After Dusk || Im Changkyun

33. I Promise

Chapter Thirty Three

"Changkyun!" You yelped as he dragged you into his apartment, punching in the apartment code harshly which you made him change because someone would definitely break into your house if he kept it as his own birthday.
So he changed it to the day you started dating, which he somehow remembered despite the fact that he was the drunk one.
0817.
He walked into the apartment, closing the door behind you, barely giving you time to take off your wedges. He let go of your hand, the warmth immediately ceasing and melting away into your skin, the coldness of his apartment finally sinking in. He headed into his bedroom silently with nothing else said, not even bothering to look back at you. Before he walked into it, he stopped,
"One of my hoodies are in the bathroom. Just put it on and come in here when you're done."
He closed his bedroom door.
You sighed, burying your face in your hands.
He seemed mad.
Changkyun doesn't get mad at you.
He's never gotten mad at you.
Maybe annoyed or frustrated but never mad.
You did exactly as he asked, too scared to disobey him. You just didn't want to make him madder than he seemed. You struggled to unzip the back zipper of the dress in silence, not wanting to ask Changkyun for help. You fiddled around with the zipper, tugging at it as best as you could with your short arms, almost crashing into the door each time you attempted to get it down. Thankfully, you were able to pull it off and slip Changkyun's gray hoodie, your eyes landing on the few scars that remained around your waist, as well as the tattoo that wrapped around the side of it. The koi fish swam across the edge of your waist, it symbolizing the struggles one has overcome or is overcoming in their own life.
Safe to say, you'd definitely struggled, and you were working on overcoming.
You tugged the hoodie down, it reaching your knees. It was almost sad that the hoodie was longer on you than the dress was. It was so massive that it made you look smaller than you already were.
You stood at the door, pressing your ear against to see if you could hear anything. Maybe him speaking to himself or just anything at all but it was complete silence.
You carefully knocked on the door, waiting for a few seconds before it opened, revealing Changkyun in one of his deep purple silk night robes which he'd draped over a pair of normal lighter purple silk pajamas.
Even when he was about to sleep he still had to look like a rich prince.
"We're at the point in our relationship where you don't have to knock and you know that." He said, gesturing for you to sit on the bed. You awkwardly took a seat beside one of his pillows, neatly crossing your legs as soon as Changkyun carefully sat himself down in front of you, his legs hanging off the edge of the bed.
There was a space in between the both of you that hadn't been there for a very long time.
He stared at you in an empty silence and you just looked down at your fingers that were lightly trembling, weaving them through each other in hopes of calming yourself down.
"Are you mad?" You squeaked out finally, still not bothering to look up at him. You could hear him take a deep breath, just knowing that he'd brushed a hand through his hair.
"Please don't ask me what I'm feeling, Y/N. I don't know what I'm feeling. I'm just confused." He accentuated the beginning and ending of each sentence, huffing into the quiet.
Y/N.
He called you by your name.
He never calls you by your name.
Oh, he was mad.
You heard him groan, throwing his head onto a pillow repeatedly like a whack-a-mole. You wanted to stop him, finally looking up and hovering your arms over head, trying to coax him to stop without saying or doing anything. Eventually he did, but he ended up not lifting his face up from the pillow, just lying there.
You weren't quite sure what to do. You didn't want him to somehow suffocate himself but you didn't want to anger him by telling him to get up. So, your hands continued to hover above the purple silk of his clothes. You sat in silence again, this time being accompanied by the sound of the clock ticking in the living room. The living room.
It was that silent.
He shot up, catching you completely off guard and making you flinch a bit too much. Your entire body jerked sideways, beginning to make you topple off the side of the bed. Changkyun was quick to grab your wrist, pulling you back to him and then immediately letting go, shifting back away from you. He examined your face, you could feel his gaze on you. It was stabbing you with guilt.
An overwhelming amount of guilt.
"I'm so sorry for not telling you earlier, Kyun. I just didn't know how to bring it up because you just seem so happy these days and I don't want to bring down your mood by bringing Rena up. I'm sorry if I hurt you by keeping this to myself and if you want to break up with me please just do it now because I can't sit here in silence any longer." You blurted out, placing your trembling hands on your heart, clutching onto the fabric of the hoodie. You heard him take a shallow breath from beside you, the gap between the two of you still bothering you a bit too much.
"I'm not breaking up with you, Eggo. That would just break me." He said simply, making you finally look up to meet him in the eye.
He moved his hand slightly towards you and you instinctively flinched slightly, not exactly knowing why. You were just terrified.
Changkyun had noticed, a look of saddened horror reaching his face. 
"I'm scaring you, arent I?" He whispered, his voice cracking quietly. He returned his hand to his lap, making you wave yours in the air with your eyes widened in panic.
"I'm not scared of you, Changkyun. Well, I am. But I'm not scared of you. I'm just-" You took a deep breath, trying to collect the thoughts in your mind. He looked at you pitifully, but you couldn't tell which one of the two of you he was pitying. He grabbed your hands, bringing them down and putting them together, making you squeeze your own hands.
"I'm just scared of breaking your trust." You finally admitted as soon as he took his hands off yours, feeling a weight lift off your chest as soon as you uttered the words. You hid your own face behind your clasped hands for a few seconds, feeling the sensation of soft silk and fluffy hair tickle your neck.
"You haven't broken my trust. You didn't ask to be contacted by her, it's not your fault in the slightest. I just have mixed feelings about her." You eased at the feeling of his fingers fiddling around with your own. You leaned your head on his that was resting on your shoulder, almost in a way to comfort all your worries and shadow all your thoughts.
"I'm sorry for not telling you, Changkyun."
"You told me now and that's what matters." He slowly fiddled around with the fabric of his gray hoodie that was on your body, sighing as he said one more thing.
"So, what are you planning to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you going to meet her or not?"
That was the question in the room, wasn't it? Were you going to meet her? Or were you simply going to ignore the message?
Everything about meeting your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend felt wrong, but there was something deep inside of you that wanted to know her side of the story.
Sure, you'd heard a bit from Jooheon, and of course you'd heard it from Changkyun, but you hadn't heard it from Rena herself.
And something in you was curious.
"I can't say no, Changkyun." You played with the fabric of his silk pajamas, a button somehow unbuttoning itself as you spun the fabric around your fingers. You quickly buttoned it back up, hoping that Changkyun didn't notice.
He did.
He didn't do anything about it though.
"Okay." He muttered into your neck, tracing the wings of each of the six butterflies that were flying up the back of it.
"I respect your decision."
"And you're not mad?"
Changkyun lifted himself off of your shoulder, cupping your face in his hands and lessening the suffocating distance that was in between the both of you even more.
"Look at me."
He brought his own right in front of yours, making you instantly look down out of awkwardness.
All of this time together and you still got nervous when your faces were close. He lifted your chin up with his pointer finger, furrowing his brow slightly,
"Look into my eyes, Eggo."
You did as he told, your chocolate eyes staring right into his pitch black ones. It was as if you were falling deeper into his black hole with every second that passed.
"I'm not mad at you."
"Do you promise?"
He sighed, taking his hands off of your face and instead grabbing your hand that was still gently trembling and intertwining your pinkies, touching your thumbs, which were both still painted with your little hearts.
"I promise." He smiled, placing a playful kiss on the back of your hand.
That was far too easy.
Jooheon was right. He did take that like an adult.
You both could have civilized conversations.
"You need to repaint my heart soon." He pointed at the little baby pink heart that you'd painted on his nails about a month ago.
"Why don't you just paint it yourself?" You suggested, weaving your smaller fingers through his larger ones.
"It's only special when you do it." He explained, tucking his bottom lip under his top and rocking himself side to side.
You looked outside from the window that was oh so slightly visible behind the curtains. The red and yellows of the sun setting bled into the deep blue sky that was slowly fading into a darker shade, almost as black as Changkyun's hair.
It was Dusk.
"Kyun, I'm leaving."
He tilted his head at you, instinctively pulling you closer to him and shaking his head.
"No, you're not. Why would you?"
You broke out into a teasing smile, giggling softly as you mocked his past words,
"After dusk of the show premiere, we don't need to put up with each other. Let alone see each other."
That conversation was permanently imbedded into your head.
Changkyun rolled his eyes at you, pressing his cheek against yours while he hugged you tighter, pulling you up onto his lap, letting you wrap your legs around his back.
"I didn't know how much you'd mean to me back then." He said dreamily, his words slurring almost as if he were drunk. You giggled, wondering what was in the sudden change of mood.
You were the one in this relationship with the major mood swings.
"I can barely go a few hours without hearing your voice, seeing your face, feeling your touch, just being around you." He listed giddily, not being able to hide his smile as he spoke,
"Not seeing each you for the rest of my life would be worse than any sort of punishment this world has to offer."
You cringed while laughing at his unbelievable self, bringing your arms around his neck, temporarily hiding your face in his silk robe.
"Stop it." You complained, pressing your forehead to his shoulder blade. You finally leaned off of him, your arms and legs unraveling from his neck and back, making him instantly hum in confusion.
"You still said it." You played along with him, "I have to listen to you, even if it was almost a year ago. I'm leaving."
"Baby, no~" Changkyun whined. He grabbed you by the waist as soon as you began to get up, pulling you straight back down. He knocked you both over, your bodies falling back onto the bed, his head hitting the pillow while yours was cradled in his arms, pressed against his chest.
"Stay."
You scoffed.
"I should seriously just sell that apartment."
"Yes, you should." He agreed with no hesitation, making your eyes widen.
"Changkyun, I was joking."
"I was not. Sell it. Move in." He said blatantly, not even giving it a second thought.
You continued to stare at him in shock, trying to process his words. He pinched your cheek, booping the tip of your nose as he chuckled,
"I'm joking, but just stay here for tonight. Not seeing you for five days has gotten me Eggo deprived."
You curled up closer to him, the two of you giggling uncontrollably like two toddlers every time you met eyes.
"We were being serious before this. Why are we all giddy now?" You asked honestly, watching as he somehow pulled you closer to him, his leg going over you, almost like he was trapping you in his hold.
"I don't like being like that with you. I'm glad we can have serious conversations but I don't like having them. You don't smile when we do that." He lifted up the blankets slowly, tucking you in carefully and then joining you instantly. You laughed at how clingy he was being but you were just relieved that he actually wasn't mad at you.
"You're really understanding, you know, Changkyun?" You pointed out, reaching out your hand just so you could have fun with the purple silk of the robe. It was such an interesting texture, it just made you want to play with it.
"I just don't want anyone to be scared of me." Changkyun admitted which made you snort since he seemed to be so genuine.
"What?" He crossed his arms, beginning to flip himself over but you grabbed his shoulder and stopped him, giggling quietly,
"You're one of the scariest people I know. You never smile at people, Kyun. They get the wrong idea." You pet his head while he pouted, rolling his eyes at you.
"I meant people I care about. I'd rather intimidate the people I don't like."
The corners of your lips turned up as soon as your eyes caught sight of the little hearts on his thumbs. He'd refused to ever get rid of it and always made you repaint them even if a little bit of the heart had chipped off.
He was such a little bratty prince.
Or an annoying hypocrite.
Both worked.
You ruffled his hair with your hand, it covered his eyes while he glared at you, completely unamused. You grinned, cooing at him as you said,
"Is my big baby scared of scaring people?"
He stopped your hands from messing his hair up more, bringing them down to the mattress and pinning them there so you couldn't move them. You tried wriggling your hands from his grasp but he was much too strong for you.
"I'm older than you, Eggo. I'm not your baby. You're my baby." He huffed, blowing his thick raven black locks out of his face.
"You're just a big baby." You argued back, sitting up and bringing him onto your lap, somehow pulling your hands out of his hold so you could quite literally, cradle him like a baby.
He was really heavy.
Or you were just really weak.
You rocked him back and forth, watching as he stared out through the peek in the window that you were staring at before. It was pitch black outside.
"Hey, do you think I can change my past statement?" He asked out of nowhere. You simply nodded, not understanding what he was going on about. You continued to rock him back and forth while he played with some of the loose strands that had fallen out of your ponytail.
Very baby like.
"After Dusk of the show premiere. I want to put up with even the stupidest of things you do. Let's see each other every day we can, okay?"
You cringed. He was being way too cringe worthy today, it was paining you.
You'd preferred the silent reprimanding.
He held up his pinky for you, looking up at you with bright eyes.
"Promise?"
You rolled your own eyes, however, being unable to hide your smile as you gazed sweetly down on him, interlocking your own pinky with his as you laughed.
You couldn't help but give into him.
"I promise."