˚ ༘ 🎞️ ｡𖦹 ° 🎥 ...🍓 ˚ ༘ 🎞️ ｡𖦹 ° 🎥 ...🚬˚ ༘ 🎞️ ｡𖦹 ° 🎥
“ and even if i run away, give my heart a holiday, still, strawberries and cigarettes, always taste like you.. “
pairing ⋆˚࿔ ateez jung wooyoung x fem!reader
trope/au ⋆˚࿔ first love, bittersweet reunion, love vs career/dreams, high school sweet heart
genre ⋆˚࿔ coming-of-age, angsty sorta, hurt/comfort, songfic, reader who is on the edge of leaving her hometown to finally follow her dreams, she finds herself pulled back into the memories of a boy that she once loved: a runaway with cigarette kisses and strawberry-sweet summers. years later as she packs her life into boxes, the past resurfaces in scent, sound, but even more so, silence, reminding her that some things are never fully let go.
warnings ⋆˚࿔ cigarette smoking, themes of running away, and i think that’s it but lmk if i missed something!!:)
the memories never knocked. they drifted in like mist, soft and strange. occasionally, they came with the bitter trace of cigarettes on the wind as she pedaled through the wild grass, the ocean winking at her just beyond the sand mingling with greenery. other times they liked to wait in forgotten corners-like the day she found the little bottle tucked beneath moth-eaten clothes and trinkets. it’s label whispered some cheesy fragrant name like ‘strawberry daydreams.’ she sprayed it, just once, trying to remember what a strawberry daydream could possibly even smell like. that was all it took. it bloomed into visions: fence-hopping laughter, smoke laced with sugar, moonlit walks where the waves kept record of their conversations that she couldn’t recall. and a boy with long hair, brown eyes, and a name she hadn’t said in years.
the flashbacks didn’t exactly haunt her - they held her. like a soft and spectral hug from a ghostly friend. she was only sixteen years old then: young, reckless, wrapped in sunlight and sugar, without a single care to her name. those were the days that she lived with the scent of strawberry daydreams swirling around her. the days where she wasn’t worried about the salt in her hair. the days where the nights seemed to last forever when she was with him.
she smiled softly, holding those memories with nothing but fondness and love, for him at least. that boy could never give her the world, he simply didn’t have that. but god, was she his entire world. therefore, he gave her all that he had, all that he was. she would’ve given him the same, had her parents not pulled her away, calling him a fleeting distraction. merely a summer shadow with no place in her future. how could she ever forget the way they took her away from him? it was the night before school would start again, her senior year. she cried until dawn, the weight of goodbye settling in her chest like the heaviest stone. to them, it had only been a summer fling with some troublesome boy, hopeless puppy love. but to her? it had been everything, it felt like the world was ending then.
and yet, now, years later, she could smell that perfume and smile. not necessarily with sadness, but with warmth. it was like sea glass to her. the good rose to the surface, softened by time and shining in the sun. now she stood on the wrong side of twenty five, the years moved by so slyly that she hadn’t even noticed they’d passed. she was finishing up the final threads of her education, packing up the last few knick knacks into a vintage leather suitcase, and finally ready to leave the coastal town that raised her. it was strange, how the scent of a forgotten perfume could crack her wide open, how the memories spilled out of her and down the sides of her body like hot sugar. and though the past tugged at her sleeves, she didn’t turn around. not this time, not for her parents, not for anyone. the world beyond the tides was calling her and she was finally, ready to leave it all behind. at least that’s what she thought.
those thoughts didn’t usually stay for long. they drifted in and out, quiet and fleeting, like so many others. but these past few days were different. while she was packing her life up into cardboard boxes to give away, only wanting to bring that one suitcase as she prepared to leave - he kept coming back. the boy she thought she’d left in the past - his voice, his laugh, the way he looked at her like she was the only thing that mattered in the whole world. she couldn’t shake it. she couldn’t explain why he was lingering now, why for some reason his memory felt heavier than usual. maybe he didn’t want to let her go, and maybe some part of her didn’t either. the taste of strawberries and the stench of cigarettes still clung to those long, hot summers. she couldn’t help but remember how it felt to be sixteen and certain that kind of love would last a lifetime.
the worst part of it all was that, even if she wanted to find him, (and deep down, she always did) she wouldn’t know where to begin. he dropped out of school before junior year was over, even before then, he’d always skip out on classes. he disappeared from the hallways and lunch tables as though he’d never even been there at all. no phone, no social media, no address that anyone could give her.
the only time she ever saw his face again was on those missing posters his parents would plaster around town when he would vanish. he had a habit of running, it seemed. sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks. she remembered seeing the first flyer like a punch to the chest-pinned to the bulletin board outside the gas station, “JUNG WOOYOUNG” printed in big bold letters, a photo of him cheekily grinning smeared in black and white. it had been just days after her parents had banned them from seeing each other then. she stood there in the fading afternoon light, staring at it for far too long, like the ink might blur into something different if she just waited long enough.
after that, the posters came and went. she’d see them on telephone poles, convenience store windows, tacked to cork boards in laundromats. the first one had shaken her, fifth or sixth didn’t. not because it didn’t matter, but because it started to feel like that was just who he was: someone the world was always losing track of. and his poor dad, he was always worried sick every time he’d leave to god knows where he was going. and no one ever told her where he went, or if he was okay when he’d come back. no one asked her if she wanted to know, maybe they thought she didn’t care anymore. maybe they didn’t realize she looked for him in in every crowd, still checked the corners of every parking lot and beach side diner, just in case. because love like that doesn’t really go anywhere, it just quiets down and waits for when you might slow down just enough to hear it.
that’s why in the days leading up to her move, she kept herself as busy as possible. every hour had to be filled with something — anything. she poured herself into job applications, hoping to have work whenever she would arrive at her new abroad apartment. her brand new degree still fresh in her hand, as if forward motion could keep the past at bay. but even while typing out cover letters and tweaking resumes, her mind wandered. she found herself thinking about him, about what he might’ve done with his life if he’d ever just given himself a chance. if someone had just believed in him in the way that she did.
sometimes she’d ride her bike for miles, pushing her body than she usually would with prayers that the memories would drain from her just as the sweat poured down her skin. but the moment she neared the coast, the stretch of the beach where they used to smoke under the fading sun, her heart would start to ache. the salty breeze carried far too much of him. she couldn’t help but wonder if he ever went back there, to that quiet patch of sand just beyond the dunes, lighting a cigarette with his head tilted to the side like he always did.
she visited her parents far more often too. they were thrilled every time, always smiling, always welcoming her in with open arms. she was their only child, and they’d always done what they thought was the best for her. even when “best” meant keeping her from the only boy that she’d ever really loved. they’d eat together, laugh at old stories, slip back into old rhythms just like no time had passed at all. and for a while, it worked. for a while, it felt like she’d finally shaken him loose. that was until her mother, halfway through a laugh and a glass of wine, said it. it was so light that it seemed as though it didn’t mean anything at all.
“do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if we’d let you run off with that boy?”
and just like that, he was back again.
she didn’t answer right away. her fork paused midair, the warmth of the room suddenly pressing against her too closely. her mother had already moved on, laughing about something her father said that she hadn’t heard because her mind was still being delayed a few moments. the question was tossed out so casually, as if it hadn’t just reopened the door that she had been trying so desperately to shut. but now, it was open again, and everything came rushing back, like opening a door during a flood.
because of course she wondered, she’d wondered every day for months after it ended. when she’d lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling, tracing the shape of his name in her mind like some sort of mantra. she wondered when her first heartbreak dulled into something quiet, something that she could carry. and she still wondered now, now a woman, standing on the edge of her future, unsure why the past felt so close that she could almost touch it. would he have stayed if she’d run with him? would she have left school? would they have made it, or fallen apart even faster? the truth was that she’d never know. and maybe not knowing was its own heartbreak in itself.
she blinked, forced a smile and set her fork down with a clink, she was no longer hungry. “sometimes,” she muttered softly. it wasn’t a lie, but it was a half truth. and that was it. her mom nodded like she understood, and maybe she did. but no one said anything else about what could’ve been with the brown eyed boy.
later that night as she drove home, the waves seemed to be calling her name. it wasn’t loud, but rather just a quiet pull, a voice carried by the breeze. to her, the sea had always been like an old best friend. the kind that you used to see everyday, who once knew every corner of your heart, but now nothing more passed between you than a distant nod, a small smile, a silent understanding. the road home hadn’t changed, but it felt so different now. it was empty in a way that it never used to be.
she remembered riding this same stretch years ago, her legs curled up in the passenger seat of his beat-up red ‘66 ford fairlane. the windows were always down, the radio way too loud, the air thick with salt and smoke and youth. the car would bounce and squeak gently over the uneven pavement as they coasted towards the shore, and the wind would tangle itself in her hair until it stuck to her cheeks. she’d laugh without a thought in her mind, just because it felt good to be alive. and he — he would glance over at her like he couldn’t even believe that she was real. one hand on the wheel, the other tapping to the beat of whatever 70s song he had playing on the radio. sometimes he’d sing along, off-key and unashamed, but most of the time he just watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking. it had felt easy then, like the road would never end.
but now? now the sunroof was shut, the windows were sealed. she sat hunched over the steering wheel, the only sound in the car being the beeping from her undone seat belt, and even more so, the silence that blared louder than any other song could. she caught her reflection in the rear view mirror and barely recognized the girl who used to ride shotgun in his car. somewhere among the way, they had both changed. grown up. apart. but tonight, it felt like her past was just one turn away. and for a split second, she pondered what she’d do if she saw that red fairlane parked by the beach again, waiting, just like it used to do.
her eyes drifted from the rear view mirror to the soft glow of the screen on her dashboard. 11:48pm. just over six hours until she had to be out of her apartment, her flight left at dawn. she looked back at the road, then toward the beach as it came into view — dark and wide and endless. the moonlight spilled across the water and the waves rolled in slow and steady, like they were grieving something they couldn’t name. it felt like the sea was crying for her.
realistically, she didn’t have time. not to stop, not to linger, not to chase a memory that may not even exist anymore. but this was her last chance, because once she stepped onto that plane, the version of her that had once belonged to this town, the girl who had laughed barefoot in the sand with him at 16, who had believed that love could be enough, she’d be gone forever. if she left now, without looking back, she knew it would be over. whatever fragile thread that still connected them would snap for good.
so she made the only choice that felt right.
she flipped her turn signal and veered off the road, the tires crunching softly against the gravel path leading down to the beach. she parked where they used to park — behind the brush, where the headlights wouldn’t be seen from the road. her hands rested on the steering wheel for a moment, motionless. then, slowly, she stepped out into the night. the wind met her like an old friend. with each step she took, memories rose from the sand like ghosts murmuring secrets into her ears from every corner.
she didn’t head straight to the old spot where they used to sit and smoke. instead, she stumbled out into the sand, letting the cool grains shift beneath her shoes. the night air hit her first — brisk and sharp, carrying the scent of salt and memory. the wind tugged at her hair and narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t raise a hand to shield her face. she just stood there, letting it wash all over her. it was strange, being back after all this time. it was familar and almost comforting. the waves still rolled in with their same steady rhythm, the shoreline still curved in that gentle crescent. the only difference was that he wasn’t here with her, and that changed everything. she hadn’t set foot on this sand in years. not since the last summer they’d spent together. and now, as she stood there with the cold biting at her skin and the sky stretched wide and endless above her, she felt the weight of everything she was about to leave behind.
it bothered her more than she thought it would, that soon she’d be trading this for city streets packed with neon lights, strangers, skyscrapers, and the constant hum of traffic. she could already feel how much she’d miss the silence, the space, the way that the stars actually meant something here. the ocean had always been her constant. even when she couldn’t come to it, it was always here. just simply knowing that it existed was a comfort. and now, she was walking away from it, like it was just another chapter that she had to leave behind when it was so much more than that. a single tear slipped down her cheek. it wasn’t gut-wrenching or soul-crushing, she didn’t have a breakdown, it was just one tear. she didn’t even wipe it away.
how strange, she thought. that we cry the same salt that fills the sea. maybe that’s why it always felt like home to her. because it spoke the same language that she did.
she stood still for a moment longer, lost in her thoughts, before brushing the tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. her gaze dropped to the sand and she slowly began to walk to what she remember to be the smoke spot, one foot in front of the other. she tried to recall the path they used to take — half remembered steps etched somewhere deep in her muscle memory, like a trail that had been carved by heart and by habit. the wind had shifted slightly and the sand was cool under her shoes. little shadows danced in the moonlight, cast by uneven dips and scattered brush. he used to warn her about that, how the critters like to dig holes in the dry patches, how easy it was to twist an ankle if she wasn’t careful. she could still hear his voice in her mind, that half-laughing tone he’d use when he teased her for being too clumsy. so she kept her eyes down, focused on each step, determined not to fall. and in that focus, she almost missed it.
she came to a slow stop. the ground leveled out beneath her, a small clearing framed by tall grass and the faint outline of driftwood nearby. she looked up and around the area. this was it. this was the spot. somehow, after all these years, it hadn’t changed. the same soft slope of the dunes on either side. the same crooked log they used to sit on, one of the sides half-buried, but still there. it looked untouched, preserved like a memory that she didn’t know the world had been keeping safe for her.
that’s when she felt it — something small and firm beneath the sole of her shoe. an exhale left her throat, long and slow before she lowered her gaze again. she lifted her foot carefully, and there it was.
it wasn’t crushed, or old, or withered. it was fresh, like it couldn’t have been dropped any more than an hour ago. for a second, she couldn’t move. she just stared at it, her breath caught somewhere between her chest and throat. she crouched down, brushing some of the sand aside. there was no mistaking it. same brand he always smoked, it had that same lazy twist in the filter where he used to hold it too long in between his fingers.
her fingers hovered above the cigarette for a moment before she picked it up, rolling it around between her thumb and forefinger. her heart was pounding relentlessly now, steady and strong in her ears. in some sense, it felt like somehow her heartbeat had seeped out of her body and melted into the earth around her in this moment. it could’ve been anyone else’s, sure. someone else could’ve wandered through here, lit up, and moved on. but somehow, she knew better than that. this brand, this place, this timing. it was far too specific.
she stood up cautiously, scanning the area with new eyes. she wasn’t even completely sure what she was looking for now. footprints? a shadow, maybe? something more left behind? the quiet hum of the ocean filled her ears, but now there was something underneath it, something that her instincts caught before her senses did.
swiftly, she turned towards it. the movement had been nothing more than a slight shift in the dark near the edge of the dunes where the brush grew tall. her body stilled and her breath bounced in her throat, unsure of whether or not to exhale or inhale. it crossed her mind that maybe she was just imagining it all. but then he stepped forward.
he looked almost exactly the same. older, yes. sharper around the jaw, leaner, a little bit more worn down by time, but it was still her boy nonetheless. same too-long brown hair falling over his forehead, same damn brown eyes. his hands were in his jacket pockets but it wasn’t hard to tell that he was fidgeting around. as if he didn’t know if she’d be happy to see him. at first, she didn’t even move. it seemed like she was terrified to blink because if she did then maybe it would all fade away. but then she blinked, and he still stood there. a single sound escaped her mouth that made the world stop spinning.
“you were always better at finding your way here than me,” he uttered softly, voice carried by the wind. it was tentative, but familiar.
she didn’t say anything right away. instead, she looked down at the fresh cigarette in her hand, then back up to the face that had been stalking her dreams for the past few, long days.
“you left this,” she commented, her voice quiet. not accusing - just stating the truth.
he nodded, stepping just a few steps closer to the only girl he had ever genuinely loved. anyone else watching them might think he wasn’t excited to see her - but he was ecstatic, she was just the only one who knew him well enough to see it.
“i wasn’t sure if you’d come.” he paused for a moment, smiling a bit wider and looking out to the water. “figured if you did … i’d let the beach tell you first.”
a gummy smile grew across her face and a nervous, breathless laugh that could’ve been mistaken as a sigh escaped her lips, “you haven’t changed.”
“you have,” he countered. “not in a bad way.”
for a moment, they just looked at each other. it’s all that the either of them could even begin to muster up. the silence stretching out between the two like a bridge, everything that was unsaid humming in the air around them.
finally, she took a slow step forward. then another. until she was standing just a few feet from him, heart pounding, eyes burning, unsure what would come next.
“you waited for me,” she breathed out.
he looked down at her, flashing her a small smile, and there was a flicker of something in his eyes, “i never really left.”
to this, all she could do was blush and smile. it felt like she had traveled back in time, she was 16 on the beach all over again.
he reached in his pocket, pulling out a box of montego red kings. he popped the box open and swiftly propped the cigarette in between his teeth. he hesitated, holding the blue lighter in his other hand. he could’ve easily lit it up himself, but he knew there was something that she would enjoy so much more. he softly placed the lighter in her hand, making sure to trace his fingers across hers as he did, she smiled knowingly. he finally spoke up again.
a/n ⋆˚࿔ okay so yeah this is my first post and i’m super proud of this haha! randomly came across this song after not hearing it for years and looking at pics wooyoung on pinterest brought about this fic lol. i really hope you enjoyed, and if you did please reblog!! happy sailing friends ( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ ) -bray
