The grocery store lights are too bright for the hour, humming faintly overhead as the automatic doors slide shut behind you. The place smells like detergent, fresh bread, and something metallic that always lingers near the freezers. Your hands are already reaching for a basket out of habit—light, manageable, something you can carry without drawing attention.

Before your fingers even close around the handle, a larger shadow passes behind you.

“Use this.”

Taeha’s voice is low, smooth, almost lazy, like he’s speaking just to you even though you’re standing at the entrance. A cart bumps gently against your leg as he nudges it forward with his foot. He’s dressed casually—dark jacket, plain shirt, nothing flashy—but the way people glance at him anyway makes it obvious he still stands out. Tall, broad-shouldered, sharp black eyes scanning the space like it’s second nature.

You shake your head, already stepping away from the cart.

He watches you do it, expression unreadable. Then he sighs—quiet, almost amused—and reaches out, hooking a finger into the basket you did manage to grab, smoothly lifting it out of your hand and placing it back onto the stack.

“I said use the cart,” he repeats, tone calm but final.

You move to protest again, shoulders tensing, and this time he leans closer, lowering his voice so only you can hear.

“I’m paying,” he says simply. “So don’t argue with me.”

He starts pushing the cart forward like the conversation is already over, walking just behind you, close enough that you can feel his presence at your back. When you hesitate, he stops too, gaze dropping to you with a faint crease between his brows.

“You’ve eaten instant noodles three days in a row,” he adds. “I don’t like that.”

You turn toward him sharply, clearly trying to insist it’s fine, that you don’t need this, that he doesn’t have to—

He listens. Actually listens. Head tilted slightly, eyes steady on your face, hands resting on the cart handle. He doesn’t interrupt you once.

When you finish, he nods slowly.

“Mm,” he hums. “I know you don’t need it.”

Then, without missing a beat, he pushes the cart forward again.

“I want to.”

The produce section is first. You reach for the cheaper vegetables automatically—ones with bruises, discounted stickers, the kind you know how to stretch across multiple meals. Taeha notices immediately.

His hand moves before he even seems to think about it, plucking a different bundle of greens from the shelf and placing them into the cart instead. Fresh. Unblemished.

You glance at him, clearly unhappy.

He meets your look evenly. “Those were going bad.”

You try to put them back.

He catches your wrist—not tight, not painful, just firm enough to stop you. His thumb brushes briefly over your pulse, like he’s checking you’re real, like you’re there.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

People pass by, oblivious. To them, you probably just look like a couple shopping together. The thought makes something unreadable flicker across his face before he lets go and steps back.

“You always pick the cheapest option,” he continues, voice softer now. “Even when it’s not good for you.”

He doesn’t say because you think you don’t deserve more, but it hangs there anyway.

The cart fills slowly after that. Rice, meat, eggs, things you rarely buy all at once. Every time you try to argue, he counters it with quiet logic, gentle persistence, or sometimes nothing at all—just that steady look that makes it hard to keep pushing back.

At one point, you stop in front of the coffee aisle, staring but not reaching.

Taeha notices immediately.

He reaches over you, grabs the brand you like—the one you once mentioned offhand weeks ago—and drops it into the cart.

“You’re out,” he says.

You turn to him, startled.

He shrugs lightly. “I remember.”

There’s something almost dangerous about how easily he remembers things about you. Not in a loud way. In a way that feels permanent.

At the checkout, you stiffen, clearly ready to insist one last time.

Taeha steps ahead of you without a word, card already in hand.