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hannyoontify · 3 months

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my lighthouse - yoon jeonghan

member | jeonghan x reader genre | fluff. hurt/comfort word count | 1.9k synopsis | on your darkest, most gloomy days at sea, jeonghan becomes your lighthouse warnings | reader is feeling very big (bad) feelings, allusions to a depressive episode, reader is kinda mean to jeonghan BUT for good reason (i think) but jeonghan is very understanding (bless his soul) notes | completely absolutely self indulgent. i’m not even embarrassed about it anymore. not proofread

Today marked the fifth consecutive rainy day. The highways were jam packed and the dull concrete sidewalks were flooded, preventing any unlucky pedestrian from being able to trek across the muted, gray city. The streets warbled an unfamiliar melody and thunder rumbled like a choir of grand pianos falling downstairs.

You love the rain. The peace and serenity that came along with the dark clouds had always been a favorite for you. Rain meant a hot cup of chamomile tea in your special Snoopy mug that you had set aside just for days like these. It meant sitting on your special chair, your arm resting on the windowsill as you stare out the window that was opened just enough for you to smell the crisp air and enjoy the sound of rain, as you wait for your tea to cool down. Rainy days meant enjoying the gentle aroma of chamomile surrounding you and your eyes fluttering shut as the steam from your drink floated and danced around you. It meant breathing harshly against the glass until it fogged up, then drawing silly cartoons as fast as you could before the condensation on the cold surface disappeared.

But you just couldn’t do it anymore. Drinking hot chamomile tea and drawing the same initials ‘YJH + Y/F/N’ for four days straight became a bore. The constant sound of rain against your window roof became a bother and you hated the traffic that came along with it.

Jeonghan’s ears perked up at the sound of a low thump on the floor, followed by a string of low mumbling as you shuffled through the entryway and into the kitchen. He sat up from where he laid on the couch and watched as you grumpily sauntered to the kitchen while shrugging off your wet coat, trailing it behind you.

“Baby?” Jeonghan called out. You let out a loud huff and continue to mumble something under your breath as you set down a pack of ramen very aggressively on the marble counter. Scared for your safety (and the ramen’s), Jeonghan pushed to his feet with a quiet groan and made his way towards your side. His sock-covered feet padded along the hardwood floor.

He silently stood by your side and took the second pack of ramen from your hands before you absolutely demolished it on the counter, similar to its kin that now probably laid in pieces on your kitchen island.

You grumbled and angrily threw a frozen pack of meat into the sink. “Woah, woah, baby. Let’s calm down.” Jeonghan reached over and gently grabbed your hands, his thumbs gently rubbing over your wrists as his eyes searched your angry, teary ones.

Wait, tears?

“Angel, what’s wrong?” Jeonghan asked. Your pupils shook and you bit down on your bottom lip, but he still noticed the slight quivering that you failed to hide. Your hair was wet and it was sticking to your forehead and he noticed a slight shiver in your body as your wet clothes annoyingly plastered themselves onto your shaking skin. Jeonghan reached out and rubbed his hands up and down your arms, trying his best to warm you up. “Did something happen?”

You pushed his hands off of you and grabbed your wet coat that still laid on the floor before storming off into your bedroom. All with wet, red eyes. “It’s nothing.”

Jeonghan watched you disappear and sighed when the door slammed shut. Deciding to give you some time, he turned around and began to put away the rest of the groceries, handling them with much more gentleness and care than what you were doing before.

After putting the groceries away, Jeonghan pulled out your special Snoopy mug that you always set aside for rainy and snowy days and reached for the teabags only to find the chamomile portion completely empty. Jeonghan frowned. That wasn’t possible, since chamomile was both of your favorite teas, and he had accompanied you to buy a whole new pack of tea bags just last week after you heard about the rain forecast. You had gleefully grabbed his hand and dragged him through the tea and coffee aisle with a bright, child-like grin on your face the entire time.

Thinking of your smiling face made Jeonghan even more upset that you weren’t in a good mood, and he peered into the trash can to spit out his gum when he noticed a mound of unopened chamomile tea bags dumped inside, along with wadded up napkins and Cheeto bags. Jeonghan’s frown only deepened as he tried to connect the dots.

It was raining, your favorite kind of weather and yet, you were in a bad mood. You threw away all the chamomile tea bags you had left, although they were your favorite. You were being aggressive and you were never aggressive when you were-

He heard a strangled yell from your shared bedroom and Jeonghan looked up at the closed door with a worried look in his eyes. Against his better judgment, Jeonghan walked over and opened the door and took a peek inside. You were sitting on the closet floor with your back towards him, your knees propping your arms and your head buried in between your legs as you quietly sobbed. From behind, Jeonghan could see your silent sobs wracking your body in small waves.

Jeonghan felt like someone had just stabbed him in the gut and twisted the knife. He silently watched for a few more seconds before he closed the door, physically unable to watch you cry anymore. He desperately wanted to join you by your side and comfort you, but Jeonghan knew that that wasn’t what you needed as of now. Right now, he knew you needed space.

When you came back out of the bedroom in a pair of baggy sweats and an oversized shirt (that was probably Jeonghan’s) with red, swollen eyes and a sniffly nose, Jeonghan didn’t say anything and simply pushed your special Snoopy mug in your direction, across the kitchen island counter.

Seeing that ceramic cup made something in your stomach twist, and you were ready to push it off the counter and let it shatter along the hardwood floor when you noticed a new sweet aroma permeating your senses.

“Noticed you threw away all the chamomile we had, so I opted for something sweeter. I hope that’s okay,” Jeonghan said gently. He distanced himself from you, watching you intently with gentle eyes as you nursed the cup of hot chocolate in your cold hands. “If you don’t like the cup, I can put it in another one and-”

“N-no,” You quietly interrupted. “It’s okay… Thank you.”

Jeonghan smiled and watched as you lifted the mug to your lips and took a sip. The sweet drink was the perfect temperature, not too hot but not too cold. The taste was dark, rich and the thick consistency coats your tongue before it flows down your throat, leaving a warm, tingly sensation throughout your entire body. The top is swirled with white whipped cream and spotted with cocoa powder and mini marshmallows. You choke back another sob before you take another sip and you’re transported back to your childhood.

You suddenly remember one rainy day in second grade, you and your siblings huddled up in front of the hearth. The fireplace crackles as you and your siblings push and shove as you're seeking enough warmth from the small fire that burned in front of you. Your mother approaches you, her arms full with a tray with steaming hot chocolate and all the children cheer. You’re clapping your hands together in glee as your mother makes a big show out of counting the big marshmallows out loud and dropping them into each mug. Two for each, it’s always been like that.

You set down the cup and Jeonghan panics when he sees tears silently streaming down your face. He circles around the kitchen island hurriedly and still slightly unsure of whether he should approach you or not, Jeonghan stands in front of you and awkwardly pats your shoulder until you glare at him. Through your tears, you manage to hiccup out, “Just hug me, you- *hic* -idiot.”

“I’m your idiot.” One teary-eyed look from you and he shuts his mouth, but your idiot was happy to comply.

Jeonghan wrapped his long arms around your shoulders and let you cry into his shoulder like a baby. He made soft soothing noises as he rubbed his hands on your back, slightly rocking you back and forth on your feet. You pressed your face further into him, as if burying yourself within your love would somehow prevent the pain you were feeling. When you had finally pulled away, the entire shoulder of his shirt was damp, but Jeonghan didn’t mind.

He looked into your eyes. They were glassy and bloodshot, glistening and glinting in the dim light of your kitchen light as you hiccupped to try and catch your breath. Jeonghan cupped your face with his hands and wiped a stray tear away with his thumb.

Jeonghan rested his forehead on yours. “How are you feeling, love? Do you need anything?” He whispered. From where he stood, he could see a stray tear lingering on your lashes that streamed down your face once you blinked.

“Can you please hold me?” You asked in the meekest voice Jeonghan’s ever heard from you. “I just… had a really bad day and-” You let out a shaky breath and your boyfriend quickly pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“I understand, angel. Do you want to talk about it?” Jeonghan gently guided you to the couch, the cup of chocolate in one hand, his other hand guiding your waist.

You settled down into the couch, your body melting into the comfortable mold of soft pillows and pressed your face into Jeonghan’s chest, inhaling the homely scent of him and you swore you felt yourself relaxing just through his smell. “No… I think, I just need to be with you right now.” You muttered.

Jeonghan didn’t say anything in response. He simply wrapped an arm around your shoulder to bring you closer, resting his lips atop of your head. His other hand traced small, unintelligible shapes on your thigh as you sat alone with your thoughts.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Jeonghan mumbled into your hair.

“Do what?”

“All that thinking by yourself. If there’s anything you want to talk about or need to get off your chest, you can always tell me. Is there someone you want to cuss out? We can cuss them out together.”

You felt another sob clawing its way up your throat and your eyes burned.

“Thank you, for everything.”

Jeonghan was your lighthouse. He stood tall and strong at the end of a lonely pier, shining his bright light into the dark and empty abyss of an ocean called the world. His beacon of light was sometimes the only thing that got you through the rough waves of life that often tried to tug and pull you under into the cold, harsh oceanic waters. His bright light pierces through the rainy night and offers you refuge after a long, horrible day. Jeonghan’s words of encouragement, his selfless acts of service, and his constant reminders of why you deserved to be loved was what helped you stay afloat. He was your safe place, your home.

And you were so so grateful to have him in your life.

reblogs and feedback is always appreciated ^-^

#hannyoontify.works #caratlibrary #seventeen #svt #jeonghan #seventeen fluff #jeonghan fluff #yoon jeonghan #seventeen oneshot #jeonghan fic #jeonghan oneshot #yjh

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hannyoontify · 3 months

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such a headache - bsk

pairing: seungkwan x reader word count: 1.9k warnings: a couple of swears i think, kissing, seungkwan being unfairly cute summary: You have really bad migraines, and a great boyfriend.

A/N: This one's for us, @wheeboo.

You haven’t been dating Seungkwan for very long when the first migraine hits.

It’s not your first migraine. It is the first migraine you’ve had since you started going out with Seungkwan, though, and you don’t know how he’s going to handle it. You should have known that telling him you have to cancel on a date because you’re sick wasn’t going to help, though.

You hear the doorbell to your apartment ring. Once, twice, and then your phone is ringing, and you’re suddenly afraid that the noise might make you throw up. Your doorbell rings again, and you groan, forcing yourself up and to the door. You're not sure how you make it, but you do.

“Hi,” your boyfriend says breathlessly when you open the door, and you wince at the brightness of the shitty apartment hallway lights. You do manage to vaguely register how cute he looks, though.

“Hey.” Your hand lifts to your forehead and you push in on it, an attempt to stave off the pain that’s beginning to increase, your eyes squeezing shut.

“Are you okay?”

You forgot where you were for a second, your eyes peeking open to look at him again. He’s got a couple of grocery store bags in hand, and you wince.

“Honestly, I feel awful right now.”

Seungkwan steps forward and you let him in, closing the door behind you. He sets his bags down and then he’s pulling you in for a hug. You rest your forehead against his chest, reveling in the warmth of it against the place where your impending migraine looms. You almost whine when he pulls away, hands on your biceps as he assesses you.

“What’s wrong? Is it your stomach? Do you have a cold? I brought stuff for everything, just in case.”

“Headache.”

Seungkwan looks surprised, a hand lifting to press against your forehead. “Do you have a fever? Chills? Runny nose?”

Your eyes squeeze shut again, leaning into the warmth of his palm. “Migraine, Seungkwan. I get really bad migraines.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Did you just apologize?” You shrug, and Seungkwan tsks. “Do you need Advil or Tylenol? I have both.”

“Advil would be great.”

Seungkwan instructs you back into the darkness of your room. You have no idea what he’s going to do, but you willingly oblige, another apology on the tip of your tongue before you see the look on his face and decide against it.

By the time your door cracks open, the pain has begun its increase. Seungkwan enters and you swallow the Advil he offers with a glass of water. He sits on the edge of your bed as you do, watching you, and you wince when your phone dings. He reaches for it immediately, switching it to silent.

“Thank you,” you say softly. “I can’t really see straight right now.”

“What?”

You open one eye as you lean back against your headboard, finding him among the zig zags and blurry lines. “Everything’s a bit blurry at the moment.”

“Should I be concerned?”

You can’t help but smile at that, despite the fact that you feel so nauseous you could cry. “No,” you assure him. “I just need to wait it out. Fucking sucks.”

Seungkwan is quiet for a minute, and you let your eyes fall shut. You know he’s processing, and you wonder if he thinks you’re exaggerating like most people do. Then his hand finds your leg and he squeezes, and you think that maybe he’s not like most people.

“Can I do anything else? Lights off, no noise, right?”

You nod, then realize he probably can’t see you very well in the dark. “Yeah.” You pause. “Could you…”

You hate asking for help. Seungkwan knows, and he squeezes your knee again. “I don’t mind,” he assures you.

“I need to eat something small. Maybe crackers? I don’t know if I have any, though.”

“I bought some.”

He’s out the door and back in a flash. You thank him, forcing a couple of crackers down before you lie back down on the bed. You can’t think about much as the pain hits its peak. You want to cry, but you know that only makes it worse; you feel like you need to throw up, but you know you don’t actually have to. You just have to wait for the meds to kick in, and there’s nothing else to do about it.

You’re about to apologize to Seungkwan again because you’re embarrassed that he’s seeing you like this, but he speaks before you can.

“Do you want me to go? I want to stay,” he adds quickly, “but if I’m making it worse…”

All you can feel, above the pain and the nausea, is an overwhelming sense of affection.

You are down so bad.

“Please stay.”

*****

You wake up maybe an hour later and the pain is gone. You still feel weak, but better. The best part about waking up, though, is that your boyfriend is still there when you do.

“Seungkwan?”

He looks away from his phone and over at you in surprise. “Hi! I didn’t know you were awake.”

“Mhm.”

“Feeling better?”

You nod. “A million times better.”

You register his arm under your head, his side pressed to yours, and you can’t help but snuggle in closer. You surge forward to press a kiss to his cheek, and he lets out a sigh.

“You just recovered and you want to jump me already?” He shakes his head. “Insatiable.”

It’s him that kisses you full on the mouth right after, though.

“Okay,” Seungkwan says suddenly, attempting to remove his arm from around you, but you whine in protest and cling to him even tighter. You absolutely refuse to move from his side. He snorts, offering an affectionate hair ruffle before his hands leave you completely. You pout but don’t complain as he sits up a bit, because his hands have now begun furiously typing on his screen, which can mean only one thing: your boyfriend means business. About what, you have no clue.

You wait, head resting against his chest. Your eyes are beginning to shut again now that your body is done fighting itself. You always have the best sleep after a migraine.

“Do you get…” Seungkwan pauses, and you drowsily look up to find him squinting at his screen. “Auras? Do you get auras?”

You blink. “Huh?”

“Do you get auras before a migraine?”

You’d laugh at how serious he looks right now, but you think that would get you in trouble, so you stick to simply answering his question. “Sometimes, yeah. Depends on how bad it’s gonna be.”

“So an aura can kind of tell you how much pain you’ll be in later?”

You think about it. “Kind of? I couldn’t measure how much pain I’ll be in when it hits, but when I start to get blurry vision I know it’ll be a bad one.”

Seungkwan simply nods, and begins to type something out again. You’re confused but amused nonetheless. You have no idea what he’s doing, but he’s got his thinking face on — and he looks hot as hell. You’re blatantly ogling him when he asks the next question.

“You said you get blurry vision sometimes. That happened today, right? Earlier?” You nod. “What about like, numbness anywhere?” He looks a bit concerned as he says the last bit, and you squeeze his side.

“Only sometimes. That one is pretty rare for me. Usually, I’ll be in pain by then, so the numbness doesn’t freak me out because I know why it’s happening.”

He nods, much like a scientist when recording lab results, and you attempt to peer at his phone. He pulls it away easily and you pout, but he ignores you.

“Do you get any warning signs before a migraine?”

You shake your head. “That part really sucks — I get the blurry vision before the pain comes, but I don’t notice anything before my vision starts to zigzag.”

Seungkwan hums. You’re incredibly endeared. “It says here that some people prefer ibuprofen, some prefer acetaminophen, and that some people need prescription painkillers. What about you? I remember that Advil is the only thing that works for your cramps, right? Is it the same for your migraines?”

You suddenly realize exactly what he’s doing.

You can’t do anything but stare up at him as he finishes his sentence, suddenly feeling so overwhelmed with fondness for the man beside you that you think you might be sick. He glances down at you when you don’t respond, concern etched across his face.

“Are you Googling how migraines work right now?”

You watch as Seungkwan flushes pink, stammering a bit before he answers. “Maybe,” he mumbles, looking away from you, and you’re positive that you’ve never been more into anyone, ever.

“Are you writing down what I tell you so you know how to help me when I have one?”

It’s quiet for a split second, and then Seungkwan is brushing you off of him, rolling onto his side and away from you. “Nope,” comes his muffled reply, and you feel so downright giddy that it makes your head spin.

“Seungkwan,” you try, and you hold back a giggle when he simply huffs in response. You reach for him, hand sliding over his waist as you tuck yourself into his back. “Baby.”

You both seem to realize what you’ve just said at the same time. The pet name is new, but you can’t help that it slipped out when he’s being so cute. You worry that he hates it for a second when he tenses up, but then his body softens again and he rolls back to face you.

“I’m only looking at you because you just called me ‘baby’, and that’s almost as embarrassing as me making a note about your migraine symptoms and treatments.”

You want to make a comment about how you calling him ‘baby’ didn’t feel embarrassing at all — in fact it felt quite right — but you’ll address that later. “Thank you so much for your sacrifice,” you say sarcastically.

Seungkwan pouts at your teasing, but his tough exterior doesn’t last long. It never does with you. His hand finds your waist and he pulls you in, both of his arms wrapping around you as he pulls you close.

“Thanks, Kwanie.” Your words are a whisper against his neck, and he pulls back to look at you in surprise.

“Thanks for what?”

Your finger traces the collar of his t-shirt, avoiding his eyes. “Wanting to look after me like that. It means a lot.”

It’s quiet for a few moments before your boyfriend is suddenly on top of you, legs tangling with yours. You adapt quickly, a hand lifting to run your fingers through his hair, and you can feel it when he sighs against you. Then he nuzzles his face into your neck as he murmurs, “Having a migraine sounds so scary, babe. I’m sorry.”

Babe.

You barely even flinch when he says it, trying it out for himself. You like the way it sounds coming from him. You like it a lot.

“It is scary,” you admit. “But it helps when someone tries to understand.”

Seungkwan nods, his head lifting from your neck to rest his chin on your chest. “I’ll continue to do my best, then.”

He looks at you, soft smile on his lips, and all you can do is smile back. When you mouth another “thank you”, he doesn’t say anything. The kiss you receive in return is his answer.

Tags: @waldau @wqnwoos @eoieopda @tae-bebe @gyuminusone @minisugakoobies

Send me a message if you want to be added to the permanent taglist!

PS: Reblogs are nicer than likes :)

#aur my gaurd #i literally had the worst migraine i've ever had in my 18 years of living not too long ago #if only i had someone who would've taken care of me like this then #i would literally marry them on the spot #no bc migraines absolutely SUCK and most people brush it off as a regular headache #which really sucks bc they don't understand how much that stuff hurts #having a partner who can understand that and look after you is so :((#I NEED A SEUNGKWAN SO BAD #kie's fic recs!

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hannyoontify · 3 months

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n a v i . . . !

wassup

— carrd

— masterlist

— reqs are currently OPEN + guidelines

— wips

— networks : @caratlibrary

#check out my carrd! i js finished making it <3 #srb

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hannyoontify · 3 months

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and what if i change my user. what then. should i change it? i already have one in mind. i feel like hannyoontify is too long and too much of a mouthful and it's js nawt kyoot

#hannyoontify.misc #WAIT THAT MEANS I HAVE TO CHANGE ALL MY TAGS NOOOOO

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hannyoontify · 3 months

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oh my god

“So here you are, standing in your nicest dress and balancing a stack of gifts you hope will amount to something, never enough but something, to repay the people who you feel have loved you more than you deserve. It's all you really have. You do your best, and yet you know when that door opens, it'll all be washed away in a high-tide flurry of hugs and laughter and the familiar press of Bobpul's wet nose against your leg. They're just those kinds of people-they would be just as happy if you didn't bring anything at all, and somehow that makes you feel even more guilty.”

i don’t evenJDJSJD i don’t even have the WORDS to describe the feelings that this paragraph made me feel. almost gut wrenching bc i completely understand what oc’s feeling? absolute perfection.

“Then you think of the pockmarked farmland beside your home, lacy with the fall harvest. Even now, you can trace the endless blue of the coastline all the way there, cut through all the maybes and just let the sound of the ocean fold you into sleep like you were a child again. You wonder if Seohyun, all the way on the other side of the world, ever misses it.”

need i say less, i think i found my new comfort (but hurt?) fic ever. the prose, the diction, the syntax?!?!? everything is sososo beautiful im absolutely gagged.

TO GROW LOVE (AND EAT IT TO THE CORE)

pairing: mingyu x gn!reader wc: 8.1k summary: your whole life, you've only wanted one thing. then you meet mingyu. suddenly you want too much, and you wish the summer never ended. notes: farmer!au, established relationship, angst/hurt/a little comfort

this is a birthday fic for my one and only cat @wuahae ! yes this is about half a year late but what can i say. all good things come with time. thank you for being so kind, funny, and thoughtful (and patient)! not a day goes by where i’m not thankful for our friendship :)

and a million thanks to hana @wqnwoos and jackie @97-liners for helping me with edits. literally you guys are insane writers and i will never stop looking up to you.

i. strawberries (the summer we were young)

When a strawberry is ripe, the seeds push out from the heart of the fruit, as if it's bursting from the inside out.

This is one of the few and only things you've learned by living in Seogwipo, where strawberry season comes like a supernova. The May sun, full and heavy, peels into summer, and the roadside farms open their doors, trying to catch stray vacationers from Jeju City on the other side of the island.

That being said, there are approximately two things to do here. One of them is farm. The other is pretend like you have a life, which is your childhood friend Yizhuo's favorite thing to do when she's back from university on summer break.

Today, this involved convincing her ritzy, too-good Seoul friends that they're missing out on this side of Jeju. (Missing out on what? You're not sure. Perhaps the chipped paint of the mural walls, or the endless flat-topped stretches of seagrass. Yizhuo isn't fooling anyone, but you've always liked stretching your legs out in the bed of her pick-up, even on the long drive to nowhere.)

Unsurprisingly, her friends quickly came to the same conclusion. Just one look at your local strawberry patch, with none of the glamour of the bloated tourist traps in the city, and they decided they'd rather spend the afternoon at the beach.

It was then, between the fragaria blooms, when you met Mingyu. He asked for your name, and the rest was history. Yizhuo and co. scattered like the grasping hands of an overripe dandelion and you learned that he was, one, the newly-graduated son of a pair of local farmers, and two, very, very attractive. Almost too much so, especially for a place like this.

Now he holds up a berry, a bright red murder between his fingers, and tells you to try it.

"You must be delusional if you think i'm taking food from a stranger," you laugh, perched on the fence bordering the field. It sprawls before you, melon stripes on the sunbaked ground.

"No, my name is Mingyu," he replies. "No idea who delusional is." His smile, all bright lip and snaggletooth, tears into the scarlet belly of a newly picked strawberry.

"We all know what happened to Persephone."

"Well, if the underworld was a strawberry patch, I wouldn't mind being stuck there for all of eternity."

"What're you picking all these for, anyway?" you ask, watching Mingyu struggle with his too-big straw hat between the vines. His woven basket bleeds over with little berries.

"Jam. I make it on the very first day of every summer."

"Why?"

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who trespassed on my farm. You're cute, but I won't let you off easy."

He laughs at how you balk, clearly red-handed. You're not sure how to tell him you don't think you were supposed to be here either. You don't do things like sit in the back of trucks, trespass, or talk to pretty farmer boys who take a fancy to you, but it's the summer before you graduate and you're not even sure how long you'll have to continue making bad decisions.

"Are you gonna take my first-born now?" you joke instead. The daylight runs down the rim of Mingyu's hat, trickles down his brow, and you wish you could pour the image of him into a jar and keep it forever.

"No, but I will invite you in for some fresh jam on toast. I baked a loaf this morning." and when you say nothing, he continues. "The strawberries are only good once a year. It's the best you'll ever have. Promise."

It's a whine and a half, and somehow you convince yourself this will be the last bad decision you'll make. You've been here long enough to know that good things don't come twice in Seogwipo, and he is unlikely to be an exception.

Yizhuo blows up your phone, you tie the gingham apron around Mingyu's tiny waist, and the basket turns to blood in the saucepan.

Mingyu is right. Love comes to you in that kitchen, high and red like the sun, and the jam never tastes as good as it does that summer.

ii. watermelon (hollowed out, like a magic trick)

"A good watermelon sounds like a heartbeat."

You watch Mingyu heave the fruit, small and striped, out of his grocery bag. It joins the array of egg sandwiches and banana milks you picked up from the store together earlier. (There should have been chocolate Pepero too, but you split the box on the walk).

You're on a picnic, sprawled out on the outcropping overlooking the water. The path up is basically right behind your house, but you had never cared to visit. It had always been the local makeout spot, a schlocky teen crawl for those with nothing better to do, and yet, with Mingyu stretched out beside you, it seems newer. More exciting.

You're still just friends, or at least that's what you told Yizhuo. But ever since you sat on Mingyu's kitchen counter and ate from his jam-covered spatula, you don't think you've gone a week without seeing him. It's been almost two months, which seems so long and yet not long enough—he makes it easy to be greedy.

"See?" He thumps the watermelon with the heel of his palm. "Try it."

You already went through this entire charade at the grocery store, right in front of all the local aunties, but you indulge him. There's little point to triple checking if it's still ripe, but you think he just likes hitting it.

"It sounds good," you say. "But how are we even gonna eat it? We don't have a knife."

"Watch this." Mingyu procures a coin from his pocket. "You didn't learn this in elementary school? I feel like everyone was doing it."

"Here?" you ask, incredulous.

"Yeah, here. I grew up here too, you know."

He holds the edge of the coin to the skin and slams his palm into it once more, so that it lodges itself into the rind, and begins dragging it around the fruit. You start to wonder if he bought the watermelon just to show you a party trick—not that you mind, though. The strain of his biceps peeks through his rolled up white tee, and you remember why he was able to stop you with just one look back when you first met.

"No way." The watermelon is so ripe, it bleeds around the incision. "I feel like I know everyone here. And I definitely would have remembered you."

"I was probably, like, two grades above you," he replies. "And my parents shipped me off to live with my cousins after elementary school. They said I should get out of Seogwipo and experience the real world."

"Good call. There's nothing here." You watch Mingyu spin the melon over to cut through the other side. The coin catches the sunlight, and it looks like gold. "I wish I left for university. The one here is so small."

"Really?" He pauses to show you his handiwork. The two melon halves roll over on their backs, their cut edge cruel and jagged. "Cool, huh?"

"Impressive," you say. "Honestly. I really didn't think that would work."

"I didn't either when I first saw someone do it. But I’ll try anything once," he replies, ripping open the packaging of the plastic spoon from the bag. "I can't believe you don't like it here."

"You do?"

"Yeah. A lot." He shoves the spoon in his mouth, and you watch the watermelon juice pool around his lips. "I missed home. The trees and the tall grass and the ocean. All the fruits. Everything. I learned to ride a bike, right down there by the water."

"Hm." He passes you the spoon. You don't want to hog it, so you carve out a piece bigger than you need. "Are you gonna work at the farm?"

"Maybe. Haven't decided yet," he says. "I think I want to be here, though. Maybe do something with food, but I want to be home."

"That's funny, because I think I’ve always wanted to live a different life. Or at least one somewhere else."

"You want to go to law school, right?"

"Yeah." Mingyu is right. The watermelon is all sugar, and you would almost feel guilty for eating it if it wasn't technically good for you. "I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer. It's something about the people watching, I think."

"That’s really cool," Mingyu says, mouth full but no less sincere. It's then that you notice your shoulders are almost touching, and your heart crawls back up to your mouth. "You know what you want. I admire that."

He makes it sound like a compliment, but you're sure it's a curse.

You think of your parents. There's a permanent wrinkle ironed into their foreheads, the paper crease of expectations and high standards. It's not that they didn't care, but their kind of care was a humbled sort, made heavy by a hard life. It didn't help that your big sister Seohyun went straight from Yonsei to work a big tech job in San Francisco and never once looked back.

But you can't blame any of them—wanting has always been a hereditary failing. Sometimes Yizhuo will catch you frowning at nothing, and then you remember that life isn't a performance and every day ends at the same time no matter how hard you work. But you don't know how to tell her that the only thing you can do sometimes is want, because otherwise you wouldn't really have much at all.

It seems like the exact opposite of how Mingyu lives—everything about him seems to pass like the seasons. Maybe that's why you can't seem to get enough of each other.

"Thank you. Really." You dig the spoon into your half of the melon. There isn't much left. "You're way too nice to me."

"It’s not hard to be," he laughs. "Maybe you're just too hard on yourself."

You're losing track of the distance between the two of you. You can almost feel the heat playing off his skin.

"Maybe."

It's then, under the veil of summer, where you meet Mingyu's gaze and, finally, things seem close to simple.

All you know are his eyes, heavy with sun, and then the slow, slow move of his lips against yours. He tastes like August, long and sweet, and for once you know what it's like to not only want, but to have, and to have again.

The ocean sings on the horizon, and the watermelon bellies weep.

iii. adzuki beans (or, the blood of a headless taiyaki)

Mingyu eats taiyaki headfirst because he says it hurts less.

"That makes no sense," you tell him, your pinkies linked. You never really liked holding hands, but yours fits so perfectly in Mingyu's and there's some girlish, childlike shine to it when you watch his finger search for yours after just a moment separated.

"What do you mean."

He breaks your gaze to eye a red bean taiyaki, like an unwilling predator sizing up their prey. It's the lamest, most embarrassing iteration of National Geographic you've ever seen, and yet you cannot find any fiber within yourself not deeply in love with the lion.

Fall is a forgiving place for your relationship to settle. You're now a senior at university and he's started his gap year. Gap implies he's in the middle of something, but in true Mingyu fashion, he leaves it up to fate, or chance, or something not nearly as kind (whim).

"Taiyaki isn't alive. And why would you want to pretend it is? Eating gummy bears would become an extinction event."

"It kind of is." He holds out the tail end of the taiyaki, the pastry almost explicitly flayed open, in front of you to eat. "Why does the Haribo bear have a face? Why do the gummy bears live in a gummy forest?"

"Great, so now I can’t even enjoy gummy bears without feeling like a serial killer?"

You dig your pointer into his shoulders, broad from all the time he spends on the farm. To think that his hands, big and weathered, were made to pick berries (and now wrap around your pinky finger) is bruising, if not ridiculously funny.

"It's a crime of passion. Gummy passion. Prosecute that."

He kisses your cheek and your heart almost squeezes into two.

The terrible thing about being with Mingyu is how seemingly endless his affection is. Now he's feeding you in public and buying the two of you matching socks (cat and dog, to be exact), although you'll admit it's a little charming, even if the neighbors do gossip.

He's sweet, too sweet, and his kisses stick to the back of your throat.

But you can't be fooled. There's an unsaid violence to the way Mingyu loves. (The meticulous spiral of the peel he carves when you ask for him to cut you an apple. The grind, decisive and cruel, of a knife against a cutting board. A pair of canines against your neck, your jaw.)

Even now, he bites the head off another unwitting taiyaki before stuffing it back in the bag.

"We're still splitsing, right?" he says, with perhaps 1% of his mouth available for speaking and the other 99% murder machine.

Splits, he always says before you share food. You never had the heart to tell him that it's in the same family as mines or sharesies or takebacks—silly childhood relics, ones that no one uses anymore because they don't mean anything.

This time, you don't hear him because you're thinking about the law school fair you went to before Mingyu picked you up. The future is so close, it scares you. A year from now, what ground would you be standing on? Would it smell like this—the peat, the thread-spool fields, the balm of the ocean? Would you still have Mingyu's finger wrapped round yours?

"Have you decided if you're staying at the farm?" you ask.

"Not really." He uses the back of his hand to wipe off his chin. "If my sister decides to take over, I’m actually kinda thinking of going to pastry school instead of getting a masters."

Mingyu had been toying with the idea for some time after you had talked about it on the outlook. It started off as a joke (September; a galette), then a what if (October; green tea mochi), and now it sits at a kinda.

"Kinda?"

The word gathers speed in the pachinko machine of your mind. You never liked being a kinda person. For Mingyu, it seems like a luxury of a word, but for you, it's really just another thing to hide behind. Kinda talented, kinda ambitious, kinda just there. You're always one foot in, one foot out of something better.

"Yeah, kinda. Why?"

"I dunno. What if we both end up leaving?"

"Maybe. You still want to, right?"

You would be lying if you said you didn't—it's what you always wanted. Seogwipo has been a sun-rot, too-small crutch for you, but you would also be lying if you said you weren't terrified that you'd eventually come back, limping like some doomed Icarus, unable to truly make it in the real world.

Then you think of the pockmarked farmland beside your home, lacy with the fall harvest. Even now, you can trace the endless blue of the coastline all the way there, cut through all the maybes and just let the sound of the ocean fold you into sleep like you were a child again. You wonder if Seohyun, all the way on the other side of the world, ever misses it.

"I’m not sure," you say, because, as much as you don't like it, it's the only answer you have.

"It's ok. You'll figure it out. You always do." He squeezes your cheeks together between his thumb and index, laughing at how they pillow out underneath his fingers. "Screw pastry school. I could come with you. Who else would keep you fed?"

Mingyu's complete and unfounded belief in you makes you feel something close to betrayal. How could he say any of that? With what proof? Only someone like Mingyu would be able to hold the wrinkled fruit of your unremarkable life between his palms and see something better than that. Maybe it's because he grew up on a farm. Either that, or he already cares for you too much, too painfully.

Secrets are easy to keep when they look like yours. At least here, in the pit of your stomach, you can keep count, take attendance of them, all your tittering, small anxieties. Some days it feels like your ribs are pressing out, but it's better than cutting everything loose to spill out over what little you do have control over.

You can handle a little pressure. You have to.

What concerns you is the hand Mingyu's got across your chest. With one look, he just might gut you. A twist of the heart-knife, and all those carefully wound insides carved out in an instant—maybe he'd pity you, but worse than that, he'd likely be disappointed.

For you, expectation has always stood taller than shame, and the idea that he sees something past you makes you want to run away.

"I could be a house husband," he says as easily as ever. "You'll be off saving the world, arguing with whoever, and I'll be there to run you a bath afterwards."

"Let's not get too ahead of ourselves," you reply, binding up the strange, hollow feeling in your stomach with a laugh.

There's a scared little girl hiding inside you, and whether Mingyu sees her or not hurts the same. A spade is a spade. You can only pretend so long.

You look at the taiyaki floating in their wax paper bag, blinded and wrought open by the same grin that now peels you down, and you're not hungry anymore.

iv. winter pears (rotten, outside your parents' house)

Mingyu's family loves Christmas.

You think it's because of the pear trees they have in the front yard. They stand bravely before the house, all emerald ash and wisdom in the December freeze. Run your palms over the knobs and it's like you can see into a sleepy visage of simpler days past. (Below its heart, carved: 1982, the year the farm was bought. Along the tangle of the roots: gyu waz here, in an unsure, childish scrawl.)

Winter comes to the countryside crawling on its hands and knees. On days it doesn't snow, there's a mist, boggy and clingy. You've come to realize the cold is more of a threat than a promise, and so the pear trees still bear fruit; the silvery branches hang heavy, faithful.

The first day of December, Mingyu's parents had tasked the two of you with decorating the farmhouse, a duty you took very seriously. You wrapped Mingyu up in string lights and watched him blink in and out like your own personal firefly.

It wasn't until you watched the rafters, the barn doors, the joyous vault of the ceiling all glow, like a spectacular firework, that you finally started to understand why Mingyu was so into the holidays.

It was in the yellow blush of the string lights that you had your first pear from the tree, which Mingyu insisted was a holiday tradition. We make poached pears, he said, mid-bite. You simmer the pear in syrup until it gets so soft, you can cut into it with a fork. Just like butter.

That same night, he kissed you, mouth hot and trembling and tasting of honey, and pressed you against the bark so hard, you could feel the grit of its veins against your skin.

You think December became your favorite month, and pears your favorite fruit.

So much so, that for the entire month, you try to put away your worries about law school applications to celebrate with Mingyu and his family.

You learn his mom makes the best hot chocolate (a cinnamon stick and a dogged devotion to the whisk), and that Mingyu has no clue on God's green earth how to ice skate. (He careens right into your chest the first time. You spend the next hour with him attached to you like a backpack—he manages to find the most impractical ways to do anything, which you somehow admire the most). On Sundays, Yizhuo ditches her Seoul friends and instead accompanies you to the mall two towns over, where she watches you compare different ties and watches and collagen creams as you decide on gifts for his family. (Lilac is so last year, she'd say, stirring the straw of a watered-down milk tea.)

It's not until the weekend before Christmas when you realize just how serious things have gotten. Your feet understand the meander of the dirt path to the farmhouse, your bones the scent of the yellow-skinned apple, the faded wildflowers. Your palms crave the plush of the rug they have in front of the fireplace. Hell, you can't even eat soondubu without thinking of the kind Mingyu's dad makes, with extra anchovies and green onion.

You don't think about what this means. There are ten days left in December and love poured from a full cup never seems to run out.

"Please let me carry some of those," Mingyu wheedles. "Oh my god. I'm like the worst boyfriend in the world."

"No, you are not." you make your way up to his doorstep, taking care to one-two step over the stray roots of one of the pear trees. It's second nature to you by now. "The moment I hand you a box, you are gonna start trying to figure out what it is."

He harumphs and plucks the big one off the top anyway, the one he knows you can't reach. "I didn't even know you were getting us gifts. You didn't have to."

"It's the least I could do. Who shows up to a holiday dinner emptyhanded?" You stop at the front door. "And stop shaking it," you laugh, using the tip of your boot to nudge his shin.

"Okay. Okay," he says, saccharine, adoring, before grabbing the doorknob. "Ready? Are you nervous? You shouldn't be nervous, right? It's not fancy or anything, if you were worried about that."

And that's the thing that wedges itself between your ribs. Mingyu and his whole family are like this. They love and worry and love again; it presses deep into you, fills you, and overflows.

So here you are, standing in your nicest dress and balancing a stack of gifts you hope will amount to something, never enough but something, to repay the people who you feel have loved you more than you deserve. It's all you really have. You do your best, and yet you know when that door opens, it'll all be washed away in a high-tide flurry of hugs and laughter and the familiar press of Bobpul's wet nose against your leg. They're just those kinds of people—they would be just as happy if you didn't bring anything at all, and somehow that makes you feel even more guilty.

"No, no," you wave him off. "I’m fine. Excited."

When Mingyu opens the door, everything goes just as you expected. His sister takes your coat, your gifts are whisked away to the tree (Aji has already figured out which one is his), and his parents descend upon you in a choking swell of warmth and charity.

We baked some fresh bread for your parents (—Thank you so much, but you really shouldn't have.). You look so beautiful in that color (—No, no, you flatter me too much.). Mingyu better be taking good care of you (—He is. He really, really is.).

The kitchen is gauzy with cinnamon, anise. They must be making their famous poached pears, which Mingyu remarks on, just like clockwork.

Dinner passes the same way. It bubbles over with affection, and you feel swallowed by an impossible yearning. This—a full table and a hand to hold underneath it—did you deserve this? And could you keep it?

For an instant, you picture yourself, years later, at this same seat. Mingyu would be fussing over the rice cakes, his apron still gingham because it reminds him of the day you two met. His parents, grayer but no less happy, bickering over the shade of tinsel on the tree. And the dogs, coiled at your feet like they are now. The vision laps at your bones like you're a raft in a storm.

You're pulled back into the moment when Mingyu squeezes your hand, grounding and insistent. "Mom asked how school was going. I told her I think you're basically the smartest person I know, and I’m pretty sure you're getting into whatever law school you want."

Mingyu's parents laugh, and they cut through their pears.

"Oh, sorry," you say. "Um."

Clink. Knife meets flesh, meets porcelain. Your cheeks are hot. You wanted to talk about anything other than yourself tonight. Clink.

"The top programs are a reach, but it'd be nice." clink. "I just want to get in somewhere."

"They’re all so far away," Mingyu's mom remarks. "So grown up. Any school will be lucky to have you. You'll get into all of them."

Clink.

"Or maybe you can stay here." You watch the prongs of Mingyu's father's fork disappear into the pear. "Keep us old folk company."

"No, no, I think Mingyu should take notes and get off his lazy ass," his sister says, teasing. "Going back to the city will be good for him."

"So you can, what, burn down the kitchen again?" Mingyu grumbles, and the whole table seems to boil over with laughter.

"We’re kidding," his mom tells you. "No matter where you go, I’m sure you'll do great. We can even throw you a party at the end of the year. For graduating."

Clink. Clink.

There's a horrible uneasiness writhing around in your stomach. It's pear and syrup and clove and a blackness, an anxious, selfish one that sucks up all the generosity of the evening and turns it into shame.

Mingyu's mom is talking about throwing you a graduation party, something you didn't even think to do for yourself, and here you are, thinking about the shaking moment you open your rejection letters and the lonely path you'll draw on your way back home.

It's ok. They missed out, Mingyu would say, pouring you a consolation drink, and then it would be over. You'd go home and sit on your bed and the trifold piece of paper would go round and round your head like it was in a washing machine.

Your heart, an inventory of tasks and goals and tally marks. Things you've taken and things you've owed. It's a soft, boneless excuse. Be grateful. Give them that, at least.

Clink.

Dessert ends before you can tell his family not to get their hopes up. Mingyu's mom sends you off with your loaf of bread and a kiss on the cheek, and the moment is gone.

"Gyu," you call out on the steps in front of the house.

There are words at the seam of your lips. You want to tell him you're sorry for worrying so much. For making the whole dinner about you and then very possibly having nothing to show for it when it matters. For the heaviness in your chest. Your cowardice. But none of it comes out.

Instead you watch Mingyu pull at the leaves of a pear tree, watching the frost-filigree they get at the end of the season. He looks over his shoulder and smiles at you, as if he's on the hazy cover of a magazine. His eyes bend so wonderfully at the corners when he looks at you, and it breaks your heart.

"You had fun, right?" he asks. "My parents like you a lot, you know. I think they really do."

But that's the problem, you want to say. You all do, and I have no idea why.

Some of the pears are beginning to rot now. You watch one drop off the vine, and it caves to the pavement like it was made of nothing at all.

v. wild barley (grows like weeds)

In March, you play house.

Your parents leave on a two week trip to see relatives, and Mingyu takes it upon himself to make sure you survive.

It's a kind, blinding charade.

(7 am, breakfast. You usually don't even eat breakfast, but you wake up to doenjang and a smile, one that presses itself to yours until you're wearing it on the long walk to school.)

(4 pm, the stretch between lunch and dinner. You're muddling through another useless club meeting when Mingyu sends you a picture of him in your mom's apron, making kimchi. Kiss the chef, he texts you. You promise to, over and over and over.)

It's good until it isn't.

That isn't to say that it's Mingyu's fault. In fact, it's never really Mingyu's fault, and that's the worst thing about your relationship. Sometimes you wish he was worse just so there was someone else to blame.

(1 am, a fridge-cold glass of water and a hand on the column of your spine. Can't sleep? He asks. Just had a weird dream, you say.

It's a lie. You're a liar.

You miss your parents and the first wave of acceptance letters comes out in two days. You're not like him. Sleep has never been a cure for the exhaustion you're feeling, and you have no way of telling him that however warm the bed is won't fix that.)

It's on a Thursday afternoon when you open your mailbox and see the tiny, thin envelope that you've been expecting for the past week. You don't need to open it to know what it says, and yet you do it anyway.

The sun is white, a ghost in the spring sky. The ocean bleeds into the overcast, the curly barley stands tall around your feet, and you let the worst letter you've gotten in your life fall upon your shoulders, word by terrible word.

Then you close it, pinching the seam shut, and draw up your brave face. Nothing left to do but be brave. You're convinced you've used up all the sadness in your relationship—spend in pennies and the well still runs dry. Mingyu will cup your cheek and call you darling, pouring into your emptying basin, holey and broken.

You see him now through the kitchen window, Venus in his clamshell of a kitchen. Galbijjim day, he had said this morning. Now, he waves at you, glittery with recognition.

Your throat feels like crumpled paper.

Mingyu smiles at you, hazy through the glass. Your cheeks hurt and your mouth is paper mache, but you smile back anyway.

///

The letters come one after another.

You know what the envelopes hold and yet you keep opening them. The little folder you keep stashed in your bottom drawer gets fatter every passing day because you can't help but revisit your misery, almost as if you need to remind yourself it exists.

Mingyu is none the wiser. Today he decides he'll put off pastry school for one more year. "It doesn't feel like the right time," he says, rolling a log of burdock kimbap up. "You know what I mean?"

No, you don't. You never really do.

You do know, however, that it would feel really fucking bad that, come the end of the year, to have nothing. All your friends would be going somewhere—even Yizhuo opened her acceptance to an MFA program in Shanghai yesterday—and you would be here, still, feet firmly planted in the muddy Jeju dirt like they always had been.

"Hey, don't look so disappointed." he jokes. "Don't tell me you're already trying to get rid of me."

You're not, you really aren't. But part of you wonders if it's just a race to the bottom. If you got rid of him before he decided he wanted to get rid of you, maybe it would hurt a lot less. One less letter for the folder.

"Never. But imagine if you picked up a French accent at pastry school. Then I’d consider it. Maybe."

You watch his knife rock back and forth on the cutting board as he cuts the kimbap.

"Some for you. And more for me," he says, in what you can only describe as someone attempting to speak French when they've never heard it before. "Unless you want more, mon cherie."

He brings the plates to the table, his grin nothing short of dizzying.

"I’m irresistible, huh? Still wanna leave me now?"

"You're gonna have to try a little harder than that, I think."

The words roll off your tongue, easily, traitorously.

You watch the kimbap disappear off of Mingyu's plate.

Going, going, gone.

///

Seogwipo is always dark at night, only kept alive by the glow of the moonlit sea.

You can't sleep. Again. And so you sit out on the steps in front of your house, letting the twilight wrap around you like a blanket.

You got your last letter back earlier today. You held your breath and tore it open like you would a birthday card with money in it.

Waitlisted.

It was surely better than a rejection, but some naive, child-eyed part of you thought that if you had just closed your eyes and hoped hard enough, things would work out the way you had planned. Tragically, it wasn't enough this time. You wanted and wanted and you thought maybe that would mean you'd come close to deserving it.

Your parents called today. After managing to sideline the issue of basically the rest of your entire life, they had finally cut through your sad little charade. No good news yet, huh?

No, but—

It was always like that with you. No, but it's not as bad as you think. No, but give me a chance. No, but I’m trying. I've been trying.

You wish things didn't come out of you so complicated. That you could be like Seohyun, who could go through school with her eyes closed and still graduate at the top of her class. Instead, you parade around your little failures, trying to convince people it all could mean something only if they squinted. See? It isn't so bad.

You think you're past the point of crying about it. Your stomach hurts, you're cold, and most of all, you just want to go back to bed. Plus, although Mingyu sleeps like a log, you think he's developed a sixth sense for whenever you get up too early.

Time to be brave, you've been telling yourself, although you don't know who you're pretending for anymore.

So you nudge the front door open—it's so old, it wails if you come at it with any more force—and, to your surprise, see the light above the kitchen sink turned on.

It's not very bright, but it's enough to make out Mingyu's broad silhouette, back turned to you as he makes a cup of tea. He's humming one of his made-up songs.

"Mingyu?"

"There you are," he says, turning around. "Just came out to check on you. And make you some tea."

The kettle whizzes. Your gut twists.

You still haven't said anything to Mingyu. To manage your own disappointment was one thing—you don't think you could handle another person's. And yet when he stands there, Pororo mug between his huge hands, you feel as if you are holding a knife, big and guilty and bloody.

"I-I'm fine, Gyu. Honest." you watch his expression flicker, unreadable in the persimmon lamplight. "Sorry you had to come out. It's chilly out here."

"You know, you can tell me what's going on. I won't judge."

No, no, no. This is the last conversation you wanted to have, with the last person you wanted to have it with.

You feel feverish. You think your hands are shaking.

"Mingyu, I swear—"

"Whatever it is, we can fix it. I know we can."

That almost makes you want to laugh if you didn't want to cry so bad. Of fucking course he would say that. Mingyu, who treats life like it's the watermelon trick he showed you on the outlook, wants to put a bandaid on this whole thing, as if that could come close to fixing it.

He'd tell you to curl up on the couch with a bad movie while he orders takeout. Kiss you on the top of the head. It's ok, baby. Just another bad day for the person who has the worst luck in the world. Another lump of problems for him to try and make better. If he isn't sick of you now, he sure would be soon enough.

"It’s okay," you say, steeling your voice. "It really isn't a big deal. Let's just go back to sleep."

You try to walk away, but the hardness in Mingyu's eyes roots you down to the tile.

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Pushing me away," he swallows. "Like you always do. I know something's going on."

"I’m not, i just—"

"You just what? You can't help it?"

"No, I—"

"Because you like to know that you can? That you can say whatever and then watch me come back?" A fragmented, heavy silence thrums between you. He's looking at you like he's daring you to say something, anything. His gaze is black. "What am I good for if you can't tell me anything?"

There's that familiar, stinging pressure behind your eyes. You think you're crying, but you're not sure. Maybe you've been crying this whole time.

"Fine," you bite. Your blood feels like hot metal. "You really wanna know? I didn't get into law school. There. Happy now?"

Mingyu looks stung.

"W-why didn't you tell me?"

Because I thought you would stop loving me. I thought you would have finally had enough.

"Because it's not all about you, Mingyu."

The words, selfish and damning, burn your tongue. Mingyu is right. This is what you always do. You fuck up and then make everyone else hurt for it.

"I'm sorry," Mingyu says. His voice doesn't sound like his. Instead, the words seem to hang in the air, trembling and holding their breath, waiting for an apology you can't give yet. "I shouldn't have—"

"It's ok." You swallow hard, and it hurts. "Let's just go back to bed."

It's getting colder and colder. You think there's a little hole in your sock, right above the cat's whiskers.

Mingyu doesn't reach for you as he passes to get to the hallway. Maybe he doesn't know how to anymore.

The Pororo cup is left abandoned on the counter. You walk over and read the label on the tea bag—barley, because you have class tomorrow morning.

You pick it up, let the ceramic buzz between your hands with whatever warmth it has left, and hold it to your lips.

It's cold now, but all you can think to do is drink it. Erase all the evidence that tonight ever happened, and maybe it'll be nothing more than a bad dream in the morning.

There's honey at the bottom of the cup. It sears the back of your throat, but you drink until there's nothing left.

vi. the peach blossoms (without fail, bloom every August. I miss you.)

You broke up the next day.

Even now, you remember what happened. You had woken up early that morning to make your own breakfast because you couldn't allow Mingyu to give you any more of himself. Your hands could only hold, shatter, so much.

"Mingyu, I think we should...." You looked at the zigzags of jam on your toast, angry and uneven. "I think we should stop seeing each other. For now," you had added, as if that made anything better at all.

Somehow that seemed more merciful at the time. Really, you think it just showed your cowardice. If you were going to break his heart, you might as well have gone all the way the first time.

Maybe it was a good thing that Mingyu saw right through you. He always did.

"So that's it, huh? You're just gonna give up on us?"

"No, i just...need some time."

"How long?" he asked. "Be honest with me. Because you know I’ll wait."

"I don't know." You couldn't meet his gaze. His eyes reached and reached over that kitchen table and you denied him even that.

"Don't you always know?" he asked, pitifully, desperately. "Don't you want this to work?"

And you did. In fact, you don't think you had ever wanted anything more, and it was that that scared you. You had already lost law school—you couldn't let the only other thing in your life let you go. So you pulled the trigger first.

"We should just end things. I'm sorry. I can't give you what you need."

He packed his bag within the hour, and you think everything, from then on, froze inside you. You didn't move from your seat until your parents came home from the airport later that day and asked why there were two plates of toast still on the table.

You think you knew, someplace, inevitably, this would happen. You, who only knew hunger, had reached deep inside Mingyu and rooted out a love you didn't think you were worthy of having. And yet you still ate from the vine, bite after guilty bite, until you couldn't take any more. The only time he asked you for anything at all, you couldn't give it to him—such was the irony of your relationship.

Maybe you were doomed the moment the first strawberry hit your tongue, just like you had said, all that time ago.

About a month later, you got another letter in the mail. Chungnam National University Law School, it read. This one was fat, in one of those brown envelopes lined with bubble wrap. Somehow, miraculously, that position on the waitlist had turned into an acceptance. You held the package to your chest and cried, loud and with abandon, as if taking a deep breath after almost drowning.

Ironically, the first person you wanted to tell was Mingyu. But the good news you needed to save your relationship came too little, too late. Perhaps that meant it had no legs to stand on in the first place, but that didn't stop you from missing it. Instead, you told Yizhuo, and she drove you to Jeju City and treated you to dinner. "You should just call him," she had said. "Hey, don't look at me like that. He'd probably pick up on the first ring."

The city is swathed in August's crimson summer—peach season. The narrow streets are lined with peach trees, the fruits glowing like fat drops of sunlight. All you do these days is plan for your eventual move to Daejeon and the start of a life that seems newer and shinier than your own. But surrounded by the cicada song, the velvet treeline, the rain-soaked asphalt, somehow you think you're going to miss Seogwipo more than you think.

(Fickle, fickle heart. You always needed things to be taken away to really be able to appreciate them. Somehow, all that wanting had boiled down to something more satisfying, more filling.)

You wonder how Mingyu is. Now that you think about it, he seems just as much a part of Seogwipo as the farm he lives on. It was only last summer when you had first met him in the field, set on fire by the strawberry harvest. You think about him now, peddling around that ridiculous wicker basket to make jam. Maybe talking to another pretty girl, someone as naive, cruel as you had been.

Not long ago, you considered calling him to apologize, but that'd just be another thing to be selfish about. A little time and some warm weather, and I’m calling to finally wash my hands of you. That's what it would sound like, no matter what you said. Still, it didn't stop you from thinking of him, every flower, every season.

"You know, I always wanted to grow peach trees. But I think we've always been a pear kind of family."

Mingyu. If a voice could cut through air, it'd be his.

You whip around, half-believing you're hearing things. Certainly that would be easier, but you're learning that there are some things you can't run from.

And like a picture, Mingyu stands tall, golden, framed by the peach blossoms. Not a thing about him has changed. Not even the way he looks at you.

"Mingyu," you breathe. Unfortunately, none of the times you replayed your last conversation with him help you come up with something to say, because in none of them did you anticipate him coming back. "W-what are you doing here?"

"I live here, silly."

"No way," you reply, scrambling. "Crazy, because I live here too."

You both laugh nervously, a silly, bubbly thing, but you feel like you're going to throw up. It's only now that you realize you're kind of on the walk to his place. Seogwipo has never had places to hide.

"I...um." you try and disentangle the guilt from the nostalgia from the scent of the peaches and the warmth on his face. They all look the same. You missed him. "I got into law school. In Daejeon."

"I heard," he says. "Not surprised at all. I always knew you would."

"Thank you. I mean it." The cicadas buzz around you, as if they know they have an important silence to fill. "You're staying in town, right?"

"Actually, I decided to apply to culinary school. It finally felt right, you know? I'm leaving at the end of the summer, but it's just in Jeju City. I couldn't leave the island."

"Thank goodness. I don't know if you could tell, but I kind of always hoped you would. I don't think I’ve ever eaten better food." Your voice wobbles, but it gets there. "You'll do amazing."

Then time stretches and forces you to recognize, reckon with, the moment you're in. You wonder if he feels the same way you do—bruised, overripe. If there's still a space in his heart for you.

Deep breath. Life only gives you so many chances.

"Mingyu, I’m sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't make us work. You deserved better." Saying it feels like peeling the skin of your heart back. There's still a palpable distance between the two of you—you think that had always been there—but it feels more comfortable in a way it never did before.

"Don’t apologize," he says, easily, as he always does. Everything seems to flow off him like water, and you think that's the part of him you loved the most because it was the one thing you couldn't touch. "We loved each other. I think that much was true."

A jasmine breeze curls through the trees, sending the blossoms fluttering around you like ink in water. The very first time you met Mingyu, you thoughtthe image of him, haloed with the sunset, was the one you wanted to keep forever. And yet, somehow, you don't think you'll ever forget the way he looks right now.

"Will you ever come back to Seogwipo?" you ask.

"I was gonna ask you the same thing—you were always the one who wanted to get out of here." He grins, ear to ear. "Of course I'm coming back. There's nowhere I'd rather be."

"Yeah. I think I know what you mean."

The sea, the clay dirt, Mingyu. Even yourself, clumsy and care-worn. You think, somewhere along the line, you forgot how to love. But you're learning—one step at a time.

"Friends," you say. "Let's be friends. If you'll let me."

"Thought you would never ask. Gladly. Always." The space between you seizes, like it's holding in a breath. Maybe one day, you'll think of closing it once more, but you like where you stand now. You can admire him better from a distance, without your fingerprints all over him. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, something he does before he gets ready to leave. But before he does—"I'll see you soon, okay? You better come back. Promise me."

For the first time, you see the honesty in his eyes and you really, truly believe him.

"Promise."

The Seogwipo sun is high and red in the sky when you wave Mingyu goodbye. It feels like you're coming to an end of a long summer, but you're not afraid. You watch the wind dance through the peach blossoms, their branches never searching, never wanting, and you finally feel as if you've arrived home.

#absolutely shell shocked #i literally stopped walking in the hallways in the rain to read this #(a few people might’ve cussed me out but it’s whatever bc this was SOO worth it)#this was actually so beautifully and well written like #i did double takes and triple takes #i rubbed my eyes to make sure what i was reading was right #THIS. is art #i can’t believe this is being offered for free for the entire internet to read #op this is single handedly one of the most beautiful and intricate written works i’ve ever read on this platform or ANY platform-#-for that matter #you’re so incredibly gifted oh my god #SORRY MY REVIEWS ARENT USUALLY THIS LONG BUT I JS HAD TO 😭#kie’s fic recs!

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