Minseok tapped his fingernails on his mug of decaf coffee. He felt it was best to not have caffeine on this day of extreme anxiety. He glanced at his watch; it read 10:24. He’s late, Minseok thought bitterly before cracking a tiny smile. He had always been late. Better late than never, Minseok thought as he took a sip of his coffee. The little bell on the door to the coffee shop jingled and Minseok looked up to see Luhan walk in with eyes searching for Minseok. The latter waved his arm to get Luhan’s attention and stood up when Luhan walked towards the table.

    “H-hey! I got you an iced americano.” Minseok stuttered before awkwardly sitting back down. Luhan eyed him carefully and sat down as well. Silence ensued for a few moments as Luhan began drinking his coffee. Minseok cleared his throat after a minute or two and Luhan glanced at him.

    “So, why did you call me here?” Minseok asked with a slight smile. It was so hopeful, so genuine that it truly hurt Luhan to reach into his bag and pass the packet of legal papers across the table to Minseok. It broke Luhan’s heart all over again to see the look of hope crash into devastation on Minseok’s face. Minseok looked up at him with his mouth hanging open.

    “I want a divorce.” Luhan said, looking away. Minseok opened his mouth but Luhan continued before he could protest, “This has been a long time coming, Minseok. We’ve been separated since winter and now it’s July. If we want to truly move on we need to sign these papers.” Minseok just stared at Luhan in disbelief.

    “But… Luhan I don’t want to move on I still l-”

    “Well I do want to move on,” Luhan snapped, still averting his eyes entirely from Minseok’s face. He heard Minseok scoff and drop the packet of papers on the table.

    “I’m not signing these.” Luhan sighed and looked at Minseok sympathetically, an expression that made Minseok’s blood boil.

    “This will go so much smoother if you just coopera-”

    “So this is the only reason you wanted to meet? To get my signature so you can move on and pretend we never happened?” Minseok growled.

    “That isn’t what I-”

    “7 years of marriage and 11 years of being together and you’re ready to throw that all away?” Luhan shot out of his chair and leaned forward on the table while pointing an accusing finger at Minseok.

    “No, you threw all that away when you slept with someone else for 4 months. Don’t you ing dare pin this on me Kim Minseok.” Luhan kept his voice low but the majority of the coffee shop still looked up at the sudden disturbance. Luhan glanced over at the stares and slowly sat back down. Minseok leaned back in his seat and ran his fingers through his hair.

    “I’m not signing anything until you and I have a real, honest talk about what happened.” Minseok said calmly.

“Mins-”

“No! Luhan you have always said we should never let an argument ruin us so I am not signing a goddamn thing until you and I break the silence.” Minseok interrupted.

“That applied to things like me leaving dishes in the sink when the dishwasher was empty or you recording over my dramas on the television. This is so much bigger than that.” Luhan snapped back. With a snarky look of defiance on his face, Minseok leaned back and carelessly pushed the papers back to Luhan and then crossed his arms.  Luhan sipped at his coffee before groaning and reluctantly agreeing.

    “Fine, but only because there’s some questions I need you to answer,” Luhan wanted to smile at the release of tension in Minseok’s shoulders but he couldn’t afford to. Not with how much he still loved him. “I want you to explain to me why the hell you would think of me every time you ed your assistant instead of just simply having with me.”

    Minseok took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair again. “Well, to be brutally honest, I had become bored. I love you entirely, but neither of us seemed happy with each other anymore so when Jongdae came on to me I allowed it because he was something new that I could pretend was us when we had first started dating.” Tears had begun to well up in Luhan’s eyes as soon as Minseok had started talking. He wanted these confessions, but they still felt like a whole new stab with a whole new knife in his back.

    “So instead of talking to me and being honest about your concerns you stick your in whatever offers itself first?” Luhan asked bitterly while wiping ghost tears away from his eyes. Minseok instinctively reached out to hold Luhan’s hand before thinking better of it and leaning back. He didn’t show it, but Luhan had caught that retraction, and it hurt like hell.

    “You know I’ve never been good at expressing my honest feelings,” Minseok mumbled and Luhan laughed a little.    

    “Yeah, no kidding. You had me read your wedding vows for you because you kept getting nervous and choked up.” Minseok smiled at the memory. He and Luhan had had a beautiful wedding and it continued to be one of Minseok’s fondest memories, even now.

    “Have you been keeping up with Jongdae lately?” Luhan asked and tactlessly pulled Minseok out of his mind. He looked at Luhan incredulously and shook his head.

    “No I haven’t. After I fired him I deleted him from my contacts and blocked him.” Luhan raised his eyebrows to himself a little.

    “So you were telling the truth about firing him,” He mumbled more to himself than to Minseok. The latter nodded and took a sip from his mug.

    “Of course. After I left work that night I swore to myself that I would never lie to you again. Well, sort of. I wasn’t planning on telling you, but besides that, no more lies,” Minseok confessed in a somewhat exhausted voice. Luhan sipped his coffee as well and eyed his husband from across the table. God, he didn’t want to do this. He just wanted the pain to be over. Minseok’s confession might have made him feel better if he instead planned on telling Luhan about the affair, but some small part of him understood. It didn’t make it okay, but he saw the reasoning behind it.

    “Do you have any other questions?” Minseok asked and Luhan bit his lip to think. He turned to stare out the window as he pondered the whirlwind of thoughts in his head. He had so many questions, he knew that for sure, but it seemed impossible to sort them out enough to express them.

    There were many people passing the coffee shop outside. Some were in cars, some were on bikes, most were simply walking. Luhan stared at a couple that had just walked out of the building and sat down at one of the patios. It was a young man and woman who looked like they had been dating for only a few months judging by their body language. It reminded Luhan of when he had first started dating Minseok. He was always so nervous to be around him, terrified of saying the wrong thing or boring him. He wondered where it had gone all so wrong and wiped away the tears that had begun to fall.

    Luhan looked down at his coffee and cleared his throat, “Do you think we could have worked things out?” He asked solemnly. Minseok tilted his head.

    “What do you mean?” He asked and Luhan looked everywhere but at the man across from him.

    “We were still having problems even before you… did what you did. I don’t even know where they came from but maybe… maybe if we tried harder to work them out I wouldn’t be sitting here with a stack of divorce papers,” Luhan was rather choked up now, trying his hardest to keep his composure in this public place. In hindsight, such an emotional and difficult action should’ve been done in the privacy of one’s home, but he couldn’t go back to his old house and he couldn’t have Minseok over to his apartment. It was too risky.

    “Yeah, I think we could have. I never stopped loving you, Luhan, not for a single second. I still haven’t, and it broke my heart every time you turned your head away from a kiss or went to bed immediately after dinner,” Minseok said in a voice as choked up and tight as Luhan’s.

    “It hurt me just as much when you came home at one in the morning, or when you refused to go out with me on your days off. You were so hardly interested I was sure you didn’t love me anymore,” The coffee shop had begun to clear out a bit as the breakfast rush came to an end and the sound of Minseok and Luhan’s voices seemed louder than ever despite their hushed tones.

    “I really don’t want to do this here. Can we go back to the house and I’ll make us something to e-”

    “No. No absolutely not.” Luhan butted in firmly. Minseok was taken quite aback by the answer and looked quizzically at Luhan.

    “Why not?” He asked. Luhan wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to tell Minseok the truth, but he had no other excuse and it felt wrong to lie after everything that had happened.

    “Minseok, if I go home with you, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my resolve. I hate it, I really ing hate it but I still love you. I shouldn’t, you don’t deserve it, but God, I can’t control it and it’s just too risky,” Luhan explained through even more tears. At this point he wanted to go with Minseok, oh how he wanted to, but he knew he had to stay strong.

    Minseok leaned back in his chair. A pang of guilt went off in his stomach at the thought of using this to his advantage, but it wasn’t so bad, right? If he could convince Luhan to try again he could show him how happy he could make him. Things would be different, Minseok would make them different. He would treat him right and love him the way he deserved. All he needed was a chance.

    “Luhan, I can’t force you to go with me, but I think it’s a good idea for us to speak privately. Our problems aren’t going to work out from meeting just once. We need time to sort things o-”

    “Our problems would be over if you just signed the damn paper,” Luhan snapped. Minseok scowled at him but quickly reminded himself to be gentle and his expression softened. He put his arms crossed on the table and leaned forward a bit.

    “Do you truly believe that if we sign these papers and go our separate ways everything will be perfect? Our problems won’t be over, Luhan, going through with this isn’t an end all be all miracle answer to happiness. Especially not if we still love each other, which it has been established that we do, it’s just going to hurt even more,” Minseok tried to reach across the table to lay his hand over Luhan’s but the latter snatched it away just before he could. Under different circumstances Luhan would’ve automatically felt at ease at Minseok’s touch. Everything was so different, yet too similar for comfort.

    “Maybe it won’t be the end of our problems but it’s a start,”

    “Yes, a start towards a reality that neither of us want,” Minseok said and Luhan glared at him. It was convenient that every time Luhan was about to break Minseok said something stupid to fuel Luhan’s anger again.

    “You have no ing idea what I want, Minseok. Yes, I love you, but that doesn’t mean being with you again would be worth it. This decision is going to hurt like hell for me. It’s going to break my heart all over again and leave me broken for awhile. But then I’ll move on because that’s what people do. When things go to you pick up the pieces, you put yourself back together, and you move the on. You have no right to keep me from doing that,” Luhan growled. Minseok looked hurt; he had looked hurt this entire time but moreso now. The thought of truly living without Luhan scared the hell out of him, and it seemed to be becoming more and more of a reality by the moment. It felt like a speeding train with no brakes, and Minseok just wanted to get off the ride.

    “You really don’t want to ever be with me again?” He asked in a meek voice. Luhan looked away not being able to bear the broken expression on the love of his life’s face. It wasn’t true. He did want to be with Minseok, but he wanted to be with the Minseok that he fell in love with. This one was different, and while Luhan believed the old one was still there somewhere, he didn’t if he had the strength to find it without destroying himself in the process.

    “Have you been seeing someone? Is that what this is about?” Luhan shook his head immediately. He wasn’t sure why he felt such a need to silence that fear of Minseok’s, perhaps it was because he knew what it felt like to be replaced. Minseok was visibly relieved and it almost made Luhan smile. Almost.

    “No, I’m not, but that’s what moving on is, Minseok. It’s saying goodbye to the past and making a new future, and you just can’t be a part of that future. Not mine. Eventually I’ll meet someone else and eventually I’ll fall in love again, but not with you,” He explained. Minseok couldn’t hear anymore. This was just too much for his heart to handle. It already felt like it had been ripped from his chest and thrown on the ground, but Luhan was just stomping it into the dirt at this point. He stood up from his seat and brought his nearly empty coffee mug to the dish bin the coffee shop had before returning and picking up his keys and his bag.

    “Where are you going?” Luhan asked, a slightly noticeable panic in his voice. It would be impossible to get Minseok to meet him again after he believed there was no way to win Luhan over, and Luhan couldn’t have that. He needed these papers signed, he needed to see him again, he needed something.

    “I’m going home. Text me your address and I’ll come by tomorrow to sign the papers. I just can't today, I need some time,” He said simply and turned to leave. The jingle of the bell on the door as it opened and closed felt like the loudest sound Luhan had ever heard. This is what he wanted. Minseok would sign the papers, they would be divorced and Luhan could move on with his life. He asked for this, so why did he feel so empty. Tears dripped from his chin onto the table as he stared at a painting of a man and woman riding bikes together through a field of flowers that was hung on the wall. They had bright smiles on their faces as if they were laughing and Luhan remembered for a moment what it was like to be that happy. He felt it for hardly even a second when he saw Minseok’s face after walking inside, but that happiness was immediately extinguished by the ice cold water of reality. Luhan was divorcing the only man he had ever loved, and only now did he realise Minseok would continue to be just that. The only man Luhan would ever love.

A/N: Greetings my lovely subscribers. I was inspired by some requests for a sequel to this story and once I started putting some ideas down on paper I couldn't stop. There will be at least one more chapter to this story and I'm fairly sure that will be the final chapter. I don't want to turn this into a big thing since it was originally intended to just be a one-shot, but whatever, here we are. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and this story, update coming soon.

-SK