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The abrasive clatter of dropping plastic shatters the early morning quiet.
Donghyun stirs, his eyelids fluttering open against the muted gray light bleeding through the bedroom curtains. He blindly reaches out across the mattress. The space beside him is empty, the sheets already cold. Another loud rustle echoes down the hallway, followed by a low, aggravated groan.
Pushing himself up, Donghyun rubs the sleep from his face and kicks his feet into his slippers. He pads down the hallway toward the kitchen. The overhead light is harshly bright, buzzing with a faint electrical hum.
Standing right in the center of the kitchen is Dongmin. He looks miserable. He is wearing a wrinkled pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that is slightly inside out, his shoulders hunched defensively against the harsh lighting. He is aggressively rummaging through the upper left cabinet, shoving aside jars of oregano, dried basil, and cinnamon sticks.
"Dongmin," Donghyun calls out, his voice thick and raspy from sleep. "What are you doing?"
Dongmin flinches at the sound. He turns his head slowly, squeezing his eyes shut as if the mere act of moving his neck sends a spike of agony through his skull. His face is pale, drawn tight with the lingering, punishing hangover of a severe migraine.
"Looking for the ibuprofen," Dongmin mutters, his voice a gravelly whisper. He turns back to the cabinet, squinting painfully at a jar of paprika. "Someone moved it."
"No one moved it," Donghyun sighs softly, walking into the kitchen. "You are looking in the spice rack. The medicine is over the sink."
Dongmin pauses. He stares at the spices for a long, heavy second before letting his forehead drop against the wooden cabinet door in utter defeat.
Donghyun steps in, closing the spice rack gently. He moves to the correct cabinet, retrieves the white plastic bottle, and shakes two pills into his palm. He fills a glass with cold water from the dispenser and presses both the pills and the glass into Dongmin’s waiting hands.
Dongmin swallows the medicine dry, chasing it with the entire glass of water in one long gulp. He leans his hip against the counter, looking thoroughly defeated by his own body. He hates feeling helpless. He hates when his fiercely independent, sharply competent demeanor crumbles into this fragile, exhausted state.
"Go to the bathroom and wash up," Donghyun orders gently, taking the empty glass from his hands. "Just splash some cold water on your face and brush your teeth. I'm going to make eggs and toast. Don't look at any screens."
Dongmin glares at the marble countertop, his pride wounded, but the pounding in his temples leaves him with zero leverage to argue. He offers a begrudging, barely perceptible nod, dragging his feet as he shuffles out of the kitchen and toward the master bathroom.
Watching him go, Donghyun leans against the counter, a quiet fondness settling in his chest.
If someone had told Donghyun three years ago that he would be standing in a kitchen at dawn, nursing the terrifyingly sharp-tongued heir of a rival logistics firm through a migraine, he would have laughed in their face. Their marriage had not started with grand declarations of love or romantic sweeps. It had started in a sterile, glass-walled boardroom. It was a calculated arrangement, a merger between two stubborn corporate families bound by ink, contracts, and mutual business interests.
For the first year, their apartment felt like a high-end hotel they simply happened to share. They occupied separate bedrooms. They exchanged polite, formal nods in the hallway. But proximity is a persistent thing, and the icy formality slowly melted into an undeniable, quiet companionship. The turning point hadn't been a dramatic event. It was the accumulation of a hundred minor surrenders—sharing a takeout box at midnight, learning how the other took their coffee, and eventually, the unspoken agreement to sleep in the same bed just to share the warmth. Now, they are entangled in ways a contract could never dictate.
Donghyun turns toward the stove, reaching for the carton of eggs.
Before his fingers can even graze the handle of the frying pan, a sudden, explosive hiss echoes from the back of the apartment. It is the distinct rush of the shower turning on at full pressure.
Panic spikes instantly in Donghyun’s chest. The noise alone is enough to split Dongmin’s head wide open, let alone the sudden shock of temperature.
"Dongmin!" Donghyun calls out, abandoning the eggs and sprinting down the hallway.
He shoves the bathroom door open, bracing himself for a disaster.
The water is already off. The sudden silence in the tiled room is deafening. Dongmin is standing awkwardly beside the bathtub, completely frozen. He is still wearing his t-shirt and sweatpants, entirely dry—except for his head.
His hair is completely soaked. Water runs in steady streams down his forehead, dripping off his eyelashes and trailing down his neck, soaking the collar of his shirt. He looks like a disgruntled, drowning cat.
Dongmin slowly looks up at Donghyun. His expression is incredibly sour, a mix of intense irritation and deep embarrassment.
"I forgot," Dongmin whispers, his voice perfectly flat, daring Donghyun to make a comment. "I supposedly wash up my face instead of full showering."
Donghyun bites the inside of his cheek, hard. The metallic taste of blood is the only thing keeping the hysterical laugh from tearing out of his throat. Dongmin looks so furious, so utterly betrayed by his own lack of coordination, that laughing right now would absolutely result in a divorce.
"Okay," Donghyun breathes out, keeping his face neutral. He walks past Dongmin, reaching for the stack of thick cotton towels on the upper shelf. "Sit down."
Dongmin doesn't argue. He sinks down onto the porcelain edge of the bathtub, resting his elbows on his knees, squeezing his eyes shut as the residual water drips down his nose.
Donghyun stands right between Dongmin’s parted knees. He unfolds the large towel and drops it gently over Dongmin’s wet head.
Usually, Dongmin would grab the blow dryer and have his hair perfectly styled in three minutes flat. But flipping that switch right now would unleash a high-pitched, mechanical hum that would trigger a secondary wave of agonizing dizziness. Donghyun handles it the manual way.
He presses his hands over the thick towel, applying a firm, steady pressure against Dongmin’s scalp. He squeezes the moisture out of the strands, moving his thumbs in slow, rhythmic circles against the base of Dongmin’s neck.
To keep Dongmin from focusing on the throbbing in his temples, Donghyun starts to talk. His voice is low, an even cadence designed to fill the quiet room without jarring the senses.
"Woonhak called me last night while you were asleep," Donghyun says, pressing the towel against the crown of Dongmin’s head. "He managed to get his car towed again. He parked right in front of a fire hydrant because he claimed the red paint was 'faded enough to be legally ambiguous.'"
A dry exhale escapes Dongmin’s nose. "He’s an idiot. Did you bail him out?"
"I told him to walk," Donghyun replies easily, shifting his grip to dry the hair near the nape of the neck. "Then he spent twenty minutes explaining how he accidentally adopted a stray pigeon because he left his balcony door open with a bag of chips on the floor."
"A pigeon."
"He named it Greg," Donghyun confirms, tossing the damp towel into the laundry basket. He runs his bare fingertips through Dongmin’s slightly damp, tousled hair, gently untangling the ends. The pressure of his hands is incredibly grounding, drawing the tension out of Dongmin’s rigid shoulders.
"You know," Donghyun murmurs, his tone shifting from casual storytelling to a soft, reprimanding nag. "This wouldn't be happening if you didn't feel the need to impress my father. You don't have to comply with his ridiculous drinking rules. You don't have to match him glass for glass every time we have a business dinner."
Dongmin opens his eyes, staring directly at Donghyun’s waist. He leans his head back slightly, looking up at his husband with a deeply unimpressed, sassy arch of his brow.
"If I don't drink his scotch, he'll think I'm a lightweight and use it as an excuse to delay the warehouse expansion," Dongmin counters smoothly, his sharp corporate edge returning for a fleeting second. "I'm literally securing your inheritance, darling. You should be thanking me."
Donghyun’s hands freeze mid-motion. He drops his arms, crossing them tightly over his chest, and pushes his bottom lip out in a stubborn pout. "I don't care about the warehouse. I care that my husband is currently operating with only one brain cell and taking a shower in his clothes."
Dongmin stares at the pout. He knows he has pushed slightly too far. Hating to see Donghyun actually upset, Dongmin immediately deploys a deeply manipulative unfair tactic.
He dramatically winces, bringing both hands up to clutch the sides of his head. He lets out an exaggerated hiss of air. "Ah. The room is spinning. My skull is splitting open. The lack of scalp massage is delaying my recovery."
Donghyun clicks his tongue, an annoyed but fond sound echoing in the tiled room. He sees right through the terrible acting, but his resolve crumbles anyway.
Uncrossing his arms, Donghyun steps closer. He resumes the slow, methodical rubbing of Dongmin’s hair, letting his fingers dig just a fraction deeper into the tense muscles at the base of his skull.
Dongmin lets out a genuine, quiet sigh of relief. Dropping the theatrical act, he leans forward, resting his forehead fully against the solid warmth of Donghyun’s stomach. He closes his eyes, surrendering to the stillness of the morning, letting the heavy, persistent ache in his head slowly wash away under the gentle pressure of his husband's hands.