Chapter Text
November.
The human body is known to be fragile. It bruises at the slightest hits; gets cut up because of the slightest scratches, and blood runs out like it's the only way out. The skin turns into a canvas, inlaid with shades of blue and purple until it finally vanishes because it finally healed completely.
The mind on the other hand, when it's hurt, shows pain by cutting off sleep and deep aches that can't often be determined, because there's no organic cause to it. The way the mind hurts and the way it heals has an uglier process because it rarely ever has exact causes, unlike physical injuries. There's always a myriad of reasons, why it hurt; and like a tangled ball of wool, it took time to get sorted out.
On most days, Wonwoo woke up in the middle of the night with intense pain in his chest and his head. He would clutch his sheets tighter, pulling his legs closer to himself as if it would reduce any of the pain he felt on a daily basis. It never did. It only made him angry and frustrated. Even after years of therapy, he wasn't able to put any of it into practice. He knew how to be happy, or at least he thought he did, but the feeling never seemed to rise in him no matter what he did. With time, the figures in his nightmares only grew to be realistic. They chased him down the dark alleyways of his mind that he had closed off with signs that read caution. He did not want to be there. Wonwoo could never escape the paradox though.
All he could do was pray for good things to come his way.
-
From what Wonwoo heard and saw, Mingyu had the Midas touch. He was the heir to a large fortune, his parents owned a well-known fashion brand that had an international standing, but Mingyu wasn't taking over the company. Mingyu was a lawyer. He had worked to achieve success and fame all on his own. He had grown to become one of the most well-reputed people in his field of work, over the years. In many ways, Wonwoo admired him. At the age of twenty-eight, he had achieved more than most people his age could, and now he was in almost every single magazine that got published.
When Wonwoo was told that he was meeting Mingyu, he didn't understand what his mother had wanted. They had known each other at some point in time, but they had lost contact years ago. Mingyu and Wonwoo's parents had somehow arrived at the conclusion that they could get married to each other. Wonwoo laughed bitterly the first time he heard about it. He brushed it off casually the second time. He reluctantly agreed to meet him the third time, because his parents had wanted him to. They'd never asked him for much. They wanted him to study well, to work as much as he wanted, and to be happy. At the thought of marriage, Wonwoo had always deflated. The problem really wasn't the fact that he was getting married. It was the aftermath of having to live with a stranger. No matter how much Wonwoo had tried to convince himself that things would be alright, he woke up in cold sweat every time he thought of how he wouldn't be able to love his partner. It was the reason why had spent the night before tossing around in his bed, watching his clock tick from eleven in the night to six in the morning. It was the least he could do, to get out of the situation. He knew, Mingyu probably felt the same way. They didn't need this.
So at ten minutes past eight in the evening on a Sunday night, Wonwoo parked his car by Willow. The large logo is of a single golden thread with beautiful emerald leaves. The background was coloured in dreamy shades of golden yellow and sage green and the entire place almost doesn't look real in between the colourless skyscrapers it was nestled in between. The sky was pitch black, and Wonwoo pulled his jacket closer to himself. Winters weren't his favourite season. His immune system wasn't the best.
The cafe Wonwoo walked into wasn't a place he had known about. It was quietly literally a hole in the wall. He hadn't noticed it even though he drove by the same road for the past five years. There was no way he would have noticed either, he did his best to stay away from all cafes. He hated the smell of coffee. He hated everything associated with cafes. The faint smell of baked goods lingered in the air around the area. It was a school holiday and most universities were gearing closer to the exam season, a couple of students huddled up in tiny groups along the long tables. Wonwoo smiled as the memories of studying during the nights with Soonyoung almost dozing off on his side with a feisty Jihoon holding a large book with a fond smile, ready to smack him awake came to his mind. He smiled, tightening the strap of the watch around his wrist.
"Jeon Wonwoo?"
Wonwoo flinched slightly at the unrecognisable voice. He turned his eyes towards the man who spoke to him. In ways Wonwoo couldn't point out, Mingyu was almost unrecognisable in terms of looks too, or maybe he had just forgotten what Mingyu had looked like back then when they had first met.
"I'm sorry for startling you. I'm Mingyu. Kim Mingyu." Mingyu greeted, uncertainty visible in his furrowed brows. He sat down when Wonwoo nodded. Wonwoo almost laughed at the way Mingyu introduced himself. It was as if he didn't know about all the articles that were written about how beautiful he looked in person. How he looked was sculpted to be in between the gods, or how his skin was painted in a gorgeous shade of gold and the way his eyes twinkled like it held the stars. He wasn't someone who needed an introduction. Wonwoo pointed at the seat in front of him with a small smile. Mingyu sat down quietly, placing his phone and keys down on the table.
"I'll get to the point actually. I'm really not interested in marriage at the moment. Nothing against you, I mean." Mingyu dipped his head slightly. Wonwoo understood the sentiment. He didn't want to be there either, and it wasn't because of Mingyu. "I've only come here because my father wanted me to. He's been trying to get me to settle down for a while now. I wasn't sure what to do."
"Me neither. I don't want any of it, but my parents do. So, I'm here." Wonwoo nodded. They stayed awkwardly silent for a while. Mingyu sipped his iced americano, bouncing his left leg ever so lightly, doing his best to not look into Wonwoo's eyes. Wonwoo decided to read the menu for the hundredth time that night. The silence between them was truly unbearable. The two of them had been friends in their younger years. They knew so much about each other back then, yet Mingyu felt completely different from the young boy Wonwoo once knew. The Mingyu who sat in front of him was an area he had never explored, and Wonwoo was smart enough to not question it. He didn’t want to mention it either. Life treated everyone terribly, and the ones who made it past their pain never remained the same. That’s what had happened to everyone Wonwoo knew, including himself. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder. What was Kim Mingyu’s real story, the one that hasn’t been published in magazines or pieced apart in interviews and talk shows? In the far too expensive iron-pressed black suit that he had taken out specifically for an international meeting, he looked like someone who didn't belong at that table. He stood out like a sore thumb, while Mingyu was dressed in a casual shirt and black jeans. He wore glasses with a thick black frame that covered most of his eyes, and Wonwoo found himself feeling insecure. How could someone look as beautiful as Mingyu did in something so simple? Did he look just as beautiful in Mingyu's eye? Wonwoo hated his thoughts. In the next few minutes, his tie didn't feel like it was meant to be the silk adornment it was supposed to be. It felt like a rope, a rope made out of iron, which he couldn't break. Wonwoo heaved his shoulders and exhaled deeply. Wonwoo could see that he was being stared at. He was an oddity there.
"So, we're going to tell them that we agree, right?"
That was not what Wonwoo had expected. He had hoped that Mingyu would ask him to say no so that things would be easier for the two of them. Wonwoo had a few hundred words planned, but he couldn't bring himself to ever say them out loud. He didn't want the marriage, he didn't want to let anyone into his space. Wonwoo nodded back slowly anyway.
-
It had been an overall quiet affair. Mingyu and Wonwoo had both wanted a simple wedding, so they had gone to the church with their families and their closest friends only. Mingyu moved into Wonwoo's apartment a day later. He didn't have many belongings, it was mostly just boxes of used books, which Wonwoo placed in the empty spaces on his bookshelf in the living room; along with a couple of suitcases of clothes.
On week two of being married, Wonwoo had seen Mingyu exactly three times. He saw Mingyu staring out the balcony in the middle of the night as if he was having a conversation with someone on the moon, then he saw Mingyu reading a small journal at three in the morning when he woke up for a glass of water a day later. The last time he saw Mingyu was when Mingyu had decided to go grocery shopping and had asked him if he wanted anything. There was a sparse conversation whenever they met inside the house, but it was also some sort of mutual understanding between the two to never meddle in each other's space. Mingyu made himself a lot smaller; he rarely did anything in the house without Wonwoo’s permission, and Wonwoo had reminded him that it was his home too. When they were together, Mingyu rarely left his room.
Wonwoo did not see much of Mingyu for the rest of that week. Yet in the few minutes that he did, he noticed what had changed in Mingyu in the years he hadn’t seen him. It was the same tenuous look he saw in himself every day. Like, he was standing as still as a sheet of paper would, and with the slightest force, he dropped. He wasn't the Mingyu, Wonwoo had met when he was younger. The version of Mingyu that Wonwoo remembered was nothing but smiles, and soft laughter. But people changed with time, Wonwoo knew that the best. Life was unpredictable. Yet, Wonwoo couldn't let go of the image he had of Mingyu. That's the thing about childhood friends and memories; their permanence is undeniable. They're not fleeting moments, unlike memories from later on. So, Wonwoo came to a decision a month into their marriage. He was going to do anything to see Mingyu smile the same way again. It was the least he could do, for someone who'd made his bleak life a little more happier when he was younger.