it was the night after a large rain, and the temperatures were akin to that of winter.

seulgi is bundled in a thick layer of coats as she waits for jimin to open the door. in both hands, she carries a tied bag of assorted containers, full of the homemade dishes she had made for him just a few hours ago.

she'd taken special care to prepare what she'd remembered were his favorite dishes in her spare time that afternoon—cooking was something she enjoyed, but had lack of time and energy to do often. however, today, as yerim had told her, was the second anniversary of the day jimin's heart was broken by his previous girlfriend, and seulgi wanted nothing less than the make jimin happy—and a selfish part of her, wished that she could fill the gaps of what had been lost two years ago, even though jimin had never told her explicitly about what exactly had happened, and neither had seulgi asked. 

she's met with a warm embrace as soon as the door swings open, nose pressed against familiar chest and surrounded by the scent of park jimin fresh out of the shower. 

"seulgi, it's freezing." he murmurs, pressing his warm lips on her forehead. "you should have told me you were coming. what if you caught a cold while waiting outside?" 

"i brought you dinner." seulgi simply says, wiggling out of his grasp to hold the containers up for him to see. "i made it myself." 

jimin reaches to close the door shut before taking the bag out of her hands. "i don't deserve you." he jokes as he walks to the small, round dinner table which was just beyond the television.

"i was thinking we could go out for a movie later, too." seulgi says from the kitchen counter as he unpacks the containers carefully. 

jimin nods, turning to face her.

"seul, thank you." a bit of his satoori accent slips from his tongue as he says this. having moved from busan three years ago, jimin was like her in that they'd both yet to truly assume the lives of a seoulite. 

"for what?" she tilts her head with a shy grin, watching as he parts his lips to speak, but hesitates. 

"for everything." he finally says, to which she nods, eyes disappearing under ardent eyelashes when he leans forward and swoops her in by the waist.

everything falls in the natural order of things—her hands find way to the base of his neck, sliding into the soft locks of his raven hair, her head tilts and her lips find his. she feels his strong, lightly muscled arm circle around the small circumference of her body, tensing slightly when his tongue flickers teasingly in .

"park jimin," she laughs breathily as she leans her forehead against his, "i'm thankful for you, too."

she stays for the meal, and an hour later, they stroll down the streets of seoul.

seulgi finds herself glancing down out of the corner of her eye, watching his empty hands swing to and fro as they walk. she wonders, for that moment, if he'd like it if she held his hand.

they'd never been much of a public display couple. seulgi often most preferred things as such; inwardly she thought that relationships were more likely to be genuine when kept between the two involved. and truthfully, jimin was already very attentive to her both when around many people or when not—seulgi was more than grateful for his ability to read her body language and facial expressions quite well—his playful taps of the foot underneath the table whenever she looked down or the soothing weight of his arm around her shoulders after a tiring day at the coffee shop were more comforting to seulgi than anything else.

seulgi bites her lip when he shoves his hands into the pocket of his jacket, a frown unconsciously forming on the curve of her brow.

"what's on your mind?" jimin chuckles as he dodges a running schoolboy on the sidewalk. she glances up to meet his gaze, and in his eyes she finds her own reflection.

"i just thought about holding your hand." she laughs nervously, cheeks burning as she watches jimin's hands suddenly fumble in the pocket of his jacket.

embarrassed, seulgi walks forward a little, craning her neck to feign ignorance to what she had just said. just as she takes another step, he catches her knuckles in his, stopping her in her tracks with a jolt.

seulgi jumps slightly at the sensation of the back of his hand brushing hers, at the unconscious spreading of her fingers in that fan-like motion, letting him interweave his fingers with hers. when she turns back in confusion, he only smiles as he places their now intertwined hands in the pocket of his coat, which is warm from his hand being there earlier.

seulgi stares at his pocket for a moment before letting out a giggle, a true, unrestrained sound of mirth which makes her entire body thrum and her lips stretch and her cheeks tingle. he tugs her backwards a little so that they are side by side, and she tilts her head to the right and leans on his shoulder as they stand behind the crowd at the intersection of seoul's two busiest streets, hand in hand.

when the light signals for their crossing, they walk, steps aligned, clinging to each other amongst the sea of people.

—

joy had just returned from her second big business trip of the year. in the past few months, she'd built up her own branch of her father's business after snatching the collaboration deal that had convinced her father to finally let her manage things of her own. 

tonight, she was out meeting seokjin, who'd just come off his shift half an hour ago.

"how was europe?" he asks as they are seated in a booth, and joy claps her hands together delightedly.

"it was amazing." she answers, the largest smile on her red lips as she turns to dig into her purse for the gift she'd gotten him. "my clients really liked me. they said i had a lot of potential, and the food was great and the scenery was beautiful and oh—this is for you."

she slides a small gift box across the table, "i missed you while in germany, so i got you this." 

"what is it?" he glances quizzically at her, and she nudges the box further towards him. 

"you'll see."

tugging on the ribbon, seokjin opens the box to find a gorgeously made chanel watch inside, and though the price tag had long been tucked away, one could tell in a quick glance that it was worth thousands of dollars.

joy doesn't seem to notice the way seokjin's eyes suddenly harden and his lips pale, instead she stares eagerly at him for some sort of reaction to her gift.

"do you like it?" she asks expectantly.

to her surprise, he only his lips dryly. 

"joy, don't you think i'm not made for this type of thing?" he says softly, and joy doesn't seem to catch the way his fingers curl into a fist on the table, or the way his jaw tightens.

"what type of thing?" she laughs as she fingers the watch in its case. "it suits you, trust me. i picked it out myself, you know." she adds with a playful wink.

but seokjin doesn't crack a large grin like he usually would. instead, he looks tired.

"no, not that." he sighs, causing her smile to dissipate as he places the lid back on the box, "i meant this relationship, joy. don't you think at this point, it's a bit, i don't know, meaningless?"

meaningless.

the word echoes in the back of her mind, the sinking feeling in her chest at the moment suddenly suffocating her.

joy swallows painfully, eyes narrowing down at her silverware as she chokes out, "did something happen at work today? is that why you're in a bad mood?"

step one was always denial.

perhaps he'd lost another one of his patients during surgery, perhaps he was just worn out from his shift. she didn't know anything except that she refused to believe he had meant what he had just said.

"no, nothing happened." he shakes his head, and joy's heart just about shatters. "what i was saying was, i'm a just a doctor. there's nothing special about me." he continues, to no avail.

there is something odd in the way he speaks to her at that moment, as if he is distant, too far away for her to reach, but more so as if he's already made some kind of decision.

"what...what do you mean?" joy asks slowly, confusion filling the crease in her brow. "of course you're special to me, seokjin. it's why you're my boyfriend, and it's why i clung to you since the day i met you."

she feels her grip around the spoon in her hand tighten slightly. if there was one thing joy always counted on, it was her instinct. for better or for worse, she had used this instinct much in her life. she used the gut feeling in her stomach to consider taking risks, and she used it to judge people, and she used it to know when to brace herself if she felt like things were about to go awry. and in that moment, something in the back of her mind told her that her heart was about to be broken.

"something happened at home, didn't it? are your parents okay? your sister?" she presses on, almost pleading, still not wanting to accept that for the first time in her life, someone—other than her grandmother —didn't want her anymore. "it's because of the watch, isn't it? i'll have it returned—"

but seokjin doesn't budge. "joy, i'm being serious right now. between you and me, there has to have been some sort of challenge to it."

"challenge." joy repeats the word dully from her seat, her hand trembling. she doesn't look up from her plate, because she is afraid of what she will see in his eyes.

she is afraid to look, because the smart, cunning side of her knows, the side that everyone so loved and hated at the same time, the side that made park sooyoung fiercely witty and quick to the tongue—that the old park sooyoung would never have let this situation on herself, that the old park sooyoung always had the upper hand and never let anyone hurt her like this.

that the old park sooyoung, the proud, arrogant, snarky heiress with the inwardly kind heart, would never have loved someone enough to let them break up with her rather than vice versa.

she used to laugh at all the heartbroken women in movies, at the ditzy lovers in books, at the drunk, thrown away girls at the clubs she partied in. she used to laugh at son seungwan, for letting the admittance of her own flaws run over her head and ruin her chances at a relationship.

now, she, park sooyoung, was no better.

but the worst part was that she had walked into it willingly, naively, and she would walk out of it not only understanding the women she had laughed at, the women she had told herself she would never be, but she would become one of them herself.

there was no other reason for this other than because park sooyoung really, truly, did love kim seokjin.

but to him, she was no better than the average rich girl.

"yes, a challenge. i was a challenge to you. i didn't give you what you wanted easily like other guys probably would have. i don't listen to you all the time, i'm hard to approach and hard to talk to. but eventually, you'll have gotten what you wanted, and i won't be fun anymore." he says, voice void of emotion.

there is silence at the table as joy takes a sip of her water before taking a deep, ragged breath.

"is that really what you think of me?" she finally brings herself to ask, blinking at the ceiling to hold back the beginnings of tears. "you always thought you were nothing but a challenge to me?"

she finally looks at him, searching his eyes for any bit of pain, any ounce of sympathy. but she soon realizes she shouldn't have looked—because not knowing is better than knowing that there is none.

"people like you have everything you could want, so it makes sense to try to get something you think you can't have." he answers.

the first tear falls soundlessly onto the plate.

she'd been trying so hard to prove that she was worth more than her image, more than the stereotype of being a rich daddy's little girl who couldn't do more than sleep around and spend money and throw a fit. she'd thrown away her pride hoping that maybe, somehow, she'd grow out of the shell that everyone—including herself—had confined her in, that people would come to see park sooyoung as less of a plastic brat and more as a person.

but the person she had given her heart to, who she thought would understand her the most, never, ever did.

"kim seokjin, how could you?" she sobs, and before she knows it, she's grabbed her things and out of the restaurant and on her way to the car.

it's only until she reaches the elevator of her apartment complex that she feels the multitude of hot tears flowing down her cheeks and onto her dress.

when the heavy doors slide open, she enters blindly, nearly tripping onto the floor as she bumps into a young man wearing casual attire that mocked that of a college teaching assistant.

"hey, are you okay?" the man asks, holding her from stumbling by the elbow, and she gives the man a quick up-down glance. he has mussed, curled raven hair that looks like he had just woken up not too long ago, with lean muscled arms and tanned, golden skin.

joy glares at the stranger, sniffing back another sob before shoving past him and into the elevator. 

when the metal doors close, she's alone.