Archive of Our Own

Seungmin’s mornings were always the same, and he liked them that way.

At precisely five o'clock, the shrill cry of his alarm shattered the stillness of his flat. It was not the type of sound designed to lull anyone awake gently—no birdsong, no pre-programmed sunrise tones. Just a piercing beep, cold and mechanical, that drilled directly into his brain. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and silenced it with a single, practised motion. There was no hesitation, no reaching for warmth or covers. Snoozing was for people who didn’t fear being late more than death itself.

From the adjacent room, the faint sound of Felix’s voice rose, half-hummed, half-sung, echoing under the water pressure of the shower. Today’s number was Girls’ Generation, if he wasn’t mistaken. Seungmin allowed himself a single exhale that might have resembled a smile before turning away. Felix always sang in the bathroom—loudly, unashamedly, and with a range that far exceeded the necessary octave for six in the morning.

Breakfast was an exercise in habit rather than creativity. He cracked two eggs into a pan, toasted a single slice of rye, and brewed exactly one cup of black coffee. The kitchen, if one could call it that without wincing, was a chaotic medley of three personalities forced into shared domesticity. The counters were decorated with too many sunflower-yellow mugs (Felix), half-finished protein shakes and medical journals stacked precariously (Jisung), and an exact, labelled drawer for tea and supplements (his own). The walls were cluttered with sticky notes, magnets, and one inexplicably glittery photo of the three of them on New Year’s Eve. Seungmin hated it. And yet, when the light hit just right and the air filled with the smell of Felix’s strawberry shampoo and burnt toast, it felt... tolerable. Even safe.

At six-fifteen, Jisung stumbled into the kitchen looking like he’d spent the night in a patient’s room instead of his own bed. His hair was defying gravity, and his eyes were a bloodshot tribute to the late nights he never admitted to regretting. “I’m up,” he mumbled, which was a lie, and reached for the fridge with the air of a man who did not know what day it was.

“You’re late,” Seungmin muttered without looking up from his toast.

“I’m always late.”

“And you’re always proud of it. Disgusting.” He took a sip of his coffee, letting the bitterness settle behind his teeth. “We leave in fifteen.”

“I know,” Jisung yawned. “God, you’re like a machine. One day you’re going to short-circuit and I’ll have to reboot you with a cup of iced Americano.”

Seungmin didn’t dignify that with a response.

By six-thirty, they were in his car. Seungmin drove, as always—Jisung’s license was a source of public concern and private amusement—and the ride was filled with familiar silence, punctuated by the occasional buzz of Felix’s phone in the backseat and Jisung’s occasional commentary on the traffic, the weather, or some bizarre thing he’d seen on hospital Twitter. When they arrived at Gwangil University Hospital, Felix peeled off with a bright wave, heading for the nurses’ changing rooms with the bounce of someone who’d actually slept.

“Try not to be evil today,” he called back to Seungmin, who grunted in return.

“Impossible,” Jisung added with a smirk.

They made their way into the residents’ locker room, where the air always smelt faintly of antiseptic and anxiety. The lockers clanged open. Scrubs were pulled on in silence, shoes tied with practised ease. Outside, the hospital began to stir properly, the first shift change painting the hallways in a blur of white coats and sleepy faces.

“Did you hear?” Jisung asked, pulling his stethoscope from his bag. “There’s a rumour about a new attending. Transferring in from... I don’t know, Busan, maybe? Big name. Might be our new boss.”

Seungmin raised a brow as he shut his locker. “Let me guess. You heard that from Dr. Lee.”

“I—what? No. I mean, maybe.”

“I just hope you’re using protection.”

“Kim Seungmin,” Jisung hissed, flushing pink to his ears. “I am not discussing my sex life with you in the hospital locker room.”

Seungmin smirked faintly, clearly satisfied. “Then don’t lie badly.”

Before Jisung could retort, both of their phones buzzed at once. Seungmin glanced at the notification on the staff app and let out a groan loud enough to make a nurse turn.

“Meeting with Dr. Park in twenty,” he read aloud, already rolling his eyes. “Let me guess. Another policy update, or—God willing—his retirement?”

Jisung chuckled. “You really hate him, huh?”

“He wears crocs in the operating theatre, Han,” Seungmin deadpanned. “Unironically.”

Jisung laughed harder. “Maybe they’re orthopaedic.”

“Maybe he’s a menace to modern medicine.”

The conference room at Gwangil University Hospital had the particular charm of an abandoned storage unit—stale, over-lit, and always just a touch too cold. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting a pale, unflattering sheen across the gathered staff like a surgical drape no one had bothered to straighten. Seungmin took his usual place near the middle-right, where he could see without being seen, while Jisung hovered beside him with the quiet fidget of someone trying not to look at someone else.

Dr. Lee Minho was already there, of course. He stood near the back wall, tall and perfectly still, arms crossed like some sharp-featured gargoyle in tailored navy blue. Despite being an attending, he chose not to sit, and Seungmin knew exactly why. His gaze drifted to Jisung—just briefly, just once—and then away, unreadable. Seungmin made a noise in his throat and rolled his eyes. It was going to be one of those mornings.

His faint hope that this would be the meeting Dr. Park finally announced his long-overdue retirement was dashed the moment his gaze fell on the unfamiliar man standing beside the chief. The stranger was neatly dressed in slate-grey scrubs beneath an unwrinkled white coat, hands clasped behind his back with the kind of quiet confidence that came from knowing one's own worth. He looked... new. And not in the green, wide-eyed way Seungmin associated with residents. No—this man looked settled , like he had come here by choice, not by luck. And Seungmin already hated that.

“Staff,” came Dr. Park’s voice, flat and familiar, “I’d like to introduce you to our new Head of General Surgery, Dr. Bang Chan.”

There was a pause, polite but expectant, before the chief continued, voice rising into the kind of overly formal register he reserved for awards ceremonies and department dinners. “Dr. Bang trained in Sydney, Australia, where he received high distinction in both general and trauma surgery. He later returned to Korea to complete his subspecialty training and has since been leading a top trauma unit in Busan. We’re thrilled to have him join our team.”

Seungmin wasn’t listening. Not really. His attention had narrowed entirely onto the man—Bang Chan. He assessed him with the same dispassionate scrutiny he used in pre-op evaluations. Slightly shorter than Seungmin himself, though broad across the shoulders, with the kind of lean musculature that suggested both discipline and endurance. His forearms were visible past the pushed sleeves of his coat—veined, calloused, steady. Hands made for precision. His posture was impeccable, and his expression, though quietly pleasant, held no trace of over-eagerness. There was a faint flush to his cheeks, either from the pressure of the room or the heat of the attention. Still, he held himself with ease.

Seungmin clicked his tongue softly. Six months , he thought, already deciding. Six months before the man requested a transfer. Either he wouldn’t like Seoul, or Seoul wouldn’t like him. General Surgery chewed people up. It didn’t matter how warm your smile was or how far your credentials stretched—no one lasted long here if they got too comfortable.

The room shifted as the meeting wound down. As if on cue, Dr. Seo Changbin surged forward and enveloped the newcomer in a bear hug that made Seungmin wince from across the room.

“Man, it’s so good to have you here!” Changbin boomed, already grinning ear to ear.

Chan laughed, the sound light and warm in a way Seungmin found, for no good reason, irritating. “It’s good to be back,” he replied, voice soft with an unmistakable lilt—foreign, but not unfamiliar.

Felix, who’d appeared at Seungmin’s side at some point, giggled behind his knuckles. “Of course he knows Changbin hyung.”

Seungmin didn’t answer. He was too busy watching Jisung slink toward Dr. Lee in the corner, the two of them already murmuring something low and private, heads bent together in a conversation they thought subtle. It wasn’t.

He crossed his arms and exhaled through his nose. “Am I the only person in this room who remembers we’re at work?”

Felix elbowed him gently, still watching the room with bright eyes. “You’re just mad the chief didn’t retire.”

“I’m mad we’re being led by someone who’s still unpacking his toothbrush.”

“He hasn’t even said anything yet.”

“Exactly.”

And then, as if conjured by complaint, Chan looked up. Their eyes met across the space, brief and weightless. It was nothing—a flicker, a glance. His expression didn’t change. He didn’t smile. Seungmin looked away first, not because he felt anything in particular, but because... he didn’t like being looked at like that. Like he was a part of the room too. Like he was there .

It meant nothing. Just a look. Just a new attending.

Just another reason to stay focused.

Seungmin’s shift began the way all his days did—with a clipboard, a coffee that had already cooled to an unredeemable bitterness, and the low-grade headache that came from dealing with interns who couldn’t read a CT scan if their own lives depended on it. He checked on his pre-ops methodically, eyes scanning charts with the mechanical ease of someone who’d long ago trained himself to memorise lab values faster than most people memorised phone numbers. Outside the doors, residents buzzed about like bees on espresso, the wards humming with early-morning tension, nurses exchanging clipped greetings and trays of medication with the same urgency one might pass surgical tools.

He cornered one of the interns by the nurses’ station, a nervous-looking third-year whose badge read ‘Yoon.’

“If a patient has a gallstone obstructing the cystic duct, what complications are we worried about?” he asked, tone deceptively pleasant.

The boy blinked. “Uh—cholangitis?”

“Wrong duct,” Seungmin replied dryly. “Try again.”

“Uh... pancreatitis?”

Seungmin sighed. “How would that happen, Mr. Yoon?”

“Because—because of the shared duct with the pancreas and—um—the backflow of enzymes?”

“Marginally acceptable. I’ll take it. But you should’ve said acute cholecystitis first. It’s in the name .” He moved on before the intern could thank him. He wasn’t being cruel. He was teaching. Survival through fire.

By seven-thirty, he was scrubbing in, the sharp scent of chlorhexidine coating his skin in ritualistic comfort. He watched the bright orange foam run down his forearms in neat rivulets, meticulous and symmetrical, the way he liked it. Everything in its place. Everything done the way it should be. That was what surgery was, after all—control in a world otherwise committed to chaos.

“Dr. Kim,” came a voice behind him, far too chipper for this hour.

He didn’t look up immediately. “Yes?”

“Small change of plans,” Dr. Im sang lightly, her tone bordering on saccharine.

He braced for impact. Nothing good ever came from those four words.

“I was talking with the chief,” she continued, and Seungmin knew then that whatever followed would not be optional. “We thought it might be good for you to scrub in with Dr. Bang today. First day and all. You’re one of our strongest residents, and he’s our new Head—you can show him how we do things here at GUH.”

Seungmin’s jaw tightened ever so slightly, but he kept his voice neutral. “Of course, Dr. Im.”

She patted his shoulder with the air of someone who’d just handed out a gold star. “You’re a team player, Dr. Kim.”

No, he wasn’t. He was a surgeon, not a goodwill ambassador. But he bowed slightly all the same, turned back to the sink, and let the water run hotter than necessary.

In theatre, the atmosphere shifted. There was something different about sharing a scrub table with someone new. The cadence changed, the air itself more watchful. Dr. Bang—Chan, he reminded himself—was already there, sleeves rolled up, hands mid-scrub with a focus that Seungmin found... irksome. Irritatingly meticulous. The same way he was.

“Dr. Kim, right?” the man said, offering a glance and a smile, voice warm and touched with a soft, lingering accent. “Nice to meet you.”

Seungmin nodded once, inhaling deeply. “Likewise, sir.”

The water hummed between them, and then—

“You can call me Chan,” he offered, too casually, as if they were already equals, already friendly. “We’re all friends here.”

Seungmin blinked once. No , he thought flatly. We are not.

He gave a polite smile, restrained, more a formality than a gesture of sincerity. “Understood, Dr. Bang.”

The older man chuckled under his breath, not unkindly, and said nothing more. He turned back to the monitors, glancing over the chart displayed neatly on the digital board with a surgeon’s familiar precision. His hands moved easily, already donned in gloves, already reading the rhythm of the case.

“So—lap appy today. Fairly standard,” he said, half to Seungmin, half to the room. “Let’s see if the Seoul rhythm suits me.”

Seungmin stepped back, allowed the scrub nurse to glove him, and said nothing. He’d let the work speak for itself. Laparoscopic appendectomies didn’t require personality.

The theatre lights were mercilessly bright, casting the operating field in that sterile, clinical glow that made everything outside the scope of focus dissolve into silence. The usual theatre hum was present—heart monitor, soft mutterings from the scrub nurse, the steady hiss of oxygen flowing—but Seungmin heard it only dimly. His attention was narrowed, sharp as the blade they had yet to use, locked onto the monitor where the camera first revealed the inflamed mass in question.

Laparoscopic appendectomy, they’d said. Routine, standard, textbook. And yet, as the scope moved closer, angled gently by Chan’s hand, it became glaringly obvious that nothing about this case would be straightforward. The appendix was tucked away, retrocecal and stubborn, curled like a venomous thing behind layers of tissue that had already begun to swell. Seungmin felt a flicker of tension in his abdomen, not fear, but a kind of electric readiness—like a key turning in a lock.

“Well,” Chan said, leaning slightly closer to the monitor, voice steady. “That explains the pain localisation.”

Seungmin cleared his throat, already thinking ahead. “We’ll need to convert. It’s too inflamed. If we try to extract it laparoscopically, it’ll rupture.”

“Agreed,” Chan nodded without pause, and looked up. “Knife.”

The theatre moved seamlessly, and Seungmin couldn’t help but be impressed. Not by the order—he’d seen surgeons make worse calls for far less complicated cases—but by the fluidity with which Chan adapted. There was no panic, no hesitation, just a small, decisive breath and then the scalpel in his hand, angled perfectly as he made the first cut. Clean, confident, controlled.

The moment stretched out, steady and quiet save for the rhythm of the monitors and the soft murmur of instruments exchanged. Chan worked like someone who didn’t feel the need to prove himself, and yet somehow still did. His movements were smooth, the kind that only came from long hours in theatre, but there was no arrogance in them. No showmanship. He allowed Seungmin room, instructed without condescension, offered guidance only when necessary. It was the sort of mentorship that was rare—respectful, attentive, aware.

“Your suction,” Chan said quietly at one point, gesturing with a flick of his wrist. “Right there—perfect.”

The appendix finally came free with a soft, wet pop, thickened and necrotic and clearly overdue for removal. Seungmin retracted it with calm, efficient pressure, never losing rhythm, the feel of it beneath his forceps oddly satisfying. The incision was small, tidy. Bleeding minimal. As he sutured, he could feel Chan’s gaze linger—not hovering, not scrutinising, but observing. Measuring.

Once the final knot was tied, Chan stepped back slightly, and the air in the room loosened with the weight of resolution. “Nice work, Dr. Kim,” he said, removing his gloves with a clean snap. “That wasn’t the easiest conversion, but you handled it without fuss.”

Seungmin blinked once, slowly. “Thank you, sir.”

“Chan,” he corrected again, smiling.

Seungmin only nodded, noncommittal, and busied himself with adjusting his gown. But it was too late. The compliment had landed somewhere it shouldn’t have, had echoed with more weight than it ought to have carried. His heart gave an embarrassing little jolt in his chest, and he cursed it immediately. That was absurd. It had been a surgery, a routine deviation from plan, a task performed competently. Nothing more.

And yet, even as he peeled off his gloves and turned to leave theatre, he felt the heat of the words on the back of his neck.

Nice work, Dr. Kim.

He clenched his jaw, furious with himself.

It didn’t mean anything.

Just a compliment. Just politeness. Just another day at work.

And if his heart insisted otherwise—it was wrong.

The post-op wing was quiet in the way hospitals rarely managed to be—just the low shuffle of rubber soles on polished linoleum, the hum of distant machines, and the occasional soft murmur of nurses exchanging notes over clipboards. Seungmin welcomed it, this brief lull between chaos, a moment to breathe and focus on what mattered: charts, vitals, follow-ups. The corridor stretched before him in quiet symmetry, light spilling through the slats of blinds and warming the floor in lazy stripes. His pen glided across the patient sheet, efficient, precise, his mind blissfully occupied by numbers and notes.

Then came the unmistakable cadence of Hyunjin’s voice, like the rustling of silk and mischief.

“So,” the plastic surgery resident drawled, appearing beside him with the stealth of a ghost in designer trainers, “how was surgery with Dr. Dreamy?”

Seungmin didn’t look up. “The man’s been here for half a day and you’re already calling him that?”

Hyunjin shrugged, entirely unbothered. His hair was styled a little too perfectly for someone supposedly post-call, and his lips curved into a grin too pleased for someone not caught in the act. “What? I have eyes. And taste.”

Seungmin kept writing. “You also have a history of flirting with anyone who’s had their hepatitis B booster.”

“I like safety in all forms,” Hyunjin said brightly.

Before Seungmin could form a proper retort, another voice joined them, this one younger, perkier, and laced with the kind of glee reserved only for the most chaotic of commentaries.

“You’re talking about Dr. Dreamy?” Jeongin asked, materialising from the next nurse’s station like a summoned spirit. He leaned casually against the wall, arms crossed, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “Finally. I was waiting for someone to bring it up.”

“I swear to God,” Seungmin muttered, flipping the next chart a little more aggressively than necessary. “Why does everybody call him that?”

“Because he’s hot,” Jeongin said, like it was obvious. “And nice. And weirdly buff. Have you seen his forearms?”

“He helped me adjust a patient’s bed earlier,” Hyunjin added wistfully. “I almost proposed.”

“You’re all clinically insane,” Seungmin replied. “He’s our superior. Our boss . He’s not an idol, he’s a surgeon.”

“And this is why they call you Voldemort,” Jeongin quipped.

That made Seungmin pause. “What?”

“You didn’t know?” Jeongin said with an innocent shrug. “The interns. They call you Voldemort.”

“ They do not— ” Seungmin started, bristling.

“He who must not be named,” Hyunjin said solemnly, barely hiding his grin.

Seungmin glared at both of them, the chart in his hand momentarily forgotten. “I help them learn, teach them, help them become better surgeons. They shouldn’t–”

“You scare the interns so badly one of them fainted during rounds,” Jeongin pointed out.

“I hold people accountable.”

“You asked one of them what the vascular supply to the appendix was as they were throwing up ,” Hyunjin said.

“They should’ve known it before they were allowed near a scalpel!”

“You’re lucky your eyebrows are perfect,” Jeongin muttered. “It’s the only thing saving you from a full villain arc.”

Seungmin sighed, long and suffering, and finally turned his attention back to the chart in hand. The peace he had found earlier had long since been destroyed, replaced by a chorus of chirping residents and an image in his head he very much wanted to repress: Chan, smiling across the theatre table, voice soft with praise.

He pushed the thought aside ruthlessly.

“Go bother someone else,” he said, snapping the chart closed. “I have rounds.”

Hyunjin gave a low whistle. “So touchy today. Wonder why.”

“Maybe he’s flustered,” Jeongin added.

“I will write both of you up.”

“Avada Kedavra.”

“ Out! ”

Seungmin had expected the morning's surgery to be the end of it—a single, inconvenient detour in his otherwise tightly scheduled day. A lapse in routine, nothing more. But the universe—or Dr. Park, more likely—seemed hellbent on turning his meticulously constructed order into a farce. By noon, his notifications had filled with schedule updates. His assigned cases for the day had all been restructured, re-allocated, reassigned. Three more procedures. Three. And all of them with Dr. Bang Chan .

It was ludicrous.

The first, a laparoscopic hernia repair, ran longer than expected. The mesh placement proved trickier due to adhesions, but Chan kept pace with a kind of easy patience that grated on Seungmin more than it should have. He cracked jokes with the circulating nurse. He made gentle observations about the anatomy, tone friendly but precise, and at one point he even asked Seungmin for his opinion—not as a test, but as if he genuinely wanted it. And the worst part? He wasn’t patronising. He was… sincere. Professional. Collaborative.

By the time they moved into the second surgery—a partial colectomy—Seungmin had resigned himself to the rhythm of it. They worked well together, alarmingly so. There was a strange balance to it: Chan’s calm composure, his deliberate pacing, his way of guiding the OR without raising his voice. He didn’t command the room so much as invite it into sync with him. He let Seungmin lead the closure. Gave feedback only when asked. Said thank you when it was done. The kind of polite, understated respect Seungmin hadn’t realised he’d been craving.

The third was an emergency—an exploratory laparotomy called in unexpectedly, a bleeder somewhere deep in the bowel loops. They scrubbed in fast, hands moving in silent coordination. The stakes were higher, the pace quicker, and yet... there was no friction. No clash. Seungmin passed the retractor without needing to be asked, anticipated suture lengths, found himself knowing—instinctively—when Chan would reach for the next tool. They barely spoke, but the silence felt charged with understanding rather than absence.

It was irritating. Maddening. Humbling.

And when the surgery wrapped and the bleeder had been clipped and sealed, Chan clapped a gloved hand gently against his shoulder—warm through the sterile fabric—and said, “That was excellent, Seungmin. You’ve got very steady hands.”

It was the voice. The way he said his name. Low. Measured. Like he meant it.

Seungmin didn't answer. He couldn't.

He excused himself with a nod and left the OR with his pulse thrumming in his throat and his stomach tied in a knot of something he refused to name.

The irritation followed him home.

Felix was already there, lounging on the kitchen counter with a face mask on and a mug of tea in hand, scrolling through something on his phone. Jisung was curled up on the couch, wearing Seungmin’s hoodie without asking and watching a rerun of a drama that clearly didn't require his full attention.

“Heard you’ve been glued to Dr. Dreamy all day,” Felix said without looking up.

“I hate you,” Seungmin replied automatically, dropping his bag by the door and toeing off his shoes with more force than necessary.

“Heard he’s got a nice voice,” Jisung added from the couch, not missing a beat. “Low. Soft. A little foreign.”

“Great bedside manner,” Felix continued. “Good with patients. Good with staff. Looks good in scrubs.”

“Washes his hands like it’s art,” Jisung said, lifting a brow.

Seungmin glared. “Do you two have lives?”

“No,” they said in unison.

Felix grinned. “But we do have ears. Apparently, you and Dr. Dreamy made quite the team.”

Seungmin said nothing. He grabbed the cold bottle of water from the fridge and drank half of it in silence, ignoring the way his ears felt warm and his mind wouldn’t stop echoing— You’ve got very steady hands .

It didn’t mean anything.

He was just being polite. Courteous. Friendly. That was all.

And still, when he lay in bed later that night, the sheets cool and clean beneath him, the image that floated to mind wasn’t of the appendix, the mesh, the arterial bleeder. It was of a quiet smile, of warm eyes beneath theatre lights, and a hand resting against his shoulder for just a moment too long.

It was nearing the end of the day, and Seungmin’s clipboard was down to its last two patients. The overhead fluorescents flickered faintly, painting long shadows across the ward floor. The usual lull had begun to settle in: patients resting, monitors humming in steady rhythms, nurses exchanging soft updates in the hallway. Seungmin moved from bed to bed with the practiced ease of someone who had spent far too many evenings within these walls, half-listening to the television in room 405 and half-watching an intern attempt to insert an IV with all the grace of a disoriented stork.

And then came Jisung, drifting into view with the look of a man about to commit a crime.

“Don’t be mad,” he began, practically bouncing in place.

Seungmin didn’t glance up from the chart. “If you start a sentence like that, I might.”

“No, seriously. Promise you won’t be mad.”

“I can’t promise anything until I know what level of stupidity I’m dealing with.”

Jisung bit his lower lip. “Just—come on, Seungmin. Promise .”

He sighed, snapped the chart closed, and turned fully to face him. “Fine. I promise.”

There was a beat of silence, a hint of guilt in Jisung’s eyes, and then: “So I invited Dr. Lee and his friends to movie night. Bye! You said you wouldn’t be mad!” he blurted, and with the swiftness of someone who had clearly planned the escape in advance, ran .

It took Seungmin a full second to process the words, another to catch the echo of footsteps disappearing down the corridor, and one more before his brain translated Dr. Lee and his friends into: Minho, Changbin, Chan.

He blinked. Once. Twice.

Then the chart in his hand crumpled slightly under the pressure of his fingers.

Movie night— their movie night—was not meant for hospital hierarchy. It was a sacred ritual of soft lighting, oversized hoodies, cold drinks and pillows tossed on the floor. A respite from the hospital’s white noise and fluorescent chill. Normally, it was just the flatmates —him, Jisung, Felix—and occasionally Hyunjin and Jeongin, who brought snacks and stupid commentary and laughter that echoed into the early hours. It was familiar, comforting, untouchable.

It was not meant for attendings. It was certainly not meant for Bang Chan and his irritatingly warm eyes and irritatingly perfect surgical technique and—

Seungmin exhaled through his nose, clipped and precise.

He was not mad.

He was… surprised. Off-balance.

And maybe, just maybe, a little bit furious.

He retrieved his composure with the same efficiency he used to suture torn fascia. Smooth, decisive, ruthless.

Chan wasn’t coming. There was no way. He was an attending. He was new. He wouldn’t accept. Right?

Right?

But in the pit of his stomach, a quiet, traitorous voice whispered otherwise.

By the time Seungmin got home, the flat was already beginning to buzz with a kind of disorganised, anticipatory energy that he usually associated with holiday dinners or the rare occasions when Jisung remembered their rent was due. The scent of buttered popcorn clung to the air, mingling with the unmistakable traces of Felix’s strawberry shampoo, and the soft hum of music played from someone’s phone in the corner—faint enough to be tasteful, but present enough to be intentional. The living room, normally a disaster of blankets and stray water bottles, had been mysteriously tidied. The cushions were fluffed. The coffee table had been wiped down. There were even candles burning— candles , for God’s sake.

Seungmin narrowed his eyes. “What the hell is this?”

“Ambience,” Felix chirped from the kitchen, practically glowing. He had donned his softest pyjamas—the pastel ones with ducks on them—and was currently laying out a charcuterie board that was far too well-organised to be of his own invention.

“You don’t even know what charcuterie means,” Seungmin muttered.

“I do when Changbin’s coming over,” Felix replied, grinning, and there it was—completely unfiltered. The crush he’d harboured on the trauma surgeon had never been a secret. It had started with an offhand compliment in the break room and ballooned into full-blown romantic fantasy the moment Changbin had once remembered his coffee order. Tonight, with the man allegedly coming into his space, Felix was practically vibrating.

Seungmin walked over and inspected the spread. “Where did you even get these cheeses?”

Felix fluttered his lashes. “The deli down the street. Do you think he likes smoked gouda?”

“I think he likes not being poisoned. Don’t put the grapes so close to the brie.”

He turned as Jisung stormed past them with a bottle of multipurpose spray and a rag clenched in one hand like a weapon. His hair was still damp from the shower, his expression sharp with purpose.

“You cleaned?” Seungmin asked, incredulous.

“Of course I did,” Jisung snapped, already reorganising the throw pillows for the third time. “People are coming.”

“You never clean.”

“There’s a difference between regular people and, you know, distinguished guests .”

Seungmin raised a brow. “You mean Minho.”

“I don’t mean anything,” Jisung said too quickly.

Felix snorted. “He made me put out coasters.”

“You did what ?” Seungmin asked.

Jisung looked stricken. “Don’t tell him! He’ll think I’m weird!”

“You are weird.”

“You’re mean.”

“You invited my boss to movie night!”

“Touché.”

Before Seungmin could launch into a proper tirade, the door flung open and Hyunjin floated in, wearing silk pyjama bottoms and a cashmere robe tied with the flair of a dramatic heiress. Jeongin followed, arms full of snacks, grinning like the devil himself.

“We brought supplies!” Hyunjin sang. “And gossip.”

“Tell me it’s not about Dr. Dreamy,” Seungmin said flatly, reaching for a packet of crisps.

“Oh no,” Jeongin deadpanned. “It is about Dr. Dreamy. Who, might I add, is allegedly also coming tonight.”

“He’s not coming,” Seungmin replied too fast. “He’s busy. He’s an attending.”

“Interesting how you know his schedule,” Hyunjin mused, plopping down onto the floor like a lounging cat.

“I don’t,” Seungmin said stiffly. “I just—he wouldn’t come to something like this.”

“Scared he might see your fun side ?” Jeongin teased.

“I don’t have a fun side.”

“That’s what we’re afraid of.”

Felix laughed from the kitchen. “Maybe he’ll wear sweatpants.”

Seungmin rubbed his temple, already regretting every decision that had led him to this moment. The flat was too warm, too loud, too filled with anticipation. And despite every rational bone in his body, a part of him—the most irrational, most annoying part—kept listening for the knock at the door.

He wouldn’t come.

And yet.

Yet the buzzer still rang with the abruptness of a code blue call—shrill, startling, slicing through the ambient noise of pre-movie chatter and low music like a scalpel through tension. Seungmin froze mid-reach for a blanket, his spine going rigid, eyes flicking toward the intercom like it had personally offended him. Across the room, Jisung straightened so quickly that he dropped the remote, which clattered to the floor like a death knell.

“Who the hell—?” Seungmin began.

Then came the voice through the speaker, slightly tinny but unmistakably dry and smooth.

“Hey. It’s Minho. Can we come up?”

We.

That one syllable detonated like a grenade in the centre of Seungmin’s chest. There were voices behind Minho’s, distant but laughing. Warm. Familiar. Seungmin gripped the edge of the coffee table, the blanket half-unfolded in his lap, fingers tightening against the fabric as if he were suturing under pressure.

Felix squealed. Actually squealed. “They’re here! ”

“I’m gonna vom,” Jisung whispered.

“Oh my God,” Hyunjin grinned. “He did come. This is gonna be hilarious.”

Jeongin was already halfway to the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Let them in before they buzz again! What if Dr. Dreamy thinks we’re rude?”

Seungmin wanted to disappear. Melt into the floor. Evaporate into thin air. He hadn’t expected this to happen. He hadn’t prepared . The whole day, he had convinced himself there was no chance. None. And yet here they were—three surgeons, three attendings , and one in particular who should not have been anywhere near their sofa or their kitchen or the stupid floral print coasters Jisung had suddenly decided were vital to the evening’s aesthetic.

Jisung, white as the lab coats he was so desperate to shed tonight, stumbled into the outer hallway with all the grace of a man being led to the gallows. A moment passed. Then two. And then—

The door opened.

“Movie night!” came Changbin’s voice, loud and unapologetic, as he strode in like he’d lived there his whole life. He was wearing joggers and a loose black hoodie, the hood half-up and curls sticking out from beneath it. He held a bowl of something indiscernible and grinned like they were all old friends reunited after a long shift.

Behind him, Minho followed, sleek and severe even in grey lounge trousers and a fitted thermal, carrying a packet of crisps and a bottle of wine like it was the most normal thing in the world.

And then— him .

Bang Chan stepped into their flat like it wasn’t entirely surreal. Like he hadn’t just come from slicing into someone's abdomen hours ago, as if this was just what people did . He wore navy joggers, a soft cream jumper rolled at the sleeves, and the most unfairly boyish smile Seungmin had ever seen. In each hand, he held a six-pack of beer with casual ease, forearms flexed beneath the thin cotton. He looked… warm. Approachable. Devastatingly relaxed.

“Hope we’re not crashing anything,” he said, gaze sweeping over the living room. “Minho said it was open invite.”

“Very open,” Changbin added cheerfully, plopping onto the couch like he owned it.

Minho gave Jisung a nod and a faint smile that made Jisung sway slightly where he stood.

Felix all but floated over. “You brought drinks!”

Chan held up the beers. “And crisps. I was told snacks were mandatory.”

“They are ,” Jeongin agreed seriously, taking the crisps from Minho and setting them on the table like crown jewels.

Hyunjin, ever the host when it suited him, waved them toward the cushions. “Come on in. The couch’s too small anyway.”

Seungmin stood very still, blanket still clutched in one hand, as his entire safe haven—his sacred space—was colonised by his seniors in soft knitwear and bare ankles.

Chan’s eyes met his across the room, and he smiled. Not grandly. Not expectantly. Just gently.

“Hey,” he said, voice low, like they were picking up a conversation from earlier.

Seungmin blinked. “Hi.”

It was a pathetic response, and he hated it.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Chan added, setting down the beer. “Didn’t mean to intrude.”

He said it like he actually cared. Like he genuinely wasn’t sure he was welcome.

Seungmin cleared his throat. “Not at all.”

He lied.

His pulse was already pounding in his ears.

The lights had been dimmed, the curtains drawn, and the opening credits flickered onto the television screen with a dramatic swell of sound far too grand for a film that had cost, Seungmin estimated, roughly the price of a parking ticket to make. Still, it was his choice—movie night tradition dictated that the person hosting the last emotional breakdown got to choose the first film, and Felix’s post-night shift sob over a mislabelled patient file had earned Seungmin the pick by default.

He had chosen horror. And not the elegant, arthouse kind with creeping dread and symbolic ghosts. No—he had chosen the kind with actors who didn’t blink in time, sound effects downloaded from the internet, and blood that looked like ketchup mixed with regret.

The shriek of an obviously fake scream echoed through the room, and Felix jumped so hard he nearly spilled his beer. Jisung, who had curled into one end of the couch with a blanket pulled to his chin, gasped loudly and instinctively reached out—and Seungmin swore he saw his hand land on Minho’s forearm. Minho didn’t react. He didn’t even glance down. But he didn’t pull away, either.

Seungmin blinked at the screen, then at the blanket-covered forms beside him, then very deliberately returned his attention to the scene unfolding in front of him: a blonde woman running through the woods in heels, screaming about something called “The Shadow Fiend” with the emotional range of a malfunctioning vending machine.

Beside him on the floor, Jeongin snorted. “Did she just trip over nothing ?”

“They always do,” Seungmin murmured, lips quirking. “And then they split up. Every time.”

As if on cue, the characters on-screen did exactly that, and the camera cut to a shaky close-up of a flashlight beam moving through a clearly fake basement.

Hyunjin gasped, wide-eyed and delighted. “Oh, it’s so bad. I love it.”

“It’s camp,” Jeongin agreed sagely. “Like trauma bonding but with jump scares.”

Across the room, Chan let out a quiet chuckle. Seungmin didn’t look at him, didn’t have to—he felt the sound more than he heard it, felt it settle in the air like warmth. It made his spine straighten just a little. He reached for a handful of popcorn he didn’t really want, letting the salt bite at his tongue, doing his best to pretend that the man sitting across from him wasn’t there.

Except Chan was there. Lounging on the beanbag someone had dragged out from the hallway closet, his arms resting comfortably on his knees, one foot bare, the other socked in something that looked suspiciously like a cartoon print. He looked… natural. Unbothered. Entirely at ease in the heart of their chaos.

It irritated Seungmin more than it should.

The worst part was how easily the three attendings—three superiors —had melted into the atmosphere of their flat. Changbin, sprawled on the floor beside Felix, was already halfway through a packet of crisps and arguing about whether or not the killer could plausibly be the grandmother. Minho, stoic as ever, had accepted some concoction from Jisung and was drinking it from one of Felix’s sunflower mugs without complaint. And Chan—Chan watched the movie like it was a quiet night in with friends. Like this wasn’t strange. Like it wasn’t completely inappropriate for someone so high up the food chain to be lounging in joggers and smiling softly every time someone screamed.

Seungmin hated how seamlessly they fit in. Hated how natural it felt. Hated the way Chan’s eyes kept finding him in the dim light, like he was trying to decipher a puzzle.

On screen, the killer revealed himself with a dramatic flair of violins and a mask made from what looked like paper-mâché and glue. Jeongin groaned audibly.

“Ten bucks says he trips over a rake.”

“Twenty he gets impaled by the weather vane,” Seungmin muttered.

Chan laughed again, low and surprised, and Seungmin’s throat went dry.

He didn’t look at him. He couldn’t.

Instead, he reached for another handful of popcorn, eyes fixed ahead, and told himself that it didn’t mean anything. That Chan was laughing at the movie, not at him. That this wasn’t real, that none of it was crossing any boundaries.

The film ended with a final, bloodcurdling scream and the kind of twist that could only be described as bold if one was feeling charitable. The credits rolled in tacky red font over a swelling orchestral piece that sounded like it had been recorded in someone’s garage. Someone groaned. Someone else cheered ironically. Then the lights came back on and the spell was broken, the room shifting from dim suspense to soft laughter and the low murmur of unspoken commentary waiting to bubble to the surface.

“Drinks break,” Hyunjin declared, already rising and stretching like a cat, arms arching above his head. “Before the next disaster starts.”

There was a rustle of movement as people stood, reached for glasses, passed around water bottles, or cracked open the beers Chan had brought. Conversation filtered in like light under a closed door—scattered at first, then brighter, louder, easier. And for once, Seungmin realised, they were talking like people . Not residents, nurses and attendings, not ranks and protocols, just—people.

He wasn’t sure he liked it.

“We’re out of crisps,” Minho said then, dry and deliberate, eyeing the living room with the subtle detachment of a man already halfway into an escape route.

“We’re not,” Jeongin pointed out, pointing with the tip of a cracker toward the still half-full bowls on the table. “We literally have three.”

Minho ignored him completely. “Come on, Jisung.”

“Yeah!” Jisung replied, far too quickly, practically launching himself from the couch. “Uh—yes. Need... more crisps.”

The bowl he grabbed wasn’t even empty.

Seungmin watched them disappear down the hall, the kitchen light flickering on like the punchline of a bad joke. He shook his head slowly. “Subtle as a sledgehammer.”

Jeongin snorted. “They think we don’t know.”

“They think they’re acting.”

Felix hummed. “At least they’re finally getting snacks.”

And then, like some spell had been lifted, Changbin flopped back onto the beanbag beside Chan and began talking like the whole room had been waiting for it.

“Okay, but do you remember that time in Busan—” he began, eyes already alight with mischief, “—when you tried to impress that cardiology resident? What was her name—Sohee? You brought her to that awful jazz bar near the hospital. The one with the saxophone guy who never stopped playing.”

Chan groaned. “God. That place.”

“She was sweet, though,” Changbin added, nudging him with his knee. “Thought you were cool.”

“She dumped me after two dates.”

“Because you brought her back to the OR at 3am to ‘check on a drain site.’”

Chan held up his hands in mock defence. “It was leaking.”

“You are the most tragically earnest person I know.”

Felix giggled into his drink, and Jeongin let out a quiet “Yikes” from behind his beer. Seungmin, meanwhile, stayed very still, gaze fixed on the glass in his hand, jaw just slightly tight.

So. There it was. A girlfriend. Sohee. Cardiology. Jazz bars. Two dates and a failed romance and nothing that mattered, except—he wasn’t gay. Or bi. Or anything else that Seungmin’s traitorous, chaotic mind might’ve begun to entertain over the past forty-eight hours.

Good. Great. Perfect. Peachy.

He took a slow sip from his glass and let the bitterness coat his tongue. The bubbles stung on the way down.

Across from him, Chan laughed again, head tilted back slightly, eyes crinkling in a way that would have been disarming if Seungmin hadn’t been working overtime to harden every possible edge of himself.

He told himself it didn’t matter. He told himself it shouldn’t matter. The man was his superior. A fleeting presence. An anomaly in an otherwise perfect algorithm of routine and ambition.

Still, when Chan caught his eye—just for a second, unguarded—Seungmin looked away. Fast.

The second film of the night was Felix’s pick, and Seungmin should have known what that meant. The moment the opening credits rolled in soft pink cursive and a ukulele started playing over sweeping shots of New York City, he felt the sharp pang of regret settle low in his stomach. A romcom. Of course. Probably about a florist who falls in love with her mechanic, or a widower who finds a letter in a second-hand book. Something ridiculous. Something full of second chances and conveniently timed kisses and unrealistic confessions made in the rain.

The living room split along predictable lines.

Felix sat front and centre, eyes already sparkling, legs crossed neatly beneath him like he was in a cinema. Hyunjin curled beside him with the ease of someone born to lounge, occasionally gasping at particularly egregious declarations of love. Jisung had somehow ended up back near Minho, both pretending not to notice how their knees touched. Changbin, surprisingly, had taken to the genre like a duck to water, cheering loudly when the lead male tripped into a bakery and fell in love with the woman holding a baguette.

On the other side sat the sceptics—Jeongin, who was busy doing a running commentary on the implausibility of the plot; Minho, who looked as though someone had forced him into a hostage situation; and Seungmin, nursing his beer like it might offer him some form of salvation.

And then—because the universe clearly had a personal vendetta—Chan wandered over during the first act and, without a word, sat down beside him.

Not too close. Not enough to be obvious. But near enough that Seungmin could smell the faint citrus of his shampoo, could feel the warmth of his arm when they shifted at the same time. It made concentrating on the film nearly impossible. Every movement from Chan—every small exhale, every soft chuckle at a line Seungmin found nauseating—set his nerves on edge. His beer was half-finished before the second scene had ended.

“I don’t get it,” he muttered eventually, mostly to himself. “They’ve known each other for ten minutes and she’s already inviting him to meet her dog.”

“They’re soulmates,” Chan replied, equally quiet, his voice carrying the kind of unshakable calm that made Seungmin want to shake him . “You’ve got to suspend disbelief.”

“I have disbelief for a reason.”

Chan hummed. “Maybe it’s tired.”

Seungmin took another sip, pretending not to notice how their knees nearly brushed. He didn’t know if the alcohol was warming his skin or if it was Chan’s proximity, but his pulse was thudding in a slow, steady beat that had nothing to do with the wine.

Eventually, his bottle ran dry. He stared at it, contemplated whether getting up was worth the trouble, and then—

Chan rose wordlessly.

Seungmin blinked, startled. He hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t moved. But a moment later, Chan returned with another beer, cold and unopened, and handed it to him like it was nothing.

“Thanks,” Seungmin said stiffly.

“No problem,” Chan said, smiling slightly as he settled back down.

The film continued. The leads were now arguing in a flower market, a misunderstanding about a misdialed number that would surely be resolved with a declaration of love before the hour was up.

Seungmin took a slow sip, the cool bitterness grounding him.

Chan’s arm brushed his again—accidental, maybe. Maybe not.

It was getting harder to tell the difference.

The credits rolled to yet another sweeping orchestral piece, this time underscored by the distant sound of soft laughter and several empty bottles clinking together as someone adjusted their seat. The film had ended in the most predictably saccharine fashion possible—kissing in the rain, teary-eyed declarations of forever, and the protagonist running through traffic in high heels like it was a feat of heroism. Seungmin groaned inwardly but said nothing. His beer was gone again, and his head felt pleasantly heavy, detached. Not dizzy, not spinning, just… loosened .

The room around him was a slow, lazy sprawl of limbs and low conversation, cheeks flushed from alcohol and comfort. Felix was slumped against Changbin, who hadn’t stopped smiling since the first film. Jeongin was stretched out on the rug, one arm over his face as he giggled at something Hyunjin had whispered into his ear.

Jisung and Minho had disappeared sometime during the final act, citing a need for “fresh air” and “less noise.” Neither had returned. Seungmin didn’t need a diagnosis to know they were currently tangled up somewhere behind Jisung’s bedroom door.

“Okay,” Hyunjin said brightly, eyes glittering as he perched dramatically on the armrest of the couch, wine glass half full and swaying with every gesture. “Now that we’re all properly softened—let’s play Never Have I Ever .”

“Oh God,” Seungmin muttered, leaning back against the cushions. “What are we, twelve?”

“Speak for yourself, Voldemort,” Jeongin shot back, already reaching for another can. “This is a classic .”

Felix clapped once, clearly delighted. “I love this game!”

“I’m in,” said Changbin, cheeks rosy. “Let’s go.”

Chan, beside Seungmin, raised a brow. “Haven’t played that in years.”

“You haven’t lived,” Hyunjin replied with a smirk. “You first, Felix.”

The questions began innocently enough—Never have I ever cheated on a test. Never have I ever dyed my hair. Never have I ever gone skinny-dipping. A few scattered sips, a few pointed glances. Seungmin sipped only occasionally, expression neutral, unimpressed. But as the rounds ticked on and the wine levels lowered, the questions shifted—subtly at first, then with unapologetic boldness.

“Never have I ever hooked up at a wedding.”

“Never have I ever sent a nude.”

“Never have I ever been caught watching porn.”

The group was in various states of laughter and mock-horror, drinks flowing like confessionals. Jeongin had nearly choked at one point, and Felix was red from the ears down.

And then—Hyunjin leaned forward, one brow cocked, the tip of his finger tapping his chin with theatrical precision.

“Never have I ever had sex in the on-call room.”

There was a moment’s silence, a breath held in the shared air. And then, with the smooth detachment of someone owning his sins, Seungmin reached for his beer and took a long sip.

A beat.

Then another.

All eyes snapped to him.

“ Damn ,” Jeongin said, eyes wide. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

Felix gasped, starry-eyed. “Seungmin!”

Changbin howled with laughter, already clapping. “Who was it? Wait, no, don’t tell me.”

Hyunjin looked personally betrayed. “You said you hated people who used the on-call beds for that ! I remember!”

“I do,” Seungmin replied flatly, setting the bottle down with calm finality. “I never said I hadn’t done it.”

And then— then —he felt it. That shift in the air again, that gaze sliding against his skin like silk and static. He didn’t have to look to know.

Chan was watching him.

Not amused. Not scandalised.

Just looking .

Slow, thoughtful, curious.

Seungmin refused to meet his eyes.

Instead, he lifted his bottle again and took another sip, jaw set, heart traitorously loud in his ears.

It was just a game.

It didn’t mean anything.

And yet—his skin burned where Chan's attention lingered.

So, fine. Maybe he didn’t hate Chan anymore.

Hate was a strong word, anyway. An impractical one, heavy and sharp-edged—difficult to carry through days of surgeries, rounds, and casual conversations in hospital corridors. Dislike, perhaps, had been more accurate. Initial scepticism, certainly. Chan had arrived too polished, too affable, too comfortably placed in the centre of everyone’s attention, disrupting Seungmin’s carefully cultivated equilibrium. But as weeks blurred into months, it became increasingly clear that his original assessment had been somewhat... miscalculated. Chan was competent. Chan was fair. Chan didn’t raise his voice unnecessarily or belittle interns in front of patients. Chan remembered everyone’s names and greeted the security guards and janitors with the same warmth he showed his fellow surgeons.

He didn’t get the attraction, though—the flushed cheeks, the starry eyes, the whispers from nurses and interns and even fellow residents about the brilliance of his smile, or the way his arms flexed slightly when he reached for equipment. Of course not. Absolutely ridiculous. Sure, Chan was objectively handsome in the way marble statues in museums were objectively handsome—beautiful to look at, carefully crafted, and completely untouchable. That was all. That had to be all.

He could admit, privately, grudgingly, that they could get along. There was no reason not to. They worked well together. Chan knew how to anticipate his movements in surgery, how to meet his bluntness with calm patience, how to take the edge off his irritation with well-timed humour. They shared quiet glances in theatre, communicated in shorthand nods and subtle gestures. Outside of surgery, they talked in hallways, exchanged clipped, professional banter at the coffee station, laughed at Changbin’s terrible jokes together in meetings. They were colleagues. They were... compatible.

They could even—one day, hypothetically—become friends.

But that was as far as it would go. He wouldn’t let it shift into something different, something dangerous. It was impractical. Impossible. He wasn’t Felix, blushing every time Changbin offered to carry an IV bag. He wasn’t Jisung, turning red to the tips of his ears whenever Minho brushed past him in the hallway. He was Kim Seungmin: focused, meticulous, steady. Feelings didn’t figure into that equation. Feelings complicated things. They blurred the lines he relied on to keep himself safe.

And Chan—he was complicated enough already, with his easy smiles and gentle praise, the way his eyes lingered sometimes, thoughtfully, curiously, like he was trying to decipher something hidden between the carefully constructed layers Seungmin had wrapped around himself. Too complicated. Too distracting.

He told himself no, no, no, and again—no. It was a mantra, as essential and constant as the surgical protocols he’d committed to memory. Whatever strange warmth curled in his chest when Chan laughed, when Chan praised him quietly after a successful procedure, when Chan glanced over at him during a meeting, had to be contained. Managed. Rationalised away.

So, fine. Friends. Maybe, someday, possibly. Perhaps.

But anything more?

Absolutely, unequivocally not.

Never.

It was supposed to be a perfectly normal morning. His scrubs were freshly laundered, he’d slept a full five hours, and even the cafeteria coffee had tasted halfway decent. The corridor felt reassuringly ordinary, humming with its usual hospital rhythm: beeping monitors, hurried footsteps, and the faint, antiseptic scent of sterilised steel. Seungmin had nearly convinced himself the day was on track—routine, stable, predictable—until he turned the corner near the nurses’ station and saw it.

Chan, leaning casually against the counter, clipboard in hand and that easy, gentle smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He looked effortlessly comfortable, radiating the quiet authority that seemed to make everyone in this damn hospital gravitate towards him like he was some kind of human magnet.

And there, standing far too close, was Nurse Nam. She tilted her head, batting her lashes like a character from a Felix-approved romcom, her voice pitched low and saccharine. Seungmin slowed instinctively, hovering just out of sight as their voices filtered towards him.

“Dr. Bang,” she purred, leaning just a little further into Chan’s space than professional boundaries dictated, “you really should stop by our floor more often. You brighten the place up.”

Chan laughed softly, polite and unaware of the daggers Seungmin was mentally throwing from across the hallway. “I’m sure you say that to all the surgeons.”

“Oh no, just the ones who make our lives easier.” Her fingertips brushed Chan’s sleeve lightly, eyes sparkling with intent. “Maybe I’ll need to request a consult from General Surgery soon. Just to see you again.”

Chan chuckled again—warmly, genuinely—and Seungmin felt something sharp lodge itself unpleasantly beneath his ribs. His jaw tightened. Ridiculous, he told himself. Nurse Nam flirted with everyone. Even Felix, who had less than zero interest in women. But this felt different somehow, grating against his nerves like a scalpel slipping against bone.

“You know where to find me,” Chan replied smoothly, with the grace of someone who’d fielded countless flirtations and still had the decency to seem modest about it.

Nurse Nam stepped closer, dropping her voice conspiratorially. “Maybe we can catch lunch sometime? You can tell me all about Australia.”

Chan’s smile softened. “Sure, sounds nice.”

Seungmin turned sharply on his heel and walked away, his chest uncomfortably tight. He had rounds to make, interns to torment, paperwork to finish. He didn’t have time for...whatever that was. Whatever reaction he was feeling. He definitely wasn’t jealous—no, he corrected firmly, not jealous, just irritated. Annoyed. Nurse Nam had always been overly familiar, anyway. That was the problem here. Obviously.

But even as he moved through his patients’ rooms, Seungmin’s mood refused to lift. His words became sharper, his questions more biting. He interrogated an intern on the indications for bowel resection until the poor boy stammered incoherently. Another got sent scuttling off to radiology with a withering glare and a muttered, "Try not to get lost," that earned a startled squeak.

His interns started murmuring the moment he left their side, and as he stepped around the corner, he heard it clearly, low and cautious but perfectly audible:

“Seriously, what’s with Voldemort today?”

He paused, eyes narrowed. Voldemort. Was that what they thought? Was he really that bad today?

Seungmin exhaled slowly, pressing a hand briefly to his temple, and continued down the hall without responding. He didn’t need to explain himself—not to his interns, not to Nurse Nam, and certainly not to Chan.

Absolutely not to Chan.

Yet despite that, the irritation lingered, hot and sharp beneath his skin, colouring the rest of his day like a stain he couldn’t quite scrub out.

Everything faded, as it always did, the moment he stepped through the theatre doors. The noise, the emotion, the static of thought—dissolved. Seungmin breathed in the familiar scent of chlorhexidine and steel, sterile and sharp and comforting in its own brutal way. The OR was where he felt clean. Focused. In control. No stray thoughts. No smiles he didn't know how to interpret, no flirtation lingering in his mind like an infection. Just hands, tools, precision.

Cut, repair, suture. That was the rhythm of his life, the cadence his body had memorised even when sleep-deprived and aching. The lights overhead hummed quietly. The scrub nurse was efficient. The drapes were crisp. Everything should have gone smoothly.

Except today, nothing did.

His assigned intern—wide-eyed, shaking, and utterly unprepared—fumbled three instruments in a row, hesitated on the suction, and nearly contaminated the field trying to adjust the retractors. Seungmin barked at him once, then twice, tone clipped and cold, but it did nothing to steady the boy’s trembling hands.

And the attending—Dr. Kang—was one of those surgeons. Old-guard. Narrow-minded. The kind who sneered at the hospital’s Pride posters, who raised his brows when a male nurse wore colourful shoes, who had once muttered “soft boys don’t make good surgeons” under his breath during a particularly tense procedure. Seungmin had despised him from the first week.

Today, he despised him even more.

Dr. Kang had been late to scrub in. Barked condescending instructions throughout. Dismissed Seungmin’s suggestions with patronising little grunts. When the patient began crashing—an elderly woman with gallbladder complications and silent sepsis beneath it all—Kang hesitated. Ordered the wrong line. Delayed the call for anaesthesia backup.

Seungmin took over when it was already too late.

The monitor flatlined despite their efforts. There were compressions. Meds. Silence. And eventually—he had to say the words himself.

“Time of death, 20:35.”

The room went still. The kind of stillness that didn’t feel clean. That stuck to your skin.

Seungmin stripped off his gloves and gown in silence, barely feeling the tug of the material. His hands were shaking by the time he made it to the resident’s locker room.

The door slammed behind him. He kicked the first locker hard enough to rattle the hinges. The second even harder.

“Fuck,” he hissed, and then again, louder, angrier. “ Fuck. ”

He kicked the metal again. Again. Until the clang echoed through the small space like a scream bouncing off hospital walls. Until his throat burned with things he didn’t want to feel—guilt, fury, helplessness. Until the pain in his foot finally forced him to stop.

He stood there, breathing hard, the fluorescent lights flickering faintly above him, the tang of sweat and steel thick in the air.

Then—

“Seungmin.”

He froze.

Chan stood in the doorway, still in scrubs, hair damp around the edges from a hasty scrub-out, a concerned crease in his brow. He didn’t look surprised. Just... present.

“Don’t,” Seungmin said hoarsely, voice brittle and sharp. “I don’t want to talk.”

Chan didn’t move closer. He didn’t offer empty platitudes or tell him to calm down. He just stood there a moment longer, then quietly closed the door behind him.

“I heard,” he said gently. “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

“I said I don’t want to talk, ” Seungmin snapped, turning away. He ran a hand through his hair, tugged at the roots like he could rip the frustration out. “The intern was useless. Kang—he didn’t listen. I should’ve—fuck—I should’ve seen it coming.”

Chan was silent for a moment. Then, softly: “You couldn’t have.”

Seungmin exhaled shakily, the anger beginning to fracture into something more fragile. “She died.”

“I know.”

“I was standing right there.”

“I know.”

He hated how gentle Chan’s voice was. How it didn’t try to fix things, just softened the edges of them.

His hands were still trembling. He sat down hard on the bench, head in his hands. The room felt too bright, too empty, too full.

After a beat, Chan stepped forward and crouched in front of him.

“You did everything you could,” he said quietly. “Everything.”

Seungmin didn’t answer. He couldn’t. But when Chan placed a hand on his knee—steady, grounding—he didn’t pull away.

He let the silence hold them.

Just for a little while.

After his outburst in the changing room, everything was supposed to return to normal.

And, in a way, it did. Seungmin woke up the next morning at his usual time, brewed his coffee with the same robotic precision, ignored the aching stiffness in his foot from where he’d kicked the lockers, and walked into Gwangil University Hospital as if nothing had happened. The patient was gone. Her chart signed, her body transferred. His notes were complete, the case closed. He’d logged the time of death with the same clipped professionalism he applied to every other box on the EMR. That was the job. That was life. The way the cookie crumbled. People lived. People didn’t. You kept going.

It wasn’t the first patient he’d lost. It wouldn’t be the last.

And yet, Chan seemed determined to make it something different .

It started the very next day.

Seungmin was midway through organising his clipboard for morning rounds when he heard it—a familiar voice, pleasant, low, and a little too close for comfort.

“Dr. Kim!”

The name was sharp, but not unkind, and used properly. Professional. Aware. Because of course Chan knew better than to use his first name in front of patients or staff. Seungmin appreciated that. Or he should’ve appreciated it.

He didn’t turn around. “Dr. Bang,” he replied, just as neutral, eyes still on his notes.

But then—something appeared in the corner of his vision. A paper cup. Coffee. Held out towards him.

He glanced at it, at the careful little handwritten label on the side—his name in neat block letters, no smiley face or stupid doodle, just Seungmin . And below it, the exact order he preferred. Black. One sugar. No syrup. No milk. The kind of bitter that clung to the back of the throat.

Chan didn’t linger. “Have a good day,” he said simply, and turned, his footsteps fading into the bustle of the ward before Seungmin could so much as blink.

He stared at the cup like it had insulted his ancestors.

He didn’t drink it. Not right away.

He told himself he wouldn’t at all.

But ten minutes into rounds, he found himself lifting the cup to his lips anyway.

And of course—it was perfect .

There were other things, too. Smaller, subtler. And yet they added up.

A fresh set of scrubs left folded neatly in the residents' lounge after a messy emergency surgery. A post-it stuck to the monitor reminding him of a patient follow-up, even though he never forgot. A quick “nice work” after a consult they’d handled together, spoken in passing but always just loud enough for Seungmin to hear.

It wasn’t coddling. Not exactly. Chan never hovered. Never pushed. Never asked him if he wanted to talk about the code blue, or the locker room incident, or how he'd been walking around with his jaw set like concrete ever since. No grand speeches. No hand on the shoulder. Just... this slow, steady stream of thoughtful gestures.

And still—it got under his skin.

Because what was this?

Kindness?

Pity?

Affection?

Attention ?

He didn’t know. And the fact that he didn’t know irritated him more than anything else.

He began cataloguing every move Chan made. Watching for patterns. Weighing intent. Every interaction became a riddle, every glance another thing to decode. He found himself paying too much attention to the way Chan laughed with the cardiologists in the break room, the way he leaned in when talking to nurses, how easily his presence seemed to soften even the most hardened consultants.

And every time—every damn time—Chan looked at him across the hallway or the OR or even from the other side of the cafeteria line, there was something warm in his gaze. Not romantic. Not expectant.

Just… warm.

Which was worse.

Seungmin took another sip of the coffee he wasn’t supposed to enjoy, and muttered under his breath as he walked down the corridor, “Goddamn it.”

Lunch had once been the last sacred ritual Seungmin had. A small, predictable reprieve from the hurricane of interns, patients, and the unbearable stupidity of hospital bureaucracy. A time where he could sit with his tray, eat his food in peace, and tune out the world with exactly twelve minutes of silence.

But now?

Now it seemed that lunch —like everything else in his life—had been quietly invaded by attendings.

He wasn’t even sure when it had started. A few weeks ago, maybe, when Jisung had oh-so-innocently suggested they sit in the courtyard instead of the resident lounge. Then Minho had appeared, apparently by coincidence, followed closely by Changbin with a stack of protein bars and a smug grin, and—inevitably—Chan, hands in his pockets, smile easy and oblivious as ever.

And somehow, since then, it had become a thing .

A table of eight, half of them overqualified to be sitting with mere residents and scrub nurses, laughing over cafeteria rice and questionable kimchi. Changbin always had the loudest voice. Minho rarely spoke unless it was to murmur something to Jisung. Felix and Jeongin brought the gossip. Hyunjin rarely ate, but lived for the commentary. And Chan—Chan, like clockwork, would settle beside Seungmin. Always beside Seungmin.

Today was no different.

Seungmin sat at the edge of the table, tray neatly arranged, rice untouched, when Chan slid into the seat next to him with the ease of someone who belonged . He was eating something green and offensively healthy, probably packed by a nurse who adored him. He smiled when their shoulders bumped. Didn’t apologise. Didn’t move away.

Seungmin chose to stare intently at his kimchi stew instead.

Across from them, Felix leaned in conspiratorially. “So,” he said, voice low and far too delighted, “I heard something today.”

Jeongin perked up instantly. “Is this about the nurses’ lounge? Because I also heard something.”

“No,” Felix replied, eyes twinkling. “ Yes , but also, yes. ” He turned to face Seungmin fully, resting his chin in his palm like a predator preparing to pounce. “Apparently, there’s a bet going around.”

Seungmin didn’t look up. “I don’t care.”

“Oh, you will ,” Jeongin grinned. “Because it’s about you .”

That earned a pause. Seungmin sighed. “What now.”

“Some of the nurses,” Felix continued delicately, “have decided that you and Dr. Bang are either secretly dating... or about to be.”

Seungmin choked on his rice. He coughed once, sharply, eyes widening just slightly as he reached for his water.

Chan turned, concerned. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Seungmin ground out, voice hoarse. “Dying. But fine.”

Chan blinked, then returned to his lunch like nothing had happened.

Jeongin cackled. “ That’s your response? Felix tells you the entire scrub team thinks you’re getting railed in the supply closet and you just glitch ?”

“I hate everyone here,” Seungmin muttered.

“Also,” Felix added with a pointed look, “your ears are red.”

“They are not .”

“They kinda are,” Chan said helpfully, not looking up from his food.

Seungmin shot him a murderous look.

Chan smiled, unbothered.

Hyunjin, from further down the table, raised a hand without looking up from his phone. “Put me down for fifty on ‘slow burn enemies to lovers.’”

“Make it seventy,” Jeongin said. “Bonus if there’s a surprise confession in the on-call room.”

Seungmin slammed his chopsticks onto his tray and stood up. “I’m going to check on my post-ops. If anyone follows me, I will write them up for harassment.”

Felix grinned. “That’s not a no!”

He left without answering, ears burning, tray abandoned, and Chan’s quiet laughter following him down the hallway like static.

He didn’t know what infuriated him more—that they were all talking, or that some distant , irrational part of him didn’t completely hate the idea.

It should have ended there—at lunch, with red ears, half-eaten rice, and a humiliating table full of co-workers taking bets on his romantic demise. But this was Gwangil University Hospital, where information didn’t simply spread—it multiplied , mutated, and metastasised like the most virulent of cancers.

By the time Seungmin returned to his afternoon rounds, the damage was already done.

The first sign came at the nurses’ station on 9C. He caught it in the tail end of a conversation as he walked by, clipboard in hand, eyes scanning vitals.

“I’m just saying,” one of them whispered, voice low and conspiratorial, “he never sits with anyone during meals. But now? Every day. Next to him. Same coffee order. You don’t do that for just anyone.”

“Shhh,” the other giggled, “he’s right there.”

Seungmin didn’t break stride. He didn’t blink, didn’t react. He simply passed the desk, boots silent on the tile, and continued toward the next patient. He’d mastered the art of nonchalance long ago. Internally, however, he was screaming.

It didn’t stop there.

Three rooms later, while quizzing his interns on post-op fluid management, one of them—Dr. Park, a new addition to the team with more confidence than sense—blanked entirely. Seungmin waited, eyebrows raised, while the boy blinked like a deer in headlights.

“Well?” he asked, tone cool.

“I—uh, sorry, Dr. Kim,” Park stammered. “I—I got distracted.”

Seungmin narrowed his eyes. “By what, exactly? The entire question was three words long.”

Park’s face turned crimson. Behind him, another intern bit down on a grin and failed spectacularly. A third tried, poorly, to look innocent.

Seungmin’s jaw clenched. “Would someone like to enlighten me as to what exactly is so distracting during a clinical review?”

Silence. And then a whisper—so quiet it might not have reached him, except it did .

“I heard he kissed Dr. Bang in the changing rooms…”

The pen in Seungmin’s hand snapped clean in two.

He said nothing. Just turned, left the clipboard in the nearest tray, and walked out before he could be accused of homicide by Bic.

He thought it couldn’t get worse. He thought—surely—that would be the peak.

It wasn’t.

Because of course it wasn’t.

Late that afternoon, while checking in on a patient recovering from bowel resection, an elderly woman with tightly permed hair and the uncanny ability to smell gossip like it was blood in the water, he was blindsided again.

“Doctor,” she said sweetly, reaching for his wrist with a paper-thin hand as he adjusted her IV.

“Yes, Mrs. Choi?”

“You’re very gentle,” she said. “Steady hands. I can see why Dr. Bang likes you.”

Seungmin blinked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, it’s all around the ward,” she said matter-of-factly, like she was commenting on the weather. “Such a handsome pair you make. Very modern. My nephew is also dating a man. It’s all the rage these days.”

Seungmin stared at her, momentarily robbed of speech.

“I—Dr. Bang and I are not—” he stopped. “We are colleagues. ”

“Of course, dear,” she said, patting his hand with the solemnity of a bishop. “Just don’t let work come between you.”

He stepped out of the room in a daze, the world slightly tilted at the edges.

Gossip. That was all it was. Harmless. It would pass.

Except it wasn’t passing. It was spreading —thriving, breeding in the break rooms and the corridors and the quiet hum of patient rooms like an infection nobody was willing to treat.

And Seungmin, no matter how many charts he reviewed or veins he cannulated, was stuck in the centre of it.

With Chan. Who hadn’t even done anything.

Except bring him coffee.

And sit beside him.

And look at him like—

He stopped the thought before it could finish.

He needed air. Or anaesthesia. Or possibly exile.

Preferably before someone else asked him what colour suit he’d wear to his nonexistent wedding.

It was Thursday evening, which meant drama night. Not the emotional kind—well, not intentionally—the televised kind, selected carefully from an Excel-coded schedule that Seungmin himself had constructed with all the seriousness of a cardiac consult. Each week had its rotation. Legal dramas on Tuesdays, slice-of-life on Sundays, and Thursdays reserved strictly for the slow-burning, romantically chaotic kind that Felix referred to as "emotional buffet.”

The lights in the flat were dimmed to theatre-appropriate levels, the kettle had just boiled, and the sofa was already a mess of blankets and mismatched cushions. Felix had just flounced in from the kitchen with mugs of tea and a bowl of chocolate-covered almonds, settling himself with far too much grace for someone in avocado pyjamas.

Seungmin sat beside him, hoodie up, expression set to its usual default: mildly unimpressed. He’d been looking forward to this all day. A little structure. A little peace.

Of course, the peace lasted all of three seconds.

“Spill,” Felix said, voice light but unyielding, legs tucked under him like a coiled spring.

Seungmin didn’t look away from the television. “What? My tea?”

Felix scoffed. “ The tea, Seungmin. About Chan.”

He blinked. Slowly. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard half the hospital,” came Jisung’s voice, who had apparently materialised from the depths of the hallway like a demon summoned by gossip. He plopped down on the other side of the couch with his own mug of tea and the air of someone who had time . “Are you guys getting busy or not?”

Seungmin turned to glare at him, the weight of his judgement sharp and immediate. “Don’t you have neurosurgeons to fuck?”

“Just the one,” Jisung replied, utterly unbothered. “So, what’s going on?”

“Nothing is going on,” Seungmin said, enunciating each word with surgical precision. “We are colleagues. We get along. He’s a kind person who happens to remember my coffee order. That’s it. It’s hardly a marriage proposal, fiends .”

“Oh,” Felix sighed dreamily, “but it could be.”

Seungmin groaned, throwing his head back against the couch. “He’s straight.”

“You’re his gay awakening,” Felix countered, positively gleaming now.

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Denial is a river in Egypt,” Jisung added, not missing a beat.

“That’s the Nile ,” Seungmin snapped.

Felix giggled. Jisung looked proud. Seungmin contemplated faking a pager alert just to get out of the room.

“Look,” he said, trying to sound composed, measured. “There’s nothing going on. It’s gossip. Ridiculous gossip. The kind that starts when people have too much time and not enough patients to medicate. He’s just—friendly.”

Felix tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “Friendly?”

“Nice.”

Jisung grinned. “Warm?”

“ Professional ,” Seungmin said firmly.

“Sure,” Felix said, already scrolling on his phone. “But if he proposes with a double espresso and a radio knife, I’m officiating.”

“Same,” Jisung agreed. “And I’m wearing a tux. I’ll even do the flowers.”

“There is no wedding ,” Seungmin growled.

The opening theme of the drama started playing, but no one was paying attention. Not really. Felix was humming under his breath and Jisung was already texting someone—probably Minho—and Seungmin sat in the middle of it, vaguely betrayed by the domesticity of it all.

The gossip had followed him home. It had entered his sacred space. And worse— worse —he’d spent the last forty-eight hours trying not to think about Chan’s hand brushing his sleeve, or the coffee, or the way he smiled sometimes like Seungmin was the only one in the room.

He didn’t like this.

He didn’t like him .

Or the warmth.

Or the looking.

Or the way Chan always seemed to find him.

He sipped his tea and turned back to the screen, scowling into the steam.

They were wrong.

They had to be.

There was a reason Seungmin hated Chief Park Jinyoung.

Not disliked. Not merely found him irritating or exhausting. Hated . The kind of slow-burning, marrow-deep hatred reserved only for people who wore kindness like a costume and called it leadership. Dr. Park was loud, for one—always filling the corridors of Gwangil University Hospital with his bright, performative energy, smiling just a beat too long, complimenting people in a tone that always felt like it was being recorded. He cared about team morale in the way a politician cared about poll numbers, liked to talk about unity and growth and “the spirit of mentorship,” while willfully ignoring the quiet rot in the walls.

Seungmin had lost count of how many complaints he’d sent his way—formal, clinical, signed in cool black ink. Complaints about the way certain senior attendings muttered slurs under their breath, about the off-colour jokes made in lounges and corridors, about the whispered insinuations that still followed Jisung and his too-public proximity to Lee Minho. None of it was ever addressed. Not properly. Sometimes a lukewarm reminder about “inclusive language” would go out over the staff bulletin. Sometimes he’d receive a one-line reply: Noted, Dr. Kim. That was all.

Chief Park wasn’t a surgeon. Not really. He wore the title, but he hadn’t scrubbed into anything more complicated than an appendectomy in months. His residents whispered about how he still botched laparoscopic techniques and got flustered during conversions. But he smiled for the board. And he took photos with the donors. And he spoke well at conferences. So of course, he was Chief of Surgery.

So that was why—when Seungmin stepped into the surgical wing at six-thirty and saw his name lit up in neat white font on the assignment board, positioned directly next to Dr. Park Jinyoung —he sighed.

Jisung, who had appeared behind him like a poorly timed ghost, let out a soft whistle. “Oof.”

“Don’t start,” Seungmin muttered.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Jisung leaned in slightly, reading the screen. “Right hepatic lobectomy. That’s not exactly a scrub case.”

“No,” Seungmin agreed. “It’s not.”

It was an honour, technically. Complex. Delicate. Reserved only for second-years with enough OR time logged to be considered reliable. A sign of trust. A professional compliment. But compliments meant nothing when they came from people whose approval he didn’t want.

“Minho must’ve suggested us,” Jisung said. “The case got transferred from Neuro after the last scan showed metastatic involvement.”

Seungmin didn’t reply. He stood there, watching the board glow coldly in the early morning hush, his own name stark and unavoidable beneath the Chief’s.

He didn’t want to do this. Not with him.

But professionalism wasn’t about want. It was about precision. About protocol. About doing the job and doing it well —even when your hands were steady but your stomach churned.

He inhaled slowly. “Let’s go check on the patient.”

Jisung looked at him carefully, eyes sharp beneath the playful surface. “You okay?”

“Peachy.”

“Liar.”

Seungmin didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

He just turned on his heel and started walking, scrubs rustling with every clipped step.

The Chief could have his prestige. His forced morale and carefully curated public image.

Seungmin would have the sutures.

And the silence.

And the patient’s life in his hands.

They finished rounding on the patient just past seven-thirty. She was stable, alert, and surprisingly cheery for someone awaiting major hepatic resection. Seungmin had reviewed the latest imaging, confirmed the labs, and nodded along as Jisung chatted to her with that particular brand of warmth he reserved for patients and cats. The woman had laughed twice during the encounter—once when Jisung complimented her nail polish, and again when he scolded Seungmin for “having the bedside manner of an unplugged defibrillator.”

He was still trying to block out the fact that Jisung had called his intern by name earlier. Name , as in first name. Hyuna , with a grin and a wink. It had made the girl nearly combust on the spot and Seungmin had considered resigning from the profession entirely.

“Try not to flirt with the children,” he said under his breath as they walked down the hallway, charts in hand.

“I wasn’t flirting,” Jisung replied innocently. “I was being personable .”

“Personable makes people cry less. Not turn bright red and forget how to spell the word ‘fever.’ ”

“It’s fine,” Jisung shrugged. “You’re so grumpy it balances us out.”

“I’m not—”

But he didn’t finish, because they turned the corner and collided directly into Changbin and Chan, who were exiting from the staff stairwell, both still in surgical caps and jackets slung over their shoulders. Morning conference, no doubt.

“Good morning, kiddos,” Changbin greeted, his voice already far too loud for this hour. “Someone’s in a mood. ”

Seungmin stiffened. “I’m not in a mood.”

“You’re always in a mood,” Changbin laughed. “But this one’s extra special . I could smell the rage all the way from CT.”

Chan’s eyes sparkled with something amused but unspoken. “Everything okay?”

Seungmin didn’t answer. He just folded his arms tighter across his chest and looked somewhere over Chan’s left shoulder. Anywhere else.

“He’s mad because we’re on Park Jinyoung’s case today,” Jisung supplied, voice chipper, traitorous. “Hepatic lobectomy. Surprise honour. Seungmin’s thrilled.”

“Over the moon,” Seungmin muttered.

Changbin let out a sympathetic groan. “That man once spent forty-five minutes lecturing me on wound tension. After the patient was already closed.”

Chan chuckled. “Well, at least it’s you two. If anyone can keep the case from spiralling, it’s probably you.”

Seungmin didn’t want the warmth that curled in his chest at that. He certainly didn’t want the way Chan was looking at him now—soft, a little crooked in the smile, as though he saw straight through the mask of indifference.

“Try not to murder him on the table,” Changbin grinned.

“I make no promises,” Seungmin said.

They parted after that, with a nod from Chan and a back-pat from Changbin, but as Seungmin walked away, he could still feel the way Chan’s gaze lingered on him. Not probing. Not invasive. Just present, and far too difficult to ignore.

The scrub room was too cold, as always, the tile underfoot a little too slick, the fluorescent lights above just a bit too white. The scent of antiseptic clung to everything—crisp and clean, yet faintly suffocating. Seungmin stood at the sink, hands under the running water, sleeves rolled past his elbows, fingernails already raw from the way he was scrubbing. He moved mechanically, methodically, every motion practised, deliberate, necessary.

Beside him, Jisung stood with his chin tilted up, watching the water run in a lazy stream from his own fingertips.

“I think he likes you,” he said casually, as if commenting on the weather. “Chan.”

Seungmin didn’t pause. But his breath did catch, ever so slightly.

He inhaled through his nose, slow and quiet, and said nothing at first. Just switched hands, applied more chlorhexidine with more force than necessary, scrubbing under his nails like he was trying to erase something buried there.

“Seungmin.”

A sigh. “You’re exhausting.”

“I’m right.”

“You’re loud. ”

“And right.”

Seungmin rolled his eyes toward the mirror, catching Jisung’s reflection—the faintest of smirks playing at his lips. “He’s straight.”

Jisung hummed. “So were you once. What was it? Middle school? That girl who broke your heart and made you start journaling in Latin?”

“That was Latin homework. And she did not break my heart.”

“You colour-coded your notes based on her moods, Seungmin.”

He didn’t answer. Just scrubbed harder.

“And besides,” Jisung added, shaking off his hands with a flourish, “he could be bi.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Seungmin muttered, reaching for a sterile towel. “We’re colleagues.”

“You’re always colleagues before you’re not.”

“He’s my boss.”

“Which makes it spicy,” Jisung said, already grinning.

Seungmin turned to him, towel pressed between his palms, expression taut. “He doesn’t like me.”

Jisung raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“You certain ?”

“Yes.”

“Because he’s been staring at you like you hung the moon lately, and I’m pretty sure he’s memorised your glove size.”

“It’s on the chart,” Seungmin said weakly.

Jisung shrugged. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Kim.”

They finished drying their hands in silence, the door to the theatre ahead of them sliding open with its usual mechanical hiss. The OR lights awaited—harsh and blinding, the smell of cautery already thick in the air.

Seungmin stepped through without another word.

But the words he likes you trailed behind him like a shadow, quiet and insistent, refusing to be scrubbed clean.

The theatre was quiet in that particular way only an operating room could be—hushed, sacred, sterile. The lights were low except for the blinding overhead beam that cast the patient’s abdomen in a white, unwavering glare. Everything outside its halo faded—walls, people, distractions—leaving only the incision site, the steady rhythm of the monitors, and the tremble of heat beneath sterile gowns.

Seungmin stood at the head of the table, gloved hands hovering just above the drapes, waiting. He knew the steps of this procedure the way a concert pianist knew the keys: by heart, by muscle, by the innate trust between knowledge and instinct. Aid the attending. Manage exposure. Keep the field clean. Jisung would track the bleeders, careful and fast, and the intern—Dr. Yoo, young, hopeful, useless—would pass the tools when asked and try not to fumble.

Jisung, jittery outside theatre but always calm inside, already had the suction in hand and a retractor placed with surprising confidence. It always startled Seungmin, the way his best friend transformed once under the lights—shoulders squared, fingers precise, every nervous tic smoothed out into competence. He didn’t speak unless necessary, didn’t giggle, didn’t even hum. Just focused.

They opened clean. That was the last clean part.

The anatomy was… wrong. Twisted, obscured. Scar tissue fused where it shouldn’t be, vessels branching in unfamiliar angles, and the liver—large, heavier than expected, glistening with old damage and fresh tension. Seungmin wouldn’t have cut yet. He would’ve waited. Asked for a second scan. Slowed down. But Dr. Park pressed forward, scalpel already in hand, voice clipped.

“We’re losing time.”

Seungmin clenched his jaw and steadied the retractor.

The first cut was too wide. The second, too deep. Jisung worked quickly, patching bleeds with gauze and and the radio knife, suctioning with careful sweeps. Dr. Yoo passed the wrong clamp—twice—and Seungmin snapped a correction before the third.

By the second hour, the room had grown thick with heat and tension. The anaesthesiologist murmured something about pressure, and Jisung glanced up, eyes sharp.

“She’s dropping,” he said quietly.

“Clamp here,” Seungmin directed, nodding at the splintered artery near the right lobe. Jisung moved fast, careful. He was buying time.

They worked like that for another hour. Small errors piling like grains of sand on a scale. Dr. Park’s posture slouched, his breath louder through the mask, and then, inevitably—he sighed.

It was long. It was botched. It was complicated.

He looked at Seungmin with the faint edge of something like surrender in his voice.

“I’m gonna need you to take over, Kim.”

Of course. Of course.

Seungmin’s hands didn’t shake. His heart didn’t race. But inside—somewhere deeper, somewhere raw—he paused.

He could do this.

He’d trained for this.

But the liver was a mess. They’d lost more blood than planned. The patient had already been under anaesthesia longer than safe, and one wrong cut could mean haemorrhage they wouldn’t be able to contain. He was good, but good didn’t mean invincible. Not here. Not now.

He looked up at Jeongin, who was watching him with that silent scrub-nurse intuition that always made Seungmin feel too visible.

“Page Dr. Bang, please,” Seungmin said, voice even.

Jeongin didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Dr. Kim.”

The words hung in the theatre like a change in air pressure. Park didn’t argue. Jisung didn’t flinch. They just stepped aside enough to make room.

Because when it came down to it—there were only so many people you trusted when everything else had already gone wrong.

And Seungmin trusted Chan. Whether he liked it or not.

In the meantime, Seungmin worked in silence, the kind that was clinical and not quite comfortable. The suction buzzed steadily beside him, the anaesthesiologist murmuring low numbers every few minutes, and the scent of cauterised tissue lingered in the thick heat of the OR. Dr. Park had left not long after handing off the case, retreating with the excuse of a “scheduled call,” though everyone in the room knew it was because he was in over his head and too proud to admit it.

Seungmin kept the bleeding controlled. Not fixed— controlled . Barely. The exposed lobe glistened under the lights, swollen and bruised from the poor cuts made earlier, the cautery already used too heavily. His hands moved steadily, but his mind was a dull roar of calculations and consequences, a loop of don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up . He felt Jeongin beside him, calm and precise, assisting with a quiet intensity that helped keep him tethered.

And then—

“Scrubbed and ready,” came a familiar voice from the door, and a moment later Chan stepped into the field, his gown crisp, his presence a small storm of calm urgency. He didn’t greet anyone formally, didn’t ask pointless questions. Just looked at the surgical site, exhaled slowly through his nose, and said, “Oh boy.”

He moved to Seungmin’s side, taking stock as he settled into position. “I’m guessing you didn’t do this?”

“You guessed correctly.”

“Right.” A pause. “Okay. We can fix it if we act now. Come on, Minnie.”

The nickname—soft, easy, said without thought—nearly made his hand slip. Nearly.

But it didn’t.

Still, it came close.

He didn’t respond. Just adjusted his hold on the retractor and gave a sharp nod, jaw tight beneath his mask. The others shifted instinctively to accommodate Chan’s presence, the room reconfiguring itself around the quiet certainty he carried with him. There was no wasted time. No raised voices. Just movement.

Chan’s gloved hand moved into the field, confident and fast. “Clamp here. Jeongin, I need two more ties. Dr. Han, keep an eye on that pressure curve—if she dips again, we’re packing and pausing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, Dr. Kim—watch my angle. We’re doing this clean.”

And they did.

It wasn’t easy. The vessels were scarred and fragile, the segment distorted from inflammation and trauma. But they moved like clockwork. Seungmin followed his lead, matching tempo, anticipating Chan’s decisions a breath before they were spoken. Their hands passed over one another without friction, two halves of the same effort. No hesitation. No guesswork.

Chan didn’t patronise. He didn’t correct. He trusted , and in that trust, Seungmin found his hands steadier, his focus sharper, the pressure that had sat behind his eyes for hours finally starting to ease.

The repair took time. Two hours, maybe more. The world outside the theatre ceased to exist—no gossip, no eyes watching, no thoughts but the present moment. By the time they finished, the field was dry. Clean. Contained.

“Closing looks good,” Chan murmured. “We’ll monitor post-op, but I think we got ahead of it just in time.”

Seungmin exhaled, slow and deep, the weight lifting from his shoulders one vertebra at a time.

“Nice work,” Chan added softly, without turning. “Really.”

Seungmin didn’t reply. He couldn’t, not with the way his chest had begun to ache—tight and strange and full of things he didn’t want to name.

But when Chan’s hand brushed his briefly while handing off the last instrument, he didn’t pull away.

By the time the adrenaline wore off, the weight of the five hours of surgery settled deep into Seungmin’s bones, anchoring him to the floor of the residents’ lounge like sediment. The lights were off, save for the dim glow of a vending machine screen blinking quietly in the corner. Jisung lay next to him, stretched out with one leg across his thighs, both of them silent, their scrubs rumpled, skin sticky with dried sweat and old antiseptic. There wasn’t much to say. They were past speech, past thought. Only muscle memory and exhaustion remained.

Seungmin’s head throbbed dully behind his eyes. His knees ached from hours of standing. His fingers still tingled faintly, ghosting with the shape of retracted tissue and clamped vessels. He had nothing left. Not anger, not analysis. Just breath and gravity.

So, when the door creaked open and two figures stepped into the room, he wasn’t surprised. Not really. Not anymore.

Minho entered first, expression unreadable in the dim light, a plastic cup of iced americano in one hand, and a rustling convenience store bag in the other. He crossed the room silently and crouched beside Jisung, who didn’t even lift his head. Just reached out blindly, fingers curling around the drink before he even looked. A second later, he climbed into Minho’s lap like it was something they did every day—settling with a sigh, eyes closed, face pressed into his shoulder.

Chan came in just behind, moving slowly, softly, as if entering a room full of sleeping children. In his hand: Seungmin’s espresso. Tall. Black. No sugar. In the crook of his elbow: a packet of salted peanuts, the same brand Seungmin always bought when the machines didn’t have anything better. He didn’t say a word. Just lowered himself to the floor beside him and extended the cup in offering.

Seungmin blinked at it, stared, then reached out and took it. His fingers brushed Chan’s in the exchange, warm against his own cold skin.

He didn’t think. He didn’t argue.

He took a sip, and the bitterness cut through the fog in his brain like a defibrillator. Strong. Clean. Familiar.

His head dropped before he meant it to, landing against Chan’s shoulder with the kind of ease that only came from exhaustion—an intimacy born not from intention, but from quiet . From the unbearable weight of a day survived. From hands that had worked together and held together. From a closeness no one had asked for but somehow existed anyway.

Chan didn’t move.

Didn’t shift. Didn’t stiffen. Just stayed.

The vending machine screen blinked again.

Outside, the hospital continued on—monitors and footsteps and late-night shift changes. But in here, it was still.

The hospital parking lot was damp with the sheen of early evening, streetlights flickering against rows of quiet vehicles like tired sentinels. The air was thick with the hush that followed a long shift—no alarms, no monitors, just silence stretching outward like a sigh.

Jisung didn’t say anything. He just yawned, stretched once with the boneless grace of someone who hadn’t slept in days, and then wordlessly climbed into Minho’s car. The passenger door shut with a soft thud, and they were gone, tail lights glowing red before vanishing into the main road.

Seungmin stood still for a moment, turning his keys over in his hand, the sharp little teeth of them pressing into his palm like a question. His phone buzzed—Felix, letting him know the apartment was already locked, the leftovers labelled, and the living room prepped for whatever Thursday drama was next on the calendar. He was probably already in bed, wearing his ridiculous carrot-print pyjamas, half-asleep.

“Let me drive you,” Chan said from beside him, voice low, deliberate.

Seungmin turned. “You don’t have to.”

“I can Uber back.”

“It’s fifteen minutes. I’ve survived worse.”

“I know,” Chan said gently. “But I want to.”

That settled it, somehow.

Chan didn’t wait for another protest. He simply held out his hand for the keys, and Seungmin gave them over with more hesitation than he cared to admit.

It was strange—watching him slide into the driver’s seat of his car, adjust the mirrors, seat pulled back just slightly to accommodate longer legs. Even stranger was the way Chan reached over without a word to turn down the AC, like he already knew Seungmin hated cold air on tired muscles. And strangest of all was how he started humming as the car pulled out of the lot—soft, familiar, perfectly in tune with the playlist Seungmin always kept queued up for post-call drives. Ballads. Soft guitar. Gentle strings. Words about yearning that he usually skipped over when he wasn’t alone.

He thought it would bother him. Someone else in his space. Someone else driving his car, touching his stereo, breathing in the scent of the lemon-scented wipes Felix insisted they use. But it didn’t.

It felt… fine.

No. More than fine.

It felt right .

Neither of them spoke much. The city passed quietly through the windows—flickers of storefronts, blinking lights, people walking home beneath the gold-tinted dusk. The cabin was warm. Safe. Seungmin’s head pressed back against the seat, his limbs heavy with the ache of long hours and adrenaline spent. But beneath the fatigue, something stirred.

They reached his building too soon. The engine went quiet. The silence returned.

Seungmin didn’t move to open the door. His fingers curled around the door handle, then stilled. His pulse kicked in his throat.

He didn’t want it to end, he realised. Not yet.

The day had been unbearable. Long. Twisted. But this—this quiet, this closeness, this him —had softened the edges of it.

And before he could talk himself out of it, before caution could wrestle the words away, he said, “How do you feel about cold pizza for dinner?”

Chan blinked. Turned toward him.

And smiled. That slow, warm, wrecking smile that somehow made Seungmin feel seen and undone all at once.

“Lead the way.”

He was screwed.

It came to him slowly, then all at once—like blood seeping through gauze until it bloomed red, undeniable, spreading through every layer before anyone realised there had been a wound to begin with.

It had probably started the moment Bang Chan walked into Gwangil University Hospital with his soft-spoken greetings and his maddening smile, the one that tilted slightly to the left and made every nurse turn their head. From the first moment in the OR, when he’d introduced himself like they weren’t colleagues but people, like Seungmin wasn’t already branded Voldemort by every intern within a three-department radius. From the first incision they’d shared, the silent rhythm between them, the ease— God , the ease —with which Chan adapted to Seungmin’s tempo like they’d been trained together since birth.

It had definitely worsened with movie night. That damned movie night. When Chan had shown up in joggers and a cardigan, holding Seungmin’s favourite brand of beer like it was just something they did, like it wasn’t entering Seungmin’s home for the first time. When he had sat beside him like it was the most natural thing in the world, laughed at the terrible horror movie, and not once—not once —looked uncomfortable.

But it had become terminal —a complete, irreversible condition—after the hepatectomy. When Park had butchered the field and Seungmin had tried to hold it all together with suction and sheer force of will. When Chan had walked in, gloved and calm, calling him Minnie like they weren’t elbow-deep in complications, like Seungmin wasn’t one breath away from panic. When they’d fixed it together. When Chan had trusted him completely without asking for proof.

That’s when something had shifted. Quietly. Permanently.

Now?

Now it was a fucking disaster.

Because his heart did stupid things when someone so much as mentioned Chan’s name in the hallway. Because he perked up like a golden retriever every time someone mentioned a case they might share, or every time that stupid, beautiful man brought him coffee—always just the way he liked it, always wordlessly placed beside his notes, as if it had always been his job to know Seungmin’s preferences.

Because Chan always found him at lunch. Always sat beside him at department meetings. Always— always —gravitated toward his side like it wasn’t a deliberate choice but instinct.

And because Seungmin let him .

Worse—he waited for it.

He sat with his tray and an extra set of chopsticks ready, knowing Chan would show. He slowed his walk to the elevator just enough that they would catch it together. He started ordering extra sides during lunch breaks, not because he was hungry, but because Chan always took a bite or two and Seungmin didn’t mind anymore.

So, yeah.

He was screwed.

Utterly, spectacularly, cosmically fucked.

Because sometime in the past few weeks, Seungmin had begun to hope. Had started smiling— smiling , like a lovesick fool—at texts that simply said on call again lol kill me . Had begun to feel his heart lurch when Chan looked at him too long in the OR, when their shoulders brushed in the lounge, when Chan said things like take a break, I’ve got this, and really meant it.

And now—now he knew.

With the deep, sobering, horrifying clarity of someone about to flatline.

He liked Bang Chan.

Liked him like he was fifteen again and reading poems in secret. Liked him like a bad habit. Like a new scar. Like something that would stay.

“Fuck,” Seungmin muttered to himself, dragging a hand over his face as he glared at the vending machine in the resident’s lounge. “Fuck my entire life.”

He pulled out a can of energy drink, cracked it open with more force than necessary, and took a long, angry sip.

If his heart wanted to betray him, fine.

He’d just have to keep caffeinating until it gave up.

“I’m having myself committed to psych,” he announced, tone flat.

Jisung didn’t look up from the screen. “Symptoms?”

“Stupidity. Racing heart. Sweating palms. Fantasies about holding hands in the call room.” He paused. “Maybe even… smiling at stupid jokes.”

Felix let out a soft gasp, turning slowly like he was witnessing a delicate tragedy unfold. “Oh, sweetie ,” he said, in that syrupy, pitying voice he reserved for crying children and Seungmin in emotional denial. He leaned over and dragged Seungmin into a hug so tight it nearly knocked the air from his lungs.

Seungmin, too mentally exhausted to protest, just melted into it with a grunt of despair. “There’s nothing wrong with being in love,” Felix cooed.

“I’m not in love ,” Seungmin muttered into his hoodie. “And even if I was, there’s a lot wrong when the person in question is my boss , my superior , and—oh, I don’t know— straight ?”

Felix pulled back just enough to look him in the eye, but kept his arms wrapped around him like a koala refusing to let go. Jisung finally turned from the screen, one eyebrow raised so high it could’ve launched into orbit.

“Seungmin,” Felix said gently, “if you think that man is straight, I think you really have to get yourself checked.”

“Seriously,” Jisung added. “You do realise he stares at you like you’re a particularly well-executed suture, right? Like, intense. Reverent. Slightly horny.”

Seungmin groaned and dragged the blanket over his face. “I hate this. I hate both of you. And this drama.”

“No, you don’t,” Felix said cheerfully. “You’re just projecting.”

Jisung nodded sagely. “Which is valid. I did that with Minho for six months. You’re doing great, actually. You’re just in stage two.”

“Stage two?”

“Denial, but fun. Like when you start feeling flustered instead of annoyed.”

“I am not flustered.”

“You turn red every time Chan says your name.”

“It’s called blood flow, idiot.”

Felix hummed and reached for a chocolate from the snack tray. “You know what this calls for?”

“An exorcism?”

“ A plan. ” Felix grinned. “We’re getting you laid.”

Seungmin made a strangled noise beneath the blanket. “I swear to God—”

But they were already plotting, laughter bouncing around the room, the drama forgotten, the rain-drenched couple on screen left unresolved. And despite everything—the shame, the confusion, the overwhelming reality of it all—Seungmin found himself smiling. Just a little.

As insufferable as they were, at least he wasn’t losing his mind alone.

It began, as most disasters do, with whispered scheming and suspiciously innocent smiles.

By Monday morning, it was clear that the Sunshine Twins Plan To Get Voldemort Laid™ was not only real, but active , and operating under the utterly deranged premise that Seungmin’s cooperation was entirely optional.

“I’m not doing this,” he told Jisung at seven a.m., barely awake and already regretting every choice that had led him to this moment—including, most notably, speaking to either of them on Friday night. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

“You never ask for help,” Jisung replied sweetly, fixing his hair in the reflection of the operating theatre’s observation window. “That’s what makes you so tragic. Like a lonely Victorian governess. All brooding and touch-starved.”

“Do not assign me a Jane Eyre arc, you lunatic.”

But it was too late. The wheels were in motion.

Felix, for his part, had decided subtlety was overrated. He now walked past Chan every time they crossed paths with the most dramatic conspiratorial wink Seungmin had ever seen in his life. Once, he even added finger guns. Finger guns. In a hospital. Where Seungmin worked.

He also, somehow, managed to orchestrate an increasing number of shared duties between Chan and Seungmin—an alarming amount of “schedule swaps,” mysteriously vanished consults, and equipment delivery requests that just so happened to land them in the same hallway, the same break room, the same OR.

The worst part? Chan didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he played it off with the same infuriating gentleness that had been driving Seungmin mad since day one. He greeted him the same way every time—with that slow, earnest smile and a quiet “Hey, Dr. Kim” that made something inside him short-circuit.

And Chan always sat beside him now. No matter where Seungmin was. Cafeteria, meetings, the departmental review he had tried to hide at the back of, movie night . Like clockwork. As though he had been magnetised, fatefully, to Seungmin’s personal orbit.

And Seungmin, for all his moaning, for all his elaborate eye-rolls and protests, never moved away.

Because, apparently, he had a death wish. Or a crush. Possibly both.

So now, he was living in constant, high-functioning dread.

Every time he saw Felix and Jisung whispering in the hallway, he felt his stomach twist. Every time they looked at Chan and giggled , he contemplated early retirement. Every time Felix said, “It’s just exposure therapy, darling,” and Jisung added, “You’ll thank us when he’s kissing you against the medicine cabinets,” he prayed for divine intervention.

He was going to kill them both. Slowly. With textbook citations.

And yet...

When Chan handed him coffee that morning—warm, dark, no sugar—and their fingers brushed for the briefest of seconds, Seungmin didn’t pull away.

Didn’t glare.

Didn’t say anything at all.

Because, for all his indignation, a traitorous part of him had started hoping.

There was something distinctly unnerving about a cheerful Kim Seungmin.

He breezed through rounds that morning with a lightness usually reserved for Felix on pay day. He complimented Jeongin’s bandage work. He nodded— nodded , not scoffed—at the intern who nervously recited the surgical steps to an appendectomy. He even made a joke at the nurse’s station, one that involved a pun, and when the nurses blinked in shock, he simply sipped his coffee and moved on like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Is he… smiling?” one of the interns whispered.

“What’s with Voldemort today?” another muttered, eyes wide.

“Baseball,” came the answer from the eldest among them, with the solemnity of someone delivering a diagnosis.

By lunch, the effect had only intensified. Seungmin actually sat with the rest of the group, tray in hand, back relaxed against the cafeteria chair, legs stretched under the table like he wasn’t nursing a perpetual vendetta against sunlight and joy. He even laughed— laughed —at something Hyunjin said about a failed nose job consult.

Hyunjin groaned in disbelief and narrowed his eyes. “Kim Seungmin, if you mention baseball right now, I might actually execute you.”

From across the table, Chan looked up from his lunch, head cocked in mild confusion. “Baseball?”

The collective groan that rose from the table was loud enough to startle a nearby nurse.

Only Minho and Changbin remained unmoved, the latter too busy counting almonds, the former scrolling through his phone with all the energy of a man observing mortals from Olympus.

Felix leaned forward, eyes alight. “He gets like this every season. He’s basically a cartoon dog in a jersey.”

“Huge game next week,” Seungmin announced, stabbing a piece of chicken with unnecessary satisfaction. “Giants are going to crush . Reserved the tickets months ago, I’m getting them today.”

Chan blinked. “I didn’t know you liked baseball.”

Seungmin didn’t miss a beat. “Gays can like sports too, Dr. Bang.”

Felix choked on his water and elbowed him. Hard. It wasn’t subtle. Neither were the eyebrows he raised, which moved like birds flapping in warning.

Beside them, Jisung mouthed the words with exaggerated clarity: Ask. Him.

Seungmin looked back at his tray. He wasn’t nervous. Not really. Just… bracing. The air around the table had shifted, and he knew every eye was on him. Except Chan’s, who was still watching him in that gentle, slightly amused way that made Seungmin want to scream into a pillow.

So he did the only thing he could do.

He spoke before he could stop himself.

“You can come with,” he said, the words casual, too fast, almost mumbled. “If you want. It’s whatever.”

Silence.

A beat.

Then—

Chan smiled. That same slow, tilted thing that always wrecked Seungmin’s internal equilibrium.

“I’d like that,” he said. “Sounds fun.”

Jisung squealed. Felix clapped. Jeongin muttered something about the end times.

Seungmin shoved another bite of rice into his mouth, face blank, ears pink.

He was still smiling.

God help him.

He was positively certain he had a brain tumour.

A large one. A massive , space-occupying lesion in his frontal lobe. Possibly pressing against the parts of his brain responsible for reason, dignity, and basic self-preservation. It was the only logical explanation for why he’d done something as catastrophically stupid as ask Bang Chan to a baseball game.

Not just any game, either. The game. The one he had marked in his calendar in February. The one he had circled three times and labelled “mandatory joy.” The one he had planned to attend alone so he could scream at the umpire and eat overpriced hot dogs in peace.

But no. Instead of peace, he’d chosen Bang Chan.

And now he was spiralling.

He tried to leave the flat quietly. Subtle. A quick getaway before his flatmates returned from errands and ruined everything with their unsolicited opinions and weaponised affection. He was dressed simply: red hoodie, team cap, his worn-down sneakers, and jeans that were comfortable enough to sit in for four hours straight. He had his ticket. He had a portable charger. He had a plan.

He opened the door.

And came face to face with Felix.

“ You’re going like that? ”

Seungmin froze. “…Yes?”

Felix stared. Jisung emerged from the kitchen just in time to give him the same look—one of awe, horror, and deep, personal disappointment.

“Absolutely not ,” Felix said, already pushing him back into the flat.

“Wait, what—?”

“No, no. Get undressed. Go sit down.”

“I was dressed.”

“Wrongly.”

And that was how Seungmin ended up sitting on the floor of his bedroom, half-naked, legs crossed and arms folded tightly across his chest while Jisung knelt in front of him, painstakingly tailoring the sides of his team jersey to give it a more “flattering shape,” and Felix rifled through his closet like he was planning a drag show rather than a sports event.

“It’s not a date,” Seungmin muttered.

“So?” Felix replied without looking up. “You still have to look fuckable.”

“I personally think it is a date,” Jisung added with a pin clenched between his teeth.

“And I personally think you need to shut up stat, ” Seungmin shot back, glaring at his ceiling like it had the power to smite people.

“Let’s not pretend this is casual,” Felix said, emerging from the closet with a triumphant gasp and holding up a pair of slim jeans like Moses unveiling the tablets. “This is the first official out-of-hospital, out-of-lounge, non-surgical event the two of you are doing together. It’s the courting phase , darling.”

“ Courting? We’re not regency lovers, we’re going to a game. ”

“And yet,” Jisung said, snipping a stray thread, “you’re blushing like a debutante who just saw her suitor’s ankle.”

Seungmin groaned and flopped backwards onto the floor, covering his face with one arm. “I’m calling in sick.”

“You try that, I’ll smother you with this jersey,” Jisung said. “And then wear it to the game myself.”

Felix threw the jeans at him. “Put these on. You’re meeting the love of your life in thirty minutes, and we’re not letting you go out there looking like a divorce.”

Seungmin muttered something unrepeatable but complied.

Because somewhere, beneath the panic and the embarrassment and the sheer absurdity of it all… he wanted to look good.

For Chan.

Just a little.

The sun was dipping low by the time Seungmin reached the arena, the sky painted in streaks of gold and rose, the kind of evening light that made everything look softer, warmer—like the world had taken a breath before the game began. The street outside the gates buzzed with energy: vendors calling out prices, fans streaming past in jerseys and face paint, the low thrum of excitement humming through every corner of the plaza.

And there—by the statue near the entrance, slightly awkward, both hands in the pockets of his oversized windbreaker—stood Bang Chan.

Seungmin slowed instinctively, taking in the sight. He was dressed like someone who had bought the entire gift shop in one go—Giants cap, matching jersey, team-coloured trainers that had clearly not been worn before. There was even a keychain swinging from the loop of his belt, shaped like the Giant’s duck mascot. It should have been absurd . But it wasn’t. Somehow, Chan made it look easy. Boyish. Stupidly charming .

When Chan saw him, he smiled. Bright. Unfiltered. Enough to make Seungmin’s breath catch.

“I wanted to look the part,” Chan said, scratching the back of his neck, his voice light and a little sheepish. “Did I do well?”

Seungmin wanted to laugh— giggle , if he was being honest, which he most certainly was not . Something sweet and ridiculous pressed against his ribs like it was trying to claw its way out, but he held it back with every shred of restraint he had. Instead, he lifted one brow, tried to sound cool. Disinterested. Normal.

“You did, hyung,” he said simply.

Chan’s smile softened, something quieter settling into his features as his gaze swept over him—slow, unhurried. He didn’t look away. Not immediately.

And Seungmin felt it.

Felt it.

The way Chan’s eyes lingered, not on his face, but lower—waist, hips, the curve of him made sharper by Jisung’s tailored handiwork and Felix’s cursed vision . The pause was brief. Barely a second. But it lingered. Like heat in a closed room.

“You look well, Seungmin-ah,” Chan said at last, voice lower, just slightly.

And that was it. That was the final nail in the coffin.

Because Seungmin, for all his training, for all his clinical detachment, for all his stubborn refusal to feel things—melted.

Just a little.

And he knew, with the kind of cold, clinical clarity that accompanied only the gravest of diagnoses, that he was well and truly, irreversibly screwed.

There were two things in life Seungmin did not take lightly: his surgeries and baseball. Both demanded precision, focus, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. Both had routines, rituals, and unspoken rules. And both, in his experience, offered a kind of sanctuary—places where his mind quieted, his body moved without question, and the rest of the world faded to a hum behind the crack of a bat or the rhythm of a scalpel.

So of course he hadn’t just bought any seats. He hadn’t queued up on some reseller app or hovered over general admission hoping for scraps. No, Seungmin had booked them through his membership. Directly. Early. Meticulously. Field-level, third base side, angled just perfectly to watch both pitcher and dugout. The kind of seats that came with padded backs and cup holders that didn’t stick. The kind of seats that mattered.

Chan realised it the moment they stepped past the second set of security checks, ushered in through the members’ entrance and guided down a private aisle lined with navy carpeting. His eyes widened, just slightly, as they reached the front row—close enough to smell the clay.

“Seungmin-ah,” he said, blinking at the empty chairs in disbelief, “these seats must’ve cost a fortune. How did you even manage these?”

Seungmin gave a little shrug, already slipping off his jacket and draping it over the armrest. “Member’s club.”

Chan stared at him for a beat. “Still,” he said slowly, “I have to pay you ba—”

“Hyung,” Seungmin interrupted, fixing him with a look that made it very clear he would not be accepting reimbursement. “I invited you.”

The silence that followed was soft, not awkward. Not full of expectation. Just quiet, warm air between them, shaped by the thrum of the stadium waking around them—announcers booming overhead, vendors calling out hot dogs and soda, the smell of popcorn floating thick through the summer dusk.

Chan’s shoulders dropped, the resistance melting out of him like ice under sun. He smiled.

“Now,” Seungmin said, standing and scanning the nearest vendor like a general assessing his supply lines, “beer?”

There was a pause, small and content.

“Yeah,” Chan said, the smile widening. “Beer.”

Seungmin nodded once and headed off, moving with the easy confidence of someone who knew exactly where to go. The announcer’s voice crackled over the PA as the players took the field. The crowd roared in a wave, and the stadium lights blinked to life, flooding the field in gold and white.

By the time the first pitch was thrown, Seungmin was back, two cold cans in hand.

And beside him, Chan sat—relaxed, grinning, knees brushing Seungmin’s as he leaned just slightly closer.

The game had begun.

And for once, Seungmin let himself enjoy the moment— really enjoy it—without analysing the way Chan’s thigh pressed against his own, or how their hands touched briefly when the beers changed hands, or how the corners of Chan’s mouth lifted every time he turned toward him.

The game was everything Seungmin had hoped for and more.

The kind of match that made the heart race, made you forget about time, about work, about anything that existed outside the crisp white lines of the field. The Giants were flawless—sharp, fast, devastating in their execution. Every play was a rush of adrenaline, every strikeout an electric jolt through the stands. Seungmin had always said they were the best—not perfect, never perfect, but consistently brilliant. And tonight, they proved it.

He was on his feet more than in his seat, roaring with the crowd, fingers clenched tight around the rim of his cup, voice hoarse from yelling at the umpire. Chan was beside him, matching his energy with uncharacteristic glee, eyes wide with boyish joy, shouting and laughing and throwing his hands up with every hit. It was chaos in the best way—pure, golden, loud .

Bottom of the ninth. Bases loaded. The final pitch snapped through the air like fate bending in their favour.

Crack.

The bat connected. The ball soared.

And the stadium exploded.

Seungmin leapt from his seat, the sound of the crowd deafening, his own scream torn from his throat with no restraint. It was instinct—pure and feral. He was jumping, fists pumping, heart threatening to burst with pride and disbelief and victory. The Giants had done it .

They’d won.

He turned on reflex, grinning like a madman, and found Chan already looking at him. His eyes were bright, flushed with excitement, his mouth open in a breathless half-laugh. They stared at each other for half a heartbeat, suspended in that perfect, shattering kind of joy—and then they moved.

He didn’t know who crossed the space first. Maybe it was both of them. Maybe it didn’t matter.

The next thing Seungmin knew, he was being lifted, crushed in a bear hug, legs momentarily dangling, Chan’s arms locked tight around his middle, spinning him half a step before setting him back down.

“We won, Seungmin-ah,” Chan said, voice thick with disbelief and triumph, almost boyish in its fervour. “We won! ”

Seungmin couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. His face was buried in the crook of Chan’s shoulder, the scent of him all sweat and stadium and something faintly citrus. His hands were fisted in the fabric of his jersey, and his heart was hammering so loudly he swore Chan could hear it.

They stayed like that for a second longer than they should’ve.

Maybe two.

Then the crowd surged again around them, clapping, cheering, and Chan pulled back just enough to look at him, eyes crinkled, lips parted in the kind of smile that made Seungmin’s stomach twist painfully.

An hour later, they ended up at Chan’s flat because it was closer and because neither of them had been ready for the night to end.

The city lights blurred behind the cab window as they drove through the soft haze of post-game euphoria, the buzz of victory still thrumming in their veins. The match played over and over in Seungmin’s head—the hit, the roar, the way Chan’s arms had felt wrapped around him, strong and warm and safe .

Chan’s flat was modest. Clean. Lived in. A little messy around the edges, with records stacked in a corner and a pair of sneakers kicked under the coffee table. Seungmin liked it more than he expected. It felt like him —bright, warm, a little chaotic, but steady where it mattered.

The beers came out of the fridge like clockwork, two bottles each, then another. They sat on the floor with their backs against the couch, shoes discarded, jerseys half-untucked, and laughter bleeding through the slur of conversation.

“Best game I’ve seen in years,” Chan said, toeing off his socks and wiggling his toes dramatically.

“Because you were with me,” Seungmin replied without thinking.

Chan blinked, then smiled. “Obviously.”

They clinked bottles again.

Seungmin was warm. Not drunk, not entirely, but soft around the edges. Loose. Honest in a way he didn’t usually allow himself to be. There was something about Chan’s presence—steady and unobtrusive—that made him want to drop his guard, if only for a night.

He didn’t realise how long he’d been looking until Chan met his gaze, head tilted, eyes curious and gentle.

“What?” Seungmin asked, voice quieter than he meant it to be.

“You’re smiling,” Chan said.

“I’m allowed.”

Chan leaned back on his elbows. “I like when you do. You don’t, often.”

Seungmin opened his mouth, ready to deflect, to redirect, but Chan reached out before he could and closed a hand around his.

It was casual. Quick. Nothing charged. His fingers just wrapped around Seungmin’s like it was nothing more than the natural thing to do, a touch born out of familiarity, or maybe gratitude, or something unspoken but simple.

Seungmin went still.

He told himself it was the alcohol. That he was overthinking. That this meant nothing.

But he felt it. The shape of it. The warmth of Chan’s palm, the slight squeeze before letting go. The way his fingers lingered for a second longer than necessary before returning to his own lap.

Chan didn’t mention it. He just leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, humming some song that Seungmin couldn’t quite place.

And Seungmin—

He stared at his hand, heart skipping quietly beneath his ribs, and told himself again that it didn’t mean anything.

That it couldn’t .

But the ghost of Chan’s fingers stayed there, etched like a line drawn in soft ink, and no amount of logic could wipe it clean.

Seungmin woke with a headache curling behind his eyes, dull and persistent, the kind that came from too much beer and too little water. His throat felt like sandpaper, and his limbs were heavy with sleep, muscles just beginning to register the quiet ache of a body that had been slouched on the floor, then moved sometime in the early hours.

It took longer than it should have for his mind—normally sharp as a scalpel on a Monday morning—to register the unfamiliarity of the room.

The ceiling was different. Taller. Smooth. The smell was different too—soft laundry, faint spice, and something familiar, clean and citrusy. Like that shampoo Chan used, the one Seungmin had started recognising in the halls before the man even turned the corner.

Chan’s bed.

Oh.

Panic stirred, brief but sharp.

Right. Checklist.

He sat up slowly, grimacing at the creak in his neck. Alone. Good. He was still in his clothes—shirt rumpled, jeans unbuttoned but very much on. Socks, too. No suspicious soreness on his bum, no shame, no flashbacks of poor decisions.

No sex.

Fine.

He let himself breathe.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand—half battery, a handful of messages from Jisung (all variations of “Are you dead or just emotionally unwell?”), and a timestamp that told him it was still early. Not even nine. He remembered vaguely that both of them had the day off. Something about Chan having switched an on-call to cover Minho.

So—nothing urgent.

The headache was less forgiving as he swung his legs off the bed and stood, bare feet brushing against the cool wooden floor. He padded quietly through the flat, slow and deliberate, ears still ringing with a hangover fuzz he didn’t care to shake yet.

He found Chan dead to the world on the sofa, one arm flung over his face, legs half off the edge like he’d fallen asleep mid-stretch. His mouth was slightly open, soft breaths audible in the quiet, his curls sticking out in every direction, as though he’d fought demons in his sleep and lost.

Seungmin chuckled under his breath.

He should’ve taken a photo.

Instead, he knelt briefly, tugged the throw blanket up over Chan’s chest, and stood again with a soft, indulgent shake of his head.

The kitchen greeted him like a passive-aggressive shrug. Chan’s fridge was, predictably, a barren wasteland: three bottles of water, a single packet of kimchi, expired yoghurt, and a sad, lonely carrot in the crisper drawer that looked like it had dreams once.

But there were eggs. And rice, already warm in the cooker—bless Chan and his domestic instincts.

There was also a coffee machine. A fancy one. Seungmin eyed it with the reverence of someone who had wanted one for years but could never justify the expense. He turned it on carefully, admiring its silent power as it hissed to life like a small, efficient dragon.

Within minutes, the kitchen smelled like breakfast.

He cracked eggs into a pan, working quietly, efficiently, body moving on muscle memory as his mind slowly caught up with the rest of him. The rice fluffed under his fingers, the smell comforting and warm. The coffee dripped into the mug, dark and rich.

He didn't know what this was—this domestic scene, this morning after that felt like something and nothing all at once.

But for the first time in a long while, Seungmin didn’t feel the need to overthink it.

He should’ve known things wouldn’t be easy once he got home.

Chan had dropped him off with a smile that felt like a warm breeze—casual, easy, utterly disarming. A soft “see you later, Seungminnie” that had lodged itself somewhere deep in his ribcage, echoing long after the car pulled away.

It was stupid. It wasn’t a date. It was just a game. A few beers. Some laughter. A hug that may have lingered. A night spent on a stranger’s mattress in borrowed comfort. Breakfast surrounded by quiet. A moment that stretched a little longer than it should have. That was all.

And yet—he felt light . Soft. Like someone had taken the constant coil of tension wound up inside him and let it unravel, thread by thread, until he could breathe again.

That was, of course, until he opened the door to his flat.

“ Well well well, ” Jisung announced the moment he stepped into the living room, sprawled on the couch in a hoodie and face mask, eating dry cereal from a mixing bowl. “Look who decided to show up.”

Seungmin didn’t even look at him. “Please don’t talk. My head hurts.”

“Sounds like a you problem.” Jisung crunched loudly, dramatically. “So? Did you guys fuck?”

“What?” Seungmin snapped, finally looking at him with wide, affronted eyes. “ No! ”

“Oh?”

“We got drunk and watched baseball videos. I told you, it wasn’t a date.”

Jisung tilted his head, expression unreadable behind the green clay drying on his face. “Huh. You sound surprisingly chipper for someone who wasn’t on a date.”

Seungmin tossed his hoodie onto the nearest chair and sank into it with a groan. “I’m chipper because my team won, Han.”

“You’re glowing. ” Jisung pointed at him with his spoon. “Your aura is all pink and sparkly. You look like a protagonist who just got kissed in the rain.”

“I will genuinely sedate you.”

Jisung ignored the threat entirely. “Did you cuddle?”

“No.”

“Mouth stuff?”

“ No! ”

“Held hands?”

Seungmin hesitated. Just a second. But it was enough.

Jisung gasped like it was the season finale of a soap opera. “Oh my God, you did!”

“Shut up.”

“You have feelings! ”

“I swear to God, Jisung—”

“You like him. You like like him.”

“I will kill you in your sleep.”

Jisung grinned, eyes glinting through his drying mask. “Try it. I’ll haunt you.”

Seungmin buried his face in a cushion. His head still pounded, and now his heart was beating far too fast again, thoughts spiralling with the warmth of citrus shampoo and soft smiles and the way Chan’s fingers had lingered just long enough to make it matter.

It hadn’t been a date.

Or was it?

Was it a date?

The thought began as a whisper, barely there, a fluttering of doubt that echoed with each quiet moment in his day. But then it stayed . Grew. Rooted itself into the cracks of Seungmin’s concentration until it threaded through everything like a fever—unshakable, cloying, and impossible to diagnose.

He asked himself the question first while scrubbing in for a routine appendectomy. He asked again during rounds, barely listening to his intern stammer through a case presentation, nodding absently while his mind replayed the hug—the one that had stolen his breath and left a phantom warmth over his shoulders.

They’d held hands. Not long. Not meaningfully. Maybe. But still.

And the seats—God, the seats . Seungmin had paid for those before the season even began, the kind of field-level placement you couldn’t get unless you were in the club or willing to bleed money. He would’ve gone alone. Would’ve been happy to. But he hadn’t.

He had invited Chan . Only Chan.

Why?

He didn’t know anymore.

Was it a date? He asked himself again between surgeries, elbow-deep in a gallbladder removal that was going worse than planned. He asked himself while disinfecting his gloves, while charting vitals, while pretending to read a consult note he’d already reviewed twice.

His pen halted halfway through a prescription. He stared at the ink blotted on the page and thought, It wasn’t a date. Was it?

Chan found him at the nurse’s station around three o’clock, same as always. Coffee—black, no sugar—and a bag of roasted almonds. Nothing fancy. Nothing personal. Except that it was . Because Seungmin had never told him he liked almonds. Had never written his coffee preference down anywhere. Chan just knew.

“Busy day?” he asked, leaning against the edge of the counter, his voice low, soft with that usual, infuriating calm.

“Mm,” Seungmin managed.

Chan slid the coffee toward him with two fingers and smiled. “Thought you could use this.”

Then, a wink . Small. Almost imperceptible. Playful.

Seungmin blinked. Nodded. Said thanks, maybe. He wasn’t sure—his brain had dissolved into static.

Later, in the elevator, Chan stood just behind him. Not close enough to touch, but closer than necessary. Their arms brushed when the lift jolted. Chan didn’t move. Just hummed under his breath, something tuneless but soft. When they stepped out, he let his hand linger at the small of Seungmin’s back for a moment. Barely there. A shadow of a touch.

Seungmin’s heart was pounding.

Was he imagining this?

Chan was straight . Right? He’d had girlfriends. He’d dated women. He was charming, warm, effortlessly kind—people like him didn’t fall for people like Seungmin. People who snapped during rounds, who hated small talk, who forgot birthdays and loathed attention.

Right?

And yet—

The coffee. The hug. The way he said “Seungminnie” like it meant something more.

Seungmin sat alone in the call room that night, chart unfinished, his name badge askew on his chest.

He didn’t have answers.

The cafeteria was a dull hum of post-call bodies and bad coffee. Seungmin’s tray sat half-abandoned on the table, his eggs untouched, toast slightly burnt, and the bitter brew in his cup doing very little to wake him up. His brain felt like cotton soaked in adrenaline—frayed, overused, but still pulsing with residual alertness. His eyes stung, and he was sure he’d been staring at the same blurry section of the newspaper app on his phone for ten full minutes.

Then came footsteps. Precise. Decided.

“Hey, Kim.”

Seungmin looked up. Dr. Byun. Third-year. Clean scrubs, no visible eye bags, calm posture. Seungmin liked Dr. Byun well enough—he was efficient, competent, never spoke unless necessary, and always handed in consult notes on time. A rare breed among residents. He didn’t try to make jokes in surgery. He didn’t flirt with nurses while patients bled out. He was quiet, steady, and polite.

Exactly the kind of person Seungmin could exist around.

“I heard you were on call,” Byun said, setting down his tray and sitting across from him with a kind of ease that suggested intention. “Rough night?”

Seungmin nodded faintly, sipping his coffee. “Two traumas. One code. No sleep.”

“Oof.” Byun winced. “Still standing, though. That’s impressive.”

He blinked at him. “I’m sitting.”

Byun laughed, and Seungmin blinked again. It wasn’t a bad laugh. It was… deliberate.

“There’s this new place in Gangnam, you know,” Byun said, tone smooth, unhurried. “Traditional stuff, really authentic. I thought of you. You like that kind of thing, right?”

Seungmin froze slightly around the rim of his mug.

“I was thinking… maybe we could check it out together? They’ve got that woodfire grilled fish you mentioned once, I think.”

It hit him halfway through the sentence—what this was.

A date. He was being asked out .

By Dr. Byun .

Seungmin’s brain, already working at a deficit, short-circuited for a moment. He didn’t even realise his mouth was half-open, or that his next words had failed to form, when a voice cut clean through the space between them.

“Dr. Kim. A word?”

Seungmin turned.

Chan.

He was standing just behind him, expression unreadable but clipped at the edges, as if balancing between irritation and something else. His hands were in his pockets, but his stance was rigid, weight pressed too firmly into his heels.

“Dr. Bang, I just—” Byun began, politely.

“Seungmin,” Chan said again. His voice wasn’t loud, but it landed . Firm. Final.

There was a pause. Seungmin blinked, glanced at Byun—who was clearly as surprised as he was—then mumbled something that resembled an apology and rose from his seat without thinking. His legs were stiff, his coffee left half-drunk. He followed Chan out of the cafeteria with only a vague awareness of where they were going.

Down the hall, past radiology, into a quiet alcove near the vending machines.

“What’s up?” he asked, trying for casual, though he could feel the sharp edge of adrenaline beginning to stir again.

Chan blinked, faltered, then looked down at his phone.

“I…” He held up the screen. “Wanted to show you this TikTok.”

Silence.

Seungmin stared at him.

“Really?”

Chan nodded once. “It’s a cat. In a scrub cap.”

“…You interrupted someone asking me out to show me a cat in a scrub cap?”

Chan didn’t say anything. Just kept looking at him. The TikTok didn’t play. The cat stayed frozen mid-meow.

Seungmin tilted his head. “Hyung?”

And for a second—just one—Chan’s eyes flicked to his mouth. Barely. But it was there.

Then he blinked. Smiled. Forced.

“You looked like you needed rescuing,” he said, too lightly.

Seungmin didn’t respond. Not immediately. He just reached forward, gently took the phone from Chan’s hand, and pressed play.

The cat meowed. The cap fell over its eyes.

He chuckled. Quietly. Then handed it back.

“Thanks for the rescue.”

Chan’s smile softened. “Anytime.”

They stood there, neither moving, in the quiet that followed.

And if he’d thought the game was confusing—if he’d agonised for days over whether it had been a date or just two friends wrapped in foam fingers and mutual adrenaline—then this was something else entirely.

Because apparently, with Bang Chan, there was always something to do.

It started small. An offhand “there’s a new film out, want to catch it?” said in passing after rounds. Seungmin had gone because he liked movies. Not because Chan had bought the tickets in advance. Not because Chan had remembered he liked to sit at the very back, centre-left. Not because Chan had laughed quietly at the exact parts Seungmin had, or bought the popcorn flavour he liked without asking.

Then came the café.

Chan brought him there like it was sacred ground—this quiet little hole-in-the-wall place nestled between a bookstore and a stationery shop. He’d pointed to the window seat before they even ordered, told Seungmin to try the honey latte, said it “tasted like holidays.” And it had . Too sweet, too warm, too good.

Then record shopping. Rows of old vinyl and soft crackling overhead, Chan humming as he flipped through sleeves. They had argued—gently, playfully—over artists, over vocals, over what constituted a classic. Chan had laughed so hard when Seungmin revealed his pick of the week that he nearly dropped a Mingus reissue.

“You have old man taste,” he teased, grinning like a teenager. “I bet you sit in the dark and drink whiskey while this plays.”

Seungmin had rolled his eyes, muttered something about taste being lost on certain people.

And yet—when he turned around minutes later, that record was in a paper bag with his name on it.

Chan had bought it.

No fanfare. No explanation. Just a quiet, “Thought you’d regret leaving it.”

Fine. Maybe the game hadn’t been a date. But this ? What the hell was this?

Seungmin’s head was a mess.

He groaned and let it spill out of him that Sunday evening, sprawled across the sofa with his head resting in Felix’s lap, a blanket pulled over his legs as the newest drama played in the background—some ridiculous plot about a love triangle between a prince, a baker, and a time traveller. He hadn’t retained a single line.

“I hate men,” he announced, one arm flung across his face.

Felix, who was threading his fingers absently through Seungmin’s hair, hummed. “You’re a man, sweetie.”

“Then I hate me , too.”

Jisung snorted from the kitchen. “It’s about time.”

Felix shushed him, gently poking Seungmin’s cheek. “Talk to me.”

Seungmin groaned again. “He keeps doing things. Nice things. Date things. Without saying they’re date things. And I’m just—there. Following along like an idiot. Smiling like an idiot. Feeling things like an idiot.”

“He bought you that record, didn’t he?”

“And the latte. And the movie tickets. And he paid for lunch when we went to that bookshop café like it was nothing.”

“Has he kissed you?”

“No.”

“Has he held your hand again?”

“No.”

Felix hummed, thoughtful. “Emotional intimacy without physical touch. That’s a very gay form of torture.”

Jisung reappeared with a bowl of cereal. “You’re being slow-burned.”

“I’m being gaslit ,” Seungmin muttered.

Felix smiled, warm and sympathetic, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “Maybe you’re just being loved.”

Seungmin stilled.

The drama continued in the background, all bright colours and swelling music, but suddenly it felt very quiet.

The corridor was quiet, echoing faintly with the low murmur of beeping monitors and the shuffle of shoes on linoleum. Seungmin had just finished his post-op rounds, clipboard in hand, mind already shifting toward his overdue discharge summaries and whether or not he had remembered to restock the locker room’s IV kits.

He wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going—his body moved on autopilot, tracing a route so well-worn it may as well have been etched into his soles. He turned the corner leading toward the stairwell, the one tucked beside radiology, typically empty this time of day.

That’s when he heard it.

A voice—soft, female, hesitant. A nurse’s.

He didn’t know her name, not yet. She was new. Transferred from paediatrics a few weeks ago. Pretty, quiet, kept to herself mostly, but always kind. Her voice trembled in that way people’s did when they were doing something brave.

“I just thought… maybe we could grab dinner sometime?” she was saying. “You’ve been really kind to me. I know you’re busy, but I’d really like to get to know you better.”

Seungmin stopped.

He didn’t mean to. He wasn’t nosy. He wasn’t that kind of person. Normally, he would have turned on his heel and left—too much of a romantic to stomach rejection, too much of a cynic to expect anything else.

But something made him stay. A whisper in his gut, a quiet pull.

A beat of silence followed. Long enough to be uncomfortable. Long enough for his heart to start pounding in his chest.

Then—

“I’m really grateful, Yoona,” came the reply. Gentle. Familiar. “But I’m kinda seeing someone right now. I’m sorry.”

Chan.

It was Chan’s voice.

It was Chan .

Seungmin felt the air knock clean out of his lungs.

He didn’t hear the rest. He didn’t want to. His feet moved before his brain did, turning, retreating, putting distance between himself and that stairwell like the ground beneath him had started to quake.

Chan was seeing someone.

He had a girlfriend.

Of course he did.

The movie, the café, the stupid record—none of it had meant anything. None of it had been special. Just Chan being Chan. Warm. Friendly. Unintentionally cruel.

He felt sick.

The fluorescent lights above him blurred slightly as he strode through the hallway, his grip tightening around the clipboard until the paper inside crinkled. His pulse roared in his ears.

He had known . Had told himself not to hope. Had scolded himself a hundred times for letting his heart inch closer to the edge. He’d known—had known —that Chan was straight. That Chan was just kind. That it wasn’t real.

And still, he’d let himself feel .

Let himself believe.

God. He was so stupid.

Stupid, and tired, and too full of something he didn’t have a name for. Something that was beginning to break open behind his ribs.

He pushed into the stairwell two floors down, leaned against the cold wall, and closed his eyes.

And for the first time in weeks, he didn’t feel warm at all.

Everything was fine.

Really. Truly. Absolutely fine.

Seungmin repeated the word like a mantra, each syllable sharper than the last, every echo of it bouncing off the inside of his skull like a scalpel clattering to the theatre floor. He wasn’t heartbroken. He wasn’t spiralling. He didn’t feel like someone had taken a suture hook and carved a hollow right beneath his sternum. No. He was good. Solid. Functioning.

Peachy.

He walked with the same rhythm. Checked his post-ops with the same clipped efficiency. Completed his charts on time, answered questions with a tone that bordered on icy. Smiled—well, not smiled, but existed —with the same level of detachment expected of him.

And he wasn’t avoiding Chan.

Absolutely not.

He just hadn’t replied to his nightly messages in four days because he was tired. Naturally. On-call exhaustion. Mental fatigue. Nothing personal.

He’d eaten lunch alone for the past three shifts, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the narrow corridor between pathology and the morgue, not because he was sulking, or avoiding the cafeteria, or the table where Chan always, always , left a seat open beside him. No. It was the ambiance. He liked the quiet. The smell of formalin. The low hum of refrigeration. Very calming.

And the coffee—he wasn’t avoiding that either. He’d simply ducked behind the stairwell before Chan could reach him that morning. And the morning before that. And the morning before that. He was cutting back . His hands had been shaky in surgery, he told himself. Caffeine wasn’t good for someone in control of other people’s organs. He was being responsible. Not evasive.

He was so fine it hurt.

“Good God, ” he heard one of the interns whisper outside the med station as he walked by, head buried in a chart, “I really wanna know who dumped Voldemort. He’s been in a mood since the week started.”

Laughter. Too loud. Too casual.

Seungmin didn’t react. Didn’t blink. Just kept walking, each step measured, spine straight.

Good. Normal. Seungmin-style.

He passed by Chan once in the corridor near paediatrics. Didn’t stop. Didn’t even lift his gaze. Pretended to be on a call.

Chan had looked at him—he felt it. A full second, maybe two. Waiting. Watching.

But he kept walking.

“This is an intervention.”

Felix stood in the centre of the living room, arms crossed, wearing pyjamas patterned with tiny peaches and a look that could curdle milk. Beside him, Jisung was dramatically sprawled over the arm of the sofa, one hand to his forehead like a Victorian widow. Hyunjin had taken up position by the window, arms folded, hair pinned back with something that glittered threateningly. Jeongin sat cross-legged on the floor, a bowl of popcorn in his lap, eating with the grim determination of a man preparing for war.

Seungmin blinked at them from the doorway, a paper bag from the convenience store still in one hand. “What.”

Felix pointed at him. “Sit.”

“I’m tired.”

“ Sit. ”

With a sigh that would’ve won him awards if melodrama were an Olympic sport, Seungmin dropped onto the edge of the sofa.

Jisung clapped once. “Alright. Let’s begin.”

“Begin what? ”

Felix pulled out a notepad. “We are gathered here today to mourn the death of Kim Seungmin’s brain cells.”

Jeongin nodded solemnly. “May they rest in pieces.”

“Because clearly,” Hyunjin said, stepping forward, “something in that impressively thick skull of yours has short-circuited. And we are here to fix it.”

Seungmin groaned and sank deeper into the cushions. “Please stop.”

“We won’t stop,” Jisung said, eyes wild. “You’re moping. You’ve been moping for days. You’re avoiding your crush like he gave you syphilis. You’re eating lunch in a hallway, Min. A hallway with formalin vapour. ”

“It’s peaceful.”

“It’s weird. ”

Felix leaned in. “Did something happen with Chan?”

“No,” Seungmin muttered.

“Did you do something?”

“No.”

“Did he do something?”

“No.”

“Did he say something?”

Silence.

“ Min. ”

Seungmin rubbed his temples. “He’s seeing someone. I overheard him turning someone down and saying he’s seeing someone.”

Jisung blinked. “So?”

“So?” Seungmin looked up, incredulous. “That means I was wrong. That everything we did—movies, the record store, the game —none of it meant anything.”

Jeongin tilted his head. “He said he was seeing someone. Did he say who?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know it’s not you? ”

Seungmin opened his mouth. Closed it.

Felix narrowed his eyes. “When has Chan ever once looked at anyone the way he looks at you?”

“He looks at everyone like that.”

“He brings you coffee. He sits with you. He smiles at you like you’re the sun and the scalpel.”

Seungmin buried his face in his hands. “None of that means anything.”

“It does if you want it to,” Hyunjin said gently.

They fell into a moment of silence, thick and weighted.

“Even if you’re wrong,” Felix said, “wouldn’t you rather know than waste your time in purgatory?”

“I’m not built for rejection,” Seungmin murmured.

“You’re built for precision, ” Jisung said. “So go find out what this is. Diagnose it. Confirm it. Suture it. But stop sulking, because this is getting embarrassing.”

Seungmin looked at them—his friends, his idiots, the ones who knew every corner of him and still stood at his side. He sighed.

“Fine.”

Felix smiled. “There he is.”

“But if I get heartbroken, I’m blaming all of you.”

“Duly noted.” Jeongin tossed a popcorn kernel at him. “Now get out there and cry over something useful.”

He had lied, of course. Bold-faced, teeth-gritted, dead-eyed lied .

He didn’t want to face anything. Not Chan. Not the feelings clawing up his throat. Not the gnawing ache he’d been nursing like a war wound since that moment in the stairwell. What he wanted— really wanted—was to retreat into his own ribcage and wait for the world to forget he existed. Or at least, forget whatever sick illusion he’d let himself build with a man who, as it turned out, was never his to hope for.

But fate, as always, was a son of a bitch.

He was halfway through a coffee in the resident’s lounge when it happened.

It was lukewarm and bitter, steeped in disappointment. It wasn’t his coffee—Chan hadn’t given it to him, and that made all the difference. It tasted like defeat.

He barely looked up when the door opened. Probably Jeongin, come to nag him about the paperwork backlog again. Maybe Jisung with more meddling. Whatever it was, he didn’t care.

Not until he heard the click of the lock sliding into place.

His head snapped up.

Chan stood by the door, arms crossed, jaw tight, brows furrowed like storm clouds gathering. He wasn’t angry in the usual way—not loud, not impulsive. No. He looked like someone hurt. Like someone done being patient.

Seungmin blinked. Straightened. “Dr. Bang?” he said, defaulting immediately to protocol, the voice of a professional man in a professional setting. Cold. Distant.

Chan didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. “You’re not leaving this room until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”

The words landed hard, sharp-edged, unflinching.

Seungmin exhaled slowly. “Nothing’s going on.”

“ Bullshit. ”

Seungmin flinched. Just slightly.

“You’ve been avoiding me for a week,” Chan continued, voice quieter now but no less firm. “No messages. No coffee. No lunch. You practically ran the other way when I saw you outside the ICU. What happened?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“We’re surgeons , Seungmin. We’re always busy. That’s not it.”

Seungmin looked down, fingers curling around the now-cold cup. “I just want some space, hyung. Low social battery and all.”

Chan didn’t answer.

“And besides…”

He shouldn’t have said it. He knew he shouldn’t have said it. But the words burned a hole in his mouth and came out before he could stop them.

“I don’t think your girlfriend would like it if she knew you spent so much time with a gay guy, you know. Might make her uncomfortable.”

Silence.

Thick. Absolute.

The kind that stretched between seconds and split them open.

Chan’s expression flickered—something between a flinch and confusion, a slight widening of the eyes, the tension around his mouth slackening like he’d been hit with something unexpected.

“…My what now?”

“Your girlfriend ,” Seungmin repeated, sharper now, because if he was going to crash and burn, he might as well do it in flames. “Nurse Lee asked you out the other week, no? I heard you. You said you were seeing someone. Congratulations, by the way.”

It came out brittle, too pointed, bitterness clinging to every word like acid on steel. He hated how small he sounded under the weight of it. Hated how it cracked, just slightly, on congratulations . Like it physically hurt to say.

Chan didn’t answer. Not at first. Instead, he just looked at him. Not in disbelief. Not in amusement, but like Seungmin had, against all logic, despite all credentials and supposedly above-average intelligence, said the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things.

“Seungmin…”

The way he said it—low, patient, exhaling like he’d been holding the breath for days—made Seungmin’s pulse trip over itself.

Chan stepped forward, not with anger, not with frustration, but with something gentler. Measured. Intentional.

He didn’t sit beside him. Instead, he squatted, bringing himself level. Knees bent, arms resting lightly on his thighs, and then—

He took Seungmin’s hands in his.

Warm. Steady. Real.

Seungmin felt his breath catch somewhere between his ribs and his throat.

Here it comes , he thought. The rejection. The part where Chan lets him down with a soft smile and a pat on the back. The part where Seungmin goes into witness protection, or transfers departments, or flees the country. The part where his heart—stupid, traitorous thing—shatters neatly and silently like glass under surgical light.

But then—

“Minnie,” Chan said softly, thumb brushing over the back of his knuckles, “I was talking about you .”

Everything in Seungmin stilled.

His breath. His thoughts. The earth beneath him.

“…Oh,” he said.

Then, “Wait, what? ”

Chan’s mouth curved into something almost bashful. “ You , Seungmin. You’re the person I’m seeing.”

Seungmin blinked. “You’re seeing me? ”

“I was, ” Chan said pointedly, “until you started ghosting me out of nowhere.”

His heart lurched. “I thought— I mean, I didn’t know it was that. I didn’t think— ”

Seungmin froze. Paused like a deer caught in the headlights. It couldn’t be.

 “You’re straight .”

“I was straight,” Chan corrected, with the air of someone recounting an unexpected plot twist. “And then I met the cutest, grumpiest, most brilliant resident to ever exist… and he just so happened to be a guy. Funny, right?”

Seungmin stared.

Chan smiled.

It wasn’t funny at all, but he still laughed lightly. Ironically.

And then—slowly, like gravity had simply shifted around him—Seungmin dropped his forehead into Chan’s shoulder with a groan.

“I hate you,” he mumbled, muffled into the soft fabric of his scrubs.

Chan chuckled, one hand lifting to the back of his neck, fingers threading gently through his hair. “No, you don’t.”

And God help him—he really, really didn’t.

“Can I kiss you now?”

The question came after a beat, softly, voice dipped low, like a secret shared in the hush of a sleeping room. Chan hadn’t moved from where he crouched in front of him, hands still holding Seungmin’s, their thumbs brushing in gentle, grounding strokes.

Seungmin lifted his head slowly, blinking up at him with the dazed, wide-eyed expression of someone who had just discovered that the laws of physics no longer applied to him.

“Why haven’t you before?” he asked, voice rough with disbelief.

Chan smiled—small, sheepish, almost apologetic. “We were taking it slow.”

Seungmin snorted, incredulous. “We weren’t taking it anywhere, because I only just found out we were dating , you absolute idiot.”

Chan laughed, and it was unfair—how good he looked like that, joy dancing in his eyes, the tension in his shoulders melting away like snow under sunlight.

“My bad,” he said, not sounding even a little sorry. “So… can I kiss you?”

Seungmin looked at him. Really looked.

At the mess of curls just beginning to frizz at the edges. The faint crease between his brows from sleepless nights. The softness in his expression, open and unguarded, the way people rarely let themselves be.

He thought about every stupid coffee. Every soft glance. Every “Seungminnie” said like it was precious.

And then—

“…Yes.”

Chan didn’t waste a second.

He leaned in gently, giving Seungmin time to change his mind, to pull away, to breathe. But Seungmin didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.

Their lips met—soft, searching, like an answer to a question neither had been brave enough to ask aloud. It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t desperate. It was quiet—a slow, tentative press of mouth to mouth, tasting of unspoken words and sleepless nights, of all the maybes that had turned, suddenly, into something real.

Chan pulled back only slightly, their foreheads brushing.

“Took you long enough,” Seungmin whispered.

Chan laughed again, breath warm against his cheek. “I’ll be faster next time.”

Seungmin, for once, didn’t mind the promise.

It was movie night again.

The lights were low, the room a familiar sprawl of limbs and blankets, the air thick with the scent of takeaway and cheap wine, and the warm thrum of laughter that came easy now, like second nature. Eight of them, somehow—an unlikely mosaic of residents, attendings, nurses, and all the mess in between. A new friend group, born from Jisung’s shameless lack of self-preservation and held together by Seungmin’s weeks-long descent into idiotic pining.

He didn’t mind.

They worked. Oddly. Perfectly. They weren’t colleagues here, weren’t divided by rank or scrub colours. Just friends, and boyfriends, and—at long last—him and Chan, tangled together on the worn living room sofa like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Seungmin was sitting in Chan’s lap. Fully. Unapologetically.

His knees were tucked to one side, shoulder resting against Chan’s chest, the rhythm of the man’s breathing soothing in its constancy. Chan’s arms wrapped loosely around his waist, fingers idly tracing patterns over the soft cotton of his sweatshirt like he didn’t realise he was doing it. It was… embarrassingly sweet. Embarrassing full stop.

Jeongin whistled from the floor, where he and Hyunjin had turned a blanket pile into a makeshift throne. “Look at you, Seungmin hyung. All grown up and domesticated.”

Seungmin didn’t even blink. Just raised a hand, middle finger sharp and proud. “Go fuck yourself.”

Laughter rippled through the room. He was too happy to care.

Felix clambered to his feet with a half-empty glass of soju in one hand and a dramatic flourish that suggested he had waited all night for the moment. “A toast,” he declared, affecting the tone of a royal announcer, “to the end of stupidity—” he paused to give Seungmin a pointed look, “—and the wonders of fucking your boss.”

“I will strangle you in your sleep, Lee Yongbok,” Seungmin deadpanned, cheeks flaming even as Chan chuckled beneath him.

“How can there be an end to stupidity with Jisung still here?” Jeongin chimed in, eyes glinting with mischief.

“Careful, Yang,” came Minho’s low murmur from the corner of the couch, where Jisung was half-curled in his lap, smirking even as he stole sips from his wine.

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

“Both.”

More laughter. Another bottle opened. The sound of something exploding onscreen as the movie continued, entirely ignored.

Seungmin leaned further into Chan’s chest, letting his eyes flutter shut for a second. The room was loud, the lights flickered, someone had spilled sauce on the carpet again—but none of it mattered.

Not when this was his.

The people. The mess. The boyfriend. The love.

Some things never changed—like Jeongin’s sass, or Minho’s cold sarcasm, or Felix’s overzealous speeches.

But some things did.

And for once, Seungmin was glad they had.