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I. A Couple of Strange Things
The first strange thing about Navori was that Joong noticed it at all.
His regular café had closed for renovations with just a sheet of paper taped to the door for a warning. He had stood in front of it for ten seconds, coffee-less and offended, then turned two streets down toward the concourse.
His regular place was small, a bit ugly, and efficient. The coffee was decent, the line moved quickly, and nobody behind the counter tried inviting conversation.
Navori, on the other hand, seemed to have charm.
It sat in the middle stretch of the concourse with dark wood counters, glass display cases, and warm lighting. Behind the counter, the back wall was covered in textured greenery, and above it the ceiling opened into long teal beams with thin strips of light running between them.
Joong slowed as he passed. He had not intended to go in, but Navori looked trendy enough that he doubted the coffee would be good, and he was curious enough to check.
The second strange thing was that it was quiet.
There were three occupied tables, one man eating a muffin with the air of someone waiting for bad news, and a woman behind him muttering strangely into her phone. Still, for a place this polished, in a location this expensive, at seven in the morning, Joong expected more movement.
The third strange thing was the msn behind the counter.
He had been reaching for a stack of cups, but he paused with one hand still lifted, dark hair falling loose around his face. The light from the display case caught him from below, softening the line of his jaw and putting a faint shine along his cheek.
He looked too pretty for the hour, too awake in the warm bakery light, with eyes that settled on Joong as if they had found something mildly entertaining before Joong had done anything at all.
“Morning,” he said cheerfully.
Joong stepped up to the counter. He looked at the menu above him and muttered, “Americano.”
The smile shifted, not disappearing. “Good morning.”
Joong looked at him.
The man looked back.
Joong sighed, “Morning.”
“Small or large?”
“Small.”
The man took a cup from the stack and uncapped a marker. “Mmm, name?”
“Joong.”
He wrote it down slowly enough that Joong had time to notice the delicateness of his fingers, long and slender around the pen, before glancing up. His hair had fallen forward again. He did not move it this time.
“I’m Dunk,” the man said. His smile stayed where it was, waiting.
Joong, who had not asked for his name and did not know what to do with it now that it had been offered, gave a short nod and moved to the end of the counter to wait.
When the coffee arrived, Joong took it and left without further comment. He made it halfway down the block before he looked at the cup.
Next to his name, someone had drawn a small flower. That was the fourth thing, and possibly the strangest, to happen that morning.
Joong stared at it.
He even turned the cup slightly, as if a different angle might explain it, and then he drank the coffee because it was getting cold and he was not going to stand on a pavement at seven-twenty in the morning.
The coffee was good.
That was not strange, exactly. It was just irritating. Joong had not expected coffee from a trendy-looking place to be good.
He walked the rest of the way to his office trying to decide whether good coffee made the place less suspicious, or significantly more.
As Thursday rolled around, he found himself back at Navori. He convinced himself it was because his regular café was still closed, and because he was still curious about the bakery (not the man behind the counter, he thought stubbornly).
Dunk looked up when the door opened, and this time his smile arrived with recognition already attached. “Americano, small.”
Joong found himself in the strange position of not knowing what to say. He stood at the counter while Dunk rang him up.
"You remembered," Joong said finally.
"It's been two days," Dunk smiled, handing him the cup. "Your order is not really complicated."
Joong took the coffee. On the side of the cup, beneath his name, there was another flower.
But this time, it was accompanied by a small sun, drawn in the same careful hand.
Dunk was already wiping down the counter, his attention moving elsewhere.
"The cup," Joong said suddenly.
"What about it?"
"There's a sun on it today."
Dunk glanced over, feigning surprise. "So there is." His eyes flicked up to Joong's. "Would you prefer just the flower? Or a heart. I can definitely do just a heart next time."
"I would prefer nothing."
"Noted." Dunk's smile was small and private. "See you tomorrow."
II. Under the Counter
By the following week, Joong had stopped pretending he was only there because his usual café was closed.
His usual café had reopened on Saturday.
He'd walked past it on Monday morning, glanced through the familiar window at the familiar counter and the familiar barista who had never once drawn anything on his coffee cup, and kept walking.
He did not examine this decision.
Navori was quiet when he arrived, the same serenity that had bothered him on day one and was beginning to bother him in a different way now
The morning light came through the front windows in long, honey-coloured panels, catching the edge of the display case and making the pastries inside look like they'd been arranged for a photoshoot.
Dunk was restocking the bottled drinks, his back half-turned to the door. He glanced over his shoulder when the bell chimed, and the recognition on his face arrived faster this time, less surprised and more satisfied.
"Americano, small," he said, turning back to the bottles. "I'm starting to think you live nearby."
"I work nearby."
"That's basically what I said."
Joong opened his mouth to argue the distinction, then closed it, deciding against it.
He stood at the counter with his wallet in hand, waiting for the transaction to proceed.
Dunk finished lining up the bottles and then turned to the coffee machine with the same unhurried precision. He moved through the steps without looking rushed: grind, tamp, pull the shot. The espresso came down in a thin, dark stream, and the smell of it cut through the bakery's usual butter-sugar haze.
"Rough morning?" Dunk asked, not looking up from the machine.
"I didn't say anything."
"You didn't have to." Dunk reached for a cup from the stack. "You're standing there like someone who's already had a dreadful meeting, and it's barely even eight."
Joong had, in fact, already had a meeting. It had been at seven-fifteen, and Joong had spent most of it staring at a spreadsheet and thinking about the sun on his coffee lid from last week.
He had not thought about the sun in any meaningful sense. It had simply occupied space in his brain, unwanted and persistent, the same way Dunk had begun occupying space in his mornings.
"The coffee," Joong said, "is the corrective."
Dunk made a small, appreciative noise and uncapped the marker. He wrote Joong's name on it with the same slow deliberation as before, then added something underneath it.
Joong shifted slightly, trying to see over the rim of the cup.
Dunk capped the marker before he could.
Then, Dunk reached into the display case and pulled out a croissant. He set it on a small plate, positioned it next to the coffee, and slid both across the counter.
"I didn't order that," Joong said, glancing from the plate to Dunk.
"I know."
"Then why is it there?"
Dunk leaned one hip against the counter and wiped a stray flake of pastry from the edge of the plate.
"Almond," Dunk said. "You seem like an almond person."
Joong looked at the croissant. It was golden and flaky, and looked like it belonged on the cover of some baking magazine.
He looked back at Dunk.
"I didn't tell you anything about myself."
"You didn't have to." Dunk rested his hand beside the plate. "You order black coffee, you don't make small talk, and you looked at the almond croissant last Tuesday for three seconds longer than you looked at anything else in the case."
Joong went still.
Dunk's expression stayed perfectly pleasant, almost innocent. "I pay attention. It's my job."
There was something faintly disconcerting about the specificity of it. It was such an arbitrary thing to have noticed, and said with such ease, that Joong almost felt a small flicker of caution.
"It's on me," Dunk added.
"What do you want for it?" Joong asked immediately.
Dunk blinked. "What?"
"In exchange."
"It's just a croissant," Dunk's smile tugged at one corner, and for the first time it looked less like amusement and more like genuine curiosity. "Do you always assume free things come with some exchange or something?"
"Usually."
"That's exhausting."
Dunk studied him for a moment then, with a long, unhurried look that started at Joong's face and made its way down to his coffee and back up again. His hand moved to the plate again, turning it slightly so the croissant faced Joong.
Joong had the distinct sensation of being read, and not in the way that most people read him. Most people skimmed.
"Just eat the croissant," Dunk said finally. "It's the best one in the case. I was going to save it for myself, but you look like you need it more."
Joong did not need a croissant.
He needed coffee and a meeting-free morning that did not involve being perceived by a man with flour on his apron.
But the croissant was already on the plate, and leaving it behind would require a level of stubbornness that felt excessive. Besides, the croissant did look really good.
He paid for the coffee and took the croissant. He sat at his usual table by the window, the one with the clear sightline to the counter, and pulled apart the pastry with his fingers.
It was, annoyingly, excellent.
Joong ate it in under two minutes and then sat there, fingers slightly greasy, staring at the empty plate like it had personally betrayed him.
From the counter, Dunk was watching.
When Joong finally glanced over, Dunk's expression was carefully neutral, but his eyes were bright in a way that suggested he had watched Joong eat the entire croissant.
Joong wiped his fingers on a napkin and opened his laptop. He did not look up again.
He would have left without further incident if he had not been packing up when he heard Dunk’s voice carry from somewhere near the back counter.
"—no, not in the till! Keep the envelope under the counter until Friday. He’ll pick it up then."
Joong's hands paused on the zipper of his laptop case.
For a second he stayed exactly where he was, head bent, fingers hooked around the pull tab.
He’ll pick it up then?
Who was he?
What was he picking up? What kind of envelope?
That was, he felt, not a sentence a legitimate bakery should ever have occasion to contain.
Then he blinked, zipped the case shut, stood up, sat back down because he had forgotten the case entirely, stood up again, and walked toward the door.
He did not look toward the back.
That was how people died in films.
On the pavement, in the morning light, Joong replayed the sentence twice.
The first time, he attempted generosity. Perhaps it was innocent café logistics, or perhaps a customer had forgotten something.
The second time, his brain rejected all of that and supplied something significantly less legal.
By the time he reached the end of the block, it had advanced to a possibility he found both absurd and deeply irritating.
What if the croissant had been strategic?
What if it had been a small, informal offering extended to see what kind of person accepted free things without asking too many questions.
Joong had, in fact, accepted it.
Worse, he had eaten it eagerly, in under two minutes.
He stopped at the red light and stared ahead, coffee gripped in both hands.
Something about Navori did not add up. The rent alone should have been punishing. The pastries looked expensive, the coffee was annoyingly good, and Dunk had now offered him free food with the calm assurance of a man who either did not care about margins or did not rely on them.
On top of that, he had admitted to paying close attention to Joong.
No, Joong thought. That was ridiculous.
If Dunk was trying to recruit an accomplice, he was going about it in a deeply unprofessional way.
Unless, of course, this was exactly how someone like that would do it.
When the light changed, Joong started walking again.
He was going to get to the bottom of it.
III. Premeditated
Joong had found Navori's Instagram late one night, scrolling with the brightness turned low and the irrational feeling that he was doing something he shouldn't be.
The account was quite aesthetic, with a few photos of pastries, a shot of the teal ceiling beams, and a single blurry picture of someone's hands kneading dough that Joong had stared at for longer than he meant to.
The hands were Dunk's. He could tell by the fingers.
By his rough estimate, the rent on a concourse location like Navori's would run high enough that even a thriving café would feel the pressure. And Navori did not look like a place under pressure.
Joong couldn't make the math work.
He arrived on a Wednesday with these thoughts fully formed and rotating in his head. The bell chimed and the butter-sugar smell wrapped around him. Behind the counter, Dunk was already smiling.
"There he is," Dunk said warmly.
It was a strange greeting.
Territorial, almost.
Joong approached the counter with the same measured stride he always used, refusing to be hurried by the fact that Dunk was looking at him like he'd been waiting.
"Americano, small," Joong said.
Dunk glanced up and chuckled. “I was already making it.”
Joong frowned. “Right.”
“Still committed to the ritual, though,” Dunk said, still grinning as he turned back to the machine. “I respect that.”
“It’s not a ritual.”
"Shame," Dunk sighed, glancing over his shoulder. "You know, most people say good morning back eventually. It's been weeks. I'm starting to take it personally."
Joong hadn't realized Dunk was keeping track.
"Good morning," he mumbled.
"See? Progress." Dunk finished the coffee and set it on the counter, but he didn't let go of the cup. His fingers rested on the rim. "Do you want another croissant today? I have a new batch. Almond again, but I adjusted the filling. Less sugar. I thought of you, you know."
Joong's brain snagged on the last four words and then, with effort, pulled itself free.
He cleared his throat. "You... thought of me?"
"I do. More often than I'd like to admit, actually." Dunk's smile did not waver. "So? Croissant?"
"I didn't bring money for a croissant."
"It's on me."
There it was again.
In any other context, the gesture would have been simple: a baker, proud of his work, sharing it with a regular.
But Joong didn’t buy it.
Either Dunk was running the least profitable bakery in the city, or the bakery's revenue came from somewhere that wasn't the bakery.
He was even more skeptical.
Still, he conceded that a good croissant was a good croissant.
"Thank you," Joong said.
"You're welcome." Dunk leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the counter.
His sleeves were rolled to the elbow and his forearms were pressed against the wood, dusted with flour. They were corded with the kind of muscle that came from lifting trays and kneading dough, which was information Joong noticed against his will.
His gaze flicked down before he could stop it.
Dunk noticed.
"Something on my arm?" Dunk asked, his voice entirely too innocent.
"No."
"You were looking."
"I was, uh, looking at the pastries." Joong gestured vaguely at the display case. "Behind you."
"The pastries are behind me," Dunk said. His mouth curved into a small smirk. "My arms are in front of me. You were looking at my arms."
Joong had no response to that.
He coughed again, picked up his coffee and croissant, and retreated to his usual table by the window. The morning light made it harder for his flushed expression to hide.
Across the room, Dunk began wiping down the counter with slow, circular motions, his sleeves still pushed up. His attention drifted to Joong in intervals that were too regular to be accidental.
Why is he doing that, Joong thought. He knows I can see him. He wants me to see him. If he asks me to join him in a scheme, I may just say yes. I really do not have a backbone. Why is he so good-looking?
His eyes kept lifting from the screen. Every time, Dunk was doing something slightly different, and every time, Joong looked before his brain could intervene.
A customer came in around eight and Dunk greeted her with the same warmth he gave everyone, asking about her daughter and remembering her order before she said it.
The woman left with a coffee and a paper bag, and the shop returned to its usual tranquility.
Joong watched the whole exchange and thought: the front is functional. It operates like a real business. That's the point. If it looked fake, someone would notice.
He was someone. He was noticing.
When he finally packed up to leave, Dunk caught him at the door.
"Same time tomorrow?" he asked.
Joong looked up and forgot how to be a person.
Dunk was smiling and it made him look unfairly gorgeous in the morning light.
Something low in Joong’s stomach fluttered so suddenly it bordered on humiliating. It felt irritatingly like nerves. It felt, more irritatingly still, like anticipation.
Joong did not trust his voice, so he only gave a short nod.
Dunk’s smile deepened.
The door swung shut behind Joong as he left. The morning air hit his face, and he walked a full block before he realized he was still holding the coffee cup.
On the side, beneath his name, Dunk had drawn a small, perfect heart. He had not drawn it while Joong was watching.
That meant he had drawn it before Joong arrived, or in the brief moment when Joong's attention had been on the croissant.
Either way, the implication was the same: the heart was premeditated.
IV. Gathering Intel
The bell chimed.
Behind the counter, Dunk was counting cash. This was not, in itself, incriminating as cash was a normal by-product of commerce. Joong understood that.
What felt incriminating was the way Dunk was counting it: hunched over the register with the focused, slightly frantic energy of someone trying to solve a puzzle.
Bills lay spread across the counter in uneven stacks. Every few seconds he would glance toward the front door as if expecting someone.
Then he saw Joong.
His expression did a complicated thing before smoothing into the usual smile. The transition was fast and practiced, the facial equivalent of a door slamming shut.
"Morning," Dunk said. His voice was dimmer than usual.
His hands were already sweeping the cash into a drawer. He closed it with his hip, a quick, sideways motion that might have looked casual to someone who wasn't watching for it.
Joong was watching for it.
"Rough morning?" he asked carefully.
The shop was empty except for one elderly woman in the corner, seated at a small table with an éclair in front of her. She was not eating the éclair. She was talking to it, in a low, disappointed sort of murmur. The éclair, for its part, remained unresponsive.
Dunk glanced down at the cash, then back up at Joong.
"Something like that," he said. His tone was light enough, but it was the glance toward the door that bothered Joong. "Your usual?"
Joong nodded.
Dunk turned toward the espresso machine, and Joong used the time to scan the counter.
The cash drawer sat slightly ajar, a corner of a bill still visible. Beside it, a stack of receipts lay in a loose, uneven pile.
The coffee took longer than usual. Dunk's hands, normally so precise, fumbled the portafilter and had to re-tamp the grounds. He glanced toward the back door twice while the shot pulled.
When the coffee arrived, there was no flower, sun, or even a heart on the cup. There was just his name, written quickly, the letters less careful than usual.
Joong noticed the absence more than he would have noticed the presence.
"Nothing today?" he asked, tilting the cup slightly.
“Nothing what?”
"Hearts and whatnot."
Dunk blinked, and for a moment he looked genuinely caught off guard, as if Joong had revealed something he wasn't supposed to notice. Then the smile came back, smaller this time. "I didn't think you liked it."
"I don't."
"Then why are you asking?"
Joong had no answer that wouldn't incriminate him. He took a sip of his coffee and said nothing.
Dunk watched him over the rim of the cup. “You know,” he started, “most people would just admit they missed the hearts.”
“I did not miss the hearts.”
“Sure.”
Joong took another sip. “I notice when things change, that’s all.”
“That sounds tiring.”
“It saves time.”
“For what?”
Joong looked down at the cup, thumb brushing over the blank space where the heart usually sat. “Figuring out what people want before they say it.”
Dunk went quiet.
Joong regretted the sentence almost immediately.
Then Dunk said, “Bad habit?”
“Helps me a lot more than it doesn’t,” Joong snorted, shrugging a shoulder. “I’ve had very few relationships that rewarded trust.”
Dunk’s mouth parted like he had a joke ready, but it didn’t come; his brows drew in slightly, and for a moment he only looked at Joong, quieter than before.
Joong tightened his grip around the cup, already preparing to say something dismissive, when the back door finally opened.
A man stepped through from the kitchen. He was older, possibly in his late fifties, with stooped shoulders and an unhurried gait. He carried a worn leather satchel under one arm, and he did not acknowledge Joong.
His attention fixed on Dunk with the single-mindedness of a man who had a task and intended to complete it.
"You have it?" the man asked, voice rather gruff.
Dunk reached under the counter. The motion seemed smooth and practiced. He produced an envelope and handed it over without a word.
The man took it and tucked it into the satchel. He left through the back door the same way he'd come, and the door clicked shut behind him with a sound that seemed, to Joong's ears, very final.
The entire exchange had taken less than fifteen seconds.
Joong's coffee sat on the counter, momentarily forgotten.
Who the fuck was that?
He stood there for a moment too long.
Then he grabbed the cup, nearly fumbled it, caught it against his chest, and immediately looked around as if someone might have seen him do that.
And then, the half-overheard line from last week came back to him: "—no, not in the till. Keep the envelope under the counter until Friday. He’ll pick it up then."
Joong stared straight ahead. Today was Friday.
Envelope. Under the counter. Friday. He’ll pick it up.
His brain was screaming money laundering like an alarm.
Dunk turned back from the door and caught him staring.
The tiredness in his face shifted into something else, something more guarded. Then his mouth curved.
"Don't worry," Dunk said. "He's not my type."
Joong's mouth opened before his brain could intervene. "Does he come every Friday?"
Dunk's eyebrows lifted, just slightly. He looked a bit confused.
"Every Friday," he replied slowly. "Like clockwork. Why?"
"No reason."
"No reason?" Dunk repeated. He rested his chin on one hand, elbow planted on the counter. "You've got a very expressive face for someone who never says much. I think it's your eyes." His smile shifted, smaller. "You've got really nice eyes, you know."
Joong’s stomach lurched and danced around a little. He ignored it with all dignity left within him.
"I was just—" gathering intel "—curious."
"Curious." Dunk drew the word out. "About him?"
"I wasn't—" Joong stopped and tried again. He tried to make his face look less like it had just witnessed a crime. He really did not need Dunk mentioning him later to satchel man and getting him killed in his sleep. "He just came in through the back door and—"
Dunk's mouth curled into a smirk. "And you want to be the one to come through the back door?"
Joong stared at him.
Was that an offer?
That was absolutely an offer.
It was an offer to be in on the operation, on the Friday pickups, on whatever was in those envelopes that required a satchel and a complete absence of questions.
The back door was how you entered when you weren't just a customer anymore.
Joong did not want to know things. Joong wanted to drink his coffee and go to his office and not wake up dead.
"I don't," he said, voice strangled. He coughed once. "I don't want to enter through any door. The front door is fine."
Dunk blinked. Then his smirk softened into something almost fond, and he let out a soft chuckle.
"Okay," he whispered. His eyes dragged down Joong's face, then back up. He licked his lips. "I'll handle the back door myself, then."
Joong's brain processed this at maximum speed.
Handle the back door myself.
So Dunk wasn't pushing. Dunk was backing off. Dunk was saying he'd keep the operation to himself, that Joong didn't need to be involved in whatever went on behind the bakery.
"Right," Joong said, relief loosening his shoulders. "You do that."
Dunk's eyes had a flicker of amusement mixed with anticipation, like Joong had just agreed to something far more interesting than he realized.
"I should, uh, go," Joong added, because the conversation had veered into territory he didn't fully understand.
"But you just got here."
"Early meeting."
"You always have early meetings." Dunk's voice followed him to the door. "One of these days you're going to stay long enough for a full conversation, and I'm going to be very impressed."
V. Arrest Me or Kiss Me
Tuesday morning found Joong standing outside Navori at seven-oh-three.
Through the window, he could see Dunk moving behind the counter with none of the usual brisk efficiency Joong had come to expect.
He was slow this morning. His shoulders were lower and his hair, usually falling in that carefully careless way, looked like it had been pushed back with a hasty hand.
Joong pushed through the door. The bell chimed.
"You're back," Dunk said, looking up. But his voice lacked its usual teasing edge. He turned to the espresso machine. A clipboard lay face-down near the register. A container of sugar had been left open. “The usual?”
"Of course."
Joong stood at the counter and watched Dunk work, and it occurred to him that he had never seen Dunk look tired before.
Dunk set the coffee on the counter, then picked up the cloth and began wiping the counter in small, repetitive circles.
“You good?” Joong asked quietly.
Dunk sighed, "Yeah, just been a morning."
"What kind of morning?" Joong heard himself say.
Dunk paused. He looked at Joong with mild surprise.
"My supplier shorted me on flour," Dunk said eventually. "By a lot. I didn't catch it until I was halfway through the morning batch, and by then it was too late to get a new delivery. So I'm out of croissants, the brioche is a disaster, and I have a custom cake order due at noon that I haven't started because I spent two hours on the phone trying to fix the flour situation." He set the cloth down and sighed again. "Also the mixer broke. So there's that."
"That's a lot."
"It is a lot," Dunk agreed. He leaned against the back counter and crossed his arms.
Joong picked up his coffee. He wasn't expecting himself to care, but he didn't like how dejected Dunk looked.
He tried to think of something to say that was not an interrogative question.
"The almond croissant," he started. "The one you made me. It was the best croissant I've ever had."
Dunk looked up.
"I've had a lot of croissants," Joong continued, sheepishly. "I went to Paris once, for work. I ate croissants every morning. Yours was far better."
For the first time since Joong had walked through the door, something in Dunk’s expression cracked open.
"You're just being nice," Dunk said, waving it off.
"I'm just stating a fact."
Joong took a sip of his coffee and found it perfect, as always.
"I don't think you're supposed to be nice to me," Dunk said, quieter. "I thought you were here to glare at me mysteriously and leave."
"I don't glare."
"You do. You've been glaring since the day you walked in. I just couldn't figure out if you wanted to arrest me or kiss me."
Joong's hand tightened on his cup.
Dunk seemed to realize what he'd said a beat too late, because colour rose along his cheekbones in a slow tide.
"That was—" Dunk started.
"Accurate," Joong butted in.
He did not know why he had said it. The word had bypassed every filter he owned and walked straight out of his mouth, and now it was sitting on the counter between them.
Dunk stared at him.
"Accurate which part?"
Joong's survival instincts, which had been dormant for an alarming portion of this conversation, finally kicked in.
He took a step back from the counter, coffee in hand, and gestured vaguely toward his usual table. "I should let you deal with the cake."
"Coward," Dunk muttered, but the word had no bite. He was smiling now, a small, crooked thing. "But thank you."
The smile was worse than the appreciation. Joong could still feel it at the back of his neck as he turned away.
VI. The Second Location
Joong did not go back to Navori for six days.
On the seventh evening, though, he found himself walking past the bakery at closing time. The street was on his way home from a late meeting that could have been an email.
He was not expecting to see anything. He was certainly not expecting to see Dunk emerge from the back door carrying a comically large white box and a thick envelope, locking up, and heading deeper into the side streets.
Joong followed him.
He was bad at it, catastrophically bad.
He matched Dunk's pace too exactly, stopped too abruptly when Dunk paused to shift the box in his arms, and at one point ducked behind a lamppost that was approximately half his width.
A couple walking a dog gave him a long, judgemental look. Joong ignored them. He was on surveillance.
Dunk walked four blocks with the unhurried ease of someone who had no idea he was being followed, except that he slowed down at odd intervals, and once he stopped to look at his phone under a streetlight at an angle that gave him a perfect view of the pavement behind him.
Joong, pressed against a locked shopfront, did not notice this.
At a crosswalk, Dunk finally turned around.
"If you're going to follow me," he called, "you could at least help carry the cake."
Joong's soul evacuated his body.
He stepped out from behind a municipal planter with as much dignity as he could gather.
Dunk was looking at him with an expression that was not angry. It was something closer to exhausted amusement.
"The cake," Joong repeated.
"Wedding cake sample." Dunk lifted the box. "The bride wants to try it before the weekend. I'm delivering it because she lives six blocks away and I didn't trust a courier. Were you going to follow me the whole way, or were you planning to announce yourself at some point?"
"I was walking."
"No, you weren't. You’re actively stalking me. You literally hid behind a lamppost. Also, you’re shit at it. I could see your shoulders on both sides."
"Oh."
Dunk rolled his eyes and chuckled, before walking again. "Come on, then. If you're going to lurk, you can do it next to me."
Joong followed. They walked in silence for half a block, Joong keeping a careful six inches of distance and Dunk radiating a patience that felt newly acquired.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on, by the way?" Dunk asked, not looking at him. "Because you've been strange since the day we met, and strange is a spectrum, but you're somewhere near the deep end. You watch me like I'm some sort of puzzle, and now you're following me down the street. I'm trying very hard not to take it personally, but I'm running out of other ways to take it."
Joong's throat tightened. "I don't know what you want me to say."
"Something true would be nice. For a change." Dunk stopped walking.
They were outside an apartment building now, warm light spilling from the lobby windows.
He set the cake box on a low wall and turned to face Joong fully. "You clearly have questions. So ask them. Or better yet—" Dunk paused, and his voice dropped into something less frustrated, more careful. "Come by after closing tonight. I had something I wanted to show you anyways."
Joong's brain immediately ran the calculation: second location, after dark, no witnesses.
He should say no. He knew he should say no. Dunk was too good looking and charming and kind, and that was possibly the biggest sign that he was a serial killer.
And yet the part of him that had been curious for weeks, the part that was tired of building theories in the dark, made him nod.
(There was also a stubborn part of his mind that would have loved to die in Dunk’s muscular arms.)
"What time?" he asked.
Dunk blinked, as if he'd expected another deflection. "Seven. I'll leave the door unlocked."
Joong nodded again, less certainly this time. Dunk held his gaze for a beat longer, then picked up the cake box and disappeared into the lobby.
At six-fifty-three, Joong stood outside Navori. The front lights were dimmed, the CLOSED sign flipped, and through the glass he could see Dunk moving in the back, a shadow against the kitchen's fluorescent glow.
He knocked. Dunk appeared a moment later, wiping his hands on a towel, and unlocked the door with a flourish.
"You're early," Dunk said. He stepped aside to let him in, and the door swung shut behind them with a click that felt, to Joong's ears, extremely final. "Come on. I promised you a look at what I actually do."
He was already walking toward the kitchen, and Joong followed because the alternative was standing alone in the darkened front room like an idiot.
"This had better not be a murder setup," Joong muttered under his breath.
The kitchen was a disaster.
Joong stopped in the doorway and took it in.
Flour dusted every surface. A tray of what might have been croissants sat on a cooling rack, each one a slightly different shade of burnt. The sink was full of bowls, and somewhere in the back corner, a stand mixer lay on its side like a fallen soldier. The whole room smelled like caramelised sugar, and in the middle of it stood Dunk, arms spread, expression caught somewhere between pride and apology.
"Ta-da," Dunk said. "The magic."
Joong surveyed the carnage. "It looks like a flour bomb went off."
"The flour bomb was me. I dropped a bag this morning." Dunk gestured at the fallen mixer. "That broke last week. I told you about that. The repair guy comes on Thursday, allegedly. And these—" he pointed at the burnt croissants— "are my fourth attempt at a new recipe. The first three were worse."
"They're burnt."
"They're caramelised. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"No." Dunk's shoulders dropped, and some of the performance fell away. "It's been a week. The supplier shorted me again, the mixer is still broken, and I need to sort out the accounts by Monday. I wanted to—" He stopped. Ran a hand through his hair and groaned, "This isn't how I wanted this to look."
"How did you want it to look?"
"Cleaner. More impressive." Dunk moved past him to the prep table, where a single plate sat covered with a cloth. "I made you something. It's not burnt, I promise."
He lifted the cloth.
On the plate sat a small coiled bun, glossy with honey and flecked with toasted sesame seeds. The dough had been twisted into a tight spiral, the edges just shy of caramelised.
"It's a new recipe," Dunk said. "Brown butter and honey roll. I've been fighting with the dough for two weeks, but the dough kept collapsing. This is the first batch that came out right." He pushed the plate toward Joong, and his voice dropped. "I know you don't like things too sweet. I wanted you to try it before anyone else."
Joong looked at the bun. He looked at Dunk, flour-streaked and nervous, waiting for a verdict. Something in Joong's chest cracked open at how vulnerable Dunk's expression was. He reached for the pastry and took a bite.
The brown butter came first, warm and almost nutty, then the honey settling over it without cloying. The dough pulled apart in soft, fine layers, and the sesame seeds gave a faint, savoury crunch.
It was, without exaggeration, one of the best things he had ever eaten.
"Well?" Dunk asked.
Joong chewed and swallowed. "It's good."
"Good? That's it? I slaved over a broken mixer for you, and it's just good?"
"It's very good."
Dunk was smiling wide now. He leaned back against the prep table, arms crossed, looking at Joong with an impossibly soft look. "I'm glad you came. There's... something I wanted to ask you."
Joong opened his mouth to respond, but then his gaze drifted past Dunk's shoulder to the shelf by the back door.
There was a box. A cardboard box, the lid slightly askew, and on the side, facing outward, written in thick black marker: EVIDENCE — DO NOT LOG.
His pulse immediately slammed back into investigative overdrive. He did not say anything. He just kept looking at it for a moment too long, then dragged his eyes back to Dunk.
Dunk's smile had not fully faded. He did notice Joong pulling back, though. He tilted his head and asked, "Joong?"
"Hmm?"
Dunk's expression changed, only slightly. "You good?"
"Yeah." Joong set the rest of the pastry down with more care than necessary. He coughed, "This is, uh, really good."
There was a pause. Dunk looked at him for a moment, searching his face with a concentration that made Joong want, irrationally, to look away first.
"I should probably go," Joong said suddenly.
"What? Why?"
"Early morning." The lie arrived smooth and automatic. "I forgot I have something to prepare for."
"I thought you didn’t have early meetings on Wednesday." Dunk's voice was flat now, no teasing left in it.
Joong's fingers tightened around the edge of the prep table. "I was wrong."
Another pause.
This time when Dunk spoke, his voice was careful in a way it had not been before. "Did I do something?"
Joong looked at him, really looked: the flour streak still faintly visible near his temple, the tiredness beneath his eyes, the guarded stillness settling into his shoulders.
A few minutes ago he had been nervous and hopeful and a little pleased with himself. Now he just looked like someone trying not to push.
Joong felt a sharp, immediate twist of guilt.
"No," he said, too fast. Then, because that sounded false even to him, he added, "No, you didn't."
Dunk held his gaze for another second, as if deciding whether to believe that. "You can just tell me if you don't want this."
Joong's chest tightened.
The worst part was that he did want this. He wanted the pastry and the soft look on Dunk's face and the fact that someone had thought of him specifically. He just no longer trusted what any of it meant.
"It's not that," he said.
"Then what is it?” Dunk's eyes searched his face. “What do you want, Joong?"
Joong opened his mouth, but what came out wasn't an answer. It was just the thing he'd been avoiding for weeks, stripped down to just: "I… I don't know."
Dunk held his gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded, slow and tired, and turned back toward the prep table.
"Okay," he said.
Joong swallowed. "Dunk—"
"No, it's fine." Dunk nodded once, like he was agreeing with himself more than with Joong. "You don't have to know right now."
He turned back toward the prep table, composed in a way that made Joong feel worse.
"I'll be here," Dunk continued, not looking at him. "Same hours. Same coffee."
He didn't look up again or say anything after that.
Joong stood there for a breath too long, the silence stretching thin, then pushed through the kitchen door and out into the night.
The night air hit him like a rebuke.
He walked two blocks without stopping, pulse loud in his ears, the taste of almond and honey still on his tongue.
He felt bad. Dunk had looked hurt and Joong had seen it happen in real time and still left anyway.
But underneath that was the older, more stubborn thing: the feeling that every time he got close to believing the obvious explanation, something pulled him back.
VII. A Deeply Compromising Amount of Effort
The next morning, Joong went to his old, regular coffee shop for the first time in two months.
It was exactly as he'd left it.
Same grey awning, same smudged glass door, same barista who had never once drawn anything on his coffee cup. The line moved quickly and nobody behind the counter acted as though ordering anything invited conversation. The coffee was hot and efficient and tasted exactly the way it was supposed to.
Joong stood by the condiment station and took one sip and felt nothing.
No irritation. No suspicion. No inconvenient stomach lurch.
He had spent two years in this exact spot, every morning, and it had never occurred to him that the absence of everything he now associated with seven AM would feel so banal.
He dumped the coffee in the bin outside.
He went to work and tried not thinking about it.
By six that evening, he had thought about it approximately forty times. By seven, he had changed his shirt. By eight, he had accepted that he was going back.
Navori was dark at the front, the CLOSED sign already flipped. Light spilled from the kitchen into the front room in a long yellow strip across the floor.
Joong stood outside for a second with his hand on the door and reminded himself that he was here to say something true.
He pushed the door open.
The door was unlocked. The front room was quiet, all softened shadows and the faint smell of sugar and coffee that still lingered after closing.
Voices carried from the back.
One of them was Dunk's. The other was lower, older, and familiar in exactly the wrong way.
Joong stopped.
He should have called out. Instead he kept walking until he reached the kitchen doorway, where the entire situation immediately became worse.
Dunk was standing at the prep counter with the same older man from Fridays. The cash box sat open between them. Receipts were spread out in short uneven stacks. The older man had a pen tucked behind one ear and an envelope in one hand. Dunk was saying something with a concentrated annoyance.
It looked, infuriatingly, both suspicious and boring at the same time.
Dunk looked up first.
Surprise crossed his face, then something that might have been relief, then nothing at all.
"Joong," he said. It wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold either.
The older man turned too. His gaze moved from Joong to Dunk and back again with calm, immediate interest.
Joong's throat went dry.
He had meant to say something reasonable. Something along the lines of I do know what I want, or sorry for acting like a deeply disturbed customer for the last two months, or I like you.
Instead he said the absolute most stupid thing.
"I don't know if I can really help you with money laundering."
Silence.
The older man lowered the envelope very slowly.
Dunk blinked once. Then again. "Excuse me?"
Joong felt heat flood his face, but unfortunately he was too far in now to retreat with dignity.
"Money laundering," he muttered quietly. "If that is what's happening. I mean, I don't know for certain. But if it is, I don't think I would be particularly useful."
Dunk's mouth fell open slightly.
"I have no experience," Joong added, hating himself now with admirable clarity. "With money laundering. Or drugs."
The older man cleared his throat and looked at Dunk. "Is this the one?"
Dunk closed his eyes. "Oh my god."
The older man set the envelope down on the counter. "I can come back."
"No, stay," Dunk said, still staring at Joong like a second head had sprouted from his shoulders. "Actually, no. Go. Please go before I also become batshit insane."
The older man patted Dunk once on the shoulder as he passed and left through the back.
The silence he left behind was enormous.
Dunk braced both hands on the prep counter, knuckles paling. He was looking at Joong as if trying to decide whether this was offensive, unbelievable, or somehow both.
"You came back," he said at last, voice stretched thin, "and that is what you chose to say?"
Joong reached up, scrubbing the back of his neck and grimacing. "I was going to say something else."
Dunk stared.
Joong wished that the floor would open and swallow him whole.
"What," Dunk said, each syllable dropping like a stone, "could you possibly have been going to say that made money laundering the better option?"
Joong's gaze flicked to the cash box, the receipts, and the envelopes. Then, because he was apparently determined to self-destruct in installments, he met Dunk's eyes.
"I like you."
Dunk went completely still.
"That was the other thing," Joong added, throat dry.
Dunk turned his head away, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. His shoulders lifted, tense.
When he turned back, his eyes were wet at the corners, but his voice came out steady. "You thought I was laundering money."
"Briefly."
Dunk's eyebrow arched. "How briefly?"
Joong winced. "Two months."
“This whole time?!”
“Intermittently,” Joong mumbled.
"You followed me down the street."
Joong grimaced. "That was, admittedly, not my finest moment."
"No, I don't think it was."
Joong had braced for volume, for fury he could absorb because he'd earned it. Instead, Dunk's whole posture sagged, his spine curving as he leaned against the prep table.
The cash box sat open between them, receipts curling in the kitchen's warmth, the envelope stupidly ordinary. Joong's fingers twitched toward it, then stopped.
“I know how this sounds,” he said.
“I don’t think you do.” Dunk turned his head away, throat bobbing. "I thought you were nervous," he said, voice dropping. "All those weeks. I thought you were nervous because of me."
“I was.”
"No." The word came out raw. "I thought you were nervous because you liked me back."
Joong’s throat went dry. He coughed once into his fist.
Dunk laughed under his breath, a hollow, awful sound. “Which was flattering, actually. Pathetic of me, maybe, but flattering.” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, flour still caught near his wrist. “I thought, okay, fine. He’s strange. He’s fun to provoke. He looks at me like I’m holding a knife whenever I give him coffee, but maybe that’s just his face.”
“It is sometimes my face.”
Dunk's eyes narrowed, his fingers curling against the counter. "Don't."
Joong shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked.
Dunk inhaled, slow. He stared at the counter, at the mundane evidence of a completely legal evening, and something in his expression cracked despite his effort.
"Money laundering," he said, shaking his head. The tension in his shoulders was beginning to ease, replaced by something more like disbelief.
“It made more sense in my head.”
“I am desperate to know how.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I really am.”
“You’ll respect me less.”
Dunk's mouth twitched. The first real crack in the hurt. "Joong."
“Fine.” Joong dragged a hand down his face, hard enough to leave light red marks. “The bakery looked too nice.”
Dunk blinked.
"And too quiet," Joong barreled onward. "The location is expensive. The coffee is good. The pastries are good. And no one was ever there."
"At seven in the morning."
"That's not—" Joong stopped. "What?"
Dunk's eyebrow lifted. "You come at the slowest hour of the entire day. Weekends, we're packed. There's a line out the door for brunch. You've just never been here for it."
Joong had no rebuttal. He had, in fact, only ever come at seven in the morning. It had never occurred to him to come at a different time.
He ran his tongue over his teeth, then exhaled.
Damn it. He was a bad detective. Or a bad data analyst. Or both.
He let that one go. There was still the matter of the satchel man.
"And the man who just left," Joong said, quieter.
Dunk’s brow furrowed. “What about him?”
Joong glanced toward the back door, then back at Dunk. “I thought he was uh… important.”
“He is important. He stops me from accidentally committing tax fraud.”
Joong paused.
Dunk folded his arms, but the motion was looser now, the tension bleeding out.
“He’s my accountant,” Dunk added.
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.” Dunk pressed a hand over his mouth. His shoulders moved once and he made a strange sound.
Joong looked up and narrowed his eyes. “Are you laughing?”
“No,” Dunk said, voice muffled through his fingers.
“You are.”
“I’m trying not to.” Dunk pressed a hand over his mouth, eyes bright with it now. “I’m still offended.”
“That’s fair.”
“It’s just—” Dunk shook his head, a helpless smile breaking through. “You thought he was what? My handler?”
Joong’s face went hot. He pressed his palm to his forehead. “I didn’t have a fully developed title for him. I just thought he may or may not kill me.”
“Oh my god.”
“You were acting so suspicious that day, though,” Joong continued, pulling his hand away. “That Friday. You should’ve seen yourself.”
“Okay, he is a bit scary, I’ll give you that much,” Dunk huffed and leaned one hip against the counter. “But he just does all the store’s books. If anything, I was scared he’d be disappointed and scold me.”
“Oh.”
Dunk's head tipped to one side, his mouth curving. He didn't say anything, just held Joong's gaze and let the quiet stretch, letting him sit with the single syllable he'd offered.
Joong's fingers fidgeted against his own thigh. “There was also the box.”
Dunk’s brow furrowed. “What box?”
“The one on the shelf. It said do not log. I saw it that night and thought—” Joong pressed his palm to his forehead. “I thought it was actual evidence. That you’d slipped up.”
Dunk stared at him for a beat, then his mouth twitched. “That was my friend’s idea of a joke. Burnt pastry shells from a catering order. You’ve been spiralling about that since last night?”
“I didn’t sleep,” Joong admitted.
Dunk pressed his lips together, but a laugh escaped anyway. “Did you think I would hide evidence so obviously like that?”
"I thought you were getting sloppy. The pretty ones always do in crime documentaries."
Dunk's eyebrows shot up. "The pretty ones?"
"I'm going to stop talking now."
Dunk shook his head, still smiling, but his expression gentled after a moment. He uncrossed his arms and let them hang at his sides.
"You could have just asked me. Any of it. Instead you built an entire conspiracy in your head and acted all weird."
Joong's throat tightened. He nodded. "I know."
"That's the part I don't understand." Dunk's voice wasn't sharp, just tired. He stepped a little closer, his shoes scuffing the floor. "You were here every morning. You talked to me. You let me flirt with you and everything. Why didn’t you just ask?"
"I didn't know what you were doing," Joong said. "I didn’t know if any of it was real. The flirting, the free food, the way you remembered my order—I wanted it to be real. But I couldn't make myself believe it."
"Why not?"
Joong looked down at the counter. He ran his thumb along the edge of it, back and forth. "Because people don't do that. Not without wanting something back."
Joong could feel Dunk's eyes on him, but he didn't look up.
"You keep saying that," Dunk whispered. "That people don't do things like that. What does that mean?"
Joong's hands curled against the edge of the counter. "It means nobody's ever just been nice to me without a reason. There's always some sort of catch. And you were so—" He stopped, jaw working. "You were so consistent about it. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Dunk inhaled, the sound long and slow. When he spoke, his voice was quieter than Joong had ever heard it. "That's a really sad way to live."
"I'm aware."
Dunk looked down at the counter, his fingers curling against the edge of it. He stayed like that for a moment, then lifted his head and met Joong's eyes.
His voice came out steady, but there was a tremor underneath. "I've been trying to ask you out for two months. And when I gave you that pastry, I thought that I was doing too much. I thought I scared you away by coming off too strong."
Joong shook his head. He stepped forward and reached out, fingers brushing Dunk's wrist before curling gently around his hand.
Dunk's skin was warm, a little dry from the flour, and his pulse jumped under Joong's thumb.
"You didn't scare me off," Joong murmured slowly. "The pastry was really good. I'm sorry I didn't say that properly the first time."
Dunk looked down at their hands, then back up. "And now?"
"Now I'm trying." Joong's thumb moved across Dunk's knuckles, a small, hesitant motion. "I keep thinking about the pastry, by the way. The honey wasn't too sweet, and the dough had that pull—" He stopped, frustrated with himself. "I'm bad at this. I'm trying to say I loved it. And I loved that you made it for me. Thank you."
Dunk's shoulders dropped, the last of the guardedness leaving his frame.
His fingers curled around Joong's and squeezed. "I was going to make you another one. A new recipe every month, if you came back."
Joong's chest tightened. "I came back."
"You did." Dunk looked at their joined fingers, then back up. "You can trust me, you know. There's no other shoe. There's just me."
Joong swallowed. "Just you is good. Just you is—" He shook his head, giving up on the sentence.
Dunk smiled. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Dunk's fingers traced a small arc over Joong's knuckles before he spoke again. "You're cute like this," he said.
Joong blinked. "I am?"
"Unfortunately."
"That's, uh, useful to know."
"Is it?"
Joong closed his mouth.
Dunk's eyes dropped to it. His smile faded into something more intent.
Joong felt the shift in his own heartbeat, the warmth of Dunk's body inches away.
Dunk leaned in slightly. "You're still ridiculous," he said.
"I know."
"And I'm still mad."
"Understandable."
"And I'm not giving you a free croissant tomorrow."
"Oh."
Dunk looked at him for another beat. Then he let out a breath and shook his head, as if losing a battle with himself. "But I do still really want to kiss you right now."
Joong's breath caught. "You still want to? After all my dumbassery?"
With a shy bite to his lip, Dunk stepped in closer, close enough that Joong could feel the warmth of him before he even answered. "What do you think?" he murmured.
Joong moved first, careful at the start as if the moment might still startle and disappear on him. Dunk met him halfway, one hand catching lightly at his sleeve, and the kiss landed warm and real and long overdue. It tasted faintly of sugar.
Dunk made a small sound against his mouth, pleased and still a little disbelieving, and something in Joong finally went quiet. The kitchen, the receipts, the disastrous conversation from five minutes ago all fell away. There was only Dunk, close and warm and unmistakably here, and the hand at Joong's side when his hip knocked lightly against the prep table, steadying him without hesitation.
When Dunk pulled back, Joong followed without meaning to, chasing the warmth of his mouth.
Dunk noticed. His smile bloomed, pleased beyond reason.
"Next time," he said, a little breathless, "ask one question before overthinking and starting up a futile investigation."
Joong considered that, though it was difficult to consider anything with Dunk still this close. "That seems reasonable."
"I'm serious."
"I know."
Dunk was still smiling, his hand still resting at Joong's sleeve.
Joong glanced down at it, then back up. "Would the question have been something like, 'Are you laundering money?'"
Dunk's expression flattened.
"No?"
"No."
"What would you have preferred?"
Dunk leaned in until their mouths were almost touching again. "Something normal."
"That narrows it down less than you think."
"Try 'Do you like me?'"
Joong went quiet.
Dunk's face softened again.
Joong swallowed. "Do you?"
Dunk looked at him for a long moment. Then, very gently, "Yes, you fool."
Joong's mouth opened, then closed. He rocked back on his heels. "Oh."
Dunk's thumb brushed once against his sleeve. "Good?"
"Yes." Joong nodded, maybe too fast. "Very. I'm processing."
"You do that."
"I may need a moment."
Dunk's smile turned fond. "Take one."
Joong took approximately half a second before leaning in again. Dunk laughed into the kiss, and this time, Joong felt it.
He still had questions, of course. He would probably always have questions.
But tomorrow he'd be back at seven AM, and Dunk would probably draw a heart on his cup, and Joong, against all evidence and better judgment, would let him.