Heartbreak, but STAY

I CAME BACK TO YOU

Dunk didn't expect the lights to still be on.

He stood at the bottom of Joong's driveway, one hand gripping the handle of a modest suitcase, the other buried in the pocket of a coat that still smelled like duty and distance. The kind of coat you wear when you're too proud to admit you're cold.

The house looked the same.

Same towering pillars. Same golden light behind the stained glass windows. But the silence wasn't the same anymore. It used to hum with music—Joong humming in the kitchen, Joong shouting at his dogs, Joong throwing pillows at Dunk and yelling about bad TV endings. Now it was just... sterile.

There were marigolds lining the fence. Neatly planted. Professionally trimmed.

Joong hated marigolds.

Dunk nearly turned around. But instead, he stepped forward like a man walking into his own funeral.

And then—before he could knock—the door opened.

Joong stood there.

A vision frozen in memory but aged by life. In a loose robe, hair damp from a shower, chest rising and falling as though he'd just come out of an argument with himself. There was a toothbrush in his hand, forgotten.

They stared at each other.

Joong spoke first. "You came back."

It wasn't a greeting. It was an accusation. A wound reopening.

Dunk nodded, swallowing hard. "I had to see you."

Joong's eyes dropped to the suitcase Dunk was clutching. Just one bag. Just enough for one person who had nowhere else to go.

"I'm married," Joong said. His voice was too even. The kind of calm that comes after a storm has torn everything down.

"I know," Dunk said. "I didn't care."

That broke something.

Joong scoffed and stepped back, one hand gripping the doorframe like it was the only thing holding him up. "Of course you didn't."

"I came back to you," Dunk said, quietly but firmly. "I know I left. I know I walked away from us. But Joong, it was always you. You were it for me. Even when I tried to be someone else's, even when I tried to forget—I still woke up in dreams where you were brushing your teeth next to me and telling me my cologne smelled like floor cleaner."

Joong let out a sound that was almost a laugh, almost a cry. "You remember that?"

"I remember everything."

He stepped forward. "I remember the first time you said you loved me. You were drunk. You dropped a spoon in your noodles and said it like it was nothing. And then you never took it back."

Joong didn't say anything. But his grip on the door tightened.

"I remember thinking," Dunk continued, voice cracking, "that if I didn't make something of myself, if I didn't build something real, I'd lose you. Because how could I stand next to someone like you—you, with your glittering family name and your quiet sophistication and the way you made everyone want to orbit around you?"

Joong finally moved—just a half-step. "So you left to become worthy of me?"

"I left to become someone who could stand beside you without shrinking."

"You idiot," Joong whispered. "You absolute fucking idiot."

Dunk exhaled shakily. "I'm here now."

Joong shook his head, eyes brimming with something too sharp to be just tears. "You're eight years too late, Dunk. I waited. I waited so long I stopped knowing what I was waiting for."