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This story isn’t about temptation. It’s about endurance.
Wrapping the tie around his neck is equivalent to trying on a noose. It sits too tight against his throat, registering every swallow on the long drive to the venue. Somewhere along the way, the nerves stopped leading cleanly to emotions, the emotions to memories – everything feeds in on itself.
Maybe Jisung made a mistake skipping breakfast this morning; he tries to source the root of his nausea. His mouth is dry, and he swallows again. The effort turns difficult as the palm trees thicken, the road opening toward the beach, the ceremony – him.
Them.
He remembers the invitation. Their names printed side by side. The way the card slipped from his fingers, fluttering to the floor like it had been dropped on purpose.
Chan and Minho, along with their families, request the honor of your presence at the celebration of their marriage.
Yeah. Jisung uncorked a bottle of wine for that one. His soul is uncorking a second when he parks the car – VIP, a small mercy – and beholds the venue for the first time with his own eyes instead of through the rose-colored vignettes of Minho’s description. Little had Jisung known, Minho was downplaying the fantasy.
Chan had always said he’d wanted a beach wedding.
Jisung understands now that it didn’t mean mere sand and folding chairs, or the chaos Minho described through rushed excitement. It was offensively perfect. The venue rose out of the shoreline with quiet confidence: pale stone terraces stepping down toward the water, white canvas canopies stretched taut against the sky, fabric and glass catching the afternoon light like they were designed to be admired and forgotten at the same time.
The ocean is too blue from this distance. Jisung lingers by his car door, trying to comprehend it. The waves move in slow, measured pulses along the shore, keeping time with something he can’t hear. Palm trees line the perimeter in a way that feels deliberate rather than wild, their shadows falling exactly where someone intended them to fall. Attendants in silks move with practiced ease, adjusting chairs, aligning programs, smoothing wrinkles that don’t exist.
It feels decided. Even the landscape has already agreed. Whatever this is, it has momentum now – self-sustaining, uninterested in interruption.
Being checked in feels like a waking fever dream.
“Han Jisung?” says a staff member – a woman behind the desk with fake-happy eyes and a tight bun. He confirms. She offers something polite – welcome, thank you for coming – but he hears only the click of a pen on paper somewhere behind the scenes, recording that he came, that he will watch, that he will leave without notice. His stomach twists. The cream-colored card is handed to him, and he is gestured down the aisle.
This is the part Jisung might’ve dreaded most: people. A refillable prescription for anxiety meds does little to loosen the tie-noose. If anything, talking to Minho and Chan’s families makes the situation more real. More present. More painful.
More guests flood in, an amorphous blur of bodies and voices he drowns in. The distant plunks of a harp signal the ceremony will begin soon, and Jisung feels a pit in his stomach: the next time he speaks to Minho, he’ll be a married man. A husband.
Has it really been this many years? He remembers the simpler times of teenagehood, when feeling wasn’t always bottlenecked, when desire could spill over without consequence. Back then, everything was confusing in a good way.
Now, it feels like sacrilege to acknowledge there had ever been any desire at all – so he doesn’t. Like he always has.
It’s easier said than done when he sees Chan first at the altar, so crisp in his suit that Jisung wants to fold in on himself for daring to think he looked presentable. Even in his fitted tux, he has always been dwarfed by Chan; one of those faces that makes you give up before the first attempt.
He chanced a glance up to Chan’s face, finding that his eyes were already sparkling with unshed tears, absolutely beaming with mirth. Of course. Who wouldn’t cry if they understood that Lee fucking Minho was about to walk down the aisle and vow eternal love to you? Jisung would be a mess – no. Stop fucking thinking about it. Chan is allowed to cry, but it’s a weird look on someone so insignificant to their matrimony.
Jisung isn’t given much time to watch that innocent admiration of Chan twist into something envious and ugly like it usually does, as hushed whispers uttering a certain name seem to have anticipated guests twisting in their seats, Jisung included.
The murmurs swell before he even comes into view. Somewhere beyond the sunlit terrace, the harp plucks a hesitant note.
And he steps into view.
At first, Jisung doesn’t look at his face. His eyes find the feet – feet he’s watched dance a thousand times, now in loafers catching the light, mocking him with every step. Beside them, kitten heels – mother – walking in tandem. Their arms looped together; she braced, loving, tight, yet he moved with a grace that would make angels jealous.
Alright. Jisung – and his eyes – cannot resist any longer.
Every gaze at the venue falls on Minho. Faces blur. Tender hearts dab at tears with handkerchiefs before he is handed off at the altar. It’s valid. Unfair is the only word Jisung can summon as those feline features he’s grown to fall for – and collapse for – begin to crescent into joy. Looking at Chan. Not him.
He wonders how long he can keep going like this, watching them lace fingers together as they stand before one another. Chan whispers something to Minho – a compliment, undoubtedly – and at least Jisung can rest easy knowing Minho will belong to a good man.
God. This would be so much easier if Chan were easy to hate. What must feel like heaven to him is hell on earth for Jisung.
How long can I keep going like this? Jisung asks himself again, more seriously this time.
The wedding officiant’s voice rings out: “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
Forever.
Forever, Jisung thinks. It sinks into him like a pit in the gut. I have to endure this forever.
But I don’t want to, another voice inside him adds, too innocent. One he has trained himself to not listen to. I just want him.
Jisung wishes it were that easy. Maybe there’s an alternate reality where he does stand up and object, or uses a magical remote to rewind all the times he almost said he loved Minho – so he could right those wrongs and escape the cruelty of watching the love of his life be handed off to another.
The vows they exchange are beautiful and heartfelt and disgusting. Jisung finds himself wondering what it would be like to stand in Chan’s shoes right now, whether this is as close to euphoria as people claim a wedding day can be. He wishes he could blow his brooding thoughts away like dandelion seeds, watch his resentment scatter with the wind – but that’s not who he is. He can’t just blow his feelings for Minho away.
If Jisung’s necktie was a noose, then their shared I do was the coffin. The kiss that sealed Chan and Minho’s marriage drove in the final nail.
Dead inside, some light must leave Jisung’s eyes as everyone else stands in congratulatory applause. He’s behind everyone by a few seconds, still trying to accept that this is his new reality. He wonders if Minho is feeling that same feeling – just different.
Just with someone else.
-x-
The reception blooms as the sun begins to lower, the beach transforming into something softer and more dangerous. String lights are suspended overhead in loose, glowing arcs, their bulbs warm and low like embers caught midair. The white stone terraces have been dressed for indulgence now – long tables draped in linens, glassware already sweating in the heat, candles flickering inside hurricane vases that catch the breeze and refuse to go out.
Music drifts from hidden speakers, something slow and intimate, threaded with the hush of the ocean. The waves don’t crash; they murmur, steady and patient, as if they’ve settled in for the night. Laughter carries easily here, buoyed by salt and alcohol, and it feels impossible that anything could ache in a place like this.
The air smells like citrus and sunscreen and expensive perfume. Bare feet sink into cool sand near the edges of the party, heels abandoned beside chairs like offerings. Guests move differently now – looser, closer, hands resting where they shouldn’t, joy spilling freely with every poured drink.
It’s beautiful. Picturesque. Obnoxiously so.
The bar is bracketed by tiki torches, bathing the setup in a warm glow. Jisung orders something sweet and fruity that will go down easy, idly counting how many sips it takes before he starts getting amused by his cocktail umbrella. It’s purple, which reminds him of when Minho dyed his hair the same color a few years ago, and he becomes acutely aware that one drink won’t be enough to survive the rest of the night.
For the first time today, being approached by other guests is a welcome distraction from the star couple in question. Jisung overhears that the newlyweds are off taking photos while everyone else feasts on champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Admittedly, he feels a little more social with every sip.
Just when he thinks he’s finally loosened up along with the small crowd, the entrance of Minho and Chan sends his spine rigid. They don’t seem to have unclasped their hands since sealing their vows with a kiss. Jisung busies himself with appetizers to quell the nausea building in his gut – drinking on an empty stomach, very smart, Jisung – and tries to keep their first dance song out of focus.
The effort is in vain. He knows he’ll never be able to hear it again without thinking of them, and fuck them for having good music taste.
“They’re so cute together!” someone near Jisung says, her phone already out, recording everything. He glances toward the dance despite himself and tries to convince what’s left of his sanity that there isn’t anything particularly cute about it – just the standard hands-on-waist, hands-on-shoulders sway people default to when they don’t know what else to do.
Jisung knows Minho is keeping it contained for Chan. Jisung would know. He’s been to every one of Minho’s dance competitions.
This three-minute song stretches into three hours in Jisung’s head. He inches away from the enraptured crowd, back toward the bar, nursing the last few sips of his drink. He’s not sure his stomach has fully settled yet, but he’s always been a gambling man.
Out of politeness – or maybe superstition – Jisung waits to order his second drink until the song closes in enthusiastic applause. Through the crush of bodies, he can just make out their silhouettes, waving high and regal and grateful, like they belong to something untouchable.
Jisung nearly spits out the first sip of his second drink when Minho begins thanking guests and acknowledging their attendance – on a path that is very clearly leading straight toward him.
For a moment, Jisung doesn’t believe it – until their eyes catch across the dance floor, and it suddenly feels stupid to have ever thought Minho wouldn’t make time for one of his dearest friends. There’s a jump in his heart at the prospect of Minho’s undivided attention that betrays him, but he’s grown rather talented at not letting it show.
“Sungie!” Minho calls once he’s finished exchanging pleasantries with the surrounding guests. The crowd parts for him like a sentient ocean. He waltzes up to the bar and orders whatever Jisung is having, and as the bartender shakes the metal tins, Minho adds, “Should’ve guessed you’d be on the outskirts trying to avoid everyone. Parties were never really your thing.”
Yeah. I almost didn’t show up, Jisung almost says – but it’s too candid for the joy in Minho’s eyes. He glances over Minho’s shoulder and finds Chan dancing with his sister now, cracking jokes, laughing easily. A litany of curse words presses at the back of Jisung’s throat, but instead he says, “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
“I’m so grateful,” Minho says, oblivious to the lie. He rests a hand on Jisung’s shoulder, and the contact burns. “You know, when we sent out the invitations, yours was the first one we mailed.”
Every word just twists the knife deeper.
“You even gave me VIP treatment,” Jisung adds. He almost convinces himself that he sounds grateful. “I feel special.”
“You are special,” Minho replies. He pulls Jisung in for a torturously intimate hug. “You’re my Sungie, of course you get VIP treatment.”
My Sungie.
Jisung is grateful that he doesn’t have to respond, because the bartender is pushing Minho’s drink his way. Minho thanks him and wraps his lips around the neon straw, apologizing to Jisung for his unusual tenderness today after a few sips – the wedding has made him uncharacteristically sentimental.
Minho’s softness was never the issue – who he directed it toward was. Jisung knows he’s bitter, that Chan and Minho genuinely complement each other in ways that make sense to anyone looking in. What always went unacknowledged was Jisung’s own compatibility with him, as if he were the only one who could see it. The thought drives him quietly insane.
So here he is, wading through the what if of it all, wondering if there’s a universe where he gets Minho instead – where this is their wedding. Their beach. Their families folding together beneath the same forgiving sky.
The conversation that follows is thankfully lighter, though Minho’s attention keeps drifting back to Chan on the dance floor, dragging Jisung’s gaze with it every time. It stings. It shouldn’t – this isn’t Jisung’s day. He wonders, briefly, whether he’ll ever get married at all. His mind guiltily drifts back to the margins of old notebooks, to the M+H boxed in by careless hearts, to the quiet certainty that no one else has ever come close to touching that same, aching place inside him.
“So,” Jisung starts again, the silence stretching just long enough to feel dangerous – Minho had always been uncannily perceptive. “Any honeymoon plans?”
“We were thinking Thailand,” Minho beams. “Meet some elephants, eat authentic Thai food, see the limestone cliffs along the coast. Sounds magical, doesn’t it?”
“Mm.” Jisung could die on the spot. He isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to bury his toes in sand again without shedding a spiteful tear. He takes another plentiful gulp of his cocktail.
The DJ saves him from his suffering, quieting the music to announce dinner and toasts. Minho immediately beelines for Chan – slow enough not to spill his drink, fast enough to leave Jisung with the painful realization that he could never be first.
Jisung’s assigned seat is at a table with the rest of their close friends from school, which might have been another small mercy if he didn’t feel like he was coming apart at the seams. Greeting everyone comes easily if he pretends it’s just another hangout with the boys, and the servers pouring bubbling champagne into their glassware invite him to loosen along with the rest of them.
Thankfully, everyone seems too excited for the couple – or too nervous about their upcoming speeches – to notice Jisung’s misery.
Except for one person.
The awareness comes before the look. Jisung turns to his left and finds his neighbor watching him over the rim of his champagne glass. Felix’s eyes glitter a pale gold, the color of beach sand in the dying light, and the pink-red stain on his lips rivals the sunset behind them.
Jisung is far less concerned with Felix’s appearance than with the gears turning behind his eyes. Felix has always been the most emotionally literate of the group – a blessing and a curse, Jisung thinks, that such a gift would fall into the hands of someone who wasn’t always forthcoming with every thought they had. It makes him nervous, the way Felix looks at him now, like he’s seeing straight through him, like he knows everything without a confession ever being necessary.
Jisung isn’t sure what words he expects Felix to say when the glass is set down and those rose-hued lips part, but the two that come out have his cognitive functions short-circuiting, leaving him open-mouthed in shock.
“You okay?”
Jisung’s gaze drops to his cutlery, jaw tightening as he steels himself. He doesn’t trust his voice, so he hums noncommittally – almost winces at the petulance Felix will undoubtedly hear in it.
The silence between them swells, heavy and expectant, and Jisung can still feel Felix’s attention fixed on his profile. He must look as defeated as he feels. That has to be why Felix spoke at all.
Should he lie? He could say it’s a stomachache. Something small. Something survivable.
Yet Felix speaks once more before Jisung can put up his walls again.
“You don’t have to be. I mean, today.”
Jisung had thought he was hiding it well. Apparently not well enough. There’s something in Felix’s phrasing that carries weight, history – like this isn’t a first guess, but a quiet confirmation.
Does the whole table know? Does it even matter? Who cares, now that Minho is gone.
Resentment kicks hard in his gut. If Felix knew – if everyone knew – then where was the consolation? Where were the apologies that never came. I’m sorry he doesn’t want you back, Jisung. I can’t imagine the pain you’re in.
No. This battle was suffered alone.
Jisung takes a bitter sip of champagne. The bubbles bloom warm in his chest, but the comfort feels distant, unreachable. He drinks again, rubs absently at his mouth, like waiting it out might make the ache subside.
When he closes his eyes, all he sees is Minho and Chan kissing.
“You’ve been staring at the same spot for five minutes,” Felix adds, concern softening his voice.
And what good does a façade do him? Around Felix, especially. Jisung almost wants to laugh at the memory of all the times he’s been caught mid-emotion, before anxiety could bury it in the sand and pretend it never existed. He knew. Of course he knew.
“I’m contemplating drowning,” Jisung says flatly. “Via champagne or the ocean.”
He swirls the remnants of his drink in the flute as the servers drift past other tables. “Champagne’s more realistic, but the ocean has a flair for drama. At a beach wedding, too? Fuck, I’d make the front page.”
He’s rambling. He always does when he’s cornered – when there’s too much under the hood and nowhere left to put it.
Felix listens – nods where he should, frowns where it fits. Despite loving him, Jisung finds an enemy in those patient eyes. Something ugly stirs inside him, insisting Felix could never begin to understand this kind of hurt. Something uglier whispers that the concern is performative, that nobody really cares about Jisung at all.
He knows that isn’t true. It’s just the hollow echo Minho left behind, looking for something else to occupy.
Vulnerability sits wrong on Jisung. He fidgets in his seat, caught between masking the ache with humor or dissolving into tears in front of everyone. Optimism doesn’t suit the heartbroken – the yearning, the perpetually almost. All his life he’s gone wanting, never quite having.
His gaze drifts back to Minho.
He supposes it makes sense.
Every artist needs a muse.
Felix doesn’t respond verbally, but the petite hand placed atop his own says you’re not alone.
A waiter appears to refill their champagne flutes, and dinner follows soon after. Jisung recognizes some of the dishes immediately – Minho’s favorites. Of course they are.
A sharp ache twists in his ribs at the thought of feeding Minho himself, of brushing sauce from the corner of his mouth the way he’s done a hundred times before. That place belongs to Chan now.
He won’t let curiosity win this time. Resolute, he keeps his eyes fixed on his own plate as it’s set before him, determined not to look up. Not to watch. Not to confirm.
He idly pushes the last of his budae jjigae around his bowl when the hollow tap of a microphone cuts across the beach.
The sound carries too well over the sand and water.
Felix’s attention has been drifting toward him all evening; Jisung can feel it like heat against his cheek. Everyone else, though, turns obediently toward the source of the noise. The DJ stands near the dance floor with a microphone, offering warm remarks about love, about fate, about how beautiful the ceremony was, before announcing that speeches will begin.
Jisung closes his eyes for a moment, grief pressing heavy behind them. He tries to calculate how long the drive home will take. Whether traffic will still be bad this time of night. Whether he’ll make it without pulling over.
The fathers go first, then the mothers.
They take turns at the mic stand beside the couple – some with neatly folded papers trembling in their hands, others speaking off the cuff, voices thick with emotion as they recount childhood stories and milestones and the moment they first realized this was it. That this was the person.
There’s laughter when Chan’s dad jokes about patience. There are sniffles when Minho’s mom thanks Chan for loving her son so gently. Glasses lift. Tears are dabbed away. Applause rolls across the reception like soft waves.
Jisung keeps his eyes on his champagne.
He doesn’t trust himself to look up when someone says, “I’ve never seen him this happy.”
It’s time for the friends to give their speeches.
These are more of a surprise – Chan and Minho had no idea who would come up, which makes every new speaker feel like a small gift. The laughter and fond teasing drifting across the tables seeps into Jisung like an illness. He takes another sip of champagne. Then another.
Felix is just returning to the table from his own heartfelt speech, cheeks faintly flushed from emotion and attention, which leaves Jisung the only one among them who hasn’t gone up to say something.
The table notices.
“Sung’s turn!” Changbin says with a grin that carries zero suspicion that anything could possibly be wrong. “Guess you wanted to save the best for last, huh?”
Every head turns.
“Uh,” Jisung manages, the syllable sticking somewhere between his throat and his teeth.
“I don’t think that’s Sungie’s cup of tea,” Felix gently cuts in, sliding into his chair. “You know he hates crowds.”
There’s a brief pause – socially acceptable, easily escapable.
An out.
Jisung feels it sitting there in front of him like an open door.
All he has to do is shake his head. Laugh it off. Stay seated. Survive the rest of the night quietly and go home and keep enduring, like he always has.
But across the reception, what must be dumb, drunken adoration pulls his eyes back to Minho anyway.
He’s laughing at something Chan just said, eyes screwing shut in that way he does when he’s completely, defenselessly happy. One hand rests on Chan’s arm to steady himself, thumb brushing back and forth over the sleeve of his tux without thought.
Automatic. Intimate. Practiced.
Jisung’s breath hitches.
He doesn’t want to love Minho like this anymore, but he does. He doesn’t want to call Chan his friend anymore, but he does. He doesn’t want to think about them growing old together, sharing a bed, building a life, but he does.
Something reckless – almost murderous – churns low in his gut.
Before he can think better of it, Jisung downs the rest of his champagne, the bubbles burning on the way down. He wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist.
“I’ll say something.”
Felix’s head snaps toward him. Beneath the whooping and hollering from the table, his hushed lilt – the tight concern pulling between his brows – speaks volumes.
“Jisung,” Felix whispers. “You don’t have to.”
But Jisung is already rising, the legs of his chair scraping softly against the sand-dusted floor. The world tilts for half a second, alcohol and adrenaline rushing together in his bloodstream.
“Yes,” he says, voice quieter than Felix’s but somehow heavier. “I do.”
The low babble of conversation and clinking cutlery fades as Jisung approaches the microphone, chairs turning, heads following. Even with the champagne humming faintly in his veins, the anxiety doesn’t loosen its grip.
It isn’t the crowd that unsettles him.
It’s the knowledge that this – this moment – is the only way he’ll ever break through the shimmering bubble surrounding Minho and Chan. The only way to command their full attention.
By delivering a eulogy disguised as congratulations.
The realization almost makes him laugh.
When he reaches the mic stand, his hands hover for a second before settling around it, cool metal grounding him. He risks a glance up.
Chan looks surprised, but warm – already smiling, already grateful.
Minho looks–
Jisung’s throat tightens.
He clears his throat anyway, and the sound carries farther than he expects, echoing lightly over the water. There’s only one thing really ringing through his mind: how do I want to say goodbye?
“I– I didn’t actually plan to come up here,” Jisung says, a nervous breath slipping out with the words. A few soft chuckles ripple through the crowd. “So.. bear with me.”
He swallows, fingers tightening around the microphone.
“For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Jisung. I’ve known Minho for.. basically my entire life.”
There’s a pause – not empty, just full.
“When you grow up with someone, you don’t really notice how important they become. They’re just.. there. In every memory. Every stupid phase. Every moment you thought the world was ending when it really wasn’t.”
A small laugh escapes him.
“And somehow, without realizing it, they end up shaping who you are.”
His eyes flick up.
Minho is watching him – attentive, soft.
Of course he is.
Jisung’s chest tightens along with his throat, but he keeps going.
“Some people come into your life and change it permanently.”
Years of shared time flicker behind his eyelids in aching vignettes.
“We meet people who make us better – or at least make us want to be. Braver. Kinder. Wiser. That’s who Minho is. He’s the kind of person who helps you understand what love is supposed to feel like.”
A breath.
“And then Chan came along,” Jisung continues, his voice thinning at the edges. He can feel something inside his chest splitting cleanly down a seam he’d spent years pretending wasn’t there. Still, he turns slightly to include him.
“And it didn’t take long to see something was different. You were happier, Minho. Calmer. Everyone could tell you’d finally found someone who could give you all that love back. It was like you’d found where you were supposed to be.”
Not with me. With him.
“..And I realized that was what matters most.”
Another pause.
“That’s what real love is. Wanting someone’s happiness – despite everything. Even when it gets complicated.”
The words land heavier than he intends.
When he glances out, he catches Felix watching him from the table, a tense hand half-covering his mouth.
“But today isn’t about anything complicated. It’s about the fact that you found each other. And that you chose each other. And that you keep choosing each other.”
He exhales, shoulders lowering slightly, like something is finally loosening its grip.
“Chan.. thank you. For loving him the way you do. For making him laugh the way he deserves to laugh.”
Then, softer:
“Minho.. you mean more to me than I could ever really explain. And I’m so–”
His voice catches.
For a split second he thinks he might not recover.
“I’m so happy you’re happy.”
Silence presses gently around the words.
Jisung feels something inside him drop – sudden and irreversible – like the wedding invitation slipping from numb fingers, like a door closing somewhere far behind him.
The smile he gives them doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but it’s steady enough.
“So.. to both of you. To a lifetime of happiness together.”
Glasses lift across the reception.
“To Chan and Minho.”
For the first time all day, the noose around his throat loosens. Somewhere beyond the reception lights, the ocean keeps moving – steady, indifferent, endless.