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jaehyun-eclipsed · 4 years

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Before I Met You | Twenty-Two: Part One

Next Update: ~February 15, 2021 **2/13/21 update: The next update may be delayed until the second week of March. I apologize for the delay -- school has been quite busy this semester, so I’m working a lot slower than anticipated. Thanks for your patience! **3/27/21 Update: My sincerest apologies. I didn’t plan very well with scheduling... I’m finishing up a big project with school and am hoping to release the next chapter next weekend!

Pairing: NCT (Jaehyun, Lucas, Mark, Jaemin, Johnny) X Reader/OC

Genre: Romance, Angst, Coming of Age

Summary: Four. There were four people before I fell in love with you… Here are their stories.

Author’s Note: Hello! This is a slightly shorter update. Things are getting busy for me again, so I’m going to try to do updates once a month or so rather than going MIA for a few months. Thanks for being patient and don’t be afraid to say hello or send any feedback!

Before I Met You Masterlist

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My eyes slowly open and I blink a few times to adjust to the stream of light coming through the blinds. Sitting up, I look around. This is my room. This is my bed. My blanket. My dog. I give the plush a squeeze. Everything is here and I’m okay.

My breath hitches upon seeing the packages of pistachios and cookies on my desk. Johnny left them here and now everything is more clear as to why I feel so dreary upon waking up. I was hoping last night didn’t play out the way it actually had, but I’m a bit too smart for my own good to trick myself.

I imagine he probably won’t miss them if I didn’t return them to him, but I don’t want them to go stale in my room. Plus, I would like to say goodbye.

Slowly, I place my feet into my slippers and wash up in the bathroom. My grandma wanted to take my dad and me out to lunch to celebrate the end of the semester. I’m looking forward to the meal, but I seem to have lost my appetite. There’s sort of this nerve wracking feeling inside me despite my calm demeanor. Like an overwhelming amount of cortisol is being pumped through my body and I’m working on autopilot to move around and pack up my belongings without feeling any depletion of energy.

Is this what it’s like to have a crush on a boy and to know he returns your affections?

I thought I’d be happier. More giddy.

But really, I’m just nervous. And perhaps it’s because I know there’s a bit of a complication: Johnny still needs to break up with his girlfriend.

All of those corny movie plots with the assholes are brought to my head. The guy never breaks up with his old girlfriend before he gets with the new one. Even in real life, it’s always messy.

“I’ll do it soon,” he says.

“When the time is right,” he says.

But then he never does.

I wanted to hope that this wouldn’t be the case. Which is why I didn’t want anything to go too far last night. And so, I firmly decide that I’m not getting together with him until things are cleared up.

But I really want this to work out. I really do.

Everything will be fine.

I take a deep breath. Smile to myself.

Everything will be just fine.

I receive a text that my dad will be here to pick me up in a half hour. So I grab the snack bags and run upstairs. When Johnny answers the door, he looks surprised to see me, almost as if he had been afraid he scared me off last night and I wouldn’t want anything to do with him ever again.

My gaze falls. “Um, you left these in my room,” I say and hold out the snacks.

It takes him a moment before he takes the packages from me, apparently careful not to brush his hands against mine.

“You don’t want any?” he asks.

I shake my head. “No, thanks. I’m going to lunch soon.”

We linger in the doorway for several more moments in silence. I’m gnawing on my lip and shifting my gaze to different points on the floor. I think Johnny’s watching me, but I still can’t bring myself to look at him.

“Have a good break,” he says, his statement coming out as more of a question due to an uncertainty of what to say.

“Yeah, you too.” I smile lightly and as if out of reflex, I perch up onto my tiptoes and throw my right arm around Johnny’s neck, pulling him close for a hug goodbye. He jumps slightly at my sudden contact, but wraps one arm around my waist. Quickly, I release him, take one last glance, offer a smile, and turn around to walk back to my room.

When I return to my room, I check my phone and see a text from Johnny.

J: do u need help carrying your bags downstairs?

Me: No, that’s okay. I only have a couple bags. I can get them myself

Me: Thanks though

J: np

There’s a pause.

J: I’ll call u tonite?

I nod to myself before typing back a response.

Me: Yeah

Me: Talk to you later

J: :3

“You’re not eating very much,” Dad remarks.

I push a dumpling around on my plate with my chopsticks. “I don’t feel that hungry… even though I do want to eat this.”

“What happened last night?”

I proceed to tell my dad all of the events of last night—Hendery’s unawareness, lunch, the bookstore, the movie, Minji, the confession. I really liked Johnny, but I had no idea how this was going to work out—or even if it would work out.

“Don’t worry too much about it. Things always work themselves out,” he says.

I know what this means. Implicitly, he’s saying that if it’s meant to work out, it will. And if not… then I guess that’s just the way it is and I’ll have to accept that too. It’s just hard when feelings are messy. You want it to work out, but you expect the worse as a defense mechanism in case it doesn’t end up working out.

That evening, Johnny calls me just before he’s about to go to sleep.

“Hii,” he sings into the phone. “How was your day?”

I smile upon hearing his voice. “Hey, it was all right. How was yours?”

“It was good,” he responds. “Was thinking about you a lot.”

“Aww,” I coo. “Really?”

“Yeah, I know I saw you earlier, but I miss you.” He sighs. “And now I have to wait an entire month before I get to see you again.”

I press my lips together. I let out a sigh of disappointment. “Yeah, a whole month. But we can still talk on the phone!”

“Yeah!”

There’s a brief silence as I deliberate over whether or not I want to ask my next question. The answer is of no real consequence, but I’m curious.

“Hey, I wanna ask you something,” I say. “When did you start to like me?”

Johnny chuckles. “I knew you were gonna ask that,” he says. “I don’t know. Sometime during dead week.”

“Did you know that I liked you?”

“Yeah, I kinda figured you did. That’s why I decided to tell you.” I hear him let out a breath and picture him shrugging. “You kept wanting to hang out with me so I thought you had to have some feelings for me.”

Nodding to myself, I bite my lip in thinking about last night. “You know,” I begin. “I did want you to hold me last night…”

“I know,” he says simply. “We’ll just have to wait until after break. And then we can have sleepovers!”

“How are we going to have sleepovers if Jia is in my room and Hendery is in your room?”

“Hendery never sleeps in his room. He’s always with Yeeun and sleeps in her room.”

My face scrunches into an expression of confusion. “Are they… are they dating?”

“Yeah.”

Despite the fact that I’m looking forward to going home and telling Hana and Hyojin everything that’s happened, I really want to skip over a month to be back with Johnny.

Hopefully by that time, he’ll be single.

“Hey, so,” he begins hesitantly. I hear him shifting around in bed, the shuffling of his blankets echoes through the phone. “I probably won’t be able to talk to you much tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the day he’s meeting Minji.

Tomorrow is the day he’s supposed to break up with Minji.

Johnny is supposed to go into the city, meet Minji, break up with her, and then go home in the evening. There are a ton of questions running through my head. Is Johnny going to meet up with her and break up with her right then and there? Why doesn’t he just call her to tell her it’s off? Isn’t it kind of inconsiderate to go out with your girlfriend the entire day, knowing in the back of your head that you’re going to break up with her, but go about the day like nothing’s wrong?

It’s not really any of my business and the more I think about it, the more unsettled I become.

“Okay…” I say finally.

“I’ll send you pictures throughout the day though! To let you know what I’m doing!” he says cheerfully.

It’s clearly an attempt to make me feel better about the situation. Though, I find it strange that he’s so casual about the whole thing. Like sending pictures to me while on an outing with his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend is totally fine. Wouldn’t she get suspicious? And won’t I feel… envious? Why do I want to know what he’s doing on a date?

Like Dad said: everything will work itself out.

“You okay?” he suddenly asks.

It takes me a few moments to respond, but I say, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay, I’m going to go to bed now. Goodnight! I miss you!”

“Goodnight.”

“He’s really cute, Y/N,” Hana says excitedly.

“I know, right?!” I respond with an equal amount of enthusiasm. “I’m just wondering what’s going on today with him. He may not break up with her.” I sigh. “In which case, I’ll just have to let it go… and continue to be single. Almost twenty-one years strong!”

I pump my fist into the air even though Hana can’t see it over the phone. She chuckles lightly and murmurs some general words of encouragement for me not to give up yet.

“I’d just be careful, Y/N,” she says hesitantly. “He sounds like a nice guy, but you never know.”

The weight on my shoulders returns as I take her words to heart. I know she’s right… even before this I was weary of the whole thing. But I think it should work out. I really like him and I enjoy talking to him. Just take it slow and things will be fine.

“So what about your love life, Hana? Did you meet anyone during the semester?”

There’s a silence before I finally hear Hana release the breath she’s been holding followed by a click of her tongue. “I want to ask your opinion on something, but I’m afraid you’ll judge me for it.”

I frown, slightly upset that she would be so afraid of my opinion. “What’s up?”

“Well, I kinda like one of my housemates…”

I blink several times. “Okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’re in the same boat—”

“No, we’re not,” she says quickly. “See, so, his name is Jinhyung… we had a class together and he asked if I wanted to study with him in his room. We have another roommate named Joon and I think Joon has had a crush on me and he gets upset whenever he sees me hanging out with Jinhyung. Joon has a whiteboard and he wrote some house rules on it. The first was ‘clean your own dishes’ and the second is ‘no fucking your housemates.’”

I begin laughing. “Wait, so obviously he doesn’t want you and Jinhyung getting together… but what if you said you would sleep with him?”

“I—I don’t know! I guess it doesn’t apply to him!”

“That’s hypocritical. Anyway, continue…”

“Well, Jinhyung made a joke that he and I already broke one of those rules and Joon got really upset. But uh, one day, I texted him to ask if he wanted to study and he actually thought I meant real studying and then realized what I meant. So we talked about it and—oh my gosh I’m so scared to tell you.”

I remain silent, patiently waiting for her to continue. Though, I think I know where this is going.

“I slept with him,” she finally admits.

“So… what? Was it good?”

“Uh—I—I, yeah, I guess so.” She sounds shocked. “You don’t—you don’t think it’s bad?”

I shrug. “No, you guys talked about it, right? Like you discussed what both of you wanted out of this?”

“Yeah, basically. Like we’re just doing this for fun. No strings attached.”

“So you’re basically friends with benefits,” I say more as a statement than a question.

“Yeah,” she confirms. “Gosh, I was so scared you would disapprove.”

“You two talked about it and it was consensual. So as long as both of you are on the same page, I don’t see anything wrong with it. I think you need to be careful because feelings can get complicated, but right now it seems fine.”

Right then, my phone vibrates and I see a text from Johnny.

J: Hey! I hope ur day went well!

J: Uh I can’t really talk right now, but long story short it got late so Minji is spending the night

J: I’m going home in the morning I’ll talk to u tmrw! 😘

I guess I unknowingly let out a sound of disappointment because Hana proceeds to ask me what’s wrong.

“His girlfriend is spending the night and he’s going to go home tomorrow.”

“What?!” she exclaims in disbelief.

“I mean”—I bite my lip and then frown— “I didn’t ask how this was going to go down, but I didn’t think it would lead to this.”

Hana and I are both quiet for a minute. There’s something I’m wondering about and my guess is that Hana’s silence means she’s thinking the same thing. Neither of us want to ask it though because I think we both know the answer. What else would you do if your long distance girlfriend came to visit and she ended up spending the night with you and both of you are alone since your roommate has gone home for break?

But if you’re going to break up, would you still do it?

Or is it a simple decision because you’d view it as a “last pleasure goodbye”?

“Are you okay?” she asks, her tone full of concern.

I bite my lip as I stare at the message, responding a quick “Okay” and leaving it at that.

“Not really,” I say honestly.

“I think you should just go to sleep and wait and see what happens tomorrow.”

And this is what I was afraid of… that Johnny would go meet his girlfriend and tell me he was going to break up with her and then just… not be able to go through with it. Which is exactly why I wanted to be careful about getting my hopes up.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I say. “No good overthinking the whole thing. Thanks.”

“Of course. Goodnight, friend!”

“Goodnight.”

I clutch my phone in both of my hands and let them rest on top of the blankets as I lie staring at the ceiling. I know I need to be careful. I usually am. Just take it slow. See what happens tomorrow.

“Do you want oatmeal with pumpkin?” my grandma asks.

“Okay.”

It’s nearly noon as I watch my grandma spoon some oatmeal into a bowl and then bring over a jar of cane sugar for me to sprinkle on top. We’re staying here for a few days before driving back to Oregon. Normally, I’d have distractions because I’d have to study, but since I’m on break, I slept in and there isn’t much to do besides watch movies and wait.

Surprisingly, scrolling through today’s headlines is rather boring. I answer a few messages from Chaeyoung and feel my heart leap as soon as I see a text from Johnny.

J: Everything’s all good!

I purse my lips. Everything’s all good? What does that mean? He broke up with her? Things are good?

“Dad?” I call as he walks into the living room.

“Yes?”

“Johnny just texted me saying, ‘Everything’s all good,’” I say. “What does that mean?”

“I guess… Everything’s been cleared up?” There’s a tone of slight uncertainty in his answer.

I look down at my phone again and read a second message.

J: Do u want to call soon? Im almost home

“He wants to call soon,” I say aloud. “You think he’ll tell me what happened?”

“Probably.”

Me: Okay!

Slowly, I eat my oatmeal. The ticking of the clock makes me anxious and impatient. What happened? He told her and it was all good? Did he sleep with her last night and then dump her—that’s kinda rough. Wouldn’t it have been better to dump her before going out?

His voice is like warm honey when he greets me, like there’s a renewed happiness and joy in his tone. It almost sounds like there was nothing ever wrong to begin with. Like today is just a normal day and he’s calling his girlfriend like usual.

“How has your day been?” he asks.

“Uh, well, I woke up at like eleven and had some oatmeal.” I hold my phone between my ear and shoulder and place my laptop onto the nightstand next to the bed. Gripping the phone to my ear again, I continue. “I was just browsing through YouTube, but I couldn’t find anything to watch.”

“Well, you can talk to me now!”

“How’s your day been?” I ask immediately.

“Oh, it was fine. I got home like an hour ago and my mom made me lunch,” he says. “And now I’m talking to you!”

His lack of disclosure is quite evident. He’s keeping it to a minimum and only directly answering what he’s asked.

“So how’d everything go?”

“Oh.” He says it like he wasn’t expecting me to ask. “It was okay.”

I wait a few moments before asking him what happened.

“She spent the night and in the morning we took BART back and got off and I told her at the last stop,” he says.

“What—what did you tell her?”

“I told her that there was someone else and she said she sort of figured that’s what happened,” he responds. “It also turns out that she was sort of cheating on me with someone at school.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, so, whatever.” I catch him let out a sharp breath before his voice changes to a more positive tone. “But everything is all clear and good now!”

Assuming this is all true, it’s interesting that Minji was also being unfaithful. I don’t ask for the details, but at the very least, it seems like both of them were emotionally cheating. Seems a bit sad though that they’d rather keep the other person around rather than break up with them. Clearly they had both lost interest in each other. Why continue? Complacency? Security? Fear of being alone? All of the above?

“I’m kinda sad that we have to wait until break before we can see each other again,” he says.

“Yeah, but it’s only a month!” I respond, attempting to be optimistic.

“But aren’t you graduating in a year?”

“Yes.”

I can tell he’s pouting a bit from his tone. “That’s not very long. We’ll have to have lots of sleepovers!”

“Johnny, we have school and studying.”

“Be prepared not to sleep!”

My face grows hot as I realize the implications. There was nothing preventing us from becoming a couple other than my own hesitance. And then there were things like holding hands, first kiss, and all that—things I’ve never done with anyone before and I wasn’t quite sure if he knew or suspected.

Sex. I’ve never had sex.

I didn’t want to give the impression that I had never experienced it before, but when it came down to it, he’d figure it out pretty quickly.

“But I have morning classes!” I argue.

“Hmph. Weekends then!”

I’m at a loss of what to say when he continues.

“Don’t worry. I’m responsible! We support each other!”

A smile makes its way onto my lips. “Yes,” I reply simply.

“I’ll keep you safe.”

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Before I Met You Masterlist

Masterlist

#nct #nct 127 #jung jaehyun #na jaemin #mark lee #lucas wong #nct dream #nct u #superm #before I met you

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