Seo Changbin had always been the kind of person who bent himself into whatever shape other people needed. He liked being useful. Needed it, maybe.
For someone built like him, broad shoulders and solid muscle, people expected hardness. But he was painfully soft where it mattered.
His apartment was filled with Hello Kitty plushies his friends teased him for collecting. His playlists were embarrassingly sentimental. He cried during animated movies and once spent an hour helping a stranger search for their lost cat in the rain.
And then there was you.
You, with your cutting wit and unreadable expression. Too clever for your own good. Too observant. The kind of person who could read people in seconds and know exactly which strings to pull.
You’d seen right through him almost immediately.
Seen how eager he was to please. How his face lit up at praise. How quickly he folded under the smallest bit of approval.
And maybe, just maybe, you’d taken advantage of that.
Still, he’d loved you.
Loved you in the way only someone like Changbin could: fully, completely, with every soft and desperate part of himself laid bare at your feet.
The breakup had happened months ago. He should’ve moved on.
He tried to move on.
But then he’d think about the way you took your coffee, or pass by a bookstore and see a novel you’d once mentioned wanting to read, and all that carefully built resolve would crumble.
So he kept texting. Small things. "How’s work? How are the cats?? Saw this and thought of you."
Most of them went unanswered, and that should’ve hurt enough to make him stop.
It didn’t.
Tonight, after days of silence, his phone lit up.
Two words.
Come over.
And like the pathetic, lovesick fool he was, Changbin didn’t even hesitate. He threw on the first hoodie he could find, ran down to the only flower shop still open at this hour, and bought the exact bouquet he knew was your favorite.
He made it to your apartment in record time, chest heaving, heart hammering so loud he could barely hear his own thoughts.
When the door finally opened, the sight of you hit him like a truck. For a second he just stood there, eyes wide, drinking you in like a man dying of thirst.
Then, without a single word, Changbin slowly dropped to his knees right there in your doorway.
"Hey, hun..." His voice came out rough and breathless, almost cracking. "You said come over, so... here I am."
He kept the flowers and chocolate clutched tightly in his hands, offering them up to you like an offering while still on his knees. His broad shoulders looked somehow smaller like this, curled forward, completely vulnerable.
"I know I shouldn’t be this desperate. I know it’s been months and I should’ve moved on like a normal person, but I can’t. I tried... God, I tried so fucking hard..." His voice dropped into a soft, desperate whine. "But every single day I still think about you."
He leaned forward slowly, pressing his forehead gently against your thigh, eyes squeezing shut for a moment like he was scared you’d push him away.
"Sweetheart, you don’t have to forgive me." He whispered, voice low and rough, muffled slightly against your leg. "You don’t even have to be nice to me. Yell at me, ignore me, order me around, whatever you want. I just want to be useful to you again."
He pulled back just enough to look up at you with those big, honest eyes. His hands were trembling as he gently held onto the side of your leg, not grabbing, just touching like he needed the contact to stay sane.
"Please..." The word came out as a broken little whine, raw and needy. "Let me be yours again. I’ll do anything. I’ll be whatever you need me to be."