Love Like This || B.EJ
Synopsis: Slow dancing with your beloved husband
Pairing: husband!euijoo x pregnant!wife!reader
Warnings: flufffffffff, pregnancy, mention of blood (she gets a cut), avocado slander
A/N: you guys have no idea how much i cried writing this. As someone who didn't have a great childhood, just the idea of having a daughter is so comforting and terrifying at the same time for reasons Im sure most of you will figure out because #womanhood but i think husband euijoo lowkey got me through writing this on my period. As always, enjoy, my munchkins!
Word Count: 4.4k (cotton candy softness)
Pregnancy was a bitch.
You’d know; you were currently five months in and you couldn't wait for the next four months to get over.
Oh and then there would come the birth, postpartum depression, the probability of not loving your baby afterwards and being judged by society because you’re a woman and we’re all destined to die under the thumb of patriarchy one way or another—
And you’re crying again.
Fifth time today.
Great for you.
The tears came hot and humiliating, sliding down your cheeks while you sat curled into the corner of the couch with a blanket wrapped around your swollen body. Your back hurt, your ankles hurt, your breasts hurt. Even breathing too deeply felt uncomfortable now, like your own ribs were protesting the life growing beneath them. You pressed a trembling hand against your stomach and laughed weakly through your tears.
You remembered when the test had first turned positive. Euijoo had stared at it for a full ten seconds in complete silence, eyes wide and disbelieving before looking at you as though the world had just handed him something sacred. Then he’d laughed—a startled, breathless sound—and pulled you into his arms so quickly you nearly dropped the test into the sink.
“We’re having a baby?” he’d whispered against your hair like he still couldn’t believe it.
Back then, happiness had been easy, bright and weightless.
Euijoo had kissed your stomach every night despite there being nothing there yet. He’d spent hours researching cribs and vitamins and the safest baby monitors as if preparing for an exam he absolutely could not fail. You still remembered how he’d looked sitting cross-legged on the floor of your shared apartment, reading parenting forums with a furrow between his brows so deep you’d laughed at him until he pouted and claimed he was being a responsible father.
And God, you loved him.
You loved him in the way he always reached for your hand during crowded walks, in the way he memorized your coffee order after hearing it once on your second date, in the way he looked at you like you were something soft enough to protect and strong enough to admire all at once.
Euijoo loved through warm meals waiting for you after exhausting days, through fingers combing gently through your hair when migraines left you unable to speak, through sleepy midnight conversations and forehead kisses and the habit he had of pulling you closer in his sleep like his body knew yours by instinct.
And he still loved you now.
Even when pregnancy had hollowed you out and replaced your patience with exhaustion and your confidence with fear.
Euijoo rubbed lotion onto your stretch marks with reverent care, woke up at three in the morning to hold your hair back when you got sick, whispered ‘you’re beautiful’ so sincerely that sometimes it made you cry harder because you couldn’t understand how he still saw beauty in someone who felt so miserable all the time.
You were happy. You were.
But happiness and pain could exist together, and nobody warned you about that part. Nobody told you that growing a child could feel miraculous and unbearable at the same time. That you could want this baby with your entire heart and still feel moments where you wanted to give up simply because everything hurt too much.
You wiped your eyes with a sleeve already stiff from salt, and the motion made you think of his sleeves. Euijoo’s, how they’d always been soft.
You hadn’t met him in some grand, cinematic way. It was at a friend’s cramped apartment, a board game night. He was quiet, but his laughter was a sudden, clear sound that cut through the noise, and you found yourself trying to make it happen again.
He had a way of listening that made you feel like your thoughts were being gathered like mushrooms from a forest. His hands were gentle—he sketched in margins, on napkins, on the back of your hand once, a tiny, perfect star.
When Euijoo loved you, it was with a quiet certainty that felt like shelter. He remembered the songs you hummed absentmindedly and learned them. He cooked meals that were colorful because he said your joy deserved a palette. Your love was the steady warmth of a hearth in a room you both built, brick by brick. You’d talk for hours about everything and nothing—the ethics of fictional worlds, the shape of clouds that looked like old memories, the best way to eat an avocado.
The catalyst for your tears today was an avocado.
A stupid, simple, perfectly ripe avocado you’d been craving for two days. You’d finally mustered the energy to go to the market, stood in line feeling like a swollen monument to inconvenience, just for this one thing.
You got it home. You sliced it in half with ceremonial care and the pit—the damn pit—wouldn’t budge. You tried the knife trick, you tried a spoon, you tried gripping it with a towel, your hands slippery. Nothing.
You stood there in the silent kitchen, wrestling with this stubborn seed, and a wave of pure, childish frustration crested over you. It wasn’t just about the avocado anymore. It was about the jar you couldn’t open yesterday, the socks you couldn’t bend to pick up this morning, your own body becoming a series of locked doors you no longer had the keys to.
You gave it one last, furious wrench and the knife slipped. It didn’t cut you deeply, but it nicked the side of your thumb, a bright bead of red welling up against the green flesh of the fruit. And that was it.
The dam broke.
You weren’t crying over the avocado, or the cut. You were crying because you felt broken, defeated by a vegetable. The tears were hot and silent as you sank down in defeat onto the small kitchen island seat, cradling your hand, the uncut avocado halves staring up at you like mocking, green eyes.
A memory came into your mind—his hand, steady and warm under yours. A night on the sofa, early in your relationship, bathed in lamplight. You were talking about dreams and stars and whatnot.
"Draw me one.” You’d said, pointing to your skin. He’d produced a pen from behind his ear—he always had one—and drew a tiny star on the back of your hand. His touch was feather-light, his concentration absolute.
"There.” He’d said, sealing it with a soft kiss to the ink. "A piece of a constellation, just for you. So you're never lost." You felt chosen, adorned, seen in the most delicate way.
You looked at the same hand now, the star long washed away. In its place was a small, stinging, your wedding band feeling tight and foreign. You weren't a canvas for dreams anymore, you were a clumsy, sore vessel. The contrast was so violently absurd it made a sob catch in your throat.
Stupid stupid stupid.
___________
The front door clicked shut with a quiet thud.
Euijoo stepped inside carefully, shrugging off his coat with one hand, exhaustion still clinging to the slope of his shoulders from work. The apartment was warm and washed gold by the evening light filtering through the curtains. Usually, you’d call out to him by now. Usually there’d be the soft sound of your slippers against the floor or your sleepy voice asking what he wanted for dinner.
Instead, he heard a tiny, muffled sniffle from the kitchen and his heart dropped instantly.
Not out of irritation or alarm, just that immediate, aching tenderness that always seized him whenever you cried now. Pregnancy had made your emotions delicate in the same way frost made flower petals delicate—one small thing and suddenly everything trembled apart. Euijoo set his bag down and followed the sound.
And there you were. Perched miserably on the kitchen stool in one of his oversized shirts, face damp with tears, one hand cradling the other while a mutilated avocado sat abandoned on the cutting board beside you like evidence of a crime scene. For a moment, he simply stood there unnoticed.
And God.
You were so beautiful.
Soft and angelic, the incarnation of heaven, and carrying something precious inside you at tremendous cost to yourself.
The curve of your stomach beneath the fabric made something deep in his chest ache with overwhelming affection. His child, your child, a tiny life the two of you had somehow created together, nestled safely beneath your ribs while you sat there crying over an avocado with the saddest expression he had ever seen in his life.
He loved you so much it frightened him sometimes.
Loved the sleepy puffiness beneath your eyes in the mornings, loved the stretch marks beginning to bloom faintly across your hips, loved the way you absentmindedly held your stomach now when you were upset, protective even through your frustration.
Euijoo looked at you and saw devotion made flesh, saw every sacrifice your body was making to bring your baby into the world, saw strength in the exhaustion and beauty in the tenderness of you.
His throat tightened painfully.
You sniffled again, wiping at your face angrily with the heel of your palm, and he noticed the tiny cut on your thumb immediately. That did him in completely.
His expression softened into something unbearably gentle as he crossed the kitchen quietly, as though approaching a frightened animal he didn’t want to startle.
“Baby…” he murmured.
You startled slightly, eyes lifting to him, embarrassed tears immediately gathering harder the second you saw him.
“I hate everything,” you whispered miserably.
Euijoo almost smiled because you sounded so genuinely devastated that it wrapped around his heart and squeezed.
He stepped between your knees without hesitation, hands instinctively settling on your hips before one moved carefully to your injured hand. His fingers were warm, careful as he examined the tiny cut like it was something serious.
“Oh, my love.” The endearment alone nearly made you cry again.
His thumb brushed softly beneath your eye, catching a tear before it could fall. He leaned down until his forehead rested against yours, eyes half-lidded as he looked at you with that same tenderness he’d had the night he drew stars onto your skin.
“I leave you alone for a few hours and you go to war with an avocado?” he murmured softly. A watery laugh escaped and victory flickered briefly across his face at the sound.
Euijoo kissed the corner of your mouth gently before pulling back just enough to look at you again, gaze moving slowly across your face like he was memorizing it.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I wish you could see yourself the way I do.”
Your lips trembled. “Euijoo—”
“No, really.” His voice was soft but certain. “You sit here thinking you’re falling apart, and all I can think is how lucky I am.”
Another tear slipped free. He caught it with his thumb immediately.
“You’re carrying our baby,” he whispered, eyes shining now too. “You’re exhausted and hurting and still trying every day anyway. And you’re worried because an avocado made you cry?” He kissed the crown of your head softly, “I’d peel a thousand avocados for you if it meant you never had to cry over one again.”
Your breath hitched softly as your tall husband bent down to kiss you, a quiet anchor in the storm of your emotions, like he was trying to pour every ounce of love he had through touch alone.
One of his hands remained at your hip while the other drifted instinctively over the gentle curve of your stomach beneath the oversized shirt, his palm warm through the fabric.
Euijoo’s palm spread there possessively, reverently, thumb stroking slow circles over the taut skin. The pressure was gentle, but somehow it loosened something knotted painfully deep inside you. You hadn’t realized how tense you’d been all day until his touch began smoothing it away piece by piece.
Under the steady, loving pressure of his touch, the pain softened from a scream to a sigh. Your shoulders softened first, then your jaw and then the ache sitting heavy behind your ribs seemed to melt beneath the steady warmth of his hand. You let out a breath you didn't realize you’d been holding, your forehead falling against his shoulder.
“See?” he murmured against your lips, “Even our little one knows to settle down for dad.”
His hand continued rubbing soothing circles over your bump, almost absentmindedly now, like comforting the both of you at once. Every so often his thumb would pause when the baby shifted faintly beneath his palm, wonder flickering across his face each time no matter how many times it happened.
You watched him quietly. The absolute gentleness in him never failed to undo you. One of the many reasons you’d decided to make him your husband.
“How do you always know what to do?” you asked hoarsely.
Euijoo smiled faintly, brushing his nose against yours. “I don’t.”
“You do.”
“No,” he murmured honestly. “I’m just obsessed with making you feel better.” A weak laugh escaped you again, and he looked absurdly pleased with himself for managing it.
Euijoo held the kiss until your breathing evened out and your hands unclenched from the fabric of his shirt. “Stay." He whispered, as if you had any intention of moving.
Your husband moved around the kitchen gathering the first aid kit from the drawer. He guided you carefully to stay seated with a hand on your thigh before crouching slightly in front of you.
He took your injured hand, cradling it in his own, and set about cleaning the tiny nick with an antiseptic wipe. His focus was absolute, his brow slightly furrowed in that way you loved.
Even now—even pregnant, swollen, exhausted—he looked at you like you hung the moon. It made your chest ache. You stared at him quietly while he worked.
His soft sweater sleeves were pushed up to his forearms. His hair had fallen messily over his forehead from the humidity outside. There was still tiredness lingering beneath his eyes from work, but he’d come home and immediately poured every remaining ounce of energy into you without hesitation.
And the hormones were telling you that you didn't deserve a bit of this and that he deserved to rest properly and you were taking that away from him.
“Ju…” You said softly, “I’m not ridiculous for this, am I?”
“No baby.” He finished applying a small, cartoon-character bandage. He smoothed the edges with his thumb, his touch lingering. “You could never be ridiculous to me. Overwhelmed? Yes. Fierce? Always. My beautiful, brave, avocado-conquering wife?” He brought your bandaged hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles. “Absolutely.”
Your lip trembled at that. Beautiful, brave—the words felt too large for someone who had dissolved into tears over produce fifteen minutes ago.
Euijoo seemed to notice the doubt flicker across your face immediately because his expression softened even further, impossibly gentle.
“Hey,” he murmured, rubbing his thumb across your knee. “What’s happening in that pretty little head?”
You looked away first, which alone told him enough.
The kitchen fell quiet except for the soft hum of the refrigerator and the distant rain beginning to patter lightly against the windows. Euijoo stayed crouched in front of you patiently, one hand still resting on your thigh. He never rushed you when you got like this, never demanded words before you were ready to give them.
“I just…” You swallowed thickly. “You work all day and then you come home and have to deal with me crying over avocados and stupid things and—”
“None of this is stupid.”
“But it feels stupid.” Your voice cracked softly. “And I feel…..difficult.”
His face changed instantly at that, something akin to hurt flashing across his beautiful eyes. Like the thought of you seeing yourself that way genuinely pained him. His hands felt warm against your skin. Like home.
“Look at me,” he said quietly. You did and the look on his face made you want to cry all over again. Your husband, oh your darling husband.
“I need you to understand something, my love.” His voice stayed soft, but there was certainty beneath it now. “Taking care of you is never something being taken away from me.” Your eyes stung immediately.
“I come home tired,” he admitted gently, brushing hair back from your damp face, “and then I see you, and suddenly I don’t care anymore because you’re my home too.”
A shaky breath left you. Euijoo leaned down, resting his forehead against yours again.
“You think I’d rather be resting somewhere else?” he whispered. “Than here with my wife and my baby?”
One of his hands slipped instinctively back to your stomach, spreading protectively over the curve of it. His thumb rubbed slow circles there again, soothing both of you at once.
“I love you.” He said simply. “Even when you cry. Even when that pretty mind is trying to convince you that it’s hard to love you.” His nose brushed yours lightly. “Especially then.”
The tears finally spilled over properly after that, silent and warm.
Euijoo sighed fondly the second he saw them. “Oh, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry,” you whispered miserably.
“For what?”
“For being emotional all the time.”
He looked genuinely confused. “You’re growing a human being with your organs.” A tiny laugh escaped and he smiled warmly, that smile you’d fallen so deep in love with, “There she is,” he said immediately, eyes lighting up like he’d won something precious, “My sweet girl.”
He kissed you again—soft, lingering, full of affection that felt almost too big for your chest to hold. When he pulled away, he rested both hands around your face carefully.
“You know what I saw when I walked in here?” he murmured.
“A disaster?”
“My favorite person in the world.” Your face crumpled a little at that. Euijoo smiled softly, brushing away another tear with his thumb. “And maybe a slightly threatening avocado.”
You laughed harder this time, wet and breathless, and he grinned so brightly it made him look younger. Like making you smile was the most important thing he’d done all day.
You stayed there for a long time after that, neither of you in any hurry to move.
Euijoo stood between your knees while you leaned into him bonelessly, forehead resting against his chest, your arms loosely around his waist. One of his hands remained spread protectively over your stomach while the other moved slowly up and down your back in absentminded strokes.
The kitchen lights glowed soft and golden above you. Rain tapped quietly against the windows. Outside, the world continued moving at its usual pace, but inside your apartment time seemed to slow into something gentler. Safer. You could hear his heartbeat beneath your ear
Home.
Every few minutes Euijoo would press a kiss into your hairline or temple like he simply couldn’t help himself. Sometimes he’d glance down at your stomach with this dazed little expression that still looked new on him every single time.
At one point the baby shifted faintly beneath his hand.
“Oh.’ He said softly, “Hi there, sweetie.” He whispered with quiet wonder.
You smiled tiredly against his sweater. “She’s been kicking me all day.”
“Already causing trouble like her mother.”
“How dare you?” You gasped weakly. Another laugh escaped you, softer this time, and Euijoo looked ridiculously pleased by it again.
Eventually he tilted his head slightly to catch your eyes. “You wanna go lie down, baby?” he asked quietly. “You look exhausted.”
“I am,” you admitted.
“Mm.” His thumb stroked over your hip. “Bed?” You hesitated.
Euijoo noticed immediately. “What?”
“I don’t know.” You shifted your weight slightly with a small grimace. “I feel like if I lie down right now I’m gonna feel worse.” He listened carefully, nodding once like this was the most important medical briefing he’d ever received.
“The baby wants to move?” he asked solemnly.
“Your daughter,” you confirmed gravely, “wants to move.”
Euijoo hummed thoughtfully. Then a tiny smile tugged at his mouth. “Okay.”
You narrowed your eyes suspiciously. “Okay what?”
“Let’s dance.”
You blinked. “What?”
“Let’s dance.” He repeated like it was obvious. “Doctor’s orders.”
“There is absolutely no doctor that would prescribe dancing in the kitchen.”
“My medical license says otherwise.”
“You don’t have a medical license, Ju.” You laughed heartily. Your husband could be so ridiculous sometimes. You imagined what he’d be like with your daughter—inventing silly games, prescribing dance breaks for scraped knees—and your heart swelled until it ached.
Euijoo ignored your protest entirely and reached for his phone. A moment later, soft music crackled quietly through—something slow and warm, woven with strings and a gentle piano melody.
The song to which you’d had your first dance at your wedding, when the world was just the two of you and a circle of golden light.
Your husband—ever the romantic. You stared at him as he set the phone down and held his hand out toward you dramatically.
“Come on sweetheart.” His eyes softened instantly afterward, voice gentler. “Just a little.”
You looked down at yourself, oversized shirt, puffy eyes, swollen ankles. Euijoo looked at you like you were something sacred anyway, a statue carved from moonlight.
“I look awful,” you mumbled automatically.
His expression turned scandalized. “You look like the love of my life.” Your face heated immediately. “Now,” he said firmly, wiggling his fingers at you, “dance with me before our child grows up thinking her mother hates fun.”
A reluctant smile tugged at your mouth as you slipped your hand into his. His fingers closed around yours and his other hand found the small of your back.
The kitchen seemed smaller somehow once you were in his arms, softer and warmer. The rain beyond the windows blurred the city lights into watercolor streaks while your song drifted through the apartment in quiet crackles of piano and strings, the melody wrapping around you both like memory.
Euijoo slid one hand to your waist while the other settled instinctively over your stomach again, protective and tender. You rested your hands against his shoulders, feeling the muscle beneath the soft fabric of his sweater.
And you danced.
Not the polished sway of your wedding day, but something slower and truer, a careful navigation of the new geography of your body. Your steps were small shuffles, a quiet counterpoint to the music, bare feet against cool kitchen tile.
His forehead brushed yours as he hummed softly under his breath, slightly off-key in the way he always was when he got too comfortable. It made you smile instantly.
“You’re ruining our wedding song,” you murmured.
“I’m enhancing it.”
“You sound like a dying cello, baby.”
Euijoo gasped softly in mock offense before spinning you barely half a step, careful of your balance. A startled laugh escaped you, bright and alive enough that his entire face lit up at the sound.
God.
He loved that sound. You could tell, for he looked at your laughter like people looked at sunrises and other such precious things.
The song carried on around you gently, filling all the quiet corners of the apartment with something achingly intimate. Your bodies moved together without thought, without effort, like years of loving each other had taught you a language beyond words.
Then, a flutter, a distinct, rolling thump against the place where his hand rested on your side. You gasped softly against his shoulder.
“Oh,” you breathed.
Euijoo’s eyes widened immediately beneath yours. “Did she kick again?”
Right on cue, another tiny flutter rolled beneath his palm. Both of you froze. And then you laughed at the exact same time. The sound spilled through the kitchen, warm and helpless and full of wonder.
“Our baby likes this song,” you whispered.
“Well obviously,” Euijoo said seriously. “Excellent taste. Genetically inherited from me.”
You snorted softly, leaning closer into him until your face tucked against his neck. Another kick answered almost immediately, stronger this time.
Euijoo let out the most awed little laugh you’d ever heard from another human being. One hand stayed on your stomach as though he couldn’t bear to lose contact now that your daughter was answering him from inside you.
“Hey there,” he murmured softly to your belly. “You dancing with us too?”
Your chest tightened so painfully with love you thought it might split open.
The three of you.
In a tiny kitchen washed gold by evening light. An avocado still abandoned on the counter. Rain whispering against the windows. Your husband humming your wedding song while your unborn daughter kicked happily beneath his hand.
And suddenly the day didn’t feel so heavy anymore.
The exhaustion was still there, the aching body, the hormones, the fear. But they no longer felt sharp enough to drown you.
Euijoo pulled back just enough to look at you again. His eyes were soft in that dangerous way they got sometimes—so full of love it almost hurt to be seen by him.
“You know,” he murmured, thumb brushing over your stomach slowly, “I think this might be my favorite version of us.”
Your throat tightened instantly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He smiled, small and unbearably sincere. “You in my arms. Our baby dancing between us.”
The song swelled softly around you both.
You closed your eyes for a moment and let yourself sink fully into it—the warmth of his body, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your cheek, the tiny life fluttering gently inside you like a second heartbeat answering the first.
Love existed in grand declarations, yes.
But sometimes it existed here too. In kitchens, in laughter through tears, in cartoon bandages and slow dancing and a hand splayed reverently across the curve of new life. A perfect, temporary universe held in the palm of a single dance.
And as Euijoo held you beneath the golden light, humming your song into your hair while rain painted silver trails against the windows, you thought perhaps this was what happiness truly looked like, not untouched by pain, but glowing softly beside it anyway.
In this moment, paradise truly belonged to you.
With love like this, love that felt like home.
fin.
A/N: first pregnant reader fic and i wrote it for euijoo are we surprised my good people. but yes i did cry whilst writing it like hello brain why are you giving me all this fluff i'll die. Anyways i hope all my people on ovulation are eating this up. Please do give a listen to Love like This by Fujii Kaze!!!
divider by @anitalenia
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