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View knew she had made a mistake about four minutes after leaving the hotel, and the truly humiliating part was that she couldn't manage to be properly annoyed about it.
It had seemed harmless when Love asked. A walk around the mall, something sweet, maybe a couple of stores before they had to fold themselves back into the machinery of international schedules — staff calls, cameras, somebody with a clipboard explaining where their bodies needed to be in forty minutes. A few hours where nobody expected anything from them. That was all View had agreed to.
What she had failed to account for was that Milk and Love had been dating for three weeks.
Not scandalously. Scandalous would have been easy. View had an entire repertoire for scandalous, sharpened over years of green rooms and shared vans and long flights, and she could have deployed it without breaking a sweat. What the two of them were doing was so much worse than scandalous.
It was quiet.
Love drifted toward Milk without appearing to notice she was doing it. Milk slowed down every time Love stopped to look at something, automatically, the way you'd adjust your stride for someone you'd been walking beside your whole life. Their hands brushed and then simply stayed together, several seconds past anything View could call accidental. Milk leaned in when Love spoke even though the mall wasn't loud enough to require it, and Love had apparently lost the ability to walk next to her girlfriend without eventually finding some excuse to hold on to her arm.
Nothing dramatic ever happened, and that was exactly the problem. View had spent long enough around the two of them to know how careful they used to be with their hands in public. She had seen Love pull back mid-gesture. She had seen Milk laugh at the wrong volume on purpose, so nobody would hear what the right volume sounded like. Now nobody was watching them, and they had both simply stopped bothering, and View found it almost impossible to look at directly.
Not because it embarrassed her.
Because it didn't.
So she walked a few steps behind them with her phone in one hand and her dignity hanging by a thread, wondering whether twenty minutes was too soon to text Mim and beg for extraction. Probably. She kept the option open anyway, the way you keep a fire exit in your peripheral vision.
The mall was busy without being overwhelming, washed through with the soft gold of late afternoon. Light came up off the polished floors, conversations blurred into a hum underneath the music leaking out of storefronts, and somewhere close by warm bread and coffee had gotten into the air, mixed with something sweeter from the bakery counters scattered along the floor. It was, View thought, an unfairly nice afternoon to be suffering in.
Milk and Love were a few paces ahead of her when Love stopped.
Not slowed. Stopped, completely, in the middle of the corridor, and Milk took another step and a half before she registered that the presence at her side had gone missing. She turned around instantly, which View also noticed, and also filed away.
"What is it, nong?"
Love didn't answer. She was staring across the corridor with her whole face, and View followed her gaze and understood immediately.
There was a bakery counter tucked into the open space between two shops, all warm wood and neat glass and careful rows of pastries under the lights — and Love had developed complete tunnel vision for exactly one of them.
Mochi. Plump, powdery, ridiculously soft-looking mochi, wrapped in bright orange paper, a few of them cut open for display so you could see the thick golden filling glossy in the center. Egg cream, apparently.
Love looked at it the way saints in old paintings look at the sky.
View got to watch the entire transformation happen in real time: the widening eyes, the small parting of her lips, the way her body tilted toward the counter maybe two degrees, entirely without permission. And then her hand found Milk's sleeve, because of course it did.
"P'Milk…"
Milk looked down at the fingers now pinching the fabric of her shirt. Then she looked at Love, and a smile was already ruining the corners of her mouth before she'd even opened it.
"Don't."
Love blinked at her, wide-eyed. "Don't what?"
"That face."
"What face?"
"That one."
"I'm not doing anything, kha."
The innocence in her voice was so overplayed it bordered on a criminal offense. Milk narrowed her eyes. Love gazed back at her, serene, unbothered, for approximately two full seconds — and then her lips pushed forward into the smallest pout in recorded history, and Milk's shoulders dropped about an inch, and View closed her eyes.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. She'd tell them so later, and she'd mean roughly none of it.
"P'Milk," Love tried again, softer. "I want one."
Milk glanced toward the display, and there was already surrender in the set of her mouth. "You want one?"
Love considered that seriously, then shook her head. "I need one."
View let out a long breath through her nose. "Of course you do."
Love finally remembered she was there and looked back. "What?"
"Nothing. I'm just observing a fascinating scientific process." She gestured between the two of them, professorial. "She makes the face. You surrender. Nature heals."
"I haven't surrendered," Milk protested — and Love tugged once at her sleeve.
"Please, na?"
Milk turned back to her so fast it was barely a movement. View waited. One second. Two. Milk sighed the sigh of a woman who had never once won this and had stopped keeping score of it.
"Which one do you want?"
Love lit up so completely that View almost laughed out loud, and had to look at a mannequin for a moment to prevent it.
"That one." Love pointed through the glass. "The egg cream one. Look at it."
"I am looking."
"It's beautiful."
"It's food, Love."
"It can be both."
Milk laughed under her breath — that laugh, small and helpless, the one that always sounded like Love had pulled it out of her without even meaning to — and Love's whole expression brightened at the sound of it, immediately, the way a plant turns.
View noticed that too. She was starting to keep a private catalogue of these, the way other people kept records of good weather.
They moved toward the counter and Love slid her hand around Milk's arm again, and this time there was no hesitation in it at all. That was the part View found almost embarrassing to witness — not the touching itself, but the total absence of thought behind it. Love didn't decide to hold Milk. Her body just did it. And Milk didn't look down or startle or check who was watching; she only shifted a little, making room for Love against her side, as if they had been arranging themselves around each other like this for years instead of weeks.
While Milk spoke to the attendant, Love leaned in toward the display, studying the pastries with the concentration of someone defusing something. Her reddish hair slipped forward over one shoulder, and one shorter strand fell across her forehead.
Love didn't notice. Milk did.
She was still halfway through a sentence to the person behind the counter when her hand lifted, completely absentmindedly, and reached across the small space between them to brush the strand away from Love's face. Gentle. Almost careless in how familiar it was. Her fingertips passed over Love's forehead and then over the top of her head, smoothing the hair back into place, and then stayed there for half a heartbeat longer than the job required.
Love stopped talking. Only for a second — but View saw all of it. She saw Love's lashes lower. She saw her mouth change. She saw all that restless, permanent energy inside her go quiet under Milk's hand, like a switch had been found.
Milk noticed it too. That was why her fingers lingered.
When she pulled away Love looked up at her. "P'Milk…"
"Hmm?"
Something almost shy went through Love's face. Then she smiled. "Nothing."
Milk raised an eyebrow, and Love's smile widened.
"Thank you, kha."
There was something so unbearably soft in the way she said it that View unlocked her phone purely for something to do with her hands. She opened Mim's chat.
View: You abandoned me with a couple.
She looked at that for a second and deleted it, because it wasn't true and because Mim would know it wasn't. She typed instead:
View: They're doing that thing again.
Her thumb hovered. She glanced up. Love had drifted closer once more, hovering at Milk's side with such complete disregard for the concept of personal space that her shoulder had ended up tucked underneath Milk's.
View hit send.
Mim answered almost instantly.
Min: What thing?
View stared at the screen and discovered she had no idea how to explain that thing. The touching, the staring, the tiny smiles. The strange conviction that she was standing in the middle of something which was technically happening in public and yet felt private enough that she owed the two of them an apology for having eyes.
Before she could figure out a phrasing, the mochi arrived, and Love forgot the existence of everything else on earth.
"Oh."
It came out almost reverent. The dessert sat in its vivid orange paper, the wrapping crinkled up around the white mochi like petals around a flower, the golden filling just visible under the powdered surface. Love accepted it with both hands.
Both. As if the attendant had personally entrusted her with a national treasure.
Milk watched her do it with an expression that was already dangerously fond. "Careful, teerak. It might still be hot."
View's head turned so fast she nearly hurt herself.
Teerak. Well. That was new. That was extremely interesting, and she intended to be insufferable about it at the earliest opportunity.
Love, unfortunately, was far too busy with the mochi to appreciate the historical significance of the moment, and took a bite before Milk had finished inhaling.
"Love—"
Too late. The mochi collapsed softly around the bite, thick golden cream pushing up toward the opening and smearing dangerously near Love's fingers. Love froze. Her eyes went enormous, and then slowly fell shut, and a small, deeply satisfied sound escaped her.
Milk laughed. "Good?"
Love's eyes opened. "P'Milk."
The urgency in it made Milk straighten a little. "What?"
Love was still chewing, cheeks full, eyes huge. "It's so good."
"I can see that."
"No, you don't understand." She swallowed fast. "It's really good. Aroi mak." And then, with the abruptness of a decision made entirely by instinct: "Try it."
Milk reached toward the bag for the second one.
Love pulled the bag away. "Not that one."
Milk stopped. View stopped. There was a very particular silence, of the kind that arrives about a second before something happens that you will not be able to unsee.
Milk looked at her. Love lifted the mochi she had already bitten into.
"This one."
View's gaze moved slowly to the perfectly untouched dessert still sitting in the bag, and then back to Love.
Oh. So that's what they were doing now.
Milk looked at the mochi too, and she took her time about it. The imprint of Love's bite was obvious along one side of the soft white dough, and there was a faint trace of pink lipstick left near the edge of it, right beside the exposed golden filling. View watched Milk's eyes move from that mark to Love's mouth and back again, unhurried, as though she were confirming something.
Then her gaze came back up.
Love was looking at her with an expression that would have read as perfectly innocent from a distance. Unfortunately for everyone involved, nobody was standing at a distance, and the smallest smile was pulling at one corner of her mouth.
Milk saw it. Her eyes narrowed. "Love."
"What, kha?"
That kha was pure trouble and everybody present knew it.
"You're doing this on purpose."
"Doing what?"
View made a strangled noise. "Oh, please."
Love ignored her completely and brought the mochi a little closer to Milk's face. "Try it, na."
"There is literally another one."
"This one's better."
"How could it possibly be better?"
Love's expression turned thoughtful, as though she were consulting a source. "Because it's mine."
View looked up at the ceiling and asked it, silently, for strength, patience, and possibly the location of the nearest emergency exit.
"Love," Milk said again — except whatever warning had been in it originally had drained out somewhere between the first syllable and the second, and now it was just her name, said the way she said it when they thought nobody could hear.
Love only moved the mochi closer. "Just one bite, P'Milk."
Milk looked down at it. Then back up at her. And something shifted between them, subtle enough that View almost missed it and immediate enough that she absolutely didn't.
Love felt it too. View watched that smug little teasing look falter, just slightly, when Milk stepped in closer instead of stepping back.
She had been expecting resistance. A laugh, maybe. Milk pushing her hand away and telling her to eat her own dessert. What she had clearly not prepared for was Milk simply leaning down — slowly, taking her time about that too, without once taking her eyes off her.
Love went very still. View watched her breathe in and then forget to do anything with it.
Milk's hand came up and closed lightly around her wrist, steadying the mochi between them, her thumb settling exactly where Love's pulse was. She was close enough now that Love had to tip her chin up. Close enough that when she spoke it would have gone straight into the space between them and nowhere else.
She didn't speak.
She took a bite exactly where Love had bitten before. Not beside it. Not from the other side. Right there, her mouth fitting into the mark Love's had left, slow enough that it stopped being about the mochi somewhere in the middle of it.
For one suspended second the noise of the mall went out entirely, at least going by Love's face. Her lips parted. Her fingers tightened around the orange paper. Whatever playful little victory she had been assembling simply evaporated out of her, and something else arrived in its place, and View — standing four feet away with a phone in her hand like an idiot — got to watch the exact moment it landed.
Milk straightened back up and chewed, unhurried, still holding her gaze, her thumb still resting against Love's wrist. Love stared at her. Milk let her.
Then she swallowed, and said, almost casually:
"Aroi."
A pause. She hadn't let go of Love's wrist yet. And because she had apparently decided Love hadn't suffered nearly enough, she leaned in a fraction more and added, low enough that it was really only for one person,
"Very good, kha."
View's mouth actually fell open.
Love blinked. Once. Twice. Her tongue touched the corner of her own mouth before she caught herself doing it, and Milk saw that, and neither of them said a word about it.
And then Love's whole expression changed, and it wasn't the triumphant grin View had been braced for. It was smaller than that. Slower. Warm in a way that pushed the teasing out of it entirely. She dropped her eyes for half a second, suddenly deeply fascinated by the crumpled orange paper in her hands, and there was color climbing up into her cheeks and refusing to leave.
View had reached her limit. "No."
They both turned toward her, and Milk looked so genuinely confused that it made everything funnier. "What?"
View pointed at the bag. "There was another mochi."
Milk glanced down. "Yes."
"A whole one."
"Yes."
"Untouched."
"Yes, View."
"A law-abiding, innocent mochi that had never been involved with either of your mouths."
Love broke first. Her laughter came out of her so suddenly that she folded forward over it, one hand flying up to cover her mouth. Milk lasted maybe two seconds longer before she went too, and View sat back on her heels in the warm satisfaction of a joke landing exactly where she'd aimed it.
And then she watched Love turn toward Milk instantly, because of course she did.
There it was again. That look.
Love always noticed Milk's laughter before anything else in a room. The second it got loose, her attention snapped toward it like it had been physically pulled. View had started recognizing the shape of it — the softness around Love's eyes, the way her smile reorganized itself when it was aimed specifically at Milk, the frankly ridiculous fascination she seemed to have with Milk's face when she laughed hard enough for her eyes to crease into those narrow little crescents.
It was, objectively, a lot to be standing next to. View had never once considered leaving.
Milk finally noticed Love staring at her. Her laughter quieted. Their eyes met, and Love didn't look away, and neither did Milk, and for a few seconds the two of them were just standing there in the middle of a shopping mall in Seoul.
People kept moving around them. Someone went past with shopping bags. A conversation rose and fell somewhere behind them, the bakery staff kept working, a coffee machine hissed across the floor. And Milk was looking at Love, and Love was still holding the mochi up between them with two bite marks now pressed side by side into the soft white dough.
View reached for her phone. Enough of this.
She sent Mim the picture she had taken earlier: Milk's hand resting over Love's head, fingers carefully smoothing her hair back, Love standing underneath the touch with her eyes lowered.
Mim answered within seconds.
Mim: Cute.
View looked at the word for a moment longer than she'd have admitted to. Then a second message came in.
Mim: You went with them voluntarily.
She looked up slowly. Traitor.
Milk leaned over just enough to catch a glimpse of the screen, and her lips twitched, and View turned the phone away so fast she nearly dropped it. "Don't."
Which, naturally, got Love's attention. "What did N'Mim say?"
View stopped. Turned around very slowly. "Excuse me?"
Love smiled at her, sweet as anything. "What did N'Mim say, kha?"
"You don't get to use honorifics to make being nosy sound adorable."
"It worked on P'Milk."
Milk made a small choking sound beside her, and View pointed at her without looking. "And you. Don't encourage her."
Love was already trying to lean around View's shoulder to see the screen, so View pressed the phone flat against her chest. "Absolutely not."
"View."
"No."
"Na…"
"No."
"Just a little?"
"That's not how phones work."
The device buzzed against her fingers. She looked down.
Mim: Bring me one.
View closed her eyes and said nothing at all for three long seconds. When she opened them, Love was watching her face. Then the phone. Then her face again. And a grin spread slowly across her whole face.
"She wants one."
View locked the screen. "You're irritating."
"She does."
"You have no evidence."
"Your face is the evidence."
Milk laughed quietly behind her, and View turned toward the bakery counter before she said something legally actionable. "Two more, please."
Behind her: "Two?"
She didn't turn around. "One for Mim."
A beat. "And the other one?" Love asked.
View looked back over her shoulder. "Emotional compensation."
Love laughed again, delighted. "You said you didn't want one."
"That was before I was forced to witness whatever biological ritual just happened over there."
Milk stared at her. "Biological ritual?"
"You ate out of the same bite mark."
"We're dating," Love pointed out, as if this were a legal defense.
"That does not make me less present."
Love's shoulders were still shaking when a small group of shoppers came up behind them, squeezing through the already narrow space around the counter. Milk noticed first, and her hand moved before she said anything about it — one arm slipping around Love's waist and drawing her gently inward, out of the flow of people.
Instinctive. Protective. Almost absentminded.
Love went with her without a second's hesitation, settling in against Milk's side as if there had never been another available place on the planet for her to stand.
The shoppers passed. The space cleared. Milk's hand stayed exactly where it was, fingers spread warm over Love's waist, and Love — who had opinions about everything and volunteered most of them — said absolutely nothing about it. She only breathed out, slowly, and leaned in a little further.
View looked away, then looked back, then gave up entirely.
"Poor View," Love murmured, in that teasing sweetness she saved for special occasions.
Milk hummed. "She suffered a lot today."
"So much."
"Should we buy her another one?"
"Stop discussing me in the couple voice."
"The what?" Milk said.
"That voice."
Love's eyes lit up like a struck match. "What voice, P'Milk?"
View pointed at her instantly. "Exactly that."
Milk laughed, and Love tilted her head toward her girlfriend. "Told you she's dramatic."
"Mhm."
View looked at the two of them — Milk's arm still around Love's waist, both of them entirely shameless — and accepted that the afternoon had gotten away from her completely.
Love lifted the last piece of the mochi between her fingers and looked down at it. There wasn't much left now. She seemed to weigh something. Then she looked up at Milk.
"P'Milk."
Milk's attention went to her immediately. "Hmm?"
Love held the last piece out toward her.
View saw it coming. "No."
Love glanced over. "I wasn't asking you."
"No."
"View—"
"I know where this is going."
Milk was already smiling. Love's expression turned mischievous.
"You want the last bite, teerak?"
Milk paused.
That got her. View saw it happen — the tiny hitch in her face, the barely perceptible widening of her eyes before she pulled herself back together.
Love saw it too, and her smile became unbearably pleased. "Oh," she said softly.
Milk narrowed her eyes. "Oh what?"
"Nothing, kha."
"You did that intentionally."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Love."
"Teerak?"
Milk let out a breath that might have been a laugh and shook her head at the floor, and Love was glowing. Actually glowing. Having just discovered that she could fluster Milk into silence with a single word, she now appeared to consider this the crowning achievement of her life so far.
View wanted nothing to do with this development. "I'm calling Mim."
Love laughed — and then stopped laughing, because Milk had taken hold of her hand and guided it up and taken the last bite straight from her fingers, lips closing over the tips of them for a second longer than the mochi strictly required.
View turned around and studied a display of handbags with tremendous interest. She had boundaries. Somewhere. Eventually. Behind her she heard Love say P'Milk in a voice that had lost every trace of teasing in it, and Milk hum back, entirely unrepentant, and View decided that whatever happened next was not going to happen in her line of sight if she could help it.
When her own mochi arrived she accepted it with considerably more dignity than Love had managed, took a bite, paused, chewed, and then looked down at it.
Damn. It really was good. The dough was impossibly soft and still faintly warm against her fingers, and the thick egg cream inside was rich without tipping over into too sweet.
Love had been watching her the entire time. Her eyebrows went up.
View looked away. "Don't."
"You like it."
"I said nothing."
"Your face said it."
"You're suddenly an expert on faces?"
Love looked over at Milk. "Yes."
It came out so naturally that even Milk seemed caught off guard by it, and for a heartbeat Love appeared to hear what she'd said. Her smile softened. Milk looked at her.
And there it was again. That quiet thing between them — the one View couldn't properly make fun of, because underneath all the ridiculousness it was so sincere it was almost hard to stand next to.
Love glanced down at the orange wrapping still gathered in her fingers. Then back up.
"P'Milk?"
"Yes, nong?"
"Next time I'll buy yours."
Milk tilted her head. "Next time?"
"Mhm."
"So you're already planning another one?"
Love pretended to think about it. "Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"Maybe I just like sharing with you."
Milk went quiet.
There were things Love said deliberately, to flirt, and View had learned to spot those a mile off. And then there were the things that got out before she'd heard how honest they sounded. This was the second kind, and Love seemed to realize it a half-second after everyone else did. Her gaze dropped. For once she didn't rush to cover the moment with a joke.
Milk watched her for a second. Then her whole face softened.
"I'll share anything with you, nong."
Simple. Quiet. Almost casual — except Love's head came up, and the way she looked at Milk afterward made View extremely interested in her own dessert.
No. Absolutely not. She was not going to stand there while the mood turned into whatever it was clearly turning into.
She took another bite and reached for her phone. Bought yours, she typed. You owe me love, emotional support, and at least one coffee.
The answer came almost immediately. I owe you a kiss. Emotional support is negotiable.
View stared at the screen and smiled before she could think better of it. Fine. Maybe the afternoon hadn't been a complete disaster.
Beside her, Love had slipped in closer to Milk again. Milk said something View didn't catch, and Love laughed, soft and low. View didn't bother turning her head this time; she concentrated on her mochi instead. Warm, sweet, soft. Almost good enough to justify the emotional damage.
Almost.
Then, from beside her: "Teerak…"
View froze.
Milk answered in that same quiet voice. "Yes?"
Love whispered something too low to hear, and a second later Milk laughed.
View lifted one hand without looking in their direction at all. "No."
"I didn't even do anything!" Love said, already laughing.
"I don't need to know anymore."
"View!"
"No. Whatever is happening over there is between you, Milk, and the government of South Korea."
Milk laughed harder. Love leaned into her.
And View finally looked. Just once.
Milk's hand was still resting at Love's waist, and Love was tucked comfortably in against her side, red hair spilling over her shoulder, the crumpled orange wrapper still held between her fingers. They were smiling at each other under the warm bakery lights while strangers moved around them without paying the slightest attention.
It was such an ordinary scene. That was probably why it landed differently this time.
There were no cameras. No interviewer watching for reactions, no stage lights, no fans screaming because one of them had touched the other. Nobody standing by, waiting to take one small gesture and turn it into a moment to be clipped and captioned and argued about for a week.
Just Milk. Just Love. A hand in someone's hair, an arm around a waist, a dessert shared because eating the untouched one would have been far too reasonable. Two people slowly getting used to the enormous, unglamorous privilege of not having to pretend any of it meant less than it did.
View had wanted this for them for a long time, and she'd never once said so out loud, and she wasn't going to start now — mostly because Love would cry, and then Milk would look at her, and then View would have to be sincere in the middle of a shopping mall, and there were limits.
So she watched for another second, and then looked away before either of them caught her, and took another bite of her mochi.
Maybe it wasn't so terrible. Insufferable? Absolutely. Excessively sweet? Without question. But terrible?
No. There were worse things in the world than being made to stand around watching two of your favorite people fall stupidly, helplessly in love — especially when your own girlfriend was waiting back at the hotel, and especially when you had a mochi for her tucked safely in the bag.
View glanced at Mim's last message again. I owe you a kiss.
Her mouth curved before she could stop it. Fine. She could survive this. Probably.
Then Love's voice floated over beside her, soft and unmistakably mischievous.
"P'Milk, one more?"
View closed her eyes and started counting.