Pairing: Kim Seokjin X Reader
Genre: established relationship; high angst; husband!seokjin; wanting to give up; mentions of Infidelity; marriage AU; hurt/comfort; second chances; miscommunication
You and Seokjin were each other's first everything. Ten years later, you're just two strangers sharing a bed. When it comes down to it, do you still choose each other, or let go?
Warnings: discussions of divorce, perceived infidelity, alcohol consumption
Taglist 🦭: @tahialuvss @gaslysainz @idk-what-myurl-shouldbe
Author's Note: phew! look at this monster that ive created lol anyways loads of angst yearning pining groveling happening down there because you’re on the biggest pain-misery-and-hurt-lover-page on this app!!! happy reading and please please let me know what y’all think about my baby fracture. ALSOOOO another chef au angsty meal up in the works. comment if u wanna join the taglist!
It's 12:30 AM when Seokjin stumbles back home. Calling out for you from the hallway, he gets no response. He tries your phone next, but it's still switched off, just as he expected. With a sigh, he falls back onto the couch. You must not have come back from the wedding yet.
Should he go get you now? He decides against it, surely the celebration must've ended by now. He'll just wait here and apologize the second you walk through the door.
He knows he's fucked up big time.
Not just tonight, but for months now — the missed calls, the canceled plans, the way you kept showing up for him even when he gave you less and less reason to. He'd seen it on your face before he left for work this morning, that same tired look you'd been wearing more and more lately, like you were already bracing yourself for him to let you down again. And he had. Of course he had. Today must have been the last straw, and the realization hits him like a punch to the gut.
He imagines your face in that moment, waiting for him by the car door until it finally hit you that he wasn't coming. You must be hurting, maybe even too angry to come home and face him right now. That's probably why you're not home yet. You never stay out this late, not without texting him first, not without at least letting him know you're okay.
He rubs a hand over his face, guilt settling heavy in his chest, and tells himself this is the last time. He'll make it up to you, anyhow, whenever you walk through that door. He'll go down on his knees if need be, beg if he has to - anything to make this right.
Seokjin wakes to the blare of his alarm, disoriented for a moment before he registers the couch beneath him, the position of his body still hunched from sleep. He must have dozed off waiting for you.
He gets up and quietly makes his way to the bedroom, careful not to wake you — only to find the bed still made, untouched, exactly as you'd left it yesterday morning. He checks the bathroom. Nothing. He hurries to check the guest room and the balcony. No trace of you anywhere.
It's only then that it actually registers: you never came home.
Did something happen to you? Were you in danger? Or were you still mad at him? He prays to god it’s the latter.
His pulse picks up and he's running back to the living room, fumbling for his phone, dialing your number with shaky hands. It drops straight to voicemail.
He tries again. Same result. He sets the phone down, drags both hands down his face, trying to think through the fog of panic clouding his head. Where would you go?
He decides to call your mother, telling himself you were probably angry enough to go stay with her, even as his pulse hammers against his throat. She asks why he didn't show up, and he scrambles together an excuse, a work emergency, he says, the words coming out clipped, too fast. She tells him the two of you should come visit soon, it's been too long. He can barely focus on her words, his knee bouncing, his free hand gripping the back of the couch. Clearly, you're not there either.
He then decides to call Minji. It takes calling her four times before she finally answers.
"What the fuck do you want now?"
He's taken aback by the hostility in her voice. He opens his mouth, then closes it, trying to recalibrate.
"Is she with you?" he asks finally, the question coming out rougher than he intended.
"Why? Did you finally notice she's missing?"
"Damn it, Minji, this isn't the time." His voice cracks slightly. "Just tell me if she's okay."
“Oh, now you care." Minji scoffs. "Where were you last night, Seokjin?"
He shuts his eyes. "I know. I fucked up. I just need to know she's safe."
"She's safe." The words come out flat, clipped.
"Where is she? Can I talk to her?"
"She doesn't want to talk to you right now. Maybe not ever, if she's smart about it." A beat, colder now. "Don’t try to contact her. She will call you back when she’s ready to talk."
The line goes dead before he can say anything else. Seokjin stands in the middle of his living room, phone still pressed to his ear, listening to nothing.
Eventually, he gets ready for work. The entire apartment feels wrong without you in it. He stares at his reflection for a moment while fastening his watch. Maybe Minji is right. Maybe you really need some space.
He could do space if that’s what you needed. He could do that.
So he goes to work. He barely gets anything done. He finds himself checking his phone every few minutes, his eyes constantly drifting towards it every time it lights up, and ending up disappointed when he realizes it’s not you.
By seven in the evening, he’s already packing up. This is the earliest he has left for home since last few months. He drives home with hope sitting in his chest. Maybe you’ll be there. He hopes you’re there.
He unlocks the front door only to greeted by silence again.
“Baby?” he calls out even though he knows you’re not home. He pulls his phone out and calls you again. You don’t pick up. He lets out a shaky breath and leans against the kitchen counter. Okay. Seokjin decides that if you still haven’t come home by tomorrow, he’ll go to you.
Hell, once you’re back home, he’ll give you all the space in the world. As long as it’s somewhere he can still reach you.
Minji parked outside your building and shifted to face you, key still in the ignition.
“You sure you don't want me to come up?”
“I'm sure.” You were already unbuckling your seatbelt. “He must be at work already.”
She gave you a look that said she wasn't entirely buying it, but didn't argue. “I'll wait right here.”
You stepped out of the car and made your way towards the apartment, telling yourself this would only take a few minutes. You just needed a few clothes, your charger and some essentials.
You reached the front door and pulled your keys out of your bag.
However, to your surprise, the door was slightly ajar. He's home. Through the small opening of the door, you could see straight into the living room, and Seokjin standing at the stove with his sleeves rolled up, cooking something in the pan in front of him.
Your heart lurched at the sight of him. You were too lost in your own feelings to notice if anyone else was there, until Hanna's voice broke through, calling his name from somewhere the door's narrow view had blocked.
The sound made your stomach drop. You couldn't believe what you were seeing, what you were hearing. You couldn't believe that Seokjin hadn’t managed to even wait for a week, a single week, before bringing her into the apartment you'd shared. Into the kitchen you'd cooked in together. You couldn't believe how easily he'd done it, how unfazed he looked.
You stared at him for a few more seconds, waiting for some part of it to make sense. It didn't.
Something hot and humiliating climbed up your throat, and for a second you couldn't tell if you were about to cry or scream. Maybe both. Your chest felt too small for everything happening inside it; the anger, the disbelief, the sheer unfairness of standing outside your own front door while watching your husband cook breakfast for his lover.
Heartless. That's the only word your brain manages to land on, over and over. Heartless, heartless, heartless.
You didn’t know what was worse, that it was over, or that he couldn’t even be bothered to tell you first. That he couldn’t offer you the basic decency of ending your marriage after cheating on you.
You stared at him for another few seconds before quietly taking a step back. Then another. You couldn't stand to look at his face for another second, the sight of it made your skin crawl.
Without making a sound, you slipped your keys back into your bag and rushed back down the stairs, throat tight, refusing to let the tears fall before you made it to the car.
Seokjin had been standing outside Minji’s apartment for the last five minutes. He was about to bring his hand down for another round when the door suddenly swung open.
Minji glared at him. “What the fuck are you doing at my house?”
“No.” His voice came out immediately. “I have to talk to her.”
“Too bad. She doesn’t want to fucking talk to you.”
“It’s been three days.” His voice cracked slightly with desperation. “Three days, Minji. She’s not responding to my calls or texts. Where is she?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you. Get it through your thick fucking skull.”
“No.” He raised his voice this time. “That’s my wife and I need to see her.”
Minji sneered at him.. “Wife?”
“You’re talking about your wife now? Didn’t think about your wife when you embarrassed her and didn’t show up to her cousin’s wedding.”
He opened his mouth, but she didn’t give him the chance to speak.
“Didn’t think about your wife when you lied and said it was a work emergency while you were out having fun with another woman. Or hey, maybe when you brought that same woman into the apartment she’d built a life with you in.”
Every ounce of color drained from his face.
“Wh…What?“, he stuttered.
“What what?” Minji mocked. “You suddenly can’t speak now?”
His blood ran cold, entire body suddenly feeling numb. “You think…” he stammered, struggling to get the words out. “She thinks I cheated on her?”
She laughed bitterly. “No, actually let’s talk about that. You couldn’t even wait a fucking day after she left?”
But Seokjin wasn’t listening….“I didn’t cheat on her.”
“I didn’t! I would never, Minji.”
“What were you doing then?”
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Because how was he supposed to explain any of it?
The silence stretched too long.
Minji simply nodded. “Yeah, thought so.”
She stepped back towards the doorway.
“Never fucking show your face at my house again, Kim Seokjin.” Her voice shook with anger now. “Leave my best friend alone. You’ve already hurt her enough.”
The door slammed shut in his face. Seokjin stood there for a moment, unmoving. Then his legs finally gave out beneath him. He sank onto the floor, a sickening realization slowly taking hold.
Seokjin let himself into the apartment and stood by the door for a moment, not bothering to turn on the lights.
Everything suddenly made sense. Of course you thought he cheated on you l. How could you not, given everything he'd handed you to believe it with?
He'd been distant for months — cancelling plans, coming home late, missing dinners. He stopped asking how your day was. Stopped reaching for your hand without thinking about it first. Even the I love yous thinned out, which felt almost unbelievable considering there'd been a stretch where he said it constantly, multiple times a day, like it physically needed to come out of him. The two of you still slept in the same bed, technically, but he couldn't remember the last time that had meant anything beyond proximity.
Somewhere in there, the two of you had gone from talking about everything to barely talking at all. You were just roommates, who happened to be married.
If you thought he hadn’t noticed all your efforts to bridge that distance, you’d be wrong. He’d noticed all the ways you were trying to hold onto the marriage long before things got this bad. The dinners you’d wait to have with him, the plans you’d make for the two of you, the countless little ways you’d try to carve out time together even when his work had begun consuming every corner of his life. He noticed everything.
And when every time when he let you down and saw the disappointment on your face, he’d tell himself he’d make it up to you tomorrow. That once things settled down at work, he’d finally become the husband you deserved.
But work never settled down. And tomorrow never came.
He moved to sit on the edge of the couch and dropped his head into his hands. He knew he was the reason you'd grown apart.
It all started with his promotion, he thinks. People treated him differently now. Expectations were higher. And god did he wanted to fit in. Wanted to feel like he actually belonged in the rooms he'd been let into, instead of like someone who'd been handed a seat he hadn't fully earned yet.
And so he poured himself into work. Said yes to everything. Every gala, dinner, work event. And to no one’s surprise, work quickly stopped being something he enjoyed and turned into something that consumed him entirely. Soon enough, he found himself hating the job he once begged all the gods for.
The job ate every hour he had left over. By the time he got home most nights, he didn't have anything left to give you, be it a conversation or attention or even a full sentence. All he wanted was to sleep, and most days he did just that.
He knew he should've told you. Should've sat you down and said the job was eating him alive, that he didn't recognize who he was becoming inside it. He didn't. He couldn't stand the idea of you looking at him and seeing someone who was failing, not when you'd always looked at him with stars in your eyes, like he could do anything.
So, every morning he’d wake up and do it all over again. Because if he stopped, he’d have to admit he was drowning.
Then he lost a case that was supposed to make his career. Eight months of work, a verdict the partners had been watching closely, and the opportunity he’d pinned far too many hopes on. He was convinced that winning it would finally make all the sacrifices worthwhile and finally establish him as someone indispensable. It came back against him on a Thursday afternoon. He’d never tell you this, but it shattered his confidence.
Instead of pulling back, he did the opposite, buried himself in the next case, and the one after that, trying to outwork the failure instead of sitting with it. Obviously, it didn't help. It just made him resentful. Of the job. Of himself. Eventually, unfairly, of you, for reasons that had nothing to do with you at all.
The resentment turned cold somewhere along the way, and the cold landed on you, though it was never really about you. It was shame, mostly. Shame is easier to point outward than to sit with.
Every time he looked at you, guilt would claw at his chest. You deserved better. You deserved more. He felt himself failing at giving you both. So he avoided acknowledging how unhappy he was making you.
Then there was the misunderstanding that followed after you saw him with Hanna outside the office. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
Hanna wasn’t someone he’d ever been even particularly close to. Not really. Her older brother had known Seokjin’s family for years and had often looked after him when he was younger. The company had assigned her to a case Seokjin was leading, and it was only then that he learned her older brother had passed away unexpectedly the year before. Since then, he’d occasionally checked in on her, more out of a sense of responsibility than anything else. He hadn't thought much of it beyond that.
The day you saw the two of them outside his office was the same day Hanna got let go and not quietly. They'd done it in front of the entire floor, no dignity extended to her at all, and it left her standing at her desk fighting not to cry in front of thirty people pretending not to notice. Seokjin stepped outside with her for five minutes, mostly because no one else had bothered to.
He felt sick leaving her like that. But he was already running late, and he couldn't let you go to the wedding alone, not when this weekend was supposed to be him finally trying to fix things between the two of you.
The office had mostly cleared out by the time he was packing up to leave since it was Friday. He was halfway through it when there was a knock. Hanna, in the doorway, said she just wanted to say goodbye properly before she left the building for good.
She never finished the sentence. She doubled over mid-word, a horrifying sound tearing out of her, and by the time he reached her she was already on the floor, both hands pressed to her stomach. The next thing he knew, he was in an ambulance with her.
He’d called you from the hospital waiting room with an apology already rehearsed in his head. He’d expected you to yell at him, be angry, maybe even curse him out. Instead, you said nothing at all and hung up while he was still apologising. He tried calling back immediately afterwards, then a few more times over the next hour, but your phone had already been switched off. Some small part of him thought maybe he deserved exactly this, sitting alone past midnight, watching his last call to you fail to connect, with no one left to explain anything to.
Two hours later, a doctor pulled him aside instead of Hanna, since there was no family listed and he was the one who'd brought her in. She was pregnant. Eleven weeks, give or take. Judging by the look on her face when she heard it, it was news to her as much as it was to him.
When they left the hospital, Hanna asked if he could drop her back at the office so she could collect her belongings.
In the elevator of the office, he heard her sniffle once, then again, trying and failing to keep it quiet. He gently squeezed her shoulder and told her it would be alright. The kind of thing you say when you don't actually know if it's true, but someone needs to hear it anyway.
Near the exit, she swayed, one hand flying to her temple. He caught her before she could go down, an arm braced across her shoulders, and told her he'd drive her home. Hanna nodded, grateful, leaning into him the rest of the way to the car.
By the time he actually made it home, it was well past midnight. The apartment was dark. You weren't there.
That was all it was. That was all it had ever been.
The morning you walked in and saw him cooking , that was two days later. Hanna had only come by to thank him and say goodbye before moving back to her parents’ house in another state.
The meal sitting on the stove had never been meant for her. It had been meant for you. He wanted to make it right, to beg for your forgiveness, to grovel on his knees at Minji’s doorsteps if that would mean you’d give him another chance. So, he went out and bought groceries, and started cooking your favourite food.
Perhaps that was the cruel irony of it all. By the time he’d finally started pulling his end of the rope, your hands were already too tired to keep holding.
The days that followed were some of the longest and hardest of Seokjin’s life.
Every day looked the same. He’d wake up and immediately check his phone. He’d go to work and barely register what was happening around him. He’d come home and stare at the untouched side of the apartment before inevitably finding himself outside Minji’s building again.
He stopped knocking after the sixth day after she threatened to call the cops on him. Instead, he’d just stand there for a few hours, hoping you’d somehow open the door on your own and tell him something. Anything.
One afternoon, he found himself driving to your school too. He sat across the street watching teachers and children come and go before eventually forcing himself to walk inside. The receptionist smiled politely before informing him that you were taking some time off.
The apartment felt suffocating now. The silence was deafening and every room somehow felt bigger without you in it. He’d spend entire evenings sitting on the couch doing nothing but staring into space, his thoughts endlessly circling back to you. Unable to sit with his own thoughts any longer, he poured himself a glass of whiskey. It burned all the way down his throat, but the discomfort was welcomed.
He’d always hated whiskey. You used to laugh at the face he’d make after every sip, teasing him that he had the palate of a child. The memory pulled a bitter laugh out of him before his eyes suddenly began to sting.
God, he missed you. He missed your voice, your laugh, your gorgeous face. He missed you so much it physically hurt.
At some point he must’ve fallen asleep because the sound of his phone ringing startled him awake. Disoriented, he reached around for it before his breath caught in his throat.
Your name flashes across his screen.
The relief he’d felt hearing your voice the night before had been indescribable.
He’d tried asking where you were, if you’d been okay, if you’d eaten, if you were sleeping properly, but you hadn’t answered a single question. You’d simply told him where to meet you and hung up immediately afterwards.
Seokjin had been grateful that after an entire week of silence, you were finally giving him a chance to talk to you.
The next day, he arrived at the cafe earlier than the agreed time.
His eyes immediately began scanning the room until they landed on you. You were sitting by the window in a corner booth, your attention fixed somewhere outside as snow quietly fell onto the streets below. He stood there for a moment, taking you in.
It was ridiculous, really, how seeing you after only a week made him feel like he was finally breathing again. It was like feeling warm sunlight on his skin after weeks of harsh rain.
Then he noticed how tired you looked. There were dark circles beneath your eyes he’d never seen before and an exhaustion in your face that immediately made guilt crawl up his throat. He slowly walked over, but you didn’t react to his presence at all, remaining focused on the scene outside until he was standing right beside the table.
His voice cracked the second he said your name. He cleared his throat immediately afterwards and sat on the chair opposite you, though he didn’t sit down right away, almost as if he was waiting for your permission.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said quietly, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this right now, but I need to say it anyway. I’m so sorry. I’ve spent every single day thinking about everything and I—”
You slid a stack of papers across the table towards him.
His words abruptly died in his throat.
He looked down at them before glancing back up at you, confusion settling across his features.
“Read it.” Your voice was calm.
His fingers slowly reached for the papers. The world around him seemed to blur the moment his eyes landed on the word.
His stomach dropped so suddenly he nearly felt sick, grip on the papers tightening.
The sound that left him was barely a whisper.
“We’re done, Seokjin. I think it’s been over for a long time now. We both knew it somewhere, even if we didn’t want to admit it. I’m just making things easier for both of us.”
“No.” The word came out almost instantly, like his body had reacted before his brain could catch up.
“No, don’t say that” he repeated before you could say anything, shaking his head this time.
“No?” you repeated, genuine disbelief flashing across your face.
“Yes, no.” His voice cracked under the force of it. “You can’t just decide we’re done like that.”
A humourless laugh escaped you. “Can’t I?”
“No.” He shook his head immediately. “Because I love you.”
You stared at him. The words would have meant something once. A year ago, maybe even three months ago, they would’ve been enough to make your heart race.
You let out a quiet laugh. Not because anything about this was funny, but because the alternative was crying. And he didn’t deserve any more of your tears.
Love. He was sitting here talking about love as if he hadn’t spent the better part of a year making you feel completely alone and unloveable.
Without thinking, Seokjin reached across the table for your hand. You pulled away instantly. The movement was almost reflexive.
The second it happened, he looked at you as though you’d physically struck him. His hand lingered awkwardly between the two of you before slowly dropping back to his side.
“I can’t believe this,” you said, unable to stop the bitterness creeping into your voice. “Can you just stop? Why are you making this harder than it already is?”
You shook head slightly, drawing a breath through your nose like you were trying to keep yourself composed.
“You don’t get to say that,” you continued, voice lower now but sharper. “Not after how you’ve treated me.”
You held his gaze for a moment before continuing, “You weren’t really there even when you were around. You’d come home late and walk straight past me to the bedroom without a word, like I wasn’t in the same room. I used to get more words out of the barista at the coffee shop than I got out of my own husband. I was practically invisible to you.”
He looked down at his own hands on the table, like he couldn't bear to look at you while you said it. When he finally lifted his head again, his eyes were red, unguarded in a way you hadn't seen from him in a long time. However, you kept going, months of pent-up hurt finally finding a way out.
“But I kept trying anyway,” you said. “I kept telling myself it was temporary. That things would get better. That I was just overthinking it, being sensitive, that we’d go back to normal once whatever this was ended.”
You let out a short breath, trying and failing to steady yourself.
“And the entire time I was trying to fix this, you were in someone else's bed." Your voice shook despite every effort to hold it steady. "You brought her into our home, and you still have the nerve to say you love me?"
The words came out so quickly they almost overlapped with yours.
“I didn’t cheat on you,” he repeated, his voice breaking this time. “God, please. Please don’t say that.”
“I know I failed you. I know I’ve hurt you. I know I’ve given you every reason in the world to hate me right now, but I never cheated on you.”
For several seconds, neither of you spoke.
“I need you to believe me, love.” His eyes didn’t leave yours. “You can be angry at me for everything else. God knows I deserve it. But not that. I could never do this to you, to us. You’re the only woman I’ve ever had eyes for. Hell, you’re the love of my life. You’re everything.”
You didn't say anything. You'd known him long enough to know what his face looked like when he lied, and this wasn't it
“The night of Nari’s wedding….”
He told you everything, then — about the promotion, about how unrecognizable he'd become to himself somewhere in the last year, about the case he lost and the way it had curdled into something much uglier than just disappointment. About Hanna's brother, about the hospital incident, about Hanna showing up at the apartment that morning only to thank him. None of it excused anything, and he didn't want you to think it did. He just laid it out, plainly, the words coming easier the longer he talked.
By the time he finished talking, you believed him. However, it wasn't relief that you felt afterwards. If anything, it made things worse knowing he'd gone through all of it alone, and never once let you in enough to help. Some lovers you were.
Your eyes stung. His weren't any better — red-rimmed, barely holding together.
"I still think we should divorce," you forced the words out before you could talk yourself out of them.
His face crumpled. Tears slipped down his cheeks before he could stop them, and he didn't bother wiping them away.
"Please." His voice cracked. "Done give up on me. Give us one more chance. I know I don't deserve it. But please."
He reached for your hands. This time you let him take them.
"I need time," you breathed. "To think. About all of it."
You pulled your hands back gently and stood up before either of you could say anything else. You walked out without turning around, his eyes on you the entire way.
It's been three days since he saw you at the cafe.
Seokjin has had a lot of time to think.
He sits alone in his apartment, the divorce papers held loosely in his hands. He'd gone over that conversation a dozen times in his head since, and every time, he came back to the same conclusion.
Without the panic that had consumed him after you’d left, without the immediate fear of losing you clouding everything else, he was finally forced to confront an uglier truth.
He had been cruel and selfish. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how unfair he’d been when he. begged you for another chance. But another chance for who?
He’d been so terrified of losing you that he hadn’t stopped to ask himself what you needed.
So, for the first time in weeks, he stopped thinking about himself.
He stopped thinking about how much he missed you, how unbearable the apartment felt without you in it, how desperately he wanted another chance or how badly he wanted things to go back to the way they used to be.
But after everything he’d put you through, was it fair for him to keep asking for more? The answer came almost immediately.
You had spent months trying to save the two of you, reaching for him while he drifted further and further away, fully aware of what he was doing and yet somehow incapable of stopping himself. Even now, he couldn’t quite explain why he’d let it get that bad. Shame, pride, exhaustion, fear, perhaps a combination of all of them. Whatever the reason was, it didn’t matter anymore.
He’d convinced himself he was protecting you by keeping his struggles to himself, by pretending he was okay, by carrying everything alone. Looking back on it now, it almost felt absurd. You had never once asked him to be perfect. Out of everyone in his life, you were the one person who would’ve understood him without judgment. And yet he’d shut you out first, of all people.
He knew he was late. This wasn’t one of those stories where love won because one person finally woke up and realized what they were about to lose before time ran out.
He lowered his gaze to the divorce papers in front of him.
He thought about the café about how exhausted you’d looked sitting across from him. He had done that to you.
You still loved him. He knew you did. And because he loved you so much, more than his own fear of losing you, more than his desperate desire to keep you by his side no matter the cost, he picked up the pen with trembling hands and signed the papers.
Seokjin stared at it for a long time afterwards, his thumb absentmindedly tracing the edge of the paper. Then he reached for a blank sheet of paper. He didn’t know where to begin.
How did you say goodbye to someone who had been stitched into every part of your life for over a decade? How did you say goodbye to the love of your life? How did you let go of the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with because your love started hurting her more than it was making her happy?
His grip around the pen tightened. A wet spot appeared on the paper. Then another.
He blinked and only then realised tears had started slipping down his face at some point, falling onto the blank page in front of him.
He quickly wiped them away with the heel of his palm before they could smudge the paper any further and let out a shaky breath and began to write.
You stood in front of the mirror for longer than necessary, smoothing your hands down your sweater before immediately redoing your hair despite knowing there was nothing wrong with it.
Minji, who’d been watching you from the bed, finally sighed.
“If you ask me this one more time, I am going to smack you.”
You rolled your eyes, but the corner of your mouth twitched upwards.
The truth was, the certainty you’d walked into that cafe with hadn’t followed you back out. Because for all his faults, for all the hurt he’d caused and the trust he’d broken, knowingly and unknowingly, you weren’t ready to walk away knowing there was still something left to save between the two of you.
You still didn’t know what the future looked like. There were no guarantees anymore and perhaps there never would be again. But for the first time in a long time, it no longer felt like you were the only person trying to hold your marriage together.
Your stomach twisted nervously at the thought of seeing him again, a feeling you hadn’t experienced in months. It almost reminded you of the early days of your relationship, back when seeing his face was enough to make your heart race.
You exhaled slowly before reaching for your coat hanging by the door.
As you made your way toward the door, your eyes landed on a brown envelope resting in the mail slot. You absentmindedly pulled it free and glanced down at its contents.
————-————————————————————
The loud banging at the door jolted Seokjin awake. His eyes shot open immediately, confusion washing over him for a brief second before it came again.
He sat upright on the couch, blinking away the sleep from his eyes. It was late. He hadn’t been sleeping much these past few days anyway. Most nights he’d simply drift off wherever exhaustion eventually caught up to him.
The banging came again. His brows furrowed instantly. Who on earth would be knocking at this hour, especially in the middle of what seems to be a snowstorm?
He quickly got to his and made his way to the front door. The moment he opened the door, his entire body went still.
You stood there clutching a brown envelope in your hand, snowflakes scattered throughout your hair and melting against your coat.
And Seokjin simply stared at you, momentarily unable to process what he was seeing.
He’d already made peace with the possibility that he would never see you standing here again and now you were right in front of him, looking at him with those big brown eyes he’d spent a lifetime loving. For a split second, he genuinely wondered if he was hallucinating.
Then, his eyes immediately swept across your face before dropping lower, checking your shoulders, your hands and the rest of you as if searching for some explanation for why you were standing at his door this late in the middle of a snowstorm. His expression shifted almost instantly from shock to concern.
“What happened, love?” he asked, stepping closer to you without a second thought. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
You didn’t answer. Instead, you raised the envelope between the two of you.
“What is this?” you asked quietly.
He swallowed. The answer was obvious. You both knew it was obvious. But he still couldn’t seem to make himself say anything.
Your fingers tightened around the envelope.
He lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
You stared at him for a moment before walking past him into the apartment. The warmth hit you immediately after being outside in the cold, but it wasn’t what made you stop in your tracks.
The couch, the coffee table and even parts of the floor were covered in pieces of your life together. Photographs were spread everywhere alongside old greeting cards, movie tickets, anniversary notes and random little things you’d forgotten existed years ago. Some of them made your chest tighten instantly because you remembered exactly where they’d come from. Others you’d completely forgotten about until now.
You slowly turned around to look at him again, you found him deliberately looking anywhere but at you. His eyes wandered aimlessly between the couch and the wall behind it, hands awkwardly shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants as though he suddenly didn’t know what to do with himself.
“What is this?” you asked quietly.
“I was just… looking through things.”
You stared at him for another moment before lifting the envelope between the two of you again.
“No, Seokjin. This.” Your voice softened. “What is this?”
He finally looked at you then. His eyes were glassy already.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think these past few days,” he said quietly. “And I realised I can’t do this anymore.”
You frowned slightly but remained silent, allowing him to continue.
“I can’t keep asking things from you after everything I’ve already taken. I can’t beg you to stay because I’m scared of losing you. That’s not fair to you and… I don’t want to do that to you anymore.”
He paused for a second, forcing himself to hold your gaze.
“You deserve to be happy. Truly happy. Even if that means without me, then that’s what I want for you.”
His throat bobbed. “So I’m letting you go.”
He stared at you in quiet disbelief, unable to understand why you’d still want this, him, after everything.
“What?” he asked, voice almost cautious, as though he was afraid he’d heard you wrong.
“You heard me, Seokjin. What if I want this?” you repeated. “What if I want us?”
He immediately shook his head, confusion and hurt flashing across his face all at once.
“You can’t possibly still want this.”
His face scrunched in confusion.
“You’re doing it again, Seokjin.”
You start walking towards him before he can say anything else.
“I told you I needed time,” you say, poking a finger against his chest.
“I told you I would call.”
Another push to his shoulders.
“So why would you do this?”
He keeps giving ground until his back eventually hits the wall behind him, looking more and more lost with every word coming out of your mouth.
“You just…” You exhaled shakily and shook your head. “You just decided everything all over again.”
His eyes searched your face for a moment before quietly saying, “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
He still didn’t seem to understand what was happening. Funny, after three days of bracing for this, you hadn’t expected it to be so anticlimactic.
“Seokjin,” you called again, needing him to look at you properly, to gather himself.
“I love you,” you said simply.
For a moment, he didn’t respond, as though the words had to pass through him more than once before they settled. Then he shook his head slightly, almost in refusal.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me this isn’t because you feel sorry for me?” he asked quietly.
You let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh through the tears gathering in your eyes.
A tear slipped down his face and before you could even move to reach for him, he was already closing the distance, his mouth crashing onto yours. His arms tightened around you immediately, pulling you so close that there was no space left between you, his grip firm enough that you were sure there will be bruises come morning.
You pulled away only when your lungs started to give out, breathing uneven as you stayed close.
His hands came up to your face and held you there, like he needed to make sure you were real.
“I’m going to try this with you again,” you said softly.
Maybe this wouldn't work and you'd get hurt all over again. Maybe six months from now you'd find yourselves right back where you'd started. But you still wanted to try. You'd rather try and fail this one last time, than spend the rest of your life wondering what would've happened if you hadn't.
