"What is going on between you and Tae-hyun?"
Min-woo blinked at him, still hazy from the fever, and for a second Jae-min thought he might actually dodge the question entirely.
Then, slowly, a small, tired smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"Nothing's *going on*," he said. "We just... met. That's all."
"That's not an answer."
"Fine." Min-woo shifted higher against the pillows, wincing slightly at the pull of the IV line. "First day on the job, I was supposed to bring towels to his room. Knocked. No answer. Figured he'd already left for class." He huffed a quiet laugh at the memory. "He hadn't. Opened the door half-asleep, hair everywhere, looking personally offended that anyone expected him to function before noon."
Jae-min raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"
"That's the start of it." Min-woo's smile softened, distant. "His room was a mess. Guitar in the corner, sketchbooks everywhere, some game controller buried under a pile of chip bags. Didn't look like the room of someone raised in a house like that." He paused. "I picked up a notebook that had fallen. No big deal. He thanked me like I'd done something enormous."
"And?"
"And nothing, really. We just—kept ending up in the same rooms. He talks to me like I'm actually a person and not just staff. Feeds me when I visit, apparently, if last night's plate of food was any indication." Min-woo shrugged, though there was something careful in the gesture, like he was deliberately keeping it light. "He's easy to be around."
Jae-min studied him for a long moment. "You like him."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
Min-woo opened his mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it, letting his head fall back against the pillow instead with a groan. "Can we not do this right now? I have a fever."
"Had a fever," Jae-min corrected. "Past tense. Doctor said it broke."
"I'm choosing to still feel fragile."
Jae-min laughed despite himself, and whatever tension had been sitting in the room eased with it, both of them settling into something quieter, more comfortable, while the monitor beeped its steady rhythm beside the bed.
---
The door opened twenty minutes later, Jihan and Tae-hyun stepping back in together—Tae-hyun visibly cleaner now, hair damp from a quick shower, a fresh change of clothes replacing the wrinkled ones from that morning. He was carrying a small container that smelled unmistakably like actual food, not vending machine coffee.
"You're awake," Tae-hyun said the moment he spotted Min-woo, relief breaking across his face so openly it made Jae-min glance away out of something close to secondhand embarrassment.
"Apparently." Min-woo offered a weak smile. "Sorry for the scare."
"Don't apologize." Tae-hyun was already at his side, setting the container down on the little table, pulling the chair close enough that his knee nearly bumped the edge of the bed. "You collapsed. That's not something you apologize for."
"Still. I ruined your whole day."
"You didn't ruin anything." Tae-hyun popped the lid off the container—rice, some kind of soft porridge, clearly chosen for someone who'd just come off a fever rather than anything heavy. "Eat. You need it."
Min-woo reached for the spoon on the tray, and Tae-hyun beat him to it without a second's hesitation, scooping up a portion and holding it out.
Min-woo stared at him. "...I can feed myself."
"I know."
"Then why—"
"Because you're still weak, and I want to." Tae-hyun's tone was matter-of-fact, entirely unbothered by how that landed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Open up."
"This is embarrassing."
"There's no one here but us."
"Jae-min's literally sitting right there."
Jae-min, who had been very deliberately studying his phone, glanced up just long enough to offer an unhelpful shrug. "Don't mind me."
Min-woo shot him a look that promised retribution later, but Tae-hyun was still holding the spoon out, patient and entirely unmoved by the protest, and after a few more seconds of resistance Min-woo finally gave in with a long, put-upon sigh and let himself be fed.
Jihan, watching from near the doorway with his arms crossed, caught Jae-min's eye across the room. Something amused flickered there, quiet and shared, and for a second neither of them said anything, just let the two of them have their moment without comment.
"Your brother," Jae-min murmured, low enough that only Jihan could hear, "is not subtle."
"No," Jihan agreed, equally quiet. "He never has been."
They watched a moment longer—Tae-hyun scolding Min-woo for talking with his mouth full, Min-woo grumbling something back that only made Tae-hyun laugh—before Jihan tilted his head slightly toward the door.
"Walk with me?"
Jae-min glanced at the two of them, clearly not needing an audience for whatever this was turning into, and nodded.
"Sure."
---
The hospital courtyard was quiet at this hour, a narrow strip of garden tucked between two wings of the building, benches scattered along a gravel path lined with trimmed hedges. The afternoon had cooled slightly since the morning's rain, the air carrying that clean, washed smell that only ever showed up after a real storm.
Jihan walked slowly, hands in his pockets, and Jae-min fell into step beside him without really thinking about it.
"You're good with him," Jihan said after a while. "Min-woo."
"He's my friend."
"I could tell." A faint smile. "Not everyone would spend their afternoon sitting in a hospital room for someone else's household staff."
Jae-min glanced sideways at him. "You did too."
"I own the household. It's different."
"Is it?" Jae-min raised an eyebrow. "You canceled a meeting to bring your brother ramen. You drove him to the hospital yourself instead of waiting for an ambulance. That's not exactly the behavior of someone keeping a polite distance from his staff."
Jihan didn't answer right away, something thoughtful settling over his face as he considered that.
"...Maybe not," he admitted eventually.
They walked in comfortable silence for a stretch, the gravel crunching softly beneath their shoes, a few other visitors passing them in the opposite direction without a glance.
"Can I ask you something?" Jae-min said eventually.
"Go ahead."
"Why golf?" The question had been sitting somewhere in the back of his mind for weeks now, half-curiosity, half something closer to real interest he hadn't quite let himself examine. "Out of everything you could do with your time, why that?"
Jihan was quiet for a moment, gaze fixed somewhere ahead on the path.
"It's the one place nobody expects anything from me," he said eventually. "No board members. No family name attached to every decision. Just a ball, a club, and whether or not I hit it well." A faint, almost self-deprecating smile. "It's quiet. There's no one to perform for."
Jae-min looked over at him, something in his chest tightening at how plainly that had been said—no drama in it, just quiet, honest fact, the kind of thing a person only said when they'd stopped bothering to guard it.
"That sounds lonely," Jae-min said before he could stop himself.
Jihan glanced at him, surprised, like the observation had landed somewhere he wasn't expecting.
"...Maybe it is," he admitted. "I hadn't thought about it that way before."
Neither of them said anything for a moment after that, the silence settling comfortably between them instead of awkwardly, the kind of quiet that didn't need filling.
They reached the end of the path, where the courtyard opened up toward a small fountain, water catching the late afternoon light in scattered gold flecks.
Jihan stopped walking.
"Jae-min."
"Yeah?"
He hesitated—just slightly, just enough for Jae-min to notice, which was rare enough on its own that it caught his full attention.
"Would you want to go out sometime?" Jihan's voice stayed even, careful, but there was something underneath it that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Just the two of us. Not like this—not a hospital visit, not a coincidence at a beach or a driving range." A faint, almost self-aware curve touched his mouth. "A day off, if you're interested."
Jae-min's heart did something complicated and fast in his chest, some tangled mess of triumph and guilt and something else entirely that he didn't have a name for and didn't want to look at too closely.
This is it,This is exactly what we planned for.
It didn't feel like winning the way he'd expected it to. Yet, it was a step forward in his plans. He looked back at Jihan and muttered;