tell me something nice ➻❥ 朝倉 穣
wherein; the only natural response to a nightmare is to call your ex in the middle of the night.
(1241 words)
pairing: ex!jo x f!reader
genre: angst, exes, hurt/comfort (?,) jo and reader are yearners
warnings: not much! just a little sad, use of yn, little plot i just enjoyed the concept and the vibes forgive mee
a/n: hello!! i missed writing for jojo sm i really enjoyed working on this one (ㅅ´ ˘ `) i did a poll on whether this should be fluff or angst and fluff won. clearly i did not listen but i hope ygs enjoy it anyway!! soundtrack for this fic is ‘promise’ and ‘love flew away’ by laufey (and adam melchor)
the phone rang twice before jo picked up.
”…jo?” your voice came out shy, already regretting your half-conscious decision to call him.
”hello?” jo responded with a groan, a yawn peeking through his words.
something in your brain flutters at the familiarity—jo’s voice slow and velvety as he stirs from sleep, yet to speak to anyone that day. drowsy in a way only you had heard before.
the thought sends a guilty warmth creeping up your cheeks.
a shuffle of blankets filters through the speakers, shattering the version of jo your mind had slipped back into imagining—how he’d look when you woke up next to him on slow mornings or when you’d murmur him confessions in the dead of night.
it reminds you why you’d called in the first place. ”sorry, did i wake you?”
”no, it’s fine.” he reassures you, though you both know you did. “is everything alright?”
you pause for a moment, toying with the tangled sheets in your hand. “i can’t sleep.”
a hum on the other line prompts you to go on.
truth be told, you’re not sure why you called jo. you’re not sure why—when you’d woken up with tears staining your face from a nightmare where you couldn’t speak, where the world ignored you—you knew he would be the one person who’d understand.
you sniffle, “i’m sorry. i… i don’t know why i called.”
everything was okay with jo. it was okay when you were together. it was okay when you broke up because life drove you two on paths that no longer intersected. it was okay when you said you’d moved on but you still thought of jo when love songs played.
so it must have been okay when you called your ex in the middle of the night, despite yourself, wanting nothing more than him lying next to you.
jo clears his throat, pulling you from the thoughts that stuffed your head, “did you have a nightmare?”
in some other world, you would’ve been shaking him awake instead of calling him. he’d hold you, run his hand through your hair and tell you nice things. eons ago that world was real.
but now, all you can do is stare at his name on your phone and say, “yeah.”
”do you wanna talk about it?”
yet you know if you start, you won’t be able to stop. the tears will keep coming, and you’ll find yourself tearing your heart out and handing it to jo, like you had so many times before.
only this time, you don’t know if you’d get it back.
you’re not sure you ever did.
silence lingers between you, nothing but the hum of your aircon and jo’s fan blowing wind into his microphone.
you hug your pillow a little tighter, “tell me something nice, jo.”
he pauses for a moment and exhales into the phone, thoughtful.
the words make you sit up a little straighter. “the little stray cat outside your apartment?”
“mhm,” he hums. “she had kittens.”
you let out the smallest laugh. “that’s a lot.”
“yeah. i think she was hiding them for a while.” you can hear him smile. “the old lady downstairs found them behind the storage shed.”
“they’re loud.” he chuckles. “so… probably.”
another laugh escapes you before you can stop it.
the conversation is so normal, so everyday. it’s painfully easy—the way he tells you about the kittens or his grumpy neighbors, the little restaurant he tried the other day.
for a short while, it feels like nothing changed.
”jo,” you start without thinking.
it was an mistake—to speak the very thought that’d lingered on your tongue since the line clicked.
you’re met with a pause that lasts just a little too long, you glance back over at your phone to make sure he didn’t hang up.
”…it’s okay.” his grainy voice mutters.
“please stop saying that.”
“im sorry.” jo whispers, it squeezes your heart even more. you hear him let out a shaky breath.
the words hang between you, blowing with the wind.
”i think…” he continues. “more than anything i miss taking care of you.”
your head falls back against your bedframe, blurry gaze met with the ceiling.
“i wish i was lying there next to you instead of talking to you through my phone.” he laughs softly, though there’s no humor in it. “i wish i could hold you—tell you you’re safe until you fell asleep.”
you blink, having to fight your eyes from welling up all over again. you have to keep yourself from asking why don’t you? because you both already know the answer.
everything was okay with jo. it was so much more than okay. maybe that’s what made it so hard to leave.
sometimes you wished your relationship had ended with yelling and slammed doors.
sometimes you wished it had been a stupid misunderstanding neither of you bothered to fix.
you wished you could talk bad about him to your friends and feel no remorse because he was a “piece of shit” anyway.
sometimes you wished it had been anything else other than the bittersweet smiles you exchanged, loving each other enough to let go. you wished he didn’t understand you more than anyone else or never listened when the world spoke over you.
and right now, you almost wished you’d never called him at all.
you hadn’t realized how long you’d gone quiet.
“still here.” as if you weren’t sure whether that was a good thing.
you squeeze your eyes shut, regret flooding your senses. “jo i’m… i’m really sorry. it was stupid of me to call. but thank you… for picking up anyway.”
you expect him to tell you it’s okay like he always did. tell you to go to bed. you’re ready to lay in silence and hope you forget everything in the morning, even when you know you wouldn’t.
instead, “please don’t hang up.”
the words are barely above a whisper, you think you imagined them.
“don’t be sorry.” jo’s voice is tender, nearly a plea. you can’t help but notice the tears that too stain his tone. “stay.”
you lay back onto your bed, phone next to your ear as you lay your head on your pillow. you hear him do the same.
just for tonight, you tell yourself as jo murmurs a thanks. you let the sound of his breathing fill the room, muffled by his microphone.
your eyelids flutter shut and you allow sleep to start taking you away.
despite the drowsiness washing over you, you know this changes nothing.
you know that you’ll wake up tomorrow and will have to tend to the wounds you reopened tonight. jo still isn’t yours to call, he hasn’t been for a while.
but just for tonight, in this little moment shared with him and the stars that blink down at you, you rest.
jo whispers something on the other line that you don’t hear. you don’t ask him to repeat it. he doesn’t call out your name when you don’t respond because he knows you need sleep more than you need saving.
you rest and you know that everything’s gonna be okay. because, with jo, it always is.
tag list: @nichozzystuffs, @sofisbelle, @jothehirono, @minhosimthings (ask/comment/dm to be added or removed!)
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