Love Language ||Yeongyu/Beomjun FF||

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The sun woke me before the nightmares could.

For the first time in what felt like years, I wasn't startled awake by a door slamming, or a voice yelling, or fingers pulling at my clothes. Just soft light pouring in through cream-colored curtains, warming the edges of the room like it was trying to comfort me.

I lay still for a while. Listening.

Nothing.

No footsteps.

No shouting.

Just birds outside the window and the distant hum of something—maybe the heating system or the wind. Even that felt foreign.

My body was confused. I kept waiting for that tension in my chest to bloom into panic, the way it always did when morning came too quietly. But it didn't. I was tense, yes—but not panicked. 

Not exactly.

Still, I moved carefully when I sat up. Like I might wake a ghost. My old habits clung to me like a second skin.

The clothes someone had set out for me the night before were folded neatly on a velvet bench. Soft fabrics. Clean. I hesitated before putting them on. At home, wearing anything that looked too nice meant you were "asking for attention." But I wasn't there anymore.

This wasn't there.

When I finally left the room, the hallway was empty. Silent, but not ominous. Just... quiet.

I found Yeonjun already in the kitchen.

He wasn't in a suit this time. Just a dark sweatshirt and jeans, sleeves pushed up, hair slightly messy like he hadn't slept long. He was standing by the stove, stirring something in a pot.

He turned slightly when he heard me, and gave a small, soft smile.

"Morning."

I nodded once. Couldn't say it back, obviously. But he didn't seem to expect me to.

"Hope you're hungry," he added, turning back to the stove. "I wasn't sure what you liked, so I made something simple. Just congee."

I didn't know what that was. But it smelled... warm. Familiar in a way I couldn't place.

He slid a bowl in front of the chair at the end of the island counter, not close, but not far from where he'd sit.

I stared at it.

He leaned on the counter and took a sip of his coffee. He didn't watch me like my father used to—waiting for a reaction, measuring my every move like a trap was set. Yeonjun just... existed beside me.

That made it a little easier to move.

I sat down slowly. Hands in my lap again.

The bowl steamed gently, rice porridge topped with chopped green onions and tiny strips of what looked like egg. My stomach ached quietly, the way it always did when food was close but unreachable.

But this time... it wasn't.

I reached for the spoon.

My fingers trembled when I lifted it to my mouth, and the taste was plain but comforting—something that didn't demand too much. Like it knew I wasn't ready for more.

I took another bite.

Yeonjun didn't speak, but I saw him glance at me from the corner of my eye. Not smiling. Not proud. Just... present.

Present in a way no one had ever been.

We ate in silence. But not the sharp, suffocating silence I grew up with. This one was soft. Gentle. The kind that said: You're safe here.

That morning, I ate almost the whole bowl.

Not because I was starving—though I was—but because it was the first time in a long time that food didn't come with fear.

When I stood to rinse the bowl, Yeonjun reached out instinctively—then stopped himself, hand hovering in the air for a second before he pulled it back.

"You don't have to do that," he said.

I paused, the bowl in my hands, unsure.

"You're a guest. Not a chore."

Not a chore.

I stood there, not knowing what to do with those words. So I just nodded again and placed the bowl gently in the sink.

We didn't speak after that.

But something had shifted between us. Not big. Not loud.

Just a quiet understanding.

He would let me come to him.

On my time.

In my way.

And maybe—for the first time in forever—I was starting to believe that someone meant it.