✓//Ordinary Things ⌁ k. jiyong

Chapter Twenty-One

𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

A few months had passed, not with fireworks or headlines, but with a quiet kind of magic. There were no dramatic declarations, no shared posts or matching jewelry-just soft mornings, late-night phone calls, and a thousand little things no one else knew about.

Jiyong was still Jiyong: musician, icon, enigma. But to Haeun, he had also become the man who insisted on buying three brands of chocolate chips just to help her test which ones worked best in her cookie batter. The man who called her at 2:17 a.m. with a sleepy voice and the scratch of guitar still lingering in his tone, just to say, "I finished the song. I want you to hear it first."

Their relationship lived in quiet corners.

Like her skincare bottles now tucked between his cologne and face wash in his bathroom-her toner, her lip mask, the serum she told him not to use too much of (which he promptly ignored). His oversized hoodie lived in her apartment now, slung over the arm of her couch, still smelling faintly of him and laundry detergent.

Some nights, she'd wear it just to feel like she was back on his couch, curled up under a blanket while Jazz claimed her lap and Tomato perched possessively on the backrest above her head.

And God, those cats.

They had taken to Haeun with a kind of alarming loyalty-Jazz demanding attention like a spoiled child, and Tomato trailing her from room to room like they'd known each other in another life. Jiyong, of course, had been floored.

"They never do this," he'd muttered that first time, watching Jazz sprawl across her legs like they were her personal mattress. "Are you some kind of cat whisperer?"

"No," she said, brushing fur from her sweater. "They just know I'm not going anywhere."

He didn't say anything to that. But he hadn't needed to.

Sometimes, he stayed at her place. Those nights usually began with music playing low on her speakers while she baked-always barefoot, always humming-and he would wander into the kitchen, stealing bits of dough and pressing kisses to her cheek like it was second nature.

"Too much vanilla," he once said, trying a bite from her third bowl.

"You're too much vanilla," she'd snapped back, and he laughed so hard he dropped his spoon.

Mornings were slow. When they had them.

If he was at her place, he'd find her perched on the window ledge with a mug of jasmine tea, wrapped in that hoodie of his. If she was at his, he'd wake to find her hair a wild mess, one of his T-shirts slipping off her shoulder, and Tomato curled between them like a fuzzy third wheel.

They hadn't talked about what they were-not in labels or titles. There was no need. Not when he texted her come over, and she did. Not when she said I saved you the last cookie, and he knew that meant more than any three words ever could.

The world didn't know, not yet. But the boys did. Youngbae knew first, of course-still half-disbelieving.

"Really? Haeun? My Haeun? She literally stops to look at novelty rice cookers in the mall."

"She's perfect," Jiyong had replied, deadpan.

Youngbae rolled his eyes and said, "You're doomed."

But he'd smiled when he said it.

It wasn't that they were hiding. They were just... savoring it. Keeping it theirs for a little longer.

And maybe that was the best part: knowing this quiet, sacred space existed just for them. That they could belong to each other in stolen glances, soft laughter, and unspoken understanding.