When he wakes up, she’s gone.

She never stays.

He fights the urge to sigh unhappily, a part of him pointing out that he should’ve been used to this by now. It’s their unspoken agreement – their default arrangement – after all. But he’s a hopeless romantic – more hopeless than romantic, it seems – and he can’t stop himself from wanting to believe that maybe, just maybe, she is his happily ever after.

He gets up from his bed sluggishly, pointedly ignoring the side of the bed that she occupied merely hours ago. He fights to supress the hazy memories of the night that has passed. He knows it won’t help but, like an addict and his , he loses the fight and the details flit through his mind.

Sweet kisses.

Gentle caresses.

Breathy moans.

Names escaping parted lips.

Bliss. Seemingly unending bliss.

Running a way hand down his face, he trudges to the other side of the room towards the bathroom, pushing the door open without much energy or enthusiasm. He absently flicks the lights on and abruptly freezes when he sees the stain on the mirror.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They don’t bother with turning on the lights.

They stumble inside the room, lips attached to each other, hands roaming on skin rather impatiently. He hoists her up effortlessly in his arms and he can feel her legs lock around his waist, her ankles digging against his lower back. Their kisses don’t stop, drugging them both to near oblivion, and it’s no surprise when they fail to make it to bed. It’s no less meaningful, to him at least, as he took her against the door, burying his face against the crook of her neck, inhaling that scent that’s uniquely her own. He feels her nails rake across the expanse of his back and she throws her head back in delight as his movements pick up speed.

They come together, names being screamed out passionately, breaths ragged as he makes a conscious effort to make sure she doesn’t fall from his arms. He won’t ever let her fall.

“More, Min,” she whispers. “More.”

He can never deny her anything.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s much, much later when she gets off the bed and he fights against the exhaustion to stay awake, knowing that when morning comes, she’ll be gone along with the night. He follows her with his gaze, watching as she heads for the bathroom. He sees the exact moment she sees what made him freeze in his tracks just the day before and it amuses him slightly when she does the exact same thing.

He waits to see what she does.

When she merely stands there with her back to him, he sighs, gets up and walks over to where she is. He doesn’t make a move to touch her or even speak to her. He wants her to make the first move.

She doesn’t disappoint.

“I thought you’d have erased it by now.”

“Why would I?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” She shoots back.

He shrugs almost helplessly, even if she can’t see him. “It’s how I know it’s real.”

It’s how I know we’re real, he almost says.

She hears it anyway in his tone and choice of words. She sees it when she finally turns to look at him and the expression on his face.

He can’t quite understand the expression on hers. It seems like there’s much she has to say but she keeps them in her, in the recesses of her mind and heart, far away from his reach. His shoulders sag at the thought, his heart breaking soon after when she reaches past him to grab some toilet paper. Wordlessly, he watches as she moves to their mirror and wipes the fading pink kiss stain she herself left behind, discarding the tissues paper in the nearest trash bin.

She turns to face him again and, like a switch being automatically, her lips find his hungrily, passionately. His heart is still breaking but he lets her make him forget.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He wakes up in the morning and finds her gone.

But there’s a stain on the mirror again. This time in cherry red.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He can’t stop thinking about what it might possibly mean.

Was it guilt? Did she leave a new mark on his mirror because she felt bad for removing the first one? Possibly. It feels like the safest explanation. But he dares himself to hope that she left it as a reminder that she was there and the night they shared really happened, a reaffirmation that this is real. That they are real.

It’s risky, he supposes, but Shim Changmin lets the hope blossom.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He once thought of taking pictures of the kiss stains on his mirror. Each mark always gets wiped off, only to be replaced by a new one and a part of him has been yearning to preserve them somehow. But he knows the idea’s rather morbid and weird so he refrains from doing so.

The kiss marks always change. The color changes. The spot on the mirror it’s left on changes. Some look like they were hurriedly left there. Some come in a perfect shape.

But one thing always remains constant. They’re all hers. They’re all from her.

He wonders yet again what the gesture can mean.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He meets Choi Sooyoung on one of those rare nights he doesn’t find himself in his bed in a tangle mess of limbs and sheets. He’s finally given in to one of his best friend’s pointed requests that he finally show his face for a night out in town because, he quotes, he’s missed one too goddamn man already. She comes with her best friend, the girlfriend of his own best friend, and he immediately notices the ily modest black number she’s chosen for the night. Yuri and Minho are rather excited to introduce them to each other (heaven knows why) and he manages to tear his eyes from where they linger dangerously near her mile long legs to look up at her face and the glorious chocolate brown locks that adorn it.

“Changmin, this is Sooyoung, my best friend. Soo, this is Changmin, one of Minho’s best friends.”

His eyes settle, on their own accord, it seems, on her lips. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

He’s rewarded with a cherry red smirk. “Likewise.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Heaven gives them an answer when he and everyone else see Minho suddenly go down on one knee and ask Yuri to spend the rest of her life with him.

There are a lot of cheers, a lot of hugs and kisses and pats on the back and best wishes. Through it all, he smiles, genuinely happy for them, managing and startled but humbled laugh when he’s offered the honor of being the best man.

He says yes, of course, keeping his eyes on the cherry red lipped girl as she too agrees to be maid of honor.

~*~*~*~*~*~

She doesn’t end up in his bed that night. He doesn’t see her at all in the days that follow.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s on a late afternoon about a week later that someone rings the doorbell to his apartment. He’s not expecting any visitors that day and he figures it might just be Minho with a rant about how complicated wedding preparations are in tow. He braces himself and readies his chosen ammo against the rant that he’s sure to come (why don’t you just elope with her? See, problem solved!) but the words die in his mouth when he opens the door and finds Minho nowhere in sight.

Instead, it’s her.

He blinks. Up to this day, she has never come to him this early.

“Aren’t you gonna let me in?”

He remembers himself and moves to the side to let her pass through, closing the door hesitantly once she’s inside. He doesn’t turn to face her for a while, instead he stares at the door and counts to ten in his mind. She’s here for a reason, he knows, and he’s afraid of what it might be and what might come out of it. He’s acutely aware that there’s a possibility that when she walks out once all is said and done, he might never see her again. And so he stalls.

But clearly she has other plans.

“Yuri and Minho’s wedding had me thinking.”

He turns then and, in an attempt to lighten the mood, “Are you here to tell me you want to get married?”

“No,” she answers.

He pretends he doesn’t actually feel his heart breaking but then she rolls her eyes and speaks again before he can react. “Well, not right now or anytime soon, anyway.”

“So what are you saying?” Hope surges but he quells it down. It’s been getting tiring to hope.

“Yuri and Minho… what they have… it’s real. And I want that. I want something like that for myself.” Her eyes lock with his and he sees her unspoken words in the depths of her eyes.

I want it with you.

There are many things he wants to ask, many things he wants to know. He wants to know why she’s waited this long. He wants to know if she’s sure. He wants to know what she plans on telling their clueless friends about them and how they began (it was on a particular night many months ago that they were both out in a club and she got dared by her co-workers to ask him to dance with her. Everything kind of snowballed from there). More importantly, he wants to love if she loves him too because he’s pretty sure he does. But he doesn’t voice those questions for now. Instead, he crosses the space that keeps her apart from him and, in one smooth pull, his lips find hers.

It feels like a first kiss between them, even if they’ve already had one too many thus far. Their (technically) first kiss happened when they were both drunk and stupid and while he refuses to dismiss that like it wasn’t the start for them, of them, this one they’re having right now is far more special.

She pulls away when the need for air becomes too ignore and he blinks owlishly at her, his confusion growing when she moves away from him to head to the bathroom. He watches as she, like many times before, wipes off the nearly faded kiss mark from last week before she steps out and takes his hand, leading the way to his bedroom.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, his mirror remains spotless.

She stays.