#howitends

Your hand dropped from his back to your lap. "It's okay. You just went a little too hard tonight."

Jinyoung shook his head, sitting up straighter and reaching for your hand. Once his fingers closed over yours, your breath caught in your throat.

"Not this. Well, yeah, this. But..." he licked his lips and grimaced, probably at the taste of his own mouth. "For everything else. It was all so, so stupid. If I'd just talked to you-"

"You don't have to do that," you cut him off. "Just. It's in the past. We don't have to talk about it."

"Please," he said, voice weak, and squeezed your hand. "I never wanted to make excuses because you deserved better, but I... I realize you've spent the last year thinking it was something it wasn't. Hurting more because of that."

You swallowed as you pondered over his words for a moment. You should have told him it was fine, you didn't want to talk, get up and leave him there. But your heart got the best of you like it always did with Jinyoung.

"What do you mean?" you asked, your eyes drifting down to the sight of his hand covering yours. It was warm and familiar, even now.

Jinyoung ran his teeth across his lip, choosing his words carefully. "Nothing ever happened. With Hyejin. No - no, that's not true. It got blurry for a bit, but what you saw that day, it never went beyond that."

Wounds you'd tended for the last year started to split again, still in the process of healing, jagged and stitched together haphazardly. You pulled your hand from his and turned away, shaking your head.

"That was enough, Jinyoung. It doesn't make it hurt any less."

"No," he said, sighing and sitting up straighter. "That's not what I meant. It just, if you thought that it went further, that we-"

"Stop it," you said. "Please. That was never the problem, you just... you don't get it. Even now."

Jinyoung huffed, frustrated, and reached for you again. You snatched your hand away and scooted back, putting more distance between you.

"You didn't talk to me for months. Months. You'd wake up, leave for work while I was in the shower, and come home after I'd made dinner and hardly say a word to me before you were opening your laptop and working until I fell asleep. That's if you even came home while I was still up. On the weekends, you kept finding reasons to head into the office. It wasn't about her. It was you. Us. You made me into this pathetic little girl waiting for you every night, reaching for you, wanting you to love me."

"I never stopped loving you, Y/N."

"Stop. I don't want to hear it. You didn't love me, not at the end, or you wouldn't have treated me like that."

"Y/N," Jinyoung said, his voice raw and shaky. "I know... that's all true. Everything you said. I fucked up. I could feel the cracks growing in us and instead of trying to fix it, I shut down. I closed off."

This time, when he reached for you, you were too weak to pull away. Stupid. "But I never stopped loving you. I just stopped deserving you."

You crumbled then, the steel dam you'd built starting to give way. "J-Jinyoung, please," you whispered, not knowing what you were asking for, just that this hurt so badly.

You weren't sure who reached for who, but all of the sudden you were in his arms, even though his sweater had vomit on it and now it was in your hair. He held you as you sobbed, letting your open wounds bleed out.

"I loved you, I loved you so much," you said, borderline babbling through your tears, as he stroked your hair.

"I know. I know. I'm so fucking sorry," he whispered through his own tears.

"I would have done anything for you," you said, burying your face into his chest. "I just wanted you. Like it used to be."

You felt Jinyoung nod as he held you tighter. "I know. God, if I could go back-"

"I wish we could," you whispered.

The words hung in the air between you as soon as they left your lips. You shouldn't have said that. It wasn't that simple for so many reasons.

You stayed in his arms though, letting the silence wrap around the two of you and no matter how wrong this was, just staying in this moment as long as you could.

You'd been so angry at him for so long. He'd taken advantage of your loyalty and, to your knowledge, had been enjoying the company of another woman. You'd only seen a moment between them, you could only assume it had gone further than that.

But it hadn't. If you believed him, at least.

Did that change anything? No, not really. But hearing that he did feel remorse, that he knew you'd drifted and he'd fucked up, that was what you'd needed to hear this last year. Maybe now you could start to heal.

"Y/N," Jinyoung said after what felt like an hour in his embrace.

"Hm?" You still didn't move.

"I think I'm going to puke again," he replied.