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The strong smell of roasted coffee and shock hits Dowoon as he halts to a stop out on the chilly streets of a cafe downtown.
It was as if someone had broken off one of the sharp, clear icicles hanging on the windowsill and stabbed him with it; spreading an icy fire through his bones.
Full of disbelief, he blinks twice.
“Oh,” he thinks as he looks through the clear glass panel, where he makes out two hooded figures sitting almost too close to each other, an air of intimacy and something akin to shyness surrounding them. “He looks different now.”
Younghyun's hair is shorter and his cheeks are fuller, but the biggest difference Dowoon found was in his smile.
Happiness coloured the apples of his cheeks, giving him a glow that only accentuated how beautiful his smile is, now only wider as a fully bloomed laugh bursts through it.
His nose scrunches up teasingly and he leans forward over their table, unnecessarily adjusting his red scarf while he replies to the male in-front of him, his eyes reflecting the same amount of joy and amusement in Younghyun's. Being so far away, he could only make out the word Jae coming out from Younghyun's mouth.
“Jae,” Dowoon repeats inwardly to himself and wonders what the seemingly smitten pair could be talking about, “he looks happy, so he makes him happy. Jae.”
Dowoon ponders on that thought for a moment, memories passing by in a flash so fast that he only processes the feelings- and among them- the ones he felt when he was the one who got to put that smile on Younghyun's face, when he had the privilege of doing so.
A mixture of bitterness and relief floods through his veins as he turns his head away from the two, whose hands were now intertwined.
Bitterness, because he wasn’t in the male’s position. Relief, because there was someone else in his said position.
Bitterness, because what Younghyun and Dowoon had was in the past. Relief, because Younghyun was moving on into the present.
Those emotions slowly swirled into each other- like sugar into coffee- and eventually dissolved into a bittersweet acceptance, settling down deep within Dowoon's heart.
“They look good together.” he muses softly as he watches the pair converse with one another, fondness radiating from their smiles warm enough to melt the rock-hard ice out on the streets, and if Dowoon's heart clenches a little then he tells himself it’s because of the cold. "We did too, I guess, but that's all in the past now."
With a pensive sigh, he raises his head to take one last good look at him.
When Dowoon is met with the sight of fondness and adoration in Younghyun's gaze, he’s not surprised to find that it mirrors in the pair of eyes opposite his, and just like that, something inside him -once ugly and bubbling- now begins to soften and settle down like a feather; waiting to be blown away and let go.
Setting his eyes forward, Dowoon lifts one corner of his lip, adjusts his scarf and resumes walking.
“Love looks good on him.”