"I remembered you hadn't eaten," Jihan said, like that explained everything. "And you weren't feeling well. So I figured I'd bring something."
Jae-min stood frozen in the doorway, one hand still on the frame, staring at the two grocery bags hanging from Jihan's fingers like they might disappear if he looked away.
"You didn't have to—"
"I know." Jihan stepped past him without waiting for an invitation, the way someone did when they'd already decided the conversation wasn't up for debate. "May I use your kitchen?"
*Not mine,* Jae-min almost said, and caught himself just in time.
"...Sure."
He shut the door slowly, still trying to process the sheer improbability of it—Kang Jihan, standing in Min-woo's cramped kitchen, setting grocery bags down on a counter that had definitely never held anything more sophisticated than instant noodles and expired energy drinks.
Jae-min's phone buzzed in his pocket.
He turned away, thumb moving fast.
*Don't come home. Jihan's here.*
The reply came seconds later. *WHAT*
*Long story. Just—stay at your place tonight, or go to mine, I don't care. Do NOT walk in.*
*...you good?*
*Fine. Just go.*
Min-woo sent back a string of question marks and then, mercifully, nothing else, which Jae-min took as reluctant agreement.
By the time he turned back around, Jihan had already found the stove, sleeves rolled to his forearms, a pot of water coming to boil with the same unhurried competence he probably brought to everything.
"You cook?" Jae-min asked, mostly because the silence felt too loud otherwise.
"Occasionally." Jihan didn't look up from the counter, where he'd laid out packets of instant chili noodles, eggs, and a small bundle of scallions Jae-min hadn't even known Min-woo owned. "Badly, according to my brother. But I can manage this much."
"I wasn't expecting a five-star meal."
"Good. Lower your expectations further and you might actually be impressed."
Jae-min huffed something close to a laugh and sat down at the small table, watching Jihan move through the unfamiliar kitchen with a kind of quiet precision—checking drawers before opening them, wiping the counter clean before he started, cracking the eggs one-handed like it was muscle memory rather than effort.
It didn't take long. Within fifteen minutes two bowls sat steaming on the table, the sharp smell of chili and broth filling the small apartment.
They ate mostly in silence.
Jae-min kept his eyes on his bowl, or the table, or the window—anywhere that wasn't directly at Jihan, because every time he let his gaze wander that direction he found Jihan already glancing at him, quick and quiet, gone again before it could turn into something he had to acknowledge out loud.
His heart did something stupid and traitorous every single time.
"You're staring," Jihan said eventually, not looking up from his bowl.
"I could say the same."
That earned him the faintest curve of a smile. Jihan didn't deny it.
Outside, the rain started somewhere in the middle of that silence—soft at first, a light patter against the window, and then heavier, faster, until it was drumming steadily against the glass and the world outside had blurred into gray.
Jihan checked his watch.
"It's past seven."
"...Yeah."
"At this rate it won't let up for hours." He set his chopsticks down, expression unreadable. "I'll stay the night. If that's alright."
Jae-min's stomach dropped somewhere between panic and something he refused to name.
"...Sure," he said, because there wasn't really another answer available, not without explaining why a near-stranger staying the night in an apartment that wasn't even his felt like a much bigger problem than it should.
Jihan nodded like the matter was settled and stood, gathering the empty bowls without being asked, rinsing them at the sink while Jae-min sat frozen at the table trying to remember how to breathe normally.
"Bathroom?" Jihan asked, drying his hands on a dish towel.
Jae-min pointed, wordless, toward the hallway.
The second the bathroom door clicked shut, Jae-min grabbed his phone with both hands.
*He's about to shower. In Min-woo's apartment. It's just the two of us here. I don't know what to do with my hands.*
He hit send before he could think better of it, and immediately regretted every word of it.
---
Across town, the rain had started falling on Min-woo too, though he was considerably less prepared for it.
He stood beneath the narrow overhang outside the Kang estate's side gate, one arm wrapped around himself against the growing chill, phone screen glowing in the dim evening light as he tried, without much success, to convince the sky to stop.
It didn't.
Jae-min's text came through just as he was pulling up a rideshare app, and he was halfway through typing a reply when the side door opened behind him.
"You're still here?"
Min-woo turned. Tae-hyun stood in the doorway, hoodie sleeves pushed up, hair still faintly damp from an earlier shower, looking at him with something between amusement and genuine concern.
"Waiting for the rain to let up," Min-woo said, forcing a casual shrug. "It's fine. I'll grab a car."
"In this?" Tae-hyun glanced past him at the sheeting rain, clearly unconvinced. "Good luck getting anyone to pull up out here."
"I'll manage."
Tae-hyun studied him for a second longer, then disappeared back inside without another word, leaving Min-woo standing there feeling faintly ridiculous.
Thirty minutes later, soaked at the edges despite the overhang and no closer to a ride, Min-woo heard the door open again.
"Still here."
"The rain's still here too," Min-woo said, gesturing at the relentless downpour like it was self-explanatory.
Tae-hyun crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe. "You can stay the night. There's a spare room."
"I'm fine, really—"
"Min-woo."
Something about the way he said it—flat, unimpressed, cutting straight through the polite refusal—made Min-woo stop mid-sentence.
"Don't be so stubborn," Tae-hyun said. "It's pouring, it's late, and I'm not letting you catch pneumonia outside my house because you're too proud to accept a spare bed."
Min-woo opened his mouth to argue again, found nothing useful to say, and closed it.
"...Fine," he muttered. "Just for tonight."
Tae-hyun's mouth curved, satisfied, and he stepped back to let him inside.
The spare room was simple but comfortable—a made bed, a small lamp, towels already folded neatly on the dresser like Tae-hyun had anticipated this exact outcome before Min-woo had even agreed to it.
"Bathroom's down the hall," Tae-hyun said. "Towels are there if you need fresh ones."
"Thanks." Min-woo hesitated at the door. "Seriously. You didn't have to."
Tae-hyun just shrugged, already turning to leave. "I know."
The shower helped clear his head, at least a little—warm water washing away the chill that had settled into his shoulders during the half hour spent standing in the rain. By the time he padded back into the spare room, hair still damp, a plate sat waiting on the small desk by the window. Rice, a simple side of grilled fish, something steaming faintly in the cooling air.
Min-woo stared at it for a second, then smiled to himself.
Tae-hyun's work. Obviously.
He ate slowly, alone, the rain still tapping steadily against the window, and once he'd finished he stacked the dishes neatly by the door and climbed into bed, exhaustion finally catching up to him all at once.
---
It was well past midnight when Tae-hyun found himself standing outside the spare room door, unsure exactly what had drawn him there.
He told himself it was just to check the guest was settled. That was all.
The door was cracked slightly, enough for the hallway light to spill a thin line across the floor inside. Tae-hyun leaned closer, careful not to push it open any further, and caught the soft, even sound of breathing.
Asleep. Snoring lightly, barely audible over the rain still drumming against the roof.
Something in Tae-hyun's chest loosened at the sound, unreasonably fond, and he almost turned to leave right then—satisfied, mission complete, nothing more to see.
Then Min-woo shifted beneath the blanket, brow furrowing faintly in his sleep, and murmured something too low to catch at first.
Tae-hyun paused.
He leaned in slightly, just enough to hear it clearly the second time it came, quiet and troubled in the dark.
"...Stop. Please."
Tae-hyun went still in the doorway, the rain filling the silence where a question should have been, watching the faint crease between Min-woo's brows in the low light and wondering, with a small, uneasy twist low in his chest, exactly what it was that he was dreaming about.
Then again. He heard it.
".....please."