*ੈ✩‧₊˚ you said you liked it
warnings. established relationship, fluff (like... a lot), sae pretending he is not painfully attentive ♡
every time sae returns from spain, he brings you something small. it takes you far too long to understand that none of the gifts are as thoughtless as he pretends they are.
The first gift Sae brings you from Spain is a bookmark.
It is thin and painted by hand, a trail of deep blue flowers curling around its edges while a narrow red ribbon hangs from the bottom. Pretty, certainly, but not particularly remarkable. The sort of thing displayed beside postcards and magnets in a quiet shop intended for tourists with a few coins left to spend before their flights.
Sae places it on the table between you without explanation.
He lifts his glass, entirely unaffected by your stare. “Then why did you ask?”
You narrow your eyes, though the smile threatening your mouth ruins whatever irritation you were attempting to convey.
“I meant why are you giving it to me?”
Sae takes a slow drink before answering.
“You dog-ear your pages.”
There is enough judgment in his voice to make it sound like a personal failing.
You glance at the bookmark again.
“You bought this because you don’t like the way I mark my pages?”
“You’re still ruining them.”
You laugh, tracing one fingertip over the painted flowers. The blue is slightly uneven in places, small imperfections revealing where the brush must have paused against the wood.
“You could’ve just told me to buy one.”
“You complained. That’s different.”
“It clearly wasn’t effective.”
Sae leans back in his chair, conversation apparently finished.
You smile despite yourself and slip the bookmark carefully inside the novel waiting in your bag.
His eyes flick toward your hands for a moment.
You think little of it at the time.
Sae travels constantly. Training camps, matches, obligations you do not always understand and events he rarely seems interested in attending. Airports and hotel rooms have become ordinary pieces of his life, distances measured in fixtures rather than weeks.
The bookmark feels like an impulse purchase—a small object he spotted beside a register that happened to remind him of your terrible reading habits.
Then comes the second gift: a box of tea from Spain.
You are waiting in his apartment when he returns, curled into one corner of the couch with a blanket covering your legs. His flight landed late enough that you had almost fallen asleep twice, but the sound of his key turning in the lock has you sitting upright immediately.
Sae steps inside with one hand wrapped around the handle of his suitcase.
Not obviously. Sae rarely permits anything to appear obvious. But there is a faint heaviness beneath his eyes, a stiffness in his shoulders that only becomes visible after you have spent long enough learning the difference between his indifference and his exhaustion.
“You’re still awake,” he says.
“You told me you’d be here at eleven.”
You rise from the couch and move toward him, wrapping your arms around his waist before he can say anything else.
For a moment, Sae remains still.
Then his hand settles against the back of your head.
“You missed me,” he observes.
His palm slides slowly down your hair, lingering before he steps away to remove his jacket.
You watch him open his suitcase.
From between neatly folded clothes, he removes a small paper package and holds it toward you.
Inside is a box of loose-leaf tea, the label printed in Spanish and decorated with tiny illustrations of oranges.
You lift the lid and breathe in. The scent is warm and sweet, citrus softened beneath something floral.
“You complained the tea here tastes like hot water.”
Sae shrugs and begins closing his suitcase.
You remain kneeling beside it, the box held carefully in both hands.
“You complained for twenty minutes.”
His tone remains flat, but there is the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth.
The third gift is a pair of earrings.
Small golden stars, delicate enough to catch the light whenever you turn your head.
He leaves them beside the bathroom sink while you are getting ready, the box appearing between your makeup and his irritatingly limited collection of skincare as though it has always belonged there.
You find it while searching for your lip balm.
He appears in the doorway, already dressed for dinner.
His gaze drops toward it. “They’re earrings.”
“Thank you, I was struggling with that.”
“I’m asking why they’re here.”
You turn one of the tiny stars beneath the light.
They are exactly the sort you would choose for yourself—simple, warm-toned, understated enough for everyday wear. You cannot imagine Sae wandering willingly through a jewelry shop, much less studying displays long enough to decide which pair would suit you.
“How did you even pick these?”
Sae’s expression suggests the question is ridiculous.
“You showed me a pair like them.”
He adjusts the cuff of his sleeve. “You were looking at them online.”
That had been weeks ago. You had been lying beside him, mindlessly scrolling, and paused on a photo for no more than a few seconds before deciding you did not need them.
You are not even certain you spoke aloud.
“You had the brightness all the way up.”
Then his eyes drop briefly toward the earrings.
“Are you wearing them or not?”
The impatience in his voice fails to conceal the way he waits for your answer.
He exhales, long and quiet, as though you have asked him to perform something unbearably difficult.
You turn your back to him and move your hair aside. Sae’s fingers brush the curve of your ear as he fastens the first earring, his touch unexpectedly careful. The cool metal settles against your skin.
“You’re very good at this,” you murmur.
“You’ve done this before?”
You do, though mostly because his fingertips have moved beneath your hair, smoothing it back into place with an intimacy that leaves warmth spreading slowly through your chest.
When he finishes, you turn toward the mirror.
The stars catch the bathroom light.
You look at Sae’s reflection.
He is already watching you.
“They’re perfect,” you say softly.
Of course that is his answer.
By the fourth gift—a small bottle of perfume—you begin to wonder whether any of his choices are truly spontaneous.
The fifth is a ceramic dish painted with lemons, chosen because your rings are always scattered across his apartment.
The sixth gift is a wool scarf in the exact shade you once admired through a shop window.
The seventh is chocolate from a place you had mentioned seeing online.
The eighth gift is a pen, bought because yours ran out during one of your calls and you spent five minutes searching for another while Sae listened in silence from Madrid.
Each time, he offers the same simple explanation.
“You said you wanted one.”
As though these are reasons enough.
Perhaps, to Sae, they are.
It takes you longer than it should to notice the pattern.
You are cleaning your room one afternoon when you find the first bookmark tucked inside an old novel. The blue flowers are slightly faded now, the red ribbon fraying near the end from months of use.
Then, almost without thinking, you begin gathering the others.
The earrings from the small dish on your dresser.
The scarf folded over your chair.
The perfume beside the mirror.
The tea, nearly finished, in the kitchen cupboard.
A collection of small, ordinary objects arranged across your blanket, each one connected to a moment you had long since forgotten.
A complaint made beneath your breath.
A screen paused for a few seconds.
A passing comment that had felt too insignificant to carry beyond the conversation in which it appeared.
Sae had carried every one of them across countries.
You are still sitting among the gifts when he arrives.
He stops in the doorway to your room.
His eyes move from you to the objects scattered across the bed.
“You remembered all of these.”
Sae leans against the doorframe, expression unreadable. “They’re things I bought you.”
“No.” You look down at the gifts. “You remembered everything I said.”
A faint crease appears between his brows, as though he cannot understand why this surprises you.
You laugh once, though the sound comes out softer than intended.
“I don’t talk that much.”
Sae’s gaze settles on your face.
For a moment, the room becomes very still.
He could tease you. He could look away, offer some dismissive answer and leave you to interpret everything yourself. That is what you expect from him—the careful avoidance he uses whenever a conversation threatens to become too openly sentimental.
Instead, Sae pushes away from the doorway and walks toward you.
He stops between your knees.
“You’re my partner,” he says simply.
Your fingers tighten around the bookmark.
The answer is delivered with such calm certainty that your chest aches.
Sae looks down at the collection on the bed.
“You didn’t need to take everything out.”
“You brought me souvenirs from another country because I complained about tea.”
Your laugh breaks free before you can stop it.
Sae’s hand settles against your cheek, his thumb moving once beneath your eye. His expression remains composed, but there is something gentler behind it now, something he does not seem particularly interested in hiding.
“You really don’t think this is romantic?” you ask.
“You remembered earrings I looked at for five seconds.”
Sae’s eyes narrow slightly, already suspicious of the expression.
“You’re doing that thing.”
“Looking at me like I said something impressive.”
His hand remains against your face.
There it is, you think—the reason the gifts never felt grand to him. Sae does not understand attention as an extraordinary act. He watches you because you are there. He remembers because your words matter to him. The little details you dismiss as meaningless settle somewhere inside him and remain there until he finds them again in shops, airports, and unfamiliar streets thousands of miles away.
To him, it is not romance.
You turn your face and kiss the center of his palm.
“Thank you,” you whisper.
He studies you for another second before bending down. His lips brush your forehead first, then the corner of your mouth.
“You’re welcome, mi amor.”
You wrap your arms around his waist and pull him closer, your cheek resting against his stomach.
Sae sighs, but his fingers slide into your hair, gently combing through the strands.
After a quiet moment, his gaze shifts toward the gifts spread across the bed.
He reaches into the inner pocket of his coat and removes a small velvet box.
Your arms slowly loosen from around his waist.
You stare at the box resting in his palm. It is too small to contain anything harmless, and Sae’s complete lack of concern only makes your heart beat harder.
“You already bought me something else?”
Instead of answering, he holds it toward you.
You take the box carefully, suddenly aware of how warm your hands have become. Sae watches in silence as you lift the lid.
The ninth gift—and somehow, the one that makes every other object spread across your bed feel like a trail leading to this moment.
It is delicate, made of thin gold with a tiny teal stone set into the center—not extravagant, but elegant in that quiet, understated way Sae seems to understand suits you better than anything overly ornate. The stone catches the light when you tilt the box, flashing the same deep shade as his eyes.
For a moment, you can only stare.
Your gaze snaps toward him. “When?”
You search your memory until a blurred afternoon begins to return: the two of you walking past a jewelry shop, your steps slowing briefly in front of the window. You had pointed toward one of the rings inside and said it was beautiful before continuing down the street.
You had not thought about it again.
“I didn’t even say I wanted it.”
“You kept looking at it.”
The answer comes so easily that your chest aches all over again.
You remove the ring from its cushion, but before you can put it on, Sae takes it gently from your fingers.
“Give me your left hand.”
Sae holds the ring between two fingers, his expression as composed as ever, as though he has not just taken the entire evening and tilted it quietly off its axis.
“Are you going to make this difficult?”
“You’re holding a ring and asking for my left hand.” Your voice comes out thinner than you intended. “I think I’m allowed to have a moment.”
“You’ve been having one for the past five minutes.”
Your mouth falls open, but the reply never comes.
Because he said left hand.
Not your right. Not whichever one happened to be closest.
The realization settles slowly, warmth spreading through your chest until you can hear your own heartbeat beneath the silence of the room.
You look down at the ring again, at the delicate gold band and the small teal stone catching the light between his fingers.
“Sae,” you say carefully, “is this a proposal?”
He watches you for a moment.
The single word steals the air from your lungs.
There is no teasing in his expression now, no trace of the faint amusement he usually wears whenever he manages to fluster you. His gaze remains steady on yours, quiet and certain in a way that makes the small velvet box in your hands suddenly feel much heavier.
“You’re proposing to me?”
“That isn’t...” You stop, pressing your lips together as a nervous laugh threatens to escape. “You can’t just hand me a ring and expect me to understand what’s happening.”
“That is not the same thing as asking me to marry you!”
Sae exhales softly through his nose. For the first time, something almost uncertain passes beneath his composure—not hesitation, exactly, but the realization that perhaps this is one moment he cannot communicate through implication alone.
He lowers the ring slightly.
His eyes narrow just a little. “You don’t know?”
“I want to hear you say it.”
Sae studies your face, and for one terrible second, you think he might refuse simply because you asked. Then his free hand rises to your cheek, his thumb resting just beneath your eye.
“I remember the things you say because they matter to me,” he begins. His voice is calm, stripped of any theatrical tenderness, but every word lands with deliberate weight. “I bring you things because I see them and think of you. I come back and expect you to be here. When you aren’t, the apartment feels wrong.”
Sae’s gaze does not leave yours.
"I don’t want you fitting into my life only when our schedules allow it.” His thumb moves once across your cheek. “I want you in all of it—when I leave, when I come back, wherever I end up playing.
The sting behind your eyes grows warmer.
Sae notices, naturally, but this time he does not interrupt.
“I bought the ring because you liked it,” he continues. “I measured one of yours because I intended to put it on you. And I’m asking because I want you to marry me.”
Not wrapped in poetry. Not softened by promises too grand to trust.
Just Sae, offering you the truth as plainly as he understands it.
His fingers shift beneath your chin.
“So,” he says, voice quieter now, “marry me, mi amor.”
Sae’s expression tightens immediately.
“Don’t cry before you answer.”
A laugh slips through the tears gathering in your eyes.
“You’re still bossing me around during your own proposal.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
You reach for the front of his shirt, curling your fingers into the fabric as though you need something solid to steady yourself.
Sae becomes completely still.
The smallest pause follows—barely there, but long enough for you to see the answer reach him beneath all that carefully maintained composure.
You smile through the warmth in your eyes.
“Yes, Sae. I’ll marry you.”
Sae takes your left hand, his touch unexpectedly careful as he slides the ring onto your finger. It settles perfectly at the base.
You look down at it, watching the teal stone catch the light.
Then you look back at him.
“How did you know my size?”
“You leave your jewelry everywhere.”
“You measured one of my rings?”
“You make it sound more complicated than it was.”
“You secretly measured one of my rings, remembered something I looked at months ago, found it again, brought it home from Spain, and planned an entire proposal without telling me.”
“And you still don’t think you’re romantic?”
You laugh softly, though another tear escapes before you can stop it.
Sae brushes it away with his thumb.
“I’m not crying over the ring.”
You pull him closer by his shirt and kiss him before he can retreat behind another dry reply. His hand slides into your hair, holding you there as his mouth softens against yours.
The kiss is slow, warm with all the things Sae rarely says aloud.
When you finally part, your forehead remains pressed to his.
“You could have started with marry me,” you whisper.
“You would’ve interrupted.”
His eyes lower to the ring now resting on your hand. His thumb brushes lightly over the gold band, tracing the place where it circles your finger.
Then he brings your hand to his mouth and presses a kiss against your knuckles.
“You proposed to me, and you’re asking whether I like the ring?”
For no more than a few seconds.
You shake your head, smiling helplessly.
Sae’s eyes lift to yours.
The faintest smile touches his mouth.
Then he kisses you again.
The ninth gift remains on your finger, distinct from every small object spread across the bed.
The others were things Sae carried home because he remembered what you liked, what you needed, and every passing thought you never expected him to keep.
But the ring is not merely something he has brought home to you.
It is his quiet way of asking you to make a home with him.
This time, he asks—and waits for your answer.
I NEED A SAE ASDWQLOWERSFDKAJSDPQ.
