Jae-min woke to sunlight cutting thin across his old bedroom ceiling and the specific, hollow ache of having slept too little.
For a moment he just lay there, blinking up at the same water stain that had been on that ceiling since he was twelve, letting the previous night settle back over him in pieces—Seo-yeon's shaking shoulders, the muffled sound of her crying into her own hand, the phone screen glowing pale in the dark as he'd typed out three words he wasn't sure, even now, he'd meant the way Jihan would read them.
*Yes, I would be your boyfriend.*
He checked his phone before he'd even fully sat up.
Jihan had replied within minutes of the message going out, somewhere close to one in the morning, which meant he probably hadn't been asleep either.
*You have no idea how happy that makes me. Whenever you're ready, I'd like to take you somewhere. Properly. No coincidences, no hospitals, nothing rushed. Just us.*
