don't hurt me | j.jk

I - the beginning of the end

You can remember how you felt the first time it happened. Returning home from your exhausting 9-5, only to find your fiancee, Hyun-woo, in bed with someone who sure as hell wasn't you.  You remember vividly the way your heart cracked as you watched them, and it took him WAY too long for him to notice you standing there with tears threatening to fall to the floor. 

That was three years ago.  

You don't know why you stuck around after that. Maybe it's that since you got engaged, he made you isolate yourself from your loved ones so you would only have time for him.  Maybe it was the promise that he would change, although he's shown you time and time again that it's simply not happening. Or maybe, it's the simple fact that you still love him. He's hurt you. Bad. But you can't shake the fact that he's still the man that you fell in love with.

Today is like any other day, returning home to Hyun-woo banging the brains out of some chick in your shared bed. You're used to it by now, usually sitting yourself down on the couch and watching some mindless tv program until you hear them finish each other off.  Today is different, you decided. It's been a long week and for once, you want to save yourself from being forced to listen to the moaning coming from your own bedroom. Years of letting yourself sit on the sidelines as your heart slowly breaks ends tonight.

But, you can't leave wearing the clothes you wore to work today. And who knows where you'll end up? Maybe it's a chance to wear something flashy and nice, just for yourself. Nobody can tell how broken you feel on the inside if you look so nice on the outside.

It takes you a hot minute to hype yourself into barging into your own bedroom, knowing what was waiting for you on the other side of the door. Still, you head into your room to grab your nicest outfit, and despite Hyun-woo's confused face and eventual protests, you grab your nicest shoes from next to the front door and take off into the night. 

★✯☆✯★

While you weren't sure exactly where you were going when you left, sitting at a bar, drunkenly venting to a super hot dude with super hot tattoos about your dumb fiancee currently at home cheating on you for the nth time this week wasn't where you saw yourself going.

Yet, here you are.

"Guy sounds like such an asshole. Why haven't you left him yet?" the stranger offers with a slight chuckle, probably trying to ease the clear weight of the conversation happening right now.

You think about his words, well to the best of your ability since you're in the process of getting shitfaced, but you come to an answer for his question. 

"I'm in too deep now. Got nobody, and nowhere to go. Trapped, essentially." you shrug off, not daring to continue looking at his beautiful face. Realizing that you've probably shared too much with someone whose name you don't even know yet, you lower your head in embarrassment. Nose practically swimming in your own drink as you look down, you continue;

"I'm not here to look for sympathy, really. I think I just needed a break if I'm being honest."

 He opens his mouth to say something, but you quickly cut him off before you start having a complete breakdown over your current situation in the middle of a random bar. 

"Why don't we start talking about you? Surely there's a reason you're alone at a bar on a Friday night?" you look back up to see his face slightly scrunch at your remark, hesitating before he answers the question. 

"Just... bored. Got nowhere else to be." 

"So you're sat a bar listening to my sob story about my fiancee's infidelity?"

"If I didn't care I would've walked away by now" he assures you. You don't believe him, and you're sure the only reason he's still listening is because it's distracting him from whatever brought him here, but you choose to say nothing. Instead, you offer a vital piece of information that's been noticeably absent from the conversation since it started about half an hour ago;

"(Y/N). That's my name if you were curious." 

"(Y/N)... hmm I don't know, I might forget if I don't write it down somewhere..." Wearing a smirk as he pulls out his phone, already opened to the 'new contact' screen.

Staring at his phone, you're quickly reminded of Hyun-woo back home. How he hates you having anyone he doesn't know in your contact list. You're about to decline the invitation to add your number to his device, but when you look back up at him and catch the glimpse in his hopeful eyes, you forget every reason to not do it. So you snatch his phone and save yourself simply as '(Y/N)'.

Satisfied, the still nameless stranger snatches back his phone with a wide smile. This could be a bad idea because you know nothing about this guy you find yourself thinking. Instead of sitting there saying nothing, you ask

"Aren't you going to tell me your name too? Or is it something too embarrassing to say, like 'Mclovin'?"

"Was that a 'Superbad' reference?"

"It might have been." Now it's your turn to smile, only slightly as you take a sip from your drink. "So... your name?"

"All in due time, (Y/N)." 

At a loss for words, you watch as he stands, ordering and paying for your next drink (though you still haven't finished the one currently in your hand) before turning to leave.

"I'll see you around some other time?" you call out before he's too far to hear you.

Luckily he does, turning on his feet to face you again before calling back "Count on it."

With one last smile, he disappears past the crowds of people between the bar where you're still sitting and the exit.

You kind of wish he had stuck around longer. Maybe if you hadn't tried to switch the conversation to be about him. Most people like talking about themselves, and tonight was proof of that since you've been talking about yourself since the minute he came and sat next to you. But, you understand that he probably had better things to do than sit at a bar and tell you his life story. He probably has a girlfriend or boyfriend at home that isn't cheating on him like your fiancee has been.

Checking the time tells you it's nearly 11.30, so you decide to call it a night, downing the rest of your drink and the one the tattooed stranger bought for you before making your own way to the exit

★✯☆✯★

The entire drive home in the back of the cab you ordered was tainted by the overbearing dread you feel. Dread that, the closer to your front door you get, crushes you until you feel like you can't breathe. Still, you force yourself to grab and twist the door handle, finding that the door had been left unlocked. 

Entering, you see all the lights in the kitchen on as well. Your eyes take a second before they fall onto Hyun-woo; sitting shirtless at the dining table. If his skin weren't decorated with carefully placed fresh marks, You might have felt guilty coming home at such a late hour. Instead of sticking around waiting for one of you to start the inevitable argument, you drag yourself past the kitchen without a word or another glance in his direction and head up the stairs before heading into the bathroom to take off your makeup. 

Finally, you head to bed and allow yourself to pass out before you even hit the pillow, and before you realize you left your phone in the bathroom.