Jongho sits next to you on the floor, his head resting on the edge of the bathtub, observing you as his fingers softly moved underwater while thinking of the best things to say to comfort you. You had a particularly rough day and your lovely boyfriend decided to run you a bath to make you feel better. So he sat there, admiring your face and feeling relieved when he saw your furrowed eyebrows relaxing in the water as his hand was now resting around your wrist, his thumb calmly rubbing your skin. You open your eyes and weakly smiled at him, which he answered with a wink and a gentle smile.
You tried to forget your worries when Jongho kept on telling you about his day with the boys in order to make you at least giggle. You interrupted him by taking his hand in yours, whispering a soft “thank you for being there.” to him.
[3:16 p.m] "Let's just walk around and take cute pictures" His voice was calm but you could tell the excitement he was hiding by looking on his eyes, he loved date days, specially if you had all day to spend with him, thing that -happily- happened that sunny saturday.
His hand held yours interlocking fingers with it, you got closer to him without noticing, your cheek rested on his shoulder as the slow walk continued around the streets, the sun wasn't bad, it seemed to match Jongho's skin, it made him look like perfection.
"Jongho..." Your voice was more like a whine, he frowned and looked at you confused. "What?" Your hand pointed the little ice cream shop and a pout instantly occupied your lips, at that point he knew what you wanted.
"Just because you made that... Cute face." You jumped just a little and went running right to the shop.
Looking at all the flavors you noticed they were some new names you didn't know of. You felt a hand caressing your back and without looking you knew it was him. His touch and its warmness, it was unique.
"What should we order?" You asked now looking at him, he was smiling, slightly but you could notice his little edges going upwards.
"I'll order this time." Nodding you knew it was his turn, last time you ordered for the both of you. Your arms wrapped his waist and your head rested on his shoulder, you felt his arm hugging you by your waist as well, just pushing you a little closer to him.
Jongho wasn't the type who loved skinship on public spaces, but when you approached first, he didn't mind at all.
More like he didn't mind catching people's eyes, why would he be embarrassed? You were his little treasure and he also knew damn well the both of you were a cute couple.
"Your hugs are warm." You whispered while the both of you waited for the ice cream, he laughed and nodded at you.
"You tell me the same everytime we hug."
"Not my fault, sun-boy." His smile grew wider and so did yours, he left a smooth kiss on your forehead and pulled apart because of the orders. You took yours from his hand and didn't wait a moment to start eating with the little blue spoon.
Jongho searched for your hand once again after he paid and the both of you made your way out of the store and walked with no lead around the park.
"This is nice, why don't we go on dates the whole weekend?" You laughed softly and shaked your head fast making him groan.
"You know sundays are for cuddles and movies!"
"Right..." His voice was peaceful, you couldn't deny how protected you felt with him, you couldn't deny how in love you were with Choi Jongho.
You softly demand, eyes closed as if to solely focus on what you desired to hear.
“I love you.”
A voice pierced the silence like a knife, yet it was melodic to your ears. Deep like the ocean, smooth like silk.
“Again..”
You wanted to hear it more. It was a drug that got you addicted with the first dose.
“I love you.”
Breathing in deeply, you take it all in like precious oxygen.
“I love you.”
The words echo, seemingly bouncing off the corners of your mind.
Your eyes opened slowly to gaze at the man who possessed the drug that intoxicated you. His deep brown orbs- boardered by thick black eyelashes- that captured your own, staring lovingly at you through hooded eyelids. His plump lips, slightly upturned in a smile that spoke more than a thousand words ever could.
As if it were just the two of you left alone in the world, all you could see and hear was him. Nothing else mattered except the two of you, in this moment right here. So you dove head first into the drug that is him. Little did you know, you were his own addiction as well.
pairing : Jongho x fem!reader
a/n: this might be the worst thing i’ve ever written😀
Today was the weekend, and you decided to surprise your best friend Jongho. You had the keys to his apartment, and you knew that he was staying a few days over his girlfriend's to spend some time together, so you had all the time in the world.
You wanted to surprise him by decorating his entire place without him knowing since he was pretty busy with his relationship and work. You thought that it would make him happy if you did that, especially if it was coming from you.
Waiting for him to get out of his house, you quickly hid in your seat as he started walking at the end of the street to catch the bus. As the bus drove off, you started your car and pulled up in front of his garage, making your way into the house.
For some reasons unknown to you, Jongho has been quite down lately, and you tried to get some information from his friends since he didn’t want to talk. According to Mingi, his relationship has been tough and got into a few fights with his girlfriend. You tried to know the reason, but even his friends didn’t know. Feeling already noisy enough, you didn’t insist, but you were determined to make your friend talk to you one day.
You unlocked the main door and was welcomed by his cat, who seemed to have thought that you were its owner. However, you couldn’t hide your happiness when his black cat welcomed you in his house with the prettiest, happiest meow you’ve ever heard in your life. You were delighted because Jasper - the cat – had always been giving a hard time for you and your friends.
No one could pet him, cuddle him, or give him food if it was not Jongho. Long story short, no one was allowed to touch it if it wasn’t its owner’s hand.
When Jongho was around, it was the sweetest cat him, but it’s always been kind of an asshole when the boys were over. You could say that Jasper tolerated you, you lucky human. It wasn’t the truest love between you two, but Jasper preferred you over some of Jongho’s friends. Maybe was it because you were calm and gentle with him, not wanting to do stupid things with him like taking him in your arms and wildly dance around.
“Hi Jasper,” you said in a sweet voice, and he meowed again. He slightly moved out the way as you took your shoes off and you hesitantly petted his head, hearing him purr for a quick second as you rubbed its black fur. Taking off your coat and scarf, you walked to the living room and started analysing the stuff that you could use to decorate his entire house.
Jongho was someone quite festive, he loved Christmas, especially decorating it. You didn’t know if he had planned on doing it with his girlfriend, but you paid no mind as you remembered the current situation he was in.
Jasper was observing as you were decorating the place, sometimes blinking as you asked for his opinion. It wasn’t the most talkative cat, but you burst out of laughter when you asked something, and it meowed, agreeing with your suggestion.
“Thank you, bub,” you said with a smile, and he rested on the couch, eyes closed, a sign for you to not bother him anymore while you kept on decorating for the rest of the day.
Jasper woke up once or twice asking for water and food, which you gently did, gently petting his head before giving him his two bowls. He rubbed his head on your calves as a thank you, jumped on the table and watched you finish the snack that you were eating. He sniffled your coffee and looked away, his bored, disgusted look making you giggle. You truly loved this cat, and you could see that he was warming up to you as well.
The end of the day arrived quicker than you had hoped, but luckily you were productive enough to have done a major part of the decoration throughout the day.
What you didn’t expect was to hear a car pulling over in the street in front of your friend’s house, a few screams, and yells before hearing a motor roaring again as it took off. Looking through the curtains, you noticed your friend staring at the ground, his shoulders looking like he was carrying the entire world on his shoulders.
You started regretting coming here since his girlfriend knew how your car looked like and probably saw it in Jongho’s driveway. You just hoped that you weren’t a factor that worsened your friend’s case. On the other side of the door, you heard your friend fumble with his keys and you timidly opened the door. Jongho blinked a few times, noticing his blood-shot eyes and light pink cheeks, his face perfectly portraying anger and sadness.
“Hi,” you gently said as you opened the door wider to let your friend come into his own house. Jongho opened his mouth to say something, but the fairy lights decorating the entrance hall and the few other Christmas decorations captured his attention.
“It was meant to be a surprise,” you started explaining, Jongho swallowing thickly. “I wasn’t supposed to be there when you would discover it, I’m sorry,” he didn’t say anything, he just bent down as to pet his cat that had just woken up from its fourth nap of the day.
“It’s gorgeous,” your friend said as he looked around, taking in the decorations.
“I can’t believe you did all of this for me,” he said as he looked back at you, his eyes glossy with tears that he was trying to hold in.
Your heart slightly ached at his words, and you walked up to him and affectionately rubbed his back. You didn’t have enough time to add anything that Jongho inhaled sharply and silently looked down, eyes blankly staring at the floor. His behaviour made you understand that his relationship was over.
You didn’t know what to say, so you kept on rubbing his back. You scratched between Jasper’s ears as it sat on the chest of drawers next to the two of you, extending his paw to his owner. Jongho turned around as he felt a claw gently pressing against his skin, taking his cat in his arms.
“I’ll get going,” you whispered, but Jongho looked at you with Jasper purring into his arms.
“Stay. I need to talk to you,” you were surprised by his words but nodded, putting your purse back on the floor. You walked to the living room with your friend, who had taken off his jacket in the meantime.
“She… She broke up with me,” he finally managed to say, and your eyes widened, expecting another fight to have break out between the two of them, not this abrupt change.
“But she was still lovey-dovey with you at the beginning of the week, I don’t understand,” you said, and he weakly shrugged.
“She was, but you know how versatile she can become,” he said, and you slowly nodded. There was no sadness in his voice anymore, just frustration and irritation.
Jongho was avoiding your gaze as if he was hiding something from you.
“You know that you can tell me every-“
“No, I can’t,” he hissed, and your heart slightly broke. What?
“But why-“ you sadly whispered, and Jongho looked up, eyes filled with guilt.
“No, Y/N, that’s not what I meant,” he explained, and you were starting to get confused at this point.
“You-you're the reason why we broke up,” he finally said after a few seconds of silence, making you loudly gasp, eyes widening.
“What? But... Why?” your voice trailed, filled with confusion. Did you hear him correctly or your brain was playing tricks on you?
“We broke up because of our friendship,” you scoffed and looked at him. You were acting like friends, what the hell was she on about?
“She was jealous of you, of us. You’ve known me for years, we’ve always been extremely close, and for the past few months, she said that I was spending more time with you than her,” you listened, still not understanding why she was being so jealous of you.
“I'm the one to blame, to be honest. I was always talking about you, and every time that I was telling her something, you were in the story. Even if you didn't take part in the events that I was telling her about. And a few weeks ago, during one of our fights, she blamed me for loving you more than her,” his last sentence prevented you from swallowing your saliva, making you slightly choke. You stared at your friend with wide eyes while his were still focused on the pet on his laps.
“I’ve had some restless nights because of what she said,” you inhaled sharply as you were getting ready to brave what was about to come, “and I realised that, if I had to save someone between you and her, I’d chose you. I was with her to forget about you because I wasn’t sure about how you were feeling. You were still probably taking me as a friend and nothing more.”
“So you preferred suffering rather than telling me how you were feeling,” the words coming out of his mouth had you flabbergasted, not expecting a sudden declaration of love on a random Saturday, on your friend’s couch.
“It was more bearable than having you rejecting me and distance ourselves from each other,” he replied as if it was the easiest question to answer.
“And, what made you change your mind? Because you still don’t know if I have feelings for you or not,” you said and clasped your hands on your laps, trying to mask the fact that they were shaking.
“I don’t know, just a feeling,” he said with a shy smile as he finally looked at you, “as soon as my relationship started going downhill with her, I noticed you smiled wider, stared longer and laughed harder when we were together.”
“You’re making me sound like a horrible person,” you whined, and you managed to get your friend to laugh on this sad, breakup day.
“No I’m not,” he said and slightly turned his body to look at you better, “I was happier when I looked at you or felt you staring at me. She could give me hundreds of compliments and you just a smile, I’d be happier with your smile,” he said, and you huffed.
Damn, he was mad mad in love with you.
“So you told her the truth and she threw you out?” you asked, and he shook his head, his face becoming more serious.
“She had a friend spying on us when we went Christmas shopping together on Thursday, and the angles aren't at our advantage,” you looked at him with wide eyes, and he nodded. “Yes, she called me an asshole and a cheater.”
“But she still drove you home.”
“I don’t know what she was thinking, maybe driving around would give her time to think, making me tell her that it was just lies. As soon as she saw your car in my driveway,” his voice trailed, and you gasped, guilt forming in your throat.
“What the fuck Jongho, I messed up your entire relationship,” you said, and he shook his head, Jasper escaping from his lap as he scooted closer to you.
“You didn’t ruin anything. I’m the one who got in a relationship to forget about you, you didn’t influence me or anything. I love you and you only, you’re what matters the most to me right now,” he said, gently placing a hand on your cold, clammy ones, his gesture sending goosebumps rushing down your entire body.
“Just tell me you feel the same, and I’ll forget everything,” he whispered as he searched for your lost gaze, confusion and guilt building up in your body.
You briefly stared at your friend’s eyes and heard a little voice in your head to listen to your heart. What could you lose? What could you win in agreeing? The choice was quickly made.
Putting your remorse and feelings aside, you cupped his face and kissed him with all the love in the world. The love you had for him had been locked up in a part of your head for months, years, and now it was finally set free. It felt nothing, but good.
Word count: 4.3k
Pairing: ex-husband! San x single mom! reader x boyfriend! Jongho
Genre: fluff, another make out session yeet
A/N: aaaand that’s the last one of the “series” !! I hope it wasn’t too repetitive and that you enjoyed it, feedbacks are appreciated! Thank you for reading!! (Jongho is bby tho 🥺)
You had met San when you were in college. You were a business student, and he was working as a graphic designer in a company near your university. Meeting through a mutual friend one night at a dinner out with the so-called friend, you instantly clicked as good friend. Your friendship soon grew into a romantic one, becoming almost inseparable. Even with your busy schedules, you still managed to make everything work, sometimes going out for lunch or FaceTiming each other late at night, right when you had finished studying.
Three years later, your relationship with San was going strong, and you’ve never felt so pretty and happy. He was treating you the way you had dreamt to be treated, fulfilling every aspect that you were looking for in a man. San loved you with his entire heart, being called a simp by his friends and co-workers didn’t prevent him from loving you unconditionally. (people can be mean sometimes let just people love each other ffs)
He understood your mood swings, your constant tired state, but he didn’t mind. He knew that being at university was exhausting, so we let you have your space yet still had opened arms for you if you needed it.
Since you were a teenager, you had an idea of a job that you wanted to do, so you did everything to make it work and study for it. Though one day, someone from a company came to one of your lectures to talk about his work and you immediately fell in love with his job. It was a job that you didn’t even know that existed, and you suddenly craved to reach this work in your career. However, there’s been a hiccup. You needed a master’s degree to reach this post. That meant moving to another city, going to grad school and start everything. And studying even more crazily that you were currently doing. And that’s what you did.
You were getting busier and busier, to the point of almost not being able to handle your relationship with San anymore. You could already barely make your friendships work, let alone a romantic one.
There was another dilemma to all of that.
You had gotten married to San a few months after your bachelor graduation. Of course, you had celebrated it with a honeymoon over the Summer in Hawaii. And we all know what happens most of the time during a honeymoon…
During your second month of grad school, you started feeling nauseous and dizzy several times during the day, starting right after you woke up. Worried, you went to the doctor to check if you were healthy, but it turned out that you were just pregnant.
Married and pregnant, you could say goodbye to your master’s degree.
You felt like you could do it at first, that nothing could bring you down, not even a baby or your health. You gave birth to a wonderful daughter seven months later, one of the happiest moments in your life. However, a few weeks later, it came to a point where taking care of your daughter, your master and husband became way too overwhelming for you to control.
One night, you sat in your bed as you breastfeed your daughter, San lying dead asleep next to you. He was curled up in the covers, softly dreaming as your mind was rushing. Trains of thoughts, anxieties, worries invaded your mind, preventing you from doing your activity with your daughter calmly. She whined as you sighed, probably feeling your anxiety through your feeding, so you tried to take deep breaths and calm down a bit.
You were becoming irritable and quite aggressive, stress and exhaustion taking over your body. San taking care of you was sometimes suffocating when he just wanted to take care of you and your daughter. He was simply trying to help. But to you, he was in the way.
You hated to admit it, but it was falling apart. San accused you from taking too much time for your master’s degree and Youngsoon, feeling left aside and abandoned as you privileged something and someone else more. San was always at work since he was the only source of income, sad and disappointed that everything had turned out that way.
“San, I want a divorce,” you said one night, and your husband dropped his fork in his plate.
“No, Y/N, we’re going to make things work out, I promise.”
“I don’t want to do it anymore, I’m tired,” you said, emotionless as you drank a sip of water, grimacing as it was lukewarm because of the candle standing next to it.
“You’re just saying that because you’re under stress, I know you don’t mean it,” he said as he grabbed your hand across the table, but you took it away from him. Even when you were mad or angry at him, you didn’t act like that. He knew when you retracted your hand, it was serious.
You fought for days, watching your relationship fall apart. San took the couch a few nights in a row, and so did you. There were nights where San went out, probably drinking or doing something else and you didn’t even get to see him in the mornings. No more post-it notes left on the counter, no more texts from him, just cold and bitter answers as you told him that you were going to bed.
[You] : I’m going to bed, your dinner is in the oven.
[Sannie] : Ok.
This was the last text that you sent him. He came from work one day and displayed a stack of paper in front of you, as well with a pen.
“Have fun,” he said as he went out the door without looking back, his blazer in his grip. Divorce papers were scattered in front of you, reading each line of it during the entire night, pondering if it was a great decision or not. He had finally accepted your decision, yet he still felt miserable and in love. San had great manners, so he helped you move out when it was time. He was cold when he was talking to you, but you knew that you deserve it, but you also knew that it was his way of shielding himself. He waved at you one last time from his porch and sighed, letting his tears roll down as you drove away. After a few days, he was still sending you messages, but you ended up blocking him because you needed to focus on something else. It was a hard decision but move on was your key point.
Your master’s was doing quite well, you managed to get through the first two years. It was getting tougher yet more interesting, and you successfully ended your second year. Your third year consisted of you staying abroad or a semester or more and completing your thesis. Your grad school didn’t really allow this, but due to your condition, they agreed on letting you take your daughter.
When you arrived in South Korea, you, fortunately, knew the basics, living your life independently as you tried to learn a bit of Korean every day, getting more and more comfortable in the language as the weeks went by. The company you were working at was filled with nice people, welcoming you in their life as if you were an old friend. You've been hit on by co-workers, but you politely declined, too immersed into your job and daughter to even care about dating.
A handsome man named Jongho worked in the company you were doing your stay in, and you grew to have a crush on him. I mean, who couldn’t. A lot of women in the company were cooing over him, he wasn’t the eldest, yet he acted more maturely than some of the eldest crocodiles in the company. He was courteous, gentle and a very smiley man, warming you up on a cold way only by his smile. You had talked to him a few times, but nothing crazy.
You had unexpectedly met him on your way at the park, and he was coming back from the gym, still sweaty and muscles rolling around. He was wearing quite tight shorts and a tank top, offering you a nice view of his body. You were walking your daughter to make her fall asleep, so you hid at a street corner to avoid him and got out of your spot as he walked past you, never seeing you.
One night, you had a company meal and had to decline it, even if you really wanted to go. You had to take care of your daughter, plus you needed to start writing your thesis, and you didn’t really like the fact that someone you didn’t know would take care of her while you were out, drinking and eating with friends. You were more reassured to be with your daughter, comfortably sat at home with a cup of tea, lo-fi music in the background, hard-working as you’ve been doing for the past five years.
The following day, Jongho intercepted you and asked why you weren’t there last night. Panicking, you tried to explain that you were busy with your thesis, but he wasn’t really convinced.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Do you wanna grab lunch with me today?” He changed the subject, and you almost dropped the folders you had in hand.
“I planned on cooking at home, I’m sorry.”
“Alright,” he said with a thin disappointed smile, and you sheepishly smiled at him before going back to work. You hated declining opportunities to talk to him, but you needed to feed your daughter since the day-care centre had to unexpectedly close doors for this afternoon.
Coming home from work, one evening, you noticed that you didn’t have any food left in the fridge. You started to think about ordering takeout, but you suddenly remembered that your daughter still had a fragile stomach and capricious stomach, making you sigh. You quickly dressed your daughter and put her in her pushchair, making your way out to the local convenience store.
And you happened to run into Jongho. Again. He was coming back from the gym, hair still wet from his shower, his sports bag loosely hanging from his shoulder.
“Oh, hi, Jongho—” you didn’t even have the time to cross the street or hide that he appeared in front of you, almost crashing onto each other.
“H-hi Y/N,” he stuttered, his eyes widening at your daughter, who was tugging on his pants.
“Youngsoon, no!” You shushed her since Jongho didn’t move, almost seeing gears working next to his head as he thought about everything you had told him by the past. And it clicked.
He quickly excused himself from you and paced the other way, as pale as if he had seen a ghost. That’s when you understood that he wanted to be more than just co-workers and you had no longer a chance with him. You had done your best to avoid him with your daughter, but it needed to happen one night.
The following day at work, you avoided each other like the plague, sending each other glares, but immediately looking away when you were caught red-handed in the act. It came to a habit for the following week, and you started to move on. It wasn’t the first time that you needed to move on, so you were kind of numb and used to it.
At a lunch break, you prepared yourself to go home and felt someone touch your shoulder. It was Jongho, and your heart started beating faster. It had been a while that you hadn’t seen him this close and his hand on your shoulder sent electricity in your veins.
“Wanna grab lunch with me?”
“Jongho, I can’t.” you sighed and kept on packing.
“Take her along.” He winked as he placed a small piece of paper in your free hand before walking away. You opened it and discovered a restaurant address, making you dash and rush at home. Your daughter was slightly confused, but she clapped when you told her that you’d have lunch with the man that wore sweatpants the other night.
When you arrived at the address, Jongho was already waiting for you at a table. You entered the restaurant, and he smiled, waving at you from his spot. You smiled, your heart banged louder when you noticed the highchair near yours. It was a small gesture, yet it was something meaningful to you; he cared about your daughter well-being.
“Thank you for the invitation,” you said as you sat your daughter in her chair. She was quite shy around Jongho, she couldn’t look at him in the eyes. She seemed impressed, which made Jongho smile.
“It’s nothing,” he swayed his hand in front of him with a smile and bit back a laugh when your daughter harshly played with your hand.
“Don’t hurt Mommy,” he said, and Youngsoon looked at him, pink appearing on her cheeks as she stopped pulling on your fingers. You grabbed your ring from her hold and replaced it on your finger, smiling as Jongho offered to play with his hand instead.
“So how have you been?” you asked as you slightly smiled at the waiter, who was placing a bottle of sparkling water between you two. Jongho thanked the waiter with a nod and looked up, slightly leaning towards you. You shifted in your seat, trying to ignore the discomfort that took place between the two of you.
“Honestly, not that good,” he finally answered after sighing. Your eyebrows furrowed, worried that someone bad happened to him.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” you offered before taking a sip of the bubbly liquid, hitching your throat as you swallowed it.
“I missed you,” he blurted, and you almost choked. You certainly weren’t expecting this, but you weren’t nonetheless disappointed.
“What?” you asked as you wiped your mouth with your napkin.
“Yeah, I’ve missed you quite badly. Those past couples of days without daring to look at you, smile at you or talk to you made me realise that, yeah, I really liked you. I know I disappeared like a coward when I saw you with this little one,” he admitted as he shook his finger, which was still in your daughter’s hold since she was whining for affection. “I shouldn’t have, but I wasn’t expecting that you had a past like yours. I’m sorry, I realised I messed up the second I ran away, and I couldn’t see myself coming to you as if nothing happened. I hope you’ll forgive me because I really want things to work out together. I think we can go pretty far if you’re alright with it,” the last parts of his sentence sounded a bit unsure, which gave him an endearing appearance.
“Okay, you're lucky that you're handsome,” you admitted with a smile and Jongho’s eyes almost bugged out, a shock expression on his face. “I forgive you, but I still need a moment to process everything. I haven’t dated anyone in a while,” you said with a nervous smile, which immediately reassures Jongho.
“Of course, take the time you need,” he winked, and the remaining of the lunch went by without any trouble.
Time flew by, and it soon became the end of your stay in Seoul. You had to go back to your home country, leaving friends and co-workers behind. After that particular lunch date with Jongho, he invited you over his place the following night, cooking and spending the night together, as well as with your daughter.
A memory of that night was still quite vivid in your mind, remembering your daughter sitting on Jongho’s belly, legs dangling off his body and Jongho softly played with her as you watched the film displayed on the TV. You smiled as you heard her fits of giggles and Jongho’s babbling. Your first kiss happened that night as well, right after putting your daughter to bed.
He had waited for you to come back to the living room and sprung to his feet, almost knocking you to the floor. He held your waist and made you both fall on the couch, him underneath you. You were straddling him, a position that you didn't get to experience for years. You sat on his lap, and he cupped your cheek with his hand, the other clutching your waist, dragging you closer to him.
Everything went almost too naturally, Jongho did everything to make it happen that way. He stretched his neck, and you leant in, your lips meeting halfway through. As you were exchanging your first kiss, you hoped that your daughter wouldn’t interrupt this precious moment. Jongho groaned in the kiss and roughly grabbed you by the neck to deepen your languid exchange, which made butterflies erupt in your stomach. Years that you spent every day without getting kissed on the lips, you hadn’t realised how much you missed this.
Jongho was the one to wake Youngsoon up the next morning, leaving you to sleep in as you were tired from your activities from the night before.
They had a great bond together, it was endearing to see them getting along so well. He came a few nights in a row at your place, your daughter almost taking him as her dad. She always ran to him when he showed up at the day-care centre with you, rushing in his arms, giving him only a few seconds to scoop her in his arms and hug her. She held onto him very tightly, small hands grabbing at the hair on the back of his head. You stroked her head, and she finally noticed you, making grabby hands as she tried to escape from Jongho’s arms to come into yours. You were her mother, after all, she preferred to be in your arms than being into someone else’s. She was your cherished daughter, and you were her cherished mother.
Other people at the day-care centre mistook you too many times as married young parents. At first, you were embarrassed and nervous that people thought you had your child together, but you quickly got used to it. Having someone as Jongho by your side made you realise how lucky you were that he chose you because there was no shortage of beautiful women in the company you worked at.
Today was the day that you all felt extremely sad. You had to leave all the great memories behind, as well as Jongho. You had tried to make him come along, but he had his family and friends there as well. You were exhausted, your daughter almost crying every night as you tried to put her to sleep, but the thought of leaving your boyfriend was near unbearable for her.
The ride to the airport was silent. You barely greeted Jongho as you opened the door. He faintly smiled as he took your suitcases, stuffing them in his truck as you directly went to the passenger seat after installing your daughter in the backseat. She was pouting all the time, trying to turn around to look at Jongho for the last time.
Once you arrived at the airport, you happened to run into Yunho, one of Jongho’s friends, who was also getting ready to take the plane to go on a holiday. You tried to keep your composure as much as possible, but your eyes welled up with tears when you heard the call for your flight. You were about to go for a hug, but Jongho did a handshake to his friend, Yunho passing him his backpack, as well as his suitcases. You looked at them, confused, but when Jongho smiled at you, it clicked.
He was coming with you.
“Are- are you serious?” your voice wavered as you felt your eyes burning. He nodded with a smile, and you swore that you could’ve yelled in happiness.
Which you did. You screamed and ran to Jongho’s arms, dropping your daughter’s hand in the way. She didn’t understand why you yelled, so she cried, interrupting your euphoria. You let go of Jongho to stare at your daughter and took her in your arms.
“Honey, Jongho is coming with us,” she immediately stopped crying and sniffled, looking at you. She then looked at Jongho, who had the brightest smile on his face, caressing your daughter’s cheek with his knuckle. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, before capturing your lips in a feverish kiss. You felt someone taking your daughter off your arms and mumbled something.
“Oh time to come with me pretty girl, I won’t let you see that,” you smiled in the kiss as you heard Yunho’s comment and took the opportunity to wrap your arms around your lover’s neck. The kiss got quickly abrupted as you heard the last call for your flight, taking your daughter back and waving at Yunho with a big smile as you rushed to your departure gate.
Jongho had managed to find a seat right behind you and your daughter, comforting and playing with your daughter when you fell asleep. You were relieved that she wasn’t too loud, shyly looking at the man sitting next to you. You put your index finger on your lips to signal her to stay quiet, to which she slowly nodded. Her big eyes got distracted by a hand coming between the seats to scratch her belly, softly giggling at the tickles.
When you arrived in your home country, you were exhausted. You barely recognised yourself when you entered the bathroom, brushing your hair back into place as you yawned. Your daughter was barely standing up, you couldn’t wait to go home and call it a day. Jongho was waiting for you with your suitcases, ready to go and hail a taxi for a drive home.
Reality struck you right in the face; you didn’t have a place to stay since you sold everything when you went to live abroad. The only place you knew was your parents’ house.
After a call with your father, Jongho stopped a taxi and put the suitcases in the truck. Youngsoon was dead asleep in your arms, keeping her against your chest as you sat in the backseat. The journey to your parents’ house wasn’t that long, so it should be good enough to keep her like that.
You wanted to sleep for the next week, but your thesis needed you, as much as you needed sleep. Fortunately, Jongho was working in the same field as you did, so he could keep on writing your paper when you were exhausted. He and your parents were taking turns to take care of your daughter when you were doing your thesis or sleeping, barely making it alive when you put a full stop to your work.
“Y/N! There’s someone at the door for you!” Your mom screamed from downstairs and, from the tone of her voice, she wasn’t the happiest. You frowned and ran downstairs, almost stumbling on the last steps as you recognised the silhouette in the doorway.
San.
He was standing there, hair longer and body slimmer than the last time you saw him. You swallowed thickly as you had wished to look more presentable, but, to your defence, you weren’t expecting him to knock at your door a whole year and a half after your divorce. You clenched your teeth as you stared at him, whereas he had the softest smile decorating his lips.
“You haven’t ch—”
“Don’t you dare to finish your sentence,” you spat, looking at him dead in the eyes, “No.” you sternly said, pushing your hair back.
“Okay,” he said as he widened his eyes, putting his hands in his jeans pockets.
“What do you want?” you asked, starting to get impatient at the sight of your ex-husband.
“To have you back,” he said, and your breath got stuck in your throat.
“Of course, but you know that’s impossible,” you stated as you crossed your arms on your chest, only to hear San sighing.
“But I know that we can make it work! You’re back from your year abroad, we can start again from where we left. I’ve been waiting for you to come back, I was hopeful that you’d come back, and you did. I promise to give you my everything to make things work, I’m even ready to propo—”
“Darling, who is this?” you heard Jongho said and you turned around, only to find him with Youngsoon in his arms. The former stared at your ex-husband with a suspicious look. You looked at San, who was already looking at you.
“Honey, this is San,” you answered, your eyes never leaving his, “my ex-husband.”
Your words stayed stuck in San’s throat, who struggled to swallow. He looked at your daughter with teary eyes, hopeful that she’d recognise him, but she didn’t. Instead, she cuddled further into Jongho’s chest, her head turning away from her dad. Jongho still had the courtesy of extending his hand towards San, but the latter shook his head. He looked at you one last time, slowly moving backwards until his back came into contact with his car. You saw him clench his jaw and looked away, walking around his car, and entering it as quickly as possible before squealing your tires and taking off like a rocket.
You sighed and closed the door, looking at your boyfriend.
“Was it her father?” you nodded, and he held your hip, kissing it with such delicacy that you faintly smiled.
“I thought that he had moved on,” you mumbled, and Jongho dragged you close to him by the forearm.
“Don’t worry about it, he’ll do it soon,” he said against your temple as you caressed your daughter’s back, “you don’t have to feel bad because he still hasn’t moved on and you did, people move at their own pace, remember that,” he kissed your temple and tightened your hold around his waist, humming his shirt. You closed your eyes and felt at peace, the memory of San slowly fading away in your brain. You couldn’t help but feel terrible, but deep down, you knew that he’d move on someday. It wasn’t just meant to be now.
"Hi, love," you announced yourself as you walked through the door, welcoming the warmth of your apartment with opened arms. Discarding your coat, boots, and beanie, you took the tote bag that you carried all the way there and entered the kitchen, where Jongho was preparing dinner. You put the bag on one of the chairs and went to give your partner a back hug, Jongho turning his head to the side to kiss your temple as he was stirring the food in the pot on the stove.
"Babe," he said as he slightly moved, extracting his left arm from your hold to wrap it around your shoulder. You both stayed in silence, enjoying each other's company for a moment. Today, Jongho was your life saviour because truly, you were too lazy to prepare dinner, you probably would have gotten something warm to eat on your way home.
"How was the afternoon with your mother?" he questioned as he detached his arm from you, turning off the stove as he walked to the other cabinet to get two plates and items of silverware out.
"Oh, tell me about it. You know how my mom is," you sighed with a smile as you freed your boyfriend's hands so he could keep an eye on the dinner still boiling in the pot.
"What? Did she say something upsetting?" he demanded, and you shook your head.
"No, no, she was overall very lovely, but you know how extra and dramatic she can get," you paused as you finished putting everything on the table, Jongho signalling you that you could sit down as he lifted the pot to place it on a board between the two of you.
"She was telling me how my brother and his girlfriend didn't like the Christmas sweaters she knitted for them," you explained before whispering a sweet thank you as your boyfriend served you some of the food.
"She was like "yeah I'm mad because they didn't even say thank you for making those when I spent hours working on them. I had this amazing idea of knitting sweaters for them, and I was at the store when I saw some crochet hooks and decided to use this method! It was a great idea, right sweetie?" and I couldn't say no, other she would have thrown me another tantrum about how ungrateful her children were," you told as you started eating. Jongho was all ears at your story, giggling as he could visualise the way your mom was acting.
"But wait," he suddenly said as looked at you, "did she give you some for us as well?" he rolled his eyes with an amused sigh as he looked at your puppy eyes.
"I'm so sorry," you said before taking a bite from your plate, "I couldn't say no," Jongho seemed like he had given up but started laughing at your remorseful expression.
"She even argued further that she would be delighted to receive some pictures of us wearing them" Jongho almost spat out the slice of meat he had just started munching on.
"Of course," he said while laughing, wiping his mouth with a napkin before sighing. He looked up to meet your eyes, and you had an embarrassed smile on your face, feeling sorry that you had to make your boyfriend do this just for the sake of your mother's pleasure.
"Alright," he said as you took a break from eating, "how do they look?" Your eyes went wide, not expecting your boyfriend to be this conciliatory.
"What?"
"Do you have the sweaters here?" he asked, and you felt a smile forming onto your face. You grabbed the tote bag on the floor and unfolded two massive crocheted sweaters.
"I don't know what design she knitted on them, I hope it's not too embarrassing," you whispered as you turned the sweater, searching for the potential weird design.
"Well, they're not that bad," your boyfriend said as he extended his hands across the table, reaching out for his sweater.
"Look," he added as he slightly pushed his chair away from the table with his feet before passing the sweater above his head. It was just his size, your mother had a trained eye for measurements.
Jongho's sweater was dark blue with a few dots of white here and there, mimicking snowflakes falling from the sky. On the left side of his abdomen, there was a Santa Claus face, a long white beard with red cheeks.
"Wait, stand up," he said, and you copied him, walking to the window to see your reflections.
"See," he said as he poked your right side, making you squeal, "you have Mother Christmas here," he said, keeping his forefinger where he's just poked you. You gave your boyfriend a weary look before rolling your eyes, Jongho chuckling at your behaviour.
"I'm tired of her, you can take it off," you sighed as you were about to remove the item of clothing, but Jongho wrapped his arms around your shoulders.
"Hey, it could be worse, love," he whispered, but you shook your head, rolling your eyes again.
"I'm just glad she didn't do a below-the-belt joke," you mumbled, Jongho grabbing your hand as he walked you to the living room, in front of the decorated Christmas tree.
"Don't move," he said as he paced to the bedroom before coming back with a tripod and his camera.
"Love, we don't have to do this, really," you let your arms fall on your sides as Jongho shushed you with a smile.
"Let's do this for your mother, hm?" he said as he adjusted the camera, "I'm not fond of doing this but I do it for you and our relationship with her. For the great terms and harmony in your family, okay?" he said as he pressed on a button, the self-timer starting to run. He paced next to you, standing on the good side to make sure that your mom's joke would be visible on the picture, his arm around your waist.
You tried to hide your irritation while smiling, the camera clicking a few times before going silent, Jongho going back to check if the pictures were good. He looked quite happy with them, so he started another wave of pictures, where you allowed yourself to be goofier.
"What do you think?" he said as he tilted the camera screen so you could have a look of the different shots. You puffed at how ridiculous you looked but shrugged anyway.
"They're okay, I guess," you replied, and Jongho nodded, putting the protection back on the lens before placing the camera on the table.
"Aren't you taking it off?" you asked, and he just shook his head, getting cosy and comfortable on the couch.
"No, it's pretty warm," he giggled, and you chuckled at his behaviour. He was quite right, he looked buffy and warm, his face almost drowning in the material.
"Come here, babe," he said as he made grabby hands for you to come closer and cuddle him, your annoyed look vanishing as his arms wrapped themselves around you, trapping you in a warm embrace.
"Thank you for tolerating my mom's weird moments," you bluntly said, and you felt him laugh, a hand softly rubbing your back up and down.
"It's okay honey, I can go through that for you, you’re worth it," he answered as you looked up to him, locking your eyes with his with a smile. And, before you could do the slightest movement, he captured your lips in a loving kiss, keeping you close to his chest.
"Thank you," you said as you pulled away, nestling your face into his neck.
"No worries, love.”
“Then, you fold the paper like this, stick it to the other part and BOOM, there you go!” You were showing Jongho how to wrap presents for his friends and the poor boy was struggling. It seemed like you did this your entire life and he was more focused on your traits than what you were showing him. “Got it?” You asked, stopping his trail of thoughts and nodded. You giggled, knowing that he wasn’t paying attention at all. You cut the right amount of paper for his gift and placed it underneath it, stepping back as you observed Jongho. After seconds of trying to recollect what you had just shown him, he turned to you, pouting, a helpless look on his face.
“You didn’t listen, didn’t you?”
“You were too fast!”
“No baby, you weren’t listening, that’s different.” You kissed the tip of his nose as he hugged your waist, trying to distract you from wrapping the presents. “I’m showing you one last time on Yunho’s gift but if you got me one, you’ll have to wrap it yourself, okay?” Jongho let go of your waist and truly paid attention to your explanations this time. While he was trying to wrap Yeosang’s gift, you finished wrapping yours, eyeing him from time to time just to see how he was doing.
“It looks okay! 7 out of 10 if I had to give a score.”
“Why 7?” He seemed frustrated to not have gotten a higher score. “It looks great!”
“There are some little mistakes here and there, but overall you did very well, baby. Congrats!” You giggled at his frown as you took him in your arms, suddenly having an idea on how to make him smile again.
“What about you go make us your homemade hot cocoa? You’re a pro at that baby.” As you finish your sentence, his ego was raised again and he ran to the kitchen, chanting a Christmas melody. You shake your head as you quickly wrapped his presents for the boys and waited on the couch. When he came back, he handed you a cup.
“Be careful, it’s very hot! Don’t burn yourself.”
“Thanks, honey. It tastes amazing.” You kissed the tip of his nose, carefully trying not to spill any beverage on the two of you.
“That’s better than wrapping presents.” Jongho declared, taking a sip and grimacing because it burnt his tongue. “It’s easier and less tiring to be spending time with you on the couch. I like it way better.” He kissed your cheek and moved closer as he took your cup from your grip. He laid you down on the couch and got on top of you, his ear right where your heart was beating as you softly caressed his hair. In two minutes, watch in hand, he fell asleep, his hand holding yours.
