Chapter Text
[THE ENCOUNTER]
The café smells like cinnamon and burnt coffee.
Outside, it’s drizzling—a quiet, grey kind of rain. The kind that clings to your clothes, not enough to soak, just enough to chill.
Jisung’s halfway through his americano when the door chimes.
He doesn’t look up right away. Doesn’t have to. It’s instinct—an ache in the spine, a ripple beneath the skin—that makes his head lift.
Then he sees him.
Minho.
Time doesn’t stop. It doesn’t need to. It just tilts, like the world forgot how to balance for a second.
Minho looks the same. But sharper. Like something soft inside him had been pulled out and never put back. His hair’s longer, jaw tighter, coat black like the sky outside.
Jisung’s lips part. His heart gives a jolt that feels too familiar. He hasn’t seen Minho in—God. Four years?
And just like that, he smiles.
Because that’s what you do when you see someone you used to love.
“Minho?”
The name hangs in the air like smoke.
Minho’s eyes meet his, and Jisung waits for something—surprise, recognition, a flicker of warmth. Anything.
But there’s nothing.
Not even hatred. Just a void.
Minho turns away.