Chapter Text
I.
The café was too expensive, the air conditioning was trying to kill him, and Cha Eui-jae was already questioning why the hell he thought college was a good idea.
He stabbed his fork into a suspiciously dry muffin, glancing across the table at Lee Sa-young—who was sipping his iced americano like he wasn’t personally responsible for giving Eui-jae an identity crisis.
Sa-young was stupidly pretty. Like, ethereal manhwa villain with tragic backstory pretty. Pale skin, dark curls falling over his lashes, a beauty mark that should’ve been illegal, and violet eyes that looked like they were judging you even when he wasn’t looking at you.
Eui-jae hated him. In a fond, deeply confused, probably-concerning way.
“I still don’t get why you’re following me around,” Eui-jae muttered, mouth full of muffin.
Sa-young blinked, calm as ever. “You said I could.”
Eui-jae blinked back. “That was obviously sarcasm.”
“I don’t pick up on sarcasm.”
“Clearly.”
They sat in silence for a beat. Then Sa-young, perfectly relaxed, took another sip of his overpriced coffee.
And that’s when a senior passed their table. Some guy in a campus hoodie, clearly a social butterfly with way too much confidence and that terrifying upperclassman smile.
He did a double take, then smiled like he knew something they didn’t.
“You two are so cute together. New couple?”
Eui-jae choked on his muffin. Literally.
Violently.
Coughing, flailing, smacking his chest while trying not to die from oat-chunk-induced suffocation.
“WE’RE NOT—!” he hacked out, red-faced and teary-eyed.
The senior raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Oh. My bad. You just looked like— y’know.” He waved vaguely between them, then disappeared with a wink.
Eui-jae stared after him, still mid-muffin-PTSD.
Then he turned back to Sa-young, who hadn’t reacted. At all.
“You’re not gonna deny it?”
Sa-young shrugged. “We’ve been together all week.”
Eui-jae threw his hands up. “We were literally assigned to the same orientation group.”
“I like your company.”
Eui-jae paused. Glared. Glared harder.
“Don’t say shit like that with your face looking like that,” he muttered, tugging his hood over his head. “People get the wrong idea.”
Sa-young tilted his head slightly. “What idea?”
“That we’re—!” Eui-jae cut himself off, whispering like the words might curse him. “Dating.”
Another long sip of iced americano. “But I like you.”
Eui-jae’s brain lagged like a bad internet connection.
“You like me as a friend,” he said, slowly.
Sa-young didn’t respond. Just blinked at him, unbothered.
Which was maybe worse than answering.
Eui-jae sank lower in his seat, hiding behind his coffee. His brain was doing the mental gymnastics of Olympic-level denial. This was fine. This was normal. They were just guys. Dudes. Besties.
No one ever died from being a little delusional.
That night, he got a DM from that same senior with a pic of him and Sa-young from across the café.
“You guys are seriously adorable. Couple goals fr fr.”
Eui-jae stared at his phone for a solid minute.
Then texted Sa-young:
YOU:
u need to stop sitting so close to me
THE FREAK:
u didn’t move either
YOU:
WHY WOULD I MOVE?????!
YOU HAVE THE PERSONALITY OF A CAT WHO CLINGS
THE FREAK:
u like cats tho??
Eui-jae turned off his phone. And screamed into his pillow.
II.
It was a Friday night. Which meant one thing: binge-watching horror movies until they both regretted it.
Sa-young had this whole setup in his dorm. Giant monitor, blackout curtains, his bed basically a nest of pillows and plushies (Eui-jae pretended not to notice that one of them lowkey resembled him), and a stash of mood lighting that made it look like a Twitch stream setup.
The only thing missing?
Snacks.
So now here they were, walking back from the convenience store with arms full of sugar, sodium, and absolutely zero shame.
“Why do you have three bags of shrimp chips,” Eui-jae asked, staring at the tower of snacks in Sa-young’s arms.
“You like them,” Sa-young replied, deadpan.
Eui-jae blinked. “Okay, weird that you remembered that but thanks.”
They turned the corner near the dorm entrance—and that’s when they passed a group of students, clustered under a flickering streetlamp like local witches summoning chaos.
It was a few girls and one guy from one of their shared lectures. Eui-jae vaguely remembered them from orientation, especially the one with the cat ear headband who always sat in the front row with a mechanical pencil collection.
They were whispering. Loudly.
“—I swear I saw them coming out of the same dorm room yesterday—”
“It’s totally them. The tall one’s always stoic, and the pretty one just stares at him like he’s dumb.”
“That’s so romantic, are you kidding? I want a man who glares at me like that.”
“Bet they’ve been dating since orientation. I KNEW it.”
Eui-jae, blissfully unaware, was focused on the fact that his soda was getting too cold and starting to sting his hand.
Sa-young, on the other hand, glanced at the group once, expression unreadable, then back at Eui-jae.
“Let’s go the long way,” he murmured, tugging lightly at Eui-jae’s sleeve to steer him toward the side door.
“Huh? Why?” Eui-jae blinked. “It’s literally right there.”
Sa-young gave him a flat look. “Your soda’s about to fall.”
“Oh—shit.” Eui-jae scrambled to readjust his grip. “Crisis averted.”
They walked off.
Behind them, the whispers resumed, now at a pitch that could shatter glass.
“SEE? They’re even holding hands. That’s couple shit right there.”
“they're so getting married.”
Back in the room, the lights were off, the movie was cued up, and they were halfway through a bag of popcorn when Eui-jae paused and said:
“Hey.”
Sa-young turned to him, one eyebrow raised, backlit by the monitor glow like some ghostly angel of death.
“Do people think we’re dating?” Eui-jae asked, completely straight-faced.
Sa-young tilted his head. “Why?”
“I dunno. People keep giving us weird looks. And like… that barista last week called you my boyfriend.”
Sa-young reached for another shrimp chip. “Mm.”
“That’s not a no,” Eui-jae narrowed his eyes. “Wait. Has anyone ever told you we looked like a couple?”
Sa-young shrugged. “A few times.”
“A FEW—?! You never said anything?!”
“You never asked.”
“SA-YOUNG.”
Sa-young crunched calmly on his chip, eyes on the screen. “Do you want people to know we’re dating?”
Eui-jae stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “No!”
“Okay,” Sa-young said.
Eui-jae’s brain short-circuited again.
He said nothing the rest of the movie, which was impressive considering someone literally got decapitated in the first twenty minutes.
Later that night, while brushing his teeth in Sa-young’s bathroom (yes, his bathroom, because apparently Eui-jae just lived there now), he glanced at his toothbrush in the cup next to Sa-young’s and paused.
It was labeled.
In Sa-young’s handwriting.
『 Hyung ♡』
Eui-jae stared at it for a full thirty seconds.
Then he rinsed, spit, and whispered to himself in the mirror:
“We’re not dating.”
If someone heard him, they'd have snickered.
III.
Group projects were the devil’s work. Eui-jae was convinced.
There was no other explanation for why he was currently running on three hours of sleep, ten ounces of cold brew, and pure, unfiltered rage.
He sat in the campus library with his laptop open, Google Slides on one tab and a mental death list of his group members on another. The only person actually doing anything was sitting across from him, legs crossed, laptop perched like a cat in a sunbeam.
Lee Sa-young. Angel-faced. Demon-souled.
The others were "running late" or "sick" or had mysteriously gone radio silent in the group chat the second it was time to do actual work. So Eui-jae and Sa-young had just… taken over. Like usual.
“What color scheme should we go with?” Sa-young asked, like they were picking curtains and not making a last-minute pitch for a professor who graded like he personally hated joy.
“I don’t know, not purple again... that was traumatic,” Eui-jae muttered, tapping furiously.
Sa-young tilted his head. “I like purple.”
“That’s because you’re stupid. Last time, it looked like a poisonous Excel sheet.”
Sa-young smiled like that was the most romantic thing he’d ever heard.
Eui-jae didn’t notice. Because karma was already winding up a punch.
Across the library, one of the girls from their project group finally appeared. She tiptoed over with a sheepish smile and zero shame.
“Hey! Sorry I’m late, the bus wa—never mind. Hey, I just sent in the graphs. Also I sent you guys the new link to the doc since you two are basically doing it anyway.”
Eui-jae opened the link.
He paused.
Then blinked.
Then made a noise so sharp it scared a passing freshman.
“What the actual fuck is this title,” he hissed, pointing at the top of the shared doc.
Sa-young leaned over lazily to look.
"Final Presentation — Sa-young & his boyfriend"
Eui-jae full-body recoiled.
“OH MY GOD.”
The girl flinched. “Wait, aren’t you guys…?”
“NO?!” Eui-jae snapped, scandalized.
“Oh,” she said, wide-eyed. “I just assumed. You’re always together and, y’know…”
“You assumed we were dating because we make good slides?!”
“Well. And also the matching phone charms.”
Eui-jae looked down at his phone.
The tiny blue cat charm Sa-young gave him last month glinted in the light.
Sa-young’s had a purple cat. They linked together.
He had forgotten. He wanted to scream.
“We are not dating,” Eui-jae said firmly, gripping the desk like it owed him money. “We’re just… efficient.”
The girl blinked. “Right. Sorry.” Then under her breath, “Could’ve fooled me…”
Sa-young said absolutely nothing.
Just sipped his cold brew and smirked faintly like this was all so amusing.
Later that night, Eui-jae sent a voice note to his best friend from high school.
“Bro. I need you to tell me I’m not dating anyone.”
He got a voice reply five seconds later.
“You sound like someone who just found out they’re dating someone.”
“FUCK,” Eui-jae whisper-screamed into his blanket.
IV.
It was supposed to be a chill dinner.
Just ramen after midterms. Nothing dramatic. Nothing gay.
Well, maybe a little gay. But, like. The standard amount of gay that happens when your stupidly attractive not-boyfriend casually blows on your egg to cool it before handing it over with chopsticks and a gentle, “Don’t burn your mouth again.”
Eui-jae had ignored the warmth in his chest and chosen violence instead:
“You act like I’m some helpless kid.”
“You are.”
“Okay fuck off.”
Normal. Totally normal. Two bros, eating ramen, trading insults and side glances like they weren’t already an old married couple. Whatever.
Anyway.
He was back in his dorm, mid–ramen food coma, scrolling Instagram when the post hit.
It was from Sa-young’s account.
Just a picture.
A warm-lit, candid shot of him and Sa-young sitting side by side at the ramen shop. Eui-jae had his chin in one hand, smiling vaguely at something off-camera. Sa-young was mid-glance, looking right at him.
It looked romantic. Like, offensively romantic.
Caption:
“4 years. He still doesn’t finish the broth.”
♡♡ #Mine #bf
#bf.
#BF.
Eui-jae sat straight up like someone had hit him with a defibrillator.
The comments weren't any better:
“YOU GUYS ARE COUPLE GOALS FR 😭”
“FOUR YEARS??”
“Wait Eui-jae is gay??”
“Wait wait. You guys were dating THIS WHOLE TIME?”
“This is the softest thing I’ve seen all week I’m gonna cry”
“What do you MEAN 4 years?? I thought you were just close roommates”
“I KNEW IT I CALLED IT IN 1ST YEAR”
Eui-jae slammed the app closed so fast his thumb cramped.
Then reopened it. Because panic.
Then closed it again.
Then screamed into his pillow.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN FOUR YEARS?!” he shouted, dragging himself out of bed and storming down the hall in his mismatched socks and emotional distress.
He burst into Sa-young’s dorm without knocking, holding up his phone like it was a subpoena.
Sa-young looked up from his desk. Calm. Dangerous.
“Explain this,” Eui-jae hissed, flinging his phone onto the bed.
Sa-young didn’t even blink. Just leaned over, glanced at the screen.
“Oh,” he said simply. “Do you want me to change it to five?”
“NO I DO NOT WANT YOU TO CHANGE IT TO FIVE—” Eui-jae clutched his hair, already spiraling. “WHY WOULD YOU POST THAT—WHY WOULD YOU—FOUR YEARS?!”
Sa-young just nodded.
NODDED.
LIKE THAT WAS A NORMAL THING TO DO IN THIS SITUATION.
Eui-jae was pacing now. Flailing. Full meltdown mode. “We’re NOT dating!! That’s not a thing that’s happening!! We’re friends! FRIENDS!!” He gestured wildly. “I don’t even like you like that!”
Sa-young just tilted his head, bored. “Okay.”
“‘OKAY’??”
“You said that last time too.”
Eui-jae stopped mid-panic. “Last time?”
Sa-young looked at him. “When you kissed me.”
Eui-jae’s soul exited his body.
“WHICH TIME??”
Sa-young blinked slowly. “You were drunk. It was after midterms.”
Eui-jae made a strangled noise that was half gasp, half scream, and collapsed face-first onto the bed.
His phone buzzed.
Another comment on the post.
“Real love. I hope I find someone like this 😭💘”
He screamed again.
Sa-young just kept typing on his laptop, unfazed.
“…You want me to take it down?” he asked mildly.
Eui-jae groaned into the sheets. “YES.”
Sa-young paused. “Okay.”
He did not take it down.
V.
It started like any other Tuesday: with Eui-jae showing up to class five minutes late, out of breath, and clutching a bubble tea he absolutely didn’t have time to buy. He was halfway into his seat when a girl from the row behind them called out—
“Hey! I think this is yours!”
She held up a navy hoodie with a little bleach stain on the cuff and the tiniest embroidered lemon on the hood. Eui-jae squinted. Yeah, that was definitely his.
Except she handed it to Sa-young.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, smiling. “I grabbed the wrong one from the hook in the studio. I figured it was yours since you’re always wearing each other’s stuff.”
She laughed and walked off before either of them could respond.
Eui-jae turned his whole body to look at Sa-young. Arms crossed. Expression loaded.
You know the one.
“Okay. Why does your closet have more of my clothes than I do?”
Sa-young looked entirely unbothered. He shrugged, pulling the hoodie onto his lap. “Because your hoodies smell like citrus and bad decisions.”
Eui-jae blinked. “Is that a yes or a cry for help?”
Sa-young paused, looked up at him slowly. “...Both.”
After class, Eui-jae followed Sa-young back to his dorm because apparently that’s just what they did now. No one questioned it. Not even him. He hated that.
(He didn’t hate that.)
He sat on the bed, arms folded, while Sa-young started sorting laundry.
“You realize I’ve found three of my shirts, one pair of sweats, and my socks in your drawers.”
“You said I could borrow them.”
“That was last semester. I thought you meant, like, once. Not permanently relocate them.”
Sa-young held up a black hoodie. “This one’s yours too, right?”
“That’s literally what I wore to my high school graduation.”
Sa-young nodded and tossed it onto his bed.
Eui-jae stared.
“…Are we dating?”
Sa-young looked over like it was the stupidest question he’d heard all week. “Do you want to?”
“I’m ASKING if we are. Not if I want to. Why does everyone think we’re dating?!”
Sa-young thought for a moment. Then:
“You sleep here more than your own dorm.”
“That’s because your bed has a mattress topper!”
“You labeled your toothbrush here.”
“You labeled it for me!”
“You call me when you’re sad.”
“THAT’S NOT A—okay shut up—”
“You wear my clothes, too.”
“Your sweaters are huge and soft and that is not the point.”
“You kissed me after your finals.”
“THAT WAS A STRESS RESPONSE.”
“You said I’m the only one who makes you feel calm.”
“OH MY GOD I NEED TO STOP TALKING.”
Eui-jae faceplanted into Sa-young’s bed with a groan that could summon demons. There was a long, long silence.
Then:
“…Wait,” he mumbled into the sheets. “You said citrus and bad decisions.”
Sa-young turned from folding laundry. “Mm?”
“That’s what you said my hoodies smell like.”
“Yeah.”
Eui-jae looked up. “What kind of cologne smells like bad decisions.”
Sa-young blinked. “I didn’t say your cologne.”
Pause.
Beat.
Eye contact.
“I meant you.”
Eui-jae stared at him.
Sa-young blinked slowly. “It’s a compliment.”
It was not a compliment.
Or maybe it was.
Eui-jae was going to need to lie down. Forever.
Later that night, Eui-jae opened his closet back in his own dorm and stared blankly at the half-empty row where all his favorite clothes used to be.
He texted Sa-young.
YOU:
did u take my striped sweater too
THE FREAK:
no u gave it to me
u said “here u go, u cold bastard”
YOU:
fuck i did say that
.....
okay
fine
but i’m taking back the lemon hoodie
THE FREAK:
no
he lives here now
+1.
It started with soju. Like all tragedies do.
Eui-jae didn’t even remember how much he drank. Just that it was Sa-young’s birthday (or close enough, Sa-young never cared about dates, but Eui-jae remembered) and someone brought a drinking game that should’ve been banned for being emotionally compromising.
Somewhere between round 3 and 7, Eui-jae started leaning.
On Sa-young.
Literally.
His head was on his shoulder. At one point, his fingers were in Sa-young’s hair. At some point, he may have nuzzled into his hoodie and whispered something about how soft he smelled.
Classic drunk Eui-jae behavior. Nothing new.
But then, like always, it escalated.
“Why are you so pretty,” he slurred, barely audible.
Sa-young didn’t say anything.
“Like,” Eui-jae continued, fingers now tracing Sa-young’s wrist lazily, “if I was dating you, I’d never shut up about it.”
“You are,” Sa-young said quietly.
Eui-jae giggled. “Haha. Yeah.”
Then he kissed him.
Slow. Soft. Familiar. Like they’d done it a hundred times before.
Because they had.
But this time felt different.
Eui-jae’s fingers slid into Sa-young’s hair again, slow and careful, like he was memorizing the shape of him. He tilted his head just enough to deepen the kiss, not rushed, not sloppy, just there, present, lips brushing like a promise they kept remaking in silence.
“You smell so good,” he whispered against Sa-young’s lips between kisses, breath warm and full of laughter. “Like... like fabric softener and heartbreak.”
Sa-young huffed a soft laugh, barely a sound. Eui-jae smiled like he’d won something.
“I love your stupid face,” he added, pressing his forehead to Sa-young’s. His hand was still tangled in dark hair, his other arm curling loosely around Sa-young’s waist like it was instinct.
“Wish I was brave enough to do this when I’m not drunk,” he muttered.
Sa-young just held still, watching him with eyes that were far too fond for someone allegedly being kissed by mistake.
“Wouldn’t even blame you if you punched me,” Eui-jae mumbled, eyes fluttering half-closed. “I always do this. Kiss you. Forget in the morning. You probably think I’m the biggest asshole—”
“It’s fine, I know you’re shy,” Sa-young said, barely louder than a breath.
But Eui-jae didn’t hear it. He was too busy leaning in again, kissing him one more time, softer now, with less laughter and more weight. More ache. More want.
Like part of him knew.
***
Eui-jae woke up to the taste of death in his mouth and a hoodie that didn’t belong to him.
The room was too bright. His head was pounding like someone had DJed inside his skull with a brick. And his mouth was dry, desert-level dry. But worse than the physical pain was the vague sense of dread crawling over him like a cold sweat.
He blinked slowly. There was a weight on his arm.
He turned his head—Sa-young. Asleep. Peaceful. Wearing his hoodie.
Eui-jae looked down.
He was wearing Sa-young’s hoodie.
Oh no.
Flashbacks came in glitchy little fragments: soju shots, the drinking game, Sa-young’s laugh, the smell of fabric softener, kissing.... Oh god. He kissed him again, didn’t he?
He didn’t just kiss him. He kissed him like a boyfriend.
He kissed him like someone in love.
Which he wasn’t. Obviously. Definitely. Right??
“...Shit,” he whispered to himself.
That’s when Sa-young stirred.
Still half-asleep, Sa-young let out a soft hum and cracked one eye open. His voice was hoarse, groggy, and unfairly calm. “Morning.”
Eui-jae sat up like he’d been electrocuted. “M-Morning.”
“You okay?” Sa-young asked, lips tugging into a sleepy smile.
“I—I think so? Maybe. Do you... uh...” He cleared his throat. “Do you remember last night?”
Sa-young blinked slowly. “Of course.”
Eui-jae waited. Waited for the judgment. The punchline. The what the hell was that, you lunatic.
But Sa-young just sat up, stretching a little. “You always get affectionate when you drink.”
“...Right,” Eui-jae said, blinking rapidly. “Okay. Cool. Normal. We love patterns.”
A pause.
Then, “You kissed me again.”
Eui-jae groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Ugh, don’t remind me.”
“Why not?” Sa-young asked, like it was the most normal question on Earth. “You do it every time.”
Eui-jae froze. “That’s not the flex you think it is.”
Another beat of silence.
Then, Sa-young tilted his head slightly. “Can I ask something?”
“Sure,” Eui-jae said weakly, emotionally preparing for whatever bullet was about to hit.
Sa-young’s voice was quiet, not accusing, just... curious.
“Why do you only kiss me when you’re tipsy?”
Eui-jae blinked. “What?”
“You’ve been doing it since freshman year,” Sa-young said, like he was talking about the weather. “You never bring it up the next day. So I thought... maybe you were shy.”
Shy??
“Wait.” Eui-jae’s brain finally caught up. “Since freshman year??”
“Yeah.”
“Sa-young.” His voice cracked a little. “How many times have I kissed you?”
Sa-young did a little mental math. “Twenty? Twenty-one?”
Eui-jae stared at him like he was hallucinating. “TWENTY-ONE?!”
“Well, you were single every time. I figured it was safe to assume—”
“ASSUME WHAT.”
Sa-young blinked innocently. “That we were dating.”
Eui-jae’s soul left his body.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE WERE DATING?”
There was a long pause. Sa-young looked confused now. “You confessed. First time you kissed me. You said you were in love with me.”
Eui-jae was about to deny it, but then he remembered. That one time. Sophomore year. The birthday karaoke night. The bottle of peach makgeolli. The “I love you, y’know. You’re, like, my person.”
Oh god.
“Y-You thought that was real?” he whispered.
Sa-young just tilted his head again, calmly sipping from his water bottle. “Wasn’t it?”
Eui-jae stared at him, mind absolutely short-circuiting. “Sa-young. I thought we were just friends.”
“Oh.” Sa-young blinked. “So all the kissing and cuddling and sharing clothes and holding hands and sleeping over and you calling me ‘baby’ that one time, none of that meant anything?”
Eui-jae looked like someone had just unplugged his brain.
“I thought we were really close friends! I thought you were just... letting me be weird!”
“You kissed me six times last semester,” Sa-young said, brow furrowing. “And I picked out your toothbrush color.”
“THAT’S NOT A RELATIONSHIP MILESTONE!”
Silence.
Then, softly, with a tiny pout, “I thought it was.”
Eui-jae flopped back into the bed and covered his face with both hands. He groaned into the pillow.
“This is it,” he mumbled. “This is how I die. From stupid. Death by dumbassery.”
Sa-young sat cross-legged on the bed beside him, water bottle in one hand, the other resting on his knee. Calm. Too calm. Suspiciously calm.
“…You good?” he asked softly.
Eui-jae turned his face just enough to glare at him with one bleary eye. “You thought we were dating. For four years. And you didn’t think to, I don’t know, mention it?”
“You were the one doing the kissing,” Sa-young replied with an infuriating shrug. “You called me ‘baby.’ That’s couple behavior.”
“That was once! And I was drunk!”
“You bought me skincare on White Day.”
“I buy everyone skincare—”
“You called me your favorite person.”
“Everyone’s my favorite person when I’m drunk!”
“You sleep on my chest like it’s a pillow.”
“It’s a nice chest!”
Silence.
Eui-jae groaned again and dragged the blanket over his head.
Sa-young leaned in, quiet now. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“No,” came the muffled response from under the blanket. “I wanna crawl inside a sock drawer and live there. Like a shameful gremlin.”
There was a soft laugh. A little shift on the bed.
Then a hand gently tugged the blanket down. “Hey.”
Eui-jae peeked out. Sa-young was a little closer now, legs folded, face tilted, eyes softer than they had any right to be.
“I’m not mad,” Sa-young said.
“I am,” Eui-jae replied. “At me.”
“That’s fair.”
Another pause.
Then, “Do you… want to break up?”
Eui-jae sat up so fast it looked like he’d been tasered. “WHAT?!”
Sa-young blinked. “Well. Technically, if we’ve been dating this whole time, and now you say we weren’t, that means we either start now or break up. Right?”
Eui-jae opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“No,” he said.
“...No?”
“No!! I mean—yes?! I mean—I don’t want to break up! That’s not—I mean, I didn’t know we were dating, but now that I do know, I—shit, I need to think—”
He flopped again. Hit the pillow face-first this time. Sa-young watched with the patience of someone used to his nonsense.
There was a beat of silence.
Then, muffled into the pillow, “Do I want to date you?”
Sa-young blinked. “I mean. I thought you did.”
Eui-jae rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling like it owed him emotional clarity.
“…Do I want to date you,” he repeated, out loud this time, like he was testing the words.
He thought about Sa-young’s laugh. About the way he always pulled Eui-jae’s hood up when he fell asleep on the bus. About the way he waited for him after missions with hot food and band-aids. About how Eui-jae always called him first. About the hoodie-sharing. The hand-holding. The twenty-one kisses.
“…Yeah,” he said finally, voice small.
Sa-young tilted his head.
Eui-jae turned to look at him.
“I think I already do,” he admitted, like the truth tasted strange in his mouth. “Like, not just the drunk stuff. I think… I’ve been doing boyfriend shit without realizing it. Because it was you.”
Sa-young’s face didn’t change much—but his eyes got that warm, fond look again. The one that made Eui-jae feel like the center of a solar system he didn’t know he was in.
“Okay,” Sa-young said, soft. “So… do you wanna make it official?”
Eui-jae swallowed. “Like. With words?”
“With words.”
“…Okay.” He sat up again, still a little pale, still wildly sleep-tousled and emotionally unstable, but trying.
He cleared his throat, looked Sa-young in the eye, and said:
“I want to date you. For real. Like. Not just on accident.”
Sa-young smiled. Finally, a real one, wide and boyish and stupidly pretty.
“Cool,” he said.
Then he leaned forward and kissed him, not drunk, not mistaken, not vague, just a kiss, real and warm and completely conscious.
And this time, Eui-jae kissed him back like someone who knew exactly what he was doing.
Bonus:
Three months later...
Three months later, and no one believed them when they said they just started dating.
Absolutely no one.
“You shared 21 kisses. That’s not an accident.”
—Seo Min-gi flatly, while microwaving leftover jjajangmyeon.
“He wore your scarf for, like, a year. I thought it was a weird kink thing.”
—Kang Ji-soo, not even looking up from her notes.
“You licked icing off his finger in public.”
—Bae Won-woo, traumatized since sophomore year.
“You literally said ‘he’s my person’ during beer pong.”
—That one NPC from their stats class, still emotionally scarred.
“You have a toothbrush at his place. And a drawer.”
—Random classmate Eui-jae doesn’t even know by name.
Not even the new barista, who had been working at the café for one week and somehow still understood the situation better than Eui-jae did.
She watched with dead, judgmental eyes as Sa-young casually took the straw out of Eui-jae’s drink, bit the wrapper off, and stuck it in like he did this every damn day.
“That’s a boyfriend thing,” she muttered under her breath.
Eui-jae slammed a hand on the counter, eyes bloodshot with betrayal and frustration.
“WE HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY DATING FOR THREE MONTHS.”
The barista raised an eyebrow. “...Sure.”
Sa-young, meanwhile, took a sip of his drink with that same smug calmness he wore like cologne. “It’s been four years and three months.”
Eui-jae turned on him like he was about to throw hands. “You need to STOP saying th—”
“Four years, three months, twelve days.”
“OH MY GOD.”