I glanced at the screen and saw a message from an unknown number.
Hi. This is Tae-min. Jin-ho got your number from the company files. Is that okay? We wanted to make sure you had a way to reach us if you needed anything. You don't have to respond. We just wanted you to know we're here.
Below it, four more numbers were listed with names attached. Hwan. Jin-ho. Min-jun. Jae-won.
They'd given me their personal phone numbers. Not their manager's number. Not a company line. Their actual, personal phones that probably only a handful of people in the world had access to.
They trust us, my omega observed quietly.They're showing us that they trust us.
I stared at the message for a long time. Then, before I could second-guess myself, I typed a response.
It's okay. Thank you for the food and the letters. I wrote you a response but I don't know how to get it to you.
The reply came almost immediately, like he'd been watching his phone and waiting.
I can pick it up tomorrow morning? Leave it outside your door like Min-jun-hyung did with the food? I won't knock or anything. Just pick it up and leave.
I should have said no. Should have maintained the distance, should have asked him to wait, should have given myself more time to prepare for even the smallest interaction. I was tired of hiding. Tired of pushing everything away. And leaving a letter outside my door wasn't really an interaction, was it? It was just... an exchange. A small step.
Okay,I typed back.Tomorrow morning. Thank you.
Thank YOU, he responded.For trying. For letting us in, even just a little. It means everything.
I set my phone down and looked around my apartment — at the containers of food stacked neatly in my refrigerator, at the letters spread across my table, at the response I'd written sitting in its envelope waiting to be delivered.
This was what trying looked like.
Small steps. One at a time. Letting people in without demanding that they stay out.
We're doing it, my omega said softly, something like pride in her voice.We're actually doing it.
"We're trying," I corrected her, but I couldn't help the small smile that tugged at my lips. "We're trying."
The next morning, I left the letter outside my door before the sun came up. When I checked an hour later, it was gone, replaced by another container of food and a small note that said simply:Thank you. More soon. — T
I ate the food. I read the note. I let myself feel the warmth spreading through my chest instead of pushing it down.
Small steps. But small steps were still steps. For the first time in twelve years, I was moving forward instead of running away.
Two days passed.
Two days of food deliveries every morning — always different, always delicious, always with little notes from Min-jun about heating instructions and nutritional benefits and gentle reminders to eat even when I didn't feel hungry. Two days of text messages from the others — never pushy, never demanding, just small check-ins and silly jokes and pictures of things they thought I might like.
Hwan sent me a video of himself attempting to cook and nearly setting the kitchen on fire. Min-jun's exasperated yelling in the background made me laugh out loud for the first time in days.
Jin-ho sent me lyrics he was working on — fragments and phrases and half-finished thoughts that felt like windows into his mind. I found myself responding with my own fragments, and we fell into an easy exchange that felt more like collaboration than conversation.
Tae-min sent me memes. Stupid, ridiculous memes that had no business being as funny as they were. I caught myself smiling at my phone like an idiot more than once.
Jae-won sent the least, but what he sent mattered. A single message each morning:How are you feeling today?And when I responded honestly —tired, scared, slightly better, still trying —he always acknowledged it without pushing for more.Thank you for telling me. We're here when you're ready.
The soul sickness was still there. The fever, the weakness, the ache of three incomplete bonds constantly pulling at my chest. The food was helping. The sleep was helping. And somehow, impossibly, the connection was helping too. I could feel the bonds settling slightly. Not completing — that would require more than letters and text messages — but calming. Like animals that had been pacing restlessly in their cages finally starting to believe that their keeper meant them no harm.
See?my omega murmured as I woke on the third morning.This isn't so bad. We can do this. We can let them in.
"Slowly," I reminded her, pushing myself up from the nest. "We're letting them in slowly."
Slowly is still letting them in, she pointed out.That's more than we've done in twelve years.
