showki: enlistment, pining, kihyun is a try-hard, but he's been conditioned that way, flashbacks

Kihyun doesn't do things by halves.

“Don't forget to eat your vegetables, sweetie."

“You know you don’t have to rehearse until midnight every time, right?”

At sunrise, the app on his phone shows the ENLISTED and REMAINING numbers as finally balanced. This is the hardest half he’s ever endured — not because he worked hard but because he couldn’t — but a half it will not remain. Time may be unrelenting, but neither is it cruel.

“I think I’ll miss your hugs the most. You hug like you mean it.”

(The thing about halves is that you need two to become whole.)