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Love, in Translation || Choi Soobin

There are loves that blossom silently, and there are loves that consume. Love chose him as its sole vessel the moment you stepped into his still life and made it breathe. Because you were not merely the person he loved.

You were the garden and the grave where Soobin would bury himself. Willingly, ardently, and without return.

⊹₊⟡⋆ 21k

pairing: florist!choi soobin x fem!reader

tags: florist au, friends to lover, slice of life, mild slow burn if you squint, mutual pining, simp!soobin, portrayal of feelings through flowers, lots of yearning, mild jealousy because why not, somehow even became a sick fic, SOOBIN WEARS GLASSES! [probably missed some]

[MDNI] smut warning: explicit sexual content, munch!soobin, oral (f.), fingering, tummy bulge, subspace (but it's soobin being pussy drunk), cumming in pants, pathetic!dom!soobin, spit as lube, praise kink if you squint, multiple orgasms, missionary, unprotected sex (not huzzah!), creampie (please don't) [definitely missed some]

so umm. somehow it became 21k. NOW IN MY DEFENSE—IT WAS GOING VERY WELL UNTIL I STARTED THE SMUT! i might have went extremely overboard with it guys it was an out of body experience. but hey on the bright side, you have 3k words worth smut of soobin being pathetic! it's a win, right? *laughs nervously* alright jokes aside, i hope you enjoy reading this story as much as i enjoyed writing it <33 Reblogs and feedbacks are appreciated!

Time flew in a strange way on SUNDAYS.

There was a jar of lemon candies near the cash register that no one ever touched, except for you. He kept refilling it anyway. Once, you’d told him that sour things make you feel awake. He didn’t like lemon candy, never has — but now the shop feels incomplete without that bright little jar amidst the plethora of greens.

Soobin liked being a florist. He loved flowers more. Perhaps it was because the shop stopped feeling like a shop and rather a person to him. It woke up with him every morning, breathed with the breeze when he slid the door open, and hummed softly when he watered the hanging plants. He worked there most days, except for Tuesdays, when his employee took over so he could attend his classes. For the remaining days of the week, Soobin arranged his schedule meticulously so that he could finish his classes early in the morning and put his entire focus on flowers. The arrangement’s practical, he liked to believe.

The shop sat below his apartment, which is really just one big room pretending to be three. His uncle handed it to him when he moved here for university, saying, “It’s old but it’ll love you back if you take care of it.” Perhaps that’s what got him thinking about flowers in the first place.

Why flowers, specifically? — because the most romantic thing about flowers is that they could say what people couldn't. Flowers, to him, are translators. They turn the things people mean into color and shape, into scent and softness. He liked to imagine that every arrangement he made carried a small story.

He didn’t always know what it was, but he liked guessing — a confession with roses, an apology wrapped around white lilies, and carnations carrying gratitude for the loved ones. He took joy in translating those feelings and that’s what drew him in; the thought that he’s helping people say things they can’t always phrase. He liked that flowers never lie. They just bloom, fade, and start again. In their short lives, they manage to say everything worth saying.

In the middle of tending to a new shipment of red gerberas, Soobin blinked back into focus when your distant laugh drifted inside. Realizing he’d been standing still for a while with a pair of shears in hand, staring at nothing in particular, he clipped the stem he was holding.

There was a quaint nursery at the back of the shop. Once an unremarkable yard attached to his uncle’s apartment now repurposed into rows of neatly aligned pots and every colour of flowers one could imagine. You were there, showing the elderly couple around and explaining differences between varieties with the knowledge you got from Soobin after months of hanging around. They were regulars, always appearing on Sundays, and they’d long decided they preferred you over him when it came to choosing plants though you didn’t even work there.

He liked the friendly company you brought, as he liked to tell himself, but each time he looked through the windowpane to catch you smiling — that conviction thinned. You looked impossibly beautiful standing there among the green, pointing something out to the old woman who was nodding along with delight. There was dirt on your fingertips, probably your sleeves too, but you were radiant nonetheless.

The sight made him feel a strange tug somewhere in his chest, which was funny, because it resembled what one would call envy. Soobin was envious that sunlight got to touch you first.

When you led the couple back inside, he quickly turned his gaze to the counter, focusing on trimming the stems before the flowers lost too much moisture. Your voice was honey to him, your presence the sun.

“Soobin, they’re thinking about keeping some plants in their kitchen. They want to know which ones will last.” You placed two small tubs of chrysanthemums in front of him, their leaves still wet from misting.

The old man gave a soft laugh, rubbing the back of his neck as if the admission embarrassed him. “My wife says the kitchen looks too plain without a bit of life.”

“I told him,” the old woman interrupted fondly, “that if we’re going to cook every day, we might as well have something nice to look at while we’re doing it.”

Soobin smiled, leaning forward to inspect the tubs. “You could try pothos,” he said after a moment. “They don’t need much light, and they’ll forgive you even if you forget them for a few days. Basil too, if you want something useful. It grows better near a window, though.”

The old woman’s eyes brightened. “Basil sounds lovely. I could use it for our soups.”

“Soup!” You chirped when you came back from washing your dirt smeared hands. “Oh, Mrs. Park, I need to know how your soup tastes.”

The couple laughed at that, the sound pulling Soobin’s attention as he stole a glance at you with a smile of his own. “I will make sure to give you kids some the next time we come by!” she promised.

“Then it’s settled,” you said warmly, turning back to Soobin. “You won’t regret getting the basil. Everything grown and cared for by Soobin in this shop is full of love.”

The wife smiled, cheeks crinkling. “You’re as sweet as these flowers, dear.”

Sweeter than any of them, Soobin thought. Prettier too.

He wordlessly passed you a towel and you took it with a murmured thanks while he went back to arranging the couple’s purchase. As he packed, the woman’s gaze caught on the gerberas beside him.

“Those are lovely,” she said, eyes softening at the red bloom. “It’s been years since I’ve seen them this bright.”

You followed her gaze. “They really are, aren’t they?” you said, tapping your finger lightly against the counter. “Maybe you should take a few stems home too. They’ll add some color to your living room.”

“They would,” the husband agreed, already pulling his wallet from his coat. “Let’s take a few.”

There was this magic in you. Some people didn’t need flowers to speak for them — their presence was already poetry, their laughter already a language. You were one of them. And you were his exact opposite. Soobin, who could shape meaning through petals and stems but stumbled when it came to words, was terrified of letting his thoughts spill unchecked from his heart to his mouth, terrified that they might reach you and ruin the ephemeral beauty of what already existed between you. So he relied on flowers, always.

He held up a single red gerbera between his thumb and index finger. His eyes drifted to where you stood beside the elderly couple, now showing them the tulips on display. The flower symbolizes a passionate and profound declaration of love, representing a love that filled every part of the soul until it became difficult to breathe. It made him wonder what it would feel like to hand the bouquet to you instead, to let the flower say what he couldn’t. The idea itself was enough to trip his pulse.

The old couple soon gathered their plants and bouquet as they bid farewell to you both. Gerberas suited them — he thought as he watched them leave — still vibrant after all these years, their love so full of life. A love like that, he hoped, was not beyond him. A love like that, he wanted to be capable of giving and also worthy of receiving.

That want, that wish of his didn’t seem to be so far off because his brain came to a comforting pause when the same words were spoken out loud, by you.

“Arent they wonderful?” you sighed dreamily, watching the couple disappear down the street. “I hope a love like theirs finds me.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” he murmured, arranging the leftover stems. “You’re very lovable. People tend to love you without needing to be asked.”

You blinked, caught off guard for half a second before recovering with a teasing smile. “Do they, now?”

He nodded, still not looking up, but the corner of his mouth lifted. “Even Mr. and Mrs. Park. They barely let me talk to them anymore.”

You gasped softly in realization and snapped your fingers. “Right! They never ask for your help, do they?” You leaned in across the counter and it took everything in Soobin not to fold right there. “Watch out, Soobin. At this rate, I might just learn enough to open my own shop across the street. Then what will you do?”

Soobin chuckled, dimples deepening as he pushed his glasses up with the back of his wrist. “I’ll have a scary competitor then.”

You giggled, amused by the thought. “You think I’m scary?”

He narrowed his eyes just enough that the look read more fond than fierce, and then, by a measure that felt modest because he was taller, he bent at the waist until his face aligned with yours. He leaned forward the barest fraction.

“Terrifying.”

He whispered the words with a cheeky squint of his eyes and let his gaze find yours with a small, almost solemn smile. For a fleeting second, Soobin allowed himself the luxury of memorizing you up close as you burst out into a fit of laughter.

Time flew in a strange way on Sundays. It stretched and folded in ways that defied reason. With you in the shop, time seemed to slow just inside that shared space surrounded by flowers for him. Nothing more than your mere presence, not even the brilliance of the fresh floras and their honeyed fragrance, could make him feel alive. Yet at the same time, the hours slipped from his grasp because it is never enough. The day always ended too soon, and every time you reached for your bag Soobin found himself wishing for just one more hour with you. One more exchange that he could replay in the stillness of his mind when night fell.

He never asked, of course. Love, to him, was a quiet thing — a bloom meant to be nurtured, not confessed too soon. So he contented himself with the gentle ache you left behind until you came by the next day to heal him.

When you finally left that evening, he tucked a single red gerbera stem into your bag, wrapped in paper the colour he knew you adored.

MONDAYS were rather boring.

Everything was as it always was, except it wasn’t. It was the only day when your schedule didn't align with his, meaning, when Soobin’s classes ended and he began his shift, yours started. Even in a place overflowing with color and life, with beauty and extravagance, your presence was what always made life vibrant in his eyes. Without you, everything paled inside the shop. Even the new batch of flowers he’d receive for the day refused to liven up as if they were waiting for you to show up and breathe life into them. Soobin was like the flowers.

He missed you more than he could justify. To the point he’d foolishly perk up — like a bunny perking up in the gentlest alarm, as you’d like to call him — whenever the shop door’s bell jingled. Every time, he flt like a part of him slowly died whenever he’d see it wasn't you but rather a customer.

On such days, Soobin felt like a machine serving its purpose. Greet the customers, tend to the flowers, make arrangements and repeat. To be fair, the monotony used to comfort him once. Two years ago, that had been his entire life. It used to be only him and the flowers, and sometimes his part-time employee taking turns behind the counter so he could balance his studies and tutoring. That changed when you became friends with him.

Soobin couldn’t remember when or how it began but he really enjoyed it when you started showing up in his humble shop like this. You expressed genuine interest when he first told you about his little business, and he couldn't forget the look on your face when he first took you to the shop. No flower could rival the raw look of enrapture you had on you. You started coming by more often — at first to talk, then to help, then simply to exist there. You loved flowers as much as he did. So there was no reason for him to stop you from showing up.

He doubted he could ever ask you to stop showing up. Frankly, it’s something he always looked forward to because you manage to bring comfort with you. You had a way of making the space feel lived in; of making him feel seen. So now your absence, even if for one day, felt tortuous to Soobin.

Whenever his employee Jisoo showed up, Soobin would manage the shop together with him. The lunch brought by Jisoo was shared between the two of them. Some days, Soobin would almost hear your phantom nagging at him for never learning how to cook. On others, when Jisoo happened to bring the dishes you loved, Soobin would simply stare at them for a moment too long, thinking of how you’d probably hum with satisfaction after the first bite, your expression glowing with unguarded joy that made his heart ache in the most tender way.

On such a monday, after Jisoo left finishing his shift, Soobin brewed himself a cup of tea as he put on some song in the background. Leaning against the counter he took a sip of his tea and stared out of the window. Outside, a pair of children ran past, their laughter echoed down the path. Soobin’s gaze drifted toward the doorway. The space looked too still without your movement.

The only movement that tugged on the edges of his thoughts was the gentle sway of the daffodils by the breeze that came from the open nursery door. The bright yellow flowers beckoned him to caress them.

Daffodils, known for their ability to emerge after the darkness of winter symbolizes hope and the promise of better times, alongside joy and happiness. He wondered, as he gently brushed his across one of the petals, if in another life or in some other universe entirely — these daffodils were growing inside his chest, their roots weaving through his lungs, their golden blooms stealing his breath. Perhaps that was why his heart ached this way every time he thought of you. He decided he wouldn’t mind suffocating, not if it meant the air that left him was filled with your name.

Love had made its home in him long ago. Flowers of love bloomed in his chest, threatening to slip out of him whenever he looked at you which he disguised as breathless laughters, as words, as the ineffable fondness that ran through his veins at your mere existence.

Another chime from the bell. Again, he looked up. Again, it wasn’t you.

He hated Mondays for how long they felt, for how they made the absence of you stretch into hours he could count by the way the sunlight changed. Still, there was a strange comfort in missing you. It meant you existed somewhere beyond these walls, and tomorrow, when the bell chimed again, it might really be you.

Until then, he had the flowers. He had the scent of the daffodils. He had the echo of your voice stored in memory. And for a boy like Soobin who loved through petals and silence, that was sufficient to keep breathing through the slow, pale hours of Monday.

From morning lectures to late afternoon tutoring, Soobin’s hours always blurred into a monotony of words and fatigue on Tuesdays. Other than that, these days were simply to say, pretty uneventful.

But it was such a TUESDAY that reminded him that even ordinary days could bloom.

Soft morning light pooled across the courtyard benches where Soobin sat with Taehyun and Kai. The three of them huddled together as they discussed writing their reports, but it was mostly them and not Soobin who engaged in the conversation. Soobin found his attention drifting to the faint rustle of leaves above them.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw you waving. You appeared in a rush of sunlight and apologetic smiles, which made him sit up straighter. He almost did the foolish act of fumbling to catch his heart because it skipped a beat so hard, Soobin truly felt like it was about to leap out of his ribcage.

“Soobin!” You called, already halfway to them. You were visibly out of breath but why was it him who felt breathless? The way your eyes caught the sunlight made it impossible for him to look anywhere else. “I don’t have time to stay—I’m already late for my lecture—but here.” You held out a paper bag toward him. “Don’t skip lunch, okay? I’ll see you later!”

Before he could say much beyond a thank you,you were already stepping back, waving to the other two. “Bye, guys!” — and running off toward the building.

For a second, everything surrounding him seemed to still in the wake of your absence. He opened the bag, saw the croissant sandwich wrapped in neat folds and a water bottle nestled beside it. You were his friend, yes, what you were doing was nothing more than just a friend looking out for another. You’d always been thoughtful, always been a loving and caring person. Still, he couldn’t stop feeling warm by this small act of care because you knew Tuesdays were hectic for him and went out of your way to make sure he gained the energy to push through.

Kai’s malicious groan disturbed his sweet bubble of thoughts. “Must be nice having someone like that,” the younger said, gesturing lazily at the bag. “You’re lucky, man. I’d kill for a lunch delivery mid-day and— ow!”

It was Taehyun who smacked the back of Kai’s head to hush him, signalling him with a single stare that translated ‘read the room’. The two then turned to Soobin who still looked lost in his head, glasses slightly dropping down his nose by the way his head was tilted downward.

Taehyun softly cleared his throat, trying to mask his question as friendly as possible. “Are you two together?”

Soobin flinched. He could have said no, a neat dismissal that left nothing to broker between them. Instead he found himself saying, “We’re just friends.” The phrase came out tasting bitter and wrong on his tongue, betraying him with a half-second’s hesitation between just and friends that suggested how the truth refused to fit into any box.

“Ah,” Taehyun said simply, leaning back in his chair. “Alright.”

Kai, rubbing the back of his head, tried to reclaim the moment, about to offer some light commentary that would have widened the circle of awkwardness, but Taehyun’s small, admonishing look cut him off. There was nothing for Soobin to explain anyway, or maybe there was too much.

By evening, the exhaustion sat heavy in his bones. Lecture after lecture had chipped away at him until all that remained was a dull ache behind his eyes. He had texted you out of habit in the afternoon between class breaks.

Not feeling very uplifted today.

He hadn’t meant for it to sound like a plea. Your reply came almost instantly.

I understand. I’ll be around if you need anything. Don’t push yourself too hard.

Typical of you — never intrusive, always there in the way only you could be. He appreciated it, but the distance between you remained, as it always had.

After finishing his last tutoring session of the day, he walked down the nearly deserted hallway. He hadn’t thought about you much during the time he spent wallowing in stress and fatigue. But when he turned the corner toward the elevator, the sight before him stopped him in his tracks.

There, just outside the elevator, sitting on one of the chairs by the wall, was you.

For a moment, he simply stood there, the dull exhaustion inside him replaced by something wordless and vast. You looked up, and when your eyes met his, a small smile, tired yet radiant at the same, bloomed across your face.

What are you doing here? — was all he could think, though words deserted him for a few more seconds after approaching you.

“You’re still here?” he managed. “Your class ended hours ago.”

You stood stretching slightly, your smile widening just a fraction. “Figured you’d need someone to walk home with.”

He blinked, dazed, as if the meaning of your words had to travel through too many walls before it reached him. “Didn’t you have somewhere to go?” he asked, trying to reason.

“No,” you replied simply, “I wanted to make sure you weren’t walking home alone.”

His pulse thrummed with an inexplicable ache that felt too alive for his exhausted body. It wasn’t like you to wait around this long, especially when you could be using this time to focus on anything better. Anything or anyone better than him. But you had waited for him because of a single text.

He didn’t know what he had done to be worthy of your patience, nor did he know how to articulate the reverence that rose in him now, the fierce, aching wish to deserve it. He wondered whether his heart could bear much more of you before it gave itself away entirely.

“Oh? Um. Thank you,” he murmured, the words far too meager for all he wanted to say.

The elevator chimed. You gestured toward it with a small nod, and he followed, still unsure if his gratitude was delivered to you properly. You leaned back against the wall, and let out a sigh that relaxed your posture. He took his place against the opposite wall. Now, with the distance of the day collapsing between you he noticed the weariness clinging to you which he had missed when he first saw you sitting outside. He still couldn’t fathom the fact that you waited for him, all because he expressed feeling a little blue.

“Did you eat everything?” Your voice was soothing and gentle that in his overflowing love fueled headspace, he almost felt like he could fall asleep listening to you. “The croissant—was it alright?”

“It was better than alright,” he, too, spoke in a low tone to match your cadence. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I opened the bag.”

You smiled, eyes meeting his for the briefest second before drifting toward the faintly glowing floor indicator. “I knew you needed it. I know how hard you work all the time.”

He felt a drowsy calm settle over him. If either of you noticed the way his eyes were locked onto you after your admission, neither you nor he made a comment about it. He wanted to take your tiredness and scatter it away, to cup your face and let his gratitude pour through his touch just as a way to give back, to make you feel the way you made him feel. The impulse to kiss you was so overwhelming that it startled him though not because it was new, but because it had never been this close to breaking through. His hands twitched at his sides, every instinct begging to bridge the distance, yet reason kept him still.

Nevertheless, what he felt for you had already outgrown the safety of words. It was already too alive, too consuming, blooming inside him like a garden that asked only to be watered by you.

When the elevator doors opened, the spell broke. Soobin turned his head, meaning to speak, to say thank you again in a way that might capture what you had done for him but the words withered again before they could take shape.

If love could be measured by waiting, then you had just rewritten every definition he knew.

By the railing near the exit, a row of potted forget-me-nots watched in blue silence, as though they, too, understood what it meant to wait and to be remembered.

If affection could take form, Soobin learned that WEDNESDAYS could be its sunlight.

When he orders for a shipment, it is mostly on Wednesdays that the new batch of fresh floras arrive. It wasn’t necessarily a constant occurrence, but it had happened often, which is why Soobin liked to keep important shop related agendas particularly on this day.

Two weeks later on a Wednesday. Soobin stood behind the counter with sleeves rolled above his forearms, a clipboard in hand, his glasses slipping slightly down his nose as he ticked off names and numbers. The bell jingled — and of course instinctively he looked up — smiling brightly with his dimples deepening at the sight of you.

“Hey,” you greeted him with a cheerful smile.

He reached for the glass jar beside the register, fished out a lemon candy, and rolled it across the counter toward you.

“Morning,” he greeted, his smile softening. “You’re here earlier than usual.”

“Prof was feeling generous today, I suppose. She ended the class early so I came as soon as I could,” you replied, picking up the candy. The lemon filled your mouth with a tangy sting, a small burst of summer. Behind him, Jisoo was sorting tulips with exaggerated concentration, pretending not to eavesdrop. You waved at him anyway, earning a sheepish smile before he ducked his head.

“Everything arrived fine?” you asked, glancing toward the mountain of crates by the window.

Soobin followed your gaze, pushed his glasses higher, and exhaled as though only now realizing how much work still lay ahead. “More or less. The supplier mixed up a few labels again—I might have accidentally ordered twice the usual number of sunflowers.”

“Accidentally?” you repeated, your brows arching in suspicion.

He met your look with one of his own — a small smile of oops before setting the clipboard down. “Maybe not entirely. Actually,” he began, pausing because he wanted to choose his words with care, “do you have plans for the day?”

“Nope,” you said at once. “Why? Planning to put me to work again?”

“Something like that,” he said, straightening a small stack of receipts only to set them down again. Soobin felt a tender warmth in his chest as you stared at him expectantly. “How would you feel about coming with me to the sunflower farm? I need to sort out the delivery issue in person. Could use the company.”

The candy nearly slipped from your tongue. “A sunflower farm?” you echoed, disbelief giving way to delight. “You’re asking me to go to a sunflower farm?”

“Unless you have something better to do,” he teased lightly, though his hand still brushed the edge of the counter with a nervous anticipation.

You shook your head far too quickly. “Even if I did, I’d cancel it immediately. Who in their right mind would say no to a sunflower field?”

You said those words so earnestly that Soobin couldn’t stop the bright laugh from escaping him. He hadn’t meant to react so openly, yet your enthusiasm had a way of undoing his restraint piece by piece until all that remained was this foolish, giddy pulse under his ribs that refused to calm down.

“You’re right, no one in their right mind should say no to that,” he humored you, adjusting his glasses to mask the giddiness still threatening to spread. “Give me around ten minutes and we’ll go, yeah?”

You saluted him playfully before turning toward the doorway. Behind you, his voice followed, threaded with an affection he didn’t bother to hide. “And grab a hat—it gets hot out there. Jisoo will show you where we keep them.”

He didn’t really need to solve the delivery issue in person — he could’ve just sent an e-mail clarification and been done with it. But Soobin, being Soobin, saw the outing as a chance to “deepen professional ties.” That was how he phrased it in his head at least. Both work-wise and, well… you-wise.

He told you it was for work, and he told himself that too. And technically, it was true. He was going for work. But what his mind could justify, his heart refused to understand. His heart had long stopped behaving like something he could reason with. It thrashed and pleaded, spinning songs out of nothing whenever you were near and lured out all the thoughts he’d buried in the farthest corners of his head. It told him things his reason wouldn’t dare put into words. Things like asking you to accompany him to a sunflower farm was the equivalent of asking you on a date. Scratch that, it wasn’t really a date because, again, work. Except his heart couldn’t care less.

If sunflowers yearned toward the sun, then his heart tilted helplessly toward you. You had your fingerprints all over his heart, left on his thoughts, his gestures, the smallest habits he could no longer call his own. You touched him without touching him, and he felt it deep in his bones.

By the time they arrived at the sunflower farm, the late afternoon light had turned syrup-thick, golden and drowsy, coating everything it touched. It took less than half an hour for him to settle the shipment issue which he was most thankful for because it meant he could spend more time with you looking around. He carried the paperwork in one hand checking the state of the flowers as they walked, though his mind was far from logistics.

You walked a few steps ahead, the hem of your shirt catching in the breeze and sunlight glancing off your hair as you did. Every few seconds, you’d turn back to point something out with a smile — a stretch of wildflowers, a crooked fence post and each time you did, he felt that same small collapse inside him, the one that whispered he could spend a lifetime looking at you and still not feel full.

He wanted to reach for your hand. God, how badly he wanted to. It wasn’t even about the touch — it was about what it meant. It was to feel your pulse beneath his thumb, to know that the warmth in his chest had somewhere to belong. But do friends hold hands like that? With the kind of longing that burned holes through reason and plagued his senses?

Soobin noticed a patch of young sunflowers and bent before them, one knee pressed into the dirt, eyes tracing the fragile stems swaying in the mild breeze. His fingers brushed the soil with care, tracing the tender line of roots that had begun to weave through the earth. The ground was still warm from the afternoon sun, faintly damp against his skin.

You came to stand beside him, your shadow falling across the flowers. “Are these newly planted?” you asked, crouching a little to match his height.

He nodded, flicking a bit of soil from his fingers. “Mm. A few weeks old, maybe.”

You tilted your head, smiling at the shy blossoms. Then you glanced at him with a grin that glowed warmer than the light itself. “How pretty.”

Though you meant the flowers, the words seemed to settle somewhere deep in him. He didn’t dare look up. He could still feel you there, your presence bright beside him. The weather’s heat was a little tacky but your warmth felt heavenly. Then, all at once, your weight beside him vanished.

“Soobin,” you called sweetly from somewhere behind him.

He looked up and was met with a sprinkle of cold droplets landing across his cheek. He blinked, a startled laugh escaping him. You stood a few steps away with the watering can in both hands, trying to hide your grin.

“Oops,” you said lightly. “Got confused for a second—which one was the real flower.”

“Oh my god.” He raised his brows, disbelief flickering across his face. “You’re not usually the type for corny lines.”

“What can I do when you’re so pretty?”

That made him stop. The laugh died halfway through his throat, dissolving into a soundless exhale. You said it so easily, without any awareness of what it did to him and maybe that was what made it worse, that you could wound him so sweetly without even knowing.

He rose to his feet, slow enough to steady himself. Reaching for the watering can, he caught your wrist gently before he dipped his hand into the water. When he lifted it again, droplets slid between his knuckles, catching sunlight as he flicked them in your direction.

You gasped, a small sound that made his stomach twist, your lashes catching stray drops.

“Guess I’ll have to water you too,” he said, tapping his wet fingers once against your cheek, eyes dipping for a second too long. “You look parched.”

And the moment they left his mouth, his heart raced in his throat. He could almost feel the words replaying in his own head. What are you doing? What are you saying? His mind scrambled to fix what his mouth had already done. He hastily drew his hand back.

You seemed to still for a moment before wiping your face with the back of your hand, eyes narrowing playfully. “It’s flattering to know you think I’m pretty, Soobin.”

He hesitated — a heartbeat too long — before forcing a grin and patting your head. “I think you need water to grow taller,” he countered steadily though his pulse was anything but.

“Wow,” you said flatly, dragging out the word. “How rude.”

Soobin had to look away and laugh, which sounded way too nervous to be called one. He tugged at the top button of his shirt before it came undone and a low exhale slipped past his lips. He was already in some sort of trance. Maybe the sun had found its way into his bloodstream, making him reckless enough to muddle reasons. Because blaming his erratic need to lose control in front of you on the sun was easier than to admit he was truly losing it.

One moment you were standing in front of him then the next you moved in front of a bigger batch up ahead. "You really shouldn’t be talking about height here," you said, pointing to a sunflower that swayed slightly in the breeze. "That one’s taller than you. In fact, most of them are towering above you."

Soobin, caught in the moment, let his traitorous heart take control and began humoring you. “Is that so?” He moved beside the flower. It towered impressively, yes, but the top of his head passed the blossom by only a few centimeters. His shoulders straightened with faint defiance as he glanced down at you, half a smirk playing on his lips. "Seems I still win."

You squinted up at him. "Don’t cheat by standing on your toes," you teased, reaching out to tug lightly at his sleeve.

The sunlight spilled across your face in such a way that made you look otherworldly. He was already far too gone in the trance put on him by the magic of you, and right at that moment, Soobin forgot how to stand. He forgot the line between reason and impulse (nothing to be surprised of), between what he should do and what he wanted.

He leaned down before he could stop himself, close enough for his shadow to blur with yours on the road. “Is it better this way?” he murmured.

It was a mistake. He knew it the moment his voice reached your ears, when your laughter stilled and your eyes flicked up to meet his, wide and startled and so alive that his breath trembled. How easily he could close that last distance between you and him. How impossible it truly was.

Then his senses caught up to him all at once. He straightened abruptly, hand flying to the bridge of his glasses — his oldest defense — adjusting them even though they hadn’t slipped. It gave him a moment, just one, to hide behind the pretense of composure. His jaw clenched faintly as he looked away.

But even as he stared forward, he could feel your gaze on him — the soft burn of it trailing along the curve of his neck, tracing the space he had left between you. He didn’t dare look at you. If he did, you’d see everything he’d been hiding, everything that now pulsed under his skin like fever.

“Do you—” he paused, clearing his throat as the words got caught, “do you want to take pictures? Before the sun goes down.” he sounded a little too careful but it did what he needed it to — it changed the air.

You glanced toward the horizon, where the light had begun to mellow into amber. “That’s a good idea,” you said after a beat. “You can take photos for the catalog too—the blooms look perfect today.”

He nodded, grateful for the excuse. Grateful to have something to do with his hands. He unzipped the canvas bag slung across his shoulder and pulled out the small, cream-colored Polaroid camera — a gift from you months ago, when you’d told him to capture memories before they faded. He took his time to capture everything he deemed beautiful but every few seconds, his gaze flickered to where you stood among the taller sunflowers, tucking loose strands of hair behind your ear which kept swaying by the breeze.

He raised the camera again, this time framing you against the wide sky.

When the film slid out, he watched it develop in his hand, the color slowly blooming into form. You tilted your head, watching him. “That’s not for the catalog,” you remarked with a gentle smile.

He met your gaze then. It was only for a second but enough to betray himself. He still wanted to indulge a little.

“No,” he admitted softly, “this one’s for me.” As well as be honest a little.

You let out a soft chuckle. Taking a few steps closer, you reached for the camera.

“Then this one—” you said, holding it toward him, “—is mine.”

He blinked, almost unmoored, before breaking into a helpless smile that could only exist when you were around. Hiwever, it was genuine.

As the photograph emerged, you held it by its edge beside the one he’d taken. Two fragments of the same light, caught forever in the same field of gold.

The metro was far more crowded than it had any right to be at that hour. Soobin stood near the door, one hand around the pole, the other hovering just behind your shoulder to keep anyone from bumping into you. You looked uneasy, shoulders drawn in, trying your best to fold into yourself without seeming rude.

Soobin knew you never liked standing amidst people in a densely populated place. He should’ve known better than to suggest the metro. And though it wasn’t entirely his fault, the sight of you pressing into the corner made his chest twist in guilt. So, without thinking much, he reached out and guided you gently by the elbow until you were tucked between him and the wall.

You fit there perfectly, shielded from the crowd completely by the breadth of his frame. You blinked up at him, a little startled. He looked down, suddenly aware of the closeness. His hand dropped back to his side almost immediately, flexing.

“Sorry,” he spoke in a hush tone. “I just thought you’d be more comfortable here.”

You shook your head with a smile, the corners of your eyes folding with quiet affection. “Dont be sorry. I appreciate you for always looking out for me, Soobin.”

He exhaled a soft laugh that came out more self-deprecating. “I’m not doing a great job right now. This was my bright idea, remember? Now you’re stuck here because of me.”

Your reply came with a small huff but still smiled. “I’m doing just fine. You're worrying too much.”

That shut him up in the gentlest way possible. You leaned your head back against the cool metal wall, eyelids fluttering shut. The sway of the carriage rocked your frame ever so slightly which seemed to lull you into a momentary calm. The tension in your shoulders eased little by little, and Soobin felt like he could rest assured now, eyes drifting to the reflection of the lights skimming across the glass.

The train lurched forward again and Soobin instinctively braced his hand on the wall beside your head to steady himself — and you. He was acutely aware of how close you were, of how the space between seemed to shrink with every passing second.

He debated whether to speak, to ask if you were all right just npw, but the question felt redundant. So instead, his free hand stayed close to yours, fingers twitching with the faintest restraint, close enough to offer balance if another sudden jolt came, but not near enough to betray the thought behind it.

Soobin didn’t like how your head was softly but repeatedly bumping against the wall with the vibration of the carriage. He at once balanced his hand on the handrail attached to the pole and the wall beside him, and angled his body in such a way that separated you completely from the crowd.

“Lean on me,” he said, with a faint trace of hesitation, almost shy.

Your eyes fluttered open, drowsy and questioning. “What?”

“You look like you’re about to fall asleep,” he reasoned though his heart was thudding in his chest. “Might as well be comfortable.”

You laughed under your breath, the sound sleepy. “What if your arm starts to cramp?”

He shook his head once, smiling faintly. Your protests fell deaf to his ears when the least he could do right now was to offer you even the slightest form of comfort. Even if it meant at the cost of his own.

“It won’t,” he simply stated. “I don’t mind.”

You studied him for a second longer before giving in. Slowly, tentatively, you tilted your head until it found its place against the crook of his arm. The weight was light but real, it was you and your warmth, and it sent a quiet tremor through him that he tried to swallow down. The realization that you trusted him enough to rest there so freely did wonders to his feelings.

“Comfortable?” he asked.

“Mhm,” you hummed, content. A few beats later, in a mellow tone, you added, “I had a really good time today.”

Soobin couldn’t help — and didn’t really fight — the glow of fondness from showing in his face. From anyone else’s eyes, the sight might have looked like a simple, affectionate tableau between lovers. But to him, it felt like standing on the edge of a dream he could neither step into nor wake from. The thought of being yours, even in some alternate world, felt cruel in its sweetness. It filled him and hollowed him out all at once like a heart beating for what it could never hold.

The vision of you as his lingered even when he dropped you off at your home. When you stopped in front of your door, he did too, his hands deep in his pockets, trying to mask the restlessness running through him. You waited for a few moments, causing him to question if everything was alright.

You didn’t use words. You stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him.

Soobin’s body went rigid before his instinct — no, longing — took over, and his hands found their way out of his pockets, hovering uncertainly. You fit so perfectly against him that it almost hurt. He prayed you couldn’t hear the chaotic thrum of his heartbeat. He was feeling so exposed, so bare in your embrace. After what felt like eons, he steadied himself before returning the embrace.

“What’s this? Are you missing the sunflowers already?” He joked despite feeling like he was on cloud nine.

It earned him a soft scoff from you before you mumbled a ‘oh, shut up.’ He wanted to breathe in your scent but he didn’t dare. Because if he did, it wouldn’t just be longing anymore. It would be surrender.

With your head still resting on his chest, you said with a smile, “Thank you for today, Soobin.”

It was the gentlest of words and yet it split him open cleanly without mercy. He felt, absurdly, as though the gods had reached into his chest and taken his heart between their hands, just to remind him what it meant to feel alive. You should never have to thank him. Being with you was never something that demanded gratitude.

When you pulled away, it was almost too much. He managed a smile, steadying his voice though it trembled at the edges. “Of course,” he said, meaning every word like a vow. “Anything for you.”

You lingered for a heartbeat longer before stepping inside. Soobin remained where he was, hands back in his pockets, watching as the door closed and the warm light spilled into the dusk for one final moment.

He felt like he could mimic a sunflower just fine.

Who knew that his love could deepen so irrevocably on an ordinary Wednesday?

There was a stem sitting in a chipped vase by the window. Once, it held a bloom — a pale carnation he’d forgotten to include in a bouquet he sold. Now it drooped, half-leaning toward the glass as though yearning for the outside light. He should throw it away, he thought, but didn’t. Instead, he watered it every morning, knowing it will never stand upright again.

Soobin never dreaded THURSDAYS until they became the most sorrowful day of the week.

The reason wasn’t because you stopped coming (that would have been easier to bear, he thought) but because you started bringing someone with you. A friend, who looked way too close to you than to Soobin’s liking.

His name was Choi Beomgyu.

When you first brought him over, Soobin’s smile faltered in the smallest way, mimicking a petal folding in on itself before falling. You’d introduced him brightly, and Beomgyu had offered a handshake and a grin that reached his eyes. He complimented the shop, the flowers, and the careful order of the bouquets but Soobin found himself unable to match his tone. Normally, such praise would have filled him with pride; after all, he loved his flowers and he loved it even more when others saw their worth and the effort he put behind his shop. But this time, every kind word felt like a stone dropped into his chest, until he could no longer tell whether it was jealousy or shame that weighed more.

Out of habit, Soobin reached for the jar near the counter to fish out a lemon candy, the way he always did whenever you came by. But as he was about to offer it to you, this Choi Beomgyu guy went, “Woah, lemon candy? I love those! Mind if I take one?”

And without waiting for an answer, he plucked one straight from the jar — your jar — and tore the wrapper open with his teeth, tossing the candy into his mouth. Soobin could only stare at the audacity, the scene unfolding before him like an intrusion into a world he thought was private. You laughed softly beside him, eyes bright as you turned to Beomgyu and said how glad you were to find someone else who liked lemon candies just as much as you did.

Soobin had a dozen things to say to you. He had stories to share, small and ordinary things of the mundane, and most importantly, you were supposed to talk his ears off as he worked. But with Beomgyu there, every thought dissolved on his tongue before he could speak it, melting away like the candy itself — leaving behind a bitter aftertaste he couldn’t swallow.

Maybe it was because he hadn’t seen you this giddy before, this radiant joy that came when you walked in every Thursday now with Beomgyu trailing behind as you show Beomgyu around, repeating the flower meanings Soobin himself had taught you. Maybe it was because when you explained how yellow carnations meant rejection and disappointment, you were unaware of how the words sat cruelly poetic in his chest. Maybe it was because on Thursdays, you two sat side by side, working through your assignments while Soobin watered stems that no longer needed tending.

It was ridiculous, he knew; you were right there, just a few feet away, but each passing moment made it feel like he was watching from behind glass, separated by a barrier invisible yet impenetrable.

He didn’t expect jealousy to feel like this smoldering ache that crawled up from his ribs, until even breathing felt like torment. So he looked away from where you sat with Beomgyu and fixed his eyes instead on the vase in front of him — a vase full of yellow carnations — and wished the water would somehow saturate the burning ache within him.

Even if he had you to himself for the rest of the week, this single Thursday without you felt like an emptiness that could not be reasoned with.

By the fourth Thursday, Beomgyu had somehow folded himself into the routine. The first few times, Soobin told himself it was temporary, that your friend would grow bored of tagging along to a flower shop but no. It wasn’t even surprising anymore to hear his voice before yours. Soobin was going to need a while to get used to it.

Soobin had tried, for a time, to dislike him on principle. But Beomgyu was unfairly difficult to hate because in all honesty he was a really nice guy. Even Jisoo liked him — especially Jisoo, which only made Soobin’s quiet resentment feel more childish. His morals acted up quickly and Soobin started to feel ashamed for even trying to villanize that poor dude.

Sometimes, at lunch, the four of them ate together. Jisoo would bring pasta or kimbap, Beomgyu would start talking about anything and could turn a dull story into something worth listening to. And you would laugh until your eyes disappeared into crescents. It should’ve been a pleasant routine — it was pleasant — but to Soobin, every laugh sounded like a reminder that the world was far too eager to share you. As stupid as it sounded, but oftentimes, it made Soobin feel like an intruder in his own shop.

On such a Thursday, they gathered around the small table full of disposable boxes, eating lunch and chatting. It wasn’t like Soobin wasn’t participating; he was. With everyone, just to be clear. Even Beomgyu, who for some reason had taken an immense liking to him, declaring him an honorary holder of the “platinum bro code card” and insisting they were now bound by friendship. Said friendship was in the stage where it was mostly Beomgyu landing actual good jokes. And to his inner horror, Soobin actually took them — found himself laughing along, responding, even joking back.

Amid the easy back-and-forth, Soobin’s gaze landed on you for the briefest moment, and his breath caught at the sight of you smiling softly — at him — like you were proud of something he’d said or done without realizing. The sight scattered his composure so he averted his eyes too quickly and, to cover the moment, picked up a forkful of pasta from Beomgyu’s box and shoved it straight into the other’s mouth. Beomgyu squawked through a laugh, nearly choking, while you laughed behind your hand.

By the time the food had dwindled to scraps, Jisoo was the first to excuse himself to check on the nursery. Beomgyu started helping with the clean-up, handing Soobin the empty boxes, and the three of you continued to talk about everything and nothing — university projects, the upcoming rain, some movie Beomgyu insisted you both needed to see.

Soobin stood up from his chair with the boxes when he noticed a smear of sauce at the corner of your lips. He looked around for some tissue to grab but his mind went static when he heard Beomgyu talk.

“Hey, you’ve got—wait, here,” Beomgyu said, pointing at his own mouth, laughing. “You’ve got something right there—”

That — that imagination of Choi Beomgyu wiping sauce off your lips, right in front of him as he watched it happen, was immensely and totally wrong on many levels. It didn’t sit right with him. He would be one of the biggest fools to walk on earth if he allowed it to happen.

Soobin had already grabbed your chin before Beomgyu could even lift one finger. His knuckles curled beneath your chin, guiding your face toward him before tilting your face up to look at him. Soobin’s eyes were unreadable when he gently wiped the smudge of sauce from the corner of your lips with his thumb — when he brought that thumb to his mouth and licked it clean.

If someone dropped a pin at that moment, the sound would resonate through the entire place.

Without a word, Soobin walked away toward the sink at the back of the shop. He dumped the boxes into the bin, pressed both hands to the edge of the sink with his head bowed and exhaled hard.

He couldn’t explain what possessed him. His pulse was loud in his ears, his thoughts a mess of disbelief and heat. He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, trying to erase the phantom feeling of your skin beneath his thumb. Your lips were so soft. Fuck.

It shouldn’t have felt that good. It shouldn’t have felt like anything at all.

He stood there in disbelief realizing how much he wanted to feel it again.

Behind him came the sound of you choking slightly on your next bite of pasta, Beomgyu’s startled voice asking if you were all right followed by the scrape of a chair. Soobin shut his eyes and cursed under his breath, feeling the heat crawl up his neck.

Despite feeling like his entire body was on fire, Soobin’s lips twitched, the faintest ghost of a smirk forming before he exhaled and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling.

He couldn’t believe he’d done that. But God, it felt good.

It was a Thursday like any other. Except this time, when the bell above the door chimed, it wasn’t you who entered. It was Beomgyu, and he was alone.

His mind needed an extra beat to process that the space beside Beomgyu was empty. Soobin’s first thought was something’s happened to you. He hastily checked his phone to see if he missed any texts or calls from you, but there was none.

His focus was momentarily pulled away from you by Beomgyu’s greeting. Soobin, still thrown, returned it with a polite nod while fixing his glasses. But the question pressed insistently behind his composure — what was he doing here, and alone of all things? He never came without you.

“You can wait in the shop until she comes over. It should be another hour or so.” His hand was already moving toward the small fridge at the corner. “Want anything to drink? I’ve got—uh, iced tea. Coffee, too, if you’d rather—”

A low chuckle interrupted him, stopping him mid-step. “Oh, no.” Beomgyu shook his head. “I’m not here for her. Well—technically, I am.” Then, after a pause that sounded too intentional to make Soobin turn, Beomgyu added with a grin, “But not in the way you think.”

Soobin frowned faintly. “I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on that, Beomgyu.”

Beomgyu didn’t answer right away; he drummed his fingers against the counter, gaze sweeping across the room as if admiring the shop. “I wanted a bouquet made.”

The words, on their own, were harmless. Soobin had heard them countless times before. Yet, paired with the conversation’s earlier turn, they carried a strange undercurrent that made his chest constrict. Still, he defaulted to familiarity, grasping at professionalism. “That can be done,” he said, pulling the small catalogue closer and flipping it open to the section on mixed arrangements. “Any idea what kind of flowers you’re thinking?”

“All her favourites.”

The catalogue stilled between his fingers. It took a moment for the words to truly register, and when they did, Soobin felt devastation sinking in his chest. He looked at Beomgyu hastily, mortified. “What?” he blurted out without schooling his tone.

Beomgyu gave a small shrug, his hands slipping into his pockets as if this entire conversation weren’t splitting Soobin open from the inside out. “You know her favourites better than anyone,” Beomgyu said lightly, like that explained everything. “So, really, asking you just made sense.” Then, he tilted his head slightly, that same grin curving into a sly smirk. “I’m thinking of asking her out.”

For a brief, excruciating second, his entire world swayed. Everything around him dissipated until all that remained was white noise that rested upon his eyelids. All he could hear was that sentence repeating itself over and over in the confines of his skull. I’m thinking of asking her out.

“She’s not—” The rest of the sentence collapsed, leaving the words half-born and useless. You weren’t his to defend, and yet, how could he stop the instinct? You were the unreachable star he loved from afar because he thought loving you silently was the only way to keep you safe from his inadequacy and the cruelest part was that it had been entirely his choice. But now, hearing Beomgyu say those words aloud — words that should have belonged to him if he weren’t so terrified of deserving you — was like standing at the edge of a cliff.

“She’s what?” Beomgyu pressed. He straightened, his expression open but his eyes glinting. “What’s stopping me? Unless—” He let his voice trail off, pretending to think, before leaning his elbows on the counter with an exaggerated look of realization. “Unless you’ve got a problem with it.”

Soobin’s fingers curled against his palms until his nails bit into skin. He had no claim, no right — you were not his, not an object to be guarded or possessed but every fibre of him still burned with the injustice of it. Because his heart always refused to obey what his mind already knew.

“You had your chance,” Beomgyu leaned closer, his voice dipping into a quiet, almost friendly murmur. “You didn’t take it. So tell me, Soobin—why shouldn’t I?”

A terrible and hollow realization dawned upon Soobin that he was standing on the edge of that same invisible cliff again, staring into an expanse where only your name existed, carried faintly by the wind. The room had gone still again; Beomgyu’s words still echoed in the air, but vaguely now. It was almost like Soobin had lost grip on reality.

His love for you had always been immense, alive and untamed, too large for the body that tried to hold it. But what if it wasn’t enough? What if Beomgyu could give you something more deserving than the silent devotion of a man who couldn’t even say the words out loud?

He loved you — so much, so fervently, so ardently — that sometimes he feared his heart might tear itself apart from the strain of it. His love spilled through the cracks of him, too much to hold in his cupped hands. It drenched every part of him, soaked through every thought, and yet he could never seem to give it shape. He was a florist, and perhaps that was why his love had always been wordless. He loved in petals and stems, in silent acts of care hoping you’d somehow see his heart in the language of flowers.

But that was never enough, was it?

He wasn’t a poet, and he was barely a lover. Just a man hopelessly in love, drowning in devotion he could neither voice nor abandon.

When he spoke, his voice sounded unfamiliar to his own ears. “Just—give me a moment,” he murmured to Beomgyu, in almost the same voice he used with customers. “I’ll start on your bouquet right away.”

He turned toward the rows of flowers. Blooms in every shade of tenderness and grief — and he stood there for a long time without moving. Part of him thought, absurdly, that he could be cruel. That he could choose the wrong flowers, something mismatched, something unworthy of you, and hand it to Beomgyu. It would’ve been easy — so heartbreakingly easy — to let pettiness bloom where love had once been.

But his hands wouldn’t listen. Even now, even when his chest ached like an open wound, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He could not arrange a bouquet meant for you with the wrong flowers. He could not betray his love by staining it with spite.

So his hands reach for the stems with memory, with love. He picked the soft pink roses first — the only shade of rose you adored — and paired them with tiny clusters of baby’s breath, white and blush-pink, your favourite of them all. A few sprigs of lavender followed, delicate and faintly fragrant, the scent you always said reminded you of calm. He filled the spaces with greens to make the bouquet feel whole. When it came to wrapping, he didn’t even hesitate to choose a transparent paper, you loved it because it let the colours breathe.

He tied it all together with a thin white satin ribbon, hands steady despite the tremor beneath his skin. By the time he was done, his heart stopped thrashing but there was still a small, sad smile on his lips. When he slid the bouquet across the counter, his voice was distant.

“It’s done.”

Beomgyu looked at the arrangement, eyes scanning the blooms before smiling almost kindly. “Ah,” he sighed, eyes still on the roses. “These are her favourites, huh? Figures. You really do know her best.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a few bills and placed them neatly on the counter — but before Soobin could reach for them, Beomgyu nudged the bouquet back across the counter. “Keep the bouquet.”

Soobin’s head lifted, his brow creasing faintly. “Stop the crap, Beomgyu, why would I—”

“You really are hopeless,” Beomgyu muttered, clicking his tongue. Over the counter he jabbed a finger at Soobin’s chest looking him dead in the eye. “You think she doesn’t notice the way you look at her? Take it, before I change my mind.” Beomgyu straightened with an exasperated sigh before softly, like an afterthought, added, “You make it too easy to feel sorry for you, hyung.”

Soobin did not get a chance to ask for an explanation because Beomgyu was already half out the door, then paused with a thoughtful glance over his shoulder. “But I’ll still ask her out,” he said easily. “Because I don’t like losing, or stepping back from a challenge.”

With that, he was gone.

Soobin stood there in the silence that followed. His eyes lingered on the bouquet that still rested on the counter, petals trembling faintly in the draft that came from the open door.

Somewhere behind him, from the vase crowded with yellow carnations, a single bloom loosened from its stem and fell soundlessly onto the shelf below.

It was the first time Soobin ever kept the shop closed on a FRIDAY.

He stood in the university courtyard, eyes vacant and upturned to the sky as the first drops of rain slid through his hair and seeped into his collar. Yesterday’s encounter with Beomgyu left him grappling with his haywired emotions and then, a few hours later, your text came.

soobiiiin im sorry i cant come by today :((

That simple line added insult to injury. It felt like confirmation of every fear that had been gnawing at him since he saw Beomgyu. He imagined the two of you walking home together under a sky that should’ve been his to share with you. Soobin had spent the rest of that Thursday staring at the same page of the shop ledger, pen idle in his hand, unable to make sense of numbers or words.

Now, as he came out from his early morning class and stood under the dismal sky, it was as if the sky too understood the depth of his grief and let down its showers in hopes of washing some of it away. He should have looked for shelter but he lingered instead, watching the way water gathered in the cracks between cobblestones, how it carried fallen petals and bits of paper into small streams.

It was, admittedly, not a wise decision to walk home in it. By midday, his throat burned with every swallow, and his nose prickled from the chill. The fever was faint then — a warning he ignored. It became by afternoon, one of the reasons he had to keep the shop closed. When Jisoo offered to take over for the day, Soobin refused, insisting on locking up entirely and sending him home.

Isolating himself when he was at his lowest was one of Soobin’s many flaws. Despite granting him the space to think, it did nothing to help the fact that he was sick and most of his consciousness had now become a slave to drowsiness. Paired with heartbreak, Soobin was not in the right state of mind to be greeting customers with a smile in a place full of beauty that only reminded him of you.

Had he known you before this? In some other life, were you someone he had loved and lost over and over again? Because none of this made sense. This ache didn’t belong to the present — it felt older, as though it had lived in him long before he ever met you. How long had he been without you to feel this way now?

The fever came and went, mostly in the evenings, leaving him weaker each time it ebbed. One moment he was shivering under the blanket, and the next, heat licked through his skin until even breathing hurt. On the bedside table sat a half-empty glass of water and a few crumpled tissues, a tableau of his own negligence. The medicine packet lay open, though he couldn’t remember if he had taken the next dose or not. His head throbbed too much to care.

He lay sprawled on the bed, hair damp against the pillow. His throat scraped with every swallow, raw from hours of coughing. He’d given up on sitting upright hours ago — even lifting his head felt like work.

Through the blur of half-sleep, he caught sight of the camellias on his balcony swaying in the wind. Their petals were bright even under the grey sky. He stared until the colors melted into the haze of his fever. You liked camellias. He wondered if you were with Beomgyu. The idea soured his stomach and before he realized it, his eyes were watering. He sniffled, pressed the back of his hand to his nose and turned over, trying to will himself into sleep.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep before through the haze, he thought he heard his name. Hallucinating, he decided dimly. Fever dreams, that’s all. But the sound came again, clearer now, closer, and when his eyelids fluttered open, the blur at the edge of his vision focused into… you?

What were you doing here?

You were standing in the doorway of his room holding a closed umbrella. Your eyes were wide with alarm. For a long second, he wondered if this was still part of the dream. Your voice sounded too real though for it to be a dream. Panicked, even.

“Oh my god—” You crossed the room in an instant, dropping your bag somewhere near the chair. Your hand landed on his forehead, then his cheek. “Soobin, you’re burning up. What the hell, why didn’t you tell me?” Your voice broke off mid-sentence, tangled with disbelief. “Okay, okay, it’s fine, um—just… just wait for me, okay?”

You disappeared into the kitchen. He picked up a few distinct sounds like the clatter of cupboards, the rush of water from the tap and your hurried footsteps. The mattress dipped beside him, and the next thing he knew, you were pressing a damp towel against his forehead. The shock of it made him flinch, but the relief that followed was enough to draw a small, strangled sigh from him.

You exhaled shakily, wringing out the towel in the bowl you’d brought. “Did you even drink water? Have you taken your meds?” You glanced around at the bedside table, frowning at the open packet. “You probably didn’t take the next dose, did you? Of course you didn’t.”

He tried to speak, but it came out as a rasp, and you shushed him while adjusting the towel again. “Shh, don’t talk,” you said, hand brushing damp hair from his eyes. “You’re such an idiot. You could’ve just called.”

He would have laughed if his throat didn’t hurt so much. He forced his eyes open a little wider, though the effort drained what little strength he had left. It didn’t matter because he wanted to see you properly.

He must still be dreaming. The fever might have reached its cruelest peak, gifting him a hallucination so gentle it hurt to believe in it. Because how could you be here — in his apartment, taking care of him — when he had spent the past day convincing himself you were better off somewhere else? With someone else.

“I didn’t…” he started weakly, voice little more than a whisper. “Didn’t wanna bother you.”

You stared at him for a beat, lips parting as though to speak. Then you exhaled sharply, almost a laugh but not quite. “Bother me?” you echoed, shaking your head. “You idiot, you—” The words tripped over a breath and you bit them back, your shoulders sagging as if scolding him required more strength than you had. “God, Soobin.”

He closed his eyes when you pressed the cold cloth to his neck this time. You kept changing it, wiping his forehead, brushing damp strands of hair away, murmuring half-thoughts under your breath that he could barely piece together. He caught fragments: too hot, should’ve called, stupid boy, what if.

After a long silence, he whispered, “Are you mad at me?”

You seemed to still completely, towel halfway to the bowl. Your head turned, confusion written across your features. “Mad at you?” you repeated softly, the disbelief in your voice almost tender. “Soobin, why would I be mad?”

“I didn’t answer your texts,” he mumbled. His voice cracked halfway through. “I thought… maybe you’d—”

His words fell apart midway as a cough wracked through his chest until his ribs ached. You were already reaching for the glass, one hand steadying his shoulder as you lifted it to his lips. “Slowly,” you said, coaxing him to drink. “Small sips. You’ll choke otherwise.”

He obeyed, taking in just enough to ease the burn in his throat. When he settled back, he found you watching him, your expression softening that made his heart twist. You let out a quiet sigh and caressed his temple, fingertips cool against his fevered skin.

“Don’t be stupid,” you said, this time without any sharpness, just a weary affection. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

He looked at you, eyes glossy from fever, and for a moment he felt like he fell in love with you all over again. Te realization that you were — in fact — still there and close enough for him to see the faint tremor of your lashes, to count the breaths you took as each one anchored him to this specific moment.

“Can you stay?” His hand found yours, clumsy and shaking. “Please? I know you’d rather be—”

“Nowhere else.”

Your fingers tightened around his as your thumb traced steady lines over his knuckles. Then your other hand threaded gently through his hair, brushing it back from his damp forehead.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with you,” you murmured, cupping his cheek.

He thought he might cry again from this strange, fragile joy that flooded his chest. The room soon dimmed, your presence the last thing he felt before sleep dragged him under.

When Soobin woke, the light filtering through the curtains had turned a pale gold that made him squint. His throat still felt scraped raw, but the fire beneath his skin had cooled into a dull warmth; more tolerable now than torturous. He blinked toward the window, then at his phone on the nightstand that read 10:03 a.m.

The sight should have been comforting had it not been for suddenly seeing your sleeping figure on the couch. You were still in yesterday’s clothes, a blanket draped clumsily over your legs, your head tilted toward your shoulder in an uncomfortable angle. A book lay facedown beside you and on the table next to it sat a glass of water gone flat. You must’ve skipped class, or worse, missed it completely because of him.

He tried to sit up, a poor decision that immediately sent a rush of dizziness through him. He reached out blindly for the bedside table, his palm knocking against the glass and sending it rattling against the wood. The sound startled you awake.

You straightened abruptly, blinking against the light before your eyes snapped to him. “Soobin—hey, what are you doing?” You were already up, the blanket falling from your lap as you crossed the small space between the couch and his bed. The book hit the floor with a dull thud.

He gaped at you, disoriented. “You’re gonna be late,” he said again, fumbling for the blanket as if he could somehow usher you out. “You should go—it’s morning already—you have class—”

You caught his wrist before he could push himself up again, guiding him back to prop up against the headboard. “Soobin,” you lowered your voice, as if coaxing a restless child back into bed. “It’s Saturday.” You pressed a hand to his shoulder, keeping him from rising again.

“Oh,” he said lamely, eyes dropping to the blanket pooled at his waist. “Right. Saturday. Sorry, I still feel a little out of it.” He remembered, belatedly, that you didn’t have classes on Saturdays.

“Clearly,” you muttered, moving to pick up the fallen book from the floor. “You scared the hell out of me last night.” You set the book down on the nightstand this time, glancing at him over your shoulder before coming to sit at his side on the bed. Soobin scooted away a little to make space for you.

You stayed seated at his side for a while, waiting until the uneven rhythm of his breathing steadied again. He felt the need to talk to you; didn’t know about what but he still wanted to. You, however, beat him to it.

“Yesterday…” you started, drawing your knees up onto the edge of his bed, “you weren’t answering any calls. I thought maybe you fell asleep early, but then it got late, and you still didn’t text back. So I panicked—a little,” you added quickly, though the faint crease between your brows said otherwise. “I grabbed my umbrella and ran to the shop, thinking maybe you were still there, only to find the door locked and lights out.” You gave a small, humorless laugh, shaking your head.

He did not interrupt you, letting you spew out everything.

“I stood there for five minutes like an idiot before remembering you gave me a spare key, and thank god you did.” You exhaled sharply, pressing your lips together. “I was honestly pretty terrified seeing you like that. You were burning up, Soobin. I know a fever’s supposed to be harmless most times, but it didn’t look harmless to me.”

“It was raining,” he tried to weakly argue but his resolve faltered when you narrowed your eyes. “You could’ve caught a cold. You didn’t even know if I was at home.”

“Even if I knew,” you shot back with a small frown. “What did you expect me to do? Just text ‘feel better’ and go to sleep?”

He let out a small, rough laugh that broke too easily into silence. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“You didn’t mean to,” you echoed softly, glancing down at your hands, “but you still did. Next time, just send a message, alright? It takes two seconds. My heart can only take so much near-death panic.”

He thought about how easy it was to fall into silence, to let the days fold over him until people stopped asking if he was fine. He’d told himself solitude made things simpler, but looking at you now, eyes still red from lack of sleep and worry, he felt the truth of what it cost.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, voice thin as paper. The words weren’t only for last night; they bled from deeper parts of his heart for all the times you were made to go through exhausting situations for him.

You leaned forward, reaching for his glasses on the nightstand. “Apology accepted,” you said softly, slipping them on him with care. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I’d hate it if something happened to you and I didn’t know.”

Your fingertipss brushed against his skin before you drew your hand back. His soul felt like it was cleaved wide open.

The moment was disrupted by the doorbell.

Soobin met your eyes for a brief moment. He had a feeling you both already guessed the identity of your uninvited visitor. Sure enough, Jisoo stood at the door. He was visibly fuming with smoke coming out of his ears. In one arm, he balanced two paper bags, the other occupied with pointing an accusatory finger behind you before you could even greet him.

“Do you have a death wish?” he demanded, stepping inside without invitation. “Because that’s the only logical explanation for this level of idiocy. You look like a dying Victorian child!”

“Good morning to you too,” Soobin muttered from the bed, waving a hand.

Jisoo ignored that entirely and instead turned back to you to greet you with a smile. He set the bags down on the table, tearing one open. “Breakfast,” he announced, though it sounded less like generosity and more like punishment. “Because apparently I’m surrounded by idiots who forget they are human.”

You tilted your head, assessing the situation. “Soobin, did you tell Jisoo to leave early last night?”

“Oh, he did,” Jisoo fired back, dropping into the chair beside the bed. “he said, and I quote—‘I’m fine, Jisoo, go home, I’ll lock up.’” He deepened Soobin’s voice with painful accuracy. “And now look at him—he looks like he’s been through hell and back!”

Soobin exhaled through his nose, rubbing a palm over his face as if that could erase both fatigue and embarrassment. “I didn’t think it was that bad,” he said, though even he didn’t sound convinced.

Jisoo scoffed, pulling out a thermos from one of the bags and unscrewing the lid with unnecessary force. “That’s the problem—you never think it’s ‘that bad’ until someone has to carry your half-dead body off the floor.” He poured steaming porridge into a bowl and shoved it toward Soobin.

You stifled a laugh behind your hand, murmuring, “He’s not wrong.”

Soobin gave a weak shrug, though his mouth curved slightly. “I’m sorry for making you worry. But I really am fine now.” He hesitated, eyes flickering from you to Jisoo. “I really don’t deserve you guys.”

Jisoo groaned. “You’re damn right you don’t,” he said, though his hands betrayed him by reaching over to pull the blanket back up to Soobin’s chest. He glanced at you briefly, muttering under his breath, “You spoil him too much.”

You arched an eyebrow. “Someone has to. He nearly cooked himself alive yesterday.”

Soobin felt his lips curl into a smile when he saw you and Jisoo exchange a look then — shared exasperation wrapped in affection. Jisoo gave him the stink eye.

“Don’t look at me like that. You’re banned from the shop until you can stand without wobbling.” Jisoo straightened his posture and jabbed a finger toward Soobin’s nose, trying to summon authority in front of his boss. Soobin decided to let it go this once. “I’m running it till you’re back, and I don’t wanna hear a single word of protest.”

Soobin raised his hands in surrender, that same faint smile growing genuine. “I wasn’t going to argue.”

“Good,” Jisoo muttered, snatching up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “Because I’ve already hidden the spare keys. Don’t even try to look for them.”

You snorted. “He will, you know.”

“Then I’ll move them again.” Jisoo huffed, shooting Soobin one last warning glance before heading for the door. He paused, turning back just long enough to add, more softly, “Just rest, alright? You can’t run a shop if you drop dead first.”

The days blurred into each other after that. You came every day, sometimes with food, sometimes with books and the only difference was that before, it was you coming over to his shop, and now, in his home. In a sense, nothing really changed at all.

He had told you it wasn’t necessary, more than once, but you never listened. And though he tried to keep a respectable distance in fear of spreading his flu to you, standing by the counter while you moved about the stove, he couldn’t stop the thoughts that crept in. the same treacherous ones that painted pictures of you staying longer than you should, of your books finding space beside his, of a life that wasn’t temporary.

A vision of you living with him; something he wanted to coin as ‘forever’.

He had to snap out of his daydreams before the longing killed him.

One afternoon, you appeared holding a small stack of papers bound together with a paperclip. You placed it on his lap where he was sitting on his bed reading a book.

“What’s all this?” he asked, pushing his glasses up and flipping through the pages.

“Notes,” you replied, as if it were obvious. “I asked your classmates to send me what you’ve missed so far.”

He glanced from the stack to your face and back again. He was stunned by your thoughtfulness, and perhaps he looked like a gaping fish at a loss of words because you took one look at him and snorted.

You didn’t look particularly pleased with yourself. You sat cross-legged on the floor near the coffee table and uncapped your pen with a click. “It’s not a big deal. You’d do the same if it were me.”

He didn’t say anything to that but you both knew you weren’t wrong about it. Yet, Soobin learned that being around you makes him want to do better, and be more outspoken with his feelings. And he wanted to be better for you.

He let out a soft, “Thank you.”

You waved a hand, already bent over your workbook. “Don’t get sentimental on me. It’s barely anything.” A pause, the faint scratch of your pen against paper, and then you added almost absently, “Oh—Beomgyu’s coming by to help at the shop.”

The back of his neck stung. “Beomgyu?”

“Mhm,” you hummed, not looking up. “He offered. Said he could help restock and handle the counter till you’re better. You should hurry up and recover soon—the flowers are starting to sulk without you.”

He huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “The flowers are fine.”

“No, they’re not,” you countered softly, still writing. “They miss you.”

There was a pause — long enough for him to think that was the end of it, and his mind started to wander to unpleasant territory after hearing beomgyu’s name. Before he could think of what to say, your pen stopped moving, your eyes still fixed on the page.

“I miss you.”

Soobin’s gaze stilled despite the storm that began to brew behind his eyes. Beomgyu’s words resurfaced in his mind— you think she doesn’t notice the way you look at her? — and for a fleeting second, Soobin thought maybe you did know. Maybe you had known all along.

Because the things you said to him, the way you treated him, they lifted him to the heavens and gave him hope. Hope that he feared might betray him if it was misplaced. However, the question still hung unspoken in his mind — about Beomgyu, about what he’d said, about whether he’s going too ahead of himself and reading your intentions wrong and if your words just now were only friendly. Because Soobin couldn’t really tell.

Thinking about the devil brings him to your doorstep — Soobin should’ve believed that phrase by now.

“Yo, boss,” Beomgyu drawled from the doorway, grin wide and infuriating. He was leaning one shoulder against the frame. “Still alive, I see.”

You turned, delighted. “Beomgyu! You’re here early.”

He flashed you a smile too clean to be sincere. “Jisoo needed help with the new shipment, didn’t he? Why don’t you go lend him a hand? I’ll keep Soobin company.” His tone was harmlessly casual.

Soobin only gave a mild nod when you glanced his way, though the faint crease between his brows betrayed his suspicion. Beomgyu’s grin dwindled into a smirk the moment you left. He even had the audacity to wink at Soobin.

Soobin exhaled through his nose, setting his book aside. “If you’re here to bother me, just say so.”

“Not bother,” Beomgyu said, moving toward the windows and flicking open the latch to let in a stream of morning air. “Motivate!” He plucked an apple from the fruit bowl on the cabinet, turning it over in his hand as though appraising its worth. “So, did you miss me?”

Soobin wanted to get to the point. “Did you succeed then?” He regarded him dryly.

Beomgyu sank into the couch across from him, taking a bite of the apple. “In taking her out? Yeah.” He let out an exaggerated sigh, placing a hand over his heart. “But the entire time—” he waved the apple vaguely in the air, “—she talked about you.”

Soobin blinked, the words slipping past him at first — until they didn’t. “What do you mean ‘talked about me’?”

“I meant exactly what I said,” Beomgyu spoke around another bite, before standing up and pacing slowly around the room. “Couldn’t get two sentences in without your name popping up. I knew right away I didn’t stand a chance. Gotta say, though, it bruised my ego a little.” He pointed the apple at Soobin. “So maybe, y’know, man up and take your chance already. You’d do everyone—and their mothers—a favour.”

Soobin could only stare off in space. His thoughts ran in frantic circles, every word Beomgyu said setting off sparks behind his eyes. You talked about him? That much? He tried to picture what you might’ve said, what parts of him you thought worth mentioning — and found the idea too delicate for his overjoyed heart.

Beomgyu snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Hey. Earth to Soobin.” He squinted, then pointed the apple again. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’re daydreaming right now. Look at you — you’re totally fantasizing about her. Ewwwww~”

“What— no!” Soobin spluttered, grabbing the nearest pillow and hurling it across the room.

Beomgyu ducked, laughing so hard his shoulders shook. “You totally are! Look at you, all flushed. You’re hopelessly in love.” he managed between breaths.

Soobin groaned into his hand. “Did you ever like her?” The question slipped out. He looked up again, cautious but curious. “You said you did.”

Beomgyu’s laughter died down to a few huffs as he sank into the couch again, still grinning. “Alright, fine. Serious talk.”

Soobin frowned, getting up from bed. “Did you?” he repeated as he fetched a glass of water from the kitchen.

“Oh. Uh, not like that.” Beomgyu chewed on his lip, then shrugged. “I like her, sure — she’s a good person. But romantically? Nah.” He gestured loosely toward Soobin, eyes glinting with mischief again. “You were giving me such a look that day, so I figured I’d rile you up a little. Didn’t think it’d work that well.”

Soobin frowned, recalling the unease he’d felt that Thursday when Beomgyu had mentioned asking you out. The irritation resurfaced, though now mingled with reluctant embarrassment. “That’s not what you said last Thursday.”

Beomgyu smirked, tossing the apple core into the bin. “What, you thought I was serious?”

Soobin stared at him, words slipping through his grasp. Nothing about him moved except the faint twitch in his jaw.

Beomgyu hesitated. “Hey, don’t look at me like that,” he said, laughter bubbling up again. “You can’t tell me it wasn’t funny.”

It wasn’t. For days, he had been haunted by that single conversation, replaying it in the back of his mind. He could still feel the echo of every unnecessary thought he’d had since. Soobin came to a conclusion right then and there that if there’s anyone who could test his patience to an excruciating extent, it’s Choi Beomgyu. How ridiculous, he thought. How utterly, painfully ridiculous to have spent nights overthinking when Beomgyu had only wanted a laugh.

Soobin gently put the glass down on the table before taking a deep breath. The next thing Beomgyu knew, he was caught in a headlock.

“HEY—WAIT—SOOBIN—!”

Their shouts and laughter resonated through the apartment; Beomgyu shrieking for his life while Soobin held him in place, spewing half-hearted curses until it felt less like a sickroom and more like the friendship that was bound to take root.

SATURDAY made Soobin ricochet between certainties and doubts until you gently cradled his heart in your palms and kissed it.

Jisoo had dragged everyone out on the excuse of celebrating Soobin’s recovery, but the moment the bill arrived, all eyes turned to him with suspicious coordination. Beomgyu was the first to pat his shoulder and declare that the boy who lived should at least buy lunch. Jisoo nearly choked on his drink from laughing, and you—of all people—hid your grin behind the rim of your glass as if your loyalty could be bought with a smile. Soobin had sighed, pulled out his wallet, and decided that maybe feeding his friends was still preferable to the silence of his empty apartment.

When the meal ended, Jisoo announced that he’ll return to the shop, encouraging Soobin to ‘enjoy the rest of the day’. Beomgyu stayed behind for a moment, leaning closer to Soobin under the pretense of fixing his shirt. “If you don’t say something today, I swear I’ll do it for you,” he threatened with a smile. “You’ve had two years, Soobin. Make your move.” Then he gave Soobin a shove that nearly made him stumble into you, and left before Soobin could even retort.

That left you and him standing under the awning. He, too, wanted to make the most of the time and was unwilling to let the day end. “Do you want to do anything else before heading home?” he asked, trying to sound casual but praying you wouldn’t say no.

You tilted your head slightly and smiled as if you were already one step ahead of him. “Actually, yes,” you said, unlocking your phone and holding it out for him to see. On the screen was a poster for a lantern festival not far from the riverside. “It says it starts at sunset. We could go check it out?”

“Of course. I’ll take you there.”

The venue was a mosaic of color and sound. Children ran around with paper lanterns shaped like stars and rabbits; vendors shouted over each other selling skewers, candied fruit, roasted chestnuts. You reached for his sleeve more than once, tugging him toward stalls that caught your eyes — an old man folding paper cranes, a painter who would draw quick portraits in ink. Soobin bought you skewered fishcakes and handed one over before you even asked, his lips tugging up when you took it with an exaggerated hum of approval. At one point, you dragged him toward a photo booth tucked between two food stalls. The flash caught the softest smile he’d worn in weeks.

By the time the sun began to fall, the crowd had thickened. Soobin had his height advantage but he was worried about you since you didn't do well in crowds. While he was thinking of taking you to a much less crowded place, his entire mind came to a static stop when he felt your hand slipping into his. You looked up at him, eyes reflecting the orange of a hundred paper lanterns. Your fingers slowly intertwined with his. You didn’t say anything, but the small curve of your smile was enough to make him forget every other noise around him.

When the call came for everyone to light their lanterns, Soobin took one and handed it to you. Together, you crouched near the edge of the riverbank, the paper glowing faintly between your palms. Around you, the first wave of lanterns began to rise, painting the twilight sky with gold.

“Make a wish,” you giggled, your eyes falling shut.

Soobin looked at you instead. The wind lifted a strand of your hair; the light touched your face in a way that made every thought blur. He could have wished for many things but all that came to him was you.

When you opened your eyes again, you smiled and released the lantern. It drifted upward, joining the others until it became just another glowing dot among others.

“Hey, Soobin?” You kept watching the sky. “Do you worry too much about expressing yourself all the time? specially with me?”

He turned to you, brows drawing together. “What makes you say that?”

You chuckled softly, the sound easing into the evening air. “Because I like every side of you. Even when you’re quiet. Some silences feel empty, but ours never does. You know how people say certain silences are so comfortable that you could sit in them forever? I feel that with you.”

Soobin suddenly thought of the bouquet Beomgyu made him make, the one he never gave you. “Can I take you somewhere before you go home?” he asked suddenly. It had to be now.

“Sure,” you said, curious. “Where?”

“My shop.”

Jisoo’s shift ended earlier so the shop was empty.

Soobin gave you a dimpled smile as you perched yourself on the stool near the counter. Witht the same devotion and love, his hands put together a bouquet of you rfavourite flowers. You watched him fondly, it was that intensity of your gaze that made it hard for him to keep his hands steady. He felt like he put extra care into making this one, tracing every micro expression on your face when he held the bouquet in front of you.

“What’s all this?” you asked, laughing softly as you took it.

“My way of saying thank you,” he said, pushing his glasses up. “And my way of saying I’m sorry. For making you worry when I was sick… and for everything else. For everything you’ve done for me.”

You held the bouquet close, nose brushing against the petals. “They’re beautiful,” you said sincerely. “Thank you, Soobin.”

He smiled but what he wanted was to close the space between you, to hold you instead of the air. The thought stayed caged behind his ribs, fluttering restlessly as you smiled at him over the flowers.

He walked you back home that night. It was truly a miracle he hadn’t fallen apart already when everytime your knuckles brushed against his. As stupid as that sounded because, matter of fact, he’d held your hand before, more times than he could count, and yet here he was again, reduced to a mess by a passing touch. There were flowers that withered slower than the way he fell apart in your presence.

When you stepped inside to put the bouquet away, he stayed by the door, listening to the faint sounds of your movement within. The hallway was hushed and in that quietness, Soobin tried to steady his thoughts. He didn’t know what to say to you anymore. What could he possibly say that wouldn’t ruin this? Loving you in silence was torture, but maybe it was safer than the ache of losing you. He leaned his head back against the wall, exhaling slowly, watching your shadow spill through the doorway.

Maybe this was enough, he told himself. Maybe loving you in silence was safer.

After you returned, the sight of you made that illusion crumble all over again. He could tell you were tired. He wanted to reach out, to brush his thumb under your eye and tell you to rest, to promise you the whole world if it meant keeping that light in your face. Instead, he said, “It’s been a long day. Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

He shifted his weight when you only stared at him. He couldn’t read what you were thinking, and that scared him more than he wanted to admit. So, true to habit, he did what he always did when he got too close to the edge — he started to walk away. It was easier to retreat before the ground gave way beneath him. Easier to run from what his heart kept whispering.

“Can I tell you something?”

Your voice cut through the silence, a little hesitant. Soobin froze mid-step, the air catching in his throat. He turned around slowly, afraid of what you might say yet hoping it would be everything he’d been wishing for.

“Since meeting you,” you began, then paused for a brief moment to collect your thoughts, “I actually began wishing for more time. I want more time with you. Every time I’m with you, you make me feel so happy, just by being you.”

Soobin’s lips parted slowly. His mind went blank, completely overtaken by the rush in his chest. Were you saying what he thought you were? Confirming everything he had buried under restraint and fear? His pulse thundered, and he could feel it in his throat, in his fingertips, in the space between you.

You were nervous. He could tell the way you pressed your palms together and averted his eyes. “Gosh, I must sound insane right now,” you murmured, your voice dipping into a hesitant chuckle, “but I can’t think of a single thing I’d rather do right now. I just want to be close to you.” You glanced down, then lifted your eyes back to him, a tiny, resigned smile finding your lips. “Are you going to make me wait much longer?”

All he could think was — were you asking him not to run anymore? Were you telling him it was safe to fall?

Soobin couldn't take it anymore. All this time he’d known you, he wanted nothing more than to freely love you. He wanted more than just yearning gazes and fleeting brushes of touch. He wanted to let himself have you, to allow the current of love rush through him.

In two strides he closed the distance, his hands cupping your face before he dipped his head. When his mouth met yours, the force of it stole the breath from both of you — lips colliding with a hunger that had been building up for months.

The poets were so damn wrong because kissing you didn’t feel like setting off fireworks; it felt like returning to his rightful home.

A sigh passed from you to him at the first contact, followed by a broken sound from the back of your throat when he slid his hand into your hair to pull you closer, closer, closer to him. The noise was so small yet ruinous that it made him want to fall to his knees.

Soobin had to hold onto the doorframe above your head when you arched into him, when your hand had to scramble for the same doorframe behind you while the other clutched at the front of his shirt, knuckles white, as holding him was the only thing keeping you upright. He could feel the rapid flutter of your pulse beneath his thumbs as they brushed along your jaw. And gods, he’d been right — your lips were soft, impossibly so. Now that he got a taste of your lips, Soobin had to figure out later how not to get addicted to them.

Every thought in his head dissolved into the warmth of you. All those nights he had spent trying to reason with himself, all those what-ifs and not-yets, burned away in the press of your mouth against his. He’d never known what it was to want something so wholly, so ruinously, until you. He knew already that he could never go back from this, that he didn’t want to.

You broke the kiss first, your breath brushing against his as you whispered, “Stay the night. Please?”

Holy fuck. You really had no idea what you did to him, did you? Soobin dazedly stared at you and thought, if this woman tacked on the words please onto any request, he would find a way to fulfill it.

He muttered a curse under his breath and went back to devouring you. His pulse roared in his ears as he pushed you inside, the door clicking shut behind him with his heel. He hadn’t broken the kiss once as you stumbled backward, your shoes slipping off in your scramble to match his pace, both of you breathing hard as if you had run a mile to get here. His hands were everywhere; holding your face, slipping into your hair, grabbing the back of your neck, running down your sides, back, hips — they couldn’t decide on a destination because every road led to you.

He still couldn’t believe this was happening as he kissed you even deeply, he still couldn't believe you were kissing him back with equal amount of passion. He licked into you, but not too much or too fast, just enough to ask permission and you opened your mouth. The heat of your tongue gliding over his made him whimper, feeling high already from so little.

It was a good thing the sofa was near because any more minute and he’d collapse into a puddle. When the back of your knees hit the sofa, he caught you, guiding you down gently. You sank into the cushions, looking up at him as he towered above you. Your cheeks were flushed, your lips swollen, and your gaze pulled him in until he felt dizzy with it. For a suspended moment, the room was filled with nothing but the sound of your laboured breathings.

His gaze moved over you in a haze of disbelief, the rise and fall of his chest uneven as if his body was struggling to keep up with his heart. He had imagined this too many times but imagination had nothing on the way to finally feel you like this, to have your scent clinging to his skin, to taste your lips. It felt surreal, intoxicating, overwhelming in every sense.

“Two years,” he roughly said as he leaned down, his words trembling against your skin. “I tried—God, I really tried not to want you like this.”

His hand found the back of the sofa beside your head for support, his other resting against your cheek. He slid one knee in between your thighs as it dug into the cushion. He did an experimental press up against your heat, watching the way you jerked up with a hitched breath, your eyes falling shut once before opening again as one of your hands came to rest on that knee.

“You’re all I’ve been thinking about,” he confessed, his voice breaking between each word. “Every damn day.”

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, then the curve of your cheek, before finding your mouth again. The way your fingers slipped into his hair tugging slightly made him shudder, and he groaned against your lips at the sensation, his breath catching in the space between one heartbeat and the next. But he kissed you with a slowness that contradicted the rush inside him; he kissed you as if he were learning the world all over again, as though every touch of yours rewrote what he thought he knew about longing.

“I’m so tired of pretending I’m fine around you,” he murmured against your skin, pulling back just enough to look at you. His hand found your cheek again, his thumb tracing beneath your eye. “Every time you smiled at me, it hurt. Every time you said my name, I thought I was going to lose it. And I kept telling myself it was better this way—that I could handle it—but I can’t. I can’t anymore.”

You laughed softly. You looked beautiful. It made him smile too.

“I know, Soobin,” you said, biting your lip to suppress the growing grin. Your hand traced the line of his jaw, gentle and familiar. “You’re not really good at pretending. I’ve always known, more or less. But I didn’t want to act on my gut feeling alone. I had to be sure.”

His expression faltered. He felt and probably looked like he might actually cry, he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. “I’m sorry,” he whispered earnestly. “I should’ve said it sooner—should’ve done something—but I was so damn scared of ruining us. And now I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to waste the time we have. Not one more second.”

Your smile softened, eyes shining as you nodded. “Me neither.”

His heart was full as he shared a tender smile with you. Then he held your hand and pulled you up with him before changing the position, pulling you back down again. He hauled you easily onto his lap — running his hands along your sides before gliding them over your back, then down to the small of your back before pressing you against him. If he could he’d hold you closer until no one could tell apart where you began and he ended.

He’s trailing kisses down the torrid skin of your jaw, your neck, your collarbones before biting down on the supple flesh, eliciting a strained moan from you. You tilted your head back and gave him full access, which he took without hesitation. His glasses bumped into your skin, which made him irritated and swiftly took it off with a ‘tsk’ before putting it aside somewhere on the sofa.

“Let me love you,” he whispered. He felt your throat bobbed against his mouth when you swallowed and nodded, letting out another soft sound that had his mind reeling, and he felt his cock twitch at the thought of just how much louder he could make you. “Let me take care of you, please.”

His name fell from your lips as you screwed your eyes shut when he held you by the hips and made you grind against him. He looked up at you from this angle and he thought this is probably what heaven looked like. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted more, more than just feeling you rub against his growing bulge through all these damn layers of clothes.

In one quick motion he set you down on the sofa, cracking a smile at your dazed yet confused look. Soobin exhaled before sinking to his knees in front of you.

You gave him a shy smile as you got into a more comfortable position, letting his hands rest on your thighs. This sight — he gazed up at you from where he’s kneeling — he’s willing to worship for the rest of his life. He kissed each of your thighs, then his hands trailed over to the waistband of your jeans.

“Tell me to stop if you don’t want this,” he was begging you. He didn’t think he could ever stop though. “I’ll stop if you say it. I swear.” “Dont stop.” You reached down to unbutton your jeans. “Please, Soobin. Don’t stop.”

He reached back up to clash his mouth to yours again as his hands yanked your jeans all the way down with a little bit of your help. By now Soobin was already heady, and when he sat back on his heels to come face to face with the sight of your dampened panties, translucent from the slick pooling in between your thighs, he nearly ruined his own pants. Soobin hadn't even touched you directly and you were already a mess.

“Oh, God,” he groaned, thumb circling your clit over the fabric as he drank up all your twitches and gasps. A sense of pride filled him at the fact that this was him who drew you over to this crest. It was all him — the reason behind this sopping pleasure of yours.

“Soobin—oh fuck, ah,” you arched, throwing your head back when he ran his tongue up the length of the wet spot you made.

The first taste through this barrier filled his senses to the brim, shockwave travelling to his fingertips before returning and plummeting his sanity somewhere down to his dick. Soobin couldn’t fight the moan that got muffled against your heat, following that line with the flat of his tongue, then again with the point. He gripped your thighs and hips desperately, urging you to grind on his face as he ravished you through the flimsy cloth.

The sound of your pleasure, the taste of you, and your, fuck — there was your hand gripping his hair. He was huffing and taking short breaths, impatience getting the best of him before he almost ripped your panties off of you and threw it somewhere behind him.

There was a ringing in his ear as he looked up at you through his lashes, eyes wide and obedient because in this moment, he felt like he was made to kneel at your feet. You were flushed and breathing heavily but looked extremely beautiful like this. He grabbed your hips and tugged you closer to the edge making you yelp softly.

“I promise I’ll be good for you.” He guided your trembling thighs over his shoulders as he lowered his face to your pussy, never taking his searing eyes off of yours. “So promise me you won’t stop looking at me. Please?”

You nodded quickly, a shaky hand taking purchase in his hair again. “I promise.”

The moment those words left you, he dived into you, his tongue licking a long stripe along your folds, lapping up your arousal — fuck. Fucking hell this is what you tasted like? You tasted so divine, so intoxicating that Soobin had to gather himself after the first lick. It felt like a sin that he only tasted you through a barrier earlier. It felt like a heinous sin that he’d been deprived of this pussy for so long. You were all arounf him. His name coming out of your lips in between gasps and cries, and —

“Oh, God. Fuck, Soobin, you’re so good—yes, yes, just like that—”

— oh.

You were praising him. His vision blurred through the eye contact — the one you promised to not break and true to your words you’ve never once did — and he felt like a flower blooming and meeting the light for the first time. Soobin buried himself deeper into your heat, nose bumping against your sensitive bundle of nerves while he tongued your entrance and drank up every drop of your essence. He was drunk, so high on you as he watched you let out a high pitched gasp when he eased in two fingers, feeling your folds stretching then clamping around his thickness.

He promised you he was going to be obedient so he picked up every micro reaction you gave at every thrust of his fingers, every tremble of your body when he sucked on your clit before swriling the tip of his tongue over it until he figured out what was going to take him to guide you over the edge. But looking at you, it didn’t seem like he was going to need to do much work anyway.

He could feel you spasming around his fingers, your moans falling faster and needier as your thighs closed around his head. He was suffocating but it felt excruciatingly good that his eyes rolled back but no — no, he had to hold your gaze, needed to watch you fall apart and amidst that all Soobin palmed himself, groaning into you. With one final stroke up your sweet spot, he brought you over a mind shattering orgasm — for you, and him.

It was the scrape of your fingers in his scalp that made him cum, his release lifting off an invisible burden from his shoulders as he felt himself slipping into a state of pure bliss. Soobin came to his senses belatedly when you said his name. He was unmoving, mouth still attached to your quivering pussy when he swallowed, feeling you dripping down his throat.

You looked utterwly wrecked. Skin glistening with sweat as your chest heaved. It brought a shy smile to face as he sat back up on his heels. “Was it alright?” he meekly asked, wiping his chin.

You breathlessly laughed, pushing yourself up on one hand. “It was everything I've ever dreamed of.”

Soobin’s eyes darkened slowly when you touched his jaw and pushed your thumb on the plump of his bottom lip. You smeared your release over his lip before pushing your thumb inside his mouth. He moaned around your finger before sucking, letting you thumb down his tongue as saliva pooled around it. He felt his dick twitch again, shamelessly getting hard once more.

“Kiss me,” you said, and who even was he to deny your request?

He pushed his tongue past your lips, letting you taste yourself and the sensation was so overwhelming that it drew out a groan from you. It was messy and hot, it was downright filthy but Soobin would give up on anything to experience this for the first time ever again.

“Soobin,” you softly whined against his lips, pulling back to look at him with a hunger that mirrored his, “I don’t want to stop yet. I need more. I need you.”

He was as desperate as you were, maybe even more. “I could spend the rest of my life making you feel good.” and then his hand was slipping under your shirt, gliding over the hot skin and tracing every dip, every curve before he hoisted you up easily. “Let’s get comfortable first, yeah?” he spoke against your mouth as your legs wrapped around his waist and arms around his neck, never once separating from your lips.

Once he reached your bedroom, he placed you down gently on the bed before settling himself in between your legs. The rest of your clothes messily came off, neither of you wanting to waste another second and only wanting to feel each others’ naked skin. Soobin had to pause and sit back on his heels as he admired you, unable to fathom that he was truly seeing you in the way he had only ever dreamed of.

He grabbed a moundful of one of your breasts, your perky nipple peeking in between his long fingers while he dipped his head down and took the other one in his mouth. How come you tasted so good everywhere? Soobin was going to become gluttonous because of you. Not that he minded. He loved hearing your little gasps. You were so sensitive from just moments ago but you were already gushing again.

“Soobin, please, please,” you cried out when he stroked you slowly betwen your folds. Despite how wet you were, he was worried his size was going to be too much for you. He had to make you pliant as much as possible.

“Tell me if it gets uncomfortable. Tell me if I hurt you, okay?” He panted as he pumped himself slowly. It wasn’t like Sooobin had his calm either. He was flushed and sweaty, trembling in every movement he made. He’s been thrumming with the electricity of want himself. He didn’t know how long he could keep going before his brain turned mushy too. He watched the way your glazed over eyes took in his size; it filled him with equal amounts of pride and worry. “Tell me what you want, alright? I’ll do anything.”

His cockhead slid in between your folds as the tip bumped your clit, restinf over your abdomen. A guttural groan escaped his chest when he realized he was almost touching the underneath of your navel. Shit, will you be alright? He had no time to overthink when you reached out to wrap your hand around him, making his entire body twitch in pleasure. He was hot and hard in your hand as you guided his tip back to your wet entrance.

“I trust you.” You laid back and smiled at him. Soobin, again, felt like he was falling in love with you all over again.

He held your thighs more apart, large hands massaging the supple flesh of them. Soobin used his thumbs to spread open your pussy before directly letting a glob of spit fall onto your hole. You squealed, clearly surprised, but seeing how you clenched around air desperately made him learn that you could be into it. He made a mental note to explore this more some other time.

He lathered his saliva with your slick as he nudged his leaking tip along your slit, making you whimper and jerk up your hips to get more friction, but Soobin placed a large hand over your abdomen and held you down in place.

“Come closer. I want to hold you,” you mumbled, making him comply easily.

He kissed you, so deeply, so fiercely, that the gasp you let out when he slowly sheathed himself inside you was entirely devoured by his mouth. Soobin’s mouth hung open, puffing against the hot skin of your neck as he couldn’t decide where to focus; the sheer euphoric wave of pleasure as your warmth enveloped him or on the fingers clawing his back. Even with the thick slick of your combined orgasms, he could tell you needed time to accommodate the stretch.

“I’m sorry—ah, I'm so sorry, love,” he kept apologizing softly, giving you time to adjust as he slowly sank into your aching core. He gritted his teeth, jaw clenching as he had to fight the urge to cum from just feeling your tight walls clench around him. You were a gasping mess, writhing beneath him as you dug your nail across his back. “T—Take all the time you need.”

He bottomed out fully as he held himself up on his arms around your head, face resting in the crook of your neck where he peppered soft kisses to help you relax. You were fluttering madly around him. After a moment Soobin felt you squeeze his bicep as he looked at you, and when you nodded at him through the haze of pleasure, he began to set a careful languid rhythm.

“Fuck,” he groaned, and finally started to loose his already fraying composure. If he planned to fuck you slowly, it was going to take a lot of willpower to do that. Your moans rang sweetly beside his ear as you clung to him tighter with every thrust. Soobin tried to hold on to sanity when he felt your hand trail up to the hair on his nape, curling and tugging on a fistful. He whimpered, pathetically so, picking up the pace of his thrusts.

Soobin’s head reeled when he stared at where his cock slid wetly in and out of your sopping pussy. It wasn’t just that sight that set his mind and every part ablaze. It was the visible outline of a bulge growing in your abdomen at a specific angle every time he thrusted up into you.

Your hands travelled from the back of his neck to cup his face as you made him look at you instead. The smile you wore, so fucked out and dazed, sent his already racing heart thudding painfully in his chest. “You feel so good, Soobin,” you breathed out through choked pants. “I’ve never wanted anyone like this before.”

He shuddered at your praises, one hand sliding down your thigh before pushing it up to your chest. This angle made you feel more open and made him hit even deeper. And yet, Soobin was holding himself back in fear of hurting you and he could tell you knew that too. You felt that too.

So when you kissed him and mumbled against his lips, “You don’t have to hold back—it’s okay.” — he let himself fall into your plea.

Your faces were near, passing breaths between that small space before claiming it again, and again, and again. The depraved sound of skin against skin along with your mingling groans and gasps resonated off the walls of the room. He could feel you clenching around him, your moans getting louder and needier.

“Soobin—’m close,” is all you managed before crying out, back arching and pressing onto him flushed.

You gripped him like a vice, your body quivering when you finished, his name spilling from you so sinfully that it drove him over the edge. It caused him to become the louder one then — groans and grunts as his thrusts became sloppier, helping you ride out your orgasm before he buried himself to the sheath in one last deep thrust and spilled inside you.

There was a beat of silence as you both chased for air. Soobin panted through his mouth, eyes blown wide as he relived the entire situation in his mind again. He brushed your hair out of your sweaty forehead, fingers threading to your scalp as he pulled out of you. The feeling made you whimper as you buried your face into his arm, eyes screwed shut. You were seriously going to be the death of him. He saw the way his cum leaked out of you in bulk waves, feeling his dick twitch at the sight. Shit, shit, shit was this okay?

“I’m safe if you’re worried about it,” you gently assured him, then patted the space beside you. “Lie down beside me.”

“I will,” he promised before linking your fingers with his and kissing your knuckles. “I need to clean you up first. Give me a moment, love. I’ll be back.”

True to his words he returned with a damp towel. He pressed it softly against your skin, wiping away the sheen of sweat, cleaning you thoroughly before helping you go to the bathroom.

His eyes, dark yet brimming with adoration, never once strayed from yours. In their depths lived every confession he had ever swallowed and every longing he had buried that had bloomed in the spaces between your shared glances. Soobin took in the gentleness of your gaze, the way it mirrored his own, and let himself smile. He reached out, his hand brushing against your wrist before tugging you gently down beside him on the bed. The bed dipped beneath your combined weight, and he gathered you against him, drawing the covers over your bodies until only your breaths filled the air, warm and uneven.

For one fragile second he still wondered if this could be a dream, some mercy granted to a man who had spent too long convincing himself he didn’t need what he did. But then you looked up at him, eyes shimmering like dawn breaking through, and whispered the words that undid every doubt. “I love you.”

He tilted his forehead against yours, eyes closing, before capturing your lips in a kiss that trembled with everything he could not say fast enough. He sealed the words against your mouth before murmuring them back to you.

“I love you. Until the end of time.”

The roses you’d placed on the shelf of your room — the bouquet he made for you — bore witness to this undying love. They would fade with time, but he knew this night, this joining of breaths and words and souls, would not.

Time flew in a strange way on SUNDAYS.

There had been a time in Soobin’s life when he felt that way because you were there under the same roof, guiding the old couple around the flower shop and still, you felt impossibly far from his grasp. He used to fill that distance with his longing in silence. Back then, the hours spent beside you seemed to stretch endlessly and vanish all at once. Sundays used to hurt in their beauty.

Soobin bowed to a customer leaving with a bouquet wrapped in paper the shade of cream roses, he straightened and glanced toward the nursery. Beyond the windowpane, warmth spilled in from the morning sun. You stood there with Mrs. Park, tracing your fingers over the petals of the sunflowers, saying something that made her laugh.

It was still Sunday, still the same hour, but the time passed differently now. Because when you turned, when your eyes met his and you smiled that unguarded smile that reached him like light through a break in clouds, he no longer had to hoard his love in silence. There was a space now for his love to rest, a place for his yearning to call home. Every emotion now spelled your name; every heartbeat found its answer.

You, you, you.

The seconds no longer slipped away; they held still in their sweetness, suspended in their fullness. It felt different — so achingly different — because Soobin finally knew he had all the time in the world with you. Love was no longer something he waited for; it was the air he breathed, the sunlight that kept finding him every new day. He could finally call this forever.

There are loves that blossom silently, and there are loves that consume. Love chose him as its sole vessel the moment you stepped into his still life and made it breathe. Because you were not merely the person he loved.

You were the garden and the grave where Soobin would bury himself. Willingly, ardently, and without return.

THE END.

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