I'm Yours | IZ*ONE Yujin x Male Reader

Chapter 17

Jongin rushed into the apartment, startling me in the process.

"Okay, tell me everything." He sat down beside me. "What happened?"

"Maybe knock first?" I said, still in shock.

I recounted the day's events to Jongin, making sure to not hide anything from him. He deserved my honesty.

"Damn..." He paused. "I'm sorry man, I never thought that would happen."

"Well there's not much I can do about it." I sighed.

"Then what can you do?"

"I don't know," I said. "Probably tell her why I left."

"Okay, then go do that," he said. "Shouldn't be too hard, right? You've been sitting on it for so long Y/N, she needs to know."

"So you're telling me that I should tell her about the fact that the company she works for basically forced me to leave?"

"Well when you put it like that it sounds bad," he said. "Knowing you, you probably have a way to make it sound tamer though."

He was right, that was definitely something I could do, but... It wouldn't be right. If I tell Ryujin, she deserves the full truth. I at least owe her that much.

"Okay look, I'm not letting you be alone tonight, you're coming with me."

"What? Where?"

"To our dorm, duh," he said. "We have an extra bed, so you'll be sleeping in our dorms tonight. Can't leave you alone like this."

I mulled it over for a bit, and eventually accepted Jongin's offer. Hyun-woo thankfully wasn't annoyed that we interrupted his date and agreed to let me go on the condition that we wait for him and Eunbi to get back home first. Leading to an encounter I'd rather not have had when they both pulled me into a tight hug, much to my annoyance.

Eventually I found myself in Jongin's dorms, a place I hadn't been to in a while. Chan was his usual self, while Minho pretty much turned into a helicopter mom around me, asking me questions, making sure I felt fine.

After another barrage of questions that weren't just from Minho, they decided to plug in their console. Starting an (un)fortunate chain of events that led to a lot of competitive screaming, laughing and joking around while we beat each other up in a video game.

Taking a short break, I dragged Jongin to the kitchen.

"What's up?" He asked.

Choosing not to answer, I pulled him into a quick hug.

"Oh, that was... Nice," he said. "You aren't really a hugger."

"I'm not, but thanks for this." I paused. "You're a great friend. All of you are."

"You're like a brother to us man." He smiled warmly. "Now let's go back and beat up Jisung."

I wasn't sure what was next now that the worst had happened, but I was sure about one thing: I wasn't alone, and it was dumb of me to think that in the first place.

-----

It'd been a month since I last saw Ryujin and I still hadn't gotten back to her. Instead, I was spending my time... Doing what I always did. Ignoring my problems. 

That wasn't without its faults, however, since guilt followed me around everywhere I went. But fear took hold of me, preventing me from doing anything about it. 

And so that guilt kept following me everywhere, even into mundane places like this café where Minju and I had met to catch up with each other.

"Minju, come on, it's not like that," I said. "She and I are just—"