please don’t say you love me.
characters: changkyun / reader genre: angst, a bit of fluff, a very small bit of smut / cw: alcohol word count: 1.8k summary: despite his promises, changkyun falls for the wrong person.
song: billie eilish - when the party’s over
prompt 1 of what was originally supposed to be an october writing challenge, but will now continue indefinitely bc i suck at this and nobody is surprised
➢ masterlist; ➢ comments & requests;
Changkyun’s mouth is your least favourite thing about him, if you had to choose.
Sometimes, it knows exactly what to say, the words so sweet and takes so wise he can leave you speechless. Changkyun is a great speaker, charming, intelligent, charismatic and everything else that makes you want to drink in every word that passes through his lips. Other times, he speaks without thinking, his words more dangerous than a sharpened blade, his cynicism seeping heavy through every letter. You’ve known Changkyun since he was in diapers and he developed a smart mouth from the moment he became aware of the world surrounding him. It got him in trouble just about as much as it earned him favours. He is poetic, he is harsh; he is thoughtless, he is sensible. Everyone either adores or despises him.
You are firmly on one side of that scale and it has nothing to do with the way his tongue runs alongside the most sensitive of your parts, taking you to your highest highs as you clench around the expert tip of his tongue that could so easily ruin lives.
You unclasp your fingers out of his hair, lungs still struggling to fill with air after it got knocked out of you while Changkyun gives a pat on your thighs, pulling back with a satisfied smirk, lips glistening with your release. He looks very proud of himself as he jumps in bed next to you, propping his arms behind his head. Wordlessly, you stand up and pull your underwear and trousers on, then throw him his t-shirt.
“We need to be at Hyunwoo’s in 20 minutes, get dressed.”
“What if we don’t go?” he says. “We get some pizza, put on a shitty movie and get some cuddles in.”
“Cuddles?!” You ask, frowning. “What’s gotten into you lately, you’re acting weird. Are you going all soft on me?”
Changkyun thinks for a long second, his eyes scanning your face for any indication on whether you think going soft would be good or not. “Would that be so terrible?” The laugh you let out in response claws at his heart.
“Stop joking around. Look everyone’s already there, come on.”
Changkyun is quiet the entire bus trip to your friend’s house. He is in no mood for a party when his brain’s going a hundred miles per hour with vivid images of you and he chastises himself for allowing this to happen, to fall for the one person he promised he wouldn’t. There’s anger bubbling in his stomach at the way you’re sitting next to him, completely oblivious of the grip you’ve taken on his heart, on his entire existence and he feels like he’s about to burst at the seams if he doesn’t let it out somehow.
Changkyun disappears from your side as soon as you step inside Hyunwoo’s house. His only goal for tonight is to drink his feelings away and that’s exactly what the stacked bar is going to do. He grabs a small bottle of rum and plops himself down on the couch next to two people he’s never met, and he never will because he spares them no second glance, even when they’re trying to include him in the conversation.
He hates the way you have no trouble starting mingling with people right away. Changkyun watches intently as he nurses the bottle to his lips. You look so bright and beautiful greeting the host and his jock friends and he despises it; he despises that you’re the only thing on his mind lately. Twenty years he’s known you and he never thought he would end up caught in this moment like a fool, pining for someone who doesn’t share his feelings, at least not in the way he wants them to. He is a much too rational and proud person to accept his fate as a victim of his heart; that weak, stupid heart that decided it would only beat faster for one person only: you.
You don’t see each other for most of the party. You are usually inseparable, but tonight Changkyun’s avoiding you, choosing instead to waste away in corners of the room without ever speaking to anyone. He watches the party goers, judging every step they take until you catch his eye for a split second with the way you smile or do that annoying hair flip over your shoulder or fiddle with the hem of your dress as you speak to someone. Normally, he would have been out of there as soon as he realized he wasn’t in the mood for any social gatherings, but he’s stubbornly sticking it out tonight, refusing to let you out of his sight.
It’s about 3am when the party winds down and people go their own ways; everyone except himself, you, Hyunwoo and a couple other friends who decide to catch the sunrise together from the living room floor.
“There’s only one thing we should be doing right now,” one guy with a creepy smile suggests. He’s wearing a boisterous floral shirt that Changkyun finds absolutely disgusting and he’s sitting cross legged in the middle of a fouton like he’s the king of the castle. “Never have I ever anyone?”
There’s a whoop of approval around the room and someone is already filling the shot glasses with poison, then one by one they start spilling questions.
“Never have I ever had sex in a public space,” red haired girl whose name Changkyun cannot remember offers with an innocent smile. He drinks, you drink, and exchange a quick knowing look. That was pretty early on at the start of this friends with benefits thing. Having sex in the Swedish literature aisle of your library was not either of your proudest moments, but it earned a chuckle every time it got brought up. You’d promised the library was off limits after that.
Two rounds in, everyone starts getting rowdier as the question become more revealing than Changkyun is willing to let know. He feigns a stomach ache and pauses his drinking; you, on the other hand, barely glance towards him as you become enraptured with the group’s stories. Your cheeks are dusted in red as you drink for yet another racy questions and you smile shyly when people inevitably ask for details. Changkyun doesn’t hear anything. He’s tuned out the voices, the noises, all his senses are just drowning in the way you’re slouched against a couch, tucking your hair behind your ear and wetting your pretty, sinful lips that he never gets to kiss like he wants to. Everyone disappears and it’s just you.
“-kyun?” The call of his name pulls him out of his momentary reverie. “It’s your turn.”
They all fall silent waiting for him to say something and Changkyun’s eyes are fixed into yours. He licks his lips, takes a deep breath and says, “Never have I ever fallen in love with my best friend.”
The air feels heavy as the words float around the living room that stinks of booze and people. Changkyun doesn’t even wait for anyone to drink before he downs his entire glass.
“I’m not in the mood to play anymore,” you say, pushing yourself up off the floor and storming to the exit.
Good job, Changkyun, you’ve really done it this time.
“Wait, where are you going?!” Changkyun chases after you, but you speed up every time you feel he’s near. “Hey! Stop!”
You come abruptly to a halt and he stops several feet behind you. When you eventually get the courage to turn around and face him, you are fighting back tears.
“Why would you say that?” you whisper.
“Because it’s true. Because I—“
“Don’t say it. Please don’t say you love me.”
In spite of it, Changkyun blurts out almost immediately. “I love you.”
“Changkyun!!” his name comes out in a sob and it’s the last straw before your tears begin streaming down your flushed cheeks. He knows he should feel guilty. He feels everything but that. He feels free, weightless, you’re finally aware. “It was our rule, that we wouldn’t fall in love. You said you wouldn’t.”
“That was a year ago! How could I have known the effect you’d end up having on me? How could I have known you would end up being the only person I want and need.”
“You’re drunk and you don’t mean that.”
“I might be drunk but I mean every single word.”
You sob again and fall into a crouch on the pavement, face buried into your arms. Normally, he would be your shoulder to cry on whenever you needed and now he couldn’t. His fingers itch to grab you by the shoulders, to bury themselves into your hair as he held you. He never wanted to be the reason for your tears and now he didn’t know how to make it better.
“I’m sorry, I tried to stop myself.”
“How did you try? By having more sex together?” You are right, that was a lie. He didn’t really try. He should have put an end to it as soon as he realized things were changing, but he couldn’t. He became intoxicated, he wanted, no, he needed more of you, more of your time, more of your body, more of your mind. You’d started this relationship out of a mistake, a simple yearning to know what it would be like that ended in a year long situation. It was great for a while, but Changkyun should have known it wouldn’t last and he couldn’t make you love him, not like that. He’d been selfishly holding on and now it was painfully sinking in. Your waning sobs become sad laughter. “You know, I always thought it would be me,” you confess, “that I’d catch feelings and ruin everything. Funny, right?”
“Hilarious,” he says sarcastically. “I take it it’s over.”
You stand up and use a sleeve of your dress to wipe the tear stains on your face. “You think?! Maybe we shouldn’t have started it in the first place.”
“Don’t say that. It will kill me if you’re going to regret this whole year. Give me that, at least.”
Changkyun is your best friend. He looks like your best friend. But at that moment he doesn’t sound like himself any longer. He sounds like a fool in love; he sounds like you two years ago banging on your ex-boyfriend’s door pathetically begging him to take you back. Changkyun has been there through that and through everything else. You pity him and his foolish heart and you almost wish you could have given him yours back in the same way just to spare him the ache that’s yet to come.
“Come on, loser, walk me home and then don’t talk to me for a week.”
