Hellllllllo there, author... So I just finished binging your 8 ways series and girl...you ate...I loved how you ventured into different genres for each member ( I know Changbin's narrative is yet to release and I am looking forward to that) whole kepping the essence same... Leeknow and Hyunjin's stories stood out to me the most... Leeknow's portyal was impeccable and the gradual bond of Hyunjin with Seorin was so wwell written... and Seungmin's story honestly had me relate the most to is son's character... i only wish I had family members a sunderstnding as Seungmin when I was going through the rebellious adolescence pase... I am so gla dyou wrote this as a series cause each story is a gem and the fact that almost all of them are long fics is just the cherry on top...😍❤👌💕👏
come here so i can kiss you you!! 🥺🥺🥺 this made my day, you don’t even understand <333
i really wanted to embrace every type of father (except the ones not present 😬), whether that was a step-father, a biological father, or an adopted father (on the way 👀). and i also wanted to highlight that while not every father is perfect, the fact that they STAY and TRY is the important part of fatherhood.
as someone who grew up without a father, i kind of projected i think on what a good father means to me, as well mixing in the type of person that member is in my eyes. i hope that made sense! haha
so happy you’re enjoying! can’t believe there’s only one part left 😭 and it just happens to be my manssssss <3
for chef lee minho, cooking has never been about praise or recognition. it’s about putting care into every dish and hoping someone feels it. one night, someone finally does—and suddenly the kitchen isn’t the only place his heart begins to open.
⤷ accompanying visuals
pairing chef!minho x food blogger!reader
genre strangers to lovers
rating mature, 18+
word count 12k
warnings alcohol consumption ; detailed & graphic smut ; dirty talk ; softdom!minho ; oral (m receiving) ; p in v sex
𓄲 so excited to share this fic with you guys! watched chef with jon favreau and fell in love with the concept. also, food has always been the center of my family—what better way to gather people? manifesting a hot chef minho to cook for me every night!! fyi, i do get very descriptive with my world/lore building (sorry!!) love you hunnies! enjoy <3
m a s t e r l i s t .ᐟ i n b o x .ᐟ
The kitchen thrums like a living organism tucked behind the polished calm of the dining room, its pulse quick and relentless beneath the fluorescent glow of overhead lights. Heat gathers in thick layers, clinging to the tiled walls and stainless steel counters, curling upward in waves from stovetops that roar like small furnaces.
The air is rich with scent. Garlic sizzling in oil releases a sharp sweetness that drifts through the room, followed by the deeper aroma of beef searing hard against cast iron. Soy, sesame, butter, charred scallions, the faint citrus bite of freshly cut lemon. Everything mingles together into something intoxicating and heavy, the unmistakable perfume of a kitchen in full flight. Knives move like flashes of silver.
At the prep station near the back, a young cook bends over a cutting board, rhythm steady and precise as he slices through a mound of green onions, the blade rocking in swift, practiced arcs. Thin ribbons of emerald scatter across the board. Beside him, another cook works through a crate of napa cabbage, halving and quartering the leaves before stacking them neatly into metal trays that disappear toward the cold station for kimchi later.
“Behind!”
A line cook slides past with a pan clutched in one towel-wrapped hand, the other steadying a tray of marinated pork belly. The shout is automatic, the movement seamless. No one looks up. Everyone shifts just enough to make room.
At the range, flames leap upward with a sudden breath of orange as a wok hits the burner. Oil snaps and spits violently when garlic and ginger are tossed in, the scent blooming instantly through the air. A cook jerks the pan forward with a sharp flick of his wrist, sending vegetables dancing in the heat. The metal clangs against the stove as he works, spatula striking rhythmically against the wok’s curved sides.
“Two bulgogi, one seafood pancake, one bibimbap!” The order rings out over the roar of the kitchen.
“Two bulgogi! One seafood! One bibimbap!” the line echoes back in practiced chorus.
“Yes, chef!”
Plates begin assembling with almost mechanical precision. Rice scooped into stone bowls. Meat seared dark and glossy before being laid carefully over steaming grains. Someone ladles broth into a waiting pot that bubbles softly beside the grill.
The pass becomes a narrow stage where finished dishes gather in neat formation beneath the heat lamps, each plate wiped clean with a folded towel before it leaves the kitchen. Garnishes appear with careful fingers. A sprinkle of sesame seeds. A curl of pickled radish placed just so. A brush of sauce painted in a deliberate stroke.
At the center of it all stands Lee Minho, executive chef.
He occupies the pass like a conductor in front of a restless orchestra, eyes moving quickly over every station, catching mistakes before they can fully form. His black chef’s jacket is immaculate despite the chaos surrounding him, sleeves rolled just high enough to reveal lean forearms.
“Fire table seven.” His voice cuts cleanly through the noise. Not loud, but sharp enough that it slices straight through the din.
“Fire seven!” someone calls.
Minho barely looks up from the plate in front of him as he finishes arranging thin slices of seared duck over a bed of roasted vegetables. The meat gleams under the kitchen lights, edges crisp, center still blush-pink. He tilts the plate slightly, examining it with a quiet, critical eye before adding one final drizzle of sauce.
“Two minutes on the seafood pancake,” he says without glancing toward the station.
“Two minutes, chef!”
He moves quickly, but never hurried. Every motion carries the quiet confidence of someone who has repeated these gestures thousands of times until they’ve become instinct.
A bowl slides toward him. Minho catches it effortlessly. With a pair of long chopsticks he adjusts the vegetables layered over the bibimbap, nudging a slice of carrot into cleaner alignment, tucking spinach slightly beneath the egg so the yolk sits perfectly centered. He wipes the rim of the bowl with a folded cloth and nods once.
“Send it.”
The server sweeps it away.
Behind him the grill hisses as strips of marinated beef hit the metal grates, fat dripping down into the flames and sending a sudden flare of fire curling upward. The cook tending the grill barely flinches, flipping the meat with quick, confident movements.
“Chef, bulgogi walking!”
Minho glances over. “Hold it. Table nine is still waiting on their pancake.”
“Yes, chef.”
Another plate appears in front of him. He finishes it with the kind of careful precision that would make someone think he has all the time in the world, though the ticket rail above his head is already filling with new orders. The line cooks move faster as the dinner rush deepens, voices rising and falling in sharp bursts of communication.
“Hot behind!”
“Corner!”
“Three minutes on the rice!”
Steam curls upward from boiling pots, fogging the edges of the stainless steel hood. The constant clatter of metal against metal forms its own music. Pans sliding across burners. Ladles striking the sides of stockpots. Knives tapping against cutting boards in a relentless rhythm.
A cook hesitates for half a second while plating, and Minho notices immediately.
“Less sauce next time,” he says, voice firm.
The cook quickly bows his head. “Yes, chef.”
Minho gives the smallest nod of approval before turning his attention back to the pass.
“Next order,” he calls, already reaching for another plate.
Around him the kitchen continues its controlled storm of fire and steel and shouting voices, but Minho moves through it like the eye of the hurricane, steady and unshakeable, orchestrating the chaos with the effortless precision of someone who was born to stand exactly where he is.
The kitchen door swings shut behind a departing server with a soft thud, sealing the roar of the line behind thick walls and polished steel, but out in the dining room the atmosphere shifts entirely, like stepping from a thunderstorm into a quiet midnight street.
Seoul hums just beyond the restaurant’s glass frontage. Neon signs glow across the street, reflected faintly in the tall windows, while the soft thrum of traffic becomes little more than a distant murmur beneath the muted jazz drifting through the speakers overhead.
Inside Oneul, everything feels intentional.
Warm, low lighting spills from hanging brass fixtures, casting golden pools across dark walnut tables spaced comfortably apart so conversations remain private. The walls are textured charcoal plaster, broken occasionally by minimalist artwork and narrow shelves displaying ceramic plates and soju bottles like small museum pieces. A long marble bar stretches along one side of the room where a few late diners sit with quiet glasses of wine, the stone surface glowing softly beneath the pendant lights above it.
Nothing here is loud.
Even though the restaurant is clearly full, the space holds a kind of restrained elegance. Soft conversations weave together like quiet threads, silverware touches porcelain with delicate clinks, and the occasional low laugh rises before disappearing back into the warm, intimate atmosphere.
It feels romantic without trying too hard.
Comfortable. Thoughtful. Exactly the kind of place where someone could sit for hours, slowly enjoying a meal that deserves patience.
The host stand sits just inside the entrance, a small island of polished wood where a young man greets arriving guests with an easy, welcoming smile. His dark hair falls across his forehead in soft waves as he glances up from the reservation tablet when the door opens again.
“Good evening,” he says warmly.
You return the smile, stepping forward.
“Hi. I have a reservation.”
“Name?”
You give it, and he scrolls through the list before his expression brightens in recognition.
“Ah, yes. Right this way.”
His name tag reads Jisung, and he gestures lightly for you to follow as he leads you through the dining room.
You notice little details as you walk.
The quiet confidence of the servers gliding between tables with practiced ease. The faint scent of grilled meat and sesame drifting from the kitchen doors. The way the open bar shelves reflect the dim light like rows of small lanterns.
It took weeks to get this reservation. Weeks of checking the booking site late at night, refreshing the page whenever a cancellation notification appeared, hoping you’d finally catch a table before someone else did.
Restaurants like this didn’t stay available long. Especially when the chef running the kitchen was Lee Minho.
Your phone rests quietly in your bag, but you know the camera roll inside it is already filling with half-finished drafts for your blog and TikTok account.
Neither of them had started as anything serious.
Just small posts at first. Clips of meals you liked, little write-ups about places you visited on weekends, the occasional video where you talked about the flavors of a dish you loved.
But somewhere along the way people started paying attention. They liked how you edited your videos, the clean little transitions between shots of steaming bowls and sizzling pans. They liked how you took time in your blogs to describe food carefully rather than simply labeling it good or bad. More than anything, they liked how kind you were when you talked about restaurants.
You didn’t treat meals like something to critique harshly.
You treated them like small pieces of someone’s work and passion.
And chefs noticed.
Messages began appearing in your inbox from small restaurants thanking you for the care you took when writing about them. A lot of them even invited you to visit again.
Your following grew quietly after that. Enough that people now occasionally asked where you’d be eating next.
Tonight, the answer was Oneul.
And you were determined to enjoy every second of it.
Jisung stops beside a small table near the center of the dining room, positioned perfectly between the soft glow of the hanging lights and the gentle view of the kitchen doors at the far end of the room.
“Here we are,” he says, pulling the chair out for you.
You thank him as you settle in.
The seat is comfortable, the table set simply with polished cutlery and a single low candle flickering in the center.
Perfect.
You actually prefer coming to new restaurants alone.
Friends are wonderful, of course, but when you’re trying somewhere for the first time you like being able to focus fully on the food. No splitting dishes too quickly. No rushing conversation between bites. Just time to notice flavors slowly, to observe the atmosphere, to pay attention to the little details that make a place memorable.
Jisung sets a menu down in front of you before offering one last polite smile. “Your server will be with you shortly.”
The moment he steps away, the faint rustle of paper fills the small space as you open the menu.
It’s beautifully designed. Simple matte pages, elegant Korean lettering and beautiful written descriptions, each section arranged with careful restraint rather than overwhelming variety. Seasonal ingredients are featured heavily, the dishes shifting depending on what the kitchen receives freshest that week.
You’re halfway through scanning the appetizer section when another presence arrives beside the table.
“Good evening.”
You glance up to find a young server standing there, posture straight but relaxed, a welcoming smile already forming.
His name tag reads Jeongin.
“My name is Jeongin, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.” His voice carries the easy confidence of someone who knows the rhythm of a busy dining room well. “Is this your first time dining with us?”
“It is,” you admit with a small smile.
“Well, we’re happy to have you.”
He sets a glass of water down gently before gesturing toward the menu in your hands. “Chef Minho has a few specials tonight I’d love to tell you about if you’re interested.”
Immediately your attention sharpens. “Absolutely.”
Jeongin nods slightly before beginning. “Tonight the chef is featuring a charcoal-grilled short rib with fermented soybean glaze, served alongside pickled seasonal vegetables. There’s also a seafood stew made with local shellfish and fresh herbs that arrived this morning. And for our starter, we have a delicate scallop crudo with citrus dressing.”
Each description lands like a small spark in your mind.
You can already picture the flavors.
You nod slowly, thinking. “I’d love to try the scallop and the short rib,” you decide after a moment.
“Excellent choice.” Jeongin makes a small note on his order pad. “Would you like to hold onto the menu for now?”
“Yes, please.”
“Of course.” He gives a quick, approving nod before stepping away toward the kitchen doors.
You relax slightly into the chair once he leaves, letting your gaze wander around the dining room again as quiet conversation drifts through the warm air.
It feels exactly how you imagined it would. Maybe even better. Because the truth is, you hadn’t come here just because the restaurant was trending.
You came because of him. Chef Lee Minho.
Even if you’d never met him, it was impossible not to hear about him lately.
Articles about a young chef reshaping modern Korean dining. Short clips circulating online of a quiet, focused man working behind the pass, eyes sharp as he adjusted plates before sending them out to the dining room. Interviews where he spoke calmly about ingredients, about respect for tradition while experimenting with something new.
And yes, people talked about how handsome he was too.
You’d seen the videos. Dark hair falling over his forehead, sleeves rolled as he worked over the stove, expression calm even while an entire kitchen moved around him at full speed.
But what drew you in wasn’t his face. It was the way he cooked. The careful attention in his movements. The quiet intensity in the way he plated dishes like each one mattered.
You knew the restaurant itself belonged to Seo Changbin, one of Seoul’s most respected restaurateurs with a long list of successful spots across the city. Oneul was simply the newest addition to his growing empire.
But from everything you’d read, Mr. Seo had done something unusual here. He had handed full creative control of the menu to Minho. Complete trust. And that kind of trust in the restaurant world was rare. Which meant the dishes coming out of that kitchen tonight were entirely Minho’s vision.
Your fingers trace lightly over the edge of the menu as anticipation settles comfortably in your chest.
Somewhere behind those heavy kitchen doors, the chef you’d been hearing about for months was working through the dinner rush, plating dish after dish with the same careful precision that had made Oneul one of the hardest reservations in Seoul to secure.
Jeongin slips through the dining room, weaving between tables carrying the soft murmur of conversation and the gentle clink of glassware. He pauses briefly at the small station tucked beside the bar where the POS system glows softly beneath a small lamp.
The screen wakes with a soft tap.
He inputs the order quickly: Table 14. Scallop crudo. Charcoal-grilled short rib.
His fingers hover over the screen for a moment before he exhales through his nose, a small smile creeping onto his face. Then he finishes the entry and pushes the tablet aside.
“Alright,” he mutters to himself, straightening his apron.
The kitchen doors swing open with a quiet push of his shoulder.
Immediately the air changes.
Heat rushes forward to meet him, carrying with it the rich smell of something sautéing, and the deep savory perfume of broth simmering somewhere along the back burners. The kitchen is still in full motion, a coordinated storm of steel and flame.
A chorus of voices rises and falls in practiced rhythm.
Minho stands at the pass exactly where Jeongin expects him to be, composed beneath the harsh white glow of the kitchen lights. His attention moves constantly, eyes flicking from one plate to the next as dishes slide toward him for inspection before heading out to the dining room.
Another bowl of bibimbap stops in front of him. Without hesitation, he adjusts the placement of the vegetables with the tip of a pair of chopsticks, rotating the egg slightly before brushing a clean cloth along the rim.
“Send it,” he says.
Jeongin steps closer, waiting patiently for a break between orders.
Minho notices him immediately, though he doesn’t look up from the next plate he’s finishing. “Table twelve’s pancake ready?” he asks.
“One minute, chef.”
Minho nods once.
The next ticket prints with a sharp mechanical whir.
“Fire table nine,” he calls calmly.
“Fire nine!” the line echoes back.
Only then does Minho glance toward Jeongin. “What?” It isn’t unfriendly, just direct.
Jeongin leans casually against the counter beside the pass, lowering his voice slightly so it doesn’t disrupt the flow of the kitchen. “Table fourteen just ordered.”
Minho nods faintly. “Okay.”
“It's YLN YN.”
The chopsticks pause mid-air. Minho blinks once, expression flattening into something mildly confused. “…And?”
Jeongin stares at him. “Chef.”
Minho tilts his head slightly, waiting.
Jeongin waits too.
The silence stretches long enough that Chan, Minho’s sous chef working a few feet away, glances over with mild curiosity while plating a dish.
Minho finally sighs. “Should I know who that is?”
Jeongin stares harder.
Chan snorts quietly. “Wow,” he mutters under his breath.
Minho shoots him a look before returning his attention to Jeongin. “Is there a problem with the table?”
“No,” Jeongin says slowly. “But…it's YN.”
Minho stares at him again. “Okay.”
Another pause.
Jeongin squints slightly, as if trying to figure out whether Minho is joking. “You seriously don’t know who YLN YN is?”
Minho wipes the edge of a plate carefully before pushing it toward the heat lamp. “Should I?”
Chan lets out a quiet laugh this time.
Jeongin drags a hand down his face. “You live like a monk,” he mutters.
“I live like a chef,” Minho corrects calmly.
Which is true. Minho rarely touches social media unless Chan physically shoves a phone in his face to show him something important, and even then it usually involves a food critic’s review rather than anything trending online.
The restaurant has become something of a quiet phenomenon lately. Part of that comes from the fact that Oneul’s menu never stays the same. Minho changes dishes constantly depending on what’s in season, what arrives fresh from local markets that morning, what ingredients inspire him when he steps into the kitchen. Imported products rarely make their way onto his menu unless absolutely necessary.
Local seafood. Seasonal vegetables. Fresh meats sourced from nearby farms.
The approach isn’t flashy, but it has built a reputation. People come back because they know the experience will always feel new.
Minho, however, has never paid much attention to the buzz surrounding it.
Praise doesn’t interest him much, neither does notoriety. He cooks because he loves the craft. Because building a dish from raw ingredients into something that makes someone pause mid-bite and smile quietly to themselves still feels like the most satisfying thing he knows how to do.
The recognition that follows is simply background noise.
Chan occasionally reads him reviews from major critics when they appear in newspapers or magazines. Minho listens politely. Then he goes back to work.
So hearing your name right now does absolutely nothing for him.Just another person sitting in his dining room. Another guest.
He shrugs slightly. “If she’s a critic, she’ll get the same food everyone else gets.”
Jeongin blinks. “She’s not a critic.”
Minho raises an eyebrow. “No?”
“She’s a food blogger.”
Minho hums thoughtfully as he reaches for another plate. “That’s…the same thing.”
“No it isn’t.”
Minho glances up again. “Yes it is.”
“No it isn’t.”
Chan quietly turns his back on the conversation, already sensing where this is going.
Jeongin gestures vaguely toward the dining room. “She’s an amateur blogger. But she’s really popular online. People love her posts. Her videos get a lot of views.”
Minho tilts his head. “Okay.”
Jeongin stares at him. “That’s it?”
“What do you want me to do?” Minho asks calmly. “Roll out a red carpet?”
Jeongin sighs loudly. “No, chef. I just thought you’d want to know.”
Minho shrugs. “If she likes the food, that’s good.”
If she doesn’t? He’ll still keep cooking the same way. Because the food comes first. It always has.
Jeongin watches him for another moment before leaning closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “She’s also really pretty.”
Minho doesn’t even blink. “Congratulations.”
Chan chokes on a laugh somewhere behind them.
Jeongin glares at Minho. “I’m serious.”
“Good for her.”
“Chef.”
“What?”
Jeongin gestures again toward the dining room. “Like…really pretty.”
Minho slides another finished plate toward the pass. “Jeongin.”
“Yes.”
“I’m working.”
“Right.”
“And you’re supposed to be serving tables.”
“…Right.”
A brief pause. Then Jeongin straightens. “Anyway,” he says quickly, clapping his hands once like someone delivering breaking news, “YLN YN ordered the scallop crudo and the short rib special.”
Minho pauses for a fraction of a second. The scallop crudo is one of his newer dishes. He had adjusted the citrus dressing just this afternoon.
“…Alright,” he says finally. Then he reaches for the scallops waiting in the chilled tray beside the station. “Let’s make it right.”
Jeongin watches him for another second before turning back toward the dining room, shaking his head.
Chan leans slightly toward Minho as he works. “You didn’t even ask what she looks like,” Chan says casually.
Minho doesn’t look up. “I don’t need to.”
Chan smirks. “Why?”
Minho finishes slicing the scallop with smooth, precise movements. “Because,” he says calmly, arranging the delicate pieces across the chilled plate, “if she’s a guest in my restaurant…” He brushes the citrus dressing lightly across the scallops. “…then the food should be good no matter what she looks like.”
Chan nods slowly. “Fair.”
A beat passes. Then Chan glances toward the dining room doors. “…Jeongin said she’s really pretty though.”
Minho finally looks up. “Chan.”
“Yes, chef.”
“Focus.”
Chan grins to himself and goes back to cooking.
Out in the dining room, the steady rhythm of the kitchen remains hidden behind the heavy double doors, reduced to nothing more than the occasional soft swing as servers pass through with trays balanced carefully on one hand. The rest of the restaurant continues its quiet evening ballet around you.
You lean back slightly in your chair, menu still open in your hands. The candle at the center of the table flickers gently, its small flame bending each time someone passes nearby, casting soft shadows across the matte pages. The warm lighting above keeps everything bathed in a kind of golden dusk that makes the space feel both intimate and calm.
Your eyes move slowly down the list of dishes. Every description feels deliberate. Nothing flashy, nothing overly complicated, just ingredients that sound thoughtfully paired together. Each line reads less like a performance and more like a quiet conversation between ingredients. You find yourself lingering over certain words, imagining how they might taste together.
This is your favorite part of visiting new places. The anticipation. The small thrill of wondering whether the dish will match the image forming in your head.
A soft movement draws your attention before long.
Jeongin approaches your table again, posture straight as always, though there’s a hint of quiet pride in the way he carries the plate balanced in one hand.
“Your scallop crudo,” he says gently as he places it in front of you.
The plate settles onto the table with a soft ceramic sound. For a moment you simply look at it.
The dish is delicate in a way that immediately tells you the chef cared deeply about its presentation. Thin slices of scallop fan outward across the chilled plate like pale petals, glistening slightly under the restaurant’s soft lighting. A light citrus dressing shimmers over the surface, catching tiny flecks of oil that reflect gold beneath the candlelight. Small dots of sauce and a scattering of finely sliced herbs add subtle bursts of color across the plate.
It’s simple. Elegant. Thoughtful.
“Thank you,” you say quietly.
Jeongin gives a polite nod before stepping away, leaving you alone again with the first course.
You reach for your phone first to capture it.
The camera opens with a familiar motion, and you lean forward slightly to frame the dish beneath the warm light of the table lamp. A quick photo. Then another from a slightly different angle. A short video clip, the camera gliding slowly across the surface of the plate to capture the delicate sheen of the scallops and the soft textures of the garnish.
You tuck the phone away after that. The real work comes next.
From your bag you pull out a small notebook, its edges worn slightly from use, and a simple pen clipped along the spine. The notebook opens easily to the next blank page, and you jot down the date at the top before glancing once more at the dish in front of you.
Then finally, you pick up the fork.
The first bite is careful, lifting one thin slice of scallop along with just enough of the citrus dressing to coat it lightly. The texture is immediately soft, almost buttery as it settles onto your tongue.
And then the flavor unfolds.
Bright citrus arrives first, sharp and clean against the sweetness of the scallop. Then something softer follows behind it, a delicate balance of salt and oil that deepens the bite without overpowering it.
Your eyes widen slightly.
The second chew releases more flavor, the scallop almost melting as the citrus brightens again at the edges.
You swallow slowly, taking a moment to let the taste linger before your hand moves automatically to the notebook.
The pen scratches across the page. You write quickly while the memory of the flavor is still fresh.
Delicate. Bright citrus that lifts the sweetness instead of masking it. Scallops so soft they almost dissolve. Feels like the ocean but lighter, cleaner.
You pause. Then write again.
Emotion: Calm. The kind of bite that makes you stop and process.
Your mind drifts briefly as you consider it.
Something about the taste reminds you faintly of a seaside trip you took years ago, standing near the water while the wind carried salt through the air. The same kind of clean brightness lives in this dish.
You jot that down too.
Memory: ocean air and summer warmth
Another bite follows, slower this time, savoring the way the dressing coats the scallop differently depending on which part of the slice touches your tongue first.
You finish the dish gradually, each bite followed by another line in the notebook, until only the faint smear of citrus remains on the plate.
Not long after, Jeongin returns carrying your second course.
“Short rib special,” he says as he gently sets the dish in front of you.
The aroma reaches you before the plate fully touches the table. Deep. Savory. Rich in a way that fills the air immediately.
The short rib rests at the center of the plate, its dark glaze catching the warm light with a glossy sheen. Steam curls faintly upward from the meat, carrying the unmistakable scent of slow-cooked beef and fermented soybean that lingers heavy and comforting.
Beside it sit carefully arranged vegetables, bright pickled pieces offering contrast against the darker tones of the dish.
“Please enjoy,” Jeongin says.
You nod softly. “Thank you.”
Again the phone appears briefly. A few photos. A short video capturing the steam rising gently from the plate. Then the notebook returns to the table.
This time the fork slides easily through the meat, the short rib separating without resistance.
You bring the first bite to your mouth. And pause. Because the flavor arrives so suddenly that your brain almost needs a second to catch up.
The glaze is deep and savory, the fermented soybean lending a rich umami depth that spreads across your tongue almost instantly. The meat itself is unbelievably tender, the slow braise leaving it soft enough to fall apart with barely any effort.
Your brows lift. You chew slowly. Then you blink once, processing it fully.
“…Wow,” you whisper to yourself.
The bite disappears too quickly.
Your hand moves again.
Deep flavor. Soybean glaze rich but balanced. Meat unbelievably tender.
You pause again before adding more.
Emotion: Warm. Comforting. Feels like winter food but refined.
Another bite follows immediately. This one even better.
The pickled vegetables cut through the richness beautifully, their sharp brightness lifting the heavier flavors of the meat so the dish never feels overwhelming.
You lean back slightly in your chair, chewing thoughtfully. The kind of quiet satisfaction settles into your chest that only really good food can create.
Your pen moves again.
Balance between richness and acidity perfect.
Then another line.
Chef clearly understands restraint.
By the time Jeongin approaches your table again, you’re halfway through the short rib and still writing quickly in the notebook.
He pauses politely beside you. “How is everything?”
You glance up, cheeks warming slightly as if you’ve just been caught doing something private. “Oh,” you say quickly, smiling. “It’s amazing. Really.”
Jeongin smiles back. “I’m glad to hear that.”
Your fingers close gently over the notebook as a small, hesitant thought forms in your mind.
You look down at the plate again. Then back up at him. “…Um.”
Jeongin waits patiently.
You shift slightly in your seat, suddenly feeling a bit shy.
“Would it be possible,” you begin carefully, “to speak to the chef for a moment?” You quickly add another sentence before he can answer. “If he’s not too busy, I mean.” Your fingers curl slightly around the pen. “I just wanted to thank him.”
The kitchen doors burst open with a sudden rush of cooler dining room air, and Jeongin slips back inside with a grin so wide it immediately catches the attention of half the line.
Minho’s plating another dish at the pass, chopsticks moving with precise, quiet control as he adjusts a garnish. He doesn’t even look up at first, only sensing the energy shift beside him.
“What,” he says calmly.
Jeongin practically bounces on his feet. “Chef.”
Minho glances up. Jeongin’s grin only grows wider. “She wants to meet you.”
Minho blinks once. “Who?”
“YLN YN.”
For a brief second, the entire kitchen seems to pause. Not completely–pans are still sizzling, knives still tapping against cutting boards, the ticket printer still whining softly as new orders appear–but several heads turn.
Chan looks up from the station beside him immediately.
Minho stares at Jeongin. “Why?”
Jeongin laughs quietly, clearly delighted with himself. “She asked if you had a moment so she could thank you personally.”
Minho’s brows knit together slightly. Critics don’t do that. Usually they eat quietly, scribble notes, maybe ask a question through the server if they’re feeling particularly curious, and then disappear into the night to publish their thoughts days later. They do not ask to meet the chef mid-service.
He glances toward the dining room doors for a moment as if trying to process the request. “To thank me?”
Jeongin nods. “Yeah.”
Minho looks back at him. “Are you sure?”
Jeongin snorts. “Pretty sure, chef.”
He glances briefly toward the ticket rail, mentally calculating the remaining orders moving through the kitchen.
Before he can say anything, Chan clears his throat beside him. “I can cover the pass for a few minutes,” he says casually, though the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth suggests he’s enjoying this far too much.
Minho looks at him. “You’re busy.”
“I’m always busy.” Chan shrugs. “Go.”
Minho doesn’t move. Chan leans closer, lowering his voice just enough. “Besides,” he adds lightly, “Jeongin said she’s really pretty.”
A few cooks nearby immediately pretend to focus very hard on their stations.
Minho stares at him flatly. “Chan.”
“Yes, chef.”
“I don’t care.”
Chan nods thoughtfully. “Right.” He gestures vaguely toward the dining room doors. “You should still go though.”
Minho exhales quietly through his nose. Then he unties his apron. The movement earns a few barely contained grins from the line cooks.
“Watch the short rib station,” Minho says calmly as he folds the apron once and sets it aside.
“Yes, chef,” Chan replies, still smiling.
Minho glances once more over the pass, making sure the next few plates are already in motion. Then he turns. Jeongin is waiting for him by the doors like a guide about to escort a dignitary.
“This way,” Jeongin says.
Minho follows him into the dining room.
The shift in atmosphere is immediate. The roaring heat and clatter of the kitchen give way to the warm hush of the restaurant, the gentle jazz music and low candlelight settling around him like a completely different world.
A few diners notice him right away. Minho has become recognizable lately, whether he likes it or not.
A couple seated near the kitchen offers a polite nod of greeting. Minho returns it with a small smile, bowing his head briefly as he passes their table.
Then Jeongin slows. “Table fourteen,” he says quietly.
Minho’s gaze follows the direction of his nod.
And that’s when he sees you.
You’re sitting at the small candlelit table with your notebook still open beside the plate, pen resting lightly between your fingers. The warm lighting catches the soft curve of your smile as you glance up at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Minho understands exactly what Jeongin meant. You really are very pretty. Not in a loud or dramatic way. Something softer. Kind eyes. Gentle expression. The sort of smile that makes someone instinctively relax without quite realizing why.
Minho bows politely as he reaches the table. “Good evening.”
Your face brightens instantly. You stand slightly in your seat as if unsure whether you should bow too before settling for a small, grateful smile. “Chef Minho?”
“Yes.”
You clasp your hands together lightly in front of you. “Thank you so much for coming out to meet me. I know you’re busy.” Your voice is warm, genuine.
Minho shakes his head slightly. “It’s alright.”
He waits.
Jeongin quietly slips away from the table, leaving the two of you alone.
You take a small breath before continuing. “I just wanted to thank you personally for the meal,” you say, your smile widening again. “It’s really incredible.”
Minho nods once. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
You glance down briefly at the notebook beside your plate before looking back up at him. “Oh, I should probably introduce myself.” Your cheeks warm slightly. “I’m YLN YN.”
Minho nods again. “I heard.”
You laugh softly. “Jeongin probably mentioned I have a food blog.”
Minho tilts his head slightly. “Yes.”
“I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course.”
You gesture lightly toward the plates in front of you. “I write about the meals I experience, but I mostly just try to talk about what the food makes me feel.”
Minho watches you quietly.
Your eyes brighten again as you continue. “The scallop dish was beautiful,” you say. “The citrus dressing was so bright but still delicate. It reminded me of the ocean. Like standing near the water when the wind carries that salty air.”
Minho feels warmth bloom slowly in his chest.
You look down at the notebook again. “I wrote it down because I didn’t want to forget the feeling.” Then you glance back up at him. “And the short rib…” You pause, searching for the words. “…I don’t even know how to describe it properly,” you admit with a small laugh. “It tasted like comfort. Like the kind of food someone cooks when they care about you.”
Minho stands very still. No critic has ever described his food like that. They usually talk about technique. Structure. Balance. Not feelings.
You continue, clearly excited. “I could feel how much passion went into the dish,” you say earnestly. “Every bite felt thoughtful. Like you really cared about the experience someone would have eating it.”
You gesture toward the empty chair across from you.
“Would you like to sit for a moment?”
Minho hesitates. He is not used to sitting in his own dining room. Especially not across from a guest. Especially not a guest looking at him like that.
But after a second he nods. “Alright.”
He lowers himself carefully into the chair. It feels strange being in this part of the restaurant for once.
You continue talking, enthusiasm shining through every word as you explain the memories the flavors brought back for you. A seaside trip. The warmth of comfort food on cold evenings. Small details that lingered in your mind with each bite.
Minho listens quietly. Inside, something soft begins melting completely. The way you talk about the food…It feels sincere.
And when you finally finish speaking, your expression shifts slightly as realization dawns. “Oh no.”
Minho blinks.
“I’ve taken up so much of your time,” you say quickly, cheeks turning pink. “You must be incredibly busy.” You stand slightly, bowing politely. “Thank you again for coming out to talk to me. The meal really meant a lot.”
Minho stands too. “It was my pleasure.”
You smile again. Bright. Warm.
Minho returns the smallest hint of a smile before bowing politely once more. Then he turns and walks back toward the kitchen.
The moment he approaches the doors he notices the entire line staff watching through the small windows like curious children at an aquarium.
Minho pushes the door open. Everyone immediately pretends to be very busy.
“Get back to work,” he says calmly.
Several cooks jump slightly. “Yes, chef.”
Minho moves back to the pass, tying his apron again.
Chan leans casually against the counter beside him, grin already spreading across his face. “Well?” he asks.
Minho doesn’t look at him. “Get a slice of the saengkeulim cake.”
Chan raises an eyebrow. “That’s your favorite dessert.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Give it to Jeongin.”
Chan tilts his head. “To bring to table fourteen?”
Minho adjusts a plate on the pass. “Yes. On the house.”
Chan’s grin widens into something almost devilish. “I thought she was just another guest, chef.”
Minho pauses. Then he resumes plating. “She is.”
Chan snorts quietly and turns toward the dessert station. “Sure she is.”
A week later, the dinner rush at Oneul has finally quieted.
The dining room is empty now, the last guests having drifted out into the cool Seoul night nearly an hour ago. Chairs sit tucked neatly beneath tables, candles extinguished, the low jazz music replaced by the soft hum of the building settling into late evening calm.
The kitchen has mostly cleared out as well. A few cooks linger near the prep stations, finishing the quiet work that comes after service, but the energy that once filled the room with shouting voices and sizzling pans has faded to something softer. Someone laughs faintly near the back. The dishwasher hums steadily in its corner.
Minho slips away quietly.
Down a narrow hallway behind the kitchen sits a small office that barely deserves the name. It’s little more than a modest room with a desk, a laptop, and a shelf cluttered with binders full of supplier notes and seasonal ingredient lists. The overhead light hums faintly as he switches it on.
He closes the door behind him. The moment the latch clicks into place, the silence thickens.
Minho exhales slowly. Then he sits.
The laptop wakes with a soft glow, lighting the otherwise dim room with pale blue light. For a moment he just stares at the screen, fingers resting lightly against the keyboard.
It’s a stupid idea. If Chan catches him doing this, he will never hear the end of it.
If Jeongin catches him? Minho might actually have to quit his job and move cities.
He sighs. Then he starts typing.
The search results appear almost instantly: Little Mandu Diaries.
A small dumpling logo greets him at the top of the page when he clicks the link, round and cheerful with tiny blushing cheeks and a happy little smile. The illustration is simple but charming, sitting proudly beside the blog’s title.
Minho stares at it for a moment.
“Mandu,” he murmurs quietly. Of course it’s a cute little dumpling.
The homepage opens beneath the banner, revealing post after post neatly arranged with photographs from different restaurants across South Korea. Each entry is paired with warm, thoughtful titles rather than blunt reviews.
Rainy Night Noodles in Hongdae.The Quiet Magic of Late-Night Tteokbokki.Grandmother’s Kitchen in a Modern Dining Room.
Minho scrolls slowly.
Your writing voice is immediately clear. There’s no harshness. No pretentious language. No attempt to sound like a critic dissecting a meal under a microscope. Instead, your words feel gentle. Curious. Like someone describing an experience to a friend.
He clicks one of the earlier posts first. Then another.
Time slips quietly by as he reads.
Your entries move carefully through each meal, describing textures, smells, small details that other writers might ignore entirely. You write about the warmth of soup on cold nights, the comfort of street food shared with strangers, the joy of discovering a dish that surprises you.
Minho doesn’t even realize how long he’s been sitting there until his eyes catch a familiar title at the top of the page—A Night at Oneul: Food That Feels Like Home
His cursor hovers for a second. Then he clicks it.
The page opens.
At the top sits a photograph of the dining room, candlelight glowing softly against the dark walls. The angle captures the quiet elegance of the space perfectly.
Below it begins the entry.
Minho leans forward slightly as he reads.
A Night at Onul: Food That Feels Like Home
There are restaurants where you go to be impressed.
And then there are restaurants where you go to feel something.
Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Oneul, a small but stunning contemporary restaurant in the heart of Seoul. Reservations were difficult to secure (I spent several late nights refreshing the booking page like a determined little dumpling), but the moment I stepped through the doors I understood why.
The space itself feels intimate and thoughtful. Soft lighting pools over dark wooden tables while quiet jazz hums gently in the background. Nothing feels rushed or overwhelming. Instead, the atmosphere encourages you to slow down.
And slowing down is exactly what this food deserves.
Oneul’s kitchen is led by Chef Lee Minho, a name that has been appearing more and more frequently in conversations about Seoul’s evolving dining scene. While the restaurant itself is owned by restaurateur Seo Changbin, the menu is entirely Chef Minho’s vision.
What makes that vision special is its commitment to seasonal ingredients.
Nothing feels forced. Nothing feels like it’s trying too hard to be clever.
Every dish feels honest.
My first course was the Scallop Crudo with Citrus Dressing.
The moment the plate arrived I paused, simply appreciating the way the dish was presented. Thin slices of scallop spread gently across the plate like pale petals, glistening softly beneath the restaurant’s warm lighting.
The first bite surprised me.
The citrus arrived bright and clean, lifting the natural sweetness of the scallop rather than overwhelming it. The texture was so delicate it nearly melted before I could fully chew.
It reminded me of standing near the ocean.
You know that moment when the wind carries the scent of saltwater through the air and everything suddenly feels fresh and quiet?
That was the feeling.
I wrote in my notebook: “This tastes like fresh ocean air.”
My second course was the Charcoal-Grilled Short Rib with Fermented Soybean Glaze.
This dish felt completely different but equally memorable.
The meat was incredibly tender, falling apart easily with each bite. The glaze carried a deep, savory richness that filled the mouth without becoming heavy. Pickled vegetables alongside the rib added just enough brightness to balance the dish perfectly.
It tasted like comfort.
Not the kind of comfort that comes from something familiar, but the kind that makes you feel warm and cared for even when you’re experiencing it for the first time.
I wrote in my notebook again: “This tastes like someone cooked it with love.”
What struck me most about the meal was the sense of care present in every bite.
Food can be technical. Food can be impressive. But the dishes at Oneul felt personal.
And when I had the chance to briefly meet Chef Minho, I found that same quiet sincerity in the person behind the food.
He was humble, thoughtful, and clearly deeply passionate about what he creates.
Some meals stay with you because they are delicious.
Others stay with you because they remind you of something.
This one did both.
If you have the chance to visit Onul, go.
Bring someone you care about.
Or go alone, like I did, and simply enjoy the conversation between the food and the person who made it.
Sometimes that’s the best company you can have.
Minho leans back slowly in the chair.
The office is silent except for the faint hum of the computer.
His chest feels strangely full.
Critics usually talk about structure. Technique. Presentation.
But your words…Your words made it sound like the food mattered. Like the emotions behind it mattered.
He scrolls further. At the bottom of the post sits a small section labeled “Watch the Experience.”
A TikTok video is embedded beneath it.
Minho hesitates. Then he presses play.
The video opens with a smooth shot of the restaurant exterior at night before transitioning into the dining room, candlelight glowing softly across the tables. Gentle music plays beneath the video as subtitles appear along the bottom.
“Tonight we’re visiting Oneul.”
The footage is careful. Thoughtful. Small clips of the menu turning beneath your fingers. A slow pan across the scallop dish when it arrives. Steam rising from the short rib as the camera lingers just long enough to capture the warmth of the plate.
Then your face appears in frame. You’re smiling. That same soft, bright smile from the night you met him.
“Hi everyone! Today I’m trying Chef Lee Minho’s menu for the first time.”
Minho watches the rest of the video in silence.
The subtitles translate your Korean explanation into English beneath the screen. Your editing is smooth but not flashy, letting the food remain the focus rather than the spectacle.
When the video ends, he notices the section below filled with comments . Thousands of them.
People asking about reservations. People tagging friends. People saying they want to try the restaurant because of your review.
Minho rubs a hand slowly across the back of his neck. “Wow,” he murmurs.
His eyes drift upward toward the left side of the page where a small Contact section sits. Minho stares at it for a long moment. Then he clicks.
The cursor blinks patiently on a blank email draft.
He types slowly.
Hello YN,
This is Chef Minho from Oneul. I wanted to thank you for your review of the restaurant. I read your post tonight and appreciated the care you took when writing about the food. It means a lot that you enjoyed your experience.
He pauses.
The message feels too formal. Too stiff.
He stares at the screen again. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he types another line.
If you ever return to Oneul, please let me know. I would be happy to cook for you again.
Another pause.
Minho exhales. This is already embarrassing enough.
But then, before he can change his mind, he types one more thing beneath the message.
A phone number. His phone number.
The email sends with a quiet whoosh.
He stares at it immediately after sending it. “Why did I do that?”
And somewhere across the city, it’s now sitting quietly in your inbox
One year later.
The apartment is warm with the quiet comfort of a night spent entirely at home.
Soft music drifts from the small speaker resting near the window, some mellow jazz record Minho had insisted you listen to months ago after claiming it was the perfect soundtrack for cooking. The melody curls lazily through the room, weaving between the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional hiss of something hitting hot oil.
From the kitchen island, the steady rhythm of a knife tapping against a cutting board joins the music like a second percussion line.
Minho stands there, focused and calm. Exactly the way he always looks when he's cooking.
The overhead light casts a warm glow across the kitchen, catching the strands of dark hair that fall slightly across his forehead now, brushing near his eyes as he leans over the cutting board with quiet concentration.
His knife moves quickly. Precise.
Green onions gather in neat little piles beneath the blade as he slices through them with practiced ease, the sharp scent of them mixing with the deeper aroma rising from the pan heating on the stove beside him.
A towel rests casually over his shoulder, the same one he’s been using all evening to wipe his hands whenever he moves between ingredients.
The pan suddenly crackles as he adds something to it.
Oil spits sharply. A cloud of garlic and onion fills the air, blooming into the apartment with an immediate richness that makes your stomach flutter with anticipation.
You shift slightly on the couch, curling your legs beneath you.
From here, you have the perfect view.
Your wine glass rests loosely in your hand, the deep red liquid catching the soft glow of the room as you swirl it gently while watching him work.
You’re wearing very little.
Just a pair of panties and one of Minho’s oversized t-shirts, the soft cotton hanging loosely off one shoulder as you lean back against the cushions. The shirt still faintly smells like him, like clean soap and something warmer underneath that always makes you feel a little too comfortable.
Your eyes remain fixed on him.
You could watch him cook for hours. You have, actually.
There’s something about the way Minho moves in a kitchen that makes it impossible to look away. Every motion carries intention, whether he’s working in the restaurant or standing barefoot in the quiet comfort of his apartment like he is now.
The knife slides through another bundle of vegetables. Tap. Tap. Tap.
He scoops them up with the blade and sends them sliding neatly into the pan.
The sizzle grows louder immediately. Steam curls upward in thin wisps as he stirs the ingredients together with a wooden spatula, the motion smooth and confident.
Minho has always cooked with passion.
You knew that the moment you first tasted his food. But cooking for you…That’s different. You’ve noticed it countless times over the past year.
The way he tastes the sauce twice instead of once. The way he adjusts seasoning carefully, almost nervously, like he wants everything to be perfect. The way he watches your face the first time you take a bite, waiting silently for your reaction.
There’s always a little something extra when the meal is for you. More care. More emotion. More of himself poured into the dish.
Your smile grows slightly as you take another slow sip of wine.
Minho shifts at the stove, reaching for a small bowl of marinade waiting beside the burner. The scent hits the air immediately when he pours it into the pan, rich and savory, the sound of bubbling sauce rising into the room.
He stirs once. Twice. Then pauses. Because he can feel it. That quiet sensation of being watched.
Minho glances up and immediately finds your eyes already on him.
You don’t even try to hide it. Your smile spreads wider, the expression warm and openly affectionate as you lift your glass slightly toward him in a silent toast.
For a moment, he just stands there. Then he smiles back, a little shy.
After an entire year together, you still manage to do this to him.
Minho ducks his head slightly, the tips of his ears already turning pink as he looks back down at the pan like it suddenly requires intense supervision.
You laugh softly from the couch. “What?” you tease lightly.
He stirs the pan again, pretending to focus very hard on the food. “You’re staring.”
“You’re cooking,” you say simply, like that should explain everything.
Minho glances over at you again. Your legs are tucked comfortably beneath you on the couch, the hem of his shirt barely brushing the tops of your thighs.
His brain short-circuits for a moment. He looks away again immediately.
You catch the way his shoulders tense slightly. Your smile grows. “One year,” you say softly, resting your chin against the back of the couch.
He hums.
“And you still get shy when I look at you.”
“I’m not shy.”
“You are.”
Minho scoffs quietly as he moves the pan off the burner for a moment, grabbing the towel from his shoulder to wipe his hands.
“I’m cooking.”
“You’re blushing.”
“I’m hot.”
You grin. “Because of the stove?”
“Yes.”
You take another sip of wine. “Not because your girlfriend is sitting on the couch wearing your shirt, panties, and nothing else?”
Minho nearly drops the spatula.
You laugh again, the sound warm and fond as you watch him try very hard to regain his composure.
A year. An entire year since that first email. Since the awkward text messages that followed. Since the first time he nervously invited you back to Oneul for another meal. Since the night you stayed late after closing and ended up sitting at the kitchen counter while he cooked you a bowl of noodles because you mentioned in passing that it was your favorite comfort food.
Somehow, somewhere between those meals and late-night conversations and quiet walks through Seoul’s glowing streets you had both fallen in love.
Minho plates the dish carefully now, arranging the food with the same quiet precision he uses at the restaurant. Then he glances back at you again.
You’re still watching him. Still smiling. Still looking at him like he’s something worth admiring.
His chest tightens slightly. Even after all this time, he still doesn’t fully understand how he got this lucky.
He sets the plates down on the counter. “Dinner’s ready,” he says.
You raise your glass toward him again. “Chef Lee Minho.”
He shakes his head with a small laugh. “Come eat.”
You slide off the couch slowly, bare feet padding across the floor toward him. And when you reach the kitchen island, Minho can’t help the small smile that spreads across his face as he watches you approach.
The aroma of garlic and herbs still lingers in the air of Minho's cozy apartment, a warm haze that wraps itself around us like a lover's embrace after he'd spent the last hour in the kitchen, his skilled hands transforming simple ingredients into a feast for the senses. Empty plates sit as evidence of the meal you'd just devoured.
Minho, with his tousled dark hair and those piercing eyes that always seem to see right through you, leans back in his chair, his broad shoulders relaxed but his gaze intense, tracing the curve of your lips as you lick the last trace of sauce from your fingers. The way he looks at you, like you were the main course he'd been saving for dessert, makes your pulse quicken, the anticipation building in the quiet space between you.
You couldn't wait any longer.
Sliding from your chair, you kneel before him on the plush rug, hands trailing up his thighs as you look up into his surprised, then hungry eyes.
"Let me thank you properly," you murmur, your voice thick with desire, before your fingers deftly undo the button of his jeans, freeing his soft cock from the confines of his boxers.
You take him in your mouth slowly, inch by inch, letting your lips stretch around him as you work to get him hard, thick and veiny for you. You wrap your hand around the base, feeling the heat and pulse of him starting as he quickly grows to full mast in your warm mouth. The head already glistens with your spit and precum that you can’t resist leaning in to lick away, savoring the salty tang on your tongue
His sharp intake of breath spurs you on, your tongue swirling around the underside of his shaft, tracing the sensitive ridge with deliberate strokes that make him twitch and groan. You bob your head rhythmically, taking him deeper each time, the wet sounds of your mouth sliding over him filling the room, mixed with his low, ragged moans.
His hands thread into your hair, not forcing, just guiding, as you hollow your cheeks and suck harder, free hand cupping his heavy balls, rolling them gently between your fingers while you feel him throb against your palate.
Drawing it out, you tease him mercilessly, pulling back to let your tongue flick over the slit of his tip, tasting more of that slick precum before diving back down, taking him to the back of your throat with a deliberate gag that vibrates around his length. "Fuck, baby, that's it," he growls, his voice rough with pleasure, his hips bucking slightly as you increased the pace, your mouth a hot, wet haven for his throbbing dick.
You can feel every vein, every twitch, as you work him, your own arousal building with each moan that escapes his lips, the scent of his arousal mixing with the fading dinner smells to create an intoxicating blend. His cock is rock-hard now, stretching your lips wide, as you suck harder, faster, your hand stroking the base in tandem with your mouth, feeling him swell even more as you push him closer.
"God, you're so good at this," he pants, his fingers tightening in your hair, "Sucking my cock like you were made for it, taking me so deep." The praise fuels you, especially given how reserved Minho usually is with words. You double down, your throat relaxing to let him slide in further, the obscene slurping sounds echoing as you feel him tense, his balls drawing up in your hand.
When he finally comes, it’s with a guttural cry, his hot cum spurting into your mouth in thick, pulsing ropes that you swallow eagerly, the salty bitterness coating your tongue as you milk every last drop from him, eyes locked on his as he shudders through the waves of his release.
Still breathless, Minho pulls you up into his arms, his kiss deep and possessive, tasting himself on your lips as he whispers, "I need you now," against your skin.
He lifts you effortlessly, carrying you to his bedroom down the hall, the dim light from the hallway lamp casting shadows on the rumpled sheets of his king-sized bed. Laying you down gently, he strips away your clothes with reverent hands, his fingers tracing every inch of your body as if memorizing it anew—over the swell of your breasts, down the curve of your waist, to the slick heat between your thighs.
"You're so beautiful," he murmurs, his voice laced with adoration as he parts your legs and settles between them, his still-sensitive cock pressing against your soaked pussy.
He enters you slowly, inch by glorious inch, his thick length stretching you open, filling you completely until you gasp at the delicious fullness, your walls clenching around him like a vice. He rocks into you with a steady rhythm, each thrust deep and deliberate, his body sliding against yours in a friction that sends sparks of pleasure shooting through every nerve.
Minho's hands roam your body, worshiping you with every touch—pinching your hardened nipples, trailing kisses along your neck, all while his hips ground into you, his cock hitting that perfect spot deep inside that makes your vision blur. "Feel that, baby? How good I fill you up," he groans, his voice a mix of love and raw lust, "Your tight little cunt gripping me so perfect, like it was made for my dick."
You moan in response, nails digging into his back as he picks up the pace just a fraction, his thrusts long and languid, drawing out the pleasure until you’re a writhing mess beneath him. The wet sounds of your bodies slapping together fill the room, punctuated by your breathless whimpers and his filthy praises—"You're so wet for me, so fucking tight," he murmurs in between kisses, "I love how you take every inch, how you moan my name like that."
His pace builds gradually, each slide of his cock inside you a torment of ecstasy, stretching you, pounding into you with increasing force until you forget everything else, your world narrowed to the sensation of him buried deep, his body rocking against your in a rhythm that promises endless bliss.
As he fucks you slow and passionately, his lips find yours in a searing kiss, your tongues dancing as he whispers "I love you" against your mouth, only to follow it with "Such a good girl, taking my cock so deep." The combination of tender words and crude demands pushes you over the edge, your body arching as waves of pleasure crash through you, your pussy clenching rhythmically around his throbbing length.
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t rush, instead, he keeps that steady, hypnotic pace, drawing out your orgasm until you’re screaming his name, lost in the haze of sensation, every inch of you alive with the raw, unfiltered passion he pours into you.
As the aftershocks of your orgasm ripple through you, Minho's steady rhythm doesn’t falter; a darker hunger flashes in his eyes, his breath hot against your neck as he leans in closer, his hips grinding deeper with a sudden, possessive force that makes you gasp. "That's it, baby, you're still shaking for me," he growls, his voice dropping an octave, laced with that raw edge you’d come to crave, the one that promises he'd take you apart piece by piece.
His hands slide up your thighs, gripping them firmly, his fingers digging into your flesh just enough to leave faint marks, as he pins your legs back toward your chest, folding you into a position that opens you up completely, his thick cock plunging even deeper with each brutal thrust. The angle is relentless, his tip slamming against that sensitive spot inside you that makes stars burst behind your eyelids, your pussy stretching wide around his girth, the slick walls clenching desperately as he picks up speed, his balls slapping wetly against your ass with every punishing stroke.
He looms over you now, his muscles taut and glistening with a sheen of sweat, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he holds you in a mating press, your knees brushing against your bouncing breasts, exposing every inch of your soaked cunt to his unrelenting assault. "Fuck, you're so tight like this, your little pussy gripping my dick like it never wants to let go," he pants, his words crude and commanding, fueling the fire between you as he drives into you harder, the bed creaking under the force of his movements.
You can feel every vein on his throbbing shaft rubbing against your inner walls, the friction building a heat that spreads from your core outward, your juices coating you both, making obscene squelching sounds with each deep, forceful penetration. His cock stretches you to the brink, filling you so completely that it borders on overwhelming, the head of his dick hitting spots you didn't even know existed, sending jolts of electric pleasure straight to your clit, which pulses with every grind of his pelvis against yours.
Minho's pace turns ferocious, his thrusts coming faster now, each one a powerful slam that makes your whole body bounce wildly, nipples hard and aching as they rub against his chest. "Fuck yes. That’s my girl," he snarls, his lips crashing down on yours in a bruising kiss, his tongue invading your mouth just as his cock ravages your cunt, the dual sensations making you moan into him, hands clawing at his back for purchase.
The room fills with the symphony of your fucking—the wet slap of skin on skin, your breathless whimpers turning into full-throated cries, his guttural grunts echoing off the walls—while the scent of your arousal hangs heavy in the air, a musky blend of sweat and sex that makes your head spin. He’s in control, completely dominating you, his hips pistoning with a rhythmic brutality that has you teetering on the edge again, your pussy throbbing and fluttering around his invading length, the pressure building like a storm about to break.
You could feel another orgasm cresting, unstoppable, as Minho's cock hammers into you with unyielding force, his hands holding your legs in place, spreading you wider for his assault. "Come on, baby, let me feel that tight cunt squeeze me again," he demands, his voice rough and commanding, his eyes locked on yours, watching the ecstasy play across your face.
The intensity is too much—his thick shaft stretching you, pounding deep into your core, the head of his dick hitting that perfect spot with every thrust, sending waves of pleasure crashing through you. You arch beneath him, your body convulsing as the orgasm rips through you, your pussy clamping down on his cock, gushing wetness around him in hot, rhythmic pulses that makes you scream his name. "Minho! Oh fuck, yes!" You cry out, vision blurring, nails raking down his arms as the pleasure consumes you, every muscle in your body tensing and releasing in ecstatic spasms, your cunt milking his throbbing length with greedy contractions.
Sensing your peak, Minho doesn’t hold back; he fucks you through it, his thrusts growing even more savage, his breath coming in harsh gasps as he chases his own release. "God, you're fucking perfect, coming all over my dick like that," he groans, but then he slows just enough to pull out with a slick, wet pop, his cock glistening with your juices, veins bulging and rock-hard as he positions himself over you.
"I want to see it," he rasps, stroking himself furiously, his hand a blur on his shaft, the head of his dick red and leaking precum. With a final, primal grunt, he comes hard, thick ropes of cum erupting from his tip and splattering across your swollen pussy lips, the hot, sticky fluid coating your folds in pearly streaks that drips down toward your entrance.
You lay there, still trembling from your own climax, watching through half-lidded eyes as he milks the last drops from his pulsing cock, then presses the sensitive head against your cum-slicked cunt, smearing the warm load over your lips and clit with deliberate, teasing strokes.
As he rubs his tip through the mess he made, circling your oversensitive nub and tracing the edges of your entrance, the sensation is electric, a mix of cooling cum and lingering heat that keeps you on the edge of another tremble. Minho's eyes are dark with satisfaction, his chest heaving as he leans down to kiss you softly, the contrast of his tender touch against the raw intensity you'd just shared leaving you breathless and utterly spent.
Now, the sheets are tangled loosely around your legs, the soft cotton rumpled from the hours of slow affection that makes time blur together.
Minho moves quietly beside the bed, running a damp cloth over your body, then his own before tossing it into the small laundry basket near the dresser. He pulls on a pair of loose sleep pants, running a hand through his hair afterward as if trying to tame the messy strands.
You’re already curled beneath the blankets, half on your side and half sprawled across his pillow, watching him with the same fond amusement you’ve carried for the past year.
“You’re staring again,” he says without looking.
Your smile spreads.
Minho glances over his shoulder at you before shaking his head with a quiet huff of laughter before walking back toward the bed. The mattress dips slightly as he climbs in beside you, sliding under the blankets with a quiet sigh.
The warmth of his body settles instantly against yours.
You scoot closer without hesitation, pressing yourself against his side as he wraps an arm loosely around your shoulders. His hand drifts automatically along your back in slow, absent-minded strokes, the touch gentle and familiar.
For a moment neither of you says anything.
The quiet is comfortable.
Outside the window, the distant glow of Seoul stretches across the skyline, faint traffic sounds humming somewhere far below the apartment.
Your fingers trace lazy circles along his chest.
“Soooo,” you say softly.
Minho hums. “Mm?”
“Chuseok is coming up.”
He tilts his head slightly against the pillow. “Yes.”
You glance up at him. “Are you doing something special for the menu?”
Minho thinks for a moment.
Oneul’s menu rotates constantly, shaped by whatever ingredients arrive freshest that week, but holidays always carry a little extra inspiration.
“Maybe,” he says slowly.
Your eyes brighten immediately. “Can I help think of something?”
Minho looks down at you. “You already are.”
You grin.
The two of you have done this countless times now. Late nights in bed or lazy mornings with coffee, tossing ideas back and forth like playful challenges. Some of Oneul’s most popular dishes have come from these conversations.
You prop yourself up slightly on one elbow. “Okay,” you say thoughtfully. “Chuseok means family, right? Comfort food. Things that feel nostalgic.”
Minho nods faintly. “Songpyeon,” he says. “That’s the obvious one.” The traditional half-moon rice cakes are practically synonymous with the holiday.
You wrinkle your nose slightly. “Everyone does songpyeon though.”
Minho’s lips twitch. “That’s because it’s good.”
“True.” You think for a moment, tapping your finger lightly against his chest. “What about something inspired by it instead?”
Minho’s attention sharpens. “Inspired how?”
Your eyes wander toward the ceiling as you think. “Well,” you say slowly, “songpyeon is about the filling, right? Sesame, red bean, chestnut…”
Minho nods.
“Okay,” you continue, warming to the idea. “What if you take those flavors and reinterpret them?”
He watches you carefully now. “You thinking dessert?”
“Maybe.” Your smile grows mischievous. “Or not.”
Minho raises an eyebrow.
You sit up slightly, grabbing the small notebook that always seems to appear somewhere nearby when the two of you start talking about food.
“You love sesame,” you say, flipping to a blank page.
“Yes.”
“And chestnut.”
“Yes.”
“What if you did something savory?”
Minho leans closer as you begin scribbling.
“Like a chestnut purée,” you suggest. “Something creamy. Maybe a sauce?”
He considers it. “Duck,” he says suddenly.
Your eyes widen. “Oh.”
He continues, already picturing it. “Duck breast. Crispy skin.”
Your pen starts moving faster. “Chestnut purée underneath,” you say, excitement creeping into your voice.
Minho nods. “And sesame glaze.”
You gasp softly. “That would be incredible.”
Minho’s mouth curves into a small smile as he watches your enthusiasm build.
You pause, tapping the pen against the page again. “Pickled persimmon.”
Minho blinks.
You grin. “For brightness.”
He exhales quietly. “That might actually work.”
You beam like he just handed you an award. “We’re geniuses.”
Minho snorts. “You had one idea.”
“It was a good idea.”
He pulls you gently back down into the bed, tucking you against his side again as the notebook slips from your fingers onto the mattress.
“You’re biased,” he murmurs.
“Of course I am,” you say, resting your cheek against his chest.
He glances down at the messy handwriting on the page.
Duck. Chestnut purée. Sesame glaze. Pickled persimmon. Minho’s mind is already working through the flavors, adjusting ratios, imagining plating. “It might work,” he admits.
You smile against his skin. “Of course it will.”
His hand drifts through your hair slowly.
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because it’s you.”
He looks at you for a moment, then his arm tightens slightly around your waist. “Stay for the tasting tomorrow,” he says.
Your eyes brighten immediately. “Really?”
“Yes.”
You grin. “I’ll bring my notebook.”
Minho laughs softly, pressing a quick kiss against your hair, inhaling your scent. “I know you will, little mandu.”
Stop this was actually so sweet, the way you write is amazing and i love the level of detail. adding jeongin, chan and han was also smart haha. the second i saw han’s description i knew it would be him(ik my man ✊)
i rllyrlly wanna go to this german restaurant too, the description of onuel and the food reminds me of it
@genderless-spiderlily @bluetbluish @mekayk @lunar-l30 @ivysbea @keyriingz @strawbxrrypies @deyna-d @ashess0 @monster-of-the-margins @mellohithe-musicdisc @smallblueowl and open tags! (sorry if i missed anyone and no pressure ofc)
prev hates writing fanfiction but when they do they write fluff and only fluff, light and happy and problem less characters in one or two chapter stories, so much fun
@same-picture-of-benson-every-day + does open tags mean ppl who weren’t tagged can participate??? Well if that’s what it means, open tags
Prev FUCKING HATES NUCLEARBYTE WITH A BURNING PASSION. Every post they make is dissing Nuclearbyte for zero reason like fr bro what’s your problem with em??
Also prev isn’t gay, trust they’re as straight as a… Ruler!!!
@maodear
@fanface
@th3-r4t-48
@asoriiu
@elusiveillusions
@w3r1d00
@eventide-paradox nearly forgot you bcuz I couldn’t remember how to spell ur username
prev has NO media literacy and does NOT like foreshadowing and is a straight white middle aged man named John Wheelbarrow who lives out in the middle of wyoming on a potato farm
uhgmmmm @areaderoftum @thatsiticanttakeit @dreamernini @wrenthewrenbird @petal-splendor @abeecees @i-would-rather-be-writing (it’s not letting me tag you correctly why does tumblr hate me) and open tags :P if i forgor you you can bully me extra hard to make up for it but i also didn’t want to tag a shit ton of people all willy-nilly
prev is a convicted serial killer who ran over a very shrimpy metalhead with a train and got arrested by a detective magnifying glass who found them out because they kept telling everyone and having happy dreams about it in front of the FUCKING DUDE who can see dreams
@chr0macide @eleanorthetired @prettyfaceladybug (i dont have many friends hhhggg)
prev does not like it when characters get angry and violent. they prefer soft and lighthearted and jolly characters 😄 their favorite character is uhhhhhhhhhh probably the kind old man eggson. and their favorite break in character is. medic because they like people who heal others instead of beating them up 😁👍 yes
@askthesonnellin0s @some1weirdlol @boredomgayartist @cocoabonbon @nerilefou @smileyfacerr @iwantwings44 @aedynlikesgreen + open tags and anyone else i forgot sorry im stupid and slow af
⤷ part of the weight of love: eight ways to STAY series
[ ▸ ] — you and minho have spent years loving your son from separate homes, pretending the distance between you stopped hurting a long time ago. he has always loved quietly, and you have always needed something louder. but when jiho begins a school project about family, the life you thought minho let go of starts finding its way back to you.
[ ✐ ] — 12k
[ ⌗ ] — architect!minho x interior designer!reader coparenting slow burn angst hurt / comfort second chances graphic & detailed smut oral ( f receiving )
[ ✉︎ ] — cannot believe we are 7/8 done with with this series! ahhh! also loved how i got to watch the kNOw way while editing this <3 changbin's part will be a little tricky to post so i'll let you guys know how/when that will posted later. a wet hot skz summer is coming too guys! joy and i are so excited for you guys to read everything we've been cooking for the past three months! anyways, as always hunnies, enjoy, and please—if you do, like, reblog, and comment <3 love to see you guys' thoughts and feedback!
You have learned, over the years, that there are different kinds of quiet.
There is the quiet of an unfinished house before the flooring goes in, when every room carries the hollow echo of possibility and dust hangs in the air, waiting to settle. There is the quiet of an office after midnight, when your monitor glows over half-finished renders and your coffee has gone cold beside the keyboard. There is the quiet of a child finally asleep after fighting bedtime, one foot sticking out from under the blanket, one hand curled around a plush animal he claimed he no longer needed.
Then there is Minho’s quiet. That one has always been harder to name.
Years ago, you mistook it for safety. For steadiness. For love that did not need to be dressed up to be real. When you were twenty-something and stupidly certain that wanting the same future meant you would understand each other forever, Minho’s quiet felt like something solid beneath your feet. He did not say much, but he showed up. He fixed things. He remembered things. He stood beside you without making a ceremony of it, and for a long time, that felt like enough.
Then Jiho was born and enough became harder to measure.
The first year of your son’s life unraveled both of you in different ways. You remember it in fragments now: tiny socks in the washing machine, bottles lined up near the sink, Minho asleep upright on the couch with Jiho against his chest, your own reflection in the bathroom mirror looking less like you every morning. You remember the exhaustion most clearly, the kind that burrowed under your skin and made every unspoken thing feel louder than it was.
Minho loved Jiho. That had never been in question. He loved him in careful hands and warmed milk and the way he learned every small cry by sound. He loved him in clean laundry folded at two in the morning, in doctor’s appointments never forgotten, in the rocking chair he assembled before you were discharged from the hospital because he said the old one made a noise that would irritate you.
He loved you too, you think now.
Back then, you were not so sure.
Back then, all you knew was that he came home, kissed Jiho’s head, washed bottles, asked if you had eaten, and moved through your life with the controlled steadiness of a man doing everything right except reaching for you when you needed him to.
You were twenty-seven when you left. Jiho was nearly two. There had been no screaming. No affair. No single terrible night that split your life cleanly in two. Just one conversation after too many lonely months.
You told Minho you did not think you wanted the same life anymore.
He looked at you for a long time. Then he said, “Is that what you want?”
You wanted him to say no. You wanted him to say your name like losing you would ruin him. You wanted him to fight you, just once, with something louder than care carefully hidden inside chores and errands and practical concern.
Instead, you heard yourself say, “I think so.”
Minho’s eyes lowered to Jiho asleep between you on the couch, his cheek smushed against a blue blanket, his little mouth open around soft breaths.
Then Minho said, “Okay.”
Okay.
Not stay.
Not don’t go.
Not I love you.
Okay.
Six years later, Jiho is eight, and he does not remember the two of you together.
He knows Mom’s place and Dad’s place. He knows which drawer at each home holds his pajamas, which parent is more likely to let him have cereal after dinner, which couch has the better blanket, which pantry hides the snacks he is not supposed to know about. He knows school drop-offs and alternating weekends, birthdays spent with both of you at the same table, parent-teacher conferences where Minho sits with his arms crossed and listens so closely the teacher usually starts speaking to him like he might be grading her.
To Jiho, this is not broken. It’s just family.
Maybe that is why it’s easy to pretend you have all adjusted.
Your phone vibrates while you’re standing in the middle of your design studio, a stack of fabric swatches balanced against your hip and a sample book spread open across the consultation table. Across from you, your client flips through upholstery options, pausing every few seconds to hold one up against the mood board you’ve spent weeks building together. Afternoon sunlight pours through the front windows, catching on brass fixtures and illuminating the organized chaos of sketches, material samples, and half-finished concepts scattered throughout the space.
You glance at the screen.
Minho.
His name still does something inconvenient to your chest. Less dramatic than it used to be, maybe, but no less real. A small internal pause. An old room opening somewhere.
“Sorry,” you tell your client. “I should take this. It might be about my son.”
She smiles politely, and you step into the hallway.
“Hey,” you answer.
“Jiho left his science notebook in my car.”
You close your eyes. “Again?”
“He says it wasn’t again because last time was his math folder.”
“Of course he does.”
“He asked me to tell you the distinction matters.”
You can hear him walking, keys faintly shifting in the background. His voice is low and even, familiar enough to hurt if you let yourself listen too closely.
“I can pick it up after work,” you say. “I’m not too far from your office.”
“I’m near your studio. I’ll drop it off.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
You look down at the samples in your hand. White oak. Ash. Walnut. Three kinds of wood pretending not to hold different moods.
“Minho,” you say.
“What?”
“I can get it.”
“And I can bring it.”
There is no sharpness or impatience in his voice. Just that same quiet certainty that always makes arguing with him feel like trying to move a wall.
You sigh. “Fine. Thank you.”
“Have you eaten?”
You glance toward the living room, where your client is now squinting at wallpaper. “Not yet.”
“It’s almost two.”
“I am aware of the time.”
“Awareness isn’t lunch.”
You press your lips together, the beginning of a smile tugging there before you can stop it. “Did you call to scold me?”
“I called because your son has the organizational habits of a tornado.”
“My son?”
“He gets that from you.”
“Um, no, he absolutely gets that from you. You have six separate folders labeled ‘miscellaneous.’”
“They are different kinds of miscellaneous.”
“That sentence alone should make you ashamed.”
A quiet breath comes through the phone. “I’ll be at your studio in twenty,” he says.
“Okay.”
A pause. “Eat something.”
“You’re very bossy for someone delivering a notebook.”
“You’re very bad at lunch for someone who needs food to be alive.”
You roll your eyes, but your voice softens. “Drive safe.”
He is quiet for half a second. Then, “See you soon.”
The call ends.
You stand in the hallway longer than necessary, phone still in your hand, staring down at the dark screen.
It would be easier if Minho were colder.
You have thought that more times than you can count. It would be easier if he forgot things, if he showed up late, if he spoke to you with indifference, if shared custody had turned him into a polite stranger. It would be easier if the man who broke your heart had at least done you the courtesy of becoming someone else afterward.
Instead, he remains exactly who he has always been.
Twenty-four minutes later, your receptionist calls to say Jiho’s father is downstairs.
You find Minho in the lobby of your studio with Jiho’s notebook under one arm and a paper bag in his other hand. He is wearing a black coat over work clothes, hair neat but wind-touched, glasses sitting low on his nose.
He looks up before you say his name.
“Hey,” you say.
“Hey.”
For a second, neither of you moves. Then he holds out the notebook. You take it carefully. “Thanks.”
Minho lifts the paper bag next.
You look at it. “Notebook came with a side quest?”
“You didn’t eat.”
“I said not yet.”
“You always say ‘not yet’.”
You take the bag because refusing it would only make him stand there longer, and standing near him already pulls at too many seams. Inside is a wrapped sandwich from the café around the corner, fruit, and an iced coffee. Your order. Exact down to the extra shot and light ice.
Your fingers tighten around the handles.
“You remembered.”
Minho frowns slightly, as if the statement itself is strange. “You’ve ordered the same thing for four years.”
“People forget things.”
“I don’t.”
He says it without emphasis. Simple fact.
“Thank you,” you say, quieter.
His gaze moves over your face. “You look tired.”
“You say that like it’s helpful.”
“It’s true.”
“Truth and helpfulness are not the same thing.”
His mouth tilts. Barely. “You’re wearing two different earrings.”
You reach up quickly, touching one ear, then the other. One small pearl. One gold stud.
“Oh my god.”
“It works.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It looks intentional if you don’t panic.”
You glare at him, but there is no real heat in it. “How long were you going to let me walk around like this?”
“I just got here.”
“You noticed immediately.”
“Yes, well you design interiors. Maybe people thought it was a concept.”
A laugh escapes you and his eyes soften when he hears it.
Your phone buzzes. A text lights the screen.
Seungmin: Dinner Friday still good?
You turn the screen down too late.
Minho’s gaze flicks to it, then away. He says nothing, but something in his expression folds inward, a shutter drawn almost silently.
“It’s just dinner,” you say before you can stop yourself.
Minho looks at you.
You don't know why you said it. Maybe because the change in his face still has the power to make you explain yourself. Maybe because some terrible part of you wants him to care.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says.
“I know.”
A beat.
“Good.”
The word is polite. Flat. Perfectly reasonable.
It lands like a bruise.
You look down at Jiho’s notebook. “I should get back.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you Saturday for his game?”
“I’ll see you then.”
Minho never misses Jiho’s games. He stands along the fence with his hands in his pockets, saying very little, watching everything. When Jiho runs toward him afterward, sweaty and flushed and asking if he saw his almost-goal, Minho always says, “I saw.” And Jiho always beams like his father shouted across the field.
Maybe for him, it’s equivalent.
“Okay,” you say.
Minho nods once and turns to leave.
You wait until he is through the glass doors before you let yourself breathe.
On Saturday morning, Jiho’s soccer game takes place under a gray sky that keeps threatening rain and then losing interest. Parents gather along the sidelines with folding chairs and travel mugs, their conversations drifting above the field in soft bursts. You arrive ten minutes before kickoff with Jiho’s water bottle, an extra hoodie, and a packet of orange slices because you forgot it was your snack week until midnight and had to peel and separate them while half-asleep.
Minho stands near the fence in a navy sweatshirt and black joggers, arms crossed, expression neutral as he watches Jiho warm up. A paper cup of coffee sits on the grass by his shoe. Beside it is a second cup.
You approach slowly.
His eyes flick toward you. “You’re late.”
“I’m early.”
“Barely.”
“Good morning to you too.”
He bends and picks up the second cup, holding it out.
You stare at it.
“You’re predictable,” he says.
You take it. It’s warm through the cardboard. “That’s your explanation?”
“You like coffee when it’s lukewarm.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It’s a thing.”
Minho’s gaze moves back to the field.
You stand beside him, close enough that your sleeves nearly touch, both of you watching Jiho chase a ball with more determination than coordination. He is not the best player on the team, not even close, but he plays with his whole face, brows drawn together in concentration, mouth open as he runs. When he spots you, he waves so enthusiastically he almost misses the ball rolling past him.
Minho cups one hand near his mouth. “Jiho. Ball first.”
Jiho gives him a thumbs-up, then promptly trips over his own feet.
You wince. Minho doesn’t move, but his shoulders tense until Jiho pops back up.
Across the field, Jiho scores a goal by sheer chaos: the ball bounces off another kid’s shin, rolls toward him, and he kicks it with such surprise that everyone reacts half a second late. It goes in.
Jiho freezes, then turns toward both of you, face bright with disbelief.
You cheer immediately. Minho claps, once, twice, controlled but unmistakable. When Jiho keeps looking, Minho lifts both hands and gives him a small, firm nod and a smile.
Jiho’s smile widens.
“He’s going to talk about this for a week,” you say.
“Two.”
“Minimum.”
“He’ll ask me to build a trophy shelf.”
“You would.”
Minho takes a sip of his coffee. “Of course.”
You glance at him, and there it is again, the ache disguised as fondness.
After the game, Jiho runs over with muddy knees and grass on his sleeve, cheeks pink from the cold.
“Did you see?”
“Yes,” you say, crouching as he throws himself into you. “I saw.”
“I scored.”
“You did.”
“It was kind of an accident, but not fully.”
Minho crouches too, reaching to untie one of Jiho’s cleats before he tracks mud everywhere. “A goal is a goal.”
Jiho beams at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Can we get tteokbokki?”
You laugh. “That was fast.”
“I used a lot of energy.” Jiho looks between you with interest. “So can we get tteokbokki?”
Jiho pumps both fists, then immediately turns to you. “Are you coming too?”
The question hangs there.
Minho looks down at Jiho’s muddy cleats.
You look at Minho.
This is the kind of moment you have gotten good at stepping around. The harmless invitations from your son, the ones he asks because he doesn’t remember a time when you and Minho were anything but separate and therefore sees no reason why separate cannot still sit at the same table. To him, family is not one house. It is two adults who show up.
You should say you have work, which is technically true—you do have work.
Instead, Minho says, “Your mom might be busy.” An opening.
You look at him. His expression is calm, but he will not meet your eyes.
“I can come for a little,” you say.
Jiho grins. “Okay. Dad, you’re paying because you said no first.”
Minho stands with the cleats in one hand. “That makes no sense.”
“It does if you think about it.”
“I did. It doesn’t.”
You laugh softly as Jiho starts explaining his logic, all tangled reasoning and absolute confidence, while Minho pretends not to listen and opens the car door for him anyway.
Lunch is not uncomfortable. It should be awkward, sitting across from Minho in a small restaurant with Jiho between you, steam rising from a shared pan of tteokbokki, rain finally tapping against the front windows. It should feel like pretending.
Instead, it feels dangerously easy.
Jiho talks through half the meal, recounting his goal with increasing embellishment. By the third version, he has “dodged two defenders,” though you both watched the ball bounce directly to him. Minho lets him have it until Jiho claims he planned the angle.
“You did not plan the angle,” Minho says.
“I planned to kick.”
“That is completely different.”
“Angles are part of kicking.”
“You didn’t even know where your other foot was.”
Jiho considers this. “That’s true.”
You laugh, reaching over to wipe sauce from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. Jiho ducks away with an offended noise, but leans back in when Minho gives him a look.
After lunch, Jiho falls asleep in the backseat of Minho’s car before you even leave the parking lot. You stand beside your own car, rain misting through the air, holding the leftover container Minho insisted you take.
“Thanks for lunch,” you say after a moment.
Minho’s hands rest in his coat pockets. “Of course.”
A small smile tugs at your mouth. Minho looks at it, then away.
You shift the container in your hands. “Jiho’s happy when we do things together.”
“He is.”
“It doesn’t confuse him?”
Minho looks toward the car, where Jiho sleeps with his forehead pressed to the window, mouth slightly open. “He’s used to us.”
That should comfort you. It does, mostly, but something inside you twists anyway.
“He doesn’t remember,” you say.
Minho’s gaze returns to you.
“When we were together,” you clarify. “He doesn’t remember that.”
“No.”
“Sometimes I wonder if that made it easier for him.”
Minho is quiet for a moment. Rain beads on his dark hair, tiny silver points in the gray afternoon. Then he says, “Maybe.”
You wait.
He adds, “Or maybe he just knows we both love him.”
You look away because that is too simple and too much.
“He does know that,” you say.
Minho’s voice softens. “Good.”
You nod, but the word follows you home.
Good.
Always good. Never enough.
The family project begins the next Wednesday.
Jiho announces it at your dining table while eating noodles and arranging cucumber slices in order from smallest to largest.
“Ms. Park says we have to make something about our family.”
You look up from your laptop. “Something?”
“A project.”
“What kind of project?”
“Any kind.”
“That is very broad.”
“I know. It’s bad.”
You close your laptop halfway. “Did she give examples?”
Jiho nods. “A family tree. A poster. A drawing. A scrapbook. Junho is making his family as Pokémon.”
“That sounds fun.”
Jiho pokes at a cucumber slice. “I don’t want to do a family tree.”
“Why not?”
“Trees are boring.”
“Trees are cool. They provide oxygen.”
“My project doesn’t need oxygen.”
You concede with a nod. “Fair.”
He eats a noodle, thinking. His hair is still damp from his shower, sticking slightly to his forehead. Sometimes, in the soft light of the apartment, he looks so much like Minho it startles you. Not only the eyes or the set of his mouth, but the focus. The way he goes still when he is sorting through an idea.
“Can I make our family a house?” he asks.
Your hands pause on the laptop. “A house?”
“Yeah.”
“Why a house?”
He looks at you as if the answer is obvious. “Because you make houses nice inside, and Dad makes houses stand up.”
You stare at him for a moment.
Then you smile. “That’s one way to put it.”
Jiho looks pleased with himself and reaches for another cucumber. “So can I?”
“Of course you can.”
“Can I make two doors?”
“Sure.”
“One for your house and one for Dad’s?”
The question is simple. Practical. Unloaded by adult grief because Jiho doesn’t carry your history. Still, it presses somewhere tender.
“Yeah,” you say softly. “Two doors works.”
Jiho nods and begins sketching on the back of an old grocery list, tongue poking into his cheek. You watch him draw a rectangle, then a slanted roof, then three uneven figures in the doorway.
“Why are we all in one house if there are two doors?” you ask gently.
He shrugs. “It’s a project, Mom.”
You huff a laugh. “Right. My mistake.”
He looks up. “Also because it’s our family.”
Then he returns to his drawing, leaving you sitting there with the soft devastation of being corrected by someone who has never known your life any other way.
That weekend is Minho’s.
Jiho packs the project instructions into his backpack, along with two shirts, his math workbook, and a rock named Mr. Bite that you have been instructed not to call just a rock because that is apparently disrespectful.
At drop-off, Minho opens the door before you knock twice.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
Jiho pushes past you. “Dad, don’t step on Mr. Bite. He’s in the front pocket.”
Minho looks at you.
You lift your hands. “I don’t ask questions anymore.”
Minho crouches to unzip the front pocket of Jiho’s backpack, carefully removes the rock, and sets it on the narrow entry table beside his keys.
“Welcome back,” he tells it dryly.
Jiho beams. “See? Dad respects him.”
Minho just gives you a look. You press your lips together to keep from smiling.
Jiho kicks off his shoes and runs toward the living room. “I have a project!”
“I know, Mom told me,” Minho calls after him. “Take your socks off the floor.”
“They’re not on the floor.”
“They’re on the floor, I can see them.”
Jiho groans but returns to gather the socks.
You remain near the doorway, fingers curled around the strap of your bag. Minho notices. He always notices when you are preparing to leave, just as he notices when you linger.
“Busy weekend?” he asks.
“A little. Client meeting tomorrow morning.”
“And dinner?”
The question is even, too even.
You look at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Minho.”
His gaze drops to the keys on the table. “You said you had dinner Friday.”
“That was last week.”
“I know.”
You study his face, the careful blankness there. “Are you asking if I’m seeing him again?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m asking if Jiho needs to know anything.”
“Jiho doesn’t know about Seungmin.”
His eyes lift at the name. You wish you hadn’t said it.
“He doesn’t need to,” you add. “It’s not serious.”
Minho nods once. Something about that nod makes you tired. “You can say whatever you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“Lie a little better.”
His jaw moves slightly. For a second, you think he might actually say it. Something real. Something sharp enough to cut through the polite arrangements and shared calendars and careful handoffs.
But then, from the living room, Jiho yells, “Dad! Do you have giant paper?”
Minho’s gaze remains on you for a beat longer.
Then he turns his head. “How giant?”
“Like architect giant.”
Minho looks back at you, and whatever had nearly surfaced between you sinks again.
“I should go,” you say.
He nods. “I’ll bring him back Sunday at six.”
“Okay.”
You almost step away, then pause. “Make sure he does his reading log.”
“He will.”
“And no cereal for dinner.”
“It was one time.”
“It was three times.”
“Across several years.”
“Minho.”
He looks at you calmly. “I’ll feed him real food.”
“Thank you.”
You turn to go. Behind you, Minho says your name.
You stop.
He is still by the door, one hand resting against the frame. “Drive carefully.”
It’s such a small thing, and yet it still feels like love.
At Minho’s apartment, Jiho finds the storage tubes by accident.
He’s looking for paper, apparently unsatisfied by the large sketchpad Minho has already given him because it is ‘not building-y enough’. Minho lets him wander the edge of the office under supervision, watching as his son inspects shelves with the solemn curiosity of someone touring a museum dedicated entirely to boring adult objects.
“What’s that?” Jiho asks, pointing at the cluster of long cardboard tubes leaning in the corner.
“Old drawings.”
“Can I use one?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re old drawings.”
“Are they important?”
Minho looks at them. He should say yes and move on. Instead, he stands very still.
The tubes have followed him through two apartments, an office move, one breakup, and six years of telling himself that keeping things doesn’t mean waiting. He kept old project sketches from university, early firm work, competition drafts he never submitted. He kept things because architects are part archivist, part fool. The past piles up in paper if you let it.
But one tube is different.
He knows it without looking at the label. The label itself has faded, but he remembers his own handwriting.
house - personal
Jiho taps the tube lightly. “Dad?”
Minho blinks. “What?”
“Can I see?”
Minho’s first instinct is no. His second is no, more softly. His third is the thing that gets him into trouble: Jiho is looking at him with curiosity, not suspicion. To him, these are just papers. Lines. Rooms. Maybe something useful for a family project.
Minho pulls the tube free, dust clinging to the cardboard. He wipes it with his sleeve, then removes the cap.
The first sheet slides out with a sound that reaches farther back than he expects. Graphite lines. Measurements. Notes. The outline of a house that never stood anywhere except in his hands and your voice.
He sees your handwriting first, a small note near the kitchen.
not too cold! warm light here
He remembers you saying it, seven months pregnant, sitting cross-legged on the floor despite his repeated warnings that getting up would become a entire event. You had eaten half a bowl of strawberries and told him kitchens should not feel like showrooms because people were supposed to live messy lives in them.
He had told you that was not a design specification.
You had said, “Make it one.”
So he did.
“Dad?” Jiho asks.
Minho looks down at him. His son is waiting.
Minho should put it away. Instead, he hears himself say, “You can use this one.”
Jiho’s face lights. “Really?”
“Don’t rip it.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t draw over the notes.”
Jiho peers at the paper. “There are notes?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
Minho’s hand rests lightly on the edge of the sheet. “Mine. And your mom’s.”
Jiho looks up. “Mom helped?”
“Yes.”
“With a building?”
“With a house.”
“Whose house?”
Minho is quiet. Jiho waits, but not anxiously. Just curious.
Minho rolls the sheet carefully and hands it to him. “Ours,” he says.
Jiho accepts this with the easy adaptability of a child. “Cool.”
Then he runs off to draw over Minho’s ghost.
For the next two weeks, the project moves between homes.
It comes to your apartment rolled in a tube almost too big for Jiho’s backpack and returns to Minho’s with new marker streaks, colored pencil shading, uneven labels, and smudges from Jiho resting his wrist in the wrong place while coloring. You don’t see the full sheet at first. Jiho works on sections, guarding the main part with the seriousness of an artist preparing for a gallery opening.
You catch glimpses—a yellow window, a red front door, a backyard labeled maybe turtle?, and a square marked mom’s work room.
You help him choose colors for the interior, biting back the instinct to correct his proportions when he draws a sofa larger than the kitchen island.
“It’s a very big sofa,” you say.
“It’s for family movie night.”
Your pencil pauses. “Family movie night?”
“Yeah. At Dad’s, the couch is too small if we all spread out with our feet up.”
“We don’t usually all sit there together.”
“But if we did.”
He says it easily and keeps coloring.
You say nothing, stunned into silence.
Minho drops Jiho off one Wednesday evening with the project tube under one arm and a grocery bag in his hand.
“What’s that?” you ask.
“Jiho said your smoke detector was beeping.”
You stare at him. “So you brought groceries?”
“Battery is in the bag.”
“You brought a battery in a grocery bag?”
“There are also groceries.”
“Why?”
“Your fridge looked almost empty last week.”
Your mouth opens, then closes.
Minho steps past you before you can decide whether to argue, removing his shoes automatically. Jiho runs straight to his room, project tube clutched to his chest, yelling something about not looking because it’s not finished.
You follow Minho into the kitchen, where he sets the bag on your counter and begins unpacking as if he still lives there.
Eggs. Strawberries. Tofu. Rice cakes. The tea you like. Jiho’s yogurt drinks. A pack of batteries.
“Minho,” you say slowly.
“What?”
“You can’t keep buying my groceries.”
“I don’t.”
“You just did.”
“Some of these are for Jiho.”
“Some?”
He puts the strawberries in your fridge. “Most.”
“You bought my tea.”
“You get headaches when you work late.”
You turn away, pretending to inspect the smoke detector in the hallway. “I can take care of myself, Min.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Minho stills. The words sit between you, sharper than you intended.
You turn back. His face is calm, but there is something guarded beneath it now. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t.”
“I know,” you say, softening. “I just…”
You stop because you don’t know how to finish.
I just don’t know what to do when you still take care of me.
I just don’t know why you do it.
I just don’t know why you can do all this and still not tell me what it means.
Minho looks at you for a long moment. Then he reaches into the bag, takes out the batteries, and holds them up. “Where’s the ladder?”
You let out a tired laugh because of course that is where he goes. Back to the fixable thing. Back to the beep in the ceiling. Back to something with a beginning, a task, an end.
“In the closet.”
He nods and goes to get it.
That night, after Minho leaves and Jiho is in bed, you find a small container of sliced apples in the fridge.
Thin slices. Too thin for Jiho, who prefers wedges because they’re crunchier.
You stand there with the refrigerator light spilling over your bare feet, staring at apples cut exactly the way you like them, and feel something inside you slowly, painfully rearrange itself.
The project is due on Friday.
On Thursday evening, Jiho spreads it across your dining table for final touches.
“Don’t look too much,” he says, placing both hands over the center of the paper.
“I’m helping you glue cotton clouds.”
He allows you a corner.
You sit beside him with glue on your fingers while he narrates the layout, explaining which room belongs to whom, which window gets the best sun, where Mr. Bite would live if rocks needed bedrooms. You laugh when appropriate, ask questions when he wants you to, and try not to overstep.
Then Jiho reaches for a green pencil, and his sleeve drags across the paper.
For the first time, the center is fully visible.
You stop breathing.
Under Jiho’s bright marker house are lines you know with a familiarity that frightens you. Because your body remembers them before your mind catches up.
The angle of the staircase. The wide kitchen. The eastern-facing room marked for the nursery. The window seat tucked beneath the stairs because you once said every home needed a place to hide without actually hiding.
Your hand rises to your mouth.
There, beneath Jiho’s uneven blue shading, is Minho’s handwriting.
nursery morning light
Near the kitchen:
wide island for mama’s samples
Near the living room:
built-ins here? she wanted storage but not ugly storage
You aren’t aware you’ve made a sound until Jiho looks up.
“Mom?”
You try to answer. Nothing comes out.
He follows your gaze to the paper. “Did I mess it up?”
“No.” You say it too quickly, reaching for him. “No, baby. You didn’t.”
“You look weird.”
You let out an unsteady breath. “I just recognize this.”
“The house?”
You nod, fingers hovering over the notes. You don’t touch them. Some foolish part of you worries the pencil will vanish if you do.
“Dad said you helped,” Jiho says.
You look at him. “He told you that?”
“Yeah. He said not to cover the writing because it was important.”
Your throat tightens. “Did he say anything else?”
Jiho thinks, tapping the green pencil against his chin. “He said it was from before I was born.”
You close your eyes.
The house had started as a joke, then a fantasy, then something close to a plan. Minho drew it during the last trimester, when you were swollen and restless and unable to sleep. You would sit beside him at the low table in your old apartment and point at inspiration photos while he complained about impractical layouts and drew them anyway.
You had forgotten how much of yourself was in it.
No—that’s not true. You had tried to forget.
“Mom?” Jiho says.
You open your eyes.
He is watching you carefully, his small face drawn with concern. “Are you mad Dad gave it to me?”
“No,” you say. “I’m not mad.”
“Because I can ask him for different paper. It’ll take forever to redo but it’s okay.”
“No, Jiho.” You pull him close and kiss the side of his head. “This paper is perfect.”
He relaxes against you, warm and solid and still small enough to lean without thinking.
After a moment, he says, “Dad keeps important stuff.”
You stare at the paper. “What do you mean?”
“He has a box.”
“A box?”
“Not a box. A tube. And boxes.” Jiho frowns, trying to categorize the storage system. “He said some stuff is not for playing.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Pictures. Old papers. Baby stuff.” Jiho shrugs. “I saw my tiny hospital hat once. It was ugly.”
You laugh through the tightness in your chest. “It was not ugly.”
“It was kind of ugly.”
“It was adorable.”
“It was wrinkly.”
“You were wrinkly.”
He gasps. “Rude.”
You smile and smooth his hair.
He looks back down at the project, then reaches for the green pencil again. “Dad doesn’t throw away important stuff.”
You barely sleep.
Instead, you lie awake thinking about a cardboard tube in Minho’s apartment. About your notes in the margins. About the fact that he had kept the house for eight years. Not the final plan of a completed building, or a professional project worth archiving.
A dream. An unfinished future.
The next morning, you and Minho attend Jiho’s school presentation.
You arrive separately, which is how you arrive everywhere now. You get there first, sitting in one of the small chairs near the back of the classroom with your knees awkwardly angled and your tote bag tucked between your feet. The walls are covered in student work, paper planets, vocabulary words, and drawings of spring flowers. The room smells like crayons, pencil shavings, and whatever cleaner schools use that always reminds you of childhood.
Minho slips in five minutes later and spots you immediately. You lift a hand slightly as he comes over and sits beside you, leaving a polite amount of space between your chairs.
“You made it,” you say quietly.
“I said I would.”
“I know.”
He glances at you, and you feel the old ache again, the ache of things said plainly that still carry more weight than they should.
Jiho sees you both from the front of the room and waves with one hand, the other holding his rolled project. His smile is nervous but proud.
You wave back and Minho gives him a small nod and smile.
Jiho visibly straightens.
Ms. Park starts the presentations. A family tree. A poster about grandparents. A shoebox diorama with cotton-ball clouds. Copycat.
Jiho is fourth.
When his name is called, he carries his project to the front and unrolls it across the board with Ms. Park’s help. The paper is almost too large, curling at the edges despite the tape.
You feel Minho go still beside you.
For the first time, he sees what Jiho has done with it.
The dream house is almost hidden beneath color now, transformed by an eight-year-old’s imagination. The lines are still there, faint beneath marker and label and glue, but Jiho has made it his own. Flowers along the walkway. A huge sofa in the living room. A backyard. Three figures near the front door, their hands connected by one long line.
Jiho clears his throat. “My project is my family as a house,” he begins, reading from an index card he has clearly bent in half several times. “My mom designs inside places, and my dad designs buildings. So I thought a house made sense because houses need both or else they are either boring or falling down.”
A few parents chuckle. Minho exhales softly through his nose. You press your fingers to your lips.
Jiho continues, gaining confidence. “This is my room. This is Mom’s work room because she has a lot of samples and says they’re not trash even though they might be trash. This is Dad’s table because he draws buildings and says rulers disappear when you need them.”
Minho mutters, very quietly, “They do.”
Jiho points to the three figures. “This is us. We don’t live in one house, but we’re still family. Ms. Park said family can be people who take care of you.”
He glances toward you, then Minho. Then he looks back at the class.
“My mom says things a lot. Like, good job, and I love you, and please don’t talk to me from upstairs.” A ripple of laughter moves through the room, and Jiho smiles shyly. “My dad doesn’t say as much, but he remembers stuff. Like my cleats and snacks and when Mom likes apples cut thin.”
Your cheeks burn. Beside you, Minho taps his foot nervously.
Jiho shrugs, small and natural, one shoulder lifting. “Dad is just quiet. But I know he loves both of us.”
The room softens. However, this is still a third-grade classroom. A boy in the front row is picking at the rubber sole of his shoe, Ms. Park smiles with wet eyes she is trying to hide, and a baby cries from the back row.
But for you, everything narrows to Minho’s hand resting on his knee, fingers curled tightly into his palm.
Jiho finishes with, “That’s my family. Also, I want a turtle, but my parents said no.”
Jiho bows because apparently someone told him presentations require flair, then carries his project back to his desk with his ears bright red.
For the rest of the morning, you barely hear anything.
After the presentations, parents gather around the displays. Jiho drags both of you to his desk and shows you details he already explained, because pride requires repetition. Minho listens closely, asking small questions that make Jiho glow. Why this window? Why this room? Why is the turtle area larger than the kitchen?
“Because turtles need enrichment,” Jiho says.
“How do you know that word?”
“YouTube.”
Minho looks at you. You lift your hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
For a moment, it feels almost normal. Then Jiho runs off to show his friend where he drew Mr. Bite in the garden, and you are left standing beside Minho with the project between you.
You look at the old notes beneath the colors.
Minho looks at you. “I didn’t know he would say all that,” he says.
You nod. “I know.”
“I didn’t tell him to.”
“I know.”
A pause. Then you say, “But he’s right.”
The classroom noise swells around you, bright and busy, children calling for parents, chairs scraping, paper rustling. You should not have this conversation here, between desks and glue sticks and a bulletin board about fractions.
Minho seems to understand that too. He looks down at the project. “Can we talk later?”
Your heart starts beating too hard. You don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
That evening, Jiho goes to Minho’s parents’.
You spend the rest of the day working badly. You choose the wrong rug for a client deck, attach the wrong file to an email, and stare at one fabric sample for ten full minutes without registering the color. By five, you give up and close your laptop.
Minho texts at six-thirty.
Minho: Jiho is finishing homework. I can meet after dropping him off if you still want to talk.
You read the message three times.
Then reply—
You: My place?
His answer comes quickly.
Minho: Okay
At eight-forty, there is a knock at your door.
When you open it, Minho stands in the hallway wearing a black coat, hands in his pockets, face calm enough that only someone who knows him would notice the tension at the corners of his mouth.
You step aside and he enters quietly, removing his shoes. The old familiarity of it catches you off guard. He has always moved through your home carefully, even after it stopped being his. Never assuming too much. Never forgetting where things are.
“Tea?” you ask.
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
Despite everything, you smile a little. “Same old Minho.”
He looks relieved, though only for a second.
You walk to the dining table where Jiho’s project rests, rolled loosely. Minho’s gaze follows it. “I know I should have asked before giving it to him,” he says.
You turn. “That’s not why I wanted to talk.”
“I didn’t think.”
“I don’t believe that.”
His mouth tightens.
“You always think,” you say. “Sometimes too much.”
He looks down.
You touch the edge of the paper. “You kept it.”
“Yes.”
“All this time.”
“Yes.”
The same simple answer. The same unbearable calm.
You unroll the project carefully, smoothing the curling edge with your palm. Jiho’s colorful house fills the table, bright and sweet and imperfect. Beneath it, the pencil lines remain.
Your fingers hover over the note near the kitchen.
wide island for mama’s samples
“You remembered everything I wanted,” you say.
Minho stands across from you, hands still in his pockets. “Not everything.”
“Enough.”
His eyes lower to the paper.
You take a breath that does not quite steady you. “Jiho said you kept important things.”
Minho’s expression closes slightly.
“What else did you keep?”
He is quiet for so long that you think he will not answer. Then he softly says, “A lot.”
Your chest tightens. “Like what?”
“The first sketches.” His voice is low. “The paint samples you liked. The magazine pages you tore out. Ultrasound photos. Jiho’s hospital bracelet. Yours too.”
You press a hand to your mouth.
Minho looks away, jaw tense. “I know.”
“Know what?”
“That it’s strange.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’s not,” you repeat, firmer now.
He looks at you then, and the guardedness in his face hurts more than anger would have.
“Why?” you ask. The word comes out barely above a whisper.
Minho’s gaze drops to the project. For a moment, he is silent, thoughtful. And then he breaks it by saying, “Because it was ours.”
Your eyes close. It’s so Minho of him—plain, honest, and devastating without trying to be.
“I didn’t keep it because I thought we’d get back together,” he continues. “I didn’t let myself think that.”
You open your eyes.
He swallows. “But throwing it away felt like saying it didn’t matter.”
The first tear slips before you can stop it. Minho sees it immediately. His hand shifts at his side, instinct pulling him toward you, restraint holding him back.
You hate it. You hate that he no longer knows whether he is allowed to comfort you.
“It mattered,” you say.
“I know.”
“No.” Your voice cracks. “I don’t think you do. It mattered so much that when I thought you didn’t want it anymore, I didn’t know how to stay.” You wipe at your cheek, frustrated by the tears now that they have started. “I thought you fell out of love with me.”
His features tighten. For once, the silence that follows is not unreadable. It’s wounded. “You thought what?”
“You never said anything.”
His brows draw together, pain moving through the restraint. “I was there.”
“I know.”
“I came home to you every night.”
“I know.”
“I took care of you.”
“I know, Minho.” The words come out broken. “That’s what made it so confusing.”
He looks like he doesn’t understand. Or maybe like he’s beginning to.
You press your fingers against the table, grounding yourself beside the house you never built. “You did everything. You changed diapers and warmed bottles and made sure I ate and fixed every broken thing in that apartment. But after a while, I couldn’t tell if you were doing it because you loved me or because you were responsible.”
Minho says nothing.
“You were so quiet,” you continue. “And I was so tired. I kept waiting for you to tell me you were happy. That you wanted us. That you still wanted me, not just Jiho, not just the life we accidentally made around him.”
His eyes shine. “I wanted you,” he says. The words come out rough. “I wanted all of it,” he continues. “I thought you knew.”
You laugh once, softly, sadly. “I didn’t.”
His gaze drops. “I thought staying was saying it,” he says.
You look at him through tears. He lifts his eyes again, and this time, there is no distance left to hide behind. “I was wrong.”
The words settle between you. Not enough to erase years. But real.
You wipe your cheek. “When I told you I thought we didn’t want the same life, you said okay.”
Minho’s jaw tightens. “Because I thought you were telling me you wanted to leave.”
“I was asking you not to let me.”
Pain crosses his face. Quiet, but unmistakable. “I didn’t know how to fight without making it worse,” he says. “You were exhausted. You looked sad all the time. I thought if I asked you to stay, I would be asking you to keep being unhappy. So I said okay,” he continues. “And I hated myself for it.”
The room goes quiet. Outside, life continues with insulting indifference while you stand in front of the man you have loved for years and realize you were both lonely in the same house.
You look down at Jiho’s project. “He doesn’t remember us together,” you say.
“No.”
“He still drew us that way.”
Minho’s eyes move to the three figures by the front door, hands connected by one long crayon line. “He drew his family,” he says.
You reach for the back of a chair, but Minho steps around the table before you can fully steady yourself.
“Can I?” he asks.
It takes you a moment to understand what he means. Then you nod. “Please.”
And when his hand touches your arm, careful and warm, you fold toward him with a sound you wish you could keep inside.
Minho holds you. Not like a co-parent fulfilling some emergency comfort role. No, he holds you like someone who has known the shape of you for years and never forgot where his hands belonged. One arm wraps around your back, the other hand settling at the back of your head, his palm firm and familiar.
You cry into his chest, and his chin lowers near your temple.
“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s so quiet you almost miss it. Then again, stronger, “I’m sorry.”
Your fingers curl into his coat. “I’m sorry too.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Yes, I do.” You pull back enough to look at him. “I should have told you what I needed. I should have said it instead of testing you with silence.”
His thumb brushes your cheek, wiping a tear with such care it hurts. “You were tired.”
“So were you.”
“I should have told you anyway.”
You let out a shaky breath. “You’re telling me now.”
His eyes hold yours for a moment, deciding how much to confess. Then he says it. “I never stopped loving you.”
A breath escapes your parted lips, eyes welling.
Minho’s hand remains at your cheek, warm and steady. “I tried to stop. I thought I had to, especially when I saw you with someone else.” His mouth tightens faintly. “I was bad at it.”
A laugh breaks through your tears, fragile and wet. “At stopping?”
“At being normal.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. “You’ve never been normal.”
“I know.”
There’s that warmth again.
Then he grows serious.
“I love you,” he says. “I loved you then. I love you now. I was a fool for thinking you could hear it if I never said it.”
Your face crumples. “I was a fool for doubting you.”
“No,” he says immediately. “Don’t make it yours.”
“It’s ours,” you whisper.
He looks at you for a long moment before nodding once. “Ours.”
You lift your hand to his wrist, holding him there. “I never stopped loving you either.”
Minho closes his eyes. The breath he releases is unsteady, and that, more than anything, breaks your heart open. All this time, you thought his calm meant he had survived you. You never thought it might mean he was holding himself together.
When he opens his eyes again, they are damp.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
You almost laugh because after everything, after a child, a breakup, six years of shared custody, the question feels tender enough to undo you. “Yes.”
Minho kisses you carefully at first. Softly. Then your hand slides into his hair and his breath catches, and the carefulness thins into something deeper. He kisses you like he never stopped knowing how to. His fingers cradle your jaw, his other arm tightening at your waist, and when he tilts his head to kiss you again, you feel years of longing break loose all at once.
It’s not perfect.
There are tears. A shaky laugh against his mouth. When you finally pull back, his forehead rests against yours.
“I love you,” he says again.
You smile through the tears. “Practicing?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
His mouth curves. “Bossy.”
“You need repetition.”
“I’m learning.”
Your heart softens. From your phone on the table, a notification buzzes, but neither of you looks at it.
Minho’s thumb moves slowly along your cheek. “What about Seungmin?”
You lean back enough to see him. “There isn’t a Seungmin.”
His brow lifts slightly.
“There was dinner,” you clarify. “Twice. And coffee once, which you apparently think is worse.”
“It is.”
“It wasn’t serious.”
Minho looks down, almost embarrassed by his own relief.
You touch his cheek. “I think I was trying to prove I could move on.”
His eyes return to yours. “And?”
You shake your head. “I was bad at it.”
The smallest smile appears.
“Good,” he says.
You narrow your eyes. “That was smug.”
“No.”
“It was.”
“A little.”
You laugh, and this time, when he looks at you, he doesn’t look away. And then he turns and leads you down the hallway toward your bedroom and your heart is hammering so hard you can feel it in your throat.
“Minho—” you start, but he stops walking, turns, cups your face between both palms.
“I meant it,” he says, and his voice is low, rough around the edges, nothing like the careful, polite tone he used during those first awful years of shared custody. This is the voice he used to use when he’d wake you up in the middle of the night, mouth already finding your neck. “Every word. And I’m going to show you. If you’ll let me.”
You nod. It’s all you can do.
The bedroom door clicks shut behind you both, and the sound of it—that soft, final sound—sends a pulse straight between your thighs. The curtains are still open, late afternoon sunlight pooling gold across the rumpled duvet you didn’t bother making this morning. You didn’t know he was coming over. You didn’t know any of this was going to happen.
Minho turns you around slowly, hands settling on your shoulders. His thumbs trace the curve of your collarbone through the thin fabric of your t-shirt, and you watch his face in the dresser mirror across the room—the way his jaw tightens, the way his tongue wets his bottom lip.
“I’ve thought about this, about you,” he murmurs, “for six years.”
His fingers find the hem of your shirt. He doesn’t pull it up right away—just tucks his fingertips underneath, brushes them against the skin of your waist, and the contact is so light it makes your stomach clench.
Then he lifts your shirt.
The fabric slides up over your ribs, your breasts, and you raise your arms automatically, letting him pull it over your head. It falls to the floor somewhere, and you’re standing in front of him in your worn-in bra, the one with the stretched elastic and the faded color, and suddenly you’re acutely, painfully aware of every change in your body since the last time he saw you like this. Your arms twitch, instinct telling you to cover yourself.
“Don’t,” Minho breathes.
He catches your wrists and brings them back down to your sides.
“Don’t you dare hide from me.”
His gaze moves over you—your shoulders, the swell of your breasts, the softness of your belly that wasn’t there before. You feel exposed. Raw. But the way he’s looking at you—fuck, the way he’s looking at you—it’s like he’s staring at something holy.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says. “I mean it. Look at you. Look at how gorgeous you are.”
His hands move to your waist, palms sliding up your ribcage, thumbs hooking just beneath the underwire of your bra.
“I think about you,” he says. “Your skin. The way you smell. The sounds you make when I—” He cuts himself off, jaw clenching. “I’m going to take my time tonight. I’m going to worship every single inch of you until you understand how much I’ve missed you.”
He unclasps your bra with one hand—still remembers the trick of it, the way the hooks catch and release—and the straps slide down your arms. The fabric falls away, and your nipples tighten in the cool air of the bedroom.
Minho makes a sound low in his throat.
“Stunning,” he whispers. “Absolutely stunning.”
He leans in, and his mouth finds the curve where your neck meets your shoulder. The kiss is slow, open-mouthed, his tongue tracing a wet line along your skin. You shudder, and he feels it—you know he does—because his grip on your waist tightens.
“I’m going to kiss every part of you,” he says against your throat. “Every fucking part. Starting here.” His mouth moves down. Along your collarbone now, lips dragging, tongue flicking out to taste the hollow at the base of your throat. Your hands find his shoulders, gripping the fabric of his shirt because you need something to hold onto.
“Minho.”
He groans and sinks lower. His mouth finds the swell of your left breast, and he kisses the curve of it, his stubble scraping your sensitive skin, making your hips jerk involuntarily.
“I love these,” he murmurs, cupping your breast in his palm, thumb brushing over the peaked nipple. “I love how responsive they are. How hard they get when I barely touch you.”
He lowers his head and takes your nipple into his mouth.
The heat of it—the wet, sucking heat—makes your back arch. His tongue circles, slow and deliberate, and he watches your face the whole time, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. When he grazes his teeth over the sensitive peak, you gasp, and your fingers twist in his shirt.
“That’s it.” His voice is muffled against your skin. “Let me hear you.” He switches to the other breast, giving it the same attention, laving and sucking until you’re squirming, until your thighs are pressing together and there’s a damp heat building between them that’s becoming impossible to ignore.
But he’s not done.
Minho continues his path downward. His mouth traces the valley between your breasts, then lower—over your sternum, your ribs, the soft plane of your belly. He pauses at your waistband, pressing a kiss just above the button of your jeans.
“I remember every curve,” he says. “Every spot that makes you gasp. But I want to learn you again. All of you.”
He unbuttons your jeans with careful, deliberate movements, and the denim slides down your thighs. You step out of them, and then you’re standing in nothing but your panties—simple cotton ones, because you weren’t expecting anyone to see them—and Minho is kneeling in front of you.
Kneeling.
“You’re breathtaking,” he says, looking up at you, and the word comes out so sincere it makes your chest ache. “Every part of you. Your thighs—fuck, I dream about these thighs wrapped around my head.”
He presses a kiss to your left hip bone, then your right.
“These hips. The way they fit in my hands.”
His palms curl around your hip bones, thumbs stroking the sensitive skin just above the elastic of your panties.
“I’m going to take these off now,” he says, fingers hooking into the waistband. “And then I’m going to put my mouth on you until you come. And I’m going to watch you the whole time, because there’s nothing—nothing—sexier than watching you fall apart for me.”
The panties slide down your legs. You step out of them, and then you’re completely bare, standing in the afternoon sunlight while he stares at you like you’re the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen.
“On the bed for me, baby,” he says, and his voice has gone rough, ragged.
You move backward until your calves hit the edge of the mattress. He follows, still on his knees, crawling toward you in a way that’s almost predatory. When the backs of your thighs hit the duvet, he guides you down onto the mattress, spreading your legs with careful, gentle hands.
“So pretty,” he murmurs, settling between your thighs. His shoulders press against the inside of your legs, spreading you wider. “Look at you. So wet already, and I’ve barely touched you.”
His breath ghosts over your center, and your hips buck upward involuntarily.
“Minho, please—”
“Please what?” His eyes flick up to meet yours, and there’s a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Tell me what you want.”
“Your mouth. Please.”
He doesn’t make you wait. His tongue drags through your folds, broad and flat, and the sensation rips a moan from your throat that you didn’t know you were holding. He groans against you—groans, like the taste of you is the best thing he’s ever had in his mouth—and the vibration of it sends sparks up your spine.
“Fuck,” he breathes, pulling back just enough to speak. “You taste even better than I remember. I could stay here for hours.”
He dives back in. His tongue traces patterns against your clit—circles, then figure-eights, then a steady, pulsing rhythm that has your fingers twisting in the duvet. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s always known.
“Remember this?” He licks a slow stripe up the center of you. “Remember how I used to make you scream?”
You can’t answer. You can barely even breathe.
His mouth is relentless. Tongue flicking, lips sucking, the occasional scrape of teeth that makes you jerk and gasp. He’s watching you—you can feel his gaze burning into you—and every time your eyes flutter open, he’s there, dark and intent and so fucking aroused it’s written all over his face.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against your clit. “Let go. I want to feel you come apart on my tongue.”
Two fingers slide inside you, curling upward, finding that spot he always knew how to hit. Your back arches off the mattress.
“Fuck—Minho—fuck—”
“Yeah,” he growls. “Say my name. Scream it.”
His fingers pump in and out, his mouth working your clit with obscene, wet sounds that fill the room. The pressure builds, coiling low and tight, and you’re so close now, right on the edge, thighs trembling, hands fisting in his hair.
“I’m—I’m going to—”
“Do it,” he says, and his voice is raw, wrecked. “Come for me. I want to feel it. I want to watch your face—I want to see how fucking gorgeous you look when you shatter.”
The orgasm hits you like a wave—no, not a wave, something sharper, something that whites out your vision and wrenches a scream from somewhere deep in your chest. Your thighs clamp around his head, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, just rides you through it with his mouth and his fingers and his low, rumbling groans that vibrate straight through your clit.
You come down trembling, gasping, and he’s still kissing you—softer now, gentler—pressing his lips to the inside of your thigh, your hip, your belly.
“Beautiful,” he’s murmuring. “So fucking beautiful. Wish you could see yourself. Feel good?”
You can only nod, chest heaving.
He rises up onto his knees, still between your thighs, and tugs his shirt over his head. You watch the fabric fly off to reveal his chest and your breath catches.
His shirt hits the floor. His hands move to his belt, and you watch him unbuckle it, unbutton his jeans, shove them down along with his boxers. His cock springs free—thick and heavy, the tip already glistening—and your mouth goes dry.
Fuck. You remember him being big, but you’d forgotten just how much he fills your hand. How much he stretches your pussy.
He strokes himself once, twice, his eyes locked on yours. “I need to be inside you. Please, baby. I can’t wait anymore.”
“Yes,” you breathe. “Now. Please.”
He settles between your thighs, the weight of him pressing you into the mattress, and it feels like coming home. His hips slot against yours, and you can feel the hot, hard length of him sliding through your wet folds—not pushing in yet, just rocking, coating himself in your slick.
“Look at me,” he says.
You do.
He pushes in. The stretch is breathtaking—literally, you forget how to inhale for a moment—and Minho groans, a long, shuddering sound that seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest. His forehead drops to yours.
“Fuck,” he grinds out. “So tight. So wet. You feel—fuck—you feel incredible.”
He sinks deeper, inch by inch, until he’s buried all the way inside you. He stays there, motionless, letting you adjust, and you cling to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin.
“Okay?” he breathes.
“More than okay. Move. Please.”
He pulls out slowly—agonizingly slowly—and thrusts back in with a roll of his hips that hits exactly the right angle. You gasp, and he does it again. And again. A rhythm builds, slow and deep, the kind of fucking that feels less like sex and more like a whole experience.
His hips roll, grinding against your clit, and your moan turns into a cry.
“Yeah, that’s it. That’s the sound I’ve been missing. Scream for me, baby. Let everyone hear how good I’m making you feel.”
The bed creaks beneath you, a steady, rhythmic counterpoint to the slap of skin against skin. He’s hitting that spot inside you with every thrust now, the one that makes your vision blur and your toes curl, and you can feel another orgasm building, building, building—
“You’re getting close again,” he growls. “I can feel it. Your pussy’s squeezing me so tight, baby. Come on my cock. Please. Wanna feel you come on my cock.”
His thumb finds your clit, pressing down in tight circles, and that’s all it takes.
The orgasm tears through you, sharper than the first one, and you scream his name, your nails raking down his back as your body clenches around him. He fucks you through it, groaning, his rhythm stuttering as he chases his own release.
“Gonna come,” he grits out. “Gonna fill you up—fuck—is that okay? Can I come inside you?”
“Yes. Yes.”
His hips snap forward once, twice, and then he buries himself deep with a sound that’s almost animalistic—a growl that rumbles through his chest and vibrates against your skin.
“Mine,” he grinds out, pulsing inside you. “Mine.”
You feel every spurt of his release, hot and wet, and he stays there, still buried deep, as his hips give one final, shuddering thrust.
Minho doesn’t pull out. He stays inside you, his weight pressed against you, his face buried in your neck. He whispers sweet nothings, kisses your skin softly before eventually rolling off you to clean you up.
He doesn’t stay the night—not that night.
It would be easy to let the moment swallow everything, to pretend one confession has rearranged all the years between you neatly enough for morning. But you are both older now. Softer in some places, more careful in others. There is Jiho to think about, and yourselves too, the versions of you that loved badly despite loving deeply.
So Minho leaves after midnight with your kiss still on his mouth and one of your hands caught in his until the last possible second.
At the door, he turns back.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” he says.
You lean against the frame. “Will you?”
His eyes soften at the question beneath the question. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
He takes a breath. “I love you.”
You smile. “I love you too.”
He nods once, like he is storing the answer somewhere permanent, smiles softly, then walks to his car.
The next weeks don’t become a fairytale—they become something better. They become deliberate.
Minho calls when he says he will. Sometimes the conversations are short, practical things about Jiho’s schedule or school forms, but he no longer lets them end there. He asks about your work. He tells you when a meeting went badly. He sends you a photo of Jiho asleep on his couch with Mr. Bite balanced on his chest.
He starts saying what he means before silence can do the damage for him.
I missed you today.
I wanted to tell you this earlier.
I’m not upset. I’m thinking.
You try too.
When fear rises, you name it instead of burying it. When you need reassurance, you ask, even when it makes you feel exposed. When Minho reaches for you in quiet ways, you let yourself see them without expecting them to replace words entirely.
Jiho notices, of course.
One Saturday morning, three weeks after the presentation, you go to Minho’s apartment for breakfast because Jiho has been lobbying for family pancakes. You arrive with strawberries and whipped cream, and Minho opens the door wearing a black T-shirt dusted with flour.
You stare at him.
He looks down. “Don’t ask.”
You laugh and step inside, pressing a kiss to his lips that he returns eagerly.
Breakfast is chaotic in the ordinary way of real homes. Jiho drops a strawberry then steps on it while trying to pick it up. You burn the first pancake because you are distracted by Minho standing too close behind you to reach the spatula, his hand settling briefly at your waist as he passes. Jiho talks through the entire meal about school, turtles, and everything else that pops into his brain.
Halfway through his second pancake, he looks between you and Minho. “You guys are being different.”
You freeze. Minho doesn’t, though his gaze shifts to you before returning to Jiho. “Different how?”
Jiho shrugs. “Just different.”
“Good different?” you ask carefully.
He thinks about it while chewing, then nods. “Less awkward.”
Minho huffs softly. You hide your smile behind your coffee.
Jiho points his fork at Minho. “You say stuff more, Dad.”
Minho’s ears turn faintly pink. You look at him, delighted.
“Do I?” Minho asks, voice even.
“Yes.” Jiho spears a strawberry. “You told Mom you missed her on the phone.”
Your eyes widen. Minho looks at you slowly.
You whisper, “Speakerphone?”
“I didn’t know he was listening,” Minho mutters.
“You also said something about coming, but then Mom never showed up,” Jiho says thoughtfully.
“Okay! I am never using my phone around you. Ever,” Minho says, pressing his palms to the table, ears red.
Jiho laughs, pointing to his dad’s obvious embarrassment.
You face palm yourself, cheeks flushed, but you can’t hide the laugh that slips out.
Minho reaches for his coffee, but his other hand brushes yours beneath the table. His fingers hook lightly around yours, hidden from Jiho’s view.
Jiho keeps eating, satisfied with whatever conclusion he has drawn. Then he says, “I like it.”
You look at him in question.
“Pancakes?” Minho asks.
Jiho rolls his eyes in the exact way Minho does, which is frankly unsettling. “Noooo. You guys.”
You feel your face soften, reaching over to wipe a bit of cream from Jiho’s cheek. “We like it too.”
Jiho nods once. “Good.”
Minho murmurs, “Bossy.”
“He gets it from you,” you say.
Jiho smiles around his fork. “I get my intelligence from myself.”
Minho rolls his eyes. “Finish your breakfast.”
Later, after the plates are cleared and Jiho disappears to the living room to introduce Mr. Bite to a new rock named Mrs. Chew, you stand at Minho’s sink rinsing mugs while he dries beside you.
His apartment is bright in the morning, sunlight touching the edges of the counter, the table, the project Jiho insisted on bringing home after it was graded. It is spread carefully near the window now, the vibrant house glowing over old pencil lines.
Minho follows your gaze. “I want to frame it,” he says.
You turn to him. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Where would you put it?”
He looks at the project, then at you. “Wherever we decide.”
The word moves through you slowly. We.
You lean against the counter. “That sounds like a big conversation.”
“It is.”
“Are you ready for that?”
Minho dries the mug in his hands carefully, then sets it down. He doesn’t answer right away, and once, that silence would have scared you. Now, you wait.
When he looks at you, his face is open. “I don’t want to rush Jiho,” he says. “Or you.”
You nod.
“But I want that life,” he continues. “The one I didn’t tell you I wanted clearly enough.” He turns to face you fully. “I want breakfast with you. I want your samples all over the table even though you call it organized and it isn’t. I want Jiho’s shoes in the wrong place and your tea in my cabinets and arguments about paint colors that are all white.”
A laugh breaks softly from your chest.
Minho steps closer. “I want the house,” he says. “Whatever it looks like.”
Your eyes burn again, but this time, the tears come with something warmer beneath them. You reach for his hand. “I want that too.” His fingers close around yours.
For a moment, you stand there in the kitchen with sunlight on the floor and your son’s laughter coming from upstairs, the future no longer a perfect drawing kept in a tube, but something alive and imperfect and waiting to be built carefully.
Minho lifts your joined hands and presses a kiss to your knuckles.
Then, because he is learning, because quiet love is still love but not the only kind you need, he says it.
“I love you.”
You smile. “I know.”
His brows lift in mock offense.
Laughing softly, you lean across the small space between you and catch his mouth with yours.
It starts briefly, meant to be teasing, but Minho’s hand slides to your jaw and suddenly he’s kissing you back, slow and familiar. The kind of kiss built from years of knowing each other. The kind that says everything neither of you has ever been particularly good at putting into words.
When you finally pull away, his eyes are warm.
You squeeze his hand and add, “I love you too.”
From the living room, Jiho calls, “Can Mrs. Chew come to Mom’s house?”
The moment shatters instantly.
Minho sighs, rubbing his eyes. “And there it is.”
You laugh. “Is Mrs. Chew another rock?” you call back.
A pause. Then Jiho says, “She’s family.”
Minho looks at you. You look at him. And in the bright, ordinary quiet that follows, the two of you begin again.
A heat advisory remains in effect until further notice. Meteorologists have confirmed that this season's unusually high temperatures can be traced to a persistent system known as Stray Kids. Residents should expect long days, warm nights, lowered inhibitions, and a sharp decline in good judgment.
Management has been advised to remind guests that @binniebb and @joyracha cannot be held liable for any poor decisions, questionable behavior, or unexpected entanglements resulting from prolonged exposure. Proceed with caution.
INDEX—
[ 📋 ] Visitors—please consult individual tags and warnings when entering the affected area. Forecasts range from light and sunny to full heat advisory. Please plan accordingly.
☀️ DEEP END ⋮ BINNIEBB
bang chan x reader
summer mvp was supposed to be a harmless summer incentive until chris bang turned it into war. now the only thing hotter than the country club pool deck is how badly you want your smug, shirtless rival to lose control first.
🔥 WHEN THE SMOKE CLEARS ⋮ JOYRACHA
⤷ part one ⋮ part two
lee know x reader ; smau
you take up a new summer job—being a fire lookout for the forest service at a national park. you’re added to a group chat and get to know the man in the neighboring tower.
🏕️ CABIN FEVER ⋮ BINNIEBB
changbin x reader
camp skz has rules for swimming, hiking, campfires, and pretty much every possible disaster. too bad there’s no rule against falling for the counselor who carries you out of the woods and into a summer-long problem.
🚢 TEQUILA SUNRISE ⋮ JOYRACHA
hyunjin x reader
being a travel blogger has its perks; you get to travel the world, eat delicious food, and…dance with a mysterious, handsome stranger on a cruise?
🎡 DUNK HIM! ⋮ JOYRACHA
han x reader
you’re just trying to volunteer for a summer charity event at the pier, but you meet an infuriatingly handsome guy who makes it his mission to get under your skin
🍰 PROOFING TIME ⋮ BINNIEBB
felix x reader
at honeycrumb bakery, the ovens aren’t the only thing making the kitchen unbearably hot. unfortunately, your biggest weakness wears a flour-covered apron and answers to the name felix.
⚾️ IT STARTED OUT WITH A KISS ⋮ JOYRACHA
seungmin x reader
you meet by chance at a baseball game, so he asks you to be his plus one for a wedding. the catch? pretending to be his girlfriend for a whole weekend. what happens when you actually start to like him?
🏡 GOOD ‘OL NEIGHBORLY CONDUCT ⋮ BINNIEBB
i.n x reader
the whole neighborhood wants jeongin mowing their lawns, fixing their fences, and cleaning their pools for the summer. you just want him shirtless in your yard, forgetting every good manner he has.
⤷ part of the weight of love: eight ways to STAY series
[ ▸ ] — you and minho have spent years loving your son from separate homes, pretending the distance between you stopped hurting a long time ago. he has always loved quietly, and you have always needed something louder. but when jiho begins a school project about family, the life you thought minho let go of starts finding its way back to you.
[ ✐ ] — 12k
[ ⌗ ] — architect!minho x interior designer!reader coparenting slow burn angst hurt / comfort second chances graphic & detailed smut oral ( f receiving )
[ ✉︎ ] — cannot believe we are 7/8 done with with this series! ahhh! also loved how i got to watch the kNOw way while editing this <3 changbin's part will be a little tricky to post so i'll let you guys know how/when that will posted later. a wet hot skz summer is coming too guys! joy and i are so excited for you guys to read everything we've been cooking for the past three months! anyways, as always hunnies, enjoy, and please—if you do, like, reblog, and comment <3 love to see you guys' thoughts and feedback!
You have learned, over the years, that there are different kinds of quiet.
There is the quiet of an unfinished house before the flooring goes in, when every room carries the hollow echo of possibility and dust hangs in the air, waiting to settle. There is the quiet of an office after midnight, when your monitor glows over half-finished renders and your coffee has gone cold beside the keyboard. There is the quiet of a child finally asleep after fighting bedtime, one foot sticking out from under the blanket, one hand curled around a plush animal he claimed he no longer needed.
Then there is Minho’s quiet. That one has always been harder to name.
Years ago, you mistook it for safety. For steadiness. For love that did not need to be dressed up to be real. When you were twenty-something and stupidly certain that wanting the same future meant you would understand each other forever, Minho’s quiet felt like something solid beneath your feet. He did not say much, but he showed up. He fixed things. He remembered things. He stood beside you without making a ceremony of it, and for a long time, that felt like enough.
Then Jiho was born and enough became harder to measure.
The first year of your son’s life unraveled both of you in different ways. You remember it in fragments now: tiny socks in the washing machine, bottles lined up near the sink, Minho asleep upright on the couch with Jiho against his chest, your own reflection in the bathroom mirror looking less like you every morning. You remember the exhaustion most clearly, the kind that burrowed under your skin and made every unspoken thing feel louder than it was.
Minho loved Jiho. That had never been in question. He loved him in careful hands and warmed milk and the way he learned every small cry by sound. He loved him in clean laundry folded at two in the morning, in doctor’s appointments never forgotten, in the rocking chair he assembled before you were discharged from the hospital because he said the old one made a noise that would irritate you.
He loved you too, you think now.
Back then, you were not so sure.
Back then, all you knew was that he came home, kissed Jiho’s head, washed bottles, asked if you had eaten, and moved through your life with the controlled steadiness of a man doing everything right except reaching for you when you needed him to.
You were twenty-seven when you left. Jiho was nearly two. There had been no screaming. No affair. No single terrible night that split your life cleanly in two. Just one conversation after too many lonely months.
You told Minho you did not think you wanted the same life anymore.
He looked at you for a long time. Then he said, “Is that what you want?”
You wanted him to say no. You wanted him to say your name like losing you would ruin him. You wanted him to fight you, just once, with something louder than care carefully hidden inside chores and errands and practical concern.
Instead, you heard yourself say, “I think so.”
Minho’s eyes lowered to Jiho asleep between you on the couch, his cheek smushed against a blue blanket, his little mouth open around soft breaths.
Then Minho said, “Okay.”
Okay.
Not stay.
Not don’t go.
Not I love you.
Okay.
Six years later, Jiho is eight, and he does not remember the two of you together.
He knows Mom’s place and Dad’s place. He knows which drawer at each home holds his pajamas, which parent is more likely to let him have cereal after dinner, which couch has the better blanket, which pantry hides the snacks he is not supposed to know about. He knows school drop-offs and alternating weekends, birthdays spent with both of you at the same table, parent-teacher conferences where Minho sits with his arms crossed and listens so closely the teacher usually starts speaking to him like he might be grading her.
To Jiho, this is not broken. It’s just family.
Maybe that is why it’s easy to pretend you have all adjusted.
Your phone vibrates while you’re standing in the middle of your design studio, a stack of fabric swatches balanced against your hip and a sample book spread open across the consultation table. Across from you, your client flips through upholstery options, pausing every few seconds to hold one up against the mood board you’ve spent weeks building together. Afternoon sunlight pours through the front windows, catching on brass fixtures and illuminating the organized chaos of sketches, material samples, and half-finished concepts scattered throughout the space.
You glance at the screen.
Minho.
His name still does something inconvenient to your chest. Less dramatic than it used to be, maybe, but no less real. A small internal pause. An old room opening somewhere.
“Sorry,” you tell your client. “I should take this. It might be about my son.”
She smiles politely, and you step into the hallway.
“Hey,” you answer.
“Jiho left his science notebook in my car.”
You close your eyes. “Again?”
“He says it wasn’t again because last time was his math folder.”
“Of course he does.”
“He asked me to tell you the distinction matters.”
You can hear him walking, keys faintly shifting in the background. His voice is low and even, familiar enough to hurt if you let yourself listen too closely.
“I can pick it up after work,” you say. “I’m not too far from your office.”
“I’m near your studio. I’ll drop it off.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
You look down at the samples in your hand. White oak. Ash. Walnut. Three kinds of wood pretending not to hold different moods.
“Minho,” you say.
“What?”
“I can get it.”
“And I can bring it.”
There is no sharpness or impatience in his voice. Just that same quiet certainty that always makes arguing with him feel like trying to move a wall.
You sigh. “Fine. Thank you.”
“Have you eaten?”
You glance toward the living room, where your client is now squinting at wallpaper. “Not yet.”
“It’s almost two.”
“I am aware of the time.”
“Awareness isn’t lunch.”
You press your lips together, the beginning of a smile tugging there before you can stop it. “Did you call to scold me?”
“I called because your son has the organizational habits of a tornado.”
“My son?”
“He gets that from you.”
“Um, no, he absolutely gets that from you. You have six separate folders labeled ‘miscellaneous.’”
“They are different kinds of miscellaneous.”
“That sentence alone should make you ashamed.”
A quiet breath comes through the phone. “I’ll be at your studio in twenty,” he says.
“Okay.”
A pause. “Eat something.”
“You’re very bossy for someone delivering a notebook.”
“You’re very bad at lunch for someone who needs food to be alive.”
You roll your eyes, but your voice softens. “Drive safe.”
He is quiet for half a second. Then, “See you soon.”
The call ends.
You stand in the hallway longer than necessary, phone still in your hand, staring down at the dark screen.
It would be easier if Minho were colder.
You have thought that more times than you can count. It would be easier if he forgot things, if he showed up late, if he spoke to you with indifference, if shared custody had turned him into a polite stranger. It would be easier if the man who broke your heart had at least done you the courtesy of becoming someone else afterward.
Instead, he remains exactly who he has always been.
Twenty-four minutes later, your receptionist calls to say Jiho’s father is downstairs.
You find Minho in the lobby of your studio with Jiho’s notebook under one arm and a paper bag in his other hand. He is wearing a black coat over work clothes, hair neat but wind-touched, glasses sitting low on his nose.
He looks up before you say his name.
“Hey,” you say.
“Hey.”
For a second, neither of you moves. Then he holds out the notebook. You take it carefully. “Thanks.”
Minho lifts the paper bag next.
You look at it. “Notebook came with a side quest?”
“You didn’t eat.”
“I said not yet.”
“You always say ‘not yet’.”
You take the bag because refusing it would only make him stand there longer, and standing near him already pulls at too many seams. Inside is a wrapped sandwich from the café around the corner, fruit, and an iced coffee. Your order. Exact down to the extra shot and light ice.
Your fingers tighten around the handles.
“You remembered.”
Minho frowns slightly, as if the statement itself is strange. “You’ve ordered the same thing for four years.”
“People forget things.”
“I don’t.”
He says it without emphasis. Simple fact.
“Thank you,” you say, quieter.
His gaze moves over your face. “You look tired.”
“You say that like it’s helpful.”
“It’s true.”
“Truth and helpfulness are not the same thing.”
His mouth tilts. Barely. “You’re wearing two different earrings.”
You reach up quickly, touching one ear, then the other. One small pearl. One gold stud.
“Oh my god.”
“It works.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It looks intentional if you don’t panic.”
You glare at him, but there is no real heat in it. “How long were you going to let me walk around like this?”
“I just got here.”
“You noticed immediately.”
“Yes, well you design interiors. Maybe people thought it was a concept.”
A laugh escapes you and his eyes soften when he hears it.
Your phone buzzes. A text lights the screen.
Seungmin: Dinner Friday still good?
You turn the screen down too late.
Minho’s gaze flicks to it, then away. He says nothing, but something in his expression folds inward, a shutter drawn almost silently.
“It’s just dinner,” you say before you can stop yourself.
Minho looks at you.
You don't know why you said it. Maybe because the change in his face still has the power to make you explain yourself. Maybe because some terrible part of you wants him to care.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says.
“I know.”
A beat.
“Good.”
The word is polite. Flat. Perfectly reasonable.
It lands like a bruise.
You look down at Jiho’s notebook. “I should get back.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you Saturday for his game?”
“I’ll see you then.”
Minho never misses Jiho’s games. He stands along the fence with his hands in his pockets, saying very little, watching everything. When Jiho runs toward him afterward, sweaty and flushed and asking if he saw his almost-goal, Minho always says, “I saw.” And Jiho always beams like his father shouted across the field.
Maybe for him, it’s equivalent.
“Okay,” you say.
Minho nods once and turns to leave.
You wait until he is through the glass doors before you let yourself breathe.
On Saturday morning, Jiho’s soccer game takes place under a gray sky that keeps threatening rain and then losing interest. Parents gather along the sidelines with folding chairs and travel mugs, their conversations drifting above the field in soft bursts. You arrive ten minutes before kickoff with Jiho’s water bottle, an extra hoodie, and a packet of orange slices because you forgot it was your snack week until midnight and had to peel and separate them while half-asleep.
Minho stands near the fence in a navy sweatshirt and black joggers, arms crossed, expression neutral as he watches Jiho warm up. A paper cup of coffee sits on the grass by his shoe. Beside it is a second cup.
You approach slowly.
His eyes flick toward you. “You’re late.”
“I’m early.”
“Barely.”
“Good morning to you too.”
He bends and picks up the second cup, holding it out.
You stare at it.
“You’re predictable,” he says.
You take it. It’s warm through the cardboard. “That’s your explanation?”
“You like coffee when it’s lukewarm.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It’s a thing.”
Minho’s gaze moves back to the field.
You stand beside him, close enough that your sleeves nearly touch, both of you watching Jiho chase a ball with more determination than coordination. He is not the best player on the team, not even close, but he plays with his whole face, brows drawn together in concentration, mouth open as he runs. When he spots you, he waves so enthusiastically he almost misses the ball rolling past him.
Minho cups one hand near his mouth. “Jiho. Ball first.”
Jiho gives him a thumbs-up, then promptly trips over his own feet.
You wince. Minho doesn’t move, but his shoulders tense until Jiho pops back up.
Across the field, Jiho scores a goal by sheer chaos: the ball bounces off another kid’s shin, rolls toward him, and he kicks it with such surprise that everyone reacts half a second late. It goes in.
Jiho freezes, then turns toward both of you, face bright with disbelief.
You cheer immediately. Minho claps, once, twice, controlled but unmistakable. When Jiho keeps looking, Minho lifts both hands and gives him a small, firm nod and a smile.
Jiho’s smile widens.
“He’s going to talk about this for a week,” you say.
“Two.”
“Minimum.”
“He’ll ask me to build a trophy shelf.”
“You would.”
Minho takes a sip of his coffee. “Of course.”
You glance at him, and there it is again, the ache disguised as fondness.
After the game, Jiho runs over with muddy knees and grass on his sleeve, cheeks pink from the cold.
“Did you see?”
“Yes,” you say, crouching as he throws himself into you. “I saw.”
“I scored.”
“You did.”
“It was kind of an accident, but not fully.”
Minho crouches too, reaching to untie one of Jiho’s cleats before he tracks mud everywhere. “A goal is a goal.”
Jiho beams at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Can we get tteokbokki?”
You laugh. “That was fast.”
“I used a lot of energy.” Jiho looks between you with interest. “So can we get tteokbokki?”
Jiho pumps both fists, then immediately turns to you. “Are you coming too?”
The question hangs there.
Minho looks down at Jiho’s muddy cleats.
You look at Minho.
This is the kind of moment you have gotten good at stepping around. The harmless invitations from your son, the ones he asks because he doesn’t remember a time when you and Minho were anything but separate and therefore sees no reason why separate cannot still sit at the same table. To him, family is not one house. It is two adults who show up.
You should say you have work, which is technically true—you do have work.
Instead, Minho says, “Your mom might be busy.” An opening.
You look at him. His expression is calm, but he will not meet your eyes.
“I can come for a little,” you say.
Jiho grins. “Okay. Dad, you’re paying because you said no first.”
Minho stands with the cleats in one hand. “That makes no sense.”
“It does if you think about it.”
“I did. It doesn’t.”
You laugh softly as Jiho starts explaining his logic, all tangled reasoning and absolute confidence, while Minho pretends not to listen and opens the car door for him anyway.
Lunch is not uncomfortable. It should be awkward, sitting across from Minho in a small restaurant with Jiho between you, steam rising from a shared pan of tteokbokki, rain finally tapping against the front windows. It should feel like pretending.
Instead, it feels dangerously easy.
Jiho talks through half the meal, recounting his goal with increasing embellishment. By the third version, he has “dodged two defenders,” though you both watched the ball bounce directly to him. Minho lets him have it until Jiho claims he planned the angle.
“You did not plan the angle,” Minho says.
“I planned to kick.”
“That is completely different.”
“Angles are part of kicking.”
“You didn’t even know where your other foot was.”
Jiho considers this. “That’s true.”
You laugh, reaching over to wipe sauce from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. Jiho ducks away with an offended noise, but leans back in when Minho gives him a look.
After lunch, Jiho falls asleep in the backseat of Minho’s car before you even leave the parking lot. You stand beside your own car, rain misting through the air, holding the leftover container Minho insisted you take.
“Thanks for lunch,” you say after a moment.
Minho’s hands rest in his coat pockets. “Of course.”
A small smile tugs at your mouth. Minho looks at it, then away.
You shift the container in your hands. “Jiho’s happy when we do things together.”
“He is.”
“It doesn’t confuse him?”
Minho looks toward the car, where Jiho sleeps with his forehead pressed to the window, mouth slightly open. “He’s used to us.”
That should comfort you. It does, mostly, but something inside you twists anyway.
“He doesn’t remember,” you say.
Minho’s gaze returns to you.
“When we were together,” you clarify. “He doesn’t remember that.”
“No.”
“Sometimes I wonder if that made it easier for him.”
Minho is quiet for a moment. Rain beads on his dark hair, tiny silver points in the gray afternoon. Then he says, “Maybe.”
You wait.
He adds, “Or maybe he just knows we both love him.”
You look away because that is too simple and too much.
“He does know that,” you say.
Minho’s voice softens. “Good.”
You nod, but the word follows you home.
Good.
Always good. Never enough.
The family project begins the next Wednesday.
Jiho announces it at your dining table while eating noodles and arranging cucumber slices in order from smallest to largest.
“Ms. Park says we have to make something about our family.”
You look up from your laptop. “Something?”
“A project.”
“What kind of project?”
“Any kind.”
“That is very broad.”
“I know. It’s bad.”
You close your laptop halfway. “Did she give examples?”
Jiho nods. “A family tree. A poster. A drawing. A scrapbook. Junho is making his family as Pokémon.”
“That sounds fun.”
Jiho pokes at a cucumber slice. “I don’t want to do a family tree.”
“Why not?”
“Trees are boring.”
“Trees are cool. They provide oxygen.”
“My project doesn’t need oxygen.”
You concede with a nod. “Fair.”
He eats a noodle, thinking. His hair is still damp from his shower, sticking slightly to his forehead. Sometimes, in the soft light of the apartment, he looks so much like Minho it startles you. Not only the eyes or the set of his mouth, but the focus. The way he goes still when he is sorting through an idea.
“Can I make our family a house?” he asks.
Your hands pause on the laptop. “A house?”
“Yeah.”
“Why a house?”
He looks at you as if the answer is obvious. “Because you make houses nice inside, and Dad makes houses stand up.”
You stare at him for a moment.
Then you smile. “That’s one way to put it.”
Jiho looks pleased with himself and reaches for another cucumber. “So can I?”
“Of course you can.”
“Can I make two doors?”
“Sure.”
“One for your house and one for Dad’s?”
The question is simple. Practical. Unloaded by adult grief because Jiho doesn’t carry your history. Still, it presses somewhere tender.
“Yeah,” you say softly. “Two doors works.”
Jiho nods and begins sketching on the back of an old grocery list, tongue poking into his cheek. You watch him draw a rectangle, then a slanted roof, then three uneven figures in the doorway.
“Why are we all in one house if there are two doors?” you ask gently.
He shrugs. “It’s a project, Mom.”
You huff a laugh. “Right. My mistake.”
He looks up. “Also because it’s our family.”
Then he returns to his drawing, leaving you sitting there with the soft devastation of being corrected by someone who has never known your life any other way.
That weekend is Minho’s.
Jiho packs the project instructions into his backpack, along with two shirts, his math workbook, and a rock named Mr. Bite that you have been instructed not to call just a rock because that is apparently disrespectful.
At drop-off, Minho opens the door before you knock twice.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
Jiho pushes past you. “Dad, don’t step on Mr. Bite. He’s in the front pocket.”
Minho looks at you.
You lift your hands. “I don’t ask questions anymore.”
Minho crouches to unzip the front pocket of Jiho’s backpack, carefully removes the rock, and sets it on the narrow entry table beside his keys.
“Welcome back,” he tells it dryly.
Jiho beams. “See? Dad respects him.”
Minho just gives you a look. You press your lips together to keep from smiling.
Jiho kicks off his shoes and runs toward the living room. “I have a project!”
“I know, Mom told me,” Minho calls after him. “Take your socks off the floor.”
“They’re not on the floor.”
“They’re on the floor, I can see them.”
Jiho groans but returns to gather the socks.
You remain near the doorway, fingers curled around the strap of your bag. Minho notices. He always notices when you are preparing to leave, just as he notices when you linger.
“Busy weekend?” he asks.
“A little. Client meeting tomorrow morning.”
“And dinner?”
The question is even, too even.
You look at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Minho.”
His gaze drops to the keys on the table. “You said you had dinner Friday.”
“That was last week.”
“I know.”
You study his face, the careful blankness there. “Are you asking if I’m seeing him again?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m asking if Jiho needs to know anything.”
“Jiho doesn’t know about Seungmin.”
His eyes lift at the name. You wish you hadn’t said it.
“He doesn’t need to,” you add. “It’s not serious.”
Minho nods once. Something about that nod makes you tired. “You can say whatever you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“Lie a little better.”
His jaw moves slightly. For a second, you think he might actually say it. Something real. Something sharp enough to cut through the polite arrangements and shared calendars and careful handoffs.
But then, from the living room, Jiho yells, “Dad! Do you have giant paper?”
Minho’s gaze remains on you for a beat longer.
Then he turns his head. “How giant?”
“Like architect giant.”
Minho looks back at you, and whatever had nearly surfaced between you sinks again.
“I should go,” you say.
He nods. “I’ll bring him back Sunday at six.”
“Okay.”
You almost step away, then pause. “Make sure he does his reading log.”
“He will.”
“And no cereal for dinner.”
“It was one time.”
“It was three times.”
“Across several years.”
“Minho.”
He looks at you calmly. “I’ll feed him real food.”
“Thank you.”
You turn to go. Behind you, Minho says your name.
You stop.
He is still by the door, one hand resting against the frame. “Drive carefully.”
It’s such a small thing, and yet it still feels like love.
At Minho’s apartment, Jiho finds the storage tubes by accident.
He’s looking for paper, apparently unsatisfied by the large sketchpad Minho has already given him because it is ‘not building-y enough’. Minho lets him wander the edge of the office under supervision, watching as his son inspects shelves with the solemn curiosity of someone touring a museum dedicated entirely to boring adult objects.
“What’s that?” Jiho asks, pointing at the cluster of long cardboard tubes leaning in the corner.
“Old drawings.”
“Can I use one?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re old drawings.”
“Are they important?”
Minho looks at them. He should say yes and move on. Instead, he stands very still.
The tubes have followed him through two apartments, an office move, one breakup, and six years of telling himself that keeping things doesn’t mean waiting. He kept old project sketches from university, early firm work, competition drafts he never submitted. He kept things because architects are part archivist, part fool. The past piles up in paper if you let it.
But one tube is different.
He knows it without looking at the label. The label itself has faded, but he remembers his own handwriting.
house - personal
Jiho taps the tube lightly. “Dad?”
Minho blinks. “What?”
“Can I see?”
Minho’s first instinct is no. His second is no, more softly. His third is the thing that gets him into trouble: Jiho is looking at him with curiosity, not suspicion. To him, these are just papers. Lines. Rooms. Maybe something useful for a family project.
Minho pulls the tube free, dust clinging to the cardboard. He wipes it with his sleeve, then removes the cap.
The first sheet slides out with a sound that reaches farther back than he expects. Graphite lines. Measurements. Notes. The outline of a house that never stood anywhere except in his hands and your voice.
He sees your handwriting first, a small note near the kitchen.
not too cold! warm light here
He remembers you saying it, seven months pregnant, sitting cross-legged on the floor despite his repeated warnings that getting up would become a entire event. You had eaten half a bowl of strawberries and told him kitchens should not feel like showrooms because people were supposed to live messy lives in them.
He had told you that was not a design specification.
You had said, “Make it one.”
So he did.
“Dad?” Jiho asks.
Minho looks down at him. His son is waiting.
Minho should put it away. Instead, he hears himself say, “You can use this one.”
Jiho’s face lights. “Really?”
“Don’t rip it.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t draw over the notes.”
Jiho peers at the paper. “There are notes?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
Minho’s hand rests lightly on the edge of the sheet. “Mine. And your mom’s.”
Jiho looks up. “Mom helped?”
“Yes.”
“With a building?”
“With a house.”
“Whose house?”
Minho is quiet. Jiho waits, but not anxiously. Just curious.
Minho rolls the sheet carefully and hands it to him. “Ours,” he says.
Jiho accepts this with the easy adaptability of a child. “Cool.”
Then he runs off to draw over Minho’s ghost.
For the next two weeks, the project moves between homes.
It comes to your apartment rolled in a tube almost too big for Jiho’s backpack and returns to Minho’s with new marker streaks, colored pencil shading, uneven labels, and smudges from Jiho resting his wrist in the wrong place while coloring. You don’t see the full sheet at first. Jiho works on sections, guarding the main part with the seriousness of an artist preparing for a gallery opening.
You catch glimpses—a yellow window, a red front door, a backyard labeled maybe turtle?, and a square marked mom’s work room.
You help him choose colors for the interior, biting back the instinct to correct his proportions when he draws a sofa larger than the kitchen island.
“It’s a very big sofa,” you say.
“It’s for family movie night.”
Your pencil pauses. “Family movie night?”
“Yeah. At Dad’s, the couch is too small if we all spread out with our feet up.”
“We don’t usually all sit there together.”
“But if we did.”
He says it easily and keeps coloring.
You say nothing, stunned into silence.
Minho drops Jiho off one Wednesday evening with the project tube under one arm and a grocery bag in his hand.
“What’s that?” you ask.
“Jiho said your smoke detector was beeping.”
You stare at him. “So you brought groceries?”
“Battery is in the bag.”
“You brought a battery in a grocery bag?”
“There are also groceries.”
“Why?”
“Your fridge looked almost empty last week.”
Your mouth opens, then closes.
Minho steps past you before you can decide whether to argue, removing his shoes automatically. Jiho runs straight to his room, project tube clutched to his chest, yelling something about not looking because it’s not finished.
You follow Minho into the kitchen, where he sets the bag on your counter and begins unpacking as if he still lives there.
Eggs. Strawberries. Tofu. Rice cakes. The tea you like. Jiho’s yogurt drinks. A pack of batteries.
“Minho,” you say slowly.
“What?”
“You can’t keep buying my groceries.”
“I don’t.”
“You just did.”
“Some of these are for Jiho.”
“Some?”
He puts the strawberries in your fridge. “Most.”
“You bought my tea.”
“You get headaches when you work late.”
You turn away, pretending to inspect the smoke detector in the hallway. “I can take care of myself, Min.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Minho stills. The words sit between you, sharper than you intended.
You turn back. His face is calm, but there is something guarded beneath it now. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t.”
“I know,” you say, softening. “I just…”
You stop because you don’t know how to finish.
I just don’t know what to do when you still take care of me.
I just don’t know why you do it.
I just don’t know why you can do all this and still not tell me what it means.
Minho looks at you for a long moment. Then he reaches into the bag, takes out the batteries, and holds them up. “Where’s the ladder?”
You let out a tired laugh because of course that is where he goes. Back to the fixable thing. Back to the beep in the ceiling. Back to something with a beginning, a task, an end.
“In the closet.”
He nods and goes to get it.
That night, after Minho leaves and Jiho is in bed, you find a small container of sliced apples in the fridge.
Thin slices. Too thin for Jiho, who prefers wedges because they’re crunchier.
You stand there with the refrigerator light spilling over your bare feet, staring at apples cut exactly the way you like them, and feel something inside you slowly, painfully rearrange itself.
The project is due on Friday.
On Thursday evening, Jiho spreads it across your dining table for final touches.
“Don’t look too much,” he says, placing both hands over the center of the paper.
“I’m helping you glue cotton clouds.”
He allows you a corner.
You sit beside him with glue on your fingers while he narrates the layout, explaining which room belongs to whom, which window gets the best sun, where Mr. Bite would live if rocks needed bedrooms. You laugh when appropriate, ask questions when he wants you to, and try not to overstep.
Then Jiho reaches for a green pencil, and his sleeve drags across the paper.
For the first time, the center is fully visible.
You stop breathing.
Under Jiho’s bright marker house are lines you know with a familiarity that frightens you. Because your body remembers them before your mind catches up.
The angle of the staircase. The wide kitchen. The eastern-facing room marked for the nursery. The window seat tucked beneath the stairs because you once said every home needed a place to hide without actually hiding.
Your hand rises to your mouth.
There, beneath Jiho’s uneven blue shading, is Minho’s handwriting.
nursery morning light
Near the kitchen:
wide island for mama’s samples
Near the living room:
built-ins here? she wanted storage but not ugly storage
You aren’t aware you’ve made a sound until Jiho looks up.
“Mom?”
You try to answer. Nothing comes out.
He follows your gaze to the paper. “Did I mess it up?”
“No.” You say it too quickly, reaching for him. “No, baby. You didn’t.”
“You look weird.”
You let out an unsteady breath. “I just recognize this.”
“The house?”
You nod, fingers hovering over the notes. You don’t touch them. Some foolish part of you worries the pencil will vanish if you do.
“Dad said you helped,” Jiho says.
You look at him. “He told you that?”
“Yeah. He said not to cover the writing because it was important.”
Your throat tightens. “Did he say anything else?”
Jiho thinks, tapping the green pencil against his chin. “He said it was from before I was born.”
You close your eyes.
The house had started as a joke, then a fantasy, then something close to a plan. Minho drew it during the last trimester, when you were swollen and restless and unable to sleep. You would sit beside him at the low table in your old apartment and point at inspiration photos while he complained about impractical layouts and drew them anyway.
You had forgotten how much of yourself was in it.
No—that’s not true. You had tried to forget.
“Mom?” Jiho says.
You open your eyes.
He is watching you carefully, his small face drawn with concern. “Are you mad Dad gave it to me?”
“No,” you say. “I’m not mad.”
“Because I can ask him for different paper. It’ll take forever to redo but it’s okay.”
“No, Jiho.” You pull him close and kiss the side of his head. “This paper is perfect.”
He relaxes against you, warm and solid and still small enough to lean without thinking.
After a moment, he says, “Dad keeps important stuff.”
You stare at the paper. “What do you mean?”
“He has a box.”
“A box?”
“Not a box. A tube. And boxes.” Jiho frowns, trying to categorize the storage system. “He said some stuff is not for playing.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Pictures. Old papers. Baby stuff.” Jiho shrugs. “I saw my tiny hospital hat once. It was ugly.”
You laugh through the tightness in your chest. “It was not ugly.”
“It was kind of ugly.”
“It was adorable.”
“It was wrinkly.”
“You were wrinkly.”
He gasps. “Rude.”
You smile and smooth his hair.
He looks back down at the project, then reaches for the green pencil again. “Dad doesn’t throw away important stuff.”
You barely sleep.
Instead, you lie awake thinking about a cardboard tube in Minho’s apartment. About your notes in the margins. About the fact that he had kept the house for eight years. Not the final plan of a completed building, or a professional project worth archiving.
A dream. An unfinished future.
The next morning, you and Minho attend Jiho’s school presentation.
You arrive separately, which is how you arrive everywhere now. You get there first, sitting in one of the small chairs near the back of the classroom with your knees awkwardly angled and your tote bag tucked between your feet. The walls are covered in student work, paper planets, vocabulary words, and drawings of spring flowers. The room smells like crayons, pencil shavings, and whatever cleaner schools use that always reminds you of childhood.
Minho slips in five minutes later and spots you immediately. You lift a hand slightly as he comes over and sits beside you, leaving a polite amount of space between your chairs.
“You made it,” you say quietly.
“I said I would.”
“I know.”
He glances at you, and you feel the old ache again, the ache of things said plainly that still carry more weight than they should.
Jiho sees you both from the front of the room and waves with one hand, the other holding his rolled project. His smile is nervous but proud.
You wave back and Minho gives him a small nod and smile.
Jiho visibly straightens.
Ms. Park starts the presentations. A family tree. A poster about grandparents. A shoebox diorama with cotton-ball clouds. Copycat.
Jiho is fourth.
When his name is called, he carries his project to the front and unrolls it across the board with Ms. Park’s help. The paper is almost too large, curling at the edges despite the tape.
You feel Minho go still beside you.
For the first time, he sees what Jiho has done with it.
The dream house is almost hidden beneath color now, transformed by an eight-year-old’s imagination. The lines are still there, faint beneath marker and label and glue, but Jiho has made it his own. Flowers along the walkway. A huge sofa in the living room. A backyard. Three figures near the front door, their hands connected by one long line.
Jiho clears his throat. “My project is my family as a house,” he begins, reading from an index card he has clearly bent in half several times. “My mom designs inside places, and my dad designs buildings. So I thought a house made sense because houses need both or else they are either boring or falling down.”
A few parents chuckle. Minho exhales softly through his nose. You press your fingers to your lips.
Jiho continues, gaining confidence. “This is my room. This is Mom’s work room because she has a lot of samples and says they’re not trash even though they might be trash. This is Dad’s table because he draws buildings and says rulers disappear when you need them.”
Minho mutters, very quietly, “They do.”
Jiho points to the three figures. “This is us. We don’t live in one house, but we’re still family. Ms. Park said family can be people who take care of you.”
He glances toward you, then Minho. Then he looks back at the class.
“My mom says things a lot. Like, good job, and I love you, and please don’t talk to me from upstairs.” A ripple of laughter moves through the room, and Jiho smiles shyly. “My dad doesn’t say as much, but he remembers stuff. Like my cleats and snacks and when Mom likes apples cut thin.”
Your cheeks burn. Beside you, Minho taps his foot nervously.
Jiho shrugs, small and natural, one shoulder lifting. “Dad is just quiet. But I know he loves both of us.”
The room softens. However, this is still a third-grade classroom. A boy in the front row is picking at the rubber sole of his shoe, Ms. Park smiles with wet eyes she is trying to hide, and a baby cries from the back row.
But for you, everything narrows to Minho’s hand resting on his knee, fingers curled tightly into his palm.
Jiho finishes with, “That’s my family. Also, I want a turtle, but my parents said no.”
Jiho bows because apparently someone told him presentations require flair, then carries his project back to his desk with his ears bright red.
For the rest of the morning, you barely hear anything.
After the presentations, parents gather around the displays. Jiho drags both of you to his desk and shows you details he already explained, because pride requires repetition. Minho listens closely, asking small questions that make Jiho glow. Why this window? Why this room? Why is the turtle area larger than the kitchen?
“Because turtles need enrichment,” Jiho says.
“How do you know that word?”
“YouTube.”
Minho looks at you. You lift your hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
For a moment, it feels almost normal. Then Jiho runs off to show his friend where he drew Mr. Bite in the garden, and you are left standing beside Minho with the project between you.
You look at the old notes beneath the colors.
Minho looks at you. “I didn’t know he would say all that,” he says.
You nod. “I know.”
“I didn’t tell him to.”
“I know.”
A pause. Then you say, “But he’s right.”
The classroom noise swells around you, bright and busy, children calling for parents, chairs scraping, paper rustling. You should not have this conversation here, between desks and glue sticks and a bulletin board about fractions.
Minho seems to understand that too. He looks down at the project. “Can we talk later?”
Your heart starts beating too hard. You don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
That evening, Jiho goes to Minho’s parents’.
You spend the rest of the day working badly. You choose the wrong rug for a client deck, attach the wrong file to an email, and stare at one fabric sample for ten full minutes without registering the color. By five, you give up and close your laptop.
Minho texts at six-thirty.
Minho: Jiho is finishing homework. I can meet after dropping him off if you still want to talk.
You read the message three times.
Then reply—
You: My place?
His answer comes quickly.
Minho: Okay
At eight-forty, there is a knock at your door.
When you open it, Minho stands in the hallway wearing a black coat, hands in his pockets, face calm enough that only someone who knows him would notice the tension at the corners of his mouth.
You step aside and he enters quietly, removing his shoes. The old familiarity of it catches you off guard. He has always moved through your home carefully, even after it stopped being his. Never assuming too much. Never forgetting where things are.
“Tea?” you ask.
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
Despite everything, you smile a little. “Same old Minho.”
He looks relieved, though only for a second.
You walk to the dining table where Jiho’s project rests, rolled loosely. Minho’s gaze follows it. “I know I should have asked before giving it to him,” he says.
You turn. “That’s not why I wanted to talk.”
“I didn’t think.”
“I don’t believe that.”
His mouth tightens.
“You always think,” you say. “Sometimes too much.”
He looks down.
You touch the edge of the paper. “You kept it.”
“Yes.”
“All this time.”
“Yes.”
The same simple answer. The same unbearable calm.
You unroll the project carefully, smoothing the curling edge with your palm. Jiho’s colorful house fills the table, bright and sweet and imperfect. Beneath it, the pencil lines remain.
Your fingers hover over the note near the kitchen.
wide island for mama’s samples
“You remembered everything I wanted,” you say.
Minho stands across from you, hands still in his pockets. “Not everything.”
“Enough.”
His eyes lower to the paper.
You take a breath that does not quite steady you. “Jiho said you kept important things.”
Minho’s expression closes slightly.
“What else did you keep?”
He is quiet for so long that you think he will not answer. Then he softly says, “A lot.”
Your chest tightens. “Like what?”
“The first sketches.” His voice is low. “The paint samples you liked. The magazine pages you tore out. Ultrasound photos. Jiho’s hospital bracelet. Yours too.”
You press a hand to your mouth.
Minho looks away, jaw tense. “I know.”
“Know what?”
“That it’s strange.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’s not,” you repeat, firmer now.
He looks at you then, and the guardedness in his face hurts more than anger would have.
“Why?” you ask. The word comes out barely above a whisper.
Minho’s gaze drops to the project. For a moment, he is silent, thoughtful. And then he breaks it by saying, “Because it was ours.”
Your eyes close. It’s so Minho of him—plain, honest, and devastating without trying to be.
“I didn’t keep it because I thought we’d get back together,” he continues. “I didn’t let myself think that.”
You open your eyes.
He swallows. “But throwing it away felt like saying it didn’t matter.”
The first tear slips before you can stop it. Minho sees it immediately. His hand shifts at his side, instinct pulling him toward you, restraint holding him back.
You hate it. You hate that he no longer knows whether he is allowed to comfort you.
“It mattered,” you say.
“I know.”
“No.” Your voice cracks. “I don’t think you do. It mattered so much that when I thought you didn’t want it anymore, I didn’t know how to stay.” You wipe at your cheek, frustrated by the tears now that they have started. “I thought you fell out of love with me.”
His features tighten. For once, the silence that follows is not unreadable. It’s wounded. “You thought what?”
“You never said anything.”
His brows draw together, pain moving through the restraint. “I was there.”
“I know.”
“I came home to you every night.”
“I know.”
“I took care of you.”
“I know, Minho.” The words come out broken. “That’s what made it so confusing.”
He looks like he doesn’t understand. Or maybe like he’s beginning to.
You press your fingers against the table, grounding yourself beside the house you never built. “You did everything. You changed diapers and warmed bottles and made sure I ate and fixed every broken thing in that apartment. But after a while, I couldn’t tell if you were doing it because you loved me or because you were responsible.”
Minho says nothing.
“You were so quiet,” you continue. “And I was so tired. I kept waiting for you to tell me you were happy. That you wanted us. That you still wanted me, not just Jiho, not just the life we accidentally made around him.”
His eyes shine. “I wanted you,” he says. The words come out rough. “I wanted all of it,” he continues. “I thought you knew.”
You laugh once, softly, sadly. “I didn’t.”
His gaze drops. “I thought staying was saying it,” he says.
You look at him through tears. He lifts his eyes again, and this time, there is no distance left to hide behind. “I was wrong.”
The words settle between you. Not enough to erase years. But real.
You wipe your cheek. “When I told you I thought we didn’t want the same life, you said okay.”
Minho’s jaw tightens. “Because I thought you were telling me you wanted to leave.”
“I was asking you not to let me.”
Pain crosses his face. Quiet, but unmistakable. “I didn’t know how to fight without making it worse,” he says. “You were exhausted. You looked sad all the time. I thought if I asked you to stay, I would be asking you to keep being unhappy. So I said okay,” he continues. “And I hated myself for it.”
The room goes quiet. Outside, life continues with insulting indifference while you stand in front of the man you have loved for years and realize you were both lonely in the same house.
You look down at Jiho’s project. “He doesn’t remember us together,” you say.
“No.”
“He still drew us that way.”
Minho’s eyes move to the three figures by the front door, hands connected by one long crayon line. “He drew his family,” he says.
You reach for the back of a chair, but Minho steps around the table before you can fully steady yourself.
“Can I?” he asks.
It takes you a moment to understand what he means. Then you nod. “Please.”
And when his hand touches your arm, careful and warm, you fold toward him with a sound you wish you could keep inside.
Minho holds you. Not like a co-parent fulfilling some emergency comfort role. No, he holds you like someone who has known the shape of you for years and never forgot where his hands belonged. One arm wraps around your back, the other hand settling at the back of your head, his palm firm and familiar.
You cry into his chest, and his chin lowers near your temple.
“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s so quiet you almost miss it. Then again, stronger, “I’m sorry.”
Your fingers curl into his coat. “I’m sorry too.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Yes, I do.” You pull back enough to look at him. “I should have told you what I needed. I should have said it instead of testing you with silence.”
His thumb brushes your cheek, wiping a tear with such care it hurts. “You were tired.”
“So were you.”
“I should have told you anyway.”
You let out a shaky breath. “You’re telling me now.”
His eyes hold yours for a moment, deciding how much to confess. Then he says it. “I never stopped loving you.”
A breath escapes your parted lips, eyes welling.
Minho’s hand remains at your cheek, warm and steady. “I tried to stop. I thought I had to, especially when I saw you with someone else.” His mouth tightens faintly. “I was bad at it.”
A laugh breaks through your tears, fragile and wet. “At stopping?”
“At being normal.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. “You’ve never been normal.”
“I know.”
There’s that warmth again.
Then he grows serious.
“I love you,” he says. “I loved you then. I love you now. I was a fool for thinking you could hear it if I never said it.”
Your face crumples. “I was a fool for doubting you.”
“No,” he says immediately. “Don’t make it yours.”
“It’s ours,” you whisper.
He looks at you for a long moment before nodding once. “Ours.”
You lift your hand to his wrist, holding him there. “I never stopped loving you either.”
Minho closes his eyes. The breath he releases is unsteady, and that, more than anything, breaks your heart open. All this time, you thought his calm meant he had survived you. You never thought it might mean he was holding himself together.
When he opens his eyes again, they are damp.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
You almost laugh because after everything, after a child, a breakup, six years of shared custody, the question feels tender enough to undo you. “Yes.”
Minho kisses you carefully at first. Softly. Then your hand slides into his hair and his breath catches, and the carefulness thins into something deeper. He kisses you like he never stopped knowing how to. His fingers cradle your jaw, his other arm tightening at your waist, and when he tilts his head to kiss you again, you feel years of longing break loose all at once.
It’s not perfect.
There are tears. A shaky laugh against his mouth. When you finally pull back, his forehead rests against yours.
“I love you,” he says again.
You smile through the tears. “Practicing?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
His mouth curves. “Bossy.”
“You need repetition.”
“I’m learning.”
Your heart softens. From your phone on the table, a notification buzzes, but neither of you looks at it.
Minho’s thumb moves slowly along your cheek. “What about Seungmin?”
You lean back enough to see him. “There isn’t a Seungmin.”
His brow lifts slightly.
“There was dinner,” you clarify. “Twice. And coffee once, which you apparently think is worse.”
“It is.”
“It wasn’t serious.”
Minho looks down, almost embarrassed by his own relief.
You touch his cheek. “I think I was trying to prove I could move on.”
His eyes return to yours. “And?”
You shake your head. “I was bad at it.”
The smallest smile appears.
“Good,” he says.
You narrow your eyes. “That was smug.”
“No.”
“It was.”
“A little.”
You laugh, and this time, when he looks at you, he doesn’t look away. And then he turns and leads you down the hallway toward your bedroom and your heart is hammering so hard you can feel it in your throat.
“Minho—” you start, but he stops walking, turns, cups your face between both palms.
“I meant it,” he says, and his voice is low, rough around the edges, nothing like the careful, polite tone he used during those first awful years of shared custody. This is the voice he used to use when he’d wake you up in the middle of the night, mouth already finding your neck. “Every word. And I’m going to show you. If you’ll let me.”
You nod. It’s all you can do.
The bedroom door clicks shut behind you both, and the sound of it—that soft, final sound—sends a pulse straight between your thighs. The curtains are still open, late afternoon sunlight pooling gold across the rumpled duvet you didn’t bother making this morning. You didn’t know he was coming over. You didn’t know any of this was going to happen.
Minho turns you around slowly, hands settling on your shoulders. His thumbs trace the curve of your collarbone through the thin fabric of your t-shirt, and you watch his face in the dresser mirror across the room—the way his jaw tightens, the way his tongue wets his bottom lip.
“I’ve thought about this, about you,” he murmurs, “for six years.”
His fingers find the hem of your shirt. He doesn’t pull it up right away—just tucks his fingertips underneath, brushes them against the skin of your waist, and the contact is so light it makes your stomach clench.
Then he lifts your shirt.
The fabric slides up over your ribs, your breasts, and you raise your arms automatically, letting him pull it over your head. It falls to the floor somewhere, and you’re standing in front of him in your worn-in bra, the one with the stretched elastic and the faded color, and suddenly you’re acutely, painfully aware of every change in your body since the last time he saw you like this. Your arms twitch, instinct telling you to cover yourself.
“Don’t,” Minho breathes.
He catches your wrists and brings them back down to your sides.
“Don’t you dare hide from me.”
His gaze moves over you—your shoulders, the swell of your breasts, the softness of your belly that wasn’t there before. You feel exposed. Raw. But the way he’s looking at you—fuck, the way he’s looking at you—it’s like he’s staring at something holy.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says. “I mean it. Look at you. Look at how gorgeous you are.”
His hands move to your waist, palms sliding up your ribcage, thumbs hooking just beneath the underwire of your bra.
“I think about you,” he says. “Your skin. The way you smell. The sounds you make when I—” He cuts himself off, jaw clenching. “I’m going to take my time tonight. I’m going to worship every single inch of you until you understand how much I’ve missed you.”
He unclasps your bra with one hand—still remembers the trick of it, the way the hooks catch and release—and the straps slide down your arms. The fabric falls away, and your nipples tighten in the cool air of the bedroom.
Minho makes a sound low in his throat.
“Stunning,” he whispers. “Absolutely stunning.”
He leans in, and his mouth finds the curve where your neck meets your shoulder. The kiss is slow, open-mouthed, his tongue tracing a wet line along your skin. You shudder, and he feels it—you know he does—because his grip on your waist tightens.
“I’m going to kiss every part of you,” he says against your throat. “Every fucking part. Starting here.” His mouth moves down. Along your collarbone now, lips dragging, tongue flicking out to taste the hollow at the base of your throat. Your hands find his shoulders, gripping the fabric of his shirt because you need something to hold onto.
“Minho.”
He groans and sinks lower. His mouth finds the swell of your left breast, and he kisses the curve of it, his stubble scraping your sensitive skin, making your hips jerk involuntarily.
“I love these,” he murmurs, cupping your breast in his palm, thumb brushing over the peaked nipple. “I love how responsive they are. How hard they get when I barely touch you.”
He lowers his head and takes your nipple into his mouth.
The heat of it—the wet, sucking heat—makes your back arch. His tongue circles, slow and deliberate, and he watches your face the whole time, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. When he grazes his teeth over the sensitive peak, you gasp, and your fingers twist in his shirt.
“That’s it.” His voice is muffled against your skin. “Let me hear you.” He switches to the other breast, giving it the same attention, laving and sucking until you’re squirming, until your thighs are pressing together and there’s a damp heat building between them that’s becoming impossible to ignore.
But he’s not done.
Minho continues his path downward. His mouth traces the valley between your breasts, then lower—over your sternum, your ribs, the soft plane of your belly. He pauses at your waistband, pressing a kiss just above the button of your jeans.
“I remember every curve,” he says. “Every spot that makes you gasp. But I want to learn you again. All of you.”
He unbuttons your jeans with careful, deliberate movements, and the denim slides down your thighs. You step out of them, and then you’re standing in nothing but your panties—simple cotton ones, because you weren’t expecting anyone to see them—and Minho is kneeling in front of you.
Kneeling.
“You’re breathtaking,” he says, looking up at you, and the word comes out so sincere it makes your chest ache. “Every part of you. Your thighs—fuck, I dream about these thighs wrapped around my head.”
He presses a kiss to your left hip bone, then your right.
“These hips. The way they fit in my hands.”
His palms curl around your hip bones, thumbs stroking the sensitive skin just above the elastic of your panties.
“I’m going to take these off now,” he says, fingers hooking into the waistband. “And then I’m going to put my mouth on you until you come. And I’m going to watch you the whole time, because there’s nothing—nothing—sexier than watching you fall apart for me.”
The panties slide down your legs. You step out of them, and then you’re completely bare, standing in the afternoon sunlight while he stares at you like you’re the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen.
“On the bed for me, baby,” he says, and his voice has gone rough, ragged.
You move backward until your calves hit the edge of the mattress. He follows, still on his knees, crawling toward you in a way that’s almost predatory. When the backs of your thighs hit the duvet, he guides you down onto the mattress, spreading your legs with careful, gentle hands.
“So pretty,” he murmurs, settling between your thighs. His shoulders press against the inside of your legs, spreading you wider. “Look at you. So wet already, and I’ve barely touched you.”
His breath ghosts over your center, and your hips buck upward involuntarily.
“Minho, please—”
“Please what?” His eyes flick up to meet yours, and there’s a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Tell me what you want.”
“Your mouth. Please.”
He doesn’t make you wait. His tongue drags through your folds, broad and flat, and the sensation rips a moan from your throat that you didn’t know you were holding. He groans against you—groans, like the taste of you is the best thing he’s ever had in his mouth—and the vibration of it sends sparks up your spine.
“Fuck,” he breathes, pulling back just enough to speak. “You taste even better than I remember. I could stay here for hours.”
He dives back in. His tongue traces patterns against your clit—circles, then figure-eights, then a steady, pulsing rhythm that has your fingers twisting in the duvet. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s always known.
“Remember this?” He licks a slow stripe up the center of you. “Remember how I used to make you scream?”
You can’t answer. You can barely even breathe.
His mouth is relentless. Tongue flicking, lips sucking, the occasional scrape of teeth that makes you jerk and gasp. He’s watching you—you can feel his gaze burning into you—and every time your eyes flutter open, he’s there, dark and intent and so fucking aroused it’s written all over his face.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against your clit. “Let go. I want to feel you come apart on my tongue.”
Two fingers slide inside you, curling upward, finding that spot he always knew how to hit. Your back arches off the mattress.
“Fuck—Minho—fuck—”
“Yeah,” he growls. “Say my name. Scream it.”
His fingers pump in and out, his mouth working your clit with obscene, wet sounds that fill the room. The pressure builds, coiling low and tight, and you’re so close now, right on the edge, thighs trembling, hands fisting in his hair.
“I’m—I’m going to—”
“Do it,” he says, and his voice is raw, wrecked. “Come for me. I want to feel it. I want to watch your face—I want to see how fucking gorgeous you look when you shatter.”
The orgasm hits you like a wave—no, not a wave, something sharper, something that whites out your vision and wrenches a scream from somewhere deep in your chest. Your thighs clamp around his head, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, just rides you through it with his mouth and his fingers and his low, rumbling groans that vibrate straight through your clit.
You come down trembling, gasping, and he’s still kissing you—softer now, gentler—pressing his lips to the inside of your thigh, your hip, your belly.
“Beautiful,” he’s murmuring. “So fucking beautiful. Wish you could see yourself. Feel good?”
You can only nod, chest heaving.
He rises up onto his knees, still between your thighs, and tugs his shirt over his head. You watch the fabric fly off to reveal his chest and your breath catches.
His shirt hits the floor. His hands move to his belt, and you watch him unbuckle it, unbutton his jeans, shove them down along with his boxers. His cock springs free—thick and heavy, the tip already glistening—and your mouth goes dry.
Fuck. You remember him being big, but you’d forgotten just how much he fills your hand. How much he stretches your pussy.
He strokes himself once, twice, his eyes locked on yours. “I need to be inside you. Please, baby. I can’t wait anymore.”
“Yes,” you breathe. “Now. Please.”
He settles between your thighs, the weight of him pressing you into the mattress, and it feels like coming home. His hips slot against yours, and you can feel the hot, hard length of him sliding through your wet folds—not pushing in yet, just rocking, coating himself in your slick.
“Look at me,” he says.
You do.
He pushes in. The stretch is breathtaking—literally, you forget how to inhale for a moment—and Minho groans, a long, shuddering sound that seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest. His forehead drops to yours.
“Fuck,” he grinds out. “So tight. So wet. You feel—fuck—you feel incredible.”
He sinks deeper, inch by inch, until he’s buried all the way inside you. He stays there, motionless, letting you adjust, and you cling to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin.
“Okay?” he breathes.
“More than okay. Move. Please.”
He pulls out slowly—agonizingly slowly—and thrusts back in with a roll of his hips that hits exactly the right angle. You gasp, and he does it again. And again. A rhythm builds, slow and deep, the kind of fucking that feels less like sex and more like a whole experience.
His hips roll, grinding against your clit, and your moan turns into a cry.
“Yeah, that’s it. That’s the sound I’ve been missing. Scream for me, baby. Let everyone hear how good I’m making you feel.”
The bed creaks beneath you, a steady, rhythmic counterpoint to the slap of skin against skin. He’s hitting that spot inside you with every thrust now, the one that makes your vision blur and your toes curl, and you can feel another orgasm building, building, building—
“You’re getting close again,” he growls. “I can feel it. Your pussy’s squeezing me so tight, baby. Come on my cock. Please. Wanna feel you come on my cock.”
His thumb finds your clit, pressing down in tight circles, and that’s all it takes.
The orgasm tears through you, sharper than the first one, and you scream his name, your nails raking down his back as your body clenches around him. He fucks you through it, groaning, his rhythm stuttering as he chases his own release.
“Gonna come,” he grits out. “Gonna fill you up—fuck—is that okay? Can I come inside you?”
“Yes. Yes.”
His hips snap forward once, twice, and then he buries himself deep with a sound that’s almost animalistic—a growl that rumbles through his chest and vibrates against your skin.
“Mine,” he grinds out, pulsing inside you. “Mine.”
You feel every spurt of his release, hot and wet, and he stays there, still buried deep, as his hips give one final, shuddering thrust.
Minho doesn’t pull out. He stays inside you, his weight pressed against you, his face buried in your neck. He whispers sweet nothings, kisses your skin softly before eventually rolling off you to clean you up.
He doesn’t stay the night—not that night.
It would be easy to let the moment swallow everything, to pretend one confession has rearranged all the years between you neatly enough for morning. But you are both older now. Softer in some places, more careful in others. There is Jiho to think about, and yourselves too, the versions of you that loved badly despite loving deeply.
So Minho leaves after midnight with your kiss still on his mouth and one of your hands caught in his until the last possible second.
At the door, he turns back.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” he says.
You lean against the frame. “Will you?”
His eyes soften at the question beneath the question. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
He takes a breath. “I love you.”
You smile. “I love you too.”
He nods once, like he is storing the answer somewhere permanent, smiles softly, then walks to his car.
The next weeks don’t become a fairytale—they become something better. They become deliberate.
Minho calls when he says he will. Sometimes the conversations are short, practical things about Jiho’s schedule or school forms, but he no longer lets them end there. He asks about your work. He tells you when a meeting went badly. He sends you a photo of Jiho asleep on his couch with Mr. Bite balanced on his chest.
He starts saying what he means before silence can do the damage for him.
I missed you today.
I wanted to tell you this earlier.
I’m not upset. I’m thinking.
You try too.
When fear rises, you name it instead of burying it. When you need reassurance, you ask, even when it makes you feel exposed. When Minho reaches for you in quiet ways, you let yourself see them without expecting them to replace words entirely.
Jiho notices, of course.
One Saturday morning, three weeks after the presentation, you go to Minho’s apartment for breakfast because Jiho has been lobbying for family pancakes. You arrive with strawberries and whipped cream, and Minho opens the door wearing a black T-shirt dusted with flour.
You stare at him.
He looks down. “Don’t ask.”
You laugh and step inside, pressing a kiss to his lips that he returns eagerly.
Breakfast is chaotic in the ordinary way of real homes. Jiho drops a strawberry then steps on it while trying to pick it up. You burn the first pancake because you are distracted by Minho standing too close behind you to reach the spatula, his hand settling briefly at your waist as he passes. Jiho talks through the entire meal about school, turtles, and everything else that pops into his brain.
Halfway through his second pancake, he looks between you and Minho. “You guys are being different.”
You freeze. Minho doesn’t, though his gaze shifts to you before returning to Jiho. “Different how?”
Jiho shrugs. “Just different.”
“Good different?” you ask carefully.
He thinks about it while chewing, then nods. “Less awkward.”
Minho huffs softly. You hide your smile behind your coffee.
Jiho points his fork at Minho. “You say stuff more, Dad.”
Minho’s ears turn faintly pink. You look at him, delighted.
“Do I?” Minho asks, voice even.
“Yes.” Jiho spears a strawberry. “You told Mom you missed her on the phone.”
Your eyes widen. Minho looks at you slowly.
You whisper, “Speakerphone?”
“I didn’t know he was listening,” Minho mutters.
“You also said something about coming, but then Mom never showed up,” Jiho says thoughtfully.
“Okay! I am never using my phone around you. Ever,” Minho says, pressing his palms to the table, ears red.
Jiho laughs, pointing to his dad’s obvious embarrassment.
You face palm yourself, cheeks flushed, but you can’t hide the laugh that slips out.
Minho reaches for his coffee, but his other hand brushes yours beneath the table. His fingers hook lightly around yours, hidden from Jiho’s view.
Jiho keeps eating, satisfied with whatever conclusion he has drawn. Then he says, “I like it.”
You look at him in question.
“Pancakes?” Minho asks.
Jiho rolls his eyes in the exact way Minho does, which is frankly unsettling. “Noooo. You guys.”
You feel your face soften, reaching over to wipe a bit of cream from Jiho’s cheek. “We like it too.”
Jiho nods once. “Good.”
Minho murmurs, “Bossy.”
“He gets it from you,” you say.
Jiho smiles around his fork. “I get my intelligence from myself.”
Minho rolls his eyes. “Finish your breakfast.”
Later, after the plates are cleared and Jiho disappears to the living room to introduce Mr. Bite to a new rock named Mrs. Chew, you stand at Minho’s sink rinsing mugs while he dries beside you.
His apartment is bright in the morning, sunlight touching the edges of the counter, the table, the project Jiho insisted on bringing home after it was graded. It is spread carefully near the window now, the vibrant house glowing over old pencil lines.
Minho follows your gaze. “I want to frame it,” he says.
You turn to him. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Where would you put it?”
He looks at the project, then at you. “Wherever we decide.”
The word moves through you slowly. We.
You lean against the counter. “That sounds like a big conversation.”
“It is.”
“Are you ready for that?”
Minho dries the mug in his hands carefully, then sets it down. He doesn’t answer right away, and once, that silence would have scared you. Now, you wait.
When he looks at you, his face is open. “I don’t want to rush Jiho,” he says. “Or you.”
You nod.
“But I want that life,” he continues. “The one I didn’t tell you I wanted clearly enough.” He turns to face you fully. “I want breakfast with you. I want your samples all over the table even though you call it organized and it isn’t. I want Jiho’s shoes in the wrong place and your tea in my cabinets and arguments about paint colors that are all white.”
A laugh breaks softly from your chest.
Minho steps closer. “I want the house,” he says. “Whatever it looks like.”
Your eyes burn again, but this time, the tears come with something warmer beneath them. You reach for his hand. “I want that too.” His fingers close around yours.
For a moment, you stand there in the kitchen with sunlight on the floor and your son’s laughter coming from upstairs, the future no longer a perfect drawing kept in a tube, but something alive and imperfect and waiting to be built carefully.
Minho lifts your joined hands and presses a kiss to your knuckles.
Then, because he is learning, because quiet love is still love but not the only kind you need, he says it.
“I love you.”
You smile. “I know.”
His brows lift in mock offense.
Laughing softly, you lean across the small space between you and catch his mouth with yours.
It starts briefly, meant to be teasing, but Minho’s hand slides to your jaw and suddenly he’s kissing you back, slow and familiar. The kind of kiss built from years of knowing each other. The kind that says everything neither of you has ever been particularly good at putting into words.
When you finally pull away, his eyes are warm.
You squeeze his hand and add, “I love you too.”
From the living room, Jiho calls, “Can Mrs. Chew come to Mom’s house?”
The moment shatters instantly.
Minho sighs, rubbing his eyes. “And there it is.”
You laugh. “Is Mrs. Chew another rock?” you call back.
A pause. Then Jiho says, “She’s family.”
Minho looks at you. You look at him. And in the bright, ordinary quiet that follows, the two of you begin again.
i cannot bring myself to write a sad ending lmaooo so until i reach my villain arc, y’all will have happy endings
thank you so much for reading, commenting and reblogging bby!!! so glad you enjoyed. lee know isn’t on my bias line, but my god do i love writing for this man <3
Hello! I hope you’re feeling better! I just wanted to stop in and thank you for all of the time and work you put into what you post for us. Everything you write is so detailed and breathtaking and so immersive and I look forward to reading everything you post, even if I’m not in the fandom it is from.
I notice you sometimes do little WIP posts. Any chance we can see what you’ve been cooking up that we have to look forward to? I’m so excited to read anything you post!
Please take care of yourself and I hope you have an amazing week!
you don’t know how much this warms my heart 🥺 💕 thank you so much, love! i think i mentioned it before, but i think my high school teacher literally made me think i write too detailed and too much, but i’m so grateful that i found a community that enjoys that 🫶
grrr this cold/virus is literally so persistent—but i’m definitely a lot better than i was a few days ago thankfully. there’s a lingering sore throat and cough so i actually had to call out of work 😩
upcoming chef's specials aka current wips! love that you wanna see what i'm cookin bc you know i love to feed y'all <3
⤷ part of the weight of love: eight ways to STAY series
[ ▸ ] — you and minho have spent years loving your son from separate homes, pretending the distance between you stopped hurting a long time ago. he has always loved quietly, and you have always needed something louder. but when jiho begins a school project about family, the life you thought minho let go of starts finding its way back to you.
[ ✐ ] — 12k
[ ⌗ ] — architect!minho x interior designer!reader coparenting slow burn angst hurt / comfort second chances graphic & detailed smut oral ( f receiving )
[ ✉︎ ] — cannot believe we are 7/8 done with with this series! ahhh! also loved how i got to watch the kNOw way while editing this <3 changbin's part will be a little tricky to post so i'll let you guys know how/when that will posted later. a wet hot skz summer is coming too guys! joy and i are so excited for you guys to read everything we've been cooking for the past three months! anyways, as always hunnies, enjoy, and please—if you do, like, reblog, and comment <3 love to see you guys' thoughts and feedback!
You have learned, over the years, that there are different kinds of quiet.
There is the quiet of an unfinished house before the flooring goes in, when every room carries the hollow echo of possibility and dust hangs in the air, waiting to settle. There is the quiet of an office after midnight, when your monitor glows over half-finished renders and your coffee has gone cold beside the keyboard. There is the quiet of a child finally asleep after fighting bedtime, one foot sticking out from under the blanket, one hand curled around a plush animal he claimed he no longer needed.
Then there is Minho’s quiet. That one has always been harder to name.
Years ago, you mistook it for safety. For steadiness. For love that did not need to be dressed up to be real. When you were twenty-something and stupidly certain that wanting the same future meant you would understand each other forever, Minho’s quiet felt like something solid beneath your feet. He did not say much, but he showed up. He fixed things. He remembered things. He stood beside you without making a ceremony of it, and for a long time, that felt like enough.
Then Jiho was born and enough became harder to measure.
The first year of your son’s life unraveled both of you in different ways. You remember it in fragments now: tiny socks in the washing machine, bottles lined up near the sink, Minho asleep upright on the couch with Jiho against his chest, your own reflection in the bathroom mirror looking less like you every morning. You remember the exhaustion most clearly, the kind that burrowed under your skin and made every unspoken thing feel louder than it was.
Minho loved Jiho. That had never been in question. He loved him in careful hands and warmed milk and the way he learned every small cry by sound. He loved him in clean laundry folded at two in the morning, in doctor’s appointments never forgotten, in the rocking chair he assembled before you were discharged from the hospital because he said the old one made a noise that would irritate you.
He loved you too, you think now.
Back then, you were not so sure.
Back then, all you knew was that he came home, kissed Jiho’s head, washed bottles, asked if you had eaten, and moved through your life with the controlled steadiness of a man doing everything right except reaching for you when you needed him to.
You were twenty-seven when you left. Jiho was nearly two. There had been no screaming. No affair. No single terrible night that split your life cleanly in two. Just one conversation after too many lonely months.
You told Minho you did not think you wanted the same life anymore.
He looked at you for a long time. Then he said, “Is that what you want?”
You wanted him to say no. You wanted him to say your name like losing you would ruin him. You wanted him to fight you, just once, with something louder than care carefully hidden inside chores and errands and practical concern.
Instead, you heard yourself say, “I think so.”
Minho’s eyes lowered to Jiho asleep between you on the couch, his cheek smushed against a blue blanket, his little mouth open around soft breaths.
Then Minho said, “Okay.”
Okay.
Not stay.
Not don’t go.
Not I love you.
Okay.
Six years later, Jiho is eight, and he does not remember the two of you together.
He knows Mom’s place and Dad’s place. He knows which drawer at each home holds his pajamas, which parent is more likely to let him have cereal after dinner, which couch has the better blanket, which pantry hides the snacks he is not supposed to know about. He knows school drop-offs and alternating weekends, birthdays spent with both of you at the same table, parent-teacher conferences where Minho sits with his arms crossed and listens so closely the teacher usually starts speaking to him like he might be grading her.
To Jiho, this is not broken. It’s just family.
Maybe that is why it’s easy to pretend you have all adjusted.
Your phone vibrates while you’re standing in the middle of your design studio, a stack of fabric swatches balanced against your hip and a sample book spread open across the consultation table. Across from you, your client flips through upholstery options, pausing every few seconds to hold one up against the mood board you’ve spent weeks building together. Afternoon sunlight pours through the front windows, catching on brass fixtures and illuminating the organized chaos of sketches, material samples, and half-finished concepts scattered throughout the space.
You glance at the screen.
Minho.
His name still does something inconvenient to your chest. Less dramatic than it used to be, maybe, but no less real. A small internal pause. An old room opening somewhere.
“Sorry,” you tell your client. “I should take this. It might be about my son.”
She smiles politely, and you step into the hallway.
“Hey,” you answer.
“Jiho left his science notebook in my car.”
You close your eyes. “Again?”
“He says it wasn’t again because last time was his math folder.”
“Of course he does.”
“He asked me to tell you the distinction matters.”
You can hear him walking, keys faintly shifting in the background. His voice is low and even, familiar enough to hurt if you let yourself listen too closely.
“I can pick it up after work,” you say. “I’m not too far from your office.”
“I’m near your studio. I’ll drop it off.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
You look down at the samples in your hand. White oak. Ash. Walnut. Three kinds of wood pretending not to hold different moods.
“Minho,” you say.
“What?”
“I can get it.”
“And I can bring it.”
There is no sharpness or impatience in his voice. Just that same quiet certainty that always makes arguing with him feel like trying to move a wall.
You sigh. “Fine. Thank you.”
“Have you eaten?”
You glance toward the living room, where your client is now squinting at wallpaper. “Not yet.”
“It’s almost two.”
“I am aware of the time.”
“Awareness isn’t lunch.”
You press your lips together, the beginning of a smile tugging there before you can stop it. “Did you call to scold me?”
“I called because your son has the organizational habits of a tornado.”
“My son?”
“He gets that from you.”
“Um, no, he absolutely gets that from you. You have six separate folders labeled ‘miscellaneous.’”
“They are different kinds of miscellaneous.”
“That sentence alone should make you ashamed.”
A quiet breath comes through the phone. “I’ll be at your studio in twenty,” he says.
“Okay.”
A pause. “Eat something.”
“You’re very bossy for someone delivering a notebook.”
“You’re very bad at lunch for someone who needs food to be alive.”
You roll your eyes, but your voice softens. “Drive safe.”
He is quiet for half a second. Then, “See you soon.”
The call ends.
You stand in the hallway longer than necessary, phone still in your hand, staring down at the dark screen.
It would be easier if Minho were colder.
You have thought that more times than you can count. It would be easier if he forgot things, if he showed up late, if he spoke to you with indifference, if shared custody had turned him into a polite stranger. It would be easier if the man who broke your heart had at least done you the courtesy of becoming someone else afterward.
Instead, he remains exactly who he has always been.
Twenty-four minutes later, your receptionist calls to say Jiho’s father is downstairs.
You find Minho in the lobby of your studio with Jiho’s notebook under one arm and a paper bag in his other hand. He is wearing a black coat over work clothes, hair neat but wind-touched, glasses sitting low on his nose.
He looks up before you say his name.
“Hey,” you say.
“Hey.”
For a second, neither of you moves. Then he holds out the notebook. You take it carefully. “Thanks.”
Minho lifts the paper bag next.
You look at it. “Notebook came with a side quest?”
“You didn’t eat.”
“I said not yet.”
“You always say ‘not yet’.”
You take the bag because refusing it would only make him stand there longer, and standing near him already pulls at too many seams. Inside is a wrapped sandwich from the café around the corner, fruit, and an iced coffee. Your order. Exact down to the extra shot and light ice.
Your fingers tighten around the handles.
“You remembered.”
Minho frowns slightly, as if the statement itself is strange. “You’ve ordered the same thing for four years.”
“People forget things.”
“I don’t.”
He says it without emphasis. Simple fact.
“Thank you,” you say, quieter.
His gaze moves over your face. “You look tired.”
“You say that like it’s helpful.”
“It’s true.”
“Truth and helpfulness are not the same thing.”
His mouth tilts. Barely. “You’re wearing two different earrings.”
You reach up quickly, touching one ear, then the other. One small pearl. One gold stud.
“Oh my god.”
“It works.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It looks intentional if you don’t panic.”
You glare at him, but there is no real heat in it. “How long were you going to let me walk around like this?”
“I just got here.”
“You noticed immediately.”
“Yes, well you design interiors. Maybe people thought it was a concept.”
A laugh escapes you and his eyes soften when he hears it.
Your phone buzzes. A text lights the screen.
Seungmin: Dinner Friday still good?
You turn the screen down too late.
Minho’s gaze flicks to it, then away. He says nothing, but something in his expression folds inward, a shutter drawn almost silently.
“It’s just dinner,” you say before you can stop yourself.
Minho looks at you.
You don't know why you said it. Maybe because the change in his face still has the power to make you explain yourself. Maybe because some terrible part of you wants him to care.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says.
“I know.”
A beat.
“Good.”
The word is polite. Flat. Perfectly reasonable.
It lands like a bruise.
You look down at Jiho’s notebook. “I should get back.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you Saturday for his game?”
“I’ll see you then.”
Minho never misses Jiho’s games. He stands along the fence with his hands in his pockets, saying very little, watching everything. When Jiho runs toward him afterward, sweaty and flushed and asking if he saw his almost-goal, Minho always says, “I saw.” And Jiho always beams like his father shouted across the field.
Maybe for him, it’s equivalent.
“Okay,” you say.
Minho nods once and turns to leave.
You wait until he is through the glass doors before you let yourself breathe.
On Saturday morning, Jiho’s soccer game takes place under a gray sky that keeps threatening rain and then losing interest. Parents gather along the sidelines with folding chairs and travel mugs, their conversations drifting above the field in soft bursts. You arrive ten minutes before kickoff with Jiho’s water bottle, an extra hoodie, and a packet of orange slices because you forgot it was your snack week until midnight and had to peel and separate them while half-asleep.
Minho stands near the fence in a navy sweatshirt and black joggers, arms crossed, expression neutral as he watches Jiho warm up. A paper cup of coffee sits on the grass by his shoe. Beside it is a second cup.
You approach slowly.
His eyes flick toward you. “You’re late.”
“I’m early.”
“Barely.”
“Good morning to you too.”
He bends and picks up the second cup, holding it out.
You stare at it.
“You’re predictable,” he says.
You take it. It’s warm through the cardboard. “That’s your explanation?”
“You like coffee when it’s lukewarm.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It’s a thing.”
Minho’s gaze moves back to the field.
You stand beside him, close enough that your sleeves nearly touch, both of you watching Jiho chase a ball with more determination than coordination. He is not the best player on the team, not even close, but he plays with his whole face, brows drawn together in concentration, mouth open as he runs. When he spots you, he waves so enthusiastically he almost misses the ball rolling past him.
Minho cups one hand near his mouth. “Jiho. Ball first.”
Jiho gives him a thumbs-up, then promptly trips over his own feet.
You wince. Minho doesn’t move, but his shoulders tense until Jiho pops back up.
Across the field, Jiho scores a goal by sheer chaos: the ball bounces off another kid’s shin, rolls toward him, and he kicks it with such surprise that everyone reacts half a second late. It goes in.
Jiho freezes, then turns toward both of you, face bright with disbelief.
You cheer immediately. Minho claps, once, twice, controlled but unmistakable. When Jiho keeps looking, Minho lifts both hands and gives him a small, firm nod and a smile.
Jiho’s smile widens.
“He’s going to talk about this for a week,” you say.
“Two.”
“Minimum.”
“He’ll ask me to build a trophy shelf.”
“You would.”
Minho takes a sip of his coffee. “Of course.”
You glance at him, and there it is again, the ache disguised as fondness.
After the game, Jiho runs over with muddy knees and grass on his sleeve, cheeks pink from the cold.
“Did you see?”
“Yes,” you say, crouching as he throws himself into you. “I saw.”
“I scored.”
“You did.”
“It was kind of an accident, but not fully.”
Minho crouches too, reaching to untie one of Jiho’s cleats before he tracks mud everywhere. “A goal is a goal.”
Jiho beams at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Can we get tteokbokki?”
You laugh. “That was fast.”
“I used a lot of energy.” Jiho looks between you with interest. “So can we get tteokbokki?”
Jiho pumps both fists, then immediately turns to you. “Are you coming too?”
The question hangs there.
Minho looks down at Jiho’s muddy cleats.
You look at Minho.
This is the kind of moment you have gotten good at stepping around. The harmless invitations from your son, the ones he asks because he doesn’t remember a time when you and Minho were anything but separate and therefore sees no reason why separate cannot still sit at the same table. To him, family is not one house. It is two adults who show up.
You should say you have work, which is technically true—you do have work.
Instead, Minho says, “Your mom might be busy.” An opening.
You look at him. His expression is calm, but he will not meet your eyes.
“I can come for a little,” you say.
Jiho grins. “Okay. Dad, you’re paying because you said no first.”
Minho stands with the cleats in one hand. “That makes no sense.”
“It does if you think about it.”
“I did. It doesn’t.”
You laugh softly as Jiho starts explaining his logic, all tangled reasoning and absolute confidence, while Minho pretends not to listen and opens the car door for him anyway.
Lunch is not uncomfortable. It should be awkward, sitting across from Minho in a small restaurant with Jiho between you, steam rising from a shared pan of tteokbokki, rain finally tapping against the front windows. It should feel like pretending.
Instead, it feels dangerously easy.
Jiho talks through half the meal, recounting his goal with increasing embellishment. By the third version, he has “dodged two defenders,” though you both watched the ball bounce directly to him. Minho lets him have it until Jiho claims he planned the angle.
“You did not plan the angle,” Minho says.
“I planned to kick.”
“That is completely different.”
“Angles are part of kicking.”
“You didn’t even know where your other foot was.”
Jiho considers this. “That’s true.”
You laugh, reaching over to wipe sauce from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. Jiho ducks away with an offended noise, but leans back in when Minho gives him a look.
After lunch, Jiho falls asleep in the backseat of Minho’s car before you even leave the parking lot. You stand beside your own car, rain misting through the air, holding the leftover container Minho insisted you take.
“Thanks for lunch,” you say after a moment.
Minho’s hands rest in his coat pockets. “Of course.”
A small smile tugs at your mouth. Minho looks at it, then away.
You shift the container in your hands. “Jiho’s happy when we do things together.”
“He is.”
“It doesn’t confuse him?”
Minho looks toward the car, where Jiho sleeps with his forehead pressed to the window, mouth slightly open. “He’s used to us.”
That should comfort you. It does, mostly, but something inside you twists anyway.
“He doesn’t remember,” you say.
Minho’s gaze returns to you.
“When we were together,” you clarify. “He doesn’t remember that.”
“No.”
“Sometimes I wonder if that made it easier for him.”
Minho is quiet for a moment. Rain beads on his dark hair, tiny silver points in the gray afternoon. Then he says, “Maybe.”
You wait.
He adds, “Or maybe he just knows we both love him.”
You look away because that is too simple and too much.
“He does know that,” you say.
Minho’s voice softens. “Good.”
You nod, but the word follows you home.
Good.
Always good. Never enough.
The family project begins the next Wednesday.
Jiho announces it at your dining table while eating noodles and arranging cucumber slices in order from smallest to largest.
“Ms. Park says we have to make something about our family.”
You look up from your laptop. “Something?”
“A project.”
“What kind of project?”
“Any kind.”
“That is very broad.”
“I know. It’s bad.”
You close your laptop halfway. “Did she give examples?”
Jiho nods. “A family tree. A poster. A drawing. A scrapbook. Junho is making his family as Pokémon.”
“That sounds fun.”
Jiho pokes at a cucumber slice. “I don’t want to do a family tree.”
“Why not?”
“Trees are boring.”
“Trees are cool. They provide oxygen.”
“My project doesn’t need oxygen.”
You concede with a nod. “Fair.”
He eats a noodle, thinking. His hair is still damp from his shower, sticking slightly to his forehead. Sometimes, in the soft light of the apartment, he looks so much like Minho it startles you. Not only the eyes or the set of his mouth, but the focus. The way he goes still when he is sorting through an idea.
“Can I make our family a house?” he asks.
Your hands pause on the laptop. “A house?”
“Yeah.”
“Why a house?”
He looks at you as if the answer is obvious. “Because you make houses nice inside, and Dad makes houses stand up.”
You stare at him for a moment.
Then you smile. “That’s one way to put it.”
Jiho looks pleased with himself and reaches for another cucumber. “So can I?”
“Of course you can.”
“Can I make two doors?”
“Sure.”
“One for your house and one for Dad’s?”
The question is simple. Practical. Unloaded by adult grief because Jiho doesn’t carry your history. Still, it presses somewhere tender.
“Yeah,” you say softly. “Two doors works.”
Jiho nods and begins sketching on the back of an old grocery list, tongue poking into his cheek. You watch him draw a rectangle, then a slanted roof, then three uneven figures in the doorway.
“Why are we all in one house if there are two doors?” you ask gently.
He shrugs. “It’s a project, Mom.”
You huff a laugh. “Right. My mistake.”
He looks up. “Also because it’s our family.”
Then he returns to his drawing, leaving you sitting there with the soft devastation of being corrected by someone who has never known your life any other way.
That weekend is Minho’s.
Jiho packs the project instructions into his backpack, along with two shirts, his math workbook, and a rock named Mr. Bite that you have been instructed not to call just a rock because that is apparently disrespectful.
At drop-off, Minho opens the door before you knock twice.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
Jiho pushes past you. “Dad, don’t step on Mr. Bite. He’s in the front pocket.”
Minho looks at you.
You lift your hands. “I don’t ask questions anymore.”
Minho crouches to unzip the front pocket of Jiho’s backpack, carefully removes the rock, and sets it on the narrow entry table beside his keys.
“Welcome back,” he tells it dryly.
Jiho beams. “See? Dad respects him.”
Minho just gives you a look. You press your lips together to keep from smiling.
Jiho kicks off his shoes and runs toward the living room. “I have a project!”
“I know, Mom told me,” Minho calls after him. “Take your socks off the floor.”
“They’re not on the floor.”
“They’re on the floor, I can see them.”
Jiho groans but returns to gather the socks.
You remain near the doorway, fingers curled around the strap of your bag. Minho notices. He always notices when you are preparing to leave, just as he notices when you linger.
“Busy weekend?” he asks.
“A little. Client meeting tomorrow morning.”
“And dinner?”
The question is even, too even.
You look at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Minho.”
His gaze drops to the keys on the table. “You said you had dinner Friday.”
“That was last week.”
“I know.”
You study his face, the careful blankness there. “Are you asking if I’m seeing him again?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m asking if Jiho needs to know anything.”
“Jiho doesn’t know about Seungmin.”
His eyes lift at the name. You wish you hadn’t said it.
“He doesn’t need to,” you add. “It’s not serious.”
Minho nods once. Something about that nod makes you tired. “You can say whatever you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“Lie a little better.”
His jaw moves slightly. For a second, you think he might actually say it. Something real. Something sharp enough to cut through the polite arrangements and shared calendars and careful handoffs.
But then, from the living room, Jiho yells, “Dad! Do you have giant paper?”
Minho’s gaze remains on you for a beat longer.
Then he turns his head. “How giant?”
“Like architect giant.”
Minho looks back at you, and whatever had nearly surfaced between you sinks again.
“I should go,” you say.
He nods. “I’ll bring him back Sunday at six.”
“Okay.”
You almost step away, then pause. “Make sure he does his reading log.”
“He will.”
“And no cereal for dinner.”
“It was one time.”
“It was three times.”
“Across several years.”
“Minho.”
He looks at you calmly. “I’ll feed him real food.”
“Thank you.”
You turn to go. Behind you, Minho says your name.
You stop.
He is still by the door, one hand resting against the frame. “Drive carefully.”
It’s such a small thing, and yet it still feels like love.
At Minho’s apartment, Jiho finds the storage tubes by accident.
He’s looking for paper, apparently unsatisfied by the large sketchpad Minho has already given him because it is ‘not building-y enough’. Minho lets him wander the edge of the office under supervision, watching as his son inspects shelves with the solemn curiosity of someone touring a museum dedicated entirely to boring adult objects.
“What’s that?” Jiho asks, pointing at the cluster of long cardboard tubes leaning in the corner.
“Old drawings.”
“Can I use one?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re old drawings.”
“Are they important?”
Minho looks at them. He should say yes and move on. Instead, he stands very still.
The tubes have followed him through two apartments, an office move, one breakup, and six years of telling himself that keeping things doesn’t mean waiting. He kept old project sketches from university, early firm work, competition drafts he never submitted. He kept things because architects are part archivist, part fool. The past piles up in paper if you let it.
But one tube is different.
He knows it without looking at the label. The label itself has faded, but he remembers his own handwriting.
house - personal
Jiho taps the tube lightly. “Dad?”
Minho blinks. “What?”
“Can I see?”
Minho’s first instinct is no. His second is no, more softly. His third is the thing that gets him into trouble: Jiho is looking at him with curiosity, not suspicion. To him, these are just papers. Lines. Rooms. Maybe something useful for a family project.
Minho pulls the tube free, dust clinging to the cardboard. He wipes it with his sleeve, then removes the cap.
The first sheet slides out with a sound that reaches farther back than he expects. Graphite lines. Measurements. Notes. The outline of a house that never stood anywhere except in his hands and your voice.
He sees your handwriting first, a small note near the kitchen.
not too cold! warm light here
He remembers you saying it, seven months pregnant, sitting cross-legged on the floor despite his repeated warnings that getting up would become a entire event. You had eaten half a bowl of strawberries and told him kitchens should not feel like showrooms because people were supposed to live messy lives in them.
He had told you that was not a design specification.
You had said, “Make it one.”
So he did.
“Dad?” Jiho asks.
Minho looks down at him. His son is waiting.
Minho should put it away. Instead, he hears himself say, “You can use this one.”
Jiho’s face lights. “Really?”
“Don’t rip it.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t draw over the notes.”
Jiho peers at the paper. “There are notes?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
Minho’s hand rests lightly on the edge of the sheet. “Mine. And your mom’s.”
Jiho looks up. “Mom helped?”
“Yes.”
“With a building?”
“With a house.”
“Whose house?”
Minho is quiet. Jiho waits, but not anxiously. Just curious.
Minho rolls the sheet carefully and hands it to him. “Ours,” he says.
Jiho accepts this with the easy adaptability of a child. “Cool.”
Then he runs off to draw over Minho’s ghost.
For the next two weeks, the project moves between homes.
It comes to your apartment rolled in a tube almost too big for Jiho’s backpack and returns to Minho’s with new marker streaks, colored pencil shading, uneven labels, and smudges from Jiho resting his wrist in the wrong place while coloring. You don’t see the full sheet at first. Jiho works on sections, guarding the main part with the seriousness of an artist preparing for a gallery opening.
You catch glimpses—a yellow window, a red front door, a backyard labeled maybe turtle?, and a square marked mom’s work room.
You help him choose colors for the interior, biting back the instinct to correct his proportions when he draws a sofa larger than the kitchen island.
“It’s a very big sofa,” you say.
“It’s for family movie night.”
Your pencil pauses. “Family movie night?”
“Yeah. At Dad’s, the couch is too small if we all spread out with our feet up.”
“We don’t usually all sit there together.”
“But if we did.”
He says it easily and keeps coloring.
You say nothing, stunned into silence.
Minho drops Jiho off one Wednesday evening with the project tube under one arm and a grocery bag in his hand.
“What’s that?” you ask.
“Jiho said your smoke detector was beeping.”
You stare at him. “So you brought groceries?”
“Battery is in the bag.”
“You brought a battery in a grocery bag?”
“There are also groceries.”
“Why?”
“Your fridge looked almost empty last week.”
Your mouth opens, then closes.
Minho steps past you before you can decide whether to argue, removing his shoes automatically. Jiho runs straight to his room, project tube clutched to his chest, yelling something about not looking because it’s not finished.
You follow Minho into the kitchen, where he sets the bag on your counter and begins unpacking as if he still lives there.
Eggs. Strawberries. Tofu. Rice cakes. The tea you like. Jiho’s yogurt drinks. A pack of batteries.
“Minho,” you say slowly.
“What?”
“You can’t keep buying my groceries.”
“I don’t.”
“You just did.”
“Some of these are for Jiho.”
“Some?”
He puts the strawberries in your fridge. “Most.”
“You bought my tea.”
“You get headaches when you work late.”
You turn away, pretending to inspect the smoke detector in the hallway. “I can take care of myself, Min.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Minho stills. The words sit between you, sharper than you intended.
You turn back. His face is calm, but there is something guarded beneath it now. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t.”
“I know,” you say, softening. “I just…”
You stop because you don’t know how to finish.
I just don’t know what to do when you still take care of me.
I just don’t know why you do it.
I just don’t know why you can do all this and still not tell me what it means.
Minho looks at you for a long moment. Then he reaches into the bag, takes out the batteries, and holds them up. “Where’s the ladder?”
You let out a tired laugh because of course that is where he goes. Back to the fixable thing. Back to the beep in the ceiling. Back to something with a beginning, a task, an end.
“In the closet.”
He nods and goes to get it.
That night, after Minho leaves and Jiho is in bed, you find a small container of sliced apples in the fridge.
Thin slices. Too thin for Jiho, who prefers wedges because they’re crunchier.
You stand there with the refrigerator light spilling over your bare feet, staring at apples cut exactly the way you like them, and feel something inside you slowly, painfully rearrange itself.
The project is due on Friday.
On Thursday evening, Jiho spreads it across your dining table for final touches.
“Don’t look too much,” he says, placing both hands over the center of the paper.
“I’m helping you glue cotton clouds.”
He allows you a corner.
You sit beside him with glue on your fingers while he narrates the layout, explaining which room belongs to whom, which window gets the best sun, where Mr. Bite would live if rocks needed bedrooms. You laugh when appropriate, ask questions when he wants you to, and try not to overstep.
Then Jiho reaches for a green pencil, and his sleeve drags across the paper.
For the first time, the center is fully visible.
You stop breathing.
Under Jiho’s bright marker house are lines you know with a familiarity that frightens you. Because your body remembers them before your mind catches up.
The angle of the staircase. The wide kitchen. The eastern-facing room marked for the nursery. The window seat tucked beneath the stairs because you once said every home needed a place to hide without actually hiding.
Your hand rises to your mouth.
There, beneath Jiho’s uneven blue shading, is Minho’s handwriting.
nursery morning light
Near the kitchen:
wide island for mama’s samples
Near the living room:
built-ins here? she wanted storage but not ugly storage
You aren’t aware you’ve made a sound until Jiho looks up.
“Mom?”
You try to answer. Nothing comes out.
He follows your gaze to the paper. “Did I mess it up?”
“No.” You say it too quickly, reaching for him. “No, baby. You didn’t.”
“You look weird.”
You let out an unsteady breath. “I just recognize this.”
“The house?”
You nod, fingers hovering over the notes. You don’t touch them. Some foolish part of you worries the pencil will vanish if you do.
“Dad said you helped,” Jiho says.
You look at him. “He told you that?”
“Yeah. He said not to cover the writing because it was important.”
Your throat tightens. “Did he say anything else?”
Jiho thinks, tapping the green pencil against his chin. “He said it was from before I was born.”
You close your eyes.
The house had started as a joke, then a fantasy, then something close to a plan. Minho drew it during the last trimester, when you were swollen and restless and unable to sleep. You would sit beside him at the low table in your old apartment and point at inspiration photos while he complained about impractical layouts and drew them anyway.
You had forgotten how much of yourself was in it.
No—that’s not true. You had tried to forget.
“Mom?” Jiho says.
You open your eyes.
He is watching you carefully, his small face drawn with concern. “Are you mad Dad gave it to me?”
“No,” you say. “I’m not mad.”
“Because I can ask him for different paper. It’ll take forever to redo but it’s okay.”
“No, Jiho.” You pull him close and kiss the side of his head. “This paper is perfect.”
He relaxes against you, warm and solid and still small enough to lean without thinking.
After a moment, he says, “Dad keeps important stuff.”
You stare at the paper. “What do you mean?”
“He has a box.”
“A box?”
“Not a box. A tube. And boxes.” Jiho frowns, trying to categorize the storage system. “He said some stuff is not for playing.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Pictures. Old papers. Baby stuff.” Jiho shrugs. “I saw my tiny hospital hat once. It was ugly.”
You laugh through the tightness in your chest. “It was not ugly.”
“It was kind of ugly.”
“It was adorable.”
“It was wrinkly.”
“You were wrinkly.”
He gasps. “Rude.”
You smile and smooth his hair.
He looks back down at the project, then reaches for the green pencil again. “Dad doesn’t throw away important stuff.”
You barely sleep.
Instead, you lie awake thinking about a cardboard tube in Minho’s apartment. About your notes in the margins. About the fact that he had kept the house for eight years. Not the final plan of a completed building, or a professional project worth archiving.
A dream. An unfinished future.
The next morning, you and Minho attend Jiho’s school presentation.
You arrive separately, which is how you arrive everywhere now. You get there first, sitting in one of the small chairs near the back of the classroom with your knees awkwardly angled and your tote bag tucked between your feet. The walls are covered in student work, paper planets, vocabulary words, and drawings of spring flowers. The room smells like crayons, pencil shavings, and whatever cleaner schools use that always reminds you of childhood.
Minho slips in five minutes later and spots you immediately. You lift a hand slightly as he comes over and sits beside you, leaving a polite amount of space between your chairs.
“You made it,” you say quietly.
“I said I would.”
“I know.”
He glances at you, and you feel the old ache again, the ache of things said plainly that still carry more weight than they should.
Jiho sees you both from the front of the room and waves with one hand, the other holding his rolled project. His smile is nervous but proud.
You wave back and Minho gives him a small nod and smile.
Jiho visibly straightens.
Ms. Park starts the presentations. A family tree. A poster about grandparents. A shoebox diorama with cotton-ball clouds. Copycat.
Jiho is fourth.
When his name is called, he carries his project to the front and unrolls it across the board with Ms. Park’s help. The paper is almost too large, curling at the edges despite the tape.
You feel Minho go still beside you.
For the first time, he sees what Jiho has done with it.
The dream house is almost hidden beneath color now, transformed by an eight-year-old’s imagination. The lines are still there, faint beneath marker and label and glue, but Jiho has made it his own. Flowers along the walkway. A huge sofa in the living room. A backyard. Three figures near the front door, their hands connected by one long line.
Jiho clears his throat. “My project is my family as a house,” he begins, reading from an index card he has clearly bent in half several times. “My mom designs inside places, and my dad designs buildings. So I thought a house made sense because houses need both or else they are either boring or falling down.”
A few parents chuckle. Minho exhales softly through his nose. You press your fingers to your lips.
Jiho continues, gaining confidence. “This is my room. This is Mom’s work room because she has a lot of samples and says they’re not trash even though they might be trash. This is Dad’s table because he draws buildings and says rulers disappear when you need them.”
Minho mutters, very quietly, “They do.”
Jiho points to the three figures. “This is us. We don’t live in one house, but we’re still family. Ms. Park said family can be people who take care of you.”
He glances toward you, then Minho. Then he looks back at the class.
“My mom says things a lot. Like, good job, and I love you, and please don’t talk to me from upstairs.” A ripple of laughter moves through the room, and Jiho smiles shyly. “My dad doesn’t say as much, but he remembers stuff. Like my cleats and snacks and when Mom likes apples cut thin.”
Your cheeks burn. Beside you, Minho taps his foot nervously.
Jiho shrugs, small and natural, one shoulder lifting. “Dad is just quiet. But I know he loves both of us.”
The room softens. However, this is still a third-grade classroom. A boy in the front row is picking at the rubber sole of his shoe, Ms. Park smiles with wet eyes she is trying to hide, and a baby cries from the back row.
But for you, everything narrows to Minho’s hand resting on his knee, fingers curled tightly into his palm.
Jiho finishes with, “That’s my family. Also, I want a turtle, but my parents said no.”
Jiho bows because apparently someone told him presentations require flair, then carries his project back to his desk with his ears bright red.
For the rest of the morning, you barely hear anything.
After the presentations, parents gather around the displays. Jiho drags both of you to his desk and shows you details he already explained, because pride requires repetition. Minho listens closely, asking small questions that make Jiho glow. Why this window? Why this room? Why is the turtle area larger than the kitchen?
“Because turtles need enrichment,” Jiho says.
“How do you know that word?”
“YouTube.”
Minho looks at you. You lift your hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
For a moment, it feels almost normal. Then Jiho runs off to show his friend where he drew Mr. Bite in the garden, and you are left standing beside Minho with the project between you.
You look at the old notes beneath the colors.
Minho looks at you. “I didn’t know he would say all that,” he says.
You nod. “I know.”
“I didn’t tell him to.”
“I know.”
A pause. Then you say, “But he’s right.”
The classroom noise swells around you, bright and busy, children calling for parents, chairs scraping, paper rustling. You should not have this conversation here, between desks and glue sticks and a bulletin board about fractions.
Minho seems to understand that too. He looks down at the project. “Can we talk later?”
Your heart starts beating too hard. You don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
That evening, Jiho goes to Minho’s parents’.
You spend the rest of the day working badly. You choose the wrong rug for a client deck, attach the wrong file to an email, and stare at one fabric sample for ten full minutes without registering the color. By five, you give up and close your laptop.
Minho texts at six-thirty.
Minho: Jiho is finishing homework. I can meet after dropping him off if you still want to talk.
You read the message three times.
Then reply—
You: My place?
His answer comes quickly.
Minho: Okay
At eight-forty, there is a knock at your door.
When you open it, Minho stands in the hallway wearing a black coat, hands in his pockets, face calm enough that only someone who knows him would notice the tension at the corners of his mouth.
You step aside and he enters quietly, removing his shoes. The old familiarity of it catches you off guard. He has always moved through your home carefully, even after it stopped being his. Never assuming too much. Never forgetting where things are.
“Tea?” you ask.
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
Despite everything, you smile a little. “Same old Minho.”
He looks relieved, though only for a second.
You walk to the dining table where Jiho’s project rests, rolled loosely. Minho’s gaze follows it. “I know I should have asked before giving it to him,” he says.
You turn. “That’s not why I wanted to talk.”
“I didn’t think.”
“I don’t believe that.”
His mouth tightens.
“You always think,” you say. “Sometimes too much.”
He looks down.
You touch the edge of the paper. “You kept it.”
“Yes.”
“All this time.”
“Yes.”
The same simple answer. The same unbearable calm.
You unroll the project carefully, smoothing the curling edge with your palm. Jiho’s colorful house fills the table, bright and sweet and imperfect. Beneath it, the pencil lines remain.
Your fingers hover over the note near the kitchen.
wide island for mama’s samples
“You remembered everything I wanted,” you say.
Minho stands across from you, hands still in his pockets. “Not everything.”
“Enough.”
His eyes lower to the paper.
You take a breath that does not quite steady you. “Jiho said you kept important things.”
Minho’s expression closes slightly.
“What else did you keep?”
He is quiet for so long that you think he will not answer. Then he softly says, “A lot.”
Your chest tightens. “Like what?”
“The first sketches.” His voice is low. “The paint samples you liked. The magazine pages you tore out. Ultrasound photos. Jiho’s hospital bracelet. Yours too.”
You press a hand to your mouth.
Minho looks away, jaw tense. “I know.”
“Know what?”
“That it’s strange.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’s not,” you repeat, firmer now.
He looks at you then, and the guardedness in his face hurts more than anger would have.
“Why?” you ask. The word comes out barely above a whisper.
Minho’s gaze drops to the project. For a moment, he is silent, thoughtful. And then he breaks it by saying, “Because it was ours.”
Your eyes close. It’s so Minho of him—plain, honest, and devastating without trying to be.
“I didn’t keep it because I thought we’d get back together,” he continues. “I didn’t let myself think that.”
You open your eyes.
He swallows. “But throwing it away felt like saying it didn’t matter.”
The first tear slips before you can stop it. Minho sees it immediately. His hand shifts at his side, instinct pulling him toward you, restraint holding him back.
You hate it. You hate that he no longer knows whether he is allowed to comfort you.
“It mattered,” you say.
“I know.”
“No.” Your voice cracks. “I don’t think you do. It mattered so much that when I thought you didn’t want it anymore, I didn’t know how to stay.” You wipe at your cheek, frustrated by the tears now that they have started. “I thought you fell out of love with me.”
His features tighten. For once, the silence that follows is not unreadable. It’s wounded. “You thought what?”
“You never said anything.”
His brows draw together, pain moving through the restraint. “I was there.”
“I know.”
“I came home to you every night.”
“I know.”
“I took care of you.”
“I know, Minho.” The words come out broken. “That’s what made it so confusing.”
He looks like he doesn’t understand. Or maybe like he’s beginning to.
You press your fingers against the table, grounding yourself beside the house you never built. “You did everything. You changed diapers and warmed bottles and made sure I ate and fixed every broken thing in that apartment. But after a while, I couldn’t tell if you were doing it because you loved me or because you were responsible.”
Minho says nothing.
“You were so quiet,” you continue. “And I was so tired. I kept waiting for you to tell me you were happy. That you wanted us. That you still wanted me, not just Jiho, not just the life we accidentally made around him.”
His eyes shine. “I wanted you,” he says. The words come out rough. “I wanted all of it,” he continues. “I thought you knew.”
You laugh once, softly, sadly. “I didn’t.”
His gaze drops. “I thought staying was saying it,” he says.
You look at him through tears. He lifts his eyes again, and this time, there is no distance left to hide behind. “I was wrong.”
The words settle between you. Not enough to erase years. But real.
You wipe your cheek. “When I told you I thought we didn’t want the same life, you said okay.”
Minho’s jaw tightens. “Because I thought you were telling me you wanted to leave.”
“I was asking you not to let me.”
Pain crosses his face. Quiet, but unmistakable. “I didn’t know how to fight without making it worse,” he says. “You were exhausted. You looked sad all the time. I thought if I asked you to stay, I would be asking you to keep being unhappy. So I said okay,” he continues. “And I hated myself for it.”
The room goes quiet. Outside, life continues with insulting indifference while you stand in front of the man you have loved for years and realize you were both lonely in the same house.
You look down at Jiho’s project. “He doesn’t remember us together,” you say.
“No.”
“He still drew us that way.”
Minho’s eyes move to the three figures by the front door, hands connected by one long crayon line. “He drew his family,” he says.
You reach for the back of a chair, but Minho steps around the table before you can fully steady yourself.
“Can I?” he asks.
It takes you a moment to understand what he means. Then you nod. “Please.”
And when his hand touches your arm, careful and warm, you fold toward him with a sound you wish you could keep inside.
Minho holds you. Not like a co-parent fulfilling some emergency comfort role. No, he holds you like someone who has known the shape of you for years and never forgot where his hands belonged. One arm wraps around your back, the other hand settling at the back of your head, his palm firm and familiar.
You cry into his chest, and his chin lowers near your temple.
“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s so quiet you almost miss it. Then again, stronger, “I’m sorry.”
Your fingers curl into his coat. “I’m sorry too.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Yes, I do.” You pull back enough to look at him. “I should have told you what I needed. I should have said it instead of testing you with silence.”
His thumb brushes your cheek, wiping a tear with such care it hurts. “You were tired.”
“So were you.”
“I should have told you anyway.”
You let out a shaky breath. “You’re telling me now.”
His eyes hold yours for a moment, deciding how much to confess. Then he says it. “I never stopped loving you.”
A breath escapes your parted lips, eyes welling.
Minho’s hand remains at your cheek, warm and steady. “I tried to stop. I thought I had to, especially when I saw you with someone else.” His mouth tightens faintly. “I was bad at it.”
A laugh breaks through your tears, fragile and wet. “At stopping?”
“At being normal.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. “You’ve never been normal.”
“I know.”
There’s that warmth again.
Then he grows serious.
“I love you,” he says. “I loved you then. I love you now. I was a fool for thinking you could hear it if I never said it.”
Your face crumples. “I was a fool for doubting you.”
“No,” he says immediately. “Don’t make it yours.”
“It’s ours,” you whisper.
He looks at you for a long moment before nodding once. “Ours.”
You lift your hand to his wrist, holding him there. “I never stopped loving you either.”
Minho closes his eyes. The breath he releases is unsteady, and that, more than anything, breaks your heart open. All this time, you thought his calm meant he had survived you. You never thought it might mean he was holding himself together.
When he opens his eyes again, they are damp.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
You almost laugh because after everything, after a child, a breakup, six years of shared custody, the question feels tender enough to undo you. “Yes.”
Minho kisses you carefully at first. Softly. Then your hand slides into his hair and his breath catches, and the carefulness thins into something deeper. He kisses you like he never stopped knowing how to. His fingers cradle your jaw, his other arm tightening at your waist, and when he tilts his head to kiss you again, you feel years of longing break loose all at once.
It’s not perfect.
There are tears. A shaky laugh against his mouth. When you finally pull back, his forehead rests against yours.
“I love you,” he says again.
You smile through the tears. “Practicing?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
His mouth curves. “Bossy.”
“You need repetition.”
“I’m learning.”
Your heart softens. From your phone on the table, a notification buzzes, but neither of you looks at it.
Minho’s thumb moves slowly along your cheek. “What about Seungmin?”
You lean back enough to see him. “There isn’t a Seungmin.”
His brow lifts slightly.
“There was dinner,” you clarify. “Twice. And coffee once, which you apparently think is worse.”
“It is.”
“It wasn’t serious.”
Minho looks down, almost embarrassed by his own relief.
You touch his cheek. “I think I was trying to prove I could move on.”
His eyes return to yours. “And?”
You shake your head. “I was bad at it.”
The smallest smile appears.
“Good,” he says.
You narrow your eyes. “That was smug.”
“No.”
“It was.”
“A little.”
You laugh, and this time, when he looks at you, he doesn’t look away. And then he turns and leads you down the hallway toward your bedroom and your heart is hammering so hard you can feel it in your throat.
“Minho—” you start, but he stops walking, turns, cups your face between both palms.
“I meant it,” he says, and his voice is low, rough around the edges, nothing like the careful, polite tone he used during those first awful years of shared custody. This is the voice he used to use when he’d wake you up in the middle of the night, mouth already finding your neck. “Every word. And I’m going to show you. If you’ll let me.”
You nod. It’s all you can do.
The bedroom door clicks shut behind you both, and the sound of it—that soft, final sound—sends a pulse straight between your thighs. The curtains are still open, late afternoon sunlight pooling gold across the rumpled duvet you didn’t bother making this morning. You didn’t know he was coming over. You didn’t know any of this was going to happen.
Minho turns you around slowly, hands settling on your shoulders. His thumbs trace the curve of your collarbone through the thin fabric of your t-shirt, and you watch his face in the dresser mirror across the room—the way his jaw tightens, the way his tongue wets his bottom lip.
“I’ve thought about this, about you,” he murmurs, “for six years.”
His fingers find the hem of your shirt. He doesn’t pull it up right away—just tucks his fingertips underneath, brushes them against the skin of your waist, and the contact is so light it makes your stomach clench.
Then he lifts your shirt.
The fabric slides up over your ribs, your breasts, and you raise your arms automatically, letting him pull it over your head. It falls to the floor somewhere, and you’re standing in front of him in your worn-in bra, the one with the stretched elastic and the faded color, and suddenly you’re acutely, painfully aware of every change in your body since the last time he saw you like this. Your arms twitch, instinct telling you to cover yourself.
“Don’t,” Minho breathes.
He catches your wrists and brings them back down to your sides.
“Don’t you dare hide from me.”
His gaze moves over you—your shoulders, the swell of your breasts, the softness of your belly that wasn’t there before. You feel exposed. Raw. But the way he’s looking at you—fuck, the way he’s looking at you—it’s like he’s staring at something holy.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says. “I mean it. Look at you. Look at how gorgeous you are.”
His hands move to your waist, palms sliding up your ribcage, thumbs hooking just beneath the underwire of your bra.
“I think about you,” he says. “Your skin. The way you smell. The sounds you make when I—” He cuts himself off, jaw clenching. “I’m going to take my time tonight. I’m going to worship every single inch of you until you understand how much I’ve missed you.”
He unclasps your bra with one hand—still remembers the trick of it, the way the hooks catch and release—and the straps slide down your arms. The fabric falls away, and your nipples tighten in the cool air of the bedroom.
Minho makes a sound low in his throat.
“Stunning,” he whispers. “Absolutely stunning.”
He leans in, and his mouth finds the curve where your neck meets your shoulder. The kiss is slow, open-mouthed, his tongue tracing a wet line along your skin. You shudder, and he feels it—you know he does—because his grip on your waist tightens.
“I’m going to kiss every part of you,” he says against your throat. “Every fucking part. Starting here.” His mouth moves down. Along your collarbone now, lips dragging, tongue flicking out to taste the hollow at the base of your throat. Your hands find his shoulders, gripping the fabric of his shirt because you need something to hold onto.
“Minho.”
He groans and sinks lower. His mouth finds the swell of your left breast, and he kisses the curve of it, his stubble scraping your sensitive skin, making your hips jerk involuntarily.
“I love these,” he murmurs, cupping your breast in his palm, thumb brushing over the peaked nipple. “I love how responsive they are. How hard they get when I barely touch you.”
He lowers his head and takes your nipple into his mouth.
The heat of it—the wet, sucking heat—makes your back arch. His tongue circles, slow and deliberate, and he watches your face the whole time, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. When he grazes his teeth over the sensitive peak, you gasp, and your fingers twist in his shirt.
“That’s it.” His voice is muffled against your skin. “Let me hear you.” He switches to the other breast, giving it the same attention, laving and sucking until you’re squirming, until your thighs are pressing together and there’s a damp heat building between them that’s becoming impossible to ignore.
But he’s not done.
Minho continues his path downward. His mouth traces the valley between your breasts, then lower—over your sternum, your ribs, the soft plane of your belly. He pauses at your waistband, pressing a kiss just above the button of your jeans.
“I remember every curve,” he says. “Every spot that makes you gasp. But I want to learn you again. All of you.”
He unbuttons your jeans with careful, deliberate movements, and the denim slides down your thighs. You step out of them, and then you’re standing in nothing but your panties—simple cotton ones, because you weren’t expecting anyone to see them—and Minho is kneeling in front of you.
Kneeling.
“You’re breathtaking,” he says, looking up at you, and the word comes out so sincere it makes your chest ache. “Every part of you. Your thighs—fuck, I dream about these thighs wrapped around my head.”
He presses a kiss to your left hip bone, then your right.
“These hips. The way they fit in my hands.”
His palms curl around your hip bones, thumbs stroking the sensitive skin just above the elastic of your panties.
“I’m going to take these off now,” he says, fingers hooking into the waistband. “And then I’m going to put my mouth on you until you come. And I’m going to watch you the whole time, because there’s nothing—nothing—sexier than watching you fall apart for me.”
The panties slide down your legs. You step out of them, and then you’re completely bare, standing in the afternoon sunlight while he stares at you like you’re the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen.
“On the bed for me, baby,” he says, and his voice has gone rough, ragged.
You move backward until your calves hit the edge of the mattress. He follows, still on his knees, crawling toward you in a way that’s almost predatory. When the backs of your thighs hit the duvet, he guides you down onto the mattress, spreading your legs with careful, gentle hands.
“So pretty,” he murmurs, settling between your thighs. His shoulders press against the inside of your legs, spreading you wider. “Look at you. So wet already, and I’ve barely touched you.”
His breath ghosts over your center, and your hips buck upward involuntarily.
“Minho, please—”
“Please what?” His eyes flick up to meet yours, and there’s a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Tell me what you want.”
“Your mouth. Please.”
He doesn’t make you wait. His tongue drags through your folds, broad and flat, and the sensation rips a moan from your throat that you didn’t know you were holding. He groans against you—groans, like the taste of you is the best thing he’s ever had in his mouth—and the vibration of it sends sparks up your spine.
“Fuck,” he breathes, pulling back just enough to speak. “You taste even better than I remember. I could stay here for hours.”
He dives back in. His tongue traces patterns against your clit—circles, then figure-eights, then a steady, pulsing rhythm that has your fingers twisting in the duvet. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s always known.
“Remember this?” He licks a slow stripe up the center of you. “Remember how I used to make you scream?”
You can’t answer. You can barely even breathe.
His mouth is relentless. Tongue flicking, lips sucking, the occasional scrape of teeth that makes you jerk and gasp. He’s watching you—you can feel his gaze burning into you—and every time your eyes flutter open, he’s there, dark and intent and so fucking aroused it’s written all over his face.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against your clit. “Let go. I want to feel you come apart on my tongue.”
Two fingers slide inside you, curling upward, finding that spot he always knew how to hit. Your back arches off the mattress.
“Fuck—Minho—fuck—”
“Yeah,” he growls. “Say my name. Scream it.”
His fingers pump in and out, his mouth working your clit with obscene, wet sounds that fill the room. The pressure builds, coiling low and tight, and you’re so close now, right on the edge, thighs trembling, hands fisting in his hair.
“I’m—I’m going to—”
“Do it,” he says, and his voice is raw, wrecked. “Come for me. I want to feel it. I want to watch your face—I want to see how fucking gorgeous you look when you shatter.”
The orgasm hits you like a wave—no, not a wave, something sharper, something that whites out your vision and wrenches a scream from somewhere deep in your chest. Your thighs clamp around his head, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, just rides you through it with his mouth and his fingers and his low, rumbling groans that vibrate straight through your clit.
You come down trembling, gasping, and he’s still kissing you—softer now, gentler—pressing his lips to the inside of your thigh, your hip, your belly.
“Beautiful,” he’s murmuring. “So fucking beautiful. Wish you could see yourself. Feel good?”
You can only nod, chest heaving.
He rises up onto his knees, still between your thighs, and tugs his shirt over his head. You watch the fabric fly off to reveal his chest and your breath catches.
His shirt hits the floor. His hands move to his belt, and you watch him unbuckle it, unbutton his jeans, shove them down along with his boxers. His cock springs free—thick and heavy, the tip already glistening—and your mouth goes dry.
Fuck. You remember him being big, but you’d forgotten just how much he fills your hand. How much he stretches your pussy.
He strokes himself once, twice, his eyes locked on yours. “I need to be inside you. Please, baby. I can’t wait anymore.”
“Yes,” you breathe. “Now. Please.”
He settles between your thighs, the weight of him pressing you into the mattress, and it feels like coming home. His hips slot against yours, and you can feel the hot, hard length of him sliding through your wet folds—not pushing in yet, just rocking, coating himself in your slick.
“Look at me,” he says.
You do.
He pushes in. The stretch is breathtaking—literally, you forget how to inhale for a moment—and Minho groans, a long, shuddering sound that seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest. His forehead drops to yours.
“Fuck,” he grinds out. “So tight. So wet. You feel—fuck—you feel incredible.”
He sinks deeper, inch by inch, until he’s buried all the way inside you. He stays there, motionless, letting you adjust, and you cling to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin.
“Okay?” he breathes.
“More than okay. Move. Please.”
He pulls out slowly—agonizingly slowly—and thrusts back in with a roll of his hips that hits exactly the right angle. You gasp, and he does it again. And again. A rhythm builds, slow and deep, the kind of fucking that feels less like sex and more like a whole experience.
His hips roll, grinding against your clit, and your moan turns into a cry.
“Yeah, that’s it. That’s the sound I’ve been missing. Scream for me, baby. Let everyone hear how good I’m making you feel.”
The bed creaks beneath you, a steady, rhythmic counterpoint to the slap of skin against skin. He’s hitting that spot inside you with every thrust now, the one that makes your vision blur and your toes curl, and you can feel another orgasm building, building, building—
“You’re getting close again,” he growls. “I can feel it. Your pussy’s squeezing me so tight, baby. Come on my cock. Please. Wanna feel you come on my cock.”
His thumb finds your clit, pressing down in tight circles, and that’s all it takes.
The orgasm tears through you, sharper than the first one, and you scream his name, your nails raking down his back as your body clenches around him. He fucks you through it, groaning, his rhythm stuttering as he chases his own release.
“Gonna come,” he grits out. “Gonna fill you up—fuck—is that okay? Can I come inside you?”
“Yes. Yes.”
His hips snap forward once, twice, and then he buries himself deep with a sound that’s almost animalistic—a growl that rumbles through his chest and vibrates against your skin.
“Mine,” he grinds out, pulsing inside you. “Mine.”
You feel every spurt of his release, hot and wet, and he stays there, still buried deep, as his hips give one final, shuddering thrust.
Minho doesn’t pull out. He stays inside you, his weight pressed against you, his face buried in your neck. He whispers sweet nothings, kisses your skin softly before eventually rolling off you to clean you up.
He doesn’t stay the night—not that night.
It would be easy to let the moment swallow everything, to pretend one confession has rearranged all the years between you neatly enough for morning. But you are both older now. Softer in some places, more careful in others. There is Jiho to think about, and yourselves too, the versions of you that loved badly despite loving deeply.
So Minho leaves after midnight with your kiss still on his mouth and one of your hands caught in his until the last possible second.
At the door, he turns back.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” he says.
You lean against the frame. “Will you?”
His eyes soften at the question beneath the question. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
He takes a breath. “I love you.”
You smile. “I love you too.”
He nods once, like he is storing the answer somewhere permanent, smiles softly, then walks to his car.
The next weeks don’t become a fairytale—they become something better. They become deliberate.
Minho calls when he says he will. Sometimes the conversations are short, practical things about Jiho’s schedule or school forms, but he no longer lets them end there. He asks about your work. He tells you when a meeting went badly. He sends you a photo of Jiho asleep on his couch with Mr. Bite balanced on his chest.
He starts saying what he means before silence can do the damage for him.
I missed you today.
I wanted to tell you this earlier.
I’m not upset. I’m thinking.
You try too.
When fear rises, you name it instead of burying it. When you need reassurance, you ask, even when it makes you feel exposed. When Minho reaches for you in quiet ways, you let yourself see them without expecting them to replace words entirely.
Jiho notices, of course.
One Saturday morning, three weeks after the presentation, you go to Minho’s apartment for breakfast because Jiho has been lobbying for family pancakes. You arrive with strawberries and whipped cream, and Minho opens the door wearing a black T-shirt dusted with flour.
You stare at him.
He looks down. “Don’t ask.”
You laugh and step inside, pressing a kiss to his lips that he returns eagerly.
Breakfast is chaotic in the ordinary way of real homes. Jiho drops a strawberry then steps on it while trying to pick it up. You burn the first pancake because you are distracted by Minho standing too close behind you to reach the spatula, his hand settling briefly at your waist as he passes. Jiho talks through the entire meal about school, turtles, and everything else that pops into his brain.
Halfway through his second pancake, he looks between you and Minho. “You guys are being different.”
You freeze. Minho doesn’t, though his gaze shifts to you before returning to Jiho. “Different how?”
Jiho shrugs. “Just different.”
“Good different?” you ask carefully.
He thinks about it while chewing, then nods. “Less awkward.”
Minho huffs softly. You hide your smile behind your coffee.
Jiho points his fork at Minho. “You say stuff more, Dad.”
Minho’s ears turn faintly pink. You look at him, delighted.
“Do I?” Minho asks, voice even.
“Yes.” Jiho spears a strawberry. “You told Mom you missed her on the phone.”
Your eyes widen. Minho looks at you slowly.
You whisper, “Speakerphone?”
“I didn’t know he was listening,” Minho mutters.
“You also said something about coming, but then Mom never showed up,” Jiho says thoughtfully.
“Okay! I am never using my phone around you. Ever,” Minho says, pressing his palms to the table, ears red.
Jiho laughs, pointing to his dad’s obvious embarrassment.
You face palm yourself, cheeks flushed, but you can’t hide the laugh that slips out.
Minho reaches for his coffee, but his other hand brushes yours beneath the table. His fingers hook lightly around yours, hidden from Jiho’s view.
Jiho keeps eating, satisfied with whatever conclusion he has drawn. Then he says, “I like it.”
You look at him in question.
“Pancakes?” Minho asks.
Jiho rolls his eyes in the exact way Minho does, which is frankly unsettling. “Noooo. You guys.”
You feel your face soften, reaching over to wipe a bit of cream from Jiho’s cheek. “We like it too.”
Jiho nods once. “Good.”
Minho murmurs, “Bossy.”
“He gets it from you,” you say.
Jiho smiles around his fork. “I get my intelligence from myself.”
Minho rolls his eyes. “Finish your breakfast.”
Later, after the plates are cleared and Jiho disappears to the living room to introduce Mr. Bite to a new rock named Mrs. Chew, you stand at Minho’s sink rinsing mugs while he dries beside you.
His apartment is bright in the morning, sunlight touching the edges of the counter, the table, the project Jiho insisted on bringing home after it was graded. It is spread carefully near the window now, the vibrant house glowing over old pencil lines.
Minho follows your gaze. “I want to frame it,” he says.
You turn to him. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Where would you put it?”
He looks at the project, then at you. “Wherever we decide.”
The word moves through you slowly. We.
You lean against the counter. “That sounds like a big conversation.”
“It is.”
“Are you ready for that?”
Minho dries the mug in his hands carefully, then sets it down. He doesn’t answer right away, and once, that silence would have scared you. Now, you wait.
When he looks at you, his face is open. “I don’t want to rush Jiho,” he says. “Or you.”
You nod.
“But I want that life,” he continues. “The one I didn’t tell you I wanted clearly enough.” He turns to face you fully. “I want breakfast with you. I want your samples all over the table even though you call it organized and it isn’t. I want Jiho’s shoes in the wrong place and your tea in my cabinets and arguments about paint colors that are all white.”
A laugh breaks softly from your chest.
Minho steps closer. “I want the house,” he says. “Whatever it looks like.”
Your eyes burn again, but this time, the tears come with something warmer beneath them. You reach for his hand. “I want that too.” His fingers close around yours.
For a moment, you stand there in the kitchen with sunlight on the floor and your son’s laughter coming from upstairs, the future no longer a perfect drawing kept in a tube, but something alive and imperfect and waiting to be built carefully.
Minho lifts your joined hands and presses a kiss to your knuckles.
Then, because he is learning, because quiet love is still love but not the only kind you need, he says it.
“I love you.”
You smile. “I know.”
His brows lift in mock offense.
Laughing softly, you lean across the small space between you and catch his mouth with yours.
It starts briefly, meant to be teasing, but Minho’s hand slides to your jaw and suddenly he’s kissing you back, slow and familiar. The kind of kiss built from years of knowing each other. The kind that says everything neither of you has ever been particularly good at putting into words.
When you finally pull away, his eyes are warm.
You squeeze his hand and add, “I love you too.”
From the living room, Jiho calls, “Can Mrs. Chew come to Mom’s house?”
The moment shatters instantly.
Minho sighs, rubbing his eyes. “And there it is.”
You laugh. “Is Mrs. Chew another rock?” you call back.
A pause. Then Jiho says, “She’s family.”
Minho looks at you. You look at him. And in the bright, ordinary quiet that follows, the two of you begin again.
weather officials confirm: the humidity is rising, the tension is building, and conditions are becoming increasingly slippery. due to dangerously high levels of stray kids activity, viewers are encouraged to stay hydrated and keep their hands to themselves...
[ ▸ ] — you and minho have spent years loving your son from separate homes, pretending the distance between you stopped hurting a long time ago. he has always loved quietly, and you have always needed something louder. but when jiho begins a school project about family, the life you thought minho let go of starts finding its way back to you.
[ ✐ ] — 12k
[ ⌗ ] — architect!minho x interior designer!reader coparenting slow burn angst hurt / comfort second chances graphic & detailed smut oral ( f receiving )
[ ✉︎ ] — cannot believe we are 7/8 done with with this series! ahhh! also loved how i got to watch the kNOw way while editing this <3 changbin's part will be a little tricky to post so i'll let you guys know how/when that will posted later. a wet hot skz summer is coming too guys! joy and i are so excited for you guys to read everything we've been cooking for the past three months! anyways, as always hunnies, enjoy, and please—if you do, like, reblog, and comment <3 love to see you guys' thoughts and feedback!
You have learned, over the years, that there are different kinds of quiet.
There is the quiet of an unfinished house before the flooring goes in, when every room carries the hollow echo of possibility and dust hangs in the air, waiting to settle. There is the quiet of an office after midnight, when your monitor glows over half-finished renders and your coffee has gone cold beside the keyboard. There is the quiet of a child finally asleep after fighting bedtime, one foot sticking out from under the blanket, one hand curled around a plush animal he claimed he no longer needed.
Then there is Minho’s quiet. That one has always been harder to name.
Years ago, you mistook it for safety. For steadiness. For love that did not need to be dressed up to be real. When you were twenty-something and stupidly certain that wanting the same future meant you would understand each other forever, Minho’s quiet felt like something solid beneath your feet. He did not say much, but he showed up. He fixed things. He remembered things. He stood beside you without making a ceremony of it, and for a long time, that felt like enough.
Then Jiho was born and enough became harder to measure.
The first year of your son’s life unraveled both of you in different ways. You remember it in fragments now: tiny socks in the washing machine, bottles lined up near the sink, Minho asleep upright on the couch with Jiho against his chest, your own reflection in the bathroom mirror looking less like you every morning. You remember the exhaustion most clearly, the kind that burrowed under your skin and made every unspoken thing feel louder than it was.
Minho loved Jiho. That had never been in question. He loved him in careful hands and warmed milk and the way he learned every small cry by sound. He loved him in clean laundry folded at two in the morning, in doctor’s appointments never forgotten, in the rocking chair he assembled before you were discharged from the hospital because he said the old one made a noise that would irritate you.
He loved you too, you think now.
Back then, you were not so sure.
Back then, all you knew was that he came home, kissed Jiho’s head, washed bottles, asked if you had eaten, and moved through your life with the controlled steadiness of a man doing everything right except reaching for you when you needed him to.
You were twenty-seven when you left. Jiho was nearly two. There had been no screaming. No affair. No single terrible night that split your life cleanly in two. Just one conversation after too many lonely months.
You told Minho you did not think you wanted the same life anymore.
He looked at you for a long time. Then he said, “Is that what you want?”
You wanted him to say no. You wanted him to say your name like losing you would ruin him. You wanted him to fight you, just once, with something louder than care carefully hidden inside chores and errands and practical concern.
Instead, you heard yourself say, “I think so.”
Minho’s eyes lowered to Jiho asleep between you on the couch, his cheek smushed against a blue blanket, his little mouth open around soft breaths.
Then Minho said, “Okay.”
Okay.
Not stay.
Not don’t go.
Not I love you.
Okay.
Six years later, Jiho is eight, and he does not remember the two of you together.
He knows Mom’s place and Dad’s place. He knows which drawer at each home holds his pajamas, which parent is more likely to let him have cereal after dinner, which couch has the better blanket, which pantry hides the snacks he is not supposed to know about. He knows school drop-offs and alternating weekends, birthdays spent with both of you at the same table, parent-teacher conferences where Minho sits with his arms crossed and listens so closely the teacher usually starts speaking to him like he might be grading her.
To Jiho, this is not broken. It’s just family.
Maybe that is why it’s easy to pretend you have all adjusted.
Your phone vibrates while you’re standing in the middle of your design studio, a stack of fabric swatches balanced against your hip and a sample book spread open across the consultation table. Across from you, your client flips through upholstery options, pausing every few seconds to hold one up against the mood board you’ve spent weeks building together. Afternoon sunlight pours through the front windows, catching on brass fixtures and illuminating the organized chaos of sketches, material samples, and half-finished concepts scattered throughout the space.
You glance at the screen.
Minho.
His name still does something inconvenient to your chest. Less dramatic than it used to be, maybe, but no less real. A small internal pause. An old room opening somewhere.
“Sorry,” you tell your client. “I should take this. It might be about my son.”
She smiles politely, and you step into the hallway.
“Hey,” you answer.
“Jiho left his science notebook in my car.”
You close your eyes. “Again?”
“He says it wasn’t again because last time was his math folder.”
“Of course he does.”
“He asked me to tell you the distinction matters.”
You can hear him walking, keys faintly shifting in the background. His voice is low and even, familiar enough to hurt if you let yourself listen too closely.
“I can pick it up after work,” you say. “I’m not too far from your office.”
“I’m near your studio. I’ll drop it off.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
You look down at the samples in your hand. White oak. Ash. Walnut. Three kinds of wood pretending not to hold different moods.
“Minho,” you say.
“What?”
“I can get it.”
“And I can bring it.”
There is no sharpness or impatience in his voice. Just that same quiet certainty that always makes arguing with him feel like trying to move a wall.
You sigh. “Fine. Thank you.”
“Have you eaten?”
You glance toward the living room, where your client is now squinting at wallpaper. “Not yet.”
“It’s almost two.”
“I am aware of the time.”
“Awareness isn’t lunch.”
You press your lips together, the beginning of a smile tugging there before you can stop it. “Did you call to scold me?”
“I called because your son has the organizational habits of a tornado.”
“My son?”
“He gets that from you.”
“Um, no, he absolutely gets that from you. You have six separate folders labeled ‘miscellaneous.’”
“They are different kinds of miscellaneous.”
“That sentence alone should make you ashamed.”
A quiet breath comes through the phone. “I’ll be at your studio in twenty,” he says.
“Okay.”
A pause. “Eat something.”
“You’re very bossy for someone delivering a notebook.”
“You’re very bad at lunch for someone who needs food to be alive.”
You roll your eyes, but your voice softens. “Drive safe.”
He is quiet for half a second. Then, “See you soon.”
The call ends.
You stand in the hallway longer than necessary, phone still in your hand, staring down at the dark screen.
It would be easier if Minho were colder.
You have thought that more times than you can count. It would be easier if he forgot things, if he showed up late, if he spoke to you with indifference, if shared custody had turned him into a polite stranger. It would be easier if the man who broke your heart had at least done you the courtesy of becoming someone else afterward.
Instead, he remains exactly who he has always been.
Twenty-four minutes later, your receptionist calls to say Jiho’s father is downstairs.
You find Minho in the lobby of your studio with Jiho’s notebook under one arm and a paper bag in his other hand. He is wearing a black coat over work clothes, hair neat but wind-touched, glasses sitting low on his nose.
He looks up before you say his name.
“Hey,” you say.
“Hey.”
For a second, neither of you moves. Then he holds out the notebook. You take it carefully. “Thanks.”
Minho lifts the paper bag next.
You look at it. “Notebook came with a side quest?”
“You didn’t eat.”
“I said not yet.”
“You always say ‘not yet’.”
You take the bag because refusing it would only make him stand there longer, and standing near him already pulls at too many seams. Inside is a wrapped sandwich from the café around the corner, fruit, and an iced coffee. Your order. Exact down to the extra shot and light ice.
Your fingers tighten around the handles.
“You remembered.”
Minho frowns slightly, as if the statement itself is strange. “You’ve ordered the same thing for four years.”
“People forget things.”
“I don’t.”
He says it without emphasis. Simple fact.
“Thank you,” you say, quieter.
His gaze moves over your face. “You look tired.”
“You say that like it’s helpful.”
“It’s true.”
“Truth and helpfulness are not the same thing.”
His mouth tilts. Barely. “You’re wearing two different earrings.”
You reach up quickly, touching one ear, then the other. One small pearl. One gold stud.
“Oh my god.”
“It works.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It looks intentional if you don’t panic.”
You glare at him, but there is no real heat in it. “How long were you going to let me walk around like this?”
“I just got here.”
“You noticed immediately.”
“Yes, well you design interiors. Maybe people thought it was a concept.”
A laugh escapes you and his eyes soften when he hears it.
Your phone buzzes. A text lights the screen.
Seungmin: Dinner Friday still good?
You turn the screen down too late.
Minho’s gaze flicks to it, then away. He says nothing, but something in his expression folds inward, a shutter drawn almost silently.
“It’s just dinner,” you say before you can stop yourself.
Minho looks at you.
You don't know why you said it. Maybe because the change in his face still has the power to make you explain yourself. Maybe because some terrible part of you wants him to care.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says.
“I know.”
A beat.
“Good.”
The word is polite. Flat. Perfectly reasonable.
It lands like a bruise.
You look down at Jiho’s notebook. “I should get back.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you Saturday for his game?”
“I’ll see you then.”
Minho never misses Jiho’s games. He stands along the fence with his hands in his pockets, saying very little, watching everything. When Jiho runs toward him afterward, sweaty and flushed and asking if he saw his almost-goal, Minho always says, “I saw.” And Jiho always beams like his father shouted across the field.
Maybe for him, it’s equivalent.
“Okay,” you say.
Minho nods once and turns to leave.
You wait until he is through the glass doors before you let yourself breathe.
On Saturday morning, Jiho’s soccer game takes place under a gray sky that keeps threatening rain and then losing interest. Parents gather along the sidelines with folding chairs and travel mugs, their conversations drifting above the field in soft bursts. You arrive ten minutes before kickoff with Jiho’s water bottle, an extra hoodie, and a packet of orange slices because you forgot it was your snack week until midnight and had to peel and separate them while half-asleep.
Minho stands near the fence in a navy sweatshirt and black joggers, arms crossed, expression neutral as he watches Jiho warm up. A paper cup of coffee sits on the grass by his shoe. Beside it is a second cup.
You approach slowly.
His eyes flick toward you. “You’re late.”
“I’m early.”
“Barely.”
“Good morning to you too.”
He bends and picks up the second cup, holding it out.
You stare at it.
“You’re predictable,” he says.
You take it. It’s warm through the cardboard. “That’s your explanation?”
“You like coffee when it’s lukewarm.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It’s a thing.”
Minho’s gaze moves back to the field.
You stand beside him, close enough that your sleeves nearly touch, both of you watching Jiho chase a ball with more determination than coordination. He is not the best player on the team, not even close, but he plays with his whole face, brows drawn together in concentration, mouth open as he runs. When he spots you, he waves so enthusiastically he almost misses the ball rolling past him.
Minho cups one hand near his mouth. “Jiho. Ball first.”
Jiho gives him a thumbs-up, then promptly trips over his own feet.
You wince. Minho doesn’t move, but his shoulders tense until Jiho pops back up.
Across the field, Jiho scores a goal by sheer chaos: the ball bounces off another kid’s shin, rolls toward him, and he kicks it with such surprise that everyone reacts half a second late. It goes in.
Jiho freezes, then turns toward both of you, face bright with disbelief.
You cheer immediately. Minho claps, once, twice, controlled but unmistakable. When Jiho keeps looking, Minho lifts both hands and gives him a small, firm nod and a smile.
Jiho’s smile widens.
“He’s going to talk about this for a week,” you say.
“Two.”
“Minimum.”
“He’ll ask me to build a trophy shelf.”
“You would.”
Minho takes a sip of his coffee. “Of course.”
You glance at him, and there it is again, the ache disguised as fondness.
After the game, Jiho runs over with muddy knees and grass on his sleeve, cheeks pink from the cold.
“Did you see?”
“Yes,” you say, crouching as he throws himself into you. “I saw.”
“I scored.”
“You did.”
“It was kind of an accident, but not fully.”
Minho crouches too, reaching to untie one of Jiho’s cleats before he tracks mud everywhere. “A goal is a goal.”
Jiho beams at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Can we get tteokbokki?”
You laugh. “That was fast.”
“I used a lot of energy.” Jiho looks between you with interest. “So can we get tteokbokki?”
Jiho pumps both fists, then immediately turns to you. “Are you coming too?”
The question hangs there.
Minho looks down at Jiho’s muddy cleats.
You look at Minho.
This is the kind of moment you have gotten good at stepping around. The harmless invitations from your son, the ones he asks because he doesn’t remember a time when you and Minho were anything but separate and therefore sees no reason why separate cannot still sit at the same table. To him, family is not one house. It is two adults who show up.
You should say you have work, which is technically true—you do have work.
Instead, Minho says, “Your mom might be busy.” An opening.
You look at him. His expression is calm, but he will not meet your eyes.
“I can come for a little,” you say.
Jiho grins. “Okay. Dad, you’re paying because you said no first.”
Minho stands with the cleats in one hand. “That makes no sense.”
“It does if you think about it.”
“I did. It doesn’t.”
You laugh softly as Jiho starts explaining his logic, all tangled reasoning and absolute confidence, while Minho pretends not to listen and opens the car door for him anyway.
Lunch is not uncomfortable. It should be awkward, sitting across from Minho in a small restaurant with Jiho between you, steam rising from a shared pan of tteokbokki, rain finally tapping against the front windows. It should feel like pretending.
Instead, it feels dangerously easy.
Jiho talks through half the meal, recounting his goal with increasing embellishment. By the third version, he has “dodged two defenders,” though you both watched the ball bounce directly to him. Minho lets him have it until Jiho claims he planned the angle.
“You did not plan the angle,” Minho says.
“I planned to kick.”
“That is completely different.”
“Angles are part of kicking.”
“You didn’t even know where your other foot was.”
Jiho considers this. “That’s true.”
You laugh, reaching over to wipe sauce from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. Jiho ducks away with an offended noise, but leans back in when Minho gives him a look.
After lunch, Jiho falls asleep in the backseat of Minho’s car before you even leave the parking lot. You stand beside your own car, rain misting through the air, holding the leftover container Minho insisted you take.
“Thanks for lunch,” you say after a moment.
Minho’s hands rest in his coat pockets. “Of course.”
A small smile tugs at your mouth. Minho looks at it, then away.
You shift the container in your hands. “Jiho’s happy when we do things together.”
“He is.”
“It doesn’t confuse him?”
Minho looks toward the car, where Jiho sleeps with his forehead pressed to the window, mouth slightly open. “He’s used to us.”
That should comfort you. It does, mostly, but something inside you twists anyway.
“He doesn’t remember,” you say.
Minho’s gaze returns to you.
“When we were together,” you clarify. “He doesn’t remember that.”
“No.”
“Sometimes I wonder if that made it easier for him.”
Minho is quiet for a moment. Rain beads on his dark hair, tiny silver points in the gray afternoon. Then he says, “Maybe.”
You wait.
He adds, “Or maybe he just knows we both love him.”
You look away because that is too simple and too much.
“He does know that,” you say.
Minho’s voice softens. “Good.”
You nod, but the word follows you home.
Good.
Always good. Never enough.
The family project begins the next Wednesday.
Jiho announces it at your dining table while eating noodles and arranging cucumber slices in order from smallest to largest.
“Ms. Park says we have to make something about our family.”
You look up from your laptop. “Something?”
“A project.”
“What kind of project?”
“Any kind.”
“That is very broad.”
“I know. It’s bad.”
You close your laptop halfway. “Did she give examples?”
Jiho nods. “A family tree. A poster. A drawing. A scrapbook. Junho is making his family as Pokémon.”
“That sounds fun.”
Jiho pokes at a cucumber slice. “I don’t want to do a family tree.”
“Why not?”
“Trees are boring.”
“Trees are cool. They provide oxygen.”
“My project doesn’t need oxygen.”
You concede with a nod. “Fair.”
He eats a noodle, thinking. His hair is still damp from his shower, sticking slightly to his forehead. Sometimes, in the soft light of the apartment, he looks so much like Minho it startles you. Not only the eyes or the set of his mouth, but the focus. The way he goes still when he is sorting through an idea.
“Can I make our family a house?” he asks.
Your hands pause on the laptop. “A house?”
“Yeah.”
“Why a house?”
He looks at you as if the answer is obvious. “Because you make houses nice inside, and Dad makes houses stand up.”
You stare at him for a moment.
Then you smile. “That’s one way to put it.”
Jiho looks pleased with himself and reaches for another cucumber. “So can I?”
“Of course you can.”
“Can I make two doors?”
“Sure.”
“One for your house and one for Dad’s?”
The question is simple. Practical. Unloaded by adult grief because Jiho doesn’t carry your history. Still, it presses somewhere tender.
“Yeah,” you say softly. “Two doors works.”
Jiho nods and begins sketching on the back of an old grocery list, tongue poking into his cheek. You watch him draw a rectangle, then a slanted roof, then three uneven figures in the doorway.
“Why are we all in one house if there are two doors?” you ask gently.
He shrugs. “It’s a project, Mom.”
You huff a laugh. “Right. My mistake.”
He looks up. “Also because it’s our family.”
Then he returns to his drawing, leaving you sitting there with the soft devastation of being corrected by someone who has never known your life any other way.
That weekend is Minho’s.
Jiho packs the project instructions into his backpack, along with two shirts, his math workbook, and a rock named Mr. Bite that you have been instructed not to call just a rock because that is apparently disrespectful.
At drop-off, Minho opens the door before you knock twice.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
Jiho pushes past you. “Dad, don’t step on Mr. Bite. He’s in the front pocket.”
Minho looks at you.
You lift your hands. “I don’t ask questions anymore.”
Minho crouches to unzip the front pocket of Jiho’s backpack, carefully removes the rock, and sets it on the narrow entry table beside his keys.
“Welcome back,” he tells it dryly.
Jiho beams. “See? Dad respects him.”
Minho just gives you a look. You press your lips together to keep from smiling.
Jiho kicks off his shoes and runs toward the living room. “I have a project!”
“I know, Mom told me,” Minho calls after him. “Take your socks off the floor.”
“They’re not on the floor.”
“They’re on the floor, I can see them.”
Jiho groans but returns to gather the socks.
You remain near the doorway, fingers curled around the strap of your bag. Minho notices. He always notices when you are preparing to leave, just as he notices when you linger.
“Busy weekend?” he asks.
“A little. Client meeting tomorrow morning.”
“And dinner?”
The question is even, too even.
You look at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Minho.”
His gaze drops to the keys on the table. “You said you had dinner Friday.”
“That was last week.”
“I know.”
You study his face, the careful blankness there. “Are you asking if I’m seeing him again?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m asking if Jiho needs to know anything.”
“Jiho doesn’t know about Seungmin.”
His eyes lift at the name. You wish you hadn’t said it.
“He doesn’t need to,” you add. “It’s not serious.”
Minho nods once. Something about that nod makes you tired. “You can say whatever you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“Lie a little better.”
His jaw moves slightly. For a second, you think he might actually say it. Something real. Something sharp enough to cut through the polite arrangements and shared calendars and careful handoffs.
But then, from the living room, Jiho yells, “Dad! Do you have giant paper?”
Minho’s gaze remains on you for a beat longer.
Then he turns his head. “How giant?”
“Like architect giant.”
Minho looks back at you, and whatever had nearly surfaced between you sinks again.
“I should go,” you say.
He nods. “I’ll bring him back Sunday at six.”
“Okay.”
You almost step away, then pause. “Make sure he does his reading log.”
“He will.”
“And no cereal for dinner.”
“It was one time.”
“It was three times.”
“Across several years.”
“Minho.”
He looks at you calmly. “I’ll feed him real food.”
“Thank you.”
You turn to go. Behind you, Minho says your name.
You stop.
He is still by the door, one hand resting against the frame. “Drive carefully.”
It’s such a small thing, and yet it still feels like love.
At Minho’s apartment, Jiho finds the storage tubes by accident.
He’s looking for paper, apparently unsatisfied by the large sketchpad Minho has already given him because it is ‘not building-y enough’. Minho lets him wander the edge of the office under supervision, watching as his son inspects shelves with the solemn curiosity of someone touring a museum dedicated entirely to boring adult objects.
“What’s that?” Jiho asks, pointing at the cluster of long cardboard tubes leaning in the corner.
“Old drawings.”
“Can I use one?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re old drawings.”
“Are they important?”
Minho looks at them. He should say yes and move on. Instead, he stands very still.
The tubes have followed him through two apartments, an office move, one breakup, and six years of telling himself that keeping things doesn’t mean waiting. He kept old project sketches from university, early firm work, competition drafts he never submitted. He kept things because architects are part archivist, part fool. The past piles up in paper if you let it.
But one tube is different.
He knows it without looking at the label. The label itself has faded, but he remembers his own handwriting.
house - personal
Jiho taps the tube lightly. “Dad?”
Minho blinks. “What?”
“Can I see?”
Minho’s first instinct is no. His second is no, more softly. His third is the thing that gets him into trouble: Jiho is looking at him with curiosity, not suspicion. To him, these are just papers. Lines. Rooms. Maybe something useful for a family project.
Minho pulls the tube free, dust clinging to the cardboard. He wipes it with his sleeve, then removes the cap.
The first sheet slides out with a sound that reaches farther back than he expects. Graphite lines. Measurements. Notes. The outline of a house that never stood anywhere except in his hands and your voice.
He sees your handwriting first, a small note near the kitchen.
not too cold! warm light here
He remembers you saying it, seven months pregnant, sitting cross-legged on the floor despite his repeated warnings that getting up would become a entire event. You had eaten half a bowl of strawberries and told him kitchens should not feel like showrooms because people were supposed to live messy lives in them.
He had told you that was not a design specification.
You had said, “Make it one.”
So he did.
“Dad?” Jiho asks.
Minho looks down at him. His son is waiting.
Minho should put it away. Instead, he hears himself say, “You can use this one.”
Jiho’s face lights. “Really?”
“Don’t rip it.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t draw over the notes.”
Jiho peers at the paper. “There are notes?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
Minho’s hand rests lightly on the edge of the sheet. “Mine. And your mom’s.”
Jiho looks up. “Mom helped?”
“Yes.”
“With a building?”
“With a house.”
“Whose house?”
Minho is quiet. Jiho waits, but not anxiously. Just curious.
Minho rolls the sheet carefully and hands it to him. “Ours,” he says.
Jiho accepts this with the easy adaptability of a child. “Cool.”
Then he runs off to draw over Minho’s ghost.
For the next two weeks, the project moves between homes.
It comes to your apartment rolled in a tube almost too big for Jiho’s backpack and returns to Minho’s with new marker streaks, colored pencil shading, uneven labels, and smudges from Jiho resting his wrist in the wrong place while coloring. You don’t see the full sheet at first. Jiho works on sections, guarding the main part with the seriousness of an artist preparing for a gallery opening.
You catch glimpses—a yellow window, a red front door, a backyard labeled maybe turtle?, and a square marked mom’s work room.
You help him choose colors for the interior, biting back the instinct to correct his proportions when he draws a sofa larger than the kitchen island.
“It’s a very big sofa,” you say.
“It’s for family movie night.”
Your pencil pauses. “Family movie night?”
“Yeah. At Dad’s, the couch is too small if we all spread out with our feet up.”
“We don’t usually all sit there together.”
“But if we did.”
He says it easily and keeps coloring.
You say nothing, stunned into silence.
Minho drops Jiho off one Wednesday evening with the project tube under one arm and a grocery bag in his hand.
“What’s that?” you ask.
“Jiho said your smoke detector was beeping.”
You stare at him. “So you brought groceries?”
“Battery is in the bag.”
“You brought a battery in a grocery bag?”
“There are also groceries.”
“Why?”
“Your fridge looked almost empty last week.”
Your mouth opens, then closes.
Minho steps past you before you can decide whether to argue, removing his shoes automatically. Jiho runs straight to his room, project tube clutched to his chest, yelling something about not looking because it’s not finished.
You follow Minho into the kitchen, where he sets the bag on your counter and begins unpacking as if he still lives there.
Eggs. Strawberries. Tofu. Rice cakes. The tea you like. Jiho’s yogurt drinks. A pack of batteries.
“Minho,” you say slowly.
“What?”
“You can’t keep buying my groceries.”
“I don’t.”
“You just did.”
“Some of these are for Jiho.”
“Some?”
He puts the strawberries in your fridge. “Most.”
“You bought my tea.”
“You get headaches when you work late.”
You turn away, pretending to inspect the smoke detector in the hallway. “I can take care of myself, Min.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Minho stills. The words sit between you, sharper than you intended.
You turn back. His face is calm, but there is something guarded beneath it now. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t.”
“I know,” you say, softening. “I just…”
You stop because you don’t know how to finish.
I just don’t know what to do when you still take care of me.
I just don’t know why you do it.
I just don’t know why you can do all this and still not tell me what it means.
Minho looks at you for a long moment. Then he reaches into the bag, takes out the batteries, and holds them up. “Where’s the ladder?”
You let out a tired laugh because of course that is where he goes. Back to the fixable thing. Back to the beep in the ceiling. Back to something with a beginning, a task, an end.
“In the closet.”
He nods and goes to get it.
That night, after Minho leaves and Jiho is in bed, you find a small container of sliced apples in the fridge.
Thin slices. Too thin for Jiho, who prefers wedges because they’re crunchier.
You stand there with the refrigerator light spilling over your bare feet, staring at apples cut exactly the way you like them, and feel something inside you slowly, painfully rearrange itself.
The project is due on Friday.
On Thursday evening, Jiho spreads it across your dining table for final touches.
“Don’t look too much,” he says, placing both hands over the center of the paper.
“I’m helping you glue cotton clouds.”
He allows you a corner.
You sit beside him with glue on your fingers while he narrates the layout, explaining which room belongs to whom, which window gets the best sun, where Mr. Bite would live if rocks needed bedrooms. You laugh when appropriate, ask questions when he wants you to, and try not to overstep.
Then Jiho reaches for a green pencil, and his sleeve drags across the paper.
For the first time, the center is fully visible.
You stop breathing.
Under Jiho’s bright marker house are lines you know with a familiarity that frightens you. Because your body remembers them before your mind catches up.
The angle of the staircase. The wide kitchen. The eastern-facing room marked for the nursery. The window seat tucked beneath the stairs because you once said every home needed a place to hide without actually hiding.
Your hand rises to your mouth.
There, beneath Jiho’s uneven blue shading, is Minho’s handwriting.
nursery morning light
Near the kitchen:
wide island for mama’s samples
Near the living room:
built-ins here? she wanted storage but not ugly storage
You aren’t aware you’ve made a sound until Jiho looks up.
“Mom?”
You try to answer. Nothing comes out.
He follows your gaze to the paper. “Did I mess it up?”
“No.” You say it too quickly, reaching for him. “No, baby. You didn’t.”
“You look weird.”
You let out an unsteady breath. “I just recognize this.”
“The house?”
You nod, fingers hovering over the notes. You don’t touch them. Some foolish part of you worries the pencil will vanish if you do.
“Dad said you helped,” Jiho says.
You look at him. “He told you that?”
“Yeah. He said not to cover the writing because it was important.”
Your throat tightens. “Did he say anything else?”
Jiho thinks, tapping the green pencil against his chin. “He said it was from before I was born.”
You close your eyes.
The house had started as a joke, then a fantasy, then something close to a plan. Minho drew it during the last trimester, when you were swollen and restless and unable to sleep. You would sit beside him at the low table in your old apartment and point at inspiration photos while he complained about impractical layouts and drew them anyway.
You had forgotten how much of yourself was in it.
No—that’s not true. You had tried to forget.
“Mom?” Jiho says.
You open your eyes.
He is watching you carefully, his small face drawn with concern. “Are you mad Dad gave it to me?”
“No,” you say. “I’m not mad.”
“Because I can ask him for different paper. It’ll take forever to redo but it’s okay.”
“No, Jiho.” You pull him close and kiss the side of his head. “This paper is perfect.”
He relaxes against you, warm and solid and still small enough to lean without thinking.
After a moment, he says, “Dad keeps important stuff.”
You stare at the paper. “What do you mean?”
“He has a box.”
“A box?”
“Not a box. A tube. And boxes.” Jiho frowns, trying to categorize the storage system. “He said some stuff is not for playing.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Pictures. Old papers. Baby stuff.” Jiho shrugs. “I saw my tiny hospital hat once. It was ugly.”
You laugh through the tightness in your chest. “It was not ugly.”
“It was kind of ugly.”
“It was adorable.”
“It was wrinkly.”
“You were wrinkly.”
He gasps. “Rude.”
You smile and smooth his hair.
He looks back down at the project, then reaches for the green pencil again. “Dad doesn’t throw away important stuff.”
You barely sleep.
Instead, you lie awake thinking about a cardboard tube in Minho’s apartment. About your notes in the margins. About the fact that he had kept the house for eight years. Not the final plan of a completed building, or a professional project worth archiving.
A dream. An unfinished future.
The next morning, you and Minho attend Jiho’s school presentation.
You arrive separately, which is how you arrive everywhere now. You get there first, sitting in one of the small chairs near the back of the classroom with your knees awkwardly angled and your tote bag tucked between your feet. The walls are covered in student work, paper planets, vocabulary words, and drawings of spring flowers. The room smells like crayons, pencil shavings, and whatever cleaner schools use that always reminds you of childhood.
Minho slips in five minutes later and spots you immediately. You lift a hand slightly as he comes over and sits beside you, leaving a polite amount of space between your chairs.
“You made it,” you say quietly.
“I said I would.”
“I know.”
He glances at you, and you feel the old ache again, the ache of things said plainly that still carry more weight than they should.
Jiho sees you both from the front of the room and waves with one hand, the other holding his rolled project. His smile is nervous but proud.
You wave back and Minho gives him a small nod and smile.
Jiho visibly straightens.
Ms. Park starts the presentations. A family tree. A poster about grandparents. A shoebox diorama with cotton-ball clouds. Copycat.
Jiho is fourth.
When his name is called, he carries his project to the front and unrolls it across the board with Ms. Park’s help. The paper is almost too large, curling at the edges despite the tape.
You feel Minho go still beside you.
For the first time, he sees what Jiho has done with it.
The dream house is almost hidden beneath color now, transformed by an eight-year-old’s imagination. The lines are still there, faint beneath marker and label and glue, but Jiho has made it his own. Flowers along the walkway. A huge sofa in the living room. A backyard. Three figures near the front door, their hands connected by one long line.
Jiho clears his throat. “My project is my family as a house,” he begins, reading from an index card he has clearly bent in half several times. “My mom designs inside places, and my dad designs buildings. So I thought a house made sense because houses need both or else they are either boring or falling down.”
A few parents chuckle. Minho exhales softly through his nose. You press your fingers to your lips.
Jiho continues, gaining confidence. “This is my room. This is Mom’s work room because she has a lot of samples and says they’re not trash even though they might be trash. This is Dad’s table because he draws buildings and says rulers disappear when you need them.”
Minho mutters, very quietly, “They do.”
Jiho points to the three figures. “This is us. We don’t live in one house, but we’re still family. Ms. Park said family can be people who take care of you.”
He glances toward you, then Minho. Then he looks back at the class.
“My mom says things a lot. Like, good job, and I love you, and please don’t talk to me from upstairs.” A ripple of laughter moves through the room, and Jiho smiles shyly. “My dad doesn’t say as much, but he remembers stuff. Like my cleats and snacks and when Mom likes apples cut thin.”
Your cheeks burn. Beside you, Minho taps his foot nervously.
Jiho shrugs, small and natural, one shoulder lifting. “Dad is just quiet. But I know he loves both of us.”
The room softens. However, this is still a third-grade classroom. A boy in the front row is picking at the rubber sole of his shoe, Ms. Park smiles with wet eyes she is trying to hide, and a baby cries from the back row.
But for you, everything narrows to Minho’s hand resting on his knee, fingers curled tightly into his palm.
Jiho finishes with, “That’s my family. Also, I want a turtle, but my parents said no.”
Jiho bows because apparently someone told him presentations require flair, then carries his project back to his desk with his ears bright red.
For the rest of the morning, you barely hear anything.
After the presentations, parents gather around the displays. Jiho drags both of you to his desk and shows you details he already explained, because pride requires repetition. Minho listens closely, asking small questions that make Jiho glow. Why this window? Why this room? Why is the turtle area larger than the kitchen?
“Because turtles need enrichment,” Jiho says.
“How do you know that word?”
“YouTube.”
Minho looks at you. You lift your hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
For a moment, it feels almost normal. Then Jiho runs off to show his friend where he drew Mr. Bite in the garden, and you are left standing beside Minho with the project between you.
You look at the old notes beneath the colors.
Minho looks at you. “I didn’t know he would say all that,” he says.
You nod. “I know.”
“I didn’t tell him to.”
“I know.”
A pause. Then you say, “But he’s right.”
The classroom noise swells around you, bright and busy, children calling for parents, chairs scraping, paper rustling. You should not have this conversation here, between desks and glue sticks and a bulletin board about fractions.
Minho seems to understand that too. He looks down at the project. “Can we talk later?”
Your heart starts beating too hard. You don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
That evening, Jiho goes to Minho’s parents’.
You spend the rest of the day working badly. You choose the wrong rug for a client deck, attach the wrong file to an email, and stare at one fabric sample for ten full minutes without registering the color. By five, you give up and close your laptop.
Minho texts at six-thirty.
Minho: Jiho is finishing homework. I can meet after dropping him off if you still want to talk.
You read the message three times.
Then reply—
You: My place?
His answer comes quickly.
Minho: Okay
At eight-forty, there is a knock at your door.
When you open it, Minho stands in the hallway wearing a black coat, hands in his pockets, face calm enough that only someone who knows him would notice the tension at the corners of his mouth.
You step aside and he enters quietly, removing his shoes. The old familiarity of it catches you off guard. He has always moved through your home carefully, even after it stopped being his. Never assuming too much. Never forgetting where things are.
“Tea?” you ask.
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
Despite everything, you smile a little. “Same old Minho.”
He looks relieved, though only for a second.
You walk to the dining table where Jiho’s project rests, rolled loosely. Minho’s gaze follows it. “I know I should have asked before giving it to him,” he says.
You turn. “That’s not why I wanted to talk.”
“I didn’t think.”
“I don’t believe that.”
His mouth tightens.
“You always think,” you say. “Sometimes too much.”
He looks down.
You touch the edge of the paper. “You kept it.”
“Yes.”
“All this time.”
“Yes.”
The same simple answer. The same unbearable calm.
You unroll the project carefully, smoothing the curling edge with your palm. Jiho’s colorful house fills the table, bright and sweet and imperfect. Beneath it, the pencil lines remain.
Your fingers hover over the note near the kitchen.
wide island for mama’s samples
“You remembered everything I wanted,” you say.
Minho stands across from you, hands still in his pockets. “Not everything.”
“Enough.”
His eyes lower to the paper.
You take a breath that does not quite steady you. “Jiho said you kept important things.”
Minho’s expression closes slightly.
“What else did you keep?”
He is quiet for so long that you think he will not answer. Then he softly says, “A lot.”
Your chest tightens. “Like what?”
“The first sketches.” His voice is low. “The paint samples you liked. The magazine pages you tore out. Ultrasound photos. Jiho’s hospital bracelet. Yours too.”
You press a hand to your mouth.
Minho looks away, jaw tense. “I know.”
“Know what?”
“That it’s strange.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“It’s not,” you repeat, firmer now.
He looks at you then, and the guardedness in his face hurts more than anger would have.
“Why?” you ask. The word comes out barely above a whisper.
Minho’s gaze drops to the project. For a moment, he is silent, thoughtful. And then he breaks it by saying, “Because it was ours.”
Your eyes close. It’s so Minho of him—plain, honest, and devastating without trying to be.
“I didn’t keep it because I thought we’d get back together,” he continues. “I didn’t let myself think that.”
You open your eyes.
He swallows. “But throwing it away felt like saying it didn’t matter.”
The first tear slips before you can stop it. Minho sees it immediately. His hand shifts at his side, instinct pulling him toward you, restraint holding him back.
You hate it. You hate that he no longer knows whether he is allowed to comfort you.
“It mattered,” you say.
“I know.”
“No.” Your voice cracks. “I don’t think you do. It mattered so much that when I thought you didn’t want it anymore, I didn’t know how to stay.” You wipe at your cheek, frustrated by the tears now that they have started. “I thought you fell out of love with me.”
His features tighten. For once, the silence that follows is not unreadable. It’s wounded. “You thought what?”
“You never said anything.”
His brows draw together, pain moving through the restraint. “I was there.”
“I know.”
“I came home to you every night.”
“I know.”
“I took care of you.”
“I know, Minho.” The words come out broken. “That’s what made it so confusing.”
He looks like he doesn’t understand. Or maybe like he’s beginning to.
You press your fingers against the table, grounding yourself beside the house you never built. “You did everything. You changed diapers and warmed bottles and made sure I ate and fixed every broken thing in that apartment. But after a while, I couldn’t tell if you were doing it because you loved me or because you were responsible.”
Minho says nothing.
“You were so quiet,” you continue. “And I was so tired. I kept waiting for you to tell me you were happy. That you wanted us. That you still wanted me, not just Jiho, not just the life we accidentally made around him.”
His eyes shine. “I wanted you,” he says. The words come out rough. “I wanted all of it,” he continues. “I thought you knew.”
You laugh once, softly, sadly. “I didn’t.”
His gaze drops. “I thought staying was saying it,” he says.
You look at him through tears. He lifts his eyes again, and this time, there is no distance left to hide behind. “I was wrong.”
The words settle between you. Not enough to erase years. But real.
You wipe your cheek. “When I told you I thought we didn’t want the same life, you said okay.”
Minho’s jaw tightens. “Because I thought you were telling me you wanted to leave.”
“I was asking you not to let me.”
Pain crosses his face. Quiet, but unmistakable. “I didn’t know how to fight without making it worse,” he says. “You were exhausted. You looked sad all the time. I thought if I asked you to stay, I would be asking you to keep being unhappy. So I said okay,” he continues. “And I hated myself for it.”
The room goes quiet. Outside, life continues with insulting indifference while you stand in front of the man you have loved for years and realize you were both lonely in the same house.
You look down at Jiho’s project. “He doesn’t remember us together,” you say.
“No.”
“He still drew us that way.”
Minho’s eyes move to the three figures by the front door, hands connected by one long crayon line. “He drew his family,” he says.
You reach for the back of a chair, but Minho steps around the table before you can fully steady yourself.
“Can I?” he asks.
It takes you a moment to understand what he means. Then you nod. “Please.”
And when his hand touches your arm, careful and warm, you fold toward him with a sound you wish you could keep inside.
Minho holds you. Not like a co-parent fulfilling some emergency comfort role. No, he holds you like someone who has known the shape of you for years and never forgot where his hands belonged. One arm wraps around your back, the other hand settling at the back of your head, his palm firm and familiar.
You cry into his chest, and his chin lowers near your temple.
“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s so quiet you almost miss it. Then again, stronger, “I’m sorry.”
Your fingers curl into his coat. “I’m sorry too.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Yes, I do.” You pull back enough to look at him. “I should have told you what I needed. I should have said it instead of testing you with silence.”
His thumb brushes your cheek, wiping a tear with such care it hurts. “You were tired.”
“So were you.”
“I should have told you anyway.”
You let out a shaky breath. “You’re telling me now.”
His eyes hold yours for a moment, deciding how much to confess. Then he says it. “I never stopped loving you.”
A breath escapes your parted lips, eyes welling.
Minho’s hand remains at your cheek, warm and steady. “I tried to stop. I thought I had to, especially when I saw you with someone else.” His mouth tightens faintly. “I was bad at it.”
A laugh breaks through your tears, fragile and wet. “At stopping?”
“At being normal.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. “You’ve never been normal.”
“I know.”
There’s that warmth again.
Then he grows serious.
“I love you,” he says. “I loved you then. I love you now. I was a fool for thinking you could hear it if I never said it.”
Your face crumples. “I was a fool for doubting you.”
“No,” he says immediately. “Don’t make it yours.”
“It’s ours,” you whisper.
He looks at you for a long moment before nodding once. “Ours.”
You lift your hand to his wrist, holding him there. “I never stopped loving you either.”
Minho closes his eyes. The breath he releases is unsteady, and that, more than anything, breaks your heart open. All this time, you thought his calm meant he had survived you. You never thought it might mean he was holding himself together.
When he opens his eyes again, they are damp.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
You almost laugh because after everything, after a child, a breakup, six years of shared custody, the question feels tender enough to undo you. “Yes.”
Minho kisses you carefully at first. Softly. Then your hand slides into his hair and his breath catches, and the carefulness thins into something deeper. He kisses you like he never stopped knowing how to. His fingers cradle your jaw, his other arm tightening at your waist, and when he tilts his head to kiss you again, you feel years of longing break loose all at once.
It’s not perfect.
There are tears. A shaky laugh against his mouth. When you finally pull back, his forehead rests against yours.
“I love you,” he says again.
You smile through the tears. “Practicing?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
His mouth curves. “Bossy.”
“You need repetition.”
“I’m learning.”
Your heart softens. From your phone on the table, a notification buzzes, but neither of you looks at it.
Minho’s thumb moves slowly along your cheek. “What about Seungmin?”
You lean back enough to see him. “There isn’t a Seungmin.”
His brow lifts slightly.
“There was dinner,” you clarify. “Twice. And coffee once, which you apparently think is worse.”
“It is.”
“It wasn’t serious.”
Minho looks down, almost embarrassed by his own relief.
You touch his cheek. “I think I was trying to prove I could move on.”
His eyes return to yours. “And?”
You shake your head. “I was bad at it.”
The smallest smile appears.
“Good,” he says.
You narrow your eyes. “That was smug.”
“No.”
“It was.”
“A little.”
You laugh, and this time, when he looks at you, he doesn’t look away. And then he turns and leads you down the hallway toward your bedroom and your heart is hammering so hard you can feel it in your throat.
“Minho—” you start, but he stops walking, turns, cups your face between both palms.
“I meant it,” he says, and his voice is low, rough around the edges, nothing like the careful, polite tone he used during those first awful years of shared custody. This is the voice he used to use when he’d wake you up in the middle of the night, mouth already finding your neck. “Every word. And I’m going to show you. If you’ll let me.”
You nod. It’s all you can do.
The bedroom door clicks shut behind you both, and the sound of it—that soft, final sound—sends a pulse straight between your thighs. The curtains are still open, late afternoon sunlight pooling gold across the rumpled duvet you didn’t bother making this morning. You didn’t know he was coming over. You didn’t know any of this was going to happen.
Minho turns you around slowly, hands settling on your shoulders. His thumbs trace the curve of your collarbone through the thin fabric of your t-shirt, and you watch his face in the dresser mirror across the room—the way his jaw tightens, the way his tongue wets his bottom lip.
“I’ve thought about this, about you,” he murmurs, “for six years.”
His fingers find the hem of your shirt. He doesn’t pull it up right away—just tucks his fingertips underneath, brushes them against the skin of your waist, and the contact is so light it makes your stomach clench.
Then he lifts your shirt.
The fabric slides up over your ribs, your breasts, and you raise your arms automatically, letting him pull it over your head. It falls to the floor somewhere, and you’re standing in front of him in your worn-in bra, the one with the stretched elastic and the faded color, and suddenly you’re acutely, painfully aware of every change in your body since the last time he saw you like this. Your arms twitch, instinct telling you to cover yourself.
“Don’t,” Minho breathes.
He catches your wrists and brings them back down to your sides.
“Don’t you dare hide from me.”
His gaze moves over you—your shoulders, the swell of your breasts, the softness of your belly that wasn’t there before. You feel exposed. Raw. But the way he’s looking at you—fuck, the way he’s looking at you—it’s like he’s staring at something holy.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says. “I mean it. Look at you. Look at how gorgeous you are.”
His hands move to your waist, palms sliding up your ribcage, thumbs hooking just beneath the underwire of your bra.
“I think about you,” he says. “Your skin. The way you smell. The sounds you make when I—” He cuts himself off, jaw clenching. “I’m going to take my time tonight. I’m going to worship every single inch of you until you understand how much I’ve missed you.”
He unclasps your bra with one hand—still remembers the trick of it, the way the hooks catch and release—and the straps slide down your arms. The fabric falls away, and your nipples tighten in the cool air of the bedroom.
Minho makes a sound low in his throat.
“Stunning,” he whispers. “Absolutely stunning.”
He leans in, and his mouth finds the curve where your neck meets your shoulder. The kiss is slow, open-mouthed, his tongue tracing a wet line along your skin. You shudder, and he feels it—you know he does—because his grip on your waist tightens.
“I’m going to kiss every part of you,” he says against your throat. “Every fucking part. Starting here.” His mouth moves down. Along your collarbone now, lips dragging, tongue flicking out to taste the hollow at the base of your throat. Your hands find his shoulders, gripping the fabric of his shirt because you need something to hold onto.
“Minho.”
He groans and sinks lower. His mouth finds the swell of your left breast, and he kisses the curve of it, his stubble scraping your sensitive skin, making your hips jerk involuntarily.
“I love these,” he murmurs, cupping your breast in his palm, thumb brushing over the peaked nipple. “I love how responsive they are. How hard they get when I barely touch you.”
He lowers his head and takes your nipple into his mouth.
The heat of it—the wet, sucking heat—makes your back arch. His tongue circles, slow and deliberate, and he watches your face the whole time, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. When he grazes his teeth over the sensitive peak, you gasp, and your fingers twist in his shirt.
“That’s it.” His voice is muffled against your skin. “Let me hear you.” He switches to the other breast, giving it the same attention, laving and sucking until you’re squirming, until your thighs are pressing together and there’s a damp heat building between them that’s becoming impossible to ignore.
But he’s not done.
Minho continues his path downward. His mouth traces the valley between your breasts, then lower—over your sternum, your ribs, the soft plane of your belly. He pauses at your waistband, pressing a kiss just above the button of your jeans.
“I remember every curve,” he says. “Every spot that makes you gasp. But I want to learn you again. All of you.”
He unbuttons your jeans with careful, deliberate movements, and the denim slides down your thighs. You step out of them, and then you’re standing in nothing but your panties—simple cotton ones, because you weren’t expecting anyone to see them—and Minho is kneeling in front of you.
Kneeling.
“You’re breathtaking,” he says, looking up at you, and the word comes out so sincere it makes your chest ache. “Every part of you. Your thighs—fuck, I dream about these thighs wrapped around my head.”
He presses a kiss to your left hip bone, then your right.
“These hips. The way they fit in my hands.”
His palms curl around your hip bones, thumbs stroking the sensitive skin just above the elastic of your panties.
“I’m going to take these off now,” he says, fingers hooking into the waistband. “And then I’m going to put my mouth on you until you come. And I’m going to watch you the whole time, because there’s nothing—nothing—sexier than watching you fall apart for me.”
The panties slide down your legs. You step out of them, and then you’re completely bare, standing in the afternoon sunlight while he stares at you like you’re the most exquisite thing he’s ever seen.
“On the bed for me, baby,” he says, and his voice has gone rough, ragged.
You move backward until your calves hit the edge of the mattress. He follows, still on his knees, crawling toward you in a way that’s almost predatory. When the backs of your thighs hit the duvet, he guides you down onto the mattress, spreading your legs with careful, gentle hands.
“So pretty,” he murmurs, settling between your thighs. His shoulders press against the inside of your legs, spreading you wider. “Look at you. So wet already, and I’ve barely touched you.”
His breath ghosts over your center, and your hips buck upward involuntarily.
“Minho, please—”
“Please what?” His eyes flick up to meet yours, and there’s a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Tell me what you want.”
“Your mouth. Please.”
He doesn’t make you wait. His tongue drags through your folds, broad and flat, and the sensation rips a moan from your throat that you didn’t know you were holding. He groans against you—groans, like the taste of you is the best thing he’s ever had in his mouth—and the vibration of it sends sparks up your spine.
“Fuck,” he breathes, pulling back just enough to speak. “You taste even better than I remember. I could stay here for hours.”
He dives back in. His tongue traces patterns against your clit—circles, then figure-eights, then a steady, pulsing rhythm that has your fingers twisting in the duvet. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s always known.
“Remember this?” He licks a slow stripe up the center of you. “Remember how I used to make you scream?”
You can’t answer. You can barely even breathe.
His mouth is relentless. Tongue flicking, lips sucking, the occasional scrape of teeth that makes you jerk and gasp. He’s watching you—you can feel his gaze burning into you—and every time your eyes flutter open, he’s there, dark and intent and so fucking aroused it’s written all over his face.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against your clit. “Let go. I want to feel you come apart on my tongue.”
Two fingers slide inside you, curling upward, finding that spot he always knew how to hit. Your back arches off the mattress.
“Fuck—Minho—fuck—”
“Yeah,” he growls. “Say my name. Scream it.”
His fingers pump in and out, his mouth working your clit with obscene, wet sounds that fill the room. The pressure builds, coiling low and tight, and you’re so close now, right on the edge, thighs trembling, hands fisting in his hair.
“I’m—I’m going to—”
“Do it,” he says, and his voice is raw, wrecked. “Come for me. I want to feel it. I want to watch your face—I want to see how fucking gorgeous you look when you shatter.”
The orgasm hits you like a wave—no, not a wave, something sharper, something that whites out your vision and wrenches a scream from somewhere deep in your chest. Your thighs clamp around his head, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down, just rides you through it with his mouth and his fingers and his low, rumbling groans that vibrate straight through your clit.
You come down trembling, gasping, and he’s still kissing you—softer now, gentler—pressing his lips to the inside of your thigh, your hip, your belly.
“Beautiful,” he’s murmuring. “So fucking beautiful. Wish you could see yourself. Feel good?”
You can only nod, chest heaving.
He rises up onto his knees, still between your thighs, and tugs his shirt over his head. You watch the fabric fly off to reveal his chest and your breath catches.
His shirt hits the floor. His hands move to his belt, and you watch him unbuckle it, unbutton his jeans, shove them down along with his boxers. His cock springs free—thick and heavy, the tip already glistening—and your mouth goes dry.
Fuck. You remember him being big, but you’d forgotten just how much he fills your hand. How much he stretches your pussy.
He strokes himself once, twice, his eyes locked on yours. “I need to be inside you. Please, baby. I can’t wait anymore.”
“Yes,” you breathe. “Now. Please.”
He settles between your thighs, the weight of him pressing you into the mattress, and it feels like coming home. His hips slot against yours, and you can feel the hot, hard length of him sliding through your wet folds—not pushing in yet, just rocking, coating himself in your slick.
“Look at me,” he says.
You do.
He pushes in. The stretch is breathtaking—literally, you forget how to inhale for a moment—and Minho groans, a long, shuddering sound that seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest. His forehead drops to yours.
“Fuck,” he grinds out. “So tight. So wet. You feel—fuck—you feel incredible.”
He sinks deeper, inch by inch, until he’s buried all the way inside you. He stays there, motionless, letting you adjust, and you cling to his shoulders, nails digging into his skin.
“Okay?” he breathes.
“More than okay. Move. Please.”
He pulls out slowly—agonizingly slowly—and thrusts back in with a roll of his hips that hits exactly the right angle. You gasp, and he does it again. And again. A rhythm builds, slow and deep, the kind of fucking that feels less like sex and more like a whole experience.
His hips roll, grinding against your clit, and your moan turns into a cry.
“Yeah, that’s it. That’s the sound I’ve been missing. Scream for me, baby. Let everyone hear how good I’m making you feel.”
The bed creaks beneath you, a steady, rhythmic counterpoint to the slap of skin against skin. He’s hitting that spot inside you with every thrust now, the one that makes your vision blur and your toes curl, and you can feel another orgasm building, building, building—
“You’re getting close again,” he growls. “I can feel it. Your pussy’s squeezing me so tight, baby. Come on my cock. Please. Wanna feel you come on my cock.”
His thumb finds your clit, pressing down in tight circles, and that’s all it takes.
The orgasm tears through you, sharper than the first one, and you scream his name, your nails raking down his back as your body clenches around him. He fucks you through it, groaning, his rhythm stuttering as he chases his own release.
“Gonna come,” he grits out. “Gonna fill you up—fuck—is that okay? Can I come inside you?”
“Yes. Yes.”
His hips snap forward once, twice, and then he buries himself deep with a sound that’s almost animalistic—a growl that rumbles through his chest and vibrates against your skin.
“Mine,” he grinds out, pulsing inside you. “Mine.”
You feel every spurt of his release, hot and wet, and he stays there, still buried deep, as his hips give one final, shuddering thrust.
Minho doesn’t pull out. He stays inside you, his weight pressed against you, his face buried in your neck. He whispers sweet nothings, kisses your skin softly before eventually rolling off you to clean you up.
He doesn’t stay the night—not that night.
It would be easy to let the moment swallow everything, to pretend one confession has rearranged all the years between you neatly enough for morning. But you are both older now. Softer in some places, more careful in others. There is Jiho to think about, and yourselves too, the versions of you that loved badly despite loving deeply.
So Minho leaves after midnight with your kiss still on his mouth and one of your hands caught in his until the last possible second.
At the door, he turns back.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” he says.
You lean against the frame. “Will you?”
His eyes soften at the question beneath the question. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
He takes a breath. “I love you.”
You smile. “I love you too.”
He nods once, like he is storing the answer somewhere permanent, smiles softly, then walks to his car.
The next weeks don’t become a fairytale—they become something better. They become deliberate.
Minho calls when he says he will. Sometimes the conversations are short, practical things about Jiho’s schedule or school forms, but he no longer lets them end there. He asks about your work. He tells you when a meeting went badly. He sends you a photo of Jiho asleep on his couch with Mr. Bite balanced on his chest.
He starts saying what he means before silence can do the damage for him.
I missed you today.
I wanted to tell you this earlier.
I’m not upset. I’m thinking.
You try too.
When fear rises, you name it instead of burying it. When you need reassurance, you ask, even when it makes you feel exposed. When Minho reaches for you in quiet ways, you let yourself see them without expecting them to replace words entirely.
Jiho notices, of course.
One Saturday morning, three weeks after the presentation, you go to Minho’s apartment for breakfast because Jiho has been lobbying for family pancakes. You arrive with strawberries and whipped cream, and Minho opens the door wearing a black T-shirt dusted with flour.
You stare at him.
He looks down. “Don’t ask.”
You laugh and step inside, pressing a kiss to his lips that he returns eagerly.
Breakfast is chaotic in the ordinary way of real homes. Jiho drops a strawberry then steps on it while trying to pick it up. You burn the first pancake because you are distracted by Minho standing too close behind you to reach the spatula, his hand settling briefly at your waist as he passes. Jiho talks through the entire meal about school, turtles, and everything else that pops into his brain.
Halfway through his second pancake, he looks between you and Minho. “You guys are being different.”
You freeze. Minho doesn’t, though his gaze shifts to you before returning to Jiho. “Different how?”
Jiho shrugs. “Just different.”
“Good different?” you ask carefully.
He thinks about it while chewing, then nods. “Less awkward.”
Minho huffs softly. You hide your smile behind your coffee.
Jiho points his fork at Minho. “You say stuff more, Dad.”
Minho’s ears turn faintly pink. You look at him, delighted.
“Do I?” Minho asks, voice even.
“Yes.” Jiho spears a strawberry. “You told Mom you missed her on the phone.”
Your eyes widen. Minho looks at you slowly.
You whisper, “Speakerphone?”
“I didn’t know he was listening,” Minho mutters.
“You also said something about coming, but then Mom never showed up,” Jiho says thoughtfully.
“Okay! I am never using my phone around you. Ever,” Minho says, pressing his palms to the table, ears red.
Jiho laughs, pointing to his dad’s obvious embarrassment.
You face palm yourself, cheeks flushed, but you can’t hide the laugh that slips out.
Minho reaches for his coffee, but his other hand brushes yours beneath the table. His fingers hook lightly around yours, hidden from Jiho’s view.
Jiho keeps eating, satisfied with whatever conclusion he has drawn. Then he says, “I like it.”
You look at him in question.
“Pancakes?” Minho asks.
Jiho rolls his eyes in the exact way Minho does, which is frankly unsettling. “Noooo. You guys.”
You feel your face soften, reaching over to wipe a bit of cream from Jiho’s cheek. “We like it too.”
Jiho nods once. “Good.”
Minho murmurs, “Bossy.”
“He gets it from you,” you say.
Jiho smiles around his fork. “I get my intelligence from myself.”
Minho rolls his eyes. “Finish your breakfast.”
Later, after the plates are cleared and Jiho disappears to the living room to introduce Mr. Bite to a new rock named Mrs. Chew, you stand at Minho’s sink rinsing mugs while he dries beside you.
His apartment is bright in the morning, sunlight touching the edges of the counter, the table, the project Jiho insisted on bringing home after it was graded. It is spread carefully near the window now, the vibrant house glowing over old pencil lines.
Minho follows your gaze. “I want to frame it,” he says.
You turn to him. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Where would you put it?”
He looks at the project, then at you. “Wherever we decide.”
The word moves through you slowly. We.
You lean against the counter. “That sounds like a big conversation.”
“It is.”
“Are you ready for that?”
Minho dries the mug in his hands carefully, then sets it down. He doesn’t answer right away, and once, that silence would have scared you. Now, you wait.
When he looks at you, his face is open. “I don’t want to rush Jiho,” he says. “Or you.”
You nod.
“But I want that life,” he continues. “The one I didn’t tell you I wanted clearly enough.” He turns to face you fully. “I want breakfast with you. I want your samples all over the table even though you call it organized and it isn’t. I want Jiho’s shoes in the wrong place and your tea in my cabinets and arguments about paint colors that are all white.”
A laugh breaks softly from your chest.
Minho steps closer. “I want the house,” he says. “Whatever it looks like.”
Your eyes burn again, but this time, the tears come with something warmer beneath them. You reach for his hand. “I want that too.” His fingers close around yours.
For a moment, you stand there in the kitchen with sunlight on the floor and your son’s laughter coming from upstairs, the future no longer a perfect drawing kept in a tube, but something alive and imperfect and waiting to be built carefully.
Minho lifts your joined hands and presses a kiss to your knuckles.
Then, because he is learning, because quiet love is still love but not the only kind you need, he says it.
“I love you.”
You smile. “I know.”
His brows lift in mock offense.
Laughing softly, you lean across the small space between you and catch his mouth with yours.
It starts briefly, meant to be teasing, but Minho’s hand slides to your jaw and suddenly he’s kissing you back, slow and familiar. The kind of kiss built from years of knowing each other. The kind that says everything neither of you has ever been particularly good at putting into words.
When you finally pull away, his eyes are warm.
You squeeze his hand and add, “I love you too.”
From the living room, Jiho calls, “Can Mrs. Chew come to Mom’s house?”
The moment shatters instantly.
Minho sighs, rubbing his eyes. “And there it is.”
You laugh. “Is Mrs. Chew another rock?” you call back.
A pause. Then Jiho says, “She’s family.”
Minho looks at you. You look at him. And in the bright, ordinary quiet that follows, the two of you begin again.
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