You put your bag down on the sofa, looking around at the apartment that you haven't visited in almost half a year. Due to your work schedule, it has been a bit difficult to meet each other. Now that you finally managed to convince your boss to give you a weekend off, you spend the day at his apartment.
You lay on the sofa and stare at him.
"Just as soft as when you last visited, right?" he says cheerfully. "Did you miss me?"
"Of course, I couldn't have survived without you," you smile. "Can I get a hug?"
He laughs and hugs you. "It's been too long," he says.
You sigh. "Too long is an understatement, it's been months. I really, really miss spending time with you."
He frowns and hugs you tightly. "I'm sorry, I should've visited you sooner."
You sigh again. "And get in trouble for sneaking out again? The last time you did that, your manager almost went crazy."
He laughs.
You say "Let's go and make lunch. I heard you've been learning how to cook pasta recently. "
"Yeah, I learned how to make pasta from Joshua." He smiles. "I'm still learning, don't get your hopes up. I think I still have some ingredients left from the last time Joshua and Jeonghan came over."
"How about we head to the supermarket nearby? Let's get snacks for later."
He lets out a small groan. "But we just got here..."
You hold his hand and look up at him. "Cookies and cream ice cream? Please?"
After a big sigh, he grabs his bag and hurries over to the front door.
"I'll take that as a yes." You say with a wide smile.
You quickly get up from the sofa and the both of you walk out to the grocery store nearby. You hold on to his elbow as you walk, looking around at the bustling city. On your way to the store, you start to reflect on your relationship.
You never thought that you and Cheol would end up together when you first met. To be honest, you hated each other's guts because neither of you wanted to back down. It wasn't until later on that you realized that he had a great sense of love and protection for his friends. As the leader, he had to make sure that he stood his ground, but only because he had to do what was best for the team.
Later on, you figured out he was a kind person who just likes to have fun. You knew he would be the first one to help you out if you were in trouble because that's just the kind of person he is. When you messed up a job a few years back, it was Cheol that came running in the middle of the night to help out. You would've never thought he would've done that and that's why you realized just how much you actually liked him.
The both of you arrive at the grocery store. You look around and see that there's hardly anyone else around.
"Let's go into the bakery section," you say. You browse through the pastries while Cheol grabs a few. "Let's get some garlic bread. It'll taste great with the pasta. "
"Yeah, and it'll help me survive the garlic breath I'll have for a week," he laughs.
You and Cheol look at each other and laugh as you both find the garlic bread aisle.
"Oh come on, you're not going to have garlic breath for that long."
"I sure will!" he laughs again, "You'll be tasting garlic bread for the entire week too."
He winks at you.
"What?" You say, slightly flustered.
"Let's get some ice cream." He grins as he heads to the ice cream aisle, satisfied at his attempt to rile you up.
"What are you talking about?"
He leans in and whispers into your ear. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."
You can't help but blush at the thought. It doesn't help that you always seem to wear your heart on your sleeve. The thought of this makes you feel embarrassed and vulnerable. But with him being the way he is, you always expect him to do something weird like this so you don't really know how to react.
You try to not smile or make eye contact and look down as you grab the pint of mint chip. "Let's get out of here."
"I got you a bit excited, didn't I?" He said teasingly. "You're so shy. I'll have to work on that."
"Shut up," you say, not wanting to have this conversation for multiple reasons.
The both of you make your way to get the snack aisle. However, Cheol's hands never seem to leave your waist, making you even more flustered. You want to pull away, but you also don't. He's being especially close, even more than how he was this morning. You got shy whenever he did this in public, but he seems to enjoy getting a rise out of you. He gives you a small smirk when he sees how red your face has become. Although you missed him so much, you never seem to get used to public acts of affection.
"You're going to be mine for the rest of the weekend." He says
"Don't say that in public, what if someone heard you?!" You try to hush him.
"What's wrong, are you ashamed of how much you miss me?"
"No! I just... don't say things like that out loud!"
You two eventually get to the counter and Cheol takes out his wallet to pay. He takes out enough money to pay for everything.
"You're paying for all of it?" You ask.
"Why not? I've got money to spend." He looks over at you and nods. "If you want to pay for anything, you can do it later at the apart—"
You pinch his side and give the cashier an awkward smile. The cashier puts the food into two bags and gives them to you.
"Thank you."
The both of you make your way back to the apartment. "You're welcome," he says with a wink as you both walk out of the store.
When you arrive back at the apartment, you put the ice cream in the fridge as Cheol prepares the ingredients for your lunch. The scent of garlic and onions fill the apartment, making your stomach grumble. You walk into the kitchen, seeing Cheol chopping up the garlic and onions. You roll up your sleeves and help him with boiling the pasta.
The whole time he's flirting with you, he begins to move closer to you.
"Why are you acting like this?" You ask him.
He takes a deep breath and speaks, "Why not? Don't you like it?"
You stop what you're doing and stare at him.
He continues, "I thought you said you wanted to spend the weekend with me. If that's the case, let's spend it like we're spending two months together."
"No... It's not that I don't like it. I love you, I really do." You couldn't help the thought that's been disturbing you for the past few months. You didn't want to bring it up because you knew that it would just make everything awkward.
Still, you take the shot. You love him too much to hide what you really feel from him. "Don't you ever get tired of me?"
"What do you mean?" He says while stirring the pasta slowly.
"It's because of me that we haven't met in months. I was the one who decided on my work schedule, and even when I didn't have work, I stayed at home all day to sleep. "
He stops stirring the pot and looks at you. He then goes back to stirring.
"If I wasn't ready to deal with all that, I would have broken up with you a few months ago when you first told me about your new schedule," he says. "But I didn't."
You say nothing to this, it's obvious he's willing to put up with a lot because of how much he loves you.
"I love you," he says as he gets closer to hug you.
"I love you too."
He puts his arms around you and lays his head on your shoulder. Over the next few hours, you and Cheol enjoy your time together. What was meant to be a peaceful lunch turned out into a rollercoaster of topics. You talked about everything that you couldn't over the phone. At some point, you shared about this coworker that's been getting on your nerves, almost riling Cheol for a fight. There was so much to talk about, and yet so little time.
Eventually, the both of you had to clean up after three hours of talking. After cleaning up, both of you snuggle over at the sofa as you watched a movie. The two of you laugh when certain scenes came up and you hit him when certain ones came up. You didn't really realize movies could make you laugh so hard, but you enjoyed it. But to be honest, you only enjoyed it so much because it was with Cheol. Without him, you wouldn't really find anything about this movie all that funny.
After the movie, you and Cheol head over to his room to sleep. You drift off to sleep with a smile on your face. After a few hours, you wake up. You look at your alarm clock. It's 8 AM.
You look over to your right and find Cheol soundly sleeping. You hesitate to wake him up, happy to see him sleeping like a log. A loud buzzing noise makes you jump up. You look around and find it to be your alarm clock.
You quickly turn it off, but Cheol ends up awake. He looks at you with a smile.
"Good morning, sleepyhead." He says, half-awake.
"I should be saying the same to you," you respond, sitting up. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"Mmmm." He replies, pulling you back down to the bed for more snuggles. "Five more minutes."
You couldn't help but laugh. For such a tall man, he was always like a child when he just got up from bed. You decide to spend the rest of the morning with him in bed.
"What am I going to do with you, Choi Seungcheol?" You say as you stroke his hair.
He snuggles more into you at the sound of his name from your lips. In moments like this, it made you remember why you fought to keep this relationship in the first place. You wouldn't trade him for anything else in the world.
- END -