“Candy Hearts” ( I.M Angst/Fluff)
Title: Candy Hearts
Featuring: I.M (Monsta X) x Reader
Rating: PG
Summary: Your relationship with Changkyun has gotten rocky, but candy might be the solution.
Requested by anon!
Valentine’s Day had never meant much to you. You’d never fallen victim to the hoopla over romance and flowers, even when you’d been in a relationship. To you, it was simply an excuse to get candy.
Candy hearts were your favorite, something about that chalky sweetness made you so happy inside, to the point that your eyes would light up just spotting it in the candy isle during early February.
This was something your boyfriend Changkyun had learned about you early on in your relationship. He’d sneak them into your bag before work, or leave a couple with messages he liked in random places throughout your apartment. It was an unspoken game between the two of you, which only made you love the little pastel hearts even more.
This Valentine ’s Day, however, it was different. He’d been exceptionally busy lately, and it was taking a toll on your relationship. As much as you tried to be patient, resentment and arguments still popped up, especially since you never had the proper time or place to sit and talk through your issues. You’d bring up all your problems with one another, get upset, and then he’d have to leave, letting all those negative feelings hang in the air. When you talked on the phone, it was casual, but the tone in his voice made your heart ache, like he wasn’t his usual self anymore and you didn’t know how to talk to him about it.
He was getting 3 days off coming up over the holiday, and you didn’t know what you were going to do with yourself. He was supposed to stay with you, but you had a bad feeling about it. 3 days was not enough time to fix this.
He came in with his things and you exchanged few words and only a short hug. You wanted to hang on longer, but his energy was resistant, so you let him go while holding down the urge to cry.
He said he was tired and went to take a nap in the bedroom, and you stayed out in the living room. In the past when he came home he couldn’t keep his hands off you. You’d spend the entire first day in bed, making love, cuddling, catching up, and it was always divine. You felt sick to your stomach knowing he was in there without you, and he didn’t even seem to care.
When he got up, you ordered in dinner and ate silently. He looked exhausted, and you knew his recent schedule had taken a lot out of him, and it wasn’t the right time to try to talk to him about, well, anything. Still, all the things you wanted to say stung your tongue, and you gripped your utensils extra tight. You felt like you were going to explode.
You went about your evening separately, you idly watching TV and him off somewhere on his laptop with his headphones in. You were dreading tonight, when you’d crawl in bed next to him and not feel that radiating love like you usually did, though somehow hoping maybe he’d reach out for you.
He didn’t.
He turned on his side and fell asleep without a word, and you cried quietly facing the other way until you fell into an uneasy rest.
He was never good with words, you knew that. Not words in highly emotional situations, at least. That’s one of the reasons you loved the candy hearts so much. He was able to show his sweet, mushy side without feeling embarrassed.
But you thought maybe now, in the most desperate of circumstances, he could overcome his weakness to just talk to you.
You sat silent again the next morning, watching him consume his breakfast while yours sat getting cold in front of you. You couldn’t handle it anymore.
“So this is it, then? You’re just going to avoid me and act like nothing is wrong?” You said, trying to keep your voice steady.
He slowly raised his head and looked at you as if he had no idea what you were talking about, but he forced the expression.
“I’m just really tired.” He said with no hint of truth behind it.
“Too tired to talk to me? Hell, too tired to kiss me or ask how I’ve been?”
More silence, and a soft sigh from Changkyun.
“I know we have a lot to talk about and I was going to get to it.”
“When? You leave the day after tomorrow. Were you going to wait until the last minute and argue with me and then leave, like always?”
The bitterness was palpable in your tone, despite how you tried to control it. He finally showed an emotion then, a small wince, like he’d actually felt the words hit him.
“I never plan on arguing with you.” He said defensively, and something about the way he said it hurt right back, like he was blaming you for it.
You could feel you were not in the right mindset to have this conversation, your hands were practically shaking with all your pent up feelings. You stood up from the table abruptly and left, going in the bedroom and slamming the door behind you.
You lay in bed, eyes wide open and far too numb to keep crying. Your head was racing with everything the two of you had been through in the time you’d been together, from the great to the good and now the bad. It all hurt the same.
Your restlessness from the night before caught up with you and you fell asleep, but even in your dreams you were restive.
Your eyes peeled open sometime in the afternoon, if you had to venture a guess, and you felt a little better physically but not emotionally.
As you blinked the sleep out of your eyes you saw a small, purple piece of candy on the pillow next to your head, and sat up. You picked up the heart and read the pink message that simply said “Luv U”
That was when you noticed the trail of hearts that went off the bed and on the floor, one heart for every 2 or so steps, all with sentimental messages like “Ur the sweetest” or just “XOXO”
You followed the candy trail into the kitchen where Changkyun sat at the table, looking like he was waiting anxiously. You came to sit across from him, and there was one mint-colored heart in the middle of the table that read “Be Mine”
“I’m sorry”
You looked up at his face and saw the way his remorse painted his expression.
“What are you sorry for?” You asked quietly, picking up the candy and rolling it your fingers.
“Not trying hard enough, not recognizing when you needed me, only thinking about myself.” He rattled off the list of faults, and you agreed with most of them, but knew this was a two-way street.
“It wasn’t all you. I could have been more patient, and I could’ve spoken up about how I was feeling.”
You both took a moment to process all that had been said, and to your relief it didn’t feel as stagnate as before. You stared at the candy pinched between your fingertips, watching the “Be Mine” appear and disappear.
“That was the first one I ever gave you” Changkyun spoke up with a small laugh. “Do you remember?”
You felt yourself smile a little yourself. “I do”
He’d found out about your candy heart obsession pretty early into your relationship, and decided to pluck all the “be mine” hearts out of the box and arrange them into one big heart on the kitchen table for your first Valentine’s Day together. You knew then that the relationship was going to last.
And it was going to keep on lasting.
It was going to start by not expecting him to always take the initiative. You tossed the heart on the table and stood, and Changkyun watched you, nervous you might leave again. Instead, you circled the table until you were close enough to throw your arms around him and bury your face into his neck.
He seemed shocked for a moment, but quickly wrapped his arms all the way around your waist and pulled you in, squeezing you tight.
When you pulled back after an eternity, he captured your mouth in a deep, longing kiss, holding your face with one hand and pulling you against him with the other. Your eyes drifted shut as all the tension in your body released at once.
You were really going to have to write that candy company a thank you letter someday.