For once, you get to take care of the one who takes care of everyone.
The keys jingled in Chan’s hand when everyone spilled out of the restaurant in a laughing, stumbling mess.
Not drunk drunk – just loose with the night. Warm from soju and beer, cheeks flushed pink, voices louder than usual, every joke suddenly the funniest thing anyone had ever heard.
Three rental cars waited beneath the streetlights, still dusty from the beach parking lot earlier that afternoon.
“Okay,” Changbin announced from the other side of the lot, pointing dramatically. “Strong team with me.”
“You mean loud team,” Seungmin said.
“You mean nightmare team,” Jeongin corrected.
You ended up in the second car exactly where you’d expected: Han was already climbing into the backseat, somehow still carrying snacks in his hoodie pocket (and probably in his cheeks as well), Felix sitting beside him with his seatbelt half twisted, and Chan standing by the driver’s door, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand.
He looked beautiful in the soft, ugly parking-lot lighting. Which was unfair.
Cap low over his forehead. Sleeves pushed to his elbows. Hair messy from wind and seawater. His smile was there, touched with the kind of tired happiness that comes after a day well spent.
He’d only had one drink hours ago and switched to water after, but the day had been long – sun, swimming, driving, making sure everyone was where they needed to be, checking maps, checking reservations, checking on members, checking on you every ten minutes like you might evaporate.
You stepped closer. “Baby.”
His head lifted immediately. “Hm?”
“Let me drive.”
His eyebrows rose. “You wanna drive?”
“You're tired. And I'm sober too.”
“It’s okay. I can do it.”
“I know that you can,” you said softly. “But you don’t need to. You’re tired.”
“I’m fine.”
“You just tried to unlock the car with the house key.”
Chan let out a soft laugh, head dropping for a second, and you saw it then: the real exhaustion under the playful refusal. The kind he always ignored.
You reached for his wrist.
His fingers turned instinctively, fingers sliding through yours like they belonged there.
Your voice dropped so only he could hear.
“Chris.”
That did it. It always did.
His eyes flicked to yours.
You reached up, face leaning in towards his, and smoothed a thumb under one of his eyes. “You’ve been taking care of everyone all day. Please let me take care of you for twenty minutes.”
Something in his expression shifted.
Small. Barely there.
That look he only got when you slipped past the leader everyone knew and spoke to the man underneath it all.
He glanced down at your joined hands, thumb brushing once over your knuckles. Then he sighed through a smile and leaned his forehead against yours.
From the backseat, Felix made a scandalized little sound. “They’re being cute again.”
“They can do that any other time,” Han whined. “I wanna fall into bed.”
Chan huffed a laugh through his nose and pulled back.
“You sure?”
“Mhm.”
“You know the route?”
You nodded and held out your hand.
After a second, he dropped the keys into your palm.
“Okay.”
You smiled and tipped your head towards the passenger side. “Go on then.”
Chan blinked at you once, clearly too tired to argue, then shuffled around the front of the car without protest.
As he turned, you gave him a light, friendly smack on the butt.
He stopped mid-step and turned back, scandalized. “Hey.”
“Passenger princes don’t talk back, baby,” you said sweetly, opening the driver’s door.
Chan shook his head under his breath, smiling now despite himself, and slid into the passenger seat.
You settled behind the wheel, adjusting the seat back from where Chan had it too far for your comfort. His cologne lingered in the fabric, mixed with salt air and the faint scent of sunscreen.
From the backseat, Han gasped dramatically. “She’s driving?”
“Oh, you’ll survive,” you said, fixing the rearview mirror until Han's face appeared in it. “If not, you’re also welcome to walk back.”
He slumped lower in his seat, arms folding across his chest in exaggerated sulkiness. “ ‘was just saying, your driving is kind of scary.”
“You don’t even have a license,” you said, starting the engine. “Seatbelt, Jisung.”
“That’s why my opinion is pure,” Han said, reaching for the seatbelt with a pout. “Unbiased. Untainted by experience.”
Felix laughed so hard he immediately yawned afterward, eyes watering.
Chan’s mouth twitched, trying not to smile.
–––––
Five minutes later, Han was dead aleep.
The road curved dark and quiet along the coast, the sea only visible in flashes between trees.
Chan sat in the passenger seat with the chair leaned farther back than he ever let himself do.
But he kept looking at you.
Every time you glanced over, his eyes were already there.
He had one arm folded across his middle, the other tucked between you on the center console where his fingers occasionally squeezed yours. Not out of nervousness, but out of habit.
The boys in the back had gone from loud to silent with shocking speed.
Han was asleep first, cheek smushed against Felix’s shoulder, mouth slightly open.
Felix lasted another three songs before his head tipped sideways onto Han’s hair.
You glanced in the rearview mirror and nearly laughed.
“Look.”
Chan turned his head.
His smile came slow and helpless.
“They always act tough,” he said quietly, “then become babies after one drink.”
You smiled as well. “You gonna carry them inside later?”
“The hell I will.”
You hummed innocently. “But they’re your babies.”
“They’re adults,” he said at once. “Heavy adults. They just happen to complain a lot and expect to be pampered.”
“You raised them that way.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
He gave a soft scoff but didn’t argue harder than that.
Sleep was already pulling at him now, loosening every sharp edge. Without the need to steer, navigate, count heads, answer questions, make decisions, remind people to hydrate, remember where everyone left their bags—
There was nothing left for him to hold up.
No leader face.
No responsibility voice.
Just your boyfriend, warm, happy and slowly falling asleep in the passenger seat.
His thumb traced over your knuckles once. Twice.
“You’re staring,” you murmured.
“I’m appreciating.”
“You should rest those eyes, not look at me.”
“Can’t help it. You look really pretty when you drive.”
You laughed under your breath. “That’s the sleep talking, babe.”
“No.” His eyes were half closed, voice low and certain. “Been thinking it for ten minutes.”
“Shouldn’t you be resting?”
He leaned his head back against the headrest. “Can’t.”
“Why?”
“Like looking at you.”
You stopped at a red light. The intersection was empty, traffic signal glowing red over the quiet road.
You looked over at him again.
He was already looking at you.
Slowly, he lifted his free hand.
His fingers brushed your cheek first, palm settling there gently like he wanted to hold your face for a second before anything else. His thumb swept once across your cheekbone, slow and absentminded.
Then, he leaned across the console and kissed you.
Soft.
Unhurried.
Sleepy in the sweetest way.
You froze for half a heartbeat before kissing him back, one hand tightening on the wheel, the other moving to rest on his shoulder.
He was warm, lips slow and gentle on yours.
As he pulled away, your stomach flipped so hard it made you forget where you were.
When you opened your eyes, it took you a second to remember the car, the road, the sleeping passengers.
You turned your head.
Han was still dead asleep against Felix, entirely unaware of the world.
Felix hadn’t moved at all, breathing deep, arms wrapped around his folded jacket like a stuffed animal.
You let out a slow breath and looked back at Chan.
Who looked impossibly soft like this.
Hoodie half-zipped. Curls messy beneath his cap. Lips parted slightly with sleepiness.
And his eyes – so full of love – it made something in your chest ache.
“Tired?” you asked softly.
“No.”
“Close your eyes.”
“Can’t.”
“Why?”
“Need to make sure everyone gets home safe.”
Your chest ached in that familiar way.
Even now.
Even here.
Even with his members unconscious in the back and the day finally over, he was still holding the invisible strings of everyone else’s comfort.
You reached over and squeezed his arm.
“I’ve got them,” you said. Then softer, “I’ve got you too.”
He went very still.
Then exhaled like he’d been waiting all day to.
When the light changed, you gave him one last smile before turning back to the road and easing the car forward.
“You’re cute,” he mumbled after a minute.
“You’re delirious.”
“Probably.”
“You happy?” you asked.
“Mhm.”
“Why?”
He leaned his head against the window, still watching you.
“My girlfriend’s driving me home~”
You snorted. “That’s all it takes?”
“She’s pretty.”
“Christopher.”
“She smells nice too.”
“You’re half-asleep.”
“I’m in love.”
The words came so simply, so sleep-heavy and sincere, that your chest tightened.
You squeezed his hand.
“Go to sleep.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He squeezed your hand back once, then his grip loosened as sleep began pulling him under, yet still holding onto your hand like he didn’t know how not to.
setting: The city is quiet past midnight, your shared apartment dim except for the faint glow slipping from under Chan’s studio door. Hours ago, you fell asleep wrapped in him—warm, safe, and completely unaware that sleep would abandon him the moment it found you.
⸻
You don’t remember when your eyes opened—only that something felt… off.
The bed was still warm, sheets tangled around your legs, but the space beside you was empty.
“Chan…?” Your voice comes out soft, barely there, like it might break if you try harder.
No answer.
You sit up slowly, blinking against the dark, your body still heavy with sleep. For a second, you consider just waiting—he’ll come back, he always does—but the quiet stretches too long, too unfamiliar.
So you slip out of bed.
The floor is cold under your feet, and you don’t bother fixing your appearance—just a loose tank top and panties, hair messy, eyes half-lidded. You don’t even think about it. You just… miss him.
The faint light from his office pulls you down the hallway.
You push the door open gently.
Chan’s there, exactly where you expected—curled slightly forward in his chair, headphones pushed halfway off, one hand resting against his temple as the other hovers over the keyboard. The screen casts a pale glow over his face, highlighting the exhaustion he tries to hide.
He doesn’t notice you at first.
You lean against the doorframe, watching him for a moment, the soft clack of keys filling the room.
“…Chan.”
That does it.
He turns instantly, like your voice is something he’s wired to respond to, and the moment his eyes land on you, something in his expression shifts—softens, melts, completely undone.
You don’t even realize how you look.
But he does.
And to him, it’s everything.
“Hey… baby,” he murmurs, pulling off his headphones, voice low and warm despite the fatigue. “Why’re you up?”
You rub your eyes, stepping closer, your voice small and sleepy. “Woke up… you weren’t there.”
He exhales softly, guilt flickering across his face. “Couldn’t sleep again. Didn’t wanna wake you.”
You stop in front of him, swaying just slightly, and he instinctively reaches out—hands settling on your hips to steady you.
“Come back to bed,” you mumble, barely coherent, resting your forehead against his shoulder. “Please.”
There’s a pause.
Not because he’s unsure.
Because he’s completely, utterly gone for you in that moment.
You—half-asleep, careless, soft in every possible way—asking for him like he’s the only thing that makes sense.
“Yeah,” he breathes, almost like he forgot how to speak for a second. “Yeah, okay. I’m coming.”
He doesn’t even save his work.
Just slips his hand into yours, guiding you gently back down the hallway.
You don’t let go.
Not even when you crawl back under the covers, tugging him with you, wrapping yourself around him like it’s instinct.
He settles behind you, arms circling your waist, pulling you close—closer than before.
You sigh, already drifting again.
And for the first time that night…
Chan feels like he might actually sleep.
Because you’re here.
Because you asked for him.
And because nothing—not the music, not the silence, not even his restless mind—matters more than this.
all the things i’ve been seeing about chan’s shoulders got me thinking and going a little feral 😵💫
18+, 18+!! i swear if i need to block another goddamn minor i will go insane.
“Shit baby… feel s’good,” Chan moaned, hips slamming against yours, his low grunts ‘n groans right in your ear. His body completely caging yours, forearms resting on the bed next to your head, head dropped.
Your moans spilled out of your mouth continuously, Chan hitting that spot almost every thrust. Quickly pushing you farther and farther to another orgasm- you’re third just tonight.
The two of yous sounds were obscene
“T-too much!” You managed to get out, your arms tightening around his neck, just to move and scratch his shoulders.
“You can take it angel, i know you can. Been so long since we’ve seen each other, just one more?” Chan gets out through laboured breaths. One of his hands moving to softly hold your head- his form of comfort even as he wrecks you.
You whine at his words, but don’t refuse. Instead tightening your legs hold around his hips and pulling him closer somehow.
The pleasure was so good and overwhelming, you couldn’t handle it. That on top of your embarrassing sounds was too much- you bit his shoulder again. The firm muscles Chans built over the years being perfectly biteable.
“Atta girl,” Chan chuckled, feeling your teeth sink into his shoulder. Hand holding your head ruffling your hair. A fond, unmatching-with-the-scene smile making its way to his face. “You’re adorable.”
Synopsis: After attending a friend’s funeral, you realize that you have taken a lot of things for granted. Including Hyunjin. (1,7k words)
The sky is a dull, colorless grey. The kind that doesn’t rain, but feels like it might at any second. Almost like… it also mourns a passing of someone dear.
You stand beside Hyunjin in the small crowd gathered around the casket, hands folded in front of you, eyes fixed on the ground because looking at your friend hurts too much.
She’s standing only a few feet away in a black dress. Her eyes are hollow, fingers trembling as they clutch a handkerchief that’s already soaked through. Her husband’s photo rests on a small easel near the flowers. He’s brightly smiling in it, completely wrong for this setting.
You watch as she reaches forward to touch the edge of the casket, her shoulders shaking as someone steps closer to steady her and something in you cracks. Because that was her person, her every day, her safe place. The one she came home to. And now she’s standing here alone.
A cold wave of fear washes over you so suddenly it almost makes you dizzy. What would you do if that were you? If the person inside that casket was—
Without thinking, your hand shoots out and grabs Hyunjin’s. Hard. Your fingers lace with his so tightly it almost hurts. You don’t even realize you’re squeezing until he gently squeezes back. He glances down at you, eyes soft but questioning. But you don’t look at him. You can’t. You’re too busy staring at your friend as she breaks down into someone’s arms, grief folding her in half.
The fear creeps further into your chest. Uninviting. Unsettling.
What if one day you’re the one standing there? What if one day you’re the one left behind? Or worse—what if you’re the one leaving?
Your grip tightens again and Hyunjin shifts closer, shoulder brushing yours now. His thumb rubs slow circles against your knuckles, gentle and warm, assuring.
I’m here. That’s what it feels like he’s saying without words.But the thought won’t leave you.
The ceremony continues in a blur. Voices fade in and out. You barely register what’s being said. All you can think about is how fragile everything suddenly feels. How love can exist one day and be gone the next.
By the time it’s over, your fingers are numb from holding his hand so tightly.
Hyunjin doesn’t pull away.
Not once.
-
Hyunjin hasn’t said much on the drive back until the two of you get home. He unlocks the door, lets you step in first, and closes it gently behind him like he’s afraid to disturb something fragile.
The house is too quiet. The kind that lingers after a long day of holding your breath. You head straight for the bedroom, just sitting there with your back rested against the headboard. Shoes still on. Coats still on. Grief still clinging.
When Hyunjin enters the bedroom as he’s taking his suit jacket off, he immediately notices the way you quietly thinking but he knows your thoughts are loud. He folds the jacket neatly before hanging it on the nearest chair.
“Are you okay?” he softly asks.
You nod because somehow, your throat has felt tight since the service ended.
He joins you on the bed, curling himself behind you, close but not quite touching yet. The space between you feels strange after spending all afternoon pressed side by side.
“Watching her today… it scared me,” you whisper.
He rests a hand on your arm. “Yeah,” he softly answers.
“I kept thinking… what if that was me?” you continue, voice breaking in places.
This time, he buries his head in the crook of your neck and softly, firmly says, “Don’t.”
You slowly turn your head his way, eyes finally meet his. “But what if it was? What if I had to stand there and say goodbye to you?”
The room suddenly feels small. Hyunjin shifts, gently turning you around until you’re lying facing him now. Then he pulls you close, so close that you feel his warmth seep into you. he tenderly runs his knuckles on the side of your face. The kiss he gives you on your forehead feels like an attempt to ward the sad thoughts away.
The tenderness of it makes your chest ache. You look at Hyunjin then. The warm of his brown eyes. The softness in his gaze. The curve of his faint smile. The way he’s trying to keep you steady. The way all of him will become just memories someday…
The words slip out before you can stop it. “I want to die first.”
He goes very still and then, lovingly runs his hand through your hair. “Hey, don’t…” he says gently, like he’s approaching something delicate.
“Life would feel unbearably sad and lonely without you,” your voice trembles as you can vividly imagine it in your head the day it happens. “So I want to go first.”
Hyunjin lightly shakes his head, refusing to accept it. “Your death would leave an abyss in my life. I would be left talking to chairs and pillows…” he talks so low it almost like a whisper.
You clearly not thinking how it would affect him too. Rather devastatingly. Your eyes sting, sadness clawing up your throat. You inhale air and place a hand on the side of his face. “And your death would be more than an abyss. It’s a… yawning gulf,” you say, leaning in until your faces almost touching in the dim of the room.
He closes his eyes for a moment, the lids quivering like he’s trying to suppress the emotions this moment evokes. When he opens them, they find you instantly, still soft and warm, but now tinted in sorrow. “Your death would be a profound depth… a void,” he says back, like he wants to prove how much it costs him.
You feel a lump forming in your throat the harder you try to hold back from crying and it’s burning for every time you take a breath. Like a hot coal clogged your windpipe. “Your death…” you swallow, fingers caressing his cheek in such loving. “Your death would definitely leave a bigger hole in my life than mine would leave in yours.”
“You’ll be fine,” he says so confidently like he can see it happening in front of his eyes. “You’ll travel and have a new and exciting life. I’ll just sit in that chair in the suit that I wore to your funeral forever. “
The thought of him living, wallowing your death is just as sad as the death itself. You shake your head, refusing to believe that would be the case. You frame his face with your hand, looking at him like you’re seeing him for the first time in this light. With this haunting fear that you might have taken things for granted.
“If you went first, I don’t think I’d ever love again.”
Tears flowing down your cheeks as soon as the words coming out of your mouth.
There’s a crease formed between his eyebrows, like he can’t believe what he’s just heard. He pulls you even closer, a hand comes under your chin, tilting your head, forcing your eyes to meet him.
“I hope that’s not true,” he says softly.
More tears streaming down, hurt flickering across your face. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I don’t want my death to steal the rest of your life,” he answers honestly as he slowly, attentively wiping the tears on your cheek with his thumb. “I don’t want you to close yourself off from happiness because of me.”
“I don’t want to fall in love with someone else,” you cries turn into full-on sobs now, shaking and uncontrollable. “I only want you.”
Hyunjin’s expression breaks at that. His arms wrapping tightly around your shoulders now, your head tucked under his chin. You cling to him like you did at the funeral. Like you’re trying to anchor yourself to something solid.
“I don’t want my death to take your life with it,” he murmurs into your hair. “If that day ever comes—far, far away—I want you to keep loving. Keep living.”
“I don’t want that day,” you manage to say between your choked sobs.
“Neither do I.” His voice shakes just slightly, a hand continuously giving you comforting rubs on your back. “But we don’t get to control that. What we do get is this.”
He pulls back gently and cups your face, thumbs wiping your tears. “This moment. Right now. You and me.”
He presses a slow kiss to your forehead. Then your cheeks. Then your eyelids. Then your lips. Each kiss is soft and reassuring. When he pulls away, he stares deeply into your eyes and says, “We’re alive. We’re together. That’s not something everyone gets.”
You nod weakly, shoulders shaking as you’re trying to reorganize your breathing.
He lands another kiss on your forehead, long and lingering. Bittersweet. One hand strokes your hair. The other tirelessly rubs your back in slow, soothing circles.
“If one day I go first, I want you to love again. Because that would mean I loved you well enough that you’re not afraid of it,” he murmurs.
Even with your head buried in his chest, you shake your head, still refusing to agree to that.
Hyunjin softly chuckles at that and then presses a kiss into the top of your head. “But today? Today I’m not going anywhere.”
You close your eyes, listening to his heartbeat under your ear. You tighten your hold around him, not willing to let go even for a second.
He smiles softly against your head. He sways gently with you in his arms, like he’s calming both of you at once. He peppers the side of your face with soft, little kisses before bringing his mouth close to your ear and sweetly says, “I hope we both live forever. Doddering, toothless, liver spotted, hallucinating…”
You slowly lift your head just enough to look at him and nod, eyes still glassy but calmer now.
The smile lingers on his lips as he leans in and kisses you. The kiss is slow, almost chaste. Like an assurance and a promise at once.
And in that moment, you decide to believe in that.
-
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( 애인 ) 𝒾n which ︵ you’re the one who quietly anchored him through every long night, even as he unintentionally pushed you to the edges of his world. when a single, sharp moment of tension on a rainy highway changes everything, he's left to navigate a silence he never expected and the weight of words he can never take back.
9O17 stress neglect verbal-argument car-accident grief major character death heavy guilt panic attacks bittersweet ending
i know i literally just dropped an angst fic not too long ago but. the voices told me to & also i highkey teared up writing this
⌨️ like&&reblog for a kiss. ── #click4masterlist to see more.
THE AIR IN CHAN'S STUDIO was thick with the hum of computer fans and the smell of lukewarm black coffee. it was a familiar scent, one that usually felt like home, but lately, it just felt like a reminder of how little you’d actually seen him.
you were curled up on the edge of the black leather couch, your backpack slumped against your legs. chan had texted you at three in the morning, a frantic string of messages saying he missed you, that he needed to see you before your morning lecture, and to please come by the studio.
so, you’d woken up early, skipped breakfast, and swung by with two toasted bagels that were now sitting cold and forgotten on the console. but since you’d arrived forty-five minutes ago, he’d said maybe ten words to you.
"just a second, baby," he’d muttered, his eyes glued to the monitor as he chopped up a vocal line. "this transition is messy. i just need to smooth it out."
that was thirty minutes ago.
you watched the back of his head—the way his shoulders were hunched toward his ears, the tension visible in the line of his neck. he was drowning in this comeback. you knew how it went; the closer the date got, the more he disappeared into the music until there was nothing left of 'channie' and only 'bang chan the producer.'
it wasn't just today, either. it had been weeks of missed dinners and "i'm five minutes away" texts that turned into five hours of silence. your relationship had been shoved to the back burner so many times the pilot light was starting to flicker.
but you weren't the type to pick a fight over it. you knew him. you knew he didn't do it because he didn't care; he did it because he cared too much about everyone else—the members, the fans, the legacy. he was a perfectionist, and you were the person who understood that better than anyone. so, you just sat there, scrolling through your phone and watching the cursor on his screen move back and forth, back and forth.
it hurt, in a quiet, dull way, to be in the same room as him and still feel like you were miles apart. but you swallowed it down. he was stressed, and the last thing he needed was you adding to the weight on his back.
you leaned your head back against the cushion, the rhythmic thump-thump of the bass line acting like a lullaby. your eyes started to grow heavy. the studio was warm, and the lack of sleep from his late-night texts was finally catching up to you.
"chan?" you murmured softly, your voice thick with sleepiness.
he didn't even turn around. he just hummed, a distracted sound that meant he hadn't actually heard you.
"i'm gonna... just close my eyes for a second," you whispered, more to yourself than him.
he didn't respond. the only sound in the room was the clicking of his mouse and the rain that had started to smear against the high windows of the building.
the low, rhythmic thumping of the track finally pulled you under. your head lulled to the side, pressing against the cool leather of the sofa as you drifted into a shallow, restless nap.
a sudden, sharp chime from your phone jolted you awake. you blinked, disoriented by the dim studio lights, and fumbled for the device.
8:42 a.m.
"shit," you hissed, the word catching in your throat. your lecture started in eighteen minutes, and the university was at least fifteen minutes away on a good day. "channie, i’m so late. i have to go."
he didn't even flinch. his fingers were still dancing over the keyboard, eyes bloodshot and fixed on a wave file. "mhm. drive safe, baby," he murmured, his voice flat and robotic. he wasn't really there; he was somewhere inside the music, lost in a loop of percussion.
in a blind panic, you started sweeping your belongings off the coffee table. your notebook, a stray pen, your charger—you shoved them into your tote bag without looking, your movements frantic and uncoordinated. your hand brushed against a small, silver object near his keyboard, and you swept that in, too, thinking it was your own thumb drive.
"crap. have you seen my pen? the one—"
he shook his head, even though he hadn't really heard you. "check the bag," he muttered.
you decided you could come back and grab it later. you leaned over him, pressing a lingering, desperate kiss to his cheek. he smelled like caffeine and stale air. he leaned away slightly, not out of annoyance, but because you were blocking his view of the left monitor.
"bye, channie. i love you. eat the bagels, okay?"
"yeah, yeah. talk later," he muttered, already reaching for his headphones.
you rushed out of the building, the heavy glass doors swinging shut behind you. the moment you stepped outside, the sky felt like it collapsed. the rain wasn't just falling; it was a vertical ocean, thick and grey, turning the parking lot into a blurred mess of asphalt and water.
you scrambled into your car, the interior immediately smelling like wet denim. you gripped the steering wheel, your heart hammering against your ribs. you hated this. you’d always hated driving in the rain—the way the world lost its edges, the way the tires felt like they were floating instead of gripping.
you looked back at the studio entrance, a part of you wanting to run back inside and beg him to drive you. just for twenty minutes. just so you didn't have to face the highway like this.
but you looked at the glow of his studio window on the third floor and shook your head. he was already drowning in work. he’d been up all night. the last thing he needed was to play chauffeur because you were "a little nervous" about some rain. you didn't want to be a burden. you didn't want to be another thing on his to-do list.
"get it together," you whispered to yourself, wiping the fog off the inside of the windshield with your palm.
you shifted the car into gear, the windshield wipers clicking at their highest speed, and pulled out into the downpour.
the knuckles of your hands were white, gripping the steering wheel so hard they cramped. the rain was a violent, drumming percussion against the roof of the car, deafening and relentless. every time a semi-truck passed in the opposite lane, a wall of muddy water slammed against your windshield, momentarily blinding you. your heart was a frantic bird trapped in your chest, fluttering against your ribs. you hated this. you hated every second of this drive.
then, the car’s bluetooth system chimed. the caller ID on the dashboard screen flashed: channie ♡
you exhaled a breath you didn't know you were holding, a small, hopeful smile twitching at your lips. maybe he’d snapped out of it. maybe he realized he barely looked at you before you left and wanted to say he loved you. you hit the 'accept' button on the steering wheel.
"what’s wrong, channie?" you asked, your voice trembling slightly as you squinted through the gray haze of the downpour.
"my flash drive," he snapped. his voice wasn't warm. it wasn't the voice of the man who tucked you in or called you 'baby.' it was sharp, jagged, and vibrating with a suppressed fury that made your stomach drop. "i need it. do you have it? you were in a rush, throwing your shit everywhere—did you take it with you?"
the light ahead turned red. you slammed on the brakes a little too hard, the car hydroplaning for a terrifying half-second before the tires caught. breathing heavily, you reached into the passenger seat and began frantically digging through your tote bag. your fingers brushed against cold metal.
you pulled it out. his silver drive. the one with the final masters. the one that represented months of his blood, sweat, and literal tears.
"oh my god, yeah, i do," you breathed, the guilt hitting you like a physical blow. "i’m so sorry, chan! i must have swept it up when i was grabbing my pens. i'm at a light now—can i give it to you right after my lecture? i'll drive straight back—"
"no!" he shouted, and the sheer volume of his voice through the car speakers made you flinch. "no, i—it’s due today. it’s due now. the engineers are waiting on those files. god, you’re always doing this."
the light turned green. you took your foot off the brake, your vision already starting to swim as the first hot tear tracked down your cheek. "doing what? it was an accident, i was just—"
"you're always so messy," he cut you off, the words coming out in a cold, rhythmic stream of resentment. "you’re cluttered. you’re all over the place. you don't think, you just move. i'm trying to hold a career together, i'm trying to finish this for the guys, and you’re just... you’re not focused enough. you're never attentive. you just come in here, distract me, and then leave with the one thing i actually need to do my job."
"chan, please," you whispered, your voice breaking. you reached up to wipe your eyes, but the movement made the car veer slightly toward the edge of the lane. you jerked the wheel back, your breathing becoming shallow and jagged. "i didn't mean to. i just wanted to see you. you asked me to come over."
"i asked you to come over to spend time, not to create more problems for me to fix," he ranted. he sounded so tired of you. so utterly finished with the 'mess' of your presence. "i’m so tired of dealing with your messes. i’m trying to focus on my career, but i’m constantly having to check behind you like you're a child—"
the rain was coming down even harder now, a literal curtain of water. you couldn't see the lines on the road. the tears were making everything a blurred, kaleidoscopic mess of red brake lights and gray asphalt. your chest felt tight, your lungs refusing to take in enough air.
"shit," you whispered under your breath as the car hydroplaned again, the steering wheel feeling loose and useless in your hands. you gripped it tighter, trying to blink away the moisture. "channie, i really am so sorry about the usb, but can we do this in a minute please? it’s raining and i’m driving and—"
"no, we’re doing this now," he shouted, his frustration peaking. "i'm tired of the excuses. i'm tired of you being 'sorry' every time you do something careless. grow up already! i have so much on my plate and you just add to it. it's like you don't even care about how hard i work—"
"i know, i know, i—"
you were looking at the dashboard, trying to find the button to clear the fogging windshield. you were trying to find the words to make him stop hating you. you were trying to stay in your lane.
you didn't see the black SUV that had lost control in the opposite lane. you didn't see it cross the median.
all you heard was a sudden, deafening blare of a horn.
"chan—"
the world turned into a cacophony of violence. the sound of metal screaming as it was crushed like paper. the shattering of glass, a thousand diamonds exploding into the air. your bag beside you was thrown, a sudden, brutal weightlessness followed by an impact that stole the very concept of breath from your body.
in the studio, chan heard it all.
he had been mid-sentence, his mouth open to deliver another stinging remark about your lack of responsibility, when the sound hit him through the phone. it wasn't a sound he recognized at first—it was too loud, too industrial. a sickening crunch. and then, the most terrifying sound of all: nothing.
it was a noise that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
just the faint, rhythmic pitter-patter of rain hitting a microphone somewhere far away.
his heart didn't just skip a beat; it felt like it stopped entirely. a cold, disgusting wave of nausea curled in his stomach, making him lightheaded.
"baby?" he asked. his voice was small now. the anger had vanished, evaporated by the sudden, chilling silence on the other end. "hey. that wasn't funny. pick up the phone."
nothing.
"baby? baby, answer me," he said, his voice breaking. he stood up so fast his chair flipped over behind him. he gripped the phone with both hands, pressing it so hard against his ear it hurt. "baby, please. talk to me. say something. i'm sorry, okay? i didn't mean it. just tell me you're there."
the line hissed with static. he could hear the rain. he could hear a faint, distant siren beginning to wail in the background of the call. then, a sharp click.
the line went dead.
chan stared at the screen. call ended. his fingers were shaking so violently he almost dropped the phone. he hit the redial button. his breath was coming in sharp, ragged gasps.
“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”
he hung up and called again. and again. and again. he didn't even realize he was crying until a tear hit the screen of his phone. he was already grabbing his jacket, his keys, his mind a blurred mess of every cruel thing he’d just spat at you.
he’d been so worried about a silver drive. he’d been so worried about a deadline.
he called again.
“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”
he fell to his knees in the middle of the room, the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to your voicemail greeting over and over like a lifeline. his stomach twisted with a question that threatened to shatter his mind.
had his cruel words been the last thing you heard? his anger had been the last thing you felt?
the answer was yes.
the silver usb drive sat in the center of the mahogany desk like a jagged piece of shrapnel. it looked smaller than it had two weeks ago. less significant. it was just a bit of metal and plastic, slightly scuffed on one corner where it must have hit the pavement or the dashboard, but otherwise perfectly intact.
it was functional. it held the files. it held the "future" chan had been so desperate to protect that he’d sacrificed the only thing that actually mattered.
the comeback had happened, technically. the company had pushed it through because schedules were already locked, because the industry doesn't stop for tragedies, because the wheels of the machine keep turning even when the driver has been crushed.
but chan hadn't been there. he hadn't gone to the music shows. he hadn't sat in on the final meetings. he had become a ghost in his own life, haunting the halls of the building like a man waiting for a sentence that had already been carried out.
the studio was cold. he’d turned the ac down to sixty degrees days ago and just left it there, wanting the air to feel as biting and sharp as the guilt in his chest. it didn't feel like a place of creation anymore. it felt like a tomb.
the bagels were gone. he’d thrown them away in a fit of violent, shaking sobs three days after the accident, the plastic bag crinkling in a way that sounded like the crushing of metal. the coffee cups had stayed, though. he couldn't bring himself to move them.
there was a ring of dried brown liquid at the bottom of the one you’d sipped from—the one he’d ignored while he was working. he stared at it for hours sometimes, tracing the rim with his thumb, wondering if a single microscopic trace of you was still clinging to the ceramic.
one night, the silence had become too loud, and the mess he’d once scolded you for—the stray pens, the crumpled papers, the way you’d tuck your shoes under his desk—had started to feel like an accusation.
he’d grabbed a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner from the janitor’s closet and scrubbed every inch of the leather couch until his knuckles were raw and the room smelled like bleach and chemicals. he wanted to scrub away the memory of his own voice. he wanted to bleach the sound of his anger out of the walls.
but when he was finished, all he was left with was a sterile, empty room that didn't smell like you at all. and that was worse. that was infinitely worse.
the members tried. they always tried. they were his brothers, his family, but right now their presence felt like a suffocating weight. every time they looked at him with those soft, pitying eyes, he wanted to scream. he wanted them to hate him. he needed someone to tell him he was the villain in this story, because the version where it was "just an accident" was one he couldn't live with.
it was changbin and minho who came in today. they didn't knock; they knew he wouldn't answer anyway. they brought food in a plastic bag—something warm, something that smelled like ginger and soy—and set it down on the console. the same spot where you’d left his lunch.
"eat, hyung," changbin said, his voice low and steady. he reached out a hand, hovering it near chan’s shoulder but not quite touching. "you haven't left this room in twenty-four hours."
chan didn't look up from the usb drive. "i'm not hungry."
"chan, it’s been two weeks," minho said, his tone firmer, the kind of tough love he usually used to snap the members out of a funk. "the police report came back. the other driver was hydroplaning. it was the weather. it was the rain. it wasn't you."
the word rain triggered something in him. it felt like a physical strike to his jaw.
"don't tell me that!" chan roared.
he stood up so abruptly his chair screeched against the floor, a sound like a dying animal. he slammed his palm against the mixing console, the vibrations rattling the speakers.
"don't you dare tell me it wasn't me! i was on the phone. i was screaming at her. do you know what the last thing i said to her was? i told her she was a mess. i told her she was a distraction. i told her she didn't care about my work."
his voice cracked on the last word, crumbling into a jagged, wet sound. his chest was heaving, his vision blurring as the hot, stinging tears finally spilled over.
"i made her cry while she was driving on a highway in a monsoon because i was worried about a stupid piece of silver plastic," he choked out, pointing a trembling finger at the usb drive. "she was apologizing. she was saying she was sorry while she was trying to stay on the road, and i just... i kept going. i wouldn't let her hang up. i wouldn't let her breathe."
he sank back into his chair, his head falling into his hands. the bravado, the anger, the leader—it all vanished, leaving behind only the hollowed-out shell of a man who had broken his own world.
"i made the last thing she ever heard a lie," he whispered into his palms. "i told her she was a burden. she was never a burden. she was the only reason i was even doing any of this. and now i have the music, and i have the career, and i have this fucking drive... and i don't have her."
changbin and minho exchanged a look of profound, helpless sadness. there was no script for this. there was no leader-talk chan could give himself to fix it.
"she knew you loved her, chan," changbin tried again, his own voice thick with emotion. "she knew how stressed you were. she always understood."
"that's the problem!" chan sobbed, a harsh, broken laugh escaping him. "she always understood. she sat on that couch for hours just to see the back of my head. she took my shrapnel and she just... she smiled and told me she was proud of me. she deserved someone who would look at her. she deserved someone who would tell her the mess was the best part of his day. and i didn't do it. i chose this. i chose the work."
he reached out and grabbed the silver drive, his fingers curling around it so tight the edges dug into his skin. he wanted it to hurt. he wanted it to leave a mark.
"get out," he said, his voice suddenly cold and dead.
"hyung—"
"get out! please."
he didn't look up until he heard the soft click of the heavy studio door. alone again. the silence rushed back in, filling the spaces between his shallow breaths.
he looked at the computer monitors. the software was open, the project file for the lead single staring back at him with its colorful bars and complex waveforms. the music you had been so proud of. the music you had died for.
he picked up the usb drive and held it over the port. his hand shook so violently he couldn't line it up. he tried again, his teeth grinding together, a low noise of frustration building in his throat. he wanted to see the files. he wanted to see the mess he’d been so worried about.
but he couldn't do it. every time he moved the drive toward the computer, he heard the honk of that horn. he heard the sound of the metal. he heard the way the line went dead.
he pulled his hand back and threw the drive across the room. it hit the far wall with a dull thud and skittered across the floor, disappearing into the shadows under the leather couch.
chan didn't go after it. he just sat there in the dark, the blue light of the monitors reflecting in his hollow eyes. he pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled to your name. he knew it was useless. he knew the phone was sitting in a plastic evidence bag at the precinct, cracked and water-damaged.
he hit the call button anyway.
he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, listening to the ringing.
one. two. three.
“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”
he didn't hang up this time. he let the beep happen. he sat there for a long time, the silence of the recording eating up the space in the room.
"i'm sorry," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the cooling fans. "i'm so sorry. the studio is clean, baby. it’s so clean. there’s no mess at all. and i hate it. i hate it so much."
he stayed on the line until the system cut him off, staring at the spot under the couch where the silver drive lay forgotten in the dust. he was a professional at making music, at layering sounds and fixing glitches, but he realized then that no amount of editing could fix a life.
the rain started to hit the windows again—a soft, rhythmic tapping that sounded like fingers against glass. chan flinched at the sound, pulling his knees up to his chest on the producer's chair. he was a man who lived for the beat, for the rhythm, for the sound.
but for the first time in his life, he just wanted the world to be quiet.
he reached over and clicked the power button on the console. one by one, the lights went out. the monitors faded to black. the hum of the speakers died.
and there, in the absolute darkness of the room where you used to wait for him, chan finally let out the breath he’d been holding since the crash. it wasn't a release. it was just a beginning.
the beginning of a year where the music wouldn't play, and the rain wouldn't stop, and the mess would be the only thing he ever wanted back.
the seasons had shifted, though chan only knew this because the light hitting the studio floor in the evenings was a different shade of gold. it was spring now. outside, the city was blooming, people were shedding their heavy coats, and the air probably smelled like wet earth and fresh growth.
but inside the four walls of his studio, it was still that gray, suffocating morning in february. for chan, the rain had never actually stopped.
he was stuck in a loop. it was like a track he’d produced where the skip was so subtle you didn't notice it until you realized you’d been listening to the same four bars for three months. his life was a sequence of "what ifs" that played on a constant, maddening repeat.
what if he hadn't sent that text at 3:00 a.m.? what if he’d let you sleep in? what if he’d just turned his chair around for five seconds when you walked in with those bagels? if he had just looked at you—really looked at you—he would have seen how tired you were.
he would have seen that you were rushing. he would have seen the silver drive sitting too close to your bag.
he spent a lot of time staring at the door. he’d sit in his chair, the one he used to spin around in to tease you, and he’d wait for the click of the handle. his brain knew you weren't coming back, but his body hadn't caught up yet.
every time the hallway quieted down, he’d find himself holding his breath, waiting for the sound of your sneakers or the soft hum of you humming one of his demos under your breath.
depression wasn't a weight for him; it was a thinning. he felt translucent. he’d stopped eating anything that required effort, surviving on protein shakes and the occasional granola bar minho forced into his hand. his skin was sallow, the dark circles under his eyes looking like permanent bruises. he looked like a man who was disappearing, and in a way, he was. he was fading into the static of your absence.
it was 4:00 a.m. on a tuesday when the silence got too loud again. the studio was dark, save for the low glow of his monitors and the tiny, blinking red light of his hardware. he reached for his phone, his thumb hovering over your contact.
he knew it was full. the mailbox had been full for six weeks. he knew the phone was likely sitting in a cardboard box at your parents' house, or tucked away in a drawer at the police station, the screen shattered into a spiderweb of glass. but the act of calling was the only thing that made him feel like he was still anchored to the earth.
he hit dial. his heart did that familiar, painful stutter as he waited through the rings.
“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”
he closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool edge of his desk. you used to have a personalized one, but deleted it because you hated the sound of your own recorded voice. he'd been there the day you tried to record it. he could almost see you saying it—the way you’d scrunched your nose in embarrassment, the way you’d laughed right after the recording ended.
"hey," he whispered into the mouthpiece. his voice was gravelly, unused for hours. "it’s me. obviously."
he let out a breath that sounded more like a shudder.
"i finished the track today, baby. the one you liked. the one with the heavy synth in the bridge. the members think it’s the best thing we’ve done in years. everyone is so happy with it. but i... i deleted your favorite part. that vocal chop you kept humming? i took it out.
"i couldn't leave it in. i didn't deserve to keep the version you liked. it felt like stealing. how am i supposed to put something out into the world that you were the only one who truly understood?"
he paused, listening to the faint hiss of the line. he liked to pretend he could hear you breathing on the other end, just listening to him talk like you used to while he worked.
"i'm so sorry, my love. i'm so sorry i called you a mess. i’ve been looking around this room, and i realized... i was the mess. you were the only thing in my life that made any sense. you were the only thing that wasn't a deadline or a chore or a performance. you were just... you. and i treated you like an inconvenience."
he felt a tear track down his nose and drip onto his hand, but he didn't move to wipe it away.
"i found your charger today. the one with the little yellow tape on the end so i wouldn't accidentally take it to the company. it was behind the couch. i tried to plug it in, just to see if it still worked, but then i realized i don't even have anything of yours to charge anymore. i just held it for a while. it still smells a little bit like that lotion you use. the vanilla one."
his grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles turned white. "i really like that one," chan added softly.
"if i promise to never skip a meal again, will you just show up in a dream tonight? just one? i just need to see your face without the rain. i just want to see you sitting on the couch again, even if you're not talking to me. i’d take you being mad at me.
"i’d take you never speaking to me again if it meant you were still driving that car. i would have given up the music, baby. i would have thrown the drive in the river myself if i’d known."
the line timed out, the automated system cutting him off with a cold, digital beep. chan didn't pull the phone away from his ear. he just sat there in the dark, listening to the dial tone.
he thought about the drive. the silver usb was back in his desk drawer now, tucked away like a shameful secret. he’d accessed the files, but he hadn't changed anything other than that one deletion. every time he opened the project, he saw the last save date. february 12th.
he hated that date. he hated the rain. he hated the way his coffee tasted now—bitter and metallic, like he was drinking the regret straight from the cup.
he stood up, his joints popping from hours of being curled in the chair. he walked over to the window. the city was quiet, the streetlamps casting long, lonely shadows across the pavement. it wasn't raining tonight, but the ground was still damp from a shower earlier in the evening. the reflections of the lights looked like streaks of neon tears on the asphalt.
he imagined your car on a night like this. he imagined you turning the heater on, singing along to the radio to try and ignore how nervous the wet roads made you. he imagined the exact moment he’d called you. the vibration in your cup holder. the way you would have reached for it, wanting to hear his voice, thinking he was calling to say something kind.
"i'm sorry i was the reason you were distracted," he whispered to the glass. "i'm sorry i was the last thing you had to deal with."
he walked back to the couch—the black leather one he’d scrubbed so hard it was now slightly discolored in patches. he lay down, pulling a hoodie over his head, trying to trap the stale air inside. he didn't sleep much these days.
when he did, he usually woke up reaching for his phone to tell you about a dream, only to feel the cold, empty space beside him and remember all over again.
it was a cycle. a loop.
three months. ninety days. two thousand, one hundred and sixty hours of replaying a ten-minute phone call.
chan closed his eyes and tried to remember the way you looked when you were laughing at one of his stupid jokes. he tried to focus on the sound of your voice instead of the sound of the crash. but the crash was louder. the crunch of metal was a permanent layer in the mix of his life now, a frequency he couldn't eq out.
he reached out and touched the spot on the floor where your bag used to sit.
"goodnight, baby," he murmured into the empty room.
he didn't expect an answer. he didn't even hope for one anymore. he just needed to say the words into the void, hoping that somewhere, in some version of the universe where he’d been a better man, you were tucked safely into bed, and the silver drive was nothing more than a piece of plastic on a desk.
but in this world, the drive was on the desk, and chan was on the floor, and the rain was waiting just outside the window to start all over again.
he fell into a fitful, shallow sleep around 5:30 a.m., his hand still clutching the phone. he dreamt of the studio, but it was filled with water. he was swimming toward the couch, trying to reach you, but the harder he kicked, the further away the couch drifted. you were sitting there, holding the usb drive, pointing at the door. your lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.
it’s okay, you were saying. it’s okay, channie.
but it wasn't. it would never be okay.
when he woke up two hours later to the sound of the cleaning crew in the hallway, the first thing he felt was the crushing weight of the daylight. another day of being the person who stayed. another day of being the reason you left.
he sat up, rubbed his face with his hands, and looked at his phone.
152 unread messages from the members. 0 from you.
he stood up, walked to the desk, and turned on the monitors. the hum of the fans filled the room, a low, constant drone that sounded like a mourning song. he opened the project, highlighted the entire vocal track of the new song, and lowered the volume by three decibels.
it sounded emptier. hollower.
"perfect," he whispered, his voice breaking. "it sounds just like the house."
he stayed there for the rest of the day, a ghost working on a ghost of a song, waiting for the sun to go down so he could call your voicemail and apologize for the things he’d said when the world was still bright.
six months. a half-year of the world tilting on an axis that felt permanently wrong. for chan, the passage of time wasn't measured in months or weeks anymore, but in the slow, agonizing evaporation of his own edges.
the fire that had fueled his anger in the beginning—the hot, white-hot rage at the driver, at the rain, at his own reflection—had finally burned itself down into a cold, gray ash.
what was left was the deep quiet.
it was a silence that lived in his bones. it wasn't just the absence of sound; it was the absence of weight. he felt like a hollowed-out tree, still standing but entirely empty on the inside. he was back to work at the studio because the company demanded it and because his members needed him, but the "bang chan" everyone knew was gone.
the man who used to stay up until dawn obsessing over the frequency of a snare hit, the perfectionist who wouldn't let a single breath go unedited, had been replaced by someone who just... didn't care.
his desk was a disaster. it was a crushing, bitter irony that he couldn't stop thinking about. for years, he’d teased you—sometimes gently, sometimes sharply—about your mess.
he’d laugh at the way your bag always overflowed with receipts and loose pens, or how you’d leave half-finished cups of tea in every room. he’d called you cluttered. he’d told you that you needed to be more focused.
now, he was the one living in a wreck. his studio was littered with empty energy drink cans and crumpled snack wrappers. there were stacks of lyric sheets with coffee stains on them, most of them half-finished and abandoned. he’d forget to save files. he’d lose his keys twice a day.
he was messy in every sense of the word, his brain too clouded with grief to maintain the rigid structure he’d once used to define himself. he had become the very thing he’d used as a weapon against you on that last morning, and every time he looked at the chaos on his desk, it felt like a ghost was laughing at him.
it was a tuesday evening when it happened. he’d dropped his phone—again—and it had skittered across the floor, sliding deep into the dark gap beneath the black leather couch.
chan sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to come from his soul. he got down on his hands and knees, pressing his cheek against the cold floorboards to peer into the shadows.
his fingers brushed against something hard and plastic. he thought it was his phone, but when he pulled his hand back, he was holding a cheap, blue ballpoint pen.
he froze.
he knew this pen. it was the one you’d been frantically looking for right before you left for your lecture. he could still see you in his mind's eye, patting down your pockets, huffing in frustration because you were already late. you’d asked him if he’d seen it, and he hadn't even looked up from his monitor. he’d just muttered something under his breath without a second thought.
you must have dropped it right there, next to the couch where you’d been napping.
chan sat back on his heels, the pen clutched in his palm. it was just a piece of plastic, worth maybe fifty cents, but to him, it felt like a holy relic. he brushed the dust off it with the hem of his hoodie, his thumb tracing the teeth marks on the cap where you used to chew on it when you were stressed.
he felt a sudden, sharp pang in his chest—the first real feeling he’d had in weeks. it wasn't the dull ache of depression; it was a stabbing, vivid grief.
he tucked the pen into the front pocket of his hoodie, right over his heart. he didn't even go back for his phone.
he walked over to his desk and sat down. for six months, the silver usb drive had stayed in his drawer. he’d touched it, moved it, even held it against his forehead while he cried, but he hadn't plugged it in. he couldn't bring himself to look at the data. it felt too much like an autopsy.
but tonight, with your pen in his pocket, he felt a strange, quiet pull.
his hands shook as he opened the drawer. the drive caught the light, its scratched surface a testament to the violence it had survived. he didn't let himself think. he just shoved it into the port.
the computer chirped. the drive icon appeared on the screen, labeled simply: CB97_FINAL_MASTERS.
chan clicked through the folders, his breath hitching as he found the project file from that morning. the file he’d been screaming about. the file he’d valued more than your safety.
he hovered the cursor over the file properties.
last saved: february 12, 2026. 9:02 AM.
the air left his lungs in a rush. he remembered the timeline. he’d called you at 8:52 am. he’d spent ten minutes tearing you apart, telling you how your lack of focus was ruining his career, how your messiness was a burden he couldn't carry anymore.
the timestamp on the save was three minutes before the call ended. three minutes before the sound of the crash.
he realized then that while he was shouting at you, you hadn't just been listening. you had reached into your bag, found the drive, and—despite the rain, despite the terror of driving, despite the tears he was making you cry—you must have been thinking about him.
you had probably been checking your bag at the red light, making sure the important little thing was safe, perhaps even planning how to get it back to him as fast as possible.
you were caring for him while he was destroying you.
chan clicked the file open. the digital workspace loaded, the familiar wave files of his members' voices blooming across the screen. he hit play.
it was the track you liked. the one with the synth bridge. but as the music filled the studio, it didn't sound like a hit song anymore. it sounded like a funeral march. every beat was a heartbeat he’d helped stop. every lyric was a word he’d wasted.
he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. the blue light of the monitors washed over him, making his skin look ghostly. he felt the weight of the pen in his pocket, a tiny, physical pressure against his ribs.
"i'm so sorry," he whispered into the empty room. "i'm so, so sorry."
he didn't turn the music off. he let it loop. he sat there for hours, listening to the perfection he’d demanded, realizing that it was entirely worthless. the mix was clean. the vocals were crisp. the transition he’d been so worried about was seamless.
and he would have traded every single note of it to have one more "messy" afternoon with you. he would have traded his entire career to see one more half-finished cup of tea on his console.
as the sun began to peek through the blinds, casting long, pale strips of light across the cluttered studio, chan didn't move to clean up. he didn't reach for an energy drink. he just reached into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the blue pen.
he realized then that the "bang chan" he was supposed to be—the leader, the perfectionist, the producer—was a lie. the mess was the truth. the clutter was the life. you had been the only one who lived in the real world, and he’d been too busy trying to polish the edges of a song to notice that the world was beautiful because it was broken.
he finally reached out and clicked 'save' on the project. not because he wanted to work on it, but because he wanted to update the timestamp. he wanted to move past february 12th, even if it was only by a fraction of a second.
the computer chirped again.
last saved: august 20, 2026. 5:44 AM.
chan let out a long, shaky breath. he stood up, his legs stiff, and walked toward the door. he didn't turn off the lights. he didn't tidy the desk. he just kept his hand on the pen in his pocket and walked out into the quiet hallway.
for the first time in six months, he didn't feel like he was drowning in the rain. he just felt tired.
he walked down to the parking lot, the morning air cool and crisp against his face. it wasn't raining. the sky was a pale, clear blue, the kind of color you used to say looked like fresh ink.
he got into his car and sat there for a moment, looking at the empty passenger seat. he reached into his pocket, pulled out the blue pen, and set it carefully in the cup holder.
"we're going home now," he murmured.
he started the engine and drove out of the lot. he drove slowly. he stayed in his lane. he didn't check his phone. he just watched the road, the blue pen rattling slightly in the plastic holder, a small, messy piece of you finally coming home.
the quiet was still there, but as he drove through the waking city, it didn't feel quite so deep. it felt like a beginning. a messy, cluttered, imperfect beginning.
and for now, that had to be enough.
the date on the corner of his monitor felt like a heavy weight, though the numbers themselves were small. february 12th. one year.
chan stood by the window of the third-floor studio, his forehead resting against the cool glass. outside, seoul was being swallowed by a familiar, grey downpour. the rain streaked down the pane in jagged lines, blurring the world into a smear of neon signs and headlights.
he watched the cars crawl along the wet asphalt below, their brake lights glowing like embers in the mist.
a year ago, the sight of the rain would have sent him into a spiraling panic, his lungs tightening until he couldn't draw air. now, it just felt like a quiet companion. the sharp, stabbing agony that had defined the first few months—the kind that made him want to claw his own skin off just to escape the guilt—had finally settled into something different.
it was a dull, permanent ache. it was a part of him now, like a break in a bone that never quite knit back together right. he didn't fight it anymore. he just carried it.
he turned away from the window and looked at his desk. it wasn't the sterile, bleached workspace of six months ago. there were loose papers scattered everywhere. a half-empty bag of pretzels sat next to a stack of external hard drives. three different colored pens—none of them his—were rolled into the groove of the console.
he’d stopped trying to scrub the mess away. he realized, with a clarity that only comes through total wreckage, that the mess was the point. a life without clutter, without distractions, without someone accidentally taking your usb drive because they were rushing to be somewhere important... that wasn't a perfect life.
it was just a lonely one.
he walked over to the console and sat down, but he didn't sit in the producer’s chair. he sat on the edge of the black leather couch, the one that still had a tiny, faded water stain from a cup of tea you’d spilled two years ago.
he pulled a notepad toward him. he’d been writing a song for weeks. it wasn't for the next album. the company didn't know about it, and he wasn't sure he’d ever release it. it wasn't for the fans, and it wasn't meant to be a chart-topper.
it was just for the chaos. it was a song about the way your laugh sounded when you were mid-sentence, the way you’d always lose your keys in the bottom of your bag, and the way you’d apologize for things that weren't your fault.
it was a song for the girl who made his life beautiful by making it complicated.
as he looked over the lyrics, the studio door opened. it wasn't a soft, hesitant knock. it was the loud, unmistakable sound of seven people who didn't know how to be quiet if their lives depended on it.
"breakfast is here!" han’s voice bounced off the acoustic foam walls before he was even fully in the room.
chan looked up as the members piled in, one by one, carrying bags of food and cardboard carriers of coffee. minho was at the front, looking as unbothered as ever, while felix trailed behind him with a wide, bright smile that seemed to challenge the gloom of the weather outside.
"we decided the studio needed more people," hyunjin said, dropping a stack of napkins onto the console without asking. "and more food. mostly more food."
seungmin and i.n. started clearing a space on the large wooden table in the corner, pushing aside chan's notebooks and cables with a reckless lack of concern that would have made the old chan go ballistic. changbin followed them, already tearing into a bag of pastries.
"sit down, hyung," felix said, gently grabbing chan’s arm and pulling him toward the table. "you haven't eaten anything but coffee today. we checked your trash can."
chan let out a soft huff, a sound that was dangerously close to a laugh. "you guys are invasive, you know that?"
"it’s in our contracts," lee know replied dryly, handing chan a plain paper bag. "open it."
chan took the bag. he could feel the warmth through the paper. he opened it and looked inside. it was a bagel. toasted, with just a bit of cream cheese melting on the edges. simple. unremarkable.
it was the first thing he’d been offered on that morning a year ago.
the room was suddenly very full. seungmin was arguing with han about a melody they’d heard on the radio, while hyunjin was trying to show i.n. something on his phone. changbin was mid-story, gesturing wildly with a half-eaten donut, and lee know was watching them all with that quiet, observant smile he wore when he was content.
chan sat there, the bagel in his hand, and for the first time in three hundred and sixty-five days, the air in his lungs didn't feel like lead.
he looked at his members—his brothers. they knew. they knew exactly what today was. they knew why the rain felt heavier and why the silence in the studio had been so thick lately. they hadn't come here to give him a speech or to tell him it was time to move on. they had just come to bring the mess back into his life.
they had come to be the distraction he once thought he hated.
"hey, chan-hyung," seungmin called out, leaning across the table. "han thinks the bridge in that new track should be faster, but i think it needs to breathe more. what do you think?"
chan looked at han, who was already nodding aggressively. "it needs energy, hyung! like a heartbeat!"
"no," chan said, his voice quiet but steady. he felt the eyes of all seven of them drift toward him. "seungmin is right. it needs to breathe. you can't rush the important parts."
the conversation erupted again, louder this time, as they debated the merits of tempo and emotion. chan found himself joining in. he corrected han on a technical point, laughed when changbin made a self-deprecating joke, and even nudged i.n. when the younger boy tried to steal a piece of hyunjin's breakfast.
it was a strange, soaring feeling. it wasn't that the sadness was gone—it would never be gone—but it was as if the room had expanded enough to hold both the grief and the life at the same time. he felt light.
he felt like he was allowed to be in this moment, even though you weren't. that he was allowed to breathe. allowed to live.
he realized that the best way to honor the love you’d given him wasn't to stay frozen in the second you left, but to live the way you’d always wanted him to.
he took a bite of the bagel. it tasted like salt and bread and a memory that didn't hurt as much as it used to. it was a tribute. it was a quiet promise.
they stayed for over an hour, turning the studio into a chaotic den of crumbs and loud voices. by the time they started packing up to head to their own schedules, the room felt different. the once ugly silence had been broken, replaced by the lingering warmth of people who loved him.
"see you at practice, hyung?" felix asked, pausing at the door.
"yeah," chan said, nodding. "i'll be there in twenty minutes."
once the door clicked shut and the hallway faded into silence, chan walked back to his desk. he picked up the silver usb drive—the one that had been the catalyst for his nightmare.
he didn't feel the nausea anymore. he didn't feel the urge to throw it across the room. he just looked at it. he saw the scratches. he saw the wear and tear. he saw the physical evidence of a day that had broken him.
he plugged it into the computer.
he navigated to the project file—the one with the synth bridge, the one you’d loved. he hit the spacebar.
the music filled the room. the bass was deep, the synths were shimmering, and the vocals were clear. but this time, he didn't hear the screech of tires over the melody. he didn't hear the sound of the metal crunching during the chorus.
he just heard the music.
he leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes. he let the sound wash over him, every note a reminder of a time when the world was bright. he realized that he didn't have to delete your favorite parts to be sorry. he didn't have to punish himself to prove he loved you.
loving you was the legacy. the mess was the legacy.
outside, the rain continued to fall, a steady drumming against the glass. but inside, chan was just breathing. he was sitting in the middle of a messy studio, with crumbs on his desk and lyrics about a girl who chewed on her pens, and for the first time in a year, he wasn't waiting for the crash.
he was just listening to the song.
he reached out and turned the volume up, just a little bit, until the music was louder than the rain. he stayed there until the track ended, and then, with a hand that didn't shake, he hit play again.
and when he closed his eyes, you were smiling softly right next to him.
warnings: unprotected sex; oral sex (m!receiving); slight dom!reader; dirty talk; ass smack (one mention); voyeurism
summary: you’ve been thinking about chan’s gym video ever since he posted it and when he gets home, you decide to make a video of your own
a/n: i haven’t been able to think about anything else since chan posted his gym video so i had to write this! i wrote this one quickly so it might not be my best work oops
the door to your apartment swings open as chan comes in, looking exhausted but irresistible after his gym session. you can see the sweat that still clings to his skin and also his tank top hugging his broad shoulders and defined chest and those workout shorts that do little to hide the powerful lines of his thighs.
before he can even kick off his shoes, you’re on him, launching yourself forward to crash your lips against his in a hungry, desperate kiss. his hands instinctively grab your waist, steadying himself as you press your body against his, your tongues tangling in a heated makeout that leaves you both breathless.
“babe, wait-”, he says, pulling back just enough to say against your lips, but you don’t give him a chance.
your fingers thread into his damp, short hair, tugging him closer as you back him towards your bedroom, your lips never leaving his.
“what’s got into you? i just got-”, he tries again, a chuckle rumbling in his throat, but it dissolves into a groan when you nip at his lower lip, your hands roaming down his back to squeeze his ass through his shorts.
he gives up fighting it, his resistance melting as he follows your lead and his strong arms wrap around you. the hallway blurs as you guide him, your mind racing back to just minutes ago. you had been scrolling through your phone when you saw the gym video he posted - his muscles flexing, sweat dripping down his body as he powered through reps that made your cunt clench.
you have been dripping wet ever since, your thighs rubbing together in anticipation, counting the seconds until he walked through that door. and now, he was here, and you weren’t waiting another minute.
you push him into your bedroom and then move him towards the bed. his eyes are dark with confusion and growing need, but he lets you take control, tumbling onto the mattress with a surprised laugh that turns into a groan when you straddle his hips.
“fuck, you look so hot like this”, he says, his voice dripping with lust.
before he can say anything else, you lean down and kiss him again and then move to stand up. you reach for your phone on the nightstand and then place it on top of the dresser against the wall. the angle is perfect - side view of the bed, capturing both your bodies in full frame. you start recording then, and you toss a wicked grin over your shoulder at him.
“let’s see if you post this video too”, you say, your voice low and teasing.
chan’s brows furrow, his head lifting slightly off the pillow.
“what? baby, what are you-”, he says but his question cuts off as you climb back on top of him, sealing his mouth with another deep kiss.
your hands are everywhere, yanking at the hem of his tank top, pulling it up and over his head in one fluid motion. he helps you, arching his back to take it off, revealing his abs carved from hours in the gym, and a light sheen of sweat that makes his skin glisten.
you break the kiss just long enough to take your own t-shirt off, tossing it aside, then you take off your shorts and panties, leaving you bare from the waist down. chan’s gaze rakes over you hungrily, his hands sliding up your sides to cup your breasts through the bra before you unhook it and let it fall away.
“shit, you’re so fucking hot”, he says.
your fingers move to his shorts and you tug them down along with his boxers. his cock springs free, thick and half-hard already, twitching at the cool air and the sight of you. both of you are naked now, your skin hot where your bodies touch.
you slide down his body and settle between his spread legs as he props himself up on his elbows, watching you with wide eyes and his chest heaving. you wrap your hand around the base of his cock, giving it a slow and firm stroke that makes him buck his hips. leaning in, you maintain eye contact, locking your gaze with his as your tongue flicks out to trace the underside of his cock, from balls to tip.
“oh, fuck”, his breath hitches as a groan escapes his lips.
without breaking that intense stare, you take him into your mouth, your lips stretching as you suck him down. you hollow your cheeks, bobbing your head as your tongue swirls around the tip. chan’s head falls back against the pillow with a groan, one of his hands grabbing the sheets while the other reaches down to tangle in your hair.
“f-fuck, baby… k-keep going, don’t stop”
you hum around him, the vibration drawing a sharp curse from his throat and you feel him throb against your tongue, growing fully hard now. he doesn’t know the fire that video ignited in you, how it had you imagining this exact moment - his body under yours, surrendering to your mouth.
he looks at you again as you take him deeper, relaxing your throat to swallow around him, your eyes never leaving his as tears prick at the corners from the effort. he’s losing it, his hips jerking up involuntarily as his hand grips the headboard now.
“fuck, yes… just- just like that. your mouth feels so good wrapped around me. keep looking at me”
his words spur you on, and you can feel your cunt soaking and clenching around nothing. you can tell he’s close from the way his abs tense and the salty precum that leaks onto your tongue.
“baby, i’m gonna… fuck, i’m-”, he says, but you don’t let him finish.
as his grip tightens, you pull off with a wet pop, licking your lips as you crawl back up his body.
“not yet”, you whisper, positioning yourself over him.
his cock, slick from your saliva, nudges your entrance, and you sink down until he’s completely inside you. both of you moan at the stretch, your walls fluttering around his cock as you adjust to his size. his hands fly to your hips, his fingers digging in so hard you know you’re gonna have marks there the next day.
“fuck… you’re so wet, you’re soaking”, he moans.
you start moving, rolling your hips in a slow grind at first, savouring the drag of him inside you. then you start moving faster, bouncing on his cock, the bed creaking under your bodies. his eyes are glued to where you’re joined, watching himself disappear into you over and over again.
“you’re taking my cock so well. you love it, don’t you? been thinking about this all day?”, he says, his voice rough with need as he thrusts up to meet you, “fuck, you’re dipping all over me, baby. tell me how good it feels”
“yes, chris… it feels so fucking good”, you moan, leaning forward to brace your hands on his chest, your nails scratching his skin.
the angle hits deeper, his cock brushing that spot that almost makes you lose control completely. he’s relentless now, bucking up hard, one of his hands sliding up to pinch and twist your nipple while the other smacks your ass lightly, the sting sending jolts straight to your core.
“that’s it, ride me harder. i wanna fell you come on my cock”
his words push you closer to the edge and you clench around him, drawing a deep moan from his lips. the tension builds, coiling tight in your stomach, and you can feel him swelling inside you, almost on his breaking point.
“chris- i’m… i’m close, don’t stop”, you whine, grinding down faster.
“come with me, baby. fuck- now”
he thrusts up fiercely and then you tip over, your orgasm crashing through you like a wave, your cunt clenching around his cock as you cry out his name. he breaks with you, his cum filling you up as he groans.
“yes, take it all… shit, you’re perfect”
you collapse against him, both of you panting, your bodies trembling. his cock softens inside you, but he doesn’t pull out yet, he just holds you close as he presses kisses to your shoulder. after a moment, he tilts your chin up, searching your flushed face with a puzzled smile.
“okay, seriously, not that i’m complaining, but what was that all about?”, he says.
you laugh breathlessly, nuzzling into his neck before lifting your head.
“it’s your fault and that stupid gym video you’ve posted. i’ve been soaked since i saw it. couldn’t wait to get you home and fuck you senseless”
his eyes widen in realisation, then crinkle with amusement.
“shit, that’s what this is about? damn, i should’ve known”, he glances towards your phone still recording, a spark of understanding lighting his gaze as he pieces together your earlier comment, “and you’ve recorded us? fuck, baby, that’s so damn hot. i’m not posting this anywhere, this one is just for me. i’m gonna watch it when i’m on tour, stroking my cock to the sight of you bouncing on me”
he kisses you hard, his hand sliding down your body, cupping your ass as his cock stretches faintly inside you, already stirring at the thought. you break the kiss and move, sliding off him with a wet sound, his cum trickling down your thighs as you stand up to get your phone, stopping the video. he watches you, propping himself on one elbow, his gaze lingering on the mess between your legs with a smirk.
you sit down beside him, your phone in your hand but before you can say anything, he pulls you in for a quick, teasing kiss.
“we should watch this together right now. i think it’ll recharge us both for another round”
he plays the video and the screen lights up, and as the video starts, his hand already wanders back down your body, as you get ready for another cardio session.
the library
likes, reblogs and comments are always appreciated 🌟
''my daddy!" your daughter squeals, her tiny hands grabbing at chan's jacket sleeve as she tugs with as much force as her little body could exert, her little face scrunched in determination.
"No, he was my daddy first!" you shoot back with mock seriousness, yanking on his other arm with equal determination.
chan, seated on the couch with his arms stretched out getting tugged from either side like he's a prize, a pink bandaid covering the (hickey) bruise that his daughter claimed was an "owie" that needed treatment right away. his eyes remain glued to the TV screen but he’s not really watching anymore, quietly accepting his fate.
He doesn't say anything, though there’s a faint smirk decorating his features at the scene playing out next to him.
''My daddy gives me more kisses'' your daughter declares, her tone almost like a challenge, her eyes wide with a mischievous glint.
You gasp “does not!” you debunk, your face dropping into faux offense, hands tugging at his just a little harder “I saw him first!”
"unbelievable" he murmurs under his breath, eyes glancing between the two girls tugging on him like he's a prized, oversize teddy bear.
Your daughter tugs harder, giggling. “daddy is mine forever!”
You gasp in mock betrayal. “What?! I give him goodnight kisses! and cook his meals!”
“I draw him pictures!”
“I SLEEP next to him!”
“I should’ve just stayed at the studio” chan finally exhales, leaning his back against the couch, tilting his head back. pretending like he doesn't live for the attention both of you are showering him in
You and your daughter both throw yourselves against his open chest in an instant, wrapping him in tiny arms and bigger ones. "you're both insatiable" he mutters, but doesn’t move. he just melts quietly into your combined warmth.
The room is filled with you and your daughters laughs. loud and contagious and giving him a silly feeling of warmth inside. his arms slide around the two of you, one large hand gently cradling your daughter’s back, the other resting over your waist.
his mouth is pulled in a smile he cant conceal if he tried, only pulling both of you closer to him.
For as long as you could remember, silence had followed you like a shadow.
Not the peaceful kind, no, this was the kind that pressed against your ears until you felt hollowed out, the kind that sat heavy in your chest and made breathing feel like a conscious decision.
Your apartment was spotless. Too spotless.
White walls. Clean counters. A fridge full of food you forgot to eat. A life that looked functional from the outside and felt unbearably empty from within.
You used to think noise was something you hated.
Then Seo Changbin left, and you realized noise had been the only thing keeping you alive.
You and Changbin had trained together, late nights in practice rooms that smelled like sweat and cheap energy drinks, music bleeding through thin walls, knees bruised from choreography neither of you had nailed yet. You were supposed to debut together. That was the plan everyone whispered about.
Until it wasn't.
They told you that you weren't ready.
That you were talented, but not marketable.
That you should be proud of how far you'd come.
Changbin never repeated their words. Not once.
He exploded instead.
You remembered his voice cracking the air that night, hands shaking at his sides, jaw clenched so tight you thought his teeth might shatter. He'd dragged you out of the building before you could break down in front of anyone else, shoved you onto the curb outside the company, and crouched in front of you like the world was ending.
"Hey," he'd said, rough and breathless. "Breathe with me. Just-fuck-look at me. Follow my lead."
He hadn't asked if you were okay. He'd known you weren't.
Changbin had always been like that, too loud, too intense, too present. When panic clawed at your lungs, he grounded you with his hands on your shoulders and his voice right in your face. When the fog in your brain told you to disappear, he made too much noise for you to slip away quietly.
You were survival partners.
When Stray Kids debuted without you, the world didn't end.
It just went quiet.
You watched from your couch the night they went live for the first time, screen glowing in the dark like a wound you refused to bandage. Changbin looked bigger somehow, sharper, more confident, fire wrapped in charisma and sweat and ambition.
He was exactly where he was supposed to be.
And you were... nowhere.
The calls came less often after that. Not because he didn't care, because his life became noise in a way that didn't leave room for silence anymore. Schedules. Tours. Practices that stretched until sunrise. Fame that swallowed him whole.
You told yourself it was fine.
You told yourself you were proud.
At night, the silence told you otherwise.
The day he came back to your apartment, you weren't expecting him.
You were curled at the edge of your couch, wrapped in an old hoodie that still smelled faintly like him, TV muted because the flickering light was better than nothing. Your phone buzzed somewhere nearby, unread notifications piling up like dust.
Then the door slammed open.
Not gently. Never gently.
"HEY."
You flinched hard enough to knock the blanket off your shoulder.
"Why the hell aren't you answering your phone?"
Changbin stood in the doorway, hair damp from the rain, eyes blazing with something feral and familiar. The air felt different the second he stepped inside, warmer, louder, alive.
You stared at him like he wasn't real.
He crossed the room in three strides.
Before you could speak, his hands were on you, solid, grounding, gripping your arms like he was afraid you might vanish if he didn't. He pulled you to your feet, and suddenly the world tilted as he spun you once, breathless laughter bursting out of him before he could stop it.
"You scared the shit out of me," he muttered, forehead pressing to yours. "Don't ever go quiet on me like that again."
Your chest ached. Your voice shook.
"You're busy now."
His expression snapped. Not angry-hurt.
"Don't do that."
He looked around your apartment then. The emptiness. The quiet. The way everything looked untouched.
His hands tightened.
"I got in," he said suddenly, words tumbling out like they'd been clawing at his throat all day. "Top-tier. They lost their minds. Said the production was insane, said the flow was genius-"
He stopped, eyes locking onto yours.
"-and I told them I didn't get there alone."
Your breath hitched.
"I told them every song I write still sounds like you," he said, voice low and fierce. "Every time I breathe before a verse, it's because you taught me how to survive long enough to finish it."
You laughed weakly. "Changbin-"
"No," he cut in, stepping closer. "Listen to me."
He pressed his forehead to yours again, hands warm, real, unshakable.
"I'm going to the top," he said. "And you're coming with me. I don't care if you're onstage or not. I don't care if you're behind the scenes, off the books, invisible to everyone else."
His voice softened, just barely.
"I don't win if you're not okay."
Tears burned your eyes. "You'll forget this place. You'll forget me."
"Like hell I will."
He pulled you into a hug so tight it stole the air from your lungs-and somehow gave it back at the same time. His chin rested against your shoulder, breath warm, grounding, loud in your ear.
"I'm your noise," he murmured. "I don't care how far I go-I'm calling. Every day. Every night. Until this place doesn't feel like a grave anymore."
He stayed.
He made you eat. Made you talk. Made you breathe with him when the silence tried to swallow you whole again.
And when he finally left, his footsteps echoing down the hall, the quiet didn't feel quite as lethal.
Because this time, the noise had promised to come back.
And you believed him-
because you had to.
--
The first month after that night, Changbin kept his promise.
He called at 3:00 AM, voice wrecked from practice, sprawled across some practice room floor with his phone propped against a water bottle. You'd watch him through the screen-dark circles, sweat-soaked hair, that stupid fucking smile he only ever gave you.
"Still awake?" he'd mumble.
"Still awake."
He'd tell you about the new track they were working on. The member who kept messing up the formation. The way Chan burned toast that morning and nearly set off the fire alarm. Small things. Human things. Noise you could hold onto.
Sometimes he'd just breathe.
You'd lie in bed, phone against your pillow, eyes closed, pretending he was right there. Pretending the space beside you wasn't empty. Pretending the silence in your room was just him being quiet instead of him being gone.
Those nights, you could almost believe the distance wasn't real.
***
The second month, the cracks started showing.
"Can't talk long," he said more often now. "Schedule's packed. You know how it is."
You nodded even though he couldn't see you. You know how it is. Did you? You knew how it was to train until your bones ached. You knew how it was to want something so badly it consumed you. But you didn't know how it was to have it. To be him now.
The calls became scheduled. Timed. Ten minutes here, fifteen there, always with an expiration date.
"Don't hang up yet," you caught yourself saying one night, voice smaller than you wanted it to be.
He paused. Something flickered across his face-guilt, maybe. Or exhaustion. Maybe both.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said softly.
But you could hear voices in the background. Someone calling his name. Laughter from down the hall. A world that kept moving whether you were in it or not.
"I know," you lied.
He kissed two fingers and pressed them to the camera. "Sleep well, yeah?"
The screen went black.
You stared at your reflection in the glass for a long time after that.
The shift didn't happen with a fight. It happened with a missed call. Then another. Then a week of them.
You told yourself it was fine. He was debuting. He was living. You were still here, in this apartment that got quieter every day, but that was fine too. You'd adjust. You'd find the new shape of things.
The first time he forgot your birthday, you spent the whole day waiting.
Your phone sat on the kitchen counter like a shrine. You checked it at 9 AM. Noon. 6 PM. 11:47 PM, when you were already in bed, staring at the ceiling, telling yourself he'd remember. He always remembered.
At 2:34 AM, your phone buzzed.
Shit. Y/N. I'm so sorry. It's still your birthday there right? Happy birthday. I love you. Talk soon.
You replied: It's okay. I know you're busy.
You didn't sleep that night.
Not because you were angry-you couldn't be angry at him, you'd never learned how. You didn't sleep because the space between his name and his words felt wider than it had ever been, and you didn't know how to cross it anymore.
***
The calls became scheduled after that.
Tuesday nights. 10 PM. Thirty minutes if you were lucky, fifteen if someone needed him for something. You'd sit by your phone those nights, counting down the hours, feeling pathetic and desperate and too aware of your own need.
When he called, you tried to sound normal.
"Hey," you'd say, like your whole week hadn't been building to this moment.
"Hey," he'd reply, and his voice was the same-low, warm, yours-but the background wasn't. There was always something behind him now. Voices. Music. A world that kept moving while you sat frozen in yours.
"How was your week?" he'd ask.
And you'd lie.
"Good. Busy." You weren't busy. You hadn't left the apartment in three days. "How was yours?"
He'd talk. You'd listen. And for thirty minutes, the silence in your chest would quiet just enough for you to breathe.
Then he'd say, "I have to go," and the silence would come back sharper than before.
***
The first time you called him and he didn't pick up, you told yourself he was in a meeting.
The second time, you told yourself he was practicing.
The third time, you called seven times in a row, and when he finally texted back-Can't talk right now, what's wrong?-you didn't know how to explain that everything was wrong, that you couldn't breathe, that the walls were closing in and he was the only one who'd ever been able to push them back.
Nothing, you typed. Just wanted to hear your voice.
He left it on read.
***
You started watching everything.
Fancams. Lives. Variety shows. Any content where you could see his face, hear his voice, pretend for a moment that you were still part of his world. You learned the other members' names. Learned their jokes, their dynamics, the way Changbin laughed when someone said something stupid.
You watched him on a live broadcast once, sitting between two other members, relaxed and loud and alive. Someone in the chat asked what he did when he was stressed, and he grinned.
"I write," he said. "Always have. Music's the only thing that keeps me sane."
You remembered nights in the practice room, both of you too exhausted to stand, him handing you earbuds and saying, Listen to this. Tell me if it's trash.
You remembered being the first person to hear every song he ever wrote.
You closed the video and didn't open another for a week.
***
The messages you sent changed after that.
Not desperate-not yet. Just... smaller. Quieter. Easier to ignore.
Saw your performance. You were amazing.
Read. 3 hours later.
Thinking of you. Hope practice is going well.
Delivered.
I miss you.
Read.
No reply.
You told yourself he was busy. Told yourself he was becoming something huge, something important, and that you were still part of it even if you couldn't see it. Told yourself that love didn't disappear just because someone stopped saying it out loud.
At 3 AM, alone in your bed, you told yourself a lot of things.
***
The first time you saw him tagged in a photo with someone else, your chest went hollow.
Not a girl-nothing like that. Just another idol. Someone from another group, laughing with him at some award show afterparty, their shoulders touching, their faces bright with the kind of happiness you used to be the reason for.
The caption read: Best hyung I could ask for 💕
You stared at the photo for twenty minutes.
Zoomed in on his face. His smile. The way his eyes crinkled exactly the way they used to when he looked at you.
He looked happy.
He looked like he didn't need you at all.
***
You didn't text him that night.
Or the next night.
Or the night after that.
You told yourself you were giving him space. Giving yourself space. Letting the silence settle so you could figure out what was left when it did.
On the fourth night, he texted you.
You okay? Been quiet.
You stared at the message.
Typed: Yeah. Just tired.
Deleted it.
Typed: I saw the photo. You looked happy.
Deleted it.
Typed: Do you ever think about me anymore?
Deleted it.
Finally: I'm okay. Just miss you.
He replied immediately: Miss you too. Talk soon?
Sure.
You waited.
He didn't call.
***
The night it really broke-the night the silence finally swallowed you whole-you were sitting in the dark.
Not crying. Just sitting. Staring at the wall. Feeling the weight of the apartment press down on your chest until breathing felt like a choice you kept making for no reason.
Your phone was in your hand.
You'd been scrolling for hours. Watching him. Watching them. Watching a life you used to be part of unfold in real time without you.
He'd posted a story an hour ago. Behind the scenes at a photoshoot. Him laughing with the stylist, someone fixing his hair, his eyes bright and focused and there in a way they hadn't been with you in months.
You watched it twelve times.
Then you typed a message.
Changbin. I don't feel good.
Delivered.
You waited.
Ten minutes. Twenty. An hour.
Delivered. Never read.
You sent another.
I know you're busy. I just need to hear your voice. Five minutes. Please.
Delivered.
Another.
I'm scared. I'm always scared now. And I don't know how to make it stop without you.
Delivered.
Another.
Please.
Delivered.
At 4 AM, you stopped waiting.
You curled up on the bathroom floor, phone clutched to your chest, and let the silence win.
***
In the morning, there was a notification.
Not a call. Not a message.
Just a story.
Him, backstage somewhere, hood up, coffee in hand, smiling at whoever was behind the camera. The caption read: Good morning 💪
You stared at it.
Stared at the space where your messages sat, still marked Delivered, still unanswered, still screaming into a void he couldn't hear anymore.
And you realized, with a clarity that felt like dying:
He wasn't ignoring you.
He just didn't need you anymore.
***
The guilt didn't hit Changbin all at once.
It arrived in fragments. Small things. A lyric he couldn't finish because the melody sounded like your laugh. The way someone's hoodie in the practice room reminded him of the one you'd stolen from him years ago. A late-night craving for the cheap ramyun you used to share between practices, back when surviving meant splitting a pack because neither of you had money for two.
Three months into his world exploding-three months of music shows, fan meetings, recording sessions that stretched until dawn-he finally had a night off.
No schedule. No cameras. No demands.
Just silence.
He sat on the edge of his bed in the dorm, staring at his phone. The group chat was active-Hyunjin posting dumb selfies, Felix sending voice messages in that too-soft Australian accent, Chan trying to wrangle everyone for a movie night.
Changbin scrolled past it.
Opened his messages with you.
The last text was from him. Missed you last night. Hope you're okay. Let me know when you're free?
Three weeks ago.
No reply.
He scrolled up. Read the conversation backward-watched his replies get shorter, his response times get longer, his words become efficient instead of real. Watched your messages shift from excited updates to quiet check-ins to something smaller. Something fading.
I miss you.
Delivered.
Watched your performance today. You looked happy.
Read. 2:47 AM.
Do you ever think about what it would be like if I was there with you?
No response.
He remembered getting that one. Remembered staring at it during a break, thumbs hovering, wanting to type something true-I think about it all the time, it hurts, I wish you were here, I wish you were everywhere-but then someone called his name and the moment passed and he told himself he'd reply later.
Later never came.
***
"Shit."
The word fell out of him like a stone.
He hit the call button without thinking. Pressed the phone to his ear. Listened to it ring once, twice, three times-
The person you are calling is not available.
He frowned. Tried again.
The person you are calling is not available.
A cold knot tightened in his stomach. He switched to KakaoTalk. Video call.
User not found.
His thumb pressed harder against the screen, as if pressure could force a connection that wasn't there anymore.
***
He called Jeongin first.
Not because they were close-because Jeongin was young, still had connections to trainees who hadn't debuted yet, might have heard something.
"Hyung?" Jeongin's voice was sleepy. "It's 2 AM."
"Y/N," Changbin said. "Have you talked to them lately?"
A pause. "Uh... no? Not since training days. Why?"
"Just-" Changbin ran a hand through his hair. "Never mind. Go back to sleep."
He called Chan next.
Chan, who always knew everything. Chan, who'd trained beside both of them, who'd seen the way Changbin used to look at you across the practice room, who'd pulled him aside once and said "Don't lose that one, she's special."
"Bin?" Chan's voice was alert immediately-leader instincts kicking in. "What's wrong?"
"Y/N. When's the last time you talked to them?"
The silence on the other end lasted too long.
"I... honestly? Not since debut prep. I assumed you were keeping in touch."
Changbin's jaw tightened. "I was. I mean-I thought I was." He stood up, started pacing. "Their number's disconnected. Kakao's dead. I can't find them anywhere."
"Have you tried calling their family?"
Changbin thought about it. Realized he didn't even know if you had family you talked to. Realized there were gaps in what he knew about you-gaps he'd always assumed he'd have time to fill later.
"No," he said quietly.
"I'll ask around," Chan said. "See if anyone's heard anything. Bin-" A pause. "Don't spiral. Okay? There's probably an explanation."
But Chan's voice didn't sound convinced.
***
The next three days, Changbin became a ghost in his own life.
He showed up to schedules. Smiled when cameras pointed at him. Rapped lyrics about ambition and dreams while his brain screamed a different song entirely.
At night, he searched.
Scrolled through old training photos, looking for tags of you. Found nothing-your social media had gone dark months ago. Sent DMs to every mutual acquaintance he could think of.
Hey, weird question-have you talked to Y/N recently?
The replies blurred together.
Oh wow, not since trainee days!
I thought they were with you guys?
Wait, I haven't seen them around. Are they okay?
He didn't know.
He didn't know.
***
On the fourth night, he found something.
A comment on an old video-one of those "pre-delete trainees" compilations fans made. Someone had tagged a username he didn't recognize, asking "Isn't this you?"
He clicked it.
A private account. No posts. Profile picture: a silhouette against a window.
He sent a message anyway.
Hey. It's Changbin. I don't know if this is you. I don't know if you'll see this. But I've been looking for you. Please-just tell me you're okay.
He waited.
An hour.
A day.
Two days.
Nothing.
***
The night he finally broke, he was in the studio.
Alone. 3 AM. A beat looping on the speakers that he couldn't write over because every word he tried to put down sounded like an apology.
He thought about the last time he'd really seen you.
Not on a screen. Not in a text. In person.
Months ago. That night he'd shown up at your apartment, slammed the door open, pulled you into his arms and promised-promised-he'd never let the silence win.
He thought about how quickly he'd broken that promise without even noticing.
He thought about your face when you'd asked "Do you ever think about what it would be like if I was there with you?"
He thought about not answering.
He thought about you reading that silence.
He thought about what silence did to you-what it had always done to you-and how he'd known, he'd known, and he'd still let himself become part of it.
His hand pressed against his chest. Right where it hurt.
***
At 4 AM, he called your number again.
Just to hear it.
The person you are calling is not available.
He called again.
The person you are calling is not available.
Again.
The person you are-
He threw the phone.
It hit the wall, cracked the screen, clattered to the floor.
The studio went quiet.
Changbin sat in the dark, head in his hands, breathing too fast, thinking about how you used to do that for him-ground him when the panic got too loud-and now he didn't even know if you were alive to ground yourself.
He thought about the last message you'd ever sent him.
Hey. Coffee still an option?
He hadn't even asked who it was for.
***
The next morning, Chan found him still in the studio. Screen cracked. Eyes red. A beat looping that sounded like grief.
"Bin."
No response.
Chan sat down beside him. Didn't speak. Just stayed.
After a long time, Changbin's voice came out raw and broken.
"I told them I'd be their noise."
Chan waited.
"I told them I'd call every day. Every night. I told them I'd make sure they never felt alone again."
His hands shook.
"I don't even know if they're breathing, Chan."
Chan's hand landed on his shoulder. Steady. Solid.
"Then we find out," he said quietly. "Together. However long it takes."
Changbin looked at him.
For the first time in months, he looked like someone who'd just realized the most important thing in the world wasn't the one he'd been chasing.
It was the one he'd left behind.
***
Changbin didn't tell anyone where he was going.
He left the dorm at 3 AM, didn't pack a bag, didn't leave a note. His phone buzzed continuously in his pocket-Chan's calls, Felix's worried texts, the group chat exploding-but he couldn't hear any of it.
All he could hear was your voice.
Do you ever think about what it would be like if I was there with you?
He'd read that message and told himself he'd reply later.
Later never came.
***
The taxi ride to your neighborhood took two hours.
He spent every minute staring out the window, watching Seoul blur past, thinking about the last time he'd made this trip. That night he'd burst through your door, spun you around, promised you the world.
He thought about how easy that promise had been to make.
How easy it had been to break.
***
The street was too quiet.
That was the first thing he noticed when the taxi pulled away. The kind of quiet that felt wrong-pressed down on your ears like you were underwater. No kids playing. No music from open windows. Just the hum of a streetlight and the distant sound of a dog barking somewhere blocks away.
Changbin stood outside your building, heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.
He'd been here dozens of times. Hundreds. He knew the crack in the third step, the way the elevator smelled like kimchi on Tuesdays, the sound your door made when you unlocked it-that small click that meant he was home.
Now it all felt. Foreign. Like a place he'd only read about in books.
He walked up the stairs because the elevator would take too long. His legs moved without permission, carrying him toward something he wasn't ready to find.
***
The fourth floor.
His feet stopped.
There, on your door, was a small black ribbon.
Silk. Tied in a neat bow. The kind they put on doors when-
"No."
The word fell out of him like a stone.
He stood there staring at it. The ribbon was fresh-someone had been here recently. Someone had cared enough to mark the door, to tell the world that someone who lived here was never coming back.
But not him.
He hadn't cared enough.
He hadn't cared until it was too late.
***
He didn't knock.
Changbin stood frozen, staring at the silk bow.
His hand reached out, trembling fingers brushing against the fabric. It was soft. Delicate. The kind of ribbon you'd tie on a gift-except this wasn't a gift. This was a goodbye.
He should kick the door down. He should break in, find you, prove the ribbon was some kind of mistake-
But his feet wouldn't move.
Instead, they turned. Toward the neighboring door. Toward the sliver of light spilling from 4B, where an elderly woman stood watching him through the crack.
She opened the door before he could knock.
"You're looking for the one who lived there," she said. Not a question.
Changbin nodded. His voice didn't work.
The woman-grey hair, tired eyes, a house dress that had seen better decades-pulled her shawl tighter. She looked at him the way people look at funerals: with pity, and the desperate hope that they're just passing through.
"When did you last see them?" she asked.
"A few months ago." His voice came out wrong. "I-we-I've been busy. I thought they were-"
"Busy." She repeated the word like it tasted bad.
Then she told him.
About the smell, first. How it started seeping through the vents about a month ago. How the other neighbors complained, thinking it was a dead animal, a plumbing issue, something fixable.
How she knew it wasn't.
"I've smelled death before," she said quietly. "You don't forget it."
Changbin's stomach turned.
"The police came after three days," she continued. "The smell was too strong to ignore. The building manager had to let them in."
She paused. Looked past him, at your door, at the ribbon.
"They found them in the bedroom."
Changbin's lungs stopped working.
"The... the doctors said it must have been weeks. Maybe longer. The body was..." She shook her head, like she was trying to shake the image out. "They say she used the silk curtians... They said the decomposition was advanced. The heat in the apartment... it speeds things up."
Decomposition.
The word hit him like a physical blow.
"The worst part," the woman continued, her voice softening, "was the phone. It was on the floor, right underneath them. The screen was still lit. Like they'd been holding it when they..."
She didn't finish.
She didn't have to.
Changbin saw it: you, standing on something-a chair, the bed-phone in hand, scrolling through old messages one last time. Looking for something. Hoping for something. Waiting until the very last second for a notification that never came.
Then letting go.
The phone falling.
The screen staying lit, displaying a conversation that ended not with a goodbye, but with silence.
"She kept to herself, that one," the neighbor said. "But she seemed kind. Sad, but kind. I used to hear her humming sometimes, through the walls. Pretty songs. Then one day... the humming stopped."
Changbin pressed his palm against the wall, right where your bedroom would be.
Right where you'd stopped humming.
"Thank you," he whispered.
The woman nodded once. "I hope you find what you're looking for."
She closed the door.
Changbin stood in the hallway for a long moment, the silence pressing in, the image of your final seconds burned into his brain.
Then he turned back to your door.
And he kicked it down. The wood splintered, the frame cracked, and suddenly he was inside your apartment and the silence hit him like a physical force.
It was empty.
Not just quiet-empty. The furniture was gone. The pictures were gone. The blankets you used to wrap yourself in, the books you stacked on the coffee table, the stupid little plants you kept killing and replacing-all gone.
Just walls. Just floors. Just the echo of his own breathing.
He walked through the living room like a ghost.
The kitchen counters were bare. He remembered you sitting on them while he cooked, legs swinging, telling him about your day. He remembered burning garlic and you laughing-laughing-and how he'd pretended to be annoyed just to hear that sound again.
The sound was gone now.
Everything was gone.
***
The bedroom door was closed.
Changbin stood in front of it for a long time. His hand hovered over the handle. His chest felt like someone had filled it with cement.
He knew before he opened it.
Some part of him had known since the moment he saw that ribbon.
But he opened it anyway.
***
The room was stripped bare.
No bed. No dresser. No mirror. Just empty walls and bare floors and the smell of industrial cleaner trying desperately to cover something else. Something underneath. Something that would never wash away.
And then he saw the floorboards.
Near the center of the room, the wood was darker. A stain that had soaked too deep to scrub out. It wasn't large-maybe the size of a person curled up-but it was unmistakable.
Changbin's knees hit the floor before his brain registered moving.
He reached out with one hand, trembling fingers hovering over the dark wood. He didn't touch it. Couldn't. Because touching it would make it real, and if it was real then you were really-
A sound came out of him.
Not a word. Not a scream. Something between. Something that didn't belong to any language.
***
He found the envelope on the windowsill.
White. Unmarked. Propped against the glass like it had been waiting for someone to find it.
His name was on the front.
Changbin.
Your handwriting. Slightly shaky, like your hand hadn't been steady when you wrote it. Like you'd been crying, or tired, or both.
He opened it with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
***
Changbin,
If you're reading this, it means I finally stopped waiting.
I don't say that to hurt you. I don't say it to make you feel guilty. I say it because it's the truth, and I think you deserve the truth, even if it's ugly.
You were my noise. You were the thing that kept the silence away. When you were here-really here, present, mine-I could breathe. The world made sense. The dark didn't feel so dark.
But somewhere along the way, you became someone else's noise.
And I don't blame you for that. I really don't. You're supposed to be loud. You're supposed to be heard. The world was always going to notice you eventually. I just... I thought I'd still be there when they did.
I thought I'd still matter.
The worst part isn't the distance. It's not the unanswered texts or the calls that never came. It's not even watching you become everything you always wanted to be without me.
The worst part is knowing I was the one who taught you how to be loud enough to leave me behind.
Every song you write-I hear myself in it. Every time you breathe before a verse, I remember teaching you how. Every time you step on stage and the crowd screams your name, I remember the nights you screamed mine in empty practice rooms, telling me I was the only one who believed in you.
I was wrong.
Everyone believes in you now. Everyone loves you now. And I'm just... I'm just the person who used to know you before.
I can't be that person anymore, Changbin. I can't be the memory you visit when you're lonely. I can't be the "before" while you live in the "after."
So I'm letting go.
Not because I don't love you-god, I love you so much it's destroying me. But because loving you from here, like this, is worse than not loving you at all.
Please don't blame yourself. Please don't carry this. You have too much to carry already. Just... live. Be loud. Be happy. Be everything you were always meant to be.
I'll be watching from somewhere quiet.
And for what it's worth-
I'm glad you're doing well. Truly.
I hope the noise never stops for you.
Y/N
***
The letter crumpled in his fist.
Then smoothed out again.
Then crumpled again.
Changbin couldn't decide whether to hold it close or tear it apart, whether to keep it forever or burn it so he'd never have to read those words again.
I was the one who taught you how to be loud enough to leave me behind.
He read it again.
And again.
And again.
Each time, new words carved themselves into his chest.
I was the one who taught you how to be loud enough to leave me behind.
I'm just the person who used to know you before.
I'll be watching from somewhere quiet.
He scrolled through his phone, pulling up your old messages. Reading them in order-watching himself disappear from your life in slow motion.
Your excitement when he debuted: I'm so proud of you. You were always meant for this.
His reply, three days later: Thanks.
Your check-ins: How's the new song coming?
His reply, a week later: Good.
Your smaller messages, the ones that got quieter over time: Miss you. Hope you're okay.
No reply.
Your smallest message, the one that broke him: Do you ever think about what it would be like if I was there with you?
He'd read that one. He remembered reading it. Remembered thinking I'll reply later, and then getting pulled into practice, into schedules, into a life that didn't leave room for later.
Later never came.
But you did.
You came every day. You sent messages into the void. You waited by a phone that never rang, hoping he'd remember you, hoping he'd come back, hoping the promises he'd made meant something.
And when you finally stopped hoping-
He found your old texts. The ones from years ago. From training days, when you were both nobodies with nothing but dreams and each other.
I'm scared I won't make it, you'd written once.
His reply had been immediate: Then I'll make it for both of us. And I'm taking you with me. That's not a promise, that's a fact. Deal with it.
Another message, from a night you couldn't sleep: What if you forget me when you're famous?
His reply: Forget you? You're stuck with me forever. I don't care how famous I get-you're the only one who knows me. The real me. I'm not going anywhere.
He read those words now.
His own words.
I'm not going anywhere.
"Liar."
The word came out choked, wet.
"Fucking liar."
He threw the phone. It hit the wall, cracked, fell to the floor-right where yours had fallen. Right where you'd dropped yours when you couldn't hold on anymore.
He crawled to it. Picked it up. Read your final message to him again.
I hope the noise never stops for you.
"You were my noise," he whispered to the empty room. "You were the only noise that mattered. And I-"
He couldn't finish.
Because there was no finishing. There was no fixing. There was no bringing you back.
There was only this: a cracked phone, a stained floor, and a lifetime of messages he'd keep sending to a girl who'd never read them.
"I'm not going anywhere," he repeated, your words or his, he didn't know anymore.
"I'm here. I'm here. I'll stay here forever if I have to. Just-"
He looked at the ceiling, at the empty space where you'd taken your last breath.
"Just come back."
The apartment didn't answer.
It never would again.
He pressed his forehead to the floor. Right where the stain was. Right where you had-
No. He couldn't think it. Couldn't let the image form.
But it formed anyway.
You, alone. In the dark. Silk in your hands. Standing on something-a chair, maybe-looking at the empty room, the silent phone, the life that had become waiting and nothing else.
You, deciding that waiting wasn't worth it anymore.
You, stepping off.
You, alone, for weeks, while he was on stage. While he was laughing. While he was living the life you'd helped him build.
Every song you write, I hear myself in it.
He screamed into the floor.
It wasn't a word. It wasn't even a sound. It was just grief, raw and animal, pouring out of him like blood from a wound that would never close.
***
He didn't know how long he stayed there.
Hours, maybe. The light through the windows shifted, dimmed, disappeared. He lay on the floor where you'd died, clutching your letter, sending texts into the void.
I'm here. I'm at your apartment. I'm sorry.
Delivered.
I read your letter. I read every word. I'm so sorry.
Delivered.
I love you. I never said it enough. I never said it at all. But I love you. I loved you then and I love you now and I'll love you forever in this empty room where you waited for me.
Delivered.
He watched the screen.
No "Read" receipt.
No three dots.
Just blue bubbles floating in digital space, messages to a phone that would never light up again.
***
At some point, Chan found him.
He didn't know how, maybe tracked his phone, maybe guessed, maybe just knew because that's what leaders did. Chan stood in the doorway of your empty bedroom, taking in the scene: Changbin curled on the floor, the stained wood, the crumpled letter, the cracked phone still sending messages.
"Bin."
No response.
Chan walked slowly, carefully, like he was approaching something wounded. He sat down on the floor beside Changbin. Didn't touch him. Didn't speak. Just stayed.
After a long time, Changbin's voice came out broken.
"I told them I'd be their noise."
Chan waited.
"I told them I'd call every day. Every night. I told them they'd never be alone again."
His body shook.
"I wasn't there. I wasn't there, Chan. They were here...here...alone, in the dark, and I wasn't there. I was on stage. I was smiling. I was living the life they helped me build and I didn't even- I didn't even-"
He couldn't finish.
Chan's hand landed on his shoulder. Gentle. Solid. The kind of touch that said I'm here without promising anything else.
"You didn't know," Chan said quietly.
"I should have."
"You couldn't have-"
"I SHOULD HAVE."
The scream echoed off the empty walls.
Changbin sat up, eyes wild, chest heaving. "I saw their messages, Chan. I saw them. 'I miss you.' 'Do you ever think about me?' 'I don't feel good.' I saw every single one and I told myself I'd reply later. I told myself they'd wait. I told myself they'd always be there because they'd always been there before."
His voice cracked.
"I banked on their love like it was infinite. Like it didn't need to be fed. Like they could survive on memories while I gave everything I had to everyone else."
He looked at the stain on the floor.
"They couldn't."
***
Chan didn't leave.
He stayed through the night. Listened to Changbin talk about you, the training days, the shared ramyun, the way you used to hum while you worked, the sound of your laugh, the weight of your head on his shoulder. He listened to Changbin describe the last real conversation you'd had, the promises he'd made, the way he'd broken them without even noticing.
He listened to Changbin read your letter out loud.
And when Changbin finally ran out of words, when his voice gave out and his eyes went empty, Chan just sat there.
Because sometimes there's nothing to say.
Sometimes the only thing you can do is stay in the dark with someone who's lost their light.
***
The sun came up eventually.
Changbin didn't move.
He was still holding your letter. Still staring at the floor. Still sending texts to a dead girl's phone.
I'm still here.
Delivered.
I'm not leaving.
Delivered.
I'll wait here forever if I have to.
Delivered.
He knew you'd never read them.
But he also knew he'd never stop sending them.
Because this was his silence now.
This empty room. This stained floor. This phone full of messages that would never be answered.
synopsis: you build a life too young and watch it fall apart just as you start finding yourself. as you navigate single motherhood and a demanding new career, someone unexpected becomes a steady presence, while the man you never stopped loving learns what it truly means to lose you.
You were eighteen when the world tilted on its axis, when a thin plastic stick rewrote the rest of your life in two unforgiving lines.
You remember the bathroom being too quiet. The hum of the vent sounded louder than your own breathing, like it was mocking you for standing there frozen, test in hand, heart pounding so hard you thought you might throw up. Your reflection looked the same, the same tired eyes, same messy hair pulled into a bun but you knew, deep in your chest, that nothing would ever be the same again.
You sat down on the cold tile floor, your back against the bathtub, and stared at the test like it might change its mind if you waited long enough.
It didn’t. You cried then. Not loud or dramatic sobs just silent tears slipping down your cheeks, one after another, soaking into the oversized hoodie you’d stolen from Hyunjin months ago. You loved him. He was gentle, attentive, the kind of boy who listened when you talked and remembered the little things. But love didn’t magically make you ready for this. Love didn’t suddenly turn you into an adult with a plan.
You were eighteen. You were supposed to be thinking about college, friends, what kind of person you wanted to become, not how to tell your boyfriend you were pregnant.
When you finally told him, your hands were shaking so badly you had to clasp them together in your lap. You sat across from him on his bed, knees pulled to your chest, watching his face as you spoke.
“I’m pregnant.”
The words landed heavy between you. Hyunjin didn’t say anything at first. His mouth opened slightly, then closed. His brows pulled together, confusion giving way to shock, then something like fear. You hated that you were the one who put that look there.
“Are you… are you sure?” he asked quietly.
You nodded, biting the inside of your cheek. “I took three tests.”
He leaned back against the headboard, running a hand through his hair. He looked young then. Younger than he’d ever looked before. Just a boy pretending to be a man, just like you were pretending to be okay.
You waited for him to say something.. anything. Anger, reassurance, panic. But all he did was sit there, staring at the wall, jaw tight.
“I love you,” you said quickly, the words tumbling out in desperation. “I’m not trying to trap you or anything, I just—I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to tell anyone else before you.”
He finally looked at you then, eyes dark and unreadable. “I know,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t do that.”
There was comfort in that, at least. He trusted you but trust didn’t mean certainty. The weeks that followed were a blur of whispered conversations, sleepless nights, and growing dread.
Telling your parents was worse than you imagined. Your mother cried. Your father went quiet in that terrifying way that meant disappointment ran deeper than anger.
“You’re a child,” your mother said, her voice shaking. “How could you be so careless?”
You had no answer that would make it better.
They told you your options in voices that pretended to be gentle but carried the weight of finality. You could keep the baby, but only if you did things “the right way.” That meant stability. That meant marriage.
“You can’t raise a child alone at your age,” your father said. “And we’re not doing this halfway.”
You didn’t know whether you wanted to scream or disappear.
Hyunjin’s parents reacted differently, but the message was the same. His mother was stern, lips pressed into a thin line as she looked at him like he’d failed some invisible test.
“You’re responsible for this,” she told him. “So you will step up.”
He nodded, shoulders tense, saying all the right things. He said he’d take responsibility. He said he cared about you. He said he’d do whatever it took but late at night, when it was just the two of you, lying side by side in the dark, you felt the distance in the silence. You felt the questions he didn’t ask, the doubts he didn’t voice.
“Do you want this?” you asked him once, your voice barely above a whisper.
He turned his head to look at you, his face soft in the dim light. “I want you,” he said honestly. “I just… I didn’t think it would happen like this.”
Neither did you. You got married when you were nineteen, five months pregnant, your belly no longer something you could hide with baggy clothes and excuses. The ceremony was small, rushed, more practical than romantic. You wore a simple dress that had to be altered twice to accommodate your growing body. Hyunjin wore a suit that didn’t quite fit right, his tie crooked because his hands were shaking.
When you said your vows, your voice wavered. You meant the words but they felt heavier than they should have. Promises about forever felt terrifying when you’d barely figured out who you were.
After the wedding, you moved in together almost immediately. The apartment wasn’t big, but it was clean and new and yours. Hyunjin insisted you choose everything. The couch, the curtains, the color of the walls.
“What do you like?” he asked, holding up paint samples, smiling at you like this was some normal, happy beginning.
You chose soft colors. Calm ones. Like you were trying to convince yourself this life wouldn’t swallow you whole.
When it came to the nursery, he went all out. He built the crib himself, spending hours sanding the wood until his hands were sore because he said he wanted it to be perfect. He let you pick the theme, the stuffed animals, the tiny clothes you folded with trembling hands.
“This one’s cute,” he said once, holding up a tiny pair of socks. “She’s going to be so small.”
You froze. “She?”
He smiled softly. “I don’t know. Just feels right.”
Something in your chest cracked open then.
Pregnancy was hard. Your body didn’t feel like your own anymore. You were tired all the time, nauseous, emotional in ways you couldn’t control but Hyunjin was there for everything. He learned your cravings, rubbed your back when you were sick, held you when you cried for reasons you couldn’t explain.
He talked to your belly when he thought you were asleep. He’d press his hand there, murmuring nonsense, telling her about the world like she could already understand him.
“I’m going to protect you,” he whispered once. “Both of you.”
You believed him.
When Aerin was born, everything else faded into the background. The fear, the resentment, the what ifs, they all shrank in the face of her tiny fingers wrapping around yours. Hyunjin cried when he held her for the first time, tears streaming down his face as he laughed softly, like he couldn’t believe she was real.
“She’s perfect,” he said, voice breaking. “You did so good.”
Those first years were exhausting but full. Hyunjin took time off work, learned how to change diapers, how to warm bottles just right. He was protective to a fault, reminding everyone to wash their hands, hovering whenever someone held her too close.
You watched him become a father, watched the way he softened around her, the way his entire world seemed to revolve around the two of you. You told yourself this was enough. That love could grow into something steady, something lasting.
And for a while, it did but time moved forward, whether you were ready or not.
Aerin grew from a baby into a toddler, then into a little girl with opinions and endless questions. She started preschool, her backpack almost too big for her small frame, waving at you excitedly every morning as she ran toward her classroom.
And suddenly, your days were too quiet.
You cleaned the apartment that was already clean. You cooked meals hours before Hyunjin got home. You scrolled on your phone, watching people your age live lives that felt impossibly distant. College campuses. Study groups. Late night coffee runs. Laughing with friends, free and unburdened. You loved Aerin more than anything. You didn’t regret her. But sometimes, standing alone in the grocery store, you felt something sharp twist in your chest.
Girls your age passed by you, giggling, throwing makeup into their carts, talking about parties and plans. You pushed your cart slowly, Aerin sitting in the seat, pointing at toys she wanted, her voice bright and innocent.
“Mommy, look!”
You smiled for her. Always for her but inside, you mourned a version of yourself that never got the chance to exist.
That’s when the idea started forming, quiet at first, like a guilty thought you tried to push away. School. Doing something that was just yours.
When you brought it up to Hyunjin, you tried to sound casual. Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like your heart wasn’t racing.
“I was thinking,” you said one evening, setting plates on the table. “Now that Aerin’s in school… maybe I could go back too. Take some classes.”
He barely looked up from his phone. “Why?”
The word stung more than it should have.
“I just—” you hesitated. “I want to do something. For me.”
He finally looked at you then, expression firm. “You don’t need to.”
You swallowed. “I know we’re okay financially. This isn’t about that.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “I make enough for all of us. I want you to focus on Aerin.”
“I can do both,” you insisted, your voice trembling. “She’s in school most of the day. I’m home alone.”
He shook his head. “No.”
The finality in his tone made your stomach drop.
“I don’t want to have this conversation again,” he said, standing up. He leaned down, kissed your forehead like a peace offering, like that was supposed to smooth everything over. “I’ll take care of everything. You trust me, right?”
You nodded, because that was easier than fighting. Because he was already grabbing his keys, already late, already gone.
But something inside you didn’t settle.
That night, after Aerin was asleep and Hyunjin was snoring softly beside you, you lay awake staring at the ceiling. Your mind buzzed with possibilities, fears, excitement you hadn’t felt in years. You picked up your phone and searched anyway. Programs. Class schedules. Opportunities. Nursing catches your eye.
Your heart raced as you read, imagining a future that wasn’t confined to the walls of your apartment. You felt guilty. You felt selfish. You felt alive. And for the first time in a long time, you didn’t know which feeling scared you more.
You tell yourself it’s harmless at first.
Just looking. Just reading. Just imagining.
It becomes a routine you don’t admit out loud. After Aerin goes to bed, after the dishes are done and the apartment is quiet again, you curl onto your side of the bed with your phone turned low, brightness dimmed like you’re hiding something shameful. You scroll through program requirements, application deadlines, testimonials from students who look like they have their whole lives ahead of them.
You imagine yourself in scrubs. You imagine studying late, tired but fulfilled. You imagine being more than just someone’s wife, someone’s mother. And then guilt crashes over you like cold water.
Because Hyunjin works hard. Because he provides. Because he’s never once made you feel unloved or unsafe. Because he stepped up when everything went wrong.
So why does it feel like you’re suffocating?
The days blur together. You wake Aerin up, pack her lunch, braid her hair. You smile at other parents at drop off, all of them older than you, all of them looking at you like you belong here like this is exactly where you’re supposed to be.
At home, the silence waits for you.
You try filling it. You reorganize closets. You redecorate the living room twice. You bake things you don’t even want to eat. Nothing sticks. Nothing quiets the restless buzzing in your chest.
When Hyunjin comes home, you’re careful. You’re softer than usual, quieter. You laugh at his jokes, ask about his day, listen as he talks about work stress and promotions and plans. You nod along, supportive, grateful. You don’t bring up school again but the resentment doesn’t disappear just because you don’t name it.
It seeps in slowly. In the way you flinch when he says, “You don’t have to worry about that.” In the way your jaw tightens when he hands you money instead of asking if you want to go with him. In the way he talks about your life like it’s already decided.
One afternoon, you sit on a bench outside Aerin’s preschool, watching kids spill out of the building, laughter echoing in the air. A girl from your graduating class walks past you with a group of friends, textbooks tucked under her arm, complaining about exams and dorm food.
She looks older. Confident and free. She doesn’t recognize you. You don’t know whether that hurts or helps.
That night, you apply. Your finger hovers over the screen for a long time before you press submit. Your heart pounds so loudly you swear Hyunjin will hear it from the living room. When the confirmation email comes through, your hands start shaking. You’ve never done something this big without asking him first.
You tell yourself you’ll explain later. That once he sees how serious you are, how important this is to you, he’ll understand. That love means compromise. That marriage isn’t ownership but deep down, you already know it won’t be that simple.
The acceptance email comes two weeks later.
You read it three times, pressing a hand to your mouth to keep from crying out loud. Your chest feels too tight, too full. Excitement and fear coil together until you can’t tell them apart.
You don’t tell him right away. You wait for the right moment or what you convince yourself will be the right moment. You wait for a good day. A calm evening. A time when he isn’t stressed or tired or distracted. That moment never comes.
Instead, he finds out by accident.
He comes home early one afternoon, earlier than usual, and you don’t hear the door open over the sound of Aerin’s cartoon. Your laptop is open on the kitchen table, emails pulled up, course schedules glowing on the screen.
“What’s this?”
His voice is calm.
You freeze, your stomach dropping like you’ve missed a step going downstairs. You turn slowly, your heart already racing.
“I—” Your mouth goes dry. “I was going to tell you.”
He looks between you and the screen, jaw tightening. “You applied?”
You nod, throat burning. “I got accepted.”
Silence stretches between you, thick and suffocating. Aerin laughs from the living room, unaware, blissfully safe in her little world.
“You went behind my back,” he says finally.
The words hurt more than if he’d yelled.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” you say quickly. “I just needed to do this. I need something that’s mine.”
“I told you no.” His voice hardens. “I was clear.”
“And I told you I wasn’t asking for permission,” you snap before you can stop yourself. The words hang in the air, sharp and dangerous.
His eyes darken. “Then what were you doing?”
You feel tears prick at your eyes, but you force yourself to keep going. “I’m not just a mom. I’m not just your wife. I’m still me.”
He runs a hand through his hair, pacing once across the kitchen. “Do you have any idea how this looks? How this feels?”
“How it feels?” you repeat bitterly. “You make decisions for all of us without asking me how it feels.”
“That’s not fair,” he says. “Everything I do is for you and Aerin.”
“I know,” you whisper. “And I’m grateful. But I’m disappearing.”
That makes him stop.
He looks at you like he’s seeing you for the first time in years, really seeing you. The dark circles under your eyes. The tension in your shoulders. The way you’re clutching your hands together like you’re holding yourself upright.
“You’re not disappearing,” he says, but there’s doubt in his voice now. “You’re our family.”
“And who am I when she grows up?” you ask softly. “Who am I when she doesn’t need me every second?”
He doesn’t answer. The argument doesn’t explode. It fractures. It leaves cracks in places you didn’t know were fragile. He tells you it’s too much. Too sudden. That you should have talked to him. That you’re risking stability for something unnecessary.
You tell him you feel trapped. That you feel like your life ended at eighteen while everyone else’s kept going. Neither of you really listens.
That night, he sleeps on the couch. Aerin asks why Daddy isn’t in bed with you, and you lie through your teeth with a smile that hurts your face.
“Just a long day, baby.”
But when you’re alone in the dark, staring at the ceiling again, you realize something terrifying.
For the first time since you got married, you don’t feel like you’re on the same side anymore.
And no matter how much you love him, you’re no longer sure love alone is enough to fix what’s breaking between you.
The next morning feels wrong before you even open your eyes. The bed is too empty on his side, the sheets cold where his warmth should be. For a second, you pretend nothing happened, that you just woke up early, that he’s in the shower or already in the kitchen making coffee the way he does on weekends.
Then reality settles in your chest like a weight.
You get up quietly, padding down the hallway so you don’t wake Aerin. Hyunjin is already dressed, standing at the counter with his back to you, scrolling on his phone. There’s a mug in his hand, untouched.
“Morning,” you say carefully.
He glances at you, nods once. “Morning.”
That’s it. No kiss. No smile. No hand on your waist as he passes by. The absence of those small habits hurts more than shouting ever could.
You busy yourself with breakfast, movements automatic. You crack eggs, toast bread, pack Aerin’s lunch. Your hands know what to do even while your mind spirals. You wonder if this is how it starts, two people who used to share everything now moving around each other like strangers.
When Aerin wakes up, everything shifts. Hyunjin softens immediately, crouching down to her level, letting her climb into his arms like nothing in the world is wrong.
“Daddy!” she chirps, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he says, kissing her cheek. His voice is warm, normal. It almost makes you angry. You watch them from the kitchen, heart aching at how easily he slips back into that role. How natural fatherhood is for him. How hard it feels to exist anywhere outside of it.
The drive to preschool is quiet. Aerin hums to herself in the backseat, swinging her legs. Hyunjin keeps his eyes on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly.
You want to say something. Anything. But the words get stuck in your throat.
After drop off, he turns to you in the parking lot. “We’ll talk later,” he says. Not a question. Not a promise. Just a statement. You nod.
The rest of the day crawls. You check your email obsessively, rereading the acceptance letter like it might disappear if you look away for too long. You imagine orientation day. You imagine telling Aerin one day that her mom went back to school, that she didn’t give up on herself. Then you imagine Hyunjin’s face when you say you’re not backing out.
That night, he comes home late. Later than usual. You hear the door open, then close softly. He doesn’t call your name. You sit on the couch, hands folded in your lap, heart pounding.
He finally speaks first. “I talked to my mom.”
Your stomach twists. “About…?”
“About you going back to school.”
The way he says it, flat, controlled makes your chest tighten.
“And?” you ask.
“She thinks it’s irresponsible,” he says. “She thinks Aerin needs you home. That I work too much already.”
You laugh softly, but there’s no humor in it. “Of course she does.”
He sighs, rubbing his temples. “I’m trying to understand, okay? But you blindsided me.”
“I’ve been telling you I was unhappy,” you say quietly. “You just didn’t want to hear it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then why did you decide for me?” Your voice shakes despite your effort to stay calm. “Why did you get to say no like my life is something you own?”
That makes him look at you sharply. “I don’t own you.”
“Then why do I feel like I need permission to exist outside this apartment?”
Silence again. It’s becoming a pattern.
He sits down across from you, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. “I’m scared,” he admits finally. “I didn’t plan any of this. I didn’t plan to be married at nineteen. I didn’t plan to be responsible for a family before I figured myself out.”
Your chest tightens. “Neither did I.”
“But I did it,” he continues. “I gave up things too.”
You nod slowly. “I know and I appreciate that. But you got to replace those things with a career. With growth. I replaced mine with staying still.”
“That’s not fair,” he says again, weaker this time.
“Isn’t it?”
The question hangs between you.
He looks at you and you see something crack in his expression.
“I’m scared that if you start building a life without me,” he says quietly, “you’ll realize you don’t need me anymore.”
The honesty knocks the air out of you.
You move closer, sitting beside him. “This isn’t about leaving you,” you say softly. “It’s about not losing myself.”
He swallows hard. “And what if I lose you anyway?”
You don’t have an answer that will soothe him. You wish you did.
When he finally agrees, reluctantly, painfully it feels less like a victory and more like a fragile ceasefire. He tells you he’ll help with Aerin. That you’ll figure out schedules. That he needs time.
You tell him thank you, even though something in his tone tells you this isn’t over. That night, lying beside him again, you stare at the ceiling, heart racing with equal parts excitement and dread.
You’re stepping into something unknown. Something risky.
And deep down, you know that no matter how this turns out, your life has already started changing in difficult ways neither of you can control anymore.
—
You’re right, it is difficult. Exhausting, even. But there’s something about it that feels almost… natural, like your body and mind have been waiting for this rhythm all along.
Your first week starts months after that conversation, after schedules have been argued over and rewritten, after doubts have settled into something quieter but still present. You don’t sleep much the night before your first day. You lie awake next to Hyunjin, listening to his breathing, staring into the dark with your heart racing, not with fear, but anticipation.
Morning comes too quickly. You wake up before your alarm, before the sun is fully up. The apartment is still, wrapped in that soft silence that only exists before the world wakes. For a moment, you just lie there, staring at the ceiling, letting it sink in.
This is real. You’re really doing this.
You move carefully, slipping out of bed so you don’t wake Hyunjin. You shower quickly, dress in clothes that feel both unfamiliar and exciting simple, comfortable, but chosen for you, not just for practicality. When you look in the mirror, you barely recognize the woman staring back. She looks tired, yes, but there’s something else there too. Purpose.
You make breakfast next, moving quietly but efficiently. You pack Aerin’s lunch with the same care you always have, cutting her fruit just the way she likes, slipping a tiny note into her lunchbox like you always do. You promised yourself nothing would change for her. No rushed mornings. No chaos. She didn’t choose this, you did.
When it’s time, you wake her gently, brushing her hair back from her face. “Good morning, baby.”
She groans softly, curling closer to you. “Five more minutes.”
You smile, kissing her forehead. “We don’t have five more minutes.”
She sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes, and when she looks at you, her face brightens immediately. “Mommy.”
That single word grounds you. Hyunjin comes out while you’re eating breakfast together, hair still messy, sleeves of his shirt pushed up. He pauses when he sees you dressed, bag by the door.
“Today’s the day,” he says.
You nod, suddenly nervous all over again. “Yeah.”
He steps closer, presses a kiss to your temple. “You’ll do great.”
It’s simple and quiet but it means more than he knows.
Breakfast feels normal, Aerin chatting endlessly, Hyunjin teasing her, the three of you laughing like you always have. That comforts you more than anything. Proof that this doesn’t have to destroy what you’ve built.
You drive Aerin to preschool like always. She sings along to the radio, swinging her feet, completely unaware that your life has shifted on its axis. When you drop her off, she hugs you tight, just a little longer than usual.
“Pick me up later,” she says seriously.
“I will,” you promise. “Always.”
And then, you don’t go home like usual.
Your hands tighten on the steering wheel as you pull out of the parking lot, heart pounding as the campus comes into view. It’s bigger than you expected. Louder. Full of people who look so young it almost hurts. You park, grab your bag, and for a moment, you just sit there, breathing.
You’re terrified.
You walk into your first class feeling like an imposter. Like someone’s going to tap you on the shoulder and tell you don’t belong here, that you missed your chance, that you’re too late. But no one does. You sit down, take notes, listen, absorb. And something clicks.
Your brain wakes up in a way it hasn’t in years. You’re tired, but you’re focused. Engaged. You ask questions. You write things down like they matter because they do.
When class ends, you don’t linger. You go straight to the library, finish what you can, checking the time every few minutes. Responsibility still anchors you. Motherhood still comes first. That hasn’t changed. You pick Aerin up right on time.
The afternoons blur into a pattern after that. Dinner prep. Homework at the kitchen table, Aerin beside you with crayons and paper, narrating her drawings while you study anatomy terms. Sometimes she asks what you’re doing.
“I’m learning,” you tell her.
“Like me?” she asks.
“Just like you.”
When Hyunjin comes home, it’s always the same. The door opens. Aerin lights up. “Daddy!”
He scoops her up, kisses her cheek, then comes to you. A kiss on the lips. One on your forehead. Routine, steady, grounding.
“How was school?” he asks.
You answer honestly. “Hard. Good.”
And somehow, every day since you started school goes exactly like that. It’s tiring. You fall into bed some nights barely able to keep your eyes open. There are moments when guilt creeps in, moments when you wonder if you’re asking for too much, if balance like this can really last.
But when you sit there at the table, textbooks open, your daughter humming beside you, your husband’s presence warm and familiar behind you, you realize something quietly profound.
For the first time in years, you’re not just surviving. You’re living and you’re happy.
—
The cracks don’t show up all at once.
At first, everything holds together so neatly that you almost believe this is the version of life people talk about when they say it all works out. You’re tired, yes but it’s the good kind of tired. The earned kind. The kind that makes sleep come fast and deep.
Weeks pass. Then months.You learn how to move through your days like muscle memory. Wake up early. Coffee first.. always. Pack Aerin’s lunch. Lay out her clothes. Wake her gently. Smile even when your eyes burn from lack of sleep. Drive. Drop off. Campus. Notes. Exams. Rush back. Pick her up. Dinner. Homework. Wait for Hyunjin.
Repeat.
And most days, it really does feel easy.
Not because it is easy but because it feels right.
You start to notice changes in yourself before anyone else does. You stand a little straighter. You talk with more confidence. You catch yourself explaining something medical related to Hyunjin one night, hands moving as you speak, eyes bright, and he just watches you like he’s seeing you for the first time again.
“You like this,” he says.
You nod. “I really do.”
He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. You tell yourself not to read into it.
Midterms hit hard. You start staying up later, studying after Aerin goes to sleep, your notes blurring together as the clock creeps toward midnight. Hyunjin tells you to rest, tells you he’s got it under control, tells you not to push yourself so hard. You thank him. You keep going anyway.
Sometimes you forget small things. A permission slip. A load of laundry. A text you meant to send. Nothing catastrophic, just enough to make you feel like you’re failing at everything all at once.
One night, Aerin falls asleep on the couch waiting for Hyunjin. Her head lolls against your arm, warm and heavy, her breathing slow. Your laptop is open in front of you, unfinished notes staring back accusingly. Hyunjin comes home late.
You look up when the door opens, exhaustion flooding through you all at once. He smiles when he sees Aerin asleep on you, but there’s tension in his shoulders as he shrugs off his jacket.
“You didn’t wake her?” he asks quietly.
“She wanted to wait for you,” you say softly. “I didn’t have the heart.”
He nods, lifts her carefully, carries her to bed. You watch from the doorway, chest tight with love and guilt all tangled together.
Later, when the apartment is quiet again, he sits beside you on the couch.
“You forgot to sign her form today,” he says gently.
Your stomach drops. “I did?”
“She told her teacher you’d do it tonight.”
You close your eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I know,” he says quickly. “I’m not mad.”
But there’s something in his voice. Something restrained.
“I just worry,” he continues. “You’re doing a lot.”
“So are you,” you reply. “We both are.”
He exhales slowly, leaning back. “Yeah. We are.”
The distance doesn’t feel dramatic. It feels subtle. Like a door that isn’t fully closed but isn’t fully open either.
You start noticing how often he watches the clock when you study late. How he hesitates before asking you things. How he doesn’t talk about his own stress as much anymore.
And still every morning, he kisses your cheek and says “Good luck.”
Every night, he asks, “How was school?”
So you keep going.
Then one afternoon, something small finally tips the balance.
Your class runs late. Just twenty minutes. You text Hyunjin.
You: Running late, can you pick up Aerin?
Assuming it’ll be fine.
He doesn’t reply.
Your heart starts racing halfway through the drive. You grip the steering wheel, mentally calculating time, imagining Aerin waiting, confused, watching other kids get picked up while she looks for you or Hyunjin.
When you arrive, she’s sitting on the bench outside, feet swinging, Hyunjin beside her.
Relief hits so hard your knees feel weak.
She runs to you immediately. “Mommy!”
You drop your bag, kneel, pull her into your arms. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m here.”
Hyunjin stands behind her, arms crossed.
“You said you’d pick her up,” he says quietly.
“I know. Class went late, I texted—”
“I didn’t see it,” he replies. “I had to leave work early.”
Guilt floods you instantly. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
He nods, jaw tight. “We can’t keep doing this.”
Your chest tightens. “Doing what?”
“Pretending nothing’s changing,” he says. “Because it is.”
The drive home is silent.
That night, after Aerin is asleep, the conversation you’ve been avoiding finally happens.
“I feel like I’m losing you,” he admits, voice low. “Like there’s this whole world you’re building, and I’m standing outside of it.”
You sit across from him, hands wrapped around a mug gone cold. “I’m still here.”
“I know you are physically,” he says. “But you’re always tired. Always studying. Always somewhere else.”
You swallow hard. “I warned you this wouldn’t be easy.”
“I thought I was prepared,” he says honestly. “I wasn’t.”
Silence stretches between you again but this time, it’s heavier.
You think about the girl you were at eighteen.
You think about the woman you are now. Growing. Reaching. Refusing to disappear.
“I don’t want to choose,” you say quietly. “I don’t want this to be you or me.”
He looks at you for a long time. Then he nods slowly.
“Neither do I,” he says. “But something has to give.”
That night, you lie awake again but this time, the fear feels different.
Because for the first time, you realize that growth doesn’t just change you. It tests everything you grew from.
-
You really do believe things are getting better.
You start talking more. You stop swallowing things just to keep the peace. When you’re tired, you say it out loud instead of pretending you’re fine. When school overwhelms you, you tell Hyunjin instead of hiding behind a smile. You really try to bridge whatever invisible gap has opened between you but he doesn’t meet you halfway.
At first, you tell yourself it’s normal. He’s stressed. He works long hours. Maybe he just needs time to adjust, the same way you did. Maybe he feels neglected. Guilty thoughts pile up quickly, easily.
So you decide to prove, to him and to yourself that you can still choose them.
The exam is looming, heavy and unavoidable, but you push it aside. You tell yourself one night off won’t ruin everything. Family matters more. Marriage matters more. You’ll make it up later.
When Hyunjin comes home that evening, you’re already dressed, keys in hand, Aerin bouncing excitedly beside you.
“Hey,” you say lightly. “How about ice cream before dinner? Like a little family thing.”
Aerin’s face lights up instantly. “Ice cream? Daddy, please!”
She tugs at his arm, small hands wrapped around his sleeve, eyes bright with hope.
Hyunjin barely looks at her.
“I’m tired,” he says, voice flat. “I’m going to bed.”
You blink. “I can drive. You don’t have to do anything.”
He shakes his head. “Just eat the ice cream we already have.”
You watch it happen in real time, the way Aerin’s excitement drains from her face, the way her shoulders slump just slightly. It’s subtle, but it hits you like a punch to the chest.
“Oh,” she says quietly. “Okay.”
Something twists inside you.
“Come on,” you say gently, forcing a smile. “We’ll go anyway. Just us.”
She brightens again, but not all the way. In the car, she chatters, legs swinging, eyes glued to the window. But every few minutes,
“Daddy come too?”
“Daddy coming later?”
“Daddy likes chocolate, right?”
You answer softly every time, making excuses that taste bitter in your mouth. When you get the ice cream, she eats happily enough, but you notice how she saves some, insisting on bringing it home “for Daddy.”
That night, after you tuck her in, you stand alone in the hallway longer than necessary, staring at her closed door, your chest aching with a quiet dread you can’t name yet. You tell yourself it’s just a rough week.
The second moment comes quietly, late at night.
You’re exhausted, stretched thin, but you miss him. You miss the closeness you used to share without thinking. You curl into his side, press a kiss to his jaw, your hand sliding down his stomach like it’s always done a thousand times before.
He stiffens immediately.
“Not tonight,” he says, grabbing your wrist. His grip isn’t rough but it’s firm enough to stop you. “I’m tired.”
“Oh,” you whisper. Embarrassment burns your face. “Okay.”
He rolls onto his side, turning his back to you, the distance between your bodies suddenly unbearable. You lie there staring at his shoulder blades, replaying the moment over and over, wondering what you did wrong. He’s been tired before. That’s never stopped him from wanting you. You don’t sleep much that night.
The third moment, the one you can’t explain away comes on a random afternoon while you’re doing laundry.
It’s mundane. Ordinary. You’re folding clothes automatically, mind half on flashcards, half on dinner plans. You lift one of his work shirts and freeze. Makeup on the collar. Not yours.
A faint smudge of foundation, darker than your shade. A streak of mascara. And there, almost mocking you a light dusting of glitter that catches under the kitchen light. Your hands start shaking so badly you have to set the shirt down.
You tell yourself there has to be an explanation. A coworker hugged him. A party at work. Something harmless. Something innocent but your stomach churns, instinct screaming louder than logic.
You wait until that night, until Aerin is asleep and the apartment is quiet. You hold the shirt in your hands like evidence you don’t want to believe exists.
“Hyunjin,” you say carefully. “Can you explain this?”
He looks at the shirt, then at you. His expression changes instantly hardening, defensive.
“What are you implying?” he snaps.
“I’m not implying anything,” you say, heart racing. “I just want to understand.”
“Understand what?” he says sharply. “That I work in an office? That people exist around me?”
“There’s makeup,” you say quietly. “And glitter.”
“So?” he scoffs. “What, now you’re checking my clothes?”
The way he turns it on you makes your chest ache.
“I just asked a question,” you say, voice trembling despite your effort to stay calm.
“You’re being paranoid,” he says flatly. “You’re stressed. You’re tired. You’re imagining things.”
The word hits hard. Imagining.
“You’re making me feel like I’m crazy,” you whisper.
He throws his hands up. “I’m not doing this. You’re seeing things because you want to.”
He walks away, leaving you standing there with the shirt clutched in your hands, your reality suddenly feeling unstable beneath your feet.
That night, you lie awake again but this time, the fear is sharp and undeniable. Because it’s not just distance anymore. It’s secrecy. Deflection. A coldness that doesn’t match the man you married, the father who once couldn’t wait to come home to you both.
And for the first time, a thought slips into your mind that you don’t want to name. Something is wrong. And no matter how much you want to fix it, you’re no longer sure you’re the one breaking things.
—
It doesn’t happen all at once.
You don’t wake up one morning and decide to fall apart.
It’s quieter than that. Slower. More humiliating.
You miss an alarm one day. Just one. Aerin still gets to school on time, but breakfast is rushed and you forget the little note you always slip into her lunchbox. The next day, you forget to move the laundry from the washer. Then you forget an assignment deadline. Then you stop opening your textbooks altogether, because every time you do, your chest tightens so badly you feel like you can’t breathe.
Your routines unravel the same way your thoughts do silently, privately, while everyone else assumes you’re still holding it together.
You’re not.
You sit in lectures and stare at the board without absorbing anything. Words blur together. Your pen stays still while everyone else scribbles notes. You reread the same sentence ten times and still don’t know what it says. Your mind is always somewhere else on Hyunjin’s distance, on that makeup stained collar, on the way he no longer reaches for you without thinking.
You start dreading coming home just as much as you dread leaving.
Hyunjin notices you’re quieter, but he doesn’t ask why. Aerin notices too, curling closer to you on the couch, small arms wrapping around your waist like she’s trying to anchor you in place.
“Mommy sad?” she asks one night, eyes big and worried.
You force a smile that feels like it might crack your face in half. “Just tired, baby.”
You hate lying to her.
The guilt eats at you. Guilt for slacking in school after fighting so hard to get there. Guilt for not being present enough. Guilt for being too present, too watchful, too desperate for signs that you’re wrong about him.
Eventually, the pressure becomes unbearable.
You choose a day when Aerin is at school. When the apartment is quiet and there are no distractions, no excuses. Hyunjin is home, working a late shift that evening, still in casual clothes, sitting at the kitchen table scrolling through his phone. Your heart is pounding so hard you’re sure he can hear it.
“Hyunjin,” you say.
He looks up, distracted. “Yeah?”
“We need to talk.”
Something in your tone must tip him off, because he straightens slightly. “About what?”
You sit across from him, hands clasped tightly in your lap. Your fingers feel numb.
“I can’t concentrate anymore,” you say. “I can’t sleep. I can barely think. And it’s because I don’t know what’s going on with you.”
He sighs, already defensive. “Why are we doing this again?”
“Because I’m falling apart,” you say quietly. “And I need the truth.”
He scoffs softly, shaking his head. “Why the hell are you bringing this up now?”
“Because I feel like I’m losing my mind,” you snap, voice breaking. “Because I found makeup on your clothes. Because you won’t touch me. Because you won’t look at me.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he says sharply.
“Then tell me that,” you plead. “Tell me you’re not seeing someone else.”
The words hang between you.
He doesn’t answer.
Your stomach drops.
You stare at him, waiting. Seconds stretch into something unbearable. He looks away, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the table.
“Hyunjin,” you say again, more desperately now. “Please.”
He closes his eyes.
“You’ve been distant,” he says finally. “Ever since you started school. You barely look at me anymore.”
The words feel like a slap.
“Are you seriously blaming me right now?” you ask, disbelief flooding your voice. “After everything I’ve done to try and keep us together?”
“I’m just saying—”
“Who is it?” you interrupt. Your voice is shaking now. “Just tell me who it is.”
“No one,” he says quickly. “I didn’t cheat.”
You laugh weakly, because the alternative is screaming. “You’re still lying.”
“I’m not,” he snaps, voice rising. “I didn’t cheat.”
“Then why are you acting so guilty?” you say, tears burning behind your eyes. “Why won’t you look at me?”
He opens his mouth to respond and stops.
That’s when he notices.
Your vision is blurred. Your chest hurts. Something hot slides down your cheek, then another. You don’t even realize you’re crying until you lift a hand and feel wetness on your skin.
Hyunjin freezes.
“Hey,” he says, softer now. “You’re crying.”
That makes it worse.
“I didn’t cheat,” he says again, slower this time. “I swear.”
You shake your head, tears falling freely now. “Something happened. I know it did. I just need you to be honest with me.”
He swallows hard.
“I went out for drinks,” he admits. “With coworkers.”
Your heart sinks, but you stay silent.
“One of them.. Chaein, she got handsy,” he continues, voice tight. “And I didn’t stop her.”
Your chest caves in.
“She kissed me,” he says quietly. “And I didn’t pull away. That’s it. I swear.”
You knew something had happened. You did. But hearing it, hearing it said out loud hurts twice as much. Like confirmation makes the pain real in a way suspicion never could.
You stare at him, tears streaming down your face, hands shaking.
“Are you still seeing her?” you ask.
He hesitates. Just for a second but it’s enough.
He opens his mouth, probably ready to lie again, and something in you snaps.
“Don’t,” you say, voice raw. “Don’t lie to me again. Please.”
He looks at you like he’s cornered.
“Yes,” he admits finally. “But it’s not physical. I promise. We just… talk.”
The words feel sharp, slicing straight through you.
“She listens,” he adds, almost defensively. “And you and I—we don’t do that anymore.”
Your heart doesn’t just break, It shatters.
You sit there in silence, staring at the man you married at nineteen, the man who once built a crib with his own hands, the man who promised to protect you. You feel like the ground has disappeared beneath your feet.
“I talk to you,” you whisper.
“Not like before,” he says, regret flickering across his face now. “You’re always tired. Always busy. Always somewhere else.”
You press a hand to your mouth, a sob escaping despite your effort to stay quiet.
“I fought so hard not to lose myself,” you say through tears. “And you let me lose us instead.”
He doesn’t respond. He can’t.
You realize then sitting in that kitchen, crying so hard your chest aches that the hardest part isn’t the kiss. It’s the fact that when he felt lonely, he didn’t come to you.
And suddenly, everything you’ve been holding together school, marriage, identity feels like it’s slipping through your fingers all at once.
The silence after his confession is unbearable. You can’t even look at him anymore. Your hands are clenched so tightly in your lap they ache, nails biting into your skin, grounding you in the only way you know how. Your chest feels hollow, like something vital has been scooped out and you’re still expected to function as if nothing happened.
“So,” you whisper finally. Your voice sounds distant to your own ears. “You didn’t cheat… but you’re emotionally with someone else.”
He flinches at the wording.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he says quickly. “It just—”
“It just did,” you finish for him, bitter. “Like everything else in my life.”
He reaches out, instinctively, like he wants to touch you. You pull back before his hand can even reach your arm. The rejection flashes across his face, and for once, you don’t soften it. You can’t.
“How long?” you ask.
He hesitates again.
Your stomach twists. “How long, Hyunjin.”
“A few weeks,” he admits. “Maybe a month.”
A month. A month of distance. A month of late nights. A month of him turning away from you in bed. A month of you crying quietly, convincing yourself you were paranoid.
“Does she know about me?” you ask.
He nods. “She knows I’m married. She knows about Aerin.”
Something inside you breaks at that.
“And she still listens?” you murmur. “Still talks to you. Still lets you complain about your wife while knowing you have a child at home?”
He looks ashamed now. It doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“I never complained about you,” he says. “Not like that.”
“But you talked about us,” you say. “About what we don’t do anymore.”
He doesn’t deny it. You push back your chair and stand, legs shaky. The kitchen suddenly feels too small, too tight, like the walls are closing in.
“I gave up everything for this family,” you say, voice trembling despite your effort to stay composed. “I gave up my youth. My freedom. My choices. And when I finally tried to take one thing back for myself, you replaced me.”
“That’s not what I did,” he says urgently, standing too. “I never replaced you.”
“Then why am I the one standing here alone?” you snap, tears spilling over again. “Why does she get the version of you that talks and listens while I get whatever scraps you have left?”
He opens his mouth but quickly closes it. His shoulders slump.
“I felt invisible,” he admits quietly. “I didn’t know how to say it without sounding selfish.”
You let out a shaky laugh. “Invisible? I built my entire life around making sure you and Aerin were okay.”
“I know,” he says. “And that’s the problem. Everything changed.”
“Yes,” you whisper. “It did. And instead of growing with me, you stepped outside of us.”
The realization settles heavy in your chest. this didn’t happen because you went to school. It happened because neither of you knew how to survive change without losing each other.
“I need space,” you say suddenly.
His head snaps up. “What?”
“I can’t look at you right now,” you say honestly. “I can’t pretend this didn’t happen and then go pick up our daughter and smile like everything’s fine.”
“What does that mean?” he asks, panic creeping into his voice. “Are you leaving?”
You shake your head weakly. “I don’t know. I just know I can’t do this today.”
He drags a hand down his face. “Aerin—”
“I know,” you cut in sharply. “Don’t you dare use her to keep me from breathing.”
That shuts him up. You grab your bag, your keys, your movements mechanical. At the door, you pause, not because you want to look back, but because your body remembers years of turning toward him automatically.
“Are you still talking to her?” you ask quietly.
He swallows. “I can stop.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Your heart cracks open all over again.
“Then stop,” you say, voice flat. “If you want even a chance at fixing this, you stop. Now. Not later. Not gradually.”
He nods quickly. “I will. I swear.”
You don’t say I believe you. Because right now, you don’t know if you can.
The drive to pick up Aerin is a blur. You grip the steering wheel so hard your hands hurt, focusing on the road because if you don’t, you might break down completely. When you see her running toward you at pickup, backpack bouncing, smile wide and trusting, it almost undoes you.
“Mommy!” she calls.
You crouch down, open your arms, let her crash into you. You bury your face in her hair and breathe her in like oxygen.
“Hi, baby,” you whisper, voice breaking. “Did you have a good day?”
She nods enthusiastically, completely unaware that her world is shifting in ways she can’t see.
At home, you go through the motions. Dinner. Bath. Storytime. You laugh at the right moments. You tuck her in, kiss her forehead, hold her hand until she drifts off to sleep. And then, finally, you allow yourself to fall apart.
You curl up on your side of the bed, clutching a pillow to your chest, sobbing silently into the fabric so no one hears you. Your mind replays everything the kiss, the conversations, the way he chose someone else to listen to him.
You don’t know what tomorrow looks like. You don’t know if your marriage will survive this. All you know is that loving him used to feel like safety. And now, it feels like standing on broken glass, wondering how much more you can bleed before there’s nothing left.
You wake up to sounds that don’t belong to him.
At least, not like this. There’s the quiet clink of dishes, the low hum of the kettle, the soft rustle of lunch bags being opened and closed. For a moment, still half asleep, your body reacts on instinct. You think I need to get up, think I’m late, think Aerin. Then you remember. Everything comes rushing back all at once, heavy and suffocating. Your chest tightens before you even open your eyes. When you do, Hyunjin’s side of the bed is empty. Cold.
You sit up slowly, your head pounding, your throat raw from crying the night before. The apartment smells like toast and coffee. Normal. Domestic. Like nothing is wrong.That almost makes it worse.
You drag yourself out of bed and move down the hallway, feet quiet against the floor. Hyunjin is in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, hair still damp like he showered early. He’s packing Aerin’s lunch, cutting fruit the way you always do, folding the napkin just so.
For a split second, a sharp, bitter thought flashes through your mind.
He knows exactly how to do this. He’s always known.
You don’t say anything. You don’t even look at him. You turn away before he can catch your eye and go straight to Aerin’s room.
“Good morning, baby,” you say softly, sitting on the edge of her bed.
She groans, rolling onto her stomach. “Morning…”
You brush her hair back gently, focusing on the familiar rhythm of caring for her. This is safe. This you can do without thinking.
Hyunjin lingers in the doorway, watching. You can feel his presence like pressure against your back, but you refuse to acknowledge it. You talk to Aerin instead about her day, about what she wants to wear, about how she slept. You laugh when she makes a silly face, even though it feels forced.
You keep your world very small. Very contained.
By the time Aerin is dressed and brushing her teeth, you’re out of distractions. Hyunjin steps closer. He leans in and presses a kiss to your temple before you can dodge it.
Your body goes stiff immediately.
“I made breakfast,” he says quietly, like he’s afraid of startling you. He sets a plate in front of you at the table fruit, toast, eggs.
“I’m not hungry,” you say flatly.
“You didn’t eat yesterday,” he replies. “You have a long day. Please.”
The word please hits differently now. It doesn’t soften you. It just reminds you how late it is.
You sit down anyway, more out of obligation than desire. You poke at the fruit with your fork, moving pieces around without actually eating them. Your stomach twists, not with hunger, but with resentment.
Aerin finishes her breakfast and hops down from her chair. “Mommy, I’m done!”
You look up at her immediately. “Okay, baby. Grab your backpack.”
Hyunjin reaches for your hand then slow, hesitant, like he knows you might pull away.
You do. Instantly. Your hand snaps back into your lap like you’ve been burned. The hurt flashes across his face, quick and unguarded. For once, you don’t feel guilty about it.
You clear your throat, standing. “I have to go drop off Aerin.”
He nods, swallowing hard. “I can drive—”
“I’ve got it,” you say, firmer than you mean to, but you don’t take it back.
You help Aerin with her shoes, grab the keys, your movements efficient and distant. At the door, Hyunjin speaks again.
“I’m trying,” he says quietly.
You pause but you don’t turn around.
“I see that,” you reply just as quietly. “But this isn’t something you fix by waking up early and packing lunches.”
The words hang there, heavy and final.
Aerin grabs your hand, warm and trusting. You squeeze back gently and step outside, the door clicking shut behind you.
In the car, Aerin hums along to the radio like she always does. The morning sun filters through the windshield, casting everything in a soft, ordinary light. And you realize something that makes your chest ache even more. You can still do this. You can still be her mom. You can still keep moving. But forgiving him? That’s not something you know how to wake up and do.
-
You dread the drive home the entire way back from campus. Your hands are tight on the steering wheel, knuckles pale, mind spiraling in circles you can’t seem to break out of. Part of you wants to keep driving, past your exit, past familiar streets, anywhere that isn’t that apartment filled with memories and half truths. You imagine circling the city until it’s time to pick up Aerin, pretending this pause means nothing, pretending you don’t feel like your chest is caving in But you go home anyway because this is still your life. Because running won’t fix what’s already broken.
The apartment is quiet when you walk in, too quiet. Your bag slides off your shoulder and lands softly by the door. You barely have time to breathe before Hyunjin appears from the hallway like he’s been waiting, like he’s been counting seconds.
“There you are,” he says, relief flickering across his face.
It makes something ugly twist in your stomach. He walks toward you immediately, hands hovering like he doesn’t know whether he’s allowed to touch you anymore. You step back before he gets close enough.
“I have schoolwork to do,” you say, already turning away.
“Can we just—” He reaches out, then stops himself. “Can we talk for one moment?”
You sigh, exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. “About what, Hyunjin?”
He swallows. “About… us. About what happens now.”
You stop walking. You turn slowly to face him, your expression empty. “What should happen now is that you blocked her yesterday.”
His breath hitches. The silence that follows is answer enough.
You stare at him, something cold spreading through your chest. “You didn’t.”
“I was going to,” he says quickly. “I just—”
“Just what?” you ask, incredulous. “Forgot? Got distracted? Decided it could wait?”
He doesn’t answer. That’s when something inside you finally settles not with peace, but with clarity.
“There’s no point,” you say quietly. “There’s no point in us pretending anymore.”
His eyes widen. “What are you saying?”
You step past him and sit down at the table, suddenly very calm. “You should go.”
He freezes. “Go… where?”
“Anywhere but here,” you reply. “Because I can’t live like this. I can’t wake up next to you and wonder if you’re still choosing her every time I turn my back.”
He watches you stand again, panic creeping into his features. “I love you,” he says quickly, desperately. “I love you so much it hurts.”
You spin around instantly, the words slicing through whatever restraint you had left.
“If you really loved me,” you say, voice sharp and shaking, “you would’ve pushed her away the second she touched you. You would’ve stopped this before it ever got here. You didn’t.”
He opens his mouth and closes it.
You take a step closer, tears burning but not falling. “You don’t get to tell me you love me now. Not when you chose to let someone else in.”
His jaw tightens, his eyes glassy. He looks like he’s drowning, like he doesn’t know which way is up anymore.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispers.
“But you did,” you say. “And you’re still doing it.”
You turn away again, your voice quieter now but no less firm. “I want you to leave.”
He follows you a step. “I’m not leaving Aerin.”
You face him again, exhausted. “You’re not. You’re welcome to come see her every day. You can pick her up, take her out, be her dad. I would never take that from her.”
He looks relieved for half a second, until you keep going.
“But continuing like this,” you say, gesturing around the apartment, “sleeping under the same roof, acting like yesterday didn’t shatter everything? It makes me sick. I can’t do it.”
The words feel final as they leave your mouth.
“I won’t pretend for comfort,” you add. “Not anymore.”
He swallows hard, throat bobbing. His shoulders sag like the weight of it all is finally pressing down on him.
“Please,” he says softly. “Just… give me time.”
“I gave you time,” you reply. “And you used it to stay connected to her.”
Silence settles between you again, thick and irreversible. He looks around the apartment, at the couch where you once sat together, at the hallway leading to Aerin’s room, at the life you built too young and tried too hard to save.
Then he nods once. Slowly.
“I’ll pack a bag,” he says hoarsely.
You don’t answer. Because if you do, you might beg him to stay for all the wrong reasons.
-
Hyunjin leaves that day. The door closes softly behind him, no shouting, no slammed walls just the quiet finality of a choice that can’t be undone. The sound echoes through the apartment long after he’s gone, settling into the corners like a ghost you can’t chase away. You cry the entire day.
Not the kind of crying that comes in waves and then eases, but the kind that hollows you out from the inside. You cry in the shower with the water scalding your skin. You cry on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet, knees pulled to your chest. You cry into a pillow so Aerin won’t hear you when she comes home. And when she does come home, you wipe your face, steady your voice, and become someone else.
You smile. You ask about her day. You make dinner. You pretend.
Everyone around you thinks you’re handling it well. They say you’re strong. Resilient. Brave. You nod and thank them, because correcting them would require energy you don’t have.
Inside, you’re breaking in places no one can see.
Somehow, impossibly, you finish school.
There are days you don’t remember how you made it through, only that you did. You sit exams with your heart racing for reasons that have nothing to do with the material. You write papers with tears blurring the screen. You walk across campus feeling like a shadow of the woman who once felt so alive there.
But you finish. And when you do, you don’t celebrate. You don’t feel triumphant. You just feel relieved like you’ve been holding your breath for months and can finally let it out.
You get a job almost immediately after. Flexible hours. Kind management. Close to Aerin’s school, like the universe is throwing you a lifeline just when you’re too tired to ask for one.
You’re good at it. Better than you expect to be.
Life settles into something new, not easy, but manageable.
Hyunjin lives on his own now. A small place. Quiet but he shows up. He always shows up for Aerin. School pickups when you can’t make it. Parent events. Performances. Meetings. You two communicate politely, efficiently. Almost like coworkers who share the most important project of their lives. You never talk about us.
And yet, you still love him.
You hate that part of yourself. You wish it would shut up, disappear, harden the way everyone says it eventually does. But part of you truly believes you’ll never move on. That first love, the kind forged in fear and youth and shared responsibility doesn’t just vanish.
He still loves you too. You see it in the way his eyes linger. In the way his voice softens when he talks to you. In the way he never crosses certain lines, never brings anyone around Aerin.
You think maybe… maybe this is just how it will be. Broken, but respectful. Painful, but survivable.
Then you find out about her. You weren’t supposed to.
You would never normally go to his place. You know where he lives, of course, but you’ve kept that boundary firm. For your own sanity. For your dignity. You don’t need to see how he lives without you.
But it’s your first day at work. Your shift runs late. Hyunjin is picking up Aerin from school so she can stay the night at his place, and you need to drop off her overnight bag. Just a quick stop. In and out.
You stand outside his door for a moment longer than necessary, adjusting the strap of the bag on your shoulder, steadying yourself. You knock.
The door opens.
And it’s not Hyunjin. It’s a woman.
She’s pretty, effortlessly so. Slim, soft features, hair loose around her shoulders. She’s wearing nothing but one of his shirts, oversized on her frame, the hem brushing her bare thighs. Her expression shifts from confusion to something curious as she looks at you.
Your heart drops so hard you feel dizzy.
“I—” You step back immediately, instinct screaming at you to leave. “Sorry. Wrong—”
Behind her, you hear his voice.
“Who is it?”
And then he sees you. His face drains of color.
“Wait,” he says urgently, already moving past her. “Hey—wait.”
You don’t. You shove Aerin’s bag toward him when he reaches you, the movement sharp and unsteady. He grabs it automatically, panic flooding his features.
“She’s just a friend,” he blurts out. “It’s not—”
You let out a short, humorless laugh. “What friend wears nothing but your clothes?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. You feel something cold settle in your chest not shock, not even anger anymore just confirmation.
“I hope,” you say quietly, voice shaking despite your effort to stay composed, “that she hasn’t met Aerin.”
His eyes widen. “She hasn’t. I swear. I would never—”
“Good,” you cut in. “Because I don’t want her to.”
The words come out harsher than you mean, but you don’t take them back. You can’t. This is the one boundary you refuse to let blur.
You take a step back, already turning away. Your hands are trembling now, your throat burning.
“Good luck,” you say flatly, not looking at him. “I really hope this… whatever you think this is… doesn’t hurt her too.”
And then you walk away. You don’t look back. You don’t give him the chance to explain, to soften it, to make excuses that will only sink deeper into your skin.
You get into your car, close the door, and sit there gripping the steering wheel while your chest caves in all over again.
Because seeing her, that her does something you didn’t expect. It doesn’t just hurt. It makes you realize that loving him was never the problem.
Trusting him was.
And no matter how much part of you still aches for the boy you married at nineteen, the man who once built a crib with his own hands, that version of him is gone. And you finally understand that moving on isn’t about stopping yourself from loving him. It’s about choosing yourself anyway.
You can’t even think about how nervous you are.
Your mind won’t let you.
It’s still back there, standing in a hallway that isn’t yours anymore, staring at a woman wearing his shirt like it belongs to her. Every thought feels scrambled, layered over each other until you can’t separate what hurts from what scares you. Your hands won’t stop trembling. Even breathing feels uneven, like your body forgot how to do it smoothly.
You were good. You were.
You remind yourself of that as you sit in your car for a moment longer than necessary, fingers gripping the steering wheel. You don’t get to be jealous. You don’t. You were the one who told him to leave. You were the one who drew the line. He’s allowed to move on, even if it feels impossibly fast, even if seeing proof of it makes your stomach churn.
Still, something about her standing there, barefoot and comfortable in his space, makes you feel sick in a way you weren’t prepared for.
Your eyes burn. Your throat tightens.
You could cry. You want to cry. Let it all spill out until there’s nothing left inside you. But instead, you open the car door.
You straighten your shoulders. You wipe under your eyes. You remind yourself this job is yours. You earned it. You fought for this future while everything else was falling apart.
You don’t get to lose it on day one.
Inside, the hospital is busy, bright lights, overlapping voices, the sharp scent of antiseptic and coffee. It’s overwhelming in a way that has nothing to do with school. This is real now. This is responsibility with faces and names and consequences. You try to smile. It doesn’t last.
It turns into that practiced, hollow version you’ve perfected over the past year, the one that looks fine if no one looks too closely. You introduce yourself at the desk, your voice steady even though your chest feels like it’s vibrating.
“I’m supposed to be training today,” you say. “With… Seungmin?”
One of the nurses barely looks up and cocks her head. “He’s around. Ask Mina.”
You turn and spot her immediately moving fast, hair pulled back, clipboard tucked under one arm as she weaves between rooms like she knows this place by heart. You hesitate, then approach.
“Hi,” you say softly. “I’m looking for Seungmin.”
She stops, looks you over, and smiles warm, genuine. “You must be the new nurse.”
You nod. “Yeah. I’m—”
Before you can finish, she leans in slightly, lowering her voice. “Just so you know—Seungmin can be… a lot.”
Your stomach tightens. She gives you a quick, reassuring look. “I’m not saying that to scare you. He’s good at what he does. Just tense. Really high standards. People have quit because of him before.”
Your heart sinks a little.
“But,” she adds quickly, squeezing your arm lightly, “don’t let it get to you. If you need help, you come to me. Okay?”
You nod, grateful for the kindness more than you can express. “Thank you. I’m y/n.”
“Mina,” she replies. “You’ll fit right in.”
Before you can respond, a voice cuts through the noise.
“Where the hell is the new nurse I’m supposed to be training?”
You freeze. The voice is sharp, impatient, already annoyed. Mina turns calmly and points straight at you. “Right here.”
Your throat goes dry.
You force yourself to smile as he approaches tall, brisk, eyes already scanning you like you’re another task on his list. He looks tired. Wound tight. The kind of person who doesn’t slow down for anyone.
He sighs when he reaches you, glancing at the clock. “You’re late.”
“I—” You swallow. “I’m not. I checked in—”
“Doesn’t matter,” he cuts in. “Follow me.”
And just like that, he turns and walks away.
No introduction. No welcome. No explanation.
You scramble to keep up, heart racing as you fall into step behind him. His pace is relentless. He talks while walking, rattling off information like you’re supposed to absorb it all at once.
“Supply room’s down there. Med cart keys stay on you at all times. Crash cart’s here—don’t touch it unless you know exactly what you’re doing. Break room’s useless if you actually want to sit down.”
You try to keep up, nodding, mentally repeating everything so it doesn’t disappear the second he moves on to the next thing. But your head is still foggy, emotions lagging behind you like dead weight.
Your feet ache already. Your chest feels tight. You miss half of what he says and hate yourself for it.
“This isn’t school,” he says abruptly, glancing back at you. “You mess up here, people don’t get second chances. Understand?”
“Yes,” you say quickly. “I understand.”
He studies you for a split second, then turns away again. “Good.”
You trail after him, struggling to match his pace, realizing with a sinking feeling that today isn’t just going to be rough.
It’s going to test everything you have left.
And as you follow him down another long hallway, heart pounding, you think bitterly that maybe this is exactly what you deserve, a day so demanding you don’t have time to think about the man who broke your heart before you even clocked in.
//
masterlist.
a/n: it’s been a while..? 😅 sorry for anyone who has been waiting for empty words. this fic will replace empty words.
prompt jeongin calls you clingy after you show up to his practice sessions one too many times?
pairing jeongin x f!reader
genre idol!au, ANGST!, hurt, just hurt idk if i'm gonna write comfort
warnings some of you might think jeongin was a little harsh and some might not, uhhh, kinda described sensory overload in this but i also dunno if you can say it is sensory overload, angst obviously, what i wrote can also kinda be described as the beginning of a panic and/or anxiety attack so if that triggers you then please don't read ig idk, if i'm missing anything then let me know.
word count 1,248 words (nice and short)
a/n i honestly didn't know who to write about so i just put every single person i write for in pickerwheel and let it pick for me! as you can see, it chose yang jeongin! i wanted to try my hand at the (insert kpop artist here) calling their significant other clingy, but then i just ended up writing how i would more than likely react should i ever be in that situation. also, please remember that this is a figment of my imagination. literally just a story that i conjured up in my mind. do not take this seriously, please. NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS REAL! anyway, happy reading!!
You noticed something was off the minute you walked into the practice room, and your boyfriend didn’t greet you the way he usually would. On good practice days, he engulfed you with his sweaty body and spun you around. On harsh ones, he was a bit upset, but still had the decency to acknowledge your presence, and let you know that he was a bit down in the dumps.
The relationship wasn’t old enough for you to just understand him, but it also wasn’t new enough where you knew virtually nothing about him. Hence, why you knew something was off. Jeongin laid on the floor, chest rising and falling rapidly, trying to bring air back into his lungs at a frantic pace.
The other members look at you with tight smiles, and they all pass you with a little greeting or a comforting nudge. You even got one from Minho (who doesn’t like touching you – so you know something was wrong), and it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The boys all left you alone, the dance instructor left, the staff left, heck even the cameramen left, yet Yang Jeongin stayed on the floor with his chest inflating and deflating and his arms over his eyes.
You stood by the door in a kind of awkward fear that you’ve never felt around Jeongin before. You’ve always been not that great at comforting people, and since the relationship was still just a tad bit new, you’ve never really been in a predicament as dire as this, so you had no idea how to deal with the egregious decline in your boyfriend’s mood.
But you knew that something was wrong. So, you willed your legs to move, and you sat in front of the mirror closest to your boyfriend. You notice a bottle of water left standing there, and slowly reach over to grab it, alongside a towel. Then you scooch over to him and sit beside him with the stuff in your hand, ready to give it to him.
He notices your presence when you get close enough for your arm to touch his knee, and he moves his hands abruptly to look at you. There was a certain emotion swimming in his eyes that you can’t particularly place, but it’s something you didn’t like seeing all the same. You hand him the towel and water bottle with shaky hands, but your hands get tired of holding them up the longer your boyfriend stares at you and doesn’t make headway to take them.
Your hands drop at the indirect rejection, and you blink rapidly as your mind immediately starts to fill in the gaps that didn’t exactly need your input. Then your boyfriend slowly picks himself up.
“What are you doing here?” He asks, a tilt in his tone that feels accusatory to you all of a sudden.
“I wanted to see you today.” You slowly respond, your mind blaring off sirens at the tone he used on you that you couldn’t exactly tell the emotion of.
You prided yourself in being able to read people, their body language, their intonation, their gestures. Years of being silent and observing people around you made you better at noticing the patterns in people like that, but for some reason, the switch up in your boyfriend throws off your pattern recognition because it’s a negative reaction coming from someone who’s never negative to you.
“And you couldn’t text me to let me know this beforehand?” He asks, eying you up and down in a way that feels wrong, as if he was scrutinizing you with contempt.
“I wanted it to be a surprise. Can’t really be one if I run it by you.” You explain, blinking quicker and quicker and looking everywhere, but at him.
“What if I didn’t want to see you today, (name)? What if today and the last four days that you’ve wanted to see me were days where I didn’t want to see you?” He asks, his voice getting a little louder towards the end in a way that makes you flinch.
Jeongin notices, and then sighs out in what you assume is frustration.
“I’m all for a surprise or two every once in a while, but this has been the same excuse you’ve given me for the last five times you’ve shown up here (name), and that’s been in the last week. If you have nothing better to do with your time, then maybe you should find a hobby or a job, and stop randomly showing up to mine.” Jeongin continues.
He pushes himself up from the wooden floor, and walks over to his bag with a limp and a battered spirit. And you? You’re still sitting on the floor with a water bottle in one hand and a towel in the next, blinking a million times a second and trying to figure out why your senses are going haywire right now after the words your boyfriend just said to you.
Before you can even start to process the obvious implications of his speech, he opens his mouth again.
“Y’know. When we first started dating, I enjoyed it. You always communicated with me about meeting up and setting boundaries and I just went along with whatever you said because it made sense to me. But then you started texting more. Spamming really. Sending random messages at almost all hours of the day. Randomly showing up when I’m working and expecting me to stop doing my job just to take care of you. You’ve gotten so clingy.” He rants.
You look up at him to try and read his lips because this voice starts to grate at your ears. Your eyes can’t focus on him anymore. The floor is too hot, your pants feel too itchy, your arms feel too heavy, your shoes are too tight, your throat is slowly closing and your mouth feels dry.
The tag on the back of your shirt is making itself known and it feels very disturbing on your nape. Everything just feels wrong.
You slowly stand up with wobbly legs, holding onto the water bottle in one hand and the towel in the other, and the only thing that’s clear enough for you to understand is your brain yelling at you to GET OUT NOW.
You look up at Jeongin to see him looking up at you expectantly even though you have no idea as to why. Then you bow at him like you did when you first met, jumbled up apologies slipping past your lips, and you walk over to your bag to pick it up. Only for your hands to be full.
What were they full with again? You can’t remember. You stretched out your two smaller fingers to grab it, and you scurry over to the door. It opens before you could even reach it.
Chan looks up to see you flustered in a way he hasn’t seen in a while, and instinctively reaches out to touch you. You notice the hurt on his face when you step so far back from him so that he wouldn’t touch you. You slip past him and out of the door because your brain is still telling you to leave and you’re so uncomfortable that you couldn’t agree with it more.
After getting ruined once for being too close to one of his members, you can't help but do it again.
pairing: Minho x fem!reader
genre: established relationship, idol!Minho, smut smut smut, dom/sub dynamics
rating: explicit, 18+, minors do not interact
word count: 5.5k
warnings: brat!reader, brat tamer!Minho, mean dom!Minho, nicknames (jagi, baby, princess, pretty baby, dumb little baby, daddy, sir), dirty talk, oral (m. receiving), boot riding, spanking, over his knee spanking, pussy slapping, clit slapping, fingering, edging, thigh riding, ruined orgasm, overstimulation, multiple orgasm, slapping (face), allusions to sub space but not explicitly talked about, begging, smidge of dacryphilia, colour system, unprotected sex
A/N: Requests are always open! I think this one is a little more intense than what I've put out so far, I hope it lives up to Lino Anon's dreams!
Masterlist
Your boyfriend hadn’t given you that many rules.
No coming without permission
Always do as your told
Never even think about someone other than him
So when you had finally been able to join him on his tour, one week before they finished, having not seen him for months? You couldn’t help but push his buttons a little.
~
You were lying in bed together, your head on his chest, letting your breaths meld together. It had been too long since you had held each other, too long since you had just existed together. But all that distance had stirred up the brat in you that he usually kept well maintained.
You began drawing shapes on his chest absentmindedly, trailing down his toned stomach, just over the hem of his underwear and back.
“I’ve been watching the fan videos of your other tour dates,” you begin, continuing when he lets out a soft hum, “Seems you have a girlfriend replacement when I’m not here.”
You try to hide your smile as he turns his face to look at you, incredulous look in his eyes, “What do you mean?”
“Jisung?” you answered innocently, a small smirk appearing on your face when your touch on his side sends a shiver up his spine. “Come on my love, you touched his ass just as much as you touch mine.”
He let an amused breath out of his nose at your words, “It’s part of the appearance Jagi, plus, Jisung never minds.”
“You definitely didn’t mind either,” you mused, “Never seen you get so shy than when Ji was looking at you.” And that was strike one.
“Shy? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Mean dom Minho getting shy with a cute boy glancing at him? It’s sweet.” Strike two.
“Careful,” he growled against your ear, his hands tightening around your waist.
“Careful about what? With the way you melt with him we should definitely invite him to join, see the great Lee Minho reduced to a babbling mess - hey!” Strike three. Your rambling was cut off when his strong hands pulled you towards him, flipping you onto your stomach. He straddled the backs of your thighs, landing a harsh smack against your barely panty covered ass.
Pushing you hard against the bedding, he pressed himself against your back, his lips in your ear, “Me reduced to a babbling mess?” you feel his hand pull his boxers down, just enough to feel his hardening cock press against your core over your panties. Pulling them to the side to reveal your already dripping hole. “That's cute jagi.” he smirks into your ear as he pushes into you in one quick thrust, sheathing himself in his entirety into you. Just the way you like it.
You got exactly what you wanted that night. You couldn’t make it to their concert the next night because you couldn’t walk without stumbling. But nevertheless, you got what you wanted.
~
The boys had just finished the last show of the tour. They were tired, overworked, and so so grateful to have been able to do it successfully.
Seeing your boyfriend a little dressed up, dress shirt, jeans showcasing his thick thighs, shiny new black boots that he bought as a treat for finishing the tour. He looked delicious sitting with his legs spread like he owned the hotel you were celebrating in.
He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off you since you began getting ready. Soft kisses down your spine as you sat at the vanity and did your makeup, hands gliding up your sides as you styled your hair, rough hands bending you over that same vanity to fuck you quickly when you pulled your tight dress over your cheeky lingerie.
Now was no different. You had pressed a soft kiss to the edge of his mouth before making your way to the bar with a few of his members and their girlfriends, giggling while trying to decide which new drink you all should try next. You couldn’t help but glance over your shoulder at the table, seeing your boyfriends dark, still lust filled eyes tracing up and down your body. Clearly earlier hadn’t been enough to satisfy either of you.
Taking your drink gratefully from Chan’s girlfriend, you were beginning to make your way back to Minho when you heard your name being called from the dance floor. Eyes raking over the mass of people, you finally land on Changbin, his girl, and Jisung, smiling and encouraging you to dance with them, a familiar song from your own private parties coming through the speakers.
Not taking a glance back at Minho, your lust-covered brain decided to tease him more than before, needing your boyfriend from a week ago, back to ruin you. You dance with your friends, naturally gravitating to Jisung, smiling up at him just as the song changes.
It’s nothing wild, just a slightly slower, R&B song. Something that you and Minho would usually dance to. But that’s not the point of your current mission. Your hand grabs Jisung’s and pulls him closer to you, basking in the blush that begins to heat up his cheeks. Your arms go around his neck loosely, your hand gently scraping at the hair on the back of his neck, feeling him shiver in response. His hands automatically land low on your waist before he says something you almost can’t hear.
“What?” you ask him, pretending the music is too loud to hear him, moving closer to him. You feel his grip tighten on your skin, his breath becoming heavier as you push your breasts closer to him.
His hot shaky breath meets your ear, “I don’t think Min would be too happy about how close we are right now.” He leans back, looking you in the eye now, so much closer than you were before.
You smile back at him and shrug your shoulders back at him, “Who cares Ji, we’re having fun.”
You turn your back to him, pressing your hands to his to ensure they don’t let go of your waist, your ass mistakenly pressing up against his already half mast cock. Looking over at where your boyfriend is watching you, his eyes are nearly black, his drink now sitting on the table in front of him. He cocks his eyebrow at you, silently daring you to continue your actions.
You couldn’t help but smirk back at him and pretend the crowd has forced you to press further back into Jisung, feeling his cock pressed firmly against your ass now. He tries to move back, your body following. He makes eye contact with a pissed Minho, raising his hands in surrender, trying to make it clear he has absolutely nothing to do with this.
Letting out a sigh, your boyfriend stands from the table, excusing himself with his friends, and made his way over to you both.
“Oh hey baby,” you begin to say before you’re cut off.
“Don’t.” he says firmly, hands replacing Jisung’s, turning you in place so his chest is pressed against your back.
“What do you mean?” you ask him, your hands tracing his fingers on your waist, “I’m just trying to have fun with our dear friend Jisung.”
“Fun, jagi?” he leans in close to your ear as he looks Jisung up and down. “He’s so hard up he could cut diamonds right now. Bet he could come in his pants from just a few more of your ‘I’m just trying to have fun’ touches.” He mocks your words, his hands squeezing at your soft skin harder, grinding his own cock against your ass now.
“Listen man-.” Jisung tries to speak up, but is swiftly cut off with one of Minho’s looks, you know it all too well. His eyebrow raising, head cocking to the side, eyes that could shoot daggers. He stuttered into silence, breaking eye contact as his blush grew hotter.
Yeah. Like he could turn Minho into a babbling mess.
The other members were not fully aware of your dynamics. They have without a doubt, heard you together several times, living in the dorms there wasn’t really a way around that. But there were no specific details, and you loved using that to your advantage.
You turn in place now to face him, your hand running down his chest where he had left it unbuttoned, batting your eyelashes to complete your faux innocent ensemble. “I promise I’m just having a little fun. Why don’t you join us, daddy?” you smirked, knowing it wasn’t the title that you used with him in any circumstance, but it would further his frustration at the embarrassment in front of his friends and coworkers.
You heard Jisung fake a cough after a choke, turning to face Changbin now that had also definitely overheard everything.
Your boyfriend pulled you roughly against the hard lines of his body, his mouth dipping to your ear. “Keep acting like a brat and I’ll take you over my knee right here. I don’t care how many people are watching.” he says, loud enough for those around you to hear, his voice sending shockwaves that rocked right down to your clit.
“Make me.”
~
He had grabbed your wrist with no room for argument and began walking you out of the private ballroom and to the elevator. He didn’t say a word to his friends or manager, not excusing himself or you. Hauling you up to your room without so much as a word.
He clicks the door shut behind you both before pulling you into the centre of your shared hotel room. Sitting on the edge of the bed he casts a quick glance at you, “Strip.”
You are so fucked.
He begins rolling up the ends of his sleeves to reveal his toned forearms, veins visible, muscles tensing. You begin to open your mouth to protest his request but all words die in your throat at the look he throws you.
You take your heels off one by one, shimmying out of your tight dress before standing in place and waiting for further instructions.
“I said, strip.” he said firmly, eyeing your lingerie that you hadn’t removed. When you put it on earlier in the night you had hoped he would be ripping it off you. It seems as though that won’t be happening.
Now completely naked, a stark contrast to his fully dressed body, he hums in satisfaction as he takes in your form. Eyes grazing around your hardening nipples, over the soft curves of your waist, and down and back up your long legs, finishing on your bare cunt.
His gaze finds its way back to your face again, smirking at what he knows is to come. “I’m going to need that bratty little mouth to try and work for forgiveness after what you pulled tonight.” he mused, straightening out his jeans as he gets comfortable. Looking up at your expression he can’t help but let out a chuckle, “And it’s not going to come easily.”
He gestures to the rug on the floor between his spread thighs, “Get to it princess.”
You kneel between his thighs, knees hitting the soft material below you, reaching quickly to undo his belt and jeans. You knew he hated wasting time with teasing, especially when he was in a mood like this. You pull everything down just enough to free his red and leaky cock from its confines, bobbing up against the bottom of his shirt.
You stroke him a few times too many before he sends you a warning look. You take a deep breath before stopping your movements, leaning forward to take him in your mouth. You sucked at his tip, licking up the precome from his slit before taking him into your mouth properly. Just like he had taught you.
He let out a shaky breath at the feeling of you taking him into your wet mouth, the warmth of your tongue lapping at his underside. You begin to take him further now, feeling his head bump the back of your throat, your gag reflex making you choke slightly before you’re pulling back.
You try to breathe through the next gagging sensation when you feel the cold leather of his boot bump between your legs, nudging your knees further apart before it tilts up to press against your wet folds.
You let out a whine around his cock, attempting to pull off but his hand is quicker, pressing down on the back of your head, holding you there. He revels in the squirms and spluttering around him as your throat constricts.
“Let’s see if you can be good enough to deserve anything other than my boot.” he smiles down at him, a mean edge seeping into his voice. His hand on the back of your head lets up, pulling you off his cock to catch your breath.
You pout up him at his words.
He pouts back at you mockingly, “Get to it baby, this might be the only time you get some friction on that slutty little clit of yours.”
A whine generates at the back of your throat as you lower yourself onto the cold material, giving it a testing grind before leaning forward to take him back into your mouth.
You grind your hips in small circles, the stiff leather and the tough laces bumping at your already sensitive clit. You couldn’t help but whimper around him, trying your best to pleasure him. Your slick was dripping all over his boot, causing you to slip a little due to how wet it was, pushing your head further down accidentally.
The slip had caused your clit to rub against the laces more, the tip of his boot catching on the folds near your entrance, increasing your pleasure tenfold. You subconsciously let your mouth fall slack around his cock, getting caught up in the heat pooling in your lower stomach.
You were so immersed in your own pleasure that you forgot you were sucking him off altogether. Your eyes closed, unable to see the firm hand that comes to slap your cheek, “Attention on me pretty girl, you’re working for your forgiveness, remember?” The sting in your cheek brings tears to well in your eyes, a short nod of your head before you take him back in your mouth. Deep. Pleading eyes finding Minho’s.
“It’s okay, it’s hard for you to think, isn’t it baby.” he coos down at you, his fingers coming to move a strand of your hair away from your eyes. You nod around his cock, trying to balance the ache between your legs, and the need in your brain to make him feel good.
“I’ll make it easier for you then,” he murmured, looking so lovingly down at you. “Stop before you come.”
The whine you let out around him causes him to shiver at the vibrations before looking in your half-closed eyes. “Bratty little sluts don’t get to come. Do they?” he asks, knowing he wasn’t expecting an answer.
But it feels so good, your hips rocking at a rhythmic pace, your boyfriend’s hard cock sitting so heavy on your tired tongue, his boot occasionally pressing a little harder into you. They were all so intense that you couldn’t help but decide to give in as you feel your clit throb.
You were about three rolls of your hips away from coming when Minho pulls his foot away from you, his hand tugging at your hair to pull you off him. Your mouth subconsciously chased after him, a whine ripping from your lips at the empty feeling and your high sizzling into nothing.
“Get up.” he commands.
“What? No. I’m sorry, please,” you try to move closer to him on your knees, fresh tears springing on your lower lash line.
“Up. I’m not asking again.” he growled, buttoning his pants back up. He grabbed your wrist forcefully when you don’t move fast enough for his liking. He throws you over one of his thighs, your face falling into the soft sheets on the bed.
“I was going to spank you anyway for what you pulled earlier, but now? Trying to come without me knowing?” he lets out a chuckle, you are so fucked. His hand comes to rest against your ass, his other hand holding you gently on his leg. “Colour?”
You let out a moan in anticipation before answering, “Green.”
His hand came down firmly on your ass, “Green what?”
“Green, sir. I’m sorry sir.” you stammer out just in time to avoid a second spank.
He hummed in acknowledgement, “You’re going to count for me, understood?”
The first proper spank made you yelp, his initial frustration coming through.
“One.”
The second mirrors his first but on the other cheek, strength not wavering.
“Two.”
His third came right along your sit spot.
“Three.” Fuck this is going to hurt in the morning.
“Twenty.” you gasp out, finally getting a short break as his hands come to stroke over your bright red skin. His hands travel lower, spreading your cheeks to fully admire his work and your glistening hole.
“Your tears say you didn’t enjoy that, but this?” he says, bringing his finger to prod at your entrance, “This tells me a very different story.” His hand comes down hard on your cunt, your legs tensing around his thigh, a choked sob leaving your lips. “Such a pretty, pretty pussy. It’s such a pity it won’t be coming anytime soon.”
Your tears ran harder down your face at his words as he pushed a finger into your core, sliding in easily from how wet you were. “So tight still jagi, do I not fuck you enough? That why you need Jisung too?”
Your toes curl as he presses a second finger alongside his first, fucking you gently on them before pressing deep, pushing up against your soft spot, a wail leaving your lips at the pleasure overcoming you.
“Oh f-fuck. Please. Keep going,” you whimpered out, pressing your face deeper into the sheets.
“Oh you don’t have to worry about that, princess.” He fucks you on his fingers, hitting your g-spot with expert precision, the thumb of his other hand coming to rub at your neglected clit.
He can tell you’re close by all of your telltale signs. Your walls clamping down on his relentless fingers, your legs clenching his thigh tight, that breathy little whimper of yours that you subconsciously let out every time you’re nearly there.
And just as you’re about to be pushed over the edge, he rips away all stimulation from you. You cry out at the loss of his touch, trying to move every which way to get something back as you feel your high fizzle out.
His fingers teased around your dripping hole as he feels you come down, spreading some of your wetness to your clit, rubbing circles there to see you twitch over his lap. His fingers enter you again when he feels you stop moving, fucking into you at the same pace they were before.
You felt your high come much quicker now than it had before, all your previous orgasms never coming to fruition. Your walls were fluttering around his fingers, your clit bumping into his thigh.
He was trying to push you. You knew this. Trying to push your limits gently, seeing if you could hold off a little longer for him. But the issue with pushing limits, you don’t always get what you want.
He moved his hand away from you as he feels you almost reaching your high, hurtling it down to slap your clit. Throwing you over the edge into bliss.
You try to grind down on his thigh, push your legs together, anything to get some sort of friction. But he’s pulling your hips off his thigh, pushing your legs apart, not letting anything touch you. Making you come around nothing, with nothing to ride it out on.
You let out a sob at the frustration of your ruined orgasm.
“Did you just come without permission? After I explicitly said not to?” he barked, and slaps your ass hard. You had tears running down your face in both pain and frustration as he rains slaps down on your scarlett behind. Your boyfriend enjoying the way your body is flinching in anticipation of his next slap, watching your little hole clenching around nothing, non-stop dripping down his thigh.
He pulls you up quickly, the sudden movement making your head rush. You’re now sat straddling his thigh as he moves to sit back, leaning on his hands. He takes in your teary face, your clenched fists, and trembling legs.
“Since you want to come so bad, go for it.” he says to your shaking form with a smirk, bouncing his thigh.
“Wait, but, without your help? Please, come on. That’s not fair, please Min-." Your rambles were cut off short as he slaps you across the cheek, your face falling to the side as he sits up straighter.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” he asks, a disappointed tone creeping in. More tears run down your face as you fight yourself to move your hands to touch him, knowing in your brain that you shouldn’t.
“M-I’m sorry,” you whine out, trying to get your ever dizzying brain to work, which gets even more clouded when his thigh jerks up, pressing your throbbing clit harder against the scratchy material of his jeans. His head tilts to the side slightly, his eyebrow raising. “Sir. I’m sorry, sir.” you quickly scramble to get out.
He lets out a hum in response, “It’s my thigh or nothing. I’m not helping you get off.”
You let out a whine that it cut off promptly with a slap to the side of your thigh. “Ride. Or you can sit there untouched for the foreseeable future and watch me fuck my fleshlight while I watch videos of you actually being a good girl.” he threatened.
You shook your head so fast you felt yourself become light headed, willing your hips to move on his thigh. It feels so good to finally have proper pressure on your clit, but you’re working your way to a high that you’re not even sure you’re going to be allowed to hit.
Moving your hips more desperately, the feeling from your ruined orgasm still lingering, it doesn’t take long before you can feel your peak forming. “Please sir, please please please.” you mumble, your hands scratching at your thighs to hold onto anything.
“Please what jagi?” he asks with a smirk, loving how easy you were for him.
“Please can I come? Plea-”
“Of course you can come, silly. You’re already done it once, I’m not letting you stop until you’re passed out on my cock.”
Your hips stutter as you try to comprehend his words, but all your brain could let you hear was that he gave you permission to come. Grinding your clit into the rough fabric of his jeans, he lets you ride out your high until you’re slouched over, hands resting on his lower stomach, just above his very noticeable tent in his jeans.
He lets you catch your breath for all of ten seconds before his hands are on your hips, rocking you over his thigh again.
“N-no. I can’t,” you moan, hands scrambling to hold onto his, your legs shaking either side of his. “Too sen-sensitive!”
But he just lets out a laugh in return, “Of course you can take it, I thought you were trying to be my good girl? And good girls take what they’re given.” he whispers into your ear, smirking as you shiver at his words, goosebumps rising on the back of your neck.
“Just five minutes ago you were begging me to let you come, and now you’re saying it’s too much?” he smirks up at you now, tracing the mascara marks on your cheeks with his thumb before tapping it over your lower lip. “Just a dumb little baby, can’t figure out what she wants.” He pushes his thumb past your lips, letting you suck on it as his other hand guides your still twitching hips over his thigh.
After your second orgasm, it never takes you long to reach your highs after. His cologne clouding your senses, his soft huffs at the feeling of you soaking his leg, the slight burn of his fingers digging into your side. It was enough to push you over the edge in a slightly weaker, but still very present orgasm.
“There we go, so good for me now that we’ve taken the edge off. That all you wanted? My attention?”
He pushes you down onto the bed on your back, your hands falling above your head, thighs sliding open. He smirks as he sees you twitch at the sound of him undoing his belt again, pushing off his clothes while he admired you. Fucked out and pliant on his bed, just like he liked you.
He came to kneel between your thighs, pushing your knees up to your chest. You let out a whimper at the exposed position, feeling the blunt head of his cock knocking against your puffy cunt.
“Please, sir,” you beg, “I’m so sensitive.”
He coos down at you, “Yeah? Pretty baby needs me to be gentle?” He leans down, a whine ripping from your lips as he presses your legs further back so he can be nose to nose with you.
The stretch of your legs has you whimpering, but nevertheless you nod, trying your best to keep eye contact. He gives you a soft smile that sends butterflies to your core before whispering onto your lips.
“Well you’re in the wrong fucking place.” As he slams his hips into yours, stretching you out in one forceful thrust. A silent scream leaving your lips as your head throws back, your hands scraping down his toned back.
Without missing a beat, or letting you adjust to the sudden intrusion, he’s pulling back out again. Teasing your clit with the head of his leaky cock then pushing back into you. He relished in the moans flowing from your mouth, his arms solid on wither side of your fucked out face.
He fucks into you with an unrelenting pace, kissing every tear that poured down your cheeks, the contrast between soft and rough making your head spin. “Crying so pretty on my cock jagi,” he preened, adjusting his positioning so that your clit was rubbing against his lower stomach with every thrust.
Your legs begin to tense around him as you feel your fourth orgasm of the night reach its peak, being allowed to come around his cock for the first time.
He continues to fuck you through your high, not stopping even after you’ve come down. A low chuckle leaves his lips as he feels you thrash beneath him, overstimulation getting to you. “No more. Please. I can’t.” you whine, toes clenching, eyes barely able to stay open, nails pressed hard into your boyfriend’s back.
“You know what to say if you can’t take it,” he replies casually.
Red.
The word comes to your brain, swirling around your thoughts. You could say it now, all the discomfort from the overstimulation would stop. But you can’t stop the other thoughts invading your brain. The burn from how he has you folded like a pretzel, how good it feels to finally have his cock after months and months without it, how much you missed him making your brain go fuzzy.
While you were thinking, you didn’t notice the fresh batch of tears forming in your eyes. But Minho did. He always did.
Slowing his thrusts down now to a slow grind, catching your clit with every circle. His hands move your hair from your face, cupping your cheeks he encouraged you to look up at him. “Hey baby, I need your colour.”
Colour? Your mouth opens as if to answer him, and yet, nothing comes out.
Green. Green. Green.
You’re saying it, whispering it, shouting it. But not aloud. Everything feels too overwhelming.
“Colour. Now. Or I stop.” He says, commanding but not mean. Doing his job. Watching your every reaction to his touches, prepared to stop even if you don’t answer him.
You let out a whine at his words, moving your hips into his in worry that he’ll stop his movements. Mumbling out a barely there, but loud enough for him to hear, “Green.”
A small smirk twitches at the corner of his mouth, his hips lifting off yours. He’s almost all the way out before he snaps his hips into yours again, not stopping now that he knows you’re still all with him.
His hand that was caressing your cheek runs down your face, coming to rest at your neck. Letting the weight of it settle against your ragged breaths, he testingly squeezed against the sides, seeing how your eyes flutter shut and your cunt clenches around him.
He let out an uncontrolled groan, ramping up the speed of his thrusts in a way you didn’t even know possible. Your walls fluttered around him, your plump lips open, your thighs holding him tight to you. These were all things that made him twitch deep inside you, oh so close to his own high.
But so were you, your telltale signs coming to the surface faster than ever. “Hold it. I’m close, you can wait for me, can’t you baby.” He moaned out, his hand squeezing tighter at your neck.
It was too late. You were coming on his cock harder than you had all night. Expletives and moans mixing with each other as he helps you ride out your high.
As he feels you slump into the bed, he pulls out of you. A while leaving your lips at the emptiness. He slaps his cock head against your trembling clit, basking in your whimpers. He begins fucking over your cunt, his head hitting your clit every time.
“Wait, no, no please! Come in me. Si-sir please.” you beg, “I can be good - please.”
He laughs in response, “No. Clearly you can’t.” He lets out a groan at the feeling of your wet pussy under his cock. “Is this what happens when I go off to tour? You don’t have enough discipline while I’m away that you have to act up this much when I’m back?”
“Make up for it, take me with you, put me on a strict schedule. I don’t care. Please, please, just come inside me.”
His head tilts as he looks down at the desperate look on your face, “Don’t care huh?” He leans down so his lips are on your ear, breath making a shiver run down your spine. “Oh next time you’re definitely coming with me jagi. But this time? I’ll just have to make up for it.”
He slams his cock back into your weeping cunt, lapping up your moans with his mouth, his thumb coming down to your overstimulated swollen clit. “One more for me. You can do that for me can’t you princess? Need to see my dumb little baby clenching around my cock, not one thought in that head of yours. Maybe then you’ll finally be good for me.” he rambles, groaning in tandem when he feels you clamp down on him, nothing in this universe able to stop the pounding of his hips that were chasing both your highs.
“Come for me jagi, be good for me one last time.” That’s all you needed to send you hurtling over the edge again for the sixth time that night. Your clenching walls enough to make him let go, his hips stuttering as he pressed deep inside you, flooding you so deep that you’ll be dripping for days.
He stays like that for a while, both of you catching your breaths before the positioning gets uncomfortable for you both. He pulls out of you gently, letting out a groan in tune with your whimper at the sudden friction, he moves your legs down to the bed.
Looking up at your face, he begins to assess the damage. Drying tears on your cheeks, eyes closed, chest still gasping for air, legs trembling on the soft duvet beneath you.
“Oh jagi, you’re wrecked.” he breathes out, fondness seeping into every syllable.
You let out a weak laugh at his words, one eye cracking open to look at his endearing expression. “Mhm.” You begin to let out a whine of disagreement as you feel his arms wrap around you, lifting you from the bed.
“I know, I know. But you’re going to kill me tomorrow if I let you go to sleep with your legs all tense, still covered in my come.” he mumbles into your hairline, pressing soft kisses there after.
He holds you in the warm comfort of the bath, letting the soothing scent of lavender come over you both as you settle into each other, your back pressed firmly against his chest, head lolling on his shoulder. He presses kisses to your sore wrists and neck, gently massaging your sore muscles under the steamy water.
You could almost feel yourself drift into a sleep when you couldn’t help but let a smirk tug at your lips.
hyunjin x reader. f2l. (un)requited love. angry love confession, nye’s setting and a pinch (or three) of angst because well it’s me!!!!!! also hyunjin is down bad as he should be! bring back men that YEARN! 🔥
a.n: i haven’t written anything in an eternity so this is rusty and not much. but i rlly rlly wanted to post still. i really am trying to be back so please leave me your thoughts because that’s the biggest motivation ever. i love you guys. thank you to those of you who waited ❣️also thank YOU to @hwajin FOR GIVING ME THIS IDEA,,,, U ALREADY KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE U!!!!!!!!!!
the lights are dim.
dim enough for hyunjin not to recognize the blur of people passing by after his sixth shot into the night. he isn’t a heavy drinker, usually. but it’s new year’s eve—the marker of a new year and the closing of one already slipping away. hyunjin has never dealt well with the passage of time. nostalgia always finds him when the clock strikes midnight, fingers tightening around his throat like thorny vines.
it doesn’t help that he struggles to remember the details of his days– hours melding into one another like abstract paintstrokes. and that is precisely why he writes—everything, every small and mundane moment. they’re all pressed between the pages of his leather notebook. every word a screaming proof that he was here, that he existed.
hyunjin has commemorated two hundred and eighty-five additional days in the passing year. and somehow, in all of them, he found something to write about you.
the lights are dim, and hyunjin is tipsy now, swaying gently with the music as he leans against the kitchen counter. his white shirt hangs open at the collar, his cross necklace an oasis against his burning skin. sweat beads roll down his temple, heat pooling in his chest before spilling everywhere at once. he’s sure jisung has the heater turned up too high in his tiny apartment. or maybe it’s the rush of blood that swells at the mere symphony of you. maybe it’s his heart thudding to the memory of your perfume—the nerves, the damp palms that only ever betray him when you’re near.
and you are always near.
near, but never close. unattainable—like a mirage to a parched man, there only to taunt him, to remind him of what he craves and cannot have. you are hyunjin’s friend, but he wants more. no, needs more. no, yearns, dies, and is reborn for more.
the lights are dim, but somehow he can still see you. your silhouette, your shadow stretched against the white walls. the curve of your body, silk fabric moving like water when you walk. gold necklaces resting against your skin, fingers curling around the rim of your glass, eyeshadow glittering like scattered stars.
you’re here, yes, but you’re not looking at him. you’re smiling at jeongin instead, your hand dangerously close to his. hyunjin likes jeongin, he does, but the sight of him beside you feels like a knife lodged deep in the hollows of his ribs.
“come on, we’re playing truth and dare.”
hyunjin doesn’t know who grabs his hand, who pushes him into a makeshift circle on the floor. he scrunches his brows, eyes squeezed shut as he tries to quiet the buzzing in his head. an impossible task, it seems, that is until he opens his eyes and he finds you right across from him.
everything goes quiet for a moment.
you hold his gaze as you adjust your legs, draping someone’s sweater over your lap. you smile softly, saccharine, almost imperceptible, like a shared secret between the both of you. then you blink away, and the moment is gone, yet seared into hyunjin’s very atoms. he feels it then, the sudden, overwhelming urge to sob at your feet—to beg for a few seconds more. a minute, if he’s allowed to be greedy. just a little longer of you looking at him.
hyunjin doesn’t pay attention to who the bottle lands on. he sees from the side of his eye a blur of people laughing, then kissing, someone taking off their shirt, hollers and whistles at questions too outrageous if not for the alcohol streaming through everyone’s bloodstream. he cracks a smile here and then, half-heartedly laughs at jisung’s raunchy comment, but that is all he can muster in his state. not because he’s tipsy, drunk rather, but because his heart is bleeding, staining the eggshell tiles with a crimson that cannot be scrubbed away. and no one seems to notice.
then, the bottle lands on you.
and a millisecond later, it finds him.
hyunjin feels like he’s been electrocuted– jolted awake by a force grander than life. you meet his eyes and the noise of the room zeroes down to one sound– the air sucked away from his chest, the slight exhale you release in tandem.
fuck.
“kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!”
hyunjin moves on autopilot, grabbing your hand and pulling you into the closest empty room. he can hear screams trailing behind him, but he pays them no mind. you don’t seem to protest either, your hand never wilting in his.
“it’s quieter here,” he says as he closes the door.
“they’re childish,” you chuckle lowly, and he nods.
“yeah, it’s a stupid game.”
stupid. so stupid. because now, all hyunjin can think of is your lips on his, you inhaling his soul with every kiss, shattering his heart and stitching it all over again. pulling away only to meet, again, and again, and again, until he learns your taste, memorizes the sound of your breaths and their cadence.
stupid. stupid. stupid.
“what are you thinking of?” you ask, giggling slightly.
he’s too dumbfounded to respond. too drunk for this. he shouldn’t have had that last shot, or the three ones that preceded it. maybe then he wouldn’t make a fool out of himself in front of you. maybe then, he’d be able to tell you that he has fantasized about kissing you for months on end. of holding your hands. of painting you. of taking walks with you. and living. he has fantasized a lot about finally living, with you. for you.
his lips part to speak, yet close again. he moves one foot towards you, then backs up against the door. he’s hesitant, his hands are itching, his vocal cords unfolding and tightening to the shape of your name.
“you know, we don’t have to do this.” you suddenly say. your voice is high-pitched, and your next words come out in a sped-up manner, as if someone is chasing after you and you’re trying to run away.
from him, perhaps.
“here,” you hastily run your hands through his hair, ruffling his blonde strands. he’s motionless as your thumb smudges your ruby lipstick, then trails over the corner of his mouth. “it looks like we kissed, right? this will save us the teasing! ready to go?” you say, too hurried to even wait for his answer.
and then you leave.
the room is suddenly freezing. he should ask jisung to turn up the heater.
hyunjin has loved you the moment he saw you, exactly a year ago. it wasn’t love, per se. but his soul had recognized you. a blind man seeing the light for the first time, a butterfly emerging from its cocoon– a succession of irreversible acts, ones that time cannot take back, cannot erode. he has known you and he couldn't possibly go back to a world where he hasn’t.
he couldn’t understand your reaction, as he stood before the door left ajar, waiting for him to follow. did you hate the thought of kissing him so much? did you want to kiss someone else? were you cursed? like the ebb and flow of the sea, the rise and setting of the sun, the sea and sky, to exist so painstakingly close yet never meet as one.
the ensuing hour passes through hyunjin in silence. his mind is a raging battlefield, every thought of you akin to stepping on an unsuspecting mine. Midnight strikes then, and along it, his death, pronounced by your lips and jeongin’s moving against one another.
you’re kissing jeongin. or he is kissing you. he doesn’t know, doesn’t dare to think of it for a minute more. it’s a short kiss. it did not last for more than three seconds. but it was three seconds too long, enough to strip hyunjin from the very act of breathing, for his being to be held up not by a spine but a blazing fire.
perhaps he looks as distraught as he feels because when your eyes meet his, your eyebrows scrunch in worry. and you look so beautiful, as your eyes soften, as the light catches against your pupils. he’s jealous of it, jealous of whatever reflects upon you, touches you, becomes one with you. he’s jealous as you pull away from jeongin. he’s jealous as you step towards him and he retracts back– as if in a dance where the only outcome is you him away from you.
it’s too much.
hyunjin finds himself outside in a shirt that is too thin and dread coiled at the pit of his stomach. he wishes to run away from this feverish skin that has entrapped him, from this heart that has turned you into a home and refuses to vacate.
“hyunjin!” you shout, and he freezes in place, unaware of what to do, what to say, how to act. he doesn’t dare turn back to face you, nor does he wish to speak to you. because to speak would mean to pretend that he wasn’t hurt, and he was far too exhausted for that charade to keep up.
“hyunjin, what’s wrong?”
your voice speaking his name acts like a spell, forcing his body to tilt towards you, like a flower searching for the sun. even in the blaze of his sadness, he still closes his eyes for a second, savors the way his name drips from your tongue. it always feels different when you speak of it, sweeter, sacred even, as if you’re infusing a piece of your soul into the syllables.
“i…” he trails off, eyes darting everywhere but at you. how can one confess a year-long secret? how can he speak of a love that has taken root within his soul, entwined so deeply with his being? where flowers bloom at the mention of your name, wilt at your absence, follow the seasons of you.
“hyunjin, i’m worried about you,” you speak softly, searching his eyes. “you’ve been acting distant all night, did you... did you have too much to drink?”
“no, I…” his voice chokes up, and his hands dart to his face, shielding himself away from you, and your kind gaze that will never turn into a loving one. he feels so pathetic, tearing up in front of you and not being able to speak of it. he wants to blame it on the alcohol, he wants the earth to split in half and swallow him whole. he thinks it’s cruel– that he loves you so much, and yet you do not know of it. he’ll give you some of his love if that’s what it takes. he’ll survive off of scraps of your adoration.
“hyune… come on,” you smile sweetly, your hands softly sliding against his. “you know you can tell me anything.”
“can you really be this blind?” he chuckles dryly, his eyes watering as he gazes at you. he sees you through a blurry haze, your eyes widening, your cheeks blushing like a blossoming rose.
“can i really tell you everything? would you really stomach it if i told you how much i think about you? how much i long for you? that all my waking thoughts are about you? would you look at me then? would you still say my name? would you?” he’s growing frantic, searching your eyes, perched at the precipice of your soul, waiting for something, anything.
“because i love you. i love you. god, i love you so much and it’s killing me and breathing life into me at once.” he takes your hand and places it atop his wildly beating heart. “here. i feel it all here. do you understand? do you feel it? my heart beating, it’s doing it all for you.”
he waits for the earth to fold on itself, for lightning to strike, for you to leave, and for his world to end with your retreating steps.
but you stay. and his hand is suddenly on top of your heart. and it is beating just as wildly as his.
“hyunjin, you idiot,” you grin like the sun through your tears, “i know, of course i know, because that is what i feel too.”
“what… what are you saying?”
“i love you. god, of course i love you. but i never-” your voice breaks, “i never dared to imagine you’d feel the same about me.”
“you love me?” he asks incredulously. he couldn’t believe it. did the universe wake up and decide that it would hand him his salvation on a golden platter?
“yes.”
“say it again.”
“i love you.”
he’s smiling like a fool, the ache in his heart fades away like darkness before morning’s light.
“again.”
“i love you hyunjin. it’s you, i’ve always loved you.”
“god,” he suddenly grabs you, twirling you around as his giggles scatter everywhere like the stars twinkling above him. his wounds are carried away by the wind, stitched by the sound of your laughter. his soul is but a supernova— reborn again at your hands.
“why.. why wouldn’t you tell me before?” he breathes out, forehead softly pressed against yours.
“because you are… you. this unattainable galaxy that a little star cannot possibly impress.”
“me? who am i but someone who loves you?” he asks so earnestly, so truthfully, his entire heart brought bare to you, that your feet can only waver, knees buckling down at the weight of what was in front of you all along. your only anchor is found in his hands cupping your cheeks, in his eyes that seem to only have space for your reflection.
“oh, what about.. what about jeongin?” he suddenly asks, voice soft, almost guilty for still daring to think of the flicker of a candlelight before the sun.
“jeongin likes seungmin.” you giggle sheepishly, “we just did it because none of us got the kiss we wanted tonight.”
“oh?” he grows cheeky, his hand sliding down your jaw, thumb caressing the corner of your lips with a tenderness that makes you dizzy. “whose kiss did you want?”
“yours.”
he’s a breath away from you. his nose nearly brushing yours. you speak of your love so softly, so assuredly, that every word melts away all of his doubts, like seafoam surrendering to rocky shore. “can i give you what you wanted, then?”
“please,” you exhale and he brushes his lips against yours. tentatively, as if testing the waters knowing that the current would pull him underneath anyway. his patience burns thin then. he imagines that this is what Icarus felt before the sun— the aching, unbearable urge to surrender himself to the warmth, even if it scathes his skin and bones in the end. but you don’t. your lips only grow sweeter beneath his, a constellation of everything he has ever loved, your hands on the nape of his neck driving him to the edge of derilium. he grows urgent and pressing, not with hunger, but a desire to be as close to you as physically possible. to be sucked into your orbit with no way out.
but you are mere mortals, a truth that hyunjin resents in the moment as he is forced to part from you. yet you are still there, cheeks ablaze and eyes glossed over. “i’ve never felt this alive before,” you confess with a light giggle.
his smile grows shier. “me too.”
“you are freezing,” you grin, rubbing your nose against his. “let’s go inside.”
“can we stay here for a minute more? please. i just need a moment more with you.”
you nod, and his lips find your forehead, pressing a lingering kiss there, his lips still tingling from when he last kissed you. his hands slide around your back, drawing you in for a hug, shielding you from the cold. thought he doesn't need to. you are warmth incarnate, a small sun cupped in human form, light glowing from your soul, bathing everything around you.
it is thanks to you that the night is no longer dim.
i just saw a tiktok of this girl saying that she asked her bf if she could hold it while he pees and he said yes but she got her privileges revoked bc she could feel the pee moving and got scared pls recreate this 😭😭
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8f1fAJV/
❝ 𝑮𝒖𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒐’𝒔 𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑻𝒊𝒌𝑻𝒐𝒌 ❞
< Messages: Boyfriend SKZ
Recipient: Female Reader
a/n: insomnia and boredom makes me creative. all for kicks and giggles. apologies if i misrepresented the group and the members. this is all just a head canon of how i think they would act with their significant other (you). i was losing my mind trying to think of how to go about the second part of behind the headlines, then this lovely little submission pops up in my inbox 😭 and i had to stop everything to make this!!! please enjoy!!
warning (s): ❗️ᴍɪɴᴏʀs ʙᴇ ᴄᴀʀᴇꜰᴜʟ ❗️sassy kings// drama kings// top tier haters// profanity// suggestive comments// jokes of offing self// pet names// very chaotic// ALL fictional
