Chapter Text
Their last night in the college apartment feels unreal.
The place is a mess—the walls are bare now, hollow and echoey, stripped of their postcards and doodled sticky notes and bad tape jobs. The bookshelf is half-empty. There’s a dent in the carpet where Euijoo’s drafting table used to sit, and the faint outline of paint where Nicholas once leaned canvases against the wall.
Berry is sitting in a cardboard box labeled CABLES & MISC???, judging everyone in the room. The air smells like dust and instant ramen. It’s nothing special.
But it’s theirs. Was theirs.
Nicholas flops down on the futon in their living room—now stripped of cushions and dignity—and sighs dramatically. “I can't believe we survived years here. With one bathroom.”
Euijoo kicks his foot lightly and sinks beside him. “Barely.”
There’s a lull after that. The kind of lull that only happens when everything is ending and beginning at the same time.
“Do you think we’ll miss this place?” Euijoo asks eventually, voice quiet.
Nicholas turns his head to look at him. “I already do.”
Euijoo looks around—the awful fluorescent light they never bothered to replace. The chipped corner of the desk they banged their knees on for years. The closet door that never quite closed right.
He exhales. “Yeah. Me too.”
Silence settles again, soft and full.
Then Nicholas props himself up on his elbows. “Okay, but hear me out. Tomorrow, we’ll wake up in our new place. Our house.”
“Our rented house,” Euijoo reminds him.
“Our rented house with two bedrooms, a balcony, and space for Berry to glare at us from multiple locations,” Nicholas corrects. “We’re literally upgrading to mid-tier adulting.”
Euijoo smiles despite himself. “And how does mid-tier adulting feel?”
Nicholas flops back down and puts a hand over his chest. “Terrifying. But also? Kinda great. Like… if this is what the rest of our lives looks like? Ramen on the floor, Berry in a box, you next to me… I’ll take it.”
Euijoo leans over, rests his chin on Nicholas’s shoulder. “You’re getting soft in your old age.”
“I’m twenty-six, you gremlin.”
“You put anti-aging serum on this morning.”
“Self-care is not age-related.”
They’re laughing again, the kind of laughter that comes from knowing each other’s rhythms too well. The kind that comes from shared grocery lists and overlapping laundry days and sleepy morning grumbles.
“I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” Euijoo says quietly.
Nicholas blinks. “What? Moving?”
“No. This.” Euijoo’s voice goes even softer. “Building a life.”
The words hang in the air.
And maybe it’s the empty room or the way the moonlight cuts through the blinds or the realization that they’ve made it this far—that they’re still choosing each other, again and again—but something in Nicholas’s chest pulls taut.
There’s a long pause. Then Euijoo smiles. “Ready to become a home husband?”
Nicholas sits up, mock-offended. “Excuse you. I’m going to be the best home husband Tokyo has ever seen. I’ll watercolor while you’re gone. Bake sourdough. Gossip with Berry.”
“Berry doesn’t gossip.”
“She will. Give it a week.”
They both laugh, and it hits them like it always does—how easy this is. How lucky they are.
Tomorrow, they’ll move into a new place. A real house. Their house. Euijoo starts full-time at the firm next Monday. Nicholas’s gallery work starts remote, and he’s already marked his little art nook in the floor plan. Everything’s changing.
But tonight?
Tonight is ramen eaten on the floor. It’s Berry curled in a box she’s claimed as her own. It’s soft music playing from a half-dead speaker and the warm tangle of limbs and blankets and shared memories.
It’s Nicholas whispering, “Do you remember our last night in Korea? Before Japan?”
Euijoo hums. “Yeah.”
“You were crying into my hoodie.”
“You said you wouldn’t bring that up again.”
Nicholas grins. “And now you’re stuck with me forever.”
Berry jumps on top of a sealed box with the elegance of a queen claiming her throne. Nicholas mutters something about her being a landlord in a past life. Euijoo laughs into his collarbone.
They fall asleep like that, surrounded by cardboard and clutter and the ghosts of the people they used to be.
Tomorrow, they’ll wake up and carry boxes into a place with clean walls and big windows. Euijoo will design new buildings, Nicholas will fill canvases with color, and Berry will shed fur on every possible surface.
They’ll argue about dishes. Fall asleep on the couch. Host friends for dinner and forget to take out the trash.
They’ll leave the apartment behind—not as students, not as just roommates or best friends.
But as something more.
Something permanent.
Something like a beginning.
✿
Bonus: Foreshadowing
It’s Euijoo’s third day on the job. He’s still figuring out the coffee machine hierarchy (there’s definitely politics involved), still navigating who actually answers emails, and still forgetting where the supply closet is.
Today, though, the team takes a lunch break together—something that doesn’t always happen, apparently—and Euijoo finds himself sitting across from Mina, a senior architect who speaks in perfect deadpan and has been unofficially guiding him through office survival.
She pops a cherry tomato into her mouth, chews, and says, “So, have they told you about Kai yet?”
Euijoo blinks. “Kai…?”
“The guy from project management who looks like a tech CEO but talks like a stand-up comic from the 80s.”
“...I don’t think so?”
Mina raises an eyebrow. “You’ll know him when you hear the words ‘impromptu office gathering’ in a Slack notification. That man will throw a party for literally anything. Finished a project? Party. Survived a rough Monday? Party. New intern learned to use the printer? Party. He’s a menace.”
Euijoo tries not to laugh. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“You think that now,” Mina says, dead serious. “Just wait. He always hosts them at his apartment. And they’re weirdly well-catered. Like, who even orders shrimp cocktail for a team mixer?”
“I mean, I like shrimp...”
“Everyone likes shrimp, Euijoo. That’s how he gets you.”
Euijoo makes a mental note to avoid any event with shrimp cocktail.
When lunch ends, he heads back to his desk and immediately pulls out his phone to read a text from Nicholas.
Nichol:
> how’s the office, corporate boy? are u rich and powerful yet
Euijoo sends back:
> not rich, but might be haunted. met a guy who throws office parties at his apartment. apparently it’s a Thing
Nicholas’s reply is immediate:
> lol what kind of sitcom nonsense
> u better bring me cookies if this ends in bloodshed
Euijoo snorts quietly and types:
> imagine we actually end up going
> pls manifest no karaoke machines
> or cocktails with glitter in them
Nichol:
> oh dude. u think u have a choice.
> u work there now. u are the party
Juju:
> don’t say that like it’s a curse
Nichol:
> too late. the prophecy has been spoken.
> godspeed. may ur nametag survive.
Juju:
> if i die tell berry she was always my favorite
Nichol:
> i’ll make a tiny shrine. next to her food bowl.
Euijoo stifles a laugh and pockets his phone just as Kai walks in, bright smile and Tupperware of suspiciously glittery cookies in hand.
Mina sighs beside him. “Godspeed, newbie.”
Euijoo smiles weakly.
He has no idea what's coming.
Back home, Berry, from her perch on the windowsill, yawns like she already knows how this ends.