Joonmyun wakes up in the middle of the night feeling disoriented. He and Yixing had made their way to the bedroom some time after their bath, and they had curled up together on the bed, talking in between sporadic makeout sessions. He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he must have, seeing as the room is dark now where he last remembers it being daylight bright.

It's also completely quiet, and a spike of panic pierces through Joonmyun's chest, rapidly sending his pulse into overdrive, when he realizes that he's alone again. The bed is empty, and he's all alone. In the blink of an eye he's sitting up, looking around the room frantically as though Yixing might be hiding somewhere to prank Joonmyun, but he's nowhere to be seen, and that just makes Joonmyun all the more worried. “Yixing?” he calls out. There's no response, so he repeats, louder and more panicked this time: “Yixing?”

Down the hall, the toilet flushes, and then there is the sound of approaching footsteps. A Yixing pauses in the doorway, rubbing his tired eyes, and Joonmyun breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of him. “Sorry,” Yixing mumbles, voice hoarse and thick with sleep. “Had to pee. You okay?”

“I'm fine,” Joonmyun says. “I am now, at least.” Yixing seems to pick up on Joonmyun's anxiety. An all too familiar crease of concern forms between his eyebrows, and he walks over to sit on the edge of the bed, taking Joonmyun's hand in his to stop him from fidgeting. Joonmyun links their fingers together and looks down at their intertwined hands as he mutters, a little sheepishly: “I kind of freaked out when I woke up and you weren't here anymore. I thought... I thought maybe I'd dreamed you up. Or maybe you changed your mind about things and... left me.”

“Hey.” Yixing tilts Joonmyun's chin up to make him meet his eyes. “I'm not going anywhere.” He sounds so sure of it, like he truly, genuinely means it, and it makes Joonmyun's heartstrings twist and knot in his chest. He almost wants to cry again. He wonders if Yixing can feel that in the way his lips tremble when he leans in for a soft kiss. “I'm here to stay. Alright?”

“Yeah,” Joonmyun whispers. “Yeah.” He's still having a hard time believing that this is real, that Yixing is really there, sitting so close Joonmyun can touch him. But it is real, Yixing is there, and when Joonmyun reaches out to caress his face, nothing happens. Yixing doesn't disappear, he doesn't suddenly fade out of existence, just stays right where he is, smiling, and Joonmyun thinks, not for the first time, that he is so ing lucky to have someone as incredible as Yixing in his life. He's never ever going to take their relationship for granted again.

Yixing seems ready to go back to sleep almost immediately afterwards, slipping under the covers, curling up to Joonmyun's side again and letting his eyes slide shut. Joonmyun can't sleep, though. He watches Yixing's peaceful face, and he thinks. He thinks about how quickly Yixing forgave him and accepted him back into his life, how easy it was for them to go right back to what they used to be as if the big breakup never even happened. It was almost too easy. Definitely way easier than anything Joonmyun deserves, and he can't help but feel like this isn't right.

So he shakes Yixing gently to wake him up in case he had managed to fall asleep within the past few minutes. It doesn't seem like he had, though, as he opens his eyes with relative ease and smiles at Joonmyun. The tight smile Joonmyun sends back is forced, and, if the way Yixing's expression fades into concern is any indication, Yixing can tell. “We need to talk,” Joonmyun says.

Now Yixing's eyes widen in surprise. He pulls away from Joonmyun and sits up, and Joonmyun scoots back to lean against the headboard. “Uh-oh,” Yixing says. “That sounds scary. Usually those words are followed by the breakup talk. You're not going to...?”

“No!” Joonmyun quickly assures him. God, he hadn't even considered that his words could be interpreted that way. “No no, oh my God, don't worry, I'm not going to do that. I just...” He swallows thickly. “I just... I wanted to know why you forgave me.”

Yixing looks as though the question confuses him. “Because I love you,” he replies easily just like he had done the last time Joonmyun asked, and hearing those words still makes Joonmyun's heart flutter, but it's just not enough.

“There has to be something else,” Joonmyun insists. He's looking down at his own wringing hands rather than at Yixing. “It can't just be because... I mean, something must've...” Even he isn't sure where he's going with this, but he's sure it can't be as simple as that. It never is. Not for him.

For a time, Yixing is quiet. Joonmyun still doesn't look at him, fearing that Yixing is angry with him for questioning his decisions when he has already made clear several times exactly why he made said decisions. “I wasn't going to take you back,” Yixing finally says, quietly. Joonmyun isn't even surprised. If he was in Yixing's position, he wouldn't have accepted his own apology either, which is probably also why he feels so insecure about this whole situation. “If you had come to me the day after the fight or even a few days after that, I would have at least considered it, but I... I waited for so long. And nothing happened. You never came.”

“I'm sorry,” Joonmyun whispers. “I was...”

Yixing raises a hand to cut him off. “Don't worry, it's okay. I know you. I know what you're like. That's also one of the main reasons why I decided to forgive you, but, please, let me talk.” Joonmyun stays quiet and just nods for him to go on. “Eventually, I decided that I was going to let you go.” Yixing lowers his gaze, his lips. “I already loved you back then. I loved you so much, but I knew I had to let you go because you didn't... you weren't in the same mindset as I was, and at the time it didn't seem like you were ever going to be. As painful as it was, I figured it would be better for both of us if we went our separate ways so you could sort yourself out and I... I could be happy.” He lets out a bitter laugh. “Not that I think I'd be very happy without you.” He sounds upset, now, and Joonmyun almost regrets asking about this at all.

He takes Yixing's hand in his, thumb over his knuckles. “You don't have to–...”

Again, Yixing raises his free hand to silence him, and Joonmyun goes quiet. ““When I saw you on my doorstep that day I came home, I honestly just wanted to punch you. I spent... I spent so much time trying to get over you, and then you came waltzing right back in. I wanted... to just forget you. But then there were your messages. The texts and the voicemails. God, that last one. I must have listened to it at least a hundred times last night. I was so conflicted. I had already made up my mind, at least I thought I did, but...” He takes a deep, shaking breath. Joonmyun holds his. “I could hear the sincerity in your voice, and it convinced me that you really love me, that you care about me as much as I care about you, and that... that you have changed. For the better.” He looks Joonmyun in the eye, lashes damp with tears. “I don't know what it is, but something in you is different now. That's why I decided to give you, give us, another chance.”

Joonmyun doesn't realize he's been crying until Yixing reaches out to wipe the wetness off his face with soft motions. “Thank you,” Joonmyun whispers.

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me.” Joonmyun sniffles. “I know, I'm... I'm not worthy. I don't deserve this, you're too good for me, too good. You should hate me for what I've done to you.”

“Shhh, stop it,” Yixing reprimands gently. He keeps brushing away Joonmyun's tears as they fall. “You're making me look bad when you question all my choices.” Joonmyun emits a sound that's half laugh, half sob. He's such a blubbering mess. At least it made Yixing smile. “Even if you don't believe it, you're worth it to me. Besides, I already told you that I would never be able to hate you.”

Joonmyun laughs again. “God, I almost forgot about that. It was so long ago.” It had been back when they were still walking on eggshells around each other, and Joonmyun still hadn't recognized his feelings for Yixing for what they were. With everything that has happened since then, it feels like it was years ago, even though it was only months.

Yixing squeezes Joonmyun's hand to bring him back to the present. He looks Joonmyun in the eye as he carefully asks: “Do you want to talk about what happened to make you change your... attitude… about things? Why you changed?”

For some time, Joonmyun thinks about it, considers how to word his response. “I talked to my mom,” he finally settles on, and Yixing raises his eyebrows in surprise.

“Oh? How did that go?”

“Surprisingly well.” Joonmyun tells Yixing about the conversation he'd had with his mother when he went to visit her. How he had accidentally come out to her without intending to. How she had been okay with it, much to his surprise. How he had realized that he had always lived his life and made decisions based off of what he thought his parents wanted from him, but it turned out he never had to do that. “I guess it all comes down to me being stupid as usual,” Joonmyun finishes wryly. Yixing frowns and looks like he wants to tell Joonmyun off for being self-deprecating again, but Joonmyun doesn't let him. “How was China? How's your parents?”

“Good,” Yixing says, possibly in reply to both questions. “My parents were so happy to see me again after such a long time. There were a lot of tears. Even my dad cried.” He looks a little wistful and misty-eyed just thinking back on it. “I even wrote a song about it on the plane ride home.”

Cute, Joonmyun thinks to himself, but what he says is: “Did... did you tell them about...?”

“About you? Yeah, I... I didn't plan on it, but my mom could tell that something was wrong. A mother's intuition, you know.” Oh, Joonmyun definitely knows. “So I told them I had a bad breakup, and my mom proceeded to feed me a few elephants' weight in home cooked meals.” Yixing lets out a short laugh. “My dad wanted to beat you up. I told him it would probably be better if he didn't.”

“Probably,” Joonmyun agrees dryly, and Yixing grins. “And do they know that you're...?”

“Gay?” Yixing finishes the sentence once more, and his eyes do a quick flicker over to look at Joonmyun as if he expects him to react negatively to the word like he had done the last time Yixing said it. He seems pleased when Joonmyun remains calm, tension seeping out of his shoulders. “Yeah. They know. They've known for a while. Of course they weren't super happy about it at first, especially not my dad, but... they came around eventually, I guess. Got used to the idea.” He shrugs. “They just want me to be happy.”

“Like my mom,” Joonmyun muses. She had said pretty much the same thing when he talked to her about Yixing, which reminds him of something. “Oh, she said she wants to meet you, by the way.”

Immediately, he can feel Yixing's hand tighten around his, and when Joonmyun looks at him, he's staring at Joonmyun, wide-eyed. “R-really?” Joonmyun nods slowly, a little taken aback by Yixing's reaction. Yixing swallows. “Is it...? I mean... c-can I?”

“Of course,” Joonmyun says. “If you want to.”

Yixing looks at him carefully. “Do you want me to?”

I don't think I have much of a choice, Joonmyun wants to say, thinking of how strict his mother had sounded when she gave the order, but Yixing looks so vulnerable and insecure, like Joonmyun has never seen him before, and he decides to save his jokes for later and simply says: “I want you to. I'll call my mom and figure something out.”

The smile that spreads on Yixing's face is bright and genuine. “Awesome,” he says earnestly. He's so pretty that Joonmyun can't hold back the urge to lean in and kiss Yixing's dimples, so he does just that, and his heart is so full of love it might burst.

~*~

A/N: early(ish) update cause I wanted to post this while it's actually still yixing's birthday, whoop. \o/

so I know this chapter is like 98% just talking about gross feelings and stuff, but it is 100% necessary. last chapter was a little... I wouldn't call it rushed, per se, but I feel like it definitely seemed strange and way too easy for yixing to just up and forgive joonmyun for the he pulled. here's the explanation for it. does it make more sense now? I feel like it makes more sense now. of course joonmyun will continue to beat himself up about it for a long time, but that's joonmyun for ya. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(also, the chapter where yixing said he'd never be able to hate joonmyun is chapter thirteen. I went back and checked.)

happy birthday, yixing. my love, my light, my star. ♥

ps. the title of this chapter is taken from this song, not because of the lyrics or anything, just because it is an amazing song and they are amazing and they deserve all the love in the world. all of it. all of it.