Let Me Breathe You In
Pairing(s): Suho/Chanyeol
Rating: Pg-13
Warning(s): fem!Suho, mentions of abuse none is actually seen though
Length: 2,561 words
Summary: Tell me the story of how we grew up together.
Author's note (optional): Just a simple nice gesture :)
***This fic is for all the readers and participants of Yeolliepop Day! This fic also goes out to the wonderful mod who works extremely hard to make sure that everything runs smoothly and everyone enjoys themselves, plus helped me a great deal so I could enjoy my first exchange! Lastly, to my dear friend/beta reader, Andy who guessed right on the first time and I basically lied to him to make him wait!!! HAHAHA :)
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On the a warm, Spring day, Chanyeol’s sitting by a large oak tree in the park. Even with the warm sunlight, he still feels cold. He looks on towards the crystal blue lake and thinks back on when he first met Joonmyun.
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When we first met
When Chanyeol was six years old, Kim Joonmyun moved in the same apartment building across from him. It wasn’t his choice that he met her that day. His mother and father brought him along to meet the new neighbors and their daughter.
While his parents talk to the adults, Chanyeol notices a little blond girl peeking around her mother’s dress.
Chanyeol smiles and waves at her, which only makes her hide behind her mother.
It isn’t until Mrs. Kim moves the children into the kitchen that Chanyeol gets a good look at Joonmyun. She’s a shy girl with long, straight, blonde hair and fair skin. When the two find a common love of music and cookies, they couldn’t stop talking.
Laughter and giggles filled the apartment as Chanyeol made Joonmyun smile and laugh for than she ever had.
Even at six years old, Chanyeol still thinks that she’s the prettiest girl he ever met.
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When I first loved you
Six years later, Chanyeol is twelve and remembers the first day of middle school. He’s walking into classes and he sees a group of kids picking on Joonmyun for her braces and glasses. This made Chanyeol cringe in anger. He wanted to make it stop and so he did. He walked up and pulled Joonmyun behind him and told the kids to leave her alone because she’s his best friend.
When the kids take their seats at the beginning of class, Chanyeol feels slim fingers gripping onto his. Without hesitation, he laces their fingers together and looks at her only to see her smiling at him.
She quickly scribbles something in her notebook and slides it onto his side of the desk.
Thank you
And those two words made Chanyeol smile for the rest of the day.
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The first time you broke my heart
Chanyeol thinks back to the day Joonmyun turned sixteen. He was walking out of his chemistry class to meet her outside so he could take her to their traditional birthday dinner.
Walking out the door, Chanyeol’s eyes fall on her kissing Yifan.
That minute, time simply stood still for Chanyeol and the only thing he could hear was the sound of his heart cracking.
That night, Chanyeol never made it to dinner.
That same night, he stayed up and cried for the first time in years
✻
The first time you smiled for someone else
At the time of graduation, Chanyeol watches at Joonmyun walks across the stage, wearing her white cap and gown with her gold cords for her Valedictorian status. She looks absolutely beautiful with her blond hair in soft curls flowing behind her. The only thing that bothered him was shining engagement ring on her finger.
That should have been something he gave her, but instead he held back all the frustration and sadness that he didn’t.
When he sees her and Yifan taking photos outside with their families, Chanyeol stiffens at the sight of Yifan’s hand around her waist.
Chanyeol could have at least told her how beautiful she looked in her baby blue dress or congrats on her status, but he just left without saying anything.
He was eighteen.
✻
The Invitation
A year later, Chanyeol is nineteen and standing in his kitchen looking down at an envelope addressed to him from Joonmyun’s parents.
Chanyeol knows he shouldn’t open it, but he still does.
Mr. & Mrs. Kim
Request that you join their family in celebration of the marriage of their daughter
Kim Joonmyun
to
Wu Yifan
on Saturday
June 14 at 2:00pm
at the Bomun Pavilion in Gyeongju
Chanyeol makes up his mind that he will go to the wedding.
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The Wedding
The day of the wedding, Chanyeol finds himself standing at a distance to the sound wedding bells. He feels his heart breaking because she’s marrying someone else. When she walks out in her white dress, her smiling at another man turns out to be the most painful thing for Chanyeol. Yifan tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear and dipping her low for a kiss makes his heart shatter completely
‘I’ve lost her’ is the last thought he has before leaving.
✻
The first night I realized that I lost you
That night at home, he drinks himself stupid trying to forget everything that’s happened. Countless times, he takes his phone out and types out messages to Joonmyun. Messages telling her how much he misses her. How much he really loves her.
None of the messages are ever sent.
✻
For two years, Chanyeol gathers his thoughts about Joonmyun in letters and songs. Songs that he wrote for her all the time. He just wishes that he had given everything to her before she met Yifan.
✻
Ten years later, Chanyeol is sitting the same coffee shop that he’s frequented for years.
The familiar sound of the door bells makes Chanyeol look up from his coffee long enough to see her.
A blonde haired woman walks in soaked from head to toe, shivering from the coolness of the air.
As he looks at her, Chanyeol recognizes her as Joonmyun. Ten years have passed and yet she still looks so beautiful, but something seems off. She’s paler, more fragile and skittish than before.
When she turns away to sit at the opposite end of the coffee shop, he feels that this is the closest they’ve been in years, but yet so far apart.
When Joonmyun looks up and sees Chanyeol at the other end of the shop, she feels a surprise urge to go to him, but she couldn’t.
She feels like that little girl who was too afraid to talk to the unfamiliar boy standing in their living room. She felt like that high school girl who waited for him to ask her to the prom and to tell her that she was beautiful and he loved her.
But it never happened
She simply takes her coffee and leaves the shop. Getting into a cab, he tells the driver her address and simply thinks in silence.
She can hear her name being called from behind the cab. She turns and finds Chanyeol chasing her cab down the street. Tears stream down her face as she smiles back at him.
The drivers asks if he should stop, but she simply shakes her head ‘no’
✻
The first time in years that we laughed and argued
A week later, Chanyeol’s reading the newspaper and sees that Yifan’s been arrested for domestic violence towards his wife while under the influence of several drugs and excessive amounts of alcohol.
Chanyeol understands now. He should have seen this coming. Chanyeol remembers Yifan being the party boy of his class. He dated and screwed girls like it was his job and, yet, Chanyeol didn’t stop her from dating him. From marrying him.
Chanyeol goes back to his old apartment building and talks to Joonmyun’s parents to get her new address.
He uses the excuse that he needs to drop off some things that she had left at his house years ago. But that’s not the case.
When he arrives at her house, Chanyeol is taken back by the largeness of the estate. He shouldn’t be surprised considering the obscene wealth of his family, but it’s still a shock to him.
When he rings the doorbell, he waits and then hears a dog barking. Something about that makes Chanyeol afraid to see her again. Just as he turns to run back to his car, the door opens and it’s Joonmyun.
She’s wearing a cast on her arm which Chanyeol can only assume that Yifan broke.
She invites him inside and makes some tea. Chanyeol’s favorite kind of tea. The kind they used to drink when they would hang out together during the cold winter months.
They sit in an awkward silence quietly sipping on their tea. Chanyeol looks at the picture hanging above the fireplace. It’s her wedding photo and she looks so happy. Chanyeol can feel his anger building up.
‘How dare you, Yifan. You took the only girl that I ever really loved, married her, and then beat her? How dare you.’
“So,” Chanyeol breaks the uncomfortable silence, “how’s the married life been treating you?”
“It’s been great. We’ve had a few rough patches, but we’re okay.”
“That’s good.” she lied to him. Why did she lie?
“I remember that when we were kids, you told me that you wanted a big family. You had this elaborate plan to have a boy and then a girl.”
Joonmyun laughed at the memory of her childish thoughts. The sound was rich and warming. It was the best thing Chanyeol heard in years.
“I did, didn’t I. I just really liked the idea of the older brother protecting his younger sister.”
“You actually got that idea from the cartoon we used to watch on Saturday mornings.”
“No NO, Remember it was that movie, gosh, what was it, space buddies or-”
“Space buddies was about the five puppies going into space! It was Bubble Buddies in the Bathtub, I swear it was.”
They’re both laughing at how ridiculous the shows were. Chanyeol watched as Joonmyun’s eyes lit up with a childish glee and he cherished every second of it.
Laughter quickly died down and all that’s left is a more comfortable silence.
Chanyeol must have stared too long because she smiles and says “What? Is there something on my face? Awh, did my lipstick smudge again?”
“Where did I go wrong?” Chanyeol whispers. It’s quiet and Joonmyun freezes.
“Excuse me?” she’s awfully quiet and the words come out shaky.
“Why didn’t I fight harder for you?”
“We grew apart, Chanyeol. After you didn’t meet me at the park the night before, I was hurt, but I still hoped that you would ask me to be your date to the senior prom.” She fiddled with the fringes on the throw pillow.
“Joon-” She cut him off
“And it never happened. So I just let it go. I figured my love was just one sided and you didn’t feel the same way. I moved on.”
“On your sixteenth birthday, I walked out into the courtyard and found you kissing the school’s playboy. What did you want me to do? For god’s sake, Joonmyun, I’ve been in love with you since we were six years old. Six. I watched you through all the best and worst moments. For fuck’s sake, I wrote you hundreds of letters and infinitely more songs. On your birthday, I wanted to give them to you, so you would finally know how I felt about you.”
Joonmyun was rendered speechless. Eyes wide, lips slightly agape.
“Gosh, do you know how hard it was for me to watch you get married? I wanted to be the one to marry you. To love you. To sit next you while we grow old and start forgetting where we put the toilet paper. I waited for that day. Hell, I still waited. I waited twelve years for you to possibly show up and tell me that you loved me. I’m thirty-one years old and I still love as much as I did when I was sixteen. So why did you marry him? Why?”
“I married him because he was the only one who was bold enough to tell me how he felt about me. I didn’t wait in the rain for four hours for him. Even that night, he’s the one who found me and took me home. Not you. Believe me, those years ago, if you would have walked up to me and asked me to marry you during my wedding with Yifan, I would have married you. But instead you stood across the street and watched me marry someone else.”
“I figured you were happy with him. That’s why I let you go.”
“My happiness wasn’t your choice. I was happy when I was with you. Yifan paraded me around like a trophy wife. He did it for everything. All the parties and galas he made me attend just so that he could seal business deals, I was just a piece of eye candy. Then, he discovered booze and drugs while playing high stakes poker. He came home so messed up that he trashed the house and passed out in the bathroom. It was like that for about a year, then he just got worse. Soon he became functional. He could hit me and throw things at me with accuracy and some precision. I cried for nights, hoping, praying that you would come and save me. But you never came. You never came for me!”
Joonmyun was crying furiously. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. Eyes becoming red and puffy. Mascara running and nose beat red.
“You know why he broke my arm? I served him divorce papers. I was going to leave him and get a place of my own with the settlement. Start fresh. Tabula Rasa. He twisted my arm and broke it when he slammed me into the wall.”
“Jesus. Why didn’t you ever call?”
“I was afraid to. I didn’t even know if you would ever answer my calls again.”
“You know, I waited days for you to call. Months for even a text message. Something to show that you still remembered me.”
“I never forgot you. I was afraid. Afraid that I would open old wounds and just pour salt on them.”
Chanyeol couldn’t bear to see Joonmyun stay in this house. She needed to be somewhere happy. Somewhere she could smile and laugh like she should. He’s doing what he should have done all those years ago.
“Joonmyun, come with me.”
She’s wiping away tears, “What?”
“Come with me. Leave this place. This relationship, it’s just not healthy. We can pack up and leave. You’ll live with me and we’ll take those papers to the jail and force him to sign. I want you back. For years I felt like a lost soul aimlessly wandering without you. I’m not losing you again.”
Joonmyun threw her arms around Chanyeol and buried her face in his neck. He could feel tears soaking his shirt, but he didn’t care. He wanted to see her smile and that’s all she should ever have to do.
fin.