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umakemegiddy · 2 months ago

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five steps back

kim mingyu x reader || 6k words

The apartment feels too big now, even though it’s the same cramped two-bedroom they’d shared for the past three years. She sits on the edge of their bed—her bed now—staring at the indent on the other side of the mattress where Mingyu used to sleep. His pillow still smells faintly of his cologne, that woody scent that used to make her feel safe when she’d bury her face in his neck during lazy Sunday mornings.

Five years. One thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-six days of shared breakfasts, inside jokes, fights that ended in tearful apologies, and dreams built together like a house of cards that finally collapsed under the weight of reality.

She picks up her phone, thumb hovering over his contact. Kim Mingyu. The photo is from last summer—him at the beach, sandy hair catching the golden hour light, that brilliant smile that could make her forget every worry in the world. His laugh lines are prominent in the picture, the same ones she used to trace with her fingertips when he’d fall asleep first, sprawled across the bed like he owned it, arms reaching for her even in unconsciousness.

The cursor blinks next to his name. She’s typed and deleted twelve different messages in the past week. How are you? Too casual. I miss you. Too desperate. Can we talk? Too hopeful.

Instead, she sets the phone aside and walks to the kitchen, where the coffee maker still has settings for two cups. Mingyu always complained that she made it too weak, but he’d drink it anyway, adding extra sugar and giving her that fond, exasperated look that said you’re lucky I love you without words.

The silence in the apartment is deafening. No more of his off-key humming while he cooked, no more random dance breaks in the living room when his favorite songs came on, no more gentle teasing about her habit of leaving books open on every surface. The quiet stretches and warps until it feels like a living thing, pressing against her chest.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Mingyu stares at the ceiling of his new studio apartment, counting the cracks in the paint. Sixteen. He’d started counting them three weeks ago when he moved in, the same day the movers came to split their life into neat, labeled boxes. His things. Her things. The painful negotiations over shared purchases—who gets the coffee table they’d spent hours assembling together, cursing at the incomprehensible instructions while she held the pieces steady and he struggled with the screws?

He’d let her keep most of it. Not out of generosity, but because looking at those objects felt like staring directly into the sun. Every lamp, every throw pillow, every picture frame held too many memories, and he was already drowning in them.

His phone buzzes against his chest. For a split second, his heart races with the impossible hope that it’s her, but it’s just his group chat with the boys. Seungcheol asking if he wants to grab drinks, Soonyoung sending random memes, the usual chaos that used to make him smile. Now it feels distant, like watching life through frosted glass.

He scrolls up through months of messages, finding the ones where he’d complained about being busy with her, canceling plans because she needed him, choosing quiet nights in over loud nights out. The guys had teased him mercilessly about being whipped, and he’d taken it with good humor because it was true. He was completely, utterly gone for her, and everyone knew it.

“You’re different when you’re with her,” Jeonghan had told him once, and Mingyu had taken it as a compliment. He was softer with her, more thoughtful, more careful with his words. She’d taught him patience without trying, shown him that love could be gentle instead of the chaotic whirlwind he’d always imagined.

Now he wonders if different meant losing himself entirely.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

The grocery store is a minefield of memories. She stands in the cereal aisle, staring at the brand Mingyu always bought—some sugary monstrosity that she’d constantly nagged him about. “You’re going to get diabetes,” she’d say, and he’d grin and add it to the cart anyway, sometimes grabbing two boxes just to make her roll her eyes.

A couple rounds the corner, the woman laughing at something her boyfriend said as he tosses items into their cart with theatrical flair. They’re young, probably college students, and they have that glow of early love, when everything is discovery and promise and endless possibility. She remembers being them, remembers grocery shopping with Mingyu being an adventure instead of a chore, turning mundane errands into opportunities for stolen kisses between the frozen foods and impromptu dance parties in empty aisles.

“Excuse me,” someone says, and she realizes she’s been standing frozen in front of the Froot Loops for five minutes. She mumbles an apology and pushes her cart forward, but everything feels surreal, like she’s moving through water.

At the checkout, the cashier makes small talk about the weather, and she nods along while screaming internally. How is everyone just going about their lives when hers has been completely reorganized? How is the world still spinning when five years of her life have just vanished like smoke?

In her car, she sits with her hands gripping the steering wheel, breathing carefully measured breaths the way her therapist taught her. The engagement ring tan line on her finger has finally faded, but she still finds herself twisting the phantom ring when she’s nervous. Mingyu had been so proud when he proposed, so certain and bright-eyed, like he’d solved some cosmic puzzle. “I want forever with you,” he’d said, voice shaking with emotion, and she’d believed him completely.

Forever turned out to be five years and three months.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Mingyu’s sister calls while he’s attempting to cook dinner in his shoebox kitchen. He considers letting it go to voicemail, but Minseo has been worried about him, calling every few days with increasingly transparent excuses to check on him.

“How are you eating?” she asks without preamble.

“Hello to you too,” he says, stirring instant ramen and feeling pathetic about it. She used to cook for him, elaborate meals that filled their apartment with warmth and the sounds of oil sizzling, her humming contentedly while she worked. She’d wear his oversized t-shirts and nothing else, and he’d wrap his arms around her waist from behind, chin hooked over her shoulder, stealing tastes and making her laugh when his stubble tickled her neck.

“Don’t deflect. Are you eating actual food or just surviving on convenience store meals?”

“I’m making ramen,” he admits, and her sigh is audible.

“Mingyu…”

“I’m fine, Minseo. Really.”

“No, you’re not. You’re miserable, and you’re too stubborn to admit it.”

He wants to argue, but what’s the point? His sister has known him his whole life, watched him fall in love so completely that he’d rearranged his entire existence around another person. She’d liked her too, had welcomed her into the family with open arms, treated her like the sister she’d never had. The breakup had devastated everyone, not just him.

“Have you talked to her?” Minseo asks gently.

“No.” The word comes out harsher than he intends. “There’s nothing to say.”

“There’s five years worth of things to say.”

“And we said them. All of them. That’s why we’re not together anymore.”

The silence stretches between them. Minseo doesn’t understand, can’t understand, because she wasn’t there for the slow, painful dissolution of everything they’d built. She didn’t see the way they’d started speaking to each other like polite strangers, didn’t witness the careful distance that crept between them like frost, didn’t hear the fights that devolved into exhausted silence because they’d stopped believing they could fix what was breaking.

“I just think—”

“I have to go,” Mingyu interrupts. “Thanks for calling.”

He hangs up and stares at his sad dinner, appetite completely gone. Outside his window, Seoul buzzes with Friday night energy, but he feels disconnected from all of it, like he’s watching life happen from behind a wall of glass.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

She finds the box by accident while looking for her winter clothes. It’s shoved in the back of their shared closet—her closet now—behind old coats and forgotten shoes. Her heart stops when she realizes what it is.

Their memory box. They’d started it as a joke during their first year together, saving ticket stubs and photo booth strips and little notes they’d written each other. Over time, it had become sacred, a physical collection of their love story that they’d add to on anniversaries and special occasions.

With trembling fingers, she lifts the lid. The smell hits her first—his cologne mingled with the vanilla candles she used to burn, creating a scent that’s purely them, purely home. Inside, five years of memories lie carefully preserved like pressed flowers.

Movie tickets from their first official date, when Mingyu had been so nervous he’d bought popcorn with extra butter even though she’d mentioned being lactose intolerant. She’d eaten it anyway, not wanting to make him feel bad, and spent the entire movie in mild digestive distress while trying to focus on his running commentary whispered in her ear.

A napkin from the café where they’d had their first fight, a stupid argument about punctuality that had escalated until they were both near tears. They’d talked it out over lukewarm coffee and stale pastries, learning how to disagree without destroying each other. “We’re going to have to figure this out,” she’d said, “if we want this to work.” And they had, for a while. They’d gotten so good at compromise, at bending without breaking, at choosing love over pride.

Polaroids from their friends’ wedding, where they’d danced until their feet hurt and made drunken promises about their own future ceremony. Mingyu had spun her around the dance floor like they were the only two people in the world, dipping her dramatically while she laughed until her stomach hurt. “You’re going to marry me someday,” he’d whispered against her ear, and it hadn’t been a question. It had been certainty, solid as gravity.

A USB drive labeled “Our Songs” in Mingyu’s messy handwriting. Playlists he’d made for road trips, for quiet mornings, for when she was stressed about work. Hours of music that had soundtracked their relationship, songs that would probably make her cry for the rest of her life.

At the bottom of the box, wrapped in tissue paper, is the promise ring he’d given her for their second anniversary. Not an engagement ring, but a placeholder, a symbol of intention. “Someday,” he’d said, slipping it onto her finger, “when we’re ready for forever.” She’d worn it faithfully until he’d replaced it with the real thing, and even then, she’d kept it close, a reminder of when their love was still growing instead of slowly dying.

She holds the ring up to the light, remembering the girl who’d worn it, who’d believed so completely in their future together. That girl feels like a stranger now, naive and hopeful in a way that seems almost reckless. How do you mourn a version of yourself that no longer exists?

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Mingyu’s mother invites him for Sunday dinner, and he goes because he doesn’t have the energy to make excuses anymore. The family meal feels strange without her there, like a song missing its harmony. His parents had loved her, had already started treating her like a daughter, asking about her work and her family and fussing over her the way they fussed over their own children.

“How is she?” his mother asks carefully, setting down a plate of his favorite kimchi jjigae.

“I don’t know, Mom. We don’t talk anymore.”

His father looks up from his rice. “Maybe you should.”

“What would be the point?”

“Closure,” his mother suggests. “Or… maybe you’d realize you made a mistake.”

Mingyu sets down his spoon, suddenly angry. “It wasn’t a mistake. We tried everything. Counseling, space, compromise—nothing worked. We just… we grew apart. It happens.”

“Five years doesn’t just disappear overnight,” his father says quietly.

“It doesn’t disappear at all. That’s the problem.”

The weight of those five years sits on his chest like a stone. Five years of birthday celebrations and holiday traditions, of learning each other’s languages of love and comfort. Five years of building a life together, making plans, dreaming about children and houses and growing old together. All of it still exists, but in the past tense now, preserved like artifacts from a civilization that no longer exists.

He remembers their last real conversation, the one where they’d finally admitted what they’d both been avoiding. They’d been sitting on opposite ends of their couch, the space between them feeling like an ocean.

“I don’t think we’re making each other happy anymore,” she’d said, voice barely above a whisper.

And he’d wanted to argue, to fight for them the way he always had, but the truth was crushing and undeniable. They’d become ghosts of themselves, going through the motions of love without feeling it, staying together out of habit instead of desire.

“I know,” he’d replied, and those two words had contained the end of everything.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

The coffee shop where they’d met is exactly the same. Same mismatched chairs, same chalkboard menu, same indie music playing just a little too loud. She orders her usual—medium coffee, oat milk, no sugar—and sits at a table by the window, watching people hurry past on the sidewalk.

She’d been a graduate student then, stressed about her thesis and surviving on caffeine and determination. Mingyu had been at the next table over, phone pressed to his ear, having what sounded like a heated discussion with someone about modeling schedules and photo shoots. When he’d hung up, he’d caught her looking and had given her an apologetic smile.

“Sorry,” he’d said. “Work drama.”

“No problem. I’m just jealous that your work drama sounds more interesting than my academic drama.”

They’d started talking, and one conversation had turned into two hours of effortless connection. He’d been funnier than she’d expected, self-deprecating and warm, asking genuine questions about her research and listening to her answers like they mattered. When her laptop had died mid-conversation, he’d offered to buy her coffee while she figured out her next move.

“I’m Mingyu,” he’d said, extending his hand with that smile that had made her stomach flip.

“Nice to meet you, Mingyu.”

She’d given him her number before she’d fully processed what was happening, saying yes to dinner before her rational brain could interfere. It had felt like destiny, like the universe aligning to put them in the same place at the same time.

Now she sits in the same spot, drinking the same coffee, and wonders if she’d made a different choice that day—left when her laptop died, been too shy to maintain eye contact, said no to dinner—would she be sitting here feeling like half of herself had been surgically removed?

A young couple at the counter catches her attention. The girl is laughing at something the guy said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek while he orders for both of them. They look so young, so sure of themselves, so completely unaware that love isn’t always enough.

She pays for her coffee and leaves quickly, unable to watch their beginning when she’s still processing her ending.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Mingyu runs into Seungcheol at the gym, and his friend immediately starts hovering like a concerned mother hen.

“You look like shit,” Seungcheol says with characteristic bluntness.

“Thanks. Really needed to hear that today.”

“I’m serious. When’s the last time you went out? Had fun? Talked to another human being who wasn’t forced to interact with you for work?”

Mingyu increases the speed on his treadmill, hoping the physical exertion will shut down this conversation. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re a hermit. A sad, lonely hermit who’s wasting away in his depression cave.”

“It’s been three months, Cheol. I’m allowed to be sad.”

“You’re allowed to grieve. You’re not allowed to disappear.”

Seungcheol hops on the treadmill next to him, matching his pace. “The guys are worried about you. Hell, I’m worried about you. This isn’t healthy.”

“What’s healthy? Moving on like five years meant nothing? Dating someone new before I’ve even processed what happened?”

“I’m not saying date someone new. I’m saying rejoin the world. Remember that you exist outside of that relationship.”

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Mingyu isn’t sure he does exist outside of that relationship. For five years, he’d been half of a whole, and now he’s trying to figure out how to be complete on his own. Everything he’d enjoyed, everywhere he’d gone, everyone he’d been—it was all connected to her, woven together so tightly that separating them feels impossible.

“She was my best friend,” he says quietly, and Seungcheol’s expression softens.

“I know.”

“I told her everything. She knew me better than I know myself. And now she’s just… gone. Like she never existed.”

“She did exist. That relationship happened, and it mattered, and it’s okay to miss it. But you can’t live in the past forever.”

Mingyu knows Seungcheol is right, logically. But logic and emotion are speaking different languages right now, and his heart is fluent only in loss.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

She’s sorting through old photos on her laptop when she finds the folder labeled “Us.” Five years of documentation, from awkward early selfies to professional couple photos, chronicling their evolution from strangers to lovers to strangers again.

There’s the picture from their first vacation together, a weekend trip to Busan where they’d argued about directions and laughed until they cried and fallen asleep on the beach. Mingyu’s hair was shorter then, and he looked younger, less serious. She was tanner, more carefree, wearing his oversized hoodie and grinning at the camera like she’d discovered the secret to happiness.

A photo from her graduation, Mingyu beaming with pride as she holds her diploma. He’d been more excited about her achievement than she was, taking pictures from every angle and insisting on celebrating with an expensive dinner they couldn’t really afford. “My girlfriend, the PhD,” he’d kept saying, like her success was his own.

Their first New Year’s Eve together, both of them slightly drunk and completely besotted, kissing at midnight while fireworks exploded over the Han River. They’d made resolutions they’d forgotten by February, promised each other forever in the reckless way that only new love allows.

Halloween photos where they’d dressed as couples costumes that seemed hilarious at the time but look ridiculous now. Christmas mornings in their pajamas, exchanging gifts and drinking hot chocolate. Birthday celebrations, anniversary dinners, lazy Sunday afternoons where they’d documented their contentment without realizing how precious it was.

And then, somewhere around year four, the photos change. Their smiles become more performative, their poses more staged. They’re still beautiful together, still look like a couple that should work, but something essential is missing. The light in their eyes, the natural gravitation toward each other—it’s fading, imperceptible to everyone else but obvious now with the cruel clarity of hindsight.

The last photo in the folder is from their final anniversary dinner. They’d gone to the restaurant where he’d proposed, trying to recapture something that was already gone. They look elegant and mature, but distant, like actors playing roles they no longer believed in.

She closes the laptop and pushes it away, suddenly exhausted. How do you delete five years of memories? How do you decide which moments to keep and which ones to let go? Every photo tells a story of people who loved each other completely, who built a life together with such care and intention, who believed they were writing a love story for the ages.

Instead, they’d written a tragedy.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Mingyu’s phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number, and his heart stops when he realizes it’s her. She’s changed her number, probably trying to start fresh, but she’s texting him from it.

I found our memory box. I think you should have some of these things.

He stares at the message for ten minutes, typing and deleting responses. What do you say to the person who used to be your whole world? How do you respond to an olive branch when you’re not sure you’re ready for contact?

Finally, he types: Keep them. They’re yours.

Her response comes quickly: They’re ours.

Were ours. Past tense.

The dots appear and disappear several times, like she’s writing and rewriting her response. When it finally comes, it’s simple: Can we meet? Just to talk?

Every rational part of his brain screams no. Seeing her will only reopen wounds that are barely beginning to scab over. But his heart, traitorous and hopeful, is already saying yes.

When?

Tomorrow? The café on Hongik Street?

The café where they’d had their first date. Of course. Even in ending, they’re drawn to their beginnings.

Okay.

After he sends it, he sits in his empty apartment and wonders if he’s making a mistake. But maybe mistakes are better than the nothing he’s been living with.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

She arrives early and chooses a table in the back corner, somewhere private where they can fall apart without an audience. Her hands shake as she orders coffee she doesn’t want, and she checks her reflection in her phone screen obsessively, like her appearance matters when her insides are completely destroyed.

When Mingyu walks in, her breath catches. He looks different—thinner, more tired, like he’s been carrying the same weight she has. His hair is longer than she’s ever seen it, and he’s wearing the black jacket she’d bought him for his birthday last year. The one that made his shoulders look impossibly broad and his eyes impossibly warm.

He spots her and hesitates for just a moment before walking over. The familiarity of his gait, the way he moves through space with unconscious grace, hits her like a physical blow. This is the person who used to crawl into bed beside her every night, who knew exactly how she liked her coffee and which side of the bed she preferred and how to make her laugh when she was crying.

Now he’s a stranger wearing a familiar face.

“Hi,” he says, settling into the chair across from her.

“Hi.”

They stare at each other across the small table, and the silence is deafening. What do you say to someone who used to be your everything? How do you make small talk with the person who knows your every secret?

“You look good,” she lies, because he looks heartbroken and exhausted and like he’s been running on empty for months.

“You too,” he lies back, even though she knows she looks exactly as destroyed as she feels.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I wasn’t sure either.”

More silence. She fidgets with her coffee cup, and he drums his fingers against the table—the same nervous habit he’s had since she’s known him. Some things never change, even when everything else has been obliterated.

“I’ve been thinking about us a lot,” she finally says. “About what happened. What went wrong.”

“And?”

“I don’t think anything went wrong. I think we just… grew in different directions.”

Mingyu nods slowly. “We became different people.”

“We became the people we were always going to become. We just couldn’t become them together.”

It’s the most honest thing either of them has said about their breakup, and it hangs in the air between them like a bridge they’re afraid to cross.

“I keep waiting to stop missing you,” she admits. “But it’s been months, and I still reach for you in the morning. I still save funny memes to send to you. I still think about calling you when something good happens.”

“I know. I do the same thing.”

“Do you think it’ll ever stop?”

Mingyu considers this, really considers it, and she loves him for taking her question seriously instead of offering empty platitudes.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not supposed to stop. Maybe missing someone you loved that much is just… part of loving them.”

The tears she’s been holding back finally spill over, and he automatically reaches across the table before catching himself, hand freezing halfway between them. The aborted gesture hurts more than the tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry we couldn’t make it work. I’m sorry we lost each other. I’m sorry for everything.”

“I’m sorry too. For all of it.”

They sit in their shared sorrow, mourning not just their relationship but their friendship, their partnership, their planned future that will never exist. They’re grieving the children they’ll never have together, the house they’ll never buy, the old age they’ll never share. They’re saying goodbye to a thousand small dreams and the comfortable certainty of forever.

“I should go,” Mingyu says eventually, and she nods even though she wants to beg him to stay.

He stands, then hesitates. “For what it’s worth, loving you was the best thing I ever did. Even if I couldn’t do it right in the end.”

And then he’s gone, walking out of her life as quietly as he’d walked into it five years ago, leaving her alone with her coffee and her memories and the weight of everything they’d been together.

࣪ ִֶָ☾.

She doesn’t text him again, and he doesn’t text her. They don’t run into each other around the city, don’t accidentally end up at the same parties or restaurants or coffee shops. It’s like they’ve developed a sixth sense for avoiding each other, moving through Seoul like opposing magnets.

Months pass. She gets a promotion at work, starts dating someone new—a kind man who makes her laugh and doesn’t try to replace what she had with Mingyu, just offers something different. Mingyu, she hears through mutual friends, is doing well too. Focusing on his career, traveling more, seeing someone casually though nothing serious.

They’re both moving forward, building new lives on the foundation of who they became during their five years together. The love they shared didn’t disappear; it transformed them, taught them how to love and be loved, showed them what they wanted and needed in a partner. In some ways, their breakup was the final gift they gave each other—the freedom to find happiness in new places.

But sometimes, late at night when the world is quiet and she’s alone with her thoughts, she still reaches for her phone. Still finds his contact, still stares at that photo from the beach where he’s laughing at something she said off-camera. Still wonders if he thinks about her too, if he misses what they had, if he ever regrets letting go.

She never calls. Never texts. Never disrupts the careful distance they’ve constructed between their old life and their new ones.

But she keeps his number. Keeps the photos. Keeps the memory box with all its treasures from a love that was real and deep and ultimately finite.

Because some loves aren’t meant to last forever. Some loves are meant to teach you how to love better the next time. Some loves are meant to break your heart so completely that when you put it back together, you’re stronger, wiser, more capable of recognizing real happiness when it finds you.

Five years of loving Kim Mingyu taught her all of these things.

And maybe, in the end, that’s enough.

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