two weeks pass pretty uneventfully. when jiho comes back to their apartment, hansol pretends nothing happened and doesn't let him bring the subject up. he attends his lectures, sleeps through some of them and helps sangwon with his art project. he eats well, sleeps better, takes his medication and he feels like he's functioning pretty well again, despite the gnawing anxiety in his chest every morning.

that is because for these two weeks, everything is normal, except he wakes up early in the morning and can't fall back asleep. he's more tired in the evening but in the morning he's up as soon as at 5am. sometimes he just stays in bed and stares at the ceiling, sometimes he takes out his phone in defeat just to busy himself. but no matter what he does, he feels the familiar coil of anxiety in his gut, telling him something is wrong, you should be scared.

it isn't until three weeks of this that he realizes what's going on.

he calls sungah and asks her to have coffee with him. she doesn't ask any questions and her tone is almost indicative of her knowing this would happen.

when he arrives at the café, she's already there, nursing a green tea latte. she's wearing a hot pink tank top that ends above her midriff and there's a guy staring creepily at her from the other table. hansol quickly sits down next to her.

"hi, thanks for meeting me," hansol greets meekly.

sungah smiles knowingly and pats his hair (hansol immediately runs his hands through his hair to fix it again when she's done).

"it's okay! i needed a break from the cat lady anyways. i think i'm starting to grow fur on my clothes by now..." sungah complains half-heartedly and as if on cue, picks up a stray white cat hair from her black skirt and frowns at it.

"how's noona?"

"oh hyuna? she's alright, trying to convince me that we should adopt another cat. but i'm too young to be a mother to three cats and my girlfriend," sungah sighs dramatically.

"tell her moya and hoya would be jealous of another cat."

"hmm... good idea," sungah nods. "but that isn't why you brought me here, is it?"

hansol inhales deeply. a waitress approaches them before he has the chance to say anything and so he orders iced coffee. she calls them a cute couple before leaving and hansol feels an empty tug in his stomach, something telling him that this is how it should be - but it doesn't feel right.

"how did you know... you were..." hansol starts, but can't seem to finish the sentence, say the words because it's going to become real if he does.

"gay? the word is not gonna bite you."

hansol doesn't nod but sungah still seems to understand and continues.

"i didn't know. it's not a knowledge thing. it's just that one moment it hits you that there's no other word for what you... feel," sungah shrugs. "i dated a lot of boys when i was younger, slept around for a while too and it was fun but, none of the relationships were satisfying. and i was wondering for a long time if this is all that famous love crap and if so, it's pretty damn disappointing. and then i met hyuna and i don't know. it wasn't the same. i didn't feel like having with her or flaunting our relationship like i did with those guys. i just felt like she was right for me."

hansol nods.

"and i guess it's hard to explain. when i first thought i might be gay i was so scared! what would my parents do?! they would surely kill me! but i guess even after trying to deny that part of me for so long, it was still there. i dated other girls before hyuna, shortly. and it was so different from any guy i've dated," sungah pauses and looks at hansol, hot pink nails sliding into her hair.

"are you scared?" she asks.

and hansol can't look her in the eye, can't say yes, because this is the realest and most terrifying moment in his life probably.

sungah seems to understand. she slides her hand over to his and covers his paler hand with her tan, soft one.

she continues speaking softly.

"when i told my best friend i was crying so much and shaking and so scared. and she just up and left the room. the next time i saw her was when she was moving out of our shared dorm. she had requested a room change with our college. i cried for days afterwards, barely got out of my room. i felt like i would lose everyone now. when i told my dad, he told me not to tell my mother, that he would tell her himself. he told me he still loved me and i cried again. and then, after a lot of time, the anxiety lessened, until telling people 'hey, i have a girlfriend' became natural."

hansol takes a deep breath and closes his