nana @shininghoshstar - Tumblr Blog

unsent (park sunghoon) ꣑ৎ

pairing: situationship!sunghoon x fem!reader

content: toxic situationship, angst, smut. plot with porn.

warnings: mdni! sexual content, reader is pathetic! (this is fiction pls. if you don't like it, don't read it!), yearning, insecurity, mean sunghoon, p in v, degradation, unprotected sex (don't), toxic dynamic, oral sex (m. receiving), rough sex, overstimulation, crying after sex, manipulative sunghoon, unreliable narrator (kinda), sunghoon is an asshole, reader crashes out.

wc: 18.9k

note: nobody asked for this, i know. but i’m so sad i needed to write it 😆 trying to tell myself idc if this is corny because i believe everything i do is cringe anyway so….. at this point why should i care ? plsplspls never be like reader irl, you don't deserve that shit. enjoy !!

(i made a small playlist) two ghosts (metropolis studios version) - harry styles / the moon - the microphones / recuerdas (acústico) - manuel carrasco / i think of you - rodríguez / living room - not for radio / con las ganas - zahara / to wish impossible things - the cure / cigarette smoke (again) - olivia rodrigo / aphasia - pinegrove / i bet on losing dogs - mitski

permanent taglist (you can comment!): @kristynaaah @hooniella @gentlestpour @heelvcr @heesvnqie @kazehee @rikigirr @cherishmoka @hoonieslove @sulkybunnysstuff @addictedtohobi @nyawon @sh33pg4rden @sinforsim @daysweetdreams @nonsochenomemettere0 @ronromiiws @jollypredatorscarab @sunsunisty @cumtrov3rsy @mashiimashii15 @yjwpout @ningsies @lawjakesim @brocconi @2dolcee @heebunnii

reblogs and feedback are always appreciated ! 💌

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

Dear Sunghoon, Although I know you will never read this, it is still for you. Consider this my desperate attempt to finally let out all the things I have left unsaid. I have never been too good with words, but then again, neither are you. I wish communication weren’t so off-limits between us. When did that even start? When did we even make that silent deal? I think I am addicted to what you make me feel. I don’t think I would call it affection, let alone love. But somehow, every time I see you, I get this overwhelming feeling that nothing else matters. Those fleeting few hours make the heavy buzz in my head quiet down, but how do you even do that? I mean, we barely talk. The silence kills me a little more every time, because I want to know you so deeply. I have always wanted to know you, Sunghoon. I just wish you trusted me enough to let me see more, to see past the kisses, the marks and the sex. To be honest, I don’t even know what love is supposed to feel like. Maybe it is this ache. Maybe this is it. Much love? Y/N

you didn’t even think you remembered the exact color of his eyes. looking at sunghoon — really looking at him — was rare. eye contact wasn’t ever really your thing, but the fact that he was the one actively choosing to avoid it hurt more than you would ever admit.

there were too many things you couldn’t admit. not to yourself, and definitely not to him. you were constantly trapped in a lie you hadn’t even planned on building. it just happened.

it happened somewhere between all your casual hookups and that silent promise you made to keep things strictly casual. why would you get attached when you didn’t even truly know him? the empty pit in your stomach every time he thrust into you one last time seemed to give you the answer you were trying so hard to ignore.

was it just the attention? was it the years of being invisible, of not being touched, held, or even spoken to? or was it something real? the questions consumed you every night before you fell asleep, pulling you into an endless spiral of pure insecurity. you felt like you were the textbook definition of pathetic.

because the worst part wasn’t even the way he looked right through you, it was how easily you let him do it. you would lie there long after his footsteps echoed down the hallway, your skin still feeling warm where his fingers had pressed into your hips. you wanted to hate him for making it so easy for himself. no soft morning light, no hushed “text me when you get home”, no gentle lingering after the high wore off. just a plain shirt pulled over his head, a brief nod toward the door and that familiar silence settling back into the room.

but you couldn't hate him. how could you, when you were the one who signed up for this unspoken contract? you were the one who answered his late night texts in minutes, pretending you were still awake, pretending you didn't mind being his only when the rest of his world went dark.

you would swallow the lump in your throat, pull the cold sheets up over your bare shoulders and breathe in what was left of his scent on the pillow. you were starving for something he was never going to offer, yet you kept begging for the crumbs.

daylight was always the cruelest part. during the day, sunghoon belonged to the rest of the world. he belonged to his friends, to his laughter across crowded rooms, to the effortless composure he wore like a second skin around people who actually got to hear him. when your paths crossed in broad daylight under the harsh glare of real life, he didn't even flinch. his gaze would glide right past you, brushing over you as if you were nothing more than a shadow he had learnt to walk around.

and you played your part perfectly. you would mould your face into something cold and indifferent, pretending your ribs weren’t pressing uncomfortably tight against your chest every time.

that was the unspoken rule, wasn't it? sunlight erased whatever happened between you two. daylight rendered every bruise, every gasp and every tangled limb. you would sit alone in your room afterward, nursing the quiet anger in your chest. you would make promises to the empty air. this is it. next time he reaches out, i’m ignoring it. i’m going to block him. you would repeat it over and over until you almost believed you had control.

but then midnight would creep in. your phone would buzz against the nightstand. a plain “you home?” that took him three seconds to type.

and before your brain could even process the indignity of it, your fingers were already moving. you would send back a compliant “yeah”, hating yourself for the sudden pulse of adrenaline in your veins as you unlocked your front door and waited for his figure to fill the doorway.

because as long as he kept coming back, you could pretend he needed you. and even if he only wanted you when the rest of the world went quiet, even if he only loved the silence you kept for him, it felt safer than being nothing to him at all. you were drowning in him, but at least his hands were the ones holding you under.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

Dear Sunghoon, Another day of being a pathetic loser and doing this. But I just need to get all of this off my chest, and putting pen to paper is somehow the only way I know how to do it. Remember that one brief conversation we had? Someone called at three in the morning and you declined it without a second thought. You looked over at me and said you just preferred texting over calling. Although I knew that was probably not the reason why you didn’t pick up, I felt ridiculously happy about you giving me an explanation at all. Even if it wasn’t entirely honest, you considered the possibility of me wondering about it, and that was enough. It also showed me we have something in common, which is the reason why I’m doing this at all. I wish I could speak up, Sunghoon. Not just with you, but in general. My voice has always felt like a stone trapped at the bottom of my throat, but especially when I am around you. Every time I am lying next to you in the dark, there are a million things pressing against the back of my teeth. I want to ask you about your day. I want to know what scares you, what keeps you awake when I’m not there, what song you listen to when you are driving alone. But instead, I stay quiet. I swallow every word, every question, every confession until my throat burns with everything I am holding back. Because speaking out loud means making it real, it means risking the fragile arrangement we have. I know that if I open my mouth and demand anything more than the bare minimum, you might just turn around and walk out. Sadly, I am too terrified of losing these hours with you to ever take that chance. So I will handwrite it all instead. I will pour my voice onto paper where you will never have to hear it, so that it can’t burden you. It’s stupid, isn’t it? Celebrating a half-baked lie about a missed phone call just because it meant you acknowledged me. But when you are starving, even the smallest crumb feels like a feast. I will keep hiding behind these quiet letters, Sunghoon. Because as long as I stay silent, I still get to keep whatever little piece of you you are willing to leave behind. Yours truly, Y/N

the ice in jay’s glass had completely melted, watering down his drink until it was barely touched, but neither of you had made a move to leave. the diner was almost empty, as jay had spent the last ten minutes watching you shred a paper napkin into tiny pieces.

when he finally spoke, his voice cut straight through the low hum of the refrigerator behind the counter. "you actually need to let it go, y/n." he pushed his glass aside and leaned across the table, resting his forearms on the sticky vinyl. "remember, he’s my friend. i’ve known him for years. that’s my brother, but… let’s be honest. he’s being an asshole."

"you just… wouldn’t understand." you muttered, refusing to look up from the pile of white paper shreds scattered between your hands.

"i understand that you have this weird hyperfixation on him, y/n." jay said, his voice dropping an octave, sounding full of concern. "i’m not blind."

"we’re just having sex, jay!" your voice pitched higher than you intended, echoing slightly in the quiet diner. the bell above the entrance jingled as a stranger walked in, making you wince, pulling your shoulders in and dropping your voice to a harsh whisper. "why is it so bad if i sleep with someone? you do it all the time and no one bats an eye!"

jay leaned back, watching you with a look of exhausted frustration that made your stomach twist. "do i really have to explain to you why it’s different?"

you bit the inside of your cheek until you tasted copper as your fingers froze over the torn napkin. you couldn't meet his eyes, because you knew if you looked at him, he would see the tears stinging in the back of your lids.

so you stayed silent.

"that’s what i thought." jay sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose like he was nursing a headache you had given him.

the silence stretched out. you hated that jay was the one sitting across from you right now. he was the bridge between you and sunghoon — jay was the one who had introduced you at a chaotic house party, back when sunghoon was just a handsome stranger you didn’t even think of approaching. jay felt responsible for the wreck you were turning into.

"you know the last time he and i actually talked about something real?" jay asked softly, his anger draining out, replaced by quiet pity. "a real conversation. not just about sports or clothes or plans for the weekend."

you didn't answer, but your chest tightened.

"it was about his ex." jay said.

you didn't flinch. you didn't gasp or snap your head up in shock. you just kept staring at the shredded paper, your knuckles turning white where you gripped the edge of the table.

you weren't surprised, not even a little bit.

in a twisted way, it felt like the final piece of a puzzle settling into place. you already knew about their messy breakup, but hearing it out loud now, it explained the hollow look in sunghoon's eyes when he held you down. it explained why he never asked about your day, why he hurried to put his shirt back on before the sun came up, why he maintained that thick wall between you. you probably weren't a person to him. you were just a ghost to keep another ghost company. a body to fill the quiet so he didn't have to hear his own thoughts.

"he's clearly not over her, y/n." jay continued, reaching across the table to gently pull the torn napkin away from your trembling fingers. "he's nowhere near over her. and you’re letting him use you to fill a spot that isn't yours. you're going to destroy yourself trying to warm up someone who's still freezing over someone else."

"i know." you whispered. the confession scraped against your throat.

jay blinked, caught off guard by how easily you gave in. "you know? then why the hell are you still doing this to yourself?"

you finally looked up, your vision blurring around the edges as you met jay's concerned eyes. "because even if he's thinking of her…" you whispered, your voice shaking uncontrollably. "he's still coming to my room. and right now... i'd rather be his second choice than nothing at all."

"y/n…"

"i’m just being honest. you snapped weakly, wiping a stray tear with the back of your sleeve. "i know it’s pathetic, okay? you don't have to say it."

"look… why don’t you just try to talk to him?" jay pushed. "he’s not a bad person after all. if he knows this is something that actually matters to you, he might give you some kind of reassurance. explanations, maybe?"

"sunghoon is not exactly the kind of guy to give me “explanations”, you know?" you let out a dry laugh, totally humorless. "he doesn't do that shit with me, jay. you know that better than anyone. the moment i open my mouth and demand clarity, it's over."

"and would that really be the worst thing?" jay countered, leaning closer across the table until you couldn't avoid his stare. "because from where i'm sitting, you're already breaking into pieces. you’re so terrified of losing the bare minimum that you’re letting him hollow you out from the inside. you think you're keeping him, but you're just watching yourself drown in slow motion."

you bit your lip so hard you felt the faint copper sting of blood again. "you don't understand..."

"i do understand." jay interrupted gently. "he doesn't talk about her to you because you've made it so easy for him to pretend everything is fine. you answer his texts at two in the morning and you never ask for anything. he has no idea how much this is killing you because you act like you're completely fine with being a secret."

the words hit you like a violent wave. jay was right, and that was the most terrifying part. you had built a prison out of your own silence, convincing yourself it was the only way to stay close to sunghoon.

"if you talk to him," jay said softly. "at least you'll know. if he cares about you, even a little bit, he’ll hear you out. and if he doesn't..." jay hesitated, his eyes full of a preoccupied pity. "...then at least you stop wasting your heart on that."

you stared down at the wet ring left on the table by your melting glass. the thought of confronting sunghoon made your stomach twist into sick knots. you could already imagine his unreadable expression, the way his jaw would tighten, the sudden chill that would fill the air before he turned and walked out your door for good.

you knew how it would end. you knew it was a disaster waiting to happen.

but as you sat there under the diner lights, looking at the broken bits of paper scattered between your hands, you realized you couldn't keep living in the dark forever.

"fine." you breathed out, the word barely a whisper, yet heavy enough to break whatever was left of your composure. "i'll talk to him."

jay reached across the table and squeezed your wrist, offering a reassuring nod. "it's going to be okay, y/n."

you nodded back, pretending to believe him, dread settling deep in your chest. because deep down, you knew the moment you asked sunghoon to choose you for a second, you were going to lose him forever.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

Dear Sunghoon, I am writing this on the day I probably, completely fuck it all up. No matter how much I have worked on accepting reality, people always say hope is the last thing you lose. I know you don’t feel the same way about me, I know it. But a stupid part of me keeps asking: what if? What if you have slowly grown to care about my presence, even if it is just the smallest piece of you? “El roce hace el cariño”, my mom used to tell me. Closeness breeds affection. The belief that if you share enough space with someone — if you touch them enough, hold them in the dark, and breathe the same air long enough — something soft and real is bound to grow between you. I have been clinging to that proverb for months, praying that my warmth would eventually rub off on your cold edges. You probably understand that kind of desperation better than anyone. After all, why is it that you keep trying to go back to her, if not because of hope? Why do you keep running back to a ghost, if not for the foolish belief that things might turn out differently this time? We aren't so different, Sunghoon. We are both just tragic fools holding onto people who are already miles away from us. You are anchored to someone who left you in the past, and I am anchored to a version of you that doesn't even exist outside my own head. Jay told me that I need to speak up. He thinks that if I finally ask you for clarity, maybe you will give me something to hold onto. But Jay doesn't see the way your eyes go completely hollow the second things get too real. He doesn't realize that the only reason I have lasted this long in your life is because I made myself as quiet and undemanding as possible. I know what is going to happen tonight. I know that the second I break our unspoken rule of silence, the fragile illusion we built will shatter. You will pull your walls back up, grab your coat and walk out my door. And yet, here I am, getting ready to ask you anyway. Because starving like this is slowly destroying me, Sunghoon. I would rather let you break my heart all at once tonight than spend another month watching it erode into nothing. If this is the last time you ever come to my room... at least I will know I tried. Yours, even at the end, Y/N

he was already on the sofa with you, his cold fingers slipping under the hem of your shirt, his breath hot against your neck. it was the same routine it had been for months: no prelude, no softly whispered greetings, just the immediate dive into the dark where you didn't have to talk.

every nerve in your body screamed at you to just yield. your mind spun into a dizzying spiral of panic. shut up, a loud voice in your head begged. just close your eyes and let him touch you. if you say a single word, you ruin it. you lose him. just take what he’s giving you. you knew how delicate this fragile agreement was. one wrong step, one wrong sentence, and it all would shatter into dust.

but beneath the sheer terror of losing him was a small burn of indignity. you were a human being, sitting on your own couch, letting someone who barely looked you in the eye use your body to quiet down his problems. didn't you deserve five minutes of honesty? didn't you deserve to be listened to, just once, before you let him drown out your thoughts again?

before you could stop yourself, your hands pushed firmly against his chest. "wait, sunghoon."

he paused, pulling back just an inch. for a second, he looked genuinely confused, his eyes blinking down at you as if his brain was trying to process why the routine had suddenly broken. it was an alien look on him — he wasn't used to you doing this.

"i wanted to talk about something first." you whispered, your heart hammering violently against your ribs.

"what…?" the cold edge that instantly entered his tone made your breath hitch. the tiny spark of courage you had been clinging to disintegrated in a fraction of a second. the sheer power he held over you hit like a physical weight. just a single word from his lips made you want to drop your hands, apologize, and pretend you had never spoken.

"about…" you swallowed hard, forcing the words out past the tight lump in your throat. "i-i talked to jay today."

"so?"

"i mean… we talked about you." you stumbled, unable to hold his gaze. "about you and your ex, to be exact."

the momentary confusion on sunghoon’s face vanished, replaced by an abrupt spark of realization that hardened into icy annoyance. he pulled away from you, sitting back on the couch cushion and staring at you like you had crossed an unforgivable line.

"and why the fuck are you two talking about that?" he asked, his voice low and chillingly quiet.

"jay is my friend too." you insisted, your fingers twisting frantically into the fabric of your jeans. "he’s just looking out for me."

"there is nothing to look out for, y/n." he let out a harsh breath, tilting his head up toward the ceiling before looking back at you. "i don’t get how my relationship with my ex has anything to do with you."

the words cut right through you, exposing the pathetic truth of your standing in his life. you felt exposed, naked and small sitting next to him on the sofa, but the bitter ache in your chest forced you to keep pushing.

"i-i mean… sunghoon, i don’t want to be in the middle if you’re going to get back together." you stammered, your voice trembling as you reached for any sliver of self-respect. "i think… i think if we’re doing this, then i deserve a… an explanation?"

sunghoon fell completely silent. the quiet that settled over the living room was suffocating. he just stared at you, his face a completely unreadable mask, before his jaw tightened.

"you’re not in the middle." he said evenly, every syllable laced with detached finality. "you are not between anybody. don’t… let’s not fucking do this. when we get back together, i will tell you."

you froze. it was like the air had been sucked straight out of your lungs and the entire world had stopped moving. you hadn't realized how much the simple grammar of a sentence could completely tear a person apart until that exact moment.

there was no conditional in his voice. no “if”. when. it wasn't a distant thought. it was a guaranteed outcome, a future he had already mapped out in his head, it was a reality where he was going back to her, and you were just the temporary space-filler on his way there.

sunghoon pushed himself off the sofa, grabbing his jacket off the armrest in one motion. "i’m leaving, y/n." he snapped, refusing to look at you as he threw the coat over his shoulders. "you know damn well this is not what we are about."

"no! sunghoon, wait!"

panic seized you, completely obliterating whatever dignity you had tried to defend. you scrambled off the couch, your hands reaching out instinctively to catch his sleeve, completely terrified of the cold distance growing between you.

"no, please, sunghoon, wait." you begged, tears burning hot behind your eyes. "i just meant… i don’t want to cause trouble. and i… i know what this is about, i know how it goes, but… i have feelings too, you know?"

sunghoon stopped, but he didn't turn around to comfort you. he just looked down at your hands clutching his sleeve, his expression deadened, like you were a stranger making a pathetic scene in public.

"that's your problem, y/n." he said, his voice void of a single drop of warmth. "i never asked you to feel anything. i never lied to you." he yanked his arm back, loosening your grip effortlessly. "if you can't handle this, then we're done."

the words tasted like ash in your mouth. a white-hot flare of rage exploded inside you — blinding anger at him for being so disgustingly cold, but even more so at yourself for standing there like a pathetic loser. you wanted to scream at him, you wanted to slap that detached look right off his face. you wanted to push him out the door, slam it shut, and tear down every single memory of him. you hated him. god, you hated him so much in that moment it made your throat burn.

but as he turned his heel toward the door, panic instantly swallowed the rage whole.

the thought of him walking out that door, leaving you alone with the deafening silence of your empty apartment, terrified you far more than any humiliation ever could. if he left tonight, he would never come back. you would just become another mistake he erased from his head on his way back to her.

you couldn't let him leave. you were too weak, too pathetic, too addicted to the poison he fed you.

so before he could reach the doorknob, you stepped in front of him, blocking his path. "sunghoon." you choked out. your voice trembled, but you forced the tears back. you couldn't be needy right now, needy got you abandoned. you had to be useful, you had to be what he wanted.

you reached up, your fingers shaking violently as they brushed the cold collar of his jacket. you couldn't bring yourself to look at his face, couldn't bear to see the sheer indifference in his eyes, so you stared at the base of his throat.

"i'm sorry." you whispered, hating yourself with every fiber of your being as the words spilled out. "forget i said anything. i don't care. i don't care about an explanation."

you slid the jacket off his shoulders, letting it fall onto the floor between you. sunghoon didn't stop you, but he didn't help you either. he just stood there, watching you with that suffocating silence, testing how much you would degrade yourself just to keep him in the room.

your hands moved down to his waist, unbuckling his belt with rushed movements. you stepped closer until your chest was flush against his shirt, lifting your chin to press your lips against the familiar line of his jaw.

"please." you breathed into his skin, your heart breaking into a million jagged pieces with every word. "just stay. you don't have to talk. you don't have to explain anything. just stay with me."

sunghoon let out a exhale through his nose. for an agonizing second, he didn't move. then, with a sudden, rough grip, his hands slammed onto your waist, pulling you flush against him until there wasn't a single inch of space left between your bodies.

there was no tenderness in it. no soft kiss to reassure you, no gentle touch to ease the ache. he backed you up until your thighs hit the sofa, shoving you down onto the cushions and completely crowding over you.

his mouth smashed against yours — not to comfort you, but to shut you up. the kiss was demanding, and you opened your lips instantly, drinking him in as if you were a dying person in a desert. you wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him down harder, needing the sheer physical weight of him to crush the unbearable agony in your chest.

he pulled back just an inch, his chest rising and falling against yours, but he didn't let you go. his fingers tangled roughly into the hair at the nape of your neck, yanking your head back until you had no choice but to look up into his eyes. there was an almost mocking glint in his gaze — a cruel amusement that made your stomach twist into a knot of humiliation.

"what happened to all those questions, y/n?" he murmured, his voice low. his thumb pressed hard against your bottom lip, dragging it down until your mouth parted. "i thought you wanted an explanation. i thought you had feelings."

the word sounded disgusting coming out of his mouth. a weapon he was throwing right back in your face. you swallowed hard, another fresh burn stinging behind your eyes. he was mocking you when you were already on your knees. but the threat of him walking out was still hanging in the air like a blade, and you were too much of a coward to test it again.

"i don't." you rasped out, hating yourself so much the words almost choked you. "i don't care about any of that."

"liar." sunghoon whispered against your skin, letting out a humorless breath that brushed over your cheek. his grip on your hair tightened just enough to make a helpless sound escape your throat.

he shifted his weight, crowding over you so heavily that your back sank deeper into the sofa cushions. his free hand slid down your front, his long fingers hooking into the waistband of your pants and tugging them down with a single pull that tore a quiet gasp from your lips.

"you're so pathetic." he muttered, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear as he pulled your clothes away, leaving your skin exposed to the cool living room air. "you'll let me do whatever i want as long as i stay, won't you?"

every single word was a deliberate slap, but your body betrayed you anyway. a shiver ran down your spine at the touch of his cold knuckles dragging up the inside of your thigh. you hated how your pulse hammered in your ears, hated how desperately your core throbbed for the distraction, for the release he held over you like a leash.

"yes." you whispered into the dark, completely surrendering the last shred of pride you possessed. "just... please, sunghoon."

"say it properly." he commanded softly, his hand pressing flat against your bare stomach, forcing a ragged breath out of you. his tone wasn't gentle. it was demanding, a test to see how far into the dirt you would drag yourself just to keep his hands on you. "tell me what you want."

your fingers dug into his shoulders, feeling the lean muscle beneath his shirt as you dragged him closer, unable to look him in the eye as you admitted it out loud. "i want you." you choked out, your voice breaking. "please... touch me."

a low sound rumbled in his chest. not satisfaction, but the cruel validation of a man who knew he owned you completely. instead of giving you what you wanted, he abruptly caught both of your wrists in one hand, pinning them against the back of the sofa. he pulled away, sitting up and looking down at you with terrifying detachment.

"you don't get to ask for anything, y/n." he released your wrists, shifting his weight back until he was sitting up on the edge of the cushions. he looked down at you as he gestured toward the floor in front of him with a single tilt of his chin. "if you want me to stay tonight, you’re going to have to earn it."

the words hung in the quiet living room. a wave of nausea hit you, instantly freezing whatever heat had built up in your body. he wasn't even going to give you the delusion of shared touch, he literally wanted you on your knees. he wanted you completely broken down, serving him just to prove how little self-respect you had left.

your stomach churned with a blinding rage. get up, your mind shrieked. tell him to go to hell. push him out and lock the door. but as your eyes drifted up to his face, seeing his posture already shifting like he was seconds away from standing up and walking out forever, the anger vanished into terror. you couldn't do it.

with trembling limbs, you slid off the sofa, dropping onto your knees on the cold floor right between his legs. the sheer humiliation of it made your throat feel like it was closing up.

sunghoon didn't smile, he didn't look pleased. he just sat back, staring down at you with those unreadable eyes as he fully unfastened his belt. "well?" he murmured, his voice laced with cruel impatience.

you moved before your mind could protest, hurriedly freeing him from his underwear. he was already fully hard, a slick drop gleaming at the tip. it was the silent proof that he had anticipated your surrender long before you gave it, he knew you would break with quiet certainty.

your trembling hands took hold of him, stroking his cock with a steady rhythm, using his pre-cum to keep the movement fluid. every part of you was striving to give him a reason — any reason — to keep you in his head. sunghoon watched your submission with his heavy gaze before lightly slapping his hot length across your cheek, leaving a wet streak against your burning skin. you felt filthy, knowing you were degrading yourself purely for his amusement.

"open." sunghoon commanded, his voice a low rumble that vibrated right through you.

the moment your lips parted, he showed zero mercy. he didn't give your throat a single second to adjust, taking control instantly as his palm clamped around the back of your head, forcing you down to take all of him at once. a low groan broke from his chest, his fingers tangling tightly into your hair without a shred of gentleness, anchoring you in place as he dictated your every breath.

he set a ruthless pace, using your throat with absolute authority. tears pricked the corners of your eyes, blurring the sight of his beautiful face. he looked so pristine sitting back while you knelt on the cold floor at his feet, completely undone.

you tried to breathe through your nose, your hands clutching weakly at his thighs for leverage, but he didn't soften his pace for a second. he wanted you to know that while your dignity was disintegrating in that room, he was barely breaking a sweat.

"i know you like being treated like this." he whispered, his thumb coming up to press firmly into the pulse point at your neck. "so desperate to stay relevant to me."

he pulled back just enough to let you gasp for a second, only to drive back in deeper, choking out a muffled sob from your chest. sunghoon let out a breathy chuckle, the sound so devastatingly casual it made your heart shatter all over again.

"what an obedient slut." he murmured, his hips thrusting upward as his grip in your hair turned iron-clad.

without warning, he yanked your head back, causing a harsh gag to tear from your throat as he roughly pulled his cock out of your mouth. "on the couch. now."

his command left zero room for hesitation. there was no patience in his touch, no slow foreplay to ease you into it. his fingers grazed your slick center for one fleeting second — a cruel gesture meant purely to mock how deeply your body betrayed you — before he lined himself up.

"you brought this on yourself." he whispered against the skin of your neck, his breath hot, right before he drove straight inside you in one ruthless thrust.

the sudden stretch hit you so hard your back arched off the sofa, a breathless scream catching in the back of your throat. it was overwhelming enough to erase every single thought in your head.

sunghoon didn't pause to let you adjust. he immediately set a punishing rhythm, his hips snapping forward against yours with a hard rhythm that echoed through the quiet room. his fingers dug brutally into your hips, anchoring you to the cushions as he took everything you had just offered him.

"sunghoon-" you whimpered, your head rolling back against the armrest as he hit deep spots inside you.

he didn't answer. he kept his jaw clenched, his eyes fixated on the wall above your head, checked out emotionally even as his body used yours with practiced precision. he was using the friction to drown out whatever mess was inside his own head, completely unbothered by the fact that he was breaking you in the process.

and the worst part — the most sickening, pathetic part of it all — was that as his weight pressed you down and his body filled yours over and over, the panic in your chest finally started to quiet down.

you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling his cold face down into the crook of your shoulder, holding on for dear life as he drove you higher and higher towards an edge you didn't even deserve. you took every rough push, every callous bite of his teeth against your skin, swallowing the bitter taste of your own guilt just to feel him close.

it was a humiliating conflict. deep in your chest, a wave of self-loathing washed over you. you had never felt smaller, kneeling to his whims and letting him reduce you to a convenience right after you had tried to finally speak up.

yet, beneath the crushing weight of your ruined pride, your body was betraying you completely. every brutal thrust sent an embarrassing surge of heat pooling straight into your gut. your slick center clamped desperately around him with every impact, completely traitorous to the grief in your chest. you hated how good it felt. you hated that the friction was perfect, that your hips involuntarily twitched upward to meet his weight, seeking the very pleasure that was destroying you.

a choked whimper slipped past your lips, a sound so needy and small it made your stomach churn with disgust at yourself. you were weeping from the degradation, yet your body was begging for every single inch he offered.

sunghoon didn't offer a single word of comfort. his hand shifted down, his thumb pressing with precise intent right against your swollen center. the sudden stimulation shattered the last of your restraint. a gasp tore from your throat as your spine arched, the pathetic contrast of tears streaming down your face while your body chased the peak making your heart break all over again.

"fuck, y/n. you’re always so fucking needy." he rasped softly, his voice lacking affection. he wasn't looking at your face, his eyes now fixed purely on the mess between your thighs, watching your total submission. "so fucking wet for being such a demanding girl. come on my cock, come on."

your orgasm didn't bring relief, but a sudden rush of sensory overload. at first, the climax rippled through you in a blinding wave, making your body snap taut. your breath caught in your chest, your fingers digging into the seam of the couch as your center pulsated around him in tight spasms. for one fleeting second, you waited for the wave to recede so you could drag air back into your lungs.

but instead, sunghoon kept pushing. he didn't slow his hips, and he didn't lift his thumb from your swollen clit. he simply maintained that precise pressure, grinding straight through the peak.

a desperate sound broke from your throat as the pleasure instantly turned into an agonizing sensation. every microscopic movement of his thumb felt like a spark against raw skin, almost crossing the line into sensory torture.

"sunghoon, wait-" you gasped out, the word muffled instantly as you shoved your face deep into the cushion. you couldn't let him hear the full extent of the humiliating whimpers escaping you.

you hated your body for reacting like this. you hated that even as your heart was shattering under the weight of his coldness, your slick center was still twitching helplessly against him, betraying every ounce of dignity you had left.

instinctively, you tried to pull away. you twitched your hips back just a fraction of an inch, trying to escape the unbearable friction against your center.

sunghoon’s response was immediate. his fingers dug brutally into the skin above your hipbones, his iron grip anchoring you to the cushions so firmly you couldn't move a single millimeter. he didn't speak, he didn't offer a soft word or check to see if you were okay. he simply held you pinned down and drove his hips forward in another excruciating thrust.

"ah- no, please-" you wept, your back arching off the couch in a desperate attempt to diffuse the sensation. it was too much, every inch he slid inside feeling magnified ten times over.

you were completely at his mercy, weeping from the sheer humiliation of being so thoroughly used, yet completely paralyzed by the involuntary heat pulsing through your body.

sunghoon let out a gravelly breath against your shoulder. you could feel every spasm of your walls milking him, forced into continuous contractions by the overstimulation.

his pace picked up, each thrust driving deep into your hyper-sensitive core, eliciting a small sob from your lips every single time his cock fully went inside you. your thighs trembled uncontrollably, your toes curling as your body remained trapped in an endless loop of overstimulated release. you couldn't tell where the pleasure ended and the ache began, becoming just a shivering mess beneath his hands.

"this is what you wanted. so fucking take it." with three final thrusts, sunghoon went rigid above you. a guttural groan tore from his chest as his body shuddered, burying his full length inside your slick heat as he spilled himself deep into you.

he stayed there for a long moment, his weight pinning you down while his labored breath rattled against your ear. you lay completely still beneath him, your body continuing to twitch with tiny residual pulses that made you squeeze your eyes shut against the tears.

then, without a word, he pulled out. the sudden rush of cool living room air against your exposed skin felt like a slap.

you didn't move, you couldn't. you just lay there, face pressed into the damp sofa cushion, your chest heaving in shallow hitches. your thighs were still shaking, your muscles aching from the strain, but the physical sensation was already fading into numbness.

behind you, you heard the rustle of fabric. the metallic click of his belt buckle. the efficient sound of sunghoon dressing himself like he was packing up after a business transaction. he didn't check on you, he didn't reach down to cover your bare legs with the blanket nearby. he didn't even look at you.

he just existed in the room with you, completely untainted by the mess he had just made of your body and your heart.

you squeezed your eyes shut as the floorboards creaked under his body. every movement he made felt like he was erasing himself from your apartment in real time. you wanted to turn around, wanted to look at him to see if there was even a fraction of emotion in his eyes, a single crack in his composure. but you were too terrified of finding nothing at all.

"i'm leaving now." he said. his voice was even, completely devoid of any lingering heat or feelings.

you swallowed the bitter lump in your throat. you couldn't bring yourself to answer. you couldn't say okay, and you certainly couldn't say goodnight.

his footsteps drifted down the hallway toward the front door. you heard the soft slide of his jacket over his shoulders, the quiet jingle of his keys, and the door opening.

and then there was only silence.

the suffocating quiet settled over your apartment until it pressed down on your chest, making breathing feel like a chore. you slowly pulled your knees up to your chest, shivering as the cold settled into your bones. your body felt spent, stained with the physical proof of your total surrender. you had given up every single shred of self-respect you had left. you had let him degrade you, mock you, and use you until you were completely empty — and for what?

he was still gone. he was still going back to her.

a ragged sob tore through your throat, spilling over into the quiet room. you buried your face in your knees, finally letting the humiliation wash over you in full force. you hated him with everything inside you. but as you sat there alone in the dark, breathing in the faint trace of his cologne on your sofa, the most terrifying thought of all hit you.

if he texted you again tomorrow night, you knew you would still open the door.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

Dear Sunghoon, And the cycle repeats. Jay has nagged me so many times, I have lost count. You should probably repay me for that added damage, too. I have a genuine question for you — do you hate me? I ask this not as a hopeless girl who won’t ever be reciprocated by her sneaky link, but more as a person with fragile humanity. Someone who bleeds, who feels, and who sits alone in the dark long after you close my front door. Because the way you look at me when I ask for the bare minimum... it feels like disgust. It feels like you are offended by the fact that I exist, that I have a pulse, that I dare to ache when you bruise me. Why do you treat someone who gives you everything like they are dirty just for offering it? I know I do all of this to myself because of how painfully insecure I am, because I don’t respect myself enough to believe I deserve better. But Sunghoon, I have come to the certain conclusion that being aware of something does not make it easier for you to change it. Knowing that I am destroying myself doesn't give me the strength to stop. Knowing that you are using me to fill a spot that isn't mine doesn't stop my hands from reaching for you. Self-awareness isn't a cure; it is just a front row seat to watch my own pathetic ruin. I am watching myself drown in real time, and I still can't pull my head above the water. To be honest, I do enjoy the sex. It isn’t only about the fact that you are way too good at it. It is also because those quiet hours on my apartment are the only times I ever get to hold you. Even when you are rough, even when you are mean, even when you are using my body to quiet the noise in your own head — for those few hours, you are actually here. Your skin is against mine, your heart is beating against my chest. You are in my room, breathing my air, not anybody else’s. I let you break me because even your coldness feels like warmth when I have been freezing for so long. You left a little while ago. The apartment is freezing, my body still aches from the weight of you, and my face is still wet. The physical trace you leave behind makes me hate myself. But God help me, I think I hate the thought of an empty room even more. Yours, regardless, Y/N

as time went by, you kept your conversation with jay long lost in the back of your mind. there was no space for personal feelings in your transaction with sunghoon, and you couldn't afford to let anyone else's logic wake you up from the high. so things went back to normal. or at least, the version of normal you had forced yourself to digest.

but you could feel the presence of her more and more every single day.

it was in the tiny moments that used to seemingly be yours. it was the way sunghoon’s eyes flicked to his phone screen the second he sat up, his thumb swiping across the glass before he even reached for his shirt. it was the subtle shift in his posture when a notification lit up the dark room — a softness in his face that never, ever belonged to you. he was drifting further into the past with every passing week, and you were just the temporary anchor keeping him grounded while he waited for her to take him back.

you tried to get better. god, you tried so hard. you bought psychology books you couldn't bring yourself to finish, listened to jay’s gentle lectures about self-respect, and made endless mental lists of all the reasons you should hate sunghoon. you told yourself that tomorrow would be the day you finally blocked his number. tomorrow you would pick up the pieces.

but tomorrow always came with the terrifying reality of his absence, and your courage evaporated into nothing.

awareness was a useless weapon against an addiction. your self-worth was so thoroughly rotted, so completely tied to his touch, that without it, you felt like you didn't even exist. you were trapped in a loop: hate him, hate yourself more, crave his validation to erase the self-hatred, and end up hating yourself twice as much when he walked out the door.

it was another lonely thursday night in which he didn't come over. he didn't text. he didn't even send a one word message to tell you he was busy.

the quiet in your apartment felt suffocating. to stop the noise in your head, you opened a bottle of wine. and when that wasn't enough, you dragged out a half-empty bottle of cheap gin buried in the back of your pantry, drinking it straight from the glass just to feel the burn.

but alcohol didn't numb you the way you desperately hoped it would. instead, it just stripped away the fragile lie you maintained when you were sober. it made the insecurity scream.

by midnight, you were completely plastered, stumbling into the bathroom and leaning clumsily against the sink. you stared at your reflection in the mirror, your eyes glassed over, the rims of your eyelids raw and red. you hated what you saw. you hated your face, hated your body, hated the pathetic posture of a girl who spent her nights staring at her phone, waiting for a man who wouldn't even acknowledge her on the street.

you slumped down onto the cold tile floor, pulling your knees to your chest as the room spun around you. he is never going to love you, the liquor whispered, cold through the haze in your brain. she has his heart, his memories, his future. you're just the trash he steps on while he waits for her.

a sudden sob tore from your throat, echoing against the bathroom tiles. it wasn't just sadness, it was realization. you were dying in this apartment. piece by piece, night by night, you were sacrificing every single atom of your soul for a man who didn't even care if you were breathing after he left.

a dark wave of liquor-fueled clarity washed over you. you couldn't do this anymore. if you stayed in this loop for another month, there would be nothing left of you to save. so with trembling fingers, you reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone. the screen blinded you in the dark. your thumb hovered over sunghoon’s name, your pulse hammering violently in your throat.

the alcohol gave you a reckless burst of courage — the kind born out of pure rock bottom. you didn't care about the rules anymore, you didn't care about playing it cool. you were going to force an end to this tonight, even if it destroyed you in the process.

you didn't press call. a text could be swiped away. a phone call could be ignored or muted with a flick of his thumb. you knew how easily he could dismiss your existence when you were just words on a screen. if you were going to burn this down, if you were going to force him to look at the wreckage he created, you couldn't do it from the safety of your bathroom floor. he had to finally look you in the eye.

with clumsy movements, your thumb tapped open the uber app. with your vision blurred from the alcohol and dried tears, you managed to type in his address — a place you had only been to a handful of times, always late at night, always under the strict rule that you were only an invited guest, never a surprise.

you didn't care about his rules anymore. his rules were a cage designed to keep you small and convenient.

you dragged yourself up from the tile, swaying violently as a wave of nausea rolled through your stomach. you didn't check the mirror again. you didn't fix your hair or wipe away the faint black smudges of mascara beneath your eyes. you just grabbed your coat off the rack, shoved your feet into the nearest pair of shoes, and practically stumbled out into the cold night air.

the uber ride was a nauseating blur. the city lights smeared through the window, the warmth of the car making your head spin even faster. sitting in the back seat, your mind lashed out at you in brutal waves. turn back, a terrified voice pleaded. you are out of your mind. if you show up at his apartment drunk like this, he will never speak to you again. he will look at you like you are insane.

but the alcohol in your blood spoke louder. let him look at you like you are insane. let him hate you. anything is better than being his dirty secret. you gripped the edge of the seat, your chest tight with a mix of drunk rage and suicidal bravery.

when the car pulled up to his building, you almost threw up right there on the pavement. you stumbled out into the chill of the night, your legs feeling heavy and detached from the rest of your body. you slipped through the doors of the lobby behind a resident who didn't even turn around, stepping into the carpeted elevator with your heart hammering so hard it felt like it was going to burst.

floor eight. the elevator chimed softly. the doors slid open, revealing the silent hallway. every step toward apartment 805 felt like your last. the courage that had fueled you in your bathroom was beginning to sour, leaving behind a sickening dread. the smell of cheap alcohol was noticeable on your breath, your clothes were messy, and your entire body was trembling uncontrollably.

what are you doing? your mind screamed as you stopped in front of his door. go home. please, just go home before you destroy what is left of yourself.

you reached out. your finger hovered over the metal button of the doorbell. you thought about every cold phrase he had ever said to you. when we get back together, i will tell you. you thought about how he treated you like a nuisance every time you dared to act like a human being with a heart. you thought about how much you hated him, and how much more you hated yourself.

so you pressed the button. the melodic chime echoed through the hallway.

you froze, holding your breath, your heart lodging in your throat. a second passed, then two. for a terrible moment, you thought he wasn't home, that you had traveled all this way just to break down in an empty hallway.

then, the faint sound of footsteps approached the door. a lock clicked.

you squeezed your eyes shut for half a second, bracing yourself to look at sunghoon, to say whatever reckless words were burning a hole in your chest.

the door swung open.

"sunghoon, i-"

the words died in your throat. the air evaporated from your lungs. it wasn't sunghoon.

standing in the soft light of his entryway was a girl. she was beautiful — effortlessly so, wearing an oversized grey hoodie that clearly belonged to him, her hair pulled up in a loose bun that spoke of absolute familiarity. she looked completely at home, completely secure, holding a glass of water in her hand as she blinked at you in confused surprise.

it was her. you immediately knew it was her.

she looked down at your disheveled clothes, taking in your glassy, tear-stained eyes and the lingering smell of alcohol clinging to you.

"can i help you?" she asked, her voice polite and completely unbothered.

the floor beneath your feet felt like it was dissolving into thin air. every drop of gin in your bloodstream instantly turned to ice. the drunken rage that had carried you into this building vanished, replaced by a shame so profound it made your knees buckle. you were standing in the hallway of his nice apartment, smelling of cheap liquor and dried tears, looking at a girl who looked like she belonged there.

she was wearing his clothes, she was drinking his water. she was standing inside his home like she had every right in the world to be there, while you were huddled outside on the doormat in the dark.

before your throat could force out a single word, a familiar voice drifted from inside the apartment.

"em, who is it?"

sunghoon walked into view. he was wearing sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt, his hair soft and unstyled — the relaxed, domestic version of him you had only ever been allowed to see in the pitch black hours of the night.

then his eyes landed on you. for a split second, his face went completely blank. then, a dark shift hardened his features, his jaw tightening so hard you could hear the snap of his teeth from where you stood.

"go back inside for a second, em." sunghoon said softly to her. his tone was gentle — a protective tenderness he had never once used on you.

the girl gave you one last look of quiet pity before stepping back. sunghoon slipped out into the hallway, pulling his front door shut behind him until the latch clicked into place, locking his real life safely away from the pathetic mess standing in front of him.

"what the fuck are you doing here, y/n?" he asked, his voice a venomous whisper that sliced straight through the quiet hall.

you swallowed hard, but your throat was completely dry. the overhead lights exposed every flaw, every smudge of makeup, every violent tremor in your hands. you felt naked. you felt insane.

"you..." your voice broke, a high squeak. you cleared your throat, trying desperately to anchor yourself against the wall as another wave of nausea hit you. "you lied to me."

sunghoon crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at you with an expression of pure annoyance. "i didn't lie about anything. are you drunk? go home before you make even more of an idiot of yourself."

"no." you choked out, the bitter tears finally spilling hot and heavy down your cheeks. "no, sunghoon, listen to me. you said... you said when you got back together with her, you would tell me." the words hung between you in the quiet corridor, small and pathetic. "you promised." you whispered, your fingers clutching the fabric of your coat. "you said, “when we get back together, i will tell you”. those were your exact words. why... why didn't you tell me then?"

you weren't asking because you expected an apology. you were asking because some broken part of you needed to know why you hadn't even earned a thirty second text message. why he had let you sit alone in your apartment, spiraling and drinking yourself blind, while he was inside playing house with her.

sunghoon stared at you. there was no guilt in his eyes. no regret, no hesitation. "because it's none of your business." he said evenly, every syllable delivered with brutal precision. "i don't owe you a timeline, y/n. i don't owe you a courtesy call. we weren’t together."

the sentence hit your chest like a physical blow, knocking whatever little air you had left straight out of your lungs.

"you weren't supposed to show up at my door like this." he continued, taking a half-step closer. "this is exactly why i kept you at a distance."

the words didn't even sting anymore. they just settled deep into your bones, joining the black pool of self-hatred you had been drowning in for months.

"i just wanted... a text." you whispered, your voice barely audible. "just a text so i didn't have to find out like this."

his expression was terrifyingly neutral, his posture completely relaxed, as if he were explaining a simple mathematical fact to a child who kept getting the answer wrong. "texting you would imply there was an expectation of accountability." he said, his voice smooth. "we never had that, y/n. we were two people who kept each other company when it was convenient. sending you a text to announce my personal decisions would have suggested there was something to break off. there wasn't." he leaned slightly against the doorframe, crossing his arms, looking down at you with a logical clarity that cut deeper than any insult ever could.

"you can't just say that." you rasped, a sudden surge of heat breaking through the ice in your chest. "you can't just stand there and pretend like there was nothing. sunghoon, we spent months together. you came to my apartment, you stayed in my bed, you put your hands on me. you… you can't just act like i'm a stranger who hallucinated all of it! even if we weren't official, even if it was just physical to you... there was something between us. a person deserves at least a text out of basic human decency."

sunghoon didn't flinch. he just stared at you, his eyes blank. "you're confusing physical proximity with emotional obligation, y/n." he said quietly, his voice steady. "you opened your door every time i came over. you let me stay. but i never promised you a title, i never promised you a future, and i certainly never promised you updates on my personal life."

he tilted his head slightly, taking in your trembling frame with a look that wasn't even angry anymore — it was worse. it was clinical pity. "i was transparent with you. you knew what this was." he continued, every word delivered with calm precision. "if you chose to attach romantic weight to sex, that was your decision, not mine. you can't hold me accountable for expectations you created in your own head."

the hallway seemed to tilt on its axis. his logic was so clean, so airtight, that it felt like a physical blow crushing your chest. was he right? had you made it all up? were all those quiet hours on your apartment just a delusion you had manufactured because you were too pathetic to accept reality?

you felt a dizzying sensation in your brain — like your own memories were rotting into lies right in front of you. he didn't even have to raise his voice or call you crazy. he just stated his facts, and in doing so, he made you look at yourself through his eyes: an unstable girl who had shown up drunk at his door, demanding emotional tax for a transaction she had willingly offered.

you were crazy, you had to be. you had taken his coldness and convinced yourself it was intimacy just so you wouldn't feel so alone.

"i'm ordering you a ride." sunghoon said, pulling his phone from his pocket and tapping the screen without an ounce of hesitation. "you need to go home, sober up, and stop this."

"sunghoon..." your voice was barely a whisper now, completely stripped of any remaining fight.

"it's done, y/n." he murmured, his thumb swiping across the glass. "the car will be downstairs in three minutes. please, don't come back."

he backed into his apartment, his fingers resting on the edge of the door. he didn't slam it. he just closed it softly, with a deliberate click that sealed his real life away from you forever.

the silence of the hallway crashed down on you. you stood there alone, your hands shaking so hard you couldn't even shove them into your coat pockets. you turned around on numb legs, stumbling down the long corridor and into the elevator. in the polished metal reflection of the elevator walls, you looked completely unhinged — standing in a building where you had never belonged.

when you stepped out into the night, the car was already there. you slid into the back seat of the silver sedan waiting at the curb, staring blankly out the window as the driver pulled away.

the ride home was a silent nightmare. every time you closed your eyes, sunghoon's voice echoed in your head, calm and reasonable, tearing down every boundary you had tried to set.

you can't hold me accountable for expectations you created in your own head.

he was right, and that was the most brutal part of the entire night. you had dragged yourself through the dirt, sacrificed your dignity, and let him break you open over and over again, all for a lie that you had written. you were the architect of your own ruin.

when you finally unlocked the door to your quiet apartment, the air felt thick. you didn't turn on the lights and you didn't take off your damp coat. you just walked into the living room and collapsed onto the sofa, curling into a ball against the cold cushions.

the tears didn't come in a dramatic storm. they just spilled silently, soaking into the fabric beneath your cheek. you lay there in the dark, shivering from the alcohol leaving your system, listening to the deafening silence of the room.

you had gone to his apartment to force an end, to demand answers, to make him acknowledge your pain. but instead, you had returned home with the absolute certainty that you were completely unlovable.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

Dear Sunghoon, You didn’t even have to raise your voice to make me feel like I was insane. I keep sitting here in the dark, staring at the front door of my apartment, hearing your voice repeat in my head like a loop I can’t turn off. “You are confusing physical proximity with emotional obligation”. You said it so calmly, so logically. And the worst part is that you were probably right. You never promised me anything. You never held my hand in the daylight, you never said you loved me. You just came over when you were bored, took whatever you wanted from my body, left me bleeding on my own sofa, and walked out into the night. But I was the one who wrote the story. I was the one who took your coldness and called it passion because the alternative, accepting that I meant literally nothing to you, was too terrifying to bear. I convinced myself that if I endured enough pain, if I let you degrade me enough, if I became quiet and convenient enough, I would eventually earn a place in your life. What a pathetic delusion. When she opened your door, wearing your hoodie and holding your glass of water in the warm light of your hallway, I felt every single atom of my soul collapse. She looked like she belonged there, she looked safe. And when you walked up behind her, your voice was soft. You spoke to her with a gentle warmth that I didn't even know you had inside. You saved all your tenderness for others, Sunghoon. For me, you only ever had the dark. You only ever had hard hands, sharp words, and the cold snap of your belt buckle before you left me alone in the quiet. I went to your apartment because I wanted to hurt you the way you hurt me. I wanted to demand an explanation, to make you feel an ounce of the guilt that was eating me alive. But you didn't even give me the dignity of a fight. You just looked at me like an inconvenience, an awkward little mess you had to sweep off your doorstep so you could get back to your real life. You dismantled my entire existence in two minutes without even trying. You made me realize that to you, I was never a heartbreak, or a mistake, or even a guilty pleasure. I was just a temporary fix until the person you actually wanted came back. I hate you for doing this to me. I hate you for every time you looked at me with disgust while your hands were on my skin. I hate you for making me feel like a dirty secret. But Sunghoon, I will always hate myself so much more. I hate myself for getting on my knees, for begging you to stay, for drinking until my liver burned just to get the courage to stand in your hallway and be tossed out like trash. I knew what you were doing to me every single step of the way, and I still let you do it because I thought having a ruined version of you was better than having nothing at all. I don't think I will ever forgive myself for what I let you turn me into. You told me not to come back, and you don't have to worry, because I won't. You win. You get to go back inside your warm apartment, hold her, and completely erase my name from your head. You get to walk away untouched while I am left sitting here in the dark, trying to figure out how to live with the empty shell of a person that was left behind. I hope she gives you everything you need and deserve, Sunghoon. And I hope you never have to know what it feels like to stand outside a locked door, realizing you destroyed yourself for someone who didn't even bother to learn your heart. Goodbye, Sunghoon, Y/N

letting go wasn't a single dramatic moment. it didn't happen the night you went home, and it didn't happen when you wrote a letter. it was a slow bleed that dragged out over weeks.

the first few days felt like physical withdrawal. your brain was so used to the volatile highs and lows of his existence that the sudden deafening quiet of your life felt like torture. every time your phone buzzed on the nightstand, your chest would leap with an instinctual spike of adrenaline before reality crashed back in. he was never going to text you again. you had finally become invisible to him, exactly as he had wanted.

for almost a week, you barely left your bed, only leaving on the days when work required you to be in the office. the living room felt tainted, the sofa cushions still holding the ghost of every humiliation you had endured just to keep him in the room.

jay was the one who finally broke the lock on your front door. he didn't lecture you. he didn't give you a self-righteous “i told you so”, even though he had every right to. he just walked into your dark apartment, picked up the empty alcohol bottles off the kitchen counter, and opened the blinds to let the morning sun sweep across the floor.

"you're allowed to mourn it." jay said softly, setting a cup of warm coffee on the coffee table in front of you. "even if it was toxic. even if he treated you like garbage, you still lost something you cared about, y/n. but just don't die in this room."

jay stayed for hours. he didn't force you to talk, he just sat on the rug, working on his laptop while you stared blankly out the window, anchored simply by the presence of someone who actually cared whether you were breathing.

the hardest part was the non-linear nature of recovery. some days, you felt a flickering spark of anger — a burning rage that made you want to scrub your skin until it was raw and throw away every shirt he had ever laid his hands on. on those days, you felt almost powerful.

but then came the nights. at two am, the loneliness would creep back into your bones. you would find yourself opening his contact card, staring at his chat thread, your thumb hovering over the call button. the muscle memory of your desperation was terrifying. your mind would bargain with you: just one call. just to see if he picks up, just to hear his voice. even if he is mean, even if he hates you.

it took every ounce of strength you had left not to surrender. but one night, as you were sitting on your bed while holding your phone, you stared at sunghoon's profile picture. you realized with sickening clarity that as long as his name remained in your phone, a pathetic part of you would always be waiting for a notification that was never coming. you were keeping the leash around your own neck.

so, with trembling fingers and a throat so tight it hurt to breathe, you tapped the three small dots at the top of the screen.

block contact.

a pop-up window appeared, asking if you were sure. your heart hammered against your ribs. blocking him felt like severing the final thread linking you to the person you had spent months destroying yourself for. it meant accepting that the story was irreversibly over.

you pressed the screen. just like that, his name vanished from your recent messages. you buried your face in your pillow and wept until your chest burned, mourning the girl who had let herself be brought so low, and mourning the illusion of the man you had tried so hard to save.

blocking his number gave you a brief illusion of control. for a few hours, you felt a strange triumph — as if tapping a screen could magically erase months of degradation and pull out the roots he had planted deep inside your brain.

but reality set in by the next morning. erasing his contact details didn't delete his voice from your mind. it didn't wash away the ghost of his hands on your hips, and it certainly didn't fix the broken foundation of who you were before he ever walked through the door. sunghoon hadn't created your insecurities, he had simply found the bleeding wounds you already had and poured salt into them until you were addicted to the sting.

going back to your usual work routine was a lesson in how ruined you actually felt.

you put on real clothes, applied enough concealer to hide the dark circles carved under your eyes, and forced yourself into the light of the outside world. but you walked through the office like a ghost. every interaction was filtered through the toxic lens of the self-hatred he had reinforced.

when a coworker took a second too long to reply to your email, your brain instantly spiraled: they hate you. you're annoying them. you're burdening everyone around you. when someone dropped their tone slightly in conversation, you immediately shrank back, convinced you had done something wrong, that you were naturally repulsive to the people around you.

the dynamic you had accepted with sunghoon — where you had to shrink yourself, compromise your dignity, and accept crumbs just to be tolerated — had leaked into every single corner of your life.

you couldn't look in the mirror without picking yourself apart. you would stare at your face under the bathroom lighting, tracing the lines of your cheekbones, wondering what it was about you that made you so easy to discard. she was worth keeping. she earned his soft voice, his quiet protectiveness, his home.

the hardest part of trying to get better was realizing that the enemy wasn't sunghoon anymore. he was gone, living his life without a single thought reserved for you. the enemy was the person sitting in your own skin — the part of you that still believed his cruel logic was the absolute truth.

jay kept checking in on you, bringing groceries, forcing you to step outside for fresh air, listening patiently when you talked. but even around jay, a dark thought lingered in the back of your brain: how long until he gets tired of you, too? how long until he realizes how broken and exhausting you are?

you were trapped in a cage of your own making, terrified of being alone yet convinced that anyone who got close to you would eventually see how worthless you were and walk away.

so recovery wasn't a sudden breakthrough or a grand moment of self-love, it was more like an unglamorous chore. it was forcing yourself to eat three meals a day even when your stomach almost killed you. it was stopping your hand every time you reflexively reached for your phone to check if maybe, somehow, an unknown number had popped up. it was catching yourself in the mirror, mid-critique, and forcing your eyes away before you dragged yourself down into another spiral.

you hadn't healed. the wounds were still raw and throbbing beneath the surface of your daily routine. but as you sat at your desk, going through the motions of a normal afternoon, you held onto one small thought.

you were miserable, but for the first time in months, you were miserable on your own terms. not kneeling on a cold floor, waiting for a man who didn't even care if you survived the night.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

Dear Sunghoon, I hope this is the last letter I ever write you, but I am not going to promise anything yet. My track record with keeping promises to myself where you are concerned has always been pathetic, and I am finally done lying to myself. It has been months now. Three or four, I have stopped counting the days like a prison sentence, which I suppose is some kind of progress. The seasons changed, the cold rain gave way to milder air, and the city moved on. A lot has happened since the night I stood on your doormat, smelling like cheap alcohol and looking like a mess. I blocked your number, just like I knew I had to. I stopped re-reading our old text threads. I let Jay pull me out of the apartment until the four walls of my living room stopped feeling like a crime scene. I even bought a new cover for the sofa, a warm shade that covers up the worn fabric where your body used to press mine down into the cushions. From the outside, it looks like a clean recovery story. People at work tell me I look healthy. Jay smiles when he sees me actually finishing a meal. But the truth is much uglier than that. You left scars that time hasn't quite figured out how to smooth over yet. The insecurities you fed didn't disappear when I blocked your phone number, they just took up permanent residence inside my head. I still catch myself shrinking in rooms I have every right to stand in. I still brace myself for sudden cruelty every time someone treats me with patience, convinced that quiet kindness is just a trap waiting to spring. Every time someone shows interest in me, my brain instantly asks the same sick question you answered for me in that hallway: how long until they realize how disposable I am? I don't even hate you anymore, I don't have the energy for it. When I look back at us now, the burning rage is gone, replaced by sadness for the girl who dropped to her knees on the floor between your legs, begging for a life you were saving for someone else. You weren't a monster, Sunghoon. You were just a man who didn't love me, and I was a person who hated herself enough to think that was acceptable. I don't know if I will ever fully fix what was broken before I met you, or what broke while I was with you. But I survived the silence that came after you closed your front door. I survived the late night withdrawal when I thought the urge to call you would literally split my chest open. I am writing this not because I want you to read it, but because I need to leave you here, in these pages, in these past months that have already slipped away into memory. I hope you are happy with her. And I hope, eventually, I learn how to live in my own skin without feeling like I need to apologize just for taking up space. Goodbye, Sunghoon. For real this time, Y/N

as months slipped by, the sharpest edges of your grief started to round off. the constant weight in your chest slowly dissolved into a more manageable hum in the background of your life. for the first time in what felt like years, you were not just surviving the hours between sunset and dawn.

you were actually having fun sometimes, too. it was a chilly friday evening when your coworkers dragged you out to a cozy pub down the street from the office to celebrate the end of a project. normally, you would have made up an excuse to retreat back to the safety of your bed. but lately, you had been saying yes.

and for two whole hours, you slowly forgot. you sat in a worn velvet booth surrounded by the warm glow of the lights, the clinking of beer glasses, and the mindless chatter of people who momentarily loved their lives. you let out genuine laugh that started in your stomach and crinkled the corners of your eyes. you looked down at your hands resting on the table and realized they weren't trembling. you weren't constantly checking your screen for a notification that would never come, and you weren't picking apart your reflection in the glass.

you were just a normal girl, having a drink with her coworkers, finally feeling at ease. the relief of it was almost intoxicating. you took a sip of your drink, leaning back against your seat, letting the warmth of the room wash over your skin. you were rebuilding. maybe, you were going to be okay.

your phone buzzed on the table, making the screen light up. Jay :D was displayed in white letters across the display.

an involuntary smile touched your lips. jay was your safe harbor, the person who had pulled you out of the wreckage without ever asking for a single thing in return. assuming he was just calling to check if you needed a ride home or to tease you about finally going out, you grabbed your coat.

"sorry, guys, i gotta take this. it's my friend jay." you said, offering an apologetic wave to the table.

"tell him we said hi!" one of your coworkers called out over the noise of the bar.

you pushed your way through the crowded pub, slipping through the front door and stepping out onto the quiet street. the cold night air hit your cheeks, contrasting pleasantly with the warmth of the bar inside.

you swiped the screen and pressed the warm screen against your ear. "hey, jay." you said, your voice light and completely unguarded. "what's up? i'm actually still at the pub with my coworkers."

silence met you on the other end. it wasn’t the static-filled silence of a dropped call, but a deliberate quiet. you heard the faint rustle of a jacket moving, followed by a ragged exhale that sounded too close to the microphone.

your smile faltered. the playful warmth in your chest instantly curdled into a cold sensation. "jay?" you asked, taking the phone away from your ear for a split second to make sure his name was still on the screen. it was. Jay :D - Calling...

you put the phone back to your ear, your breath catching in your throat as a sudden sense of dread began to bleed through your veins. "jay, is everything okay? why aren't you speaking?"

there was a long pause. and then, through the speaker of jay's phone, a low voice spoke — a voice that was rougher and far more broken than you had ever heard it before.

"hey, y/n."

every drop of blood drained from your face in a single second. the noise of the city street vanished, drowned out by the deafening roar of your own heart hammering wildly against your ribs.

that wasn't jay.

the air in your lungs vanished. a sickening cold washed over you, plunging straight into your stomach. for a few seconds, you couldn't move, you couldn't breathe. the world shrank down to the dark street, the glowing screen pressed against your cheek, and the sound of his ragged breathing on the line.

"sunghoon?" your voice came out cracked, shaking so hard it barely sounded like you. "where is jay? why do you have his phone?"

a slurred laugh drifted through the speaker. it was bitter and seemingly heavy with liquor — a far cry from the logical man who had shut his door in your face months ago.

"he's in the bathroom." sunghoon muttered. "left his keys and his phone here. didn't take much to slip it into my pocket when he turned around."

you gripped the phone tightly, the initial wave of paralyzing shock instantly igniting into a blinding fury. he had invaded jay's privacy, he had stolen his phone. he was standing in some bar or apartment right now, using the only safe person left in your life as a backdoor entry into yours.

"are you fucking insane?" you spat, your voice trembling with a rage you didn't even know you were capable of holding. "give the phone back to jay. don't you ever-"

"i actually waited, y/n." sunghoon interrupted, his tone dropping into a spiteful murmur. the words were venomous, meant to cut you down, but beneath the cruelty, the slurring of his speech betrayed something else. "i honestly thought you’d call me a day after. i thought you'd send one of your pathetic little paragraphs, begging me to listen to you. begging me to let you come over." a harsh laugh escaped his throat. "i didn't think you had it in you to block me." he rasped, the sentence dripping with wounded entitlement. "who the fuck gave you the right to block my number?"

he had been waiting for you to beg. he had spent weeks expecting you to crawl back like you always did, feeding his ego with your suffering. the anger burning inside your chest solidified into something deadly. you felt utterly disgusted.

"you are sick." you whispered. "you stood in your hallway and told me i was nothing to you. you told me you didn't owe me a text, a courtesy call, or an explanation. and now you're stealing jay's phone like a coward because you wanted me to be miserable?"

"miserable?" sunghoon echoed. "you were already miserable, y/n. you were crying on the floor long before i ever said a word to you."

the anger that had flared in your chest suddenly gave out beneath you, collapsing into an aching void. the tears you had been fighting off spilled over your eyelashes, stinging against the chill of the street air.

you hated how easily he could do this. you hated that after months of agonizing work, after trying so hard to build a life where his name didn't haunt every shadow, a single sentence from him could strip you down to that same helpless girl begging on his doormat.

"do you think that's fair?" you choked out, your voice breaking right down the middle, thick with a sadness so deep it made your heart ache. "do you honestly think any of this is fair to me?" you wrapped your free arm tightly around your waist, shivering as the cold seeped straight into your bones. "i gave you everything. i let you tear down every single piece of dignity i had left because i thought... i thought if i stayed long enough, you would see me. but you treated me like trash. and even after you tossed me out, even after you got what you wanted... you still couldn't just let me bleed in peace?"

a heavy silence hung on the line. "do you hate me?" you whispered, the question barely louder than the breeze rustling the trees along the pavement. "is that what this is? do you hate me so much that you can't bear the thought of me moving on?"

sunghoon let out a bitter scoff, but the speed of his response betrayed the raw nerve you had just touched. "i don't hate you." he said, his tone dripping with a calculated malice meant to protect his own bruised ego. "hating you would mean you actually mattered enough to leave an impression."

the words were designed to destroy you. they were meant to leave you broken on the pavement, just like that night at his apartment. but as you stood there, wiping a tear from your cheek with a trembling hand, the brutal truth hit you through the haze of your grief.

he was saying the cruelest things he could think of. he was trying to reduce you to nothing, trying to make you feel small and worthless again. and yet, he was the one holding the phone.

he was the one who had watched jay walk away, who had taken his friend’s phone without permission, who had searched through a contact list just to dial a number he claimed to have forgotten.

"if i mattered so little..." you murmured, your voice trembling with tears, yet laced with clarity. "then why are you holding jay's phone right now, sunghoon?"

there was no quick comeback, no smooth reasoning. just a sudden stillness on the other end of the line.

"you can say whatever mean things you want to hurt me." you whispered, your heart breaking all over again for the girl who had begged him. "but you called me. you took his phone, and you called me. and that's the most pathetic thing you've ever done."

before he could force out another cruel word to save his pride, you pulled the phone away from your ear and pressed the red end call button.

the street went dead quiet again. the tears kept flowing, soaking into the collar of your coat as you stood alone in the chill of the night. it hurt so much it felt like your chest was going to cave in.

but you knew the truth now. he hadn't called because he didn't care. he had called because he couldn't stand the fact that you were finally slipping away.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

Dear Sunghoon, It wasn't my last letter, but somehow, it finally isn't my fault. You stole Jay’s phone. You actually took his property and dialed my number in the dark just because you couldn't handle the silence. It makes me so furious I can barely breathe. You stood in your hallway months ago and told me I meant nothing, that you owed me no timeline. You told me to go home and stop embarrassing myself. And yet, the second I actually obeyed you, the second I stopped crying on the sofa and blocked your number, it drove you out of your mind. You didn't call me because you missed me, you called because you missed your high. You missed having someone so thoroughly broken beneath your hands that it made you feel powerful. You were waiting for me to keep feeding your sickening ego, you wanted me to stay permanently ruined for you so you could feel important. And what terrifies me, what makes me hate myself even more than I hate you, is that it still hurts so fucking much. I want to tell you that I am completely over it. I want to pretend that hearing your slurred voice through the speaker didn't instantly pull me right back down to the cold tile floor of my bathroom. But it did. My heart still leaped when I realized it was you. I hate that my feelings didn't vanish the second you proved yourself to be like this. I hate that despite every cold word you have ever thrown at my head, a small part of me still longs for the warmth I convinced myself you had. The feelings are still there, I can't magically erase them overnight. But I am going to fight them. Every single hour, every single time my chest aches for you, every time my thumb hovers over a blank screen, I will fight it until there is nothing left of you inside me. You wanted me to stay trapped in that loop forever, waiting in the dark until you needed a distraction. But you don't get to have me anymore. I am still bleeding, Sunghoon. But I am never going to beg you again. Y/N

when you hung up that night, you braced yourself for the absolute worst. you expected to wake up the next morning completely unraveled, waiting for a relapse. you were terrified that hearing his voice again would strip away every inch of progress you had fought so hard for.

but as the initial shock wore off and the adrenaline began to fade, something completely unexpected took its place. clarity.

for months, you had kept sunghoon on a pedestal in your mind. you had viewed him as this untouchable figure who held all the power, while you were just the needy person at his mercy. but that phone call had completely shattered the illusion, he wasn't untouchable. he was just a bitter man, so desperate for an ego boost that he had resorted to stealing his friend's phone, slurring his words like a child throwing a tantrum because you had finally stopped begging.

for the first time, you saw how he truly saw you: a guaranteed source of validation. the moment you stopped playing the role of the tragic girl waiting on his doorstep, his composure crumbled. ironically, the call you thought would break you ended up being the thing that saved you.

a few days later, your phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.

Jay :D: hey Jay :D: im having a few people over at my place tonight, nothing crazy Jay :D: just pizza, drinks and some music Jay :D: you should come. i wanna see you

your chest tightened instinctively at the thought of jay's apartment. even though jay was your closest friend, the fear was still so raw. what if sunghoon was there? what if he tried to drop by with her?

you couldn't just text back. your hands were shaking slightly as you tapped jay's name and brought the phone to your ear.

he picked up on the second ring. "hey." jay said, his voice instantly warm and easy. "did you get my message?"

"yeah, i got it." you said softly, leaning your head against the wall. you hesitated, the lingering anxiety making your throat feel tight. "jay... i want to come. but i need to ask you something first."

"anything." he replied softly.

"is sunghoon going to be there?"

there was a pause on the line. "no." jay said softly, his tone reassuring. "i made sure of it, y/n. he and em aren't coming over tonight."

he took a quiet breath before continuing. "i promise you're completely safe here. it's just us, some good food and people who genuinely want to hang out with you."

a deep exhale left your chest. the fear wasn't going to dictate your answer. "okay." you murmured, a small smile finally touching your lips. "i'll be there."

getting ready wasn't the agonizing chore it used to be. you played music in your bedroom, picking out an oversized sweater that made you feel comfortable and bright. you weren't trying to prove your worth to a man who didn't care. you were just getting dressed up for yourself and for the simple joy of going out and having fun.

when you stepped out of the uber in front of jay's apartment building, the cool night air felt refreshing. you practically bounced up the stairs to the third floor, a brown paper bag with two bottles of wine tucked safely under your arm.

you reached apartment 302 and knocked on the door with a playful tempo. you could hear music playing inside and the lively chatter of people already there. but when the lock clicked, the door opened only a few inches.

jay was standing in the narrow opening, and the warm smile you were expecting was nowhere on his face. he looked completely pale, his eyes wide with frantic panic. a faint sheen of sweat was on his forehead, and his hand was gripping the edge of the door.

"y/n." jay breathed out, his voice unnaturally tight.

"hey!" you said, your grin genuine, completely oblivious to his posture. you held up the paper bag. "i brought the wine! am i late, or-"

"listen, y/n." jay interrupted, stepping forward just enough to block the crack with his shoulders, his voice strained beneath the ambient music coming from inside. "don't come in yet. actually... let's just go."

you blinked, an amused laugh escaping your lips. "go where? jay, the hangout is literally happening right behind you."

"it's way too crowded in here." jay said quickly, his words tumbling over each other as he glanced nervously over his shoulder toward the living room. "the vibe is terrible. let's just leave. i'll take you to that late night diner down the street, okay? my treat. let me just grab my coat and we can go right now." he reached out, gently putting a hand on your arm, trying to nudge you back toward the stairs.

you laughed, assuming he was just being dramatic and stressing over host duties. "jay, stop being absurd. since when do you care about a crowd? i'm starving and i promised i would come hang out."

"no, y/n, seriously. just wait a second-"

"move, you weirdo." you teased, stepping forward and lightly bumping your shoulder against his to push past. "i'm coming in."

"y/n, wait-" jay reached for your wrist, his voice cracking with sudden edge, but it was too late. you had already pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold into his warm living room.

the playful words died in your throat. the music from the speakers suddenly sounded like it was playing underwater.

standing near the kitchen counter, holding a drink and looking toward the doorway, was sunghoon. and right beside him, was her.

every drop of excitement, every ounce of warmth and every single mile of progress you had built over the past weeks seem to instantly evaporate. you went horrifyingly still. your sight narrowed down to sunghoon’s face — the slight freeze in his posture, the way his fingers tightened around his drink, the brief flash of something unreadable crossing his features before he masked it.

the shock in your chest instantly twisted into a sharp sting of betrayal. you whirled around on your heel, stepping right back toward the hallway and pulling jay with you by the arm.

"you promised me." you whispered, your voice cracking, thick with a mix of fury and heartbreak. you looked up at jay, your hands trembling as you gestured toward the living room. "you literally promised me he wouldn't be here. you swore they weren’t coming!"

"y/n, i swear to god i didn't invite them." jay pleaded, completely sick with guilt. he grabbed both of your hands, his fingers shaking. "they showed up unannounced literally four minutes ago. i was about to tell him to leave when your knock came on the door. i didn't even have thirty seconds to text you."

jay looked back toward his own living room, then straight into your eyes. "we're leaving." jay said without hesitation. "fuck the party, fuck my apartment. we're going somewhere else right now. we can go to that diner, or a quiet bar downtown, or we can just grab takeout and go sit in your living room. anywhere you want. i don't care that it's my place. i am not letting you sit through this."

he reached for his coat hanging on the wall rack, ready to walk out his own front door. you stared at him, your breath coming in shallow hitches. every instinct in your body screamed at you to take the exit. but as you stood there, watching jay panic for your sake, something else sparked beneath the fear.

a burning anger. if you turned around and left, what would that prove? it would prove that sunghoon still owned every room you walked into. it would prove that he could still chase you out of your safe spaces without even opening his mouth.

you thought about his slurred voice on the phone. you thought about him stealing jay's phone, begging for a reaction, throwing a drunken tantrum because you had stopped giving him power over you.

he wasn't a god, he was just a man. and you were done letting him run your life.

"no." you said softly.

jay stopped, his hand pausing on his coat zipper. "what?"

"i'm not leaving." you said, your voice growing firmer, grounding itself as the panic slowly drained out of your veins. "you threw this party for your friends. i bought wine, i dressed up, and i came here to have fun with you."

"y/n, you don't have to force yourself to be brave-"

"i'm not forcing anything." you interrupted, offering him a reassuring nudge with your shoulder. "he doesn't get to drive me out of your apartment, jay. he doesn't get to dictate whether i get to have a good night or not."

jay looked at you for a long moment, searching your face to see if you were lying. when he saw the steady resolve settling into your eyes, the tension in his shoulders finally eased just a fraction. "are you sure?" he asked softly. "if it gets too much, even for a second, you tell me and we kick them out or leave. deal?"

"deal." you murmured.

you handed him the paper bag with the bottles of wine and turned back toward the living room. sunghoon’s eyes followed you as you walked straight past him to the kitchen counter, but you forced your gaze forward, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a second look.

you poured yourself a glass of wine, turned around, and threw yourself into a group of jay's friends sitting near the living room rug. you forced yourself to talk, to listen, to pour another drink. and slowly, beneath the initial spike of anxiety, you actually started having fun.

but you were still human. every now and then, despite your best efforts, your eyes would involuntarily drift across the room. they were standing by jay’s bookshelf, talking softly. she was leaning into his side, holding a cup, looking up at him with effortless ease. and sunghoon... sunghoon looked happy. he was looking down at her with attentive warmth — a soft expression you had spent months destroying yourself trying to earn. he spoke to her like she was precious, like she was something to be protected.

it felt like a physical knife turning in your chest. the familiar insecurities instantly rushed back to flood your brain, whispering everything you hated about yourself: look at her. she is worthy, you are not.

your chest ached so deeply you thought you might choke on your next breath. but this time, you didn't run to the bathroom to cry. you didn't get blind drunk to numb the sting. you just squeezed your eyes shut for a brief second, took a grounding breath, and let the pain sit there.

it hurt terribly, but acknowledging the hurt was different than letting it ruin you. you were changing, you were learning how to hold your own hand through the heartbreak instead of begging him to hold it.

around midnight, the music and the crowded room began to feel a bit too much, too loud and warm. needing a moment to breathe, you slipped away from the group and pushed open the front door.

the cold night air hit your face like a splash of ice water. you pulled a cigarette from your pocket, flicked your lighter, and took a long drag. leaning your elbows against the metal railing, you looked out over the quiet street below, watching the trail of grey smoke curl up into the night.

you thought about everything that had happened — the night at his apartment, the agonizing weeks in the dark, his voice on jay's phone, and now tonight. you were still so insecure, still so deeply bruised by him. but standing out there under the stars, you realized you hadn't collapsed. you were still standing.

a fragile sense of pride flickered in your chest. and then, the door behind you suddenly squeaked on its tracks.

a slightly unsteady step hit the concrete floor, accompanied by the sharp smell of hard liquor. you took another slow drag of your cigarette before you saw a heavily intoxicated sunghoon stepping out and letting the door slide shut behind him.

for a long moment, neither of you said a word. the only sound was the muffled bass of the music coming from inside jay's apartment and the uneven rhythm of sunghoon’s breathing beside you.

"didn't know you smoked." he said, his voice thick with alcohol. it was meant to sound casual, maybe a little condescending, but the slight slurring of his words stripped it of any real authority.

you took another slow drag, letting the silence stretch out. "you didn't know a lot of things about me, sunghoon." you said quietly. "mostly because you never bothered to ask."

a bitter scoff escaped his lips. he leaned his elbows against the railing, stepping just a little too close.

"you’ve changed so much, right?" he muttered, turning his head to glare at you sideways. his eyes were bloodshot and heavy with defensive edge. "you are now playing the composed survivor. like you didn't spend months practically dying on my arms."

it was meant to draw blood. it was meant to drag you back down to the floor, to make you cry, to make you defend yourself like you always used to. months ago, it would have worked. but tonight, you just turned your head and looked at him.

up close, without the loving filter you used to view him through, he didn't look so superior. he looked messy. his hair was slightly disheveled, his jaw was tense, and beneath the mean tilt of his chin, there was a frantic restlessness in his eyes.

"is that why you came out here?" you asked softly, your tone almost conversational. "to check if i was still ruined? to see if you still owned me?"

sunghoon’s knuckles turned white against the metal railing. "don't flatter yourself." he snapped, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper. "you’re the one who blocked my number. you made everything into a fucking tragedy, y/n. i never promised you anything."

"i know." you said. the simplicity of your answer caught him off guard. his mouth opened slightly, a flicker of confusion crossing his features before he caught himself and scowled. "i know you didn't." you continued, looking back out at the dark street. "i made up the story. i stayed because i was terrified of being alone, and because i genuinely believed that if i endured enough of your cruelty, you would eventually stay."

you took a shaky breath, letting the hurt show in your eyes without letting it break your posture. "and the worst part was thinking you were just incapable of loving anyone. i convinced myself you were just broken and distant." you gestured vaguely toward the door behind you, where she was still inside. "but you're not cold, are you? you're soft with her. you smile at her."

sunghoon’s breath hitched. "she doesn't suffocate me." he spat. "she doesn't sit on the couch crying, demanding things i can't give. she doesn't make everything exhausting."

it was the meanest thing he had ever said to you. it was a direct hit straight to the core of your deepest insecurities. a single tear finally escaped your eye, tracking down your cheek. but you didn't hide it, you didn't bow your head.

"you're right." you murmured, wiping the tear away with the back of your hand. "she doesn't. because you treat her like a human being. you gave her a reason to be soft, sunghoon. for me, you only ever gave me closed doors and silence."

sunghoon stared at you, his chest heaving. he opened his mouth to hurl another insult, to twist the knife again, but as he looked at your sorrowful face, the liquor in his system couldn't mask the ugly truth hanging between you.

he had gotten everything he claimed he wanted. he had his peace. so why was he standing out in the freezing cold, drunk off his mind, chasing you down?

"if i was so exhausting… then why did you steal jay's phone, sunghoon? why did you call me at midnight? why did you follow me out here tonight?"

sunghoon flinched as if you had slapped him. the mean mask he had worn all night finally fractured right down the middle. for a split second, the cruelty vanished, replaced by a raw look in his eyes.

"you were supposed to keep waiting." he rasped out, the truth slipping out past his pride in a whisper before he could stop it. "you weren't supposed to just... erase me."

there it was, the ugly heart of it all. he didn't love you, but he loved the way you loved him. he loved knowing that somewhere in the city, a girl was weeping over his memory, keeping him on a pedestal, waiting. and your silence, your recovery, had starved him of the only power he had over you.

a profound sadness settled over your chest, but beneath it, the last lingering embers of your devotion finally died out. "well, i'm not waiting anymore." you said softly.

sunghoon swallowed hard, his jaw clenching as he tried desperately to pull his mask back over his face. the booze in his system made his composure sloppy, but his pride refused to let him fall apart completely in front of you.

he looked away toward the dark street before glaring back at you. "you think you're over it?" he muttered, his voice tight, trying to regain his footing. "you think walking back through that door means you get to pretend none of it happened?"

"it happened." you murmured, watching the way he gripped the metal railing just to stay upright. "i'm not pretending it didn't. i'm just not letting you use it to keep me small anymore."

you dropped the rest of your cigarette onto the concrete floor and stepped on it with the heel of your boot. sunghoon watched the motion. as you turned to leave, his hand moved on instinct, his fingers reaching out and catching the edge of your coat sleeve.

"y/n." he said, his voice dropping into a strained tone. it wasn't a grand, cinematic plea. it was just a quiet command from a man who couldn't stomach the thought of you walking away first.

you stopped and looked down at where his hand held your fabric. you didn't yank away or raise your voice. you just looked up at his face and spoke. "let go, sunghoon." you said gently.

he held on for one more second, his pride warring violently with the sudden realization that he was losing the last thread. then, his fingers slowly loosened, slipping off your sleeve.

he didn't beg, he didn't run after you. he just stood there, leaning back against the railing, turning his head away to stare out at the night air as if he couldn't bear to watch you walk through the doorway.

"go back inside." you whispered softly. "she's waiting for you."

you slid the door open, the sound of music and laughter instantly spilling out to wrap around you. you stepped over the threshold and pulled the door closed behind you, shutting out the freezing wind and the ghost of the man who had kept you in the dark for so long.

jay met you near the edge of the kitchen, his eyes immediately searching your face with quiet concern. "you okay?" he asked softly, offering you a fresh drink.

you looked at jay, then took a slow breath. your chest still ached — and it would probably ache for a while — but the air finally reached your lungs.

"yeah." you said, a small and entirely genuine smile on your lips. "i'm actually okay."

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

Dear Sunghoon, You were right about one thing: I will never erase what happened. But I don't have any long paragraphs left for you, and I don't need you to give me permission to move on anymore. Thank you for taking Jay's phone. Thank you for following me out there. You finally gave me the one thing I couldn't give myself: the truth. I am letting you go now, for real this time. This is the last time your name will ever appear in my handwriting. Goodbye, Sunghoon.

the end ⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

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