Chapter Text
If someone were to tell Nicholas that he had been dating the same exact girl for almost three months without a breakup, or any sort of emotional turmoil, he wouldn't have just called them crazy; he would've given them a disgusted, confused look and then told them to fuck off and get out of his office—because he was busy.
But no, that indifferent attitude Nicholas had towards dating during his entire adulthood was long gone, because he was pretty sure that he met the girl of his dreams.
Well, maybe "girl of his dreams" was a little bit of a stretch—but the sex was really good, and he wasn't very interested in having it with anyone else.
He was starting to think that he could get used to the domestic, romantic life.
Mona was her name. She gave him gifts, surprised him at work with food when he was working overtime, cooked him breakfast when she spent the night over at his place, brought him to some of the fanciest restaurants in the city, and was incredible at sex.
Nicholas flopped against his pillows, out of breath. Another person's weight joined him, and he felt her curl into his side.
Has Nicholas mentioned how good the sex is?
"You're incredible, did you know that?" Nicholas tilted his head down to look at her.
"Would it be incredibly narcissistic to say yes?" Mona replied, a snake-ish grin spreading across her face.
Nicholas pretended to think about it, "Yes."
Mona smacked him in the chest playfully and started to climb out of bed to get dressed while Nicholas laughed.
"Sorry," Nicholas sang as she walked into the en-suite bathroom.
"No, you're not!" Mona sang back, muffled through the wall.
Nicholas picked up his phone and scrolled aimlessly while she got her life back together, glancing over as she came back into the room.
"Do you really have to go home tonight?" Nicholas sat up and crawled toward her on the bed, giving her his best pout.
"Yes, I'm afraid I do. I have an early day at the office tomorrow, and I need my best outfit."
"You should just start leaving some of your stuff here," Nicholas suggested non-nonchalantly.
Mona didn't answer for a second, so Nicholas looked up and saw that she had frozen.
"…You okay?" Nicholas asked, a furrow in his brow.
She suddenly snapped out of it, and kept on getting all of her things together.
"Yeah, I'm fine. But, no. I'm not gonna start keeping my stuff here. It's not a good—I'm not ready for that," she said coldly, an air of finality to it as she walked out of the room.
"Okay…" Nicholas honestly didn't really care if Mona kept some of her things at his apartment or not, but he felt off-put by the way she replied.
Nicholas got out of bed, slid on some boxers he found on the floor, and followed Mona out into the living room where she was grabbing her keys and looking for her second heel, hobbling around on one foot.
"Damn. You in that much of a rush to leave?" Nicholas joked as he watched her struggle.
"Yeah, a little bit," she bit back.
Nicholas furrowed his brows again, but decided not to comment on her weird behavior. He thought that this was a good day to pick his battles, which is a constant choice he had to make during their relationship. He casually pointed to the kitchen where her second shoe was laying on the ground. She glared at him, waddled over, and slipped it on her foot.
She strut her way back over to Nicholas and kissed him obscenely, the way that makes his knees buckle. She pulled back and looked up at him through fluttering eyelashes.
"I'll see you tomorrow, right? I'm still picking you up from work?"
"Absolutely."
Mona hummed and planted one final quick kiss on his lips, already opening the door to leave.
"Wait!" Nicholas leaned against the door and Mona turned around to look at him. "Don't forget, hangout with Yuma, Jo, and Harua tomorrow night. They're all really excited to finally meet you. Especially Harua."
She smiled tightly, "Finally, I won't be your dirty little secret anymore. I wouldn't miss it for the world, baby." And with that, she turned around and left down the hallway, leaving Nicholas behind with that comment.
He was stunned into silence. Mona was not his "dirty little secret," for the record. He just wanted to make sure the relationship was serious before introducing her to his friends, Jo and Yuma, and his little brother, Harua. He also wanted to make sure that Mona was going to be a good relationship for him, and not a distraction from work, like some of his past partners. Nicholas doesn't think this is unreasonable, yet Mona always leaves him with little comments like these.
He turned the thought over and over in his head as he padded back to his room, alone.
"I'm excited to finally meet the woman who's melted your icy exterior," Yuma said from his secretary desk the next day at work.
Nicho's head snapped up, sufficiently distracted from the magazine draft he and Jo had been hunched over.
"Icy exterior?" Nicholas deadpanned. "I don't have an icy exterior."
Jo and Yuma hummed in disagreement.
"Well, I'm not icy with you guys," Nicholas added.
"Maybe icy isn't the right word," Jo pasted a bright-red 'REMOVE' post-it note on one of the pages, and Nicholas gave him a nod in agreement. "I think maybe you're just a workaholic, so it's easy to tell when you're finally taking time for yourself and you're relaxed."
"Like letting Jo actually touch the magazine draft, for like, the third time ever since being your assistant editor-in-chief for four years," Yuma pointed out.
Nicholas rolled his eyes, but Yuma wasn't wrong. Nicholas worked extremely hard for his editor-in-chief job at Luné, New York City's fastest growing fashion magazine company—a fact that is all because of him, by the way. He has to him himself his flowers.
Nicholas went to law school for too many years, forced into the field by his parents, who were also lawyers. But once he graduated, he got a job at an entertainment law firm and used his connections to end up getting what he actually wanted, a job in fashion.
"So, yeah," Yuma continued, "everyone in the office knows you're getting laid."
"Great."
After a full day of drafting and editing, Nicholas finally pushed the office's front door open and stepped into the warm street of the New York City summer. He scanned the busy road in front of him for Mona's bright red Tesla. From his right, he heard someone calling
"Baby! Hey!" There she was, sticking her head out of the window and waving at him.
Nicholas honestly hated that car, and preferred it when she would let him pick her up from work. He would rather be seen in a shitty car with the front bumper falling off and sputtering black smoke from the exhaust pipe then be seen riding in a Tesla, but, he just had to slide on his sunglasses, pray no one saw him, and make do.
Nicholas rushed to Mona's car and slid into the front seat.
"Hey," Nicholas greeted her with a quick kiss, then shut the door behind him.
Mona drove off and headed toward Nicholas' apartment, the music playing quietly on the radio. Nicholas leaned back in his seat and shut his eyes, his long workday finally hitting him.
"How was work today?" Mona asked him.
"It was good. I finished making my edits for this week's draft of the June issue. Not too exciting, but very emotionally exhausting," Nicholas perked up in his seat after he finished rambling, "Yuma and Jo are really excited to meet you tonight. Yuma couldn't stop talking about it—Oh, and Jo was wondering if they should bring anything, but we should have everything covered, right?"
Mona hummed indifferently, and Nicholas noticed her fingers nervously tapping on the steering wheel.
Nicholas furrowed his brow, then looked up at her face.
"You didn't forget about tonight…right?" Nicholas asked nervously.
"No, of course I remembered! It's just…ugh. This fucking sucks. Right before I picked you up, my house cleaner called and said that the washing machine malfunctioned and now my entire second floor is flooded," Mona ranted, "So, I'm going to have to take a rain check on tonight, I'm sorry, baby."
Nicholas deflated for a second, but quickly recovered. He was, admittedly, more of a problem-solver than someone who let things go easily.
"Well, how about we all reschedule to tomorrow night and I can help you and then come give you company at the house? I haven't been there since we first started dating! It would be nice—"
"—No," Mona cut in abruptly.
"…No?" Nicholas asked, wildly thrown off by her interjection.
"Sorry, but, I think this might be a two-day issue, so I can't reschedule to tomorrow."
Nicholas paused, putting his thoughts together.
"Okay, so you can't reschedule. That's…fine. What if we just move everything for tonight to yours? That way, we can all help out with the flood and you can meet everyone—"
"—It's fine, Nicholas. I don't need your help, and I don't want your help."
"I'm sorry," Nicholas scoffed, his sadness quickly turning into anger, "I just don't understand why you're not trying to figure this out with me. I've been telling you all week how important this is, and you're not even trying to come up with a new solution to this pretty fixable problem—"
The light in front of them turned red, and Mona's car jerked to a stop.
"Well, what do you want me to do, Nicholas? Huh? Do you want me to reverse time so that my fucking laundry machine doesn't flood my entire fucking house?"
Personally, Nicholas thought that statement didn't have anything to do with what he had just said, nor addressed any of the problems he had verbalized. But once again, he kept his mouth shut.
"Jesus Christ," she mumbled incredulously at his lack of response, "you have the most creative ways of making me sound like a crazy fucking bitch, don't you?"
That was the final straw.
"Oh, fuck that," Nicholas mumbled, unbuckling his seatbelt, "I understand you had a rough day, and that this is extremely inconvenient, and I'm sorry. I genuinely am. But, that does not give you the right to manipulate me into feeling guilty for being upset about something that I am very valid for being upset about."
Nicholas opened his door and stepped out, ignoring Mona's calls from inside the car.
As he waited for the train at the closet subway station, he took out his phone, ignoring all of Mona's texts and calls, and clicked on his most recent contact.
"Nicho? Hey! What's up?"
"So. A bit of a change of plans for tonight."
"I'm sorry, Mona said what to you?" Nicholas' little brother, Harua, shrieked.
"That I have the most creative ways of making her sound like a crazy bitch—Sorry, a 'crazy fucking bitch' is what she said. Want to get my facts right." Nicholas took a swig out of his wine glass and set it back down on the coffee table.
"Wow," Jo said. Never a man of many words—the polar opposite of his long-term boyfriend, Yuma.
"So, you just got out of the car and left?" Yuma asked.
Nicho nodded and shrugged. "I wasn't going to let her talk to me like that."
"You're sad," Harua pointed out.
"Hell yeah, I'm sad!" Nicholas ranted, "I have been telling her all week how excited and important this was to me. I guess I just thought this was just as important to her—she said it was." Nicholas sighed. "I never ask her for anything; everything is always her call, which is fine! Really, it is, but, this is the one thing I've asked for our whole relationship. I just thought she was different."
"Hold on, let's not give up that quickly," Yuma interrupted his breakdown.
"Yuma, she was completely out of line—"
"And I'm not disagreeing with you! I just think that maybe she wasn't expecting you to give up so quickly," Yuma reasoned.
"Honey, I don't know if Nicho is going to want advice about women from a gay man," Jo said gently.
"I'm just saying, if I were you and I had my first big fight as a couple, I would go and surprise her!"
"And do exactly what she told me not to do?"
"Yes. Go to the house, say your sorry, have some great makeup sex, then you can help her out with whatever, and then she'll probably feel even better in the end." Yuma shrugged. "'Ask for forgiveness, not permission,' type shit."
Nicholas was about to argue, but stopped himself, and tilted his chin up. After a couple of seconds of self-deliberation, he reached his verdict.
"You know what? That's not a terrible idea."
Nicholas wasn't dressed exactly slutty, per se, but one simple look at him, and it was clear that he was dressed up for the exact purpose of the clothes coming off.
"You look good, Nicho," Harua said from the seat next to him.
"Thank you~" Nicholas blew him a kiss.
"Alright, we're here!" Yuma sang from the passenger's seat, as Jo stopped in front of Mona's house.
Nicho opened his door and stepped out of the car. Yuma rolled down his window and motioned for Nicholas to lean over.
"Need us to wait?" Yuma asked.
"We can pull just around the block," Jo offered.
"Nah. I'll be fine," Nicholas said, "Don't wait up for me."
Nicholas backed away from the car and waved goodbye, and he watched everyone wave back as they drove away. He took a deep breath and turned to walk towards the front door. Once he got there, he playfully pushed on the doorbell and checked his reflection in the window, making sure his eyeliner looked perfectly smoked out.
Nicholas jumped back from the window when he saw a silhouette move behind the curtain closer to the door. He set himself up in a nonchalant pose against the column, trying to look sexy, but not like he was trying too hard. But, if he was thinking about not trying hard, he thought, he must've been trying pretty hard.
Suddenly the door opened, and he looked up and smiled, expecting to see Mona's face.
But, no. Because life was never going to be simple for Nicholas.
"Hello? Can I help you?"
When Nicholas took in the person in front of him, instead of Mona's familiar eyes and body, he was met with a man. A very attractive man. He was tall with light brown hair, and big, brown eyes that felt like they were staring directly into Nicholas' soul.
Nicholas shook himself out of his frozen state and began to speak.
"Hi. Um, I'm sorry to disturb you this late at night. I'm Nicholas, by the way." he stuck out his hand for the man to shake, because what else was he supposed to do?
"I'm Euijoo?" The man introduced himself in more of a question than an answer, and shook Nicholas' hand back.
"Nice to meet you. Is, uh, Mona here, by any chance?"
Euijoo smiled, and tilted his head like a confused puppy. "Mona? Um…" The man looked Nicholas up and down and giggled nervously.
He motioned towards Nicholas' outfit, "Is this one of those call-in stripper things?"
They both paused.
"Excuse the fuck outta me?" Nicholas spit out, offended.
Then, he looked down and surveyed his entire ensemble, and he realized what he probably looked like from Euijoo's perspective. He dropped the tension in his shoulders and looked back at the boba-eyed, cutie patootie in front of him.
"Do I actually look like a stripper?" He asked the man genuinely.
"Honestly?"
"Honestly."
"Not really. Sorry, that just seemed like the only explanation for a random man in a nice outfit and eyeliner showing up at my door at 10:45pm."
"Right, right," Nicholas nodded, understanding why he came to the conclusion. "Wait, your door?"
"Yeah!"
A chill ran down Nicholas' spine. Something wasn't right about—
"I'm Mona's husband, Euijoo."
Nicholas' breath caught in his chest and he stumbled backwards as Euijoo continued to rant.
"But you already knew that—Sorry, I forgot we already introduced ourselves."
Nicholas' eyes darted around, looking for an escape, trying to think of any excuse to leave right that second.
"Nicholas? Are you okay?" Euijoo's eyes widened and he went to reach out his hand and stabilize Nicholas. "You got really pale all of a sudden."
"What? Oh, no! No, I'm fine," Nicholas started to hysterically chuckle, and he dodged Euijoo's reach, and tripped down one of the stairs, catching himself at the last moment.
"I just realized!" Nicholas started to ramble, "That, um, I have the wrong house! Yeah, yeah. Completely different Mona, I think. Probably. Different street, different house, different…husband—Holy shit, I have to go. Now."
Nicholas stumbled down the front porch and started to walk off.
"Oh! Bye, Nicholas!" He heard from behind him.
Nicholas threw a wave over his shoulder without looking back, and looked down at his phone to order an Uber back home.
Nicholas was a fucking mess at work the next day.
Instead of pouring every negative emotion he had into what he had to do that day like he normally did, he could not stop replaying every single moment of his and Mona's relationship.
And, even worse, he couldn't stop thinking about Mona's husband, Euijoo. Nicholas wasn't usually someone who cared about what other people thought of him, but this…this was different. He couldn't get the sight of Euijoo's big eyes and innocent disposition out of his head.
"Fuck my life," Nicholas groaned, letting his head fall into his hands. He looked up at the clock on his wall—thirty minutes until he could go home. He took a deep breath, hoping that the minutes will go by quick, and rested his forehead on his desk.
"Nicho?" Yuma stuck his head into his office.
Nicholas groaned in acknowledgement, still facedown on the desk.
"There's someone here for you? They don't have a meeting, obviously, but they said it's urgent, so…"
Nicholas' head whipped up.
"What's their name?"
"Byun Euijoo?"
"Fuck," Nicholas cursed under his breath.
"You know him?" Yuma asked, confused.
"Something like that," Nicolas ran his fingers through his hair and leaned back in his seat.
"Do you want me to tell him to fuck off and come back tomorrow? Or, I can tell him to fuck off and never come back?
Nicholas didn't respond.
"I'm genuinely having a really hard time reading your facial expression right now."
"It's fine, you can let him in," Nicholas took a deep breath. "And while you're out there, you can tell the rest of the office they can go home early."
"Okay…You're being weird. But, I'm going to let it go for now." Nicholas put his palms together and bowed his head gratefully. Yuma narrowed his eyebrows and slowly backed out of the room, shutting the door.
Nicholas looked around the office. It wasn't too messy, but he still felt the need to tidy up a bit before Euijoo walked in.
If he was going to be a homewrecker, Nicholas thought, he might as well be a homewrecker who has his shit together.
As he was piling up the scattered papers on the coffee table, his door opened again, this time, Euijoo was standing in the opening.
The two looked at each other, frozen.
"Euijoo," Nicholas broke the silence. "Please, come in. Make yourself comfortable. If you want."
"I think I'm good with standing for now, thanks, Nicholas," Euijoo said politely.
Nicholas watched as Euijoo puttered around his office, looking at all of his shelves and peeking at the papers on his desk. Nicholas wasn't sure what to think—He was mentally preparing for the worst (getting punched), but instead, Euijoo just seemed to be surveying.
"So…" Nicholas trailed off, "How did you find me? I wasn't exactly in my work attire when we met."
Euijoo picked up the pile of photoshoot cuts sitting in front of him and carefully flipped through it, looking at each photo thoughtfully. Nicholas tried to read his face, but couldn't figure out his expression. Finally, Euijoo put the pile down and sat down on the couch. Nicholas tentatively took the seat across from him.
Euijoo was clearly uncomfortable and trying to hide it—he couldn't even make eye contact with Nicholas. Instead, he looked down at the couch cushions and picked at a loose thread hanging off the seam.
"Last night was weird," Euijoo started. "I spent the past three years of our marriage in blissful ignorance. Mona says I'm unobservant—but I think that's a nicer way of saying that I'm not the brightest person in the world. Anytime something seemed wrong, or off, I would brush it off—or Mona would give perfectly reasonable explanations for what I was feeling."
Euijoo took a deep breath and finally made eye contact with Nicholas.
"But then, you showed up at my front door."
This time, Nicholas was the one who couldn't keep eye contact.
"After you left, I knew this was something that I couldn't ignore anymore, and I went through Mona's phone bill. That's how I found you. I'm sorry if that was invasive, it's just—" He cuts himself off with a shaky breath.
"Okay, you know what?" Nicholas said, standing up from his seat. "I can't have this conversation sober—and I think you need some liquid courage."
He walked over to the armoire on the other side of the office and opened up the doors. Inside, there was a fully stocked bar setup, shelves filled with the highest quality liquors and whiskeys, lots of different types of glasses, and a mini fridge.
"Pick your poison."
Euijoo looked at the bar, then looked back at Nicholas—a grateful, and almost impressed look came across his face.
"Straight tequila."
"Yeah, I was going to say the same thing."
Nicholas poured their drinks and carefully carried them back over to the couch and this time, he joined Euijoo. He still kept a safe distance, but he was less scared of Euijoo attacking him in a fit of rage. He wasn't sure if Euijoo was even capable of that.
"Nicholas," Euijoo restarted softly, and Nicholas looked back up at him from his drink. "You know why I'm here right? You have to tell me if I'm right—or wrong! I don't want to come to conclusions. And if I'm wrong, I'm so sorry to accuse you of something so horrible—"
"Just ask the question, Euijoo."
Euijoo stopped rambling.
"…Are you sleeping with my wife?"
Nicholas took a deep, centering breath before he delivered the final blow.
"I wasn't just sleeping with her. We were dating, exclusively, or so I thought, for almost three months."
Euijoo blinked, tears slowly starting to roll down his expressionless face.
"Oh." He cleared his throat as the tears continued to fall. "Um…Did you know? About me?" His voice cracked.
"No! God no, of course not!" Nicholas started to relax after he realized Euijoo wasn't going to punch him, and was just hurt and trying to figure out what was going on. "I don't date married people. Or at least, I've always tried not to. I didn't have much choice this time around."
"Oh, thank god. I don't know what I was going to do if you had known the whole time." Euijoo let out a breath, the tension in his shoulders melting away as he took a big sip of his drink.
"Punch me?" Nicholas suggested.
"Punch you?" Euijoo burst out laughing, contradicting the tears still rolling down his face. Nicholas smiled at the action, endeared by the man in front of him.
He stopped, however, when he realized that it was his fault that Euijoo was crying in the first place.
"I am incapable of punching someone, but I appreciate it," Euijoo raised his glass, and Nicholas laughed and tapped his glass against Euijoo's.
They both chuckled and relaxed further into their couch.
"So, what exactly is your job, Nicholas?"
"'Nicho' is fine. That's what my friends call me."
"Oh, is that we are now? Friends?" Euijoo's eyes crinkled, and he smiled at Nicholas over the edge of his glass. Nicholas couldn't help but smile back.
"I think that's the wisest course of action," Nicholas teased.
Euijoo giggled and took a thoughtful sip of his drink.
"Nicho, you said?" Nicholas nodded. "I like it—and if we're getting into nickname territory, you should know that my friends call me Ej."
"Is this you giving me permission?" Nicholas joked.
Euijoo just shrugged, a playful smirk on his face. Nicholas quickly kicked off his shoes and lightly shoved his foot into Euijoo's side, causing him to giggle.
He briefly acknowledged to himself that, in any other context, the back-and-forth between the two sounded a lot like flirting.
Nicholas quickly tried his best to un-acknowledge that thought.
"This sucks."
They both had knocked back about five or six glasses of tequila, and had upgraded to passing a bottle of rosé that Nicholas had found in his mini-fridge, each time taking a sip or two and exchanging stories about their lives. They had shifted to sitting on the soft carpet of the office floor, their shoulders pressed against each other and their heads drawn towards each other, like magnets.
"I think that's putting the situation lightly, Juju."
'Juju' was new too. Nicholas didn't remember when he started using it—but it rolled off his tongue so easily. And Nicholas liked the look on Euijoo's face when he used the nickname.
"No, not the cheating, lying, and manipulation from the woman I've been married to for three years—obviously that sucks. But, I mean, it sucks that this is how I met you."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't want to sound too forward—"
Nicholas nudged his forehead against Euijoo's temple and held the wine bottle out for him to take.
"We're drunk," he hiccuped, "'being too forward' doesn't exist."
Euijoo scrunched his face up, considering it.
"…You're right," he snatched the bottle out of his hand, took a swig, and coughed. "I don't think anyone has ever understood me as quickly as you have. Except for when they've been forced to—like family members."
"No, I get it," Nicholas nodded vigorously, "I was just thinking the same thing."
"It sucks that for the rest of my life, I'm going to have to tell people that this is how we met when I introduce you to my other friends."
"You already planning that far ahead?"
Euijoo pouted. "You said I could be forward."
"I'm teasing, I'm teasing. Mmh. People are always going to have some shit to say about that, aren't they? 'Oh, so you're trauma bonded,'" Nicholas mocked, "'doesn't that make you co-dependent? That's a super toxic relationship'—"
Euijoo grimaced, "Please, stop with the therapy talk, you sound like Mona."
"Ugh! Right? She does that to you, too? Jesus, that shit drives me crazy. She would try to gaslight me constantly, but I don't think she realizes how stubborn I actually am."
Euijoo is silent. "…Do you think I'm a pushover for always giving in? Will I ever stop feeling like…" He trailed off, unable to find the words.
"Like what?"
"Like she's still always right? Even when I know in the back of my head that she really did hurt my feelings and I'm not just being sensitive?" Nicho thought it over, then opened his mouth to speak.
"You're right. It really sucks that we met like this." Nicho smiled at him and raised his glass. "Here's to wishing we met somewhere normal, Byun Euijoo."
Euijoo clinks his glass against Nicho's, "To meeting in a random coffee shop."
"To being seatmates in an 8 am lecture hall."
"Stop. I'm getting war flashbacks."
Nicholas cackled, thinking about how happy he was being there with Euijoo.
An hour or two later (Nicholas honestly wasn't sure how much time had passed), they stood outside the office on the curb, waiting for Euijoo's Uber to come pick him up.
"What do I do now?" Euijoo asked, his voice shaky with anxiety.
"I can refer you to the best lawyers in the city, and you can go from there," Nicholas answered honestly.
"I don't know," he said, his voice quiet and unsure. "I'm scared. She has everything, and I have nothing—I don't know if I'll be able to afford the same lawyer she can afford…she could take everything from me."
Nicholas grabbed Euijoo by the shoulders and forced him to look him in the eye.
"Then don't act immediately…let's try to get your thoughts together, start researching some options—but until then, do not let her find out you are looking for a lawyer…that is a disaster waiting to happen and she will use it against you."
"Then what do I do until I figure everything out?"
"Pretend nothing is wrong. That everything is normal."
Euijoo bit his lip anxiously.
"…Ok."
Nicholas snorted. Euijoo was too cute, even when he was in distress—it was hurting his head. He brushed off the thought, blaming his drunken state for his wandering mind.
"Don't sound so dejected," Nicholas lightly teased.
"Why shouldn't I?" Euijoo threw up his hands dramatically, then stumbled backwards a bit. "I'm going to be all alone."
Nicholas grabbed him again, this time by the wrists, and pulled him closer so he wouldn't fall.
"What the hell am I then? Don't piss me off, Juju," he said, faking his anger.
Euijoo's entire stature changed, and his eyes went wide in awe. His eyes glazed over, cheeks still red from drinking.
"You're going to keep hanging out with me?" His voice cracked.
Nicholas almost melted into the sidewalk.
"I don't think you can get rid of me if you try," Nicholas whispered. "We're trauma-bonded, remember?"
Euijoo giggled, then hummed contentedly. A car pulled up to the sidewalk in front of them. Nicholas checked that the license plate number matched the one on his phone and nodded at Euijoo.
He softly guided Euijoo to the car and opened the door for them. Euijoo steadied himself on the door, about to crawl in, but stopped.
"…What about an adult pottery class?" He asked. "Would we have met there?"
Nicholas laughed, but grimaced. "Hell no, I don't like the idea of clay getting under my nails." He thought for a second. "Clubbing?"
"Ha!" Euijoo barked. "You wish."
"But anything is better than this."
Euijoo nodded. "Anything is better than this."
Euijoo finally ducked inside the car and closed the door. He pressed his face closer to the window, smiled and waved aggressively at Nicholas.
Nicholas smiled and waved back as he watched the car pull away further down the street.
He didn't stop waving until the car was completely out of his sight.