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Interlude No. 9 | yjh x reader

Interlude No. 9: Jeonghan broke up with you three months ago, so why is he at your door now?

Rating: sfw (minors still shouldn’t be here) | WC: ~3.3k

Pairing: yjh x reader | Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, a lil romance

Warnings: alcohol mention, swearing, breaking up and making up

Reader Notes: drinks wine, owns a blow dryer

You’re halfway into your second glass of wine and fully done with your skincare when a knock sounds on your apartment door. 

It sounds familiar for some reason, and though you normally would never entertain the thought of accepting an unexpected caller after 9 PM, your gut is telling you to answer. So onto the side table your glass goes before you stand on tired legs and slowly make your way to the hall. You should grab the bat but that gut feeling is still there, the one that says you have nothing to worry about, so you pass the closet you keep it in and continue on to the door. 

Closing one eye, you sweep aside the cover and look through the peephole, gasping at what, or rather, who, you find. 

Yoon Jeonghan. 

The man you dated for two years, the man who broke up with you three months ago without an explanation. 

The man you still love. 

You can’t see much, but you can see that he looks awful. His hair is long and sloppily tied back, his glasses are low on his nose, and his eyes are red, glassy. He gnaws at his lip as he waits, his posture growing worse with every minute that ticks by until he’s all but wilted onto the floor. 

You don’t know what to do. 

You blocked his contact after he left you, swore you wouldn’t speak to him again no matter how many friends you have in common, but here he is at your door, looking, for all intents and purposes, dead inside. 

You can’t see him anymore but he didn’t walk away, which means he must have finally sat down in the hall. You’re just glad he’s not making noise, your neighbors have always been nosy and you hate the idea of them knowing about this. 

He doesn’t seem like he’s going anywhere anytime soon, so all you can do is unlock your three locks and open the door a crack, just enough to spot him. 

His gaze shoots up immediately and he rushes to stand, his limbs clumsy as he picks himself up off the floor. 

“Hi,” he breathes, brushing his clothes off and fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. 

You ignore the way your stomach drops at his voice, ignore the way it feels like a balm to your frayed nerves, and ask quietly, “What are you doing here?” 

He glances away and pushes up his glasses, swiping a hand over his eyes and down his face before saying, “I wanted to talk to you, about us.” 

You bristle, unhealed hurt rising up within you at his words. 

“Now you want to talk? You didn’t seem to have anything to say three months ago when you left,” you remind him harshly, pretending your heart doesn’t ache at the way he flinches and tries to hide it.

“I- I fucked up, I fucked everything up, I know that. But I’ve been trying to talk to you this whole time, ever since I walked out. Please, just listen to me this once, and I promise, if you never want to hear from me again, I’ll leave you alone.”

He sounds distraught, as close to tears as you’ve ever heard him, and you know you shouldn’t, you know you shouldn’t, but you do it anyway. 

You open the door and step to the side, ignoring his deep sigh of relief and pushing down the shock when you smell the cologne you bought him last year as he walks past you. 

You didn’t live together but he knows where to go, making his way to your living room and settling into his corner of the couch. Maybe you should offer him something to drink, but you don’t feel like playing host right now, not when the wound you thought had scarred over has started bleeding again. 

Bypassing your spot on the sofa, you sink into the chair farthest away from him, tugging a blanket over your lap as if it could protect you somehow. 

He stares at you, his gaze a deep pool of sorrow and guilt and his fingers fidgeting in his lap. 

“Well?” You prompt him when he doesn’t speak, almost wishing you had the forethought to grab your glass of wine. You could use it at a time like this. 

“I- I guess I should start off by saying I love you and I’m in love with you and I never stopped being in love with you,” he says it like it’s a vow, like he fears you won’t believe him. 

You say nothing, swallowing around the pit of anguish in your throat. 

“When I left, it was because of me, not because of anything you did. You’re perfect, you always have been. I just- I couldn’t give you what you deserved. I saw how happy you were when Joshua proposed to his partner, and we both knew I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get married, but I knew that you were sure.”

“I wanted you to be free to find someone who could give you that, and I thought breaking up with you was the right thing to do, but as soon as I left, I knew it was the absolute dumbest and most cowardly thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“I shouldn’t have made that decision for you, I should have told you how I was feeling and let you make the choice yourself, even if the outcome would have been the same.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jeonghan chokes out, his face pinched and his eyes full of saltwater. 

Tears are threatening to stream down your face, your heart squeezing in your chest like someone is wringing it out. It’s time for you to respond to him, but you don’t know what to say. 

You’ve missed him more than you ever thought possible, and a part of you is comforted by the fact that he never stopped loving you. But another part of you is broken, your trust in him fractured and your faith in him lost. 

You feel like he’s misunderstood you on a fundamental level, like the years you spent together were for nothing because he obviously doesn’t know you as well as you thought he did. You feel like your autonomy has been stripped away, like he thinks you’re a child who can’t be trusted to form your own opinions. 

Most of all, you feel robbed, of the last three months, of the lifetime you would have spent with him, married or unmarried. 

“Why are you telling me this now?” You whisper, needing to know his angle. Is he just looking to absolve himself of guilt? You don’t know if you can do that for him. 

“Because I’m dying without you,” he nearly sobs out. “I’ve wanted to come back since I left but my texts and calls wouldn’t go through, and I didn’t want to show up at your job like a creep, and all of our friends hate me except for Seungcheol so there was nobody to carry a message for me. It’s all my own fault, and I know that, I just- I’m selfish, I can’t let you go without knowing you want me to.” 

“Jeonghan, I never wanted you to let me go. I never wanted to be free. I only wanted you,” your voice breaks on the last word, and you have to look away as you fight the urge to openly weep. 

“Past tense?” He sounds defeated, empty. “You don’t…” 

“Yoon Jeonghan, you’re a fucking idiot if you think I don’t love you anymore,” you glare, feeling like you could curse him, hex him and his whole bloodline for his stupidity. “But that doesn’t mean we can pick up where we left off. You broke us, you broke me, and I need time before I can let you in like that again.”

Finally, there’s life in his eyes again, gratitude and love shining on his face, like the fact that you’re even considering it is enough for him. 

“I’ll be here, I’ll wait forever if I have to. And I’m not saying this because I think it’ll change anything, but I do want to marry you, only you, so I mean it when I say forever,” he sends you a watery beam, his face shiny with tears. 

You can’t stop the corners of your mouth from quirking up in a smile, even if you do want to prod further into how he’s suddenly made up his mind. You fear you don’t have the energy for it tonight, not after all of this. 

You also fear you don’t have the heart to send him home alone. He looks a bit better but his cheeks are gaunt, his hair is greasy, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He hasn’t been doing well, and you want to feel vindicated but instead you just feel worried. 

“You can sleep here tonight, on the couch. Let me get you some blankets and pillows,” you whisper, rising to your feet and disappearing into your bedroom before he can protest out of some misguided feeling of imposition. 

You gather up his favorite blanket, the one that’s been folded on the chair in the corner of your room since he broke up with you, and his preferred pillow. It still smells like him even though you’ve changed the case countless times, and you have to admit that you’ve been thankful for it. 

You also get some pajamas he left, having neglected to clear out his drawer because you couldn’t bear to open it. 

He’s right where you left him when you return, head tilted back as he dozes, and you set the bedding at the end of the couch before tentatively resting a hand on his shoulder to wake him. 

He blinks up at you and smiles his sweetest smile, and you feel your heart start to stitch itself back together. In a whisper, you say, “Jeonghan, why don’t you take a shower while I get the couch ready?” 

“Are you sure? You don’t have to do all this,” he mumbles, his eyes avoiding yours as he bites at his lip anxiously. 

“I know I don’t. Let me do it anyway,” you tell him, squeezing his shoulder and reaching down for his hand to pull him up and to the bathroom. 

He follows you obediently, taking the pajamas when you hand them over and grinning shyly at you one last time as the bathroom door closes between you. 

You don't have a lot of time to think as you set up the couch, knowing he takes around ten minutes to shower. You’ll probably offer to blow dry his hair when he gets out, he hates sleeping with it wet, he always thinks it’ll give him a cold. Even after three months without him, caring for him is still as easy as breathing. 

Now that you have some space, you’re not sure how much time you really need to let him back in. 

Of course, you’re still wounded and bitter that he left you in the first place, but you can tell he wasn’t lying, that he really thought he was doing the right thing. You think he knows now that he shouldn’t ever do something like that again, and while your trust in him is cracked, it’s not as broken as you worried it was. 

Setting everything he should and shouldn’t have done aside, you have to admit that you miss him, desperately, and that you want to be his just as much as you want him to be yours. 

But with all of your feelings so fresh, you think you should sleep on it at least one night, just to be sure you have forgiven him, that you can take him back. 

You should have a few minutes left before he’s done, so you sneak back into your room and grab your blow dryer and hair brush from your vanity, setting up shop on the chair closest to an outlet. 

Soon enough, he wanders out in his baggy shirt and pajama pants, squeezing his dripping hair with a towel and grinning when he sees you. 

“Salon time?” He asks with excitement, and you smile indulgently, waving the hair dryer at him and waiting for him to sit cross legged in front of you, his back to your knees and his head at the perfect height for you to take care of his hair. 

It’s soothing to you, carrying out this routine and having this kind of intimacy with him after all these weeks apart. 

You dry and dry until his silky locks slip through your fingers, and when you finally shut the blow dryer off, the silence in the room is deafening. Jeonghan is leaning back against your legs, his head dipped low and his neck bent at an odd angle, and you realize he’s fallen asleep. 

It must have been soothing to him too, you think, gently scratching your nails over his scalp before whispering his name. 

He stirs, looking around in confusion and tilting his head all the way back to look at you upside down, a sleepy smile stretching his lips. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, his voice hushed and relaxed. 

You fight the urge to lean down and press a kiss to his lips like you used to, smoothing your finger over his eyebrow instead and replying, “You’re welcome.”

He pushes up to his feet, stretching his hands overhead and yawning loudly, before turning and reaching for you only to stop short. 

“Goodnight,” he says, holding his hands behind his back like he’ll touch you if he doesn’t. 

“Goodnight,” you whisper, trying to ignore how weird it feels not to follow it with an I love you. 

You turn and retreat to your room before the words can escape without your permission, closing the door behind you with a soft click. 

You’re already all washed up for the night so you just slide into your side of the bed, pulling the duvet tight around you to mimic the feeling of Jeonghan’s arms. 

It takes you ages to fall asleep with the knowledge that he’s just a few yards away, that you could have him in this bed if only you would ask. 

It’s dark when you wake, your heart still racing with the nightmare that roused you though you can’t remember it. You lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling in an attempt to calm yourself, your eyes locking onto the blur of the fan, just barely visible with the moonlight seeping in through the curtains. 

You hardly ever got nightmares when Jeonghan slept over, but you’ve had innumerable sleepless nights over the past three months, and you were hoping tonight wouldn’t be one of them with him in your apartment. 

Maybe you should check and make sure he’s still here. He could have left, could have changed his mind, could have decided he was right to end it with you and gone home to his own apartment, and you wouldn’t even know until morning.

That anxiety is enough to make you roll out of bed and pad over to the door, your steps quiet and your breath caught in your chest. 

You turn the knob as smoothly as you can, pushing the door open and wincing when it creaks. But when you look over to check if you woke Jeonghan, he’s already sitting up, the lamp on the side table on and a book from your shelf in his hands. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks with concern, setting the book face down on the table and giving you his full attention. 

“I just wanted to… check on you,” you give him a half truth, forgetting that he always could see right through you. 

“You were scared I went home, weren't you?” He murmurs, a tinge of sadness to his voice and a remorseful frown on his face. 

“Maybe,” you fiddle with the hem of your t-shirt, avoiding his eyes. “I just had a nightmare so…”

“Was it that I left again?” He asks, pulling his legs up and making room on the couch for you before patting the cushion in front of him. You take a few steps forward and he lifts the blanket up, covering your exposed legs with it when you settle onto the sofa. 

“No, I don’t remember what happened. I just didn’t get them with you around so I thought you might not be around.”

You have to fight the urge not to crawl into his lap and curl up against him, feeling especially starved for affection after waking so abruptly. You wonder if he feels as far from you as you do from him, stuck in this limbo of being together but not together. 

You think he does when you notice the longing in his soft eyes, see the way his brows are gently furrowed and his lip is bitten between his teeth. 

“How can I help?” He wonders quietly, and you only give yourself a few seconds to think it over. 

Yes, he broke up with you for a reason that he should have talked with you about instead. Yes, you’ve missed him the past three months like you never knew you could. Yes, it’s probably too soon to let him back in like this. 

But you find you don’t care about any of that. 

You just want him close, need to know he’s here and he’s staying and he’s yours. 

So you push aside your bruised feelings and whisper in a fragile voice, “Come to bed with me?” 

He looks unsure but rises when you do, his face smoothing out as he offers you his hand and lets you tug him to your bedroom. He hovers when he crosses the threshold and it occurs to you that you might have to guide him. He was so respectful of your boundaries in the beginning of the relationship that you called almost all of the shots, and you wonder if your two years of progress have been undone over the past three months apart. 

But maybe this is a good thing, you think as you lead him over to his side of the bed and tuck him in. You’re the one who told him you can’t pick up where you left off, and you like that he’s reset a bit, that he wants to treat this like a fresh start, because it is one.  

Before, you would just crawl over him onto your side, but now you walk around the bed, climbing in and tugging the blanket over your body. You pull it up to your chin, still feeling a bit chilled, and it takes you less than sixty seconds to decide cuddling is allowed even if you’re beginning anew. 

So you roll onto your side to face him, your eyes just barely able to make him out in the dark of your bedroom. He turns his head to look at you, his hands folded together on his stomach before he reaches one out across the bed. That’s the only signal you need to close the distance and tuck yourself up under his arm, your cheek resting in the hollow of his shoulder and your hand finding his. 

He tilts his head up, pressing his lips to your forehead and sneaking a whiff of your hair as he tangles his fingers with yours. You take in a deep breath, what feels like your first since he ended things, and let your eyelids flutter shut, trusting that he’ll be here when you wake. 

“I love you,” he whispers, so low you almost don’t hear him.

“I love you, too,” you mumble back. “But if you pull that shit again, it’ll be the last thing you ever do, and I mean that.”

“Please murder me if I do. Obviously I’ve gone fucking crazy if I fuck this up again.”

You fall asleep with a smile on your face. 

AN: yayyy i wrote something!! a randomized wheel told me to write jeonghan so i did and it turned into this and then the wheel told me to make it smutty and i was like no that is not correct! so sorry lovelies but no smut today!! it just didn't feel right after them being apart for so long and jeonghan only just starting to make it up to reader and earn her back (even if she is making it easy for him)

thank u for reading, please lmk what you think!!