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The first thing Steven noticed was the silence.
Not the cold, suffocating silence of hotel rooms and backstage corridors—no. This one was warm, like linen left to dry in the sun. It met him gently as he stepped off the bus, a breeze brushing past his collar, and for a moment he thought: Maybe I’ll be okay here.
He didn’t tell anyone where he was going. No farewell post, no vague tweet about needing space. Just packed a bag, grabbed his notebook, and left behind the city that once lit up when he sang. Now, it only echoed with deadlines and expectations—melodies written not for meaning but for trendability, lyrics torn apart by marketing teams, not remembered by hearts.
It had been six months since he last finished a song. Four since he’d picked up his guitar. And far too long since music felt like his—not a product, not a performance, but an extension of his soul.
The studio lights had become interrogation lamps. Every verse dissected by men in suits. What once poured out like breath now felt like blood drawn on demand.
His manager had called it a hiatus. His fans called it a scandal.
Steven just called it surviving. Barely.
The seaside town had no name in his memory—just a picture from a faded travel blog and a caption that read: “Where the sunlight rests.”
That was enough.
The streets here smelled like bread and sea salt. Fishermen greeted him without recognizing his face. The bookstore clerk didn’t flinch when he gave a false name. And above it all, the sky stretched endlessly, as if begging him to breathe again.
It wasn’t until day four that he found the flower shop—or rather, the flower and coffee shop, tucked like a secret between a bakery and a secondhand record store.
Small. Untamed. Like a garden that had learned how to brew warmth into a mug.
The doorbell didn’t chime—it sang. The scent of coffee beans blended with lavender and citrus, and behind the counter stood a man with wind-blown hair, hands streaked with green, and an apron dusted with flour.
Steven noticed, immediately, how different he was. Not just in appearance, though there was something magnetic about the way his hair fell in soft, wind-swept layers and the earth-stained fingers arranging petals like punctuation marks. It was in the way he moved—unhurried, like someone who had never let a ticking clock define his worth.
He looked like he belonged here. In this shop. In this stillness.
And Steven—who hadn’t belonged anywhere in a long time—felt the difference like a splinter under his skin.
He looked up. Smiled like it was instinct.
“You look like someone who hasn’t seen the sun in a while,” the man said, gently wrapping a sunflower in brown paper before sliding a steaming cup of ginger honey tea toward him.
“I think this one missed you.”
Steven blinked, uncertain whether to laugh or speak. He hadn't asked for a drink. Hadn’t even said a word.
The sunflower was warm in his hands, the petals slightly curled at the edges like they’d been waiting too long. He stared at it for a beat longer than necessary.
“Do you... always give flowers to strangers?” he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse, the words heavier than intended.
The man smiled again, that same easy, knowing curve of lips. “Only when they look like they need to be reminded the world still blooms.”
Steven glanced down at the cup. The scent was subtle but comforting—ginger and honey, warm and floral, like something meant to heal. Steam curled into the air in delicate wisps, dancing between them like a thread being quietly stitched.
He didn’t drink it. His fingers tightened slightly around the warm ceramic, unsure. Suspicious of comfort. But he didn’t walk away either. He stood there, the quiet pressing gently at his back, the flower soft against his palm.
Somewhere deep inside him, beneath the exhaustion and silence, something stirred. A small, uncertain beat—like the first blink of sunlight after a long winter.
♪♫♬
Mornings in the flower shop began with light.
Jeongwoo would arrive before the sun had finished waking the town, unlocking the wooden door with quiet hands, careful not to disturb the peace the night left behind. He moved through the shop like someone accustomed to gentle things—flicking on the lights, rolling open the windows, and whispering greetings to the blooms as if they were old friends.
There was a rhythm to his solitude. Water the daisies. Brew the first pot of tea. Arrange fresh-cut stems into mismatched jars. The radio never played pop—it hummed soft piano, sometimes old love songs that had long since fallen out of fashion. The scent of soil, steeped herbs, and sun-warmed wood made the place feel more like a memory than a shop.
He never rushed. Time in Jeongwoo’s world didn’t tick. It bloomed.
When Steven returned, the second time, it was with feigned aimlessness. A slow step across the threshold, a casual glance at the flowers in the window.
Jeongwoo greeted him the way he always did—with that smile that didn’t ask questions.
“Back again?” he asked, already pouring a fresh cup.
Steven said nothing at first. Just took the tea, hands brushing as he accepted it. There was no sunflower this time. Just the warmth of silence shared between two men who hadn’t yet found the words for the things they were starting to feel.
The tea wasn’t just ginger and honey this time. There was something floral beneath it, something unfamiliar. Steven didn’t ask what it was.
But he drank it.
The days began to stretch in rhythm. Unmarked and quiet. Steven never meant to return again after that second visit—but somehow, he did. Then again. And again. It wasn’t routine, not at first. Just habit carved out of silence, like footprints pressed into sand.
Most mornings, he wandered the town before drifting to the shop. He walked aimlessly through cobbled streets lined with sleepy cafés and shuttered bookstores, past the cliffside bench where the sea whispered like it knew secrets no one else could. Some days he sat on the dock just to watch the boats rock like lullabies.
But he always found himself back at that shop by late morning, as if the wind gently nudged him there.
Jeongwoo’s name came to him one quiet afternoon. Another customer had said it in passing—“Thanks, Jeongwoo!”—as they left with an armful of lilies and sweet pea. Steven didn’t say it aloud, not yet, but he wrote it in his mind like a lyric waiting for melody.
They never had long conversations. Words between them were brief, gentle, and spare, like petals pressed between book pages. But Steven learned things through observation—the way Jeongwoo always kept a daisy at the counter for a little girl who stopped by after school, how he closed shop fifteen minutes early every Thursday to deliver arrangements to the nursing home down the road.
Jeongwoo was loved. Entirely and quietly. The kind of love that didn’t clamour or ask to be seen, just was. People greeted him with affection, dropped off tangerines in exchange for fresh thyme, left him notes on napkins and bags of ground coffee from their travels.
Sometimes, Steven saw him outside the shop.
Once, by the harbor, kneeling by a broken crate to pet a limping stray cat. Another time, at the weekend market, holding a paper bag of persimmons and humming to himself as he wandered through stalls of hand-stitched crafts.
Steven never approached him in those moments. But he watched. And for reasons he didn’t yet understand, those glimpses stayed with him longer than the tea did.
He still hadn’t touched his notebook. Still hadn’t played.
But something about Jeongwoo—his stillness, his subtle orbit of kindness—was beginning to trace a shape in Steven’s days.
Not a song.
Not yet.
But something had begun to settle in the quiet—an outline, a softness, the shape of a life that no longer asked him to perform.
One afternoon, with sunlight pooling at their feet and the faint murmur of the sea through the open window, Steven spoke.
"How do you do it?" he asked.
Jeongwoo, bent over a tray of drying herbs, looked up. "Do what?"
"Stay so—" Steven hesitated. "Light."
It sounded stupid the moment he said it. But there was no better word. Light. Like the world had never burdened Jeongwoo the way it did him. Like the man hadn’t carried years of dust behind his smile.
Steven had been watching him for weeks now, half in admiration, half in disbelief. How could someone move with such ease? How could he open his door each morning like it didn’t cost him something? Steven woke up feeling like he was peeling himself out of grief. But Jeongwoo—Jeongwoo moved like someone who still believed life offered more than what it took.
And that terrified him.
That made Jeongwoo blink. He straightened slowly, brushing his hands on a linen cloth.
"You mean cheerful?"
Steven shook his head. "No. It's more than that. It's like... the world doesn't touch you the same way it touches the rest of us. I watch you, and it’s like nothing ever breaks you."
Jeongwoo was quiet for a moment. The wind played with the leaves outside the window, rustling like it, too, had something to say.
"That’s not true," he said, softly. "The world touches me plenty. Some days, I feel like I can’t carry it."
Steven glanced up, surprised by the honesty in his tone. He had expected a deflection, a smile, maybe even a joke. But not this. Not the raw truth tucked gently into Jeongwoo’s words like a thorn between petals.
And it made something twist inside him—something like guilt. Or maybe envy. Because Steven didn’t know how to speak like that anymore, didn’t know how to be honest without unraveling. Even now, part of him wanted to retreat into silence again, but something about Jeongwoo's calm steadiness kept him rooted to the moment.
"Then how do you keep going?"
Jeongwoo turned to the window. "Because the sun always comes back. And if I don’t believe that, then I’ll never make it through the night."
Steven’s throat tightened. He looked at Jeongwoo and saw not perfection, but persistence. Not someone untouched by the storm—but someone who had learned how to wait for the calm.
"I think you’re everything I’m not," Steven murmured.
He said it without bitterness, but it lingered like a confession. There was awe in it, and a tremor of self-loathing—because Steven couldn’t remember the last time he had felt full of anything, let alone light.
Jeongwoo turned back to him, lips lifting faintly. He didn’t rush to soothe or disagree. Just looked at him as if trying to see past the layers.
"Or maybe we’re just two different kinds of tired," he said. Not dismissively, but like he meant it—as if his version of tiredness was no nobler, only different in shape.
The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It held them, like a soft room with no edges.
And for Steven, it felt like the closest thing to breathing he’d done in years.
♪♫♬
A few days later, Jeongwoo waited until the shop was empty before asking, almost casually:
“Do you want to come with me tomorrow morning?”
Steven blinked. “Where?”
Jeongwoo tilted his head, thoughtful. “Grocery run. The Saturday market. It’s nothing special.”
But it was. Because it was the first time Jeongwoo had invited him into something beyond the shop’s quiet comfort.
And so, the next morning, Steven found himself walking beside him beneath a sky soft with early haze, pale clouds drifting like distant thoughts. The breeze was salted and quiet, tugging gently at their clothes, and the air carried that low hush of waking towns and distant waves—a kind of calm that didn’t demand anything from him.
Jeongwoo looked different outside the shop. Not in a dramatic way, but subtly—his apron was gone, replaced by a light brown cardigan rolled at the sleeves, the fabric thinned at the elbows from use. His slacks were cuffed just above his ankles, and he wore canvas shoes scuffed at the toes. His hair was still tousled, but freer now, not tucked behind his ears like when he worked. He looked less like a florist, more like a boy who belonged to the wind.
Steven noticed the quiet strength in his stride—the way Jeongwoo’s presence filled space without needing to speak, how he nodded at the grocer with a smile that made people’s shoulders relax.
They didn’t talk much on the way, but there was comfort in the shared pace—slow, steady, as if neither of them were running from anything for once.
When they reached the market, Jeongwoo made a beeline for a fruit stall at the corner, where a woman sat on a stool behind crates of bright citrus and plums. Her face was mapped with deep lines, her hair bundled in a scarf of faded rose.
"There he is—my sunshine," she said with a grin, her voice rasping like old vinyl. "You're late today. The tangerines missed you."
"Only because they’re dramatic," Jeongwoo replied easily, crouching to inspect the fruit. "How’s your hip, Halmeoni?"
"Stubborn," she huffed. "Like me." Her eyes flicked toward Steven. "And who’s this handsome ghost you’ve dragged out into the daylight?"
Steven blinked, caught off-guard.
"A friend," Jeongwoo answered, glancing at him with a softness that made something shift in Steven’s ribs. "He’s new. I’m making sure he gets to taste proper fruit."
The old woman laughed, handing Steven a plump orange. "Then here—first one’s free. The sun’s out, and so is he. That’s good enough for me."
Steven stood still for a moment, the unexpected kindness warming him more than the morning sun. Her words wrapped around him gently, like the echo of something he didn’t know he’d been needing. The fruit felt heavier in his palm—not because of weight, but meaning. And for a fleeting second, it felt like the town was smiling at him through her.
Steven took it, murmuring a quiet thanks, the fruit cool and solid in his palm.
He watched the easy exchange between them—the familiarity, the warmth. How Jeongwoo had a way of speaking that made people want to lean closer, not out of politeness, but gravity.
And for the first time in a long while, Steven didn’t feel like a stranger just passing through. He felt... included.
He turned the orange over in his hand. It smelled like summer.
And for just a moment, so did he.
Their next stop was a stand draped in striped cloth, crowded with crates of vegetables and bundles of fresh herbs. Behind it stood a tall, silver-haired man with sun-bronzed skin and laugh lines so deep they looked carved. He wore a straw hat and a vest patched at the seams, hands busy tying twine around stalks of leeks.
“Jeongwoo-yah! I thought you ran off with my basil last week,” the man bellowed as they approached.
“Why would I do that when you always overcharge me for it?” Jeongwoo shot back with a grin.
The man barked a laugh, then caught sight of Steven. His voice dropped to a warmer, quieter tone.
“Ah, a guest. You must be someone special if he’s bringing you here. This stall’s only for the chosen few.”
Steven gave a polite nod, unsure how to respond, but the man extended a hand like they’d known each other in another life.
“Call me Gijun. I grow the best radishes this side of the peninsula. Don’t let him tell you otherwise.”
Steven shook his hand, surprised by the strength in his grip. Jeongwoo, meanwhile, was already gathering rosemary and mint into a paper bag.
“He’s just being kind,” Steven said, voice softer than he meant. “I’m no one special.”
Gijun paused, gave him a long look, then smiled gently. “Kind doesn’t lie, son. You’re here. That’s enough.”
Steven felt his chest hitch at that. Like something had just loosened—one of the knots he hadn’t noticed tying him up inside.
As they left the stall, Steven glanced back. Gijun gave him a wink and held up a bunch of wild chives like a secret offering.
And somehow, Steven found himself smiling back.
Steven followed, silent, watching. Not just Jeongwoo—but the town.
He saw laughter exchanged over pastries, hands brushing in greeting, children darting between stalls with paper windmills spinning bright. He saw a teenager helping an elderly man adjust a crooked hat, a young woman singing softly as she bagged eggs, and a pair of lovers picking out matching ceramic cups with the gentlest kind of reverence. The scent of roasted chestnuts wafted from one stall, while another filled the air with the bright zest of sliced citrus. There were dogs on leashes tangled around laughter, and music somewhere distant—faint strums of guitar drifting from a bench near the fountain.
The world here didn’t hum with ambition—it swayed. Slow and unhurried.
And for the first time, Steven didn’t just exist in it. He saw it. Felt the rhythm of living not as a performance, but as presence. He felt the gravel under his soles. The weight of an orange handed to him by Halmeoni, the warmth of her words lingering longer than the fruit's citrus scent. The breeze lifting the corner of Jeongwoo’s shirt.
When they returned, Jeongwoo handed him a cup of ginger honey tea without a word—just a soft, smiling glance that spoke more than language could. There was a gentleness to it, the kind that didn’t ask for thanks or acknowledgement, only offered comfort like a hand brushing the dust from someone’s shoulders.
Steven took it carefully, as if the warmth might spill from more than just the cup. That quiet gesture, paired with that smile—steady, open, without pity—settled deep in his chest.
He wasn’t used to being seen like this. Not without weight. Not without expectation.
And maybe that’s what made it feel so impossible to look away.
Steven sat at the counter, hands still smelling faintly of thyme, feeling something in his chest begin to stretch.
Not fully. Not loudly. But enough.
Enough for him to ask for a paper and pen.
He didn’t know what he meant to write. Not yet. The lines on the page stretched out like shoreline—quiet, expectant. But there was a pulse in his fingertips, a softness behind his ribs, like the moment just before a note is played.
Jeongwoo didn’t ask what it was for. Just slid the pen across the counter, eyes warm but unobtrusive.
Steven stared at the blank page, the scent of ginger still lingering in the steam between them. Outside, a breeze nudged the chimes. And for the first time in a long, long while, the silence didn’t ask him to fill it.
It simply let him begin.
He pressed the tip of the pen to the page—not writing, not even forming letters. Just letting it sit there. Feeling the faint tremble in his wrist. The forgotten weight of ink poised above paper.
His hand moved a little. A line. Then another. Not words, just shapes. Curves. Slanted marks that felt more like breath than language.
It wasn’t composing. It wasn’t healing. But it was doing.
And after months of nothing, that was everything.
He glanced up once, just briefly. Jeongwoo was behind the counter again, restocking jars of dried petals and twigs, humming something tuneless under his breath. Like he knew how to fill the air just enough without crowding it.
Steven looked outside the window. The sky had dulled into a soft gray, and a light drizzle had begun to fall, threading through the morning like a sigh. People walked beneath shared umbrellas, laughter curling from one stall to the next, shoulders brushing in passing warmth. The rain touched everything, but it didn’t wash away the smiles—it softened them, made them shimmer.
He watched a child splash in a puddle, his mother laughing instead of scolding. A boy shared his coat with a girl carrying flowers. A street musician shielded his guitar with a thin scarf, still strumming beneath the awning.
And Steven felt it—the world moving without permission, and yet, never once leaving him behind.
He looked back down at the paper.
Even the rain, when it stops, will make you shine in the sunlight.
The line bloomed in his mind, unspoken. A memory of a song he once heard, or perhaps one that hadn’t been written yet. And for the first time, he let the pen move not for an audience, not for a deadline—but for the part of him that still wanted to meet the sun again—with a lighter heart, and eyes open enough to see it when it came.
♪♫♬
The days that followed were different. Not louder, not busier—just gentler. Brighter.
Steven smiled more now. Not the kind he used on stage—sharp and practiced—but small, unguarded ones. The kind that rose without asking. He laughed, too. Quietly, and not often, but it happened—in the middle of pouring tea, or when Jeongwoo said something ridiculous about a flower’s mood, or when a cat jumped on the counter like it owned the place.
Sometimes, he helped around the shop. Not because he was asked, but because his hands needed to move. He watered plants with the clumsy care of someone out of practice, stacked teacups, even learned how to wrap a bouquet without bruising the petals.
They talked more, too. About small things. The weather. Recipes. A passing dog with a crooked tail. Nothing heavy. Nothing sharp. But in every conversation, something opened—like a window letting light fall somewhere long hidden.
One afternoon, Jeongwoo handed him a cup of tea and leaned beside him at the counter.
“You look better,” he said.
Steven blinked. “Better than what?”
“Than the first day. When you looked like the sun was too far to reach.”
Steven didn’t reply at first. He looked down at the tea in his hands, watching the steam curl gently upward like a quiet promise. The scent, once foreign, now felt like a tether to something steady. His fingers curled around the cup, and he let himself sit in the quiet a little longer.
He could feel it now—the change. Subtle, like how you notice warmth only when the cold has begun to fade. He laughed more. Breathed easier. The heaviness was still there, yes, but it didn’t anchor him the way it used to. And somehow, he knew—it was Jeongwoo. The man who brewed tea like it was medicine and smiled like the sky didn’t have to be blue to be beautiful.
“Maybe it still is,” he said at last, voice soft. “But it doesn’t feel impossible anymore.”
Jeongwoo bumped his shoulder gently. “That’s enough for a start.”
Steven glanced sideways at him, and this time, he smiled back. Not out of obligation, not out of politeness. But because it came from somewhere quiet and real.
And somewhere deep inside, he knew—he didn’t want to lose this version of himself he was beginning to remember.
A week later, Steven entered the shop just after opening, the bell singing its usual tune. But this time, he wasn't empty-handed.
Jeongwoo looked up from arranging sprigs of lavender near the window. His eyes widened—just slightly—at the sight of the ukulele in Steven’s hands. It was secondhand, clearly, the wood worn smooth at the edges, the strings newly replaced. A modest thing, but carried like something precious.
Steven looked a little sheepish, but there was a brightness to him today. Something light at the edges of his voice.
"I found it at that antique place by the harbor," he said, holding the instrument up. "Thought it might be time to try... something."
Jeongwoo blinked once, then smiled. "I know that place. The owner’s been trying to sell that one for years. Said it only needed the right hands."
Steven chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Guess I’m borrowing them for a while."
He sat at his usual spot near the window, the ukulele resting in his lap. He didn’t play right away. He just ran his fingers along the strings—feeling, not performing.
“I, uh... I’ve been working on something. Not finished, not really. Just... started to take shape,” he said, gaze flicking up toward Jeongwoo with a mix of shyness and hope. “But when I do finish it—”
Then, with a tentative grin: “Think I can be selfish and ask to play it for the first person who made me want to write again?”
Jeongwoo didn’t speak at first. His eyes searched Steven’s face as if to be sure he’d heard him right. Then he smiled—soft, surprised, and moved in a way that flickered gently behind his lashes. It wasn’t a dramatic expression, but something quiet and full—like someone tucking a cherished moment into their chest, somewhere safe. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but chose instead to hold the moment delicately between them, as if afraid to break it.
He poured a fresh cup of ginger honey tea and slid it across the counter. Then he leaned his elbows gently on the wood and said:
“I’d be honoured.”
♪♫♬
It was just past dawn a few days later when Steven stepped out, ukulele in hand, a folded scrap of melody in his back pocket. The streets were hushed with morning—shop doors still locked, the sea breeze stretching through alleyways like a long, lazy breath.
He didn’t notice the black sedan parked along the curb until he heard the voice.
“Steven.”
It stopped him cold.
His manager was leaning against the passenger door, arms crossed, tie askew like he hadn’t slept. His eyes were sharp, sunken, furious—and relieved.
“Jesus, Steven. Do you know how long we’ve been looking for you?”
Steven said nothing. He gripped the neck of the ukulele tighter.
“You can’t just disappear.”
“I didn’t disappear. I left.”
“Without telling anyone? You think that’s responsible? You think that’s fair?”
“Fair to who?” Steven snapped, sharper now. “To the label? To you? I couldn’t breathe there. I couldn’t live.”
His manager stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Do you even know what kind of mess you’ve made? We had to cancel three brand campaigns. Your name’s still in contract. There are damages, Steven.”
“Let them sue me.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Steven’s chest was tight. The early calm of morning, the softness that had wrapped around him these past weeks—it was unravelling fast.
“You left everything behind for what? This?” the man gestured to the shop. “You’re wasting yourself, Steven.”
Steven was about to reply—his voice high with rage and something heartbreakingly tired—when the shop door creaked open.
Jeongwoo stepped out slowly, dressed in his morning cardigan, a dish towel still in his hands.
His brows knit as he looked between them, eyes falling last on Steven.
“Is everything alright?” he asked, quiet but clear.
Steven turned slightly. And in that single glance—Jeongwoo, barefoot in his slippers, hair still messy from sleep, concern written gently across his face—Steven felt the weight of the choice pressing against his ribs.
The storm of the argument, the pressure in his lungs, the frantic pulse in his neck—all of it slowed. Jeongwoo didn’t speak more than that simple question, but his presence alone was an anchor. A soft gravity.
Just the sight of him, standing there in the quiet gold of morning, was enough to remind Steven why he had come here in the first place.
It calmed him. Not completely. But enough.
Enough to stop trembling. Enough to breathe again. Enough to remember that he had the right to choose.
Steven’s manager let out a long breath, running a hand through his dishevelled hair as his gaze flicked between Steven and the man at the café door.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” he muttered, quieter now, but no less weighted. “You think the world was just going to forget about you? About your name? The fans, the contracts—you walked away like none of it mattered.”
Jeongwoo stood at the edge of the café doorway, eyes on Steven, unmoving. But inside, something began to shift.
And then—he understood. The storm he must’ve weathered before washing up in this quiet town with nothing but a name and a heart trying to remember how to beat.
He looked at Steven properly now. Really looked. Not just as the quiet man who brewed tea slowly, who sometimes smiled without showing teeth, who showed up with a secondhand ukulele and eyes full of apologies—but as someone cracked wide open in this moment.
In Jeongwoo’s eyes, Steven looked like a child—one who had finally found a corner of the world soft enough to breathe in, only to be dragged away before he could make it his own. A soul who had once belonged to music not for fame, but for love. For joy. For light.
Jeongwoo remembered it clearly now.
The way Steven held a pen one morning—hesitant, reverent—as if testing whether it would betray him again. The absentminded scribbles that never became words, but still carried rhythm. The tentative way he touched the ukulele strings before daring to hum a melody.
Steven might have run from the noise, but he had never really let go of the music.
And in the face of confrontation, of a world demanding him back, there was defiance in Steven’s stance—not anger, but resistance. The quiet kind that said, “I finally found something worth staying for.”
Jeongwoo smiled at that.
Not brightly. Not proudly. But softly. Tenderly.
Then he turned to the manager and spoke, his voice calm and deliberate.
“Would it be alright if I spoke to him? Just for a moment.”
The manager looked like he was about to refuse. His mouth opened, but paused. His eyes followed Jeongwoo again—barefoot, in a cardigan too soft for this kind of drama, standing like he belonged exactly where Steven had come to rest.
And he’d seen it too. That flash of stillness in Steven’s eyes the moment Jeongwoo appeared. The fear pulling back, the storm stilling.
So, the manager said nothing. He gave a short nod and walked toward the car, shutting the door behind him.
The street was quiet again.
Barefooted, Jeongwoo stepped off the stoop and walked to Steven.
Steven opened his mouth, probably to say something about his feet, but Jeongwoo got there first.
“I’m fine,” Jeongwoo murmured, smiling faintly. “The stones don’t hurt when you know where to place your steps.”
Steven still frowned, gaze dropping briefly to Jeongwoo’s bare toes, but said nothing more.
And then Jeongwoo reached out—carefully, like he always did with fragile things—and cupped Steven’s face in his palms. His touch was warm. His thumbs brushed just below Steven’s cheekbones, not to comfort, but to anchor.
For a breathless second, Steven forgot how to stand.
The world didn’t fall away—it stilled. Like time was waiting, holding its breath with him.
The warmth of Jeongwoo’s hands was steady, real in a way few things had been lately. Not the kind of warmth that burned or demanded, but one that said I see you. I’m still here.
Steven’s breath hitched, a quiet stutter in his chest. He didn’t move away. Couldn’t. His fingers trembled slightly where they curled at his sides, not from fear—but from the sheer unfamiliarity of being held like that. Gently. As if he wasn’t a burden or a brand or a problem to be solved.
Just a person. A man with bruised edges and silent songs, being looked at like he was still worth something.
Something deep inside him—something quiet and wounded—shuddered, softened.
“I don’t know what that world took from you,” Jeongwoo said softly, “but I can see what it left behind. You loved music once—not because of stages or sales, but because it moved something in you. Because it was yours.”
His eyes searched Steven’s face with that same steady gentleness.
“And maybe it still is. Maybe this isn’t about running away, Steven. Maybe it’s about learning how to walk again. Toward something. Toward the sun you wanted to meet with a light heart.”
Jeongwoo’s voice thinned slightly, soft as a dawn breeze:
“So if you need to go back... then go. But only if it’s to carry what you found here. Not to lose it again.”
The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It was honest.
And in that quiet, something in Steven’s chest finally loosened.
He closed his eyes. Slowly. As if to savour the stillness Jeongwoo had given him.
His fingers clenched gently around the neck of the ukulele, grounding himself in the weight of it. And his other hand… it reached forward, tentative but certain, finding its place at Jeongwoo’s waist. Not pulling, not pleading—just holding.
Then, he leaned in. His forehead met Jeongwoo’s, soft and deliberate. And in that tender space between breath and heartbeat, Steven let himself remember.
The quiet town that had never asked for his name. The sea breeze that tousled his hair each morning. The laughter of shopkeepers who greeted him like they’d known him for years. The warmth of ginger honey tea and a corner seat that slowly became his. The days that spilled into evenings without urgency.
And Jeongwoo… Jeongwoo, who had been there in every moment— watering the silence with kindness, offering him gentleness without strings, seeing him not as a broken thing, but as someone still learning how to bloom.
A soft breath escaped Steven’s lips, and he whispered, voice low and sure:
“I’ll finish that song.”
He leaned in just slightly closer, until their foreheads truly touched.
“And you’ll be the first to hear it.”
A pause, then his voice, almost trembling:
“Because it’s yours.”
His grip on the ukulele tightened, no longer from fear, but from meaning.
“Every note… every line—it’s always been about you.”
And in that moment, the morning didn’t need sunlight. Because Steven had found his.
Jeongwoo’s eyes fluttered shut, lashes brushing down like petals folding at dusk, and the smallest smile curled on his lips where their foreheads touched.
A breath passed between them—warm, shared, and still.
And then he whispered, voice steady and full:
“Then I’ll be waiting, for as long as it takes.”
The kind of promise not spoken to bind, but to stay.
Steven turned, slowly, reluctantly.
His feet felt heavier than they had ever been, but it wasn’t the weight of fear or grief this time. It was something else entirely—something rooted. Full. A heart stretched wide by everything he’d found, and everything he still wanted to become.
The ukulele was cradled in his hands like a secret. His fingers curled around it with quiet reverence.
He took a step. Then another.
And the world didn’t blur like it used to.
The morning air was still cool, still soft. But it carried the faint scent of chamomile and warm bread, of sea salt and old wood—memories of the days he didn’t expect to miss so soon. Of a quiet café on the corner of a sleepy town. Of laughter shared and silence healed.
Above him, the sky arched wide and endless, painted with streaks of pale gold and sleepy lavender—dawn still stretching into shape. It wasn’t bright yet, not fully. But it promised to be.
Behind him, Jeongwoo stood with the café door ajar, barefoot on stone, a silhouette drawn in quiet devotion. The light caught in his hair, and for a moment, he looked like he belonged to the very sky Steven had always been trying to chase.
Steven didn’t look back.
Not because he didn’t want to. But because if he did, he might never move again.
So he walked. Toward the car. Toward whatever waited beyond the hills and headlines.
But with every step, he carried something different. Not escape.
Not regret.
He carried Jeongwoo’s voice tucked like a flame behind his ribs.
Then I’ll be waiting, for as long as it takes.
And Steven smiled, just faintly, as he opened the car door.
Because for once, he wasn’t walking away. He was walking forward. And he knew—without a shadow of doubt—
He’d be back. And one day, he’d return—heart full, song finished, sun rising in his chest.
♪♫♬
Months passed like quiet pages turning—soft and inevitable.
The café remained the same. The flowers still greeted the windowsill with every sunrise. The tea brewed gently, as it always had. But there was a sound missing. A rhythm that had worked itself into the hum of Jeongwoo’s life without his notice—until it stopped.
It was the creak of the chair Steven always chose. The subtle scrape of his ukulele case. The weight of a gaze quietly watching the morning light spill across woodgrain and teacups. It was the absence of the extra cup Jeongwoo prepared without asking. The silence left by a pen no longer scratching across napkins or crumpled notebook pages. The steady, unspoken companionship of another soul breathing the same gentle air.
Even the townsfolk noticed.
They’d glance at the space beside Jeongwoo during grocery runs, a space that once carried another’s laughter, questions, or distracted hums. They no longer saw Jeongwoo walking a little slower to match someone else’s steps. The small, shared silences that once marked his days had vanished.
But there were new things too.
Jeongwoo started turning the radio on in the mornings—something he hadn’t done in years. Not because he expected anything. Just… because.
And then one day, it happened.
He was watering the marigolds from the inside of the shop, the planter nestled just beyond the open window, when the voice came through the speaker—familiar, quiet, a little steadier than before. Steven.
A radio host was airing a pre-recorded interview. Talking about his sudden disappearance, the silence he had fallen into.
“The whole country thought you quit,” the host teased gently. “Vanished without a word. Mind if I ask where you went?”
There was a pause. And then Steven laughed—low and fond.
“Just… somewhere quiet. A town by the sea, with skies like watercolor and a café that always smelled like honey and fresh flowers.”
Jeongwoo froze.
He had missed that voice—missed it like an ache that settled into his bones, like the way a room feels colder when someone leaves and forgets to close the door behind them. That voice had lived in the quiet spaces of his days, echoing in memory even when silence ruled.
“And was that where you found your inspiration again?” the host asked. “Because let’s be honest, this album moved the entire nation to tears.”
Steven was quiet for a beat.
“Yeah,” he finally said. “I found it there."
“I was tired.”
There was a pause—long enough for Jeongwoo to look up from the marigolds, hand frozen in mid-air, the watering can tilted but still.
“Everything I did felt like it was for someone else.”
Jeongwoo’s breath caught as the voice softened. “The songs, the smiles, the stages—it all started meaning nothing to me.”
He imagined Steven, sitting in a booth somewhere, eyes lowered but honest. “I left because I forgot what it was like to feel anything while doing it.”
Jeongwoo sat down slowly beside the flower boxes, soil still on his gloves, grounding him. The soft hum of the radio filled the quiet room.
“There, in that quiet town...” Steven’s voice carried warmth now. “I found space to breathe.”
Jeongwoo's fingers trembled around a marigold stem.
“And more than that—I found someone who made the world feel warm again. Someone who smiled like the sun, even on the rainiest days.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Jeongwoo’s lips, fragile as sunlight after cloud cover.
“Someone who reminded me how to be brave… just by being there.”
Jeongwoo didn’t realize he was crying until the petals in his hand blurred.
The radio continued, but he stood still, soaked in the echo of a voice that hadn’t left his mind for a single day. In those words—spoken over static, stretched across miles—Jeongwoo heard something tender. A confession, almost. Not loud, not direct, but gently placed like a letter without an envelope. As if Steven had wanted it to reach their quiet town. As if it had been meant for him.
And just as the ache of missing threatened to swell in his chest—
the door chimed.
He turned.
And there he was.
Steven stood just past the threshold, backlit by morning light, a ginger-hued ukulele cradled loosely in one hand. A soft breath caught between parted lips, and something raw flickered in his eyes—hope, fear, and longing braided together.
Jeongwoo rose slowly, disbelief and wonder crashing in soft waves over his face.
Neither of them spoke, not right away.
Steven looked at him—not like a man returning from far away, but like someone who had just found home. There stood Jeongwoo, framed by the soft golden light, dressed in the quiet simplicity of morning, sleeves pushed to his elbows and a smudge of soil still on his hand. The same Jeongwoo who brewed his tea just right, who smiled like the weather clearing after a storm. The same Jeongwoo whose presence had once been background comfort, now an anchor.
His throat tightened.
"I'm here to sing you that song," Steven said, voice trembling just enough to betray the weight of his heart. "Hope I'm not too late."
Jeongwoo smiled, his lips trembling as he blinked back the tears that clung to his lashes, laughter slipping out in a fragile, breathless sound—half sob, half wonder.
He had dreamed of this moment so often it had felt like a lullaby. But nothing in his quiet longing compared to the reality of Steven standing before him, the weight of their memories tucked into the curve of his smile, his voice, the way his fingers still held that ukulele like it mattered.
Jeongwoo took a step closer, slow and reverent, as if afraid the moment might vanish if he moved too fast.
Outside the shop, the world looked exactly as it did before Steven ever left—as if the days had been paused and only now remembered to play again. The marigolds bloomed in their usual corner. The curtains swayed to the same rhythm as always. And the sky above cast the kind of light that Steven once described as "the gentlest warmth, like someone waiting for you to wake up." It was a scene pulled from memory, untouched by time, and yet it trembled with the soft promise of something new. Like the sun finally arriving after the rain—quiet, expected, but no less breath-taking.
His voice came out in a whisper, tender as a promise:
"Then sing it," he said, eyes shining with tears and a love that had waited without complaint. "I’ve been waiting for you to come home."