Work Text:
Wonwoo playfully pouted when his boyfriend rubbed whip cream from his drink onto the elders face. Mingyu smiled revealing the canines that Wonwoo had fallen for when they met 7 years ago in grade school. They continued to talk casually in the booth of the cafe for a couple hours before heading out to go to their shared apartment. Their relationship was no secret as Mingyu was proud to go around babbling how cute his boyfriend was wherever they went getting awkward looks from strangers who were surprised about such an openly gay couple. They’ve been together through thick and thin supporting each other when those close to them didn’t support their relationship and was sure to come to terms with them, gaining their acceptance or flat out cut those people out of their lives. Living together hardly caused any problems as they complemented each other perfectly. Wonwoo liked to clean and do more tedious chore work while Mingyu was a handyman that repair broken appliances and cooked. It took almost 3 years of being together to have things start spiraling downhill.
The pressure from his parents about getting married snapped something in Mingyu and he took it out on his boyfriend. The rest of that week had them both tense, purposefully avoiding each other and coming up with excuses to come home late just so they wouldn’t have to deal with the other. Anytime they did talk it turned into a heated argument about the smallest things and each fight ending in someone targeting an insecurity in the other breaking apart their heart a little more until neither of them could take it anymore. Mingyu came home to all of Wonwoo’s stuff gone from his house almost as if he hadn’t been living there for two years. A part in Mingyu had broken into a mixture of rage and sadness but he was too tired from his work to care then.
I t was a week since Wonwoo’s stuff had disappeared when he was sitting in the cafe when they held their first date he was scrolling through his feed when he received a text from Wonwoo. “I’m sorry for leaving you suddenly but I just couldn’t do it. I’m so sorry I don't expect for you to forgive me,”. All Mingyu could do was look at the text and laugh bitterly.
Almost a year since their breakup Mingyu was back to his old self. Laughing along with his friends Minghao and Soonyoung. His friends when they first found out he and Wonwoo broke up were absolutely shocked with many comments like “You guys were so cute!”, “Are you ok?” and other questions that shot him straight in the heart. Wonwoo hadn’t contacted him since that text nor did he hear anything about him from his friends. He barely posted on social media the only exception being pictures of a dog that he had gotten after their breakup with extremely vague and short captions. There was one caption that caught his attention. It was under the first picture he posted of his dog and it said, “Got a new member to my family, he reminds me of someone”. Wonwoo had always called Mingyu an overgrown puppy but he pushed out the possibility that he was talking about him. All of his friends tried to convince him that he still had feelings for Wonwoo and he should do something about it but he just ignored them for the time being.
Wonwoo didn’t know why he was there. Drinking the same drink Mingyu had that day, he was sat at the cafe from their first date, a year after he broke up with Mingyu. He knew it was a mistake the moment he stepped out of that door with his stuff but there was no going back. As he was mumbling to himself he didn’t notice the man that walked in. Anywhere he could tell whose face that was, it was none other than Mingyu. Mingyu was standing right above Wonwoo as he almost choked on his sugary drink. Without making eye contact he gestured for Mingyu to have a seat and to his surprise he took it. Neither of them said anything for a couple minutes before Wonwoo felt the need to break the painful silence.
“So uh how have you been? ”, he started cringing at himself for being so awkward.
It was the first time Wonwoo looked up at him to see Mingyu but no it wasn’t his Mingyu that he fell in love with. The happiness and warmth that was once there was gone and he had dark circles which had never happened since knowing him but even a friend wouldn’t notice this change. It only hurt Wonwoo more to know what he was still able to notice these little things about him. They sat in silence for a couple minutes avoiding each other’s eyes when Mingyu spoke up.
“I have a boyfriend now,” Mingyu blurted out.
The mask that he was using to hide his emotions faltered for a second but in no time Wonwoo composed himself. He was hoping that could be a chance of redemption for their relationship but all hope was lost at what Mingyu had just said. Mingyu looked away in surprise at how he actually went through with Minghao’s plan. Why would he even get jealous he broke up with you. Did he even break up with you?
Wonwoo looked straight into his eyes and said, “That’s nice” in the most unreadable expression Mingyu has ever seen. Wonwoo mentally slapped himself because not nice the man he loved had a boyfriend and he was encouraging them.
Mingyu sat up disrupting Wonwoo from his thoughts, “So um it was nice seeing you?” he said more in a questioning tone but still sweet as he gave an awkward hug to Wonwoo who didn’t realize he was crying until tear started flowing without stopping.
This wasn’t what he wanted, in a couple of moments Mingyu would leave him again sad and lonely but there was nothing he could do. He felt the need to do something, to reach out and tell him how he had felt in the last year. He needed to tell him that the past year was excruciating for him and that he made a mistake but it was too late now. Unknowingly he was let go of the best thing that happened to him in his entire life just because of a bad mood that fatal day. As Mingyu let go and turned away abruptly to leave, he hid his tear-streaked face that he tried so hard to prevent, leaving Wonwoo in the same state staring at the empty seat in front of him drinking a bittersweet latte.