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You saw the missed call a while ago, but you kept avoiding it. Finally, you took a deep breath and dialled the number for your voicemail.
There’s a long silence on the other end after the beep, just the sound of him breathing unevenly like he was trying to convince himself not to hang up.
“Hey.” Wooyoung's voice is quiet. He sounds tired. “Yeah. I kinda figured it’d go to voicemail.” A soft laugh escapes him, but it sounds miserable.
“I’m leaving in about twenty minutes. Bus station’s crowded, raining like hell. Kinda fits the mood, I guess.”
There was another pause.
“I kept thinking… hoping you’d call. Or maybe I’d stop loving you long enough for this to feel normal, but...” He exhales shakily. “It still feels wrong not telling you goodbye properly.”
You hear movement in the background, an announcement muffled overhead.
“I know we ended for a reason. I know I hurt you. But none of it was fake, okay? I need you to know that.”
His voice drops even quieter.
“I really did love you. I loved you more than I knew how to say… or show.” He swallows hard before continuing. “You were my favourite person. You still are.”
There’s a brief moment of silence again.
“I just... I hope someday somebody loves you the way I wanted to. Fully. Without making you question it.” His voice cracks slightly at the end. “Take care of yourself, okay? And... for what it’s worth, I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you.”
-click-
The line goes dead.
For a second, you just sit there staring at your phone like if you wait long enough, he’ll come back to the line and say your name one more time. Instead, the screen dims in your hand.
Your throat feels painfully tight. You hadn’t answered because you thought hearing his voice would make everything worse. You thought distance would help and that by ignoring the call long enough, it would become just another thing that faded away.
But now all you can picture is him alone in the crowded bus station with rain soaking the windows behind him, holding his phone a little too tightly while he tried to say goodbye without falling apart.
You were my favourite person. You still are.
A shaky breath leaves you before you realise you’re crying. It's silent at first, then suddenly it's not, and your face drops into your hands as the grief crashes into you all at once, ugly and overwhelming and far too late to stop him from leaving. Your body heaves with sobs, and you know that he meant every word he said.
Twenty minutes. The bus leaves in twenty minutes. But that voicemail had been sitting there for who knows how long before you finally worked up the courage to listen to it. Maybe the rain delayed things, maybe the bus is running late… Maybe he’s still there.
The hope is stupid, fragile, and desperate, but you grab your keys anyway.
The drive to the station feels frantic and feverish, windshield wipers fighting a losing battle against the rain while your pulse pounds hard and your hands shake on the steering wheel. Every red light feels personal. Every second that ticks by feels cruel. By the time you pull into the station parking lot, your stomach already knows. You park badly, barely inside the lines, then shove the door open and run.
Rain spatters across your clothes immediately as you sprint toward the platform, breath catching painfully in your throat, and then you see it. You were right, it was delayed, but not long enough. The bus is already pulling away.
“No, no, no…” The words leave you breathless as you stumble closer, shoes splashing through puddles. The headlights smear gold against the wet pavement while the massive vehicle slowly turns toward the street.
And through one of the rain-streaked windows, you see him. His head is leaned against the glass. You can see how tired he is. It's almost like leaving you behind physically hurt.
Your heart nearly stops, and for one terrible second, you think he won’t see you. But then his eyes lift. Even through the blur of rain and motion, you see the exact moment recognition hits him.
His expression breaks, and slowly, like he can’t help himself, his hand comes up against the window, pressing flat against the glass.
You stop running, and the bus keeps moving, and all you can do is stand there in the rain watching his hand stay pressed to the window until distance swallows him whole.
You stay there, rooted to the spot until the bus disappears completely. Even then, your body doesn’t seem to understand it’s over. The rain soaks through your clothes as you slowly step back from the curb, arms wrapped tightly around yourself like it might somehow hold you together. Your chest aches so badly it almost feels like something sharp and splintered beneath your ribs.
It wasn’t a perfect relationship. God, far from it. There were too many fights, too many misunderstandings, too many moments where loving each other somehow still wasn’t enough to stop you both from hurting one another. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? The love was real, but real didn’t always mean healthy. Real didn’t always mean forever.
Even now, with tears mixing into the rain on your face, doubt still lingered underneath the grief. If you gave him another chance… would anything actually change? Or would you just end up breaking each other all over again?
It’s called a breakup because it’s broken. The thought settles heavily in your chest as you drift toward one of the empty benches near the platform and sink down onto it. The station is quieter now. You pull out your phone, staring at his contact for a long moment.
Your fingers hover over the keyboard.
Don’t go.
Delete.
I’m sorry.
Delete.
Come back.
Delete.
A shaky laugh leaves you, miserable and exhausted. None of it matters now anyway. He’s already gone. You lock your phone and stand slowly, wiping rainwater from your face with the sleeve of your jacket before turning toward the parking lot.
“Hey.”
Your breath catches.
The voice is hoarse and familiar.
Impossible. It's impossible, right? He can't be here, he can't have…
You turn sharply, heart slamming violently against your ribs.
And there he is. Wooyoung. Soaked through completely, hair dripping rainwater into his eyes, chest rising hard like he ran the entire way back from wherever he made the bus stop. His duffel bag hangs crookedly from one shoulder, fingers still curled tightly around the strap.
For a long moment, neither of you says anything. You just stare at each other across the wet pavement while rain pours around you in silver sheets.
“I…”
“You…”
Both of you stop at the exact same time.
A breathless, disbelieving laugh escapes him first, small and broken around the edges. You can’t help it; one slips out of you too, shaky and overwhelmed.
“You first,” you say softly.
“No, you.” His eyes close briefly like this hurts. Like all of this hurts.
“You came.” The words come out of you before you can stop them.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I saw you.” His throat works hard before he continues. “The bus was already halfway down the road and I saw you running through the rain and I just…” He shakes his head once, almost frustrated with himself. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave knowing you came there for me.”
Your chest aches so badly it’s unbearable.
“I didn’t know if I was too late,” you admit, voice trembling. “I heard the voicemail and I just thought maybe… maybe the rain delayed something or… I don’t know.” You let out a weak laugh. “I wasn’t even sure what I was gonna say if I made it in time.”
He stares at you with an expression so open and hopeful it almost undoes you completely. “Me neither.”
Love was never the issue. You both loved each other enough to chase buses and stand in the rain looking devastated over one another. But love had not magically fixed the things that broke you.
Finally, he looks down for a second before meeting your eyes again. “So… now what?”
Honestly, you don’t know. You don’t know how this magically becomes okay after everything that happened between you. You don’t know how two people who loved each other this much still managed to wound each other so deeply. You don’t know if getting back together would heal things or just delay another heartbreak waiting further down the line.
But standing here now, looking at him soaked to the bone and breathing hard from running back to you, one truth cuts through all the confusion with painful clarity:
You love him. God, you love him so much. And you know he loves you.
Wooyoung's eyes search yours carefully, like he’s trying not to hope too hard. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “For all of it.” Rainwater drips from his lashes as he shakes his head once. “I got stuck in my own head. I let every insecurity I had convince me I wasn’t enough for you, and instead of talking to you about it, I just…” His jaw tightens. “I kept pulling away. I didn’t know how to love you properly.”
Emotion climbs painfully into your throat. “I didn’t know how to explain what I needed,” you admit softly. “I kept expecting you to just know. And when you didn’t, I got hurt instead of honest.”
The space between you closes inch by inch, two people gravitating helplessly back toward one another while rain pounds against the pavement around you hard enough to drown out the rest of the world.
He’s close enough now that you can feel the warmth coming off him despite the cold rain soaking through both of your clothes. His expression is hesitant, almost as if he’s scared one wrong move will make you disappear.
You're just as scared. Terrified, actually.
Your voice comes out barely above a whisper. “What do we do now? What do you want to do?”
He looks at you for a long second, then he reaches up carefully, brushing wet hair away from your face with trembling fingers.
“I want to love you,” he whispers.
And finally, finally, his lips meet yours.