It’s noon on a Sunday, and Sehun has nothing to do. He’s cleaned the living room, finished the next level in Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and cooked lunch. Now he’s sitting on the couch, staring towards the TV, his socked feet on the table and the bowl of ramen in his lap. Mikyung isn’t home. That’s really where his boredom stems from. She’s out with friends and he’s home alone, staring at the blank walls and counting the seconds until she returns again.

Mikyung has tried pushing him towards meeting others, but Sehun drowns himself in work and excused himself with exhaustion when he returned home. The excuses haven’t led to meeting new people, however, and so Sehun spends most of his weekends home. Mikyung is usually with him, but she has people to meet, hobbies to practice and work that sometimes extends into the weekends. Her smile has grown brighter and Sehun’s feels dimmer every day. After he met up with Jongin a week ago, it has been harder to shake off the unsettling doubt that has started to slither into his thoughts. He’s not doubting his marriage or his wife. It’s the decision to move away from everything he had, all the things he will never get again.

Sehun shakes his head to stop the doubt from manifesting. He accidentally bites down on his cheek and a trickle of blood flavors the bite of ramen.

He has only eaten half of it when he puts it down on the coffee table, no longer hungry. He turns to look out of the window. In Seoul there had been snow, white dust covering the roads and the buildings as the flakes fell from the sky. In Busan there are clouds in the sky and golden sand on the beaches. He pulls his feet off the table and stands up to throw the ramen away.

The laundry basket is full of clothes, so he loads the washing machine and presses start. His mother would be so proud of him doing housework like this. His old apartment hadn’t exactly been the poster image of cleanliness. The thought settles in his stomach. No matter how often he used to complain about his and Mikyung’s parents coming over, having them so far away now feels weird and a little empty. He’s not sure if he’s just imagining it, but he might be missing their unannounced visits. He settles with his computer, looking up the newest issue of Korean Journal of Dermatology and falls into an article on Majocchi’s disease.

He doesn’t look up from his computer in the next couple of hours, the article inspiring him to look up more information. He feels like a student again, notepad beside him as he writes down notes. He doesn’t need the notes, but he remembers better when he writes it out first, the knowledge moving through his fingers and onto the paper. The front door opening is what brings him out of his head. He looks over to find Mikyung with a smile on her face, but it fades when she finds him in front of his computer. Sehun wipes his hand over the corner of his mouth, worried there might be something stuck, but finds nothing with his fingers.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

Mikyung’s smile slowly lifts the corners of her lips again. She sheds her shoes and walks over to plop down next to him on the couch, gently removing the pen between his fingers and linking them.

“Have you been sitting here all day?”

Sehun shakes his head. “I also cleaned the living room, played Spyro, and started a load of laundry,” he says, grinning at her.

The couch moves with Mikyung as she rearranges herself so she can grab both of his hands. Sehun’s grin fades. Why does she look so worried? There’s nothing wrong with relaxing around the house on a Sunday.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.

Mikyung sighs before she sends him a soft smile. Her fingers are caressing his knuckles. “It just worries me that you never leave the house.”

Sehun frowns. He leaves the house when he goes to work or when they go surfing. He left for Seoul a week ago for a conference and he buys groceries sometimes.

“I do leave the house,” he says, a note of confusion lifting his voice at the end. Mikyung lets out a small chuckle, enough to brighten the worried look in her eyes.

“Okay.” There’s a lingering softness to the word, something that strikes Sehun as a little odd, but he doesn’t argue. Instead he unlinks their fingers and leans over to wrap his arms around her. She gently pulls him closer and rests her head on his shoulder and he closes his eyes. When they hug like this, everything slots into place. Everything will be okay as long as he has Mikyung like this. Hugs drive away the doubts and the numbness that sometimes overwhelm him.

She pulls away first and presses a quick kiss to his lips. “Hey,” she whispers. Sehun chuckles and gently rests his nose on hers, before he pulls away.

“How was your lunch date?” he asks and Mikyung launches into a retelling of her day. Her friend is seeing someone new again, only three months after she split with her ex-boyfriend, but this one is “for real”, apparently. They had seafood for lunch and discussed the new gym opening nearby. Sehun listens attentively and nods in all the right places. Seeing Mikyung happy makes him happy too. When she finishes, he rearranges himself and pulls her into his side. Mikyung rests against him and Sehun smiles.

“Maybe we could visit that gym,” he says and she looks up at him incredulously.

“You?” she snorts.

Sehun pokes a finger in her side and she squirms. “Are you afraid to challenge me?”

Mikyung laughs when he pokes the finger back in, finding her ticklish spot. She shakes her head. “I would definitely win that challenge.” She smiles at him victoriously and Sehun lets her have it. She probably would win over him in any fitness challenge that he could come up with. He hasn’t been to the gym in years.

“We could go Tuesday afternoon? I’m off late tomorrow.”

Mikyung’s smile falters. “I can’t. I promised Sooji we would attend a pottery class together on Tuesday.” Mikyung sends him a guilty smile. “Why don’t you go by yourself on Tuesday and let me know if it’s any good?”

Sehun barely manages not to sigh. He doesn’t want to go alone. He wants to go with Mikyung. He wants to hear her laughter as he does something silly. He doesn’t want to work out surrounded by strangers. That wasn’t the point.

He also knows that if he admits this to Mikyung, the worried smile she had arrived home with will return to her face, and he doesn’t want that. He can find a plausible excuse not to go on the day.

He nods. “Okay, I’ll check it out.” The words have Mikyung’s face lighting up in happiness he didn’t know he hadn’t seen for a long time, and Sehun’s heart warms. If agreeing to go out makes her this happy, Sehun should do it more often.

The washing machine lets them know it has finished its cycle by beeping loudly into the room, so Sehun gets up. The damp laundry feels cold in his hands as he transfers it to the laundry basket. His feet slip across the floor as he brings the basket with him to their small terrace to hang up the laundry. The motion is repetitive and mindless and his mind drifts.

He has just hung the last sock on the sock-holder when he feels two small hands wrap around his waist and a weight settle on his back. The warm breath on his neck makes goosebump rise on his arms. A smile slips onto his lips and he reaches down to grab a hold of one of her hands, squeezing her fingers.

“I love you, Sehun,” she whispers into his ear.

Sehun turns around in her hold, forcing her to slightly let go of him before she again reaches out to hug him, her head resting against his chest. He folds his arms around her, a hand soothing up and down her back and he closes his eyes. “I love you too,” he whispers back and leans down to press his lips against her hair.

She pulls back to look up at him. “I worry about you.”

Sehun’s heart fractures a tiny bit. There is nothing to worry about. Sehun is happy as long as he has Mikyung. Her happiness matters to him. He has told her so many times before.

He sends her a soft smile and pushes the stray hair from her face. “You don’t have to worry. I’m okay. I have you.”

Mikyung bites her lower lip before a small sigh slips past. “That’s what worries me.” Her voice has changed to a whisper. Sehun’s arms go a little loose around her, not quite letting go but not quite holding on either. Mikyung reaches up to run a finger over his cheek, from the corner of his eye to the bottom of his chin. “I want you to be happy too, not just okay. I really don’t want you to regret doing this for me.”

The words make Sehun feel hollow. He recalls the discussion they’d had, the almost-fight over the phone, when he told her he wanted to move. She’d worried then that he would regret it and he had assured her that it would never happen as long as he had her.

Claws of guilt shred his conscience to pieces as he realises he just hours earlier was doubting his decision to move. It has nothing to do with Mikyung and everything to do with his own inability to readjust and drag himself out of this rut he’s gotten himself stuck in.

He sighs, and only realises it when Minkyung nudges him with her nose. “See,” she says.

Sehun shakes his head. “I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.”

Mikyung sends him a knowing look. Sehun does his best to send her one back. He refuses to acknowledge his loneliness and his doubts. They’re all silly. Sehun is an adult. He has a great job. He’s married the woman of his dreams. Being separated as husband and wife in two different cities again is not a thought he’s willing to even toy around with.

He pulls out of her hold and grabs her hand instead. “Let’s go inside.”

Mikyung tags along, hands holding onto his in a firm grip, and Sehun feels his heart mend a little from the tiny cracks of doubt. He walks them to the kitchen and turns around to pull Mikyung into another hug.

“Can we please talk about this?” she mumbles into his chest.

Sehun shakes his head a little. He will deal with this himself. He will find friends, be social, find hobbies - he will force himself to do better. He won’t allow himself to make an excuse to get out of trying the new gym alone on Tuesday. He will prove to her that he doesn’t regret his decision. “I promise, I’m okay,” he tells her. “I’m happy. Don’t worry about me. What do you want for dinner?”

They end up ordering dinner from Lotteria. Mikyung relaxes with her computer, playing a game of online mahjong. Sehun settles back with his journal. He’s on a particularly interesting article on the perception of tattoos in South Korea when the delivery guy knocks on the door. Mikyung jumps up and hurries on bare feet to open. As she returns with the bags there’s a smirk in her eyes.

“Let’s eat dinner in bed,” she says triumphantly and Sehun raises an eyebrow. They used to eat dinner in bed when they just started living together in their small apartment, cuddled up together. She wiggles the bags and starts giggling. “Come on! Like old times,” she says and reaches for their kitchen towel before she disappears into the bedroom. Sehun doesn’t cast the article another glance before he follows her into the bedroom.

Cuddled under their blanket, bodies pressed against each other with bags of food in their laps, he looks down at his wife and feels a warmth spread with his veins. The love he holds for her is immeasurable. He sneaks a hand behind her back and squeezes her waist and she looks up with a french fry hanging from her teeth. Sehun smiles and Mikyung bites off half the fry and puts it back into its container.

“What?” she asks.

Sehun lets his fingers dance over her body, tickling her gently. “Nothing,” he answers back, a little tease in his voice.

She makes a face, punches his thigh lightly and digs back into her food. The worries in her eyes have disappeared, but Sehun’s heart feels a little heavier as he reaches for his burger.

---

“How is life in general? Does anything that made you feel particularly positive or negative stand out?”

Baekhyun perks up at the question, redirecting his gaze from where he’d gotten transfixed by watching dust motes dance in the bright sunlight pouring through the blinds of Ryu Changwook’s window. They’ve just finished going through a few cognitive behavioural therapy exercises, and Changwook has been writing down some of the things Baekhyun had responded best to, so that he can remember to practice them at home.

This is his second session with Changwook. After his meltdown in front of Yeonseok four weeks ago, he’d initially gone back to his old psychiatrist, at the psychiatric building on the hospital campus. But although he’d been forced to see the necessity of continuing treatment, the resistance he’d felt to going back onto antidepressants had been so powerful that it only stressed him out even more. He’d tried to talk to his psychiatrist about managing his condition without drugs, but she hadn’t been open to the idea. She’d prescribed him the same antidepressants that he’d responded to before.

Baekhyun hadn’t filled the prescription. He just couldn’t take the drugs anymore. He hated them too much.

It was Minseok who’d suggested he try a psychologist, instead of a psychiatrist. He’d told Baekhyun how successfully his PTSD had been treated with non-pharmaceutical therapy, and recommended GreenLine Psychology, where his therapist, Fanxing, works. Baekhyun had leapt at the idea. He’d never gotten on particularly well with his psychiatrist, who always seemed to see him as a case, more than a person, wanting to throw drugs at him rather than listen to his own ideas and preferences. She’d dragged him out of the pit he’d been in at his worst, for which he’ll always be grateful, but for maintenance therapy, it just hadn’t been working out. It’s probably one of the reasons why it had been so easy to talk himself into quitting therapy. It was hard to have much enthusiasm for going to therapy when he’d come away each time feeling like a stupid child who should just do as the doctor tells him.

Changwook, Fanxing’s partner, is completely different, at least so far. For a start, he’s a psychologist, which means he can’t prescribe medications. He would refer a patient to a GP or a psychiatrist if medication was necessary, but he comes at the problem from a completely different angle, and he’d listened to Baekhyun’s worries about going back onto antidepressants and assured him that there are many ways to effectively manage and treat depression without them.

Changwook is an incredibly cheerful person, a quick speaker and quick thinker, with a wide, friendly smile and a great sense of humour. Baekhyun liked him immediately. He reminds him of Chanyeol in many ways. Changwook somehow manages to make the CBT exercises funny, talking back Baekhyun’s self-talk to him in such a way that it would make him laugh rather than feel small and pathetic. It suits Baekhyun’s personality far more to be able to laugh about things that many people would find too serious to joke about. Changwook doesn’t try to analyse Baekhyun’s dumb jokes, and he lets him have input into what he thinks would work for him and what wouldn’t.

“Something good did happen actually,” he tells Changwook. “I applied for two advanced fellowship courses starting next year, and I heard back from both of them a few days ago that I was accepted.”

“Congratulations!” Changwook looks as delighted as if it was he who had received the good news.

Baekhyun grins. “I’m really happy about it. I was worried I wouldn’t get either of them, because of how much time off I had to take earlier this year. That’s why I applied for both, actually. Now I just have to decide which one to accept.”

“What are the fellowships in?”

“Burns reconstruction, and cosmetic surgery. I was just hoping I’d get accepted into one of them. I have no idea how I’m going to decide now. I’m happy I got accepted, but I’m also kind of stressed out about it. I need to send back my acceptance this week and I don’t want to make the wrong choice.”

“Would you like to tell me what attracts you to each one?” Changwook asks.

Baekhyun nods, and explains to Changwook what attracts him to each of the fellowships. How he’s been interested in burns reconstruction for years and had always planned on doing it, but that in the last few months after meeting his boyfriend who is a cosmetic surgeon, he’s been increasingly attracted to the field of cosmetic surgery, too. He watches Changwook’s face surreptitiously for changes on mentioning that he has a boyfriend. Baekhyun isn’t ashamed of it and he’s not going to hide himself - he’s seen far too much of how that hurts Chanyeol and Yeonseok - but it’s still not a commonly accepted thing, and receiving discrimination is never pleasant, even if he’s confident in himself. But Changwook’s interested expression doesn’t falter, and he doesn’t stumble over the words when he asks Baekhyun how long he’s been with his boyfriend.

“We got together in July. He originally covered for me at the hospital while I was on extended sick leave, and then we got together after we both attended a plastic surgery conference. Do you remember the flooding at the start of the monsoon season?” Baekhyun goes off on a tangent telling Changwook all about the dramatic rescue he and Lu Han had performed, to which Changwook’s jaw drops in astonishment. He looks like a little kid hearing an exciting story, and it makes Baekhyun feel even more comfortable with the other man. They’re of a similar age, and if you took out the setting of a therapist’s office, with the shelves of medical texts and the framed certificates displaying Changwook’s qualifications, he would think he was chatting with a friend. Even the consultation room, being in an old building with nice furniture rather than a small, sterile office in a hospital setting, makes things so much more pleasant.

“That’s astonishing,” Changwook says when he’s finished telling the story. “They should be giving you and Lu Han civilian hero medals, or something.”

Baekhyun laughs,