’s just break up.”

He blinked. “Naeun—”

“I’m tired,” she whispered. “Tired of trying to matter to someone who’s already given his heart to someone else. I deserve more than being a placeholder.”

Her carefully drawn eyeliner was smudged by the tears. She turned and walked into the night.

And weirdly, Suho didn’t follow.

He stood there, staring after her. Hands limp by his side. 

Why was he just… letting her little silhouette got slowly swallowed by the neon-lit crowd?

He should run. He should hold her. Say he’s sorry. That he’ll change. That he didn’t mean it.

Like the urge he had that night two weeks ago, in front of his house.

But none of those words felt true. The urge wasn't there. It was time to stop lying to himself.

Because the only person he wanted to say those words to wasn’t even here.

Suho returned home around ten, the night air still cold on the back of his neck, even after the walk. The breakup had happened fast—so fast it barely felt real. The slamming of the headphones, the tears in Naeun’s voice, her silhouette shrinking into the city’s crowd. It all played over again in his head like a looping kill cam he couldn’t skip.

He sank onto his bed, still wearing the hoodie he’d picked out for tonight. The one Naeun had said made him look warm. He unlocked his phone, thumb hovering over Kakaotalk.

He didn’t want to leave things like this.

He tapped on Naeun’s name.

Or tried to.

Blocked.

Instagram—blocked. His number? The same. She’d erased him like a file she didn’t want clogging up her storage, and honestly, he couldn’t blame her.

Still, the sudden silence hurt. A dull, empty kind of pain. Not just because he’d been dumped, but because he deserved it. For being a shitty boyfriend. For never knowing what to say. For smiling at the wrong moments and staring at the floor during the right ones. For talking about someone else when he should’ve been talking about her.

Someone else.

Suho opened a different chat thread—one that hadn’t lit up in over two weeks.

Yeon Sieun.

There it was, like it had been waiting for him this whole time. That last message: Next time let’s go have seolleongtang together.

He hadn’t even replied. Not to that. Not to anything since their fight. That stupid fight, where he’d thrown words like a tantrum, where he’d said the one thing he swore he’d never say: "I guess we shouldn’t have had anything to begin with."

Sieun hadn't texted first. And to that, he’d had no right to be hurt. And yet he was. So he’d ignored Sieun. Ghosted him. Blocked out the person he missed most.

His chest twisted in on itself. He’d hurt Naeun, who had done nothing but try. And he’d hurt Sieun—who never asked for anything from him, but had somehow become the one person Suho wanted to be good for.

The room was too quiet. His fingers stumbled around, then opened the weather app, looking for distraction.

Rain. Every night for the next week.

He stared at the forecast, the little grey cloud icons lined up like a funeral procession. A thought flickered in the back of his mind. A memory.

The ramen place. The rain. The one night when the warmth from the streetlight casted just enough on Sieun's cheekbone to make it glimmer. The way Sieun had stood there holding an umbrella just big enough for the both of them. The way he’d said, “You’re going to catch a cold.” The way his voice always sounded flat, but his actions always said something more.

Suho opened their Kakaotalk thread again.

He typed: remember to bring an umbrella tomorrow

Then stared at it. Too casual. Too late. Too small. He deleted it.

No. If he really wanted to stop being a coward—if he really wanted to make up for everything—then he needed to do something real.

Tomorrow night, he’d bring the umbrella himself.

If Sieun had one, he’d play it cool—say he was just nearby. No big deal.

If not… maybe it would finally be his turn to say: “You’re going to catch a cold.”

And maybe—just maybe—Sieun would let him walk beside him again.

Suho had asked for a day off from the BBQ joint. He mumbled something vague about a family thing, but the truth was simple: he wanted to bring Sieun an umbrella. That’s it. That was the grand, pathetic, heart-thumping plan.

And god, he was nervous.

Not because he didn’t know what to do—he did, kind of—but because he wasn’t sure if Sieun would even want to see him. What if Sieun just looked at him, deadpan as ever, and said something like, “You’re late. I’m over it.” What if he turned around and walked away?

But still. Somewhere deeper than fear, there was this little voice—stubborn, hopeful, idiotic—that kept whispering: Sieun’s not like that. That if Suho just showed up, if he really apologized, Sieun would listen. That maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t ruined everything.

And that thought made Suho kind of excited. The way a kid feels before a school trip or a birthday party. It was stupid, really, how fast his mood could swing when it came to Sieun.

He stood in front of the mirror, running his hand through his hair, then doing it again. Then again. Then switching hoodies three times until he settled on one that was casual enough to look effortless but still made his shoulders look good. Something about the mirror caught him off guard—he looked too ready, too eager. He felt like Cinderella getting dolled up for a ball, only he wasn’t even invited.

Still, he missed Sieun. That was the bottom line. And no amount of second-guessing was going to change that.

Sieun usually left work around 8 p.m.—or at least, he used to. That information was two weeks old, but Suho held onto it like a lifeline. So he got to the building at 7 p.m., umbrella in hand, hood up, trying not to look suspicious while pacing near the entrance.

It wasn’t raining yet. The clouds were gathering, the air had that sharp, damp smell, and the streetlights were just starting to flicker on. But still—no sign of Sieun.

At 7:40, Suho caved and ducked into the coffee shop across the street. It was safer in there. At least he didn’t look like some lost kid waiting for his guardian to come and pick him up.

From the coffee shop window, he kept his eyes glued to the building. The barista probably thought he was a stalker or some tragic romcom protagonist waiting for his lover to return from war. He bought a hot chocolate to earn his keep, then tapped his foot under the table until it felt like he’d vibrated through the floor.

At one point, he even thought about texting Beomseok. Something like, Hey, is Sieun still at the office? But that would open a whole can of worms Suho wasn’t ready for. And it would ruin the surprise. So he sat still, drumming his fingers against the cup, mentally composing the speech he’d say when he saw Sieun.

Then—8:47 p.m.

The building’s doors slid open, and Suho recognized him instantly. That neat posture. That way of walking like the world bored him. It was Sieun.

Suho stood up so fast he knocked his chair. He grabbed the umbrella, heart in his throat, legs already moving.

But then someone else came out behind Sieun.

A man—tall, broad-shouldered, maybe even a little bigger than Suho—tapped him on the shoulder and said something. Suho stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t hear what was said, just saw the motion. The slight turn of Sieun’s head. The tiny frown. The pause.

And then—Sieun nodded.

The man lit up. He actually smiled, all happy like he’d just won something. Then he turned and went back inside.

Sieun didn’t move.

He just stood there.

No umbrella. Standing in front of the building under the looming sky.

This was it, right? This was the moment Suho had planned for. He could walk up, say some awkward line like, “Wow, what a coincidence!” and offer the umbrella. Maybe even make Sieun laugh. Maybe things would be okay.

But just as he took a step forward—

A sleek black car pulled up.

The kind with tinted windows and chrome trim. Polished, expensive, silent even as it glided to a stop. The kind of car Suho had only ever seen on the edges of his life—through glass, from sidewalks, from below.

The man stepped out. Tall. Sharp suit. Umbrella already open. He moved like he belonged in that world, like the rain didn’t dare touch him. He didn’t even look around. Just made his way toward the building entrance with a kind of lazy confidence that made Suho’s skin itch.

Opened the car door like a fucking chauffeur. And Sieun—

He got in.

Just like that.

Gone.

Suho stood there, halfway across the street, umbrella still clutched in his hand like a joke. Like a stage prop from a play that had ended without him. The lights from the car blurred and stretched through the building drizzle. The taillights blinked red as it pulled away, slick and silent, slicing through the rain.

And he—he just stood there.

He was still holding the umbrella.

Still hadn’t opened it.

Couldn’t.

His fingers felt numb. His chest felt… off. Hollow in a strange way. Not just because Sieun left, but how he left. The nod. The ease. The total lack of hesitation. Like it was routine.

Suho’s stomach twisted.

He didn’t know who that guy was. Didn’t know where Sieun was going. It might’ve been work. Might’ve been nothing. Just a ride. Just a favor.

But the moment burned. And the logic didn’t stick.

Not when his heart was pounding with something hot and furious and helpless.

Because despite all his attempts to reason with himself, Suho didn’t want it to be innocent. He wanted it to be what it looked like. Because that would justify the jealousy clawing up his ribs, the nausea curling in his gut. He wanted to be mad. He wanted to feel betrayed. Even if he didn’t have the right.

And as if to add insult to injury, something about it—about that image, that silhouette of Sieun stepping into a car with another man, never once looking back—dug up something he hadn’t thought about in years.

A different woman.

A different car.

A different rainy night.

He had been seven. Maybe eight. He couldn’t remember much except the smell of cheap perfume and the sharp taste of resentment that didn’t have a name back then. The woman had been standing in their cramped front yard, her knocked off high heels soaked in muddy rainwater, trying to fix her makeup in the reflection of a car window. Suho had cried—begged her not to go. But she’d smiled too brightly, told him she’d be back soon, handed him a juice box like that would make it okay.

Then she got into that car.

With a man Suho didn’t know. A man with shiny shoes and a watch that glinted in the rain. The door shut. The engine hummed. And she was gone.

Just like that.

He never saw her again. Not really. She always sent money. Sometimes called on birthdays. But she never came back.

And now—now it was Sieun stepping into that same shape. That same shadow. That same leaving.

It didn’t make sense. Not logically. Not emotionally. Suho knew that. Knew he had no right to feel this way. Knew Sieun wasn’t his. Knew they weren’t anything but some weird, fragile in-between—a half-friendship, a half-mistake.

But his heart didn’t care about the truth.

Because the truth was uglier than the rain.

He was just an eighteen-year-old idiot. Foolishly, pathetically in love. Because all his emotions could only mean one thing right? Naeun was right all along, wasn’t she? Love, in that stupid, immature way where nothing makes sense except the fact that someone else is getting close to the person you want—and it burns. It eats at you. It doesn’t matter if you broke it. It doesn’t matter if you messed up first. Because your heart doesn’t care about fairness. It only knows want.

And Suho wanted Sieun.

He wanted to be the one Sieun looked at. The one Sieun got into a car with. The one Sieun waited to pick him up at evenings when it started to rain.

The heart only knew the ache.

Only knew the image.

Another person, walking away.

Another person, choosing someone more put-together.

Someone in a sleek black car.

Leaving the dumb, troublesome kid behind in the rain.

The umbrella snapped open in his hands with a jolt, the metal mechanism groaning as the fabric unfurled. Raindrops hit it like spit. The sudden cover only made the cold worse somehow.

His hands were shaking.

Not from the chill. But from something deeper. That stupid, selfish thing in his chest that just kept burning even when he told it not to. That useless hope that maybe—just maybe—Sieun would’ve looked back. That he’d hesitate. That he’d wait for him.

But he didn’t. He didn’t even notice Suho was there.

So Suho stood in the rain, soaked and trembling, feeling eighteen years old, and seven years old at the same time, and full of things he couldn’t name.

Anger.

Shame.

Jealousy.

And underneath it all, something raw and messy and sharp-edged that he could only call love—the worst kind. The kind that wants and wants and wants, even when it has no right to.

He clenched his jaw until it ached. His throat burned with something close to a sob, but he swallowed it down.

Then he turned.

Not toward home.

Just away.

Because if he stayed, he would break. Because if he opened his mouth now, he’d scream. Because the rain sounded too much like laughter, and his heart was howling, and he’d waited in the dark for nothing.

He walked.

And as he walked, the ache twisted and writhed until it became something else. That old hunger. That thing in his bones he’d fought to keep buried. The one habit Sieun hated about him. The one thing Suho had tried to leave behind.

Violence.

He needed to fight.

He needed to lose control—just enough. He needed the burn. The snap of knuckles.

The type of pain that could actually bring clarity.

Chapter Text

And Suho got the fight he wanted.

Not from some half-assed gang kid, not from a faceless thug on the street. But it was someone he should have had expected.

Kang Wooyoung.

He messaged Suho the day after that rainy night. No pleasantries.

"You free tonight? Let’s fight. Just like old times."

And Suho knew what that meant.

No one asked to fight unless they needed something out of it.

Wooyoung had heard about Naeun. Maybe not the details, but enough to be angry on her behalf. Enough to throw fists over loyalty and heartbreak. Enough to demand blood over the kind of mess Suho left in his wake.

They met at an old gym downtown. The gym. Their gym. Where they'd sparred a hundred times over, always leaving sweaty and grinning, ribs sore and knuckles bruised, never angry. Just young and loud and full of something they didn’t have the words for back then. The windows were fogged from the inside, a thin sheen of condensation clinging to the glass—the kind that came with late November cold.

But this wasn’t a sparring match.

No words exchanged. Just nods. Just the tape going around their wrists in silence.

The lights above buzzed.

They squared up.

Outside, the wind had clawed at their jackets, but inside it was warm with body heat and unnamed tension. Suho shrugged off his zip-up hoodie, breath still visible in the chill that lingered near the entrance.

Wooyoung looked good—tight stance, shoulders loose, eyes sharp. He was still in training, still chasing a pro license. His body moved with muscle memory and discipline. Suho remembered that rhythm.

And he remembered how to break it.

But tonight—he didn’t want to.

The first hit landed squarely on Suho’s jaw. A clean jab. Wooyoung’s gloves barely registered in Suho’s peripheral before his head snapped sideways, sweat flying.

He stumbled back, mouth coppery.

Didn’t dodge. Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t want to.

Wooyoung’s brows knit. “You serious right now?”

Suho just rolled his neck. “C’mon, you can hit harder than that.”

So Wooyoung did.

And Suho let him.

A kick to the ribs, a left hook, another shot across the cheekbone that would swell by morning. Suho’s feet moved, but not fast enough. He blocked late, swung wide, fought sloppy.

And Wooyoung noticed.

“Quit throwing it,” he snapped after a clinch broke, breath huffing between his teeth. “You used to be sharp. What the hell is this?”

Suho didn’t answer. Just smiled—blood on his teeth. “You mad at the fact that you finally got a chance to beat me or what?”

That got a punch to the gut. Deep. Sharp. Folding him in half for a second. Wooyoung didn’t let up. He spun for a roundhouse, and Suho barely shifted in time to take it to the shoulder instead of his neck.

The mat groaned under their steps.

Sweat streaked down their brows.

Their shadows danced on the gym walls like ghosts.

Suho lunged—sloppy again, too high—and Wooyoung punished it. Caught him with a low kick that buckled his stance, then grabbed his shirt collar mid-stumble and rammed a knee toward his ribs.

Suho twisted, shoved him back.

Gasped, “That all you got?”

But his chest felt like it was caving in. Not from the fight. From everything else.

Wooyoung’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not in this.”

Suho laughed, hoarse. “Maybe I’m just bad now.”

Another strike. Glove to jaw. A hook that shook his vision. He dropped to one knee, and the mat felt cold and distant under his palm.

His breath came out ragged.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Wooyoung said.

Suho didn’t have an answer. Only images looping on themselves: Sieun walking away. The car. The umbrella. That ache.

“I needed this,” he whispered.

Wooyoung hesitated. His gloves hovered.

Then Suho sprang.

The switch flipped—finally.

Elbows up. Feet light. He jabbed, tested the distance, slipped under Wooyoung’s guard and landed a sharp body shot. The sound echoed—leather on flesh. He ducked a retaliatory hook, clinched, then drove a knee into Wooyoung’s thigh.

Their bodies crashed like waves. Fluid. Familiar. Brutal.

The next minute was nothing but muscle memory—spin kicks, sprawls, breathless pivots. Suho's instincts flared awake in bursts, raw and reckless. But the burn in his chest never left. And so, he was slower than he normally was. Slower than Wooyoung.

Another takedown attempt. Wooyoung sprawled and countered. Grounded him. Fists rained.

Suho gritted his teeth, covered up—but didn’t resist enough.

Wooyoung's voice cut through again. “You’re not here.”

“Shut up.”

“You want to lose.”

Another strike. Not full force, but enough to leave a bruise.

“Stop giving up.”

Then—

Suho’s fist found its way upward. A short, tight uppercut.

And for a moment, Wooyoung reeled.

They both stood, panting.

Wooyoung exhaled hard. “She cried, you know.”

Suho’s throat clenched. “I know.”

“You couldn’t even say shit.”

“I know.”

Their gloves dropped a little. Neither ready to move.

Finally, Wooyoung said, “I’m gonna end it now.”

And Suho nodded. “Do it.”

The final flurry came fast—leg sweep, ground control, pin. Wooyoung’s forearm pressed to his collarbone, weight bearing down.

Suho didn’t fight it. Didn’t tap.

He just lay there, gasping.

Chest rising. Eyes unfocused. Not from lack of air—but from the weight of everything else.

Then Wooyoung pulled back.

He didn’t go for the final strike. Didn’t take the easy win. Just hovered there for a second—fist half-raised, breathing hard—before dropping his hand and stepping back.

Suho stayed on the mat, chest heaving, blood in his mouth, vision tilting at the edges. His body wanted to fold in on itself, but he forced himself to sit up.

Silence hung in the air. Thick. Hot. Alive with something unsaid.

Wooyoung stood over him, arms slack at his sides, sweat dripping from his chin. His glare had dulled—not soft, but no longer sharp with fury. Something else now. Wariness. Frustration. Maybe even a hint of disappointment.

He didn’t say anything right away. Just looked at Suho like he was trying to figure something out. Like this wasn’t the fight he’d shown up for.

Suho wiped the back of his hand across his split lip. Spit iron onto the floor.

Wooyoung let out a breath, short and annoyed. Not at Suho—at whatever this was.

He shook his head.

Suho remained silent.

“Whatever.” Wooyoung’s voice was low, flat. “That’s enough.”

And that was it.

No dramatic finish. No lecture. No cheap shots.

Just two guys standing in the aftershock, bruised and buzzing with adrenaline, unsure what the hell just happened.

Wooyoung turned, walked a few steps, then paused.

Looked back.

His eyes lingered. Just that same unreadable look. Like he was searching for the version of Suho he used to know. And not finding him.

But still—he didn’t walk away like they were strangers.

He gave a slight nod. Small. Almost imperceptible.

A 1v1. A fight between men with dignity. Once it was done, no bad blood was left. Nothing more than what was needed.

Suho nodded back.

And like Wooyoung said, that was enough.

And that was enough.

Until it wasn’t anymore.

Suho stepped out of the gym into the night air, sweat cooling on his skin like ice water. His knuckles throbbed, his jaw ached, and somewhere behind his ribs, something felt unstitched. He tilted his head back, staring at the sky that blinked down with scattered city stars—small, drowned things barely visible through Seoul’s haze.

Wooyoung should’ve knocked him out.

That would’ve been cleaner. Neater. Like a switch flipped off. Like someone pressing pause on the endless, echoing loop that had settled in his brain like static.

Hyung.

The name pulsed with each breath, each footstep.

Sieun, Sieun, Sieun.

He wandered without looking, body numb, the sting of impact already giving way to a deeper, duller kind of ache. A sickness he couldn’t shake. His limbs felt heavy, foreign. His shirt was soaked with sweat and faint blood from his split lip, dried stiff at the collar. A few people glanced his way—then away, quick, uninterested, scared even. No one stopped. No one asked.

He nearly tripped over the curb.

Then he saw it. Neon humming above a battered bar sign, a hole-in-the-wall place tucked between a fried chicken joint and a cigarette shop. He’d delivered to places like this—always hated it. The slurred yelling, the stink of old beer and piss, the middle age men who spat curses when he asked for payment. He’d sworn he’d never be that guy.

But now… maybe there was a reason they drank. Maybe they were trying to forget something, too.

He walked in.

No one asked for an ID. Not the woman behind the bar, not the people slouched in booths. Maybe it was his height. Maybe the bruises. Maybe the look in his eyes.

He paid with crumpled bills from his pocket—his own money, earned through aching legs and hours on that delivery scooter. Money he never spent on anything that wasn’t food, or helping his grandma, or small things for Naeun, back when he still had her.

Drink after drink. Burn after burn.

He didn’t like the taste. Too bitter. Too sharp.

But he drank.

And when it started to buzz behind his eyes, like a soft hum that quieted the noise in his chest, he kept going. Chased it.

He ended up against a counter, then a booth, surrounded by strangers whose laughter didn’t quite reach their eyes. An older girl pressed into him, fingers toying with the frayed hem of his hoodie. Another one said he was handsome, with a voice sweet and slow like syrup. One of them whispered something about going somewhere quieter. She smelled like cheap perfume and bad decisions.

And for a moment, he let it happen.

He smiled. A fake one, tight around the edges. He flirted back. Let his fingers skim over her waist like he meant it. Pretended he was older. Pretended he didn’t care.

But every light reminded him of Sieun’s kitchen lamp.

Every laugh sounded like one Sieun gave once, over a dumb joke he made.

Every heartbeat thudded with his name.

Sieun.

The name was still there. Never left. Old habits die hard. It made his stomach turn.

When her hand slipped beneath his shirt, Suho flinched. Pulled away so fast she called him an asshole.

He didn’t answer. Just stood up, knocking over a glass. Beer sloshed across the table. Someone yelled. Someone shoved him. And for a split second, he thought he’d swing—just for the satisfaction. But the guy caught a glimpse of Suho’s face, saw the way his shoulders squared, the way his eyes were wide and red and ready for something much worse.

The drunkard backed off.

Suho left.

He didn’t remember much of how. Just the press of the door against his shoulder, the cold slap of air, the neon lights that stretched and wobbled like underwater reflections. His breath stung in his throat. His feet felt like someone else’s.

Still—Sieun.

That damn name again. Loud and soft and sharp all at once, like a cut he couldn’t stop poking.

And somehow it was even worse. It wasn’t only Sieun anymore. It was the voice of Sieun, calling his name. “Suho. Suho. Suho-yah.”

He walked. Or staggered. Or limped. Didn’t know. Didn’t care. His fists were clenched so tight they shook.

He didn’t have a plan. Didn’t know where else to go. Home was empty. Naeun was gone. Wooyoung had left him standing.

But his feet knew.

Somehow, his body remembered the way. Through alleyways still reeking of fried food and trash, under flickering lamps and half-dead neon. The streets blurred around the edges, and his legs moved without instruction—just muscle memory, just desperation.

He ended up at the base of that familiar apartment complex. Mid-rise. Old and peeling at the corners. An almost broken elevator that wheezed like a dying thing whenever it moved.

He took the stairs.

Maybe to punish himself. Maybe because the elevator felt too slow. Maybe because he wanted to regain his balance before reaching that door. Step after concrete step, dizzy and out of breath, dragging his battered body up toward something like a sanctuary.

Ninth floor. He gripped the rusted railing when the hallway tilted sideways.

The corridor smelled like mold and boiled cabbage. Familiar.

He walked until he stood in front of that door. Unit 902. Beige paint chipped around the edges. A faded sticker above the handle: No Flyers.

Sieun’s door.

He stared at it, but there was no reflection staring back at him. So he imagined how he looked like. Eyes bloodshot. Lip cracked. Sweat drying in patches on his collarbone. Shirt stained. He looked like hell. He felt like it too.

But still—his hand lifted. Hovered.

He didn’t even know what he wanted. Forgiveness? Attention? A place to crash? Someone to hold him? Someone to yell at him?

Or maybe nothing. Maybe just to be seen.

If he died here—if his body gave out right on this landing, in front of this dumb metal door with the dying porchlight overhead—it would be fine.

Because Sieun was the only one who might notice.

He knew the passcode like his old name, but he didn’t want to punch it in and open the door himself. So, he knocked. Didn’t even bother to do the old “Delivery!” joke he always pulled on Sieun before.

And then he waited, leaning heavily on the doorframe, swaying in the dim hallway light. No plan. No words. Just a heart too full and a body too empty, waiting for Sieun to open the door—and see him.

Tonight, Sieun went home by himself. It didn’t rain, unlike what the forecast had said.

The air had that brittle bite to it, sharp against his cheeks as he stepped out of the office lobby. He remembered his umbrella—neatly tucked under his arm, more shield than necessity. A preemptive strike—against the rain, yes, but more against the possibility of accepting another car ride from Seokdae.

Not that Seokdae forced him. If anything, he offered it too kindly. “I’m going that way anyway,” he’d say, even though the traffic map told another story. Sieun had checked once—just once, out of pure curiosity—and saw that Seokdae’s home was at least thirty minutes in the opposite direction.

He didn’t like owing people.

He didn’t like people pretending not to mind when they did.

Seokdae was nice. Quietly kind, the type that didn’t push too hard. He laughed at Sieun’s dry remarks, remembered how he liked his coffee. And lately, he’d started asking for informal speech. “Not Seokdae-ssi. You can just call me hyung,” he said yesterday, with a half-smile and his elbow resting casually on the steering wheel.

Hyung.

That word settled behind Sieun’s eyes like a dull ache. Not sharp enough to break him open, but steady in its pressure. A word that had once been warm and funny and weird between two people who had no reason to be close—but got close anyway. A word he hadn’t heard from Suho in weeks now.

Suho had been radio silence since then.

He hadn’t texted, and he hadn’t blocked him either. But maybe that was worse. Passive absence. Quiet severance.

Sieun stared at the sidewalk ahead, umbrella tapping with each step. He hadn’t let himself think about Suho too much. Which really meant: he thought about him constantly, just in short bursts, like small knives scraping at his heart that he didn’t want to look at directly.

Suho should move on. Should be out there in his young, chaotic life, kissing loud girls, yelling across crowded rooms, forgetting older men who never knew how to hold someone properly.

It was better this way.

He unlocked the front door of his building, climbed the rickety elevator to the ninth floor, and stepped into the familiar stale hallway. His apartment greeted him with the same chipped paint and quiet hum from the overhead lights. He didn’t bother turning on the ceiling lamp inside—just the kitchen light. Dim, soft. Enough to eat instant noodles under and feel like a person.

He boiled water. Set the silver packet on the counter. And as he stared at the steam rising from the pot, he thought about Suho’s hands. How quick they were when shoving cup ramyeon into the microwave. How they fumbled with chopsticks whenever he was distracted mid-rant. How—

Knock knock.

He turned.

Not the doorbell. Not the intercom.

Just a knock.

Low. Hesitant. Then again—thump, heavier this time, like someone was leaning on it.

Sieun’s spine stiffened.

He walked slowly to the front door, fingers brushing over the lock. Paused.

Something in his chest started pounding. There was a presence behind the door that he could feel.

He opened it.

And there he was.

Suho.

Bruised. Soaked. Blood on his lip, shirt sticking to his chest with old sweat. His knuckles scraped. Eyes unfocused. His entire body swayed slightly, like the hallway tilted every few seconds and he was just trying to keep up.

Sieun didn’t breathe.

Suho looked up, sluggishly, as if it took real effort. Their eyes met.

And everything Sieun had tried to bury in quiet rituals—every missed text, every self-inflicted rule about boundaries, age, propriety—came rushing back like a flood.

“Suho-yah…”

The name left his mouth without permission.

And then, without a word, Suho stumbled forward and collapsed into him.

Sieun staggered back half a step, instinctively catching him, arms tense beneath the sudden weight. A dead weight. A soaked, bruised, bloodied mess of a boy who reeked of soju and blood. His arms, strong and uncoordinated, wrapped around Sieun's neck with startling force, like an anchor thrown overboard in a storm, desperate to drag something down with it.

Suho's face was close. Too close. His breath, hot and ragged, ghosted across Sieun’s cheek.

His grip tightened, rough fingers curling behind Sieun’s neck like he was afraid Sieun would vanish if he so much as blinked. His gaze was unfocused, but his hands knew what they wanted. They held Sieun like a lifeline, like a prayer.

He forced Sieun to look at him.

And then he started calling him.

“Hyung…” A hiccup. The word cracked at the edges like a bone trying to snap cleanly but failing.

And then, like a crack in the dam.

“Sieun-ah…”

No honorifics. No rules. No distance.

Just his name, falling from Suho’s mouth over and over, thick with liquor and longing. It wasn’t defiance—it wasn’t even intentional. It was as if Suho didn’t remember the boundaries, or worse, never believed in them to begin with. Like they were equals. No, not equals. As if Sieun wasn’t older, wasn’t wiser, wasn’t anything but his. Just Sieun.

It was desperation.

Sieun’s voice was barely above a whisper, cracked and unsure. “What the hell happened to you? Why are you—Suho, you’re drunk. You’re bleeding. Who did this to you?”

But Suho didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Just kept slurring his name like it was the only word left in the ruins of his vocabulary. Like if he stopped saying it, Sieun would disappear. A chant. A cry. A curse. A looped thread unraveling from a fraying soul.

“Sieun-ah…”

The syllables were soaked in sorrow.

Sieun tried to steady him, to peel those hands off his neck, but every time he pried one away, Suho only leaned closer, their bodies brushing in damp, fevered contact.

And as Suho kept stepping forward, Sieun kept stepping back. An eerie, silent choreography in reverse, the world narrowing until there was nothing but Suho’s warmth and Suho’s weight and Suho’s voice repeating his name like a punishment.

Then, Suho’s forehead dropped—thudded—against Sieun’s shoulder. His face burrowed into the crook of Sieun’s neck like it was home, like it was oxygen, like he had nowhere else to go.

He inhaled. Deep, trembling, almost violent.

A breath that didn’t just search for air—it searched for the person Suho had missed most in the world. A ragged, desperate breath that sent shivers down Sieun’s spine. It was visceral—like Suho was trying to drink him in, absorb him, crawl inside his skin just to feel safe again.

It wasn’t tender.

It was starved.

Sieun’s skin went rigid.

His hands hovered in the air, uncertain. Half-angry, half-shattered. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t right. What was this kid doing here, half-broken in the middle of the night, clinging to him like he was the last thing left on Earth?

He tried to pull away. Tried to lift Suho’s head, to look him in the eye, to shake some goddamn sense into him—

But Suho wouldn’t move.

Just stood there, latched onto him, unyielding. A deadlock of breath and silence and unsaid things. And for a moment, all Sieun could hear was the sound of Suho’s breath stuttering against his neck. So close, so warm, so wrong.

Then suddenly, like something inside him had snapped, Suho moved.

He shoved him—harshly, with purpose—guiding him backwards with surprising strength. Sieun’s knees hit the edge of the bed and gave out beneath him. He landed with a thud, hands braced behind him, breath knocked out of his lungs.

“Suho—”

Too late.

Suho was already crawling forward, already on top of him, already pressing him down.

In one quick motion, he grabbed Sieun’s face with both hands,

and kissed him.

The kiss came like a crash. A wreck. A storm tearing through a house of cards. His hands—still trembling—gripped Sieun’s neck, and their mouths collided in a frantic, messy, violent attempt at closeness. Suho's lips were cracked and bleeding; Sieun's were chapped and dry. The kiss tasted like Sieun’s coffee from earlier, like Suho’s liquor. Like blood, like iron, like sweat. Like something lost too long ago to be salvaged.

Suho’s body leaned down, pressing Sieun into the mattress, locking him in place.

Sieun’s eyes widened. His mind screamed. Sieun tried, he tried so hard to pull back, tried to speak, to scream, to push him off—but Suho held him there, kissing like his life depended on it. Like if he stopped, he'd fall apart.

So he didn’t stop.

Didn’t breathe.

It wasn’t until Sieun went limp beneath him, gasping for air, that Suho finally stopped. Sieun broke away with a gasp, shoving at Suho’s shoulders.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

Suho didn’t answer.

He stared down at him, eyes wild, unfocused.

His eyes.

God, those eyes.

Wide, wet, burning with something wild and terrifying and real. Something Sieun didn’t dare to name.

Sieun found his voice in the wreckage of his breath. “Are you fucking out of your mind—?!”

He shoved at Suho’s chest, shoved hard, but Suho wouldn’t budge. His hands were still cupping Sieun’s cheeks, trembling now, fingertips sticky with dried blood.

"Suho—get off me!" Sieun barked again, furious now. This wasn’t just a line crossed. It was every boundary shattered, burned, and spat on.

And then—

Suho broke.

The sound that left him was not a sob. It was a crack, sharp and pitiful, the sound of something old finally giving out under pressure. And finally, a broken voice escaped him, so raw it scraped against the walls:

“I’m lonely too.”

Sieun froze.

“I’m lonely,” Suho choked. “I’m so fucking lonely, hyung…”

His voice collapsed in on itself. His body followed. He crumpled onto Sieun’s chest, arms loose around him now, like an unbeatable warrior finally surrendering after holding in the pain too long.

“They think I’m okay,” he wept. “Everyone thinks I’m fine. Strong. Tough. But I’m not—I don’t have anyone. I don’t—I don’t want anyone else. I just want you. So please…”

His fists was clutching handfuls of the white button-up Sieun hadn’t even changed out of since work.

“Please don’t leave me…”

Sieun didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

Tears seeped through the fabric, soaking through the white cotton and straight into Sieun’s heart. Every drop burned its way into his ribs.

He should’ve screamed again. Should’ve thrown him off. Should’ve yelled, should’ve said no, should’ve done something—

“Don’t go, please don’t go—I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

Suho’s whole body trembled with each sob. The sinner bowed before his Saint.

This wasn’t just a drunk kiss. This wasn’t some brat throwing a tantrum. This was the same boy who dragged himself to Sieun’s apartment bleeding out because he felt safe here. The boy who took care of Sieun when he was laying in feverish sweat. The boy who came with snacks, with laughter, with awful jokes and warmth and chaos that made life feel like it had color again. The boy who cared.

And at that, all Sieun could do was lie there, stunned and aching, under the weight of the boy who had nothing left except his name.

Sieun’s hands, still caught between pushing and holding, hovered uselessly above Suho’s back.

And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t know what to do.

So he just let Suho cry.

Suho woke to the faint scent of coffee. Burnt, slightly over-brewed. The kind Sieun always made when distracted.

His head throbbed.

His body felt like it had been shoved through a cement mixer—bruises flaring now that the adrenaline had faded, a sharp ache in his ribs, the sting of cracked knuckles. But worse than any of that was the taste in his mouth—bitter, metallic, and stained with guilt.

The room was dim. Morning light crept weakly through the closed blinds, washing the space in grey. Suho blinked up at the ceiling, throat dry, heart already racing before his brain caught up.

He was still in Sieun’s bed.

His eyes drifted to the side.

Sieun sat at the desk across the room, perfectly still, spine too straight. His white work shirt from yesterday hung on him loosely, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He hadn’t changed. Hadn’t slept, maybe.

He was looking at the window, not at Suho.

Suho sat up slowly, the blanket slipping off his shoulders. Every movement scraped shame across his skin. His memories were jagged, but enough pieces were sharp.

The kiss.

His hands on Sieun’s face. The sobbing. Saying too much. Saying everything.

“…Hyung,” he croaked.

Sieun didn’t turn. Didn’t even blink.

“I…” Suho swallowed. “About last night…”

Still nothing.

His throat closed up. The words were too small. They slipped between his fingers like sand.

“I didn’t mean to—”

But that wasn’t true. He had meant it. Lies tasted bitter in the morning.

Sieun moved, slowly. The chair scraped against the floor as he stood, walking to the kitchen with the weary grace of someone moving through ash. The sound of the kettle being filled echoed sharply. Water. Stove. The faint whistle of heat rising.

And Suho—still curled in the bed like some ugly truth left behind after a mistake—could only watch.

The distance between them wasn’t far. Ten, maybe twelve steps. But it felt like standing on opposite cliffs with a canyon in between. The kind that opens up only after you jump.

That silence—tight and glinting—was worse than fists. Worse than any fight Suho had ever been in.

“I’m sorry,” he said, louder. “I crossed a line. I know I—”

“You did.”

Two words.

Two syllables. No anger. No affection. Just a closing door.

Suho flinched. It landed in his chest like a dropped match.

Sieun still didn’t look at him. He just poured the brewed coffee into two mugs. One black. One with milk and sweetener. Out of habit.

“I don’t know what happened since the last time we met, but you were drunk,” he said. “You were hurt. You were… desperate. I get that.”

“But—”

“It doesn’t make it okay.”

The words fell like a lid snapping shut.

Suho didn’t breathe.

Sieun turned at last. Leaned against the counter. His expression was unreadable, too smooth, like a mask made of porcelain that could only be crack open from inside. Suho used to be so proud, knowing he was the only one who could crack it. Not anymore.

“I wasn’t trying to…” His voice cracked. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know. And I’m not mad at you,” he said. “But I need you to understand something.”

The kindness in that response gutted him. If Sieun had been cruel, he could have fought back. But this gentle detachment—this slow, careful unspooling—was unbearable.

Suho’s throat moved, but no sound came out.

“That kiss. The things you said. I know they came from somewhere real, but that doesn’t mean it was right.” His voice wavered once—just enough to give it away—then locked back into place. “You wanted comfort. You came to me because I’m safe. That doesn’t mean I’m what you want. Or that this can happen again.”

Suho’s stomach twisted. “I don’t just want comfort,” he said. “I came to you because—because it’s you. It’s always been—”

“No.”

It landed like a stone in water.

Sieun stepped forward, just a little, and Suho’s heart surged—stupidly, automatically—before it hit the wall of Sieun’s expression.

“You think you want me,” Sieun said, with the painful precision of someone who’d rehearsed this in his head all night. “Because I’m the only place you let yourself fall. Because I was kind to you. Because I held you. Because I let you.”

Suho shook his head, frantic. “You don’t understand. It was real to me.”

Sieun’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something more like sorrow disguised as silence.

“Then I’m sorry,” he said. “Because I can’t give it back to you.”

A pause. Then he continued.

“I’m older than you. I’m responsible for what I let happen. And if I blur that line now—just because you’re hurting—I’ll be the one who ruins you.”

There was a crack in his voice. A tiny fracture that let the light in, and Suho hated it, because it made him want to cry.

“I would’ve let you stay.” Sieun’s voice had dropped to something nearly fragile. “I was ready to let you cry, bleed, sleep in my bed, eat my food, yell at me if you needed. I would’ve held all of it.”

Suho’s hands balled into fists. His nails dug crescents into his palms.

“But not like that,” Sieun finished. “Not in that way.”

Suho looked down. The implication was clear. His chest rose too fast, like breath couldn’t quite reach the bottom of his lungs. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper.

“I have to do this,” Sieun said, quieter now. “Because if I let you think this is okay, you’ll come back. And the next time, maybe you won’t be drunk. Maybe you’ll mean it more.”

And maybe I will too.

Sieun never said that, but Suho wanted to believe he could hear the sentence from Sieun’s weary eyes. Suho didn’t move. His whole body had become something small and breakable, folded in on itself, trying to stay whole in a room that didn’t feel like his anymore.

“…Are you going to leave me?”

The question left him before he could catch it, barely a whisper. It sounded childish, even to himself, but he couldn’t care less.

Sieun’s eyes shut, just for a second.

“I’m not leaving,” he said. “But I need space. And you do too.”

“No,” Suho stood up. The floor blurred. The air between them was thick with everything unsaid. “I can be better, I can—”

“You don’t need to be anything for me.” The words were soft, but they landed like a locked door. “You need time. And space. To figure yourself out. Without me confusing things. I can’t let what happened last night happen again. Not while you're still—”

“Don’t say it,” Suho muttered, trembling. “Don’t say I’m just a kid.”

Sieun didn’t.

But he didn’t say anything else either.

He simply moved away to the kitchen. Turning himself away from Suho. Not wanting to even look at Suho anymore. "Use the bathroom. You know where the first aid kit is, so patch yourself up. I already made coffee. Or you can drink water. When you leave… just close the door.”

That finality was worse than shouting. It was a quiet ending. A slow dissolve. A line drawn not in anger, but care. And that made it crueler.

Suho knew it was his cue to leave. But that fact didn’t help. Sieun made him felt like the annoying kid refusing to leave his endearing amusement park after closing time.

Suho stood there a second longer, motionless. Hoping, without reason, that something would crack. That Sieun might look back. Look at how desperate he was and forgive whatever he did wrong. Ask him to stay.

But he didn’t.

Finally, Suho asked. “…How long?”

How long until I can see you again? How much time do you need?

“I don’t know.”

And that was the truth.

So Suho bent down, slow and clumsy, pulling his hoodie off the floor, his hands fumbling through the sleeves. The room was still warm from the heater humming in the corner, but the air near the door carried a faint draft—a reminder of the cold waiting outside.

He walked—past the desk, past the mug, past the place where he’d tried to turn longing into something it could never be.

The door closed behind Suho with a click that echoed through his bones.

And behind the closed door, Sieun stood, unmoving. One hand holding on the knob. Because he wanted to hold on to someone, but he had no other choice but to push that person away.

The scent of Suho lingered, but it would soon fade away. The mug of milk coffee sat untouched, its warmth long gone, staring back at him mockingly. The silence settled in, heavy, and it asked him enough questions to make him want to spiral.

But Sieun didn’t. Couldn’t allow himself to.

Because if he did, he wasn’t sure he’d stop.

Chapter Text

The scent of perilla oil always reminded Suho of his childhood.

Not the cheerful kind—the kind others talked about, warm and framed in laughter—but something more threadbare. Thinner. Like sunlight through curtains too old to block much of anything. A memory shaped by the tenacity of getting by.

At the end of November, the scent lingered heavier, caught in the steam rising from the old gas stove, mixing with the dry chill that crept through the edges of the windowpanes. Outside, the trees had finally shed their last stubborn leaves, and the sky had taken on that pale, washed-out hue that meant snow could fall—or not—depending on the mood of the wind. The radiator groaned quietly in the corner, but it was the kitchen that held the real warmth. It clung to the old wooden walls, where the rice cooker always hummed and the television buzzed faintly from the living room. The marigolds’ bright petals were oddly defiant against the season, soaking up what little sun the short days offered.

This was the same kitchen where his grandmother stood now, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, wrists thin with age, stirring a pot of seaweed soup. Miyeok-guk. She always made it on days when she worried. And lately, she cooked it often.

Suho sat quietly at the table, knees drawn up, chin on his arms. He looked around the house that he had been living in ever since he was seven, but there wasn't much to look at. Suho had grown up inside those walls—beneath its low ceilings, beside its peeling floral wallpaper, between the sharp click of the electric fan and the steady, unchanging presence of his grandmother’s voice humming trot songs under her breath.

There weren’t many photographs in the house. The walls were bare except for a faded calendar with a girl group from five years ago and an old calligraphy scroll declaring patience is strength. Some very rare frames of him and grandma. But no frames of his childhood, no wedding photos, no picture of his father.

His father had died before he was born—some scaffolding accident on a site outside Incheon. One moment a man, the next a statistic. A safety violation. A payout. Nothing more than a name on his mother’s ID. Suho never knew what he looked like. Never even saw a photo. There wasn’t one to show.

His mother had tried, he supposed. For a while. A pretty woman with chipped nails and a head full of dreams she didn’t know how to hold. She worked cash jobs in beauty salons and convenience stores, borrowed money from neighbors, bought him snacks when she could. But she never stayed long in one place. Her eyes always wandered—to glossier lives, shinier promises.

He remembered the day she left, not in detail but in shape. Seven was the age when you are young enough to believe she’d come back, old enough to know she wouldn’t.

She told him she was going to Seoul for work. Said she’d be back soon. Kissed him once on the crown of his head, then climbed into a sleek black car with a man he didn’t know and didn’t like the look of. She never said goodbye. Only waved from the rolled-down window like she was going on vacation. The black sedan smelled expensive. The engine purred like a promise it never kept.

That night, he’d waited on the front steps until the mosquitoes started biting and his grandmother dragged him inside by the wrist. She never said a word about it. Just cooked extra rice, handed him a blanket, and tucked him into her bed without asking questions.

Mom still sent money sometimes. Enough to scrape by. Enough to remind him she was alive, but not enough to make the ache any smaller.

It had always been just him and Grandma since then.

At first, she was stern. All rules and chores and quiet dinners. But there were small rebellions in her care. She tucked him in when she thought he was asleep. She always sliced the apple the way he liked it—thin, with the peel still on. She give him yeot to eat for luck before tests. Every winter, she knit him new gloves with the same mismatched yarn, because the stores never sold any thick enough.

They weren’t close, not in the way people bragged about. But they were woven together like old fabric—patched and faded, but dependable.

Now his grandmother’s back was bent slightly—from decades of working in other people’s homes, scrubbing other people’s dishes, folding other people’s clothes. There were callouses on her hands that no longer softened. Her feet were always cold. Her voice, when she spoke, often trembled now. But her eyes… her eyes still had steel in them. The kind sharpened by war and survival.

She was born in the aftermath of a country still healing from the Korean War. Her husband—Suho’s grandfather—had died before she even turned thirty, drafted and sent northward to a skirmish that never made the papers. A soldier lost in a conflict that blurred across decades. All she got was a folded flag and a stipend so small it was almost insulting. She’d raised Suho’s mother alone, stubbornly, frugally, with a mouth that didn’t complain even when her back gave out.

Which was why it nearly killed her when Suho joined the MMA club in middle school.

“너는 왜 그렇게 싸움질을 하고 싶어하니?” she had asked, her voice cracking more from fear than anger.

Why would you want to fight like that?

He tried to explain—how it wasn’t about violence. How it was about control. Precision. Breath. That it was a sport. That he was good at it, better than anyone else on the mat. That maybe, just maybe, it was their one way out of the cycle, of weighing between groceries and replacing Suho's 3-year-old pair of shoes.

But to her, all fighting looked the same. Blood was blood. She’d seen it on uniforms. Seen it wash off her husband’s boots. She had scrubbed grief out of fabric her whole life. She couldn’t bear to see it on her grandson’s face.

She didn’t speak to him for two weeks when he told her he wanted to go pro.

But she still packed him boiled eggs and gimbap for his matches. Still showed up to his first tournament, sitting in the back with a scarf pulled up over her chin, pretending not to care. Her hands shook the whole time. But she watched.

He was seventeen when she collapsed.

She barely came home after work, and he’d just done with training. She was on the kitchen floor, breath wheezing, eyes glassy. The ambulance ride blurred in noise and static. Later, the doctor said something about her heart. Hypertension. Age. Stress. She needed rest, medication, and regular check-ups.

They couldn’t afford most of that.

So Suho quit the academy. Withdrew his name from the roster just days before his first pro bout. Picked up two part-time jobs—delivery in the mornings, waiter and dishwashing at night. Said goodbye to the dream before it had even taken its first breath. Adrenaline and passion only weigh so much in front of responsibility.

His grandmother never asked him to quit. She hated that he did.

But the way she cupped his face the day she came home from the hospital—fingers trembling, eyes full of something like guilt—he knew she understood.

She never said thank you. She didn’t have to.

Now, he watched her stir the soup, slower than she used to. Her breath shallow after just a few steps. The veins on her hands a little bluer.

She didn’t know he noticed. She always tried to hide it. But lately, she was forgetting things. Tiny things. Her slippers in the fridge. A name that slipped her mind. Some nights, she woke up confused, asking if it was Sunday.

It terrified him.

He would rather be punched in the ribs again than see her fade.

She turned to him now, voice gentle. “Eat before it gets cold.”

He nodded and sat across from her. The miyeok-guk was savory and hot, the seaweed soft from long simmering. She had added a little too much garlic, but he didn’t say anything. He never did.

They ate in silence for a while, the only sound the clink of spoons and the soft hum of the television news.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” she said after a while. “Something happened with that little girlfriend of yours?”

He blinked.

It took him a second to remember she meant Naeun.

She had visited once, all smiles and spring-colored cardigans, bringing fruit and flowers like a scene she learned from those romcom novels. Grandma had loved her immediately—called her a good girl, said she had smart eyes. That was before the breakup. Before everything got complicated.

“It’s nothing,” Suho said.

“Hmph.” She didn’t believe him, but she let it go.

She didn’t know about Sieun. Not the way it really was. She knew the name, of course—Suho talked about him too much to hide it. “That friend from the office,” she’d say. “The quiet one.”

But she didn’t know that Suho couldn’t stop thinking about him. That there were nights he couldn’t sleep, playing back every word, every glance, like a fool addicted to pain. She didn’t know about the kiss. The fight. The way Sieun had looked at him like he was just a child—lost and foolish and easily hurt.

She would never understand that part of him. Frankly, he didn’t want her to.

Not when she was the last piece of home he had left.

Finally, a soft clatter broke the stillness of the house—his grandma setting down her spoon, then gently patting her lap with her wrinkled hands like she was brushing off a thought.

"You wanna go to the market together today?" she asked, almost offhand, but not quite. Her tone was that gentle kind she used when she didn’t want to make something feel too big, in case it was too heavy to say outright.

It took him a second to register it. To lift his eyes. To actually realize the hours he’d missed by walling himself off inside his own storm.

Only now, when Sieun himself forced a distance between them, could Suho's mind stop spinning circles around Sieun’s name. Only when the heartbreak had stopped screaming loud enough to drown out the world, did he realize how long it had been since they’d gone anywhere together. Since they’d sat side by side on the bus, bickered over which radish was better, or shared hoddeok from that cart near the bus stop.

He’d been too caught up. In Sieun. In the wanting. In the pretending-not-to-want.

He looked at her, and nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, with a small exhale that felt like peeling something off his chest. “Let’s go.”

It was a small thing. But it felt like the first solid ground he’d stood on in weeks.

Outside, after nights of endless rain, the clouds had finally begun to lift. The sky cracked open with sunlight, pale and hesitant at first, as if not sure it was allowed.

But it was.

And for the first time in a while, Suho let it touch his skin.

It was the last Sunday of November, and the wind was no longer shy. It came in sharp bursts, rattling through the alleyways and turning breath to mist. Still, the sun showed up—thin and late, like it had somewhere else to be but stopped by anyway.

Suho walked with his hands in his coat pockets, the grocery bag slung on one arm. His grandmother shuffled beside him, her knit hat pulled down over her ears, her breath steady and small. The market was busy, as always—old women bargaining over perilla leaves, a man shouting deals for dried anchovies, children clinging to their mothers’ jackets.

Suho liked it here. Even if he never said so.

They came together like this on weekends that he didn’t have work. But it hadn’t been the case often lately.

From now on, he would try to say yes more often.

His grandmother pointed toward a stall with cabbage and radish stacked high. “Let’s grab a few for kimchi. It’s getting cold. Might snow soon.”

“Yeah, I’ll carry them,” Suho said, reaching for his wallet.

That’s when he heard a familiar voice.

“Naeun, should we get one more block of tofu? That shopkeeper over there said she would give me a discount last time.”

It was a name Suho hadn’t heard in a while. He turned toward it and saw them: Naeun in a long beige coat, her scarf tucked in, a basket dangling from her wrist. Her mom stood beside her with a list in one hand and a wallet in the other. They hadn’t noticed him yet.

Not until Naeun glanced up.

She froze when their eyes met.

Suho felt his shoulders tense. His first instinct was to look away, maybe duck behind the tower of cabbages. But before he could move, his grandmother caught on.

“Oh, isn’t that Naeunie?”

Suho cleared his throat. “Um. Yeah.”

His grandma blinked, then turned back toward Naeun and her mom with quiet resolve of a woman who knew everything. “Mm. I see.”

Before Suho could stop her, she was already walking up.

“You must be Naeun’s mom?” she said warmly. “We haven’t had the chance to talk. I’m Suho’s grandma.”

Naeun’s mom blinked in surprise. “Ah! Yes, hello! I remember you—sort of. Naeun visited you once, right?”

“That’s right. You and I should have a chat. Come on, let’s take a little walk, talk about the price of vegetables these days.” She smiled, already gently pulling the woman aside. “Leave the kids to catch up, hmm?”

There was no arguing with her tone. The two women disappeared between the rows of stalls like they'd known each other longer than they actually had.

Suho and Naeun were left behind. The wind carried a hint of dried chili and roasted chestnuts.

“Hey,” he said first, voice a little hoarse.

Naeun kept her eyes on the radish crate. “Hey.”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“Yeah. We usually come on Sundays,” she replied, still not looking at him.

He nodded. The silence stretched again.

Then, quietly, he said, “I’m sorry. For what happened. For… how I handled things.”

That made her glance up.

“You’re not just saying that because my brother hit you, right?”

Suho managed a crooked smile. “He did more than hit me. But no. I mean it.”

Naeun sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

Another pause.

“Were you mad?” Suho asked.

“I was upset,” she said honestly. “But not just at you. At myself too. For not seeing it sooner. I think I just wanted it to work, so I kept pretending we were something we weren’t.”

Suho’s gaze dropped to the cracked tiles underfoot. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know,” she said. “You just didn’t know what to do with your feelings. And neither did I.”

This time, when she looked at him, there wasn’t tension in her eyes. Just something settled. Something lighter.

“We were better as friends anyway,” she said. “We always joked the same, talked the same, but I guess it wasn’t love.”

Suho nodded slowly. “Yeah. Didn’t know that until it was over.”

She nudged him gently with her elbow. “Well, now you do.”

They both laughed—quiet, a little sheepish. But it was laughter.

“And don’t worry,” Naeun added. “I told Wooyoung not to kill you. I figured once was enough.”

Suho chuckled. “Thanks. Appreciate that.”

Voices of the older women floated back through the crowd, laughing about something Suho couldn’t hear. He looked over and saw them sharing a bag of roasted sweet potatoes, like friends who’d known each other for years.

Naeun wrapped her scarf tighter. “Well. I should help my mom finish up. She always ends up buying too much.”

“Yeah. Same with my grandma.”

They looked at each other again—not with the weight of what they’d been, but with the start of something else. A gentler thread. The kind that didn’t fray so easily.

“Take care of yourself, okay?” she said.

“You too.”

And just like that, they turned back toward their families, the winter air folding in around them. Somewhere between the crowd and the cold, something old had ended—and something better had begun.

Sieun had grown used to the hum of the office lights above his head, how they buzzed faintly with the weight of another late night. He sat beneath them now, hunched over a row of color palettes and mockup slides, cross-checking the brand story once again before passing it to Seokdae. This was week three of living in fluorescent time—he joked once that he only saw his apartment in shadows these days. No one laughed and Beomseok looked at him with too much concern.

The SENA rebranding campaign was the firm’s crown jewel, a project so sprawling it had its own command center. Sieun, of course, was at the heart of it. Not just by title, but by sheer necessity. He worked because that was what rational people did. He worked because logic needed somewhere to stand when the rest of his world tilted sideways.

Because missing Suho hurt more when he stopped moving.

He hadn’t meant for the ache to last. It was different from last time, when an argument made them drift. That was petty. Temporary. The silence then was sharp, bitter. This time, it was quiet in a way that lasted. He was the one who cut Suho off—chose reason, chose responsibility. And with that clarity came consequence.

Every corner of the city looked like Suho. The back of a delivery scooter. The glint of sunlight on a pair of white sneakers. The laugh of a boy calling after his friend. It was everywhere, this ache. But Sieun had done the right thing, and feelings—feelings pass. Eventually.

He poured himself into work like it was a solvent.

Beomseok noticed first. Of course he did. He brought Sieun hot meals without asking. Left vitamin drinks on his desk. Quietly asked Seokdae for deadlines to be adjusted or offered to take over minor tasks when Sieun hadn’t even lifted his head yet. And surprisingly, Seokdae had fallen into step too. At first awkwardly, unsure of where his help would land, but increasingly with precision—like he’d figured out the tempo of Sieun’s rhythm.

They worked like madmen. But it was efficient, even weirdly warm. After weeks of collaborating in tense silence, they had become something like a real team. A dream team, one exhausted project manager joked.

Sieun noticed he had stopped using honorifics with Seokdae. On the third time Seokdae corrected him—"I told you to just call me hyung, come on"—Sieun complied. Just once, but that was enough. He’d never seen Seokdae smile that wide, like a puppy who’d been offered a bite of steak.

The days blurred into each other—PowerPoint decks, user research reports, last-minute design changes. They were on track to meet the final December 23rd checkpoint with the client. Everything had to be airtight.

Then one night, with paper coffee cups piling between them, Seokdae leaned back in his chair and said, “Hey… you busy on the 24th?”

Sieun blinked, bleary-eyed from too much screen time. “You mean Christmas Eve?”

“Yeah. There’s this festival thing at Jamsil Amusement Park. My sister, Young-yi, is in a band—she’s playing there. Gave me tickets. Thought I should go, but I don’t really wanna stand around in a crowd of teenagers alone.” He scratched his cheek. “Wanna come with?”

Sieun stared. “You’re inviting me to an amusement park?”

“You’re acting like I asked you to go clubbing,” Seokdae huffed. “Come on. There’ll be food. Fireworks. I dunno, snow sculptures or something. Might be fun.”

Sieun asked, as a habit, “Can Beomseok come too?”

Seokdae didn’t exactly show any expression, but Sieun could see that he was hesitant at first, then eventually nodded. “Sure. If he wants.”

Later that evening, when Beomseok returned from a client call, Sieun asked. Beomseok smiled, touched a hand to the back of his neck.

“I’ve got somewhere to be that day,” he said. “The church, actually. I go every Christmas.”

That caught Sieun off guard for a beat. “You’re religious?”

“Not really. I just… grew up there. Orphanage run by the church. So I always go back. It’s kind of my only tradition.”

Sieun nodded. The thought of Beomseok, younger and quieter, sitting on a wooden pew with tinsel in his hands, stayed with him longer than expected.

So. It’d be just him and Seokdae on the 24th.

Sieun turned back to his laptop screen, the cursor blinking where a product tagline waited. He rubbed his eyes, letting himself feel the weight of something gentle.

The final meeting for the SENA campaign wrapped just past six in the evening, and when it did, the whole team collapsed into the kind of breathless, punch-drunk relief that only came after weeks of grinding stress. The client had smiled—really smiled—nodding with that satisfied gleam that meant yes, we’ll approve this. And after all the deck revisions, sleepless nights, and minor nervous breakdowns over kerning, it was over.

Well, almost.

There were still deliverables to be sent and a final polish on assets due after the holidays, but for now, the worst was behind them.

The office emptied out like water from a cracked bowl. Laughter floated in from the hallway as teams said goodnight, Merry Christmas, and see you next year. People grabbed their coats with the giddy, weightless energy of students released into summer break—even if it was only a long weekend.

Sieun packed up his laptop slowly. His limbs were heavy, not unpleasantly so, like being wrapped in a wool blanket after running a marathon in the snow. It wasn’t satisfaction, exactly, more like the quiet after a storm. He was grateful for it.

“Hey,” Beomseok called from the doorway, holding something bundled in his arms. “Before you leave.”

Sieun turned, blinking.

Beomseok stepped forward and held it out—a deep red scarf, neatly folded, soft-looking and impossibly warm.

Sieun stared at it. “What…?”

“Merry Christmas,” Beomseok said, his grin sheepish, ears pink from the hallway’s cold draft. “I didn’t know if you were the type to celebrate, but… I wanted to give you something.”

Sieun was silent for a long beat. “I didn’t get you anything.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” Beomseok shrugged. “You don’t strike me as the sentimental type.”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled, then added, “I made it, by the way. Knitted it.”

Sieun’s eyebrows shot up. “You knit?”

“Picked it up a while ago. Um, it helps me… think.” Beomseok scratched the back of his neck. “I made myself one too—blue. S-so we’re matching now. Kinda dumb, huh?”

It was dumb. The idea of matching scarves. But also—somehow—not. Something about it made Sieun feel like he’d been seen without having to be exposed. The effort. The time. The red was exactly the kind of color Sieun never would’ve picked for himself, but he could already imagine it keeping him warm in the wind.

“It’s not dumb,” he said quietly, taking it. “It’s… nice.”

He didn’t know how else to say it. But Beomseok beamed like it was enough.

Outside, the sky was a faded indigo—winter dusk settling over Seoul like a quiet sigh. Office towers blinked with lights still on inside, and Sieun stood at the bus stop with his scarf tucked under his chin, fingers brushing the yarn, still slightly stiff from being new.

It was a good day, by all external measures. The campaign was a success. He’d survived the hardest season of the year without breaking. He had people—Beomseok, Seokdae—who gave enough of a damn to keep him fed and moving.

Tomorrow, it would only be him and Seokdae hanging out together.

And yet—

What he had with Seokdae, he guessed, was some kind of friendship. Like the one with Beomseok. Not like what he’d had—or tried to have—with Suho. He didn’t let himself call it anything more than that.

Because if he did… if he named the thing he felt, he’d have to admit he’d broken his own heart.

And Sieun was too logical for that.

Too practiced at survival.

Too scared to think that maybe, just maybe, the thing that once felt chaotic and uncontrollable—his feelings for Suho—weren’t fleeting at all. Maybe it wasn’t just a fever. But it was easier to pretend. To package it neatly. To say: it’s over now.

He kept himself wrapped in pragmatism.

Still, every now and then, when he looked up from his desk, he’d catch Seokdae watching him. The gaze never lingered inappropriately, but there was something there. A softness. Like Seokdae gave him a little more space than he would give others. Like he trusted Sieun’s instincts before they were spoken aloud. Like he found the rough drafts of Sieun’s designs already good enough.

They must had similar creative taste.

That was all.

Sieun wondered if, maybe, not all things had to start with stabbing wounds and homecooked meals to matter.

Some bonds grow quietly. Like red scarves handed over in fluorescent light.

Like warmth that returns, even after long Decembers. And that was rare, rare enough to feel like progress.

Maybe even hope.

Hope that maybe—just maybe—that was enough. Enough to patch over the hollow place in his chest left by a boy he couldn’t bring himself to call. The boy whose name burned behind his throat when the room got too quiet.

But that’s how life worked. You chose what you could carry. You chose what you could bury.

On the morning of the 24th, Sieun found himself standing in front of his closet like a man staring down a question he didn’t know how to answer.

It wasn’t that he had nothing to wear. It was just… none of it felt quite right.

Rows of pressed shirts and muted sweaters stared back at him, variations of charcoal, navy, and grey. They were the same things he wore to work, to meetings, to weekends spent alone with a laptop and a silent apartment. He owned exactly one coat that wasn’t black. And the idea of wearing the same expressionless outfit to an amusement park on Christmas Eve—well. It didn’t sit right.

Not that he was trying to impress anyone. It wasn’t a date. It wasn’t even anything significant. Just a favor to Seokdae. A festival. Dinner. Two adults blowing off steam after finishing the biggest project of the quarter.

But still.

He thought about how, back when he spent time with Suho—at the PC bang, playing pool, browsing bookstores on rainy evenings—he’d worn the same uniform: work clothes, or a hoodie with jeans, always in grayscale. Suho had never commented. Had never seemed to care. Sometimes Sieun wondered if that was part of what made Suho so easy to be around.

But an amusement park on Christmas... maybe that was different. Maybe that was the kind of outing where you were supposed to look like you tried.

In the end, he settled on a beige coat over an ivory knit, paired with cream trousers—not something he usually wore, too soft in tone, too quiet. He looked—he didn’t know—softer? Brighter? Like someone who maybe didn’t always carry rainclouds in his posture.

At the door, he paused. Then turned back.

He went to the table, picked up the red scarf Beomseok had given him, and looped it around his neck. The pop of color was strange on him. But warm. It felt like something he could carry with him.

When he met Seokdae outside the station entrance, he blinked. For a moment, he didn’t recognize him.

Gone was the crisp white shirt and sharp lines of a team lead. Instead, Seokdae wore a dark green wool coat, layered over a black thick knit, with tapered pants and leather gloves. The outfit was simple, clean, masculine—but casual enough to feel like he belonged among the crowd of couples and families streaming toward the lights.

Funny how clothes could shift someone’s entire aura. Seokdae still looked strong, built like someone who had never skipped a day at the gym. But he also looked younger, somehow. Less intimidating. Like someone who was allowed to laugh easily.

“You look different. But nice, I mean,” Sieun said, mostly out of surprise.

Seokdae smiled, eyes flicking to the scarf. “You too. That red suits you.”

It was the kind of comment friends gave when they were trying to make the air feel lighter.

They rarely hung out alone like this. Usually, it was Beomseok, or some other team member, or a coffee run between rounds of revisions. Now it was just them.

The awkwardness was faint, like standing in a room where the heater hadn’t kicked in yet.

Seokdae was still himself—calm, measured—but there was something careful about him. Like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be too casual. He asked about Sieun’s commute. Mentioned the cold. Commented on how the SENA client had sent a “thank you” email that morning.

They talked about work. About past clients who had driven them insane. About inflation and election cycles and the latest weird food trend. It was easy, even if sparse. Sieun supposed that’s how it was when two men who weren’t naturally talkative tried to fill time.

There were moments of silence. Not exactly uncomfortable ones. Just stillness.

But then—

Sieun stopped breathing.

He saw them through the blur of holiday lights and drifting snowflakes, across the buzzing festival crowd.

Ahn Suho. And Kang Naeun.

They looked like they belonged here. Like they'd been born from this night—etched into the backdrop of tinsel and neon, of warm drinks and winter scarves.

Suho’s hair was longer now, grown out enough that the fringe brushed over his lashes. Messy. Careless. It suited him more than it should. He wore a shearling-lined jacket, black jeans that fit too well, and those battered sneakers he swore he’d never replace. Naeun stood beside him in a pale coat, fur hood framing her perfect hair, her cheeks flushed from the cold. She was talking animatedly, probably nagging him about something, and Suho grinned back, mouth curling into that lopsided smirk that used to knock the air out of Sieun’s lungs.

They looked like something out of a winter ad campaign. Plucked from the cover of some youth lifestyle magazine. All soft smiles and shared warmth.

Young. Alive. Effortless.

Like the kind of love story every teenage girl once dreamed of having in high school.

Like everything Sieun could never have.

His stomach twisted.

It had to be tonight. Of all nights. Out of all the damn places in the city.

He instinctively stepped closer to Seokdae—half hiding behind his broad frame like a child. Like a coward. His eyes wanted to flick away, to run, but they wouldn’t. They couldn’t. His gaze stayed locked on Suho like a habit he never broke.

Suho looked... good. Too good. And it made something in Sieun’s chest feel like it was caving in. He looked healthier than the last time he saw him, but maybe just a little leaner than before. Had he been eating enough? Sleeping?

There was something else too. In the way he held himself.

Still young. But steadier. Softer, more grounded. Like whatever storms had once lived behind his eyes had finally calmed. Like he’d finally found solid ground under his feet.

Sieun hated that he noticed.

Hated more how his heart leapt at seeing Suho safe. Smiling.

And he smiled too, before he could stop himself. One of those hollow, bitter things people do when their hands are empty and they’re trying to pretend they’re fine.

If he were still Suho’s hyung—

If he still had the right—he would’ve crossed the distance. Slapped the back of Suho’s head. Teased him. Ruffled his hair and asked, “How’s the date, loverboy?” or “You kids eaten yet?”

But that version of him—that role—was long gone. Not like he could act so nonchalant in front of them when he was still “a hyung” anyway.

He gave it up.

He walked away.

And now?

He was just another stranger. He wasn’t even a footnote in that story.

An extra flickering in the corner of someone else's happily-ever-after. The one who doesn’t even get a line in the story.

He should’ve looked away. Turned his back. Walked the hell out of there and left this scene untouched.

But then—

Suho turned.

And their eyes met like a wound reopening.

A single second. But it cut like a blade.

Suho’s expression flickered—shock, confusion, something else—and Sieun felt every beat of his heart like it was being counted out loud.

He couldn’t move. His body betrayed him. His feet felt like they’d frozen to the concrete. All he could do was stand there and look back, drowning in the silence that used to be filled with laughter and bickering and things he thought would last longer than they did.

And then—Suho started walking.

Not hesitating. Not looking at Naeun. Just coming straight for him.

Sieun wanted to run. Wanted to vanish. Wanted to turn the clock back to ten minutes ago before this even happened.

But he couldn’t.

He just stood there. Bracing for impact.

Suho stopped in front of him. Closer than he should be. The air between them crackled with something awful and unsaid.

And Suho, with eyes that hadn’t changed at all, said softly—

“Hyung... Long time no see.”

And Sieun—

Almost said, I missed you.

Chapter Text

Suho never thought he’d actually talk to Naeun again after they broke up.

They’d said everything that needed to be said—painfully, awkwardly, and with just enough self-control to avoid ruining each other completely. He figured that was it. They’d part ways, carry their shared silence like a scar, and never look back.

But fate, as always, had a sense of humor.

They ran into each other at the market. Somehow, that counted as a reunion.

A few days later, she sent him a picture of a dumb-looking husky with the caption: “this is you when you think hyung texted but it’s just the data usage alert.”

He replied with a “?”, but he smiled.

A week passed. Then another. The messages got more frequent, snappier, like a rhythm they both fell back into without meaning to.

And somehow—somehow—she was in his phone again, this time as “Naeun 2.0 (Do Not Date)” and he was in hers as “Ahn Delulu Suho 🧟‍♂️.” No longer dating. Just two people who had history and sharp tongues and the kind of rhythm that made it easy to fall back into step.

Then one day she tricked both him and Wooyoung into coming to karaoke.

At first, Suho thought it was a disaster. He and Wooyoung hadn’t spoken properly since the fight, and he wasn’t sure where they stood. What was there for two guys like them to even talk about? The air between them was brittle with awkwardness. But Naeun—being Naeun—wedged herself between them, shouting requests, mocking their song choices, and throwing insults like confetti.

And maybe that was exactly what they needed.

Somehow, by the end of that night, Wooyoung was leaning on Suho’s shoulder during the last chorus of an old ballad, howling off-key. And Suho was laughing again. For real.

It was… healing.

Not a cure. But something close.

What surprised Suho most, though, was how easy it became to talk to her. Really talk.

After the dust of their breakup settled—and once Naeun was done grieving the loss of their short-lived romance—she started treating him the way she treated her girl besties: with zero boundaries and maximum interrogation.

Which meant prying. Constant, unrelenting prying.

About him. About Sieun.

At first, Suho tried to act cool. Dodged the questions. Grunted out half-truths. But she already knew. Of course she did.

She’d known from the start that Sieun was the reason. The reason he’d drifted. The reason she never really reached his heart.

“You’re not a bad boyfriend,” she’d told him once, lying flat on the karaoke room couch, a lollipop in her mouth. “You’re just in love with someone else. Which is unfortunate for me, but also kind of pathetic for you.”

He’d laughed. A real laugh.

And after that, it got easier.

To talk.

To have someone to say things like “I miss him,” or “Do you think he hates me?”

Naeun never coddled him. She told him when he was being stupid, dramatic, or borderline obsessive. But she listened. She understood.

That kind of comfort—the freedom to say what hurt without guarding it—was new. Strange. But grounding.

Then, just last week, Naeun declared:

“Christmas Eve. Amusement park. You, me, Wooyoung. My bestie’s performing in her band, she’s the bassist-slash-badass. Come early or I’ll unfriend you.”

And here they were.

The park was packed—lights, couples, kids, food carts, buskers, floating strands of music and laughter. Naeun dragged him from one snack stand to another, complaining about the prices and stealing bites from his potato tornado like she’d paid for it.

She kept shoving cotton candy at him. He kept refusing it. She argued that his blood sugar must be low from all the brooding.

He laughed. Genuinely. It was... nice.

He didn’t think about Sieun at all until he saw him.

One glance across the crowd—and there he was.

Sieun hyung.

He’d spotted him—and it was like all the air was sucked out of the sky.

Suho’s feet locked in place, heart lurching painfully hard against his ribs.

Sieun looked… different.

He wasn’t dressed the way he usually was—no cold neutrals or stiff-collared shirts or shapeless coats. He wore something soft and pale, like beige or ivory, something that made him look warmer. Gentler. And wrapped snug around his neck was a red scarf. Bright red.

Suho blinked. The scarf was the kind of thing Sieun would never buy for himself. Too bold. Too soft. Too loud for a man who dressed like he was trying to disappear.

It’s a gift, Suho realized instantly.

And then—It’s Seokdae’s.

Because standing next to him was that man. Seokdae. The one in the sleek black car who had driven Sieun away that night. The man who appeared in Sieun’s stories as capable and calming.

His chest twisted violently.

The clothes. The scarf. The way they stood side by side.

It wasn’t hard to connect the dots.

They were on a date, weren’t they? Somewhere between sharing car rides and Christmas gift and Suho messing thing up, were they… more than friends now?

Suho felt his throat close. He wanted to laugh. Or puke.

He turned to look away—but it was too late.

Sieun was already looking at him. Even before Suho spotted him.

Already watching him.

And that broke something.

Because Sieun’s expression wasn’t casual. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t even indifferent.

It was… indescribable.

Like he’d seen a ghost. Or like the sight of Suho hurt more than he was ready to admit.

Why did he look like that?

If he hated Suho—if he resented everything that happened that night—then why didn’t he look away?

Why did he still—

Suho’s body moved before his mind caught up.

One step. Then another.

He didn’t tell his feet to move. They just did.

He crossed through the crowd like gravity was pulling him forward—like nothing else existed, not Naeun’s voice calling his name, not the screaming kids, not the music pulsing through the speakers.

And Sieun—he didn’t move.

He stood frozen. Like a deer caught in the headlights.

Watching Suho come closer and closer.

Not backing away. Not hiding.

Just standing there, wide-eyed, lips parted slightly, as if breathing had become difficult.

And then, finally, when they were only a few feet apart—

Suho stopped.

The silence between them roared.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, unsure what to do with them. Unsure what to do with himself.

The wind blew between them. The scarf around Sieun’s neck fluttered slightly.

Suho swallowed hard. Then, quietly—so quietly it might have broken if he said it any louder—

“Hyung,” he said.

His voice cracked faintly around the word.

“Long time no see.”

It took a second too long for anyone to react. Maybe because no one was expecting it—especially not Sieun.

Suho had walked right up to them, expression unreadable, footsteps heavy with something unspoken. The lights overhead buzzed faintly, casting a pale glow over the small space between them. Seokdae was halfway through asking if the kid knew him—his tone polite but distant—until Naeun suddenly blinked and exclaimed, “Wait! Seokdae oppa?”

Her surprise cracked through the tension like a pebble on glass.

Naeun blinked, then leaned forward slightly, squinting at Seokdae like she needed to double-check. “Seokdae oppa, don’t you recognize me?”

Seokdae raised a brow. “…Naeun?”

A laugh burst out of her, more amused than anything. “No freaking way. Youngyi told me her brother might come today, but I never thought I would run into you like this.” She turned to Sieun then, eyes wide with playful accusation. “You never told me you work with him!”

Sieun barely managed a polite smile. “Didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“Please,” she said, already grinning. “I’ve known him since I was, like, ten. I used to third-wheel all of Youngyi’s hangouts.”

She looked between them again—Seokdae, Sieun, then Suho. Her brows shot up slightly, amused. “Wow. What a small world.”

And then her gaze landed on Suho.

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. Something about the way she looked at him—then at Sieun again—was just a little too observant. Like she was watching pieces click into place behind someone else’s eyes.

Because Suho hadn’t looked away.

Not once.

Sieun could feel the weight of it. That unwavering gaze. Like Suho was memorizing something he'd never be allowed to see again.

It made Sieun’s heart lurch in a way he hated.

Why was Suho looking at him like that—especially when his girlfriend was right there?

But Naeun only smiled wider, stepping forward. “Anyway, this is too weird to process all at once,” she said, already slipping her arm through Seokdae’s with casual ease. “Let’s catch up. Been forever since I saw you at a birthday party or a text message.”

Seokdae blinked. “Wait, right now—?”

“Yeah, yeah, just a bit,” she said, waving off his protest. Then, with a teasing glance at Sieun, she added, “Don’t worry, I’ll return your colleague in one piece.”

And with that, she dragged Seokdae away into the crowd, tossing one last glance over her shoulder at Sieun and Suho.

There was a grin on her face. Sieun had no idea what to make of it.

And just like that, Sieun was left alone with Suho.

Suho was there—close enough to feel, too close to ignore. The air between them stretched taut and thin, as if the space might crack if either of them moved the wrong way.

He didn’t say anything.

He just stood there. Looking at Sieun.

Not with annoyance. Not even with guilt. But with something softer. Sadder. The way someone might look at a familiar place that used to feel like home, before it had been remodeled into something unrecognizable. Something that no longer belonged to them.

Sieun’s throat tightened. “So…”

The word scraped out like a pebble kicked down the road. Useless and small.

He didn’t know what to say. His voice felt foreign. Everything inside him was stiff and delicate, like one wrong step might send it all shattering.

It had never been awkward with Suho before. Not really. Even when things were tense, their silences used to hum with understanding. But now? Now it was all static.

Suho finally spoke. Quiet, but steady. “Do you wanna talk? Somewhere quieter?”

Sieun could only nod.

They found a bench off to the side, tucked beneath a flickering string of lights. The crowd’s noise softened to a distant murmur, and music from the speakerd washed over them in echoey waves. The cold nipped at Sieun’s ears, crept through the seams of his coat, but he barely noticed.

They sat. Apart, far enough to feel like the rift that was opened between them that morning never closed.

And for a while, they just sat.

Then, tentatively, they began the slow, careful dance of catching up.

“How’s work?” Suho asked.

Sieun exhaled through his nose. “Busy. Tiring. Same as always.”

“Still that huge project?”

“Yeah. Do you think I’d drop it by now?”

Suho let out a small laugh. “Wouldn’t suit you. You’re too responsible.”

“How’s school?”

“Still the same. We’re having a lot of exams recently.”

“You’ll do fine,” Sieun said, voice a touch too fast. “You’re smart. Even if you act like an idiot sometimes.”

Suho smiled. “Thanks, I think.”

There was a pause. The wind threaded through the silence.

Sieun reached for something safer. “How’s your grandma?”

Suho’s expression softened. “Still stubborn. Still refuses to use the heater before December.”

Sieun huffed a laugh. “Sounds like her.”

“She asks about you sometimes.”

Sieun nodded, eyes flicking to the light-strung trees.

“And how’s Beomseok hyung?”

“Yeah. He’s still him. Been helping me a lot.”

Suho nodded once. But his voice didn’t rise again to ask about anyone else. Not Seokdae. And Sieun didn’t ask about Naeun either.

They both chose silence.

And in that silence, came the inevitable.

“I’m sorry,” Suho said.

The words fell like the snow that was falling on top of their hair. Gentle. Barely loud. But they landed with weight.

Sieun didn’t move.

Suho’s voice was low, careful. “For that night. The kiss. Everything. I was drunk, yeah, but… that doesn’t excuse it. I crossed a line. I made things messy. I made you feel unsafe. And I hate that.”

Sieun felt something stir—tight and raw, like a wire pulled too hard inside his chest. Still, he kept his silence.

“I kept thinking about what you said,” Suho continued. “About boundaries. About how things should be simple. And I think… you were right.”

He looked down at his hands. “It’s been a weird month. Not seeing you. Not hearing from you. But it gave me clarity. It made me realize how much I messed up.”

His next words came slower, thick with effort.

“I want to start again. Just as friends. I’ll be better this time. I’ll respect you. As a hyung. Just like you asked.”

The phrase as a hyung rang like a bell in Sieun’s head. Hollow. Deafening.

There it was.

Everything he wanted. Clear lines. Defined roles. Safety.

And yet, something inside him recoiled. Twitched like a flame trying to shrink away from cold water.

Because part of him wanted to take it back. That boundary. That distance. That rule.

He wanted to unsay every careful thing he’d ever built between them.

And that scared him more than anything.

He couldn’t want that.

He wasn’t allowed to want that.

So he swallowed it down. All of it. Swallowed hard until it sat bitter in his stomach. And he nodded.

A single nod. Enough to accept. Not enough to mean anything more.

They talked after that, a little more easily, like the worst part had passed. Suho mentioned that his boss at the delivery center was still surviving on sugar-free energy drinks and spite. Sieun laughed, he missed hearing Suho complain. Suho didn’t say that he missed having someone to complain to.

It was in the middle of a sentence, mid-laugh, that his phone buzzed.

He glanced at it. Seokdae.

He hesitated. Suho was still smiling faintly, waiting for him to finish whatever story he’d started.

But Sieun picked up. “Yeah?”

Seokdae’s voice was easy. “Naeun went to meet up with the band. She said if Suho wants to join later, she’ll send the location.”

A pause.

Then: “Also, dinner? Still on?”

Right. The reservation. He had promised.

“Yeah,” Sieun said. “I didn’t forget.”

When he ended the call, Suho was still there. Still waiting. Still warm in that awful, aching way.

Sieun stood up. “I guess… this is where we part for tonight. I have dinner plans.”

Suho nodded slowly. “Sure. I guess we’ll see each other again when the band plays.”

“Yeah.”

And that was that.

They went their separate ways.

Just… a quiet, clean split. Letting go without holding back.

But every step Sieun took away from him felt wrong.

Because despite everything, it still felt unfinished. Like a door only halfway shut. Like an apology accepted too late. And worse of all, even when they had agreed to “start again”, it was like a goodbye no one knew they were saying.

Behind him, the music rose—bright, festive, alive.

But inside him, all Sieun heard was silence. And the echo of a voice saying hyung when all he wanted was anything but.

The restaurant stood like a glass-encased jewel box perched above the city, lit from within by low chandeliers that spilled golden light across rows of snow-white tablecloths and murmuring patrons. Sieun followed Seokdae inside and was immediately aware of how out of place he felt. The host greeted them with a quiet bow and a practiced smile, then led them through the hushed dining room, past businessmen in tailored coats and couples clinking wine glasses over candlelight.

This wasn’t unfamiliar. It just wasn’t pleasant.

This place felt like those restaurants his mother always insisted on going, when they very rarely meet—high ceilings, small portions, menus with no prices. A controlled setting where nothing spontaneous could happen. She liked it that way. It let her keep the world—or rather, him—at a polite distance.

It wasn’t Seokdae’s fault. If anything, Sieun was grateful. He could imagine the effort it must’ve taken to reserve this kind of restaurant a week before Christmas. But the similar image clung to him, making the linen feel too crisp beneath his fingers.

At least Seokdae didn’t hover. He ordered confidently, asked if Sieun was okay with the wine pairing, and filled the space with his usual, grounded energy. Comfortable. Easy.

"I was actually worried back there," Seokdae said after their starters arrived. “Naeun just hijacked me out of nowhere. Thought I was abandoning you.”

Sieun gave a small smile. “It was fine.”

"But she told me you and that kid are friends. The one you were talking to.”

Sieun paused, swirling his glass slightly. “...Yeah.”

“You’re full of surprises,” Seokdae chuckled. “Didn’t know you had friends at that age.”

Sieun shrugged, trying not to overthink the direction this was going.

“I mean, seriously,” Seokdae added. “That boy looked like he stepped out of a drama series. Handsome. Kind of the popular punk type, no?”

Sieun didn’t answer immediately. The word “handsome” snagged in his brain longer than it should have.

Then Seokdae’s brow furrowed as something clicked. “Wait. Is that the kid you bought seolleongtang for? That night after we all worked late?”

Sieun’s eyes flicked toward him, then back to his plate. “Yeah.”

“Huh.” Seokdae leaned back slightly, digesting that. “Didn’t expect that one.”

Sieun didn’t offer more. He stabbed a piece of roasted beet and tasted nothing as he chewed. In his mind, Suho’s face lingered—wide eyes under the glow of carousel lights. Why had he looked so shocked to see Sieun? And why hadn’t Sieun looked away first?

He shook himself out of the thought and focused back on Seokdae, who was recounting something Naeun had said about the band. Sieun tried to stay present. He really did.

But he zoned out once. Midway through the main course. His eyes drifted to the snow-touched window, and for a second, he imagined Suho was out there somewhere in the crowd—laughing with Naeun, maybe finding warmth in huddling up together and playing carnival games.

“Hey,” Seokdae said, his voice low but gently amused. “You with me?”

Sieun blinked. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“You keep spacing out. Is there something on your mind?” Seokdae asked it casually, not with judgment, but something like curiosity.

Sieun took a sip of water and deflected. “Just tired.”

The mood didn’t sour. Seokdae didn’t push. Instead, he gestured toward the little box he’d set beside his plate and nudged it across the table.

“Merry Christmas, by the way. Thought I’d give you this now—before we both forget.”

Sieun looked at it, surprised. The box was elegant, wrapped with a simple dark ribbon.

Inside was a dark, lacquered fountain pen resting in a velvet-lined case, the cap subtly engraved with his initials. The metal gleamed under the restaurant’s warm light — not loud or flashy, but undeniably personal.

“You seem like the type to use one,” Seokdae said, watching him closely. “Or at least keep it on you. Just in case.”

Sieun didn’t know what to say. The gift looked like Seokdae actually put his heart into it. More meaningful than he’d expected. He looked up to thank him, and found Seokdae already smiling.

“...You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” Seokdae said, smiling. “But I wanted to.”

He looked pleased. Pure happiness. It was a rare expression on him, and Sieun didn’t quite know what to do with it. So he reached into his coat and pulled out his own gift, wrapped neatly in matte white paper with a simple silver string.

“Here,” he said, a bit awkward. “I didn’t want to show up empty-handed.”

Seokdae blinked, then laughed softly as he unwrapped it. Inside was a modest but well-made leather desk organizer—practical, elegant, but quite generic, the kind of thing a subordinate might give their superior.

But Seokdae didn’t seem to mind. In fact, his grin widened.

“You got me a gift,” he said with quiet amusement, as if it meant something more than the object itself. “You’re really full of surprises today.”

Sieun didn’t answer. He just watched Seokdae run a thumb along the stitched edge of the organizer with a pleased hum.

They checked the time soon after. The band was probably setting up by now.

“I’ll pay,” Seokdae said, reaching for the check.

“You reserved the restaurant,” Sieun replied. “Let me split at least.”

There was a brief tug-of-war. Eventually, Seokdae relented with a smile and a small shake of his head, like he knew better than to argue with him too hard.

As they stood and shrugged on their coats, Sieun adjusted the red scarf around his neck, soft and warm. He wondered vaguely what Suho had thought when he saw it. Had he noticed?

The thought slipped in uninvited, and Sieun hated how it made his chest feel.

As they stepped out into the cold night again, he followed Seokdae down the lit path back toward the amusement park, his hands deep in his pockets and his head cluttered with things he couldn’t say.

The crowd was already gathering again by the time Sieun and Seokdae returned to the plaza stage, their breath misting faintly in the December air. The acoustic singer before them was wrapping up, her voice gentle as the breeze, and Sieun could feel the hush settle around them like a soft curtain falling.

A few seconds later, the MC announced the next act.

“Up next is one of our local indie bands, An-core! Let’s give them a warm welcome!”

Cheers erupted. The lights shifted into a dusky amber hue.

Sieun watched as four young figures stepped onto the stage with the uncoordinated ease of people who’d done this together too many times to care about being smooth. The tallest and bulkiest of them—clearly the loud one—threw a fist in the air, hollering into the mic.

“Whaaat’s up! I’m Baku! We’re An-core, and we’re here to rock your Christmas!”

The crowd responded enthusiastically.

Baku was the guitarist and lead vocalist, huge like a bear, wild-haired and infectious. Gotak, the drummer, looked more like a taekwondo athlete than a rocker. Juntae, the keyboardist with glasses, adjusted his mic like a diligent student about to give a class presentation. And then there was Youngyi—bassist, only girl, with her shoulder-length red hair, was confidently tuning her strings.

Sieun stood beside Seokdae, arms crossed, scarf pulled close to his jawline. The scarf was warm—he must admit that Beomseok was pretty talented at this—but the cold still found its way under his skin.

The band opened with a fast-paced rock number that got people clapping and moving. The second song was just as energetic, filling the space with the heady buzz of guitars and laughter and flashing lights. People danced in their scarves and boots, and for a second, Sieun let himself get caught in the rhythm.

“They’re pretty good,” he murmured.

Seokdae nodded. “Yeah. I didn't expect much, but they’re tight.”

Sieun smiled faintly. He could see how these four probably met in some art room or club meeting and decided, why not?There was a warmth in their energy, in the easy looks they shared, the non-verbal rhythm of years spent together.

He didn’t have that kind of youth. Never did. And watching it from the outside made something old stir quietly in his chest.

Between songs, Baku leaned into the mic again.

“This next one’s for the sad people in the crowd,” he joked. “Sorry in advance—our bassist insisted.”

Youngyi gave a peace sign to the crowd. “It’s a fan favorite on our SoundCloud,” she said, then added with a cheeky grin, “even though it’s probably too depressing for Christmas Eve.”

The lights dimmed to a colder blue. Then the song began.

"잊지 못할 것 같던 추억을 꺼낸 날

너무 따뜻했던 꿈 한겨울의 그날

(I begin to take out the memories that had felt unforgettable

Memories of that one winter day that had been so warm like a dream…)"

The first note hit like breath fogging glass. A subtle ache, building.

Sieun stilled. His fingers curled gently into his sleeves.

"우리가 한 가득 남겨둔

집 앞 벤치 위 온기가

 

소리 없이 사라져가

(Every inch of the temperature that we had left on the bench in the front porch

Disappears away without a sound…)"

His thoughts drifted, uninvited.

To Suho.

To the bench outside the convenience store where Suho had passed him the hangover cure drink, laughing at something he accidentally overshared. To the tiny moments stitched together through the fall. The warmth of another person that had once fit into the quiet of his life like it belonged.

“Goodbye…”

Sieun blinked. The lyrics had shifted.

"어제까지 난

내 안에서 얼어붙은 채로

 

그대로

 

Never let go

 

Never let go ah

(Up until yesterday

It was freezing inside me while I remained the way I was;

Never let go, never let go…)"

He breathed out slowly.

Never let go.

That had been him, hadn’t it? Wanting to hold onto something that couldn’t stay the same. Wanting to keep Suho exactly as he was—bright, fearless, his Suho—but only in the quiet spaces between words, never in the way that would make him stay.

He glanced to his right.

Suho was there. A few groups over. Laughing lightly with Naeun.

And next to Naeun was another boy. Taller than Sieun expected, wiry, and familiar in a secondhand way.

Wooyoung. He’d seen his photos before—Suho showed him once, back when they were still close.

Now Naeun leaned over to whisper something to her brother, who grinned. Then she turned to Suho and whispered something else. Suho flinched, half-flustered, and gently batted her arm. She pouted and pretended to be hurt, but Sieun couldn’t hear what they were saying.

It was probably just a joke. Probably.

"언제까지나

내 안에서 영원할 것 같던

 

너를

 

Gotta let go

 

Gotta let go ah

(For once and for all

To you, who seemed as if you would remain in me forever;

Gotta let go, gotta let go…)"

That part hit harder than he thought it would.

The chant in the song felt like his own voice turned inward. A rational mantra:

Gotta let go. Gotta let go.

Let go of the versions of Suho that only existed in memory.

Let go of that kiss.

Let go of the Suho who was crying on his chest, saying that he was lonely, begging for Sieun too stay, and that he was the only one he ever wanted.

Because now, Suho had made the right decision, said he would respect him. Said they should really be friends—like actual friends. Hyung and dongsaeng.

Sieun had agreed. Because that was the right answer. That was how adults moved on. That was how kids grew up.

"니가 있던

겨울이 간다

(The winter where I had been with you is leaving…)"

He kept watching Suho’s side profile, even though he shouldn’t have. Suho wasn’t looking at him anymore.

And why would he be?

Surrounded by his girlfriend, his best friends. The kind of life that made sense for someone like him.

Sieun stood in the middle of the crowd, the music ringing around him, and felt—quietly—like a bystander in a life he used to belong to.

"지치게 만들던 널 놓지 못했던

그 계절 속에서 난 살고 있었잖아

(I was made exhausted, and letting go of you had been impossible

Don't you know that I had lived through such a season?)"

Sieun’s gaze drifted down to the tips of his shoes, one of them dusted lightly with snow.

"이걸로 된 거야 이미 끝난걸 다 알아

나 전부 다 알아 나 이젠

(This will do it, I already know that it's over

I know all about it, and now, for me...)"

A shift in the air made him look up.

Across the crowd, Suho had turned.

Their eyes met—just for a second.

And for the second time that night, Suho caught him staring.

"니가 있던

겨울이 간다

(The winter where I had been with you is leaving…)"

They both smiled.

The applause rose up as the song ended, scattered and warm. The crowd whistled and cheered, clapping along as the band bowed.

And Suho turned away first.

While Sieun just stood there, caught inside something softer and more difficult than he could name.

Winter would be leaving soon.

But a part of him still stood at its edge, looking back.

Chapter Text

The office lights always felt softer in spring. Less sterile, somehow. Or maybe Sieun had just grown used to the rhythm here—had found his corner of the hive and claimed it, finally, not as a temporary pitstop but as something resembling stability.

The SENA project had wrapped with quiet applause and two bottles of cheap champagne, one of which had exploded in Seokdae’s hands and soaked the carpet. That was two months ago. Since then, things had settled like dust in the sunbeam: calm, warm, and not particularly exciting, which was fine. More than fine.

He and Beomseok had been permanently transferred to Seokdae’s team. No more being under the dictator reign of Yeongbin, no more late nights filled with dread about whether this was all leading somewhere. They were here now, officially, in the same orbit.

League had become routine now, too—except this time, it wasn’t with Suho.

Beomseok, of all people, had picked it up. Said it started with some guy he reconnected with at the church over Christmas. A friend from when they were both kids in the orphanage.

They didn’t talk much at first. Just a polite nod, an awkward greeting between near-strangers with distant ties. But the guy—calm, warm-voiced—had asked if Beomseok played League after some small talks. Beomseok, surprised, had blurted out the truth: “No. Never tried it.”

“Well,” the guy had said with a quiet grin, “you should. You look like a support main.”

So Beomseok downloaded it that same night, squinted through the dizzying UI, and died repeatedly within the first five minutes of every match. Still, the guy was patient, praising him with light-hearted encouragements like, “Not bad for a beginner,” or “Hey, you actually saved me there.”

Which was clearly a lie, but a kind one.

Back at the office, Beomseok showed up early the next day, dragging Sieun aside before anyone else clocked in. “Hey,” he whispered urgently, as if confessing to a crime, “you’re good at League, right? Can you… teach me?”

Sieun looked at him, confused. “Why?”

“I just need to get better. Fast.”

Sieun squinted at him. “You’re trying to impress someone?”

Beomseok flushed. “I’m not telling you that.”

But he did anyway.

So their afterwork routine shifted. Sieun, who always mained mid when playing with Suho, reluctantly took on the role of AD. Beomseok was his support—well, technically. For the first week, Sieun spent more time reviving and repositioning than actually attacking. But Beomseok was earnest. He even watched YouTube guides during lunch breaks. He never said the guy’s name, but there was a brightness in his face when they queued up, the kind of subtle hope that needed no explanation.

That brightness always reminded him of Suho, when the kid first wanted to teach Sieun how to play his various online games.

Sometimes, Sieun caught himself wanting to text Suho. Just a quick “Wanna join?” or “We need a jungler.” But Suho was rarely online now. And the window for that kind of spontaneity seemed to have quietly closed.

So he let the urge pass. Mostly.

“You and Suho,” Beomseok asked one night, out of nowhere, while they waited in queue for a League match. “You guys okay?”

Sieun blinked. On screen, his cursor hovered over Jhin.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re good. Why?”

Beomseok shrugged, eyes flicking to his monitor. “Dunno. Just feels a little different, that’s all.”

Sieun didn’t answer for a second, waiting until the game loaded and the map lit up in its usual, familiar haze of digital color. “It’s not something you need to worry about,” he said, carefully. “Really.”

He didn’t mean to lie. And maybe it wasn’t one. Just a deflection. The truth was—there was no fallout. No rift. Just… a shift.

After Christmas, something between him and Suho had quietly rearranged itself. No confrontation, no explanation. Just a mutual, invisible line that had been drawn.

They still talked. Still sent each other memes or bizarre food photos or ranted about the dumbest subplot in their favorite manga. Suho still texted things like “Old man I saw a dog that looked like you” and Sieun still replied “Did it look tired and done with life?” without missing a beat. They hung out, too—grabbed quick meals, traded complaints about school and work—but that was it.

Suho no longer brought him dinner after shifts. No longer flopped on his couch like he belonged there. No longer shouted “Delivery!” before letting himself into Sieun’s space.

And Sieun never asked why.

Because he already knew.

It was easier this way—easier to look at Suho and pretend nothing had ever been unsaid between them. Easier not to feel that familiar ache when Suho sat on the other side of a café booth, just a little too far, with his hood pulled low and his laugh quieter than before.

But the ache never really left. It just softened into something tolerable. Manageable. Like a sore muscle after a long run.

Still, life moved on. And Sieun moved with it.

Seokdae was a polar opposite existence to Suho’s. He was older, steadier, with a strange mix of goofiness and depth that made Sieun feel strangely at ease. Their cinema nights had started with one screening—a classic Korean movie about vengeance, “Oldboy”—and turned into a weekly tradition.

Sieun had never thought of himself as a movie person. He always found them either too loud or too long, too shallow or too indulgent. But these films—the quiet ones, the heavy ones—sat with him long after the credits rolled.

Afterward, they’d walk. Sometimes talk. Sometimes just roam quiet backstreets under the soft hum of street lamps. Seokdae always had opinions. Sieun mostly listened. And when he spoke, Seokdae never interrupted.

They’d talk about plot holes, symbolism, flawed protagonists who made terrible decisions and still somehow earned redemption.

Sometimes, Sieun thought about how he used to talk to Suho like this. Thought about the way Suho used to fall asleep mid-ramble, curled up on the couch, mumbling half-formed thoughts about manga and MMA and microwave dumplings.

But he didn’t say any of that.

This—whatever this was—was new. And good. And he didn’t want to compare it to the past.

One afternoon, as they left the office together, Beomseok walked beside him with his usual unhurried pace.

“You’re different lately,” he said.

Sieun looked up. “How?”

“I don’t know, less tired, maybe.” A beat. “Happier?”

Sieun considered it. “Maybe just more okay.”

“More okay is still better than not okay.”

Sieun gave a small smile. The kind that didn’t quite reach the eyes but didn’t need to. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

Maybe that’s why it felt easier now—to laugh at Beomseok’s terrible puns, to linger longer than necessary in the break room after lunch, to let Seokdae drag him to obscure film screenings on Thursday nights and ramble about lighting choices over lukewarm coffee. It wasn’t just coping anymore. It was… company.

That night, as Sieun sat at his desk, zoning out while waiting for Beomseok to log on, his phone buzzed once.

A text from Suho.

Suho
You saw the new volume dropped?

Sieun stared at it for a second before typing back.

You already read it?

Suho
Obviously. My boy Gray got beat up again lol

Sieun smiled, just a little. Then typed:

Save spoilers for when we hang out.

A pause.

Suho
Sure. When are you free?

I’ll let you know.

He meant it.

But as he set his phone down, something tugged faintly at his chest. Maybe that was the subtle awareness of what had changed, and what hadn’t.

Suho was still here. Just not where he used to be.

And maybe that was okay, too.

The holidays passed with surprising quiet.

For the first time in a while, Suho found himself waking up without an ache in his shoulders or an alarm dragging him from sleep with the force of survival. No icy wind against his neck on a motorbike at dawn, no bitter grease clinging to his fingers from late-night deliveries. Grandma had sat him down just after New Year, placing a yellowed envelope of bank slips in front of him with a firm look in her eyes.

“You’re a senior now. You’re not working two jobs anymore,” she said. “I’ve been saving since you were born. What’s the point if it doesn’t help you now?”

He argued, of course—because pride was hard to kill, and so was guilt. But she scolded him until he agreed to drop the delivery gig. The BBQ joint he kept. He liked the people there, liked the rhythm of wiping down tables and taking orders. But letting go of one job left him… lighter.

Suho had always believed that if you worked hard enough—fought hard enough—you could make anything happen. But no amount of bruised fists or late-night deliveries could fix failing grades. His test scores were in the gutter. He knew it. His teachers knew it. And his homeroom teacher had stopped calling his name with any hope in his voice.

Before, he’d just slept through the lessons, head on his arms, too tired to lift his pen. But it wasn’t because he didn’t care. It was because his body couldn’t keep up.

So it felt weird at first when he stopped exhausting himself every single day of the week. He still worked the evening shifts at the barbecue joint—he wanted to keep earning something—but suddenly, he had more free time. He went home before dark several times a week. Ate real meals. Slept eight hours on his own bed.

And little by little, something inside him shifted.

He didn’t want to just pass. He wanted to get into college. Not for some big career dream—he wasn’t sure he even had one—but because he wanted to be someone Grandma could be proud of. Someone who didn’t always need to be pitied or worried about. Someone more like Sieun.

He never told anyone that. Not Naeun, not even himself aloud.

But maybe Naeun saw through him anyway, because one afternoon when they were walking back from the convenience store, she elbowed him in the ribs and said, “You know Baku’s forming a study group, right? You should join.”

“Study group?” Suho raised a brow. “Baku? That guy’s worse than me.”

“That’s why it’s funny. Juntae’s the tutor. He got into Seoul Uni early decision already.”

“And the others?”

“Complete disasters. Just like you.”

She grinned, and Suho groaned.

But he showed up anyway.

And he kept showing up.

The group of said disasters, were the band he met on Christmas Eve, An-core.

Baku, or Park Humin, was loud and explosive, with arms like cannons and a laugh that shook buildings. Gotak, or Go Hyuntak, just as strong, had a softer smile but a kick as quick as panther when provoked. They were childhood friends, constantly bickering like two five-year-olds, but they never turned it on each other. Their loyalty was brutal and sacred.

Youngyi was the quiet emo bassist who barely spoke but had a sharp wit when she did. She hated boys on principle, except for the ones she adopted as her idiots, and Suho quickly became one of them.

And then there was Juntae—their keyboardist, tutor, and the only one with consistently good grades. Small and bespectacled, with a soft voice and steadier hands than any of them deserved, he had a calm presence that held the group together. He never raised his voice, never glared—not even when his best friends were being absolute idiots. Which, somehow, only made them dote on him more.

The study group met at Baku’s place, which was really just his parents’ old comic book store before they opened a fried chicken joint—converted into a practice space for the band, and now their de facto hangout. A big kotatsu table sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by bean bags, old amps, and scattered lyric notebooks. Sometimes, the space smelled like instant noodles. Sometimes, like sweaty socks. Most times, like dreams.

Juntae was always the first one there, little glasses perched on his nose, neatly folding out printouts and textbooks like a miniature professor. He was soft-spoken, impossibly patient, and had a knack for explaining things in a way that made even Baku tilt his head and go, “Ohhhh. I get it now… kinda.”

Suho sat across from him one day and stared.

“Something on my face?” Juntae asked, adjusting his glasses.

Suho blinked. “Nah. Just wondering if a hyung I know was like you in high school.”

That earned a confused look.

Suho flushed and shook his head. “Never mind.”

Juntae was like a rabbit—soft, observant, a little skittish. Sieun, by contrast, was a feral cat that bit if you startled him. Still, the hilarious image clung to Suho’s brain longer than it should have.

Should I really be thinking about hyung like that?

Before he could spiral, a loud cackle cut through the room.

“Juntae-ah, you’re so cute when you’re all serious,” Gotak teased, pinching Juntae’s cheek.

Juntae didn’t even blink. “And you’re distracting when I’m serious.”

“Aww, is that your way of saying you love us?”

He shook his head, but there was a tiny, helpless smile he couldn’t quite hide.

Baku flopped beside Suho, laughter shaking his massive frame. “Don’t worry, Suho. You’re still smarter than me. Your scores don’t even need to go up that much to catch up.”

“I sleep in every class,” Suho replied flatly.

It was absurd. Loud. Stupid. But he kept coming back, and the more he returned, the more they treated him like he’d always been part of the band, even if he didn’t know how to play a single instrument.

Gotak, who used to train professionally in taekwondo before blowing out his knee, became the unexpected person Suho talked to the most. They compared injury stories over energy drinks while waiting for everyone else to show up. Sometimes, Suho caught Gotak watching Baku, and the only way he could describe those gazes was familiar.

“You’re better at this than you think,” Gotak muttered once while they reviewed math problems. “You just never had a good enough reason to try.”

Suho didn’t reply, but the words stuck with him for the rest of the night.

He started writing in the margins of his textbook. Not just notes—thoughts. Goals. Questions.

College?

Can I really?

What if I just try harder this week?

He wanted to stop feeling like a failure.

He wanted to stop feeling like the dumb kid in the room.

He wanted—quietly, selfishly—to be someone who could stand next to Sieun again, not as someone to look out for, but as someone who could be leaned on too.

Despite his loud, easygoing front—his cocky grin, his constant joking, the way he threw an arm around anyone without hesitation—Suho had always been lonely.

He was a kid who life had forced to be mature too soon. A kid who never got the luxury of falling apart. A kid who learned, before he even understood the word "sacrifice," that loving someone sometimes meant going without. His father had died in a work accident before he was born, and his mother—too young, too brittle, too afraid—had vanished when he was seven. His grandmother, quiet and resilient and always tired, had been everything since then. So Suho learned how to read her silences. He learned how to stop asking for new sneakers when his old ones were worn through. He learned to say "I'm fine" every time she looked at him with worry in her eyes.

At seventeen, when other kids were skipping class or chasing summer crushes or worrying about grades, Suho was giving up his MMA dream to work two part-time jobs. He didn’t complain. Not once. He thought that was what love meant—to choose what someone else needed over what you wanted.

He once had friends. Like Wooyoung, who used to spar with him at the MMA club. But after Suho quit, everyone just… drifted. That’s how things worked when you couldn’t show up to the same places anymore. And at school, it was worse. He slept through class because he was too tired, too burnt out. No one ever woke him up. They whispered about him—called him a fighter, a delinquent, dangerous—but none of them really knew him. The guys respected him when they needed protection. The girls liked him in that shallow, surface way: enough to giggle when he passed, enough to eat with him once or twice. But no one stayed. Not really.

And still, Suho endured it. Because what else could he do?

An adult-like child was still a child, after all.

Which was why when Sieun came into his life—tired, guarded, but gentle in ways that didn’t look gentle at first—Suho clung. Not in a way he could explain. Not even to himself. But he was obsessed with Sieun. He admired him, wanted to be good enough for him, wanted to be seen—not just as the rough kid with fists and scars, but as someone worth trusting. Someone worth keeping. And before Suho even knew it, he had fallen in love.

Sieun was his first love. And, as last winter came, his first heartbreak.

No one had prepared him for that. For the way all the messy, dangerous emotions surged out of him. Jealousy, confusion, resentment. The need to be held and the fury of being pushed away. He didn’t know how to deal with any of it—how to communicate, how to be rational—because he had never let anyone in close enough to need those skills before.

But now, things were different.

These idiots who called themselves “The greatest high school band in Seoul” took Suho in without question. They didn’t ask about his past, didn’t care that he once went around breaking people’s nose, didn’t walk on eggshells around him. He was just Suho. Loud. Dumb sometimes. Strong. But also good at memorizing history dates and surprisingly decent at harmony when Baku forced him to sing backup during practice.

Suho had once asked them, between bites of tteokbokki and the clatter of chopsticks, “What does An-core mean, anyway?”

Baku, mouth full of fish cake, had grinned and said, “It just sounded cool. Like... y'know, ‘encore.’”

Gotak chimed in with a snort, “Except we spelled it wrong on the poster.”

Apparently, when Baku and Gotak first started the band, they had no real plan beyond “make noise and be awesome.” They heard the word “encore” in English, and thought it would make a badass band name. But when they printed the posters to recruit members, they misspelled it as Ancore. It wasn’t until the entire school saw the poster—and the upperclassmen roasted them for the typo—that Juntae had sighed dramatically, scribbled a little hyphen onto their hand-drawn band logo, and said, “There. Now it looks intentional. Cool and edgy. Like... minimalist branding.”

And just like that, An-core was born.

Suho remembered laughing so hard that day, he nearly choked on tteokbokki. But later, alone on his ride home, the memory stayed with him longer than it should’ve.

That was the thing about them. About youth.

They made mistakes—loud, messy, embarrassing ones. They misspelled things, said dumb stuff, wore hideous matching hoodies to the arcade. And no one cared. Because they were young, and they had the grace of being able to laugh at themselves. To live with no plan and still land on their feet. To fail a test and fix it with a tutoring session and a song practice after.

Suho thought about how he had never really had that before. That kind of safe chaos. That kind of stupid, beautiful freedom. He had never laughed this much. He had never bickered over ramen flavors or gotten into hour-long arguments about which song to cover for a tiny underground show. He had never fallen asleep during group study and woken up with a blanket thrown over him, Youngyi pretending it wasn’t her.

No weight of expectation, no adult-sized wounds that the world couldn’t see.

In that warmth, Suho started to heal.

Maybe that was what growing up really meant—being allowed to be young for once.

And like a single cherry blossom carried off by the breeze, spring passed in a blink.

By the time spring rolled into summer, Suho had developed an immunity to Youngyi's constant insults and Baku’s compulsive need to ruffle his hair like he was some oversized emotional support dog. Which meant, officially, he was part of the band. Not musically, of course. The only chords Suho knew were the ones that tangled his phone charger, and he had just recently learned that the "bridge" they kept talking about wasn’t an architectural structure but some mystical song section where emotions apparently go to sob. Still, he was so enmeshed in the band’s chaotic ecosystem that he might as well have been their unofficial mascot.

One blazing May afternoon, post-rehearsal and collectively marinated in sweat, Gotak dramatically pointed his drumstick at Baku as if it was the Excalibur, and declared: “I swear to God, if you scream at Slam Dunk one more time like it’s the first time Kang Baekho dunk, you’re going to lose your voice for good.”

Without missing a beat, Baku tossed his towel at Suho and grinned. “Good thing we’ve got a backup main vocal.”

Suho groaned. “No, you don’t.”

Youngyi, slouched on the couch with her bass across her lap, chimed in, “You’re not off the hook. I still think I should write a song for you. A proper debut track.”

“A collab of the century,” Juntae added from the keyboard, as if making a note in an imaginary marketing proposal. “An-core ft. the mysterious hot guy from Byeoksan High. It writes itself.”

“Seriously,” Youngyi said, nudging Suho’s leg with her socked foot. “The fans would eat it up.”

Suho scoffed, trying not to blush. “I’m not mysterious. I’m literally just there. I hand you water and fetch your missing capo.”

It was impossible to stop smiling around them. The teasing never really let up, but it never crossed the line either.

When the band got invited to perform at a summer music festival in Sokcho—right by the sea, in the quieter part of Gangwon Province—they all agreed without hesitation. It would be their last gig before retreating into the cold, airless void of CSAT prep. They planned to make it count. Youngyi called it their “last hurrah before academic jail.” Even Naeun was coming along, already planning their bus routes and motel snacks..

Somewhere between practice sessions and ice cream meltdowns, Suho found himself thinking about Sieun again. Not that he’d ever really stopped.

He figured that these “boundaries” that they set up were not going anywhere unless he does something unexpected. Just enough to break the clean lines, the version of “normal” that was supposed to be good for both of them.

At first he didn’t plan to invite Sieun. He didn’t think Sieun would come. But one evening, after rehearsal, Suho found himself staring at his phone too long, then typing out a message before he could stop himself.

there’s this festival by the beach. my friends are performing. want to come?

He hit send, heart thudding, already thinking of ways to backtrack or pretend it was a group thing.

But Sieun replied within a minute.

okay

Okay.

Suho didn’t feel okay at all. But not in a bad way.

Later that week, when he and Youngyi were out grabbing snacks for the whole band at the convenience store, Suho cleared his throat.

“Hey,” he said, awkwardly watching her choose between two types of Monster. “That song you mentioned. The one for me. Were you serious?”

She blinked. “The joke song about you crying in alleyways, or the serious one?”

“The serious one.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You actually want to sing at the festival?”

“I want to sing something. At the festival. But I want to help write it. Like... the lyrics,” he felt his cheeks turning red.

Youngyi blinked at him for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Alright. I’m down. But only if you’re not going to chicken out halfway.”

“I won’t,” Suho said. “I just... I have something I want to say.”

It was a strange kind of courage he hadn’t felt before. Suho didn’t explain the reason to Youngyi or who the song was for either.

Didn’t say that he felt like the version of him Sieun had known—loud, possessive, desperate—was starting to fade. That the version he was becoming—still figuring things out, but learning how to be steady—wanted to be seen. He didn’t grow up for Sieun, but he wanted to be seen by Sieun only.

And if Sieun could hear what he couldn’t say... maybe he’d understand that Suho was growing up. Maybe to become someone worth staying beside, if that chance ever came again.

Of course, An-core figured it out immediately.

“You’re so obvious,” Youngyi said the next day, mid-lyric brainstorm. “Everytime you mention him, you look like you’re writing love letters in your brain.”

“I’m not,” Suho muttered, ears pink. “It’s not—okay, maybe a little.”

“Naeun confirmed it anyway,” Juntae added. “She said you talked about Sieun more than food.”

“Kang Naeun, seriously?” Suho groaned. “I was emotionally vulnerable!”

“You were a simp,” Gotak said.

But they didn’t make fun in a mean way. Because if there was one thing about An-core—aside from their complete inability to tune on time or keep a rehearsal schedule—it was that they were loyal.

And they were going to help Suho make this summer count.

Sieun thought this might be the day he die. Maybe he was being dramatic, but it was impossible to keep up with the energy around him.

The place was a riot of colors and motion—streamers tangled in the wind, booths hawking everything from fried squid to glow-in-the-dark hairpins, and teenagers clumping together in loud, messy clusters. A stage had been set up near the waterfront, surrounded by a buzzing crowd. Somewhere, a bubble machine was spitting foam into the sky.

Sieun blinked under the harsh light. Even with sunglasses, it was all a bit too much. The noise, the smell of sweat and sunscreen and caramel popcorn, the feeling of being surrounded by people who hadn’t yet tasted regret in the same way he had. Technically, he hadn’t been this overwhelmed even at the amusement park on Christmas Eve. Maybe it was the heat now, slowly pushing him toward insanity. He should’ve known what he signed up for when he asked Seokdae for the day off.

And yet—when Naeun linked her arm with his and Suho slung a casual arm around his shoulder during the bus ride earlier, when the band kids all turned around in their seats to say “Sieun oppa, thank you for coming!” with that disarming mix of nerves and respect—he’d felt something... warm. Almost wanted.

They were loud, chaotic, expressive in every direction—but they were also well-mannered. Bright. A little awkward around him, but not shy. Sieun had seen their faces before—Christmas Eve, the An-core band, all eyeliner and neon streaks and oversized jackets. They’d left an impression. And now, after months of photos and stories Suho had texted him—of their exams, rehearsals, group chats, silly fights—he felt like he kind of knew them already. They treated him as a big brother of the group without irony, without formality, just enough reverence to feel seen without being pushed away.

Baku even said that he really wanted to shuffle Sieun’s hair, before being swatted with a rolled-up flyer by Gotak.

He didn’t really belong here. But no one made him feel like he didn’t.

Now, he kept close to Suho’s group. The An-core kids pulled him along like a rogue current, showing off their merch booth, their glittery handmade banners, and debating last-minute changes to the setlist like seasoned performers.

When it was finally their turn to take the stage, the crowd responded instantly. Cheers and chants and a sea of waving hands.

They started with an original song, then a cover of “Sunset Glow” and “Start”—a popular OST from Itaewon Class. Everyone knew the lyrics, and the energy in the field became electric. Even Sieun found himself swaying, lips mouthing along to a chorus he hadn’t heard in years.

Baku stepped forward, mic in hand, grinning like he was holding in a secret. “Alright! So before our last song, we wanna share something a little different. If you've been following us since the beginning of the year, you’ve probably spotted a certain someone always hanging around backstage. But today, he’s stepping out front.”

The crowd murmured.

“This is a new song—we’ve never released it. Written by someone very close to us. Today’s the first and maybe only time you’ll hear it live. It’s called Time of Our Life. And the lead vocal is… Suho!”

A beat of silence—then a wave of cheers.

Sieun blinked, startled, as Suho stepped onto the stage from the wings.

Dressed simply in a white tee and jeans, hair ruffled from the wind, Suho looked almost ordinary. Except he wasn’t. Not with that kind of silence in his posture. Not with the way he scanned the crowd like he was searching for something—

Then he found Sieun, instantly.

Just a glance. But enough.

Sieun smiled without meaning to.

The music started—an energetic rhythm of running feet and warm nights and cicadas screaming against the stars. Suho’s first few notes were shaky. His voice wavered like he didn’t trust it.

“솔직히, 말할게 많이 기다려 왔어

너도 그랬을 거라 믿어

오늘이 오길 매일같이 달력을 보면서

(I’ll be honest, I’ve been waiting for a long time

And I believe you have too

For this day to come, looking at the calendar every day…)”

Sieun didn’t realize he was holding his breath.

“솔직히, 나에게도, 지금 이 순간은

꿈만 같아, 너와 함께라

오늘을 위해 꽤 많은 걸 준비해 봤어

(Honestly for me, this moment

Is like a dream for me because I’m with you

For today, I’ve prepared quite a lot of things…)”

The band joined in slowly—harmonies building behind Suho like a wave preparing to crest. His voice wavered again. But then, in the middle of the verse, his eyes met Sieun’s. Something in him settled.

He stood straighter.

“All about you and I, 다른 건 다 제쳐 두고

Now come with me, take my hand

(All about you and I, everything else aside

Now come with me, take my hand…)”

Sieun’s chest tightened.

Because this wasn’t just a fun summer track. It wasn’t just for the crowd, or the band, or even for the version of Suho who had once quit MMA with clenched fists and resentment in his bones. No. This—this was something else entirely.

Suho was singing for someone.

“아름다운 청춘의 한 장 함께 써내려 가자

너와의 추억들로 가득 채울래 (come on!)

아무 걱정도 하지는 마, 나에게 다 맡겨 봐

지금 이 순간이 다시 넘겨볼 수 있는

한 페이지가 될 수 있게

(Let’s write a beautiful chapter of youth together

I will fill it with memories with you (come on!)

Don’t worry about anything, leave everything to me

This exact moment could be something we can get back to

A page we can turn back to…)”

The chorus hit like a rush of wind.

It sounded like an anthem. For everyone there. For every blurry photo and car ride in the sun and spilled soda they’d ever collect. But Sieun—he could feel the difference in Suho’s gaze when the lyrics landed.

He still looked at him the same way.

Not with admiration. Not like a teenager clinging to someone older because he had nowhere to go.

But with love that had grown more certain. Clearer. Grounded not in fantasy, but in quiet, persistent devotion.

“Want you to come on out and have fun”

The bridge was pure invitation.

“Want us to have the time of our life…”

Sieun couldn’t look away. He stood frozen, as if caught in a spell.

He had always seen Suho as something too radiant to touch—like the sun, blazing too close to the walls Sieun had built around himself. A warmth that could melt through his carefully kept distance, leaving behind a longing he was never allowed to name. The sun had come to him once, not out of choice, but out of loneliness.

But now… now, watching him on stage, Sieun wasn’t so sure that was still true.

Suho no longer burned with rage or recklessness. Around him bloomed a sky full of stars—friends, laughter, a whole constellation of people drawn to his light. And he… he had grown calmer, steadier, like a sunrise rather than a wildfire. The warmth he carried no longer threatened to scorch. It felt just right.

And yet—despite all that had changed—there was one thing Suho hadn’t grown out of.

The way he looked at Sieun.

And in the final chorus, with the whole crowd chanting—

“Yah, yeah-oh, yah, yo-oh, this is our page

Yah, yeah-oh, yah, yo-oh, our page…”

Suho’s voice rose above it all.

The song ended in a euphoric roar. The crowd burst into cheers, but Suho didn’t immediately step back.

He stepped forward.

Breathing heavy. Sweat at his temples. And then, with the mic still in hand, he spoke.

“Thanks for listening, everyone.” His voice was rough, worn down by emotion. “I spent a lot of time tried writing that song… because I realized something. Not everyone gets to feel young when they’re supposed to.”

A pause. A silence.

“Sometimes life skips your turn. You miss out. You think it’s too late. But it’s not. Being young… isn’t about your age. It’s about the moments that make you feel alive.”

His eyes found Sieun again. Unlike that Christmas Eve, this time, he didn’t look away.

“And if you never got to have that kind of moment… I want you to know it’s not over. We can still write it. I’m here. I’ll write it with you.”

After the music died down and the applause faded into memory, the festival slipped into something softer—sizzling BBQ, warm night air, and voices tangled in laughter.

Suho sat among the chaos, feeling like he was floating.

Baku and Youngyi were bickering, as always—this time about how one post-performance beer wouldn’t kill anyone, while Juntae made a dramatic fuss about “underage morals” with his mouth full of pork belly. Gotak just laughed with both shoulders shaking, like he was watching a sitcom instead of living it.

And Sieun… he was laughing too. Quiet, a little awkward, but genuinely. His shoulders weren’t as stiff, his eyes not so guarded. He had eased into the group more than Suho ever thought he would, helping Naeun reach the tongs without asking. It wasn’t the same kind of comfort he had with Beomseok and Seokdae—this was messier, louder, full of people with too much energy and no volume control—but somehow, Sieun managed to hold his own.

Suho smiled to himself. He looked happy. That was all Suho ever really wanted.

Well. Mostly.

Somewhere in the middle of dinner, Naeun yelled, “You dickhead—why’d you take the last perilla leaf?!”

Suho, mouth full, grinned and held it up like a trophy. “Survival of the fittest. Cry harder.”

Naeun lunged with her chopsticks. “I will stab you in the eye.”

Sieun blinked, watching the exchange. “Young couples sure have a weird way to communicate.”

The entire table fell silent.

Baku dropped his chopsticks.

Gotak caught them mid-air. “Wait… do you not know they broke up, like, forever ago?”

Sieun looked genuinely surprised, almost comically so. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Youngyi jumped in. “It’s ancient history. Like, November? And believe me, they’re very platonic now.”

Naeun leaned forward, stabbing a piece of meat with exaggerated vengeance. “No offense to whoever dates Suho next, but I wouldn’t do it again. That’s practically suicidal.”

“I’m not that bad,” Suho muttered.

“You’re worse,” Naeun and Youngyi said in sync.

Suho rolled his eyes and glanced at Sieun. He was still smiling—but now, it was tinged with something else. Amusement, yes. But also surprise. Relief, maybe?

Thinking back, Suho realized… yeah, he’d never actually told Sieun. After the breakup, their conversations stayed in safe zones. Sieun never asked, and Suho just… never brought it up.

And now, Sieun laughed. Not out of discomfort, but lightly, like something unknotted inside him.

Suho didn’t know for sure, but something in that laugh made his chest feel full. As if—maybe—Sieun was glad to know.

When dinner started winding down, everyone began splitting off. Naeun and Youngyi linked arms and declared their holy mission to find matching earrings. Baku and the rest of the chaos trio bolted toward the neon-lit arcades like children on sugar highs. Just before they left, Baku shot Suho the most painfully obvious wink, complete with a double thumbs-up behind Sieun’s back.

Suho mentally threw a sandal at him.

And just like that, it was the two of them. Again.

The courage he’d summoned on stage—that sudden, burning boldness that let him sing his heart out in front of hundreds of strangers—was long gone. And what the fuck was that corny speech about youth? What was left was Suho at eighteen. Shy, flustered, and suddenly too aware of every inch between them.

They walked along the beach, side by side, the sound of waves brushing close to their feet.

Suho kicked at a shell. “I couldn’t believe you won a 2v1 against a Jinx and Leona duo.”

Sieun hummed. “I’m efficient.”

“More like evil.”

“That too.”

Their usual banter came easily, like muscle memory. For a while, they let it carry them—petty insults about random things on Earth, inside jokes, Suho imitating Juntae’s penguin-like walk. But underneath it, Suho’s thoughts ran wild.

Because everywhere he looked, there were couples.

Couples holding hands, couples sneaking kisses behind the rocks, couples wrapped in each other like no one else existed.

And he couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help but picture them—him and Sieun—doing the same thing.

It wasn’t like this was new. Suho had been in love with him for months now, long enough to stop pretending otherwise. But tonight, after the song, after the speech, after that look… he dared to hope. Just a little.

Did Sieun know? Did he hear the message behind the lyrics? Did he understand that every line was for him?

Suho didn’t ask. He couldn’t. Not yet.

And then came the fireworks.

The first one cracked open the sky in gold. Then red, white, blue—blossoms of light and sound that turned the night electric. People cheered. Some ran toward the shoreline to see better.

Suho stayed where he was, heart thudding louder than the explosions. He didn’t think. He just leaned a little closer and whispered, his voice barely audible under the roar:

“I lost you last winter… but I won’t lose you again. Wait for me. When the first snow comes.”

He wasn’t even sure if Sieun heard it. The noise was deafening, the world too bright. But when he looked over—

Sieun was still watching the sky. Calm. Quiet. A faint smile touched his lips, soft as moonlight.

He didn’t say anything.

But something in his expression made Suho feel like maybe—just maybe—it had been heard.

They walked back together in silence. Never touching. Never rushing.

And still, it felt like the seasons turning. Like something inevitable finding its way back.

Like the start of a new page.

Chapter Text

The heat of summer had long burned out, leaving behind a city softened by the touch of early autumn. The air was crisper now, the skies clearer. The cicadas had quieted, and in their place, fallen leaves rustled softly on sidewalks as if reluctant to say goodbye.

They didn’t talk about the festival again. Not the song. Not the fireworks. Not the words Suho had whispered under the thunder of explosions. Sieun never brought it up, and Suho didn’t dare ask if he’d heard them. But they could feel it, the old calming rhythm was returning to their dynamic. The kind of closeness that didn’t need to be spoken out loud. The kind that made Suho’s chest feel tight when Sieun looked at him too long before looking away.

One evening, they sat on a bench outside Sieun’s apartment building, each holding a paper cup of lukewarm vending machine coffee. The night air had a chill, but Suho barely noticed.

“Look, your fans keep commenting under the band’s posts,” Sieun said suddenly, scrolling through his phone. “They’re still begging for you to make a comeback.’”

Suho groaned, head dropping backward. “God. Please don’t call them ‘my fans.’ That’s so embarrassing.”

“You brought it on yourself. Don’t write a song like that if you want to stay anonymous,” Sieun said, raising an eyebrow.

Suho risked a glance at him. Sieun didn’t look accusatory. Rather, amused. That same small smirk he wore whenever he caught Suho being sentimental.

“I didn’t write it to be anonymous,” Suho murmured.

Sieun looked away first this time. “I know.”

They didn’t say anything else for a while. A motorcycle passed down the street, then silence returned, filled only by the distant sound of someone’s dog barking and the soft clinking of their coffee cups. Suho finished his drink and tilted the cup between his palms, restless.

“Cold?” Sieun asked. His voice was neutral, but his eyes glanced briefly at Suho’s sleeves.

“No. I’m good.” Suho paused. “You?”

“Fine.”

That was it. Just fine. They were always fine—except they weren’t, not really. Every time Suho looked at him, he felt something sitting just beneath his ribs. Longing? Didn’t sound right. It was more like pressure. The weight of restraint. Of not saying things he used to be desperate to confess.

But it was different now. They were different now.

Suho wasn’t reckless anymore, wasn’t the same boy who exploded with feelings without considering its consequences. He felt older, in a good way.

And the way Sieun looked at him now—really looked at him—was different too.

Before, just seeing him was enough to knock the breath from Suho’s lungs. But now… it was the way those lingering gazes clung to him. The way in mere flickering moments, those wide, glassy eyes seemed to see only him, as if nothing else existed.

Under that gaze, Suho felt like he could be reduced to ash—and he’d let it happen, gladly.

And that also made Suho feel like he was walking a tightrope—close enough to see the other side, but not daring to take that last step.

They parted ways with a casual, “See you,” but Suho lingered outside the building for a second longer than he should have. He watched the elevator light blink as it climbed. Imagining what he would’ve repeated a thousand times if he were just a little braver.

Instead, he pulled out his phone.

you should try jungler next time we play league

Sieun

maybe

i’ll carry u

Sieun

you always say that

i mean it this time

Sieun

lol fine

He smiled at the screen. Tiny things. Shared habits. An inch at a time. That was how he was getting close again. That was enough—for now.

The evening chill wrapped around Sieun like a second skin as he finally stepped out of the building. The office lights blinked off behind him, one by one, leaving the glass tower in shadow. He was the last one out again. Typical.

It had been a long day—no, a long week—and the pavement felt especially firm under his feet, as if it were trying to anchor him there. He didn’t even hear the car at first.

Just a shout, a screech of tires, then the crack of metal on concrete.

Pain. White-hot and sudden. The world tilted, and then he was on the ground.

His shoulder ached. His ribs screamed. Something wet was spreading under him, and it took his brain too long to realize it was his own blood. A broken bone somewhere in his arm, maybe more than one. His head throbbed with an unnatural heaviness. People were screaming.

He blinked once. Twice. His vision blurred, unblurred, blurred again.

In the flickering moments before his body gave in, Suho surfaced in his thoughts.

So this is how it ends, he thought.

It was strange, really. He had friends now. Colleagues who genuinely liked him. A father, distant but... still his father. There were people who would cry if he died tonight. Probably.

But the first name, the first face that surfaced in his mind—was Suho.

That reckless boy with the storm in his eyes and too much heart to carry. The boy who gave him chaos and color and warmth. Who once clung to him, drunk and sobbing about how lonely he was, like Sieun was the only thing keeping him from drifting away.

The same boy who smiled with his whole soul, eyes lit up with something scorching. Who burned with a passion, brighter, fiercer than the summer sun, singing about how they’d write the next pages of their youth together.

And if Sieun died tonight, he supposed those next pages would go on without him.

There’s still so much I haven’t done for him.

He didn’t know yet if Suho would pass his CSAT. He hadn’t seen him graduate, hadn’t taken that photo of him and his grandma with their eyes crinkled in the cold. He hadn’t heard the next song Suho might write with An-core, or teased him about how cheesy the lyrics would be.

And the first snow hadn’t come yet.

He remembered Suho’s voice under the summer fireworks—“Wait for me. When the first snow comes.”

Would Suho remember that, when he stood alone on that day?

Would he cry at the funeral? Probably. Not to be smug, but Sieun thought Suho would be devastated. For a while, at least. But time smooths over even the deepest grief. Maybe Suho would move on. Go to college, meet someone new. Get married. Have kids. Forget.

And when that time came, maybe he’d tell his kids a story about a tired, cranky office worker he used to know. A hyung who liked instant coffee a little bit too much. Someone who disappeared too early.

Sieun winced. Maybe it was the concussion making him spiral, but the ache in his chest had nothing to do with broken ribs.

He didn’t want to be forgotten. Not by Suho.

He must’ve passed out again, because the next thing he saw was a ceiling that wasn’t the sky. Sterile, fluorescent, too bright. IV lines in his arms. Monitors. Blinking lights. A nurse brushing past with a clipboard, muttering words he couldn’t quite process.

He felt small. Like a child again. Like the kid who used to lie in hospital beds with a busted lip or a stomach infection, waiting for parents who were too busy arguing to be by his side.

His throat tightened. His mouth was dry. He wanted water. He wanted—

Suho.

He remembered the way Suho burst into his room that fevered night, seeing him cry desperately and decided to just… be there and comfort him. The warmth of his hand, the unshakable presence.

He wanted that again. Just that.

Sieun closed his eyes.

A moment passed. Then the door clicked open.

Someone entered quietly. No words, just soft footsteps. A pause beside the bed. A hand touched his face—rough fingers, hesitant but careful, brushing his hair away from his forehead. Then another hand wrapped around his.

It was warm. Firm. Familiar.

Suho…?

The world tilted again. Sieun tried to speak, but only a thin groan came out, before sleep pulled him under again.

The engine purred low as Seokdae pulled out of the underground parking lot, one hand still wrapped around his half-finished coffee, the other resting on the steering wheel. The night was cool, quiet—the kind of silence he’d grown to like after long hours at the office. He was thinking about the drive home, maybe stopping by the convenience store for something warm. He’d told Sieun twice to leave early. The man never listened.

Then he saw it.

A cluster of people crowding the sidewalk just outside the building entrance. Voices shouting over each other. Someone crouching low, someone else holding up a phone flashlight.

He didn’t even park.

He slammed the brake, shoved the gear into neutral, and jumped out.

His first instinct was that it was some street fight. A mugging maybe, or a medical emergency. But the closer he ran, the more wrong it felt.

A streetlamp flickered like it had been jolted out of place. The crowd parted just enough for him to see—

Sieun.

Sprawled on the pavement.

Unmoving.

"Sieun!" he shouted, pushing through the ring of onlookers, heart lurching up his throat.

A man tried to stop him, saying something about the police being called, but Seokdae didn’t hear a word. His eyes were locked on the familiar figure on the ground—limp, bleeding, one arm twisted at an unnatural angle. His jacket half-soaked in red.

His mind stalled.

Then, training kicked in. The sheer sharp instinct of someone used to keeping others functioning when everything fell apart. He dropped to one knee, touched Sieun’s wrist—pulse there, faint but steady—and looked around. Someone was already calling an ambulance. Another was filming.

“What happened?” he barked.

"Drunk driver," someone muttered. "Swerved off the road, hit him straight on, then just… ran."

He wanted to scream.

But all he did was stay crouched beside Sieun until the ambulance arrived.

He followed in his car. He didn’t even think about it—it wasn’t a question of whether he should. He just did. Paid the hospital deposit. Signed the paperwork. Dealt with the blur of triage nurses and front desk forms like it was any other transaction with their customers.

The only number listed in Sieun’s emergency contact? No one picked up.

“I’ll stay with him,” Seokdae said simply. And that was that.

By the time he returned to Sieun’s hospital room, it was well past midnight.

The monitors beeped softly. IV bags swayed slightly from the movement of air. Sieun lay still on the bed, color slowly returning to his face under the antiseptic white lights. A nurse had cleaned most of the blood off, but Seokdae could still see dried flecks under his ear, a smear along his wrist.

He walked to the bed.

The last time he’d seen Sieun this still was the night of their first failed campaign, when Sieun had fallen asleep sitting up in his chair, a sandwich half-eaten on his desk. This was different. This was quiet in all the wrong ways.

Carefully, like he might break him more, Seokdae reached down and brushed the hair off Sieun’s forehead. His skin was still a little clammy, but warmer now. Stable.

His hand lingered, tracing the curve of Sieun’s cheekbone with the back of his hand. He didn’t know why he did that. He just… needed to.

Then, he reached down and took Sieun’s hand. Small palm with scraped knuckle. A bit too cold.

Sieun stirred faintly.

And then, with a soft, hoarse rasp of a voice that barely made it through cracked lips—

“…Su…ho…”

Seokdae froze.

For a moment, he told himself he must’ve misheard. The name had come out slurred, barely a whisper. It could’ve been anything.

But it wasn’t.

Suho.

Even in this state—barely conscious, fading in and out of delirium,

he’d called for Suho.

As in Ahn Suho? It had to be. Ever since that Christmas Eve at the amusement park, Seokdae had seen the kid more and more—lurking around the edges of his world. Not that Seokdae knew him personally. At best, they were distant acquaintances. Suho had been hanging out with Yeongyi’s band lately, and occasionally, Sieun would mention him in passing. Nothing specific—just little things. A character in a movie that reminded him of that kid, or a strange way Suho phrased something. Small things, dropped like breadcrumbs.

It didn’t seem like much at the time.

But now, hearing Sieun call out that name with cracked lips and fading breath, Seokdae couldn’t help but wonder.

Was Suho the only emergency contact in Sieun’s phone?

It was a ridiculous thought, he told himself. Why would a high schooler be the first person listed in case of an emergency? That spot should’ve gone to family. Someone dependable. Someone appropriate.

And yet—if it was Suho…

Then that could only mean one thing.

Their relationship was more important than he’d realized.

Seokdae stared at their joined hands for a long time.

Then, without letting go, he whispered, “He’s not here. But I am.”

The silence in the room didn’t answer back.

Suho woke to the bright stab of sunlight across his face and the heavy warmth of someone’s arm draped over his legs. The smell of chicken grease and socks lingered in the air—evidence of last night’s chaos. Baku was snoring, sprawled face-down across the practice room’s couch, and the UNO cards were still scattered under the keyboard stand.

Friday night had gotten out of hand. They were only supposed to study. Worksheets. A mock test. That was the plan. But then someone—probably Gotak—suggested they “take a short break,” which became a chicken order from Baku’s dad’s restaurant, then one game, then three, and somehow it was nearly 2 a.m. before they even noticed how late it was.

Suho rubbed his eyes and reached blindly for his phone.

Dead.

He groaned, plugging it into the charger with the clumsy, desperate fingers of a man dying of thirst. The screen flickered to life—he was expecting maybe a good morning text from Sieun. Or something mundane like “Want to hang out this weekend?” That alone would’ve made him smile.

But there was nothing like that.

Instead, there were four missed calls. All from an unknown number.

A chill crawled down his spine.

He immediately hit redial, breath shallow with anxiety. It rang twice before someone picked up.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice—professional, but sharp. “Yes, is this Ahn Suho?”

“Y-Yeah?”

“You were listed as the emergency contact for Mr. Yeon Sieun. We tried calling you multiple times last night but your phone wasn’t reachable. He was in an accident.”

Suho’s heart stopped.

“Wh—what?! What happened?”

“He’s stable now. A car crash. Drunk driver. He’s admitted here at Mirae General. Room 607.”

The nurse’s tone was clipped, clinical. But there was something underneath it—a sting of judgment, like you should have answered. And she’d be right.

Suho dropped the phone and scrambled to his feet. “Shit, shit, shit—”

“Suho-yah, what’s wrong?” Juntae’s sleepy voice broke through the panic. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I’ll explain later.” Suho was already pulling on his hoodie, shoes forgotten until he nearly tripped trying to stuff his feet in. His fingers shook as he tied the laces. “Sieun—he’s in the hospital. I need to go.”

He sprinted out before Juntae could say another word.

The hospital smelled like antiseptic and anxiety.

The closer Suho got, the harder it became to breathe. Every fluorescent-lit hallway, every set of clicking heels and distant murmurs, made him feel like he was underwater. Suffocating slowly.

At the front desk, the nurse who had called him barely glanced up before asking, “You’re here for Mr. Yeon?”

He nodded quickly, chest still heaving. “Yes. How… how is he?”

“Stable. The impact wasn’t too bad, thankfully. He has a broken arm and some bruising. Mild concussion, maybe. One of his colleagues is staying with him.”

Suho didn’t hear anything after broken arm.

His stomach plummeted. His mind blurred. The words didn’t fit in his brain. He murmured something like a thank-you and bolted for the elevator, unable to feel his feet.

He pushed the door open, and he saw him.

There Sieun was—lying motionless beneath the sterile light, bruises painting his skin in places Suho had memorized in laughter. His arm was suspended in a cast, and a clean line of gauze marked a wound on his temple. He looked so still. So pale. As if someone had taken all of Sieun’s fiery snarks and pressed mute on it.

Suho’s breath left him entirely.

Had he always been so small comparing to the bed? So quiet? So… breakable?

And Suho wasn’t even there?

He needed me, Suho thought, hands balling at his sides. He actually needed me and I wasn’t there.

The guilt rose like acid. It bubbled in his chest, seared down his throat. Of all the people in Sieun’s life—his father, his coworkers, his friends—he had been the one Sieun chose. The emergency contact. The one trusted to be called when things fell apart.

And he had missed it.

He had been laughing at some stupid impression Gotak did, phone off and heart light while Sieun bled.

The knowledge that he was the emergency contact didn’t make him proud like it should have. It didn’t give him butterflies. It carved into him like a dull knife.

“Hey.”

Suho flinched. He turned and froze at the voice.

It was Seokdae.

Still in the same dress shirt from the night before—blood on the cuffs, sleeves rolled to the elbows, dark smudges under his eyes. There was weariness in his posture, but something watchful in his gaze.

Suho’s eyes dropped to the dried blood on Seokdae’s sleeve. Sieun’s blood. His throat clenched.

“...Hi, hyung,” Suho said. “You were the one who stayed with him?”

Seokdae nodded once.

Suho bowed deeply. “Thank you. For everything. But… I’ll take it from here. You should go home and rest.”

“That’s not necessary,” Seokdae replied evenly. “There should be an adult here in case something comes up.”

The implication was clear, and it landed like a slap.

Suho’s spine straightened. “I can handle it.”

“I’m sure you can. But this isn’t about capability.”

“Then what is it about?”

He wasn't trying to be hostile. Seokdae was Sieun's colleague, Yeongyi's brother, and more than that: someone he should be grateful for taking care of Sieun when his incompetent ass couldn't. But there was heat rising in his voice—too much, too fast—but before anything else could spill out, the door hissed open and a nurse stepped in.

“This is a hospital, not a debate club,” she snapped, glaring at them both. “The patient needs rest, so if you guys want to argue then go outside.”

Suho bowed again, eyes wide. “Sorry. I—sorry.”

Desperate to save face, he muttered, “I’ll go grab food. For Sieun. In case he wakes up hungry.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He left with his chest tight, hands trembling, the humiliation clawing up his back.

But more than that—he hated the way Seokdae looked at him. Just... calm. Capable. Present. Like someone who belonged there.

He was there.

And Suho wasn’t.

By the time Suho returned with a tray of bland hospital food, the door was cracked open. His hands tightened on the edges of the tray.

Inside, he heard them talking.

“…I told you, I’m fine,” Sieun’s voice murmured, dry but tinged with humor.

“Fine doesn’t usually involve a hospital bed, Sieun.”

Seokdae’s voice again. Gentle. Familiar. And it hit Suho like cold water down the back of his neck.

They sounded… close.

Comfortable in a way Suho didn’t know how to be with Sieun when Sieun was this fragile. It wasn’t fair, he thought. That Seokdae had been there when Sieun was vulnerable, when he needed someone. That he’d gotten to be the one to hold him steady.

Suho just stood in the doorway, silent, the tray growing heavier with each passing second. He must’ve looked pathetic—arms full, shoulders hunched, heart cracked right down the center.

Then Sieun turned.

His eyes widened slightly. Then a small smile.

“Suho-yah, come in.”

That smile—small, tired, but his—melted every bitter thought Suho had carried from the cafeteria. In an instant, it was gone. The jealousy, the shame, the hurt.

He was here now.

Sieun turned back to Seokdae. “Hey, I’m okay now. Really. You should go home and rest. You’ve done enough already.”

“You sure?” Seokdae asked, glancing at Suho with a hesitation that made Suho’s stomach clench.

Sieun nodded. “Suho’s here. I’ll be fine.”

And that—those words—hit Suho like a beam of light cutting through fog. Suho’s here. I’ll be fine.

It was the first time since stepping into that hospital that Suho felt like he could breathe.

The air returned to his lungs in small, careful puffs. The weight on his chest eased.

Sieun gave him the validation he never knew he needed. He mattered. He mattered.

Seokdae stood reluctantly, adjusting his sleeves. “Alright. But call me if anything changes, got it?”

“Got it.”

As he passed, he looked at Suho once more. It wasn’t hostility, but it wasn’t trust, either.

Suho bowed, quieter now. “Thank you…”

Seokdae nodded, then slipped out, leaving only silence behind.

Suho pulled a chair beside Sieun’s bed, set the tray down with shaky hands, and looked at him properly.

Now that he was close, the damage hit harder. The bruises. The cast. The wince that flickered across Sieun’s face when he shifted. All the times Suho had imagined holding Sieun’s hand, brushing his hair back, carrying him on his back after drinking—none of it had ever prepared him for this kind of tenderness.

“I’m sorry,” Suho said, his voice breaking in half.

Sieun blinked, slow and groggy. “For what?”

“For everything. I wasn’t there,” Suho choked. “I should’ve been. I was just… laughing and eating and you were—”

He couldn’t finish. The shame swelled and shattered his words.

Sieun looked at him with unfocused eyes. “It’s not your fault.”

“But you—they called me,” Suho whispered. “I was the emergency contact.”

A pause.

Sieun blinked again, slower this time. “Did they?”

So casual. So effortless.

And that casualness destroyed Suho more than any grand confession ever could. Because it meant Sieun hadn’t even thought twice about it. He’d just written Suho’s name down like it was obvious.

Like it was right.

“I’ll be there from now on,” Suho said. “Every day. I’ll tell Grandma that I’ll move in with you for a while after you’re discharged—I’ll help you with everything—”

“No,” Sieun interrupted, voice low but steady. “That’s not necessary.”

Rejection. Clear and unflinching.

Suho’s heart splintered. He didn’t even know why it hurt that much, but it did.

Sieun must’ve seen it, because after a breath, he softened.

“CSAT is coming soon, so focus on it. Come visit when you can,” he murmured. “Bring your books. I’ll help you study. It’ll be nice.”

It wasn’t a full yes. But it wasn’t a no, either. It was a thread—offered quietly.

Suho clung to it like a lifeline.

Still, he pressed, desperate. “Just visiting isn’t enough. How will you do anything with a broken arm?”

Sieun closed his eyes for a moment. “Seokdae will help me sort the paperwork with HR. I’ll work from home when I’m stable. If I need anything, I can ask Beomseok. Or my dad.”

Each name felt like a push out of the circle Suho had just stepped into. And more than that, he hated how easily Seokdae’s name came up.

But then—Sieun’s hand reached out. The uninjured one. His fingers found Suho’s and curled gently around them.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Sieun whispered. “Thanks for being here.”

Just like that, the ache vanished. Like the tide pulling away from shore, leaving just enough room for breath.

Sieun’s fingers stayed curled in his, even as his eyes fluttered closed again. He drifted back to sleep slowly, looking more peaceful now, but no less breakable. No less precious.

Suho didn’t move.

He just sat there, watching him—this pale, quiet version of the man he admired so deeply. And the weight of the moment settled over him like a second skin.

Sieun didn’t call him kid anymore.

He hadn’t said it in weeks, but now, for the first time, Suho truly felt the absence of that word. It wasn’t a slip or an accident—it was a shift. Quiet but unmistakable. They never talked about it. Never addressed the emergency contact list or what it meant. But the truth of it echoed louder than any conversation ever could.

Sieun trusted him.

No longer a burden or an explosion. No longer someone to scold or shield. But someone who could be relied on.

And Suho’s heart clenched around that truth.

Because trust like that—from Sieun—wasn’t given lightly. It had to be earned. And Suho knew, deep in his chest, that he still hadn’t earned it yet. But he would try, from now on.

So he made a quiet promise, one that lived in the space between heartbeats and went deeper than words. A vow that threaded through his spine, into every breath, every bone: I’ll protect you. I’ll be there. Not just now—but always.

With trembling fingers, Suho brought their joined hands to his lips. He pressed a soft kiss to the back of Sieun’s hand. A whisper of a touch. A silent vow.

For everything you are—your strength, your softness, your sharp tongue and tired eyes—I’ll stay. I’ll share the weight, not because I have to… but because I want to. Because you finally looked at me and saw someone who can walk alongside you.

He lingered there for a moment longer, lips against skin, heart pounding, eyes stinging.

And as if to answer the storm swelling inside him, Sieun never let go.

The Monday after the incident, while Sieun was still lying on a stiff hospital bed with his left arm cradled in plaster and gauze, Beomseok arrived with a plastic bag rustling with neatly packed fruit and the hesitant energy of someone trying very hard to be angry.

He entered the room carefully, shoulders hunched. His eyes flitted from the IV bag to the bandage wrapped around Sieun’s temple, then to Sieun’s face, which bore the usual blank expression, as if he were the least affected person in the room. As if concussions and fractured bones were just another Monday inconvenience.

Beomseok didn’t sit down right away. He stood there for a moment, gripping the handles of the bag as though it were the only thing keeping him anchored.

“You shouldn’t say you’re fine when you’re not,” he said, gently, almost in a whisper. “People don’t say that when they’re…” He gestured vaguely at Sieun’s cast. “Like that.”

Sieun tilted his head. “Guess I’m not people.”

Beomseok blinked. “That’s not— It’s not funny.”

“You did think it’s a little funny though,” Sieun said, and tried for a crooked smile, but it faltered under the weight of his headache.

Beomseok finally sat down, unzipped the bag, and began peeling an apple with meticulous focus. His brows were knit into a tight frown, but his voice remained soft, the kind of quiet that always came with a deep undercurrent of worry. “You really scared me.”

“You weren’t even there,” Sieun replied, watching the peel fall in one long, clean curl. “You’re reacting to secondhand information.”

“It was what Seokdae told me first thing in the morning, okay?” Beomseok said, setting the peeled apple onto a napkin like it was made of glass. “Said the crash was so bad you were in ICU at first.”

“Of course I had to be in the ICU. Temporarily. Emphasis on the past tense.”

Beomseok stared at him, helplessly. “You could’ve… told me about it.” Instead of me finding it out through somebody else. He refrained from saying it, but Sieun could tell.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Sieun said with a shrug—his left shoulder only. The right one stayed carefully still.

“Well, you did,” Beomseok said, and the fact that it came out like an apology made it somehow worse.

There was a silence then, thick and sticky like hospital air. Sieun leaned back, letting his eyes close for a second. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like a headache given sound.

“I will visit more,” Beomseok said, after a while. “And after you get discharged too. If you want.”

Sieun opened one eye. “Don’t worry, my dad’s got it covered.”

Beomseok gave a little nod, but there was hesitation behind it. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

Sieun was sure.

Sure that it was a lie.

He got discharged on a Wednesday that smelled like dust and cold pavement. The nurse gave him a folder of aftercare instructions and a flimsy plastic bag of medication, then helped him into the kind of sling that made movement feel more like suggestion than possibility.

The cab ride home was quiet. The city passed him in grays and beiges, the world as dull as the inside of the hospital had been. And when he unlocked his apartment door and stepped inside, it was like slipping back into an old, lonely glove.

It wasn’t unfamiliar.

The silence. The half-shadows. The worn couch and stale air and the feeling of being the only heartbeat in an one-bedroom tomb.

It had been a long time since he had a proper vacation. No office emails. No pitch decks. No looming deadlines. He didn’t have to wake up early or talk to anyone or fake being chipper on Teams Meeting. Just rest, they said. Take it easy.

It sounded good in theory.

But then came the reality of living alone with a broken arm.

It started with the hoodie. The goddamn hoodie.

He tried to take it off that first evening and nearly dislocated his shoulder. The sleeve got tangled halfway through, caught on the cast. He bent, twisted, cursed under his breath. For a few seconds, he resembled a flailing worm trying to shed its skin. When he finally yanked it off, his elbow throbbed and his pride was bruised.

Then came the toothbrush. Left-handed. Sloppier than he remembered. He kept hitting the corner of his mouth and smearing toothpaste down his chin. At one point he got so annoyed he spat into the sink mid-brush just to stop himself from snapping the brush in half.

Simple things turned stupid fast.

Cereal? He dropped the bowl. Rice cooker lid? Burned his hand slightly trying to nudge it open with a dish towel. Taking out the trash? He left it sitting by the door for a full day until the smell guilted him into dragging it downstairs with his foot.

He’d done this before—back when he was younger. Back when he was small and silent and too stubborn to ask for help. Or rather, when he did ask, and no one came.

He remembered climbing onto countertops with a bruised knee, cracking eggs one-handed with laughable determination. Buttoning his school shirt with his teeth. Finding pride in figuring things out alone.

He used to be good at this. And that quiet triumph—"See? I can handle this"—was sometimes the only bright spot in his sick days.

But now?

He couldn't tell if he'd gotten worse at surviving, or just too tired of having to.

Soon, Suho started coming by every couple of days, always after school, usually with food. The boy reverted back to his old routine, inviting himself in like he lived there. He filled the space with noise: shoes thudding against the wall, backpack thumping onto the floor, a sigh about his math homework, a complaint about lunch.

And then, without asking, he’d help.

Dishes. Groceries. Turning on the electric kettle and pouring the water for tea. Pulling open Sieun’s desk drawer to find his meds and placing them quietly beside his cup.

He made everything easier. And Sieun let him.

And when Suho was there, Sieun didn’t have to pretend.

Because Suho did everything. Without being told. Without making a show of it. If Sieun winced, Suho handed him a pillow. If he looked tired, Suho wordlessly dimmed the lights. If he forgot to eat, Suho rolled his eyes and brought out the food anyway.

But in some ways, Sieun also, kinda pretended. When Suho was around, Sieun still didn’t groan frustratedly like when he was alone.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t hiss or sigh or mutter curse words under his breath when something hurt or took too long.

He didn’t want Suho to worry more than he already did. He had exams. A life. Other people to worry about and places to go. When Suho was at his apartment, Sieun insisted he study, kept him fed, let him nap on the couch. He made sure Suho never saw the hours between visits, when Sieun struggled to do the most mundane things and ended up sitting on the kitchen floor, staring at a jar of kimchi he couldn’t open.

He didn’t show that part.

He didn’t want to.

Because even now, even after all this time, it still felt a little too much like being that kid again—the one who sat in a too-large apartment, trying to prove he didn’t need anyone.

Only now, it hurt worse knowing that someone would help if he asked.

And still, he didn’t.

Chapter Text

Sieun’s clumsy attempt to live a normal life with a broken dominant arm was more or less working—if you stretched the definition of “working” far enough. The days passed in a haze of dull headaches and minor, constant frustrations. He made coffee with one hand. He showered carefully with cling wrap on his cast. He ate frozen meals like they were gourmet. He functioned. That was enough.

Until Sunday.

And his dad showed up.

Sometimes, his dad had the decency to call in advance and tell Sieun to pick him up at the station. Other times, the door just opened without warning. A key turned, the lock clicked, and in walked the old man like it was still his house. Sieun didn’t flinch, just stayed slumped at the kitchen table, hoodie half-zipped and a spoon in his left hand awkwardly stirring cold cereal.

The silence stretched for a beat too long.

Then: “What happened to your arm?”

Why did that always sound accusatory?

Sieun lifted his head lazily, as if he hadn’t been startled inside. “Nothing.”

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me.” His father’s voice sharpened, heavy with disapproval. “That’s a cast. Are you seriously telling me you weren’t gonna mention this?”

Sieun shrugged. “Didn’t think it mattered.”

“It matters, Yeon Sieun! You broke a bone!”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not fine—God, why do you always—” His dad cut himself off, breathing heavily. “Why wouldn’t you call me?”

Sieun didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Because there were too many answers. None of them the kind you say out loud.

He didn’t call because he didn’t even consider calling.

He didn’t call because there was a time in his life when calling for help meant being met with silence. Or worse—annoyance. A sigh, a look, a complaint.

He didn’t call because he remembered.

He remembered the fevers. The scraped knees. The nights crying quietly in bed because his stomach hurt and he didn’t want to bother anyone. Because one time, when he was just a tiny version of himself, he did go to his dad who was watching TV in the living room. Whispered, “Appa, I don’t feel good,” and his dad—groggy and irritated—grumbled, “Then go back to bed, Sieun. What do you want me to do about it?”

He remembered that. Vividly.

And he remembered the worst one—too well—the day his father yelled at his mother during one of their endless fights. How she had shouted that she couldn’t keep missing conferences to come home and take care of a boy who kept getting sick. And how his dad, eyes flashing with frustration, snapped back with something Sieun had never been able to forget.

"Who knows a kid could be sick so much?"

God, Sieun was just ten.

Sieun knew now—he understood now—that sentence wasn’t really meant for him. It was meant to wound his mother. A jab in an argument. But it had landed on Sieun anyway. That sentence—that stupid, careless sentence—lodged itself in him like shrapnel. He carried it with him for years. Still did. It echoed in the background every time he downplayed pain.

It stayed through the years he bandaged his own scrapes.

It stayed through school days when no one showed up to his parent-teacher conferences.

And it shaped him.

So no—he didn’t call. Because he didn’t want the weight of being a burden again. He didn’t want to reach out, only to be reminded—once more—that he should have stayed quiet.

“You know,” his dad muttered, looking like he was trying to stay calm, “I’m retired. I’m free. It’s not like I couldn’t help if you’d just ask.”

Sieun let out a bitter little laugh through his nose.

Right. Now he offers.

Now, when there’s nothing else demanding his attention. No job. No marriage. No pressure to perform the role of “provider.” Now, when it’s easy.

Where was this version of his father when Sieun was twelve and vomiting alone in the bathroom because no one was home?

Where was he when Sieun got pushed down the stairs in high school and had to take a cab to the ER himself?

Where was he when Sieun didn’t even need casseroles or banchan or medicine—but just someone to notice?

He wanted to say: Since when did you care? Since when am I someone you check in on without needing a reason? Since when should I believe that my pain matters to you at all?

He wanted to say it. Desperately. All those words clawed their way to his throat—ugly, sharp, so unfairly deserved—but he swallowed them. Again.

Maybe if this was years ago—when he was still in high school, still had enough anger to match the silence in their home—he would have.

But now? He was tired. Not the sleepy kind, but the deep, sedimentary exhaustion of an adult who understood just how easy it was to become your parents. And how hard it was not to.

He didn’t have the energy to rehash twenty years of silence. He didn’t have the will to fight someone who probably wouldn’t even know how to respond.

So instead, he looked away and said, “Don’t bother. My friends have been helping.”

His dad’s brow furrowed. “Well, they can’t be here all the time.”

“I manage.”

“I’m moving in.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m not asking.”

Sieun shot him a look. “This is my place.”

“And you’re my son.”

The words were too loud, too sudden, too raw. It felt like a declaration and a confession at the same time.

The heat in the room rose quickly, stubbornness clashing against stubbornness. They had the same jawline, the same furrow between their brows when they dug in. Sieun could already feel the headache coming.

Then his dad—stoic, awkward, gruff—did something unexpected.

He exhaled and said, quietly:

“I’m sorry.”

Sieun blinked.

“I wasn’t there like I should’ve been. I didn’t mean to treat you the way I did, Sieun. I just didn’t know how to be better, back then. I was bad at being a dad.”

Sieun stared at the table.

“I thought—I thought being strict was love. Providing was love. I didn’t know how to be soft. Your mom and I, we were both... not great at it.”

He let out a small, broken laugh.

“But after you moved out... I missed you. I keep finding some bullshit reasons to come here. Because it hit me that you probably grew up thinking no one really cared. And that’s on me.”

There was a ringing in Sieun’s ears.

He didn’t know what he expected, but it sure as hell wasn’t that.

“I know this doesn’t fix it,” his father said, gently, almost pleading. “But let me try to help now. Just this once.”

Sieun was quiet for a long time.

His pride wrestled with his guilt. His anger curled around the edges of his heart, pressing up against something more fragile underneath.

Because it was too late.

And yet… not completely worthless.

They had started repairing the bridge last year, when Sieun—reluctantly—called his father to ask for a favor. A police contact. Help for Suho.

That had cracked something open.

This now, though—this was more than a crack. It was a step.

Still not enough.

But sincere.

Because despite everything—despite all the ways his father had failed—here he was now. With side dishes and old man slippers and an apology that came almost twenty years late but still meant something.

“…Fine,” Sieun muttered, his voice hoarse. “Do whatever you want.”

His dad nodded slowly, like he understood what that cost.

And just like that, the old man moved in. Just for now.

Just long enough for them to figure out how to be father and son again.

A day later, right on (his own) schedule, Suho showed up at Sieun’s apartment like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He had a paper bag dangling from one hand and a worn backpack behind his back. Inside the paper bag were three pastries—two for Sieun and one for himself—from that stupidly trendy bakery that had just opened. It was out of the way and always packed, but Suho didn’t mind. The memory of Sieun’s voice—flat, deadpan, so distinctly him—saying “that looks pretty tasty” while staring at a donut Instagram reel on Suho’s phone was more than enough motivation.

That was all it took. He didn’t even look Suho in the eye when he said that. Just a lazy comment while Sieun looked at Suho scrolling past the reel, with the same interest he gave rice cookers or ads for orthopedic shoes. And yet, Suho had rerouted his bike 7 kilometers off course after school, stood in a twenty-person line for thirty minutes, and paid too much for too little—all just to show up at Sieun’s door with something he may or may not even remember liking.

But Suho didn’t care. He always looked forward to this.

These post-class visits had become the best part of his week. Even though most of the time all they usually did was sit around: Suho finishing worksheets or skimming textbooks while Sieun typed reports one-handed, or skimmed market research on his company laptop. The only breaks Sieun allowed were occasional “reel breaks”—two to three minutes of silence where Suho would shove his phone between them and say “Look at this one, oh my God, this dog looks like your grumpy face.”

Sometimes, Sieun huffed out an uncontainable laugh.

That was the jackpot.

As he punched in the passcode—familiar now, like second nature—Suho called out, “Hyung, your favorite delivery guy’s here! I brought—”

He stopped mid-sentence.

There was a man in the kitchen.

Not a stranger exactly—he looked enough like Sieun for Suho to piece it together—but the shock hit him hard. The guy was maybe sixty, salt-and-pepper hair, in the middle of slicing spring onions over a bubbling pot. He glanced up with mild surprise, like Suho had interrupted a family sitcom, and Sieun—across the room—didn’t even bother hiding his amusement.

There was the tiniest, tiniest quirk at the corner of his lips. Barely there. But Suho knew him well enough to know that was basically a full belly laugh from anyone else.

“Right,” Sieun said. “Suho, this is my dad. Dad, Suho. He’s the one who’s been coming to help around the house.”

Just like that. Nothing more.

Sieun never really talked about his parents. Occasionally, he’d mention “my dad’s dropping by” like it was a weather report, or say something vague like “I can’t come out today—family stuff.” And there was that one night—when Sieun was feverish and glassy-eyed and half asleep—mumbling for his mom through tears. That night haunted Suho quietly. He never brought it up.

From those bits and pieces, Suho had assumed there was history there. Distance. Something not quite warm, but not quite severed either.

Suho bowed instantly, and now the man—Sieun’s dad—walked over with the confidence of someone who had decided to like Suho within five seconds.

“Hi, Suho!” he boomed in that loud-old-man way, full of energy. “You look strong. How old are you?”

“Nineteen, sir,” Suho said automatically, bowing like his grandma taught him.

The man slapped a hand on Suho’s arm and grinned when he felt muscle. “You work out?”

“A bit. I used to do MMA.”

“Oh! No wonder. I used to coach a team—back in the day. Baseball, some boxing too. You’ve got the look. Big shoulders.”

Suho laughed, flushed. “Thank you, sir.”

It was the first time in forever that being judged by an adult felt... nice.

He offered the paper bag like a peace treaty. “I brought some dessert. It’s from that new pastry shop near the bridge. Thought we could eat it after dinner.”

“Well, look at that.” The man beamed, already peeking inside. “You brought enough for everyone, too. That’s manners right there. Sieun, I like this kid.”

Sieun just hummed without looking up.

Suho, being the grandma-raised child that he was, offered to help in the kitchen. Sieun’s dad accepted. They moved comfortably around the kitchen space, passing bowls, taste-testing broths, Suho peeling garlic while they chatted about sports and Seoul traffic and how boys nowadays needed to eat more.

Dinner was set quickly—simple but warm. Grilled mackerel, spicy tofu stew, steamed eggs, rice, and some banchan Sieun’s dad had packed from home. They sat down, the three of them, around the small table Sieun usually kept cluttered with documents.

It felt oddly... cozy.

Homey.

The windows were fogged from the heat of the stew, and the apartment smelled like sesame oil and garlic. Outside, the late autumn wind hissed past the glass, but inside, it was warm. Suho thought—briefly, foolishly—that he didn’t want to leave.

Conversation stayed light.

Sieun’s dad asked about his school (“Byeoksan High, sir.”), if he had siblings (“Only child.”), how long he had trained MMA (“Since middle school.”), and whether he liked being in a band (“Yeah. We’re a chaotic mess but they’re my people.”). Not once did he ask about Suho’s grades. Or his plans. Or whether he had a girlfriend.

It was... refreshing.

For a moment, Suho just existed, laughing with someone else’s father over steamed eggs, exchanging banter, sneaking glances at Sieun who sat quietly, chewing with his left hand, gaze soft and oddly peaceful.

And in the back of his mind, uninvited, came the thought:

What if we could all have dinner like this with Grandma?

He imagined it—his grandma clicking her tongue because the stew was too salty, Sieun quietly nodding along to her stories, Sieun’s dad and Grandma bickering about whose kimchi recipe was better.

And then, stupidly, without meaning to, Suho imagined calling this man Appa.

Like he was his father too. A figure he never had in his life.

He blinked. The thought echoed in his head, unreal and startling.

Father-in-law is technically a dad too, right?

His heart tripped over itself.

Before he could stop it, the fantasy spiraled—weddings, formal bows, smiling for pictures with Sieun in a suit. His grandma smiling at Sieun’s dad. Two old people bonding over the shared trouble of raising difficult kids. Suho helping set the table while Sieun leaned against the counter, arms crossed, mock-annoyed but secretly pleased.

He bit down on a mouthful of rice—and choked. Literally.

“Hey—” Sieun’s dad reached over to pat his back. “You okay?”

“Yeah!” Suho coughed, red-faced. “Swallowed wrong, sorry.”

He glared down at his bowl, face red.

Get it together, he scolded himself. Jesus Christ.

They finished dinner. The dessert came out. The pastries were still warm, and Sieun’s expression didn’t change much—but Suho caught it.

That glimmer. A barely-there sparkle in his eyes. The rare kind of approval Sieun gave out like rationed water in a drought.

And that—just that—made everything worth it. The long ride. The line. The price. It made the whole day feel like a win.

Suho’s chest went warm. He wanted to burn this moment into his memory forever.

Sieun’s dad sipped his tea and said, “You know, this boy—” He gestured to Suho, “—is very mature for his age. Reliable. Thoughtful.”

Sieun raised an eyebrow at that.

“I mean it,” the old man added. “He reminds me of this guy I used to coach. Never flashy, but strong. You’re lucky, Sieun. It’s good to have a friend like this.”

Sieun didn’t respond, but his fingers tapped the table in slow rhythm.

“Sieun never brought any friends home before,” his dad continued. “Not even when he was younger. He’s always been that way. Closed off. But seeing you here—it’s good. Makes me feel relieved, you know?”

Suho smiled, heart thudding unevenly. It felt like praise. Like a kind of quiet blessing.

When he finally rode home under the orange streetlamps, his hands frozen on the handlebars and his nose pink from the wind, Suho felt... proud.

It was one thing to be seen by the person you liked.

It was another thing entirely to be welcomed by the people they came from.

Tonight, Suho had been both. And even if it didn’t mean anything concrete yet—even if he was still just “the helper” or “the friend”—he let himself hold on to the warmth of it a little longer.

He wasn’t just proud.

He felt... included.

And in Suho’s world, that meant everything.

Jeon Seokdae never considered himself a romantic.

He wasn’t cold—just practical. The kind of man who always finished his taxes early, kept his apartment spotless without anyone to impress, and scheduled oil changes before the warning light came on. People like him didn’t live for passion. They lived for results.

He grew up in a family where dreams came second to survival. His father worked a civil servant job that paid just enough to keep them housed but never enough to rest. His mother sold insurance and carried exhaustion like it was stitched into her spine. They never complained. Never asked for more than they could afford. Life was modest and honest—and for a while, it was enough.

Then, when Seokdae was twelve, everything changed. His sister was born. Yeongyi. A twelve-year age gap was enough to make her feel more like a responsibility than a sibling. But from the moment she wailed her way into the world, he loved her like a second heartbeat.

She was loud where he was quiet, impulsive where he was careful. She smeared crayon over his textbooks, cut her own hair, and declared at age six that she would grow up to be a musician and sing about feelings.

So little Seokdae decided, very early on, without telling anyone, that he would give her that chance.

That was when he started saying no to games, to parties, to whims. He studied, worked, earned scholarships, got internships, climbed ladders—because someone had to build the road for her to run free. His parents never asked him to. They were proud enough when he brought home good grades. But Seokdae was proud of something else: that he could carry the weight without complaint.

And part of carrying that weight was being a good son.

So when his mother started getting nervous about his love life, when she started passing him the numbers of “a friend’s daughter” or “a coworker’s niece,” Seokdae didn’t roll his eyes. He tried. Dutifully. He dated one girl in college—bright, assertive, fond of making vision boards—but they fizzled out when they realized their futures were pointed in opposite directions. The rest were... fine. Women he was introduced to through family friends. He liked them enough. They were kind, clever, presentable. But they weren’t sparks. They were solutions.

Each time he dated someone, he wondered if maybe affection could grow with time. That if he waited long enough, the warmth would come. But it didn’t. Not in the way that made him think of home. Not in the way that made him want to bring someone home.

So when he turned thirty, still unmarried, still bringing solo gifts to holiday dinners, he wasn’t ashamed. Just... resigned.

Love, he figured, was a luxury for people who hadn’t turned themselves into machines.

That belief held steady until Yeon Sieun walked into his life.

At first glance, Sieun was just another face on the new team—a quiet one at that. Slim, neat, unreadable. The kind of worker who submitted things early and never followed up. The kind of man who never looked rushed, even when everything was on fire. And for a while, Seokdae barely registered him beyond nods at meetings and the occasional exchange over coffee machines.

But then, slowly, he started to notice.

How Sieun, despite his aloofness, had a razor edge under his calm. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, it was with surgical precision—cutting through the nonsense, defending teammates who fumbled under pressure, calling out upper-level contradictions with fearless bluntness. When people tried to step on Beomseok—the quiet, jittery designer who flinched under every critique—Sieun was always the first to speak. Not with aggression. With clarity.

And that was when something strange began to take root.

Why him? he asked himself once, genuinely curious. Why not Beomseok? Why not anyone else who worked hard and kept quiet and was easier to get along with?

Because Beomseok, for all his good intentions, couldn’t hold eye contact during disagreements. Because he apologized before finishing sentences. Because he never said what he meant, and when he did, it came wrapped in nervous laughter. No offense to the guy, Seokdae still enjoyed his company as a friend.

But Sieun—Sieun knew how to stand alone. How to pick his battles and win them. He never begged to be understood. He just did what needed to be done. Like Seokdae. Like someone who had grown up with too many responsibilities too early, who stopped asking for softness because he knew he wouldn’t get it.

And beyond the similarities, there was the occasional crack in the armor: a joke whispered under breath. A shared disdain for burnt office coffee. A quietly impressed nod after a client pitch.

Their rhythms matched. Same working pace. Same taste in movies. Same preference for honesty over comfort. Sieun didn’t gossip, didn’t exaggerate. He wasn’t interested in being liked. He was interested in being good. Just like Seokdae.

And it hit him one evening—staying late for no reason, sharing ramen cups over muted office lights—that he wanted to be liked by this man more than anyone else before.

The realization didn’t bloom like flowers or fireworks. It came with gravity. Like a truth he had been circling around for years.

Still, he didn’t panic.

He would insert himself. Slowly. Deliberately. Like a piece that had always fit the puzzle.

He started leaving new pens and sticky notes and sometimes dessert on Sieun’s desk. He learned the movies Sieun bookmarked and texted him articles about the director, waited for a reply, then suggested watching one sometime, no pressure. He even ditched his car and started taking the bus to work sometimes, so that he had an excuse to walk Sieun to the bus stop after they leave the company. Wouldn’t want to see Sieun lying in his own blood on the pavement again, he joked to Sieun once, even though the damn image almost gave him PTSD.

Today, one November day after Sieun had recovered enough to return to work, they stood together by the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change.

Seokdae’s hands were in his coat pockets. The chill had finally settled in, sharp and clean, and it made their exhales fog slightly in the air.

“You’re still not wearing gloves,” he muttered, eyeing Sieun’s exposed hands, one still stiff from wearing the cast under the thick coat.

Sieun didn’t look up from the pedestrian signal. “I forgot.”

“You forget a lot for someone who schedules his life down to the minute.”

Sieun sighed. “Is this your way of scolding me?”

“No,” Seokdae said calmly. “It’s my way of saying I noticed.”

That made Sieun glance over, eyes narrowed slightly, like he was waiting for the punchline. But Seokdae didn’t offer one. Just stood there, gaze steady, like noticing was enough.

They crossed the street in silence. There weren’t many people left on the sidewalk — just a few students rushing for the bus and the buzz of distant traffic.

When they reached the corner where they usually split ways, Seokdae didn’t walk ahead like he normally did. He stopped. Waited.

Sieun tilted his head. “Something wrong?”

“Not really.” He paused. “Just... something I’ve been meaning to say.”

Sieun blinked, noncommittal.

Seokdae looked away first, then leaned lightly against the streetlamp pole behind him. The yellow light made everything feel dim and a little cinematic — like one of those indie dramas Yeongyi always watch for “writing inspiration”. He understood the mood now. The pause before something shifted.

“You never let anyone take care of you,” Seokdae said. Not accusingly. Not even gently. Just... plainly. Like a fact he had filed away after weeks of watching Sieun pretend to function with one arm and a concussion.

Sieun gave a short laugh through his nose. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“I know,” Seokdae said, and smiled — just slightly. “But I’m learning.”

There was a beat. A silence not quite comfortable, not quite tense. Just hanging there.

“I didn’t ask for help because I didn’t need it,” Sieun said, finally. “I was managing.”

“Were you?”

Sieun didn’t answer.

Seokdae tilted his head, his voice quieter now. “You never asked me. Not once. Even though I offered.”

“It wasn’t about you,” Sieun muttered. “I wasn’t… trying to prove anything. It was just easier to handle things alone.”

A pause.

“Because that’s how you’ve always done it?” Seokdae asked.

And this time, Sieun flinched.

Not visibly. Just a flicker behind the eyes — something small and startled. Like Seokdae had touched a bruise he wasn’t supposed to know was there.

“…Something like that,” Sieun murmured. He rubbed the edge of his coat sleeve between his fingers. “It’s not a big deal.”

But it was. They both knew it.

Seokdae didn’t press. He wasn’t the kind of man who pried wounds open. But he also wasn’t the kind who walked away just because someone pretended they weren’t bleeding.

So he said, softly, “I would’ve helped. If you asked.”

Sieun looked at him again, slower this time. More direct. Like he was trying to read what Seokdae wasn’t saying.

“I know.”

Another beat.

Then: “But Suho was there.”

Ah.

Seokdae didn’t react much. Just straightened his posture, eyes neutral.

“I’m not competing with a teenager,” he said, though not unkindly. “But I do want to be someone you rely on. If that means starting late, I can live with it.”

That latter part was the truth. The first part, not so much, even if Seokdae was embarrassed to admit that to himself. Seokdae saw it clearly that time, when they met in the hospital room. The unwavering way Suho looked at Sieun. The possessiveness wrapped in politeness. The youth wrapped in devotion. It was painfully sincere. And it terrified him.

Because Suho had all the things Seokdae didn’t. Time. Boldness. Proximity. And Sieun let him close—the kind of close that couldn’t be fabricated. The kind born from chaos and comfort and shared silences. It was from that day on, that there would be no more waiting on the sidelines with respectful glances and half-laughs. He needed to make Sieun notice, before Sieun slipped away from his grasp completely.

At that, Sieun said nothing. The words hung between them, strange and warm.

“I don’t need anything from you,” Seokdae said. “Not yet. I think we’ve known each other long enough for you to understand what I meant. But I’ll keep showing up. Even if it’s just to make sure you wear your damn gloves next time.”

That earned a real, if reluctant, smile from Sieun. Small. Tired. But real.

“You’re persistent,” he said.

“You’re stubborn,” Seokdae replied.

They stood like that for a moment, the city moving around them, the world narrowing to a street corner and two men who never learned how to ask for softness, but were slowly, carefully, offering it anyway.

When Sieun got on to his bus and rode away, Seokdae smiled at him, just a little bit.

And Sieun looked back with the same smile on his face, disappearing into the golden sunset.

Even hours later, long after the bus had pulled away from the curb and the city faded into the blur of passing lights, one sentence still lingered in Sieun’s mind:

“I don’t need anything from you. Not yet. I think we’ve known each other long enough for you to understand what I meant. But I’ll keep showing up. Even if it’s just to make sure you wear your damn gloves next time.”

The weight of it pressed against Sieun’s thoughts like a stone in his pocket. Heavy. Constant. Difficult to ignore.

He stared out the bus window, the city rolling past like background noise. But his mind kept circling that sentence. The phrasing. The tone. The pause after “not yet.”

He was not a man easily startled by emotion. But that sentence—it felt too... loaded. Like it came with a quiet intention. A truth that Seokdae wasn’t ready to say out loud.

And even if Yeon Sieun was the most oblivious man to ever exist on Earth, he couldn’t not look deeper into it. Not after what Beomseok had said.

—---

It was four days into being back at work when Beomseok asked him out for coffee. It wasn’t unusual—just lunch in the café under their building—but it was the way Beomseok looked over his shoulder before steering Sieun toward the side booth that made it feel more like a mission briefing than a break.

Sieun had barely taken a sip before Beomseok launched in.

“So, um… people have been talking.”

Sieun blinked. “That’s never a good start.”

“It’s not bad gossip,” Beomseok rushed to clarify, eyes wide and worried. “I mean, they’re not bad-mouthing you or anything, but just… noticing things.”

“Like what?”

“Well,” Beomseok fidgeted, tugging at the sleeves of his cardigan. “Like how when you were on leave, Seokdae handled all your paperwork himself. And how he approved your full remote schedule without raising a single question.”

Sieun frowned. “I had a broken arm, not a sprained ankle.”

“I know that! Yoonchae said that too. But then Mingyu was like, ‘When I had food poisoning Seokdae sunbaenim barely even looked at me.’ And Soomin said this might be, um…” He trailed off.

“Beomseok,” Sieun deadpanned.

“…office romance?” Beomseok squeaked.

Sieun snorted.

“I told them it’s not like that,” Beomseok added quickly. “I really don’t think it is. But then, uh… I told my boyfriend about it. Just to laugh about it, you know? And he said…” He winced. “Seongje said it kinda sounds like someone has a crush on you.”

Sieun’s brain just stalled for a moment.

A crush?

On him?

He stirred his iced Americano without looking up. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I thought so too,” Beomseok mumbled, “but you and Seokdae do spend a lot of time together. And he’s… different, with you.”

“They’re reading too much into it,” Sieun said. “He’s a colleague. We’ve worked together for years. He’s like… a guide. Or an older brother.”

He didn’t expect how bitter that sounded once it left his mouth.

But when he was alone again later that night, sprawled on his couch with a heating pad under his back and one good arm typing clumsily on his laptop, he kept thinking about that sentence.

I’ll keep showing up.

And now he couldn’t un-hear it. Couldn’t un-see the small but constant ways Seokdae lingered around him lately. Offering rides. Sending extra files—“just for reference”—he didn’t ask for. Noticing when Sieun’s lips were too pale from the cold. Making space for him—in schedules, in meetings, in the quiet spaces between one day and the next.

He didn’t hate it.

But that was the problem.

No one had ever done that before. No one had looked at him the way Seokdae sometimes did. With that mixture of concern and recognition. Like someone watching something precious and fragile and trying not to break it.

Except—there was someone else who looked at him like that.

Suho.

God, Suho.

Suho was always the outlier. The unexpected variable. The one person Sieun let in without meaning to.

He had been fine with routine, with silence, with solitude. Then Suho barged in—loud and messy and full of sunshine—and suddenly, the silence felt too quiet. Suddenly, he started waiting for the sound of Suho’s voice every few days like it was some kind of medicine.

He was proud of Suho. Ridiculously proud, even if he didn’t always say it. The way Suho studied harder this year. The way he made space for others in his life—friends, bandmates, classmates—and yet still found time to help Sieun tie a shoelace, carry groceries, cut apples with one hand and a grin.

It wasn’t just admiration. It was something softer. Something that ached.

And yet there was guilt, too. Because Sieun wasn’t stupid—he knew Suho had feelings for him. Even if neither of them had said it aloud. Even if Suho tried to mask it under casual jokes and wordless glances.

But Sieun felt it. In the way Suho looked at him. Spoke to him. Treated him like something breakable and precious, someone worth showing up for without ever being asked. And that kind of devotion—it made Sieun want to run and reach out at the same time.

He kept trying to remind himself of the age gap. That Suho was still growing. That the balance was skewed, too easily misread. That maybe what Suho was feeling would fade with time, and Sieun would just become a part of his past—a memory that softened by the natural rhythm of life.

But then Suho would do something. Something simple. Like remembering the exact pastry Sieun barely commented on weeks ago. Or kneeling down to tie his shoelace without a word. Or waiting, always waiting, without pushing, without demanding—just… being there.

And suddenly, that lie about age felt flimsy. Because Suho understood him. Without explanation. Without conditions. He saw Sieun clearly in ways no one else ever had.

Suho made him feel alive. Like a breath after drowning. But that aliveness came with danger. The danger of being seen too clearly, of being loved in a way he didn’t know how to return. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

It was a different kind of closeness. Not rational. Not convenient. But undeniable.

That kid—no, not a kid, not really anymore—looked at him like he held the sky in his hands. Like Sieun was the answer to some question Suho hadn’t known he was asking. His kind of devotion was… loud in silence. In gestures. In the way he memorized Sieun’s pain and made it easier without asking.

But Seokdae was something else. Safe. Rational. Steady. The kind of man you introduced to your family as an official partner, or leaned on in crisis. If there was a future for someone like Sieun, someone who didn’t believe in romance or trust his own feelings, then wouldn’t that be the better choice?

Wouldn’t it be better for Suho, too?

Yet.

Yet…

Every time he thought of it—of dating Seokdae, of letting him in that far—something in him pushed back. Not because Seokdae wasn’t enough. But because it didn’t feel right. It felt like walking into a house where all the furniture was arranged for someone else’s life.

The problem wasn’t Seokdae.

The problem was, no matter how perfect a life with Seokdae sounded, no matter how much sense it made—his heart always wandered somewhere else.

To laughter in a kitchen. To a slightly burnt omellete and the sound of someone asking him about math problems. To a boy who looked at him like his world ended and began with Sieun’s smile.

He groaned and pressed the heel of his hand to his temple.

“This is so fucking stupid,” he muttered.

He didn’t know what he wanted. But he knew this much:

He couldn’t pretend anymore that nothing was happening.

Not with Seokdae’s words still glowing in his chest.

Not with Suho’s hand still warm in his memory.

Not with his own heart, waking up to choices he didn’t ask for—but now couldn’t ignore.

Chapter Text

The test ended in silence.

Not the kind that rang with victory, but the heavy, suspended kind — like the world had been holding its breath for so long that even exhaling felt unfamiliar. Around him, other students stirred: chairs screeched back, pens clattered on desks, someone sniffled, another muttered a curse under their breath. Relief came in waves, quiet or explosive. A few students teared up, others laughed too loud, already calling their parents.

Suho just sat there for a moment, still holding his pen, his knuckles faintly white.

It’s done.

Eight hours of pure tension. Eight hours that marked the end of three years of trying to catch up — not just to schoolwork, but to a life he felt he started too late. He wasn’t aiming for SKY universities like some of the others. His goal had never been elite — only enough. Enough to prove to himself, to his grandma, and to… well, to someone else, that he could rebuild something from the mess he once was.

The cold air hit his lungs as he stepped outside. Sharp. Clean. And then—

He stopped.

Right there on the steps of the testing site, the world slowed to a crawl.

Snow.

The first of the season. It fell softly, soundlessly, catching in his lashes and melting on his skin. There was something sacred about first snow in Korea — something old and tender, like a wish or a promise. He remembered saying to himself in the middle of summer that when the first snow fell again, things would be different. That maybe, just maybe, he would be braver, more mature this time.

And standing under that gentle white dusting was Sieun.

Suho forgot how to move.

The sight was something out of a dream he didn’t know he had. Sieun was just dressed in his casual working attire — a long black coat, plain scarf, hair dusted in snow like powdered sugar. His hands were in his pockets, his posture quiet, as if he’d been waiting for hours or only minutes — time didn’t matter.

He looked up the second Suho stepped out. Their eyes met.

Sieun’s expression didn’t shift much — a faint curve of the lips, a stillness in the gaze — but Suho saw it. The warmth. The way his eyes softened. And the way he looked at Suho, as if this was exactly where he wanted to be.

Suho’s heart stuttered so hard he nearly missed a step.

His feet carried him forward automatically. Each one felt like wading through snowdrifts of disbelief. He didn’t care that his backpack was heavy, or that his knees ached from sitting all day. All he could think was: He’s here. He waited for me.

That alone would’ve been enough.

But then he noticed it.

“Hyung… you forgot your gloves again,” Suho said when he stopped in front of him.

He reached for Sieun’s hand without asking.

It was cold—bare fingers, stiff from the late November chill. Suho wrapped his own hands around them gently, rubbing warmth into the skin like he could fix everything just by caring enough. He wanted to scold him, softly. Take care of yourself, he wanted to say.

But that wasn’t what his heart was screaming.

His heart was saying: From now on, I’ll bring gloves for you. I’ll take care of you.

Let me be the one who does that.

He didn’t say it. Not yet.

Instead, he whispered, “Hyung… I did it.”

His voice cracked. Just a little, but enough. Enough to let months of pressure bleed through. All the sleepless nights, the silent doubts, the fear that maybe he wasn’t enough—all of it split open in those three small words, like a fracture in glass.

And Sieun—oh, Sieun—didn’t tease him. Didn’t laugh, didn’t clap his shoulder or call him a good kid.

Instead, he slipped one hand free from Suho’s grasp.

And Suho hated how fast the cold rushed back in.

But before he could pull away, Sieun reached up and placed his hand gently on Suho’s head.

Because of their height difference, he had to tiptoe to do it. From the outside, it might’ve looked absurd: an adult reaching up to pat the hair of a teenager towering over him.

But to Suho, it was everything.

Sieun’s fingertips were warm—surprisingly so—and his thumb brushed against Suho’s cheekbone, light as breath. The touch lingered for half a second. Half a second long enough to detonate something in Suho’s chest.

Because this—this wasn’t like when Baku ruffled his hair.

Not like a brother.

Not like a guardian.

Not even like a friend.

But like someone who had waited just as long for this moment.

“Congratulations,” Sieun said.

And for the first time in his life, Suho felt like he truly arrived. Like all the running, all the bruises and studying and loneliness — it had brought him here. To this second. To him.

This is it, he thought. Now’s the time.

“Hyung, I—”

Bzzzt.

His phone rang. Shrill. Awful. Ruining everything.

He almost didn’t check. Almost wanted to throw it into a snowbank and say, just one more minute. But he glanced.

Yeong-ae ahjumma. Grandma’s friend. They said they would be at the temple all day, praying for Suho to have good luck during his test.

He picked up.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other end was breathless. Shaky.

“Suho-yah. It’s halmeoni. She… she collapsed while we were praying. The temple called an ambulance. They think it’s a stroke. We’re at the hospital now. I— I didn’t want to call until your exam ended.”

The world slammed to a halt.

No snow now. No sky. Just a roaring silence in his head. His knees gave out before he realized he was moving.

No. Not now. Not her. Please—

He barely remembered mumbling, “I’ll be there,” before the phone slipped from his hand.

He tried to run. His legs didn’t move right. His bag pulled at him. The sidewalk tilted. His thoughts spiraled.

Why? Why does this always happen when things are finally okay?

And just as his breath caught in his throat, too tight, too fast—

A pair of arms wrapped around him. Strong. Steady.

Sieun.

He didn’t speak at first. Just held him. Anchored him.

Then, calmly, like he was speaking to a frightened animal, he said:

“Hey. Breathe. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Suho’s chest was caving in. His hands were trembling. His heart felt like it was punching its way out of his ribs.

“I can’t— I can’t breathe—”

“You can,” Sieun whispered. “Just follow me. In, out. In… out…”

Sieun rubbed slow, grounding circles on his back. His voice was low, almost a hum, steady like footsteps in the snow.

“You’re not alone. You’re not alone, Suho-yah. I’m here. I’ll come with you.”

And slowly, through the storm in his chest, something inside Suho steadied.

The panic didn’t vanish — but he wasn’t drowning anymore.

Because Sieun was holding him up.

They caught a cab. The city blurred past.

Suho didn’t speak. Didn’t look out the window. He just held onto Sieun’s sleeve with one hand, the other pressed to his own chest, like trying to keep himself from shattering.

And Sieun… didn’t let go.

Not even once.

When they arrived at the hospital, Suho was still pale, eyes wide and unblinking, like he hadn’t fully come down from the high of panic yet. His hand gripped Sieun’s wrist the entire time they spoke with the nurse, his breathing just slightly too fast.

But luck, this time, was on their side.

The doctor said the stroke had been mild. Caught early. There’d be challenges during recovery—slurred speech, temporary confusion—but nothing life-threatening if they followed the right steps. Grandma was stable. She was awake. She’d live.

Sieun felt Suho’s grip on his arm loosen, then tighten again.

He didn’t cry. Suho didn’t do that. But the trembling in his shoulders gave him away. That small, devastated relief—the kind you can only have after standing on the edge of something terrible—was written all over his face.

“She’s going to be okay,” Sieun murmured, not for confirmation, but for comfort.

Suho nodded, once, twice. Then turned to him, jaw clenched, and said, “I’ll take on two more jobs. I can do it. I’ll pick up a dishwashing shift or—night delivery. I don’t care. I can manage.”

Of course he said that. Of course he did.

Sieun exhaled, soft but firm. “You’re not doing that.”

“But—”

“No. Listen to me.”

He reached out, put a hand gently on Suho’s shoulder. “You just finished the CSAT. That’s the hardest test in this country. You spent a whole year killing yourself to catch up, and now, when it’s finally over, your first thought is to start burning the candle at both ends again?”

Suho looked like he wanted to argue, but his mouth stayed shut.

“This is what savings are for. I know it’s not ideal. I know you want to take care of everything yourself. But sometimes,” Sieun said, voice quieter, “the strongest thing you can do is let someone help. Or let yourself rest. You only get one grandma. Don’t waste this time running around trying to pay off a hospital bill when what she really wants is for you to be here.”

Suho stood there for a long moment. Shoulders tense, jaw ticking. Then, slowly, he looked down and nodded. “Okay.”

Just that.

And that’s how their rhythm began.

Suho came to the hospital every day after class and stayed through the night, often sleeping on the little couch folded up beside her bed. Sieun would buy anything Suho asked for on his way over—hot packs, specific fruits, socks, even an extra phone charger. When Suho needed to go home and change or do laundry, Sieun took his place without question. They alternated without ever needing to discuss it aloud. One of them was always there.

Days went by and through Sieun’s quiet lens, he could see that: Suho’s instinct, when something went wrong, was to run faster. Harder. Carry everything, fix everything, until he burned himself to the ground.

Sieun had seen it before—the way Suho shouldered everything like he was made to endure it. That reckless, self-sacrificial urgency buried under layers of cocky confidence. And now, watching him at his grandmother’s bedside, Sieun saw it again—only quieter this time. More grown.

He was no longer panic and trembling like the first day they went to the hospital. Just Suho moving around the hospital room with quiet purpose. He straightened pillows, replaced damp towels with practiced ease, whispered gentle encouragements every time Grandma tried to sit up. His hands, once quick with restlessness, were tentative in their touch now—slow, careful, reverent. Like he was afraid of doing anything wrong, of causing more pain.

He spoke softly, sometimes teasingly, like he always did, but there was a tremble at the edges of it, the kind people didn’t notice unless they were listening closely. And Sieun was always listening closely.

Even when Grandma still couldn't form full sentences, Suho filled the silences with cheerful nothings—recounting things that happened at school, describing new band songs, cracking mild jokes. None of it was particularly funny. But it made her smile.

When she could speak again, he tried harder—weaving clumsy puns into mundane updates, adding cartoonish voices when reading hospital flyers aloud. The jokes were awful. But she laughed. And Sieun thought, God, he’s really trying. Even now. Especially now.

This wasn’t some grand heroic act. There were no sweeping declarations, no vows to the heavens. Just a boy—no, a young man—showing up every single day without fail. Without complaint. Without once asking for rest.

Gone was the loudmouthed teenager who tackled the world headfirst and thought he could punch his way through grief. In his place stood someone deeply dependable. A steady presence. The kind of man Sieun once doubted Suho would become—not for lack of potential, but simply because the world didn’t allow boys like him to grow up softly.

But Suho did. And he did it quietly.

And Sieun saw it all.

So he offered a hand, not because Suho asked—he never did—but because someone should. Because even the strongest pillars cracked under too much weight. Because Suho deserved to be supported, not just admired from a distance.

Selfishly, Sieun just wanted to be the one who stayed when things got hard.

Because Suho wasn’t just dependable. He was precious.

So for two men that weren’t lovers, weren’t family, they moved like they were both.

And somehow, it just made sense.

Suho had just left, grumbling quietly about forgetting his charger and needing to bring fresh clothes. The room was calm again, lit by a wash of pale gold through the window, the muffled sounds of nurses’ shoes in the hallway like a distant tide.

Sieun stood by the windowsill, eyes scanning headlines he wasn't absorbing on his phone. He heard the soft rustle of blankets, then a gentle clearing of the throat.

“Sieun-ssi,” Grandma said.

Her voice was still slow from the stroke, but her clarity was unmistakable. She rarely called him by name—he’d always just been “you” or “hey.” He didn’t think that was mean of her. Maybe she just didn’t know where to put this strange man that appeared out of nowhere, and decided to just stay in her and her grandson’s life. So he looked up, then moved closer to her bedside.

“You don’t have to get up,” he said quietly.

But she raised a hand slightly. Not to stop him—just to steady the space between them. She was propped up against the pillow, blanket tucked around her lap, eyes sharp and surprisingly dry.

“You’re very kind,” she said slowly, choosing each word with care.

Sieun didn’t quite know how to respond. The compliment sat awkwardly on his shoulders, like a coat borrowed in the wrong season. He managed a nod, polite. “I’m really not. I just… Suho needed help.”

“I should have said this before, but I can only talk properly now. Thank you. You’ve helped Suho, and you’ve helped me, too,” she said. “You didn’t have to do all this. You could’ve just said a nice word and gone on with your life. But you stayed. That means something.”

He swallowed, throat dry.

At first, he thought she might be making small talk—thanking him because it was polite, because that’s what grandmothers did. But something in her tone told him this wasn’t a casual remark. She was leading him somewhere.

“I’ll be honest,” she said, her lips twitching upward in a faint smile. “When Suho first mentioned you, I wasn’t sure what to think.”

Sieun stiffened slightly, but she kept going, gently.

“This older guy who’s already working full time and have a full adult life,” she said, mimicking her grandson’s voice in amusement. “He’d talk about you so often. Said you were sharp-tongued and tired but you always let him crash at your place. He always said it with a smile. And when he was having a bad day, it was always your name that came up first.”

Sieun looked down at his hands.

“He’s a good boy,” she said. “But he keeps most things to himself. Just like you do.”

Sieun’s head tilted up again, eyes meeting hers.

“I wondered,” she continued. “What kind of person makes my grandson light up just by showing up?” She paused for a breath. “I see it now. The way he looks at you.”

A beat.

“And the way you look back when you think no one’s watching.”

Sieun’s breath caught.

She wasn’t accusing. Not even probing. Just… observing. Like someone who had lived long enough to stop pretending they didn’t see what was in front of them.

And still, there was no judgment in her tone.

Only kindness.

Sieun swallowed hard.

“I trust Suho,” she said. “He’s not reckless with his heart.”

She didn’t use words like love, or devotion, or romantic. Of course she didn’t. But the implication wrapped itself around him like warmth inside a cold room. She was telling him, with old wisdom and carefully chosen words, that she saw something between them. Something that mattered.

And more than that—she didn’t mind.

No, she approved.

“I don’t know what this is between you two,” she said softly. “And I won’t pretend to understand it. But it’s real. That much, I can see. And sometimes, that’s all that matters.”

He bit down on his lower lip, hard enough to anchor himself.

What even is this, he wanted to ask. What are we?

He’d never let himself name it before. Not when it came to Suho. He’d put it in a box and kept it hidden under polite distance, older-brother logic, and late-night guilt. But now this gentle old woman—this stranger—was telling him it wasn’t invisible. That she could see the shape of it, even in silence.

And that she wasn’t afraid of it.

“They say the young should be wise,” she said after a pause. “But I think the young should follow their hearts. You spend too much time being sensible, you start mistaking it for being alive.”

Sieun’s chest tightened.

She wasn’t just talking about Suho anymore. He knew that. And perhaps she never was.

“You seem like a careful man,” she said. “But don’t let caution steal your chance to be happy. The world will take enough from you as it is.”

For a long time, Sieun said nothing.

What could he say?

That he didn’t know what he was doing? That he still wasn’t sure if what Suho felt was really love, or if what he felt in return could ever be enough? That part of him wanted to run from this warmth, because he didn’t know how to accept it without breaking something?

But another part of him…

Another part of him stayed.

Stayed through hospital shifts and cracked lips and long nights with instant coffee and shared silence. Stayed even when it hurt, even when he was afraid. That part of him—that quiet, battered part—wanted.

Not in the burning, selfish way.

But in the longing-to-be-seen-and-understood way.

He looked at Grandma again. And for the first time, truly, he saw what Suho must’ve inherited from her: that stubborn warmth. That unflinching steadiness.

And he was grateful. More than he could say.

“Thank you,” he murmured finally, voice rough.

She just smiled.

“Take care of my boy,” she said.

Sieun nodded. Without her asking, he already knew he would.

Lately, something about Sieun had changed.

No one else seemed to notice, but Seokdae did. Of course he did.

On the surface, Sieun was the same—punctual, razor-sharp, efficient with words and even more so with his expressions. He still carried that calm, dry-witted presence that somehow made his corner of the office feel like neutral ground in the middle of chaos.

But underneath that... something was different.

He never lingered after work anymore. Gone were the days when Sieun would sit at his desk after hours, sipping another cup of coffee just because, quietly scrolling through articles or editing one last file with an almost meditative rhythm. Now, the moment the clock struck six, he was gone.

Not in a frantic way. Not even tired, really. Just... occupied. Preoccupied.

Busy.

The first few times, Seokdae didn’t think much of it. Family matters, Sieun had said casually, when asked.

And Seokdae had believed him. At least partially. It wasn’t hard to imagine Sieun taking care of his father. They seemed to be on decent terms. But there was something evasive in Sieun’s tone, something a little too practiced. A little too neat.

It bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

A part of him was embarrassed by how much it bothered him.

For weeks now, Seokdae had been politely nudged aside. Casual coffee? Rejected. Dinner after work? “Next time.” A movie screening he had spare tickets for? “Busy, sorry.” Always with that same unreadable expression, that perfectly professional excuse.

And the worst part?

Seokdae wasn’t stupid. He knew where that time was going.

He saw it in Sieun’s brief glances at his phone during breaks, in the way he seemed distracted after lunch, or the occasional smile — small, barely-there, but genuine — when something buzzed in his pocket.

He didn’t need to hear the name. He already knew.

Suho.

The kid had already been a threat from the beginning. Young, intense, too sincere for his own good. But back then, Seokdae thought he had time. Thought he could take it slow. Be the steady presence Sieun could lean on once the noise passed. That was the plan.

But now? The distance between him and Sieun wasn’t closing—it was growing.

So Seokdae, in a rare act of selfish calculation, adjusted the plan.

He pulled rank.

It wasn’t like he was making anything up. Technically, these client dinners were part of the job. Networking, business alignment, all that. Normally, he never forced Sieun to attend. He knew how much Sieun hated the artificiality of those meetings—the small talk, the posturing, the empty laughter echoing over half-finished drinks. In fact, it was one of the things Seokdae admired about him: how fiercely Sieun protected his time and authenticity.

But admiration had its limits.

He had extended too many invitations that were declined. Stood too long on the sidelines, watching Sieun be there for someone else. So now, he gave Sieun a direct assignment—this client dinner needed both of them present. Because of Sieun’s involvement in the recent pitch. Because he was essential to the conversation. Because it was “important for your long-term career,” Seokdae said.

It was only half a lie.

The other half?

He just wanted Sieun’s attention.

He wanted to sit across from him, even if it meant enduring two hours of meaningless chatter from executives they both secretly rolled their eyes at. He wanted to watch Sieun roll his sleeves up and pick at his food like he always did. He wanted to walk him out after, maybe ask if he wanted coffee on the way home, just to have something back.

And maybe, maybe, he wanted to remind Sieun of the world they had outside of Suho. The one they built in the quiet space between deadlines and shared caffeine tolerance. The one that had potential, if Sieun would only let it happen.

But of course, he wouldn’t say any of that.

Not yet.

For now, he justified it all under duty. Under mentorship. Under professionalism.

Even if a part of him hated how much he missed someone he still saw every day.

Even if it felt like desperation dressed as diligence.

And when he looked over during that dinner — and saw Sieun sitting across from him in a blazer he didn’t wear often, sipping wine and saying all the right things with that sharp tongue of his — Seokdae didn’t regret pulling rank.

Even if Sieun would never know the real reason why.

It happened on a Friday evening, December 23rd.

The dinner was with Han Jaehyun and Jo Eunjoo—an older, influential client and his assistant from one of their long-time partner companies. Han was the kind of man who reeked of expensive cologne and entitlement. His gold watch glinted every time he raised his drink, and his voice carried even when it shouldn't. It was clear the moment he arrived that he believed the room belonged to him.

Seokdae had asked Sieun to come along. Insisted, actually. Not outright, but with enough persistent reasoning that it became hard for Sieun to say no. “These dinners help with visibility,” he said. “You’re good at reading people. It’ll go smoother with you there.”

So Sieun went.

And the dinner started as it always did. Expensive wine, small talk dressed up as diplomacy, jokes at the expense of whoever wasn’t present. Sieun sipped his drink slowly, answered when addressed, nodded along.

Then Han Jaehyun started pushing.

At first it was a hand on Sieun’s shoulder. His wedding ring rubbed shamelessly against Sieun’s blazer fabric. Then a too-long laugh at a joke Sieun didn’t make. A question about whether someone as good-looking as Sieun had a girlfriend, or boyfriend—he was open-minded, Han added, grinning.

Sieun noticed how Jo Eunjoo—the assistant, couldn’t be older than him—never lifted her eyes from her drink. How her fingers curled inward every time Han reached across her to refill his glass. She didn’t say a word. Couldn’t, probably. Her job depended on his good mood.

Sieun noticed her bracelet the moment they greeted—an expensive one, mismatched with the rest of her outfit. Her coat was new, creaseless, clearly not chosen by her. He had a sharp enough eye to know what it meant.

Power imbalance was dressed up in gift boxes.

That made Sieun angrier than he let show.

But Han kept going. A hand grazing his lower back, too intentional, when he returned from the restroom. A joke about how “someone like him” must get lonely in a company full of nerds. Then, finally, as they were shaking hands before ending this disastrous dinner, Han tried to pull Sieun aside with a sleazy smile and a hand that didn’t know its place.

And Sieun snapped.

He didn’t scream.

He simply twisted Han’s wrist in one smooth motion—a conditioned response from years of defending himself against bullies in high-school—forcing the man to his knees in front of the stunned staff and horrified customers of the restaurant. There was a sharp gasp. Jo Eunjoo flinched. Han’s scream rang out sharp and animalistic—less in pain, more in pride being shattered in public.

“Touch me again,” Sieun said coldly, “and I’ll make sure your hand won’t work next time.”

It was chaos after that.

Han Jaehyun shrieked like a child denied his toy, screaming at Seokdae about disciplining his “underlings,” about how he’d pull all their contracts, about how he’d ruin the entire firm if he wasn’t given a formal apology and hospital fees covered.

Seokdae didn’t say anything immediately. Just stood there, expression unreadable, while Sieun’s heart pounded in his chest.

He’d defended himself. He wasn’t ashamed of it. Men like Han disgusted him—entitled, married, still trying to lust after younger bodies with more vulnerability. People like that, they never changed.

But Seokdae… why wasn’t Seokdae saying anything?

Later, outside the medical center where Han was being examined, Sieun finally turned to him.

“You think I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

Seokdae looked tired. Older. “You shouldn’t have used force. There were better ways. You could’ve told me and I will handle—”

“Better ways?” Sieun’s voice rose, gradually, sarcastically. “What, wait until he felt me up in front of you? Let you say something polite to him and pretend like it wasn’t happening?”

“That’s not what I—”

“You saw everything before that moment and you didn’t say anything. Was it because you weren’t the one being touched?” Sieun snapped. “Because you weren’t the one being looked at like a piece of meat? If I waited for you to ‘handle it’ the business way, I’d be humiliated by now.”

Seokdae flinched. His mouth opened, then closed again.

Neither of them tried to understand the other in that moment. The rift cracked open right then.

Sieun didn’t say goodbye. He flagged down a cab and got in, ignoring the way Seokdae reached slightly toward him, as if wanting to fix it but not knowing how.

In the backseat, Sieun stared blankly at the passing streetlights. His chest felt tight. The night was supposed to be a boring, mildly annoying business dinner, not a descent into chaos. And now—now it felt like he had lost a friend.

A part of him couldn’t help but wonder why Seokdae had started dragging him to these dinners at all. He never used to. Why now? Why him?

He rubbed his temple, shut his eyes.

He didn’t want to go home.

So instead, he had the cab drop him off at the hospital.

It was quiet when he stepped into Suho’s grandma’s room. She was sleeping peacefully in her bed. On the couch, curled up and breathing softly, was Suho.

Sieun stood still for a long moment, just watching.

The warmth that hit him was quiet but steady. Steadier than anything had felt all day. He walked over, adjusted the blanket over Suho’s chest, then sat down beside him on the couch, back against the wall.

December 24th was only hours away.

He didn’t want to go anywhere else.

Didn’t want to talk to anyone else.

He just wanted to stay in that room, with those two people, and let the weight in his chest slowly, quietly dissolve.

Last year, on Christmas Eve, he spent the entire day with Seokdae. They had dinner at a fancy restaurant, exchanging gifts under the warm golden lights, telling each other stories about nothing in particular. It had been nice. Simple. The kind of comfort that creeps in quietly and leaves just as softly. Back then, he didn’t realize how delicate that balance was. And tonight, he couldn’t help but mourn it—mourn a friendship that, deep down, he knew couldn’t go back to how it was before.

Because something had shifted. Not just in how they worked, but in how they looked at each other, and more painfully, in how much they expected from one another. And expectations, he learned, always came with sharp edges.

But this year—this Christmas—was different.

Last Christmas, he let go of Suho.

Let go of the boy who clung to him like sunlight desperate to stay through the winter. Let go because he thought it was better for Suho to fly—to grow, to shine, to find his place in the sky full of stars where he belonged.

But he doesn’t want to let go of Suho anymore.

Not in vulnerable moments like this, when the world felt like it was peeling itself open around him.

And not in happy ones either.

He just… never wants to let go of Suho. Of the boy who now turned into a steady force. The one who looked at him like he wasn’t something broken. The only one who seemed to understand him without the need for explanation. The one who didn’t ask him to change, but still made him want to become softer, better.

His only peace of mind.

His only calm.

His only person.

Ever again.

Chapter Text

Work was still work. Emails to chase. Clients to pacify. End-of-year reports piling like snow on the rooftop Sieun could see from the office windows.

But everything else had shifted.

Since the night at the restaurant, Sieun and Seokdae hadn’t spoken beyond what was necessary. They sat across the same table in meetings. Their messages in group chats remained efficient, professional, neutral. No inside jokes. No coffee runs. No casually shared complaints about a picky client or an absurd marketing brief.

Sieun didn’t expect a formal apology. But part of him—maybe the part that once genuinely looked forward to Seokdae’s texts—wished the silence wasn’t so... final. Not angry. Just cold.

He didn’t want to hate Seokdae. He didn’t. And he didn’t think he did.

But that night still clung to him like smoke.

Every time he glanced at Seokdae across the office, every time he remembered the look of frustration on his face as they argued in front of the clinic—that vague disappointment returned like a dull ache in the ribs.

Was it so wrong to protect himself?

And still, it hurt to admit: He missed his friend.

Outside of work, his world had quietly rearranged itself around Suho and Grandma.

Grandma was recovering better than the doctors anticipated. Still weak in speech, but her mind was clear, and her mood had softened from the initial shock. She could eat by herself now, slow and careful, and had started to walk short distances inside the hospital ward.

Suho, despite being newly unshackled from the weight of CSATs, was as dependable as ever. Every day after school, he came to the hospital with freshly laundered clothes, or a new pair of slippers Grandma liked, or soup he made himself. He even asked the nurses for tips about stimulating memory and speech. Always bright when speaking to her, always tender in touch—gently rubbing her palms when her hands cramped, brushing stray hair away from her face. The boy who once blew up at the world now knew how to soften his edges for the person he loved.

And Sieun—he found himself part of the rhythm.

Buying groceries with Suho. Taking Grandma’s vitals when Suho had class. Showing up with snacks she could actually chew. Folding laundry at the hospital bench like it was the most natural thing in the world.

This, somehow, became their new normal.

And, surprisingly, there were also a few back-and-forth visits with his dad.

Just small, infrequent things: dropping by his dad’s place for dinner every other weekend, helping him set up a new water filter, trading comments about movies or work over glasses of orange juice. Their conversations were still a bit awkward—too formal, too careful—but there was a sense of effort now. A silent truce neither of them dared to name.

Sometimes, Sieun caught himself watching his father laugh—really laugh—and thinking, maybe we’re getting better at this.

It wasn’t healing in grand gestures. Because in real life, the grand gesture wasn't enough. You need to be consistent, you need to be dependably good. You can't just screw everything up and then take a bullet for your son as an apology. You need to do it every day, which is not easy. So, just quiet consistency. The kind of steady, unspoken rhythm that reminded Sieun that some things, even when broken, could be rebuilt from the ordinary.

And maybe that’s what his life had become lately. A quiet constellation of people he didn’t expect to rely on, and somehow, through daily routines and hushed hospital visits and tangerines on a napkin, he found himself anchored in it.

One lunch break in early January, Beomseok asked to eat out, citing some newly opened kimbap place near the office.

They sat in a private booth, away from any other company. Beomseok toyed with his soup spoon before finally saying:

“Are you… okay with how things ended with Seokdae-ssi?”

Sieun looked up. Then down again.

Beomseok nodded quietly, stirring his broth. “You two were always weirdly in sync. I kinda thought… well. Never mind.”

Sieun didn’t ask. He already knew what Beomseok was hinting at.

It was a fragile kind of grief, losing a friend that way. Not a breakup. Not betrayal. Just a slow drifting apart where neither of them reached out, and the space between them calcified into distance.

He missed the way Seokdae used to roll his eyes when Sieun pushed back on a presentation layout. Missed the dry one-liners muttered under his breath during team meetings. Missed being understood without having to explain himself.

But what happened that night changed things.

Maybe Seokdae didn’t mean to hurt him—but he still ended up being hurt.

Meanwhile, Suho didn’t ask questions.

He never asked why occasionally, Sieun seemed just a bit more tired. Or why he occasionally zoned out when the nurse explained Grandma’s recovery schedule. He didn’t ask—he just filled the space.

Whenever Sieun brought extra tangerines, Suho would peel them without a word and place the segments on a napkin for him. When Sieun’s jacket seemed too thin, Suho would wordlessly drape his scarf over his shoulders. And when Sieun forgot to charge his phone again, Suho would hand over a power bank with a mumbled, “Just keep this one.”

He didn’t say “I love you.” But it was everywhere. In the way he brought Sieun just the right coffee whenever they met. In the way he left a heating pad under the blanket on the couch. In the way he waited for him after work in the cold, just to ride together in silence to the hospital.

And somehow, without even trying, he had become Sieun’s anchor.

Jeon Seokdae: Would you have coffee with me? Not for work. Just… to talk.

Sieun stared at the screen for a long moment, phone glowing faintly in his dim apartment. There was a part of him that had been waiting for this. And another part—much quieter—that almost wished it wouldn’t come.

He said yes.

They met at a quiet café tucked in the shadows of mid-rise office buildings. The one they always go to after their movie sessions. It was quiet, insulated—perfect for conversations too raw to have anywhere else.

Seokdae was already there when he arrived, sitting by the window, hands wrapped around a paper cup like it might steady him. He looked tired. Hollowed out. A little older than before.

“Hey,” Sieun said, sliding into the seat across from him.

“Hey,” Seokdae echoed, voice low.

They didn’t speak for a long while. The silence wasn’t suffocating—it was just dense. Like something between them had changed its shape and neither of them knew how to hold it anymore.

Then finally, Seokdae spoke.

“I wanted to apologize.”

Sieun met his eyes, steady.

“Not just for what happened with Han Jaehyun,” Seokdae said, voice quieter now. “Though that too. But mostly for… for making you feel like I didn’t trust your judgment. That night, and maybe before that.”

Sieun said nothing. Let him speak.

“I dragged you to those client dinners for selfish reasons,” he continued. “I told myself it was good for your career. That it would help you make connections. But really, I just—” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just missed being around you. You kept turning down our hangouts, so I found excuses. I crossed a line, professionally and personally.”

Sieun’s jaw tightened. He looked out the window. The sky was a heavy gray, the kind that threatened snow but never delivered it.

“I thought I was being subtle,” Seokdae said. “But I wasn’t, was I?”

Sieun shook his head slowly. “No. You weren’t.”

“I liked you. I still do. Not as a coworker. Not even just as a friend.”

The words weren’t dressed in metaphor. They were just plain. Honest. They hung in the air between them like condensation on glass—quiet, inevitable.

And they hurt.

Not because Sieun didn’t expect them. But because he did. And he still didn’t know what to do with them.

“I don’t think I can return that,” he said softly.

Seokdae’s expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes did. The dimming of hope. The quiet swallowing of disappointment.

“You were my friend,” Sieun added quietly. “And I don’t want that to disappear.”

Seokdae’s lips tugged into something that wasn’t quite a smile. It was too sad for that. Too tired.

“I know,” he said, voice even. “But sometimes it disappears anyway.”

Sieun’s chest ached at that. The honesty. The resignation. But before he could respond, Seokdae continued.

“Still,” he said, glancing at his cooling coffee, then back at Sieun, “maybe it doesn’t have to. Not completely.”

That surprised Sieun. His brows furrowed slightly.

“I mean,” Seokdae went on, slower this time, as if weighing each word, “if you want to stay friends… I’ll respect that. I want that too. I miss that. I miss you.”

He exhaled, a low, worn-out sound.

“But I won’t lie and say I can cut off my feelings for you right away. That I’ll wake up tomorrow and everything will feel normal again. It’s not a light switch, and I’m not built that way.”

He looked at Sieun then. Really looked. Not with expectation, or hope, or pity. Just something clear and soft. Tired, but present.

“I’m not saying that to make you feel bad,” he added. “It’s not your fault, and I’m not trying to guilt trip you into returning my feelings. I just… want to be honest about where I’m at.”

Something lodged itself in Sieun’s throat.

That kind of honesty—unpolished, vulnerable—was rare. Especially from a man like Seokdae, who’d spent his life being composed, controlled, and quietly exceptional. He wasn’t manipulating Sieun. He wasn’t begging, or pushing. He was just letting him see a wound that still needed time to scab.

And somehow, that hurt even more.

Sieun looked away for a moment. The café’s window reflected a world outside moving without pause. Cars. People. Trees in skeletal bloom. A life that didn’t care for the two people that were sitting here, trying not to break what they once built.

He swallowed.

“There’s no better way for this, is there?” he asked, voice thin.

“No,” Seokdae said, simply. “There really isn’t.”

And for a long moment, that was all they could share. This mutual ache. This quietly collapsing middle ground between closeness and distance.

When they stood to leave, Sieun hesitated.

“Do you think we’ll go back to the way we were?” he asked, almost to himself.

Seokdae considered it.

“I don’t think we can,” he said. “But maybe… we’ll find a new way. One that doesn’t ask us to pretend this never happened.”

Sieun nodded. But it was the truth. And for now, the truth would have to be enough.

“I guess... I’m not sure how to feel. About Seokdae,” Sieun exhaled, the steam from his meal curling upward.

Beomseok didn’t push. Just waited, gentle as ever. The last winter sunlight filtered through the glass, casting soft shadows at a corner of the company that people rarely pass by. It would soon turn to spring.

Sieun’s fingers rested on his coffee cup’s lid, unmoving.

“I liked having him around,” he admitted. “I really did. He got me in ways most people didn’t. We worked well together. He was—safe. Steady. The kind of person who’d never abandon you without reason.”

A beat passed.

“And part of me keeps thinking… maybe that’s what I should’ve chosen,” he said, voice low. “For me. For him. For Suho, too.”

Beomseok tilted his head. “Why Suho?”

Sieun hesitated. “Because he’s still so young. And I know what he wants from me. But I’m not sure if I should be the person to give it to him.”

There was a quiet in the air, not uncomfortable — just heavy with unsaid things.

Beomseok looked down at his hands, then back up again. “I used to think love was about picking the safest choice,” he said, voice soft but certain. “The one that made the most sense. The person with the cleanest resume and the least risk.”

He gave a wry smile. “Then I met… Seongje.”

Sieun glanced at him.

“He’s… everything I didn’t expect. A little crazy. Messy. Overly emotional and obsessed with the idea of romanticism.” A pause, affectionate. “But when I had a huge fight with my father and nearly quit my job last year, when I told him I wasn’t sure who I was anymore, he just looked at me and said, ‘Then I’ll wait until you figure it out. And I’ll love you until then.’”

Beomseok’s voice dipped quieter, almost like he wasn’t sure if he should say it aloud.

“Sometimes… the safest thing isn’t the person who checks every box. It’s the person who sees all your sharp edges and stays anyway.”

Sieun didn’t respond right away. He just stared down at his coffee, letting those words settle.

Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

“I think Suho would never leave,” Beomseok said, even quieter now. “If you asked him to stay.”

That hit something in Sieun’s chest. The ache of clarity. Of knowing something he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit.

“I know,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Beomseok didn’t say anything else.

He just gently reached out and patted Sieun’s back, a quiet gesture of support.

February 14th. Valentine’s Day.

Suho had gotten five chocolate boxes by the time second period started. Three anonymous, one with glitter hearts drawn all over it, and one that was obviously from the girl who had stood by his desk for too long pretending to look for someone in his class.

He thanked them all politely.

Didn’t open a single one.

By lunch, his friends from the An-core band were teasing him relentlessly.

“I thought I was the vocalist,” Baku childishly pouted, poking Suho’s cheek. “Why are you the one getting fan gifts?”

“Main character syndrome,” Juntae muttered. “It’s terminal.”

Gotak sighed, slapping a hand on Suho’s back. “Ah, the curse of good looks. Stay strong, brother.”

But Suho just smiled, noncommittal. It was flattering, sure, but his mind was elsewhere. He didn’t want chocolate. Not from them.

Because when Suho asked, “Wanna hang out tonight at Han River?” Sieun didn’t ask why. Just sent back a quick, casual:

sure

So there they were.

The city was draped in pinks and reds that night, like Seoul itself was in love.

Storefronts wore velvet bows and paper hearts. Cafés glowed golden with the flicker of candlelight behind fogged-up windows. Everywhere Suho turned, he saw people paired off — sharing scarf ends, feeding each other heart-shaped desserts, holding hands like they’d done it a thousand times before.

It should’ve felt cheesy. Claustrophobic, even. But Suho didn’t mind any of it.

They met under the bridge, not at the center, where couples clustered for selfies, but at a quieter bend in the path. The Han River rolled out beside them like a sheet of silver, rippling with the reflections of city light. Overhead, the sky was vast and navy, full of stars that didn’t seem to blink, just watched.

Sieun looked beautiful under that sky. Not loud-beautiful. Not fireworks-and-spotlight beautiful.

More like a candle in a quiet room—the kind of warmth that made you want to lean in without realizing it. The kind of warmth that you want to have just for yourself.

Suho had to remind himself to breathe.

They walked, side by side, shoulder brushing shoulder whenever the breeze nudged them together. Their shadows stretched behind them—two figures moving as one. Neither said much at first. They never needed to. Jusy orbiting in their own tender gravity.

They stopped at a small convenience store and got hot ramen in paper cups, triangle kimbap, and two sweet red bean buns still warm from the warmer.

They sat on a bench facing the water, steam curling between them in ghostly spirals.

“I got five chocolate boxes today,” Suho said, watching the steam. “And a letter with a glitter sticker. It said I looked like a manga protagonist.”

Sieun nearly choked on his kimbap. “Did you accept them?”

Suho shook his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Didn’t open any of them.”

“Heartbreaker.”

“I didn’t want any of it.”

“Hm?”

“The chocolate. The letters.” He paused. “I didn’t want anything from them.”

Sieun didn’t say anything. Just looked at him, slow and searching.

“I only wanted to spend tonight with one person,” Suho added, his voice quieter this time. “And I’m here.”

The words slipped out like a pebble into still water.

And just like that, the air changed.

Their breath fogged between them, mingling.

Sieun didn’t respond at first. Just exhaled through his nose. The silence stretched between them, heavy, but warm and full at the same time, like something alive was curled in the space between their hearts.

They sat in silence for a while, the sound of the river a low murmur beneath the city’s winter hush. The wind carried faint music from street buskers nearby, muffled by distance and snow. Couples walked past them in quiet pairs, a world of love stories unfolding all around.

Sieun’s breath came out in a small cloud. He watched it disappear into the air before saying, almost absently, “I’ve never seen it.”

Suho glanced at him, head tilted. “Seen what?”

“The rainbow fountain show,” Sieun replied. “From the Banpo Bridge. I mean… I’ve seen it from the bus window. But it’s not quite the same as actually waiting for it to happen, right?”

There was something different in his voice—a hesitation that didn’t usually live there. A hint of wistfulness.

“I always thought it was too cheesy,” Sieun added with a little exhale, “but… now I kinda want to.”

Suho blinked. Not at the words themselves, they weren’t that outlandish. But it was the softness beneath them. The longing tucked into the corners of Sieun’s voice. Gone was the sarcasm or boredom. Because this was real.

This was like Sieun had cracked open, just a little.

A rare glimpse into a part of him that no one else ever got to see—the part that quietly yearned for something softer, something unhurried and unburdened. A part of him that had once been a boy, maybe, who wanted to do ordinary things like watch water shoot into the air with someone who made the ordinary feel luminous.

Suho didn’t speak at first. He was too stunned—not by the confession, but by the vulnerability behind it.

This was Yeon Sieun: The man who held himself together with sharp retorts and stricter routines. The man who kept his life in check by never hoping for too much. And yet, here he was, whispering a piece of that hidden inner-child into the cold night air, as if offering Suho a key to something he kept locked away.

And Suho felt honored. No, chosen.

Because they were two people who had never been asked to slow down.

Two people too busy staying upright—with Suho juggling school and part-time jobs and the pressure of exams, while Sieun spent his life fending off people and their never-ending expectations. Both of them were used to standing tall, carrying burdens with a straight spine and a calm face. That was the only way they knew how to survive in a city like this.

But no one had ever stopped either of them and said, Hey, let’s sit down. Let’s eat ramyeon together by the Han River. Let’s wait for something silly and beautiful and pointless, just because we can.

No one had ever made it feel okay to want those small, human things.

And now here Sieun was, quietly wanting.

“I think it’ll be back in April,” Suho said after a moment. “The fountain show. They turn it on again when spring comes.”

Sieun nodded, eyes still on the water. “April, huh.”

“We can go together,” Suho added, voice steady. “If you want.”

Sieun glanced at him. Just briefly. But his gaze held.

“I want to,” he said.

They didn’t hold hands.

They didn’t exchange flowers and chocolate.

They didn’t say the words they were both thinking.

But in that moment, something passed between them—like the echo of a promise, like spring hidden in the folds of winter. Quiet. Steady. Certain.

Suho smiled, the kind of smile you keep in your pocket for years.

“I’ll wait with you, then,” he said.

The air was still a bit cold, but not biting. The kind of chill that hinted at winter’s end, edged with sunlight that promised spring. No cherry blossoms yet, just branches waiting. But Suho didn’t care.

Because everything that mattered to him was here.

He stood at the edge of the courtyard in his freshly pressed school uniform, diploma in hand, grinning so hard his face hurt. His grandma was bundled up in her best coat, seated in a wheelchair with a wool blanket across her knees, beaming with pride. Around them, his friends—Baku, Gotak, Juntae, Youngyi, and even Wooyoung—laughed and shouted, holding up peace signs and bouquets of carnations. Naeun was there too, cheering loudly for Wooyoung’s graduation and snapping selfies with her usual chaotic grace.

And then there was Sieun.

Sieun, standing with his film camera that he borrowed from his dad, soft hair tousled from the breeze, quietly adjusting the lens and checking the lighting as if he were trying to disappear behind the viewfinder. But Suho could see it—the soft, genuine smile tugging at his lips every time the shutter clicked. A smile that wasn’t forced or polite. A smile that bloomed from something deeper. Suho wanted to capture that smile and keep it forever in his heart.

Sieun took pictures of Suho with his friends. With Grandma. With the school building in the background. Suho noticed how Sieun’s hand lingered on the camera controls, adjusting things with more care than necessary, as if trying to record more than just images. Trying to remember a feeling.

Naeun eventually snatched the camera from him with a grin. “Sieun oppa, you should be in at least one picture,” she said. “Come on, go stand next to the graduate of the year.”

Sieun hesitated. “I’m not really good at—”

“Just smile,” Naeun said, already adjusting the focus. “That’s enough.”

As Sieun stepped beside Suho, stiff and unsure, Suho reached out in one smooth movement and pulled him closer by the waist. Sieun startled, eyes widening slightly, but didn’t resist. Their shoulders pressed together. Naeun snapped the picture.

“You guys look super cute,” she declared.

The An-core kids snickered, just a little bit too loudly, like middle schoolers behind them, and Suho couldn’t help but laugh too.

At some point, he caught sight of Seokdae standing across the yard with Youngyi and their parents. For a brief moment, Sieun and Seokdae locked eyes. They nodded politely, gave each other small smiles, and turned away. They hadn’t come here together. They didn’t speak. It was obvious that something had shifted—and Suho could feel it. He didn’t ask, but he would. Eventually.

Later, when the crowd had thinned and the sky began to dim, Suho and Sieun walked together to the far side of the school courtyard, near the old tree that hadn’t yet budded.

Suho reached into his uniform pocket and pulled something out.

A single brass blazer button.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just stared at it for a second, thumb brushing over the metal like he was still debating whether to go through with it.

Then he looked up at Sieun, and quietly pressed it into his palm.

Sieun blinked, confused. “What’s this…?”

Suho scratched the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. “Okay, so—this is going to sound really lame, but—there’s this manga I read a while ago. You know, one of those cheesy shoujo ones where the guy gives the girl his button on graduation day?”

Sieun's eyes narrowed faintly, but not unkindly.

“So,” Suho said, a bit embarrassed now. “Apparently, in Japan, it’s a tradition. Or at least in that manga it is, I don’t know. The point is, if a graduating student give the second blazer button to someone, it means that person is the one they like the most, because—”

“Because it’s the one closest to the heart?”

Suho’s eyes widened. “Wait—you remember that?”

Sieun looked down at the button in his palm. The weight of it. The warmth still clinging to the brass from Suho’s hand.

“You told me that story,” he said, soft, “a long time ago. When you crashed at my place and made me read that ridiculous manga because I said the art looked stupid.”

Suho laughed, that breathless, beautiful kind of laugh that always seemed like he was surprised to be happy. “You really remember.”

“Because you actually cried reading it,” Sieun said, lips twitching.

“It was a good arc,” Suho defended. “Don’t slander the button confession arc.”

A brief silence passed between them—warm, slow, like the first bloom of spring after a long, cruel winter.

Suho held his gaze. His voice was quiet, but steady. “Hyung. I love you.”

The words hung in the space between them. Clear. Unapologetic. A truth he no longer wanted to dance around.

Sieun’s lips parted slightly, as if to say something, but Suho shook his head gently.

“I know you’re still unsure,” he said. “And I know… I’m still growing. I don’t have everything figured out. But that’s just time. That’s all it is.”

His hand tightened slightly around Sieun’s. “I’ll grow into someone better. Someone you don’t have to feel guilty for liking back. And when that day comes… I hope I can ask you to be mine properly. Officially. But until then—can you wait for me?”

Sieun was quiet for a long moment. The wind tugged at his coat, and in the background, he could still hear the faint echo of laughter and music from the celebration. But here, in this small bubble of stillness, he looked at Suho.

This was the same boy who used to storm into his life like a hurricane. Now, standing taller, steadier, he looked every bit like the man he was becoming.

And Sieun, with a small, shaky smile, nodded.

“I’ll wait.”

I’ll wait, just like that Valentine night beside the Han River. Because Sieun, who had always been afraid of waiting for things he couldn’t control, finally found something — someone — worth waiting for.

Suho didn’t kiss him, not even on the forehead like in those shoujo mangas that he often read. They didn’t even hold hands for longer than that one moment. But Suho grinned like his whole world had just opened up.

Because it had.

And above them, the sky began to shift into soft purples and golds — a Seoul evening, still leafless, still cold, but full of quiet promises waiting to bloom.

And they would wait for it.

When spring came.

They would.

Chapter Text

Suho stepped into university like someone catching his breath after a long run. The campus stretched wide under the pale spring sky, too open, too new — and that was exactly what he needed. The air buzzed with voices and energy: courtyard cafés spilling over with students, flyers flapping on corkboards, clubs recruiting with wide grins and loud music, poster boards advertising podcast auditions and indie film screenings. It was chaotic. Unfiltered. Alive. And nothing like high school.

For Suho, that was a relief.

He majored in Media & Communication, not because he had some grand vision or long-term plan. Honestly, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to be. But the major moved — it was flexible, creative, fast-paced. It didn’t sit still, and neither did he. One day it was scriptwriting, the next was public speaking, then it was a group project making a mini-documentary or dissecting the psychology behind a viral TikTok ad. There were stories everywhere. And if Suho knew anything, it was that he’d always had stories to tell — of fights, of love, of things lost and things found again.

Now, finally, he was learning how to shape them.

There was an MMA club on campus. Of course there was. And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t pause every time he passed their training room — the sharp thump of gloves on pads, the rhythmic calls of sparring partners, the smell of mats and sweat and focus.

He hesitated for weeks. Just stood outside once or twice with a bottle of water in hand, pretending to scroll his phone. Watching. Thinking.

It wasn’t that he didn’t miss it. He did. The discipline. The quiet intensity of movement. The way your body told you a truth your mind hadn’t caught up to yet. But after everything — the fights he’d taken for money, the way his fists had almost become a way to survive instead of express — he wasn’t sure if he could go back without falling into something dark again.

He remembered how Grandma used to flinch every time he came home with a bruised cheek or split lip. How she never said “I told you so,” but the fear in her silence said enough.

So, when he finally sat down to think seriously about the club, he messaged the one person he trusted to call him out if this was a bad idea.

“Do you think I should join the MMA club?”

He expected a blunt no. Or a quiet “do what you want” that really meant “please don’t.”

Instead, Sieun had called him. No texts. Just a call, the line quiet except for the familiar soft cadence of his voice.

“Suho,” Sieun had said, “I know you didn’t do MMA just for fun. You loved it. You were good at it. You only stopped because… life didn’t give you a choice back then.”

Suho stayed quiet, just listening.

Sieun continued, “If you have the chance now to do something you love again — and it’s not hurting anyone — you shouldn’t give it up. Not everything has to become a career or a fight for survival. Sometimes, it’s okay to just do something for yourself.”

Then came the joke, soft and warm. “Just promise me you won’t go back to street fights for cash or doing hero works that involved knife stabbing. I don’t want to see your name in some viral clip titled ‘guy beats a drug gang with folding chair in alley.’”

Suho laughed so hard he nearly dropped his phone.

He joined the club the next day.

He didn’t train like someone aiming to go pro. He didn’t have that kind of time — or ambition, anymore. But he liked sparring. Liked the sweat, the rush, the trust that came with letting someone hit you and not take it personally. He even brought Wooyoung one day, just to test the waters. Predictably, Wooyoung fit right in, loud and brash and eager to throw himself into anything physical.

College life was different. Not easy, not exactly carefree, but full.

He made friends — classmates who wrote satirical blog posts with titles like “Why My Microwave is My Therapist,” kids from the film department who argued about Parasite versus Memories of Murder at midnight ramen stalls.

He kept up with the An-core band too. They still met up when schedules allowed, their banter as chaotic as ever. Juntae complained about rising string prices, Youngyi wanted to revamp their sound again, Baku was obsessed with synths now, and Gotak had started journaling — for reasons no one understood, including Gotak himself.

His grandma insisted he keep only one part-time job. “Don’t be greedy,” she’d said, wagging her spoon. “Let your body rest sometimes, or it will leave you behind.”

So he chose tutoring — young kids mostly. Reading comprehension, basic math, and sometimes, when the younger ones were too restless, storytelling games to keep them engaged. It was Sieun’s idea, actually. “You should be good with kids,” he’d said. “Since you’ve already got the patience — you stuck with me, didn’t you?”

It surprised Suho, how much he liked it. Teaching felt like fighting in reverse. Instead of defending or attacking, he was opening up. Making things easier for someone else. Building instead of breaking.

His days were full. Classes in the morning, tutoring in the evening, sparring twice a week, the occasional late-night hangout with the An-core crew.

And when he had time, he wrote. Not long essays or structured narratives, but notes. Sentences jotted down on his phone. Images. Snippets. A line of dialogue from a stranger’s phone call on the bus. The way sunlight hit the metal railings outside the library. A dream he had about a boy standing under falling snow, not saying a word but looking like he wanted to.

Things didn’t change much for Sieun. He had a stable job, a quiet apartment, and the same routines. But Suho’s world — it felt like it had opened wide, like a window thrown open after a long winter.

A new chapter.

And Suho was the one turning the page.

A new chapter.

But that meant something had to give.

Suho’s second year at university began like a runaway train — faster, louder, filled with new faces and thrilling turns. Courses grew more focused. He joined a media production team for a student-run digital magazine. He started scripting video essays with Kwanghee, the manga-geek deskmate who could quote One Piece like gospel. He began tutoring more advanced students and even took a swing at podcasting for a campus radio station.

Every day felt like a rush — like he was sprinting through ideas, edits, sparring matches, group projects, late-night karaoke, ramen at 2AM. It was good. He was happy. But the tempo was relentless.

And under that drumming beat of youth, he missed the soft, quieter sounds.

He didn’t notice, at first, the tiny things.

The fact that he hadn’t talked to Sieun properly in weeks. That they hadn’t hung out in ages without a ticking clock or a message Suho had to answer in the middle of a conversation. That when his favorite manga dropped a jaw-dropping new chapter, it was Kwanghee, not Sieun, he gushed about it with.

That every time they did meet up, Suho talked. And talked. And talked.

About classes. About professors. About the dumb mistake he made editing a campaign pitch. About a girl from the art department who brought her pet lizard to class. About Wooyoung crashing a study group to ask someone out — again.

And Sieun? He’d smile, laugh at Suho’s analogies, nod through the whole thing like he always did. Only when the hour got late and the café emptied out did Suho remember to ask:

“How about you? How’s work? That new project giving you hell? Beomseok still dragging you to those cooking classes?”

Sieun never complained. So it had to be fine, right?

It wasn’t.

Not until the night Sieun casually said, “I went on a group date with my team two weeks ago.”

Everything stopped.

The invisible drumbeat of Suho’s life — fast, thrilling, all-consuming — hit an abrupt, ugly off-beat.

His stomach twisted. He looked up from the dinner they were having at a small restaurant near the subway station, blinking like he misheard.

“...Wait, what?”

Sieun was calm. Still sipping from his glass of cold barley tea. “Group date. Team 2. Two Saturdays ago.”

Two Saturdays ago. Suho had no idea. Because that was how long it’d been since they last had time for each other.

He tried to keep it together. But the words just kept spilling out.

“You… just showed up like that? You weren’t actually looking for a girlfriend or something, right?”

Sieun shrugged. “They needed a placeholder. One of the guys canceled last minute. I didn’t have plans.”

“And… who was your, um… partner?” The word felt wrong in his mouth. Sour and metallic.

“A girl named Chaewon. She works at a real estate office.”

“Oh.” Suho’s jaw tightened. “What’s she like?”

“She’s kind. Bookish. Doesn’t talk much.”

“You guys still… keep in touch?”

Sieun didn’t flinch. “Yeah. We’ve been texting back and forth. She’s pretty interesting.”

Silence.

Suho stared at the rice bowl between them. His appetite vanished.

Sieun’s tone hadn’t changed — not smug, not teasing, just stating facts. But Suho couldn’t stop his brain from spiraling.

Because despite all of his newfound relationships and the fact that his popularity boomed at a dramatic speed in the campus because of his look, whenever his classmate was going to drag him to those blind date events, he declined. Whenever a sunbae asked to introduce him to someone, he rejected. Whenever one of his classmate, Dayeon, bat her pretty eyelashes at him, he pretended he didn't see shit to not make things awkward.

Because despite his everchanging life, there was one thing that never changed about Suho. The fact that in his mind, he only had one shining moon and star and universe. The only one he swore to love and wait until he was more mature to finally officially confessed it to him.

He wanted to ask:

I had to compete with Seokdae. Now I have to compete with her too?

Did you forget that you said you'd wait for me?

Do you even remember that I love you? That I’ve never stopped?

But he said nothing.

Until Sieun’s voice cut clean through the mess.

“Are you okay with that?”

Suho blinked. “With what?”

“With the fact that I’m potentially seeing someone. And I may genuinely like them.”

That was when it hit. Hard.

He looked like he wanted to cry, like the air had been punched out of his lungs. But he didn’t. He tried to keep it rational. Adult. Reasonable.

“I… I’m not in any position to tell you what to do,” he said, voice trembling. “I mean, I never said anything. I’ve never actually asked you to wait. I’ve got no right to act like this. But—”

He stopped. Then started again.

“But it… irritates me. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know you don’t owe me anything. But just thinking about you and someone else—” His voice cracked. “It makes me feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

Sieun finally set down his cup. His face was unreadable. Calm. But his eyes—there was something tired behind them. Something raw.

“Suho,” he said quietly, “do you know when that changed?”

“What?”

“When you stopped asking about my day unless I reminded you. When you stopped checking in. When you stopped listening unless I was talking about your world.”

Suho’s breath caught.

Sieun didn’t raise his voice. But that made it worse.

“I missed you,” Sieun said. “I missed you even when you were sitting right in front of me. Do you know how that feels?”

Suho felt his heart shatter in a way that fists and fights never could.

“I thought… drifting apart was just a part of growing up,” Sieun went on. The damp finally broke. “But is it really supposed to be this easy? This fast? Is this what it looks like when someone still claims they care about you but doesn’t know anything about your life anymore?”

He looked away, jaw tight. “Was I just a placeholder until your life got exciting enough?”

God, Sieun had never sound, this hurt, this vulnerable, this transparent in front of him before. Or in front of anyone. Suho knew him enough. It was like, in this one moment, Sieun ripped open his chest to give Suho a bloody, full of scars, still beating heart. And he didn’t care if Suho would crush it in his open palm, just because he could.

“No!” Suho said quickly, desperate. “God, no, hyung. Don’t say that.”

He leaned forward, voice shaking. “You were never a placeholder. You were the person. The one. My everything. I never told you all this because I thought waiting was the right thing to do. That if I grew up more, if I made something of myself, if I didn’t rush you, it’d all be worth it in the end.”

Tears pricked at his eyes now, and he didn’t care. “But I messed up. I got so caught up in chasing everything I thought I needed to become, I stopped seeing what I already had.”

Silence. Then, “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t performative. It wasn’t easy. It was said from the bottom of his scraped-up, honest, aching heart.

“I’ll fix this,” Suho whispered. “I won’t treat you like that again. Ever.”

Sieun looked at him. For a long moment, there was no answer. Just the low hum of the restaurant’s heater, the clink of someone else’s spoon.

Finally, Sieun sighed. “Okay. I’ll trust you on that.”

And just like that — not perfect, not neat — they found their way back to each other.

Even when the music was loud.

Even when life marched on like a rock song with no bridge.

Even when you had to pause, mid-verse, and really listen.

Because no matter how thrilling the song got, it was the quiet moments that told you who you truly loved.

Sieun’s promotion came like a quiet headline in a small paper.

They’d met at the station café near Sieun’s office, the one that always smelled faintly of burnt beans and cinnamon no matter what you ordered. The morning rush had thinned, leaving behind stray commuters hunched over laptops. Sieun sat in his usual spot by the window, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair slightly tousled as if he hadn’t had time to fix it after his late-night pitch meeting. His americano steamed between them, untouched, while Suho wrestled with the earbuds that had tangled in his hoodie pocket.

“So,” Sieun said, casual as if discussing the weather. “They’re sending me to Singapore. Three months. Client-side branding campaign for a luxury retail chain. Starts next week.”

Suho froze, a paper cup of latte halfway to his lips.

“Wait—what?”

Sieun smiled faintly, tired but proud. “It’s a promotion. Technically. Same company, better pay, longer leash. I’ll be handling it solo for the first time.”

The words hung in the air like the sharp scent of espresso. Sieun said it without flourish, but there was weight in his voice, a restrained pride. And Suho felt something twist inside his chest. Not jealousy—at least not the corrosive kind. More like a quiet ache. The same ache that always came whenever Sieun moved forward, dazzling and certain, while Suho scrambled to keep up.

“You’re gonna kill it,” Suho managed after a beat. His voice came out softer than he wanted, almost reverent. “I mean, obviously. You’re Yeon Sieun.”

Sieun chuckled, eyes lowering to his cup. “That’s not a guarantee, you know.”

“It is to me,” Suho said, and this time he didn’t flinch at the raw honesty of it.

The day Sieun left, Suho dragged himself to the airport like some lovesick idiot. He didn’t even bother with an excuse; skipped his last lecture, caught two buses, and ended up standing outside Departures with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Travelers streamed past with wheeled suitcases and hurried goodbyes. Inside, the departure hall glowed with sterile light.

Suho lingered near the glass doors, stomach twisted in a knot. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be here—this wasn’t his place, wasn’t his right—but still, his feet wouldn’t move. He kept waiting for some cinematic miracle: Sieun turning back, spotting him in the crowd, lifting a hand in a last-second wave.

But Sieun didn’t.

What he did was text, ten minutes later.

Made it through security. You better not slack off while I’m gone.

Also. Don’t eat too much ramen. Your skin will suffer.

Suho stared down at his screen, biting back a laugh that turned into something shakier. His chest felt light and heavy at once.

He typed back quickly:

Only if you call every day.

And Sieun did. Or tried to, anyway.

Sometimes it was audio calls, Sieun’s voice filtering through Suho’s cheap earphones while he sat cross-legged on his dorm bed. Sometimes it was video, Sieun framed in a sleek rental apartment with clean lines and mood lighting, a laptop open on the table behind him. His shirts were crisper, his voice sharper, always a little frayed at the edges from long meetings.

Suho would curl up under his blanket, phone propped on a pillow, the dim dorm light buzzing overhead. It wasn’t even about the words half the time. Just seeing each other—knowing the other was real on the other end of the screen—was enough.

There were nights Sieun looked wrecked. His tie loosened, hair sticking up at odd angles, voice clipped and hoarse. He’d rub his temples mid-sentence, eyes shadowed with fatigue.

“You okay?” Suho would ask softly.

And always, the same answer:

“Yeah. Shit’s hard, but I’ll get through it. Nothing I can’t handle.”

Suho wanted to believe it. And he did, mostly. Because that was who Sieun was. Tough. Steady. The kind of person who’d bleed for a campaign and call it “just another Tuesday.” But still, worry lodged itself in Suho’s chest like a stubborn splinter.

What he couldn’t say out loud was how much he missed him. How the ache of absence followed him everywhere: in the empty seat at the café, in the silence after lectures, in the way every song seemed to echo something about distance.

Halfway through the three months, Sieun sent a message that knocked the air out of Suho.

Hey. Can you go visit my dad this weekend?

Suho blinked at the screen. Reread the words twice, as if they might change.

Before he could form a reply, another message followed:

He keeps asking about you. Just keep him company for a bit. He’s bored without someone to argue with over dinner.

Suho sat frozen for a long minute, phone heavy in his hand. It wasn’t just an errand. It was trust. Something deeper than the words themselves.

Finally, he typed back:

Of course. I’ll bring snacks.

The weekend came, and Suho showed up with a bag full of Grandma’s side dishes and an awkward smile. Mr. Yeon welcomed him like he’d been expected all along, ushering him inside with that dry humor Sieun must’ve inherited.

Dinner stretched into hours. Mr. Yoon talked about jazz, about the old records stacked in the living room. Suho listened, laughed, argued half-heartedly about which saxophonist had the better tone. Afterward, he rolled up his sleeves and helped clear the dishes. Later still, they wandered out to the shed, where he ended up sweeping dust and cobwebs while Mr. Yoon directed from a chair.

Dinner stretched long into the night. Mr. Yeon talked — not about jazz, but about the old days when he was still a trainer, when his knees didn’t ache, and young athletes used to look at him like he could fix the world with a whistle and a stopwatch. His voice carried the kind of pride that only lives in memory, and the kind of regret that follows soon after.

Before Suho knew it, the stories had drifted to Sieun.

“How he was as a boy,” Mr. Yeon said, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “Smart, quiet. Too quiet, sometimes. Always watching more than speaking. But when he was little — four, maybe five — he’d run circles around the house, laughing so hard he’d fall on his knees. Used to make me chase him till I thought I’d collapse. Then, one day… he just stopped. Stopped fooling around. Stopped asking me to join in.”

He paused there, fingers tapping absently against the table. His eyes grew far away.

“There are things I should’ve said,” he murmured. “Apologies I should’ve made. To him. To his mother. She left chasing her career, and I… I wasn’t the husband she needed. Wasn’t the father he deserved. I look back, and all I see is the silence between us.”

Suho listened — really listened. Not because he had to, but because every word tugged at him, pressing against the ache that had been swelling in his chest since he first met Sieun. He wanted to cry, not just for the boy Sieun used to be, but for the man he’d grown into — sharp-tongued, tired-eyed, and carrying all that silence like a second skin.

Afterward, Suho rolled up his sleeves and helped clear the dishes, swept the shed while Mr. Yeon directed from a chair. It wasn’t work; it felt like something gentler, like being allowed into a corner of a life usually kept shut.

By the time he stood at the doorway, ready to leave, Suho found himself saying, “If it’s okay… I’ll visit more often.”

The old man’s eyes softened, his fondness plain. “Come by anytime,” he said. “This house could use more noise. Sieun only drops in once a month — usually I’m the one who has to go to him.”

Suho nodded, the promise sitting heavy but certain in his chest.

And somewhere between way-too-sweet orange juice and the easy laughter, it hit Suho what this really meant.

Sieun had trusted him. Not just with late-night calls or inside jokes—but with family. With the version of home Sieun couldn’t be there for.

And Suho found himself swallowing down a sudden tightness in his throat.

The nights stretched on, calls punctuating the distance. Some days were rushed, five minutes between meetings. Some nights dragged, both of them too tired to say much beyond “I’m here” and “Me too.”

But always, always, there was connection. A thin thread stretched across countries, vibrating with every laugh, every sigh.

What was between them, sometimes it was just a text at the airport. A tired voice saying “I’ll handle it.” A quiet trust that let you sit at someone’s father’s table and feel, for once, like you belonged.

Suho’s final year of university came wrapped in chaos, the grinding, relentless kind of chaos that wore down even the brightest students. Career fairs littered his calendar. Professors tossed out assignments as though their classrooms were production companies and he was a one-man crew. His friends were collapsing under the weight of exams and botched interviews. Some cried in the hallways between classes, makeup smudged, clutching résumés that hadn’t landed them anything more than polite rejections. Others pretended not to care, their laughter brittle, their eyes tight with fear about what came after the safety net of school.

Suho kept his head down. He’d always been good at that — focus sharp, eyes forward, hands steady. He poured himself into editing projects and internship applications, into scripts that demanded late-night rewrites, into the kind of exhaustion that left his body buzzing even after collapsing into bed. But no matter how wide his circle grew — classmates, bandmates, friends-of-friends — there was one constant pulse at the center of it all.

Yeon Sieun.

He had come back, just before Suho’s last year began, sliding into a higher position at his company like it was inevitable. He was steadily building a name for himself, fielding clients and pitches, the kind of adult life Suho still only pretended to have a grip on.

They weren’t in the same city every week. Sometimes, weeks passed where they didn’t see each other in person at all. But the messages kept flowing — steady, unglamorous, vital.

When Suho ranted about a professor who dismissed his editing style, Sieun would send him an article link with a dry comment: “This is the industry standard. Not everything is a vlog.”

It always made Suho laugh, loud enough to draw stares in the university library.

And slowly, the tone of their conversations shifted. They weren’t just the lopsided exchanges of the past, with Suho always trying to catch Sieun’s attention and Sieun indulging him with patience or dry humor. They were deeper now, sharper, more equal.

One night stuck in Suho’s memory like a nail pressed into wood. It had been past midnight, his desk littered with half-empty coffee cups, when he finished a storyboard draft for his production class. On impulse — and nerves — he called Sieun.

He hadn’t expected him to pick up. Sieun was probably asleep, or working, or doing something far more important than answering the jittery late-night questions of a university student. But after two rings, the line clicked.

“...What is it?” Sieun’s voice was low, tired, the kind of voice that made Suho’s throat close up with guilt.

“Ah, sorry, hyung. Were you sleeping?”

“I was trying to.” A pause, not annoyed, just weighted with fatigue. Then: “Why are you calling this late?”

Suho hesitated. He could have brushed it off, laughed, hung up. But something in him wanted the answer. “I just… I wrote a storyboard for class. And I don’t know if I structured it right. Could you—”

He braced for dismissal. But instead, there was a soft sigh. Papers rustling. “Read it to me.”

And so Suho read. Stumbling, awkward, over-explaining transitions that didn’t work. On the other end of the line, Sieun interrupted, corrected, explained concepts of brand storytelling and visual pacing. They argued, even; Suho insisting on one tone, Sieun pressing for another, both refusing to give in easily. By the end, Suho was smiling into the dim light of his desk lamp.

And then, Sieun’s voice, quiet but certain: “You’re getting better at this.”

The line buzzed. Suho didn’t say anything, not for a long time, not even when Sieun asked if he was still there. Because that simple sentence — tossed out casually — meant more than anything. It wasn’t praise for the sake of it. It wasn’t indulgence. It meant he was no longer just the boy chasing Sieun’s world. He was starting to walk beside him.

On weekends, when their schedules lined up, they met at a café halfway between campus and Sieun’s office.

It wasn’t glamorous. A small, sunlit place with too many wooden tables and the faint smell of overused espresso machines. Sieun would bring his laptop, editing campaign mockups or replying to client emails, posture straight and intent. Suho would sprawl across from him, scribbling podcast notes or fiddling with transition edits on his video assignments.

They didn’t always talk. Sometimes the silence stretched for hours, broken only by the clatter of cups around them. But it was companionable. A rhythm.

Suho always left those meetings feeling steadier. Fuller. Like something in him had been tuned back into place. He never said it out loud, but each time, he walked away a little more in love.

In the gaps, Sieun lived inside the spaces of his heart.

On long walks across campus, Suho would find himself replaying dry text messages like talismans. “Your campaign tagline could use less ellipsis and more spine.” Suho would grin at the screen, typing something cheeky back, but underneath the banter was always the boy who remembered.

The boy who had once waited.

And the man he was becoming — not just waiting anymore, but moving toward.

His world kept shifting. There were ramen nights with Doyeon and Minjae, full of laughter and spilled broth. Band jamming sessions with the An-core gang when he came home during holidays, sweat and sound filling old garages. Job fairs where his suit felt too stiff, his handshake too practiced.

But through it all, Sieun was there. Not always physically. But like a star — constant, steady, visible even when the morning light drowned everything else out.

When Suho landed his internship at a mid-sized digital production company, he thought he’d misread the email. He stared at it until the words blurred, then read it again, heartbeat pounding.

A place that actually paid interns. A place with projects beyond student work — branded narratives, short-form storytelling that people in the real world would actually see.

He wanted to scream, but instead, he pulled out his phone.

He texted exactly two people.

Grandma. And Sieun.

Grandma replied first, a flurry of emojis and heart-filled messages.

But Sieun’s reply made him sit down hard on the edge of his bed.

“You did it. I’m proud of you.”

Another message, almost immediate.

“Dinner?”

The dinner wasn’t at a restaurant.

It wasn’t under candlelight, with string music in the background, or some sweeping city view from a rooftop.

It was at Sieun’s place.

Suho knew the second he walked into the small apartment that Sieun had gone out of his way for this, and the thought alone made his chest tighten. The usually half-empty fridge had been stocked. Grocery bags leaned by the counter, already unpacked, leaving behind a faint smell of plastic and fresh herbs.

And Sieun was standing there, sleeves rolled up, bent slightly over the stove with his phone propped up against a spice jar, following a video tutorial at 0.5x speed like it was a matter of life and death.

The sight was so, unexpected, that Suho stopped in the doorway without announcing himself. He just stood there, watching. The way Sieun stirred the pan cautiously, eyes darting between screen and food, was so earnest, so him. No natural rhythm, no flair, but determination. As if he was memorizing every step, terrified of messing up.

Suho couldn’t help grinning.

“You know,” he said, leaning against the doorframe, “this is the first time I’ve seen you try so hard not to be good at something.”

Sieun startled. His hand jerked, the spoon nearly clattering onto the floor. He turned, eyes narrowing in that exact brand of irritation that tried, and failed, to hide his embarrassment.

“You’re early,” he muttered.

“Yeah. I didn’t know I needed to give you a head start.” Suho walked in, tugging off his jacket, pretending not to notice the faint flush creeping up Sieun’s neck. “What are we making? Or should I ask—what are you burning?”

“It’s not burned,” Sieun snapped, then paused, frowning at the pan like maybe he wasn’t fully sure. “It’s… fine.”

Suho came to stand beside him, peeking into the pan. Vegetables half-sautéed, something vaguely resembling sauce. He bit back a laugh. “Hyung, just let me—” He reached for the spoon.

Sieun drew it back like Suho was trying to steal a weapon. “No.”

“No?” Suho raised a brow, amused.

“No. I’m cooking.”

The stubbornness was ridiculous, but endearing. Suho leaned closer, lowering his voice like they were sharing a secret. “You don’t have to prove anything.”

“I’m not proving anything. I just—” Sieun’s words faltered. His eyes flicked toward the phone, then back down. “Just… go set the table.”

Suho wanted to argue, but the tight line of Sieun’s mouth stopped him. Fine. He’d let him have this. He slipped past, brushing Sieun’s shoulder on purpose. The contact lingered just enough for Sieun to glance up at him briefly before snapping back to the stove.

The apartment was quiet except for the sound of sizzling oil and Sieun muttering curses under his breath when the sauce splattered. Suho busied himself with the plates, chopsticks, the half-can of beer he found in the fridge. It wasn’t long before Sieun finally gave in and let him help chop the garnish, though Sieun insisted on controlling the main dish like it was a classified mission.

By the time they sat down at the tiny table, the food actually looked… edible. Maybe not restaurant quality, but warm, fragrant, and made with effort. That alone made Suho’s throat tighten in ways he couldn’t name.

They clinked their cans together half-jokingly before digging in.

It wasn’t spectacular. It was slightly under-seasoned in one dish, a little too salty in another. But Suho ate like it was the best meal of his life, because maybe it was. Every bite tasted like something Sieun had decided he was worth the trouble of.

Half a can of beer in, warmth blooming in his chest, Suho found himself watching Sieun more than his food.

The way Sieun pushed up his glasses every time they slipped. The small crease between his brows when he concentrated on cutting meat. The faint flush on his cheeks from the alcohol, or maybe the heat from the stove that still lingered in the air.

It hit Suho all at once—like a wave crashing hard against his ribs.

This was the moment.

Not tomorrow, not some perfectly scripted night in the future. Now.

Because it couldn’t get better than this.

“Hyung.” His voice came out steadier than he expected.

Sieun looked up, chopsticks mid-air. “What?”

“I like you.” The words dropped like stones, blunt and heavy, nothing fancy or rehearsed. Just raw truth. “I… want us to date.”

For a second, nothing happened. Suho’s pulse roared in his ears, and panic almost crept in.

Then Sieun let out a sharp laugh. Not mocking—more disbelieving. He set down his chopsticks, staring at Suho like he couldn’t quite process him. “You’re unbelievable.”

Suho blinked. “…That’s your answer?”

“No,” Sieun said quickly, then exhaled. His hands fidgeted against the edge of the table. “I mean—yes. I mean…” He shook his head, trying again. “I was supposed to say this. Tonight. That’s why I cooked. Or tried to. I was going to confess.”

The room tilted for Suho. His heart thudded so hard he thought he might choke on it. “You—WHAT?”

Sieun reached under the table, fumbling with something he hid. His face was a mess of nerves, red creeping all the way to his ears. When he pulled out a small box, Suho swore his breath stopped.

It was small. Simple. Unmistakable.

Sieun opened it with trembling fingers. Inside, two rings lay side by side, modest silver bands with no decoration except something etched faintly on the inside.

“Our birthdates,” Sieun muttered, unable to meet his eyes. “It’s stupid. But… I thought… it could be like a code. Just ours.”

Suho stared. His whole body buzzed with disbelief, elation, fear, joy, everything at once. “Hyung…”

Sieun swallowed, voice uneven. “D-do you… want to…?” He trailed off, stuttering, helpless.

Suho finished for him, almost laughing from the sheer overflow of feeling. “Do I want to spend the rest of my life loving you? Yes. I’d very gladly do.”

Sieun’s face crumpled in the most flustered, human way—like he didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or hide under the table. His lips parted soundlessly.

Suho didn’t let him spiral. He reached for the box, plucked one ring, and carefully slid it onto Sieun’s finger. The way it fit, snug but comfortable, made his chest ache.

Sieun, still wide-eyed, mirrored the action with shaking hands, slipping the other ring onto Suho’s hand. Their fingers lingered, brushing, not letting go.

Then Suho stood, tugging lightly until Sieun followed. They stood close, the tiny table now just background noise. Suho laced their fingers together, the rings clinking softly as they touched.

He pulled Sieun into him. Gently at first—just an embrace. He wrapped his arms around him, lowering his head until his forehead rested against Sieun’s shoulder.

Sieun smelled warm. Clean soap, faint traces of cooking oil, something distinctly his. Suho closed his eyes, breathing it in, grounding himself.

“Sieunnie hyung,” he whispered, voice muffled against skin, “can I kiss you?”

There was no hesitation in the request, but there was no demand either. It was reverent. Patient. The opposite of that night years ago, when grief and pain had twisted into something messy, something neither of them had deserved.

This time, he wanted to rewrite everything.

Sieun was stiff at first, uncertain, like his body didn’t quite know how to receive this kind of affection. But slowly—hesitantly—he tilted his head. His lips brushed against Suho’s, a feather-light contact that barely counted as a kiss.

Suho smiled against him, coaxing. He deepened it gently, guiding, giving Sieun the chance to pull away at any second. But Sieun didn’t. He leaned in, shaky but willing, letting himself be held.

It wasn’t fireworks or whirlwind of blood and alcolhol. It was slow, soft, grounding. Their breaths mingled. Their hands stayed clasped, rings pressing lightly into skin as if reminding them: this is real.

For the first time in years, Suho didn’t feel like he was forcing something broken to fit. He felt like he was exactly where he belonged.

And Sieun, with his flushed face and trembling fingers, looked like he was finally starting to believe it too.

That night, they didn’t need candlelight. They didn’t need perfection.

All they needed was the quiet clink of rings, the warmth of each other’s skin, and the knowledge that—finally—they had chosen the same thing.

Each other.

For good.

The cold crept in early that morning, the kind that made the city sky look sharp and clean, as if someone had wiped the clouds down with frost. Sieun adjusted his scarf tighter around his neck as he waited in the lobby of his apartment, still not used to the idea that he was going on a date with someone.

When he stepped outside, Suho stood there, grinning like he had just invented warmth itself. His cheeks were pink from the cold, hair messy from the wind, helmet dangling from his hand.

“Hyung,” Suho called, that irrepressible brightness in his voice. Then, without hesitation, he reached for Sieun’s hand. He tugged it smoothly into his coat pocket, fingers lacing through as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Sieun blinked at him. “You know, people usually wear gloves in winter.”

Suho leaned in close, whispering just enough for only him to hear. “Why would I, when I have you?”

It was cheesy. Unbearably so. And Sieun hated that his ears immediately went red. “You’re insufferable.”

“And yet,” Suho squeezed his hand tighter inside the pocket, “you’re here.”

They walked like that, hand hidden, pressed palm to palm under the warmth of Suho’s coat. The city around them was dressed in December: coffee steam fogging the café windows, scarves swishing past, couples huddled under a single umbrella despite no snow yet falling. For once, Sieun didn’t feel like an outsider looking in.

They reached the motorbike. Sieun stared at it, then at Suho. “I own a car now.”

“And?”

“And we’re still doing this?” Sieun gestured at the scratched-up, stubborn machine.

Suho slipped the helmet onto Sieun’s head before answering. His fingers brushed along the strap, fastened it carefully, then patted the top as if Sieun were some precious package he needed to secure. His grin softened into something more serious, more boyish. “This is ours, hyung. Always was.”

The words sat heavier than they looked. Sieun let out a breath, the kind that turned white in the cold, and didn’t argue further. He climbed on behind him, automatically wrapping his arms around Suho’s waist. The familiarity of it—Suho’s back solid against his chest, the smell of detergent clinging to his coat—was almost dizzying.

The engine rumbled alive, and they slipped into the streets.

Their date wasn’t anything extravagant. Just a small stop at a neighborhood street market, where vendors sold roasted chestnuts and sweet potatoes wrapped in paper. Sieun stood there holding a steaming sweet potato, the skin peeling away in Suho’s hands.

“Blow on it first, or you’ll burn your tongue,” Suho instructed, tearing the flesh apart with exaggerated care.

Sieun gave him a flat look. “Do I look five to you?”

“Yes.” Suho shoved a piece at his lips anyway. “Open.”

It was ridiculous, embarrassing even, but Sieun opened his mouth, bit down. Too hot. His lips tingled, his eyes narrowed at Suho who was already laughing, shoulders shaking.

“I told you—” Sieun started.

Suho immediately pressed a napkin to his lips, as if he could erase the heat that way. “Sorry, hyung, sorry.” His face was soft with that messy affection he couldn’t contain. “Here, I’ll cool it down for you.” He blew exaggeratedly on the next piece and held it out again.

Sieun wanted to protest. He really did. But he ate it anyway, quietly, cheeks warm in more ways than one.

Later, they sat on a bench near the Han river, paper cups of hot coffee in their hands. Right at the spot where they sat years ago. The water moved dark and slow, reflecting the city lights that stretched across the winter sky. Their shoulders touched, close enough for warmth, close enough that neither wanted to move away.

For a long moment, they didn’t need to speak. The silence wasn’t heavy like it used to be, wasn’t full of unspoken things threatening to break them apart. It was simple. It was enough.

Finally, Suho tilted his head slightly, brushing his cheek against Sieun’s hair. “Hyung?”

“Hm?”

Suho lifted their joined hands, his thumb brushing over the thin silver ring on Sieun’s finger. “Next time someone asks me who you are… can I say, mine?”

Sieun let out a quiet laugh, small and genuine. He turned his hand so their rings clinked softly together. “That was so cheesy. Ahn Suho, stop taking lines from those mangas that you’ve read.”