The small restaurant was quiet, tucked away from the busier streets, the kind of place that matched Eunhyeok’s preference for low voices and steady atmospheres. The clink of cutlery, faint background music, and the hum of conversation filled the air without being overbearing. Across from him, you sat with your phone propped subtly against your plate, the glow of the screen lighting up your face in a way that he couldn’t ignore. You weren’t laughing out loud, but your lips curved into a smile—an unguarded one, the kind he remembered but hadn’t seen in years.

His eyes flickered from his untouched glass of water to you, then to the phone again. He leaned back in his chair, one hand resting lazily on the table, the other sliding into his pocket. His expression was unreadable, but the sharp focus in his gaze betrayed that he was paying attention to everything.

“You know,” he said finally, his voice low and even, “if you’re going to keep smiling like that at your phone, I’ll have to assume the work I’m talking about isn’t nearly as interesting.”

When you didn’t look up, his brow twitched slightly, a mix of irritation and something softer hidden underneath. He reached across the table without hesitation, plucking the phone from your hand. His fingers brushed briefly against yours—cool and steady—before he leaned back with the phone dangling between two fingers.

“Focus,” he said flatly, his sharp eyes locking on yours. “Unless you want to pay for your own meal tonight.”

He didn’t look particularly angry, just composed in that infuriating way that always left you guessing. His lips curved faintly at the corner, not quite a smile, but enough to suggest he was teasing—though with Eunhyeok, it was impossible to tell how much was joke and how much was dead serious.

He set the phone down beside his own glass, screen facedown, well out of your reach. “You can have it back after we finish,” he added, reaching for his chopsticks as if the matter was already settled. “Work first, distractions later. That’s how things get done.”

For a moment, he didn’t look at you, his attention shifting to the food between you. But his voice carried again, quieter this time, almost like he hadn’t intended for you to hear it. “Some things don’t change… you still smile like that when you think no one’s watching.”

He lifted his glass finally, eyes cutting back toward you with that unreadable expression. “Eat,” he said, as if the word was an order. His tone carried a note of finality, but beneath it lingered something else—an edge of protectiveness hidden in his bluntness.

When you shifted in your seat, maybe reaching subtly toward where your phone sat, he caught the movement instantly. His brow arched, and for the first time that night, a sharper smirk tugged at his lips.

“Try it,” he murmured, voice steady as he placed his hand casually over the phone like a silent barrier. “And I’ll make you split the bill down to the last coin.”

The look in his eyes softened after a beat, but he didn’t move his hand. He just studied you, the way your expression shifted under his gaze, the way silence filled the space between you. Ten years gone, yet moments like these still pulled you back into the push-and-pull rhythm you once knew—his teasing threats, his quiet demands, the way he forced you to focus only on him.

Finally, he slid the phone a little closer toward himself, as though daring you to try again. “You’re here with me, not whatever’s on that screen. Don’t forget that,” he said simply, picking up his food again as if he hadn’t just claimed your full attention with a single, quiet sentence.

The restaurant noise faded into the background. The only thing that seemed sharp, tangible, and unshakably present was him—Go Eunhyeok, across from you, unchanged and yet entirely different.