Seungkwan is your best friend. Has been since freshman year of high school - though, if someone asked him, he’d probably deny it at first out of habit. Not because he doesn’t love you he does, very loudly and dramatically, but because the start of your friendship is something he swears he’ll never live down.

He had spilled his entire lunch tray on you, and then, instead of apologizing, he looked you dead in the eye and yelled, “Watch where you’re going!” like you had summoned the tray from his hands. A cafeteria full of teenagers went silent as you stood there, soaked. That was day one of your friendship. Day two involved him handing you a sorry note and a Choco Pie with a post-it that read: “sorry”

Now, years later, you’ve both graduated and taken very different paths. Seungkwan stayed in Jeju, working as a barista at his aunt’s bakery that smells like heaven, and secretly posting hauntingly beautiful music on an account he thinks no one knows about. You found it on accident one night, followed it with a burner account, and have been silently cheering him on ever since.

You, meanwhile, are neck-deep in textbooks, chasing a law degree trying to live up to the legacy of their father’s intimidatingly pristine law firm. The only thing more exhausting than reading case law at 2 a.m. is pretending you don’t enjoy Seungkwan’s late-night rants about espresso ratios and customers who ask for “deconstructed caramel macchiatos.”

Being best friends didn’t mean things were perfect. Seungkwan is judgmental — not in an obvious way, but if you squint during one of his tight-lipped smiles, He’s also a menace to anyone he doesn’t like. His meanness is surgical: fast, precise, and often hilarious unless you’re the target. One tourist once called the bakery’s croissants “dry,” and Seungkwan responded by offering them a complimentary water and a swift, passive-aggressive “Maybe you’re just dehydrated, sir.”

But with you, he’s soft. Unflinchingly gentle. He treats you like more than just a friend, like a confusing, blurry line between platonic and something else you both refuse to name. He kisses your cheek when you’re upset, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Picks you up from bars when you’re drunk, scolding you the whole time “You could’ve died, you idiot!” before tucking you into his chest like that alone could fix whatever broke inside you to get you that wasted in the first place.

Every time he comes over, it ends with the two of you curled up in your bed, your legs tangled. You always wake up in the morning with his arm thrown over your chest. And somehow, you never really mind.

That evening, the sky was streaked with watercolor pinks and oranges, the kind that made tourists stop walking just to take bad photos. Seungkwan was wiping down the last table at the bakery, humming a little to himself a melody you recognized from one of his secret songs. He glanced out the window and saw you standing there, bundled up in your too-big coat, waiting like you always did when it was time to head to the library together.