HOMETOWN - soobin x oc

MOVING IN - EPILOGUE 🔞

DANBI

"KTX Gyeongbu arriving at Seoul Station. Please exit on the left."

I take my backpack and throw it over my shoulder, grabbing ont o the headrest of my seat to maneuver my way out onto the aisle.

I'm always tense coming into Seoul Station. The way people get up as soon as the conductor announces our arrival, and then push their way out of the train to then zig-zag their way through the crowds stresses me out.

But it's not just that.

The last time Soobin and I broke up, we were here. We had spent the weekend together. I remember how that Friday, as soon as I finished my homework, I made my way to the train station, nerves coursing through my veins. Soobin and I hadn't seen each other in almost a month, but they had a short break after their Run Away promotions and he asked me to spend the weekend with him in Seoul.

I hesitated because I had no idea what to expect. Would he notice that I was feeling off? Would he do anything about it? It was November. The sky was gray and the air was cold, and I just knew that this would be the last weekend we would spend together.

We had a fight on our way to Seoul Station that Sunday. I knew that this was it. It was over. But everything in me pulled me to the small sliver of hope that remained. Because even after all the crying and arguing and fighting, he still held my hand. He still put his arm around me. He still smiled and kissed me and said we'd be okay.

But it was the way he always deferred to me. The way he would just let me go when I said I wanted to go, how he didn't even try to stop me. That's what made me feel we weren't okay.

So on that cold Sunday evening, right over by that column, we faced each other, bracing ourselves for a goodbye. I sobbed trying to get the words out, wishing with everything in me that we could still make it work. I wondered out loud if maybe in another life we would be in love and have it all. I could picture us a thousand ways, and none of them were this.

But now that I'm back here, in this space that holds so many bittersweet memories, I see one of those pictures unfolding before me. Soobin in his black face mask, dark smiling eyes, zig-zagging through the crowds of people commuting through the station. My heart beating fast, sweaty palms gripping the handle on my suitcase, nerves coursing through my veins. Not because I'm dreading our inevitable end, but because the platform falls away and it's just me and him.

And that other life I dreamed of.

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Soobin's bed is a pile of clothes, covered in dresses, jeans, and sweaters in every color, but mostly blue. Lots of blue. The movers arrived from Busan a few hours before I did and left all of my boxes in Soobin's room. The chaos of it would normally stress me out, but standing here in a room full of our stuff, figuring out how my things fit in with his. I just want to jar it all up.

His walls are bare except for some slogan posters from fans and a couple of pictures of us taped to the wall. So a week before I moved in, I ordered some shelves and picture frames. I told Soobin to wait for me to hang them up, but now we're not sure if we can nail anything to the wall.

"Baby?" he pops his head in through the door, pushing his glasses up, his pouty lips parted.

"Hmm?"

"I, um- I don't think we can put that there-" he points to the oak shelf I'm holding over our bed. "I just asked Taehyun and he said our landlord doesn't let us nail anything to the wall."

"What about double-sided tape?"

Soobin steps through the door and closes it. I pull his salt and pepper flannel back over my shoulder and step down from the bed.