“Echoes of December” K.DY
pairing: Exbestfriend!Doyoung x Fem!Reader
genre:ex best friends to lovers, exbestfriends to strangers, drama.
tags: some swear words, y/n's a workaholic and kinda rude (worth the plot i swear)
Traveling is great… until you have to go back to your hometown.
Sure, you were born and raised there. Your childhood wasn’t that bad, and your teenage years… well, those were a bit messier. But still, it was home.
The problem wasn’t returning; it was everything that came with it—the tightness in your chest, the nostalgia creeping in out of nowhere, and the memories… some sweet, others you wished would stay buried.
I sighed and glanced at my phone screen: 09:45 AM. I rolled my eyes. There were still a couple of hours left before landing, and I hadn’t slept a single minute. If it weren’t for my sister, there’s no way I’d be here.
“She could come with us,” I heard my sister say through the laptop speaker. We were on a video call with my parents, and I frowned, confused.
“What?” I asked, adjusting my posture in front of the camera. “Go where?”
On one of the little squares on the screen, my parents were nodding like they had already made the decision without me.
“Yes, Y/n,” my mom said, using that sweet tone that was sometimes a trap. “You should come spend Christmas with the family.”
I felt every muscle in my body tense. I had work in the city where I lived now, and I was so close to getting the promotion I’d been waiting for for years. I couldn’t risk it.
“Mom, it’s not that…” I began, but my dad cut me off.
“Y/n, how many years has it been since you were home for the holidays? You need to step away from work for a bit. It’s eating you alive, and you’re still young.”
“Dad’s right. We should be together… you’ve missed two Christmases already,” my sister added, using that half-guilty, half-reproachful tone.
I snapped back to the present with another sigh, remembering how that day had ended. A total disaster.
“Y/n, I understand, but part of the administrative team won’t be available during those days. You can’t just leave,” Mr. Yamamoto had said, using that firm tone he reserved for things he didn’t approve of.
“I know, Sir, but this is important,” I said, practically begging for the situation to resolve itself. “I haven’t asked for anything in five years. I need those days to be with my family.”
My boss stood up from his chair, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Perfect. A bad sign. I stayed silent, bracing myself.
“I know, Y/n. You’ve been efficient from day one, I can’t deny that,” he finally said. “But you also can’t turn your back on the company when it needs you the most.”
I didn’t say anything. It was rare for him to budge on things like this.
“I’ll give you the days,” he added after a pause.
I let out the breath I’d been holding. Not because I was happy, but because at least he wasn’t firing me.
“But you’ll have to work from there. I just need basic monitoring four or five hours a day and, if necessary, a bit of editing.”
And there I was, sitting on a plane headed back to the place where I’d spent my childhood. Exhausted, anxious… and stuck in that weird limbo between wanting to go back and wanting to jump off mid-flight.
The flight attendant walked down the aisle with the drink cart, forcing me to sit up straight again. I’d lost count of how many times I’d had to do that since we took off. Between the lack of sleep and the engine noise, my head was about to burst.
“Something to drink?” she asked with a polite smile. Too polite for my current mood.
Nothing else. My stomach had been upset since last night, and I wasn’t about to tempt fate with coffee or anything acidic.
I took the cup and held it for a moment, as if I could absorb some calm from it. Outside, all you could see was a sea of white clouds. It looked peaceful, almost soothing… but all I could think about was everything waiting for me when we landed.
Family, memories, uncomfortable conversations. The full package.
I decided to put on some music to calm myself down. I opened Spotify and chose the playlist I used whenever I wanted to tune out the world. The first song hadn’t even reached the halfway point when the girl beside me shifted again. She had spent the last two hours massaging her neck, changing positions, adjusting her travel pillow.
I could practically feel her discomfort.
“You okay?” I asked before I could stop myself. My voice came out rougher than I expected.
She looked at me, surprised. “Yeah… kind of. I can’t sleep on planes. I get anxious.”
“I get it,” I replied, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. “I don’t even bother trying.”
“Going back home?” she asked after a quiet moment.
I opened one eye. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”
She laughed softly. “Sometimes going back is worse than leaving.”
We didn’t talk after that, but the brief interaction pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts a little. I leaned back again and let the music wash over me. But no matter how much I tried to disconnect, my mind kept circling back to the day I’d asked for time off.
I remembered too clearly the knot in my chest while waiting for Yamamoto’s answer. The silence in that office was awful. Seconds felt like hours. He exhaled like I had asked him to shut down the entire company for a month.
“Four or five hours a day…” I murmured on the plane, hearing his voice perfectly in my memory.
Right. Because if I didn’t work, the whole world would apparently collapse.
I couldn’t deny that I liked my job—a lot, actually—but I also couldn’t dismiss what my dad said: it’s consuming you.
He might’ve been right. I would never admit that out loud, but there it was.
The plane shook with a bit of turbulence, scattering my thoughts. The flight attendant announced that we were starting our descent. My stomach dropped like an elevator.
There was no turning back now.
The landing was smooth, but I didn’t feel smooth at all. I packed my things slowly, watching everyone stand up immediately, desperate to get out. I was in no rush. All that awaited me outside was a mix of family love and existential dread.
Still, I stood up, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and followed the crowd. The airport was packed—way too packed—and the Christmas atmosphere was everywhere: music, decorations, employees in red hats, families hugging like they hadn’t seen each other in ten years, people taking selfies in front of the giant tree.
I inhaled deeply.
That smell of coffee mixed with cheap perfume and old air conditioning… yeah, I was definitely home.
My phone vibrated. A message from my sister:
“We’re here weirdo. Exit 3.”
Perfect.
Time to face reality.
I walked to the exit and spotted them instantly. My mom was waving like she was trying to flag down a taxi from across the planet, my sister smiling with contained excitement, and my dad… well, he was just standing there, serious, but I knew he was happy inside.
“Y/n!” my mom shouted before I even reacted.
She wrapped me in a hug that nearly crushed me. My sister joined in a second later, bumping her head into mine.
“Oh my god…” I complained, but didn’t push them away. “Were you trying to suffocate me?”
“We missed you,” my sister said, ignoring my dramatics.
“I missed you too. A little,” I joked.
My dad stepped forward and gave me a short but firm hug. The kind only he knew how to give.
“Welcome home,” he said, and that simple phrase hit harder than it should have.
The drive to the house was exactly how I remembered: endless traffic lights, streets that felt smaller, and that familiar city smell I could never describe but recognized immediately.
My mom talked nonstop from the passenger seat.
“We decorated the whole house. Your aunt is coming on the 24th, and Grandma wants us to set up the long table outside. Oh, and your sister bought new lights because she said last year’s were ugly…”
My sister rolled her eyes while driving.
“They were normal lights.”
“Normal and ugly are not the same.”
I smiled faintly, letting their familiar bickering wash over me.
I had missed them. More than I ever let myself admit.
“And work?” my dad asked, watching me through the mirror.
I swallowed.
I knew that question was coming.
“Good. I just have to monitor some things from here, nothing major.”
“Always working…” my mom murmured in a teasing, affectionate tone.
“Well, someone has to keep the world running,” I replied.
“The world can wait until January,” my dad said flatly.
I wanted to respond, but I didn’t. Part of me knew he was right. The other part… didn’t know how to relax even if someone paid me to.
When we got home, the emotional hit was immediate. The front looked the same, except for the excess of lights my sister had clearly picked. Decorations, garlands, an enormous inflatable Santa… too much for me.
“Was all this necessary?” I asked as I got out of the car.
“Of course,” my sister said proudly. “It’s Christmas.”
Inside, the house smelled like cookies, cinnamon, and artificial pine. The tree was beautiful, full of ornaments I recognized from childhood. I walked over and traced one of the old ones: a wooden star I had decorated when I was seven.
“Surprised it’s still in one piece.”
“I cleaned it yesterday,” my mom said behind me. “It was covered in dust.”
I smiled.
A silly detail, but it made me emotional.
“Want something warm?” she asked. “I can make hot chocolate or tea.”
“Tea is fine,” I said, looking around.
The living room seemed smaller than I remembered. Or maybe I had grown too much. Everything was the same yet somehow different. Familiar but distant.
“I left your luggage in your room,” my dad said. “Nothing’s changed since you were last here.”
Which could be good… or bad.
“Thanks,” I said before heading upstairs.
My room was untouched.
Like time had been paused there.
Same bed, same desk, walls with bits of tape where my posters used to be, old books lined up with no order at all. A time capsule of my teenage years.
I dropped my backpack and sat on the bed. Closed my eyes for a moment, breathing deeply.
Then I heard footsteps in the hallway.
“You okay?” my sister asked from the doorway.
She walked in without asking (as always) and sat beside me.
“I’m not gonna lie,” she said. “I’m really happy you’re here. And I know it’s not easy for you.”
I opened my eyes and looked at her. She had always been more sensitive than me, more transparent.
“It’s not that I don’t want to come,” I said, fiddling with the zipper on my backpack. “It’s just… every time I’m back something gets stirred up. Things I’d rather leave alone.”
“That happens to all of us,” she replied. “But it’s also part of growing up, right?”
“Come on. Mom made hot chocolate even though you said you wanted tea.”
I sighed. Of course she did.
The first few hours at home were… soft. Familiar. Warm.
But when night came, when everyone went to bed and I stayed alone in the living room watching the tree lights flicker, that knot in my chest returned.
Suddenly, all the places I’d run from, the people I’d left behind, the versions of myself still living in this city—they all came back.
And among all those memories, one stood out stronger than the rest.
One I had no intention of inviting, but showed up anyway.
I held my breath. Shook my head as if I could push the thought away.
I hadn’t thought about him in years. Years spent avoiding even hearing his name out loud. Years building a life where his shadow didn’t exist.
But there it was. As if stepping into this city had awakened it.
I got up and went to the kitchen for cold water, trying to clear my head. But when I returned to my old room, I saw something on the floor, near a crack in the wall that made my stomach drop.
An envelope. White, simple, unadorned. My name written on it by hand.
In my handwriting. From when I was a teenager. I picked it up carefully, feeling my pulse quicken. I opened it slowly, as if afraid of damaging something fragile.
Inside was a letter. One I had written years ago. One I didn’t remember keeping.
I unfolded it and began to read.
“If I ever come back to this city, I hope it doesn’t hurt anymore to think about everything I left behind. I hope by then I can forgive, forget, or at least stop feeling like I failed. If you’re reading this… I hope you’re okay. I hope you’re stronger than you are now. I hope you don’t think about him anymore.”
A huge lump formed in my throat.
“Great…” I muttered, dropping the letter on the floor again. “Not even one day here and I’m already having an existential crisis.”
I fell back onto the couch and covered my face with my hands.
This trip was going to be harder than I thought.
And not just because of my family.
But because of the ghost from my past that had just woken up. A ghost with a name, a face… and a story I still wasn’t ready to face.
taglist: (lmk if you want to be tagged)
angie's lil corner: heyyy! long time no see my pooks!
I finally managed to get a laptop that works better than the one I had before. I got the chance to buy one at a reasonable price without having to give up a kidney lol. Jokes aside, here’s the first chapter of this sad story. I hope you like it, and I’ll be updating weekly as long as college and work allow me to.
As always, I hope you’re taking care of yourselves, eating well, and drinking lots and lots of water! Love you all!!!
