Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The restaurant matches your shoes.

Of course, you’d done this on purpose, picked the pumps with the bow at the toe and the cheerful pattern of hand drawn pink hearts all over the sides. But that has your mouth laden with ashy discomfort, seeing all of the red lace hearts that are stuck up on the walls, the centerpieces of roses on each table. This used to be best day to come to Loveholic, when it felt like every cell in your body was alive with delight, and now you can’t help but think the opposite. At least, when you stand on your tiptoes to peek at the booth in the very back corner, they’ve moved the flowers away.

“Sir, you’re going to have to leave.”

“W-what, but I had a reservation!”

You and Rosie turn at the same time when the confrontation next to you escalates into being audible — the man at the table's back is turned yet he's visibly fumbling under Shotaro’s fierce gaze, which only makes you two giggle. Sho is still a senior in high school and is the cutest nugget.

The little otter is going toe to toe with the man something fierce, blustering with all his hidden reserves of energy, “You’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half after telling us the other party of that reservation would arrive. If you haven’t noticed, sir, it’s Valentine’s Day. If you aren’t going to honor your reservation we’re going to have to give the table—,”

It’s Valentine’s Day, your favorite holiday of them all, and no one, not even this man who probably deserves it, should have a terrible time on Valentine’s Day.

Without much forward thinking, you tap your fingers at the back of the empty chair on the other side of the table and call softly, “Hi, I’m here! So sorry I’m late.”

He doesn’t hear you, because Shotaro is still raising hell and holding all his attention. Rosie, on the other hand, fixes you with an incredulous stare, a flick of her eyes over to the corner booth, your booth, and a confused question, “You’re here with him? We had your booth—,”

“Yeah, I think it was just a mix up, Rosie, this is me,” you say quickly, trying to get this done with before more people start staring, and you plop down right into the seat, giving her a short head nod to let her know you’re okay. She doesn’t go away, not for a moment, too used to the regular set of requests she typically prescribes to. But when your eyelid flutters in a subtle wink, an acknowledgment of her kindness, she obliges, turns, and literally yanks Shotaro away by the collar of his shirt.

The stranger is still concealed by the massive bouquet of red roses, but it would be impolite not to greet him. You clear your throat lightly, then do so, “Hello.”

A large hand curls around the base of the crystal vase, and it shifts the arrangement of the blood red roses over to your left. The petals of the roses flutter in the breeze conjured up by the action, the perfect frame to the face that’s revealed — clean cut handsomeness in a way you’ve never seen before, despite the shock of soft chestnut hair sticking up all over the place, matching sparkly black eyes, sparkly like they’re trying their best to outshine the magnificent chandeliers above, and a wrinkled hoodie that is not appropriate for here but somehow works on this person.

And oh, a pair of dimples that peek out when he lazily smiles your way and returns the greeting, “Hey.”

All at once you’re itching to get out of there and compelled to speak, and truth be told, you’re probably a little rude with what actually comes out, “Getting stood up on Valentine’s Day is quite unfortunate.”

“Embarrassing, you mean," he corrects, not put off by the comment at all. "And it’s my birthday, too.”

“Oh? Happy birthday.”

Jennie appears right at that moment, Kyungsoo and the other chefs already primed to have your usual order prepared when you called ahead for the reservation. She nearly drops it all over the place when she starts heading the usual direction and has to violently stop when she sees you somewhere else, with someone else. “Here you go, one lava cake with— oh, is it two spoons today?”

It's always the same order, one dark chocolate lava cake, a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, and one large spoon. Just for you. Now there's another person and she's confused just like Rosie and you're going to have to do this the rest of the night if you don't deal with this soon. “Just one, Jen. Happy Valentine’s Day," you respond without really responding, and ignore her stare after she hands off the utensil, surely gone to commiserate with her best friend about what they've witnessed.

The stranger notices your familiarity with the waitstaff, the prompt way you've gotten served already and he doesn't even have water yet, and inquires, “Are you like, a regular here?”

The tender anecdote behind your indeed regular frequenting of this high end establishment is one he won't appreciate. 

“I come here from time to time," you answer instead, finding it easier to watch the ice cream melt on your plate rather than your companion's, admittedly, kind of handsome, intimidating stare. "It’s where my husband and I went on our first date.”

You'll never get over it, the first time you'd seen your future husband since graduating college and he'd had the balls to bring you to the most romantic restaurant in all of San Francisco. You just knew, right then and there.

The person also gets a funny kind of wrinkle by his nose right before he smiles, not just the dimples, which is a direct contrast to the plunging depth of his voice, “Huh, funny. The only reason I know this place is because my best friend used to take his wife here. Where’s your husband?” Your fingers seize around the napkin in your lap, but he definitely doesn't notice, he only realizes his own rudeness and makes amends, “Wow, I really shouldn’t be asking that without introducing myself first. Jaehyun.”

You shake his hand over the delicate fabric of the tablecloth, his fingers easily enveloping yours. You wish you had been smart enough to leave when you started to get uncomfortable.

That means you wouldn't have had to answer this blandly, “My husband won’t be joining me tonight, hence the one spoon.” Or feel the need to pry to get the heat off yourself, “And if we’re asking personal questions, why’d you get stood up?”

An elegant eyebrow lifts off his forehead. “It’s a long story.”

“It’ll take me a few minutes to eat this cake. And you should order something so they don’t kick you out.”

What! Are! You! Doing!

You'd spent the past few minutes roaring to get out of here, and now you find yourself pushing a menu his way, compelling you both to stay. Maybe it's because you’re truly afraid Shotaro is going to kick him out if you leave, and it'd be sad for this Jaehyun to be alone here on Valentine's Day and his birthday, but also because it doesn't hurt as badly when there's someone else at the table.

“Uhhhhh," Jaehyun drags out the word as his eyes pore over the tiny cursive, "I don’t even know what half this stuff is.”

You get it, you'd always do the ordering here because the fancy Italian and French was too much for your husband to handle. You gesture for the closest waiter, and Shotaro stalks over, not bothering to hide his glare your companion's way.  You understand, you've basically robbed him of a set of extra tips, you'll make sure he can get extra so he can go on his senior trip to take dance classes in LA.

You gently pull the menu out of Jaehyun's hands and pass it off to the boy with your quiet request, “Hey, Sho. Peach galette with strawberry sorbet.”

That was your favorite on days that weren't holidays, because lava cake was saved only for those. Kyungsoo would always make galettes especially for you when he heard you were coming to his restaurant. And he must've had it ready just in case today, because not long after, the waiter reappears with the beautiful pastry in hand, setting it down in front of Jaehyun with a disapproving frown.

Nothing about your companion is proper, not his casual dress, the way his hair is all messed up, the way he dives right into eating without even waiting, like he's starving, eyes closed in total bliss the moment the rush of beautiful creation hits his tongue.

Then, you can't help the question, “You don’t have this stuff where you’re from?”

“Well, I’ve been in Bolivia for the past five-ish years, so no.” He doesn't take his eyes off the plate, answering through a mouthful of sorbet, “I’ve been there with Doctors Without Borders, we weren’t exactly fine dining.”

Your palms go clammy under the table.

You wonder if he can hear the underhanded crack in your tone when you struggle through the question, “You’re a doctor?”

It's a bizarre contrast, him housing his dessert while you feel like you might be nauseous if you even look the way of yours. He does not pick up on any of your very visible nerves as he keeps on chatting and eating and chatting and eating, “Pediatric surgeon. I did a lot of surgeries on kids while I was down there, I was one of the only ones at my hospital who had any surgical experience. But I mostly did vaccinations, public health stuff, delivered babies when I could.”

You will your eyelids to close for a moment, thinking you're conjuring up a very specific fantasy that is totally unobtainable. But no black hair reappears when you open them, and the smile is nice, yet it’s not the one you know.

“That’s a very noble endeavor. I’m sure you did a lot of good there,” you murmur, still caught up in the fact that this man is also a doctor that delivers babies.

“I was called back to consult on a case that my mentor’s working on, took a long ass flight, and somehow still thought I’d try to come here,” he sighs, wistful as he takes a longing stare through the decorations. From that alone, he strikes you as the over-the-top romantic type, which makes sense considering his birthday is on Valentine’s Day. It’s probably the fate of the universe for him to be so. He uses his spoon to scrape up the rest of his sorbet, downing it as he provides context for his appearance alone, “My fiancée’s a doctor too, we went to South America together. The phone call implied she’d also be here in SF, it’s really not very interesting.”

Right on the nose, he’d come all the way back just on the slim chance his fiancée would be here too. Romantic at heart.

It’s too similar, it really is.

You’re getting choked up already by the serendipity of it all, “L-like I said, I came here for all the special occasions with my Doo—,” 

Every glittery, sparkly, luminous bit of romantic enthusiasm in his eyes dies a painful death the moment you say that. He cuts you off before you can finish your statement, “What?”

“That’s, sorry,” you clear your throat, having trouble speaking at a normal timbre, “that’s my husband’s nickname.”

His spoon clangs against his plate when it falls from his idle hand. Jaehyun is stunned, he has to be, his mouth parts for a moment of heavenly surprise, then his words burrow themselves right into your heart, “Are you… were you, you’re…” He swallows as thickly as the air around you feels, “you’re Doyoung’s wife. Bug—, y/n.”

As soon as Jaehyun says his name, then yours, you think you might never be able to breathe again.

“You… you know him?”

He can’t stop staring and you’re letting him, you’re letting him stare so that he can be wrong about this, he doesn’t know you, Jaehyun doesn’t know you—,

“He was my best friend in med school.”

When you blink again - because you want to be wrong, you have to be wrong - you see a twin set of heads, black and pink, and two smiles. One is shaped like a bunny’s, and the other is… dotted with dimples. It’s a photo from Doyoung’s white coat ceremony, the very first day at Stanford Medical School, and the handwritten caption at the bottom, in his blockish handwriting, spells out white coats w Jeffrey boy!

“Wait. Jeff?” you gasp, “You’re Jeff? But you said your name was Jaehyun.”

His fingers are curled tightly around the edge of the table, now trying his hardest not to stare, because you both know what this is, even if you don’t really know him. He mumbles right to the table, “Jeff is my English name that I always went by in classes. He used to make fun of me for it because he never thought he needed one and everyone always called him—,”

“Doo-young instead.”

You finish the sentence, because you know this better than anyone. Ever since your days at William & Mary, even before, people would look at the spelling of his name and go with an incredibly doltish phonetic pronunciation of it.

You search through the vast depths of stories that Doyoung told you after you started dating, and pull out the right one, “You went to Stanford together, you grew up here, right?”

“Yeah, my family’s like twenty minutes out of the city. And you two went to school in Virginia,” he responds, not really asking, because if he really was friends with Doyoung, he would know that.

“Yes,” you whisper. “Yes, we did.”

You have to make your exit, gracefully and rapidly. There’s no possible way you can sit here and do this.

Collecting up your purse, you might make a proper excuse as you go, an I’m going to take my leave for tonight or an it was nice to meet you, but your mind is too blankly nostalgic to preserve it or his response. You channel all of your focus on not slipping out of your high heels and onto the floor, bore your stare right into the side of Jennie’s head so the black strains of vision creeping up don’t overwhelm you into blindness. 

She glances at you in concern when you accost her out of nowhere, suddenly breathless, but you have to get out of here. You take out a large envelope of twenties from your purse, more than enough to give each staff member at least forty dollars, and you add in an extra forty for Shotaro. You shoot her what you hope is a thankful smile and make your parting requests, “Split this between everyone and take his out of the fund. Sorry about the tables, that should cover it all.”

You really should’ve sat in your usual booth, for more reasons than one.

“Thanks! I’ll see you next time!” Jennie calls, thankfully more interested in her large tip instead of your baffling change in emotions.

It’s so baffling. There’s going to be an extra expense to the fund that has been sitting in Doyoung’s Loveholic account. That was never a thing here, but management had made a money account just for him because you came in so much. You’d done the calculations and the money he’d left in there for convenience would last until next, next Valentine’s Day. But now, with this extra galette, it might only last until next Christmas instead.

You remember him, of course you do. Even though you’d never met Jaehyun before this, it feels like you know exactly who he is, because you’d heard it already - the library they’d prefer to study in on the east side of campus, the cakes that his grandmother would send in the mail even though his family home was close, how they decided to match residencies together.

“You still live in that, where was it again? That little apartment in the Mission District?”

A violent flinch shudders through your body and you glance over to see Jaehyun on the sidewalk right next to you, strolling along in the crisp February evening, shivering visibly in his thin sweater. You’re taken aback that he’s followed you out with no qualms and is trying to continue the conversation, about something as intensely personal as this.

“No…” You get emotional in an instant, thinking of that old shoebox where you fell in love with your husband, “We moved. Lyon Street, just the next block over.”

That’s where you’d been heading, but now that Jaehyun’s here with you, you can’t decide if you want to go there or walk aimlessly around the city until he tires and leaves you alone, just in the effort to protect yourself.

“This is crazy, I still can’t believe we ran into each other like that,” Jaehyun says with a laugh, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as he stares at the city where he’s from, where he hasn’t been in some time. “I don’t think I’ve seen a picture of you in years, I didn’t even recognize you. You two started dating right after I left for DWB.”

Beyond your shorter haircut, the heels, the brightly patterned red dress, things that are not like the way you used to be, not the waist length tresses and the cutoff tees and sneakers, the tribulations you’ve been through have lent a certain air to your demeanor. It’s a je ne sais quois addendum to your aura that’s hard to pick up on unless you already know the backstory. Which he does.

“I’ve seen all your pictures, I just had… I had no idea,” you admit. Before this, you truthfully hadn’t given much thought to Doyoung’s best friend. He never existed within the plane of your life, though you’d heard every story, looked through every photo album.

“Well, I think I probably looked way different then. I wore glasses and dyed my hair all these crazy colors because the kids liked it,” Jaehyun explains, the dimple in his left cheek flashing when his tiny grin appears.

You’re immediately thrust into an overwhelming tidal pool of recollection. They did their peds rotation together, most likely the time that Jaehyun decided he wanted to be a pediatric surgeon and your husband decided he was more cut out for obstetrics. Doyoung had a full leaflet of photos where he’d had this shock of electric blue hair, dyed on a whim to go with his best friend’s half pink, half lilac tresses. He claimed the kids just lit up when they got the doctor with the ‘superhero hair.’

And there was never just the three of them, there were several snaps with a woman sporting bright red ringlets, her arms thrown around your current companion. You recall this, too, “Yooa is what your fiancee went by, I remember that now.”

Because Jaehyun’s girlfriend had been a part of their trio when she’d matched for their intern year, and they’d gotten engaged soon after. Doyoung would complain about her third wheeling but mostly joked that when they both got back from their travels — and really, that should’ve been your first clue — you’d have to get close to them fast so you could be their best man and maid of honor together.

“Oh, fuck,” he curses.

He has no idea that you’re struggling under the weight of all this repressed nothingness that should’ve been immaterial to you. He’s looking at his phone with a deep frown, eye circles more prominent than ever, stress evident.  He rubs a hand over his face and it’s now that you realize he has only a solitary backpack with him, all of his possessions packed into there. You don’t know why that has pricked in your heart this way, especially when he sighs, “My hotel reservation was canceled because my American bank account hasn’t been unfrozen yet. And I don’t want to go home because…”

“You could stay in the apartment, if you need,” you blurt before you have the sense not to. Before you can stop your head from turning and seeing that somehow, some way, you’ve inadvertently led him right to the outside entrance of your building.

Jaehyun only knows the old place, where Doyoung lived before you moved from Virginia, but he can somehow pick up on the sense that despite it being your own suggestion, you’re uncomfortable,  “No, I wouldn’t intrude—,”

“It’s really fine. I have two extra rooms. It’d be easier to get to… I’m presuming you’re going to be at UCSF again?” You suspect he’s returning to his roots, and his slight nod confirms it. “Plus, you said you’re a pediatric surgeon, which means your boss's boss is Dr. Kim, and he really doesn’t like people to be late.”

Doyoung’s father is the CEO and Chief of the entire hospital, but he’s still active in their shared speciality, one he gave his son good-natured hell for for quitting. He runs his staff with the same rigid hand he operates his daily life in, it would not make sense for Jaehyun to risk getting himself in trouble on his first day back.

He shakes his head, “I don’t have to stay if it’ll make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s okay,” you deny his denial. “It’s only logical. Come on up.”

It’s not just logical, a friend of Doyoung’s means Jaehyun has to be a friend of yours. There’s no dodging it.

The elevator ride is as stiff as anything you’ve ever experienced, the two of you on the opposite sides of the box as you are brought up to the twenty-fifth floor. You have all these errant thoughts - that you should probably apologize in advance for the messiness of the place since you didn’t anticipate having a guest, that you don’t know what volume your Google home is going to be playing Usher at when you walk in because you didn’t bother to turn it down. And you have no idea when you last changed the sheets in said extra room, you haven’t had a guest in some time. All those errant thoughts fly right out of your head the moment the elevator opens into the entryway of your home, and you see your neat shelf of heels right in the hallway. He takes his shoes off with no hesitation, happy to relax, to drop his bag off in the corner.

It’s a particular exercise in stress, slipping off your cute, heart-covered pumps to put them back in their place on the shelving. Because you’re used to this, seeing the rows and rows of fancy high heels all orderly and pristine.

But you haven’t seen male sneakers —  tossed there on the floor beside them — in this house in two years.

“Holy shit.”

Nor have you seen a male presence here, in general, that wasn’t Dr. Kim or the dishwasher repair man. It’s strange to see Jaehyun’s broad frame outlined in the twinkling lights of San Francisco that are visible through the penthouse window, bothersome to catch his wince in discomfort as Usher’s crooning blasts through your speakers before you can shut it off.

It’s quite taxing, no — exhausting, to watch him take a spin around his surroundings, the luxurious L shaped couch and massive TV, the expensive alcohol on display, and marvel out loud, “Y’all have money money. No surprise considering how Doo’s family is.”

His family is wealthy, yes, fabulously so, but that’s not where this money was from.

“I’m comfortable, yes,” you affirm, polite and not grandstanding, because the subject actually makes you uncomfortable. “Well, the guest room is down the hall, it has a bath—,”

“You guys look so happy in this.”

You know what he’s looking at, but some sick part of you has to see it. So, you turn, and you take a grand old look at Jaehyun by the crooked surface of your oven, staring at the middle of your kitchen island, where the only picture in this entire house is. You’d gotten the cute frame at SFO of all places, on your way home from your honeymoon in Antigua. You’d just been so smitten with the ladybug pattern, had rushed home and printed the proof of your wedding portrait before you even had the official thing.

“We were. It was the perfect November day,” you murmur, each trembling quarter note of remembrance resonating in your response. You turn away, already too much for you to contemplate tonight, when you’d wanted to think of anything but. You continue on with your lesson in hospitality gone uncompleted, “The guest room is at the end of the hallway, it has a bathroom. Please knock if you need something. Goodnight.”

You want Jaehyun out of the kitchen so you can have the picture to yourself, like you’ve somehow forgotten the contents even though you stare at it every night while cooking. You hadn’t even tried to print a nicer one, the Junmyeon Kim Photography proof is still stamped all over your beaming faces, the lace train of your gown, the sheaf of thistle and rosemary he wore as a boutonnière, the peek of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. You’re not kissing — Doyoung had hated that one - because his eyes were scrunched closed - despite you finding it so adorable. But this one, where your cheeks are mushed together, arms raised in victory that you’d finally done it, had gotten married to the love of your life, you both loved this one.

“Hey.”

“Yes?” you answer Jaehyun, but you don’t turn around. You were so happy, you were so, so happy in this, you knew you were going to be happy forever.

“I was heartbroken when I heard about the accident, I cried for what felt like a year straight. I am so sorry.”

You’ve somehow extricated yourself from the pull of your wedding photo, and are now staring at your late husband’s best friend, at Jaehyun, Jeffrey boy, Jeff, whoever he is to you. And you’re watching him cry these very beautiful diamond teardrops as if to prove his point, all that sad loveliness spilt all over his face.

You’ve been through this already, sat through all the condolences, well wishes, and concerned looks. There was the sobbing, the hysterics from your parent, the ordeal of sorting through his things, and somehow this is the worst of it. Because in another life, Jaehyun would be coming home from Bolivia to hug his best friend, the man who knew him better than anyone. He ended up with only you instead.

“Thank you,” you whisper, knowing your heart won’t let you speak any more than that.

—

You’re wading into dangerous territory when Dr. Kim’s Porsche rolls up to the sidewalk in front of your building and he turns off the JS Bach.  You know you’ve been avoiding his messages. You’ve seen the previews and archived the ones that you knew you were going to have to respond to. But that was Monday, and it’s Friday now and you should’ve realized something was up when he offered to drive you home after he’d been loitering in the lobby, waiting for you.

He turns in his seat and you keep facing forward so that you don’t have to see the way the lines by his mouth crease in the same way his son’s did when he was worried. The over-the-top, fatherly concern comes out when he asks, “Have you been staying this late again?”

“No, I haven’t, don’t worry. Um….” You trail off, because you had indeed stayed in your office until ten the past five nights. But you don’t want him to worry, this is not like then, when you would stay until one in the morning or later and drive home with enough time to make it to bed without having to think before you fell asleep. “I’m fine, really. I haven’t stayed this late in the office in a long time.”

You don’t want to explain to him it’s because there’s a stranger in your house, you know exactly what he’ll have to say about that.

“Well, be sure to let us know if that becomes an issue again. I’m more than happy to drive you home, but I would rather you not do that again,” Dr. Kim reminds you.

To an outsider, it might sound harsh but he means well, better than anyone.

When they found out you’d been stuck in that punishing loop of behavior, Mrs. Kim, Seulgi, Wendy, and him would pick you up from the hospital on rotation. They’d drive you home, come inside, and sit in your apartment until you were able to sleep. That reduced back to going home at eleven, then nine, and finally, after six months, you were going home at five, as usual. Like nothing had changed in your routine.

“Jeffrey! Jeff!”

During your hazardous reminiscing, he’s rolled the window down and shouted across you at a person on the sidewalk. Turns out it’s your recent roommate, strolling along with his backpack in hand. Jaehyun bends over to peek through the glass, to wave a friendly hand in greeting, “Oh, hello. Dr. Kim. Y/n.” He dips his head towards his de facto boss and offers a tight smile to you, which you barely return.

Dr. Kim is not ebullient by nature, so it’s a bit strange to watch his face split in a full grin, genuine in his enthusiasm for his son’s friend, complimenting him easily, “So good to finally have you back with us, I much enjoyed working together this week.” Even from here, you can see the tips of Jaehyun’s ears turn this bright pink, like the sky turns when the months are about to crest from winter to spring, that darkens when the older man keeps going, “Finally get to make up for not having you at the hospital after your residency, I think our ranking will be back in the top three nationally now that you’re back.”

That means he’s good. He’s really good at what he does, apparently.

Your companion is as well trained in being polite as you are, though it comes with the territory. Because you can tell he’s embarrassed, but all you hear from him is an even-headed, “I enjoyed being back, such a different scene from Bolivia.  An interesting and complex case is a nice change of pace from doing a thousand vaccines a day.”

“You must be so happy to be back in San Francisco,” Dr. Kim tacks on, with a wistful smile. You know how much he loves the city, how he wanted all generations of his family to grow up here. “Speaking of, you stay here as long as you like.”

A corner of your heel goes into the skin of your foot by accident, and you wince at the surprise pain. You instinctively look out the window and Jaehyun is standing there so awkwardly, lips parted in astonishment at the blatant way your father-in-law has spoken for you. He’s not used to it in the way you are.

“Sir—,” 

It’s no bother to Dr. Kim that he’s brought this up, and you can’t blame him - you’ve never directly expressed your discomfort. He just smiles happily that he’s found a solution for both of your problems, “Y/n’s been thinking about selling the place, but it makes more sense to have it as an investment piece, rent it out as she needs. It’d make me happy to know you were being taken care of by our family.”

And at that, you know you cannot argue the point.

Nodding your head after Jaehyun doesn’t make another move, you put a light hand of acknowledgment on your husband’s father’s arm, then get out of the car and bid him farewell with a wave. Your heart feels infinitely more tender than it had only minutes ago.

Jaehyun seems to have read that, when you walk by him to go into your building, he immediately apologizes, “I’m so sorry—,”

“No, don’t be,” you sigh. It’s not his fault, and Dr. Kim had a point, and truth be told, this shouldn’t be a dramatic thing for you. It’s not an overstep. “It’s Doyoung’s father, and the place was something he paid off so I wouldn’t have to use the insurance money.”

You hadn’t had the chance to send in the first monthly payment of rent before it happened, and you never could bring yourself to touch the insurance payout. Dr. Kim did what he felt like he had to and paid the rest for you. That’s why it seemed like you had money.  The man lost his only son, and now he’s just trying to watch out for the next closest thing. If Jaehyun is as close as Doyoung as you think he is, he’ll understand.

He does, because the corner of his mouth upturns in the most melancholy smile, an easy sheen of tears cover his eyes. It seems like he has a soft heart.

A quiet kind of commiseration fills the elevators as you’re brought up to the penthouse, and he offers to hold your bag while you slip your heels off, the yellow ones today because the sun had been so shiny in the morning.

“You were going to sell this place?” he asks once you’ve walked into the living room and he’s collapsed on the couch, tired from a long day at the hospital. “It’s so nice, though.”

“We were supposed to move in that week.”

He tenses up as soon as he’s let himself relax, eyes darting to the spot behind your shoulder where the picture of your wedding is. It’s a true tragedy, that this was supposed to be your forever home and now it’s just a whatever home, another place to live in. You tell him as much, “I didn’t want to stay, but I certainly was in no state to contest a lease. And I just… couldn’t bring myself to decline it last year, either.” 

Mostly because it felt like you were letting go of something your husband really loved.

“I’ve spent two years alone in an apartment I was supposed to share with my husband,” you continue with an errant, ironic laugh, “so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a person around.”

“I’ll be totally out of your hair, it’s fine. I have a feeling I’m going to be working crazy hours at the hospital,” Jaehyun makes an excuse that isn’t even really one. You know that he’ll be stretched thin there based on the discussion from earlier. “And once Dr. Kim is toned down, I’m definitely going to get myself a place. You seem like you value your privacy.”

Being alone and being private were two different things, but you suppose he’s heard the stories of how introverted you were in college from the man himself. That makes you smile a little, all the times Doo would get busted for throwing parties you never went to in your hall, how everyone on campus seemed to know Doyoung Kim. “He was really the only person I would’ve given that up for. Him and his family, I guess. His sisters are my favorite people.”

Doyoung’s two younger sisters Seulgi and Winter, plus Seulgi’s girlfriend, now wife, Wendy, were the ones who were able to crack your shell when you first moved, even before he could.

“They were mine, too. The youngest one baked me banana bread every day my intern year because she had a crush on me,” Jaehyun reveals, his full amused laughter having his dimples all on display. You giggle in return because it sounds just like the youngest Kim sibling. “She’s what, a junior at Berkeley now? Man, I’m old.”

For some reason, that story is enough to make you realize that he’s not a stranger. Maybe he is to you, but to your family, he’s not. He’s known the girls for longer than you have, may be as close to them as you are. You already knew you wouldn’t be able to kick him out, but for the first time you’re feeling like it would be both rude and disappointing to do so.

So, you clear your throat and nonchalantly lay out an offer, “I’m not going to make you a lease, but maybe we can write down a few rules.”

He’s still chuckling to himself, then snaps to confused attention, “Rules?”

“For you living here,” you explain, “a nice, short number.”

It’s a massive, massive concession that he knows is one. His brow softens in this careful way, flopping all of his luxurious hair right in his face. He lazily gets up from your couch and wanders over to the other side of your kitchen island, fingers dragging over the marble counter as he thinks.

“Three,” is what he settles on, “one from you, one from me, one we agree on together.”

You snatch up a dry erase marker from one of your many, many drawers, and you write right on your fridge to the tune of his surprised noise. It’s what you used to do when you lived alone, put up the groceries and the to-do list. It feels natural to write up the first rule that you think of, the one that will be from you.

“I don’t care about rent,” you tell him, the place is paid off and there’s no point. “Pay whatever you want, five dollars, nothing. All I ask is that you kill the spiders for me.”

He laughs, a full belly laugh of entertainment, and you turn around to glare at him. He tries to reign it in but only ends up making the giggles burst through his closed lips, face purpling with the effort. But you’re serious about this, you hate bugs more than anything.

“Interesting from the woman who loves ladybugs more than anything else,” Jaehyun hums, still smiling crookedly in amusement.

You pull a haughty face with an even haughtier retort, “Spiders are not ladybugs.”

And so what if you only like the cute little red bugs? They’ve always been your thing, appearing in your life at the most magical moments — on your mailbox when you got your acceptance to William & Mary, on the sill of your old office when you’d received the interview for the position at UCSF, on the table’s flower arrangement when you’d gone on your first date, on the base of your champagne glass on your wedding day. They’ve become an afterthought as of late, not too much of your time taken up by their extraordinary presences, but you suppose they’ll come around when they’re supposed to.

“Duly noted. I will dispose of them properly,” he obliges and you know he’ll make fun of you for it again. Only he doesn’t, he just goes a bit quieter, “I have a good idea for the joint rule. What was Doo’s favorite saying?”

“Don’t assume, it makes an ass of you and me. That works,” you recall with ease, the phrase he’d parrot out at work and at home. He kept things simple that way, kept communication open and flowing. It’s hard to know by just assuming, you never know what's in another's heart. So always ask.

Your heart feels light when you write it up on the fridge.

“As for mine… I don’t know. What do you need from me?” he asks.

You shrug. “I don’t need much. I do everything, I clean, I love cooking, I’m used to it. I kinda like doing laundry, I don’t mind doing the dishes.”

“Okay, I’ll split that stuff though. Not the cooking, because I suck at it, but the trash and the cleaning, whatever. I’ll put myself down for half of it,” he offers, with much confidence you have to note. That’ll last for about a week and then you’ll probably have to do it all yourself - again, not that you mind. You know how the hospital schedules are, and how busy your husband was and he wasn’t even a surgeon. It’s the thought that counts, though.

You pencil it onto the list and tack on an additional contribution, “You can use anything that’s here, anything that’s mine’s yours. You can use my Netflix, take my BART pass or my car to get to the hospital if you want—,”

“Oh, that’s fine, I can just bike or whatever.”

Your heart leapfrogs into your throat so fast you think you might vomit.

The immediate rebuttal does too, flying past your lips at a record pace before he gets any ideas, “No.”

“Huh?”

You put down the marker with a trembling hand, quaking so violently the plastic stutters against the counter. That echoes right into your tiny request, spoken to the picture instead of him, “If you want to live here, you can’t ever bike. Or I can’t ever know.”

Because he knows, there’s no way he doesn’t. If Jaehyun doesn’t agree, you know you’re going to have to kick him out, you will not let him in the house again. He’s not your friend, but the potential image is far too much. That image can’t be something poisoning the back of your mind, the kind of weighty consideration you don’t have the mental capacity to undertake.

When you hazard a peek over your shoulder, he’s frozen across the way, complexion now sallow with fading realization of what he said, and what that meant. He bows his head low in exhaustive apology, “I totally understand. So make a fourth rule.”

He gets it, he more than gets it, and you appreciate him for that.

The solemnity of the moment passes a second later, and you pick up the marker to add the last stipulation on with a flourish. You dot the bottom with your neat cursive signature, he has the quintessential doctor’s scrawl of an autograph, and all of a sudden you are a little bit more okay with having Jaehyun Jung as your roommate.

127 Lyon Street Apt. 25 Terms & Conditions

1. There will be no formal rent. JJJ will pay whatever monetary value he deems appropriate and will kill all arachnids and other unfriendly critters in the house

2. JJJ and YFN YLN will split household chores fifty-fifty save for cooking which YFN will do (unless they want to starve)

3. “Don’t assume, it makes an ass of you and me.” -Doyoung Kim

+bonus 4. JJJ will never ride a bike. Never.

—

Good evening, UCSF Hospital patient services, how may I help you?

“Good evening….. Pamela?”

Your professionalism dies when you hear the familiar deep voice on the other end of the phone. You gently toe your office door closed so that no one can hear the friendly conversation that will not fall within the bounds of your job description.

You lean back in your chair and laugh, “Nope. Not this time!” The man grumbles loudly, in a way that he wants to make sure you hear all of it, and you settle into the usual routine, “You’re going to make me stay past my shift, Biggie, what do you need?”

For the past year, this one man has been calling the patient services desk, your extension specifically. He tries to hide under the guise of being directed to the insurance department to deal with his brother’s expenses, but he’s not slick. Sometimes you stay on the phone for hours, sometimes it’s just ten minutes. You’ve been adamant that he not tell you his name or patient details to not feel like you were in violation of hospital rules, so he calls his little brother Smalls, and he’s Biggie.

Smalls is in the hospital for some kind of congenital defect with his lungs and ribcage. They’d tried eight different hospitals across the US and ended up at UCSF, all the way across the country from their hometown of Akron. Still, not much luck was to be had. They’d been waiting for a lung transplant, then somehow found his ribs weren’t strong enough to handle the surgery, so the doctors had been trying a variety of strategies to shore up his strength in preparation. The latest was that they were going to bring in a specialist to design some kind of artificial sternum plus rib cage support to get the job done.

But more than that, Biggie had started calling on the first anniversary, and you’d been crying when you picked up the phone. Biggie was blubbering with sobs too, and you’d laughed at each other, and somehow, now, this random person knows enough about you to joke, “Just wanted to know how your Valentine’s was? Any guy brave enough to not get haunted by your sordid past?”

“No, you know how it was. Went to Loveholic and had dessert and that was it,” you answer, skimming over everything else that had happened in the weeks since. “You?”

“Was here that whole weekend with Smalls,” Biggie deadpans. You can picture his eye roll though you’ve never actually seen his face, because they haven’t left the hospital since they started coming. “He did finally have his artificial sternum and ribs fitted, though. Met the Doc for that back then, super cool.”

Your eyes close in relief when you hear the news, good for once, after too many weekends of listening to Biggie cry to you on the phone about his brother’s health.

“Good to hear,” you sigh, wishing you knew who he was so you could extend a hug of companionship. Your computer dings with the notice to clock out, and you quickly get back to it, “I’m assuming I’m transferring you to insurance.”

“Yup.”

“You have the number for the insurance hotline, you know that, right?”

And though you know he’s definitely just some twenty-two year old frat boy who sounds way older than he is to impress you, it’s still hard not to blush when he lays the charm on thick, “I know it, but the five minutes we talk a day are the best five minutes of the day.”

“You’re too much,” you grumble, before adding on what you always do, “hope they’re kind to you. Hope you get lungs soon.”

“Thanks…. Lorelai?” He’s been trying to guess your name this whole time, and still hasn’t gotten it. You know he’s going to keep going until he nails it or his brother is discharged. You hope it’s the latter.

“Nope!” you chirp brightly. “Please hold while I transfer you.”

You press the requisite buttons, and then there’s only the dial tone left.

With a weary exhale, another day done, you re-open the door of the office to see all the cubicles empty even though it’s only 5:05. You pick up your purse and shut off your computer, and make your way out of the wing to head home.

You don’t mind the fact that you’re alone at all times during work, because you don’t really have a relationship with any of your coworkers. They’d avoided you before because you were the CEO’s son’s wife, and avoided you after, because well, it was after. And it didn’t help that the head of HR, Sooyoung, had been kind enough to give you a private office after, so they were jealous of that, too. But you’re good at your job, you have the employee awards to prove it, and you’re fairly sure that isn’t nepotism.

“Hey buggie—, sorry, y/n!”

Halfway out of the lobby, you hear the call, then the running footsteps, and then Jaehyun is taking your purse off your arm so he can carry it with his backpack.

You honestly didn’t even realize he was talking to you. You stop for a second as he confidently strolls out of the hospital with your bag in hand, then you chase after him with a question, “What did you call me?”

Even from your spot behind him, with the golden rays of the setting sun blinding you, you can see the tips of his ears go pink. Oh?

He waits for a second, so you’re side by side, then he keeps his gaze straight ahead because he’s too embarrassed to admit the reason right to your face, “When you first started dating, Doo thought it was bad luck to tell me your name on the phone until he knew you were the one.” After he gets through that first tidbit, he gathers the courage to look you right in your eye. This little spot of color under his right eye floods right into his dimple when he reveals, “He would go on and on about you, and all I managed to get was that you liked cooking and ladybugs. So you were buggie to me for the longest time. Hard for me to stop after that.”

You stop on the sidewalk corner, heartbeat aflutter at the cute story about your husband. Your voice comes out, so, so shy, “He did that?” 

You had no clue Doyoung was worried about it from the start. Which is funny, considering he told you he was going to marry you on your first date.

Seriously, you weren’t ever a believer in fairytales, but it went perfectly from the start. You both went to William & Mary at the same time and never talked, though you lived on the same floor. Fast forward to when you had gotten the job at UCSF, he was the only one of your Facebook friends that you knew lived in San Francisco. You messaged him asking for moving suggestions, and he’d insisted he help you take boxes up to your third floor walkup when you arrived. After flirting with you all afternoon and you not realizing it, he’d further insisted he take you to dinner.

That was it, Doyoung had pulled out the big guns with a reservation at Loveholic, you’d sat outside on the patio in the moonlight and drank a bottle of wine together. And right before they served the lava cake, he leaned back in his chair, so arrogantly handsome, and he said it, You know you’re going to end up marrying me, right?

And you did.

“He was madly in love with you from the beginning, didn’t want to ruin it in any way,” Jaehyun teases softly, bumping his shoulder into yours like you should’ve known.  “I said the same thing to my fiancée on our first date, except we were thirteen, so I think I get a pass.”

“Aw, you’ve been with her for like twenty years? That’s true love,” you coo, not usually this sappy about it. Everything about his existence is like it was designed to be romantic, including the knowledge he’s been with the same girl for two-thirds of his life.

“She is the all time great love of my life. We’ve done everything together. Middle school, high school, college, med school, intern year, residency…”  he trails off, and you’re smart enough to fill in that hidden path.

“So, what happened?” you ask, more bold than before. “Why were you stood up on Valentine’s Day?”

He calls her the all time great love of his life, had waited for her at Loveholic, but he’d stopped after residency on the list. There’s a gap there that he hasn’t explained.

“I haven’t seen her in three years now.”

You stop him again, this time with a soft hand on his arm, to get him to look at you and try to figure out if he’s lying through his body language. It’s too similar, your paths weirdly convergent.

“DWB was her thing, she wanted to do it since med school, and I was fine going wherever she wanted. But when we were placed, they put her in Bogota and I was in El Alto.”

You’re not sure where this is going, because this sounds wistful and romantic and not someone getting stood up on Valentine’s Day.

“The first few years were good, we would fly to see each other whenever we got a holiday. Made plans to get married at the end of our contracts,” he says, even tenderer if possible, deep voice drenched in heartfelt melody, none of which goes away even when the story takes a turn, “But then we got busier and busier, and flights were pricier and pricier — we were not making UCSF salary, mind you — so it started becoming phone calls every night instead of visits, and then only talking on the weekends, and now, to be honest, I don’t even know the last time I even checked WhatsApp. Anyways, when Dr. Kim called, saying there was a case that needed me, and the family did, too, I had it in my mind that somehow she’d be back here, because… This was about when we were supposed to get married. Sometime this year.”

You’re so affected by his story that you don’t realize you’ve grabbed his arm tight enough to leave marks. His hand gently covers yours and pulls it off, where you’ve been hurting him.

“Is she…..?” you whisper, too scared to fill in the rest of the sentence.

He is kind enough to do it himself, rapid shake of his head denying your horrified thought of is she dead, “No, definitely not.” He clears his throat though, and that’s the definite onslaught of sad emotion you can tell he’s been trying to process, “I think I’m realizing we’re broken up though? I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to be, but I think we are.”

You’re first hit with this disquieting note of jealousy, that he’s this wound up about an issue of distance and lack of communication. You’d give anything to be in his situation instead of yours. But he sounds genuinely upset too, that his relationship with Yooa has come to an end. Returning home probably forced him to confront the situation for the first time instead of how it was down there, where he was able to bury himself in the overwhelming stress and responsibility. Three years of no communication is, you have to admit, more like a breakup than it isn’t.

You can sense that he wants to be done with the conversation. He’s started walking again, head down as he fights back tears. You’re still curious about one thing, so you catch up to him and quietly ask, “When did he call?”

He blinks once, though no tears fall, then is one ounce less emotional when he answers, “End of January. Couldn’t get a flight back until two weeks later.”

Your lips part in surprise, because you know exactly why that message was sent.

“That’s when Seulgi and Wendy got married,” you murmur. “That was the first time the extended family had gotten together since the funeral.”

It was a beautiful ceremony, in Napa wine country, all of the Kims and Shons in one stunning celebration of happiness. You were happy, then you were sad, because the last family event like this was your own wedding. They had a dance where all the couples in the family could join them to sway to this gentle Frank Sinatra tune, and you couldn’t because you were alone.

“I know,” he says out of nowhere. “I was there.”

At first you’re confused, because he didn’t know the reason Dr. Kim asked him back was for the wedding, since the man wanted every person that had known the girls to be there to show them love. But then, you realize Jaehyun means…. That day? He was there?

“You were? I don’t remember.”

“How could you? You had a lot going on,” Jaehyun murmurs back with a wry, sarcastic smile, one that you subtly match because it’s a ridiculous question. Of course you hadn’t known. He looks off into the setting sun and he tells you, “I was here on a six hour layover, all I could get. Stood in the back and sobbed and ran to catch my flight back.”

“That was the only time I cried,” you blurt.

You don’t know why you’ve said it, it’s something no one knows, but he’s just done this emotional load of confessing about his fiancée, and you feel like he’s the kind of person who would understand. You don’t want to think about the actual day too much, what you wore, how it felt like you might cry for a thousand lifetimes, but you tell him the blunt truth, “He left me on a Saturday, I lost it the next Saturday, and that next Monday I was back at work.”

You still don’t know how you did it, but you were grateful you did. Wasting away at home was the other option… and you couldn’t let yourself do that for much longer than you did.

“Do you feel okay now?” he ventures carefully, not having had the confidence to cross into the territory before.

You lift a shoulder, not sure how you’re supposed to express your feelings on the subject, “I guess? I don’t know. I’m just living life without the person I was meant to live life with.” Because the fairytale wasn’t supposed to keep going after the prince was ripped out of it. You only get one great love in your life, and Doyoung was it.

“Same,” he echoes, a symmetrical part of his heart shining. He backtracks immediately despite the sad look in his eye, feeling bad that he’s compared his situation to yours, “I mean, it’s not… but…”

But it is and he might be the only one who gets it. You let that piece of your heart glimmer in return, “I know. There’s a part of you that’s missing.”

And you swear the sad look in his eye gets just a little bit less so.

—

You barge your way alone into the empty kitchen, beyond annoyed that you’re up at this hour and only knowing one way to get over it.

You’re exhausted and ravenous all at once and don’t know any better way to cure it all than making macaroni and cheese. You just hate that you can’t pinpoint a reason why your insomnia has reoccurred, maybe it’s all this reminiscing you’ve been doing as of late. Because of that, you’re already into a glass of wine before you’re pulling out the flour and butter.

Girl you look so good, good enough to eat, from your hair down to your feet. How you wake up lookin' like a dream, girl, make me wanna give your ass a ring, girllllll…..

You set your phone to blare the sensual playlist as you get the grater set up, swinging your hips with the music as you begin to shred cheese. The repetitive action is cathartic, though the wine is probably helping, and by the time the second chorus of the song rolls around, you’re singing at the top of your lungs, dancing like a fool in the middle of the tiled floor. 

You know I'm a fool, girl, you know I don't play, swear you got the juice and I'm hella thirsty….

You get three heaping piles of cheddar, mozzarella, and gouda ready, then sashay over to the cupboard to pull out a pot and a pan. You turn back around to head back to the stovetop, but the pan slips out of your hand when you stop in surprise, clanging onto the uneven oven surface.

You keep lookin' at me that way, and you gon’ make me turn this bed into a kitchen table, lay you down legs spread—, “Ah! How long have you been there?!”

  It’s just your luck that you’ve chosen that moment to sing the most profane lyric in the song when you turn and scream upon seeing Jaehyun in your entryway, backpack in hand, mouth slightly open as he stares at you. He’s still in his scrubs and plain scrub cap, even though it’s close to two am, and you can see that he’s wearing the funniest socks, covered in cartoon tacos. He’s almost dazed, standing there without a word, and you wave in his direction after turning down the music.

  “Hello? Jaehyun?”

  “Ah, Ah, sorry.” He shakes his head to break out of his stupor, “I’m sorry, I just got out of surgery… I didn’t realize you’d still be up... Was wondering what all that noise was.”

You don’t even have the presence to be offended he called your singing noise because you’re embarrassed you were caught in the first place. You hide the glass of wine behind your knife block and mutter, “Can’t sleep sometimes.”

  “I was going to bed, but I’ve lived here for like, over a month and have not yet… had your food. Sorry to bother,” he apologizes quickly, turning to head back through the door.

You know it’s the alcohol that has you saying, “You can stay only if you sit on the couch and don’t look at me.”

He immediately drops onto the couch, and pulls out a stack of papers from his bag, burying his face in them but letting the cheekiness show, “Surely you didn’t make your husband do this?”

Doyoung would do it differently, he would put his laptop up by the sink and sit on a barstool instead, but whatever. Yes, yes you did. You cave under pressure, almost inevitably get injured every time someone watches you cook.

“I did and he did it, no problem,” you pop the p in the word, not budging an inch. You’re not rude enough to send him away, but you want to cook in silence and then go to bed. “It’s not like I know you, anyways.”

He glances up with a raised eyebrow and a question, “Okay, so what do you want to know?” 

“Don’t look at me!” you warn him because his gaze is on you yet again, tipsy finger point warning him that you’re one hundred percent serious about this.

“I’m looking at my case study, I don’t know what you’re on about!” Jaehyun grumbles, now keeping his eyes trained on his work instead of you.

You wait for thirty seconds, and when he doesn’t look back up, you turn the music to a way less egregiously inappropriate old Summer Walker love song, and resume your cooking. You adjust the pan so it’s set right on the lopsided stovetop, then measure out the flour and cut the butter, laying out everything neatly on the counter before you transfer it in. You let the mixture melt together, filling the air with a nutty aroma, and you add in your measured amount of milk, stirring the pan. You hum along to the crooning as you mix the ingredients, but you pick up on something else that isn’t just the melody.

You take a peek back over to the couch, and Jaehyun is quietly talking to himself as he draws something out on the page, If I make that part titanium, and this part 3D mesh, then the third intercostal space will have more flexibility when we bolt the sternum together. That could work. I think that’s a good idea, Jung, yup, you try that.

You quickly shut off your listening when you realize he’s contemplating a case. But that only makes you more curious about his work and his reputation, considering Dr. Kim of all people holds him in high professional regard.

“Why med school?” He looks at you when you ask it, then quickly looks away when you fall silent, not talking again until he sticks to the deal, “Doo always wanted to help people, of course he chose the most labor intensive way of doing it.”

“I was smart. And my parents are doctors,” he answers, a bit curter than you anticipated. “You always wanted to do HR?”

“Huh?”

Not anticipating he would continue the conversation, you’re a bit taken aback watching him smile to himself — to the paper, not to you, because he’s making a point — then explain obviously, “That’s how getting to know someone works, question for question. I answer yours, you answer mine.” 

You suppose he’s right, you’ve been roommates but not really this whole time. He’s your husband’s best friend, you should get to know him and him you in return, it won’t be of any consequence to reply, “I don’t know. I was a good student, worked at the Williamsburg hospital after I graduated. Wanted to move, though.” Patient services isn’t your end all be all, but it pays the bills and keeps you here in SF. Which is good because you love the city and love that it’s all the way across the country from where you grew up.

“And if you had a dream job?”

“It’s my turn.”

“I’m genuinely curious,” he says, indicating this isn’t part of your back and forth.

You stay silent for a moment, boiling the pasta as your milk mixture finishes cooking, glancing over to the corner to see Jaehyun still working silently, though he’s listening and involved in the conversation. His eyelashes brush over his cheeks elegantly and he mouths the words on the paper as he writes.

“I always wanted to write a cookbook,” you admit, first time you’d mentioned your old dream in a long while. “Every holiday I cook instead of getting gifts, last year I did this thing where I made each person their favorite dish.”

You had it all planned out at one point. It was short, just some staples you grew up on, stuff the family did, too. Each of those dishes you made had a story behind them, and you wanted that preserved forever, for the public to indulge in that kind of love.

He doesn’t look up from his paper but his lip has quirked up in a subdued smile. You don’t say you haven’t worked on it since, and you know he knows not to bring it up.

You fold the cheeses in one at a time, the milk thickening with each batch you add in. Soon, your stomach is rumbling at the scent of the melted dairy, and you throw in mustard, salt, pepper, and paprika. Once the cheese sauce is thick enough that it flows off your spoon like molten lava, you mix in the pasta and voila, it’s done. You make a heaping bowl for yourself, pour a second glass of wine, and then you pull out another bowl.

Deciding against your better judgement, you walk over to the couch and sit on the space right beside him, placing the dish of pasta right over his work, so he knows it’s okay to stop averting his gaze.

You offer up an explanation without him asking, “This is my favorite recipe, from my Nana who passed away when I was in high school. I spent a lot of time with her when I was growing up.”

It was always just you and your mom and your grandma. Your mom worked, so it was you and your grandma in the kitchen, the buffer between you and your parent that you needed.

“Oh, I lived with my Grammie up until I got my own place in med school,” Jaehyun shares a similar sentiment, sighing so happily as he inhales the scent of the cheesy goodness. “She was the best at cooking, Doyoung would know.”  You’ve seen the pictures of the two of them making dumplings with her during school breaks, when Doyoung would go home with them for a weekend or two.

“Hmmm,” he hums after one spoonful, eyelashes fluttering again as he savors the taste. “Kind of close to hers’.”

You know that’s about the highest compliment he could give, and you feel the slight twinge of a blush across the apple of your cheek.

The two of you sit side by side on couch and devour the food, washing it down with twin glasses of white wine. You don’t talk for any of it, the scraping forks the only sound filling the silence. Honestly, you’re not really sure what to say, you’re doing something so domestic with still a practical stranger. What sort of topics are you even allowed to bring up with someone like him?

“You listen to r&b?” He questions out of nowhere. You think he’s read your thoughts at first, but you realize the Google home has been playing your playlist quietly this whole time.

“I love r&b. It’s my favorite genre. It’s all I listen to when I cook.”

“Me too, I play Jhené Aiko in the OR all the time. I wouldn’t think you’d be into it, how’d you—,”

And you know it’s the second glass of alcohol that has you saying, “This has been a whole lot of you getting to know me, hmm?”

Jaehyun leans an arm on the back of the couch - amused by your brash way of getting the conversation off of you, maybe knowing you’re uncomfortable being in the spotlight - and asks, “I was serious, what do you want to know about me? I asked you three questions, you can ask three in return if you want.”

You don’t know where to start. You feel like you kind of know him from the stories and pictures, and you don’t want to waste a question on something you can figure out yourself. You have to think hard, and make it good, because you probably won’t get this personal ever again.

“Hmmm…. I wanna know,” you start, dragging it out to stall and think of something good, “what your favorite part about being in Bolivia was. Then the worst part of it.”

Besides the whole issue with his fiancée, which you think he gets underhandedly. He hasn’t mentioned much about his past life, but you know it was probably a harder experience than you could anticipate.

He smiles widely, a bright ball of sunshine when thinking, and his answer conveys he’s just an overwhelmingly positive person, “I loved so much about it, the tiny town I lived in, how nice the families were, the food, the weather. But the real answer is how many people I helped. For both.”

That was part of the reason why Doyoung had transferred out of surgery, because a part of him couldn’t handle all the life or death scenarios. It’s sort of similar here, that Jaehyun had gotten to do what he loved but had been in a tough mental space dealing with just how many people needed that help. It’s an ironic contemplation.

“Oh, yes, I understand. I still think that’s noble of you,” you compliment once more, and he smiles in appreciation at that. Which means you hate to ask the next question because the smile disappears right away, “What made you think your fiancée was the one?”

You’d tiptoed around it in the previous question, but you’re just so curious. To have a lifelong love halted that quickly, you wanted to know all his thoughts and feelings on it, see if you could relate on any level.

He sighs, heady and weary and tinged with that same present nostalgia, “I don’t know, to be honest. We were together for so long it just felt like it was supposed to be. There was no moment.” He closes his eyes for a second more, then peeks at you with a curious gaze and a wondering assumption, “I assume yours was the first date?”

“I guess,” you hum, “but I also understand what you’re saying. It always seemed like we were just meant to be together.”

You keep eating in silence after that, both of you contemplating what you’d just discussed. There were so many little moments that convinced you over time - Doyoung teaching you to ski on family trips and never getting mad that you were always so bad at it, the way he was always so kind to your mother despite… everything she was, brashly putting a thousand dollars into his account at Loveholic because he was convinced you’d keep going there forever, him building the shelf for your shoes despite not understanding your hobby.

Just when you’re about to get caught up in it all, Jaehyun finishes his wine, then inquires, “Did you forget you have a third question… or?”

You didn’t, because you didn’t how to ask it, not that you forgot.

This thought of your husband’s family and yours had your mind wandering, and you let that come out in a natural manner, “You haven’t gone home since you’ve been back, I don’t think.” You find it hard to keep track of Jaehyun's schedule, he’s in the hospital more often than not, but you’re pretty sure about this.

He tenses up right away. “That wasn’t a question.”

“I wasn’t trying to be rude and overstep,” you immediately back down.

“Just ask it.”

“Well…. why?”

There’s no hesitation when he glances at you with the most serious stare you’ve seen from him so far and blankly states, “I’m a pediatric surgeon because I like kids. My dream job? I wanted to be a science teacher.” He sighs lowly, so lowly it may as well be an earthquake’s rumble from deep in the planet's crust, and finishes with a dark, “They’re doctors, my Grammie basically raised me, fill in the blanks.”

Whoa.

You had expected something like I don’t want my parents to ask about my relationship, or I’m not used to being back at home yet. But this is intensely personal and surprising, a tidbit of information about him that you hadn’t been anticipating. The blanks are easily filled — he wanted to go one path and his parents demanded him follow another, he’s close with his grandmother because they were never around, and he, though seemingly fulfilled by his current path, might always resent them for that.

In every conversation you have, you’ve been left with this niggling feeling that you’ve been living symmetrical lives even as you didn’t know of each other’s presence. Because there’s no way this practical stranger can understand your exact sentiment this well.

“It’s just me and my mom at home,” you start quietly, feeling obliged to get this trauma weight off his back temporarily by putting it on yourself instead. “But I haven’t talked to her much since. She’s found me… strange in the way I handled it.”

“What?” he whispers, in a tiny, tiny voice.

“You don’t know me, but you can… sort of tell what I’m like,” you say vaguely. He nods, because your personality traits have always been obvious even if he hasn’t been around you that long — shy, quiet, introverted, all the synonyms possible, content out of the spotlight, happy to be the background support. “She’s the total opposite. Fun, outgoing, super happy, feels all of her emotions as big as possible. She was a huge mess when it happened, she was deeply obsessed with us as a couple.”

That was your fun-loving mom, that dated around and wore clothes that were a little too tight. People in your high school always asked if she was single, she’d begged you to join a sorority and the cheerleading team and you moved away to SF just to get a little air. She’s a good person, she has a good heart, but you needed the length of a country between you to see that.

“I do kind of remember that,” Jaehyun recalls, with a quiet laugh at the ridiculousness of the memory. “She wouldn’t stop bawling and she was right in the front.”

She is the definition of heart on her sleeve. And you might be the furthest thing from that.

“I was a mess, but I wasn’t publicly… and I think she’s just found me a bit too coldhearted ever since. I don’t know. Like she doesn’t recognize me anymore,” you muse, sorting through your thoughts out loud for the first time. “I don’t think it helps that I live out here, which was to get away from her for a bit in the first place. Also that I love Doo’s family, and they love me.”

You know you hurt her feelings when you didn’t let her stay beyond the service and then immediately went to go live at the Kim family home for a few weeks. But they knew what you needed, and his sisters were like you, and that was what you wanted to do. It was never personal, but your mother took it that way.

“I don’t hate her, we still talk on the phone when we do, but I don’t know. She’s just there,” you finish, a bit lamely.

That’s basically water under the bridge now, you talk at least once a month, but you can’t help feeling awkward each time. She and you both remember why that awkwardness existed in the first place and know that you desperately prefer your in-law’s company instead. But honestly, that seems to be nothing compared to not having your parents in your life at all. You feel bad for him. So, so bad.

You do what you can, and you raise your half-finished bowl, lit in the glow of early morning San Francisco and shared understanding, and sarcastically toast, “Cheers to, well, not cheers to our families.”

He smiles, laden with commiseration, and clinks his bowl on yours, and you find comfort in knowing that you both get it.

tbc.