#yearningmen

And there he was. Cho Sangwoo.

Your heart stopped. He looked different — disheveled, his clothes torn and stained, his hair messy, but he was alive. And the moment your eyes met, you saw it — relief, exhaustion, fear, but most of all, a wild, uncontained joy. It was in the way his shoulders dropped as if he had been holding himself together just to make it to you. His eyes widened, a flash of something so raw that it made your chest tighten.

Before you could say anything, he took a step forward and pulled you into his arms, holding you so tightly you almost couldn’t breathe. His hands were shaking, his grip so desperate it almost hurt. He buried his face in your hair, taking in the scent of you like a man starved.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered, his voice cracking, as though saying the words was a relief in itself. He was trembling, his body rigid with the intensity of the moment. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing you again.”

You couldn’t say anything at first. Your own breath was shaky as you held him just as tightly, your hands gripping his shirt like you were afraid he might slip away. His heartbeat was thundering in your ear, each thud a reminder that he was here, that he had made it.

“Sangwoo, I—” You broke off, your throat tight. “I thought… I thought I’d never see you again.”

His arms tightened around you, pulling you even closer. You could feel the way his muscles trembled, the overwhelming relief in the way he clung to you. The sheer weight of everything that had passed between you two was crushing. You felt it in every fiber of his being — how much he had endured, how close he had come to losing it all, and how, in this moment, he was so grateful to have made it back to you.

“I kept thinking of you,” he murmured, his voice low and raw. His hand cupped the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair. “Every second I was there, it was you I thought about. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I kept telling myself, if I don’t make it out, if I don’t get back… I’ll never see you again.”

You felt a tear slip onto your cheek, hot and salty. For a second, you couldn’t even process it. But then, as you pulled back slightly to look at him, you realized it was his. A tear had fallen from his eye, and you instinctively reached up to wipe it away, your fingers brushing against his cheek.

Sangwoo didn’t say anything, but his eyes fluttered shut, his breath catching. You could see the weight of the emotions flooding through him — the fear, the relief, the desperate joy of simply being here with you, of not having to live with the nightmare any longer.

You cupped his face gently, wiping away another tear with your thumb, your heart aching at the vulnerability in his gaze. You leaned forward without thinking, your lips pressing softly to his. It was a slow, tender kiss, almost hesitant at first, like neither of you could quite believe you were back in each other’s arms.

But then he kissed you back, his lips parting as he deepened the kiss, his hands moving to your waist, pulling you closer. The kiss was desperate, filled with a yearning that he could no longer hold back. His lips tasted of salt, a bitter tang of tears and sweat, the taste of everything he had gone through, and it only made you kiss him harder, like you were trying to reassure him that you were here, that you would never leave.

As you pulled back, your lips tingling from the kiss, you tasted the faint trace of his salty tear on your own lips. You could feel the weight of everything in that moment — the pain, the longing, the desperate need for each other. But there was also something else, something lighter, something hopeful.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you whispered, your forehead resting against his, the words barely a breath between you. “I’m here. We’re here.”

Sangwoo let out a shaky sigh, his face relaxed for the first time in what felt like forever. He kissed you again, this time slower, softer, as if savoring the very fact that you were together.

“I’m never letting you go again,” he murmured, his hands stroking the sides of your face as if to imprint the feeling of you into his memory. “I swear.”