The morning sunlight filtered through the blinds, creeping over the two tangled inhabitants comfortably tucked under heavy covers. Seulgi woke up to temporary blindness and the soft caress of Jaehyun’s fingers, sprawled haphazardly over his chest.

She liked the feeling of her bare skin on his. The thought of the previous night brought the heat back to her cheeks, but the rest of her body didn’t seem to mind. In his embrace, she felt warm – safe. Like everything could come crashing down and she’d still have a place to go, a person to turn to. And perhaps, that was how it was supposed to feel like. Perhaps it was okay to feel like that.

Jaehyun drew lazy circles on her skin and combed his hand through her hair, head resting on top of hers. “Your hair’s so fluffy,” he commented, picking up a clump of said tendrils.

“Shut up,” Seulgi grumbled. Her eyes were still tired and heavy-lidded. If he wanted her up for so many rounds then he at least needed to have the decency to let her rest. “I want to sleep.”

“It is really fluffy, though.” She could tell he was still fascinated by her hair. Annoying idiot. “You kind of look like a lion.”

She heaved a sigh and shifted her arms, intending to roll away to the neglected, colder half of the bed. A sort of rebellion that she knew would likely fail but had to try anyway, just to put him in his place. She was swiftly stopped by Jaehyun, who caught her by the shoulders and tugged her back to his chest, laughing in his soft, contented baritone.

He pushed her stray hairs from her face and placed a flutter of soft kisses on her forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t go.”

She knew he was lying, probably not the faintest bit sorry, and would likely go back to making strange –harmless, but strange– remarks about her hair, maybe even her toenails. But Seulgi was both too sleepy and too happy to mind. She started up her efforts towards waking up instead, opening her eyes to a halfway point and stretching her arms over the rest of him. He didn’t budge. Seemed like he didn’t mind being her personal yoga mat.

His face came into view – tired, handsome and dimpled, more radiant and comforting than the morning sun. She could get used to that, if she wasn’t already. She reached a free hand towards him and tangled it in his hair, which was curling at his neck.

“Your hair’s getting pretty long, too,” she observed.

He reflexively patted the back of his head, the ebbs and flows of his muscles distinct under the warm light. God, she thought. She’d always known he was handsome, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. He’d never let her off.

“When was the last time you cut it?” she asked, not sure if she was trying to distract him or herself.

“I don’t know,” Jaehyun replied, “but I do plan on keeping a mullet. Unless you want me to cut it off.”

“No, it’s fine. I like it.”

A cheeky smile tugged the edges of his lips, and something told her she’d played right into his trap – a trap that he’d managed to set from her innocuous question. I hate this idiot.

He stopped her from frowning by craning his neck and kissing her, diminishing all her earlier attempts to calm her thundering heart. His lips were soft and warm on hers, and Seulgi gave up, letting herself sink into him again. She could regret it all later – or not regret, doesn’t matter.

“You know,” he whispered, pulling away – but only slightly, “I think I really didn’t think this through.”

His eyes were shiny and mischievous. Seulgi already knew what he was going to say, and so she preemptively chuckled.

“Why?” she asked. “Afraid Taeil-oppa is going to barge in with a chopper?”

He laughed. “That, and I probably should’ve brought protection.”

Her cheeks were burning again, so she nuzzled her face back into his chest before he could notice. With Jaehyun, she had to be strategic, or they’d never make it out of the bed.

“You probably should’ve,” she agreed.

We probably should’ve, Seulgi thought, chiding herself. All the schooltime lectures on education were coming back to her, and she felt like that one guilty kid who didn’t read the manual before going straight into it. She used to be on the opposite end of the spectrum – the straight-laced prude who didn’t believe in spontaneity and falling in love. She just hoped Taeil had been dead asleep all night, in a slumber deep enough to block out what had happened in his guest room. He’d already specified for Jaehyun to sleep on the couch.

“Though,” Jaehyun continued, “I think I’d make a pretty good dad.”

Seulgi winced. She continued to look away. “Well,” she hesitated, “I’ve never really wanted kids.”

“Afraid you’d be a ty parent?”

Jaehyun knew her much too well. “Stop reading my mind,” she complained. He responded with another peck on the top of her head.

But he’d read her pretty accurately. Between her parents’ fallout and her around-the-clock job, she’d never considered having kids. “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” Seulgi remembered Jungwoo’s favorite quote by heart. And the last thing she wanted was to be a living personification of it.

Johnny’s parents were in Chicago, Wendy didn’t have her parents, and Yuta, for the longest time, lived without parents, but for the remainder of them whose parents were still alive in close proximity, Seulgi knew the irreparable damage had been done.

Jaehyun probably noticed her mind wandering away. “I used to think that too.”

She thought so. “What changed your mind?”

She instinctively tilted her head upwards to look at him, but the deep, deliberate look in her eyes made her turn away. She could hazard a guess at his answer, and she wasn’t sure her heart was prepared for the conversation that would follow.

“I’m just saying, if anything happens, I’ll take responsibility,” he clarified.

“Nonsense,” she mumbled. She was still hiding her cheeks. “You’re not even my husband.”

Wrong answer. “But I could be,” he replied softly.

Seulgi felt her heart stop. Oh, god.

Seulgi drew her breath, mustering the little bit of courage she had left that hadn’t been scraped away the night before. She slowly shifted her weight on top of him, bringing their faces to the same level. He gazed at her – quiet, tranquil, but sure.

“Jaehyun.”

“Seulgi.”

He said her name with a solemnness that mirrored hers, adding in a slight hint of cheek. “Jaehyun,” she repeated, “you know where I stand. I can’t promise you anything. I… I’m not ready for this.”

“I know,” he nodded.

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do. I know, and like I said, I don’t expect anything. Just that we stop with this stupid farce of being friends and acknowledge that there is something more. And we can take the time to figure it out.”

He caressed her cheek, smiling softly at her. Seulgi could feel herself melt away. She didn’t even know how she managed to last that long, in quiet rebellion. Perhaps, she just didn’t think he’d still be there, standing his ground and weathering the storm. But he was. He did.

“I’d even consider calling it ‘friends-with-benefits’,” he joked, “but it seems a little cliché. And I’d hate the ‘friends’ bit of it.”

Seulgi laughed. “Fine.”

He gazed at her, lips slowly parting. She already knew what he was going to say. “I love–“

“Don’t say it,” Seulgi said, cupping a hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it for a while, or you’ll make me feel bad for not being ready to say it back to you. Give me some time.”

Seulgi didn’t mean to be cruel, but those were loaded words. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel the same. Jaehyun perhaps didn’t know the full weight of them, but Seulgi did. She knew what they meant. She knew what commitments came with them. And she didn’t want to be the who reversed them.

Jaehyun pulled her close. “Okay,” he said, “as long as you know.”

“I do.”

“Then, okay.”

He kissed her again, his tongue gentle and patient, like he was asking her for permission. She straddled herself on his lap and circled her arms around his neck. She drew herself closer, letting herself get lost in him, letting herself drown in the moment. Jaehyun was warm, so warm, and with him was all she wanted to be–

“Seulgi!”

Taeil’s urgent rapping on the door broke them apart, quickly and alarmedly. “Seulgi! Are you up? Wake up! We need to make breakfast!” Taeil called.

“I’m up!” Seulgi hurriedly replied, still on Jaehyun’s lap and thanking every otherworldly deity she could that she and Jaehyun had the sense to lock the door.

“Okay! Don’t go back to sleep, okay?” Taeil nagged. Seulgi nearly rolled her eyes. “Also, have you seen Jaehyun? Did he go back? He’s not on the couch!”

She stared at Jaehyun, mullet disheveled and chest bare, grinning wickedly at her.

“I don’t know!” she snapped back, quickly pecking Jaehyun on the lips and clambering out of the bed before he could pull her back down.

Seulgi should have known that giving Jaehyun a key meant basically opening the whole damn door. There he was, between flipping pancakes and scrambling eggs, still having the hands to slide around her waist and pull her towards him.

Right. In front. Of. Her. Brother.

She was grateful Taeil lost all spatial awareness when he was tending to his plants. She probably should’ve started giving them names, with the way he babied them. It was the same guy who used to romp around flower gardens in his soccer boots, squashing poppies and daisies and making the girls squirm. Now, he’d grown to become a whole florist, apron, watering can and all.

He got a few nuzzles into her neck before she smacked him away, thankfully also before Taeil turned his head. “So, where were you this morning, Jaehyun?” Taeil asked. “Thought you went back.”

“I went to the convenience store,” Jaehyun lied – not really, since he did climb out of the window in the guest room, running to the store to grab some eggs before he reentered by the front door. A very grand escape plan, considering him and Seulgi had been basically joined at the hip for years.

“Well, you’re an early riser,” Taeil replied absentmindedly. “You should pass some of that to Seulgi – she’s always sleeping in and being late.”

Taeil had meant it as a harmless comment – obviously, since he had no context whatsoever. Jaehyun, however, did, and he was staring at her in the most suggestive, annoying way that she was so close to knocking the living daylights out of him. Seulgi didn’t think she’d feel like a child who shoplifted the latest toy at the age of thirty-four. She never as much as told a white lie to her brother in her younger days, so even she found it silly that she was keeping things under wraps, especially when he probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid. He’d be slightly startled, but she knew he’d already seen it coming. It was for her, not for him.

The whole act was for her, in order for her to come to terms that things would change. Things had to change.

“Jaehyun takes naps,” Seulgi said begrudgingly, pushing her new –well, not really new– beau and making her way to the dining table. “He’s a nuisance to Jungwoo and the rest of his office, with the amount of work he manages to skirt.”

Jaehyun snorted. After where they had taken things the night before, she could call him anything in the book and he’d find her incredibly hot. Chuckling, he switched off the stove and rolled his works of culinary art into a bunch of plates, carrying them to the pair of siblings.

“How’s your family?” Taeil asked, watching Jaehyun pull a chair next to Seulgi.

“They’re fine,” he replied. “My dad’s on his business trips, my mom’s taking ikebana classes, and my sisters should be somewhere in Paris, or wherever’s expensive enough for their taste. Same old, same old.”

“Didn’t you tell me that Sooyeon-unnie’s been in Seoul more often these days?” asked Seulgi.

Jaehyun shrugged. “I guess. Don’t really want to know her itinerary – or it’s price tag. That’s for Taecyeon-hyung to manage.”

Jaehyun was piling food onto her plate like it was second skin, and Seulgi didn’t know why things he seemed to be doing for a lifetime suddenly made her heart do little catapults in her chest. She’d spent the same lifetime training herself to ignore it all, but it was like her efforts didn’t even exist. It was a sign he’d won and she’d suffered a complete, crushing defeat, but she definitely wasn’t going to tell him that.

“How about Soojung?” Taeil asked, looking up from his plate. “How’s Soojung?”

“She’s definitely still abroad. And shopping. Don’t know why my dad hasn’t pulled her credit cards yet,” Jaehyun said. “Anyway, last I heard, she’s flying back sometime next week.”

Taeil nodded. “That’s good to hear. When she’s back, tell her to stop by for a meal.”

“Sure.” A thought came to mind, and he grinned at Seulgi. “Or you and Seulgi can stop by my place to see the rest of the family.”

Forget the butterflies and catapults – Seulgi could throttle him. “No, we won’t,” she said, before Taeil could acquiesce. “Soojung can come over.”

Taeil probably raised a wry, confused brow, and lapsed back into blissful ignorance, hungrily tucking into his pancakes and eggs. Seulgi continued to shoot Jaehyun death-glares for a bit, especially as he continued to grin smugly and tickle her palm.

Yeah, she thought. She definitely had to throttle the cheeky bastard.

“Jungwoo in his office?”

Jaehyun leaned over the counter, to which the other receptionists seemed to vaporize away. Ningning was the only one who seemed to glare unaffectedly at him, mostly because he was the one still holding her to the skeleton in her closets.

The clinic was busy – oddly busy, even for a Saturday mid-morning. He could’ve chalked it to his generally selective disinterest towards work on the weekends, but the place definitely wasn’t usually that busy. Guess Valentine’s Day only can help that much, he thought, humoring himself.

“Yeah, he is,” Ningning replied.

He nodded and was about to head towards Jungwoo’s office, before he backtracked. “You know,” he said, craning his neck over the counter, “after all the trouble you’ve caused, it’s funny how you still haven’t been able to get him to take you out on a date.”

Ningning took one quick look to her left and right, making sure her colleagues were nicely out of earshot before she leaned towards his ear. “With all due respect, jackass,” she hissed, “mind your own ing business.”

“I was, before you made a proper mess of things,” Jaehyun reminded. “Tell me, does your brother know you’re still here? I’ve been seeing him around these days.”

Ningning glowered at him. “And should I tell Seulgi how you spend your days pathetically pining over her?”

Jaehyun resumed his stance, smirking and triumphant. “Go ahead,” he said, a little more loudly this time. “She already knows.” He shot her a little wink. “Can’t say the same for you and J–“

“Thank you, Dr. Jung!” Ningning interrupted him, giving him a warning look: Kindly off.

Jaehyun laughed his way to Jungwoo’s office. He could actually keep the up, just so he could torment Ningning a little in the office. It was petty, but he did have to get back at her for getting Seulgi all confused a couple months back.

He quite liked her, though. Especially for the awkward, bird-brained twit Kim Jungwoo. Somebody had to take the reins, after all.

“Hello,” Jaehyun said, barging into Jungwoo’s office and as usual, giving the latter a fright.

“Jesus!” Jungwoo yelled. “ing knock, damn it.”

“Why bother – it’s not like you’re all about courtesy,” Jaehyun said, much to Jungwoo’s ire. He sprawled himself on Jungwoo’s couch. “Why’re you here on a Saturday?”

“Why are you never here on a Saturday?” Jungwoo shot back, so begrudgingly that Jaehyun wondered whether he and Seulgi were truly unrelated by blood. “Goddamn face.”