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There’s only one reason why Minho isn’t mourning the fact that he needs to give up his promised day off to do an emergency surgery on a patient transported from the Busan Medical Center, and it’s that Jisung is currently at the kitchen table, buying plane tickets for their trip to Jeju.
It’s been two years since Minho came back to Seoul, a little over a year since they decided to give their relationship another chance, but aside from a one-night stay in a remote cabin in the mountains, they haven’t had the chance to enjoy a proper vacation. Now, their requests for seven days off have been approved, and Jisung is trying to snatch the tickets while they’re still available.
Seven days is barely proper vacation compared to the amount of time they spend in the hospital, but it’s better than nothing. It’s better to exchange the antiseptics and scalpels and sutures for seafood and fresh air and sleeping until late even if only for a week.
Minho can’t wait. He always has a great time when he goes to Jeju, and he always has a great time with Jisung, so he already knows it’s going to be perfect. They will eat oranges for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and watch crabs crawl across volcanic rocks, and feel the sea breeze against their tired faces. Jisung said, We should rent a cabriolet and drive with the top down, and Minho thought, Anything you want. So they will do that, too.
Now, Jisung is practically going out of his mind with excitement as he waits for the payment to go through and the email confirmation to appear in Minho’s inbox. Of course, they had to use Minho’s accumulated points to get a discount, because then the tickets, which are already quite cheap, are basically free.
“Oh, my,” Jisung says, his cheerful voice carrying over from the kitchen all the way to the bedroom, where Minho is getting dressed for work. “Send it, send it, just send it already.”
Minho grins to his own reflection in the mirror, unable to suppress the laugh of delight that escapes him at Jisung’s excitement. He’s been talking about going on a vacation for months. He’s really looking forward to it.
“Check the spam folder, just in case,” he reminds him, already imagining the annoyed look that will make its way to Jisung’s face, the roll of his gorgeous, beautiful eyes. It makes him smile even harder. He loves teasing him so much.
Jisung scoffs loudly enough for Minho to hear, of course. “Don’t tell me what to…”
Suddenly, he trails off. He goes quiet. Which is… Well, unlike him.
Minho scrunches his nose, confused. Did his bank account somehow get cleared in the middle of the night? “What?” he asks. “Did they already cancel the flight?”
Jisung doesn’t respond. He doesn’t say anything, really.
Minho fastens the leather strap of his watch around his wrist as he walks out of the bedroom, alarmed by Jisung’s sudden silence. He makes it to the kitchen in a few haste strides, only to come to a halt in the doorway when he sees the look on Jisung’s face.
He’s still sitting at the table, but contrary to the ease in which Minho last left him, now, his body tense, rigid. His gaze is fixed on the screen of the laptop as if it houses the worst news of his entire life.
Minho’s heart skips a beat with worry.
“Jisung-ah?” he asks cautiously. “What’s wrong?”
But Jisung opens his mouth and nothing comes out. Just a sharp, pained breath. At that point, Minho peels himself from the doorway and rushes to his side, sinking into a crouch beside Jisung’s chair. He reaches out to touch him, a hand against his knee, only to flinch in surprise when Jisung’s leg jerks away as if the touch burns.
Minho blinks, hurt and confused, but he still pulls away, opting for space, even though it scares him that something seems to be so wrong that Jisung doesn’t even want Minho to touch him.
A myriad of thoughts run through his mind. Did Jisung get an upsetting text? Is his family okay? And then—Did he accidentally see the minimized tab of the jeweler’s on Minho’s laptop? Or of the real estate agency? He always has a million tabs open, but he was careful to hide those.
But Jisung asks about something entirely different.
“You got another job offer abroad?”
His voice is small, broken, and Minho is so taken aback that he doesn’t know what to say at first. Jisung must have seen the email he got from the private clinic in Manchester, which Minho opened a few days ago and didn’t respond to.
When he doesn’t immediately deny, or say anything, really, Jisung wheezes like he’s choking on something lodged deep in his chest and, with his hand pressed right below his sternum, he pushes his chair back with a screech. He almost knocks it over in his haste to get up.
Minho is so surprised that he almost falls back onto his ass. He grabs the edge of the kitchen table for stability, only managing to get out, “Jisung, wait—” as he pushes himself back to his feet and follows Jisung to the bathroom.
There, Jisung is already on his knees next to the toilet, vomiting the reheated waffles they had for breakfast.
Minho stumbles over his feet at the sight, the world spinning around him. Fuck. He drops down onto the cold tiles, right by his side, hesitantly reaching out to rub Jisung’s back and startling when the next heave comes with a strangled sob. Then, Jisung throws up again, coughing and crying all at once.
“Oh, jagiya,” Minho whispers, tears fighting their way to his eyes.
The sound of his voice only seems to make Jisung sob harder. He leans over the toilet, his eyes screwed shut, and after emptying all the contents of his stomach, all that’s left in him are tears.
Tears that have been caused by no one other than Minho. Jisung saw the stupid job offer and got so anxious that he has made himself physically sick. And it’s all Minho’s fault. It was always his fault. And, clearly, even though two years have passed them by, what he’s done will haunt them forever.
Minho rubs circles into Jisung’s back until he has calmed down enough to be able to push himself back up to his feet and rinse his mouth. At least, he tells himself, Jisung doesn’t push him away.
Minho watches him, anxious and scared because it’s been so long since he last saw his Jisung so broken, and fights the urge to gather him in his arms, to explain that leaving was the worst mistake he had ever made and although he doesn’t intend to make it ever again, he doesn’t know how to fix it. Even though he thought he knew. He thought all of this was enough, but, clearly, it wasn’t.
Jisung turns back around, away from his reflection in the mirror, his hands braced against the edge of the sink. His eyes are clouded, and he can’t quite look at Minho when he says, “It’s read. You read it. And you didn’t tell me.”
He knew, subconsciously. Because he’s been putting it off—telling Jisung. He knew it would cause a ripple between them, make Jisung doubt. And by trying to avoid it, he only made it worse. Great.
With a sigh, Minho sits down on the edge of the bathtub. He insistently tries to catch Jisung’s gaze, but it doesn’t work, not when Jisung’s eyes are fixed on the tiled floor, so he gives up.
His heart hurts. It burns.
“Before I say anything else,” he starts, “I want you to know that I’m not going anywhere.”
He’s surprised by how tearful his voice sounds when the words come out of his mouth. He prides himself in being a collected person, in keeping a rein on his feelings. But it has always been harder with Jisung, the person who has made it so easy to strip himself bare. The only person with an innate ability to read him like an open book.
“You’re not?” Jisung echoes, and although he doesn’t seem to believe it wholeheartedly, not really, not yet, a weight visibly falls off his shoulders. He’s willing to believe. He’s desperate to believe.
Minho reaffirms, “I’m not.” Then, forcing himself to sound more playful, trying to lighten the mood, he asks, “Did you read the part where they said they were extremely saddened that I’d declined the offer twice already, or did you just skim over that?”
Jisung heaves a sad, upset laugh, then, and more tears spring out of his eyes, rolling down his cheeks like two waterfalls. “I saw the words position of the Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery and I thought, I knew it. I knew that it was too good to be true. I knew that you would leave again.”
His face crumbles again, and Minho’s fingers twitch, made for holding him, for caressing him, for comforting him, but Jisung looks like it’s the last thing he wants, to be touched, to be cornered, so he stays perched on the edge of the tub, tears cascading down his own face. He stays put, even though it takes all of his self-control.
Fuck, he can barely handle Jisung being upset over something silly, like the convenience store being out of his favorite ice-cream, let alone handle seeing him like this.
“And it’s not like I want to think that,” Jisung insists, the quiver in voice breaking Minho’s heart all over again. “I try not to. I really do. I try not to, but it feels like every day I’m just waiting for you to suddenly pack your bags and leave.”
Minho chokes on his own tears.
“I don’t know how to fix this, Jisung-ah,” he says. “I don’t know how to make you see that I will never leave.”
“But you already have.” Jisung’s voice rises, shaking with anger, with grief. “You left, and you said you would, but you never came back. And I—I had to learn how to live with that. I had to wake up every fucking day and pretend I was fine. I had to act like—like it was something I could just get over, because you made it clear it wasn’t even a choice for you.”
The words, raw and honest, are a punch to Minho’s gut.
He already knew that. Minho already knew how deep Jisung’s hurt ran. But—foolishly—he thought that this past year they spent together mended at least some of the broken parts. That he was slowly gaining Jisung’s trust again. Things were good. Too good to be true.
“I fucked it up,” Minho says. “I have no excuse.” He swallows his tears, feeling his chest constrict. He can’t take a proper breath. “I was selfish and I put myself first and there isn’t a day that I don’t regret it. I never wanted to cause you pain, but believe me, I paid for it every day that I was there.”
Jisung draws his brows together in confusion. And so finally, Minho gives him what he has been asking for since the very beginning: the truth.
The reason why Minho doesn't like talking about Tokyo and he avoids it like a wildfire is because, for the longest time, he was miserable there.
Because of Jisung, first and foremost. Or, rather, because of himself. He didn’t leave on good terms. He didn’t know where they stood when his plane took off. He was scared for their future. If there had been any future for them at all. He wasn’t sure, not with how Jisung looked at him when he had been leaving. Eyes empty, full of hurt. Of despair and betrayal.
But the immersion process was time-consuming, and if Jisung was angry with him, Minho needed to do his best there—to bring this trial to completion and success, so that Jisung would be proud, so that all of this could be worth something.
He spent the first two weeks trying to get accustomed to speaking Japanese all the time and studying all medical terms he lacked. It was frustrating—he needed so much more than he thought, and because the offer came practically out of nowhere, he didn’t have the time to prepare himself well.
Those first two weeks were marked by one long, seemingly neverending migraine. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat, he barely left the apartment they’d assigned to him because the noise and the light and the novelty of it all only made things worse.
He tried to talk to Jisung, but they could never quite catch each other. Jisung worked long shifts. Incredibly long. It seemed that every time Minho called, Jisung said, I’m at work. He texted, and Jisung said, I’m clocking out, I’ll call you later. But later usually meant when Minho was at work, and even though he tried to give it all a go, it was so hard to be alone in this city he only knew from short weekend trips and a foreign language and people who seemed friendly, but they were still nothing more than strangers.
He cried like a baby, just cried, cried, and cried. He wanted to come back. He wanted to go home. To Jisung and Dori and his own bed and the smell of his apartment—the potted plants and the laundry softener and Jisung’s shampoo. But he had signed a contract, and it would cost him a life to break it.
And so he sucked it up.
He wondered, every single day, what that was going to do to him and Jisung. The lines were blurred. Should he have broken things off, allowed Jisung to live his life without the burden of a husband across the sea? Should they have done long distance even though it meant this: unanswered calls and work getting in the way of seeing each other, of hearing each other’s voices?
It all happened so quickly, they never really sat down to talk about what this meant for them. But now that Minho was all alone with his thoughts, it was seemingly all he could think about.
By the time they finally managed to call and talked for a moment longer than usual, about everything and nothing, really, and Minho was gathering the courage to ask Jisung to come and visit him, asking, Hey, I wanted to ask if you would like to— and Jisung was already interrupting, telling him, Shit, fuck, I’m sorry, but a patient is coding.
Three minutes. That’s the longest call they had. Three minutes and seventeen seconds. And all throughout those minutes, Minho could hear in jisung’s voice just how miserable he was. How tired. How occupied. And all he wanted was for Jisung to be happy. Even if that meant being happy without him.
Minho hurt him by leaving. Choosing a stupid, fancy lab over him.
Marrying Jisung was the best thing that happened to him, and somehow his own greed clouded that. As punishment, he was left to regret it every single day.
Jisung deserved more. He deserved someone who would be there walking home with him after every shift, rubbing his feet after a twelve-hours long surgery, kissing him goodmorning and goodnight, making sure there’s coffee waiting for him when he wakes up, dragging him to the gym even though he’s kicking and screaming. And Minho couldn’t be that person. Not when he was in another country, legally bound to stay.
All he wanted was to give Jisung one less thing to worry about at the end of the day.
So, after days of inner turmoil, he called a lawyer and had them draft the papers. Divorce was the only way to go, that’s what he told himself. It was supposed to be more of a break, in his head. So that they could focus on themselves, and maybe, if Jisung could find it in himself to forgive him, they could get back together one day. Except the law firm messed up, and they sent the papers before Minho could even talk to Jisung about it.
When Jisung called—god, when Jisung called him, angry and tearful and so shocked—Minho had an anxious feeling that there was no chance for him to fix it.
I don’t know when I’ll be back, he said, unable to stop himself from crying. He wasn’t even sure Jisung could understand him over all these tears. I love you, but I can’t make you stay bound to me. You have to live your life.
I married you because I wanted to live my life with you, Jisung shot back, his voice shaking with anger. This is not what I wanted.
I don’t want to do this either, but you have to—
Save it, Jisung interrupted, harsh and final. I’ll sign those papers, and you can go live your life, I guess.
At that moment, Minho knew that everything was lost. By wanting to do the right thing, he made things even worse. After hearing all that in Jisung’s voice, he knew he had no home to come back to. So, he did what he’d always done best.
He sucked it up.
It got easier with time. During his second year in Tokyo, he got used to the novelty, to the oddness of his situation. During the third year, he even started to enjoy it. It had everything to do with the clinical trial—after so much time, they had finally started seeing real progress. But, still, Minho wanted to go home. Home—to Seoul, to Jisung, to Dori. Home that he no longer could call his own.
He kept checking in with them, of course, asking their friends and their parents and even Jisung how they were doing—if Jisung was in the mood to answer his messages. He was much kinder to Minho than Minho had ever deserved it. It was why he loved him so much.
Every time the hospital in Tokyo wanted to extend his contract, Minho asked Jisung how he was. And every single time, without fail, Jisung said, I’m fine. I’m doing better. And then, Minho made his decision. He signed another year of his life off with two strokes of a pen.
But he could only stomach so much. He was truly and unsalvageably homesick. Even if Jisung hated him, even if he wouldn’t greet Minho with open arms, Minho needed to come back.
He didn’t plan on winning Jisung back. After everything he’d done, he was ready to keep his distance. But, as always, it was hard to stay away from Han Jisung.
Now, back in their bathroom, Jisung pushes himself off the sink and closes the distance between them on shaky legs. He sits down on the edge of the bathtub next to Minho, and reaches out to hold his hand. Their faces are still tear-stained when they lock eyes again, flushed with emotion and so sad.
“You never told me all of this,” Jisung says. He can’t quite get the accusation out of his tone. “You haven’t been honest with me.”
“Because I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want to—I don’t know, make myself a victim when it was all my fault. I was lucky that you let me get close to you again. I wasn’t going to mess it all up all over again with a stupid sob story.”
Minho sniffles, annoyed with himself.
But Jisung’s eyes soften. “It’s not stupid. You should’ve told me from the very beginning,” he insists, and he’s right, but they both know that back then, Jisung didn’t want to talk to Minho at all. And he had all the right not to. “You never wanted to talk about that time, and when you did, you always made it sound cool. Like you enjoyed yourself. And that hurt. It’s going to sound immature, but I really wanted you to be miserable without me. And now that I’m hearing that you were, it’s breaking my heart.”
“It’s okay. I deserved that,” Minho says. And when Jisung opens his mouth, looking like he’s going to protest, Minho is quick to cut him off. “But the point is, I learned my lesson. I’m never going to leave again. You’re the best thing in my life, and it would kill me to lose you again. It hurts me even when you go to the store down the block and I can’t see your face for ten minutes. I hate it when you’re away. I hate it when we’re apart.”
“You’re really going to say no to that offer?” Jisung asks.
Minho reminds him, “I already said no twice, they just can’t take that for an answer. Now I know that there’s more to life than work. My career here is already a dream come true. Every time I get to play with Dori after work, that's a dream come true. Every time I get to wake up next to you, that's a dream come true. You're my life. You’re my home. I’m sorry I made you doubt that.”
He cries again, but it’s okay, because Jisung wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into a hug. They almost fall back into the tub and break their necks, but it’s okay, because Jisung laughs, and Minho feels it reverberate through him. This ease.
“I love you so much,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere. And I think one way to show you that I’m serious is that I’ve started, uhm, looking for a house… we could buy.”
Jisung looks at him with wide eyes. “What?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to look for another apartment to rent when the lease runs out,” he says. “I want a big house with a garden and a terrace and I want to share it with you. What do you think?”
“I think you should see my search history.”
Minho laughs, immediately understanding what Jisung means. He has been searching, too. “Really?”
Jisung reaches out, his hand settling on the side of Minho’s neck so that he can drag him into a kiss. “We’re made for each other,” he murmurs into his lips.
“Yes, we are,” Minho says, and then kisses him all over again.
He has to go to work soon—he’s not sure if he’s not late already, but he relishes this moment. He’s going to need it to get him through the day. And when he comes back, Jisung will be here, waiting for him—or probably already asleep, in which case he will mumble something incomprehensible to Minho as he slips into bed beside him before wrapping his arms around him in a breath-stealing hug, and that will be even better.