It wasn’t until I arrived at Suho’s door that I noticed my heart beating wildly. I had already begun to reach out for the door bell, but let my hand sink down once again, now insecurely fondling one button of my trench coat. There was no sound around me; the rain softly pouring down behind my back had covered everything in its heavy silence. The only thing I heard was the muffled thumping coming from my chest, but it was loud enough for me to feel kind of alarmed.

I hadn’t exactly hurried to come here – at least not enough to be out of breath. And there had always been a subtle excitement building up in me whenever I went to see my boyfriend, but that wasn’t what I was experiencing right now. I didn’t feel bad, but the hardly audible rumbling in my stomach told me that what I felt was concern. My eyes fell back onto the name tag next to the door bell, ‘Kim Joonmyun’. Standing here at his scantily lit front door, I suddenly felt like turning back. Normally he wouldn’t call me up after six or seven o’clock out of politeness, and now that he did, I didn’t know what to think about it. I wanted to see him at every hour of the day, but knowing that he always valued my ‘privacy’, it surprised me that he decided to invite me at almost ten o’ clock.
Surprised.

And concerned.

I shook my head. What was I thinking? He propably just wanted to see me because he felt lonely. Or because he had read something he wanted to tell me about. I shoved away the thought of these possibilities being pretty unrealistic, shrugged my shoulders and finally rang the doorbell. It didn’t take longer than ten seconds until Suho opened. He scanned me with his eyebrows furred worriedly, and I had a feeling that he noticed every single rain drop that had left stains on my coat. But since I wasn’t damaged any further, he then put on a smile. ‘Hi’, he greeted me. I smiled as well, trying to hold back any awkwardness that my previous thoughts might have caused. And since I always felt warmer around him, it worked. ‘Hi’, I greeted back. ‘I hope you weren’t already heading to bed or something’, my boyfriend then started, but I hurriedly shook my head. ‘No, please, don’t worry about that’, I said, ‘the time is fine for me.’ He blinked and then nodded, stepping aside so I could come in. I smiled at him.

‘Thanks.’ He stood back behind me, closing the door when I was only halfway through because a wave of air pushed the rain into his doorway. So when he then turned around to face me, we both noticed that closing the door early had clearly narrowed the gap between our bodies. Our faces were only inches apart, and I felt a heat crawling up into my face. I gulped; he blinked and slightly opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something. But he didn’t.

Being this close was ‘new’ to us. We hadn’t hugged let alone kissed since the accident, and even though I had somehow managed to get used to that, I missed it. So every time we touched, I felt like I was close to exploding from my heart racing and my knees shaking, but I didn’t allow myself to let that show. I didn’t want to cause any pressure on Suho. And he seemed to understand. My boyfriend reached out his arm to touch mine and carefully caressed the back of my hand. His fingers felt warm and I had to restrain myself from shuddering. I looked up at him, smiling, and dared to tighten the grip on his fingers just a little. He nudged my hand with his and for a moment, we kept completely silent. We could hear the rain falling outside the door that we were standing at, but any word would just have spoiled the situation.

I heard him take a breath. ‘I’m glad you came’, he mumbled, not far away from my lips. He was aware of the short distance between us but didn’t intent on closing it completely whatsoever. I knew what and I was fine with it. I closed my eyes and laughed softly. Although his confusion still sometimes shocked me, I was always glad to see that he was trying hard to get himself together. He never really pushed me away anymore. And whenever we talked, even if it was just for a short time, he made sure that I knew how much he appreciated me being there for him. I always wanted to tell him that there was no need to be grateful in any way, but since him doing this seemed to be a sign of recovery, I didn’t talk back. Instead, I returned his loving words honestly, hoping that he would be able to sense that I meant everything. ‘Me too’, I said and then backed away a little to loosen the situation up a little. ‘Though, well … I’ll have to make up a good excuse to tell my couch. Maybe you could help me with that later.’

Suho laughed as he got the hint I had made towards our phone conversation, then he slowly walked past me, indicating me to follow him. ‘I guess I could’, he agreed, ‘but keep in mind that I don’t encourage lying.’

I clicked my tongue in fake disappointment as I tailed after him, arriving at his living room. I loved this place. It was neat and tidy with clear color schemes and shapes, and still full of personal details. Photos in frames hung above the couch and the CDs he displayed in shelves gave a quick but very true overview of his taste in music. This appartement was Suho, and I guessed that’s why I felt home so much.