. . . d e l i r i u m | 7
you might be the one to take away the pain and let my mind go quiet /// sleep token, emergence
pairing: yeonjun x fem!reader
summary: sometimes love and hate exist on opposite ends of the map. other times, on separate floors of the same building.
genre: ex!yeonjun / enemies to lovers au / neighbour au
warnings: slow burn, angst, toxic parents, MUTUAL PINING, some strong language, suggestive themes, helpless flirting of course, some fluff too
words: 14.5k
[ ! ] this is a sequel to equilibrium
masterlist / read from the beginning
✦ • ─── SEPTEMBER 5, 2026. 7 AM
Yeonjun didn’t get much sleep that night. He hadn’t needed your text about Violet at seven in the morning; he’d already been awake, staring at the dim ceiling above his bed and actively dreading what he had to do today.
He tried to pinpoint the exact moment when he’d woken up and settled on shortly after three, when something had crashed in the storage room outside his bedroom. One of his old mattresses, as it turned out. It had been standing against the wall for weeks before evidently deciding it’d had enough. It hit the floor with a thud heavy enough to startle Violet into investigating.
Yeonjun had joked about Soobin’s poltergeists the night before, but at three in the morning he was considerably less amused.
For a while, he wondered whether it was a bad omen.
Eventually, deciding he’d lain there long enough, he climbed out of bed. The curtains in his flat made it impossible to judge the hour, but Violet had rattled the window frame not long ago. She kept a strict schedule, he knew.
He reached for his phone underneath his pillow and sat on the edge of the bed.
At least he had work today. Had to collect the car from the parking lot by the corner shop, too. He couldn’t wait to get outside.
But first, he had to get this done.
Drawing a slow breath, he scrolled through his contacts until he found his mother’s number and pressed call.
The line rang.
He rested his elbows on his thighs and stared at the floorboards beneath his feet. They were cold. A little dusty, too. He really ought to clean them. He’d been meaning to for days—
“Hello?”
He flinched at his mother’s voice.
He couldn’t tell whether she knew it was him calling. Objectively, she should have; his name would’ve been on the screen. But it had been so long.
“Hi, Mum,” he said.
“Hello, darling.” Her voice was as soft as he remembered. He felt as if he’d swallowed a stone. “You sound a bit muffled. Are you ill?”
Yeonjun cleared his throat.
“No. I’m—no.” He took another breath. “Listen, uh—I was thinking… have you and Dad got time?”
“Time for what, son?”
“For—well, for me.”
God, that sounded stupid. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his thumb against his forehead.
“I was thinking we could get a meal together sometime,” he amended. “Lunch, maybe.”
For a second, all he heard was static on the other end. He couldn’t remember the last time his mother had hesitated. The pause, brief as it was, caught somewhere in his throat.
“That sounds wonderful, darling,” she said at last, her voice every bit as bright as before. “We’re free today at three.”
Yeonjun tried to breathe past the pressure gathering in his chest. He’d have preferred next week so he could mentally prepare.
Actually, that wasn’t true. He’d have preferred the next lifetime.
“Sure,” he forced the word out. “Three sounds great.”
“Perfect. We’ll see you soon.”
He nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see him. “Yeah. See you.”
He remained where he was for several long seconds after the call ended, phone hanging loosely from one hand, staring at his reflection in the dark, faintly smudged screen.
Then he stood.
The rest of the morning dissolved into disconnected fragments: steam fogging the bathroom mirror, water splashing against the shower tiles. The smell of his mint shampoo. The apple skin getting wedged between his front teeth as he left his flat.
Did he lock the door?
He climbed back up the two storeys to check.
He had.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a proper breath.
✦ • ─── SEPTEMBER 5, 2026. 2 PM
Leaving the racetrack after work, Yeonjun slipped into his Mercedes. It took him three tries to turn the key in the ignition. Once the engine caught, he wrapped both hands around the wheel for a moment, feeling it vibrate against his palms.
Above him, the sky was heavy and grey. As he had feared, his wrist had begun throbbing again, each twinge travelling up his forearm.
He’d hoped to lose himself in the chaos of work—and there were plenty of distractions, to be fair—but he remained unsettled anyway. He’d dropped his breakfast bagel three times before he gave up. Now he was anxious and hungry.
He dialled Soobin’s number the moment the Mercedes rolled away from the curb.
“Hi,” he said when Soobin’s groggy voice filled the car. “Did I wake you?”
Silence.
Then:
“It’s two in the afternoon.”
Yeonjun considered that.
“What’s up?” Soobin added.
Yeonjun kept his gaze on the empty road ahead. Even the buildings around him looked duller than usual, as though the entire world had turned its saturation down.
“Guess where I’m going,” he said.
“Where’re you going?”
“To see my parents.”
Soobin was quiet for so long that Yeonjun glanced at the dashboard to check the call hadn’t disconnected.
“What?” Soobin finally asked. “Why?”
Yeonjun let out a slow breath. “Trying to fix what I still can.”
Rustling crackled through the speakers.
“Fix—fix what?” Soobin asked.
“I cut them off without ever setting a clear boundary first.” Yeonjun’s stomach grumbled, and he shuffled in his seat. “Mostly that.”
The city gradually receded behind him. Blocks of flats gave way to warehouses and garages, then open fields, dotted with clusters of trees. They stood motionless on the side of the road, as though watching him.
“Wasn’t cutting them off the boundary?” Soobin asked, his voice growing increasingly agitated.
Yeonjun lifted a hand to rub his jaw before his wrist reminded him of itself. Hissing, he returned both hands to the wheel.
“Don’t think it was,” he said. “The way Mum answered the phone, it sounded like she’d been waiting for me to call.”
Soobin sighed.
For nearly a minute, he didn’t say anything at all. Then he asked if this was about you.
Yeonjun felt something cold move through his chest, even though he’d expected the question from the start.
“It’s about everything,” he said.
“It’s—alright, look.”
More rustling.
Yeonjun pictured Soobin stepping out of the room, perhaps so Reina wouldn’t overhear him getting worked up. A door clicked shut.
“Alright,” Soobin said at last. “I thought—thought you and I had an understanding.”
Yeonjun glanced down at the steering wheel. He remembered Soobin’s warning to behave around you. Just the memory alone made him sink a little lower into his seat.
“We do,” he said.
“Right. So, then help me understand,” Soobin said. “Because from where I’m standing, it seems like you’d spent months trying to get away from your family. Then you start talking to her again, start going everywhere together, and now—now, all of a sudden, you’re driving back to see your parents.”
The tyres suddenly seemed louder against the asphalt. Yeonjun sensed that the worry in Soobin’s voice was amplifying his own.
“Tell me,” Soobin went on, “you’re not turning your whole life upside down because you think that’ll undo what happened in grad school.”
Yeonjun did not tell him anything.
“Because I will kick your ass if you are,” Soobin added. There was genuine hurt in his voice. “And I really don’t want to kick your ass.”
A reluctant smile tugged at Yeonjun’s lips as the car shifted gears. “Don’t worry. Your girlfriend sort of already did.”
“My—Reina?”
“Yeah. Why, you’ve got another one?”
Soobin groaned so loudly that the distorted sound through the speakers made Yeonjun wince.
“She’s my fiancée,” Soobin said.
“Alright. Your fiancée, then.” Yeonjun was smiling properly now. “She and I had a chat. She made a great point. Gave me a proper fright, not going to lie. Think it brought us closer.”
Soobin snorted. “Doubt Reina would agree with that.”
Yeonjun clicked his tongue.
“Now, why would you say that to me,” he said, “when I’m already so vulnerable?”
“Alright, get over yourself.” Yeonjun could practically see Soobin rolling his eyes. “Are you sure seeing your parents is a good idea?”
The navigation glowed on Yeonjun’s phone. A turn in six kilometres, then straight ahead for another ten.
He found himself wondering how often his parents saw each other now that he wasn’t there to pull them all back to the old house. Perhaps they held weekly meetings about him, comparing notes. It seemed likely. Or perhaps they’d hired someone to keep tabs on him.
He’d found everyone suspicious lately.
There was this guy at work, Franco—an engineer, technically, yet inquisitive as though he worked for the national intelligence. Then there was Mr Jung, your neighbour, who seemed to crack his door open every single time Yeonjun came upstairs to pick up Violet.
“No,” Yeonjun admitted finally. A few clouds parted, making room for the sun, and he squinted. “But avoiding them doesn’t seem like a good idea, either.”
Soobin didn’t respond. The indicator clicked twice before Yeonjun realised he hadn’t meant to turn yet, and he clicked it off.
“And this isn’t something I’m doing for her,” he added. “It’s something I should’ve done years ago. I’ve just been ignoring it all this time, but it—my parents are still there. So the problem is still there. I can’t live with the constant threat.”
Another sigh drifted through the speakers.
“I still don’t like this,” Soobin said.
Yeonjun let out a quiet breath. “I know.”
“Your mum’s not going to take this well at all.”
“She probably won’t.”
Soobin was quiet for another half a minute. Yeonjun heard his doubts in the silence; he knew Soobin didn’t think this would make a difference.
Yeonjun suspected he might be right. But this was the first step in his plan to finally stand up for himself. He’d find another way if this didn’t work.
“Promise me something,” Soobin said.
Yeonjun glanced at his rearview mirror; the road behind him was empty. “What?”
“The second you start apologising for shit that’s logically not your fault,” Soobin said, “you’ll stand up and leave. You won’t stay because you think you owe them something, or because your mum starts crying—you’ll just leave.”
Yeonjun closed his eyes for a second before opening them again.
“Okay,” he said. “Yeah. I’ll leave.”
“You—you’re allowed to disappoint them. They’ll survive.”
Glancing at his navigation again, Yeonjun exhaled.
That had sounded right; he just wasn’t certain if he’d fully internalised it yet. He supposed he was about to find out.
“Yeah,” he said, and didn’t manage anything else.
“And come home alive, would you?”
One corner of Yeonjun’s lips twitched. “I’ll try, yeah.”
The road ahead was grey and desolate; just him and a handful of crows hopping between distant fence posts and electrical wires, conducting, clearly, very important crow business.
Yeonjun and Soobin sat in silence for another minute without hanging up. It was their way of saying I love you to each other.
After another minute, Yeonjun finally smiled. “Alright. Later, then.”
“Yeah.” Soobin exhaled. “Text me when you’re done. Good luck.”
✦ • ─── SEPTEMBER 5, 2026. 3 PM
It wasn’t supposed to be a particularly grand occasion.
Really, it was only a meal.
And still, the dining room looked as though his parents were expecting to host a banquet or perhaps a wedding. Yeonjun found himself peering through the window toward the neighbouring house, just to make sure he wasn’t accidentally getting married to anyone living there today.
Neither of his parents said a word after they sat down.
His distance from them had started as his New Year’s resolution. Back then, cutting his parents off had seemed like the sensible thing to do. He’d just returned home after months in Campbeltown and realised he couldn’t force himself to see them again.
In the beginning, his mother had tried to reach out every day. After four days of unanswered calls and unread messages, she’d stopped. Yeonjun had assumed she’d understood.
In truth, a part of him had suspected he’d end up back here eventually. He knew he’d have to look them in the eye and explain why he didn’t want to do this anymore.
Still, he’d been afraid they wouldn’t hear him. Wouldn’t listen.
But then he realised he’d been afraid that you wouldn’t listen, either, and you had.
He owed himself to try here, too. He thought he’d grown a lot over the past year.
Yet, sitting opposite his parents in the old dining room, Yeonjun discovered the house hadn’t changed enough to let him believe he had either. Everything here, from the polished marble floor to the silver-framed family photographs, still felt performative and lifeless.
He watched the warped reflections in his spoon and thought about how funny this was. The clock in the corridor behind him still ticked; the same one he’d broken when he was twelve and, bored at home, attempted to skateboard down the stairs. His mother had been livid. Rightfully so, probably. It was a very nice clock.
Yeonjun felt as though he’d never truly left.
“Well.” His father’s voice startled him. “It’s been a while since we’ve all sat down together like this. The whole family.”
Yeonjun reached for his water. Over the rim of the glass, he caught the briefest flicker of irritation on his mother’s face. It was gone a moment later.
“Sure,” he said, meeting his father’s gaze. “Been a while since we’ve actually been a family, too.”
His father blinked. The words seemed to fold him inward, his shoulders sagging.
His mother, on the other hand, straightened in her chair across the table, her chin lifted.
“What was that, darling?” she asked. Her smile remained immaculate.
It struck him that he’d become part of her performance. She’d never bothered to perform for him before.
So it really had been a while.
“Nothing,” he said, setting his glass down carefully. The pounding in his ears had long since drowned out the ticking clock. “Just saying it feels like we don’t even know each other.”
His mother’s smile reflected in the glossy porcelain of her untouched plate.
“Ah.” She tilted her head almost sympathetically. “Well, if you visited more often, son, perhaps you wouldn’t feel that way.”
Yeonjun smiled. He’d been expecting this one.
Across the table, his father drained his water in a single swallow. His white shirt looked almost yellow beside his wife’s flawless cream dress.
“I don’t really know what reason I’ve got to keep visiting,” Yeonjun said. He kept his eyes fixed on his mother. “I’d probably get more warmth talking to a stranger at a bus stop.”
For the first time, her lips twitched at the corners. Her eyes narrowed.
Then, with a small lift of her eyebrows—a trick he’d seen many times before—she reset her expression.
“Well then, darling,” she said, “there’s clearly something the matter with you.”
“There is.” His words were out before she’d finished speaking. “I never had a normal family. That’s what’s the matter with me.”
His mother opened her mouth. Before she could speak, his father suddenly shoved his chair back. The wooden legs shrieked across the marble, forcing the sound to ricochet through the room.
“Son,” he said. He sounded genuinely alarmed. “Where—what is this? Where is all this coming from?”
For one dangerous moment, Yeonjun felt guilt tighten his throat—efficient, as always. He hadn’t meant to make him worry and felt a reflexive urge to take everything back.
But then he watched his parents exchange a glance. Watched his mother shrug, as though she was answering the question for him. As though she could explain him better than he could.
No.
He wouldn’t let her speak for him.
“It’s always been there,” Yeonjun said. His father turned back to him. “Let’s be honest, we’ve never had a real relationship. You’ve never been part of my life. Not when I was growing up, and certainly not now.”
His father’s brows furrowed. “That’s not—”
“That is true,” Yeonjun cut in. “You think you were there because you’ve seen the photographs. But someone else took them. The nannies, the cooks. Whoever was around. You were never there, not even to ask how I was doing. The only people I had real relationships with in this house were the ones you called staff.”
The dining room was suddenly smaller. Heat settled over the three of them, thick and stale, until Yeonjun felt like he was sitting inside an oven. He became acutely aware of his parents opposite him.
“Darling, please.” His mother’s voice promptly restored the distance. She sounded tired now, as though this conversation was already running longer than she’d expected. “What is this sudden tantrum? We’re all adults. Of course our relationship as a family is different now.”
Yeonjun let out a breath. Predictably, she’d missed his point.
“Yeah.” He nodded once, smiling without humour. “The relationship we have now exists because you believe families are supposed to spend time together, so we perform the ritual, too. But it’s not real. S’never been real. It—”
His voice fractured. He inhaled sharply, felt the air fill his lungs like heavy, damp wool, and nodded to himself.
No one spoke until he did.
“That’s it,” he said. “S’enough. I’m not going to keep pretending we’re a family. I came here to tell you I’m done.”
His mother’s smile disappeared.
Yeonjun couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the straight line of her lips. She looked older at once. Beautiful, of course, always, but aged almost beyond recognition.
It was his father clearing his throat that pulled Yeonjun’s attention away from her.
“W-what exactly are you saying here, son?” he asked.
He tried to smile, perhaps to reassure Yeonjun or just himself, but it never reached his eyes.
“I’m saying we stop this theatre production,” Yeonjun said. “If you can’t accept me for who I am, or accept the people who matter to me, we’re never going to be a family. Can’t fake our way into becoming one.”
“That—” His father barely managed the word before a sharp flick of his mother’s wrist cut through the air.
She didn’t even look at him. “Could you leave us alone for a moment?”
Silence settled over the room.
Then, to Yeonjun’s surprise, his father remained seated. He looked at him.
“Do you want me to leave, son?” he asked.
Yeonjun simply stared. His father had never asked what he wanted before, not when his mother could answer for him.
“Please,” his mother said, her voice cool. “This is obviously between Yeonjun and me.”
Still, his father waited.
It was such a small gesture, yet it felt enormous. Something tightened between Yeonjun’s eyes.
“S’okay, Dad.” He lowered his gaze. “Won’t take long anyway.”
Hesitant, his father glanced towards his wife.
Yeonjun realised he no longer recognised what had passed between them. Either their language had changed, or his understanding of it had.
Finally, his father stood. This time, his chair scraped softly against the marble.
Yeonjun watched the folds of the white tablecloth as his father left the table. Across from him, his mother did the same. Her lips were pursed as if she was exhaling smoke from a cigarette. He wondered whether she still pretended not to smoke whenever he visited.
His father’s footsteps faded into the corridor. Neither of them moved until a distant door clicked shut.
Then his mother rose from her chair.
“It’s the girl,” she said. “Isn’t it? That’s what this is really about.”
Yeonjun swallowed.
You’d been right, then. She hadn’t forgotten you.
Why would she, really? Yeonjun hadn’t forgotten either, and clearly they were more alike than he’d ever wanted to admit.
“Actually,” he said, standing as well, “this is about you and me.”
His mother rolled her eyes. “Are the dramatics necessary, Yeonjun?”
The name caught him off guard. He wasn’t darling, dear, or son to her right now. Just Yeonjun.
Strangely, it was the most honest she’d sounded for as long as he could remember.
“Funny you should call that dramatic,” Yeonjun said. “Personally, I don’t think it comes anywhere close to threatening to have my girlfriend kicked out of university and shipping her to a different continent just to keep her away from me.” He tilted his head. “That, I think, was a masterclass in dramatics. Compared to you, I’m still a beginner.”
The muscles around his mother’s mouth tightened. That was confirmation enough; she’d organised all of it.
“Is she your girlfriend, then?” she asked.
Yeonjun ran his tongue across the back of his teeth. He watched her step around the dining table with measured, unhurried movements until she reached the edge of the raised platform beneath it. Even angry, she carried herself like she knew she had an audience.
“She isn’t, actually,” Yeonjun said. “Thanks to your hard work.”
His mother clicked her tongue—in a way she couldn’t stand in other people—and turned away.
“Now,” she said, “don’t pin this on me. You and I have talked about it, and you—”
“No, we haven’t, actually.”
She spun back towards him so sharply that outrage flashed across her face before she could smooth it away.
Yeonjun understood; how dare he interrupt.
“You talked to me,” he continued anyway. His jaw ached from how tightly he’d been clenching it. “I listened. Didn’t think I was in any position to disagree with you.”
“But you think you are now?”
The mockery in her expression, one eyebrow raised, lips gently pursed, was remarkably elegant.
“I think I always was,” he said, surprised by the steadiness of his own voice. “I just didn’t have the courage to stand up to you. You’re supposed to be my mother.”
Her eyebrow lowered. “I am your mother.”
Yeonjun released a breath so slowly that he could almost hear the air leaving every corner of his lungs. He looked down at the pale marble beneath his shoes.
“I don’t think parents should hurt their children,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
When he finally dared to raise his eyes, her lips had parted almost imperceptibly. Her eyes fluttered shut for a fleeting second. Then she was perfectly composed again.
“We’ve already discussed this,” she said. “Everything I do is for your own good. I’d have hoped you’d realised that by now.”
He lifted his head. A pulse beat against his throat.
“It’s for your own good, Mum.” His hands had curled into fists before he’d noticed. “None of this has ever been for me. You handcrafted my entire life. Every opportunity, every friendship.” His voice roughened. “You kept sanding away every part of my life that didn’t fit your ideal. But my relationships aren’t your toys. They’re not your—not your fucking projects.” He watched her flinch at the language, but couldn’t bring himself to stop now. “And I’m not someone you get to mould into whatever perfect fantasy you’ve got in your head. I’m not a doll.”
She watched him without blinking. He didn’t recognise the expression in her eyes.
“Whether you want to or not, Yeonjun,” she said, the quiet superiority never leaving her voice. “We are a family. And that is no way to speak to your family.”
“I think it’s very obvious that we aren’t.” He watched the sunlight catch the sharp line of her profile. “And we never will be, not while you refuse to see me as a person.”
Her brows furrowed into a brief frown. “You’re my son.”
He clenched his teeth. “Mhmm. And what does that mean to you?”
“It—”
“You think it means I’m your property,” he said before she could answer. “Means you can do whatever you want with me, and I don’t get to resist. Means I’m yours to bend. And if I don’t let you, I’m ungrateful and rude.”
Her gaze stayed fixed on him for a long moment before turning towards the wall of windows overlooking the garden. The leaves on the trees outside shifted lazily in the afternoon breeze. Even they had been planted exactly where she’d wanted them.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said.
Yeonjun almost laughed. “Are you?”
“Of course,” she said. “As a mother, it hurts me to hear that my child feels like this.”
He searched her face: the crease between her brows, the quiet indignation behind her eyes.
He realised that they still weren’t having the same conversation at all.
“How do I feel?” he asked.
Her frown deepened. “What?”
“Repeat it back to me.” His throat was dry. “What I’d just said.”
The silence in the dining room stretched.
He waited, even though he knew she’d never admit, not even in his own words, that she’d treated him like something to be managed. He half-expected her to roll her eyes.
Instead, she lowered her gaze.
“You feel,” she said, “that I haven’t been a good mother.”
His eyes flashed.
“No.” His fingernails dug deeper into his palms. “I never said whether you were good or not. I said you see me as something you can show off. Said you need to control every single part of my life, because you think it all reflects on you.”
“So you’re telling me I should stop caring about what happens to my own child, then.”
“No,” he said.
He wanted to leave.
“No,” he repeated.
He wanted to leave.
“I’m telling you what it felt like,” he said, “to be the child you were raising. It didn’t feel—didn’t feel like I got to be a child at all. Just an extension of you.”
His mother crossed her arms, then uncrossed them again. She smoothed one sleeve down and adjusted the golden band on her fourth finger.
It felt odd, seeing her restless. Perhaps this was another thing he’d inherited from her.
Eventually, she turned away, staring at the edge of the windows rather than looking through them.
“That still means you’re unhappy with me, then,” she said, so quietly that Yeonjun felt his stomach tighten. “Seeing as we’re having this conversation right now.”
He forced himself to take a slow breath and think about what Soobin had said on the way here.
He didn’t owe her reassurance. Didn’t owe her comfort.
“Yeah,” he said at last. “I am unhappy.”
“I see.”
She looked down.
Yeonjun followed her gaze. To his surprise, he recognised that the shoes she was wearing were the deep black Jimmy Choos he’d got her for her birthday years ago. The crystal straps around the ankles looked like frost under the lights.
He couldn’t remember ever seeing her wear them.
“You don’t understand what it is like,” she said. Her voice became smaller, and his gaze snapped back to her face. “To spend your whole life working to build a happy life for your child. And then miss the moment your child grows up because you were w-working.” She pressed her trembling fingers against her lips. “Everyth—everything I did, I did it for you.”
The sob seemed to catch even her off guard. Within seconds, tears were running freely down her face.
Yeonjun was so startled that he could hardly move.
“I did everything so you’d have a good life,” she managed between ragged breaths. “So hearing you talk about it like it meant nothing—it’s extremely hurtful. I don’t understand how you can—how you can believe I’ve never had your best interests at heart.”
Yeonjun swallowed hard. He had seen her cry before, at charity events, funerals, arguments where she believed she’d been treated unfairly. This time, though, she wasn’t watching him to check his reaction.
It unsettled him.
“I believe that’s what you believe, Mum,” he said. “But they weren’t my best interests. They were your—”
“No,” she cut across him, and this was the closest she’d ever come to shouting. “They were for you. So nobody could ever dismiss you. So doors would open for you, because people would know you came from a respectable family. They’d look at you and see that you’d been brought up by good, hard-working people.”
Yeonjun tried not to smile at the irony.
He had been brought up by good, hard-working people. They just hadn’t been his parents.
“But do you hear what you’re saying, Mum?” he asked. “You’re talking about people looking at me, but seeing you.”
The vast dining room seemed to shrink another inch around him. With every word, the minimal certainty that had brought him here ebbed further.
He felt seven years old again, standing in the doorway of his mother’s office with both hands held out.
Can I please have a hug, Mum?
Not right now, darling. I’m busy.
He straightened his fingers.
“I’m not your property,” he said. “Not your mirror. I’m a—I’m a person.” His eyes stung. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth until the tightness went away. “And if you’d ever taken the chance to know me, you might’ve actually liked who I became.”
His mother hiccuped, and a fresh sob escaped before she could stop it.
For nearly a minute, she said nothing. The clock in the corridor seemed absurdly loud now.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He stood beside her, with his hands hanging uselessly at his sides and a knot forming slowly in his stomach.
It seemed to him she was crying because his pain wounded her pride. Because his feelings contradicted her reality. He knew he owed it to himself to say all of it. But she was still his mother, and she was crying.
A terrible guilt reached places inside him that anger couldn’t touch. He forgot Soobin’s warnings.
He was already on the verge of apologising when she lowered herself onto the edge of the platform and covered her face with both hands.
His words died in his surprise.
After a long while, he sat carefully beside her. The marble felt cool beneath his trousers.
“When did this start?” she whispered, lowering her hands and rubbing them together. “When did you start feeling like I—like I wasn’t treating you like my son?”
Yeonjun looked out at the garden. The trees swayed gently beyond the glass.
It had always been that way, he thought. As far back as he could remember. She’d displayed him like a prize-winning horse from the moment he could walk.
But if he said that now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to say anything else afterwards. She was asking him questions. He had to give her answers.
“I think after Alain left,” he said, looking down at his hands. “He was… he was the closest thing to a brother I’ve had. The one person who understood that growing up in a family like this looks wonderful from the outside, but it isn’t. And then… you—you just chucked him out.”
“You—” She hiccuped again. “W-we thought you wanted him gone, too.”
Yeonjun felt a sharp pang in his chest.
“Why would I, Mum?” His voice stayed gentle. “He and I were fighting. That—it happens sometimes. It didn’t mean I wanted him out of my life.”
Something shifted in her expression. Fresh tears gathered in her eyes.
“You never said anything,” she whispered.
You didn’t ask, Yeonjun wanted to say. You never asked.
“I know,” he ended up saying. His fingers found the cuff of his sock and tugged at it. “I didn’t think it would’ve made a difference. I was young. Suppose a part of me thought my parents knew best.”
His mother inhaled. As she lowered her head, a mascara-darkened tear slipped from her cheek and landed on the marble between them. The stone darkened.
Yeonjun found himself waiting for her to stand up and call someone to clean it, but she didn’t seem to realise the stain was there.
“You don’t think that anymore,” she said.
“No.” He rubbed a hand along his ankle. “I don’t.”
Outside, the peonies bowed beneath the weight of their blooms, their branches brushing against the neighbouring roses.
“And it’s the same now,” his mother said eventually. “With this girl.”
Yeonjun watched the window. He could see their reflections floating faintly in the glass: his mother’s white dress, his white shirt. Even sitting apart, they looked strikingly similar.
Slowly, he said, “I love her, Mum.”
His mother breathed out and didn’t speak for a long time.
Yeonjun wondered what was happening inside her head, but didn’t ask. He knew he’d earned this conversation, but he hadn’t earned her thoughts.
“There’s nothing I can say,” she murmured finally. “Is there?”
He shook his head. “Not if you want me to come back.”
The tears had stopped. Mascara clung beneath her eyes in uneven smudges, but she made no attempt to wipe them away.
“I knew this would happen,” she said quietly.
Yeonjun felt a hundred responses surge into his throat, every argument and every scream he’d swallowed over the past year.
“Why did you do it, then?” he asked, quieter than he’d intended. He’d lost all sense of his limbs. “If you knew what it’d do to me, why’d you call me that morning and force me to make that choice for us?”
She closed her eyes, drawing in a sharp breath.
It was the us that undid her, he knew. She still couldn’t accept that you and him could be one unit.
“I was protecting you,” she said, and he heard the distant echo of her voice on the phone at his old house, over a year ago, while you’d been blissfully unaware of it all upstairs. “I am always protecting you, son.”
“From what?”
“From making mistakes. She—”
“I made a mistake anyway,” he said. She opened her mouth, but he continued before she could speak: “By listening to you and choosing one of your options.”
He felt her stiffen beside him on the platform. Her gaze flickered towards him before slipping away again, as though she was afraid of what she’d find sitting beside her.
She didn’t speak.
“She’s back now,” Yeonjun continued. “And I’m trying really hard to make things right.”
His fingers tapped against the edge of the platform in a nervous rhythm.
He braced for another threat, another ultimatum, but his mother still did not move.
“A-and I need you to understand,” he added, looking down, “that I will always keep trying. If you can’t accept that—then, that’s it. I’ll leave. And I really won’t come back this time.”
She turned towards him. He looked away before he could meet her eyes.
She understood anyway. Everything she’d spent decades building for him—the inheritance, the name, the status, the connections—he’d leave behind without looking back.
Her gaze returned to her hands. She stared at them for a long moment.
“You have to understand,” she said, “that this isn’t easy for me.”
His heart lurched.
The tapping against the marble grew louder until he realised it was his own fingers still drumming against the platform.
“S’not easy for me, either,” he said. “But I’m—m’not asking your permission, Mum.”
Her jaw was tight. “So this is it, then?”
Yeonjun thought it was. Then he thought that he didn’t want it to be. He wanted, quite desperately, for her to simply stand up, hug him, and tell him she understood.
He realised that, despite everything he’d told himself on the drive over, some stubborn part of him had still come here hoping he’d have a home to come back to.
“I-I want you in my life,” he said. “But as my support system. I need to be the one making decisions about what happens in my life.”
She tried to inhale, but her breath caught halfway. Parting her lips, she tried again.
“But you know there are conditions,” she said, her voice thinner now, “that come with being part of this family—”
“No.” He gave a firm shake of his head. “Being a family doesn’t come with conditions.”
She folded her hands together over her knees. “It isn’t that simple. We’ve never been people who could simply do whatever we wanted. We have to think about how we’re seen. And I understand that you’re sensitive about this, but—”
“I’ve spent my whole life being seen, Mum,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “And I don’t care about being impressive. Never have.”
A sorrowful expression crossed her face. “Surely you realise how childish that sounds, son.”
Clicking his tongue, Yeonjun turned back towards the garden. The neighbouring house just beyond the trees glowed a brilliant white in the late afternoon sun.
“Look,” he said, brushing his palm against the edge of the platform. “All I’m saying is just let me be, okay? I know myself. I’ll work hard. I’ll build a career. I’ll make mistakes; probably plenty of them. But I’ll be alright in the end. Have been so far, despite everything.”
His mother swallowed heavily beside him.
She studied the reflection of his face in the window and tried to look past the version she’d introduced at charity events and described to her colleagues.
Her son.
The mere thought of his mistakes backfiring on him made something inside her itch with a familiar intensity. She knew it well. She’d spent years doing everything she could to make sure every choice he made was safe, productive, and beneficial.
But the choices hadn’t been his.
He wanted them to be his.
“You…” Her eyes dropped to the lines running through the marble beneath her heels. “You’ve grown into someone I don’t know anymore.”
He felt her words press into his chest.
She hadn’t meant it as a compliment; she’d sounded wounded. He felt inexplicable pride blooming inside him anyway.
“I’d like to show you who I am,” he said. “But I need you to trust me.”
The silence between them returned.
She’d never thought about trust inside a family.
She knew she trusted her parents, but she’d never considered whether they trusted her. They gave her this life, she knew – they’d introduced her to her husband, planned the wedding, discussed how many children she’d have.
They didn’t ask what she wanted or if she was ready. They didn’t have to. She knew she had to do what was expected. And she’d done it – she’d worked hard, been responsible. She’d been grateful.
And now she was sitting on the floor of a beautiful house she’d spent years building but barely lived in, beside the son she’d spent almost twenty-seven years raising, feeling as though she’d never spoken to him before.
It’d been over nine months since she’d seen him last.
She’d felt every day, every twenty-four hours, of those nine months.
“I feel,” she said slowly, “like I have to walk on eggshells around you now.”
Yeonjun let out a weary breath. “You don’t, Mum.”
“The way you’ve been talking, it sounds as though I do.” She shook her head. “You’re choosing someone else over your own mother.”
“I’m—” He turned his head to look at her, a wrinkle between his brows.
She wasn’t looking at him, and he grew very frightened very quickly. This wasn’t what their conversation had been about; he couldn’t understand how they’d got here all of a sudden.
“Why is it a competition?” he asked.
“It’s not a—”
“No, but you—you’re pitting yourself against her,” he said. “Why?”
She looked up and held his gaze.
After a minute, the silence between them started to echo inside him.
“You’re my mother,” he said, almost apologetically.
She looked away.
Another quiet minute passed before she spoke again.
“I don’t know how to be your mother,” she said, “if this is how you want things now.”
He closed his eyes and tried to exhale. Everything inside him was pressing into his very bones, each of his old wounds pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
“It is how I want things now,” he said.
They spent another minute in the company of the ticking clock.
His mother found herself thinking about the way he’d looked when he was little. Hardly two years old and already bruised head to toe because he refused to ride in the pram and insisted on walking everywhere.
She’d stood behind him with both hands half-raised, ready to catch him if he went down harder than usual. But she’d let him stumble. Skinned knees healed quickly.
She remembered the way he’d look back at her whenever he fell, just to check if she was there. Then he’d push himself back up again.
He’d been alright in the end. Despite everything.
Finally, his mother drew a careful breath.
“I’ll have to learn, then,” she said.
Yeonjun looked up.
There was a tremor of doubt in her voice, as if she didn’t quite understand what the words meant.
But she said them anyway.
“You will?” he asked.
She swallowed visibly. “I can try.”
Yeonjun felt his heart respond—thud-thud-thud—three times before he caught his breath.
“Thank you,” he said.
His mother lowered her hands to her sides, unsure where to go next. For one absurd second, they looked at each other as though they’d truly only just met.
Yeonjun thought about hugging her.
She thought about hugging him.
Perhaps one day one of them would.
For now, they sat on the platform, while the house remained silent and unchanged around them.
✦ • ─── SEPTEMBER 5, 2026. 6 PM
When Yeonjun returned home, you still hadn’t texted about picking up Violet, and evening had already settled over the city.
He stared at your chat on his screen for a long moment, thumb hovering over the keyboard. He couldn’t decide how to ask about her. There were several good options, he knew—how’s Violet? chief among them—but every version sounded needy somehow. Everything felt loaded today.
Yeonjun decided he’d just show up.
He remained perfectly happy with that plan until approximately the fourth floor. Then he remembered that the last time he’d come to collect Violet, you’d invited him in for a conversation. But a week before that, the two of you had hardly spoken at all.
Granted, that had mostly been his fault. Silence had seemed preferable to getting trapped in an endless cycle of polite small talk that never actually went anywhere.
And still, he felt an old wave of anxiety.
By the time he reached your door, his heart was battering against his ribs.
In fact, he became convinced it was his heartbeat that alerted you to his presence, because he couldn’t remember knocking or ringing the bell. One second he was staring at your door, wondering what the fuck was wrong with him today, and the next the door swung open.
You didn’t look surprised to find him here.
“Hi,” you said. “Violet’s napping in the flower pot. Come see.”
Yeonjun blinked. “She—in the flower pot? Inside of it?”
Truthfully, this wasn’t even the part that really threw him. It was rather the way you looked, eager and enthusiastic, as you gestured inside.
All his anxiety dissipated at once.
As it turned out, Violet had indeed wedged herself into the flower pot. She’d curled into a little loaf atop the decorative white pebbles, paws tucked beneath her chest, snoring under the broad leaf of your monstera.
“I was about to send you a picture,” you said, your phone still in hand, “when you knocked.”
Yeonjun crouched beside the pot, a smile on his lips.
Violet’s ear twitched against the leaf. She didn’t open her eyes to acknowledge him.
“You’d think she’d stay clear of damp surfaces,” he murmured.
“You’d think.” You smiled. “She’s been eyeing the pot all day, I didn’t know what to make of it. Now we know, I guess.”
Yeonjun pulled out his phone.
The fading evening light bathed Violet’s fur in a soft gold, making her mottled back blend almost seamlessly into the pebbles beneath her. You saw him lining up the shot and stepped aside, leaning one shoulder against the balcony doors. His hands, you noticed, were trembling slightly.
The cat continued snoring. Yeonjun couldn’t help snickering as he snapped a few pictures. One accidentally caught the edge of your hand.
Suddenly, a dull thunk sounded somewhere behind him. He glanced up.
Violet cracked one eye open, then the other, evidently checking if the sky wasn’t falling. She’d already had enough inconvenience from the mattress earlier this morning and the odd, prolonged sounds coming from somewhere inside your flat.
“The kettle,” you explained to them both, nodding towards the kitchen. “I was making tea. Would—would you like a cup?”
Surprised, because he’d been dismantling twenty-six years of family history just a few hours earlier and now you were offering him tea while his cat slept inside your flower pot, Yeonjun didn’t immediately respond.
“Uh.” Excellent start. “Sure, yeah. Tea is—it’s great. My favourite. Love tea.”
Immediately, he felt a profound kinship with Chandler Bing declaring chewing gum to be perfection.
“Great,” you said over your shoulder. “Good you’ve got such strong opinions.”
Nose scrunched, Yeonjun left Violet under her leafy canopy and followed you into the kitchen.
You reached into a cupboard and pulled down two mugs. Just then, a long mechanical groan drifted out of the corridor, slightly muted but creepy nonetheless. It almost sounded like the screech of a sea lion suffering from bronchitis.
“What on earth was that?” Yeonjun asked, glancing towards your corridor. He leaned his hip against the kitchen island.
You sighed as you set the mugs down.
“My washer,” you said without looking up. “It’s leaking again. My grandad came round to fix it, but it still sounds like that every time I use it.”
Yeonjun knew this problem well; he’d used his own washing machine exactly once after moving in. It had roared so loudly that he’d expected you to knock on his door again.
His wasn’t leaking, but he’d still been dry-cleaning all his clothes like some pompous tosser anyway.
“S’the plumbing,” he said. “Mine’s constantly backing up, too. Can’t even do the dishes half the time.”
You reached for the teabox on the counter by the kettle. “S’that bad?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Got a plunger in my kitchen now. Never had one before.”
Laughing, you reached behind the microwave and triumphantly showed him your own. “I’ve got one, too!”
Yeonjun laughed. It felt miraculous he still knew how.
“Want me to take a look at it?” he asked, glancing back towards the corridor.
“The washer?”
“Yeah.”
You returned the plunger to its hiding place and regarded him sceptically.
“Do you even know anything about washing machines?” you asked.
“No,” he admitted. “But I work with cars, so it—”
“Oh, right, yeah.” You nodded. “And I take my washer out for a drive every Saturday night. The brakes are shot, but the engine’s great.”
Pressing his lips together, Yeonjun gave you his most convincing glare.
“Can’t be that different,” he insisted.
“I think it can.”
“Let me look.”
You let out another sigh, though there was amusement behind it, and gestured towards the corridor.
“Alright. Go on.” You inclined your head. “Can hardly make it worse. Bathroom’s just down the corridor, on the right.”
Yeonjun nodded and followed the noise down the corridor. As he passed the open door to your bedroom, he caught sight of the window Violet must’ve been using to sneak inside every morning. There seemed to be faint paw prints dusted on the windowsill.
The whirring grew louder as he rounded the corner and pushed open the last remaining door.
The bathroom was small, lined with teal tiles on the walls that immediately reminded him of films from the nineties, ones he’d only watched on old VHS tapes. They had colour to them back then, the bathrooms.
Your washing machine sat beside the sink, vibrating with an alarming intensity. An empty plastic basket on top of it was performing slow pirouettes and contributing generously to the dreadful racket.
You appeared in the doorway just as he removed the basket and crouched beside the machine. It had already shuffled several inches away from its usual spot by the wall.
“Aha!” Yeonjun announced, raising his voice over the noise. He hadn’t heard you come up behind him. “The hose is loose!”
“Again?” He flinched at the nearness of your voice. “My grandad only just fixed it.”
Carefully, he reached behind the machine until his fingers found the connection. The hose rattled against his hand. He tried to squeeze it tighter.
He pulled back, standing to his feet. “Let’s see here now.”
He turned on the sink tap. Water rushed into the basin and stayed there. The drain gurgled unhappily.
“Right.” He shut off the tap and waited for nearly a minute until the water reluctantly spiralled away. “The drain’s clogged, so that probably loosens the hose every time the washer empties. The water struggles to go somewhere, builds up the pressure and shakes the hose loose. The noise’s got to be that, too.”
“That’s wonderful.” You’d already figured as much and stared at the washing machine accusingly. “Any solutions?”
“Don’t wash anything.”
You clicked your tongue. “Besides that.”
Snickering, Yeonjun crouched to peer under the machine. A few drops had already gathered on the tiles.
“Nothing else you can do, probably,” he concluded, leaning back on his heels. “Keep an eye on the hose to make sure water doesn’t gather under it, but it—” The machine let out another low moan. “—it’ll probably continue to sound like this.”
“Lovely, then.” You rested a hand against the doorframe. “Don’t think anyone lives upstairs at the moment, and Mr Jung seems to like me, so you’re the only person who can complain about the noise.”
Yeonjun smiled. Mr Jung clearly did not extend his affection to everyone in the building.
“I will try not to,” he said.
“Kind of you.”
He stood, dusting his palms together. “I know. S’just how I am.”
You rolled your eyes and turned away before he caught the smile threatening the corners of your mouth. “Come back to the kitchen before the tea gets cold.”
“Coming, love.”
He rinsed his hands under the cold water from the tap. It sputtered again as it drained.
When he joined you in the kitchen, you were pouring hot water into the mugs. Steam curled slowly into the air.
Yeonjun climbed onto one of the stools by the island and drew in a slow breath. The whole kitchen smelled of lemon and honey. He found himself smiling before he realised he was doing it.
“Were you coming back from somewhere, by the way?” you asked, nodding towards his suspiciously crisp white shirt as you set the kettle back on its base.
He looked down at himself.
“Yeah,” he said. “I, uh—I went to see my parents today.”
“Oh.” You looked at him. “Already?”
“Yeah.” He snickered. “Wasn’t planning on today, necessarily, but, uh—my mum likes doing everything quickly.”
You remembered as much from your own dinner at their house.
Deciding you didn’t particularly want to revisit that memory, you turned instead to the cupboard beside the plates. It held two bottles inside. You grabbed the pink one.
“Raspberry liqueur for the occasion, then,” you said, showing him the handwritten label. “From my gran. Should go well with tea, I reckon.”
Yeonjun felt his chest become lighter.
You’d told him you’d have drinks.
“Yeah,” he said. “Can’t see why it shouldn’t.”
You tugged at the cap. The sugar around the neck of the bottle had glued it shut.
“How’d it go, then?” you asked, through an effortful groan. He noticed that you weren’t quite looking at him anymore.
While you searched for two glasses, he wrapped both hands around the mug and took a sip. The tea scalded the roof of his mouth. He took another few sips anyway.
“Good, actually,” he said, lowering the mug. “Better than I expected. My mum cried.”
Your brows rose. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He smiled, though there wasn’t much amusement in it. “She weaponises that a bit, I think. But she listened.”
You poured the liqueur into two dark blue glasses and slid one towards him across the island.
The kitchen seemed quieter now, even the steam from the mugs had slowed. It was a familiar feeling; you and Yeonjun had sat in this exact silence before. You hadn’t missed it.
You lifted your glass and took a small sip. For just a moment, you were back in your grandmother’s garden, fingers stained pink from the raspberries left too long in the summer sun.
“How do you feel now?” you asked.
Yeonjun let go of the mug and picked up the little glass instead. The liqueur tasted deceptively sweet, then it punched him squarely behind the eyes.
He coughed in surprise.
“Sh-shit.” He stared at the pink liquid. “This is stronger than I thought.”
“Yeah.” You grinned. “My gran doesn’t mess around.”
Laughing, he took another sip. He was prepared this time and welcomed the warmth into his chest. His cheeks, he could feel, had coloured anyway.
“I actually don’t know how I feel,” he said, watching the liqueur catch the faint light from the windows. “The same as before, I guess. Thought maybe I’d feel relieved, because it went sort of well. But I don’t.”
You rested an elbow lightly against the island. “Why not?”
Yeonjun glanced towards Violet in the flower pot and considered the question.
The silence he’d carried out of his parents’ house still sat inside him. His mind was empty. It had been a while since he hadn’t had a thousand thoughts rushing through his head, and this emptiness felt eerie. Like standing in the middle of a deserted city, surrounded by traces of life that had once filled every street.
“I don’t know,” he ended up saying. “Maybe it’s too soon. Think a part of me’s still sitting in that dining room. Doesn’t really feel like anything happened yet.”
You nodded slowly. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
“Yeah.” He rolled the glass between his palms. “She said she’d try to let me make my own decisions, though. Let’s see how that, uh—how it goes for her.”
You caught the ambiguous arch of his eyebrows. “Going to test her?”
“Maybe.” A small smile ghosted across his lips as his gaze drifted back towards the living room. “Think I’ll tell her about Violet first.”
Your gaze followed his. Violet was now gazing out the window from beneath the leaf, her tail tracing slow patterns through the pebbles.
“She doesn’t know?” you asked.
“No,” he said. “She’s not much of an animal person. But m’thinking I’ll start small. Violet’s cute, she should win her over.”
You smiled into your glass and politely swallowed back all comments about people who didn’t like animals.
“That sounds like a sensible place to start,” you said.
“Yeah,” Yeonjun murmured. Slowly, his thoughts were coming back to him. “A-and then we’ll see what comes after that.”
You sipped the liqueur.
You couldn’t imagine what it had cost him to sit across from his mother and force his way through years of conversations that had never happened. You wanted to ask what she’d said, wanted to know more, but suspected that reliving it all might be as agonising as living through it.
“I’m proud of you, you know,” you said instead. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
Yeonjun looked up. For a moment, he only watched you.
Then he reached for his mug, taking a few careful sips of the tea to dilute the lingering sweetness of the raspberry. He didn’t think he’d ever had tea with liqueur before. It worked surprisingly well. He already felt nice and warm and a bit sleepy.
“Yeah,” he said eventually. His voice had quietened. “I knew I needed to do it, just one last time, if nothing else. And I’m glad I did. But it—yeah.” He let out a short laugh, shaking his head. “Wasn’t easy. I actually had to go to work today, and everything that could go wrong went wrong. Thought it’d distract me. Very naïve of me.”
“It didn’t, then?”
“Not even a little.” He yawned, and his eyes seemed a little brighter.
You decided to steer the conversation in this direction. “Can’t remember if I ever asked whether you’re part of a team or just do general work.”
“Oh, yeah, no, I’m in a team.” He wrapped both hands around the mug, letting the warmth seep into his still stiff fingers. “We’re on a massive losing streak.”
You took a sip of tea and immediately regretted it; it was still too hot. Frowning, you ran your tongue across the roof of your mouth.
“Are you that bad at your job?”
Yeonjun snorted so suddenly that he nearly spilt his tea. He set the mug down.
“Well, there’s only so much I can do,” he said. “My data’s always state of the art. S’the idiots behind the wheel who ruin everything.”
Your smile widened a touch. “Wish you were one of them?”
His eyes drifted, almost unconsciously, toward his left wrist. The ache had stabilised now; if he wasn’t thinking about it, he hardly felt it.
“Sometimes,” he admitted, rubbing absentmindedly at the handle of the mug. “But I like where I am now as well.”
You took another sip of the tea, deliberately keeping your eyes above his wrist. You were glad, you realised, that he wasn’t racing anymore.
Across the room, Violet was now hanging halfway out of the pot. Her back paws rattled the pebbles as she slipped. You both turned to look.
She landed on the floor and gave a decided shake of her head before settling in front of the window.
“What’s it like, then?” you asked. “Your races.”
Yeonjun turned back to you.
“Well,” he pondered for a moment, “loud.”
“Very different from uni?”
He smiled. He remembered bringing Beomgyu to one race a few months ago (Taehyun had meant to come too, but he’d cancelled because he’d had a date; Yeonjun realised he’d forgotten to tease him for that). Beomgyu had been so energetic the entire time that he’d practically talked his way into one of the cars before Yeonjun interfered.
“Not really,” he said. “Less alcohol, maybe. More hot dogs.”
You nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds fun.”
He scratched the back of his head.
“I could, uh—could take you with me one day.” His eyes flicked to yours. “We’ve got a race next week.”
Your eyebrows lifted. “You’re allowed guests?”
“I’m allowed anything I want.”
You laughed.
“Okay,” you said. “I’d like that. Always been curious about professional racing.”
Yeonjun thought he’d had a bit too much of the liqueur.
For a fleeting second, he was back in grad school, talking to you, for what he thought was the last time, outside Administration. How he’d wished to dissolve the tension between you then, to get you to roll your eyes at him, to make you laugh.
Now he was sitting in your kitchen, doing exactly that.
His stomach did not know what to do with itself.
“You—you’d enjoy it, I think,” he said.
He already knew you liked speed. Honestly, after watching you handle icy roads in his Mercedes, he’d suspected that his team might’ve finished a few places higher with you behind the wheel.
“Yeah?” you said. “Your data, or the actual racing?”
He grinned. “Both, I hope.”
Smiling, you took another sip of tea.
Yeonjun lifted his mug before the joy on his face grew too obvious. The tea had cooled enough now that he could finally taste the honey beneath the lemon. He reached for the liqueur then.
He wanted to say something else, but wasn’t sure he could bring himself to disturb the lightness that had settled in the kitchen.
After another slow sip of the liqueur, he decided he could.
“My mum… she, uh—I talked to her about Alain today,” he said, lowering the glass onto the island. “She said she thought I wanted him gone, too.”
Your brows drew together. “Why would she think that?”
He breathed out slowly.
“She assumed I shared all her opinions, I guess,” he said. “He and I argued, and she must’ve thought I’d had enough of him, because she had. I finally said I didn’t, but it—” He shrugged. “S’partly on me, probably. I never told her what Alain meant to me before.”
Something tightened behind your ribs, and you lowered your gaze to the island. There were things you couldn’t swallow back.
“I think it was fairly obvious that you and Alain were close,” you said.
“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “I know that was her problem. But still. It also made me think that I haven’t said this to him, either. We made up, of course, but, uh—aside from wishing him a happy birthday back in April, I haven’t actually reached out since.”
“How come?”
He traced a fingertip across the grey veins in the island countertop. “Don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”
You frowned again. “Why would he be uncomfortable?”
Yeonjun shrugged. “S’been years. He might feel obligated to see me, even if he doesn’t actually want to.”
You took a sip of the liqueur and studied him over the rim of your glass. “Would he, really?”
Yeonjun looked away first.
“I don’t know.” He sighed quietly. “I feel like I don’t really know how to talk to people half the time.”
You failed to catch your smile before it escaped. “You’re managing quite well at the moment.”
He smiled at that. “Yeah. M’trying. Just feel like there’s loads of unfinished things from back in the day. And now I’m probably too old to finish them. So it’s—I don’t know.”
“What things?”
Yeonjun took the final sip of tea from his mug. It barely got a chance to get cold.
“Well, uh,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “back in the day, Alain and I had a list of things we wanted to do. A, uh—Coolest To-Do List Ever, I’d called it.” He caught your smile from the corner of his eye. “Don’t laugh.”
You pressed your lips together. “I would never.”
“I was thirteen when we made it.”
“Prime age for lists.”
“Mhmm.” Snorting, he leaned back on the stool. “Anyway. I hadn’t looked at that list since he left. But I’ve been thinking about it lately. Sucks that I never finished it.”
You rested your chin lightly against your palm. You suspected this wasn’t really about the list at all, but everything it held: the childhood he’d wished he had, the future he’d wanted.
“You still could, though,” you said.
He gave a faint shake of his head.
“Don’t think I’d feel comfortable asking Alain now,” he said. “Could’ve done those things alone, I suppose, but that’s lame. Guess I could’ve asked Bin or Gyu, or anyone, to finish that list with me, too. But—I don’t know. Think I’ve sort of convinced myself that if I looked at it again, I’d lose another friend the way I lost Alain.”
Your gaze softened.
Some objects held that power, you knew. The scarf at the bottom of your wardrobe was one of them.
“Have you got that list with you?” you asked.
He blinked down, mentally tracking the location of his phone to his back pocket.
“Yeah,” he said. “Probably somewhere in my email.”
“You could read it to me.”
He looked at you, feeling heat creep unexpectedly into his face. He couldn’t remember half the things on that list anymore, but now he suspected that thirteen-year-old him had been a spectacular loser, after all.
“You sure?” His smile turned awkward. “If I read it and it turns out the list is cursed, and we—”
“Promise I’m not leaving.”
Yeonjun lowered his gaze. There was something lodged in his throat, and he took a moment to swallow to clear it.
Without saying anything, you reached across the island and refilled his glass.
His eyes followed your hand as you pulled back.
“Thanks.” He looked up at the bottle between you.
There was something very warm swelling in his chest. Maybe just the liqueur.
“I, uh—I should remind you again,” he said, “I was thirteen when we made the list.”
You nodded. “I’d love to know what thirteen-year-old you considered cool. Curious whether you’ve matured at all.”
“I’ve matured,” he said, indignant all of a sudden. “But admittedly, I might not come across as particularly cool on this list.”
“That’s alright.” You topped up your own glass. “You don’t come across as particularly cool in real life, either.”
His hand flew dramatically to his chest. “Okay—first of all, that’s very rude. And second of all, that’s objectively not true. I’m very cool.”
“Mhmm.”
He set his phone down. “Tell me I’m very cool.”
Your lips stretched against your better judgment. “Read your list, Cool Boy.”
Huffing, Yeonjun opened his email on his phone.
The two of you finished your drinks in silence while he scrolled and scrolled to the bottom of his Sent folder, eyes skimming old receipts and university essays. He vaguely remembered emailing the list to himself before forwarding it to Alain.
Across the island, you watched him frown at the screen. You remembered, abruptly, one of your first dates back in grad school. He’d asked for your feedback and started a note on his phone, titled DATE ACTIVITIES. You didn’t think he’d written down much, but now you wondered whether he’d always been making lists for the future.
“Alright,” he said finally.
The document on his phone opened slowly, and the formatting was atrocious: at least three different fonts, several random colours. He almost regretted bringing this up.
“This is, uh—this is actually worse than I remember,” he said.
You perked up immediately. “Oh, I cannot wait.”
Trying not to grimace, he searched for the beginning.
“Alright,” he said again. “First up is a Lord of the Rings marathon. In, um—in a pillow fort, apparently. Alain has left a comment here, which just says: with pizza.”
Your lips curved. “That’s not so bad. Sounds fun.”
His embarrassment eased by about three per cent.
“Next is excellent,” he said, eyes dropping to the next line, split mid-word due to the large font. “A midnight picnic.”
You watched him, waiting for more.
He did not give you more, too busy zooming in on the lowercase letters underneath.
“A midnight picnic,” you repeated.
“Yes,” he said, squinting at his screen. “With—oh, you’ll love this. With sweets and chocolate syrup. On top of the sweets, I’m assuming.” He made a thoughtful pause before looking up at you. “Notice how I, too, preferred chocolate syrup over whipped cr—”
“Mhmm.” You’d grown louder now. He snickered. “Why midnight, then?”
“Think I had a ten o’clock curfew. So midnight was basically criminal activity for me.”
“Ah. Living on the edge, I see.”
“Yes.” He grinned. “Hey, turns out I’m cooler than I gave myself credit for.”
Smiling, you stretched your legs out across the floor. “What’s next?”
His eyes dropped lower on the screen. “Next is competing to win the biggest stuffed toy at a fair.”
“Always a competition with you.”
“Well—” He was forced to abandon his defence as he found the next item. “Yeah, fair enough. I’ve got lawnmower racing here, too.”
You raised your eyebrows. “What, just pushing lawnmowers across a field?”
“No, we had the big ones at the house, the ride-on ones.”
“Oh!” You brightened. “My grandparents have those. Never occurred to me to race on them.”
“You’ve missed out.”
“Sounds like I have.”
He scrolled down. The glow from his phone reflected faintly in his eyes. Slowly, his smile began to widen.
“M’realising,” he said, “I’ve accidentally completed several of these.”
You found yourself smiling, too. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He turned the phone towards you, and you leaned over the island to see better. “Racing in Dad’s old Chevy, for example. I’ve crashed that now, so this one’s basically crossed off twice.”
You gave him a look. “Incredible.”
“Wasn’t very entertaining, to be honest.” He lowered the phone for a moment. “This was after Alain left. Thought I’d keep racing, since, clearly, I was naturally gifted. You can laugh.”
You snorted. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, love.” He nodded. “Anyway, I’d hardly got off our property when I drove straight into a bin, and this massive black rubbish bag ended up plastered across the windscreen. I ended up in a field with two wheels hanging off.”
You let out a long breath, shaking your head.
“How many car accidents have you had in your life?”
He waved the question away. “This one hardly counts. Didn’t even feel anything.”
You clicked your tongue, which filled him with an odd warmth. Only then did he realise he’d been holding his phone in his left hand, and his wrist had been completely calm.
“Oh, I’ve done the road trips as well,” he said, pointing at another item further down on his list. “Gyu and I took Kai skiing a few years ago, so that’s done, too. And the cabin—Soobin and I used to go there together.”
“That’s nice.” You watched him scroll further. Some of the tension he’d arrived carrying had eased enough for the smile lines beside his lips to return. “Halfway through the list then, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I see the last one’s not crossed off, though.”
“What is it?”
“This one’s a bit ambitious.”
You placed both palms flat on the marble island and drew an exaggeratedly solemn breath. “I’m ready.”
“Matching tattoos.”
Your eyebrows climbed. “Wow. When you were thirteen?”
“Yeah.” He snorted. “I remember Alain objected, so we—”
“Reasonable man.”
“Yeah, but not because I was thirteen,” Yeonjun said. “He just didn’t want tattoos.”
“Oh.”
“So we settled on getting the fake ones, from gum wrappers.” His voice was warm. “We were supposed to find a matching pair and wear them on our arms.”
The image was absurdly earnest, and you couldn’t stop the smile spreading on your face.
“You could’ve drawn them on, too,” you said, lifting your hand and rotating your wrist.
Yeonjun grinned, remembering the heart he’d drawn there once. He remembered the rush from feeling your pulse right under his fingertips, too. Remembered the smell of the rain in the air and the look in your eyes when he placed a cherry biscuit between your lips.
“Uh—true, yeah,” he said, glancing away from you. He’d lost all track of the conversation. “But they’ve got to be matching or it won’t—shit.” He looked up again. “I should’ve drawn you a spider web.”
“Oh, it would’ve counted then?”
“Yeah,” he said sadly.
Laughing softly, you nodded at his phone.
“Well, that’s a solid list anyway,” you said. “All of it sounds genuinely fun.”
Yeonjun exhaled, somewhat wistfully, as he locked his phone and set it down on the island. It clicked softly against the marble.
“Yeah,” he said. “S’been on my mind. Not much on there, I know, but it used to be something I looked forward to every day.”
“Hmm.”
You watched his face change.
For a few minutes while he read his list, he’d looked younger, less guarded, as though he really was thirteen again. But slowly, little by little, guilt had returned to his expression—as though he didn’t think he deserved to indulge in nostalgia for too long. Didn’t deserve to remember those days with as much fondness as he had.
You disliked that guilt immediately and fervently.
“Well,” you said, resting your forearms on the island. “You could still finish all of that. With me.”
Yeonjun looked up, parting his lips.
“You’d—” He cleared his throat. “You’d do those things with me?”
The surprise in his voice made you unexpectedly self-conscious. Perhaps you’d overstepped.
“Sure,” you said. “I don’t mean to replace Alain or anyth—”
“You wouldn’t.”
His gaze remained locked on you.
Startled, momentarily, by the certainty in his voice, you dropped your eyes to the island.
“Great, then.” You held up a hand and began ticking items off on your fingers. “So, Lord of the Rings, midnight picnic, fair, lawnmowers. And matching tattoos. S’five things.”
Yeonjun swallowed, only to realise he couldn’t really feel his throat anymore. He wondered if he could quietly add another hundred items to the list.
“Right,” he managed. “Yeah.”
“We’d get through it a lot quicker if there was a fair in town.” You tipped your head back, gaze drifting up towards the ceiling. “But we can improvise, I’m sure.”
“Just, uh—just so you know,” he said, “you don’t have to do any of this. It’s just a—”
“Don’t do that,” you said gently. He quieted at once. “I don’t mind. We said we’re friends.”
Yeonjun dropped his gaze.
He still hadn’t got used to the word. He wondered if he ever would.
“Alright,” he said. “Thank you, friend.”
Your amused smile was a mirror of his own.
“Any time,” you said, “friend.”
As your gazes lingered on each other a heartbeat longer than either of you intended, smiles spreading against your will, you realised that this felt a bit like the beginning of a new game.
✦ • ─── SEPTEMBER 5, 2026. 8:30 PM
After Yeonjun had left, giggling all the way down the stairs with Violet cradled in his arms, already tipsy on your grandmother’s raspberry liqueur, you finished tidying the kitchen. You swept Violet’s white hairs off the floor, wiped down the counters, rinsed the mugs and glasses, and once the flat looked livable again, you settled at your desk.
A notification lit up your phone before your laptop managed to wake.
Reina had sent you a photo from her co-worker’s birthday dinner. Apparently, Henry, your old classmate from university, had been there as well. He was dating the birthday girl’s best friend now and, according to Reina’s commentary, had spent the first half an hour pretending not to recognise her.
Snickering—Henry had always been painfully pretentious—you zoomed in on his face. He hadn’t changed much in the year since you’d last seen him; still red in the face after a single glass of wine.
The tiny burst of nostalgia proved surprisingly infectious.
Almost without thinking, you wandered into your own gallery and, before you knew it, you were at the very top.
There were photos from your first Christmas home from university: your grandparents smiling in their vast kitchen beside a crooked tree that your uncle had chopped down himself, nearly sacrificing a finger in the process (his own).
Your thumb slowed as you scrolled down to the photos of the neighbour’s horse, who’d somehow befriended Violet—your Violet—through the fence. He’d wandered across the pasture just to lie beside her, picking her from a sea of other, mildly offended cows.
Even now, the picture made you snicker.
Further down were tons of pictures from Beomgyu’s birthday during second year.
You scrolled through thirty-four of his selfies with Reina after he’d stolen your phone, followed by thirty more of him holding his birthday cake out at arm’s length as though presenting a newborn lion to the kingdom.
You paused at one of the group photos.
In it, Reina stood beside you. Soobin, naturally, stood on Reina’s other side. Beomgyu was in the middle, grinning despite his eyes being screwed shut against the sunlight. Henry was there, too.
Yeonjun, in the meantime, was in the opposite corner, standing about as far away from you as the camera allowed.
You smiled despite yourself.
You remembered that birthday.
Beomgyu had made a flag for the occasion: red and blue, with his name painted across it in thick black letters, large enough to be identified from orbit. He’d attached it to a pole liberated from his then-roommate’s drying rack and had planted it triumphantly outside his dormitory window.
Years later, after moving in with Kai, he would hang the thing from the tree outside their house every birthday.
That year, however, to celebrate the flag’s debut, he’d marched everyone outside into the parking lot and announced a game of Capture The Flag (with only just this one flag; he’d hidden it on the outside windowsill of an abandoned building further down the street).
It was mid-March, but felt like early January. You’d worn two pairs of gloves and still couldn’t feel your fingers. Frankly, you’d been much more interested in capturing a warm cup of tea.
Beomgyu had split everyone into teams.
Outrageously, he’d separated you from Reina (you suspected he was punishing you for accidentally wearing the same shade of pink as him). Yeonjun, unfortunately, had ended up on your team.
The game dissolved into chaos as soon as it started. Someone tackled someone as though this was a game of rugby. Half the players forgot who their teammates were. At one point, Yeonjun slipped on the ice and lay flat on the asphalt for nearly a minute—it was, without question, the happiest minute of your day.
Beomgyu, in the meantime, sat on the roof of his Audi—broken, even back then—and sipped champagne straight from the bottle, shouting instructions and jailing players for using words he’d secretly designated as forbidden (‘fuck’ turned out to be one of them; you’d been jailed four times before you realised).
Eventually, you and Yeonjun spotted the flag and found yourselves locked in a heated argument over who should make the run for it without attracting the other team’s attention. You argued it should be you, seeing as you hadn’t yet eaten gravel. Deeply offended, Yeonjun retorted that your jacket sleeve was ripped and ran off the moment you glanced down.
You launched after him.
Both of you reached for the flag at the exact same time.
And then, horribly, your earring had hooked itself through the loose weave of his jumper. He staggered backwards from the windowsill, dragging you into him.
Are you kidding me? you’d yelled, dropping the flag.
Would you stop moving? he’d snapped back. Your earring’s going to stab me.
I’ll stab you if you don’t get the hell—
Your hair is literally up my nose.
Don’t breathe, then.
Would you stay still, for fuck’s—
You’re pulling my fucking hair!
By then, Beomgyu had arrived. One look at the two of you tangled together was enough to send him into hysterics. He doubled over, clutching his knees as he tried to ask what had happened.
Finally, he leaned forward to help.
His first attempt had torn a neat hole through Yeonjun’s jumper, which, understandably, prompted Yeonjun to yell directly into your ear.
His second attempt had been to remove your earring, which, understandably, resulted in him nearly removing your ear instead.
Eventually, yelling and cussing, you’d managed to unclasp the earring yourself, abandoning it somewhere inside Yeonjun’s jumper.
You owe me an earring, you’d said, rubbing your aching ear.
I’ll give you two, Yeonjun said, absently touching the ones in his own ears. What do I get for the extra one?
A punch on the nose.
He’d laughed. You’re not getting my earrings, then.
You’d bent to retrieve the abandoned flagpole lying on the asphalt.
Least I got the flag, you’d said.
Yeonjun dropped his hands from his ears. I got the flag.
What? I literally grabbed—
You didn’t grab anyth—
I grabbed the fucking—
Beomgyu cut in, planting a hand squarely between each of your shoulder blades with two loud, stinging smacks.
He’d done that just in time. Your fingers had started to itch with the urge to strangle Yeonjun.
Your team had ended up winning, after all, but there was another murderous occasion shortly after that.
This one came during a Philosophy seminar that had come perilously close to sucking your very soul out. The auditorium had been small: a few built-in seats lining the walls and one oval table in the centre with barely ten chairs around it.
Through some biblically fucked luck, Reina had ended up sitting across the table from you that day, and you were stuck next to Yeonjun for the entire hour and a half.
Shortly after starting the seminar, the professor announced that she’d secured a presentation slot at a conference next month and, in a burst of astonishing optimism, had decided that her students should present their barely rehearsed assignments to actual scientists.
You’d been horrified by the absolute waste of everyone’s time—no one in the class cared about the field, and you doubted anyone cared about listening to undergraduate Sociology students.
You didn’t say any of that.
Instead, you hunched over your notebook, scribbling increasingly aggressive notes about everything you needed to fix in your slides. The pen squeaked against the paper.
Beside you, Yeonjun looked offensively relaxed.
He’d already decided he wasn’t giving the presentation—not like the professor could drag him into the conference. So he lounged in his chair with one ankle hooked over the opposite knee, staring at the table and nudging you occasionally with his thigh.
You mind? you’d asked him at one point. Some people are trying to study here.
Hm? He’d turned to you. Oh, well, you shouldn’t bother them, then, love.
Pressing your lips together, you returned to your notebook.
You’d only realised his arm had been resting across the back of your chair when you leaned backwards. Startled, he jerked it away. Your jacket immediately slid off the chair and landed on the floor.
You looked at him.
He looked at the jacket, then back at you.
Your jacket fell, he’d said.
You dropped it.
Can’t recall doing that.
Grinding your teeth, you bent to retrieve it.
By the time you straightened again, Yeonjun was openly reading your notebook.
Your handwriting’s lovely, he’d said. Slightly concerned you’ve written ‘fuck this’ three times just there—your Fs are a bit wonky, by the way—but lovely, still.
Thanks, you’d replied. Learnt cursive in primary school. I assume you wouldn’t know.
I wouldn’t. Care to teach me?
Busy.
Another time?
You rolled your eyes. He turned back towards the professor with a proud smile tugging at one corner of his lips.
It had truly been extraordinary: both, his ability to make you seethe and your own restraint from tackling him.
You remembered another time, already in grad school, after yet another discussion where Yeonjun had earned extra points for simply repeating something you’d already said, only backwards and in fancier words.
You’d always assumed he was showing off when he did that, just trying to upstage everyone. Now you wondered if he simply didn’t know any other way and collected approval anywhere he could find it.
It had frustrated you back then, though. You’d stopped speaking altogether.
When the professor stepped outside to answer a phone call, leaving everyone to discuss the assignment in groups of five—something about the impact of culture on aviation safety—you’d folded your arms and stayed quiet.
Yeonjun, turned around in his chair to see you better, noticed almost immediately. Mid-conversation, he raised a hand to quiet the rest of the group.
What do you think? he’d asked you.
You didn’t even look at him.
Why’s it matter? you’d replied. Can’t come up with anything yourself?
He’d shrugged with his usual ease. Just wanted to hear your thoughts.
‘Cause you’ve got none of your own, yeah?
He rolled his eyes. But with the rest of your group snickering softly around you, there was already the beginning of a smile on his lips.
Bit childish, if you ask me, he’d said. But if silent treatment’s the route you want to take—
Oh, this isn’t silent treatment. You’d smiled pleasantly. This is me preserving my energy.
We’re trying to finish an assignment.
Then finish it.
He watched you with his eyebrows raised.
Would be nice if you actually completed something for once, you’d added.
By then, everyone else had quietly resumed the discussion without either of you. That rankled you further; the two of you were now not participating together.
Okay, Yeonjun had said eventually. What’re you actually bothered about?
You.
M’hounoured, love. He nodded. Anything in particular today?
So glad you asked. You glared at him. S’your admirable talent for stealing everyone else’s credit.
Another eye roll. You really care about the half point I got?
I care about your incompetence.
You shouldn’t. Much healthier for your blood pressure if you learn to forgive and forget.
I don’t forget.
No?
No.
He considered that for a second.
Alright, he’d said then, a small smile on his lips. I’ll check.
At the time, you hadn’t understood what he’d meant.
You found out that evening.
Professor Myers had been hosting one of her monthly gatherings at the local bar. Your entire cohort had crammed into a booth, with Taehyun and Kai invited despite being two years below—Kai as Beomgyu’s roommate, and Taehyun as your biggest reason for not dropping out.
A few beers in, Yeonjun had leaned over Soobin—who was sitting between the two of you—with cheeks gently pink and eyes noticeably brighter.
D’you still remember? he’d slurred.
You gave him a flat look. I do.
Hm. He nodded thoughtfully before absentmindedly patting Soobin’s knee. I see.
Soobin had looked between the two of you. Remember what?
Yeonjun nudged him with his shoulder. Don’t worry about it, love.
Twenty minutes later, you were pulling your jacket from the coat stand before going outside for a cigarette break when someone stopped behind you. You turned to find Yeonjun leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets.
Still remember? he’d asked.
I do.
Good.
Then he wandered back towards the booth before you could think of anything clever to shout after him.
Outside, Nara entertained you and Taehyun for five minutes straight with an alarmingly accurate impression of a seagull. Her throat hurt by the end of it. Yours did, too.
You were still laughing when you came back inside.
Yeonjun looked up from his beer at once. Memory still working?
It is.
He nodded once, apparently satisfied.
Five minutes later:
Still remember?
I do.
Ten minutes after that:
You still remember?
Yes! My God.
By then, even Soobin had started laughing. It was the first time he’d done so all evening—Reina was home with a cold, so naturally, he saw no point in living.
Eventually, near closing time, you were searching your handbag to make sure you hadn’t lost your keys when Yeonjun stopped in front of you. He didn’t say anything, but waited, head tilted, until you looked up.
You still remember?
You sighed. I do.
A slow, deeply pleased smile spread across his face. Good. Knew you couldn’t forget me.
Then he wandered off to find Beomgyu before you could answer.
He’d actually annoyed you to the brink of insanity.
But looking back now, it was almost absurd. You’d spent so much of that time counting marks, arguing over assignments and trying to get credit that you’d barely looked at him. Barely looked at yourself, either.
And then he’d made you fall in love with him in two weeks.
You found yourself wondering, with the group picture on your phone still zoomed in on Yeonjun’s face, what would happen now.
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