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l.hs — incandescence (color my world).

you've never had a desire to leave home. valley point offers solace, a place where you know you fit in, or even stand out in a good way. working at your uncle's bakery is a blessing you can never appreciate enough; what more could you ask for? enter heeseung lee, a 23-year-old free spirit whom your uncle hires from the outside. you insist that you don't need him—it's a family business. he only wants to help. you won't give him a chance. so, what happens when you uncover the layers of heeseung lee and begin to realize that there's more to him than meets the eye, and with that, someone to love? now showing: incandescence (color my world).

PAIRING: nonidol!heeseung x baker!reader (hallmark christmas au)

WORD COUNT: 23.1k

ꨄ︎: merry christmas, everyone! i've been working on this nonstop for a while now, and i'm just now finishing it at 11:00 pm, but i think it'll be worth the wait :) i first came up with this idea way back in august, and i've been so excited to release her to the world 🥹 incandescence!heeseung is my favorite interpretation of him that i've written, mostly because i was really able to explore him as a whole. i hope you all love this story as much as i do. i'd love to continue their story. enjoy, and happy reading. xo <3

CONTENT: fluff, “enemies” to friends to ? to lovers, eventual smut mdni, fingering, multiple orgasms, sex not too detailed, unprotected sex, creampie(?), (semi?) public sex, pet names (baby), slow burn, mentions of blood, he cleans her cut, profanity, slight situationship, heavy angst, heeseung has no mom and slight daddy issues, baking au, christmas au, new england small town hallmark fic, tooth-rotting fluff, han jisung from stray kids, other enhypen members mentioned, boston bruins mentioned, arguing

incandescent.

(adjective)

to be full of strong emotion; passionate.

describes a person who is glowing with a strong emotion or feeling, such as passion, joy, excitement, or rage.

—

47 Days Until Christmas

“A what?”

Your uncle chuckles as you practically explode behind the counter, flailing your arms around like a small child not getting their way. “I said that I hired a coworker for you,” he simply states over a sip of his hot coffee, eyes glazing over the newspaper in his free hand. “You’re going to need help this year. I’m in no shape to be handling the rushes anymore. I’m getting too old.”

“Uncle Arthur, I’m fully capable—”

“Y/N,” he interrupts, and you freeze. “You’re going to work with him,” he sets the newspaper down and looks up, “so you’d better get used to it.”

“Where’s this guy even from?”

“He’s 23, around your age,” he replies. “From South Korea. Said he moved here for a change of scenery.”

“How did he find Valley Point?” you wonder aloud, arm tired from cleaning off the counter. If it weren’t 7:00 at night on a Tuesday, maybe you wouldn’t be so easily irritable, and in hindsight, he probably should’ve picked a better time to drop the bomb. But then again, you’ve always been this stubborn, so really, it wouldn’t matter.

“Beats me,” he shrugs, folding the paper neatly and tucking it into his flannel shirt pocket. “He probably wanted somewhere small if he was looking to escape the city. That’s usually the case for those boys. But I will agree with you that it’s quite odd that someone from Korea, of all places, stumbles upon us.” He chuckles softly to himself, but you only grimace. You’re not all that amused, clearly.

“I guess.”

He stands up from the barstool and braces a hand on his back, trying to stretch it out. “Well,” he winces, “I’d better be on my way.” He yawns, and you round the counter to stand in front of him.

“Uncle Arthur, please,” you try one last time, “I’ll be fine, I promise. You know I have a system, and—I mean, come on, can’t you just get Taylor or Diane here to help me? They know how to carry their weight around here.”

“They won’t be available as much as you’ll need them,” he counters with a pointing finger. “I tried to avoid this, but honestly, it might be good for you. Remember—you don’t own this place, Y/N, I do.” You want to protest, but damnit, he’s making a valid point—why can’t he just let you be? “I may be your uncle, but I can take this position away from you if you refuse to cooperate with me.”

You sigh with defeat, shoulders slugging beside you, eyes closing tightly. “Okay,” you whisper begrudgingly. “Fine. I’ll just have to...figure it out.”

“That’s my girl,” he smiles, patting your back, and you grimace again. He laughs—the kind that’s usually sweet but only annoys you further—and heads for the door. “You’ll like him.”

“Doubt it.”

“Just trust me,” he winks. “He’s quite the looker, ya know,” he jokes, and he finds that you’re not all that amused. “Well,” he motions for you to get back to cleaning, “you should be fine closing up alone. I’ll see you in the morning.”

You roll your eyes—and admittedly stick your tongue out—as your uncle exits the shop, leaving you alone with his empty coffee cup and the nerves of working with a complete stranger for the entire holiday season.

-

“And then he said ‘you’ll like him’ as if I’d ever like some random guy impeding on the system I so perfectly built up!”

Jisung laughs on the other end of the line. “Well, Y/N, you are just about the worst person to work with,” he giggles, popping a chip into his mouth. “Uncle Arthur might have a point there.”

He scrolls through Instagram on his iPad as he lies flat on his stomach, kicking his feet in the air like a little kid. “What if he’s hot, or something?”

“Pfft,” you scoff, “yeah, right. Some random guy stumbling upon a small town and interrupting my peace? I highly doubt it.” You sigh exasperatedly as you flop back onto your mattress, cold from the extreme lack of heat reaching your room; damn the central air system in townhouses.

“Don’t count the possibility out,” he mumbles, cutting himself short. “Oh, my god,” he snorts.

“What is it?”

“Did you see what Taylor posted?”

Taylor is a few years older than you. She’s the eldest daughter of Uncle Arthur’s good friend, who helped him start up the shop and passed away just a couple of years back. To keep her busy and give her a little piece of her dad, he let her help out during the busiest rushes of the year. You always got along with her, sure, but something always felt off, so you never kept all that close with her, and well—it seems you’ve been right all along.

“No,” you furrow your brows, putting him on speaker and opening the app to check. “That bitch,” you scowl. “She’s going on vacation to the goddamn Bahamas while I’m stuck here to work the Christmas rush with some fucking stranger?” You angrily slam the phone onto the bed beside you, and you hear Jisung gasp from the loud noise. “Seriously, I knew she didn’t care!”

“Hey,” Jisung pipes up, rolling onto his back, “look on the bright side—maybe you’ll make a friend out of him.”

“I dunno, Jisung—”

“Just…don’t let it ruin the season for you, okay?” he breathes. “It’s only until January.”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

-

Alright, so you might have let it ruin your week. Not the whole season, or anything, but your week has basically gone to shit, and the blame is going to fall on him. A man you literally have never met, mind you. You don’t even know his name, because your uncle always butchers it in typical elderly American fashion.

But still, you’re too set in your own way to leave well enough alone. You’ve convinced yourself that this can only go wrong, and that’s what is going to happen, no exceptions. When he doesn’t show up at 7:00 a.m. sharp like you were told he was going to, the uneasy feeling in your stomach multiplies. You like people to be punctual, and even your uncle thinks the same way, so why is it nearing quarter past seven, and this guy has yet to show his face?

You angrily pop open the register to check the money, barely sorting through the paper before a loud, swishing noise interrupts you. A cold breeze makes its way in, and you turn your attention to the front door, where a man stands at about 5 feet 11, panic set in his face, two hot drinks in his hands.

It’s him; you know it is.

“You’re late,” you grit out and re-focus your attention on the open drawer. “Not a good look for your first shift here.”

“I am so sorry,” he begins, opting not to take off his comically puffy jacket and practically running towards you. “I swear, this isn’t how it was supposed to play out. I left my place almost an hour ago, and there were no buses, so I had to walk. I stopped for coffee on the way, because I almost died out there, and I grabbed one for you as an apology, but now that I think about it, you might not even like it.”

He finally takes a breath. “Shit, uh, I’m sorry,” he places the warm cup beside you, and you reluctantly accept it with a curt thank you. “You must be Y/N. Your uncle told me about you.” He extends a hand out to you.

“Yeah,” you respond dryly, “Y/N Whitmore.” You shake his hand without looking up. “Heeseung, right? I’m sure he told you how nice and friendly I am to new blood around here.” You finally get a clear look at his face when you close the drawer, nervously laughing at what he hopes is a joke, like he’s afraid you’re going to beat him up with the cash register if he doesn’t.

Okay, so maybe Jisung was onto something. He’s a looker. Like, really nice to look at.

He’s got the type of eyes that look straight into your soul. Not intimidatingly, just—deep. Big. Like boba. His face is soft, but it’s detailed, like the upturn of his nose and its sharp, straight bridge. His lips. His teeth flash with his smile, and it’s…pretty. And you have to admit that he has a really nice head of hair. The ashy blonde color looks a bit eccentric because it’s very clearly not his natural one, but it suits him. He kind of looks like a deer, if you squint your eyes and look, like, really closely.

Alright, so he’s hot; it doesn’t change the fact that he’s late and the person you’ve been not-so-excitedly anticipating to ruin your workflow.

“So,” he claps his hands and rubs them together in a dorky fashion, “where do we start?”

You breathe air out through your nose. “Cases,” you mumble, standing up straight and turning to the display cases beside you. “We need to make and thaw out what goes in every morning.” You gesture towards the empty shelves and the dry-erase labels. “It changes every once in a while. Our regular guy, Gerry, comes in late at night after closing to clean out the kitchen and prepare for us to make the pastries that go here,” you point to the shelves on the bottom, “and we deal with the rest. I usually come a little early to help with those, but I doubt I’ll be doing much of that anymore. As for you, we’ll make the muffins, some cookies, et cetera in the mornings, put out the other premades, and boom—ready to open by 9.”

“Okay…sounds…easy enough,” he nods along.

“Yeah,” you shift your weight from one foot to the other. “Do you know how to bake, or did my uncle go into this completely blind?”

“Go in blind?” he asks like he doesn’t know what you’re saying, and you blink in confusion until you realize he doesn’t. You haven’t really left Valley Point much, and the most time you’ve spent in a city probably only totals up to about 2 days, so the concept of someone not being born and raised here—or at least not speaking the language natively—is foreign. Your right-hand man is Jisung, but he was raised here. Things like this simply aren’t common in a small and sheltered town like yours.

“It means, like,” you tilt your head in thought, debating on how to explain, “when you do something without doing research first. I was asking if he hired you without even asking if you know how to bake.”

“Oh. I see,” he nods. “Sorry if my English isn’t great. I’ve gotten better, but being born and raised in Korea makes it harder to understand some things.”

“It’s okay.” Your nails scratch at the nape of your neck, “That’s my error, really.”

“Maybe you can teach me,” he adds with a smile that fades almost as quickly as it comes when your half-cold, half-unamused expression doesn’t change. “Uh, yeah, I know a little bit,” he clears his throat and answers your earlier question with a shrug. “Most of it isn’t stuff you make here, though. I’ve been here for a bit, but I’m not that good at it. I’m willing to learn.” He leans on the counter behind him and folds his arms nonchalantly, like you’re not staring at him blankly. “Besides, your uncle hired me to help you, so I think I should try to do my part.”

“Alright, well…since I’m not sure how much knowledge you have of some of these things, we’ll just start with the basics.”

And that’s what you do. You start slowly, spending the next few hours before opening carefully showing him how to prepare each item you’ll be making for the day. You make sure he watches carefully and doesn’t touch anything to disrupt your flow. You’ve got a system that cannot be broken, and he needs to be aware of that as soon as possible, or else there will be more problems than you already anticipate.

“Heeseung, you can’t put the flour in that fast. You’re going to dry out the cookie dough,” you palm your face. “Have you never made cookies before?”

If anything, he seems to be an attentive listener. But you’re not sure he’ll be a fast learner.

“But you said to add it,” he furrows his brows, and you breathe a long sigh past your lips, which only confuses him more.

“Just—do it little by little, okay?” you try again; he’s clearly not well-versed in this, and it really isn’t his fault, so you suppose you’ve got to give him a little benefit of the doubt.

“Alright…” he breathes and focuses a little harder, making sure to follow your rules. “I’ve really never baked anything before. I don’t even have a m—”

“It’s fine, Heeseung,” you sigh. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

You’re not a bad person. In fact, you’re anything but; you’d do anything for the people you care about. Your only real crime is that you’re far too easily annoyed.

The rest of the shift goes by smoothly; much better than you thought it would. He does ask a lot of questions about pricing and the register and whatever else you can imagine someone in his position would, but you suppose you can’t get too upset by that, because at least he’s trying to figure things out.

Still, this season isn’t going to be a cake walk, and it’s all thanks to that damn uncle of yours and his itch to make things perfect.

-

It doesn’t take long for you to become irritated.

Crowds are becoming more frequent, and you don’t have the time to be worrying about training someone, and not just training him, but literally teaching him how to make the food he’s selling. You could’ve handled this by yourself. You always do. The only people who have ever helped you with this are Taylor, your semi-friend from high school, who usually only worked this time of year as an extra set of hands, and Diane, who is around Uncle Arthur’s age and in the same predicament as him.

You worked your way to the top here fair and square, and no matter who has accused you of nepotism, it’s all baseless. You’ve had this system in place for years. It’s hard to watch the outer layers of it start to chip off because of Heeseung. It’s already stressing you out, and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet.

“It’s just so hard to get used to this when all I’ve done for years is work around my being alone,” you take a sip of your latte. “Like, I don’t know how to navigate it, and it’s making things even harder.”

Jisung crosses one leg over the other from across the table. “Well, for starters, you are the most stubborn person I’ve ever met,” he stresses, “and it seems like the poor guy is just trying to figure out how to a, not piss you off, and b, learn how to bake while maintaining a.”

“Jisungggg,” you sigh, letting your head fall into your hand. “You’re supposed to be on my side,” you mumble into your palm.

“I mean, he kind of has a point,” Ellie, your other close friend from school (but nowhere near as much as Jisung), chimes in with the bite of her danish still in her mouth.

“We’ve already established that I was right and that he is hot, so—”

“Jisung, please.”

“I’m serious! I know you won’t admit it out loud, but we all know you think he is.”

“It doesn’t matter how attractive or unattractive he is to me. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s the sole reason for my current and upcoming problems, and it’s gonna affect the way I work,” you argue, gesturing with your hands. “I don’t know why this year, of all years, he decides to hire someone else, who isn’t even from Valley Point, or the States, mind you.”

“Let’s just change the subject, okay?” Ellie interjects. “Jisung, you need to stop being such a drama fiend! That is not what she needs right now, okay?” She turns to you. “And Y/N, you need to stop being such an anxiety freak and accept the fact that you’re stuck with Heeseung one way or another, okay? Great. Glad we’ve got that settled. Now, can we please talk about something else before my head explodes?”

One thing you’ve always prided Ellie on is her ability to mediate a situation when it’s beginning to escalate. As much as you love Jisung to death, he’s just as hotheaded as you, and it always leads to both of you beating a dead horse almost every time you’re together. Which is great and all if you’re alone, but not when someone else is there. That’s usually where Ellie comes in, and you’ve got to be thankful for that, whether you like it or not.

“Okay, uhh…There’s some crazy stuff going on at the publishing office, if anyone cares to hear.”

Ellie palms her forehead. “Jisung, that’s literally what I was just talking—”

“Oh, shit! I gotta go,” you shoot up from your seat, frantically grabbing your things and stuffing your trash in your pocket. “I told Heeseung I’d only be gone for thirty minutes, and it’s been almost an hour. Fuck, I can’t leave him alone for that long.” You sigh and run a hand through your hair, walking towards the café’s exit. “Sorry, guys, I’ll text you later.”

When you finally arrive back at the bakery after basically flooring the gas pedal the entire way back and somehow avoiding the police, you scramble around and slam your car door shut, which you probably shouldn’t do considering it’s a 2012 and cannot handle any more damage. But you ignore that and run inside to see Heeseung behind the counter, serving people, and looking…calm?

You already knew he was pretty easygoing. Still, even with the incredible number of people inside this place, he actually seems to be holding the fort down decently well. Then again, you haven’t been monitoring him at all since you left, and he could be doing everything wrong, so you beeline for the staff closet and throw everything inside before taking a fresh apron and slipping it on.

“You’re late,” he says plainly as the final customer in line walks away. “I thought you said you’d only be thirty minutes? And oh, if I remember correctly, you love it when people are…How do you put it? Right. ‘Punctual.’”

“Don’t get me started, Heeseung,” you roll your eyes, tying the apron behind your back. “Everyone loses track of time at some point in their life. Seems you were fine here alone, anyway.”

He scoffs, “What, after you basically implied that I’d burn this place down without you? Yikes, what’s that saying…Rules for thee, but not for me?”

“Heeseung,” you grit, and he laughs, nudging your shoulder with his.

“Relax, Sunshine, I’m just messing with you. Show a little enthusiasm,” he teases. “I can handle serving people. It’s just the other stuff that I need help with. Like, baking.”

-

“Heeseung, I told you that you can’t leave the cookies in for that long.” You palm your forehead as the smoke crowds around you, wafting into both his and your faces. “They’re burnt to a crisp, and we don’t have time to make more before the morning rush starts. It’s hard enough to serve people coffee and food if they’re at a table, and we’ll never have time to do all of this over, too.”

It’s only been a few days since you met Jisung and Ellie for lunch, and even when you thought for some reason that it would, nothing has changed.

“Fuck,” he coughs, running a hand through his hair. “I’m trying, it’s just—it’s hard to remember all of

this.”

“You know what? Just—just stay back here and make more. I’ll deal with the people out there by myself,” you sigh, smoothing out your apron and tightening your ponytail irritably. “Clean all of this up, and don’t take them out of your sight once they’re in there. If anything happens again, I’m going to be pissed.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“You know, an apology doesn’t have much meaning when things like this keep happening.”

It’s all you say before you push your way out of the kitchen and to the front, where a few people wait in line at the register, and you frown.

“So sorry for the wait. What can I get you?”

As you help the customers, Heeseung remains in the back, doing as you tasked him with and trying desperately not to fuck it up. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t irritated, too.

You haven’t given him a chance in Hell in the few weeks he’s worked here. Even Arthur has been nothing but lenient with him, often apologizing for your behavior and trying to knock some sense into you, but it isn’t working. You’re clearly not willing to budge, and he’s starting to wonder if it’s even worth the hassle.

He manages to fix his error and make a fresh batch of cookies that look good enough to sell, and he brings them out to stock the case quietly, mostly avoiding eye contact with you in the process.

He doesn’t notice anyone standing above him until a girl no younger than him speaks, startling him, and he looks up.

“Are you new here?” she asks, twirling a strand of honey blonde hair between her fingers.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I figured. I’ve never seen you before,” she smiles sweetly, eyes glancing down, but not for long enough to warrant much suspicion. “I don’t think I’d forget a face like yours, anyway,” she all but whispers, so low that only he hears.

“Yeah?” he hums, a little intrigued, and leans over the case with the empty tray still in his hand. “I think I could say the same for you.”

Heeseung has quite the confident streak, but it hasn’t come out in the time you’ve known him. How would it, with how evilly you’ve treated him since you met him? Regardless, it’s there, and it’s awfully powerful. It’s not like he doesn’t know that he’s conventionally attractive, and well, then some.

The moment doesn’t last for long, anyway.

“Heeseung!”

“Fuck,” he mumbles under his breath and looks down with his eyes screwed shut.

“Stop flirting with the customers, and go back into the kitchen,” you mutter through gritted teeth, and he swears he can see steam coming out of your ears. “Or I swear to God, you will be fired.”

He drops the innocent act and huffs out a breath, rolling his eyes and making damn sure you see it before he slams his hand on the double-hinged door and enters the kitchen.

“So sorry about that,” you switch back to your perfectly-tailored customer service voice and turn to the girl he was talking to, whose name you don’t know, but you recognize from coming in frequently. “I’ll take you over here.”

“Can I just grab a blueberry muffin, and,” she scans the menu above your head, “a medium hot with three creams and two sugars?”

“Of course,” you smile, ringing up the order. “For here, or to go?”

“To go.”

“Alright, total’s gonna be six dollars and fifty cents,” you send the order to the card reader and walk away to grab the muffin and coffee as she pays. “Here’s the blueberry,” you place the bag on the counter, “and the coffee.”

“Great,” she smiles. “Oh, and also,” she interrupts, “that new guy—he’s kinda hot, isn’t he?”

“Not really,” you shake your head, but your conscience says otherwise. “He’s disrupting my flow here. He’s more of a nuisance, honestly.”

“Well, let me tell you—I wouldn’t care,” she giggles. “You wouldn’t happen to have his number—”

“—I can take who’s next in line!” a male voice shouts, and you turn to see that Heeseung has returned, and he’s not wearing his usual expression.

“Have a good one,” you say, and then force the girl out of the bakery, turning to him. “I thought I told you to stay back there.”

He looks you dead in the eye, and for the first time, you feel a little intimidated. “You’re not sticking me back there like a damn puppet anymore.”

Taken aback by his bluntness, you widen your eyes and front a smile for the next customer, not speaking another word to him during the rush. The air is a lot thicker than it was when you met, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to change any time soon.

It’s gonna be a long winter.

-

“Okay, I’m gonna start cleaning the front if you wanna take charge of the back.”

It has been hours since Heeseung spoke a single word to you that wasn’t entirely necessary, and it’s starting to tick you off. Usually, you’re easily irritated by his way-too-energetic personality, but right now, you’d almost pay to have that version of him back, because whatever he’s got going on now is ten times worse.

“Come on, Grumpy, show a little enthusiasm,” Heeseung nudged your shoulder as you hung your head dejectedly over the counter. It was only 7:00 at night, and the bakery was deserted. You even swore you saw a tumbleweed pass through at one point, but it was highly unlikely to happen in bumfuck, Maine. Still, you had another hour left until close, and time only seemed to tick more slowly with each passing minute.

“Heeseung, I am not in the mood right now.”

“You’re never in the mood,” he countered, drumming his fingers on the countertop. You reached out and slammed your hand on top of his, forcing the noise to stop, and when you finally lifted it, he perched his hands onto his hips. “So let me get this straight—I can’t bake anything, I can’t clean anything, can’t talk to you or make noise with my fingers, and I can’t leave your line of vision. What can I do?”

“Leave, preferably,” you mumbled.

“You know, you’re kind of miserable.”

“Good.”

Heeseung doesn’t respond, doesn’t even give a nod to tell you that he’ll clean it. In fact, he doesn’t even look at you. He just walks into the back silently, not even breathing too loudly, and begins tidying up. You wonder briefly if this mood of his will remain constant, but you don’t know Heeseung—maybe it’s only a phase, or a short grudge, and he’ll return as normal within the next few days. Or maybe he’ll quit, you pray to yourself, but you doubt that you’ll get that lucky.

The sound of the vacuum whirring thwarts your thoughts, and you turn around to start cleaning the tables. The mop’s handle is cold against your palms, like it hasn’t been touched in years, but really, it’s because it usually sits in the supply closet where the heat never reaches. The rhythm you clean in is mundane. Typically, you’d put music on your phone and let it play quietly, or even sometimes, you wouldn’t mind if Heeseung buzzed in your ear about mindless nonsense. But now, it’s quiet. And it’s odd; off-putting in a way you don’t care to make sense of, because you’d rather not admit that you kind of miss him.

Hah.

Once you finish the all-too-exciting cleanup of the front—where you discover a beautiful clump of muffin that someone dropped beneath one of the corner tables and have to dispose of it—you sigh and stretch out your back, listening as a set of car keys jingle from the back.

“You ready to lock up?” you ask Heeseung as he walks out of the kitchen, his sweatshirt unzipped and hanging loosely over his shoulders.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, fumbling around with the keys in his hand. “I’ll let you do it, since you’re so set on making this all about you.”

He brushes past you and walks out of the bakery, leaving you standing alone, the room dimly lit from only half of the lights on. You guess it’s your own fault.

You turn the remaining lights off and head out, locking the door behind you, and watch as he pulls out of the parking lot without a second thought, not even caring to spare you a passing glance. You never considered that Heeseung could’ve been as petty as you, but you’re beginning to think that might not be so impossible.

The November air is much cooler this year than last. You wish you had opted for more than a cable-knit sweater as you walk back to your car, holding your palms over your arms to give them a shred of warmth. When you finally slip inside, you shiver and turn on the ignition, letting the cold air hit your face until it becomes warm with the engine. “God, I need a new car,” you mumble to yourself when the warm air hits, omitting the same almost rancid scent as it always does at first. Finally, you relax into your seat, lying still for a moment and letting out a tired sigh before putting the car in drive and setting your sights for home.

As you drive down the road, you notice the fallen leaves on the sidewalk, turning slightly brown from the damp ground beneath them. You’ve always loved autumn. There’s a lot to love with it—the change in weather, the colors, the New England foliage, oh, and the scents and flavors—what’s not to like? When you were still with your ex, you weren’t really able to enjoy it for the two years you spent with him. He always found a way to make you feel like a little kid, and not in the nostalgic way—it was the kind of judgment that made you feel small and childish. But he was the “perfect match”, as most would say, because you’d known him for years in your childhood, and Valley Point is a small town—the kind where everybody knows everybody. There really aren’t many other fish in the sea.

When you pass your favorite late-night coffee shop, you decide to pop through the drive-thru and order a small, hot drink. You’re usually not one for lattes, since they tend to be a little too strong for your taste, but you know it’s pumpkin spice, so you assume it’ll do the trick. And really, you just want to let yourself enjoy it since there was a time when you’d be chastised for a damn drink. Fuck him, anyway.

You probably shouldn’t be drinking something that’s caffeinated at this hour, but you don’t really care; it tastes phenomenal, and it’s exactly what you needed tonight, after the long day at work and off-putting silent treatment you’d been getting.

When you finally arrive home, your quaint, burgundy-bricked townhouse stares back at you welcomingly. You’re sure it’s never looked so appealing before. You tiredly walk in and set your purse down, kicking off your shoes and throwing out the empty foam cup that once yielded the delicious, pumpkin-flavored drink (you chugged it all before you even got to your street).

Stepping into the hot shower has never felt so relaxing. Your muscles have been tense all day, and the steam clouds your senses enough to make you forget about the long day you’ve had. As the water cascades down your back, you’re finally able to let go of the stress from the day and just breathe.

The fresh strawberry scent of your shampoo serves to relax you further as you massage it into your hair, closing your eyes and smiling faintly to yourself. Maybe this silence from him isn’t such a bad thing, after all. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to work alone again, or at least work in peace.

You wrap a clean, fluffy towel around your torso when you step out of the shower, the steam rising to the ceiling and fogging up the mirror. You wipe your hand across the reflective glass and stare back at yourself. It’s a quick, routine process from there: brushing your teeth, washing your face, changing into your silk sleepwear, and towel-drying your hair until you’re happy with it.

Then, you’re finally sinking into your warm, inviting bed.

As you lie still under the sheets, sleep doesn’t find you as quickly as you had pictured it would. Instead, you feel an odd sense of discomfort, something preventing you, putting up a wall that doesn’t let it reach you. With a heavy sigh, you pick up your phone and prop the pillow up behind you, scrolling through apps, playing whatever games you still have downloaded in two-minute increments until you become tired of that. But then, in a moment of weakness, you open Instagram—perhaps, the one thing you’ve been trying to avoid subjecting yourself to.

Typing his name into the search bar and finding his account is the easy part, feels like instinct rather than curiosity or reluctance, and that’s probably what frustrates you more about the whole thing. It’s when your eyes catch sight of his account that you’re culture shocked. He has…a good handful of followers. Not that much, but enough to prove that he was pretty well-liked back at home. At least, by one group of people.

And, well, his posts.

You don’t know why you’re clicking on them and staring at them so intently. It’s not like he’s some unattainable celebrity, or something—shit, you work with the guy. You train him, and if you think about it, you’re basically one of his bosses. So what is it about him that, for some reason, lures you in the middle of the night? Whatever vulnerability you’ve got flying around in your head is clearly working its magic.

You wish that he weren’t as attractive as he is. Especially with certain hair colors, because you’ve noticed that he’s gone through at least six from what you can see, and you’ve barely scrolled. Black, red, pink, blonde, purple—and a brief moment of dark blue—like a cycle. For whatever reason, something in your stomach ticks at the cherry red he looks to have had for only a few weeks. Well, shit—this isn’t humbling.

There are at least thirty posts, all littered with praises and thirsts in the replies, as if he’s someone important, someone in the public eye enough for all these women to be so bold. And in a span of about five minutes, you’ve gone through half of them. Staring. Studying. Wondering what has gotten into you and who must have spiked your latte. To hell with that coffee shop, anyway.

Mirror photos, landscapes, back shots, high angles, and fuck, the ones taken in bed that make him look like the sexiest person in the world, just because he’s barefaced and jaded in them. Like something you’d see in one of those edits that people make on the internet.

You close the app and put the phone face down on your nightstand, because you’re a little scared of what thoughts your semi-conscious brain was just conjuring up about the guy you’re supposed to hate. Well, okay—you didn’t like him before, and you still don’t. The only difference now is that before, you weren’t imagining what it would be like to have him all over you. Or on top of you.

Or both.

You suppose that looking at those photos must have given you some sort of weird closure, because your eyelids quickly become heavy after that, and sleep overtakes you within minutes.

-

You’re sitting on the couch when Jisung bursts through the front door, letting all of the cold from outside in. You begin to regret giving him a house key.

“We need to talk,” he shouts, beelining for the empty spot beside you and flopping onto the cushions, knocking your book clean off your lap.

“A ‘hello’ would be nice,” you mumble.

“You haven’t called me in three days and six hours,” he says from below, where his head rests in your lap. “And not only does that mean something is going on, but it also means that you are missing out on very. Important. Matters.”

“Such as?”

“I’m glad you asked.” He pops up from his spot—because he’s incapable of staying in one for too long—and takes the space next to you, pulling his legs into a criss-cross as his arm rests on the back of the couch. “So, I met this guy, and—wait.”

You cock a brow.

“This is deflecting. Why haven’t you talked to me in days?”

“Perhaps because I’m busy, Ji?”

“Too busy for your best friend in the whole world?” He narrows his eyes. “I highly doubt that. You have, like, one other friend, Y/N. And she’s also my friend. Your life is also…really boring.”

“Should I take this key away? Because I do not need to catch strays in my own—”

“Okay, yeah, yeah,” he interrupts, “whatever, you’re super cool and fun and stuff. But something is up. Despite all of this, I have known you like a book since we were eleven years old, so spill.”

He gasps, “Oh, my God, is it that Heeseung guy? Did something happen?”

You don’t respond; he takes that as a cue.

“I was right. He is hot,” he grins. “You finally came to terms with the fact that you wanna slide into his bed at night, and that’s why you haven’t been talking! You’re ashamed.”

“He hasn’t spoken to me in over a week.”

Jisung blinks.

“Oh.”

He tilts his head, “Wait, then—shouldn’t you be, like…throwing a party over that? I thought he was a dick. You said you hated him.”

“Yeah, well. He is. I mean,” you sigh, “he got mad because I told him to stop flirting with one of the customers—you know that blonde girl who always comes in, red lipstick and all that?” Jisung nods. “Yeah, well, she took a liking to Mr. Dimples, and he was supposed to be helping. So I said something to him, and he’s been stone-cold ever since.”

“Maybe you should try talking to him.”

“I don’t know, Ji,” you breathe. “He clearly has his mind made up. I doubt anything I can say will change it, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to.”

“You sure you don’t have anything to do with this?”

“I—no!”

“Y’know, you talk all this talk about him, but I’ve still yet to see him.”

You roll your eyes and sigh. “Will you let me breathe if I show you?”

“Yes,” he quickly answers, eyes lighting up at the thought.

You sigh, reaching for your phone, and Jisung raises a fist in celebration. “I can still refuse, you know,” you threaten, scrolling through your apps to find the one you ashamedly searched a few nights ago, and he stops moving. “Alright,” you swallow, “here.”

Jisung takes the phone from you and looks at the screen, visibly freezing when his eyes catch sight of the man you’re doomed to work with until at least the first of next year. You watch his jaw drop open, and regret washes over you—you’re never going to hear the end of it.

“Dude,” he whispers. “You’ve been working with this, and you’re complaining?”

“Oh, I knew it.”

“Y/N, you’re stronger than me. If I were you, I’d be on that so fast—”

“Peter Han!”

“Here, just take it back,” he shoves the phone back into your hands, “I don’t want to look at it anymore…Bitch.”

“Jesus, you are so dramatic,” you laugh, turning the phone off and setting it face down back onto the coffee table. “So enough about me—you said something about a guy?”

“Yeah,” he clears his throat. “On this app. He’s, like, my type personified. And he’s kinda far away, but I think we could make it work. I mean, I wasn’t going to stay here forever, so…”

“What’s his name?”

“Minho,” he smiles proudly.

“Well, I’m happy for you, Ji,” you smile back, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “You deserve it. But, uh…” You look over at the clock, and Jisung tuts his teeth. “It’s late, and I have to get up for a nice, long day of hostile work tomorrow.”

“I’ll go before you kick me out,” he swallows, rising to his feet. “Y’know, you’re scary when you’re bossy.”

“Jisung!”

“Okay, okay!” He runs for the door. “I’ll see you soon! Update me on the hottie!”

You threaten to stand and chase after him, but he laughs and runs out the door before you can even get to your feet. You shake your head, sighing as you fold your blanket.

Your best friend is a lot of things, but most of all, he’s a handful.

And even he can’t uplift your spirits about the day you know you’ll have tomorrow.

-

“Evan! Good to see ya, buddy,” Uncle Arthur says as he walks into the bakery, walking over to Heeseung and giving him a firm pat on the back.

“Hey, Mr. Whitmore. How’s it going?” he smiles, and your uncle shakes his head, laughing.

“I told you about a thousand times that you can just call me Arthur. I’m too old and tired for formalities, anyway,” he laughs and takes a scan around the shop. “But I will ask—where is my dear niece on this fine morning?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” he shrugs. “Haven’t seen her all morning. It’s not like her,” he notes as he dries out a mug to pour himself a cup of coffee. “If it were me coming in late, I’d be scolded like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’d believe it.”

“What brings you this morning?” Heeseung asks, grabbing a second mug and holding it up. “Can I make you a coffee or something?”

“I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” your uncle replies and waves his hand.

“No, really, it’s fine. I was making one for myself, anyway, and…considering that Y/N isn’t here yet, I don’t think I’m going to finish the whole pot alone,” he laughs and sets the mug down anyway, reaching for the steaming pot. “How do you take it, Mr. W?”

“You’re too kind, really. Two creams and two sugars,” he smiles. “And to answer your other question—I just wanted to check on business. Y/N has been bothering me through the roof, complaining about this, and that, and the other thing. That girl is more stubborn than a boulder in quicksand, I tell you.”

Heeseung chuckles at your uncle’s remark, because it can’t be any closer to the truth. He really has no idea what you’ve been putting him through, but he doesn’t want to trouble him with that—he can handle you on his own. And you’d be stupid to think that he’d leave because of it. That would be letting you win, and he’s a lot more determined than you could ever imagine.

“Oh, believe me, I know,” he says as he hands your uncle his coffee, steam rising from the mug and heating up Arthur’s face, still red from the crisp air outside.

He hums softly and takes a sip, savoring the warmth in his mouth before placing it back down, leaving a few fingers loosely threaded in the handle. “She been treating you alright?” he asks, tapping the ceramic cup with the tip of his finger. “If she isn’t, just let me know. She tends to forget that I pay the bills here and not her.”

“No, no, she’s been alright,” he waves him off, taking a small sip of his own coffee before reaching for an apron below the counter and slipping it around his waist. “She’s a handful, but I haven’t been perfect, either,” he says as his hands tie the apron in the back. “I think she’ll come around eventually. It’s nothing I can’t handle, or at least try to.”

“Good,” Arthur smiles, “that’s nice to hear. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, kid.”

Just then, the front door swings open and nearly slams against the glass beside it, forcing both Heeseung and your uncle to turn towards the noise. Both men are met with the sight of you, bolting inside and to the counter, a half-empty cup of coffee in one hand and your keys in the other.

“Shit!” you spit as you finally reach the counter, ripping your jacket off and stuffing it into the small storage cubby, along with your purse. “Oh God, I am so sorry,” you breathe, walking over to the two, both still looking slightly puzzled. “My alarms didn’t go off, and I panicked, and,” you turn to Heeseung, “I was gonna get you a coffee, too, but then I remembered we usually make them in the morning, so I figured, ‘Hey, maybe I shouldn’t do that!’ and then—”

“Y/N,” your uncle interrupts, forcing your lips to screw shut as you look at him sheepishly. “Calm down. Everything is fine.”

“Sorry…Uncle Arthur,” you swallow. “Hi…by the way.” You wave, offering an awkward smile while your uncle takes the final sip of his coffee and wipes his mouth with an old napkin he stored in his pocket.

“Hi, dear,” he finally laughs and stands up from the stool, sighing as his muscles tense up from sitting for too long. “I just stopped in to check on things,” he smiles, “and it seems that Heeseung here has been doing a splendid job at holding down the fort for us.”

You try not to roll your eyes.

“I’m sure he is,” you front a matching smile, leaning down to grab an apron of your own, smoothing down your crimson sweater before wrapping it around your waist. “He’s been very attentive. I think I can whip him into shape, after all.” You nudge Heeseung’s side with a playful elbow, “Right, Heeseung?”

“Right,” he nods.

“Well, if you don’t need me for anything,” your uncle begins, happily adjusting his coat, “then I’ll be on my way. I wasn’t planning to stay for too long, and you two seem to be doing well.” He turns to you, pulling your side into a small hug and ruffling your hair with his palm, at which you protest after spending far too long styling it this morning after waking up late. “I’ll see you soon,” he says, “and if I don’t see you, Heeseung, enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend.”

“I don’t celebrate.”

“I know that,” he laughs, “but you’ll still get the days off. Enjoy them, won’t you?”

Heeseung nods, and Uncle Arthur heads for the door, lifting an arm and waving to both of you.

“Bye, Uncle Arthur!” you shout, waving back.

“See ya, Mr. W!”

When you turn to Heeseung again, your uncle far out of view, his expression morphs into something stoic—leaving behind any happiness that he just had moments ago. You open your mouth to speak, hopefully offer more of an explanation than you gave when you ran in, but he doesn’t let you get the words out. Not before his voice abruptly cuts yours off, using a tone sharp enough to cut skin.

“Don’t worry, you can drop the nice act. He’s gone now.”

“I wasn’t putting on an act,” you bite back, but he turns his back to you and walks into the kitchen, bringing the empty coffee mugs with him. You’re a lot of things, but sitting back and letting some kid from outside of your hometown walk all over you? No, that won’t slide. You follow Heeseung into the back, the double-hinged door slamming against the old tile wall beside it. He’s leaning over the sink, steam rising from the hot water and sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he washes the dirty mugs. “I was talking to you, Heeseung.”

“Oh, were you? Sorry.” He doesn’t look at you; he barely bats an eye. “Doesn’t feel nice, does it?”

“I might have been harsh, but I never ignored—”

“—save it, Y/N,” he interrupts again, tone flat and voice low. “You’re the only one who likes to hear you talk.”

If there was a single bone in your body that had considered apologizing, there is a 0% chance that it’s still intact. You scoff and exit the kitchen, opting to stay out front and prepare to open. “This is what being nice gets me,” you mumble under your breath, huffing as you clean up a small coffee spill beside the pot Heeseung brewed earlier.

The rest of the day doesn’t go by any smoother. It passes in a blur—you, stationing yourself at the register closest to the edge of the counter, only moving to package orders or refill sitting customers’ coffee, and Heeseung, limiting himself to the back, where he helps bake and cleans utensils and plates and silverware ten times over just to avoid stepping into the front. Just to avoid seeing you.

It’s not as awkward working when the Christmas seasonal hires are there—Kira, who just turned 21 and helps you at the register, and Diane, who did return to help Gerry with the baking, after all—serving as a buffer between the two of you. But they only work until mid-afternoon, leaving you alone with him during closing as usual.

It starts as a simple mistake.

You’re gathering the half-empty mugs, dirty silverware, and bare trays from the display case to carry into the kitchen to be cleaned. The neon sign on the door is switched to “Closed”; it burns lowly in the silence of the front. Only one street light works outside, the one directly across the street from the front entrance. The others had blown out a few nights ago, and the town still hasn’t sent someone to check them out.

Footsteps sound in the back, but your ears don’t register them—not soon enough. The moment your hand reaches to push in the door to the kitchen, it hurls forward, knocking into your forehead with a force that stings, sending the tray out of your hand and your feet backward until you trip on spilled coffee and hit the floor.

“Ow, fuck,” you hiss, grabbing at the top of your head with your palm, feeling for a bump or wound. Your forehead throbs with sudden pain, and your other hand grabs your ankle—the same one you tripped over and twisted as you fell. “Shit.”

“Oh, God, are you okay?” Heeseung sputters as he kneels beside you. He raises a hand and gently pulls your hand away from your face to see the cut, but you quickly swat him off. He doesn’t protest.

“Don’t touch me,” you mutter.

Heeseung doesn’t get angry. In fact, the whole act he’s been maintaining all week disappears as quickly as it came the day this whole mess started. “You’re bleeding,” he whispers, eyes wide and remorseful. You flip your hand over to see a few drops of blood resting in the middle of your palm, and a short gasp slips past your lips. “Let me fix it.”

“No, it’s fine—”

“Please?” he asks, and the soft look in his eyes makes you falter.

“Alright,” you sigh, shoulders sagging as you flatten your palms on the floor and try to stand. Heeseung’s hand rests on the small of your back, but you don’t push him away—your ankle is in too much pain to stand without his support, and you almost reach for his arm, too. “At least let me clean the,” you suck in a breath when you put pressure on your ankle, “floor.”

“No, I’ll do it,” he shakes his head and guides you to the nearest chair, lowering you onto it. “It’s my fault.” He walks over to the cabinet where you keep the First-Aid kit and fishes through it until his fingers grip the handle, pulling out the case and bringing it over to the table you’re sitting at.

“Really, I can do this myself—”

“Y/N, just shut up and let me help you.”

Your lips tighten into a flat line.

Heeseung flips open the latches on the box and takes out a small bandage, accompanied by a half-empty tube of ointment and an alcohol pad. He tears the foil wrapper open and unfolds the damp napkin, wrapping it snugly around his index finger. Then, as his eyes gauge your face, the pads of his fingers tuck a few loose strands of hair away from the small slice, and he brings the napkin to the wound, dabbing it carefully over the blood to clean it. A sharp sting shoots through your forehead, and you wince from the pain, eyes screwing shut.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, applying small bits of pressure as he dabs the liquid away.

Heeseung is gentle with you; for a moment, you forget that you haven’t gotten along since the day you met. For a fraction of a second, you think you like the softness of his touch; the way his voice drops to a whisper to ground you.

“Good,” he removes the napkin, now spotted with crimson, “hard part’s over.”

Your eyes flutter back open, still on the cusp of a squint as they focus on a small flour stain on his sweater just below his ribs. He opens the bandage and squeezes a small dollop of ointment onto the cotton in the middle, then takes it carefully between his fingers. Your eyes trail up to his face, tracking his slow movements. His eyes focus carefully on the small incision as he aligns the bandage with it, lips subconsiously parted just enough to reveal the top row of his teeth.

He’s close enough to feel the warmth of his breath graze your skin, and you swallow, eyes transfixed on him. You don’t move. You can’t. As if your body is on autopilot, just like the night you purged his entire page without a second thought.

“Okay,” he breathes as he finally steps away, smoothing his palms over his jeans, and you blink out of your trance. “How does it feel?”

“Better,” you admit gently, focusing on the flour stain again to avoid his eyes.

He nods and gathers the trash into his palm, tossing it into the trash bin a few feet away as his empty hand closes the clasps on the kit. He slides it back into its place in the cabinet and carefully steps over the spilled drinks and shards of the ceramic mugs to get to the kitchen. You hear running water, a couple of clanks of plastic and wood, and then the door swings open again, where Heeseung stands with a mop and a bucket.

But you’re too stubborn.

You push out of the chair, wincing again as you put pressure on your ankle, and limp over to the mess on the floor. The tray sits upside down, edges covered in old coffee. Shards litter the tile, along with coffee grounds and brown liquid that could stain the white floor. Heeseung kneels beside it, not quite noticing your presence until you manage to get down to your knee on the other side of the spill, hissing with the sharp pain.

“I told you I’d do this,” Heeseung says when his eyes finally catch your frame.

“You already bandaged me up.”

“And your foot is shaking.”

You try to protest, but he has no intention of budging and every intention of cleaning everything himself. The position your body is in—crouched on the floor, ankle shaking from the pressure despite barely putting any on it—says enough. And as much as you don’t want to accept his help, you falter again with his gaze, standing with a sigh that resonates in your chest.

“Why are you so stubborn?” he asks, voice soft as he picks up the glass shards. “I mean—you never take my help, and you treat me like I’m incapable. Even on the first day, you didn’t want me here.”

His gentle confrontation forces a question onto you that you always thought he wouldn’t ask, and it sets you back. If anything, you expected an argument because of his recent demeanor, for him to lash out. Instead, he insisted on cleaning you up and touched you like something fragile.

Maybe he is a breath of fresh air that you’ve just been refusing to take in.

“I don’t know,” you breathe, lifting yourself onto the edge of the counter and bracing yourself with your palms. “I guess I just…I’ve always been independent, you know? My uncle, he…taught me everything here, and then he left it all to me a few years ago.” You watch as Heeseung silently gathers the shards into a pile and disposes of them safely. He moves toward the mop and takes the handle, tapping it along the edge of the bucket before bringing it down to the tiled floor.

“Having you come here on such short notice lodged a wedge into my plans, and I guess…I thought that you’d screw everything up,” you admit, looking away when his eyes drift over to your figure, too embarrassed to make contact with them. “So I was cold, and I didn’t give you a chance.”

“You know I’m not here to do any of that, right?” Heeseung asks, and your eyes flit back to him at the gentle manner in which he speaks to you. His elbow is propped up on the tip of the mop’s handle, and he leans into it, still looking at you as if he’s trying to convince you of something you don’t believe.

“I know,” you nod.

You take a deep breath, exhaling through your nose as he resumes the circular motion with the mop over the spill until the brown soaks into the fabric at the bottom. “How did you even end up here?”

Heeseung freezes—so quickly that you almost don’t notice—and continues as if you’ve hit a nerve just by asking. And as you decide that you shouldn’t pry, he speaks anyway.

“My mom died when I was ten,” he whispers, and your heart sinks to your stomach; you feel it fall from its place in your chest.

“It’s been just me and my father since. He tried to raise me well, and he did, really. But sometimes, with my mom gone, he just…wanted things to be too perfect, or else he wouldn’t be doing right by her.” He squeezes the dirty water back into the bucket with his hands, and your nose crinkles at the thought of him being so alone, having to lose his mother at such a young and vulnerable age. Tears well in your eyes, but you will them away; this isn’t about you.

“I always liked to sing, y’know? Not that I was really any good, but some people told me I could make something of it, if I tried,” he shrugs. “My mom, she used to sing sometimes, for some small venues. She didn’t make a lot of money, neither did my dad. So, when they had me, he felt like he had to shape up, and then, she…got sick.”

He sighs, hands visibly shaking, though you try not to notice. “And when I told my dad, he…lost his composure. It was a lot of yelling back and forth, and he told me I was disgracing my mom. So I left.” He glances around the café until he lands back on you, and a frown tugs at your lips when you catch a glimpse of his gaze, eyes tired and sad so visibly—an expression he’s never worn for you before. “Somehow, I ended up here. And I met Arthur just down the street when I was looking for a place to stay, or work…or both.”

He breathes.

“So I’m sorry, for ruining your plans. I never meant to.”

You blink as he walks into the back to empty the bucket, letting his words, his expression, his life sink in, amidst the silence at the front of the store. Guilt plagues your body, starting with your heart and spreading through each limb until you’re mindlessly pushing off the counter and following him into the back, limping in the process and ignoring the shooting pain that comes with it.

When the door swings open, Heeseung turns to the noise from his spot in front of the closet to find you walking carefully towards him, bandage snug on your forehead, and hair still tucked behind your ear.

He flinches when your arms initially wrap around his waist, but his body quickly relaxes when he realizes you only want to comfort him, and his hands find your upper back, resting atop your shoulder blades.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “About your mom…and me…and everything. I was wrong.”

His chest vibrates as he chuckles softly, palms rising to your shoulders and pulling you back to look at him. “It’s okay,” he smiles, “you didn’t know.”

“Can we just…start over?”

He nods, arms falling to his sides.

“I’m Heeseung Lee,” he extends a hand, “and I’m the new hire here.”

“Y/N Whitmore,” you shake it gently, “your new co-worker.”

“Friends?”

“Friends,” you smile.

He lets go of your hand and brings his fingers to your hairline, thumb brushing along the Band-Aid stuck to the side of your forehead. “You should be more careful when you walk towards double-hinged doors…going forward,” he jokes, and you laugh, eyes still glancing up at him until his eyes fall back on them. “Now go home and get some rest—and ice that ankle. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, right?”

“Right.”

“Go ahead,” he motions with his head, “I’ll take care of the lights.”

“Okay,” you nod, carefully stepping toward the door and flattening your palm on the cold metal to push it open. You turn back to Heeseung, who still hasn’t moved from his place beside the closet. “Thank you, Heeseung.”

He offers a curt nod, and you gather your belongings as he closes up, smiling to yourself when you finally exit through the front door, leaving behind only the faint sound of the bell that hangs above it.

-

“Christmas lights—we need, like, ten sets of Christmas lights.”

Heeseung looks up from the notebook. “Ten? What the fuck are we supposed to do with more than two?”

“Look, I don’t know what you guys do over in Korea, but in Valley Point, Maine, if there are any existing parts of a building without decoration on it, you’re doing it wrong.”

“Jeez, alright,” he looks back down and scribbles another tick onto the checklist. “I put us down for twelve.”

You smile. “That’s the spirit!” you shout as he sits at one of the empty tables closest to the windows, and you tidy up the front counters, ridding them of old crumbs and small spills from the day’s events.

For the first time since the day he arrived, you and Heeseung have gotten along. And, if you’re being honest, you’re glad that he’s here.

You decided to put him on Christmas decoration duty over the weekend, since you’re not quite sure that you’ll have the time, and you promised him that you’d give him a fair chance. He happily accepted the challenge, and the moment that you started the closing chores, you sat Heeseung down with a pen and a piece of paper, shouting various things to add to the list of decorations that he needed to buy.

“Are you trying to turn this place into the North Pole?” he asks, his voice wavering with concern. “Where are we going to fit all of this?”

“Oh, Heeseung, you poor, innocent soul,” you murmur, tutting your teeth as you approach the table he sits at, still with a half-limp, gently patting his back. “You have no idea.”

You walk over to the cubby that stores your belongings and begin pulling them out, starting with your winter coat and slipping it onto your frame, then your purse, and finally, the small set of keys that have only one decorative keychain: a Boston Bruins logo that is frayed at the edges and faded with time, one that your father gifted you for your sixteenth birthday when you received your first car.

“Everything’s done already?” he asks, and you nod.

“All you have to worry about is that list,” you point, zipping up your black coat. “I took care of the rest already. We weren’t too busy today, anyway.”

Heeseung takes a breath and stands up, grabbing the paper and folding it to shove in his pocket for tomorrow. He flips his chair and places it onto the table for the night, along with the other two, before making his way towards the cabinet you’re still standing at.

Another thing you hadn’t particularly noticed until today is your difference in height; how the top of your head just barely breaches his shoulders. You swallow, mouth suddenly parched, though you can’t pinpoint why.

Heeseung isn’t intimidating. He’s just…intense.

“Text me tomorrow if you have any questions, okay?” you finally speak as he takes his own jacket from the cubby. “I’ll be around.”

“Okay,” he nods, and you give him another pat on the back before walking to the door, noting the cold air as it whips against your face when you finally step outside.

-

The first ring wakes you.

Your body jolts awake, and your eyes barely open enough to register your surroundings—your bedroom, lit only by the dim light streaming in through your closed curtains, and…your phone screen. It buzzes beside you, a name present but too blurry to read with your tired eyes.

Your hand flops over the device, fingers lazily curling around it and bringing it closer to your face to read. The letters, still not perfectly clear, are familiar. Too familiar.

You reluctantly press the button to answer.

“Hello?”

“Hey, sorry to bother you,” Heeseung’s soft voice rings through the speaker. You hear beeping in the distance, akin to the sound of items scanning at a register, realizing that—at what is apparently 8:00 in the morning on a Sunday—Heeseung is Christmas shopping. Already. “So you wanted me to get a light-up deer, but there are at least four different types. Did you want an inflatable one, or the ones with,” he crouches down to inspect a display, “wire?”

You groan into the microphone, and he stands back up, expression puzzled. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, but…Why are you doing this at 8 o’clock in the morning?”

“I needed to have as much time as possible to get it right.”

“Okay,” you mumble. “What do you have already?”

“Well…” he murmurs, trailing off as he holds the phone in one hand and sifts through the decorations with the other. “A few boxes of lights, garland, icicles—oh, and I even found some plastic candy canes that we can hang inside. Where did I put them…oh, shibal,” as he nearly slices a finger on the edge of the plastic.

“Huh?”

“Er—nothing. I found them.” He steps away from his cart and looks back over to the various types of decorative reindeer. “So, which kind do you want? I don’t want to get the wrong one.”

When you don’t respond, he pipes up again. “Y/N?”

“…Yeah?”

“Oh…shit, I woke you, didn’t I?”

You breathe. “Yeah, kinda.”

“Sorry, sorry—I’ll figure it out,” he stammers. “You can go back to sleep.”

“It’s okay, just,” a yawn interrupts, and you turn onto your side, “send me a picture, okay?”

“Okay,” he responds, and the line goes dead, leaving you alone and awake far too early for today in bed, staring mindlessly at the window as you wait for the chime of your phone. Then, it pings.

HEESEUNG: [attachment: 1 image]

HEESEUNG: inflatable or wired?

You laugh at the stupidity of his message so early in the morning, though you’re admittedly endeared by his dedication to the job you gave him.

YOU: wired. you can pick which one, i’ll put my trust in you

From the other end of the conversation, Heeseung smiles and reacts to your reply with a thumbs up, then slides his phone back into his pocket as he bends down to pick up the box of his favorite deer. White, one front paw up with the neck craned down as if it’s drinking from something. Something about it—perhaps the elegance of its form, or maybe the sternness in its posture—reminds him of you.

He places the box carefully into the shopping cart and checks off the “light-up deer” scribble on the paper from last night.

You, on the other hand, are awake for the day, and though being woken up by such an insignificant question wasn’t exactly ideal, you do have plans to visit your parents, so it isn’t so bad.

The day passes in a blur—air so brisk that a few flakes of snow fall onto the roads, a hectic hour of cooking and cleaning up the mess that your parents’ dog created, and a constant stream of questions from Heeseung to the point that you consider blocking him.

But you suppose you can’t be too upset. He’s only trying, after all, and when you finally sink into your sheets after the long day, you can’t help but let your mind wander. The thought of him not being able to experience the season the way you always had as a child—losing a mother so young—brings a frown to your face.

Mothers are the holidays, the birthdays—any occasion that needs them. And Heeseung had that taken away from him.

YOU: next weekend, we’ll put the decorations up

YOU: promise, i’ll show you everything there is to love here

You set your phone down beside you, letting the noise of the wind outside grazing your window and the warmth that your bedsheets provide lull you to sleep as the new week arrives, and you intend on making it the best. Your phone buzzes once, twice beside you, just gently enough not to wake you.

public enemy #1: great, can’t wait

public enemy #1: see you tomorrow

-

The week flies by in a flash so fast that it feels like it doesn’t even happen.

Your uncle visits a few times to check in on things, make sure that you’re holding down the fort like you should be doing without the stress of bickering. And if you’re being honest? It’s going well—so much smoother, now that you’re finally on the same page, and you trust Heeseung enough to carry his weight. As he’s said about a hundred times already this week, “Uncle Art has nothing to worry about.”

Monday and Tuesday drag; not the way they usually do, at least, not with Heeseung around. While the incessant finger drumming and the constant yapping in your ear and the 24/7 chipper attitude used to be the very attributes of his that made you despise him so deeply, you’ve come to find them entertaining. At least when there are no customers and not much work to be done.

Come Wednesday evening—when the closing hours slowly start to become your unspoken time to bond—music is blasting throughout the store over the speakers at a volume that would get you smacked upside the head by your uncle if he ever heard it with customers around. You’re wiping down the tables and counters, emptying the trash, and even cleaning every last speck off of the display cases until they’re entirely spotless, your sudden burst of energy courtesy of Heeseung and his unexpected obsession with Justin Bieber (and another handful of artists that you can’t name on just one hand).

“Just give me a chanceeee, ‘cause you’re all I need, girl,” he sings as he pushes through the door with the broom, using the tip of the handle as a fake microphone, making your whole body cringe at the sight.

“Oh, God, I can’t look.”

He saunters over, taking your hand and lifting it into the air. “If I was your man, I’d never leave you, giiirl,” he twirls you around, and you laugh, humoring him so that he won’t keep pestering you until you do. And maybe you don’t hate it, either.

“If I was your boyfriend,” as his hand slides down to your lower back, fingertips grazing over your sweater, “I’d never let you go.”

“Heeseung, come on,” you swallow and mask it with a laugh as he removes his hand slowly, sending an involuntary shiver up your spine. “We have to finish.”

“I’d never let you go,” he purses his lips and winks, seductively disappearing back into the kitchen without even sweeping a single ounce of dirt from the floor.

The music stops, and you blink at the door as it still swings gently from his impromptu dance number. The only real thought that you can form in your head is damn, because the man can sing; what does his father even have to worry about with a face like his and the pipes of an idol?

But you shake that feeling off fast and push your way into the kitchen, flicking him on the shoulder.

“Ow!” Heeseung yelps and grabs his shoulder as he whips around. “What was that for?”

“You didn’t even sweep the floor, dickhead.”

“Oh, shit. Whoops.”

And that about sums up your week.

-

“Today is the day,” Heeseung chimes as he bursts through the front door, soft Christmas music already humming through the speakers that decorate the walls of Arthur’s. The large box in his arms is stocked full of the decorations he meticulously picked out six days ago, practically overflowing as he pushes the wooden box that contains the deer inside with his foot.

You laugh from the other side of the counter, the clock behind your head already reading 4:00 as the sun starts to set, giving you a clean slate to work with, despite already having put some of last year’s decor up. “Someone’s excited to be at work on a Saturday,” you tease as he places the giant box onto an empty table and clasps his hands together.

The store, historically, closes after breakfast on Saturdays and is only open every other week on Sundays. “You’ve got to keep them on their toes,” said your uncle when he first decided on it. “If we want to be the best in town, then we’ve got to force business into one day. They’ll come in packs!” And somehow, he was right about that.

So naturally, today is the perfect day to decorate.

“Hey, when you don’t have to do any actual work, it’s not so bad,” he counters, emptying the cardboard box’s contents onto the table and chairs. “Besides, now that you’re not such a scrooge, I don’t mind spending my quality time with you.”

“Y’know, I can always turn back into one,” you threaten. “Nothing’s stopping me.”

“I doubt that.” He walks over and holds the strand of garland in place for you to pin it, since you’re very clearly too short to reach, and he happens to want to prove a point. “Once someone has fallen for Heeseung Lee’s charms, they often find it difficult to escape. It’s really a sad thing.”

Your hand freezes in its place, and you slowly turn to the man beside you, face contorted into the ugliest grimace he’s ever seen. “That was disgusting.”

“But notice how you couldn’t find it in you to move away?” He takes the pin from your hand and tacks the garland into place on the wall himself. “That’s the phenomenon in action, baby.”

“Ew.”

Heeseung trots back over to his pile of decor that looks like the Christmas section of Target exploded onto the table, and fishes through them until he finds some signage that he purchased to put on the windows. “Hm, I think these could look good on the windows, y’know?” he asks, completely disregarding the visible cringe still left on your frame. “I mean, come on—who wouldn’t walk into a bakery with a Santa Stop Here sign? That screams friendly atmosphere.”

“Where do you learn this terminology? Seriously, like, how did you even learn to speak like this?”

“I watched a lot of American television growing up,” he says as he grabs a roll of tape and some window hooks. “Also, one of my best friends back home grew up in Australia.”

“Oh. Wow,” you blink. “That explains the weird accent you’ve got going on, then.”

“Well fuck you, too, Y/N.”

You laugh.

“His name is Jake. Nice guy, kinda dramatic, kinda—horny, but he’s a good friend.” He peels the sticker off a hook and sticks it to the window, pressing down as he checks to make sure it’s aligned properly. As he grabs the sign and hangs it behind the glass, he chuckles quietly to himself. “He actually taught me most of my English. He’d usually use it when speaking to me, so I’d pick up on it. But once I took things into my own hands, I stopped being able to understand him.” He shakes his head, “Seriously, why do people talk like that down there?”

“Well, I dunno,” you shrug. “I mean—we have some pretty weird accents here, too. Look at, like, the south. Or even Boston. I’m from New England, but I wake up and thank God every day that I don’t speak like them. So, I guess we both got lucky.”

“Yeah,” Heeseung smiles, “I guess I did.”

The hours tick by much faster than either of you anticipated they would. Before you know it, it’s already dark outside, nearly seven o’clock at night, and you’ve moved outside, still tacking lights and signs and random shit Heeseung found onto the outside walls of the building. You gave him bush duty, since last year, you tripped and fell into it, and you swore you’d never decorate one again after the cuts healed and left a few light scars on your ankles.

At one point—before you stepped into the cold—Heeseung poked fun at one of the songs that played through the speakers, and you made sure that he regretted it.

“What is this even about?” he’d asked, cocking a brow. “Africa?”

“For your information, this is one of the top ten Christmas songs, and no, I will not be accepting counterarguments,” you interrupted from across the store, pointing a finger into the air and waving it around like some kind of child having a tantrum. “It was written and produced in 1984 by some of the greatest British artists of the 1980s for charity, and it is simply one of the best songs of its time. Never mind the controversy, it’s a hit.”

“It’s kind of…sad.”

“Well, take that up with Band-Aid, not me.”

So Heeseung shut his mouth and let you enjoy the song. But it all worked out—you let him pick the next few, and you went on as if nothing had happened.

But now, as your whole face practically burns from the cold, and you can’t really feel your fingers anymore, you step back, noting that the final thing to set up is the reindeer. Heeseung retrieves the box from inside and takes it out, carefully following your instructions to plug the extension cord in and pull it out just far enough to reach where the deer will stand in the grass, now frosted over from the cold and the thin layer of snow.

“Okay,” he mumbles as he crouches down to construct the reindeer correctly. He inspects the pieces, and you hold the manual in your hands, standing above him as your eyes gloss over the page.

“So what I’m gathering here is that you take these things,” you bend over to grab the small, V-shaped metal pieces, “and stick them into the ground over the deer’s feet. That should keep it in place. I think the rest is kinda self-explanatory as for where the deer’s body parts…connect.”

Heeseung nods and makes quick work of putting the pieces together, listening carefully to which order they should be connected in until everything is in place, and all he needs to do is stick the metal into the ground to hold it up. You crouch beside him and grab two of the stands, opting to set up the hind legs, while Heeseung takes care of the front, but you quickly find that you didn’t account enough for the ground being frozen.

As you push—with all of your strength—you can only manage to get the metal halfway into the ground, sighing as your body sags, too weak, but also too determined not to get them in. You don’t register Heeseung moving until he’s behind you, hands sliding over the backs of yours with his head just beside your ear, close enough to feel the ends of his hair brushing against your neck.

“On three, yeah?”

You nod.

“One…two…three,” Heeseung pushes down with you, and the metal sinks into the dirt, steadying the deer’s foot. He breathes in your ear, a small sound rising from his throat as he exerts his strength, and you swallow, opting to ignore it—at least, to the best of your ability. “Good,” he whispers. “One more.”

He helps you put the last piece in, practicing the same position, count, exhale until he sits back on his knees, and you sigh, hands trembling from the cold and the pressure.

“Let’s go inside,” Heeseung finally says, rising to his feet and extending a hand to help you up, “it’s freezing out here.”

After packing away the storage boxes and containers, you kill the lights and lock up, finally noticing how late it’s gotten as you walk to your cars. Heeseung turns to you and you match his gaze, tilting your head slightly as you wait for him to speak, noticing the familiar expression on his face that signals a question he’s trying to determine how to ask. Then,

“You wanna get a coffee?”

The corners of your lips pull into a soft smile; he doesn’t wait for an answer before his hand is on your wrist, tugging you down the sidewalk.

He leads you to a coffee shop—the same late-night favorite you’d stopped at a few weeks ago—and steps inside, smiling bashfully as he shifts his weight between his heels and his toes. You match his smile but don’t meet his gaze, looking away when he turns to you.

You opt for a medium hot, nothing too fancy for the late hour, but enough to keep you awake until you arrive back home. Heeseung matches your order and insists on paying, despite your protests, making sure to hand you the one with the cup sleeve since only one cup came with it, and he doesn’t want your hand to burn. You grin, thank him gently, and take the coffee, letting him lead the way outside, where—gentlemanly as before—he holds the door open for you.

“Is it everything you’ve ever dreamed of?” you murmur, taking a small sip and watching the steam from your breath waft into the air above your nose.

“Yeah,” Heeseung laughs, and you nudge his shoulder, adorned with a long, beige peacoat and a maroon scarf hanging just by his shoulder blade. “It’s good, though. I like it. After the long day, at least.”

You nod, “I’ll toast to that.”

Suddenly, Heeseung’s phone rings, and he furrows a brow, pulling it out and glancing at the name. “What the…” he mumbles as he presses the button to answer.

“Yooo. Any updates on the baddie from the bak—”

The line immediately falls flat.

“What—who was that?”

“...Jake.”

“Oh,” you nod, clearing your throat as you continue the walk, taking a timid sip of your coffee. “Seems nice.”

The moon, shaded by the clouds bearing snow for tomorrow, shines high in the sky as you walk down the sidewalk, the street empty at such a late hour; Valley Point is far too small for people to travel through this late. It’s peaceful, with most of the light in your path coming from the warm streetlights and the occasional small shops with decorated exteriors for the upcoming holiday. Heeseung looks around, and for the first time in a while, he looks relaxed—wholly, not for show.

“I’m sorry,” you swallow, voice a near-whisper as your fingers clench around the coffee cup, “for…everything. I shouldn’t have judged you so quickly.”

Heeseung looks down at his feet, and the ghost of a smile graces his lips. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“I just…I’ve been sheltered from a lot, growing up here. And you felt like a threat,” you sigh. “I should’ve never assumed so much of you.” You slow your steps, fingers pressing into the cup harder, turning your head just enough to catch a glimpse of his face. “You’re a good guy, Heeseung.”

His lips stretch further. “I think I assumed something of you, too,” he admits softly as he walks, staring at a tree in the distance as a squall of snow hits the ground you walk on. His footsteps slow down until they’ve come to a halt, and you match his pace, stopping just beside him. He turns on the ball of his foot.

“I’m glad that I was wrong,” he breathes.

“I’m glad, too,” you whisper back, staying firm in your place when he steps closer—tentatively—and raises his hand to the side of your head. You don’t flinch when his thumb brushes along the half-healed cut on your forehead, eyes drifting down to yours and never leaving.

“Can I kiss you?”

You nod before your mind can catch up with your body.

Heeseung’s hand slides further back, caressing your head as he slowly leans down and slots his lips with yours. It’s soft, gentle, comforting—just like him, from the moment he first spoke to you to the night he carefully bandaged your forehead as if it were the most important task in the world, despite barely having spoken to you in days. But that’s who he is—it’s who he’s always been, even if you failed to realize it.

His tongue presses against your bottom lip for entrance—not to rush or force, but to feel more of you, more of the person he’s grown to care more for in the last few weeks than he ever thought possible. Your lips part, letting it slip through, gently graze along your teeth; he tastes of coffee and faintly of peppermint, perhaps from the mints you’ve watched him swipe from the jar beside the register countless times, despite them being for the customers. His taste is familiar and comforting all at once, something you gravitate towards on instinct, and your body melts into his as you lift your empty hand, flattening your palm gently against his chest.

It feels like you’ve known him forever.

As he pulls back—so slowly that your lips fight to part ways—his hand stays in its place, and his eyes don’t leave yours, looking into them with an intensity behind them that you’ve never seen before. At least, nothing you’ve ever noticed.

“What now?”

“I don’t know,” you breathe.

A car drives by and interrupts; Heeseung’s hand falls back to its side, and you clear your throat, turning and taking a swig of the coffee as if your life depends on it. He looks in the distance and finds the familiar parking lot with only two cars parked just by the corner, swallowing as he looks past the snow.

“Our…cars are over there.”

“Yeah.”

You walk to them without speaking, the tension far too tight to be cut with words. The footsteps suddenly become louder, your ears become aware of every small sound, and your heartbeat pounds in your head; you’re not quite sure what to do or say, if you can do or say anything.

“So,” Heeseung coughs as you stop in front of the two cars, noses red from the cold, fingertips growing more numb as the heat from the coffee dissipates, “I’ll see you…Monday?”

You nod, throat dry, still unsure of what else to say.

He leans in—hesitates—then presses his lips to the side of your head, just over the small incision.

“Goodnight…Y/N,” he whispers, traces your figure awkwardly with his eyes, and bows his head just slightly before walking away and stepping into his car.

You lift a hand and wave, still standing beside the hood of your car as he returns the gesture and pulls out of the parking lot, eyes never quite leaving your body through the rear view until you’re no longer in sight.

-

How does one go about returning to work after kissing the man they’re supposed to hate? You suppose your guess is as good as any.

But you manage, slug yourself out of bed after a long, hard day of overthinking and what ifs that almost kept you up all night, but thankfully didn’t. And even better—Heeseung doesn’t change, not in the slightest. Not visibly, at least.

Not to you, to Diane, to Kira, to Gerry, or to any of the customers (including the hot ticket from the day you yelled at Heeseung in front of essentially everyone, who still hits on him but doesn’t quite get the reaction she wants).

But on the inside, when he’s left alone with you on late nights, acting cool and collected, he’s numb; trying to determine if it was all a mistake, or if you’re just conflicted, too. When he brushes past you mid-shift, no matter if it’s in front of other people or not, he wonders if you feel the same pause in the air that he does. If you want to kiss him again, if you want him at all, even in the slightest, or if you simply reacted instead of felt when he kissed you that night.

The week doesn’t drag. It feels still. Unmoving in the sort of way that makes time feel warped, coffee taste stale, smiles feel forced and devoid of the warmth they usually withhold.

But just like any week, Friday hits, the day before the seeming end. Three weeks before Christmas, when the first rush arrives, and your co-workers grow stressed, shifts extend by hours as work piles up. Customers find themselves entitled to things they don’t deserve, their impatience influencing their demeanor until you’re being yelled at, but you can’t retort—you’re only the employee.

“You can’t work the week of Christmas?” you shout at Kira as she grabs her belongings for the end of the shift; 5:00 sharp, never a minute more, never even letting the word “overtime” grace her spoiled lips. “What’s the point? We need you; we already lost Taylor.”

“I’m sorry,” she shrugs like it’s not important. “I can’t.”

“Just—go, I’ll figure it out.”

And she leaves without a second thought, adding fuel to the fire already burning inside of you from the stress of the day, the week, everything.

Heeseung tries to console you, but you shove him off, letting the stress turn you back into the monster you once were without trying to be. He thinks he’s the problem; that he’s made you hate him again. He lets the time pass, each employee filing out the same as any day until the last hour—the one that’s become so painfully familiar—arrives. It starts with customers slowly dwindling until close, when you lock the door to clean and watch the town fall silent, dark, with the oncoming night.

It ends with him approaching your frame—hunched over the countertop with your hands on your head—solemnly, placing a hand on your shoulder gently, though it still makes you flinch, and he pulls back.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispers, and you turn to him, eyes tired, the circles beneath them far too dark. “I ruined it, didn’t I?”

You shake your head.

“Okay,” he nods, stepping closer, bringing his hands to your waist, only ghosting over it until your expression allows him to touch you. “Then let me help,” he pulls you closer, “please.”

You don’t stop him when he kisses you.

Slower, firmer than the last. Sure of himself, lacking the hesitation his lips harbored on the cold sidewalk, where his brain couldn’t decipher hope from reality. You lean into him, sighing into his mouth as your muscles relax under his touch, hands gliding up his arms until they’re locked around his neck, pulling him down to you.

His lips curve into a smile against yours, and you almost swear that you feel his heartbeat against your chest, racing at a speed that’s far too fast to be normal. His palms knead the swell of your hips, fingers pressing firmer into the skin just as they lift you onto the counter behind you—thankfully wiped down just minutes ago. You gasp, gripping him tighter but not resisting, legs parting to let him stand between them as you brace your weight onto your palm, one hand still toying with a long, ash-blonde strand of hair.

His palm skates across your front until it stops just above the waistband of your pants, and your breath hitches as his lips kiss a path along your jaw until they’re resting at your temple, just above your ear.

His hand slides between your legs, palming you through your pants; your hips lift, chasing the feeling. The pads of his fingers rub small, soft circles against the fabric, your own fingers tugging at a few strands of his hair, and he smiles, but you don’t notice. He presses the pad of his thumb over your clit, and you almost whimper, but you refrain.

“Let me take care of you,” he murmurs into your hair, and you nod mindlessly, body craving the release of built-up stress and tension from the week.

His fingers finally dip below the waistband of both your pants and underwear until the tips brush against your clit, and your body shudders against the countertop, your palm pressing harder into the white marble. He doesn’t wait, doesn’t tease, doesn’t build you up until you’re begging for something you’re not even sure of; his fingers push into you, slowly at first, letting you adjust to every inch as he breathes out, breath grazing the shell of your ear.

He curls them when they’re fully inside, and your body tenses again, gripping him tighter, pulling him closer, even if you’re not meaning to. You breathe, squeezing your eyes shut as you bite back a noise, too scarred from your last relationship and the embarrassment of letting him see you like this so soon after meeting you.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, taking his fingers out and pushing them back in carefully, the hand on your waist keeping you in place as your hips involuntarily writhe against the cold surface beneath them. “It’s just me.”

You nod, finally allowing a strained moan to slip past your lips. “Heeseung,” you whisper, so quiet that it’s barely audible, disappearing into the air as soon as it leaves your mouth.

His fingers move a little faster, pressing just against the sweet spot inside of you, causing your hips to jolt. He notices the shift and switches his focus, pushing the tips of his fingers in again and again—never too fast, never too slow—right against the same spot until your breaths morph into whimpers, unintelligible whines that don’t quite reach his ears. Your hand tugs at his hair again, hips chasing the release, lips perpetually parted in his grasp.

“H—Hee.”

Your eyes drill shut as the orgasm suddenly washes over you, knuckles white against the marble as your head fights the urge to fall back, but it doesn’t; Heeseung’s lips keep it in place, pressing soft kisses to your temple and whispering into your ear, though the soft ring in your ears keeps you from comprehending any of it. The sound of his voice is enough to ground you.

Warm droplets drip down the sides of his fingers, coating the creases between them, but he keeps the movement up, gradually slowing it until he pulls them out, your body still beneath his, your chest rising and falling with each breath. His thumb brushes away the release from the surrounding skin before he slips his hand out of the fabric and grabs the nearest napkin to wipe it dry, not bothering to make a show of things, not now.

He readjusts the waistband of your pants, smoothing them back into place and pulling your shirt down to cover the exposed skin.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod, sliding off the counter as Heeseung’s hands fall on your waist to stabilize you. “Better. Thank you.”

“Good.”

He brushes a strand of hair behind your ear and lets his fingers linger there, eyes scanning your face. “Go home,” he whispers. “Get some rest. I’ll take care of things.”

“No, I can help—”

“Y/N,” he interrupts, “go.”

You exhale, offering a soft nod as Heeseung admires your face, the way the soft glow of the Christmas lights shines against your skin. He steps back to let you gather your belongings, holds your coat up so you can slide your arms in, and follows you to the door, making sure you don’t try to do any more than you already have today.

“What is…this?”

He breathes. “Whatever you want it to be.”

You nod.

“Text me when you get home,” he winks and closes the door, locking it for good measure. He watches you enter the car, turn the ignition, and pull out of the lot.

You arrive home, haphazardly toss everything onto the stairs, rather than put it away properly. Run a hot shower and wash the evidence of whatever it was that occurred at your uncle’s shop, the one he so graciously extended a hand out to you only for you to do something so obscene with the man he hired but a month ago. Yet, despite all of that, you don’t regret it.

Finally, after trying to scrub the sin off your body, you slide into bed, tired, yet relaxed at the same time, relieved of the pressure that the week had put on you. Your head turns to the phone, stares at it like the mask of the Green Goblin, urging you to send the message, despite knowing that he’s not someone you should pursue; someone you can.

But,

YOU: i’m in bed. i’m sorry for not texting sooner

public enemy #1: good. i just locked up not long ago, on the way home now

public enemy #1: sleep well

You guess you do.

-

Relationships haven’t been your speed for years.

But what you have with Heeseung almost feels too close to one; that scares you.

You introduce him to your house for the first time—a quaint, brick townhouse just down the road from the shop, almost central to the town, if someone were to pinpoint it. It welcomes him, perhaps too naturally, lets the hours slip past a lot easier than they should, than they would with anyone else. But Heeseung doesn’t notice. He doesn’t see a problem, he doesn’t feel the pit of worry in his stomach as strongly as you do—he just sees you. And maybe that’s why it feels so difficult to keep the line between friends and more from blurring with each day that passes.

You find that Heeseung has an obsession with ramen (or ramyeon, as he forces you to spell it now), so much so that he apparently even ate strictly that for an entire year straight. So during the nights when he breaches the line between professional and personal, stepping past the threshold of your front door and into your home, your sanctuary, he teaches you all of the ways he likes it. Maybe you’ll like them, too, and you can learn to make them yourself. Maybe you won’t, and he’ll just forget about it entirely. He doesn’t do things for himself; he does them for you.

You exchange languages in your spare time, during the moments when the shift drags, and the others can hold their own. The small sections of the day when it feels like you’re the only ones there, until you are, and your body just wants to be close to him, whether you should be or not. You help him with phrases, pronunciation, teach him some ways to put sentences together, or add filler words that are never necessary, but sound more native when you use them. Heeseung, in turn, teaches you Korean—the differing sentence structure, how to read Hangul, though it seems too daunting at first, and even how to speak some of it. Basic knowledge that can only go so far, but he’s proud, anyway. He likes hearing his language in your voice.

“Hey, are you okay?” you ask into the phone one morning, lodged between your ear and your shoulder as you take the chairs off the tables with Heeseung on the other line. “It’s…” you glance at the clock, “almost ten, and you’re not here. What’s up?”

“Oh, yeah, I—” he coughs, “—I’m sick. I must have caught something from the cold.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” you apologize, masking the part of you that’s upset, even if only slightly. Even if he’s not supposed to mean anything. “I’ll find someone to cover, or I’ll just try to do both. You can sleep.”

You hang up the phone and slide it back into your pocket as you work to prepare the store for the day, sighing as you glance at the clock again, knowing that time won’t pass as fast. Somehow, over the course of the last few weeks, you’ve grown dependent on Heeseung—someone you originally wished would leave your life as quickly as he came.

public enemy #1: come over tonight?

public enemy #1: i won’t bite. promise

The first time your eyes glaze over the messages, your body shudders. He’s been in your house a thousand times, taught you to cook his favorite meals (ramyeon aside), spoken Korean, watched television, and helped you decorate, for Christ’s sake. It shouldn’t be so jarring to accept an invite to his small, old apartment only ten minutes away from yours. But it is. Everything with him is.

But you show up, anyway. Ring the doorbell exactly fifteen minutes after your closing shift ends; punctual, just as normal. Heeseung answers the door, sporting a pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt that you can read but aren’t sure what it really says. He looks tired, still clearly ill, but his face lights up with his smile. You feel a pang in your chest; guilt or happiness, you’re not sure.

You sit on the sofa with him and complain about the day, how busy work had gotten on the one day staff was short, making a complete show of it. Heeseung laughs, doesn’t interrupt. He just listens.

But he’s quiet; too quiet, nothing close to the Heeseung Lee you know.

“You should lie down,” you whisper, turning to him and rubbing your hand on his shoulder. “You look exhausted.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it,” you nudge him. “Come on.”

Reluctantly, he lets you force him into his bed, and you pull the covers over until they rest just below his elbows. You prop the pillow up behind his head until he looks comfortable.

“I’ll be right back,” you tell him, and he just nods.

You decide to put his lessons to use. You rummage through the cabinets, searching for the stash of what you know is hiding somewhere until you find the cabinet stocked with various brands and flavors of Heeseung’s favorite ramyeon. You take one that looks familiar—doing the best you can to understand the Korean name—and rack your brain to remember the way he taught you to make it, back at your place, with his hands resting over yours and your back pressed to his chest.

You’re surprised that you can even remember.

But you manage to complete a bowl that looks and smells edible, as close to his finished product as possible, and you stick a pair of chopsticks inside. You grab him a glass of ice water and a napkin and walk back into his room, where he lies idly on his phone. Your mind wanders back to the night you decided he was attractive at the sight of the familiar profile layout on the screen, and you swallow, stepping further inside.

“Hee,” you whisper, and his head turns. His eyes grow three sizes, and he quickly sits up, cocking a brow as you step closer, setting the warm bowl into his hands.

“You made this for me?”

“I tried.”

“I was wondering what took so long…” He twirls a clump of noodles onto the chopsticks and brings them to his mouth, taking a bite and slurping the remainder inside. His eyes fall shut, and a warm smile stretches across his face. “Perfect,” he compliments. “I taught you well.”

You giggle, moving to the other side of the bed and propping yourself up beside him. “Eat up,” you tell him, lifting a hand to brush a messy strand of hair away from his face. “You’re sick, you should be eating.”

“You’re good to me,” he murmurs, and you offer a smile in return, watching as he slowly clears the bowl. Even drinks every last drop of the broth—you swear he’s too obsessed, but you suppose it’s cute. He reaches for the water and takes a few sips, placing the empty bowl on the nightstand and turning back to you.

He leans closer, and you try to pull back. “You’re sick,” you repeat, but he persists.

“Not contagious anymore,” as he presses his lips to yours, and you laugh against them, letting him pull you into his lap, despite the protests you just made.

His hand finds purchase on your waist, thumb rubbing the skin just beneath the hem of your shirt as the other slips to the underside of your jaw, holding you closer to him. It shouldn’t feel right—being here, with him, in the apartment he bought a matter of weeks ago, derailing every bit of self-respect you thought you’d gained after everything with your ex, knowing that this is nothing, because it has to be. Because he just showed up one day and weaseled himself into your life. Knowing that deep down, he knows that, too. But still, as his tongue melts with yours, fingers grazing your skin like worship, you just want him.

For the first time, you don’t stop yourself.

And you don’t go home that night.

You read as friends, enjoying each other’s company when you have it, admiring decorations and listening to holiday music, watching the snow fall and collect in the crevices where the exterior walls of the store meet the ground—things anyone does with someone close to them. Things you’ve done with Jisung, with Ellie, with every person that’s come your way and considered themselves your friend.

But when you find yourself craving Heeseung’s proximity, making excuses to have time with him, even if only for a moment, invite him into your house, steal kisses that no one sees, brush past him and feel comfort, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world…when you begin showing up to work together, you start to realize that none of this is friendly. Not a single ounce.

And it can’t possibly be real, either.

-

“Evan!”

He jumps at the old man’s voice, the sound far too familiar to go unnoticed. He turns on his heel to see his boss—your uncle—approaching the counter, saying hello to some of the patrons as he walks around the corner and pats him on the shoulder.

“Someone looks hard at work.”

“Yeah,” he laughs, using a rag to dry off a clean coffee mug, “it’s been pretty busy recently. I can understand why you’ve got so many people here, Art.”

“Art. That’s a new one,” your uncle ponders as the kitchen door swings open, and out flies you, a large tray of cookies in your hand to re-fill the display case with. You almost don’t notice him standing there until you place them onto the counter, and Heeseung taps your calf with the edge of his foot.

“Oh, Uncle Arthur! I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” you exclaim apologetically, walking over to wrap an arm around him. He kisses your forehead, and you smile, perched idly beside Heeseung, whose eyes have been glued to you since you walked in, regardless of the others standing nearby amidst the chaos.

“Hm,” his eyes flit between you, finger lifting and gesturing back and forth, “you two…?”

“No!” you both shout a bit too comically synchronized (and loudly), eyes wide, hands waving in front of you.

“No, no,” you tack on, giving an awkward laugh. “Never, this guy?” You turn, mocking a grimace. “He’s lucky I even came around to him.”

“Okay, okay,” your uncle mock-surrenders, “just asking, no need to get hasty.” He laughs, reaching into his pocket to grab his eyeglasses and unfolding them, slipping them onto his face. He looks up at the menu—spending so long out of his establishment that he’s forgotten some of the options—and orders a few things, on the house.

“I bet, though,” he chuckles, still glancing up at the menu, “if I checked those cameras, you two would be just as close as I’d imagine. You kids are easy to read these days.”

That’s when it registers.

Your eyes lock with Heeseung’s; wide, terrified, horrified.

“The cameras,” you whisper, pointing up and gesturing at the one just above the counter, panic etched deep into your face.

Yeah, take one look at the cameras, and he’ll be fucking scarred. That’ll be the day he finds out some guy he barely knows fingered his niece right on the goddamn counter.

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” you shake your head, “we can’t just leave it there!”

“Then, what do you suppose—”

“—hello?”

“Yes!” You clear your throat, “Yeah—Uncle…Arthur?”

“You guys okay?”

“Yeah!” simultaneously, “yeah.”

Heeseung moves to grab his order, and you step into the back, beelining for the office that typically stays empty, since your uncle rarely visits for any longer than minutes at a time. You open the computer, sift through files, applications, everything until you find the ones you’re looking for, marked with the date of each day, each hour.

The door flies open; you sigh, noticing that it’s only Heeseung.

“God, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

He closes the door behind him, “He’s gone. I extended your goodbye.”

“Thank you,” you breathe, focusing back on the files until you come across the day you’re looking for, swallowing thickly as the footage appears on the screen in a minimized window.

You click and drag the mouse along the timeline, face dusted red the moment you find what it is you’ve been looking for, and lift your finger to let it play. You breathe, clearly embarrassed by the ordeal, despite the only person seeing this besides yourself being Heeseung. Yet, that doesn’t make it better.

You’re thankful there’s no audio.

You hover the cursor over the Delete button, then follow it to the Trash folder and delete it from there, clearing any evidence from that night. Leaving it only in your memories. You lean back in the chair, closing your eyes and letting out a sigh of relief, almost forgetting that he’s even there until you feel his lips press against the side of your head.

“Nothing to be embarrassed about, baby,” he whispers, and your stomach caves. “You’re perfect.”

He ruffles a hand in your hair before leaving the office, not giving you time to counter his claim.

Damn, that handsome son of a bitch.

-

Saturday—six days until Christmas.

public enemy #1: come to arthur’s. rooftop. stairs at the back

You stare at the words—confused—for a few minutes, furrow a brow, contemplate. You still end up in the driver’s seat of your car, chugging down the street at such a late hour, your feet carrying you more than anything else.

You walk up the stairs carefully, swallowing down your nerves, though you’re not quite sure why it has you so rattled. Perhaps, because he’s usually asking to come to your place or inviting you to his, rather than this. This has to mean something; you’re scared of what.

As you finally approach his figure, he senses your presence and turns around. You gasp, nearly stepping back as your hand rises, running your fingers through his hair.

Faded cherry red; the same wine color you paused at all those weeks ago on his page. Bangs hanging loose in his face. Change accurate as an instinct, like he knew.

“Heeseung…” you whisper, swallowing as your fingers linger just behind his ear, and he fronts a bashful smile.

“You like it?”

“It’s…yeah,” you laugh, “I love it.”

“Good. I thought you would.”

Your brows knit together, “How would you have…known?”

“Well,” he breathes, shifting his weight between feet, “you sort of liked a post a few weeks ago. More than that—over a month ago, I think. I don’t think you noticed.”

You step back in embarrassment.

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he laughs, stepping closer again. “I think it’s cute.”

“You’re a dick.”

“You love it,” he smiles, lifting a hand to your cheek as he leans forward, slotting his lips with yours.

He tastes sweeter tonight; like cherries and sugar, maybe from old gum or a mint, or perhaps it’s neither, and it’s the Chapstick on his lips that’s flavored like this. Your lips stretch into a smile against his, too natural to be simply casual, and you sigh contentedly into his mouth, one arm wrapped loosely around his waist, while the other extends upward, palm resting over his heart. You feel it beating again beneath your fingertips; it grounds you, still.

The wind swirls around you, forcing your hair to mingle with his, but it doesn’t matter; you don’t feel the cold, the breeze, the dust of snow falling onto the rooftop beneath your feet.

You think—for a moment—that you could stay like this forever, and you’ll be happy.

“Come with me,” he mumbles against your lips, and you pull away, looking into his eyes, head tilted.

“What?”

“Come with me,” he repeats firmly, words laced with a conviction that scares you. “When I leave, next year. After this.” His hands slide down your arms, and he laces his fingers with yours, rubs the backs of them with his thumbs. “I want to do this, see the world. And I want you with me.”

Your heart drops to your stomach. Heeseung is leaving. It shouldn’t come as a surprise—that was his plan, that was always the plan, wasn’t it? So, why does it hurt so much when you’ve known it all along?

You think about all of the times you’ve told him to pursue it; the times you’d lie in bed together, and he’d sing you gently to sleep, never thinking anything of it. When you’d play music at work, and he’d hum along to the songs he liked, to the ones he learned for you. When he’d start singing Do They Know It’s Christmas? after the stink you made the first time, and you’d tell him he was good, more than good.

Because to you, he’s perfect.

But sometimes, that isn’t enough.

“Heeseung, I—I can’t.”

The life in his eyes is the first thing to go.

Then, the smile falters, his hands loosen their grip on yours, and his jaw clenches as he holds back tears, though he tries not to let it show.

“Why?”

“Because I can’t, I—” you breathe, choking over your own words as tears brim in the corners of your eyes, making no effort to hold them back. “My whole life is here, Heeseung. I can’t just—leave it.”

“But that’s just it, Y/N,” he counters, trying to hold his composure. “You’ve only ever known this. Don’t you want to see what’s out there?” He steps closer, and you let him, knowing that you shouldn’t. “You have so much to offer.”

“I’m not like you, Hee,” you shake your head, “that’s not what I want.”

“Not with me?”

Your heart lurches, but you don’t reply. The words get stuck in your throat. Heeseung takes it as an answer, despite the tears running down your face—ones he makes no effort to wipe away, to acknowledge, though he would’ve jumped to get rid of them just minutes ago.

“I thought you would’ve changed your mind by now.”

“That’s not how that works, Heeseung. I can’t just up and leave, and you know that. You know I can’t just come with you like it’s nothing.”

He scoffs, poking his tongue into his cheek as he looks down at his feet. “You sound just like him.”

“Who, your father?” you shout, offense mixing with hurt and lacing your voice. “Because I don’t want to leave my home? Because I don’t want you to go?”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to leave without you, either, because I lo—”

“—Don’t say it,” you warn.

“Why not? You don’t want the truth?”

“No. Because I can’t handle it,” you admit, bile rising in your throat, but you swallow it down. “I can’t deal with that reality, Heeseung.”

“So what, you’re just gonna stay here forever?” he asks, hurt breaking his voice, the noise wedging the knife deeper into your heart. “You’re gonna just work here forever? That’s all you ever want to be? Just come cashier?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means,” he bites back, and you look away, taking a breath.

“You can’t expect me to do that for you, Heeseung. I haven’t even known you for two fucking months!”

“Well, from the way you’ve been acting, it seemed like we were a lot more than I thought, so I’m sorry that I misinterpreted whatever this was.”

“Look, I didn’t ask for you to just show up and derail my entire fucking life, okay?”

He freezes; you step forward, guilt immediately washing over you.

“Hee,” you reach out, but he moves away, doesn’t speak.

He walks down the stairs without another word, and you chase after him, breaths increasing in weight, your heartbeat hammering in your head like an anvil that just won’t stop. He opens the car door and slips inside, and your hand catches on it before he can shut it.

“Hee, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“—save it.”

He looks up at you, eyes red and glossed over. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave. Just like you always wanted me to, alright?”

“No, Heeseung—”

He turns the ignition and slams the door, forcing your hand to lift before it gets crushed, and he takes off, not looking back at you, not thinking twice, just leaving.

Realization hits like a truck; you sink to your knees, broken, battered. The cold of the fallen snow on the ground burns on your kneecaps, but you don’t care—you think you deserve it. Tears run down your cheeks, burning hot in contrast to the freezing cold outside, and you shove your hand in your pocket, pulling out your phone. Your fingers tremble so severely that you can barely grasp the device, vision blurred from the tears spilling down your cheeks; the painful fear in your chest is too severe to bear.

You dial the number without thinking. The ringing feels like agony, grating pain against your heart until you hear the voice on the other line that stops the ache just for a fraction of a second.

“Ji,” you sob, “I fucked up.”

-

“Hey, hey, what’s the matter, baby?”

You sob into Jisung’s chest, dampening his shirt, but he doesn’t care. He holds you closer and runs his palm along your back. Your knees still hurt from the cold, but they’ve numbed, just a little.

“He’s gone,” you cry, shaking your head as if it isn’t real. “I made him leave.”

“What?”

You bury your face deeper into his chest. “He wanted me to go with him, and I told him no,” you ashamedly tell him. “I can’t lose him. I don’t wanna lose him.”

“Lose who, Y/N?”

“Heeseung.”

Jisung blinks above you; you don’t notice, you don’t even look up, but you feel the way his hold loosens just slightly. “Heeseung? I thought you—what? I thought you hated him.”

“I don’t hate him, Ji,” you whisper, “I never did.”

“You have a lot to catch me up on when you’re done crying and warm in your house.”

And you’ll tell him, because you know where you stand with Heeseung now.

Only, you might never see him again, and your body can’t accept that fact. Not one bit.

-

You expected work without him to be difficult.

You didn’t expect life without him to be.

When the others ask where Heeseung is, you shrug—a partial truth, despite knowing that you’re the reason, that you’d hurt him too much for him to stay. You’d already been keeping him at an arm’s length, tried your best to, at least, but you’d pushed him too far, and now, you’ll have to pay for it.

His presence in your life feels like a candle that you never knew was burning, until one day, you noticed it, and then, it was out. Gone like it was never there, despite the smell left behind, the reminder of its existence never quite dissipating, not enough to forget.

“I don’t know, I guess he must have quit.”

—your usual response, dry, uninterested. Because you can’t bring yourself to feel the loss; if you do, you don’t think you’ll recover. You check your phone, even when it doesn’t ping, silently hoping that his contact will pop up, say something like gotcha! and then, he’ll show up out of nowhere, sliding right back into the hole he burrowed in your heart. But days pass, the holiday draws closer, and he’s radio silent. Some nights, you drive past the apartments, try to see if a light is on inside, if his car is nearby—you never quite find what you’re looking for.

Your uncle apologizes, thinking all of it is his fault, but you don’t have the courage to tell him the truth: that you did have something with Heeseung, and you let him go as quickly as he came. The wish you wanted to come true until he suddenly became everything.

You find yourself staring at the decorations inside the store, propping your hand up on the counter, and glancing around. You want to hear his voice, him to burst out of the kitchen with some stupid thing to say, wrap his arms around you, and kiss you until you can’t breathe. You realize—standing alone in the store, just as you always wished for—that none of this place matters anymore, not without him.

You don’t know who you are without this place. Maybe that’s even scarier than leaving it.

But it’s too late—you’ve done the damage, sent the best person to happen to you away as if he meant nothing to you at all.

As the final shift before Christmas Eve finishes, you open the cabinet to grab your things—keeping them on the same half you always had with him, not daring to fill his side. The closing process feels monotonous; unplug the decorative lights, check the counters, organize the orders, turn off the ceiling lights, walk out the door, and lock it behind you. Staring at the space he always parked in as you sit in the driver’s seat of your car, nearly breaking down from the pressure and the immense silence inside, is a new part you add to the list tonight.

You drive home without music, only half-paying attention to the road. The heavy snowfall blows against your windshield but makes no noise, clouds your vision more than the fog that’s already there. But your mind wanders elsewhere, unable to stay completely focused, much like most of your time as of late. Only the shell of you remains. And nobody notices—nobody even bats an eye. Not like he would.

Never like him.

You push through the front door, and even in your own house, you can’t escape Heeseung—he plagues your thoughts and haunts the inside of your little townhouse like a spirit that won’t leave. Every corner of the house holds a memory of him. Nothing remains untouched. Everything feels like a punishment; packages of ramyeon stashed away in the back of one of your cabinets, the Boston Bruins blanket that he claimed to be his favorite still folded in the spot he usually took on your couch (after which you forced him to watch a game because he “deserved to know the best sport in the world”), and even your bed—where the ghost of him still lies, his cologne etched into the sheets that you haven’t yet changed.

A rap on the door takes you out of your thoughts, jolting your body away from the refrigerator as you try to fill a glass of water. You place the half-full glass onto the counter and smooth your hands over your pants, furrowing your brows. You don’t bother to check the peephole; you simply turn the lock on the door, hand trembling slightly from stress and nerves, then the knob, swinging it open.

Your body tenses—eyes well with tears the moment they catch sight of his face. Familiar, loving eyes looking back at you, the soft, now cherry red hair you love to run your hands through, spotted with flakes of snow as they fall onto his head, the lips you’ve kissed with every ounce of affection in your heart pressed together as he swallows.

“I can’t stop thinking about you.”

The snow falls behind him, around him, melts into his hair as he stands before you, unfazed by the cold outside as long as you’re near him; he thinks it’s been that way for a while.

“I can’t pretend like I don’t think about you every second.” He steps closer, almost crossing the threshold but not quite touching it, still not without your permission, despite every bone in his body screaming for him to. “I can’t act like I’m not in love with you. And maybe you don’t want to hear that, but you need to.”

The lights he helped string on the arch of your doorway twinkle above, illuminating his face with a soft red glow that somehow makes him prettier, if even possible. You falter at his words, legs fighting to stay steady beneath you as he says it with conviction and forces the tears to fall from your eyes.

“Hee,” you whisper weakly—all it takes for him to step forward and slide his hand behind your head, holding it in place for him to kiss you.

It’s different from the other times, a declaration and a promise all at once, desperation seeping into it like it hadn’t before. His tongue finds yours the moment your lips part to let it in, and he steps forward, forcing your bodies closer as if he’s trying to meld them together. You smile against him, hand trailing into his hair and taking the soft burgundy strands between your fingers, needing to feel him just as much. The thought of losing him—someone who made you realize everything you’d been missing out on—hurts more than any insult anyone could throw at you.

Because Heeseung is your person, and you’ll never let him slip away again.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between kisses, refusing to part from you after not seeing you for days; your mouth chases his, kisses becoming sloppy, but neither of you seems to care, not when it feels so good, for once. You hum into his mouth, and his hands grip your body tighter, fingers pressing into your skin. Heeseung moans, and you grin wider.

“No, I’m sorry,” you finally counter, pulling back to breathe. “I was wrong. You didn’t ruin anything, Heeseung.” Your hands slide down his arms until they reach his, lacing your fingers together and gripping them firmly, lips swollen. “I want to do this with you. I don’t want to be here if you’re not,” you say, shaking your head. “This is all I’ve known…But I want to know more. With you.”

“I don’t want to force you.”

“All my life, I’ve never even entertained the notion of leaving this town.”

You close your eyes and take a breath, exhaling deeply through your nose. “But if it means being with the person I love, I’ll travel as far away from here as possible.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, kissing along your jaw, the corner of your mouth, your lips. “‘m gonna make up for everything, okay?”

You nod, and his hands slip beneath the swell of your ass, hoisting you up for your legs to wrap around his waist. He carries you up the stairs, kissing a path along the underside of your jaw as your hand fists in his hair.

Heeseung takes his time with you, laying you onto the bed, fingers dancing along the edges of your clothes and peeling each item off, one by one. His lips find every dip and curve on your body, pressing kisses to them like worship, his touch reverent as he takes the first release from you with just his mouth, the second with his fingers, prying soft moans that seep into the four walls of your bedroom as if he’s the only other person meant to set foot in it.

When his hips meet yours, he kisses you as if his life depends on it, one hand palming your kneecap and holding it in place while the other entwines its fingers with yours, holding them above your head and against the headboard. You feel him in your stomach, on your knees, above you, around you—everywhere, all at once. He takes care of you; lets you feel every last inch of his want for you, shows his love for you rather than trying to control you. He wants you comfortable and pleased and satisfied all at once.

The soft light that streams in from outside the door—mixed with the small, white-lit tree in the corner of the room—makes you feel at ease, with Heeseung hovering above you, holding onto you like a lifeline, something you never thought possible the day you met him.

Your body relaxes under his touch, and your brain takes a vacation, focusing only on Heeseung, how perfect he feels like this, how nothing could feel any better than this very moment. And you smile against his lips, sighing deeply when you reach your final peak, giving yourself to him, wholly. Let the evidence drip down your inner thigh for his thumb to carefully brush away, unsure of whether its origin is from you or him. Kiss him until your lips go numb, until you can’t breathe, until he’s sure that he’s made up for every ounce of pain, every minute he missed with you, every night he could’ve made you feel this good and hadn’t, because he left. Not bothering to consider what anyone will think, what will happen if you leave, how tomorrow will go—all you think about is him as he pulls back to look at you.

And that stupid, beautiful smile of his.

-

The Christmas Eve shift passes by in a blur. With Heeseung back, everything returns in full swing, all hands on deck for the morning until close. Handfuls of people file in and out, picking up orders, grabbing passing drinks, admiring the scenery that he and you spent far too many hours meticulously creating.

On the short break you get, you pull out your phone, scroll through it mindlessly until a text message flashes on the screen.

public enemy #1: off the phone, slacker

You look up; Heeseung stands on the other side of the door, shaking his head and tutting his teeth. You flash him a smile (and a choice finger) that makes him laugh, loudly enough that you can hear it through the door. He blows you a dramatic kiss and walks away.

YOU: asshole.

public enemy #1: you love it

YOU: focus on working instead of me. and start thinking of outfits for tomorrow

The annual Whitmore family dinner on Christmas Day, usually hosted by your parents, but now extended to you. You invited Heeseung, intending to introduce him to the others as your boyfriend, the boy you love—whatever it takes to describe what he means to you. Where he’ll finally meet your parents, where they’ll find out that you’re going to navigate life with him outside of Valley Point, despite the challenges that you’ll face, and the fear that pits in your stomach.

You know that if he’s there, you’ll be okay.

Which reminds you,

hee ♥︎: anything for you

-

“Merry Christmas!”

You smile, wrapping your arms around your uncle as he walks into your house, your aunt following closely behind. Heeseung stands beside you, nervously fumbling with his thumbs as his eyes follow their path.

“Heeseung! I heard you’ve been absent for a few days,” he teases as he pats him on the back, not quite tall enough to reach his shoulder so easily. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he nods, eyes flitting over to you as you give him the go-ahead, and his arm slowly wraps around your waist, fingers resting just over your hip. “Just…figuring things out.”

“I knew it,” he grins, and you shove him with your palm.

“Yeah, yeah. Go inside and talk to the others, okay?”

Heeseung shifts his weight between feet, unintentionally moving your body along with his. You turn to him, tilting your head to see his face as he looks forward, not particularly focused on anything.

“Hey,” you whisper, and he looks down, his nervousness etched into his features. “It’s okay. They’re gonna love you.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs.

“Heeseung,” you scold. “My parents are going to love you. I promise.”

“Okay,” he breathes. “Yeah…yeah, okay.”

The front door flies open, nearly slamming against the wall behind it; you don’t have to look to know who it is.

“Well, if it isn’t the infamous Heeseung Lee,” Jisung says as he saunters over, hands perched on his hips like he has a personal score to settle with him. “Heard a lot about you.”

“Have…you now?” Heeseung asks, already far too nervous to be confronted about things he has clue idea of.

“Yup.” He extends a hand for Heeseung to take and waits until he does to clamp down and practically cut off his circulation with his fingers. “Jisung,” he introduces proudly.

“Oh,” Heeseung nods. “I’m, uh—yeah. Heeseung.”

You notice a familiar figure outside the window and usher Heeseung into the kitchen with Jisung where the others are gathered, telling him that your parents have arrived. He goes without question. Once he’s in the kitchen, he gets swooped up in conversation almost instantly, only half-listening as his mind wanders off, worrying about what your their first impressions of him will be, if they’ll even like him at all. He hears your gentle “Hey!” from the kitchen, but can’t tear himself away enough to look back at you, despite his attempts.

“Heeseung?” you call from the empty sitting room on the other side of the house, and his head whips around. He takes a breath and walks toward the noise, preparing to see you standing there with your parents, waiting to introduce them finally, after so much back and forth, so much uncertainty.

But when Heeseung walks into the room, it’s not what he expected at all.

“Appa?”

You stand just around the corner, biting your lip nervously as Heeseung timidly speaks to his father, just a few feet in front of him. It’s a side of him you’ve never seen before—a son, just a boy with his father, who lost his mother as a kid and only wanted to succeed for them. You swallow, not quite understanding what they’re saying; you make out a few words from what he’s taught you, but it’s not nearly enough. You don’t think you should understand, anyway—it’s their personal business, not yours.

Heeseung hesitantly steps forward, and his dad meets him halfway, pulling him into a hug that looks long overdue. You turn away, not wanting to pry, to give them their time alone, though you can still hear Heeseung’s quiet sobs, and you blink back tears.

As they pull away and exchange a few more words, Mr. Lee motions you in with an arm, and you bow gently, thanking him before letting him step out to join the group of people already accumulating in your dining room, socializing as the snow continues to fall outside.

“I love you,” he smiles, wrapping his arms around your waist and lifting you off the ground, letting out a soft laugh that transfers over to you as you twirl around in the air, gripping him tightly, like you’ll fly away if you let go.

When your feet finally touch the ground, the tips of your fingers meet behind his neck, and you admire his expression, happiness glowing in his eyes. “I love you, too,” you whisper back, leaning up to kiss the tip of his nose. “You deserve to be happy, Hee.”

“I already have been,” he sniffs, and a tear runs down his cheek, barely reaching his jaw before your thumb catches it. “But God, you get better every day.”

He leans down and catches your lips in a gentle kiss, tasting of that same sweet Chapstick he’s been using and familiarity; comfort, warmth, love. Everything you’ve ever wanted—everything you’ll ever need. You don’t think you’ve ever felt as free as you do with him; though it scares you, you want to start this next chapter with him, because you’re not sure that you’d trust anyone else.

47 days can do a lot to a person.

Heeseung is a plot twist you never expected.

“Merry Christmas, Y/N,” he whispers into the air between you, bringing a finger up to poke the tip of your nose. He laughs gently, and you match it; Heeseung thinks it might be the best sound in the world.

“Merry Christmas, Heeseung.”

You let the silence create a blanket around you, wrapping the two of you in your own world, even if for just a moment, where all that exists is you, Heeseung, and the faint glow of the incandescent lights strung around the house—present as a reminder of the love you gained this season, even after they’re taken down and stored away in boxes until next year.

Because they’ll always represent what you are: passion, joy, excitement, love—

—and forever.