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Choi Mujin is as good as his word: he's the restaurant's number one customer. If this had been a year ago, Hyeonjin would have thrown him out as soon as looked at him no matter how he was behaving, but after seeing the man drunk and sobbing on his floor on multiple occasions... well, it's hard not to feel a little sympathy for him. And he does behave. Most times he silently sits down, eats whatever Hyeonjin puts in front of him (Jaewoo doesn't allow Mujin to order off the menu, claiming he needs to eat a more balanced diet, which is definitely true), and leaves with his plates polished off and left neatly on the table.
Hyeonjin has a hard time looking at Mujin when he eats. The look in his eyes when he tastes Jaewoo's cooking is an uncomfortable mirror of Hyeonjin's own face.
It's become routine for him to see Mujin's face nearly every day. The restaurant is closed on Mondays and limits its hours a couple of days a week, and as they've grown, Jaewoo has brought in more waiters and cooks (though, in both Hyeonjin and Mujin's opinions, the food doesn't taste the same if it isn't made by Jaewoo's own hands). But every day that Jaewoo is in the kitchen, Mujin shows up like clockwork for lunch, dinner, and the Saturday brunch menu they're testing out.
They have the money to send the kids to summer camp this year, even though the restaurant has only been open a few short months, and the excitement on Hyeonwoo and Wuhee's faces had almost made Hyeonjin want to go himself if it hadn't meant giving up his valuable alone time with Jaewoo. It's hosted by a fancy international school, too, so the kids are going to learn English and open up all kinds of opportunities Hyeonjin had never had. He still can't quite believe it's real.
They also have the money to do some renovations, expanding the seating area and adding some fancy bells and whistles to the kitchen that make Jaewoo's eyes light up every time he talks about them. He wants to add more desserts to the menu, and Hyeonjin wants to eat them. With the kids gone, it seems like the perfect time to close down for a week or two and prepare for a grand reopening.
The first day after the renovations start, Hyeonjin half expects to get home and find a gangster in his kitchen. It wouldn't be the first time Mujin has invited himself over, though since the restaurant opening, he hasn't so much as dropped by, like he's trying to actually leave them alone.
He'll definitely show up tomorrow, Hyeonjin thinks as he falls asleep in Jaewoo's arms, sweaty and satisfied from several rounds of blissfully unrestrained sex.
Only he doesn't.
In fact, Choi Mujin keeps not showing up even after the restaurant reopens.
"Do you think he's injured again?" Jaewoo asks softly, playing with a lock of Hyeonjin's hair. He's gotten in the habit of keeping their pillow talk near-silent, even though the kids have long since moved to their own room now that the spare bedroom has proper heating installed, and anyway they're still at camp for another week. It's adorable. Hyeonjin pokes his cheek about it and watches his brow furrow as he tries to figure out what he's done.
"Could be," Hyeonjin replies, matching Jaewoo's volume. He has a little red mark on his cheek now that Hyeonjin barely resists the urge to bite. "I mean, he did tell us he was trying to take the business legit, but who knows how much of that was true."
"I want to believe him..." Jaewoo's voice trails off.
Hyeonjin nods, rustling the sheets. Against all odds, so does he.
Mujin groans as his phone screen lights up with a call, his head throbbing.
Jaewoo's number.
He can't take the call.
He needs to stop relying on Jaewoo so much. It's becoming a weakness, his need to see Jaewoo every day (and Hyeonjin, his traitorous brain tells him). Yes, eating Jaewoo's food every day is making him stronger, much as it irritates him to acknowledge it, and yes, he's happy just being around that smile, as much as it makes his heart ache, but where will it end?
He's managed to go cold turkey on the alcohol and cigarettes, trying to break all his addictions at once. The renovations were the perfect excuse. He just needs to stay away, just needs to avoid them both for long enough that the cravings stop and he doesn't get, as Dongsoo calls it, "cranky" when he doesn't get to be around either of them. Needs to stop inserting himself into a relationship he's not meant to be a part of.
"The one you're meant to be with," he remembers Jaewoo saying. At that time, when he was still dancing around Hyeonjin's feelings, could he possibly have meant...
His migraine makes itself known again, his head throbbing as he tries to sit up. He's always had trouble sleeping, but lately it's been near impossible. Normally he would just drink until he passes out. (Probably on Hyeonjin's floor. He remembers, chest tightening, the time Hyeonjin had thought he was asleep and carefully wiped the tear tracks from beneath his eyes.) But he's trying so hard to get sober, to be the kind of man that—
What? That Jaewoo deserves? Jaewoo already has the man he deserves. There's no place for someone else in his perfect life.
Groaning, Mujin lays his head back down on the table in his empty, cold apartment and tries to fall asleep.
The sound of the door opening startles him out of his daze. Dongsoo wouldn't have let just anyone in, so that means—
"You didn't answer your phone," Yoo Hyeonjin says.
"We were worried about you." Seo Jaewoo. Mujin's stomach clenches.
"You drunk? Hungover?" Hyeonjin is leaning over him, blocking out the sliver of light from beneath the blinds. It's a relief. Behind him, Mujin hears pots being set on his stove—the stove Jaewoo had bought for him, he remembers with a twinge of bitterness.
"I quit," he rasps out.
"Good for you."
It sounds almost genuine.
"I'm making you porridge and steamed vegetables," Jaewoo's voice floats from the kitchen. "Jeez, the restaurant's closed for barely two weeks and you end up like this! I can tell you haven't been eating properly, you know. You're an absolute mess."
If anyone else had dared speak to him like that, Mujin would have broken a few bones, taking the business legit be damned. If anyone else besides Yoo Hyeonjin were telling him to "sit his ass up" right now, he…
He doesn't flinch when Hyeonjin lifts him bodily up from the coffee table and shoves a pillow behind his back on the couch.
The porridge is incredible, as it always is. Mujin's eyes stay glued to his bowl, but he knows perfectly well that the other two have seen the tears clinging to his lashes. He doesn't want to need this, he can't—
"You finished it all! Good job!" It should sound condescending, but it's like Jaewoo is talking to one of the kids. Like he's talking to family. Mujin blinks hard. He can't even bring himself to tell Jaewoo to shut up. Next to him, Hyeonjin's warmth bleeds into his side.
It's so warm.
His eyes flutter closed.
"I need a picture of this," Jaewoo says in a stage whisper. Hyeonjin, bless him, does bunny ears behind Mujin's head. Jaewoo is so adding a million stickers to this later.
"I don't think he's slept this whole time." Hyeonjin's hand brushes the back of Mujin's dark hair as he brings it down, and Mujin's brow furrows. For a second Jaewoo thinks he's going to wake up, but then he burrows further into Hyeonjin's side, head tipping back like he's chasing the pressure of a hand.
"Can you—"
"Yeah." Carefully, Hyeonjin hoists all 180-some centimeters of Choi Mujin into his arms, and Jaewoo leads him in the direction of the bedroom. He's… well, he couldn't really call it sleeping, but he's been in this bed before, Choi Mujin clinging to him like he's some kind of body pillow, and he'd seemed to sleep really soundly. If it's a choice between this and Mujin ending up in the hospital…
Just like he'd thought, Mujin doesn't want to let go of Hyeonjin's warmth. Jaewoo is constantly reminded of all the little things he'd missed while he was gone for what felt like only days, but this almost-softness between the two of them is strange and new. What had it been like, that year when all they had was each other?
"It's all right, I'll stay." The soft, don't-wake-up-the-kids voice that Jaewoo loves so much. "You can go home if you—"
"Obviously I'm staying right here." Jaewoo climbs into the other side of the bed, deliberately putting Mujin between them, and doesn't miss Hyeonjin's small smile.
Mujin wakes up slowly to the sound of voices murmuring across his body. Talking about something mundane—what they'll make for dinner the night they pick up the kids from summer camp, he realizes as awareness slowly fades back in. At some point during the night his gloves have been removed and placed neatly on the bedside table.
There is a smaller hand in his, a little larger than he remembers it being, but still Seo Jaewoo's hand. His face is tucked into Yoo Hyeonjin's neck, and the slow, steady beat of his heart fills Mujin's ears.
If a few tears get on Hyeonjin's ratty old t-shirt, no one has to know. He'll pretend to be asleep for just a little longer, bask in that warmth as long as he can, even if it's not meant for him.