Archive of Our Own

Gyujin knew something was wrong the moment Seongjun opened the front door.

He felt it in the oddly relieved sigh Seongjun let out, and in the weight of his footsteps. It was obvious from how Seongjun was looking at him, too, and how his skin had refused to break contact with Gyujin’s all evening.

He knew something was off. A part of him wanted to believe that if he’d known exactly what it was, he might not have opened the door in the first place. He wanted to believe that. But he knew it wasn’t true. Gyujin would have opened that door even if he’d known long ago.

It would have ended the same, regardless.

Now, sitting on the couch with Seongjun’s head in his lap, his fingers idly threading through soft strands of hair, Gyujin could feel the subtle shift in the room. They were supposed to be rewatching a film, one of Gyujin’s favourites, because Seongjun had said he “just wanted to see if it was as good as Gyujin claimed.” Even that had been a little suspicious, but Gyujin had chalked it up to exhaustion from a long weekend away and pressed play anyway.

Gyujin’s apartment was spacious— almost a little too spacious with clean floors and open air, the kind of modern place that sometimes felt more like a hotel than a home. But when Seongjun was here, it softened. It felt lived in. When Seongjun curled into him like this, fresh from the shower, letting Gyujin comb his fingers through his damp hair, it felt right. When Seongjun let out those quiet, almost inaudible murmurs of disapproval each time Gyujin’s hand stilled, Gyujin couldn’t help the warmth that spread through him— the quiet, selfish comfort of being needed.

Even so, with his favorite film playing quietly in the background, with the unusual softness in Seongjun’s voice, with the obsessive way Seongjun had clung to him in the shower— Gyujin knew something was wrong.

Because he knew Kang Seongjun like the back of his hand.

“Is something up?”

Eventually, he asked, when Seongjun turned fully away from the TV and nudged his head further into Gyujin’s abdomen.

“Just tired,” Seongjun replied, one arm slipping around Gyujin’s back. “Movie’s shit, by the way.”

Gyujin scoffed, as a smile tugged at his lips, a little too fond to hide.

“It hasn’t even got to the good part yet. Turn back,” he murmured, gently brushing Seongjun’s soft hair off his forehead before letting it fall back into place.

“It’s almost fucking over. What’s even left?”

“Fine, I’m turning it off then,” Gyujin muttered, rolling his eyes as he moved his hand from Seongjun’s hair to reach for the remote. “I should probably go to bed now anywa—”

Seongjun caught his wrist immediately, tugging his hand back and pressing it firmly against his scalp before shifting closer, crowding into him until he barely had space to breathe.

“Just leave it on.”

“Tch.” Gyujin let his fingers drift lazily through Seongjun’s hair again, soft and slow. “Whatever.”

He’d always loved how Seongjun’s hair felt after a shower— clean and unstyled, free of all the products he usually used. There was something almost embarrassingly domestic about this version of him.

It made Gyujin think stupid things and say stupid things and want stupid things. 

When Seongjun’s forehead nudged gently against his stomach, Gyujin exhaled through his nose, something warm settling in his chest.

“So clingy,” he murmured, more to himself than to Seongjun.

The film carried on, scenes bleeding into one another as Seongjun drifted in and out of sleep, denying it every time Gyujin quietly asked if he was tired. Time slipped past unnoticed, but it felt late— too late, especially when Gyujin had class waiting in the morning.

Seongjun’s phone lay just within reach on the coffee table, so Gyujin leaned over to tap the screen and check the time. Almost instantly, Seongjun let out a whine, as though Gyujin had done something unforgivable, when really, he’d only stopped touching him for a few seconds.

“Alright, alright,” Gyujin huffed, grabbing the phone and settling back, his other hand already returning to Seongjun’s hair, smoothing through it in quiet apology. “But it’s literally almost 2am, Seongjun. I’ve got class tomorrow. I need to sleep.”

“Five minutes.”

Normally, Gyujin wouldn’t have fallen for that. It was the oldest trick Seongjun had— his “five minutes” never meant five minutes. It didn’t even mean anything close. But for some reason, tonight, it didn’t even cross his mind to argue.

“Fine,” he sighed softly, his fingers still moving, slower now, gentler. “But only five minutes.”

Gyujin tossed Seongjun’s phone to the other side of the couch, the screen lighting up the moment it landed against a pillow. The sudden glow caught his attention, and he glanced over again, a flicker of recognition passing through him.

“Is that a new lock screen?” he asked lightly, more out of idle curiosity than anything else. “The camerawork’s nice.”

“Mmh,” Seongjun hummed, his voice muffled where his face was pressed into Gyujin’s hoodie. “Took it in Manila.”

Gyujin leaned slightly, eyes tracing over the image again— the stretch of impossibly blue sea, sunlight scattering over the surface, a jet ski cutting through the water in the foreground. A quiet snicker slipped out of him.

“And you told me it was boring,” he murmured. 

He remembered the way Seongjun had brushed him off every time they texted whilst he was away, saying that he wasn’t even doing anything, that the view wasn’t even that nice, that he wanted to come back home.

“It was.”

“Doesn’t look boring to me. You were on a jet ski,” Gyujin rolled his eyes, half-teasing.

“Well, you weren’t fucking there,” Seongjun shot back, too quickly, too sharp. “It was boring.”

The words landed heavier than they should have.

Gyujin went quiet.

He’d only meant to make a joke but clearly, Seongjun wasn’t in the mood for one— maybe it was a touchy subject. Did he mean Gyujin wasn’t there so he wouldn’t know if it was boring or not? Or did he mean it was boring because Gyujin wasn’t there? If it was the latter, then Gyujin didn’t understand. It’s not like Seongjun ever took him along on his spontaneous weekend trips, anyway, so what made this one different?

Seongjun grumbled under his breath, shifting closer as if the brief moment of distance had already been too much. Then he turned slightly onto his back, tilting his head just enough to look up at Gyujin.

His eyes looked off, perhaps just a smidgen too hollow. Perhaps his exhaustion went deeper than a delayed sleep schedule or jet lag from his flight the night prior. And yet, the way he looked at Gyujin— steady, searching, almost desperate— was enough to make Gyujin swallow down every question sitting at the back of his throat.

So he let it go.

Instead, he stayed quiet, fingers resuming their slow, absent paths through Seongjun’s hair. Seongjun’s eyes fluttered shut again.

Gyujin found himself staring, unable to help it. There was something so disarming about Seongjun like this— when he was unguarded in a way he never let the rest of the world see. It always made something in Gyujin’s chest ache.

His high school self wouldn’t have believed this. He wouldn’t have believed he’d end up here— on this couch, in this too-spacious apartment, with Kang Seongjun half-asleep in his lap, clinging to him like he needed him to breathe.

He wouldn’t have believed how normal it was now.

The film droned on in the background, long since forgotten. The room settled into a hush so soft it almost felt suspended in time. Gyujin could feel himself beginning to drift too, his fingers slowing, growing heavier where they moved through Seongjun’s hair.

Everything seemed to blur at the edges, until Seongjun spoke again, voice low enough that it almost blended into the background noise.

“I proposed.”

Gyujin didn’t react straight away. 

His fingers paused for just a beat, barely noticeable, before continuing— slower now, but just as soft.

“Oh, really?” He said after a moment, tone easy. He glanced down briefly, expression calm. “That’s nice.”

Seongjun didn’t answer. He just shifted closer again, pressing further in, his grip tightening slightly at Gyujin’s back like he didn’t even realise he was doing it.

Gyujin adjusted, his hand sliding a little more securely, thumb brushing lightly at Seongjun’s temple before smoothing everything back again.

“Did she say yes?” he asked, quieter this time.

He only received a single nod in response.

Gyujin hummed under his breath, something soft and noncommittal, like he was acknowledging it and nothing more.

For a moment, he wondered what kind of reaction Seongjun had been expecting— because whatever it was, he wasn’t going to get it. Not from him. Not now.

Gyujin had prepared for this a long time ago. Longer than he’d probably ever admitted to himself.

It had lingered at the back of his mind just last week, when Seongjun had slipped that necklace around him— his initials, KSJ, resting cold against Gyujin’s chest like something heavier than it should have been. It had been there months ago, when Seongjun would show up unannounced with takeout and say he just felt like seeing him. It had been there years ago, even when all they used to do was sleep together occasionally or hold each other through panic attacks, half-asleep, half-breaking and pretending that was all it was.

He’d always known this day would come. 

Again, he tried to tell himself that if he’d known it would be today, he wouldn’t have opened the door. But that wasn’t true. He knew it wasn’t. And still, he tried to believe it anyway.

“Doesn’t change anything,” Seongjun murmured after a while.

Gyujin’s hand didn’t stop, but it slowed— his fingers softer now where they threaded through Seongjun’s hair, like he was buying himself time.

“Seongjun,” he said quietly, because it was already hard enough to keep his tone even and light. “You know it does.”

“It doesn’t,” Seongjun insisted, voice low but steady, like he’d already decided that was the truth. “We can keep going. Like this.”

Gyujin let out a small, disbelieving scoff.

“So what, you’re gonna marry her and then still come back here after?”

“Yeah,” Seongjun agreed with no hesitation. “It’ll be the same.”

Gyujin’s chest tightened faintly.

He had played this out in his head a thousand times— over and over. When Seongjun whispered excuses into his phone late at night, voice quiet and careful for someone else. When he showed up unannounced, just to sit with Gyujin until his breathing steadied after a nightmare. When he held him close after sex and said things that sounded too much like promises, even when they both knew better.

Gyujin had prepared. He’d played the scenario out in his head 1000 times. 

But it never went like this.

He’d thought there would at least be some hesitation— some attempt to pretend there was a line they couldn’t cross. Some mutual understanding that they would at least try to end it, even if neither of them really meant it.

He hadn’t expected Seongjun to have this little shame.

“It’s not the fucking same, Seongjun,” Gyujin said, a little sharper now, though his hand still rested in Seongjun’s hair. “If you’re marrying her, then she’s not just your girlfriend anymore. That means you have a whole wif—”

“So?”

The words cut through him too easily.

Gyujin faltered, his voice catching for the briefest second.

“… You’re not even going to pretend?” he asked, quieter this time.

The rest of the sentence remained unspoken but easy enough to figure out:

You’re not even going to pretend that this matters?

“No point,” Seongjun replied, almost lazily, like this was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. “She’s not you, so it’s nothing.”

Something in Gyujin’s chest twisted.

He had questions— too many of them, all pressing at once. Did Seongjun really believe that? Did he genuinely think that his actions didn’t affect anyone else as long as he said they didn’t? How long did he think they could keep this going, if even marriage wasn’t enough to stop him? Was he planning on keeping Gyujin stuck like this forever? Did he think nobody was ever going to catch on?

But the questions faded, one by one, drowned out by that single sentence repeating in his head.

She’s not you, so it’s nothing.

And, embarrassingly, painfully— it soothed something in him.

Gyujin hated that.

Hated the way his heart reacted, the way it latched onto those words like they meant more than everything else. Hate that Seongjun being open enough to say things like that was so rare that Gyujin surrendered every time he got the tiniest bit of verbal affection. 

This should have felt like an ending. Like something breaking cleanly in two.

It should have felt like the beginning of the end.

It didn’t.

He wondered, briefly, why it wasn’t hitting him harder— that the person he’d spent years orbiting around, the one he’d given more of himself to than he ever should have, was going to be someone else’s husband.

He wondered if he should feel bad for himself.

But feeling bad had never really changed anything for him before.

The thought clung, stubborn and ugly: If caring wasn’t going to make a difference, then what was the point?

Gyujin pushed the thought down before it could settle too deeply.

Because he had to care.

Even if it was only a little. Even if it was only right now.

“I’m not staying,” he said finally, voice quiet but steady, his hand stilling in Seongjun’s hair. “If the wedding goes through, I’m not staying.”

For a second, nothing happened.

Then Seongjun moved. He shifted in Gyujin’s lap, turning just enough to reach for his other hand. His fingers curled around Gyujin’s wrist, gentle but insistent, guiding it down instead of letting it fall away. Slowly, deliberately, he brought Gyujin’s hand up to his own face, pressing it against his cheek to cup it.

Gyujin’s breath caught, just slightly.

Seongjun tilted his head into the touch, eyes lifting to meet Gyujin’s for a brief second— soft, unreadable— before his eyelids dipped again. His grip loosened just enough to let Gyujin’s fingers move, but not enough to let go entirely.

Then he turned his head, pressing a slow kiss against the inside of Gyujin’s wrist, lingering there.

Another one followed, just as unhurried, his thumb brushing faint patterns along Gyujin’s palm like he was trying to soothe something neither of them were naming.

“I missed you,” Seongjun murmured against his skin, voice low, almost quiet enough to disappear. “In Manila.”

Gyujin’s jaw tightened.

Of course.

Of course that was what Seongjun chose to say.

His fingers flexed slightly where they rested against Seongjun’s cheek, still pulled in by the warmth there, the faint press as Seongjun leaned into him again.

Another kiss, softer this time.

Gyujin exhaled slowly through his nose, irritation threading quietly beneath the surface. 

“Did you hear what I said?” he asked, voice low, measured.

Seongjun didn’t respond.

He just turned his face further into Gyujin’s palm, pressing another kiss to the inside of his wrist, then letting his lips linger there for a moment longer than necessary. His fingers tightened faintly around Gyujin’s hand, keeping it exactly where he wanted it.

He was clearly waiting for the conversation to just dissolve on its own.

Gyujin swallowed.

It bothered him— the way Seongjun completely ignored what he said. It was like he didn’t believe him. Like Gyujin suggesting that he would leave was stupid because they both knew it wasn’t true. 

And maybe Seongjun was right, Gyujin probably wouldn’t leave. But still, it bothered him. It seriously bothered him that Seongjun thought his words had this little weight. 

He pulled in a slow breath.

“It’s late,” Gyujin said after a moment, a little firmer now, though his hand hadn’t pulled away yet. “You should go home before your—”

He paused.

The word caught, heavy and wrong.

Fiancée.

It stayed lodged somewhere in his throat, refusing to come out.

“— girlfriend wakes up,” he finished instead, quieter.

Seongjun barely reacted.

If anything, he leaned in closer, his hold tightening just enough to keep Gyujin’s hand against his face, his lips brushing one last soft kiss against his wrist like he hadn’t heard a single word.

Like he was choosing not to hear it.

Like he was choosing this instead.

“Yah, Kang Seongjun,” Gyujin tried, forcing a firmer edge into his voice. He twisted his wrist slightly, attempting to pull free, but Seongjun only followed the movement, fingers tightening, guiding his hand back where he wanted it. “You need to go home.”

Seongjun didn’t respond.

He just shifted closer, his shoulder pressing into Gyujin’s thigh, his cheek settling more fully into Gyujin’s palm. His thumb traced a slow, absent line along Gyujin’s wrist, grounding, familiar— infuriatingly gentle.

It was starting to piss Gyujin off.

“You want her to wake up and see you’re gone?” Gyujin pressed, quieter now but no less insistent. “We’ve had enough close calls this month, don’t fuck it up now.”

Seongjun’s eyes lifted just a fraction, his gaze flickering up to meet Gyujin’s.

“You said ‘til the wedding,” he murmured.

Gyujin blinked. “Huh?”

“You said,” Seongjun continued, “that if the wedding goes through, you’ll leave.”

His grip shifted— loosening just enough to slide Gyujin’s hand down from his cheek to his jaw, thumb brushing lightly over his knuckles as he held it there.

“But I’m not married yet.”

Gyujin stared at him for a second, something like disbelief flickering across his face before he let out a quiet scoff.

“So you were listening.”

Seongjun didn’t deny it.

He just leaned in again, pressing a softer kiss to the inside of Gyujin’s wrist, slower this time, lingering like he was trying to press the moment into place. His other hand came up without thinking, resting lightly against Gyujin’s waist, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.

“Just give me ’til then,” he said, the words quieter now, rougher around the edges. “Okay?”

Another small shift— like he was closing whatever fraction of space was left between them.

“Don’t leave me ‘til then.”

Gyujin didn’t answer, not with a yes or no. 

But his hand didn’t pull away either.

It stayed there, cradled against Seongjun’s face, his thumb brushing once— absent, soft— along the curve of his cheek before stilling again.

And they both knew that was answer enough.

Countdown to Wedding: Six Months Remaining

Gyujin’s phone buzzed against the counter, the vibration rattling faintly against the metal surface.

Then it buzzed again.

And again.

The third time drew a couple of glances from customers waiting at the pick-up area. Gyujin reached for it quickly, silencing it with an apologetic bow of his head, already murmuring a quiet “sorry”.

He was only five hours into an eight-hour shift, and Seongjun had already blown up his phone three separate times.

Gyujin didn’t even know why he still apologized anymore. His coworkers barely reacted now— if anything, they just worked around it. Seongjun had practically become a regular at the coffee shop too, and when they’d met him in person, they knew exactly why he texted the way he did. 

It was pretty obvious how much Seongjun hated the fact that Gyujin worked here.

He’d hated it from the beginning— since freshman year of college, when Gyujin picked up the job to help cover living costs before he’d even rekindled with Seongjun. At first, Seongjun had tried offering money to make him quit. He told Gyujin he could pay him more than the café ever would, said it would be easier, and that Gyujin would have more time for him. 

When Gyujin refused, Seongjun was unfortunately not deterred in the slightest. He tried to get Gyujin fired, writing anonymous complaints and getting ‘customers’ to call in and insist that they ‘wouldn’t come back if that Park Gyujin kid was still working there’. It had been so excessive it looped back around to being obvious, almost embarrassing in its persistence.

His manager hadn’t even entertained it.

And when that didn’t work, Seongjun adapted again— switching his finance job to hybrid, spending his two “work from home” days exactly where Gyujin was. Always in that same corner, laptop open but barely used, eyes drifting up far more often than they should have.

Nobody really questioned it.

Or commented on it, really, except—

“Your sugar daddy didn’t come today?”

Gyujin glanced up from the counter, already reaching for the next cup. One of the guys he worked with was leaning against the back counter, grinning like he’d just said something clever.

Gyujin used to correct them.

He used to clarify that Seongjun was just an old acquaintance and nothing like that was going on. But no one ever believed him. To them, it made more sense that Seongjun was much older than him, even if he wasn’t— he looked like someone already settled into a high-paying job, with the kind of time and money that let him linger in a café for hours just to watch his partner.

Eventually, Gyujin had stopped trying.

“No,” he said simply, shaking his head as he slid a cup across the counter. “He’s busy today.”

“Damn,” another coworker chimed in, raising a brow. “He’s never busy. Must be something important, huh?”

Gyujin let out a small laugh, polite and automatic.

“Guess so.”

But something in his chest tightened, just faintly.

Seongjun hadn’t told him what he was doing today.

He hadn’t needed to.

Gyujin already knew— partly from the way Seongjun had been the night before, quieter in some ways, more clingy in others. And partly because Gyujin had snooped through his phone while Seongjun was in the bathroom.

He was going wedding suit shopping with his fiancée.

The thought settled heavily, even now.

The wedding was getting closer— close enough that it felt real in a way it hadn’t before. And even if Seongjun wasn’t the most involved fiancé, Gyujin had started to notice the shifts. The way his schedule bent around certain days. The way his phone lit up more often with names Gyujin didn’t recognise. The way he held onto Gyujin a little tighter, a little longer, like he was trying to stretch something that was already running out.

Small things. Things that were easy to miss, if you weren’t paying attention.

But Gyujin always was.

In his palm, his phone buzzed again, and then again, and then twice more until he couldn’t ignore it.

“Back in a second,” he added to no one in particular, slipping out from behind the counter and pushing through the door to the back.

The storage room swallowed the noise of the café almost immediately.

Gyujin exhaled as he unlocked his phone.

Seongjun [15:32]
[Photo]

Seongjun [15:32]
this look good on me?

Seongjun [15:33]
[Photo]

Seongjun [15:34]
[Photo]

Seongjun [15:34]
[Photo]

Seongjun [15:34]
or those?

Seongjun [15:35]
pick one

Seongjun [15:36]
which one do u like

Gyujin skimmed past the rest of the messages— the impatient follow-ups, the familiar complaints about him taking too long, about never replying fast enough. He didn’t need to read them properly. He already knew the tone, could practically hear Seongjun’s voice threaded through each one.

Instead, his thumb slowed over the first photo.

He tapped it open.

Seongjun stood in front of a mirror, one hand loosely adjusting his cuff, the other resting at his side. The suit was tailored close— dark, structured, clean lines that followed the broad set of his shoulders and tapered down his waist like it had been made for him.

Which, knowing him, it probably had.

Gyujin swallowed.

And then he swiped.

The next one was lighter— gray this time, softer in color but no less fitted. The fabric pulled just slightly across Seongjun’s chest when he shifted, outlining muscle beneath it in a way that felt intentionally seductive. His posture was relaxed, but there was something about the way he stood, the effortless confidence, that made it impossible to look away.

Gyujin’s fingers lingered for a second longer than they should have.

He swiped again.

Another suit. Darker again, sharper cut. The jacket sat perfectly against Seongjun’s frame, accentuating his height— he looked beyond composed. His hair was styled back just enough to expose more of his face, his expression unreadable but steady, like he already knew he looked good.

Gyujin exhaled quietly through his nose.

And then again.

Fuck.

Each photo blurred into the next, but not really— because Gyujin noticed all of them. The way the fabric sat against Seongjun’s skin. The way his shoulders filled out the jackets. The way his hands— long, familiar— adjusted cuffs, straightened ties, held the phone up.

It was ridiculously fucking hot. Unfairly hot for something Seongjun was sending him whilst he was at work.

He had half a nerve to respond and tell Seongjun to buy all of them because they were all turning Gyujin on like crazy, but then he remembered what the suits were for. Gyujin’s grip on his phone tightened slightly.

Was it even fair for other people to see him like this?

The thought came uninvited, settling somewhere low in his chest before he could think better of it.

He flipped through the photos again, slower now, more deliberate. Because this time, he was looking for flaws. For anything that didn’t sit right. A cut that didn’t suit him as much. A color that dulled him, even slightly.

It was harder than it should have been.

Gyujin exhaled quietly, settling on the one that looked the least overwhelming. It didn’t look bad per se— unfortunately, it seemed as though Seongjun could never look bad in his eyes— but it was plain enough to stop his chest tightening in the same way.

This one.

His fingers moved before he could think too much about it.

You [15:45]
wear the third one

The reply came almost instantly.

Seongjun [15:45]
lol knew youd say that

Seongjun [15:45]
ur so predictable

Seongjun [15:46]
ur just saying that bc its ugly on me

Gyujin’s lips pressed together, something faintly annoyed flickering across his face.

He’d forgotten that for however easily he could read Seongjun, Seongjun could probably read him equally as well.

Seongjun [15:47]
pick ur second favorite then

Seongjun [15:48]
i’ll wear that one

Seongjun [15:48]
i’ll keep ur favorite for u

Something in Gyujin’s chest stilled— then swelled, warm and sudden, like it had been waiting for exactly that.

It was stupid.

He knew it was stupid.

His mind caught up quickly enough, sharp and unkind in the way it always was— reminding him that this was nothing. That this was less than nothing. That getting even a little bit happy over this, over being asked to pick out a suit for a wedding that wasn’t and would never be his, was entirely pathetic. In fact, it was probably a new low, even for him.

But even knowing that, his thumb drifted back to the photos anyway.

Back to the one he liked the most. Back to the way the fabric hugged Seongjun’s frame. Back to the way it sharpened his shoulders and emphasized his height and made him look so, so unfairly perfect.

Gyujin stared at it for a long moment, his expression softening without him meaning it to.

You [15:51]
get green or gray

You [15:51]
can you leave the black one?

Seongjun [15:52]
anything for u baby

Gyujin exhaled quietly through his nose, but it didn’t stop the small, involuntary thrill that ran through him— light, almost giddy, settling somewhere embarrassingly warm in his chest.

“Gyujin-ah, could you—”

The door creaked open behind him. Gyujin turned, and Sieun stopped mid-sentence the moment he caught sight of his face.

“… Ah,” he said slowly, one brow lifting. “That Seongjun guy again?”

Maybe it was because their schedules always overlapped— both arranged around classes and exams— but over the years, Sieun had become one of the few people Gyujin was actually comfortable around. Not close enough to hang out with outside of work, but close enough to greet each other on campus, or sit together during their lunch breaks whilst they both did their own thing (meaning Gyujin watched gaming videos on Youtube whilst Sieun had his nose stuck in a textbook). They existed well in the same space.

Sieun knew him well enough to recognize that expression instantly.

And, unfortunately, knew Seongjun well enough to know it wasn’t a good sign.

“Mmh,” Gyujin hummed, casual, already locking his phone and pulling it a little closer to his chest. “Sorry, I’ll come back out. Is it busy?”

Sieun didn’t answer right away. His eyes lingered on Gyujin’s face, on the way his smile hadn’t quite faded— too soft. Way, way too soft.

“Gyujin,” he said instead, quieter now. “How long are you going to keep doing this?”

Gyujin’s smile faltered slightly.

Great, he thought to himself, here we go again.

It wasn’t like this was new. His coworkers had figured it out a long time ago that Seongjun was seeing someone else. They’d overhear Seongjun on the phone, voice dropping when he spoke to her. They’d catch glimpses of his laptop home screen— couple photos that didn’t include Gyujin. They weren’t stupid.

Most of them kept quiet, though that was probably just because Gyujin did. But every now and then, someone decided to say it out loud.

At least this time, it wasn’t his boss pulling him aside for another lecture about “making better choices.”

“Doing what?” Gyujin asked, playing dumb, his tone light enough to pass.

Sieun didn’t buy it.

“I know you know he’s engaged now,” he said, matter-of-fact, but gentle. “He got a venue confirmation email the other day.”

“You snooped through his emails?!” Gyujin shot back, more out of reflex than anything else.

“That’s not the point.” Sieun sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “And if he didn’t want people seeing his stuff, he shouldn’t leave his laptop open every time he goes off to bother you.”

Gyujin huffed a quiet laugh at that despite himself.

It was a little Seongjun’s fault. He spent so much time hovering around Gyujin, distracting him, pulling him away from everyone else, that he barely paid attention to his own work.

The thought lingered a second too long, softening Gyujin’s expression again without him realizing.

“See?” Sieun said, voice cutting back in. “You’re not even listening.”

Gyujin blinked, snapping out of it.

Ah, right. He was at work.

He shouldn’t have been entertaining Seongjun regardless of how heavily he was being spammed. And did a few text messages seriously have to make him go all soft?

He shook his head slightly, grounding himself.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, dipping his head in a small bow. “I’ll go back out.”

He moved past Sieun without waiting for a response, already pushing the door open, the noise of the café spilling back in. But as he passed, he caught the look on Sieun’s face— something quieter than annoyance.

Something closer to pity.

“Gyujin-ah.”

He paused, hand still on the doorframe, and turned back.

“Hmm?”

Sieun hesitated, just for a second, like he was choosing his words carefully.

“You know he’s not gonna leave her for you, right?”

The softness of it almost made it miss. For a second, Gyujin didn’t even process the question, it took a few moments for the words to settle in his mind.

Once they did, he let out a small breath, the corner of his mouth lifting into an easy, almost absent smile.

“I know.”

Because Gyujin did know. He always had.

Even now— standing in the backroom, his phone still warm in his hand from where he’d been texting Seongjun about which suit to “save” for him— he knew exactly how empty those words were. Gyujin knew there was no version of the future where that suit meant anything, where it would ever actually be worn for him.

It wasn’t like he expected it to. That part of him had burned out a long time ago, years ago, and all he had left was something smaller, something closer to acceptance. 

Gyujin knew, in the way people know things they don’t say out loud, that he should want better. That he should feel something sharper about all of this— anger, maybe, or shame strong enough to finally make him stop.

He knew how stupidly pathetic he looked from the outside. His boss, his coworkers, Sieun, they all saw. They saw the way Gyujin’s eyes would drift without meaning to, tracking Seongjun across the café when he stayed late. The way he’d linger a second too long, like there was something there to hold onto, like there was still a chance— despite the fact that Gyujin himself knew there wasn’t.

The wedding was getting closer.

Close enough that it had started to press in on him, quietly, at the edges of everything. Gyujin knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to start pulling away now, little by little, to make it easier on himself later. Before it became unbearable.

He thought, sometimes, that it would be easier to pull away if Seongjun didn’t still look at him the way he did, or touch him like he meant it, or say things that sounded too close to love when they were alone, only to walk back into a life where Gyujin didn’t exist the same way.

But then again, even if Seongjun didn’t, Gyujin had never thought highly enough of himself to believe he deserved anything better anyway.

Not back in high school, when Seongjun’s attention came in the form of relentless bullying, cutting into him until it left something permanent behind— damage that could never really be healed or forgotten. Not when Gyujin was holding a gun over Seongjun’s quivering body as he begged him for mercy, as he apologized over and over and over.

Not later, either.

Not after rehab, when everything in Gyujin’s life still felt so raw and broken and Seongjun was suddenly there— different, softer, easier to understand. Easier to hold onto. The only person who seemed to see him clearly, even if he was the one who had shaped all the worst parts of him to begin with.

And not now.

Not when Seongjun was weeks away from marrying someone else. Not when he was still trying to convince Gyujin that that didn’t mean anything.

“Right,” Sieun said after a beat, like that settled it. “Just checking.”

Gyujin nodded once, already turning away.

“Yeah.”

He pushed the door open this time, stepping back out onto the café floor. The noise hit him immediately— milk steaming, cups clinking, the low hum of conversation folding over itself. 

Behind the counter, everything was exactly where he’d left it.

Gyujin slipped back into place without thinking, tying his apron tighter around his waist, reaching automatically for the next order ticket like his hands knew what to do even if his head didn’t.

For a while, it worked.

The rhythm of it all kept him moving. Customers came and went, voices blending together into something indistinct. Time passed without him really noticing.

But every so often, his phone buzzed faintly in his pocket.

And every single time, without fail, his heart stuttered just a little before he could stop it. Stupidly so.

During a lull, he finally gave in, just for a second. He turned slightly, half-facing away from the counter, and slipped his phone out, checking the screen.

Another message.

Seongjun [16:32]
coming over to urs tonight

Seongjun [16:32]
just need to drop some stuff off at mine

Gyujin wondered if the “stuff” he was dropping off was referring to his girlfriend, but he didn’t dwell too much on it. He stared at the message for a moment longer than necessary, his thumb hovering just above the screen.

He knew what he was supposed to do.

This was where it started. The pulling away. The slow, careful distance he’d been telling himself he needed to create before it got worse— before it became something he couldn’t untangle himself from.

He could do it now.

Maybe he could just not reply. Or say he was busy. Or make up something easy, something believable enough that Seongjun wouldn’t question it too hard.

It didn’t have to be difficult— it could be simple and effective.

Gyujin inhaled quietly.

He was going to try. For himself. 

Definitely.

Just maybe not today.

You [16:35]
k. see you later ❤️

As soon as the message sent, he locked his phone and slipped it back into his pocket, turning fully back toward the counter just as another order came through.

“Gyujin-ah, two iced americanos!”

“Got it,” he answered automatically, already reaching for the cups.

His hands moved on their own again, humming a soft, familiar tune as he worked. 

Like he hadn’t just made the exact same choice he always did.

Countdown to Wedding: Four Months Remaining

Weekend visits from Seongjun were rare— rare enough that Gyujin had stopped expecting them altogether.

It didn’t bother him. Not really.

Most weekends, he went home to visit his mom anyway. And when he didn’t, he’d fallen into a rhythm of his own and barely noticed the absence of human presence. He'd gotten used to checking Seongjun’s stories without thinking, watching glimpses of his other life. Or his phone lighting up with a string of messages from him, rapid and impatient, asking what he was doing, where he was, why he hadn’t replied yet.

It was routine and predictable and manageable.

This weekend wasn’t.

Seongjun had let himself into Gyujin’s apartment the night before, already in a bad mood, tapping in the passcode like he’d done it a hundred times before (which, to be fair, he had). Gyujin barely had time to process it before Seongjun was inside, slipping off his shoes, and making himself comfortable.

“I can’t hang out in my own fucking apartment anymore?” Seongjun had snapped when Gyujin asked what the hell he was doing.

“It’s not your apartment, asshole,” Gyujin had shot back.

“Well, last time I checked, it’s under my name and I’m paying for it,” Seongjun had only shrugged, already halfway across the room. “So I can come here whenever the hell I want.”

And Gyujin still didn’t really have a good enough rebuttal against that, because unfortunately, it was very much true.

But still, he was supposed to be distancing himself. He’d been doing a pretty good job, too. His response times were getting longer and he’d even started getting better at saying no, at dodging Seongjun’s constant insistence. He’d done alright at resisting when Seongjun and his unnaturally high libido always tried to pull him back in. 

But some days were worse than others.

And that weekend, it seemed, was one of the worst. 

Gyujin let him stay in the end.

He couldn’t even remember when things had shifted— when his clothes had been tugged off of him, when they’d ended up in bed, when Seongjun’s voice had dropped into that low, familiar murmur, saying things Gyujin knew not to take seriously and still couldn’t help absorbing anyway.

It had all blurred together.

What he did remember was waking up the next morning and realizing that, for whatever reason, Seongjun was still there. He was still pressed close behind him, one arm wrapped tight around his waist, his face tucked into the curve of Gyujin’s neck like he’d settled there sometime in the night and never left.

The realization sent a quiet, electric thrill down Gyujin’s spine before he could stop it.

Seongjun practically never stayed over for long enough to see morning– for obvious reasons. But he had this time.

Gyujin didn’t really spend too much time questioning why. If he had to guess, it probably had something to do with the angry phone calls Seongjun had been making the night before— the sharp tone in his voice, the way he’d paced, the frustration that hadn’t quite left him even after he’d come back to bed. Gyujin had only caught pieces of it, half-asleep and too focused on the warmth beside him to listen properly, but it sounded like the same thing— family disagreements, wedding plans, guest lists.

He hadn’t asked.

Didn’t want to.

Now, in the quiet of the morning, Gyujin lay still, staring at the faint light creeping in through the curtains. Seongjun had probably intended to go, perhaps he’d meant to leave earlier and overslept. Which meant Gyujin should probably have woken him up. He should have.

Instead, he reached for his phone, carefully, so as not to disturb Seongjun. He opened the front camera and angled it just enough to catch the way Seongjun was curled into him— messy hair, eyes shut, arm locked securely around him like he might disappear otherwise.

Click.

The photo saved.

Gyujin stared at it for a second, something soft flickering across his face.

He’d been taking more pictures lately. It was embarrassing. He’d never admit it— not to anyone, and definitely not to Seongjun. He didn’t even fully understand why he was doing it. Maybe some part of him was already bracing, already missing him before he was even gone.

His thumb hovered.

Then he took another.

This time closer— just the slope of Seongjun’s shoulder, the tousled fall of his hair, the way his nose brushed against Gyujin’s hair. When Seongjun shifted slightly, letting out a quiet, sleepy murmur, Gyujin hesitated for half a second and then switched to video.

The soft sound of his breathing. The barely audible complaint in his throat. The way his grip tightened instinctively.

Gyujin swallowed.

This is fucking pervy.

He had no real reason to be filming him like this— but he didn’t stop right away. Not until the weight of it settled in enough to make him feel a little sick with himself.

He ended the recording and quickly backed out, locking his phone for a second before reopening it, like he needed to reset.

His messages were as empty as usual— a reminder from his mom to eat well, a coupon from the local grocers, and, curiously, an unopened message his coworker had sent him the night before.

Gyujin tapped it open.

Minho [22:48]
Thx 4 agreeing to cover my shift 2morrow bro I owe u 1

Gyujin’s eyes widened, when they moved up to check what the time was.

Shit.

He’d completely forgotten he’d agreed to help Minho out, and now he had to be at work in exactly 40 minutes. 

He quickly started typing back, fingers moving faster now, a simple “no worries!” or something along those lines when—

“Who the hell are you texting?”

The voice came from right behind him, low and rough with sleep, warm breath brushing directly against his ear.

Gyujin flinched slightly.

“Nobody,” he said quickly, locking his phone without thinking. “Just a guy from work.”

There was a pause.

Then—

“Lemme see.”

Gyujin huffed, already pulling the phone a little closer to his chest. “You don’t need to. It’s nothing.”

Seongjun shifted behind him, more awake now, his arm tightening slightly where it was still draped over Gyujin’s waist.

“What guy?” he pressed, quieter.

“I just said— someone from work.”

“Show me.”

Gyujin rolled his eyes, even as he angled the phone further out of reach. “Why do you care? And why the hell are you even still here? Go home.”

That was enough.

Seongjun was already moving.

“Yah—” Gyujin twisted away, but Seongjun was already leaning over him, reaching.

“Show me,” he insisted, the jealousy still sitting under his tone, even as it started to blur into something more familiar.

“I don’t have to show you anyth—”

They shifted across the bed in a messy tangle, Gyujin trying to keep the phone out of reach, Seongjun following easily, crowding into his space.

“Stop being weird!”

“Then stop hiding shit.”

“I’m not—”

Seongjun caught him.

One quick movement, practiced, and he was pinning Gyujin down against the mattress, one hand catching his wrist, the other prying the phone cleanly from his grip.

“Seong—”

“I win.”

The shift was immediate.

The tension in his expression loosened just enough, something smug and satisfied slipping into place instead. A small, crooked grin tugged at his lips as he looked down at Gyujin.

Gyujin glared up at him, breath slightly uneven. “You’re fucking crazy.”

Seongjun didn’t even bother responding to that.

Instead, he leaned down— slow, deliberate— and pressed a soft kiss along Gyujin’s jaw, lingering just enough to make it feel intentional.

“Mm,” he murmured against his skin, quieter now. “You made it too easy.”

Before Gyujin could argue back, Seongjun rolled off him, taking the phone with him, and immediately pulled Gyujin along— tugging him back against his chest like it was second nature.

His arm wrapped around Gyujin’s waist again, snug and secure, his chin brushing lightly against Gyujin’s shoulder as he got comfortable.

“Let’s see,” Seongjun murmured, unlocking the phone casually, scrolling through with easy familiarity.

Gyujin huffed, but didn’t fight it this time, his body settling back despite himself.

“It’s literally just work,” he muttered.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Seongjun’s eyes flicked over the messages, his grip around Gyujin absentmindedly tightening and loosening as he readm.

“You covering his shift?” he said, almost under his breath.

“Yeah,” Gyujin replied flatly. “Told you.”

Seongjun hummed softly, the last bit of tension slipping out of him as he let the phone rest loosely in his hand. He didn’t apologize for making a big deal out of nothing as per usual, but then again, why would he? In Seongjun’s eyes, he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Gyujin exhaled quietly, staring at the ceiling for a second before nudging back just slightly.

“I need to get up,” he muttered, though he didn’t move yet. “I’ve got work.”

“Mm.”

Seongjun’s response was barely coherent, more a sound than an answer, his grip not loosening in the slightest.

Gyujin shifted again, a little more insistently this time. “Seongjun. I have to get up now.”

“I’ll drop you,” Seongjun said, voice low and easy, like that solved everything.

“That’s not the point,” Gyujin huffed, trying to twist slightly in his hold. “I still need to get ready—”

“For what?” Seongjun mumbled, words half-buried against Gyujin’s skin. “Who the hell are you trying to look good for there?”

Gyujin stilled.

“You don’t need to spend so long getting ready,” Seongjun added, quieter now, almost dismissive. “Just stay for a bit.”

There was no real force in it. Maybe that was worse, because it meant he knew Gyujin was going to listen anyway. And still, even knowing that, Gyujin’s chest warmed. 

He swallowed, his brows knitting faintly as the feeling settled in, unwelcome and familiar all at once. He wondered, not for the first time, how badly his high school years of being tormented by Seongjun had messed him up— how much of him had been rewired into something that responded like this, that wanted this, even now.

Even like this.

“This is fucking unfair, you know,” he said after a moment, the words coming out lighter than they should have, almost teasing. 

Seongjun didn’t respond right away.

Gyujin huffed softly, eyes flicking away.

Because even though Gyujin was joking, it was true. This was unfair.

After all, the one time Gyujin tried seeing someone else too, in sophomore year of college— the singular time he had attempted to have something normal, a romantic relationship that didn’t revolve around Seongjun— Seongjun had completely lost his mind. He’d called him until his phone wouldn’t stop vibrating, back-to-back until the screen colors blurred together, and when Gyujin finally blocked him, the calls just kept coming anyway— from new numbers, from unknown IDs, relentless enough that it stopped feeling like something he could ignore.

And when Gyujin tried to avoid him in person, Seongjun always found him.

He cornered him after lectures and outside his apartment, hands catching his shoulders, his wrists, shoving him back painfully enough to keep him there, harshly enough to make it impossible to walk away while he talked over him, forcing him to listen whether he wanted to or not. It didn’t matter how many times Gyujin said he was leaving, that he didn’t want this— Seongjun would just push him back again, cage him in, like the conversation wasn’t allowed to end until he said the right thing.

He smashed Gyujin’s phone in an attempt to stop him seeing the guy, and then bought him a new one to apologize. Gyujin just backed up his old contacts like it had never happened. 

When Seongjun realized that hadn’t worked, the messages changed.

Voicemails, this time. Slurred, uneven, quiet in a way that felt worse than shouting.

“If you don’t pick up, I’m gonna do something I can’t take back.”
“You’re just gonna leave me like this?”
“Come see me. Please, Gyujin. Just come see me.”

It had twisted something in Gyujin’s chest every time, guilt sinking in whether he wanted it to or not, until eventually, he went.

And Seongjun had been there, of course.

Sitting on the ground like he’d been waiting, a split lip, blood dried at the corner of his mouth, his knuckles scraped raw. Whether it had actually happened or whether he’d done it to himself, Gyujin never found out. Seongjun never explained.

Clearly, he didn’t feel like he needed to.

Because the moment Gyujin stepped closer, Seongjun looked up at him like that was all the proof he needed that his plan had worked.

And once Gyujin was there, he wasn’t allowed to leave. Seongjun locked the door, leaning against it and watching him, refusing to move no matter how many times Gyujin told him to get out of the way.

“Say it properly,” Seongjun had said instead, voice low, steady in a way that made it clear he wasn’t joking. “Say you’re done with him.”

Gyujin had tried to push past him.

Seongjun hadn’t let him.

Hours passed like that— arguments looping, tension tightening, the air in the room turning thick and suffocating— until eventually, exhausted and worn down, Gyujin said it.

And just like that, Seongjun’s entire face changed. The anger dropped so fast it was almost dizzying. His grip loosened, his expression softening like none of it had happened, like he hadn’t just forced the words out of him.

“There we go,” he murmured, stepping forward, pulling Gyujin into him without hesitation, arms wrapping around him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Like he’d always been allowed to. Like Gyujin had always belonged to him anyway, and this new guy was just a problem that needed to be fixed.

“I knew you’d come to your senses.” Seongjun had said quietly against his hair, almost soothing. 

Gyujin’s one and only relationship had ended after that. Not all at once, not cleanly— but there had never been a real chance for it to continue.

And now— Seongjun got to have a fiancée. A whole fucking fiancée that he was getting married to in a few months. 

The fucking irony.

“What’s unfair?” Seongjun cut through his thoughts.

Gyujin hesitated for a second, then let out a quiet scoff, shifting just enough to glance back at him.

“You acting like I’m worse than a murderer every time I text a guy,” he muttered, tone edged but still soft with sleep. “Like you’re not—”

“That’s not the same,” Seongjun cut in immediately, the response sharp, instinctive.

Gyujin rolled his eyes.

“Tch. You always say that.”

“Because you’re always being fucking difficult,” Seongjun shot back, his voice dropping, irritation slipping in easier now that he was more awake. His arm tightened again, pulling Gyujin back against him like the argument didn’t change anything about where he was supposed to be. “You know me and her are nothing.”

Gyujin went still for a moment.

He did know.

Or at least, he knew what Seongjun meant when he said it. That there was no point feeling guilty about something that was completely dissolved of attachment to begin with. 

And even if it wasn’t true— if Seongjun’s fiancée was, for some reason, madly in love with him, Gyujin doubted he had enough dignity left in him to feel guilty about anything anyway.

Still, he knew it was messed up.

“People that are nothing to each other don’t usually get married, you know.”

“Can you stop fucking bringing that up?” Seongjun grumbled, “it’s a stupid fucking ceremony, what’s going to change? I already live with her, you’re acting like being married means we’re handcuffed together or some shit.”

It kind of does mean that, Gyujin wanted to say. He wanted to. 

He didn’t.

“Whatever,” he huffed instead, the word coming out quieter than the rest of it had been.

He shifted forward this time, more decisively, prying himself out of Seongjun’s hold despite the resistance, sitting up at the edge of the bed. The cool air hit his skin immediately, a sharp contrast to the warmth he’d just pulled away from.

Behind him, Seongjun made a low, annoyed sound, something halfway between a complaint and a sigh, his hand catching weakly at Gyujin’s waist like he might pull him back down again.

Gyujin didn’t let him.

“Take me to work,” he said instead, running a hand through his hair, already trying to shake off the heaviness of the morning.

There was a pause.

Then another quiet, disgruntled exhale.

“… You and your shitty job seriously piss me off,” Seongjun muttered, though there was no real bite to it.

Still, he pushed himself up eventually, slow and reluctant as he dragged himself out of bed. His hair was a mess, his expression still half-lidded and irritated in a way that should’ve looked worse than it did.

It didn’t.

Unfortunately.

Gyujin glanced at him once, then quickly looked away.

The drive was quiet. Seongjun leaned back in his seat, one hand loosely on the wheel, the other resting against Gyujin’s thigh, his expression still faintly sour, like he hadn’t quite woken up enough yet. Every now and then, he’d glance over at Gyujin, like he wanted to say something else, but never did.

Gyujin didn’t push it.

When they pulled up outside the café, Seongjun didn’t turn off the engine.

Gyujin reached for the door handle, pausing just slightly.

“I’ll text you later,” Seongjun said, like it wasn’t even a question.

Gyujin hummed faintly. “K.”

Then he stepped out, the cool air hitting him again as he shut the door behind him.

He didn’t look back right away.

But he could feel it— the way Seongjun’s gaze lingered, the way he stayed parked there far longer than necessary before finally pulling off.

He was reluctant to leave. 

Just like always.

Gyujin’s shift passed the way it always did— steady, familiar, almost automatic.

He moved behind the counter with practiced ease, taking orders, calling them out, wiping down surfaces in between, his hands working faster than his thoughts most of the time. There was a rhythm to it that he’d grown used to, something mindless enough to settle into without thinking too hard about anything else.

Customers come and go in a blur of polite smiles and repeated phrases, his voice slipping easily into that soft, customer-friendly tone he put on without effort. He thanked them, apologized for wait times, recommended drinks he barely cares about, all with the same easy cadence.

In between, he exchanged half-hearted jokes with his coworkers, the kind that didn’t really land but still passed the time anyway.

“Why are you in such a good mood today?”

The question caught him off guard.

Gyujin glanced over, blinking slightly as one of his coworkers looked at him with mild suspicion, like they’d picked up on something he hadn’t.

“… Huh?”

“You’re, like, grinning from ear to ear,” they pointed out. “It’s weird.”

Gyujin scoffed automatically, shaking his head. “I’m not—”

But the words fall a little flat. Because he realized, a second too late, that they were right.

He was.

Not in an obvious enough way that he’d have been able to notice himself, but there was something lighter sitting in his chest, something that hadn’t been there all week.

And he fucking hated it.

He hated how easily it came back, how something as small as Seongjun staying over— once— after Gyujin had spent days ignoring him, putting distance between them, trying to get his head straight, had undone all of his efforts like they were nothing.

He was straight back to square one.

Gyujin just scoffed at his coworker, brushing it off. “You guys are imagining things.”

His coworker doesn’t look convinced, but they let it go.

And the shift dragged on.

The late afternoon lull settled in, quieter now, fewer customers, more time spent wiping already-clean tables or restocking things that don’t really need it. Gyujin was just about ready to clock out when the door opened again, the soft chime cutting through the quiet.

Three girls walked in together, laughing amongst themselves, their voices bright against the otherwise calm space.

Gyujin barely paid attention at first.

“Gyujin-ah,” his boss called from behind the counter, gesturing toward them. “Take that table before you go.”

“Will do,” he replied easily, grabbing a notepad as he moved.

He approached them with the same practiced ease, slipping into that polite, attentive tone without thinking.

“Hi, what can I get started for you—”

And then he stopped dead in his tracks. It was barely noticeable from the outside, but internally, every single microbiological process inside Gyujin’s cells shut down. 

Because sitting there, tucked between two of her friends, chatting easily like she had never known a complicated day in her life— was her.

Seongjun’s fiancée.

Gyujin knew it immediately.

Not because they had ever met, because they hadn’t, but because he had seen her before— too many times, late at night, staring at photos on Seongjun’s phone that he had no business lingering on, memorizing a face that had never once belonged in his world.

It’s her.

It’s definitely her.

For a moment, his thoughts scattered uselessly, static filling the space where something coherent should have been, until one sharp question cut through far too late to matter.

Why the hell is she here?

There was no answer, and no time to find one, because she was already looking at him, her attention settling on him in a way that forced him to move, to recover, to act.

He turned slightly, redirecting his focus to one of the other girls, his voice steady enough as he took her order, writing it down with hands that only just managed not to betray him. The next girl ordered just as easily.

By the time he finally turned to her, he had almost convinced himself he could get through it cleanly.

“And for you, ma’am?”

His tone was polite, neutral and carefully measured.

She looked up at him properly then, her gaze lingering just a second too long, something faintly curious in the way her eyes narrowed as if trying to place him somewhere he did not belong.

“Sorry,” she said softly, tilting her head, “do I know you from somewhere? You look really familia—”

“You don’t.”

The words came out too sharp, cutting her off before she could finish.

Shit.

He cleared his throat immediately, forcing a small, awkward smile that didn’t quite sit right on his face.

“I mean— uh, no, I don’t think so,” he corrected, the words tripping slightly. “I just work here, so maybe you’ve seen me before? We get a lot of regulars…”

He gestured vaguely, like that explained anything.

His voice felt too tight even to his own ears, his smile too forced no matter how carefully he tried to hold it in place.

She watched him for another moment, something unreadable settling in her expression, like she was trying to fit him into a memory that refused to fully form.

“But I’ve never been here before,” she added, almost thoughtfully. “I mean, my fiancé likes it here, so I wanted to try it, but I don’t think I’ve—”

“Then maybe you’re confusing me with someone else,” Gyujin cut in again, a nervous chuckle slipping out. “Happens all the time.”

“… Maybe,” she said eventually, though she didn’t sound entirely convinced.

Gyujin nodded a little too quickly.

“Yeah. Probably.”

The pause that followed stretched just long enough to feel awkward before she let it go, glancing back down at the menu.

“I’ll just have an iced latte.”

“Right,” Gyujin replied quickly, writing it down even though he had already memorized it. “Got it.”

He lingered half a second too long, then stepped back.

“Your drinks will be out soon.”

And then he turned, moving a little too fast as he headed back toward the counter, like distance alone might steady him.

While he made their drinks, he told himself— firmly, repeatedly— that it did not matter.

They were strangers. Proper strangers. People who existed in completely separate orbits, who would never cross paths again after this moment. Whatever she was to Seongjun had nothing to do with him, not really, not in any way that changed anything about what had already existed between him and Seongjun.

It had never mattered before.

It wasn’t going to start mattering now. Not when the wedding was close and this would all be over.

He moved through the motions carefully, almost methodically, letting the rhythm of the café take over as he poured, measured, and layered each drink with a detached focus that kept his thoughts from drifting too far in any one direction. By the time he finished, he had almost convinced himself that this was just another customer. 

He carried the tray over with the same casual confidence he always used at work, setting the drinks down one by one with a polite smile that sat neatly in place, his voice steady as he confirmed the orders and stepped back just slightly to give them space. It was automatic, practiced, nothing unusual about it at all.

His eyes dropped to her outreached hand.

The ring caught his attention before anything else did.

It wasn’t deliberate, not at first— it was just a flicker of light as she reached forward for her drink, something small and reflective that pulled his gaze down for half a second longer than it should have. It sat neatly against her finger, understated but unmistakable, and for a moment, Gyujin simply looked at it without attaching anything to it at all.

It was just a ring.

Just a piece of metal.

It was just something that belonged to her.

He blinked, dragging his attention back up as the conversation at the table continued around him, her friends leaning in with soft laughter and easy curiosity, their voices bright.

“That guy was totally staring at your ring. Let me see it again— no, properly this time.”

“It’s actually so pretty.”

“Did Seongjun pick it himself?”

She laughed, a quiet, almost bashful sound, turning her hand slightly without hesitation, like it was something she was used to showing.

“Yeah,” she said, and there was something warm threaded into her voice, something simple and unguarded. “He’s been really busy lately, too, but he still made time for it.”

“With wedding stuff?”

“Work, mostly,” she replied, brushing it off lightly. “You know how he is. But he helps when he can. He even stayed over at a friend’s place last night to work on the invites, so—” she smiled faintly, playing with her ring like she didn’t quite know what to do with it, “— he’s trying.”

Her friends cooed immediately, soft and delighted, their reactions spilling over one another.

“Aww!”

“It’s hard to find guys like that these days, girl!”

“Seriously, you got lucky.”

Gyujin stood there just long enough for it to still be considered normal, the empty tray balanced loosely in his hands, his expression settled into something neutral and unremarkable. He listened, but nothing in him shifted, nothing tightened or twisted the way it probably should have.

Because the thing was, he knew.

He knew exactly what she was talking about, exactly where Seongjun had been the night before, exactly what those words actually meant beneath the neat, harmless version she was being given. And if she didn’t know— if she didn’t see it— then maybe that was better. Maybe it was kinder that way.

Let her stay oblivious.

Let her have that version of him.

It didn’t have anything to do with Gyujin, and it never really had.

He stepped back with a polite nod, murmuring something about enjoying their drinks before turning away, his movements smooth and practiced, his mind already moving on as he made his way toward the back.

There was no weight to it. No lingering feeling.

Nothing.

And besides, his shift was over anyway.

By the time he pushed open the backroom door, the conversation had already faded into the background of the café, swallowed up by the clatter of cups and the low hum of voices, and Gyujin let it disappear just as easily as it had come.

He grabbed his bag from where he’d left it, slinging it loosely over his shoulder, already thinking about getting home, about finally being done with the shift that had dragged just a little longer than expected.

It wasn’t until he pulled his phone out that something shifted.

The screen lit up immediately.

A string of messages. The usual spam from Seongjun.

Seongjun [18:13]
why u not responding? ur shift ended 12 mins ago

Seongjun [18:13]
are u ignoring me again

Seongjun [18:14]
gyujin

Seongjun [18:14]
do i need to fuck u out of silence again

Gyujin stared at them for a second, his thumb hovering just above the screen, not hesitating so much as pausing.

Still, he typed.

You [18:15]
had to stay longer to serve ur gf

The reply came almost instantly.

Seongjun [18:15]
???

You [18:16]
she’s here with her friends

There was a brief pause this time, just long enough to register.

Seongjun [18:16]
damn

Seongjun [18:16]
u speak to her?

Gyujin leaned back slightly against the counter behind him, his gaze dropping to the floor as he typed again, slower this time, though he couldn’t quite say why.

You [18:17]
a little

You [18:17]
heard her tell her friends u stayed over with a friend last night

Another pause.

Shorter.

Seongjun [18:18]
loool can’t believe that bullshit excuse worked

Gyujin’s fingers stilled for a moment.

Just a moment.

Then—

You [18:20]
is that what i am to u? a friend?

The response came quicker than anything else.

Seongjun [18:21]
dont be fucking stupid

Seongjun [18:22]
i had to say something

Seongjun [18:22]
u know what u are to me

Gyujin stared at the words for a second longer than he needed to, his expression unreadable even to himself, before his thumb moved to lock the screen.

The phone slipped back into his pocket.

And that should have been it.

Usually, it was.

Usually, after even the shortest exchange with Seongjun, after a handful of messages that meant nothing and everything at the same time, something in his chest would loosen, soften, fill with that same familiar, embarrassing warmth he had long since stopped trying to justify.

But this time, it didn’t come. Instead, something else settled in its place. Slow at first, subtle enough that he almost missed it. 

And strangely, it wasn’t guilt.

There was no guilt there at all, not even the faint, expected kind he might have assumed would come with hearing her speak like that.

Instead, what sat there— heavy, consuming, almost suffocating— was something far less rational.

Jealousy.

Not jealousy that she loved Seongjun, per se, not even jealousy that Seongjun was marrying her, but something more humiliating— he was jealous of the fact that she could believe it so easily. The fact that she could sit there smiling, completely unaware of everything layered underneath that simple, unquestioned certainty.

She got to love the version of Seongjun that was loyal and devoted and whole. She got to live with the version of Seongjun that made sense.

And Gyujin—

Gyujin had only ever known the parts that did not.

He only got the version of Seongjun that blurred every line between them until none of them meant anything, the version that treated commitment like something flexible, something optional, something that only existed if he decided it did. He got the version that genuinely believed marriage was nothing more than a ceremony and a piece of paper that couldn’t possibly outweigh whatever it was he felt for Gyujin.

He got the version that never considered consequences, because in Seongjun’s mind, if something didn’t matter to him, then it didn’t matter at all.

Gyujin exhaled sharply through his nose, shaking his head as if he could physically dislodge the feeling before it settled any deeper.

It didn’t work.

It lingered, dull and uncomfortable, coating everything else in something faintly sour as he reached for his bag and slung it over his shoulder, his movements automatic, his thoughts still lagging somewhere behind him.

He didn’t want to stay here any longer.

The café suddenly felt too small, too loud, like the air itself had shifted in a way that made it harder to breathe properly, and even though nothing had actually changed, everything felt just slightly off.

He pushed the backroom door open and stepped out, adjusting his grip on the strap of his bag as he moved toward the exit, keeping his gaze forward, deliberately avoiding the direction of her table.

Almost.

Because as he passed, his eyes flickered sideways without permission, catching just a glimpse of her again— still entirely at ease in a way that made something twist faintly in his chest before he could stop it.

At that exact moment, his phone buzzed. The sound felt louder than it should have.

He pulled it out without thinking.

Seongjun [18:29]
everyone’s pissing me off today. might come over later 

Seongjun [18:29]
so don’t be in a shitty mood too

Seongjun [18:29]
u craving anything?

Gyujin stared at the screen, his steps slowing just slightly as the words settled in.

He scoffed at the audacity Seongjun had to invite himself over two nights in a row when he knew Gyujin had been making so much progress ignoring him. Perhaps he knew all too well that all of Gyujin’s efforts had been reset. 

For a moment, Gyujin thought about responding. But just as he was about to, something tight pulled low in his chest again— not sharp this time, not overwhelming, but just enough to remind him that the feeling from earlier hadn’t actually gone anywhere. That it was still sitting there, waiting, ready to resurface the second he let it.

The wedding was close.

It was getting closer by the second, and Gyujin still had to make good on his promise to leave if it went through. He was firm on that— even if he didn’t know how long it would last, he was sure he was going to cut things off the moment Seongjun signed his life away to someone else. He didn’t care if Seongjun didn’t see it that way, or if he brushed it off like always.

Because if he didn’t start pulling away now— properly, seriously this time— then that feeling, that same ugly, suffocating jealousy, would come back.

And it wouldn’t leave.

He could already feel the edges of it lingering, like something unfinished.

Gyujin swallowed, his grip tightening slightly around his phone before he locked the screen again, slipping it back into his pocket as he pushed the café door open and stepped outside.

The air outside was cool, the evening breeze making it so much easier for him to breathe.

I’ll start again, he thought to himself, I’ll just have to start pulling away again.

Resetting his progress once didn’t mean he should just give up. It didn’t mean he couldn’t do it. He just had to be stricter this time. He needed to start creating distance now, so that when the day finally came— when Seongjun’s time ran out and Gyujin would give up on him— it wouldn’t hurt so much.

His steps slowed for a moment, his thoughts catching, wavering at the edges of that resolve.

And then, almost instinctively, he reached into his pocket again, pulling his phone out like it had a pull on him he couldn’t quite shake.

He stared at the blank screen for a second, then unlocked it again.

He’d start pulling away again. Properly.

This time, he meant it.

You [18:37]
stir fried tteokbokki

You [18:38]
get the chewy one from last time

Seongjun [18:38]
whatever you want doll

Just maybe not this soon.

Countdown to Wedding: Two Months Remaining

Fall exams made avoiding Seongjun a whole lot easier than it had been before. Every time a text pinged on his phone from Seongjun, saying he was on his way to pick Gyujin up— or telling him to open the door— Gyujin would reply that he was studying somewhere else and tell Seongjun to stop distracting him.

Seongjun never took it lightly (because he never took anything lightly— except, apparently, his own marital status), and he always had a complaint ready. But Gyujin usually only needed to send a photo or two, or call him hyung with a soft, apologetic tone over a short phone call, to get him to shut up.

Which meant Gyujin’s expectations for his exam results were optimistic, and his plan to slowly distance himself was very much beginning to work. It was a win-win.

It amazed him, sometimes, how peaceful life could be when he lived it for himself.

When he could visit coffee shops, go to the campus library, and play video games alone in his room until 3am without anyone disturbing him. He had grown used to the solitude, to the quiet reassurance that his own company could be enough.

If he didn’t think about it too much, he didn’t mind the idea of living like this for the rest of his life— didn’t mind treating this as a preview of what things would look like once Seongjun made a choice he could never undo.

If he did think about it too much, though, his mind wandered in directions he tried not to follow. He wondered what Seongjun was doing. Whether he was eating properly, sleeping enough. He wondered if it had finally occurred to him that what he was stepping into was serious— that marriage was a commitment, even if it hadn’t felt like one before. He doubted it had— or that it ever would— but still, the thought lingered.

But that wasn’t his business anymore.

Well— at least, it wouldn’t be in two months.

So for now, he responded to Seongjun’s sporadic messages, answered his calls, and accepted his gifts, all while trying to detach himself as much as he could. And even if it was easier said than done—it was still being done.

Seongjun had tried showing up at Gyujin’s apartment uninvited a couple of times, as if the distance between them could be ignored if he simply closed it himself. Each time, Gyujin met him with some variation of the same response— an excuse about being busy, a quick apology through the door, or a casual mention that he was just about to head out anyway. He tried not to let him in so much.

It became routine in a way neither of them acknowledged.

One day, four months before the wedding, around mid-fall, Gyujin woke with an odd heaviness settled deep in the pit of his stomach. It clung to him as he got ready, as he slung his bag over his shoulder, as he stepped out into the cool air and made his way toward campus.

He didn’t really care to figure out what it was, so he decided to just ignore it. 

By the time he reached his lecture hall, he had already put his headphones in, music filling the space around him until it dulled the edges of everything else. Conversations blurred into background noise, footsteps softened, the world narrowing into something quieter, more manageable.

On the walk across campus earlier, he had passed a Real Madrid poster taped to a bus stop. It was a celebratory image from a recent game they’d won in the Champions League. Without thinking too much about it, he took out his phone and snapped a quick picture, sending it to Seongjun with no caption attached, thinking he’d like it. He ignored all of Seongjun’s messages from the night before.

It wasn’t until he locked his phone, the display going dark for a brief second before lighting up again, that the date appeared clearly in front of him.

And for a moment, everything in him stilled.

Because he recognized it immediately.

Today was the five-year anniversary of the school shooting.

The heaviness in his chest shifted, deepened— something sharper now, something that settled in behind his ribs and made it just a little harder to breathe.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, the word barely audible beneath the music still playing faintly through his headphones. “Shouldn’t have checked.”

Gyujin’s rehabilitation had been a horrible process that he wouldn’t wish on his own enemy. He was stuck in endless counseling sessions with people who seemed detached at best, classes where teachers spoke to him like his future was already over, volunteer shifts where strangers looked at his uniform with thinly veiled pity or quiet disgust— sometimes both at once.

He had tried, at the beginning.

The police officer who had saved him— Officer Lee Do— used to visit every few weeks, keeping in contact with his mom, asking how he was doing. Gyujin always told him the same thing: that he was fine, that he was getting better and that he was grateful for everything the officer had done for him. He assured him convincingly enough, even when most of his days ended with him breaking down into his mom’s shoulder.

But perhaps there was something almost merciful about staying in rehab for a year, because the panic attacks only began once he got out. The horrific, soul crushing fear that he was remembering everything wrong and that he really had killed someone that day. The voices that would tell him he had blood on his hands and that the fact that he was continuing to live even after doing that— after ending someone’s life— was disgusting. 

It had been three years since the panic attacks started, and he hadn’t really told anyone about them. He didn’t want to tell his mom, and they were too inconsistent to talk to a doctor about. And besides, he was scared they’d send him back to rehab if they thought he was losing his mind or something— which he wasn’t. 

He wasn’t.

They just— came sometimes.

And they were always worse on the anniversary.

Gyujin hated talking about it. He hated acknowledging it. He hated the creeping awareness that built in his chest the moment he realized what day it was— the quiet certainty that something was coming, that he wouldn’t be able to stop it once it started.

But what he hated most was something else entirely.

He hated that the only time it ever seemed to get better— truly better— was when he was with Kang fucking Seongjun.

Back in his first year of college, when the panic attacks came so frequently he barely had a full day to recover before the next one threatened to crash over him, Seongjun had always been able to tell. He never said how, but he always knew.

He knew what to say, what to do— how to move, how to ground him, how to pull him back before he spiraled too far. And somehow, every single time, it worked.

Before Seongjun had gotten a girlfriend, he would stay with Gyujin for days at a time, lingering like he just happened to be around. Like he wasn’t deliberately keeping watch.

But Gyujin had seen it.

That constant edge in his eyes. That quiet, underlying panic, like he was bracing himself in case something set Gyujin off again. Even if he pretended not to, Seongjun cared.

This was the first anniversary since rehab that Gyujin would be spending without him.

And when the thought of the wedding surfaced— sharp and unwelcome— he realized something worse.

It would be the first of many.

His throat tightened slightly as he stared at his phone for a moment longer before unlocking it again, his thumb hovering for only a second before he reopened Seongjun’s messages from the night before.

This time, he read them.

Seongjun [23:31]
got some time off work

Seongjun [23:31]
lets do something tomorrow

Seongjun [23:32]
u better be free

Seongjun [23:33]
i stg if u give me some shitty excuse about studying ill kill u

Seongjun [23:33]
put the laptop down and eat something

Gyujin let out a quiet breath, something between a sigh and a laugh, before placing his phone face down on the table.

Seongjun always did this.

He always found some excuse— some casual reason to see him without ever saying what the day actually was. Like if he didn’t name it, it wouldn’t carry any weight.

Gyujin had always known what he was doing, and, up until now, he had always gone along with it.

But this year, he couldn’t. Because if he gave in now, then what about next year? What about the year after that, when Seongjun would still be married, and seeing him wouldn’t be this easy— or wouldn’t happen at all?

No.

This year, he was going to stand his ground.

Even if it meant dealing with it alone.

By the time his class ended, the room felt smaller than it had before, the air heavier in a way he couldn’t quite shake. He packed his things without lingering, slipping his headphones back on as soon as he stepped outside.

Then he turned the music up even louder.

Loud enough to drown out everything else.

Because he wasn’t going to let his own trauma be a point of dependence. He was going to manage on his own. He could manage on his own. 

He had to manage on his own. 

Sleep didn’t come easily that night.

Gyujin lay on his side, then his back, then his stomach, the sheets tangling loosely around his legs as he shifted for what felt like the hundredth time. His phone sat face down on the nightstand, untouched, like it had been all evening.

For a while, he was fine.

Not calm, exactly— but he was managing. His thoughts moved slowly, sluggishly, like they were wading through something thick, never quite settling but not spiraling either. He focused on small things— the hum of the heater, the soft rustle of fabric when he shifted, the steady rhythm of his own breathing.

In and then out, in and out, in and out.

It worked well enough, until he heard it.

A gunshot.

And then another— sharp and deafening bangs that rang out too close, echoing violently through the confined space of the library, each one louder than the last. His body reacted before his mind fully caught up, legs unsteady beneath him as he tried to stay upright, tried to keep moving even as everything inside him started to shake loose.

The air felt too cold against his skin.

At his fingertips first, then deeper— like temperature itself had changed without warning. And then there was weight. Cold metal pressed into his hands, heavy and unmistakably real, his fingers curling around it automatically even as something in his chest recoiled hard enough to make him feel sick.

Seongjun was right in front of him.

Frozen.

Both hands raised like that alone could stop what was already happening, like surrender could rewrite the moment. His eyes were wide— too wide— shining with tears that hadn’t fallen yet, his breathing uneven and broken as he tried to speak.

“W-wait, wait, w-wait—” His voice cracked immediately, splintering under its own weight. “Gyujin-ah, I’m sorry, I’m sor—”

The words didn’t finish.

Gyujin pulled the trigger, pointing the gun up to the ceiling, just to make it stop. Just to make the voice stop. 

The sound that followed swallowed everything else.

And yet Seongjun was still shaking, still begging, like it would change anything. Like he hadn’t got himself into this mess and deserved to see the ending. 

“I’m sorry, Gyujin-ah, I’m so—so sorry—”

His voice broke apart completely as he stumbled backward across the library floor, palms slipping against polished wood as he tried to create distance between them that didn’t exist anymore. Every movement was frantic, uncoordinated, survival reduced to something raw and desperate.

“Gyujin-ah, please.”

Gyujin saw everything too clearly, as if time had slowed just to make it impossible to escape. The way Seongjun’s chest rose too fast, the way his hands trembled harder as he pushed himself away, the way his eyes never left Gyujin’s face— searching, searching, searching— like there was still something in him that could undo what was already done.

Like there was still time.

But the gun was already raised.

And all it took was one shot.

Bang!

—Gyujin shot upright in bed, the breath tearing out of his lungs in a sharp, uneven gasp.

For a second, he didn’t know where he was.

The room didn’t make sense. Shadows shifted wrong across the walls, his heartbeat slammed too hard against his ribs, and his vision struggled to settle on anything real. His hands were empty— but they didn’t feel empty. There was still something there, phantom weight pressing into his palms, lingering like his body hadn’t been told the moment was over.

His chest rose and fell too fast, too shallow, like it had forgotten the concept of pacing entirely.

It took a moment before the edges of reality started to return. Until he realized he was in his room, in his bed, and not back in high school. Not in that cursed library. There were no bookshelves surrounding him, no windows leaking in unwanted light, no Seongjun lying motionless on the floor. 

It was just a nightmare.

Gyujin dragged a hand down his face, breathing still uneven, his throat tight as he forced himself to stay still long enough to convince his body it was over. 

“Fuck,” he murmured under his breath, barely audible, the word fragile in a way he didn’t mean it to be.

Carefully, quietly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, rubbing one hand over his arm as if trying to physically shake off the feeling still clinging to his skin. The floor was cold under his feet, grounding in a way the bed no longer was.

He needed water.

He stepped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen without turning on the main lights, letting the dim spill from the street outside guide him instead. The apartment was quiet in a different way now— less heavy, but still far too empty.

He reached for a glass.

And that was when his hand stopped.

It didn’t fully freeze— but it felt interrupted, like his body had suddenly lost track of what it was doing. His fingers hovered near the cabinet door, unsteady, as a faint, familiar tightness flickered in his chest.

It was small at first.

Almost ignorable.

He blinked, trying to refocus, trying to complete the simple motion of opening the cabinet, but the sensation didn’t stay small. It spread too quickly— tightening, deepening, familiar in a way that made something in his stomach drop before he even fully registered it.

His breathing changed without permission. One second it was too fast, then it was too shallow, then both, then neither, and then it repeated all over again.

He set the glass down on the counter instead of taking it, hand lingering there a moment too long as his brain tried to correct itself, clearly he was sleep deprived and still recovering from the nightmare—

His chest tightened again. And this time, it didn’t ease.

It didn’t plateau, didn’t settle into anything he could manage. It just kept rising, his body forgetting where the limit was supposed to be and pushing past it without permission.

Gyujin crouched on the kitchen floor, one hand still pressed somewhere near the edge of the counter. The tiles beneath him were cold enough to sting through the fabric of his clothes, but even that grounding sensation was starting to blur at the edges.

Each inhale came in too shallow, too sharp, like it never reached his lungs properly before the next one forced itself in. His chest moved too quickly to keep rhythm with anything else, rising and collapsing in a pattern that didn’t feel like breathing anymore so much as a survival reflex.

His heart hammered against his ribs in a way that made him dizzy just noticing it.

Something’s wrong.

It was beating too fast and too loud and too—

Something’s wrong with me.

He swallowed, but his throat felt tight, almost narrowed. His fingers flexed against the counter again without meaning to, searching for something stable, something external, something that wasn’t his own body betraying him.

I– I killed him, I fucking killed him, and now—

The darkness in the corners of the kitchen felt heavier now, not just empty space but something active, something watching. It pressed in closer with every uneven breath he took, shrinking the world down until it felt like there was nowhere left to go.

And then—

Seongjun.

I need to call him. I have to call him.

Gyujin’s head lifted slightly, eyes unfocused, as if the idea itself had pulled him upward. His chest tightened immediately in response, breath catching halfway through another failed inhale, but the thought didn’t leave. It just pressed harder.

Call him.

Every bit of belief that he could survive this on his own drained out of his body at once. He needed proof that Seongjun was alive. He had to find a way, any way, to convince himself he hadn’t killed him that day. He needed to hear his voice.

His hand moved before his mind fully agreed.

He reached for his phone.

It was sitting on the kitchen counter where he had left it earlier, face-up, screen dark, just close enough that he didn’t have to stand fully to grab it. His fingers brushed the edge of it first, then closed around it.

But his hand was shaking too hard— an uncontrolled, violent unsteadiness that made the phone suddenly feel heavier than it should have been, slipping in his grip no matter how tightly he tried to hold it. His breathing stuttered again as he tried to stabilize everything at once— his hand, his chest, his thoughts— but nothing was cooperating.

The screen lit up briefly as it tilted, catching his face in a warped reflection he didn’t register fully.

He tried to unlock it, but his thumb missed. 

He tried again, but the next inhale hit wrong— too shallow, too tight— and his focus fractured completely for a second.

His grip failed. The phone dropped fast, sliding out of his shaking hand and off the edge of the counter with a dull, final sound that hit the floor harder than it should have.

For a moment, there was silence.

The phone lying face down on the tiles. The soft hum of the fridge. The gentle streetlights through the window. 

And then everything in him spiked.

It hit his brain like something catastrophic. It felt like losing that one point of contact had severed something important. His chest lurched in response, breath turning even faster, more panicked.

“Fuck, I—” he tried, but the words broke apart immediately, collapsing into air.

This was his fucking fault. This was his own fault. If he didn’t let his pride get in the way and tell Seongjun to leave him, if he wasn’t so focused on distancing himself, Seongjun would be here right now. Now, all he had, the only thing he could cling to, was the hope that Seongjun would ignore his demands, that Seongjun would ignore Gyujin’s wishes to be alone.

He leaned forward too quickly, one hand reaching down instinctively, fingers scraping against the floor as if he could grab it back without standing. His vision blurred at the edges again, not fully blacking out but losing coherence, the kitchen shifting slightly out of focus.

The phone was right there, it was a few inches away from him, all he had to do was just reach—

His body wouldn’t cooperate.

His hand shook harder when he tried again, and his chest tightened so sharply he had to stop mid-motion, curling slightly inward as another wave of panic surged through him. His breathing was so fast now it barely felt like breathing at all— just air hitting resistance, not completing, not satisfying anything inside his lungs.

He pressed his forehead briefly toward his arm without meaning to, like his body was trying to fold in on itself, trying to reduce how much space it occupied in a room that suddenly felt too large and too empty.

Call him.

His fingers twitched on the floor once, searching again for the phone, but even that motion felt distant, disconnected.

The idea of Seongjun— of calling, of hearing his voice, of anything breaking through this— was still there, but it was getting harder to hold onto.

His body was no longer giving him enough air to think in full sentences. His breathing fractured further, slipping into something barely structured at all, and his hand, still shaking, fell still beside him for a moment as the panic swallowed the rest of the thought entirely.

There was nothing left in his head except breath that wouldn’t settle.

And a chest that wouldn’t stop hurting.

His knees shifted under him, unsteady, like they couldn’t decide whether to hold him up or give out completely. His hands finally moved to scramble lightly against the floor, searching for balance, for orientation, for anything that wasn’t this suffocating, spiraling pressure in his chest.

And then—

There was a sound at the door, faint at first. Too easy to miss over the noise in his own head.

Taps of someone typing in a pin.

The click of something being entered too easily.

Gyujin barely registered it.

Or maybe he did— either way, it didn’t matter. Nothing outside his body mattered enough to break through what was happening inside it. His lungs were still failing him in uneven, broken pulls of air, each inhale too shallow to feel like anything useful, each exhale slipping out too fast to reset anything.

The kitchen stayed half-formed around him— dark edges, warped shadows, the counter too far and too close at the same time.

My phone.

I need my phone.

That was the only thought that kept repeating with any clarity at all.

His hand reached again, unsteady, searching blindly along the counter, fingers scraping over the cold surface until they hit the edge of it. The relief was immediate and desperate even before he had it properly in his grasp.

There.

He grabbed it— too hard at first, then too loose as his grip betrayed him again, shaking. The screen flickered on briefly, lighting up his face in fragmented flashes he didn’t process.

I need to call him.

His thumb fumbled against the screen.

His breathing hitched sharply, chest locking for a second as another wave of panic surged through him, making his vision blur at the edges. He tried to steady his hand against the counter, but it only made the shaking worse, more obvious, more uncontrollable.

And then—

“Gyujin?”

The voice hit the room like it belonged somewhere else. It sounded close, almost too close, but Gyujin didn’t register it as a person yet. Not properly. It was just sound layered on top of sound, competing with the rush in his ears, the pounding in his chest, the broken rhythm of his breathing.

He still wasn’t getting enough air.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Another voice— sharper now, louder, threaded with something that might have been panic— but Gyujin couldn’t attach meaning to it. His focus narrowed entirely onto the phone in his hands, slipping again, too heavy, too hard to hold steady.

“Hey— hey, look at me.”

The voice was closer now.

But it didn’t matter.

Gyujin shook his head sharply, like he could dislodge the noise around him, like he could force his body to cooperate long enough to make the call. His chest was tightening harder now, each breath coming in shorter bursts, each one less useful than the last.

He tried again.

His fingers were slipping.

The phone tilted dangerously in his grip.

“No—” he gasped out, but it wasn’t directed at anything outside him. It was just frustration, desperation, the collapse of control. “No, come on—”

“Gyujin, what is it— what are you doing?”

The words didn’t land.

They passed through him like background noise.

He shifted unsteadily, trying to turn away, trying to get to a position where his hands would work better, where his breathing would stabilize enough to let him dial properly. His body moved wrong, too slow, too disconnected, and his shoulder bumped the counter hard enough to jolt him sideways.

The phone nearly fell again.

He caught it at the last second, fingers clamping down harder, shaking worse now.

His breath came in a sharp, broken pull that didn’t complete.

Call him.

Call Seongjun.

I just need—

“Gyujin.”

The voice was closer again.

Still irrelevant.

Still not processed.

Gyujin took one step back, then another, and then another to the living room, trying to create enough space to focus, to see, to breathe, but his body still didn’t cooperate properly. His legs were unsteady, his vision still narrowed, the world reduced to the phone in his hand and the overwhelming, suffocating need to make it work.

And then suddenly he felt his entire body fall. He didn’t know if he had been pushed or if he’d dropped on his own, but the couch hit beneath him, and all he felt was the shift in direction and loss of control.

He tried to curl inward immediately, instinctively, like making himself smaller might fix whatever was happening inside his chest. His hands lifted weakly, not pushing in any meaningful way, just reacting— fingers trembling, half-formed resistance that didn’t have strength behind it.

Everything was too loud in his head and too distant outside of it at the same time.

I killed him. I killed him and now I’m being punished. This is my punis—

Something was hovering over him. 

Gyujin flinched back automatically, but there was nowhere to go. His shoulders barely lifted before his body gave out again, collapsing against the cushions as another sharp, useless inhale tore through him and didn’t resolve into anything usable.

Seongjun’s voice cut through. Sharp. Sharp enough that he finally heard it over his own thoughts. 

“Gyujin, listen to me.”

That voice…

“Are you listening?”

Seongjun’s here. It finally clicked.

Gyujin tried to respond, but nothing came out except another broken breath that hit wrong halfway through, leaving him more lightheaded, more disconnected from his own body. His hands scrabbled slightly against the couch cushion without direction, searching for something to anchor to but not finding anything solid enough.

All he could manage was a faint nod, ut it was enough of a sign of life for Seongjun to move.

He climbed over him just enough to press his full weight down, pinning Gyujin beneath him. His body settled over Gyujin’s in a way that removed space entirely, chest-to-chest, grounding him with something heavy and deliberate. His arm braced, completely enclosing him, making it impossible for Gyujin’s body to keep flailing outward into the spiral. There was no room left for distance, no space for the panic to expand into something bigger.

At first, Gyujin’s system fought it.

It always did, for a second.

A sharp, instinctive spike of resistance ran through him— shoulders tensing, fingers tightening against fabric without meaning to, breath catching harder as his brain registered pressure without understanding safety yet. But it didn’t escalate the way it usually would. It couldn’t. There was nowhere for it to go.

Seongjun was completely pressed against him.

“Gyujin,” Seongjun said immediately, voice lower now, steadier, right against him so Gyujin didn’t have to search for it. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’m alive.”

Gyujin didn’t process the words as meaning at first. They broke apart in his head, scattered fragments lost beneath the noise of his own breathing, which was still too fast, still too shallow, still refusing to regulate properly under the pressure of everything happening at once. But the weight above him interrupted the rhythm anyway, cutting off the escalation before it could rebuild itself again.

Seongjun didn’t shift away. He didn’t give him space or loosen the hold. He stayed exactly as he was— firm and grounding, the only way he knew this would work.

“I’m right here,” he said quietly, slower now, each word placed carefully as if he was building something stable over the panic. “You’re okay.”

Gyujin’s fingers, which had been clenched tightly into Seongjun’s shirt without him fully realizing it, loosened slightly. His shoulders, still tense, began to drop in uneven increments, small shifts that showed the fight inside him was slowly losing its edge.

Seongjun adjusted without lifting his weight, keeping him fully contained, like he knew exactly how much pressure Gyujin needed to stay anchored without being overwhelmed by it.

“You’re alive,” he said, firmer now, like he needed Gyujin’s body to hear it even if his mind couldn’t. “I’m alive. Nobody’s dead. Got it?”

Gyujin’s throat clenched briefly, but it didn’t spiral this time. It just lingered, caught between reaction and release, like his body didn’t have the energy to keep escalating.

His breathing was still uneven, still broken at the edges, but the pattern began to stretch— just slightly, just enough that the inhales weren’t collapsing immediately afterward anymore.

His panic was losing momentum. Something inside him had finally started running out of fuel.

Seongjun’s breathing stayed steady against him the entire time, slow and deliberate, and after a moment, Gyujin’s body began to follow it in fractured, incomplete steps.

One inhale that didn’t immediately break.

One exhale that didn’t rush to replace it.

Then another.

The suffocation didn’t vanish entirely, but it stopped rising. It stopped building. It stopped feeling like it was actively swallowing him whole.

Seongjun didn’t release him. Instead, he stayed forcefully pressed against him, constant and unchanging, until Gyujin’s breathing shifted from frantic collapse into something softer.

Gyujin’s eyelids gradually began to feel heavier then, like the adrenaline that had been keeping them open was finally draining out of his system. The sounds around him dulled, Seongjun’s voice becoming less distinct, but still present enough to follow.

His body stopped fighting so hard to stay upright. The couch felt less like something he was clinging to and more like something holding him. And Seongjun was still there, still speaking steadily.

Gyujin, still pressed beneath him, finally let his eyes close. 

And without really meaning to, he slipped under completely.

Gyujin woke slowly, like his body was surfacing from somewhere deeper than sleep, dragged up through layers of heaviness that didn’t immediately make sense to him. The first thing he registered wasn’t light or sound, but warmth.

The warmth of fingers carefully brushing his hair back behind his ear again and again with a kind of absent familiarity.

His eyes opened gradually, adjusting to the muted light of the room, and for a few seconds he just stared, still half caught between sleep and confusion, trying to assemble why someone was sitting so close, why the air felt so anchored, why nothing in him was immediately panicking despite how disoriented he felt.

Seongjun was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand still moving through Gyujin’s hair in that slow, repetitive gesture, tucking it neatly back behind his ear before letting it fall and doing it again. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Gyujin muttered, voice rough from sleep, immediately narrowing his eyes.

Seongjun didn’t even look startled. If anything, he looked annoyingly calm, like he had already accepted whatever version of Gyujin he was going to get this morning.

“The fuck do you mean what am I doing?” He rolled his eyes, continuing the motion of tucking Gyujin’s hair behind his ear without breaking rhythm. “I’m helping you, dumbass.”

Gyujin frowned, reaching blindly for his phone on the nightstand. The screen lit up too bright for his still-drowsy eyes, and it took him a second longer than it should have to register the time.

2:14 PM. The next day.

His expression flattened immediately.

“… Why are you still here?” he muttered, then turned his head back toward Seongjun with a sharper edge creeping in now that his brain was fully catching up. “Seongjun, go home. I was asleep, you could’ve just left ages ago.”

“Like I could even if I wanted to,” he said.

Gyujin blinked. “What?”

“You kept waking up every time I tried to get off you,” Seongjun continued. “I couldn’t even fucking move without you losing your mind again. Not like I had a shit ton of options.”

God, that’s fucking embarrassing, Gyujin thought to himself. 

It was embarrassing that the singular time he’d tried to independently deal with his own trauma, he’d ended up relying on Seongjun again. And plus, if Seongjun wasn’t looking at him this softly, he’d probably be pissed off. Didn’t Gyujin tell him not to show up randomly like it was his apartment? What the hell was he even doing at Gyujin’s that late in the middle of the night?

Gyujin turned his gaze slightly toward the ceiling, trying to find interest in absolutely anything else, but the heat creeping up his neck gave him away anyway.

Seongjun noticed. A faint hum of amusement left him as he kept tucking Gyujin’s hair behind his ear. 

“You used to do that all the time.”

Gyujin glanced at him again despite himself. “Do what?”

“Not sleep unless I was fully on top of you like some fucking weighted blanket,” Seongjun said, almost fondly now, like the memory had softened over time. “Remember? And every time I tried to move a little off of you so you could breathe properly, you’d wake up like a fucking demon and glare at me til I moved back.”

There was a pause after that, not uncomfortable, but full of something neither of them immediately named.

Gyujin remembered it then, unhelpfully clearly— first year, when everything had been simpler in a way that now felt almost unreal. When Seongjun had stayed over without overthinking it because there was no girlfriend or fiancée or wife waiting at home. When sleep only came properly to Gyujin if there was pressure against his chest, if Seongjun was completely suffocating him into slumber.

“Talk about terrible timing,” Gyujin muttered under his breath. “Why would that come back now?”

Seongjun shrugged lightly. “Why not? I still showed up, didn’t I?”

“Maybe this time,” Gyujin said, his voice flattening slightly. “You won’t in two months.”

Seongjun groaned immediately, dragging a hand down his face. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake— this again? Can you stop acting like I’m dying or something?”

“You said I only had to give you until the wedd—”

“Yeah, but if you’re only saying that because you think I’m going to disappear or something, forget it,” Seongjun cut in, sharper now. “It’s not a big deal.”

Gyujin didn’t know what world Seongjun thought he was living in.

Maybe for a normal family— with an average income and ordinary in-laws— marriage wasn’t something that changed everything overnight. But Seongjun wasn’t marrying into anything ordinary. He was stepping into a family built on power and money, into a life where his father-in-law was also his current boss, where every decision would carry weight Gyujin couldn’t even begin to touch. It was a big deal— life-changing, whether Seongjun wanted to admit it or not.

And if he really thought he could somehow drag Gyujin into that world with him, that he could just keep things the same through sheer stubbornness alone, then he was even more naïve than Gyujin had given him credit for.

But looking up at him now, at his furrowed brow caused by the very mention of his marriage, at the way his eyes had only left Gyujin’s face to blink, Gyujin didn’t think he had it in him to say any of that out loud.

“You don’t think you’ll regret it?” He asked instead.

Seongjun shrugged again. 

“I told you, there’s no point. Regret is for things that matter. I’ll be fine.”

“Really? Not even a little?”

Seongjun scoffed. “Why are you being so sappy all of a sudden? You know something I don’t? Did a shaman tell you this marriage is bad luck or something?”

Gyujin didn’t respond.

There was something else sitting at the edge of his thoughts— something he had been holding back for a long time. He already knew the answer. He had no expectation that it would be anything other than what he’d always assumed. But still, he wanted to hear it.

Just once.

He thought maybe if he heard it clearly, if it was said out loud, it might make it easier to let go. To finally put distance between them the way he’d been trying to.

“Seongjun.”

“Hmm?”

“Would you…” Gyujin hesitated, the words catching awkwardly as soon as he realized how they sounded. How pathetic they sounded.

“Would I what?”

Damn it. He heard me.

He exhaled quietly, forcing himself through it anyway.

“… Would you break it off if I asked you to?”

Seongjun froze. His expression shifted all at once, eyes widening slightly like the question hadn’t just caught him off guard, but had come from somewhere he hadn’t even considered.

Gyujin regretted it immediately.

The second the words left his mouth, it felt like he had crossed something that had never been meant to be touched. A line both of them had silently agreed not to step over. And now he was stuck, waiting for an answer he had already prepared himself for.

It took too long.

Far too long.

The silence stretched thin, sharp enough that it made his chest tighten again for entirely different reasons.

When Seongjun finally spoke, his voice was more serious than usual, almost dazed. 

“Don’t ask me to, Gyujin.”

Gyujin had expected a simple no. Every time the question had crossed his mind before, he had already imagined the answer— flat, immediate, easy to swallow in its predictability. But this somehow hurt more. It felt worse than rejection.

Worse than being told he never had a chance.

And he didn’t understand what it meant, not fully anyway. But he knew Seongjun was asking him not to ruin this. He knew he’d been under a lot of pressure from his parents to get this done, and maybe it had already been hard enough on him, even if he’d never admit it.

Gyujin cleared his throat, forcing a small shift in tone, trying to break the tension before it settled too deeply.

“So does that mean I can finally get a boyfriend?” He said lightly.

Seongjun snapped out of the daze immediately, like the shift gave him something safer to latch onto.

“And who the fuck told you that?” He shot back. “Not in a hundred years.”

“Oh, come on,” Gyujin said, shifting slightly against the headboard, leaning into the conversation despite himself. “That can be my 24th birthday present. Find me a boyfriend.”

“Yah,” Seongjun snapped, curling his hand into a fist and hitting it against his own knee in irritation, “you want to die before you reach 25?”

Gyujin scoffed, a hint of amusement slipping through. Seongjun really was too fun to rile up.

“Fine, but what if you’re on your honeymoon and I meet someone?” He pushed. “What are you going to do then?”

“I’ll beat the shit out of him. That’s what.”

“Okay, but what if he’s, like…” Gyujin tapped his chin thoughtfully, clearly enjoying himself now, “twenty years older than you aaand ten centimeters taller?”

“So? I’ll still beat the shit out of him.”

“Then what if he has a massive family of MMA fighters that all want me to be with him too?”

“I’ll beat the shit out of them too.”

A laugh slipped out of Gyujin before he could stop it— genuine, unguarded, the kind he hadn’t realized he’d been holding back.

“Such a fucking caveman,” he said, still smiling faintly.

When he looked up again, Seongjun was staring at him differently. Like he’d just discovered something.

Gyujin raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing, just," Seongjun said, a little quieter now. “’s cute.”

“Huh?”

“When you’re laughing, I mean. Should do it more often.”

“Oh.”

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy, just awkward in that way that came from saying something a little too honest without meaning to.

Seongjun cleared his throat and stood up.

“Anyway, you’re awake now, right?” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m heading out. My mom wants me to take her shopping.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah,” Gyujin said, sitting up properly now. “Lock the door on your way out.”

Seongjun scoffed as he headed for the door. 

“Don’t know about that. Maybe I’ll leave it open in case you freak the fuck out again.”

“Yah—”

“I’m ordering you food later, so you better eat it.”

Gyujin didn’t get a chance to respond before the door shut behind him.

The room went quiet again.

But the warmth didn’t leave. It lingered— soft, persistent, settling somewhere deep in his chest, leftover from the laughter.

There were only two months left until the wedding. 

He knew he had to let go soon.

And maybe it was too late to cut this off before it mattered. Maybe it was far too late to cut this off before it hurt. Because it already did matter, and it already did hurt.

But Gyujin was going to have to. 

He was going to have to try regardless. 

You [14:34]
thanks

You [14:35]
for coming i mean

Seongjun [14:37]
anything for you angel

Just maybe not right now.

Countdown to Wedding: Day Of

It took far too long for Gyujin to reach acceptance when it came to losing Seongjun. It didn’t help that every time as he so much got past the denial stage, Seongjun would show up again to reset everything he’d worked hard on. 

Whenever Gyujin brought up the wedding— because he always did, because someone had to acknowledge it— Seongjun would brush it off with that same infuriating nonchalance, leaning back like it was nothing more than a distant inconvenience.

“Well, it’s not here yet.” He’d say, as if that changed anything. 

Gyujin could never quite tell whether Seongjun actually believed him or not. Whether he truly understood that Gyujin meant what he said— that the moment those papers were signed, he would be gone— or whether he had decided, in his own quiet way, that Gyujin would never really leave him.

Seongjun never argued against it, never tried to convince him otherwise, but he barely acknowledged it either. If anything, he seemed to treat the approaching wedding like a deadline he could exploit.

There was a shift in the way he touched Gyujin, in the way he spoke to him, in the way he lingered. Suddenly, everything came with a justification, a thinly veiled excuse wrapped in something that was almost persuasive if Gyujin didn’t think about it too hard.

“This might be the last time, you know.”

He said it often. Too often.

Every time he wanted something, every time he was horny or touch-starved or bored, like the weight of those words would make Gyujin give in more easily. And it worked— more than Gyujin wanted to admit. Not because he believed it, but because some small, traitorous part of him wanted to act like it might be true.

Even though it wasn’t.

Because Seongjun always came back.

A few days later, sometimes less, standing in the doorway like nothing had changed, like the last time hadn’t already been used up and discarded.

And still— he would say it again.

Seongjun began spending more time at the apartment too, stretching his visits longer than before, settling into the space with a kind of ease that felt almost deliberate.

“I just want to make the most of it,” he would say, shrugging off his coat, already moving through the apartment like he belonged there. “You know. Before you move out and shit.”

Gyujin never corrected him.

Not because he agreed, but because the truth was far less certain than Seongjun seemed to believe. He knew, in a vague and distant way, that he couldn’t stay there forever— that continuing to live in a place funded entirely by Seongjun would only make things worse, would tether him to something he was trying so desperately to sever. He had plans, loosely formed and rarely revisited, of moving back in with his mother, of saving enough to eventually afford a place of his own once university was behind him.

But none of that felt immediate.

None of it felt urgent.

Because all Gyujin did, these days, was avoid.

He filled his time with anything that kept him from lingering too long in one place mentally. He avoided conversations that felt too close to the truth, avoided questions he didn’t want to answer, avoided the creeping awareness of what was waiting just beyond the edge of the day.

Most of all, he avoided the way Seongjun looked at him.

Because there was something unsettling in how calm he seemed.

Gyujin had spent days watching him, trying to understand how someone in his position could appear so completely at ease. There was no visible tension, no hesitation, no sign that he was standing on the edge of something irreversible. Even as the wedding loomed closer, even as the reality of it became impossible to ignore, Seongjun moved through it all with the same steady composure, like none of it had the power to affect him.

Eventually, there was only explanation that made any kind of sense.

Seongjun wasn’t calm because he was unaffected.

He was calm because he refused to acknowledge what was happening at all.

He had built something for himself— a careful, deliberate kind of delusion where consequences could be postponed indefinitely as long as he didn’t look at them too directly.

And it had worked. For eight months, it had worked.

Eight months of holding two completely incompatible things in his hands without ever choosing between them, without ever letting either one fall.

Gyujin had been waiting for it to collapse the entire time, he’d been waiting for the moment when reality would finally force its way in.

But it never had. Not once. Not even now.

Not even today.

So eventually, Gyujin stopped trying to be stronger than that. He stopped trying to be the one who faced things head-on when it only left him more broken than before.

Because maybe the best way to survive wasn’t to accept, maybe it was just to pretend. And if that was the case, then he would do it too.

So on the day of the wedding, Gyujin pretended.

He didn’t pretend that Seongjun was coming back, no, he wasn’t as destructively delusional as Seongjun. He pretended he had never known Seongjun at all. That Seongjun had never loved him.

That he had never loved Seongjun. 

He didn’t check the time.

Not once.

He avoided it with the same careful precision he had applied to everything else, because checking meant knowing, and knowing meant imagining, and imagining meant breaking.

He didn’t want to think about where Seongjun was at that exact moment. He didn’t want to picture the ceremony, or wonder whether it was over or just getting started.

All he needed to do was get through this day. He just needed to survive long enough for the sun to set and then he could disappear off the face of the Earth. 

At some point, in the middle of that quiet, suffocating avoidance, Gyujin decided that if he was going to leave, he couldn’t do it with things still unfinished. The thought came to him slowly, settling into place with a kind of inevitability that made it impossible to ignore. There were too many things he had never said, too many moments left unresolved, too many feelings that had nowhere to go.

And Seongjun was not someone who could handle them out loud.

Gyujin knew that much.

He had always been terrible with words when they mattered, always retreating into anger or deflection whenever something too heavy was placed in front of him. Trying to say everything face to face would only end in frustration, in half-finished sentences and things left unsaid all over again.

So Gyujin chose something else.

He would write it down, everything he’d been meaning to say since second year of high school, every memory or thought that he’d been carrying in him for longer than he could even estimate. Maybe he would leave it behind, somewhere Seongjun would find it eventually, and then he would go— cleanly, completely, without anything left tying him back.

Then, maybe, just maybe, he would be free.

So he sat down, picked up a pen, and began.

The first letter came easier than he expected.

The words were careful at first, almost restrained as he traced the outline of everything that had been. He started at the beginning, at the version of Seongjun he had first known, at the slow and confusing shift from something harsh and painful into something softer, something harder to define. By the time he reached the end of the second page, his chest felt lighter.

So he kept going.

The second letter was messier.

The sentences bled into one another, thoughts overlapping as he wrote about the apartment— about the day Seongjun had asked him to move into it, because it would make it “easier” to see him. About the nights that stretched too long when Seongjun didn’t come back, when the silence felt louder than anything else. About the way he had learned, without meaning to, to recognize the difference between a message that meant soon and one that meant days.

He wrote about the photos. The ones he never searched for, but always seemed to find him anyway. The ones where Seongjun stood beside her, composed and perfect, fitting into that life so seamlessly it made something in Gyujin twist.

You looked happy, he wrote.

Then, after a pause—

I thought maybe you were lying about loving me.

The words sat there for a moment, heavy and wrong. He scratched them out so harshly the paper nearly tore.

By the third letter, he stopped trying to make it make sense.

The structure disappeared entirely, replaced by something scattered and uneven, thoughts spilling out faster than he could keep up with them. The pages began to pile around him— some crumpled and discarded, some abandoned halfway through.

And still, he couldn’t stop.

Because now that he had started, the silence was worse.

The thinking was worse.

He found himself wondering, distantly, whether he should even send them. Whether Seongjun would even read them.

Whether he would understand any of it.

Or whether all of this— every carefully written confession— would mean nothing to someone who had spent so long surviving by refusing to feel too much at all.

The thought sat heavy in his chest, but he kept writing anyway.

He wrote and he wrote and he wrote until the ink of his pen ran dry in the middle of a sentence, the line trailing off into nothing.

Gyujin stared at it for a moment, unmoving.

Then, slowly, he exhaled.

“Need a new pen,” he grumbled to himself, getting up to grab one from his room. 

Just as he did, his eyes mistakenly turned towards the clock for the first time all day.

7pm.

He’s probably married by now.

The thought struck him even when he tried to push it down. His legs were a little less stable as he made his way to his desk, spotting his phone on his bed out of the corner of his eye.

That means I should block him, right?

He reached over to his phone, unlocking it to find that Seongjun had texted him an hour ago, likely during his own wedding ceremony. 

The chain of messages was long. Too long even for Seongjun. It filled the screen, spilling over into more, and more, and more— one after another, barely structured, sentences running into each other like they had been written in a rush without time to breathe.

Gyujin’s heart started pounding as he opened them.

Seongjun [18:03]
gyujin i can’t fucking do this

Seongjun [18:03]
i don’t care what this is supposed to be nothing changes anything do you understand me nothing

Seongjun [18:04]
i love you i love you i love you i love you i don’t think you understand how fucking much

Seongjun [18:04]
they were talking and i couldn’t hear anything because i kept thinking about you not answering me this morning

Seongjun [18:07]
why didnt you send me a photo i was waiting

Seongjun [18:08]
i couldn’t focus on anything i swear i tried but i fucking couldn’t

Seongjun [18:08]
gyujin it’s killing me please don’t do this

Seongjun [18:09]
i don’t fucking know what to do without you

Seongjun [18:09]
you said you needed space but i don’t even know how to give it to you

Seongjun [18:10]
i keep thinking you’re not going to be there when i come back

Seongjun [18:10]
are you still there

Seongjun [18:10]
are you still mine

Seongjun [18:11]
please tell me you are

Seongjun [18:13]
please tell me you were joking about leaving 

Seongjun [18:13]
please baby just tell me once

Seongjun [18:14]
i’m so fucking scared

Seongjun [18:15]
i don’t think you understand how scared i am right now

Seongjun [18:15]
if you’re not there i don’t have anything gyujin i don’t fucking care about any of this i need you

Seongjun [18:16]
you’re the only place i can go

Seongjun [18:16]
please don’t leave me like this

Seongjun [18:16]
i thought it would be the same but it feels so fucking different i don’t know what to do 

Seongjun [18:17]
will you let me see u if i say i regret it? i’ll say it as many times as you want i promise

Seongjun [18:17]
gyujin-ah i want to go home

Seongjun [18:17]
just wait for me okay?

Seongjun [18:18]
please

Gyujin didn’t realize when his breathing started to change. Didn’t notice the exact moment it turned uneven, shallow, like his body didn’t quite know what to do with the weight of everything he was reading.

“... He’s so fucking mean,” he whispered, though the words barely made it past his throat.

Because doing this, breaking down now of all times, was fucking cruel. 

Seongjun was at his wedding— his own wedding— and he was writing this. He was pouring everything into messages meant for someone who wasn’t there. Someone sitting alone in an apartment he had paid for, surrounded by letters that would probably never be sent, never be read, never be understood the way Gyujin needed them to be.

A sound slipped out of him then— small at first, almost unrecognizable.

It took him a second to realize it was a sob.

His hand came up instinctively, pressing against his mouth like he could contain it, but it only made it worse, his shoulders beginning to shake as everything he had been holding in all day started to come undone all at once.

Gyujin squeezed his eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the tears from slipping through, warm and relentless as they fell, his grip tightening around the phone like it was the only thing anchoring him in place.

He didn’t know how to respond.

“So fucking unfair,” he choked out, the words barely audible, dissolving into the quiet of the room.

Because it was.

It wasn’t fair that he had spent the past four years learning how to live with less, how to accept the spaces Seongjun left behind, how to quiet the parts of himself that wanted more.

And now was when Seongjun decided what they had meant enough to break him. Now was when Seongjun realized his actions have consequences— that they always had. 

Now of all times, Seongjun was reaching for him like he couldn’t breathe without him, like the world he had chosen for himself had suddenly become unbearable.

Gyujin pressed his hand against his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as if he could physically hold himself together, but it did nothing to stop the way everything inside him felt like it was collapsing in on itself.

Because this was so much worse.

Losing Seongjun had been one thing. Painful, yes. Unbearable, maybe. But at least it had been clean in its own way. At least it had felt final.

This was something else entirely.

Knowing that the person he loved most in the world was somewhere out there, terrified, unraveling, begging for him— and having to decide whether to answer? That was worse than death itself.

Gyujin dragged in a shaky breath, his vision blurring again as more tears slipped down his face, his grip tightening around his phone until his knuckles ached.

He could end it.

Right now.

All it would take was one press. He would block him, toss his phone away on the way out and leave the apartment for good. He could leave Seongjun to deal with the consequences of his decisions alone. 

His thumb hovered over the screen, trembling as he navigated to the contact, the familiar name staring back at him like something alive, something waiting for him to make a choice.

The block button sat there, quiet and final.

All he had to do was press it, and then there would be no more of this constant, aching pull between what he knew he should do and what he couldn’t bring himself to let go of.

His thumb hovered over it, shaking.

He could do it.

He should do it.

He knew he should.

Another sob tore through him, sharper this time, his body folding in on itself as the weight of it all pressed down harder, heavier, until he felt like he couldn’t breathe around it.

Because if he did that— if he cut him off like this— then this would be the last version of Seongjun he ever saw.

Not the one who held him steady through his worst nights, or the one who looked at him like he was something rare, something worth keeping even with all his damaged parts. Not the one that bought him his favorite food and then acted like there was a good deal on it every time, even though there never was. Or the one that called him a fucking loser every time he cried about a movie, but still pat his back and tried (awfully) to make him feel better. Or even the one that covered him in hickies and threatened to kill anyone that so much as looked in his direction. 

It would be this version. This frighteningly panicked and desperately alone version of Seongjun. 

Gyujin shook his head weakly, his hand dropping slightly as another wave of emotion crashed over him, leaving him raw and exposed in a way he didn’t know how to handle.

“I can’t,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure who he was saying it to.

He couldn’t leave him like this.

He couldn’t let this be the ending.

Not like this. Not today, when everything had already gone so wrong.

They had both had such a terrible day. Seongjun was probably going through something awful at the ceremony, bad enough for him to send something as vulnerable as that. And Gyujin was supposed to fucking ignore it? He was supposed to look the other way and pretend he didn’t see Seongjun’s hurt?

That thought settled in quietly, almost gently, cutting through the chaos just enough for him to breathe around it.

Seongjun had made his choice. He had followed through with it, and now he was living in the aftermath of it, feeling it fully for the first time.

And Gyujin had spent the entire fucking day trying to pretend none of it had ever happened, trying to erase something that had already carved itself too deeply into him to ever fully disappear.

Maybe— just for tonight— they didn’t have to make it worse. Maybe this didn’t have to be the moment everything ended.

It could end later.

It would end later.

Gyujin would make sure of it.

He would pull away. Slowly, carefully over time.

In a way that didn’t leave either of them like this— shattered and grasping at something that had already slipped through their hands.

Gyujin let out a long, unsteady breath, his hand trembling as he moved back to the message thread, the flood of words still waiting there, still pressing in on him from all sides.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard.

He wondered how stupid he looked right now to any monitoring spirits, for wasting the past four years like this. Or how stupid Seongjun looked for believing that signing his life away and marrying into a family like that wouldn’t change anything, until it was too late. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was what made them fit together so perfectly. They were two people equally incapable of letting go, equally convinced they could outrun the outcome, caught in something that refused to break clean no matter how much it should have.

But Gyujin would try.

He had to try. 

If there was no solution, no ending, then Gyujin would have to make one. 

If there was no escape route, he would have to build one. 

If there was no way out, he would have to carve one with whatever strength he had left.

And he would. Slowly, carefully, one step at a time. 

You [19:51]
i’m right where you left me

Seongjun [19:51]
gyujin i want to go home

Seongjun [19:51]
can i just come home please

You [19:53]
whatever you want my love

Just—

Maybe not today.